Various: Toni Storm Makes Surprise Appearance at 9/14 Stardom Event & Challenges Mayu Iwatani for IWGP Women’s Title, Steph De Lander Neck Surgery Update, Indies

Sep 14, 2024

Toni Storm Makes Surprise Appearance at Saturday’s Stardom Event & Challenges Mayu Iwatani for IWGP Women’s Title

Saturday’s Namba Grand Fight event in Osaka, Japan featured “Timeless” Toni Storm making a surprise appearance for the company.

Following Hanan & Mayu Iwatani’s victory over AZM & Miyu Amasaki in a tag team match, a video aired on the big screen featuring Storm making her surprise video apeparance. During her promo, Storm challenged Iwatani for her IWGP Women’s Championship at Stardom’s Nagoya Golden Fight event on October 5 in Nagoya. Iwatani responded accepting the challenge and the match was made official afterwards.

Former #AEW Women’s champ Toni Storm has challenged Mayu Iwatani for her IWGP Women’s title in Nagoya 10/5!#STARDOM

pic.twitter.com/fAV8kg2Jsf
— We Are Stardom (@we_are_stardom) September 14, 2024

This will be Storm’s first match for Stardom since July of 2019.

Steph De Lander Neck Injury & Surgery Status Update

As noted before, Steph De Lander will be taking a break from TNA Wrestling due to her needing to undergo neck surgery.

TNA provided an update earlier today on Twitter stating that De Lander is currently expected to be out of action for at least six to ten months pending on the results from her upcoming neck surgery.

.@MeanGiaMiller provides an injury update on @JordynneGrace, @ZacharyWentz, and @stephdelander following #TNAVictoryRoad. pic.twitter.com/NlQg6MmQ3v
— TNA Wrestling (@ThisIsTNA) September 14, 2024

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

Friday’s 91st Anniversary Show for Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre in Mexico City, Mexico featured Zeuxis defeating Willow Nightingale to become the new CMLL Women’s World Champion.

Friday’s CMLL 91st Anniversary Show in Mexico City also featured Titan defeating Mascara Dorada in the Finals of this year’s Copa Independencia to become the winner of this year’s tournament.

Friday’s Victory Road 2024 event for TNA Wrestling in San Antonio, Texas featured three new champions being crowned. The first was “Speedball” Mike Bailey defeating Zachary Wentz to become the new TNA X-Division Champion. The second was Spitfire defeating Masha Slamovich & Tasha Steelz to become the new TNA Knockouts World Tag Team Champions. The third was The System defeating ABC to become the new TNA World Tag Team Champions.

Friday’s TNA Victory Road 2024 event in San Antonio also featured a backstage segment involving TNA Director of Authority Santiono Marella and NXT liason Arianna Grace. This segment was notable for being the first time that Marella was together on-screen with his real life daughter.

Friday’s TNA Victory Road 2024 event in San Antonio also featured WWE Hall of Famer JBL making another surprise appearance in TNA. During the TNA World Championship match between Moose and Nic Nemeth, JBL made his surprise return and took out The System’s Eddie Edwards & Brian Myers after they had attempted to interfere in the match.

Women of Wrestling recently announced that they will be holding a new event on September 28th in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was also announced that they will be debuting a new championship called the “Buss Belt” in honor of co-owner and co-founder of WOW Jeanie Buss.

Game Changer Wrestling recently announced that Drew Parker, Sawyer Wreck, John Wayne Murdoch, and Rina Yamashita are the first official set of entrants for this year’s Nick Gage Invitational 9 tournament on November 16th in Orlando, Florida.

GCW also recently announced one new match for the card of their Aura event on September 20th in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania:

Sidney Akeem vs. Arez

New Japan Pro Wrestling recently announced that Taiji Ishimori will be holding a self-produced event called “Super Hero Taiji Ishimori Gets Ridiculous” on November 12th in Tokyo, Japan.

NJPW English language commentator Walker Stewart announced on Twitter that he will be working as the new English language play-by-play commentator for Stardom events starting at their Nagoya Golden Fight event on October 5th in Nagoya, Japan.

NJPW announced two new matches for the card of their Destruction in Kobe 2024 event on September 29th in Kobe, Japan: