BITE-SIZE SHOW REPORT: Marigold Winter Wonderful 2024 – Night 1 (Thursday, 14th November 2024)

Pre-Show Notes

• As announced at Korakuen Hall on the 24th October, Chika Goto will be absent from Marigold shows for a month as she recovers from a sternum injury. This means that her current timetable for return is the end of November.
• Nanae Takahashi has been removed from this card, with the latter’s due to an injury sustained whilst taking a Urunage from Sareee in Hokkaido on the 2nd November. She will be at ringside for the match between Sareee and Nao Ishikawa.
• 1st Marigold United National Champion Miku Aono has been champion for 124 days – in her first reign. This will be the third title defence of her reign.
• Natsumi Showzuki has never beaten Miku Aono in singles action, with Aono holding a 2-0 advantage from their two matches in AWG.
• 1st Marigold Twinstar Champions MiraiSaku (MIRAI (1) & Mai Sakura (1)) have been champions for 107 days – in her first reign. This will be the fourth title defence of her reign.
• This will be Kouki Amarei’s second attempt at the Twinstar Championships, having previously failed with Chika Goto against MiraiSaku in Korakuen Hall on the 7th October. This will be Utami’s first attempt at the Twinstar Championships, and her first title match since joining Marigold.
• Attendance Notes: The announced attendance for Marigold’s ninth in Korakuen Hall was 715. Though a decrease of almost 17.5% from their previous show from the venue (main evented by Sareee and Bozilla on October 14th) and still less than the average of 968 Marigold currently has at Korakuen, this is still a reasonable number when further context is added. Excluding the two anomaly 1000+ numbers the company have done at Korakuen in Marigold Fields Forever (1535) and Giulia’s final match (1450), the average would actually be closer to 790, meaning that a number of between 700 and 800 is a more realistic target for Marigold to aiming for in the first year of their existence.

Quick Results

• Singles Match: Hummingbird def. Naho Yamada w/ Mad Splash (8:16) (**3/4)
• Singles Match: Minami Yuki def. Rea Seto w/ Front Facelock (5:12) (**1/2)
• Tag Team Match: Bozilla & Myla Grace def. Misa Matsui & Komomo Minami w/ Vader Bomb (9:22) (***)
• Tag Team Match: CHIAKI & Nagisa Nozaki def. Selene Flora (Victoria Yuzuki & Kizuna Tanaka) w/ Noir Lancer (11:35) (***1/4)
• Marigold Twinstar Championships Match: MiraiSaku (MIRAI & Mai Sakurai) (c) vs. Utami Hayashishita & Kouki Amarei Ended in a Time Limit (30:00) (****1/2)
• Marigold United National Championship Match: Miku Aono (c) def. Natsumi Showzuki w/ Texas Cloverleaf (13:12) (****)
• Special Passion Injection Match: Sareee def. Nao Ishikawa w/ Urunage (10:49) (***3/4)

Show Notes

• Though Bozilla pinned both Misa Matsui and Komomo Minami, only Minami was legal in the match at the time, hence it being recorded as Minami taking the resultant pinfall from the Vader Bomb.
• It was interesting to note that during the Selene Flora vs. CHIAKI/Nozaki tag match, that Selene Flora were only able to gain a foothold in the match when Victoria Yuzuki resorted to the tactics that CHIAKI and Nozaki had been using – tripping Nozaki as she goes for the Noir Lancer. It would be equally interesting to see if Yuzuki embraces these shades of grey more going forward in her quest to become the Ace of Marigold, especially compared to the pure babyface that is Kizuna Tanaka.
• This is the first entrance of Kouki Amarei as the new GHC Women’s Champion – which gets a huge reaction from the Korakuen crowd when it is announced – and she celebrates this and the team with Utami by debuting a brand-new white robe, more similar in style to that of Utami’s; perhaps in an attempt to show the chemistry between her and her new partner.
• With the Twinstar Championship match going to a time-limit draw, we expected new challengers to emerge for the belts. However, having just captured the GHC Women’s Championship – becoming the inaugural champion in the process – Kouki Amarei laid out a challenge to her tWin toWers teammate Chika Goto for the belt at Ota-Ward City Gymnasium on 3rd January at First Dream. Goto emerged from the back and thanked Amarei for nominating her before accepting the challenge.
• The United National Championship Match is the first time we have seen Natsumi Showzuki donning a white gear – perhaps a nod to the Pure White Belt and an attempt to prove herself worthy of the belt.
• After the end of the United National Championship match, Mai Sakurai came out to challenge Miku Aono for the belt, citing their time-limit draw in the Dream Star Grand Prix as her justification for challenging, wanting the match to take place at Marigold First Dream in Ota-Ward City Gymnasium on January 3rd.
• Sareee hit the Diving Double Footstomp on Nao Ishikawa but pulled her up before the count of three. Instead, she pointed at Nanae Takahashi and hit Ishikawa with the Urunage – the same move that had injured Nanae in Hokkaido on the 2nd November.
• Following the culmination of the match, Sareee took to the microphone and said that she would be putting the Urunage away for her match with Nanae and would prove that she could beat her without it. Takahashi responded to this by saying that she had never been so insulted, and that she Sareee wouldn’t be able to hit the Urunage anyway. Their rescheduled Marigold World Championship match is set for December 13th in Shinjuku FACE.

You can check out the Marigold roster win/loss records for 2024 right here; https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11_PWxd5BDxeHIfKqtQ2YtiwhGteRrVUZ3B5L4yrDQE0/edit?gid=517287206#gid=517287206

You can check out a comprehensive run down of the Marigold Championship Histories here; https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18MJ2Cebe36Nvfcpj8uVs1AtMbAV1chn-lG7t-xn44DY/edit?gid=0#gid=0

Upcoming Shows

• Saturday 23rd November – Winter Wonderful Fight 2024 – Night 2, Tochigi Prefectural Cultural Center, Tochigi (VIDEO ON DEMAND)
• Thursday 28th November – Winter Wonderful Fight 2024 – Night 3, Edogawa-ku Higashibu Friend Hall, Tokyo (LIVE)
• Saturday 7th December – Winter Wonderful Fight 2024 – Night 4, Osaka 176BOX, Osaka (VIEDO ON DEMAND)
• Sunday 8th December – Winter Wonderful Fight 2024 – Night 5, Taharu City General Gymnasium, Aichi (VIDEO ON DEMAND)
• Friday 13th December – Winter Wonderful Fight 2024 – Night 6, Shinjuku FACE, Tokyo (LIVE)
• Friday 20th December – Winter Wonderful Fight 2024 – Night 7, Sendai PIT, Miyagi (VIDEO ON DEMAND)
• Saturday 21st December – Winter Wonderful Fight 2024 – Night 8, Yamagata Big Wing, Yamagata (VIDEO ON DEMAND)
• Thursday 26th December – Winter Wonderful Fight 2024 – Night 9, Korakuen Hall, Tokyo (LIVE)
• Thursday 31st December – Winter Wonderful Fight 2024 – Night 10, Shin-Kiba 1st RING, Tokyo (LIVE)
• Friday 3rd January – First Dream 2025, Ota-Ward City Gymnasium, Tokyo (PPV)