With Trapped in the Cagematch, Kim Wong combs through the highest-rated matches according to Cagematch’s voters in preparation for the annual FSM 50 and the year-end Match of the Year extravaganza.
Saya Kamitani (c) vs. Tam Nakano
Stardom All-Star Grand Queendom 2025
April 27, 2025
Cagematch ranking as of 10/23/25: 4
As of this writing, this match is the 4th-highest rated match of 2025 on Cagematch, behind only:
- “Hangman” Adam Page vs. Jon Moxley from AEW All In Texas
- Gabe Kidd vs. Kenny Omega from Wrestle Dynasty, and
- Page vs. Will Ospreay from AEW Double or Nothing 2025.
(Editor’s note: as of November 9, it is still the fourth highest rated match of the year.) It is also the 60th highest rated match of all time on Cagematch, two places above my personal measuring stick: Bryan Danielson vs. KENTA from ROH Glory By Honor V Night 2.
Reckoning with the match’s reputation is part of the challenge of watching it months after it happened. I approached this match with emotions similar to when I saw that Tom Breihan announced that he would review in his History of Violence column on the AV Club three action movies that I perceive to be perfect: Hard Boiled, The Matrix, and Mad Max: Fury Road. I was ready for my preconceptions to be challenged, but I also knew that I would feel defensive about those preconceived notions.
The match also stands as the undeniable marker of Saya Kamitani’s ascension. The show, Stardom All-Star Grand Queendom 2025, lived up to its name critically and commercially. Yokohama Arena was filled with 7,503 fans for the show; in 2023, the last time Stardom held its All-Star Grand Queendom show there, only 5,539 fans attended. For comparison, the other shows at the Yokohama Arena in 2023 were Keiji Muto’s retirement show, NOAH Great Muta Final “Bye-Bye,” which was attended by 8,433 fans, and NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 17, which was attended by 5,533 fans. (There were no shows at Yokohama Arena in 2024.) As of this writing, All-Star Grand Queendom 2025 stands as the 7th highest rated of all time in Cagematch, held up to such high esteem by the reception that this match has received.
My expectations are through the roof for this match not just because of its vaunted reputation. I greatly enjoyed Nakano and Kamitani’s first match in March. Afterward, I wasn’t sure how they could exceed that match’s violence and emotional engagement. In theory, they could use interference from H.A.T.E. and the Cosmic Angels as levers to escalate the drama, but I thought that they had hit on the right amount of outside intervention in the first match. Perhaps someone tangential to Nakano and Kamitani’s hateful story could interfere, but that would feel out of place. Maybe a member of either faction could betray their leader, which would then lead to other narrative possibilities. That would seem like a distraction from the story that Nakano and Kamitani are telling.
We know the history between Nakano and Kamitani. We saw that Nakano went on what could be seen as a retirement tour after she lost to Kamitani in March. Given Kamitani’s rise and the stipulation that the loser must retire, we know that it would take Nakano a miracle to beat Kamitani. Similar to the last match, Nakano and Kamitani have to weave a story to create a moment when it seems possible that Nakano might actually win. From the last match, we saw that not even Nakano’s ultra super move, the Violet Screwdriver, could finish Kamitani. Would Nakano have to try a different strategy? Would she be desperate enough to ask the Cosmic Angels to embrace the ways of H.A.T.E. and batter Kamitani?
Nakano dispensed with the respectful grappling early and made a statement with an elbow strike to Kamitani’s cheek, which seemed to fluster Kamitani. Nakano pushed the initiative, consistently beating Kamitani in the grappling that followed, and punctuating her advantage by landing the first big blow of the match, a Saito Suplex that forced Kamitani to roll out of the ring to regroup.
Nakano was forced to take risks in the first match because she couldn’t win a stand-up battle against Kamitani. Holding the edge in this match, Nakano pushed the envelope by trying to chase Kamitani on the floor from the top turnbuckle. This went about as poorly as it could have for Nakano.
Posing on the ringside timekeeper’s table with the World of Stardom Championship belt after laying out Nakano on the floor with a running spinning heel kick was a very nice touch. Kamitani did outdid herself by retrieving a chair from under the ring, threatening to hit Nakano, who was gasping for air after being hanged from the top turnbuckle with a chain, and placing the chair in the middle of the ring so the ringside photographers could all capture her cool, calm, and taunting visage. Slamming Nakano’s head into that chair after she struggled to get back inside the ring was the piece de resistance of that portion of the match.
