Hello Friends!
It’s been almost a year since my last article for the website. Mark and I have joked that it’s become an annual tradition for me to write just one article a year. So with that being said it should come as no surprise that today’s topic might feel a bit outdated. But I must say, the events surrounding Starlight Kid in Stardom recently have left me utterly baffled. With my yearly deadline fast approaching, I’m going to dive into the ongoing storyline of Starlight Kid and share my thoughts until I get them all out. I’m not sure where this article will go or how long it will be. so let’s just jump right into it.
The reason i wanted to write this article was because Starlight Kid was recently jumped by Oedo Tai, She was beaten up by her own friends and dumped on the curb like a piece of trash. Following that shocking turn by Oedo Tai with a dramatic and shocking return from Thekla, who we haven’t seen or heard from in months, Jumped Mina Shirakawa, joined Oedo Tai, and declared herself the Idol Killer and the Main Bitch. I was very interested in where they were going to go. But unfortunately today’s article isn’t about Thekla. Or the reasons why Starlight Kid was betrayed by her team, Which Still hasn’t really even been explained by the way, So I assume it was just for shock value. Today’s article is about how the real Main Bitch of Stardom, Starlight Kid, reacted to her faction betraying her. Or rather her lack of any real human or logical reaction. It’s also going to be about the bizarre reaction from the rest of the roster towards Starlight Kid.
Starlight Kid has been an absolute terror in and out of the ring for years. She’d talk trash on the mic at every opportunity and had no qualms about her teammates running interference, pulling hair, stepping on throats, or any other dirty tactic during her reign as the pseudo-leader of Oedo Tai. Here are some of the things she’s done to other women in Stardom:
– She verbally abused, gaslit, bullied, and berated Momo Watanabe. To the point where Momo lost all her self-esteem and confidence as a wrestler and as the leader of Queen’s Quest. Knowing Momo desperately wanted to win the top Stardom championship, the Red Belt, SLK constantly mocked her during promos, calling her “pretentious” and saying things like, “The Red Belt will never belong to a second-rate wrestler like you,” or calling her ugly and fat and other insults. SLK manipulated Queen’s Quest into agreeing to a match where the loser lost a member, eventually causing Momo to turn on her teammates after all the verbal abuse and insults. Queen’s Quest should hate SLK
– True to her M.O. While Natsupoi was still a member of DDM, she bullied and berated Natsupoi until Natsupoi finally had enough and put up her High-Speed Championship in a title match just so Natsupoi could get her hands on Starlight Kid. Then after beating Natsupoi, SLK humiliated her on the mic until Natsupoi left crying. You’d think Natsupoi or at least her best friends, Saori Anou and Tam Nakano, wouldn’t forget that. And that Cosmic Angels would have a grudge against Starlight Kid.
– During a backstage interview, SLK made sly comments about the leadership of Donna del Mondo’s leader, Giulia, saying “Giulia may be a strong leader, but for how long? There’s always dissent within a big group. Maybe Donna del Mondo isn’t as united as they seem.” These words might have planted the seeds for Donna del Mondo’s eventual breakup. And it wasn’t the only time she’s made comments like these to play mind games or cause fights between other wrestlers just for her own amusement. Starlight Kid was a total bitch to everybody not in Oedo Tai.
– Starlight would carry around a loser mask she’d place over her opponents head every time she won a match just to mock her opponents, and on the back of the mask, In big bold letters it read “easy win”. Because it’s not enough to beat you. Starlight Kid has to utterly humiliate you.
I could go on and on. But the worst betrayal was against Mayu Iwatani. SLK debuted in 2015 and quickly found a mentor in Mayu Iwatani. They were more than friends; they were like sisters, forming the MK Sisters tag team. Starlight Kid, with her cute cat mask and high-flying style, and bubbly personality became a symbol of STARS, and of Stardom, perhaps even more so than Mayu in a lot of ways. This put a target on her back for Oedo Tai, the haters of all things cute and fun.
The climax of this feud was a high-stakes match where the losing team had to give up a member to the winning team. Stars lost, and Starlight Kid was forced to join Oedo Tai. This was a devastating blow to Mayu, who felt responsible for failing to protect her protégé. Mayu eventually earned a rematch with Oedo Tai under gauntlet match stipulations. She went through hell and back, facing each member of Oedo Tai consecutively while they cheated and used weapons the whole time, But Mayu never gave up! Never surrendered! And it looked like through all that adversity Mayu was gonna somehow pull off the miracle, Somehow pull off the Hail Mary! She fought her way through Rina, Fukigen death, Saki Kashima, and Konami. All the while Natsuko Tora barked orders and cheated and broke down Mayu any chance the ref had his back turned. Finally with her last opponent Ruaka looking like she was about to be defeated after approaching almost an hour in the ring Natsuko and the rest of Oedo Tai jumped the ring. Oedo Tai beat Mayu with chairs, a bat, a pipe, and a chain. But despite being battered and bruised, Mayu had technically won the match by DQ.
