Matches from NJPW G1 Climax 7/6/19

I didn't really plan to write this up, and likely won't write this up in full, but there are a couple intriguing on-paper match-ups that I might give dashed off live style reviews to.

Jeff Cobb/Ren Narita vs. Tomohiro Ishii/Shota Umino

ER: I don't think I've seen either Young Lion, but thought they were fine. Narita threw an unexpectedly nice belly to belly. Are Young Lions still only allowed to do dropkicks and elbows and boston crabs? It felt like these two did a lot more than that. Ishii looks really small here, and Cobb looks bigger than he's been. Ishii looks a little softer too, and it wouldn't be too shocking to find out he's got a zillion built up injuries that make intense workouts tough. Cobb's stop motion reverse back suplex is one of the most spectacular moves in wrestling. A lot of this doesn't quite work as Cobb/Ishii do several of their "we're standing and hitting each other hard" moments and Ishii just doesn't look like a guy hitting hard. This would have been more fun as two singles, give the young guys each a 5 minute match against a vet.

Lance Archer vs. Will Ospreay

ER: Archer is now cosplaying Tina Turner in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and his decades old bad lower back tattoo is slowly but surely morphing into just a full black backpiece. This match would have made for a really exciting series of GIFs, but I sadly had to watch the thing in real time. Archer is apparently a guy who moved tickets in the Dallas area, so this is his showcase match, and he showed me that he's still a guy who is really awful at getting into position for offense and still just stands their motionless waiting to receive offense. This happened the entire match, and it looked awful each time. There were a lot of cool moments, Ospreay is always going to have cool moments. But a ton of the moments required Archer to suddenly not be selling any kind of big move that he had just taken, just a constant stream of Archer popping up from a big move right away only to then stand still in place waiting for the next move. The timing is all sorts of wonky. Archer hit a boss chokeslam through a ringside table (killer height by Ospreay), there were a cool Ospreay code red in the aisle, Ospreay's springboard dropkick to Archer's face as Archer crawled back into the ring was awesome, and that's the thing: a lot of these moves looked awesome as long as you forced yourself to not think of the inorganic set-up. It would make for a sick 2 minute YouTube comp, if people still make those. Included in that compilation would be Ospreay making the dumbest "He kicked out at 2!?!?!? G-G-G-G-Ghostssssssssss!" face. What a goober. Archer won with a claw in Texas, and I will give them credit for that being cool. But I don't think even the claw is cool enough to make Archer look cool.

Bad Luck Fale vs. EVIL

ER: I am arguably the biggest fat guy wrestler torch bearers on the internet, but Fale is really a guy I struggle with. He is a not as good Kareem Muhammad, just an impossibly boring big fat guy. Here he's a giant fat guy who tries to win by count out (which is an amusing giant guy heel tactic) and tries to use chairs, while being the third most important and interesting person in the match. When you're less interesting than Marty Asami and EVIL, you done messed up. Asami is weirdly the focus of the entire match, as every spot is merely a set up for him to do some big bump across the ring, on the floor, or to the floor. Asami even refs the very next match, and doesn't oversell any of these actual attacks the way most refs do, so it literally just felt like a showcase for some of the big bumps Asami learned. EVIL hits a bunch of nice hard lariats and a cool headbutt, but Fale kind of only knows how to sell lariats by standing there and lightly swaying like a less impressive Giant Gonzalez. Not great.

Zack Sabre Jr. vs. SANADA

ER: Sanada is a NJ guy I really liked 2-3 years ago, whose stock has fallen the higher he moves up the card. He's a guy I liked in multimans and a guy I like much less in singles. But this one still jumped out on paper for me. It just didn't really live up to whatever hype I had for it. I think I fell for Sanada when I saw him in more multimans, when he came off like a throwback big bumping UPW wrestler. A guy without much offense but could take a couple bumps that looked heavier than they actually were. This was just him doing a bunch of mirror sequences with Sabre while Sabre mocked him in between mirror sequences. Don't get me wrong, I laughed several times at Sabre mocking him. But that's because Sanada looked like someone that should be mocked. The only interesting part of this was one of the stand and trade sections, where I thought all of the "fighting out of a straitjacket" submission stuff looked really great. The rest felt like Sabre leading Sanada through the same sequences that look better with other opponents. There were a couple cool reversals (I like uppercuts reversed into backslides, and I like backslides a lot in general), but the subs never went anywhere interesting and the finish felt like Sanada fell into a victory. Sabre was funny throughout the match, I liked him waiting to roll back into the ring at the 19 count, but it made Sanada like like a punk and the match didn't have enough good to override that.

KENTA vs. Kota Ibushi

ER: KENTA is not the guy people remembered from 10 years ago, and he was a flawed wrestler 10 years ago. Now he's a step slower and could still act like a dick, but he's never going to come off cool like Masa Fuchi, he's just going to come off like a junior who isn't as good at doing his same set of moves. KENTA looked out of shape and slow, and that's not a super interesting thing to see. Ibushi had some real nice sells of KENTA's stuff, he can really class up a Go 2 Sleep, but KENTA seems totally washed to me. There's still upside to a lazy asshole gimmick, but his needs work. He did stomp an big old hole in Ibushi's guts, really didn't seem to pull back in any way off the top, and that's something. A lot of fans are really hyped that "KENTA is back", the problem being this guy was never the guy they thought he was even in his prime, and that prime is looking streets behind at this point.

