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Kropotkin's Beard

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Everything posted by Kropotkin's Beard

  1. I've been loving Yuma Aoyagi a lot. He had an amazing Champion Carnival, & whether he's tagging with his brother Atsuki, with Kento Miyahara or in a multiman with some combo of the NEXTREAM boys I will be watching. Carnival Final & his recent title challenge from Sapporo (not seen it yet) will understandably garner the attention but I loved the short match he had with Takuya Nomura, & the 3/1 AJPW Tag Team Title match with Kento against Runaway SUPLEX was great. Poor Tall Saya for coming up against a guy having the half-year of his life!
  2. I am so excited to catch up on Josh Alexander & those Ishii Impact matches. Also, someone has recorded their own commentary over Riccaboni & Veda Scott which seems bad, but this is the only version of Speedball vs Bandido from WM weekend I can find. It's a really great version of the excessive indy spotfest, guys get their time and just throw everything they can in to steal the show. It's pure overkill but it's really fun overkill
  3. I voted for Starlight Kid because she has just been great since joining Oedo Tai (although originally I was super sceptical about her as a heel, she showed me). But if I'd a second vote I'd throw it to Dax, because the Tag match with the Briscoes was amazing, follow up matches with The Bucks was a lot of fun and he's taken every chance he's had in singles matches and proven that he's not "just" a tag guy, he's a great wrestler full stop who wants to be a Tag guy.
  4. Well that's interesting. Looking forward to hearing more. Have to shout out last Friday's SEAdLINNNG show, the return of Amazon tagging with Rina Yamashita against Las Fresa, a 6 man Tag I've got in my top 10 womens matches of the year to date with Miyuki Takase, Hiroyo Matsumoto & DASH Chisako vs Yuu, Ryo Mizunami & Yoshiko and then Riko Kaiju challenged Nakajima for the Beyond The Sea belt in a match that really raised Kaiju with how much heart she showed throughout. If I end up in a position of needing to cut back on how much wrestling I watch, SEAd is definitely #1 priority to keep watching
  5. Problem is that Jake is very much "not it" and Yuma might very well be, despite his smaller size. I think Jake is solid and he's still growing more comfortable with playing a heel but he's still very lacking in charisma and a bit bland unfortunately
  6. Voices of Wrestling seem to think so. Remain to be convinced that this is an upgrade, Kashin seems to have exactly the same flaws as NOSAWA, in that he sees the job as a chance to get his boys paid. I don't even mind if NOSAWA was bringing his bus really, so long as they were in the midcard. The problem was when they started beating the NOAH guys like Kaito, Kenoh, Katsuhiko & making them look like punks. All I really want is to not care who the booker is. Stop mortgaging the future for 2 decades ago. The booking of Kaito Kiyomiya was criminal. They are doing nothing with Kinya Okada & Yoshiki Inamura.
  7. I dunno, Kojima still rules when he's given a chance. He just doesn't get many because New Japan have firmly relegated to "dad" status. Kojima is definitely more of the Mochizuki & Sugiura 50+ year olds in NOAH than Fujita & Mutoh in that he's still more than capable of a great singles match.
  8. Thought the finals were probably the best AJPW match since the March 2019 Strong BJ vs Violent Giants Tag Title match. Absolutely fantastic stuff.
  9. Card for the Jumbo Memorial Show coming at the end of the month with some interesting names. Like El Lindaman & Shingo Takagi teaming together
  10. I can't recommend this enough. BEST FRIENDS BEAT THE EVER LOVING TAR OUT OF ONE ANOTHER! is maybe my favourite archetype in wrestling. It's just violence.
