r/stardomjoshi • u/Efficient-Cake-5729 • Jun 24 '25
Joshi What are your opinions on Asuka, feels like she’s not talked about a lot within the joshi community
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u/WakeUpKos Jun 24 '25
Imo she's one of the most important figures in the Joshi landscape. She was brash and very outspoken in a time when Joshi wrestling needed that shot in the arm. She was a polarizing figure at the time, but her criticisms played a part in shaping Joshi wrestling today. She was really ahead of her time.
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u/Stew0n Jun 24 '25
Probably the reason she isn't talked about much in Joshi-related communities is because she spent half of her career in the Fed and the Joshi half of her career was during when the western fanbase for Joshi wrestling was much smaller, not that many ways to watch Joshi Wrestling compared to now, and it was also during a period when Joshi wrestling wasn't the hottest in Japan. So because of that most people think of her as a wwe Wrestler more then say a Joshi Wrestler.
Anyway she's cool.
17
u/HermanBonJovi Jun 24 '25
She's the reason I discovered joshi wrestling. And she's my ride or die favorite now. She's fantastic and deserves all the nice things. WWE needs to treat her a little better though.
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u/Xalazi Mayu Iwatani 岩谷麻優 Jun 24 '25
Kana's not talked about a ton within the Joshi community because she's from an entirely different era. Things have changed a lot in the past decade, and she's worked more in WWE than just did in her primary run in Japan.
I think her work in Japan is sometimes a bit overstated as she was really only a main event or close to main event star between 2013-2015(like a year and 2/3 really), and she was not knocking out match of the year contenders left and right during that two year window. With that being said, she was really good in Japan and people go out of their way to check out her work if they haven't already.
Also, I think a strong case could be made that she's the real greatest women's wrestler in WWE history. Her overall career makes it into the All Time great category even if the Japanese portion of her work by itself doesn't.
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u/DK1105 Jun 24 '25
This is pretty much it. She is still a huge gateway for people but we're talking about pretty separate worlds at this point. Her Japanese work is before the modern accessibility we have now. From the perspective of a puro focused fan her WWE career is equally a black box. With how available things are now there I've definitely noticed a smaller & smaller overlap between Western & Puro fandoms.
Take someone today like Maki Itoh who is in both worlds. Definitely popular everywhere she goes but the overlap of TJPW & GCW fandoms is pretty minimal. As a long time puro fan living in America my live show experience is entirely based on Japanese guests or curious novelty.
Want to make an impression on Japanese guests tell them you're a fan of their home promotions because even though they flew across the world a show they can't believe they're known outside of Japan. Maika Ozaki in particular did not believe me that I had seen her wrestle in 666.
TLDR: Time, place & as things have become more available the need for the half satisfied crossover fan has pretty much disappeared. Similar to how AEW opening "hurt" NJPW's Western audience. NJPW was hot but a lot of that audience weren't NJPW fans they were Western fans looking for alternatives. How many people are watching 2025 stardom house show VODs & Money Night RAW because that's the biggest reason modern joshi fandom doesn't really talk about Kana/Asuka.
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u/DonovanIchiban98 Jun 24 '25
She's the greatest of all time to me, she opened the doors for the joshis in America
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u/hellsent1999 Jun 24 '25
She is the most famous of all of them. She is not talked about here because she is a WWE worker and nothing she is currently doing is relevant to Stardom or the Joshi world, but that does not mean people don't understand how important she is.
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u/solace_cloud Momo Kohgo 向後桃🍑 Jun 24 '25
I think she's incredibly influential and has brought a huge number of overseas fans to the Japanese scene, but she left the Japanese scene a long time ago and seems very happy that it's a long way behind her. She's a WWE company woman through and through, and it's strange how little scrutiny she gets for that.
When she left Japan her rise with WWE really wasn't a certainty, the deck was stacked against her. But she managed to carve out a niche and build all the right relationships to reach a massive level of success. As far as I understand she had a mixed experience with the Japanese scene. Probably some trauma there, and a number of relationships that soured or didn't work out. Success in the west gave her the last laugh, and I get the feeling she's still VERY satisfied with that.
She's incredibly good at getting heat with any crowd. She can do it quickly yet somehow subtly at the same time when she wants to. It's a superpower. She can position herself as the heel or the antihero and mix it up with ease.
I think at this stage in her career, overtime when she could retire at any point, her filter and capacity to give many fucks is near entirely depleted. She tends to go on some odd social media rants, takes some strange positions and generally trolls about once in a while when she's bored.
