Mayu Iwatani has announced that the 2024 5Star Grand Prix was her last tournament in an interview with Tokyo Sports.
2024 was a great tournament for Iwatani, reaching the semi-finals, before eventually coming up short against eventual tournament winner Maika. However her matches against Momo Watanabe, Tam Nakano and Natsupoi were universally praised as being some of the best matches of the tournament.
However, during the aforementioned interview with Tokyo Sports, Mayu stated;
“This year I was in top condition and gave it my all, and yet I lost… I don’t know if I’ll be in better condition next year than I was this year… Because I have such strong feelings about this year, I will not be appearing in 5★STAR next year. I will be retiring from 5★STAR.”
The above translation is courtesy of @meraWRESTLING
Iwatani is the most-tenured wrestler in Stardom history, having wrestled over 900 matches for the promotion, and holds the record for most consecutive 5Star Grand Prix tournament appearances and most 5Star Grand Prix match victories. Mayu won the tournament in 2018, defeating Utami Hayashishita in the final.
A full link to the Tokyo Sports article where Mayu also discusses her match at Sareee-Ism and continuing to defend her IWGP Women’s Championship can be found here.
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