Teflon Turtle

I confess I used to contemplate how much time new wrestlers signed to WWE had to spend in front of a mirror - either at the PC or at home - trying pose after pose only to have to say "Damn it, that one's taken!" over...and over...and over...

The US title situation has been one of the weirder parts of it all. I don't know how/why you do a "right to challenge" tournament unless you know you have a way to follow through on that. Unless the whole thing was taped before anybody knew how bad things were going to get, it makes no sense. Then again, it is pro wrestling. "We need to kick the can down the road" is an accepted as a valid reason to book something. Dip in to the historical puroresu weirdness playbook: Mox v. KENTA in an Island Death Match, broadcast from international waters! No pesky public safety or immigration issues. EDIT: Kidding aside, it doesn't make much sense to even have a US title if you can't run actual shows in the US. I know NJPW Strong is a thing, but it seems like it's such a skeleton crew, and a lot of it seems to be/has been taped far in advance. It probably just makes more sense to seal the belt if or until NJPW can run shows in North America again.

I admit to some skepticism, but am taking a "wait and see" approach. From a booking standpoint, and a roster standpoint, they certainly don't need two nights. Even from a calendar point of view: I initially thought the whole point of the two-night WK from 2020 was that the 4th and 5th fell over a weekend for the first time in forever. I wasn't nuts about the Double Gold Dash idea. I remember Okada cutting a promo in the ring with the other three participants, and everything just seemed so...tepidly received. In my opinion, though, the wrestlers saved it when they actually got in the ring on the 4th and 5th. Of course I can say that as a Naito fan, but at the end of the day, the matches delivered. I'm starting to wonder how much of it is simple finances. I had read some speculation that the reason NJPW got through the first days of the pandemic relatively unscathed was due to the financial windfall that the two recent nights in the Tokyo Dome granted them. I can't help but wonder if the pressure is on to do two nights this year simply to refill the coffers as much as possible for an uncertain 2021, rather than any actual storyline need. I'm not envying the prospect of either being very short on sleep, or burning two days off right at the start of the new year just to watch pro-wrestling.

NJPW is beginning to carry official Minoru Suzuki merch on their global/US shop, supposedly including stuff from his Piledriver store. They're starting with this shirt, and the figure from further up. Hopefully this isn't all they're going to do - an official source of Suzuki merch worldwide is long overdue. https://www.njpw1972.com/83747

@sevendaughters - I hear you. For every moment I spent enjoying Naito slowing things down a bit during this G1, I had one where I thought Ibushi felt like he was struggling to find his rhythm...or identity, even...without flying around or taking crazy bumps. I'll co-sign what you said about the AJ/Suzuki match, too. Brilliant stuff, but not every pair of wrestlers can or should do that every time out. Honestly, a lot of where I'm coming from is probably down to a change in my tastes this year - I loved 2017-18 New Japan as much as anybody, but I'm just not finding the high-risk stuff as entertaining or fun this year. I hadn't read anything about Meij saying anything about the state of the in-ring work, but I'd be interested in learning the details. @Jiji - Man, I'd have sworn those Naito/Ibushi matches were in 2018. I stand corrected. Hiromu is the guy who has seemed to tone it down the least, for sure. There were a few times I thought he wasn't moving at quite as breakneck a pace, but then he'd keep doing some of the destructive/self-destructive stuff he did before. I think you're right again - what we see in BOSJ will probably be pretty telling.

I wanted to discuss something related to this earlier, but only got round to mentioning a lack of apron spots during the G1 this year. I feel like the overall intensity/danger quotient has really been scaled back since New Japan returned to action - it looks really intentional to me. I seem to recall reading somewhere that a lot of people attributed the escalation in high-risk stuff in NJPW to Kenny Omega - he started adding more, the rest of the roster followed suit to keep up (I don't know if it rests 100% with him, but it seemed to coincide with his rise in the company). Now that he and the Bucks are gone, it seems like a readjustment to the NJPW "house style" is happening. Take Tetsuya Naito: not long ago, he was quoted in an interview as saying he'd rather go three more years at 100% than stretch his career out another ten years only going at 60-70%. Whether it was his eye injury or the pandemic (with accompanying added weight of being the guy to carry NJPW through it), I thought he wrestled a much more conservative tournament than he has in years during this G1. More holds, more mat work, a more gradual build-up to the match. Yet to my eyes, this was the most consistent he's been since 2017, without needing to resort to anything too risky. I believe he demonstrated (both to us and hopefully for his own sake, himself) that he's got enough in his toolbox that he can put on enjoyable wrestling matches without endangering himself too greatly. I think this applies to almost everyone I watched - you've still got that Ishii/Shingo/Suzuki/Goto tier of guys who are still going to smack the hell out of each other, but a lot of the more dangerous spots and bumps seemed to fade in to the background this year. I think this de-escalation accounts for some of the disappointment.

