Honga Ciganesta
Japanese Keyhole Porn Don
Some (late) Observer notes:
At the end of New Japan’s Power Struggle PPV, one thing was painfully obvious.
There is no way they can do a PPV in the U.S. from the Tokyo Dome in four hours without the show being disappointing in some form. Wrestle Kingdom is New Japan’s equivalent to WrestleMania, but with better wrestling and more creative ring entrances. It traditionally clocks in at around five hours plus. And this year’s show, on paper, looks to have more quality depth than any Wrestle Kingdom show to date.
Power Struggle on 11/8 at the Osaka Bodymaker Colosseum went four-and-a-half hours. That’s with rushing through the prelims, going quickly from match-to-match, and having no matches hit the 18:00 mark. For the Tokyo Dome, there are probably going to be 11 to 13 matches, and the main event, just because it’s Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada match No. 7, because of the ridiculous standard the two have set, almost has to go 25:00 minimum (they went 33:34 in their 2012 Tokyo Dome main event and for story purposes probably should have gone 40 minutes this time). Plus, you have to leave time for the elaborate ring entrances, or else it’s not a Wrestle Kingdom show, just like it wouldn’t be WrestleMania if it was just straight wrestling. And even if you don’t want to, you have to, because the walk from backstage to the ring at the Tokyo Dome is considerably longer than at an arena.
The company held a press conference for the 1/4 event at the Tokyo Dome (which will air live on late night 1/3 starting at 2 a.m. Eastern and 11 p.m. Pacific; replayed on 1/4 at 7 p.m. Eastern and 4 p.m. Pacific) on 11/10. Besides the already announced IWGP title match main event, they announced five other matches that had been set up on the Power Struggle show. They are Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kota Ibushi for the IC title, Tomohiro Ishii vs. Togi Makabe for the Never Open weight championship, Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Kenny Omega for the IWGP jr. title, Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Minoru Suzuki in a UWF rules match (no pinfalls, match can only end via knockout or submission) and a four-way with new IWGP jr. tag champions Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly defending against former champions Alex Shelley & Kushida, Rocky Romero & Alex Koslov and The Young Bucks.
There will be a press conference on 12/1 (11/30 late night U.S. time) to announce NJPW World, which will be some sort of a video library service.
As good as the product has been in the past few years, I’ve still had the impression this is like the 1985-87 version of Jim Crockett Promotions, which was a hot company with people who will go down as legendary performers, but I see roadblocks in the future because the young talent isn’t there. With JCP, actually at the time they had awesome somewhat young talent, as guys like Barry Windham, Road Warrior Animal, Nikita Koloff were under 30 and guys like Hawk, Arn Anderson, Bobby Eaton, The Rock & Roll Express were all right at 30ish. Their problem was they were all there and great, but had worked with each other so much they had gotten stale, plus the hotshot weekly booking was bound to burn out, and it did. Here it’s the same guys against the same guys, similar to what happened with All Japan at the end of Baba’s run as booker, but in Japan, it’s not as bad. But with New Japan, with the exception of Kazuchika Okada, who do they have for the future? Hiroshi Tanahashi is almost 40 and his body is shot. Togi Makabe is past 40. Shinsuke Nakamura is 35 and hurting. Tomohiro Ishii is close to 40 and he’s doing everything in his power to make sure he’s got as little time left as possible. They have a good crew of foreigners and CMLL is likely to always have a steady crop of great young Lucha style guys just based on the culture. But aside from Sho Tanaka and Yohei Komatsu, and Komatsu is great, they’ve developed no potential great talent in years. And Tanaka and Komatsu may be too small to headline. The problem with lack of developing talent is, even if you recognize it, because it takes so long to develop talent, you can be in for lean times. For all the knocks on WWE today as compared to New Japan, and for today’s product, there is a world of difference. WWE is still far better positioned for the future besides it’s inherent advantages of being a tons bigger business and the advantage of being from North America in a worldwide economy.
Kota Ibushi will be doing a shoot show on 11/30, the S Cup world tournament, held at Sumo Hall. It will be under shoot boxing rules, which is a Japanese sport that combines boxing with takedowns, very much like the San Shou matches Cung Le used to do. The idea came from a meeting between the head of Shoot Boxing, Takeshi Caesar, and Sanshiro Takagi, the President of the DDT promotion that Ibushi is under one of his two contracts to. Caesar asked if there were any pro wrestlers who could do his show and Takagi suggested Ibushi. Ibushi was asked and agreed to it, saying he’d like to introduce shoot boxing fans to pro wrestling and also pro wrestling fans to shoot boxing. Ibushi won’t be in the tournament, but will do an exhibition match on the show. The opponent hasn’t been decided, but Caesar wants it to be Sakuraba, feeling the pro wrestler superstar vs. MMA legend fight will garner attention for his show. Even though Ibushi is thought of as a lighter weight high-flying pretty boy type, before he was in pro wrestling, he won a major real combat sports tournament (New Karate K-Z tournament) in the summer of 2003. Between Sakuraba and Ibushi doing shoot matches, you almost think that people in wrestling never learn from previous mistakes.
The 12/19, 12/20 and 1/5 shows at Korakuen Hall are all sold out. The Fantastica Mania shows in January are also well ahead in advances from prior years.
Cody Hall, the 6-foot-6 inch son of Scott Hall, is headed here to move to Japan and train at the dojo
NOAH
Takashi Sugiura pinned Big Japan’s Daisuke Sekimoto in the finals of the Global League tournament on 11/8 at Korakuen Hall before a nearly full house of 1,600 fans. Sugiura got the pin in 19:12 with the Olympic slam, which would likely lead to Naomichi Marufuji vs. Sugiura for the GHC title on the 12/6 show at the Ariake Colosseum in Tokyo.
The complete 12/6 Ariake Colosseum show is Marufuji vs. Sugiura for the GHC title, Daisuke Harada vs. Atsushi Kotoge for the GHC jr. title, Kenou & Hajime Ohara vs. Tiger Mask & Jushin Liger for the GHC jr. tag titles, Morishima vs. Kojima (winner to get the first GHC title shot of 2015), Taniguchi vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan, Tanaka & Saito & Genba Hirayanagi vs. Yone & Nakajima & Taiji Ishimori, Nicholls & Haste & Quiet Storm vs. Sekimoto & Isami Kidaka & Yuko Miyamoto, Yoshinari Ogawa & Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Super Crazy & Pesadilla and Hitoshi Kumano vs. Mitsuhiro Kitamiya
That Styles Clash probably didn't help either though 
So weird that they're building the match as a GOAT candidate instead of a title match/hate feud blowoff, it's a new day.
That delayed effect Styles Clash.
