It ain’t MSG.

Surprised they didn't just do the show outside in Times Square. Seems like a very Japanese thing to do.

Soooooooooo, the Wrestle Dynasty show that was planned at MSG before the Pandemic hit is..........what? Forgotten? On the back burner? Still being planned?

Kinda pointless to have a show just up the road.

They cannot book MSG right now or the foreseeable future without AEW'S help, in my opinion.

Another reason AEW might not be the best thing for wrestling.

Eh. They can do it.

The problem is if Gedo half-asses his booking and loads the bulk of the NJPW roster up in pointless tag team or multi-team matches, then yeah, he's gotta pluck a few people from ROH/AEW.

I don’t know what main event moves the tickets at MSG.

Omega/Okada would probably cut it. I would say Danielson/Okada but I think Danielson would prefer that in Japan.

Oh, I meant from purely the New Japan roster. But yeah, those matches have that western audience appeal. Okada vs. Danielson should be the New Japan vs. AEW match, but Danielson is a mid-carder in AEW.

I hated the 28-man, 7-block G1 format. Some guys would have like a week off and it just became too much of a hassle to follow and too confusing to track the brackets.

Not that I wanted the tournament to expand but if they were going to expand it this much above 20 I would've just gone all the way up to 32 (with it being G1 32 and all). 8 tournament matches a night across 14 shows, then semi-finals and finals. Technically means 2 less shows from what people were used to in a normal G1 (19) but there's a lot more matches of consequence since everything would be a tourney match and prelim tags are no longer a thing. I know the tags are meant to build stories for the next tourney match but there are other ways you can build.

Would just be way easier to track tourney progress if an entire block wrestled on the same night.

No one’s talking about this, but G1 results:

New Japan feels so cold.

They should work with WWE. Seth Rollins would be so itchy to wrestle Tanahashi. Okada and Reigns. White and Cody Rhodes. Shingo and Brock. Naito and AJ Styles. Ibushi and Nakamura. The Usos and whoever they decide to make tag champs. New Day and House of Torture. Ricochet going for the Jr. Heavyweight. Rey & Dominik going for the Jr. Tag. Finn Balor & Damian Priest against GoD. Asuka vs. Iyo vs. whoever for the new Women’s Title.

There’s a whole card.

You hear nothing about New Japan anymore. How is it’s actual popularity doing? It feels like pandemic and the AEW deal has put it on its ass.

Royal Quest II is the next major show. FTR vs. Aussie Open for the IWGP Tag Team Titles. Does anybody care?

Not me

Damn. I wish they could get something rolling.

NJPW goes in these waves. They are probably waiting on the next big thing that to carry them through the next 10 years. They repeat so much there. This dip is because of AEW but also the pandemic. Last time they dipped like this was when they tried to infuse MMA into the product.

Has it actually affected their business, or is this dip just reflected in the online communities? Because the hangover from Inokiism is a pretty infamous decline to be coming back from.

Royal Quest II is on soon. Doesn’t look like anything major. Seems like the biggest things coming out of it will be a #1 Contender for Will Ospreay (Naito or Zack Sabre, Jr.) and a first round match in the women’s tournament. In their defense, they’ve got Jazzy Gabert in there, who is at least visually interesting.

Women’s tournament could actually end up being half-way decent. I kind of balked at the idea at first, but this could be a good way to introduce myself to some of their joshi.

Participants from stardom are Starlight Kid, Utami Hashishita, Mayu Iwatani, and Giulia. Definitely worth watching.

Kairi is also in it, facing the winner of Jazzy vs Ava. In other words she's facing Jazzy.

I’m hoping the tournament puts some focus on things that STARDOM as a full promotion can’t. I dunno. We’ll see how it goes.

If anyone remembers Katusuya Kitamura who was an extremely muscular Young Lion from 2016-2018 before disappearing to injury and retiring.

He sadly passed away, only 36.

https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploa...size=480%2C360

Fuuuuuuuuuuck

Remember seeing him thinking he would be the next huge star in new japan. Fucking sad, man.

I remember having this feeling they had big plans for him down the line. Very sad.

Kitamura had "it". What a shame. My condolences to his family for their loss.

Hate to say it, but I'm betting it was related to steroid use. Probably affected his heart in some way.

Thats not just an assumption based on how he looks. He was busted for it before.

