I am a little confused about Mox's Dominion match, but we shall see.

Him facing a Young Lion really feels like his inclusion was a last minute decision. Slim pickings for a high profile opponent since everyone else was already locked into matches for this show.

Then again, same could be said for the Kojima vs. Takagi match.

OH GAWD, WILL SOMEONE THINK OF THE YOUNG LIONS?!?

Watched the Juice/Mox match and have will watch the rest of BOSJ on AXS TV. Cool to see h in different promotions. Seen Killer Kross dropped a vignette today kind of going at Mox for stealing his gimmick. He's reportedly been on the outs with Impact but I don't care where it goes down Kross vs Moxley would be well, killer. Not near the quality of Moxley's but here it is.

This has made me more interested in Killer Kross more than most of his run in Impact. Funny what a little bit of outside the box work can do.

Moxley 2 for 2 for good matches in NJPW.

The match he just had against Umino was short but sweet. Seems he now has 2 versions of his Dirty Deeds finisher. A more vicious looking version compared to the one he did in WWE and an impaler version he did against Juice.

Also just announced himself as a competitor in this year's G1 Climax tournament.

Ishii vs Taichi for the Never belt was really good overall.

:eek:



Also explains the awkward delay with Shibata since the surprise would have been ruined with entrance music.

Ospreay vs. Lee for the IWGP Jr belt was amazing.

Holy shit at Ibushi almost snapping his neck from a suplex on the apron.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The neck of Ibushi is made of rubber <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/njdominion?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#njdominion</a> <a href="https://t.co/T2dhuWeZ0o">pic.twitter.com/T2dhuWeZ0o</a></p>&mdash; Miguel Uceda (@MigUceda) <a href="https://twitter.com/MigUceda/status/1137663138885787649?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Ibushi vs. Naito was great.

Ibushi's neck has to be mush after all those neck bumps he took.

:lol: at the ending to the Jericho vs. Okada match. The match itself was pretty good overall.

Dominion itself was pretty great.

NJPW teased Jericho's next match is going to be against
due to how the post-match stuff went down.

:lol:

Naito gets the IC belt back roughly 2 months after he dropped it to Ibushi at MSG.

wonder if impact made a deal with aew to keep kross happy, since he still has a year contract with them. they let him and mox have a match at aew and there payday. I also see rosemary getting involved in the allie brandy match.

Oh man Dominion sounds so good!

Kenta and Mox in G1! YES!

Were one step closer to Mox vs. Suzuki, young lions den match

Great show, was going to try and watch it live this morning but couldn't stay up. G1 getting a lot of new faces this year should damn good.

What a fun show. NJPW always brings the good with big shows like this.

Ospreay/Dragon Lee was probably my MOTN. Glad to see Robbie Eagles getting the title shot in Australia. He had a really good showing in the BOSJ.

Tama Tonga publicly bowing out of the tournament a month ago makes even more sense now since he was clearly going to be losing his spot.

I had assumed the 4 openings (Kenny, Hangman, Elgin, Tama) were going to Ospreay, Taichi, Cobb, and Kojima. Instead 3 of them have now been filled by Moxley, Shingo, and KENTA. Wild. This tournament is gonna rule.

No clue on that last spot now. Cobb's already been announced for the Dallas show, but Taichi really deserves to go in with the work he's done, and Kojima never got his last farewell run. But who else can you even bump? It's not going to be YOSHI-HASHI.

I'd guess Makabe who is a tourney staple might be next in line. Maybe Fale too since he's not been around a lot.

Ospreay apparently also announced his entry during his post match interview so that would be all of the free spaces taken.

I've heard that Tanahashi has said somewhere that he has "requested" to sit this year out since he hasn't 100% recovered from his surgery and doesn't feel like he would last through a G1. That would free up a slot again.

With Koji losing to Shingo they might just not have him in this year. While he should be in, I could totally see them not putting Taichi in again and having him go on backstage rants about it. Gedo might straight up just not book Goto because how else can he bury the poor guy at this point? This year feels anything could happen.

This.

G-1 has been mostly the same people for a few years now. Adding a handful of new talent will definitely spice things up.

Kenta in NJPW is cool but when Shibata's music hit, a big part of me was hoping he was announcing he was cleared to wrestle again.

