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This is a terrific stars with junior partners match. Shindo and Manami start out with some fun rookie stuff then, later in the match, take their beatings from their senior opponents. The high point of match though is the Sareee/Satomura interactions, which show flashes of Jumbo/Misawa. A super fun match here. ****

This is Hoshiki's first defense of the Wonder of Stardom title since she ended Momo Watanabe's nearly year long run the previous Korakuen Hall show. This match has gotten a far bit of hype and it's justified for the most part. This was the best performance of Tam Nakano's career, granted I've never really been a fan of hers, with some good leg work early on and some terrific work during the finish. In fact, this was the best finishing stretch that I've seen this year. The last 8 or so minutes are must watch. The only knocks I have against it was that they did overreach a times leading to some messy execution and Hoshiki did brush off Tam's early legwork. As a whole though, this was a great match well worth checking out. ****

This is Sareee's first defense of the Sedai Girls title since winning it last month. This was surprisingly the most violent match on this card. Not just from the strike but a lot of the moves, especially the double stomps, looked particularly nasty. The only big mark against this match was Sareee's lack of selling for DASH's big moves, (this has been a consistent problem for Sareee all year.) Still, this match was fantastic and probably the best singles match of DASH's career. ****

To be honest, I've been down on this two, especially Yoshiko, for awhile now but this was a match that provided much needed strong performance from each. Mainly from Yoshiko as she finally rediscovers that she should be working like a bully which just makes everything she does more effective. Chihiro show a lot more energy and personality than she has in the last year. This is something that is well worth checking out. ****

This has been a dream match for a while and it ended up being exactly what you would want a match between these two to be. Mizunami bringing power moves, Satomura bringing technical stuff while both women bringing heavy strikes. Everything meshes together seamlessly, even Mizunami's comedy spots. Just a tremendous match. ****1/4

It's something to see Suruga, Gatoh Move's super spunky 20 year old rookie, come bouncing out to Satomura's entrance theme. That dynamic between them plays out during the match as Suruga uses her speed and energy to throw off her opponents while Satomura was all about physical striking and grappling. Suruga has a bit of success in the match but ends up getting worked over a fair bit but manages to survive via her instincts. Sareee and Yuu work well together as a team while both are able to go toe to toe with Satomura individually. This is yet another high quality random team tag match that Sendai Girls has had this year. ****1/4

The issue with Sareee is that her home promotion, Diana, doesn't have TV nor does it post much stuff online so there isn't as much footage of her matches as you would think. You have to rely on her showing up in other promotions. She has been on pretty much every Sendai Girls show from this year. Here is a few matches of her matches that are online from the last few year: vs. Leon - 5/13/18 (Diana) vs. Takumi Iroha - 5/27/18 (Diana) w/ Nanae Takahashi vs. Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto - 7/14/17 (SEAdLINNNG)

According to Tokyo Sports, Triple H met with Sareee while he was in Japan.

I thought this match had a bit too much fighting spirit at times that led to some bad selling. The finishing run was pretty great though. I especially like how Sareee mixed in rollups to try and catch Chihiro off guard. Chihiro also got protected by kicking out of a few uranages, a move that had one-shot everyone else the last few months, until Sareee had to use a pumphandle version to get the win. Not great like their January match but still pretty good and it's great to see Sareee get a big push since it is LONG overdue for her. ***3/4

Sendai Girls has been absolutely fantastic all year. Every one of their shows that have made it online have been at least entertaining. The 2/10 Beauty Bear vs. DASH/Hiroyo tag and the 5/27 Meiko Satomura vs. Yuu matches have been the highest points.

Watched the Stardom doc this morning and while I think that it asks a lot of interesting questions, it does a weak job on following up on them. The strongest part was the wrestler profiles. Jungle Kyona comes off as someone who is too sane for wrestling, while Mayu Iwatani is exactly the type of nut you would expect to meet. You could probably do a whole doc on Kris Wolf herself but it would have been nice to see an example of the cultural distance/isolated feelings that she had. The Rossy interview is the biggest fumble to me. Why show that Stardom's audience is almost all older men then not ask the owner/promoter why he doesn't market his product to women/children? Does he think he can only make money from the male demo he currently targets? Are the boundaries set by an overly traditional Japanese society too much to overcome? Speaking of Japanese society, the doc mentions how wrestling is an escape from traditional roles of women in Japanese society and they decide to illustrate that by... going to an concert put on by an all-women rock band. Um, what?!? Why not keep it tied to the subject matter? If you can't get good answers out of anyone in Stardom why not try to interview someone like Bull Nakano or Kaori Yoneyama, who have tonnes of experience and likely a different perspective. In the end, I can see this being informative to people who have never heard of joshi before but for a wrestling fan with just a passing knowledge of it, I don't see the doc shedding any new light on it.

It makes the office people in charge of stuff like this look incompetent?

