Billie Starkz Recalls Training With TJPW, Main Eventing Korakuen Hall Show

Billie Starkz has had the chance to train and work at Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling, and she recently discussed the experience of learning at the joshi promotion. Starkz spoke with Fightful’s Scott Edwards for a new interview, and you can see some highlights below:

On going to TJPW to train: “I wanted to train, and I requested to train there. They were like, ‘You’re not here that long. Go have fun.’ ‘No, I want to train with everybody. I will also have time to do stuff.’ It’s just a different style. The teaching is kind of the same, but the motions and how they’ll change these little things, and I like the little changes that they make sometimes. When you are training, it’s still full speed, but you kind of cheat everything where you don’t hurt your body. ‘This is great; how do you guys do this?’ In my head, I’m like, ‘I just have to do it or walk through it, I don’t know this middle pace that you’ve figured out.’ I feel like the women that I wrestled there helped me so much with the little time that I got to be there. The Joshi women are whole different beasts of wrestling. I’ve always said that I am super-inspired by Joshi wrestling because those women are some of the best in the world.”

On main eventing TJPW All Rise 2022: “It was kind of crazy. I just remember in my head, I was like, ‘Nobody is going to say anything when you go out there, don’t freak out.’ In my head I was like, ‘Nobody knows who I am; I’m just a little white girl from America. I don’t know how I got here. I’m just trying. I hope you guys like me.’ I was so excited before I went out. I had no expectations. I just had to go out there and wrestle and have fun. As soon as I heard blink-182, I got so excited, ‘No way blink-182 is playing in Korakuen Hall right now. This is amazing.’ Right after the match, I had no idea about this, but the translator for TJPW came and talked to me. ‘Oh, how does it feel being the youngest to ever main event Korakuen Hall?’ ‘Huh? What do you mean?’ ‘You just made history and you had no idea?’ ‘Oh, crap.’ I was the youngest Gaijin to main event Korakuen Hall, not youngest wrestler. The person who had it before me, I think they said it was Jimmy Lloyd, and I laughed so hard. ‘I’m so glad I beat Jimmy.”