Awesome Kong - A Trailblazer & A Legend In Women’s Wrestling

Inspired by one of the most charismatic and influential women’s wrestlers of all time in Lita, Awesome Kong decided to train to become a professional wrestler at The EWF School Of Hard Knocks as well as having her very first ever professional wrestling match at EWF.

After having a successful tryout match, she later continued her training in Japan at the famous All Japan Women’s Pro Wrestling Dojo where the training was some of the most rigorous and grueling training she had ever done. She became fluent in Japanese and trained for a brief period in MMA, but instead chose to fully pursue a career in professional wrestling.

While in Japan, she not only got the name of Awesome Kong by Masatsugu Matsunaga who wanted a replacement for the legendary Joshi wrestler Aja Kong for some matches, but she also worked for numerous women’s promotions in Japan and one of the highlights from her time in Japan was defeating Ayako Hamada for The WWWA World Singles Championship In 2004 in which Kong cited Hamada as one of her favorite opponents. She also cited her time in Japan as the best run of her career.

In May 2007, Kong made history by becoming the first black woman to old both The AWA & NWA Women’s Titles at the same time for a very brief period before dropping The AWA Title shortly after that, but her year long run as NWA Women’s Champion is one of the most dominant in the history of The NWA Women’s Title.

In 2008, Kong would reach the peak of her career by having in my opinion the greatest women’s wrestling rivalry of all time with her greatest rival in Gail Kim because they were main eventing Impact TV shows and PPVs, but their legendary rivalry had forever changed the perception of women’s wrestling in the states from glorified eye candy to being taken more seriously for their amazing athleticism and talent in the ring. Even though she wasn’t the first Knockouts Champion, but Kong really put that championship on the map with her dominant runs as Knockouts Champion in 2008.

Awesome Kong would also make history again in 2008 by becoming the very first black woman to be ranked #1 in the inaugural PWI Women’s Top 50 and she was named PWI Woman Of The Year. At the peak of her career in the late 2000s, she was the most dominant women’s wrestler in the world.

Awesome Kong came into the business at the time where big plus size women like her were not only not getting pushed but they were also discriminated against as being “too overweight” or “unfit to be a wrestler” by promoters at the time, but Kong shattered all those negative stereotypes about big plus size women especially big plus sized black women like her and has paved the way for many big plus size black women today like her such as Faye Valentine, Brooke Valentine, W.O.A.D., Joseline Navarro, Willow Nightingale, Nyla Rose, etc.

Awesome Kong would face a plethora of opponents throughout her career in Ayato Hamada, Aja Kong, Mercedes Martinez, Sara Del Rey, Serena Deeb, MsChif, Allysin Kay, Ivellise, to her greatest opponent in Gail Kim.

The Conclusion - Awesome Kong will go down as one of the absolute most dominant women’s wrestlers of all time especially when she was at the peak of her career in the late 2000s. She definitely deserves her flowers for the contributions she has made to women’s wrestling for the past two decades.

By Kwame Shakir