In the land of dropkicks, idol dreams, and headbutts disguised as hugs, Kyuri stood out like a firecracker in a snow globe. She wasn’t the tallest or the flashiest, but she didn’t need to be. She was the kind of wrestler who showed up when the lights weren’t brightest and left her soul stitched into the canvas. You blinked, you missed her — but the sting of her forearm stayed with you.
Kyuri — born Ri Yumi, and ironically soft-spoken outside the ring — broke into the weird and wonderful world of Ice Ribbon on October 28, 2012. She was just 14. While other kids were figuring out high school entrance exams and K-pop fandoms, Kyuri was learning how to bump on blue canvas and sell a shoulder like it owed her money. Her debut was an exhibition tag loss — a tame beginning for a wild ride.
Her journey through Ice Ribbon wasn’t built on dominant runs or miracle pushes. No, it was a slow-burn, a match-by-match elevation of someone who could make even a comedy battle royal feel like Shakespeare with suplexes. She earned every step. She bled through the middle of the card, clawed up the rankings with that same grit Ice Ribbon has always been known for — half idol show, half death cult.
In 2016, she won her first title — the Triangle Ribbon Championship, Ice Ribbon’s wild triple threat belt that always feels one bad roll-up away from chaos. She beat Cherry for it on the promotion’s 10th anniversary show. Not bad for a kid who once got pinned on the undercard by blink-and-you-miss-it armbars.
Then came “Gekokujo Tag,” her odd-couple chemistry with Maika Ozaki that felt like someone accidentally paired an anime schoolgirl with a tank engine and said, “Go win some gold.” And they did. On the biggest night of the year — RibbonMania 2018 — Kyuri and Ozaki upset the Lovely Butchers to win the International Ribbon Tag Titles. Not a fluke. Not luck. Just perfectly timed chaos.
Kyuri was never a main eventer, not in the classical sense. But she was Ice Ribbon’s connective tissue. She popped up in retirement matches, gauntlets, tributes — the kind of shows that don’t sell pay-per-views but build history. She stood shoulder to shoulder with names like Tsukasa Fujimoto, Giulia, Risa Sera, and Tequila Saya. Hell, she even survived a 44-woman retirement match. That’s not a match, that’s a Black Friday sale in spandex.
Her indie scene resume reads like a Tokyo back alley brawl. JWP, Marvelous, Seadlinnng, Ganbare Pro — Kyuri showed up wherever there was a ring, a crowd, and maybe a beer in the back. She teamed with Sareee, wrestled Takumi Iroha, went to war in Mio Shirai’s retirement circus, and somehow ended up in six-person chaos with La Rosa Negra, Kaoru, and a guy named Pandita. It was wrestling as jazz — weird, violent, and honest.
But even chaos needs a pause.
In 2021, Kyuri decided to hang up the boots — not in some tear-stained injury retirement, but by choice. She wanted to go to college. To become a nursery school teacher. A real job. The kind where you don’t get hit in the face with chairs. She said goodbye quietly, like the type of person who waves from the back of the train but leaves a note in your pocket that reads: “Thanks for the matches.”
But wrestling — like a bad ex or a stray cat — always comes back.
On July 31, 2022, Kyuri returned to Ice Ribbon at Summer Jumbo Ribbon. She faced Tae Honma in a match that wasn’t about belts or headlines — just a little proof that she could still go. And she could. She’s been a part-timer ever since. No fanfare, no ego. Just a woman who loves the game too much to quit it entirely.
Kyuri is a wrestler’s wrestler. A card-filler with heart. A tag partner who never phoned it in. She never had the big Stardom jump. She didn’t tour the U.S. with Shimmer. But she brought authenticity to every match — a raw, jittery electricity that said, “This might be my last one, so I’m going out with a forearm to your chin.”
She’s not the future. She never claimed to be the past. But she’s what keeps the middle alive — that space between superstardom and obscurity. She’s proof that wrestling doesn’t have to end with a main event pyro show. Sometimes it ends in a nursery, reading a book to a kid, while a championship medal rusts in a drawer nearby.
Kyuri reminds us of the wrestlers who don’t get statues or Twitter trends.
Just quiet applause. A bruised smile. And a legacy you didn’t know you missed until it was gone.
And maybe — if we’re lucky — she’ll dropkick someone again next weekend. Just because she still can.
