On the 12th of June, Stardom held the special edition of their Tokyo Dream Cinderella card. Now, the main event on this card was Utami Hayashishita against Syuri for the World of Stardom title. In what may be the match of the decade the two fought to a thirty-minute draw. Following that, the two agreed to go another round and fought tooth and nail to try and pick up the victory. This was not to be the case however as the referee declared a double knockout after an additional 13 minutes of intense action. This match has earned high praise from the entire wrestling community and is widely accepted to be a five-star quality match. However, the question that comes to mind for me is this… What does this mean for Women’s Wrestling going forward?
All of the wrestling promotions, Stardom included, tend to keep the women’s matches under fifteen minutes. There are the occasional matches in the US that can go 20+ minutes and the 15/30 minute draw in Stardom, but usually, matches do not last anywhere near the length of time that Syuri and Utami had to tell the story. Honestly, I think this is a shame. To me, the women’s matches are usually the highlights on any card. Whether in WWE, AEW or even in Japan, the women always do their best with the allotted time they are given. What Utami and Syrui proved to me in their match is that the women are more than deserving of more time in the ring. You have a nearly forty-five-minute match here between two of the best that Stardom has to offer, and it tears the house down. The crowd loved it, those viewing online loved it, hell even Meltzer loved it.
Even if you just watch the highlights of this match, you can see the kind of chemistry and drive that the two ladies have and that they laid everything on the line for the fans. In my opinion, every single promotion around the world needs to take a good, long look at themselves after this match. Utami and Syuri proved to the world that two women can absolutely produce a lengthy and entertaining match. WWE and AEW specifically really need to take note of this. With the Money in the Bank event coming up, you can expect the marque matches to surpass 20 plus minutes. WWE has a really bad history of letting the women have adequate time in the ring. I’ve seen so many matches over the years that don’t even make it to the ten-minute mark.
Alexa Bliss vs Shayna Baszler from Hell in a Cell this month is a prime example. Here you have the legit badass, former UFC fighter in Baszler facing the always entertaining Bliss. WWE could have, absolutely, given these two performers adequate time in the ring. Instead, they limited the match to under eight minutes in total length. This is freaking criminal. Not only did this match have the potential to be the most entertaining match on the card, but it had talent that would have made fans get invested if they had time. But no, WWE decided that the other two women’s matches on the main card deserved to be ten minutes or longer. I get it, WWE has a hard-on for Charlotte Flair and they are pushing Rhea Ripley and Bianca Belair to the moon right now. I won’t go into Flair, it is well documented that I am -not- a fan, and I understand the pushes for Ripley and Belair as they are two phenomenal talents. But you can’t tell me that Alexa Bliss and Shayna Baszler don’t deserve the same amount of time that the others got.
AEW is slightly better in how they present their women than the WWE does, however, the matches still usually end around the ten or fifteen-minute mark. The match between Hikaru Shida and Dr Britt Baker, DMD went nearly twenty minutes and was, in my opinion, in the top three matches on the card. Here, again, you had two phenomenally talented women who were trusted by their promotion to get in the ring and do what they do best. I’m positive that Shida and Baker could easily have gone at least thirty minutes if they were allowed to.
I’m not giving Stardom a pass here either. I looked at the Cinderella card in-depth and the majority of the matches in the entire tournament went less than ten minutes in total length. Out of the twenty-seven matches for the entirety of the tournament, only four matches went longer than ten minutes in length. I know they had a lot of matches to get through, but you still gave the World of Stardom title match 43 minutes while the rest of the card fought for scraps of time.
The lack of trust in the women’s division really needs to change. Every promotion around the world is packed full of talented women who could easily give you top-notch matches if you gave them the chance. Whether you’re in the US or overseas, I guarantee you that the women in wrestling are more than deserving of time and main event status. Three of the best female performers in the world are Japanese, and I’d argue that the majority of the top ten in the world actually are, but that said those three women are better than 99% of the entire male roster around the world. Hell, the majority of the Stardom roster alone is more entertaining and talented than the bulk of WWE’s male roster. I’d argue that the women in WWE are even more talented and entertaining than the men.
What Utami Hayashishita and Syuri did on June 12th was nothing short of amazing. It was a legendary match and it set the bar for women around the world. Those women have the talent to reach the same heights as Syuri and Utami did. The real problem lies in whether their promotions will give them the chance to prove their worth. I don’t trust WWE or AEW to do this, but I’ve been wrong before. At the end of the day, if you’re a fan of women’s wrestling, you need to support the talented women on every roster and make your voices heard that you want more of them. They deserve it more than you may think.