(This post is a translation of an interview that was originally published on Yahoo Japan’s Sportsnavi page on Nov. 17, 2017. Please see the original article for images.)

Oedo Tai leader Kagetsu aims to dominate Stardom

Photo by Sportsnavi: Kagetsu, the leader of Oedo Tai, officially joined the Stardom promotion in November.

Kagetsu heads up Oedo Tai, the heel stable running rampant through the joshi wrestling promotion World Wonder Ring Stardom.

Since leaving Sendai Girls at the end of 2014, Kagetsu has appeared in several promotions all across Japan as a freelancer. Her freelance work brought her back to Stardom for the first time in a while in March of 2016, when she faced Hiromi Mimura at Shinkiba. Shortly afterwards, she teamed up with Hiroyo Matsumoto to challenge Thunder Rock – the infamous duo of Io Shirai and Mayu Iwatani – for the Goddess of Stardom title (Stardom’s tag championship). Kagetsu didn’t win the belt, but she did earn the attention of Kyoko Kimura, who aggressively recruited her into Oedo Tai.

Immediately after joining Oedo Tai, Kagetsu helped Kimura put a stop to Thunder Rock’s attempt at a record-breaking title run – finally grabbing the Goddess belts for themselves in the process. Kimura’s daughter, Hana, then joined them to successfully challenge Shirai, Iwatani and Kairi Hojo (now WWE’s Kairi Sane) for their Artist of Stardom belts (Stardom’s six-woman tag title). Kagetsu found herself standing at the front lines of the promotion.

When Kyoko Kimura retired from professional wrestling, Kagetsu assumed leadership of Oedo Tai. Kagetsu, Hana, Kris Wolf and Tam Nakano display a clear bond as they run wild together through Stardom. What’s more, on November 1 of this year, Kagetsu joined Stardom as a full-time member – a move that seems likely to make Oedo Tai into an even stronger presence than before.

We sat down with Kagetsu to talk about her reasons for joining Stardom, the future of Oedo Tai and her own personal ambitions.

Electrifying Training Sessions

Photo by Sportsnavi: Among all the promotions Kagetsu wrestled in as a freelancer, Stardom had a particular appeal.

Q. You officially joined Stardom this November. What sort of impression did Stardom make on you before then?

A. Back when I was with Sendai Girls, I attended a lot of amazing training sessions. When I made it out to Tokyo, I’d go to these sessions with all sorts of different promotions. That was when Nanae Takahashi and Natsuki☆Taiyo were in Stardom. When I first saw them, I thought, wow, they look really fancy, but that’s about it – but then I watched them practice, and I was impressed! That was the first time I really thought of Stardom as a promotion where I could wrestle meaningful matches.

Q. You gave us an interview when you were with Sendai Girls, too. There was something of a generational clash going on back then, and their ace Meiko Satomura was like a wall you couldn’t get over.



A. That’s right. It was pretty frustrating. That’s when I started thinking about branching out to other promotions. I’d go to see those training sessions I mentioned, and there’d be Kairi Hojo, there’d be Io Shirai and lots of other wrestlers. It was electrifying – I felt all tingly just being there! There was this gap between what you could see and what was going on underneath. It wasn’t just all about looks. That made a really strong first impression on me.

Q. You’ve been a regular participant in Stardom events since 2016, but you worked with other promotions, too. How do these promotions differ from Stardom?

A. My first opponent in Stardom was Hiromi Mimura. The main thing I remember was that, no matter what I did, the audience ate it up. One dropkick? The audience loved it. One elbow? They were definitely feeling it. I thought, “man, this is an easy ring to work in!”

Q. So Stardom’s fans made quite an impression.

A. I went in there feeling like the away team, but that feeling completely melted away during my first match.

Becoming what you hate

Photo by Yasuhito Maejima: Kagetsu originally hated wrestlers that worked two different characters, but when she tried it out herself, she got hooked.

