Saki Akai Reflects on Winning “Rookie of the Year” Award

Saki Akai looks back on winning Tokyo Sports’ Rookie of the Year Award

By: James Carlin

In the second article of a four-part series by Tokyo Sports called “The Flower that Bloomed in the Ring” the soon-to-retire DDT Pro-Wrestling star Saki Akai is reflects back winning the Tokyo Sports Rookie of the Year in 2014, in the lead up to her retirement on November 12th at DDT Ultimate Party this year.

Akai was the first female professional wrestler to win the Rookie of the Year Award.

“In my second match, I teamed with Yukio Sakaguchi against Akito and Mio Shirai. Sakaguchi was a second generation wrestler, and he had a pretty rebellious aura around him. It may be a bit of an exaggeration to say that Sakaguchi helped me in understanding the fighting spirit and the way of life as a wrestler, but I learned a lot from him and he is someone that I have a lot of respect for.”

She continued by looking at her development as a performer the next year: “By 2014, I started to have more matches, and more exciting experiences such as competition in street wrestling shows and challenging Yoshiko for the World of Stardom championship in December. At the end of the year, I had won the Rookie of the Year award.”

スターダム＠後楽園。セミは注目の一戦、世IV虎vs赤井沙希。世IV虎の圧勝だけど、必殺フルコースをよく耐えた。 pic.twitter.com/sEEJPbKnNs

— RoadDogg (@roaddogg15) December 23, 2014

“I didn’t even know that the award existed but when I looked up past recipients, I saw Shinsuke Nakamura‘s name amongst them and thought ‘I hope this is a big step forward’. The day after the awards ceremony, I was on the front cover [of Weekly Pro-Wrestling] with Hiroshi Tanahashi, who had won the MVP Award. Being able to meet Tanahashi – not only as an award winner but as a professional wrestler – it made me feel like I was finally part of the wrestling world.”

Akai mentions that the award is meant to be a measurement of expectations for a performer’s future in professional wrestling, and she knew she couldn’t retire because she had a responsibility to uphold now that the women’s wrestling world was looking at her more closely after receiving it.

“At the time I really hadn’t competed in a lot of matches, so a lot of people criticized me for being the first woman to win the award and wondered why others in the past hadn’t been able to win before me. But me winning Rookie of the Year in 2014 had meant that subsequent in subsequent years, women like Yuki Arai were able to win the award too. To me, it was a big step forward.”

Q&A with Saki Akai