2/17 STARDOM QUEEN’S FES report: Watanabe & Hayashishita vs. Iwatani & Hoshiki for the tag titles, new Oedo Tai member revealed

STARDOM QUEEN’S FES
FEBRUARY 17, 2019
TOKYO, JAPAN AT KORAKUEN HALL
AIRED ON STARDOM WORLD
REPORT BY HARLEY R. PAGEOT, PWTORCH CONTRIBUTOR

The twins said it’s their second threeway tag but they’d use their brains to win. “Lionheart” Leo Onozaki had been out for three months but was back to team with the “Little Giant” Saya Iida. She was replacing Ruaka, who was injured one week earlier in a match against Saki Kashima and now has her arm in a sling (as we would see later in the show). Starlight Kid said Hanan’s sisters are part of Stars so it’s more like a 4 vs. 2 match than a three-way.

(1) STARS (Starlight Kid & Hanan) vs. JAN (Leo Onozaki & Saya Iida) vs. STARS (Hina & Rina)

Kid, Iida, and Hina started with a three-way test of strength. Iida wanted to work with Kid but the Stars girls teamed up against her instead. All three girls tagged out. Onozaki took a series of dropkicks from all four Stars girls. Hanan Shimai locked on their signature figure four + double armbar but Iida broke it up. Iida with a Boston crab on Rina. The three sisters teamed up against Iida again. Kid with a crossbody + tiger feint kick to Iida. Spinning neckbreaker but Onozaki saved it! Kid with a twisting top-rope splash to Iida.

WINNERS: Kid & Hanan in 5:46.

(Pageot’s Perspective: Fun one with the Hanan sisters and four Stars members teaming up against poor defenseless Iida. Onozaki loses her return match but, really, it’s her own fault for teaming with the winless rookie.)

-Bobbi Tyler said they love bean sprouts, eat bean sprouts, and kill bean sprouts. The pink bean sprout herself, Saki Kashima, said she and Alex Gracia are the Pink Dream Team. Tyler had a new hairstyle.

(My girlfriend Monika’s perspective: Ew, she crimped her hair.)

(2) STARS: PINK DREAM TEAM (Artist Of Stardom Champion Saki Kashima & Alex Gracia) vs. HANA KIMURA & BOBBI TYLER

Kimura and Kashima started for their teams. They exchanged forearms. Pink Dream hit a double bulldog on Kimura. Double drop-toehold and surfboard to Kashima. Gracia with a tag and dropkicks on both opponents. Backcracker to Tyler. Kashima with a tilt-a-whirl headscissors to Kimura. Gracia followed with a tiger feint kick and Kashima with a northern lights suplex but Tyler broke up the pin. Kimura with some stomps to Kashima. Gracia tagged herself in when Kashima collapsed into their corner. Tyler hit her with a leaping reverse STO. Kimura with a top-rope dropkick to Gracia for the win.

WINNERS: Kimura & Tyler in 8:11.

(Pageot’s Perspective: Fine match with a predictable outcome. No update on the absence of Sadie Gibbs. She was supposed to team with Kimura & Tyler to challenge Kashima, Iwatani, and Nakano for the trios titles three weeks earlier but left due to a family emergency and hasn’t been mentioned since.)

-Jamie Hayter coughed into her fist. She said she’s been training all week. She might not look it but she’s smart and Konami may have met her match. Konami said Hayter’s just a stepping stone into the title match scene.

(3) KONAMI vs. JAMIE HAYTER (w/Nao Yamaguchi)

Hayter took Konami down and mussed up her hair. Konami responded with a series of kicks to her spine. Hayter was in control through the first six minutes, working over Konami’s legs while jawing with the fans. Hayter with a bridging German suplex for two at 8:30. Konami rolled through into an armbar out of nowhere and Hayter immediately tapped furiously.

WINNER: Konami in 9:27.

(Pageot’s Perspective: An interesting one. It was odd seeing Konami playing the babyface fighting from underneath the whole match when she’s usually one of the arrogant, smarmy members of Queen’s Quest. This was a sort of preview of our next contest, though, with their two partners facing off for the high speed title.)

