donsem43
-
Posts
1069 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Everything posted by donsem43
-
So Meltzer reported Rossy isn't going to WWE. If he was fired for trying to poach talent then I would imagine that he would end up at either end up at Actwres girl'Z, which seemingly has a partnership with AJPW now, or Evolution, which had Shuji Ishikawa quoted as saying “Our aim is to overtake Stardom." Well the easiest way to do that is to literally take Stardom's talent.
-
Nobody should be going "Oh poor Rossy" here. He sold the company to Bushiroad and since at least WWE was interested in buying probably got at least full market value for it. Then Bushiroad contracted him to help run the company, it doesn't look like he was an employee on the payroll, for over four years. This isn't like he brought Bushiroad in as an investor then they forced him out in a hostile fashion leaving him nothing. Also, Bushiroad brought in a new president to Stardom late last year so that there is a house cleaning going on in the office side of the business shouldn't be surprising. Rossy being in league with WWE after not selling Stardom to them would be incredibly hilarious!
-
The name you wanted to use there is Tod Gordon.
-
Well what do you know, TJPW threw this up on their YouTube channel
-
She debuted in the early days of the pandemic and right before Stardom ramped up the number of shows that they ran. So she got ran out there more often then she should have with less training than she should have had at that point. Plus, her debut came right at the start of Stardom bringing in a lot of outsiders that they eventually signed. Hemika got a big debut right around the same time. She's not much smaller than Lady C but a much more convincing power wrestler. Ami Sohrei is a comparable because she debuted roughly around the same time in Actwres girl'z but since they run less shows Sohrei probably got to train more to work on fundamentals without being exposed working matches. Then when she came to Stardom she had enough of a handle on the basics that she really benefited from the increased show schedule. With every new wrestler they would sign from other groups, Lady C would get further pushed down the pecking order even further. Her height is just a novelty now. There is a trend developing in the Bushiroad era of Stardom that the in-house rookies haven't nearly developed as well as some of the wrestlers that they brought in from the outside that had a little experience beforehand. Something to keep an eye on with the women who have debuted in the last year.
-
Donna Del Mondo is no more, Giulia has disbanded the unit. So...
-
If you're making an all encompassing match of the year list, make sure to check out Chihiro Hashimoto vs. Natsupoi from Sendai Girls 7/16 show which has now been uploaded to Sendai Girls YouTube channel. Also, if you have Wrestle Universe, check out the main event of the 12/1 TJPW 10th Anniversary Show which is a 2/3 falls 10 woman tag match.
-
Apparently, there were issues with the PPV stream so Stardom uploaded the two singles matches just hours after the show.
-
Well, they didn't livestream it but Stardom have put up the whole 11/28 show up on YouTube.
-
Good and bad news on the Stardom injury front. First the good news, Starlight Kid (ankle) returned on the weekend working the PPV in a 3-way with Suzu Suzuki and AZM. Both Utami Hayashishita (cervical hernia) and Saya Kamitani (elbow) are returning on the November 28th show at Korakuen Hall. The bad news is that Tam Nakano (knee) has vacated the World of Stardom title, while Natsupoi (cervical hernia) and Saori Anou have also vacated the Goddesses of Stardom tag titles. Kidani stated at PPV that Stardom won't run non-tournament related shows during their tournaments going forward in an effort to try and reduce injuries. There will be a mini-tournament at the November 28 to determine one of the challengers for the vacate World of Stardom. The two semi-finals matches are Maika vs. Ami Sohrei and Mina Shirakawa vs. Momo Watanabe with the winner advancing to the main event on the December 29th show at Sumo Hall. While Suzu Suzuki does have a contract to challenge for the World of Stardom title, Hazuki challenged her for that contract on the same November 28th show. So, in a sense, they are running a six woman tournament with Suzuki and Hazuki getting a bye. For the Goddesses titles, recent tag league winners Maika and Megan Bayne will face a team to be announced (Hayashishita and Kamitani?) at the PPV in Nagoya on December 2nd. Surprising that they are doing the world title stuff at Korakuen rather than at the PPV in Nagoya. Stardom has usually draw pretty well at Korakuen under Bushiroad ownership, although this show is on a weekday where they don't typically draw quite as well as they do on the weekend. Still, they need more help trying to draw outside of Tokyo and this be an easy way to do that. Granted, if you really wanted to hype up the Sumo Hall show, you could quickly whip up a YouTube livestream even if it's just the typical 2 or 3 camera setup that they use for Stardom World exclusive shows. That would be a good way to attract non-regular fans, especially foreign fans that are flying in early to watch Wrestle Kingdom, to get tickets for that show.
