2024 Joshi Discussion Thread

[Elsalvajeloco]

The thing is though as much they thought lucharesu was going to be a thing and having potent young talent (CAZAI and Ohmukai) would push them to the top, you saw the limitations very early on. At least with GAEA, they could say we got good young talent, we got a former huge star in Chigusa, we landed Mayumi Ozaki who was being underutilized in JWP, and then we get Hokuto with maybe one or two great performances left in her. Part of it is making the pieces fit.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

27 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

The thing is though as much they thought lucharesu was going to be a thing and having potent young talent (CAZAI and Ohmukai) would push them to the top, you saw the limitations very early on. At least with GAEA, they could say we got good young talent, we got a former huge star in Chigusa, we landed Mayumi Ozaki who was being underutilized in JWP, and then we get Hokuto with maybe one or two great performances left in her. Part of it is making the pieces fit.

They really could've benefited from two other things too:

1) Picking a lane between shootstyle and lucha. They made it work way better than it had any right to, but those audiences don't have much crossover.

2) Working on developing their talent. Ayako Hamada and AKINO seemed to make them think they could make anyone work with limited training. We'll never know what Emiko Kado would've grown into. Ai Fujita had a good 450 splash but felt rushed into action. The future Leon never really showed signs of promise during the entire Arsion run, and I'm still surprised she's the same wrestler when I watch her today. Yuu Yamagata has always been so-so. Ryo Miyuki... oof. Then they don't debut anyone for what, two years until Atsuko Emoto and Yukari Kitao show up? That two year gap between Ryo Miyuki and Atsuko Emoto where they're shedding talent and not debuting anyone hurt a lot.

[Eivion]

4 hours ago, J.H. said:

I'm genuinely surprised by this. I always thought Rossy backed Tam and had faith in her. Mind you, Tam is a few years from retiring as I remember

Janes

I'm not. I'm sure Rossy liked her, but it seemed obvious he never saw her as being above white belt territory. BR were clearly the ones who backed her, and even then that may have only been due to Hana's death.

[mystman]

5 hours ago, Stefanie Sparkleface said:

I think this is going to go a lot like when Rossy left Zenjo to form Arsion. A big star (Aja Kong), a star on the cusp (Mariko Yoshida, and he tried to get Hikari Fukuoka but failed), and a few underutilized folks with potential who weren't going anywhere where they currently were (Yumi Fukawa, Rie Tamada, poaching Mikiko Futagami and Michiko Ohmukai from LLPW), then coaxing a fresh retirement who retired early back into the ring (Candy Okutsu, and he tried to get Sakie Hasegawa back into the ring). Throw in a handful of gaijin, et voila, new promotion.

So you can speculate who those could be, but he really doesn't need much, and it doesn't have to come from Stardom. He's absolutely going to try and land TJPW folks too.

Will he be able to land them though? What about this whole United Japan thing that's starting in May?  Is Rossy going to be the odd man out with that going on?

[Eivion]

3 hours ago, mystman said:

What about this whole United Japan thing that's starting in May?  Is Rossy going to be the odd man out with that going on?

Stardom and TJPW were the only joshi groups announced as a part of that. Wouldn't be odd to leave it out a new group in general, let alone when so few others are involved. 

Edited February 8 by Eivion

[lostinube]

11 hours ago, nofuture said:

Tam Nakano the first to outright say she's staying in Stardom:

 

meltear 2nd single confirmed.

[lostinube]

1 hour ago, Eivion said:

Stardom and TJPW were the only joshi groups announced as a part of that. Wouldn't be odd to leave it out a new group in general, let alone when so few others are involved. 

And Stardom and TJPW are there mainly because their parent/co-promotions are also a part of it. I wonder if Ganbare Pro stays with it since they are leaving Cyberfight. None of the other indy groups are involved but almost all larger indy groups mainly have ties to New Japan via the Frontier Zone dark matches and Hiromu/Despy/NJPW Dads being booked whenever they have free time.

[dragonzombie]

New Blood is probably axed.  The NB tags are staying.

They slightly changed up the Stardom website. You have to scroll downwards to get what you want.