After absorbing a lot of punishment from Kamitani, Nakano showed some signs of life by battering Kamitani with her elbows, but Kamitani controlled the match until she foolishly gave Nakano space. Nakano greeted a running Kamitani with a spinning kick to the head, which knocked Kamitani down and gave Nakano time to recover after taking sacks of punishment.
On the offense for the first time, Nakano choked Kamitani, dumped her out of the ring from the choke to the outside, and chased her with the crossbody splash from the top turnbuckle to the floor. They fought to the absurdly long ramp, where Nakano ran into Kamitani’s waiting boot. Kamitani teased her fisherman’s buster, the Star Crusher, but Nakano blocked it, rolled her to the ramp, and kicked her in the face. We then got one of the funniest shots in professional wrestling of the year as we watched Nakano walk up the absurdly long ramp, run downhill back down the absurdly long ramp, and then kick Kamitani in the face.
This was entertaining, but in the wrong way since it broke my immersion in the match. It felt contrived that Kamitani would wait on her knees for that long for Nakano. Verisimilitude wears a gentle veil, and while the trip up and down that absurdly long ramp didn’t completely rip that veil away, it certainly gave it a very firm tug.
Nakano wouldn’t accept a victory by count-out, so she rolled Kamitani back into the ring. Kamitani once again won a standing strike exchange and booted a running Nakano in the face, but she failed again to lock Nakano into place for her Star Crusher. Nakano blocked it on the ramp, and she slipped out of the Star Crusher on the apron so she could reverse it into a Tiger suplex. She tried to chase the Tiger suplex with some running offense, and Kamitani once again made Nakano regret it.
Kamitani seized the advantage with that headscissors from the apron to the floor and pressed it with a missile dropkick and a trio of fisherman’s suplexes. Instead of chanting for Eddie Guerrero, should we chant for Curt “Mr. Perfect” Hennig here?
Nakano kicked out, so Kamitani and Nakano started the next segment of the match, where they would trade the medium to large strength attacks. Nakano used her German suplex, so Kamitani used her poisoned hurricanrana (and brought back the exaggerated staggered walk from her match against Suzu Suzuki to my annoyance). Kamitani tried to block Nakano’s German suplex by rolling under, but Nakano stopped her and lifted Kamitani’s dead weight over her head in a very impressive show of strength.
Denied a victory, Nakano climbed the turnbuckles only to have Kamitani throw her back to the mat with a hurricanrana. Kamitani then finally hit Nakano with the Star Crusher, and the curse of a long memory forces me to once again note that Low Ki’s Ki Krusher just looked better.
Nakano survived the Star Crusher and again climbed the turnbuckles. Kamitani chased her, and Nakano struck first this time with a Tiger Suplex from the top turnbuckle. Nakano knew that this would be insufficient, so she tried to chain the super Tiger Suplex with another on the mat. This backfired as Kamitani was able to roll through this time and hit Nakano with a double stomp to the gut.
Nakano and Kamitani took a much more intimate turn from there. While they recovered on the mat, they stared deeply into each other’s eyes. On their feet, they grounded themselves and readied themselves to slap each other as hard as they could. This was different from the slap exchanges that we’ve seen in other matches. This was both tender and brutal. Kamitani would embrace Nakano’s cheek before lining up her slap.
Nakano would clear Kamitani’s hair away gingerly before blasting Kamitani’s face with her hand.
There were no attempts to dodge or block each other’s palms. They had accepted that their hatred for each other had come to this after simmering for years.
Bloodied by unbowed, Kamitani once again won the stand-up battle against Nakano, which Nakano accepted by holding her arms back and allowing Kamitani to unleash her slaps.
Nakano started her final burst of offense by kicking a running Kamitani in the face, powering through a spinning heel kick from Kamitani, absorbing the damage to her leg when she and Kamitani banged legs on dueling spinning kicks, using Kamitani’s momentum to pick her up for a side suplex, bridging out of Kamitani’s hurricanrana, and hitting Kamitani’s head with four running knee strikes from three different directions.
Kamitani survived all of that, so Nakano had to resort to her most high-powered offense. She knew from their last match that the Violet Screwdriver would not be enough. Rather than trying to pin Kamitani after a Violet Screwdriver, Nakano immediately set up Kamitani for the Twilight Dream, her arm-capture Tiger Suplex.
In the first match, Nakano lost before she could use the Twilight Dream, so she was in disbelief when Kamitani kicked out of her pinning attempt.
