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Post by TOZ »

Roman Reigns got fucking destroyed by Braun Strowman. Like a whole ten minutes of Braun throwing him around, leaving, then coming back to throw him around some more.
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Post by Stahlseele »

And then he toppled over the ambulance.
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Post by Whipstitch »

People keep whining about Bayley and I keep laughing at these chucklefucks for still watching in the first place. We've been locked into the Roman vs. Brock death march for literal years now. People just need to let this shit go. Kurt fucking Angle is on tv again and I still can't be assed to watch.
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Post by Koumei »

Apparently they went "Swerve! Samoa Joe vs Bork for Great Balls of Fire, that is literally the name of the PPV"

I mean, I assume Bork will crush Joe's great balls of fire and then they'll talk about how Reigns' dreams were crushed when his title match against Lesnar was delayed by Joe's insistence on being relevant, and they'll go and do that and expect the audience to feel it was all hard-earned, but in the short term, we're looking at something refreshing and potentially cool.

Well, someone is. I didn't watch the latest PPV, and I'm not going to start.

On the other hand, I watched NJPW Sakura Genesis, and without knowing who half the wrestlers were before watching, I was hooked. In the first match, we had a 4v4 where two of the competitors were Tiger Mask (IV and W for those keeping track at home). There were a lot of tag matches with teams of 2, 3 and 4, probably because of all the factions at play at the moment. Also, while I agree that the Omega v Okada match at Wrestle Kingdom was amazing (I can't and won't quantify in stars), honestly Shibata v Okada at Sakura Genesis was incredible as well.
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Post by Whipstitch »

Too bad about Shibata's injury though. Would it have killed the guy to work his fucking headbutts?
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Post by Koumei »

Especially lately, you'd think they'd ease back on just the headbutts. We're not expecting an end to strong style, they can continue the thing where to make it sound like a kick to the chest when you do a kick to the chest, you... kick them in the fucking chest. But if we leave the head-bones alone, that can save careers. And actual lives.

That said, for almost half the matches, I had to pause and check Wiki to see if there were serious injuries. They are really good at selling, particularly for the finish to a match: the loser (or even the winner) lies motionless a while and needs help leaving the ring, clutching their neck or shoulder, and so on.
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Post by Mask_De_H »

A lot of guys work their headbutts, or at least do soft contact head to head. Shibata specifically got a spot where he shoot headbutts a dude so hard he bleeds over during the aborted NJPW vs. NOAH feud, I want to say. It was an amazing visual, a terrible idea, and popped the crowd huge, so of course Shibby did it in his star making match, and big matches in the interim.

Between making it a regular spot and doing the token Epic Japanese Main Event with Okada, he ended up dehydrated enough and his brain bruised enough he got a subdural hematoma.
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Post by Whipstitch »

The best Lucha Underground is so good and the worst Lucha Underground is so dumb. Puma vs. PJ Black (aka, ricochet vs justin gabriel) was the fucking best though.
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Post by Koumei »

I would suggest everyone watch the conference for New Japan's G1. Now don't worry about the fact that a lot of them are speaking Japanese. You still get the wonders of:
*Kenny Omega always being in shot and... reacting to people's speeches.
*Everyone being scared of Minoru Suzuki (and rightfully so).
*Everyone wearing a suit... even if Naito still has his baseball cap, Makabe hasn't buttoned his suit up and still has the chain, Bad Luck Fale is apparently wearing a safari suit...
*Okada and Tanahashi's expressions during Toru Yano's speech where he shills for his DVD.
*Zack SabreLabour Junior. "My motivation, apart from the inevitable decline of neoliberalism..."

The actual G1 itself is already looking really good, but just the conference is amazing.
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Post by Whipstitch »

I normally don't really care about "My company can beat your company" pissing matches, but I have to admit, it'd be funny if NJPW was a bigger deal so that more people could shit their pants over the discrepancy between G1 and what we're likely to get from Randy Orton and Jinder Mahal in a fucking Punjabi Prison match.
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Post by Mask_De_H »

Koumei wrote:I would suggest everyone watch the conference for New Japan's G1. Now don't worry about the fact that a lot of them are speaking Japanese. You still get the wonders of:
*Kenny Omega always being in shot and... reacting to people's speeches.
*Everyone being scared of Minoru Suzuki (and rightfully so).
*Everyone wearing a suit... even if Naito still has his baseball cap, Makabe hasn't buttoned his suit up and still has the chain, Bad Luck Fale is apparently wearing a safari suit...
*Okada and Tanahashi's expressions during Toru Yano's speech where he shills for his DVD.
*Zack SabreLabour Junior. "My motivation, apart from the inevitable decline of neoliberalism..."

