she grew up a bit of an outcast-- not really doing well in school, and not having a ton of friends. she threw herself into her extra-curriculars; gymnastics and martial arts taking up a lot of her time. she wasn’t the best, though, and her look kind of kept her from going too far.

when she graduated, there was no way she was getting into college, so she started working as a barista while she was shunned by her father and sent countless job opportunities every week by her mother. she didn’t want any of it, though.

it was by chance that she became a stunt double-- she’d continued with martial arts to keep fit, and there’d been an action movie casting at local establishments. she was picked, and she did well, and her name got out there. it was hard work, but it was way more fulfilling. mikyung felt like she was actually finally doing something.

when mpwa came to fruition, the brand had a lot of american and japanese talent, but for a korean company, they needed more korean wrestlers. since mikyung was already signed by millenium at that point, they reached out to her to see if it was something she wanted to try. so she did. 

antonio was born in mexico, but grew up in jacksonville, florida, alongside his parents, his maternal grandmother, and five siblings. family meant everything to him. he and his brothers were tight knit. he helped his parents around the house, and listened to his grandmother’s stories. he was a good, happy kid.

his grandmother was particularly fond of pro wrestling, with her watching luchadors mainly, but tuning into wwe whenever it was on, and that’s where tony found his love of the sport. it was so fun and larger than life, and it made his grandmother so happy-- he’d resolved himself then and there that he was going to be a luchador like the ones she loved so much.

he ran into a few difficulties with that, though. as he hit puberty, he grew fast-- and a lot. he was a tall kid, and not scrawny in the slightest. while he’d seen big tall high-flying wrestlers on tv, he just couldn’t make his body move like that. and it wasn’t the only part of lucha, but it was a big enough part of it that he felt like his dreams had been crushed. well, some of them anyway.

when he graduated he started throwing himself into more traditional american wrestling, and after fighting on the indies, he was offered a spot in NJPW, which he took. he didnt like being so far from his family, but it was his shot to make it big time and get better, so he went to japan. 

he wasn’t a star. not in the slightest. he was mid-card at best. he was working hard, but he wasn’t progressing nearly as fast as he wished he would-- there was no way he was making it to wwe at this rate, especially if he was only going to get less and less airtime the more better prospects were signed. so when mpwa was created, he took a chance, and moved to korea to sign with the company.

meilin was set to be an olympian. a world ranked gymnast. she was an incredible acrobat ever since she was a little girl, and scouts and her parents alike had such high hopes for her. but when you have so much riding on you and you don’t deliver? well that’s just crushing. 

she didn’t do anything wrong. no injuries. no slacking. she had the best coaches. she just wasn’t good enough. no matter how hard she tried, how many hours she put in, how she changed her practices, she had hit her threshold. whatever genetics world-class gymnasts had, meilin didn’t have that dna. 

she tried hard to stay positive, but it was hard to come to terms with the fact that the thing you’ve been working your whole life to do just wasn’t possible. when someone approached her from millenium offering her a place with mpwa where she could possibly put her skills to use, she just couldn’t picture it for herself, but with desperate encouragement from her parents ( who just wanted to see their daughter find a viable career and not see her childhood wasted ), meilin went ahead to go train. 

I wouldn’t go so far as to call Junghoon a frat boy-- more frat boy adjacent, but you get the vibe. He’s dumb. He’s loud. He’s kind of full of himself. He attracts people to him. And he’ll go along with just about anything you say.

Maybe thats why he went on a drunken trip to Wrestlemania, and came back from that in a tag team with a guy he’d just met from New Jersey. 

Now known as MPWA’s Captain, and one half of The Alternates, he’s doing what he does best-- going along with the status quo, entertaining the masses, and having fun with a good friend. And he couldn’t bee happier with that.

tw: grooming, implied sexual assault

Fūka knows how lost she’d be without Himari.

She’s always been a softer girl. A people pleaser, set on making people happy. Someone who finds it so hard to say no. And without Himari, it had the potential to get her in a lot of trouble. Fūka always liked to joke that Himari was her bodyguard-- keeping her from getting hurt because of her own naivety. 

Fūka had always loved wrestling, and though she was a bit on the smaller side, she knew it was something she wanted to do someday. The fact that Himari was right there with her made her want to do it even more-- she was certain that Himari was sent to earth to be her second half, and to guide her in the right direction.

When the girls signed to Stardom, Fūka knew she had something special. Despite being very new, she and Himari-- but Fūka especially-- got pushed to the moon. Outlets across the globe called Fūka (who’s wrestler name was now Emi Hikari) the biggest breakout star, and one of the most athletic performers in the business. She was destined for great things. Maybe even the main event of Wrestlemania. Or, she would have been. 

A few choice executives at Stardom seemed to take special interest in her, and while Fūka had always assumed that they wanted her to be a better performer, that wasn’t the whole truth. Lines were blurred and pressures were put in place, and by the time Fūka realized what was happening, it was too late. She was scared. But then MPWA seemed to show up as her saving grace.

She had been expecting Himari to get upset with her when she told her about everything and about wanting to leave for MPWA, but Himari couldn’t have been more understanding. And within the year, they were off to South Korea for a new start.

Everything Lance has done in his life has been out of spite.

