Youth And The World Championship: How 10 Top Wrestling Companies Book New Stars

10. All Japan Pro Wrestling

AJPW is a company steeped in tradition, often to the detriment of its own status and booking.

Formed in 1972 by the legendary Giant Baba, the then-NWA affiliated AJPW established its own governing body called the Pacific Wrestling Federation and recognised its own World Championship under this moniker. Wrestling veterans from the US, UK and Japan would win the Title, owing to the association's ties with NWA, and many would gain national notoriety in Japan, such as Billy Robinson and Tor Kamata.

An independent AJPW, following their split from NWA in 1989, would experiment with younger World Champions under Baba's rule, with Terry Gordy, Kenta Kobayashi, Mitsuharu Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada all getting their chances under the sun, but after the death of Baba and the defection of most of their talent to NOAH in 2001, AJPW had to scramble for stars to build their main event scene again and have sat stoically in that lane pretty much ever since.

Of their three new World Champions aged 30 or under since the NOAH break-away, Ryota Hama and Taiyo Kea are ranked in the bottom three of AJPW Triple Crown Champions on Cagematch.net, and the company nets a total average age for a new Champion of 36.