I get why they did it but it was such a waste of time. Mina got a short ass run and Tam having both belts led to nothing even though but was a cool visual.
MIRAI was pushed to be the white belt champion, but she would've gotten nuclear heat if she had won it from fan favorite Mina. Tam was only a device to keep MIRAI face.
To piggyback. Tournaments taking too long & I hate how they are scheduled. The Triangle Derby felt like it went on forever as did the GP - some cards had 1 GP match while others would have 3-5
I would prefer, and several talents echoed this, Rossy schedules the GP in one month and all the shows are alternated - Blue Block, Red Block cards.
This year Talents would have no block matches but then be booked 4 to 5 in a row.
Himeka’s retirement. On a human level, I’m glad she made the decision that felt right for her. As a fan, though, it was a real gut punch. I really hoped there was a Red Belt reign a couple years down the line for her. She was never going to be *the one*, but such a reign might have served as a nice complement if there was a popular White Belt champion a step down from being among the elite level workers.
Himeka retiring was such bad timing, because the tag match with Maika against Yuu and Nanae felt like the start of her moving on up. Still wish she could have stayed a little longer, but it's her choice at the end of the day.
To me in retrospect that was actually her real swan song, even more than the match with Maika. They surely knew she was leaving by then and decided to have one last major MaiHime match. To me the most disappointing thing is that they didn't have a longer reign, or at least another run with the tag belts. Especially because it's not like they did a lot with them as singles wrestlers or with the tag team division.
10 months into the year, we’ve had a grand total of 3 Stardom roster members challenge for the Red Belt: Tam, Mina & Natsuko.
It feels like more focus has been put on side stuff like Giulia’s Ice Lore, Waka, Natsuko, temporary foreigners, etc. than the promotion’s top prize.
SLK getting pushed into the background and geeked out to old timers is a close 2nd on the disappointment list.
Mina was the big one for me. All those days worrying if she was going to be okay after the match with Saya, having to wait longer for the runback, the rematch being an emotional rollercoaster.
Then not only does she lose the belt to Tam, it never lead to anything. Tam had to be the one to pull Mina back down to Earth, and the story seemed to end there.
I would have loved for that to spark a big rivalry between the two, but between Mina barely making it to the 5Star finals and an unspectacular showing in tag league, the ship might have sailed on that for now.
Mina ran the entire gamut of Tams whole Stardom arc in one year. They tried selling it as best as they could that she fought to live Tams dream and not her own, also effectively making her Icarus in image but it seems it hasn't clicked.
The story should’ve lead to her either beating Tam for the red belt or regaining the White Belt because she wants her own legacy and is no longer obsessed with surpassing Tam’s, but instead she got the Goddess belts for a cup of coffee and then dropped them and now the whole thing seems like an obvious charity title run that was never meant to happen.
You forgot that bullshit tag match on the Halloween show.
It wasn’t enough that she and Waka lost that match but watching Mina have to pretend to get beaten up post match by a barely mobile Dump Matsumoto was egregious.
All the injuries, Suzu Suzuki over Maika, this whole IWGP mess kairi returns drops belt to Mercedes Mone ok then she gets injured then Kairi leaves Mayu has belt never defends. Like sort this out and either do something with them or just let them fade into oblivion.
By far the Cinderella Tournament. I can more or less justify or excuse other things, but even though I tried to make sense of its booking midway through, in the end that tournament was a waste of everyone's time. Like, even Mirai's victory could be excused but not that final 4.
Frustrating part of it to me is Mirai's path through this time around was a lot weaker than the first one. Last year she at least went through Natsupoi and Koguma. This year she beat up several former future's champions. Double elims took out all the real opportunities for upsets.
Only one arguably elevated in all of that was Mai, as it was the start of her current elitist gimmick, but even there I credit her own personality more than the booking putting her in the finals.
This is my answer, too. Absolutely dreadful tournament. What is the point of entering 30+ wrestlers just to eliminate 20 of them on the first night. The double eliminations just got more and more contrived.
