And we’re back as we continue the Stardom Grand Champion Carnival with the night show now.

The afternoon show was pretty successful with a great main event and a title change with the Artist of Stardom Championship. We got another stacked card once again to end the day and let’s see if they can go home strong.

Let’s find out and…dive right in.

Tag Team Match
Hanan & Starlight Kid vs. Kaori Yoneyama & Leo Onozaki

Review: The majority of the show is tag matches and it looks like it has to do with getting their next tournament hyped up and I’ll get to it at the end of the coverage. Our opening bout is Starlight Kid and Hanan teaming up this time instead of fighting each other as they take on Kaori Yoneyama and Leo Onozaki. Which one of these teams will come out on top?

I really don’t know what happened at the beginning of the match and I’m actually afraid to ask myself, but what was up with Starlight’s selling once the bell rang? Like she got hit once and just sold a different part of her body and even had her own arm wrapped around the rope by herself like someone did it that wasn’t Kaori. Is John Cena secretly in Stardom as the invisible wrestler all along!? Luckily after that little episode, Starlight would wrestle normally like that little thing hasn’t happened which is a good thing since you wanna keep the match rolling. The match was short and very basic with the four of them doing stuff to showcase their stuff in, but nothing memorable at all except for maybe Leo and Kaori doing a Double Cutter (I’m onto you, Leo!) Starlight and Hanan would get Kaori out of the ring as Starlight hits the Fisherman Buster on Leo and would do a Moonsault off the second rope as she gets the victory.

Rating: Tony Schiavone

Leo’s Cutter Counter: 1 (You’re making me look bad now.)

Tag Team Match
Kelly Klein & Rachael Ellering vs. Shiki Shibusawa & Tam Nakano

Review: First we had Kelly and Rachel fighting each other on opposite teams and now they’re teaming up together this time and their opponents are STARS members, Shiki Shibusawa and one-third of the Artist of Stardom Champions, Tam Nakano. Will Kelly and Rachel get a victory or will STARS win?

I still don’t know how to feel about Rachael Ellering just yet since you’ll see her in different promotions where she’ll be good and over here, you see her doing the exact opposite of that and don’t like these mind games to decide how I feel about her. Kelly though did do pretty well in the team as she kept on showing how talented she is in the ring and how she works well with women of any size. As for the team of Tam and Shiki, I’m not sure if I can say it’s a great team but they’ll be teaming up for the Stardom tag tournament coming up and we might be able to see some progress with them as a tag team, hoping it goes well. The match though felt pretty underwhelming since it looks sloppy at some spots or just slow to make people lose interest in the match, which is a shame since most of them in the match are talented but it happens sadly. Shiki would hit Kelly with a Missile Dropkick from the top rope and then Tam kicks her in the gut for Shiki to roll her up and a two count. Rachael would get Tam out of the ring so it would be Kelly and Shiki alone as Kelly gives Shiki an Attitude Adjustment and pins her for the victory.

Rating: Tony Schiavone and a half

Queen’s Quest Flag & Mask Tag Team Match
Hazuki & Natsu Sumire vs. AZM & Konami

Review: Natsu Sumire has been quite an annoyance to AZM and Queen’s Quest lately ever since they had that match in September where they fought each other and Sumire won. Once she won, she would steal the Queen Quest Flag and she would later on also steal their mask. Now, AZM and Konami have a chance to get the mask and flag back from Oedo Tai as they take on Hazuki and Natsu Sumire. Will Queen’s Quest get their stuff back or will Oedo Tai win?

Queen’s Quest wasted no time attacking Oedo Tai as Hazuki is thrown to the outside as AZM and Konami beat down Sumire to while she was holding onto the flag to make Queen’s Quest not steal it back from her as AZM slaps her in the face to make her go down. This has low-key been a guilty pleasure for me when it comes to rivalries of this year between AZM and Natsu Sumire since these two together has just been entertaining for the most part with them being childish to one another with the name calling and stealing stuff. While AZM and Sumire do the entertaining aspect of the match, Konami and Hazuki would deliver the wrestling part of the match to give us a good balance.

