09/08/2025

Momo Watanabe is the winner of the 2025 5-Star Grand Prix, the 14th installment of Stardom’s biggest tournament of the year.

Reviews by Tim Hunter and Chris Whitehead

The win signifies the end of a long dryspell for a major singles success and Momo’s banishment to the midcard of the promotion after losing the Wonder of Stardom Title over six years ago, as well as the end to the suffering of the many Momo Watanabe fans who had been waiting to get another big Momo summer ever since.

In another historic reference, the finals between AZM and Momo Watanabe took place exactly ten years after the two had met in Korakuen Hall on 23rd August 2015 when AZM (still spelled Azumi at the time) was only 12 years old. The two would have a long intertwining relationship with each other throughout their entire careers, being stablemates in Stardom’s premier faction “Queen’s Quest” until 2022, when Momo turned on the group by betraying AZM directly in a “loser leaves the unit” elmination match and legit injuring her with a loaded boot to the face in the following singles match.

The two would meet again in front of 2,856 in an epic final to conclude this year’s tournament. A finals match up that wasn’t in many people’s predictions, but surely filled many people’s hearts with joy nonetheless. It felt almost predetermined that neither one of them would make it that far with Saya Kamitani – the World of Stardom champion and most likely target of the title challenge the 5-STAR winner would receive – already enveloped in different feuds, AZM already having beaten her leading up to the finals which would potentially net her a title shot anyway, and Momo Watanabe having beaten the IWGP Women’s Champion Sareee on the other side of the bracket, which should net her a title shot and further envelop her in the whole Sareee vs H.A.T.E. feud as well. In fact you could argue that 3 of the 4 semi final participants on the show were surprises as Rina’s starmaking performances throughout the entire tournament unexpectedly got her to this point. Only Saori Anou was actually a tournament favourite going into it, as she could have potentially continued Saya Kamitani’s pivotal rivalry with the Cosmic Angels. A surprising end to the tournament, but most certainly a welcome and an intriguing one.

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The final match of the show was a tremendous battle over 21 minutes with an ever increasing dramatic peak which saw both wrestlers kick out of their opponent’s most feared finishers and super finishers. It saw Momo Watanabe at one point stopping her heel stablemates from the trademark H.A.T.E. interference. An act, which on one hand heightened the drama of the bout even more, but on the other hand may also foreshadow Momo’s future in the stable if she chooses to go after the World of Stardom Champion and stable leader, Saya Kamitani. The match was the perfect mix of hard hitting and fast pace that you’d expect from the two competitors. AZM hit multiple La Misticas and destroyers, including her terrifying double underhook destroyer variant and a super Code Red which still somehow wasn’t enough to keep Watanabe down. Momo then hit three consecutive Peach thunders to finally pin AZM down for the three. The increasing amounts of kickouts may have missed the peak for some and this might not end up on many match of the year lists or even match of the tournament lists, but to me, unlike many other kickout fests, this just built peaks upon peaks instead of really going over it and was an absolute masterclass of this type of a match. It was a highly dramatic and exhilarating finish to an overall very good tournament.

In issue 8 of our Newsletter I wrote about my many qualms with the tournament going in. I should have probably made it clearer that I never had any doubts that the tournament was going to be any good – we are talking in many respects about the best roster and most well booked promotion in the world here – I simply thought the format could have been better. I will stand by that opinion, even if I had tremendous fun watching the tournament from beginning to end and thought that especially the knockout stages were booked incredibly well with many surprises, but no surprises that were negative or didn’t make any sense. I still maintain that a lot of the block matches, while always fun to watch, were essentially meaningless filler and stripping the blocks down to just 2×8 would have been enough to get an even more exciting and competitive setting. Nonetheless this has been the best tournament I have seen this year and it underlines my general feeling that Stardom is the best wrestling promotion in the world right now and it’s not particularly close.

