Like all notable joshi promotions, Wonder Ring Stardom began as the project of a Japanese female wrestler who had found fame on a larger stage. In this case it was All Japan Women’s Nanae Takahashi, along with others from AJW and elsewhere. The company pushed attractive women to the top, but not in the same way American companies used to. These women could (and can) work. In late 2019, Stardom was purchased by Bushiroad and became the sister company of New Japan Pro Wrestling. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
July 24, 2011 – Tokyo, Japan.
Nanae Takahashi def. Yoko Bito {World of Stardom Championship Match}
From Stardom X Stardom ~ Nanae Takahashi 15th Anniversary. This was the finals of a tournament to crown the first champion. I’m legitimately curious if there was any doubt that Takahashi would win this match given the auspicious milestone (and the fact that she helped run the company). This one really ramped up as it went along. Bito’s selling was terrific, as she fought the second half of the match exhausted and grasping at anything she could get a hold of. Her kicks, which looked a little too flashy for their own good at the start, starting connecting here and looking brutal. Takahashi was also quite good, though some of her fighting spirit poses looked a bit more like copying something she’d seen men do better than it looked like something she’d organically do. I have no other complaints though, because they ramped this match up to a high gear by the end. Takahashi hit the One Second EX for the win at 13:17. ***½
March 17, 2013 – Tokyo, Japan
Alpha Female def. Nanae Takahashi {World of Stardom Championship Match}
From the second the Highest. There were parts of this that I liked and parts that didn’t work for me. I enjoyed the monster vs. champion dynamic when they stayed on-theme, but there were moments when Takahashi was hitting lariats for near falls and kicking out of things way too quickly. Those moments made Female look like any old wrestler. I also didn’t care for the finish, wherein Female desperately escaped the One Second EX and hit a flukey Regalplex for the win at 16:01. I wish Female’s dominance had been more pronounced, but where it was this succeeded. ***
April 29, 2013 – Tokyo, Japan
Io Shirai def. Alpha Female {World of Stardom Championship Match}
From Ryogoku Cinderella Champions Fiesta. I’m sure that this was a case of Female just not being booked on subsequent Stardom tours, but having her be a transitional champion in this way strikes me as odd. Not how I’d do it. This was everything I wanted out of the last match. If Shirai wasn’t desperately stringing together offense just to stay alive (and not to get near falls) then Female was dominating her. Shirai had to be clever just to stay in the game, and eventually that cleverness paid off. The finish was a little sloppy, but I do like that it took twelve kicks to the head for Shirai to get the win at 12:54. ***½
August 10, 2014 – Tokyo, Japan
Yoshiko def. Io Shirai {World of Stardom Championship Match}
From the fourth Stardom X Stardom. Yoshiko was very over. She had retired Stardom megastar Yuzuki Aikawa on the same show that Shirai won the title, main eventing over Shirai. There was one guy filming this from ringside, running from side to side when he had to. It was like watching a really bootleg indie match and it made me carsick. Yoshiko dresses like Nailz and wrestles like Vader. It’s pretty wild. This was a lot more fast-paced than Shirai’s match against Female, and it went more than twice as long. That they kept my interest for so long was a testament to Shirai’s grit. Yoshiko hit a giant senton bomb for the win at 26:04. ***¾
It wouldn’t be a Japanese professional wrestling championship of note unless something controversial happened related to it. Yoshiko held the title for half a year when her temper more or less cost her her career. During a defense against Act Yasukawa, Yoshiko started shooting and severely injured her opponent. Yasukawa eventually returned to the ring, but long-term damage from the attack forced her to retire the following year. Yoshiko was stripped of the belt and forced into retirement. Takahashi stayed loyal to Yoshiko, quit Stardom, started SEAdLINNNG (whose title I might review some day on the strength of its cool name), and hired Yoshiko (who is the champion there as of this writing). Crazy stuff.
