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Cinderella Stories

Tim Hunter dives into the rookie focus of this year’s Cinderella Tournament in Stardom, how it might impact the Saya Kamitani-Tam Nakano matchup later in the month and profiles the exciting new names to look out for.

Sayaka Kurara is the winner of the 2025 Cinderella Tournament. In a proxy war within the main event program between Tam Nakano and Saya Kamitani, Nakano’s favourite student had to fight her way through a murderer’s row of H.A.T.E. underlings and rookie rival Ranna Yagami in order to claim victory.

By achieving this win, Kurara sets a new record for the shortest time from debut to Cinderella winner, at only 446 days. The previous record holder? One Saya Kamitani (672).

Kamitani promptly challenged Kurara to a singles match on the double PPV event in Okinawa the following week. This is a future top rivalry in the making and Sayaka Kurara’s position as a major key to the current main event rivalry in the promotion has been built meticulously ever since her debut, when she faced Kamitani for the very first time and immediately declared her loyalty to Nakano after the match. Kurara cites Tam as the person who sparked her desire to become a wrestler in the first place, something that is actually mirrored in Kamitani’s own path in becoming a pro wrestler as well.

In their ever intertwining paths, Kamitani would also be the first big PPV singles opponent for Kurara, who managed to score a pinfall in a tag match over the freshly turned heel Kamitani in the lead up to Nagoya Golden Fight 2024. After that show, Kurara crystallized herself as a top rookie in the promotion through her very emotionally led approach to pro wrestling that instantly created a strong bond between her and the audience.

She also became Tam’s darling and pet project very quickly, with Nakano choosing her to be her partner in the tag league. Kamitani, obviously noticing Tam’s affection for Kurara, used this as her point of attack in order to drive Tam into insanity and past the point of no return, finding herself in a career vs career match with Kamitani on 4/27, with the odds firmly stacked against her.

A Wish

What makes the Cinderella Tournament special from other tournaments in pro wrestling is that the winner does not get a clearly defined prize like a title shot or a big belt. they get a wish, that could be anything (within the limits of the promotion). Most of the time it ends up being a title shot anyway, preferably for the White Belt (The Wonder of Stardom Championship), but it is not set in stone.

Traditionally the winner chooses her wish at a crowning ceremony at the end of the Cinderella Finals show, wearing a special dress and tiara.

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Not this time. Being in such a precarious situation, used as a pawn in a war between her teacher and their biggest rival which could result in Tam Nakano’s retirement, Sayaka Kurara simply asked to postpone her decision and choose her wish at a later date.

I have to believe that the announcement of her wish will be on the 27th of April at Yokohama Arena. This is a very interesting proposition for the promotion. Should Tam really lose on 4/27 and be forced to retire and will Kurara use her wish to bring her back?

Tam Nakano is the most popular women’s wrestler domestically in Japan, so either fans get their favourite taken away from them, or the promotion is essentially immediately breaking a retirement stipulation. Stipulations like this are taken very seriously in Japan, after all, they’ve only been broken dozens of times. Would this scenario seriously hurt the goodwill of the fans, or is the love for Tam Nakano stronger? Can you even call it breaking a stipulation, when this match has essentially been constructed by layering one stipulation on top of another? If a Cinderella’s wish must be honored, has it been written anywhere that a retirement stipulation is stronger than a Cinderella’s wish?

The fans who are attending in Yokohama are still paying to see a retirement match between the promotion’s top star and the promotion’s top Champion. The event will surely break all of Stardom’s attendance records to date. Are the fans gonna feel burned if they go down this path? Is this a cheap promotional tactic, or is it great storytelling that has been years in the making? As of now, this is only a hypothetical playing out in my head, none of which may actually happen at all.

Only time will tell what Kurara’s wish is actually going to be and if someone will truly have to retire.

© STARDOM

Sister’s Square Off

On the opposing side of the bracket from the eventual winner, three names were sticking out as clear favourites for the tournament before it began. Hanan, 2024’s tournament winner and tag team champion, her sister Rina who had very recently graduated to the White belt level and Rina’s twin Hina, the current Future of Stardom champion.

