rose namajunas was the first champion of the women's division of the ufc.
rose namajunas was the first champion of the women's division of the ufc.
first champion of the women's division of the ufc?
rose namajunas
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the first champion carnival took place only six months after baba had founded ajpw. the initial tournament was held in a single-elimination format and was intended for ajpw's heavyweight wrestlers such as hiro matsuda, samson kutsuwada and thunder sugiyama. for the tournament, baba also recruited several foreign wrestlers, such as baron scicluna, the destroyer, king curtis iaukea and mark lewin. baba himself won the inaugural tournament, defeating lewin in the final. a year later, ajpw presented the second champion carnival, which most notably introduced former olympian jumbo tsuruta, who eventually went on to become one of the promotion's top names. baba also won the second champion carnival, this time defeating mr. wrestling in the final. heading into the 1975 champion carnival, baba changed the tournament's format. now the four wrestlers who advanced to the semifinals in the single-elimination tournament were put into a round-robin tournament, where the wrestler with the best record would be declared the winner. baba went on to win the tournament for the third year in a row, defeating gene kiniski in the final. a year later, the single-elimination portion of the tournament was eliminated and the champion carnival was changed to a pure round-robin tournament, a format it holds to this day. the 1976 tournament was the first champion carnival not won by baba. it was instead won by canadian abdullah the butcher, who defeated baba in the final. baba went on to win the tournament four more times, winning a total of seven out of the ten first champion carnivals. in early 1980s, ajpw loaded the champion carnival with some of the top foreign wrestlers in the world, including billy robinson, bruiser brody, dick slater, jack brisco, stan hansen, ted dibiase and terry funk. however, after rival promotion njpw took over as the number one promotion in japan with a record-breaking business streak, ajpw decided to put the champion carnival on hiatus, not wanting the tournament to be overshadowed by their competitors. the hiatus lasted from 1983 to 1991.
champion carnival