March 29, 2015 – Tokyo, Japan
Kairi Hojo def. Io Shirai {World of Stardom Championship Match}
From the fourth the Highest. The finals of a tournament to crown a new champion. God dammit, I might have to dig deep and get Hojo’s pirate mask. That’s so dope. This is the first of three matches in a row that I’ve been dying to see. The camera work remains brutal. This developed into an excellent match. Shirai dragged Hojo around the building, attacking her already injured arm. Hojo came back when they returned to the ring, dodging Shirai’s signature offense and hitting high impact moves at every opportunity. Hojo had to fight through her injury rather than work around it, blocking kicks with her arm to keep them from hitting her head. She hit two Insane Elbows for the win at 18:46. ****
July 26, 2015 – Tokyo, Japan
Meiko Satomura def. Kairi Hojo {World of Stardom Championship Match}
From the fifth Stardom X Stardom. This was nuts. Satomura did not come to fuck around. She beat the crap out of Hojo to the point that I was starting to get uncomfortable. Hojo tried to fly and spear her way to survival, but it wasn’t going to happen. This was an even better monster vs. champion match than either Female or Yoshiko could hope to muster. I was so impressed. The only thing I could have asked for more would be maybe one or two more hope spots for Hojo, but I totally understand why they didn’t go that route as Satomura was about to be the demon queen champion. She stuffed Hojo to the mat with a pair of non consecutive and very scary Death Valley Drivers for the win at 22:27. ****¼
December 23, 2015 – Tokyo Japan
Io Shirai def. Meiko Satomura {World of Stardom Championship Match}
From the fourth Year-End Climax. They worked a similar style to Hojo’s match against Satomura, and it worked just as well if not better. It looked like the champ might be able to make short work of Shirai, as on multiple occasions Shirai had a hard time getting into the ring after a fight on the floor. But then Shirai found a hole in Satomura’s armor; the champ didn’t seem to have an answer for Shirai’s German suplexes. So the match became a question of whether Shirai could survive Satomura’s onslaught long enough to get into position to hit Germans. Shirai’s resilience revealed another weakness for Satomura in a lack of patience. When Shirai wouldn’t go down to a Death Valley Driver, Satomura lost it and started chaining together DVD after DVD without going for a pin. Shirai fell backwards, hit a dragon suplex, then gave a nod to Hojo by hitting an Insane Elbow, and then hit the moonsault for the win at 24:50. Shirai held the title for a year and a half, defending it in lauded match after lauded match. I’m tempted to review the whole reign sometime soon. ****¼
June 21, 2017 – Tokyo, Japan
Mayu Iwatani def. Io Shirai {World of Stardom Championship Match}
From Galaxy Stars. This was Iwatani’s third shot at Shirai during this reign, and I wonder if I’ll have a different view of this after I watch the first two. But even without doing that, this is pretty sweet. If you like German suplexes and Boston crabs, then this is the match for you. They threw each other around like ragdolls. Shirai twisted Iwatani into a pretzel to try to get her to quit. But Iwatani’s perseverance paid off. She suplexed the snot out of Shirai, culminating in a wild dragon suplex for the win at 27:52. ****
September 24, 2017 – Nagoya, Aichi
Toni Storm def. Mayu Iwatani {World of Stardom Championship Match}
From the sixth 5Star Grand Prix. You don’t see this every day, as Iwatani misses a dropkick at the start of the match, hits the ropes, and rips his shoulder out of the socket. Moments later, the referee calls the match at 2:20 and Storm is the new champion. If this were an American television wrestling show they’d find some stupid way to call this a no-contest, but because Stardom makes sense they award the title to Storm. Ironically, Storm suffered a similar fate in NXT UK during a title match one year later. Storm cuts a confused promo after the match, apologizing for not being able to put on the match they wanted to see and promising to give Iwatani a rematch. Iwatani came back in December and got her title shot in April, but Storm defeated her. Makes you wonder if the original plan was to put the title on Storm. N/A
