Marigold Summer Destiny 2024, Marigold's big show from Sumo Hall, with special guest Io Shirai, or IYO SKY now, Sareee helping out, and even an appearance from the old timers, Shinobu Kandori and Takako Inoue (as well as NOMI), representing LLPW-X. They claimed an attendance of over 3000 (“cough” bullshit! “cough”). Even with the guests, it wasn't the most interesting card on paper since it helps to actually add them to something, and was even less interesting to watch. A few months into the promotions life, and Marigold is just Rossy's Stardom 2.0, with all the same problems that promotion had since they got rid of the last trainer who actually tried to train them (Kagetsu), except worse because most of the girls are so green, and they insist on doing overlong cards. I've given them two chances, the first was their flag raising show from Korakuen, which didn't have any particularly good wrestling on it, but it was easy enough to watch, and I liked the presentation. This show, on the other hand, wasn't fun to sit through. It was mind-numbingly long. The usual bad tropes and lack of logical build we always saw in Stardom was on display in almost every match, and also like Stardom, almost all of the matches would have benefited from having their time halved. I watched the English feed, and Stu Fulton does a good job on commentary, he calls the match, tells the relevant background information and does the translations. I think Sonny is there because he's on Rossy's payroll and needs something to do, but he shouldn't be commentating. I doubt I'll be sitting through another one of these shows, but anyway, here's a quick review of this show.

Rea Seto vs. Komomo Minami 8:23. Rookie match with a million dropkicks, submissions, flash pins, and awful striking exchanges. It was watchable when Seto was doing her dropkicks and submissions. Komomo didn't look ready to be on the big show. She couldn't do anything well, even her dropkicks weren't good, and she gassed out early. 1/2*

Chika Goto & Kouki Amarei vs. Kizuna Tanaka & Victoria Yuzuki 10:00. Another rookies match. This was an unfocused mess where they just did whatever and nothing made any sense. The problem is that's what they train the girls to do, so when they move up, it's no wonder they don't know how to work a match with any logic to it. Tanaka was the only one who looked like she knew what she was doing, and while she mostly looked fine, she had two clumsy opponents to work with. Yuzuki can do about three moves and nothing else, but that makes her the second best of the six rookies on the card. She shows some fire, and at least does her moves well. Those two might be worth keeping an eye on. I can't say the same for Goto and Kouki, they were hopeless, Goto getting dizzy doing a giant swing was pretty funny. *

CHIAKI & Nagisa Nozaki vs. Myla Grace & Zayda Steel 8:40. The opening ceremony took place prior to this match, which was the old Stardom cringe from way back with the girls dancing in the ring. Shinno Omukai, Michiko Omukai's daughter was announced as the newest member of Marigold. This match was putrid, worse than the rookies matches. It was just a bad wrestling match for the most part until they got a chair involved in the end and the whole thing just fell apart. The gaijin showed nothing, I couldn't be bothered to find out which one was which, both were awful, but the worst of the two had the most ring time (Zayda maybe). CHIAKI was particularly awful with her horrible offense and inability to stop smiling and look serious. 1/4*

Marigold Super Flyweight Title Tournament Final Match: Natsumi Showzuki vs. Misa Matsui 14:51. Some of the action was okay, some of it wasn't, and the last few minutes with the two looking for pins and the time limit running down was good. They did their preplanned sequences and spots well enough, though they were quite basic, but between that it was a mess because they got lost on how to fill in their time. Showzuki shows some promise, and was by far the best of two. Matsui got her mouth busted with a double knee. These matches are badly exposing that the girls aren't being taught basic wrestling psychology, and don't have basic reactions to fall back on when they don't know what to do. *1/2

NORI, Shinobu Kandori & Takako Inoue vs. Mai Sakurai, Nanae Takahashi & Nao Ishikawa 15:33. Marigold is using the LLPW dojo, which explains why they're on the show. Apparently, this match was for the dojo, so the result was never in doubt. The match started with brawling, which was a good start, and then turned into a messy, hectic match that went downhill in a hurry. Then it got good again towards the end, which bailed the match out. Kandori hooked Nanae in a choke sleeper while her teammates were held back for a good finish tease, and some good action between NORI and Nao followed. This wasn't a good match, but it had a good finishing run, and was fun aside from Nanae's annoying and constant screaming. The Paradise Lock tops the Canadian Destroyer as the dumbest move in wrestling, but watching Kandori sell it was pretty funny. **

