It’s Friday, and you know what that means…it’s time for the next edition of the 2026 RESURA Joshi Top 100 List, where this time we’ll be looking at the wrestlers who finished 50 through 26. You’ll probably notice a lot of bigger names starting to pop up as we move our way up into the top 50, but I think you might also be surprised at some of the other names you see thrown in with them. The state of the joshi puroesu scene is truly special right now, and we’re all lucky to get to enjoy it in real time!

If you need a refresher on how we rate these wrestlers, we do so in three different categories: Skill, Influence and Competition.

Skill is determined by how good we thought that wrestler’s matches were for the year. I’m sure you personally could figure out who a few of the top performers were in that category.

Influence is a measurement of what they meant to not only their own promotion but also the joshi landscape as a whole. If the wrestler was a bigger name who was known to draw, have been in the business a long time, or held an office position in their promotion like head booker or owner along with their wrestling duties, then it meant they they’d receive a pretty high score.

Competition is a rating based on the competition of wrestlers they’d face during the year-long scoring period. Wrestlers that had big matches, especially for titles would get higher ratings than a wrestler who was normally lower on the card, facing rookies for instance.

On top of those three categories we also factored in a wrestler’s win rate, the amount of matches they wrestled, and their accomplishments which include not only titles won during our scoring period, but also any awards or tournaments that they won as well.

All in all, we did our best to try to put together a list that we could be proud of and stand behind. If you’re looking to see who took part in the rating of these wrestlers, that will be the names you see on the list at the bottom of this article. The last name is a fellow writer who wanted to simply pitch in to help write some of the wrestler-related paragraphs, which we definitely appreciate.

Before we get started with the wrestler who came in at number 50, make sure you’re up to date with who’s been on the list already. If you didn’t get a chance to read last week’s release, click HERE to do so. If you want to start from the beginning and see #100 to #76 click HERE. If you’re all caught up already, then continue on and enjoy reading what our talented writers have to say about these 25 great joshi pro wrestlers!

50. MOMO WATANABE – STARDOM

Momo Watanabe missed half the grading period with injury, but still managed to crack the top 50. That says a lot about her talent level. She looked tremendous en route to becoming 2025 5STAR Grand Prix winner. From her tournament matches with the likes of Sareee and Suzu Suzuki to her grand performance in outlasting AZM In the final, Momo looked driven to be a true top-level star. Then came a failed attempt to dethrone Saya Kamitani for the red belt and a long stretch of recovery at home. The end result is so-so numbers that don’t capture what Watanabe is all about. She ended the grading period with just 23 wins and a .527 winning percentage. Yes, she was 24th on the PWI Women’s Top 250, but she didn’t have a title reign to boast of. She remains one of the most intriguing figures in H.A.T.E., but it’s a crowded place with Rina and Saya taking up plenty of attention. Does she break away from that faction? Does she slide up or down on the card? Does STARDOM’s next generation of up-and-comers pass her by? There’s a swirling tornado of questions surrounding The Black Peach now that she’s back from injury. With uncertainty ahead, she’s poised to be one of the wrestlers to move the most on next year’s list, be it way up or way down.

• Written By: Ryan Dilbert (X: RyanDilbert)

49. MANAMI KATSU – ICE RIBBON

Manami Katsu is one of my favorite wrestlers, and the match that cemented it was the one where she lost her crown. Two weeks after illness forced her out of RibbonMania, Ice Ribbon’s biggest show of the year, on the morning she was set to defend the ICExInfinity title, Katsu returned to put Kaho Matsushita, the wrestler who’d won the vacant title in her absence, over clean in a match I travelled across the country to see live. It was a bookend finish for a run that started with Katsu, an outsider steeped in JWP’s hard-hitting history, returning from semi-retirement and choosing Ice Ribbon over her old home of PURE-J. It was uncertain how her stiff, hard-hitting technical style would fit the promotion’s cartoonishly happy, modern-day tone. It turned out to fit perfectly. She captured the ICExInfinity title in January 2025 as a mean, distant ruler, then spent the rest of the year as Ice Ribbon’s ace, in a storyline that slowly melted down her steely exterior, largely thanks to Misa Kagura, and which carried her to the International Ribbon Tag Team Championship with Misa to make Katsu a double champion. Win titles, put on excellent matches, have the promotion’s storylines all run through you, and then put over the next top stars cleanly when losing the titles. That’s an ace.