Mayu had crawled through Hell to win back her sister! But Starlight Kid in a shocking moment still decided to stay with Oedo Tai after the match. A move that broke Mayu’s heart. Her reasoning was that she couldn’t just come back and stand by in Mayu’s shadow. She didn’t just want to be known as Mayu’s sidekick. She wanted to become her equal. Maybe even surpass her one day. Mayu, still shocked and hurt, Both physically and mentally. Embodied everything right in the world, surprisingly empathized with Starlight’s desire to be the best. Rather than slap the taste out of Starlight Kid’s mouth for subjecting Mayu to all that torment, Mayu understood Starlight Kid’s need to get out from under her shadow. And the best way Starlight thought to do that was to embrace the dark side. To branch out on her own. Become the Polar opposite of everything she thought she was and find herself, So that one day she could stand toe to toe with Mayu. Look at her eye to eye. And say that she had made it on her own.
So Starlight did embrace the darkness. She became mean and jaded; She started breaking rules, talking trash, and playing mind games. But you know what? She started winning, and it felt good. She became the bad guy everyone loved to hate. And while the fans hated her actions. Starlight Kid was damn good in the ring. As Cody Rhodes would say, Starlight Kid went From Undesirable, Became Undeniable, And was slowly on her way to becoming an Undisputed Icon.
On the flip side, let’s take a look at Starlight Kid’s old Tag Team partner Momo Watanabe. Unlike Momo Watanabe, who got complacent and stopped training after joining Oedo Tai, Starlight Kid started winning matches and championships, growing confident in her abilities and developing her unique style. She’d still use dirty tactics. She didn’t mind her faction members running interference. But that didn’t mean she needed to cheat to win, because she truly was one of the best in the world. Starlight Kid would go on to win The tag and trios belts with Momo Watanabe. But i’d argue that those titles came primarily from the chip Starlight Kid has on her shoulder and her desire to be an icon, just like her mentor Mayu Iwatani. Unlike Starlight Kid, Momo Watanabe never really cared once she left Queen’s quest. All that pressure of being a leader was gone. No more talk about being a Future ace of the company. A title she never even wanted in the first place.
Momo Watanabe’s journey in Stardom began with tremendous promise. She debuted in 2014 at the age of 14, quickly making a name for herself as a prodigious talent. But it was her reign as the Wonder of Stardom Champion that truly cemented her status as a future ace of the promotion in a lot of fans’ eyes. Momo won the Wonder of Stardom Championship on May 23, 2018, defeating Io Shirai, who was widely regarded as one of the best wrestlers in the world. This victory was a passing of the torch moment, as many fans and insiders saw Momo as the next big star in Stardom. Her reign was nothing short of dominant; she held the title for an astounding 358 days and successfully defended it 13 times, setting a record for the most defenses in a single reign. But to Momo, beating Io wasn’t about becoming the face of Stardom. It was about showing Io that even though she was leaving Stardom for the WWE. Those things would be fine here in Stardom. In a lot of ways, Momo’s motivations are similar to Starlight Kid. Both of them were unfortunate to be flowers trying to grow in the shadows of mighty oak trees. And while Starlight Kid loved the idea of taking on the challenge of some day surpassing Mayu Iwatani. Momo Watanabe seemed to hate being in the spotlight, And the forced expectations the fans put on her. Maybe that’s why Momo betrayed Starlight Kid? Maybe Momo, who had already accomplished some really amazing things in Stardom, was happy to just rest on her laurels. Momo even told Tokyo Sports “I never thought that Kid and I were doing things with the same will. We had our own desires and we aimed for the belt together, but we never used weapons, and we only posted cute pictures of ourselves on social media. So we didn’t need her anymore.”
