The Stardom Cast #296: Stardom Supreme Fight in Osaka & NEW BLOOD 28 + 29 Reviews!

Thank you. Thank you. Hello guys and welcome to the Stardomcast, your weekly audio source of all things world wondering stardom. I'm your host Rob Goodwin and I'm joined as ever by Mr. Matthew Turner. Matt Turner, good sir. How are you? As you are now, I believe, above freezing. Yeah, we were five degrees above freezing today and it's only going to be getting warmer. So considering it was zero degrees and three degrees, and when I left for the gym yesterday, it was negative three degrees. Today was 37, which it's 30. 32 is freezing for all of us over here in the western part of the world. So, yeah, 37. It got up to today, and it's supposed to be hitting the 40s the rest of the week and then the mid-40s, I think, over the weekend. So it may melt some of the snow. One, Mr. Rob Goodwin. So super excited about that. And I'm also super excited to start this podcast off with my usual apology for a year and a half ago on my rant on the Sayaka Matani heel turn. Yep. Because, boy, howdy. This is obviously Sayaka Matani is a member of the faction. Hey, you're going to think by the end of this episode the faction that she's a part of is called Love. Because there's going to be a lot of love for the World of Stardom champion, in my opinion, the best wrestler on planet Earth right now in one Sayaka Matani. Wowzers. I mean, obviously, what a match. We'll obviously get into it, talking about the Supreme Fight show. But, Rob, good one. Obviously, we have a lot of news to talk about. We do. I do want to let you know we're going to try to make this a usual part of the show when we review these pay-per-views, even though he is not here, when Andy Hedder did send me best hair and best gear for Supreme Fight. So we're going to obviously be listening to Talk Yoshi when we review Sunday Girls or Oz Academy or Tokyo Yoshi Pro. obviously most of Tokyoshi is Tokyoshi Pro and Sendai Girls and he gives his best hair and best gear for each show and then so basically what we're going to try to do is for every big stardom show and Marigold show as Rob just was really happy did your team get a goal there buddy? We did and it actually showed count now as well Sorry, do continue, so professional But no, you're good buddy, you're good It's the added, it's the art of wrestling No, so what Andy's going to do is for every big, whether it be Marigold Show, Stardom Show, or whatever, he is going to text in what his favorite gear and outfit is. Everybody keeps asking. Everybody keeps asking. He's the only one qualified, buddy. Absolutely. We've been there. Not you. Yeah, he's the deal. He was the real deal. But, brother, I'm really good. No sense of complaining. Everything is fantastic. Excited to talk about these new blood shows, which had some very young wrestlers. Very young wrestlers. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's in a really great Supreme Fight show with an absolute must-see match of the year candidate with Sai Kamatani and Starlight Kid that is getting all sorts of buzz, especially over my neck of the woods. I can't remember a time that a Joshi match got this much buzz over here in North America. So super excited about that, but enough with me, buddy. How's everything with you? Yes, not too bad, not too bad. Obviously, we were talking beforehand as the Newcastle commentary is coming up. And just before we recorded, I thought Newcastle had scored and got very, very excited. And then it got cancelled out and we've just scored again. So hopefully that one will stand. It looks like it has. So I'm very, very happy. Play football on Sunday, Matt. And for listeners of last week's podcast, you will know that I put in last week one of the worst performances you've ever seen. I was effectively Cain Velasquez at Crown Jewel. I was that bad. I was the great Carly in any great Carly match, to be perfectly honest. Immobile, full of food and completely incapable of movement. I'm not saying that I was a lot better, but I was certainly better on Sunday, even if the result didn't reflect it, Matt. Well, there you go, buddy. Now I need to know, what was the final? Did you get whipped like the New England Patriots got whooped? Well, it's hard to compare them simply because, obviously, we don't tend to go up to, like, 20. It felt like we would go up to 20 at one point because I think the final score was 7-1, which is pretty much the same as the drubbing the Seattle Seahawks levied upon the New England Patriots, yes. Well, there you go, there you go. I saw a decent amount of the game, went to a little bit after making well over 100 pizzas, which I normally tend to do. You did. I was thinking of you. Yes. And it's actually one of our slower Super Bowls. It's probably the slowest one in six or seven. Yeah, there's some times where it's just like yowsers. It gets in the high 100. Did the Eagles win last year? The Eagles won last year. And how many pizzas do you think you made last year? That was a buck 60, a buck 70 easy. But when the Eagles played the Chiefs, I think it was five or six years ago, that was well over 200. You were going to say five or 600 pizzas. I was like, Christ, a lie. no i think it was well over 200 i think the owner said that might have been the one day single record was uh well over yeah so yeah i mean it's just who it's it's the busiest sunday of the year but uh a really good buddy of mine who's actually in uh amber and i's wedding he lives like two miles or like five minutes down the road and he always has a super bowl party and he always invites me by the time i get done i'm so exhausted and and uh i was like i just want to go home but uh i was like yeah no i'll stop by so i mean lily stopped by had a drink that's you know it was nice catching up with them so i saw i think the first quarter and a half and then by the time i i dropped lily off and then got home it was the start of the fourth quarter where there was like 19 to nothing so um from what i understand from what i was told no marvel trailers rob and that was the thing i was looking forward to the most they'd announced that there was going to be one they did but then uh our buddy chad hi chad uh he did he did tell me a few days before the super bowl that marvel made an announcement that they're probably pulling the trailers from super bowl um they didn't say the reason why but my guess is uh those trailers cost anywhere between eight to ten million dollars to air when they can just air them on youtube not only for free but make a bunch of money so that's probably my line of thought like they really don't need the to put out the ten million dollars for the one minute trailer on the super bowl when it's just going get like 50 million views on youtube considering everybody can watch it on the phone and they can make ad money from it so that is my guess because disney needs more money these movies are yeah barely head above water disney uh barely head above water um did they i know that they were talking about potentially releasing the um the first full trailer for supergirl did that happen um i actually saw that a few days prior um i think i did i know they did a trailer for super mario galaxy which that was really good the first one was great and then um i believe there was a trailer for mandalorian and grogu so this year as you know rob i'm a big fan of going to the movies this is going to be a really good year with spider-man with super girl with super mario galaxy toy story 5 which don't know i think even lily said i think that it's ran its course but i I was like, I still might go just because it's an excuse to go to the movies. Yeah, Spider-Man, obviously Avengers, Doomsday, that's the big one at the end of the year. But a lot of really great stuff on the docket, my friend, in the movie theaters in 2026. And including the big screen debut of Lobo, which I am absolutely, I cannot begin to describe how excited I am for Jason Momoa as Lobo. That's like, I couldn't care less about the rest of the Supergirl film. Although, having read about what the film is about, it sounds really interesting. They've gone a proper dark way after the Superman film. But, yeah, I am well excited to see Loba. I just hope he's got a decent part and he's not just one of those where, yeah, he's going to be in the film, he's going to be in the film, he's going to be in the film, and then they've got him at, like, 30-second intro at the end. Yeah, that's it. You mean Back to the Beginning host, Jason Momoa? Absolutely. That's exactly what I mean. I went actually over the week and I actually went back and started watching, watching some of that. The Aussie stuff still, I was like still a little tricky to me to get to without it getting me getting all teary eyed. But I went back and watched. He was so great. Jason Momoa was so great as the host. And then it was great when he came out during Pantera, he slammed the Guinness and he's like, I'm going to announce this band and I'm going to get in the pit with you. And he was just in the mosh pit for the entire Pantera set. I was like, what a, he's a man of the people, Jason Momoa. He really is. I remember a couple years ago, he was signing autographs at Comic-Con, and he was walking by his booth, and people were going up to him, getting a picture taken with him. And then his media, he's like, yeah, sure you can take a picture with me. And his media's like, no, they have to pay for the photo with you. He's like, oh, okay, sorry. Like, just the coolest down-to-earth guy. Love that. What a dude. What a dude. Perfect casting as well. Absolutely perfect casting. But, yeah, it's a shame they pulled the Marvel film, because, again, the whole point of the Super Bowl, it feels like, aside from the actual game itself, obviously, is the trailers. That's the thing that everyone gets excited for, but congratulations to the Seattle Seahawks. I'd love to know what that feeling of winning lots of things is like, but I'm a Newcastle fan, so therefore we don't have that feeling. You're part of the Stardomcast on the World of Joshi podcasting network, buddy, so that's a big win. I am winning the line. Look at that, buddy. See, you've got to look for the positive. It's there. It is there. And you've written three books. Four books, excuse me. Four books. Four books, yes. And one coming in July, in fact. So that is just getting wrapped up at the moment. What was that? Let's get a quick plug. Quick plug. That is the first half of the Monday Night Wars 1996, which is from January all the way up to Bash at the Beach. Because I was going to do 1996 as one book. and up to July is 560 pages. I thought, you know what? We're going to cut that in two, I think. I think that's probably the best way. So, yes, that should, in theory, the tentative release date, July 7th, which, of course, will be 30 years to the day that Hulk Hogan turned heel and joined the NWO. So, yeah, a little bit of, hopefully, if all goes well, a little bit of good timing. Now, obviously, today, we are going to be talking about the most important show that has happened in stardom in what feels like a while, to be fair, and that is, of course, New Blood 28. No, we've also got New Blood 29 and then, obviously, the big main event, the Supreme Fight 2026 in Osaka show that happened on the 7th of February. We're going to be talking about all three of those shows. Just want to remind you, this is a review show, so if you haven't seen the pay-per-view yet, there will be spoilers so please don't go i can't believe you spoiled it all when it's a review in the title um so yeah we're going to talk about that got lots of news as well we have got sury appearing in the uk we have got the sariism card announced for the end of march as well for chapter 10 in yokohama buddhokan which looks exceptionally exciting we've got new challenges for the red belt, the wide belt, and the high-speed title, as well as a brand new pay-per-view in the Stardom canon as well. But Matt, before we talk about any of that good, sir, and before you go into what will be, I imagine, a recurring segment on the Stardom cast, and your apology to Sayaka Amitani and the heel turn itself. And love. And love, if you like. Absolutely. Let's talk about what is coming up on the world of Joshi Patreon this week. After searching for it for so many weeks, and then Rob's like, don't worry, I got you. Ultimate commentary. I watched it. I called it. It was great. It's a great match, isn't it? A great match. Meho Suzuki, also known. Halfway through the match, I'm like, I'm going to call her Meisara. It's just hard, to be fair. Meisara, Rin Katakori, and Takumi Aroha, they try to invade Stardom, but it's not the welcoming wagon welcome. It's Queen's Quest of Izumi, Momo, Antonabi, in Utami High. It's just a great six-person tag action. That is up on your Patreon feed for the World of Joshi. Now, I did make mention last week that myself and Andy Hedder were supposed to be doing a watch-along to the Tokyo Joshi Pro Bullet Train match. Unfortunately, Andy Hedder had to work late. Now, normally, I would just do it solo. It's fine. I would do it solo. I'm like, this is a match that I need to watch with my buddy, with Andy, because I think it would heighten the excitement. So I held off on it. We're supposed to record this week Again, car is subject to change, so hopefully that bullet train match will be on your feed sometime this weekend. But what will probably be up on your feed probably about the time this drops is my review of Sayaka Karora's win in the 2025 Cinderella Tournament. And then I added on the match that she cashes her wish in with one Sayaka Matani. A one-time in Nazis, by the way. Yeah, I recorded that, I think, on Friday. either Thursday or Friday, I recorded it, and then obviously we'll talk about it. And I was like, you know what, I'm going to add this one on as well. So I get the first round, the second round, the semifinals, the finals, and then I added on that fantastic match with Sai Kamantani for the World of Stardom Championship. That should be on your feed, Bobby, about the time this drops. And then obviously next week, more alternate commentary. I'll probably be going back watching maybe Grand Princess, maybe 2022, 2023, as we are a month away from that, over for Tokyo Joshi Pro. So there's going to be a lot of really great stuff over on the World of Joshi Patreon Extra. And as always, folks, if you have suggestions, just let me know. Drop me a line. I'm really easy to get a hold of. Just a reminder, patreon.com forward slash world of Joshi. Of course, if you want all of these episodes early and ad free, then, of course, as little as one solitary dollar a month. Now, Matt, obviously, before I delve straight into the news that we're actually going to talk about, You teased a little bit of news that apparently was huge. And obviously. I already said it. Andy Hedder. There you go. Yes. It was so huge we needed to announce it twice in 15 minutes. There you go. When we get to the end of Supreme Fight, a.k.a. the Sai Kamatani Starlight Kid, amazing, amazing must-see man. I thought we'd seen that conversation before. And then you said, right, no, makes sense now. It's been a long day, guys. It's been a really long day. But I'm back. It's fine. We're good. But again, folks, so for listener retention at the end of this show, Andy Hedder did send in his best hair and best gear for Supreme Court. He actually gave an honorable mention as well, which might have been the first time he's ever done that. So stay tuned. There must have been someone that really pushed him then in that case, if he felt he had to mention. I will just point out now, it doesn't matter because I'm not qualified, but Amisori's new gear, very, very good. Big fan of Amisori's new gear. Let's delve straight into some news then. And we are going to start by talking about the latest in the Sariism chronology. And that is, of course, Chapter 10, the 15th anniversary show of Sari that will air the Yokohama Budokan on March 22nd. In typical Sari style, she is put together an absolutely barn burner of a card. The main event being Spark Rush, Sari and Takumi Aroua against Jihiro Hashimoto and Sari. so we get to revisit that wonderful feud from last year, Suri and Suri once more. Kioruito versus Natsupoy has also been announced. We have got Senka Akatsuki and two mystery partners against Fuwa-chan and two mystery partners. Gee, I wonder who Fuwa-chan's mystery partner is going to be. We've then got Chichi and Miku Kanai versus Amu Fujiwara and Rina. Now, that is Team LLPWX. Rina is the former Nori, and Amu Fujiwara is a very, very impressive rookie that Seri went to go and see in the LLPWX dojo, and apparently was so impressed with what she saw that she invited her to be a part of this show. So very excited to see what she is going to be doing, and then Kikyo Furusawa from Stardom will also be on this card as well. She'll be taking on Seedlings, Celine Misora. Matt, a typically stellar Sariism card, which we've almost come to expect nowadays. I imagine that this is going to do a great number. Yokohama, Budokan, obviously all of the other Sariism shows have been at Shinjuku Face and have, I think, sold out Shinjuku Face. The last couple have sold out in record time. I expect this to do great numbers. there was someone on Twitter and I apologize I cannot remember who put it up there but they said I would love it to be Senkrokatski and Magenta versus Fuwa Chan and FWC there was a lot of people there was a lot of people that said that just stop the presses, do you know what, no more wrestling in 2026, if that's the bar we're setting in March no way we're topping that I mean then we got a couple big shows in April and then something big coming in May a couple days after my birthday, which I know we're going to get into, buddy. But, boy, what a loaded main event. I'm looking, if you're watching this on YouTube, I mean, look, Takumi Roja, Suri, Shuri, Chirah Shimoto, Rob, rank them from one to four, the hardest hitter. No, you can't. No way. They're all tied out one. They're all tied out one. I mean, I would say that Shuri is the best striker. Yeah, yeah. Just. But, yeah, it's literally 1A and then three 1Bs. In terms of power, Jihiro Hashimoto, hands down. Like, I have never seen a woman like her. Yeah, this is going to be great. The one little thing I'm worried about is, again, as you mentioned before, partner, this is not in Shinjuku face, the Yokohama Budokan. What is Shari going to jump off to give somebody double time? Because they should just set up like four random tables to make it look like a little bit like Shinjuku face, maybe after the fourth row. Like, why are those four random tables there? They're never there before. Just do it off the balcony. Yeah, absolutely. It is absolutely gorgeous. Something special. Super excited. The whole card looks really good. But, yeah, I didn't even get out of bed. I was looking at my phone this morning, and I saw this, and then I was tagged in a decent amount of tweets that people were saying Magenta teaming with Sink has to take on FWC and FWC. I'm like, all right, way to go. So this is great. You knew, because I think she announced that she, for her 15th anniversary show, I think she announced like seven, eight months in advance that she was running the Yokohama Budokan. We knew we were going to be getting a big blockbuster main event. I mean, this is one of the biggest ones she's ever announced, really. Like maybe the only other thing that I can think that would be bigger would be Seri versus Sai Kamatani for the World of Stardom Championship, which I kind of wasn't ruling out. But we're getting that about three weeks later, not for the World of Stardom Championship, but that three-way, because Kenta Kabashi and Sari are trying to outdo each other for Booker of the Year. Of course. But, I mean, it's exciting. It's just another great thing to look forward to. You know, legendary Notre Dame, Lou Holtz always said, to keep a positive mind, you always have to have something to look forward to. Ta-da! Ta-da! Yeah, this is going to be great. Super excited for it. And it's going to be interesting to see how a Sari's self-produce show does sell in the Yokohama Budokan, because I think that building seats somewhere close to 3,000, depending on how they scale it. So, yeah, I mean, really interesting. Obviously, every matchup's really good. Super excited for it. Yeah, just looking at the stardom attendances in terms of Yokohama Budokan, there's quite a vast spread, as obviously they started running Yokohama Budokan just after COVID hit. So their lowest in the venue is 707. Their highest is 2,507, which gives them an average of the 19 shows they've run there, about 1,200. or just over 1,250 to