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Joshi Puroresu Discussion Thread


NikkySan

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I don't see Hojo lasting three years in WWE/NXT.  I just don't see her brand of babyface going over well and I can see her being injured a lot with all the shows she'll run.  But good for her if she wants to get out of her comfort zone.  The Mayu thing is more troublesome because she could be the ace of Stardom (or any promotion) if she put her mind to it.

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4 minutes ago, Trocar Slush Weasel said:

I don't see Hojo lasting three years in WWE/NXT.  I just don't see her brand of babyface going over well and I can see her being injured a lot with all the shows she'll run.  But good for her if she wants to get out of her comfort zone.  The Mayu thing is more troublesome because she could be the ace of Stardom (or any promotion) if she put her mind to it.

The more I see of all three WWE women's divisions, the more I think she can work in WWE. She plays babyface in peril very well and has toned down a lot since her last concussion. She will learn quick how to save her body if Nakamura is there helping her along. 

I agree with Kevin that Stardom might need a higher level worker if all three leave but they have doubled down on the young talent they have had also. Interesting to see cause Io and Kairi were the main trainers for Stardom besides Fuka training the rookies after Nanae left.

Also, the Toni Storm monster push is coming in Stardom very soon. 

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I don't really see Kairi in WWE ending well. I don't quite believe in Mayu retiring though I can easily see her leaving for elsewhere. I figured Io would leave towards the end of the year after putting over either Kairi and/or Mayu. Not sure now.

9 minutes ago, Trocar Slush Weasel said:

The Mayu thing is more troublesome because she could be the ace of Stardom (or any promotion) if she put her mind to it.

This reminds me of Rossy flat out admitting he thought she was lazy in an interview for Stardom's English site in 2015. I always feel like she holds back unless it against Io.

2 hours ago, Kevin Wilson said:

They are only really hurt if Io and Kairi both leave, but then it just boils down to if they are willing to change their MO a bit to make up for it or accept downsizing as a promotion.

Downsizing would be easier if they didn't have to book buildings a decent bit in advance.

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Not getting the "Kairi won't do well in the WWE" stuff what so ever. She'll be completely fine if she goes there. She's got the style and charisma to quickly get the fans on her side and to care about her. The benefit for Kairi is that she offers something completely different to Io and Asuka which will help her stand out, she's absolutely fantastic at playing a sympathetic babyface style role at times that really makes you care and root for her, she's just so believable in everything she sells. Think she'll quickly become popular with the mainstream audience.

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She doesn't speak English well. She doesn't have a unique style or character to set her apart. She is charismatic, but who knows if its really enough to push past her other problems. WWE is still sort of early in on figuring out how push women properly.to go along with their general booking problems that plague basically every part of the promotion. Kairi would have trouble under the best of circumstances. Add those in to Io coming in, and Kairi is likely fucked since Io is basically better than her in every way except building up sympathetic heat which is hard to build up with WWE's current audience anyways. Keep in mind I'm saying all of this, and Kairi is a favorite for me.

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23 minutes ago, Eivion said:

She doesn't speak English well. She doesn't have a unique style or character to set her apart. She is charismatic, but who knows if its really enough to push past her other problems. WWE is still sort of early in on figuring out how push women properly.to go along with their general booking problems that plague basically every part of the promotion. Kairi would have trouble under the best of circumstances. Add those in to Io coming in, and Kairi is likely fucked since Io is basically better than her in every way except building up sympathetic heat which is hard to build up with WWE's current audience anyways. Keep in mind I'm saying all of this, and Kairi is a favorite for me.

Except she does have the character to set her apart. She's one of the absolute best females out there at selling inside the ring and making you get behind her and root for her. I'm confident she can bring that over and translate it to a much bigger audience. People still love to root for the sympathetic babyface that can take an absolute beating and make you believe every moment of it. It's worked for people like Bayley, Sami Zayn and so on. They're completely different characters to Kairi but IMO she's in a similar mould in being able to make the audience really buy into her and care about her. She takes beatings brilliantly, her expressions, the sounds she makes, the way she moves around the ring...everything just comes together. And when you couple that with the fact that she's actually a ridiculously good worker who can go stiff as f*ck you've pretty much got yourself a winning combination.

