The Z

I don't watch that much AJPW, better ask someone like Kevin Wilson. One of the rare Low Ki matches of 2016 just appeared on the Internet: He finally seems to be taking some bookings again. Will he have had enough matches by the end of February to be included in Marh Madness?

According to PWInsider he's going to make a huge announcement this Saturday at 5 Star Wrestling. Hmm.

We've been saying it would be like this before the first episode even aired. I think they knew, too, but they don't care, because it must be cheaper to do it this way.

That match I posted is from December 30th, so i think that was his first match back.

I'm not usually one to come to John Cena's defense, but he hasn't closed the show since 2013, so that's not a given. I also have a feeling his opponent will be and I don't think they would close the show with that.

I haven't watched this yet, but if anyone's curious, here's Alberto del Rio's match from Austria after which he got into a barfight and beat up his own brother at a police station: In the main event of that show Chris "Bambikiller" Raaber defended seven Championships against Joe Doering, who defended one championship. Amongst those titles are championships from Italy, Cameroon, Colombia, Nigeria and Quatar. I'm only posting this, because I think it's hilarious:

Yeah, I doubt Ibushi wouldn't be up for that. He just doesn't want to sign a full-time contract with WWE, but a match at Wrestlemania? Why wouldn't he want to do that? I have my doubts Vince would be up for that, though. Are they really going to close Wrestlemania with Brock vs. Goldberg in the year 2017, though? Jesus...

I doubt Inoki has any regrets. Isn't IGF basically a continuation of this kind of thing?

Yes. Even Yoshinobu Kanemaru snuck himself into New Japan via Suzuki-gun somehow.

So far they haven't signed either one, unless there was some news today I missed. I guess Rowe's contract probably runs out sooner than Hanson's and that's why the talk is mostly about Rowe. They have other guys with the same build as Hanson, so I think they would be up to signing both.

The Osprey/Shibata segments from the New Year's Dash 10-man-tag were amazing, this match should be something else. Suzuki-gun brings some fresh match-ups to the table at least, I hope they don't grow stale as quickly as they did in NOAH.

I planned to abstain from this project, because I know I will my hate my list as soon as I press "send", but damn it I will try to put something together until next week.

They released the card for the next show on February 18th: - Lio Rush vs. Ricochet - Jay White vs. Marty Scurll - Rey Fénix vs. Trent? - Jeff Cobb & Matt Riddle vs. Michael Elgin & Brian Cage - Cody Rhodes vs. Trevor Lee - Sami Callihan, Dave Crist & Jake Crist vs. Adam Cole & the Young Bucks - PWG Championship: Zack Sabre Jr. (c) vs. Chuck Taylor Very good looking card, many new names this time around. Lio Rush in PWG is such a no-brainer I'm surprised it didn't happen last year already. That match should steal the show.

I hope they go a bit longer, if they can. If they do the first round on Night 1 and the rest on Night 2, that's 8 matches on the first night and 7 on the second, possibly more, if they do non-tournament matches to give the guys some rest. Two hours seems a bit tight for that, especially for Night 2, when you want to give the matches a bit more time as the tournament progresses.

Hm, I'm putting my money on Bate vs. Seven and Andrews vs. Dunne in the Semis and Seven vs. Dunne in the finals. Have they announced how long the shows will be? 2 hours or 3 hours?

If WWE got both members of War Machine, Rowe, Hanson and Tommy End would make a kick-ass trios team.

Big Damo underwent a name change, too, apparently. He's going by Killian Dain now.

I thought Tommy End would be just a big enough name to be able to keep his name, but at least this isn't an Oney Lorcan situation. I'm cool with this. According to Tommy's twitter profile you all already spelled it wrong. It's Aleister Black. Speaking of big men in tiny trunks, they also finally had a hoss fight at last night's NXT house show:

Just copy the URL of the tweet and put it in your post. It'll do it automatically.

Doesn't New Japan always have contract negotiations on January? I'm leaning heavily towards Kenny Omega just trolling everyone. Everything to keep people talking, the Young Bucks do the same thing all the time.

After reading the article, it's not three new signees, it's just three of the seven Chinese wrestlers they signed last year, who just now arrived at the PC.

On the Meltzer 6 star match front: They still keep pestering him about the DIY/Revival match. I wish I had this man's patience.

Phew, and here I was worried for a second.