Joshi star Aoi Kizuki officially retired from the ring today, following a 13-year career in Japan’s joshi circuit. In her Retirement Produce event, Final Happy, Kizuki was on the losing side of a 6-woman tag match, as her and her teammates, Mei Suruga & Riho, lost to a team featuring Emi Sakura, Hikaru Shida & Makoto. Kizuki is only 29 years old, but announced her impending retirement this past May. She’s done a series of farewell shows, before her retirement show this past Sunday.
*sniff* Goodbye to @aoi_kizuki. Congratulations on a wonderful career and thanks for everything.
#aoikizuki #ファイナルハッピー pic.twitter.com/yCeK9OgTka
— Xyon McKell (@xyonmckell) October 7, 2018
Aoi Kizuki was trained by long time joshi legend Emi Sakura, a 23-year veteran of the likes of All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling (AJW), Japanese Women Pro-Wrestling Project (JWP) and Frontier Martial-arts Wrestling (FMW). In 2006, Sakura founded the Ice Ribbon promotion, where Kizuki debuted in the company’s inaugural year. A freelancer for most of her career, Kizuki would always remain loyal to Sakura, first in Ice Ribbon, and then in Sakura’s second promotion, Gatoh Move Pro Wrestling in Thailand.
Over the course of her 13 year career, Kizuki would wrestle for a multitude of joshi promotions, including Stardom, OZ Academy, Pro Wrestling WAVE, Diana, JWP and more. In 2017, she made her American debut, with a four match run with SHIMMER. Throughout her career she was a tag team specialist, winning the International Ribbon Tag Team titles three times with Ice Ribbon, as well as the REINA X World Tag Team titles and Asia Dream Tag Team titles with Gatoh Move.
Although she won more tag gold than singles, Aoi Kizuki still managed to compete at a high singles level, winning Ice Ribbon’s top title, the ICExInfinity Championship in 2015, and the Union Pro Fly To Everywhere Championship (Union Pro was a sister company to DDT Pro).