Marigold United National Title Tournament Semi Final Match: Miku Aono vs. MIRAI 24:14. Mirai is the only semi decent worker they have on the Marigold roster. This was a decent match, but more than any other match, it was way longer than it should have been. It was a slow-paced story match, and they were able to tell the story of familiarity they were going for. The work was solid and had a point to it, rather than being aimless filler, and they finished strongly enough. What held it back was the filler, the shitty strike exchanges, some weak kicks, and overselling of fatigue when they should have been increasing the pace. MIRAI was good here, Aono was okay but unimpressive. The match called for the traditional wrestling overselling of body parts, and MIRAI was able to make sure you didn't forget about her arm while she was pushing through with her offense. Aono wasn't able to do the same with her leg. **1/2

Marigold United National Title Tournament Final Match: Miku Aono vs. Bozilla 10:13. Bozilla ran through her arsenal of moves until Aono was able to score a leg kick and took over. Up to that point, the match was fine, but then it fell apart with an awful exchange and a lot of stalling. Bozilla is green, and though very slow and lumbering, was fine in her role, and was effective enough to get the crowd chanting for Aono. Aono didn't show the urgency you'd expect to put away the giant, which didn't make her look good, and made Bozilla look like a pushover. It should go without saying that 35 minutes is way too much for Aono to be working in a night, and it hurt that she didn't show any fire or anything, she just did a lame comeback. *1/2

Queen of Queen Match: IYO SKY vs. Utami Hayashishita 23:01. This was about what I was expecting it to be, and is getting as overrated as I expected it would. Io, or IYO, does her spots and spends just as much time stalling and playing to the crowd. Utami does nothing, just a few robotic moves, a lot of laying around overselling with her eye rolling facials and no urgency when she would come back. That anyone can think Utami is a good worker in any way shocks me, a broomstick could have played the role of Utami in this match, and it wouldn't have been any worse (it may have actually been better). Io dominated much of it, and it predictably seemed like an exhibition for her to do her spots because that's all she does these days. Had Iwatani been her opponent, or someone like Sareee, it might have come off a lot better because they're actually able to show fire and fight back with explosive offense, which Utami is incapable of. Utami came back with a whole two moves after all that punishment, which Io oversold for a count out tease. Io's offense looked good, but that's literally all there was to like about this match. She's nowhere near the worker she was at her peak in 2016. She used to be a lot more dynamic, and had more variety before WWE turned her into a pure high flyer. She's still way ahead of anyone signed to Marigold though. **1/2

Marigold World Title Match: Sareee vs. Giulia 25:48. This was a Giulia match, or should I say the Giulia match because it was the same slow paced, empty, overdone, cloying phony epic she always does despite Sareee being an opponent who actually could have pulled something out of her if she let her. Like every other match on the show, it was way longer than it needed to be. Sareee was able to contribute positively at times, but the match was well below every other big match she's had since returning to Japan, with Giulia dragging her down to mediocrity. There was a lot of aimless filler with Giulia's typical control segment where she just robots her way through, wanders around and looks at the crowd before moving onto the next thing. Giulia's brawling, table spot, and strike exchanges were all thrown in there. Sareee was supposed to be the heel, but had to just lay around during most of the Giulia dominated first half while Giulia did what passed for getting heat on her, in between her hot, brief comebacks. Once they got into the last minutes, they did the usual big bumps and near falls. Sareee took Giulia down in an armbar, but instead tried to break Giulia's wrist, which caused a referee stoppage finish that some people are complaining about. I thought the finish was fine, but after all the big move spamming, these kinds of finishes come off a little anticlimactic, and there wasn't much of a story around Giulia's wrist aside from Sareee going for it a couple of times before the finish. The right person won, but Sareee would've had a better match with a junior. **1/4