Kazuchika Okada vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi

ER: I can never quite put my finger on it, but something about Okada always reads "water polo dick". I didn't watch this. I later saw a GIF of Tanahashi's high fly flow to the floor, and those always look great. I hope the people who watched this got what they wanted out of it.

Read more!

New Japan Pro Wrestling: G1 Special in San Francisco 7/7/18

ER: I loosely considered going to this event, just because it was an hour away, but the card wasn't too interesting to me and the prices were way too prohibitive (Tim said the cheap seats were like $60, which - even if that's not true - fully prevented me from even looking further into attending this show), but I'm not someone with a very active social calendar so once I found out this show was airing on television, I figured I can spare the time to watch it. We were at a BBQ earlier, came home and it was literally 4 minutes in, figured it was a sign that I had to ruin the rest of my evening.

Sho/Yoh/Gedo/Yoshihashi/Rocky Romero vs. King Haku/Tama Tonga/Tanga Loa/Chase Owens/Yujiro Takahashi

ER: I like that they start with Haku, but it's pretty silly to have him bumping around right out of the gate for Yoshihashi. But this whole match isn't too interesting. Barely 5 minutes in and Takahashi is settling into a chinlock, which should absolutely NEVER happen when you have 10 guys in a match. Rocky Romero threw some light shoulderblocks, Gedo threw nice punches, Haku dishes a nice old man piledriver, Haku's kids were hardly in it snd they would have been the best parts of the match, Sho/Yoh had a decent double team section, but this was super short and the definition of inconsequential.

Minoru Suzuki/Zack Sabre Jr/ vs. Tomohiro Ishii/Toru Yano

ER:  I have next to no use for Yano, which is a shame as he really muddles up the works here. I love Sabre but seeing him do his thing against Yano is just the least interesting opponent. Things get better once Ishii is scraping his boot all over Suzuki's face and head, but their opening forearm exchange is uber uninteresting. Sabre comes up with a couple fun ways to block Yano's horseshoe, but this match also feels super inconsequential. Everything has so far felt like guys goofing off until it's time for the finish, which is a terrible way to start a show. Maybe there were people there live that were super excited to see Yano's schtick (he does clearly have fans), but I would feel majorly ripped off at this point.

Marty Scurll/Hangman Page vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi/KUSHIDA

ER: When you see two straight clunkers, and the next thing you hear is "Coming up next, Marty Scurll", that's when you know that you've made a series of awful choices in your evening. We were at a BBQ later, and that was okay, and now we're here and this is less than okay. This whole show feels like a house show, with wrestlers who don't understand how to make a house show interesting. WWE house shows are some of the more interesting and fun shows I've been to, and these guys all seem to think they're really charming and can survive on coasting, but most guys on this show actually have really awful schtick. I think Page and Scurll's schtick is "our offense hits really poorly" then they're actually really good at it. Page's shooting star shoulderblock off the apron is a top contender for Dumbest Wrestling Moves Ever Performed. Page's early 2000s indie offense finishes things, and this show is a heaping crap pile so far. Matches have all ended abruptly and without much interesting happening, an easy 0 for 3 so far.

Jeff Cobb vs. Hirooki Goto

ER: I have higher hopes for this one, and it delivers early with some nice shoulderblocks and one of the flat out coolest belly to belly suplexes any of us have ever seen. Cobb catches Goto, spins around a couple times to find his angle, ducks down into a deep squat, then throws him straight overhead. There's some crazy strength involved here, and it looked awesome. Cobb also takes a nice posting on the floor, and I'm into this. Cobb keeps things interesting, breaking free of a Goto headlock to hit a nice impactful dropkick, nice leaping forearm in the corner, and a cool swinging Saito suplex. Goto has some early 2000s indie offense of his own, and there are many guys in modern New Japan who feel like Ric Blade, just dropping guys sloppily onto his own knee or clotheslining someone stupidly into his own leg or slamming his leg in a car door to own the libs or some stupid shit. I liked the Cobb running wild portions of this, and the Goto control segments where much less interesting. This was still the only thing worth watching so far.

Sanada/EVIL vs. Young Bucks

ER: We run through a lot of crowd pleasing stuff early, a spot where each legal man knocks the opposing partner off the apron, a series of missed elbow drops and sentons, a four person submission, just a bunch of guys working a series of bits. I wish Sanada and EVIL were a little more aggressive while beating down the Bucks. Sanada is a guy I like but he seems a little tentative here. Nick is super smooth in all his work around the apron, but the NJ guys seem a little slow on the timing spots. We still get the timing stuff delivered, there's just a little hesitation. I like Sanada's dragon sleeper giant swing, that's a great spot, but he's arriving to his mark too early to take Bucks' spots and it's pulling back the curtain on this seeming like too much of a moves exhibition. Still I like Nick using a big rope running flipping crossbody to take out EVIL on the floor. Nick is also good at leaping into EVIL's German suplexes and take a big silly fireman's carry/sit out powerbomb, taking it all flat backed so it really landed with a dull thud. The superkicks to the ref were done well, there were a couple nice saves down the stretch, this was a good enough match, but the structure and pacing could have been better.

