Wrestlers With The Most World Titles (Across All Major Federations)

4 PWF World Heavyweight Championships

3 NWA Championships

3 NWA International Championships

Rikidōzan, the father of puroresu, had two notable students: Antonio Inoki and Giant Baba. Along with their master, they are the most important men in the history of Japanese wrestling, the men most responsible for shaping its landscape and making it the global attraction it currently is. Antonio Inoki founded New Japan Pro Wrestling in 1972 ; Giant Baba founded All Japan Pro Wrestling the same year.

Before he made himself synonymous with AJPW, Baba first made his mark in 1965 by winning the NWA International Championship left vacated by the murder of Rikidōzan. He traded the belt with opponents like Bobo Brazil and Gene Kiniski, but soon turned his attention to bigger endeavours. Having founded his own promotion, he awarded himself its major title, the Pacific Wrestling Federation World Heavyweight Championship, and defended it throughout the '70s and early '80s, winning it a total of four times. It's also during that period that he won a couple of NWA titles in the US, showing he wasn't simply a local star but one of wrestling's biggest draws worldwide.

Mid-to-late '80s were the period Baba started to step down from in ring competition, leaving the spotlight to his protégés Jumbo Tsuruta and Genichiro Tenryu, and began working full-time as a booker and promoter. He died in 1999 from liver failure, having lived with gigantism all his life.