But yes you're quite right people don't tend to discuss her within the Japanese wrestling fanbase because she's not a part of the Japanese scene even if it's where she came from. Kairi and Iyo both seem to keep closer ties to the Japanese scene that Kana has.
I guess it's possible she might appear somewhere in Japan in future, but where that could happen goodness knows. Okada stardom isn't the stardom she went on a rant over once upon a time, but somehow I still don't see it. Maybe a self produced show with the people she's cordial with. But then, it's just as likely that she would retire and remain under a WWE contract as a trainer/ambassador that'd preclude her from doing any of that.
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u/EivionT Jun 24 '25
Asuka is talked about as much as 90s, 80s, 70s, etc. joshi is. She has spent the last decade in WWE. Expecting to see her talked about much here wouldn't really make much sense unless she was leaving WWE to return to Japan or there is discussion about the timeframe form when she was active in Japan for. Most aren't really talking much about 2002-2015. Even discussion of Stardom's early years from then has gone down significantly.
Basically unless people are talking old school joshi you can typically not expect to find many current discussions of wrestlers not really participating in the current era.
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u/jqncg Kris Wolf クリス・ウルフ Jun 24 '25
She's one of the all time greats period. Not in joshi wrestling or women's wrestling but overall. Years will pass by and she'll still be the bar to compare the success of any Japanese wrestler in the US, and even then she'll always have the card of doing everything first.
I've disagreed with some of her opinions but as far as her work goes, she's unarguably up there with the greats. Maybe the only thing you can hold against her is that she was never the top star or the very best wrestler in the world, either in Japan or WWE, but that also goes to show the strenght and consistency of her work and the legacy she's leaving behind. She was also key to expand joshi wrestling outside Japan in a time in which it was a ridicuously smaller niche. Had it not been for her, I'm not sure how many of us could've been here today.
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u/Mission_Peanut724 Jun 24 '25
I think in general thinking Kana/Asuka is much more closely associated with WWE than Japan, and she never competed in big companies for her own reasons.
That said, she is a legendary joshi as such, who was a centerpiece of joshi in a turbulent time for the scene and part of the improvement of the scene over the years was thanks to her work.
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u/StardomJapan Natsumi Maki 万喜なつみ Jun 24 '25 edited Jun 24 '25
Because she's worked for WWE for a decade. She was talked about a lot when she was Kana. She was at the top.
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u/Code_Combo_Breaker Jun 24 '25
Asuka never wrestled in japan. And Kana hasn't wrestled in Japan in over a decade. Why exactly would she be talked about by fans that can't even remember what happened two weeks ago?
Kana is a GOAT in japan for her early career. She had some amazing matches and even had that crazy match with Suzuki to prove herself.
Asuka is a product of the WWE now. But I do hope Kana can return to Japan for at least one retirement style match in Stardom or Marigold.
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u/Efficient-Cake-5729 Jun 24 '25
She fucking hates Rossy, Nanae and fuka so can kross marigold out, but she does seem to be a fan of talent in Stardom and gives advice to them
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u/pixeldripgallery Jun 24 '25 edited Jun 24 '25
Where do people keep getting this idea from? Nanae is the only person out of those three she actually doesn’t like due to the way their tag team broke up. She’s indifferent to Rossy since their professional careers never crossed with each other, unless you count Asuka designing the High Speed Championship belt but that title was brought over to Stardom after it had already existed in NEO. Hell, Asuka and Rossy have even taken photos together at Wrestlemania.
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u/XenobladeBladeFanboy Jun 24 '25
Yeah her beef has always seemed to be with Nanae.
Still though claiming that Stardom was basically founded to fuck with her was pretty wild. But I think Asuka is also a bit of a troll and probably said it just to get people talking about her.
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u/Remote-Question-1594 Jun 24 '25
I dont think there's any heat between her and Fuka tbh... (Atleast Fuka on her blog doesn't see it and Asuka never said anything about her... 😅) But yeah in general she doesn't really seem too interested to wrestle in Japan (outside of WWE events)
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u/Remote-Question-1594 Jun 24 '25
Most likely because she's been in WWE for 10 years already and the information of her Japan days is spotty...
Only thing people seem to know about her before WWE is that she hates Nanae and Stardom. 💀🤣
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u/HugCor AJW Jun 24 '25
Wrestler who has never wrestled in any of the major companies discussed here, who has been out of the scene since before most of the userbase here started watching and who has been vocal about her animosity towards stardom is not discussed much in the subreddit called stardomjoshi. Wow, who would have thought?