Hina would be upset by CMLL wrestler Tabata in the first round of the tournament, but Rina and Hanan both had dominant runs until they would meet each other in the semi-finals.

If you believe general fan sentiment, Rina has been in the fastlane to overtake both her sisters for a while now. She has shown tons of charisma while connecting with the audience and working hard in the ring. She has reached the same level in her development as older sister Hanan, at this point, although she has never beaten her 1 on 1.

Well, that was until this year’s semi final. In a very good match, Rina, a member of H.A.T.E. in her black and pink attire and displaying an unruly demeanor, was finally able to triumph over her older sister and make her way to the Finals where Sayaka Kurara would await.

The final was another excellent bout, with a very dramatic finishing stretch, which captured the wrestlers at ringside as well as the crowd. They both managed to kick out of each other’s finishing moves before Kurara was finally able to put Rina away with a second Tokimeki Spear.

Stardom – The Rookie Promotion?

One thing this tournament has shown, more than anything else, is that the promotion is sitting on a magnificent wealth of young talent, an area where they probably outshine any other promotion in the world at the moment. The Cinderella field this year was exclusively made up of rookies, sophomores, or wrestlers under the age of 21 and the matches still really delivered.

There are many potential reasons behind the excellent development of rookies in Stardom. They are given a strong base by having Milano as their dojo trainer and working veterans like Syuri, Hazuki and Maika, amidst Stardom’s rigorous schedule, leads to rapid improvements which may be unavailable elsewhere. The 10 matches per month these wrestlers participate in is crucial to them developing their relationship with the audience and their in-ring skills. It is a steep learning curve that leads to impressive results.

Another factor in this is the unusual spot Stardom has found itself in over the last year. With the firing of former booker Rossy Ogawa, whose establishment of rival promotion Marigold led to somewhat of a talent exodus, the promotion had to put its faith into a number of its younger wrestlers and the pressure was on them to deliver. Anything else would lead to a completely dire situation.

With this premise, rookies were often thrown into the deep end much quicker than before, going head to head with the veterans in big spots on each card, as well as starting to build feuds and storylines of their own. It was sink or swim. And astonishingly, they all managed to swim.

Here are some of the special rookies within their ranks to look out for:

By Tim Hunter

© WWE

Cena, CM Punk, and Living Long Enough To Be The Villain

And How Both Characters Learned The Price Of Their Souls

John Cena and CM Punk both arrive at this WrestleMania looking to achieve their dreams. For Cena, it is the glory of a record-breaking 17th run. For Punk, the acknowledgement of finally becoming a WrestleMania main eventer. Two characters known for living by their own code, now many years past their character-defining rivalry, both facing the same question: what is a soul worth when weighed against a dream just out of reach?

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by Micah

The year is 2011. CM Punk sits on the stage of a Monday Night RAW. He delivers a speech that goes down in history.

He sits cross-legged and speaks to the audience. He says that he is the best in the world, better than champion John Cena, better than everyone around him at nearly everything. He is angry, and he announces he is leaving WWE, because no matter how good he is, he can never reach the very top.

He blames this on the system and on authority and on John Cena. Leaning into off-screen criticisms, he claims Cena (like “Dwayne” and Hulk Hogan before him) has mastered the backstage politics so thoroughly tha no matter what CM Punk accomplishes, he will never get his deserved top spot.

It is an iconic speech for many reasons, among them the fact that it defines his character so fully. He is a talented wrestler who believes the system is against him. The character knows in his heart that the only way to get what he wants is to play the game, but his own internal morality won’t let him do so. And so he strives every day to be so good, to be so talented, that he can beat the system in spite of its power.

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Before that promo, the character of John Cena was known primarily for a moral code of his own. Hustle, loyalty, respect. He had long since left his “do-what-it-takes” street fight persona and evolved into the definitional white hat hero. TV screens were plastered with his Make-A-Wish heroics and his unbreakable spirit. He never gave up, never surrendered, always fought hard, and lived his beliefs. 

What CM Punk introduced in that speech was the idea that John Cena was not in fact what he appeared to be. He was likeable, sure, but he wasn’t the best—not at wrestling anyhow. It was his political maneuvering and connections that kept him on top.

