By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)
AEW announced the following brackets for the AEW Women’s Championship Eliminator Tournament.
U.S. Bracket
-Leyla Hirsch vs. Thunder Rosa
-Sereena Deeb vs. Riho
-Tay Conti vs. Nyla Rose
-Britt Baker vs. Anna Jay
Japan Bracket
-Yuka Sakazaki vs. Mei Suruga
-Veny vs. Emi Sakura
-Maki Itoh vs. Ryo Mizunami
-Aja Kong vs. Rin Kadokura
Powell’s POV: The tournament starts tonight on Dynamite with Leyla Hirsch vs. Thunder Rosa. AEW produced a Bracketology special for the tournament that can be viewed below.
AEW Women’s Championship Eliminator Tournament brackets revealed
Quite a few errors on the Japanese side. Mei Suruga doesn’t go by “High Speed”, Maki Itoh is not an actress, she is not part of a recording group(she was part of AN idol group and got fired, it was not called “Idol” lol), and Ryo Mizunami has literally NEVER wrestled for Tokyo Joshi Pro…
Interesting. Are you sure they were errors? Any chance that AEW is attempting to create characters or put their own spin on these characters? I don’t following Japanese women’s wrestling, so I’m just trying to make sense of this.
My impression is that AEW is trying to paint the Japanese side with their own, neutral brush, to not upset the joshi cart in Japan. This is may be important in the future if AEW gets closer to BushiRoad and starts using Stardom talent.
I follow the Japanese women’s wrestling scene closely. There was no “painting with a neutral brush”, they listed each wrestler’s home promotion, and got 1 of them wrong(and it’s a promotion that Stardom doesn’t work with). They got other stuff correct, but something just flat wrong and the stuff they got wrong isn’t anything that would have any bearing on Bushiroad or Stardom talent
Wow. I’m surprised. I appreciate the information. Please keep it coming either here or via my email (dotnetjason@gmail.com).
Definitely errors. They correctly identified Yuka and Maki as working in Tokyo Joshi Pro. There’s no character reason to list Ryo as working in a promotion she’s never worked in. It would be like AEW claiming Kenny Omega was a WWE wrestler. Same thing with Maki, she used to be in an idol band, but they list her as a member of the band Idol. sounds like they just didn’t understand the Japanese idol concept and assumed “idol” was the band name(and also assumed she was still a part of the band). Mei Suruga went by “high speed” when she debuted, but she hasn’t used that name in a long time.