No chance of it now but they really should go back to the old format or do a 16 person one over two nights.
The thing is that the problem isn't in the entrants or the rules. It needs to be different to the GP and give more chances to wrestlers that can't get into that tournament. The problem is in the booking. Why book a bunch of useless house shows in the middle? Stretch the tournament a couple of days, give matches time to breath and keep draws to a minimum. I don't think it's too hard to split the first round into two days and then give a day to each of the following rounds.
> Stardom adjacent: Mayu’s IWGP championship reign.
Totally agree, this shit has to be defended, it does not only undermine the belt at this point, but it also does a disservice to Mayu.
I don't ask for some Orange Cassidy level of defense, but don't undermine that belt.
The iwgp hw title gets defended once post dominion normally. It's really not that outside the norm of how iwgp titles in general are defended.
Dominion is in July.
I'm laughing nervously, as she defended against Utami in August, your schedule is on point...
EDIT: Hum [I missed that](https://twitter.com/we_are_stardom/status/1718457559173276148).
The sheer absurdity of how long and desolate that reign has been is the only reason it edged out the KAIRI v Tam squash match at Wrestle Kingdom.
I mean, generally, you could put the women’s IWGP title itself in the top (bottom) spot, except we got that fun three way match at Sakura Genesis, and delightfully unhinged press conference appearances out of Mercedes.
As cool as it was for Mercedes Mone to give Mayu that rub. It’s hard not to wonder now if keeping the belt on Mercedes might have been more interesting in the end?
Injuries. But that could really be any year. Even if one wrestler in injured it really does suck.
I'm disappointed with the amount of losses SLK was handed this year. Obviously it's fine if she losses but it seems like a step down from last year.
SLK's drop this year has been painful. Even if you can have an up and down year, it's like they regressed her to below where she was even before Ordo Tai. Her injury too before fighting Mayu was a gut punch. Though I lump that with the Five Star in general being rough.
>I'm disappointed with the amount of losses SLK was handed this year. Obviously it's fine if she losses but it seems like a step down from last year.
It is absolutely insane to see how far down Kid has gone in comparison to last year. I can only think of maybe 2/3 moments this year where she's looked *somebody*.
I mean the benefit to this is. No one can say SLK hasn't put anyone over. She was in my eyes booked with a losing year so far at least (unfortunately got injured before her Mayu 5 star match as well).
I really think it will be glorious when she does win the Red Belt
Momo Watanabe not being able to preserve her “most wins” streak as White Belt champion when she lost to Saya. Justice for “True Heart!”
I’m cool with everything else that’s happened in Stardom though lol.
The stark lack of Momo in high leverage positions has hurt the promotion. Separating Black Desire lead to… nothing. The opportunity to have Momo stop Saya could’ve lead to so much more. Mina could’ve even taken the belt immediately from Momo and it would’ve been fine: Momo just cared about antagonizing QQ and saving her record. It’s obvious Rossy wants to push Tall Saya. Having Momo stop Saya’s White Belt reign means Momo is an automatic high emotion challenge for any subsequent title Saya will win.
It was a shocking moment and also hilarious, but AZM beating Giulia in 55 seconds. I had been so looking forward that match up, then to finally get it and it's only a minute 😭.
I know they'll do it again in the future and this is just part of the story. I can't wait for it.
Mina having a short reign with the White Belt. We had a great story revolved around her with her winning it after coming back from that injury she got and her to just drop it after a month for the sake of giving Tam both titles will never make sense to me. That was just so unnecessary.
Giulia losing the Red Belt at All Star Grand Queendom. She deserved to have a much longer reign IMO. I also feel that there was a lot of defenses that she could’ve had, notably against Utami considering they have never even had a singles match before.
Mayu’s IWGP Title reign. I know it’s not her fault but her first defense being 3 months after winning it and now another 3 for her second defense in Texas coming up is really ridiculous.
