Cero Reviews STARDOM Cinderella Tournament 2020, Part 1

[cero2k]

WWR STARDOM Cinderella Tournament 2020
March 24, 2020
Korakuen Hall

The Cinderella Tournament is STARDOM's yearly Spring tournament. It's a single elimination bracketed tournament. Eliminations can come by pin, submission, or over-the-top rope. Each match has a time limit of 10 minutes.

Opening Ceremony - It's the usual introduction of all participants. Most relevant part was that Hana kept offering Mayu Iwatani from her banana.

Natsu Sumire vs. Rina vs. Hina vs. Itsuki Hoshino - 4.5/10
Feels bad for Natsu, being outside the tournament and doing the opener with the young ones, but at least it's a treat for me. They're also having an opener in a single night tournament! why!?

Match was the feel good and comedy stuff to get the STARDOM crowd going. All three kids ganged up on Natsu until Hina and Rina decided to turn on Hoshino, and so Hoshino and Natsu teamed up for a while. Natsu kept flirting with old man Liger on commentary, she at one point did a Shotei. She hit a Bronco Buster on all three of them and pinned Rina with a Fisherman Suplex. At least Natsu won decidedly.

First Round Match
Starlight Kid vs Momo Watanabe - 8.5/10
Great match. The smallest and youngest (speculation, it's still unrevealed and could be younger than AZM for all I know) wrestler of the tournament vs the former champion. Not much time to build a story, but it was just that Starlight surprised Momo with her offense as she had way more speed and counters to a lot of Momo's stuff. We had two or three GREAT nearfalls, mainly when Starlight tossed Momo on the apron and when Starlight reversed the B-Driver. Momo won with the B-Driver and a kick to the head.

This lasted less than 5 minutes and they managed to create near fall tension. Kuddos!

First Round Match
Jungle Kyon vs Giulia - 7/10
My love fot Giulia is no secret, but it still pains me to see Kyona get fed to more newcomers to put over, but if you want to get a good match out of Giulia, Kyona is the woman for the job. She's the STARDOM Hirooki Goto. These two had a weird little feud coming from No People Gate with promos in French and Italian.

The pvrevious match was a sprint, this was considerably slower. Match saw a visibly better Kyona, but Giulia's offense was just stronger whenever she got it in, be it the first submission, the elbows, or the DDT, so while Jungle dominated most of the match, Giulia's offense would really slow her down. At the end, it was Giulia's advance submission work that took out Kyona, she locked in an STF, transitioned into a Choke with Kyona's own arm, then turn it around and did like an Upside Down STF to choke out Kyona. Good stuff.

First Round Match
AZM vs Konami - 6.5/10
AZM jumped Konami and hit a Top Rope Plancha Suicida to the floor to start the match. Good start. This was another fast pace sprint, but it was all submission based, they kept the kicking to a minimum and it was just Konami and Azumi countering submission attempts until Konami locked in a Reverse Kimura for the win. Quick and perfect, i'd give it a higher rating, but it really only lasted about 3 minutes; however, even if AZM tapped out in 3 minutes, it was far from a squash.

First Round Match
Jamie Hayter vs Syuri - 5/10
Hayter is the only gaijin in the tournament this year. Liger was saying that she reminded him of Bruiser Brody or Stan Hansen because of her power and size over Syuri.

This was the weakest so far, Syuri just did a lot of kicks and submissions and Hayter didn't get much in. Syuri worked over Hayter's arms with several submissions until one worked.

First Round Match
Saki Kashima vs. Tam Nakano - 6.5/10
This was a somewhat sloppier version of the Momo vs Starlight match, with Tam always finding ways to dodge or escape Saki's offense, while getting her stuff in too. This time tho, once Tam got momentum, she didn't let off and won with a Jumping kick, a running Knee, and a Tiger Suplex. OK match.

First Round Match
Natsuko Tora vs Saya Kamitani - 5/10
Kamitani reminds me soo much of Momo from 3 years ago, you can see the potential, but she needs a change of look. She's a rookie, so I know it'll come sooner or later.

Match was the closest to a squash we've seen in the tournament, Kamitani had some hope spots, but she wasn't going to be doing much against Tora, who is in the process of being built up as a stable leader. Tora won with a great Frog Splash.

First Round Match
Utami Hayashishita vs. Maika - 8/10
This may had been the closest we've been to hard psychology so far. This was a match between two strong submission wrestlers, so Maika worked over Utami's arm from the get go, while Utami went after Maika's back. They exchanged submissions all match, but they kept either reversing or making the ropes. Eventually they went to a time limit draw and thus both were eliminated from the tournament. I really don't mind eliminating Utami like this. The wrestling here was good, Utami is low key top 5 if not 3 women in the world.

Post-match - There was a small pull apart between the two who were not done kicking each other's ass.

First Round Match
Mayu Iwatani vs Hana Kimura - 7/10
This is a main event in any arena of Japan, but here we are, as the opening round. The good thing about this match up was that I didn't know who was winning, either was a strong contender to go all the way if necessary, so even the simplest pin became a high stress situation. And well, I wasn't expecting that ending either.

This was another sprint, they went straight into the elimination teases with them fighting in the apron, some pins, Hana tried powerbombing Mayu over the rope, while Mayu then tried doing a Border Toss over the rope. Eventually, Hana for some reason decided to lock in an Abdominal Stretch on top of the third rope and the both stumbled down for the double elimination. It gets both out and since the previous match did something similar, I don't think anyone expected this. The winner of Tora vs Tam is going to have a lot of time to rest.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Really good show, it went by fast. I know it's not the whole thing. I believe I have to subscribe to see the Quarter/Semi/Finals of the tournament, that that'll be covered separately.

This was great, short matches that told great quick stories. For the most part, I think the right people won this round. Given that this show has short matches, I really recommend checking some of them out.