Recommended Match: Manami Katsu vs. Riko – Ice Ribbon, 11th October 2025

• Written By: Eric (Joshi’ing Around Podcast)

48. TOMOKA INABA – JUST TAP OUT

While there are a lot of joshi fans out there who may think that Tomoka’s younger sister Azusa Inaba is more talented, I am not one of them. Sure, her younger sister could have a high ceiling, but right now Tomoka is the better wrestler, and she’s honestly still getting better each year in my opinion. Whether it’s using her hard strikes or breaking her opponents down with her strong submission game, Tomoka has a way to beat just about anyone. The only thing holding her back, I believe, is having Just Tap Out as her home promotion, because that’s what holds STARDOM back from pushing her more effectively. You can see that fully by taking a look at her accomplishments for the year, which all happened in her home promotion rather than the much bigger promotion that she finds herself a part of for a majority of her yearly matches. During our scoring period, Tomoka held two JTO championships with one being the JTO Girls Tag Team Championship that she held for 188 days while defending it six times successfully in that time span. She also had the Queen of JTO Championship, but that lasted a meager 11 days only, so to say she was a transitional champion is putting it lightly. Our team liked her in-ring work this year, but she wasn’t a huge standout when you average the scores out. Sure, she was definitely a good bit above average, but there’s still more to offer. We’ve seen Tomoka step up in big matches to put on incredible performances before, but we’ll need to see even more of that as time goes on so that she can continue to rise up in our rankings. Simply moving up one spot from last year’s 49th spot just doesn’t match what I expected from her going into this year.

• Written By: Justin Stein (X: BioHizzle)

47. RYO MIZUNAMI – SENDAI GIRLS

I’ve mentioned before that there could be a joshi wrestling show under the sea or in space, and Ryo Mizunami would be featured on its card. One of the best and busiest freelancers in the joshi scene became an official member of the Sendai Girls roster in April of this year, but that hasn’t stopped her from participating in other promotions like TJPW and OZ Academy, where she won the OZ Academy Pioneer Championship, holding the title for four months. In Sendai Girls, she and Manami became two-times tag team champions, and during that reign, Ryo also challenged Chihiro Hashimoto for the Sendai Girls World title but failed to win it. Ryo will deliver a good match in any show she is featured in and whoever her opponent is, so let’s party Aniki style.

• Written By: Fernando Ibarra (X: Jferimsw)

46. HANAN – STARDOM

Hanan has been a bit up and down for not only me, but quite a few joshi fans who have seen her potential as being one of the top stars in the company not come to fruition, so far. When she’s the plucky underdog, who is fighting for her life in the ring, she can be absolutely incredible. We just needed to see more consistency when it came to performances like that, and I think in the current day, we’re seeing it more at least and I do appreciate it. At the end of 2025, they told a somewhat long-term story of Konami taking Hanan out with an injury, only for her to return and take the Wonder of Stardom championship away from the evil spray paint loving wrestler. It was a story that you could get into whether you loved Hanan as a wrestler or not because it was well told. Now that she’s been the Wonder of Stardom champion for 65 days by the end of our grading period, she has shown that she can be a strong champion, though it might be difficult for her to have a better performance in a defense than the one she had against Bea Priestley, her former stablemate in STARS. It was a chance for her to get beaten up by someone who is bigger than her, which is not something all that common on the STARDOM roster since she’s quite tall in comparison to a lot of the other girls, and it truly made her feel like a true underdog which is when she’s at her best. Let’s not forget that she was also mentioned by Saya Kamitani, one of the biggest stars in all of joshi pro wrestling as someone to watch out for, meaning that the company itself, along with Saya, sees big things in the oldest of the judo sisters. We’ll just have to see if she lives up to that potential going forward, because if she does, she’ll be much higher up on our list for many years to come.