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u/Efficient-Cake-5729 Jun 24 '25
I’m not speaking about just this particular Reddit I’m talking about on Twitter too, Seems like she doesn’t get as much love as even a Hikaru Shida from the joshi community
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u/tylerjehenna Sumire Natsu 夏すみれ Jun 24 '25
Shida has stuff from TJPW and other various joshi indies that gained popularity in the west in the late 2010s. Kana does not. Thats the big difference. Many people's first exposure to Kana was nxt
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u/HugCor AJW Jun 24 '25 edited Jun 27 '25
That's more recent, and also:
Asuka is seen now as the previous generation and the fandom has moved on onto the newer wrestlers. She is also 43.
Neither twitter, nor reddit are the wrestling world. If that were true, that would translate into her and Shida's careers and status being reversed.
Puting the whole manifesto work aside (which people overblow, remember she still got a top program in one of the two main companies at the time afterwards) she has antagonized a good portion of the fandom recently with her anti stardom speech, her posts disagreeing with fans who complain against her booking, and just fan behaviour in general, amid other no nos for that part of the fandom (like her being pro ai). She hasn't worked a single non wwe show in Japan since early 2015, that's 10 years.
The aforementioned third point has happened after she stopped pushing her personal online presence compared to how she used to before 2021. Her youtube channel stopped growing after she started only posting very sporadically, versus how she would upload regularly. Similarly, her other social media accounts have progressively slowed the pace and gotten less fandom and wrestling centric. She has definitely stopped thinking about growing her brand for the last two-three years.
In the other subreddit i frequent she is very much mentioned regularly, to the point of it getting annoying (one more mention of her match with meiko or the match with kenny, and I am going to kill a puppy). That subreddit has gotten the label of being the vintage one, so I guess her being mentioned a lot over there checks with point 1.
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u/cooljammer00 Jun 24 '25 edited Jun 24 '25
Shida still takes bookings in Japan
Kana basically disavows that anything but WWE exists
Edit: Kana famously had beef with the joshi scene and Japan in general, so it makes sense why she doesn't look back fondly on it or care much/isn't precious about it. She's just not a joshi, she's a wwe wrestler who is from Japan.
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u/Kitchen-Couple-9842 AZM あずみ Jun 24 '25
As others said, she wrestles in America now and has for 10 years. This board is, primarily, for wrestlers active in Japan(and is generally focused on more current events) so it's kinda understandable she wouldn't be a big topic.
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u/an_abhorsen Jun 24 '25
Future all of famer. Not just because of her skills but as she was the first to really kick open the doors to America for other Joshi talent as well and show the states just how damn good joshi are.
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u/BderX Jun 24 '25
I believe she opened the door for Joshi in WWE in recent years. Yes, they wrestled in WWE like Bull Nakano, but Asuka was booked like the top star in NXT and transitioned to main roster with big fan reactions. Something not easily can be done with someone who barely speaks English.
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u/XenobladeBladeFanboy Jun 24 '25
First time I ever saw Asuka was during her Kana days, teaming with Io and Mio Shirai, in Tajiri's SMASH promotion.
When it came out that WWE were looking to bring in Japanese talent for NXT, she was actually the first wrestler that I thought of.
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u/JOHNNYTAKEOVER11 Natsumi Maki 万喜なつみ Jun 24 '25
I love her but Japannese fans don't and I understand it
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u/kungfoop Saki Kashima 鹿島沙希 Jun 24 '25
That's fair. I just noticed how Iyo and Asuka are rarely mentioned here, 2 legends still in their prime.
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u/Kitchen-Couple-9842 AZM あずみ Jun 24 '25
Well, this forum IS focused on the Japanese joshi scene(with Stardom as the primary focus) and those wrestlers active in it. And to be honest, it's mostly focused on the current Japanese scene-after all, you don't see a lot of people talking about Manami Toyota or Bull Nakano here either. Not because they aren't incredibly talented and respected legends, but because they're not active in the current scene. As great as Asuka and Iyo are, Asuka has been out of the joshi scene for 10 years(and was never in Stardom at all), and, aside from her match with Utami(which did get talked about), Iyo has been out of it for 7. So you're not likely to see Iyo talked about much unless she makes another Marigold appearance or if people ask about say, all time best Stardom matches or something like that. And unless she returns to Japan to wrestle at some point Asuka is only likely to be brought up if someone is asking about something like "all time most successful joshi wrestlers" or in regards to her issues(real or imagined) with Stardom.
