This blog post from the Sheriff of Parts Unknown is dated 25th May 2016, and really shows how far the world of Joshi has impacted the wrestling scene world wide. World Wonder Ring Stardom made this first European trip three years ago. In that time look how the main players of this story have changed the wrestling business. Kairi Hojo is now Kairi Sane and in NXT, Toni Storm is the World of Stardom, Progress and SWA Champion, and is pretty unstoppable. Mayu Iwatani, Io Shirai and my good friend Jazzy Gabert have had their injury troubles but are still astounding wrestlers. Daliah Black has gone and come back, nixon Newell is still awaiting that NXT Debut and will make it this year. This wasn't the first Joshi influenced show in the UK, but this was part of a wave that sees the announcement today of Meiko Satomura vs Pete Dunne, and three years ago that would have been impossible. This was a good day.
The alarm went off at 6am. Which was unlucky as I had already been up for half an hour and ran the risk of waking everyone in the street with NOFX's less than subtle rendition of Girl With a Heart of Gold. So I shut down my phone and continued with my job for the day of filling enough entertainment on said noise machine to get me to London.
My partner, who tolerates my wrestling habit on the grounds it could be much worse, agreed to take me to Doncaster Station. I imagined that I would be one of the few people heading that far south that early on a Sunday. How wrong can you be, one of my year four students greeted me at King's Cross with a "Hi James", as we got off the train. It turns out Grimsby Town where in some form of non league football competition, called the FA Trophy, but I was intent on competition of a wholly different kind. Tooting is as far south as I have ever travelled in the UK without getting a nose bleed. The venue would be Tooting Tram and Social. The event would be the Stardom International Grand Prix. Organised by British Empire Wrestling, it was to be a showcase of BEW's female talent and World Wonder Ring Stardom's top half of the roster. What it turned out to be was a full on Joshi show, with no short cuts. This my friends was as good as it gets.
Through Stardom World, Stardom have made inroads into international markets. This was the last date of a European Tour that has taken in Spain, France and Italy. They have worked with the local companies in each country as well, heightening their draw and accentuating their shows. I anticipated something special and it did not disappoint.
I arrived in Tooting early. Way early and proceeded to tour the markets as a way of killing time which really made me wish I'd not had a MacDonalds at King's Cross Station the food looked wonderful and was incredibly cheap. Mark that one up to experience. As I wondered around and found the venue I ran into Alpha Female who was taking the Stardom roster on a guided tour. We have known each other for some time now but this was our first formal meeting and it was blessing to find such a wonderfully warm person when I was so far away from home. Not as far as Io Shirai, Kairi Hojo and Mayu Iwatani, whom I was introduced too. I mumbled my hellos as I shook hands with greatness. It is an odd feeling to say the least. Arguably the four best female wrestlers in the world, if not the most loved (and hated in Alpha's case), here live and in person. So at least I was in the right place even if I was a little dumbfounded. Hopefully they just thought it was a British stiff upper lip. They had to go and get ready for the show. I needed a drink and a sit down. So I headed into Tooting proper and found a bar.
Of course said bar was hosting what appeared to be a First Communion Party, so as I sat contemplated where life had brought me too, excited children ran around the building. Everything starts with a beginning.
The beginning proper for me was in the queue at Tooting Tram and Social. BEW's home for big events. A former tram shed, it has a long bar down one side of the building, and casually dilapidated seating on the other. As wrestling venues go it had its charms. However before that was a line of diversely attired wrestling fans, showing their allegiance to various wrestling companies from around the world. NXT was popular, but I also saw shirts from NOAH, NJPW and amazingly All Japan Women. The in line chat was of high standard too. They all talked a streak about Misawa, Kobashi, in fact I have rarely heard wrestling talked about so well. More amazingly they had heard of me. I befriended one of them who was stood next to me in a Kairi Hojo shirt. He was an soon to be Japanese student called James. He loved Puroresu, and Japanese culture in general. The rest of my section was made up of Joshi, Puro and wrestling fans who got "it", and as I looked around the room I saw lots of other people who got it too. Including some noted wrestling journalists from around Europe. This show had hit on a bunch of levels already before opening bell. There were little old ladies who watched World of Sport. There were kids in their Bayley T Shirts. There were serious wrestling connisuers, BEW fans who had this place as their local. It was on all fronts a success. All they had to do was produce a great wrestling show. Thankfully this show had the roster to do just that.