Bushi/Tetsuya Naito vs. Kazuchika Okada/Will Ospreay

ER: A not bad tag, with a few guys who are bigger than this tag, and everybody kind of works this the same way Misawa might take off a tag 4th from the top at a non-major show. The key is that most people are working this show as very much a non-major show. Ospreay has come off like a big deal recently and comes off pretty low-tier here, as he's primarily matched up with Bushi, but he should be way higher on the card than Bushi. Naito throws a couple nice kicks, and Ospreay takes Bushi's stuff with a nice snap. All of these matches feel like they're taking place a half hour into an episode of Friday Night Smackdown, but specifically a Smackdown match that's worked by people that aren't appearing on an upcoming PPV, and are given orders to not show up the upcoming PPV.

But we're getting a lot of Eddie Trunk commercials.

Dragon Lee vs. Hiromu Takahashi

ER: I'm shocked that they aren't constantly referring to this as the new generation Rey/Psicosis, seems like an easy get that JR would go to often. And we start with a wild Lee rana from the ring to Hiromu on the apron, and follow that up with a fast Lee tope. You just kind of have to decide whose offense you like more and root for the match that way, because there are going to be several times where you're annoyed that someone bounced back to his feet too quickly. Takahashi breaks out some crazy stuff, hitting hard on dropkicks, launching an especially nutty dropkick off the apron, then hitting the big standing senton to the floor. It's a greatest hits collection, but the crowd is a greatest hits crowd. By the time the two of them are trading big German suplexes, I don't care anyway. "These are restaurant quality suplexes, I assure you," says JR, and nobody has any fucking clue what he's assuring us of. You'll care even less about the forearm trading, but Lee will fly stupidly into the turnbuckles off a suplex. The match reaches full retard status when Lee bounces Takahashi headfirst across the mat on a package suplex, I mean literally headfirst, bounced off the mat. Doesn't matter too much, he won a minute later, off of what looked like one of the weakest moves of the match. That appears to be the New Japan way. "Do a bunch of dangerous shit, win with a weak lariat or a light backbreaker."

Juice Robinson vs. Jay White

ER: This works out of the gate because both guys are cool getting thrown violently into the ring barricades, with Juice especially flying hard into it. White needs someone willing to violently throw themselves into things, or else his whole being does not work, but luckily Juice appears to be this guy, throwing himself into the turnbuckles on a suplex and is good at taking a beating. Juice has a broken bandaged up left hand, and he's a southpaw, so we get a lot of stuff with White being a dick and going after the hand. On the floor and Juice takes a nice bump into the post, and then eats a nasty snap suplex into the barricade that actually knocks JR out of his seat, and that leads to Josh Barnett getting into the ring. White plays it nicely and both JR and Barnett are weirdly swearing on commentary, but White was hilarious acting like a smug prick for knocking over JR. Getting another 19 count out spot is a bit much on the same show (there was literally one in the previous match), but Juice is killing himself to make this match work, and White's cold heel demeanor is working off it. The stuff around Juice's left hand is a little too hokey though. Normally I'm a big fan of an injured taped up body part unable to be used, and the heel opponent using that to his advantage, but they integrate it a couple of really clunky ways using Red Shoes (Red Shoes acting too broad and hammy on a spot? Weird), it all could have been stronger. We do get a couple good nearfalls, and it was nice seeing Juice get the win. It was pretty easily the best match on the card so far, but there has also been a lot of very bad wrestling on the card so far.

Cody vs. Kenny Omega

ER: I appreciate the pomp, love Cody coming out in this grade school Roman cape, accompanied by Brandi and some lesser thans to carry him to the ring. His act works best with Brandi, and even if she's not great at ringside like Zelina, her presence can still be strong. It's great to see Cody doing totally shithead things like pulling her in front of him so Omega doesn't finish a dive. We get a lot of brawling on the floor, and it's pretty good. Guys have been taking nasty throws into railings tonight, feels like those things aren't tied down in any way. Juice in the prior match looked like he was bursting through them like the Kool Aid Man. But Kenny brings in a table and my god does it look incredibly painful when he does a flying double stomp to Cody. I was digging it up to this point, but they lost me with some of the trading and overkill, seems like Omega really wants to make his big thigh slap knee look as weak as possible, he throws it out so often and it can look great, but it never feels like a nearfall move anymore. You get nice bits of stuff, like a big flip dive from Omega and a nice headscissors, but I'm sick of stuff like trading dragon suplexes. Almost 20 years ago when I was sitting at home playing Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 and blowing off classes, the dragon suplex felt like a move that nobody could possibly even survive, let alone kick out from.

A ladder gets involved and I like some of the fighting around the ladder, liked the ladder used as a prop that you could get slammed into, but the climbing stuff didn't work for me, even though the two craziest spots in the match all happened because of them climbing that damn ladder. Cody's superplex  off the ladder was a thing of beauty, and I liked how we forgot about the table still sitting out on the floor, unbroken, waiting in position. I definitely could have done without the involvement of Red Shoes and his acting abilities, and they made sure all the worst elements of that dude were on display for the final 10 minutes. And I still cannot stand the one-winged angel, the fact that when an opponent looks like he can be put away Omega needs to go "Cool but let me try to bury my head inside his ass for a bit first", and as I'm talking about how stupid the move is, Omega does something far more violent and powerbombs Cody from the ring "through" the table on the floor, but the powerbomb falls a little short and Cody basically bounces off the table and straight to the floor. I enjoyed the drama with Brandi putting her body in front of Cody's to stop a V-Trigger, but really could have done without some last minute elbow trade offs. The underhook piledriver looked good and is far more plausible than burying your head in someone's ass until they're vertically up on your shoulders, but it was fine. The match went long and to their credit it didn't feel too stretched out. Behind Juice/White it was definitely the best of what's left.