Yeah...it'll probably be interference-ridden, but I think I may be most interested in KENTA/Tanahashi. One of the few benefits of 2020 is that I've had extra time to go back and watch old matches. For whatever reason (maybe because this year sucks and I wanted to be able to actually cheer for the good guy...), something with Tanahashi finally clicked for me. Part of it is also probably seeing how much it meant to him to be wrestling again - whatever it is, I'm invested in him about ten years too late. I'd like to see him win this. On one hand, you have a guy in KENTA who probably has more US name recognition thanks to his WWE stint, and one who conceivably could go back and forth to the US more easily than Tanahashi. On the other...if Moxley loves the 2012 Tanahashi/Suzuki match as much as he claims, I'd have to imagine that he wants to work a big match with Tanahashi before the curtain falls. Tana also showed up on an AEW broadcast and both sides have been teasing working with each other ever since. Looking beyond that, either guy beating Moxley gets you a Japanese wrestler holding the US belt, something I've felt NJPW would have to do eventually. It shouldn't just be the "gaijin belt." If (big if, given our pandemic-blighted future), American fans want true NJPW shows in the US then eventually they're going to need to open up the US title challenger pool to all of the heavyweight roster.

I got so far behind that I was going to have to consolidate all of my thoughts in to one post at some point, but you hit on two of the things I wanted to mention with your post. For the Yano discussion a few pages back - one of the best moments of this G1 for me was Yano switching to Spanish to ask where Naito was, as if that would lure him out...brilliant. The Young Lions were called out for lack of apron spots...but is it just me, or have we seen a significant reduction in these spots overall? In other NJPW tournaments over the last several years it seemed like we were getting a dumb, dangerous-looking apron spot every other match, with it never actually leading directly to the finish. My memory may be spotty, but I think we've only seen one or two apron spots total for this entire tournament. I don't miss them - there's more than enough talent on the roster that compelling matches can be had without stuff like that.

I haven't had such a (positive) vocal reaction to an MMA fight in a long, long time. I'm surprised at how happy I am that Adesanya took that. As seemingly basic a concept of "start by kicking low, then kick high" seems to be, when perfected, it works well. I was frustrated the headkick Izzy landed didn't close the show; instead, it skimmed while still being effective. Then again...another glancing shot lead to the true end of the fight. It's also really fun seeing someone I've never heard of in Royval, and being on board with what he brings at the end of the card. So great.

Exactly. It shouldn't really make sense for what Yano does to exist in the traditionally serious, typically pure sport, strong style world that is NJPW. I love NJPW, but one really needs something to act as a break or counterpoint to all of the bloody forearm exchanges. Yano is perfect for that. Another way I like to think about what he does (and wrestlers everywhere who occupy a similar position, I suppose): there can be lot of fun in someone who has picked out a character and wrestles to it. Doesn't need to be just moves - body language, facial expressions, whole thing. What do you do that sets you apart from the rest of the wrestlers on the roster and explains who you are at the same time? As the rest of you have pointed out in a variety of ways, Yano is fantastic at this aspect of pro-wrestling. He's not just another "guy who is athletic enough to do cool stuff in there" like we've seen plenty of in 21st century wrestling.

93 million drunk stars to the Suzuki/Ishii match. Just got done watching it. If there is a greater joy as a pro-wrestling fan than hearing the sound of a Suzuki forearm strike landing, I haven't found it.