• Written By: Justin Stein (X: BioHizzle)

45. SHOKO NAKAJIMA – TOKYO JOSHI PRO WRESTLING

The ever-reliable Shoko Nakajima was everywhere this past year. Of course, she was a steady hand on many a TJPW card, whether she was with tagging with Hyper Misao as the chaos gremlins of the tag scene or serving as the athletic, experienced talent who delivers one of the best matches of any given event. Nakajima, though, took her lucha-inspired brand of wrestling well outside of TJPW, too. She defended the MLW Women’s World Featherweight Championship everywhere from Long Beach to Bangkok. She traveled to Mexico and competed for CMLL, stopped off in ChocoPro, wrestled a tournament for EVE in London, and tasted a few DDT Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship shenanigans to boot. Nakajima was TJPW’s traveling diplomat, representing the company in a variety of places. She was a tag champ once more as one half of Kyoraku Kyomei and regularly switched back and forth from a comedy act to scrappy title contender. Underdog. Bully. Frenemy. Menace. Whatever you need her to be. The Biggest Kaiju further proved herself to be the Swiss Army knife of the squared circle.

• Written By: Ryan Dilbert (X: RyanDilbert)

44. NATSUKO TORA – STARDOM

‘The Intelligent Monster’ Natsuko Tora is a somewhat divisive wrestler that most fans either love or hate. For some, the fact that she’s not able to work at a very high speed most of the time is a big deterrent because of how fast and fluid the house style of STARDOM tends to be, while others will truly appreciate that she brings something different to the matches than most of the other roster members with her powerhouse brawling style instead. I personally have appreciated Tora more than a lot of fellow international fans at least, because of that second part. She was able to display that creativity quite a bit during this past year when she held the premier tag team championships in joshi the Goddesses of Stardom Championships with her partner Ruaka for 276 days of our grading period. During that long reign BMI 2000 defended their titles a total of five times which is quite strong to say the least, and it also didn’t hurt that they made it all the way to the finals of the Goddesses of Stardom Tag League where they lost to the eventual champions Sakurara. While Natsuko hasn’t been booked quite as strongly as you’d think the leader of H.A.T.E., possibly the most over faction in the company would be, I do feel like STARDOM really took a good step forward over the past year to help you remember that Natsuko is a force to be reckoned with. She’s not been giving quite as much shine as a couple of her other stablemates, but she’s in a good position now to hopefully receive a singles push sometime in the near future, because I would love to see her face Suzu Suzuki for the World of Stardom Championship, especially if weapons end up being involved.

• Written By: Justin Stein (X: BioHizzle)

43. DEBBIE KEITEL – INTERNATIONAL (DIANA)

Zack Sabre Jr. who? My pick for the most impactful overseas talent of the year is coffee enthusiast, the Galway Girl herself, Debbie Keitel. Debbie has taken Diana by storm since her arrival in Japan in 2025, not only energizing the product as part of Invader or Innovator, a new unit formed in 2025 ahead of the promotion’s 15th anniversary, but she has also become instrumental in Diana’s English outreach, even assisting poor, young lost souls like myself in interviewing her, Diana’s talent and its management. Additionally, she is a key part of Diana’s efforts to recruit overseas talent, a part of the roster that has been steadily growing during her tenure. Influence is one of this list’s criteria, and few people embody it more than Debbie, which alone would justify her inclusion among the best wrestlers in Japan. But there’s more to it than that. As Debbie will say herself, she is at the peak of her powers athletically, starting in the business late and now hitting her full stride. If you don’t believe me, join up to the Diana service and put on literally any match that involves her going against Miran, as Debbie shows that, if she wants to, she can wrestle rings around anyone in any style. Oddly, that isn’t even her most outstanding trait, her character work is. Debbie pays close attention to detail and understands what it means to build engaging storylines and what role she needs to play in them. If you’re still not convinced why she belongs with the best wrestlers in Japan, her past year has been full of success, being the first overseas talent to win Diana’s top two titles, the WWWD title and the WWWD tag team title. You can’t talk about Diana without mentioning Debbie. She has bet on herself, but she’s not complacent. Japan isn’t a stepping stone for her. She won’t stop until she’s a household name in Japan, and I wouldn’t bet against her.

