One year ago, on May 20th 2020 Arisa Hoshiki announced her retirement from professional wrestling due to head and neck injuries that she had sustained. After five years of professional experience, it was sad to see such a promising career cut short due to injury.
What’s even sadder is that she is just another name in the list of superstars from all around the world who have had to retire due to head or neck injuries. Some of the names you may know are Edge, Paige and Daniel Bryan.
Of course, two of those are wrestling again, and pretty well I may add, but it’s a shame that we may never see Arisa back in the squared circle. I’ll give a bit of a brief history of Arisa’s time in Stardom before doing a bit of speculating.
Hoshiki made her in-ring debut at World Wonder Ring Stardom on January 23rd 2011, where she defeated Mayu Iwatani. Hoshiki and Iwatani would later team together and wrestle under the name AMA. During her time on Stardom, Hoshiki made it to the finals of Rookie of the Year in 2011 where she lost to Yoshiko, and unsuccessfully challenged Yuzuki Aikawa for the Wonder of Stardom Championship in her first title match. Hoshiki wrestled her last match on May 20, 2012, against Yuhi which ended on a time limit draw, before leaving Stardom and Wrestling.
Whilst I’m not a hundred percent sure what she did during her six-year hiatus from professional wrestling, but I know she had a couple of shoot boxing matches and I am pretty sure she worked on her idol career.
Hoshiki made her return to wrestling, where she returned to Stardom on November 23rd 2018 teaming with Iwatani against AZM, and Konami of Queen’s Quest in a winning effort, scoring the pin on AZM. Hoshiki was then invited into Iwatani’s STARS unit that same day. Her initial involvement was only on a part-time basis, but eventually, she would commit full-time to Stardom on April 29th 2019, making the announcement after winning the Cinderella Tournament.
On April 29th 2019, Hoshiki won the Cinderella Tournament, and challenged Momo Watanabe for the Wonder of Stardom Championship. On May 16th, she defeated her to win the title for the first time. On May 20th 2020, Hoshiki vacated the Wonder of Stardom Championship, as she announced her retirement from professional wrestling due to head and neck injuries.
Arisa was a one time Wonder of Stardom Champion, she won the Cinderella tournament back in 2019, she was Goddesses of Stardom Tag League with Tam Nakano and she won two year end Stardom awards. One for best match vs Tam Nakano on June 16th and one for Outstanding Performance, both in 2019.
A year after her retirement, we’re left wondering what could have been. Arisa was considered by many to be a prodigy and she even ranked #28 in PWI’s top 100 female wrestlers in the world for 2019. She was amazing in the ring and so fun to watch perform.
Her matches with and against Iwatani are just phenomenal. Much like Hana Kimura, AZM and others, Arisa could have been a generational talent in the ring. She had the it factor, a reckless but fun style and damn was she fast. Of course, we likely will never know what heights she could have climbed. Unless something amazing happens, we’re left wondering what could have been with this amazing young woman’s wrestling career.
She’s been performing under the stage name Udon Sato for the band Unlimited Dream Navigator since 2018, and I know she’s performed her old entrance theme in concert with them.
I’m sure that she will throw herself fully into her idol career and make it as great as her wrestling career could have been.
I want to join the Stardom Wrestling fans and performers in wishing Arisa Hoshiki a happy and healthy life and say Thank you for the amazing and memorable years you gave us. Your time may have been short, but it left an impression on us all. You may be gone from the ring, but your name will never be forgotten.
Thank you, Arisa.