Several months ago, it was announced that All Japan Pro Wrestling was doing something rather interesting. Suwama had plans to recruit and train up a women’s division within the legendary company.
Wrestling Is Generally Split By Gender In Japan
Unlike in North America promotions like WWE, AEW, & Impact Wrestling, where having male and female divisions is normal, in Japan things are generally kept separate. This is why despite both being owned by Bushi Road, STARDOM & New Japan Pro Wrestling remain very separate. STARDOM got a showcase match at Wrestle Kingdom earlier this year, but it wasn’t shown on NJPW World.
This isn’t always the case however, with DDT often featuring both male and female wrestlers, though the female talent is often from Tokyo Joshi Pro, a company also owned by Cyberfight. It’s a growing trend, and AJPW are the next to do this.
All Japan Pro Wrestling Plans To Train From Scratch
The division will go under the name “Evolution Girls”, named for the faction of Suwama. He will be heading up this division, helping out with recruiting and hopes to train the recruits up to be able to debut within just six months. This will likely be done by building partnerships with other promotions like Ice Ribbon, where Suwama & Shuji Ishikawa will be visiting on December 12th.
It’s a good start, and they could find some truly special talents through this. AJPW have been having a strong year in terms of matches, names like Kento Miyaharu, Jake Lee and even YoshiTatsu having great matches. Despite this, even prior to COVID-19 shutting everything down, they were having trouble filling arenas. So much so, that it almost looked like they’d be bought out by WWE to form NXT Japan.
They need stars, people to bring fans in, and the success of companies like STARDOM show that having some talented ladies out there kicking ass might do just that.
Do you think this will help AJPW in the end, or could this be a doomed plan from the start? Let us know what you think in the comment section down below.
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