September 19, 2024 • 68 mins
Join us on an eye-opening journey as we delve into the rich and often overlooked history of Joshi Pro Wrestling in Japan. In this episode, hosts Justin Knipper and Fumi Saito explore the roots and evolution of women's professional wrestling, tracing its origins from the 1950s to the early 1970s.
Discover how legends like Mildred Burke and Fabulous Moolah influenced the Japanese scene, and learn about the unique development of Joshi wrestling, separate from men's wrestling in Japan. We cover the rise of iconic figures such as Maha Fumiake and the Beauty Pair, and how their incredible popularity shaped the sport.
If you're a fan of wrestling history or just curious about the distinct world of Joshi Pro Wrestling, this episode is a must-listen.
For more insights and to join the conversation, follow Fumi Saito on Twitter at @Fumihikodayo and Justin Knipper at @JustinMKnipper.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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Write that. Write that down, Fumisaito. Write that down, Fumisaito.
Welcome back to Write That Down. I'm your host, Justin Ip, where I edit for fightgamemedia.com.
(02:12):
I'm a staff writer at f4wonline.com and wrestlingobserver.com.
I'm back with Japan's leading pro wrestling author, historian,
broadcast journalist, my co-host, Mr.
Fumisaito. All right, so for this episode, we're kicking off our latest Deep Dive Showcase series.
We are going to focus on the history of joshi pro wrestling or women's pro wrestling in Japan.
(02:37):
There are lots of blind spots throughout women's wrestling's history in Japan.
So while it is more difficult to recount in general than men's wrestling,
we did our best to fill in the blanks and provide the broad strokes.
We generally cover from around 1948 into late 60s, 67 in the early 70s today.
(03:01):
And we spent a lot of time talking about Mahafumi Ake. We talked about Beauty
Pair, Maki Ueda, Jackie Sato.
And we spoke a lot about Mildred Burke, among others.
Today so lots more of that enjoy it
if you haven't already please subscribe to fight game media network the podcast
(03:22):
feed the free feed on spotify apple or wherever you usually listen to your podcast
it does always help us out helps out a ton all right that's it let's get into
joshua wrestling history part one.
Four episode of giant barber and i think
we are not going to avoid women's wrestling you
(03:44):
know just because it's so hard um this history uh more like an official history
of women's professional wrestling trace back to like 1945 i'm sorry that the
kiki's walking around on top of my table. Yeah, hello, Kiki. She did a run-in.
Yeah, yeah. He. He, excuse me, he, he. Yeah, the boy. Yeah, big boy.
(04:09):
That women's the first thing you know
american audience american fans you know
who wants to learn history and study history of joshi pro
wrestling japanese women's professional
wrestling pro wrestling was never part of men's show that's the basic difference
you and i talk you know talk about we have to touch upon mildred bark and fabulous
(04:34):
muller and her school of wrestling and And the wrestlers she produced know that.
And they've always been part of the men's show.
Just one match in between some sandwich between men's card.
And during the war, a lot of, you know, a part of the audience too,
(04:55):
but the wrestlers were away during the war in Europe or somewhere.
And that's where Mildred Bark, during 1940s, headlined big wrestling card in
America as a big star because there was a war.
But yes, this is wrestling, but
we still have to learn things about real world. There was a war, right?
(05:22):
The World War II. There was 1941, there was a power harbor.
1945, there was Hiroshima and Narasaki. The war was over.
And there's a thing called GHQ, General Headquarter, U.S. Occupation of Japanese Land.
GHQ, General Headquarter, led by General MacArthur.
(05:47):
And what are we talking about? In 1951, there was a tribute to troops, right?
Very beginning of Rikidozan era progressing in 1951.
I mean, 1949, I'm sorry. Yeah. that...
Bobby Brands and his crew and his tour crew came to Japan and ran the wrestling
(06:15):
tour for the troops and a little bit for Japanese audience.
Like a USO tour. Pretty much, because it's under US occupation still.
And the troops were still in Japan. and Bobby Browns and his wrestling crew,
the whole tour thing, came to Japan for the tribute for the troops in Japan.
(06:39):
They had Japanese audience in the building, and the building was Memorial Hall,
which was old Sumo Palace, actually.
They changed the name during the U.S. occupation.
It was 1951. The war was over in 1945.
Six years later, the U.S. occupation remained. The
general had headquarters that was still in
(07:00):
Japan and Bobby Browns and his crew
and came in and had wrestling tour for the
tribute for the troops and Ricky Dawson joined and debuted and therefore the
birth of pro wrestling in Japan right mm-hmm it kind of imported it to Japan
yeah and then also this or the domestic superstar and the promoter to be in Ricky Dawson mm-hmm.
(07:26):
That's the, yeah, in the more revised, modified history of pro wrestling in
Japan, they want to have a story like Ricky Dawson started it all, you know?
Right. Yeah, that's also partially true because Ricky Dawson was a promoter.
Ricky Dawson was a superstar and Ricky Dawson pretty much did it all,
(07:51):
but he couldn't have had network television right from the get-go, right?
And the mitsubishi big sponsorship a big
you know budget behind it and all these
times it's like a post-war period and there's
no such thing as a working visa for americans to come in right sure all these
(08:11):
things had to be created and yeah ricky dozen was responsible to make television
huge and also he made yeah if there was no wrestling television wouldn't have
been as as popular right away.
And if there wasn't television, Rikido doesn't want to be just as popular.
So they helped each other. That's the birth of pro-wrestling in Japan.
(08:35):
That another big piece of history that's been so overlooked,
same 1951, the women's professional wrestling, the seeds were planted.
Mildred Burke, November of 1951 to be exact, The tour group of Mildred Bark.
(08:57):
Mildred Bark and Mae Young. Yes, the same Mae Young. Great Mae Young.
Who worked all the way through 1999. Of course. Worked until the Attitude Era.
I think so. That same Mae Young. Yeah. Mildred Bark as promoter and champion. And...
(09:17):
Mae Young, Rita, Martinis, Ruth Bocali, Gloria, Vartini, right,
the six women's wrestler, Beverly Anderson, yeah.
So six women's wrestler came over and toured Japan, just like the Sharp Brothers did.
But that part of history was pretty much forgotten.
(09:39):
Not forgotten, we know about it, but it wasn't as publicized as.
Us the one reason was that
ricky dozen kind of resented women's
wrestling as a whole and he that that
is why j ricky dozen and jwa company never used women's wrestler okay hang on
(09:59):
hang on okay okay all right so yeah so in 19 the part of the history it's been
so overlooked that the women's wrestling in Japan,
the big seed were planted the same year, 1951.
Mildred Barke and her crew came in and they did the tour for the US troops.
(10:24):
And that's when Mildred Barke discovered quite a few women's wrestlers in Japan and trained here.
Yeah, therefore the beginning of women's wrestling officially in 1951 but rewind the tape a little bit,
there's a domestic women's wrestling as early as 1948 the Vaudevillians in Japan
(10:49):
the Ikari brothers and her,
you know, the Ikari brothers the Vaudevillians and
their two sisters started wrestling professionally
running shows around the country just like
women's professional wrestling in America and
the mentality was more of a barnstorming is
that the words right correct you know like it was definitely it was definitely
(11:15):
that kind of it was more of an attraction than as a competitive match it was
still or a sport right yeah a sport but kind of like a novelty sport,
Not your typical showbiz sport, yeah. Showbiz.
Well, if you want to go back to the root of something like women's wrestling
(11:38):
in Japan, you can go back to 1600s and 1700s, the women's sumo wrestling, seriously.
Oh, my God. That existed about 300 years period.
It's just like sumo wrestling and professional wrestling in the West, very similar.
(11:59):
A lot of times it's a star-driven sport or entertainment, and people have questioned
the legitimacy of it, if it's a real competitive sport or being entertainment.
And sumo always had that nature in it because they wrestle in front of people, in the audience,
(12:21):
and people choose good guys and bad guys, and they want good guys to win,
or it's more like a realm of cultural anthropology if you think about it, you know.
And also very limited resource of information because the record cannot be found
because they didn't cover it as a sport, you know.
(12:44):
But to make a long story short here, there was such thing as women's sumo wrestling
in about 300-year period.
It was very similar. to women's wrestling.
And some people look at women's sumo in Japan as the root of joshi pro wrestling.
(13:06):
That's what I'm talking about. I see. Yeah, because you are going in front of
the audience and the sumo ring above the ground a little bit,
much like wrestling ring, and people round it.
They call it ring, although it's round. You know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm.
(13:26):
Yeah, this is like a square, but the...
Thing is you can watch both wrestling pro wrestling and sumo wrestling from a 360 degree.
Angle from anywhere right actually it's very and above the ground so people
can watch it's very that the whole stylization of building up you know the creation
(13:51):
of entertainment form is always,
been very similar you know western pro wrestling and Japanese small wrestling
really as a cultural anthropology it's very very similar anyhow so the
root was there in Europe there is like you know before George Hackenschmidt
(14:13):
and all these there have been wrestling or something similar to that you know
we've been doing that since I don't know Greek period right I mean, everywhere,
every country has its own kind of wrestling history.
Yeah, big men or big women, I mean, almost naked, go out there,
(14:34):
go up there and then fight, huh?
They would go and fight for the woman's, to marry someone, to marry a woman of the village.
They were doing it to... Or just for entertainment purposes.
For entertainment. Yeah, because these people are normally bigger than regular people, right?
In some countries like Nigeria or Mongolia, they would do wrestling in the off-season of crop season.
(15:03):
So when it was a certain weather, it would be... And this is also interesting...
Especially around the world, wrestling, and in Japan, wrestling and non-wrestling
events, traditional or ritual events are associated with sumo. A lot of...
(15:24):
Yeah, after Rice Farm got a hold of Harvest, yeah?
Sure, sure. There's that, and there's also a lot of different parts to a full
sumo show and a full Joshi Pro Wrestling show in that there's not just the fight in the ring.
There's a lot that happens before asia or the part of the asia or the iran or the india pakistan.
(15:47):
All the way to like china that korea to japan all
these that the wrestlers or
including small wrestlers right or the
fighters or the gladiators they were owned by the this is like a stable of wrestlers
were owned by land you know landlords you know what i'm saying yeah that's like
(16:09):
uh There were formation of like a very beginning of professional wrestling,
like things in every culture.
Yeah. And I think it also, it speaks to what people wanted for entertainment.
And in Japan, Joshi Pro Wrestling ended up, we call it, you know,
(16:30):
women's pro wrestling, but there's a little bit extra to it compared to any
other types of pro wrestling. There's a lot of showbiz to it. Yeah.
Yeah, and also, yeah, so that's why I touched upon women's sumo wrestling culture
goes back to 1600s and 1700s.
And now that the fast forward the tape a little bit, only three years after
(16:52):
the war, 1948, there was women's wrestling in Japan before Rikidozen.
Interesting, huh? Mm-hmm.
And in 1955, I mean, 1951, the same year Ricky Dawson debuted as a professional
wrestler under Bobby Browns.
And in 1954, you already have TV and you have Sharp Brothers,
(17:14):
Ricky Dawson, Masahiko Kimura, the big television extravaganza and television
made wrestling famous and wrestling made television famous.
Like a gorgeous Shoji era.
And those are all men's wrestling. In women's wrestling, same year,
1951, Mildred Bark came to Japan and planted the seed of American-style professional wrestling.
(17:38):
And five Japanese women wrestlers debuted.
And by 1955, they were like, just like history repeating itself.
