Kropotkin's Beard

I'm not sure who I'm more impressed at how good they are at their age between Masato Tanaka, Masaaki Mochizuki, Takashi Sugiura, Yuji Nagata, Minoru Suzuki & Satoshi Kojima. Tanaka is the only one still in his 40s but considering how he's wrestled I would expect him to be in terrible shape. Obviously New Japan have downcycled Nagata & Kojima, but when they get the call they absolutely can still go. Sugiura is possibly the most impressive, though Mochizuki still looking great in the Dragongate system is also kind of amazing.

Having watched the first 8 shows so far I am deeply confused as to how they get from ZSJ's hot start to Ibushi winning the block in a way that doesn't totally waste Zack taking wins from Ibushi, Naito & Takagi.

Hopefully he will at least still be a part-timer with AJPW, he's always good for some big matches every year. Actual AJPW show thoughts, undercard was a bit slow and interminable at times, but the 6 Man Tag Title match was the start of things picking up, the RWTL preview was solid, Jr Title was real good, Tag Title match was great & the main was even better. Do wish Wada would retire, or at least stick to reffing meaningless matches, he actively subtracted from Lee Miyahara with his glacial counts. Nikkan Lee needs to be in charge of the big matches

Errr yes. STRONGHEARTS. No idea why my mind went to Purple Haze, they dropped the All Asia belt. I watched the defence against Iwamoto & Honda 2 days ago. ?

I really only started watching AEW regularly on Fyter Fest Night 2 episode of Dynamite so my choices are heavily weighted towards the past 3 months rather than the entire year. But there are some matches from earlier in the year, I really got into the Women's Tournament they had earlier in the year. 23/9 Danielson vs Omega 5/9 Bucks vs Lucha Bros 21/7 Moxley vs Archer 27/8 Jurassic Express vs Lucha Bros 22/2 Kong vs Mizunami 5/9 Omega vs Cage 6/10 Casino Ladder Match 6/1 Omega vs Fenix 22/2 Sakura vs Sakazaki 5/9 Miro vs Kingston Feel like I was probably a bit too high on Aja Kong vs Ryo Mizunami but fuck it, it was cool.

Yeah, I try not to think about that part. He was so good In more positive news, 2 GAORA TV Title defences in the one month! Ishikawa vs Irie is going to be good. But then so will the Aoyagi Boys against Zeus & Izanagi.

I am lagging behind in NOAH, still have the final night of the N1 to catch up on. But absolutely adored the Kenoh vs Mochizuki Match from Night 5, just two extremely charismatic guys kicking the bejesus out of each other, probably my favourite wrestling match archetype. Quite a few other good matches though, Nakajima vs Sakuraba was a lot of fun, as someone who has largely fallen off modern MMA but still likes to go back to watch Pride FC it's just nice seeing him going still. Nakajima against the ageless Masato Tanaka, Kiyomiya vs Soya, Kiyomiya vs Sugiura & Nakajima vs Kotaro Suzuki are probably my other standout matches.

Want to shout out All Japan. I really got mad at AJPW last year, the booking was all over the place, but this year it has been a very funny promotion to follow. Was watching the show from the 9th, not anything major for them, but there was nothing bad on there. There was solid performances from all their younger guys (The Saito Twins had their best ever outing against Takao Omori & Mensore, Honda was in a real good All Asia Tag match with Iwamoto against the Stronghearts team of Lindaman & T-Hawk, Tsukamoto had a Singles match with Koji Doi that was solid and the slightly older guys Tamura, Omori & Atsuki Aoyagi were all in solid fun multiman action with their factions), main event between Ishikawa & Sekimoto wasn't at the level of their 2015 madness but was still plenty exciting despite age & wear & tear. Meantime a NEXTREAM vs Total Eclipse 6 Man setup the upcoming Triple Crown match between Lee & Kento. The only minor complaint was they booked Fuminori Abe & Ryuji Hijikata and then put them against Yoshitatsu and friend, because Yoshitatsu has decided he's a shooter now. Anyway, the match was entirely a comedy match built around Munenori Sawa in Abe's corner getting his suit slowly ripped apart. But that's it as far as complaining goes. If Naoya Nomura ever recovers from injury then I feel real happy with All Japan

God I hope they run this back in 2022, Takuya Nomura & Katsuhiko Nakajima just beating the hell out of each other.

I am finally all caught up on the 5☆GP, ready for whenever this weekend's show makes it to World. Got to say that I loved the top of that final show, the last 2 Block matches and the finals were all extremely good, with Syuri vs Takumi Iroha ending up the best match of the entire tournament. Syuri was the absolute star of the tournament, the only match of hers I couldn't get into was the Ruaka match, and it was still Ruaka's best match.

No, TAJIRI is back in Japan, he's a regular for All Japan and has some sort of role in the booking of the company.

