Akame Yamamoto

Akame Yamamoto
Born	Fumiko Yamamoto Born: October 31st, 1998 (Age: 25) Birthplace: Yokohama, Japan
Nationality	Japanese
Citizenship	Japan
Occupation	Professional Wrestler YouTuber Commentator
Years active	Professional Wrestler (2003-Present) YouTuber (2013-Present) Commentator (2017-Present)
Employer	[World Wrestling Entertainment]
Home town	Newark, New Jersey
Spouse(s)	Zante Maverick (Since 2020)
Parent(s)	Aimi Yamamoto (Mother) Kenji Yamamoto (Father)
Family	AQ Maverick (Mother-In-Law) Derick Reeves (Father-In-Law)
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)	Akame Yamamoto Akane Yamamoto Kula Yamamoto
Billed height	5'5"
Billed weight	125lbs
Billed from	Osaka, Japan Yamaguchi, Japan Yokohama, Japan
Trained by	Fuka Kakimoto Aimi Yamamoto Kenji Yamamoto Emi Sakura
Debut	2003

Fumiko Yamamoto (山本文子, Yamamoto Fumiko, born October 31st, 1998) is a Japanese Professional Wrestler. She is currently signed to the WWE, where she works under the RAW brand under the name of Akame Yamamoto(アカメ 山本).

Known to her native audience in Japan as Akane or Kula Yamamoto, she started professional wrestling when she was 7 years old at her family's local pro wrestling promotion until it went under in 2008. Since then, she has been working as enhancement talent (Or in wrestling terms, a jobber) until she got her big break in 2011 when she start becoming a regular in Stardom and DDT. Eventually making it to the states with the help of the now defuncted Chikara Pro Wrestling and the also defunct PWG, with many of her matches going viral on Twitter and Youtube. Eventually catching the eye of WWE in late 2013.

She is mostly known for her 2 reigns as RAW Women's champion, and her 1 reign as WWE Women's World Champion. With the latter reign ending at the 2023 Royal Rumble, losing it to Becky Lynch. She's also known for her 2020 Royal Rumble win, her winning match of the year alongside Kairi Sane and Io Shirai (Now known as IYO Sky) in a Triple Threat match at her final Stardom appearance as of right now, her outspoken love for fighting games, her being a Commentator for many Fighting Game tournament in the late 2010's, predominantly Tekken 7, and her vlogging channel that she started after beginning her career in the WWE.

Early Life

Fumiko Yamamoto was born to Kenji Yamamoto and Aimi Yamamoto in Yokohama, Japan on October 31st, 1998. Both Kenji and Aimi are both former professional wrestlers, but retired because of piled up injuries and pregnancy respectively. Aimi and Kenji started their own professional wrestling schools in Osaka Japan where Akame started attending after she turned 9 years old. Her parents advised her to travel overseas for school and to help her with her pro-wrestling career. Thanks to this, Akame has stated that she's fluent in Chinese, Spanish, And Korean. Despite learning English, she is not as fluent in the language as the others. Due to this, she was tutored by her trainers and by a homeschooler from her neighborhood who was paid in Pro Wrestling tickets.

Professional Wrestling Career

Early Career and Ice Ribbon (2003-2010)

Akame made her professional wrestling debut on June 28th, 2003. Competing for her parent's respective Schools. She would become a regular there until she began competing in full-time in Ice Ribbon and Stardom. No data of the her time in the schools were recorded, until 3 videos on her main Youtube channel revealed 3 matches she had where she won 2 out of the 3 matches. The one she lost was against her own mother.

Eventually in 2008, Fumiko would be approached by Joshi veteran, Emi Sakura on if she wanted to compete for her up and coming promotion, Ice Ribbon, to where, without any other place to compete, she accepted with the approval of her parents. Her first few wins would be in Tag Team matches with other wrestlers like Riho, and Hikaru Shida. Her big break would be when she fought and lost to then, ICE X Infinity Champion, Makoto.

She unfortunately wouldn't find success in ICE Ribbon, but due to her never give up attitude, and her explosive hard-hitting fighting style, she would become a breakout star in the promotion despite being there for 3 years.

Stardom (2010-2013)

When she was 11-12 years old, Yamamoto would make her Stardom debut in late 2010 in September. Being one of the earliest members of the promotion. Despite already having over 8 years of wrestling experience under her belt, she, like most of the other early members, would be trained under retired Professional wrestler, Martial Artist, and Model, Fuka Kakimoto.

Yamamoto would begin competing in Stardom under the name Kula Yamamoto

Other Media

Video Games

Yamamoto made her playable video game debut in WWE2K18 as DLC. With her making reappearances in WWE2K19, WWE2K20, WWE2KBattlegrounds, WWE2K22, and her latest appearance in WWE2K23.

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2017	WWE2K18	Akame Yamamoto (DLC)	She would appear in the series as part of NXT Generation pack
2018	WWE2K19	Akame Yamamoto
2019	WWE2K20	Akame Yamamoto
2020	WWE2KBattlegrounds	Akame Yamamoto
2022	WWE2K22	Akame Yamamoto
2023	WWE2K23	Akame Yamamoto
2023	Street Fighter 6	Herself (Optional Commentator)	She and Thea Trinidad (also known as Zelina Vega) both make appearances as commentators in this game

E-Sports and Commentary

Yamamoto has been a Japanese commentator for the Tekken E-Sports scene since 2017. Commentating for Fighting game events such as EVO, EVO Japan, and the 2017 and 2018 Tekken World Tour.