In not just one company but by 1955 there was All Japan Women's Wrestling,
not the version of All Japan Pro Wrestling that we know from
(17:59):
60s and 70s and 80s and 90s but the
All Japan Pro Wrestling Association and
Tokyo Universal Joshi Pro Wrestling Dan
All Japan Pro Wrestling Club and
Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling not the Tokyo Joshi
that you know right i mean today but it's a different thing
(18:20):
it's 70 year old i mean i mean 70
years ago there was another tokyo joshi pro wrestling
and hiroshima joshi progress is like a seven women's
wrestling company around around japan i mean around the island by 1955 all american
style professional wrestling very interesting huh this that the old japan pro
(18:42):
wrestling that you know bonaka know the Manami Toyota, the Aja Khan,
the Kyoko Inoue, the glorified, this is like big, huge,
All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling, AJWW, that.
Wouldn't start until 1968. There was a time in mid-50s to all through 60s,
(19:05):
there were women's company running shows around the country in Japan and popular.
But these were the groups that weren't covered by sports pages or even wrestling
magazine didn't even cover all that much.
There was quite a few reasons for it that during Rikido-san's era,
(19:25):
Rikidozan pretty much resented women's wrestling as a whole, and basically,
that's why Rikidozan's JWA never had women's match at their shows.
That's still the tradition until today, I mean, in general. Yeah,
New Japan or All Japan never had women's wrestlers in their ring.
(19:50):
Yeah, it's almost race. I mean, like almost sexist thing or male chauvinistic
thing, I'm not so proud of it, but the tradition remains, you know,
set the subjects aside, you know?
Yeah, it's just I think most Japanese fans compartmentalize.
There's women's wrestling here. There's men's wrestling over here.
Sometimes they overlap, but in general, they're totally different.
(20:14):
Whereas I think now, especially now, women's wrestling, men's wrestling,
it's very, very mixed here.
You'll see most programs have one or two or more women's matches, tag team matches.
It's more competitive, but it's not too… And there are stars, female stars.
Oh, definitely. Definitely, but I think one of the big differences,
(20:34):
and we'll get into it later and probably into other episodes too, is the style in the ring.
It's like what the men do.
Not trying to reduce it to that's all it is, but in general,
the style is pretty similar to what men would do in the ring today.
If you watch those old 1950s, 1960s matches with women, with Mildred Rose.
(20:55):
Because they were coached by a different group of people. Yeah,
now that the WWE Performance Center or the independent wrestling companies or
wrestling schools around the country in the States,
yeah, the men and women were trained together in the ring.
Therefore, the styles are the same. One and the same.
And working left-hand side, you know, work left, turn right, and the form is the same.
(21:21):
You know, the men's wrestling and the women's wrestling. Whereas Japanese wrestling,
joshi pro-wrestling, we should call it, Japanese joshi pro-wrestling,
women's wrestling, had its own evolution and a different development in history.
A lot of women's wrestlers or wrestling companies in Japan had this.
(21:44):
Initially, Mildred Park.
And in the late 60s, Fabulous Moodle School of Wrestling. But a lot of these
women's companies in Japan have Mexican lucha influence.
Therefore, you work right.
Instead of having left hand and left arm first, but the right,
(22:05):
you know, when you do that, I'm talking about the lock up and,
you know, color on the elbow tie up.
But at the beginning of the match, you have right arm forward and just like
Mexican style that happens in women's wrestling. Even to this day,
people like Meiko Satomura, she can work both.
Because initially, she learned the right arm first in a Mexican style,
(22:29):
then adapted to a left first.
That's why she is able to do both styles.
But in all Japan's style, all the way until the 90s, including people like Ajakan,
it's Mexican right-hand style.
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We'll have to talk about that more when we get, when Mexico. The more modern.
Yeah. Well, also just when, and Mexican companies and Japanese companies,
when women's wrestling started to work together and start business relationships.
(23:59):
But we don't know how Lucha Libre became right hand work, right style.
There's quite a few different theories to it.
Mexican wrestler who learned style in
America brought that back and made
mistakes making everything right hand instead of
left that's another thing and just quite
(24:22):
a few different theories as to why Lucha Libre work
on right and we still don't have the answer to this day but the fact is that
when Japanese women pro wrestling had so much Lucha influence early on that
the right-hand side work style is still there.
(24:43):
I mean, still here in Japan. That's what I'm trying to get to.
Yeah, people like Jaguar Yokota or even Bon Nakano, they when you lock up,
you have your right arm forward a lot of times in Japan.
But now it's universal that style that stardom wrestlers always left.
(25:06):
You know, like worldwide style.
And there's differences in style if you look at it in details. Mm-hmm.
It evolved in a different way. I mean, you can watch men's wrestling.
You can see a lot of it. It's not too, it doesn't deviate from what it originally
was. It does, but it doesn't do that too much.
(25:27):
Women's wrestling, there were a lot of different influences.
A lot of the wrestlers would define what the style was like at the time.
Yeah, yeah. But I don't want to bore all the listeners out about the big details
of this, you know, Japanese joshi protesting in the 1950s.
But the plant, I mean, the seeds were planted way back in 1951 by Mildred Bark.
(25:50):
And that portion of history has been so overlooked so that the women's wrestling
in Japan is just as old or even older than Rikidozan's pro wrestling.
You know, it's interesting.
And she's the one who brought over the WWWA title.
Title that is a little bit later on like you have
to fast forward another 15 years because it will
(26:13):
be it won't be until like 67 you know
what i'm saying oh okay so it's a little bit later yeah the
post-war only six years after the
war was over and it's still ghq general headquarter
you know occupation in japan that the that the tribute to troops wrestling show
from america was produced in Japan and there were Bobby Brand's men's wrestling
(26:37):
tour that discovered Ricky Dozen and also 1951 same year that Mildred Bark had a tour,
women's wrestling all around the country, very popular and just as popular I
think and like a new entertainment from America and it was going to be popular
but JWA and Ricky Dozen didn't really take up.
(26:58):
On women's wrestling as a part of the JWA And therefore, women's wrestling has
a completely different history and completely different development,
completely different evolution.
Women's wrestling grew as women's wrestling in Japan. That's what I'm trying to get to. Hmm.
Yeah, but by having that completely separate history, that we always had many
(27:22):
wrestlers, women's wrestlers, not just two wrestlers among men's card.
You know, there always been a women's company, you know, women's wrestling company
around the country. It had its own group.
It wasn't just one or two matches on the men's show. It was never like that.
Yeah. It had room to develop.
(27:43):
It had room to, you know. And also had an amateur wrestling influence,
too, that most of the wrestlers were trained both professional wrestling and
amateur wrestling, freestyle wrestling.
I mean, at the same, at the dojo, the practice session was the same.
It was much more serious than the American style at the time.
(28:03):
But it was going to be professional wrestling and it was going to be entertainment nonetheless.
Mm-hmm. In a different way. Yeah, that's right. In a different way.
As early as 1955 women's wrestling in Japan had television their own television in Japan?
Which channel was that on? it was not a regular weekly program one hour show
(28:29):
every week but when they had their title matches you know.
Women's wrestling in Japan had a little bit different setup they had the flyweights
or bantamweights, featherweight and lightweights.
And, you know, then the heaviest one was a middleweight.
You know what I'm saying? Much like boxing, huh?
And that's what the wrestling becomes in Japanese wrestling become a little
(28:53):
bit deceiving because they treated this similar to boxing.
Therefore people watched it as a sport.
Right. I think that seemed to be the, just kind of how things were around the
forties and fifties boxing and wrestling were probably as linked as a.
Yeah. Joe Louis Saylor era. Yeah, sure.
(29:14):
Yeah. I mean, you know, the, the ring magazine, there was also the ring wrestling.
Oh yeah. Yeah, over here too, the boxing magazine and the wrestling magazine
were the one and the same at the beginning.
The idea, it came from that sort of, the sports aren't the same,
but the businesses are similar.
And ring looked similar. Sure, sure.
(29:37):
Yeah, and had a ring announcer and referee, they dressed the same.
Similar approaches, and a lot of boxing fans were wrestling fans and vice versa
until, I mean, things developed in different ways over here and over in Japan too.
Right. And there was also the company against company thing even happening even
(30:03):
in the late 60s, even within women's wrestling, there were like five,
six different companies.
It was unified into Nippon Joshi Pro Wrestling Association once in 1967,
all the companies joined to become one big company, Nippon Joshi Pro Wrestling,
(30:24):
Japan Joshi Pro Wrestling Association, right?
And 1968, they invited Fabulous Muller to be, you know, basically world champion
to be brought in and leave the belt there. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Kind of like Luthez. Sure. I don't know how many times Ruth S won the,
(30:47):
not just NWA World Heavyweight title,
but almost every part of the state, you know, country that the wrestling was,
when Ruth S was brought in, he was already World Heavyweight Champion.
And probably lose to your local superstar.
Therefore, you can create your local World Heavyweight Championship belt, not in that town.
(31:12):
Does that make sense? Yeah, because the champion isn't from the area.
He goes on his way. The local wrestler stays.
They got their own belt. The territory has its own belt now.
It's a organic transition. Therefore, you have many, many world heavyweight
champions in wrestling. Sure.
Just like men's. Yeah. It happened in women's wrestling in Japan in 1968, too.
(31:33):
Fabulous Mura came and left, right? And there was Japanese stars at the time.
You know, like Yukiko Tomoe, you know, all these people way before Mahafumi Ake or Beauty Pear.
I mean, decades before Crash Girls and Bonacano. You know what I'm saying?
(31:54):
But in 1968, this Nippon Joshi Pro-Wrestling Association had a big split.
Japan Joshi Pro-Wrestling and All Japan Pro-Wrestling. That became the All Japan
Women's Pro Wrestling that we all know of.
That's the beginning of it. 1968, Matsunaga Brothers.
(32:17):
So who were the Matsunaga Brothers? Matsunaga Brothers are four brothers.
Actually, there were five brothers, but the one brother never got involved.
So all four of them, the real brothers, they were like a post-war into the 50s to early 60s.
They were in conjunction with women's wrestling. They were boxers and judoka,
(32:39):
and they actually worked what looks like today's MMA, but work.
Judo against boxing, wrestler against boxer, or judoka against wrestler, or something like that.
They were doing that among brothers. They're working.
Yeah. And also running company, and also they were building rings.
(33:00):
They're also running concessions. they're sitting at the tables
and rings and all these things and they they
pack up and go to another town barnstorming that the root of women's wrestler
the matsunaga brothers were promoters and i guess a lot of wrestlers and and
their relatives and cousins are all married to each other or something and you
(33:20):
know i'm saying that uh it's kind of like your uh.
What's the famous family in Tennessee, you know, that Welch and,
no, before Jared, the Welch's and the Follower's. Yeah.
Herb Welch and, yeah, yeah. All the, you know, Welch and the Follower,
(33:42):
like the Buddy Follower sons and their cousins and all the referee and the daughters
all married to wrestlers.
All this, you cannot count them all. But there was such family as the Welch family in Tennessee.
They ran wrestling through 1920s to 30s and 40s.
Much like that in Japan, Matsunaga brothers ruled the women part of professional
(34:05):
wrestling industry for a long time.
Yeah, to make the long story short. And therefore, in 1968, all Japan women's
pro wrestling finally was born.
In Japan, Women's Pro Wrestling had Channel 12.
Not regular show, but whenever the champion comes in and has a title match,
(34:30):
they air that as a TV special.
