We take a quick look at STARDOM – and the debut match of Leyla Hirsch’s tour in Japan!
This is the second match we’ve seen from 2020 – with Beyond’s main event being the first. Ironically it’s involving someone we first took note of in Beyond, before impressing us hugely on her tour of wXw last autumn.
The VOD opens with a promo from Leyla Hirsch – it’s very to the point… as were the subtitled responses from Itsuki Hoshino and Saya Iida. All STARDOM matches on their VOD service follow this format… and it seems there’s a load of first-time meetings here.
Anyway, STARDOM doesn’t do commentary, and we’re coming from Shinkiba 1st Ring…
Leyla Hirsch vs. Itsuki Hoshino vs. Saya Iida
We’ve got overdubbed music for Leyla, which explains the no crowd response.
After everyone shakes hands, we get going with a test of strength that saw Hirsch overpower Hoshino and Iida. A shoulder tackle from Hirsch took down Iida, who then got cornered for running knees and a slingshot dropkick, before Hirsch got caught on the top rope and brought down with an Iconoclasm from Hoshino. Someone’s watched those old Quebecer matches!
Iida and Hoshino trade forearms as Hirsch powdered outside, but it’s Hoshino who pushes on with dropkicks, before she mounted Iida with a sleeperhold. Hirsch rushes in to break that up, but gets rolled up for a near-fall, then returned with almost a Lion Tamer… but Iida chops that apart pretty quickly. The relative rookies in Hoshino and Iida combine to batter Hirsch in the corner, before they turned their sights on one another. Hoshino’s whipped into Hirsch, who had to shake it off to break up an armbar… then break up things again as Hoshino looked to win with a ‘rana. Leyla uses a German suplex to get rid of Iida, before Hoshino returned to throw more forearms… only to run into a clothesline as Leyla put her away with a moonsault off the top. Interesting to see the double-springboard wasn’t tried here – perhaps that’s something that’ll return with familiarity?
At under five minutes this was way too brief, but solid enough for what it was – Iida’s just about to hit her first anniversary in wrestling, while Hoshino was on just her tenth match following her debut last November. **½
We’ll be dropping in periodically on Leyla’s run in STARDOM as we look to keep track on some of our favourites throughout 2020 – even if it’s in promotions we don’t regularly cover…