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Purotopia General Discussion: 2017!


Kevin Wilson

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Only tangentially related, but Tanahashi's GHC Tag Title win and defense against Wild II with Yuji Nagata was really fun. Interpromotional heat that feels basically impossible these days, Tana with an almost unrecognizable moveset and slightly SANADA look, and Nagata just a brilliant jerk. Wild II, somehow, manage to work as underdog faces and viable monsters at the same time.

(This youtube account has so much good stuff, besides.)

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16 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

This is probably a stupid question but have AJ and NJ ever had a working relationship, even after Inoki stepped down and Baba died? 

There is a whole period where AJ was on life support and NJ actually provided it. The Kawada-Sasaki match is one example. Almost positive that the excellent Tenryu-Muto triple crown match happened when Muto was still an NJ guy.

 

 

Unrelated: Kea is sure taking a bunch of falls in the WSTL. Wonder if this is payback for ditching them (while also, obviously, protecting the champ).

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The Nagata/Iizuka vs. Kawada/Fuchi tag from early on in the working agreement is one of my favourite matches from that decade. Each of the four establish the hierarchy in such a masterful way and it plays up the dramatics. Near wrestling perfection.

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Kawada in 2000/2001 during that NJPW feud was so legit the best worker in the world at that time. The first Sasaki match, the tag with Fuchi vs Nagata and Iizuka, the first match with Mutoh (admittedly I love the controversial second one too), the *AWESOME* tag match with Nagai vs TenKoji that nobody talks about anymore...the singles matches with Tenryu (for the TC), Fuchi (at the first AJPW after the NOAH exodus) and Tenzan (I forget when exactly but they had a couple good matches during the AJ/NJ feud). His work really took a hit after the 2002 injury and he was never close to his former glory during that final super long TC run, except for the epic Hashimoto match...but wow what a run in 2000 when NOAH split and the chips were down. 

Kawada circa 1995/96 vs Okada circa now might be my latest all-time dream match. 

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From purolove, when I was first getting into puro, this at the time was a heavily pimped show. I think it was the first event that had an "official" series of New Japan vs. All Japan wrestlers.

Y8kaWud.jpg

At the time, Mutoh was particular popular and I think that Hase match was seen as almost "peak" Shining Wizard Mutoh. Of course not everyone likes that version of Mutoh's technical style but it was more mat based/limb work. 

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I really hate that his book won't get an english translation. From the odd excerpt I've seen, he seems to have a lot of really well-formed ideas about wrestling, and an ability to articulate them cleverly and clearly. On some level saying one of the all-time greats has a good mind for the business seems horribly redundant, but many seem to lack his capacity to actually wrap words around what works and why.

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Re: NJ/AJ 

There was some real fun/interesting stuff from summer/fall 01. TenKoji vs Kawada & Nagai was one of my fave tags of that era. And who could forget Scott Hall vs Muto for the Triple Crown? Wish I had kept all my tapes from back then.

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Did Dan Ginnetty keep doing those yearly TV sets? I bought a lot of the All Japan and a few New Japan sets from him but I was really hoping for him to do a complete mid-to-late '90s New Japan run because I'd love to see the wacky time period when business and crowds were so incredibly hot despite not having the best in-ring talent (not that they were hurting for talent, just relative to All Japan).

With Google Drive these days, it'd be amazing to have a NJPW equivalent of the AJPW archive. They produced so much footage once Samurai TV came around, because they were already churning out a great deal of commercial tapes on top of their Asahi TV. 

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It was definitely a crazy time for NJPW. Dfferent shooters every week, Nakanishi as a protected top guy, Tenzan winning 3 G1s and 4 Triple Crowns and still being treated as a jobber. Makai Club, New Japan Black. That whole lengthy period (years!!!) of the IWGP title being hot potatoed between Tenzan, Sasaki and a bunch of MMA guys with lots of screwy finishes/guys vacating the title without doing the job...ay yi yi. 

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it was a weird time in the 00s and sure it killed the houses but I would like to lightly squash the notion that it was all bad and Inoki Is Crazy. I give credit to them for trying to go with the times and keep being creative. You hear some really weird stuff from that time but when you watch the shows they're all sincere and trying to make it work. And some of it does!

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NJ and AJ seem to have been buddies for most of the time between their two big splits, save for the period where the Sasaki/Choshu beef kept them apart. Since the second half of the 00s off the top of my head we've had Kojima as joint champ, Tenkoji in (multiple?) RWTLs, Kawada in the G1, Tanahashi losing a Champions Carnival final, Nagata winning one, Kea at the dome and Mutoh holding the IWGP.

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Aside from some joint matches at the 1990 Tokyo Dome, they pretty much stayed apart until NOAH formed/All Japan was decimated. When business took a down turn, having the inter-promotional matches helped with attendances and it stayed pretty interesting for much of the next decade. Now all promotions seem to work together at times so its lost some of luster, but I don't think they've been on bad terms for a good while. Although I'm not sure if they worked together in the years after Mutoh jumped ship so there may be a gap in there between their 2001 feud and after Inoki was out. Stuart would know exactly if he was still around.

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Yeah they definitely cut the initial feud short in 2001 when Mutoh jumped and took Kojima and Ka Shin with him. Anybody know when the first AJPW vs NOAH match was? I seem to remember the really disappointing/sloppy Misawa vs Kojima on that one AJPW show (Kawada vs Omori for the TC was the main event) being kind of a shock at the time because NOAH had never worked with AJPW since the split. 

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