Mathew’s Stardom 5 Star Grand Prix Blue Stars Results & Review: Day 1

Welcome to the first day of Stardom’s Five Star Grand Prix and I’m actually quite surprised at how quickly the first day got uploaded in whole since it usually takes a while before the full show goes up and this took a few days, I’m impressed.

If you have seen my little preview article, I will be covering the Blue Star Block and Andrew will be joining me once again to tackle the Red Star Block. Much like the other round-robin tournaments in Japan, the winner of each star will fight in the final round where the winner gets a shot at the World of Stardom Championship at their next big show.

For those that missed it, I will finally have my own ‘star’ rating system instead of just saying recommended or not and it’s mostly about podcasters Conrad Thompson partnered with or just podcasters in general. Here is which star.

0 Stars: Dave Meltzer
1 Star: Vince Russo
2 Stars: Tony Schiavone
3 Stars: Eric Bischoff
4 Stars: Bruce Prichard
5 Stars: Jim Cornette

My predictions for this one was Mayu and Konami going to the finals with Mayu winning it all and time to see how day one plays out. Who will get the early advantage of the first day? Let us find out and…dive right in.

Grand Prix Blue Stars Match
Natsu Sumire vs. Jamie Hayter

Review: Our opening match for this block is Oedo Tai’s Natsu Sumire taking on Rev Pro’s Women’s Champion, Jamie Hayder. If you have seen the press conference for Stardom, Kagetsu made a decree as Prime Minister that if an Oedo Tai member loses a match, it will be punishable by death – amazing.

This is actually Jamie’s first time in Japan according to the pre-match interview and Sumire told Jamie that she’s lucky to be in the ring as her first opponent due to the fans being attracted to her and would automatically give Jamie attention since they’ll be in the same ring together. Will Jamie win her first match or will Oedo Tai get the first win for their unit?

The match started off with a tiny bit of comedy with them shaking each other’s hand and trying to pull away while still holding onto their hands and eventually would break up as the match gets underway. Andrew brought it up and felt like sharing it since it’s pretty accurate, Sumire is pretty much their Japanese version of Billie Kay in a sense that she’s attractive, has an annoying gimmick that also makes her likable, and is average in the ring compared to her partner(s), but she gets her job done when she needs to and probably one of her better singles matches in quite some time. This is my first time seeing Jamie myself actually and I gotta say that she’s not bad at all and I can see why she’s the champion at Rev Pro. The match was basic and in a good way since both did their job well with Sumire just being the heel in the match to play her character and get the fans behind Jamie which worked by the way. Sumire didn’t even have Oedo Tai interfere in the match and it was just mostly Sumire as she whipped Jamie with the flogger and pulled an Eddie Guerrero by giving Jamie the item to make it look like she was whipping her instead to give her enough time for a roll-up but kicks out of it. Jamie makes a little comeback and would have her up on her shoulders to hit her own version of the Michinoku Driver to pick up her win in her Japanese wrestling debut. Sumire must now be sacrificed.

Rating: Tony Schiavone and a half.

Grand Prix Blue Stars Match
Hazuki vs. Saki Kashima

Review: Coming up from her recent loss to Momo Watanabe, Saki looks to bounce back and redeem herself by getting the first win of the tournament as she takes on Oedo Tai’s Hazuki. Saki keeps her comments short by saying she might have a weak body but she looks to strike her down as much as she can and roll her up to win. Hazuki comments back saying she hopes she even tries to attempt that because she’ll defeat her before she’s even given a chance to do so. An interesting match-up for the first day, but we can only have one winner here and let’s see who it is.

The more I see Hazuki, the more I’m glad to see her doing much better in Oedo Tai than she was in Queen’s Quest because you can just see her personality show out more here and just the progression of her character and wrestling mixed together just works for her. Saki keeps on growing as a wrestling and was doing what she said she wanted to do and was hit her with as many strikes as she can but Hazuki would counteract with some strikes of her own and came out full force. The two have some interesting chemistry together and I don’t mean it in a bad way or anything but more of these two could have a great rivalry if given the chance to do so here. The match was definitely solid for what we got despite the botch Headscissor Saki gave to Hazuki which did hurt the match a little bit since it was having a really nice flow and that derailed it quite a bit here, otherwise, the match would’ve been rated much higher. After the botched move, Saki hits Hazuki with a big boot and would pin her for a two count and picked her up for the Killswitch, but Hazuki would reverse it to try and slam her down as Saki rolled her up like she said she would to only get a two count. Hazuki looked like she had Saki right where she wanted her and quickly applies the La Magistral as she gets the surprise victory over Saki!

