A Promotion You Should Know About: Diana

Introduction

If you’ve never heard of Diana before, I do not blame you. They are a promotion that flies completely under the radar in English-speaking media that covers professional wrestling. In fact, as far as I know, Social Suplex is the only network that covers the promotion extensively both in our newsletter and the Joshi’ing Around Podcast hosted by Tim Hunter and myself. Since I began covering the promotion for the newsletter in 2025, this has been a total mystery to me and something I’ve wanted to change. I have watched and covered every single Diana show for the past year in the aforementioned links – and for the life of me, I could not understand the lack of coverage. The independent scene in Japan is woefully undercovered, so that part is not surprising; and indeed, that is one of Social Suplex’s mission statements: to cover as much of global pro wrestling as possible.

What astounded me was that Diana also had zero traction in hardcore fan circles. Other promotions of much smaller sizes such as Ice Ribbon or SEAdLINNNG would receive constant chatter, recommended matches shared, or even the dreaded “joshi influencers” posting tweets for engagement (hey, at least it’s some coverage). But Diana would somehow escape that vortex of fan-led propagation. I naturally gravitate towards the unknown and I enjoy learning. When there’s a wealth of information about a subject, I quickly lose interest. It’s just the way I am. So it was only a matter of time before Diana became one of my favourite promotions.

Diana’s roster contains a 16-year-old, who I believe is already the best high-speed wrestler on the Japanese independent scene, and a 21-year-old from Taiwan who is one of the best prospects in the world (that nobody is talking about) in 2026. There is a foreign wrestler quietly putting on the best work of her career and pushing the promotion forward from behind-the-scenes, veterans who have been around since the All Japan Women’s days, and a founder who still laces up her boots at 57. Understanding why none of this has translated into the coverage it deserves requires understanding the organisation behind it, and that starts with the people running it.

The Business

An exclusive interview with Diana President Taishi Fuwa and Diana talent Debbie Keitel

Tokyo is a massive city. In fact, it’s a metropolis, with several surrounding cities forming part of that network – including Saitama, Chiba and Yokohama. Wedged in between two of Japan’s biggest cities, Tokyo and Yokohama, sits a “small”, humble, quiet city called Kawasaki. Despite Kawasaki being its own city, you’ll regularly see it be referred to as “Tokyo” in English news reports. When there was an incident at Kawasaki Station in 2026, a huge station in its own right, news stations reported it as “the suburbs of Tokyo”. From my brief time there, it seems like a city that is proud of not being the centre of attention, the only city in Japan with more than 1 million people that is not a capital of the prefecture it sits within. Diana very much follows in the footsteps of its city. It’s a big independent promotion, yet it’s simultaneously small, not well known and very much not the centre of attention. It is really rare to find a promotion that has the influence Diana has but that a very small number of hardcore fans talk about and actively watch.

Diana is one of the few independent promotions that not only operates its own dojo, but actively rents it out to other promotions for shows. It has a stable infrastructure, is a mature business, well-run and cares deeply about its wrestlers. It led the charge in 2025 when it sued one of its customers for taking inappropriate photographs of the wrestlers in a lawsuit that it won, banning the customer from future shows and forcing them to pay a hefty fine. It reported its experience back to the United Japan Wrestling Federation, the same organisation housing Japan’s biggest promotions – including New Japan, DDT, NOAH, Dragongate on the men’s side and STARDOM, TJPW and Sendai Girls on the women’s side. Diana, a supporting member, had other promotions much larger than itself turning towards them for advice on how to protect wrestlers and other compliance matters. It is a serious, professional organisation despite not having one tenth of the firepower of the aforementioned promotions. That is not usual for an independent promotion. Because of the resources independent promotions have access to, they are usually disorganised and all over the place. Of course, for some, that’s part of the charm. While Diana still exhibits some of that chaotic allure, it is largely a smooth operation. They are the only promotion that I cover (see the Asia page, it’s a lot) that published a full schedule of every single show they would have in 2026, back in late 2025. That is insane. I honestly cannot even put into words how rare that is. In November 2025, I knew where Diana would be in October 2026. They even named each show in an episodic manner to make it easier for fans to follow.

While it may seem small, it’s these actions that help build trust with fans, and given how rare it is, I had to try and sit down with some of the people responsible for the day-to-day running of Diana, President Taishi Fuwa (hereafter referred to as Fuwa-san), and one of the key talents, both on camera and behind-the-scenes, Debbie Keitel. Fuwa-san is officially the Representative Director, a Japanese corporate role that mostly translates to President or CEO. Founder Kyoko Inoue was the previous President, but on 1st June 2026 it was announced that Inoue had moved to the Chairwoman role, allowing Fuwa-san to officially take over the day-to-day operations.

I had crossed paths with Debbie not during one of the Diana shows I attended, but actually a Sendai Girls show, where she was a second for her former EVE colleagues Hyperactive (Anita Vaughan & Safire Reed). It was my first time seeing her in person and I immediately clocked her in the corner of Shin-Kiba, hiding in the shadows and watching the show until it was her time to be the second in the main event. After the show, I was caught off guard by how pleasant she was to the Japanese fans that approached her, given how I was used to her being a total meanie on the shows. I left her with a business card, and days later visited Kawasaki for the first time for the Diana show.

