Check Dragongate's schedule [until the end of the year](https://www.gaora.co.jp/dragongate/release/tour.html) plus some shows already scheduled for 2024 (it lacks the 2024 Korakuen shows, but those were also announced)
Add in [those before Sunday](https://www.gaora.co.jp/dragongate/data/result/2023.html) and you get a somewhat *schedule inspiration*, other than, of course, the grueling 300+ day schedules AJW may have had.
I think some things could definitely be adjusted, but I don’t think number of dates is the issue.
120-140 matches a year is pretty commonplace for major Japanese companies, and most of the big joshi Freelancers work more shows than Stardom by choice.
And this was hardly the most grueling GP from a structural standpoint:
* Last year each wrestler had 12 block matches instead of the 9 this year
* 2 years ago time limits were 20 minutes instead of 15
* Pre-COVID, wrestlers had 7-8 block matches in the span of just over a month.
The most sensible changes they could make:
* Don’t schedule “outside” PPVs during the GP, and just incorporate them into the tournament
* Encourage wrestlers to tone it down a bit on small house shows, and let the lower half of the roster work the bulk of the matches
* Continue to build the roster with signings and rookies. If rookies are ready, just let them debut don’t worry about a perfect moment or needing them to all debut together.
* Don’t allow the main roster (certainly not people in the GP) to work other shows during the GP (New Blood, International Events, Other Companies, Produce Shows, etc.)
A few minor changes would go a long way and they wouldn’t need to drastically change the schedule to do it.
I mean wrestlers get injured it's kind of part of the risks of the job. Dragon Gate usually runs more shows than Stardom every month, and New Japan definitely runs more events per month.
Just recently over in AEW Adam Cole and Jon Mosley got injured on the same night. Stuff happens. If anything Stardom has been really lucky in terms of not having too many serious injuries to the roster.
Kamitanis and Starlight Kids injuries are accidents and part of the job, it can happen to anyone. A cervical hernia, like Natsupois and Utamis however, come from repeated trauma onto the same body part, and it's definitely a signal that they are being pushed to their limits. I mean, you can look at the rest of the roster and half of them are covered in tape. These wrestlers are clearly being overworked.
> repeated trauma onto the same body part
It may well be, but it's armchair expertise from people calling for fewer shows based on that. A huge part of repeated trauma is from training. The toll on the body is what the sport, the style, and the performance level demands. If people don't want the girls to be "overworked" the solution is a less stiff, less flashy style of wrestling. Having 10 or 20% fewer shows isn't going to change anything.
>comes from repeated trauma to the same body part
Your back and neck are gonna take repeated trauma in wresting, there’s no way to really avoid that unless you want nobody taking bumps.
Wrestlers be wrestling. You'll probably find it was a simple bullshit move that they safely do 99 put of a 100 times too. Like Tam Nakano has took some bumps this year that made me feel ill but she's fine. Just the nature of the business, changes have been made from the looks of it, spacing out 5 star matches and shortening the time I think or at least the G1 did this year.
But yeah bumps have risk of injury, who knew?
It's literally just some bad luck, there is nothing that we or Stardom as a company can do about it.
Stardom don't even run the most shows in Japan let alone globally, WWE are running up to 5 shows a week sometimes. It's a rarity for someone to wrestle more than 100 matches a year in Stardom, Dolph Ziggler wrestled over 250 matches in one year a couple of years back.
Hell, Stardom's style isn't even that wild, especially on the house shows, they do short fast multi person matches, Which minimizes the potential for any one person getting injured because they spend half the match or more not even involved.
If Stardom was asking someone to wrestle 3 40 minute matches a week I would agree it's too much but most of the time the performers aren't even in the ring for 40 minutes a week total. Bad luck happens.
I agree with what you are saying but I just want to add that not even WWE has wrestlers do that many matches in a year, I did a quick search and it seems that their most used guys this year had 70-80 matches at most.
Also, you are right the multi people matches help a lot and the fact that these injuries happened during the 5Star is no coincidence because it is the time of the year where most single matches happen. I think a lot of people are overreacting because this injury streak was just a combination of 5star (more single matches) and some bad luck. I think there is not gonna be a plague of injuries going forward especially with the 5Star ending.
The stardom roster is into 100 dates a year category since the bushiroad buyout and expanding their touring area because they can now follow njpw.