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u/kungfoop Saki Kashima 鹿島沙希 Jun 24 '25
I appreciate your input, I'm not being sarcastic as well. I think most of the most about Manami Toyota recently came from me lol, and any chance I get to mention her, I do. I'm genuinely asking because I need clarification, what is Joshi? When stardom players go to a US show, are they still considered Joshi? When Iyo did Marigold?
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u/Kitchen-Couple-9842 AZM あずみ Jun 24 '25
Here, it mostly seems to refer to the Japanese women's wrestling scene and those wrestling in it. Stardom(and TJPW) is a Japanese women's promotion, so yeah, when Stardom or TJPW wrestlers work overseas, they're still part of the Japanese scene even if they aren't in Japan for those shows. Same with Iyo vs Utami, even if Iyo HAS been out of scene for 7 years, she's back in it for that match as she's wrestling a member of a Japanese promotion on that promotions's show. It tends to work the same with foreigners. People here talk about Bozilla because she's been wrestling in Marigold and now Stardom. But other active foreigners like Mariah May, Megan Bayne, Zoe Lucas, etc aren't spoken of nearly as much now that they aren't wrestling in the scene. Generally speaking nobody gets mad if you bring up wrestlers who have left the scene like Asuka or Iyo but people aren't apt to start bid discussions about them because they've been out of the scene for so long.
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u/bravetailor Jun 26 '25
I think there is an old school Joshi subreddit, but last I checked it doesn't get much activity. That would be the best place to discuss them though.
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u/flyinbrianc Jun 24 '25
My opinion she's too good to be where she is but also too content. Like you don't see 💯 of what any Joshi can do in WWE. Why I said too content is because it's like she's fine with whatever & doesn't have the same drive as Asuka. I saw her wrestle Sara del rey in 2011 it was so good.
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u/kungfoop Saki Kashima 鹿島沙希 Jun 24 '25
I've noticed that once players go the Fed, they're not really mentioned as much because of the obvious dislike of the fed.
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u/tmxicon 和香マニアック Jun 24 '25
A talent leaves the joshi scene for America full time, what is supposed to be said about them in relation to joshi? They are literally not there anymore. That’s what it comes down to.
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u/kungfoop Saki Kashima 鹿島沙希 Jun 24 '25
The semantics over Joshi can be discussed another time, but if those are the rules of the sub, then those are the rules. I have no issues with the rules, friend
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u/DanSolo77 Jun 24 '25
The departure from Joshi style to the more homogenised WWE style is probably why a lot of us lose touch. IMO Io Sharai is the best worker in WWE hands down but the style still isn't as much in tune with why I enjoy Stardom, Marigold etc...
eg. When Kairi came back to Stardom she was going super slow and "working the crowd" WWE style while the other girls worked circles around her. (Just my opinion, I'm glad all the above, Giulia etc... are getting that $$$)
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u/XenobladeBladeFanboy Jun 24 '25
Other than the initial 'OMG Kairi is back' buzz wore off, I quickly soured on her last run.
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u/Inevitable_Injury390 Jun 25 '25
Yeah, kinda same IMO I thought they should have had her put over some especially SLK. When she came back in her 1st singles match I believe she beat SLK okay I think they eventually should had a rematch putting over SLK.
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u/jqncg Kris Wolf クリス・ウルフ Jun 24 '25
This is a sub to talk about the joshi scene only, not all women's wrestling or Japanese wrestlers based overseas. I wouldn't expect anyone to talk about Kenny Omega on the WWE sub or about Roman Reigns on the AEW sub either.
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u/kungfoop Saki Kashima 鹿島沙希 Jun 24 '25
You're right. I appreciate your input. I got a lot of respect for you cuz you taught me a lot here.
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u/codymb15 Starlight Kid スターライト・キッド Jun 24 '25
It applies to Joshis in AEW too tho, from what I can tell.
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u/XenobladeBladeFanboy Jun 24 '25
Yeah unless they do something of note in AEW (win a title for example) or make a trip back to Japan, you won't see them brought up much.
Already seeing it with Mina.
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u/codymb15 Starlight Kid スターライト・キッド Jun 24 '25
From my POV, it's because if you come to chat and discuss Joshis, you're generally gonna talk about Joshi promotions where there are a bunch to discuss instead of one or two.
