AEW Stopped Wrestling Veteran From Retiring

AEW

A veteran of Japanese Joshi wrestling revealed that she was close to announcing her retirement before getting a call from AEW.

Appearing at AEW’s inaugural event Double or Nothing in 2019, Ryo Mizunami teamed with Hikaru Shida and Riho to take on and defeat the team of Yuka Sakazaki, Aja Kong and Emi Sakura.

She would return in 2021 as a participant in the AEW Women’s Championship Eliminator Tournament and would go on to win the tournament, challenging Shida for the championship at AEW Revolution in March of that year.

In a recent interview with The Wrstling Podcast, Mizunami revealed that she had planned to retire before AEW called, saying (via interpreter):

“So, first of all, this was May 2019 when AEW was starting up. They wanted six women for a Japanese Joshi six-woman tag match on their show (Double or Nothing) so they called her up.

“But this was a time when she was considering retiring and she thought it would be one of her last matches, maybe as a part of a retirement tour of sorts or just a bucket list thing before retiring – wrestling in the US.

“But once she went there and had the match, that changed her view of the world and of wrestling, and she said, ‘ No, there’s no way I’m retiring or quitting when things are so fun, and I just found out that there’s so much more out there.’

“So, without that, she probably would have retired in 2019 but because of that appearance at AEW, she’s still going strong today.”

Mizunami last wrestled for AEW in September 2022 in Tokyo, Japan as part of the promotion for the upcoming AEW Fight Forever video game.

AEW Fight Forever continues to be “coming soon” having been announced back in November 2020.

Transcript from Inside the Ropes.

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• Ryo Mizunami
• retirement
• AEW

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