And all Japan's Women's Pro Wrestling had Channel 8, Fuji Television.
So two channels, network channels, that didn't carry men's wrestling at the
time, wanted to have women's wrestling on the channels. That helped. That helped.
Now it's good that we skipped all the way from 1950s and 1960s,
(34:53):
and now it's late 1960s into early 70s. It's really amazing, yeah.
Well, that's just how it developed.
Like you said, Rikidozan, who was the boss for a good chunk of that time,
wasn't interested in having women's wrestling on the shows.
Even during Rikidozan's era, there were five or six other wrestling companies
in Japan that Rikidozan had to conquer and be made into one.
(35:17):
Yeah, there was one in Osaka, there was one in Kumamoto that Masahiko Kimura was running.
And there were quite a few men's wrestling companies besides JWA.
Rikidozan conquered one by one and made it into a big, huge JWA.
And something similar in the women's wrestling industry happened.
(35:38):
But the women's wrestling was never covered as a news, as like in Tokyo Sports,
your tabloid newsstand, newspapers, they didn't really put results of women's
matches for the longest time.
So it's the details of these records and the title match or who were the champions
(36:00):
is all kind of sketchy up to this day.
It was Rashi Ogawa, you know, in late 1970.
Actually, 1978 to be exact, when 21-year-old Rashi Ogawa started working for
All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling.
He went all the way back and tried to have as accurate as possible record of
(36:23):
who was the champion and what day in town, you know, the title match happened
and the championship changed hands, all these things.
And 21-year-old Rassi Ogawa did all the research.
Did you know that? I didn't know he was that deeply connected to the lineage
of women's wrestling. He is one of the last. He started.
Oh, God. Right now, the 65-year-old Rassi is the king of Joshi Pro Wrestling in Japan after all.
(36:50):
But 21-year-old young Rassi Ogawa started working for All Japan Women's Wrestling as early as 1978.
He was only 21. Interesting, huh? Mm-hmm.
But we'll get to Rossi in a little bit.
But women's wrestling started having actual written history around that time.
(37:13):
So the first 20 years of women's wrestling in Japan, still kind of sketchy because
there was no written history.
And I'm hoping that the world discovers some of the big old posters that you'll
probably find in your grandma's,
you know back the closet or some way you know i'm saying you know okay so tell me this when,
(37:40):
joshua pro wrestling was like you said
in the let's we're talking early 70s right
now and we're talking about the newspapers and magazines
did was it like how things were at the shows where the women's promotions and
the men's promotions were separate did they launched their own Joshi Pro Wrestling
(38:01):
publications or were they included in like Gong Baseball Magazine in sections of that?
How was the coverage? What was the coverage like?
All Japan women's pro wrestling always had their own like a pamphlet and program
at their show selling. Okay.
So they had their own. There was like an almanac and posters and the photos.
(38:25):
And but that's not really like a
largely circulated publication right right
it's for fans you have to yeah you had to buy that
you know piece of magazine at the show and if
it was 1968 i don't know you even exist anymore or like i said in somebody's
garage somewhere you might be able to discover you know if they didn't throw
(38:48):
it away but you need a big huge superstar okay there was this is like a group
of stars, like, you know, like, you know.
That was on television early, like Jumbo Miyamoto and, you know,
early Fuji television program.
But it wasn't until Mak Fumiake, we call it Maha, Maha Fumiake.
(39:08):
OK, she was born in 1959 and she was six feet tall, very pretty.
The former karate, Kyokushin karate fighter who went into the TV show called Star Tanjou.
It's like a star search television much like
your today's what the america's got talent kind of show
(39:29):
yeah it wasn't until maha fumiake mark like speed that the faster than light
right mac 10 yeah 60 right right right maha fumiake became superstar of joshi
pro wrestling in 1974 she was only.
That the year before that young 13 14 year old,
(39:55):
Fumiaki went into a TV show called Star Tanjo Star Tanjo is like your star search
show much like today's your America's Got Talent you with me on that.
Auditioning show American Idol something like that like a talent star search
show he was a finalist Yeah,
(40:17):
Fumiaki was a finalist of that show and almost got popular during that show too.
But she did not win that audition, Star Is Born show.
Instead, right after that, she came to, with her family, she came to All Japan
Women and decided to become a professional wrestler instead.
(40:40):
That was a huge hit. She was going to be a pop singer and real pretty and tall,
like 180 centimeters, like a six feet tall, former Kyokushin karate fighter and age of 15.
She made a sensational debut in 1974.
She was the biggest star for that time period, Mahfumi Ake.
(41:04):
And she was the one who started singing in the ring because she was going to be a singer.
So she was multi-talented had
a really unique look six feet tall for uh
at 15 japanese woman yeah in
1974 that's not you wouldn't
see that every day you don't see that every day now it's just like it very
(41:24):
it seems like a unique unique body
unique personality and also channel 8
fuji television decided to have her on different you know different shows too
that promoted women's dressing into really into like a popular that the trend
pop culture right there that let's go watch right she was kind of like spokesperson.
(41:49):
And later on, yes. Yeah, but at the age of 15 and 16, yeah.
Yeah, she was more of like idol. Idol.
That didn't really have a word then. You know, she was on television.
She was on movies. She was on TV commercial.
She appeared on game show, the singing shows. And later on, she even sing.
Then they, the channel, it was All Japan Woman's idea too.
(42:12):
But Channel 8, Fuji Television wanted to have her singing in that ring too.
That started that tradition all the way to, you know, Crash Girls,
to Aja Khan, to everybody singing in the ring, even Medusa.
Yeah, that tradition remained the next 20 years.
Even Maki Ito singing on AEW.
(42:33):
I guess, yeah. Right, right. So Japanese women's wrestlers sing in the ring and dance. Yeah.
So that part still remains as a unique Japanese culture. But actually,
Maha Fumiaki was a pioneer of that.
That Mahafumiake era has been somewhat overlooked because of the huge,
(42:55):
super big, huge popularity of beauty pair that came right after.
How close together were those?
They were actually beauty pair, Maki Ueda, Jackie Sato pair,
and Mahafumiake, they're all born in 1959, same age, actually.
And what happened was, though, that Maha Fumiaki's super sensational boom only
(43:20):
lasted not even three years.
Much like Sayama Tiger Mask, you know, phenomena.
That she was a huge superstar, 74, 75, into 76.
And the spring of 1976, she, before telling the company about it,
she announced her retirement. Right.
(43:41):
She felt that she'd done it all at the age of 17, that she walked away from women's wrestling.
That is why she still remains as almost like an elusive or mysterious superstar
that existed once upon a time.
She's still a TV person, and she's an actor, and she's also an entrepreneur,
(44:04):
and she does a lot of things now. Now that Mahafumiaki is, what,
63 now? But she's still a television person.
But as a wrestling portion of it, much like Dwayne Johnson, it will be forgotten.
You know what I'm saying?
Mahafumiaki was a huge superstar and was also a WWWA champion in the ring and
(44:27):
was a superstar for just a three-year period, much like Satoru Sayama's Tiger Mascara.
They only lasted, you know, a little less than three years.
Therefore, I think that the legend remains even bigger, I guess,
because you can only watch her, you know, wrestling in old, old tapes, you know.
But all in all, Maha Fumiaki basically quit and walked out on wrestling in the
(44:53):
midst of her biggest peak popularity.
And there were two
new you know younger wrestling same age same
height just as athletic may not be as pretty but there was a tag team of beauty
pair beauty pair Jackie Sato and Maki Ueda and Fuji television people said we
(45:15):
got these girls then created beauty pair this tag team also was
really popular and actually a better worker in the ring than Fumiaki was probably.
And also, this pair became much popular among teenage girls, and therefore...
(45:35):
The beauty pair tradition remains after this
beauty pair you have black pair that you know
that that the queen the golden the queen
angels that golden pair that all the way to crash girls or jungle jack or whatever
you know or even today's queen's quest or something that or beauty women's beauty
(45:56):
i always had this little unit like faction that the beauty pair was
it had its own
like like it existed on their
own you know and the team was
formed in february of 1976 and their
popularity lasted another three years all the way to 1979 yeah and you we should
(46:23):
put that the youtube video clip short video clip of that the one you discovered
that the beauty Beauty Pair movie trailer.
Oh, God. They had their own movies. They had their own concerts.
They had their, you know, when the wrestlers are so popular,
you have to come up with gimmicks.
Like a march, t-shirt, the other things, records, singing.
(46:47):
I mean, not the CD or downloading music, but it was a record.
You're talking about the vinyl,
the single vinyl, you know, like a donut record you're talking about.
It was so popular that people bought
records and there were movies they
had their musical and yeah they did
all these a decade before Crash Girls we'll get to Crash Girls Lionel Sasca
(47:13):
and Chigusa Nagayo era that was equally huge but if there was no if there was
no Mahafumiya there was no no Beauty Pair if there was no Beauty Pair there
wouldn't be Crash Girls that's what I'm talking about so,
That's a star-driven business, right?
And the Japanese Joshi women's wrestling always had its own league and their
(47:39):
own group of fans, their own wrestling community.
It was never part of a men's wrestling. During this Mahafumi Ake and Beauty
Pay era, of course, Giant Baba's wrestling existed.
Antonio Inoki's New Japan existed. And it was different.
I mean, it was super popular, but it was almost as if it was a different culture.
(48:02):
Does that make sense? Well, definitely. I mean, if you look at the,
you can go on YouTube now and watch some of the old footage and you can see, look into the crowd.
It's not your usual All Japan Pro Wrestling crowd.
It's a lot of teenage girls.
It's like girls probably age 12 to 16.
Yeah, with confetti and headbands and the pom-pom and all these things and streaming,
(48:27):
you know, like the ribbon streaming or being thrown into the ring.
That tradition started in women's wrestling and moved on to men's wrestling, you know?
They started throwing, you know, the multicolor streamer.
Those are from the beauty pair era. Yes. Teenage female fans.
(48:48):
Yeah, like the pop idols. Exactly. It's like a pop group, like the same reaction
that Spice Girls would have. Monkeys. Oh, yeah.
We talked about it earlier. Yeah, like Bay City Rollers or something like that. Oh, very similar.
One of those acts that... Just happen to be wrestlers.
Yeah, they happen to be wrestlers, but they also sing and they act in their
(49:09):
own movies and they're in commercials and they're on variety shows at night.
I think that's a big, big part of understanding the popularity behind a lot of these.
Yeah, and also Japanese television at night is like a game show heaven, right?
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, that's when... I'm not so proud of it,
but... That's when adults are watching television in Japan.
And those shows like Downtown, those are still the most popular shows.
(49:32):
That's what most people like to... Yeah, yeah. Well, also we got to understand
in the mid to late 70s into 80s, there was no such thing as internet.
Therefore, no social media. Of course, not even the internet,
not even the VHS or VCR that you have to watch actual television when it's going.
(49:56):
Yeah, when it's on, you got to watch it.
Unless you have a VCR and you can tape it. When did you have your first VCR?
Your parents' house. Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to remember.
I don't have. I didn't buy my, yeah. My first VCR, I'm doing like 84, 85.
Probably 88.
(50:17):
Probably when my younger brother was born. Yeah.
But I don't remember, but I think, I remember when I got my first tape rewinder.
Did you have one of those?
Tape recorders? No, no. Are they set tapes? Oh, the open reel?
No, no, no. Oh, not like the open reel. It's like you basically take the VHS
(50:38):
tape and you put it into this little, it just looks like a slot,
and you put it into the slot.