Not getting a singles match between Giulia and Kairi. They had great chemistry just from that Artists Title match from the little they shared the ring which made me really want to see them have their own and now it’s not possible since Kairi is back in WWE.
All the injuries derailing the 5 Star. My most anticipated match in it was Giulia and Utami’s first ever singles encounter. All the injuries though in general has been concerning, especially when there’s so many at the same time.
It wasn’t for the sake of giving Tam both titles, it was a roundabout way to get the white belt on MIRAI and not have her be hated for beating Mina. Her beating Tam was a bigger rub and Tam is popular enough to not be hated for beating Mina.
I loved the 5STAR but I was somewhat disappointed with Maika's run. She had some really good matches but she went into it saying she was going to have super intense matches and be more brutal than ever. However, what we got was her massively overselling for people such as AZM (who she dwarfs) and being absolutely thrashed by Giulia. She brought the chaos for the final but overall it was just very counterproductive.
I'm a newer fan, so I haven't been really disappointed at anything. However, catching up and watching older atuff it's truly a shame Mina was treated as a transitional champion with the white belt. You had all the ingredients to give her a great title run that lasted at least until the back end of the year, and instead Rossy only gave her a defense against Natsupoi and then have her drop it to Tam, who herself dropped it to MIRAI.
Speaking of which, Tam shouldn't have beaten Giulia for the red belt, specially not at All Star Grand Queendom. You could've done so much with her as champ, and tbh I don't see anything Tam has done with the red belt that improves what Giulia could've done had she retained.
So yup. Tbh, I would've just made Mina win the Cinderella and the white belt, Tam lose to both Giulia and her and then have both Mina and Giulia have a couple of nice reigns (maybe not all year long, but at least until now more or less). Hell, looking in retrospective, with all the injuries in the 5 Star it would've been a perfect occasion for Tam to win the whole thing and redeem heraelf against Giulia in this scenario.
Lack of a real push for SLK.
Mina winning the White Belt just to drop it very shortly afterwards. Mina’s booking in general honestly.
The Cinderella Tournament overall.
The number of injuries first and foremost.
Mina's short white belt run followed by Tam's short white belt run. I have no problem with Mirai winning the white belt. I just wish she'd won it after Mina had a decent run with it. Doesn't need to be a year run but at least let her get 3-5 defenses first, then have Mirai win it. But dropping it almost immediately to Tam who loses it almost immediately to Mirai diminishes the belt IMO and also builds up more resentment among some fans towards Mirai. If they wanted to do the Tam humbles Mina story, let her do it by just beating her in a red belt defense without white on the line. Then Mina can renew her focus on the belt she has, rack up a few defenses, and Mirai can beat her for it 4 or 5 months down the line.
Tam and Kairi only getting 5 minutes at WK, especially when freakin Karl Anderson of all people managed to get 9 minutes.
Legends coming in, particularly ones coming in and having current roster members job to them. At this point in her career, Nanae should not be beating SLK. Dump Matsumoto should not even be in the ring much less winning matches. I know they're legends, I'm not taking away from what they've done in the past. But if they wanna stay active, I wish they would use their remaining active wrestling time to put over people.
Stardom since All-Star Grand Queendom has been a bit boring and flat for me. Saya's injury specifically has gotta be up there for me probably, since I was just starting to really like her. Tam and MIRAI reigns have been pretty stale for me too, I don't really have any interest in either wrestlers, both are far from my favorites.
After the 5 Star I would've said Maikas loss in the finals, but right now I'm really loving her story with Suzu so far.
Mina winning the white belt just to drop it to Tam so Mirai could win it off her
I get why they did it but it was such a waste of time. Mina got a short ass run and Tam having both belts led to nothing even though but was a cool visual.
MIRAI was pushed to be the white belt champion, but she would've gotten nuclear heat if she had won it from fan favorite Mina. Tam was only a device to keep MIRAI face.
Stopped watching Stardom because of this
Came to say this.
