Marigold Files #3: DREAM STAR Grand Prix - Prelude 2

The amount of discombobulate things that I had to do to shorten this series is nuts than The Nut Job. Get your mind out of the gutter, I'm talking about the animated movies. The first Prelude was me talking about the tournament coming up. 

I was going to go through all of the tournament participants, but I was taking longer than Manchester United winning a league trophy. I'm glad I finished watching FNG's Rants, because my mind was about to explode with Arne Slot's massive cranium line in the middle of his head. 

Anyway enough rambling, let's get into it.

PARTICIPANTS!!!!

League A:

Miku Aono:

• Marigold World Champion 
• 2025 DREAM STAR GP Winner 
• 3rd Entry, 3rd Consecutive Entry

Miku Aono enters the tournament as the defending tournament winner and now as the World Champion of Marigold. She held the title for the longest in the lineage 298+ days and has defended it 6 times after dethroning Utami Hayashishita last year at Grand Destiny in October. 

Out of the world champions that have entered the tournament which being the inaugural champion Sareee and last year with Utami Hayashishita, she does seem to have the least amount of momentum heading into this tournament. Not to say that she isn't a good champion, but she does seem to be a bit more overshadowed in comparison to likes of Mayu Iwatani and Victoria Yuzuki. 

Even in her big tag team on July 30th when she teamed with Komomo Minami against Sareee and Chi Chi. Miku Aono was there, but the focus was solely on Minami's breakout performance. I understand why it was done, but again, this is your WORLD Champion. I hope she has a good DREAM STAR, and actually gets more structural focus in this tournament.

Natsumi Showzuki:

• 2nd Entry. 
• The first entry since 2024.

Natsumi Showzuki returns to the DREAM STAR in the expanded format after missing out in 2025's edition. The first appearance was the inaugural tournament when she was the inaugural Marigold Super Flyweight Champion. 

In this tournament, she enters with... absolutely nothing. Okay, that was harsh. She has challenged unsuccessfully for both the Superfly title and the GHC Women's Title against current champion Mayu Iwatani. She became the inaugural Marigold 3D Trios Champion alongside Mai Sakurai and Erina Yamanaka.

Showzuki just lost the titles to Darkness Revolution's Misa Matsui, CHIAKI and Rea Seto. Now she enters with new resolve. I don't know how to say this, but Showzuki has more potential in the company's hierarchy. She can be either building to a potential challenge at Victoria Yuzuki, but anything could happen.

Misa Matsui:

• Marigold 3D Trios Champion
• 3rd Entry, 3rd Consecutive Entry

Misa Matsui enters the DREAM STAR for the third time. Her first campaign in the inaugural ended with 2 points. Her second campaign better than her first with the total amount being 6 points. Throughout her time in the promotion, she was Twinstar Champion alongside CHIAKI. 

Now she enters as 3D Trios Champion alongside CHIAKI and Rea Seto. Matsui is more of a strange case in this tournament. The Cutest Villain seems to destined to be within the middle of the card. Now she is in the extended format as a champion and likely to be pinned to stat pad title defenses. 

Erina Yamanaka:

• Debut Entry

Erina Yamanaka will make her first entry in the DREAM STAR. Yamanaka was competing in the company last year, but didn't compete in the tournament. From the internet database, Erina Yamanaka will enter her first Round Robin Tournament or her first tournament. 

She is also signed to the promotion while being an inaugural Marigold 3D Trios Champion. The eye injury she suffered kept her out for a while until she returned. Now she is not a champion heading into the champion.  

Yamanaka is someone that can bring a unique style to proceedings given her flexibility. If she keeps doing that Rider Kick, I am going to start doing yoga classes if I was serious. Wish her the best.

Yuuka Yamazaki:

• Debut Entry

Yuuka Yamazaki is one of the newest rookies to professional wrestling. She has started within the system and now, she is entering her first DREAM STAR tournament. It's not her first tournament in her career as she was in the inaugural Twin Star Cup with Nagisa Tachibana and a semifinalist in the 2025 Rookie Of The Year.

Those tournaments were single elimination ones in comparison to the point system of a Round Robin. Yamazaki will probably have the least amount of points in her League and likely the whole tournament since it is her first one. Wish her the best and good luck.

Aleah James:

• Debut Entry

Aleah James is one of the Outsiders or one of three Gaijins in this year's tournament. This is her first wrestling tour in Japan since competing for the likes of WWE NXT UK and Ring Of Honor. She has been competing for Marigold since the start of July. 

She is one of the longline of Gaijins who come in to do tours for the company. I have known about Aleah James for quite a while. I knew about Aleah James before she competed in Japan currently. So I am happy she is competing in a prominent wrestling company like Marigold. 