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In the first semi final of the show AZM defeated Rina in just over 15 and a half minutes. In many ways this tournament has been the Rina show, but unfortunately the hype train had to stop at some point. Nonetheless, the last months – ever since her Wonder of Stardom Title (white belt) match against Starlight Kid and her Cinderella finals against Sayaka Kurara – Rina has managed to cement herself as a serious player on the Stardom roster and a world class talent, at only 18 years old. There’s no doubt in my mind that she should top any “best wrestlers under 20” list at this point. While she used to be able to come by almost on charisma and character work alone, her in ring ability is now right up there with it. She wasn’t the only one shining in this match though, AZM was simply amazing in this, as she tends to be lately. If you didn’t think the finals itself was the match of the tournament, this might just be it instead. After a crisp and fast paced match that ended in many heavy bombs including a devastating Cop Killer from Rina, AZM managed to put her away with her double underhook destroyer followed by an Azumi Sushi.

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The counterpart second semi final between Saori Anou and Momo Watanabe had an extremely tough task to follow and while it may have not quite gotten to the level of excellence of the previous match, it was still a tremendous effort between the two hard hitters. In contrast to the first semi final, this one started out relatively slow with a couple of chair bowling spots, but would soon pick up with a B-Driver on the apron from Momo, followed by Saori delivering a Fisherman Suplex on the apron in return. The bombs would continue to drop all match long with brutal forearm exchanges, stiff kicks and terrifying head drops. As mentioned earlier, Saori was probably the heavy favourite for winning the entire tournament coming into the day, given her ready made storyline with Saya Kamitani, so when Momo kicked out of Saori’s new spinning reverse DDT type finisher hold and her classic bridge pin it was clear that something was up. Momo would manage to put her away soon after with a devastating soccer kick to the face and a Peach Sunrise in just over 14 minutes. Even if both finalists had about 2 hours time to rest before the big main event, it was quite astonishing how much punishment they went through in these matches back to back.

The action on the show besides the title and tournament matches was rather pedestrian, filled mostly with multiman matches between all the competitors out of the tournament. Before the semi finals, the H.A.T.E. team of Saya Kamitani, Ruaka and Natsuko Tora defeated the thrown together group of wing*gori (Hanan & Saya Iida) and Bea Priestley. The reason why this went on first instead of either semi final, was that Saya Kamitani had other obligations as she rushed to Yoyogi National Stadium to appear on the LOVE IT! ROCK 2025 event, continuing her ever evolving presence in Japanese mainstream media.

Following the Semi Finals were Cosmic Angels defeating Empress Nexus Venus when interestingly enough Aya Sakura got the pin on Waka Tsukiyama with her new flash pin which reminds me of Darby Allin’s Last Supper. After this, Yuna Mizumori managed to win a threeway against Saki Kashima and Mei Seira, furthering her High Speed Title program with the latter when she essentially stole the threecount on Saki Kashima with a superman pin. This match wasn’t for the title as the Highspeed Title requires a specific set of rules that only really work for singles matches, but it earned Yuna a shot at Mei’s title on 6th September on the Yokohama PPV.

Next, Mi Vida Loca defeated the unaffiliated FWC (Hazuki & Koguma) teaming with CMLL wrestler Dark Silueta when Rina Yamashita pinned Koguma. In probably the best and most exciting action of the non-5-STAR undercard, the God’s Eye team of Tomoka Inaba and Ami Sohrei defeated Neo Genesis wrestlers Miyu Amasaki and Starlight Kid. This was to further build the white belt match for Inaba, who beat Kid on the opening night of the Grand Prix in a tremendous leg working match. They teased another leg match in this one, but obviously the dynamics of a tag team match made this look quite a bit different. This was a fast paced high octane affair with some really fun action before Inaba tapped Amasaki with a figure four leglock while Starlight Kid was struggling to get into the ring in time.

In the first title match of the evening Hina defended her Future of Stardom belt for the second time against Ranna Yagami after their match on the great All Star Grand Queendom show. I thought this was slightly surprising, Hina is slowly but surely outgrowing the Future belt as it’s becoming apparent that she is more and more of a complete wrestler and ready for the next step in her career, and Ranna was desperately waiting to get her first bit of a singles success after many setbacks this year, being a rather promising prospect on the roster. Nonetheless, Hina tapped Ranna out with a tightly cinched-in STF in a bit over 11 minutes.

