Gordi the BJW fan

Not to detail Matt's thread... But... Suwama was yet another pro wrestler that I have met in Japan who could not have been nicer or cooler. He chatted with us for ages, then he asked Yuji's permission to do the OH! taunt during his match, then during the match he looked right at us, did the Jumbo OH! pose and yelled "OH-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh!" I got a huge kick out of that.

I had the opportunity to watch the afternoon show from the 23rd and I really enjoyed it a lot. In particular, I thought that Katsuhiko Nakajima vs Shuhei Taniguchi was a flat-out great pro wrestling match. Nakajima was such a nasty violent prick, but Taniguchi just kept gutting it out... it wasn't until the announcers said something about "Maybach" that I even realised who Tanaguchi is. Damn, that dude has come a long way since last I saw him! I went back to look at Z's post, and was pleased to see that he recommended that match too. I also got a huge kick out of seeing my old Osaka Pro buddies Harada and Kotoge in the six-man opener, though I'm not sure how I feel about Kotoge's new biker gimmick. I have to say, I didn't really notice a lot of "early mat work leading nowhere" on this show. The worst thing about it, for me, was that I simply cannot buy into Kenoh as an unstoppable killing machine. There's a whole trend in Japanese pop culture of weenie and/or effeminate pretty boy being portrayed that way. It can work OK in pro wrestling (like, for example, with Ibushi right now). And I can easily buy into smaller or less powerful-looking guys beating big monsters if it's worked well... but ... I understand Kenoh is way above Yoshiki Inamura in the pecking order, but the young guy easily has 50 or 60 pounds on him. Kenoh just laughing off Inamura's offense then knocking him unconscious absolutely did not work for me. I'm hoping I'll get the chance to watch more NOAH and AJPW this year... but I barely have time to keep up with New Japan and AEW...

Apologies if this has already been posted. The New Japan site is running a series of interviews with Tanahashi covering his entire life and career, translated into English. It's a good read, very interesting. I think even if you are not a Tana fan, the stuff about his time in the dojo etc is still well worth a look. https://www.njpw1972.com/74377

VERY nicely put.

This is just a masterpiece of unintentional comedy, and a massive nostalgia trip at the same time. I hope some of you will get as big a kick out of this as I did:

Another enjoyable night of pro wrestling. I though everything was at least good, but nothing on the card was excellent. I'm happy to see the young boys continue to put on solid showings. I wasn't paying close attention during Tokyo pimp without Pieter vs Taichi without Miho Abe because on paper that was the match I had the least interest in in this G1. #s 2 and 3 on that list were Yoshi-Hashi vs EVIL and Yoshi-Hashi v Juice. And now all of those matches have come and gone, and all were cromulent enough. I don't think any of those guys stink, it's just that none of them have ever really grabbed my interest... yet. I surprised myself by enjoying Ishii v Ibushi more than MiSu v Cobb. I think Ishii set the bar of my expectations for a "2020 G1 Minoru Suzuki match" way too high. I thought Cobb showed too much light a couple of times. That being said, his rolling deadlift gutwrench suplexes are very impressive indeed. I enjoyed the finish to their match. Ishii v Ibsushi was probably my personal MOTN. I liked the tidy little story they told of how Ibushi was able to hang with Ishii when they were trading strikes (and as @doctorhbombastutely points out, how Ibushi was better at kicking while Ishii was better at forearms and elbows) but how Ishii just couldn't keep up with all of Ibushi's fancy Dan stuff. If anyone had told me, as recently as three or four years ago, that Ibushi would one day be able to believably go toe to toe with the toughest guy in New Japan in the G1... I would have thought they were insane. Yet, here we are. Hats off to pretty boy, he can go. Also, if you'd told me a few years ago that Shingo v Ospreay would be a viable NJPW heavyweight G1 battle, I doubt I'd have believed you. And if you'd told me that Ospreay would damn near out-muscle Shingo in 2020... .... ....but here we are. I wanna like Jay White more than I do, but I find a lot of his matches to be very formulaic: He begs off and bails out like a coward to start things off, works the crowd in an ironic fashion as soon as he gets the advantage, Gedo interferes... I absolutely do not hate the guy's work, and it's not like Ric Flair and Bret Hart didn't have a formula, but I am certainly not aboard the Jay-1 hype train... yet. Okada's been on an underwhelming run so far. Such are the burdens of high expectations. It was a good match. I hated the ending.

Oh hell yeah! My boy is in the finals! ZAY-OOS-OOOOO!!!!

