In a business full of granite jaws and fragile egos, Mika Iida was something rare: a workhorse with a porcelain smile and a spine made of weathered rope. She didn’t play the part of a superstar. She wasn’t adorned in sequins or stuffed into glittery cosplay. She was a meat-and-potatoes wrestler in a tofu-and-sake world, and goddamn if that didn’t make her a cult legend.
You probably never saw her on a Wrestle Kingdom poster. She never headlined Tokyo Dome or danced in LED light tunnels like a hologram fever dream. But that’s not the metric that matters in joshi wrestling. Real ones measure greatness by how many bruises you leave behind, how many rookies you guide, and how many tag team titles you steal from men twice your size.
The Ramen House Debut
Mika Iida debuted in 2010, a time when the joshi scene was just starting to crawl out of the radioactive fallout left by the collapse of the 1990s golden era. She didn’t have a bloodline, a famous surname, or a TikTok gimmick. What she had was guts, a dropkick, and the patience of a Shinto monk.
She cut her teeth in Pro Wrestling Wave, the promotion where dreams are born in fluorescent-lit gyms and die in empty train stations after a 50-minute time-limit draw. Her first match was a royal rumble featuring the usual band of joshi chaos goblins: Kana (yes, Asuka), Bolshoi, Yoneyama, and every other name that could break your nose or your spirit. Iida didn’t win—but she didn’t get eaten alive either. That would become her calling card: survive first, shine later.
Tag Team Terror: The Hirota Years
The gods of comedy and brutality had a good laugh when Iida found her greatest success next to one of joshi’s most beloved clowns: Sakura Hirota. Together they were “Sakuragohan,” a team that sounded like a side dish at Denny’s but hit harder than an Osaka debt collector.
They weren’t the flashiest team. But they were dangerous in the way potholes are—unassuming, sudden, and capable of destroying even the most finely-tuned machines. In 2014, they snatched the Wave Tag Team Championships from under the noses of Yankii Nichokenju and Las Aventureras in a match that was half-punchline, half-classic.
And that’s what Iida mastered: blending the absurd with the technical. She could sell Hirota’s pratfalls with Shakespearean gravitas and then chain wrestle you into oblivion while you were still chuckling.
The Queen of “Almost”
Iida was never the ace. Never the golden girl. But damn it, she was close—often heartbreakingly so.
In 2018, she challenged Yumi Ohka for the Wave Single Championship. She lost. Not because she wasn’t good enough, but because wrestling is a cruel mistress who often rewards fireworks over firewood. Iida burned slow, steady, and deep. Not flashy. Just there—every show, every bump, every card.
Her Catch the Wave runs were a symphony of almosts. In 2011, she barely got out of the Young Block. By 2015, she was trading victories with legends like Kana and Shida. She was proof that if you show up long enough, bleed hard enough, and stop trying to be a star, you become something rarer: the heart of the promotion.
The Technician’s Technician
They don’t give out “Technique Awards” to brawlers or cosplay queens. Iida earned two. Because her wristlocks looked like poetry and her transitions were smoother than a sake pour in Kyoto. She didn’t need 630 splashes or tiger drivers to get a crowd’s respect. She needed three minutes and a side headlock that would make Lou Thesz weep.
And when the bell rang, she made you believe.
The Last Supper: Final Battle 2018
Wrestling retires most people. Mika Iida retired on her terms.
May 4, 2018. A show named “Thanks For The Meal!”—because of course it was. Iida, the iron-stomached grappler who once wrestled under the name of a rice dish, faced off against Hiroe Nagahama in her swan song. She lost, naturally. But nobody remembers the finish.
They remember the tears. The respect. The entire joshi ecosystem coming out not for a main eventer, but for the backbone. The woman who made others look good for eight long years and never once asked for a spotlight.
She Wasn’t the Star—She Made the Stars Shine
In the indie scene, she fought with and against legends: Aja Kong, Shida, Misaki Ohata, even the batshit beauty known as Kana. She did intergender matches in SEAdLINNNG. Time-limit draws in Stardom. Got kicked by men, thrown by monsters, and smiled through it all like it was a Sunday stroll through Shibuya.
She was the safe pair of hands. The test for newcomers. The measuring stick wrapped in a modest frame and an unassuming entrance theme.
Final Thoughts from the Cheap Seats
Mika Iida never sold out Madison Square Garden. She never headlined a Tokyo Dome. But if you walked into a joshi show between 2010 and 2018, odds are she was there—gluing the card together with matwork, timing, and selflessness.
She didn’t chase glory. She gave it away.
And in a sport full of ego and emptiness, that makes her immortal.
So here’s to Mika Iida—the technician, the tag partner, the punching bag, the joke-seller, the rice bowl of joshi wrestling. You may not have had the loudest entrance, but damn it, the exit was unforgettable.
Thanks for the meal.