If you only peruse modern wrestling, watching WWE on Netflix each week, you’d be forgiven for not knowing who Malia Hosaka is. However, the veteran of thirty-eight years in professional wrestling helped pave the road for those female superstars who walk it each and every week on Raw and Smackdown.
Debuting on a Killer Kowalski show in the summer of 1987, Hosaka remains a cog in the wheel of wrasslin’ to this very day, and she has plenty of stories to tell.
Paying Dues
Working for Florida Championship Wrestling in her early years with the likes of Penelope Paradise and Luna Vachon, she would mail out 8x10s to promoters in an attempt to procure bookings back in the bygone pre-internet days. She once drove from Florida to Nova Scotia, wrestling her way there, spent three months working in Canada, and wrestled her way back home. It was truly a life spent on the road doing what she loved, being the best she could be.
“Hopefully you would get some magazine coverage by being on shows where photographers were at,” Hosaka explained to me.
Capturing the NWA women’s world title and working across the country attained her national recognition. Terry Taylor helped Hosaka link up with WCW in 1996, but, a certain WWE Hall-of-famer and booking team didn’t afford the American women much TV time.
“At that time, not very,” Hosaka replied when asked about how seriously WCW took women’s wrestling during her time there between 1996-1998.
“Madusa was adamant there was no female talent in the United States worthy of being in the ring or that was only T.N.A (tits and ass) is what I was told behind the scenes.”
“While Madusa says in interviews she had no pull there, I don’t believe it,” she continued.
“She completely denies that. She says she had no pull or control of the women’s division. Whose story is correct? I really don’t know. I just know she did screw me over there.”
“Women have always been our own worst enemy because back then we were not a dime a dozen. Talented women were even more scarce. When another girl would come in, rather than working together to build the division, they backstabbed or played politics to keep themselves on top.”
It is somewhat natural to feel threatened by the next generation aiming to usurp you and take your spot, your pay days and opportunities. But that’s the nature of the business.
“Madusa was the one I honestly felt was threatened by a younger generation coming up behind her,” Hosaka revealed.
Others seemed to understand that it’s for the best to pass knowledge on and help the next generation develop for the business to continue growing. Selfish or selfless were the two options. Some chose the former and some the latter.
A short run with the WWF in 1999 brought with it more politics and backstage bullshit.
“I got told numerous times, if I just go get my tits done, I’ll be on TV.”
“Vince has bought enough sets of tits. If he really wants me to have mine done, he’s more than welcome to pay for them. I got bills,” she said with a chuckle.
Agents would tell her men only wanted to watch women like Malia roll around and not for her ability to wrestle that she’d cultivated over many years. A bitter pill to swallow for any master of their craft.
Following a brief retirement in 2012, Hosaka couldn’t stay away and returned to her profession, no longer a fresh-faced newcomer, now a veteran just wanting to work without suffering any backstabbing.
“Nora Greenwald (Molly Holly), who I thought was a very, very close friend, ended up stabbing me in the back.”
“I don’t know what happens when you become a veteran. All of a sudden you become this mean, vicious person.”
“I did tell Lexie Fyfe that if every girl was to catch on fire and die tomorrow, I wouldn’t cry a tear for them,” said with a glint in her eye like the true heel she excels at being.
“I never physically shot on anybody in the ring, I’ve never physically taken advantage of anybody in the ring, but I’ll go off on you in the locker room in a heartbeat.”
Hosaka doesn’t believe in cheating the fans by sabotaging a match and shooting on your opponent, like infamous moments in the annals of wrestling history that have occurred. However, one moment caused some to believe she was a loose cannon and went off script.
“I did have one girl get mad at me. She slapped me in the face and I put her in a front facelock to cool down. She thought I was shooting on her and she spread word that I carried knives and razors and I’d hurt you in the ring. This story just grew and grew and grew. By the time I got to SHIMMER, these girls were terrified of me.”
Paying it Forward
Some younger talents also struggled with the feedback Hosaka would offer them. “Do you want the truth or do you want me to lie?” she would say when asked to critique matches, due to her lack of a filter.
“This is the beginning of the softer generation where you can’t do that because they’ll say: ‘oh my god, you’re just being mean.'”
“I love teaching the newer girls. Give me a blank slate and let me teach them from the ground up. I love that part.”
Having wrestled in over thirty countries and worked for almost every company going. Malia Hosaka has been there, done that and bought the t-shirt. She has wisdom to impart and she’s willing and able to do it. She worked when kayfabe was alive and well, recalling as a babyface on occasion needing to sneak into events having rode to the show on the heel bus. It’s a different business now, for better, for worse.
“I hate the business; I love wrestling,” she concluded.
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