{"id":7845,"date":"2017-09-20T11:41:54","date_gmt":"2017-09-20T15:41:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=7845"},"modified":"2021-01-08T17:42:18","modified_gmt":"2021-01-08T22:42:18","slug":"toni-storm-makes-gaijin-history-stardom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2017\/09\/20\/toni-storm-makes-gaijin-history-stardom\/","title":{"rendered":"Toni Storm Makes History with Stardom 5 Star Grand Prix Win"},"content":{"rendered":"

This past Monday, New Zealand’s Toni Storm<\/strong> continued her year of dominance in 2017 by winning Stardom<\/strong>‘s\u00a0prestigious 5 Star Grand Prix Tournament<\/strong> in\u00a0Japan – their equivalent of NJPW<\/strong>‘s G1 Climax<\/strong> tournament – by defeating last year’s winner, Yoko Bito<\/strong>, in the finals. In doing so, Storm becomes the first gaijin<\/em> (or foreigner) to win the tournament since it’s inception in 2012.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/tonistorm_\/status\/909921751429136384<\/p>\n

Not only was she the first gaijin<\/em> to win the 5 Star Grand Prix this year, she was the first to win Stardom’s Cinderella<\/strong> tournament (a one day elimination tournament) this year, when she knocked off the Maya Iwatani<\/strong> in the finals – Iwatani won both of the previous years tournaments after it was started in 2015. Storm made further history as the only person to win both the Cinderella and 5 Star Grand Prix in the same year.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Stardom<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

These two Stardom accomplishments continue to pad an impressive 2017 run for Toni Storm, who\u00a0was crowned the inaugural PROGRESS<\/strong> Women’s Champion this past May as well as an impressive showing in the WWE’s inaugural Mae Young Classic<\/strong>, which just wrapped up a few weeks back.\u00a0Storm made the final four, before losing to eventual winner, Kairi Sane<\/strong> (former Stardom Superstar Kairi Hojo<\/strong>). Storm previously competed in a WWE ring over WrestleMania<\/strong> weekend as part of the PROGRESS Showcase at WrestleMania AXXESS<\/strong>.\u00a0She is also the current defending SWA Undisputed Women’s Champion in Stardom as well.<\/p>\n

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Storm vs Sane at the MYC Semi-Finals (Photo: WWE)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While Toni Storm has not signed a deal with the WWE as of yet, she was flown into the Mae Young Classic Finals by the WWE, and WWE has shown great interest in adding her to the growing NXT women’s division. It’s probably a case of when rather than if we’ll see Toni Storm in a WWE ring again.<\/p>\n

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Candice LeRae, Mercedes Martinez, Piper Niven (Viper) and Toni Storm at the Mae Young Classic Finals (Photo: WWE)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Past Winners of Stardom 5 Star Grand Prix Tournament<\/strong><\/h3>\n
    \n
  • 2012 – Yuzuki Aikawa<\/strong> def. Kyoko Kimura<\/li>\n
  • 2013 – Nanae Takahashi<\/strong> def. Alpha Female (Jazzy Gabert)<\/li>\n
  • 2014 – Io Shirai<\/strong> def. Yoshiko<\/li>\n
  • 2015 – Kairi Hojo<\/strong> (Kairi Sane) def. Hudson Envy<\/li>\n
  • 2016 – Yoko Bito<\/strong> def. Tessa Blanchard<\/li>\n
  • 2017 – Toni Storm<\/strong> def. Yoko Bito<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Past Winners of Stardom Cinderella Tournament<\/strong><\/h3>\n
      \n
    • 2015 – Mayu Iwatani<\/strong> def. Koguma<\/li>\n
    • 2016 – Maya Iwatani\u00a0<\/strong>def. Hiroyo Matsumoto<\/li>\n
    • 2017 – Toni Storm<\/strong> def. Maya Iwatani<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      This past Monday, New Zealand’s Toni Storm continued her year of dominance in 2017 by winning Stardom‘s\u00a0prestigious 5 Star Grand Prix Tournament in\u00a0Japan – their equivalent of NJPW‘s G1 Climax tournament – by defeating last year’s winner, Yoko Bito, in the finals. In doing so, Storm becomes the first gaijin (or foreigner) to win the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":649,"featured_media":7847,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7205,13,317,323],"tags":[1473,896,7206,475,480,598],"class_list":["post-7845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-history","category-international","category-women","category-world-wonder-ring-stardom","tag-5-star-grand-prix","tag-mae-young-classic","tag-pro-wrestling-history","tag-progress","tag-stardom","tag-toni-storm"],"modified_by":"Jamie Greer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/649"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}