Q. You went on to join Oedo Tai. Were you interested in joining them from the start?

A. To be honest, if there was one thing I hated, it was when one wrestler was a babyface over here, but a heel over there. I couldn’t stand it! I felt like yelling, “What the hell!” whenever I saw it happen. So when Oedo Tai tried to get me to join, I refused straight away! Kyoko Kimura would ask and ask and ask, and every single time, I’d tell her no, I’m never joining.

But then, I was in the ring at Shinkiba (in April 2016) and Oedo Tai slipped me a bat. And everything clicked into place! Look, I love baseball. I played little league when I was a kid, and I still go see a lot of games now. The moment they handed me that bat, my whole way of thinking shifted. Of course I had to join.

Q. Outside of Stardom, you were still the one getting hit with that sort of weapon. Maybe you had some pent-up resentment from that?

A. That’s right! Now I was learning it from both sides, too, so it was like killing two birds with one stone.

Q. Didn’t you feel conflicted about becoming the sort of wrestler you hated?

A. You’d think so, but as it turns out, it was fun being two-faced! It draws a lot of controversy from the audience, and even though I’d been against it, it was a blast once I finally gave it a shot. I’d get clobbered with illegal weapons in one promotion, and I’d hold on to that rage and take it out on Stardom! Hahaha. I got really into it and kept it up for a while.

Thoughts on Io and Iwatani

Photo by Yasuhito Maejima: In her first match against Mayu Iwatani (right), Kagetsu realized they had a mutual foe.

Q. And meanwhile, you were winning Stardom’s tag and six-woman tag championships – not to mention your great feud with Mayu Iwatani over the High Speed belt. We interviewed Mayu the other day and she said she’d love to fight you over the High Speed title again someday.

A. Oooh! Yes, please!

At first, I wasn’t interested in Iwatani at all. At all. Like, who’s this little stick? Before I started getting involved in Stardom, I’d hear murmurs. “You heard of this Iwatani? She doesn’t train, but she still never gets hurt.” Yeah, that’s why she’s such a stick…

But when we got in the ring together, feeling each other out, I got this strong sense that we were both aiming for the same thing. We wanted to show everyone the same thing. There’s not really any way to put it in words, but as we faced each other more and more, I came to think, “damn, she’s really going for it.”

That’s not a vibe I get from my junior wrestlers very often. I’d lost a belt to Sawako Shimono from Osaka Joshi-Pro before then. Iwatani was the first underclassman wrestler other than Shimono to get on my radar like that. Even now, she’s special to me.

Q. And since you started regularly appearing in Stardom, of course their top wrestler has been Io Shirai. What do you think of her?



A. I mean, Io’s what you aspire to as a wrestler, yeah? In the past, when anyone asked me, “What sort of wrestler would you like to be? Who do you want to be like?” I’d confidently say, “nobody.” But deep down I love her lucha style and I think it’d be nice to wrestle like that, too. Nowadays I really like what Iwatani and Io bring to wrestling – I like the combination of their styles.

Back to Io herself. I said this in the ring at my self-produced event (in Osaka on October 29, 2017), but when I was really struggling as a freelancer, Io was there to give me advice. Talking with her convinced me not to retire from pro wrestling. I owe her an awful lot.

A beltless break

Photo by Sportsnavi: Kagetsu started 2017 with two big matches and lost both. Distraught, she announced she’d be taking a break from wrestling.

Q. Speaking of struggling, earlier this year you announced you were taking a hiatus from wrestling.

A. As a freelancer, I wasn’t putting up any results. I was working for a lot of promotions, and challenging for a lot of titles, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t claim any singles belts. That was irritating enough on its own. To top it off, this past March in Nagoya, I challenged Io for her World Of Stardom belt (Stardom’s “red belt,” the most prestigious in the promotion), and not long afterwards, I had a match for a major singles belt that Hiroyo (Matsumoto) held in another promotion. These were huge chances for me. I was confident that, the way things were going, I was in a position to claim the top belts in two different promotions! I thought that’d definitely change things for me. I put more into those matches than ever before, leaned into them wholeheartedly, and I didn’t win even one of those belts. To be honest, I just couldn’t bounce back from that.

