[5.0] "I can appreciate how Stardom does shorter matches than other promotions, but this results in 8 mediocre-to-alright matches, not 8 great short matches as you'd hope for. AZM vs Natsu was bad. AZM was good, but Natsu was very poor. ** Hana vs Tam was fine. Tam had her fiery spirit while Hana had her egotistical aggression. This was fun but limited by the length. **3/4. Mayu vs Saki had Mayu looking great only for Saki to get the shock flash pin without doing much else. **3/4. Arisa vs Jamie had nice sympathetic selling and great kicks from Arisa, and Jamie was an okay heel, but she shouldn't have been the first to beat Arisa in singles action. **1/2. Andras vs Bea was another good match unfairly cut short. Bea's movement and strikes all looked good, while Andras was charismatic and had impactful power moves. **3/4. Kyona vs Utami was the 2nd longest match yet still required more time. Both women showed great intensity and aggression. Kyona was especially sympathetic with her expressions and cries, while Utami was very violent with her work in control. ***. Hazuki vs Momo was another alright match. Hazuki showed very good heel work while Momo showed good fire as she was dominated and then eventually made her comeback. They'd trade some decent power moves and holds before Hazuki got the shock win with the La Magistral. The length limited this, as I've repeated over and over. ***. Kagetsu vs Konami was easily MOTN, which was unsurprising, considering it was the main event and got the most time. Kagetsu's energy was awesome, and she looked great as she ran around peppering Konami with strikes. Konami sold very well and then impressed with her kicks and power moves, which Kagetsu sold extremely well. Kagetsu's ego would get in her way, as she refused to take the easy win after her 450 Splash and instead got caught with the Triangle Lancer after a very exciting series of counters. Strong chemistry but... the length... ***1/4"
[6.0] "As much as I love the Japanese block tournament format for shows, they're fraught in a number of ways. Let's be honest. This year's Champion Carnival and G1 were great, but fatiguing. Stardom's solution is simple, but elegant; cut the matches down. The upside is that matches are snappier, you can fit more of them on the card and the pace plays to the strengths of the athletes on the roster. But while it's a good concept on paper it's fraught for this show because it doesn't allow enough time to distinguish between matches. Where CC and G1 has the opportunity to make each match (and, by extension, each athlete) seem distinct, this show didn't do enough for a layman to visually distinguish between each match. It was largely good, but didn't properly heat up until the final stretch. The greenness of the athletes on the exhibition tag matches was fairly inexcusable, too. You take the good with the bad, but there's enough of the good that I'm optimistic about this year's tournament. Good stuff."
[9.0] "I thought this was an excellent show, a show that you can recommend to your friends who have never seen STARDOM before - it would be a good idea, if you can, to watch this show with them and can guide them through tournament matches, while providing them context about wrestlers themselves, moves, and all the different backstories or past history of said matches (five out of eight matches has some kind of history behind them). In my opinion, cherrypicking matches from this show is a bad idea, watching the whole show made me very excited to watch day two. A bunch of matches saw wrestlers trying to push their limits with new moves and sequences, and some of them were sloppy, but stuff that landed (most of it) was fresh and exciting. Also, with debuting Avary, some new theme songs (Natsu Sumire, Jamie Hayter) and gear (Natsu Sumire, Kagetsu) were introduced. Every match had a different feel and flavor, creating different impressions, conclusions and questions after they were over. The only dissapointing match for me was AZM vs. Natsu Sumire, they simply didn't have any trashtalk exchanges, which made their previous interactions memorable. ... and this is clearly out of topic, but it would be good to somehow distinct new paragraphs from one another."
[8.0] "Great start to the tournament. the first three matches were fine, but not great. Kimura vs Nakano had some good intensity and striking. ***1/4 the fifth match was quite exiting and kept up the pace throughout. *** Jamie showed some great viciousness and had a very good match with some strong moves. ***3/4 The seventh match had some good submissions and big moves. *** The eighth match was very exiting and had a lot of tension with some stiff shots and believable submissions. **** The penultimate match was great and had some fantastic kicks. ***1/2 The ME had an explosive start and a great match to follow. ***3/4"
