Time flies. Here’s a quick look back on some personal highlights of the careers of a couple wrestlers who made a lasting impression when I first saw them near exactly a decade ago.
Also please check out a similar spotlight I did recently about Nao Kakuta and Tae Honma.
Sonoko Kato
Sonoko Kato was already a well established and decorated veteran when I slowly started getting introduced to joshi wrestling* in the early 2010s. And it would still be a few years before I had the opportunity to see her wrestle.
Shimmer Women’s Athletes, a US independent women’s wrestling promotion, brought in wrestlers from all over the world for their shows. It was through them that I discovered and became an eternal fan of numerous Japanese wrestlers and promotions. Kana (now WWE’s Asuka), Ayako Hamada, Ray, Misaki Ohata, Hikaru Shida, and a number of other incredibly talented joshi wrestlers had already appeared for the company by the time I started traveling to Chicago for Shimmer weekends in 2014.
( * – The Japanese word “joshi” simply means “girl” and “joshi puroresu” in Japan generally just means “women’s wrestling.” But as a borrowed term in English “joshi wrestling” is shorthand specifically referring to Japanese women wrestlers and promotions.)
By Fall of 2015 I was making my fourth trip out for Shimmer and would be fortunate enough to see Kato live in her first and only Shimmer weekend. I had heard the name but was largely unfamiliar with her prior and had never seen her wrestle at all.
Already at 20 years of wrestling experience at the time, Kato was great and made an immediate strong impression.
Shimmer weekends were a unique and impactful experience. The only way they could put on the shows they did with the vast array of talent coming in was to tape multiple shows at a time. So twice a year Shimmer would have back to back double taping days across a weekend. Tickets were good for a full day, generally with two shows taped on Saturday and two on Sunday.
So while Kato only traveled out for Shimmer once, I had the privilege of seeing her wrestle four times in that one weekend. She was featured in three strong singles matches (against Kimber Lee, Kellie Skater, and Nicole Savoy) as well as a short, chaotic 6-way (against Kay Lee Ray (now Alba Fyre), Allysin Kay, Candice LeRae, Kellie Skater, and Marti Bell).
Kato killed it all weekend and her combination of exciting ring skills and natural charisma. Her awesome match against Savoy was my personal favorite.
She seemed genuinely excited to be there and meet foreign fans and was particularly appreciative of a subset of us importing and preparing traditional Japanese style streamers to be thrown during the entrances for the joshi wrestlers.
Oz Academy, Kato’s home company and where she wrestled the vast majority of the time, didn’t run often during the time of year I was usually in Japan when I started making trips over there. And there isn’t much official distribution of their stuff outside of Japan.
So I only ever saw Kato wrestle in Japan a couple lucky times and overall I’ve seen far fewer of her matches than most of my other favorite wrestlers.
Though as with her Shimmer appearances what I have managed to see was excellent. I was fortunate enough to catch a tremendously fun tag match of hers on Oz Academy’s 1/6/19 show alongside Ryo Mizunami against Hikaru Shida & Rina Yamashita.
Mizunami would become a regular partner of Kato a few years later as H2D, and they were multiple time tag team champions. They also had a handful of singles matches against one another over the years, and Mizunami was chosen to be Kato’s last opponent.
Sonoko Kato retired on 11/23/25, bringing her incredible 30 year career to a close. I hope everything is going well for her post wrestling.
Risa Sera
A couple of months after I saw Kato wrestle in Shimmer I made my first ever trip to Japan. My first show was an Ice Ribbon dojo show, where among a bunch of other wrestlers I’d be watching for a long time to come I got my first look at Risa Sera.
Risa was trained in Ice Ribbon and was about 3 years into her career, just past what’s generally considered her rookie period in Japan. She had recently officially formed the Azure Revolution tag team with Maya Yukihi and a number of the matches I saw of hers back then were Azure Revolution tags.
Risa was energetic and striking with regards to her traditional wrestling, with her trademark double knee strikes and other high impact moves standing out.
She was the relative veteran and more polished member of the team in those early days. Although over time Maya was improving and evolving more rapidly and would become her partner’s equal and rival. If fact while they are a good team I have noted in the past that they had even better chemistry as opponents.
Their paths would continue to cross in numerous ways and they have reformed Azure Revolution for a number of matches as Risa’s career winds down.
Risa had great success I those years in Ice Ribbon, becoming multiple time International Ribbon Tag Team Champions and ICE Cross Infinity Champion. One of her title matches that stands out in my memory was an exciting encounter against Yuuka in the main event of Ice Ribbon’s 10th Anniversary Show.
In addition to her hard hitting championship matches and other intense outings, some of my key memories and favorite matches of hers involve the lighter side of Ice Ribbon. One intended Azure Revolution match against Tsukasa Fujimoto & Miyako Matsumoto turned into something completely different, when the petulant force of nature that is Miyako objected to teaming with Tsukka and stole Risa changing the match to her and Risa again Tsukka & Maya.
