The Gaming Den

So, i know the Undertaker has officially ended his career for good . .
Anybody know something about Sting?

Last I heard, that injury was the end of Sting's career.

There have been rumours that the Undertaker might do the occasional match just as a special treat, but not in a way that should be read as "the Undertaker is still wrestling".

Oh well, there go both my reasons for following anything Wrestling related then.
Thank you.

They already had a match together... long ago, when the Undertaker was "Callous Mark Calloway". So basically not the dream match you were imagining. But if they wrestled each other today, it wouldn't be that either.

I strongly suggest following NJPW to get enjoyment from wrestling. I live vicariously through Minoru Suzuki's violent rampages against the referees, ring crew/trainee wrestlers, and furniture.

No, not because of THE DREAM MATCH . . Because those two were most of the time the only reasons i bothered with wrestling at all.
I loved Stings Insane Icon phase. The Mainevent Mafia was meh, but still, Sting commandeers the ring and the audience. Just like the Undertaker. They can both play the hall like a fiddle.

There's no real chance. Neck and hip injuries aren't something you really come back from at their ages, at least not effectively.

Yeah, i guess . . sads now ._.

Rusev going from not having any merch to becoming the top seller on the back of having a shirt out for less than a month gives me hope in these dark times.

That's pretty rad. Maybe WWE could notice this and give him the push he should have had more than a year ago.

Meanwhile, I am not celebrating Jan 1 - what's so special about that? I am all about January 4, because that's NJPW WrestleKingdom. Featuring:

The Villain (C) vs Kushida vs Hiromu Takahashi vs a catWill Ospreay for the Junior title.
(yes, that magical twitter feud has started again!)

My heart says Hiromu should win, but I suspect it might be Ospreay. Not that anyone is undeserving there, and I will probably be happy no matter what. If Hiromu does win, then this will probably get people pretty nervous about the main event, because "surely LIJ aren't getting a clean-sweep?"

Tag Titles: Killer Elite Squad (C) vs Sanada and the King of Darkness, EVIL!

At first I thought the LIJ guys were a shoe-in for this, because they're doing well, they're popular, EVIL is getting a (deserved) big push in general, and KES are... there. They are just two big foreigners who are kind of dicks, and they're the "also there" of Suzuki-gun. They didn't even do very well in their bracket during the tag tournament. But... it has been pointed out that EVIL and Sanada aren't that used to working as a tag team, they're really singles competitors - and they'd want to focus their time in the singles title scene. Meanwhile KES are a tag team, and basically the titles are the only reason for a lot of fans to care about them.

I do respect them (as athletes, the actual people behind the characters) for taking the bumps they did and still going on - not saying "Yeah, injure me in this way!" but getting cut open accidentally through table spots and just getting on with their job. And for that matter, the bit where Davey Both Smith Jr. has saved someone's life (again, real-world). But the characters, over all, are kind of bland, so they sort of need to be propped up by the titles for a bit until they can find a way to "stick".

Hirooki Goto vs Minoru Suzuki (C) in a hair versus hair match for the Never Openweight title, with an added stipulation of "no second" - not even Despy will be at ringside (to start with).

Oddly enough, a loss might be better for Goto's career than a win, because it can close the door on this feud and he can move on to something else, maybe even look at bigger titles or at least be involved in the stories surrounding them. Meanwhile, without the title I'm not sure what Suzuki would do that allows him to maintain some kind of relevance - having it at least gives him an excuse to have feuds at all (for the title that sort of gets the least respect) until they decide to have "a good year for Suzuki-gun" at some point or have his retirement thing at some point or indeed "a feud with an angry Young Lion". So as nice as Goto's hair is, I'm cheering for Suzuki. I mean, I'd do that anyway, but from a bigger perspective than "Suzuki-gun... ICHIBAN!"

Intercontinental Title: Hiroshi Tanahashi (C) vs Jay White.

I would assume Tanahashi, who has recently come back from time off due to an injured knee (and despite looking like "a handsome young man", he's getting on in years and his knees have been giving him troubles lately - something about all those HIGH FLY FLOWs perhaps) is putting the new talent over. But who knows? It'd be sort of weird for their feud to have basically started a few weeks ago and to then just end with one match, him beating White and retaining his title, but I'm not Gedo, I don't know what the future plans are.

Also, as an aside, Tanahashi went from having the best hair in the company to having the worst hair in the company. There's a Japanese word that means "To get back from the hairdressers looking worse than before", but I can't remember the word, I just use "Tanahashi" instead.

