STARDOM 1/14/2013 - 2nd Anniversary
Truthfully, I have very little interest in this card, especially with the SHIMMER girls on it as I just don't think they are up to par. I'm also not so high on trios matches anymore after seeing millions of useless ones in CMLL.
The crowd looks pretty bad for this. It is never good when you have more people in the match than in the front row. I blame it on being a trios heavy show, STARDOM cooling off as a whole with retiring wrestlers and the show being in the second week of January. The end of December and beginning of January are part of the holidays in Japan and I'd think most people who would want to go see wrestling would have went then.
Artist of Stardom Title Tournament - Natsuki Taiyo, Saki Kashima and Act Yasukawa vs Miho Wakizawa, Tsukasa Fujimoto and Yui Yokoo
 |
| The finish |
Saki Kashima beat Yui Yokoo with a double underhook suplex. The match wasn't bad. The faces were a decent team and the heels had lots of issues with Act Yasukawa. I'm pretty sure Yokoo is going to be doing the comedy stuff longterm. She has some wacky facials and does a 1970's All Japan Pro Wrestling moveset so I think that is the only route. She's still a little akward but I have a feeling it's going to be her gimmick.
Artist of Stardom Title Tournament - Io Shirai, Mayu Iwatani, Natsumi Showzuki vs Tomoka Nakagawa, Portia Perez and Kellie Skater
Tomoka Nakagawa beat Mayu Iwatani with a lariat. The match wasn't bad and it was all Tomoko and Io for the most part. Everyone else was basically along for the ride since this was so fast.
Yuhi vs Hailey Hatred
ProWresBlog's 2012 Rookie of the Year is back. Hailey's a nice person but I'm not a big fan of her in-ring. She just always gets saddled as a giant and has to work that style of match, and it's rarely good.
Hailey Hatred got the win with a powerbomb, surprising...not. Match was rough at first but it got better near the end. I loved Yuhi's german on Hailey. It was one of the best german's I've seen, but other than that, not alot of highlights. The early portion was rough with Hailey not being able to do some of the lucha stuff.
Yoshiko vs Hiroyo Matsumoto
They went to a 15 minute draw here. Why? Hiroyo can't take a fall now? Stupid, though the work was decent and there was lots of hate.
Wonder of Stardom title - Kairi Hojo vs Yuzuki Aikawa
This is an interesting one here and definitely necessary since Yuzupon is going away soon and Kairi is one of the better STARDOM prospects. I admittedly would be tempted to put Hojo over here for the title since Yuzuki's gonna have to lose it anyway.
Yuzuki Aikawa got the win with an inside spin kick to the face. Good match here with Hojo showing she is ready to go at a main event level and Yuzuki being her usual good self. Lots of hard shots here and tons of boob slapping. I think Hojo tired herself out here with all the slaps but I liked it. This was alot of fun all things considered and with a few minutes off, it would have been even better. Rating:***1/2
Artist of Stardom Tournament Final - Natsuki Taiyo, Act Yasukawa and Saki Kashima vs Tomoka Nakagawa, Kellie Skater and Portia Perez
 |
| Act gets the pin! |
Act pinned Kellie Skater to win the titles and the tournament. Well, there are no titles actually because the belts didn't arrive until a few weeks later. Not a great one here and the gaijin might as well have been back home. Act and Tomoka were the stars though with Tomoka showing that she's way too good to be fooling around in the midcards.
Stardom Title - Nanae Takahashi vs Kyoko Kimura
Really weird intro video here with the girls being given movie character like titles and Kimura's video being done to "The Star Spangled Banner". Ya know, despite the fact that she's not American.
 |
| Wow, Nanae is now moderately attractive. Props to her for that. |
Nanae got the win, as expected with a wrist cluch Emerald Fusion. The match never really took off for me. I didn't buy Kimura as having any shot at winningand I don't know what else to say really. I think some people will like this alot but it just never clicked for me.
Overall thoughts: The show was alright. Some pretty good stuff and some so-so stuff though I hope this is the last of the three gaijin as they all contributed nothing.
I am glad you got Hailey Hatred's OMG WTF facial. It was a cool moment where she was thinking "What do I have to do the beat this girl". I do agree that Yuhi's german suplex was amazing. They had a fun little match.
ReplyDeleteYep, gotta love that german. The match was decent and would have hit my best matches list if not for the rough start.
DeleteI've only watched the trios tournament finals and the Yoshiko vs Hiroyo match so far. Act is funny as hell as the geek who's trying too hard to be a cool bad girl. I'm assuming the draw in the Yoshiko/Hiroyo match is to build to a bigger match between the two later, but who knows.
ReplyDeleteThe screenshots from the prelude to the Nanae/Kimura match are really reminiscent of Pro Wrestling SUN. STARDOM seems to be a more fully formed version of SUN, except that Hailey Hatred's not cut out for the Amazing Kong role as monster gaijin.
It seems more and more apparent that the white belt isn't coming off Yuzuboobies until after her retirement, followed by the ever original tournament and/or league.
Act is really great. I don't know what you do with her though, but there's something there.
DeleteI wouldn't totally be surprised if the white belt goes with Yuzupon. I mean who else is going to hold it? And who will they have to fight? I really think they are going to start feeling the squeeze soon with losing Aikawa and Bito soon. Even if you don't like them in ring, they felt like they were stars.
I never got to see much SUN unfortnately, but I'd like to. I still really want to see that Taiyo/Kong match from it. I'm with you on Hailey. I mean she's big and.... she's big?