8 Awesome Wrestling Stars You've Never Even Heard Of
5. Manami Toyota
Debuting at the tender age of sixteen in 1987, Manami Toyota can lay claim to being considered one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, working no less than fourteen matches that the authoritative Wrestling Observer classified as five-star bouts.
Maintaining her legendary status in the ring to her eventual retirement at the end of 2017, she's been called (lazy journalistic comparison alert!) the 'Shawn Michaels of joshi wrestling': a peerless worker with a fantastic moveset, which at one point included some phenomenal high-flying moves (the no hands springboard somersault plancha, anyone?) as well as some of the most idiosyncratic signature moves in wrestling.
An inspiration to anyone whos seen her compete, Manami was voted the greatest female wrestler of all time by Wrestling Observer readers in 2009. Two years earlier, she'd worked her own 20th anniversary tribute show, performing in every single match on the card: in 2012, she did it again for her 25th anniversary show and in 2017, finally retired on her 30th anniversary by competing in a 50-match marathon!
Charismatic, compelling, phenomenally talented and fierce as f*ck, there's no one quite like Manami Toyota.