Injuries and Pains of Japanese Women Professional Wrestlers

Abstract

Women professional wrestlers do not express their femininity by enduring injury or pain when wrestling. Nevertheless, especially between the late 80s and the early 90s, they tended to wrestle even though they were injured and/or felt pains. Both organizational factors and wrestlers’ factors have contributed to this tradition. After the early 90s, while the tradition has remained strong, some wrestlers come to regard the tradition as wrong and decide not to wrestle until their injuries are completely healed. The reason, in part, was because of a structural change after 1995 that professional wrestling organizations have reduced the number of yearly promotions. This generated more time-off for wrestlers when they were injured and/or felt pains. Since women wrestlers are different from male athletes studied in the previous research in that women wrestlers did not connect wrestling with injuries and/or pains in the construction of their femininity, it is easier for them that they can stay away from the ring when they are injured and/or feel pains. Especially two women wrestlers, who have been suffered from various injuries since their debuts, seem to accept this structural change more easily because they have anxiety that injuries might negatively affect their physical power for childbirth and childrearing. As a result, they come to take better care of their bodies. Such attitudes are not found among both male and female athletes in the previous studies. Future research is needed to consider how both male and female athletes view their injuries and pains in relation with their reproductive abilities.