Hiroko Suzuki interviews Meiko Satomura

For those who don't know, Hiroko Suzuki has periodically written a column for the Pia Ticket Agency. Now that she's back in Japan on a regular basis, she is writing more frequently. Hiroko's latest assignment was to go to Sendai to interview Meiko Satomura to promote the Sendai Girls debut at the Sendai Sunplaza on July 9.





Hiroko asks Meiko Satomura if she has always wanted to be a wrestler. Meiko says she never saw pro wrestling until her second year of junior high. Her older sister took her to a New Japan show and Meiko was hooked. So she joined GAEA at startup and was trained by Chigusa Nagayo. Meiko says that not only was the training hard but the girls weren't allowed to drink, smoke or see men. She wasn't allowed to go out for any reason, especially for a date. Hiroko reacts with horror. Of course that's the way things have been in the joshi business for decades. And Chigusa knew that this worked as she went through it herself. Meiko said this was her life for seven years. Hiroko says "Don't you want to quit sometimes?" Meiko says no but plenty of girls do quit because they can't handle it. She says GAEA was around for ten years so they must have been doing something right. Hiroko says she admires Meiko's determination and her own wrestling training has been tentative. Hiroko doesn't believe that she could take the intensity.





Hiroko asks Meiko why she is starting a new company in a recession. Though Meiko knows that the joshi business isn't good right now, she believes that she can turn the business around by creating a company where the wrestlers want to work all the time. She says too many freelance wrestlers has led to chaos and she wants to change that. Sendai Girls will use veteran wrestlers for now but Meiko currently has three trainees at the dojo and she will work them in gradually. Meiko says that pro wrestling used to be a desired profession for young girls in Japan and now it isn't. Sendai Girls is her three year plan to change that perception and she hopes to have plenty of rookies by that time. Meiko's goal is for Sendai Girls to be successful and to change the current perception of the joshi business. Right now she is working towards the debut in July.