GOTNW

See now I'm not sure whether to make obscure Pentagon GIFs because I envision at least a couple of crybabies going "well that's TOO violent". But they probably wouldn't vote for PENTAGON JR. anyway. Hmmm.

I picked with my heart as well, it was nice practice for the voting. Sooooo many ridiculous match-ups.

You're assuming Pentagon had the creative freedom to *not give* Sexy Star that much. Lucha Underground matches are often worked way too even in my opinion. If you watch Pentagon's indy deathmatches he doesn't *give too much*.

Reigns may be my #1 wwe guy man he had a good run.......wrestling wise at least.

Hard to blame anyone for not paying attention to WWE C shows. And honestly Swagger doesn't have nearly as much hype as Titus did last year for the same thing and that didn't work out so well for him.

I'm still trying to figure out what is he trying to show the world.

Another Fujiwara match makes tape to remind us neither him, Masanobu Kurisu, Kintaro Kanemura nor HASEGAWA are in this year. And yet. Dolph Ziggler.

Wait......does this mean there's a chance we could regularly see new Ishikawa matches?

A potential Virus-Zack Sabre Jr. match is breaking my heart. A lot of the matches break my mind. How am I supposed to decide whether I like/dislikeTanahashi or Elgin more/less. I'd vote Yano over both of them. Yet. Yano. Nowhere to be found. Again.

Minoru Suzuki vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima (NOAH, 2/24)-YES LOVED THIS. So much great stuff in this one. Early on MiSu goes for a fake clean break and just as he is about to chest slap Nakajima he reverses the position and clean breaks Suzuki. That really set the tone for this match of Nakajima being too old for Suzuki's shit. Suzuki selling Nakajima as a threat by recuperating fit perfectly into this and him fixing his hair was awesome. I've come to really dislike Suzuki's Rope Hung Armbar because of its contrived set up but luckily here the set up was modified and it came off much better. Nakajima continuing to hit Suzuki with his injured arm even when it was obvious it was causing almost no damage and actually hurting him more than Suzuki is the kind of thing that may seem idiotic it first but worked and really added to the match for me because it is exactly the kind of mentality I'd expect to see from a japanese fighter/superhero/wrestler/whatever, and to his credit Nakajima sold really well.

Some Big Japan fun: Hideyoshi Kamitani & Ryota Hama vs. Kohei Sato & Shuji Ishikawa (2/18) This is kind of like your classic All Japan tag in that you have a tag of made of a guy higher on the pecking order (hama) and lower on it(Kamitani) and they work that into the match. Twin Towers squaring off is super fun, but watching them absolutely wreck Kamitani is even more so. They work this like you'd want them to with Hama saving Kamitani, cuttinf Twin Towers off when it seems like they're gonna finish him etc. but that can only last for so long before they eventually finish Kamitani. Daichi Hashimoto & Shinobu vs. Atsushi Maruyama & Yuji Okabayashi (2/18) You know what's also classic All Japan? Injury/KO angles. I guess this wasn't a big enough tag for Okabayashi to pull a Jumbo and stretch it out but man I hope they do eventually do something like that. Hierarchy comes into play once again-skinny boy Shinobu can't match Okabayashi in strike exchanges, Maruyama-holy shit I thought he was like a young boy or something but it appears he used to be Tigers Mask. Not that it matters much. He's here to eat D-Hash kicks and YOU will enjoy it. Speaking of.......Shinya's son has grown and is now a solid threat to the biggest dog in BigJapan. Fun fun fun fun fun. Daisuke Sekimoto & Seiya Sanada vs. Hideki Suzuki & Yoshihisa Uto (2/18) Hideki brings a unique flair to each of his matches, usually matwork and chain wrestling in Sekimoto matches serve no purpose other than to fill time but here Hideki makes everything spectacular, from a Headscissors to a Hammerlock, and the struggle over holds which he brings feels novel in the modern puro. Yuto is an actual young boy and him going after Sekimoto in strike exchanges is a lot more interesting than a regular Sekimoto strike exchange due to the difference in their status forcing Uto to sell every one of Sekimoto's blow like death and also making every time Sekimoto sells for Uto mean more. Sanada looks solid here, and he displayed some nice chain wrestling in the beginning. I could've done with one fighting spirit no sell exchange less but it didn't even particularly bother me honestly.

I hope this is because of the shitstorms that are gonna ensue and not due to you booking something like Dragon Lee vs Kamaitachi in the first round.