Io will be fine because as I've mentioned before on here, for me there's no better female in business. She'll get over because she's that damn good. Kairi IMO will provide something completely different to both her and Asuka which will help her not get lost in the shuffle behind the two. She'll be in great hands down in NXT (if this all goes ahead of course and she starts down there, which you'd have to expect she would) where she'll be given plenty of build, protected well and given time to get familiar with the style and for the audience to follow along on her journey.

I don't think her not speaking much English will hurt her in the slightest. Like I said, she's charismatic and I think the audience she'll be going out to will quickly warm to her. If she can settle into a completely different environment and country then I think she'll be more than fine, I guess time will tell though mate.

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I don't think anyone is doubting Kairi's ability as a babyface but with WWE there is more to it than that. Her not being able to speak English very well will certainly hurt her to some degree, as if nothing else WWE is very hesitant to put a non-English speaker as a regular on RAW or Smackdown. Its not that anyone is rooting against her, but for every Asuka there are a dozen other wrestlers that came in with a great skill in something that just never made it far in WWE. Sami isn't a bad example (although he speaks English) - he is someone that is a sympathetic babyface but he also isn't winning feuds and is mostly used to put over other wrestlers which may be what Kairi ends up being for Asuka, Ember, and whomever else comes up the rankings with her.

I think she'll do ok, I don't think she will bomb. But I don't see her reaching the top of NXT anytime soon, let alone being a champ on RAW or SD until she does learn English and gets chemistry with a new bunch of wrestlers. A three year deal implies a slower climb, I see her more going up the card like Ember Moon than Asuka, with a slow build to see how it goes.

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Totally, but she's a better seller than Bayley and people bought in on Bayley big time. Kairi is an adorable pirate princess, it won't take much for her to get over I think. It's not as if Asuka's English skills are anything of note and she's done okayish in her short promos. I have been disappointed with Asuka and Shinsuke's progress in the language department but I do understand how big of a jump it is between Japanese and English.

She doesn't need to go on winning streaks or even get a tonne of wins. If she sells well, puts up a good fight and slowly makes progress towards winning more, much like the Sami/Bayley stories told, it'll do well. People love to see an underdog make that steady climb rather than rocket up the card.

Does Io speak much English?

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1 hour ago, Oyaji said:

Totally, but she's a better seller than Bayley and people bought in on Bayley big time. Kairi is an adorable pirate princess, it won't take much for her to get over I think. It's not as if Asuka's English skills are anything of note and she's done okayish in her short promos. I have been disappointed with Asuka and Shinsuke's progress in the language department but I do understand how big of a jump it is between Japanese and English.

Nakamura speaks english.  The slow delivery is intentional.

 

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6 hours ago, Oyaji said:

Totally, but she's a better seller than Bayley and people bought in on Bayley big time. Kairi is an adorable pirate princess, it won't take much for her to get over I think. It's not as if Asuka's English skills are anything of note and she's done okayish in her short promos. I have been disappointed with Asuka and Shinsuke's progress in the language department but I do understand how big of a jump it is between Japanese and English.

She doesn't need to go on winning streaks or even get a tonne of wins. If she sells well, puts up a good fight and slowly makes progress towards winning more, much like the Sami/Bayley stories told, it'll do well. People love to see an underdog make that steady climb rather than rocket up the card.

Does Io speak much English?

I don't know how good it is but she has been practicing for awhile and if I recall did one Interview in English sometime last summer. So as far as I know she is further along than Kairi, Asuka tweets fairly well in English now but I don't know if someone is directly helping her or if her learning is coming along nicely.

I think people comparing Asuka to Kairi are a bit off base, besides both being Japanese their styles and method of connecting with the crowd are totally different. Asuka is a charismatic asskicker, Kairi is a passionate feisty underdog. Because Asuka got over with American fans doesn't mean that Kairi will, it depends on what type of situation they put her in and if she gets an opportunity to do what she does best which isn't ever guaranteed in WWE Land. I hope she does well as she is easy to root for, I just don't think she'll appear in NXT and be over from the start like Asuka was. Asuka and Shinsuke are special cases, not the norm that we should expect from most foreigners that start in WWE.

