Shocking Mika Iwata Appearance In STARDOM, Marigold Korakuen Hall Card Announced | Weekly Joshi Guide

STARDOM

STARDOM held two house shows over the past week in Osaka & Sendai and their monthly show at Korakuen Hall. It was a transitional week with multiple championship matches being set up and the Artist of Stardom Championship being defended on the last show.

In Osaka, Saya Iida & Hanan defeated Suzu Suzuki & Mei Seira after a great match with Iida getting the pinfall over Suzu Suzuki. After the match, FWC nominated wing*gori as the next challengers for the Goddesses of Stardom Championships. The two STARS teams will collide on an unknown date with Hanan & Saya Iida having the chance to become double champions as they are the current NEW BLOOD Tag Team Champions.

The following day, STARDOM announced that Suzu Suzuki will be out of action for the next 1-2 months to recover from multiple injuries suffered in recent months. The winner of last year’s 5STAR Grand Prix wants to be in top condition for the 2024 5STAR Grand Prix and aims to become the first two-time 5STAR GP winner in the tournament’s history. We wish her the best in her recovery!

Reigning Sendai Girls World Champion Mika Iwata appeared at the STARDOM show in Sendai and challenged Saori Anou to a Wonder of Stardom Championship match. They wrestled to a 20-minute time-limit draw on February 20th in SENJO earlier this year and have been teasing another match recently. Now, Iwata has confronted Anou, and the match will happen on June 22nd in Yoyogi. She’s an interesting challenger since Iwata is the first non-regular World or Wonder of Stardom Challenger in over 1 1/2 years, with the last one being Haruka Umesaki at Stardom Dream Queendom 2022. The hope is that this is just a one-time thing as STARDOM has a great roster that has so many talented wrestlers that could use spots like this.

In the main event of the Korakuen Hall show, Mina Shirakawa, Maika & Xena retained the Artist of Stardom Championships for the second time against Momo Watanabe, Natsuko Tora & Thekla in a good match. It was a typical OEDo Tai match with a crowd brawl. Still, the finish was surprising as Xena was able to pin the former Wonder of Stardom Champion Momo Watanabe after some miscommunications between her and the rest of the OEDo Tai trio.

After believing that STARDOM is seemingly heating Xena up for a potential Wonder of Stardom Championship challenge against Saori Anou in the future due to a staredown both had after a match in Kyoto, she surprisingly ended up as the next challenger for the World of Stardom Championship. It will be the first major championship match for Xena in STARDOM and an important one since she has been in the spotlight since her comeback after picking up multiple big wins and being 1/3 of the Artist of Stardom Champions. The match is set for June 22nd in Yoyogi, and it marks the potential fifth defence for the Empress of Stardom.

Dream Star Fighting Marigold

After a successful opening to the first tour in Shin-Kiba, Marigold held their first two shows outside of Toyko with a show in Osaka in the 176Box in front of 494 fans and a show in Hamamatsu in front of 339 fans. The show was used to continue to establish the roster and build up the different characters with Bozilla, Utami Hayashishita, and Miku Aono being the main featured wrestlers on the road to Sumo Hall.

On paper, Nanae Takahashi had two cool Passion Injection matches against CHIAKI & Misa Matsui, and those should be the stand-out matches quality-wise. The main events of both nights sound cool too as Marigold is teasing a rivalry between Utami Hayashishita & Miku Aono, who will almost certainly have a major singles match in the future, presumably for the Marigold World Championship.

This week also saw confirmation that Komomo Minami will be making her pro-wrestling debut on the June 11 Korakuen Hall show against MIRAI. Minami was originally set to make her debut in STARDOM against Hazuki early last year as part of the same class as HANAKO and Aya Sakura but had to be pulled due to injury, so it’s great to see her finally get the chance to show what she can do.

This weekend’s shows will be on Wrestle Universe as VOD with the June 1 Osaka show on June 5 at 6 PM JST and the June 2 Hamamatsu show on June 6 at 6 PM JST. With that, Marigold’s VODs will be on a four-day delay, similar to the other promotions on the streaming service.

Full Marigold card at Korakuen Hall on June 11th:

• Utami Hayashishita vs. Nanae Takahashi
• Sareee vs. Victoria Yuzuki
• Nagisa Nozaki vs. Nao Ishikawa
• Miku Aono, Kouki Amarei & Chika Goto vs. Bozilla, Zayda Steel & Myla Grace
• Misa Matsui & Mai Sakurai vs. Natsumi Showzuki & CHIAKI
• MIRAI vs. Komomo Minami