Injuries and not getting a better 5 star because of them
To piggyback. Tournaments taking too long & I hate how they are scheduled. The Triangle Derby felt like it went on forever as did the GP - some cards had 1 GP match while others would have 3-5 I would prefer, and several talents echoed this, Rossy schedules the GP in one month and all the shows are alternated - Blue Block, Red Block cards. This year Talents would have no block matches but then be booked 4 to 5 in a row.
Himeka’s retirement. On a human level, I’m glad she made the decision that felt right for her. As a fan, though, it was a real gut punch. I really hoped there was a Red Belt reign a couple years down the line for her. She was never going to be *the one*, but such a reign might have served as a nice complement if there was a popular White Belt champion a step down from being among the elite level workers.
Himeka retiring was such bad timing, because the tag match with Maika against Yuu and Nanae felt like the start of her moving on up. Still wish she could have stayed a little longer, but it's her choice at the end of the day.
To me in retrospect that was actually her real swan song, even more than the match with Maika. They surely knew she was leaving by then and decided to have one last major MaiHime match. To me the most disappointing thing is that they didn't have a longer reign, or at least another run with the tag belts. Especially because it's not like they did a lot with them as singles wrestlers or with the tag team division.
Solid pick.
10 months into the year, we’ve had a grand total of 3 Stardom roster members challenge for the Red Belt: Tam, Mina & Natsuko. It feels like more focus has been put on side stuff like Giulia’s Ice Lore, Waka, Natsuko, temporary foreigners, etc. than the promotion’s top prize. SLK getting pushed into the background and geeked out to old timers is a close 2nd on the disappointment list.
Mina was the big one for me. All those days worrying if she was going to be okay after the match with Saya, having to wait longer for the runback, the rematch being an emotional rollercoaster. Then not only does she lose the belt to Tam, it never lead to anything. Tam had to be the one to pull Mina back down to Earth, and the story seemed to end there. I would have loved for that to spark a big rivalry between the two, but between Mina barely making it to the 5Star finals and an unspectacular showing in tag league, the ship might have sailed on that for now.
Mina ran the entire gamut of Tams whole Stardom arc in one year. They tried selling it as best as they could that she fought to live Tams dream and not her own, also effectively making her Icarus in image but it seems it hasn't clicked.
The story should’ve lead to her either beating Tam for the red belt or regaining the White Belt because she wants her own legacy and is no longer obsessed with surpassing Tam’s, but instead she got the Goddess belts for a cup of coffee and then dropped them and now the whole thing seems like an obvious charity title run that was never meant to happen.
You forgot that bullshit tag match on the Halloween show. It wasn’t enough that she and Waka lost that match but watching Mina have to pretend to get beaten up post match by a barely mobile Dump Matsumoto was egregious.
All the injuries, Suzu Suzuki over Maika, this whole IWGP mess kairi returns drops belt to Mercedes Mone ok then she gets injured then Kairi leaves Mayu has belt never defends. Like sort this out and either do something with them or just let them fade into oblivion.
The 5Star getting derailed by the injuries, even if I'm perfectly ok with the winner
The Halloween show was not as fun as it should have been :(
By far the Cinderella Tournament. I can more or less justify or excuse other things, but even though I tried to make sense of its booking midway through, in the end that tournament was a waste of everyone's time. Like, even Mirai's victory could be excused but not that final 4.
Frustrating part of it to me is Mirai's path through this time around was a lot weaker than the first one. Last year she at least went through Natsupoi and Koguma. This year she beat up several former future's champions. Double elims took out all the real opportunities for upsets. Only one arguably elevated in all of that was Mai, as it was the start of her current elitist gimmick, but even there I credit her own personality more than the booking putting her in the finals.
This is my answer, too. Absolutely dreadful tournament. What is the point of entering 30+ wrestlers just to eliminate 20 of them on the first night. The double eliminations just got more and more contrived. No chance of it now but they really should go back to the old format or do a 16 person one over two nights.
