Giant Baba

### Burial

Body was later cremated; has a tomb at Honmatsuji in Akashi City, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan

## Professional wrestling stats

### Trained by

Fred Atkins, Great Togo, Rikidozan

**Shohei Baba** (*Baba Shōhei*, 1938–1999) was a professional wrestler and co-founder of All Japan Pro Wrestling. He was also known as **Giant Baba**. Baba, along with Antonio Inoki and El Santo, became one of the most famous Japanese wrestlers of his era, with a popularity in Japan comparable to Hulk Hogan's in America. He was a national star for nearly four decades, and his longevity made him bigger than Rikidozan, the most famous of the sumos or even baseball legends like Sadaharu Oh and Shigeo Nagashima.

## Baseball career

Before entering professional wrestling he had been a professional baseball pitcher for the Yomiuri (Tokyo) Giants. His baseball career however didn't last long. He played only three games for the Giants in the 1957 season, becoming the tallest baseball player in the history of the sport in Japan, finishing with an 0-1 record and was sent down to the minor leagues for more seasoning.
The Giants dropped his contract after the 1959 season and he signed up with the Taiyo Whales for 1960, but, as legend has it, before the season got underway he slipped and fell in a bathtub and destroyed the nerves in his arm and his baseball career was history.

## Professional wrestling career

Fortunately for Baba it was around this time when national wrestling hero and owner of the Japanese Wrestling Association Mitsuhiro Momota Sr. - better known as Rikidozan - began to feel the time was right for him to start grooming a successor in order to keep business strong.

In April 1960 Baba began training in Rikidozan's dojo as one of his top prospects, the other being a Brazilian high school track star of Japanese decent named Kanji Inoki. The two trained together under Rikidozan and made their debuts on September 30th, 1960 at the old Daito Ku Gymnasium in Tokyo where Baba beat Yonetaro Tanaka and Inoki, renamed Antonio to give him a more mysterious air, lost to Korean star and fellow Rikidozan student Kintaro Oki.

    The period 1967-71 is best remembered by Japanese wrestling fans for the Baba and Inoki tag team that first won the NWA International Tag Team Titles on October 31st, 1967 beating Bill Watts and Tarzan Tyler, and would go on to hold the belts four times, a record that Baba would break later with another partner, Jumbo Tsuruta.

In October 1972, with JWA on the decline and several months after Inoki had formed New Japan Pro Wrestling, Baba formed his own promotion, All Japan Pro Wrestling, with the backing of Nippon TV. All Japan eventually took over the JWA's spot in the National Wrestling Alliance after its collapse, and under Baba's strong business acumen, the rest of the NWA's talent, from the World champion on down, enjoyed an amazing run in Japan. Baba himself was able to win the belt three times, although his reigns were short and limited to Japanese territory.

By 1984 Baba was a shell of his former self and began phasing himself out to give rise to the next generation of wrestlers, led by Tsuruta and Genichiro Tenryu. He became, by his own choice, a curtain-jerker - slow-moving, and only winning against mid-card talent. His last comeback was in the World's Strongest Tag League 1993, when he teamed with old rival Stan Hansen to try to win the Double Cup. They made it to the finals before being defeated by Mitsuharu Misawa and Kenta Kobashi. Baba was the first former NWA World Champion to be defeated by Ric Flair as Flair was becoming a top contender to the title.

Under his leadership All Japan in the 1990s became the number one wrestling company in the world. Following the formantion of the quickly doomed SWS (Super World Sports), established talent such as Tenryu, Hara and Great Kabuki left All Japan and Babe was forced to push younger talent, such as Toshiaki Kawada, Kenta Kobashi, Akira Taue and Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, up the card to replace them. The biggest move Baba made at this time was taking the mask off Tiger Mask II and giving Mitsuharu Misawa the push as the biggest new singles star by pinning Jumbo Tsuruta in one of the most emotional matches in company history on June 8, 1990 at Budokan Hall.

The show was close to a sellout and Misawa caught fire because of his win against the legend Jumbo. Budokan Hall became the hotbed of pro wrestling, validating in Baba's mind his style of clean finishes. A string of sellouts in the building latest for several years with the Triple Crown as the focal point. All Japan sold out more than 250 consecutive shows in Tokyo throughout the early the mid 1990s, routinely drawing houses in the $1,000,000 range eight times a year at Budokan Hall.

At the peak of the company they would put tickets for the next Budokan show on sale at the live event and completely sell out that night. Baba finally agreed to run the Toyko Dome and despite it being a few years since the company peaked they still drew 58,300 paid fans.

## Death

    In January 1999, Baba was taken in to a hospital and confined to a bed. He saw his last wrestling match on January 22, as Toshiaki Kawada defeated Mitsuharu Misawa for the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship. Nine days later on January 31, 1999, Baba died of liver failure from complications of colon cancer at approximately 16:04 local time in the Tokyo Medical University Hospital. He was 61 years old. Present at his deathbed were his wife, his older sister, his niece, Yukiko, All Japan ring announcer Ryu Nakada and senior referee Kyohei Wada.

Baba had known about his cancer diagnosis for at least a year prior to his death but kept it a secret, not wanting to cause worry about his condition. Baba's three closest employees, Jumbo Tsuruta, Mitsuharu Misawa and Joe Higuchi, did not know about it until after he died. Baba's funeral was delayed due to the fact they could not find a casket large enough to fit his body. A memorial service was held publicly on April 17, 1999, at the Nippon Budokan the day after the 1999 Champion Carnival Final. Over 28,000 people attended, including the entirety of the All Japan Pro Wrestling roster, as well as Baba's wife and family.