-
There seems to be a weird stigma surrounding age in Japanese culture concerning women in entertainment. A woman can be seen as stale in her early 20's and washed by her mid-20's. There's a few of the other women in Stardom who give the month and day of their birth but not the year possibly for that reason. Personally think the biggest beneficiary of Giulia leaving would be Maika. She seems to stuck in Giulia's shadow at the moment and her moving up to being the leader of DDM could provide the jolt that she needs to get to the next level. While I'm not the biggest Mina fan, she deserves a more consistent push than what she has gotten this year, that is much more likely to happen if Giulia leaves. Speaking of Stardom, another weird story was that something went down between the wrestlers and Bushiroad staff at their show on the weekend. They had to postpone the show with Kidani and Bushiroad Fight president Harada showing up to apologise and promised to interview the employees and the wrestler in order to prevent something like whatever happened from happening again.
-
A bunch of weird joshi wrestling stories the last few days: - Giulia to WWE isn't surprising when you remember that her jump from Ice Ribbon to Stardom was fueled by the desire to perform on a bigger stage, so her going from wanting to be a star in Japan to being a star world-wide makes sense. I thought something was up when she dropped the World of Stardom title to Tam Nakano in April. I figured that either something was wrong with her neck forcing her to retire or Bushiroad and her couldn't come to an agreement on a contract. Then, in the summer she starts talking about wanting to work more in the U.S. Meltzer saying she wouldn't be available till March makes sense since she jumped in October so added six months and that takes you to March. - I don't know what to make of the Sareee story. She's the current Beyond the Sea champion and just beat Sendai Girls champ Mika Iwata this past weekend. At this point, her going back to WWE wouldn't be all that surprising. Sukeban is whatever it is. I've only watched the trailer and it came off as an anime version of WOW. There will probably a Between the Sheets Patreon special about it in twenty years. - Now there is the Megan Bayne is under AEW contract story that Stardom is denying. People are really keeping the porch light on for a AEW/Stardom relationship that Stardom seems to want nothing to do with. Never mind that AEW does less than nothing with TJPW. The funniest way this could end would be Bayne lying about her contract status in order to be booked by Stardom. - Oh, I almost forgot Miyu Yamashita showing up on NXT sitting right behind the announcers but making sure to wear a hat so that no one would recognize her.
-
Tiffany Stratton lifted a good chunk of her gimmick, need to develop some new shtick.
-
Something that might be interesting to people on this board, even if you don't follow current joshi. Arsion will make it's return for one show to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the promotion with various alumni making appearances if not working a match.
-
I imagine there will be an announcement soon that she's officially a member of the Stardom roster. Rossy has stated before that he gives new wrestlers a six month probationary-like period before they sign. I'm sure the recent run of injuries, (Saya Kamitani's dislocated elbow, Utami Hayashishita's cervical hernia and now Starlight Kid's injured ankle) played a part in the decision. Stardom does have a ridiculous amount of optionality with its roster right now so it would be hard to argue with them going with most anyone on the roster.
-
A lot of what Asuka is going off on happened before Kairi even had her very first match.
-
"...what I told you is true, from a certain point of view." Obi-Wan Kenobi Surprised Asuka has gone this long without publicly popping off. Given how her career in Japan went there had to be times when being lumped in with the rest of joshi wrestling touched a raw nerve.
-
Stardom had Kairi for a little more than a year and they didn't use her to put over any of their existing stars. It's astounding that they didn't decide to have Kamitani beat her last fall much less having her draw with Utami Hayashishita. Anyway, I hope Kairi got a nice, hefty pay raise for going back to WWE.
