FanPost

In Appreciation of Riho

For many western wrestling fans, it all began at AEW’s first major PPV as a fully-formed promotion: Double or Nothing. At that event, Riho joined a team alongside Ryo Mizunami and leader Hikaru Shida against the team of the legendary Aja Kong, Riho’s friend and mentor Emi Sakura, and Yuka Sakazaki. It’s a difficult thing to stand out as a complete new face in a six-person tag team match, but there were early signs of her ability to connect with audiences on the strength of her natural charisma even at that time. She would continue to establish her brand to the AEW audience in matches at Fyter Fest (in which she pulled off a shocking win, pinning the dominant physical force known as Nyla Rose), Fight for the Fallen (in which she was on the losing end of a subpar tag match), and All Out; the latter match received widespread acclaim as she overcame another of joshi’s great talents, Hikaru Shida, to earn a place in the first-ever AEW Women’s Championship match.

By the time her first opportunity for an American title came, on October 2nd in Washington DC, during AEW’s debut on TNT, audiences were ready to fully buy in. She was already ahead of her female peers on the roster in generating reactions when making an entrance, and her stunning upset victory over Rose in Rose’s own hometown became something of a seminal moment for her AEW career. She had fully arrived. But that’s not all that she showed in that contest. What she also showed was something for which she deserves more credit: that she has a unique ability to generate crowd investment, and quality wrestling, under the least-favorable circumstances. Consider the experience of two of her championship match opponents: Rose and Britt Baker. Rose has a mere 153 matches of experience (as of this writing), while Baker has 158. Then consider the stage: she has been placed in position of having to wrestle inexperienced, developing talent, in front of 1 million (or more) viewers, for a promotion trying to establish itself on a top 10 cable network, in the biggest and most consequential contests in that promotion’s women’s division. This is a tall order. And though the match with Baker wasn’t anything to write home about, the live crowd ate it up. Even moreso, Riho’s match with Rose at the premiere was said by AEW EVPs Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks to have "stolen the show"; indeed, Riho’s victory prompted one of the biggest crowd reactions of the night.

And she’s not limited her contributions only to AEW. Many of you may know that the primary promotion with which I concern myself is Stardom (no longer known as World Wonder Ring Stardom). Riho joined Stardom in late July, and managed a title victory in her debut, capturing the High Speed Championship from Death Yama-San in Korakuen Hall on the 10th of August. Since then, she has frequently been used as an experienced hand to guide green talent, just as she has been in AEW; she has worked with the likes of Leo Onozaki (113 matches experience) and recently wrapped up the last of her matches in the 2019 Goddess Tag League alongside another developing talent in Starlight Kid. She’s wrestled in the main event of multiple shows in that time, and played a key role in putting on some of the best matches in the Tag League.

All of this has clearly been a whirlwind for Riho. As she stated in a recent interview with Weekly Playboy Japan (rough translation): "I never thought I would (become a champion in the United States in 3 months)! I thought I (was) an unknown part-timer when I was starting to wrestle in the US." Riho’s comfort and fluidity in the ring and her nearly 900 matches of experience belie the fact that she is just 22 years old, having started in wrestling at the age of 9. But she speaks in the same interview (worth a read, if sometimes tough to decipher) about the thrill she gets from being recognized in the US, and the passion she feels from American wrestling audiences. For someone her age, getting exposure on a stage of this magnitude in a wildly different country and culture, she maintains a level head and a positive outlook; beyond the work she does in the ring, she is a true ambassador of the craft and her employers.

For the first time in her long and prosperous career, Riho has gone from another player in little-known promotions like Gatoh Move and Ice Ribbon to the cusp of real international stardom. Between the consistent quality of her ring work, her rare skill in elevating her opponents, her personal magnetism which transcends language, and the grace and quiet confidence with which she carries herself in public life, she has proven herself an asset of extraordinary value to AEW, and has begun to do the same in Stardom. There are those within the fandom who do not connect with her, but I am not one of them. She’s everything I look for in a professional wrestler worth following, and investing in supporting. I can’t wait to see how high she can go.



The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Cageside Seats readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cageside Seats editors or staff.