It's a little machine. You press down on it. You press the button,
and it rewinds the tape for you after you watch the movie because at the rental
shop they always reminded you have to rewind it all the way to the beginning please be kind rewind.
(50:58):
Okay so I had in the
90s the beauty pair
era we didn't even have or not just we
but the world this world didn't have VCR
you know but just now on
YouTube somebody had these original tapes
or the dubbing of original now this
(51:20):
the old footage of beauty pair
or even mahafumiake start popping up on youtube which is good which is good
you know but now we can really learn because all japan women's popularity in
90s enormous right but there was such era in mid 70s there was mahafumiake era And right after that,
(51:43):
the beauty pair, Jackie Sato and Maki Ueda.
But the beauty pair era thing only lasted another three years.
76, 77, 78.
And in the beginning of 1979, at the Budokan, all Japan women ran Budokan shows
then still. I mean, like already.
(52:04):
And Maki Ueda against Jackie Sato had a single match against each other. The loser has to retire.
Then therefore the beauty pair was no longer and Jackie Sato won the match and
won the title and Maki Ueda really retired for real and she never came back,
(52:27):
never came back now she runs her own bar well 63
year old makiwada still exists you know then people kind of visit and she still
looks like makiwada aged a little bit but yeah and for the record yeah jackie
sato passed away when she was what 41 yeah stomach cancer yeah and then and i I was living alone,
(52:49):
so I wasn't really, you know, fond for a while, you know.
But this beauty pair era was so huge.
And therefore, you had this, you know, the whole three-year boom period phenomena.
And what happened was that when beauty pair basically was broken up and,
(53:12):
you know, they retired the character, right?
What happened was those teenage female fans retired, too.
I see. Yeah, yeah. It was purely a connection with that generation.
Yeah, because the Bay City Rollers only lasted a few year boom period.
(53:35):
Or your Monkees, when TV was on, they were popular.
But when the TV show was gone, people found another TV show, right?
I i never knew the bay city rollers were
that popular i only know the one song i i
think i don't know my baby no i only know saturday night saturday night okay
(53:55):
oh they were so huge yeah okay the the little side discussion but they're it's
funny that there are some bands that are really huge in europe and they're really
huge in japan and south america was never big in America that much? Yeah, yeah.
It could be one of those situations. Because it's the same time period that
the band Kiss hit in America. Ah.
(54:17):
You know, guys like Kiss over Bay City Rollers. Bay City Rollers was for kids. I mean, for girls.
Seventh grade girls. It was like, what was the guy from Partridge Family?
What's it? Leaf Cassidy? Leaf Cassidy. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah, so same thing. But the beauty period remained. But the All Japan Women's
(54:41):
Wrestling television was still on, and you had a Queen Angels that Lucy Kayama and Tommy Aoyama,
then Golden Pair, Nancy Kumi and Victoria Fujimi, that the Black Pair,
Yumi Ikeshita and Mami Kumano,
that, you know, the semi-stars there and the TV show was there.
(55:01):
And then, you know, in 1980, you have 16-year-old, you know,
Jaguar Yokota and Debo Masami, you know, arrival, right?
And there were, and also Mimi Hagiwara, another former pop singer turned wrestler.
She was popular too, for a short period of time.
(55:23):
And you had to wait till 1984, Crash Girls period.
Crash Girls is Chigusa Nagayo and Laone Sasuka.
Now that Chigusa Nagayo trains. Also, there was a 1990s Gaia Japan period where
she trained dozens of women's wrestlers. and also that the Gaia Girls documentary
(55:43):
film got popular in America too, right?
I think more in England. Yeah, it was really intense scenes with her and young Satomura.
15-year-old Satomura, yeah. So there's always a link to the next generation of superstars.
Isn't that interesting? The link is still there with Rossi. Yeah, right.
(56:07):
Yeah, yeah, because he was not a wrestler so he never
retired and that's his life you know and rossi
was there when well actually 25 year
old rossi was driving crash girls van every
day yeah right i'd
love to read his book the book that he wrote on his phone
one day oh yeah he wrote the
(56:29):
entire book on his iphone that's amazing just a couple
years ago right yeah yeah so uh
now he's a king of stardom and uh he uh
he finally reached his peak now you
know yeah interesting but yeah
so uh we touched upon these things today but now that the i think this episode
(56:51):
one was that that the japanese women's wrestling as a whole has actually a lot
longer history than the people know about there are some gaps we're trying to
fill in the gaps, I suppose,
especially... Oh, God, I haven't even.
I mean, we did our best. So much to learn.
I mean, I think there...
(57:11):
The broad strokes are there for sure. And one difficult thing about Jojo pro
wrestling is that if you do look in more and more within the history of it,
it's much harder to find good resources on history.
Good. I mean, it was never covered in print media, even in Japan.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But then we do know that in early fifties,
(57:35):
1951 to be exact, that there was a mildew bark influence on it.
And in late 19, In the 1960s, 1967 and 1968 to be exact, there was Fabulous
Moolah's influence on it.
And there was a Lucha Libre influence on it as a style. Because a lot of Mexican
female wrestlers came over here and stayed length of times.
(57:57):
And trained with Japanese wrestlers. And all Japan women's wrestlers traditionally
were trained under Lucha technique.
Nick, that therefore there's a mix of right hand and, you know,
working right, working left, you know, working left, turn right,
working right, turn left.
They did the both, but the basically for long time, Japanese Joshi progressing,
(58:22):
had this almost like a unique Lucha influence on it that,
that need to be focused and there was star power that like out of blue that
they created or or the Star Wars bone in Mahafumi Ake, huge,
huge superstar who started singing in the ring.
(58:42):
And it was a big, huge pop phenomenon.
But it was short-lived, but she walked away. And then you have,
right after Mahafumi Ake, there was Beauty Pair era.
Jackie Sato and Maki Ueda became even more popular.
And therefore, it really finalized the style of joshi pro wrestling in Japan. Wow.
(59:03):
Yeah, that's as far as we can get today, I guess. I don't know.
Yeah, but we had... That's the first stage.
Yeah, when Beauty Pair retired, all these teenage fans left too, you know?
But the All Japan Women were still running 250 to 300 shows on the road every
day, all through the year, on the bus.
(59:25):
And in 1978, 21-year-old Rassi Ogawa joined the company.
And also I think I mean
when we talk about the fans of the
Crush Cows also retiring along with them that also
opened up there was a short dark age until you had to wait till the rise of
(59:47):
Bonakano and that kind of bull dump Matsumoto and the beginning of that era
of All Japan Women's Wrestling actually Bonakano had two peak era because she was It was,
you know, like an understudy of Matsumoto era,
but as of 1985-ish, Bona kind of became solo big-time superstar on her own.
(01:00:11):
I think what I wanted to get to is that when Crush Gal's fan base of teenage
girls left, it opened up all Japan's path.
It sort of gave them a right turn to start promoting and marketing to a more
men-centric or male audience in Japan? Yeah, let me squeeze one more element to it.
(01:00:35):
Right after Crash Girls, both Chigusa Nagayo and Lioness Asuka.
Basically, they may come back a little bit later on, but had their first retirement
in 1989, Medusa was brought in to live in Japan by Rasio Gawa.
(01:00:56):
Alondra Blaze to some yeah to some and 26 year old Medusa Michele came from
Minnesota and lived in Japan for three years and learned the language and did
all the singing in the ring and all these promotions the picture book and the
image videos and all these things that was done to,
done previously with Beauty Pear
(01:01:18):
and Mahafumiake all the same method was applied to Medusa in 1989 1989.
Interesting there's a lot of interesting stuff we have to get to just in
the 1980s alone 1980 okay interesting decade
so next time i guess we can start talking more about
you know beauty pair and end
up with beauty pair in a short period of a little bit of
(01:01:40):
dark age but the barnstorming style of all
japan pro wrestling running 300 shows a year it remained
and there was a crash girls era there was
jaguar yokota there was devil masami then 1989
there was medusa so we gotta get we're
gonna start from around there yeah and i think all of those names that
you just mentioned are i think you can see they're legends huh but you can see
(01:02:04):
and feel the influence of especially those four for example there's you can
still feel their influence today in today's women's wrestling and today's men's
wrestling too oh i mean jaguar yokota devil masami the Crash Girls,
Rihanna, Sasuka, and Chigusa Nagayo, and even Medusa, and Bonacano, Aja Khan.
Aja still work in the ring today, though. To this day. Each is so unique,
(01:02:29):
each is so different, too.
Right, and also, we'll get to the point where how they reached out to men's
audience, because Bonacano era, they drew men's audience, therefore true wrestling
fans, and not as fragile as a peak period.
You know that the wrestling fans didn't leave that we can go probably all the
(01:02:51):
way to 1994 Tokyo Dome show next episode huh oh the long I hope so that might need its own episode.
All right, but I think people enjoyed this very beginning of a women's wrestling in Japan 101 lesson.
(01:03:12):
Yeah, and you know, because we covered a lot today, but like we were talking
about earlier, there are so many blind spots in this part of wrestling history.
So if anybody has questions or comments or anything like that,
or love to answer that and we'll be
(01:03:34):
putting together pieces of puzzle ourselves yeah yeah
because it's something that's actually even in Japanese
it's kind of hard to put the pieces together because
there's not that many pieces because not too many
people really watched like last
50 years of it without any upset you know what
I mean but it's interesting to understand why yeah to
(01:03:55):
be honest with you I didn't watch you know
I was there but I didn't really seriously you know
watch beauty pair all that much well there
were other big okie Fanny Bob a fan going on
at the time it's on yeah yeah and women's
wrestling during this you know beauty pair it was on like a Sunday Sunday afternoon
(01:04:16):
you know and that was Sunday afternoon wasn't the time I was watching television
you know but it was it did kind of develop this different audience a unique
audience for that product.
Yeah, and then All Japan Women's Wrestling were running just as many shows as
any men's company all through the year, yeah.
(01:04:37):
All over, not just Tokyo. All over Japan.
Oh, no, all over. I think they ran more country shows than men's company.
Yeah. And I heard some horror stories of those tours and women with the IV stuck in them and on the bus.
Exhausted, dehydrated, broken bones, bruises, all that good stuff.
(01:05:00):
Yeah, and then all Japan women's wrestling traditionally was so self-sufficient
that the girls built the ring.
They put the seat, you know, and they were standing in concession.
They tore down the ring. They packed and, you know, they were back in bus or trucks.
And here they went to another town, next town, you know.
(01:05:21):
And therefore like a 19th century
barnstorming you know that the elements were
all there yeah there's lots
to cover so let's get into next time so yeah
if you have questions or any comments
I'm hoping that the people are real interested in this the whole history unique
history of women's wrestling in Japan which is completely separate from men's
(01:05:45):
wrestling culture but it's important to understand because when you understand
that you understand a lot a lot more elements of wrestling in general.
And also became something very unique because they didn't have men's wrestling influence.
Exactly, you can really see that. You can see that. Yeah, they were never part of men's company.
(01:06:06):
That's what's unique about Japanese women's wrestling. Yeah,
it developed on its own instead of within men's.
Well, it developed differently over in the States, but we'll keep talking about it.
We'll get into it more next week. So if we have questions or if you have questions
or anything like that, Fumi, how can people get a hold of you?
On Twitter at Fumihikodayo, F-U-M-I-H-I-K-O-D-A-Y-O, at Fumihikodayo on Twitter
(01:06:30):
or just Fumisaito on Facebook. Message me first.