The next day, I held a press conference to announce I’d be taking a break. You want to say, “okay, so I lost – but I’ll get ’em next time,” but that was definitely not how I felt.

I stepped back from wrestling and took long, hard look at myself. I’d always talked a big game about a clash between generations; about how it was time for a changing of the guard and so on. I’d been entirely focused on what was above me. But I realized that no matter how hard you try, you can’t cause a generational shift all by yourself. It’s pointless if you don’t lift up everyone below you as well.

That realization was at least part of what brought me back to Stardom.

Q. Somewhere in there, you found a reason to join Stardom?

A. For most of my time with Stardom, I’ve been in Oedo Tai – everyone’s worst enemies, yeah? I didn’t really have any chances to talk to the full-fledged Stardom members when I was freelancing. No friendly chats. I’d just get in the ring and bully them and that’d be that.

But when the match started and I grabbed on to them, even when there was a lot of stuff they still couldn’t pull off, or that just didn’t go very well, I could tell these other wrestlers were giving it their all. I mean, of course they were – obviously nobody does this to slack off – but something more than that came across. I thought, we all have the same goal after all, don’t we?

At first I figured it’d be a temporary feeling; I was still just scoping out unfamiliar territory. But of course, Oedo Tai was this established thing, and I realized some wrestlers were burning with jealousy about that, which just goes to show, yeah, we’re ultimately aspiring towards the same things.

A new member tests Oedo Tai’s bonds

Photo by Yasuhito Maejima: Oedo Tai continues to expand its influence. But Sumire Natsu’s recent recruitment caused some static…

Q. Your earnest feelings about wrestling really came across there.

We’d like to talk more about Oedo Tai. You’re currently holding the tag titles together with stablemate Hana Kimura. Tell us about her.

A. Hana’s my ultimate partner. I held the tag belts with her mother Kyoko, too, back when she was still in Stardom. Losing those belts to Kairi Hojo and Yoko Bito in Korakuen at the end of 2016 was hard to swallow. Kyoko whispered to me in the ring, “You and Hana are taking those belts back.”

I partnered up with Hana and sure enough, we got the title back pretty quickly. (At Korakuen in June 2017, defeating Hiroyo Matsumoto and Jungle Kyona.) It’s a precious thought to me; Hana’s not only the daughter of someone who looked out for me – she’s my partner, and I want to make sure I keep sight of that.

Q. And yet Hana didn’t seem too pleased about Sumire Natsu joining Oedo Tai.

A. When I joined Stardom full-time, I wanted to bring a surprise along. I thought it’d be great to bring in someone who’d never been involved with Stardom before. Someone you’d never imagine showing up in Stardom in a million years. I really did keep it a secret, even from other members, so it got a lot of blowback… It was kind of a mess.

Natsu wrestled as a surprise entry at my self-produced event, too – she was only billed as “X” and nobody knew it was her until she entered the ring. Hana was one of her opponents in that match, and I thought that might be a slick way to hint at what was coming. But it seems there was some kind of conflict there, and they didn’t really get along. It was an error in judgement on my part.

I don’t know how things’ll shake out, but Oedo Tai’s bonds are strong. We’ve been like a family up until now. It’s the same with Hana and Tam. It’s important for each member to share their opinions and express their will. I’m glad they’re showing how they feel on the surface instead of keeping it hidden.

I’ve got the kind of personality where I try to be careful with people’s feelings… I know that sounds a little out of character! But lately I’ve been struggling on the mic, and not really speaking very well. Really! Though I threw the nice, babyface Kagetsu away when I joined Stardom full-time…

But hey, Oedo Tai’s motto is “don’t try too hard.” With a motto like that, each member has free reign over what they do, with everyone doing their own thing together. If that ends up having an effect on our matches, on our results, that’s when I have to step in as the leader. Right now we’re going through some growing pains.

