Custos

Well Bully Ray (understandably) declined the invitation and they still wanted the veteran tag team specialist representation in the corner. But you're right, D-Von singles star has always made the crowd go mild. It goes along with what others have said, but it's never been so sadly obvious as tonight that the current WWE program is the opposite of cool, 'with it' (Grandpa Simpson voice) or whatever the current vernacular would be among the hip cats. The coolest by far was the 55 year old alcoholic who retired over 15 years ago. Of the current crop, the Joe/Roman stuff came off the best, but they could have woven it in with the legends rather than being its own thing divorced from the rest of the show. Or, dare I say it, have Austin or one of the other legends put over a current star strong in a genuine way (not in a Rock holding Roman's arm way). Or give any reason at all for the extra viewers to come back next week.

YOU GOTTA BE JOKING ME! That shrill penetrating voice is typical of the bogan girls screaming to each other at our local Westfield. HEY KAYLA!!

I haven’t heard Kaze Ni Nare for a while, they seem to dub over some themes all the time on NJPW World English stream so I wasn’t sure if it was a music rights issue.

Well the end of night 6 was quite fucking something wasn’t it. I don’t want to spoil it for those catching up by describing everything that happened in the match, but you should definitely make time to see Moxley vs Ishii. Cody has his neat little wish list written in his wife’s handwriting, Moxley’s catharsis from his creative frustrations is written clear as day through his performance between his DoN debut, the Janela match and then this drag out fight. If that’s taking your ball and going home, then I hope a few more folks choose to do it if that is the result. Ishii making him look fantastic (as he does with everyone) obviously helped too. A side note, Ishii also has my favourite entrance theme in New Japan, apart from Suzuki’s. It gives the same Pavlovian response to me as APAs music, as you know shit is about to go down, and has that big fight quality too.

42 years old and better than ever. Good on him and hopefully he continues with this streak of great matches and gets a championship match out of it.

I enjoyed night 5 top to bottom as much or more than any other night so far. The face off between stablemates of EVIL and SANADA was gripping, with EVIL finding an extra level of power and intensity at the end. Archer had another corker with KENTA and I enjoyed the Hideo jab too. The credibility of KENTAs offence made the David/Goliath dynamic work well. ZSJ / Tana was so smart with the finish, Tana luring Zack into the counter only to turn it around immediately. It’s a pleasure to see the tantrum and venom spewing get ramped up with each loss too. And Ibushi / Ospreay had all the drama and callbacks without anything like the Naito apron bump to take you out of the moment.

I'm not sure if this is weird enough to belong here, but it came up in my Youtube recommendations and I enjoyed Tom Morello's inimitable interpretation of the theme. Also, I'm guessing @Nice Guy Eddie is fan of Scott Ian from his avatar (although he's basically doing the rhythm guitar role, chugging along and keeping it together amongst the cacophony around him.

Jay/Ishii and ZSJ/SANADA are my favourites so far, although I enjoyed Naito/Taichi and Ospreay/Archer a lot too. Yes, Mox isn't lighting the world on fire with 5 star work-rate epics but he brings the variety and the intrigue. I agree with @sevendaughters that turnabout is fair play and if you want to try and 'speak the language of violence' too, you better be ready to bring it. I've only been watching New Japan for about 18 months, since the Wrestle Kingdom with Omega/Jericho. The Japanese commentary was my big barrier previously, as for me the announcing is a core part of the wrestling experience. I still get such a kick out of the variety in the post-match interviews, from the ZSJ tantrum to Jeff Cobb's matter of fact advice to Ishii 'study some tapes and see if you can learn how to not get thrown on your ass', to Tanahashi's earnest stoicism. Speaking of commentary, the decision to demote Carlton to translation duty only is just totally asinine. Arguably the biggest selling points of NJPW to frustrated Western wrestling fans are the logical long term booking, the evolution and development of wrestlers and the rich storied rivalries stretching across many years. And you're going to remove the person most equipped to bring the new audience up to speed on all this history, and who has already proven himself as a solid addition to commentary and perhaps the only justification for a three man booth in the whole of wrestling today? No, he looks like a teenage geek and doesn't have a nice, resonant announcer voice so make him sit in the corner and speak when he's spoken to. It's a real head scratcher.

Also that GIF is a reminder that, somewhere within the WWE ecosystem, the Colons still exist. ( @nate that was not a dig at your abdominal issue, honest).

Also, having now read other people's thoughts, and seeing the comments on the varying quality and questionable choices regarding wrestling gear, I concur. One of my main takeaways from the Sabian/Page match (not ideal when this is your no. 1 contender's chance to shine) was 'wow, that kid must really love 7-Eleven to be repping their colours so hard'.

