Giulia Speaks Out About Issues In STARDOM, Trying to Enact Change

Giulia recently spoke up about the state of STARDOM and some issues that she’s seen behind the scenes. STARDOM has been beset with injuries in the last several weeks, which have led to the World of STARDOM and Goddesses of STARDOM Championships being vacated. Bushiroad owner Takaaki Kidani cited the “unreasonable schedule” as a cause of the recent injuries.

Giulia recently spoke with Kakutolog and talked about her concerns within the company and how she reached out to Kidani about them. You can see highlights below, as translated by our own Himanshu Doi:

On being vocal about STARDOM’s current issues with officials: “Actually, a lot of things happened at the same time. I’m quite the type of person who gives my opinions. So, in my life, even before I became a pro-wrestler, I have had conflicts because of this, and in many situations, such as with friends, family, work, school, etc. …I thought, ‘Isn’t that wrong?’ I’m the type of person who speaks very clearly. Maybe that isn’t very Japanese. In many cases, it is difficult to say things that are normally difficult to say. Especially the female staff and mostly male staff. I think there were a lot of things that everyone wanted to say but couldn’t bring themselves to say.

“I really feel that way, and I’ve been communicating this a lot both internally and within the company. I’ve been trying to convey this in print as well. However, the final blow was the response to Ushiku (mismanagement and insufficient notice) that made me feel like nothing had changed and things were only getting worse. Plus, there was also the subsequent response (questions raised during interactions with staff). So I thought what should I do about this. I thought I’d send that SNS to (Takaaki) Kidani-san (owner of Bushiroad)… well, I wrote it. If I didn’t do that, nothing would really change in this organization.”

On her concerns with the state of the company: “The thing that Rossy Ogawa has built is being destroyed… up until last year and the year before, we had a lot of momentum, didn’t we? It was extremely frustrating to see that the things we had all built together were falling apart more and more, especially since the beginning of this year. So, with that in mind… I spoke out. I don’t know if I should say this… there was a part of me that once again felt how great Rossy Ogawa is. Ogawa-san was the one who still prioritized the feelings of the wrestlers. Then it became that that is no longer the case.

“Wrestlers, especially women, have a lot of different emotions, and by throwing them all at each other, it becomes a story. There are a lot of things going on and it becomes a fight, and there’s a lot of drama, but it’s like we can’t do that (bitter smile) … There are so many things being put together one after the other, and our feelings… we say a lot of things on social media and backstage, but I don’t think anything is getting through to them, or they don’t see it. I think the difference with Rossy Ogawa was that things were put together one after the other without looking.”

On why the issues are there: “The fans know how the wrestlers are feeling as they have the match, who their rivals are, who they hate, and how amazing these guys are right now. When Rossy Ogawa saw that, he used to say, ‘Well, this and this are interesting, so the match is decided,’ but the reason why it stopped happening was (with increased emphasis) not because of the busy schedule.

“It’s different. What the players wanted to show and what the ‘company’ wanted to do were completely different. I’ve been able to create many rivals, such as Tam Nakano and Suzu Suzuki, and that’s because (Rossy Ogawa EP) knew the wrestlers well. That’s being ignored, all of it. That’s why the fans can’t put their emotions into it, and the wrestlers feel like there’s no point in putting so much emotion into it… seriously, they should do something about that (laughs). The new president said that he loves pro-wrestling, so I want him to listen to what the wrestlers have to say.”