And I'm at Justin M. Nipper, K-N-I-P-P-E-R on Twitter.
Reach out on Twitter, Patreon, email, all that good stuff.
Other than that, we're going to get into silver age of Joshi Pro Wrestling next
week. So until next time, Fumi, take it away. So long from Tokyo.
(01:06:51):
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(01:47):
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Write that. Write that down, Fumisaito. Write that down, Fumisaito.
Welcome back to Write That Down. I'm your host, Justin Ip, where I edit for fightgamemedia.com.
(02:12):
I'm a staff writer at f4wonline.com and wrestlingobserver.com.
I'm back with Japan's leading pro wrestling author, historian,
broadcast journalist, my co-host, Mr.
Fumisaito. All right, so for this episode, we're kicking off our latest Deep Dive Showcase series.
We are going to focus on the history of joshi pro wrestling or women's pro wrestling in Japan.
(02:37):
There are lots of blind spots throughout women's wrestling's history in Japan.
So while it is more difficult to recount in general than men's wrestling,
we did our best to fill in the blanks and provide the broad strokes.
We generally cover from around 1948 into late 60s, 67 in the early 70s today.
(03:01):
And we spent a lot of time talking about Mahafumi Ake. We talked about Beauty
Pair, Maki Ueda, Jackie Sato.
And we spoke a lot about Mildred Burke, among others.
Today so lots more of that enjoy it
if you haven't already please subscribe to fight game media network the podcast
(03:22):
feed the free feed on spotify apple or wherever you usually listen to your podcast
it does always help us out helps out a ton all right that's it let's get into
joshua wrestling history part one.
Four episode of giant barber and i think
we are not going to avoid women's wrestling you
(03:44):
know just because it's so hard um this history uh more like an official history
of women's professional wrestling trace back to like 1945 i'm sorry that the
kiki's walking around on top of my table. Yeah, hello, Kiki. She did a run-in.
Yeah, yeah. He. He, excuse me, he, he. Yeah, the boy. Yeah, big boy.
(04:09):
That women's the first thing you know
american audience american fans you know
who wants to learn history and study history of joshi pro
wrestling japanese women's professional
wrestling pro wrestling was never part of men's show that's the basic difference
you and i talk you know talk about we have to touch upon mildred bark and fabulous
(04:34):
muller and her school of wrestling and And the wrestlers she produced know that.
And they've always been part of the men's show.
Just one match in between some sandwich between men's card.
And during the war, a lot of, you know, a part of the audience too,
(04:55):
but the wrestlers were away during the war in Europe or somewhere.
And that's where Mildred Bark, during 1940s, headlined big wrestling card in
America as a big star because there was a war.
But yes, this is wrestling, but
we still have to learn things about real world. There was a war, right?
(05:22):
The World War II. There was 1941, there was a power harbor.
1945, there was Hiroshima and Narasaki. The war was over.
And there's a thing called GHQ, General Headquarter, U.S. Occupation of Japanese Land.
GHQ, General Headquarter, led by General MacArthur.
(05:47):
And what are we talking about? In 1951, there was a tribute to troops, right?
Very beginning of Rikidozan era progressing in 1951.
I mean, 1949, I'm sorry. Yeah. that...
Bobby Brands and his crew and his tour crew came to Japan and ran the wrestling
(06:15):
tour for the troops and a little bit for Japanese audience.
Like a USO tour. Pretty much, because it's under US occupation still.
And the troops were still in Japan. and Bobby Browns and his wrestling crew,
the whole tour thing, came to Japan for the tribute for the troops in Japan.
(06:39):
They had Japanese audience in the building, and the building was Memorial Hall,
which was old Sumo Palace, actually.
They changed the name during the U.S. occupation.
It was 1951. The war was over in 1945.
Six years later, the U.S. occupation remained. The
general had headquarters that was still in
(07:00):
Japan and Bobby Browns and his crew
and came in and had wrestling tour for the
tribute for the troops and Ricky Dawson joined and debuted and therefore the
birth of pro wrestling in Japan right mm-hmm it kind of imported it to Japan
yeah and then also this or the domestic superstar and the promoter to be in Ricky Dawson mm-hmm.
(07:26):
That's the, yeah, in the more revised, modified history of pro wrestling in
Japan, they want to have a story like Ricky Dawson started it all, you know?
Right. Yeah, that's also partially true because Ricky Dawson was a promoter.
Ricky Dawson was a superstar and Ricky Dawson pretty much did it all,
(07:51):
but he couldn't have had network television right from the get-go, right?
And the mitsubishi big sponsorship a big
you know budget behind it and all these
times it's like a post-war period and there's
no such thing as a working visa for americans to come in right sure all these
(08:11):
things had to be created and yeah ricky dozen was responsible to make television
huge and also he made yeah if there was no wrestling television wouldn't have
been as as popular right away.
And if there wasn't television, Rikido doesn't want to be just as popular.
So they helped each other. That's the birth of pro-wrestling in Japan.
(08:35):
That another big piece of history that's been so overlooked,
same 1951, the women's professional wrestling, the seeds were planted.
Mildred Burke, November of 1951 to be exact, The tour group of Mildred Bark.
(08:57):
Mildred Bark and Mae Young. Yes, the same Mae Young. Great Mae Young.
Who worked all the way through 1999. Of course. Worked until the Attitude Era.
I think so. That same Mae Young. Yeah. Mildred Bark as promoter and champion. And...
(09:17):
Mae Young, Rita, Martinis, Ruth Bocali, Gloria, Vartini, right,
the six women's wrestler, Beverly Anderson, yeah.
So six women's wrestler came over and toured Japan, just like the Sharp Brothers did.
But that part of history was pretty much forgotten.
(09:39):
Not forgotten, we know about it, but it wasn't as publicized as.
Us the one reason was that
ricky dozen kind of resented women's
wrestling as a whole and he that that
is why j ricky dozen and jwa company never used women's wrestler okay hang on
(09:59):
hang on okay okay all right so yeah so in 19 the part of the history it's been
so overlooked that the women's wrestling in Japan,
the big seed were planted the same year, 1951.
Mildred Barke and her crew came in and they did the tour for the US troops.
(10:24):
And that's when Mildred Barke discovered quite a few women's wrestlers in Japan and trained here.
Yeah, therefore the beginning of women's wrestling officially in 1951 but rewind the tape a little bit,
there's a domestic women's wrestling as early as 1948 the Vaudevillians in Japan
(10:49):
the Ikari brothers and her,
you know, the Ikari brothers the Vaudevillians and
their two sisters started wrestling professionally
running shows around the country just like
women's professional wrestling in America and
the mentality was more of a barnstorming is
that the words right correct you know like it was definitely it was definitely
(11:15):
that kind of it was more of an attraction than as a competitive match it was
still or a sport right yeah a sport but kind of like a novelty sport,
Not your typical showbiz sport, yeah. Showbiz.
Well, if you want to go back to the root of something like women's wrestling
(11:38):
in Japan, you can go back to 1600s and 1700s, the women's sumo wrestling, seriously.
Oh, my God. That existed about 300 years period.
It's just like sumo wrestling and professional wrestling in the West, very similar.
(11:59):
A lot of times it's a star-driven sport or entertainment, and people have questioned
the legitimacy of it, if it's a real competitive sport or being entertainment.
And sumo always had that nature in it because they wrestle in front of people, in the audience,
(12:21):
and people choose good guys and bad guys, and they want good guys to win,
or it's more like a realm of cultural anthropology if you think about it, you know.
And also very limited resource of information because the record cannot be found
because they didn't cover it as a sport, you know.
(12:44):
But to make a long story short here, there was such thing as women's sumo wrestling
in about 300-year period.
It was very similar. to women's wrestling.
And some people look at women's sumo in Japan as the root of joshi pro wrestling.
(13:06):
That's what I'm talking about. I see. Yeah, because you are going in front of
the audience and the sumo ring above the ground a little bit,
much like wrestling ring, and people round it.
They call it ring, although it's round. You know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm.
(13:26):
Yeah, this is like a square, but the...
Thing is you can watch both wrestling pro wrestling and sumo wrestling from a 360 degree.
Angle from anywhere right actually it's very and above the ground so people
can watch it's very that the whole stylization of building up you know the creation
(13:51):
of entertainment form is always,
been very similar you know western pro wrestling and Japanese small wrestling
really as a cultural anthropology it's very very similar anyhow so the
root was there in Europe there is like you know before George Hackenschmidt
(14:13):
and all these there have been wrestling or something similar to that you know
we've been doing that since I don't know Greek period right I mean, everywhere,
every country has its own kind of wrestling history.
Yeah, big men or big women, I mean, almost naked, go out there,
(14:34):
go up there and then fight, huh?
They would go and fight for the woman's, to marry someone, to marry a woman of the village.
They were doing it to... Or just for entertainment purposes.
For entertainment. Yeah, because these people are normally bigger than regular people, right?
In some countries like Nigeria or Mongolia, they would do wrestling in the off-season of crop season.
(15:03):
So when it was a certain weather, it would be... And this is also interesting...
Especially around the world, wrestling, and in Japan, wrestling and non-wrestling
events, traditional or ritual events are associated with sumo. A lot of...
(15:24):
Yeah, after Rice Farm got a hold of Harvest, yeah?
Sure, sure. There's that, and there's also a lot of different parts to a full
sumo show and a full Joshi Pro Wrestling show in that there's not just the fight in the ring.
There's a lot that happens before asia or the part of the asia or the iran or the india pakistan.
(15:47):
All the way to like china that korea to japan all
these that the wrestlers or
including small wrestlers right or the
fighters or the gladiators they were owned by the this is like a stable of wrestlers
were owned by land you know landlords you know what i'm saying yeah that's like
(16:09):
uh There were formation of like a very beginning of professional wrestling,
like things in every culture.
Yeah. And I think it also, it speaks to what people wanted for entertainment.
And in Japan, Joshi Pro Wrestling ended up, we call it, you know,
(16:30):
women's pro wrestling, but there's a little bit extra to it compared to any
other types of pro wrestling. There's a lot of showbiz to it. Yeah.
Yeah, and also, yeah, so that's why I touched upon women's sumo wrestling culture
goes back to 1600s and 1700s.
And now that the fast forward the tape a little bit, only three years after
(16:52):
the war, 1948, there was women's wrestling in Japan before Rikidozen.
Interesting, huh? Mm-hmm.
And in 1955, I mean, 1951, the same year Ricky Dawson debuted as a professional
wrestler under Bobby Browns.
And in 1954, you already have TV and you have Sharp Brothers,
(17:14):
Ricky Dawson, Masahiko Kimura, the big television extravaganza and television
made wrestling famous and wrestling made television famous.
Like a gorgeous Shoji era.
And those are all men's wrestling. In women's wrestling, same year,
1951, Mildred Bark came to Japan and planted the seed of American-style professional wrestling.
(17:38):
And five Japanese women wrestlers debuted.
And by 1955, they were like, just like history repeating itself.
In not just one company but by 1955 there was All Japan Women's Wrestling,
not the version of All Japan Pro Wrestling that we know from
(17:59):
60s and 70s and 80s and 90s but the
All Japan Pro Wrestling Association and
Tokyo Universal Joshi Pro Wrestling Dan
All Japan Pro Wrestling Club and
Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling not the Tokyo Joshi
that you know right i mean today but it's a different thing
(18:20):
it's 70 year old i mean i mean 70
years ago there was another tokyo joshi pro wrestling
and hiroshima joshi progress is like a seven women's
wrestling company around around japan i mean around the island by 1955 all american
style professional wrestling very interesting huh this that the old japan pro
(18:42):
wrestling that you know bonaka know the Manami Toyota, the Aja Khan,
the Kyoko Inoue, the glorified, this is like big, huge,
All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling, AJWW, that.
