Welcome fine people to the first annual RESURA JOSHI YEAR-END AWARDS.

These accolades are another way to celebrate the greatness joshi wrestling gives us each year. We started with the Joshi Top 100 and now bring you a whole slew of awards to commemorate the best of 2025. With your help, we crown the year’s best rookie, promotion, show, match, and wrestler.

 As you’ll see shortly into the breakdown, one promotion in particular dominated, a sign that the joshi landscape is shifting right in front of us.

To decide the winners of all these categories, we sent out a poll for our readers and writers at the very end of December (making sure to wait until after Dream Queendom concluded), and tallied up all the results. The votes are counted and we now present the inaugural recipients: 

Rookie of the Year: Seri Yamaoka (83% of votes)

Runner-up: Senka Akatsuki (12%)

Other nominees: Yukina Uehara, Big Haruka, Sora Ayame, Shinno

Seri Yamaoka earned the highest percentage of votes in any category. That’s impressive especially given the depth of the list of nominees. But it’s not exactly surprising. 

Marigold pushed Seri as a “super rookie” from day one, and she earned all the hype surrounding her. She was a believable badass right away. She left people admiring the kind of magnetism she had while still a teenager.

In Seri’s first year, she firmly planted herself as one of Marigold’s top stars. She and Shinno won the Twin Star Cup, she won the Rookie of the Year Tournament, and took home the Marigold Twin Star Championship with her mentor Nanae Takahashi.

Her matches against Mayu Iwatani, Nanae Takahashi, and Victoria Yuzuki were ample chances to make her mark, and she did every time. Plus, Seri was a key part of the Marvelous versus Marigold rivalry, with her personal feud against Senka Akatsuki being one of its major highlights.

She heads into 2026 poised to have a stellar sophomore campaign and forever fill the early chapters of Marigold history with her name.

Tag Team of the Year: wing★gori (65% of votes)

Runner-up: Team 200kg (13%)

Other nominees: FWC, Kyoraku Kyomei, Spark Rush, Red Energy, Sakurara

The race for Tag Team of the Year got closer in the back half of the year as Hanan dealt with injury. Early on in 2025, though, there was little doubt who joshi’s top duo was as wing★gori absolutely tore it up.

Hanan and Saya Iida held the Goddess of Championship for the first part of the year and continually made their title matches must-see. They showed out against Crazy Star at Stardom Path of Thunder, versus FWC at All-Star Queendom, and opposite Natsupoi and Saori Anou at Stardom the Conversion.

In addition, they represented STARDOM well in Las Vegas at a joint Dragon Gate USA and Pro Wrestling Revolution show at WrestleMania weekend. 

This was an ever-present, ever-electric duo that rocked the STARDOM tag scene. They are more than deserving winners here with no disrespect to squads like FWC and Team 200kg. 

Show of the Year: Marigold Grand Destiny (76% of votes)

Runner-up: STARDOM All-Star Queendom (17%)

Other nominees: TJPW Wrestle Princess VII, STARDOM 5STAR Grand Prix Final 2025, Sendai Girls The Top Of Joshi Wrestling, STARDOM Dream Queendom

Grand Destiny was as important as it was entertaining. Not only did it give us big title match thrillers, it represented the arrival of some of the company’s new marquee stars.

Obviously, this show gets a major boost in the awards chase because it had IYO SKY vs. Mayu Iwatani, a dream match that revisited one of STARDOM’s greatest rivalries. But this was far from a one-bout event.

Miku Aono winning the Utami Hayashishita for the Marigold World Championship and Victoria Yuzuki defeating Mai Sakurai to claim the United National Championship were results that shook up the Marigold hierarchy. The booking alone makes Grand Destiny special, but in both cases, we also got absolute bangers in those two title matches.

Also, the show gave us a fun clash between Chihiro Hashimoto and Seri Yamaoka as well as appearances from Minori Suzuki, Sareee, and Magenta. 

Rivalry of the Year: Marvelous vs. Marigold (80% of votes)

Runner-up: Saya Kamitani vs. Tam Nakano (13%)

Other nominees: Mei Suruga vs. Chie Koishikawa, Sareee vs. Syuri, Senka Akatsuki vs. Seri Yamaoka, Actwres Killer’z vs. Actress5 

A promotional war that elevated both companies.

Seri Yamaoka vs. Senka Akatsuki, the rivalry within the rivalry, was stellar. It felt like the start of a generational feud. Their collisions at press conferences were some of the most exciting moments from the joshi scene all year. 

The matches from this large-scale battle delivered, too. The Gauntlet match between Team Marvelous and Team Marigold was dramatic, emotional, an up-and-down epic. The six-woman tag on Pro Wrestling NOAH Monday Magic Xtreme might have been even better, though.

And it’s hard to compete with the star power this feud boasted. Utami Hayashishita, Mayu Iwatani, Mio Momono, Takumi Iroha. Come on!

