The World's Strongest Tag Determination League (世界最強タッグ決定リーグ戦, Sekai Saikyō Taggu Kettei Rīgu-sen?), more commonly known in the West as the Real World Tag League, is an annual professional wrestling tournament held by All Japan Pro Wrestling since 1977, usually run on the first weeks of December. The first tournament was actually called the Open Tag League, but it was renamed to its present name the following year.
The tournament is held under round-robin rules, with 2 points for a win, 1 for a draw and 0 for a loss; in earlier tournaments, only a time limit draw would provide the one point, with other methods (such as a double countout) providing nothing for either team.
The name "Real World Tag League" was a mistranslation by AJPW promoter Giant Baba; "saikyō" in Japanese means "strongest," not "real", but Baba used Engrish for promotional material.
Between 1988 and 1994, the AJPW Unified World Tag Team Championship was annually vacated in time for the tournament, which would be used to determine the new champions. The rule was reinstated in 2012.
Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima are the only team to win both the World's Strongest Tag Determination League and its counterpart in New Japan Pro Wrestling, the G1 Climax Tag League, as well as the only team to win both tournaments in the same year (2008).
Famous quotes containing the words world, strongest, tag, team and/or league:
“Destroy yourselves, you who are desperate, and you who are tortured in body and soul, abandon all hope. There is no more solace for you in this world. The world lives off your rotting flesh.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)
“Time has the same effect on the mind as on the face; the predominant passion and the strongest feature become more conspicuous from the others’ retiring.”
—Mary Wortley, Lady Montagu (1689–1762)
“I believe in the flesh and the appetites,
Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me
is a miracle.
Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from,
The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,
This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“Imagination is a valuable asset in business and she has a sister, Understanding, who also serves. Together they make a splendid team and business problems dissolve and the impossible is accomplished by their ministrations.... Imagination concerning the world’s wants and the individual’s needs should be the Alpha and Omega of self-education.”
—Alice Foote MacDougall (1867–1945)
“Stereotypes fall in the face of humanity. You toodle along, thinking that all gay men wear leather after dark and should never, ever be permitted around a Little League field. And then one day your best friend from college, the one your kids adore, comes out to you.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)