I don't know how the tournament will go for her, but I wish her the best.

League B

Mayu Iwatani:

• Marigold Super Flyweight Champion
• 2nd Entry, 2nd Consecutive Entry

Mayu Iwatani is one of my favourite wrestlers of all time. I think I have mentioned that a lot on my articles and blogs. She is entering the DREAM STAR for the 2nd second time since becoming part of Marigold. Her year could have been a good if a foot injury didn't take her out of action. And the fact that she is still Superfly Champion is still baffling. 

Last year, Mayu Iwatani could've had a chance to be in the Final on the last night of the tournament. However, Victoria Yuzuki made sure that couldn't happen by narrowly escaping with a 15 minute time limit draw. This year seems to be an interesting year for Iwatani. She just got back from injury and seems to be the favourite heading into the DREAM STAR. 

I would be delighted to see Mayu Iwatani win for obvious reasons, but I don't know what to think actually. I'm really mixed on the idea of it. 

Mila Smidt:

• Debut Entry
  
  

Mila Smidt is someone that I'm gonna pretend that I even know. She is French wrestler that has 6 titles at her disposal. One of them being the EWA Women's Championship, because the person she beat for it was... Mercedes Mone? Wait a minute! I know who that is. 

So this might be another Angel Hayze situation where she might bring multiple titles where one of them could be defended against Marigold wrestler. And said Marigold wrestler wins the title. But yeah. Good luck.  

Komomo Minami:

• Debut Entry

Komomo Minami is entering the DREAM STAR Grand Prix for the first time since debuting for the promotion in 2024. Minami has been rising star in the ranks of the promotion especially since aligning with Mayu Iwatani and Victoria Yuzuki. 

It is crazy that she hasn't entered a tournament until this point. She is definitely gonna be a huge star for Marigold in the future. But everything has a time or place, so maybe she can shock people this year I pressume. 

Nao Ishikawa:

• Debut Entry

I was surprised to discover that Nao Ishikawa is entering the tournament for the first time since joining the promotion at the beginning. This is shocking to see since she has been there and I would have thought she'd be in one, but apparently not. 

Given the way the league set, she screams bottom of the league. 

Nagisa Nozaki:

• 3rd Entry, 3rd Consecutive Entry

Nagisa Nozaki enters her 3rd DREAM STAR off from her unsuccessful World title challenge against Miku Aono. She has more of a case of if she can raise her points or fall in terms of points. You might be thinking, "What are you talking about?" Well my friend, let me explain to you from the information that I have gathered.

In the first DREAM STAR, Nozaki earned 7 points in her first campaign. In her second DREAM STAR campaign, she once again ended with 7 points at the end of the tournament. This tournament could be the ultimate test needed to see if she can sink or swim. Can she get more or less than 7 points on the table?

CHIAKI:

• Marigold 3D Trios Champion
• 3rd Entry, 3rd Consecutive Entry

CHIAKI enters her third DREAM STAR as well. The Former Marigold Twinstar Champion is probably one of the most unorthodox wrestlers I have seen on the Marigold roster. Her first tournament run ended with 2 points which is really underwhelming and low in general. 

You'd think she did better the following year, right? No. She actually somewhat stayed the same. She only had 3 points, which is still disappointing because there is not much of a gap between 2 and 3 in terms of points.

Hope she has better tournament and get more points this time.

League C

Victora Yuzuki:

• Marigold United National Champion
• 2025 DREAM STAR Grand Prix Finalist
• 3rd Entry, 3rd Consecutive Entry

Victoria Yuzuki enters the DREAM STAR after a great campaign which led to her being in the finals last year. She is now the United National Champion which shouldn't be case with her or Mayu Iwatani after she was injured and was out of action for the past 4 months.

And her last title match she had was in January this year. Much like with Iwatani, Ogawa should've vacated those titles, but he is way too stubborn to do that. No wonder where Giulia got her stubbornness from. Anyway, Victoria Yuzuki's first campaign ended with 5 points which is decent to the rest I've seen. 

Her second campaign was way better than her first. She managed to earn 10 points to advance to the finals, but ended up losing to eventual winner and current World Champion, Miku Aono. I don't expect any more better.

Mai Sakurai:

• 2024 DREAM STAR Grand Prix Finalist 
• 3rd Entry, 3rd Consecutive Entry

Mai Sakurai has had the "Bridesmaid, not the Bride" runs in the DREAM STAR so far. The 3 time entrant had been to the finals of the first DREAM STAR Grand Prix, but failed to hold the crown against Utami Hayashishita in the Final. 