Also, for fans of Nichijou, Mio's moveset when she assaults people is taken entirely from him. So if you want to make her in Fire Pro, well, there you go.

US Title of a Japanese company, defended in Japan, with two Canadians competing: Kenny Omega (C) vs Chris Jericho, DRINK IT IN, MANNNN!

Amongst American audiences and the "I watch WWE and have seen a couple of RoH and NJPW matches, I buy The Elite merch at Hot Topic" crowd (ie American audiences), this really is the main event, and the reason to watch. Let's be honest: this is really drawing attention in American crowds who previously weren't even fans of The Elite and just watched WWE. Part of that is just Chris Jericho, who can make magic, but part of it is that it's basically built like an Attitude Era angle, which is amazing. I'm pretty hype for this, and while I'd assume this is a cathartic pay-off for Omega, Gedo does like his twists apparently, and for all we know Jericho might have a longer contract. After the Goldberg vs Lesnar thing, I wouldn't be too quick to just put money down.

Also it's a smart thing to do with the No-DQ match. Not just "feed us some Attitude Era". But the fact is, Jericho is in his 40s and couldn't do a high workrate Kenny Omega match for 30 minutes or whatever. This lets them pace it better, but still keep it high-impact.

And for the World Heavyweight Title: "Rainmaker" Kazuchika Okada (C) vs Tetsuya Naito.

Nothing is stopping Okada from retaining. It could still be his time to shine, he doesn't need to slow down. But he already has the longest reign, and eventually you reach a point of the audience wanting a change, and I don't know when they'll cross that point - so if Naito wins now, then they can avoid that. Furthermore, Naito has become huge and it's absolutely time for him to rule the world. Beyond that, their latest matches showed them busting out some new things, a new vicious streak to Okada (and a new move in the arsenal), and ended... with Naito standing tall, having figured out how to beat those moves. Yes, it's practically begging for Gedo to go "lol twist", but Naito winning could be the perfect ending to the event.

Also some other matches (Ibushi vs Cody, the 6-man Never Openweight multi-battle...), and honestly there's nothing that I'd just call a piss-break.

Cody/Ibushi is interesting due to the fact it might be Cody's next best chance to pull a match higher than 3 stars from Meltzer, after Okada in the States.

Koumei wrote:Meanwhile, I am not celebrating Jan 1 - what's so special about that? I am all about January 4, because that's NJPW WrestleKingdom.

And it's happening on Rusev Day!

okada wins lol

Yeah, I really thought it was Naito's night-o. Turns out I was not right-o. But still, it was an amazing fight-o.

Meanwhile, my condolences to the families of everyone in attendance, presumably murdered by Suzuki after his loss in a great match. I mean, that was a vicious start, and Goto did a great job of selling "being choked out cold", though I was not aware that referees get to call a time out so someone can recover, I was under the impression they either go "Shit, it looks like he's out, ring the bell" or they shrug and let the beatings continue.

But it was a great match, and for a Suzuki match it felt really refreshing somehow. And he made his bed, so he slept in it. Yes, it was a bed of broken chairs and limbs, but he slept in it nonetheless - he shaved his own head. (And going by instagram, still looks amazing).

Spike from BuffyCody and Ibushi put on a great match, and while I'd argue a lot of the work and "great wrestling" was on Ibushi's part (this is pretty standard for Ibushi) Cody still did well, and he and Brandi added some great psychology with that early spot following the tope move.

Omega and Jericho was as good as I expected. I was hoping Don Callous would get hit in the face again because he basically makes up most of the reason why I don't watch with English commentary. There was only one spot of blading (and about four small cases of incidental bleeding. There were also a couple of small incidental cuts in Suzuki v Goto). Also Jericho got to call someone in the audience a fuckface, so I'm pretty sure he got everything he wanted out of life.

KES now do have something that makes them interesting, and a place in the roster: amazing violence. They practically knocked EVIL the fuck out in the first few seconds there (and he sold it really well), they beat the shit out of Young Lions (Suzuki has taught them well), they made it high-impact. They can just have matches with elevated levels of violence and it can work for them.

Well done ZSJ for hooking the leg with the triangle choke to avoid being powerbombed, that was a nice spot. And it got Suzuki-gun the only partial victory of the whole night, eliminating War Machine (each member weighing about 3 or 4 Zacks) and Elgin (an angry potato). Also, with Elgin being in the bad books, I'm surprised he didn't eat the loss for the team. It's like the company doesn't vindictively punish people in the ring for shit that goes on outside the ring. Who knew such a thing could happen?