Completely out of ideas after Kamitani escaped an attempt at a second Twilight Dream, Nakano headbutted Kamitani, which started a headbutt exchange that left Nakano’s forehead distressingly pink from impact. Desperate suplexes resulted in one-count kickouts, and Kamitani and Nakano each failed to lift the other for a Star Crusher. The perfectionist in me wishes that Nakano didn’t immediately try the Star Crusher again after dropping Kamitani and that Kamitani didn’t roll her shoulder so forcefully toward Nakano so Nakano could try it again, but I’m inclined to overlook it for the sake of Kamitani’s one-count kickout in response.
Turnabout is fair play, so Kamitani tried to finish Nakano with a Violet Screwdriver. It was unsuccessful in and of itself, but it did soften Nakano up for Kamitani to hit her with the Star Crusher. Kamitani showed her viciousness and villainy by lifting Nakano at a count of two so she could look Nakano in the eyes and boot her in the face, just as she did in their last match. Nakano was defiant, but she was helpless, and Kamitani ended Nakano’s career with a Twilight Dream. The referee hesitated to finish the count to give Nakano an extra chance to save herself, which was a really great touch.
As Kamitani’s pin on Nakano collapsed, Kamitani embraced Nakano from behind and sobbed into Nakano’s back. Nakano looked stunned at the inevitable outcome, but she accepted her new reality: her wrestling career was over. With that acceptance came forgiveness; Nakano held Kamitani’s hand gently until Kamitani stood to be awarded the win by the referee.
Luckily for her character, Kamitani didn’t look completely remorseful at what she had done. Instead, we got the complex shading that makes characters great: Kamitani was happy that she had won, happy that she retained her championship, and happy that her career would continue. In the aftermath, Kamitani would say that she loved Nakano, as Nakano was her mentor, and the victorious mentee carried her former mentor away into retirement.
As Nakano mounted her final burst of offense, I felt the nagging sense that I preferred their match in March. This match broke my immersion at various points: Nakano’s journey up and down the absurdly long ramp, the return of Kamitani’s spread-eagle staggered walk, and Nakano flubbing her attempt at hitting the Star Crusher on Kamitani only to go back to it immediately. On the other hand, Kamitani and Nakano escalated their violence toward each other past the already high levels they reached in their last match, and the ending from the point when Nakano failed to beat Kamitani with the Twilight Dream to the last show of Kamitani and Nakano admiring the falling feathers together at the top of the aforementioned absurdly long ramp was spectacular. The emotional impact rivaled some of the best luchas de apuestas, whether they’re unmaskings or haircuts. I think I can forgive the wrestlers breaking my immersion because they were able to reach such high emotional peaks.
This match’s emotional impact landed harder than the outcome of the match in March, so it deserves credit for exceeding that match’s excellence. It seems ridiculous to ask whether this match works on its own without the match in March because this is the conclusion of the story that Nakano and Kamitani started there. In the match in March, Nakano couldn’t trade strikes with the younger Kamitani, so she had to take extreme risks in order to win. Kamitani made sure those risks cost Nakano, and Kamitani won because she had a more resilient, more organized, and more dastardly faction backing her play.
In this match, Kamitani still dominated the stand-up battles, though we didn’t get a moment that laid this difference out as clearly as in the last match, where Kamitani took Nakano’s elbow strikes for twenty uninterrupted seconds before destroying Nakano with just one of her own. She still made Nakano pay for taking risks, but Nakano also made Kamitani pay for risky behavior too, like when Nakano used Kamitani’s momentum to lift her for a side suplex. Neither faction played a role in this match, so the focus was streamlined to just the enmity they felt for each other and the lengths that each of them would go to end the other’s career.
Ultimately, I’d rank this match slightly higher than their match in March, and I’d also conclude that this match hit an emotional level that the matches above it in the list couldn’t reach. This was a standout, undeniable highlight of professional wrestling in 2025.
The match and the show can be watched on Stardom World.
Next time: “I don’t want to talk to you anymore
I’m afraid of what I might say
I bite my tongue every time you come around
‘Cause blood in my mouth beats blood on the ground”
– Incubus, “Blood on the Ground”
Kamitani bled from the mouth in this match, and it helped to emphasize how hard she and Nakano wailed on each other. It’s time to manifest JustBleed.gif as we check out the power that intentionally drawn blood can bring to a heated, hateful match between former partners Mei Seira and Suzu Suzuki.