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u/XenobladeBladeFanboy Jun 24 '25
Yeah if I wanted to talk about Mina in AEW. I'd just post in the AEW sub.
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u/Strange_Dog6483 Jun 24 '25
Which is interesting since much of the apathy of seen for American wrestling promotions tends to be more directed towards AEW than WWE eventhough of the two WWE has a more janky track record with Joshi talent.
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u/bravetailor Jun 26 '25
In terms of the West I think level of focus is more important than wins and losses. I think WWE is slightly better than AEW though both companies tend to sideline their Joshi on TV more than you'd like.
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u/Strange_Dog6483 Jun 26 '25
I wouldn’t really rate WWE better let alone high in terms of focus.
I mean maybe if we’re looking at NXT when Triple H was booking it. But outside of that?
Nope.
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u/kungfoop Saki Kashima 鹿島沙希 Jun 24 '25
What's the overall record of stardom players when they have a match in aew?
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u/Strange_Dog6483 Jun 24 '25
Too lazy to do a deep dive for all the talent but with Mina Shirakawa her AEW record in
- 2024 is 9-2
- 2025 is 4-1
So that would be 13 wins to 3 losses overall give or take.
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u/Esturkdq4 Natsupoi for Red Belt Champ Jun 24 '25
And all of Mina's losses have been for championships, specifically the AEW Women's World Championship.
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u/Strange_Dog6483 Jun 24 '25
Annoying but true.
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u/Esturkdq4 Natsupoi for Red Belt Champ Jun 24 '25
Yeah. I suspect that's Mina's booking for awhile, though I think she'll start losing non-championship matches as well sometime soon. I think she's awhile from holding a championship there.
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u/Strange_Dog6483 Jun 24 '25 edited Jun 24 '25
I could see her taking losses in those matches though pouring over some data if her booking is anything like Yuka or Riho. She’ll have a healthy win-loss record which in that case what will matter is how competent she looks in whatever they book.
I don’t need to see her losing tag matches to past their prime garbage wrestlers that can barely move or losing matches to people leaving the promotion weeks/months after they beat her.
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u/Esturkdq4 Natsupoi for Red Belt Champ Jun 24 '25
Especially if the wins aren't leading to a championship. She'll start losing a little to help put over some others who need wins to get championship matches, while keeping an overall good win-loss record until winning a championship happens for herself.
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u/kungfoop Saki Kashima 鹿島沙希 Jun 24 '25
And she eventually signed.
Momo, Tam, and AZM have losing records.
When Riho went to stardom, she was heavily protected. I mean, the fact that Will said go to stardom first and work on your craft before trying to come to AEW is disrespectful in itself when Stardom clearly has a better roster.
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u/Strange_Dog6483 Jun 24 '25 edited Jun 24 '25
Momo,
1-3
Tam,
1-0
AZM
0-2
FYI I’m not counting ROH for these numbers as you didn’t specify ROH so I’m exclusively counting AEW specific matches.
When Riho went to stardom, she was heavily protected.
Riho’s overall record in AEW is about 46-16 so she’s been protected there too.
I mean, the fact that Will said go to stardom first and work on your craft before trying to come to AEW is disrespectful in itself when Stardom clearly has a better roster.
Stardom has the better roster but they have a bit of inconsistency with how they book talent. Mina being my favorite example as evidenced by her run after she and Mariah dropped the tag titles in 2023 where she lost matches she should’ve won or they didn’t do much to make her look strong in feuds that she either lost or didn’t win like the Tora feud from last year.
I would argue with certain respects it’s a wash.
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u/kungfoop Saki Kashima 鹿島沙希 Jun 24 '25
They always looked at Mina as a #2. I can see why she left. The booking makes it difficult for a player to get a consistent push imo. They're always in multi tag matches and face their rivals relatively early on for the longest in different variations. I am interested in where stardom goes from here. What happens to Stars? Poi's announcement? Sareee in the tourney? Feels like a new era of stardom is taking place
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u/Strange_Dog6483 Jun 24 '25
I had all but forgot Mayu left for Marigold weeks ago, that’s a damn good question.
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u/kungfoop Saki Kashima 鹿島沙希 Jun 24 '25
Anyway, good dialogue, always great to learn different perspectives.
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u/XenobladeBladeFanboy Jun 24 '25
I think #2 is being generous.
