Kropotkin's Beard

I am so ready for Go's return. That title reign last year was so bloody good, especially considering it was almost all done with either no fans or silent fans.

This Saturday Ice Ribbon are running Ota Ward Gym (presumably the largest venue they've run?) and while it's not the greatest IR show ever, it does look like a lot of fun. Fujimoto vs Haruka, Azure Revolution vs Suzuki & Anou, Makoto's first IR appearance in over a year, 2 girls making their debut. Probably be the first Ice Ribbon show I'll check out since 18th September, after which Fujimoto & co went to Mexico

How am I just now finding out the old vets group in GLEAT of CIMA, Hayashi & Tanaka are called Coelacanths? That'd extremely good. Watched some more All Japan (totally failed to upload that Runaway SUPLEX vs Evolution Match because YouTube wants me to verify my account (thanks for telling me that after I'd spent all afternoon uploading it) & I'm pretty sure I lost my phone number because I haven't used it as a phone for 18 months, will try again on Daily Motion), the 31/10 show from Korakuen. Overall a real decent show with the worst match still being ***. Stand outs are the GAORA TV Title clash between Ishikawa & Irie, his GAORA reign seems to have rejuvenated Ishikawa slightly, the All Asia Tag Title battle between Lindaman & T-Hawk and the Aoyagi Brothers, Kento Miyahara vs Ryuki Honda in Honda's trial series 6th match, and a 6 man Tag with Dan Tamura teaming with Runaway SUPLEX against Koji Iwamoto, Jun Saito & Kaz Hayashi in his first All Japan match since the Wrestle-1 split 8 years ago. I am very buoyant on AJPW right now, their group of young guys have a lot of potential, after some early concerns when Akiyama left the booking has been largely good, Suwama & Ishikawa look less broken than they had been in 2020, there's a lack of depth in the main event still but Yuma Aoyagi is growing into the upper midcard. Still hate that they didn't put Astronauts in Real World Tag League though.

ASUKA has actually faced Yuna Mizumori before, last year in a fun but far from essential Choco Pro 10 minute match. I definitely value getting to see the Choco Pro gals in other environments, because Emi really is a good trainer & the crop of talent she has around her are very entertaining but yeah, Choco Pro isn't a promotion I can watch a lot of. I'm glad it exists though.

Taichi truly is the Champion we deserve. I'm trying to find a way to rip the match from the AJPW TV site because I'm a doddering fool, & if I can I will upload it, but I wanna shout out a match on a smaller All Japan show that is real good fun. 22nd October in Kawasaki, it wasn't even live streamed but uploaded later as a VOD, but we had current AJPW Tag Champions Runaway SUPLEX (Ashino & Suwama) against Suwama's stablemates Hikaru Sato & Dan Tamura. In theory, co-main of a pretty small show, you don't expect much, but Hikaru Sato comes in here pissed & he lights up Ashino with strikes, & tries to rip limbs off with submission attempts. And so in response the heavyweights hold nothing back with lariats & all manner of suplexes & it gets brutal. Far better than you'd expect from a co-main of a spot show in front of 200 people.

That IWGP IC belt was so pretty. Damn New Japan for getting rid of it Watched The Gate of Destiny this morning & gotta say, bit of a bummer of a show considering it's Dragongate & their big 5 events are usually reliably good. And in fairness, nothing actually bad here, well, I thought the Dream Gate match with YAMATO vs Hulk was pretty flat even before the weird ending but even that wasn't bad so much as just underwhelming, despite knowing that Hulk is obviously cooked at this point, his body is hurting bad. But the YAMATO title run is not doing a lot for me: I thought it was weird that he was the guy to dethrone Shun back at Kobe World Hall & still feel that way after 2 defences. You can't convince me that Kobe World wasn't Kzy Time. On a more positive note, the Twin Gate match with KING Shimizu & Susumu Yokosuka against the Kongo duo of Kenoh & Haoh was good fun pro wrestling, & the Masquerade vs RED 8 man tag was another one of those matches, always reliable, of the groups to come out of the end of the 2020 generation army Masquerade are head & shoulders the stars (& I say that as someone who loves Natural Vibes). I'm salivating at the potential for GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champions Kota Minoura & Jason Lee come Friday's Korakuen Hall show (though probably NOSAWA & Eita don't drop the belts this quickly, they should, Lee & Minoura should be seen by as many people as possible, up there with Astronauts for one of my most enjoyable tag teams of the present)