[Kevin Wilson]

Wrestling Observer has been on a tear the last 24 hours with various reports related to Stardom, ranging from current information to things that happened a year ago. I won't copy and paste it here but to me it begs the question - why now? Dave hasn't really had any 'scoops' on Stardom in awhile, and now suddenly he has information from past, present, and future? Who is his new source, and is the source trustworthy/unbiased? It just makes me pause when suddenly someone is talking to Dave, and not knowing if that someone has another agenda.

[Elsalvajeloco]

51 minutes ago, Kevin Wilson said:

Wrestling Observer has been on a tear the last 24 hours with various reports related to Stardom, ranging from current information to things that happened a year ago. I won't copy and paste it here but to me it begs the question - why now? Dave hasn't really had any 'scoops' on Stardom in awhile, and now suddenly he has information from past, present, and future? Who is his new source, and is the source trustworthy/unbiased? It just makes me pause when suddenly someone is talking to Dave, and not knowing if that someone has another agenda.

It's like the same source except the company wasn't imploding beforehand. That and some of the stuff that's been reported has found it's way onto other Japanese news sources/social media. So it's likely same source with new info and plus using the power of conjecture. So basically Dave as always.

[Kevin Wilson]

6 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

It's like the same source except the company wasn't imploding beforehand. That and some of the stuff that's been reported has found it's way onto other Japanese new sources/social media. So it's likely same source with new info and plus using the power of conjecture. So basically Dave as always.

I do think the accounts that repeat his audio sometimes mix up what he is reporting and what he is guessing at based on what he knows. For example, the bit about Giulia being mad about wrestling Maya Yukihi (which she still did anyway) and that being why they took the title off of her last year wasn't reported then by anyone that I recall and people just assumed it was to finally give Tam the belt. But now its due to Giulia being disgruntled. I'm not saying it isn't true, I have no idea, but it just made me a little suspicious of the rumor dump when it all came at once from various situations in the last year.

[dragonzombie]

Chanyota will challenge for the New Blood tags on the Feb 17th Stardom show.

On the Feb 23 NJPW show, Mayu Iwatani vs Mina Shirakawa for the IWGP Women's Championship. I guess Mina takes the belt off Mayu here.

[Elsalvajeloco]

39 minutes ago, Kevin Wilson said:

I do think the accounts that repeat his audio sometimes mix up what he is reporting and what he is guessing at based on what he knows. For example, the bit about Giulia being mad about wrestling Maya Yukihi (which she still did anyway) and that being why they took the title off of her last year wasn't reported then by anyone that I recall and people just assumed it was to finally give Tam the belt. But now its due to Giulia being disgruntled. I'm not saying it isn't true, I have no idea, but it just made me a little suspicious of the rumor dump when it all came at once from various situations in the last year.

Right. From a fan perspective, everyone thought Giulia would have a long reign. Add in the fact, right before Tam, they did an angle with probably the first legit bladejob/non hardway juice in Stardom history. Then, when she lost, folks went into conspiracy mode. However, that's after every thing probably cause folks (crazy ass Western fans) are trying to make up their own real life storylines. As for the Maya thing, I mean that match was pretty stiff but Giulia's whole title reign was just her beating the piss out of everyone and then her getting some in return. Now do I believe Giulia is mad or disgruntled? I think there might be some truth to that just cause I don't know if the Giulia vs. Everyone Who Felt Wronged By Her was the right way to go when she had the red belt (and afterwards) and it seems like her comments speak to that. They squandered away her title reign. Plus, while she held the Strong title, she apparently had a match with Risa Sera where they were on totally opposite pages in books in different libraries and she appeared to very pissed off. That though makes her just another perfectionist worker who feels like every match has to be ****+ or whatever. I don't know if all that makes her disgruntled necessarily.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

47 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

It's like the same source except the company wasn't imploding beforehand. That and some of the stuff that's been reported has found it's way onto other Japanese news sources/social media. So it's likely same source with new info and plus using the power of conjecture. So basically Dave as always.

Probably Fumi Saito.

[Cleavy]

4 hours ago, Kang said:

On the Feb 23 NJPW show, Mayu Iwatani vs Mina Shirakawa for the IWGP Women's Championship. I guess Mina takes the belt off Mayu here.

but but the movie...