Add in the surging rates of myocarditis in the last 18-24 months that are rising for inexplicable and mysterious reasons absolutely no one can explain for any reason whatsoever and id wager a lot of guys who are on gear are going to drop in the immediate future.

Rough cocktail

The bodybuilding scene has been flooded with deaths in the last 2 years.

NJPW has put out an official statement that Karl Anderson will vacate the NEVER title if he goes to Crown Jewel instead of Osaka (he was double booked for that day).

Sour Boy is the worst.

Eh, fuck New Japan.

I wasn't even aware he was the NEVER champ.

Fields announced for both the World Tag League and Super Junior Tag League, which will be running concurrently. Winners get shots at the respective division tag champs and Wrestle Kingdom.

World Tag League:

* Bishamon (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI)
* HOUSE OF TORTURE (EVIL & Yujiro Takahashi)
* Los Ingobernables De Japon (Tetsuya Naito & SANADA)
* United Empire (Aaron Henare & Great-O-Khan)
* Be-Bop Tag Team (Toru Yano & Hiroshi Tanahashi)
* Aussie Open (Mark Davis & Kyle Fletcher)
* Suzuki-Gun (Lance Archer & Minoru Suzuki)
* BULLET CLUB (Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens)
* TMDK (Shane Haste & Mikey Nicholls)

Super Junior Tag League:

* Catch 2/2 (Francesco Akira & TJP)
* CHAOS (Lio Rush & YOH)
* Los Ingobernables De Japon (BUSHI & Titan)
* BULLET CLUB (Ace Austin & Chris Bey)
* Flying Tiger (Robbie Eagles & Tiger Mask)
* HOUSE OF TORTURE (Dick Togo & SHO)
* Wild Hips (Ryusuke Taguchi & Clark Connors)
* Suzuki-Gun (DOUKI & Yoshinobu Kanemaru)
* Kevin Knight & KUSHIDA
* El Lindaman & Alex Zayne

Damn! 36 is young.

I'd have thought for sure FTR would be in the World Tag League. Round out that bunch to an even 10 teams.

Kenny Omega vs. Will Ospreay for the U.S. Title at Wrestle Kingdom.

Per the main page.

Watched historic X-over. I was only interested in a few matches, because most of the card was tag matches. As much as I like the individual wrestlers in stardom, I can't stand multi person matches. Clusterfucks that may as well be tornado tag matches. That said, it was cool to see a lot of these women get to show what they can do on a bigger stage. Oedo Tai/Suzuki-gun match was fun given who was involved.

Muta's last njpw match was cool even though guy can barely move.

Ospreay vs Shota Umino was very good. Umino has come a long way. Umino going for a high leapfrog and ospreay leaping up and turning it into a liger bomb in mid air is one of the craziest reversals I've ever seen. Also, had a bit of the feels when ospreay came out in the hayabusa gear. Hayabusa was my entry into japanese wrestling, and hearing the story behind the gear choice was touching.

Kairi vs Mayu was tremendous. Absolutely worthy of the scale of this event. It's between this and Becky vs Bianca for women's match of the year. Nothing else comes close.

Lol, New Japan has a better women’s division than AEW and it’s existed for only a sneeze.

In fairness their "division" is a joshi promotion that has existed and built itself up for over a decade.

Watch stuff from the first couple years of stardom and ask yourself if its better.

I’m not convinced Stardom is good now. Give me AJW, sure. Stardom can go fuck itself. But it is probably still better than AEW’s lol. I’ll maybe give New Japan a chance to tell stories in their own universe. I might check out Kairi vs. Mayu.

Like I said, their tag matches are nonsense and the idol culture is cringey, but when it comes to singles matches, no other modern women's roster touches stardom.

It coming from you means something. I dunno, I just remember the Athena/jobber stuff and people saying that Stardom makes it look weak. That sort of shit is gross.

Minoru Suzuki announced tonight at the WTL Finals that that Suzuki-gun is disbanding effective the end of the year. He put over all of the members individually and reflected on how they'd gone from hated to beloved by the crowd in the past couple of years, but that it was time for everybody to go their separate ways.

Whether they actually go their separate ways is TBD, I could certainly see them all jumping Suzuki and basically keeping the group together with either ZSJ, Taichi, or Desperado in charge.

