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Teflon Turtle

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Everything posted by Teflon Turtle

  1. It's funny, I was just having a similar conversation with a friend last weekend. In terms of the popularization of anime in the West (or I guess we could confine ourselves to the US) Gen Fukunaga should get some credit for starting Funimation. But, that company needs things to distribute. Dragonball Z was that anime. Just about every friend I had in Jr. High/High school would rush home from school to get Toonami on for DBZ. For me, I don't think there's any question that the Dragonball series and Toriyama are responsible for anime taking off in the English-speaking world. I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of people who got in to anime and manga did so through DBZ. It's generational now. That same friend I mentioned earlier has a son: he got the kid interested in DBZ, and the son owns the entire manga series, artbooks, etc. As for Toriyama himself being one of the most important of his generation: again, for me anyway there is no question or argument. The art for the Dragonball series was drawn between 40-30 years ago, and it absolutely holds up today. To this day, I can look at something Toriyama drew and it just...makes me feel better, no matter what. I'm sad that he's gone, but that feeling I get when I take in his work won't change so long as I've still got eyes that can see. He's a worldwide comics GOAT candidate, and he belongs on the Mount Rushmore at the very least.
  2. I keep forgetting that I need to post in this thread more often.
  3. When Darby was out with Sting for their part of the press scrum, I thought I heard him say he's leaving for his Everest climb at the end of the month. My guess would be he won't be involved.
  4. This one sprang to mind for me, too. This won't win me many friends here, but the Bucks have a pretty decent big match resume, if you ask me. The above-mentioned cage match against the Lucha Bros, vs. Golden Lovers in NJPW, Bucks vs. Omega/Hangman (this one might be my personal favorite in terms of straight match quality). But, I think it's safe to say the match tonight was probably their highest-profile match in terms of emotional stakes and overall historical relevance. Ospreay/Takeshita was a crazy athletic spectacle. Though, it felt like someone told them "Okay guys! Go on out there and have a thirty-minute NJPW-style epic spectacle match! But you have fifteen minutes or so."
  5. Everybody ought to go watch that. I don't think it's an exaggeration to state that instantly became one of the all-time video packages in pro wrestling. Great stuff. Then, if you've got another eight hours to kill, you can go watch the Timelines video of Sting's AEW run.
  6. I gotta be honest, I don't always get through these without needing to reveal a letter or a word. This time though, whole thing done in 11:53. My best showing yet, I think. Thanks for putting these together. Even if I don't always get through them, I try every one.
  7. Since this doesn’t really spoil any event results, I’m not spoiler tagging this: Apparently, during the show Minoru Suzuki took to social media to state that he’s “giving back” the Strong Style name. As is probably evident, the translations I’ve seen are a bit spotty, but he basically seemed to say the name isn’t needed by him or Despe any longer. On his Instagram, the post starts with the translation “departing on a new journey” and he reiterates his status as a freelance wrestler. One would think if he was leaving New Japan for good, he’d get a larger send-off. But…also kinda seems like he’s not going to be around for a while. Personally…you could see his involvement dwindle after Suzukigun disbanded, but it’s still jarring to have him potentially on the departure list with Okada, Ospreay, and Tama.
  8. ...buckle up, I'm an American who has just watched a Significant American Football Game and am under the influence of whiskey/whisky (yes, I had both). I will probably ramble on but will at least try to spell correctly. First, add me to those who think ZSJ/Danielson 2 was amazing. Run, don't walk, to find a way to watch that match. If Danielson is getting ready to hang it up as a full-timer, he's doing his level-best to put on the all of the dream matches he possibly can before he reduces his schedule. I didn't post in the Wrestle Kingdom thread, but I kept trying to find a creative way to describe Okada/Danielson 2, and the phrase I kept coming up with was "museum-quality." As in: if I wanted someone to see how pro wrestling should be defined, that's the match I'd want them to watch, next to stuff like Guerrero/Mysterio from Halloween Havoc '97. But with these ZSJ/Danielson matches...I don't know that we have seen in-ring chemistry and overall match quality like this since the Okada/Omega series. It is mind-boggling how good the WrestleDream and now the New Beginning matches have been. We don't get to see perfectly paired wrestlers put on matches like this every day, and as alluded to above, when ZSJ is done, this style may largely go with him. Also: I don't think this will require spoilers, but man...that Osaka crowd knew they were in for some special stuff at this event and acted accordingly. Part of me wonders if some folks made the trip from the UK to see ZSJ/Danielson, and Ospreay's final match, hence some of the chants in English that we don't usually hear from Japanese audiences. I could feel the atmosphere through the screen, which doesn't happen for me too much any longer. More on that below.
  9. Not a usual WWE follower, but I watched the press conference. I'm wondering if they're going to use all of the bickering and uncertainty in the storyline to mooch New Japan's "Double Gold Dash" from a few years back. I say that having no idea what they're trying to accomplish by having Seth Rollins be a world title holder besides one of the brands needing a belt to fight over without stripping Roman of the two titles he's already got. Rock tries to relegate Cody to the backseat, using his newfound power to make Rock/Roman happen on night one. Cody agrees to a match with Rollins on night one only on the condition that, since it wasn't his choice, he can put his Rumble win up to face the winner of Rock/Roman on night two. The end result would very well be about as telegraphed as when New Japan did it, but weirder things have happened.
