Puro fans, UNITE!

[ヒュー　G.　レックション]

I just want to give more thoughts on the G1 since I didn't have much time to write in my initial post.

Performers that were amazing:
Okada: now, undisputedly current favourite wrestler!
Nakamura: So unique, the counter to the Dragon Screw was divine (BS that he lost that match btw) as was the lariat counter into the armbar!
Tanahashi: Makes everyone he works with look great, truly one of if not the best in the world!
Shibata: I'll never forget the spinning slap that leveled Tanahashi)
Ishii: for his endurance in spite of his of his injury
Honma: so fucking over! Imagine the pop if he had won a match!)
Kojima: for his consistency)
Goto: same, really hope he gets the world title one day
Styles: fans now really have warmed to him and he feels much less out of place! However I genuinely think he does not work as a heel. Fans were cheering him majority of the time. When he turns face, then he'll be huge IMO!

Suzuki, Tenzan. Naito, Archer, Nagata, Makabe, Yano (to an extent lol) were also good when they needed to be! All solid talents, with Archer and Naito showing real potential! Fale has improved a ton. Anderson and Davey Boy seemed to not be as good as when I've seen them previous and both seem a bit tubbier, but had their moments.

Now the few performers I did not particularly care for

Benjamin: I used to think he was amazing in WWE, but here he seems very bland only showing small flashes of excellence now and then. Was he always like this? Or has he become worse?
Takahashi: He's got a great German and two great finishers but beyond that his matches are too similar for my liking, love his music and character though.
Gallows: Worst of the talent in this, should've been replaced by a junior like Kushida. He looks, acts and wrestles too similar to Fale and nothing he did impressed me. Complete BS when he beat Shibata lol

Best matches in no particular order:

Okada vs Nakamura
Styles vs Suzuki
Shibata vs Tanahashi
Okada vs Styles
Honma vs Shibata
Honma vs Ishii
Nakamura vs Tanahashi
Yano vs Styles
Styles vs Archer

Amazing! So many superb matches!

 

[MrHashasheen]

1. Shouldn't this thread get stickied by now?

2. If TNA theoretically shut down by year's end, who would you guys like to see entering NJPW in 2015? I'm partial for Beer Money, the Wolves (heard they've got heat though) & the trinity of King, MVP & Lashley. Maybe slot in BM into Bullet Club and take a few of the less-performing gaijin out. Pair Benjamin with MLK?

 

[Gibby]

But first of all a HUGE thank you to you Gibby for your excellent blog covering the event! I was able to learn so much about the history of the talents, particularly the Tanahashi/Shibata thing which I had no idea of! But knowing their history made the match so much more enjoyable to watch, and it was one of my favourites.

It was a pleasure, just glad someone is reading.

The Jarrett turn, I think is really pointless, is he honestly gonna start GFW as a top heel authority figure?

My working theory is that it's a storyline way to have those US workers become the top guys in GFW - not necessarily as a faction. People will know Styles and I am sure that the average fan will be impressed by Anderson.

I generally agreed with much of your enthusiastic post about the tournament itself. I rewatched some matches yesterday and couldn't believe how good we had it for those three weeks. Non stop brilliance.

If TNA theoretically shut down by year's end, who would you guys like to see entering NJPW in 2015? I'm partial for Beer Money, the Wolves (heard they've got heat though) & the trinity of King, MVP & Lashley. Maybe slot in BM into Bullet Club and take a few of the less-performing gaijin out. Pair Benjamin with MLK?

Difficult one. Austin Aries would be a good addition. The rest should continue to help Wrestle-1 as I don't think NJPW needs many more overseas talents.

 

[ヒュー　G.　レックション]

So I read that Fale's going to defend the IC title against Nakamura, I'm not too keen on that notion, because if Nakamura loses, it will hurt him. But if he wins he won't be able to get the heavyweight belt from Styles! So what are they going to do? The best scenario I can come up with is Styles costing Nakamura the match, and then Nakamura going on to beat Styles.

 

[Gibby]

Yeah I was having the same thought actually. Booking does indicate Fale will get his win back here. If it's clean it won't kill Nakamura (Fale did beat Tanahashi and Shibata, after all) but it will be a let down for me personally.

 

[Gibby]

Destruction double header was fine in case you missed it. Best match was the Tanahashi-Shibata rematch. Here is the card for Kings of Pro Wrestling from Sumo Hall, probably the #3 show now behind Wrestle Kingdom and the G1 Final.