  11. Cody Hall, a man so untalented AND unpleasant to work with he's burned bridges with New Japan, NOAH & DDT. God knows he kept getting chances and simply was not worth them. But I guess that name & a decent look buy you more chances than if you're just a bloke. Wrestler of the Year so far is probably Kazuchika Okada. He's had more matches over **** than anyone else on my spreadsheet, although Go Shiozaki is 1 behind and has more highs. So it's very close between them as my #1 & #2, with a group of guys breathing down their neck including Shingo, ZSJ, Takuya Nomura & Katsuhiko Nakajima. And Arisa Nakajima is in the conversation, less on quantity than on hit-rate. Cagematch has her wrestling 19 times this year, I've seen just her SEAdLINNNG stuff but that's 6 matches and the lowest rated is still "this is real good and more than worth your time". Have to love that consistency. Honourable mention to T-Hawk too who is rarely doing matches I have below ***½. Danielson obviously rules but a) I'm a month behind on AEW right now because there is too much wrestling I want to watch & b) he doesn't have quite the same volume as the names I've mentioned before. Still a great year. Match of the Year is still Go vs Nakajima from NOAH 1/1. I love both guys, I love the current big match NOAH Heavyweight style when old immobile dudes aren't involved, it's made for me. The other ***** match I have this year is the Tsukasa Fujimoto vs Arisa Nakajima match from SEAdLINNNG 29/4, Tag partners, friends, go to war in their last SEAd outing before Fujimoto goes on hiatus to enjoy her recent marriage. Beyond that I've 8 matches at ****¾, Mike Bailey vs Bandido from Wrestlecon is top of those as a near perfect example of current absolutely over the top indy high flying nonsense. But Kenoh vs Kiyomiya, Muscle Venus vs Hoshi & Makoto, Takagi vs ZSJ, Page vs Danielson, Jericho vs Kingston, Takagi vs Ishii & Syuri vs Giulia are the others. And honourable mentions to Takuya Nomura vs Yuma Aoyagi, my fave sub 10 minute match, and Jun Kasai vs Daisuke Masaoka, Deathmatch of the Year to date. Show of the Year is NOAH's The New Year 2022 from 1/1, Go vs Nak, Kenoh vs Kaito, Mutoh & Marufuji vs Masaaki Mochizuki & Masato Tanaka, and Inaba, Kitamiya & Inamura vs KENTA, Sugiura & Sakuraba were all great, and the Junior Tag with Aleja & Haoh vs Yoshioka & Susumu was very enjoyable too. Have to shout out SEAdLINNNG as promotion of the year, 6 shows, 1 *****, 1 ****½, 5 ****¼, 3 ****, 5 ***¾. No one else is that consistently great among the promotions I watch regularly. Though All Japan have had an under-rated year, and NJPW have the volume but also have some of the worst matches from this year I've seen.
  12. The Arisa Nakajima vs Tsukasa Fujimoto from last Friday's SEAdLINNNG show is my top joshi match of the year (#2 overall), absolutely love it when best friends, pun intended, face off and just proceed to beat the tar out of one of other as a sign of respect. Enjoy your hiatus Tsukasa, you've more than earned a break.
  13. Have you seen Yoshiko recently? She's gotten small, it's very strange & I think it's taken a little of her aura away (although she's not been back from her time off for too long so she could just be rusty, & if it makes her happier then cool) Honestly, having a wide variety of body types being interesting is super true for all sorts of wrestling, men & women. If everyone is a jacked adonis or a bikini model then no one is. It's the old "everyone who meets Billy Gunn is stunned to realise how huge he is, because he was in the land of giants & next to Kane & The Big Show Billy Gunn was just a guy". Even after Viper was gone, I thought Jamie Hayter added a bit of that variety as a more power based wrestler, shame she's gone now. With Japan opening up I'll be interested to see who Stardom decide to bring in from abroad. I'm assuming they will although I suppose the roster is quite large.
  14. Nomura & Suzuki vs Ito & Mashimo is a hell of a match
  15. I don't think they have done enough to rehabilitate Kaito yet after spending the entire pandemic making him look like a geek. I worry that this will be taken as a reinforcement of NOSAWA's philosophy that only the guys who he watched as a kid can draw, if the Sumo Hall show isn't a success (despite them having half a week to promote it). Which considering how much I like guys like Inaba, Inamura, Okada, Yano, would be a big letdown. Inamura still gets treated barely better than a young boy, Okada still is one despite him turning 30 this year. That said, if they do go back to Kaito he needs to keep the belt until at least after the N1. I really enjoy him and think he really grew into the position by the end of his first title reign, so just hope they don't screw it up. Sometimes watching NOAH it feels like a promotion above all others and then sometimes the booking makes all the sense of reading Dostoyevsky in the original language