be precise. In terms of their average there, I think Sari, I mean, as you mentioned, it depends how they sort of, how they work, how they scale it. I would be surprised if Sari gets under 1,200 people. I think she'll get 1,200 people there. That's me personally, but again, we'll see. I'm going to say 1,500, 1,600. on it but uh obviously we will talk about that uh here on the stardom cast once that match does happen that's going to be right around the middle of the cinderella tournament as well wow we are going to be busy busy folks in the month of month of march good sir absolutely feels like we always are though stardom are constantly dropping new stuff um that being said um they weren't the only ones pro wrestling eve have decided that they are going to try and bankrupt me in uh the month of March because their show on Friday the 6th of February, they dropped more announcements for WrestleQueendom 8. As a reminder, you have got the former Dakota Kai making her first wrestling appearance. She'll be challenging Chris Statlander. You've got Willow Nightingale, Harley Cameron of AEW fame also on this show, Dash Chisako, Mia Yamashita, Jamie Hayter, all on this show. And then as though that wasn't enough, Suri. Suri got announced as well. Now this will be just after her IWGP Women's Championship defense against Athena, which we talked about last week. Now there is every possibility that we may see another IWGP Women's Championship defense. Now again, we know that Stardom are not opposed to her defending the belt in Pro Wrestling League. We saw a fantastic match with Alex Windsor, for example. But the idea of the likes of Amiyu Yamashita or the Miyu-Yumashita being on that card and not yet being announced at a match, it's not going to be Miyu-Yumashita. I'm just going to put that out there. It's not going to be Miyu-Yumashita, but we can dream. While it hasn't been announced, we can dream. But yes, again, if you aren't already coming down to watch WrestleQueendom 8, which is going down March 8th at the Indigo at the O2 in London, definitely, definitely come down and watch the show. And do you know what? If you're there, you might as well come down on the Friday. and watch the show on the Friday, because on that show, you've got Jamie Hayter versus Miriam Ashtar. So you might as well. You might as well, Matt. Yeah, I mean, a lot of just, again, so much great wrestling. You mentioned Sherry versus Athena. Again, that's coming up at the end of this month. I'm 90-some-odd percent sure that I am going to be there for that show. And then Rob will be at these two shows, the one on Friday and the one on Sunday. So what are you going to do on that Saturday, buddy? Just drink, I think. Just drink. I know there's a couple of friends coming down. I know that Kevin Mullen, who obviously we spent a lot of time with in Japan, he's talking about coming down as well. And I can't believe I didn't mention this. Azumi versus Sapphire Reed is also on this card. You know, again, Will Ospreay trying to bankrupt me with all the mean greets I'm going to try and get. But, yes, very, very, very exciting. That Saturday is going to be primarily, I imagine, just me drinking, trying to recover from the show on Friday. There you go. Yeah, I mean, again, Sherry and Miyu Yamash, it's, it's, it's, uh, myself and Andy Hedder, we did it for Patreon, which we just released on the main Joshi, the new talk Joshi feed, just as a thank you. We did a, a, a fantasy booking thing and like we, Sherry versus Miyu Yamash, it was a match that we definitely, definitely would like to see. And that's like one, probably my ultimate Joshi dream, like sort of dream match that can happen. I mean, cause we've been seeing these forbidden doors basically blown off the hinges. So Rob said it's not going to happen. I'm going to say there's maybe a 50% shot at it. I mean, who knows? I think if that match was to happen, they would probably do it in Japan for a big draw. But, I mean, you can kind of set the seeds here. But regardless, the show on Friday, the show on Sunday, absolutely loaded. I know there's like a pay-per-view stream or I think you subscribe to the YouTube channel or something like that. You'll be able to watch it. So, yes, these two shows will definitely be getting not only Rob's money. Rob will be spending a lot more money than me. I'll be in the comfort of my own home, but I'll definitely be shelling out the money for this one. Absolutely. A hundred percent. Why wouldn't you? Um, but yeah, I mean, Sherry, Izumi, Mimi Masha, Jamie Hader, uh, Willow Nightingale, Izumi. I mean, just it's a, it's a who's who's Joshi list. I mean, we'll off for, I guess, throwing his hat in the ring as well as trying to become the best booker. And we'll off face very big on women's wrestling. I mean, he's, he's very complimentary towards the, especially the Joshi's. I know he was on Jericho's podcast about a year or so, ago and i think he said something whoever your favorite wrestler is on wwe tv 90 of the joshis can probably work circles around them and that's will osprey maybe the best wrestler uh you know him and say kamatani right now going but um he's doing a great job booking these shows i think he seems he's doing like once a quarter or so rob it really seems like that we get these really great um like almost like bonus joshi shows once a quarter from will osprey so will osprey can be doing some joshi booking on the side and it's in your neck of the woods rob goodwin uh all for that you know the more the merry the more great wrestling who's going to say no to it my friend well absolutely um absolutely and again you know we'll we'll hopefully be wrestling at all in i imagine there will be a pro wrestling eve show on the friday of that weekend as well and lord knows who is going to be bringing over for that show he has said there's more announcements in the clip so I don't know who else he's going to be announcing for this show but if Izuki comes on I'm afraid I might lose my damn mind what I will say is again I'd love for it to be Siori vs Miyu Yamashita I would be incredibly surprised because the idea of them having a stardom wrestler work with a TJPW wrestler just doesn't happen so again it would be great tempering expectations probably not going to be that positive spin rob i'm going to i'm going to put my month my money and agreeing with you positive spin on it if it was to happen what a great first match to have with tokyo joshi pro versus started oh absolutely yeah that's the way to go that and then hyper missal versus maybe fukin death oh imagine imagine um moving on then and we haven't really heard a lot, aside from Olympia doing her tour of Stardom, much of the CMLL and Stardom partnership that was announced last year. However, it has been announced that the new challenges for the CMLL World Women's Tag Team Championships have been announced. Who, you may ask? Why? It's Neo Genesis' Mace Era and Starlight Kid, who will be challenging the team who are currently champions, which is Juvia and La Jaro Chita, obviously Juvia we know from a handful of dates in stardom, and that will be on March 6th in Arena Mexico. Now, I know criminally little of Lucha Libre or CMLL in general. Again, the stuff that I know of Juvia is her stuff in stardom and the CML versus the world match that they did and I know nothing of La Jaro Chita. but I am looking forward to this match, Matt. Yeah, more than likely we'll be able to see this because I think I know CMLL puts a lot of their stuff either on YouTube or on Triller Plus, which I do have. Obviously, everybody has YouTube, and I do have Triller Plus because they have a lot of great content. And of course, and it's Mace era and Starlight Kid. Not a pairing we don't see that much as part of Neo Genesis. We usually see Azumi with Starlight Kid or Azumi with Miyu Amazaki. Too many Miyus. yeah there's a lot of yukis too uh but uh but this is a really cool pairing may and starly kid going over to mexico in arena mexico to have a really big tag match so i'm super excited for this one again mike and i believe this is on the start of the cinderella tournament so more than likely these two wrestlers probably won't be in the cinderella tournament i think the cindy starts on 3-6. I think you're absolutely right and to be fair I don't think especially the way they structured the tournament last year obviously we don't know any announcements in terms of entrance or in terms of tournament structure but I would have been incredibly surprised if these two had been in it with the focus on sort of rookies and lower midcard wrestlers that they had last year which I think worked to be perfectly honest and again the announcement that we had with the white belt that's coming up has sort of stymied my thinking of who the potential winner might be but we'll talk about that a little bit later on Mr. Turner. Moving on then let's start talking about some fallout from Supreme Fight so obviously the pay-per-view aired on the 7th of February and there's quite a lot of things that came out of this show again if you haven't already seen the show, this is your time to pause it, go and watch the show and come back. But we're going to talk some of the fallout here in the news, and then we'll talk about the matches themselves in the actual show review. But the big thing to come out of the EXV versus Mavida Loka match was that EXV have officially disbanded. So it was alluded to heavily, Matt, in the build-up that one of the units would dissolve. if they lost. Now, that was then sort of quietened down, and there wasn't a lot of a mention of that. And then after the match, which Mavidoloka won, and we're going to be talking about that in a standout performance from Akira Kuregani, Micah basically said, it's time to let you guys go. It's time to let you guys, Hanako, Zina, Waka, Rian, do your own thing. Now, I would be amazed if we don't see at least one of these women join Mavida Loca, especially with Bozilla being out for the long time that she is. My betting is on Hanako. But especially with them referencing the fact that the name is Empress Nexus Venus and the Venus is in reference to Mina Shirakawa, who doesn't even wrestle anymore for the company. I think it made sense for at least the faction under that name to be gone. Micah did actually put out a piece, which I thought was quite nice, that she did actually ask permission from Mina Shirakawa to dissolve the faction before she actually did, before the pay-per-view. Before I throw to you, Matt, in regards to that, if you thought the right faction ended all of those things, what's next for the people in this faction? Another big thing to come out of this match, and those people that are watching on YouTube will see that the image is Micah in a neck brace. There was a lot of concern for Micah following this match that she'd sustained quite serious neck injury, especially with her having the neck brace on. She has released or Stardom have released today on their official Twitter page that Micah will still be wrestling on the 13th of February Corrigan Hall show. So great news there. Again, we don't quite know the extent of the damage done to the neck. necks are horrible things that can play tricks on you you know i'm sure any wrestler's neck is full of gremlins um but it does sound like she is fit enough to wrestle at um at corrigan hall which is obviously fantastic matt yeah the one thing with this picture is obviously mike is in a neck brace again for our fantastic youtube watchers where she's got a big smile on her face so that was like the one thing i was like well you know she's smiling she's able to lift her arm up so at least this way she definitely has some mobility because they had to pretty much carry her out of the of the ring and i don't know where it happened i think it might have been the superplex i mean that's and it could just be accumulation of a whole bunch of the injuries or like little bumps and just one bump she landed the wrong way and it was a precaution i mean this and we're gonna get into the show as great as the show was the show was almost cursed um because i was you know saeed is going to be out for a little bit i'm sure we'll talk about that but um i think me and you've been make mention for the past four or five weeks that EXV with no Mina, it's, it's ran its course. I think it's ran its cool name. And it was great when Mina was there, Mina, Mina teaming with Xena and Mina and Micah were a great team. And they were, you know, form art in trio, doing the trio stuff and Mina and Walker, cause they had that cosmic angels connection. So it was all great. And then once Mina left, they still kind of had it once soon, Mina left and then Micah got injured. So like, Oh geez. So it was either of them at that point. No. Oh, and then Zena was injured right after that as well. Or no, Zena was still out. She got injured at last year's five-star Grand Prix. That's right. So Zena was still out. She got injured afterwards. I think she – I think it was October 24 Zena was out. Oh, so it was after. So I understand why they didn't dissolve the faction just yet because they were waiting for Micah to come back. This way she has a place to come back to. So it's like that I understand because if they would dissolve EXV, then Micah comes back and she's kind of like – it's like that John Travolta meme where she's like, you know, where am I going? where am I going so I understood why they kept him there Mike had that great pep talk remember right before uh Hanako uh Rian and Waka's uh challenge for the artists to start him championship but um yeah I just think it was time it's I think it's time for them to kind of move on do something else as far as where these wrestlers go I agree I think Hanako goes to uh me believe uh me be the loca I'd like to see Xena and stars especially now with Saeeda going to be on the shelf for a little bit i think xena would work really well teaming with b team with momo kogo teaming with hanan uh uriah himi i think xena and stars would be really good waka i i i don't i know you're gonna laugh i would like to see her back in cosmic angels and give that dance one more try rob cosmic angels don't dance anymore just walk her on her own and then we know we know what rian's doing she's going to start her own faction the reunators it's already in play we'll go with it the one thing I def absolutely the Reunators Micah is she's not going to be joining a faction she's going to start her own not unless they make her the leader of stars because she is for lack of a better term a big enough star I just don't see her like falling in line with Kate or falling in line with Complications she's certainly not joining a pre unless they do like they did with Mina Shirakawa and her and Suzu split leadership of Mavida Loka potentially but again, I love them as rivals. I don't want to see them in the same faction. Not only that, but again, I love Micah, one of my favorite wrestlers, one of my favorite star to meet and greets, the two times we got to talk to her. But I think if you put Micah in Mila Vida Loca, it takes away some shine from Suzu, and I want all the shine to be on Suzu. I want to see Suzu get championship matches this year, red belt, white belt, so on and so forth. I would love, Suzu's never challenged for that wonder belt, I would love to see Suzu challenge whether it's Konami or Han or Heenan or Hazuki never letting that one go I think Suzu in a big Wonder of Star in Championship match I think would be great and I think again if you put Mike in that faction kind of it takes away some of the spotlight from Suzu so I think Suzu needs to be the lone leader so um you know it's gonna be interesting to see where Mike goes again obviously the main thing coming off this match is we're all really scared when the when Mike we saw this picture here Mike in the neck brace like that could be six months it could be a year but i didn't know until literally 10 minutes before we hit the record button and rob told me like no they put something out today that she's fine it was just for precaution she's going to be on this cork and show i believe it is this friday yeah because valentine's day is the 14th this friday so uh you know that's obviously the most important thing so again it's gonna be interesting where see where things go things shake up maybe micah brings back the old ddm rob i mean you can't rule anything out i mean who knows what we'll see but it's something that we'll all be waiting for and it's going to be interesting to see where all the other members of these factions all the other members of these wrestlers to see what factions they go to it i'm glad you've brought stars up because i feel like this let's talk about this here as we're talking about faction movements i feel like stars has run its course and with syreida now out be priestly on a part-time schedule between here and america there's only three people in stars in Hannon in Momokago and in Uriah Hemi I would be incredibly surprised, and this is something that Scotty Wrestling has brought up on Twitter before that since Mayu left Stars isn't Stars, as good as Hannon is Stars is not Stars so, and it's worth pointing out as well that Stars is the only pre-Bushi Road faction left is the only pre-Rossi Ogawa faction left as well so do you want to phase that out to bring in something else for your main unit. Because Stiles has always been that main unit, that sort of babyface unit, the YME babyface unit. I like the idea of Micah being the leader of that. Sort of in, again, not drawing these parallels at all, but in the way that Tanahashi wasn't necessarily aligned to a faction, it was sort of Hontai. You could have Micah play that role. Obviously, you've got a bunch of unaffiliated wrestlers as well. you've got Hazuki, you've got Kogama, you've got, oh, for God's sake. Who else do you have, for God's sake, who else do you have? I'm not watching. Kikyo for a sour, right? You've got Kikyo for a sour, you've got Emma Mishima, Matoi, you've got Ankenai. Stupid damn thing. So, yeah, obviously, with Sairita out with a hand injury, we don't know how long that's going to be for. So annoyed. You folks, you should have seen him before we hit the record button, he was swearing up the storm. I'm like, you want to swear, just make sure you put a disclaimer. I hate this stupid goddamn team. Stop watching! I have done. I don't understand why people get so upset over, that's like, I can't stand country music, so I'm going to shut up Ozzy and Megadeth to listen to Kenny Chesney. No, I'm going to listen to metal. I'm a metal guy. Big old Kenny Chesney. Continue, get set. stars have been so short short staffed if you want so short of firepower for a long time with Hanan out injured with Momokogo out injured with Uriah Hemi then out for a month or so with injury and now Sayerida out with a hand injury or getting a plate sorted into a hand I don't know whether it's a plate that's already in her hand that she's having removed or if she's having a plate put into a hand because again what you need is to give Sayerida more weight in her hands to hit chops with. So good luck with that, guys. But I feel like a lot of movement is coming. A lot of movement. Because you've got a lot of unaffiliated wrestlers. I feel like Anka Nye is a shoo-in for Cosmic Angels. I feel like Izuki and Koguma will join forces with Micah because of the Fukuoka connection. I know Maki Ito is also from Fukuoka as well so whether they put Maki Ito in there as well I don't know Maki Ito and Maika In my opinion Maki Ito does not need a faction just leave her on her own she doesn't need that, she's entertaining she bounces off other factions and I think part of her charm is the fact that she has different chemistry with each of the different wrestlers so just don't stick her with a faction I think Hanako goes to Mi Vida Loca like I say I think they dissolve stars or rebrand stars or whatever and i think they start up so i think matoya mabe will probably be part of that main faction as well whatever that main faction might be um but i would be surprised if we reach the five star this year and stars is still stars yeah we'll find out it's definitely really interesting to see where it shakes up a neogenesis is a little you know i think someone maybe emma might go to neogenesis i know matoya was supposed to be targeted but like she was going to go to neogenesis then she came down knee injury so there's there's a couple things to throw in there as well it's gonna be really interesting to see you know the really big shake-ups that's happening uh the only thing i ask is no random members going to hate and uh i do not need any more members and god's eye as well i think they're good i think they're good yeah god's eye are