Bradcat's Japanese Culture Focus... Japanese Pro Wrestling - Emi Sakura

For those that know me, you will know I'm a big fan of pro wrestling. A few months ago at a local Alternative Wrestling World event, I was witness to female Japanese wrestling star Emi Sakura take on "Portugal's Perfect Athlete" Shanna.

An amazing performance from both women which still holds my "match of the year" title. The bout was a last minute addition to the card, as one female wrestler had to pull out. Luckily Emi Sakura was in the middle of a UK tour and was free on that date. The match was totally unexpected and was incredible to watch. Later in the night, former WWE and TNA star Brian Kendrick would headline the event, but it seems people were still hyped up by this women's match. I was able to meet Emi after her performance, and speak to her in my terrible broken Japanese.

Emi's debut match was in August, 1995 at the age of 18 when she was accepted into the International Wrestling Association of Japan. She went on to win her first championship, the AWF's World Women's Championship against Luna Vachon. Since then, she's gone on to win countless women's titles, tag-team titles, and intercontinental titles from wrestling federations as AJW, IWA, JWP, NEO, and EVE. She currently lives in Thailand and has launched her own women's wrestling school. You can follow Emi Sakura on Twitter, here.

Check out the video below, and have a look for other matches featuring Emi Sakura on YouTube.

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Update:

Emi Sakura was kind enough to repost this blog post on her Twitter account. It seems as though she is happy with what I wrote. (^_^)