Chigusa Nagayo

Chigusa Nagayo (長与千種, Nagayo Chigusa, born December 8, 1964) is a retired Japanese 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 was the founder of the GAEA Japan promotion 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.