ridiculously opiate especially when you remember that nanami hatano is technically a satellite member of god's eye as well right so We'll be talking about her. Yeah, we're going to talk about her in the New Blood shows. Moving on then from Faction Upheaval to the Red Belt picture, obviously those of you who are still watching us will know that Sayaka Amitani did retain against Starlight Kid despite her fingers giving out on her. And we'll talk about that later. But the next challenger that came out was Sayaka Karora. Now, this was interesting for a number of reasons. obviously this will be the first person that well yeah the first person that has wrestled twice for the red belt because the Tam the first Tam match wasn't for the red belt was it was that just the lose or leave stardom match that wasn't for the title which I wish it was because if you were to add that match to her title reign I mean just think how just insane the red belt reign is now and then if you add that to it but yeah it was just for the lose or leave stardom while she writes. So Sayaka Karura is the first two-time challenger of Sayaka Amitani. Obviously, she comes out of that sixth woman at the start of the show, having not only lost, but having eaten the pin. They are clearly building something here with Sayaka Karura, especially as Sayaka Amitani basically went, Are you joking? No, absolutely not. Look at what Starlight Kid's just done. Her I'll have another match with. You? Are you joking? No, get to the back of the line. So they are clearly building something there. It wouldn't surprise me if they run Sayaka Karora versus Sayaka Amitani at the Cinderella final because, obviously, you know, there's history there with Sayaka Karora winning the tournament, cashing in that wish last year for a match with Sayaka Amitani. There's been a lot of rumblings of Tam. I swear this Tam thing just won't go away. It's not going to happen. I know it's not going to happen, but it also won't go away. do you feel like it was a little bit anticlimactic that Sayaka Karora was the next one to challenge when you look at who hasn't challenged or you look at people that could potentially challenge again before Sayaka Karora, especially as we've talked about this. Since that challenge, she's done good bits. She had a good five-star Grand Prix, obviously won the Tag League. In terms of singles, there's not been a lot for Sayaka Karora. It's all been tag stuff. So for her to sort of interject herself into the title picture, a title picture that she doesn't belong in, I think both of us can agree on that, certainly on current form, it feels like there's something wider going on here. It would be very strange if they just have Sayaka Karora challenged here. Sayaka Amitani say no. We'll see Sayaka Amitani say yes at some point. There will be some stipulation put in. I saw someone say maybe they'll get her to join hate. No. Stop it with random defections to hate. There will be some sort of stipulation involved, I imagine. I just don't know if I'm ready for another Sayaka Karora and Sayaka Amitani match. A lot of things to unpack. Maybe a great idea, them wrestling in the Cinderella Finals, considering both these wrestlers have won the Cinderella tournament before. Obviously, Sayaka Koror won 2025, Kama Tani in 2021. It's a possibility there. Maybe Sayaka Koror wins the Cinderella tournament again, builds herself up even more momentum, and then challenges Sayaka Kama Tani again. That's the route that they can go, Rob, considering both our pre-tournament favorite may not be in the tournament now, and we'll get into that. Another thing they can do is, again, And Taro Kata is dead set on trying to get 10,000 people in Yokohama. Considering the fact of how massive and how great last year's All-Star Grand Queendom is or was, you don't have Mayu. You don't have Tam either. So what is one thing you might be able to do? And I was kind of thinking of this is maybe they're going to give Kamatani a few more wins. This way she's tied with Io going into Yokohama. So then it's like that's a reason to buy a ticket or buy a pay-per-view. is, and they can keep bringing up Io's name. Hey, Io, 14 defenses with his foul, Kamatani's tied. You know, obviously Io's a massive star for WWE. WrestleMania is going to be the week before, which I'm assuming Io's probably going to have a match in. That was one thing that I was thinking, and then Saka Koro comes out, so maybe it's just like Saka Koro will have a couple quick kind of, you know, lack of a better term, filler defenses. They'll be great matches, but it basically kind of almost stacker to get to the V13 or the V14 going into Yokohama. are going into Yokohama for All-Star Grand Queen. Yeah, I don't know. They obviously did this at the end of the show for a reason. Is she going to challenge? Is she going to build herself up the challenge? Is she going to win the Cinderella tournament again? You know, definitely more on that because you're absolutely right. Zach Kaur, a great tag wrestler. She's a great singles wrestler but not having a lot of wins. She's somebody that is massively over. If they run this back in one of those many Cork and Hall shows they have between now and the end of April, I wouldn't be shocked if there's another 14, 1500. But this is one that we were kind of scratching our heads and been like, all right, let's see how this goes. Let's wait to see how the journey plays out before we kind of jump down Tarokata's throat here. So interested to see what happens. They have great chemistry. There's something there between the two of them. Again, I just happened to review their match just a few days prior to the pay-per-view back from Cork and Hall. Absolutely loved it. still to this day I think Fyacupor is best performing so why not give it a shot and run it back again at a cork and all so yeah we'll definitely see how it plays out yeah again whereas you know you see the Starlight Kid match and you feel like oh that's a dream match you know that's you know we've seen there's excitement there because you know what the two are capable of yes there's history there absolutely like Starlight Kid being the first person to be hit with the star crusher and you know subtle things like that um the sayaka karora thing i think is purely storyline of course they'll have a good match everyone in stardom is a good wrestler i feel like that's a baseline at the moment even the rookies that are coming in at the moment are good wrestlers um the threshold for rookies are just it's just absolutely insane when you look Yeah, across the board. But this, I feel like this is a storyline reason, especially as we are getting towards All-Star Grand Queendom. I feel like there's something there. Again, thank God Mike is fine, because I still think that will ultimately be the direction they go for All-Star Grand Queendom. But this is an interesting one. This is an interesting one. Again, I don't think they've thrown Sayaka Karora into the mix here having just lost earlier in the pay-per-view, that same pay-per-view ironically to the person that challenged for the white belt I don't think they've just thrown her into a match here because they've just gone, right she's done everyone, let's go round again okay, because there's loads of different people you could have gone for instead I mean, Hannon, for a start you know, so I, it's the core if you want to see Sayaka Amitani run through Cosmic Angels. Aya Sikora is obviously the next logistical one. Obviously you've got the history with Hanan, which makes sense. So yeah, I think there's a reason they've chosen Sayaka Karora here. But we'll see. Speaking of the White Belt, now this I am very excited about. This I am very excited about. Konami did retain the Wonder of Stardom Championship against Amis Sori in the semi-main event, and that brought out her God's Eye compatriot in Hina, who will be the next challenger for the Wonder of Stardom Championship. I saw her come out, Matt. I've never been happier. I genuinely think, even though I do think it'll be Konami and Hanon at All-Star Grand Queen, especially as by that point Konami will have run through the sisters. It just makes sense now. I must admit, I was even happier when Hina came out because we've done nothing but praise Hina, the work she's done, how fast she's developing, the confidence, the clear confidence that she had from that Future of Stardom run. Hell yeah, give her a chance. We've seen what sort of throwing people into the deep end and saying, right, go on, there's your opportunity, see what you can do. We've just spoken about Sayaka Karora in the main event of Corrigan Hall for the World of Stardom Championship, and she did a great job. Hina will do a tremendous job against Konami. Don't think she wins it, don't think she should win it. but a great opportunity for someone who has been very very very impressive over the last probably six to seven months yeah i've really been enjoying uh the starting booking tarot kata's booking this is one of the main things we've made mention the last few months that like he is doing great like the aura the promos in the ring the backstage promos your in-ring work is really really leveled up over these last few months and then she we mentioned last week she had a clean pin over Soriano on the last Corican show. Clearly they're setting something up. She gets the win to start off the pay-per-view. We'll get into it a little bit, partner. And then she challenges Konami. I think this is going to be a great, great challenge for Hina. Again, my guess is it's going to be on maybe one of those Cinderella nights or maybe one of the Corican Hall shows leading up to it. Either one will be good. This is going to be great because this will be Hina's biggest match of her career. And Konami's putting on the best performances in her career, which is saying something because Konami's been a really, really next-level competitor. the last seven or eight years, and I know she took about a year or so off at the end of 2021, but she's doing the best work of her career. And this is a simple story to tell. You have the pure white meat baby face and the heel that has no problem bending and breaking the rules in order to get a win. It's an easy person to cheer, an easy person to boo. People will pay money to see Konami lose and to see Hina win. I agree. I don't think that they switched the belt here, but it would be something. It would be something to do something shocking. You know, like it looks like that Konami is going to put Hina away, and then all of a sudden Hina gets the ghetto clutch. Like that's something that, you know, you can do something like that and really kind of do some shock value in. But this one I'm really, really excited for. Again, this pay-per-view really set up the direction that they're going towards the Cinderella tournament, and then the Cinderella tournament leads into All-Star Grand Queendom. So all systems go for stardom, especially when it comes to the championships, because now we're really starting to load up the deck for all of the champions. we also and this i know makes you happy my makes me happy too we have a brand new challenge for the high speed championship as well the opening match saw momokogo get the pin over yuna misamori and seemingly though it hasn't been made official yet none of these challenges by the way are official yet because no match graphics therefore not official however it became very obvious when Yuna Mizumori held the belt up in the face of Momokogo and Momokogo held the belt, that that was the direction we are going. Again, since the graduation of Maceera from the high-speed division, I don't think Maceera needs to challenge again ever. You need to blood a new crop of high-speed wrestlers. And I think Momokogo, she's done it before. She's wrestled that style before. She's got great chemistry with Yuna Mizumori. and hell, you know, she deserved it. She's earned that opportunity again and to see them wrestle again, that's going to be really, really good. And again, this could quite easily be a Corican Hall main event and people will be happy with that. Yuna's massively over in Corican Hall. Momokogo's over with everyone. Metal Momokogo. Metal Momokogo. I think they teased something on social media today that this is going to be on this weekend's Corican show. I know they were kind of going back and forth. I don't think they made the card official. which they probably will probably tonight or tomorrow because, I mean, that Corkin show is on Friday, and as we're recording, it's Tuesday. So I wouldn't be shocked if this is on this weekend's Corkin show because you're going to need some firepower on that show, like a championship match. But, yeah, this would be great. And this would be one that, again, I don't think Sakurora's beating Sayaka Matani. Could be wrong. I don't think Hina's beating Konami. Could be wrong. I wouldn't be shocked if Momoko gets the win here. They did a great job after Yuna won the high-speed championship from Acero back at the end of December, setting up like seven or eight challengers for the high-speed division. I'm like, you can flip this belt a few times. Again, this isn't the red belt or this isn't the white belt. Like, this is a belt that you can kind of flip back and forth over the next few months. Like, maybe Momokogo wins it, and then maybe Yuna wins it back in the summer, and then maybe it goes to an Emma. Like, this is something that you really can have six or seven wrestlers chasing for over the next year, year and a half, and it gives that mid card something to do and make it exciting. excited for this challenge excited for momokogo to get another shot at the high speed championship but i like her odds here i think she's got better odds at beating unamizamori here in 2026 than she did with one azumi back in 2022 but uh yeah super excited look for this one uh watch this one again maybe this one does take place this friday the day before valentine's day rob goodwin the most romantic day of the year absolutely um we also have a brand new pay-per-view as i mentioned to the Stardom canon. The 23rd of May, which will be a Saturday, we'll see Stardom run Queen's Destiny in the Toyota Gossai Memorial Gymnasium in Aichi. So again, that seems to have replaced Flashing Champions, which has been sort of the May pay-per-view for the last couple of years. It looks like Queen's Dynasty or Queen's Dynasty or whatever it is, however it is you pronounce it, that will be taking up the calendar, at least for this year anyway. So that was announced during the pay-per-view as well, Matt. Not a great deal to say with that, just a little bit of a cheeky announcement. No, really cool. Again, obviously we have OzFest coming back next year and Queen's Quest coming back just four days after my birthday. I mean, clearly it's right here. Must be. My birthday's on the 19th. This is just a few days after. obviously this is the return of queen's quest it's probably going to be mama wampanabe micah and former queen of the ring naya jacks that is probably going to be my thanks yes thank you good night i'll see you guys later the amount of people who just turned off this podcast because of you saying that by turned off you mean and did a dance and they're going to turn it back on no this is really interesting uh obviously i'm going to toot this horn that this is the return of Queen's Quest. They're coming back up until the day of and during the pay-per-view. So that's what I'm throwing out there. They put it in May. Return of Queen's Quest. Let's go, buddy. Let's go. Bow down to the Queens. Let's start talking then about our pay-per-views or our show reviews, should I say. We're going to start with New Blood 28, which aired live and free on YouTube back on the 3rd of February. It was main evented by the 6th New Blood Tag Team Champion, Sayaka Rora, defending their belt for the first time, having held it for 96 days. The show itself was from Tokyo Square in Itabashi in Tokyo, with a sellout attendance, apparently, of 153 people. Now, though this is a 39.76% decrease from the previous New Blood event, which was New Blood 27 on Christmas Eve in Belsal Shibuya 1st, it is the same attendance as the previous event at the venue, which was back at New Blood 23, with this making it three consecutive sellouts of 153 people at Tokyo Square in Itabashi. Just a couple more interesting tidbits before we get into the results. This challenge will mark Ankanai's first challenge for a title since her debut, which was back in March of 2025. Whilst this will be high-speed champion Yunemiz Amori's second challenge for the new Blood Tag titles, having previously failed against Rice or Bread in March of 2025, alongside Aya Sikora, who is now champion. It will also mark the stardom debuts of the Hot Shushu sisters, Moe and Mase Hiro, who we'll be talking about in a moment. Let's run through these results then. So Hina defeated Kikyo Forosawa with an STF in 10 minutes and 59 seconds. In a three-way match, Azusa Inaba defeated Kiyoko Kitatsu and Uriah Himi with a bubble killer number two in 5 minutes and 50 seconds. In a tag team match, the God's Eye team of Rani Agami and Tomoka Inaba defeated those hot Shushu sisters, Moe Hiro and Masahiro, with Rani Agami submitting Masahiro with the inverted cross arm breaker in 14 minutes and 28 seconds. Tag team match, the EXV team of Hanako and Rian went to a 15 minute time limit draw against the Diana duo of Nanami Hatano and Miran. In your semi-main event, Xena defeated Akira Kuragani with Thunderstruck in 8 minutes and 1 seconds. Great move. And finally, the New Blood Tag Team Championship match main event. Sayaka Rora, Aisokura and Sayaka Rora, the champions, did defeat Yuna Mizumori and Ankanai with Aisokura hitting the Blooming Dream on Ankanai in 15 minutes and 28 seconds. So Matt, obviously we've got a lot to talk about with the pay-per-view. The New Blood events will probably whip through relatively sharpish. But let's go through them match by match nevertheless. Hina and Kikyo Furusawa. Really good way to start the show. Again, obviously we know big things are in line for Hina, so it's nice having her in the first match. Kikyo Furusawa is another one ever improving. She is going to be probably along with FWC, the hottest free agent as far as who's going to get this person to get their factions. Again, we mentioned a little bit ago there's going to be a lot of faction shakeup coming on soon. I think Kiki Oferasawa is somebody that every faction would want. Great stuff. Hina leading this match. Kiki Oferasawa by no means needs to be carried. She kept up with the young sister that is Hina. Really terrific way to start off the show with Hina getting the win with the STF, which I did make mention during the five-star Grand Prix. She needs to win more matches with this, and she almost got into like a different version. Almost like she started with an Indian death lock and then rolled Kikio over into the step over and the cross face. Thoroughly enjoyed that. Let her do that version more often. Let her get more wins like that. All for it. Three and a half stars. Again, you always want to start your matches off with a hot opener. And this was a really hot opener. This was great. for you imagine azusa inubar picking up the victory over yuri ahimi who had a fairly torrid time of eating pinfalls over the course of these three shows but again a really good introduction again to kyoko katatsu who i do really enjoy watching and wish was actually on more stardom shows to be fair i'm a massive fan of her even though whoever uh did these graphics they make her look like she's as tall as that eight-year-old we're going to talk about genuinely the ratioing in some of these images is mad because look how big Azusa Eneba looks in comparison to Kiyoka Kitatsu. I actually enjoy it because it makes for really quick banter on the show, but it's almost like comical. I may mention this a couple times before whenever we see God's Eye versus Hate on these multi-person tag matches, that whenever they have Kikyo and Azusa in the matches, it's great hard-hitting striking. And that's what this was. You're tying in with Uriah Hemi. My only complaint with this, went a little under six minutes. I wish it would have got a little bit more time because this was really good. Azusa Inaba is another one they can add to the high-speed division because she works that style pretty good, and she's almost like high-speed violence. Again, Uriah Hemingway, I thought it was great. Give me more Azusa versus Kikyo Akitatsu. Thoroughly enjoyed this one. Three and a half stars from Igutsu. Again, I just wish it would have got about two or three more minutes to tell their story. And then we have this match. Matt, you last week, because