  10. My PS4 backlog is significant, and so far there hasn't been a whole lot to get me excited enough to buy a PS5. Pretty much the only thing that has my attention is Death Stranding 2 and the other Kojima...thing? It's stating the obvious, but the comments in State of Play concerning how the project will blur the lines between film and gaming were quite funny. He has been trying to do that since the first Metal Gear Solid. I don't mean that as an insult. My attitude towards Kojima craziness in gaming has always very much been "I will take everything you have in the store."
  11. The more I think about it, I’m not sure that Triple H is one of the “Corporate Officials” alluded to in the legal document. But, I can’t shake from my head the idea that there’s a non-zero chance that Triple H hasn’t read the complaint because he already knows what’s in it. And not even because he was directly involved. But…I’m supposed to believe that an investigation was done into the payments Vince made, but that his kids and son-in-law have no idea as to the specifics of why the payments were made in the first place? Hindsight is 20/20, but given the stuff Vince put on TV over the years, I’m also having trouble believing he’d be able to keep secrets if he was called out on the particulars of why it was so important to use millions in company funds in order to keep women silent about their affairs with him.
  12. I watched this last night to get my mind off of the Vince stuff. Slo-mo, high def footage. The NJPW/TV Asahi camera crew has done it again. Watch on the biggest screen you can find.
  13. Yeah, in all probability out of the question if he goes to WWE, unless he gets an absolute landmark deal with them. AEW, maybe he could come back for one down the line? But I'd assume they'd want him regularly in the mix Stateside as soon as they could get him. So now that the workday is done, I have a smattering of other thoughts. And actually, part of it verges on a confession. We'll lead with that. So when Jay White first turned up in AEW full-time, a big part of me thought all of the "expelled from Japan and NJPW shows" thing going on at the time was an angle, due to the fact that he was able to keep the Switchblade name, his New Japan entrance music, and Bullet Club gear. It took me an embarrassing amount of time to reach the conclusion that the NJPW/AEW relationship was friendly enough that TK must have agreed to pay New Japan for use of the Switchblade name/entrance music, along with NJPW getting a cut of whatever BC Gold merchandise gets sold. Esp. since the main BC Gold shirt also has the Lion Mark logo on it. Ever since, I've always wondered what the terms of that deal are, since I don't think that has ever come out. Which leads me to the following: with that precedent set, if Okada signs with AEW, he still gets to be Okada. The final boss. If he goes to WWE, the stuff like the coin drop, The Rainmaker nickname, the Okada bucks, maybe even the zoom out with the Rainmaker pose all goes away. Unless, of course, a changing WWE makes an unheard of overture to NJPW for all of that, like AEW must have done for Jay. Also...what a strange feeling to combine all of that with him giving Ospreay an emotional sendoff when he could very well wind up in the same promotion with him by March. Oof. One more thing: there was an article posed on Tokyo Sports about this news (https://www.tokyo-sports.co.jp/articles/-/289477?page=1) where Tanahashi had an all-timer of a line: "Okada's departure also marks the beginning of a new era. Tanahashi said, 'I think it's going to get interesting from now on. We have a lot of talent now, and there are a lot of young athletes in the dojo. When the rain stops, there will be a rainbow.'"
  14. I like the idea of seeing whether Kento would want to work with New Japan. Also, I don’t know if he’s “the guy” as much as Kento may be, but Kaito Kiyomiya has been working in NJPW an awful lot and the company has - at least to my eyes - gone out of their way to give him storylines with multiple wrestlers on the New Japan roster. I’ve enjoyed his New Japan stuff quite a bit, and the live crowds seem to react well to him. I say try to make it official. Snap up Kaito, get him in the mix with War Dogs and the Musketeers for real, long-term. Treat him like a big deal and see where it goes. That said, the rest of you had some great thoughts. I’m all for ZSJ or Shingo finally getting a G1 win. (Speaking of…a G1 without Okada is gonna feel really weird, yet it’s exciting. For the first time in a long time, there will be a real air of unpredictability.) All that said…the skeptic in me says New Japan might not pursue any other talent on a committed basis yet. Without needing to pay Okada any longer, they may need to still save the money in the post-COVID environment as business (hopefully…) recovers.
  15. Pestering wrestlers shouldn't be based on size or gender, but even the folks who aren't thought of as big wrestlers are still larger and more athletic than your average human. As far as seeing wrestlers in the wild...one thing that I still ponder to this day is whether or not it was Rey Mysterio I walked by in an airport once. It was years after he briefly wrestled in WCW without his mask, so I didn't remember what he really looked like or have an understanding of how his appearance would've changed with age. So I was walking through I think O'Hare or JFK, and all of a sudden I see this shorter guy in SPLX apparel (this would've been shortly after he started a sponsorship with them) with a telltale goatee similar to Rey's walking towards me. I was definitely much taller, but whoever this person was, their shoulders were at least twice as wide as mine. My first takeaway was "Hey, I think that's Rey Jr...but I'm not sure so I should leave them alone." My second was "If Rey's shoulders are that huge, imagine how big the actual 'big' wrestlers are."
