It was a night of shocks and surprises in Japan today, but NJPW didn’t have all the fun. In Yokohama, Oedo Tai‘s Kagetsu won her first Stardom singles title and made it a big one, by defeating World of Stardom Champion Toni Storm for the top title in the promotion.
June 9 Yokohama
◆World of Stardom Title
Kagetsu pinned Toni Storm to become the 10th World of Stardom champion.
part 5 pic.twitter.com/zESBkhwVJo— We Are Stardom (@we_are_stardom) June 9, 2018
Trained by joshi legend Meiko Satomura, Kagetsu began with Meiko’s Sendai Girls promotion in 2008 as a teenager under the name Yukari Ishino, working as a regular until 2014. As her experience grew, she also began working with all the other top promotions in Japan, including Japanese Women Pro-Wrestling (JWP), OZ Academy, Pro Wrestling WAVE, Ice Ribbon, and more. She worked some sporadic matches with Stardom off and on throughout her years, but it was in 2016 that she became a Stardom regular and joining Oedo Tai. Considered a tag team specialist (she was a 2x OZ Academy Tag Team Champion with Kaho Kobayashi in MISSION K4), going into today’s World of Stardom Championship match, she was a 2x Goddess of Stardom Champion (once with Kyoko Kimura and once with Hana Kimura), as well as an Artist of Stardom Champion (with both Kimura sisters). It marks Kagetsu’s first singles title in Stardom and her first since winning the JWP Junior Championship in 2011.
For Toni Storm, her 258 day reign as World of Stardom Champion has ended, but she’ll most likely be moving on to new ventures. She’s slated to compete at the WWE United Kingdom Championship event in London, England next week and with all signs pointing towards the start of a new UK show, Storm will play a heavy part in the UK brand, not to mention probably inclusion in the upcoming Mae Young Classic II.
