Cero Reviews STARDOM 10th Anniversary Grand Final Osaka Dream Cinderella ~ Osaka Mecha Stardom!

[cero2k]

Stardom 10th Anniversary Grand Final Osaka Dream Cinderella ~ Osaka Mecha Stardom!
October 9th, 2021
Osaka-Jo Hall, Osaka, Japan

Future Of Stardom Championship Match
Unagi Sayaka (c) vs. Ruaka - 5.5/10
Ruaka won the title in what wasn't a great match, but it was one of her better ones in the last month for sure. It obviously came with some shenanigans from Oedo Tai, she jumped Sayaka at the start and later on, Rina came in with the aid to finish off Sayaka for the win after hitting a Freezer Bomb. This was painting out to be a good defense for Sayaka, she was looking dominant and dealing with Oedo Tai at the same time, but unfortunately, Ruaka is now the 'future of Stardom'.

Post-match - Ruaka cut her winner's promo. Lady C jumped in and challenged Ruaka for the title. I know C ain't winning, but I never wanted her to win a match more than now. Ponytail C for the win!

Calendar Announcements - They're running EDION again on 12.18 for the Super Wars tour.

Cosmic Angels (Mai Sakurai & Mina Shirakawa) vs. Team Marvelous (Maria & Rin Kadokura) - 7/10
Every now and then, Stardom books these matches against other promotions that seem to be purposefully done to have the other promotion outshine their own talent. As improved as Shirakawa is, Maria and Kadokura are little freaking machines in the ring. The match was all about building up to Kadokura vs Shirakawa, so Sakurai was mostly there to be the weak link of the Cosmic Angels that ended up taking the loss at the hands of Kadokura with a Boston Crab. Having said that, Kadokura and Maria brought out the best of Sakurai that we've seen since she joined Stardom.

Post-match - They teased some heat with Shirakawa and Kadokura after the match.

High Speed Championship Match
Starlight Kid (c) vs. Fukigen Death - 7.5/10
SLK got an awesome entrance, coming out first all in white, then she descended into the depth of hell and came out again as Darkness SLK. The match was great, it had all that a High Speed match should have, the fast paced action, the billion pin reversal sequences, a little hit of Death schtick, and at the end, SLK retains with a Black Tiger Driver. I really appreciate that SLK is taking on Black Tiger's moves on this run. I also really appreciate how good Yoneyama is even when playing a smoking clown. DDM's entrance wasn't as great, but they have new matching gear, which is always appreciated for a team.

Artist Of Stardom Title Match
Donna del Mondo (Himeka, Maika & Natsupoi) (c) vs. Queen's Quest (AZM, Momo Watanabe & Saya Kamitani) - 8.5/10
It be really hard to put into words, but QQ's entrance was the most badass thing I've seen in a long time, there is something about the gear, the order they came out to, the confidence in each women's face, that just gave me chills. They looked like the team that should win and hold the trios titles forever.

DDM won the trios titles just a couple of days ago from the Cosmic Angels, and the QQ's challenge came out quickly.

This match was awesome, there wasn't a combination between these teams that didn't yield a great exchange, I have a bias for AZM versus Natsupoi, but I won't lie that Maika vs Kamitani may had been better. That spot before the finish where AZM and Momo kicked each other after Natsupoi dodged made me audibly shout. Maika won with a two Michinoku Driver II one after the other. Mai-Hime-Poi retain the titles.

HZK vs Koguma Video Package - They talked about the history these two have together, having trained together when they started.

Koguma vs. Hazuki - 7.5/10
HZK pretty much came back with her Oedo Tai style, but turned into her own thing now. She did go back to the full name spelling.

You watch this match and it's hard to believe that Hazuki hasn't wrestled in almost 2 years, her timing, speed, intensity, and ability to execute moves and lock in submissions were all on point. In addition, she was incredibly dominant in the match, Koguma got some offense, but Hazuki controlled most of the match, landed the hardest moves, and even kicked out of the same roll pin that Koguma used all of the GP to get wins. Hazuki won with a Brainbuster.

Post-match - Hazuki was happy to win on her return, she didn't think she still had it. She thanked Koguma and asked her to become a tag and enter the Goddesses of Stardom Tag League together. Koguma accepts. Crush Gal Chigusa Nagayo has been on commentary and had some tears after seeing Koguma and HZK come together.

SWA Undisputed World Women's Championship Match
Syuri (c) vs. Saki Kashima - 6.5/10
This match was thrown together almost at the last minute. It was originally supposed to be Syuri vs Konami, but the latter had to drop off after a small injury. Syuri was almost left out doing commentary, but instead, Kashima challenged her for the SWA title and Syuri's World of Stardom title shot. The title hadn't been defended since July, so it was kinda imperative to put another defense in the calender for Syuri now that the GP was over. I did think coming in to this match that there was a chance that Konami was winning in order to have Syuri chase the red title without it.

You're not likely to ever see a Japanese promotion do a squash match, especially in the top three matches of a card, but this was as close as it gets to it. Syuri was just dominant in there, she destroyed Kashima until she tapped her out. Kashima landed a couple of hard attacks that stumbled Syuri for a bit, but she would quickly recover and regained control. This was less than 10 minutes and Oedo Tai didn't interfere, which kinda tells me that this was more last minute than I came off as.

Post-match - Syuri nominated AZM for a title match before she goes after Hayashishita.

Wonder Of Stardom Championship Match
Tam Nakano (c) vs. Mayu Iwatani - 9.25/10
Holy shit, blonde Mayu Iwatani! And she has somewhat new gear, it's a slight modification on her current gear.

Match was awesome. These two tend to have somewhat formulaic matches now and then, but this was none of that, it was all back and forth, going hard at each other, a lot of mirror spots with both women chasing the same moves, or both stumbling out of the ring, both women hit dives, and at one point they both pushed the referee out of the way when they were trying to beat the shit out of each other. Eventually the time limit ran out while they were trading near falls.

Post-match - After Tam calmed down and was given her title back and her V4 trophy, both women exchanged some words, mostly a threat from Mayu telling Tam that she retained the title today, but she'll will come back after for her.

After Mayu left, Unagi Sayaka jumped in the ring and challenged Tam for a title shot since she has a win over Tam from the GP. Nakano accepted.

World Of Stardom Championship No Time Limit Match
Utami Hayashishita (c) vs. Takumi Iroha - 9/10
Another awesome match, but this was far more methodical than the previous. The last time these two wrestled, they went the 20 minutes, so this time around, they got a no time limits match. The one difference was that Hayashishita was way more vicious in this match. Both women worked each other's legs, but Hayashishita was a bit more dominant than the GP match. She wasn't planning on needing the extra time, she was out there to finish Iroha in less than 20.

Iroha did end up making a comeback with kicks and slams and stopped trying to chain wrestle Hayashishita. After Iroha got enough offense, Hayashishita regrouped and also came back with slams, this time directly chasing the finish, which she eventually found with a big BT Bomb at the 30 minute mark.

Post-match - Hayashishita put over Iroha in her winner's promo. Hazuki and Maika both ran to the ring to challenge for the Red title, with the Super Wars tour coming, they agree that Hazuki will challenge on the 3rd of November, and Maika gets the winner on the 27th. After all things were agreed on, everyone left and Hayashishita finally paid attention to the real challenge, Syuri, who had been on commentary for the match. They have a staredown to close the show.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
I don't think there has been a single STARDOM show that I've watched that I walked out disappointed, especially any big show. It talks a lot of their characters and depth that they can book most shows with minimum preparation and nothing feels out of line and everything delivers.