Current Joshi Talk

[donsem43]

Playoffs are set for the 5*GP. First round and quarters are on August 20th with the semis and finals on the 23rd.

Block winners who get a bye to the quarter-finals: Saroi Anou, Sareee, Saya Kamitani, and Natsupoi.

First round match-ups:

* Suzu Suzuki vs. Bozilla > winner faces Anou

* Ami Sohrei vs. Momo Watanabe > winner faces Sareee

* AZM vs. Hanan > winner faces Kamitani

* Bea Priestley vs. Rina > winner faces Natsupoi

 

[donsem43]

Whole show streaming for free on YouTube:

 

[donsem43]

To preview their Wonder of Stardom title match on Saturday, Stardom up loaded the Starlight Kid vs. Tomoka Inaba match from opening night of the 5 Star Grand Prix. One of the better matches from the whole tournament.

 

[donsem43]

Stardom has temporarily uploaded some of Saya Kamitani's biggest matches from this year. They even put them into a handy playlist. If you haven't already checked out her work this year now is the time.

 

 

[El-P]

I'm just so behind on whatever joshi I wanna watch. That Unagi Sayaka vs Minoru Suzuki match was a ride though. (see what I did ?). Heel surely is a one kind of a character. She certainly found a way to make her post-Stardom career interesting, to say the least.

[Blehschmidt]

2 hours ago, El-P said:

I'm just so behind on whatever joshi I wanna watch. That Unagi Sayaka vs Minoru Suzuki match was a ride though. (see what I did ?). Heel surely is a one kind of a character. She certainly found a way to make her post-Stardom career interesting, to say the least.

Is there somewhere to catch that match?

[El-P]

On 10/22/2025 at 12:44 AM, Blehschmidt said:

Is there somewhere to catch that match?

Sorry, I didn't notice this before. Yup there is: 

Still catching up on stuff, just watched that AZM vs Saya Kamitani from Korakuen Hall last month. Damn, if I did not know the results, there's two occasions where I would have actually believed AZM was winning that one. Crazy good match.

[donsem43]

This was more pretty good than great. While they didn't outright blow any spots they definitely looked out of sync with each other, certainly more than they expect to be. A bit more surprising was how they both were running on fumes for the last few minutes. Worth the watch if your curious but don't go in with big expectations.

 

[El-P]

A pretty good match bewteen Iyo and Mayu can only been considered as a major disappointment. Meltzer mentionned the match was basically a showcase for Iyo, and Mayu came looking secondary (which is pretty much textbook WWE style "collaboration"). 

I saw that Mirai already left the promotion too. Well, so much for the forced push she received in Stardom when Rossy was still booking.

That show had the daughter of Yumi Fukawa vs the daughter of Michiko Ohmukai, which makes me feel old af. I wonder if "daughter of Chama" just no-sold a bunch of shit before winning (like her mother would, ya know, old ARSION ref here).

[El-P]

I did not expect Saori Anou to get the big match (I really am not following Stardom closely at all), but I sure glad she is. She's been my favorite performer in the promotion for a while now.

And then Saya vs Syuri at the (probably) sold out WK Dome show ? Damn.

[donsem43]

Saya Kamitani won the Tokyo Sports Pro Wrestling MVP, which seemed like a formality after OZAWA got hurt. To celebrate, Stardom reupload the playlist that they had up earlier in the year with the addition of Kamitani's matches with AZM and Momo Watanabe. Both of those matches are worth watching if you haven't seen them already.

 

[corwo]

Everyone should check out Mio Momono vs. Ai Houzan from yesterday's Marvelous show. Insane five-minute spectacle.

[donsem43]

It's not fitting to link a nearly sixteen year old match in a current wrestling thread but it amazes me how Ayumi Kurihara, who was the It Girl of joshi wrestling during the "Dark Ages", has managed to slip through the cracks of current fandom. Basically she was Sareee before Sareee. Tomoka Nakagawa wasn't too bad either.

 

[donsem43]

Handheld of Athena vs. Rina from the Vegas Stardom show:

 

I don't know what her contract/personal situation is but man would Athena be better off in-ring if she had a duel contract or even just signed directly with Stardom.

[El-P]

So, Utami is leaving Marigold. Well, it seems that project is not going the way Rossy intended... I dunno how these contrat works, but maybe she shows up at Queendom as early as tomorrow.

[donsem43]

She's still working Marigold shows until May 23.