Wouldn't start until 1968. There was a time in mid-50s to all through 60s,
(19:05):
there were women's company running shows around the country in Japan and popular.
But these were the groups that weren't covered by sports pages or even wrestling
magazine didn't even cover all that much.
There was quite a few reasons for it that during Rikido-san's era,
(19:25):
Rikidozan pretty much resented women's wrestling as a whole, and basically,
that's why Rikidozan's JWA never had women's match at their shows.
That's still the tradition until today, I mean, in general. Yeah,
New Japan or All Japan never had women's wrestlers in their ring.
(19:50):
Yeah, it's almost race. I mean, like almost sexist thing or male chauvinistic
thing, I'm not so proud of it, but the tradition remains, you know,
set the subjects aside, you know?
Yeah, it's just I think most Japanese fans compartmentalize.
There's women's wrestling here. There's men's wrestling over here.
Sometimes they overlap, but in general, they're totally different.
(20:14):
Whereas I think now, especially now, women's wrestling, men's wrestling,
it's very, very mixed here.
You'll see most programs have one or two or more women's matches, tag team matches.
It's more competitive, but it's not too… And there are stars, female stars.
Oh, definitely. Definitely, but I think one of the big differences,
(20:34):
and we'll get into it later and probably into other episodes too, is the style in the ring.
It's like what the men do.
Not trying to reduce it to that's all it is, but in general,
the style is pretty similar to what men would do in the ring today.
If you watch those old 1950s, 1960s matches with women, with Mildred Rose.
(20:55):
Because they were coached by a different group of people. Yeah,
now that the WWE Performance Center or the independent wrestling companies or
wrestling schools around the country in the States,
yeah, the men and women were trained together in the ring.
Therefore, the styles are the same. One and the same.
And working left-hand side, you know, work left, turn right, and the form is the same.
(21:21):
You know, the men's wrestling and the women's wrestling. Whereas Japanese wrestling,
joshi pro-wrestling, we should call it, Japanese joshi pro-wrestling,
women's wrestling, had its own evolution and a different development in history.
A lot of women's wrestlers or wrestling companies in Japan had this.
(21:44):
Initially, Mildred Park.
And in the late 60s, Fabulous Moodle School of Wrestling. But a lot of these
women's companies in Japan have Mexican lucha influence.
Therefore, you work right.
Instead of having left hand and left arm first, but the right,
(22:05):
you know, when you do that, I'm talking about the lock up and,
you know, color on the elbow tie up.
But at the beginning of the match, you have right arm forward and just like
Mexican style that happens in women's wrestling. Even to this day,
people like Meiko Satomura, she can work both.
Because initially, she learned the right arm first in a Mexican style,
(22:29):
then adapted to a left first.
That's why she is able to do both styles.
But in all Japan's style, all the way until the 90s, including people like Ajakan,
it's Mexican right-hand style.
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(23:15):
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(23:35):
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We'll have to talk about that more when we get, when Mexico. The more modern.
Yeah. Well, also just when, and Mexican companies and Japanese companies,
when women's wrestling started to work together and start business relationships.
(23:59):
But we don't know how Lucha Libre became right hand work, right style.
There's quite a few different theories to it.
Mexican wrestler who learned style in
America brought that back and made
mistakes making everything right hand instead of
left that's another thing and just quite
(24:22):
a few different theories as to why Lucha Libre work
on right and we still don't have the answer to this day but the fact is that
when Japanese women pro wrestling had so much Lucha influence early on that
the right-hand side work style is still there.
(24:43):
I mean, still here in Japan. That's what I'm trying to get to.
Yeah, people like Jaguar Yokota or even Bon Nakano, they when you lock up,
you have your right arm forward a lot of times in Japan.
But now it's universal that style that stardom wrestlers always left.
(25:06):
You know, like worldwide style.
And there's differences in style if you look at it in details. Mm-hmm.
It evolved in a different way. I mean, you can watch men's wrestling.
You can see a lot of it. It's not too, it doesn't deviate from what it originally
was. It does, but it doesn't do that too much.
(25:27):
Women's wrestling, there were a lot of different influences.
A lot of the wrestlers would define what the style was like at the time.
Yeah, yeah. But I don't want to bore all the listeners out about the big details
of this, you know, Japanese joshi protesting in the 1950s.
But the plant, I mean, the seeds were planted way back in 1951 by Mildred Bark.
(25:50):
And that portion of history has been so overlooked so that the women's wrestling
in Japan is just as old or even older than Rikidozan's pro wrestling.
You know, it's interesting.
And she's the one who brought over the WWWA title.
Title that is a little bit later on like you have
to fast forward another 15 years because it will
(26:13):
be it won't be until like 67 you know
what i'm saying oh okay so it's a little bit later yeah the
post-war only six years after the
war was over and it's still ghq general headquarter
you know occupation in japan that the that the tribute to troops wrestling show
from america was produced in Japan and there were Bobby Brand's men's wrestling
(26:37):
tour that discovered Ricky Dozen and also 1951 same year that Mildred Bark had a tour,
women's wrestling all around the country, very popular and just as popular I
think and like a new entertainment from America and it was going to be popular
but JWA and Ricky Dozen didn't really take up.
(26:58):
On women's wrestling as a part of the JWA And therefore, women's wrestling has
a completely different history and completely different development,
completely different evolution.
Women's wrestling grew as women's wrestling in Japan. That's what I'm trying to get to. Hmm.
Yeah, but by having that completely separate history, that we always had many
(27:22):
wrestlers, women's wrestlers, not just two wrestlers among men's card.
You know, there always been a women's company, you know, women's wrestling company
around the country. It had its own group.
It wasn't just one or two matches on the men's show. It was never like that.
Yeah. It had room to develop.
(27:43):
It had room to, you know. And also had an amateur wrestling influence,
too, that most of the wrestlers were trained both professional wrestling and
amateur wrestling, freestyle wrestling.
I mean, at the same, at the dojo, the practice session was the same.
It was much more serious than the American style at the time.
(28:03):
But it was going to be professional wrestling and it was going to be entertainment nonetheless.
Mm-hmm. In a different way. Yeah, that's right. In a different way.
As early as 1955 women's wrestling in Japan had television their own television in Japan?
Which channel was that on? it was not a regular weekly program one hour show
(28:29):
every week but when they had their title matches you know.
Women's wrestling in Japan had a little bit different setup they had the flyweights
or bantamweights, featherweight and lightweights.
And, you know, then the heaviest one was a middleweight.
You know what I'm saying? Much like boxing, huh?
And that's what the wrestling becomes in Japanese wrestling become a little
(28:53):
bit deceiving because they treated this similar to boxing.
Therefore people watched it as a sport.
Right. I think that seemed to be the, just kind of how things were around the
forties and fifties boxing and wrestling were probably as linked as a.
Yeah. Joe Louis Saylor era. Yeah, sure.
(29:14):
Yeah. I mean, you know, the, the ring magazine, there was also the ring wrestling.
Oh yeah. Yeah, over here too, the boxing magazine and the wrestling magazine
were the one and the same at the beginning.
The idea, it came from that sort of, the sports aren't the same,
but the businesses are similar.
And ring looked similar. Sure, sure.
(29:37):
Yeah, and had a ring announcer and referee, they dressed the same.
Similar approaches, and a lot of boxing fans were wrestling fans and vice versa
until, I mean, things developed in different ways over here and over in Japan too.
Right. And there was also the company against company thing even happening even
(30:03):
in the late 60s, even within women's wrestling, there were like five,
six different companies.
It was unified into Nippon Joshi Pro Wrestling Association once in 1967,
all the companies joined to become one big company, Nippon Joshi Pro Wrestling,
(30:24):
Japan Joshi Pro Wrestling Association, right?
And 1968, they invited Fabulous Muller to be, you know, basically world champion
to be brought in and leave the belt there. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Kind of like Luthez. Sure. I don't know how many times Ruth S won the,
(30:47):
not just NWA World Heavyweight title,
but almost every part of the state, you know, country that the wrestling was,
when Ruth S was brought in, he was already World Heavyweight Champion.
And probably lose to your local superstar.
Therefore, you can create your local World Heavyweight Championship belt, not in that town.
(31:12):
Does that make sense? Yeah, because the champion isn't from the area.
He goes on his way. The local wrestler stays.
They got their own belt. The territory has its own belt now.
It's a organic transition. Therefore, you have many, many world heavyweight
champions in wrestling. Sure.
Just like men's. Yeah. It happened in women's wrestling in Japan in 1968, too.
(31:33):
Fabulous Mura came and left, right? And there was Japanese stars at the time.
You know, like Yukiko Tomoe, you know, all these people way before Mahafumi Ake or Beauty Pear.
I mean, decades before Crash Girls and Bonacano. You know what I'm saying?
(31:54):
But in 1968, this Nippon Joshi Pro-Wrestling Association had a big split.
Japan Joshi Pro-Wrestling and All Japan Pro-Wrestling. That became the All Japan
Women's Pro Wrestling that we all know of.
That's the beginning of it. 1968, Matsunaga Brothers.
(32:17):
So who were the Matsunaga Brothers? Matsunaga Brothers are four brothers.
Actually, there were five brothers, but the one brother never got involved.
So all four of them, the real brothers, they were like a post-war into the 50s to early 60s.
They were in conjunction with women's wrestling. They were boxers and judoka,
(32:39):
and they actually worked what looks like today's MMA, but work.
Judo against boxing, wrestler against boxer, or judoka against wrestler, or something like that.
They were doing that among brothers. They're working.
Yeah. And also running company, and also they were building rings.
(33:00):
They're also running concessions. they're sitting at the tables
and rings and all these things and they they
pack up and go to another town barnstorming that the root of women's wrestler
the matsunaga brothers were promoters and i guess a lot of wrestlers and and
their relatives and cousins are all married to each other or something and you
(33:20):
know i'm saying that uh it's kind of like your uh.
What's the famous family in Tennessee, you know, that Welch and,
no, before Jared, the Welch's and the Follower's. Yeah.
Herb Welch and, yeah, yeah. All the, you know, Welch and the Follower,
(33:42):
like the Buddy Follower sons and their cousins and all the referee and the daughters
all married to wrestlers.
All this, you cannot count them all. But there was such family as the Welch family in Tennessee.
They ran wrestling through 1920s to 30s and 40s.
Much like that in Japan, Matsunaga brothers ruled the women part of professional
(34:05):
wrestling industry for a long time.
Yeah, to make the long story short. And therefore, in 1968, all Japan women's
pro wrestling finally was born.
In Japan, Women's Pro Wrestling had Channel 12.
Not regular show, but whenever the champion comes in and has a title match,
(34:30):
they air that as a TV special.
And all Japan's Women's Pro Wrestling had Channel 8, Fuji Television.
So two channels, network channels, that didn't carry men's wrestling at the
time, wanted to have women's wrestling on the channels. That helped. That helped.
Now it's good that we skipped all the way from 1950s and 1960s,
(34:53):
and now it's late 1960s into early 70s. It's really amazing, yeah.
Well, that's just how it developed.