again, this aired as we were recording last week, you were very excited to talk about the debut of the Hot Shushu Sisters. Now, I believe, and again, I'm just going to get our Patreon up because friend of the show, Brandon Teal, I'm sure said the youngest sister, unless I'm very much mistaken, is eight years old. I remember last week, because you didn't see it, And I watched the first three matches on my lunch break, and that's when I told you, I said, so I'm okay to take the youngest one, and it looks like this one's not going to see daylight tomorrow. And then you said, well, yeah, 14 years old. And I'm like, she didn't look 14. I thought she looked like 10 or 11. And then I said, I think it was Brandon sent a message. She said, no, the other sister's 14. The younger one is 8 or 9. That's what, yeah, I'm just having a look at the Brandon Teal comment on our Patreon now. Hi, Brandon. Hi, Brandon. older one is 14 the younger one from what he's read is eight to nine years old now again is we're pointing out that we've seen this before okay we have seen really young stardom wrestlers Kina, Rina, Azumi all being young eight years old or nine years old seems desperately young to be so even i don't know is it too young am i am i just being over protective potentially no you know me and andy header have had this conversation off and on air and on road trips for years because i turned pro at 20 and i think he was 21 or 22 we're the same age but i think i have a year or two on him as far as uh in the ring experience but he's got 100 more matches than me because he just he wrestles every weekend but um we may mention like you know if you were able to turn pro younger would you i was like wouldn't be as young as we see like some some and some people in mexico some of the luchadores in mexico and some of these joshis i think that like 14 would be the youngest i think you should be able to train like if you want to train at age 10 or age 11 just to kind of get the calisthenics down and like the breathing down and stuff like that and kind of some of the psychology like i got no problem with these wrestlers training at like age 10 or 11 but i don't think they should debut until they're like at least 14 again that's just that's just me regardless they made this work you have two killers in tomoka inaba and rana where they said last week partner when tomoka gets that younger one the eight or nine year old snaps her over like oh no oh no and instantly becomes like the biggest heel and even in the next new blood show we'll talk about with i or sayaka yeah yeah they were huge heels anytime they did something to these two uh these two sisters are going to have a bright future in pro wrestling again 14 and eight years old and then and again look with their wrestling tomoka Kinema and Rana Yagami, put them on the new blood shows. They're going to, obviously they're going to get, they got a lot of exposure here. You'll probably see them in some of the other Joshi companies these next few years, but they, we probably could be looking at the future of what it could be Joshi pro wrestling, where they go to Marigold, Tokyo Joshi pro started them in the next handful of years. Thoroughly enjoyed this one. Again, I was scared to death for that young one, but ultimately just really, really fun stuff. Three and a quarter stars for me. Good sir. Yeah. It's an interesting debate, isn't it? how young is too young, especially as we've, you know, even on this show, we're going to be talking about how wrestling is not ballet. Obviously, Mike are leaving the ring in the neck brace. Sayaka and Tani have to have the match stopped at one point. But, yes, I think, obviously, with wrestling, and again, Mike, you can speak far more to this than I can, there is a level of trust, and I think you have to trust the people in the ring, and obviously Rana and Tomoka did a great job. Obviously, there was quite a sadistic smile spreading across the lips of one Tomoka Inaba, which was absolutely frightening. But again, you've got to sort of put a trust in there and clearly, you know, it is believed that she is okay to be in the ring and therefore whether they tailor the offense to make sure she is okay, I imagine that's probably what they do. Obviously, you know, you're not going to have anyone hitting her with a top rope turnbuckle driver or whatever it is that Kyle Fletcher hits people with. Can't see people listening with that. But again, it's about working with who you've got in the ring. Yeah. The number one rule when you go into any wrestling school or you go to any show is you protect the opponent. So obviously they're not going to be like, oh, we're going to have to smoke in about batter this eight-year-old girl. It's like, no. And they made it look like that that was going to happen to get the reaction out of the crowd that they did. And obviously, it's smoking about as a pro, so it was Ronnie Yagami. but that's the number one thing is you're it's a dance you're working together you're working together and uh yeah smoking a bit around they were absolute pros in this match moving on then ryan and hanako going to a time limit draw against the nami hatano pardon me hiccups and miran were you surprised that this was the one that went to the time limit draw and secondly how impressed were you with Nanami? Nanami was great. She was almost like the... Go on. I was going to say she was the standout of the two shows, but I think I might have been exactly what you were going to say, which is what happened. The MVP. Yeah, the usual. Half a world away, brother. Obviously, Rihanna and Hanako, they were great. They had that little mini feud as Rihanna was kind of building herself up to challenge Hanako for the future of starting a championship. Now, obviously, now they're back on the same page. Now, they might not be in the same faction, or they won't be in the same faction anymore. Regardless, this was great. This was one of my favorite matches of these two shows. Again, we've seen a little bit of Nanami over the last few years, her being a satellite member to God's eye, but Moran was fantastic. They did a great job highlighting her. She had a great base in Hanako. It's one thing to be able to do that flashy offense, that you need that really good base in order to showcase that offense. Hashtag watch every Claudio Casagnoli match because he's the greatest base in the history of pro wrestling. That's why they always send him over to CMLL because he does so well with those luchadors. Hanako did a great job here. Obviously, Stone Cold Rian was massively over as well. This was great, and I enjoyed this one going 15 minutes. You're taking a chance on this show having two younger wrestlers in Stone Cold Rian and Hanako taking on a team we really don't see in stardom here. Really, I don't think we've ever seen them on these New Blood shows as just a proper tag team. It's like, hey, give them 15 minutes. Let's see what they can do. And I thought they hit it out of the park. I thought this was really great. Three and three fourth stars. Good sir. Moving on to a singles match. And I'm just going to talk about this now in terms of Akira Kuragani. I felt it was really good booking to have Akira Kuragani lose two singles matches to members of EXV just before the pay-per-view where you had EXV versus Mavida Loka and had Akira Kuragani in the main event. Because, again, it's obviously a very simple booking strategy. but again you're subverting that expectation the moment you see Akira Guragane in that main event in the main portion of that main event in the Bayview you're expecting her to lose because you see her lose to Zina here in a great match but you see her lose to Zina here you then see her lose to Hanako on the next show as well and I thought it was a really good little piece of booking because again on its own it was a good match and Zina just gets the win on the next show it's a good match Hanako just gets the win but when you put that together with how the show on Saturday panned out the pay-per-view and their match in particular I thought it all worked in really really well yeah and this was um and he had the promos afterwards where they were kind of like rubbing it in Akira's face and then on the big show she's the one that sends it back like you rubbed it in my face you fired me up I was the sole survivor in that big match that eventually then Micah's you know set everybody free which again we'll get into a little bit this match eight minutes i thought was the proper time it was almost like three act match you had your chain wrestling to start great stuff back and forth then it broke down in the chops and forearms and kicks kind of in the middle then towards the end you ramped up with your big falsies but eventually just xena just overpowered akira you know with the big chops the big lariats and then it's able to open up the door for the thunder uh the thunderstruck three and a half stars yeah i totally agree with you it was really cool how they made this part of the story it's just like Akira loses they rub it in her face Akira loses they rub it in her face and Akira gets the biggest win of her career on a jam-packed pay-per-view really great storytelling and again Akira is another one that they're just starting to you know gas up now it's not just Saiya Kamatani or Starlight Kid or Konami or Izumi or whatever they're doing a great job booking some of this underneath town to really really pump them up and And Akira was, you know, almost like the project on the pay-per-view. And this was a good, basically, precursor to the pay-per-view that added to Akira's story. Again, three and a half stars for me, my friend. Made about New Blood, Tag Team titles on the line. Sayaka Rora picking up where they left off with the Tag League and putting on a great display of tag team wrestling. I enjoyed the little exchanges, especially between Aya Sikora and Anne Kanai, who I've been really, really impressed with since she's come back from injury. We were singing the praises of Anne when she debuted, and again, that threshold of Joji Rookies. But here, I thought she melded really well with three members of Cosmic Angels, which is why I mentioned earlier she's such a good fit for that group. But I thought her stuff, especially with Aya Sikora, was really, really good. Yeah, they did a great job making Yuna look good. I mean, she basically comes in, especially towards the end, and just overpowers the new blood tag champs. And obviously, again, Yuna obviously has a lot of chemistry with Aya and Sayaka, especially Aya. They were in the tag league back in 2024 as part of Sikora Daman and almost stole the show, like the whole show. We were just so impressed how great their matches were. But obviously, the big tag team now and probably going forward in the next few months for stardom is Sayaka, Karora, and Aya Sikora. You're absolutely right. Mankanai was great here. They did a great job making her look really good in the beginning. Again, she's another one that I think could fit in very well with a high-speed style. Great teamwork from Aya and Sayaka. Then Yuna comes in. She's the hammer. But then does it with some flashes of her high-speed wrestling as well. Again, she's the current high-speed champion. And then as you're getting towards the end of the match, just breaks down into who's the better tag team, which is what I love about tag team wrestling, especially in main events on shows. It all comes down to who's the better tag team. It's a tag match. It's part of the gimmick. You have to use the gimmick. Imagine having a ladder match, and you don't use the ladder at all. Like, well, what was that all about? Tag Team Wrestling is all about using the teamwork to get the win. That's what happened towards the end. However, there's a couple spots here where Ankanai almost steals one here on one Aya Sikora. They get towards the end here where you're getting the great teamwork. Sayaka hits the big dive to take Yuna out. like okay yuna is not here to make the save for on which this is what they kind of built up towards the end i is going to put anna away i goes for the buzzsaw kick and ducks and rolls up aya and this sold out crowd bit on the finish they did a great job blurring the lines at least for half a second that we would see new tag champs however it was eventually the looming dream that puts away one young and can i for the recount i thought this was really really great match to end this show four and a quarter stars for me and of course we rolled on to new blood 29 which was the very following night on the 4th of february again live on youtube and again in tokyo square in itabashi and again the attendance was 153 which again stardom announced as a sellout making that the fourth consecutive New Blood event at Tokyo Square in Itabashi to sell out at 153 people. A significantly shorter event. At least it felt that way. Obviously one match less, but it seemed that the runtime was shorter as well. Tag team match was the opener. Sayaka Kuroa, Ayasukura Sayaka Kuroa defeated the Hero Sisters, Moe Hero and Masahiro, with Sayaka Karori pinning Moe Hiro with the Tokamaki Spear in 14 minutes and 7 seconds. A long amount of time they got in that match. Tag match, God's Eye, Hina and Kiyoko Katatsu defeated Azusa Inaba and Kikyo Furusawa with Kiyoko Katatsu submitting Kikyo Furusawa with an Achilles lock in 10 minutes and 11 seconds. Singles match, Xena defeated Rian with the Thunder Roll in 11 minutes and 54 seconds. So my main event, six-woman tag team action, Godzai, Tomoka Inaba, Rani Ugami and Nanami Hatano defeated Uriah Hemi, Ankanai and Miran with Nanami pinning Uriah Hemi with a diving body press in 13 minutes and 38 seconds. And then finally, singles match in your main event, Hanako defeating Akira Kuragani with the JP Kosa in 13 minutes and 17 seconds. we start with that tag team match again one that got a long time as well with the new blood tag team champions taking on moe and masahiro in non-title action uh matt i imagine similar vein to what we talked about with ron yagami and tomoka taking on the two sisters but another good performance from the pair yeah and as hard hitting as i and say aka are i wasn't as fearful of the life of these two This was as it was, it was Rana and Tomoka. This was really fun, especially you know what you're getting into. You watched the show from the day before. So, you know, this was going to be a fun one. And obviously, I and Sayaka are massively over as babyfaces in every show they've ever been on in the last two and a half years. But they were booed out of the building here for borderline child abuse. But they made it work. They made it work with great crowd psychology. And they reacted real well. Again, considering I and Sayaka, you know, I've been wrestling, you know, two and a half years, three years, something like that. and you don't know how to react and you've never been booed before and you're getting booed out of this building because of how young these other two wrestlers are and they kind of made it work to their advantage. A really fun opening. You're absolutely right. These two young sisters got a lot of time on these shows. Combined time of around 30 minutes. So, again, it looks like they're going to be doing something with them on these new blood shows and definitely a team to look out for over the next 10 to 15 years and they're in their 20s on the wrestling. three and a quarter stars for me this is a really fun one to start off this show tag team action Kyoko Kitazu getting a rare victory in stardom but again I'm drawn to Kikyo Furusawa who again has such a distinctive look for a rookie and someone who has a very distinctive style as well I think she really stands out in terms of the rookies she's someone who again we didn't really talk about in terms of faction movement where would you like to see kikio fall when we do get this inevitable sort of faction shakeup great question buddy because again stardom on the stardom world shows and on kind of the uh the middle of the road cork and hall show like the uh like the midcard the undercard they love to have their tag matches or six person matches or eight person matches with factions and you with factions excuse me and you don't know if kikio is going to work well with a haunted constantly teaming up with or constantly teaming up with uh you know a maika or ryan so it's interesting to see where she goes i mean it depends on the whole shake up with the factions again stars needs power they need some more members um she teams really well maki ito but we don't know if what's going on if they can do like the the ito respect army like they did in tokyo joshi pro and on the indies for maki ito That's a great question, partner. I would like to see her go with a team led by Micah. I think her and Micah would work really well together. Again, I'd like to see her in her faction soon, so this way she can start gelling with some of her faction members in either tag matches, six-person, eight-person, what have you. As far as this match goes, I thought this was great. I mentioned before, Kielo Tatu and Azusa Inova, they just work real well together. The strike exchanges, the counter-striking, I'm a big fan of that. He and Azusa, we didn't get as much as I would like, but that's where the money was for me in this match. Again, Kikyo First Hour was terrific. Her and Kiyoto Kotatsu, their sequences toward the end, I really enjoyed with the knee bar counters. Eventually, though, it is Kikyo Kotatsu getting a win here with the ankle lock into the knee bar, three and a half stars for me. Xena versus Rian, then, as we continue these random little singles matches leading up to the pay-per-view, which I really liked, that link into the big show coming up. And I actually said when we were talking about the Corrigan Hall show last week, I wish we'd seen more of this on the Corrigan Hall show as opposed to just doing the elimination tag that we did. Again, I know that obviously Xena and Rian are in the same faction, fully aware of that. But it's building up Rian ahead of that main event section with Akira Kuregane. This is my favorite match from the show. I thought this was great. This is really good. You have Xena overpowering her fellow stablemate, well, at least during this show, in the beginning of the match. And then Rian hits the – she's able to get just a little bit of a window. We've seen it in the five-star matches with Azumi and Tomoka Innova and Starlight Kid. Well, she just needs a little bit of a window to get the advantage, and she hits a twist of fate into the ropes. Xena then sells to the outside to kind of catch her breath, and then Rian stomps on Xena's hand while it's on the apron, the way that Xena sold it. And, again, you're right there in the front. And, again, there's only 153 people, so it's a smaller venue. So the way that Xena emotes it, she's like, ah, like it's selling the hand where everybody in the arena can see it. And then it's getting Rian over, and everybody loves Stone Cold Rian. So I absolutely love that. Great back and forth between the two. Again, Xena then tries to use a hand for the chop. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it doesn't. She does a great job selling the chop and then fighting through the pain, which I thought was great. Some really great stuff towards the end of the match with Rian hitting an apron around to the floor. Like, these two were just pulling out all the stops here. Really great stuff. We gave a chop exchange between the two because Rian was like, I don't care how hard you hit, I'm stone cold Rian, and I'm going to have my own traction, the Rianators. I thoroughly enjoyed that. But eventually, though, Zena hits a Northern Light suplex into a Butterfly suplex and then is able to get a leg cradle capture pin for the three count. 