Rating: Eric Bischoff

Grand Prix Blue Stars Match
Momo Watanabe vs. Nicole Savoy

Review: Our next match is up as our Wonder of Stardom Champion, Momo Watanabe will take on SHIMMER Champion, Nicole Savoy. Momo has claimed she wants to win the Grand Prix as the champion so she could go on to defeat Kagetsu to become a double crown champion. Nicole has said she’s had her eye on Momo from the last time she toured with Stardom and has considered this a dream match for herself as it’s a champion vs champion bout on the first day no less and looks to prove why she’s called the Suplex Queen while Momo has a Suplex of her own she plans to use to secure a win here. Who hits their Suplex first?

It looks like Momo is sporting a brand new jacket here and it doesn’t look too shabby on her if I do say so myself, I hope she keeps it going forward. Momo showing more evolution to herself as a wrestler and still showing a little bit of Io in her personality with how she’s trying to be smart with her opponent and also aggressive with them when she needs to be but Nicole is doing the same thing but only a little bit stronger and it showed when they were trying to kick each other and Nicole kicked Momo’s foot in and it didn’t phase her while Momo struggled.

Nicole definitely is showing why she’s called the Suplex Queen because she would hit her Suplex’s beautifully in this match like her German Suplex and Fisherman Buster, but she’s also pretty ground-based when she was working on Momo’s leg since she knows it’s one of her key factors. Momo would hit her Somato on Nicole thinking it would be the end right there and Nicole kicks out of it. Nicole would then try to make her tap out with the Boston Crab and it looked like Momo was getting to the ropes, so Nicole lets go of the hold for a minute to wrench it behind her neck but Momo gets to the ropes before tapping out and would pick her up for a Shell Shock for another two count.

For sometime Nicole considered to be a dream match, it was a really solid match between the two competitors and made me excited to see what would happen if it was for a title and not just in the tournament. Momo would set Nicole up to go for the Tequila Sunrise and Nicole tries to fight of it before getting her arm kicked to apply the hold better, but Nicole kept on struggling until she couldn’t anymore as Momo hits the Tequila Sunrise to get the victory.

Rating: Eric Bischoff and .75

Grand Prix Blue Stars Match
Mayu Iwatani vs. Kelly Klein

Review: Time for our final match of the block tonight as Mayu Iwatani is taking on ROH WOH star and probably the only good one in that division, Kelly Klein. Mayu suffered a loss to Kagetsu almost a week ago for the World of Stardom Championship, but she vowed to never give up and looks make it all the way to the final to win. Mayu talked about how she was injured when Kelly came to Japan and she failed to fight her there, but when she came to ROH to compete in the WOH tournament, they would finally be able to have that match with Kelly actually defeating her and now Mayu looks repay that loss by giving Kelly one back in return. Kelly talked about how she thinks to defeat Mayu made her a stronger opponent and she’s looking forward to defeating her for the second time. Can Mayu avenge her loss or will Kelly be 2-0 over her?

Before the bell could ring, Mayu would tell Kelly that she would kick her ass and the website would even have it out in subtitles for us to read on our screen, so good job. I forgot how big Kelly is compared to Mayu in body structure but can be very dominating with her size here to take advantage over Mayu. Kelly would right away start using her strength to try and overpower Mayu while Mayu would use her quickness to get the advantage and she does when she hits her Armdrag and a Dropkick right on top of that, but once Kelly gets picked up, the momentum Mayu has is gone.

Kelly would just dominate Mayu throughout the match with her strikes and Mayu just sells all of it beautifully to make Kelly look strong in this match and that’s what you wanna do when you’re fighting against someone bigger than you, make them look dominant and Mayu does that here. Kelly continued dominating the match for a little longer until Mayu would find a way to get Kelly to the outside and does a Cross Body to her from the top rope, she brings Kelly back in to do some more damage to her and attempts a Frankensteiner, but Kelly caught her into a Styles Clash position and sits down for a Boston Crab until Mayu grabbed the ropes. Kelly went to pick up Mayu for a Suplex and she was fighting her off as she breaks it up against attempt a kick but Kelly ducks to hit her with a Lariat to make Mayu backflip and picks her up for the Fireman’s Carry Slam and she defeats Mayu again.

It really shouldn’t be much of a surprise that the companies favorite would usually lose on the first day of these types of tournaments and I’m glad Kelly was able to get the win since these two were in my top three picks of my block too. The two had a much better match here than they did at their ROH encounter and not much of a surprise there.

Rating: Bruce Prichard.

Overall: The first day of the Blue Stars block was a success here as most of the matches were very solid and leaves you interested to see what will happen for the next night and how the standings will shape up as we get closer with each day.

Favorite Match: Mayu Iwatani vs. Kelly Klein

Least Favorite Match: Natsu Sumire vs. Jamie Hayter

Score: 7/10

Blue Stars Standings:

Momo Watanabe: 1-0 (2 Points)
Hazuki: 1-0 (2 Points)
Kelly Klein: 1-0 (2 Points)
Jamie Hayter: 1-0 (2 Points)
Mayu Iwatani: 0-1 (0 Points)
Saki Kashima: 0-1 (0 Points)
Nicole Savoy: 0-1 (0 Points)
Natsu Sumire: 0-1 (0 Points)