IWGP HEAVYWEIGHT
AJ Styles (c) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi

IWGP HEAVYWEIGHT #1 CONTENDER
Kazuchika Okada vs. Tetsuya Naito

NEVER OPENWEIGHT
Yujiro Takahashi (c) vs. Tomohiro Ishii

NWA TAG TEAM TITLES
TenCozy (c) vs. Killer Elite Squad (Lance Archer and Davey Boy Smith Jr.)

IWGP JR. HEAVYWEIGHT
Ryusuke Taguchi (c) vs. El Desperado

NWA JR. HEAVYWEIGHT
Chase Owens (c) vs. BUSHI

IWGP JR. HEAVYWEIGHT TAGS
Time Splitters vs. Young Bucks. vs. Forever Hooligans

- Shinsuke Nakamura and YOSHI-HASHI vs. Hirooki Goto and Katsuyori Shibata
- Kazushi Sakuraba and Toru Yano vs. Minoru Suzuki and Takashi Iizuka
- Kota Ibushi, Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma and Yuji Nagata vs. Bullet Club

 

[ヒュー　G.　レックション]

Hmm, I am a little concerned. Nakamura now has the IC title. So he won't be able to beat Styles... but then who is going to dethrone AJ if not Tanahashi? And then that means we'll get Okada vs Tanahashi again... now don't get me wron they had some of the greatest matches I've ever seen! But I think they need to wait a while before going down that road again.

And then on the other hand, I don't want Styles to keep the belt for WK either... Okada vs AJ, again a great matchup between two elite talents but we've seen it already a few times.

My ideal situation, Nakamura unifies the belts, faces Okada at WK, Never belt becomes sole midcard belt. I think the Never belt is pointless from all I've seen of it sot his would give it more purpose. But no way in hell will any of this happen

 

[Gibby]

I think New Japan announced that the winners of the AJ-Tana match and the Okada-Naito match is going to be the WK9 headliner. So no Nakamura.

I quite like the NEVER belt, or at least I liked it when Ishii had it. Seemed to act as a kind of 'strong style' title. Then Yujiro took it and it went south again.

Dave Meltzer gave Tanahashi-Shibata from Destruction the full five stars. Not sure I agree but it is very good.

 

[The_Misson]

Kenny Omega has signed an exclusive contract with NJPW!!!!!!!!!! He will have his last match with DDT later this month.

 

[Gibby]

Great news isn't it? Well, not for DDT I guess. But Kenny is great. New Japan has need a crop of juniors for a while.

 

[The_Misson]

Great news indeed! Sucks for DDT, but great for NJPW. They've definitely needed some more juniors to help out the division and Kenny is a perfect choice.

 

[ヒュー　G.　レックション]

I think New Japan announced that the winners of the AJ-Tana match and the Okada-Naito match is going to be the WK9 headliner. So no Nakamura.

Shit... well I really don't know what they will choose to headline, but I'd have preferred a Okada Nakamura rematch over any possible combination of those four.

 

[The_Misson]

Wrestle-1 announced today that Alberto Del Rio will be competing on their November 1 show.

 

[MrHashasheen]

AJ Styles dropped the title to Tanahashi. I don't get this decision whatsoever.

 

[The Dragon Saga]

AJ Styles dropped the title to Tanahashi. I don't get this decision whatsoever.

NJPW aren't confident in AJ to main event the January 4 show. He's not going to be on the next tour (I think even two tours) as his wife is giving birth soon and he'll be working for ROH in the run up to Final Battle. It's expected he'll win the ROH World Championship at Final Battle and defend it on the January 4 show instead, probably against Naito.

Tanahashi and Okada as the main event will alone sell out that show and NJPW need to sell-out the Tokyo Dome show every year. It's basically the Japanese version of "LOLCENAWINS" except it's "LOLTANAHASHIWINS". It's also possibly going to be the culmination to the "Okada is taking out the old guard", as he said after Tanahashi/Styles that if Tanahashi was the sun in NJPW, the sun is about to go out and he's stepping in, which has been an on-going theme with Okada over the past year.

 

[ヒュー　G.　レックション]

Watched that Tanahashi-Shibata rematch and while very good, 5 stars? I thought Nakamura-Okada and Styles-Suzuki were better matches by some margin.

AJ Styles dropped the title to Tanahashi. I don't get this decision whatsoever.

I'd have been amazed and slightly disappointed if Styles had headlined WK. I'm sure he will someday, because he is of course amazing. But I think he'll need a babyface run to really cement himself.

