Starlight Kid Vs Giulia

I like the arc of this match.

Giulia spends a lot of her time mocking kid, visually acting like kid isn’t on her level. She has the clout to do this because she felt like such a big deal at teh start of the year. Her presence before losing her hair was unmatched across all of wrestling. Whenever she’s on top here shes doing things like ripping Kids mask, or choking here etc. This was at it’’s hight when she countered an attempted superplex by kid into a draping choke before dropping her from the top to the the floor.

Kid for her part played it well, she went in with the confidence of a prodigy before quickly being overwhelmed by the stronger and more main event hardened Giulia. She strikes the perfect balance of self belief an vulnerability here. When Giulia is bullying her, you feel for her and when she gets her moments of shine you root for her.

I love how the arc concludes here, Giulia as I mentioned spent the whole time not taking kid seriously, which gave her a number of opens to exploit and almost win the white belt. Giulia, having fell into these traps one to many times hits a headbutt and transitions into a glorious driver faster than she ever has before.

Kid was elevated here, an issue I had with her before this match was weak looking aufance which wasn’t really an issue. After the attempted mask rip kid had a fire lit under her, going after Giulia with a malice not seen before or honestly since. Giulia also learned to take opponents more seriously, which was a good little arc considering how she’d be booked the rest of the year.

I have to say though, something was lost on rewatch. For the story of the match it was a tad even. It wasn’t quite 50/50, more 60/40. And for the story being told it should have been less for me. Especially since kid got shine fairly early on. That’s a nitpick though, this still holds up as one of stardoms best matches of the year.