Gordi the former AEW fan

I'd like to jump in on this for one week, if that's OK. I have YouTube and Dailymotion, and an absolute ton of stuff filed away on hard drives and DVDs. I love 70s and 80s and 90s wrestling, hate current WWE, have learned to accept and enjoy current AEW and NJPW for what they are. I have a huge blind spot from about 2005 through 2014 when I watched very little wrestling (other than Oskak Pro live shows). Based on the little I have gone back and watched, it wasn't for me anyway. Have never seen any Argentinean pro wrestling. Have only seen one French match in my life, and that was very very recently. I love comedy. I was a regular at Osaka Pro shows from 2009 through 2014 and that was probably the peak of my pro wrestling fandom. I think Yamazaki and Albright vs Vader and Tenta is the most underrated pair of great matches ever.

This is absolutely true: in July of 1984 Sonny Two Rivers and The Masked Superstar wrestled around the circuit for Stampede. It is a crying shame that there is apparently no footage of this, since it is without a doubt the ne plus ultra of wrestling Machine vs wrestling Machine match-ups.

Tofu salad with sesame oil dressing egg drop soup Karaage spicy fries mapo doufu tantanmen sara udon birthday cakes If anyone is curious, my drink choices went like this: Draft beer, redeye, umeshu soda, umeshu soda, yuzushu rocks, umeshu rocks, shandy gaff, tequila tonic (Kuuga's choice), umeshu soda (they were using Choya Black, which is a pretty tasty umeshu and which matched up well with the food, so I kept going back to it), shandy gaff made with ginger ale (to match with the spicy fries, as suggested by the nice lady from Gakuenmae) draft beer (to match with the very spicy mapo doufu/mabo tofu dish), lemon sour (ladies choice for the table), umeshu soda, whiskey highball (Mihara's choice - they were using Nikka whiskey which made me think, "This place is pretty generous with its all-you-can drink menu!"), umeshu rocks, whiskey highball (Tetsuo Kondo's choice), umeshu soda, umeshu rocks.

I made it out to the Doutonbori Pro Wrestling Shinnenkai (first party of the year) at Kemura & Flower, a Chinese restaurant and bar in Minami a/k/a Namba a/k/a Naniwa, the entertainment district of Osaka. It was all you can drink for three hours, with the staff bringing plate after plate of food to the tables, as usual. Kuuga and Kazuaki Mihara (a/k/a Shiro Kuma, the erstwhile tag team partner of Shigehiro Irie and the current Doutonbori Pro Tag Champ alongside Katumi Oribe and also the current Kyushu Pro Wrestling tag champ alongside Naoki Sakurajima a/k/a Setoguchi) were there, along with MMA fighter and promoter Testuo Kondo. We took up the whole restaurant, there were old friends at every table, and I ate and drank so much that I thought I was going to rupture my stomach. I spent the whole train-ride back to Nara sweating uncontrollably. I'm OK now, though. No regrets.

Naito looked like he had joined NWO Wolfpack by the end of that match.

It's not a bad place to watch a show, for such a big building. The giant screen was helpful when things spilled out of the ring, and the light show was very impressive.

It's kind of cool to think about how, not long ago, KENTA was a total afterthought on 205 Live and now here he is headlining a show with a rabid crowd in a completely sold out 12,000+ seat Hall.

I am really glad I got to see that live. I arrived a little early and my friend was slightly delayed, so I spent the better part of half an hour making Naito's round-eye taunt at anyone wearing Tranquilo or LIJ gear. There was a steady stream of people wearing Tranquilo or LIJ gear, between Osaka Jo station and Osaka Jo Hall. Almost everyone smiled and returned the gesture. Manabu got a great send-off. I was pleased to be one of the thousands chanting for him. After that, you could genuinely feel the crowd holding back during the rest of the undercard, it was like we all knew we had to save our energy and our voices for the last three matches. Veteran crowd. A lot of serious wrestling fans. It was particularly noticeable during the Sanada vs White match. Then, from Hiromu's entrance onward the crowd let go, and kept getting more and more and more into it. We were flat-out rabid during the main event. I really hope that came across watching on TV or the internet or whatever. I totally, unreservedly, utterly enjoyed each of the last three matches. It's very difficult to pick a favourite. Hiromu vs Lee had the rake-gag version of the Kobashi vs Kensuke/Tenryu vs Hashimoto chop overkill - which was insanely fun to watch live. My whole section (I Block) was rolling with laughter as it just kept going and going... and even up in the nose-bleeds, some of those chops sounded sick. I mean, it was loud up there. And then came the insane highspots section, and the thud on some of those bumps was truly scary. You could feel the whole crowd catch their breath whenever they teased the Phoenixplex. My heart was in my throat a couple of times. Hiromu has crazy charisma in person. Again, you could clearly feel it even all the way up in row 15 of I Block. MiSu and Mox also have that crazy charisma. I was planning to cheer exclusively for MiSu, but I found myself chanting Mox's name when he was fighting from underneath. A nice 15-minute serio-comic exploration of the concept of manly toughness, with both guys earning shocked laughter from the crowd with their psychotic smiles, and with the obvious joy they took in both dishing out and taking violence and pain .Maybe not the all-time classic I was hoping for, but so much fun live. I was marking out non-stop. And finally, my first in-person post-modern epic half-hour NJPW title match (the last NJPW title match I saw live was, I believe, Nakanishi vs Tanahashi in 2009 which I also really enjoyed). It was a very, very pro-Naito crowd overall, but KENTA had a surprisingly large number of little pockets of support. People were chanting his name throughout the arena... but even more so everyone else was going nuts for Naito and booing KENTA like crazy. It was so much fun to be a part of that. I love, love, loved the 5-minute opening stooge fest. They took us up, brought us down, then blew the roof off the place. Naito's crimson mask was clearly visible in the cheap seats. KENTA kind of reminded me of SUWA in their classic match-up from 2005. Just heeling it up like a madman. The eruption when Naito won, and the huge reaction to the roll call and the confetti cannon were the best thing about the show. I got actual goosebumps. I can easily imagine that all three matches had stuff that I would nit-pick if I were watching them at home after the fact. I don't necessarily think that any of them will make a ton of noise in the 2020 MOTY discussions... but I had the time of my life in Osaka Jo Hall tonight.