I'm fine with the G-1 having a massive makeover. Having the same people in it every year kind of feels...not passe, that's too strong a word. But it helps it feel like the product is evolving and helps it go through a major shift.

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Mox is the best. So happy he's where he is. Punk could've done this, :(

Wow Super J Cup on the west coast in August. 3 shows, San Fran, the PWG theatre, and Walter Pyramid!

Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!!

Whole thing is good, Jericho strikes again with Bakahashi @ 2:56....

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Lance Archer just posted a video confirming he’s entering the G1

Okay...there’s no way they aren’t expanding the field at this point. Much like the NJ Cup and BOSJ, they’re going to run the biggest G1 ever.

Only thing is I don’t know how they break out the schedule for an expanded G1 since they’ve already announced the tournament will be 19 dates. Like BOSJ there will probably be a few cards composed entirely of singles matches.

Without prelim tags to skip when I’m strapped for time it’s going to be nearly impossible to stay on top of this.

They could do four six-man blocks which would be more manageable.

BUT....even though the winner will have conquered the “Largest G1 Ever”, there’s a caveat they’ll have wrestled fewer matches than previous winners.

My money is on Ospreay to take it and go on to face Okada at the Dome. Also I'm thinking they may do Jericho vs Tanahashi at G1 in Dallas as the main event.

I think it’s Ibushi’s year.

Maybe it’s the same amount and they’re just removing more of the usual suspects. Could see them taking out Yoshi and Makabe to make room for fresh faces.

Given YOSHI is moving into a ZSJ program I think he’s probably safe but who knows.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">��We know there's a real shortage of professional wrestling on Monday nights, so every week we make a new match from our archives free to watch!<br>This week, a war between Tomoaki Honma and Katsuyori Shibata from 2016<a href="https://t.co/6v4oRzOcUC">https://t.co/6v4oRzOcUC</a><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/njpw?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#njpw</a> <a href="https://t.co/wHMtDLLnpm">pic.twitter.com/wHMtDLLnpm</a></p>&mdash; NJPW Global (@njpwglobal) <a href="https://twitter.com/njpwglobal/status/1138219444516376581?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 10, 2019</a></blockquote>
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If they do move to 24:

Returnees (16):
Hiroshi Tanahashi
Kota Ibushi
Togi Makabe
Juice Robinson
Kazuchika Okada
Tomohiro Ishii
Hirooki Goto
Toru Yano
YOSHI-HASHI
Jay White
Bad Luck Fale
Tetsuya Naito
SANADA
EVIL
Minoru Suzuki
Zack Sabre Jr.

Publicly Announced Intent to Enter (6):
Jon Moxley
KENTA
Jeff Cobb
Will Ospreay
Shingo Takagi
Lance Archer

That would still leave two openings, one of which would hopefully be Taichi.

So the final spot would be a toss up depending on what they wanted to do with it. If they wanted a farewell run, there's Kojima. If they wanted more Bullet Club representation, it could be Chase. If they wanted to give another spot to one of their affiliates it could be Brody King/Rush/Colt Cabana.

SHOTS FIRED

I wonder if Davey Jr is actually done with New Japan then after all his bitching, I certainly wouldnt miss him.

Cabana might not be in it because the dates clash with the Edinburgh Fringe festival. Maybe he would sit out a year there if it meant he got to do the G1 but it's already advertised, venue booked etc so it's not like he would just have to cancel a few indy dates.

Changed a Battery for a guy wearing a Swtichblade shirt yesterday. I had a bit of difficulty, but once I finished, I said "Tranquilo!"

Really hopeful Ishii and Moxley are in the same block. That is gonna be bonkers when it happens.

Can someone summarize Davey's issues with NJPW? Or link me.

He was pissed about being booked in a comedy match with Yano.

He mainly just wants to work in more shows than he currently is. Like with Kushida, the company has him locked into a very specific spot or role and don't see any need to change it to improve his standing.

His tag partner, Lance Archer, isn't featured as much these days in shows but its also due to him being busy with backstage stuff for the company so at least he has steady work there.