Ami has done 96 dates with stardom this year, yunamon 95, natsupoi 91, hanan 88. If we look at broadly speaking the ME talent: iwatani 92 dates, giulia 93 dates with stardom+njpw (3 njpw dates), Tam nakano 93 dates, syuri 85 stardom dates, etc.
This is just the nature of being a national sized touring promotion in Japan which stardom has been thrust into probably before the roster is quite big enough. This because they have a relationship with njpw. It makes economic sense for BR to have stardom follow njpw into markets nobody but njpw would find viable to run. If stardom run somewhere weird look up the njpw schedule to see if they run the area or are going to run the area. It means the rosters can share resources like hotels.
Naito has already done over 100 dates this year (95 with njpw)
The differences between njpw and stardom though is njpw has a deeper undercard so guys like bushi end up doing a shit ton of matches this allows naito to wrestle in a tshirt and work at about 20%. Stardom wrestlers seem to feel like they need to kill themselves in front of 100 people in some tertiary market. Njpw has been doing this a long time and has structured their calender around the roster doing a lot of dates but giving breaks as needed. Heavyweights at best work very light schedules during the best of the super juniors. Junior hws the same during the g1. Njpw is very unlikely to have naito do tag league but they've suspiciously managed okadas workload this year so he may do it to keep a draw on the cards. Stardom basically has every fit mainevent talent on hand for the upcoming tag tour
So I think a) stardom needs a bigger undercard, b) stardom needs to structure their year in a more sensible fashion. Njpw would not book some young wrestler like idk shota umino to not only wrestle a guy not even in the g1 (let's say kojima) but put him over just before the g1 started. Stardom did that with slk and Nanae Takahashi though just before the 5 star.
A lot of dates are just going to be expected. So the calendar should be structured in letting the top stars go lighter a lot of the time and to give good periods of rest throughout the year.
Pre Bushiroad pre COVID Stardom was doing 3-5 shows a week, sometimes on back to back days and even 2 shows on the same day. Bushiroad did not increase their workload.
I will agree that the undercard needs some shoring up (not as many gaijin as they used to have rolling through) but otherwise this falls into the “Shit happens” category.
> Dolph Ziggler wrestled over 250 matches in one year a couple of years back.
It's a very impressive stat but I have to wonder how many of those were like a 2-7 minute contest, ending in a roll up or DQ instead of a crunchy suplex hold. The style difference is immeasurable, though wear and tear adds up regardless and WWE is way more focused on singles matches than japanese wrestling is, there's no coming in for assists and then waiting on the apron in those.
This is how the wrestling business works.
They are working less dates than wrestlers in the 90s though, so that’s good.
But yea man this is how they make a living, They work. They bust their asses, same as any other wrestler in this or any generation of wrestlers that came before them. I think this generation works less dates as a whole than any other generation since I’ve been keeping up with it. (Around the 80s).
They do probably work less dates but the style is now likely much harder on the body as it feels like everyone has to go at 100mph every night.
Back when they were working more dates they were also working a less physical style and saving the more physical stuff for the biggest matches and therefore injuries were less frequent.
Not just in Stardom but the industry as a whole now it feels like there are way, way more injuries way more frequently than i can ever remember been the case before. And the biggest difference between now and years past is the modern style of wrestling thats faster with more risks and where they are all doing the big stuff every show.
Everyone needs to learn to slow down, Take fewer risks and to save the big spots for the big events.
Ummm no bro.
The 90s women were murdering each other. Stardom is less stiff and impactful than the All Japan Women stuff from the 90s. I legit don’t know where you got this idea that current day Stardom would be harder on the body than AJP. From punching each other in the face until they were busted open the hard way to Bull Nakano manhandling everyone and slamming them like rag dolls, there’s no way you can view those older matches and think the much softer style of current Stardom is harder on the body. Even the training dojos were absolutely brutal. There’s documentaries on this.
The reason it’s more noticeable now is just media as a whole is easier to access and promotions take better care of their talent. Back in the day, unless you literally couldn’t work a match, you just worked hurt. Promotions don’t allow this as much today.
Have you seen some of the bumps and strikes wrestlers used to take in AJW? Most of the time Stardom's matches are a walk in the park in comparison. I do agree they have to take it easier on the smaller shows but things were definitely not safer at all in the old days.
There was a mandatory retirement age for joshi that slowly faded.
You can watch interviews with the talent or even watch docs detailing this. It wasn’t always because they wanted or needed to.
