Arsion

Arsion (full official name Hyper Visual Fighting Arsion, frequently styled as ARSION) was a joshi puroresu (women's professional wrestling) promotion established in 1997 by Aja Kong. The first event took place on February 18, 1998, and was called "Virgin".

History

In its initial conception the major key figures in the company were Arsion founder, Aja Kong, Arsion president, ex-AJW businessman Hiroshi "Rossy" Ogawa, Arsion Manager, former wrestler Sakie Hasegawa, and Arsion trainer Mariko Yoshida. Arsion's first event, entitled Virgin, took place in front of a sell-out crowd in Tokyo on February 18, 1998. Arsion's wrestlers were trained at the promotion's dojo daily and attended Pancrase and Battlarts dojo events weekly, learning the styles of professional wrestling, lucha libre and shoot wrestling. The following year, in an attempt to boost audience numbers, Arsion put wrestlers Ai Fujita, AKINO, Ayako Hamada and Candy Okutsu together to form a pop group called Cazai. The act was an attempt to recreate the success of previous teams such as the Beauty Pair and Crush Gals, but in the end failed, leading to Arsion splitting the members up. Arsion then made another attempt to regain their audience by pushing former Cazai member Ayako Hamada to the top of the promotion with her defeating Aja Kong for the Queen of Arsion Championship in late 2000.