ER: Well I'm not bummed at all that I didn't pay money to see this live, but the presentation was simple and nice, and at least the final 3 matches felt like the workers were treating this like a big show. A few of the big stars were there but clearly didn't show up, and I think I like that Juice match because of that. We get a bunch of guys taking the night off, and Juice shows up and throws himself wildly through guardrails and into suplexes. An awesome performance, with some unexpectedly fun Josh Barnett threats right in the middle of the match! NJPW bringing in Barnett to work a series would be more interesting to me than most of their options. But I genuinely loved the beatdown to close out this show. That was arguably my favorite thing we got to see. Tama Tonga is awesome and one of the more underutilized guys on the roster, one of the NJ guys I actually go out of my way to see. Tama and Tanga looked great dismantling everyone, and even though he's 60 Haku has an undeniable presence and looked intense while stomping guys out. Haku would be an awesome addition as the third man in trios, and I'm really curious to see some high level Tama matches, see how he can step it up with the big opportunity.

So, overall I wouldn't recommend the show. But the big singles matches all delivered (and even though I got bored with Lee/Takahashi, I guarantee most in attendance got exactly the Lee/Takahashi match they wanted, so good for them) and the show ending angle couldn't have been hotter, so it was a show that definitely got better as it went on.

Read more!

NJPW G1 Special in USA - Night 2 Live (as it airs) Blog

So the first of these didn't go too terribly, so I figured WHY NOT. Why not do it again. He never knew when to quit.

1. Jushin Liger/David Finlay/KUSHIDA vs. Yoshitatsu/Yohei Komatsu/Sho Tanaka

Boy Yoshitatsu sure does have an epic entrance song for a guy loathed by everyone in attendance. It's still hard for me to distance Finlay from his father. Any comparisons will be unfavorable. I like how Liger works Komatsu, and it seems to wake up Komatsu more than when up against other guys. Liger hits a nasty baseball slide dropkick and Komatsu flies gloriously into the rail. Tempura Boyz also nicely catch a KUSHIDA flip dive, and I really dig how Tanaka fights KUSHIDA over the hoverboard lock. I'm happy as Tanaka catches a KUSHIDA handspring into a german, just because I get so damn tired of handsprings. They must be punished. Finlay throws a great back elbow...but then he throws another that's not as good...and then does a silly diving European uppercut. I was hoping for more Yoshitatsu gloating, rubbing it into the fans how he knows they hate him, but he doesn't care. This is about as base level as you can get for a trios match. I see that Meltzer gave it ***1/4 which just means that a random CMLL episode must be total ecstasy for him. Nothing will be remembered about this match. ***1/4 seems fairly memorable to me.

2. Kenny Omega vs. Jay Lethal

This starts great as Lethal has his ribs taped up and Omega just kicks him hard a couple times right in the tape, then does a front suplex right onto the apron. Fuck your ribs, Jay. They do some do-si-do stuff, Lethal gets into the OWA in about the least convoluted way I've seen, then Omega somehow plausibly makes the lethal injection look good. Lethal didn't take forever setting it up either, and it actually looked good! Then Lethal warms my heart by nailing Omega with three straight topes into the barrier. I like when guys capitalize on big moves. Omega gets his leg worked over and after a dragon screw Lethal yells "He's a dead man!!" and then proceeds to measure his distance, hit a slow motion handspring, and get caught in a backstabber. I take back me liking the move a few sentences ago, the lethal injection remains the stupidest finisher in wrestling. I cannot think of another instance where you'd go in for the kill by walking momentarily on your hands away from an opponent. I saw Keith Hernandez on a 1986 episode of Dick Cavett, and he was talking about when they started allowing women in the locker rooms. And on the very first day it was allowed, Keith came walking out of the showers naked, on his hands. IF 1986 Keith Hernandez had delivered a totally nude lethal injection (the terrible finisher, not some gross euphemism for penetration) to the first woman allowed in a locker room, that would have been the only acceptable lethal injection ever performed. Lethal gets caught by the transition dragon suplex, because, you know, he points to the ropes opposite his opponent, yells that he's going to slowly bounce upside down off of them, and then gets caught. Lethal matches have become an exercise in getting caught doing stupid things. He has strikes that are good enough to make him maybe the most frustrating wrestler in the states, because he keeps insisting on working his matches entirely around his awful finisher. And speaking of awful finishers, both men then carefully balance while doing a couple reversals based around the one wing angel. If Omega can do a bad handspring into getting his opponent somehow on his shoulders...I think we could reach nirvana.

3. Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Tomohiro Ishii

I love this total style clash match-up, and love Sabre for coming out and trying to slap Ishii. Sabre foolishly playing into Ishii's one strength is great, and then Sabre ups things by headbutting him. Sabre takes some shots and finally kicks Ishii in the bicep and Barnett is talking about his "Lancashire style" and it's pretty great. Sabre eats a big shoulderblock and nice delayed superplex, then kicks Ishii's bicep again, lands a great short uppercut and then hits a killer jumping northern lights. THAT looked freakish, like some mutant Alexander Otsuka move. Ishii finally gets wise and catches one of those kicks aimed at his bicep, but Sabre rolls him through with a bridge. Here's a neat thing about Sabre's bridge: he pins Ishii's shoulders down by standing on his armpits. That's some fine detail work right there. Sabre locks on a great twisty sub and keeps grabbing each Ishii limb that gets close to the ropes, great moment where the crowd kept getting louder every new iteration of the sub, and finally Ishii reached ropes and lay there holding his arms and body. Sabre leaps at Ishii to try to lock on his nasty wristlock, comes close, opts to hit the penalty kick...but modern offense cannot hurt Ishii, and he barrels through him with a lariat and delayed brainbuster. Satisfying match, fun to see Ishii out of his brainless stiff exchange pattern.

