Aja Kong Breaks Down Why Fans Love Tokyo Joshi Pro-Wrestling: “A One of a Kind Atmosphere”
Posted By Spike // VIA Hirotsugu Suyama c/o Weekly Pro Wrestling
An Eye Opening Interview with Aja Kong!
Hirotsugu Suyama’s Thursday Joshi Pro-Wrestling: November 12, 2026 (Installment #480)
In the November 12, 2026 installment of his Thursday Joshi Pro-Wrestling column, veteran journalist Hirotsugu Suyama reflected on an interview he conducted with Aja Kong a few weeks ago. Having covered the industry for a long time, if nothing else, Suyama has interviewed countless wrestlers in the past, and he noted that among all of them, Aja is one of the most articulate professional wrestlers out there. For an interviewer, sitting down with her is both easy and difficult.
According to Suyama, unless an interviewer goes in woefully underprepared, they are guaranteed to hear fascinating stories in an interview with her regardless of the topic. In fact, he even believes that if someone interviews Aja and cannot write an interesting article out of it, that person is severely lacking the aptitude for the job of communicating stories.
On the other hand, trying to fit everything she says into a predetermined word count is always an agonizing struggle for him. That is all the more true for an interview like this one, which was built around the premise of her 40th anniversary since her debut.
From her upbringing, born to a U.S. serviceman father and a Japanese mother, to her rebellion against Bull Nakano, who had been like a mentor to her, and their feud of over two years that produced numerous legends, right through the interpromotional warfare era and up to the present day, she has piled up countless fierce battles.
Her life has been extraordinarily turbulent and dramatic. Suyama recalled previously serving as the interviewer for an online program tracing her life story, noting that it took six one-hour episodes just to get up to her departure from All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling.
The accomplishments and crowns she has achieved are too numerous to count. Furthermore, as an active professional wrestler, her name recognition is in the very top tier, even when including male wrestlers. On top of that, throughout her wrestling career, she has raised the main eventers who came to represent each respective era.
During the AJW era, that was true of Manami Toyota and Kyoko Inoue, and it was precisely because of her feud with Aja that Bull Nakano became a legendary figure. Wrestlers like Meiko Satomura, Ayako Hamada, Chihiro Hashimoto, and Sareee grew into figures who truly represented their eras by getting battered by Aja and eventually overcoming her.
Personally, Suyama even believes that up to a certain generation, women’s professional wrestlers can be broadly divided into two categories based on whether or not they challenged the barrier that is Aja.
If one were to ask about Aja’s life in dead honest chronological order, there is no way it could possibly fit into an article of just a few pages. Because of that, Suyama narrowed the focus of this interview down to a few specific themes. Even then, there were several stories that he reluctantly had no choice but to cut. One of those was Aja’s analysis of Tokyo Joshi Pro-Wrestling.
Alongside Satomura, Aja was the very first female wrestler originating from a traditional women’s pro-wrestling promotion to face a Tokyo Joshi roster member. Since then, right up to the present day, she has continued to compete in Tokyo Joshi as a special guest at their big matches. During this interview, Suyama asked her about Tokyo Joshi as well, and even there, there was a part of the conversation that he had to cut with a heavy heart.
Suyama admitted having some reservations about whether using leftover material in an article for a different outlet is questionable in terms of a writer’s professional ethics. However, since both outlets belong to Baseball Magazine Sha, and because he felt it would be a shame to keep it locked away only in his own memory, he decided to take the opportunity to share it in his column. What Aja said is as follows:
“Tokyo Joshi is a promotion that doesn’t have any of the grudges or bad blood that make the audience worry, right? In other words, it’s the most stress-free promotion in the history of women’s pro-wrestling. Of course, there are probably fans who find that unsatisfying, but there are also plenty of fans who choose Tokyo Joshi for what it is, and they’ve built a one-of-a-kind atmosphere. That’s an amazing thing.”
– Aja Kong
When Suyama heard those words from Aja, he felt as though he had finally been given the answer to a difficult question he had been searching for ever since Tokyo Joshi’s founding. He noted that what makes Aja incredible is not only her rich vocabulary, but also her extraordinary analytical ability and insight.
Suyama believes that all catharsis is born from the stress that builds up before it, and that the greater the stress, the greater the resulting catharsis becomes in proportion. Professional wrestling is no exception to that rule. For example, WWE in the lead up to WrestleMania builds the viewer’s stress to its absolute limit, and in Showa-era pro-wrestling as well, catharsis and stress were always two sides of the same coin.
Even so, Suyama pointed out that not everyone looks to professional wrestling for the kind of catharsis that is inextricably linked with stress. There is definitely an audience that has sought pro-wrestling with less stress. Looking back, it seems to him that many of the fans who once supported NEO shared that exact preference.