Recommended Match: Debbie Keitel vs. Haruka Umesaki – Diana, 19th April 2026

• Written By: Eric (Joshi’ing Around Podcast)

42. KAHO MATSUSHITA – ICE RIBBON

Kaho Matsushita has had a roaring past year. She has transformed from the meek, shy former Ice Ribbon staffer I felt had a clear ceiling into one of the few wrestlers in the scene capable of being an ace, proving me utterly wrong. It started in October 2025, when Ibuki Hoshi, due to face Manami Katsu for her ICExInfinity title, had to pull out with an ACL injury. Kaho took her place. The performance was great, but not entirely convincing that she could carry the promotion. Then, in December, ahead of a rematch, Katsu pulled out through illness, and Kaho won the resulting three-way to capture her first title. Since then, Kaho has grown, exponentially, both in-ring and as a character. Her in-ring has been rounded off with cracking buzzsaw kicks, and an ability to pace her matches perfectly. I would argue that she has a legitimate case as one of the most improved wrestlers in the past year. The difference between Kaho last year and this year is so stark, that I have no idea of what her ceiling could be. This culminated in a huge victory over Yuuka at Ice Ribbon’s anniversary in June, cementing Kaho’s spot at the top of the promotion. She has been handpicked by Tsukasa Fujimoto to be the future of Ice Ribbon. There isn’t a question of which direction Kaho will go in this list next year. The question is how much of a leap she will make.

Recommended Match: Kaho Matsushita vs. Yuuka – Ice Ribbon, 20th June 2026

• Written By: Eric (X: Joshi’ing Around Podcast)

41. RINA YAMASHITA – FREELANCER

There is no one quite like Rina Yamashita on the joshi scene. She’s a decidedly unique figure amid a diverse landscape. We’re talking about a wrestler who travels outside of joshi promotions to trade hands with men in places like BURST Pro Wrestling, GCW,  and 666. Yamashita delves into the deathmatch world, smashing light tubes across a foe’s flesh and bleeding for her craft. Then she circles back to wrestle for STARDOM as part of Mi Vida Loca or shows up in Gokigen Pro. Who else both competed in the King of Deathmatch World GP II Tournament and fought on the mat in Ichigaya Chocolate Square? Rina’s accolades over the past 12 months further point to the multiplicity of her work. She held the Super Asia Championship and ruled over ChocoPro for six months. She won the aforementioned King of Deathmatch tourney with MASADA. She and Sanae Takebayashi claimed the Best Body Japan Pro-Wrestling tag belts. And while facing a varied set of foes, from Antonio Honda to Syuri, she finished with 174 matches during the grading period, the largest total of anyone on this list. Yamashita is one of one, someone marching down the path less traveled. A workhorse. A warrior. An absolute bulldog.

• Written By: Ryan Dilbert (X: RyanDilbert)

40. HAZUKI – STARDOM

Even though Hazuki is my favorite professional wrestler at the moment, this is actually the first time I’ve gotten to write about her for the Top 100, and it’s unfortunate that I can’t talk about her being in the top 25, because she barely squeaked into the top 40 instead. While there are times where Hazuki doesn’t have a lot of accomplishments in a given year since STARDOM doesn’t always push her all that strongly, one thing is always for certain, you’re going to get a lot of really good matches out of Hazuki whether she wins or loses. This year, she’s continued a lot of what she did last year when it comes to taking bookings outside of STARDOM, though instead of cruising through the indies of Japan, she’s now enjoying the indies of America along with some AEW appearances sprinkled in as well. The popularity of Hazuki I think has grown internationally because of those appearances, but most of us joshi fans would love to see her have that kind of success in Japan instead so that she can finally wear one of the important top two singles titles in STARDOM. This year though, her case for her position on our list was helped by her holding the SPARK Joshi World Championship for the entire year, though she only defended it once, and her holding the CMLL-Japan Women’s Championship for 155 days, defending it twice in the process. While most people would probably hand wave the SPARK championship away, Hazuki’s somewhat short run with the CMLL-Japan championship was honestly quite good, because it did give us one of the best matches of the year so far in my opinion when she defended her title against the then high-speed champion Mei Seira. It showed us exactly what we can expect from Hazuki holding a singles title and being locked in, which excites me for what could come in the future if the company decides to get behind her with a strong push. If not, though, it might be up to Tony Khan to bring her in full time and hopefully give her the push she deserves to the top of their women’s division. A division that could use a wrestler talented enough to truly be the ‘Ace’. It’s not what I truly want, but I’ll take what I can get.

