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I must be one of few people on the planet who doesn't mind Mathews.

Saw some threads in other places that Zack has signed full time with NJPW and thats why he lost Evolve title. Well, all things considered makes sense, NJPW probably wouldn't have given him NJ Cup if it was just one time deal.

Impact has uploaded their show on twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/247553403 But it isn't working for me? Am I stupid and doing something wrong or is there something wrong on twitch's end?

Yeah, that would be the idea. If Okada wins then he just gets another V, if Naito wins then he'd probably throw IC belt into the garbage bin. Suzuki would probably try to keep both since he wants more treasures. Realistically speaking if Naito wins against Suzuki then he probably should win at Dominion too since Okada getting another W over him might be taking things a bit too far. Talking about taking things a bit too far, what should happen with Jr. Tag belts? Kanemaru/Desperado now twice in a row stole the win from Hiromu/Bushi, should that really happen again? And if not, who would Hiromu/Bushi face at Dominion? Ropongi 3k? Would anyone care? This whole thing feels like a mess to me now. One of the reasons why I never really minded Bucks being stuck in Jr. Tag division is that I struggle to figure out where would they exactly fit in heavyweight tags. Last year when division was completely ran into the ground with War Machine/GoD/KES it made some sense, but since then we got Evil/Sanada, Golden Lovers, Okada/Goto (no reason why it can't happen again) and I think that Zack/Suzuki is bound to happen as well. Not that easy in such case to justify YBs being aces of the division and if they are stuck in opening matches with the likes of Yujiro/Chase? Feuding with Hiromu/Bushi would probably have been way bigger than that. As for the match with Golden Lovers at SSE, could have happened either way since no titles were involved. Alternatively sure, they could just get a match with Evil/Sanada (or KES) at Dominion because why not, but it doesn't look like it is going to happen with how cards are laid out. In other words, amount of heavyweights that NJPW uses is slowly increasing. Most of them are improving and warrant better booking. Unless NJPW introduces even more singles titles we are bound to get more and more tag teams that are made out of good singles wrestlers. Due to that it will be harder for teams like YBs to stay on top. Side topic that is somewhat relevant to this, but I really hope that Sho and Yoh enter BotSJ this year since they have, in my opinion, hit a dead end and shouldn't get into the Jr. tag titles picture till at least KoPW.

I think this thread should be dedicated to entire Dontaku tour including Hinokuni and Road To shows since it is all part of the same big puzzle. Also, one could make an argument that Hinokuni actually has the best card. My early prediction would be that winner of Naito/Suzuki will challenge Okada at Dominion.

Ospreay/Scurll to me felt really like Ishii/Elgin match from NJ Cup. Once match didn't end 1 minute after that botch I just phased out. If Scurll ended up winning by stoppage then it might have been a great match or maybe if Ospreay got lucky roll up. But now it is just whatever. Couldn't watch main event very closely, but from what I saw it was pretty good asides of obvious issues like Okada's and Zack's selling that by this point are well documented and it is pointless to argue about them I guess. Thou can anyone confirm/deny if Zack did try to apply his Napalm Death submission that he used to win against everyone in NJ Cup? I didn't notice it and if he didn't then thats some smart booking.

All things considered I think it would make sense for CMLL to buy NWA brand (obviously if it is not very expensive) since in terms of style and booking they are probably closest to what NWA was from all current major (and minor I guess) promotions still operating. So I think it it is possible that they made some kinda deal with Corgan. Corgan might be a fan of wrestling and have many weird ideas, but at the same time I think he would want to have some exit option ready if things don't pick up.

Watching Road to Show and Evil got pretty great pop for his return. As for main event, crowd so far doesn't seam to take that much into Zack, sadly. When they started doing a bit more elaborate sequences crowd obviously reacted, but it feels like there isn't that much of a chemistry between Okada and Zack, so far at least. I'm firmly on heavyweight Taichi train, but when crowd looks to be hotter for Taichi than for your upcoming main event then I think it isn't very good sign. And I don't want to imply that Okada/Zack got no reaction, crowd reacted, but it really isn't same thing that Okada would get with other opponents. I guess people don't really buy that Zack could win despite him getting super push during NJ Cup. Looking back at SSE, Okada and Zack were completely overshadowed by Ishii and Suzuki so I'm starting to wonder if this main event won't end up under delivering. Sooner Okada breaks that last record better it will be for everyone.

In one of the post-show interviews that Meltzer did he speculated a bit saying that one of the main reasons for Jericho to do a WK match was to show everyone that he is a draw (and he mentions that due to how WWE is now structured it is close to impossible to tell who really draws and who doesn't) and it might be logical next step for him to main event Cow Palace. This theory sounds rather plausible to me and if Jericho has another match I'd put my money on Cow Palace against Okada or Naito.

I think that might WK-worthy match.

