The long-rumoured new women’s wrestling promotion in Japan by former Stardom Executive Director and founder Rossy Ogawa has been named as Marigold (full title Marigold Dream Star Fighting).
The debut press conference for the new promotion saw the far-from-unexpected roster announcement of several talents who had left Stardom this month such as Mirai, Utami Hayashishita and WWE-bound Giulia. Along with the announcement of the debut event on May 20th called ‘Marigold Fields Forever’ that will feature a mystery partner tag team match main event with Giulia and ‘X’ against former NXT star Sareee and a TBA partner. A match with some irony as Giulia will be headed to NXT in the future while Sareee was once a part of WWE developmental herself.
The announcements also saw a controversial exodus of several women from the ActWres Girls company including lead advisor Fuka and wrestlers including Natsumi Sumikawa the current AWG Champion. According to Fuka, none of the women were under any official contract so were ‘free’ to join this new promotion. A statement by AWG on the matter seemed to imply this was all done with short notice amid an accusation of poaching. Something that led to Ogawa being fired from Stardom for approaches to talent to join his new company before it was formally announced.
There will also be a showcase match at the upcoming NOAH Wrestle Magic PPV of Team Marigold (Giulia, Utami Hayashishita, MIRAI & Mai Sakurai) against a Joshi All-Stars team of Miyuki Takase, Great Sakuya, Nagisa Nozaki & Takumi Iroha.
Marigold’s official English X account is Marigold_Joshi and the company has an official YouTube channel.