MIRAI Wins Wonder Of Stardom Championship, Utami Hayashishita Announced For GCW | Weekly Joshi Guide

STARDOM

On July 2nd, STARDOM had their last PPV before the start of the 5STAR GP in the Yokohama Budokan. The show featured three title matches, multiple interesting angles and an Indian Strap Match

During the undercard matches, Utami announced that she’ll go on a trip to find herself after her recent disappointments to be stronger than ever for the 5STAR GP. Fans speculated what she mean, from bookings in the United States for AEW over to her going to Kagoshima with her family. Today, it was announced that she will take three bookings in the United States for Game Changer Wrestler on July 8th, 9th, and 14th. It is yet to be revealed who she will be facing, but this is huge for Utami who will have her first match in the United States since challenging for Momo Watanabe’s Wonder Of Stardom Championship in 2019. She may take more bookings there before the 5STAR starts, so keep an eye on Twitter.

Nanae Takahashi vs. Starlight Kid was the best of the Passion Injection matches, which have all been actually pretty good, despite it being Nanae vs mostly young and inexperienced wrestlers. This was the first one where she faced an established Wrestler that can match her in-ring, which made this bout fascinating and great. Starlight Kid played a great underdog, fighting through all the offense and nearly escaping with the win by using the Momolatch, the move Momoe Nakanishi gave her for this match, but Nanae’s experience put an end to Starlight Kid, and she pinned her just 30 seconds shy of the time-limit draw.

Gold Rose won the Goddesses Of Stardom Championships just a week ago when May and Shirakawa defeated the NEW ERAS. Now, they put the title on the line on the line against former Champion Ami Sohrei, but this time together with Syuri. Mina and Syuri spend most of the match in the ring together and had fantastic chemistry. May and Ami played their roles fantastically as well, making the match, making this match better than the Tag Title match on last week’s PPV. The result was expected, but the ending? Mina rolled up Syuri for a three-count and to retain the titles for the first time. This is a huge win for the new Champions and a statement made for every future challenger.

The next Championship match on the PPV was the High-Speed Title match, with the Champion Saki Kashima facing her Tag Team Partner Fukigen Death. This is the first confrontation between Saki Kashima and Oedo Tai after Kashima needed to leave the faction. This match was all about the post-match angle since the match itself was a short but sweet High-Speed title match with many counters, nice sequences, and more. Kashima won with the Kishikaisei, but instantly get attacked by her former Stable. Natsuko Tora gave Fukigen Death, who didn’t join at first, the Newspaper, and asked her to hit Kashima and betray her Tag Partner and she did. Kashima got beaten up by everyone in Oedo Tai, excluding Rina, who still can’t attack her mentor. Kashima was on her own until a familiar face for Saki made the save. It was non-other than Saki Kashima’s rival Syuri together with Ami Sohrei. Both God’s Eye Members made the Oedo Tai Stable flee and come to the aid of Kashima. The High-Speed Champion asked Syuri if she can join God’s Eye, and the former World Of Stardom Champion accepted. Together they will protect Saki and fight against Oedo Tai.

The Wonder Of Stardom Championship was the co-main event of this show, with the Cinderella 2023 winner MIRAI getting her wish to challenge the Double Champion Tam Nakano for the White Belt. The story before the match was built around whether MIRAI had enough will and emotional power to beat the Red and White Belt Champion. The challenger was presented as the clear underdog in this match against the dominant champion that takes control early on. MIRAI continued to fight and showed great fire, which she lacked before. This was by far the best performance in her career, with Tam Nakano as the perfect vet who made her look like a million bucks. A memorable moment for me was when Tam had to sacrifice an arm to roll and reach the ropes. This was the key reason why she was not able to finish off Mirai after Violent Screwdriver and may cost her the match. MIRAI then took over the match and with smart counters was able to hit the Miramare to beat Tam Nakano and win the White Belt. MIRAI took a trip down Tam Road and came out on the other side triumphant. She’s the 19th Wonder Of Stardom Champion and won her second title in her Stardom career. This is now the third time the Wonder Of Stardom Championship changed hands in the last two months, which is a trend that I don’t like, but MIRAI will likely hold the belt for a while. It’s her run to establish herself as a Top Girl in STARDOM.

The Main Event of this show was an Indian Strap Match between Natsupoi and Saori Anou. The rules were as follows:

• A Wrestler needs to touch all 4 corners to win the match without an interference
• however, in order to do that, you need first to get a 3 count on your opponent
• Use of the strap as a weapon is legal

Both wrestlers aren’t really experienced with this kind of gimmick, and it wasn’t easy for them to get into this match. Natsupoi totally felt out of this place in this with the strap stopping her to do half of her move set, so she needed to improvise, which she tried even if it didn’t work out all the time. Another problem with this match was that it was just way too long, and drawn out and the crowd didn’t really get into this match at all. The stipulation really hurt this match which is sad considering Still two talented wrestlers in there, so there were cool uses of the strap but overall a bit underwhelming. In the end, Saori Anou was able to win the match and defeat Natsupoi. After the match, Anou apologizes to Natsupoi and Tam and ends the show with Cosmic Angles.