The Diana dojo is named Post di Amistad, and I consider it one of Diana’s prized assets given its importance to the independent scene and how many shows I watch that take place there. I had grown extremely fond of it. It was quite surreal visiting my favourite venue for the first time. After traversing through the extremely busy and Tokyo-like Kawasaki Station, not sixty seconds later I found myself on quiet, empty un-Tokyo-like streets immediately next to the station. A few minutes walking down the main road I turned right and was immediately transported into a characteristic Japanese neighbourhood. There was a school playground and small, tightly-packed blocks of resident houses. And there it was, Post di Amistad, a small warehouse lodged between residential apartments. It was extremely charming. Understated, quiet and distinctly not the centre of attention. Just like Kawasaki and Diana itself.

After the show (I have full reviews in the recent newsletter), I met Debbie again who went the extra yard for me and introduced me to Fuwa-san. I had never asked for an interview with Fuwa-san, given that it is quite murky who does what in these independent promotions. It’s not public information, and Fuwa-san doesn’t have any public profile, so I wasn’t even aware of his existence prior to this trip. In that sense, simply being there in person was extremely eye-opening for me for how these promotions operate, and credit has to be given to Debbie for directing me to Fuwa-san, and facilitating the interview so that we could gain this insight into the promotion.

Fuwa-san is not your average Japanese corporate worker. While he may exhibit the same qualities, such as an affinity for efficiency, he is charismatic and direct. We had arranged for Sami, a Frenchman who is one of the key foreign staff members working in production, to conduct the translation for the interview. However, I had arrived early, so Fuwa-san decided to have a pre-interview with me. He took me to his office which was located in a small garage around the corner, furnished with a round-table and papers scattered around. I am not a journalist. First and foremost, I’m just a wrestling fan who is passionate about covering it. I have no formal training, and this was my first ever interview – so naturally, I was nervous. My mind started racing: Where is Sami? How am I going to communicate with him? I only know ‘sumimasen’! This is going to be a disaster, I should have prepared more. In “Baka Nihongo” (Editor’s Note: Stupid Japanese?) as Debbie calls it, I asked Fuwa-san about the translator. He turned to me, waved his hand and essentially said, ‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ and just pointed at his phone. If that wasn’t an indication of his pragmatic, ‘just do it’ mindset, then nothing was. I sat down sheepishly and figured out how on Earth I was going to do this. I am really bad at thinking on my feet, I’m a meticulous planner, and Fuwa-san had thrown me into the deep end. I won’t bore you with the details, but it took around 15 minutes of brainstorming between Fuwa-san and I to figure out a translation workflow with various apps. We ended up with me speaking into his phone with a ready-to-go English-to-Japanese translator app open and then him speaking into my phone with a Japanese-to-English translator app open. My app choice was a bit better than his, but who’s counting? It was a fun process to figure that out and we then got onto business. We covered various topics, so first I’d like to cover the topics directly related to business matters.

Immediately into the interview I had quite an eye-opening answer. I had asked how he thought that the 15th anniversary had gone so far. I was surprised to see that his answer spoke about COVID, something that most of us might have already forgotten about. COVID ravaged not only the Japanese economy, but professional wrestling in particular. Only very few promotions have bounced back and improved on their post-COVID business, such as STARDOM. However, most promotions are in the same bucket, struggling to get back to where they were before, with their momentum completely destroyed by the lockdown. Fuwa-san said that Diana had plans to visit more industrial areas, attract larger crowds and travel to more regional cities, but things simply didn’t work out as planned. I pressed him on why, and he said:

As a disclaimer, all of this was run through translator apps, so it’s important to not interpret words literally, and understand the general message being conveyed, which is why I’m not simply posting the full transcript. Nevertheless, I had not realised that regional crowds outside of Tokyo still had hangups about COVID which affected attendances in these regions, which is an unspoken factor in how difficult it is for these independent promotions to grow in the way they’d like to. They face local issues that never get discussed in coverage; all people do is post on social media about how X promotion only drew Y people in Z place, without discussing what factors may lead to that.

One thing that was clear to me is how passionate Fuwa-san is about collaborating with other promotions. It’s not uncommon for independent promotions to work with each other in terms of exchanging talent, but Fuwa-san goes one step further. Fuwa-san explained that while they had obtained a license to operate Post di Amistad and it had become an important source of income for them by charging fees to other promotions for its usage, what was more important than simply turning a profit was to see a culture of professional wrestling take root here in Kawasaki. You might think, ‘Oh, that’s what any businessman would say, it’s never about the profit,’ but Fuwa-san’s actions speak louder than his words, with a wide variety of promotions hosting shows at the venue. Eight different promotions have held shows there in 2026 alone, with even PPP Tokyo holding a show there in June 2026 as they try to find a home away from the closing Shinjuku FACE. Not only do his actions speak for themselves, but I could see it in his eyes, so I got a bit cheeky.