12 minutes, I thought was – I didn't think this match would go over 10 minutes. The fact they gave it time really goes to show you what great chemistry these two have. not only as teammates, but across the ring from each other. And again, with now EXV dissolving, we're going to be able to see these two wrestle on opposite sides more often because I thought these two were great. Four stars for me, partner. Again, my favorite match from this show. The very impressive Nanami getting another pinfall over Uriah Hemi, which, again, makes the very interesting sort of wrestling moving forward considering Uriah Himi was in that glut of wrestlers challenging for the Future of Stardom Championship at the end of the show. Again, Nanami fitting in really, really well with her God's Eye compatriots, considering we don't see a great deal of her due to her commitments and diameter. Yeah, Uriah Himi, it just really seems like baptism by fire in matches she's been having lately with Sari, Miyazuki Ayakawa, and then she comes in like, I'm just going to kick Tomoka Inaba right in the face. And eventually know what's going to happen. And it's like, Timoka's just like, I tried to hurt somebody the day before, and I couldn't do it. But now I'm going to take everything out on poor Uriah Himi. And Uriah Himi, I think you're going to see moving along, she's going to be able, like that Natsapoi character, where she's underneath getting her butt kicked, but able to have really great fire. Ultimately, it's going to get the crowd to rally behind her. We're seeing a little bit of that now. That's kind of Natsapoi's bread and butter, when Natsapoi's wrestling the Shuri's and the Momo Wantanabi's and so on and so forth. We're seeing that now with Uriah Himi. We saw it at the beginning of this match with Timoka and Abba. And Kanai again she was terrific here Some great stuff with Moran and Tomoka Inaba as well Not as much as I would like but I think if they want to do that somewhere that be a really great match but yeah it would just really seem like it was just the tag team chemistry of Rana and Tomoka Inaba again we've seen them tag up quite a bit and then you're adding in their satellite net member of Nanami that was able to do in this duo of Ankenai Uriah Hemi and one Moran uh thoroughly enjoyed this one three and three four stars for me again 14 minutes i thought was enough time to tell the story but i'm really big on this tag team of tomoka and rana if they don't do something with hina um i would like to see tomoka and rana maybe make a challenge for those goddesses that are in tag belt somewhere in 2026 i have a feeling that maybe star bomb might be the next team to take those titles i'd love to see a star bomb versus tomoka versus rana match i think that match might be slightly above average drop which teams you prefer tomoka and hina or tomoka and rana oh hedge wins tails you win you know it's maybe tomoka and hina because hina does more of the judo and tomoka does more of the striking contrasting styles whereas tomoka and he and rana are quite similar yeah very good with yeah exactly i was going to say with the striking however but then if you're at throw shiri in there then i'd take shiri and tomoka just because it's shiri but uh that's a hedge you win tails you win But I'm going to ask you the same question, buddy. What team would you like to see? The same for the same reason. Tomoka and Hina. Look at that. We're on a roll today, buddy. Again, you look at their match against the Urikoi from Corrigan Hall, and you can see the differences between the two and how well they play off each other. Again, I was convinced that they were going to be the next challenges for the Goddesses' starting championships. Obviously, Hina has other things on her mind, and fair enough. But, yeah, I certainly wouldn't be opposed to seeing Tomoka and Rana being another title defense for BMI 2000. Finally, your main event, Hanako taking on Akira Kuragane in non-title action. Again, Akira Kuragane being sort of portrayed as the weak link in Mavida Loca for Xena. Now Hanako able to get the win over her. How do you think she fared in this match, even in a loss? Great job building her up. She looked like, again, Hanako was using her size and strength to overpower Akira. But Akira had a lot of resilience. Very much like we saw towards the back end of the Goddess of Simon Tag League, where it was just like, she's going to take a beating, but keep coming back. Having that never-say-die attitude. And that's what happened here. Towards the end of this match, it was too much of Hanako. You know, with the Boston Crab, the Half Crab, the Big Lariats. But eventually, she wore down Akira enough that it opened up the door for the J.P. Coaster. Again, even though in a loss, I thought Akira looked really good here. Hanako getting the big win to end this show. Three and three-fourth stars for me. Yeah, it was a good main event match, but I'd have actually been more inclined to end it with the six-woman tag. I thoroughly enjoyed that match. Nothing to take away from Hanako and Akira Kuregane. And again, both women did very, very well. And I think Akira Kuregane covered herself in glory, even in a loss, as I mentioned before. Immediately following this, Hanako basically called out some challenges for the Future of Stardom Championship. The entire locker room emptied, I don't know if you saw this, Tomoko Rinneberg came just waltzing down to the ring, thinking they were just doing, like, the end of the show bit and then had to wait on the outside because she didn't realise that it was challenges. Those challenges are Rony Agami, Uriah Himi and Aya Sokora, by the way. Aya Sokora did make me laugh because she said, I do want to challenge, but at the moment I'm too busy being cute. Obviously referencing her feud with Makayito, so that was quite entertaining. Priorities. Absolutely. I imagine the chances are that Hanako will run through Rana, will run through Uriah Hemi, and the belt will then go to Ayah Sokora. I don't see Ayah Sokora charging Hanako again, only to lose again. I'd be very, very, very surprised. And I'll be perfectly honest, Hanako doesn't need the belt. so again especially with this new coat of paint she's going to get from changing factions I don't think she needs the belt to be perfectly honest I think she's sort of not necessarily graduated but she's certainly looking at that goddesses of stardom title scene the artist of stardom title scene rather than the future of stardom so again another couple of title defenses another couple of solid singles matches and then move Hanako up to that division instead moving on then ladies and gentlemen we finally get to the main event of the show and that is of course stardom supreme fight 2026 in osaka the pay-per-view airing on saturday the 7th of february 2026 some really interesting things happening on this show of course say akamaton defending the Red Belt against Starlight Kid. Champion for 405 days going into this pay-per-view, with this being her ninth successful title defence. A win for Sayaka Amitani on this pay-per-view would take her to nine successful title defences, would see her move to joint third for defences of the Red Belt in the single reign. Level with her former Aphrodite partner Ritami Hayashisa, and sitting behind Io Shirai and Siori on 10 and the 14 defences, obviously set by Io through 2015 and 2017. So big numbers for Sayaka Mutani. Obviously Konami defending against Amisori as well. We'll talk about that match and the stats heading into that. But in terms of the attendance, this is the 10th show that Stardom have run in the Eddian Arena Osaka. The first since Namba Grand Fight where they drew a 1,407 on the 14th of September 2024. The announced attendance for this show was 2,563. Not only is that a 1,156 person and 82.16% increase on their previous outing at the venue, But it's also a 39.9% increase on their previous best at Eddie and Arena Osaka, which before this was 1,832, which they drew to Supreme Fight 2023, which, if you remember, was main evented by Julia versus Suzu Suzuki for the World of Stardom Championship. Talking about the results then of this show, we open with a five-way match. Momokogo defeating Yuna Mizumori, Lady C, Azusa Inaba and Kyoko Kitatsu in 6 minutes and 27 seconds. Six-woman tag team action. The God's Eye team of Hina, Rani, Yagami and Tomoko Inaba defeated Kikyo Furusawa and Kanai and Sayaka Karora. Hina pinning Sayaka Karora with the mad splash in 11 minutes and 29 seconds. The first match of the proper card saw Rina defeat Fuwachan in a singles match. Rina winning with a pink devil in 13 minutes and 22 seconds. Singles match followed again the kawaii of the kawaii, I believe, match. It was officially known as Maki Ito defeating Aya Sokora with the Ito Deluxe in 12 minutes and 6 seconds, meaning that she does not have to leave stardom. Four-way match, 0-2 line, Azumi and Miyu Amasaki defeated the Stars team of Sayurida and Uriah Hemi, the Sayori Poi team of Natsupoi and Sayori Anno, and then, Matt, the surprise team of Billiken Death and this mystery opponent, Kwidore Hazuki. No idea who that is, of course. Miyawa Masaki pinning Uriahemi with the Amanahashi Date in 9 minutes and 21 seconds. Singles match. Suri defeating Saki Kashima, utilizing the most dangerous move in pro wrestling, the Kishka Sai, in 7 minutes and 6 seconds. 5 on 4 elimination. Handicap gauntlet unit battle. Good lord, that's a mouthful to say. Mavida Loka, Suzu Suzuki, Tsuki Aoki, Rini Yamashiro and Akira Korgane defeated EXV, Maika, Zina, Hanako, Wax, Tsukiyama and Riyan in 34 minutes and 34 seconds. We'll go through the eliminations when we get to the match. Goddess of Sarno Championship match, the BMI 2000 team of Natsuko, Tora and Ruaka. They defeated Hannon and Bea Priestley, Tora pinning Hannon with a Swanton Bomb in 15 minutes and 4 seconds. Wonder of Stardom Championship match is your semi-main event then Konami defeating Amisori for a third successful defense of the White Belt submitting Amisori with a sleeper hold in 19 minutes and 4 seconds Amisori taking a leaf out of Megaton's book in how quickly she submitted for that sleeper hold and then finally in your main event World of Stardom Championship match Sayaka Amitani defeating Starlight Kid with a spinning star crusher in 27 minutes and 26 seconds. Now, let's start with these pre-show matches then. We've already mentioned, of course, that Momokogo got the victory and, of course, challenged Yuna Mizumori for the high-speed title. It is, of course, great to see Lady C back in action after she was pulled from the Corrigan Hall show due to illness. What were your thoughts on this? Yeah, this was kind of your standard affair of your pre-show match. really good, a lot of talent, not a lot of time. Or they were like, let's play the hits, let's make everybody look good, and then let's go to our finish. But the finish had Momokogo pinning Yuna. So obviously that sets up the high-speed championship match again that maybe it may or may not be happening this weekend in Cork and Hall. Again, more great stuff with Kiyo Katatsu versus Azusa Iniba. That seemed to work really well. We had some great stuff with Azusa and Yuna. If that's the way they're going to go. Wouldn't mind seeing Lady C maybe take a crack at the high speed championship so uh she may have to then lose the chaps rob because i think they may weigh her down that might be the way to get rid of those chaps uh again this was really great everybody came in they played the hits uh nothing seemed out of place i make mention all the time multi-person matches are hard to do especially when you have an odd number if it's four if it's six it's or if it's eight you can always pair people off when you have like five or seven it could be a little tricky because there's not uh an even amount of people to pair people Bluffet, but they hit all the marks here. Nothing seemed out of place. They were able to tell a little bit of a story as well. Everybody got certain things in. I really enjoyed this one for an opener. Three and a half stars for me. Six-woman tag then. Obviously, we built up Hina towards her World of Stardom Championship defense. Again, we've already, sorry, World Wonder, although I imagine we aren't far off a Hina Red Belt title challenge. The rate Sayaka Matani is running through the roster. It might be her turn, zone um but i was we talked about the surprise of sayaka korora taking the pinfall what do you think of the other competitors in this match again more great stuff with a and more great stuff with kikio for a sal again they've only been wrestling you know about a year year and a half respectively this match was all about making hina look really really good making her look down and then we would find out why shakakura was kind of the glue that held this together for you know this makeshift team of Kikyo on and out against Sayaka Karora. If we're not going to see Hina win the Wonder Belt coming up, whenever that challenge is, give me Hina, Tomoka, and Rana as your next artist champions. I think these three, you asked me a few minutes ago, what team do I prefer, Rana and Tomoka or Tomoka and Hina? Put them all together. Let's make them artist champions. We know it's going to be due time before we see a babyface team take those belts probably sooner than later. I don't think anybody would argue with me that they wouldn't like to see Hina, Tomoka, and Rana as the next challengers. You can do really good business with those trio. Again, a really great match to kind of lead us into the main parts of the pay-per-view with Hina looking really, really strong. Hina and Sayaka, that closing sequence that they had towards the end was really, really good, really impressive for me. Three and a half stars with Hina getting another win. We then moved on to the main show proper and of course saw Fuwa-Chan in her second ever singles match, first match to not feature Hazuki in any way we were torn between this one weren't we I believe that Rina was going to get the victory you thought that Fuwa-Chan might steal it, most importantly Matt, how do you think Fuwa-Chan did in this match and how do you think Rina did in her role as the leader in this match as well we knew this would be good because fuachana is very capable as a pro wrestler especially when she has somebody you know to kind of follow along with and we've seen rena in the last year year and a half wrestle these wrestlers that have been wrestling five six months if that having really good matches considering the fact that rena i think she's only 19 i think she just turned 19 not that long ago and we've been seeing her leading matches when she's 17 18 and now 19 years old as somebody that's been babbling in the main event scene so you know it was going to be good And this was really, really good. My only concern was considering three big matches, really four big matches to close out this show, that this one might have suffered from lack of time. And it did a little over 13 minutes. I thought it was great to tell the story. Fuachan, very good at the fundamentals, the big lockup, the wrist locks, the head locks, knowing where to be as well. You know, as great as Rina is, in order for you to have a good match, it takes two to tango. Again, Fuachan is very good at the fundamentals. and Rina did a great job taking Fuachana and making her look really good. Great closing sequence towards the end. It was this match where I realized that Hizuki would definitely be in that tag match because Rob, I don't know if you've seen about two hours before the show aired, they said Hizuki would not be able to make this show. At first I was like, oh, maybe she's sick, get well, Hizuki. And then she was already tweeting and Instagramming out plugging the show. I'm like, that's really weird for a show that you're not on, you're even really doing the hard sell and the fact that hizuki was working the apron like ricky steamboat was back in the 80s like she's banging on the mat and she's really it's like she's usually moving around her shoulders and her legs and then they notice she's wearing the baggiest clothes ever and i was like oh they're definitely doing like some sort of a hizuki gimmick we'll get into it i kind of gave it away but again uh i liked um how well reena was in this match gave fuachan a lot to the point where i thought my prediction would have been right but ultimately is rena hitting the pink devil putting away fujan i thought this was really the perfect outing to set the main show uh basically all systems go for the main show three and three three and three-fourth stars the crowd really got into this one especially with those falsies towards the end maki ito and aya sikori i've said before that i think this feud has been really good for aya she was never winning this feud um obviously especially with the stipulation added that maki ito will be leaving stardom if she lost um but it's been great for aya to sort of explore her character outside of just being the high kick angel just being really good in the ring and i think maki ito was bought out a different side of aya so we saw that during the match the stuff with the kawaii of kawaii title even though it is just a cardboard title Eddie Guerrero stuff I thought was really funny but again Maki Ito is just entertaining, she's really entertaining and again wrestlers are sort of forced to bounce off her and I think where we are losing Saki Kashima who is such a unique talent, we're going to talk about her in a minute and obviously the hole that she's going to leave when she does retire in Yokohama Maki Ito though a completely different talent has that sort of level where she has unique chemistry with everyone on the roster and I think her stuff with Aya Sikora has been wildly entertaining I'm not saying that Makayito was a replacement for Saki Kashima by any stretch of the imagination however Makayito has that same sort of ability to be funny without it feeling ridiculously forced I'll get the one negative thing out of the way here Rob so they did the Eddie Guerrero spot, which I don't think I've ever seen in Stardom before. I haven't seen it. So they do the Eddie Guerrero spot. But if you're going to do it, go, and I understand the joke is it's a paper, it's a cardboard belt, right? That's the joke. If you're going to go in, go all in. Maki Ito should have gigged. Like the one side of her face. Like not the usual spot where you're supposed to, like in the middle of the forehead, so it comes down, crimson mask, like flare in 84. But like just maybe cut her one side of her face. Just a little bit, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, like, look, it's a paper cut. You know, she clearly hit me. Should have went all in. Kidding, in fact, but that would have been really funny. Aya was so fired up for this match. She comes in and she posts poor Maki Ito. Maki Ito takes an absolute beating in the beginning part of this match. And then Maki Ito fires back. Great stuff back and forth, some near falls. Really interesting stuff. And, again, I think a lot of us knew, like, okay, Maki Ito's definitely winning this match for a lot of the reasons we laid out in our preview last week, partner. But there were some near falls there towards the end. I was like, hmm, maybe. Again, they did a great job blurring the lines to make it look like Aya was going to get the win. Eventually, though, it's Maki Ito hits the big stunner. Then she has, like, the seri running double stomp with a person sitting, which I was like, oh, okay. Maki Ito's adapting that into her arsenal. And I like the way she did it. Stunner leads right into that running double stomp. That worked out really well. But eventually, it is that high-angle Boston Crab, the Ito special, that forces Aya to tap out. Three and three-fourth stars. This was a really fun match, a really fun feud, and it's going to be interesting to see where Maki Ito goes from here because this month that she's been in stardom, with the exception of Hate, she's been working with every faction, which is making it really, really fun. I really hope they do something with her. By her, I mean Maki Ito and Soriano, whether they're a tag team or they're wrestling each other. It just really seems like Soriano is so stoic, like when she comes in the ring. She's the only wrestler I've ever seen to have charisma by not doing anything. like Soriano comes in and just like she just aura farming she has so much charisma just by her standing there and then Maki Ito she's running in the crowd she's singing she's got all the lights going on her gear she's getting everything going like they're complete opposites in their entrance polar opposites go to it's ridiculous and they make it work they've literally made it work since the moment Maki Ito got here so there's something special there with Soriano and Maki Ito and I just want to see more of it and I think eventually we're going to go somewhere with that again a really great match interesting to see where maki ito goes from here three and three-fourth stars for me um who just before we move on from this i imagine that we are going to be getting maki versus nat to play at some point because there is a lot of history there aside from sioriano and her smoldering charisma that she seems to have who has been your favorite person that Maki Ito has worked with so far in the company? Who do you think she's had the best chemistry with? The Aya stuff as well has worked out really well. But you know what match I want to see? Give me Maki Ito versus Shuri for one of the IWGP belts. I think that because Shuri has really good, as much as a killer as Shuri is, she's got really good