Prologue
A bumpy first half of 2023 for World Wonder Ring STARDOM came to an explosive conclusion two weeks ago with the final event of June, STARDOM Sunshine 2023, taking place on the 25th. The show was one of the most compelling STARDOM-produced events of the year so far, and it climaxed with Utami Hayashishita and her Queen’s Quest cohorts vanquishing the evil Oedo Tai in what has already been described as one of the greatest cage matches in wrestling history. In one of the bout’s defining moments, Hayashishita was made to bleed by Natsuko Tora, forcing the QQ stalwart to finish the match wearing a crimson mask. The visual of Utami bloodied, fighting for her life against a seemingly undefeatable force like Oedo Tai made her eventual victory even sweeter. For some fans, this was the first time seeing Utami in such a dire state of being. However, for long-time fans of both STARDOM and Utami, that visual is quite familiar. Before Hayashishita went on to become the leader of QQ and the ace of the entire company, she was merely a rising star, hoping to continue on her path to success by challenging Arisa Hoshiki for the Wonder of Stardom Championship at STARDOM’s 9th Anniversary Show in January 2020. Arisa Hoshiki vs. Utami Hayashishita is perhaps best known for being the first time Utami was made to bleed and is looked back at fondly by many fans of STARDOM during that era.
My perpetual excitement following the Queen’s Quest vs. Oedo Tai cagematch prompted me to return to that bout for the first time in a long time. While I had no plans of writing this before clicking Play, I have plenty to write about it now.
Fears of Nostalgia
If I’m being honest, I am sometimes hesitant to rewatch matches that I loved from my first two years of watching STARDOM. While there are a handful of comfort matches that I’ve seen plenty of times, it’s rare that I venture outside of those and pick out matches I haven’t watched since they first aired. The reason for this is that I know just how strong my sense of nostalgia for that era of STARDOM truly is. While they have had plenty of phenomenal matches in the years since, I’m not sure if STARDOM (or any wrestling company for that matter) can recreate the feeling I got watching their shows from 2018 to early 2020. While it’s cliché to say, those were the golden years. You just had to be there.
However, since I am no longer “there”, I sometimes wonder if the matches and shows of that era live up to the memories I have of it. While there are some sure-fire bouts that I am confident are eternally great in any context, a match like Arisa Hoshiki vs. Utami Hayashishita wasn’t one of them. While Arisa was on one of the greatest championship runs of anybody in the world when the match occurred, Utami Hayashishita was still finding her footing as a main event competitor at the time. The novelty of Utami’s bloodied performance has always made looking at pictures and clips from the bout very fun, but I often was nervous that, if I returned to the match, I’d be utterly underwhelmed by what I saw. I worried that I was wearing those rose-tinted glasses that many wrestling fans do when reminiscing about their favorite shows and matches from when they were younger.
Luckily for me, I was proven wrong.
Setting The Stage & Weaving A Story
Arisa Hoshiki vs. Utami Hayashishita came about the same way many STARDOM championship matches do in the Winter months: the 5STAR Grand Prix. Despite her dominance for the first 8 months of 2019, Hoshiki found herself 0-2 at the beginning of the tournament, the first two singles losses she had suffered all year. Those two losses came at the hands of eventual AEW star Jamie Hayter and none other than Utami Hayashishita. Hoshiki redeemed her loss against Hayter that November, and after rectifying some other losses and draws from the tournament, was finally tasked with facing the Big Rookie for a second time on January 19th, 2020, in Korakuen Hall.
The pre-match promos both women cut backstage told the stories of who they were very well. Utami Hayashishita, an overperformer who had debuted less than two years prior, spoke stoically, plainly assuring that her winning ways would continue. At the time of the bout, Utami held three championship belts simultaneously, with an additional two title reigns already behind her. The Queen’s Quest Supernova had a cockiness to her that was expected from a member of the Io Shirai-founded group.