I just want it somewhere, anywhere, online: thank you Kevin Kelly for putting in ridiculous hours to do live commentary for this show. I didn't stay up/wake up early to watch the show live, but to have English commentary ready to go by the time I logged in to watch Summer Struggle at noon was a privilege, and a nice reminder of pre-COIVD times when the commentary team could travel back and forth to Japan relatively without incident. Since the Elite left, it feels kinda like NJPW is moving back to niche status as opposed to "the promotion that will wind up nipping at WWE's heels" like it was in 2017ish; I appreciate anything they continue to do to make their shows more accessible to an English-speaking audience. Also: It was clear that Chris Charlton had to carry more weight than usual, and I felt he did a really good job. Props to both of them for doing what they did in adverse circumstances. I'm not sure there's an argument for him as a GOAT candidate, but Minoru Suzuki has to be one of the most effective pro wrestlers of all time. He's in my completely subjective all-time favorites list. Though: I remember reading recent interviews where he has stated he hasn't had to change anything up since there are fewer fans in attendance, because his style isn't reliant upon them. I'm not sure that's the case. I feel like he's taken a lot of the extended submission sequences out of his matches since fans can't cheer for the opponent who needs to escape. That said: between the Nagata matches and this one vs. Shingo, Suzuki is still having a very enjoyable, if strike-heavy 2020. If nothing else, he stands as a shining example of being able to do more with less. It was refreshing to see a faction besides Bullet Club act like an actual faction in NJPW. The change in setting made for some really cool camera shots during wrestler intros and post-match celebrations. In some ways, watching wrestling filmed in outdoor venues still struck me as off, but I'd like to see NJPW keep this going every now and then.

I know the concept of wrestlers "deserving" title reigns in pro wrestling gets sideways glances sometimes...but I will second Minoru Suzuki. Dude has done more than enough in the puroresu/combat sports world to earn an IWGP reign, and thus a place in the pantheon of competitors who've held the Triple Crown, GHC Heavyweight, and IWGP Heavyweight titles. He'd never deviate from character enough to go through with it, but I'd dig a story of Suzuki wanting to complete the trifecta like his friend Yoshihiro Takayama. If we're sticking within the realm of current possibility, I'll throw out Hirooki Goto. I started following puroresu (NJPW specifically) around 1999/2000 or so, stopped during Inokiism, and came back after...probably most of Goto's failed title challenges. I missed it; had no context for why a guy who I thought was an excellent wrestler when I started following NJPW more closely again never got an IWGP reign until I researched it after the fact. If we were to play "name a wrestler whose in-ring skills are better than their booking," I think Goto would also probably be my #1 answer. If you're gonna give either man a run, now's the time. If you're going to roll the dice on Evil now because there can't/won't be full live gates for a while, the same logic applies to the wrestlers above.

Yeah. The positive reinforcement I got from wearing the Macho Man shirt pretty much led me to not hesitate to wear any merch out in public regardless of obscurity. It can go good, bad, or in the middle - plenty of knowing, wordless "too sweets" exchanged during the height of Elite-era Bullet Club, for instance. Best one was when I wore an LIJ shirt to a small town brewery right around the time of one of the Naito/Jericho matches in NJPW. Thing is, I had a (non-wrestling) zip-up sweatshirt on over it - only a small part of the LIJ logo was actually visible. Somebody still spotted it, and shouted "You just made the list!" from across the beer garden. We wound up having a great conversation. Worst would've been wearing an Okada shirt during a mostly-indoors music festival. A very, very drunk person with no wrestling knowledge asked me about my shirt several times to the point of almost badgering me about it, and I basically stated that I would have to explain it at another time. I can be awkward enough as it is. I don't need to be the guy shouting "THIS IS A SHIRT FOR A REALLY COOL JAPANESE PRO-WRESTLER!!!" right when the song stops and nobody is talking.

That has been my experience with the lavender Macho Man shirt here in the U.S., also. I've worn that shirt to various music festivals and while on vacation in various major cities in the lower 48, and I don't think it has ever failed to get a reaction or a compliment from someone. People seem to be able to tell that I'm an introvert and ordinarily give me a wide berth in public, but I'm best buddies with tons of random people when I've got that t-shirt on. Everybody knows Randy Savage, and everybody knows that shirt. I know there tends to be a stigma around wearing wrestling merch in public for some people...but I have had 100% positive reactions to that one. No shame needed.

Felt the exact same way. I wasn't following puroresu during Tanahashi's prime, so I missed out on his ascendance and time at the top. I've been going back through his past matches on NJPWWorld recently, and found myself surprisingly invested during the tag title match. ZSJ/Taichi have been on a tear, for sure. But, the feeling of mounting dread that built up as they kept at Tanahashi with the double-team dragon screws was something else. Really good, effective work by all four wrestlers in the match. Much as Ibushi seems destined for more singles gold, I kind of want the Golden Ace team to stick around for a while.

