Utami Hayashishita Opens Up About Decision To Leave Marigold

Utami Hayashishita speaks about departing Marigold.

Next up on the docket for Dream Star Fighting Marigold is the Shine Forever show, and it is the promotion’s two-year anniversary event.

The show will feature Utami Hayashishita’s last match with the promotion. In late April, she announced that she would be departing Marigold.

The former Marigold World Champion did an interview with ENCOUNT and explained why she is leaving the promotion. She wants to increase her presence in the pro wrestling space. Hayashishita enjoys helping Marigold grow and seeing the younger wrestlers rise, but added that she is 28 years old, and although she’s young herself, she feels she has a shorter window to make the impact she wants to make.

“I had vaguely thought, ‘I want to go higher,’ but I felt that I had more to do for the younger members of Marigold, so I kept that feeling bottled up. Then, at the New Year’s Eve event, I received the Fighting Spirit Award, and it felt like that lid just popped off. Since there are so many younger wrestlers in Marigold, while my own career was important, of course, the feeling that they needed to grow was even stronger.

When I saw the success of the wrestlers around me, I felt a sense of jealousy, or rather, a natural desire to keep trying my best. After all, I’m only in my eighth year, and I’m 28 this year, so I figured I’m still at an age where I can keep pushing myself, and that feeling started bubbling up inside me. When the lid came off during the New Year’s show, I realized that while life at Marigold is truly wonderful—and I have so many adorable juniors—and while I can support their growth, I wondered if it would be difficult for me to become a bigger presence in the pro-wrestling world from here on out. Since it’s a brand-new promotion, it’s still very much in its growth phase. Even though I say I can still do this at 28, I also realize I’m already 28, so when I think about it that way, I can’t wait around for the long term. I don’t have much time left… At Marigold, where everyone is focused on growing together from here on out, I felt like I wouldn’t make it in time.”

Hayashishita’s final Marigold match will see her team with Takumi Iroha and Maddy Morgan to take on Mai Sakurai, MIRAI, and Marigold World Champion Miku Aono.