Acronym JWP Style Joshi puroresu Founder(s) Masatoshi Yamamoto | Founded April 3, 1992 Headquarters Adachi, Tokyo Owner(s) Kiyoshi Shinozaki | |
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JWP Joshi Puroresu (JWP女子プロレス, JWP Joshi Puroresu), also known as JWP Project (JWPプロジェクト, JWP Purojekuto) or simply JWP, is a Japanese joshi puroresu or women's professional wrestling promotion, founded in 1992 as a splinter promotion of Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling. Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2012, JWP is the oldest joshi puroresu promotion in Japan and its Openweight Championship is the oldest championship in all of joshi. Command Bolshoi, who has worked for the promotion since the beginning, serves as the current president of JWP. The promotion's slogan is "Pure Heart, Pure Wrestling".
Contents
History
JWP Joshi Puroresu was founded in early 1992, when Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling (JWP), ravaged by internal politics, split up into two camps, dubbed the "shooters" and the "entertainers", and eventually folded on January 18. The "shooter" side went on to form Ladies Legend Pro-Wrestling (LLPW), while the "entertainer" side, led by Jackie Sato and financed by Masatoshi Yamamoto, founded JWP Project, later renamed JWP Joshi Puroresu, which held its first event on April 3, 1992. Already the following year, JWP managed to sign a television deal with the WOWOW channel. In 1994, Jaleco published the JWP Joshi Pro Wrestling: Pure Wrestle Queens (JWP女子プロレス ピュア・レッスル・クイーンズ, JWP Joshi Puroresu Pyua Ressuru Kuīnzu) video game for the Super Famicom game console.
JWP's goal from the start was to rival All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling (AJW), the top joshi puroresu promotion in the country, but always remained in its shadow. After closing the gap between the two promotions in 1996, JWP was hit hard in 1997, when two of its top workers, Candy Okutsu and Hiromi Yagi retired, Dynamite Kansai was sidelined with health problems and finally, when, on August 16, another top worker, Plum Mariko, died in the ring during one of its events. These were followed by Jackie Sato's death from stomach cancer on August 9, 1999. After a co-promoted event with AJW in February 2000 turned out to be a failure, JWP closed its doors at the end of the year. However, the promotion returned just a few months later, now under new management, headed by wrestler Command Bolshoi. JWP continued working with former rival promotion AJW until the promotion folded in April 2005. JWP then adopted AJW's premier wrestling tournament, Tag League the Best, and also inherited the promotion's old sponsor, the Daily Sports newspaper, which led to JWP most notably introducing the Daily Sports Women's Tag Team Championship in August 2008.
JWP has not only trained a large number of wrestlers, but has also been able to recruit wrestlers from other folding joshi puroresu promotions, including Arisa Nakajima, Leon and Sachie Abe from AtoZ, Kazuki from JDStar and Hanako Nakamori and Tomoko Morii from Ito Dojo, while also employing freelancers such as Emi Sakura, Kana and Misaki Ohata. Currently, JWP has a close working relationship with the Ice Ribbon promotion. JWP also has a relationship with American promotion Chikara, with Hanako Nakamori, Tsubasa Kuragaki and Kaori Yoneyama, a replacement for an injured Command Bolshoi, representing the promotion at Chikara's JoshiMania weekend in December 2011. JWP has also participated in Chikara's premier tournament, the King of Trios, on two occasions, with Bolshoi, Kuragaki and Yoneyama participating in 2012, and Bolshoi, Hanako Nakamori and Manami Katsu in 2016.
On February 8, 2017, JWP held a press conference to announce that the promotion would fold following its 25th anniversary event on April 2, 2017, after which all of its wrestlers become freelancers. The group's contract with the JWP production company would be expiring in April and the two sides had not been able to come to terms on a new one. Bolshoi will remain in charge of Pure Dream kabushiki gaisha, which she had established the previous November and through which she will launch a new promotion on August 11, 2017. The new company retains control of the Daily Sports Women's Tag Team and Princess of Pro-Wrestling Championships, while the JWP name and the JWP Openweight, Tag Team and Junior Championships all remain with the JWP production company. JWP's folding marks the end of the oldest women's professional wrestling promotion in Japan.