That was a little side tangent I guess about Momo Watanabe lol. But I guess the point is that Stardom is full of rich backstories and people with deep interpersonal connections. The women in Stardom are fully fleshed out Human beings. With all the hopes, and dreams, and fears, and aspirations that come with that. They react to real situations in real ways. They get angry at things you think somebody should be angry at. Sad when they should be sad. They’re not robots. Storylines in Stardom aren’t just about a big gold piece of jewelry you can wear around your waist that i think a lot of other wrestling companies get trapped in the loop of telling. Starlight Kid has such a well-developed character and backstory. When she was betrayed by Oedo Tai and became a freelancer, it made sense that the other factions should have been hesitant, if not outright refused, to tag with her. Stardom had a real opportunity for serious character growth. The other factions could have made Starlight Kid face consequences for her actions, creating interesting moments and promos as she tried to make amends.
That’s why I was so disappointed that Starlight seemed to act so bizarre. Stardom ignored the storyline they had been building for years. Starlight Kid tagged with every other faction and almost everyone on the roster without explanation of why she would even do that, Or why after all the horrible things she’s done, That the rest of the rooster would just forget everything. And yeah i understand, The girls don’t make the schedule. If Starlight Kid was a freelancer now, I could buy that the powers at be would throw her with other factions. Think of all the dream tags we’d get and the tickets that would sell. But that doesn’t mean the girls would have to be happy with tagging with Starlight Kid., Or even Starlight Kid for that matter. Her being betrayed by her teammates doesn’t magically make her a good person again. Or make the chip on her shoulder go away. I felt Stardom went the easy route. The boring route. They treated her departure like any other time a team member left a group or was kicked out of their faction. Starlight Kid would end up doing TikTok dances with Mina Shirakawa, Tagging with Cosmic Angels and joining in on the Cosmic Angels dance with Tam Nakano, She was smiling and tagging with Natsupoi and calling their team “Mutual Love”. She even teamed up with AZM, her supposed “forever foe.”( On a side note, Can you really call it a rivalry when Starlight’s record against AZM is 1-5-1 and she hasn’t beaten AZM since 2018! Isn’t a rivalry supposed to have a back and forth? But I digress). Starlight Kid even went back to wearing her old colorful gear she used to wear as a member of STARS. And went on to tag with Mayu Iwatani again. It was baffling and confusing to watch her go full babyface and be accepted by everyone after everything she had done. Not only that, but the things she was doing were things the Starlight Kid of a few weeks prior would have gagged at the mere thought of doing. Stardom missed a great opportunity for storytelling and character development. Starlight Kid could have had a compelling redemption arc, with Mayu Iwatani stepping in to help her former protégé find her way. Instead, they left us with a storyline that made no sense, where everyone seemingly forgot all the awful things SLK had done. It felt like watching a character switch from being a villain to a hero without any real explanation, leaving me bewildered as a fan and the story lacking depth.
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But I don’t want to leave on a sour note. I’m not a person who criticizes things without offering a solution. But I’m also not a wrestling fan who is into fantasy booking. Every Wrestling fan thinks the things they would book would be the best thing ever because you’re booking for an audience of 1. So I’ll quickly touch on one final thing and what direction I wish Stardom would go.
Starlight Kid after weeks of being a freelancer came out after Oedo Tai left Queen’s Quest effectively disbanded and Saya Kamitani as the only member. That’s a whole other story and this article is already pretty long. Maybe I’ll have to write my yearly article in 2025 on the history of Oedo Tai vs Queen’s Quest 🙂 🌹. But long story short. Queen’s Quest was left with just one member. And Starlight Kid came out and invited all the former Queen’s Quest members still in the ring to join her new faction that she decided to form. Now I think Stardom meant for Starlight Kid to come off as a babyface here. But to me it seems like such a bitchy thing to do. Here you have all the former members of Queen’s Quest crying in the ring. And Starlight Kid couldn’t even wait 24 hours? No, She tried to make one of the biggest moments in Stardom History all about her. So I’d hope they play into that, although I’m sure they won’t. They want Starlight to be a babyface now just because the pack of hyenas she aligned herself with in Oedo Tai turned on her. But C’est la vie. To end this rant I’ve been on in typical Juno fashion. I guess I’ll leave you all with this. If Starlight Kid really is just a babyface now. And all the history and backstory I was just writing about is forgotten. I’ll learn to accept that and hope the story they tell is better than anything I could ever imagine. But if they ignore the Mayu Iwatani and Starlight Kid feud. A Story that at times has left me shedding tears of Joy, Anger, Sadness and Frustration. The best Story Stardom has ever told. A story that never got a proper ending…I’ll be Fucking PISSED OFF!!!
And just like Mayu Iwatani, I’ll always be waiting for Starlight Kid to come home.
“Believe now, shine tomorrow, we are STARS! Then. Now. Forever.
