Stardom
Stardom Queen’s Festival
February 17, 2019
Korakuen Hall
Tokyo, Japan

Watch: Stardom World

Another Korakuen another Momo Watanabe main event as the Goddesses Of Stardom Champions face a tough test in the returning AMA

STARS (Starlight Kid & Hanan) Def. JAN (Saya Iida & Leo Onozaki) & Rina & Hina

This is exactly the match you’d expect from these younger wrestlers. Kid and Hanan were the best team in the match and did well in their role as “veterans” to make sure everything stayed together, Rina and Hina did their parts well and are still steadily improving.  Onozaki made her return from injury and worked very well with Iida as they surprised me with how well they worked together. I wouldn’t mind seeing Iida and Onozaki become a regular team.  Overall a decent opener with no glaring mistakes from anyone **1/2

Multinational Army (Hana Kimura & Bobbi Tyler) vs Pink Dream Team (Saki Kashima & Alex Gracia)

Not much to say with this one. Tyler has acclimated well to being in Kimura’s faction and the two pull of their heel characters quite well. Work rate wise Kimura isn’t one of my, or most people’s, favorites and both Tyler and Gracia are still young and relatively inexperienced so Kashima was left to pick up the slack on that end. ***

Konami Def. Jamie Hayter

Hayter is a heel through and through, her bickering and mannerisms make even the most simple of submission holds entertaining. Konami in a singles match is always a pleasure and she focused her attack on the arm of Hayter. The story of most Konami singles matches is her Triangle Lancer submission having a 100% success rate and this one was no different. After a well worked contest between these two Konami got the shocking, shocking to me anyway, win over Hayter which makes sense as she has since challenged Mayu Iwatani for the Women Of Honor Championship. ***1/4

Stardom High Speed Championship: (C) Hazuki Def. AZM

The overconfident Hazuki went into this one with little worry of the challenge AZM would represent. After a quick opening sequence and a fiery comeback AZM put Hazuki on the ropes and even proceeded to dominate a section of the match. Once Hazuki regained control, capitalizing on AZM’s mistake she remained in control and defended her title. Hazuki making all of her challengers prove themselves to her has led to some fun matches with the younger talent and helped make the title relevant again.  While it’s better than the Mary Apache days it’s still far from a true High Speed championship, and if that’s what you are after SEAdLINNNG is the place to go. ***1/2

Oedo Tai (Kagetsu & Andras Miyagi) Def. JAN (Jungle Jyona & Natsuko Tora)

The debuting Miyagi was revealed as Oedo Tai’s surprise new member before the match. For anyone unaware she previously wrestled for Sendai Girls as one of their full-time roster members.  This match was all about making Miyagi look good as she got to show off her power game against two of the better power wrestlers in the company.  She also gelled really well with Kagetsu and the two worked well as a team so I’d like to see them in Goddesses Of Stardom contention ASAP if possible. JAN’s number one team is probably my favorite in Stardom and they delivered twofold here in having an entertaining match and making sure Miyagi got to shine in her debut.  In the end, an impressive Swanton Bomb won it for Miyagi as she pinned Tora.  ***1/4

Goddesses Of Stardom Championship: (C) Queen’s Quest (Momo Watanabe & Utami Hayashishita) Def. AMA (Mayu Iwatani & Arisa Hoshiki)

Workrate wise this was two great teams having a great tag team match with hard hits, high pace and lots of tag team offence.  Story-wise this was all about making sure Arisa Hoshiki got to look good, since her comeback they have steadily built up Hoshiki as one of the hardest strikers in the company and here she got to have the long awaited battle of the kicks with Momo Watanabe. AMA came closer than anyone else to defeating the UtaMo superteam but Hayashishita remains undefeated and Watanabe comes away with the win in another Korakuen main event. Two teams that I want to see go at it again and an elevation for Hoshiki that held up to the standard of usual Korakuen main events ***3/4