During today’s Marvelous event 34-year veteran KAORU announced that she would be retiring in August 2021, the month when she will reach her 35th anniversary in wrestling. The announcement was made after KAORU participated in the main event of the show.
12.28新木場大会
KAORUが来年8月に引退することを発表！#Marvelouspro#マーベラスプロレス pic.twitter.com/dI4FomLnki
— マーベラスプロレス Marvelous (@info_marvelous) December 28, 2020
KAORU debuted for All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling (AJW) in 1986 and became known as Kaoru Maeda. Her time in AJW was highlighted by her tag team with Mika Takahashi known as the honey wings. The team were high fliers with a lot of Lucha influence that made them high flying babyfaces. While in AJW Kaoru won the Japanese Tag Team Championships twice, both times alongside Takahashi. KAORU left AJW in 1991 to go to Federacion Universal De Lucha Libre (ULL) which gained her the opportunity to work in Mexico for CMLL.
AJW Tag Champions Honey Wings (Kaoru Maeda & Mika Takahashi) November 14th 1990 pic.twitter.com/zSkdZr3cbl
— John「ふりーWiFi」 Back up socials in pinned comment (@DK1105) December 24, 2017
KAORU’s next stop would be joining GAEA Japan in 1995. It was here that she had her most high profile run. First KAORU represented GAEA against SSU as a babyface before she turned heel and became part of Mayumi Ozaki’s D-Fix group who were the top heel faction in GAEA. When GAEA shut down in 2005 KAORU became a freelancer and remained as such until 2015. During her time as a freelancer, she wrestled for a number of companies with her most notable run coming in OZ Academy which is run by Ozaki and heavily featured nostalgic names like KAORU and Aja Kong.
When Marvelous was set up KAORU joined them, once again aligning herself with a Chigusa Nagayo ran promotion, Nagayo ran GAEA. Ever since KAORU has been a regular in both Marvelous and Sendai Girls where she has been an invaluable part of the roster as a veteran presence.
With 34-years under her belt KAORU has seen it all in professional wrestling and for our money is an incredibly underrated talent. Even as she got older she remained in fantastic shape meaning she could pull off some incredible athletic feats and most importantly she remained entertaining no matter where she wrestled. With her retirement, Joshi wrestling is losing an invaluable veteran and Joshi fans are losing a real talent who always made sure to bring her best.
Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. Marvelous offers PPV on PassMarket for any wanting to see KAORU’s announcement
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