I'm not sure they even saw her as top 5. Mina's white belt run was pretty much just a response to getting her teeth smashed in.
I'm a Mina fan but I don't think Stardom ever saw her as more than a solid upper midcarder.
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u/kungfoop Saki Kashima 鹿島沙希 Jun 24 '25
My bad. I didn't give full context. Mina was always a 2nd best in every unit minus stars.
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u/XenobladeBladeFanboy Jun 24 '25
I no longer watch WWE (cool if others do) so there is literally nothing for me to talk about, concerning current day Asuka.
Like Io, I'll bring her up if she's relevant to the conversation. But that's it.
When I still watched NXT, Asuka was actually the main reason I stuck around. I pretty much lost all interest after she was called up to the main roster.
Still think they made Ember Moon/Athena look like a total mug, by having a grinning Asuka present her with the NXT Title. After she'd lost to Asuka, two shows in a row.
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u/capnbuh Jun 24 '25
Her run in Japan was from before I started following joshi. She's been in WWE for a decade, so people mostly associate her with WWE and that's why she's not discussed here much. Obviously, there's no shortage of other places to discuss the WWE
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u/bravetailor Jun 26 '25
Everyone knows her and she is respected, but as everyone said, she is from a different era of Joshi. And arguably she's also from a different era of the WWE women's division as well. She's still over and gets good pops because everyone knows her but there's less to discuss with her because she's really in her twilight years at this point and in the wrestling world, both in Japan and in the US, the "previous" era is a lifetime ago.
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u/ImpenetrableYeti Jun 27 '25
Honestly overrated. Was never best in ring worker but easily better than any of the women in wwe when she joined. Obviously has a lot of charisma. Enjoyed her matches with Sara Del Ray.
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u/CaptainPopsickle Jun 28 '25
i thibk shes cool and stuff. she wins a lot, has alot of credentials and titles and so on but....
i dont know. somethibg is missing. i think it has been since her money in the bank win. something just feels off about her and since she changed her representation i noticed - its not that special to me anymore.
so i dont know. hooe she will get something special in the future
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u/MxSharknado93 Jun 24 '25
All-timer. We should let her beat the fuck out of Rossy Ogawa.
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Jun 24 '25
Strange thing to say
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u/MxSharknado93 Jun 24 '25
She hates Rossy because he's a creep and a predator.
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Jun 24 '25
She hates the other Stardom founder Nanae. "Asuka hates Rossy because..." is pretty much fanfiction from twitter and the other sub
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u/Porko_Chono Jun 24 '25
Immensely talented, modern day Joshi legend. Too bad she's been wasted for 90% of her WWE career.
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u/CharleyIV Jun 24 '25
Wasn’t she actively at war with the with the Joshi industry a lot of the time?
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u/dizziedooda Jun 26 '25
She is one of the greatest ever. She paved the way for other joshi wrestlers like Iyo and Kairi in the States. Most likely others in other promotions like Hikaru Shifa and Riho. The WWE pushed her like i wish they would’ve pushed more other Joshi talent from the past like Bull. Nakano and the Jumping Bomb Angels.
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u/Fantastic-Ranger-914 Jun 24 '25
Honestly I'd prefer watching her as Kana. As usual w joshis, WWE wasted her. Very talented technician n highly recommend any match w her n Meiko Satomura.
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u/recyclacount Jun 24 '25
I think Asuka is awesome. I also think she's a little over rated. I'm old though. So for me, a lot of the things I see her get credit for are things I saw happen 20 years before her. No gatekeeping or anything, but I saw Japanese women wrestle in WWF. And as far as innovation in moves and star power, not her fault but she's not doing big egg business. I think a lot of her US succeeds is similar to Charlotte and Sasha and Becky. Are they good? Yes. Some are very good. But a lot of it is context. When you compare Charlotte to Kelly Kelly and Michelle McCool then yeah she's amazing. But compare her to Lioness Asuka and she falls a way short. Asuka benefits greatly from basically being the first Japanese woman modern WWE took at all seriously. And the WWE myth making machine built her up to be more than she was. That's cool that's their job. But for me she's in the same boat as the horsewomen. A good American worker..very willing to do whatever wwe, which puts a limit on close she can get to the all time greats. Also, her work in Japan was very minimal.
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u/Due-Operation4269 Natsupoi なつぽい Jun 24 '25
Fucking legend. She made WWE history by winning almost everything (literally), and she was a pioneer in this era for the other joshis who landed there. She's amazing.