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Introduction - Calm down a bit 2022
2022 has been a fairly crazy year for World Wonder Ring Stardom so far.
It's seen the return of Kairi Sane (now KAIRI) to the place she made her name in. It's seen a change in the way Stardom's calendar operates with a Pay Per View event each month and the addition of both the 'New Blood' and 'Stardom in Showcase' brands. Perhaps most dramatically it has also seen talk of a potential linkup with AEW, a move which could potentially increase awareness of the already popular promotion.
Yet in times of upheaval and change, it is always good to keep yourself grounded with some good old fashioned statistics...at least if you're a geek like me.
So now that we are in to the second half of 2022 it's time to look at some of the numbers and what they potentially mean (or don't mean in some cases).
Couple of caveats....
These stats only go up to the end of the Midsummer Kings PPV on 9th July, so if anything has dramatically changed since then don't blame me.
Finally, I've only included stats for wrestlers who have had 10 or more matches in Stardom in 2022. Hence no sign of KAIRI or the briefly returning Konami, who both have 100% winning records but have only had 8 matches between them. If you do want to see the full stats including all individuals who've wrestled in Stardom in 2022 then they are available at Stardom 2022.xlsx
Right...on with the show.
The Winners
Winning matches is what all wrestlers in any promotion should aspire to, no matter what WWE fans try to tell you. So below are the winning percentages of the current Stardom roster in 2022, and from this there are quite a few surprises.
Firstly I don't think many people would have known who Ami Sourei was at the start of the year, let alone predicted she would be top of the winning charts come July. Yet a combination of being part of the dominant God's Eye stable, together with an impressive run in the recent 5 Star GP qualifying league means that it is Ami who sits above her stable leader Syuri.
Himeka, Natsupoi and Maika give the top of the table a strong DDM presence, but it is perhaps quite surprising to see the head of that group Giulia just about scraping into the top 10 in terms of win percentage. She certainly isn't currently being portrayed as the dominant force she once was.
Elsewhere there are low winning percentages for Mayu Iwatani, Utami Hayashashita and, most surprisingly, for Tam Nakano who has been on the winning team just 22.6% of the time in 2022 so far. As we'll see below however, there is a very good explanation for this.
The Losers
Obviously the headline here when looking at losing percentages is the continuing strife of Waka Tsukiyama with a very solid 100% losing record in 2022. Can Waka break what is becoming a pretty lengthy duck? It certainly doesn't look like it'll happen any time soon.
Waka's woes have also impacted the rest of Cosmic Angels, with Mina Shirakawa, Unagi Sayaka and Tam all losing the overwhelming majority of their matches.
Elsewhere it's unsurprising to see the top of this list full of the relative rookies such as Lady C and Miyu Amasaki, although Saya Iida would probably have hoped for some better statistics having been in the promotion for a few years now. Probably about time she turned on Mayu Iwatani to be honest as that seems to do the trick for most members of STARS.
Who is picking up the pins?
Looking at the win statistics is one thing, but we do also need to consider who is actually getting the all important pinfalls/submissions, particularly considering the number of multi-woman matches Stardom has. And when we do look at these stats there are a few surprises.
Saki Kashima sits top of the tree picking up the pin/submission in 21 of her 57 matches. Granted this is due to the fact she often faces the up-and-comers, but it is still an impressive pin ratio.
MIRAI and AZM have also picked up a good level of pins, perhaps highlighting the push that both wrestlers have received in 2022 so far. Certainly MIRAI's run in winning the Cinderella Tournament helped bolster these stats.
Perhaps most interestingly is the number of pins picked up by Koguma compared to her tag partner Hazuki. I suspect most would have Hazuki down as the dominant force in their team, but the stats do not seem to bear (get it) this out with Koguma picking up 7 more pins across the year so far.
Who is being protected?
This table shows who is taking the pins or tapping out in matches, and again this list is not surprising. Each faction has their pin-eaters and everyone on the list below down to Mai Sakurai is within that category.
The more interesting element of this table however is who is NOT being pinned as this highlights who is being protected and helps balance out the win/loss percentages above.
Obviously, and correctly, Syuri is the stand-out name here with the Red Belt Champion having not been pinned at all in 2022. When that eventually does happen it's going to be a hell of a moment.
Tam Nakano and Utami Hayashashita have both only been pinned once in 2022 (incidentally both by Saya Kamitani) underlining that whilst they are not getting many wins this year, they remain fiercely protected on the watch of Stardom.
Giulia having been pinned 4 times in 2022 is very surprising, and I think many would have wanted better protection for Momo Watanabe following her move to Oedo Tai. In truth though everyone from Momo down is being pretty well wrapped in cotton wool in 2022 and it will be interesting to see how these statistics shift as we move on to the 5 Star GP.
Singles Action
Being on the winning team is all well and good, but the real glory comes in individual success so here we look at the wins and losses in one-on-one action only.
White Belt holder Saya Kamitani tops this tree having not been beaten in singles competition in 2022. The only blemish on her record was a draw with Maika in the Cinderella Tournament. Syuri similarly only has one draw against her name in singles action in 2022 which came against Himeka in the same tournament. Both Kamitani and Syuri went on to get 'revenge' for those draws with title victories against Maika and Himeka later in the year.
Ami Sourei's stats are slightly padded having waltzed through the 5 Star GP qualifying with 4 wins, whilst elsewhere AZM has an excellent singles record as does supposed tag-specialist Koguma.
Again Giulia's stats are surprisingly low with the DDM head honcho only winning 2 singles matches in 2022 so far. And Starlight Kid may have had a banner year in terms of character work and general notoriety, but in one-on-one matches she currently isn't getting the job done. Perhaps she'll be able to rectify this in the 5 Star GP.
It's all about the gold
The below table shows the number of title matches that each wrestler has had in 2022, as winning titles is the name of the game, and you don't win them without title opportunities.
Top of this tree is Koguma who has obviously had many Goddesses of Stardom Title matches, but has also been in and around the High Speed Title scene. Starlight Kid has had a similarly high exposure to title matches in 2022, but crucially has lost more than half of those contests.
Also high up on this table, whilst not on the others, is Hanan who's Future of Stardom title reign has been particularly impressive in 2022. This does highlight some of the issues of just looking at the stats though, as Future of Stardom matches cannot carry the same heft as those for other belts.
Continuing a theme across this article, Giulia is 0 for 5 when it comes to title matches this year whereas at the other end of that scale AZM is unbeatable when gold is on the line.
Finally, for those surprised to see Syuri with two defeats in title matches in 2022, they came when she and Giulia lost the Goddesses titles and when God's Eye failed to pick up the Artist of Stardom belts...Syuri was not pinned in either defeat.
It's time for the MAIN EVENT!
One final way to decipher who is important in Stardom is to see who is put at the top of the card the most often. Afterall if you aren't in the main event, you aren't eating at the Stardom top table.
Practically owning that table is of course Syuri with 19 main event appearances and wins in 17 of those matches. In second place however is Starlight Kid, who whilst not necessarily winning most of these matches, is clearly seen as a star in the eyes of the top brass in Stardom.
Saya Kamitani is another favoured main-eventer, and these stats also underline just how much MIRAI is being pushed in 2022 with more main event appearances than the likes of Utami, Giulia, Momo Watanabe and Tam Nakano.
Hanan must be wondering what she needs to do to get into a main event match at this stage, but equally miffed must be Stardom legend Mayu Iwatani who has no more main event appearances than Lady C and has only one 2 out of the 9 main events she has appeared in.
Outrageous.
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