Unlike in most women’s promotions in Japan, faction warfare is an integral part of Stardom (Dragon Gate may be the best example as a whole of faction warfare in Japan). Today the promotion announced their annual faction tournament for upcoming events later this month, here’s how it will work:
All 6 current factions-Stars, Cosmic Angels, God’s Eye, E neXus V, Neo Genesis, H.A.T.E.-will participate in 2 3-team blocks. All matches will be 6-women tag matches, 2/3 Falls, 30 minute time limit, participants on each team are not announced until the match begins and each faction member must participate in at least one of their two matches. That puts H.A.T.E. in an impossible predicament because they have 7 members so they all can’t be in 2 different matches. The other factions all have 5 or 6. However, the participation rule is waived if one or more wrestlers in a faction can’t participate due to injury.
After the matches are concluded, the winners of each block advance to a championship match and the tournament winners get 2 title shots of their choice as long as they are Stardom titles (so not the IWGP Women’s Championship or STRONG Women’s Championship as those are New Japan titles). If there is a tie, the tiebreaker is match result. If said match was a draw, there will be a rematch (1 Fall, 30 minute time limit). The Final will be a 30 minute match between all members of a faction, possibly with 1 minute intervals, most total falls wins.
The blocks are as follows:
Red-Stars, God’s Eye, E neXus V
Blue-Cosmic Angels, Neo Genesis, H.A.T.E.
The matches:
1/17 (Matsuyama Community Center Special Exhibition Hall, Ehime)-Stars vs. E neXus V, Cosmic Angels vs. Neo Genesis
1/18 (Osaka Prefectural Gym 2, Osaka)-Stars vs. God’s Eye, Neo Genesis vs. H.A.T.E.
1/19 (Osaka Prefectural Gym 2)-God’s Eye vs. E neXus V, Cosmic Angels vs. H.A.T.E.
1.23 (Shin-Kiba 1st Ring, Tokyo)-Final
The promotion also announced Hanan will not be part of the 1/19 event due to Diana participation. Events will also have non-tournament matches.
As far as Stardom World broadcasts, no live broadcast on 1/17 (on demand later), live on 1/18 & 1/19 (1/18 start in the US), TBA for 1/23 (I anticipate live but I sense they’ll try to be sneaky and force a PPV since it’s also the promotion’s 14th Anniversary event).