  16. Me posting in September: "Somebody hurry up and book Eddie to win another championship so he can kinda sorta have his own version of the Triple Crown." To whoever from AEW reads the board: thank you for A) doing this, and B) helping me realize that my house is getting pretty dusty. After I read MJF's article on The Player's Tribune this week, I went back and re-read Eddie's. This journey Kingston has been on these past few years might be one of my all-time favorite things in wrestling. Crazy thing is I never followed Eddie on the indies, but he's done a great job at getting me invested after debuting in AEW. Pulling from the article he wrote, it's also crazy that he was down-and-out and so close to quitting the business, but is now where he is. Within a little over the last year's time, he's wrestled Jun Akiyama, Minoru Suzuki, competed in the G1 + wrestled in Korakuen, met Toshiaki Kawada, and now has a Triple Crown. He's living a puroresu dream and I'm happy for his success and glad that we get to see it.
  17. I think Tom Wilkinson's performance in Michael Clayton still stands as one of the better acting performances in film history. That movie as a whole is a bit underrated and the cast has other legendary performers, but he was absolutely captivating.
  18. I didn't think we'd see this happen, but MJF has penned an article for The Player's Tribune and it's worth a read. https://www.theplayerstribune.com/posts/maxwell-jacob-friedman-aew-wrestling I feel like a significant part of it is well further outside of kayfabe than MJF usually goes. But it's him, so of course he says some things that might rub some people the wrong way. I also think there are some passages in there that could be hinting at the outcome of his upcoming match with Joe. But hey, maybe we're being worked. It's the end of the year, I'm just gonna enjoy the ride, I think.
  19. Maybe the AEW media thread is more appropriate for this, but if you’re like me and need to catch up on this tournament…AEW just put seemingly the whole thing up on YouTube. Nearly 5 and a half hours of wrestling content in this video.
  20. Don't give up hope. If EVIL & Co. go with the latter option I presented, Tana can do that when they start wrestling as "Abode of Agony" or "Domicile of Doom" or whatever.
  21. I think what I want instead is a callback to when Keiji Muto wrestled as both himself and Great Muta in the same match. Tanahashi in a multi-man tag vs. House of Torture. Tana gets frustrated with their antics and walks to the back. He returns in a suit, grabs a microphone, and officially abolishes HOT mid-match under pain of all of them being fired. Tana’s team thus wins by forfeit and all HOT members either find new factions or troll him by re-incorporating under a new name.
  22. President Tanahashi cleaning house like it's The Godfather. Trying to think of anybody else who has irritated him over the years...
  23. There's an awful lot of good stuff on the Western AF youtube channel, but this may be one of my favorite songs of 2023 in any genre.
  24. Shhh...this is saving me like $100/month on a cable subscription... Therefore related: I took to youtube to watch the Golden Jets/tag champions segment that everyone has been discussing. Yeah, not good. I don't like fully scripted WWE-style promos, but I think this showed that there can be a happy medium. Everybody was stepping all over each other, misspeaking and messing up common turns of phrase, etc. It felt like we were seeing the rough draft of something that needed a lot more workshopping to be considered finished. Also, for all of the credit that Jericho often gets about his ability to reinvent himself, a lot of the misogyny present in his act since the Attitude Era has a way of resurfacing. There was no real reason to bring up Billie Starkz in that segment, but being compared to her isn't an insult. If Ricky had been a little quicker, he could've easily turned that one around on Jericho. Something like: "Hang on, why should I be offended at being compared to a young wrestling prodigy? I'm one of those too." But I guess for Jericho being a young woman is a bad thing. Speaking of Ricky Starks, I hesitate to air this out but I've been feeling it for a while: I think in retrospect breaking up him and Hobbs was one of AEW's more significant non-Punk-related missteps so far. When he and Hobbs were teamed up, Starks really did feel like the next big thing to me. They were a hot act. Ever since that split and Ricky's face turn -> everything since, it feels like he's lost something.
  25. I'm glad to see this was brought up. From what I'd seen, not only is Okada's wife more famous than him, (and maybe it thus goes without saying) she also makes more money than he does. On that topic, the rumors about Okada's salary have usually been that what he makes in New Japan is comparable to what the top wrestlers in WWE make. The icing on the cake that I haven't seen mentioned here yet is that Okada and his wife had a child last year. All told, I don't think he'd have a ton of incentive to move overseas unless he'd be offered a ludicrous amount of money or NJPW absolutely can't afford him any longer. I can only assume a big part of the reason why New Japan hasn't been offering foreign wrestlers contracts is so they can ensure their domestic stars can keep getting paid and won't go elswhere.
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