The sexiest show on Earth: AFW uncovered

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The rise of the AFW

Who would have thought that the idea of scantily clad young ladies wrestling in a ring would ever become an international phenomenon? Well, apparently someone in Japan did  as the meteoric raise of the AFW to the world stage can attest. For those of you who live in a cave, don't have internet or a TV, AFW stands for Anime Female Wrestling and is the number one female wrestling promotion not only in Japan but in the whole world. With daily shows, programs aired in nearly a hundred countries and a revenue estimated in the billions dollars yearly, AFW has taken female wrestling to a whole new level...and with a whole new twist. If you don't know what I am talking about then you should probably watch one their shows and see for yourself (just make sure there are no kids around) and decide if you want to become one of its many fans or its equally numerous detractors.

The AFW is as successful as it is controversial. The ladies of the AFW do a lot more than merely wrestle in tiny bikinis, which usually don't last long in the match; the so called 'Hentai' matches would easily qualify as hardcore lesbian porn even by the standards of the most open minded. That is precisely what makes  the ascension of the AFW to international fame such an unprecedented thing; how can a show this outrageous become so popular? Some will tell you that it is the quality, either of the matches or of the girls, the AFW counts in its rosters with some of the greatest fighters and sexiest women alive; others will tell you it has to do with the ruthlessness of AFW general management, which have been accused numerous times to cause the fall of more than a few competing promotions with underhanded tactics; or maybe it is that people aren't as prudish as they used to be or that they are already tired of the same old  traditional sports. One way or another AFW is here to stay.




To understand the rise of the AFW one must first understand the world of female wrestling. It is not surprising at all that a Japanese promotion dominates the world of Joshi Puroresu, as female wrestling is known in the land of the rising sun. Although female wrestling had always been a sideshow in America, used mainly as a filler for the lower card with a few sporadic appearances in the important PPVs, in Japan this fighting girls are regarded as respected athletes, even the ones in the Hentai league, and treated very much like celebrities, akin to pop idols or reality television personalities. Joshi stars are well known all over the island. Yet the origins of Joshi are as humble, and kinky as you could possible imagine.

Thought women wrestling is older than dirt, or mud in this chase, it can be argued that professional women wrestling started in 1937, when Mildred Burke won the originals World Women's title. Unfortunately for Mildred, it never reached in America the levels of popularity it did in Japan. As earlier as 1948, when the Ikari brothers founded the All Japan Women's Wrestling Club there have existed female exclusive wrestling promotions in Japan. In the begining the shows had a vaudevillian feel to it. The most popular matches at that time where the "garter stripping" matches and the AJWWC shows only became increasingly sexual, although never even close to the kind of stuff that usually goes in an AFW ring on a Monday afternoon.

With the rise of Rikidozan, a figure akin to Hulk Hogan in America and called the Father of Puroresu (wrestling in Japanese), the late fifties experimented a boom in wrestling. It became immensely popular in Japan and many organizations of Joshi Puroresu arose around the country, some more serious than others, with All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling (founded by the Matsuanaga brothers) becoming the dominant one for the following four decades. This organizations steered away from the erotic origins of female wrestling to focus more on the rougher competition types. All that would change when with the turn of the millennium a British entrepeneur, the now famous, or should we say notorious, Cassandra Sellers, founded a new wrestling promotion.

Cassandra wasn't new to wrestling, and neither to less modest forms of entertainment. Although the idea of mixing female wrestling with erotic shows wasn't new, other promotions had tried it before in Japan and around the world, none would ever be as successful as hers. Sellers had struggled with the little interest the media had to show this kind of material. For this reason was that Cassandra seek to form an alliance with a cable network channel from the very beginning;  Anime TV (which initially focused exclusively in Japanese animations) decided to try its luck in exchange from having the promotion named after them Anime Female Wrestling.