• Written By: Justin Stein (X: BioHizzle)

39. ARISU ENDO – TOKYO JOSHI PRO WRESTLING

The ultimate babyface, Arisu Endo has been the poster child of TJPW’s new and exciting era. She’s had two of the best babyface performances of 2026 against Spark Rush and later Aja Kong, showing all of the heart necessary to be a torch bearer for TJPW.  Aptly nicknamed ‘The Aizu Girl Who Saves People With Her Smile’ she is a bright spark anywhere she goes and connects with audiences. Her tag team work with Suzume is an obvious highlight but anytime she’s allowed to go it alone, Endo proves to have one of the highest ceilings of anyone in Tokyo Joshi.

• Written By: Alex Richards (X: LWOSPWAlexR)

38. HANAKO NAKAMORI – PURE-J

Pure-J normally goes pretty under the radar when it comes to promotions that people tend to talk about in the joshi scene today, but it doesn’t mean that they don’t have a good roster or put on good matches. One of the best wrestlers on their roster for quite a few years now has been Hanako Nakamori, someone who is basically their ‘Ace’ for all intents and purposes. She’s not quite as fleet of foot as she might have been earlier in her career, but she still has a great mind for the business, and can work a pretty hard hitting style to say the least. During the first month of our scoring period she was dealing with some injury issues, but after that she was back to working very regularly again, and she put together quite a few accomplishments while she was at it. Not only was she one half of the Daily Sports Tag Team champions, which is PURE-J’s tag team championship, with her partner Kaho Kobayashi, but she also recaptured a title that has been quite synonymous with her, the Pure-J Openweight Championship. She was able to hold onto the tag team tiles for 314 days of our grading period which is almost the entire year, and she helped defend that title five times successfully while she was at it. She is currently still holding the Pure-J Openweight Championship to this day, but the count of her days ended at 177 days when our scoring period ended. Still though, she did defend the title twice during that span of time, which is still active enough at least. When you add in her impressive 61% win percentage and her good in ring work, there’s no wonder that she ended up moving up eight spots from last year’s 46th position.

• Written By: Justin Stein (X: BioHizzle)

37. MEI SEIRA – STARDOM

The high speed queen of the past few years has been none other than Mei Seira, and honestly it has both been good and bad for her in the process. On one end, she held a championship for a lot of the scoring period this past year by being the STARDOM High Speed champion for 176 days and defending it four times successfully, but she also never seemed to get a strong push outside of doing her high-speed stuff for a lot of the year, meaning that there was some wasted potential in my opinion. When you look at overall skill, or talent in the ring, Mei Seira might be in the top 25 at least in my opinion, so her being seen as only a high-speed wrestler with a championship that is one of the lowest on the proverbial totem pole is a bit disheartening to see. Still though, we can hope that the STARDOM brass will use it as a bit of a stepping stone in a way, and with someone like Hanan currently holding the Wonder of Stardom Championship, along with the fact that those two seem to hate each other for some reason, it at least lines Mei Seira up for a challenge in the future for something bigger if she wants to truly pursue it. Other than just her impressive High Speed title reign, she did have a pretty strong 59% winning percentage this year, along with the fact that she was rated pretty highly by our team of graders who ended up giving her an average of a 7.31 rating when it comes to match quality, influence, and competition. The world is Mei Seira’s proverbial oyster, and there’s a lot that she can accomplish if STARDOM will let her, we just gotta hope that they don’t get in her way because she’s an absolute dynamo in the ring!

• Written By: Justin Stein (X: BioHizzle)

36. HINA – STARDOM

Hina, up until now, has been seen as the least popular and weakest in comparison to her two sisters. For a while, it was also difficult to find many devoted Hina fans online, as Hanan and Rina would enjoy far more popularity. Well, that finally stopped.

In the past year, Hina saw a meteoric rise. Whether defending her Future of Stardom Championship or not, in every match, she has exhibited a mixture of explosiveness, energy, and flawless judo throws; her improvement is obvious and impossible to overlook. To that technique she adds an elegant appearance, creating an aura that can look pretty but also mean business at the same time (she is the most stylish out of the three sisters anyway).

Added to that is her (short but significant) Artist of Stardom Championship reign, which shows that Hina is a reliable player in both singles and tag context. In tournaments, she has had a decent run but didn’t go very far, winning a few points in the 5Star Grand Prix and Goddess of Stardom Tag League, and finally beating Xena in this year’s Cinderella Tournament (Hina lost to her in the 2023 tournament).  The tournament ended with Hanan as the winner, but, for me, the true Cinderella story has been Hina’s: a wrestler that was midcarder at best with no significant wins is now making the world notice her. I expect great things from the “JD Fighter” in the next year too.

