donsem43

Watched the Stardom Sapporo Rendezvous show. I would recommend checking out the top two title matches (Saya Kamitani vs. Natsupoi and Starlight Kid vs. Saori Anou) especially if you're tired of the formulaic nature of modern Japanese title matches. While you could be nitpicky about the limb selling SLK/Anou, they do end up working it into the finishing stretch (particularly the actual finish of the match itself) in superb fashion. Meanwhile, if you had told me that Kamitani and Natsupoi built a match around taunting and brawling I would have expected the worst but the two of them did a tremendous job to make it work. Kinda shocked that the Star Crusher is such protected as a finisher.

5 Star Grand Prix lineup has been announced. THIRTY TWO (32!) women entered. Sareee and Bea Priestley are in. Syuri, Hazuki, Koguma and Saki Kashima are not.

Not sure if this would be the right thread to mention this, but if anyone is looking for a relatively easy way to cast videos from your phone to a TV I recommend using Web Video Caster app on the Amazon Fire Stick. I haven't had any buffering issues that I would almost always have with Chromecast, even with 1080p videos. You can also use the Fire Stick's remote to control the video instead of wasting battery on your phone. Worked pretty well for me using Wrestle Universe and Stardom World. Archive.org and Google Drive stuff might take a couple of tries to get running but once the video starts it has ran well. Thought I would mention this since it's Prime Days so Fire Sticks will be cheap.

Happy Canada Day! {Insert #ElbowsUp joke}

The IWGP title has always felt like a refashioned SWA title. It certainly helps that name wrestlers from outside of Stardom have gone after it. How Stardom handles Sareee's reign will be interesting given Stardom's raised profile in the Japanese mainstream along with Sareee associating herself with Inoki's legacy. In a interview with Tokyo Sports, Sareee said that she wants to be in this year's 5 Star GP. I also preferred the draw from earlier this year than the title switch. Granted, the former had the advantage of that type of match being in a small venue. Not sure the match would come off the same if it was in a big gymnasium like the latter. I really enjoyed the finish of the title switch though. It felt Sareee knew that the match was starting to slip away from her so her finisher spamming at the end felt justified because she had to blitz Syuri hard in order to grab the win. I want to mention that the Goddesses title match from this show was pretty good too. Especially the strike exchanges between Hanan and Natsupoi, which were intense and non-formulaic. The best match from what has been a underwhelming wing*gori title reign. Bozilla showing up in Stardom was surprising. It's a nice fit since she need to clean up her sloppy, sometimes dangerous, execution. Also, with how hot Stardom is at the moment, it keeps profile high if she wants to get signed by either AEW or WWE in the near future.

Now would be a good time for an episode of Way of the Blade with Phil and Tom K just do a audio version of their DVDVR Review.

The WCW channel seems to be doing well too. It's at 291k subscribers with just under 50 million views after starting 7 months ago. Meanwhile, the NXT channel that was started just a week earlier, has 158k subscribers with 27.5 million views. Hopefully this is a sign that interest is more into older footage than more recent stuff.

The vs. Park thread reminded me that the Shimoda match got uploaded to Youtube last year: Also here is the grossly under talked tag match that I also mention in the quote:

If you have any interest in the promotion, you might want to keep an eye on the Stardom Youtube channel for the next little while. Some of the wrestler have been making appearances on Japanese network TV so they've been uploading recent matches temporarily for people to easily sample. They even uploading the Starlight Kid vs. HANAKO match for the Wonder of Stardom title just a few days after it happened.

Stardom has temporarily uploaded the main event of All-Star Grand Queendom:

More Stardom roster news: * Hazuki and Koguma have left STARS and are going to focus on working more globally. They made sure to clearly state that they have not left Stardom. Hanan is the new leader of STARS. * Bea Priestley showed up at NJPW Resurgence and buddied up to AZM backstage but didn't seem to mention Stardom at all. * 2 more trainees were introduced over the weekend at the New Blood show, debuts and ringnames are TBD. Stardom now had 11 trainees debut over the last 2+ years with only 1 leaving (Victoria Yuzuki, now of Marigold,) so they are managing to keep the roster restocked. Sayaka Kurara seems like a surefire star. HANAKO, Aya Sakura and Ranna Yagami have good potential as well.

Must be worried Benoit would somehow trigger a flag on YouTube causing the video/channel to be demonetized. That's the only thing I can think of.

Looked at the view count for the WCW channel and stumbled across this: * Flair/Steamboat Clash match - uploaded April 2 - 31k views * Booker T/ Eddie Uncensored '98 - uploaded April 4 - 411k views (4th highest viewed video on the entire channel) * Vader/Cactus Jack Saturday Night April '93 - uploaded April 5 - 57k views * Sting/Steve Austin Saturday Night April '95 - uploaded April 8 - 51K views When it comes to pre-Nitro stuff, full shows are doing much better than singular matches. The full SuperBrawl '91 show and the WarGames match from WrestleWar '92 were uploaded the same day that the channel launched. The former has more than double the views of the latter, 153k to 70k. I did laugh at seeing the the Arquette title win has less views than the episode of World Championship Wrestling (12/21/85) that was uploaded the same day.

They're starting to run bigger buildings with the ultimate goal of running the Budokan sometime in the next 5 years. Their show on March 19 drew 3,500, 500 more than what Marigold drew at Sumo Hall last summer. In August, they're running a basketball area in Sendai. Meiko also said that they are looking to double their roster sooner rather than later. They are also looking at recruiting trainees from judo, amateur wrestling and other sports.

If you've read the plans Meiko Satomura has for Sendai Girls, and seen the growth in attendance that they've had in the last year and a half, they are more likely to overtake Stardom. TKO buying Marigold is too much of a get out of jail free card for Rossy.