Utami’s energy was immediately contrasted when her opponent’s pre-tape began. Arisa Hoshiki appeared on the screen with the awkward smile you’d often see her don, visibly trying to remember the date and name of the show she was about to wrestle on. Unlike Utami, Arisa notably didn’t mention her opponent by name, instead opting to joke that she was finally going to rectify her last unredeemed loss from the 5STAR Grand Prix. Arisa seemed as bubbly as ever as she prepared to defend the Wonder of Stardom Championship for the ninth time.
Hoshiki’s positive demeanor carried her to the ring during her entrance, looking as happy as ever to be featured in that show’s semi-main event. However, the champion’s attitude quickly changed once the bell rang and the match began. Similarly to many of her other big matches, the switch had flipped in Hoshiki’s head, and she was in fighting mode. While the “Dream Navigator” was quick to unleash some deadly attacks, namely a shoot headbutt mere minutes into the match, Utami quickly found an edge and was the clear aggressor early on. The eventual Queen’s Quest leader used her arsenal of power submissions to grind away at the champion.
To me, the first few minutes indicated that the pair were going to lean into their character dynamic and follow a typical formula that many matches do. Utami was going to dominate the babyface champion until Arisa made a resilient comeback, using her incredible striking ability to even the playing field as the bout reaches its final moments.
However, it soon became clear that what this match had in store was something far different from what most would expect. Whether it was deliberate or not, Utami was forced out of her comfort zone, and Arisa brought a heightened level of sadism that made this bout unlike any other match in STARDOM that year. What happened next between Arisa Hoshiki and Utami Hayashishita skyrocketed their second singles match into infamy and led me to write about it here today.
Say Cheese!
About five minutes into the bout, Arisa found an opening and threw Utami to the outside of the ring. The champion met her at ringside soon thereafter, with her intense demeanor shifting into a murderous one as soon as she touched the ground. Arisa repeatedly slammed Utami’s head into the ring apron, seemingly as hard as possible, causing Utami to fall on all fours. This burst of attacks bloodied the young challenger, who struggled to regain her balance as Arisa hit her with a running springboard head kick for good measure.
The Champion returned inside the ring silently, leaving Utami to flail at ringside as the seconds attempt to tend to her cut. Arisa sat on the mat, waiting for her opponent to recover, nearly earning a countout victory before Utami regained her footing and entered the ring as referee Daichi Muruyama reached the count of 19. During their brief time on the floor of Korakuen Hall, the complexion of the match had changed drastically, and the tides had turned to where Arisa was now in firm control.
Hoshiki immediately mounted her opponent, throwing punches at Hayashishita’s head as she laid there, incapable of protecting herself. Arisa started toying with Utami, dragging her to her feet to throw lackadaisical punches at her head, growing visibly annoyed when the Queen’s Quest member staggered backward, away from the assault. Utami attempted to fight back, but Arisa quickly dodged her attacks and swung wildly at her head, not looking for a victory or a further sense of control, but rather aiming to get in Utami’s head even more than she already had.
There’s something very compelling about someone with an infectious smile, a bizarre sense of humor, and an overall positive demeanor being portrayed in the way that Arisa was in this match. As I said, Arisa was far from a “soft” competitor and was undeniably one of the most physically impactful wrestlers of that era, but this match felt as though it breached a threshold for the STARS member. Arisa’s newfound sense of sadism had transformed the bout from a babyface striker attempting to overcome a young, cocky powerhouse into a wild animal toying with and dismantling her wounded prey.
There were many points in this match in which Hoshiki could’ve ended Utami’s night with the Question Mark Kick but instead found pleasure in prolonging the challenger’s misery. The biggest indicator of this was when, after easily escaping Utami’s sleeper hold attempt, Arisa applied a cobra clutch of her own, holding Utami’s head just inches away from the rope before the challenger could finally grab it to force a break.
It was at this point that, for the first time since her entrance, a smile returned to Arisa’s face. The expression was equally as happy and joyous as it was before the match, but this time it looked as though it was straight out of a horror movie. Arisa’s demeanor instilled a sense of fear in the audience, both in the venue and watching at home, as the champion refused to let go of Utami until Referee Daichi threatened a disqualification. As the bloodied Utami crumbled underneath her opponent yet again, it became clear that Arisa’s onslaught was far from reluctant and that her drive to prolong the challenger’s suffering would be further proven as the match continued.