• Written By: Aris Emmanouloudis (X: ArgyEmm)

35. YUU – RETIRED (SENDAI GIRLS)

Even though it states that Yuu is retired now, that hasn’t stopped her from having four matches since that retirement match shortly after Christmas day last year. A lot of people probably don’t count what Sukeban does as wrestling, but still. Either way, though, Yuu had a very strong run to her retirement last year, putting up some strong numbers from the first of July to most of the way through December as she wrestled 88 matches in total, while racking up a very strong 64% win percentage in those matches. A lot of those matches and wins came from her tagging with her partner Chihiro Hashimoto, someone you’ll see on our list in the next release, as their tag team ‘Team 200kg’ dominated not only Sendai Girls, but also some of the other indie promotions that they’d show up in. That dominant team held the Sendai Girls Tag Team Championship for 160 days of our scoring period and came away with four strong defenses before finally dropping the titles right before her retirement show. The matches themselves were always quite entertaining as you’d get to see two absolute powerhouses throw around their competition quite easily, and considering how the first half of 2026 has gone, I do kind of miss Team 200kg in all honesty. Yuu herself in singles matches proved to be an incredible wall for another wrestler to have to try to knock down, and more times than not, they were the ones who ended up on their backs instead. I guess the saving grace in all of this is the fact that Yuu is still working Sukeban dates, and with her style of wrestling, she could stay retired for a few years and then attempt a comeback without really losing too much of a step in my opinion. Will she choose to do so? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

• Written By: Justin Stein (X: BioHizzle)

34. MAKOTO – FREELANCER

Jose Mourinho once said that a team full of Cesar Azpilicueta’s would win the Premier League.  I am here to say that a company full of Makoto’s would produce the greatest pro wrestling our weary eyes may have ever seen. Makoto is the definitive most underrated wrestler in the world and has been for some time now. Understanding your role is seen as hugely important in sports but for some reason has yet to translate to how fans appreciate wrestlers. Makoto does what she’s asked, wherever she’s asked, and does it incredibly well. Just this past year we’ve seen her have a strong tag team run in ChocoPro where she put over Soy and Miya Yotsuba and bring the violence to SEAdLINNNG as part of Las Egos and their excellent feud with Honori Hana and Unagi Sayaka. Even when asked to face her own faction mate, Makoto put Selene Misora in absolute hell just to prove she belongs.

• Written By: Alex Richards (X: LWOSPWAlexR)

33. HARUKA UMESAKI – DIANA

I’d be lying if I said I was always the biggest Haruka Umesaki fan, I’ve had my ups and downs with her work from time to time. I find she’s really put it together recently from what I’ve seen of her. She was at the lead of Diana’s turnover with their roster growing and new ideas come to the forefront as she held down the main title and the tag belts. Her match with Miran in May put her in the position of the veteran leader of the promotion against the upstart, a reversal from what Umesaki once occupied there and in the wider scene. That was a strong match that showed she could handle the role of Ace while making sure the younger talent gets enough room to shine and give fans a reason to believe in them. With the news that she’s leaving Diana to freelance, 2027 could be her biggest year to date as Umesaki looks fully formed as a talent and ready to make an impact everywhere.

• Written By: Alex Richards (X: LWOSPWAlexR)

32. YUKI ARAI – TOKYO JOSHI PRO WRESTLING

After a bit longer than most people expected, Yuki Arai finally made it to the top of the mountain and captured the Princess of Princess Championship. It hasn’t always been the cleanest path, but the former idol has made the move from the music scene to pro wrestling in a very admirable way. While I acknowledge that Arai isn’t some perfect fundamental pro wrestling, I do always get a sense that she’s putting her all into it. It makes her interesting to see someone still putting things in place as she goes along, stamping her own style on a promotion as distinct as TJPW. Her title matches to date have had a certain rawness of a woman fighting against veterans and elite pro wrestlers as she proves she isn’t an outsider anymore.