comedic timing. And obviously we'll get into it with Saki Kashuna. But the Aya stuff's been really good. Oh, Kikyo Furusawa. Definitely Kikyo Furusawa. Yeah, definitely. Because they dress alike, and then she was, like, doing the singing with her. Yeah, definitely Kikio Furusawa. Again, if Makito does do her own faction, I think Kikio Furusawa is a shoo-in to fit in with that. And not only that, again, Makito is crazy over. She's a great wrestler. If that's the way they go, have them make a run towards – put them in the tag division. You know, them versus Wingory, them versus Sororipoya, BMI 2000, FWC. I think that would shake up the tag division because it kind of would give them a fresh matchup with all these established teams we've seen over the last two or three years. But I think, yeah, Maki and Kiki Oferisawa would be the way to go. I just talked myself into that. There you go. Look at that. I sold myself. Moving on then. The eight-woman tag match that obviously saw the re-debut, the biggest re-debut in wrestling of Billiken Death. And obviously, again, as Matt has already mentioned, it was announced prior to the show that Hazuki would not be taking, but Stardom really do have to stop doing this. But she would be replaced by Kuidori Hazuki, who was Hazuki in clown makeup, who, apropos of nothing, had really good chemistry with Billick and Death, which was madness. But, unfortunately, the match did end with Uriah Hemi continuing her absolutely abysmal record of eating pinfalls because technically she ate two because Sioriano had the special pottering in and then she got drop kicked off it by Mio Amasaki Mio Amasaki at the Amanahashi Date so not a great week to be Raya Hemimap yeah a lot of this match was you played your hits and you had your comedy again this was kind of the middle of the road you know kind of break things up before you kind of get to your last big matches with obviously all great wrestlers a lot of great teams again O2 Line, Sororipoi, two of the best tag teams in all of wrestling and then you have your comedy duo of Bill can death and Clown Hazuki which was still pretty fun. You get towards the beginning of this match and Saida has that spot where she chops everybody and I like how Izumi is like cheering on Saida to do the chops because Izumi is the last one in the corner and she's looking at the crowd laughing by the time Izumi turns around Saida chops her and then Saida after the match is like yeah I gotta go away I have an injury on my hand. And I'm like, of course you do, Saeeda, because you just have 84 people in this match. Great stuff with Miyu and Soriano. Really great stuff, especially towards the end. We've never really seen a big Izumi versus Soriano match. That's a match I would love to see. I just want to see Soriano wrestle everybody because she's great. Great stuff with Izumi and Natsupoy. We can get as much of it as we'd like. Again, nine minutes, eight people, four teams. Everybody kind of played their hits. A really good closing stretch here, my friend. Three and three-fourth stars for me. Nice seeing Miyu Amasaki picking up a win here. Yeah, she does feel, there is the odd wrestler in Stardom that does feel like they are treading water at the moment. And Miyu Amasaki is certainly one of them. I don't really know where Miyu fits in on the roster or where sort of at the moment her ceiling is because it doesn't quite feel like she's ready for a white belt shot or a red belt shot. But then, you know, again, I feel like the best opportunity for her to have a Goddess of Stardom run would have been with Izumi. But again, we are very heavily leaning into the hate stuff, which we'll be talking about later. And BMI 2000 have been doing good numbers as Goddess of Stardom champions. You look at the Corican Halls, you look at the main events and the numbers that they've drawn in. Artists of Stardom Championships, she's already held them. More five-star matches than Maywe Watani, thank you very much. and Kurt Angle absolutely but whereas everybody seems to have a place in the roster or again if you look at Izumi for example who isn't doing anything at the moment you know that all you have to do is tap her on the shoulder and she's in the red belt picture or the wide belt picture I don't feel like that about Miyu Amasaki and it's a weird one I think they missed and we may mention a couple weeks ago when we reviewed that fantastic match in cork and hall with o2 line versus bmi 2000 we're halfway through the match i'm like o2 lines winning like niya omisaki was the most over person on that show that was the biggest reaction she's ever gotten i think they kind of missed a trick there now whether they they realize what they had and they run it back i understand again bmi 2000 they're doing massive numbers when they defend those belts in cork and hall but i think eventually that's going to run its course we're going to get into their match in a little bit here where i thought maybe o2 line maybe should have won it maybe they run it back my quick prediction is i think that in yokohama arena we're going to see the breakdown of hate i think you're going to see hate lose a lot of championships on that show and i wouldn't be shocked if it's star bomb or o2 line that walk out of yokohama as the goddess of star in tag team championships and have that be like the first belt that they lose and then konami loses possibly to hanan saikama tami possibly loses too we're going to get into it stay with us folks uh because i have a couple ideas where they may go there but i think the fact that azumi's never held the goddess belts and i think her and starlight kid or her and me would be the perfect team to defeat uh bmi 2000 but yeah you're right it's kind of like where do they do with me maybe me wins the cinderella tournament rob because again that would be something she's over you know when she's tapped on the shoulder she's over she's in a really you look cool faction uh that's one thing we haven't looked at maybe me you amasaki walks out wins the Cinderella tournament, and then she parlays that into a tag title shot. I don't think we've seen since Mayu winning the Cinderella and then use it for a tag title. It's usually the white or red belt, right? I think it's been since Mayu. Did Mayu parlay? Wasn't it in 2015 with her and Io? No. Oh, I don't know. I can't remember off the top of my head. If you read the book, Living the Dream, starting his 10th anniversary interview by Rob Goon that came out some four years ago. He does have all the championships there. Well, from 2021, obviously. But I could have sworn I read that in your book. I'm not even joking that Mayu used that. We'll find out. I'm getting to have a lot now because I'm genuinely intrigued. So, Snelly Ralla. No, she challenged Kari Hojo at Goldmay 2015. What about 2016? What did she use that for? That's her first year match. oh that's right yeah okay so yeah no one's used it it's five star you're thinking of and io shirai parlayed it into a tag title shot with um yoshiko because yoshiko was red belt champion and her and yoshiko were in the same faction oh ladies and gentlemen just when i think i know everything about stardom handsome rob going there was just a little bit more hey what's the score update buddy you haven't you haven't uh didn't f-bomb yet how are you doing all this good i was very good it's finished now we won two one um there you go straight after i slammed the ipad down we scored again um but obviously i missed it so it doesn't matter um moving on shuri versus sake kashima there's lots to love about this match from sake kashima wearing the uh the aware tie gear that uh sort of holds a lot of a lot of feelings for sake kashima because it was shuri that came to her aid when she was kicked out of a weather tie after that phenomenal cage match. And again, since that point, Saki Kashima has sort of looked up to Surya, has almost felt inferior to Surya, and has almost seen her as this idol that she sort of looks up to, which has been this protector almost. And I've really enjoyed that storyline. I enjoyed it during the Goddess of Storm Tag League when they were teaming as Anacon. and I enjoyed it again here I thought they had really good chemistry obviously Saki isn't able to do the stuff she used to be able to do because you can see that the injuries are starting to catch up with her but something she has and it's something that I brought up in the Makita match is phenomenal comic timing and I think her and Suri Suri reacts so over the top to absolutely everything that she's the perfect foil to Saki Kashima and then to win with Saki Kashima's own move as well. I think it was a great little stop as we go on this Saki Kashima retirement road. And again, as I've already alluded to, Saki Kashima is never going to win your red belt. She was never going to win your white belt. However, especially in the last four, five, six, seven years, she has been an undeniable linchpin of this roster that offers something completely different. And I think there is going to be a hole that you're going to struggle to fill when Saki Kashima does retiring. Yes, we've got funny wrestlers. You've got Fukuki Kandeth. You've got people like Maki Ito. Someone who's effortlessly funny, where it doesn't feel like it's being put on, and it's unique. I think Saki Kashima, again, is a one-of-a-kind wrestler that is going to be missed on the stardom roster. Yeah, they got Saki at her own concert coming out. She did. That was really cool. She gets Shuri in the Kishikasai, and people bid on it for half a second. Because we're like, there's no way they're beating Shuri. She just won this ballot at the Tokyo Dome. Obviously, it's not for the title, but when people thought this was going to happen for half a second, then Saki tries to leave, and all the members of God's eye are like, no, you can't. You can't leave. She's like, all right, I got to go back in there. More comedy stuff eventually, though, is Shiri with the Kishikasai over Saki Kasher. Now, I'll say this, Rob. I would like to see Shiri win a few matches with that, literally to the point where now it's an established finisher when she's in these big IWGP matches or hopefully a red belt match or a white belt match because we haven't seen Shiri challenge for the white belt since Julia back in 2020, that you bite on the Kishikasai for a fallacy. Maybe she wins a match or two with it in the five-star Grand Prix. That's a definite way they can go because she locked it on really well. Then after Saki retires, wouldn't it be cool if Saki's like, I give you this move. You now have permission to use this move. So I'd like to see Shuri, the most dangerous wrestler, legit in this company, now have a quick – because, again, she's got all the submissions. We've seen her win matches with head kicks. Obviously, she's got the Vermillion World. She's got the Ruin. She's got all these devastating moves and all these different submissions that she can beat you with. But we've never seen Shuri win with, like, a quick roll-up. Like, obviously, Izumi's got the quick roll-up. and Natsupoy's got the quick roll-up, and Soriano's got the quick roll-up. Let's add that into Shiri's arsenal, and maybe this is where it starts. I'm all for that. The match was fun. We knew we weren't getting Shiri versus Tommy in this one. Three and a half stars for me. It was fun enough. And, again, maybe this is the start of Shiri using the Kishi Kasai as a finish. Not as a constant finish, but something where they build up to the fact that she might be able to get a victory with this, which then will just add to the drama towards her big matches. moving on then and we move on to the big elimination gauntlet match and just to run through these one-on-one matches before a throw to matt we started with itsuki aoki and waka sukiyama sukiyama picking up the victory in a shade over four minutes um itsuki aoki then also defeated xena which really surprised me that she wiped out both waka and xena straight away in 5 minutes and 39 seconds. Hanako then finally eliminated Itsuki Oki via over-the-top rope after three minutes. Hanako and Rini Yamashita, that's been a feud that's been bubbling over the last couple of weeks. That ended in a double over-the-top rope elimination in 5 minutes and 54 seconds. Most predictable part of this match, Maika and Suzu ending in a time limit draw in 10 minutes. And that was great. One of the best part, if not the best part of the match, to Micah and Suzu slugging it out, revisiting that excellent feud from 2023. The only real surprise for me was with a match with so much at stake was that they left that main event, that main part of this match, to Akira Kuregani and Riyan. And do you know what? They blew it out of the water, especially Akira Kuregani. We've sung the praises of Riyan a lot on this podcast, but Akira Kuregani deserves her flowers here. What a performance from her. That Yukabari lock that she locked Rihanna in to actually secure the win looked absolutely brutal. Looked great. And to see her being embraced by the members of Navida Loka, phenomenal. Obviously, we've already talked about the fact that EXV are no more, Maika's injury, and hopefully that she is going to be okay. Looks like. But in terms of a match, Matt, I thought it was structured pretty well. the only thing i was surprised about really was that zina and waka were eliminated fairly sharpish yeah um poor waka gets in there first she gets her butt kicked real quick oh man with more as well yeah it was just like a zoomie on her birthday during the uh five-star grand prix uh three years ago but again you have a five on four and within 10 minutes the advantage is what me to be the loco it's like azuki aoki she gets rid of waka four minutes right and doesn't really use much you know energy then xena comes in xena wears down uh aoki a little bit but then it's aoki or aoki is able to get the pin on xena with a rolling cradle and almost catching xena and then you see hanako she comes in and she's just the bulldozer to lay down aoki against aoki but she'd get aoki is able to come back and put some dents in hanako you think that hanako is just going to run right through or not really take any damage but it was almost like the strategy was for Aoki to wear down Hanako enough for the next participant which eventually was Rina so did a great job really really separating uh Zuki Aoki in the first part of this match she eliminated two members and then wore down the biggest member of this match again eventually the double over the top rope elimination from Rina and Hanako and then we get Mike and Susie which I was like oh this is really interesting because we knew where this was going to go. This was definitely going to go to the 10-minute time limit draw. I totally agree with you. They're the two best wrestlers in this match. No disrespect to anybody else, but Mike and Suzu are special wrestlers. They are on the top of any wrestling promotion. You want to go to the 10 minutes. It was violent. It was hard-hitting. It was back and forth. It was great stuff. Again, me, the MMA fan that I am, this goes to the time limit draw. If they went to the judge's decision, I would say this was 50-50. I would judge it a draw. They did a great job making sure Mike got her stuff in. Suzu got her stuff in. They upped the violence. Again, it does look like Mike is okay. Thank God for that. And this is definitely a singles feud I would like to see revisited with these two because these two absolutely hit it out of the park towards the end of 2023. Again, quick little history lesson is Mike and Suzu were in the finals of the 2023 five-star Grand Prix, and then they main evented Dream Queendom for the vacant World of Stardom Championship. So, again, really great stuff there. And they did, and this made sense to me. Once these two started, I'm like, okay, we know it's going to come down to Akira and Rian. And, again, Micah and Suzu absolutely tore it up. Goes down to Akira and Rian because now we're putting a different spotlight on these two wrestlers. And Rian and Akira, you're absolutely right, partner. They blew it out of the water. They had to go after two former five-star Grand Prix winners that absolutely tore it down. So now it's like, how do you go after that? You're the end of this long emotional gauntlet. And these two absolutely knocked it out of the park. Akira with the Gambari lock, a new move for her, absolutely loved it. I thought Rian's fighting spirit was terrific here, but it was too much of Akira. And, again, it was almost like they teased her by them EXV. They kind of teased her on those New Blood shows we just talked about, and he kind of just woke up the gorilla. He just kind of pissed off the barking dog in Akira, and eventually she puts away one Rihanna and Akira out of all these wrestlers is the sole survivor which again I love the booking because it'd be one thing if it was Suzu or it was Hanako or if it was Micah or it was Rina but it's like let's do something with somebody different to make it stand out and they did it with Akira towards the end of the goddess tournament and they did it here again I think Akira is she may be somebody that makes a run in the Cinderella tournament buddy as far as this whole entire match goes, I just gave it one star rating, four stars for the whole entire thing. I thought it was great. I love the over-the-top rope ruled in these elimination matches because it adds to the drama. Yeah, it does. Really, really great stuff. Again, four stars for me. Thoroughly enjoyed this. So third from the top, we have the Goddesses of Stardom Championship match. Now, something that I found quite interesting in terms of the Goddesses of Stardom Championship, championship. This victory, the fifth successful title defense, would see them become only the second team since 2019, 21 champions ago, to make it to five successful championship defenses, the other obviously being Wingori. It also puts the champions joint fourth on the all-time list for successful defenses of the Goddess of Stardom championships alongside Wingori. Thunder Rocker top with 11. A wet or tie. The team of Kugetsu and Hana Kimura are second with eight successful title defenses. But, Matt, who are the team in third that BMI 2000 have in their crosshairs? Are we doing all-time combined or one single reign? One single reign. Is it Kyrie and Yoko Vito? It is not. It is six successful title defenses. Okay. six out of the fences give me a year give me a year if I give you a year you'll get it straight away okay is it Julian Cherry no is it oh it's the Killer Bees yeah okay alright there you go straight away Killer Bees no I don't know who it is Momo Watanabe and Utami oh back in 2018 yeah I would have got it yeah straight away yeah so yes obviously a big statement win for BMI 2000. Again, the first of what will be a series of big wins for Haight. Now, we'll talk a little bit about the opinion of Haight and their domination over the card a little bit later on because, again, it is something that is being spoken about and I think it's something that is a discussion point. In terms of this match, though, Matt, what were your thoughts? Good. Very good at points but not great we have seen great great matches for the uh the goddesses tag team championships 90 in the last five years have been really fantastic matches where to me this seemed like it was just missing something i don't know what i love the finish i love the finish how han and b are not a tag team and it was the tag team camera i may mention it before the tag team chemistry and the fact that hey are heels and there's 84 people on the outside that was ultimately did it han and and B. Preezy. I'm loving B. Preezy in stardom. I make mention that every week. I'm going to make mention again. She just seems so happy. And we see it quite a bit when you have foreign talent come over to any Japanese company that they're not used to the hard-hitting style. Or if they leave to go to one of the big companies and come back, it takes them a little bit. It's like, oh, that's right. Yeah, they hit really hard over here. That's kind of their thing. Where B, since day one, it was just like, I'm back. Here I am. And she's throwing bombs. And obviously, Tor and Ruaka, they're really used to that style. They're very good with that style. Great stuff there. Great stuff with Hanan and Tor. They have really great chemistry. Hanan and Ruaka, remember, they were the semifinals of the Cinderella tournament two years ago. So a little bit of history there. And again, Hanan, she's another one. So great to be back. I'm expecting her to have a big year, maybe win the five-star Grand Prix, maybe make it to the finals. We'll see from there. but again um just guys for some reason for