Puroresu (プロレス) is the popular term for the predominant style or genre of professional wrestling that has developed in Japan. The term comes from the Japanese pronunciation of "professional wrestling" (プロフェッショナル・レスリング), which is shortened to puroresu. In this sense, puroresu could be transliterated as pro-wres or pro-wrestle. The term became popular among English-speaking fans due to Hisaharu Tanabe's activities in the online Usenet community. Growing out of origins in the traditional
US style of wrestling, it has become an entity in itself. Japanese pro wrestling is distinct in its psychology and presentation of the sport. It is treated as a legitimate fight, with fewer theatrics; the stories told in Japanese matches are about a fighter's spirit and perseverance. In strong style, the style most typically associated with puroresu, full contact martial arts strikes and shoot submission holds are implemented.
All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling , nicknamed Zenjo was a joshi puroresu promotion established in 1968 by Takashi Matsunaga and his brothers. The group held their first card on June 4 of that year. For many years, it had a TV program on Fuji TV.
Erika Shishido is a Japanese professional wrestler better known by her ring name Aja Kong . She is the founder of the Arsion all-women professional wrestling promotion and has won several championships in both singles and tag team divisions throughout her career, primarily while with All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling.
Kyoko Inoue is a Japanese female professional wrestler. She has held the WWWA World Single Championship three times, and is the first woman to win a men's title in Japan. She is also the founder of the joshi promotion NEO Japan Ladies Pro-Wrestling. After leaving NEO in May 2010, Inoue founded the World Woman Pro-Wrestling Diana promotion in January 2011. Kyoko Inoue was trained by famous Japanese wrestler, Jaguar Yokota.
DDT Pro-Wrestling is a Japanese professional wrestling promotion based in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. Its name stands for Dramatic Dream Team, which was the promotion's official name from 1997 to 2004. Founded in March 1997 by Shintaro Muto, but the promotion was eventually bought and managed by Shoichi Ichimiya until December 2005, when Sanshiro Takagi took over as the new president. In 2017, DDT was sold to CyberAgent. Takagi retained his position, while Takahiro Yamauchi took over as the new DDT director.
Toshie Uematsu is a female Japanese retired professional wrestler best known for her popularity in the 1990s and 2000s. She was one of the members of the first class of wrestlers trained by Chigusa Nagayo when Nagayo formed the GAEA Japan promotion. Uematsu finished her career in 2012, working for the Pro Wrestling Wave promotion. After her retirement, Uematsu continued working as a trainer for Pro Wrestling Wave.
Kanako Urai is a Japanese professional wrestler currently signed to WWE, performing on the SmackDown brand under the ring name Asuka ,.
Emi Motokawa is a Japanese professional wrestler, better known by the ring name Emi Sakura . After starting her career in International Wrestling Association of Japan in August 1995, Sakura worked for several promotions across Japan, winning numerous titles, before founding her own promotion, Ice Ribbon, in early 2006. Sakura not only wrestled for the promotion, but was also solely responsible for training wrestlers for the promotion, where she went on to become a two-time ICE×60 Champion and a five-time International Ribbon Tag Team Champion. During 2009, Sakura held not only both the ICE×60 and International Ribbon Tag Team Championships, but also the Daily Sports Women's and JWP Tag Team Championships and the NEO Single and NWA Women's Pacific Championships, which led to the Tokyo Sports magazine naming her the 2009 joshi wrestler of the year. After six years with Ice Ribbon, Sakura left the promotion for "personal reasons" in January 2012. The following month, Sakura formed the Gatoh Move Pro Wrestling promotion in Bangkok, Thailand. During 2012, Sakura also became a regular for JWP Joshi Puroresu, winning the JWP Openweight Championship in October.
Kaori Yoneyama is a Japanese professional wrestler, currently working as a freelancer on the Japanese independent circuit. Yoneyama started her career in 1999, working with the JWP Joshi Puroresu promotion. During the following years, she became a one-time JWP Openweight Champion, a one-time JWP Junior Champion, a five-time JWP Tag Team Champion and a three-time Daily Sports Women's Tag Team Champion. Notable titles she has held outside of JWP include All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling's AJW Championship and AJW Tag Team Championship, Ice Ribbon's International Ribbon Tag Team Championship and NEO Japan Ladies Pro Wrestling's High Speed Championship. In July 2011, Yoneyama announced that she would be ending her twelve-year career the following December. After a retirement tour, which took Yoneyama not only across the Japanese independent circuit, but also to the United States, she announced during her retirement ceremony that she had changed her mind and decided to continue her career. In January 2013, Yoneyama quit JWP to become a freelancer, working for promotions such as Gatoh Move Pro Wrestling, Oz Academy, Union Pro Wrestling and World Wonder Ring Stardom.
Angel Katherine Reece is a retired American professional wrestler, better known by the ring name Hailey Hatred. Originally debuting in July 2002, Hatred worked for several years for various promotions in both the United States and Mexico, before moving to Japan in late 2010. In 2011, Hatred made her breakthrough to the top of Japanese joshi puroresu with the JWP Joshi Puroresu promotion, holding the Daily Sports Women's Tag Team, IMW Hybrid Fighting, JWP Openweight, JWP Tag Team, TLW World Women's and TLW World Women's Tag Team Championships simultaneously. During 2012, Hatred began working more regularly for Ice Ribbon and in November 2012 once again held six different titles; the IMW Hybrid Fighting Championship, the International Ribbon Tag Team Championship, the Reina World Tag Team Championship, the Remix Pro Women's Championship, the TLW World Women's Championship and the Triangle Ribbon Championship. Reece has been inactive from professional wrestling ever since leaving Japan in August 2013.
