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Ronda's run of inexplicably good matches continues here. Although, I thought Nikki was fantastic here. Veteran who holds the match together isn't a phrase that I'd thought I would use to describe a Nikki Bella performance but that's what happened here. Even Brie, after being pretty awful since coming back, did a very nice job here working as a second. I really liked how Ronda kept herself vulnerable by being too cocky at times thus leaving herself open to cheap shots from the Bellas. She still had a few bad moments as she took too long to set up some of the bigger spots and she's clearly using constant trash talk to cover up obvious spot calling. In the end though, this match worked much better as a main event than it looked like on paper and it definitely should be commended for that. ***3/4

I want to say this match was great but there's just too much goofy stuff going on here. It was clearly at it best when these two went straight at each other but then something goofy like the tossing of chairs into the ring or Becky trying to walk off in a LWS match would hurt the momentum. Charlotte has been terrible this year but she actually did come through here, mostly because she took a bunch of incredibly nasty bumps. Irregardless of the new floor mats, the powerbomb to the floor bump at the finish had to suck. I didn't care for Becky's inconsistent character work, is she suppose to be a badass that disregards the rules or a coward who cheats to get by, that seemed to change every few minutes. Still, as a whole, the match was entertaining but if they just cut out the dopey stuff they would have had something special. ***1/2

Wow, they threw up Ronda/Nikki up on YouTube:

I haven't seen one single mention of Sarah Stock in the Evolution build up.

I don't remember exactly when it started, but she began to wear them as part of her entrance during her first (2013/2014) World of Stardom title reign. It's basically a slightly different design of the Tiger Mask mask. Rossy Ogawa, who runs Stardom, has a thing for Tiger Mask which is why about half the roster now comes out with some type of similar mask during there entrances. Io almost always has a different mask for every show. While Toni/Meiko was pretty good, I thought Io/Rhea was great. Rhea doing a terrific job grinding down Io, while Io did a nice pacing out her come back to sell Rhea's work. Io also looked a lot less nervous than she did in her other matches in the tournament. Toni/Meiko was really hard hitting but I didn't like how, at the finish, Toni kicked out of the Scorpion Rising then Toni immediately coming back to hit a Storm Zero for the win. The final will be interesting since the Io/Toni matches in Stardom have been a mixed bag. Add in that this will pretty easily the biggest crowd that either of these women have performed in front of but that didn't turn out to be a problem for Shayna Bazsler and Kairi Sane last year, plus this should be a more welcoming crowd than the one from last year final.

Nikki Cross vs. Bianca Belair from this weeks TV was really, really good despite the sports entertainment finish. These two mesh together surprisingly well and it's a shame that they won't have a proper blow off to their feud on either Evolution or a Takeover.

This match happen of the final show of the 5*GP. For Konami, this was quite the bookend to a tremendous tournament for her. She looked great here again working over Utami with kicks and various holds. For her part, Utami has another better than expect performance. She sells Konami's arm-work well and fires back with some judo throws and submissions of her own. This was a bit on the short side but the work here makes it well worth checking out. ***3/4

The problem with that viewpoint is that it wouldn't be hard to replace every overrated/mediocre/bad woman from U.S./Europe in this tournament and replace them with a overrated/mediocre/bad joshi wrestler. The WWE has just been lucky enough to bring in the women that they have. There's also a lot of obviously inherent problems with NXT that is hurting the development of not just women, but quite a few men as well. Highly doubt if you shipped all of the women from the Performance Center off to various dojos in Japan that everyone of them would come back as some sort of super-worker. Alex Lee and Heidi Katrina have both trained with Satomura for awhile and both have improved but neither of them are people I would go out of my way to watch.

This was the best episode so far, which wasn't surprising considering that it had the best two on paper match-ups of the entire tournament. Hiroyo/Toni took awhile to get going, just like Hiroyo's first match with Evers/Ellering, but was really good once it did. The finish did come out of nowhere giving the match a much flatter finish than it needed. Kacy/Ripley was a mixed bag. Kacy was very hit and miss here missing a few spots in the match although they did a surprisingly good job covering when this blown spots happened. Ripley put in another strong performance although she could use a better finisher. I like Conti in her match with Lacy Lane. She busted out a bunch of nasty judo throws but I thought her best highlight was the kicks to Lane's hands when she was trying to pull her out of the corner. Meiko/Mercedes was awesome. It might just be one of the stiffest worked matches in WWE history, right up there with Garvin/Valentine and Benoit/Regal.

