Emi Sakura

Emi Motokawa (元川 恵美), better known by the ring name Emi Sakura (さくら えみ), is a Japanese professional wrestler performing for All Elite Wrestling (AEW), Gatoh Move Pro Wrestling and on the independent circuit.

In 1994, aged 17, Motokawa decided to find a career in professional wrestling and after going to auditions with the Ladies Legend Pro-Wrestling (LLPW) and Gaea Japan promotions, she was finally accepted into the International Wrestling Association of Japan dojo for training.

After starting her career in International Wrestling Association of Japan in August 1995, Sakura worked for several promotions across Japan, winning numerous titles, before founding her own promotion, Ice Ribbon, in early 2006.

Sakura not only wrestled for the promotion, but was also solely responsible for training wrestlers for the promotion, where she went on to become a two-time ICE×60 Champion and a five-time International Ribbon Tag Team Champion.

Motokawa, working under her real name, made her professional wrestling debut on August 17, 1995, in a match against Kiyoko Ichiki.

As IWA Japan had no other female wrestlers, Sakura spent her first year working almost exclusively with Ichiki.

On August 13, 1997, Motokawa won her first championship, when she defeated Luna Vachon at an IWA Japan event to win American Wrestling Federation's (AWF) World Women's Championship.

When IWA Japan started a working relationship with All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling (AJW), Motokawa also began making appearances for AJW, unsuccessfully challenging Momoe Nakanishi for the AJW Junior Championship on August 26 and teaming with Manami Toyota in the 1997 Tag League the Best tournament.

On January 24, 1998, Sakura defeated Momoe Nakanishi to win the AJW Championship.

She would lose the title back to Nakanishi on April 12.

On March 19, 1999, Motokawa lost the AWF World Women's Championship to Yuko Kosugi, after which she left IWA Japan.

On August 20, 1999, Motokawa began working regularly for Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW), where she often wrestled opposite Kaori Nakayama.

On October 24, 2000, Motokawa teamed with Azusa Kudo and Hisakatsu Oya to unsuccessfully challenge Nakayama, Gedo and Jado for the WEW 6-Man Tag Team Championship.

Motokawa wrestled regularly for the promotion until August 2001, when she began suffering from various injuries, which eventually led her to undergo a hernia surgery.

While she was sidelined, FMW went out of business.

In 2002, Motokawa joined the Gatokunyan (GTKN) promotion, where she worked for the first year solely as a trainer, before returning to the ring in 2003 under the new ring name Emi Sakura.

During her years in the GTKN, Sakura split her time between wrestling and training virtually all other wrestlers in the promotion.

In April 2006, Sakura left Gatokunyan to form her own promotion, named Ice Ribbon.

Buying a dojo in Saitama, Sakura continued to train wrestlers she had taken with her from Gatokunyan, including Aika Ando, Aoi Kizuki, Hikari Minami, Mai Ichii, Makoto, Riho and Seina.

Ice Ribbon held its first two shows on June 20, 2006.

Sakura wrestled her first match for the promotion on October 15, losing to Riho.

Sakura spent most of her first year in Ice Ribbon, working with her then-nine-year-old pupil.

From the start, Ice Ribbon had a close relationship with the NEO Japan Ladies Pro Wrestling promotion, which led to Sakura and some of her trainees making semi-regular appearances with the promotion.

In storyline, the partnership was explained with a relationship between Sakura and NEO president Tetsuya Koda.

On February 18, 2007, the Sakura Ribbon Army, a team of Sakura and some of her trainees and friends, defeated the NEO Machineguns Army in a seven-on-seven battle royal, earning Sakura and Koda the right to marry each other and unify NEO and Ice Ribbon.

However, after pleading from her trainees, Sakura turned on Koda and abandoned him at the altar, ending the storyline.

On July 16, Sakura teamed with Yoshiko Tamura to defeat Haruka Matsuo and Misae Genki for the NEO Tag Team Championship.

They would lose the title to Ayako Hamada and Kaoru Ito just thirteen days later.

During 2008, Sakura made her acting debut, working on the film Three Count, which was set in the world of professional wrestling and also starred fellow wrestler Kyoko Inoue and Yoshiko Tamura.

From the cast of the film, Sakura received three more trainees to her Ice Ribbon dojo, Hikaru Shida, Miyako Matsumoto and Tsukasa Fujimoto.

On November 15, 2008, Sakura teamed with male wrestler Ribbon Takanashi to unsuccessfully challenge Riho and Yuki Sato for the International Ribbon Tag Team Championship.

The following April, Sakura teamed with another one of her trainees, Makoto, facing Nanae Takahashi and Minori Makiba in a losing effort in a match for the vacant International Ribbon Tag Team Championship.

During 2009, Sakura held not only both the ICE×60 and International Ribbon Tag Team Championships, but also the Daily Sports Women's and JWP Tag Team Championships and the NEO Single and NWA Women's Pacific Championships, which led to the Tokyo Sports magazine naming her the 2009 joshi wrestler of the year.

On May 3, 2009, Sakura defeated Nanae Takahashi at a NEO event to win the NEO Single and NWA Women's Pacific Championships.

The finish of the match had to be improvised, after Sakura legitimately knocked Takahashi unconscious with a sunset flip powerbomb, which resulted in the referee ending the match without a three count and NEO president Tetsuya Koda awarding the titles to Sakura.

Her reign ended just two days later, when she was defeated by Yoshiko Tamura.

On July 5, Sakura and Nanae Takahashi defeated Tamura and Fuka in the finals to win NEO's Mid Summer Tag Tournament VIII.

After six years with Ice Ribbon, Sakura left the promotion for "personal reasons" in January 2012.

The following month, Sakura formed the Gatoh Move Pro Wrestling promotion in Bangkok, Thailand.

During 2012, Sakura also became a regular for JWP Joshi Puroresu, winning the JWP Openweight Championship in October.