4. Juice Robinson/Dragon Lee/Jay White/Titan/Volador Jr. vs. SANADA/Hiromu Takahashi/Tetsuya Naito/BUSHI/EVIL

I look up and think Takahashi's tron video said "Tickling Time Bomb", which would be a decent gimmick. BUSHI is wearing the super cool black/red gear, looking like a final boss ninja. SANADA continues to warm my heart by dropkicking Titan during his handspring. Death to all hand springs! EVIL mostly sucks, but American fans still like him because he has that Japanese credibility. SANADA plays lucha maestro by locking on a couple Nieblinas and JR chooses the first strike of the match to gush over as a sliding kick by Naito that whiffs. Boy, Titan has been in this whole match. There are 4 other guys, buddy. Naito takes Juice's leaping sidekick better than any man has taken it, and then Juice throws a great lefty lariat on SANADA in the corner before hitting a couple cannonballs. Our first strike exchange of the evening actually belongs to Lee and Takahashi, which is like the least interesting thing they can do to their bodies. Having them match up in a 10 man is kind of pointless as we've seen them in multiple long singles matches, there's really only so much they can do during a 90 second exchange. White throws some cool off balance strikes that shouldn't look as good as they do, and SANADA continues burrowing his way deep into my heart by being the only guy doing interesting things on the apron. JR starts talking about Tony Garea while BUSHI takes forever setting up a missed move off the top. Juice hits a weird/cool short left hand to KO Takahashi off the apron and Jay White finishes things by running through a few 1999 Power Plant graduate finisher moves.

5. Tama Tonga/Tanga Loa/Hangman Page vs. War Machine/Michael Elgin

This match and one other I'm weirdly excited for are the ones that Meltzer did not give a ***+ rating to, which makes me more excited for both of them. Has someone less threatening ever been given a cool nickname like "Hangman"? "Christ Stomper" Stephen Hawking. "Throat Slasher" Eddie Deezen.  Yeah this match kinda blows so far, but no more than our first trios. A lot of cracks showing through in this match, guys waiting in position for other guys, delaying moves that are supposed to get interrupted...but then Tonga takes a crazy fast bump over the top to the floor, and Page gets hiptossed into Loa (while Loa is draped over the ropes) and I'm in. The War Machine springboard clothesline german suplex is cool - indy as hell, but cool. But then we do some lame "hit me so I can show you how tough I am" stuff that takes me back out. BUT, Hanson hits a big top rope cannonball and I'm back. Rowe always does a couple cool things in his matches, here I dug him headbutting Tonga's arm as Tonga threw a forearm, and he also bumped a Page lariat bigger than it probably deserved. Match was okay.

6. Roppongi Vice vs. Young Bucks

Pretty early "fuck this match" as they do a bunch of goofy as hell missed somersault legdrops, then everyone throws a dropkick at once and the crowd ERUPTS in applause. Then they all do the worst phone booth fighting you've ever seen. The rest of this is going to have to be incredible to get it to its ****1/4 designation. Romero always has an incredible knack for moving in far enough so that he never catches his opponent on dives to the floor. They always end up flying just over his head, in the same way John Morrison has been overshooting his twisting moonsault for a decade now. Bucks always do things I like, and I'm probably higher on them than most humans (at least ones that run in our niche nerd circles), but they're better than what this match has been. This has been a bad Eliminators "hold still so I can do spots" match, with dodgier execution. "A jumping piledriver on the apron should spell disaster for Nick Jackson." I mean...you would think that, wouldn't you, JR? But even with another piledriver back in the ring, it wasn't enough. There are several more moves that don't finish Nick Jackson. They cut to someone in the crowd marking out, and that someone MAY have been Marty the Moth. He looked like he was having the time of his life. Man, I do not need a "We're having a WAR!!" strike exchange with fucking Rocky Romero. Matt just completely no sells a Romero dive, which makes sense, it looked terrible. But it looked no worse than any Romero tope, and those all get sold. So it's weird for him to just take this one and decide "Wait a minute these are terrible, I didn't get hurt at all!" and pick him up. They do an insane Meltzer driver to the floor (and toss in a nice tribute to Herb Meltzer, which was genuinely nice), then they do another in the ring that doesn't hit at all. This match was terrible. I mean really, really terrible.

7. Cody/Yujiro Takahashi/Bad Luck Fale/Marty Scurll vs. Briscoes/Will Ospreay/Kazuchika Okada

Scurll found a way to make me lose interest during a Mark Briscoe sequence. That's a special kind of boring right there. This has more stalling than an '89 Rougeaus match, but is nowhere near as entertaining. This match and the prior one are finally making this live report seem like a terrible idea. Man this match is bad. Ospreay the only one with a raised heart rate. Everything in this match is taking so long, and guys are selling without taking hardly any moves of any kind. Yujiro gets his head snapped nastily on a Jay neckbreaker, then bites Jay's thumb, hits a couple light sliding dropkicks and thankfully Jay levels him with an elbow. I think guys are trying to work comedy spots? Nothing is very funny, but I think that's what's happening. That's the problem with having offense that looks like shit, is it's never quite clear if you're just having a laugh. This match is just interminably long. Ospreay hits a big flip dive and hits a flipping...knee? elbow? on Cody. Cody sells it by doing his finisher moments later. God this match was fucking awful. Here's hoping Billy Gunn can save this show!