He's been complaining very publicly about his position on the card for at least two years, believes he should be a singles champion and that he's being horribly misused. He shit all over Omega / Yano, resulting in Kenny burying him on twitter (something along the lines of "I'd rather get over for one night with comedy than fail at getting over as a serious wrestler for my entire career") and then New Japan booking him against Yano in the New Japan Cup two years in a row where he refused to go along with Yano's schtick and looked like even more of a dope than if he had just played along. It seemed both of those Yano matches were to curb his attitude and he refused to play ball both times so it's no surprise they don't want to use him. Guy generally comes off as a gigantic arsehole.

Archer on the other hand had his water spitting gimmick taken off him, which had actually gotten him over, and he didn't make a big fuss over it. They gave him a small run in the New Japan cup to show what hes got and he impressed people (easy to do against Ospreay sure, but he also did well against Henare). New Japan not wanting to feature KES really seems like more of a Davey problem than a Lance problem.

I haven’t seen anything that special from him, tbh.

I really like Davey Boy Jr... Saddens me to hear that he's not that cool.

Davey's issues with Yano G1 matches is extra dumb when you consider those matches are usually meant to be extra rest for certain talent. Same for any tournament he's involved in.

Crowd gets some laughs and certain talent get to ease up on the wear-and-tear during a grueling schedule period.

Philosophically, I don't disagree with Davey at all. The guy is really good, but he's got the perception of being "boring" or a flop to the niche audience. He's not "trendy" to a subculture that is going to dictate whether or not you get over.

While Davey is really good at the whole wrestling thing, he really could find something to push him over to that next level. It might be an environmental/booking thing, but he needs to set himself up in a context where he can prove that he can be that level of guy.

Apparently the reason for Shibata's awkward pointing for KENTA's surprise debut was due to KENTA getting lost backstage and couldn't find where the stage entrance was located.

Spinal Tap moment.

Everyone has one.

Oh fuck, Gedo has stepped down

NJPW sources denying the rumors now

Hope it's not true

If you see something on wrestletalk it’s probably not true.

A very reliable source in Japan denied the Gedo rumor.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The crazy rumor was not true. I didn't think so. Replacing the booker is a big deal in wrestling. If something like that was to take place, we would have heard about it weeks in advance. <a href="https://t.co/MGrnqVPNyR">https://t.co/MGrnqVPNyR</a></p>&mdash; 斎藤文彦 (@Fumihikodayo) <a href="https://twitter.com/Fumihikodayo/status/1139613025457934336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Seems like it's not true, but it still makes you wonder where it has come from. Some people are suggesting that Gedo might be sharing power now.

Truth be told, as awesome as Gedo is, he might deserve a fucking break.

According to Voices of Wrestling, Davey Boy Smith Jr has left NJPW.

Also seems the NJPW-ROH partnership took another hit recently. Juice Robinson supposedly has left ROH due to not liking his time in the company and others within NJPW currently hold similar feelings on ROH.

What is DH Smith doing in the "yellow and gold" zone?

I figured he'd be in AEW

The talent are cleverly pushing away ROH if New Japan is not going to do it themselves. It wouldn't surprise me if Moxley planted a few ideas into Robinson's head about taking some initiative if he'd rather be working AEW shows.

The only thing ROH has going for it is the NJPW association and some of the folks they signed over the winter, in my opinion. They have arguably the most insidious owners in wrestling, their top guys are mix of dudes whose ceiling is ROH/maybe TNA (Taven), people whose baggage are keeping them there (Briscoes, possibly Lethal), and people who are just waiting for their contract to expire (Scurll). Still, I don't know if NJPW can just extract themselves from the working partnership they have with ROH given they'd also lose CMLL with AEW having its own network of aligned promotions set up.

Like, I think there will be a point in time when AEW and NJPW do end up officially aligned, but I think it'll take longer than anyone but ROH would like.

ROH is barely better than Impact at this point.

G1 Climax 2019 blocks:

A Block:

• Kazuchika Okada
• Zack Sabre Jr.
• Hiroshi Tanahashi
• Kota Ibushi
• EVIL
• SANADA
• Bad Luck Fale
• Lance Archer
• Will Ospreay
• KENTA

B Block:

• Tetsuya Naito
• Tomohiro Ishii
• Juice Robinson
• Toru Yano
• Hirooki Goto
• Jay White
• Jeff Cobb
• Shingo Takagi
• Taichi
• Jon Moxley

Block A seems like a lot of repeats, I think Block B will give us a lot of surprises.