It was mind-boggling to me that two of the biggest joshi independent companies did not collaborate more. The bar that SEAdLINNNG co-founder Natsuki Taiyo runs is a 20-minute walk across town (I did that walk), and the SEAd dojo is a 10-minute car journey away. Yet, until very recently, they didn’t even exchange talent between each other. That has changed, as the legendary Arisa Nakajima launched SEAd’s “SEED STAGE” series hosted at Post di Amistad, but they are still not close to hosting a joint show together. Both Diana and SEAd run shows at the local ‘big’ building Culttz Kawasaki, yet they’ve never held a joint show together there to showcase the top talent from each promotion, and prove what Kawasaki-based wrestling is all about. Of course, I decided to ask him directly. He immediately laughed. I was taken aback. Did the translation mess up? It had not. After he gathered himself, he took a breath and simply replied through a cheeky, smug smile: “Why don’t you ask Natsuki-san?” I pushed him a little and he clarified:

Our interview, which, remember, was impromptu and not meant to happen yet as I was scheduled to talk to him after the show, not before, was cut short by rookie Anna coming into the office and informing him that a meeting was taking place that he needed to attend. We picked up where we left off after the show, but this time, we sat outside the venue soaking in the sun, sitting next to other staff members doing administrative tasks. I had realised that I hadn’t properly introduced myself before the impromptu interview because I was so caught off guard, so I did so properly this time. He laughed, introduced himself and we continued. I was so intrigued by his SEAd response that I simply had to ask a follow-up question:

There is absolutely no question that Diana is the independent promotion that embodies this more than anyone else. Which other independent Japanese women’s promotion flies their talent over to Taiwan to host shows? Which other promotion signs talent under dual-contracts so they can compete in their home country while also doing extensive tours with Diana? The answer is none. This is yet another astounding detail that never gets covered in joshi fandom. Fuwa-san is passionate about this vision, and acts on it. Not only do they work with overseas promotions in Southeast Asia, but they regularly bring in freelance talent from these regions to try them out on Diana shows.

Diana is supported by a host of unsung heroes among their staff members, which help with ticketing, marketing, finance and other administrative jobs. One of the most important of those functions is production. How a product looks and feels is key to whether new fans will stick with it. The main person in Diana’s production team is a French staff member called Sami. When I spoke with Sami, I realised that he did far more for the production than I realised. Not only was he the cameraman, but he was also responsible for the edits posted to Diana’s YouTube, something they kickstarted in the past year, as well as the shorts that help with the promotion’s marketing on social media. Sami was extremely polite, almost as if he had absorbed Japanese culture into his soul. (As an Englishman myself, you can see why this might have come as a shock.) I asked him how he had received the job, and his answer was simple: he and Fuwa-san had got on really well. I’ve mentioned that Fuwa-san is pragmatic and direct, and this was yet another example. He didn’t care for language barriers or tradition, he just wanted things that work, people that do the job well. Sami is one example, Debbie is another. I asked Fuwa-san about this because other joshi independent promotions are not bringing in English speakers into production and other backroom functions. I believe it aids the accessibility of the product. His response was:

The other person I spoke to on my trip was Debbie herself. The Irish wrestler has performed all over Europe in its biggest promotions, before making the decision to move to Japan to continue her career with Diana. She is one of the very few foreign wrestlers signed to a Japanese independent promotion and has quickly found herself in Diana’s engine room, both in-front and behind the cameras. While she was far too busy for a sitdown interview that I sprung on her at the last moment, she kindly provided me with answers to all my questions shortly after my trip. Debbie wanted to find a promotion where she could still learn and grow with no age restriction. She wanted to contribute meaningfully and be part of a community, while also being allowed to wrestle in other promotions. Debbie said that as soon as she stepped into the Diana dojo, she knew she had made the right choice to move to Japan and that re-signing at the start of 2026 was a no brainer. Debbie’s goal is to make history in Japan, and to do that she wants to get more eyes on the product. She elaborated on her role in expanding Diana’s English-speaking coverage:

This is precisely why I do what I do, because I’m frustrated by the same things. All of these products are viewable in 2026, my coverage shines a light on that fact. But, the coverage needs to be visible and reach people, and that is something I hope this exclusive helps with.

