When WWE signed Stardom’s Giulia earlier this year, many fans had no idea she was actually British!
We have previously written about how Toni Storm is actually British, which surprised many fans. However, the fact that Giulia turned out to be from the United Kingdom is an even more shocking revelation.
Giulia was born in London, England in 1994. Her parents were not English, however, and instead were immigrants in the country when she was born.
At the time, her mother was a student studying in university in London. She is Japanese, and was on a student visa in the country, with the intent to return to Japan once she was finished.
It was in London that Giulia’s mother met her father. He is an Italian man, who, like many other Europeans at the time, made use of the EU’s freedom of movement to move to England.
They met at some point in the early 1990s, getting married soon after. Giulia was born in 1994, but the family moved to Japan just one year later. Despite technically being British, being born in the country’s capital, Giulia is not a native England speaker, and has no memories of her life in England.
Being ethnically both Japanese and Italian, she struggled when moving to her mother’s home. Giulia revealed in a 2021 interview that she was bullied for being “half Japanese”, suffering for 9 years of abuse during her schooling.
“Well you hear about half-Japanese kids getting bullied for it, that’s exactly what happened to me. From elementary school until I finished junior high, I suffered through 9 years of bullying.”
She went on to work in her parents’ Italian restaurant, before falling in love with professional wrestling. They turned her house into a literal restaurant, which garnered attention from TV shows and news outlets.
This made her stick out even more. She eventually worked in a “hostess club”, where she met a wrestling fan who took her to numerous shows. That is where Giulia became a fan of Joshi wrestling, with Ice Ribbon her favourite.
She eventually started training in 2017, and quickly became one of the top young Japanese talents. While she has little to no connection to the UK any more, being born in London does make Giulia at least partly a British wrestler!
Giulia currently wrestlers for Marigold, but has reportedly signed a contract with the WWE. She appeared at NXT Stand and Deliver earlier this year, but a wrist injury delayed her debut with the company.