(Of course, many fans hated John Cena at this time. The crowds chanted terrible things at him and cheered anyone who they thought might dethrone him. The character of CM Punk was saying what many fans of the show said, so much so that Punk even took to calling himself the Voice of the Voiceless.)

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The on-screen story blended with a perceived reality. The off-camera whispers were now on-camera. “Is John Cena only successful because of favors and political power?” The narrative was now that John Cena was unfairly held in the top spot by being given opportunity after opportunity. CM Punk, an unlikely hero, deserved a run with the ball. And if given the chance, free from political maneuverings, he could do it.

That promo defined both men and their myths. CM Punk as the Batman-like mortal looking to fight a Superman. John Cena as the unbeatable Franchise of the company, given every advantage the office could provide. John Cena in the spot Punk wanted but could never have. CM Punk fighting the good fight against the odds.

Cena came away from their contest changed. Punk won the belt and left. He proved he was right, or at least right enough. As if to prove Punk even more right, soon afterward there was a tournament of stars to crown a new champion, only for John Cena to get an impromptu match against the newly crowned winner, an exhausted Rey Mysterio. Cena found himself again rather unfairly taking the top spot from a wrestler who had just earned it earlier that night.

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Over time, John Cena’s character became more about “giving back”. He started the US Championship Open Challenge to spread opportunities to the rest of the roster. He vouched for the very deserving Daniel Bryan. At one point he began a crusade to earn a place at WrestleMania without throwing around his weight backstage, but struggled to do so. 

He began to lose more and more. His character was forced to reckon with whether he was losing his touch, whether he wasn’t able to keep up without utilizing influence to get chance after chance, and whether the difference even mattered as the world passed him by. He eventually followed in The Rock’s footsteps toward Hollywood (becoming the absent part-timer archetype he once decried).

CM Punk, of course, didn’t really leave. He was back soon, and he had a belt, and he spoke of being the top star. But despite his victories and despite beating Cena, no matter what he deserved, he never received it. He wrestled on the undercard in champion versus champion matches. He wasn’t the guy on the collector’s cups and there were no ice cream bars like he had talked about. He was playing champion, but to his character, there was one accolade that would prove he had made it: main eventing WrestleMania. And once it was clear that the system would not afford him that opportunity, that only influence and not merit could claim that prize, CM Punk disappeared without a trace from WWE TV.

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The character of CM Punk is, at the core, about justice and morality. As a villain he focuses on the injustices he sees in society and the moral failings of the fans. As a hero he talks about the injustices of authority and the immorality of the backstage politics that hold down deserving talent. But regardless of alignment, the throughline is his character’s most important cause: the injustice of his own position at any time, and why he deserves a better one.

In the long years after both John Cena and CM Punk left the show, WWE transformed. New leadership took over the company. A new “Cena”-like superforce in Roman Reigns took the company to the island of relevancy. A new “Punk”-like outsider in Cody Rhodes became the deserving outcast seeking to dethrone the powerful. By the time Cena and Punk returned, the world had passed them by.

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In his return, John Cena’s stated goal was to cap his hall-of-fame run with a record-breaking 17th championship. But still he was stuck on “deserving” it. He noted that after all his losses he would need to earn a chance, and the best way to do that was through the Royal Rumble. With signs of aging increasingly obvious and Cena in his retirement year, he would finally earn this opportunity rather than claim it with status and backstage favors.

CM Punk had a story of his own. The WrestleMania main event spot remained on a pedestal for his character. Certain that achieving it would give him the respect he always deserved, he called his shot to ascend the mountain. He first tried to win the 2024 Rumble but was injured in the attempt. So like Cena, his iconic rival, he too entered the 2025 Rumble. They would both attempt to prove they deserved their dreams.

Fate had other plans. They lost. An up-and-coming star with the support of the crowd named Jey Uso won the match and earned his dreams. It was the sort of thing CM Punk could never do with the old system against him. The sort of thing John Cena always did with the old system behind him. But as the TV makes clear, the old system is gone. And now dreams, like Jey Uso’s, can come true.

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Both characters refused to accept their lot. Faced with failure and the possibility that they might not achieve their dreams, each redoubled their efforts. Cena made a big show of publicly wielding the power he’d avoided to lodge himself in the last opportunity before them, the Elimination Chamber. Meanwhile, Punk earned his way into the match in an attempt to once more prove he deserved a main event. 

