Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2023/03/12/akira-hokuto-recalls-not-being-congratulated-by-colleagues-after-ajw-junior-title-win-felt-she-had-done-something-wrong/
Her Junior Title win from 1986 was revisited.
On March 20th, 1986, Akira Hokuto a.k.a. Hisako Uno become All Japan Women’s Junior Champion. She won the championship one year after debuting for AJW but the post-match reaction in the backstage area amongst her colleagues was not what she was expecting.
Akira recalled not being congratulated and a lot of the seniors were comforting her opponent, Condor Saito, who appeared to be emotional afterwards. She wrote about this in her blog series for Tokyo Sports.
She added that she was 17 years old and had to take care of chores for her seniors regardless of whether she was a champion or not. She then mentioned that someone told her to put the belt down.
I remember how bad it felt at the time (after winning AJW Junior Title). I remember how frustrating it was to see a junior fighting for the title, training so hard without being noticed. When I said, ‘Good job,’ Saito-san had an indescribable look on her face… I don’t remember the match, but I do remember after the match when I won the All-Japan Junior Championship. It seemed that Ms. Saito was crying after losing, and the seniors were comforting her. Our waiting room was connected to the hallway, so we could see them in the distance. That was bad luck too. I felt like I had done something wrong. Back then, it wasn’t welcome for a newcomer to win a belt. Fans and the media welcomed the newcomer, saying, ‘A great newcomer has come out,’ but behind the scenes, the atmosphere was heavy. The seniors never said ‘congratulations’ to me. Besides, a newcomer is still a newcomer, even if she is a champion. You can’t sit at a table and chair yet, and there are plenty of chores to be done. I had to get a change of clothes out of my luggage on the floor and get to my seconds right away. At that time, I also left the belt I had just taken off in my luggage. There was no other place to put it. Then one of my seniors said to me, ‘You put the belt down!’ I was told by a senior colleague, ‘You put your belt down!’ It was unreasonable, but maybe she just didn’t like me. However, everyone wants to hear about how I was bullied in my all-girls days for fun, but I was 17 years old at the time, and my seniors were 18 or 19 years old. Now that I think about it, I feel that I was really young. I guess we were all children. I was a child then too (laughs).
To read what Hokuto feels her future involvement in the pro wrestling space looks like, check out POST Wrestling’s recap of her comments here.