AFW premiered with an hour-long weekly show on Thursday aptly named Friction, that soon became the number one program in its midnight time slot; a first for Anime TV. It was soon expanded to a two hours long show every Thursday and moved an hour earlier, but this wasn't enough. A second two-hours show was aired on Monday's nights and then another one on Wednesday. In less than a year AFW covered all of Anime TV's late night programming with daily shows and multiple re-airings. The AFW Nights, as they called it, were consistently among the most watched 'sport events' in Japan, but late TV programming wasn't the only thing that Ms. Sellers was monopolizing.  



The AFW success brought increasing difficulties to other Joshi promotions who found they couldn't compete against what Sellers was showing and a series of aggressive take overs soon followed. In less than a year AFW  became the 'Godzilla' of Joshi Puroresu and behaved pretty much like said giant monster, destroying everything in its wake. Countless of smaller promotions had to fold and accept to be bought by AFW, the big ones only resisted a bit longer. After a particularly pernicious scandal left its main competitor, Wrestling Angels, financially broken, Anime Female Wrestling WAS female wrestling in Japan.

In other time and age AFW would have probably never made it out of the Japanese islands and maybe a small part of Asia. Most cable companies across the globe completely ignored the show due to its lewdness, but the fans of female wrestling, and kinky entertainment, soon took notice and began to watch the matches through the internet. The cable networks had to follow. Anime TV Channel became one of the standard offers in the 'Adult Packages' of practically every cable company in the world and the most viewed. Keep out of the mainstream's eye for most part of its existence AFW was big and it has only grown bigger.

Although as any wrestling fan can tell you AFW can't compete in number of viewers with more family-oriented, and definitively not homoerotic male wrestling shows, they do compete in total revenue generated. AFW Arenas are generally smaller but they are always packed and the tickets, as well as the television rights and PPVs, tend to be a bit pricier. According to some analysts, last years AFW's Avalanche PPV generated more money than this years 'wrestling mania', despite having less than half the viewers. Fans seem willing to pay more to see the nubile girl bodies of the AFW fighters go at it rolling on the floor and twisting each other in impossibly painful and suggestive positions, than the muscled boys of traditional wrestling promotions, go figure.



AFW matches aren't for the faint of heart nor for the easily offended. Anyone who was shocked by the showing of a nipple in the Superbowl should probably stay away from AFW altogether. Naked girls forced to scream their submissions to their opponents, or forced to climax in front of a live audience are common sights in AFW arenas. And the hits some of this girls take and deliver easily match those seen in a Superbowl plus more nipples. Most girls not only have to fight hard to win, but also to keep some semblance of dignity; they rarely succeed. Yet, some don't seem to care and apparently enjoy this type of contests. Winners generally have a lot more fun than losers. "...I like seeing the faces on the girls when I make them into my own. I love making those defiant girls give into their sexual desires just for me." told us Sena Iwakura, one prominent and shameless Hentai wrestler for AFW.

Whips, bondage, strap-ons, hand-cuffs, facesitting, foot worship, spanking... the list goes on and on, there is apparently not a single kink that the AFW isn't willing to turn into a fight. And judging by the things the girls usually wear for these matches, when they actually wear something, there neither is a fetish the girls aren't willing to explore. Humiliating a defeated opponent, generally in some sexual way, seems to be as important as the fights itself, and the company encourages this behavior by offering substantial bonuses to the girls that embarrass their opponents. As a fighter who preferred to remain anonymous told us "Most contracts have special clauses that guarantee an extra percentage of the fight's purse if you humiliate your opponent. Natalia, the so called Dream, for example gets a 15% bonus ON TOP of her normal earnings if she fucks you with a strap-on after she beats you". Talk about raising the stakes.

But not all the matches in AFW are so explicit or sexual. Some are legit non-erotic wrestling contest, highly competitive, rough and sometimes even outright brutal. AFW can count in its ranks with the some most respected and feared names in female wrestling and fighting, girls that go to the ring with the sole objective of beating her opponents to pulp and not to make out with them. Yet, as some fans like to point out, watching two sexy girls giving it their all in a fight is still erotic even if they aren't trying to fuck each other with phallic toys; an assertion that is hard to deny for anyone who has seen some of AFW action.

