One of the top competitors in the leading Japanese female wrestling promotion Stardom will be parting ways to join one of the top American companies All Elite Wrestling.
Mina Shirakawa, who has already appeared several times in AEW during the storyline involving Toni Storm and Mariah May, will part ways with Stardom and sign with AEW. The news of this was first broken by Tokyo Sports in Japan, and reported by Fightful and others, but was made official by a press conference today by Stardom.
In Stardom, Shirakawa is a multi-time Champion with reigns as the trios Artist of Stardom, the rookie Future of Stardom, Goddesses of Stardom tag titles (which she held as part of Rose Gold with Mariah May) and the Wonder of Stardom Champion. She also held the Undisputed British Women’s Championship of Revolution Pro, a title she lost earlier this year to AEW’s Mercedes Mone. She was formerly part of the Cosmic Angels faction and formed her own group Club Venus before that group became E-Nexus-V to co-lead with Maika.
While at the same press conference Stardom stressed that they didn’t consider Shirakawa’s departure as a step up or down, the loss of her will still be a blow to the promotion ahead of a ‘Career versus Career’ match between Tam Nakano and Saya Kamitani that will see one wrestler ‘leave’ the promotion for good. Shirakawa also had the advantage of international appeal with a great grasp of the English language alongside in-ring ability. It remains to be seen if Shirakawa can fit into the AEW roster full-time and not as a guest star, since AEW as of late hasn’t regularly used Japanese talents such as Hikaru Shida (despite being a multi-time former champion) and Yuka Sakazaki among others.