WhiteTail Wrestling

The opening pre-show match is the Stardom Ranbo which is a royal rumble style match with two competitors starting and more entrants appearing at regular intervals. Typical match of this type with lots of comedy and silliness with average wrestling but lots of fun. The final two wrestlers are Super Strong Stardom Machine and Super Strong Stardom Giant Machine with both being declared the winners.

The opening match on the main card sees AZM defend her High Speed Title against Hikari Shimizu. An excellent match to kick off the card with lots of exciting fast paced action with constant pinfall attempts and near falls. So many moments when it looked like the end particularly when Shimizu would get pinfall attempts that AZM would kick out of just on 3. AZM retains with the submission. ***3/4

A preview match for the upcoming Triangle Derby tournament is up next as Mayu Iwatani & Hanan & Momo Kohgo take on their fellow STARS members Hazuki & Koguma & Saya Iida. This was a good fun match with some pretty good work all around. Iwatani wins against Iida with the Dragon suplex. ***

Mina Shirakawa teams up with Unagi Sayaka against Mai Sakurai and Thekla in the next match. Shirakawa was accompanied to the ring by Xia Brookside and Mariah May. This was a good match with Shirakawa doing a lot of the work soon after she returned from injury and wins when she pins Thekla. After the match Shirakawa announces she is no longer teaming with Sayaka and is instead teaming with Brookside and May. Shirawkawa was excellent and the match itself was decent. **3/4

A number 1 contenders match for the Goddess Titles is next as Mirai & Ami Sourei take on the teams of Natsuko Tora & Ruaka as well as Maika & Himeka. A good match with some decent action Ruaka looked like pulling off an upset after a splash on Maika but Himeka breaks up the fall and Maika soon wins after the Michinoku driver. **3/4

Utami Hayashishita vs KAIRI is next. An excellent ***3/4 match which went to a slightly disappointing draw but they will undoubtably meet again in a longer match. Wrestled in a style more suited to a longer match this really only picked up in the final few minutes with Hayashishita having some good opportunities firstly from a sleeper which looked like submitting KAIRI and then after her powerbomb finisher but KAIRI rolled away and just as the bell rang she landed the insane elbow.

Oedo Tai (Momo Watanabe & Starlight Kid & Saki Kashima) defend their Artist of Stardom titles against Prominence (Suzu Suzuki & Risa Sera & Karumi Hiiragi). This was a great ****1/4 hardcore match. There were so many weapon spots here with everything used even a bicycle. As soon as one team would begin to dominate the other would intervene with weapons of their own to swing the balance. Great finish to the match with Suzuki and Kashima the legal wrestlers we had Prominence for the most part in control with some big moves to Kashima including some finishers from Suzuki but Kashima either kicked out or Oedo Tai intervened. Kashima and her flash pin was also dangerous and she almost retained with it at one stage. Suzuki finally gets the win with the bridging German suplex. New Artist champions.

Meltear (Tam Nakano & Natsupoi) defend the Goddess Tag Titles against 7Upp (Nanae Takahashi & Yuu). An excellent ***3/4 match with a bad result which I am finding difficult to understand given the usual excellent booking from Rossy Ogawa. Meltear had to work to overcome their far bigger opponents which told a really good story but if the story is to work they have to win. In this case they didn’t Yuu hits a last ride and pins Natsupoi. Hopefully they have something big planned for Meltear because they are two of the biggest stars in the promotion and they have been defeated by an outsider and a women in her 40’s past the prime of her career with a reputation as being part of the old guard of Joshi wrestling.

The semi-main is next as Saya Kamitani defends her Wonder of Stardom title against Haruka Umesaki. This was an excellent ***1/2 match Kamitani did a lot of selling here with Umesaki who was never likely to win getting a lot of offense and near falls. Kamitani in the end had to pull the win out of nowhere with the hurracanrana into the pin.

It is main event time with one of the most anticipated matches in Joshi as Syuri defends the World of Stardom title against Giulia who won the 5 Star Grand Prix and is Syuri’s former tag team partner and stable mate. To describe the action in this match would take pages and pages of notes it was truly phenomenal one of the greatest women’s matches of all time and perhaps the best match of 2022. It is at minimum ***** and I would probably go with *****1/2. Was great right from the start with some quality action in the ring before going to the outside where some devastating moves were delivered by both women. When the action returned to the ring the action really picked up with big move after big move with devastating German suplexes kicks to the head and finisher after finisher with even super finishers failing to end the match. The drama and excitement by this stage was off the charts and although I felt like the obvious choice of winner was Giulia I was never truly sure and I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see what the result would be. There was one moment when Syuri hit Giulia with one of her devastating head kicks Giulia was on the ground and the referee checked on her and right then I thought it was over instead the ref just started a 10 count which Giulia was able to recover from an awesome moment done perfectly. Giulia before the end hit every single DDM finisher plus the move of Hana Kimura who if not for her untimely death may well have been in this match herself. Finally after one of the great battles in wrestling history Giulia spikes Syuri with a devastating finish which looked like a mix between the northern lights bomb and the glorious driver and finally Giulia is the champion. After the match Syuri puts the belt on Giulia and they embrace with a post match segment of great emotional value with not a dry eye in the house. This match is obviously a must watch match and a match that will be remembered by everyone lucky to see it both on PPV and Live at the venue at Sumo Hall.

Show Thoughts

The main event here was always going to be the major factor in deciding the success of this show. Giulia and Syuri has been the match that people have wanted for a year and it needed to deliver. The rest of the card had a number of outsiders and somewhat cold matches that were not going to draw any real excitement. Thankfully the main event well and truly delivered with a match that will be remembered for many years to come.

Lots of excellent matches outside of the main event and a surprisingly great hardcore match that was so fun to watch. Rossy Ogawa is one of the best bookers in wrestling and he got it 100% spot on in the main event but it has to be mentioned how much it feels at this moment that he got it wrong with the tag title switch. Nanae Takahashi is in her 40’s and should be putting over young talent not defeating Meltear who have the potential to be cross over stars and are being promoted as such by Stardom with a song that was promoted on this very show. MaiHime will challenge 7Upp next and in my opinion there should only be one result MaiHime must win. I am fascinated to see what happens to Meltear next with Nakano challenging KAIRI at Wrestle Kingdom if she wins the result will make sense but I don’t see that happening with KAIRI only just having won the title and the potential of a Sasha Banks (Mercedes Mone) match just on the horizon a title change would not really make sense. Rossy needs to get this right and while I have faith given his track record we will see whether this change in the tag title was wise in the coming months.

Overall despite my one major complaint I absolutely loved this show and would recommend it to anyone that enjoys quality women’s professional wrestling and wrestling in general.