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This was my first ever Japanese show. I’ve only seen a handful of NJPW matches over the years. Despite it being long as hell I was always entertained. A lot of commentary-bashing but (Dave meltzer 5/6 stars discussion aside) I preferred it to Michael Cole by an absolute mile. Also getting bashed is the Jnr 4-way, but my girlfriend was in the room for that and she really enjoyed it. So maybe it’s not something for the purists but it certainly has its place. I quite liked it, wouldn’t want to see a whole card like it but one match was fun. My favourite match was the hair match. Considering I’d never seen either of these dudes before, I really bought into the story (partly thanks to Kelly and Callis). I’m really sold on NJPW and even watched New Year Dash today. I’ve not seen Raw for a long time, WWE PPVs have bored the hell out of me for a while now (even though I still have a network sub and will watch the rumble), so NJPW has an opportunity to hook me in long term for my wrestling fix.

I believe this is what you're looking for:

I judge matches on a scale of "that sucked" to "that was really awesome"

El Scorcho.

Man, I only know 2 Ben Vereen roles off the top of my head and I am way too white to be cracking Roots jokes.

I feel like everybody is sleeping on some pretty awesome ironic psychology in the finish to Naito/Okada. If you've watched enough big Naito matches this year, you've probably noticed that the finishes in his victories can be a little formulaic: He hits some kind of counter variation of Destino out of nowhere and goes for a pin but his opponent kicks out. Naito calmly collects himself, picks his opponent up and very deliberately executes the "wind-up" Destino and that does it. That's how he beat Ibushi on opening night of the G1, Kenny in the finals, and Ishii in the briefcase match, to name 3 specific examples. Last night, it was different. The finish saw him counter the Rainmaker with a whirling Destino....but he doesn't go for the pinfall. He doesn't take his time. He immediately picks Okada up, frantically exhorts the crowd, and quickly goes for another Destino...that gets countered into a Tombstone and you know the rest. He rushed it. Mr. Tranquilo himself rushed it, and it cost him the match.

This reminds me

Titus Worldwide is a treasure.

I think that’s probably the most accurate burn I’ve ever consciously decided to take as a compliment. After all, stories are stories, and I wasted too much money on grad school learning to dramatically overthink those that were nothing but pop entertainment and dick jokes in their day. Old habits.

Everybody should have known Ben Vereen was bad news when he ran out on his son AGAIN and left Uncle Phil to pick up the pieces.

Wow. Again, let it be said: Regardless of what you think of him in the ring, the guy clearly has an eye for aesthetics and knows how to market the hell out of himself (and puts the work in to do it, clearly) and I can definitely respect that.

One of these days people are going wake the fuck up and realize that the Bucks are exactly as good as they want to be on any given night.

It appears that way. He attacked Naito today after the main event.

"She's so speechless, she's calling the Lord!"

Fuck, I love New Japan for the subtlety. Gedo and company do such a brilliant job of leaving some loose ends out there that we've grown accustom to having to ignore from other companies, but they actually leave them there for a reason. The constant talk of which WK match was the "real main event" between Naito and Jericho was purposeful and not just Jericho's egomaniac character work. A lot of people noticed it but I don't think (m)any of us believed it would come to fruition. I wonder if it happens at any of the big shows between now and LA or if they hold off until late March to do it stateside. I was so fucking ready for the big Kenny turn/Golden Lovers reuniting but they keep teasing us, closer and closer it comes. JERKS!

Speaking of kayfabe.

Callis doesn't bother me, which is high praise. On the other hand, #FreeSteveCorino.

"Hello...this is 911 speaking. What is your emergency?" "Hi, I would like to report a robbery."

I more love the Nia wanted Braun and gets fucking Apollo Crews

I finally saw it not going back through the thread to be told all the reasons I shouldn't like it

The limitations of the English language prevent me from registering the proper reaction to this news.

Okada's pants were fucking awesome. That is some Jin Kazama from Tekken type shit. Made me wish that Gedo had cosplayed as Heihachi. I mean, just look at those two! Gedo better be careful. Okada may throw him into a volcano at some point.

He's not gonna Billy Gunn his G1 Special in USA!

my god Fale must have enjoyed Christmas

"Forearm to the ass, you don't see that every day, Kevin" - Callis "I see that a lot" - Brandi

It's entirely possible.

PWG Young Bucks destroy ROH Young Bucks as well.

New Japan Young Bucks destroy Ring of a Honor Young Bucks

Another Rusev Day miracle!

"It may have felt like a 5.0 to others, but it was more like a 6.0 to me."

In contrast, the Goto/Suzuki match was very immersive throughout. It helped that I had English commentary on to explain the context but it would still have been visually impressive (due to Suzuki mostly) nevertheless.

Writing down some entirely too early title predictions based on today, because I'm severely bored at work on a Friday afternoon, and I want to look stupid in the future: Jay White probably shouldn't take a second high-profile loss right now, so he beats Omega for the US belt with a BC distraction--but not outright interference--assisting. (Whether he joins the faction or this is just because Cody et al hate Omega, I don't know.) You can then run the BC ~explodes~ match at Long Beach, and it's a big enough deal--especially in the States--that it doesn't need a belt. White, meanwhile, probably struggles with being not-Omega, a problem the next champion is bound to have regardless. EVIL beats Goto for the NEVER title, and it doesn't really matter much, I guess, for either guy. MiSu beats Tana and puts him on the shelf. He's probably not the first challenger, but Ibushi eventually avenges his fallen idol and capitalizes on his Nakamura fanboyism by capturing the IC title. I think he probably defends against Omega and a returning Tanahashi at some point; either would be a Dome-worthy match, depending. Hiromu beats Ospreay, who, despite the loss and the insistence of the new champion, remains not a cat. Okada's beating Sanada. After that, I really don't know. Naito and Omega are the only guys who feel capable of shouldering the burden--because that's what it will be--of taking the championship from him. I guess the exception would be a magically healed, cleared, and returned Shibata--but let's assume that's not happening. I still think Naito is the guy, whether after a New Japan Cup win or another G1 triumph. Whoever has the title, it feels to me like we're headed towards a rematch at WK13.