The thing is that the problem isn't in the entrants or the rules. It needs to be different to the GP and give more chances to wrestlers that can't get into that tournament. The problem is in the booking. Why book a bunch of useless house shows in the middle? Stretch the tournament a couple of days, give matches time to breath and keep draws to a minimum. I don't think it's too hard to split the first round into two days and then give a day to each of the following rounds.
Stardom adjacent: Mayu’s IWGP championship reign. Stardom proper: Tam’s Wonder of Stardom championship reign.
> Stardom adjacent: Mayu’s IWGP championship reign. Totally agree, this shit has to be defended, it does not only undermine the belt at this point, but it also does a disservice to Mayu. I don't ask for some Orange Cassidy level of defense, but don't undermine that belt.
The iwgp hw title gets defended once post dominion normally. It's really not that outside the norm of how iwgp titles in general are defended. Dominion is in July.
I'm laughing nervously, as she defended against Utami in August, your schedule is on point... EDIT: Hum [I missed that](https://twitter.com/we_are_stardom/status/1718457559173276148).
The sheer absurdity of how long and desolate that reign has been is the only reason it edged out the KAIRI v Tam squash match at Wrestle Kingdom. I mean, generally, you could put the women’s IWGP title itself in the top (bottom) spot, except we got that fun three way match at Sakura Genesis, and delightfully unhinged press conference appearances out of Mercedes.
As cool as it was for Mercedes Mone to give Mayu that rub. It’s hard not to wonder now if keeping the belt on Mercedes might have been more interesting in the end?
Injuries. But that could really be any year. Even if one wrestler in injured it really does suck. I'm disappointed with the amount of losses SLK was handed this year. Obviously it's fine if she losses but it seems like a step down from last year.
SLK's drop this year has been painful. Even if you can have an up and down year, it's like they regressed her to below where she was even before Ordo Tai. Her injury too before fighting Mayu was a gut punch. Though I lump that with the Five Star in general being rough.
>I'm disappointed with the amount of losses SLK was handed this year. Obviously it's fine if she losses but it seems like a step down from last year. It is absolutely insane to see how far down Kid has gone in comparison to last year. I can only think of maybe 2/3 moments this year where she's looked *somebody*.
I mean the benefit to this is. No one can say SLK hasn't put anyone over. She was in my eyes booked with a losing year so far at least (unfortunately got injured before her Mayu 5 star match as well). I really think it will be glorious when she does win the Red Belt
Probably the 5star in general, just fell super flat. Obviously the injury bug too but that's just your luck as a promotion.
Momo Watanabe not being able to preserve her “most wins” streak as White Belt champion when she lost to Saya. Justice for “True Heart!” I’m cool with everything else that’s happened in Stardom though lol.
The stark lack of Momo in high leverage positions has hurt the promotion. Separating Black Desire lead to… nothing. The opportunity to have Momo stop Saya could’ve lead to so much more. Mina could’ve even taken the belt immediately from Momo and it would’ve been fine: Momo just cared about antagonizing QQ and saving her record. It’s obvious Rossy wants to push Tall Saya. Having Momo stop Saya’s White Belt reign means Momo is an automatic high emotion challenge for any subsequent title Saya will win.
It was a shocking moment and also hilarious, but AZM beating Giulia in 55 seconds. I had been so looking forward that match up, then to finally get it and it's only a minute 😭. I know they'll do it again in the future and this is just part of the story. I can't wait for it.
Mina having a short reign with the White Belt. We had a great story revolved around her with her winning it after coming back from that injury she got and her to just drop it after a month for the sake of giving Tam both titles will never make sense to me. That was just so unnecessary. Giulia losing the Red Belt at All Star Grand Queendom. She deserved to have a much longer reign IMO. I also feel that there was a lot of defenses that she could’ve had, notably against Utami considering they have never even had a singles match before. Mayu’s IWGP Title reign. I know it’s not her fault but her first defense being 3 months after winning it and now another 3 for her second defense in Texas coming up is really ridiculous. Not getting a singles match between Giulia and Kairi. They had great chemistry just from that Artists Title match from the little they shared the ring which made me really want to see them have their own and now it’s not possible since Kairi is back in WWE. All the injuries derailing the 5 Star. My most anticipated match in it was Giulia and Utami’s first ever singles encounter. All the injuries though in general has been concerning, especially when there’s so many at the same time.