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The semi main event was a highly awaited rematch of the opening night upset when Konami choked IWGP Women’s Champion Sareee unconscious. As it turned out, I was not the only person extremely excited for this, as the two once again created an incredible atmosphere in Ota City. The volume increase for Sareee matches in a Stardom ring is special, no matter on which side the fans fall. Compared to their first bout a month ago, there were a little bit more people on Sareee’s side, as the crowd swung back and forth multiple times, but the intensity and the noise never let off and by the end, the chants were still clearly in Konami’s favour. This Stardom invasion by Sareee is what many thought NJPW should have done with Takeshita but failed to build, even in a strikingly similar scenario, as the cheered Konami is from the promotion’s heel stable just as much as NJPW’s EVIL was. I guess why it worked in this case was that it actually made sense, as Sareee was working on the heel invader gimmick for several months in media interviews and deserved every bit of heat she had gotten throughout the tournament. She had also very clearly worked heel in her matches as well. NJPW never tried to do any of that with Takeshita, so I don’t particularly understand where the expectations of him being treated similarly were coming from.

The match was another tremendous bout in Sareee’s cap if maybe not as much of a barnburner as their first match which obviously had the added bonus of having an incredible upset as a finish and an even more intense atmosphere. Obviously Sareee got her win back here, but she still gave Konami a lot and I am very happy with Konami’s apparent resurbence over the past few weeks. This was a pure fight. Not so much about pretty moves and spectacular pace, but about kicking, scratching, clawing, pulling hair, insulting, choking and hurting each other as much as possible. For many it is probably the preferred type of match so it is well worth checking out. The spread of “match of the night” opinions for this card is probably spanning rather widely, which is of course what you’d preferably want from a wrestling show. Sareee won with her wristlock Uranage variation after a devastating headbutt in just over 18 minutes. She cut a long heel promo on Konami and the Stardom roster after the match to draw more and more ire from the crowd. After a while, Suzu Suzuki walked out to challenge her. The two had a great match going to a time limit draw during the tournament block action so this rematch should be very promising. The post match scenes here were honestly incredible, and it’s time for people to note down Sareee as one of the best on the microphone as well as in the ring.

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We have written about Sareee’s heel act in previous issues, but it has now made its way into the mainstream Japanese media as Shupro ran an article on the phenomenon in issue #2372. Sareee took the opportunity in that interview to try and make the fans feel bad for booing her, as she ‘admitted’ that the boos get to her and made her feel bad. Wrestling 101 teaches us that when a babyface is getting booed, trying to garner sympathy just amplifies those boos (editor’s note: hello AEW Cody Rhodes). Sareee is working overtime.

All in all, it was a tremendous night of action to conclude a tremendous tournament and a great heel run for Sareee. Chris Whitehead will have a larger report and grand overview on the tournament as a whole in our next issue, so please look forward to that.

23rd August 2025
Ota City General Gymnasium, Tokyo, Japan
Company Announced Attendance: 2,856
Watch On: Stardom World after 7-10 days

Momo Kohgo & Yuria Hime defeat Ema Maishima & Kikyo Furusawa and God’s Eye (Kiyoka Kotatsu & Lady C) and H.A.T.E. (Azusa Inaba & Fukigen Death) (6:09)

H.A.T.E. (Natsuko Tora, Ruaka & Saya Kamitani) defeat Bea Priestley & STARS (Hanan & Saya Iida) (8:06)

5-STAR Grand Prix 2025 Semi Final:
AZM defeats Rina (15:33)

5-STAR Grand Prix 2025 Semi Final:
Momo Watanabe defeats Saori Anou (14:02)

Cosmic Angels (Aya Sakura, Natsupoi & Sayaka Kurara) defeat Empress Nexus Venus (HANAKO, Rian & Waka Tsukiyama) (8:11)

Yuna Mizumori defeats Mei Seira and Saki Kashima (4:51)

