donsem43
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Konami also left Reina because she had an "illness" only to pop up in Stardom a few months later. Mayu also missed 3 shows in about 4 weeks earlier this year due to "sickness." Add that to the likeliness of her mentor/friend Io leaving and the inconsistency of her push recently it becomes a hot stove conspiracy theory. I was shocked when Meltzer reported that Hojo either did a 180 or flat out lied to Stardom about going to the WWE. Pretty much every wrestler who has talked about working in Stardom has been very high on Hojo in the locker room and commented on how she's everybody friend. Very surprise that this point isn't being talked about. Never mind that all of this news dropped the same day as Io's tenth anniversary show, and just days after Stardom announced a Io/Hojo title match at the next Korakeun Hall show. I've never ran a wrestling promotion but if I was Rossy Ogawa, I would be pissed that this news broke when it did.
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So Hojo is WWE bound with Io likely going to because she's making a trip to Orlando soon. Plus Mayu is apparently retiring, probably so she can pop up in SEAdLINNNG a few months later. Pretty weird how everything seems to be going down.
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This is for Mizunami's Regina di WAVE title as she takes on her tag partner Ohata. There is some nice matwork to open things up as Ohata tries to neutralize Mizunami's power by going after limbs in order to try to slow her down. This works for awhile but eventually Mizunami is able to stay upright long enough in order to get some offense in. This match then gets super stiff as the two of them really lay into one another. One of the best things about this match is how they both sell the physicality of the match. It never turns into a 'fighting spirit' no-sell contest that matches like this can deteriorate into. The finish is pretty good to as Ohata finds a lot of nifty ways to avoid/counter Mizunami's finishers. A great, hard fought title match. ****1/4 -
The main event for the 3/16 SEAdLINNNG show will be Nanae Takahashi & Arisa Nakajima vs. OZ champ Hiroyo Matsumoto & WAVE champ Ryo Mizunami. Also, Kagetsu is now the next challenger for both Io Shirai's World of Stardom title and Matsumoto's OZ title.
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This is for Io's World of Stardom title (Red Belt) and if she's successful in defending it she will break her own record of title defenses. Io does a fantastic job of putting over Baszler as serious threat. She bumps and sells incredibly well for Baszler's power offense and submissions. I felt Baszler held up her end of the match fairly well. She has always carries herself well but her in-ring is inconsistent. In this match, her offense looked good and flowed nicely plus her selling was solid. The finish was a bit weird though. Baszler seemingly puts Io out with a sleeper but the ref makes her break the hold which didn't make any sense since that's exactly how Baszler won a trios match at the last show. Other than that, this was great match with probably the best performance from Io in awhile. ****1/4
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This is for Hojo's Wonder of Stardom title (White Belt) and is Kyona's second title shot in less than a month. It's clear from the early going that the intent of this match is to make Kyona more of a potential threat to the top girls in Stardom and it definitely succeeds in that regard. From the very start Kyona shows little fear of going toe-to-toe with Hojo, even managing to hold her own in strike exchanges. Hojo herself does a great job of putting over Kyona's performance. She goes from confident veteran showing no fear of what Kyona has to offer to realizing that she is going to have to hit all of her big moves if she is going to retain. Just an excellent, well built match that builds on the star potential of Jungle Kyona. ****
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Finished watching the 2/23 Stardom show. I felt that all four of the title matches delivered, especially the top two. Hojo/Kyona did a great job of making Jungle look like a legit threat. Io/Baszler was looking like a MOTYC till the weird finish. Still great performances from the both of them as the match was a much better than I was expecting. Also watched the 2/11 WAVE show. Pretty much a two match show. The OVER SUN vs. Azure Revolution tag titles match was good but nothing special. Azure almost always have good matches but they really should have had a great match or two by now considering their talent level and how long they have been together as a team. The Mizunami/Ohata main event was fantastic. It got off to a slow start but it picks up quite a bit along the way. I enjoyed the finish a lot as Ohata kept finding creative ways to counter Mizunami's Hot Limit finisher.