[Ace]

Mayu isn't going to modratS. She's a longer contract.

 

[Kevin Wilson]

30 minutes ago, Ace said:

Mayu isn't going to modratS. She's a longer contract.

 

That's true, but we don't know how much longer, and we don't know if behind the scenes she is being disgruntled enough that they decide its just the best business decision to take the title off of her. Not saying they are, just that there are some elements we may not know about.

[dragonzombie]

TJPW is doing HYPE! 2, another show produced by Hyper Misao.

[Ace]

I won't complain if they belt up Mina.

 

[lostinube]

The movie is out in May anyway so it's not like it's coming out long after DeRossy High: The Next Generation is presumably open for business.

[dragonzombie]

TJPW 

Spoiler

Yuki Arai retained the IP title in a fun and good match. Her next challenger is Yuki Kamifuku. In a double crown title match I think.

Daisy Monkey won the finals.

 

[Kevin Wilson]

On 2/9/2024 at 1:01 PM, Stefanie Sparkleface said:

Probably Fumi Saito.

At least he is open about it. He was on the Pacific Rim Podcast yesterday and talked in-depth about the Stardom/Rossy split. He is an interesting source as on one hand he has knowledge to things we don't but on the other hand naturally he is (openly) biased to Rossy's point of view of the situation.

I did find it interesting that he said six "main eventer" Stardom wrestlers will be leaving with Rossy. Then two "Jr. Heavyweight" wrestlers would join later. Mostly because of the specific number, which implies to me that New Japan/Rossy already know who is staying and who isn't and will be planning accordingly. "Main eventer" is a very loose term as it could mean legitimate main eventer, "has main evented before," or "Rossy sees the wrestler as a main event-quality wrestler". If I had to guess I'd have Giulia, Syuri, and Mirai most likely in the "leaving" group but curious to see how it all plays out.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

54 minutes ago, Kevin Wilson said:

At least he is open about it. He was on the Pacific Rim Podcast yesterday and talked in-depth about the Stardom/Rossy split. He is an interesting source as on one hand he has knowledge to things we don't but on the other hand naturally he is (openly) biased to Rossy's point of view of the situation.

I did find it interesting that he said six "main eventer" Stardom wrestlers will be leaving with Rossy. Then two "Jr. Heavyweight" wrestlers would join later. Mostly because of the specific number, which implies to me that New Japan/Rossy already know who is staying and who isn't and will be planning accordingly. "Main eventer" is a very loose term as it could mean legitimate main eventer, "has main evented before," or "Rossy sees the wrestler as a main event-quality wrestler". If I had to guess I'd have Giulia, Syuri, and Mirai most likely in the "leaving" group but curious to see how it all plays out.

It's probably good to take anything Fumi Saito says about Rossy with the entire shaker of salt, considering in the past Fumi has said that Rossy was singlehandedly responsible for the Beauty Pair and the Crush Gals being as popular as they were.

There's hyping up a friend and there's ignoring generational talent.

[dragonzombie]

Mina cut a promo on protecting Stardom. She wants the IWGP Women's title because NJPW got her into wrestling.  I wouldn't be surprised if EXV becomes the new home unit of Stardom post split.

Utami vs Lady C is set.

Giulia (c) vs Tora for the Strong Womens title.

Lady Mai is Chanyota's partner for the New Blood championships tag match.

[kenyabaxterZXW]

6 hours ago, Kevin Wilson said:

At least he is open about it. He was on the Pacific Rim Podcast yesterday and talked in-depth about the Stardom/Rossy split. He is an interesting source as on one hand he has knowledge to things we don't but on the other hand naturally he is (openly) biased to Rossy's point of view of the situation.

I did find it interesting that he said six "main eventer" Stardom wrestlers will be leaving with Rossy. Then two "Jr. Heavyweight" wrestlers would join later. Mostly because of the specific number, which implies to me that New Japan/Rossy already know who is staying and who isn't and will be planning accordingly. "Main eventer" is a very loose term as it could mean legitimate main eventer, "has main evented before," or "Rossy sees the wrestler as a main event-quality wrestler". If I had to guess I'd have Giulia, Syuri, and Mirai most likely in the "leaving" group but curious to see how it all plays out.