n the cracked-glass cathedral of joshi wrestling, they don’t hand out crowns. You earn them in blood, bruises, and botched moonsaults. You don’t inherit the throne—you fight your mother for it. And if you’re Ibuki Hoshi, you do it with your fists, your fire, and your full belly. Even if that belly, in the end, holds more than muscle and rage.
Born into the business like some Shakespearean twist on a Tiger Mask melodrama, Ibuki Hoshi didn’t walk into Ice Ribbon—she was born screaming into it, kicking and crying under the fluorescent hum of a dojo light while her mother, Hamuko Hoshi, carved out her own legend. There are debutantes, and then there are dynasties. Ibuki didn’t wait for her lineage to be written—she grabbed the pen and started scratching her own damn gospel in the walls of every ring she touched.
She stepped into the squared circle in 2017, all of 14 years old, a teenager with bruised knuckles and untested lungs. Her first match wasn’t a win—it was an omen. She and her mother, tag-teaming for the International Ribbon Tag Titles, came up short. And that’s the way it should be. In wrestling, you don’t start with gold. You start with a sore back, a busted lip, and a crowd that barely remembers your name.
But Ibuki, even then, had it—that hungry-eyed look, like she was trying to kill the ghosts of the wrestlers who came before her. She didn’t wrestle to smile for the camera. She wrestled like she was trying to break through the mat and find whatever god was buried beneath.
They called her a homegrown talent, but that label was too clean, too polite. Ibuki wasn’t just grown—she was forged. Hammered and twisted into shape by the sadistic ballet of joshi wrestling. She took her early lumps—losses to the likes of Miyako Matsumoto and Hamuko herself—but each match left a scar that taught her something the dojo couldn’t: pain, humility, timing, and the art of the sell.
And when the titles finally came, they didn’t fall into her lap. She took them like a burglar in the night.
The Tag Team Dream
December 31, 2021. Ribbonmania. The final gasp of a cursed year. The kind of night where dreams usually go to die quietly behind a curtain. But not for Ibuki.
Alongside her mother—because blood may spill but it also binds—she dethroned Azure Revolution to capture the International Ribbon Tag Team Titles. It was poetry, vulgar and violent. The old guard and the new blood, standing tall as if daring the locker room to come try their luck.
But Ibuki didn’t stop there. You don’t carry your mother’s name just to warm a corner of the tag team division. You climb. You hunt. You burn the old maps and start drawing your own.
The Singles Crown: ICExInfinity
August 26, 2023. Ice in Wonderland. The kind of show where the costumes are colorful, the crowd’s polite, and the action is surgical. But then Ibuki showed up like a wrecking ball in a tutu and bulldozed the entire narrative.
She beat Yuuri and strapped the ICExInfinity Championship around her waist for the first time. It wasn’t just a title win. It was a declaration: I’m not just her daughter anymore. I’m the goddamn storm now.
It was the moment when the crowd stopped seeing her as the apprentice and started seeing her as the threat. The heir had become the empress. The dojo’s little sister had grown into the locker room’s terrifying big sister. And it looked like nothing could slow her down.
But life, like a poorly booked gauntlet match, has a sense of irony.
April 6, 2024. Kamata. The announcement came with a soft voice and a full heart.
Ibuki Hoshi was pregnant.
Just like that, the fighting stopped. The belt was vacated. The ring ropes would no longer sting. The mat wouldn’t echo with her stomps. For a moment, the fire had to go out.
And here lies the cruel miracle of it all: the very thing that makes you a woman strong enough to give life is the same thing that demands you pause the business of breaking people’s bones for a living.
Wrestling is a cruel lover. It doesn’t wait for you. It barely remembers you. When you’re gone, it starts grooming the next plucky 14-year-old to take your place. But Ibuki didn’t leave in shame or in silence. She walked away carrying something far heavier than a title belt.
She carried the next chapter.
Bloodlines and Battle Scars
She’s the daughter of Hamuko Hoshi—yes, that Hamuko. One of the joshi scene’s human bowling balls. The woman who turned the splash from a finisher into a damn spiritual event. They fought each other. Teamed together. Held gold. And still, the crowd couldn’t help but compare the two.
But if Hamuko was the steamroller, Ibuki was the fireball. The one who hits you before you even see her coming. Where her mother grinds you down, Ibuki explodes. Where Hamuko flattens you like a dump truck, Ibuki spins and kicks like a busted tire in a typhoon.
And now that she’s on hiatus, there’s a vacuum. A silence. The kind of gap that no newcomer, no matter how fiery, can fill.
Because Ibuki Hoshi wasn’t just good. She was a ghost in the ring. She hit like she had a grudge against gravity itself. She sold like she was fighting for her own damn survival. And when she smiled—it was the smile of someone who knows the end is coming but throws the punch anyway.
When (Not If) She Comes Back
Let’s not kid ourselves. She’ll be back. Wrestling has a way of clawing back the ones it brands early. The ring is home, and home doesn’t stop calling just because you changed diapers instead of hitting dropkicks.
When she returns, it won’t be with the wide-eyed awe of a teenager. It’ll be with the grit of a mother. A mother who’s bled in front of crowds and knows what real pain feels like.
She’ll step through those ropes again. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not next year. But one day. And when she does, some poor soul is going to learn what it means to get hit by a mother who’s had to fight both postpartum depression and Miku Aono in the same lifetime.
Final Bell
Ibuki Hoshi didn’t just live up to the hype—she exceeded the prophecy. In a business built on lineage and betrayal, she gave us loyalty and legacy. She may be gone for now, but the ring remembers.
And when she returns—ankle taped, eyes tired, fists clenched—you’ll know that the fire wasn’t extinguished.
It was just passed down.