Universal Wrestling Federation

The original UWF was founded in 1984 by Hisashi Shinma and a group of wrestlers who had left New Japan Pro-Wrestling following growing disagreements over the promotion's management and direction. The breakaway group sought to establish a promotion of their own, initially drawing on the established professional wrestling style of New Japan while allowing its wrestlers greater control over the presentation and direction of their matches. Initially, UWF's cards featured conventional professional wrestling matches, including traditional trappings such as acrobatic maneuvers, top-rope jumps, Satoru Sayama continued to performing under his Tiger Mask persona, and even having lucha libre matches.

The original roster included Rusher Kimura, Akira Maeda, Ryuma Go, Mach Hayato, and Gran Hamada. Soon, however, they were joined by Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Nobuhiko Takada, Satoru Sayama (the original Tiger Mask) and Kazuo Yamazaki, and this changed the orientation of the UWF's wrestling from the traditional style to a more martial arts oriented style. Maeda, Fujiwara, Takada, Sayama and Yamazaki had been martial artists before joining New Japan Pro-Wrestling, and they began incorporating amateur wrestling and other legitimate martial arts techniques, including catch wrestling and judo submission holds, karate and kickboxing, which created a new form of wrestling. Kimura, Go, and Hamada, unable to cope with the new style, decided to leave and join All Japan Pro Wrestling instead.

In early 1984, UWF President Hisashi Shinma brokered a deal with the World Wrestling Federation which resulted in a UWF/WWF working relationship. Through this working relationship, one of UWF's top stars Akira Maeda toured the United States with the WWF and even won the promotion's International Heavyweight Championship. The relationship ended on July 23, 1984 after President Shinma jumped from UWF to All Japan Pro Wrestling.

In 1984 another former New Japan wrestler, Osamu Kido, who had trained under Karl Gotch, joined the UWF. But just as the promotion fledged, its top star Sayama started becoming alienated from the rest of the promotion. While the reforms introduced by Sayama were successful in draws, most wrestlers believed he was cramming too much creative power and booking UWF only for himself. This came to a head in September 1985, when Sayama and Maeda. Allegedly stopped pulling their punches and kicks, in a match that fans in Japan refer to as "going cement". A second, brutal match of this kind took place in September of that year, when Maeda and Sayama again began to lay in their strikes. The match ended when Maeda did not pull a kick and instead kicked Sayama hard in the groin, causing a disqualification.

As a result, Maeda was suspended and later fired by the UWF. Sayama, embittered with wrestling after this match, left the UWF and was not heard from again in the wrestling world for 11 years. He went to found a hybrid martial art organization named Shooto. The promotion dissolved and much of the roster returned to New Japan.

At NJPW, they were part of an "invasion" angle in which the returning UWF wrestlers were presented as a rival faction challenging New Japan's established wrestlers. The UWF contingent stood out with their matching tracksuits and stripped-down, militant presentation, entering the arena together and carrying themselves more like a disciplined fighting team than a conventional wrestling stable. The invasion angle initially generated considerable interest, but it gradually fizzled out rather than culminating in a definitive showdown between the two sides, partly because the storyline was undermined by internal tensions and Maeda's suspension after a deliberate and violent shoot kick on NJPW booker Riki Choshu during a match. Maeda and the other UWF wrestlers eventually went their separate ways, with Maeda later reviving the promotion in 1988 as Newborn UWF.

Alumni

Natives: Akira Maeda, Gran Hamada, Kazuo Yamazaki, Nobuhiko Takada, Osamu Kido, Rusher Kimura, Ryuma Go, Shigeo Miyato, Super Tiger, Tatsuo Nakano, Yoji Anjo, Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Foreigners: Cuban Assassin, Bob Sweetan, Dave Finlay, Dean Solkoff, Dutch Mantel, El Signo, El Texano, Joe Solkoff, Larry Hamilton, Leo Burke, Lumberjack, Mano Negra, Mark Lewin, Marty Jones, MS-1, Negro Navarro, Perro Aguayo, Phil Lafleur, Raúl Mata, Ray Steele, Scott Casey, Scott McGhee, Sweet Daddy Siki, Calypso Hurricane