This is part of the “Stardom’s Favorite Daughter—Icon or Illusion?” watch series, which you can find here.

If you’re unfamiliar with the name Haruka, you might know her better as the little girl who had a match with Kenny Omega—a match that took place just two weeks after this one, and a match that is famous for making a certain racist curmudgeon angry. That’s all fine and dandy, I guess, but through a quick glance at a couple internet threads it seems Haruka’s short wrestling career resulted in nothing more than the poor kid being victimized by bullies at school, something which seems even more unfortunate considering that the kid has more of a catalog than you’d think, which totals 20 matches in the span of eight months, leading me to think there was some legitimate aspiration at one point. Though, with someone so young, you always put the thought in the back of your head wondering if she was being taken advantage of, whether that be parents, bookers, or something else, but then again who knows why this little run she had happened. No need to invent a sob story where there isn’t one either, so I’ll just leave it at that.

Little preface aside, this is Haruka’s 15th professional match, oh, and it’s also Mayu Iwatani’s 15th pro bout as well. For two massively inexperienced wrestlers, one of which is a third grader, I’d say the three minute draw goes about as well as anyone could’ve hoped. They get some reactions from the crowd, most coming in the form of Mayu pushing the kid around, though there is a nice isolated pop for Haruka when she hits a step-up kick for a nearfall late in the match as well. Otherwise this is largely just Haruka throwing leg kicks, running the ropes, or Mayu holding her in unvocncing submissions until time expires. Three minutes is three minutes, so whatever, but this is a waste of time. This is something that I have no clue why or how it happened past closed doors.

And then, honestly, there isn’t much more to say about this other than the fact that I found it to be uncomfortable.

And really, I don’t know how else to put this, but the constant booking of Haruka in Stardom reads as weird. They’re desperate to fill spots, sure, but her getting a bigger reaction than Mayu sort of creeps me out, and again, no nice way to say this, but if any of those people paid for their tickets just to see a nine year old child wrestle, yeah, gross. That isn’t to mention the fact that the incredibly green Mayu could’ve hurt the poor kid, which, you’d imagine could’ve done further damage to what was already a supposedly iffy reputation Mayu was garnering at the time. Hell, my initial intrigue with this match was the fact that is what a time limit draw, but the quickly faded when I learned she was drawing with everyone, names like Nanae Takahashi included, so no commentary on any kind of in-company standing either. But who knows, maybe if I’d go through and watch some of other time draws from the youngster, there’d be a more genuine conclusion to draw. Not going to do that though, so for now, yikes, and for the career for Iwatani, not essential in the slightest beyond being a useless piece of trivia. As for the young Haruka, a real shame they decided she needed to grow up with the promotion instead of alongside it.

Rating: None