Again, the two rivals faced each other. John Cena and CM Punk were the last two, and CM Punk once more proved he was the better wrestler. Once more, it didn’t matter. Outside interference took it from him. And again, he would sit out the Mania main event.

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John Cena, who for years had insisted he was on top because he deserved it, who insisted he was a champion because of his own talent alone, was now headed back to a championship match. But it was only due to his political maneuvering that he had the opportunity—only due to outside interference that he won.

In that moment, left to reckon with what it had taken to get back on top, he chose the other path. He aligned himself with The Rock, the most powerful authority figure on TV, intent on achieving his goal by any means necessary. No longer would he be answerable to his critics. No longer would he win through hustle or respect. John Cena was no longer concerned with whether he was deserving. He was now willing to do anything to win.

Following the story over the decades, this moment is inevitable. The character of CM Punk was right. The system was rigged. John Cena didn’t deserve the abundance of opportunities he got. It was unfair. And once again, political maneuvering won. Influence reigns. And against the very forces CM Punk could never quite slay, current champion Cody Rhodes will face a John Cena who is without pretense or remorse about who he is.

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The chosen of the company versus the underdog of the people. It’s 2011 all over again, but now in this new era where anything is said to be possible. Can Cody overcome a revitalized Cena with the system behind him? And perhaps more importantly, when the time comes to truly accept who he is and what he has been, will John Cena go all the way? Or will he, in that last shining moment, remember the code he has always sworn to uphold? What is success worth when measured against the soul?

For CM Punk, the answer is clearer. With Cena and Cody main eventing one night, and Jey Uso earning the right to main event the other, CM Punk was officially without a path to his dreams. He could wait another year, risking injury or a losing battle with longevity. For the man who lives his moral code, a character who built an identity around fighting a system of influence in defense of the deserving and hungry, what else could he do?

The answer, of course, is try another angle. On a recent Smackdown, he signed a contract to face two former WrestleMania main eventers. And in a surprise to viewers around the world, he was offered the thing that he could never claim: a WrestleMania main event. Naturally, one would question what he did to earn this. Or one might ask, “Who gets screwed out of their main event?” One might wonder what the cost and the price were? Who got hurt?

And yet, after years of deserving his prize and not getting it, none of these questions mattered. CM Punk, a character impossible to shut up whenever injustice was afoot, was speechless. In the contract before him was the thing he wanted most, the thing he fought for, the thing he had once deserved for half a dozen years and never got. And if he would just sign the contract, it would be his. Not earned, not won, not even explained. Just a favor he got for making a deal with the closest thing to a devil in WWE lore.

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There are a thousand justifications, of course. It’s a make-good for all the times he was screwed. It’s because the match is so big that those other people grabbing the brass rings will just have to settle for second. Maybe even it’s what’s best for business.

Yet gaining the big spotlight, not through the Rumble or by being a champion or through in-ring prowess, but because of favor-trading with powerful individuals, goes against everything he laid out in the pipebomb. Here, the character is taking away from a deserving talent the limelight they fought for, using leverage to do it, and facing the possibility of losing his dreams. And he did it without a moment’s hesitation.

He has his prize now. And after years of facing the odds and losing, of taking loss after loss in a rigged game, he stopped fighting the system and has begun using it. As the saying goes: if you can’t beat them, join them.

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It’s a strange if fitting end to an iconic rivalry. Two characters who built their kingdoms on following their codes. Both the champion who wasn’t quite and the challenger who deserved more find their own codes will not get them where they want to go. At this final adversity, both characters have given up on doing things their “right way”, if even only for a minute, to claim the prize just out of reach. 

With a long life ahead of them, what mattered was how they lived. In youth, there is always another day. But in the pale twilight of their careers, John Cena and CM Punk were forced to pick their code or the career. And both chose to see themselves achieve their greatest dream, even if it meant that they lost themselves in the process.