Weren't MLW meant to have a deal with Dragon Gate? Which came to nothing because Pandemic. I do not understand that company at all. They could book peak Okada vs Tanahashi, have it watched by a couple of hundred people & get *** out of them.. But somehow MLW persists, despite this being true of both the current iteration & the original one, where they seemed to exist to book the same matches ROH ran but somehow they always lacked something. Oh well, good chance for Aoyagi anyway.

I'm with Tam, I also don't want Unagi winning.

It's certainly in a better place than it was when Yoshitatsu held it & did not very much of note with it.

That's part of why I have Arisa Nakajima #2, she hasn't really worked all that often, (Cagematch says 25 dates this year) but the only months where she's not had a 4.25* or above for me has been March & September. And it's not like she dropped duds those months either, in March she had a 3.75 & in September she had a 4 & a 3.75. It's honestly a remarkable year. If you told me before the pandemic that I would become a passionate supporter of Japanese women's wrestling I'd have not believed you, but here we are. Amazing the things you get into when you suddenly find yourself with a lot of free time.

Mine were Takagi vs Okada, NJPW Dominion, 7/6 Takagi vs Ishii, NJPW G1 Night 1, 18/9 My top 3 for MOTY so far is Takagi Ishii, Takagi Okada & #3 is Takagi vs Ospreay. Hence why I kind have to go Takagi Wrestler of the Year. Just love watching that dude in big matches. I did go 5 on Danielson vs Suzuki when I watched it live but I knocked it back to 4.75 on rewatch because I thought I'd gotten a little carried away with how much damn fun that was & I try to keep ***** limited (I don't know why. I guess because I'm a dope, none of this matters to anyone but me). Where as even 4.75 is used way more casually (I've got 19 & they cover the gamut from joshi to death matches to a lucha 5 way to stiff & violent struggles & New Japan style epics & I stand by trying to highlight them all. Nomura vs Sekimoto, Omega vs Danielson, Skywalker vs Ishida, Yamashita vs Suzuki, all ruled).

Danielson has had a fantastic couple of months since his return to actual wrestling, but because it has only been a couple of months I find it hard to put him in my top 3. I think the last WWE match I saw him in was against Brock Lesnar at a Survivor Series or something? Pretty sure it was the same year that they did Great Balls of Fire. On another forum about a month I go went through my spreadsheet o'matches & calculated who I'd given the most ratings of ****1/4 or above. So as of September 23rd there were 4 wrestlers with 8 of them: Arisa Nakajima, Nanae Takahashi & Rina Yamashita from (mostly) SEAdLINNNG & Shingo Takagi. And then Kento Miyahara had 7. And the last time I updated my Top 25 matches of the year list (only do it once a month so last time was at the beginning of October) Shingo Takagi had the 1, 2, 3, 13 & 17 matches on that list. That'll have changed when I updated it on Monday or Tuesday but the point remains that for me Shingo has been in the only 2 matches I have given ***** on in 2021, & he is about 50% of why I haven't just completely given up on New Japan until the pandemic in Japan is over. Number 2 is probably Arisa Nakajima who has just had a fantastically consistent year, both tagging with Citrus Wind partner Nanae & then afterwards when they split & she had a phenomenal match with Nanae. I might have Katsuhiko Nakajima at #3, his year has been quietly excellent whether it was some fantastic multiman tags (Kongo vs Shiozaki, Marufuji, Sugiura & Kiyomiya 10/1, 6/9 N1 preview match with Saito, Inaba, Kiyomiya & Nakajima vs Kenoh, Kitamiya, Sugiura & Kotaro Suzuki which was far better than it should've been), his tag team with Masa Kitamiya & then their cage match when they split, the semi-finals & finals of the N1 (especially the Kenoh match in the final) & the match where he wins the GHC HW belt. Assuming the Masato Tanaka match today was as good as it should be he's definitely earned top 3. Although Miyahara deserves it too, his Champion Carnival was fantastic, probably as good a tournament as anyone had in 2021. It's been a real good year despite everything going on in the world.