• Written By: Alex Richards (X: LWOSPWAlexR)

31. MARINO SAIHARA – ACTWRES GIRL’Z

It’s kind of unfortunate that Marino finds herself this far down the list this year, because in all honesty I feel like she had an even better year that she had last year when she finished 23rd on our list. It’s very interesting that Marino Saihara went from a girl in a squirrel costume who rarely even got booked back in the day, to basically becoming the ‘Ace’ of Actwres girl’Z, at least in my opinion, but it shows you that hard work can truly pay off! Marino is not only the leader of the Actress Five faction that is the predominant babyface faction of the company, but she’s also someone who you can put in the ring against any other worker in the company and you’ll get a pretty damn good match out of it. Plus, with quite a few of the more veteran members of the company now leaving for pro wrestling or ‘acting’ retirement, it’s even more important that Marino is there to be that solid base for everyone else in the company to revolve around. During this scoring period alone, she not only held the company’s biggest prize, the AWG Championship for 172 days while defending it three times successfully, but she is also one half of the AWG tag team champions with her partner Yukina Uehara as Harahara Red, having four successful title defenses under their proverbial belts by the time the scoring period ended. She also boasted an incredible 79% winning percentage in her 42 matches which might honestly be the highest winning percentage on our list period this year. Marino has been very impressive the last few years, and I’m really hopeful that she’ll get more opportunities in the future to show what she can do against even better opponents. While I don’t want her to leave AWG exactly, since I do like that promotion, I’d love to see her mix it up with wrestlers from STARDOM, TJPW, Marigold, or even Sendai Girls, because I think she could be a very strong upper midcard act if given the chance in a bigger promotion. It would also give her a bit more respect from more of the joshi fans who don’t watch Actwres.

• Written By: Justin Stein (X: BioHizzle)

30. MIZUKI – TOKYO JOSHI PRO WRESTLING

The Popping Sugar Rabbit remained a staple of the TJPW upper card and served as a bridge to a new era of the company this past year. Miu Watanabe had to go through Mizuki to reclaim her second Princess of Princess Championship and take over the ace role. The bout those two had served as the perfect launchpad for Watanabe’s rise. Mizuki deftly slid over to other spots on the card and shined there, too. She and Uta Takami fought together, becoming one of the most endearing/intriguing teams on the TJPW roster. The duo battled all the way to the finals of the Max Heart tourney and later had one hell of a showing when they challenged Watanabe and Rika Tatsumi for the tag titles. The numbers tell half the story why Mizuki pushed her way up into the top 30. She had a strong .652 winning percentage. The tail end of her second PoP reign happened during the JOSHI TOP 100 grading period. She placed 19th on the PWI Women’s 250. But beyond the stats, Mizuki was someone who came off as special even when not getting big title fights. Her star power radiates. And Mizuki’s also a wrestler who regularly creates buzz online, as we saw again this past year when she switched to black gear and folks swooned in chorus in response.

• Written By: Ryan Dilbert (X: RyanDilbert)

29. MIYU YAMASHITA – TOKYO JOSHI PRO WRESTLING

One of the best joshi since quite a while, and it still doesn’t feel like she is given enough credit. This period was not as spectacular as the past ones for Miyu, since she didn’t hold any titles in the promotion and was eliminated in the second round of both the Princess Cup and the Max Heart tournaments. However, she did win the DDT Iron Man Heavy Metal Championship three times (becoming a seven-time champion in the process), and Thailand’s  SETUP World Tag Team Championship with Kaya Toribami.

After dominating the main event scene in TJPW for the better part of a decade, she quietly has stepped down and let more girls show that there’s more to the promotion than the Pink Striker. Miyu doesn’t carry the promotion on her back, she instead wants to give the spotlight to every girl on the roster, and that’s what a true leader does.

• Written By: Fernando Ibarra (X: Jferimsw)

28. SUZU SUZUKI – STARDOM

There would have been a good chance that Suzu would have been a bit farther down our list if she didn’t win the World of Stardom Championship just 10 days before the scoring period ended. Not only did she do that, but she even added a successful defense within that very short time frame as well which definitely surprised me. We’ve always known that we can count on Suzu Suzuki to put together great matches, because she’s been doing that for years, but now we get to see what Suzu can do as the top champion in the top joshi company, and I must admit that it’s been so far, so good. It also is a feel-good story in a way, because she’s been dealing with so much sickness or injury issues over the past few years, and now she finally gets a chance to prove to everyone that she was worth the wait. I also believe that her being given her own faction Mi Vida Loca has also really helped her relax a bit since she’s surrounded by friends out there, and simply being the leader of a faction sort of levels up the way that the fans see you more times than not. The feud she had last year with Maika with both faction Mi Vida Loca and ExV battling it out seemed to go on forever, but one thing that was always constant was that the two leaders stepped up every time they needed to. In turn, it showed the fans that they could count on Suzu Suzuki just like her teammates did. It will be interesting to see how high up the list Suzu ends up next year, because if this title reign does last quite a while, there’s a good chance she could find herself in the top 25 considering how good her overall average score from our graders ended up, but if she’s a bit of a transitional champion, then there’s a good chance she’ll find herself in this range again because I don’t see her in-ring work getting any worse anytime soon.

