Ever since the inaugural tournament to crown the Women of Honor World Champion last year, Ring of Honor has boasted an alliance with Stardom, the top joshi promotion in Japan. While that partnership felt highly underutilized throughout most of 2018 outside of the WOH tournament, it struck gold on Sunday night at ROH Bound By Honor from Miami, Florida, when one of Stardom’s icons, former World of Stardom Champion Mayu Iwatani defeated Kelly Klein to become the new WOH World Champion tonight.
https://twitter.com/totaldivaseps/status/1094775352696676353
The current leader of the STARS faction in Stardom, the 25-year old Iwatani has been wrestling for Stardom since 2011 at the age of 17. Alongside her reign on top as the World of Stardom Champion, she’s also a 2x Wonder of Stardom Champion, High Speed Champion, 2x Goddesses of Stardom (Tag Team) Champion and 4x (and reigning) Artist of Stardom (Trios) Champion. This marks her first championship from outside of Japan. For former champion Kelly Klein, it ends her reign at 59 days, having defeated the first champion, Sumie Sakai, for the belt at ROH Final Battle in December.
. @realkellyklein after losing her @Women_of_Honor World Championship in a fantastic competitive match against Joshi Star @mayuiwatani! pic.twitter.com/pXK00vi7i9
— women of honor (@Women_of_Honor) February 11, 2019
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