Not only has Fuwa-san signed foreign wrestlers like Debbie and empowered backroom staff like Sami, but there was one other aspect where it became extremely clear to me that Fuwa-san meant every word he said about expanding overseas and appealing to people such as myself. Aside from the overseas excursions mentioned about their partnerships, at the end of our interview the ever-cheeky, brash Fuwa-san turned the tables and asked me a question:

‘Oh, but Eric, it’s just a charm offensive. He doesn’t actually care what you think!’ Hang on! At first, I waffled because I was completely thrown off guard by the question. But I answered with three main factors. One, increasing the visibility of its biggest stars (who we will shortly meet in a roster run-down); two, put on their big shows on weeks with a high number of tourists, such as around STARDOM’s “All Star Grand Queendom” and “Dream Queendom”, as the “WrestleMania” Weekend model works; and three, Diana’s pricing model. The third was the most important part to me. I pay for every show and I’ve spoken about costs in a previous feature about my viewing habits. It’s not cheap. Diana has cost me over £500 in the year that I’ve been covering it. I disclose that just to say that it was an issue that clearly affects me and I can understand why it is a barrier for people in following the promotion. The model they have is that you need to pay for each show as a PPV if you want to watch it live, otherwise you need to wait a month for it to be uploaded to Diana’s service, which costs around £5/month. Of course, as I’m covering this for others to know what’s going on in the promotion, I need to cover it live, so I buy all shows as PPVs. I asked him directly if he had considered an alternative pricing model for international fans, as that is one of the biggest barriers in expanding overseas. His response was the following:

Immediately when I returned to the UK days later, I noticed that Diana had started uploading their shows to the service with a much shorter delay, in some cases only a week after the show, down from one month. They had been experimenting already prior to my interview, with a delay of two weeks, but they had once again halved the delay following the interview. This was a gutsy decision to make, because it can cannibalise the live PPV income and I would understand if they kept it the way they did. But, seemingly following that conversation, Fuwa-san immediately made the call to try something new and see how it went. I imagine they may revert in future, but it was typical of Fuwa-san to just get on with something rather than sitting around waiting to make a decision. I owe it to him to spread the word of that change, so if you were ever interested in the Diana product, now is the time to get involved with a monthly subscription and catch the shows on a shorter delay, which is how a lot of other services like AWG and STARDOM house shows work. It was upon seeing this immediate change that I realised Fuwa-san had meant every word he said.

The Product

The healthy debate between art and business

What about the product itself? Is this just a fluff piece? Firstly, all of my reviews are public and in past iterations of the newsletter. It’s not a secret. There are a lot of aspects I love, and then some that I think could be improved. That’s natural with any product. The unique part of Diana’s product on the independent scene was its commitment to a long-term storyline. In 2025, ahead of their big year celebrating their 15th anniversary in 2026, Diana introduced new units in a months-long storyline where leaders would recruit wrestlers to their respective teams, underlined with their own philosophies. The storyline had progressed quite slowly, in a captivating way, throughout the rest of 2025. All the titles were vacated at the end of 2025 as a ‘reset’ button to enable younger talent to step up and create an equal playing field.

However, there was one criticism I had about the lead-up to Diana’s first big show of 2026. In previous issues of the newsletter, I spoke about how excited I was to see what storyline they’d pull off with the vacation of all their titles at the end of 2025. But then at the end of the 28th December 2025 show, Diana simply announced matches for the vacant titles with no buzz or storyline. It was slightly immersion-breaking, especially having followed the entirety of the new units being created and the recruitment phase. I would have preferred a promo or two and some matches leading up to the match announcements. For example, I am not quite sure why Debbie was facing Nanami for the WWWD Title since Debbie had just lost the title challenge to Umesaki before Umesaki vacated the title, and there was no promo on the show to explain how she had snuck her way back into the title picture. I was also not sure why it was Chobuki (Haruka Umesaki and Unagi Sayaka) that earned the WWWD Tag Team Title shot, and I would have preferred Umesaki to go after the titles with a member of her own unit, since Unagi isn’t even part of Grace of Royalty. Finally, it was slightly strange that it was Miran & Olympia challenging, too, when Umesaki and Miran are unit partners, and Olympia is simply on an excursion. It slightly devalued the hard work the promotion had put in to build these units and storylines. The idea of units, introduced by Fuwa-san, was a really interesting direction for an independent promotion of Diana’s size, with only OZ Academy serving as the other example of a promotion with a formal unit structure.

It’s slightly bold for me to put some criticism in a piece that will be shared with Diana, but I do so for a very specific reason. One of the most striking things about Debbie, in comparison to her character, is how thoughtful she is. Not just to introduce me to Fuwa-san unprompted, but then to provide truly insightful answers beyond the usual PR fluff, which she definitely could have just done. I wouldn’t have complained. I’m nobody. One of the questions I posed to Debbie was about the sudden nature of storylines not being continued, with a focus on matchmaking instead. Firstly, I asked Fuwa-san himself. Initially, he giggled and said, “Oooh, secret, secret!” But then he expanded:

This exactly lined up with my experience in following the promotion. It had gone from a narrative-based system in 2025, to focusing on a ruthless matchmaking approach in its anniversary year, which I thought was curious. Debbie facing Nanami on the 24th January show at Culttz Kawasaki for the WWWD Title was exactly the type of matchmaking that took me off guard compared to what the product had previously been. When I approached Debbie with this and the reduction of post-match promos to explain storylines, she replied honestly:

This was a fascinating response for me. I knew it was honest because I watched the product and could clearly see the differences in these views come through the presentation of the product. I had seen Debbie and Umesaki fight over the title in a compelling storyline at the end of 2025, and then right after, Debbie and Nanami were thrown into the main event of the next big show with no storyline. I had seen them stop doing post-match promos and move to social media, which I do not have and so started losing sense of some character motivations. But, the more I thought about this, the more I came to the conclusion about this being a healthy disagreement and natural friction that any creative endeavour incurs. The best storylines and artistic creations involve disagreements, back-and-forth, twists-and-turns. They are not clean, unchallenged works that everyone agrees on. It is a healthy struggle to produce compelling art. Debbie not only being willing to disagree, but Fuwa-san being open to hearing those disagreements and tweaking their creative formula is exactly how I would expect a promotion to operate. This answer made me love the promotion even more, for all of its jagged edges, because self-awareness is a trait I truly love and respect.