JWP Joshi Puroresu , also known as JWP Project or simply JWP, was a Japanese joshi puroresu promotion, founded in 1992 as a splinter promotion of Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling. Celebrating its 25th anniversary at the time of its folding in 2017, JWP was the oldest joshi puroresu promotion in Japan and its Openweight Championship was the oldest championship in all of joshi. Command Bolshoi, who had worked for the promotion since the beginning, served as the final president of JWP. The promotion's slogan was "Pure Heart, Pure Wrestling".
The JWP Openweight Championship was a women's professional wrestling championship owned by the JWP Joshi Puroresu promotion. The championship, which was situated at the top of JWP's championship hierarchy, was introduced on December 1, 1992, when Dynamite Kansai defeated Cutie Suzuki in a tournament final to become the inaugural champion. At the time of JWP Joshi Puroresu's folding in April 2017, the JWP Openweight Championship was the oldest active title in all of joshi puroresu.
The JWP Junior Championship was a women's professional wrestling championship owned by the JWP Joshi Puroresu promotion. It was introduced on June 16, 1995, when Candy Okutsu defeated Hiromi Sugou and Hiromi Yagi in a three-way match to become the inaugural champion.
The JWP Tag Team Championship was a professional wrestling tag team championship owned by the JWP Joshi Puroresu promotion. The championship was introduced on August 9, 1992, when Cutie Suzuki and Mayumi Ozaki defeated Dynamite Kansai and Sumiko Saito in a tournament final to become the inaugural champions. On August 3, 2008, the title was unified with the Daily Sports Women's Tag Team Championship. Together, the two titles were sometimes referred to as the "JWP Double Crown Tag Team Championship". When JWP Joshi Puroresu went out of business in April 2017, the two titles were separated again with the JWP title remaining with the JWP production company, while the Daily Sports title moved on to Command Bolshoi's new follow-up promotion.
The Princess of Pro-Wrestling (POP) Championship is a women's professional wrestling championship owned by the Pure-J promotion. The title was created in the JDStar promotion on June 24, 2006, when Fuka defeated Natsuki☆Head in the finals of a tournament to become the inaugural champion. On June 17, 2007, JWP Joshi Puroresu's reigning JWP Junior Champion Arisa Nakajima won the title on JDStar's second to last event. Though the two titles were technically not unified, they were defended together from this point onward. The titles remained together in JWP for nearly a decade before it was announced on February 8, 2017, that the promotion was shutting down. As a result, the two titles would once again be separated with the JWP title remaining with the promotion's production company, while the POP title moved on to Command Bolshoi's follow-up promotion to JWP, later named Pure-J. Between the transition from JWP to Pure-J, the former JWP roster held events under the name Dream Joshi Puroresu, where the POP title was also defended.
Manami Katsu is a Japanese professional wrestler. She was trained by the JWP Joshi Puroresu promotion and made her debut in April 2011. In December 2011, Katsu won the Souseiseki Cup and a year later the JWP Junior and Princess of Pro-Wrestling Championships, which she held for 482 days. She has also worked for Ice Ribbon, Oz Academy, Reina X World and World Woman Pro-Wrestling Diana. Katsu retired from professional wrestling in July 2014, but made her return in April 2016.
Kayoko Haruyama is a retired Japanese professional wrestler. Having made her debut in January 1998, Haruyama worked for the JWP Joshi Puroresu promotion her entire career, becoming not only one of the promotion's most accomplished singles wrestlers, with one JWP Junior Championship reign and three JWP Openweight Championship reigns behind her, but also a three-time Daily Sports Women's Tag Team Champion and a five-time JWP Tag Team Champion, most notably teaming with Tsubasa Kuragaki as the tag team "Harukura". Haruyama's accomplishments outside of JWP include reigns as the AJW Champion and AJW Tag Team Champion and winning the 2006 Neo Japan Cup. She ended her 18-year career in December 2015.
Yasuko Kuragaki is a Japanese professional wrestler better known by the ring name Tsubasa Kuragaki . For most of her career, Kuragaki has worked for JWP Joshi Puroresu, becoming a one-time JWP Junior and two-time JWP Openweight Champion as a singles wrestler. As a tag team wrestler, she is best known as one half of the "Harukura" tag team with Kayoko Haruyama, with whom she has held the Daily Sports Women's and JWP Tag Team Championships three times each. She quit JWP in October 2013 to become a freelancer. She is currently working most notably for Oz Academy, where she is a former one-time Oz Academy Openweight Champion and a one-time Oz Academy Tag Team Champion.
The Tag League the Best was an annual professional wrestling tag team tournament, founded by All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling (AJW), which held it from 1985 to 2004. After the folding of AJW in 2005, the tournament was adopted by its one-time rival and later associate promotion, JWP Joshi Puroresu, which held it annually from 2011 to 2016.
Professional wrestling is a dramatic enactment of wrestling as a spectator sport. As is the norm for this sport, women's professional wrestling is organized by wrestling federations called promotions. Some promotions are exclusively for women, while others have separate divisions for women. Among the nations that have women's professional wrestling are Australia, Bolivia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Some promotions such as WWE traditionally don't announce the weight of female competitors during their ring entrances due to the old adage "you don't ask a woman her weight".