[sek69]

As someone who's only been somewhat following Joshi, am I wrong to assume Rossy has been around as long as he has more due to him being one of the few people in Japan who gave a shit about women's wrestling enough to promote it instead of him being any good at it? It seems like Stardom success was more in spite of him rather than because of it. 

On 4/18/2026 at 2:35 PM, donsem43 said:

I don't know what her contract/personal situation is but man would Athena be better off in-ring if she had a duel contract or even just signed directly with Stardom

Her doing a run there or even in CMLL would be amazing.  Since everyone working together seems to be down for sharing talent it's surprising she hasn't gone on any excursions yet. 

[El-P]

4 hours ago, donsem43 said:

She's still working Marigold shows until May 23.

Ok, thanks for clarifying.

50 minutes ago, sek69 said:

As someone who's only been somewhat following Joshi, am I wrong to assume Rossy has been around as long as he has more due to him being one of the few people in Japan who gave a shit about women's wrestling enough to promote it instead of him being any good at it? It seems like Stardom success was more in spite of him rather than because of it. 

Not really. Stardom's early success can absolutely be attributed to Rossy's eye for talent and booking. I'm not sure how influential he was during Zenjo's glory days of the 90's, but I do think he was involved. Of course, it's not like his record was unblemished before Marigold either. I should know, I was an ARSION fan. 😎 Which was a great idea, but bad timing and there was also some shaddy business practices back then and bizarre creative ideas, which led to Aja and Ayako departing the promotion.

But even in Marigold, which I don't follow at all anymore (watched a few show the first year), I hear that he is developing some really good talent. But Marigold apparently really feels like budget Stardom. And the supposed WWE partnership really was nothing apart from Iyo coming twice and Giulia staying a while (and getting no one over) before going to WWE (we know how well that is going).

And the fact is Stardom did not suffer at all from his departure, as Okada (not this one) did a good job keeping it on the right tracks, and of course that Saya heel champ deal had been a ridiculous success. It made things much more difficult for Marigold, especially since there has been no exodus at all really, and now most of the big time worker who went there are gone already, and I don't think anyone can replace them at their level yet.

The one thing about Rossy is that he's the ONLY guy I've ever heard Kenny Omega says bad thing about. Omega basically says good thing about everyone. So there. 

[donsem43]

I feel asleep after the tag gauntlet and woke up to Kurara doing a phoenix splash...

No clue if that's good booking or bad but it sure is fucking ballsy! Granted, Stardom has a history of being successful with pushing new stars seemingly too soon.

[El-P]

I mean, if you are gonna do a title change, gotta do it in front of your biggest crowd ever. Saya's reign has been the biggest success in women wrestling since the 90's. Amazing stuff.

(Gedo looking in disbelief)

[Kadaveri]

16 hours ago, sek69 said:

As someone who's only been somewhat following Joshi, am I wrong to assume Rossy has been around as long as he has more due to him being one of the few people in Japan who gave a shit about women's wrestling enough to promote it instead of him being any good at it? It seems like Stardom success was more in spite of him rather than because of it. 

The simple reason why Ogawa has stuck around women's wrestling forever is because it's the only industry he has ever worked in. He doesn't know anything else. After 1997 he started putting on a suit and presenting himself as this serious businessman, but really he was a 19 year old wrestling nerd who went to shows, somehow got himself a paid job doing photography/office work for AJW and then just never left.

[El-P]

On 4/18/2026 at 8:35 PM, donsem43 said:

I don't know what her contract/personal situation is but man would Athena be better off in-ring if she had a duel contract or even just signed directly with Stardom.

Considering she apparently said she was more at ease working the ROH shows, I highly doubt she would be the kind to spend a lot of time in Japan at this time of her career. Yeah, she would rule, and I hoped when she did the Mercedes feud she was gonna be a regular on AEW TV, but it has not been the case. It is what it is.

That match was clearly the highlight of a show that was cool but also felt a bit rushed and short on actual Stardom, with so many AEW talent involved (although I understand there had been some visa issues too).

[donsem43]

On 4/26/2026 at 8:30 AM, El-P said:

I mean, if you are gonna do a title change, gotta do it in front of your biggest crowd ever. Saya's reign has been the biggest success in women wrestling since the 90's. Amazing stuff.

You can also build the inevitable Tokyo Dome show around Kamitani winning the belt back. Money is in the chase. You just need to figure out who should be champ by then. Either way, you know Kamitani and Kurara are going to be walking up that ramp arm-in-arm. That's the natural conclusion of this story.

It's just wild to see the one company in the world that could get away with not pushing young talent is the one that is doing it the most aggressively.