Will Zero-One Max revive the AWA World Womens Title?

As many fans are aware, Zero-One Max has a working relationship with Dale Gagne's American Wrestling Association and have revived the AWA World Heavyweight Title currently held by Takao Omori. Last year Zero-One Max's parent company First On Stage attempted to get into the joshi business by purchasing all rights and trademarks of All Japan Women. It was their intention to revive AJW as an ongoing promotion in June 2005. This didn't happen because the AJW wrestlers didn't want to work for them. Things have changed.





First On Stage president Yoshiyuki Nakamura told Nikkan Sports Friday that they intend to run a joshi show on Sept. 27. So you might be asking why all these companies are looking to get into the joshi business when business is so bad. Part of the problem with the joshi business is all the wrestlers are freelancing so everyone works for everyone. This makes all the companies look the same. The goal here is for FOS to distinguish their product from everyone else.





It appears that FOS intends to use their partnership with the AWA to have a Japan vs USA tournament on this show and possibly revive the AWA Womens World Title. You might ask why they wouldn't revive the WWWA Singles Title since they own the rights to AJW. I don't know. Maybe they can but that's not the story I'm reading. Nothing has been decided yet and they may not do either scenario. But the alliance with the AWA certainly makes the revival of the AWA Womens World Title a possibility considering what FOS has already done in Zero-One Max.





So what got First On Stage interested in joshi? They've started using women on their shows. US wrestler Amazing Kong has worked for them frequently and Thursday's Zero-One Max show at Shin-kiba 1st Ring had several joshi wrestlers in mixed matches including Amazing Kong, Ayumi Kurihara, Manami Toyota, Saki Maemura, Hikaru & ASAMI. They've been very happy with the fan response to the women and Nakamura made the announcement the day after this show. Let's see where they go from here. Here's the results of the Zero-One Max show.





ZERO-ONE MAX - 4/27/06 - Shin-kiba 1st Ring
Rikiya Fudo def. Fuyuki Takahashi in 9:24
MASADA def. Isami in 10:33
Yoshihito Sasaki & Hikaru def. Masato Tanaka & ASAMI (Hikaru over ASAMI in 13:16)
Kohei Sato & Ayumi Kurihara def. Steve Corino & Amazing Kong (Sato over Kong in 10:44)Ikudo Hidaka & Manami Toyota def. Minoru Fujita & Saki Maemura (Toyota over Maemura in 23:33)