{"id":128873,"date":"2024-12-11T06:17:11","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T11:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=128873"},"modified":"2024-12-11T06:17:11","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T11:17:11","slug":"aew-mariah-may-mina-shirakawa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2024\/12\/11\/aew-mariah-may-mina-shirakawa\/","title":{"rendered":"Sapphic Love: Mariah May and Mina Shirakawa of AEW"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u201c<em>Nothing is fair in love and wrestling,<\/em>\u201d Renee Parquette, hype package for Mariah May vs. Mina Shirakawa at AEW Dynamite: Winter Is Coming.<\/p>\n<p>When Mariah May battle Mina Shirakawa at Winter is Coming, the story will be different from any other AEW Women\u2019s World Championship match. While it mirrors May defeating one mentor in \u201cTimeless\u201d Toni Storm, it\u2019s also a new approach to the student must beat their teacher.<\/p>\n<p>In Mariah May\u2019s own words, she is a \u201ccomplicated woman.\u201d This is not the usual story of a betrayal; love muddles it. Look closely at May\u2019s character; the betrayal is momentary.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>I do a lot of things people don\u2019t understand, and that\u2019s okay. So, when people ask me why I broke up with Mina, I could give the simple answer of jealousy or watching her prance around with the ghosts of my past in Japan, but that\u2019s not true. I never broke up with Mina Shirakawa. In fact, we\u2019re closer than ever.\u201d <\/em>Mariah May, Collision, 30<sup>th<\/sup> October.<\/p>\n<p>Built on history across two companies, this storyline has already broken ground in terms of female and LGBTQIA+ storytelling. It continues to plough further. It\u2019s not the typical representation of a love story.<\/p>\n<p>Sex features heavily in a way that\u2019s more feminine than anything else in Western mainstream wrestling.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ybWMCNfZHmc?si=phvKM5eG4MYEW7-e\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Sapphic and Not Lesbian <\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>May\u2019s word choice, \u201cbroke up,\u201d makes the characters\u2019 relationship explicit. Whether flirtatiously platonic, teasingly sexual, or both, it\u2019s sapphic.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not \u201clesbian\u201d in the historical wrestling sense with its restrictive and negative connotations. It\u2019s unlike WWE\u2019s history of presenting lesbian or bisexual women; it\u2019s not for male gratification.<\/p>\n<p>The men involved in the story have taken transactional role and non-sexual roles in proceedings (RJ City and Luther). At best, Nigel McGuinness got a career-resurging kiss gifted by May as the main actor.<\/p>\n<p>You can\u2019t easily compare the women\u2019s presentation with the misogyny and objectification of women from <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2024\/05\/13\/divas-and-discrimination-misogyny-from-attitude-to-ruthless-aggression\/\" target=\"_self\">The Attitude and Ruthless Aggression Era.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The sapphic aesthetic focuses on female beauty, strength, resilience, and the complexity of female love. It can be platonic, sexual, or feminist. Feminism is about power dynamics, not controlling skin or sexuality.<\/p>\n<p>Sapphic isn\u2019t a binary opposite to masculine attraction. The concepts are asymmetrical.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Sex as Characterisation and a Weapon <\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>When May or Shirakawa have been sexualized and objectified, it\u2019s been by themselves. They hold the power, even when it\u2019s been used towards men. It\u2019s usually been for two narrative purposes.<\/p>\n<p>First, burlesque in its truest form. Humor, absurdity, and parody of what\u2019s perceived as sexy. Shirakawa\u2019s rack-off with <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2024\/10\/31\/maximizing-her-minutes-aews-harley-cameron\/\" target=\"_self\">Harley Cameron<\/a> was funny and character-driven.<\/p>\n<p>It set up Shirakawa\u2019s playful personality, which allowed for intensity with the later tonal shift. May twists the knife into Shirakawa with an insult designed to cut deep.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u201c<em>Shaking your t*ts only gets you so far<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>May asserted her power by manipulating her and Shirakawa\u2019s relationship and power.<\/p>\n<p>May has warped the parody and playfulness of their relationship as the heel. She has taken the boundaries of their relationship and used them as a weapon against her mentor.<\/p>\n<p>Whether May wants to hurt Shirakawa or get the best from her mentor is debatable. But it\u2019s about May holding the power.<\/p>\n<p>May\u2019s taken the tool of sexuality that Shirakawa taught her during her apprenticeship in Club Venus and their Rose Gold tag team to use against her. The quip also feels like the kind of remark her other mentor, Toni Storm, would use against her opponents.<\/p>\n<p>The issue is that May has targeted a woman who understands this and refuses to be ashamed of her past as a former gravure idol, a pin-up model in Japan. Attacking who Shirakawa won\u2019t work.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u201c<em>People will try and tell you that you can\u2019t do this or that you can\u2019t do that. You can\u2019t let yourself be fooled by those people. I hate the saying, \u201cThis is how a woman should be\u201d \u2026 You\u2019re the only person responsible for what happens in your life.