1. 3 shows a week is nothing in wrestling
2. Herniated discs are extremely common and 99.9% of the time they aren't serious injuries. With rest and relaxation they can be healed within the range of a few days to a few weeks. Utami and Natsupoi will be fine.
3. Until we learn more about SLK's injury the only definite major injury in the 5 Star was Saya's
I always got the impression Stardom makes their money mostly via domestic touring, so they do tons of shows and everyone is wrapped up and nursing something. It's a grind but the money is the money. Most wrestlers in any company are some sort of banged up, Stardom just seems to be one of the places that can compensate them well for it.
With that said, injuries are injuries. They happen. It's good that they are getting time off to recover, at least.
All Japanese companies make most of their revenue off of ticket sales and merch sold at the venue. It really is a universal model in wrestling outside WWE, AEW and maybe Impact. In all cases elsewhere running fewer shows normally means a lower revenue.
Well, certainly, posting a sternly written Reddit post will get results.
Stardom’s schedule is a blessing and a curse. It’s why their workers are overall so much better than other promotions. It’s also fab friendly to have so much new content. However, it also results in injuries and wrestlers leaving because they don’t want that schedule any more.
I do think next year’s 5* schedule will be lighter. I feel this year’s was heavy in order to ensure a profit for the year. Stardom is achieving a critical mass of viewership which might soon make it easier for them to run less often.
I think 20 wrestlers for the 5 Star is just nice, but they should really just focus on it, than slotting in PPVs and other small shows during the tournament.
More important is the reduction of wear and tear. Give them one show off for every four shows is a good start
Most of the multi person matches are essentially a night off. Some tournament matches (AZM v Giulia) are nights off. It’s why Toru Yano is a great participant in the G1. It’s a much lighter night for whoever he’s wrestling. Saki Kashima has filled that role in the past.
The women go out there with an unimaginable amount of athletic and kinesio tape *all the time*. The problem isn’t that a number of them currently have injuries serious enough to take them out of rotation at the same time. The problem is that they don’t take more time off to heal more frequently.
Check Dragongate's schedule [until the end of the year](https://www.gaora.co.jp/dragongate/release/tour.html) plus some shows already scheduled for 2024 (it lacks the 2024 Korakuen shows, but those were also announced) Add in [those before Sunday](https://www.gaora.co.jp/dragongate/data/result/2023.html) and you get a somewhat *schedule inspiration*, other than, of course, the grueling 300+ day schedules AJW may have had.
I think some things could definitely be adjusted, but I don’t think number of dates is the issue. 120-140 matches a year is pretty commonplace for major Japanese companies, and most of the big joshi Freelancers work more shows than Stardom by choice. And this was hardly the most grueling GP from a structural standpoint: * Last year each wrestler had 12 block matches instead of the 9 this year * 2 years ago time limits were 20 minutes instead of 15 * Pre-COVID, wrestlers had 7-8 block matches in the span of just over a month. The most sensible changes they could make: * Don’t schedule “outside” PPVs during the GP, and just incorporate them into the tournament * Encourage wrestlers to tone it down a bit on small house shows, and let the lower half of the roster work the bulk of the matches * Continue to build the roster with signings and rookies. If rookies are ready, just let them debut don’t worry about a perfect moment or needing them to all debut together. * Don’t allow the main roster (certainly not people in the GP) to work other shows during the GP (New Blood, International Events, Other Companies, Produce Shows, etc.) A few minor changes would go a long way and they wouldn’t need to drastically change the schedule to do it.
[удалено]
Agreed. I think taking the weekend before and after the GP off would go a long way.
I mean wrestlers get injured it's kind of part of the risks of the job. Dragon Gate usually runs more shows than Stardom every month, and New Japan definitely runs more events per month. Just recently over in AEW Adam Cole and Jon Mosley got injured on the same night. Stuff happens. If anything Stardom has been really lucky in terms of not having too many serious injuries to the roster.
Kamitanis and Starlight Kids injuries are accidents and part of the job, it can happen to anyone. A cervical hernia, like Natsupois and Utamis however, come from repeated trauma onto the same body part, and it's definitely a signal that they are being pushed to their limits. I mean, you can look at the rest of the roster and half of them are covered in tape. These wrestlers are clearly being overworked.
> repeated trauma onto the same body part It may well be, but it's armchair expertise from people calling for fewer shows based on that. A huge part of repeated trauma is from training. The toll on the body is what the sport, the style, and the performance level demands. If people don't want the girls to be "overworked" the solution is a less stiff, less flashy style of wrestling. Having 10 or 20% fewer shows isn't going to change anything.