To address something said earlier about how being a Naito fan must suck: Gedo gives us plenty of opportunities to cry ourselves to sleep on the mountains of LIJ merch we've been Tranquilo'd into buying. My initial reaction was that this torpedoes all of the fuss around the Double Gold Dash and Naito's years-long story...but 2020 is nothing if not the year of extenuating circumstances. Add to that: Naito was never going to get a reign with double-digit defenses like Okada or Tanahashi. That's not who he is, character-wise. He's got something unique next to his name in the NJPW history book instead, which feels right to me. As a Naito fan, though...I do hope he gets another run at the top after we skip back in to the correct timeline. It does feel weird to get what I asked for, though - in my mind, NJPW had two major problems (along with other smaller things that seem nitpicky when contrasted with what's wrong with other promotions): their factions felt stale and needed to be shaken up, and their roster was far too solidly stratified. It was getting to the point where I was getting concerned that New Japan was running the risk of having another "lost generation:" wrestlers who could be elevated weren't being fully showcased at the expense of needing to keep Okada at the very top, with a very small, solidified group of wrestlers around him who could conceivably take the championship away. There was no real variance to the main event scene, and outcomes were obvious. However, New Japan has excelled with seemingly establishing a "next man up" attitude among their wrestlers. I can't be too mad at the title switch when EVIL has gotten to show more personality in 48 hours than he has in the last three years. As pointed out a page or two back, this opens up a ton of new story possibilities. When I first saw Gedo walk out during the finals of the Cup, I thought the surprise would be that they somehow managed to illegally smuggle Jay White in to Japan, and were going to have him interfere in the main event. This decision makes the return of the missing BC members far more interesting, and allows for the possibility of more new challengers to step up in to main event territory. SHO and Shingo put on another great one, which will probably be lost among the title changes in the top two matches. For my money, Shingo is right there with Ishii in the category of "not at the top of the card, but is actually the best pro wrestler on planet Earth." It was mentioned that this feels like an end to the golden age of NJPW that started in the early 2010's. I've had that same thought, but we may need to go even further. I'm thinking that most of the traditional NJPW system will look different from here on out, depending on how long the world takes to recover from COVID-19. If international travel will be difficult for years to come, they're going to need to get comfortable elevating Young Lions without them going on excursion first. I also don't know if I see the current crop of top guys like Okada/Naito/Tanahashi/Ibushi making it to "dad status." Pro wrestling is hard on the body regardless of the style one wrestles, but I don't know if it will be possible for them to stick around like Nagata/Kojima/Makabe (and others) have done. Okada is still a young guy, but it looks to me like he's starting to go more slowly in his matches. Whether this is a conscious decision to prolong his career, or something necessitated by injuries already, I can't say. As entertaining as the NJPW style is now, it's not out of the realm of possibility that it will prove to be a meat grinder.

Man...with YOH's injury, YOSHI-HASHI destroying his knee, and SANADA getting planted on his head, this could prove to be a very costly tournament for NJPW. Never mind how some of the rest of the roster was moving pretty slowly after their matches - hopefully that's just going to fall in the realm of "banged up" and there won't be any further roster losses. They're already shorthanded. Speaking of SANADA - I've been in the camp that complains about his matches and signature moves before. Perhaps it's the effects of isolation wreaking havoc upon my sanity, but I thought he had a rather enjoyable tournament. Bushi gave a recent interview for NJPW where he mentioned that SANADA trained under Osamu Nishimura at one point, and therefore uses a very "classical" style of wrestling. I can see both truth and falsehood in that statement, but if SANADA did away with just two moves in his repertoire and leaned in a little more to the style that Nishimura wrestled - kinda like we see in his matches with ZSJ - I think a lot of the complaints about him could easily go away. I would say this is a borderline necessity regardless of what happens, and an absolute necessity if he leaves LIJ. To @Oyaji's point: I don't know what more we can say about Tomohiro Ishii. He's always great, and to be the guy who excels in these tournaments for years on end is pretty incredible. As much a toll as they clearly take on everyone, it's near-unbelievable that he can keep that up. In story or not, he's got to be a ridiculously tough human. Plus, his style is always enjoyable to watch, and when he deviates from it (like in the G1 match with Moxley), it means something. Hiromu being able to pick up where he left off after an injury like his defies belief too. He did it all in the New Japan Cup: comedy and character work with Yano, top-tier in-ring action with Ishii, and now Okada. Based on how the latter match shook out, I have to believe there will be more high-stakes matches between those two in the future - barring further injuries, global pandemics, alien invasions, etc.

I'm not sure if this is quite worthy of spoiler tags, but I guess to not mess up the progression of the story for those who haven't watched....

