Pantoja’s STARDOM 5 Star Grand Prix Night 2 Review 7.29.23

STARDOM 5 Star Grand Prix 2023 Night 2

July 29^th, 2023 | Nagano Prefectural Budokan in Saku, Nagano

I am so pumped for the rest of this tournament after that fantastic first night. Unfortunately, there is bad news as Saya Kamitani is out of the tournament, which is a shame as she seemed poised for something big.

These shows have six or seven matches on them but I’m only covering the tournament bouts and there are just three of those here, all in the Blue Stars block.

Blue Stars: Hanan [0] vs. Giulia [1]

Here we have an 18-year-old upstart against one of the company’s top stars. You kind of knew how this would play out. Hanan did a good job of holding her own early, matching Giulia on a few exchanges and even getting the upper hand in a few. I dug her popping up from a Giulia Saito suplex with one of her own, showing she wasn’t backing down. Giulia got fed up with this level playing field and started in with bigger moves before Hanan nearly scored the upset with a pinning combination. Giulia then pounced and finished the deal with the Glorious Driver in 7:59. A good match and nothing more. [***]

Blue Stars: Mariah May [2] vs. Saori Anou [1]

Saori had an outstanding outing a draw on night one, while Mariah looked great in a win over AZM. This also works as a preview of the upcoming Goddesses of Stardom match on 10/13. Although I like Mariah adding a sunset flip bomb outside to her arsenal, doing it as basically the first move here wasn’t my favorite choice. That should’ve really impacted Saori but it didn’t affect the match as much as it should’ve. In fact, it wasn’t long before Saori was on the offensive and working on Mariah’s leg. Mariah again refused to back down, trading strikes with Saori in the middle of the ring even if she was a bit outmatched there. She also busted out a vicious looking submission at one point. Saori weathered the storm and used a submission of her own, an armbar, to win in 9:22. That was very good though it had some issues that I didn’t love like the early powerbomb spot. [***¼] 

Blue Stars: Mina Shirakawa [0] vs. MIRAI [0]

Here’s an interesting one considering Mina dropped the Wonder of Stardom Title to Tam Nakano and MIRAI was the one to beat Tam for it. Mina’s choice to trade forearms with MIRAI immediately was a questionable one but she was more than up for the challenge. MIRAI took over and focused on the arm, overwhelming Mina with her power game. So, Mina combated that by taking to the skies, nearly getting a countout win after a plancha. When they went back to strikes, MIRAI seemed happy about it until Mina laid into her with a backfist and some loud slaps. From there, this got really good with trading of big offensive moves and giving us some close calls but never going overboard with the false finishes. The only thing holding this back from being more memorable was that the crowd was kind of subdued. Like, I know Japanese crowds are known for not being over the top like in other countries but you can tell when it’s a good crowd and between this and the G1, we haven’t had many good ones. In the end, Mina scored the win with the Figure Four Driver in 14:47 as this was nearing the time limit. [***¾]

7.5

The final score: review Good

The 411

I love the idea of breaking this down into shorter shows if you’re just following the tournament. I breezed through these three matches and they got better as things went on, making this tournament 2-2 in quality events.