I don't think I like Tanahashi's story of just being a sad old guy who thinks no one is going to support him anymore because he's old and broken down, then he spends the match barely hitting his moves like he's a year away from being The Undertaker in Saudi Arabia
What's the deal with "Ishii is the only guy who can pull the Kawada out of Taichi"? So weird.
Shingo/Kojima was fun, Kojima is about the biggest heavyweight and Shingo didn't look small in comparison, still able to easily and cleanly hit all of his big moves, so he should fit in just fine with the current gen of top heavyweights, none of which are as big as Kojima (Okada is probably taller, but definitely not as big).
When the fukk are they going to run the MiSu/Liger singles match
I wonder how many GOD/LIJ matches there have been. It's like the heavyweight version of Young Bucks vs Rocky Romero/X. NJ has tried to make people care about the juniors division a bit recently after years of coasting, will they try to do shyt with the tag division? Feels like they've been doing nothing but Bullet Club vs ROH tag teams and now LIJ for like....the entire duration of the Bullet Club's existence. Honestly I don't even remember the last time tag titles weren't filler matches in NJPW.
Ospreay's vocalizations in the ring are so fukking goofy. So his his Assassin's Creed and samurai sword bullshyt. What a fukking goober. Lot of crazy shyt in the match but I didn't give a shyt about any of it. There was intensity and drama and the crowd was obviously into it, I just didn't care because I'm not invested in either so it was just an athletic exhibition to me. I worry about Ospray's knees more than his neck, tbh. There are only so many times you can do a triple back flip from the ring to the floor landing on your feet. Also lol at taking months out to show he's bulking up to move to heavyweight, having him beat Ibushi for the Openweight championship to further his rise to heavyweight...then having him win BOSJ and Junior title instead.
Ibushi/Naito wasn't even fun to watch. I can't remember the last time I said "ugh" while watching a match. What the fukk is wrong with these guys? All the head drops, and then those fukking headbutts. Have these dudes learned nothing from Shibata?
Jericho/Okada...
Idk why everyone acts like Jericho has changed up his style and doing something new. He's wrestling exactly the same as Chris Jericho from 2008 on, except he's stiffer, fatter and older and starts wheezing 7 minutes into matches. And you could actually hear him gasping for air the entire match
He's obviously not current Undertaker levels of
, but he definitely is at the Undertaker of about 10 years ago period where he really needs to cut his match times in half (he's averaging about 25 minutes per match since he left WWE and obviously that's too much not only for him physically, but also just the stories of the matches he's doing as well) and not be in the main events. I'm definitely not at ALL looking forward to fat and old Chris Jericho vs old and busted Tanahashi. Tana moves even worse than Taker right now
I did like that the match ended with a surprise roll up and not a 20 step finishing sequence after multiple Rainmaker kick outs.
I had to lol at listening to the English commentary where they brought up WWE multiple times, but completely avoided mentioning AEW even when talking about Jericho's new finish which he developed specifically for AEW's first main event against a former IWGP champion.