Cero Reviews STARDOM Tokyo Super Wars ~ Tokyo Super Women's War

STARDOM, Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling, SHINE, etc.
Post Reply
User avatar
cero2k
Site Admin
Posts: 20950
Joined: Dec 16th, '10, 11:32

Cero Reviews STARDOM Tokyo Super Wars ~ Tokyo Super Women's War

Post by cero2k » Dec 1st, '21, 16:31

STARDOM Tokyo Super Wars ~ Tokyo Super Women's War
November 27, 2021
Yoyogi National Gymnasium #2, Tokyo, Japan

Future Of Stardom Title Three Way Battle Match
Ruaka (c) vs. Mai Sakurai vs. Waka Tsukiyama - 4/10
Not a great match, Ruaka is not one to carry rookies, and while Waka and Mai can do well when paired up with some people, Ruaka wasn't one. The saving grace of this match was the idea that it's two Cosmic Angels against an Oedo Tai, so part of the match was Ruaka taking on two opponents and beating them up. Sakurai and Tsukiyama had a chance to work alone together and the action was a bit faster paced, but at that point, it's just a rookie match. Ruaka won with a Freezer Bomb on Sakurai.

Post-match - The masked freak returned, attacked all three women with that stick, but Starlight Kid of all people ran down for the save. After the freak left, Hanan jumped in and challenged Ruaka to a title match for the Ryogoku Sumo Hall show.

Lady C & Unagi Sayaka vs. Queen's Quest (AZM & Momo Watanabe) - 6/10
This was completely carried by QQ's, but that also brought upon some of the issues. Lady C was definitely the weak link of the match, she just couldn't keep up with AZM's speed and sometimes failed to follow with where AZM needed her to be. Sayaka wasn't much better, but she was miles better actually, only problem is that she also played a bit of an underdog and had to leave the finishing sequences to C. Final minutes were considerably better when C got to pace out the match a bit and get some offense, but at the end AZM pinned C after a foot stomp so far, that it looked more like a top rope baseball slide than a foot stomp.

Oedo Tai (Fukigen Death, Rina & Saki Kashima) vs. STARS (Hanan, Hazuki & Mayu Iwatani) - 7/10
Fun match. There was some prior heat between Hazuki and Rina, since Rina doesn't want Hazuki wearing black lipstick, she claims she is the only one that gets to do that in STARDOM, so a large part of the match was built around them, both the start and the climax right before tagging in Kashima for the ending sequence, where Hazuki won with a brainbuster on Kashima after Mayu hit The Rocket.

Mayu paired up a lot with Death and Hanan was mostly the babyface in peril, but the match itself was short enough that it all felt like tag work and little heat.

Post-match - Mayu announced that there is going to be a unit tournament on the Osaka Super Wars shows with DDM, STARS, Cosmic Angels, and a team from Marvelous.

Wonder Of Stardom Championship #1 Contendership Match
Natsupoi vs. Himeka vs. Saya Kamitani - 7.5/10
The fact that this match ended up playing out so well is a reflection on how strongly everyone has been booked on STARDOM in the last year or so. This all comes from Natsupoi and Kamitani laying eyes on the White belt, they've made their intentions clear that they want a shot at Nakano (or Shirakawa is she wins). Himeka however, had offered Syuri a challenge for the SWA title if Konami couldn't make it back for this show, but since she did, she had no match. Then came the tag league, where HimePoi suddenly started having some communication problems and ended up losing, taking each other out, and such, causing a rift between then. This match was announced, and the anger between Poi and Himeka just exploded, they're not in the same page, which is the only thing that could give Kamitani a winning chance, since there was no way she'd be able to take on HimePoi by herself and manage to win.

The match played into the story, Himeka went straight for Poi, skipping the introductions. The match became a mix of Himeka and Poi wrestling each other, but also teaming up every now and then to take out Kamitani. The focus between the to DDM members became so much that they allowed Kamitani to rest and find her spot to jump back into the match and pick on the weaker opponents. After taking out Himeka with a springboard plancha, she reversed Natsupoi's Fairy Blink into a roll up, and into a Japanese Clutch for the win.

It seem that regardless of the match, STARDOM was interested in having Himeka build up some tension with one of their stablemates, I have to imagine that Himeka vs Syuri would have enough heat itself.

Post-match - After the match, Himeka and Poi made up, Himeka carried Poi to the back as usual.

