Acronym Oz Headquarters Shinjuku, Tokyo Website Oz-A.com | Founded June 21, 1998 Founder(s) Mayumi Ozaki | |
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Style Joshi puroresu
Hardcore wrestling | ||
Oz Academy (OZアカデミー, OZ Akademi) is a Japanese joshi puroresu or women's professional wrestling promotion founded by Mayumi Ozaki. The promotion's full official name is Oz Academy Women's Professional Wrestling (OZアカデミー女子プロレス, OZ Akademi Joshi Puroresu). In addition to the contracted members of the roster, Oz Academy also employs some of the top freelancers in all of joshi puroresu, including Hiroyo Matsumoto, Manami Toyota and Tomoka Nakagawa. The promotion has a television deal with Gaora.
History
While working in the Gaea Japan promotion in mid-90s, Ozaki formed the villainous Oz Academy stable with Chikayo Nagashima, Rieko Amano and Sugar Sato, eventually opening a training school under the same name. Oz Academy eventually started promoting sporadic independent events, featuring members of the stable and Ozaki's trainees, with the first event held on June 21, 1998. Following the folding of Gaea Japan in 2005, Ozaki turned Oz Academy into a full promotion with a full schedule of approximately one to two events per month, while also recruiting veteran wrestlers Aja Kong, Dynamite Kansai and Sonoko Kato to serve as the backbone of the promotion. Oz Academy remained without championships for nearly nine years, before introducing the Oz Academy Openweight Championship in March 2007 and the Oz Academy Tag Team Championship in July 2008.
Mayumi Ozaki has always been a focal point of Oz Academy events and storylines, with different variations of her original Oz Academy stable trying to dominate and keep themselves on top of the promotion. The stable has gone under many different names, including D-Fix, Ozaki-gun, Ozaki-gundan, and currently, Seikigun. At the end of each year, Oz Academy allows its fans to vote on different awards, including MVP of the Year, Singles Match of the Year and Tag Team Match of the Year, which are then presented to the winners at the "Best Wizard" award ceremony. Oz Academy is based in Shinjuku, Tokyo and holds most of its events in Shinjuku Face. The promotion itself considers the formation of the stable in 1996 as its starting point and celebrated its 20th anniversary on November 13, 2016.