WORLD WONDER RING STARDOM
CINDERELLA TOURNAMENT FINAL
MARCH 15, 2026
YOKOHAMA BUDOKAN
Watch: PPV
STARDOM runs its final PPV before Yokohama Arena, with Saya Kamitani making another return from the sidelines to take on Sayaka Kurara in a preview tag, while Konami likely finds out the identity of her Wonder title challenger when the Cinderella tournament reaches its conclusion. The final four is a mix of obvious choices to win, and two that would raise eyebrows, so let’s see how things go.
CINDERELLA TOURNAMENT SEMI-FINAL
HANAN DEF. AYA SAKURA
All-action opener with Sakura trying to use her striking prowess before falling to Hanan. Hurt slightly by being the more predictable match as Hanan is most likely winning the tournament but they both tried hard and kicked the show off with good energy. ***1/2
CINDERELLA TOURNAMENT SEMI-FINAL
RINA DEF. MIYU AMASAKI
The underdog story hits its final stop as Miyu Amasaki comes close but inevitably falls to one of Rina’s finishers. The danger with Rina is she has the Hudrangea submission as well as a number of other signature moves that can get the win. The crowd got behind Amsaki here, and have been into her entire tournament run, even biting on a nearfall for the Amanohashidate, but Rina was able to get the win and set up a Cinderella Final clash with older sister Hanan. ***1/2
SAKI KASHIMA, SYURI, RINA YAMASHITA & ITSUKI AOKI DEF. MAKI ITOH, KOKYO FURUSAWA, KIYOKA KOTATSU & RIAN
Fun clash of personalities that didn’t overstay its welcome. Kashima retiring causing a few wrestlers dress up to act like her bodyguards is a great undercard bit, especially across from the kooky charisma of Maki Itoh and her attempt to get more Respect Army followers. ***
SAYA IIDA, BEA PRIESTLEY, MOMO KOHGO, YURIA HIME & FUWA-CHAN DEF. MAIKA, XENA, ANNE KANAYA, SAORI ANOU & YUNA MIZUMORI
Solid tag action. The excitement came from the Fuwa/Anou stretch with Fuwa-Chan calling Anou into the ring and trying to keep up with the pushed star even though she’s still a newcomer. That grudge started with their Cinderella opening round match and looks set to continue. ***1/4
SPARK RUSH (SAREEE & TAKUMI IROHA) DEF. MI VIDA LOCA (SUZU SUZUKI & AKIRA KUROGANE)
While I do adore Spark Rush, I find their current run in STARDOM to be a separate universe that exists mostly so Sareee doesn’t get the urge to do more Marigold dates. Usually, Sareee is good at laying out her plans and building rivalries, but the duo went from facing Fuwa and Hazuki to this rehash with Mi Vida Loca with no stated intention or obvious goal in mind for Yokohama Arena. It is possible that Bozilla’s injury changed what they were going for, and MVL will be the big focus for Yokohama, but that’s up in the air as of now. ***3/4
FUTURE OF STARDOM CHAMPIONSHIP
RANNA YAGAMI DEF. HANAKO (C) – NEW CHAMPION
A surprise title change as Ranna Yagami gets the nod to end HANAKO’s reign. I was expecting the HANAKO reign to lead into Aya Sakura squeezing in a win before her eligibility expired but they went a different direction to belt up Yagami. It’s not a bad move, Ranna has been improving a lot and is an easier name to beat than HANAKO to shift the belt onto her peers or even the newer gens.
The match itself was fine, they didn’t really lean as much into the powerhouse vs striker element, and just had a normal match, which was a bit of a letdown. Yagami finally hitting the Brazilian feint kick was the deciding blow as a new finisher got the job done. ***
NEO GENESIS (STARLIGHT KID, AZM, MEI SEIRA) & TABATA DEF. GOD’S EYE (AMI SOREI, HINA, LADY C & TOMOKA INABA) & HATE (RUAKA, NATSUKO TORA, FUKIGEN DEATH & AZUSA INABA)
Blink and you’d miss it all action tag with three bodies on the go at minimum for most of the runtime. The finish saw AZM get the win over Ruaka which was interesting enough but the post-match posturing makes it seem like AZM is getting another crack at the Goddess of Stardom titles. Amasaki’s Cinderella run and AZM’s win could give 02Line some momentum for a second attempt. Hopefully, they take the titles this time and we can start the process of HATE’s grip on the titles loosening a bit. ***1/2
CMLL-JAPAN WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP
INDIA SIOUX DEF. HAZUKI (C) – NEW CHAMPION
You can’t really go wrong with a Hazuki title match even if there were some clunky parts. India Sioux has enough cool-looking offense to fill the time when Hazuki wasn’t carrying things. They kept it under 10 minutes and just let them both do what they do best so, thumbs up. ***1/2
CINDERELLA TOURNAMENT FINAL
HANAN DEF. RINA
Since the moment Konami laid out Hanan late last year it’s been a question of when, rather than if, Hanan would challenge for the Wonder of Stardom Championship, so she came into the Cinderella as the runaway favourite to win. They didn’t leave much doubt as Rina is a protected STARDOM act but she just lost a challenge to Konami in early 2026 so there didn’t seem to be an obvious role for her using the Cinderella wish.
The match was a great final as they went all out to deliver a main event before the main event, Rina has been on a crazy good run all year and her tournament arc of building up finishers that Hanan could kick out of made the winner look like a million bucks. The only issue I had that’s stopping this match from being a high-end MOTY contender was the erratic selling halfway through where they did no-sells and dual one-count kickouts for no reason before going back to regular selling, it was really oddly placed and felt forced.
Hanan has been one of the biggest pushes STARDOM has made post-Ogawa and this tournament win sets her up perfectly to take the white belt at Yokohama Arena and finally take her step up to the main event scene, with Rina not too far behind her if her past year is anything to read into. ****
COSMIC ANGELS (SAYAKA KURARA & NATSUPOI) DEF. HATE (KONAMI & SAYA KAMITANI)
I appreciate that they didn’t try to upstage Hanan vs Rina here and just focused on setting up the Yokohama main event. Kurara had the majority of the ring time, fighting off Konami and then Saya before getting the win with Tam’s Violet Screwdriver over Kamitani. It served as our first preview for the World title match without giving too much away. Pretty effective tag match as the stand-in main.
After the match, Kurara stated her intentions to put Cosmic Angels on the line to earn her world title match against Kamitani. This is technically a big stipulation to add intrigue to the Yokohama main event but I feel the impact is lessened because the babyface units have largely just become a loose arrangement of good guys. Even on this show, Anou and Yuna teamed with unaffiliated good guys. The disbanding of Cosmic Angels holds weight as it would be Kamitani destroying the final remnants of Tam Nakano, but for the current product, it really wouldn’t cause huge shockwaves. ***1/2
FINAL THOUGHTS
The undercard was kept quick and concise with the main focus of the night being on setting up the top two matches for Yokohama Arena. The Hanan Cinderella win effectively sets her up to get her revenge on Konami while Sayaka Kurara’s big promo sets up an interesting few weeks before she puts Cosmic Angels on the line to challenge for the world title. Setting up your two big matches with 6 weeks to sell tickets is an effective strategy that worked well for the last two Queendom-titled events so that appears to be the way Okada likes to operate when it comes to his two biggest shows of the year. The final visual of the show was Konami laughing after attacking the Cinderella winner to keep hammering home the HATE kicks everybody’s ass vibe that the PPVs have had since the December show.
Only Rina vs Hanan jumps out as absolutely must-see but the rest of the show was still a good time with the HATE angles continuing their big arc as the rulers of the three main titles in the company.