High Speed Championship Match
Starlight Kid (c) vs. Koguma - 8/10
As expected, really good match. This had all the tropes of a High Speed bout. The open sequence itself, that is your usual Tiger Mask vs Dynamite Kid sequence of counters and reversals, spilled out to the ramp, where they kept reversing and dodging each other, and then back into the ring.

The rest of the match was mostly momentum trading, back and forth until the finish. After the usual exchange of roll ups, SLK got the pin with a weird roll up into a fireman's carry, and then like hitting an AA from her knees, she rolled into Koguma and got the pin.

Post-match - After SLK humiliated Koguma for a while, AZM came out and challenged SLK for Queendom. Koguma, who just lost, asked to make it a 3-way, and since SLK is an ass kicker, she accepted.

SWA Undisputed World Women's Championship & 5★STAR Grand Prix Contract UWF Rules Match
Syuri (c) vs. Konami - 8/10
This was great for what it was, but you could tell that Konami wasn't fully back, she looked gassed out towards the end. The match was indeed a full out UWF rules match, with rope break counters on screen.

The match was exactly what you'd expect from a UWF rules match between Syuri, a legit boxer, kickboxer, and MMA fighter, and Konami, arguably the best kicker in the promotion. They tried to wrestle, but the match quickly became a kicking fest, left and right, and that was what gave Konami the edge, she's a better kicker and managed to connect Syuri first, making her tumble early for the KO tease. The match went on with more and more kicks, until Syuri landed a Buzzsaw kick that knocked out Konami stone cold in the middle of the ring and the match was done.

Not to go out on a tangent, but with ROH basing the Pure Rules division out of the old UWFi rules, with certain modifications to make it more 'Pro Wrestling', I'm now more surprised they never tried to bring in some of that history to ROH back during the first Pure Rules run.

Wonder Of Stardom Championship Match
Tam Nakano (c) vs. Mina Shirakawa - 7.5/10
The story coming in to this match was beautiful. Nakano has been taking on many challengers, lately she defeated her other Cosmic Angel mate Sayaka. When Shirakawa challenged, Nakano accepted for the sake of taking on all challengers, but she's made it somewhat clear that she doesn't consider Mina a strong challenger. Shirakawa has grown angry at Nakano in the last couple of weeks, and she doesn't only want the title, but she wants for Nakano to acknowledge her, to stop glorifying her partners of the past in STARS, and start acknowledging the ones that now stand beside her like Shirakawa and Sayaka.

A little cartoony, but Shirakawa came out with an evil persona, she had a black jacket and crystal tears under her eyes. Her wrestling was a bit more vicious too.

I didn't think the match itself was as great as the story leading to it. Shirakawa got a lot of offense early on, but as some of Nakano's defenses, she reached the point where her opponent has tired themselves out and Nakano is still standing, now overpowering her opponents. After that, they had a couple of back and forth spots and near falls, but it was a foregone conclusion at that point that Nakano was just building to her finish, a Violet Screwdriver and a TIGHT Twilight Dream for the pin.

Even if Nakano acknowledges Mina after this match, I still think the match could have portrayed Mina in a stronger way, not just someone that got offense because Nakano wasn't opposing her, and then Mina got tired. For the sake of having Nakano look strong as fuck, this was a well booked match, but I don't know if Mina builds up Nakano that much.

Post-match - New #1 contender to Nakano, Saya Kamitani, came out and they made it official. Nakano vs Kamitani at Sumo Hall.

World Of Stardom Championship Match
Utami Hayashishita (c) vs. Maika - 9/10
Really great match, one that displayed Maika's growth from her January challenge to this one, but made it clear that Hayashishita is the queen of the mountain. The match obviously had the hurdle of selling you dramatic action when the real challenge is in a month against Syuri, but if you see it from Maika's perspective, and how she has developed into an almost mirror of Hayashishita and she came closer to winning, then you have a productive match.

The whole of the match was built around mirror spots, where they went back and forth with the same moves, trading momentum, but as they went on towards the end, Hayashishita gained control and won with a BT Bomb. Like most of Hayashishita's matches, this was brutal, I'd even consider this a bit more brutal than the UWF match.

Post-match - Hayashishita thanked Maika. Afterwards, Syuri came in and told Hayashishita that she'd been waiting for this moment for a long time. Hayashishita agreed. It's on like Donkey Kong, Hayashishita vs Syuri III at Dream Queendom.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
A great show by STARDOM as usual, not the strongest of cards, we're building to Queendom, so these Super Wars shows have been a mix of build up or random challenges, yet the deliver inside the ring like no other.
Image

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 10 guests