\u201d <\/em>Mina Shirakawa,\u00a0<a  href=\"https:\/\/pwi-online.com\/mina-shirakawa-talks-mariah-may-toni-storm-and-staying-authentic\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">PWI Online<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Sex and Violence <\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>May\u2019s changed because of the power granted by the championship. May wants to be the one in charge of both the division and their relationship.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a shift in the power dynamic of their relationship. May chose to strike before Shirakawa would because that\u2019s how it goes in wrestling. It\u2019s inevitable.<\/p>\n<p>For Shirakawa, power has corrupted May. She also knew this time would come before being smashed in the head with a champagne bottle. An act May committed with the excuse that it\u2019s what she has to do to be a champion.<\/p>\n<p>May insists that things won\u2019t change, and they will drink all the champagne that Shirakawa wants after Winter is Coming\u2014as long as she wins.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>\u201cEvery time she came here, it was: \u201cI love America,\u201d \u201cI love AEW, I want to be champion,\u201d so how could I not give her a chance at everything she has ever wanted? You want to be on top; well, this is what it takes to be on top. You beat me, you can have it all. AEW, you want Mina. Here she is. Now let\u2019s see how long she lasts. You can cry. You can beg. You can bleed. But you can never say I didn\u2019t love you<\/em>.\u201d Mariah May, Collision, 30<sup>th<\/sup> October.<\/p>\n<p>Sexual language tinged with violence is not for the male viewer. It\u2019s for Mina Shirakawa. It\u2019s about the reversal in their relationship and dynamic. Through May\u2019s feminine gaze, she wants to be dominant. And like real relationships, dynamics in power shift, and people change. They either get through it, or they break, and their journeys continue separately.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>The \u201cReal\u201d Mariah May <\/strong><\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\u201c<em>I believe I am the only one who can bring Mariah back. I want the old Mariah back. And I want the two of us to team up again and become the strongest women\u2019s tag team in AEW. I can\u2019t wait to go back to see Mariah<\/em>.\u201d Mina Shirakawa,\u00a0<a  href=\"https:\/\/pwi-online.com\/mina-shirakawa-talks-mariah-may-toni-storm-and-staying-authentic\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">PWI Online<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless of gender, everyone in their division wants to be the alpha. Champion. In control. So, is May being authentic, or is she just acting like her other mentor, Toni Storm? Or the same as other heel AEW Women\u2019s World champions before her? Because those methods worked. At least for a time.<\/p>\n<p>Shirakawa has stated this is the \u201creal\u201d Mariah May. Yet, as Roma Faliani of Voices of Wrestling described in \u201c<a  href=\"https:\/\/www.voicesofwrestling.com\/2024\/06\/20\/mariah-may-a-tormented-soul\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mariah May: A Tormented Soul<\/a>,\u201d May\u2019s story is a tragedy. It\u2019s a story about lacking identity, desire for love, and finding one\u2019s place. Is this truly May, or is she acting?<\/p>\n<p>In some way, May\u2019s arc of pretending mirrors WWE\u2019s Roman Reigns\u2019 arc through toxic masculinity. The pursuit of status and position diminishes the personal relationships that matter\u00a0most to the characters.<\/p>\n<p>May&#8217;s challenge to her mentor connects to the deeper cultural and wrestling mythos of the young needing to destroy the past to create their own identity.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s subverted with May\u2019s desire. She doesn\u2019t want to end Shirakawa, like she did Storm, because she loves her. She redefines their relationship on her terms. This is a coming-of-age story, and it\u2019s complex. May can\u2019t necessarily get what she wants, or not easily. Shirakawa is her own woman.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s an impasse where things either break or change. It&#8217;s inevitable.<\/p>\n<h3>More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/h3>\n<p><em>Header photo \u2013\u00a0AEW\u00a0\u2013 Stay tun<\/em><em>ed to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-auth=\"NotApplicable\" data-linkindex=\"1\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for 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.\u00a0 You can catch AEW Dynamite on Wednesday nights at 8 PM ET on TBS. AEW Rampage airs on TNT at 10 PM EST every Friday night. AEW Collision airs Saturday at 8pm Eastern on TNT. More AEW content available on their\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@AEW\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">YouTube<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cNothing is fair in love and wrestling,\u201d Renee Parquette, hype package for Mariah May vs. Mina Shirakawa at AEW Dynamite: Winter Is Coming. When Mariah May battle Mina Shirakawa at Winter is Coming, the story will be different from any other AEW Women\u2019s World Championship match. While it mirrors May defeating one mentor in \u201cTimeless\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4960,"featured_media":128882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4677,5302,2192,317],"tags":[4133,8737,4176,8984,7018],"class_list":["post-128873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aew","category-joshi","category-wrestling","category-women","tag-aew","tag-mariah-may","tag-mina-shirakawa","tag-timeless-toni-storm","tag-winter-is-coming"],"modified_by":"Michael Joseph Sugue, Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4960"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128873"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128883,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128873\/revisions\/128883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}