There is probably a decent chance of this happening. I believe Shida is full time and moving to the U.S. so depending on whatever Aja's deal is effect the likelihood of what AEW will do with her. Although, I'm sure that they want to use Aja to establish the credibility of the women on the roster. I read that Riho is on kind of a tryout of a handful of matches but it's more her trying out AEW and living in the U.S. rather than the opposite. I imagine Emi Sakura is here just to have someone Riho is comfortable to work with and to help her decide if she should sign full time. Never read anything on Yuka Sakazaki's deal or if this is a one-off for Ryo Mizunami.

I wonder what kind of TV deal they are going to get in Canada. TSN aired the Kenny Omega doc but who knows how they would feel about airing wrestling regularly again after giving Raw the boot all those years ago. Granted, WWE is hooked up with Sportsnet and thing are pretty competitive between the two sports networks in this country so that might open the door. AEW could also sign a deal with TSN parent company Bell and have a regular time on another channel like MuchMusic then have an re-airing on TSN later in the week.

If Aja Kong works AEW TV in the fall, it will be 24 years since her last appearance on a U.S. promotions prime time TV. I don't think there is anyone else close to a stretch that long even if you include shows like the 6:05 show on TBS and Prime Time Wrestling.

Cool fun fact: Kofi's win came a day before the 45th anniversary of Hank Aaron passing Babe Ruth's total for career home runs.

This is a big match for Mika Iwata as she challenges the reigning OZ Academy champ, Hikaru Shida. Iwata has been over shadowed a bit by her classmate Chihiro Hashimoto when it comes to her potential because she has been pushed in a more traditional way rather than being a phenom right out of the gate. But that potential shines pretty bright here as she has a fantastic performance taking on a veteran star. Shida has a really stellar performance here to hitting just the right tone of being the establishing that she's better than Iwata but leaving enough openings to give Iwata hope and not come off as dominating. Just a terrific match. ****1/4

The Momo Watanabe/Jungle Kyona match from this weekend is getting a lot of hype but this match here is the real joshi MOTY. Chihiro Hashimoto/Mika Iwata vs. Hiroyo Matsumoto/Sareee - Sendai Girls 2/3/19

This is for Beauty Bear's (Hashimoto & Iwata) Sendai Girls tag titles. It's rare to see smash mouth wrestling in joshi but holy hell do these four ever pull it off. In the first couple of minutes, you have Iwata trying to lay in shots into Sareee with her reward being Sareee drilling her so hard in the face that she gets a bloody nose. The rest of the half hour is a awesome mix of smack talk and stiff shots. Absolutely fantastic stuff that is a must watch. ****1/2

This is Mayu Iwatani's first defense of the WOH title that she had won in her recent trip to the U.S. The early part of the match has Mayu trying to go with Konami on the mat with very little success. This error eventual allows Konami focus on Mayu's recently injured knee but Konami grows a bit too confident by trying some flashier moves. This allows Mayu to get back into the match although she is noticeably slowed by the hurt knee. The finishing stretch is a tremendous mix of Mayu's high-spots and Konami's submission. An impressive mix of styles on display here. ****1/4

Stardom uploaded Momo Watanabe vs. Jungle Kyona match from last June to their YouTube page. One of the best matches in the promotion last year.

This is for Kagetsu's world of Stardom title and is a battle of Oedo Tai members. I'll be honest, I went into this without any real expectations mainly because of not being a fan of Oedo Tai in general. The way that this match was laid out was incredibly well done. They started out with some intense exchanges in the ring that spills outside leading to some actually good brawling, which is exceedingly rare in joshi. After that, you have some fantastic back and forth producing some nasty looking exchanges. Things do get a little messy in the final few moments but it doesn't downgrade the match as a whole. Tremendous stuff. ****1/2

This is for Chihiro's Sendai Girls title. Since Saree works for DIANA, a group that barely puts out any footage of it's shows, any match of her's that end up getting uploaded feels like a treat. This ends up being extra special since I personally think this is the best match that I've ever seen her have. It helps that Chihiro has a return to form here, as I think she sleep-walked through the second half of last year. The main part of this match has a tremendous mix of hard hitting and matwork. The finishing stretch has a nice mix of bombs being thrown but there are a few moments of iffy selling to. Still just a tremendous match that is the first 'Must Watch' joshi match of the year. ****1/4

Good lord, Hazuki tries to turn Starlight Kid into road kill here. She is just super stiff with Kid throughout the entire match. Kid moved around the ring really well here but had some issues pulling off some of her bigger spots. Super fun match. ***3/4

So Rhea out, Kay Lee Ray, Jazzy Gabert, and Viper in? I wonder since Triple H keeps talking about NXT being a third brand do they specifically keep the ex-indie, big name guys in NXT and try to directly go after the same audience that AEW is likely to have.