Stardom 4/21/2019 Osaka

Stardom 4/21/2019 Osaka

スターダム大阪大会 2019年4月21日(日)

Here's the outside of the arena:

There's the arena before the show:

Here's some merch on sale before the show:

Mayu Iwatani is out with an injury, so she worked the merch stand:

Tam Nakano vs Leo Onozaki

Leo said it's her birthday and she wants to win as a present.

Tam had her doll with her and asked us to buy it without saying much else.

The finish

Leo strikes with her forearms early but can't really hurt Tam. Tam hits the world's cutest pin for a 2. She then stomps on Leo and and squashes her with double knees. Leo gets a shot into the back of the head then stretches Tam with a dragon sleeper. Leo hits a real weak cutter, but follows it up with a better one. Tam grabs her and backdrops her. Leo hits more kind of weak offense and gets another 2. Leo gets another nearfall and Tam finishes her with a spin kick. I think Leo's instincts are good, but her offense is just too weak now and they made it clear with Tam's poses that this was going to be an easy win.

Hazuki vs Starlight Kid

Hazuki really didn't have a lot to say as usual but both mentioned they fought for Hazuki's High Speed Title in January, with Hazuki winning. Kid wants to pick up a win here and get another shot at it.

The finish - the rare double pin!

Kid rocks Hazuki early with shots and tries to quick pin her. They kind of botch a crucifix attempt in a lucha sequence and Kid gets downed with a good dropkick. Kid takes multiple slams in succession and takes a camel clutch, where Hazuki pulls on the mask. Kid takes a facewash and Hazuki tries to pin with her knee. Kid takes a mean polish hammer then reverses a tilt-a-whirl into a DDT. She hits her 619 then a standing moonsault for a 2. They have a fun exchange which ends with Kid hitting a dropkick. Kid gets Hazuki through the ropes and hangs her out to dry, then does a weak stomp from the middle rope on her. Kid really sits back on a boston crab but has trouble holding up Hazuki. Kid hits another nasty boston crab. Hazuki takes back over with a michinoku driver for 2 and they roll around out of a suplex with many nearfalls. They schoolboy and end up in a double pin! Have not seen that in a long time in a very surprising ending. These two are really good opponents for each other as they are the yin to each other's yang, but this was really rushed and Kid did too much here. The finish worked in a way as they are kind of rivals and it wasn't some type of main event screw job finish.

Andras Miyagi vs Rebel Kel

Kel said "you can use the same ingredients, but you're sauce isn't gonna taste the same". Kel said she doesn't use a cookbook, but her sauce tastes good and Andras will get a taste of it. No promo from Miyagi.

The finish

Slower start to this one. They do some technical wrestling for a little, exchanging basic holds. Kel stood on Andras' shoulders in the corner. Andras is hyping the crowd up which is kind of odd for a heel like her. She missile dropkicks Kel from the top. They exchange some forearms with Andras' looking pretty good. Andras ends that though with finders to the eyes. Kel really tries to get the crowd into it and lays out AM with a sitout slam. Kel goes for the chokeslam twice but gets reversed out of it both times. Kel hits a big forward kick. Then Andras trips Kel up for a rollup out of nowhere. This just didn't really work.

Queen's Quest - Momo Watanabe, AZM and Bea Priestley vs STARS - Saki Kashima, Arisa Hoshiki and Saya Iida 

Momo spoke for QQ and said truly nothing of interest except that they would do their best

Arisa mentioned this was Iida's first match as a STARS member and Iida was just super nervous. They also said nothing of interest.