I'd have argued that Santino's Italian accent was atrocious personally. For another recent one, Lana's Russian accent was far from convincing.

I'm glad companies are running more at Tokyo Dome City Hall, it seems a real neat venue.

I'm not the biggest TJPW fan in the world but I'd say that to date Wrestle Princess from last year is their best show to date, the main event Princess of Princess title match is probably the best match in company history (Yuka Sakazaki vs her tag team partner Mizuki), there's also a tag match with Aja Kong & Miyu Yamashita vs Sareee & Maki Itoh which I really liked. The semi-final of this year's Tokyo Princess Cup of Maki Itoh vs Mizuki is Maki Itoh's best match to date, & the final with Itoh & Shoko Nakajima is also really good. Rika Tatsumi vs Miyu Yamashita from Yes Wonderland 2021 is my top TJPW match this year. Also worth going to the Yes Wonderland 2018 show both for the the Rika vs Miyu match from that show & also Jun Kasai vs Hyper Misao in a "Eat A Bag of Chocolate Or Fall Count Is Disabled, Falls Count Anywhere Match" which is a good example of the comedy stuff they do. And from Yes Wonderland 2021 the Princess Tag Team Title match between Sakisama & Mei Saint-Michel (a pair with an uncanny but purely coincidental resemblance for DDT's Saki Akai & Gatoh Move's Mei Suruga) & Mirai Maiume & Suzume There was a hardcore match between Up Up Girl Hikari Noa & Rina Yamashita from April 1st this year that's really good but I'm a big Rina fan. I'm not sure what has been uploaded from the archives to the new Wrestle Universe so I've mostly stuck to recommendations from the last couple of years.

Unfortunate news, Konami is out sick so this match has been postponed. Was looking forward to it because the recent resurgence of UWF rules matches has been something I've greatly enjoyed.

Looks like you can buy it on Twitcasting but 3,000¥ seems a lot to me https://twitcasting.tv/doutonbori_pw/shopcart/101013

Yeah, Freedoms more or less single handedly got me back interested in death matches. They way they've used people like Ueki & Sakuda after Big Japan wasted them is great but also a bit depressing: BJW seems just unwilling to take a risk on younger talent.

He was on the finals of the NOAH Junior Heavyweight Title Tournament back in 2001 which was on Nippon TV, plus I know he did a Dragon Gate tour in 2010 & was on a Korakuen show that would've been on GAORA. That tour also gave us a weird match that never made it to tape: Juvi & Super Shisa vs Shingo Takagi & Mark Haskins.

I am so far behind on my Stardom watching. Only on Night 11 of the 5☆GP, the number of dates on this tour and my stupid desire to watch it all has really helped me fall behind on pretty much everything I watch except SEAdLINNNG. But so far I'd say the standout matches are Iroha vs Nakano, Iwatani vs Watanabe, Maika vs Syuri & Syuri vs Hayashishita.

Really dug the Nakanoue vs Nomura BJW Strong Title Match from the 20th September. And the Okami match, their Tag Title run has been good thus far. The main event Scaffold Death Match between Miyamoto & Ito? Fine I guess. They built it up on the SamuraiTV well enough but still pretty inessential. Numazawa & Kasai vs Parker & Ishikawa was a decent death match & I'd say exceeded expectations even if Jaki should really be restricted to opening matches.

Wasn't that pretty much every ref AEW has? I dunno, I thought if was the most enjoyable segment of the show: disappointed that Eddie didn't speak but then the way he handled it just made him come across as such a bad ass, "words aren't necessary, imma just beat your ass". The brawl didn't go too long, Miro started on top but Eddie took over and I was on the edge of my seat right to the end Definitely worked for me.

Fuminori Abe squaring up to old man Fujiwara has the potential to be very fun. Big Japan not including Takuya Nomura among their offer match is a bit disappointing as he's routinely the best thing on their shows I check out. My other standout thought is "curse you DDT for giving me ANOTHER Yukio Naya match that I will sit through despite grumbling" Still looks like there should be fun stuff even some interpromotional interaction outside of the battle royales would have been fun. 2AW match should at least get some deserved eyes on them. Do we know if these shows will be on NicoPro or SamuraiTV?

I really got into 2AW during the pandemic when there were few companies running last April. I quite like their roster for what it is but they've become hard to follow this summer. So I'll definitely settle for Yoshida wrestling more in All Japan & GLEAT.

Apparently it was December 2016 against Cody in ROH. So kind of amazing he was able to go this long at this level. Extremely good wrestling

I'm really looking forward to watching that show whenever NicoNico takes it from being a PPV to a regular "you get this for your NicoNico sub" show. Though I can't really say I understand how NicoNico works half the time, at least I've another reason for having it than just 2AW.