A good wrestling show needs to play like a symphony. You need your opening movement to grab the attention, establish your themes and breathe life into the notes on the page. Then you need to reference subtly back to your previous works, through style and add some variety, a sombre March, a frivolous dance, and finale that pulls it all together. For an equal comparison this was Shostakovitch's Fifth played by The London Philharmonic. It had everything.
Stardom has largely changed direction over the last eighteen months and largely for the better. Moving away from the AJW influences, it has brought in an ever rotating raft of Gaijin, and truly elevated it's mid card pack. They have also gone full bore on trying to be an international wrestling company. This tour is just part of that story, Stardom World is another. A total wrap around service that puts every match on every show in the domain at the rate of one a day with translated promos for the Japanese stars. As a result, the fans around the world are closer to what the wrestlers are trying to do, and have bought into their characters. It showed in the first match when Mayu Iwatani wrestled Kirsty Love. Iwatani was adored. No knock on Love who was great, but that fan connection was embedded with Iwatani. She would win the match too in fine style after some breath taking mat work. The crowd, as Jim Ross so rightly said, the music of any great wrestling match, were loud and appreciative and a large part of what made this such an enjoyable show. Except for the one guy who was heckling behind me, who got booed down as the show went on thankfully. If you've come to complain why come at all?
The show was laid out roughly in a tournament format, the Stardom International Grand Prix, the winner to get a shot at Io Shirai's Undisputed World Championship. A newly created title to be defended within the Stardom Association of promoters. So that meant that Iwatani was into the second round. Birthday celebrating Santanna Garrett would join her after a great match with Danielle Hunter. This was going to be a long afternoon and the early matches where all fought under a ten minute time limit. They packed a lot into those ten minutes. Also it meant there was plenty left for later and when Nixon Newell wrestled Ayesha Ray, I surely wanted more. Ray is a phenomenal heel. Newell is an immensely talented face. They tore the house down, it was as simple as that.
Diosa Atenea versus Dragonita was an entirely different barrel of Lucha. Working the mat in a more traditional Mexican style, it showed that this show was not going to be a one trick Joshi pony. It went down well with the crowd too, Dragonita taking the win and advancing to the semi finals. Then came the first interval, a chance for fans to meet their hero's, buy their merchandise and meet former wife of Steve Austin and manager of Gentleman Chris Adams, Lady Blossom, who has a book out and was there for a signing session. Inadvertently this show had become a female voices in wrestling sounding board, and it was reflective in the fanbase. While it was still male dominated, I saw a lot more women at this show than I had previously. The fact that female fans where there, and many of them so young showed on how many levels this had hit home.
Soon it was back to the wrestling. To kick things off on the second third of the show, two former World of Stardom Champions were teaming up. Kairi Hojo came out a top of Alpha Female's shoulders. Their team forged in mutual grumpiness to take on Toni Storm and Dahlia Black, Team Austrilasia. From the get go, Alpha and Hojo dominated proceedings. Determined to cover every inch of the building, and the open streets of Tooting, fans tumbled outside to see them. This was old school brawl heavy Joshi, with some modern twists. Dahlia Black was dumped on the bar and covered in IPA before Hojo took her aerial offence to a new alcohol soaked level. Alpha was her intimidating threatening self as she barked orders at her diminutive partner. For their part Storm and Black hit a convincing comeback trail. However it could not stop Hojo's Top Rope Elbow which she is the world's finest exponent of. In person it is truly a thing of beauty. Destroying their opponents, the Wonder of Stardom and The Alpha Beast are the most thoroughly entertaining tag team in wrestling right now. Oddball they may be, but this was a truly impressive outing and exactly what this crowd had come to see.
The next match was another tournament bout. Nixon Newell versus Mayu Iwatani. Coping with an injury from the previous round, Newell put her heart and soul into this match. Iwatani turned into a subtle heel, as she went after the knee, but Newell more than held her own against one of Stardom's biggest success stories. It was back and forth action all the way, for fifteen minutes neither wrestler had the advantage and so it went to the time limit. Too good to be stopped, the crowd yelled out for "Five Fucking More". Like the ECW crowds of your, they asked and they received, five minutes of high pressure Joshi in its purest form, which again yielded no winner. They both advanced to the final later in the evening making it a three way dance.