CMLL owns Los Ingobernables, so you're not going to see crossover appeal like LIJ shirts in Hot Topic outselling all the WWE merch. I still think Naito should have won though. I also thought Suzuki/Goto was better than the main but it telegraphed the finish too much in telling the story it told. Also guys, we don't know what kind of stress Kenny's junk is under. Maybe you need that soothing cooling spray after some of the people he's banged.

That Naitch figure is so much better than the skinny one Hasbro put out in 92

BTW, speaking of wrestling attire, was Jericho practically wearing pillows on his knees during his last WWE run? Dude looked like he was going to install wall to wall carpeting with those knee pads.

I want that Naito shirt.

yeah that made no sense - Cody beats a guy who beat him - Kenny runs out and stops him bcs feelings - "we need to stop fighting" - "let's get this guy in from New Zealand who claims he has a girlfriend, she's at another school, you haven't seen her, and she has D cups" - ??????? - profit

I love the selling in this match, even if it is played for mostly laughs.

I love how much the crowd loves Cheeseburger

When did Cody transform into Milo Yiannapolous?

Thank you for the kind words. Your approach to parenting sounds quite a bit like ours. We have never really put words to it, but if the young man, and at some point soon, his younger brother have the ability to pick up on something and question it, then we explain to them in a way that is appropriate for their age level. Obviously, that hasn't really come up with the two year old yet. We decided a long time ago that the lies that get told to kids to "protect them" are largely just used to protect you from an uncomfortable conversation with your children.

Nak + bone-chuks = money.

Fixed it to reflect my possible issue with getting this kind of shirt.

This is going to be a little long. I apologize in advance for that. Backstory: My brother and his wife are difficult people with challenging personalities. That's a very, very charitable wording. I love my brother but there are plenty of times when I don't like him very much - like last Christmas when he tried to ruin things by screaming at my wife & I or the time a few years back where he nearly got in a fight in a restaurant parking lot with a father who was angry at my brother for dropping f-bombs all through dinner right next to the guy's 9-year old daughter. I have never liked his wife. She's very, very abrasive and thinks "hey, I'm from New York" is a valid explanation for it. In short, it's a good thing that they live in San Diego and we live in Spokane. The Main Story: My sister-in-law, since retiring from the Navy, has been working toward completing a college degree. She's taken classes at a community college with the plan that they'll transfer to San Diego State or similar. She got hosed by one of the big college fraud things a couple years ago and found out a bunch of her classes would not transfer. So she's been taking classes. She's had trouble with one particular math class and has failed it 3 or 4 times. Over the last couple years, that class has come up in conversation multiple times as relates to her difficulties with it. And every time, I have offered to tutor her. Some of you may remember I was a math teacher at one time. A really, really good math teacher. My offers have always gone nowhere. Until this fall. My brother emailed me a couple months back to tell me his was at his wits' end trying to help her (my brother is also really good at math but is definitely not a teacher). She'd gotten a very low test grade and needed help badly and would I please help? I love my brother and would do just about anything for him, so naturally I said yes. So, over the last couple months, we have had once or twice-weekly, sometimes more, Skype sessions where I tutor my sister-in-law, to the tune of 50-60 hours total. To my surprise, the sessions generally went well and we got along fine during them. I give her credit - she busted her butt fighting her way through a class that she clearly did not understand and that she was always going to struggle with. And, to be fair, it was not an easy (Algebra) class. Fast forward to last week for our final tutoring session. It's the week of her final exam and she's got a practice test to go over. We work through the problems and progress is really slow. We're into a section on graphing and she's insisting we spend waaaaaay too much time on each problem. The instructions are to "graph the given function" but she's wanting to do all kinds of extra stuff on each one for some reason. I pushed multiple times to move on but she insisted we stick with those problems. We ended up spending probably 90 minutes on 5 problems during a 2-1/2 hour session. Finally, after that length of time, I told her I needed to go to bed (it was nearly 11pm). And she starts trying to lay a guilt trip on me because we only got through something like 16 of 37 problems on the test. And that pissed me off. Wasn't my fault we wasted so much time doing stuff she knew how to do and that wasn't even necessary and now you want to guilt trip me because we didn't finish the test? Uh...no. Come to find out it was NOT a practice test. It was actually a take-home part of her final. And she flunked that part of the test. Anyway, that's not even the reason I'm writing. I found out tonight that she passed the class. How did I find out? Did I get a super-excited thank you phone call from my sister-in-law? An "oh man, I passed!" text from her? A grateful phone call or text from my brother? None of the above. I found out because my brother told our mother and *SHE* texted me. So lemme get this straight - I give up 50-60 hours of my precious time to tutor you, you *PASS* the class on your now-5th try, and you don't even tell me? Fuck you. Fuck both of you.