-AZM said her six-pack is ready and she meets the qualifications. She’s going to be faster than Starlight Kid and take the title. Hazuki said if she took the belt to Queen’s Quest the value would go down. She said that if AZM hasn’t grown, she would easily go down in less than ten minutes.

(4) HAZUKI (w/Nao Yamaguchi) vs. AZM – HIGH SPEED CHAMPIONSHIP

Hazuki controlled early with kicks. AZM with an octopus at 3:00 and a bunch of kicks of her own. AZM with a missile dropkick at 5:30 and top-rope double stomp. They both avoided submission attempts and AZM got a roll-up for two. Armbar on Hazuki in the center of the ring but AZM let go for some reason. She leapt to the second turnbuckle but Hazuki cut her off with a stomp and running yakuza kick for two. Crossface from Hazuki. Rope break. Hurricanrana into a pin gave AZM another two. Hazuki with a falcon arrow. Brainbuster.

WINNER: Hazuki in 8:29 to retain the high speed title.

(Pageot’s Perspective: Somewhat surprising in how soundly she won. These two have been shown to be evenly-matched in the past but Hazuki vowed to beat her in less than ten minutes and she did just that, and cleanly with no assistance from Yamaguchi or anyone else in Oedo Tai. They didn’t even brawl into the crowd like with a lot of Oedo Tai matches. Not sure where the high speed title goes from here.)

-Jungle Kyona said we’re finally going to find out who X is. It’s kind of scary not knowing anything about her. JAN didn’t care until they were attacked. Now they owe them some payback. Kagetsu and X were backstage alone. X was wearing the Ghostface mask over an Oedo Tai jacket again. Kagetsu was excited.

(Monika’s Perspective: Stop! That’s clearly just Natsu. This was all a gag just so they can say “Ha, we messed with you.”)

-Kagetsu, X, Jamie Hayter, Hazuki, and Nao Yamaguchi entered together. X stood motionless in the center of the ring while the other four danced around her. The dance ended with X unmasking to reveal… someone.

(5) OEDO TAI (World Of Stardom Champion Kagetsu & Andras Miyagi) vs. JAN (Jungle Kyona & Natsuko Tora)

The two teams brawled to ringside. Kagetsu drank from a water bottle and spit water into the faces of both JAN members. The heels worked over Kyona but she came back with a double suplex on both opponents. Tora with a legscissors to Miyagi. Miyagi dropped Kyona throat-first over the top rope. Kyona with a powerslam to Kagetsu and two basement clotheslines. Tora unloaded with forearms on Miyagi. Miyagi with a DDT. Missile dropkick to Tora but Kyona broke up the pin. JAN with stereo body slams and top-rope splashes to the heels. Miyagi kicked out. Tora with a spin-out side-slam to Miyagi but Kagetsu broke up the pin. Co-op suplex from JAN to Miyagi. Tora with a top-rope frog-splash. She went back up for a second and connected again. The referee counted two before Kagetsu spit mist in her face. She shoved the referee down, did the same to Kyona, and hit Tora with the placard. Miyagi hit a firefighter’s carry slam but Tora kicked out. Senton bomb from Miyagi to Tora for the win.

WINNERS: Oedo Tai in 13:36.

-Kagetsu took a mic. She said everybody had their predictions but it didn’t matter. Whether you were right or wrong, Andras is X. The crowd chanted “An-chan.” She passed the mic to Miyagi. She said Oedo Tai comes first. That’s it. Kagetsu said they have the high speed title and they’re coming after all the others. She hinted that Miyagi might be gunning for Utami Hayashishita’s Future Of Stardom title.