2AW haven't had much show up online in the usual places since Yoshida dropped the Openweight Title months ago. So subbing to Nico Pro is the only option & a) the service isn't great at actually surfacing when shows will air & b) I can't really justify that expense right now. Don't think I've seen any of Taishi Takizawa's reign & it's unfortunate. The GLEAT stuff, watch GLEAT Ver.1 from July 1st, it really shows both the UWF & G Prowrestling sides of the promotion. I'd also say Lidet UWF VER.0 & Ver.1 are great shows because I love that side of things. And there's some real fun individual matches uploaded, like Takuya Nomura from BJW vs Yu Iizuka. I'd need to think before recommending one or two G Prowrestling events though they are all totally enjoyable. I checked my spreadsheet & G Pro Wrestling Ver.2 has 2 matches I really liked, with Tamura vs Kawakami & Lindaman & T-Hawk vs Ito & Iizuka & there's also a Masato Tanaka vs Soma Watanabe match which was cool. Ver.3 had the first teaming of Tamura & Kawakami (what became the wonderful BULK ORCHESTRA) against Lindaman & T-Hawk & another good tag team match with Ayato Yoshida & Ito vs Jun Tonsho & Shigehiro Irie. Ver.6 had Tamura vs T-Hawk, Lindaman vs Kawakami & a fun non-UWF rules Ito vs Iizuka match. And I'd also say Ver.7 is worth watching. But to be honest I don't think you'd think you wasted your time if you enjoy those recommendations & then just watch their other stuff, most of the events clock in under 2 hours, they are really tight experiences.

Oh god Mizunami against Nakajima is going to kick a whole lot of butt. I just caught the 13/10 SEAd show & Nakajima had a real good match with Hanako Nakamori, Masato Tanaka turned up & teamed with Yuu against Nanae Takahashi & Hiroyo Matsumoto, and there was an 8 woman Tag which featured Asuka & Yumiko Hotta continuing their rivalry in a very stiff & exciting fashion. Been such a good promotion to watch this year.

I linked it further up the page but here it is again https://bilibili.com/video/BV1m44y1v7tw

Well, that sucks. This was the first time I'd really got back into ROH since the Adam Pearce days & there's a lot of really exciting stuff on their roster. New Japan should probably throw money at a bunch of their Mexican guys to get them to move to Japan full-time because boy does their Junior division need the help. And their undercard in general.

He burnt just about every single bridge he came across. New Japan to NOAH to DDT. He managed 3 matches there (for some reason going over Yuki Ueno) & then the pandemic hit & I guess he isn't coming back.

I half expect that's because they find it a useful excuse for why they are drawing worse than Stardom or Ice Ribbon or SEAdLINNNG or GanPro or even the last ZERO1 show at Korakuen. Anyway, dumping on New Japan's business aside, really want to recommend the recent Takuya Nomura vs Daisuke Sekimoto match from BJW 18th October: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1m44y1v7tw It felt like a classic BJW Strong Title match & if that's something you enjoy then I'd recommend this.

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1m44y1v7tw Big Japan Strong Title match from 18th October between the future of that division Takuya Nomura (& also the present to be honest, he's great) against the man that personified that division for the longest time, Daisuke Sekimoto. They proceed to beat the absolute shit out of each other for the best part of 20 minutes & it's very fun.

