Sublime

It could be possible for any of the non-US guys living outside of Japan to be in the G1, I'm thinking White in particular, if he would be able to fly in soon and quarantine after arrival and he's finishing his tweets with 8/29 lately so he'll probably be at the Summer Struggle show. But at the same time New Zealand is one of the best places to be right now so idk if you'd really want to leave but wrestlers are strange. So the pool will probably be: Naito, Okada, Tanahashi, Ibushi, EVIL, SANADA, ZSJ, Taichi, Suzuki, Shingo, Ishii, Goto, YOSHIHASHI, White, Yano, Makabe, Yujiro for sure with Ospreay and Fale being possible or taking from the pool of Despy, Hiromu, Ishimori, Sho, Taguchi or maybe one of the dads like Kojima (not sure if he officially said he was done with tournaments like Nagata did). I guess they could possibly bring in an outsider to fill in the ranks too but I'm not sure if they'd want to risk bringing someone they haven't been overseeing the health of to suddenly be in the locker room. I think there are some good match ups to be had there even if I'd prefer if at least Yujiro or YOSHIHASHI aren't in there, I just don't have the desire to watch 9 Yujrio or Yoshi singles matches, but it still looks like a pretty loaded tournament. I mean it helps to have a roster that

I'm not 100% on Okada winning which is something I never thought I'd be saying about a match against Yujiro, but at his point Yujiro is the #2 Heavyweight in BC for the time being and needs to be shown as a threat of some level and I could see Gedo shenanigans leading ot Okada losing.

Regarding the Main Event, character wise this was match Naito was probably going to lose. EVIL has been by his side for years, knows what makes Naito tick and knew exactly what he was doing by turning on him the day before the match. Naito when he is angry and impassioned is when he is at his most vulnerable. We've seen it multiple times, if he is not tranquilo he will make mistakes, he will lose focus on what makes him a winner. Evil played him perfectly he mad him mad, he made the match more of a brawl he brought out the emotions, it was a perfect game plan. I was saddened by the result, I've talked on here before about my Naito fandom and how he was the first wrestler in a long time that made me care if he won or lost, but I'm not mad at the result and not just because it made sense in the character sense or that I like EVIL and was happy for him. It opens up more storylines interesting ones and it was unexpected but not out of the blue. EVIL has been shown that he was on the verge of breaking out for years, the past three years he has been in double digit points in the G1, hanging in there with the top guys and scoring wins here and there and now he has completed his rise. Also BC needs firepower they are completely hampered by the current environment, all their normal names are out for an unknown amount of time, adding EVIL helps and as champ gives the group legitimacy while it is depleted. White/GoD/Fale/KENTA/ElP all gone for who knows how long, without additions they were dead in the water and it would have greatly hindered the booking of NJPW, I want to see how this is going to play out. Also the other promotions in Japan better hope they have their guys locked down cause NJPW might be looking to poach some folks to flesh out the cards going forward. I think at the very least we're going to see some inter-promotional participation in the G1 this year.

I want to talk about the Tag Tile match for a minute. It was fantastic and it was a great showing of heeling by Tachi/ZSJ. I am happy that Tachi and ZSJ are the champs, they deserve it and it was the outcome I wanted going into the match that said I was so disappointing and mad at them by the end. The destruction of Tanahashi was fantastic heeling and the selling by Tana was equally as great. I went from kinda excited from when Tachi hit the Iron Fingers of DOOM on Ibushi that the title change might happen to thinking to myself "How can Tanahashi come back" as ZSJ just dragon screwed him to hell. They were able to take me from wanting to see the Suzuki-gun team win the belts to hoping Ibushi/Tanahashi could come back, the end of that match was a fantastic performance by ZSJ/Tachi and Tanahashi.

Hogan went overboard whipping David with his weight belt and I think it was that he was using the buckle end too. I believe Scott Norton was one of the guys holding David down and thought it was fucked up and did what he could to help David through it. That story was one of the main things that stuck out to me from Flairs book.

They couldn’t make it No DQ because they were saving that for the main event. So there had to be a work around for HHH/Taker they could have called it a street fight or booked it so that the ref just decided to be lenient and “let them go” instead of counting them out.

100% this. Also she may not have tried to wake up the others in the van because she may of had to worry about the possibility of that just making her situation worse. Really people need to come to terms with the fact that sexual assault is an epidemic in our culture and that a lot of people have to spend their times constantly weighing the situation they are to maintain the most safety they can.

I'm slowly working through these but good god Jado should never be allowed in the ring again. The guy can't even move well enough to have a Yano match, it was like watching someone who is becoming petrified only every time they exert themselves it progresses a little faster.

I loved Swagger's ECW run but outside of it I never thought he showed the same upside. But then again working title matches against guys like these makes most people look good. '

At least with Jinder he was an unknown quantity really, he'd never had a sustained push maybe he could have taken off. With Swagger we'd seen his peak was the midcard but they put the belt on him anyway even though he never showed any reason to be pushed up. Jinder's push lasted too long sure but I don't think he's the worst and his reign bored me.

I've seen WWE defenders on the topic say that they had to keep the show going because of the title switch, because it would have ruined the booking plans. Granted I haven't seen the argument in a long time but I've also not gone any where other than here for wrestling talk in close to 2 decades so I don't know how much that still holds but some people are really too far into the wrestling bubble if they think that is a rational reason to not stop a show when someone dies in the ring. I haven't watched the episode yet but am going to get to it once my work week slows down or more likely the weekend.

I believe he used it against the great power uti

Okada has Moxley as a big match still, Ibushi rematch, Ospreay, and then it gets cloudier. ZSJ is getting to a point where he could have a Dome match with Okada, Shingo could be built up easily, and they could build off of the last Taichi match to make another go at that as being a big match. Jericho rematch maybe? And if they're up to it there are inter-promotional matches that would add more options.

Ok, I had heard that there wasn't any WWE signed guys on TV (which makes sense on paper) and have no memory of that happening, but I haven't really watched any thing but NJPW in nearly two years so I was just going with what was in my head.

The WWE contracted guys couldn't appear on most/any broadcasts for the indiy companies so they could book them and have them have matches for the live crowds but they couldn't use them for streaming shows so they couldn't really use them to book any storylines.