Cero Reviews STARDOM 5★STAR Grand Prix 2021, 8.29

[cero2k]

STARDOM 5★STAR Grand Prix 2021, Day 8
August 29, 2021
Belle Salle Shiodome, Tokyo, Japan

AZM vs. Hanan - 6.5/10
This was really good, they got a lot of time for an opener. Hanan worked over AZM's leg all match, to the point that she was limping and couldn't run. AZM went after Hanan's arm, which she ended up locking in with a top rope takedown into the armbar for the submission win.

Momo Watanabe vs. Mai Sakurai - 4.5/10
This was good, I liked it for what it was. We've seen two Sakurai matches as of late, but this one felt like the first gatekeeping match, with Momo dominantly pushing Sakurai to bring it. Momo starting the match dominantly and standing with seniority over her was what gave the match a different feel than the Sayaka or Hayashishita matches. Sakurai did have a couple of good hope spots with rollups or catching Momo with a desperation kick or two, but at the end, Momo still won with a Chickenwing Crossface.

5STAR Grand Prix 2021 Red Block Match
Fukigen Death [0] vs. Himeka [0] - 6/10
This was ok, much of what I said about Death in the 8.28 GP review still applied here in the match, and just as I mention that sometimes she will play spoiler, this was such a case. The match played around the fact that Himeka is tall and Death is short, so it was a slight combo of big vs small and fast vs slow spots, and at the end, Death managed to get the win with a roll up on Himeka, who had looked dominant enough that the loss comes off as an upset, more than being straight up defeated.

Future Of Stardom Championship Match
Unagi Sayaka (c) vs. Rina - 7/10
This was another match that was perfectly handled. While I haven't seen any backlash against this match, I wouldn't be surprised of some people thought that Sayaka gave a lot to Rina the night after she went toe-to-toe for twenty minutes against Maika. The truth is, and it will be the same case with Maika vs Iroha later today, that this match made perfect sense.

Not only is STARDOM doing a really good job at following up and building on the injuries that some of the wrestlers have collected during the tournament, but it perfectly plays into the story that Sayaka wouldn't be able to easily dominate Rina, who is fresh. Sayaka while not being super strong, just went all out against Maika, has a bad arm, and so obviously, Rina was going to be able to get way more offense than if Sayaka was on top of her game. So this match indeed ended up being more back and forth with Rina getting way more offense in, going after Sayaka's bad arm, but at the end, Sayaka still won her dai fuhensha Beyond The Clouds buster.

Mayu Iwatani vs. Lady C - 6.5/10
Not much to this match, this was a means to an end, and that end was the post match happenings. Iwatani mostly dominated C with the exceptions of a couple of hope spots. Finish saw Iwatani land a super stiff moonsault on C, going knee first into the joint between the leg and the pelvis, in that spot that could both suffocate you and make you puke at the same time. You could tell C was hurting, not injured, but hurting, AZM was the first one to check on her, and once Iwatani had a break after having to celebrate, she also quickly checked on C.

Post-match - This is when things got interest. Before Iwatani left to the back, suddenly, out of nowhere and with no heads up, freaking HZK came to the ring! She told Iwatani that she was disappointed that the top wrestlers running STARDOM were all outside talent and not home-grown. Iwatani took the mic and reminded her that the last time HZK was in a STARDOM ring, all she did was complain, so if she wanted to step in a STARDOM ring again, she better step up to the plate and accept what is coming for her.

HZK did acknowledge her retirement but considered that all that matters is the acceptance of the fans. She said that she is there to light a fire under STARDOM and if anyone is tired of the status quo, then she'll be waiting for them.

Seems like HZK is back into active wrestling, or at least to build up something to the Osaka-jo Hall show, where I could totally see Iwatani vs HZK. Obviously, this opens many questions as in, is she staying? is it a one-time thing? Is she rejoining Oedo Tai? Her promo seems to imply that she wants to have awesome matches with the home-grown talent and show that they can go.

5STAR Grand Prix 2021 Blue Block Match
Takumi Iroha [0] vs. Maika [7] - 8/10
This is Iroha's first match in the tournament, coming in at a point that Maika is on her 7th match. I've mentioned before the that adding title matches and this level of disparity between start dates adds a certain level of unfairness in kayfabe land.

So, going back to Sayaka vs Rina, this match I'm judging under the same scope. Maika is on her 7th match, she is coming out of having gone twenty minutes with Sayaka, her back and neck are somewhat injured (both kayfabe and shoot), and is now taking on someone like Iroha, who is arguably fresh, who she doesn't fully know, and who is legitimately, an ass kicker. it is perfectly understandable that Iroha beat the shit out of Maika in this match.

The match saw Iroha kinda dominate Maika for a while until Maika started to make a comeback, it was never a full on turn of events comeback, she just kinda leveled out the field a bit, but she was still fighting an uphill battle. As for the match itself, it was a great match between two somewhat similar wrestlers, Maika is more submission based and Iroha is more into striking, but they met right at the middle. At the end, Maika had a couple of near falls, but Iroha won with the Running Three, a running Razor's Edge.

High Speed Championship Match
Natsupoi (c) vs. Starlight Kid - 9/10
This was great, match of the weekend. The story here was that both women are really similar to each other and that we may get another draw between them, and for that, we got a couple of spots were we got to see it. At one point both women made it in no 19 after the count out tease, which was obviously also a reference to their GP match that ended in a double count out. We also saw a double knockout were both women kipped up at 9. The match continued trading some near falls, but at the end, it was SLK that hit the bigger moves and after the Black Tiger Driver got kicked out of, SLK hit a bridging German and got the pin.

Post-match - SLK cut a promo saying that she finally won the title on her 8th try, she implied that all it took was to join Oedo Tai to finally get that thing she was missing. She said that she wants to defend the title and will take on any competitor coming after her.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
This was a big show in terms of news. We had a big return, a big 'debut' (Iroha has already wrestled with STARDOM in the past, but this was her first tournament match), a big title change, and another title defended. It kinda feels like this could had taken place in a bigger arena if not for the calendar modifications that took place in the last couple of weeks.

Red Block
Giulia - 2-0-2 -- 4
Natsupoi - 2-1-2 -- 5
Himeka - 0-0-2 -- 0
Mayu Iwatani - 3-0-1 -- 6
Koguma - 1-0-2 -- 2
Momo Watanabe - 1-0-1 -- 2
Fukigen Death - 1-0-3 -- 2
Starlight Kid - 3-2-1 -- 7
Saki Kashima - 1-0-2 -- 2
Mina Shirakawa - 2-0-1 -- 4

Blue Block
Utami Hayashishita - 2-0-1 -- 4
Saya Kamitani - 2-0-2 -- 4
AZM - 1-0-2 -- 2
Syuri - 2-0-1 -- 4
Maika - 3-1-3 -- 7
Tam Nakano - 3-0-2 -- 6
Unagi Sayaka - 2-1-2 -- 5
Ruaka - 0-0-3 -- 0
Konami - 2-0-2 -- 4
Takumi Iroha - 1-0-0 -- 2