This was a big match in the Blue Stars block with the winner being in control of her own fate going into the final day. Hazuki is just nasty in this match, jumping Iwatani at the start then viciously going after her arm. Iwatani stays in the match by hitting just enough big shots while still selling her arm, eventually catching Hazuki with a dragon suplex for the win. Short, but quick and action packed. ***3/4

Hiroyo/Rachael took awhile to get going with the finishing run being pretty good. At least Hiroyo had the wherewithal to realize that the crowd didn't know her so she went out of her way to get over with the crowd. Conti/Elaban was better than I thought it was going to be. To be honest, I thought Elaban was going to be bad but I came away impressed. Her offense looked good and she did a nice job selling the work on her hand from Conti. Conti had some great looking throws and has some good crazy/kooky shtick too. Matthews/Dawn was okay but it was funny seeing Dawn trying to do all of these elaborate strikes while Matthews would just go straight ahead and drill her. Io/Xia was squash with Io just basically running through her stuff. The match would have been interesting if they would have mixed in some flash rollups for Xia.

Fan shoot footage of Io's moonsault made it look a lot worse than the angle they showed plus there were reports that it took Xia awhile to get back up. Guess that's the advantage of being taped instead of live.

Yeah this was an better version of their match the previous month, mainly because Jungle is looking for the win right out the gate. Utami does have a few hiccups when she takes too long to execute a move and is a bit slow to get into position but still managed another very solid performance. Jungle was at her best here, maybe her best performance of the year, as she works over Utami's back with a variety of holds and power moves. Not crazy about the booking of a draw but Stardom is pretty much all in on Utami and you can't blame them at this point. ****1/4

This is a big match in the Red Stars block as both of these women were at the top of the standing there. Kagetsu had another quality performance here mostly because she actually managed to play an effective heel. None of her shtick felt shoehorned in like it usually does. Jungle was Jungle here, a lot of fire, some nice power moves, and very good selling. They would have had something great if they had some better transitions during the finish but even still this was a really good match well worth watching. ***3/4

This is for Mayu's and Saki's Goddesses of Stardom tag titles as they take on their STARS teammates Tam and Kid. The match was pretty entertaining as they cut a quick pace while maintaining a nice flow throughout the match. There's no big flashy double teams but they do make their moves count and sell everything fairly well. A nicely worked tag match that you shouldn't skip even though it's in the middle of the 5* GP. ***3/4

This is the biggest challenge of Utami's short career as she takes on World of Stardom champion Kagetsu. Once again, this match is inexplicably great given Utami's inexperience. Kagetsu is fantastic here, quite possibly the best performance of her career. She more of a straight forward bitchy veteran heel who tries to goad Utami into losing her cool. Utami stays under control and actually manages to fire back using a sleeper and working over Kagetsu's back. A truly amazing match worked in the traditional veteran/rookie dynamic. ****1/4

Kelly Klein has been a bit of a surprise in this tournament. She was painfully dull in her first Stardom run late last year, but she's at least watchable so far. This match was the first time that I feel that she genuinely held up her end of a pretty good match. Momo put in another strong performance here as she's been the most consistent performer in the tournament so far. ***3/4

Xia Li/Karen Q was really fun. I enjoyed how they mixed in the martial arts stuff. Kaitlyn/Kavita Devi was okay. Kaitlyn had some solid if unspectacular power offense. Devi didn't look nearly as good as she did last year as she didn't have someone who could pinball for her offense and her selling looked goofy too. Toni Storm/Jinny was good for a match that was built to showcase Jinny. She looked good here especially here strikes. Mia Yim/Allysin Kay was a mixed bag. While the match had some nice moments, as a whole it came off as a jumbled mess.

