TNA Knockout Rewind: Hamada

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TNA Knockout Rewind: Hamada

(1 vote, average 4.00 out of 5)

Written by Jen Preston

Saturday, 21 November 2009 12:49

“I would compare Hamada with AJ Styles, because she’s simply phenomenal,” TNA’s Awesome Kong said in a rare interview (Kong has also dominated the Japanese wrestling scene). “She’s a triple threat. She’s mastered the Japanese style of wrestling, along with the Mexican lucha libre, and I can see it in her eyes that she wants to be a great American wrestler.”

For many wrestlers, the hard road to fame is paved through territories in Mexico and Japan. For Ayako Hamada, she was born into both.

Hamada was born and raised in Mexico City, Mexico, and is of Japanese and Mexican descent. Her father, Gran Hamada, trained in the New Japan Pro Wrestling dojo, and was known as an innovator in both Mexico and Japan, where he was known for incorporating both lucha libre and Japanese wrestling techniques together.

Hamada was born and raised in Mexico City, where her father was wrestling for what is now the Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) at the time. The elder Hamada, born in Japan, is known as one of the first Japanese wrestlers to incorporate lucha libre into his style. For much of his daughter's life, Hamada wrestled across Japan and Mexico, and also had short periods in both the WWE and ECW.

Hamada trained both Ayako and her older sister Xóchitl, and Ayako made her Japanese debut at the age of 17 in ARSION, the company founded by the famed Aja Kong. Ayako quickly began making her way through the ranks, first in the tag team division where she won championship gold with tag team partners Michiko Omuaki and Mika Akino. Just two years after he debut, the younger Hamada became “Queen of ARSION”, the companies highest honor, after defeating Kong. During her tenure, she would also be “Skyhigh of ARSION”.

After leaving ARSION in 2001, Hamada, like her father, would share time between promotions in Japan and Mexico. Winning multiple championships along the way, one of her most notable feuds is arguably between her and Awesome Kong, which began while the pair were in Japan and continued into the World Wide Wrestling Alliance (WWWA), based in Ohio. (Click here for &feature=related">part one, &feature=related">part two and &feature=related">part three of their WWWA title bout).

Hamada made her final appearance in Japan in August, 2008, after signing with Total Nonstop Action (TNA). She debuted with the company against Daffney on August 27. Hamada also had a short-lived feud with Alissa Flash, and competed in the first round of the TNA Knockout Tag Team Championship tournament. Since joining TNA, Ayako has also since began wrestling for Chicago-based SHIMMER Women's Athletes.

With more than ten years of wrestling experience under her belt and no signs of slowing down, hopefully American audiences will become more and more familiar with Ayako Hamada.

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