The actual G1 itself is already looking really good, but just the conference is amazing.
Also Tama Tonga poorly shooting while Ishii gets increasingly exasperated behind him.
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K wrote:That being said, the usefulness of airships for society is still transporting cargo because it's an option that doesn't require a powerful wizard to show up for work on time instead of blowing the day in his harem of extraplanar sex demons/angels.
Chamomile wrote: See, it's because K's belief in leaving generation of individual monsters to GMs makes him Chaotic, whereas Frank's belief in the easier usability of monsters pre-generated by game designers makes him Lawful, and clearly these philosophies are so irreconcilable as to be best represented as fundamentally opposed metaphysical forces.
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Post by Koumei »

Also, my heart goes out to Hiromu Takahashi following the loss of Daryl. May the plushy cat rest in peace and be forever remembered.
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Post by Koumei »

So let's talk about the G1 Climax. Obviously it's amazing, but I figured I'd just mention some great matches for people to check out if they don't have the time to watch 19 nights worth of events for some reason. As well as thoughts and general impressions.

Firstly, I feel sorry for Tokyo Pimp: not only is he one of the "Also there" members of Bullet Club, but he is completely overshadowed by the ladies who accompany him to the ring. The camera man, the commentators... everybody pays more attention to them. We can probably call that Sunny Syndrome.

Secondly, I'm an unabashed Suzuki fan, so I'm a bit disappointed that he only had 4 wins and 1 draw out of 9 matches. I know that's absolutely average, points-wise, but still, as a villain who has outside assistance (and is supposed to be terrifying), and indeed as perhaps the most "legit" wrestler in New Japan (or indeed, any pro wrestling federation?), it's a bit mild.

Thirdly, I'm disappointed in Yano's success rate. If he keeps going with low-blow victories, other wrestlers should figure out that's a lot quicker and easier than wrestling, and by 2030 NJPW will have changed to New Japan Pro Dick Punching.

Now let's move onto some positives: Suzuki has assaulted around 2 Young Lions (trainee wrestlers who serve as ring crew) per match. Slightly more. This is the training they clearly need for the career ahead of them.

A-Block:
Ibushi vs Naito is great, and showcases the variety of skills they both have.

Ibushi vs Ishii is great for its spots, where you think "No, he can't do that, Ishii is too heavy to- holy shit he CAN do that."

Tanahashi vs ZSJ is just a good match with a lot of skill involved, and helps show Zack's brutal side as well as focusing on the story of Tanahashi's arm. Also, Tanahashi is great for putting new talent over in the G1.

Nagata had a great story going through, but I'd specifically call out his matches against ZSJ and Bad Luck Fale as being really good. Also see how much the crowd love him for the final A-Block night, and for his match in the final night.

ZSJ vs Ishii is a hard-hitting, brutal match with some high-impact strikes as well as the great submission-work that Zack is known for. He basically invents a new submission close to the end, and looks really strong coming out of this.

Obviously the final between Naito and Tanahashi was incredible, if you ever doubted that. And it was incredible for the same sort of reasons as their previous clashes.

There was also an amazing moment where Naito put a chair to an interesting use: he started to swing it, then changed the angle, planted it on the floor and sat on it. Is there a prize for most unique chair usage?

This is not to say that people like Makabe didn't put on consistently good matches throughout, and if you have the time, just watch everything, but I'm specifically talking about matches I liked above the norm due to either the story telling involved, or the intensity, or the skill showcase or something else. It's not enough to just be "better than anything in the last few years of the WWE".
B-Block:
There was a great story brewing about the schism in Bullet Club, and the two-parter of Tama Tonga vs Kenny Omega (first in their tag match against one another in the A-Block show, then in their 1v1 in the B-Block) highlights it perfectly.

The only Yano match that I 100% liked was against Omega. Seriously, watch this comedy match, and ask yourself what is funnier: the intentional comedy of that match, or the unintentional comedy of the entirety of WWE Battleground. That said, there were good moments in the Sanada vs Yano and Tonga vs Yano matches.

