Cero Reviews STARDOM Cinderella Journey In Nagaoka

[cero2k]

STARDOM Cinderella Journey In Nagaoka
February 23, 2022
Aore Nagaoka, Nagaoka, Japan

Future Of Stardom Championship #1 Contendership-Contendership Match
Rina vs. Mai Sakurai vs. Waka Tsukiyama - 5/10
Rules of the match are that the first two to get pins advance to a singles match down the road to actually crown the number one contender. Rina was the first to score a pin on Waka, and then Mai Sakurai got the second pin, leaving Waka as the only one out of contention.

Mixed feelings on this match, it jumped around from good to sloppy to chaotic. I wouldn't say it was a bad match, the stuff where two people paired up was good, but when they tried three person spots, that's when things were a bit all over the place.

Future Of Stardom Championship Match
Hanan (c) vs. Momo Kohgo - 6.5/10
Good match. Story here was that Kohgo just had every single pin combination on Hanan, but she couldn't keep any of them down for the 3 count, eventually Hanan got some space, kicked Kohgo's soul out, landed the bridging backdrop, and got the win. Simple and effective.

Both these women show soooo much promise.

Queen's Quest (Lady C & Utami Hayashishita) vs. Oedo Tai (Momo Watanabe & Ruaka) - 7/10
Good match, it was really one sided, Oedo Tai were overly dominant, even against Hayashishita. Most of the match was heat on C, but when Utami came back for the last minutes, she wasn't able to turn the tide at all, Momo took her out, and then Ruaka got the win over C with a top rope splash. Ruaka and C looked quite good in this match, now that C is part of QQ's, she is showing way more confidence.

Mayu Iwatani & Tam Nakano vs. Oedo Tai (Fukigen Death & Saki Kashima) - 7.5/10
This match came about after Kashima challenged Iwatani and Nakano to team up, after they've had a rough couple of years together after Nakano started Cosmic Angels and left STARS. In a way, this match is all about Mayu being in the ring with the people who have left her in the last couple of years. What ended up happening was that Mayu and Tam found that spark again and worked well as a team and while not easy, they ended up defeating their other former stablemates. Mayu got the pin on Kashima with the moonsault. Action was really good.

Post-match - Nakano and Iwatani shook hands and while the referee tried to make it a thing, they both just kinda acknowledged each other and went on their own way.

Donna del Mondo (Giulia, MIRAI & Thekla) vs. Donna del Mondo (Himeka, Maika & Syuri) - 8/10
This is part of the build up to Giulia vs Syuri for the red belt in the upcoming Sumo Hall weekend, but when you read between the lines, this is a match between Giulia's DDM and Syuri's DDM, maybe a glimpse to the future.

This was a great match that greatly benefits from the hindsight that they went to the time limit draw, because otherwise, as they went into the tornado tag stuff towards the end, the match had started to feel too long. The action was great though, it was all back and forth and everyone looked great. Arguably, MIRAI stole the show for me, she was just dominant and on a destruction path, she mostly paired up with Syuri and Himeka, and on both cases, she had a lot of offense. At the end, things obviously came down to Giulia and Syuri going for quick pin attempts and strikes until the time ran out.

Post-match - Syuri and Giulia had a staredown, they still walked to the back together as stablemates, but the tension is there.

Goddesses Of Stardom Championship Match
STARS (Hazuki & Koguma) (c) vs. Cosmic Angels (Mina Shirakawa & Unagi Sayaka) - 7.5/10
This was a good and fun match, but finding itself between the DDM vs DDM and the SLK vs AZM match really makes it seem weaker than the rest. Sayaka and Shirakawa are not exactly at the level of HZK, but they really stepped up, especially Shirakawa doing most of the heavy lifting and going more for strikes. Layout of the match was basic, HZK was the babyface in peril, Koguma the hot tag, the tornado style action, and at the end, Koguma picked up the with a beautiful diving plancha.

Post-match - As Hazuki and Koguma celebrated, Momo Watanabe came out and challenged for the tag titles, she teased a special partner, and rumor has it, it COULD end up being Kagetsu, which would be slightly poetic to come back against Hazuki.

High Speed Championship Match
Starlight Kid (c) vs. AZM - 9/10
This was just great, these two have a long history together, you could call them generational rivals, and in a way, this felt like the climax or conclusion of their rivalry for now. In the last year, both women have risen to be part of the top echelon of the promotion, they along with Natsupoi have carried the high speed division, but it's clear that SLK has somewhat outgrown it. While Kamitani has a rough road ahead of her at Sumo Hall, but if she manages to survive that weekend with the white title, I think it's just a matter of time before SLK steps up to the challenge and becomes the white belt champion.

Match was a hell of a sprint from the first second, but it was a smart, smooth, and graceful sprint that focused on AZM with a laser focus on SLK's arm, to the point that it was clear she came in with a battle plan. Spot of the match for me came towards the end, when SLK hit an avalanche Spanish Fly, but as they landed, AZM immediately turn it into the Fujiwara armbar, but obviously AZM has just taken a huge Spanish Fly, so she was only able to keep it locked for a few seconds before succumbing to the pain.

Wonder Of Stardom Championship Match
Saya Kamitani (c) vs. Natsupoi - 9/10
Coming in to this match, I was curious to see how it would go down, since they were following THE high speed of high speed matches with SLK and AZM, and while Kamitani and Natsupoi are a bit more aerial wrestlers, they're overall style lends itself for a high speed match even if they don't go for one. What ended up happening was that they had their own high speed style match that was so good, that I thought it stood by itself.

Match was somewhat back and forth, but Natsupoi is such an underdog babyface and her selling face is so incredible that she made Kamitani look way more dominant that she was being based on the action itself. This was also heavy on the near falls, at one point Natsupoi hit the Fairy Blink for a 2.9 kickout. Kamitani won with a Star Crusher and the Phoenix Splash.

Post-match - Kamitani decided to announce her nominations of the Sumo Hall matches, and she selected the two former champions of last year, her QQ's partner Hayashishita for day one, and former white belt champion Tam Nakano for day two. Both joined her to accept the challenge. Kamitani is gonna have a crazy weekend, and let's not pretend that there is no chance of getting Hayashishita vs Nakano for the white belt, because there are.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
Great show, I think most people only watched the AZM versus SLK, but bell to bell, the whole show was quite good. Main event and DDM matches were surely at the level of the High Speed title match, and the show didn't even rely on doing anything with KAIRI or Providence.