I can see either side of the debate, but if it wasn’t obvious, I’m with Debbie on this one. Stories are the reason I watch wrestling. Stories are what make wrestling come alive and make it incomparable to any other sport or art form. The unit war was exactly what had gripped me about Diana, and when covering it, I spoke about how no other promotion was doing anything like it. That is what hooks people. But I can also understand Fuwa-san’s focus on live crowds, as that is how the business makes its money. But, at Post di Amistad, that is mostly the hardcores anyway so it cannot be a reliable metric for matchmaking. To bring in new fans, you need the Debbie approach. The dichotomy between the artist (Debbie) and the businessperson (Fuwa-san) is important, and a balance is required to achieve the best results. Right now, it is perhaps a bit too slanted in one direction.

But, let’s get one thing clear. Despite all that, Diana houses some of the best wrestlers in the independent scene today, so even if it is a “matchmaking” approach for now, that just means you get to see great matches on every show with no filler.

I’ve spoken about everything except the wrestlers themselves. You know what they say: save the best for last.

The Wrestlers

The Backbone

© hiroyukikai1

Haruka Umesaki, 25
“The Ace”

Debut: 10th March 2019

Diana currently has a roster of fifteen wrestlers, with two trainees coming through. Let’s take you through who the major players in the promotion are. There’s no better place to start other than with the undisputed ace of the promotion and the current WWWD Champion Haruka Umesaki. The former idol-turned-wrestler (a tale as old as time in Japanese women’s wrestling) was always earmarked for acehood in Diana, teaming with former ace Sareee, who was celebrating her 8th anniversary, against Marvelous’s duo Mei Hoshizuki (Mei Seira in STARDOM) and Takumi Iroha in her debut. That should promptly tell you what they thought of her. Umesaki made her way back to the top of the mountain, defeating Debbie Keitel on 19th April this year in the main event at Korakuen Hall. She is one of the three faction leaders in the promotion, leading Grace of Royalty, the unit with a stated mission to dominate Diana with a Royal Road or King’s Road style of wrestling, with matches building to an intense, dramatic culmination of big moves and nail-biting nearfalls. The unit is packed with some of Diana’s best talent, its young prodigies in Miran and Syan Syan, as well as one of my favourite freelancers in Misa Kagura. Umesaki added Mochi Natsumi and Maika Ozaki toward the end of 2025.

Umesaki is self-admittedly not a shy person. She doesn’t understand the concept of shyness. She’s extremely outgoing and a straight talker and according to her, there’s no difference between her character and what she’s like in private. You can see that through her work, where even if she has to play heel because it’s better for the dynamics, as in other promotions, she has fun while doing it. She’s joking around with the crowd, doing silly antics to get booed while not straying away from her character.

After Diana’s most recent Korakuen Hall show, she expressed dissatisfaction at not drawing 1,000 people to Korakuen Hall. When I watched that show, I thought it was an incredible achievement how many people they got there. While the attendance figure was not announced, it looked like more than a lot of other independent promotions Diana’s size, and I wouldn’t be shocked if the number was over 800, so I was surprised to hear Umesaki’s comments. When I put this to Fuwa-san he said, paraphrasing, that’s why she was the ace. He commended her commitment to keeping an eye on business and said that it reflected her awareness of what it means to carry an independent promotion like Diana. Fuwa-san said that content alone was not enough to survive in the industry, implying that it was the conversion into cold, hard cash that was the reality for these companies, and Umesaki understands that well. Umesaki also carries herself incredibly well at the top of the card, able to wrestle virtually any style – whether it be hard-hitting, high-speed with Miran, or more traditional main-event match layouts. Her versatility, reliability and awareness make her a key part of Diana’s plans going forward.

Nanami Hatano, 19
“The Ace-in-Waiting”

Debut: 6th October 2019

Nanami is in a weird spot between being a backbone of the promotion, but simultaneously is one of its best young talents for the future. Part of that is because she debuted during middle school at the age of 12 in 2019. She has been around almost as long as Umesaki has, yet – because of her age – she was mostly part-time until she finished high school, skipping college to become a full-time wrestler. Nanami used to go to the Kawasaki racecourse with her father, when one day Kyoko Inoue handed her a Diana flyer and asked her if she was interested in wrestling. The rest is history.

