Chigusa Nagayo - Japanese Female Wrestling

Name: Nagayo Chigusa
Date Of Birth: December 8 1964,Omura, Nagasaki
Height: 165 cm (5 ft, 5 inches)
Weight: 71 kg (192 lb)
Pro Wrestling Debut: August 8, 1980 (against Yukari Omori)
Promotions: AJW (1980-1989), Free (1993-1994), GAEA (1994-)

Chigusa Nagayo is a female Professional Wrestler best known for her popularity in the 1980s for her tag team The Crush Gals with partner Lioness Asuka. She was the founder of the GAEA Women's Professional Wrestling organization (known simply as GAEA) She briefly competed as alter-ego Lady Zero in GAEA and in the WCW.

Nagayo appears in the 2000 documentary Gaea Girls made for the BBC by Kim Longinotto and Jano Williams.

Nagayo & Lioness Asuka vs. Dynamite Girls on August 27, 1983 was named as the 1983 AJW Match Of The Year.
Devil Masami vs. Chigusa Nagoya on August 22, 1985 was named as the 1985 AJW Match of the Year.
Yumiko Hotta & Chigusa Nagayo vs. Akira Hokuto & Yukari Omori on October 10 1986 was named as the AJW 1986 Match of the Year.
Inducted into the All Japan Womens Wrestling Hall of Fame on November 29, 1998.

Formed in the early 1980s, the Crush Gals were possibly the most famous and beloved women's tag team of all time. During the mid-80's they had three runs as WWWA World Tag Team Champions at All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling (AJW), and were pop culture sensations. They had several top 10 pop singles, and their main event feud against Dump Matsumoto's heel stable drew consistent ratings over 12.0 for AJW's weekly television program on Fuji TV. The feud was highlighted by events such as the first women's hair vs. hair match in Japan between Nagoya and Matsumoto on August 28, 1985, and a vicious run-in on September 10, 1986, when Matsumoto and her gang interrupted as the Crush Gals performed a concert in the ring, and proceeded to cut up Nagoya's clothes, leading to a second hair vs. hair match. The success and popularity of the Crush Gals inspired many young Japanese women to enter pro wrestling. Later in the decade, Nagoya achieved the WWWA World Heavyweight Championship, finishing Yukari Omori with a moonsault, on August 22, 1988. Nagoya lost the belt to her best-friend and Crush Gals partner, Lioness Asuka, on January 22, 1989, after a historic and emotional feud.

In 1989, Nagoya reached age 26, the mandatory retirement age for female wrestlers in Japan, at the time; however, she came out of retirement in the mid-90's to form GAEA Japan. She wrestled as one of GAEA's main eventers and top faces. In December, 1998, Asuka debuted in GAEA and played a heel, allying with Nagoya's rivals and winning the presidency of GAEA from Nagoya in their first match together in ten years, on April 4, 1999. Eventually, however, on December 27, 1999, the Crush Gals were re-united, and went on to win their fourth tag team championship together in spring 2004.