Suzuki vs Omega was a great match, with a lot going on, and was great for the kind of reasons you would associate with a great Suzuki match or a great Omega match.

Suzuki vs Okada was an incredible 30 minute match where they both went all-out and put everything into it.

Before this, I wasn't sure about Juice Robinson - a white guy with dreads and funny pants, and I have long considered his finisher (for Christian fans, that's the Impaler/Unprettier/Killswitch) to be stupid. But throughout it, he grew on me, and they told a solid story with his knee. Of course I loved the match where Suzuki had free reign to destroy his knee (and where his chops actually caused Suzuki's chest to bleed, holy shit), but how about his victory over Omega?

Sanada really pulled it out against both Omega and Okada, and he and Tonga put on a great match as well (with just one botched "leap over the barrier" leading to the referee having to pause in his 20-count). I think the paradise lock is goofy and more tailored for comedy matches, but every time he goes for fast-paced action or out-thinks his opponent, it's just great.

Sort of like with Naito and Tanahashi, I am a fan of any match with Omega vs Elgin, and this G1 was no exception there. They both put a lot into it.

Evil is really on a roll. He grabbed a lot of victories there and they were all very convincing victories. As for his best matches, I'd say Omega, Okada and Suzuki.

Kojima's single victory was an emotional moment for him, Tenzan and the crowd, and the match vs Sanada that led to that is definitely worth watching.
I'll leave the final night to a later time, give people a day or two to watch it if they're not in a time zone to see it live.
Last edited by Koumei on Sun Aug 13, 2017 11:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Whipstitch »

Ishii is the greatest short fat dude in the history of space-time. He's 41 years old and I have no idea how he's so good at his job but he is.
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Post by Koumei »

It helps that he doesn't have a neck. This is the new evolution for wrestlers, as a way to avoid spinal damage from piledrivers and such. Speaking of which, holy shit that sort-of-on-a-table piledriver in the finals.
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Post by Whipstitch »

I swear to god KO once retracted his head into his neck fat like a fucking turtle on a particularly savage ladder spot. I have mixed feelings about his gradual weight loss.
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Post by Whipstitch »

Why the fuck does WWE exist again? I'm not trying to be a hater here, it's just that the company hired Samoa Joe and Luke Harper at the same time yet those dudes aren't currently pretending to fight each other for my entertainment. I am prepared to pay ten American dollars to see those guys collide for no reason. The marketplace has failed.
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Post by Koumei »

I would be willing to watch that match. I think their styles would work well together, especially if they let Harper use some of his slightly more technical stuff from NXT.

---

Right, so the final night:

There were good matches all the way through. I don't even care about the Young Bucks and I thought it was an excellent match there, with Ricochet barely escaping the sharpshooter multiple times. That said, either I missed a tag or they lost track of the legal man - I'm pretty sure Ricochet cut in to interrupt the Meltzer Driver and from that point on was just treated as the legal man regardless.

Suzuki-gun had a victory in a solid opening match (bonus points for having Tiger Mask and Jushin "Thunder" Liger, who are just great, even if Tiger Mask's choice of ring attire screams "70s wrestler, old man" and I prefer the colour choices of Tiger Mask W), and then another victory later on. And the reinforcements as KES returned. I'm also thankful for KES halting Tama Tonga's mic work: he's great in the ring, and great when he just shoots off on twitter, but it doesn't really work when he's speaking into a microphone. Seems a bit too rehearsed and not natural enough, not "him". And another three Young Lions laid out by Suzuki.

The return of Shibata, just to say he's alive, was an emotional event for everyone in the audience, and just sitting at home watching it, it was good to know. He's not returning to wrestling, but might be a trainer/coach, and the company want to look after him it seems. That's good, more wrestling companies should do that (and to be fair, WWE has shifted towards doing this in recent years like with Graves and Bryan).

It was a night of returns - four, in fact, if you include Daryl. I'm including Daryl. So yes, Hiromu Takahashi's plush cat is back from the dead, and he's in great form picking up another submission victory. Honestly, he's been having a good push even as a more junior member of LIJ, and I'm behind him all the way.