(Pageot’s Perspective: That was kind of deflating. A rudimentary internet search says that Miyagi, under the name Cassandra Miyagi, has competed for the promotion Sendai Girls for the past five years so this is akin to an ROH star suddenly showing up in NXT. Unfortunately the whole premise of the X story was presented as a member of Queen’s Quest, JAN, or Stars turning heel to join Oedo Tai. They even threw out suspects on Twitter and were pointing fingers at who might be flipping teams. So for the reveal to be someone new to the promotion instead feels like a cop-out. Now if they hadn’t included the “traitor” aspect to the story and just done a “new mystery member” story things would be entirely different and this would probably have been a really satisfying reveal. Miyagi had a good half a foot on everyone else in the match and looks quite strong, already adding a physical presence to the group. Her addition here somewhat undercuts Hayter’s role as “the new recruit” but being the only non-Japanese member will still help her stand out. It was also strange to have Oedo Tai have to cheat and use a ref bump to win rather than give Miyagi a strong decisive win out of the gate. On paper, though, Miyagi vs. Hayashishita has a ton of potential.)

-Arisa Hoshiki said she and Mayu Iwatani want to win. Momo Watanabe said there’s no way they’re losing and they both want to pin Iwatani. They don’t really think anything of Hoshiki. The challengers were then shown in a hallway backstage with Hoshiki waiting as Iwatani took a drink of water. The camera followed them up the stairs then cut to them entering in the arena. As they headed down the ramp the champions were also shown in picture-in-picture in the hallway backstage adjusting their masks and collecting all their title belts.

(6) QUEEN’S QUEST (Wonder Of Stardom Champion Momo Watanabe & Future Of Stardom Champion/SWA World Champion Utami Hayashishita) vs. STARS (Artist Of Stardom Champion/Women Of Honor World Champion Mayu Iwatani & Arisa Hoshiki) – GODDESS OF STARDOM CHAMPIONSHIP

Watanabe wanted to start against Iwatani but Hoshiki refused. Hoshiki worked her over with strikes and kicks and got the first two-count less than a minute and a half in. The challengers isolated Watanabe. Both women went for a kick at the same time that left them both down and hurt. Tags to Iwatani and Hayashishita. Double flapjack to Iwatani from the champions. Watanabe with a missile dropkick that folded her in two but she wound up in the ropes to prevent a pin. Running double knees but Iwatani kicked out. Top rope hurricanrana from Iwatani for two. Watanabe and Iwatani threw hands. Another hurricanrana from Iwatani for two. Tag to Hoshiki. Leaping knee strikes. Iwatani grabbed Hayashishita on the apron to prevent her getting involved. Watanabe with double knees off the top rope but Hoshiki kicked out. Hayashishita with a missile dropkick. Hoshiki with a barrage of knees to Watanabe’s chest. Iwatani with a superkick. Dragon sleeper from Iwatani to Hayashishita. Hoshiki with a leaping kick off the apron to Watanabe on the floor. Hoshiki with a series of kicks to Watanabe but Hayashishita broke up the pin. Iwatani dragged Hayashishita out of the ring. Hoshiki with jumping knees to Watanabe for two. Iwatani with a high crossbody to Watanabe. Hoshiki with a kick off the top rope to the side of Watanabe’s head but she rolled her shoulder up. Watanabe with a dragon suplex but Iwatani broke up the pin at the last second. Hayashishita took out Iwatani. Watanabe with a second dragon suplex to Hoshiki for the win.

WINNERS: Queen’s Quest in 14:07 to retain the tag titles.

-Watanabe said that she’s defended the white belt successfully ten times and one more will break the record. She’s chosen her next opponent and called out Jungle Kyona. She beat her in her first defense but they’ve both grown since then. She wants to break the white belt record by beating Kyona again in her hometown of Nagoya.

(Pageot’s Perspective: Great match and this is why we hate Queen’s Quest. They’re condescending and belittling and always end up backing up their talk. Watanabe spent all the build to this match saying Hoshiki wasn’t worth her time. Then she takes ten minutes of offense from her and comes back to pin her clean, thus proving that she was right. I can’t say I buy Kyona as a viable threat to Watanabe at this time so it looks like we’re either in for a surprise or a new record-setting reign.)

Find Harley on Twitter @talkinghonor and listen to he and Emily Fear talk all things Ring Of Honor every Wednesday on the PWTorch Dailycast “Talking Honor.”