Marigold
Marigold kicks off the road to First Dream in January after the Dream Star Grand Prix, its first-ever round-robin tournament, ended on September 28th in Nagoya. Utami Hayashishita was the first winner, earning herself a shot at the Marigold World Championship. The past week featured a Korakuen Hall show on October 7th in front of 623 fans, which is the first bad number for Marigold at Korakuen Hall and shows that the promotion doesn’t have the drawing power yet to run Korakuen Hall multiple times in a short period. The show featured two championship matches as the Marigold Superfly and Marigold Twin Star Championships were on the line.
In the undercard of the show, Misa Matsui defeated CHIAKI in a rematch of the Dream Star Grand Prix in a solid match. The important part here was that Matsui re-debuted her Code Red finish, which she had started using in the last couple of months of her time in AWG. After the match, Naho Yamada asked for her Marigold debut match to be against Misa Matsui, her former TEPPEN partner in their AWG days. The match will happen at the next Korakuen Hall show of Marigold.
Next, Utami Hayashishita & Kizuna Tanaka defeated Nanae Takahashi & Nao Ishikawa in a good undercard match as Team Passion stays the most consistent undercard act in Marigold in terms of match quality. It doesn’t matter who they face or how experienced they are, Ishikawa and Takahashi always deliver against them. Post-match, Nanae tells Ishikawa that she has the fans behind her, but she isn’t showing any results in the ring so far, Ishikawa agrees and wants to show what she can do in a singles match against Takahashi at the next Korakuen Hall show later in the month. This will be an important match for Nao as Passion Injection matches have always led to bigger things for the wrestlers in the past. Particularly, it was used in STARDOM’s New Blood series to give a wrestler a great outing before they get a major moment in the following weeks. Here the follow-up will likely be Ishikawa finally getting her first pinfall victory sooner rather than later.
In the first title match of the show, Natsumi Showzuki and Victoria Yuzuki fought to a 15-minute time limit draw, which meant Showzuki successfully defended the Marigold Superfly Title in what was a very good match. The encounter saw another strong outing from Yuzuki, particularly in key moments, as she continues to develop well in her rookie year. Her chemistry with Showzuki, who played a great veteran in this match, worked well and created an exciting contest with a good finishing stretch. The decision to do a draw as the first defence is questionable, but it seems that Marigold will run the match back as Showzuki and Yuzuki have now drawn in both of their singles matches, presumably even at the January 3rd show in Ota Ward. After the match, “Hummingbird”, a new masked wrestler appeared and asked for a Superfly title match with Natsumi. Hummingbird is confirmed to be a roster member, and while her identity is not revealed or known, it seems to be CatMASK Calico, who competed in Actwres girl’Z before departing from the promotion and appearing ringside at Marigold. She’s a talented wrestler who will be a good addition to the Superfly division which needs wrestlers in it. Aside from Showzuki, only Yuzuki and Misa Matsui, are part of the division, and now Hummingbird has joined the fold.
In the semi-main event, Bozilla & Nagisa Nozaki defeated Sareee & Miku Aono as Nozaki got the victory over Aono with the Lancer Noir High in a very good match. Marigold’s top two singles champions team up against the two current top heels of the company and it ended up being a hard-hitting affair, especially between Bozilla and Sareee, but also with Nozaki and Aono and their kicks. The finish wasn’t surprising as Nozaki had been teasing going after the Marigold United National Champion and now has the chance as she announced that she will challenge for the belt on October 24th. It will be the second defence of the current champion and an important match for her to solidify herself as one of the top names in the company against one of the biggest freelancer names in Joshi right now.
Bozilla indirectly had another win over Sareee, who now lost two matches in a row in Marigold, which led to both agreeing to face each other for the Marigold World Championship at the upcoming Korakuen Hall show. ‘The Sun Goddess’ has wanted revenge ever since losing to Bozilla during the DREAM STAR GP and has told Tokyo Sports that she is studying Antonio Inoki’s matches with Andre The Giant ahead of her first Marigold World Championship defence. Sareee also mentioned she isn’t even thinking about the potential matchup with Utami Hayashishita at First Dream on January 3rd yet because the Bozilla match is all she can focus on right now. She knows that Bozilla is a real danger to her and is one of only three wrestlers who have handed her a singles loss ever since her departure from WWE. The Marigold World Championship match between Sareee and Bozilla will not only be important for Sareee to get her revenge but also for Bozilla, who wants to show the world her growth in the major spotlight.
In the main event of the show, MIRAI and Mai Sakurai successfully defended the Marigold Twin Star Championships against Chika Goto and Kouki Amarei in a good match. This match highlighted the growth of the tWin toWers well as Goto and Kouki stepped up to their first Korakuen Hall main event and showed out with good performances against SakuMIRAI, who have developed into one of the best duos in all of joshi wrestling. They are the perfect first tag champions of the promotion as they are reliable against every team they face and can get an exciting match out of anyone. After the match, Kizuna Tanaka and Victoria Yuzuki called their shot for the Marigold Twin Star Championships and will challenge at the next Korakuen Hall show.
With that, the Korakuen Hall show on the 24th is going to be very interesting and the first typical Rossy Ogawa Korakuen Hall show pre Bushiroad STARDOM. The show will feature the debut of Naho Yamada against Misa Matsui as well as Nao Ishikawa facing Nanae Takahashi in a Passion Injection match, Hummingbird challenging Natsumi Showzuki for the Superfly Championship, Kizuna Tanaka and Victoria Yuzuki getting their shot at MIRAISaku for the Marigold Twin Star Championship, Nagisa Nozaki trying to win the White Belt by facing Marigold United National Champion Miku Aono and the main event between Sareee & Bozilla with the Marigold World Championship on the line. An important show that will set up the first directions for First Dream in January.