Like you said, Rikidozan, who was the boss for a good chunk of that time,
wasn't interested in having women's wrestling on the shows.
Even during Rikidozan's era, there were five or six other wrestling companies
in Japan that Rikidozan had to conquer and be made into one.
(35:17):
Yeah, there was one in Osaka, there was one in Kumamoto that Masahiko Kimura was running.
And there were quite a few men's wrestling companies besides JWA.
Rikidozan conquered one by one and made it into a big, huge JWA.
And something similar in the women's wrestling industry happened.
(35:38):
But the women's wrestling was never covered as a news, as like in Tokyo Sports,
your tabloid newsstand, newspapers, they didn't really put results of women's
matches for the longest time.
So it's the details of these records and the title match or who were the champions
(36:00):
is all kind of sketchy up to this day.
It was Rashi Ogawa, you know, in late 1970.
Actually, 1978 to be exact, when 21-year-old Rashi Ogawa started working for
All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling.
He went all the way back and tried to have as accurate as possible record of
(36:23):
who was the champion and what day in town, you know, the title match happened
and the championship changed hands, all these things.
And 21-year-old Rassi Ogawa did all the research.
Did you know that? I didn't know he was that deeply connected to the lineage
of women's wrestling. He is one of the last. He started.
Oh, God. Right now, the 65-year-old Rassi is the king of Joshi Pro Wrestling in Japan after all.
(36:50):
But 21-year-old young Rassi Ogawa started working for All Japan Women's Wrestling as early as 1978.
He was only 21. Interesting, huh? Mm-hmm.
But we'll get to Rossi in a little bit.
But women's wrestling started having actual written history around that time.
(37:13):
So the first 20 years of women's wrestling in Japan, still kind of sketchy because
there was no written history.
And I'm hoping that the world discovers some of the big old posters that you'll
probably find in your grandma's,
you know back the closet or some way you know i'm saying you know okay so tell me this when,
(37:40):
joshua pro wrestling was like you said
in the let's we're talking early 70s right
now and we're talking about the newspapers and magazines
did was it like how things were at the shows where the women's promotions and
the men's promotions were separate did they launched their own Joshi Pro Wrestling
(38:01):
publications or were they included in like Gong Baseball Magazine in sections of that?
How was the coverage? What was the coverage like?
All Japan women's pro wrestling always had their own like a pamphlet and program
at their show selling. Okay.
So they had their own. There was like an almanac and posters and the photos.
(38:25):
And but that's not really like a
largely circulated publication right right
it's for fans you have to yeah you had to buy that
you know piece of magazine at the show and if
it was 1968 i don't know you even exist anymore or like i said in somebody's
garage somewhere you might be able to discover you know if they didn't throw
(38:48):
it away but you need a big huge superstar okay there was this is like a group
of stars, like, you know, like, you know.
That was on television early, like Jumbo Miyamoto and, you know,
early Fuji television program.
But it wasn't until Mak Fumiake, we call it Maha, Maha Fumiake.
(39:08):
OK, she was born in 1959 and she was six feet tall, very pretty.
The former karate, Kyokushin karate fighter who went into the TV show called Star Tanjou.
It's like a star search television much like
your today's what the america's got talent kind of show
(39:29):
yeah it wasn't until maha fumiake mark like speed that the faster than light
right mac 10 yeah 60 right right right maha fumiake became superstar of joshi
pro wrestling in 1974 she was only.
That the year before that young 13 14 year old,
(39:55):
Fumiaki went into a TV show called Star Tanjo Star Tanjo is like your star search
show much like today's your America's Got Talent you with me on that.
Auditioning show American Idol something like that like a talent star search
show he was a finalist Yeah,
(40:17):
Fumiaki was a finalist of that show and almost got popular during that show too.
But she did not win that audition, Star Is Born show.
Instead, right after that, she came to, with her family, she came to All Japan
Women and decided to become a professional wrestler instead.
(40:40):
That was a huge hit. She was going to be a pop singer and real pretty and tall,
like 180 centimeters, like a six feet tall, former Kyokushin karate fighter and age of 15.
She made a sensational debut in 1974.
She was the biggest star for that time period, Mahfumi Ake.
(41:04):
And she was the one who started singing in the ring because she was going to be a singer.
So she was multi-talented had
a really unique look six feet tall for uh
at 15 japanese woman yeah in
1974 that's not you wouldn't
see that every day you don't see that every day now it's just like it very
(41:24):
it seems like a unique unique body
unique personality and also channel 8
fuji television decided to have her on different you know different shows too
that promoted women's dressing into really into like a popular that the trend
pop culture right there that let's go watch right she was kind of like spokesperson.
(41:49):
And later on, yes. Yeah, but at the age of 15 and 16, yeah.
Yeah, she was more of like idol. Idol.
That didn't really have a word then. You know, she was on television.
She was on movies. She was on TV commercial.
She appeared on game show, the singing shows. And later on, she even sing.
Then they, the channel, it was All Japan Woman's idea too.
(42:12):
But Channel 8, Fuji Television wanted to have her singing in that ring too.
That started that tradition all the way to, you know, Crash Girls,
to Aja Khan, to everybody singing in the ring, even Medusa.
Yeah, that tradition remained the next 20 years.
Even Maki Ito singing on AEW.
(42:33):
I guess, yeah. Right, right. So Japanese women's wrestlers sing in the ring and dance. Yeah.
So that part still remains as a unique Japanese culture. But actually,
Maha Fumiaki was a pioneer of that.
That Mahafumiake era has been somewhat overlooked because of the huge,
(42:55):
super big, huge popularity of beauty pair that came right after.
How close together were those?
They were actually beauty pair, Maki Ueda, Jackie Sato pair,
and Mahafumiake, they're all born in 1959, same age, actually.
And what happened was, though, that Maha Fumiaki's super sensational boom only
(43:20):
lasted not even three years.
Much like Sayama Tiger Mask, you know, phenomena.
That she was a huge superstar, 74, 75, into 76.
And the spring of 1976, she, before telling the company about it,
she announced her retirement. Right.
(43:41):
She felt that she'd done it all at the age of 17, that she walked away from women's wrestling.
That is why she still remains as almost like an elusive or mysterious superstar
that existed once upon a time.
She's still a TV person, and she's an actor, and she's also an entrepreneur,
(44:04):
and she does a lot of things now. Now that Mahafumiaki is, what,
63 now? But she's still a television person.
But as a wrestling portion of it, much like Dwayne Johnson, it will be forgotten.
You know what I'm saying?
Mahafumiaki was a huge superstar and was also a WWWA champion in the ring and
(44:27):
was a superstar for just a three-year period, much like Satoru Sayama's Tiger Mascara.
They only lasted, you know, a little less than three years.
Therefore, I think that the legend remains even bigger, I guess,
because you can only watch her, you know, wrestling in old, old tapes, you know.
But all in all, Maha Fumiaki basically quit and walked out on wrestling in the
(44:53):
midst of her biggest peak popularity.
And there were two
new you know younger wrestling same age same
height just as athletic may not be as pretty but there was a tag team of beauty
pair beauty pair Jackie Sato and Maki Ueda and Fuji television people said we
(45:15):
got these girls then created beauty pair this tag team also was
really popular and actually a better worker in the ring than Fumiaki was probably.
And also, this pair became much popular among teenage girls, and therefore...
(45:35):
The beauty pair tradition remains after this
beauty pair you have black pair that you know
that that the queen the golden the queen
angels that golden pair that all the way to crash girls or jungle jack or whatever
you know or even today's queen's quest or something that or beauty women's beauty
(45:56):
i always had this little unit like faction that the beauty pair was
it had its own
like like it existed on their
own you know and the team was
formed in february of 1976 and their
popularity lasted another three years all the way to 1979 yeah and you we should
(46:23):
put that the youtube video clip short video clip of that the one you discovered
that the beauty Beauty Pair movie trailer.
Oh, God. They had their own movies. They had their own concerts.
They had their, you know, when the wrestlers are so popular,
you have to come up with gimmicks.
Like a march, t-shirt, the other things, records, singing.
(46:47):
I mean, not the CD or downloading music, but it was a record.
You're talking about the vinyl,
the single vinyl, you know, like a donut record you're talking about.
It was so popular that people bought
records and there were movies they
had their musical and yeah they did
all these a decade before Crash Girls we'll get to Crash Girls Lionel Sasca
(47:13):
and Chigusa Nagayo era that was equally huge but if there was no if there was
no Mahafumiya there was no no Beauty Pair if there was no Beauty Pair there
wouldn't be Crash Girls that's what I'm talking about so,
That's a star-driven business, right?
And the Japanese Joshi women's wrestling always had its own league and their
(47:39):
own group of fans, their own wrestling community.
It was never part of a men's wrestling. During this Mahafumi Ake and Beauty
Pay era, of course, Giant Baba's wrestling existed.
Antonio Inoki's New Japan existed. And it was different.
I mean, it was super popular, but it was almost as if it was a different culture.
(48:02):
Does that make sense? Well, definitely. I mean, if you look at the,
you can go on YouTube now and watch some of the old footage and you can see, look into the crowd.
It's not your usual All Japan Pro Wrestling crowd.
It's a lot of teenage girls.
It's like girls probably age 12 to 16.
Yeah, with confetti and headbands and the pom-pom and all these things and streaming,
(48:27):
you know, like the ribbon streaming or being thrown into the ring.
That tradition started in women's wrestling and moved on to men's wrestling, you know?
They started throwing, you know, the multicolor streamer.
Those are from the beauty pair era. Yes. Teenage female fans.
(48:48):
Yeah, like the pop idols. Exactly. It's like a pop group, like the same reaction
that Spice Girls would have. Monkeys. Oh, yeah.
We talked about it earlier. Yeah, like Bay City Rollers or something like that. Oh, very similar.
One of those acts that... Just happen to be wrestlers.
Yeah, they happen to be wrestlers, but they also sing and they act in their
(49:09):
own movies and they're in commercials and they're on variety shows at night.
I think that's a big, big part of understanding the popularity behind a lot of these.
Yeah, and also Japanese television at night is like a game show heaven, right?
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, that's when... I'm not so proud of it,
but... That's when adults are watching television in Japan.
And those shows like Downtown, those are still the most popular shows.
(49:32):
That's what most people like to... Yeah, yeah. Well, also we got to understand
in the mid to late 70s into 80s, there was no such thing as internet.
Therefore, no social media. Of course, not even the internet,
not even the VHS or VCR that you have to watch actual television when it's going.
(49:56):
Yeah, when it's on, you got to watch it.
Unless you have a VCR and you can tape it. When did you have your first VCR?
Your parents' house. Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to remember.
I don't have. I didn't buy my, yeah. My first VCR, I'm doing like 84, 85.
Probably 88.
(50:17):
Probably when my younger brother was born. Yeah.
But I don't remember, but I think, I remember when I got my first tape rewinder.
Did you have one of those?
Tape recorders? No, no. Are they set tapes? Oh, the open reel?
No, no, no. Oh, not like the open reel. It's like you basically take the VHS
(50:38):
tape and you put it into this little, it just looks like a slot,
and you put it into the slot.
It's a little machine. You press down on it. You press the button,
and it rewinds the tape for you after you watch the movie because at the rental
shop they always reminded you have to rewind it all the way to the beginning please be kind rewind.
