10 Genius Wrestling Bookers And The Best Decision They Ever Made

Best Decision: ‘Pro Wrestling Love’

In 2001, following a highly-successful cross-promotional angle, Keiji Mutoh shocked the wrestling world by becoming a full-time member of the AJPW roster, after spending over a decade with rivals NJPW. But he didn’t go there solely to wrestle; he went there to fix a company mired in chaos after the great NOAH exodus.

And fix it he did. After buying all of Motoko Baba’s shares and becoming President of AJPW, Mutoh made significant booking changes that transformed the company so much that Mutoh’s presidency has become known as the era of ‘Pro Wrestling Love’. 

Basically, this period featured all of the changes that Misawa and company wanted to adopt before leaving, but was unable to achieve these changes because both Babas were hesitant to change the company.

With this new booking direction, AJPW bounced back big time, and the once isolationist roster was exposed to a larger audience for the first time in a long time. Names like Satoshi Kojima and Kensuke Sasaki and Suwama became much bigger stars, as they were wrestling in front of larger audiences and took part in multiple cross-promotional rivalries.

This was the key to saving AJPW from closing its doors. Mutoh’s booking philosophy became so important that if the company had kept its isolationist policies, they would’ve closed their doors forever.