Agreed with all this. Hayashishita vs Iroha probably my match of the night but those 3 were the standouts. Some slightly odd reactions to Tam vs Mayu though, people seemingly mad that this was the middle chapter of their rivalry instead of the end. I dunno, wrestling fans can be odd.

Was about to go for a nap but was reminded that GLEAT's UWF rules show from 9th October is airing on their Youtube tomorrow, midday British time which would be 7am US East Coast. Headlined by Daichi Hashimoto vs Yu Iizuka.

NOAH do one of those before their title matches too (including for the tag belts & the Jrs) & it's a great touch that just really emphasises the history of the lineage. I love that sort of thing. Things I don't love? The lowest wrestling crowd at the Budokan in the COVID era which almost certainly means the lowest wrestling crowd there ever. NOAH drew twice that when they ran there in February. Stardom also did over 3,300 there in March. NJPW have run their 3 times in the COVID era & crowds have gone from 3,564 for the 2020 Best of Super Juniors/World Tag League Finals to 3,026 for the 49th Anniversary show in March to 2,088 for the 2nd last night of the G1, headlined by an Okada singles match. It's kind of amazing how bad the company has reacted to COVID.

Those 2 titles matches are going to be an absolute blast. Finished the N-1 at the weekend & the Final absolutely delivered exactly what I want from a match between 2 of my favourite dudes to watch. They just laid into each other with those kicks in a way that reminded me of a discussion about Ikeda vs Ishikawa in Fu-Ten: You can only hit someone that hard if you like them.

Oh, I'm exactly the same. I dabbled with other promotions but only really the big shows. Then when the pandemic shutdown happened I had lots of free time & very little wrestling to watch so really got into the weekly shows that AJPW & DDT ran (Yoshihiko vs DISASTER BOX leading up to the parody of the WWE cinematic Match with Takeshita against the doll was an incredible feud) plus 2AW and Go Shiozaki having his career year. And now I'm 8 shows behind on the G1 when in past years I'd watch every event live. Hell, I'd watch meaningless Korakuen Road To shows live as often as not. If I have to choose one wrestling service to drop NJPW World goes before DG Network or Wrestle Universe or AJPW.tv or even SEAdLINNNG iPPVs & that'd be impossible to imagine 2 years ago.

Now you've said it you've made me think about Yoshitatsu having the New Year Wars title shot & I don't like this thought at all. Frustrating to hear but I suppose I shouldn't be shocked. Really seemed they were heating Zack up, & shit, why not? With a limit to crowds that can attend at the Budokan why not run with a less fancied name? Is it a guaranteed draw? No, definitely not, but is anything when New Japan is getting outdrawn by NOAH & Stardom at the Yokohama Budokan (& for that matter doing just 150 fewer than Ice Ribbon did in August)? I really struggle to wrap my head around New Japan. I really like the in-ring wrestling on the whole, I've given them twice the amount of 4.25* matches or above of the next promotion (NOAH) this year. But god is the promotion cold as ice despite that. It's easy to point to the crowds being crap but I don't feel this way about any other Japanese promotion I've watched. There's an obvious roster depth problem because they use a higher proportion of fly-ins from abroad & with the quarantine procedures in place that's not happening as much, so we've seen a lot of matches run into the ground (I swear to all that is Holy, if there's another Guerillas vs Tekkers series I will weep). Everything just feels like it's in a holding pattern, they do endless Korakuen shows where they have almost identical cards for 3 consecutive nights with just 1 name swapped out of each utterly meaningless 6 man. New Japan just seems like an object lesson in how not to run a wrestling promotion during a global pandemic. On the positive side, watched the NOAH N-1 Victory finals show today & that was great. Both semi-finals were very good, the match between Sugiuragun & M's Alliance was good & the tournament finals? Well, they were exactly what I wanted as 2 guys kicked & slapped the shit out of each other in a way that you could only do to someone you get along with. The sound of the the thudding kicks echoing through Korakuen Hall was exactly what the doctor ordered.