Q. So what about Oedo Tai’s ambitions going forward?

A. Hana, the others and I have been talking about a full-on invasion of Stardom. Our final goal is to eclipse the whole promotion! It won’t be “Stardom’s Oedo Tai” any more – we’re gonna make it “Oedo Tai’s Stardom!” Naturally, we’ll hold all the belts. Oedo Tai will be at the very center of it all! Let’s be real, though – it’s already all about Oedo Tai, isn’t it?

As for the Artist of Stardom belts, those cutesy cucumbers in QQ may be holding them for now, but as a unit, it doesn’t get any better than Oedo Tai. We’ve beaten them before. The Jungle guys? Their members drift in and out. As for everyone else – Iwatani’s injured, and who knows what’s going on with Bito.

I want to make Oedo Tai into a real brand. Like Chanel, or Louis Vuitton, or Los Ingobernables de Japon.

A leader in red

Q. Any personal goals for yourself?



A. As the leader of Oedo Tai, obviously I want that red belt. It’s the top belt in Stardom, after all. Now that Toni Storm’s taken it and left the country, Bito and Io are trying to make it sound like the white belt (the Wonder of Stardom championship) is the top belt, but I know the red one’s where it’s at.

Hana says she’s interested in the white belt, and I’d love to get the High Speed belt back in Kris’ paws. We’ve got the tag belt already, and getting the Artist belts shouldn’t be a big deal for us.

Q. Then you’d be invincible.

A. Strap those belts on Oedo Tai! I mean, come on! You can’t just let the red belt leave Japan like that! And what, Viper’s gonna take one of QQ’s Artist belts home with her, too? No freakin’ way!

Q. When would you shoot for the red belt? Are you planning to try and take it from Toni, or wait until it finds someone else?

A. I don’t care. I don’t care who’s holding it. “Don’t try too hard,” right? But I’ve never faced Toni before, not even in a tag match, so I’d like to try taking her on and see what that’s like. But it’s not like I’ll lose interest in the red belt if someone gets it off of Toni first. It’s the belt I’m after.

And once that red belt is mine… well, I already know what I’m doing next. But you’ll have to wait until then to find out.

A welcome rematch

Photo by Shuhei Yokota: Kagetsu and Hana will face off against Kelly Klein and Bea Priestley, the winners of the 2017 tag league, at Korakuen. Their goal is to keep the Goddess belts within Japan.

Q. Lastly, let’s talk about Korakuen on November 19. You and Hana will defend your Goddess of Stardom belts against Kelly Klein and Bea Priestley.

A. They were the only ones who beat us in the Goddesses of Stardom tag league, and they went on to win the whole thing. It’s payback time. I’ve been hungry for a rematch since I took the fall – and the timing couldn’t be better. I’m glad we got it decided quickly. We’re the ones doing the defending, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s a rematch.

Q. What do you think of those two?

A. It’s gonna be an interesting match. They’re better opponents for Hana and me than the other foreign wrestlers we’ve faced so far. They’re more savvy, more driven. In press conferences, you get the feeling they’re looking down on the competition. Like they think they know how to handle Oedo Tai.

But to anyone, not just Bea and Kelly, who has beef with Oedo Tai – and I say this knowing you’re gonna think it’s petty, or whatever – but hey: you’ve watched us wrestle how many times? I feel like I say this over and over. Take all that into account and think through how you’ll fight us; and remember we’ve got our own schemes brewing. Use your head!

Q. Last of all, as a member of Stardom, how do you want to present yourself to Stardom fans?

A. Watch for it – Oedo Tai will become a brand like Chanel and take over Stardom!

Other than that… Don’t think that just because I’ve joined Stardom full time means I’m eager to get all buddy-buddy right away. But I get that now I’m in a position where I have to take on some responsibility for the promotion. Keeping that in mind, maybe not directly, but going forward I want to have some role in developing younger talent.

But most of all, as always – keep booing! I love it!