Koumei wrote: Meanwhile, my condolences to the families of everyone in attendance, presumably murdered by Suzuki after his loss in a great match. I mean, that was a vicious start, and Goto did a great job of selling "being choked out cold", though I was not aware that referees get to call a time out so someone can recover, I was under the impression they either go "Shit, it looks like he's out, ring the bell" or they shrug and let the beatings continue.

Ref stupidity is the consistently annoying thing about NJPW. Nobody cares though because Suzuki dropkicks remain excellent.

Yeah, if the only price I have to pay (well aside from the actual price in money for subscribing) for things like that is "stupid refs" then that's a bargain. And hell, Jericho berated a referee for being stupid.

"One! Two! Three! Four!"
"It's no DQ, idiot!"

Someone mentioned that the Undertaker's done with wrestling. That saddens me.

That it didn't happen four years ago saddens me much more.

He might do an occasional surprise one-off thing but yeah, he retired, and went out on his back because he's old-school. And even before that, the fact is he was only doing a couple of matches per year.

So, New Year Dash was great. WrestleKingdom was the conclusion of various stories, this was the start of new ones. The inner turmoil of Bullet Club is getting better than ever, as well as the Ibushi-Omega-Cody thing. Switchblade layout out Omega and challenging for the US title was cool, but from an in-character point of view I don't understand the connect between Omega's "I'm sick of the in-fighting, we need to be a whole again." and "So Jay White, come out here and you can join."

Minoru Suzuki seems to have a renewed energy already. He lost his title, he lost his hair, but he regained his love of hurting people. Suzuki-gun vs Assorted Others was a really good match, and the post-match destruction of Tanahashi's knee was both terrifying and delightful. At this point I don't mind if Suzuki picks up the IC title or simply gets disqualified when the time comes and the faction just rampages and makes their presence really felt.

And of course, the final match. Wow. The stakes weren't as high as at WK, but it was entertaining as all fuck. It really was just an awesome match, with all of LIJ there against some of the best of CHAOS. Very smart of Okada to put some tape on the back of his neck as a way of saying "I have an injured neck and it'd be swell if you didn't target that. You'll leave it alone, right?" I don't know if the kinesio tape thing actually has any benefit or is magical voodoo bullshit (same for the suction-cupping that Ospreay does on his back), but it's a great way to advertise a weak point.

Oh, and the beatdown afterwards was a bit of fun. Unnecessary, but fun. Was "Sanada, you deal with Okada" just "it's your turn to hit a finisher", or was it a nod at "It's your turn to challenge for the title"?

And of course, Jericho's attack on Naito. It's great to see him still there getting the reaction and attention he deserves.

He certainly looks done but well, it's wrestling and it's the Undertaker. On the one hand, Meltzer claims that Undertaker has been doing the "Vince, I"m done" gimmick after every Wrestlemania for well over a decade and history says that he'll be back by the Rumble once he's healed up and remembers how many zeroes are on his checks. On the other hand, he's fucking 52 years old and has jacked up hips, so "healing" is something that no longer really happens. On top of that he was retired by Reigns and I'm sure that's an accomplishment Vince would prefer not to detract from. This really could be the time when Taker says "I want to do WM" and Vince offers him a giant pile of money to be a road agent instead.

NJPW is coming to Australia! I am going to be there no matter what I have to cancel.

And bamf. I have a "VIP Meet-n-Greet for cool people who are really awesome and stylish" ticket, where I get to enter early, meet wrestlers and get autographs, visit the merch stall early, and sit at ringside, in the "Suzuki might throw someone at you" area.

That last bit is an actual plus, for the record.

My reaction to all things Undertaker at this point. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I heard the 25th thing was a load of piss and shite and didn't even manage to clear the low bar of "remind people of when they liked the WWE only for them to get even more pissed off at what it is now". With Miz winning "his" belt back to ensure that nobody likes the title any more and its reputation as the Inter-Chris-inental title is forgotten, and clearing up Roman Reigns' schedule so he can go and get the big fancy king title and face and beat Bork Laser at Wrestlemania. And the Undertaker... wandering out to say something about as meaningless as a Bray Wyatt rant?

I can see why his druids left him to carry EVIL into the ring in NJPW. They have left the Lord of Darkness for the King of Darkness.

Apparently they ran two venues at once, presumably to more efficiently torture their live audience.