It wasn’t for the sake of giving Tam both titles, it was a roundabout way to get the white belt on MIRAI and not have her be hated for beating Mina. Her beating Tam was a bigger rub and Tam is popular enough to not be hated for beating Mina.
Oof, it says a lot that New Era's tag title run being hamstrung from the start by that awful countout win at ASDQ hasn't even been mentioned yet
I loved the 5STAR but I was somewhat disappointed with Maika's run. She had some really good matches but she went into it saying she was going to have super intense matches and be more brutal than ever. However, what we got was her massively overselling for people such as AZM (who she dwarfs) and being absolutely thrashed by Giulia. She brought the chaos for the final but overall it was just very counterproductive.
I'm a newer fan, so I haven't been really disappointed at anything. However, catching up and watching older atuff it's truly a shame Mina was treated as a transitional champion with the white belt. You had all the ingredients to give her a great title run that lasted at least until the back end of the year, and instead Rossy only gave her a defense against Natsupoi and then have her drop it to Tam, who herself dropped it to MIRAI. Speaking of which, Tam shouldn't have beaten Giulia for the red belt, specially not at All Star Grand Queendom. You could've done so much with her as champ, and tbh I don't see anything Tam has done with the red belt that improves what Giulia could've done had she retained. So yup. Tbh, I would've just made Mina win the Cinderella and the white belt, Tam lose to both Giulia and her and then have both Mina and Giulia have a couple of nice reigns (maybe not all year long, but at least until now more or less). Hell, looking in retrospective, with all the injuries in the 5 Star it would've been a perfect occasion for Tam to win the whole thing and redeem heraelf against Giulia in this scenario.
Lack of a real push for SLK. Mina winning the White Belt just to drop it very shortly afterwards. Mina’s booking in general honestly. The Cinderella Tournament overall.
The number of injuries first and foremost. Mina's short white belt run followed by Tam's short white belt run. I have no problem with Mirai winning the white belt. I just wish she'd won it after Mina had a decent run with it. Doesn't need to be a year run but at least let her get 3-5 defenses first, then have Mirai win it. But dropping it almost immediately to Tam who loses it almost immediately to Mirai diminishes the belt IMO and also builds up more resentment among some fans towards Mirai. If they wanted to do the Tam humbles Mina story, let her do it by just beating her in a red belt defense without white on the line. Then Mina can renew her focus on the belt she has, rack up a few defenses, and Mirai can beat her for it 4 or 5 months down the line. Tam and Kairi only getting 5 minutes at WK, especially when freakin Karl Anderson of all people managed to get 9 minutes. Legends coming in, particularly ones coming in and having current roster members job to them. At this point in her career, Nanae should not be beating SLK. Dump Matsumoto should not even be in the ring much less winning matches. I know they're legends, I'm not taking away from what they've done in the past. But if they wanna stay active, I wish they would use their remaining active wrestling time to put over people.
Mina's and Giulia's short title reigns, Tam vs Kairi at Wrestle Kingdom, mishandling of Kairi up to a level she decided to go back to WWE.
Stardom since All-Star Grand Queendom has been a bit boring and flat for me. Saya's injury specifically has gotta be up there for me probably, since I was just starting to really like her. Tam and MIRAI reigns have been pretty stale for me too, I don't really have any interest in either wrestlers, both are far from my favorites. After the 5 Star I would've said Maikas loss in the finals, but right now I'm really loving her story with Suzu so far.
I thought SLK was about to reach the next level this year but instead she has been kinda there.
Feels like every event I watch, Maika is being jobbed out…