me i don't know if it's because it was like late in the night or i was waiting for the next two matches it seemed to kind of drug out a little bit um again maybe that's me maybe i need to go back and watch this with a fresher set of eyes but i love that uh towards the end of the match we do get this really great and i love i'll be and hanan they got this combination to move over and these uh these lead-up matches where b does the uranagi and han does the backdrop suplex so they hit that for really really great cool combination Hanen hits the Hanen special, but the rest before he gets pulled. Bea Priesley accidentally superkicks Hanen. We get the miss to Bea Priesley. Hanen escapes the DVD for the 17. I really like that for near fall. Like, ah, rinse and repeat. We know what's going to happen here. She gets hit with the miss. She's going to hit with the DVD. Hanen slips out of the DVD. 17 roll up to Tora. That was a really great fall, so I thoroughly enjoyed that. Eventually, though, Rewaka comes in, hits the big release German suplex, and Natsika Tora hits the swan ton, putting away Hanen. again a good match that had very great points and i did like how hanan towards the end she goes for the dive and hits b so i'm like oh is that going to cause the possible breakup here and then b accidentally super kicks hanan so you're like huh i wonder if that's going to happen anything here obviously not only does it not do that but after torah and ruwaka get the win they try to beat up on hanan and then b shield Hanen so I made the prediction like two or three weeks ago that I think B may turn on Hanen and go with hate not only did she not turn on them, but she protected Hanen from more damage after the bell, so it couldn't have been any more opposite of what my prediction was a couple weeks ago, again a really good match, it just seems like these goddess tag matches we've seen over the last few years have really been next level, where this to me never really got to that fourth gear, I still had at 3-3, 4-stars. I thought it was a good enough match, but to me it just seemed like something was missing. It's funny you should say that because actually I felt the exact same way about Konami and Amisori. Now, I knew we'd disagree about this match. And I really enjoyed the psychology of it. Amisori starting out hot, lighting Konami up with those chops and then Konami thinking, well, don't fancy eating any more of them. So instead, centered all her offense around wiping out Amisori's chops. This, for me, especially the second half of the match, felt like Konami on autopilot. and then once we got the referee interference with azuta pulling out um pulling out the referee after the like thunderbolt or like a lightning no like thunderbolt um we then had um the spray paint which didn't lead to the finish so it was unnecessary it just it felt when you look at the fire and the intensity with which we had the Konami and Rina match and the Konami and Sayida match I felt like this was a little bit of a step back it almost felt like a hate paint by numbers in a way and that's not to discredit the goodness of the match again as you mentioned with the BMI 2000 match it was good in parts there were parts that were great but for me it lacked something and I think it lacked a bit of intensity which is what I've loved about Konami's reign up until this point. I felt like this was a little bit of a backward step. I see your point. There's a lot of stuff I agree with you. And you know when you're watching matches, especially big championship matches, when you're getting ready for the match to start, you have a certain expectation. My expectation was very high for this match considering Konami started like it when she won the belt was amazing konami arena konami and saida both great matches ami since she's come back from injury has hit home run after home run the five-star grand prix that's saida number one contenders that's right so i had pretty high expectations and it missed the bar for me rob i still thoroughly enjoyed it i get four and a quarter stars which again is a great rating but i i got the top of my head i think the three konami championship matches kid rena and either i I think I had that four and three fourths stars. And I know I gave Ami and Psy-E to the perfect five stars. That's how much I enjoy this. So I figured Styles make fights. They have the similar styles, the hard hitting, the great pacing, the great fire. You're throwing semi-main event of a show where they sold a whole ton of tickets. You figure that they would have hit 84 home runs. And they just hit a solid triple. Again, four and a quarter stars. So, again, I see your point. it did seem like towards the end of the match it was a lot of like konami 2024 five-star grand free where the cheating was just so much it kind of took away from the match we've seen her kind of cheat a little bit where it kind of just it adds the match as a heel where you're getting more intensity on the uh on the baby face or getting more uh more cheers for the baby face to make their comeback i still thought that was great stuff like amisori towards the end really firing up on Konami after Konami hits the 1399. Ami goes for the Rainmaker. Konami ducks. She locks in the rear naked choke. Again, they do a great job building up the rear naked choke in certain parts of the snatch. Ami Sori eventually hits a huge fighting spear lariat. That leads to the Rainmaker, and then she hits the Leica Thunderbolt, and I totally bit that for the fallacy until I see how far spread out the referee is. Anytime you see the referee laid out when he's going for a three count, like he's going to take a nap you know he's getting pulled out of the ring like clearly and that's the fee that's you know it's sometimes i see behind the curtain on that so the ref gets pulled then we get the and that was a great spot for the crowd because the crowd was kind of tired going into this match because it was a long show um and that once the crowd the ref got pulled the crowd was like oh come on because konami was bending the rules quite a bit in this match but then they're really starting to break the rules uh great stuff there where uh konami then steps out of the second like a Thunderbolt into a rear naked choke into the German Suplex combination, and then Konami hits the buzzsaw kick, locks in the Triangle Lancer. I really like this spot where Ami's story powers up out of the Triangle Lancer, hits a DVD. I thought that was great. I think it's just too much of the Konami strikes, the head kick, the pump kick, the buzzsaw kick, and then Konami locks back in the rear naked choke. And you're right, Ami's story, she could have sold that a little bit, considering that the crowd was really getting into it at this point towards the end of the match where she kind of had it in and then just tapped out i think if she would have been like reaching for the ropes a little bit and then uh maybe if konami like pushed her off the ropes or she got to the ropes and then konami pulled her off um i think they would have gotten a little more juice out of the squeeze regardless i still enjoy this one four and a quarter stars but you're my partner you did make a lot of really good points towards this match i think they have a better match in them but by no means with this that this is my second favorite match from the show. It was actually my second favorite match of the week for when I do my weekly YouTube videos. I just had a really high bar for this match for how great these two wrestlers have been over the last six or seven months. Again, four and a quarter stars for me. Moving on then, the main event and a match that had the entire Twitterverse abuzz. And rightly so, this was a fantastic match. You talk about expectations, Matt. i had the highest of high expectations with sayak amitani and starlight kid and the start only really served to emphasize that i was right to have those high expectations these two have phenomenal chemistry then the injury happens and matt i've watched it about six times i still don't know how sayak amitani dislocates her fingers it's not the way oh okay Because I looked and I couldn't tell. She doesn't seem to land on them and Starlight Kid doesn't seem to catch them as she comes off the top rope. That being said, there have been criticisms of Sayaka Matani and I must admit they are not criticisms I agree with. But again, everyone is entitled to their opinion and I want to make that perfectly clear. You are more than entitled to your opinion. I simply don't agree with this. That Sayaka Matani matches are the same. now I think you look back at the matches and there's differences again, it's what you like this match for me is completely different to any match that she has had before she would have had a phenomenal match with Starlight Kid without the injury but the resilience to basically fight as though there was no injury and bring out an even better match whilst clearly being in so much pain, that is my champion. And she's a goddamn heel. I'm not supposed to like the fact that she can do that. I'm not supposed to be behind Sayaka Amitani. She's a what, Rob? Give me a Jim Cornette. Give me a Jim Cornette. She's a heel. Goddamn. Goddamn. and she just looked at her fingers but I just loved everything about this match I thought it was brilliantly paced I thought the near falls were fantastic I thought Starlight Kid showing absolutely no mercy on Sayakamitani who stops Daichi from saying he's going to throw the match out and then instantly gets hit with a black tiger pal driver on the apron I was like right Starlight Kid is not playing here it felt it had that big match feel and that occasionally can hamstring a match because you've got to live up to that hype case in point AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura at Wrestlemania 34 where it had the hype and for one reason or another it didn't live up to it probably because the show was 18 and a half hours long but that's beside the point I was so drunk. Yeah. I was so drunk. He just tells us to get back on board. I had a match at WrestleMania 34. No, I was so excited for that and they put it in the middle of the card. Middle of the card. Middle of a six-hour card. But this lived up to that hype. And for me, truly cemented why Sayaka Amitani is such a special talent. That being said, good lord what a performance from starlight kid i talk over and over and over again on this podcast about who is the star to sayakama tani's evil okay who are you going to bring in or who are you going to have evil yeah evil i thought you said evil you said evil so i said ea there you go who are you going to bring in on the baby face side of it that's going to match her aura. And it felt like they tried to do it with Nat Sepoy, and they might well revisit that, and I'm all for that. But for me, it was always Micah. And after this match, there is every possibility that it could be Starlight Kid. Okay, I have a lot to talk about here. And if there's a point that you want to make, by all means, do your best, Bobby. You do you. Cut me off. You do you, brother. A lot of Midnight Express references. You do you. God damn, Bobby. What about me? I may mention before about my – whenever I'm watching a match, especially a big match, I always have an idea in my head how good it should be. And a lot of these Saiyakama Tani matches, especially like the Izumi one, I'm like, my expectations are so high. Can she get there? And she has. My expectations were so high. I was actually listening to our preview of this show on Friday on my way home. I think you even said, all right, Matt, we're going to move on from this. I was like, and I had so much more to say that I'm going to do a YouTube. I did a YouTube video like the night before, and I put something on TikTok because I had so much to say about this. My opinion, these are the two best wrestlers in stardom from last year. Azumi's right there as well. Like, Sai is one, and then Azumi and Starlight Kid. and obviously we were there in sumo hall when saiyah defeated sorianu and then starlight kid came on i didn't see starlight kid you did before me because you started shaking me like matt look who's coming out look who's coming up like where i'm like oh my god starlight kid this is the match that they teased a year ago back in january last year they started teasing this with kid as white belt champion cometani as red belt champion and then when they were on the same pay-per-views you would have that one-two combination of starlight hits on my main event say kamatani main event and it was almost like they were trying to outdo each other who would have the better match very much like kamatani and shiri in 2022 when kamatani was wonder champion and shiri was red belt our shiri was red belt champion those were the vibes that i was getting so i was like wow we're getting this match here considering we thought maybe they would go to Yokohama you made we mentioned before Kamatani is clearly the number one star and me and you would go back and forth as a kid or is it Micah as two and they both had legit claims some week like yeah we think it's kids some week we're like yeah maybe it's Micah like we don't know where they were going so it's like my expectations were so high for this match that I was almost kind of nervous I'm like they need to hit this out of the park like absolutely hit it out of the park to get to high how high my expectations were for this match and boy howdy did they ever I mean just from Kid's Entrance where she has half white mask, half red mask, the symbolization of former Wonder of Stardom champion. I'm taking on the greatest Wonder of Stardom champion of all time, Sayaka Mitani, but she's the current Red Belt champion. So I was like, I really like that. Starlight Kid looks like a million bucks as always. So does Sayaka Mitani. They start the match and it's going absolutely fantastic. And I look at wrestling different than most because I know the tricks of the trade. And again, I'm not saying my view on it is different. it's our it's better I'm just saying it's different like very much like how when if Rob when Rob watches we call soccer he calls football because Rob has played he understands certain things that I wouldn't because I other than people running I don't know how soccer is played I would love to watch a game with you maybe maybe when we come over to England in the summer I would love to watch a match with you because I would like to know some of the inner inner inner lingings that happen so again I look at wrestling and again by no means is my way better I'm just saying it's difference so the match is happening kamitani hits the drop kick i felt like it's coming out of the air which is a great spot i even wrote my notes my notes wow what a great spot and then all of a sudden you see the doctors come in and i'm like i wonder if this is the tam thing that they did at dream queendom i'm like i don't want it to be because i don't like it when they do that now that made sense for that match but i was like i'd rather be a work than an actual shoot because you don't want Kamatani to get it and as I'm thinking of this then the camera pans back and it goes right to the Wonder Belt or the World Belt the Red Belt and then it goes to the far camera angle and I'm like no this isn't this isn't a work this is a shoot now I'm thinking in my head as I'm watching this live let me take a step back Rob did you you didn't watch the show live did you I did not know did you know what happened before you watched this match yes the first thing that came up on social media was a still of Sayaka Matani's ridiculously swollen middle finger. Okay, so I had, and I actually, I texted Andy Hedder about an hour after the show, and he only goes on Facebook, and Facebook doesn't have a lot of the stardom results there, so like, stay off Twitter, stay off social media, something happens in the main event, if you know, it's probably going to take away from a certain part of the match. So again, now I'm watching this match as it's happening, and now I know it's a legit injury. Like, okay this isn't gonna work this is a legit injury where's sire and andy had it was the same way but i watched it twice where did sire get hurt it was the landing that's the only possible way because you have to understand when you do a drop kick when you hit your opponent when you come down on the landing you're landing almost like you're catching yourself in a push-up position considering she's drop kicking starlight kid coming out of the air 100 miles an hour you don't know how fall how fast you're going to hit the mat so she hit that mat because you have you're basically you're You're having something getting thrown into your way as you're jumping. And there's no way to judge how fast you're going to come down on the mat because you don't know how fast Starlight Kid's coming. So I watched it twice. You really can't see it that clearly, but very much like when Cometani got hurt against him at the night one of the 2023 five-star grand prix, you really can't tell. So if you do go back and watch it, when Cometani comes down, she comes down a little bit faster on that injured hand than she does on the opposite hand, so it's tough to judge. She just came down too fast, too hard, and hit the mat. That's all that had happened. It was an accident. And again, if it was a regular dropkick, would it happen? Probably not. It does happen, but again, the fact that she dropkicked Starlight Kid and came back and ricocheted off the mat, that's where the injury happened. Now again, I'm sitting here in this chair and I'm like, she's hurt for real. Now I'm thinking of two things. One, when Mayu got hurt. Obviously, my main thing is that yeah I want to make sure that she's okay now I didn't know it was the hand maybe it's the shoulder is it the neck did she break her arm so it's like oh my goodness like is this how this championship reign is going to end this legendary run is it going to end on an injury like Mayu and Tony Storm or is this did she break her arm like Saya and as I just mentioned night one of the 2023 five-star Grand Prix and I'm thinking this and all of a sudden you see Okada getting involved and then you see Daichi getting involved. And once Daichi kept going back and forth to Sia and started like Kid, and I could have this wrong. I don't think I do. My wrestler's brain is telling me they're using Daichi to call spots because they need to hurry up to go somewhere. So that's where my wrestler's brain is going. When you have a great referee, and again, I think Daichi's the best referee in wrestling, you can use that referee to be like, okay, here's what's going on. she's not 100% we're going to be able to finish this match it's the big main event the doctors are going to clear her but you need to go here here and here but now I'm thinking now all of a sudden Okada's getting involved so what if the referee to add to the drama in my own mind what if the referee's like yes I can finish this match but after this she's going to be out for a little bit and then maybe Okada's like look if she's going to lose the belt let it let her lose it in the ring very much like if you remember Willow or Mercedes Monet when Mercedes broke her ankle Mercedes like I'm done I'm supposed to win this match but now we have to call an audible so you have Okada there so now I'm sitting there going okay I think Saia is okay she's starting to get up there it looks like they're using and I could be wrong they're using the referee to communicate spots back and forth now Okada is getting involved he's the one that calls the shots maybe he's like okay we're just gonna have Saia can win the belt here so now that's my thinking going in Saia Kamatani gets up she pushes Daichi they go and what's the first spot Rob It's a black tiger pile driver on the apron. Yeah. So now I'm going, Starlight Kid's winning. Because now she gets a big move on the apron. She's going to roll Starlight Kid in, hit the moonsault, game over. That's what I'm thinking. And then they wrestle for like another 20 minutes, and it's epic at next level. Now, Rob, you have to put this in your head. They dodged a bullet there. It's only her fingers, right? Hit it up. Okay. Again, it could have been the shoulder. It could have been the arm. It could have been the neck. Where my wrestler brain is going is, okay, we dodged a bullet there. We can finish the match. will worry about the injury that the doctors cleared later. Do we have any other bigger spots that may happen in this? Do we have any bigger spots in this match plan that we could have another injury? Oh, they sure did. They sure did. And the fact they still did all of that shows the trust of Saiya, the Starlight Kid, and