A 30-year career in wrestling is a rare occurrence, and it’s even rarer among female wrestlers, and even rarer still in joshi wrestling. However, if we want to talk about a woman who has wrestled in four different decades, won more than 20 championships, has created two successful joshi promotions, AND trained more than 50 wrestlers, Emi Sakura is the only answer.

Emi Sakura’s philosophy of “Everyone can be a Wrestler” has allowed many people to become professional wrestlers, not caring if they are elementary school children, a freelance writer, a nutritionist, or an actress getting ready to play a role, she will do her best to teach you the art of pro wrestling.

Let’s take a look at some of her most outstanding trainees; some of them genuinely being among the best wrestlers of all time. Honorable mentions include: Miyako Matsumoto, Chie Koishikawa, Mochi Miyagi, Ray, Hamuko Hoshi, Hiragi Kurumi, and Lulu Pencil.

Makoto

The Kobe native made her debut in 2006 in Ice Ribbon at the age of 17, just one month after the promotion held its first card. There she went on to win the ICExInfinity title one time and the International Ribbon Tag Team titles five times with three different partners, including Etsuko Mita, who she cites as one of her idols. She is currently a popular freelancer who has won titles in several promotions, including DDT, PURE-J, SEAdLINNNG, and even Sakura’s ChocoPro.

Mei Suruga

ChocoPro’s current Ace is certainly on her way to become one of the greats, as she not only performs at a great in-ring level, but her magnetic personality and mischievous attitude has gained her lots of Japanese and international fans. Her accomplishments include two Asia Dream Tag Team championships along her Best Bros tag team partner Baliyan Akki, and the Super Asia championship, defeating Emi Sakura herself to win it. Mei has produced shows every year for her wrestling anniversary and made appearances for other promotions such as AEW, Sendai Girls, Stardom and TJPW (not to be confused with her look-alike Mei Saint-Michel). The Apple Girl also works with her mentor in “Darejo Project”, ChocoPro’s training program.

Tsukushi Haruka

At only 13 years of age, Tsukushi debuted in Ice Ribbon after winning a fan voting in 2010, and were they right when they chose her. Going back and forth between her hometown of Kamisu and Ice Ribbon’s dojo in Saitama (a three-hour train ride) just to train wrestling on weekends while also training amateur wrestling with boys, this 4’10”, 95 lb. girl earned her place on the roster and became one of the most decorated performers in the promotion’s history, winning the ICExInfinity title two times, the International Ribbon Tag Team titles a whooping ten times, including one with Sakura and three as part of the excellent team The Dropkickers with Tsukasa Fujimoto (more on her later), and several tournaments and awards. Outside her home promotions, she won gold in DDT, JWP, WAVE, and Reina. In 2022, she retired at the age of 25, not before helping to train Nao Ishikawa and Yuki Mashiro.

Riho

If Tsukushi seemed too young to debut as a wrestler, Riho was only nine years old when she had her first official match in Ice Ribbon. She and her older sister Seina were trained by Sakura while still in elementary school, and by the time she was 11, she won her first championship in the form of the International Ribbon Tag Team titles, teaming with Yuki Sato, losing them only because she fractured her leg. She will go on to become a Triple Crown champion in Ice Ribbon after also winning the Triangle Ribbon and ICExInfinity Championships, capturing the latter at the age of 12. Riho also joined Gatoh Move in 2012, just a few months after its creation, where she won the Asia Dream Tag Team and Super Asia Championships, having the longest reign in the latter’s history at 620 days.

Aside from competing and winning gold in Japanese promotions like DDT and Stardom, Riho has also wrestled in Thailand and Singapore, where she won the Queen of Asia title. However, most wrestling fans would recognize her by her work in All Elite Wrestling, where she was the inaugural AEW Women’s champion in 2019, and later being featured in the promotion on and off since 2020.

Mizuki

Another Kobe native, Mizuki in not only the biggest Hamburger Steak fan you’ll ever know, but genuinely one of the best wrestlers in the world right now. Unlike other Emi Sakura’s trainees, she wasn’t a regular in neither of her mentor’s promotions, choosing instead to be a freelancer, wrestling matches for Diana, Marvelous, and SEAdLINNNG, aside from Ice Ribbon and Gatoh Move. In 2017, she debuted in Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling and in 2019 she signed a full-time deal, although she also made sporadic appearances for Gatoh Move and Actwres girl’Z. In TJPW, Mizuki has won the Princess of Princess Championship two times and the Princess Tag Team Championships three times with Yuka Sakazaki as arguably the best team in the promotion history, the Magical Sugar Rabbits. She also has won the Princess Cup two times, the only woman to do so.

Hikaru Shida

An actress that needed some training to play a character in a movie who went on to become one of the most recognized Japanese wrestlers in the world, Hikaru Shida already had a judo and kendo background when she was cast in the movie “Three Count”, a film set in the world of professional wrestling, after also having worked in the TV series “Muscle Venus”. She and other cast members met Emi Sakura to help them get prepare for their roles, but once filming was done, three of those women would decide to become actual professional wrestlers: Miyako Matsumoto, Tsukasa Fujimoto, and, of course, Hikaru Shida.

Debuting in 2008 for Ice Ribbon, she captured the ICExInfinity and International Ribbon Tag Team Championships. She also has won gold in promotions like OZ Academy, Pro Wrestling WAVE, Reina, and Sendai Girls. In 2018, she main evented her 10-year anniversary self-produce show facing none other than Naomichi Marufuji. Just like Riho, Shida is also signed to AEW, where she’s been AEW Women’s champion three times.

Tsukasa Fujimoto

Thank you Three Count for giving us three amazing wrestlers, and thank you Emi Sakura for training one of the best wrestlers ever: Tsukasa Fujimoto. Even when she started training at the “advanced” age of 25, if you are hand-picked by Manami Toyota as her successor and given her mythical Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex finishing maneuver, it’s because you are destined for greatness.

Out of all of the other students mentioned here, she has had the longest continuous tenure in Ice Ribbon, competing there since her debut in 2008 and winning almost every title, tournament, and award possible, including the ICExInfinity Championship seven times (most of all time), the International Ribbon Tag Team eight times, and becoming Grand Slam and Triple Crown champion. Outside of her home promotion, she also has won titles in JWP, Pro Wrestling WAVE, DDT and SEAdLINNNG, where she formed the legendary team of “Best Friends” alongside Arisa Nakajima.