Nanami wrestled in STARDOM as part of the God’s Eye unit in 2022 when she was 16. While those appearances have tapered off, it meant that Nanami is one of the more well-known members of the Diana roster, despite having never won its major title yet. Nanami now leads her own unit, which took some time to get set up, named Tradition and Inherited. The unit, as the name suggests, aims to build upon the legacy of Jaguar Yokota and Kyoko Inoue and try to stand atop the Diana mountain while in keeping with decades of joshi tradition, harkening back to the All Japan Women’s days. Kyoko Inoue herself has of course signed up to this philosophy, alongside Mizuki Kato, Nanami’s tag partner Rina Amikura, and finally Hiragi Kurumi.

Nanami’s style is intriguing because she’s a power wrestler, but she doesn’t have the typical frame you expect out of wrestlers with that style. She’s fast and can wrestle high-speed, but she prides herself on her shoulder tackles more than anything else. She has often received comments about her being too serious and straight-faced while wrestling, unable to let loose. Totoro Satsuki made the comment in an interview that Nanami was super serious. Yet, Nanami’s personality is clear for all to see during her out-of-ring interviews. When she and Alessandro from HypeTalkTV reached the topic of anime, it was hard to shut Nanami up. She lit up and was extremely animated and it was heart-warming to see. In the past year, I think Nanami has worked hard on carrying that emotion through to her wrestling.

In terms of how the company sees her – well, recently Diana released a series of shorts showcasing their wrestlers. As at the time of writing, two videos have been released. The first one? It was Nanami. I asked Fuwa-san why she hadn’t reached the top of the promotion yet, only fighting for the title twice in her seven-year career. The response was quite simple. She’s extremely young, and she doesn’t need it yet. Umesaki is in the prime of her career and can carry the company, so Nanami should continue focusing on improving as much as possible so that she’s ready for that when the moment comes, and it seems that day is coming soon as they build some tension between Umesaki and Nanami.

© Tanh4L51287

Debbie Keitel, 37; Ayako Sato, 40; Himiko, 54
“The Glue”

Maybe it’s cheating to group up the trio of Debbie Keitel, Ayako Sato and Himiko, but they all, in tandem, act as the glue keeping the promotion running at full power. Diana doesn’t work without this trio. They form the group named Invader or Innovator, headed up by one of the (in-storyline) masterminds behind this whole shakeup, Ayako Sato, joined by Taiwanese rookie Kuumu, and PURE-J pair Hanako Nakamori and AKARI. When this unit was created, Ayako stated that their mission was to liven up Diana with its heelish antics to help Diana gain traction. They are not your usual heel stable such as House of Torture, Team 2000X or Gajadokuro; instead they profess their love for Diana and want it to be stronger, rather than wanting to tear it down. Debbie expanded on this in our interview:

Aside from being a centrepoint of the storyline that created the faction warfare in 2025, they are also a key locker room presence. Debbie has firm long-term goals for herself and Diana. It’s easy to think that because of everything Debbie has done and is doing for Diana behind the scenes, that she may want to call it a day in the ring, but that could not be further from the truth:

Debbie’s work over the past year and a half in Diana backs up these words. Every time I talk about Diana on the podcast I hear from UK wrestling fans who are bemused or wonder if I’m talking about the same Debbie. Yes, I am. There is no age limit on improvement and Debbie has quietly been putting on the best work of her career in Japan. Although, we need to change that from being “quietly” to “loudly”. Debbie doesn’t rest on her laurels, and when I pointed out to her that I noticed her switch up her finish in recent months, moving away from the Midnight Espresso (double underhook facebuster) to a running knee strike, she commented on the process behind those changes:

Of course, kayfabe isn’t fully dead, but there was something insightful in the last part of the answer. By moving to Japan and working with talent such as the high-speed queen of the independent scene, Miran, Debbie has stepped up her game massively and focused on a more athletic, fast-paced presentation, which is probably why it shocks a lot of UK independent wrestling fans who have not yet caught her Diana work. Debbie has settled perfectly in Japan, while coming up with one of the best phrases I have since stolen from her, when asked about what she loves about Japan and how well she speaks the language:

Alongside Debbie are her colleagues, Ayako Sato and Himiko, who lend their experience to the young talent in Diana in different ways. Sato debuted in AJW in 2001 when it was going through a rough period, but she was present for Diana’s debut show in 2011 before taking a break and returning in 2017. She doesn’t wrestle much in other promotions so she flies under the radar, but she is an extremely talented and versatile wrestler that helps round out all of Diana’s shows. On the other side of things, Himiko only started wrestling four years ago, starting very late in her life. That’s why it’s remarkable she moves as well as she does. It wouldn’t be an understatement to suggest that if you saw her wrestle for the first time, you’d assume she was in her thirties quite easily. She is a very good wrestler for her level of experience, and seeing her perform heroics live in Post di Amistad merely days after she was left off a show due to illness merely validated that existing opinion. Every time I point out her age to someone checking out Diana for the first time, they are shocked to learn it. The experience she offers the locker room isn’t one of wrestling experience, given people like Nanami have been wrestling almost twice as long; instead it’s life experience, and that’s a very important aspect when there are incredibly young wrestlers on the roster who need guidance.