As for Suzuki himself, I've got a feeling he's going to be properly going freelance now and since he owns the rights to the stable name, they had to do this. If he's planning on retiring in a year or two it makes sense for him to just get his bag freelancing everywhere for the next few years.

Wouldn't be a bad thing to bust them up unless as you said they'll jump him and one of the others will be in charge.

They need to recruit some fresh blood. LIJ was in the same boat for a while. But I see that they brought Titan into the fold.

Updated card for Wrestle Kingdom:

IWGP World Heavyweight Championship
Kazuchika Okada [CHAOS] vs. Jay White (C) [Bullet Club]

IWGP Women's Championship
Tam Nakano [Cosmic Angels] vs. KAIRI (C) [STARDOM Main Unit]

IWGP United States Championship
Kenny Omega [AEW/The Elite] vs. Will Ospreay (C) [United Empire]

NEVER Openweight Championship
Tama Tonga [G.o.D] vs. Karl Anderson (C) [WWE/Bullet Club]

Inaugural IWGP World Television Championship
Zack Sabre Jr. [Suzuki-gun/TBD] vs. Ren Narita [NJPW Main Unit]

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship
Hiromu Takahashi [L.I.J] vs. El Desperado [Suzuki-gun/TBD] vs. Master Wato [NJPW Main Unit] vs. Taiji Ishimori (C) [Bullet Club]

IWGP Tag Team Championship
Hirooki Goto and YOSHI-HASHI [CHAOS] vs. FTR (C) [AEW]

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship
YOH and Lio Rush [CHAOS] vs. Francesco Akira and TJP (C) [United Empire]

is sanada on the card

Is that for all of Wrestle Kingdom or just one of the nights?

Hiromu Takahashi being the sole member of LIJ represented for the show is kinda sad. But at the same time, that's a solid card.

Not yet.

I imagine there will be another match or two but not really sure what.

Might be some 6-Man tag title bullshit where it would be Naito, SANADA, and Shingo vs. House of Torture.

That’s just the January 4 card. The next show being on January 21 will likely feature the prominent acts not included here.

WK is usually 9 matches — or at least it was a few years — so I think 1 more will be added.

New Japan pretty boring on paper right now.

* Junior Tag Titles are worthless. I get that they go for the sports thing, but it feels too dense and becomes a barrier of entry.

* Their tag division in general has sucked. I’m sure FTR will be good, but it’s a bit transparent to give Hirooki Goto another thing that doesn’t feel like the real thing. Doesn’t feel like “progress.”

* Clusterfuck four-way for another meaningless weight class belt. Feels like those names have been put together for years.

* Why are they creating another championship? Fucking hell.

* Tama Tonga vs. Karl Anderson sounds boring. Another title match. Who cares about the NEVER Title rn?

* Omega vs. Ospreay…yuck. Who cares about the US Title?

* I don’t know anything about Tam Nakano. Good luck to Kairi getting that belt over.

* Okada vs. White should be good and caps off a lot of history, but I doubt it’s a classic and isn’t supported by the rest of the card.

Tam Nakano is polarizing for me. Her image and presentation embodies everything I hate about modern joshi. At the same time, she consistently has great, hard hitting singles matches, and has been involved in some of the best storylines in stardom.

The match against KAIRI should be good at least.

Couple more matches announced for the main card:

Keiji Muto's Last NJPW Match
Keiji Muto, Hiroshi Tanahashi, and Shota Umino vs. L.I.K (Tetsuya Naito, SANADA, and BUSHI)

Antonio Inoki Tribute Match
Yuji Nagata, Satoshi Kojima, and Togi Makabe vs. Tiger Mask, Tatsumi Fujinami, and Minoru Suzuki

Additionally, the pre-show will feature a 3-minute exhibition between Ryohei Oiwa and Boltin Oleg, and a New Japan Rumble that will probably just have everyone else.

Those are more interesting than anything else announced on the show lol.

Ne1 watch WK yet

Watched yup. Omega/Osprey was awesome.

I'm sure they finished on each other's faces

Watching just shows how crazy it is that WWE/AEW/NJPW can’t have a working relationship. Let’s all cannibalize each other instead of work together. Dumb.

ya man it was pretty deadly

Posting thoughts as I watch this.

What in the fuck has happened to KENTA? Doing the Santino walk to the ring with a goofy haircut. Depressing.