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This is for Iwatani's High Speed title as she is being challenged by two members of Oedo Tai. The story dynamic that these three create in the match was terrific. Usually, Oedo Tai matches are weighed down with goofy, overwrought interference but here the kept it basic and it worked much better. It was great to see Kris Wolf have a straight match as she is a really good worker when she does. The finish was well done as it looked like Wolf capitalized on an open opportunity rather than benefit from a banana peel type slip. ***3/4
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This is for Storm's SWA title and is also Purrazzo's first single's match in Stardom. This match was a really nice mesh of Storm's UK style with Purrazzo's US style. Purrazzo looked great here. While she doesn't do anything flashy, she makes everything she does count for something. I wish they could have had another five minutes or so because they probably would have had something great if they had more time to build to a proper finish. As it is though, this is a terrific short match. ***1/2
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Started a spreadsheet for 2017 matches. The date page will have everything I watch that's over ***1/2 while the ranking page will just for higher rated matches.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rSFeCDmjhc This has been built up as the first big main event match in SEAdLINNNG, although it unfortunately didn't draw that well. For the most part this match is what you would expect between these two, a very in your face, hard hitting battle. My biggest knock against the match would be Arisa's legwork on Nanae. It starts out great with a terrific sell job from Nanae, but Arisa never goes back to it until a short counter towards the end of the match which makes it seem pointless. Other than that, this is a war of attrition. A contest in who can out last the fight of the other. While it doesn't quite reach the all time classic level that it had the potential to be, it is still quite the match and the first must see joshi match of the year. ****1/4
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Match Link - Match starts at 1:08:00 This is for Shida's & Syuri's OZ Academy tag titles. I was excited when this was first announced because Hiroyo and Kagetsu were a team in one of my favourite (and highly underrated) tags from last year, 4/2/16 vs. Thunder Rock. Then again, this is OZ Academy where potentially great matchups turn mediocre. Matsumoto looked great here. She is definitely all in for this chance to have a run on top of a promotion. This was also the best match from the Shida/Syuri team. They focused more on straight tag work rather than weapon shots and brawling. It's really nice to see a match that looks like what OZ Academy should be. ****
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Nanae vs. Arisa
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This is for Best Friends' International Ribbon tag titles as they are challenged by the teenage duo of Tsukushi (18) and Kurumi (16.) This is quite the old-school joshi sprint which is freaky since neither of the challengers were alive during that period. It's easy to write off the Tsukushi and Kurumi do to their age but when you factor in that the both of them have more than 5+ years of experience each they are more than competent opponents. That point comes through strong in the match as both girls manage to create their own opportunities throughout the match in a realistic way. As a result, their big win here comes off as a hard earned victory rather than a fluky upset. ****1/4
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This match has a real all-star type feel to it with Io being Stardom champ, Hiroyo being OZ Academy champ, and Ohata being the top contender for the WAVE title. This is also the first time in quite awhile that Io and Ohata have worked together. The two of them start this match and you can tell that they are both pretty excited to be working together again. Hiroyo looked really good here to as it can be easy to forget how good she can be until you see her in situations like this. AKINO was good too, showing a lot of energy rather than one of her phoned in performances. A super fun match between four women who you usually don't see in the ring together. ***1/2
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This match starts off with some slick matwork but then the intensity picks up when Konami hits a cheap highkick on Io when they are in the ropes. Obviously, this pisses Io off. Once she recovers she's firing right back while getting in her own cheapshots along the way. Io's over aggression does get the better of her which allows for Konami to get a leglock to slow Io down. The leg attacks force Io to get crafty and that ends up paying off as she catches Konami with a rollup for the win. Pretty good short match. ***1/2
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This is a #1 contenders match for the DUALSHOCK WAVE tag team title that were held at this time by Avid Rival (Misaki Ohata & Ryo Mizunami.) Iida and Yoneyama start off doing some effective work over Miyazaki's arm which she did a great job a selling throughout by working her offense around it. Ohka ringwork was great. She was in beast mode the whole match, working stiff and busting out some very nasty variations of the Bloody EX. The most impressive thing about this match is that while they worked a quick pace, they all kept their limitations in mind and rarely overextended themselves. A surprisingly great match which is easy to skip over since the only one in the match consider a top worker is Iida. Don't skip over this if you have WAVE Network. ****
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This is for the Wonder of Stardom title and also Newell's only single's match during this tour. Like Ray/Kyona, I thought this would also be a styles clash as what I had seen of Newell before this she was more about a fast pace and highspots. She seemed like a better matchup for Io or Iwatani than Hojo. I was glad I was wrong, because this turned out to be much different than what I was expecting and it was damn good too. They get to the main story of the match right away as Newell blocks an early Sliding D attempt from Hojo by kicking at her elbow. Newell then focuses on the arm in a nice Finlayesque fashion by wrenching and stomping on it. Hojo manages to counter the arm work by going after one of Newell's knees. The match then turns into a contest of who gut her way through working with a bad limb in order to hit her big moves to get the win. It was great for Hojo to put over Newell strong in the post-match although she almost spills that Newell is WWE bound. ***3/4