Mi Vida Loca (Akira Kurogane, Rina Yamashita & Suzu Suzuki) defeat Dark Silueta & FWC (Hazuki & Koguma) (11:03)

God’s Eye (Ami Sohrei & Tomoka Inaba) defeat Neo Genesis (Miyu Amasaki & Starlight Kid) (11:11)

Future Of Stardom Title:
Hina (c) defeats Ranna Yagami (11:14)

IWGP Women’s Title:
Sareee (c) defeats Konami (18:15)

5-STAR Grand Prix 2025 Final:
Momo Watanabe defeats AZM (21:11)

Review By Tim Hunter

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Playoffs and Quarterfinals

August 20th 2025
Company Announced Attendance: 1,589 fans (+515 from Night 6 this year, +129 from Night 4 in 2024)
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Watch On: Stardom World or YouTube
Review By Chris Whitehead

Stardom’s 5-STAR Grand Prix returned to Korakuen Hall on 20th August, packing in a standing-room only 1,589 fans on a Wednesday night, which is the 4th biggest Stardom crowd ever at Korakuen! This large crowd brought an undeniable energy to the show, making the Quarter Finals show probably the Stardom “Vibes Show of the Year” for the second year in a row, with last year’s equivalent show at Shinjuku FACE being the small room version of this show. While the 32 person format may have been ultimately a failed experiment, the Quarter Finals show is clearly a keeper.

This show featured four “play-in” matches which qualified the winner to then compete in one of the four the quarter final matches. The play-in matches saw the second and third place finishers of each of the four blocks face off in a cross block format, for example Red Stars A second place faced Red Stars B third place, leading to two quarter finals for both Red and Blue blocks.

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In the first Blue Stars play-in, Suzu Suzuki defeated her Mi Vida Loca unit-mate Bozilla in a first time match up and in what may have been the best match in Bozilla’s tournament (not a short list at this point.) Suzu’s back was heavily taped, which made her decision to put away Bozilla with a German Suplex Hold an interesting tactic, even if it was effective. Afterwards, Bozilla pledged allegiance to Suzu and MVL, calling Suzu “a perfect leader” and then later in backstage comments declared herself as the Stardom entrant in the AEW Forbidden Door four way match for the AEW TBS Title, which she ended up impressing in. Meanwhile, Suzu moved on to face Saori Anou in the Quarter Finals.

In the first Red Stars play-in, AZM defeated Hanan, a result that both felt like an upset while also not feeling like an upset. They started with some high-speed moves before slowing down to a slightly uninspiring middle with no real control section (classic issue with babyface/babyface matches) before an ending stretch filled with counters, reversals, roll ups and nearfalls that ended when AZM locked in an armbreaker for the win, moving her on to a Quarter Final match with Saya Kamitani. They had a nice mutual show of respect afterwards, as one might expect from the leader of STARS (Hanan) and the wrestler on the roster with the longest Stardom tenure (AZM, who is 22.) While many people had predicted Hanan to win this year and may be confused that the “Ace in Waiting” remains in waiting, Hanan remains the future and we are still very much in the present. There is no reason to rush her. If anything, the longer the wait, the more time for one or both of her sisters to continue to level up and become her career rivals, which will benefit the promotion the most long term.

The second Blue Stars play-in saw Momo Watanabe defeat Ami Sohrei after a match that featured some spicy striking from both wrestlers, and Momo working over Ami’s surgically repaired knee (is Ami the only wrestler with a repaired knee that doesn’t wear the big metal brace?) with Ami making good comebacks throughout. Momo got the win with the Peach Sunrise and ended Ami’s surging run after her return from injury. This moved Momo onto a rematch with Sareee in the Quarter Finals. This tournament was basically perfect for Ami as she came back shortly before it and was able to shake off ring rust in tags, and then she hit the ground running in these singles matches, looking more impressive and confident with each passing match. Rarely does a wrestler ‘level up’ while out for so long, but she appears to have done so, and her run to the playoffs showed the correct level of booking investment in a wrestler poised to play a big part going forward (my prediction remains a dominant tag run with Lady C, likely with a Tag League victory later this year.)

