Maki Ueda

[Noah's_Savior]

 

Makiko 'Maki' Ueda (マキ上田)- born March 8, 1959 in Tottori, Tottori Prefecture. Originally set on playing volleyball through high school and having an aversion to the idea of wrestling in a swimsuit, Maki isn't set on becoming a wrestler when her dad first brings up the idea. Maki's own desire to leave her small town and her dad's persistence lead her to dropping out of high school and joining AJW in 1974, she's said in an interview that due to the lack of interest at the time there were no formal auditions or pro-tests for potential wrestlers and after a year of training she debuts on March 19, 1975. A year later Maki and Jackie Sato are put together to form Beauty Pair and create the first major boom for AJW, while Mach Fumiake made AJW popular with general audiences and young people she doesn't mobilize an entire fanbase demographic like Beauty Pair did. A year after Beauty Pair forms there's 600 applications sent for the 1977 auditions, now held at the Fuji TV studios. 

Maki Ueda is the first woman in AJW to hold the WWWA singles championship, the WWWA tag championship, and the Hawaiian-Pacific/All-Pacific titles. Due to personal differences with Jackie Sato, anxiety about life-threatening injury (Maki is a part of AJW when Oscar Ichijou suffers a fatal neck injury while training in the dojo), and missing her mom's passing due to schedule, Maki Ueda makes the decision to retire in late 1978 and has her retirement match against Jackie Sato on February 27, 1979.