8. Billy Gunn vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi

The crowd boos Gunn because they're shitty. I've never been a Billy Gunn fan, but this kind of match-up seems way more interesting that seeing another wankfest rematch against any number of NJ natives. And Gunn is great doing all this slow annoying stuff that must be infuriating the live crowd. Showing off his height during lock-ups, yanking Tanahashi's ponytail during a headlock takeover, and then going after Tanahashi's taped up arm. Single arm DDT, smacking it into ring posts, and the fans hate it!! Gunn even punches Tanahashi out of the air, but Tanahashi doesn't bump his missed axe handle like Arn. Gunn is awesome punching Tanahashi while holding his ponytail. The man is wearing a ponytail in a wrestling match, it needs to constantly be used against him. Gunn gets his trunks pulled down and awesomely continues working with his trunks down. Only weenies give a shit if their underwear is showing. Tanahashi finally goes on his first run of offense, and exclusively uses the arm we've seen get worked over the past 10 minutes. Flying forearm, hip toss, leaping elbow, I mean literally all the moves he did at first opportunity used his bad arm. Tanahashi only knows how to work New Japan Main Event Epic and it is embarrassingly on display here, though has been hinted at in the way he completely disappears during trios matches. Not a good match, but a match that should have been good, and all it would have taken was a LITTLE bit of effort from Tanahashi. He showed no interest in selling, showed no interest in being engaged while in holds, clearly put half ass into his offense. Terrible Tanahashi performance.

9. Kenny Omega vs. Tomohiro Ishii

I'll be honest, I'm probably not in the best mood for this match. The Tag match was terrible, that 8 man match was embarrassing, and that Tanahashi match was one of the more phoned in performances you've seen this side of an Orton main event. 30 minutes of NJ epic is not going to be what I need. Let's see if they can win me over. But 10 minutes in we've just predictably got a lot of "I'll show YOU how tough I am, hit me!!" junk. The floor brawling was inspired but too brief. Ishii will take a DDT right on top of his head, and he'll do the same with Omega's stupid high jump bulldog. The nastiest part of the match so far is a flip dive from Omega, caught valiantly by Ishii, who also gets his head smashed into the concrete upon catching him. We build to a big stupid table suplex spot, with some amusing stuff like Ishii biting the top rope to prevent Omega from throwing him. Does Ishii have strong teeth strength as one of his known attributes? Because it comes off kind of funny for a guy to try to Jaws his way through things. If you were suplexing Richard Kiel, this would be a familiar spot. Here it felt like an odd joke that was told moments before the joke teller got head-dropped through a table. It's amazing how Kenny Omega is so good at making huge suplex spots mean so little. Top rope dragon suplex against Okada, a dragon suplex off the apron through a table here, they all mean as much as any other move done in his matches. Big deal, I saw a 20/20 piece on backyard wrestling 15 years ago and a kid took a burning hammer on a picnic table in a park. There's a good chance it meant more to whatever match those two idiot teens were having. Finishing stretch sees Ishii dumped on his head by the snapdragon, kneed in the face, and go down with fighting spirit to the end. Good for them. This sure was New Japan-y.


I never know when to quit. This show was fucking awful. I liked the Sabre/Ishii match and the 10 man, couple other matches had their moments...but man there were some dogshit awful performances peppered throughout this show.

Read more!

NJPW G1 Special in USA - Night 1 24 Hrs Later Not Live Blog

Even if I'm not very interested in the New Japan product, it's inarguable that it's the hot trend among our niche online wrestling culture. Even though I rarely match up with the popular opinions on New Japan, the appeal kind of fascinates me because I don't totally understand it. A lot of things that I see and think "Wow this looks terrible!", and it's still oddly jarring to see plenty of people see the exact opposite. Still, I think it's cool they're giving the US some shows, and I think it's cool they got broadcast live. We were out all day yesterday, and against my instincts - and without knowing much about the card or the results - I figured I would waste some time on a Sunday checking it out.


1. Bullet Club (Young Bucks/Bad Luck Fale/Marty Scurll/Yujiro Takahashi) vs. CHAOS (Briscoes/Will Ospreay/Roppongi Vice)

30 seconds of Scurll and I'm already kind of regretting this decision. His act feels composed entirely of movements that you've seen before, done better. But the Briscoes make me feel better about this decision. We get a great double team jab/chop combo, Mark hits a nice dive, Jays hits a dynamite baseball slide and then a crazy blockbuster to the floor, and this is getting good. The Bucks collapse a ring barrier on a dive and Ospreay hits the most gorgeous possible springboard SSP. That Scurll finger breaking spot is one of those things you flip for the first time, and at a certain point you realize how completely stupid it is to expect any wrestler to sell broken fingers 2 minutes into a match. Mark Briscoe is looking great though, flying in with a great rana and leaning deep into a Bucks superkick, and this whole thing is really good whenever it's not Scurll in the ring. Fale seems really out of place in this 10 man, doesn't look very plausible taking Romero offense. This whole thing was quicker than it should have been, and they easily could have dropped a few guys and made it into a better 6 or 8 man, but I assume they're trying to get as many guys on the card as possible. Matt Jackson: "I can't lose on TV, I got a deal with Hot Topic!"