Kyoko Inoue, 57
“The Legend”

Debut: 10th October 1988

(She’s the one on the far right in the above image.)

Okay, I don’t need to talk much about the legendary Kyoko Inoue, founder of Diana. Google her. There are a lot of independent promotions that were founded by legendary wrestlers from the 90s and 00s. While they remain as active wrestlers, in a lot of cases they offload the day-to-day management to other members of the backroom staff, and that is no different here. That doesn’t mean Kyoko just sits around. Kyoko is a well-known face around Kawasaki, as you saw with the story of her recruiting Nanami, so she’s invaluable for Diana’s marketing and to spread the word of the promotion, including her annual homecoming shows in northern Japan in Yamagata prefecture. Fuwa-san spoke of the importance of regional touring, and Kyoko enables that more than anyone else on the Diana roster. One day, she will let one of the newer generation pin her. (Sareee was the last Diana talent to pin her in a standard singles match in 2019. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.)

The Future of Japanese Women’s Wrestling

Up until now, I haven’t explicitly mentioned the two most important reasons I love watching Diana. All of the other mentioned reasons are true, but there are two major factors I have not yet mentioned. That is 16-year-old Miran and 21-year-old Syan Syan, undoubtedly the future of Japanese women’s wrestling. I don’t use that phrase lightly, I believe it. With support from “The Backbone” of Diana, as well as the executives in the company, both wrestlers have all the tools needed to reach the top. Fuwa-san put it well himself:

© hiroyukikai1

Miran, 16
“The Next Breakout Joshi Star”

Debut: 29th April 2022

First of all, let’s call it like it is. Miran is the high-speed wrestler on the independent scene. Yes, at 16, I already think she’s the best wrestler at that particular style. Miran wrestles at 100mph with no pauses and no lack of confidence. In October 2025, there was a match at Korakuen Hall where Miran had smashed her head into the mat due to a mistake on a hurricanrana with Risa Sera. What did Miran do? She repeated the move with no fear, at full speed, and executed it flawlessly. I had never seen anything like that before in my life and I’ll probably never forget that moment. Fast forward six months, and Miran has improved so much that there aren’t even that many mistakes in her high-speed game. Additionally, Miran has worked on rounding out her skillset, and I frequently compare her to STARDOM’s AZM, especially as Miran has added a beautiful buzzsaw kick to her arsenal, reminiscent of AZM’s own.

But again, I repeat, Miran is only 16. As Debbie points out, Miran’s biggest barrier right now is the fact that she is only a part-time wrestler. She can only attend events and practice in the evenings and weekends. She balances her incredible improvement with schoolwork, where she says she’s more of a STEM girl; she’s smart but not good at memorisation (I don’t understand how she wrestles all these high-speed matches with bad memorisation). Miran’s improvement can be explained by her attitude. She’s studious and smart. When I met her after a Diana show, she wanted to speak as much English as possible just to practice. I was speaking “Baka Nihongo” as Debbie calls it, so there was no need for Miran to switch to English, but she did. She speaks about how she wants to be the ace of Diana, she wants to wrestle abroad, she wants to wrestle in other promotions. She’s ambitious. All of these things are necessary components if you want to make it to the top, and Debbie makes a great point that even if Miran were to disappear for 10 years and return, she could still make it in the industry, similar to what Yuuka has done in Ice Ribbon:

© hiroyukikai1

Syan Syan, 21
“A Future International Superstar”

Debut: 29th June 2024

Syan Syan is simply the scene’s best kept secret. It is truly remarkable that I seem to be the only person writing and talking about her on a consistent basis in English-speaking media. If there are others, sorry, but it hasn’t come my way yet. She is the answer to the question, “Who is the best prospect in the world that is the least known about in 2026?” I am 100% confident of that. Syan Syan is from Taiwan, a country that did not even have a women’s wrestling scene until a few years ago. While it may just be marketing, Princess Pistachio calls herself the first full-time Taiwanese women’s wrestler. Even if it is not true, it wasn’t until recently that promotions like Puzzle Pro and New Taiwan Entertainment Wrestling (the latter being Syan Syan’s home promotion) started working with women. Diana, with its keen eye for expanding overseas, signed Syan Syan to a contract months after her debut and she has been splitting her time between the two countries ever since. Remarkably, Syan Syan is also studying at college, meaning she has not dedicated herself full-time to wrestling as of yet, just like Miran.

While I have watched all her matches in Diana over the past year, during her recent time out due to injury, I was feeling withdrawal symptoms from her matches. Luckily, NTW had just uploaded a match between her and Nanami from very early in 2025, which would be around eight months into her career. The match took place outdoors at a festival in Taiwan, and even then, Syan Syan knew exactly how to play to the crowd and be an incredible, sympathetic babyface. That is one of her defining traits. She is extremely likeable and has a knack for connecting with the crowds. She had the crowd dying on the nearfalls at the end, including one where she caught Nanami’s legs in a scissorhold with such fluid movement, not typical of someone with that level of experience from a scene not known for developing prospects of this calibre. I remember her making a rare WAVE appearance in January 2026, and despite not wrestling regularly there, the crowd treated her like a homegrown star, chanting her name and cheering her on. She has a magnetic charisma to her unlike any other rising star.

