Hentai wrestling, or sexfight as it is typically called in the West, is one of the hottest things professional wrestling has to offer these days, and it is also one of the most contentious. Fans and wrestlers alike are divided on what they think about hentai wrestling. Some say that it is an insult to the spirit of professional wrestling, and some say that it is a new type of entertainment in combat sports. Over the years, many debates had been made about the existence of hentai wrestling, but here, we'll take a deeper look on how, where and when it actually started.
The earliest instance of recorded fetishistic combat sports is during the time of Ancient Roman where scantily-clad or outright naked female combatants or gladiatrixes were pitted against each other in the arena in front of a large audience. But it was unclear whether there was any kind of sex involved or not. The same idea goes to modern hentai wrestling where everyone gets to see female wrestlers being pitted against each other in such sexual manner in front of a large audience.
As for the modern hentai wrestling, or sexfight, it actually started either as underground venues or as a niche genre of porn. Back in the 70s to early 2000s, televised sexfights were nonexistent due to understandable reasons. So, what actually happened that caused televised hentai matches to become common occurrence? It's because of Free Expression Movement that started out in Japan. It was founded in late 90s, and it began to gain prominence in early 2000s.
Free Expression Movement was founded by Manabu Junichiro, a self-help guru well-known for his appetite for lewd things. He became famous for his philosophy of achieving enlightenment through hedonistic means. Like the existence of hentai wrestling itself, Junichiro was a controversial figure, but he was actually rather harmless, though currently Junichiro was serving jailtime for numerous offenses, mainly tax fraud, strangely none of them related to him being the founder of the movement.
The organization behind the movement had ceased to exist before the start of 2010, but it was the trigger that brought this whole thing in motion. They believed in the freedom in expressing themselves, including their own sexuality, and this movement brought some new trends about people being more open with their own sexuality, and while the movement seemed to have halted after its founder being jailed for tax fraud, its effect still remains to this day.
One of the things that Free Expression Movement tried to champion was bringing explicit materials for public viewing, including in professional wrestling. There were, of course and understandably, some uproars about this whole matter, but after a series of events, including the bills allowing the distribution of explicit materials through televisions, albeit with heavy supervision from the government, the first official hentai wrestling was televised on 5th of May, 2007. Under the condition that the matches would not be available to those under the age of 18, the seeds had been planted for the growth of hentai wrestling in Japan.
There were some attempts to stop the growth, but thanks to Free Expression Movement, hentai wrestling spread out even further, even outside of Japan, making its way to the Western world. Even adopting the term 'hentai wrestling', wrestling promotions outside of Japan began televising hentai matches and sexfights, attracting more viewers and haters alike. While the movement began to slow down at 2009 before ceasing to exist before the start of 2010, hentai wrestling had become too big to be stopped.
Today, almost every wrestling promotion around the world has its own hentai division. Many old-school wrestling fans see this as something truly sacrilegious, but many think that hentai wrestling is simply a new form of wrestling. Overpowering their opponents with their sheer sexuality, hentai wrestlers see this as a way to express themselves like how regular wrestlers express themselves through wrestling. And from how things go these days, hentai wrestling isn't going away anytime soon, and I for one am looking forward for more. Here's Foul Tip Fukuzawa, signing off!
