LISTEN TO THAT POP!!!
26 years ago today, on 2nd July 2000, time stood still in All Japan Pro Wrestling. Motoko Baba, widow of the legendary Giant Baba, announced that Genichiro Tenryu was coming home.
The timing couldn't have been more desperate. AJPW stood on the brink of collapse following the Mitsuharu Misawa-led NOAH exodus, left with just Toshiaki Kawada and Masanobu Fuchi among its native roster.
Few expected salvation to come from Tenryu, of all people - the man who'd become a genuine black sheep after walking out in 1990 to head up SWS, lured by an extraordinary $800,000-a-year, five-year deal funded by Megane Super, unheard of money for the era.
His return still landed as a massive pop, fans chanting "Revolution" in tribute to his old late-80s stable, with Kawada once his right-hand man. Not every AJPW fan celebrated at the time, though. Some believed this was something Giant Baba himself would never have sanctioned - Tenryu hadn't just left, he'd taken a chunk of the roster with him, and Baba reportedly never forgave him for it right up until his death.
Baba had welcomed back Bruiser Brody and Abdullah the Butcher after their own jumps to New Japan, but foreigners always sat under different rules to the native talent he'd raised, in many cases, almost like his own sons.
Against all odds, hope had arrived from the most unlikely source imaginable - the very man once cast out entirely.
#ajpw
#天龍源一郎
#全日本プロレス