June 9, 2018 – Yokohama, Kanegawa
Kagetsu def. Toni Storm {World of Stardom Championship Match}
From Shining Stars. It’s nice to see that Storm did indeed get to show off in front of the Stardom fans. She and Kagetsu put together a fun match that saw a lot of quick transitions and compelling drama. I wish there’d been a bit more selling to make me fear for Storm’s reign before it ended. They did manage a couple good near falls after Kagetsu’s crew distracted the referee, allowing the challenger to spit some mist and hit a few DVDs and a 450 splash. The finish saw Kagetsu break out the red mist and hit another 450 splash for the win at 19:24. ***¾
May 4, 2019 – Tokyo, Japan
Bea Priestley def. Kagetsu {World of Stardom Championship Match}
From Queen’s Quest Produce Golden Week Stars. Queen’s Quest is a big stable that Priestley was in. I believe this is generally considered her best match. It’s a good one, though at this point 100% of the Kagetsu matches I’ve seen have been good so I’m sure this owes as much if not more to the outgoing champion. It’s a little annoying that Priestley’s bad arm didn’t end up leading to anything, even a false finish, and her electric chair drop finisher is pretty underwhelming. She used it to get the pin at 16:14. But everything up until the finish was a good time. ***½
November 4, 2019 – Tokyo, Japan
Mayu Iwatani def. Bea Priestley {World of Stardom Championship Match}
From the second annual Best of Goddess. A few things happened here. First was that Priestley had by this point devolved into a generic heel gaijin character. I’m not sure if her entire reign was like that, but I find that crap boring. Screaming that you’re the best gaijin when you’re not wrestling against another gaijin isn’t much of a claim. The match was mostly solid, though this will be remembered as the match where Priestley slipped off the turnbuckle during a super Frankensteiner spot and Iwatani almost landed directly on her forehead. They recovered well enough, and Iwatani’s comeback was engaging. She eventually hit a dragon suplex to regain the title at 20:23. ***¼
November 15, 2020 – Sendai, Miyagi
Utami Hayashishita def. Mayu Iwatani {World of Stardom Championship Match}
From Sendai Cinderella. I love the way this match was structured. Hayashishita came roaring out of the gate and didn’t let her tenacity die out one bit as the bout wore on. Iwatani as the plucky champion worked incredibly well in the face of that challenge. My only gripe is that some of Hayashishita’s kick outs toward the end were so free of energy that they almost seemed like mistakes. It’s one thing to sell exhaustion, which is what she was doing, but when it comes off like you’ve missed the three count it’s gone a bit far. A small complaint in the face of a great match. Hayashishita’s dominance reemerged in the end, and she hit the Towerhacker Bomb and a spinning Razor’s Edge for the win at 24:44. ****
On average, Stardom claims the highest quality matches in their title changes of any wrestling championship I’ve reviewed to date. Shorter title lineages have the benefit of having fewer opportunities to put forward dogged matches, but out of thirteen title changes only one was subpar and that’s because one of the competitors got injured two minutes into the match. Stardom rules.
From Diamond Ring Kensuke Office Changes. They emphasize that Nakajima beat Dragon Gate wrestler Kenichiro Arai 
From Dynamite 131. This is a qualifying match for the Owen Hart Foundation tournament. Joe debuted at ROH Supercard of Honor, saving Jonathan Gresham from Jay Lethal (whose soul searching apparently led him to turn heel) & Sonjay Dutt after the main event. And now that ROH and AEW are the same thing, that seems worth mentioning. Caster’s pre-match rap was cute. This was real squashy, with Joe needing only two minutes to put Caster down with the Muscle Buster at 2:52. Lethal & Dutt pop up on the big screens and Lethal says he’d been trying to get a hold of Joe during his difficult soul searching time, and Joe never picked up. They have a present for Joe next week. N/A
From Dynamite 132. Jay Lethal & Sonjay Dutt were in the front row cheering on Joe. Sarcastically, probably, as they brawled with Joe at ROH Supercard of Honor XV. 
From Rampage 39. 
From Dynamite 137. 
From Dynamite 138. This is a 
From Double or Nothing. 