The second Red Stars play-in saw Rina defeat Bea Priestley in what was easily Bea’s best match since returning to Stardom. Rina was already the leading contender for Tournament MVP but carrying Bea to a good match is the newest feather in her cap. To be kinder to Bea, she has shown signs of progress in the tournament, and seemed happier to be in front of this crowd than she did in some of the smaller shows. On top of that, her heeling got the crowd solidly behind Rina, which aided the match greatly. Rina’s win moved her onto a Quarter Final with Natsupoi, in the main event slot of this show. Bea moves on to a red belt match she earned by defeating Saya Kamitani in the final night of block matches and in post match comments, Bea firmed up her challenge to Kamitani for the Red Belt, for the September 6th PPV show in Yokohama.

These four matches were all pretty good to good but, outside of AZM/Hanan, they didn’t really hit a higher gear, which made sense given four of the people had to wrestle again later in the night. Before the intermission, we were treated to a brief, but fun, Rookie Tag Match, pitting Akira Kurogane & Kikyo Furusawa against Yuria Hime and Ema Maishima, which saw Yuria pick up the win (after her winless tournament run) using her leg choke to submit Kikyo, but not before Akira took out her pent up aggression on Yuria, stemming back to Yuria beating Akira to qualify for the 5-STAR.

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Our first quarter final was Saori Anou vs Suzu Suzuki and the urgency and intensity was immediately higher than anything prior on this show, as they both went right to it from the bell. Highlights included Suzu finding a new victim for her apron tiger bomb/piledriver hybrid move on the apron, an excellent exchange of hard strikes which brought out the “Saori Sicko Smile” and a “Korakuen Hall Tomihoro Ishii Memorial German Suplex Fest” which ended up with Saori winning with the Special Potering (also known as the ‘potato ring’) pinning combination. This match was very good but too short to be great. This was their first match in Stardom and second match ever, and I must ask: please wrestle more, ladies. They exchanged handshakes and friendly slaps afterwards, and in backstage comments, Saori declared she will go on to win the tournament, while Suzu looked forward to seeing “who can actually pull off that weird crown and that weird cape”. She ain’t wrong about that, folks.

In the second quarter final, we got a BIG UPSET WIN with AZM defeating World of Stardom Champion Saya Kamitani, with a double rolled Azumi Sushi rollup. After some early brawling and Kamitani aura farming, this turned into a really good back and forth match at a good pace, and probably my favorite match of the night. The ending stretch saw a series of fantastic nearfalls that really brought the already rowdy crowd to life, most of all when AZM kicked out of the heavily protected Star Crusher, before hitting the series of Sushis to win. After her win, the crowd chanted AZM’s name and it felt like this longtime crowd favorite had immediately hit a new height with this win. The extreme protection of Kamitani (not losing a fall in Stardom for 50 weeks, then losing 2 in 4 days) combined with her rising star both in the ring and in the media should absolutely build to moments like this where the right person at the right time gets an immediate and notable boost by beating her. This was the best match of the tournament to date, and a definite ‘must watch’.

