Sunday, December 31, 2006

Takako Inoue on bullying in All Japan Women


A lot of today's joshi wrestlers have blogs and though some of the veterans use blogs to promote upcoming shows, a lot of the wrestlers resort to posting pics of last night's dinner. So I do get occasional stories from blogs but most of them are pretty boring. As many fans are aware, Takako Inoue is one of my all time favourite joshi wrestlers. Takako is a perfect example that sex appeal and mat skills are not mutually exclusive in the joshi business as Takako has plenty of both. She's a great heel too. And at age 37, Takako is still in great shape and works very hard to look that good. Check out the recent pic of Takako. I know she owns a yoga studio and is a yoga devotee. With that kind of work ethic, she's an excellent role model for young wrestlers.






Takako Inoue was one of the first joshi wrestlers to have her own website back in 1994. And she always designed it herself. But when Takako cut back on her schedule at the beginning of 2005, she decided to close her website. She's been working exclusively for LLPW but it looks like she's getting bored and has recently started working for other companies. So Takako Inoue has returned to the online community with her blog Marbles. I saw mention of it and have tracked it down. It's on the Ameba News blog system and the url is http://ameblo.jp/takaco-i






Most of Takako's posts are fairly standard. She talks about playing golf and other things. But it appears that something very interesting came up a couple of weeks ago. Lately Takako has worked a few matches with rookies. Also, along with Ayako Hamada, she has been training young girls at the Kaoru Ito Professional Wrestling Classroom. And she had just returned from a tour of Hokkaido reminiscent of the old AJW. I believe the promotion known as New AJW (owned by the guy who owns Smackgirl) ran the tour. It seems there was an older wrestler bullying a rookie on the final day of the tour and on the tour bus. Things became very heated on the bus and Takako was very angry about it. Takako was defending the youngster and got into a fight with the veteran on the bus. Takako was punched in the eye. Takako said that part of the problem is a lot of the veterans like to smoke & drink and the young girls don't. Takako doesn't drink. She says the incident is over and she doesn't hold a grudge. The response to the post was positive except for one person who said Takako thinks too much and maybe the young wrestler broke the rules.






Bullying came up a few days later when Takako Inoue had lunch with old friend Noriyo Tateno. I think Tateno was needling her about her blog. Takako said that when she was a youngster in All Japan Women, she was bullied by a veteran. The other wrestlers knew about it. Management knew about it but didn't see anything so did nothing.






A week later, Takako Inoue eloaborated further on the bullying. She didn't name names but she discussed the bullying with Kyoko Inoue & Mariko Yoshida and they agreed that it was true. Takako doesn't know why this particular veteran had it in for her but she has confirmed with others that it's true. The bullying went on for a long time but eventually the veteran confessed to AJW management and they apologized to Takako. Takako says she doesn't hold a grudge against this person and has used the experience to teach others not to do it. And that's why the bullying incident on the bus upset Takako Inoue.






Here's a classic Takako Inoue match. It's Kyoko & Takako Inoue defending the WWWA Tag Team Titles against Manami Toyota & Sakie Hasegawa in AJW Aug. 30, 1995.


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