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16 hours ago, Kevin Wilson said:

I think people comparing Asuka to Kairi are a bit off base, besides both being Japanese their styles and method of connecting with the crowd are totally different. Asuka is a charismatic asskicker, Kairi is a passionate feisty underdog. Because Asuka got over with American fans doesn't mean that Kairi will, it depends on what type of situation they put her in and if she gets an opportunity to do what she does best which isn't ever guaranteed in WWE Land. I hope she does well as she is easy to root for, I just don't think she'll appear in NXT and be over from the start like Asuka was. Asuka and Shinsuke are special cases, not the norm that we should expect from most foreigners that start in WWE.

WWE hit a home run with Asuka's WWE entrance, starting with Corey Graves creaming his jeans by her appearance at Takeover: Brooklyn standing next to 2 Hall of Famers.  Flair and Slaughter actually seemed like afterthoughts.  Then the promos and constant talk on NXT primed her perfectly to get over with fans.  I'm interested to see how they play the Hojo arrival.

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Has anybody else had issues signing up for Stardom World? I'm getting a "statement failed" when I put in my Visa card info. My old card was recently compromised but I was sent a replacement over a month ago and it doesn't seem to work.

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Anyone know how Lin Bairon is doing?  Most of the updates I can find on the web are a year and a half old.  Wiki says she underwent emergency surgery for hydrocephalus last spring, but I'm not sure how reliable (Wiki makes it sound like she underwent emergency surgery in May 2017, not 2016).  

Supposedly, she was planning a return to the ring, but that seems unlikely if the tumor really was stage 3 and inoperable in 2015.

 

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20 hours ago, Oyaji said:

Thanks. I finally got it to work after I went to a random match video page. I'm used to watching the Samurai TV cuts. Are all of the shows just with the ringside one camera?

All the older shows had one camera, however for the more recent events (3/3, 3/4, and Io's Anniversary) there are two cameras. I assume that the cost of having two cameras and the extra time editing was the reason.

I think that for their monthly Samurai TV airing, that Samurai TV is who controls the pro-shot cameras so Stardom World can't use that footage. Not sure how they got around that for Io's Anniversary which they announced on Twitter would have two cameras, however I doubt it will still look at polished as Samurai TV due to the extra time it takes to edit video to look pro-shot.

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I actually quite like the ringside camera, as you get to clearly see the emotion on their faces and how stiff some of the shots are that may not be appreciated as much from the hardcam distance. Only issue is when the tag matches spill to the outside and you can't really follow more than one thing at a time.

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20 hours ago, Eivion said:

I didn't even realize she had actually undergone surgery yet.

Here's the paragraph from Wiki

Quote

In December 2015, Ray was diagnosed with a brain tumor after going to an MRI following a concussion. She underwent a brain biopsy to determine the nature of the tumor on January 21, 2016.[187][188][189] On February 17, Ray announced that the biopsy had determined that the tumor was a malignant Stage III tumor. Due to the cancer cells being attached to nerves, the tumor was also inoperable.[190][191] Ray then began undergoing radiation therapy until the end of April. She stated that she was planning to return to wrestling at an FMW event on May 5, 2017, a date where Hayabusa was planning to make his return before his death.[192] On May 6, Ray underwent emergency surgery for hydrocephalus.[193]

It almost sounds like she underwent surgery on May 6th, 2017, but I'm assuming that's just poor writing.  Hydrocephalus is a buildup of fluid in the brain, so I'm guessing she maybe had a shunt put in (basically ,a valve and a tube that would drain fluid from her brain and send it to some other part of the body, usually the stomach).  This is the most recent update I've come across and it's Wiki, so who knows how reliable it is.

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22 hours ago, Horton Hears a Wooo!!! said:

Anyone know how Lin Bairon is doing?  Most of the updates I can find on the web are a year and a half old.  Wiki says she underwent emergency surgery for hydrocephalus last spring, but I'm not sure how reliable (Wiki makes it sound like she underwent emergency surgery in May 2017, not 2016).  

Supposedly, she was planning a return to the ring, but that seems unlikely if the tumor really was stage 3 and inoperable in 2015.

 

The article Wikipedia links to says the surgery happened in 2016. The last thing on her Twitter is some retweets from January.

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