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The next quarter final lifted the crowd even higher, through the power of Sareee’s months-long media campaign. Just when you might have expected a cool down, we saw a rematch from Night 10 with Sareee taking on Momo Watanabe, except this time Momo got the win. The crowd heat throughout this match was excellent and this crowd is surely in contention for my “Crowd of the Year” award, with Sareee being showered with boos every time she took any offense. As might be expected from these two, there were absolute bombs being exchanged during the striking battles, and no shortage of crowd brawling. Once again, Sareee brought her Ito Dojo juniors, Chi Chi and Miku Kanae, and once again they ended up brawling around ringside with the members of H.A.T.E.. This match was on the path to being the match of the tournament, until it descended into H.A.T.E. interference and weapon spots, taking the edge off everything, even if the crowd stayed with it all the way through. As noted in my review of their last match (which is in the Day 10 review within our Stardom section), the cheating to defeat the hated invader heel lacked logic and in this case, too much of it wasn’t even trying to be hidden from the referee. Momo got the win with two Peach Sunrise suplexes and then was delighted to pay back Sareee’s pre-tournament shit talk, taunting her about being “real pro wrestling”, to the delight of the crowd. Konami got in on the act as well, mocking Sareee for being hated by the Stardom fans and calling her IWGP title shot (that she earned on Opening Night) for Finals Night on August 23rd. Throughout all of this talk, Sareee sat there looking like she knew she fucked up by not just losing to Momo and Konami but losing to these specific women who she had talked down so much. Sareee’s facials were great here, as she suffered in silence while being berated. When she finally talked, she admitted she was ashamed to lose to Momo and hence unable to make it to the final. She was less kind to Konami, calling her opening night win a fluke and calling her a “one day heroine” before accepting her IWGP challenge. At the meta-discourse level, there should be no complaints here about Sareee (“the fraud” or “the match dodger” or “unwilling to do business”), she lost twice, she ate shit doing so and she admitted her shame afterwards. This was also a must watch match, despite the interference.

The main event and fourth Quarter Final saw another upset as Rina defeated Natsupoi to earn her place in the Red Stars semi-final against AZM. While this match was very good, and the crowd was behind both wrestlers, it was unable to hit the heights of the Kamitani/AZM match or the heat of the Sareee/Momo match. The finishing stretch was very good with Natsupoi getting a great nearfall with the Farial Gift and this led to a series of reversals and rollups for more close near falls, which had the crowd on the edge of their seat. Rina then locked in the Hydrangea for the second time in the match, and right when I thought Natsupoi would make the ropes to break the hold, instead Daichi called off the match and all my dreams died. Personal fandom aside, the crowd erupted in joy with this result, chanting Rina’s name and realizing that they were seeing the serious elevation of her in real time, as – regardless of how her tournament ends – Taro Okada and his booking team have hit the button on the Rina Rocket during this tournament and truly, the sky is the limit for her.

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In the post match, Rina noted she and Natsupoi are now 1-1 and offered Poi another singles match “if I win this whole thing” before dismissing her with a “Bye-Poi” (which Poi seemed a little too happy to return given she just lost, but she was probably just happy someone else initiated a Bye-Poi exchange). At this point, the other finalists emerged and each promised to beat the other before Rina closed out the show – once again to the crowd’s rapture – talking about how after waiting 7 years to compete in the 5-STAR that she would win the whole thing and “thats how this 18 year old lives.”

The back-half of this show was a pure joy to watch and putting this show on YouTube, for free, turned out to be an extremely smart decision, with the anticipation it built for the Finals Show on PPV from Ota Ward Gymnasium on August 23rd. Whoever wins the tournament will have Saya Kamitani in their sights, most likely on the “Crimson Nightmare” PPV in November or perhaps at “Dream Queendom” at Sumo Hall in December.

Full Results

5-STAR Grand Prix 2025 Quarter Final Blue:
Stars Suzu Suzuki defeats Bozilla (11:40)

5-STAR Grand Prix 2025 Quarter Final Red:
Stars AZM defeats Hanan (10:18)

5-STAR Grand Prix 2025 Quarter Final Blue:
Stars Momo Watanabe defeats Ami Sohrei (11:41)

5-STAR Grand Prix 2025 Quarter Final Red:
Stars Rina defeats Bea Priestley (11:29)

Ema Maishima & Yuria Hime defeat Akira Kurogane & Kikyo Furusawa (5:21)

5-STAR Grand Prix 2025 Semi Final Blue Stars:
Saori Anou defeats Suzu Suzuki (11:11)

5-STAR Grand Prix 2025 Semi Final Red Stars:
AZM defeats Saya Kamitani (12:27)

5-STAR Grand Prix 2025 Semi Final Blue Stars:
Momo Watanabe defeats Sareee (15:13)

5-STAR Grand Prix 2025 Semi Final Red Stars:
Rina defeats Natsupoi (13:21)

By Chris Whitehead

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