STARDOM
Stardom’s latest big show featured four title matches with three massive title changes. The show happened on the 27th in Ota Ward in front of 1759 fans which is just 100 fans less than last year’s Flashing Champions Show.
The first Championship match was for the High-Speed Title, which was decided in a three-way between the record-breaking Champion AZM, the former three-time Champion Fukigen Death, and Saki Kashima. This was a fun high-speed match with many great sequences and action. Saki Kashima pinned Fukigen to win the High-Speed Championship. It’s her first Singles Championship in her career. Kashima debuted in 2011 and had a dozen of Singles Championship opportunities in the past, but she never got the job done, so this moment was emotional for her. She instantly broke down crying and thanked Rossy Ogawa when he gave her the Championship. AZM’s High-Speed Championship run ends at 458 with 12 defenses. She had the most defenses in a single run and some of the best matches in the Championship history, with her battles against Starlight Kid and Mei Suruga standing out.
The second title match was the second Goddesses Of Stardom Title defense of MIRAI & Ami Sourei against Oedo Tai’s Natsuko Tora & Momo Watanabe. In the build-up to this match, the Oedo Tai duo destroyed the knees of MIRAI which even lead to Momo tapping out MIRAI on a tour show. This continued from the very beginning of the match, with Tora and Momo focusing on the knee of MIRAI. The match was fine with some good action. Oedo Tai controlled most of it, with NEW ERAS having good comebacks in the middle. There were a few times when I thought we might see a title switch happening, but that wasn’t the case. MIRAI rolled up Tora to make another successful title defense.
After the match, the entire Queen’s Quest came out to brawl with Oedo Tai. In a promo, a 6 vs 6 Steel Cage Match was set up for the June 25 PPV in Yoyogi.
The Baribabi Bombers crowned themselves the new Artist Of Stardom Champions in a great match when they defeated ReStart. Giulia and Kairi going at it was the best part of the match, hitting each other with stiff punches that looked. Their future singles match will be fantastic. Poi and Thekla have a bit of a rivalry going, they had a nice few minutes together. Giulia and Saori toward the end had another great exchange, with several convincing near falls. Poi accidentally super-kicked Saori, allowing Giulia to pin her and for DDM to be the new champions and dethrone the Super Trio in their first defense. This is the first Title win of Mai Sakurai in her career, which is deserved after her improvement since joining STARDOM.
The biggest shocker of the night happened in the Double Crown Championship match between World Of Stardom Champion Tam Nakano and Wonder Of Stardom Champion Mina Shirakawa. Everyone expected this to be a draw, but Tam Nakano planted Mina with the violent Screwdriver and the Twilight Dream to win the Wonder Of Stardom Champion and crown herself the second-ever Double Crown Champion in the history of STARDOM after Mayu Iwatani did it before in 2017. Tam made history by not only becoming Double Champion but also by becoming only the 4th two-time White Belt Champion together with Mayu Iwatani, Act Yasukawa and Io Shirai. Mina on the other hand ends her title reign at 34 days, which is the shortest reign in the history of this Championship considering the amount of momentum she had, a not understandable decision to let her drop it that early.
The Cinderella Winner MIRAI came out after the match to challenge Tam Nakano for the Wonder Of Stardom Championship on July 2nd in Yokohama Budokan.
STARDOM announced the participants of the 5STAR GP, which will start on July 23rd. This year’s features 20 of the best Wrestlers the company has, which is 6 less than last year’s. 18 of them were announced on the show, with the last two spots being decided in a Rumble on June 18th which features the likes of Mei Seira, Mai Sakurai and more.
The announced Wrestlers:
– Mayu Iwatani
– Hazuki
– Utami Hayashishita
– AZM
– Saya Kamitani
– Natsuko Tora
– Starlight Kid
– Momo Watanabe
– Giulia
– Maika
– Tam Nakano
– Natsupoi
– Saori Anou
– Syuri
– MIRAI
– Ami Sourei
– Mina Shirakawa
– Suzu Suzuki
– Rumble Winner #1
– Rumble Winner #2
