STARDOM Has Brought In Talent From All Walks Of Life

World Wonder Ring STARDOM has been around since 2010, and it has served as the top joshi promotion in Japan for over a decade. Obviously being a Japan-based promotion, a majority of the talent that work there are from Japan, but there have been plenty of foreign wrestlers, a.k.a gaijin.

On the men’s side of things, the first gaijin wrestlers that come to mind might be Big Van Vader, Stan Hansen, Kenny Omega, etc. but what about on the women’s side? STARDOM has had a few with varying degrees of success, so let’s shine a light on these talented wrestlers and talk about some of the more popular names that traveled to Japan in hopes of STARDOM…stardom.

Let’s start things off with the High Speed Championship, as it has seen a few different gaijin wrestlers capture said title. The first would be Star Fire, a luchador from CMLL who came to STARDOM in 2014. Star Fire didn’t find much success until they beat Koguma for the High Speed title in 2015, with her reign lasting 129 days.

After Star Fire, the High Speed title would be held by La Rosa Negra, Kris Wolf, Shanna, and Mari Apache, with Apache having an especially long reign at 498 days. Since 2018, when Mari lost the belt to Hazuki, the title has remained with Japanese talent.

The Artist of STARDOM Championships have been held by many different gaijin wrestlers. So far, there have been nine different foreign wrestlers to hold these belts. Interestingly, there have been combinations of one or two gaijins with a Japanese talent, but never has there been three gaijins at once to be champion. The closest STARDOM has gotten to that was with Kimura Monster-gun (Alpha Female, The Female Predator Amazon, and Kyoko Kimura) and Team Hyper Destroyers (Evie, Kellie Skater, and Hiroyo Matsumoto).

Sticking in the tag team scene, we have the Goddesses of STARDOM Championships, which would not take long to have a gaijin champion as Hailey Hatred teamed with Kyoko Kimura to capture the titles for 43 days. Like the Artist titles, it was typically Japanese talent, and maybe they would partner with a gaijin, but that was until Bea Priestley and Jamie Hayter of Oedo Tai took the belts from Tokyo Cyber Squad’s Jungle Kyona and Konami in 2020, officially becoming the first team of gaijin champions. 

That did come at a pretty bad time, though, as the pandemic was starting, and they would be forced to vacate the titles. Since that reign, STARDOM would see Priestley, Mariah May, and Thekla find partners to go after the championships with.

Let’s talk about the somewhat forgotten SWA World Championship, which had some different stipulations attached to it. The rule was that challengers could not hail from the same country as the champion, meaning if a Japanese talent held it, they only defended against gaijin wrestlers. 

This led to names like Toni Storm, Viper, Jamie Hayter, Bea Priestley, and Thekla to hold it before the title was dropped in favor of the IWGP Women’s Championship. Out of the nine champions to hold the SWA World title, only four of them were Japanese stars.

While we are talking about the IWGP Women’s Championship, let’s give it some focus, as even though it is technically a New Japan Pro-Wrestling belt, STARDOM talent make up the contenders. Only three women have held it so far, with Mercedes Mone being the second overall champion and the only gaijin.

There is also the Strong Women’s title, which, again, is an NJPW title, but STARDOM wrestlers have held it before. That belt is in a different situation to the IWGP Women’s as only one non-gaijin wrestler was champion, that being Giulia during her 249-day reign. Instead, the other champs have been Willow Nightingale, Stephanie Vaquer, and Mercedes Mone.

Finally, we are getting to the big prizes as we can now talk about the Wonder of STARDOM Championship. It only took one champion before the historic “White Belt” saw a gaijin champion, and it would be Dark Angel, also known as Sarah Stock, or Sarita for TNA fans. After her reign, there were a couple of years before another gaijin obtained the title, this time being Santana Garrett.

Garrett has been the last non-Japanese wrestler to hold the Wonder of STARDOM belt, as the belt has since been passed around only Japanese talent. That isn’t due to lack of trying. Names like Deonna Purrazzo, Thekla, and Jamie Hayter have all attempted to capture the title in previous years, but to no avail.

And to cap things off, we have the World of STARDOM Championship. STARDOM is already pretty protective of their top title, and for a gaijin to get the honor of becoming champion must mean they truly earned it. Alpha Female would be the first gaijin to get such an achievement when she beat Nanae Takahashi to become the second-ever World of STARDOM Champion.

That reign was quite short, though, and didn’t amount to any title defenses before going on a multiple-year stint with only Japanese champions. The first gaijin to capture the title and have a meaningful run would be Toni Storm. While she wouldn’t be the “Timeless” character she is today in All Elite Wrestling, she was pretty popular and managed to have a 258-day reign with three defenses.

Bea Priestley was the next one up, and she captured the title in 2019 before having a decent 184-day reign. This marks the final gaijin to hold the “Red Belt,” as since 2019, it hasn’t been held by a non-Japanese star.

We have mostly focused on champions so far, but there have been plenty of women to work in STARDOM without capturing a title. There was a brief mention of Deonna Purrazzo, who had plenty of matches, but we also saw stints from Anna Jay, Chelsea Green, Megan Bayne, Heidi Lovelace, and so many more.

STARDOM has utilized the talents of numerous foreign names who would eventually make it big somewhere else in the future. Hopefully this trend continues and fans are given the chance to see the next generation of professional wrestlers before they reach…stardom.