Like it or not any girl trying to prove herself in the world of fighting today knows that the toughest competition is in the AFW, and if she wants to bask on the prestige and fame (not to mention the money) of combating the greatest female fighters out there, she has to share the gym (and the showers) with girls that would probably rather rape her than punch her. The line dividing these two camps is blurry at best as many of the biggest names in 'clean' wrestling have no problem 'going Hentai' from time to time with varying degrees of success. As Akashi Tanikaze (former World Champion and considered by many a living legend of Joshi Puroresu) showed  when last week she stepped off the World Championship rankings to pursue the Hentai Championship title instead. "... my goal is to become the first ever Triple Crown champ here in AFW. I've won the one I think is the hardest, the Friction Title and now I have to get two more", she told to her shocked fans.



The girls of the AFW are as diverse as they come: career wrestlers, gangsters, pop idols, porn stars, super models, sumo fighters, ex-military commandos, all cross paths with the girls-next-door and the rich snob girls that do it just for fun. The AFW has a very open recruiting policy: they hire just about anyone willing to fight as long as they are either hot or cute. The company even has a special show for particularly young and inexperienced wrestlers, the Kawaii division, which enjoys a small but very loyal fanbase of people that prefer to see cute little girls rolling on a bed instead of the big pros laying down the smackdowns through tables.

This philosophy of letting anyone that wants to fight do it as long as they are sexy, has lead to the AFW having a roster of over two thousand wrestlers, counting subsidiaries. Many of these are just normal girls desperate to earn money and fame, the great majority will barely have their fifteen minutes, that is if they manage to last that long in their fight. "I never had a match in my life or even a Tae Bo class and yet they put me to fight against a world renowned black belt martial artist. It didn't ended well." another fighter who preferred to remain unnamed told us.

But not all are sad tales, some girls have raised from complete nobodies to super-stardom levels of fame thanks to AFW. For example Natalia 'The Dream' who used AFW as a trampoline to launch her modeling and movie acting career. Her first full feature film 'Shogun Bikini', opened last month and turned to be a massive blockbuster despite the critics less-than-favorable reviews. A sequel and a video-game are already on the works. Others were actually already famous before joining AFW, like the impressive number of J-Pop idols in the league, or its collection of super-models like Marissa Evans. AFW has found a way to mix in well money and success and that attracts a lot of prospective fighters and partners.

The company also has a history of dealing with less than respectable individuals, or in the very least suspected criminals; people that if where not for AFW protection would most likely be in jail or a martial court, like current World Champion Sarah Gatt just to name the most famous. AFW officials deny having hired anyone with criminal ties, but the number of girls that appear in the AFW shows and in the 'most wanted' list of some nations is actually quite high. This shadowy reputation has not stopped AFW from conquering new audiences and in a sense it is part of its appeal to the masses. Where else people see this level of viciousness between gorgeous girls?



But not everything in AFW is about the girls, believe it or not there are guys too. Although not nearly as popular as its Friction franchise, AFW has expanded into the realms of mixed wrestling like no other promotion ever dared. The Tension brand, as it is called, offers the unique spectacle of watching girls and boys fight without limits, and usually without clothes. Much to everybody's surprise the girls usually win. Tension matches usually end with a boy laying broken at the feet of some voluptuous and barely dressed lady, which may have to be with the fact that the matches are usually more sexual than brutal (in true AFW fashion). Sounds tempting?

In a poll carried out by an american gentlemen magazine last year Tension Wrestler was voted number one of Best Possible Jobs Ever, but the actual  men who are  Tension Wrestlers don't seem to agree with this perception that their job is as easy or as enjoyable as the fans like to believe.

The promotion is not without its detractors, from the moral guardians who can't simply stand the sight of a hentai match, to those concerned of the company's unethical practices and criminal links, to the hardcore fans of Wrestling Angels that still blame AFW for its demise, there are a lot of guns trying to bring AFW down and a good number of advocacy groups set to the task.