I don't think there's a greater microcosm for Gedo's booking falling off a cliff than Shingo and EVIL, two recent IWGP champions being relegated to the preshow gimmick battle royal. Unfortunate.

Old guys match. Always fun for what it is. I hope I look half as good as Tatsumi Fujinami does when I'm 70. Dude looks like he could work in a coal mine. Tigermask literally dying in the ring. Needs to take diet and workout pointers from Fujinami. Makabe 69's Tigermask for the win. Huh.

Jr Tag Title match is your usual chaotic spotfest. At least fucking try to follow tag rules and have some structure. I'd understand if it was a multi team match but this is just 2 on 2. It's like a stardom trios match ffs. I will say that if Lio Rush didn't have all those attitude problems he'd probably be a really big star. We've seen he can talk and he's one of the few high flyers whose sheer talent and athletic ability make him stand out in an industry full of that style. Too bad.

IWGP Women's match. Looking forward to this one. Both these women deliver in singles matches. Very happy for them that they can perform on a stage of this scale. Ohy man, matrix into roll up by Tam looked so clean. Oh. it's over. Well so much for that. Don't see the fucking point of this title if they're only giving them 10 minutes.

There's Sasha. Can't tell if that move is good or terrible. I'm honestly interested to see what Sasha's work looks like with no restrictions.

Tag title match. Love Goto. Love FTR. Yoshi-Hashi is also in this match. Actually I haven't seen yoshi wrestle in a year or so. I'll give him a chance I guess. If FTR went to NJPW, I would watch it more regularly if they were there. Good match. Hard to get invested since you knew FTR was losing.

Ren Narita vs Zack Sabre Jr. Looking forward to seeing how Narita has progressed. Zack is always good. Solid technical match. Very abrupt ending, but that makes sense given it revolved around submissions. Oh TMDK is a faction now. Neat. Is Suzuki Gun not a thing anymore?

Anderson vs Tama for the never title. Holy shit at the start. Wow, this was better than I was expecting.

Mutoh's last match in NJPW. Be shocked if Sanada doesn't pin Mutoh for the finish. lol at Tanahashi begging Mutoh not to do the moonsault. Man Umino is 100% the next big homegrown star for njpw. You can just see it. Whelp. I'm shocked. Although, using this to help push Umino isn't a terrible idea either.

Looking at Master Wato and his mannerisms I can't help but think of OSW Review watching X-pac and going "waaaaaahhhhhh" I already saw one junior clusterfuck match I don't need to see another. I miss the 90's. Commentators talking about some backstage fight between Naito and Umino the whole time. Even they don't care about this match. Wato's finisher is cool, though.

Time for Omega vs Ospreay. omg at this fucking nerd coming out to one winged angel. Ospreay should come out to the oddly terrifying Dragon Quest battle music. Ospreay's presentation so much better. Aussie open in the suits surrounding him looks sharp. Kenny does look in the best shape he's been since leaving new japan. They must have imported that table from the states. Normal japanese tables are forged in the fires of mordor and require a magically enchanted tank round to break. This is very good. It's every bit the spectacle you would expect from these two, but at the same time, they're telling a story. Great match. Want to say the wrong guy won, but they could have plans for Ospreay to tie the score at an AEW event. Rubber match at Forbidden Door.

Main Event time. God damn, Jay White looking shredded. Jay is so great at being an obnoxious heel. Feel like both these guys need a refresh. All this seems a bit been there, done that. They should do a reversal of how this all started. Gedo turns on Jay to reunite with Okada and bring him into bullet club, and thus kicking Jay out. They won't though. I really do love how well the rainmaker and bladerunner counter into themselves. Those two moves were made for eachother. Great match. This was billed a memorial show for Inoki so kinda figured Okada was winning.

Good show. This is Wrestle Kingdom though. It needs to be better than a good show. The last two matches were the only ones that had that special wrestle kingdom feel. Can't help but feel they've gone harder into the WWE mindset of filling the card with multiman matches to get everyone on the card, thus watering the whole thing down. The IC belt's absence has also left a big hole in the card. That used to have really big match feel at WK. Likewise, the NEVER title used to be the belt for knock down drag out fights, and always had a match to look forward to at WK. They killed the IC belt, and got rid of the brutal fight feel of the NEVER title to elevate it as a replacement but it never came close to recheaching that level of prestige. And thus, two big match belts were killed to make room for more senseless multiman matches.

