Universal Yuri Wrestling Union

Universal Yuri Wrestling Union is a defunct American women's wrestling promotion that existed for several years. It was marked by various waving of hyper-sexualized gimmicks and more serious athletic-style wrestling. The promotion's original owner sold it to the Suit, though she lost it after the original licencers from Japan came back for it. They briefly attempted to continue running it, though various troubles resulted in them closing the promotion.

Original Incarnation
The original UYWU was a small run of home video releases from Japan. The product depicted a mixture of studio taped wrestling matches between various female competitors, a balance between gravure idols and professionally trained wrestlers under psuedonyms. The matches were recorded and edited to overcome the shortcomings of the untrained models. Very little story was featured over the course of the run, and most characters were boiled down to filling in costume fetishes. The overwhelming majority of professional wrestlers were heels and the models were faces.

The series was mildly popular with wrestling and softcore porn fans alike despite the limited run. The videos were licensed for international release and commentary was dubbed over in various languages. Though it did not fair as well in other countries, an American company negotiated a deal for a spin-off.

American Production
Keeping the moniker and style of the original version, more UYWU tapes were shot with American actresses in place, solely using sports models. Much of the original style was in place, though early releases failed to capture an audience. The company branched its efforts in two directions, producing a release that focused more on capturing the pro-wrestling feel and one that stepped into hardcore pornography. The pro-wrestling video proved to be more popular and profitable, and that direction was chosen for future production.

The push towards a more professional wrestling style production lead to the hiring of more trained wrestlers, attempting to recreate the split the original Japanese videos, though with more story lines attached to the matches. Editing still allowed for the models to appear on par with the trained professionals and let them be the ones faced with the more degrading punishment. The growing popularity of the tapes eventually lead the head of the promotion to decide on running live shows in addition to the taped products.

Reviews of the original live show were largely negative. The lack of post-production revealed that the models were not capable of performing at the same level as the trained professionals. Despite the poor reception, the original run of live shows proved largely profitable and would become a common staple of UYWU's output. To balance the lack of trained talent, more independant professional wrestlers were hired and the willing models were paid to engage in more vigorous training.

Later shows were more favorably reviewed, though overtime the profits declined. Researched indicated that fans of the more aesthetically pleasing talent were disappointed to find the models missing. From that point out, UWYU's production was caught in an ever teetering position of chasing fans of wrestling and fans of sex appeal, wildly swinging from one side to the other over the course of years. A TV-deal was signed with a premium cable channel, giving the federation a weekly outlet and sponsorship deals.

Rapid changes of ownership
As the production of UWYU became burdensome for the parent company, the promotion was sold off. Various owners were rumored to be taking over, including the league being absorbed into another, but the final owner was a woman new to wrestling promotion. Her goal was the achieve the proper balance that the previous owner never could and push the product forward financially. Much of the production remained the same, though there was a noted shift that began in storylines.

Shortly there after, the original licensers from the Japanese parent company filed a lawsuit against UYWU's new owner, stating various breeches of contract that she was unaware of. The Japanese company had rebooted their division and were seeking total control over the brand again. All further productions were halted, and the weekly show was pulled from TV. The lawsuit was settled out of court, resulting in the return sale of the American UYWU back the original Japanese owners. The name of the promotion, its tape library, and the talent contracts ended up back in the hands of the Japanese company.

Short-lived return
The Japanese company attempted to continue running the American show, reinstating the TV deal and continuing onward with rapid adjustments to the storylines. However, the Japanese company could not uphold the deals contracted with most of the talent, deals that had all been rewritten and resigned when the previous owner took control. Many of the familiar faces vanished from the promotion, which were hastily filled with whomever they renegotiate with or send from Japan to take over places.

Within a few months of their takeover, the company faced major losses and pulled the plug on the entire American division of the promotion. The Japanese branch continued.

Nonfiction
UYWU was the first quest created by youkai, using the World Wide Wrestling Role Playing Game ruleset to run it. The story meant to focus entirely on Ada Soldarado and her interactions with other wrestlers in and out of kayfabe as she progressed from the midcard and upward. youkai had no clue what they were doing or what they wanted to do with the quest, they merely wanted to write about wrestling and tiddies.

Feeling unable to properly progress the nonkayfabe aspects of the story and wanting to write a more wrestling focused question UYWU was scuttled in favor of Steel Hearts. All of the introduced characters returned, and the player character also reappeared as part of the roster, though no longer the sole focus.