From PWF York Cougar Football Fundraiser. I didn't know that this match happened until over a month after the fact. This started out as a non-title match, but we'll get to why I've listed it as a title match in a moment. FTR have Mick Foley in their corner while their opponents have Bill Behrens. I’ve never actually seen Behrens do an on-camera gig before. He's holding a tennis racket, presumably as an Umaga to Jim Cornette. But it's confusing because there was actually a tennis player named Bill Behrens. They announce this match as having a 20-minute time limit. Only 11 minutes in, they say there are three minutes remaining. Until then, this was as run-of-the-mill as a modern FTR match gets. But the announcement snapped everyone out of their heat-on-Wheeler funk and forced them to go for desperate pins. They announce ten seconds remaining a couple of times, but no one can get the roll up pin they're looking for. The 20-minute time limit expires at 1
From NXT UK 183. McGuinness started by essentially saying that Fraser is going to pee or poo himself during the match. Unnecessary. Had Shawn Michaels been game to have a good match against Vader, this is what it would have looked like. Actually, a more appropriate and modern analogue is Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins from SummerSlam. Much like that match, Frazer used quick strikes and avoided his larger opponent’s signature big move to stay alive. Here it was the powerbomb whereas there it was suplexes. Here, Frazer also successfully damaged WALTER’s knee, which slowed the big man down and made it hard for WALTER to hit the powerbomb. Unfortunately for Frazer, WALTER was able to bide his time and clothesline Frazer’s legs out from under him. An inevitable powerbomb followed and won the match for WALTER at 14:02. I hate to say this because I’m happy that he’s healthier, but the way WALTER has slimmed down has taken some of the magic away from his aura. At least for me it has. That said, dude can clearly still go as well as ever in the ring. ****
From NXT 659. Strong was feeling it here, which is thanks in large part to the crowd being maniacally loud from the get go I’m sure. His whole game was fast and devastating stick and move attacks. That worked pretty well, as WALTER was dazed from time to time. But as with all good WALTER matches (which is pretty much all WALTER matches), everything WALTER does is devastating here so it takes very little for him to take back control. And eventually he did just that and hit the powerbomb for the win at 9:46 (shown of 12:18). After the match, WALTER gets on the microphone and says that his name is Gunther now. I did not think WALTER would be a victim of the renaming curse this far into his run. What will they rename Strong?! ***¾
From NXT UK 185. Andy Shepherd helpfully announces from inside the ring that the reason for the stipulation is that the feud has gotten so violent that it wouldn’t be safe to have fans around. Devlin says during the match that it’s because he thinks Dragunov could only muster the energy to win if he had the crowd behind him. I like that explanation a lot more. The only real reason I could think of to do this without fans is that there was a scheduling conflict with one of the wrestlers for the regular TV taping date and they needed to get this thing filmed. We just had such a long stretch of empty arena NXT UK episodes that I can’t imagine anyone was dying to get another taste of it. This aired the day after Adam Cole vs. Orange Cassidy in a match that was also no disqualification and falls count anywhere, and this served up everything I felt was missing from that match. Now you might say, “Brad, Cassidy is not the same kind of character as Devlin or Dragunov, how could you expect the same level of violence or intensity?” To that I say, when Cassidy started his match by breaking his own sunglasses and rapidly punching Cole, he was indicating that level of violence and/or intensity. And instead the match was mostly wacky. Anyway, this was not wacky. It was stiff and intense and featured weapons that made sense and spots the didn’t take forever to set up. Dragunov got in trouble when his eye injury acted up. Devlin took control and beat the crap out of him. I wasn’t wild about how meek Dragunov was when Devlin was zip tying his hands, but I did like that in the end it turned out to be an error on Devlin’s part anyway because Dragunov’s finisher requires no hands. And indeed, a bound Dragunov jumped off the steel steps (which had been brought into the ring) and hit the Torpedo Moskau on Devlin for the win at 21:43. NXT UK is still sneaking in these dope matches that no one is watching. Y’all should watch them. ****¼ 
From AAA Triplemania Regia. FTR come out with Vickie Guerrero. This was supposed to be explained at an earlier AAA taping but FTR and Guerrero all missed them. AAA is notorious for having this kind of luck/being incompetent lately. FTR is also wearing Eddie Guerrero tribute tights, with American flags on one side and flames on the other, I suppose to pay homage to his Gringos Locos and Latino Heat gimmicks. This match mostly sucked, but one cool spot saw FTR tie Pentagon’s mask to the ropes and force him to unmask with his hands over his face to stop them from climbing the ladder. That would have been a very meaningful moment to lead up to the Lucha Brothers winning the titles back, but unfortunately instead it led into nothing. He just got his mask back and the match continued on in its lame, derivative way. At one point, Pentagon was the only man standing, but instead of climbing the ladder he grabbed a table from the floor. So the titles mean enough to him that he’d unmask to stop his opponents from winning, but not enough for him to get the titles when he had a clear path to do it? Vickie powered Pentagon, causing him to voluntarily jump through the table and Harwood grabbed the belts at 12:12. This was abysmal. *
