Hikaru Shida: The ace of AEW
In today's writing, I take a look at the career of the current Regina di WAVE champion Hikaru Shida, who is undoubtedly one of the best women's wrestlers in the world. Let's go!
Destined to fight:
Born June 11th 1988 on Samukawa in the prefecture of Kanagawa, Japan, Hikaru Shida was destined to fight ever since she was born, due to her dad being a national judoka, which meant that all of her family ended up training judo. Shida started at 3 years old, and kept going until high school, but her school didn’t have any judo classes, thus switching to kendo classes, which is where her life would start to change.
She graduated from high school, but she decided to follow her dream of being an actress due to her lack of motivation to go to college. The entertainment industry would eventually lead her to professional wrestling, just like it has done so, for many other wrestlers. Shida really wanted to be an actress, so she went to an audition for a role on the movie Three Count, which was a linked project with Muscle Venus (a TV Saitama production). But there was one catch, in order to get the role for the movie she also had to pursue pro wrestling. She really wanted to be an actress, so she went ahead, and tried her luck with pro wrestling.
The audition had one surprise though, the president of Ice Ribbon Hajime Sato was in attendance that day. The audition was so massive that it went from a starting 500 auditioning actressess, to eventually going doing to just 8. Among those 8 there were Tsukasa Fujimoto and Miyako Matsumoto, who would also eventually become professional wrestlers. In the end, Hikaru ended up winning the role for the movie, but it wasn’t a clear path for Shida due to the nature of her deal, which span throughout an entire year to complete the movie.
Despite having the freedom to do whatever she pleased, Hikaru wasn’t really convinced that she wanted to continue in the wrestling business, which would lead her to manifest her desires to quit. Thankfully for her, there was someone that was very impressed with her skills and potential as a wrestler, and that woman was none other than Emi Sakura. It all ended up coming together when the movie was released, because for the first time, she had the ability to grasp what wrestling was truly about, after she saw herself in the movie and that’s where Shida’s journey as a wrestler truly started.
Shida’s rise:
Hikaru Shida was used to excel in everything, from judo, to school, and sports in general, thus being a shock to the core, when she struggled to perform in professional wrestling, especially after seeing that Fujimoto and Matsumoto achieved the Ice Ribbon Grand Slam in lightning quick fasion. Wrestling was a challenge like nothing she had ever experienced.
A new opportunity appeared on the horizon when the woman that had motivated her to keep wrestling in Emi Sakura, left Ice Ribbon to create her own personal project in new promotion Gatoh Move Pro Wrestling, but that’s a story for a different day. Without Emi Sakura on IR there was an opportunity for the hungry upcoming youngsters to take a step forward. Tsukasa Fujimoto and Hikaru Shida capitalized on that window, and never looked back.
After this departure, Hikaru finally started to see the results of her hard work, starting to win championships like the ICEx60 championship (currently known as the ICExInfinity Championship). She stayed with Ice Ribbon until 2014, where she decided to become a freelancer, which lead to more titles victories, meeting new people, and also making a name for herself in the joshi scene. Her efforts did not go unnoticed, because Shida would end up signing for All Elite Wrestling.
Conquering AEW:
Driven by her desire to wrestle all over the world, her will to get stronger, and her lifelong ambition to become an actress, Hikaru Shida decided to take her talents to South Beach, joining the newly born promotion in All Elite Wrestling, and debuting on the company’s first official PPV at Double or Nothing.
Shida kept wrestling for the company, which resulted in her first championship opportunity on her new home, when she fought on the first All Out PPV for the right to be the inaugural AEW Women’s World champion, but was unsuccessful on doing so, when a fellow Emi Sakura student defeated her for the championship. Despite the setback against Riho, Shida did what she does best, she kept on working hard, kept getting stronger, and didn’t stop until she earned a new title shot. This opportunity would arrive nearly a year later to the date of her AEW debut. This time she wouldn’t miss, after she managed to defeat Nyla Rose to take the championship home.
She had done it, she had managed to become the woman to beat in AEW, and what came afterwards proved it. Hikaru went on to set a record breaking 8 successful title defenses as well as the only AEW Women’s World championship reign, which lasted 372 days, and not only that, but both records are still active to this date. With all of thse numbers and responsability, there is a legitimate claim to make that Hikaru Shida might be the most important woman in all of AEW’s history. Some wrestlers would already be content after acomplishing what Shida did, but for performers like her, there is always more that you can do.
Shida’s home return:
As everyone is aware of, in 2020 we got hit with the pandemic. The combination of this unparalleled world situation, combined with her AEW schedule, meant that Shida couldn’t go back to Japan, not to wrestle, not to do MAKAI nor even visit her family, thus forcing Shida to stay away from actively taking part in joshi wrestling for over 2 years. Fortunately for her, she would be able to go back in 2022.
Hikaru Shida wrestled in Japan for the first time since 2019, when she visited TJPW for the first time in a match against Hikari Noa. She also wasted no time in revisiting the vault of memories when she returned to Ice Ribbon to wrestle alongside her old friend Tsukasa Fujimoto, in a tag match against Hamuko Hoshi and Makoto.
Shida didn’t stop there, because she kept wrestling for japanese promotions, and also returned to OZ Academy and Pro Wrestling WAVE. Despite having been outside of the joshi scene for years, she wasted absolutely no time and headed full force into dominating the scene again. As soon as she returned to WAVE, she challenged thge newly crowned champion in Suzu Suzuki, immediately after she had won the 2022 Catch the WAVE tournament, which gave her the right to become the new champion, after the Regina di WAVE had been vacated.
The joshi veteran was successful in taking the title away from Suzuki on the youngster’s first defense, which meant that she took the championship with her to the US. Shida went on to defend the championship 5 times, on a reign that is still going currently, but this wouldn’t be the only belt that Shida managed to win back in Japan, because she also managed to become one half of the International Ribbon Tag Team champions alongside Ibuki Hoshi, on a reign that lasted until the prior month of March.
A historical wrestler:
Shida had a remarkable 2022, but to cap this writing off, I’d like to take a quick look back at how she ended the previous year, because not only was she a double champion by the time that her last Dynamite appearence of the season arrived, but she had the chance to potentially win a third championship, when she faced the AEW Women’s World champion, on her last televised match of the year.
This matchup came up to be, after Hikaru Shida successfully retained her Regina di WAVE championship on a match against ‘The Bunny’ , which also served as a number 1 contender’s bout for the top prize of the AEW Women’s division. Regardless of either woman’s situation, none of them was willing to give any of their turf to their opposition, and thus after Hayter promised to give a match worthy of 90’s AJW, both women went to war.
If the stakes weren’t already high enough, this match ended up being the main event of AEW’s Holiday Bash, thus meaning that both competitors would cap off Dynamite, for the first time in their careers. To say that this match lived up to expectations would be an understatement, because both performers poured their heart out, and gave the All Elite faithful what many considered to be the best women’s match of the promotion, not only of the year, but perhaps of all-time. Unfortunately for our protagonist of the day, the champion managed to retain the belt after 16 minutes of brilliance.
Hikaru Shida is a historic name on joshi wrestling already but she is now aiming to become an all-timer with more wins, new challenges, and a second Regina di WAVE reign that could cement her place among the best women’s wrestlers of all-time. Shida has done it all in Japan and the US, so whatever she does next, will only add to her legendary career.
Here’s an article that has helped me in the writing of this piece, check it out for more information about Shida!
Thank you for reading <3