Tag: wrestling

Stardom continues the NEW YEAR STARS 2025 Tour today in Tokyo with their first Korakuen Hall event of the year. 3 title matches headline today’s event-first up, the High Speed Championship sees a new rule set implemented as Saki Kashima tries to win the title back from Mei Seira in a 2/3 Falls match with only a 10 minute time limit. The second title match is a Ring Of Honor Women’s World Championship match as the seemingly unbeatable champion Athena defends against Thekla. Finally, an Artist Of Stardom Championship match is set after a mini-tournament concluded yesterday, which perpahs unfairly means Cosmic Angels keeps the title either way because Tam Nakano, Saori Anou & Natsupoi defend against faction mates Yuna Mizumori, Aya Sakura & Sayaka Kurara. Safe to say the challengers winning would be a massive upset.

There will be several absences (and a lot less star power as a result) from today’s event-Mayu Iwatani, Maika, HANAKO, AZM & Mina Shirakawa due to New Japan participation in the US last night and Ruaka is out due to her coming-of-age-ceremony (a ritual in Japan when one reaches full/legal adult age).

Today’s event will be held at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo and can be watched LIVE on Stardom World. It’s not yet known if there will be any commentary. There are 7 matches set so far and with no match likely to go more than 30 minutes including the title matches I anticipate today’s event having a running time of just over 2 hours, depending on whether or not there’s an intermission. If there is, bump the estimate up to 2 1/4 hours.

Today’s lineup (match order TBA):
Hina vs. Matoi Hamabe & Fukigen in a 3-way
Rian & Waka Tsukiyama vs. Natsuko Tora & Momo Watanabe
Syuri, Tomoka Inaba, Lady C, Ranna Yagami & Kiyoka Kokatsu vs. Hanan, Saya Iida, Hazuki, Koguma & Momo Kohgo
Starlight Kid, Suzu Suzuki & Miyu Amasaki vs. Saya Kamitani, Rina & Azusa Inaba
High Speed Champion Mei Seira vs. Saki Kashima in a 2/3 Falls Match for the title
ROH Women’s World Champion Athena vs. Thekla for the title
Artist Of Stardom Champions Tam Nakano, Saori Anou & Natsupoi vs. Yuna Mizumori, Aya Sakura & Sayaka Kurara for the titles

Refresh this page occasionally for the latest results.

Updates below will begin at 6:30 PM PT/9:30 PM ET.

6:25 PM PT UPDATE: Live updates begin now.

We are LIVE from Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan. There is no commentary.

The paid attendance will be announced after the event. Crowd still filing in but they have the higher-capacity setup in place (more than DDT & Tokyo Joshi Pro use opposite hard camera) but outside of that it’s maybe half full so far. Looking like on track for 850-900. Today is a national holiday in Japan for the record. (UPDATE: The announced paid attendance was 1233)

The matches should begin in about 10 minutes. You can also watch the first match FOR FREE on YouTube, which will be the High Speed Championship match. The ROH Women’s Championship is the semifinal and the Artist Of Stardom Championship match is the main event.

The matches begin at 6:33 PM PT/9:33 PM ET. The new High Speed title match rules are explained to the crowd first.

Match 1: High Speed Champion Mei Seira vs. Saki Kashima for the title. 2/3 Falls, 10 minute total time limit
Fall 1: Seira wins
Fall 2: Kashima wins
Fall 3: Seira wins
Result: High Speed Champion Mei Seira beat Saki Kashima 2-1 to retain the title. V4 for Seira.

The YouTube broadcast ends here.

Match 2: Hina vs. Matoi Hamabe & Fukigen in a 3-way. 15 minute time limit
Result: Hina beat Matoi Hamabe & Fukigen in a 3-way by pinning Fukigen.

Match 3: Rian & Waka Tsukiyama vs. Natsuko Tora & Momo Watanabe. 20 minute time limit
Result: Natsuko Tora & Momo Watanabe beat Rian & Waka Tsukiyama. Watanabe beat Rian with a rear naked choke.