So let's talk about that main event. Holy shit, the piledriver that was sort of on the announce table then ended up on the floor. Yes, Naito protected Omega's head well there, but that still can't have been comfortable. For either of them. They pulled it all out there, and while I prefer a finisher to be a finisher, without needing double-usage of moves, that was still a great, strong end. And we have not had much in the way of false finishes and such throughout the G1. And then Naito pretending to throw the trophy into the audience (if he had done so this would not be out of character), then going around to give a fist-bump to every member of LIJ... including Daryl.

If you saw the video of Omega staggering backstage after, basically held up by the Young Bucks, then seeing Ibushi... yes, all those feels. Also I can't tell how much of the pain and exhaustion was a work and how much was legitimate there, kind of like when Okada "pretends" to have a sore neck.

I'm new to NJPW, this is the first G1 I've seen. But it was really good and I look forward to future ones.

Finally, let's look at who could be looking at a title shot based on people they've beaten in the G1:
US: Naito, Elgin, Juice
Intercontinental: Naito, ZSJ
NEVER Openweight: Evil, Omega, Yano, Elgin
Heavyweight: Evil, Omega (obviously Naito gets his guaranteed title shot at Wrestle Kingdom regardless of who holds the title at the time)
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Post by Whipstitch »

Consensus is that it was one of the best G1s ever and while I didn't watch everything the stuff I did watch was all great. Every year turns out a healthy number of great show closing matches but supposedly this year the "other" matches were uniformly better than usual due to the sheer number of guys who are both over and in their primes.
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Post by Mask_De_H »

Yeah, Meltzer was basically orgasming over how each night of the G1 had at least one good to great match, with the weakest night merely having one good match and some filler. The last three nights put out a 5 star, 5 3/4 star, and 6 star match as the main, plus Taguchi Japan vs. Bucks doing 4 3/4. At this point, Meltz has to have The Elite scattering his ashes at the Dome written in his will.

Watching the final day live was a trip; having Naito go from loathed to loved over the past 4 years is heartwarming. Seeing Naito do the tranquilo dive taunt, get back up, roll through to hit the ropes on the opposite side and hit an Arena Mexico tier tope was my favorite spot of the match. It also fit really nicely with him reintroducing his face spots as the match progressed and the crowd got behind him.
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Chamomile wrote: See, it's because K's belief in leaving generation of individual monsters to GMs makes him Chaotic, whereas Frank's belief in the easier usability of monsters pre-generated by game designers makes him Lawful, and clearly these philosophies are so irreconcilable as to be best represented as fundamentally opposed metaphysical forces.
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Post by Koumei »

NJPW wooden tables are made from superior Japanese steel, folded over a thousand times to slice open the backs of gaijin wrestlers.
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Post by Whipstitch »

lol @ people disappointed that Reigns-Cena was wall-to-wall big move spam.
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Post by Koumei »

I did hear that it was a parade of piss and shite, and that they just wasted all of their build-up on the Strowman project. Meanwhile Destruction in Kobe was great - I didn't expect KES to take the titles (and for that matter I didn't expect the third triple threat tag match in a row between those teams to be good), and Juice vs Omega was really good. For a moment I even thought Juice was turning heel, but no, he was just pulling it all out for that match. It was super duper.
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Post by Stahlseele »

WWE is coming to Hamburg, Germany.
I am thinking about going to a show maybe.
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Peculiar properties of spacetime ensure that the perception of the magnitude of Soon is fluid and dependent, not on an individual's time-reference, but on spatial and cultural location. A marketer generally perceives Soon as a finite, known, yet unspeakable time-interval; to a fan, the interval appears greater, and may in fact approach the infinite, becoming Never. Once the interval has passed, however, a certain time-lensing effect seems to occur, and the time-interval becomes vanishingly small. We therefore see the strange result that the same fragment of spacetime may be observed, in quick succession, as Soon, Never, and All Too Quickly.
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Post by Whipstitch »

Lucha Underground had the rarest of things: the well-wrestled garbage match. There was tons of athletic stuff and they did a really good job of building to every crazy spot but they threw chairs at eachother's heads and there was barbed wire so overall I'd characterize it as pretty gross and a bad idea. Whatever Shane Strickland and Dante Fox got paid it wasn't enough; nobody watches the show and it seems like the sort of thing that WWE would actually hold against you if you ever wanted to get signed there.
Last edited by Whipstitch on Fri Sep 29, 2017 7:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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