(50:58):
Okay so I had in the
90s the beauty pair
era we didn't even have or not just we
but the world this world didn't have VCR
you know but just now on
YouTube somebody had these original tapes
or the dubbing of original now this
(51:20):
the old footage of beauty pair
or even mahafumiake start popping up on youtube which is good which is good
you know but now we can really learn because all japan women's popularity in
90s enormous right but there was such era in mid 70s there was mahafumiake era And right after that,
(51:43):
the beauty pair, Jackie Sato and Maki Ueda.
But the beauty pair era thing only lasted another three years.
76, 77, 78.
And in the beginning of 1979, at the Budokan, all Japan women ran Budokan shows
then still. I mean, like already.
(52:04):
And Maki Ueda against Jackie Sato had a single match against each other. The loser has to retire.
Then therefore the beauty pair was no longer and Jackie Sato won the match and
won the title and Maki Ueda really retired for real and she never came back,
(52:27):
never came back now she runs her own bar well 63
year old makiwada still exists you know then people kind of visit and she still
looks like makiwada aged a little bit but yeah and for the record yeah jackie
sato passed away when she was what 41 yeah stomach cancer yeah and then and i I was living alone,
(52:49):
so I wasn't really, you know, fond for a while, you know.
But this beauty pair era was so huge.
And therefore, you had this, you know, the whole three-year boom period phenomena.
And what happened was that when beauty pair basically was broken up and,
(53:12):
you know, they retired the character, right?
What happened was those teenage female fans retired, too.
I see. Yeah, yeah. It was purely a connection with that generation.
Yeah, because the Bay City Rollers only lasted a few year boom period.
(53:35):
Or your Monkees, when TV was on, they were popular.
But when the TV show was gone, people found another TV show, right?
I i never knew the bay city rollers were
that popular i only know the one song i i
think i don't know my baby no i only know saturday night saturday night okay
(53:55):
oh they were so huge yeah okay the the little side discussion but they're it's
funny that there are some bands that are really huge in europe and they're really
huge in japan and south america was never big in America that much? Yeah, yeah.
It could be one of those situations. Because it's the same time period that
the band Kiss hit in America. Ah.
(54:17):
You know, guys like Kiss over Bay City Rollers. Bay City Rollers was for kids. I mean, for girls.
Seventh grade girls. It was like, what was the guy from Partridge Family?
What's it? Leaf Cassidy? Leaf Cassidy. Yeah. Okay.
Yeah, so same thing. But the beauty period remained. But the All Japan Women's
(54:41):
Wrestling television was still on, and you had a Queen Angels that Lucy Kayama and Tommy Aoyama,
then Golden Pair, Nancy Kumi and Victoria Fujimi, that the Black Pair,
Yumi Ikeshita and Mami Kumano,
that, you know, the semi-stars there and the TV show was there.
(55:01):
And then, you know, in 1980, you have 16-year-old, you know,
Jaguar Yokota and Debo Masami, you know, arrival, right?
And there were, and also Mimi Hagiwara, another former pop singer turned wrestler.
She was popular too, for a short period of time.
(55:23):
And you had to wait till 1984, Crash Girls period.
Crash Girls is Chigusa Nagayo and Laone Sasuka.
Now that Chigusa Nagayo trains. Also, there was a 1990s Gaia Japan period where
she trained dozens of women's wrestlers. and also that the Gaia Girls documentary
(55:43):
film got popular in America too, right?
I think more in England. Yeah, it was really intense scenes with her and young Satomura.
15-year-old Satomura, yeah. So there's always a link to the next generation of superstars.
Isn't that interesting? The link is still there with Rossi. Yeah, right.
(56:07):
Yeah, yeah, because he was not a wrestler so he never
retired and that's his life you know and rossi
was there when well actually 25 year
old rossi was driving crash girls van every
day yeah right i'd
love to read his book the book that he wrote on his phone
one day oh yeah he wrote the
(56:29):
entire book on his iphone that's amazing just a couple
years ago right yeah yeah so uh
now he's a king of stardom and uh he uh
he finally reached his peak now you
know yeah interesting but yeah
so uh we touched upon these things today but now that the i think this episode
(56:51):
one was that that the japanese women's wrestling as a whole has actually a lot
longer history than the people know about there are some gaps we're trying to
fill in the gaps, I suppose,
especially... Oh, God, I haven't even.
I mean, we did our best. So much to learn.
I mean, I think there...
(57:11):
The broad strokes are there for sure. And one difficult thing about Jojo pro
wrestling is that if you do look in more and more within the history of it,
it's much harder to find good resources on history.
Good. I mean, it was never covered in print media, even in Japan.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. But then we do know that in early fifties,
(57:35):
1951 to be exact, that there was a mildew bark influence on it.
And in late 19, In the 1960s, 1967 and 1968 to be exact, there was Fabulous
Moolah's influence on it.
And there was a Lucha Libre influence on it as a style. Because a lot of Mexican
female wrestlers came over here and stayed length of times.
(57:57):
And trained with Japanese wrestlers. And all Japan women's wrestlers traditionally
were trained under Lucha technique.
Nick, that therefore there's a mix of right hand and, you know,
working right, working left, you know, working left, turn right,
working right, turn left.
They did the both, but the basically for long time, Japanese Joshi progressing,
(58:22):
had this almost like a unique Lucha influence on it that,
that need to be focused and there was star power that like out of blue that
they created or or the Star Wars bone in Mahafumi Ake, huge,
huge superstar who started singing in the ring.
(58:42):
And it was a big, huge pop phenomenon.
But it was short-lived, but she walked away. And then you have,
right after Mahafumi Ake, there was Beauty Pair era.
Jackie Sato and Maki Ueda became even more popular.
And therefore, it really finalized the style of joshi pro wrestling in Japan. Wow.
(59:03):
Yeah, that's as far as we can get today, I guess. I don't know.
Yeah, but we had... That's the first stage.
Yeah, when Beauty Pair retired, all these teenage fans left too, you know?
But the All Japan Women were still running 250 to 300 shows on the road every
day, all through the year, on the bus.
(59:25):
And in 1978, 21-year-old Rassi Ogawa joined the company.
And also I think I mean
when we talk about the fans of the
Crush Cows also retiring along with them that also
opened up there was a short dark age until you had to wait till the rise of
(59:47):
Bonakano and that kind of bull dump Matsumoto and the beginning of that era
of All Japan Women's Wrestling actually Bonakano had two peak era because she was It was,
you know, like an understudy of Matsumoto era,
but as of 1985-ish, Bona kind of became solo big-time superstar on her own.
(01:00:11):
I think what I wanted to get to is that when Crush Gal's fan base of teenage
girls left, it opened up all Japan's path.
It sort of gave them a right turn to start promoting and marketing to a more
men-centric or male audience in Japan? Yeah, let me squeeze one more element to it.
(01:00:35):
Right after Crash Girls, both Chigusa Nagayo and Lioness Asuka.
Basically, they may come back a little bit later on, but had their first retirement
in 1989, Medusa was brought in to live in Japan by Rasio Gawa.
(01:00:56):
Alondra Blaze to some yeah to some and 26 year old Medusa Michele came from
Minnesota and lived in Japan for three years and learned the language and did
all the singing in the ring and all these promotions the picture book and the
image videos and all these things that was done to,
done previously with Beauty Pear
(01:01:18):
and Mahafumiake all the same method was applied to Medusa in 1989 1989.
Interesting there's a lot of interesting stuff we have to get to just in
the 1980s alone 1980 okay interesting decade
so next time i guess we can start talking more about
you know beauty pair and end
up with beauty pair in a short period of a little bit of
(01:01:40):
dark age but the barnstorming style of all
japan pro wrestling running 300 shows a year it remained
and there was a crash girls era there was
jaguar yokota there was devil masami then 1989
there was medusa so we gotta get we're
gonna start from around there yeah and i think all of those names that
you just mentioned are i think you can see they're legends huh but you can see
(01:02:04):
and feel the influence of especially those four for example there's you can
still feel their influence today in today's women's wrestling and today's men's
wrestling too oh i mean jaguar yokota devil masami the Crash Girls,
Rihanna, Sasuka, and Chigusa Nagayo, and even Medusa, and Bonacano, Aja Khan.
Aja still work in the ring today, though. To this day. Each is so unique,
(01:02:29):
each is so different, too.
Right, and also, we'll get to the point where how they reached out to men's
audience, because Bonacano era, they drew men's audience, therefore true wrestling
fans, and not as fragile as a peak period.
You know that the wrestling fans didn't leave that we can go probably all the
(01:02:51):
way to 1994 Tokyo Dome show next episode huh oh the long I hope so that might need its own episode.
All right, but I think people enjoyed this very beginning of a women's wrestling in Japan 101 lesson.
(01:03:12):
Yeah, and you know, because we covered a lot today, but like we were talking
about earlier, there are so many blind spots in this part of wrestling history.
So if anybody has questions or comments or anything like that,
or love to answer that and we'll be
(01:03:34):
putting together pieces of puzzle ourselves yeah yeah
because it's something that's actually even in Japanese
it's kind of hard to put the pieces together because
there's not that many pieces because not too many
people really watched like last
50 years of it without any upset you know what
I mean but it's interesting to understand why yeah to
(01:03:55):
be honest with you I didn't watch you know
I was there but I didn't really seriously you know
watch beauty pair all that much well there
were other big okie Fanny Bob a fan going on
at the time it's on yeah yeah and women's
wrestling during this you know beauty pair it was on like a Sunday Sunday afternoon
(01:04:16):
you know and that was Sunday afternoon wasn't the time I was watching television
you know but it was it did kind of develop this different audience a unique
audience for that product.
Yeah, and then All Japan Women's Wrestling were running just as many shows as
any men's company all through the year, yeah.
(01:04:37):
All over, not just Tokyo. All over Japan.
Oh, no, all over. I think they ran more country shows than men's company.
Yeah. And I heard some horror stories of those tours and women with the IV stuck in them and on the bus.
Exhausted, dehydrated, broken bones, bruises, all that good stuff.
(01:05:00):
Yeah, and then all Japan women's wrestling traditionally was so self-sufficient
that the girls built the ring.
They put the seat, you know, and they were standing in concession.
They tore down the ring. They packed and, you know, they were back in bus or trucks.
And here they went to another town, next town, you know.
(01:05:21):
And therefore like a 19th century
barnstorming you know that the elements were
all there yeah there's lots
to cover so let's get into next time so yeah
if you have questions or any comments
I'm hoping that the people are real interested in this the whole history unique
history of women's wrestling in Japan which is completely separate from men's
(01:05:45):
wrestling culture but it's important to understand because when you understand
that you understand a lot a lot more elements of wrestling in general.
And also became something very unique because they didn't have men's wrestling influence.
Exactly, you can really see that. You can see that. Yeah, they were never part of men's company.
(01:06:06):
That's what's unique about Japanese women's wrestling. Yeah,
it developed on its own instead of within men's.
Well, it developed differently over in the States, but we'll keep talking about it.
We'll get into it more next week. So if we have questions or if you have questions
or anything like that, Fumi, how can people get a hold of you?
On Twitter at Fumihikodayo, F-U-M-I-H-I-K-O-D-A-Y-O, at Fumihikodayo on Twitter
(01:06:30):
or just Fumisaito on Facebook. Message me first.
And I'm at Justin M. Nipper, K-N-I-P-P-E-R on Twitter.
Reach out on Twitter, Patreon, email, all that good stuff.
Other than that, we're going to get into silver age of Joshi Pro Wrestling next
week. So until next time, Fumi, take it away. So long from Tokyo.
(01:06:51):
Music.
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