Stardom offshoot announced.  No corporate ties right now and starting roster of:

Giulia

Utami Hayashishita

MIRAI

Mai Sakurai

Nanae Takahashi

Victoria Yuzuki

Nao Ishikawa

Not sure how Giulia works here given she is going to NXT.

Ogawa confirmed Marigold talent will be exclusive, which now explains the deep rift between him, Stardom and AEW. AEW wanted to use Stardom girls most likely, and he wanted the girls of his fed to only work for him. Stardom I am guess disagreed with this, and would love to grow using AEW, which was made clear by putting AZM on TV last week.

Also appears Giulia will work Marigold until about July before heading to NXT.

Apr 17, 2024 16:33:46 GMT c said:

Ogawa confirmed Marigold talent will be exclusive

I don't think this is true, Meltzer is saying that Rossy has met with HHH and they have some sort of working agreement. Giulia will initially work for both Marigold and NXT until she moves to the US full time, and Asuka and Kairi will probably wrestle on a big show as well.

Here is what he said:

"No, we won't. Basically, we are closed off. I think they might appear elsewhere, but I don't want to interact with other promotions. If we do that, the brand power of the promotion will be diluted."

WWE may be the exception but Giulia not starting NXT until after her dates here.

Really sounds like he does not want his girls working Stardom, AEW or TJPW.

He always has been a if you want to see our girls, you come to us promoter.  

Omega went in on Ogawa c. Holy shit.

None of this is really new information, but also not well known unless you really dove into Joshi drama. Few back did a deep dive in all this stuff looking for why Asuka never worked Stardom, and Stardom was a really messed up backstage. I imagine a lot of it was Rossy, but some of it on Nanae Takahashi and Fuka as well.

My favorite part is them not working with idols, but demanding their stars basically take on the role of idols otherwise and do the photoshoots and appear single to entice fans. The whole having little outside connections shit is a holdover from the old Gaea attitude of training.

Stardom also is like early RoH where this kind of an ego issue with them feeling they are a league better than their competition, which is why so many who do not work there have issues with them. Like they do like to use former idols as they want serious wrestlers.

People always be shocked pikachu face that carny business is carny.

Apr 20, 2024 16:10:06 GMT c said:

None of this is really new information, but also not well known unless you really dove into Joshi drama. 

Which basically makes it new information. 99% of wrestling fans haven't paid any attention to this guy, and now he is front and centre alongside Giulia at Wrestlemania weekend, and a big reason she will be working there. And now all those fans (myself included) are finding out this guy was a groomer and probably manipulated/harrassed/assaulted dozens of young women.

I'm sure WWE is really happy this is all coming out right after the Vince stuff quietly went away. Their next big female star was front and centre at Wrestlemania weekend with this dude.

He is not a groomer at all. Joshi culture always wanted young girls has often they train for several years before getting onto shows. And the young girls are the draws with fans. Why other feds leaned so heavily into recruiting idols. No boyfriends, no husbands stuff, is because they do live in the dojos to train, and just like Twitch culture, once a husband or boyfriend was known about the fans started to lose interested. Japanese Joshi girls like walk away from signings though with like boxes of gifts from fans simp culture is so strong there. Gaea Girls gets into the dojo, episode of The Wrestlers into Joshi culture. While Rossy is getting shit now, all Joshi favor young women, expect them to live in a dojo for a few years fulltime and while young present themselves as single.

Where Rossy goes beyond most is he was very controlling of where his girls were allowed to work. Other girls work the various Joshi feds as they were booked, Stardom girls come in train with the fed, then told basically where they could and could not work, and they would blacklist girls like Asuka to the point where they did not even want their talent working with them period. And it coming out now it was done against their best interests.

For Asuka, he would not let his talent work her shows. While Kairi, Io and Giulia got out, until this rift, almost no Japanese girl was allowed to really showcase themselves heavily in America unless he approved of an excursion, which very, very rare. And it is sounding like people wanted to come over, guys like Tony wanted them over, and he said no. He wanted his girls to be special where you needed to watch Stardom to see them. And that kind of his the problem, they were not his girls, they merely worked for him, and if he was holding them off American TV, he was kneecapping their careers hard so Stardom could benefit.  His profit was all that he cared about and some of the Americans girls that worked there were always open with it.

Here is a video of Gaea Girls doc on the old Gaea dojo. Some of these went on to be involved in Stardom early on.  For those who not seen it, it is very, very interesting like a full length darkside of the ring doc.

archive.org/details/gaea-girls

Dailymotion link to the The Wrestlers Stardom episode.  Amazing series almost no one watched.  Forgot that people straight out said in it that Rossy cares about cash first and foremost and may not even like the girls.  This doc also features a very young Toni Storm entering the dojo.  They do hit on the middle age fans and young girls, with a focus on AZM when she was 14, and how problematic it can be selling kawaii culture to middle age people.  The AZM face of an adult quote is from this.

Between the two of them get a good look at Joshi culture.  And can see that it is very situated in Japanese culture, while being very problematic on a deeper level than simply one person.  Could be seen as deep child exploitation.

If people check out that Wrestlers video, HIGHLY recommend this one as well, about death matches. Features a young Swerve, Onita and Kasai. Very cool look at the paradoxes that is death match wrestling.