But who would they face? Santanna Garret would face Diosa Atenena in the second semi final. They both tried to out face each other with Atenena trying to start a Mexico chant, while Garrett went with the old favourite USA. Faced with an internationalist crowd who chanted back "No Borders" it was laughed off quickly enough. Garrett's gymnastic athleticism won out too, closing out Atenena's Lucha offence.
In an all European affair, the massive and stoic Heidi Katrina, defeated the slightly built but incredibly gifted Laura DiMateo in a match that was short on action, only four minutes long, but still held the attention. Both should be going places in the years to come.
This was palate cleanser for the one advertised match that was a sure fire draw anywhere between Glasgow and Osaka. Kay Lee Ray would challenge Io Shirai for her SWA Undisputed World Championship. The recently formed title has an impressive legacy already after this match. Lee Ray is a Stardom veteran and arguably the best female wrestler in Europe. Io Shirai has been the Ace of Stardom for two years now and shows no signs of slowing down having led the company into the light through some incredibly trying times. Before they even started they had one hell of a legacy to live up too. They exceeded it. Making creative use of the furniture, bar, fans, security guards, beer, and each other, they went all over the building in a title match that felt like a showdown. With a high abundance of ICW fans in the building solidly behind Kay Lee Ray, and Shirai on the form of her life, it was quite simply breath taking. Shirai retained the title, but both recieved a standing ovation for their efforts.
Next The Buffet Club exerted their dominance over the BEW roster in their elimination six man victory, which was solidly entertaining fair. It was sensible of BEW to put one of their biggest angles in what was going to be a widely watched show. But this crowd was all about the women, and the final that was due next.
Garrett, Iwatani and Newell had a great three way dance. Any of you who listen to The Truepenny Show will know of my general disdain for three way matches, but this was the best I have ever seen. Partly because of the good feeling had for the rest of the show it carried me to the end which on second viewing I would probably find a little abrupt. The end came out of nowhere, but all three competitors kept it largely in the ring. In the end birthday girl Santanna Garrett would become Stardom International Grand Prix Champion by pinning Nixon Newell.
Overall I am always going to favour this card, I met a friends who have been talking to me via email for years, I saw matches I honestly never thought I would see and shook hands with some of the greatest wrestlers on the planet. However, now with reflection and time you can see why this card was so important for Stardom for BEW, and for women's wrestling in the UK.
Their best went up against our best, and everyone came out a winner. I headed to King's Cross as the only happy Yellowbelly on the train. Grimsby Town lost 1-0.
The alarm went off at 6am. Which was unlucky as I had already been up for half an hour and ran the risk of waking everyone in the street with NOFX's less than subtle rendition of Girl With a Heart of Gold. So I shut down my phone and continued with my job for the day of filling enough entertainment on said noise machine to get me to London.
My partner, who tolerates my wrestling habit on the grounds it could be much worse, agreed to take me to Doncaster Station. I imagined that I would be one of the few people heading that far south that early on a Sunday. How wrong can you be, one of my year four students greeted me at King's Cross with a "Hi James", as we got off the train. It turns out Grimsby Town where in some form of non league football competition, called the FA Trophy, but I was intent on competition of a wholly different kind. Tooting is as far south as I have ever travelled in the UK without getting a nose bleed. The venue would be Tooting Tram and Social. The event would be the Stardom International Grand Prix. Organised by British Empire Wrestling, it was to be a showcase of BEW's female talent and World Wonder Ring Stardom's top half of the roster. What it turned out to be was a full on Joshi show, with no short cuts. This my friends was as good as it gets.
Through Stardom World, Stardom have made inroads into international markets. This was the last date of a European Tour that has taken in Spain, France and Italy. They have worked with the local companies in each country as well, heightening their draw and accentuating their shows. I anticipated something special and it did not disappoint.