And they already have a potential start of the angle with Jay mentioning Brandi in his promo and Cody later responding to it. Like, at Dominion maybe? So that for All In show (and that big NJPW show) Cody would be US champ and could rub it in Omega's face. For Page I think it was a perfect storm of NJPW having to give something to RoH, The Elite lobbing and them needing additional bodies for Bullet Club drama. Match itself is meaningless to larger story being told here. Bigger story here is Hangman wanting a match, Omega denying him and due to that Hangman joins team Cody. Others are basically calling him a bitch and him losing (lost to Jay, will probably lose to Ibushi) all these opportunities that he wanted to have will probably lead to confrontation with Cody who'll basically say that Page is a moron whom he gladly used for his own needs. Hopefully at this point he will have some kind of gimmick/character change that will turn him into decent act that actually makes sense. So yeah, since this match itself didn't really matter they probably should have done it at Honor Rising and gave Jay someone better to work with for this show. I suppose if NJPW wanted they could probably do a decent story here with Cody beating Jay for the title and eventually dropping it to Page (who should be face, or tweener, by that point) at the end of the year. Thats obviously if NJPW sees anything in Page outside of him being RoH/The Elite guy. Could change his gimmick to Hung Page.

That press conference was really good showing for Jay White and is main reason now why I still think that he has bright future. Meanwhile Page cut a generic promo about how he would be a better champion that any wrestler could cut in any promotion about anyone. But Page also going to get a match with Ibushi which I'm sure many people will praise because Ibushi is a star and both of them will do some crazy spots and moonsaults from high places. But at the same time Jay can just do couple of additional shit stirring promos and he'll probably gain more long term traction than Page. This is a bit similar situation to Omega/Cody differences that I wrote about earlier, but I haven't seen Page actually have a good/great match asides of doing big and dangerous spots so he is hardly Omega in this analogy while Jay has potential to catch up with Cody in near future as far as character work goes. Kinda what we got with Naito/Taichi in Anniversary show where Taichi immediately hit Naito and did that big powerbomb on the ramp.

Fight Forever!

Overall this show felt very similar to me to Honor Rising shows in a sense that it was one match show focused around Bullet Club. Nothing wrong with that, but I'd prefer if we got at max 2 hours of filler before that instead of 3 and a half. Main event obviously brings up the topic of should wrestlers try to kill each other in every match or should they be more careful considering that they got big matches lined up in next two weeks. Shibata is obviously best example of this, he truly delivered a match that will be remembered for a long time, but on the other hand we don't have Shibata wrestling now. Would it be better if instead of that match he participated in G1 and delivered, potentially, 5-6 great matches? In a weird sense it works as meta story of Kenny vs Cody. One who basically kills himself in every match to get and stay over while another relies entirely on his character works to stay relevant. I think that I'm leaning a bit towards team Cody here, but I understand why some think that what Kenny is doing is what wrestling should be about. What about match itself? I enjoyed it, wouldn't call it greatest thing like some people are saying and it probably isn't even my MOTY at the moment, but it was a good main event that deserved to close this show. Will it go down as a classic? I really doubt. @Raziel earlier wrote that it felt a bit like Kings Road match 5 while being their first match and I think it is rather good description. I watch BTE and follow various Bullet Club related things so I think I understood pretty much everything that was happening, but then I was watching it together with couple of casual friends and they understood bits and parts here and there. I could explain most of the stuff to them since it is not rocket science, but then I got thinking, will anyone asides of people like me, who follow Bullet Club closely, be able to fully experience this match again? I mean, what do you need to do if you want to experience it yourself instead of getting told what it is about? Watch 150 Being The Elite episodes that have various bits and details here and there while most of the stuff is irrelevant, but probably nobody remembers now which video contains which relevant hint? Watch lots of matches from various promotions? It really isn't a small story, yet only very small and minor part of it was told in this match. I don't know, to me it feels that as time goes on it will be harder for people to understand why this match mattered in a grand scheme of things. Or maybe someone somehow will manage to collect everything in 3 DVDs and a make a profit. Anyway, I wrote earlier in the thread that Jay White is headed for greatness, but I'm not so sure anymore. His match was scary and bad at the same time. Sure, bookers shouldn't have booked two green guys in semi-main event and they probably shouldn't have given them 25 minutes, but at some point talent also has to take responsibility. Especially for those scary botches that could have ended very badly. But icing on the okay was when Jay got hit by his next challenger. At that time I had a flashback to some old Omega interview where he said that he wants to make this belt as strong or stronger than IC belt and I started laughing. Jay isn't going anywhere anytime fast with such high quality opponents like Hangman Page and Finlay while the belt itself is now de facto least "prestigious" title in the promotion. On the positive side now at least I will have to stop bitching about Goto and NEVER title being worthless. Speaking about Goto, should he get his mouth busted in every match? It looked like something clicked there and for a moment we got Wrestle Kingdom version of Goto instead of what we usually get.

Jay White reviews Bullet Club and shows once again that his WK match was just a mismatch and he is headed for greatness: https://streamable.com/za0jo

I know people very often write that WWE should have off-season or rotate guys, but has any wrestling company ever really tried to do that?

