Essential Japanese Wrestling Discussion/News

[AlmightySu]

New Japan by a mile. The other organizations are in terrible shape right now.

Who would you say are the best wrestlers in NJPW right now? I wanna start waching this too

 

[Beautiful Bobby Eatin]

Who would you say are the best wrestlers in NJPW right now? I wanna start waching this too

Depends on what youre into...

Shinsuke Nakamura is my favorite because of his style and swag.

Tomohiro Iishi is at the top too because of his strong style spirit.

Kazuchika Okada has presence and probably the most kayfabe devastating move in puro right now The Rainmaker.

And from there you also have Bullet Club, Yuji Nagata, Sakuraba, Shibata Naito, Goto, Time Splitters, Forever Hooligans etc. That roster is DEEP breh.

 

[AlmightySu]

Depends on what youre into...

Shinsuke Nakamura is my favorite because of his style and swag.

Tomohiro Iishi is at the top too because of his strong style spirit.

Kazuchika Okada has presence and probably the most kayfabe devastating move in puro right now The Rainmaker.

And from there you also have Bullet Club, Yuji Nagata, Sakuraba, Shibata Naito, Goto, Time Splitters, Forever Hooligans etc. That roster is DEEP breh.

I've seen some of Okada's matches they were pretty dope. I'll lookin into the rest of these

Thanks for the plus rep also breh glad to be here

 

[trick]

Watched Ricochet vs Kushida BOTSJ finals and Ricochet vs Kota last night...WWE really fukked up not signing Ricochet. That Ricochet/Kushida is probably my favourite match this year.

 

[Beautiful Bobby Eatin]

Watched Ricochet vs Kushida BOTSJ finals and Ricochet vs Kota last night...WWE really fukked up not signing Ricochet. That Ricochet/Kushida is probably my favourite match this year.

Yeah thats something I definitely learned this year. Ricochet has always been that dude but Kushida is pretty good himself. He will be a good midcard singles act when the Time Splitters thing is done

 

[Honga Ciganesta]

Few Observer notes, not much going on:

DG

One of the year’s biggest shows, the Kobe World Festival show on 7/20, which I expect to be an iPPV, has announced Yamato vs. BxB Hulk for the Open the Dream Gate title, Akira Tozawa & Shingo Takagi vs. T-Hawk & Eita for the Open the Twin Gate titles and Flamita vs. Dragon Kid for the Open the Brave Gate title. That show looks to be a killer. They are considering it their 15th anniversary show even though the promotion started in 2004. But they are considering the original Toryumon group that Ultimo Dragon formed as part of their history. All the wrestlers and Dragon had a split, but Dragon has continued to run shows in Mexico under the Toryumon name, and many are taped for Japanese television.

Another show that is possibly on iPPV would be the 7/3 Korakuen Hall show which includes a loser must get a perm match with Chihiro Tominaga vs. Mr. High Tension Kotoka, plus four strong top matches with Yamato & Doi vs. Hulk & BxB Masa (Masaaki Mochizuki dressed up like Hulk), Tozawa & Takagi & Uhaa Nation vs. T-Hawk & Eita & Flamita, Yoshino & Ricochet vs. Jimmy Susumu & Genki Horiguchi and U-T & Yosuke Santa Maria vs. Dragon Kid & K-Ness vs. Jimmy Kagetora & Quu Quu Toyonaka Dolphin in a three-way.

WRESTLE-1

The top matches announced for the 7/6 show at Tokyo Sumo Hall thus far are Masakatsu Funaki vs. Kohei Sato, Kai vs. Masayuki Kono, Great Muta vs. Seiya Sanada, Eddie Edwards & Davey Richards defending the TNA tag titles against Koji Kanemoto & Minoru Tanaka, Leon Van Gastereen defends the EWP IC title with 12 three minute rounds against Hiroshi Yamato, and Dean Allmark defends the British light heavyweight title against Seiki Yoshioka. The story behind this, as funny as this sounds, is that they are trying to establish their own identity, and so they want an international foreign cast from both TNA and Europe. This is similar to what the IWE did in the late 1960s when going against the monster JWP, in that they couldn’t get the top American names, so they went to get the big stars from Europe and that’s when Billy Robinson became a big sensation. The problem is there is no Billy Robinson or Horst Hoffman or George Gordienko or Peter Maivia in Europe right now who can come in as a headliner and blow people away.

NOAH

Hirooki Goto & Katsuyori Shibata from New Japan and Daisuke Sekimoto from Big Japan have been added to the company’s biggest event of the summer on 7/5 at the Ariake Colosseum. The company’s last show at the 12,000-seat arena with Yuji Nagata vs. Takashi Sugiura as the main event did 6,000 fans. But this will be their first big show since KENTA left the promotion. The lineup has Mitsuhiro Kitamiya & Hitoshi Kumano vs. Rocky Lobo & Jinzo (a junior heavyweight tag team they are debuting before the jr. league tourney), Hajime Ohara vs. Super Crazy vs. Quiet Storm, Yoshihiro Takayama & Genba Hirayanagi vs. Mohammed Yone & Daisuke Ikeda, Yoshinari Ogawa & Zack Sabre Jr. defending the jr. tag titles against Taiji Ishimori & Atsushi Kotoge, Daisuke Harada defending the jr. title against Kenou, Goto & Shibata vs. Akitoshi Saito & Katsuhiko Nakajima (this may set up Goto & Shibata to challenge for the GHC tag titles), Sekimoto vs. Maybach Taniguchi, Sugiura & Masato Tanaka (in his first match back after emergency eye surgery from an injury on the 6/18 Hiromichi Fuyuki Memorial show at Korakuen Hall) defend the GHC tag titles against Shane Haste & Mikey Nicholls and Nagata defends the GHC heavyweight title against Naomichi Marufuji. This could the match where NOAH gets the belt back.