By Micah

© RoH

ROH “Supercard of Honor” Moves Away From WrestleMania Weekend

Ring of Honor announced recently that their Supercard of Honor event would not be held during WrestleMania weekend but instead on May 2 at the Adrian Phillips Theater at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

By Aaron Wrotkowski of GrapPro.com

The first Supercard of Honor was held in 2006 at the Frontier Fieldhouse in Chicago Ridge, two days prior to WrestleMania 22 at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois. The next three years’ Supercards were all held on the same weekend and in the same city as WrestleMania until 2010, when ROH held their show at the Manhattan Center in New York while WWE held theirs in Glendale, Arizona. ROH would return to running Supercards on Mania weekend in 2013 and continue the tradition up to the G1 Supercard at Madison Square Garden in 2019.

After a two year break, ROH ran Supercard of Honor XV, the promotion’s final event under Sinclair Broadcasting before being purchased by Tony Khan of All Elite Wrestling. Tony Khan would continue the Mania weekend tradition, with the 2023 and 2024 Supercard of Honor events being run on the same weekends and in the same cities as WrestleMania.

This year will be the first time the event has been held in the month of May since 2010, as the two Supercards that ran outside of Mania weekend in 2010 and 2011 both ran in May.

Leaving WrestleMania Weekend

There’s a lot of discussion as to whether running Supercard of Honor outside Mania weekend is a good idea or not. Some enjoyed the tradition of Ring of Honor running the weekend to put on a major show in front of the people who fly out to the area for WrestleMania and want to see more than just WWE. Many see the appeal of showing the ROH product to these fans in hopes of getting them to jump onboard. If the promotion holds a great event, it could steal some magic from WWE.

However, running the event in the backyard of your competitor also feels a bit small-time. Detractors will say that ROH continuing to do this around WrestleMania weekend is embarrassing—ROH pretending it’s still an independent wrestling promotion trying to gain attention. Piggybacking WrestleMania weekend just emphasizes how small the promotion is compared to WWE, and it will lead to constant comparisons. You can’t just run as an ROH show anymore.

I think it’s a good thing to separate Ring of Honor from WrestleMania weekend. ROH isn’t the top independent promotion anymore. It’s essentially a dumping ground for All Elite Wrestling, their live event replacement for AEW Dark, with most of the matches meaning very little in the grand scheme of either promotion. This isn’t the same company that used to run Roderick Strong versus Eddie Edwards for the ROH Men’s World Championship or even the company that had the Young Bucks face the Hardys in a ladder match. The promotion will just look small trying to run this on WrestleMania weekend. It would be better to do it, if they do it all, at a time when theROH product is extremely strong.

That said, what’s more interesting to me is the fact that this feels like Ring of Honor finally trying to carve their own identity away from not just WrestleMania weekend but All Elite Wrestling as well.

Ring of Identity

As I noted previously, ROH often suffers from the fact that it doesn’t have much of its own roster. The ROH and AEW talent flow freely between the two promotions. ROH champions are often disrespected in AEW by consistently losing when their titles aren’t on the line. The ROH Men’s World Championship was last won by Chris Jericho on an episode of Dynamite. A lot of wrestlers in ROH are former AEW mainstays who couldn’t find room on the show. The most original ROH act has been Athena and Billie Starkz, and that’s also starting to creep into AEW now. 

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If Ring of Honor wants to build their own identity, starting with this year’s Supercard of Honor would be a good way to do it. This event is away from AEW and away from WWE. AEW doesn’t hold their May pay-per-view until May 25, a full three weeks after Supercard of Honor. Their other annual events are currently scheduled to take place close to other AEW PPVs (Death Before Dishonor in July is quite close to All In/All Out, while Final Battle ran last year only a week prior to AEW’s World’s End), so I’m curious if down the road we’ll see more space between Death Before Dishonor,Final Battle, and the nearest AEW pay per view events.

ROH will eventually be able to get something other than HonorClub for their weekly production. Once that happens, ROH President Tony Khan can start thinking of ways to truly separate ROH from AEW and make the two feel like distinct products that complement each other. Tony can either try to just give ROH a unique roster, or he can give the whole company a unique aesthetic, either as a developmental promotion for AEW or something else.