Best Faction: Neo Genesis (75%)

Runner-up: H.A.T.E. (10%)

Other nominees: Darkness Revolution, Ozaki-Gun, Cosmic Angels, Actwres Killer’Z, Actress5

Neo Genesis is just so dang fun to watch. It boasts a roster of some super popular stars in AZM, Starlight Kid, and Mei Seira.

It’s an energetic, youthful group that is just plain cool. 

Beyond that, they were everywhere, succeeded in starring roles. Just look at their collection of championships.

Miyu Amasaki, SLK, and AZM held the Artist of STARDOM Championship. Starlight Kid reigned as Wonder of STARDOM champ for most of the year. AZM held the NJPW STRONG Women’s Championship. Miyu was the Future of STARDOM titleholder in the very early part of 2025. And finally, the High Speed Championship belonged to Mei Seira until the final days of the year.

Match of the Year: IYO SKY vs. Mayu Iwatani: Marigold Destiny (79% of votes)

Runner-up: Tam Nakano vs. Saya Kamitani: All-Star Grand Queendom (12%)

Other nominees: Sareee vs. Syuri: STARDOM The CONVERSION, Sareee vs. Syuri: Sareee-ISM Chapter VII. Mizuki vs. Miu Watanabe: Wrestle Princess VII, Sareee vs. Utami Hayashishita: Marigold First Dream, Mayu Iwatani vs. Syuri: All-Star Queendom

Match of the Year was a close race with several contenders all bunched up together early in the voting process. But then it became a drubbing. 

The match that felt the biggest won out. IYO SKY wrestled outside of WWE once more, but this time against one of her greatest rivals, the woman who took her spot at STARDOM’s GOAT when she left.

Fans got to revisit an all-time feud. Now with two women who were even better than they were all those years ago.

The result lived up to the hype. There’s ample reason to vote for the other great bouts in contention, but it’s easy to see why so many voters went this direction.

Most Improved: Victoria Yuzuki (76% of votes)

Runner-up: Hina (10%)

Other nominees: Shino Suzuki, Wakana Uehara, Rea Seto, Chika Goto, Chi Chi, Sayaka Kurara

Bigger than winning the United National Championship, Victoria Yuzuki experienced the biggest shift on the Marigold hierarchy save for maybe Miku Aono. 

She was so good when she first debuted, but there was a rawness to her. She burst with potential. And we saw that potential blossom in 2025.

Yuzuki’s presence grew. She looked and felt more and more like a main eventer. She became a better striker and storyteller, and looking every bit like she deserved a major chunk of the Marigold spotlight.

Promotion of the Year: Marigold (77% of votes)

Runner-up: STARDOM (12%)

Other nominees:, Sendai Girls, Marvelous, TJPW, Actwres girl’Z

If you’ve been keeping track of the winners of the previous awards, you probably guessed early how this one panned out.

You have the home of the Match of the Year and the most improved wrestler. Add the top rivalry, Show of the Year, and the best rookie, and you have a special year for a young promotion.   

Marigold was empowered by Seri Yamaoka’s super rookie campaign, by the rise of Victoria Yuzuki and Miku Aono, by megastar Mayu Iwatani moving away from STARDOM for the first time in her career.

The undercard had so many great stories and showings. Mai Sakurai came into her own. Rea Seto was a firecracker. Shinno was a stellar addition to the roster. 

STARDOM remains a beast in terms of attendance and pure star power, but Marigold’s booking delivered a deeper, immersive experience. It’s not a shocker to see the newer company get more votes here.

Wrestler of the Year: Mayu Iwatani (75% of votes)

Runner-up: Saya Kamitani (12%)

Other nominees: Sareee, Marino Saihara, Chihiro Hashimoto, Miu Watanabe, Miku Aono

Saya Kamitani had a tremendous year, capped off by becoming the first woman to win the Tokyo Sports MVP Award. So honestly, the results were surprising here. Not just that Mayu won but by such a healthy margin.

Iwatani has a hell of case to claim this prize, though. 

She began the year as a top star for STARDOM and then became the flagbearer for Marigold. She bettered the company with her presence and how much she elevated everyone around her.

Mayu helped catapult the super rookie Seri Yamaoka with a standout match. She helped Yuzuki shine like never before. She turned the Marigold Superfly Championship into a much bigger deal.

She had a historic week where she had a Match of the Year contender against Syuri at All-Star Queendom to say goodbye to STARDOM and then just a few days later gave us a classic against Nanae Takahashi. Her greatest hits for the year is an outstanding collection: versus IYO SKY, the Marigold vs. Marvelous six-woman clash, the DREAM STAR match against Utami Hayashishita and all those Superfly title defenses. 

After all that, Iwatani’s already crowded mantle gets another accolade to display. The first-ever RESURA JOSHI YEAR-END AWARDS Wrestler of the Year. Congrats, Icon.