Well, it seems like they made all the right cuts from last year-WAIT WHERE THE FUCK IS MINORU SUZUKI?!?!?!

Goddamn. He should be in Block B.

I say Block A and Block B instead of A Block B Block because I think it sounds less like 2nd best.

I am truly baffled at Suzuki not being in this. If he didn't ask to be taken out of the tournament this makes no sense.

But the field as a whole is way stronger than last.

A Block is loaded, B Block feels like it's Naito's to lose.

I think B Block is looking to Shingo and Jay White to be the stand outs. Also Ishii and perhaps Mox and Cobb.

How cool is it that 3 or 4 month later and Dean Ambrose is in the fucking G1.

Thinking about it...if you sub Suzuki into B Block for Goto or Yano. He'd be losing to Naito, Switchblade, and probably Mox unless they were going to do a US Title match later. So that's 3 losses but then you consider Ishii, Juice, and Shingo all seem to be higher on the pecking order than him at this point and he probably would've lost to some of them. And had he replaced Archer in A Block it would've been even worse.

So as much as I love Suzuki, I'm not sure there was a path to him getting a winning record in this tourney and if that's the case, it's probably best that they kept him out and protect his aura.

If Goto puts up his spot to Suzuki and loses I would not even be slightly surprised.

I’d rather see Goto than Suzuki at this point.

But fuck yeah, no Yoshi-Hashi! Plus Ishii and Moxley in the same block.

Well, Suzuki DID demand a qualifying match after his match today...so it's possible. But despite Goto seemingly disappearing this year, I'm not sure they'd bring him back just to lose his spot to Suzuki.

If he's going to murder someone and take their spot, I think it'll be Yano. You normally want Yano in there because he, like Fale in the other block, gives the guys a bit of a break since they won't have to work a long match against him. Also both of them are important to booking because they've got a reputation as spoilers. But with Taichi in, he could conceivably play that role in B block.

I doubt they do anything. This probably sets up Suzuki either getting a month off or murdering people in the undercard matches. Probably costs Mox his match to Taichi or something to set up the Mox/Suzuki match both guys supposedly have asked for.

I picked Goto becauce his booking this year has had him come out looking like a big contender and then fall at the first hurdle and struggle to get back on his feet. New Japan Cup first round loss and then the Jay White feud where he even got pinned in the tags. It's almost like Gedo is ribbing him.

Love Goto, he got a monster pop when they announced him and he deserves a bit of a redemptive run before they probably shaft him in the block final, I'm expecting him to finish no higher than 5th or 6th though. Yano needs to stay in the block at all costs so he can beat Jay White and we get an epic tantrum out of it.

Night 1 in Dallas will be headlined by Okada/Tanahashi with Ibushi/KENTA as the semi-main.

7/19: Moxley vs. Ishii

If NJPW sticks with the usual trend for their tournaments, G1 Finals is going to be between winner of Okada vs. Ibushi and Naito vs. White based on the final block nights.

Only other major match in those 2 nights is Ospreay vs. Tanahashi. Probably going to be a repeat of what happened with Jay White last year because its too high profile of a match to just toss away as a meaningless match.

Eh, that's who I expected the blocks to come down to anyway. Despite it being a month long tourney, announcing all of the matches in advance makes it pretty easy to work out who the real contenders are.

The part I love about it though is all of the side stories they set up during the tourney itself. I feel like almost every match involving a champion is a must watch because a loss by the champ will set up a title match.

Some new details regarding the debunked Gedo rumor. Seems the origin of the rumor was a reporter in Japan making an assumption about the ending to Dominion and it got quickly taken as a fact of Gedo quitting as the head booker.

Save the date.

It's the main event for that night, so its going to get plenty of time.

Mox/Ishii might wind up being the match of that block. Though Naito/Shingo also has me seriously interested. And Yano/Taichi.

Mox is skipping the press conference and the Dallas show.

I'm guessing his AEW contract doesn't allow him to take televised bookings in the US.

Words from our god and savior @ 2:37

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He's such a dork and that was great :lol:

I especially like Okada's confidence in his tag team partner by immediately saying he can't wait to wrestle Zack.

