wrestling / TV Reports
Pantoja’s Marigold Dream Star Grand Prix Night 1 (Afternoon Show) Review
Image Credit: Marigold
Loading...Marigold Dream Star GP Night 1 (Evening Show)
August 31st, 2024 | EDION Arena in Osaka, Japan | Attendance: 305
NOTE: For anyone following all of my reviews, my WrestleMania Series is still ongoing. It’s something I’m doing in my free time though so reviews from 2024 (like this one) take precedence. Also, I’m up to the Manias that are like, 7 hours long so it takes a while.
Like STARDOM, Marigold chose to run two shows in one night during the tournament. This time, we only have five matches instead of the seven on the afternoon event. I respect that there’s a week or so in between this show and the next, so I have time for other reviews.
STAR League: Bozilla [2] vs. Misa Matsui [0]
Bozilla had a dominant win in the opener and these two actually met in a good match back on 7/20 (***). They kept to the script here, telling a simple David vs. Goliath story. That’s going to be the case with most Bozilla matches, especially given her age, so the key is finding ways to keep it interesting each time out. I thought Misa did a good job with the offense she got in, like her dropkick to the knee. It’s stuff that makes sense and sometimes, that’s all I ask for. The spot where Misa slid to Bozilla on the apron only to get dropped on the floor was interesting though the way she attacked Bozilla to set it up looked dumb. The powerslam spot on the apron was much better. Bozilla then won with a piledriver in 6:28. I wish she had a better finisher. The piledriver is great but she could use something that utilizes her power more. Solid opener. [**¾]
STAR League: CHIAKI [0] vs. Miku Aono [2]
It’s the first match of the tournament for CHIAKI. She outsmarted Miku to start, charging at her and getting the upper hand. She remained in control by being vicious and taking joy in beating up the United National Champion. That included a body slam on the outside. Miku turned the tide by working the leg. She does good work with her babyface fire, which is ideal against a villain like CHIAKI. The finish here was kind of abrupt and flat as, after some back and forth, Miku hit a kick to the head for three. It went 6:31 and was solid up until that finish. [**¾]
DREAM League: MIRAI [2] vs. NØRI [2]
NØRI looked good on night one and we all know that MIRAI is good. This match seemed determined to show us that these two were evenly matched. They traded stuff all the way from simple early exchanges to bigger moves down the stretch to vicious strikes and kicks. They were laying them in too. MIRAI leveled her with mounted punches and NØRI fired off some fiery knee strikes in the corner at one point. You could kind of see what they were going for as this progressed and once it passed the 10 minute mark, it felt obvious. I don’t mean that in a bad way because I understand why it was done. This was a slow burn that got better as it went on though the crowd was kind of flat for the whole thing. I thought their grappling on the mat was a nice change of pace as you usually see a slugfest style match from hard hitters like this. They still threw those in but the way they mixed things up was welcome. NØRI hit a suplex but missed a spin kick and MIRAI followed with two lariats but time expired at 15:00 before a pin could be made. A very good match that was probably the best of the tournament to this point. [***½]
DREAM League: Chika Goto [0] vs. Utami Hayashishita [0]
Chika is one to watch in this tournament. She’s clearly green but you can see that there’s potential there and a good run in the GP would go a long way to her improving. This reminded me of when you see experienced wrestlers in there with rookies. You could see Utami leading the way while keeping things relatively simple. The spot where Chika went for the giant swing but could barely get Utami off the ground and only spun her slowly was a case of her needing to fine tune things. Otherwise, this was a basic, inoffensive match. Utami rebounded from her loss earlier in the day with a German suplex victory at the 8:04 mark. A decent enough little match here. [**½]
DREAM League: Nagisa Nozaki [2] vs. Natsumi Showzuki [1]
Speaking of that Utami loss I mentioned, it came against Nagisa, so she’s riding a high. Right off the bat, you could tell that these two treated this like a big deal. A lot of the other matches, even the draw earlier, have kind of just felt like exhibitions. It’s a problem you often run into with these round-robin tournaments. However, these two brought a lot of energy and fire to this and you felt like the result really mattered to them. That’s important. Things were even throughout as neither woman held a clear upper hand for long. Nagisa has impressed through two matches. Despite the efforts I praised, a few things didn’t look quite as good as they were going for but things like Nagisa’s Claymore looked great. They did good with the late close calls, especially on simple flash pins and the crowd was really buying into them. They were more into this than the draw. An inside cradle by Natsumi didn’t get it done but she won a pinning combination battle soon after to score the three count in 10:11. A good main event that had the heart you want even if the execution was a bit off at points. [***¼]
| DREAM LEAGUE | POINTS | STAR LEAGUE | POINTS |
| MIRAI | 3 (1-0-1) | Bozilla | 4 (2-0) |
| NØRI | 3 (1-0-1) | Miku Aono | 4 (2-0) |
| Natsumi Showzuki | 3 (1-0-1) | Mai Sakurai | 2 (1-0) |
| Nagisa Nozaki | 2 (1-1) | Sareee | 0 (0-0) |
| Utami Hayashishita | 2 (1-1) | Nanae Takahashi | 0 (0-1) |
| Victoria Yuzuki | 1 (0-0-1) | Kizuna Tanaka | 0 (0-1) |
| Kouki Amarei | 0 (0-1) | Misa Matsui | 0 (0-2) |
| Chika Goto | 0 (0-2) | CHIAKI | 0 (0-2) |