NJPW

They announced the Hiroshi Tanahashi 15th anniversary match on 6/28 in Gifu, which is near Tanahashi’s home town of Ogaki which is in the Gifu prefecture. Tanahashi & Tetsuya Naito will face Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma. Tanahashi made his debut with New Japan on October 10, 1999, against Makabe, which is why Makabe, who he’s been teaming with, is his opponent in this match. That’s his pro wrestling debut, because Tanahashi, while in college, did what was known then and probably still is as college pro wrestling, where guys from school would be in a pro wrestling club and organize their own shows, kind of like backyard wrestling in a sense.

Tanahashi and Jushin Liger are scheduled to go to wXw in Germany in October.

Never knew Tanahashi was a backyarder

 

[Beautiful Bobby Eatin]

Few Observer notes, not much going on:



Never knew Tanahashi was a backyarder

So that counts?



Loser must get a perm match? Is Nobuhiko Takada booking another organization

 

[Honga Ciganesta]

As noted eariler, Tonight's New Japan show at Korakuen Hall, which had been earmarked and listed as an iPPV, does not appear to be airing as neither the New Japan English or Japanese language channel on the UStream site is listing the show.

This is part of a much larger situation that may be end of iPPVs from Japan.

Ring of Honor, which did its last three iPPVs through Ustream, apparently had learned that Ustream was considering this move, but nobody knew until today how quickly the call was being made.

Ustream has not commented on this up to this point.

If this is the end, this would be a bad time. Some of New Japan's biggest shows of the year are coming in a few weeks during the G-1 Climax tournament and the huge Seibu Dome show. No announcement has been made. On the last New Japan show, they were promoting iPPVs, including tonight, and the first night of G-1, but the New Japan events page only lists last week's show and nothing going forward.

This would also affect Dragon Gate, which still has the 7/20 show listed on its UStream channel, as well as Ring of Honor, which was planning on working with UStream regularly but has no future dates scheduled.

Court Bauer of ROH reported the news earlier today. It's a huge disappointment for the promotion after so many problems, as Ustream has been close to flawless, far more than even the WWE network, with Japanese and ROH shows.

ROH will likely try another company, but Ustream's service was the gold standard in the industry.

At least for the time being, if Ustream doesn't continue this service, this could be the end of New Japan and Dragon Gate live shows on the international market.

Apparently part of the problem from their end was customer service. While if one ordered and watched, problems were minimal, but there were many examples of people who would watch part of the show, log off, come back to watch, and have issues. Many would be forced to order a second time, and then would go to Ustream for refunds for ordering the same show twice. The customer service in that regard wasn't always the best as they never had people on hand to answer the frequent questions.

The G1

 

[Beautiful Bobby Eatin]

The G1

So were going to go back to waiting weeks for a link?

 

[Honga Ciganesta]

Today's show is up (somehow), main event is Ibushi vs KUSHIDA, which is totally marred by a legit Ibushi injury, all his matches for the next week are off and he'll probably only return for the G1.



Tana/Naito vs Goto/Shibata



Nakamura, Okada, Ishii, Romero, Koslov vs Fale, Anderson, Gallows, Takahashi, Tonga

 

[Beautiful Bobby Eatin]

Today's show is up (somehow), main event is Ibushi vs KUSHIDA, which is totally marred by a legit Ibushi injury, all his matches for the next week are off and he'll probably only return for the G1.



Tana/Naito vs Goto/Shibata



Nakamura, Okada, Ishii, Romero, Koslov vs Fale, Anderson, Gallows, Takahashi, Tonga

Oh thank god!

 

[JohnB]

Been watching NJPW on and off since the Yuji Nagata push in 2007 and NJPW are really in a golden age right now. They are the company everybody including the u.s. should borrow from, who would have known Jada & Gedo would make nj relevant again. CHOAS and Bullet Club fued reminds me of nwo vs wolfpack in ways

 

[Beautiful Bobby Eatin]

Been watching NJPW on and off since the Yuji Nagata push in 2007 and NJPW are really in a golden age right now. They are the company everybody including the u.s. should borrow from, who would have known Jada & Gedo would make nj relevant again. CHOAS and Bullet Club fued reminds me of nwo vs wolfpack in ways

Yeah I really didnt think Jado and Gedo had this kind of booking potential. Kinda makes me hate Kodo Fuyuki even more for running FMW to the ground and Arai to that rope. Thay have a good eye for talent and who to push.

 

[JohnB]

Yeah I really didnt think Jado and Gedo had this kind of booking potential. Kinda makes me hate Kodo Fuyuki even more for running FMW to the ground and Arai to that rope. Thay have a good eye for talent and who to push.

Yeah Fuyoki was horrible, the "sports entertainment" style he was going for didn't work and it bombed, hardcore wrestling has ran its course by that time they clearly needed to head in a different direction. That Okada push came out of nowhere and it could have failed big time but it worked.

 

[JohnB]

Masakatsu Funaki vs. Kohei Sato has potential, im looking forward to that. Wish we could get a new ex Toryumon promotion like El Dorado but it will never happen