  16. Whole show looks great, but those top 2 matches are very very exciting. Has anyone seen if the 2 Best Friends Produce Shows that are happening on the 2nd May are being shown online anywhere? Because these 2 cards look a lot of fun Arisa Nakajima, Rina Yamashita & Tsukasa Fujimoto vs ASUKA, Makoto & Maya Yukihi Haruka Umesaki & Miyuki Takase vs Tsukushi Haruka & YuuRI Ibuki Hoshi vs Momoka Hanazono Best Friends (Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto) vs Hiroyo Matsumoto & Yoshiko) & Ayame Sasamura, Haruka Umesaki & Riko Kawahata vs Best Friends (Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto) & Tsukushi Haruka Misa Kagura vs Miyuki Takase Hamuko Hoshi vs Hanako Nakamori Best Friends (Arisa Nakajima & Tsukasa Fujimoto) vs Riko Kaiju & Yuki Mashiro 4 Best Friends matches in the space of probably 5 hours? Yeah, OK. (First is 3:30pm JST & the second is 6:30 JST so I'm assuming 2 hours max) And then other stuff. With next week being Golden Week in Japan, the schedule is absolutely stacked. Ice Ribbon shows at both Korakuen & Yokohama Budokan (which has Nanae Takahashi & Hamuko Hoshi vs Fujimoto & Haruka in the main event, plus Haruka defends her ICE×∞ belt), Marvelous & Diana both have Korakuen shows, TJPW Yes! Wonderland with the POP & Princess Tag Titles on the line, Sendai Girls in Tokyo, & a big Stardom show with Thekla vs Iwatani, Black Desire vs FWC for the Goddesses titles & Tall Saya vs Maika for the Wonder belt. Plus a DDM vs God's Eye Elimination tag, those are usually good fun (also when did Konami get announced as part of God's Eye? I totally missed that)
  17. NOMADS have announced the lineup for their first card, which happens on 20th May af Shinjuku FACE Tae Honma vs Momoka Hanazono Kaori Yoneyama, Maika Ozaki & Makoto vs COLOR'S (Hikari Shimizu, Rina Amikura & Yuko Sakurai) Kaho Kobayashi vs Hiroyo Matsumoto ASUKA & Yuu vs SAKI & Saori Anou Maya Yukihi & Rina Yamashita vs Miyuki Takase & Ryo Mizunami
  18. Well, they could always punish Michael Elgin for his incredibly bad tweeting by having him get chopped red raw by Go. That could be fun.
  19. Having just watched GLEAT G Prowrestling Ver.22, gotta say that 60 Seconds have been a really good addition to their crew. Fit in extremely well.
  20. Depending on how much of a sick fuck you're feeling, the King of FREEDOM World Title match between Jun Kasai & Daisuke Masaoka from 29th March rises above the technical problems to be a pretty gross but extremely compelling match. But it's a Glassboard & Alpha Deathmatch so obviously not for the squeamish.
  21. Spoilers for today's Dragongate show that relate to NOAH
  22. It was solid, I enjoyed it without thinking there was too much to write home about. Didn't get the big Miyacoco singsong entrance so I felt a little sad about that... Meanwhile the top 2 matches we're absolutely grizzly in their ways. Prominence certainly put to rest any talk of being deathmatch Gatoh Move, the word that came to mind during that Suzuki/Kasai vs Fujita/Jack match was "gnarly". And Risa Sera against Takashi Sasaki was great too. But yeah, they were deathmatch ass deathmatches. Fittingly Risa Sera got me back into deathmatches after over a decade away from them after her match with Rina Yamashita in Ice Ribbon's final Yokohama Bunka Gym show in August 2020 (first IR match with lighttubes IIRC) so I got exactly what I wanted.
  23. As per Twitter, Shuji Ishikawa is coming to Freedoms to face Tomoya Hirata, on the 3rd May Yokohama Budokan show. We're also getting Kasai vs Toshiyuki Sakuda, King of Freedoms Title match with Daisuke Masaoka defending vs Toru Sugiura, & I believe we're getting Violento Jack vs Kenji Fukimoto in a mask vs...facepaint? match (I don't speak any Spanish & Google translate sure isn't great. But it says he's betting his mask: "If they think I'm going to sit next to Fukimoto and quietly give a press conference, it's because they have no idea what betting my mask means to me".). ERE of Takayuki Ueki & Kyu Mogami vs Rina Yamashita & Takashi Sasaki in a match Ueki claims is inspired by the Backyard Wrestling video game. A lot of potential fun on that show.
  24. I haven't seen today's show yet, but when I saw on social media that Shingo is tagging with CIMA I lost my shit. That seems, from the little Dragongate backstage politics I have heard, an extremely unlikely pairing. I am extremely excited.
  25. Next week's SEAdLINNNG card looks like a must watch. High Speed Match: Chikayo Nagashima vs Nao Ishikawa vs Tsukushi Haruka vs Yurika Oka Ayame Sasamura, Hiroyo Matsomuto, Miyuki Takase & Yumiko Hotta vs Hanako Nakamori, Itsuki Aoki, Rina Yamashita & Yuu Riko Kaiju vs Riko Kawahata Arisa Nakajima vs Tsukasa Fujimoto Beyond The Sea Tag Team Titles: Las Fresa de Egoistas (ASUKA & Makoto)(c) vs Ryo Mizunami & Yoshiko There's nothing on that show I'm not looking forward to, it's just loaded with talent.
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