A mixed bag this time around, but still worth the 10 USD 'evil foreigner tax' as I heard someone describe it. The pre-show cut out a lot of the iffy comedy which was a positive change. I love that every single person in the 6-man tag has a distinct separate personality that is at least somewhat over with the crowd, Allin and my boy Jimmy Havoc being the standouts. This bodes well for a solid and varied midcard when TV starts. Again on the midcard front, A Boy and His Dinosaur were over like crazy even with the puzzling addition of Marko Stunt. Why do they need to add to the act that obviously has great chemistry? The Lucha Bros match was possibly my favourite of the night (that or the 3-way tag). Penta could easily slot into the main event with the ample talent in the tag division and the slim pickings at the top of the card in terms of star power. The Page match should have been an extended squash as a showcase for 'The Hangman'. They don't need to try to build a rookie up with every single fricking match a la Darby/Cody. Sometimes you just want the rising star to look dominant and grind his opponent to dust like a badass. The main negative was the flabbiness of most matches on the card. If Brandi/Allie was mainly an angle working towards Kong/Kong or a tag between the four, why not keep it 5 minutes of simple action? Page match should have been 5-10 mins shorter, same goes for CIMA/Omega and the main event. Cody talks about the wrestlers having the freedom to make your own music, but sometimes you need some direction or else you end up with self-indulgent 10 minute drum solos that lose the audience. It gives a worrying 'inmates running the asylum' between that and the seeming nepotism with Brandi and Marvez, both of whom are currently massively inferior to their colleagues. Whether deliberate or not, management seems to have a real blind spot with those two in particular. Marvez was just toe-curlingly offensive at points during the announcing and brought out the worst in JR, who I thought was pretty good in the previous two shows.

My stupid cat Alfie, clearly not a fan of Lord Taichi...

Or Aleister Black and Zelina.

That Archer match was the best that he has ever looked. And the new look was pretty cool too, accentuating his height even more. One thing in the evolution of Ospreay - in the New Japan Cup match, he got Archer into the Stormbreaker position with assistance from the turnbuckle. This match, he hefted Archer up like a proper hoss, showing even more that he can hang with the heavies. ZSJ / SANADA was probably my favourite match of the night though. ZSJ turned the dickhead dial up to 11, with the mock desperation of beating the 20 count, the tantrum and the young boy beating after the match. Between being such a prick in the ring and the amazing invective of his promos, it must be a toss-up between him and MJF over who is the best dick heel in current wrestling. Shayna is probably still my favourite heel overall though. KENTA looked a bit saggy and a little rusty but wow those double stomps and kicks looked nasty. I think he’ll come into his own as the tournament progresses, but Ibushi was probably the perfect punching bag for an impressive start.

Apparently Fyter Fest averaged 140k viewers in b/r live, with a total of 350k different viewers logging in during the show. I watched on fite for $10 USD, I wonder how they did with paid viewers compared to DoN.

I'll give them a bit longer to settle in, they may grow on me, but it's mostly the established guys like Young Bucks and SCU that are the best. I concede that it may be beneficial to have a fresh sound to go with a fresh roster (that was the word Cody used repeatedly to describe what they were going for with the recruitment choices), but one of Johnston's best qualities was creating really catchy tunes, usually with some big hook at the beginning, that all had their separate identity. Edit to add: also, who knows what gems were left on the cutting room floor because they didn't appeal to Vince's sensibilities, or, by Bruce Pritchard's account, didn't have enough horns.

The biggest thing they are lacking right now is decent entrance music and videos. All of it was so generic, and they didn’t even use Yuka Sakazakis crazy anime theme like they did in DoN. Jim Johnston’s in his 60s and probably has fuck you money but he appeared at The first Starrcast, I’m sure there’s a chance of engaging him for some work. Outside of the hit-and-miss comedy, it’s the main thing that comes across as minor league.

I think Big Poppa Pump needs to work a bit on his posing game. Alexa’s on the other hand is on point!

Pretty good show overall. MJF, Allin, Nyla Rose, Private Party and to a lesser extent Jungle Boy all raised their stock after tonight’s showing. On the other hand, Hangman Page and Joey Janela were outshined in their matches. We’re all obviously really hungry to know how this huge new organisation is going to meet our wrestling needs. The thing is, how far can you draw conclusions on the future direction (presentation / booking / violence) when the show is a ‘one-off’ tie-in with a fighting game convention? The whole conceit is a somewhat indulgent tongue-in-cheek parody of a failed festival, with Omega simultaneously playing both in-over-his-head event organiser and Akuma cosplayer. Or perhaps the conclusion is Tony Khan will indulge his EVP’s proclivities to the point where AEW itself lacks a solidly defined identity. I think it’s more likely that this is a true ‘one-off’ during the promotion’s ramp up phase and was intended to be a more niche b-show than a progression of the mission statement from Double or Nothing. Edit to add: i’d never heard of Goldenboy and was really impressed by his knowledge and professionalism, particularly when I discovered that he had never called Pro-Wrestling before.

It was only good because I forced myself to believe that it was good, having made a questionable console choice at the time, and with no money to buy another one. Now I’m man enough to admit it was utter bollocks.

So he hasn’t come along at all in the last couple of years? Sorry I don’t watch NOAH.

I'm posting the actual return rather than the entrance theme in a vacuum because they are totally linked in my mind because when I hear the Jim Johnston noodling (skip to 1:45 for 'IF YA SMELL...'), I hear the crowd going bananas. And look at that, the announcers just let it all breathe and trusted the moment to be special enough.

I will always give a Like to Kanyon. Also, what does it say about your flying ability when Jimmy Hart's splash is better than yours?

Like with Stomping Grounds the previous night, there was a fraction of the sold out attendance but those who were there were going to make the most of it, dammit (even to the point of making their own fun during the Corbin / Rollins match)

Speaking of Jinder, he just signed a 5 year deal so that’s another bona fide superstar locked in for the time being.