I arrived in Tooting early. Way early and proceeded to tour the markets as a way of killing time which really made me wish I'd not had a MacDonalds at King's Cross Station the food looked wonderful and was incredibly cheap. Mark that one up to experience. As I wondered around and found the venue I ran into Alpha Female who was taking the Stardom roster on a guided tour. We have known each other for some time now but this was our first formal meeting and it was blessing to find such a wonderfully warm person when I was so far away from home. Not as far as Io Shirai, Kairi Hojo and Mayu Iwatani, whom I was introduced too. I mumbled my hellos as I shook hands with greatness. It is an odd feeling to say the least. Arguably the four best female wrestlers in the world, if not the most loved (and hated in Alpha's case), here live and in person. So at least I was in the right place even if I was a little dumbfounded. Hopefully they just thought it was a British stiff upper lip. They had to go and get ready for the show. I needed a drink and a sit down. So I headed into Tooting proper and found a bar.
Of course said bar was hosting what appeared to be a First Communion Party, so as I sat contemplated where life had brought me too, excited children ran around the building. Everything starts with a beginning.
The beginning proper for me was in the queue at Tooting Tram and Social. BEW's home for big events. A former tram shed, it has a long bar down one side of the building, and casually dilapidated seating on the other. As wrestling venues go it had its charms. However before that was a line of diversely attired wrestling fans, showing their allegiance to various wrestling companies from around the world. NXT was popular, but I also saw shirts from NOAH, NJPW and amazingly All Japan Women. The in line chat was of high standard too. They all talked a streak about Misawa, Kobashi, in fact I have rarely heard wrestling talked about so well. More amazingly they had heard of me. I befriended one of them who was stood next to me in a Kairi Hojo shirt. He was an soon to be Japanese student called James. He loved Puroresu, and Japanese culture in general. The rest of my section was made up of Joshi, Puro and wrestling fans who got "it", and as I looked around the room I saw lots of other people who got it too. Including some noted wrestling journalists from around Europe. This show had hit on a bunch of levels already before opening bell. There were little old ladies who watched World of Sport. There were kids in their Bayley T Shirts. There were serious wrestling connisuers, BEW fans who had this place as their local. It was on all fronts a success. All they had to do was produce a great wrestling show. Thankfully this show had the roster to do just that.
A good wrestling show needs to play like a symphony. You need your opening movement to grab the attention, establish your themes and breathe life into the notes on the page. Then you need to reference subtly back to your previous works, through style and add some variety, a sombre March, a frivolous dance, and finale that pulls it all together. For an equal comparison this was Shostakovitch's Fifth played by The London Philharmonic. It had everything.
Stardom has largely changed direction over the last eighteen months and largely for the better. Moving away from the AJW influences, it has brought in an ever rotating raft of Gaijin, and truly elevated it's mid card pack. They have also gone full bore on trying to be an international wrestling company. This tour is just part of that story, Stardom World is another. A total wrap around service that puts every match on every show in the domain at the rate of one a day with translated promos for the Japanese stars. As a result, the fans around the world are closer to what the wrestlers are trying to do, and have bought into their characters. It showed in the first match when Mayu Iwatani wrestled Kirsty Love. Iwatani was adored. No knock on Love who was great, but that fan connection was embedded with Iwatani. She would win the match too in fine style after some breath taking mat work. The crowd, as Jim Ross so rightly said, the music of any great wrestling match, were loud and appreciative and a large part of what made this such an enjoyable show. Except for the one guy who was heckling behind me, who got booed down as the show went on thankfully. If you've come to complain why come at all?
The show was laid out roughly in a tournament format, the Stardom International Grand Prix, the winner to get a shot at Io Shirai's Undisputed World Championship. A newly created title to be defended within the Stardom Association of promoters. So that meant that Iwatani was into the second round. Birthday celebrating Santanna Garrett would join her after a great match with Danielle Hunter. This was going to be a long afternoon and the early matches where all fought under a ten minute time limit. They packed a lot into those ten minutes. Also it meant there was plenty left for later and when Nixon Newell wrestled Ayesha Ray, I surely wanted more. Ray is a phenomenal heel. Newell is an immensely talented face. They tore the house down, it was as simple as that.
Diosa Atenea versus Dragonita was an entirely different barrel of Lucha. Working the mat in a more traditional Mexican style, it showed that this show was not going to be a one trick Joshi pony. It went down well with the crowd too, Dragonita taking the win and advancing to the semi finals. Then came the first interval, a chance for fans to meet their hero's, buy their merchandise and meet former wife of Steve Austin and manager of Gentleman Chris Adams, Lady Blossom, who has a book out and was there for a signing session. Inadvertently this show had become a female voices in wrestling sounding board, and it was reflective in the fanbase. While it was still male dominated, I saw a lot more women at this show than I had previously. The fact that female fans where there, and many of them so young showed on how many levels this had hit home.
