STARDOM

Kian Furusawa and Rian are the new NEW BLOOD Tag Team Champions. The Meni☆Mani pair beat Aya Sakura and Sayaka Kurara at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo on Tuesday, with Rian forcing the finish with a Hanaguruma at 16:32. The loss ended the champions' reign in their third defense and made the challengers the sixth champions in the title's history.

The match arrived two months late. It was first set for STARDOM's August 23 show at Ryogoku, then called off because Rian was out. The road back to it ran through Korakuen Hall on October 11, when Sakura faced Furusawa and Rian alone in a handicap match. The challengers dragged Kurara, injured and at ringside in Sakura's corner, into the ring and attacked her as well, and the plan backfired. Kurara fought back, Sakura beat Furusawa with her New Sakuracchi, and Sakura then accepted Meni☆Mani's challenge for the belts.

Kurara had been out since the September 6 show at Korakuen Hall while she was treated for an injury, and she used that October 11 night to announce she would return to defend the title. Tuesday was her first match back. It was the longest match on the card by more than five minutes, and it ended Sakurara's reign on the night Kurara came back.

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Hanan kept the Wonder of Stardom Championship in the prefecture where she and her younger sister grew up, beating Hina in 19 minutes, 40 seconds at Light Cube Utsunomiya with a wrist-clutch backdrop hold. It was her fifth successful defense of the white belt, in front of a crowd STARDOM announced as a full house of 792.

Both sisters were born in Shimono, Tochigi Prefecture, and the main event was billed as their homecoming. It was the first time they had met with a championship at stake since a Future of Stardom title match in April 2022. Hina, of God's Eye, was making her second run at the Wonder title this year after losing to then-champion Konami in 18:38 at Korakuen Hall on Feb. 28.

The challenger had Hanan in real trouble. Hanan struck first with a DDT on the floor and a Famouser, but Hina turned the match with a neckbreaker and an STF, then went after her sister's neck again and again and added a modified facebuster before landing a splash. Hanan survived the late surge, hit two backdrop holds and finished it with the wrist-clutch version that has defined her reign.

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Hanan got her championship belt back and pinned the woman who had taken it. At STARDOM’s Silver Week Tour finale in Maibara on Sunday, September 27, the Wonder of Stardom champion caught Ruaka with Seventeen for a direct three-count in a ten-woman tag, two days before their title match at Korakuen Hall. Their feud had spilled well beyond the announced defense. Ruaka took the physical white belt after the September 23 show in Shimonoseki, and H.A.T.E. attacked Hanan again after Saturday’s event in Osaka until Maika, Waka Tsukiyama, HANAKO and Utami Hayashishita came to her rescue. Hanan then requested a late card change: Tsukiyama and Hayashishita replaced her STARS stablemates Saya Iida and Matoi Hamabe, putting all four rescuers beside her in Maibara against Ruaka, Natsuko Tora, Bea Priestley, Azusa Inaba and Hanan’s own sister, Rina. H.A.T.E. isolated Hanan early, but her partners…

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Saya Kamitani beat Miyu Amasaki with a Star Crusher variation in the Osaka main event, but the more consequential result came in the six-woman tag preview for Hanan’s September 29 Wonder of Stardom title defense against Ruaka.

Hanan entered without the white belt that Ruaka had taken from her in Shimonoseki, then suffered another setback when H.A.T.E.’s Natsuko Tora, Momo Watanabe and Ruaka beat Hanan, Saya Iida and Matoi Hamabe. Ruaka hit a second-rope body press to pin the champion.

The trouble continued afterward until Waka Tsukiyama, Maika, HANAKO and Utami Hayashishita came to Hanan’s aid. Hanan asked STARDOM president Taro Okada to reshuffle Sunday’s Maibara card so the five could team against H.A.T.E., and he agreed. Elsewhere, Yuna Mizumori pinned Kiyoka Kotatsu to give herself and Natsupoi the victory over Kotatsu and Maki Itoh.

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