2. Hiromu Takahashi//SANADA/EVIL/BUSHI vs. Jushin Liger/Dragon Lee/Titan/Volador Jr.

Weird they would frontload all these multiman matches, seems like they would be better served having them between tournament matches. Liger seems slower than the last time I saw him. I think he's better now in singles, that don't require the go go pace of an 8 man. SANADA takes a high bump to the floor and a sharp back elbow. Lee and Takahashi are guys whose match-up benefits from a multiman, because they don't have to kick out of absurd moves, but instead come in for some lightning in 15 second bursts. Takahashi whips himself into a German faster than anybody, it's nuts. SANADA mans up and catches Titan on a nutso dive, and suddenly this match is making me really want more SANADA. Titan ups the crazy by sprawling spectacularly into the buckles on a bump and eating a chairshot. Another short match, really feels like a major waste of some of the guys involved. I both appreciate them not making this a 6 hour card, while being disappointed in the match lengths so far.

3. Hangman Page vs. Jay Lethal

These flimsy ring barriers have already made a couple of nice spots look spectacular, I think we've had a barrier get knocked over every match so far. Here a nice Lethal dive looks devastating as Page gets plastered right through it. This just in: Page's shooting star shoulder block STILL the most "indy" move in wrestling. I say that, of course, before remembering that the Lethal Injection is somehow considered a finisher. I think I really like Lethal, except for that move's glaring stupidity. But considering matches often build to that move, it's a major problem. His rolling elbow and enziguiri look nice here, he eats a big clothesline, but we keep going back to that stupid slow handspring. When he finally hits it, he totally whiffs on it and Page sells it the same anyway. My god the move is the worst. And we get a 4th attempt and it lands short, but thankfully Page leaps forward right into it. If he literally just used any other boring finisher, his matches would be so much better, as all his in between stuff looked really great: great variety of kicks, elbows that land heavy, nice punches, but when so much of the match is built around something that stupid...

4. Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Juice Robinson

I think every match has featured someone with a strike combo that ends in a standing senton. I shouldn't complain as the senton is one of the most logical moves in wrestling, just dropping your body on a guy's ribs, but it's weird how many of these guys just aim to wrestle so similarly. Heel Sabre is wonderful as he has a great mug for smug showoff shit, and has a nice arsenal of cocky spots. There's mocking stuff like the dreadlocks cravat, but meatier stuff like nasty wrist bends, and subtler stuff like stepping on Juice's hand before applying a hold. People who discredit him as someone who just puts on "holds exhibitions" don't give him credit for cool stuff like that, distracting his opponent with one bit of pain before applying something more dangerous right after. Juice is good at setting up Sabre's nastiest stuff, and the powerbomb out of a triangle was a nice comeback spot. The match ending octopus hold was sick, and I love the set up with Sabre kicking Juice's bad wing, Juice instinctively punching him but doing further damage to the arm in the process, and leaving himself open to be stretched to submission. Really satisfying 10 minute match.

5. Yohei Komatsu/Sho Tanaka/Yoshi Tatsu/Billy Gunn vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi/David Finlay/Jay White/KUSHIDA

Boy this feels like a lopsided match-up. I don't know if Tempura Boyz are actually any good. I really loved a Komatsu/Liger match from a couple years ago, but I think I more loved the structure of vet vs. rookie than his actual ring work. I do love the heat Gunn is getting. He knows he's as out of place on this card as the ticket buyers think he is, so I love him going in there and just soaking it up. His lightly hurt face after his 1999 Suck It draws boos was perfectly done. People dump on Tatsu but he's got the Toecutter hair, gets dumped on his dome by Jay White, hits a fast low angle spinkick, and has no problem getting suplexed into the buckles. Finlay works like 2005 Roderick Strong mixed with current Barbaro Cavernario. His dad needs to teach him how to stomp hands and headbutt chests. Tanahashi's slingblade looked like crap against Gunn, and I don't think it was Gunn's fault. Overall, this wasn't much.

6. War Machine vs. Guerrillas of Destiny

I don't think I actually knew Camacho was Meng's kid when he was in WWE. They make this No DQ, but that just means they use some flimsy trash can lid shots, when their normal match strikes look better. I'd rather see them headbutting War Machine in the nose than hitting them in their meaty backs with a lid. I hate how "agile" Hanson tries to wrestle. Rowe embraces the hoss and is better for it. Hanson has too many spots that get too cute. But him getting powerslammed off a springboard is an impressively nutty spot to take. Tanga hits a nasty diving headbutt, and diving headbutts are still a thing guys are doing in 2017. Rowe eats a powerbomb through chairs, and probably lucky for him he parts them instead of bending through them with his kidneys. Hanson uses his cartwheel smarter than normal, organically using it to dodge a charge. It usually feels so much more planned out. And his dive is always impressive. But, I will say, the few times Stan Hansen did it in All Japan are so much more memorable because of how seldom he did it. The powerbomb/legdrop through the table was impeccably timed.