Soon it was back to the wrestling. To kick things off on the second third of the show, two former World of Stardom Champions were teaming up. Kairi Hojo came out a top of Alpha Female's shoulders. Their team forged in mutual grumpiness to take on Toni Storm and Dahlia Black, Team Austrilasia. From the get go, Alpha and Hojo dominated proceedings. Determined to cover every inch of the building, and the open streets of Tooting, fans tumbled outside to see them. This was old school brawl heavy Joshi, with some modern twists. Dahlia Black was dumped on the bar and covered in IPA before Hojo took her aerial offence to a new alcohol soaked level. Alpha was her intimidating threatening self as she barked orders at her diminutive partner. For their part Storm and Black hit a convincing comeback trail. However it could not stop Hojo's Top Rope Elbow which she is the world's finest exponent of. In person it is truly a thing of beauty. Destroying their opponents, the Wonder of Stardom and The Alpha Beast are the most thoroughly entertaining tag team in wrestling right now. Oddball they may be, but this was a truly impressive outing and exactly what this crowd had come to see.
The next match was another tournament bout. Nixon Newell versus Mayu Iwatani. Coping with an injury from the previous round, Newell put her heart and soul into this match. Iwatani turned into a subtle heel, as she went after the knee, but Newell more than held her own against one of Stardom's biggest success stories. It was back and forth action all the way, for fifteen minutes neither wrestler had the advantage and so it went to the time limit. Too good to be stopped, the crowd yelled out for "Five Fucking More". Like the ECW crowds of your, they asked and they received, five minutes of high pressure Joshi in its purest form, which again yielded no winner. They both advanced to the final later in the evening making it a three way dance.
But who would they face? Santanna Garret would face Diosa Atenena in the second semi final. They both tried to out face each other with Atenena trying to start a Mexico chant, while Garrett went with the old favourite USA. Faced with an internationalist crowd who chanted back "No Borders" it was laughed off quickly enough. Garrett's gymnastic athleticism won out too, closing out Atenena's Lucha offence.
In an all European affair, the massive and stoic Heidi Katrina, defeated the slightly built but incredibly gifted Laura DiMateo in a match that was short on action, only four minutes long, but still held the attention. Both should be going places in the years to come.
This was palate cleanser for the one advertised match that was a sure fire draw anywhere between Glasgow and Osaka. Kay Lee Ray would challenge Io Shirai for her SWA Undisputed World Championship. The recently formed title has an impressive legacy already after this match. Lee Ray is a Stardom veteran and arguably the best female wrestler in Europe. Io Shirai has been the Ace of Stardom for two years now and shows no signs of slowing down having led the company into the light through some incredibly trying times. Before they even started they had one hell of a legacy to live up too. They exceeded it. Making creative use of the furniture, bar, fans, security guards, beer, and each other, they went all over the building in a title match that felt like a showdown. With a high abundance of ICW fans in the building solidly behind Kay Lee Ray, and Shirai on the form of her life, it was quite simply breath taking. Shirai retained the title, but both recieved a standing ovation for their efforts.
Next The Buffet Club exerted their dominance over the BEW roster in their elimination six man victory, which was solidly entertaining fair. It was sensible of BEW to put one of their biggest angles in what was going to be a widely watched show. But this crowd was all about the women, and the final that was due next.
Garrett, Iwatani and Newell had a great three way dance. Any of you who listen to The Truepenny Show will know of my general disdain for three way matches, but this was the best I have ever seen. Partly because of the good feeling had for the rest of the show it carried me to the end which on second viewing I would probably find a little abrupt. The end came out of nowhere, but all three competitors kept it largely in the ring. In the end birthday girl Santanna Garrett would become Stardom International Grand Prix Champion by pinning Nixon Newell.
Overall I am always going to favour this card, I met a friends who have been talking to me via email for years, I saw matches I honestly never thought I would see and shook hands with some of the greatest wrestlers on the planet. However, now with reflection and time you can see why this card was so important for Stardom for BEW, and for women's wrestling in the UK.
Their best went up against our best, and everyone came out a winner. I headed to King's Cross as the only happy Yellowbelly on the train. Grimsby Town lost 1-0.
Comments
Post a Comment