A Red Queen Is Born
In hindsight, this match was one of Hayashishita’s first great underdog performances at the main event level. While a big part of that came from Hoshiki’s unbeatable presence, Utami shifted into the role beautifully, despite the match being built with the opposite dynamic in mind. The QQ stalwart garnered ample sympathy despite Hoshiki being one of the most popular stars in the company, making Utami’s eventual comeback all the more impactful.
When Utami finally found her opening, it was cathartic for both the competitor and the viewing audience. A mistimed springboard cutter attempt from Arisa led to Uta dropping the champion with a German suplex, presenting Utami with her first major offensive opportunity since the beginning of the match. Utami attempted to turn this newfound momentum into a victory, hitting Arisa with some of the strongest moves in her arsenal but still coming away without a three count.
As the match entered its closing minutes, the young challenger continued to showcase her determination, even as Arisa regained control. Utami ate yet another diving head kick from Hoshiki, The 1399, this time kicking out at one and firing up for one last flurry of offense. Utami’s first major championship win was within her sights, but as her own blood began to stain her face, her resilience seemingly ran out.
Hoshiki finally hit her opponent with the springboard cutter before striking her with the Shining Impact. While this move left Utami clearly defeated, the champion decided to get one last lick in before her night ended. After cutting off her own pinfall attempt at the count of two, Arisa dragged Utami up from the mat, annihilating her with a malicious Question Mark Kick to win the bout in just over 15 minutes. As the dust began to settle, the message of the match became clear – Hoshiki had massacred the Big Rookie to successfully defend her Wonder of Stardom Championship for the ninth time.
After the finish, the champion was handed a microphone, causing that same switch that was flipped when the match began to be hit once more. As a faint smile returned to her face, Hoshiki called her challenger strong, saying that she had fought “the true Utami Hayashishita” on that day. Hoshiki even joked that she feared she would die during their battle, despite her offering the brunt of the match’s offensive maneuvers. While the champion alluded to facing Utami again at a later date in her backstage comments, their Wonder of Stardom Championship bout was their last in-ring interaction ahead of Hoshiki’s sudden retirement four months later.
Epilogue
One of the greatest aspects of Arisa Hoshiki vs. Utami Hayashishita was that it highlighted aspects from each women’s game that many wouldn’t have expected to see heading into the show. While Hoshiki consistently utilized a very hard-hitting style, the sadism she displayed against Utami felt on a whole ‘nother level than what she had shown in the past. This forced Utami into the role of a strong yet sometimes disadvantaged babyface fighting for survival, one that she proved her mastery of at STARDOM Sunshine 2023.
Despite being just 3.5 years old, the January 2020 bout feels like it took place a lifetime ago. The Utami Hayashishita you see in the match, a QQ soldier with long brown hair and cheetah print gear, is a far cry from the woman you see today, the leader of Queen’s Quest with short black and red hair that hangs down just enough to cover whatever facial wound she suffers.
Conversely, Arisa Hoshiki has been on an indefinite hiatus from the entertainment world since November 2021, living a very private life since. While her time in pro wrestling was brief, The Shining Star’s stint in the company from late-2018 until early-2020 is still viewed as one of the greatest runs of any wrestler in STARDOM’s 13-year history.
All in all, when I took off the rose-tinted glasses to watch Arisa Hoshiki vs. Utami Hayashishita for the first time since 2020, I was delighted to see it still lived up to my incredibly high expectations. While there were undoubtedly flaws in the match – Hoshiki’s botched springboard cutter and Utami’s less-than-stellar submission work, to name a few – I’m happy to say that I greatly enjoyed my trip down memory lane watching it. In fact, I’d say I’ve grown an even deeper appreciation for Utami’s resilience, Arisa’s sadism, and the story they both told on January 19th, 2020, inside of Korakuen Hall.
To hear more about STARDOM every single week, check out Stardom Quest every Thursday and stay tuned to the Five Star Network for all updates on the world of Joshi, Puro, and more!