Jaguar Yokota

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Rimi Yokota is a Japanese professional wrestler and later wrestling trainer, who wrestled under the name Jaguar Yokota. She was one of the greatest female wrestlers of all time, and, during her heyday in the early 1980s, was one of the best wrestlers of either sex in the world.

[edit] Career

Yokota was born on July 25, 1961 in Tokyo, Japan. She spent the majority of her career as a headliner for the All Japan Women's promotion (AJW). It was highlighted by two title runs as the WWWA Champion.

Having been inspired to join AJW by 1970s stars, the Beauty Pair (Jackie Sato and Maki Ueda),^[1] Yokota debuted on June 28, 1977 in Tokyo, against Mayumi Takahashi. She won her first belt on January 4, 1980, when she became the AJW Junior Champion. Later that year, she won the WWWA World Tag Team Championship with Ayumi Hori, on December 17, having also become the first AJW Champion with a victory over Nancy Kumi two days earlier. On February 25, 1981 she achieved her greatest success to that point, defeating her original inspiration, Jackie Sato, for the WWWA World Heavyweight Championship. She was 19 years old.

She lost her first world championship to La Galactica on May 7, 1983 in a hair vs. mask match, then won it back a month later. During her second world title run, she had very notable fueds with Devil Masami and Lioness Asuka (of the Crush Gals), but had to vacate the championship in 1985 due to a shoulder injury.

After her early retirement in 1986 (she was 24), she became a trainer for AJW. Notable students of hers are Manami Toyota, Toshiyo Yamada, and Kyoko Inoue. In 1995 she formed the Jd' promotion, and wrestled as its top star until 1998.

Yokota was married in August, 2004. Currently, she wrestles as Jaguar Y, a member of the Monster faction in HUSTLE.