She’s also multi-lingual, which, you guessed it, makes her a prime target for international companies whether you like it or not. Debbie put it best:

The sky is the limit for Syan Syan and the secret may not remain so secret for long.

Miran and Syan Syan really are the Crown Jewels of the Japanese independent scene, and it’s time more people knew about them.

Kuumu, 22; Anna, 16; NENE, 12
“The Rookies”

While Miran and Syan Syan lead the charge for Diana’s next generation behind Nanami, Diana is still cultivating more talent in the dojo and overseas. In 2025, Anna moved from her hometown of Nagoya to Kawasaki in order to chase being a professional wrestler. She got hooked on wrestling by watching videos of Bull Nakano. Anna didn’t have an easy start to her career, as she failed two pro tests before passing the third on 21st September 2025. Then, in an unprecedented step, she was thrown straight into her debut at Korakuen Hall weeks later on 5th October 2025. Such a short turnaround is very unusual in joshi wrestling, so fans got to see her start from literally the bottom and improve with each show. Debbie is a long-term supporter of Anna:

You can see Debbie looking over Anna even in a show months after Anna’s debut in the above image. Initially, Anna struggled with conveying her emotion to the crowd, as anyone would when they are beginning their journey. But over time, slowly but surely, Anna is picking up what she needs to be doing and putting on convincing performances, especially with her offence as she unloads a great dropkick and some of the most ferocious forearms for someone with her experience. Anna has started to develop a connection with the crowd, as I saw live at the recent Golden Week 2026 shows, with the fans (including myself) screaming for Anna to destroy Kaho Kobayashi. But, just like Miran and Syan Syan, Anna has to balance school and has mentioned it’s sometimes difficult for her to do so. She was entered into the Catch the WAVE tournament in 2026, giving her her first experience of wrestling in other promotions.

NENE, 12, was injured in June 2025 and made her return on 31st May 2026, so she was out for almost the entire period that Social Suplex began covering Diana. We look forward to seeing her wrestle again when she’s back. All I know is that when I was leaving Post di Amistad for the final time on my previous trip, NENE, on her way to the office around the corner, yelled after me and waved goodbye. She did not have to do that, but that already tells me what I need to know about her confidence levels at such a young age.

Kuumu, 22, debuted in June 2025, and is Syan Syan’s Taiwanese compatriot, from the same home promotion as her and under the same dual contract. She completed one tour in Japan before returning to Taiwan, but she will play a role in the ‘heel’ unit INVA going forward.

The supporting cast

Put simply, the promotion needs these wrestlers to put on its shows to the quality that they can. Shows are normally four or five-match cards, and it’s important how you build those cards so that you can have a show with consistent quality. A wrestler in the second match on the card, while not as prestigious, is just as important to the team as someone in the main event. These promotions live and die by their live attendances. The independent scene, with promotions having smaller budgets, is not a star-led industry like overseas. It’s one of building trust with your audience, making sure they are able to see their favourites on each show and building coherent storylines. The last contracted wrestler not mentioned that is a mainstay on each show is the one who brings the vibes, 27-year-old Mizuki Kato, who debuted on 8th October 2023. Mizuki Kato is loud. Like really loud. She prides herself on it. It almost doesn’t feel like a Diana show if Kato is not screaming at a referee or a fan at ringside. In-between the matches, she acts as one of the most hyperactive, engaging seconds I have come across, always interacting with fans and pulling faces at what’s going on in the ring.

But, as with any independent promotion, they also rely on a rotation of freelancing wrestlers to round out the cards, such as Maika Ozaki, Mochi Natsumi, Hiragi Kurumi and, a personal favourite, Misa Kagura. These aren’t small considerations for the promotion to make. Diana is actively looking to increase the volume of its supporting cast. The promotion intends to increase the number of their foreign wrestlers going forward, with plans to build a roster of up to thirty wrestlers. If that surprises you, well, it surprised me, too, when Fuwa-san told me that. While they would love to sign new talent under contract, they don’t believe now is the time to do that, and instead they want to focus on increasing the number of Japanese freelance talent. Key to that plan is, of course, Debbie:

The “Diana Complex”

On the day I met Fuwa-san, Debbie told him I had wanted a conversation with him, and he looked stunned. He pointed to himself to clarify whether I had meant him, to which I nodded enthusiastically. When I asked Fuwa-san why he had been surprised that I wanted to cover his promotion, he responded with: “I didn’t think anyone would be interested in listening to what I had to say.” While I laughed at the time, I later thought about that response. What a fitting microcosm of the “Diana Complex”. A promotion in the shadows, despite all it has going for it: its talent, its base of operations, its professionalism. A promotion that needs to push more to promote its outstanding young talent and shout more about its successes. With that response, Fuwa-san encapsulated exactly what the “Diana Complex” is.

They don’t know just how important they are.