Having covered Tokyo Joshi since before its founding, Suyama thought he understood in theory why the promotion is so well supported, yet there was still a part of it he could never quite state definitively. Aja’s phrase, “stress free,” ran a single, solid core straight through that reasoning.
Suyama concluded by noting that the publication featuring this interview with Aja is scheduled to go on sale in early December, with official details expected to be announced as early as next week. Incidentally, he also conducted an interview with one other person for that same publication and heard a wonderful story there as well, encouraging readers to look forward to it.
Translation Notes
目からウロコが落ちた (Me kara uroko ga ochita): Literally “scales fell from my eyes,” an idiom originating from the Biblical account of Saul (Paul) in the Book of Acts that has long been naturalized in Japanese to describe a sudden, eye-opening realization. Rendered as “An Eye-Opening Interview” in the headline to match natural journalistic English.
最も言葉を持っているプロレスラー (Mottomo kotoba wo motte iru puroresurā): Literally “a pro wrestler who possesses the most words.” In Japanese sports journalism, kotoba wo motte iru describes an athlete who does not merely speak at length, but possesses their own distinct vocabulary, philosophical depth, and ability to articulate complex ideas in interviews.
七転八倒 (Shichiten-battō) & 波乱万丈 (Haran-banjō): Two classic four-character idioms (yojijukugo) in the opening third of the column. Shichiten-battō (“falling seven times and tumbling eight”) means writhing in agony or going through an agonizing struggle (here, the editorial pain of cutting Aja’s quotes to fit page limits). Haran-banjō (“ten thousand丈 of small and large waves”) describes a life filled with dramatic ups and downs and turbulent events.
いわんや…なおさらだ (Iwan’ya… naosara da): A literary construction meaning “all the more so when…” or “let alone / much more so,” used to emphasize how the challenge of editing an Aja Kong interview multiplies when covering a 40-year career retrospective.
対抗戦時代 (Taikōsen Jidai): The “Interpromotional Warfare Era” of the early-to-mid 1990s, when All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling (AJW), JWP, LLPW, and FMW clashed in landmark cross-promotional cards (such as Dream Slam and Big Egg Wrestling Universe), with Aja Kong serving as AJW’s top monster heel and eventual ace.
クソ正直に (Kuso shōjiki ni): A colloquial intensifier meaning “dead-honestly” or “painstakingly and earnestly to a fault,” referring to the impossibility of marching step-by-step through Aja’s timeline in a single print feature.
泣く泣く (Naku-naku) & 断腸の想い (Danchō no omoi): Both expressions describe the author’s reluctance to leave material on the cutting-room floor. Naku-naku means “tearfully / reluctantly,” while danchō no omoi (literally “the feeling of one’s intestines being severed”) is a classical idiom for a heart-wrenching or agonizing decision.
女子プロレス団体出身の女子プロレスラー (Joshi puroresu dantai shusshin no joshi puroresurā): Literally “a female pro wrestler originating from a women’s pro-wrestling promotion.” Early in Tokyo Joshi Pro-Wrestling’s history, guest veterans came primarily from mixed or men’s promotions like DDT, making Aja Kong and Meiko Satomura (both forged in traditional all-women’s joshi organizations) historic firsts when they stepped into a TJPW ring in 2015.
こぼれネタ (Kobore-neta): Publishing and newsroom slang for “spilled material”—anecdotes, quotes, or scoops that could not fit into the main print assignment and were left on the cutting-room floor.
遺恨や因縁が一切ない団体じゃない (Ikon ya innen ga issai nai dantai janai): In conversational Japanese, sentence-final janai here carries a falling, seeking-agreement intonation (“It’s a promotion that has zero grudges or bad blood, right?”), rather than a literal negation (“It is not a promotion without grudges”). This is confirmed immediately by Aja’s follow-up clause: Tsumari joshi puroresu shijō de mottomo sutoresu-furī na dantai nanda yo (“In other words, it’s the most stress-free promotion in the history of women’s pro-wrestling”).
表裏一体 (Hyōri-ittai) & ＮＥＯ:Hyōri-ittai (“front and back as one body”) is a four-character idiom meaning “two sides of the same coin” or “inextricably linked.” The author contrasts traditional high-stress, grudge-driven wrestling with NEO (NEO Japan Ladies Pro-Wrestling, which operated from 1998 to 2010 under Kyoko Inoue and President Tetsuya Koda—who later co-founded Tokyo Joshi Pro-Wrestling), known for its bright, cheerful, and welcoming atmosphere.
一本の太い芯が通った (Ippon no futoi shin ga tōtta): Literally “a single thick core passed through it,” an idiomatic way of saying that Aja’s observation unified the writer’s scattered thoughts and gave them a solid, unshakeable backbone.