Bea takes the gum out of her mouth and puts it in Iida's mouth

AZM and Iida went at it to start with Iida trying to get the crowd to chant for her too, which they did. Nothing really special happened, then QQ knocked Arisa and Saki off the apron. Then they just kind of stood there while Iida hit each of them in the chest before they finally triple teamed her and stopped it. AZM got in and jumped off the bottom rope and stomped on Iida's arm. Beat tied up both of Iida's arms and then put her gum in Iida's mouth. Bea then put it back in her mouth. Saki got in and she hit the double jump hurricarana on Bea. Saki then hit a double underhook suplex with a nice bridge. Bea and Arisa traded knees before Bea hit a backdrop. Momo jumped in and did a double knee on Arisa for a 2. Arisa hit 2 kicks to Momo and then did a kick to Momo's head off the top which I haven't seen before. The move makes sense though I guess. Momo choked Arisa, but everyone broke it up. Both went for the tag and brought Iida and AZM back in. They exchanged strikes and dropkicks then QQ came in and triple dropkicked Iida. Iida moved out of a top rope double stomp by AZM and got a nearfall rollup for 2. Iida then had AZM ready for a backslide and Saki lent a yakuza kick to put AZM down for another 2. AZM then hit a La Mistica into a deep armbar for the win. This was not really what I expected here with Iida vs AZM taking up the vast majority of the match. In fact, it was pretty much a night off for everyone else. I supposed it's good to get Iida some experience, but this obviously would have been much better without it. The finishing portion was okay, but I didn't really love this.

Oedo Tai - Kagetsu, Natsu Sumire and Natsuko Tora vs International Army - Jungle Kyona, Hana Kimura and Konami

This is a new chapter in Stardom as we are following last week's draft. Tora went from being Jungle's best bud to a member of Stardom's biggest heel faction. Jungle's got new partners in Hana Kimura and the former Queen's Quest member, Konami. I have no idea how this is going to play out, so let's see what happens.

Kyona isn't happy about her new unit and seems to not trust her new partners. She says she has to find out something, likely if she can trust her partners. Konami said her triangle lancer has a 100% winning percentage.

Kagetsu called Tora "Katana-chan", as a piece of her name means sword. Kagetsu seems pretty happy with the draft. While Tora and Kagetsu are all jovial and buddy buddy, Kagetsu further ridicules Sumire as #68, as Kagetsu picked Sumire almost at the end of the draft last week.

Neither Kyona or Konami are thrilled here. Hana's got new pink camo gear.

No dance for Oedo Tai here as they lost the rights to dance a few weeks ago to QQ.

New-do Tai!

Konami still does the QQ pose even though she's out of QQ

Natsuko has new gear

Tora shoves her former partner

Tora then took another shot on Kyona.

The finish

Konami got the win with the Triangle Lancer on Sumire Natsu. They teasted Jungle not wanting to hit Tora early with Tora forcing the issue and humiliating Jungle. She poured water on her and hit her multiple times. Jungle took it but eventually started hitting back. They all brawled all over the place early on. then Hana got some stuff in and they went towards the finish with Konami and Natsu. The match had kind of an odd feeling to it and the crowd wasn't too into it. The focus really wasn't on the match so much as the Jungle/Tora angle, which was fine and that's probably how it should have been done. I think I would have showed more dysfunction with the new unit though and had the partners not be able to get along. I also would have not had Jungle hit Tora and either would have had Tora screw Jungle to get the win or for Jungle to try and save Tora only to get turned on. Perhaps I would have even had Jungle not do anything to Tora at all. I give them credit though for the Jungle/Tora stuff as they did tell a story with it and it was interesting, so much so that it kind of overshadowed the match. Tora and Jungle then grabbed each other and Tora went after Jungle before Oedo Tai broke it up. Tora also works a new brawling/heel style now.

Konami bragged about her Triangle Lancer and flipped off QQ, saying, "___ you, QQ".  Jungle said she hasn't let off steam until today and said Tora's basically going to get it.

Hana, Jungle and Konami then discussed the team's name.

Jungle says the name needs to change. Hana said she likes International Army, but then changed her tune and brought out Rebel with the new team's name:

Konami and Jungle weren't impressed. Hana said they will be "TCS" for short.

Hana dragged them all to line-up together. Hana wanted them to salute after saying Tokyo Cyber Squad and the other two wouldn't buy into it. She said they aren't leaving until they do it right, which means saying "Yes Sir!" on the end of it:

I've got some serious doubts about how this group is going to work out. I can't really say this was a great debut for the Tokyo Cyber Squad. I just think these four are too different and I think Jungle is above this. New Oedo Tai shouldn't be a problem though as everyone has their roles.

Overall thoughts: The girls had to wrestle twice in one day, with this being the first show, and because of it,  the show suffered. This was also the first show after the draft so all the teams are learning how to work with each other. This was definitely skipable and wasn't much outside of the main event.

Some shots from after the show: