Essential Japanese Wrestling Discussion/News

[Ed MOTHERFUCKING G]

It's very, very easy to follow. Firstly, dudes only work about 10-15 singles matches a year. Those will all be at the PPVs and the tournaments. G1 Climax, which is happening right now, and the New Japan Cup which happens in the Spring. Otherwise, they're in tag and six man matches with their factions in matches building up to their big singles showdowns. Most MAJOR storyline shifts happen after matches on PPV so you can see them happen. With so few singles matches, every match can be a reasonably big deal, and it's easy to keep track of and remember the happenings.

And then to follow what's happening on the house shows and storyline developments, there are a lot of good blogs to post all the results, and even better, have summaries of the storyline stuff/translations for what's happening. Of course, these are spoiler heavy. http://www.puroresufan.com/njpw/ is the go-to for New Japan.

The thing about good puro booking. Is that things flow and develop for years. It's a complete 180 from WWE where you're SUPPOSED to remember what happened six months, a year, two year, three years etc etc etc ago. Every time guys come across each other, it's another chapter in their story. If you just hop into stuff now, you'll find it super enjoyable of course, but occasionally you'll wonder why the crowd is going apeshyt at something that didn't seem THAT epic, and that's because it's some sort of callback to a spot or a moment that happened before. I'd really suggest watching the Okada-Tanahashi matches in order to really appreciate them. It starts with Tanahashi being overwhelmed by this young guy who can exceed him with the athletic style he brought to the puro game and not being able to respond to someone who, for the first time, he just couldn't out-work for a W. And then they develop the story perfectly until their final match 18 months later.

There was a really fun match between Karl Anderson challenging Tanahashi for the belt early last year, when Anderson pulls out some of the signature moves and spots of some past NJPW gaijin like he was channeling their energy to pull off the upset the crowd ate the shyt UP. He had a Japanese audience legit yearning for a foreigner to beat the biggest star in the country.

@The Electric Lady presto. Good q i wanted their feedback too

 

[JohnB]

Random ass match

 

[Honga Ciganesta]

Day 6. Right from a neck injury Tanahashi has to face Ishii
Shibata/Kojima:



AJ/Tenzan



Okada/Yano



Tana/Ishii:

 

[Honga Ciganesta]

Day 7, HUGE show:

Honma/Fale:



Makabe/Naito:



AJ/Suzuki, haven't watched yet but this is getting major hype:



Shibata/Nagata:



Nakamura/Ishii

 

[True Blue Moon]

Gonna eat good this weekend

 

[Miracle Violence]

AJ/Suzuki, haven't watched yet but this is getting major hype

They kind of stole the show, even though Nak/Ishii was the more epic style match. Best performance from MiSu in ages.

AJ is going to fukk around and turn himself face if he keeps up these blowaway matches. He definitely has the Korakuen crowd behind him at this point.

 

[TrueEpic08]

They kind of stole the show, even though Nak/Ishii was the more epic style match. Best performance from MiSu in ages.

AJ is going to fukk around and turn himself face if he keeps up these blowaway matches. He definitely has the Korakuen crowd behind him at this point.

I just went through the first 4 days of matches posted in the thread, and AJ has been far and away the most entertaining guy in the tournament so far.

The guy's just been amazing, great matches everywhere, great heeling, even the banter's been top notch (him telling some random fan to shut up during his match with Okada was really funny). In some ways, AJ might be better now than he ever was in TNA. Small sample size, yes, but I haven't enjoyed him this much in nearly a decade.

 

[JohnB]

this nikka AJ Styles is on Flair mode and is having classics with EVERYBODY that match with Suzuki is arguably moty a 5 star classic. AJ turned face off one match

 

[TrueEpic08]

So I just watched AJ/Suzuki...

...I mean, what else is there to say? Is there a better wrestler in the world right now than AJ Styles? The dude got "AJ" chants in Korauken against Minoru Suzuki for fukk's sake. AJ Lee couldn't get "AJ" chants as a face if she started skipping around naked every week on RAW.

The man's absolutely on fire right now. Simple untouchable.

 

[Honga Ciganesta]

AJ/ Suzuki was a thing of beauty Minoru in full arm mangling mode, great selling (the way AJ used his left hand when he could), awesome strike exchanges, molten crowd, great finishing run etc. May have to post it up in the RAW thread just so non puro watchers might give it a watch.

Nak/Ishii was tremendous as well, loved how they played off the familiarity and there was so many great touches. Ishii hitting that drop kick half way through Nak's pose was hilarious. Another great finishing run, and a fantastic aftermath. Shibata/Nagata was so violent I love Shibata brehs. Pretty sure Nagata kissed a fair few brain cells goodbye in that one.

Day 7 is for sure my show of the year, in fact it's one of the best shows I've ever seen. Everything was at least good, with a few excellent matches and two MOTY contenders. I'm ready to say right now G1 14>>>G1 13.

 

[St0nY]

watching Day 8, Goto/Naito was

 

[Zero]

AJ/Suzuki, haven't watched yet but this is getting major hype:

I been watching the wrong damn company

This is the first time I've watched a full japanese match and I THOROUGHLY enjoyed that.

My literal reacton to the fukkery after the ref got hit:

I'ma have to watch this more often

 

[St0nY]

Shibata/Honma Crowd was really into it at the end

 

[St0nY]

Day 9 so far:

Naito/Suzuki was dope. I really wanna see a Suzuki/Shibata Match, did they fight before?
Bad Luck Fa(i)le
Swagsuke Nakamura although he looks legit in pain towards the end of his Matches

 

[Jmare007]

AJ's half assed Styles Clash against MiSu is my favorite spot this year. When the struggle makes sense and creates drama


Korakuen Hall. Best wrestling venue of all time and it's not even close.