Hazuki would hit a Codebreaker to Konami while landing on AZM for a Senton at the same time and she would lay them on top of each other to apply the Crossface to the both of them and that looks awesome to see, love Hazuki. We still have a solid match with a mix of wrestling, entertainment, and storytelling which all four of these women delivered their part to give us something fun. AZM looked like she was about to get the win with the European Clutch but Hazuki would break it up just in time before the referee called for a three-count. AZM went to the top rope, but Sumire would grab the Queen’s Quest flag and wrapped it around AZM to make her unable to see or move as she picked her up to hit the DDT and pins her for the victory, meaning Oedo Tai keeps the flag and mask.

Now on https://t.co/q8dHnF58vW, it's the Flag and Mask match! Natsu Sumire stole the Queen's Quest flag and AZM's mask, and they want revenge! pic.twitter.com/EWq9rag2Fk

— We Are Stardom (@we_are_stardom) October 6, 2018

Rating: Eric Bischoff and a quarter

Tag Team Match
Jamie Hayter & Kimber Lee vs. Momo Watanabe & Utami Hayashishita

Review: We got another tag match with Jamie Hayter given another chance to get revenge against Utami Hayashishita as she partners up with Kimber Lee to take on Utami and current Wonder of Stardom Champion, Momo Watanabe. As of right now, Utami still doesn’t have a faction to align herself with but maybe she could join Queen’s Quest if things go well here. Can Utami and Momo work well or will they fall short?

This match was another showcase for the Super Rookie since we all know what Momo Watanabe can do, we know about Kimber Lee, and Jamie Hayter does stuff, so this match was a good way for us to see more of Utami who will keep on progressing into the roster. Momo and Utami would do rather okay as a tag team here since it was mostly them doing stuff by themselves rather than working together in the match and that’s kinda what Kimber and Jamie do as well since it didn’t really feel like a tag team match, but it was still solid enough to get over. Utami had Kimber up for the Torture Rack and slams her down as Momo would quickly hit the Somato to get her down for a two count. Momo would hit another Somato and pick her up for the Package Driver and she would hit it and pin Kimber Lee for the victory.

After the match, Momo would grab the microphone and she would tell Utami that they worked well together and was wondering if she would like to team up with her for the Goddesses of Stardom Tag League which is coming up at their next show. Utami would accept her offer, but she lets her know that it doesn’t mean she’s apart of Queen’ Quest and just wants to win with her. If it goes well and they do win the whole thing, then there’s a good chance we might have Queen’s Quest as her first home.

Rating: Eric Bischoff and a half

World Of Stardom Title Match
Kagetsu (c) vs. Nicole Savoy

Review: Our first title match of the night as Kagetsu defends her title against SHIMMER Champion, Nicole Savoy. Both of them have defended their titles at the afternoon show as Nicole retained against Konami and Kagetsu had a No Contest against Momo Watanabe. Nicole would challenge Kagetsu after her title match and Kagetsu wanted to give the people what they want and defend her title twice in one day. Is Kagetsu able to retain her title or will Nicole take advantage of the beating she took earlier?

Much like Nicole’s last match that happened earlier on in the day, this one was just more technically sound and it worked to her favor since she would have the majority of the control in the match, despite Kagetsu getting some offense but not as technically superior to Nicole. I liked her match with Momo earlier on in the day better but this was still a very fun title defense and a great match for the style they did with this one to get people seemed interested in it. Kagetsu would make her little comeback in the match and hits a Suicide Dive to the outside. Kagetsu would get her back into the ring to hit a Springboard Dropkick and would start to work on her arms for a submission, but Nicole would turn it back around to out-wrestle her and even hits an Exploding Suplex. Nicole would apply the Rings of Saturn to try and make her tap but Kagetsu would fight out of it and Sunset Flips over her for a two count and Nicole would roll her back up as Kagetsu spits blue mist into her eyes to break the count. Kagetsu would slam her down and hits the Oedo Coaster to pin her down and retain the championship!

