YMMV / All Japan Pro Wrestling

• Americans Hate Tingle: KENSO is still Kenzo Suzuki to many fans in the USA. Not the Kenzo Suzuki who was a tolerable wrestler, not the one who teamed with Hiroshi Tanahashi, not the one who worked in CMLL, AAA, IWRG, Toryumon or Fighting Opera HUSTLE but the Kenzo Suzuki who stunk up their screen on WWE SmackDown.
• Creator's Pet: Johnny Ace was Mrs. Baba's favorite wrestler.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Shuji Kondo, initially a random Smash Mook for Voodoo Murders, quickly charmed the critics through many excellent matches and the fans through sheer Evil Is Cool.
  • Despite being a short superheavyweight, typically not the best recipe for success in wrestling, Ryota Hama became probably the hottest rookie in AJPW at the time of his debut thanks to his enthusiasm and dedication. It was his premature championship win what ruined him to their eyes.
• Fandom Rivalry
  • A legendary one with New Japan Pro-Wrestling, given that AJPW and it were the respective feuds of the two main apprentices of Rikidozan, Giant Baba and Antonio Inoki.
  • Another one was against Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling, who was formed by Atsushi Onita after being discontent with AJPW and featured a style that went against everything AJPW stood for (Giant Baba coined the term "garbage wrestling" for it, in fact).
  • Naturally, with Pro Wrestling NOAH as well, as it was formed by most of AJPW roster in a giant exodus led by Mitsuharu Misawa that almost killed All Japan.
  • Though it only lasted two years, Super World of Sports attracted a lot of criticism for fans "faithful" to All Japan because it was created by Genichiro Tenryu, another All Japan deserter (also because it was backed by an eye glass company that was trying to buy up all the notable pro wrestlers). Wrestle Association R inherited the feud, although it was all turned into Teeth-Clenched Teamwork when Tenryu disbanded WAR and brought its wrestlers to rebuild AJPW after the NOAH exodus.
  • Some friction happened with Dragon Gate fans in mid-2000s after TARU and his Aagan Iisou cronies were brought to AJPW and turned it into a Mob War in the vein of DG. Not only because TARU was still critical towards DG (and because AJPW built connections to El Dorado, a rival to Dragon Gate), but also because some AJPW fans were arguing that, with its roster being fresher and more diverse than the overexploited DG stable system, AJPW was playing DG's own gimmick better than them.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: "Dr. Death" Steve Williams, Johnny Ace, and Stan Hansen are far bigger names in Japan than they ever were in the United States, especially in the latter's case.
• Growing the Beard: While Shuji Kondo had already stood out as a great wrestler in Toryumon/Dragon Gate, his championship run as part of Voodoo Murders was so well received that many believe he single-handedly resurrected the promotion's junior heavyweight division.
• Harsher in Hindsight: While the performers are still very highly regarded for the unquestionable talent and ability they had in the ring, the Four Pillars era has been put under some scrutiny in modern times now that the consequences of concussions and repeated damage to the head and neck are more widely understood, as it can be pointed to as one of the main originators of the Lensman Arms Race that became rife in the wrestling industry in regards to riskier and more dangerous finishes and bumps all in the name of putting on exciting matches, with ultimately negative consequences for those involved. One need only look at the untimely death of Mitsuharu Misawa to see this in effect, as his passing in the ring has been directly tied to the damage from the wild bumps he would take in the later half of his career.
• Heartwarming Moments: Kodo Fuyuki's retirement match happened while he was suffering from cancer and though he had to retire from the ring, he won that match and overcame the cancer.
• Memetic Badass:
  • AJPW itself has a reputation to be capable to recover after the biggest company debacles. Tenryu's "betrayal", Misawa's exodus and Mutoh's departure - none of them managed to kill it. Even Mutoh's more successful WRESTLE-1 offshoot ended up folding down before AJPW.
  • Don Frye couldn't stop Yoshihiro Takayama and neither could a stroke. (Became Harsher in Hindsight when a broken neck could, however.)
• Narm Charm:
  • Most of Motoko Baba's sponsor-backed events at the 2000s (like Satoshi Kojima's Bape Sta festivals, the AV Cups and AHII World) were generally very wacky and often crossed into pure sports entertainment a la WWE, but it was all part of their charm.
  • The WRESTLE-1 events in 2002 were this. Bob Sapp coming out in pink boas? Random PRIDE and K-1 guys doing ridiculous angles? The Great Muta being The Great Muta? Awesome. Even if the project was a failure, it is no wonder that AJPW later jumped in the bandwagon of Fighting Opera HUSTLE to keep doing similar things (and that Mutoh revived the name for his new promotion).
  • The F-1 comedian championship, particularly whenever they brought in tarentos like RG or Kannazuki who had wrestling experience and could work actual matches.
• Mis-blamed: Keiji Mutoh has been blamed for running All Japan into the dirt, mostly by traditionalists who dislike his sports entertainment shenanigans, despite it were Mutoh's input and new ideas which saved the promotion from closing.
• One-Scene Wonder: Rabbit Boy and Super Milo, two of Takuya Sugi's stints in the company (not counting AHII World, which was a much longer affair). Three if we count his one night return as SUGI against RONIN.
• Replacement Scrappy: Poor Mitsuo Momota, son of Rikidozan and nowhere near as charismatic or athletic as his father.
• The Scrappy:
  • Few liked that Goldberg came to AJPW, squashed some established stars and left without more fuss.
  • Ryota Hama passed from being a Ensemble Dark Horse to a Scrappy in the space of a single match, specifically the one in which he won the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship. Pundits were so angry with the decision to give the promotion's greatest title to an obese rookie that the latter's career never recovered from the backlash.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Even if Mutoh saved AJPW from bankruptcy, there are many purists who never forgave him for rebuilding the promotion not as the kingdom of inscrutable power-wrestling natives and evil foreigners that it had previously been (the King's Road), but as a mishmash of luchadores, indy guys, martial artists and wrestling gangsters cobbled together with merchandising and WWE-like angles (the Puroresu Love era).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: While it might be difficult to believe today, both critics and fans were delighted with Ryota Hama after he debuted: he proved to be a better wrestler than his physique suggested, had a huge amount of Hot-Blooded charisma, and was improving very fast in all fields. However, when the AJPW management decided to give him a singles championship (one he should have probably never won) before he was ready to win any title, the world turned on him and his momentum was cut short pretty much forever.
• Unexpected Character: Starting with Mutoh himself, this was one of the main draws of the Puroresu Love era. At their day, few expected Akebono (a grand Sumo Wrestling champion and Kickboxing Memetic Loser), Masakatsu Funaki (a retired Mixed Martial Arts fighter who had left pro wrestling behind 16 years earlier), and TARU and friends (lucharesu wrestlers from a very isolationist promotion) to ever show up in AJPW and become regular wrestlers. The WWE alumni that landed in the promotion around this time was another example.
  • Given how isolationist WWE has been over the last number of years, no one thought any wrestler currently employed by them would ever appear at an AJPW show, but Charlie Dempsey of NXT ^note  Son of WWE Vice President of Global Talent Relations, William Regal showed up at the "New Year Giant Series" event in 2024 to challenge Katsuhiko Nakajima for the Triple Crown Title. ^note  This was apparently part of a recent working relationship between the two promotions, negotiated by Regal, though some in AJPW have "mixed feelings" regarding it.