I'll come back for the big shows like WK and Dominion, but this did not convince me to pick up New Japan regularly again.

And I'm still fucking pissed that jr tag gymnastics contest got more time than Kairi and Tam. Those two really could have put on something special.

Good takes. I’d imagine the reason the women’s match is so short is because New Japan’s main audience isn’t that into women’s wrestling. They’re drip-feeding them.

And this was an oppurtunity to change that. But it doesn't happen in 6 minutes.

I don’t disagree. They could have used a banger to get people on-side. But their thinking is probably to make smaller impressions over time. Get people used to them before they hit them with a banger.

Jay White lost to Hikuleo in the "Loser Leaves Japan" match at New Beginning.

I guess he's all done with NJPW?

Good for him.

Jay White would be an awesome edition to NXT. I think he’ll probably go to AEW, but I think he’d be more refreshing in NXT.

Brackets for the New Japan Cup look kind of uninspired. I think the final four will probably be Sanada/Naito, Will Ospreay, Shingo Takagi and ZSJ. I’m reading a lot of support for El Phantasmo, but whatever. I think a final between Ospreay and Shingo looks good.

lol Gedo brought out David Finlay as the newest member and presumptive leader of Bullet Club. He's even dyed his beard jet black so it straight up feels like "but we have Jay White at home" energy.

Never been terribly impressed with finlay either. He's alright, but I don't see him filling those shoes.

I mean I can understand the character motivation for him. Bullet Club was recruiting every gaijin sunder the sun at the same time David Finlay was coming out of the Dojo.

Finlay sees Jay White join, become the leader, win multiple titles, get all kinds of accolades. AND the company basically goes all out on giving him a hero's farewell treatment. There was no real comeuppance for White's dastardly actions over the years.

So I can see why Finlay would be like "fuck this shit, I should've just been like Jay this whole time".

But that doesn't mean he's got the talent to pull it off.

The Bullet Club is so fucking done.

SANADA beats Naito to advance to the semi-finals only to announce he's quitting LIJ and joining Just4Guys (a stable that was formed after Wrestle Kingdom by displaced Suzuki-gun members Taichi, DOUKI, TAKA Michinoku, and Yoshinobu Kanemaru). Presumably they'll be called Just5Guys now.

Somebody should probably check on Gedo.

If he's leading the stable, it might not be a bad idea, as far as propping him up to that next level. Pretty solid group of guys too.

That's just so random.

When Bullet Club eventually phases out, I wouldn't be surprised if EVIL went back to L.I.J. and we pretend like nothing happened.

I get the Sanada move. The stable name doesn’t translate though.

Yeah it might be something that sounds cool in japanese, but it sounds like a jobber stable in english.

Exactly.

Anyone think Sanada is going to win the IWGP Title?

I think theres a better chance now than in any of his other matches.

That’s where I am. Not that I follow too closely, but I think it’s all a bit of a waste if Sanada doesn’t shit or get off the pot.

New look, new group.

Sure. What the hell. If you're not gonna let him win the G1 and win it the hard way, let's go the second best scenario. Have him win the New Japan Cup and challenge the champ that way.

Sanada #1

:y:

:y:

Watching now. Skipping the multi man tag matches. Starting with the stardom match

Very spotty so far but they're executing everything quickly and precisely, so it works.

Like, this match looks like how a lot of women think their clumsily executed sequences appear in their heads.

That was a lot of fun. Very creative finish.

Sasha is really doing work. AZM is incredible.

Oh shit, inject Sasha vs Mayu directly into my veins, please.

There's that weird promo again

Shota vs Zachary of Sabre

Been following shota closely for a while. Excited for this one. Feel like his whole identity is tanahashi jr. though. Needs to stand out on his own somehow.

Absolutely fantastic match.

Shota is 100% the next ace after Okada.

Damn, Bishamon vs Aussie Open was an incredible match too.

Jr title time. Should be good.

Is that natsupoi in the front row?

Was not expecting a limb attack story for this match

Almost skipped this cause I'm not in the mood for the usual 90mph hiromu match, but im pleasantly surprised. This is some 90's junior shit right here.

Distracted by hiromu shouting ROBBIIIIIIIEEEE during every move. Please stop.

Oh god that poisonrana looked bad

Best junior match I've seen in a while. hiromu could have sold the leg better in certain spots, but thats just me nitpicking.