Starlight Kid to Saiya Kamatani, especially that top rope Star Crusher, which, correct me if I'm wrong, partner, Sai Kamatani has never hit before. She's never done a top rope star crusher. Considering we're 25 minutes into this match, Kamatani has one good hand. And you're posting with that. The fact that Starlight Kid wasn't going to call an audible, she's like, no, I'll still take that. Like that puts so much trust in the Starlight Kid and the Sai Kamatani. You're taking a full head bump coming off the top rope where all you can do is tuck your chin and hold on. That is all onto the person giving that hold that, again, what did I say before? The most important thing is to protect your opponent. And Sai Kamatani with one hand, a move that she's never done before, 25 minutes into this match with only one hand is able to protect Starlight Kid. That absolutely blew my mind. You know what else blew my mind, partner? Top rope tiger driver. Considering the bump, and again, I'm going to pull back the curtain. When you're taking any bump, how you're taught in wrestling school is the more parts of your body that hits the mat, the more that it absorbs. That's why whenever I was dumb and would do thumbtack matches, the more thumbtacks, the better, because the more you land, the more your body can absorb. I'd rather fall on 10,000 thumbtacks than 10. So when you take a bump, you're tucking your chin and then you're swimming out. So this way, your back, the back of your neck, your back, your elbows and your hands all hit the same time absorbing the bump. Kamatani takes this bump coming off the top ropes. And what does she slap, Rob? Her injured hand off the apron before she does the top rope star crusher. So to me, that's even more impressive. And, again, in my mind, as this match is going, I'm like, there might be a possibility that they put the belt here. And they do so many spots that make you believe. They do, again, the top rope tiger driver. And then Starlight Kid hits the tiger suplex. I'm like, that's the finish. Kamatani kicks out. She immediately goes to the star suplex. the same move that won her the Wonder Belt a year ago. I'm like, that's the finish. New champion. I was so dead set. Those three moves back to back to back after the Black Tiger Piledriver on the apron. I'm like, what a great way to end this reign. And Kamatani kicks out. I'm like, this is unbelievable. I loved the spot. I'm going to back up here again. I loved how before the Tiger Driver on the top rope, the two of them are fighting. and Starlight Kids has been working on Kamatani's knee. Kamatani's getting the better of the top rope fight, but as Kamatani's trying to like maneuver herself, she leaves her foot there and it's on the top rope. And what does Kid do? She decides kneeing or elbowing Kamatani's hurt knee. And then she hits the tiger driver, which I thought was great. She used the thing she was working on earlier to get towards the big finish. I love the big bump there, the top rope tiger driver. I thought that was genius on so many levels. I loved how when Kid had Kamatani in the leg crusher submission, when she has wrist control of the arm, it happens to be the bad hand. So now you have an extra thing to sell, and Kamatani sold that so well. It was almost like, I want to sell this. What's the best way for me to sell this? I'm like, I'm just going to watch the matches that Mayu had with Starlight Kid because Mayu always sold that great, and Kamatani's selling was right there. We get towards the end. Again, Kamatani hitting the top rope star crusher, which is hard enough to do, but now you're doing it with one hand. And as soon as she hits it, I'm sitting there going, that should be the finish. But I would love for Kamatani to not to be able to get the pinfall right away and half because of the hurt knee and the hurt hand and all the damage done. And this way, Kid kicks out. Because at this point, Kamatani is kicked out of a Tiger suplex, a top rope Tiger driver, and a star suplex. So now you have to give Kamatani, or excuse me, Starlight Kid, something big to kick out of. She hits the top rope Star Crusher. Never seen it before. Again, in my head, I'm like, she's got one hand. That takes trust. And she crawls over to Starlight Kid, and she has the laziest pin on Starlight Kid, which is exactly what she should have done. This gives Starlight Kid the time to kick out. Sai Kamatani fires up. She hits not the 360 Star Crusher. I mean, she spun Kid around like 900 and some odd degrees. He gets up on our tippy toes and plants Starlight Kid right into the middle of the mat. This is as good as pro wrestling gets, even without the injury. If they were still to do the sequence, it still would have been a five-star match. You add that in, the drama, the fact we almost had this match stop, the fact I thought we might have seen a title change. You throw all that in, and then you have the great promo battle between the two of them back and forth. towards the end was epic. And then the post-match promo in the back where Kamatani says, I was injured in this match, but once I realized that this was for the Red Belt, I need to keep fighting, that's what got me through. Saya Kamatani somehow is continuing to raise the prestige of the World of Stardom Championship. Not only did this run do it, obviously the run's not over, not only did this match do it, but that post-match promo where she got injured And she basically said the main reason why I kept fighting on after injury and after all those crazy things that I kid did to me was to keep the World of Stardom Championship. That's why, in my opinion, this is the most important belt in all of wrestling because of stuff like that. This was genius. Rob, you know me. I do all my notes old school. I have so many of these notebooks over the last five years. Might be the only time I've ever written the F word in this. I'm not going to say what I said. I wrote this was bleeping epic. This was an epic five stars, all the stars. This is probably my top five, top six, all-time favorite World of Stardom Championship match. This was so good. This was so good. And I want to throw out a point here. Last week, we were told we need to pick a winner. Who is better all-time, Io or Mayu, right? And again, it may change week to week, the way these two are going. And I understand that they have been giving us must-see matches for 10 years. Kamatani's been giving us musty matches probably since 2021 is when she got really good for five years. So I think Io and Mayu kind of have double the run that Kamatani does. And this will be a good debate for sometime in the future. If you were to list the top 25 to 30 matches of Sai Kamatani, Io, and Mayu, I think it's Saiya. Saiya's a better wonder champion than the both of them. She's a better world champion than Mayu. Now, granted, Mayu had bad luck twice. She won the belt the first time, got injured in a match with Tony Storm, wins the belt the second time, and then COVID happened. So we never really got to see that big Mayu red belt run. But I tell you what, if you take Mayu's IEW GP run and you line it up against Sia's white or Sia's red, I think Sia's better. If you were to take these 10 matches we've seen Sia with the red belt and line them up against any 10 of the 24 matches that Io's had, I think Sia is better. Sia is the biggest draw in the history of this company. Sia is on my mount. Rushmore for Stardom wrestlers, I think she's right up there with Io and Mayu. Sia is on a completely another level. The draw. We may mention a little bit ago, we talked about how much they drew. Remember back at the end of 2022 where Julia is going to be the biggest thing in Stardom once she wins that red belt? And she was. And obviously, we both agreed she would have had a longer run. but you may mention that last time stardom ran this venue and had a really really big number julia was on top against suzu suzuki saikamatani drew about 800 more tickets than then red hot pun intended julia she is such a massive star numbers we have never seen before epic epic epic matches as you mentioned before some people very small amount of people are like yeah i don't care too much for saikamatani i honestly feel bad for you i honestly that's like this is that's like literally watching Michael Jordan in 95, 96, and I don't get it. I'm sorry. I just feel bad for you. How do you not appreciate what you're having right now with Sayaka Matani? Again, Sayaka is on my Mount Rushmore. There's a possibility if she's giving us this level of matches over the next few years, she is definitely going to be in that conversation with Io and Mayu as the greatest in-ring women's wrestler of all time. Starlight Kid. Oh, my God. A lot of love for Sayaka Matani, and rightfully so. starlight kid unbelievable performance i don't know if this is her best match to this or the uh the sire match from four years ago back in the summer for the wonder they're both right there they're both neck and neck i think the way to go rob for yokohama saika matani starlight kid title verse mask i think that's the way to go i think if they really want to stack the deck give kamatani a couple wins where she's creeping up on EO, and she's either at 13 or 14 going into that. So it's like, Kamatani can break the record and take Starlight Kid's mask, or we can see a new champion. I think that the Starlight Kid is hotter than she's ever been. I think if you flip the belt, you give somebody else that chance to get to that position where Kamatani is. And I think that you do title versus mask in Yokohama, have Starlight Kid win the belt, and then give Sia proper time off, have her come back right around the time for the five-star, have Sia win the five-star, and then we see the trilogy. Which way, we get a year trilogy. We see the final match in Dream Queendom in Sumo Hall and have Kamatani win the belt back. Or they can just give Sia a four-year run with the belt. I think either one wins. This was just epic. The fact that we're able to watch this and call this is on a completely another level. These two wrestlers are two of the best wrestlers in wrestling right now to do it. As I mentioned last week, to me, this isn't the end for the two of them. I think this is just the start. I think you're going to see quite a lot of matches between these two over the next few years, and it's only going to benefit stardom and most importantly benefit the fans, which is us. Agree with a lot of what you've said. I'm loathe to put her in the same category as Maio and Io yet. Longevity, yeah. I mean, a couple of years. There is, absolutely. I think you've got to look as well. We have discussed this before, obviously, Sia, highest-drawing Joshi in stardom history without, you know, it's without a shadow of a doubt. It's all about timing as well. You drop 2015, 2016 Io into this roster, she's going to have the same matches. You know, you put Mayu on this roster, You compare it to her IWGP women's title reign, some of those matches were absolutely blistering. Siree, Fury. Momo. Well, Momo, absolutely. So undoubtedly this match has certainly put Sire on another level for me, without a shadow of a doubt. Is it at the same level as Io and Mayu? Probably not. not yet however Sayaka Amitani is a special talent and to have her be at the point where again she's drawing the amount of tickets that she is she's over as she is, she's producing the matches that she is we are in the midst of something very special that we're watching my final thing to you because I'm aware we've spent quite a lot of time on this, my final question to you really is what is your opinion on the the hate vacuum that we have on this roster now I agree I think All-Star Grand Queendom will be the show where we start to see the cracks in hate I think Stardom have played it well so far because hate is still over you know again we were in Japan we saw the reactions to hate we know that they are still over um However, there's an argument that it could potentially be done to the detriment of the rest of the roster. Like the NWO? Yeah, like the NWO, absolutely. Now, what lots of wrestling companies have failed to do is know how to stop a good thing. And I'm actually going to use the WWE here, which is bizarre, because it's one of the most boring flat companies at the moment I've ever seen. Ironically, except for the women. and CM Punk even CM Punk's flat man oh do you see those promos yeah but those promos like okay those two promos but how long has he been back in the WWE like aside from his stuff with Drew like the match with Balor we'll talk about that we'll talk about that he's not the same it's fine in my eyes anyway you look at what WWE did with The Shield, which was hugely over, and they killed it before it got boring. You then look at the NWO, which was the biggest money mover in wrestling history, and that is now looked at. It's tainted. The entire legacy is tainted because WCW didn't know how to end it. Now, at the moment, you have got Haight winning the vast majority of the matches you've got them with the red belt the white belt, the goddess of stardom tag belts and the artist of stardom championships now cracks are going to have to start forming at some point because they are your heels they are a faction that are over but they are heels now if those cracks don't start developing as all-star grand queendom I do think Konami will drop the belt there I don't see her holding it past all-star grand queendom But I'm intrigued to know if stardom are, in your eyes, are stardom playing this right, or is the hate vacuum a little bit too much? Again, it's worth pointing out that hate have completely sold out their sort of event where they do signings. Sayaka Matani, by the way, has been announced today, not going to be doing signings because she's broken her fingers. she will be doing stamps though i believe for the uh for the pictures it's a great question again you know history is our greatest teacher and look at the nwo the only rosacea glasses exactly yeah i mean you look at the only fact the only i mean they almost put vincent man out of business there's a lot of other facts the fact is it was the nwo where they're still drawing tickets they're still doing really well but there's an old saying leave the party early leave the party early and i think that they can probably and i thought again being my 2000 i think they should have dropped the belt so to line it's neither here nor there but i think if they play this right which for the most part they have been i think they you need to give somebody else a chance to get over um i think how i would do it and again i'm not going to tell tero kata how to book jeepers creepers is he a money-making machine for bushi road and these shows have been great i would have star bomb walk out of Yokohama as the goddess champions i'd have hanan or hazuki or definitely hazuki um beat kunami and then i'd have kid beat sae kamatani to win the red belt um and the only person that i would have when the uh you'd have kid with the goddess and the rebel oh you know what i didn't even think about that hmm maybe the no two line i you know what i didn't even because in my mind it was micah and then after this match it's kid it's definitely kid the buzz on kid especially with the whole mask thing and the fact that korokin leading up to it with kamitani ripped the mask off another thing about this match sorry but i know that we're going long saya kamitani pulls the mask off kid and kid gets insanely violent kid's a hard hitter but like those slaps and headbutts and then she gets a full mouth on kamitani starts raining down headbutts yeah she flipped another switch maybe that's the switch she needs to do to defeat kamitani again there is more there with the mask that's why i think they do the mask versus title match so maybe maybe o2 line you're right yeah you're absolutely i just want to see star bomb win the goddess belts but i think the money right now is in kid uh chasing and then winning the belt off kamitani but i think if at least two of these four belts aren't off hate by all-star grand queendom i think that they're not leaving the party early buddy i think that they're leaving they don't think they're leaving the party early i think that uh you'll see at least half the belts be gone off them by the end of yokohama and the only one that i would have chase and win the belt back would be kamatani because it's kamatani and she's kind of the exception to the rule again we'll see what happens they're still drawing money um but again leave the party early that does leave us with just a couple of final thoughts before we sign off stardom will be running corrigan hall on friday the 13th of February. Unfortunately, no card has been announced as of yet, but just to reiterate, Micah is currently scheduled to be wrestling on that card, so thankfully the injury doesn't appear to be as bad as was first feared. Matt Turner, there's only one real way to sign off the Stardom cast. But before we get to that, we need those awards, mate. Oh, I thought you would forget. Honorable mention for gear and hair, BMI 2000. Yeah, yeah, fair. Best hair, Shuri. Gave best hair to Shuri. Best gear, you hit it on the nail head. You hit it on the nail, buddy. And he had her best gear, Ami Suri. Ami Suri. Learning from the best. I'm learning from the best. That's what it is. Matt, before we go anywhere, my friend, EO and Kyrie Watch, what is on the docket this week, brother? We finally, on Friday Night SmackDown, we got, it was then Teeth, EO and Rhea Ripley versus Julia and Kiana James. So we got the two former World of Stardom champions going at it. Really great stuff. Again, Kiana James has been so impressive with his teaming up with Julia. Really great stuff. We get Rhea and EO. They do some double teamings to start. Eventually we get some heat onto EO. EO hits the Quesadara double stomp. And then in comes one Rhea Ripley. Rhea cleans house. Bump and feed. Bump and feed. Rhea sends Julia to the floor, and then Io hits the beautiful suicide dive onto Julia. Give us an Io versus Julia match. That would be so great. Rhea hits the electric chair drop to Keanu James. That score is Rhea. Two count. Rhea goes to put Keanu James away with the riptide. However, Keanu James slips out, and it's a powerbomb. She slips out, and then she hits a powerbomb onto Io from Io onto Rhea, which is really great. Julia then hits an Arrivederci knee onto Io for a two count. We get the waterfalls with all four of these wrestlers. Eventually, Julia comes out on top of the waterfalls. Julia hits a Northern Lights bomb onto Io, but as she picked Io F, Rhea blind tags herself in. So Julia does not get the three count. Rhea then comes in, hits the Riptide onto Julia. Io then hits the Moonsault onto Julia. And then Io hits a dive on the Florida Keanu James. that gives Rhea Ripley the opportunity to get the pinfall on 2-1 Julia. A really great match. I wish I would have got a little bit more time. Still really great stuff. Four stars for me. And again, give us an EO versus Julia singles match somewhere down the line. It's just really cool just knowing their history and stardom, that they were two shifts passing in the night. We never got to see that match because EO left in 2018. Julia came in in 2019. But really good stuff. If you have the time, definitely go and check it out. as Io and Rhea retain the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship. And that, ladies and gentlemen, does draw to an end this episode of the Stardomcast, which we hope you have enjoyed, and we hope you enjoyed Supreme Fight as well. If you haven't already, you can subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We are literally everywhere. A five-star review and a comment really does help the podcast out as well. patreon.com forward slash the world of Joshi where you can get these episodes early and ad free for as little as one dollar a month you can find us on social media at WOJ Wrestling you can find me on Twitter at Real Rob Goodwin Mr. Turner sign us off good sir questions, comments, suggestions, anything you need from me Matt Turner, OF on the Instagram and Twitter is the easiest, best and fastest way to get a hold of me or you can give me an email. The email address is there's two, matt at worldofjoshie.com. And of course, the classic, the classics never die, the Stardomcast22 at gmail.com. Folks, that's going to wrap it up for a supremely fun episode of Supreme Fight on the Stardomcast here on the World of Joshie Network. We greatly appreciate your support. Can't do it without you. It's like I always say, it's just not my podcast. It's our podcast. Because when it's together, everybody's different. Everybody's special. Thank you. The End We'll be right back.