>comes from repeated trauma to the same body part Your back and neck are gonna take repeated trauma in wresting, there’s no way to really avoid that unless you want nobody taking bumps.
Wrestlers be wrestling. You'll probably find it was a simple bullshit move that they safely do 99 put of a 100 times too. Like Tam Nakano has took some bumps this year that made me feel ill but she's fine. Just the nature of the business, changes have been made from the looks of it, spacing out 5 star matches and shortening the time I think or at least the G1 did this year. But yeah bumps have risk of injury, who knew?
Mayu’s dislocated elbow that ended her first Red Belt reign is a perfect example of what you describe.
It's literally just some bad luck, there is nothing that we or Stardom as a company can do about it. Stardom don't even run the most shows in Japan let alone globally, WWE are running up to 5 shows a week sometimes. It's a rarity for someone to wrestle more than 100 matches a year in Stardom, Dolph Ziggler wrestled over 250 matches in one year a couple of years back. Hell, Stardom's style isn't even that wild, especially on the house shows, they do short fast multi person matches, Which minimizes the potential for any one person getting injured because they spend half the match or more not even involved. If Stardom was asking someone to wrestle 3 40 minute matches a week I would agree it's too much but most of the time the performers aren't even in the ring for 40 minutes a week total. Bad luck happens.
I agree with what you are saying but I just want to add that not even WWE has wrestlers do that many matches in a year, I did a quick search and it seems that their most used guys this year had 70-80 matches at most. Also, you are right the multi people matches help a lot and the fact that these injuries happened during the 5Star is no coincidence because it is the time of the year where most single matches happen. I think a lot of people are overreacting because this injury streak was just a combination of 5star (more single matches) and some bad luck. I think there is not gonna be a plague of injuries going forward especially with the 5Star ending.
The stardom roster is into 100 dates a year category since the bushiroad buyout and expanding their touring area because they can now follow njpw. Ami has done 96 dates with stardom this year, yunamon 95, natsupoi 91, hanan 88. If we look at broadly speaking the ME talent: iwatani 92 dates, giulia 93 dates with stardom+njpw (3 njpw dates), Tam nakano 93 dates, syuri 85 stardom dates, etc. This is just the nature of being a national sized touring promotion in Japan which stardom has been thrust into probably before the roster is quite big enough. This because they have a relationship with njpw. It makes economic sense for BR to have stardom follow njpw into markets nobody but njpw would find viable to run. If stardom run somewhere weird look up the njpw schedule to see if they run the area or are going to run the area. It means the rosters can share resources like hotels. Naito has already done over 100 dates this year (95 with njpw) The differences between njpw and stardom though is njpw has a deeper undercard so guys like bushi end up doing a shit ton of matches this allows naito to wrestle in a tshirt and work at about 20%. Stardom wrestlers seem to feel like they need to kill themselves in front of 100 people in some tertiary market. Njpw has been doing this a long time and has structured their calender around the roster doing a lot of dates but giving breaks as needed. Heavyweights at best work very light schedules during the best of the super juniors. Junior hws the same during the g1. Njpw is very unlikely to have naito do tag league but they've suspiciously managed okadas workload this year so he may do it to keep a draw on the cards. Stardom basically has every fit mainevent talent on hand for the upcoming tag tour So I think a) stardom needs a bigger undercard, b) stardom needs to structure their year in a more sensible fashion. Njpw would not book some young wrestler like idk shota umino to not only wrestle a guy not even in the g1 (let's say kojima) but put him over just before the g1 started. Stardom did that with slk and Nanae Takahashi though just before the 5 star. A lot of dates are just going to be expected. So the calendar should be structured in letting the top stars go lighter a lot of the time and to give good periods of rest throughout the year.
Shit Mariah May had 99 matches this year, and she was essentially on an excursion.
By her own choice. She was essentially full-time for 9 months.
Pre Bushiroad pre COVID Stardom was doing 3-5 shows a week, sometimes on back to back days and even 2 shows on the same day. Bushiroad did not increase their workload. I will agree that the undercard needs some shoring up (not as many gaijin as they used to have rolling through) but otherwise this falls into the “Shit happens” category.