I think that was more of a reference to WWE's 205 Live than to NJPW. And as far as NJPW goes, I don't think really talk much about what is their actual weight limit? Also, I remember reading in one of the Lion Marks articles that they talk about Junior and Heavyweight distinction more in terms of class than in some specific weight. NEVER title could be used, I think, well for that 180-220 bracket, but NJPW looks to be allergic to that.

I have listened to a few podcasts with him (killing the town or whatever its called) and I like what I hear from him, but when he is doing commentary for NJPW it is like it is another person speaking. On numerous cases he has made match feel worse to me than it actually was and he is main reason why I almost always watch the Japanese stream.

I think that NJPW has a bit of a problem with Jr. divisions in general. Problem being that Hiromu is more over than anyone else, by big margin. Lesser problem, but problem nonetheless is that Bushi is probably also in TOP 5 as far as reactions and merch goes (when he enters the ring they often show some people from audience wearing his masks while I don't really see, or at least don't remember seeing, it for other juniors). He is essentially a pin eater, but still is more over than many semi-protected guys in other factions. I remember in last BotSJ he got strong crowd support when facing Suzuki-Gun juniors and not playing a heel for once. And from what I recall year earlier his main event with Kushida was considered a success in terms of attendance. But either way it is easier to justify non-push with Bushi, because Hiromu is better and is in the same faction. So why is that a problem? Because both Jr. division are built in very simplistic manner: champion(s) is on big shows and is rotating challengers. If you give a long run to Hiromu (which he totally deserves and should get) then everyone else will struggle to get over since Juniors only really have BotSJ to build themselves up. Case in point, what Kushida is up to? Is he also moving up to heavyweights? Would make sense since they clearly have no space for him in Juniors division. When was the last time that Junior got a special singles match? I don't really remember and it is happening now with Ospreay (who is champ either way) only due to injury. How often Juniors get feuds that are more than "I want your title" feuds? So easy answer for NJPW here was to make Hiromu/Bushi a tag-team and give some space for other Juniors to get themselves over. But is any other Junior getting himself over? From the looks of it only Scurll is having some momentum due to being involved in Bullet Club drama. But now Jr. Tag division is having same exact problem. Ropongi 3K might be good, have their own hype man and get strong booking, but reality is that neither of them is as over as Hiromu or even Bushi. On one hand they are clearly being pushed and built-up as Aces of Jr. Tag division, but on the other hand audience doesn't really care because they want Hiromu/Bushi. So they do this 3-way thing where they try to protect everyone, but I'd argue it isn't doing any good to anyone either. Furthermore it is even harder for Jr. Tag teams to get themselves over since all they really have asides of championship matches is Tag Tournament which gives a team, at most, 3 matches. Oh, they also might get to face Taguchi/Young Lion in opening matches. That will make them look strong. Alternatively we have Naito who lost title match at WK, but still is heavily featured on each card, has something to do and at the same time is giving enough space for other heavyweights to breath. Or how KES managed to get few, relatively speaking, decent tag teams to destroy to build themselves up for a rematch with Evil/Sanada. Or how few years ago Tanahashi managed to keep himself busy with Devitt and newly created Bullet Club. tldr; NJPW needs to change how they book their Junior divisions or Hiromu will continue overshadowing everyone else. Alternatively they can push him down into trios division...

Technically they aren't, but we all understand what their intended role is.

I was disappointed a bit by card reveal to be honest mainly for three reasons: no Evil, no Mysterio and opening match looks like whatever. Well it probably makes sense that first three matches announced were the big ones and nothing else really exciting got added asides of Okada/Ishii vs Zack/Suzuki. Anyway, if we are doing the tiebreaker then here are my predictions: Ropongi 3k over RoH guys Juice/Finlay over Goto/Gedo, KES over Chuck/Yano, Cody/Marty over GoD, LiJ over unaligned guys, Ospreay over Liger, Okada/Ishii over Zack/Suzuki, White over Page, Golden Lovers over YBs Additional speculations: KES calls out Evil/Sanada again, we get Jericho video for Naito, Marty challenges Ospreay for Sakura Genesis, Ishii pins Suzuki and we start building towards Suzuki/Ishii singles match (maybe for that show that is happening before Wrestling Dontaku?) before we switch back to Suzuki/Naito. Super speculation: Young Bucks fuck up somehow as a result of Cody messing with them in previous BTE episodes which causes a loss and we start building towards Matt vs Nick match for All In.

Desperado is such a weird character: masked luchador who often pulls his own mask, is into heavy/death metal and claims that he never cheats.

Plane tickets, bitches. But sure, SSE predictions sounds like cheaper alternative.

Isn't this true for every Bullet Club tag team match that involves The Elite guys?

At the end it looked like Tanahashi wanted to beat Zack with his own move (that bridging cradle pin that I'm sure got another name), but instead got countered into submission that took out Naito earlier in the tournament. I'm sure that Okada will attempt to do something similar and will get locked into same submission too, but he will escape, because he is the champ.