Chigusa Nagayo is a Japanese retired professional wrestler best known for her mainstream popularity in the 1980s as a member of the Crush Gals with long-time tag team partner Lioness Asuka. In 1995 she founded GAEA Japan and in 2014 created its successor Marvelous That's Women Pro Wrestling. Nagayo is often regarded as the most popular and one of the greatest and most influential female wrestlers of all time. Wrestling Journalist and historian Dave Meltzer has stated that in the 1980s, the Crush Gals reached a level of popularity in Japan equatable to Hulk Hogan in the United States in the same period, and thereafter Chigusa Nagayo was the most popular woman in wrestling for an extended period until her first retirement in 1989.
Nagayo in December 2022
Tomoko Kitamura is a Japanese retired professional wrestler better known by her ring name Lioness Asuka . She was one half of the Crush Gals, along with Chigusa Nagayo, who are known for their mainstream popularity in the 1980s, and for being one of the most successful women's tag teams of all time.
Lioness Asuka in 2006