Another incredibly fun time was an Ice Ribbon vs P’s Party trios contest where the wrestlers were assigned a random finisher they had to use for pinfalls to count and Risa was stuck spending her time in the match trying to ropewalk.
Risa left Ice Ribbon after Ribbonmania 2021. She made one appearance as part of her new freelance unit Prominence shortly afterwards, but hasn’t been back since.
As a part of Risa’s retirement road she’ll be returning to Ice Ribbon one last time after four years away at Ribbonmania 2025 on 12/31/25. The match is filled with significance as it’ll be Azure Revolution against one of their main rivals during their time in Ice Ribbon.
The Lovely Butchers, Hamuko Hoshi & Mochi Natsumi (formerly Mochi Miyagi when she was in Ice Ribbon) will be teaming for the first time in nearly 4 years for this special farewell contest. Mochi left Ice Ribbon when Risa did (more on that to come) and likewise hasn’t been back since that single Prominence appearance.
Maya has been freelance for years and pops up in her former company once or twice a year.
Hamuko is still in Ice Ribbon but has been on leave for most of this year due to accumulated injuries and is on the verge of being out for an extended period to get treatment. This will be her last match for a while.
To see all four of them participate once more in the kind of tag encounter that defined a lot of the period I was regularly attending Ice Ribbon shows is a treat and will be one of the emotional highlights of this year’s big show from Ice Ribbon.
Circling back around to my first trip to Japan, my most vivid memory of Risa was my first glimpse of the other major aspect of her career.
Risa Sera is now known for her hardcore and deathmatch wrestling as much as any other part of her wrestling journey. During 2015 she was slowly introducing audiences to the concept of gender being irrelevant when it comes to the types of wrestling someone choses to pursue. She had already done one self produced show with a featured deathmatch against former partner Maki Narumiya. Although it was more of a comical take on the concept as she had to convince the company to be more open to the idea of hardcore wrestling. It was a Human Hair Deathmatch where in place of normal hardcore weapons or deathmatch elements like barbed wire there were piles of cut hair as the impending “danger.”
Her second self produced show got closer to actual traditional deathmatch territory and fused lighter comical sections with brutal elements to great effect. Titled “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… Deathmatch,” or more colloquially the Four Seasons Deathmatch, it was essentially an iron woman match for Risa only where her opponent would change after every decision and season related weapons were allowed.
Risa put up a hell of a fight for 60 full minutes and it was a fantastic experience live. It was the third match of hers I ever saw and was completely unique and engaging. To this day it’s one of my favorite hardcore/deathmatch style matches. (See my thoughts on the dvd of the show for detailed thoughts).
Risa’s done a handful of these 60 minute iron woman deathmatches over the years, and has decided to do one more as her last deathmatch on Prominence’s 12/16/25 show.
Deathmatch wrestling is often beyond my personal realm of enjoyment. I have limits after which I lose interest and/or can’t stomach what’s being presented. The line is often right around when light tubes, skewers, and so on get involved.
But I do enjoy certain manifestations of hardcore and deathmatch wrestling, like the above mentioned Four Seasons match and a tremendous hardcore match Risa had on Hikaru Shida’s 10th Anniversary Show teaming with Hagane Shinno against TARU & the legendary Aja Kong.
One of my favorite wrestlers of all time is the Hardcore Queen Dash Chisako, and it’s been a treat seeing her and like minded Risa face off in various forms recently including a singles match early this year.
And whether it’s to my particular tastes or not I fully support wrestlers embracing their own goals and style in wrestling. Risa pushed into a non traditional space and inspired a lot of wrestlers to follow her lead and/or carve their own unique path.
One particularly notable case was that of Suzu Suzuki. Suzu fell in love with deathmatch wrestling from a young age through promotions like Freedoms and BJW. But it was seeing Risa compete that made her realize that doing it herself someday wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.
Suzu debuted in Ice Ribbon at the age of 17 and took to wrestling extremely quickly. She won the ICE Cross Infinity Championship a little under two years into her career and started participating in hardcore matches around the same time.
Suzu was a protege of Risa’s and they both teamed and fought numerous times throughout their careers.
As alluded to above hardcore and deathmatch wrestling was always a little beyond the scope of Ice Ribbon’s usual tone and approach and came to temporary prominence in the company through Risa’s efforts and revolved around a specific subset of the roster who were passionate about it. At the end of 2021 those wrestlers, Risa, Suzu, Kurumi Hiiragi, Mochi Miyagi, and Akane Fujita, left Ice Ribbon to form their own freelance unit called Prominence. They focused on hardcore wrestling and deathmatches and participated in several companies’ shows while also hosting their own.
In 2023 Suzu left Prominence and ended up going to World Wonder Ring Stardom. On 11/3/25 Risa showed up at Stardom to request Suzu be the final opponent of her career.
Risa Sera will be retiring on 1/12/26 on a self produced show. In addition to the main event farewell match against her former protege Azure Revolution has a 3-way tag earlier in the show. The two matches should provide a suitable final chapter on Risa’s 13 year career.
Best wishes to Sera in whatever life after wrestling brings.
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