-
Decided to take a flyer on this year's TJPW Princess Cup tournament and ended up being pleasantly surprised by the in-ring quality. It says something when a Mizuki/Miyu Yamashita match ends up being the least match in the first round that doesn't involve a comedy worker. The best match so far was the Shoko Nakajima/Suzume on the 7/16 show. Nakajima runs hot/cold for me but she's been absolutely tremendous both here and her second round match versus Rika Tatsumi. Meanwhile, Suzume is the most underrated wrestler in joshi. It amazes me how western joshi fandom fails to know she exists. She's really become a workhorse for TJPW and is starting to come off as a legit star when she's in higher profile matches. Even the matches that I would typically pass over without an honest look have been surprisingly quality stuff. Yuki Kamifuku/Nao Kakuta on the 7/17 show legit shocked me by being pretty good. Kakuta is the definition of average while Kamifuku has been terrible since the end of her International title run but they both put it together here. Kamifuku even managed to hang with Miu Watanabe in her quarter-final match. So, overall, if you have Wrestle Universe these show are worth checking out even if the TJPW presentation puts you off.
-
Recommend checking out the Generation Struggle 8-Woman tag main event from today's (June 4) Stardom show. More for being a breath of fresh air after years of stilted unit based tags and just the flat out weirdness of the booking for the last couple of months. Highlights being the Giulia/Utami Hayashishita, Syuri/Suzu Suzuki, and just Maika's overall performance. Hopefully there is more stuff like this in the near future but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it.
-
Going to post some links to non-Stardom stuff that people need to check out. A lot of joshi promotions have been posting relatively recent stuff on the their YouTube channels sporadically. Takumi Iroha vs. Itsuki Aoki - Marvelous - 08/08/2022 Stardom fans pushed the idea that Mina Shirakawa was the most improved wrestler in the world, personally think she wasn't in the top 3 in joshi. In fact, Itsuki Aoki lapped her pretty easily as she went from being someone who I wasn't sure if she was suppose to be a comedy wrestler or not, to coming off as a legitimate title challenger in a main event as she was here. Of course, it helps that she maxed out the level of stiffness for her strikes but she as managed to harness her natural charisma to carry herself in such a way that she comes off as a big time threat. Someone to keep an eye on for sure even if she's hard to track because she bounces between so many promotions. Hanako Nakamori vs. Hikari Shimizu - WAVE - 05/29/2022 I've been a big Shimizu fan for a while and was a bit disappointed that she didn't get a profile boost after a strong performance against AZM in their High Speed title match at the last Stardom Sumo Hall show. She has the potential to be a KAIRI type of star who can draw fans into matches through her personality. Most Nakamori performances are forgettable but every once in a while you'll get a top tier performance like the one here.
-
Given who the new owners are, I wouldn't be surprised if they try to wrangle more money out of foreign governments. Now is the time to do it because with government restrictions for international travel disappearing, countries that had sizable tourism before the pandemic are going to be eager to run big events like WWE to use as advertising. You're basically taking the old 'sold show' concept from the territories and running it on a global scale. Hopefully they're learn some lessons from dealing with the Saudis. I'd be interested in see how much they charged for tickets compared to how much the same tickets would be in the U.S. That might be one of the main reasons they've stayed away from that market. If other entertainment options in the area are relatively cheap, then they might not have been able to find a price point that would make it worth it. -
I'm not accusing Rossy and/or Bushiroad of blatant racism. The point I was trying to make is that it's funny to me that you're running a show at one of the biggest areas in Japan, which can't be cheap, that you justify not booking a wrestler because you need to keep costs down. It also just a coincidence that said wrestler doesn't look like a lot of the foreign wrestlers that the company books. I don't know, operating for 12+ years (2.5 under Bushiroad ownership) and booking 40ish (a very rough estimate) foreign wrestlers is "too early to draw conclusions" then when is? 35 years and 120 wrestlers?
-
Bushiroad probably had the money when they thought they were getting Mandy Rose, but then they found out it was Naomi and suddenly they need to keep costs down. Honestly, go count how many dark skinned women Stardom has booked over the years then compare that to the number of blonde white women. Since the news broke that Mercedes was signing with Bushiroad, Stardom has brought in three white women, two of them blonde.
-
The back half of this year's Catch the WAVE tournament was tremendous! All of the the block matches from the 7/1 and 7/3 shows, plus the final on 7/17, are well worth the time to watch. The true standouts were the Suzu Suzuki vs. Haruka Umesaki, Nagisa Nozaki vs. SAKI (my new personal joshi MOTY,) and the final of Suzu Suzuki vs. Miyuki Takase. Unfortunately, Nozaki blew out her knee applying a gogoplata in her last block match with SAKI so not only did she miss the final versus Suzu Suzuki but will probably be out for at least the next year. Sad news for arguably the most underrated wrestler in joshi.
