STARDOM
STARDOM presented its first PPV following the 5STAR Grand Prix, Nagoya Golden Fight 2024, on October 5th in Nagoya. The attendance was 1,526, up 574 from the Nagoya Big Winter show in December of last year. Before the injury crisis started, the attendance in the Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium arena was around 1,300, so this event saw the promotion draw one of their better attendances and their biggest crowd in the city’s history. The number should be considered a major success, and the show was headlined by Tam Nakano defending the World of STARDOM Championship against Suzu Suzuki in the main event of the show in a match that was meant to happen in November of last year before Nakano injured her knee in her match against Natsuko Tora.
In addition to the matches on the show, STARDOM made two major announcements for their show with New Japan Pro Wrestling on November 17. The two Bushiroad companies are presenting ‘Historic X-Over II’ in the EDION Arena Osaka, and the first official matches have been announced. In a mixed tag team match, The winners of the G1 Climax 34 and 5STAR Grand Prix team up as Maika and Zack Sabre Jr. form a duo to face Starlight Kid and the returning El Desperado. After that announcement was made, the theme music of the Great-O-Khan played, who came out to announce an open challenge at Historic X-Over II as he will put the KOPW Championship on the line against anyone from STARDOM. While the mixed tag team match is a guaranteed banger, the KOPW Championship match is more about who the opponent of The Great-O-Khan will be. In the best case, it’s someone like Syuri, and they have a great grappling rules match, while the worst case would be a comedy bout.
In the first championship match of the show, Miyu Amasaki became the new Future of STARDOM Champion as she ended Rina’s 512-day record-breaking run to win her first championship in her career. The Future of STARDOM Title opening the shows has been great as it brings fire early into the event and sets the tone well for a great show, and that was thankfully the case here as well. This was, once again, another good outing for Rina, who is astoundingly good for her age. She has no major flaws in her game and can control a match like a veteran, while Amasaki played the perfect opposite to Rina. Amasaki wins the belt just with a minute left on the time limit to dethrone Rina, who defended the belt a record-breaking 12 times. The cut-off date for Amasaki is at the beginning of March as she will reach three years of experience then and would need to drop the belt due to the active experience level requirement for the title as only wrestlers under the age of 20 or under three years of wrestling experience can compete for the Future of STARDOM Championship.
After their rivalry had been brewing over the past couple of weeks, Hazuki and Starlight Kid faced off in a special singles match. The two were able to convey their hatred for each other better than anyone else in STARDOM this year, and neither wasted any time and they beat the hell out of each other during the entire duration of the match. The intensity of the match was high, especially from Hazuki, who threw vicious headbutts at Starlight Kid multiple times, and she even targeted Starlight Kid’s mask like she promised. Hazuki played more of a heel role here, and she seemingly enjoyed it as she shined under the boos that got louder throughout the match. Shortly before the 20-minute mark, Starlight Kid was able to roll up Hazuki to win the match, which caused the ‘Wild Heart’ to snap as she went for Starlight Kid with no remorse, ripped her mask off, and posed with it before walking backstage under loud boos. A fantastic angle as it started to build up a drastic character change for Hazuki that will continue over the upcoming weeks.
Natsupoi retained the Wonder of STARDOM Championship against Thekla in a bland match. They went for a slower pace, with Thekla being the dominating a lot of the match after she gained heat due to Clark Connors interfering at the Korakuen Hall show, but the heat was close to non-existent here. Thekla wasn’t able to make her control segments interesting as it felt like she was on autopilot building to the few major spots that she had in mind but it seemed she wasn’t sure how to get there in a logical and good way. The best parts about this match were the comebacks of Natsupoi, who was extra stiff and was able to sell well for the ‘Toxic Spider’. In the end, Natsupoi won the match as she debuted a new finisher, the Fairial Gift Kai, which she didn’t land perfectly. Overall, it was a disappointing Wonder of STARDOM Title match that both wrestlers would do better in if they faced again.
Mayu Iwatani retained the IWGP Women’s Championship against Toni Storm in a very good match. Toni Storm returned to STARDOM a much improved and more polished wrestler, as she delivered one of her best in-ring performances since becoming ‘Timeless’ against Mayu Iwatani. Storm straight-up wrestled, instead of leaning too much into the ‘Timeless’ character that hurt her in-ring output for most of her matches in AEW ever since starting to use the gimmick. It was the right decision as the comedy elements in her two outings in the preview tags weren’t good, and there wasn’t much of that here. She and Iwatani worked well together and had great chemistry in the ring. The Strong Zero near falls worked well as Mayu just barely escaped with the win at the end with the Top Rope Poinsonrana that she has been using as her finish in her IWGP Women’s Championship defences. With that, Iwatani made defence seven of the title and finally defeated Storm in a singles match, getting revenge after six very long years. ‘The Icon’ gets the most out of the IWGP Women’s Championship belt regardless of how badly the belt gets booked by Bushiroad. Her matches for the title have been outstanding as she defeated some of the best in the world in Mercedes Moné, Utami Hayashishita, Stephanie Vaquer, Syuri, Mina Shirakawa, Sareee, Tsukasa Fujimoto, and now Toni Storm.
Tam Nakano successfully retains the World of STARDOM Championship against Suzu Suzuki in a great match to close the show. The first 15 minutes were very brawl-heavy, leading to the typical stage spot that Nakano does in all of her major singles matches and a table spot that ended up being a very sickening Dolphins Buster by Suzuki as Nakano landed right on her head, which was a scary moment. In general, the bumps both wrestlers took, especially Nakano, were insane as they went all out, and it looked like both were close to getting knocked out at any moment. The drama of the match went higher with every insane bump that they took before Nakano ended the match with the Twilight Dream Suplex to retain for a second time. While it was another great defence for Nakano, it was an even more important match for Suzuki. She has had a rough 2024 as a singles wrestler, and never found her grove in the first half of the year after falling short of expectations at 5STAR Grand Prix, going out in a playoff match against Hanan. With this match, she gained much-needed momentum and is heading out as a force to be reckoned with again.
The upcoming weeks will be interesting for STARDOM as the road to Queen Dreamdom on December 29th in the Sumo Hall is slowly beginning. Plus, before that, the annual Goddess of Stardom Tag League is starting soon, as well as Historic X-Over II next month. With many things coming up, it’s the perfect time to tune into STARDOM again.
