Japanese Wrestling Legends Bull Nakano and Akira Hokuto

Japanese Wrestling Legends Bull Nakano and Akira Hokuto.
Did you know that before she started wrestling, Akira organized the Bull Nakano fanclub?
And that she took the name Akira in honor of Akira Maeda, who was a Japanese wrestling promoter, professional wrestler and MMA pioneer?
Also that both women wrestled in the WCW?

Bull Nakano, Akira Hokuto, wcw, japan, japanese, japan female wrestling, japanese women wrestling japan, wrestling, female wrestling, womens wrestling, female wrestler

Hana Kimura and Tam Nakano - Japanese Womens Wrestling

Here are some pictures of Japanese female wrestlers Hana Kimura and Tam Nakano

#HanaKimura #Japan #Japanese #wrestling #femalewrestlers #femalewrestling #prowrestling #WomensWrestling #fight #athlete #female #sports #TamNakano

Nagisa Nozaki vs Misaki Ohata - Japanese Female Wrestling

Japanese female wrestlers Nagisa Nozaki and Misaki Ohata going at it in a recent match in Japan.
They seem to like to bite a lot.....

#wrestling #femalewrestlers #femalewrestling #prowrestling #WomensWrestling #Japan #Japanese

Vintage Japanese Women's Wrestling

Here are some pictures of Old School Japanese female wrestlers.
The vintage female wrestlers seem to be very popular on my other wrestling blogs so I thought I would give them a try here and see how everyone liked them.

Megumi Kudoh

Etsuko Mita

Mima Shimoda and Etsuko Mita

Kris Wolf - Japanese Female Wrestling

This young lady is a bit different for this blog.
Although she is Joshi through and through...she was born in the US.
Kristina Hernandez was born on August 12, 1984 in Chicago, Illinois.
She is a photographer, voiceover talent and pro wrestler in Japan.
Kris started out as a freelance photographer in San Francisco, California.
After living a year and a half in Japan, she saw a Stardom match on YouTube and was hooked.
She was trained by Fuka Kakimoto, and in 2014, she debuted as Kris Wolf.
This makes her the first foreigner to start out with a Japanese wrestling promotion and enter women's professional wrestling in Japan.

Manami Toyota With The Muta Lock

Here is a picture of female Japanese wrestling legend Manami Toyota with a Muta-Lock on.....someone....
Help me out people...who is she submitting here?

Rabbit Mito (Rabbit Miu) – Japanese Women Wrestling

Japanese female wrestler Rabbit Mito (sometimes Rabbit Miu) will turn 18 on February 22^nd.
She has been wrestling since August of 2011.
Rabbit is four foot seven, 95 pounds and works for Japanese Women Pro-Wrestling Project (JWP). 

Kana (Asuka) punishing Rabbit's arm

Japanese Women Wrestling - Command Bolshoi

Japanese female wrestler Command Bolshoi

Arisa Nakajima - Female Japanese Wrestlers

I havent done anything on the lovely Arisa Nakajima in a while, so here's an update.
Arisa was born on April 6th, 1989 in Chichibu, Saitama, Japan, the same city that famous Japanese pro wrestler Akira Taue is from.
After training with the Major Girl's Fighting AtoZ promotion for a little over a year, she made her wrestling debut on January 3rd, 2006, against Mika Mizunuma in Korakuen Hall.

She has worked for Major Girl's Fighting AtoZ, JWP Joshi Puroresu (JWP Project) and JDStar and during her career has held more titles and won more awards than you can shake a stick at.
Arisa is five foot three and weighs in at 130 pounds.

All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling

You probably already knew that several female Japanese wrestlers, not only wrestled, but also had singing careers.
To me, most of this is as painful to watch as the WWF/WWE's "Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection", which I have tried very hard to forget.
All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling really pushed this with several songs and CDs being released.

If the idea and the picture above are not enough to stop you...how about a video of the top five songs?

Mimi Hagiwara In Her Infamous White Swimsuit

Here is a picture I found on a Yahoo Japan Blog of Japanese female wrestler Mimi Hagiwara in her infamous white swimsuit/wrestling gear.
And...um...really that's all I have to say......

Kana Vs Jessie McKay

Kana Vs Jessie McKay
http://joshipuroresu.blogspot.com/



I have mentioned several times here that it seems like the biggest Japanese women wrestlers are winding up here in the US.
And I have made no secret about how much I like Kana.
Well here is part of a match posted by CHIKARA on YouTube of Kana taking on "Everybody's Favorite Girlfriend" Jessie McKay in a match on October 7th, 2011 in Burlington, North Carolina (my old home state).
I wish it was the whole match, but hey, it's good to see even a clip.
And it's good to see these Japanese women wrestling stars working here in the States.
Maybe the WWE will see matches like this and raise the bar.

Right.

Azumi Hyuga vs Yumi Ohka - Japanese Wrestling

Here is a video posted on YouTube of Azumi Hyuga taking on Yumi Ohka.
This is from the Japanese wrestling promotion Pro Wrestling WAVE's show, Road to Resurrection.

A little background....
Azumi Hyuga (Tomoko Kuzumi) was born on January 6th, 1975 in Matsudo City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan.
She was trained by Joshi legend Devil Masami and made her pro wrestling debut on December 4th, 1994 in Tokyo, Japan at Korakuen Hall.

