At FINAL BATTLE 2024 Red Velvet successfully turned away the championship challenge of “Legit” Leyla Hirsch but hers wasn’t the only triumph that night. Stardom’s HANAKO made her ROH debut during the ZERO HOUR with a victory over Harley Cameron! Just 24 years old, HANAKO made her pro wrestling debut in the fall of 2022 before arriving in Stardom at their March 2023 pay-per-view entitled NEW BLOOD PREMIUM. It wasn’t long before HANAKO crossed the paths of Mina Shirakawa and Mariah May in tag team action, and though she fought her heart out every single event, it took four months for HANAKO to score her first victory in STARDOM, a trios bout at the MIDSUMMER CHAMPIONS 2023 PPV. A few weeks later she had the opportunity to team with Mina and Mariah for trios action, and slowly began to build herself up within the promotion. Several one-on-one bouts with Mina showed the Stardom faithful what HANAKO brought to the table, and in January 2024 she actually joined Mina’s unit that became known as Empress Nexus Venus and that proved the catalyst for her career moving forward, best illustrated by she and Maika making it to the finals of Stardom’s GODDESS OF STARDOM Tag League finals on December 8th, and HANAKO winning the New Blood Tag Titles with Waka Tsukiyama on December 26th!
So with that momentum HANAKO heads into this huge championship opportunity tonight during ROH ON HONOR CLUB against the equally red-hot Red Velvet! Red hasn’t lost a one-on-one match since an April 13th title fight with ROH Women’s World Champion Athena at BATTLE OF THE BELTS X, going 9-0 in that time frame, and she also added several trips to Mexico for CMLL to her resume during 2024. Red’s already had three hard-fought title defenses during her reign thus far, and she’s about to add another one to the list; the only question is if she’ll leave Hammerstein Ballroom with the title tonight as she did at FINAL BATTLE 2024?