7. Tetsuya Naito vs. Tomohiro Ishii

This is fine but I'm kind of numb to Ishii's masochistic style at this point. Naito doesn't work as stiff a style as other guys who he's just endlessly stood and exchanged with, so it rings a little hollow to see him selling thigh slaps more than he sells say Shibata elbowing him in the throat. Naito makes amusing faces while eating gross chops, and I like a few of the cockier touches that he brings, like wiping his boots on the back of Ishii's head. His spit spot is always stupid and gross, but we ramp up to a whole new level when he spits blood in Ishii's face, and it actually makes me cheer when Ishii clobbers him with a vicious headbutt and snaps him with a folding powerbomb. I can't actually tell if Naito just botched running up the ropes a couple times in trying to the tornado DDT, but if they did then they expertly covered it and made it seem like Ishii was just pulling him away from the ropes to block. Either way, it made the DDT mean a lot more. They lost me a little bit with each guy showing how they can get dropped on different parts of their dome, but the 15 minute run time was far more satisfying than if this same match was in the Dome. I imagine it would go 25 and the pinfall here would just be the beginning. This was fine but felt a bit too much like they ramped up to "we're having an epic".

8. Michael Elgin vs. Kenny Omega

Elgin has a great shoulderblock and back elbow, and Omega has no problem leaning into a huge shoulderblock. Taking offense is obviously not Omega's problem. Love powerslam spots and Elgin always has a nice one. I would love it if he did more, really. JR talks about how they're starting "slow" but we've already gotten a powerslam, a shoulderblock dive off the top, and a brainbuster. Omega nails the leg lariat on the concrete and he actually hits it, usually he just leaps all the way over his opponent and they take a faceplant. Omega always has really weak looking chinlocks, and his backpack sleeper was even worse. His arm didn't even look like it was touching Elgin's neck. It was barely touching his beard. Elgin always has a lot of great looking slams, but it's the same problem as Angle letting everybody reverse his ankle lock, it just makes his own moves look weak. They all look spine crushing, but they're all treated like early match bodyslams. Like, holy shit, here's this German suplex on the freaking apron, followed by a freaking crucifix power bomb off the middle buckle, and Omega kicks out of it the EXACT same way he kicked out of the brainbuster 4 minutes into the match. The previous match ENDED with a brainbuster, and here it was nothing. But we now know that apron German and crucifix bomb are not much either. Elgin lays Omega out with the burliest clothesline on this show by far, but Omega still kicks out all the same. Seriously, he only knows how to kick out one specific way, always at the exact same time, every count. Every move *almost* puts me away, but no moves actually finish me! After Omega gets the back of his head blasted into the mat a few times, that unlocks the "do all your offense in a row" part of his brain, so we get a bunch of running knees (some looked great, some looked like femur bruising slaps). I admire Omega's restraint to not drop Elgin vertically on the clutch tombstone, and he eventually does all the right dance steps in the right order to unlock his finisher.

9. Cody vs. Kazuchika Okada

I will never not love when a heel postpones the opening bell so that he can go and kiss his attractive spouse. And Cody's shiny America tights and stars n stripe boots are glorious. HOWEVER, not using red/white/blue kinesio tape is that little touch to detail that shows that Cody JUST DON'T FUCKING GET IT. He gets it...but doesn't totally GET it. But then Brandi is wearing a fucking sequined American flag cocktail dress and he obviously fucking gets it. That dress would boost the ticket sales to any fucking USO show out there. I could be completely crazy, but has anybody else noticed the AXS cameras specifically focusing on couples in the crowd? 80% of the up close camera shots are of two slender, charming couples, chanting for their favorites and occasionally smiling at each other. Were they given a directive of "hey, no fattie neckbeards, okay? We gotta make this look like it's worth 4 hours of schedule." Okada having to find a way to get his opponent on the buckles so he can dropkick them off, yet always doing it the same way, is just as stupid as "you can't powerbomb Kidman" or somebody trying to sunset flip Super Porky or Rikishi. It needs to be said. Okada is a prettier face, conditioned haired, Billy Kidman except without all the deathwish bumps. Okay, they just showed a couple guys in the crowd who didn't APPEAR to be a couple, but one of the guys looked kinda like between-shoot-body Dan Stevens, so they may have thought they were showing a celebrity. Okada calls for the Rainmaker which just shows he's never heard of Albert Hammond Sr. before. Cody is the only guy in New Japan who understands how to use slaps. You mockingly smack a guy to muss his hair, or you do one after wide-eyed shit talking, or you use them to allow your opponent to get angry enough to justify their transition to offense. Cody gets - and uses - all three of them. You just don't stand and trade them. Cody understands the best way to use the Rainmaker is to make scared fans think that Cody was somehow going to get the title. When I wanted Brian Kendrick to desperately win the CWC and he got that one great nearfall on Ibushi? That joy I felt is tantamount to the fear these fans felt when they thought Okada would lose. Okada, however, does not lose.


You know, this could have been an absolute disaster of an idea. But this was a nice high floor low ceiling show. No blowaway great matches, but nothing that made me want to lean on the FF. A lot of the best stuff were the matches that hit the proper time, that money 10-15 minute zone. So it was nice to see this NJ style that I dislike, worked slightly toned down (I say toned down only because only one guy dumped himself on his head 3+ times, and nobody lost feeling in the right side of their body from a shoot strike on a nearfall). I liked tons of individual performances on the show, thought Cody looked great in the main, thought Sabre and Juice complemented each other well, SANADA looked like a guy I would actually request recommended matches from (any SANADA matches that would make our MOTY List from the last few years?), so it was a breezy view. I drank good coffee, played with my cat son Tacos, goofed off on Twitter, and watched some decent wrestling. It's a quality Sunday.

Read more!