• Written By: Justin Stein (X: BioHizzle)

27. HONORI HANA – SEADLINNNG

Honori Hana leads the charge of the new young generation at SEAdLINNNG. It would be accurate to say that Honori had struggled being only one of two of their contracted wrestlers. In 2024, one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, Arisa Nakajima, retired. SEAdLINNNG was no longer the premier destination for top freelancers in the scene. Miria Koga, 20, was the only contracted wrestler that they had. In 2021, Honori took a three-year break from wrestling, induced by a difficult battle with COVID during the pandemic. Honori returned at the turn of 2025, thrown back into a company without Arisa Nakajima, a scaled-down operation struggling to draw compared to their glory days. She immediately became the senior to Miria, but Honori had only debuted herself in December 2019, and when returning was only 25 years old. She didn’t know what it meant to carry a company. That struggle was apparent. During 2025, Honori Hana gained two more juniors in Yuki Funa, 28, and Selene Misora, 20. It was the introduction of Selene that lit a fire underneath Honori as the promotion re-geared around its young stars, building the promotion entirely on them, with less reliance on top freelancers. Honori grabbed this opportunity with both hands, producing her best-ever, blood-soaked performance in a star-making tag title defense against Selene in April 2026. Honori’s style is aggressive, uncompromising, violent, and raw. There is no doubt that Honori is now ready to not only lead her home promotion to better days, but to become a key player in the women’s wrestling scene in Japan. Do not be surprised to see her crack the top 20 next year.

Recommended Match: Honori Hana & Unagi Sayaka vs. Selene Misora & VENY – SEAdLINNNG, 17th April 2026

• Written By: Eric (Joshi’ing Around Podcast)

26. MIKA IWATA – SENDAI GIRLS

Once I started following Sendai Girls, Mika Iwata became my favorite, not only in the promotion, but one of my favorite wrestlers ever. Chihiro Hashimoto might be the Ace of Sendai Girls, but Mika is undeniably the coolest one there. Mika started this period as a three-time tag team champion, alongside her Red Energy partner, Miyuki Takase, and ended as a four-time champion, with the pair winning once again the titles in June. She also challenged her biggest rival, Chihiro Hashimoto, for the Sendai Girls World Championship, but Chi-Hashi came on top. As any great veteran should do, Mika has done wonders with Sendai Girls’ crop of new talents like YUNA and Spike Nishimura, and other rookies like Miku Kanae and Chi Chi (give her all the titles!!!).

Mika could easily be the Ace of the promotion and be at the same level as Chihiro, just give her the chance.

• Written By: Fernando Ibarra (X: Jferimsw)

Well, there you have it for the third 25 wrestlers revealed to be on our top 100 list. Do you agree with our assessments? Do you think a wrestler should have been higher or lower? Feel free to let us know on X, because ultimately the more conversation that we get to have about the best wrestling in the world, the better! Tune in next week at the same time to see who is ranked in the top 25 and most importantly, who was voted as the best joshi pro wrestler over this past year.

Thank you to everyone who helped out with this project, please check out their X accounts and give them a follow if you haven’t already.

Justin Stein – Writer at resuramag.com

Ryan Dilbert – Owner & Writer at resuramag.com

Fernando Ibarra – Writer at resuramag.com

DaveTCS – Writer at resuramag.com

Scott Edwards – The voice of the 5-Star Joshi Show on YouTube & writer for various outlets including resuramag.com, and fightful.com

Eric – One voice of the Joshi’ing Around Podcast and contributor to the Social Suplex Newsletter.

Alex Richards – One voice of the Stardom Quest Podcast.

Aris Emmanouloudis – Writer at resuramag.com & member of the Professional Wrestling Studies Association. You can find his academic essays on pro wrestling from his X account.