Kropotkin's Beard

Kento is so great at elevating young guys, he was really giving with Izuchi.

Just imagine Goldberg vs Kazuyuki Fujita. Less comedy opener & more unintentional comedy main event

GLEAT announced that Bandito & Komander are coming in from Mexico next month so that's pretty dang exciting. Also they are doing GLEAT Ver.4 on 30th December & those shows are always essential viewing

Tam & Taichi being reunited is nice.

GLEAT have a show live on YouTube tomorrow where the first tag champs will be crowned,and DOUKI challenges Lindaman for the G-REX which should rule. 6:30pm Japan time.

The Budokan show definitely isn't totally stacked. I wonder how it'll do business wise. Though they do say on the website there is still matches to be added. That said, I love the idea of debuting Anzai at Budokan, & against Nagata at that. They have big hopes for him. And Atsuki Aoyagi will do his upmost to have an exciting match even if Tiger Mask won't, hoping to god that this is where they crown him. I'm quite excited for Hokuto Omori vs Minoru Suzuki, Yuma Aoyagi vs Christopher Daniels could be great but I did hope Yuma would have something bigger for this show. Aoyagi & Lee vs Gungir of Anarchy could've been fun. Nice to see Doering back though. Could've done without the old man match, or at least without Great Kojika but I suppose it's tradition. Surprised & bummed at the lack of Nomura on the card, & of no Stronghearts & no Takuya Nomura either. Thrilled by the absence of Voodoo Murders at least. That is a group with go-away heat with me on a level with House of Torture. I'm surprised they kept Rikidozan's kid & grandson off the old man match actually.

It was, but I'm still very excited to see Nanae in the main event, & Saya vs Himeka should be a fun replacement even if it won't touch the expected heights of Saya vs KAIRI.

From what I've been able to piece together, TAJIRI, Shuji Ishikawa & maybe Suwama are the core booking guys, though I've also heard that Yuma Aoyagi is entirely responsible for Naoya Nomura being back, which implies him having more influence than you'd perhaps expect for a guy of his experience level.

I liked the time Henry Godwin threw him into the pig pen

Apparently Arisa Nakajima had to be stretchered out of tonight's SEAdLINNNG show with some sort of injury so that sounds scary

I think Kento Miyahara has to win because the winner is challenging at the Budokan & Kento almost has to be in that Triple Crown match. He's the beating heart of the company. It's weird. All Japan is obviously a flawed company but if you ask me today "you can only follow one wrestling company in the world, what is it!" I'm keeping my AJPW.TV sub.

I'm just catching the AJPW show from yesterday, and the undercard has been mostly fun, Rising HAYATO absolutely lighting up Tamura with chops, Aoyagi bros in a good little match with Ryuki Honda & Yusuke Kodama, decent All Asia Tag Match with the Voodoo Murders Juniors vs Takao Omori & Ryo Inoue. There's then a Voodoo Murders 6 man Tag that turns into a 10 man after Voodoo Murders nonsense and the crowd is really into this for as long as it lasts before MORE Voodoo Murders nonsense. Really fun how into it the crowd were though for the time it lasted. For the tournament matches, Kento vs Cyrus was pretty much what I expected it to be, classic big man vs smaller man match. Good at what it is though. Enjoyed the main though

I mean, Suzu wants a back that looks like Jun Kasai to show off on her wedding day, she absolutely knows what she is getting into. I'll admit that I didn't expect big things for Risa & Suzu in Stardom while they were also doing their own thing with Prominence, but I'll be honest, smaller groups I kind of assumed those 2 in particular were big enough names to make someone like Wave or Oz Academy or the like to find value with them. Realistically, all I care about them is them getting enough time to have good matches. Obviously there is the fact deathmatches are a niche within a niche & not liking them is totally reasonable, but there also seems a bit of an attitude among a segment of male fans that these pretty young women shouldn't be getting scarred up which just seems a bit patronising. I seriously doubt anyone was griping about poor Abby Jr or Jaki Numazawa disfiguring themselves!

I can't pretend I'm not sad to hear Suzu has already dropped the title, despite being way behind on Wave shows (pretty sure the last show I saw was from the 1st April)

I would entirely believe this, but I was probably blinded to it for just seeing Joe on a properly big stage, which would have been enough to make me overlook most faults.

I remember the Joe match at Great Balls of Fire being good despite being short (or because?), and then the 4 way at the following Summerslam with Joe, Roman & Braun.

He's a Georgia indy guy as far as I can tell. An extremely large gentleman which I suppose is why he gets brought over, All Japan do like their big guys. That said, while I don't think he's a revelation or anything I haven't hated him. Intrigued as to whether or not Kento can work his usual miracles with him.

As a Scottish person I'm quite impressed NOAH found a guy in Jack Morris who had totally passed me by. Curious to see how he handles himself. Tremendous opportunity considering the calibre of guys in his block like Nakajima, Kiyomiya, Sugiura & Kojima, big step up from Ravie Davie & BT Gunn.

ZERO1's Fire Festival Final show from SamuraiTV. Final is BJW's Daisuke Sekimoto vs NOAH's Yoshiki Inamura. Really enjoyed Chris Vice vs Fuminori Abe too from the undercard Will say that I didn't appreciate the decision to show Otani's injury sustaining bump in the VT before the co main event though. Seemed a bit gratuitous

El Hijo del Santo just tried to steal HYO's Brave Gate Title after forcing him to submit, & then tried to set up a mask vs hair match with NOSAWA despite NOSAWA not actually working for Dragongate. Quite amusing really.

I have fallen so far behind with NOAH, only just having seen Kojima vs Kenoh. Have to say, loved it. Kenoh is just such a glorious prick, just hope he never ever loses now. Honest, I'm still salivating at the thought of him vs Fujita Hayato that Hayato teased after his comeback

I've got to say that Takuya Nomura vs Atsuki Aoyagi & Naoya Nomura vs Yuma Aoyagi are well worth going out of your way to catch. Naoya vs Yuma made me so happy just that it happened, never mind that it was great. Tall Ren vs Jake was very fun, would like if Ren put on a little bit more mass. Main event was bad, about as bad a Kento match as I've seen really. TARU/Voodoo Murders is not a thing All Japan needs. While I'm catching up, have to say the Open The Twin Gate match from 30/7 Dragongate was absolutely phenomenal, Shun Skywalker & Diamante are a great "big guy" team (by DG standards), pure bullies, and Kamei & Jason are just fantastic faces you want to get behind. Far & away the best Dragongate match I've seen since getting back into the promotion when PAC returned in 2018

If you're a deathmatch fan I'd recommend looking up the main event of the FREEDOMS Jun Kasai Tokyo Deathmatch Carnival Vol.1 that was on Samurai. Daisuke Masaoka, Jun Kasai & the returning Masashi Takeda vs ERE of Drew Parker, Toshiyuki Sakuda & Violento Jack. Excellent stuff.

Lance Archer got the claw over in New Japan, dunno if he still uses it in AEW or not

Hope that includes Super Crazy. I'm assuming a bunch of the guys who appeared on the N Innovation show at the Budokan are done, like Texano Jr, who seemed to be booked brcause they are NOSAWA's buds and he wanted to get them a payday.