Youtube

Yamamoto has 2 Youtube channels. One of her channels being a vlogging channel that's been active since she started working for WWE. It's been active since 2015. Her second channel primarily acts as her Video Game channel where she'll on occasion showcase other types of videos, including Walkthroughs on Fighting and Action-Adventure games, 1v1 competive matches with her husband, Zante Maverick, and her showcasing some of her old archived wrestling matches including some of her matches when she was younger.

Filmography

TV Appearances

Year	Title	Role	Notes

Film Appearances

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2019	WWE 24: Wrestlemania 35	Herself/Akame Yamamoto
2022	WWE 24: Summerslam 2022	Herself/Akame Yamamoto
2022	2020: A WWE Documentary	Herself/Akame Yamamoto

Personal Life

Yamamoto began dating fellow pro wrestler Zante Maverick in early 2018. Beforehand, the two were friends through their love for fighting games and Sonic the Hedgehog and were training partners during their time in NXT. During the Wrestlemania 35 WWE24 special, the two would be seen kissing before Zante would main event against Cesaro and at the time World Heavyweight Champion, Bobby Lashley. This would confirm to the world their status as boyfriend and girlfriend. Maverick would purpose to Yamamoto after his World Heavyweight Championship win at Summerslam against Cesaro after the Pay-Per-View went off the air. Yamamoto said yes. The two would get married on May 30th, 2020. While this was happening, Yamamoto was 8 months pregnant. Unfortunately, she miscarried before it was time to deliver. She revealed she suffered from Post-Partum Depression following this. After months of therapy and time with her husband, she would return to active wrestling in August of 2021. Yamamoto resides in Newark, New Jersey with Zante as the two both opened a gym and a Food Truck together in New Jersey, with the latter being currently run by a good friend of the two.

Outside of her passion of Video Games, Yamamoto has been a avid and outspoken fan of Anime and Manga, along with comic books. She has been cosplayed many characters from different animes and comics, including Wonder Woman at NXT Takeover: In Your House, Alisa Boscovich at the 2021 Royal Rumble, Hinata Hyuga at the 2022 Elimination Chamber, and Captain Marvel at the 2nd Annual Evolution PPV in 2021.

She is friends with many wrestlers, including Victor Walker, Casey Wayne, Iyo Sky, KAIRI, Codi Nicole, Piper Niven, late wrestler Hana Kimura, and Mina Shirakawa. Through her friendship with Shirakawa, she was able to begin speaking English. Though not as fluent as Shirakawa's English. She is however fluent in Spanish, Korean, and Chinese.

In Wrestling

Finishers:

As Akame Yamamoto:

• Drop The Queen (Pedigree)
• Tiger Driver
• Arachnid's Web (S.O.S)
• Spin Ball (360 Senton)

As Akane Yamamoto:

• Moonsault
• Spider Cutter (Acid Drop)
• Running Shiranui
• Super BrainBuster

As Kula Yamamoto:

• Head Cruncher (Electric chair dropped into a bridging German suplex, sometimes from the second rope, adopted from Kenny Omega); (Would use for big time matches after this part of her career)
• Cold Dive (Diving Double Foot Stomp)
• Triangle Choke
• Tree of Woe Double Foot Stomp
• Avalanche Piledriver

Signature Moves

• Brainblaster (Brainbuster)
• Cosmos DDT (Reverse STO Twisting DDT)
• Snap Dragon Suplex
• Bridging German Suplex
• Tope Suicida
• Suicide Dive Tornado DDT
• Diving Crossbody
• Hurricanrana
• Dragonrana
• Sunset Flip Powerbomb
• Canadian Destroyer
• Inverted Frankensteiner
• Spinning Back Kick
• Springboard Inverted Frankensteiner
• Interceptor (Adopted from KAIRI following their run as a team)
• Octopus Stretch
• Cross-Face
• Cartwheel-Backflip Elbow
• Forearm Smash
• Slap
• Headscissor Takedown
• Scissor Flip
• Monkey Flip

Nicknames

• The Queen Killer (WWE)
• The King Killer (WWE)
• Princess Yamamoto (Early Career and ICE Ribbon)
• The Ice Queen (ICE Ribbon)
• The Poison Queen (Stardom)

Managers

• IYO Sky
• Piper Niven
• KAIRI

Wrestlers managed

• Codi Nicole
• KAIRI
• IYO Sky
• Piper Niven

Entrance Themes

• Dress Down by Kaoru Akimoto
• Stardust Speedway Zone Act 1 by Tee Lopes
• Midnight Joke by Takako Mamiya
• Anger of the Earth from the Tekken 6 OST

Alignments

• Heel (2008-2011)
• Face (2011-Present)

Tag Teams

• Akame Yamamoto and Codi Nicole

Signings

• ICE Ribbon (June 19th, 2008-April 3rd, 2010)
• World of Stardom (September 10th, 2010-May 20th, 2013)
• World Wrestling Entertainment (June 12th, 2013-Present)

Championships and accomplishments:

Stardom:

• Artist of Stardom Championship (With Io Shirai and Viper) (1 time)
• Goddess of Stardom Champion (With Kairi Hojo) (3 times)
• High Speed Championship (2 times)
• Wonder of Stardom Championship (1 time)

WWE:

• WWE Women's World Championship (1 time)
• NXT Women's Championship (1 time)
• Raw Women's Championship (3 times)
• Smackdown Women's Championship (1 times)
• WWE Women's Tag Team Championship (With Codi Nicole) (1 time)
• 1x Grand Slam Champion
• 1x Triple Crown Champion
• 2022 Royal Rumble winner