10 Most Prestigious Wrestling Titles Of All Time
4. AJPW Triple Crown Title
Despite losing all but two of its top stars following the Misawa-led exodus of 2000 - and existing to this day in a depressing, NWA-like state - All Japan Pro Wrestling still holds the record for Wrestling Observer ***** match ratings.
The brilliance of nineties AJPW is in its ultra-realism. The action was so brutal that it barely required its luminaries to sell. Much of it is difficult to watch in retrospect, with the grim hindsight afforded by the slow decimation of Kobashi's body and the 2009 death of Misawa. Those men and their incredibly tough peers suffered significantly for their art, which is essentially peerless in the full context of wrestling history.
The barbarity was not without a cerebral undercurrent. Western viewers are able to follow storylines spanning years without watching one promo, such is the dedication to in-ring storytelling. The minutiae of every repertoire is recalled and subverted as part of an overarching, interconnected narrative - especially with the innovation of the "super-finisher" - moves so deadly that they were reserved only for All Japan's major Tripe Crown Title (unified PWF Heavyweight, NWA United National and NWA International Heavyweight Titles) matches.
The Triple Crown also owes much of its prestige to the difficulty inherent in obtaining it. Career trajectories were plotted out well in advance - years, in the case of Kobashi, who was booked to lose his first sixty-odd matches before he even entered contention.