The Asia Pacific Federation of Wrestling, a collective effort of promotions and countries, seeks to ensure the future of Asian wrestling worldwide.
At a press conference held this week, the APFW was formally announced, with the following names representing the group:
- Japan: NJPW (Chairman Naoki Sugabayashi, Yuji Nagata), STARDOM (CEO Taro Okada, Mina Shirakawa)
- China: DFW (Wang Bin)
- Taiwan: PUZZLE (Touyu)
- Thailand: Setup (Pumi)
- Singapore: GrappleMax (Gregory Ho)
The Goals of APFW
The Asia Pacific Federation of Wrestling has three main goals that it hopes to achieve. With Japanese promotions leading the way in terms of talent, the first goal will see Japanese promotions loan talent to various Asian countries. The next goal will be for all promotions to have more showcase matches, thanks in part to the sharing of talent. The third goal is for an improvement in wrestling training, with the Federation aiming to send wrestlers to Japan for further training.
The APFW Comments
Representatives from all six promotions would speak at the press conference. You can check out their comments (courtesy of NJPW1972.com) below:
“Over the last ten years, we’ve been able to hold events in Singapore and Taiwan, twice in each country. In all the venues, the reactions from the fans were huge and our wrestlers absolutely want to be back there very soon. We’ll be giving all we have to make this project successful.” – Naoki Sugabayashi
“There are a lot of people in Asia, a lot of them English-speaking, but in recent years NJPW has been focused on America when it comes to international expansion. I think we’ve been looking past a great opportunity in Asia, and I’m happy for us to take that opportunity.” – Yuji Nagata
“We [STARDOM] recently passed one million YouTube subscribers with a lot of those views coming from Asian countries. Just as NJPW has built familiarity through TV, we’ve built a presence through videos and shorts. I hope we can continue to broaden the appeal of pro-wrestling and STARDOM in particular.” – Taro Okada.
“We at STARDOM aren’t really able to fly out rings to these countries, so to have the help of SETUP in Thailand and GrappleMax in Singapore was so important and made everything possible. I hope this alliance can help us bring women’s pro-wrestling onto a bigger global stage.” – Mina Shirakawa
“Thank you for the invitation to this alliance. PUZZLE has a history of wrestler exchange with other countries and companies, but I think in particular to have NJPW’s guidance to lean on is a massive step up for us. I’m truly grateful for this opportunity, and to work with NJPW on this first step of an event in April.” – Touyu
“Antonio Inoki taught the Chinese people about Japanese wrestling culture. That inspired me to bring that culture to Japan. I feel we’ve been able to grow the population of wrestling fans in China from 200,000 to 10 million. I think there are 2 million NJPW fans in China, but that’s out of a population of 1.4 billion. This alliance will, I feel bring the pro-wrestling audience in China to the tens of millions, and I’m grateful for the opportunity. Thank you.” – Wang Bin
“This partnership is not just about talent exchange, but the chance to share and learn from the best wrestling promotions in this world. Thai pro-wrestling has more than 15 years of history, so I think this is important for us. As you know with Muay Thai, Thai wrestling has a long history in combat sports, so I want to grow the culture of pro-wrestling in Thailand.” – Pumi.
Thank you to Bushiroad, NJPW and STARDOM for this invitation. I’m very happy to represent Singapore. We’ve always been very close to Japanese wrestling… As part of this Federation, I look forward to working with the members, learning from NJPW and STARDOM and working with the amazing partners here to really grow the wrestling culture.” -Gregory Ho.
This news comes after the announcement of the United Japan Pro Wrestling promotion. Click here to find out more.