High Speed Title Match: AZM (c) vs. Starlight Kid
Wow. What an opening match. Both are very young but are practically veterans by this point and it shows. The fluidity and assurance in their offence and sequences is really impressive. The High Speed title has its own in-house style of being lucha influenced and they embodied that. Loved this from the opening sequence to the finishing stretch. I really dug the little moments of aggression that came with the flashy style like AZM hitting a double foot stomp on Starlight Kid’s arm for example. ***1/2
SWA Undisputed World Women's Title Match (Vacant): Momo Watanabe vs. Bea Priestley
Super good match from these two. It’s good to see that Momo is still just as good in these mid-show matches as she is at the main events. Bea impressed me as well. She was uneven as a main eventer herself and I don’t think a slow, methodical submission style suited her too well so Bea being more of the aggressive, bruiser allowed her to shine more. Both went at a fast but easy to follow pace. Bea was great on top, attacking the leg with Momo selling nicely from beneath. It was a well executed formula that escalated nicely. Perfect for the position on the show. ***3/4
Goddesses Of Stardom Title Match: Queen's Quest (Saya Kamitani & Utami Hayashishita) (c) vs. Donna del Mondo (Himeka & Maika)
Not much in terms of tagging rather the match followed a pairings formula. Himeka faced off against Utami and Kamitani matched off against Maika. Both sets of pairings worked well though. Himeka showed off her amazing strength with her double torture rack to both Kamitani and Utami. But she was very good at showing off a heelish side with her actions and facial expressions as well which is very important. Kamitani got to show off her ability to sell and be sympathetic with Maika controlling their portion of the match and working Kamitani over with numerous arm-drags, some awesome slams. Kamitani’s athleticism continues to amaze me. Her Phoenix Splash was a thing of beauty, even if she landed on Maika’s legs instead of the body. And her Shooting Star Press was gorgeous as well. For their experience level and the length of the match, this was super well worked. ***3/4
Wonder Of Stardom Title Match: Giulia (c) vs. Tam Nakano
It took a good while for this match to really get cooking, I thought. It wasn’t as captivating as it could’ve been in the early parts with some nondescript ideas and just average ground work. But as the match progressed, they sorted out their groove and flow and it got better. I really liked the edge and roughness of the match after that. Giulia is still fairly young and Nakano isn’t a wonder wrestler so there were some rough bits but they were good enough to feed into that which made the match feel like a real struggle. The match got pretty dangerous at points and that’s always a point for me. It willed itself to be good at the end but it does need some fine tuning and better pacing to be a blow away match. ***1/2
World Of Stardom Title Match: Mayu Iwatani (c) vs. Syuri
Syuri put on a superb performance in her methodical dismantling of Mayu. She destroyed Mayu with her grappling, striking and overall superiority. She threw some brutal kicks that seriously hurt Mayu at times, especially when they were aimed at the head. And Mayu dragged herself for Syuri’s suplexes and showed great fighting spirit despite being out-matched. The crowd was thoroughly behind Mayu who was on the defensive for 90% of the match before mounting a great comeback and scoring the win. It was risky going at such a long length given how one sided this actually was for large portions but they did a splendid job at making the match a compelling fight. ****
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