Standings for the 5*GP going into the final show on 9/24, via Stardom's English twitter: While Rossy Ogawa is a popular dunking target for online joshi fans, I think he's done a pretty damn good job booking this tournament so far. Both blocks have multiple women still in contention. In fact, depending on what they will do for tie-breakers and match order on the show itself, potentially 7 of the remaining 8 tournament matches will have a bearing on who makes it to the final. I made up a list of possible scenarios for everyone that I think are still in contention. Assuming that the tie-breaker is the head-to-head match result, and if that is a draw, then either some kind of second tie-breaker or a rematch before the final that night. Of course, if Stardom has some other way to solve tie-breakers then you can chuck all of this but it was fun to figure out anyway. Blue Stars: Kelly Klein is drive's seat here. If she wins her match against Shimmer champion Nicole Savoy, she goes directly to the final because she has a win over Mayu Iwatani. If she ends up with a draw then she is in trouble as she will then need Mayu, Momo Watanabe, and Hazuki to not win (draw/lose.) Kelly lost both of her matches to Momo and Hazuki. If Mayu wins her match versus Momo, she then needs Kelly to not win and she will go directly to the final. If she goes to a draw with Momo she then needs Kelly to lose. Hazuki is not a threat if Mayu doesn't lose (win/draw) because Mayu won their match. Momo must win her match against Mayu plus needs both Kelly and Hazuki to not win if she's to get to the final. Momo has a win over Kelly but if Hazuki wins then they would need a another tie-breaker because the Momo/Hazuki match was a draw. Hazuki is the long shot here because because even if she does win her match against Oedo Tai teammate Sumire Natsu she still needs Kelly to not win and for there to be a tie-breaker with Momo. Red Stars: Kagetsu has the easiest route as all she has to do is beat Tam Nakano and she in the finals because she has a win over Rachael Ellering. If she gets a draw, she needs Rachel and Jungle Kyona to not win. If Jungle does win they would need a second tie-breaker because Kagetsu/Jungle went to a draw. Utami Hayashishita is not a threat if Kagetsu gets a win/draw because Kagetsu won their match. If Rachael Ellering wins her match versus Kimber Lee, who beat Rachael in last year's Mae Young Classic, and Kagetsu doesn't win then she goes directly to the final. If she gets a draw, then she needs Kagetsu to lose and Utami to not win. If Utami wins then they will need another tie-breaker because Rachael/Utami went to a draw. Jungle is not a threat if Rachael gets a win/draw because Rachael won their match. Jungle must win her match against her J.A.N. teammate Natsuko Tora while also having Rachael and Kagetsu lose, plus have Utami not win for her to go directly to the final. If either Kagetsu draws or Utami wins then that would require another tie-breaker because Jungle went to a draw with both of them. If Jungle gets a draw she is eliminated because she lost to Rachael Utami must win her match against Konami while Kagetsu and Rachael lose while Jungle doesn't win in order for her to go directly to the final. If Kagetsu draws or Jungle wins then that would need another tie-breaker becasue Utami went to a draw with both of them. If Kagestu gets a draw, Rachael loses, while both Jungle and Utami win, that would create a three way tie at 10 points. It would require more than a simple tie-breaker because no one out of Kagetsu/Jungle/Utami has a win over the anyone else.

This was one of my most anticipated matches from this year's 5* Grand Prix and it didn't disappoint. The story of the match is setup early as Jungle drills the post on the outside trying to chop Konami. The rest of the match is build around Jungle's tremendous selling of the arm as she tries to work through it while avoiding Konami's submissions. She succeed in doing that by effectively plowing over Konami hard enough to get the win. Terrific storytelling here. ****1/4

This is the Wonder of Stardom champ versus the Shimmer champ on the opening night of the 5* Grand Prix. These two ended up working together really well due to the similar styles. The match has a lot of nice back and forth switching in between strike, suplexes, and submissions. It was nice to finally see a match like this in joshi that didn't ended up with the politically mandated draw. Very entertain stuff. ***3/4

This was the main event to the opening night of the Stardom 5* Grand Prix. Konami put in a tremendous performance here as she takes this to the mat early and forces Kagetsu to remember that she was a Meiko Satomura trainee. Konami seems to have an answer for everything that Kagetsu throws at her in this match. If Kagetsu tries to go to mat, Konami outworks her there. If Kagetsu tries to outstrike her, Konami hits harder than her. Even when Kagetsu tries to out duel her with big moves, Konami beats her there to. Just a fantastic match to start the tournament. ****1/4

Watched the match between Konami and Rachel Ellering where Rachel gets in Konami's face post-match. Honestly, both of them were in the wrong. Konami shouldn't have kept trying to kick Ellering in the head after she start protecting her head like she had gotten dinged there. At the same time though, Ellering didn't handle it at all like a professional. She should have waited to get to the back even if she was really upset and not yell at Konami immediately after the finish in front of the fans. The whole thing was a huge sour note on what had been a pretty good match up to that point.

Kacy Catanzaro vs. Reina Gonzalez was a super fun match. It's impressive just how smooth Kacy is for a flyer with such little experience, while Reina played a solid big with a nice power offense. Mercedes Martinez vs. Ashley Rayne was fine. It was a bit jarring to see them work even when Martinez had much nastier looking offense and even sold Rayne's lesser looking offense better. Deonna Purrazzo vs. Priscilla Kelly felt like the obligatory women's match on a super indie show. Deonna looked fine but Kelly didn't get to show off any of her character work, although a lot of her shtick might be a bit much for a WWE show. Zeuxis vs. Aerial Monroe was just ugly as they weren't on the same page at all. Easily the worst match of the tournament so far.