Women's Wrestling: Akira Hokuto

Real name: Hisako Uno Sasaki

Billed height: 5ft. 6in.

Billed weight: 130lbs.

Born: July 13, 1967

Billed from: Kitakatsushika (present Yoshikawa City), Japan

Trained by: All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling

Debut: May 28, 1985

Finishing Move: Dangerous Queen Bomb

Favorite Moves: Spin Kick, Missile Kick, Strangle Hold Gamma

Notable Feuds: Shinobu Kandori, Madusa

Akira got into professional wrestling following the popularity of the tag team the Crush Gals and was the one responsible for the creation of the Bull Nakano fanclub.  She entered the All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling (AJW) dojo after dropping out of high school.  She won the AJW Rookie of the Year shortly after her debut and won the AJW Junior Championship the following year.  That same year, she participated in the AJW's Match of the Year and then teamed up with Yukari Omari losing against Chigusa Nagayo and Yumiko Hotta in the final of the annual Tag League Tournament.  In 1987, Akira won both the AJW's tag team title and the World Women's Wrestling Association (WWWA) Tag Team Championship with Yumiko Hotta only to lose the titles twelve days later to the Red Typhoons in a 2 out of 3 falls match.  Akira took a tombstone piledriver off the top rope during the finish of the second fall which caused her to break her neck.  She kept wrestling during the whole third fall, holding her head in place with her hands, causing her to gain a reputation for being tough.  She then took a year off for recovery and came back with bleach blonde hair and had given herself the moniker "Akira Hokuto" after the wrestler Akira Maeda.  She teamed with Suzuka Minami to win the WWWA Tag Team belts twice more.

Akira suffered a severe knee injury in 1990 when she was booked to win the Japan Grand Prix, a tournament that determined who would be the top contender for the WWWA World Heavyweight Championship.  The injury occurred during a Grand Prix match against Manami Toyota in which she (Akira) did a plancha and crashed her knee into the ringside metal barrier.  Her knee was torn open and she couldn't walk.  She tied a bandage around her leg (while crying) and pulled herself into the ring to try and finish the match.  She couldn't do it and had to be removed from the tournament. Hokuto went back into singles tournaments in the early 90s, winning the All Pacific Championship in 1991 and 1992, sustaining many more injuries during the process.  She earned the nickname "the Mummy" because she often came to the ring wrapped in bandages.  In 1993, she feuded with Shinobu Kandori of the LLPW promotion during the inter-promotional period*.  The two had a match at Dreamslam I in April 1993 in which Kandori lost.  Dave Meltzer rated the match a five and is considered to be the greatest women's match in history.  Akira was defeated nine days later by Kandori at Dreamslam II in a tag team match and also in a singles match in December 1993.  That same year, she won the Japan Grand Prix and was given another shot at the WWWA Championship against Aja Kong on October 9th.  Akira was injured again in August of that year and, thus, requested that the match be changed to a non-title match since she felt that competing in her condition would ruin the prestige of the belt.  1993 is considered to be the best year of Akira's career.

Akira then married Mexican wrestler Antonio Gomez Medina in 1993 and moved to Mexico to live with him.  There, she continued her career by adopting the moniker "Reina Jabuki".  On July 30, 1994, she won the Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) World Women's Championship by defeating La Diabolica and carried the title for over two years.  That same year, she divorced Antonio and returned to Japan, where she defeated Aja Kong in the final of the V*Top Woman Tournament at the Big Egg Wrestling Universe event.  Akira had one of her last great matches for AJW on September 5th, 1995, losing against Manami Toyota in an exciting 21-minute match.  Akira made her U.S. debut at the World Championship Wrestling (WCW) pay per view event WCW World War 3 on November 26, 1995.  She teamed with Bull Nakano to defeat wrestlers Cutie Suzuki and Mayumi Ozaki.  The same teams competed in a match the following night on Monday Night Nitro, with Akira and Bull winning again.  Her and several other GAEA wrestlers came to the United States to compete in a tournament to crown the first WCW Women's Champion.  Using both the "Akira Hokuto" and "Reina Jabuki" gimmicks, Akira managed to participate in the first round of the tournament twice.  Akira lost to Madusa Miceli in the first round as Reina, which caused her to be stripped of her CMLL title.  As Akira Hokuto, she won the tournament and defeated Madusa in the finals.  This occurred at WCW's Starrcade on December 29, 1996.  Akira once again defeated Madusa at WCW's Great American Bash on June 15, 1997, causing Madusa to retire.  This was Akira's last WCW appearance and the only person to hold the WCW Women's Championship as the title was eventually dropped.

In 1996, Akira left AJW and joined GAEA Japan, a new promotion started by Chigusa Nagayo.  During this time, Akira had gotten married (to Kensuke Sasaki) and was starting her family.  For most female wrestlers, this would be the time to retire but not for Akira!  She came back to the ring in 1999 and in 2000, she won the GAEA's AAAW Tag Team Championship with Mayumi Ozaki.  That same year, she was inducted into the Wrestling Observer Newsletter's Hall of Fame in recognition of her skills and contributions as a wrestler.  She retired on April 7th, 2002 by teaming up with Meiko Satomura in a tag team match against Ayako Hamada and Chigusa Nagayo.  Just as she's done several times before, Akira wrestled with an injury (broken rig) and managed to pin Hamada with a Northern Lights Bomb.  During the post-match retirement ceremony, several of Akira's colleagues entered the ring to hug her, give her flowers and bow down to her.  She even slapped a few of them as a way to transfer part of her fighting spirit.  A ten-gong salute followed and then Akira was showered with streamers before she officially left the building.  After retirement, Akira has stayed busy raising her family, helping her husband with his business and has made several media and wrestling-related appearances, including several squash matches and becoming the first female wrestler to appear in a All Japan Pro Wrestling match.

Here's a video of the epic match between Akira Hokuto and Shinobu Kandori at Dreamslam I: