sevendaughters

Lol special announcement to say that the BCOGZ have left met with a relief pop

They're calling 12023 a sellout.

one total nitpick but I prefer the way AJPW and Final Burning shot Budokan, with either the ramp to the left and the crowd in the shot, or just randomly appearing from the back somewhere and crashing through the mob.

They, as alluded to earlier, definitely need to move the ringside seats up about a good 8 yards.

not sure. there's a lot of theories out there. i'd say some of what you said, and people being legitimately more interested in the story of Kenny-Ibushi returning to Budokan. their story is legitimately hot, less so BC. Block A has been weaker, but I guess most tickets were bought way in advance. people only gonna spend so much on high end wrestle tickets. personally i wouldn't run three days in Tokyo at the end - i'd go two at Budokan, Sat/Sun, have day 1 be all the remaining block matches.

kinda crap if true but the weekend will do 36000 rather than 24/25 so it's a net positive by 33%.

DAY 17 INSTATHOUGHTS ELGIN-MAKABE Elgin came dressed as a big Christmas Cake for some reason. Don't see the point in these two pretending to have a wrestling match for five minutes before throwing bombs. Just get out there and go hard for six minutes, it'll be MUCH better. Ending was good. *** YOSHI-PAGE was ticking along nicely but they really pulled me in with the Buckshot and the Destroyer (even though this is a stupid move). Whatever the world saw in Adam Cole, I see in Page. ***1/2 SUZUKI-FALE fuck right off. not even the run-ins made sense with Desperado just standing there. -* EVIL-WHITE think they tried for the big semi-final performance to pick things up but the same old routine at the end leaves this with a ceiling of ***1/2. TANAHASHI-OKADA not their best but brilliant all the same. ****1/2 change in perception (mine) after the tournament PAGE, YOSHI EVIL, MAKABE, TANAHASHI, WHITE SUZUKI, FALE, OKADA, ELGIN

DAVE UPDATES for days 13-16 DAY 13: Elgin-Fale 2.75, Page-Makabe 3.5, White-Yoshi 3.25, Tanahashi-EVIL 4, Okada-Suzuki 4.5 DAY 14: SANADA-Yano 2.5, Goto-Tonga 1.75, Sabre-Robinson 3.5, Omega-Ishii 5.5, Ibushi-Naito 4.75 DAY 15: Yoshi-Fale 2.25, Page-Suzuki 3.25, White-Makabe 3, Tanahashi-Elgin 4, Okada-EVIL 4.25 DAY 16: Ishii-Juice 4, Sabre-Goto 3.75, Tonga-Ibushi 3.75, Omega-Yano 2.5, Naito-SANADA 4.25

I bet he does. Gives Kenny a bit of a break too. Pair that with a big serious match and that's a Destruction headliner.

they've sold that show out on the Kenny-Ibushi match, it would be like the Vader-Inoki riot if they screwed that one up.

all sub-factions in different shark cages hung above the ring

yeah for sure. i was fantasy booking and it coloured my expectations.

DAY 16 INSTANT REACTIONS Juice-Ishii nice that Ishii tried to play heel (remember when he was a heel? seems a long time ago) to get the dynamic popping, but the Yokohama fans have always seemed a more serious lot so they didn't want anything else other than Ishii to win. this was good, a solid Ishii template match in parts, can do without the Pulp Friction or its unsatisfying counters, but good all the same. ***1/2 Sabre-Goto can't remember much about this though I wrote down "good, Sabre dominated a lot, Goto looks tired" ***1/4 Ibushi-Tama E-C-W! E-C-W! Good match here between the bollocks. Ibushi really looks great and I think this might be a title-winning push. Tama was fine. ***1/4 Yano-Omega despite being a tournament puritan I enjoyed how it flowed from the previous match and presented Toru Yano as the one man you do not want to see come down the aisle while Kenny is stricken. Some creative comedy, I was laughing but also bought into the finishes, Yano's V-Trigger sell was amazing! This whole thing is probably more overwrought and overbooked than I'd like but I was entertained by the little set pieces and stuff like Chase trying to run to each corner to put the padding in. ***1/4 Naito-SANADA good but not the blowaway LIJ feudstarter I was hoping for. Just a good main event with craziness reigned in ahead of the big weekend. ****

novel ticket selling strategy

today's show is the first one where I really care about the results. All the shows before I've been very much que sera sera, wrestling is great, let it unfold. When I say 'care' I don't mean 'I want it to go like x' but am just really keen to see what they do and how it plays out for the last day. for the record I'm taking Juice, Goto, Ibushi, Yano, Naito.

yeah can't knock that list at all. just realised that TK-Tamura and Undertaker-Mankind happened within 24hrs of each other. Wonder if anyone else has any examples of two of their absolute favourites, that are completely different, happening so close together.

excellent post. sadly i haven't had that kind of amazing live experience. best thing i saw live was KUSHIDA v Kyle at a Rev Pro show. technically brilliant but not got that feeling you outlined.

oooh off the top of my head Masakatsu Funaki vs. Tatsuo Nakano, UWF Fighting Square Hakata, 1989 Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart, WWE Wrestlemania X, 1994 Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Holy Demon Army (Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue), AJPW Super Power Series, 1995 Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Juventud Guerrera, ECW Big Ass Extreme Bash, 1996 Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin, WWE Wrestlemania 13, 1997 Mankind vs. The Undertaker, WWE King of the Ring, 1998 Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, RINGS Fourth Fighting Integration, 1998 Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Minoru Suzuki, NJPW King of Pro-Wrestling, 2012 Katsuyori Shibata vs. Kazuchika Okada, NJPW Sakura Genesis, 2017 Tomohiro Ishii vs. Kenny Omega, NJPW G1 Climax Day 14, 2018 a few notes i. yes, it is 1990s heavy. that's when i was watching the most live or those were the tapes i got from the bootlegger. ii. i really haven't watched enough classic lucha libre to comment on the great matches. it's a huge blind spot and i think it's a future region to go in on. iii. this is culled from about 40-50 matches that i would go the full five on. i don't want to bore you by writing them all out. there are a lot of the classic matches that people claim to be five stars (HBK v Ramon ladder, Kawada v Misawa 6/3/94, Kenny/Okada 2/3 falls) and some that people don't usually (Danielson v Doi from a random-ass DG USA show! Canis Lupus v Trauma from an IWRG show in 2016 where Trauma gets his head beaten in, loses his mask, and then proposes to his girlfriend! this one Dump Matsumoto tag match where she canes the cameraman!). iv. whilst i am a fan/stan of a lot of the 2000s: Zero1, NOAH's classic run, Inokiism-era NJPW, early-split AJPW, the Smackdown Six, U-Style, Big Mouth Loud, etc., and have favourites from all these eras, I don't think anything quite cracks the 5 star mark. v. most importantly of all, star ratings are inherently stupid vi. like, how do I compare Tamura-TK to Mankind-Undertaker? they are as far removed as possible. all I can say is that they are the most incredible and powerful examples of their kind. vii. also i mean it's a storytelling art on some level so i respect wrestlers who are not going for best match ever more than i ever did, wrestling needs Toru Yanos and George The Animal Steeles. viii. as appertains to this thread however i think that the last 5 years of New Japan has a ridiculous amount of very very good matches and would go 5 for Tana-Naka G1 final, Ishii-Shibata 2013, Ishii-Tanahashi 2013, Suzuki-AJ, probably more besides. ix. sometimes a match can provoke some really interesting thoughts in me without being this kind of high level match: two that spring immediately to mind are Hulk Hogan vs. The Genius on a Saturday Night Main Event which is an absolutely perfect example of what it is, and also Naoya Ogawa vs. Dan Severn from some random ass NWA show in Texas during Ogawa's title run. It isn't a perfect match but they sort of suggest a style of wrestling that could have been, like a rugged heavyweight shoot-style/strong-style hybrid? the kind of thing Timothy Thatcher is grasping for basically with less World of Sportism. x. please share your thoughts and feel free to @ me!

just rewatched Kenny-Ishii. feel confident about top 10 of all time for me. the real pick-up spot is the build out of the bit where Kenny is repeatedly V-Triggering a kneeling Ishii, who hulks up.

part of me thinks Jericho could work and beat Ishii. get a good match and easy to put Jericho over.

DAY 15 THOUGHTS ETC Yoshi-Fale I say let Project Yoshi commence, where we build this guy up to credible NEVER champ/ROH & UK tourer level, because he really does have a lot of stuff going for him. You'll never make his face on entrance look that great, but we can do something about the hair that makes him less look like an Ikuto Hidaka cosplayer, and we can hide the staff under the ring and work on the rest. His execution is always there, his lariat and the Somato lunging double knee are very exciting, and he wrestles the match you need rather than the match you want. Here he runs around and bounces off Fale and makes him the monster that he fails to be by being a fairly gentle worker in nice trainers. Again I can live with the bullshit if it gets a DQ. This was pretty good. ***1/4 Suzuki-Page loved Page going at it right from the bell. Suzuki's clocked off now and with Fale in the next match for him he ain't working overtime, so it took Page with that babyface fire to light something under this. It wasn't anything special but it was as watchable as a late G1 walk'n'brawl gets you, and the end popped me. ***1/4 White-Makabe here's where Makabe comes into his own; when he leans into his gimmick as an unchained gorilla, ie. a slightly dumbass brawler who will hurt you if he hits you but will also walk into traps. White's the opposite, knife-edge chops aside, and as a sneak he's well positioned be a near-perfect opponent for telling a nice and easy story. Ten fine minutes here. ***1/2 Elgin-Tanahashi okay so they botched the very last bit but this was excellent. I don't want to spoil but I think the story they're telling with Tanahashi this tournament is compelling, but I also liked Elgin here; the shot of him looking dolefully at his knackered lariat arm, deciding to use it to try and put the Ace down, was a subtle touch that New Japan do better than all. **** EVIL-Okada by my reckoning, the best match of Block A this G1. most will not list it in their top 5, nor will it make Okada's top 10 for the year. but it was a well-worked main event by both that highlighted Okada starting to shed some of the goofiness of the early tournament and now step up to his imperious best. EVIL frustrates some, but he's still young and piecing it together. Great last few minutes to round out the third consecutive Best Night of Block A. ****1/4

watching today's matches tomorrow, finished watching yesterday's matches today DAY 14 DELAYED REACTIONS SANADA-Yano this is more of the previous year models for both men but I think this whole Paradise Lock bit is over when it comes to Yano matches so I will forgive it because it was funny. **3/4 Tonga-Goto beyond tedious. Weird how Tonga may be remembered for wrestling in one of the hottest companies and tournament blocks ever and has actively been trying to bring it down. * Juice-Sabre I probably need to see this again. Good teaser for a title match presumably contested in the west, the hand wrenching stuff was great, less so the weird contortionist sub shit, which is a bit "yellow belt with ideas above his station". ***1/2 Ishii-Omega at the highest level, strangely, you can still nitpick. did they do too much - both artistically, and humanely? did the one or two minor botches and obvious bits of cooperation take away from it? discuss that if you please, but i thought this was the best telling of the "man will not stay down" story probably ever. an insane, vertigo-inducing work of wrestling brilliance. ***** Naito-Ibushi perhaps wisely I did not watch this immediately after the previous, instead I watched it in isolation with a cup of tea. Yes one or two moments were boggling, my eyes on stalks wondering what on earth was going through their minds. A crazy match but not a trainwreck; it teetered on the edge of sanity. But ultimately when they'd finished they seemed a lot more at the racetrack than Ishii or Omega. Surely this is Ibushi on a main event/title push? He's looked outstanding. ****3/4

I quote Milano Collection AT. holy shit. HOLY SHIT.

stats latest 12 in 65 = 1 in every 5.41 matches have been 4+ or better. I also have 12 matches rated 3.75, which tends to be my "I'll watch this again" threshold. Looking ahead I expect, based on general tastes, performances, and previous (ie. finals are usually always brilliant), that we can expect 8 more with an outside shot of up to 12. Obviously this is a messy and subjective way of talking about wrestling but it would take a lot for me to hit the best parts of 24-27. DAVE thinks it's better than last year already, so buyer beware.