I hope that for 2023, Mercedes Mone proves me wrong about her time in Stardom with New Japan Pro Wrestling. Ever since November of 2022, New Japan has agreed to allow more Stardom wrestlers and wrestling matches onto their shows. NJPW is using Stardom as their women’s division.
Last summer, big news broke by dirt sheets and then later a horrible PR written statement with no WWE logo to make it look legit, and this PR note explained that Sasha Banks and Naomi walked out of WWE. They were, at the time, WWE Women’s Tag Team Champions and decided to walk into Monday Night RAW to leave the championships behind and walk out.
Since then, no real update. No real podcast appearances to tell their side of the story. No podcast appearances to get the other side of the story.
Sasha and Naomi then went on to do various things such as fashion week and red carpets. But after all that, the spotlight shifted to Sasha only. Dirt Sheets kept running with the rumor of: she’s showing up to Wrestle Kingdom 17!!! And that her contract is up!!!
Well, she gets to Wrestle Kingdom 17 after Tam vs Kairi Sane for IWGP Women’s Championship and her debut is overwhelming and over performative. New Japan Pro Wrestling doesn’t have the WWE magic to keep someone looking like a million bucks when they lack skill in other aspects of wrestling (using it as an umbrella term). New Japan doesn’t care about how sexy you can get, how much make up you wear, or even how many hip swivels you do. All Japan cares about is wrestling. Awesome entrances and gear are one thing but once that bell rings, they care about the wrestling.
Mercedes Mone automatically debuted and challenged Kairi Sane. That’s an easy night for her since both have history in WWE. They’ve fought each other before.
I’m concerned about Mercedes Mone being in Japan without having some matches and thinking she could be on their level. Japanese women train differently than American women. Japanese women go through the same dojo system as the Japanese men. American women train at wrestling schools but it’s nothing like the dojo system. You can be called a wrestler and have matches after a 12-week training course (about 3 months) and that’s if you can understand everything under that deadline. The wrestling training camps are so short.
I don’t like complaining about debuts but this one rubbed me the wrong way. Please listen to the podcast episode with an open mind.
I used to like Sasha Banks; I just don’t like Mercedes Mone.
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Mercedes Mone Banks On NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 17 Debut