Tanahashi-Omega (2/14)-NO I thought this was fine, a perfectly solid match, I liked Omega's Knee rush at the end and thought they handled the interference much better than they usually do but there just wasn't much there for me to latch on to. The limbwork was ok but not very interesting and I'm sorry but to me them going through their big moves is as formulaic and uninteresting as the same happening in WWE matches (and really, I think folks would be able to see that if they'd followed New Japan for a little longer). Tanahashi isn't exactly the world's most protected wrestler. He drops a lot of falls. I'm not even arguing that they should've worked it clean, just putting that out there. And for the record I usually go to bat for (nominate/yes) anything I really liked even if I know it's not going to be close to being in my best xx matches of the year. It's just that I like different things. Case in point: Nominating: Yuji Nagata, Shiro Koshinaka, Manabu Nakanishi, Ryusuke Taguchi & Sho Tanaka vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Jushin Thunder Liger, Tiger Mask,Cheeseburger & Yohei Komatsu (1/5) It's hard to not love a match where you have Fujiwara teaming up with Cheeseburger. The Taguchi/Koshinaka double butt spots were the low point of the match but there was still enough fun stuff in here to throw it out there.

There is no "solution". Triple H is both the top face and the top heel of the company

Some more:

Kazuchika Okada vs Hiroshi Tanahashi (1/4)-NO I've written too much about this on other places already. Too me it's pretty much a perfect example of everything wrong with modern New Japan. Cheap, unoriginal layout with nothing interesting happening in like half of the match outside of two spots and then the manical finisher countering I've grown tired of. Okada's offence looks stupid, Tanahashi's offence looks stupid, Okada "fighting through pain" isn't interesting, he just hits hits all of his spots and sometimes remembers he's supposed to be selling and there's no real drama and until they go through every single big move they have, which happens about thirty minutes in. Tomohiro Ishii vs Katsuyori Shibata (1/4)-NO I have no use for this. I can tolerate a lot of bullshit in japanese wrestling but this is just too much. There comes a point where you no sell so much that when you do actually sell it comes across as comical and that's what they managed to achieve here. I think they're both very talented/capable, but working the match like this is an artistic choice I do not condone. Doesn't help I've seen way too many Futen matches to go "this is the stiffest match ever zomg!!" and ignore everything I think is wrong with it. I'm torn on Nakamura-Styles and Shibata-Ishii II. Nakamura vs Styles was good, and easily the best match on the WK card, but also incredibly disappointing for a dream match. The triangle choke/styles clash battle had already been played up in the Styles vs Suzuki match, and the big kick-outs were obvious due to the way they were set up and how those are generally worked in New Japan. I liked the Shibata-Ishii rematch a lot and it was definitely a step in the right direction but still it's not a match up I'd be excited to see again any time soon and they might as well screamed "wrestling is fake and stupid" while doing the "let me suplex you" spot.

THE OUTSIDER has Maeda booking shady underground fighters linked to mobs. I can't imagine it not being amazing.

They used a really great El Satanico spot that doesn't work in their context because how far removed Lucha Underground is from 1993 CMLL.

Is Abyss still in TNA

1) Meltzer also clarified it's not NXT either (so don't start the Joe stuff) 2) Hollinger joked that it would be Taker/Liger and I am so fucking pissed that that match won't happen Liger would be cool but I am ok with Hakushi coming for revenge as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlC5CvDbS4A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2uDE0x62aY I don't have any terribly obscure picks sorry.

I'm sorry but I really don't see wrestling matches as this great storytelling medium. If certain indy guys knew how to sell, structure their matches and project a character maybe I'd care for their matches. Excess in nearfalls and choice of offence would be big problems with the style as well for me.

These are both invalid poins that you didn't even bother backing up. Most people get into wrestling through WWE. That they would switch to a different style they enjoy watching more is completely normal and not something anyone should be begrudged for, just like no one who enjoys WWE for what it is should be begrudged for it. I voted Cena over a bunch of puro guys last year so think what you want. There are plenty of standout wrestlers in independent wrestling both in the US and UK but I'll get to that in a moment. See, you're missing a lot of stuff here. WWE doesn't sign *everyone*. WWE has a quota they need to fill. So if there are ten pimped flip guys on the indies, they ask who's the best, it's down between Pac and Ricochet, Pac gets signed, and in the mean time five other flip guys show up. There's aso the factor of guys who were pimped not managing to adapt to the WWE going back to the indies and once again producing quality work many people enjoy and the indy wrestlers having the benefit of not working withing WWE restrictions. I like Neville, I think he's a good TV worker, but he's not someone anyone's really argued for, whereas if he worked PWG there's a much bigger chance someone would.

New Japan could probably produce 16 guys that would be as strong as WWE's top 16 alone and this was by no means their best year. Fwiw I'm pretty sure my japanese top three from march to march would have zero New Japan people.