WRESTLING

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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IYO SKY turned Raquel Rodriguez’s Tejana Bomb into a rollup for the pin Monday night in San Diego, giving her and WWE Women’s Champion Chelsea Green a tag team win over Rodriguez and Roxanne Perez of The Judgment Day. Women’s World Champion Liv Morgan worked the match from ringside on behalf of her Judgment Day partners, and her interference ended up clearing the way for SKY.

The win reversed the previous Monday. On October 12, Perez beat Green in a non-title match after Morgan and Rodriguez distracted the champion, and Perez finished her with Pop Rox. Green came back a week later with a partner of her own, and SKY gave her the numbers The Judgment Day had used against her.

The Judgment Day still went back to the same plan. Morgan landed a cheap shot on Green from outside the ring, and Rodriguez added one of her own. Green answered with a high crossbody that took Perez and Morgan down together on the floor, which left Rodriguez, the Women’s Intercontinental Champion, alone in the ring with SKY. Rodriguez set up the Tejana Bomb, SKY countered it, and the pin followed seconds later.

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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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Mercedes Moné was not at full strength on Saturday night in Orlando, Florida, and she still found a way past Thekla. Fighting with the nose she broke in the match that made her champion, Moné retained the AEW Women's World Championship at Addition Financial Arena, catching Thekla with the Moné Maker for her second successful defense of the title.

Moné came out in a protective face mask, and Thekla went straight for the injury. She slammed Moné's head into the apron, drove her into the barricade and kept the champion on the defensive for long stretches. Moné answered with a sunset flip bomb and her meteora, but Thekla's spider suplex and spear swung the match back, and a curb stomp nearly ended the reign. In the closing stretch Moné tore off the mask and struck Thekla with it behind the referee's back. Thekla still countered the first Moné Maker attempt into a near fall before the second one landed.

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