Veteran AJW wrestler Kumiko Maekawa retired Sunday at Korakuen Hall after fifteen years in wrestling. Now, Maekawa's retirement has not been particularly well received by fans. Part of this is because she was a heel for most of her career and it's natural to hate a heel. But there has also been a perception that Maekawa has been very selfish over the last couple of months. I think that's a fair perception.
Maekawa had held the WWWA Singles Title since AJW closed. She had apparently lost the title at Feb. 19 GIRLS DOOR show to Ayako Hamada. After the show, Hamada returned the belt to Maekawa. Fans were outraged by this baloney. Maekawa is now claiming that the match was a former champions match and was never supposed to be for the red belt. There's nothing like a little revisionist history to take heat off yourself. So why did GIRLS DOOR promote it as a title match? And why did Maekawa bring the red belt to the show? The answer is she is now lying and making excuses because she knows she was wrong. Having her chase the red belt for the final month of her career would have created interest but she decided to think of herself first and the joshi business second.
The other criticism has been Maekawa's unwillingness to put anyone over in any of her pre-retirement matches. Would it have killed Maekawa to put Hikaru over just once when they had their final match last week? Not that it would have helped Hikaru. Her whole career has been a series of false pushes. I'm sure she learned this behaviour from her good pal Yumiko Hotta. So now in her retirement match Maekawa will defend the WWWA Singles Title against Nanae Takahashi. She said that after the match she would turn the belt over to the Matsubagas, owners of the now defunct AJW.
The WWWA Singles Title match between Kumiko Maekawa & Nanae Takahashi had the potential to be very interesting because these two really dislike each other. Maekawa told Matsunaga that the red belt would be returned to him whether she won or lost. Takahashi won the match in 25:04 with the Nanaracka. The belt was in fact presented to Matsunaga. The girls were both crying at this point. Takahashi said that though she and Maekawa have never seen eye to eye, they decided to put that aside and have a good match at Maekawa's retirement show.
The retirement ceremony was the usual. All of her friends coming to the ring to make presentations. Maekawa's mother was there too. Then the ten bell count and it's over. It seems that Maekawa plans to open a swim club at the seaside that may include martial arts classes. She also said that Nanae Takahashi would succeed an annoying senior in the future. So finally Kumiko Maekawa has retired and we can go on to something else. Here's the results of the show.
KUMIKO MAEKAWA RETIREMENT SHOW - 3/26/06 - Korakuen Hall
MIDGETS:Ota def. Mr. Buddhaman
Saki Maemura & Ayako Sato def. Hikaru & Natsuki*Head (Maemura over Natsuki*Head in 18:32)
Mika Nishio def. Sasori by DQ
Yumiko Hotta, Kaoru Ito & Tomoko Watanabe def. Manami Toyota, Takako Inoue & Amazing Kong (Ito over Toyota in 17:13)
WWWA SINGLES TITLE:Nanae Takahashi won the title over Kumiko Maekawa in 25:04
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