After the match, Kagetsu would grab the microphone to talk about Nicole and the match they just had had and soon as they were about to shake hands, Kagetsu would attack her and tell Nicole to get out of her ring. Now that she got that out of the way, she talked about her next prey and her next title defense due to Mayu Iwatani being busy with Momo Watanabe, meaning she’ll be defending her title against former Oedo Tai member, Hana Kimura. October 23rd is gonna be an amazing show.

Now on https://t.co/q8dHnF58vW! Kagetsu puts the World of Stardom title on the line versus Nicole Savoy! pic.twitter.com/gqX3U33Pl5

— We Are Stardom (@we_are_stardom) October 7, 2018

Rating: Bruce Prichard

Goddesses Of Stardom Title Match
Mayu Iwatani & Saki Kashima (c) vs. Jungle Kyona & Natsuko Tora

Review: During the afternoon show, Mayu, Saki, and Tam would defeat Kyona, Natsuko, and Kaori for the Artists of Stardom Championships. For the night show, Kyona and Natsuko have a chance to get revenge as they take on Mayu and Saki for the Goddesses of Stardom Championship. Mayu right now has two belts with two more title matches coming soon, so she could be planning to go for any belt she can to be a multi-crown champion. Can Mayu pull that off with her and Saki or will JAN get revenge?

If we wanna go by out these units did as a whole during the year so far, I would actually have to put JAN up there for being pretty successful and I’m saying this because this team is normally seen as the butt of the group of units and not meant to be taken seriously over the years or even an official stable, but they really did turn themselves around after parting away from STARS during the draft. Kyona and Natsuko are the bread and butter of the group and took the negative into a positive with themselves and Kaori to recruit some of the newer wrestlers and they even won the Artists of Stardom titles together before losing it at the afternoon show and it’s still progressed to show they could keep getting better if they stick to what it is they’re doing.

I thought the match was very well done with both of these teams playing their strengths and acting like an actual tag team in these matches to show why they’re that good as partners. Natsuko is someone who really stepped up her game in this match and while still not great, she can show some potential to have better matches like these and right now has to keep working with that. Mayu and Saki also showed why they were the Goddesses of Stardom Champions for as long as they were with them playing with each other’s chemistry to make themselves show better as individuals and as a team. Jungle and Natsuko would go to the top rope to both hit a Splash onto their opponents as Saki kicked out of it while Natsuko would have Mayu outside of the ring, leaving Kyona and Saki in the ring so they could finish off this match. Kyona picked Saki up to go for the Jungle Bomb but Saki would reverse it into a Crucifix to get the pinfall on her but kicked out as well. Kyona would then grab Saki from behind to spin her around before dropping her and she falls on her for a Splash for the cover, and JAN wins the titles!

You can just see the tears and emotions from both Kyona and Natsuko when they hugged each other after winning the match. After the match, Kyona talked about how they lost the Artist titles earlier in the day and were able to win the Goddesses tonight as she thanked the fans for their support. Natsuko would talk about how the 5 Star Grand Prix was over and it was now time for the Goddesses of Stardom Tag Team League next as the winner will get a title shot against our new champions. Congrats to the both of you, hope you both have a good reign. It was time for Mayu to drop the belts anyway since she needs to get back into singles gold and I have no doubt Saki will have a new partner.

The Tag Team titles are on the line in Nagoya! Jungle Kyona & Natsuko Tora challenge Mayu Iwatani & Saki Kashima! Only on https://t.co/q8dHnF58vW! pic.twitter.com/wOXKnGckoD

— We Are Stardom (@we_are_stardom) October 8, 2018

Rating: Bruce Prichard

Overall: I thought the afternoon show was slightly better, but this one was still solid enough to get by with our last two matches being the better part of the show. As you’re aware, Stardom is doing their Goddesses of Stardom Tag Team league coming up now actually and I decided that I will not be taking part of that one and give Stardom a little break except for the big titles matches like the October 23rd show and focus on AJPW for a little bit along with different shows until the tournament is over.

Favorite Match: Mayu Iwatani & Saki Kashima vs. Jungle Kyona & Natsuko Tora

Least Favorite Match: Hanan & Starlight Kid vs. Kaori Yoneyama & Leo Onozaki

Score: 7/10