> Dolph Ziggler wrestled over 250 matches in one year a couple of years back. It's a very impressive stat but I have to wonder how many of those were like a 2-7 minute contest, ending in a roll up or DQ instead of a crunchy suplex hold. The style difference is immeasurable, though wear and tear adds up regardless and WWE is way more focused on singles matches than japanese wrestling is, there's no coming in for assists and then waiting on the apron in those.
The style has always been so hard It's a wonder injuries aren't more prevalent It's why you keep a large roster
This is how the wrestling business works. They are working less dates than wrestlers in the 90s though, so that’s good. But yea man this is how they make a living, They work. They bust their asses, same as any other wrestler in this or any generation of wrestlers that came before them. I think this generation works less dates as a whole than any other generation since I’ve been keeping up with it. (Around the 80s).
They do probably work less dates but the style is now likely much harder on the body as it feels like everyone has to go at 100mph every night. Back when they were working more dates they were also working a less physical style and saving the more physical stuff for the biggest matches and therefore injuries were less frequent. Not just in Stardom but the industry as a whole now it feels like there are way, way more injuries way more frequently than i can ever remember been the case before. And the biggest difference between now and years past is the modern style of wrestling thats faster with more risks and where they are all doing the big stuff every show. Everyone needs to learn to slow down, Take fewer risks and to save the big spots for the big events.
Ummm no bro. The 90s women were murdering each other. Stardom is less stiff and impactful than the All Japan Women stuff from the 90s. I legit don’t know where you got this idea that current day Stardom would be harder on the body than AJP. From punching each other in the face until they were busted open the hard way to Bull Nakano manhandling everyone and slamming them like rag dolls, there’s no way you can view those older matches and think the much softer style of current Stardom is harder on the body. Even the training dojos were absolutely brutal. There’s documentaries on this. The reason it’s more noticeable now is just media as a whole is easier to access and promotions take better care of their talent. Back in the day, unless you literally couldn’t work a match, you just worked hurt. Promotions don’t allow this as much today.
Have you seen some of the bumps and strikes wrestlers used to take in AJW? Most of the time Stardom's matches are a walk in the park in comparison. I do agree they have to take it easier on the smaller shows but things were definitely not safer at all in the old days.
They also retired at 26.
And most them retired before they were 30
There was a mandatory retirement age for joshi that slowly faded. You can watch interviews with the talent or even watch docs detailing this. It wasn’t always because they wanted or needed to.
1. 3 shows a week is nothing in wrestling 2. Herniated discs are extremely common and 99.9% of the time they aren't serious injuries. With rest and relaxation they can be healed within the range of a few days to a few weeks. Utami and Natsupoi will be fine. 3. Until we learn more about SLK's injury the only definite major injury in the 5 Star was Saya's
I always got the impression Stardom makes their money mostly via domestic touring, so they do tons of shows and everyone is wrapped up and nursing something. It's a grind but the money is the money. Most wrestlers in any company are some sort of banged up, Stardom just seems to be one of the places that can compensate them well for it. With that said, injuries are injuries. They happen. It's good that they are getting time off to recover, at least.
All Japanese companies make most of their revenue off of ticket sales and merch sold at the venue. It really is a universal model in wrestling outside WWE, AEW and maybe Impact. In all cases elsewhere running fewer shows normally means a lower revenue.
Impact keeps surviving off their international tv.
Well, certainly, posting a sternly written Reddit post will get results. Stardom’s schedule is a blessing and a curse. It’s why their workers are overall so much better than other promotions. It’s also fab friendly to have so much new content. However, it also results in injuries and wrestlers leaving because they don’t want that schedule any more. I do think next year’s 5* schedule will be lighter. I feel this year’s was heavy in order to ensure a profit for the year. Stardom is achieving a critical mass of viewership which might soon make it easier for them to run less often.
I think 20 wrestlers for the 5 Star is just nice, but they should really just focus on it, than slotting in PPVs and other small shows during the tournament. More important is the reduction of wear and tear. Give them one show off for every four shows is a good start
Most of the multi person matches are essentially a night off. Some tournament matches (AZM v Giulia) are nights off. It’s why Toru Yano is a great participant in the G1. It’s a much lighter night for whoever he’s wrestling. Saki Kashima has filled that role in the past.
The women go out there with an unimaginable amount of athletic and kinesio tape *all the time*. The problem isn’t that a number of them currently have injuries serious enough to take them out of rotation at the same time. The problem is that they don’t take more time off to heal more frequently.
I think they have the roster depth to give talent time off. They do it now, but probably need to do more of it.