She opened up about her decision to take time off.
At STARDOM’s Tokyo Dome City Hall show on January 4th, NJPW STRONG Women’s Champion Giulia was joined in the ring by her Donna del Mondo faction-mates Mai Sakurai, Thekla and World of Stardom Champion Maika. It was revealed that the group is disbanding.
Thekla added that she would be taking time off and would return to STARDOM at a later date. She expanded on that while speaking to Lyric Swinton of SEScoops.
One of the reasons for her taking time off is STARDOM’s schedule. Thekla mentioned that she has not been home in nearly two years. She said she has the work ethic and drive to push through, but there are times when she gets tired.
Well, there’s a few things (Thekla responded when asked why she’s taking time off). Definitely. You’ve seen the STARDOM schedule, right? It’s really extreme. I think STARDOM did like 140 shows last year or something. I had more than a hundred matches, and I’ve been here for four years and I barely ever take time off. The Japanese girls are a little bit more used to it because they’ve got this crazy work ethic. I do too naturally but sometimes I get tired too. I haven’t been home in one-and-a-half years, so maybe I hope to make it back during that time. But doing a hundred or 110 matches a year kind of takes its toll, especially with the STARDOM style. This is not WWE. You know how everybody’s working and the way we’re traveling too. And yeah, it’s just your body starts to kind of…. every match, you can feel it afterwards. So I was like, okay, I could feel Donna del Mondo, they might be coming to an end. And I quickly thought maybe that’s a perfect time to just go away for a little while and also refill my creative tanks. Because what I’m going to start doing today is I’m going to start drawing my next gear set… I already have some stuff ready and my mom just sent me a box of new fabrics and some white fur, so I might be doing something in that direction. And I’m going to be painting a lot. So I’ve got an exhibition coming up in April. That’s going to be in Tokyo. But I hope I can do it in Austria too. Also talking to some people in New York so I want to travel around. Depending on how much time I’m taking off, it’s going to be me being in the studio, drawing, drawing, drawing.
Elsewhere during the chat, she shared that her contract with STARDOM is coming up soon.
My contract is up soon, so that too. I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do after that so we’ll see. I’m definitely very interested in traveling a lot.
She added that she’s looking to wrestle abroad more. Thekla mentioned that she wants to compete in the USA and STARDOM management knows she’s looking to do so. She does not know what’s happening with STARDOM’s upcoming event in Philadelphia, but would love to go.
When it comes to potential opponents stateside, she named Mercedes Moné and ROH Women’s World Champion Athena. On the WWE front, Thekla never saw herself landing there but it wasn’t until recently that she thought about how interesting it would be to learn from the coaches there. She touched on AEW as well.
When it comes to bookings, I love STARDOM. I love being in Japan. And Japan is my base, but I’ve really been dreaming also to get out of Japan and to take it to other countries. I went to Singapore last year, that was brilliant. Just feeling the love from international fans is so cool. And getting to showcase what we do here in Japan is really nice. So definitely I want to go to the States this year and experience a lot of stuff outside of the Japanese bubble and also change up my style a little bit because I think American style is very, very different. Very different and it’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but I always feel like I love learning and I love studying new things. And then I love to pick from different things and then mix it up. That’s really important for me, and that’s what I need to stay inspired. And I’ve been in Japan a little bit too long. I know how it works here. I know how it’s done. I know what strong style is like, and I need to get inspired by something new again.
About dream opponents… one in the mix is obviously Mercedes (Moné). Absolutely. She looks like a star. And I loved her style, and that’s just somebody I would love to be in the ring with, especially after meeting her briefly at STARDOM. She’s just such a nice person. She’s got the look. It’s the look! And that’s what I’m kind of really targeting right now. People who have that similar mindset when it comes to that sort of stuff. And who else? Athena we were talking about. She’s cool. Maybe we’re even too similar, you know what I mean? But that’s somebody I would love to hang out with. Who else do we have? WWE? Not so much right now. I don’t know. I mean obviously Charlotte Flair is a fantastic wrestler. They’ve got brilliant wrestlers like Becky Lynch and stuff, but I mean, they’re very full there too. WWE, I never saw myself there growing up as a wrestler because way too much I get really annoyed when somebody tells me what to do, but only recently I’ve thought that could be so interesting to be able to learn from the best because they have brilliant coaches and just Performance Centers there so that’s really interesting. But again, AEW is really cool because they give people a lot of freedom, you know what I mean? I feel like the product is still developing and there’s space for everything and for a lot of creative people too. Yeah. So that’s it. That’s really something that I would like to look into.
Thekla debuted for STARDOM in 2020. She’s a one-time holder of the Artist of Stardom Championships with Giulia and Mai Sakurai.