In less than an hour, I'll be on the train to Osaka. I am very stoked for this show. Every match has something I can hang my hat on: - The opener is Manabu Nakanishi's last match in Osaka. I've always loved Nakanishi. I am proud to say that I got to see him wrestle in Osaka, where he is hugely popular, when he was IWGP champ. I bet he will get an emotional goodbye from the Osaka Jo crowd today. - The IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship match... is a championship match. - The Eight-man tag team match is a chance to see Tanahashi live again. Plus it has the mystery element of whether Ibushi has sufficiently recovered from Mallory-Weiss Syndrome to participate in the match. Plus story-line stuff about the tag championship. - Chaos vs. Suzuki-gun is a chance to see Okada live again, as well as a chance to see a bit of a re-run of Ospreay vs ZSJ. - Jay White vs Sanada is likely to be pretty good, and it's a chance to see an upper-card singles match outside of the G1 or the New Japan Cup. Booking wise, it could go either way. - Hiromu vs Lee has show-stealing potential, and it will be my first time seeing a big Hiromu singles match live and in person. - Mox vs MiSu could be great. One of those matches where, years down the road, I will be ale to say, "I was there live for that one" and people will be all, "Lucky you!" (That might also be true of the Hiromu match). At the very least, some ass is going to get kicked. - And, I get to see Naito's first-ever defense of the double titles. Lucky me!

New Japan crowds in Osaka and Nara, in my limited experience (half a dozen shows over a dozen or so years) are also pretty cool. It's not the family atmosphere like you get at an Osaka Pro show (where half the crowd are regulars and old friends) but New Japan crowds over here seem, like you say, nice. Friendly in that kind of "we both like the same thing" way. Very into the wrestlers and the action. My kind of people. The 9th will be my first time at Osaka Castle Hall. I am looking forward to seeing what that is like.

Thanks, @The Natural!

Oh hell yeah!! I am going to New Beginning in Osaka! Mox vs MiSu live and in person, baby! Good Lord, I am excited about this. My friend's student's friend -who I met once, years ago - had the opportunity to buy cheap sets through his work, and got them specifically to sell to us since he had heard that my friend, - his friend's English teacher - wanted to go. Life in Japan, brother. Never ceases to amaze me.

That sounds pretty good. I was a bit worried. With Dynamite and Dark and BTE and WotRGRS to watch, most weeks I am already skipping through a segment or two here and there. Adding yet another show would be edging into WWE-esque "it's getting to be kind of a chore to follow everything" territory. But Dark moving onto the network with more vignettes and featuring more up and comers could work just fine. Sounds like good news, also, for those who wish AEW would move more of their video content onto TV. I just made a post saying that they probably were not going to do that. In this case, I am pleased to have been wrong.

Yeah, I can imagine it must get tiring, hearing that all the time ?

I think the amateur-hour vibe of BTE is kind of the point. It's *supposed to* feel like something a fan might make while goofing around with some friends, a video camera, and some low-budget editing software. Helps to keep Kenny and the Bucks relatable and likable even though they are good-looking jocks... that kind of thing. Personally, I prefer Wrestlers on the Road Getting Room Service. It's quite a bit less goofy and gives some real insight into the characters, the people behind them, and their relationships and so on. I don't think AEW are ever going to put everything that matters on TV. They are catering to a younger audience, one that is used to going on YouTube for entertainment and information. TV-generation grandpas like us can either keep up or be left out.

I think he should go with Harper Lee, and call his finisher The Mockingbird Killer.

My friend went to Lawson to buy tickets and they were all sold out. It's possible that only the 2nd floor seats (the ones in our price range) were sold out.

Reportedly G1's been moved to Oct.

Apparently Osaka Jo Hall is already sold out ?

Oh hell yeah. Joe Pera talks to you is one of my five or ten favourite things on TV or the internet now. Right up there with Mandalorian, the 2nd episode of the last season of GoT (the one with all the reunions where they are all preparing to die), seasons 4 and 5 of Bojack, the first season of GLOW, the first season (but not the second season) of Cobra Kai, the Adam Sandler, John Mulaney, and Eddie Murphy episodes of SNL, and Wrestlers on the Road Getting Room Service. Joe Pera's (character's) kind, gentle, curious, open, and quietly enthusiastic approach to the many simple pleasures in his life is purely inspirational to me, and watching him engage with his world fills me with joy. Happiness and positivity are very hard to do well without falling into a Full House kind of cloying sentimentality, and this show somehow steers straight into that without being even a tiny bit mawkish. In my opinion it's a million times better and more important than 95% of the dramas that try to engage with the postmodern world by being all dark and mysterious. Joe Pera talks to you is the diametric opposite of Rick and Morty. It's completely grounded, very positive, people only have one another's best interests at heart, nothing out-of-the-ordinary ever happens... I love both shows, I have laughed right out loud while watching both shows, and I have honestly learned from both shows.

Jericho's post-match comments should be interesting to anyone hoping for more NJPW vs AEW moving forward:

Personally, I hope the 2-night WK remains a one-off. It's too much of a good thing, for me.

It's already been pointed out in this thread, but the reason for the two-night show is that 1/4 fell on a Saturday this year.