I'm not surprised she didn't last long working that style. It's stunning, to me, that so many BattleArts guys are still going. I'm impressed by what I've seen of Oikawa so far. I'd like to see her fight Kana. Apparently it happened a few times in singles and in tags and also they have tagged together. This photo from ten years ago just turned up on my facebook again: Even though it was a decade ago I can clearly remember him saying "See you next time" to me, in English, after the show.

"Nakanishi was over-pushed" is not incorrect, but it seems like a weird choice of where to focus one's anger w/r/t the dark days of Inokism. It reminds me of this guy I know who recently insisted that his favourite buffet closing down was "The Worst Thing About 2020." I mean, I get that it might be the thing that disappointed him the most, personally, but it's pretty clear that there are far worse things going on at this time. I remember coming back to Canada (after living for several years in the Czech Republic, where I had very few opportunities to watch any pro wrestling at all) and getting tapes of matches from the '99 and '00 G1 Climax tourneys with Nakanishi and Kensuke and Nagata mixing it up with, like, Chono and Mutoh and other names I knew. I remember loving the hard-hitting, sweat-flying action (particularly the '00 final) and being surprised that there wasn't much discussion of or love for those tournaments in the places I went online at that time. I dunno, I probably also really enjoyed some pretty average chicken wings that year since it had been so long since I'd had them... Anyway, that made me a Nakanishi fan and I was thrilled to finally see him live in 2005 when we made our first visit to Japan, and again in 2007 when we returned to Japan to get married. In 2009 we moved over here and I got to see Nakanishi as champion (when he lost the belt back to Tanahashi)... I got to see him live a few more times over the years, and I was there for his final match in Osaka at New Beginning in February of this year. As @Eivionsays, the crowds really liked him. In fact, in Osaka, they LOVED him, every time. Me included.

Not really, I was kinda making a joke there. But: I am just discovering Chihiro Oikawa. And there is a lot of BattleArts and a TON of ARSION I still haven't seen, so even Alexander Otsuka and Mariko Yoshida are partially-undiscovered treasure troves for me. I love that about being a pro wrestling fan right now: There is always more to discover, and always new-to-me stuff turning up. I mean, all those Lucha matches that @DEANis posting here and in the Freaks thread... about half of the wrestlers in those are guys I don't think I've ever seen before, and I can't even find the time to watch all of those videos. Pro Wrestling is a never-ending fountain of awesome.

This looks to be from the same show, and it is every bit as awesome, in my opinion:

I got home from work just in time to catch the latter part of EVIL v Yoshi-Hashi, which... I can't imagine anyone being really happy that they got home fast enough to catch that. You won't believe this,but: Naito v JSZ was tremendous, but obviously I am a fool for hoping that Naito won't put himself through 20 plus minutes of nearly getting killed every night he's fighting in the G1. It was cool how he spent so much time struggling to escape from Sabre's world, and they pretty effectively teased maybe going to a time limit draw. Maybe the dude will give himself a bit of a night off against Yano and/or Yoshi-Hashi... but there are gonna be at least five more epics in Naito's immediate future. I guess I need to get over my desire for him not to put himself through that, and just enjoy the ride. I guess I'll stick around for the replay - assuming there is one - and catch Yano v Tana. Thanks for the heads up, @sabremike EDIT: Another enthusiastic thumbs up for Yano v Tana. 2nd EDIT: I enjoyed SANADA v Goto and KENTA v Juice from Night 4 quite a bit more than KENTA v Goto and Juice v YOSHI-HASHI from night 2. SANADA v Goto definitely didn't overstay its welcome. Juice v KENTA was more hard-hitting and less fancy-dan than their Night 2 matches. Also: The young boys have been reliably cromulent every time out so far.

Who needs another t-shirt? If they really want to make some money they need to start selling stick on neck tattoos.

This showed up in my Dailymotion feed. Turns out, Lingerie Mutoh is actually a pretty damned good hybrid shoot style pro wrestler! And, of course, Alexander is Alexander. I'd actually really like to see Lingerie Mutoh fight Otsuka's sex machine comedy character Otokosakari.

I think the finals are going to be held in Osaka this year. (Is that right?) Because of that, and because he's doing so well in the tournament thus far, I believe that my boy Zeus is going to win the Carnival this year. I am happy about that... but at the same time I am sad that (because of the Covids) I will not be there in the arena to support him, and even if I could go, I wouldn't be part of a crowd screaming Zay-oos-oo ZAY-OOS-OO!! which would be a thing I'd very much enjoy.