As Camille Meadows, president of the Parents for the Return of Decency to Pro-Wrestling  Association, says "Anime Female Wrestling is a stain in the good name of professional wrestling around the world. Pro wrestling is an American sport founded around solid family values.. honor, decency and fairness. A sport where two big sweaty muscled men wearing tights will try to force each other to lay on their backs in a shown of athleticism and sportsmanship...not this sexual perversion... not the insulting degenerate debauchery that AFW has turned into... This will not stand. We are going to take those perverts out of the TV for good."

Mrs. Meadows is not alone, outside of Japan several national and local sports commissions have refused to sanction AFW matches. The general opinion in various polls carried out in many different countries seems to conclude that the population denies watching the show and see the fans of AFW in the exact same way Mrs. Meadows describes them: perverts. But if so many people disregard AFW as nothing but porn, how then explain its worldwide success?

"AFW takes refuge in its audacity. It crosses the line twice...or thrice... or as many times as it deems necessary." Tells us Horishi Kamagashi, one of Japan's more respected sports analyst and AFW enthusiast.  "It offers the perfect combination of violence and sexuality. It goes right down to your most base instincts. Nobody dared to challenge it when it started and now it is simply too big for anyone to do so. In other countries they may say we are perverts and they can say they don't watch the show... but they do... everybody does"



This may just be the case, the amount of hate AFW has drawn doesn't seems to diminish the money its shows generate, even in countries where it is supposedly banned. "The people that admittedly watch the shows is minimal..." explains cable network expert Michelle Grant "... but the numbers of people that pay for them are huge. Believe me when I say that AFW's pockets aren't hurting with all the campaigning against it."  Just this week AFW announced, in conjunction with Anime TV Channel, the creation of the Anime Wrestling Channel, dedicated twenty-four hours to female wrestling, both from AFW and its subsidiaries. Added with the two monthly magazines; its internet portal, reported as one of the most visited last year, its own line of toys and sports clothing the AFW is the dominant force in female wrestling and erotic entertainment world wide.

So it may not be new and it may not be liked by all, but AFW is unique and it has craved its own niche in the entertainment industry. AFW is sitting on a throne of its wn craving, one that nobody seems able to even challenge. Why? Because it is a violent, obscene and exploitative show where beautiful girls battle each other in over-sexualized combat. Because it has the best and meanest female fighters in the world. Because the thrills of losers having not only to taste defeat but to endure being humiliated in front of roaring fans seems to draw more people than there are willing to admit. It is polemic. It is questionable. It is primitive. It is the sexiest show on Earth.

I would like to ask, is this a real article or did you write it yourself?

Are you serious?

Kinda' obvius it's made-up. But it IS extremely well write, almost like a real magazine article. Hey Kitten, are planning on being a columnist or writer for some magazine company or something, 'cause this is really good. It focuses on every point of the forum and all the main events that's happen(well, excluding Fur and Feather, but that doesn't really count). Are you going to do more of these or was this a joint effort with other people in the forum?

Thanks. I wrote it myself after receiving some input and consulting several members of the forum (Kelsea, Tatyina, Tai, Lobo, Blue, etc...). I wrote it mimicking the style of news magazines because it is supposed to be a news magazine article. I plan to write more in the future... not sure when. Probably an interview with AFW's most popular super star, Natalia The Dream " title="Razz" />

And no, this is made up. It was written by me. It was not published in The Times Magazine, I swear. Can't believe I had to clarify that. " title="Shocked" />

Well, this was very well-written, it was hard to tell if it was real or made up. It would be cool if you wrote more of these articles. Nice job!

Very, very, very, and some very, very cute " title="Wink" /> well thought out Kitty, using some familiar faces in the AFW, brilliant overall, maybe someone should write a magazine styled one for each week.

[quote="jimmight":354apaq3]Interviewer: *Approaches her from a corner seeing her GTR just about to leave, seeing her sign a few autographs for fanboys* Reika Reika! a little word on your career so far please? a word for the show maybe?