I know that ROH is unlikely to spend a lot of money until they get better distribution, but my hope is for this Supercard of Honor to be the beginning of ensuring Ring of Honor can develop its own identity with its own talent and voice. My hope is they look into doing ROH-centric tapings completely separate from AEW TV events. Bring back Dark, do whatever, but ROH should be in its own world separate from that. Smaller venues, multiple tapings per day—they should do everything they can to give it a different feel from AEW. 

While I do think they need to do this to separate AEW from ROH, I also think there’s one way ROH can “team back up” with AEW before a major event.

The Weekend Wars

While I agree that Tony Khan shouldn’t be trying to run ROH in WWE’s backyard, he should consider running it in his own backyard.

Every AEW pay per view should be a major weekend event for anyone traveling for the show and for anyone in the area. Take Dynasty for example. This year’s Dynasty will be held at the Liacouras Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Sunday, April 6. Friday, April 4 and Saturday, April 5 should be wrestling events that weekend all over Philadelphia, and Tony Khan could make it themed so that pro wrestling fans know which events are AEW/ROH approved.

Khan could run the ECW Arena (the 2300 Arena as it’s now known is about 15 minutes away from Liacouras by car) on that Friday and Saturday. Saturday’s event could be AEW Collision, but I’d rather they run ROH that night there. Friday and Saturday afternoon could be for independent promotions that Tony Khan knows would respect him enough to book high-quality shows.

Essentially, my suggestion is that ROH/AEW create their own weekend and bring the independent wrestling spirit to them by giving free rental on the days they book the arena so fans know that if they come to the PPV that weekend they will have multiple shows with a bit of a “Tony Khan Seal of Quality” to watch. There would be noo worries about seeing inexperienced WWEID wrestlers with Gabe Sapolsky poking around to see who he can pay in t-shirts for taking bumps.

While I did advocate for ROH and AEW to not do events together anymore, I think that if Ring of Honor was already running their own TV tapings (hopefully with a new TV/streaming deal) and was no longer the AEW Dark replacement, it would start to feel special again when ROH works that AEW pay per view weekend. It would also ensure that the independent spirit of Ring of Honor, even if it doesn’t exist authentically, can still continue by having indie companies work alongside ROH during that AEW pay per view weekend.

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Symbolic Gesture

Looking at that Supercard of Honor poster with the champions on it, you see Chris Jericho, Sammy Guevara, Dustin Rhodes, and Athena all front and centre. Jericho, Sammy, and Dustin are definitely not thought of as Ring of Honor stars and are instead considered AEW stars. Athena, on the other hand, does actually feel like an attraction for Ring of Honor as the ROH Women’s World Champion.

It does feel though as if Athena could be coming to the end of her reign and looking at finally jumping back to All Elite Wrestling to take aim at Mercedes Moné. Should that be the case, it would mean Ring of Honor really doesn’t have much of an identity aside from providing a home to AEW talents who can’t get the TV time they want.

That’s not entirely a bad thing, and maybe this show can be the jumping off point for ROH to really build an identity of their own with their own talents that rarely appear on AEW and especially do not appear as ROH champions to lose to harder-pushed AEW talent.

From Athena to Red Velvet to even Sammy Guevara, I think there has been some great work done by people who couldn’t find a spot in the past year on AEW TV and are instead making ROH their home. I see moving Supercard of Honor from WrestleMania weekend to their own show on the Boardwalk as a symbolic gesture that it’s time to separate ROH from AEW, at least in perception, and allow ROH to build its own identity with its own shows, hopefully separate from AEW tapings going forward.

Even if they do, I think that if AEW puts more time into planning their pay per view weekends and uses them as opportunities to pull in choice indie promotions and ROH on the same weekend in a smaller venue, it can create a real party/event weekend atmosphere so ROH doesn’t have to piggyback a WWE event. They can instead be an attraction for an AEW/ROH/Indie weekend of events.

Once you do that, you can truly build a Supercard of Honor that feels like the traditions of Ring of Honor without any association with another promotion’s weekend of events

By Aaron Wrotkowski of GrapPro.com

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Finlay vs Goto

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Rey de Reyes

AAA’s first major show of the year was screened live on Space and MAX in Mexico, becoming available on Youtube the week after. As has become standard fare, only the second half of the show was broadcast live with the Rey de Reyes..