From AEW Full Gear. Silver was hamming it up a lot more here than he was the year before in New York. That said, this had stronger just-a-match vibes than the aforementioned match. After Silver ripped out Cassidy’s pockets, Cassidy turned up the heat and these guys put on a middle of the row undercard match. Not bad by any means, but nothing memorable either. Cassidy hit the Beach Break rather out of nowhere for the win at 9:42. **¾ 
From the second Honor Reigns Supreme. The commentators sold this as Gresham getting a big shot against a top ROH guy after being an also-ran in the Television Championship division for a while. This was terrific. Both guys did a fantastic job selling their respective targeted limbs, and Gresham in particular played the role of the tenacious underdog perfectly. He didn’t just watch to see where Lethal would have trouble executing his finisher because of the damage he’d done to the former ROH Champion’s arm, he pressed the assault whenever he could, taking out the arm to make sure the Lethal Injection would never come. But what he couldn’t do was stop Lethal from battering his knee and ultimately winning with a Figure 4 Leglock at 17:54. ****¼ 
From the second Masters of the Craft. Columbus has way more Gresham fans than Concord did. That’s a neat little advancement to the plot, innit? They both went after the same limbs that earned them dividends in their previous match. And then they went ahead and built an incredible match out of that story. At first it seemed as though Lethal wasn’t going to be able to get Gresham’s leg to give out. But about halfway through the match, Gresham’s knee was in trouble. Gresham was able to escape the leglock this time by using the momentum of Lethal pulling him away from the ropes to shift to an armbar. But Gresham’s focus on the arm bit him in the ass. Lethal went for the Lethal Injection and collapsed again, but when Gresham went for a roll up after that Lethal cut back on it for the win at 18:27. This is one of the best American examples that I've seen of a match building on the match that came before. Rather than try to outdo the maneuvers from their first meeting for the sake of a big crowd reaction, they adjust their game plans in logical ways that, to me, were just as exciting. I think this match is slept on, by virtue of the fact that I’ve never heard anything about it before watching it. ****½ 
From ROH Wrestling 364. In real life, 
From Death Before Dishonor XVII. Gresham and Lethal had been teaming, but Gresham grew frustrated and started heeling. Ultimately, he turned on Lethal. It took them a little while to get there, but once they got into a groove this was exactly what I wanted from this match. It was back to their old tricks, with Lethal targeting the leg to set up for the Figure 4 Leglock and Gresham targeting the arm to block the Lethal Injection and set up for his Octopus. In the end, Lethal tried the cutback trick that worked for him in Columbus, but Gresham countered to a pin and then put on the gnarliest Octopus for his first win over Lethal at 17:20. This is the best kind of wrestling series. And none of it felt stale because it was a year after they’d wrestled last and because they found ways to energize the old tropes. And that’s not to mention Gresham busting out what I can only describe as a sumo-style assault. Gresham and Lethal make up after the match. ****
From ROH Wrestling 500. During the pandemic, ROH made the most of their empty arena shows by kicking them off with a tournament to crown a champion for the revived Pure Championship. Gresham won the tournament, and this was his fourth defense of the title. Lethal and Gresham were still allies here. In an interesting move, the other match on this milestone episode was two other partners fighting in Jay and Mark Briscoe. They cut to a commercial break about six minutes in, though the action didn’t get beyond (admittedly fast-moving) mat wrestling until the 10-minute mark. That had me thinking this was going to go long, but things took a different turn. Both guys had abused the other’s shoulders, and Lethal used that to his advantage best. He forced Gresham to use his first rope break to stop a pin, and his second to escape a crab. Then, he used the failed Lethal Injection to bait Gresham into a crossface, forcing the champ to use his final rope break. But he made the mistake of giving Gresham a breather and was quickly caught in a head scissor takedown giving Gresham the winning pin at 14:06 (shown of 16:40). For an empty arena match, this held my attention. It was totally different than their previous matches while still using a couple elements from the rivalry to elevate it just a bit. Not essential viewing, but if you’re working your way through their series you shouldn’t skip it. ***¼ 