One of the JDStar "athresses" Yumi Ohka (Yumiko Abe) is five foot six, 130 pounds and has been wrestling for eight years
She once held the DDT Iron Man Heavymetalweight Championship.

They start out in the classic collar and elbow lock up in the center of the ring, but right off the bat Yumi twists Azumi into a rear headlock, then a side head lock.

Azumi escapes, and after a few quick exchanges, she has Yumi on the mat in a headlock.

Another series of reversals (with Yumi maybe thinking about not wearing such slick pants in her next match, no way to grab traction) and the two are literally tied up in the middle of the ring.

A lot more mat work, some more exchanges and Azumi finds herself on the receiving end of Yumi's arm bar.

So here is part one of this match up...

Kana vs. Mio Shirai - Japanese Women Wrestlers

Kana is a real favorite on this blog, and I'm expecting Mio Shirai to become one as well.

Mio was once one half of The Sexy Purple Thunder Sisters with Io Shirai, though I don’t know if they are still tag teaming or not.

But here is a video posted by the legendary nagashimark on YouTube of Kana taking on Mio at at show by the Japanese wrestling promotion NEO, back in February of this year in...well…in Japan of course.

This match doesn’t have the high flying, high risk moves that you see a lot of times in Joshi.
These ladies go down to the mat for some MMA style submission wrestling.

First Mio comes in, looking more like a female mixed martial arts fighter than a wrestler...


Then Kana comes in looking more like a female wrestler than a MMA fighter and gives Mio a nice look of disgust...or maybe contempt..

The match starts off more like kick boxing or Muay Thai....

But soon these two ladies hit the mat and begin exchanging holds and counters at an impressive speed...

After a brief exchange, Mio winds up on the receiving end of a leg lock from Kana...

Another quick exchange of holds, and Kana winds up with what looks like maybe a kneeling figure four leg lock?...

Again, Kana goes after the leg...

Now Mio comes up with her own leg lock and repays the punishment...

But Kana reverses back and traps Mio in a very painful looking arm bar (Seated armbar?)....

And this is just the first half of this match!

Kana vs. Mio Shirai, Japanese Women Wrestlers, posted to http://joshipuroresu.blogspot.com/ on May 7th, 2010.

Candy Okutsu Wrestling Ayako Hamada

Here is a match posted by HybridDolphinELPS on YouTube, of Candy Okutsu wrestling Ayako Hamada in Ayako's debut for the ARSION wrestling promotion back in 1998.
1998?
Has it really been that long?

Anyway, like I said, this was Ayako's debut wrestling match, and she was seventeen at the time, although you couldn't tell it by her in ring performance.
Less than one year after this match, she and Mika Akino won the Twinstar of ARSION tag- team wrestling belts.
Of course Ayako has wrestled all over the world since then for promotions like Asistencia Asesoría y Administración (AAA) in Mexico, TNA wrestling, Shimmer Women Athletes and many more.

Candy Okutsu on the other hand had a few years under her belt at the time of this match, having debuted on August 4, 1992 (also at the age of 17) for the JWP.

But looking at this match, you really cant see much of a difference in their in-ring abilities.

Starting off, Candy hits the double bicep pose after she gets in the ring....



And to show that she's not intimidated, Ayako does the same...



The two women exchange a flurry of the typical (for Joshi) high speed attacks, reversals and counters, winding up with a test of strength in the center of the ring....



After one brutal exchange (I think Candy had some of the hardest elbows in the business) she goes for a pin on Ayako...



Later on, she traps Ayako in the inevitable Boston Crab...



But Ayako rallies, and traps Candy in a sleeper....




This is a really good, solid Joshi match, and one you can show your friends to help explain that even a standard Joshi match is better than 90% of the WWE Diva and TNA Knockout matches.

And of course you can visit HybridDolphinELPS' channel on YouTube to this see this, and more Joshi action like it.

http://www.youtube.com/user/HybridDolphinELPS

Candy Okutsu wrestling Ayako Hamada posted to http://joshipuroresu.blogspot.com/ on May 2nd, 2010

Kana wrestling Ayumi Kurihara

Here is a video posted by kapengmabula on YouTube of Kana taking on Ayumi Kurihara at Passion Red's "2PASSION" on May 3rd, 2009.
Although kapengmabula posted it, he gives credit to another well known name on this blog nagashimark, so it's still "all in the family".
If I understand correctly, Passion Red started off as a stable, but began to hold their own shows and joshi star Nanae Takahashi runs Passion Red.
And I also read that back in January, Kana left Passion Red and is now a freelancer and she will be heading up her own wrestling promotion, KANA PRO.
You can check out Puroresu Represetin' for more info on Kana.

Anyway, this is part one of a really great match that highlights the best in joshi.
It starts out with a brutal face off with chops, punches, slaps, forearms, then goes into some high flying, then they go to the mat for some MMA style submission grappling.

I tell you, Kana can get VERY innovative with punishment, as she puts poor Ayumi's legs through the wringer.

As part one ends though, it looks like Ayumi may be starting a comeback.

Like I said, this is just part one.
To see part two, you can go to kapengmabula's YouTube channel and see the end of this match and some more great action.



Kana wrestling Ayumi Kurihara, posted to http://joshipuroresu.blogspot.com/ on 4-9-2010