The 2nd time she was in the tournament, Sakurai narrowly missed out on a run to the finals by falling 1 point behind Miku Aono. Seems like she is going to be one of those wrestler whose not going to be able to win the big one, huh? Close enough. Welcome back, Hirooki Goto. 

SYOKO. Koshino:

• Debut Entry

The singing wrestler will make her first appearance in the DREAM STAR Grand Prix. This is the first time she has entered a tournament like this unless I'm missing very crucial information here. She is probably going to have some points in here like a Ryusuke Taguchi, I guess. I don't know. 

All I have to say is, good luck and wish you the best.

Hummingbird:

• Debut Entry

Another debut entry in the tournament is Hummingbird. No. I am not talking about the type of bird. This is a masked luchadora who is highest skilled is being a high-flyer. If you have seen my posts, you know I love being high-flying stuff, so she impressed me off the bat. 

Unfortunately, my first introduction to Hummingbird was when I saw her spike her own head from trying to do a hurricanrana in Korakuen Hall from an account that love to post botches from the promotion. I am glad that I more or less felt bad about it since this can happen as a result of the high risk nature of pro wrestling. 

Luckily, Hummingbird keeps continuing these new things which makes me wish her luck in the DREAM STAR. 

Chi Chi:

• Debut Entry

Chi Chi has proudly taken the mantel as the Invader of Marigold throughout the months of trash talking she has done in the company. This is learnt from Sareee and probably her inspirations Trish Stratus and Kelly Kelly. That kind of trash talking was on full display during the Press Conference for the July 30th Korakuen Hall show. 

This was when she was teaming with Sareee and I could've sworn it was Sareee. The amount of trash talking Sareee and Chi Chi made were out there. I hope it ends with one of the roster member actually beating Chi Chi. She won't stop until she gets what she wants. Oh god. 

Diana Strong:

• Debut Entry

The last Gaijin to be concluded in the DREAM STAR is the wrestler Diana Strong, who is debuting for Marigold in the tournament. Have I heard of Diana Strong? Yes. Have I actually watched a Diana Strong match? No. 

She is a wrestler from Poland. I was wondered where I've heard her from. Luckily I have the trusty internet as a tool and I found out that she also faced Mercedes Mone. And had beaten her for the PTW Women's Championship. This is title from Prime Time Wrestling in Poland where it was created for Mercedes Mone's whole Belt Collector stuff.

Strong faced her to crown the first champion alongside the Bestya Women's Championship from Italy. So it was something different that I saw. 

League D

Kouki Amarei:

• Marigold Twinstar Champion 
• 3rd Entry, 3rd Consecutive Entry

The inaugural GHC Women's Champion looks to improve her record in the DREAM STAR Grand Prix. Kouki Amarei has the same case as Nagisa Nozaki in terms of getting the same amount in both of her previous entries. Her first campaign could have had her in the final, but she was stopped by her tag team partner Chika Goto, making her round up to 8 points.

Kouki Amarei, in her second campaign, was underwhelming in comparison to her first. Kouki Amarei became the spoiler instead of chasing the crown as she stopped Utami Hayashishita from moving on in the DREAM League. Now Kouki enters as a tag team champion and now has even less of a chance of winning.

Chika Goto:

• Marigold Twinstar Champion 
• 3rd Entry, 3rd Consecutive Entry

Speaking of Chika Goto, the GoChika of Marigold is entering the tournament for a third time. Chika Goto has had improvement between her two DREAM STAR campaigns. The first campaign ended with her stopping Kouki Amarei for her only 2 points.

Her second campaign, she improved from her first campaign with 5 more points in the log which rounds it up to 7 points at that point. Now she enters as a champion, which makes she will likely have more dwindling results given the format.

Megaton:

• Independent World Junior Heavyweight Champion
• Debut Entry

Megaton enters the DREAM STAR Grand Prix... And that is it. Honestly, I have nothing much to say. Moving on.

Rea Seto:

• Marigold 3D Trios Champion
• 2nd Entry, 2nd Consecutive Entry 

Rea Seto takes on a different entry in her 2nd DREAM STAR Grand Prix campaign. Her first campaign was on the same level as both of CHIAKI's campaigns with her having 3 points. So that was already impressive enough.

So she enters as a Marigold 3D Trios Champion, which isn't gonna help things any better given she was in pin eater territory not too long ago. Maybe I have ran out of options. I don't know at this point. I have one person left. Let's just get on with it.

Nagisa Tachibana:

• Debut Entry

Nagisa Tachibana is the last entrant in the tournament... And that is all I have for today folks.

Well that was a lot. Luckily, the next one isn't as long so I'll see you then. FOREVER!! 

Kind Regards,

ZERO (or Archer)