Well I have not seen the KOPW show, is it worth watching? Okada vs Tanahashi again. Well I did say it was too soon to do it again, but at the end of the day you can bet I'll be watching, because they're two of the absolute best, all of their matches I have seen being pure gold. I think, in a swerve Tanahashi will win though.

 

[The Dragon Saga]

The reDRagon Wagon is returning to NJPW!

 

[The Dragon Saga]

[DM]x28lzqe_bushi-mascara-dorada-vs-bobby-fish-kyle-o-reilly-njpw_sport[/DM]

 

[MrHashasheen]

Can someone more knowledgeable than me speculate on what would have happened had Muta and his guys gone to NJPW or NOAH rather than forming Wrestle-1? Likelihood of either, effects, etc...

 

[The_Misson]

First off, had Mutoh not formed W-1 I doubt a lot of the AJPW roster that left would have left. Just the fact that Mutoh might not be able to get you signed alone would probably keep a lot of people in AJPW. However, if some people did leaven then I could see NJPW maybe signing Mutoh, Sanada and KAI, but I highly doubt they would have taken Wrestle-1's entire roster. That would simply overcrowd their roster and most of W-1's roster are simply not good enough to be featured in NJPW. NOAH would be a much more likely option. NOAH right now needs young Japanese heavyweights. They might not have taken the entire roster, but I'm sure they would have taken a vast majority of it. Also, a Mutoh army invading NOAH would have made a great story for NOAH and would have drawn a decent amount of people. The WNC roster that joined W-1 would still probably be in WNC.

 

[Gibby]

Wrestle Kingdom 9 on January 4th looks absolutely amazing so far. On PPV in North America too, you lucky lucky devils. These matches appear to be locked-in

IWGP HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP
Hiroshi Tanahashi (c) vs. Kazuchika Okada

IWGP INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP
Shinsuke Nakamura (c) vs. Kota Ibushi

NEVER OPENWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP
Tomohiro Ishii (c) vs. Togi Makabe

IWGP JUNIOR HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP
Ryusuke Taguchi (c) vs. Kenny Omega

IWGP JUNIOR HEAVYWEIGHT TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP
reDRagon (c) vs. The Young Bucks vs. Time Splitters vs. Forever Hooligans

AJ Styles vs. Tetsuya Naito

UWF RULES
Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Minoru Suzuki

The strong likelihood is that Bullet Club's Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows will defend their tag titles against the winners of the upcoming Tag League (which many predict will be Shibata and Goto).

Other rumours circulating indicate an NWA Jr title defence for Liger in what could be his final year in the biz, something involving Jeff Jarrett and Yoshitatsu and a possible Ring of Honor championship defence.

ANTICIPATION: TEN OUT OF TEN.

 

[MrHashasheen]

Anyone know the point of the NEVER Openweight Championship? I mean, I get it was meant for a sub-promotion ala NXT, but pretty much everyone who's held isn't a young lion, right?

What's the stipulations, what's the defense frequency, etc...?

 

[Gibby]

Anyone know the point of the NEVER Openweight Championship? I mean, I get it was meant for a sub-promotion ala NXT, but pretty much everyone who's held isn't a young lion, right?

What's the stipulations, what's the defense frequency, etc...?

It's a good question and there's no real answer out there. Having now seen every defence of the title (only been four champs: Masato Tanaka, Tetsuya Naito, Tomohiro Ishii (x2) and Yujiro Takahashi) it seems to be a lower card title in the vein of the ECW TV title, though some people think of it as the 'brawler belt'. Which sells it short, but gives a certain impression.

Stipulations are normal matches, though the thread running through all the matches have been that they're just that little bit harder-hitting. Unlike other titles, as stated, it's openweight, which means Ibushi and KUSHIDA have challenged heavyweights, though they haven't really made a big deal of that aspect of the title and no junior has won it yet.

Defences happen maybe every 2 out of 3 supercards, sometimes headlines a big Korakuen rather than appears on a big show. In a way it is a bit superfluous but it has been elevated a lot from inception; Ishii taking on Ibushi, Goto and Makabe next gives the belt that certain 'realness'. I sort of hope they merge it with the IC and keep the Openweight distinction.

 

[The_Misson]

There's a rumor going around that NOAH is going to send TMDK on loan to NJPW for a year. If this is true then that will really help out NJPW's tag team scene.

 

[X]

Well this thread sure died, huh?

Takeshi Morishima is being forced to retire at the age of 36 due to injuries. He was a former ROH champ among other titles and a fucking badass. Sad day.