Match 4: Syuri, Tomoka Inaba, Lady C, Ranna Yagami & Kiyoka Kokatsu (Independent/Freelancer) vs. Hanan, Saya Iida, Hazuki, Koguma & Momo Kohgo. 20 minute time limit
Result: Hanan, Saya Iida, Hazuki, Koguma & Momo Kohgo beat Syuri, Tomoka Inaba, Lady C, Ranna Yagami & Kiyoka Kokatsu. Koguma pinned Yagami.

Match 5: Starlight Kid, Suzu Suzuki & Miyu Amasaki vs. Saya Kamitani, Rina & Azusa Inaba. 20 minute time limit
Result: Saya Kamitani, Rina & Azusa Inaba beat Starlight Kid, Suzu Suzuki & Miyu Amsaski. Inaba pinned Amasaki. Afterwards, Inaba with microphone. Future Of Stardom Championship challenge issued. Seemingly accepted. When we thought they were done, Kamitani with microphone. Words for Suzuki, who it sounds like might be next for the World Of Stardom Championship. Kamitani told Suzuki to lick her boot…so Suzuki bit it instead.

Quick break for ring cleaning.

Intermission.

The matches resume at 8:10 PM PT/11:10 PM PT.

Match 6: ROH Women’s World Champion Athena vs. Thekla for the title. 30 minute time limit
Result: ROH Women’s World Champion Athena beat Thekla to retain the title. Post-match, Thekla & Athena promo in English. Thekla wants another match. Athena agreed, but in the US instead. Athena then addressed the crowd in English. It’s her first time competing in Japan, and she thanked the crowd in Japanese. She hopes to be back in the future, and I think there is no doubt she will be back in Japan soon.

Main Event: Artist Of Stardom Champions Tam Nakano, Saori Anou & Natsupoi vs. Yuna Mizumori, Aya Sakura & Sayaka Kurara for the titles. 30 minute time limit
Result: Artist Of Stardom Champions Tam Nakano, Saori Anou & Natsupoi beat Yuna Mizumori, Aya Sakura & Sayaka Kurara to retain the titles. Nakano pinned Kurara after Violet Screwdriver. V1 for the champs. Mizumori apparently was busted open during the match as she had a bloody nose afterwards.

The next event is Friday at Matsuyama Community Center Special Exhibition Hall in Ehime. There will be no live broadcast.

Stardom began a weekend tripleheader with the first half of a Nagoya doubleheader.

Today’s event was held at Chunichi Hall in Nagoya and will be available on demand on Stardom World at a later date. There was no live broadcast.

The announced paid attendance was 409.

Many wrestlers were absent today-Maika, Mina Shirakawa, HANAKO, Mayu Iwatani & AZM due to New Japan participation in the US.

The event opened with a signing ceremony for Monday’s High Speed Championship match between Mei Seira & Saki Kashima. Matches will have new rules starting Monday-3 Falls, 10 minute total time limit.

Match 1: Hanan, Koguma & Athena beat Saya Kamitani, Momo Watanabe & Thekla. Athena pinned Thekla after a straitjacket powerbomb.

Match 2: Saori Anou beat Matoi Hamabe & Waka Tsukiyama in a 3-way by pinning Hamabe.

Match 3: Syuri, Tomoka Inaba, Saki Kashima & Kiyoka Kokatsu beat Starlight Kid, Mei Seira, Suzu Suzuki & Miyu Amasaki. Kashima pinned Seira.

Match 4: Tam Nakano & Natsupoi beat Ruaka & Azusa Inaba. Natsupoi pinned Ruaka.

Match 5: Artist Of Stardom Next Challenger Tournament: Yuna Mizumori, Aya Sakura & Sayaka Kurara beat Hazuki, Saya Iida & Rian. Mizumori pinned Rian affer TP Sunshine.

Main Event: Artist Of Stardom Next Challenger Tournament: Natsuko Tora, Rina & Fukigen beat Hina, Lady C & Ranna Yagami. Rina pinned Hina after Pink Devil.

The next event is tomorrow. There will be no live broadcast.

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).