Incredible Steel Cage Matches, STARDOM Goddesses Title Change, 5STAR Blocks Announced| Weekly Joshi Guide

STARDOM

STARDOM held their latest PPV, called “Sunshine” on May 25th in Yoyogi National Gymnasium #2 in front of 1715 fans. The show featured two title matches, including one in a Cage, and the Loser Must Leave Unit Steel Cage Match between Oedo Tai and Queen’s Quest

In the first title match of the night, Mina Shirakawa and Mariah May challenged Ami Sourei and MIRAI for the Goddesses Of Stardom Championships, and that match was good. Club Venus dominated the Tag Champions who made great comebacks with especially Ami & Mina being the focus of the match. Mina pins Ami Sourei in the end to crown Club Venus the 28th Tag Team Champions, in STARDOM. The title run of NEW ERAS ends at 63 days with 2 defenses, and it was an unspectacular run. Part of it was that MIRAI and Ami don’t have the best chemistry yet as a team and often look sloppy together rather than being a team. On the other side, Mariah May is the 5th international wrestler to hold Stardom’s tag team titles, behind Hailey Hatred, Alpha Female, Bea Priestley (2x), and AEW Wrestler Jamie Hayter. She stated that working in STARDOM was a dream for her and now 6 months later she crowns herself champion and is standing in the prestigious 5STAR GP. She proved a lot of fans wrong. Mina won her 4th Belt in STARDOM and her second top three belt. After recently losing the White Belt to her former friend Tam Nakano it was a good way to get her back on track.

The first Cage Match of this show was a match for the Artist Of Stardom Championships between The Champions Giulia, Mai Sakurai, and Thekla against Hazuki, Koguma, and Mayu Iwatani with the rules being that the first team to fully escape the Cage will win the match. This was totally different from the match later, it was built around fun spots with especially Mayu doing silly stuff at the beginning where she had no interest to participate in this match due to her fear. This match became crazy when they all started to wrestle. The match featured a ton of insane spots like Hazuki doing a Senton Bomb from the top of the cage, Koguma flying again with a cross body to the outside, and more. In the end, it was Giulia and Mayu Iwatani left in the ring, and they had a great ending sequence. The match ended when Giulia choked out Mayu on the top of the cage and had it easy to escape and retain the Artist Titles for the first time. A great contrast to the match later.

After the match, Giulia took the mic and called out Strong Women’s Champion Willow Nightingale for a Championship match on the July 4th/July 5th STRONG shows in the Korakuen Hall. Backstage at Forbidden Door, Willow accepted the challenge and the match seems to be on. This is huge considering it might be the breakthrough to kick off the long-awaited Partnership between STARDOM and AEW. Also, this seems to be a set-up for a future Mercedes Mone vs Giulia Match, maybe even in the United States.

I wrote a detailed review about the Main Event of this show that was released on the Wrestle Purists website last night, so check it out if you want my detailed thoughts on this match. It was Queen’s Quest (AZM, Hina, Lady C, Miyu Amasaki, Saya Kamitani & Utami Hayashishita) vs. Oedo Tai (Momo Watanabe, Natsuko Tora, Rina, Ruaka, Saki Kashima & Starlight Kid) in a Loser Leaves Unit Steel Cage match. To summarize it real quickly, this was one of the best matches in the history of STARDOM and one of the best cage matches I’ve seen. An incredibly emotional match with a feel-good moment at the end when Momo Watanabe gave Saya Kamitani the Baseball Bat, so she can betray Utami and cost her the match but Saya attacked Momo, helped Utami escape to end their tensions and end the match. With that, Saki Kashima was left alone in the ring and needed to leave Oedo Tai. Tora and the others weren’t believing it and turned on Saki Kashima instantly and beat the living hell out of her until QQ made the save. AZM offered Kashima a handshake, but she declined it, left the ring, and is now on her own without any friends. A highly dramatic and amazing Pro Wrestling match that was nearly perfectly booked. A must-watch for every Fan.

STARDOM also announced the 5STAR Blocks for this year. The tournament starts on July 23rd. While the 20 participants were announced last month, the block announcements now showed what is to be expected from the tournament, and it’s going to be incredible.

RED STARS Block

Ami Sourei
Natsuko Tora
Hazuki
Natsupoi
Starlight Kid
Suzu Suzuki
Syuri
Saya Kamitani
Mayu Iwatani
Tam Nakano

BLUE STARS Block

Hanan
Mariah May
AZM
Mina Shirakawa
Momo Watanabe
MIRAI
Saori Anou
Maika
Utami Hayashishita
Giulia

Both blocks feature exciting match-ups, with especially the Blue Block standing out for many fans due to it featuring three of the front-runners to win the 5STAR GP this year with Maika, Utami Hayashishita, and Saori Anou. Also, Giulia and Utami Hayashishita will collide in a singles match for the first time ever. The Red Block is equally stacked, with Saya Kamitani being the favorite to win the Block. Also, matches like Syuri vs Suzu Suzuki, Mayu vs Tam, and more make this block interesting. The 5STAR this year feels how normally the G1 Climax did during the high period of NJPW. It will be an incredible tournament with so many great and fantastic matches