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This is yet another Queen's Quest trios match, not that I'm complaining as they are usually pretty good. The main goal here is to setup the High Speed title match between Iwatani and Watanabe, which unfortunately was for not as Momo hurt her ACL a few days after this. That's a real shame as the work between her and Iwatani here was a highlight. Mimura gets in a fair bit of offense to and it's nice to see that she adding more moves beyond her various rollups. She also puts up a gutsy fight at the finish until she accidentally gets hit by her teammates making her easy fodder for QQ to finish her off. Yet another super fun Stardom/QQ trios match. ***1/2
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This is a match for Kay Lee Ray's ICW Women's title and it's also Kyona's first notable title match. When this match was first announced, I thought that it would end up being a styles clash but I was quite surprised at how well this two worked together. This the first time that I've seen Kyona work some elaborate sequences that come off being very smooth. She also works in her power offense really well with some top notch selling. KLR had maybe her best performance in Stardom here. All of her offense hit right on point and she did a terrific job of putting over Jungle's offense to the point that you believe that she had a real chance to pull off the upset. The first surprisingly great joshi match of 2017. ****
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Well, people were writing off Stardom after Yoshiko/Act with Takumi Iroha leaving not long after. While I think Iroha leaving and the Sendai Girls feud were going to happen irregardless, it took Io/Hojo/Iwatani working their butts off to just keep things from falling apart. The roster seems to be more stable and united with Io/Hojo at the head. They even got a couple of girls, Bito and HZK, to come back after leaving. Given how many young girls left the company while Nanae was in Stardom, SEAdLINNNG is probably better for bringing in established veterans rather than training their own. Either way, it seems like fans outside of Japan make a much bigger deal out of this than it actual seems to be. WAVE's problems come more from the fact that GAMI is a really bad booker/promoter. She could have easily had a hot inter-promotional feud with SEAdLINNNG but never did anything with the opportunities that she had. Her booking of Mizunami's run to the title was terrible. After Mizunami won their big Catch the WAVE tournament she immediately lost on the next big show to Nanae, then lost her first title shot at Yuu Yamagata. So then she had to win the NEXT tournament a couple of months later before finally winning at the belt at the end of last year. It's no shock WAVE draws as badly as they do after you start to regularly follow them. I don't really believe what Meltzer wrote because he also stated that Arisa blindsided JWP by leaving. Given how often she worked outside of the company the last year or so, Bolshoi would have to be an idiot to not have seen her eventually leaving. Anyway, Syuri is in the main event of the Pancrase show tomorrow. Her opponent is the same size/age with similar experience, in other words her first real test. The show will be on UFC Fight Pass. Maybe if she wins here she might get on to the next UFC show in Japan.
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Nico is showing the 1/26 SEAdLINNNG show on 2/11, so Nanae/Arisa has in fact MADE TAPE!!!! I was wondering what Nanae's long-term plans where for SEAdLINNNG and these moves show she's looking to build with established wrestlers rather than build from within. That's surprising since it's especially rare that joshi wrestlers jump from group to group as they're more likely to go freelance and work for whoever. Two other names to keep an eye on that might potentially jump are Rina Yamashita and Ryo Mizunami. Yamashita, like Arisa Nakajima, has been feuding with Nanae/Yoshiko for the past year. Mizunami has been a regular on the last few shows and also seems to be ending her team with Misaki Ohata in WAVE. If she drops the Regina di WAVE title to Ohata on 2/11, I wouldn't be surprised if she ended up here too. Bad news for Stardom as Momo Watanabe suffered an ACL injury and is out for an indefinite length of time. She had been a standout since turning heel and joining Queen's Quest. The good news for Stardom is that their 1/29 show was one of their best top to bottom shows that they have had in awhile. The top three matches are all really good. Hojo/Newell had some really good selling. Queen's Quest has turned into a really good trios team. KLR/Kyona was surprisingly good. Probably the best performance from Kyona in her career so far.
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Highlights of Nanae/Arisa from Samurai TV. Starts at 20 minutes in, lasts about 3.
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This is a rematch of their first title match in February of last year. The big difference here is that Io is now a heel leading her Queen's Quest group, but other than using some rough tactics in the first half of the match it doesn't change up the dynamic between the two of them. In the end, it's still the ace champion trying to find a way to get the win over the monster challenger. Technically, I thought that the work in this match was better than their first title match together. Viper especially, looked much better hitting some nice, squishy, big girl offense plus doing a good job of selling throughout. This match does lack the strong narrative that their first match had as you have already seen Io beat Viper so there is less intrigue as to how Io is going to pull out the win. Still, the finish run is impressive especially the suplexes that Io is able to pull off on Viper which makes it this a match worth checking out. ***1/2
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When you get to June, make sure to check out Hiroyo's match with Hojo from the Fortune Dream show in June. It's not on Stardom World but I think I put a (still working) link to the match in the MDA thread. Another strong performance from Hiroyo along with Hojo being Hojo.