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STARDOM Confirms Mariah May, Willow Nightingale, More For WrestleMania Week Event In Philadelphia

STARDOM shares more details on its “American Dream 2024 in the Keystone State” event.

STARDOM previously announced plans to return to the United States in the midst of the WrestleMania 40 festivities. Given that this year’s big WWE event will take place in the city of Philadelphia, STARDOM has circled the 2300 Arena as the location for their return showcase on April 4. With this date inching closer, STARDOM updated the lineup of talent that will appear.

As expected, several STARDOM staples are slated to wrestle at “the American Dream 2024 in the Keystone State” event, including Syuri, AZM, Tam Nakano, Momo Watanabe, Starlight Kid, and Mayu Iwatani. Per STARDOM’s latest announcement, World of STARDOM Champion Maika has also been added to the card.

In addition to the regular faces of STARDOM, representatives from AEW, TNA, and CMLL, will compete as well. While these faces are considered outside talent right now, all of them have previous ties to STARDOM. Names under this umbrella include Willow Nightingale (AEW), Mariah May (AEW), Xia Brookside (TNA), and Stephanie Vaquer (CMLL). Vaquer recently defeated Giulia to become the new NJPW STRONG Women’s Champion. Nightingale, of course, was the inaugural holder of that title. Meanwhile, Mariah May and Brookside are both former members of the Empress Nexus Venus (fka Club Venus) stable, which is co-led by Mina Shirakawa.

Learning Opportunity

Xia Brookside looked back on her time in STARDOM during a recent interview with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard, highlighting the biggest takeaway from training and performing there.

“My goal when I left WWE was to go back to Japan,” Brookside said. “That was the first place I wanted to go because I wanted to refind myself and who I was as a wrestler. I feel like it gives you so much opportunity out there. You get a lot of reps, you get to wrestle with so many talented women. The bar they set out there for women’s wrestling is just incredible, especially at STARDOM. You’ve got Guilia for example. Io Shirai was there. Kairi Sane, a lot of top girls wrestled in STARDOM. I don’t know if there is one thing in particular that I bought away to kind of teach everyone else. It’s really an experience that you have to go through yourself because everyone gets something different.”

“I really learned a lot about the culture and the language, and I just love Japan in general. How they structure their matches and how they fight each other. They taught me so much more of a hard, intense style, they taught me not to be afraid. They taught me how to take a hit and get back up. They’re very strong and disciplined. Discipline, I would say that they taught me a lot about discipline and that, I definitely brought back with me.”

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