Yeah, I remember it now. There was a niggling doubt in my mind when I posted that question. That match you guys pieced together. I watched it as part of Secret Santo. It was Tito, Chavo, and Andre working a trios match in Japan. Tito was mainly in there to take bumps and perhaps he was kinda sorta working heel, but he was teamed with Andre who was totally the rampaging bad guy in that match. Fascinating stuff. Surprised it slipped my mind.

Was Tito Santana ever a heel?

I didn't enjoy Night 2 as much as I enjoyed Night 1, and Misu v Ishii is still my favourite match of the tournament by a wide margin (and to be honest it will be very very tough to top)... but there was still a lot to like. I loved Liger on commentary, "boo-humming" (hum-booing??) and getting very into everything. I loved that Osaka crowd, doing the very best they could under the circumstances. There were some really surprising finishes as well as quite a few near-falls and false finishes that I bought into, which is something i always enjoy. Tana's high fly flow to the floor was a truly spectacular spot. It's pretty tough to "wow" me these days, but that totally did it. I sincerely enjoyed the finishes to Yano v SANADA and EVIL v ZSJ. I have a few "Old Man Yells at Cloud" opinions about Night 2, though: Did Juice and SANADA have a backstage bet about who could put on the stupidest ring entrance outfits? It's a pretty tough choice, there. It was very cool that Juice got the Osaka crowd into it... and I'm hoping that some day he'll be able to get me into one of his matches, too. I like his left hand punches, but everything else he does in there seems to ripped off directly from a "Best of the SmackDown 6" comp tape. Can somebody maybe send him a "Barry Windham in the 4 Horsemen" comp or something? I'd like to see him do a few basic wrestling moves or holds. (Like I said: "Old Man Yells at Cloud")... KENTA v Goto just went on and on, from where I was sitting. I've liked both guys a lot at various times (like, for example, Goto's amazing WK 12 match v MiSu) but I just couldn't get into what they were doing tonight. They looked a little rusty, to be honest. I liked the "technique v power" story that EVIL and Zach told in there. I wish they had teased out the "unprotected turnbuckle" spot a little, but otherwise it was a fine match. If we are definitely going to have interference in every BC match... I guess I slightly prefer Dick Togo interfering to Gedo interfering. I could see people who are really into "Epic" matches preferring tonight's main event to Suzuki v Ishii. I'd have to imagine that Naito v Tana is Meltzer's match of the tournament so far, for example. It's still not close, though, for me. I guess I'm really into the whole brevity thing these days. Obviously, the main event went really long... and it's not like those guys aren't great at "Epic." The match had enough drama and excitement to pretty much fill all that time. It was nice to see Tana not looking all banged up in there, too. I just hope that Naito doesn't try to do this every night that he's working in this tournament... but I am kind of afraid that he will.

Based on my limited experience at New Japan live shows, the fans in Kansai love him for it. So, yeah, very much like Cutler and Avalon in that sense.

Not a whole lot recently. I thought he had a good match v Hiromu in the NJ Cup.

A couple of historically great death matches?

I pity Gary Hart. Imagine the awful humiliation of having your head shaved bald!

As I said in the G1 thread, this match gets stiff enough to make Shinobu Kandori puke:

Looking forward to Tana v Naito tomorrow.

Very very good first night of action. Spoiler-free thoughts: Young Boys match was perfectly cromulent. I'm looking forward to seeing more out o these guys as the tournament goes on. Ospreay has obviously added a LOT of muscle to his frame, but he can still fly. Jeff Cobb has a very weird-looking body, like he's made of stuck-together parts of different action figures. He hit some very impressive-looking power moves in his match with Taichi. MiSu v Ishii was everything i hoped it wold be. They just beat the living shit out of each other. It was glorious. Totally agree that it was MOTN. I am one of the very last people to jump on the Jay White hype train and I have been disappointed by his p[erformance fairly often in the past, but I really liked his match v Shingo. It suffered a little by going for "hard-hitting" in the wake of the previous harrowing battle, but they both looked pretty damned good in there anyway. I was sure that Okada v Ibushi was going to be a "NJPW Epic Match Spectacular" and I literally made some (microwave) popcorn and settled in to watch it. To my surprise, the match felt succinct (and suitably violent) to me. Looking at the clock I'd say they went about 20 minutes but it felt shorter than that to me. The finish felt abrupt, in a good way. I was really pleased that they didn't go in for finisher overkill. Not a big fan of Okada going for the Cobra Clutch so often, but I still enjoyed this match a lot and it didn't overstay its welcome. Great start to the tournament.