He was born in New Jersey, to low-income immigrants of South Korea. They didn’t have much, but they had each other, and Lance is the man he is today thanks to his dad. One piece of advice in particular has always stuck with him– “If someone says you can’t do something, flip them off and do it anyway”. It’s something he lives his life by.

A kid in middle school said that boys can’t have piercings? Lance showed up the next week with his ears pierces. In high school, someone told him he was too young for tattoos? He got a stick and poke one on his hip a few days later. Everyone tells him he’ll never graduate high school? He graduates two years early, through help from online classes and summer school, passing with straight B’s and bringing both his average and work ethic up exponentially to do so. His mom tells him he doesn’t have the language skills or cultural awareness to live in South Korea? He learns Korean from a tutor and reads up on Korean culture, preparing to move there someday just to prove her wrong.

It’s amazing how someone’s life choices– huge choices– can be influenced by other people, and Lance is an unorthodox example of that. Hell, even his career was influenced by someone telling him he couldn’t do it. Told that pro wrestling is stupid and fake and he’s too skinny and scrawny to do it anyway? He spends hours working out and getting in ~peak fitness~, attends a six month intensive at a pro wrestling gym, and works a few indie shows, just to show he can.

It was while on a trip to watch Wrestlemania one year that Lance met Junghoon. He doesn’t even remember how (it was probably in a bar), but they clicked immediately, and started bonding on shared hobbies and interests. And somewhere along the line, they had the idea for a tag team.

And when he told his mom about it, she said it was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard. So he did it anyway, moving to Seoul so he and Junghoon could get to work. 

Now in MPWA, they’re known as The Alternates-- a comedy tag team that kinda gets treated like jobbers, but Lance doesn’t mind. He knows they’re entertaining to watch, and he knows that every promotion needs a lower tier team to help get high tier teams over. He’s just vibing. 

Himari and Fūka have been friends for as long as the two girls can remember. They grew up next door to each other. Every birthday and holiday had an appearance. They liked all the same things-- they were nearly inseparable. So when Fūka started getting into pro wrestling when the girls were eleven, himari followed quickly behind.

They started their in-ring training when they were fifteen, going to training gyms after school to learn the basics. both of them had incredible potential, as well as incredible passion-- it was the recipe for success. The biggest thing, though, was their chemistry together. It didn’t matter if they were feuding or tagging-- Himari and Fūka had something together that made you want to watch.

They both signed to Stardom young, and though they started as singles stars (Himari under the name Kimi Chidori), their real success came with the birth of Synergenisis-- a tag team. They were fun to watch, and natural babyfaces. They made you want to root for them. And their in ring work was phenomenal.

It was a large shock to the Stardom audience when both girls chose to sign with MPWA-- Synergenisis was set to be the tag team in Stardom, and MPWA picking them up seemed like a huge coup. The duo were probably the biggest signing to the new promotion. But Himari had always wanted to live in Seoul, and Fūka was having some internal issues with some of Stardom’s road agents. This was a fresh start, and they had the opportunity to build and shape the new division for years to come.

Synergenisis was a huge draw for new fans. They cemented themselves with huge matches, and when the women’s tag belts were announced, they became the inaugural champions. 

Recently, Himari turned heel and joined the Retribution stable under the name Katharsis, setting up a huge feud with Fūka (or, rather, Emi Hikari)-- one of the hottest feuds MPWA has right now. Kathasis acts as Reckoning’s unhinged and ruthless muscle-- dangerous, loyal, and absolutely brutal to fight.

Despite how they are now positioned in kayfabe, Himari and Fūka are still like sisters. Himari can’t help but to someday catapult her best friend to the world championship, and she hopes that MPWA is a fixture in the wrestling scene for years to come.

you don’t need to know her deadname. the stories of gender dysphoria. every surgery she’s ever had laid out. frankly, it’s none of your business, and it doesn’t change the truth-- gong jina is a woman. a transgender woman, but a woman nonetheless.

it’s not that her history isn’t important. jina knows that everything she’s gone through has helped her become who she is today-- literally and figuratively. but she’s tired-- she’s been openly trans since she was seventeen, and by this point, she doesn’t want to be defined by all the probing (and, quite frankly, inappropriate) questions and assumptions from nosy netizens with questionable intentions. she wants to be defined by her work. 

so, let’s talk about that instead. from a young age, jina always loved pro wrestling. her family would get translated wwe broadcasts and watch them together. it was so surreal and exciting, and jina was hooked. she’d always dreamt of being part of that world in some way, but between her country and language barriers, and her transition, she knew that it would never happen. she wasn’t going to the united states, and south korea didn’t have the same scene.

so she did the next best thing, getting into pro fighting and other sports as on-screen talent. by this point, by the grace of her parents and their support, she passed, and so as far as anyone knew, she was a woman. that helped her get jobs as a sports correspondent on a local news station, and then later, transition to be a presenter on a sports network. it was shallow, but she liked being the tall pretty woman who was the face of the ~news~. 

when it became clear that millenium was making moves into athletics, jina didn’t really bat an eye. that is, until through her journalism contacts, she found out they were creating a wrestling promotion. she pulled in every favor she had to get an interview, and the rest is history. jina is the main presenter for mpwa, and hosts the after-ppv recap show as well. it’s her dream job, and she’s thriving.