Something else to point out about Otsuka's MMA career: if you haven't already, go have a further gander at the names on his record beyond his big win. A well-trodden pet peeve of many is how JMMA organizations had a penchant for throwing their potential (or actual) native stars to the lions. Yeah, he had the Ruas fight, but in a way that was the worst thing for him, as @Elsalvajeloco mentioned. Dude was thrown to a murderers row for the rest of his MMA career: Wanderlei AND Anderson Silva, 2000 Igor Vovchanchyn, Rampage, Renzo Gracie...list goes on. I'm not sure if it's as egregious as Yuji Nagata's first and only two MMA fights occurring against Fedor Emelianenko and Mirko Cro Cop, but how could the dude have even had a real chance to build his name in MMA and generate more crossover appeal when he's put up against fighters like that?

When I first started with puroresu, it was incredibly jarring to see how differently tombstones were treated in Japan. I was maybe 14, and had only ever watched WWF/WCW. One of the first tapes I bought was an Ultimo Dragon compilation, featuring a match with (I think...) Otani. The one where they trade, and completely no-sell, several tombstones in succession. Dumbfounded teenager: "I...but...Undertaker... they're....huh?!"

I'll stay up and ramble a bit. This one is hitting hard. Too many parallels to people I've been close to for it to not land with impact. Wasn't really watching Stardom, but I began watching Terrace House after learning that someone from the puroresu community was joining the cast. I started watching by myself, but my partner got hooked on the show too. I started trying to track down Stardom matches shortly after. Hana's potential, as alluded to above, is the crux of the matter. To watch her work, plus seeing her on Terrace House...was a complex picture. As a wrestler, she was one of the rare few where it felt like the pro wrestling world could be her oyster. She could've gone anywhere she wanted with it. But - and as unreliable a vehicle for the truth as reality television is - it seemed perhaps the confidence Hana displayed in the ring did not translate to life outside of it. This is all too familiar to me, and the fact that she was probably struggling for a while with this hits home. About this being the result of cyberbullying, internet culture: it's just so troubling that we've created a worldwide culture where the negative, hurtful voices are allowed to run rampant over the loving and ascendant. The thing that will stick with me is what my partner said to me after getting home from work and learning that Hana was in distress (all the news we had at the time...) due to online harassment: "It's a shame that this poor young woman is so hurt by this, and can't possibly conceive of the fact that there are two people in a small Midwestern city in America who are deeply concerned for her." We are all connected, and yet all the more separated for it.

Unexpected, but to this day may remain as one of my favorite examples of storytelling in professional wrestling. I go back and watch this every few years. It's the "old school crafty guy who happens to be legendary with no true experience in this match type" vs. "guy who helped define the ladder match and is more at home in this environment than the legend could ever be" thing that does it for me. Also a match that features a cameo from young Charlotte Flair in the crowd, no?

I've been having this feeling that NJPW is in a bit of an odd spot for a while, even before COVID-19 hit. They're by far my favorite promotion, but the roster has been clearly stratified for a while now. To me, it's rather unclear how they're going to break out of that. Their current highest echelon is so good, I feel they might be hesitant to elevate other Young Lions/lower-tier guys as quickly has they have previously. (Well...relatively. The returning Okada is probably the most extreme example out there.) People are pointing to SANADA. He's popular, but I don't really buy the idea of Okada selling him as a rival yet. Isn't Okada something like 7-1 against him? It still seems like there's a gulf despite SANADA finally picking up that win. Is he truly next? By the time NJPW is ready to really start moving on from Okada being a level above everyone else, it may be too late. Rock and a hard place. But, it's also seemingly correct that there's not a whole lot left for Okada currently. Agreed on Moxley. There's probably more that he and Ospreay could do, Ibushi also. Finally, I think it would be a shame if we didn't get a big Okada/Takagi match as alluded to above. In my mind, that's about it. As far as other potential directions: it might be too soon for this also, but I'm getting curious about why Naito/Ospreay have been kept pretty distant from each other in terms of big singles matches. I don't know if Ospreay's quite at that Omega-esque level where he'd be entrusted with a Tokyo Dome main event, but it seems like when NJPW keeps upper-tier guys separated, there's usually a significant reason behind it.

https://www.njpw1972.com/73644 Pretty interesting news coming out of NJPW - sounds like they're finally opening a true U.S./global online store. I don't want to hate on PWT or start any nonsense (I know opinions about their business vary...), but it seemed like their support for NJPW has started to erode somewhat after AEW became a thing. As far as expansion goes (another can of worms), this move is also probably overdue. Personally, I'm just excited to finally be able to get my hands on a wider variety of stuff direct from the source, without having to go through an intermediary for shipping.