Terrible draw for Akira Hokuto here. If I were younger and still in my Joshi craze days while being ignorant to the pioneers I would have voted for her in a heartbeat. And I'm sure others might be tempted to when looking at some of her career highlights...
- Former 3 time AJW champion
- Former CMLL women's champion
- Former WCW women's champion
- Spent over 1,450 days as a champion of a major promotion.
- Has a winning record over Madusa as an international star.
... but you'd be horribly wrong to. This match is the WZT equivalent of the Great Muta vs Lou Thesz. And none of you would vote Muta over Thesz, right? Fuck no.
Mildred's legacy speaks for itself...
- Burke was a 3 time World's Women's champion. And widely recognized as the first NWA women's champion.
- She held that title for 20 years, defended it regularly, and was always the unquestionable biggest draw. Her popularity ranking her among some of the greatest at the time.
- Sources vary. Her obituary claims that she had wrestled 150 men without suffering a single loss, while wrestling over 5,000 matches altogether. Her number of losses could be counted on one hand.
- She built the national platform for women's wrestling on her back. By the time Fabulous Moolah won the title the exploits of Burke were known throughout the world.
- She later formed the WWWA [the Joshi's later took the belt and turned it into their top prize which Akira Hokuto never got to hold] and helped train women for future generations, carving her legacy even deeper into the industry.
So without Mildred Burke, Akira Hokuto doesn't have a career. And neither does anyone else. She was the greatest women's wrestler ever, and she's not going out to someone that wasn't the greatest ever in Japan.
Vote Mildred Burke.