On June 21, 2000, Nippon TV aired its final All Japan Pro Wrestling broadcast. In pure television terms, it was just one show ending after nearly three decades. In wrestling terms, it felt like the door closing on one of the greatest promotion runs the sport has ever produced.
That is what makes this date so important. The split that created Pro Wrestling NOAH did not happen in a single dramatic second. It unfolded over weeks of boardroom conflict, public statements and shifting loyalties. But June 21 was the date when the break stopped looking like an internal power struggle and started looking permanent. When All Japan lost its television home, the old version of the company was gone, even before the final departures had fully played out.
To understand the weight of that, you have to understand what All Japan had been. Giant Baba founded the promotion in 1972, and over time it became the home of some of the best wrestling ever seen. The Four Pillars generation, Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi, Toshiaki Kawada and Akira Taue, turned 1990s All Japan into a temple of big-match wrestling. Budokan sellouts became routine. King's Road was not just a style label. It was the identity of a company that built trust with fans by making its biggest matches feel grueling, meaningful and earned.
But Baba's death in 1999 changed the power structure. Misawa became company president, yet he was never working with a blank slate. Motoko Baba still held the controlling stake, and the tension between preserving Giant Baba's philosophy and modernizing the promotion kept growing. Misawa wanted fresher presentation, younger talent pushed harder and a more current business approach. Motoko Baba wanted continuity and control. By the spring of 2000, those differences had turned from friction into an open fracture.
Misawa was removed as president in late May. In mid-June, he stood before the press with the overwhelming majority of All Japan's native roster aligned with him. The split was seismic. This was not one star walking out. This was the heart of the company leaving together. Contemporary Observer coverage described the scene around the announcement and the aftermath as one of the most remarkable business ruptures Japanese wrestling had ever seen, because it was obvious that both sides could not emerge looking the same.
Then came June 21. The reporting around the week made clear that Nippon TV, which had carried All Japan for 28 years, would end the relationship with a final 45-minute special on that date. That mattered far beyond simple distribution. In Japanese wrestling, television was not only exposure. It was legitimacy, momentum and in many cases survival. All Japan and Nippon TV had been linked so closely that older fans could barely separate one from the other. Once that bond was severed, the split stopped being theoretical. The public could see that the promotion founded by Giant Baba was no longer operating on the same ground it had occupied for a generation.
What makes the date especially fascinating is that it was both an ending and a handoff. Nippon TV was not walking away from wrestling altogether. It was already moving toward a new weekly program, Colosseo, built around Misawa's side of the divide and other combat sports coverage. In other words, the station was not simply killing a show. It was choosing which future it believed in. That gave the final All Japan broadcast an unusually sharp emotional edge. Fans were watching a farewell, but they were also watching the industry reveal where its energy was about to flow next.
This is why June 21, 2000 matters more than a lot of officially larger dates. Pro Wrestling NOAH would not hold its first shows until August, and the full consequences of the exodus would take time to settle. But by the time that final Nippon TV broadcast aired, the symbolism had already become reality. Misawa's group had the momentum, the names and now the television path. All Japan still existed, and it would survive, rebuild and eventually find new life. What it could not keep was the sense of being the unquestioned continuation of the 1990s golden period.
There is also a human element that makes this story hit harder in hindsight. Misawa, Kobashi and the rest had carried All Japan through years of punishing main events and a style that asked for everything. They were not fringe rebels trying to start small. They were the people fans had been paying to see, the wrestlers who made the company's reputation. When they moved, the center of gravity moved with them. June 21 was the day television made that impossible to deny.
The long-term consequences were enormous. NOAH debuted that summer to intense interest and quickly became one of the defining Japanese promotions of the 2000s. All Japan, stripped down almost overnight, had to lean on outsiders, new alliances and a total rethink of how to survive. One promotion became the vessel for Misawa's next vision. The other became a historic brand fighting not to become only a memory.
So when we look back at June 21, 2000, the real story is not just that a network aired one final episode. It is that one of wrestling's most important institutional relationships came to an end in public, and the balance of power in Japanese wrestling shifted with it. The last All Japan broadcast on Nippon TV was not merely the closing chapter of a TV deal. It was the moment the old All Japan finally stopped feeling eternal.