Apparently ticket sales haven't been great for the Southern Showdown in Australia. People who had bought balcony seats have been getting notified that their seats are being relocated to the back rows of the floor.

Seen a few people saying they will try to get refunds because floor seats suck.

To be fair, neither card for the tour looks that appealing overall.

The card for the Sydney show looks terrible and the one for the Melbourne show looks decent at best. Nothing really mouth-watering outside of the IWGP Jr title match and maybe the Romero vs. Phantasmo match.

New Japan greatly misjudges their foreign markets.

The London show has sold well and the Long Beach shows have drawn as well. I can write off the January tour not drawing well to all of the visa issues.

But the fact that the G1 show in Dallas isn't selling well despite a loaded A Block is pretty damning. They'll draw in cities like NYC or Chicago but if it's not a city people want to travel to, it's not going to be well received.

Observer on the issues leading to Davey Boy Smith's departure.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This Davey Boy Jr. story is basically the plotline for an episode of a potential wrestling sitcom: <a href="https://t.co/avNxZVUnzA">pic.twitter.com/avNxZVUnzA</a></p>&mdash; Trevor Dame (@TrevorDame) <a href="https://twitter.com/TrevorDame/status/1141639803240239104?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2019</a></blockquote>
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https://www.pwtorch.com/site/2019/06...ans-drop-dead/

TLDRL - foreign fans can't get Tix to Wrestlekingdom anymore since they blocked a commonly used proxy service that gave foreign fans access to a Japanese address which is a requirement to be in the NJPW fan club for presales...but they still took their fan club money.

WK never sells out though, so that can't be entirely valid.

LOL at the headline of that article being so incendiary.

You shouldn't use shady third parties to buy tickets for you that require a Japanese address if you don't have a Japanese address. It would seem to be common sense that you should only buy tickets directly from New Japan or from other official channels (i.e. respect whatever rules NJPW adopts for ticket sales).

It is hypocritical for any American to criticize a Japanese company putting its Japanese fans first while claiming, without evidence, that Americans would "be outraged" if WWE put its American fans first. I think it'd actually be pretty popular in the US if WWE followed suit for WrestleMania (and if they'd ban scalpers from buying tickets to resell them at inflated prices, but not much you can do with that).

The idea of prioritizing the interests of your own country's people over those of foreigners may be completely alien to American journalists and American corporations, but it is normal to most people in America and most people in most countries around the world. NJPW is intentionally giving up money they could make from raising ticket prices and selling to foreigners who are willing to pay outrageous scalper-like ticket prices in order to ensure their Japanese fans can get the best seats at the Dome. That's admirable and is an example that the American companies that shipped our jobs to other countries where they can get away with offering terrible pay and terrible working conditions could learn from.

Didn't they sell out this year?

I think they misunderstand how valuable Americans see tournaments as -- especially as the start of tournaments. They took ages to announce a card and there aren't really any major stips in the sense that Westerners appreciate them. Getting a start in the G-1 isn't really a deal to them.

They really should have gone in gun's blazing with a card like:

* Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega for the IWGP Heavyweight Title
* Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Chris Jericho
* Kota Ibushi vs. Tetsuya Naito for the IC Title
* Jon Moxley vs. Tomohiro Ishii for the US Title/NEVER Openweight Title
* Jay White vs. Hirooki Goto
* GoD vs. The KES for the Tag Titles (give KES the belts in Archer's hometown)
* EVIL & Sanada vs. Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre, Jr.
* Will Ospreay vs. Dragon Lee vs. Bandido for the Junior Heavyweight Title
* Shingo Takagi vs. Taiji Ishimori
* Juice Robinson vs. Jeff Cobb
* Togi Makabe, Toru Yano & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Rocky Romero, Sho & Yoh

It may not have sold out, given the location, but something like that would drum up a lot more interest than "Start of the G-1."

I think that would be fine but you can't alter tbe G-1. As this is the start of the league I think they should've begged AEW to let Jericho appear and work against Tanahashi as a non tournament main event for the show.

However if I was Jericho I'd be like "nah" because even his name isn't going to fill up 10,000 seats in Dallas. His draw would look weakened if he took a booking on that card.