D3AN~!!! Day 2: MATTHEWS~! STARKZ~!

DEAN~!!! 3 9/6/25

Nicole Matthews vs Billie Starkz

MD: I have absolutely nothing to do with putting these shows on. Can't reiterate that enough. This is Phil and Eric being bold and daring and working with the other Matt and eventually the fine folks at ROH. That said, one note that I, and a lot of other people had, after DEAN 2 was that they should get a women's match on the next one.

And the first name that came to everyone's mind was Nicole Matthews. She's a card carrying member of the club. She knows the secret handshake. She gets it, firsthand. Billie Starkz on the other hand, is more of a fifth of sixth generation creature (I'm more second generation myself, the early days of the board instead of RSPW). She was born into social media, not message boards, but early on in her career she had a couple of select voices in her ears. She may be Athena's No. 1 (actually a different number but I'm not googling it right now) minion, but there's a ~! built into her wrestling DNA whether she actually knows it or not. 

Matthews was naturally de facto face here. She left her fine wine heel gimmick (and the giant goblet that goes with it) at home. Billie on the other hand, is an absolute gremlin, a deranged goblin, a complete menace. Matthews understood the gravitas of the time and the place. Billie was boisterous, bragging that she was the hand-selected ROH rep here to win this first-time match between the two.

So while it was a cold match on paper, the characters really made the thing sing. Billie was incessant, the best possible pimple on the already craggly face of Philadelphia. She messed with Matthews' hair in a headscissors. She switched hands on a test of strength. She slapped her in the face after some chain wrestling. She caught her foot and took a bite out of it. She facewashed her in the middle of the ring. She snuck in an eyepoke during a strike exchange. Incessant. Irritating. Incorrigible.

So, in return, Matthews took her to school. She stretched Starkz with a bow and arrow. She wrenched that hand and drove her to the mat. She chopped right through her in the corner. She stomped away. She caught the foot and drove forearms into her jaw. She regained her vision and hit the nastiest short arm lariat you can imagine. The comeuppance was deserved and the comeuppance was delivered. 

If contrast makes the wrestling world go round (and it does, trust me), this world was happily spinning away. 

Contrast or no, there was a balance to this one. Starkz hit a brutal Alabama Slam in the corner. Matthews got her back later by pulling her feet out and causing the back of her head to hit the turnbuckle. That was the story of this as much as anything else. Starkz stretched as far as she could, taxing and testing Matthews with disrespectful question after disrespectful question and Matthews had a brutal answer for each and every one. 

Maybe the finish was some sort of master plan by Starkz, lulling Matthews into a false sense of security so that she'd miss the moonsault, but I think it was more down to one more irritating Starkz quality, her plucky resilience. Regardless, Matthews did miss and Starkz planted her with the Sugoi Driver to steal one out. Matthews had taught her a number of painful lessons and very likely, Starkz managed to not learn a single thing from any of them. Thus is the state of the American youth, alas.