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Purotopia General Discussion: 2017!


Kevin Wilson

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I’ve taken to assuming all the out of country matches on New Japan World will be region blocked, but Okada’s match in Melbourne that they just posted is viewable. Either this is a unique case or they’ll fix it soon; regardless, it’s a 15+ minute Okada singles match, so... go watch it. 

Edit: Should’ve posted this in the NJPW World thread. Oops.

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With Garuda, Sasaki and Soldier retired or just done wrestling, I think that would be the last of the FMW trueborn. Count WEW or WMF guys if you want. Kamui~! Mammoth Sasaki's still around if he counts as FMW along with random indy dregs like Kuroda.

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just watched the final show of All Japan's tag league from today I think and while it is unfair to really compare like for like - because New Japan are setting up a show in advance rather than trying to do a great show per se - it was a far better show than the New Japan WTL final. Korakuen looked pretty near full too. I still have my reservations about AJPW outside of the top 5/6 guys but they're really doing their best at the moment.

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8 hours ago, Control said:

What wuz the best part? I’ve beem reading good things about Yuma Aoyagi and Yusuke Okada.

they were good in their respective matches! the last four matches were good! and nothing outside that was bad! Kea looks good which is weird to me! it was a good show! don't know why every sentence ends like this but I am excited in All Japan in 2017 my god!

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19 hours ago, Control said:

The fact that Suwama and Ishikawa are called “Violence Giants” makes me happier than any result.

And they just won Tokyo Sports tag team of the year.

All Japan also got rookie of the year with Yuma Aoyagi (anyone have recs?)

Otherwise...

Naito is MVP again (seems right)

Okada/Omega, Jan 4 is MOTY (wouldn’t be my choice but is so important—and very good—it’s hard to argue against)

Io Shirai is Joshi MVP (wonder if a healthy Mayu would have won it? And maybe someone else should have anyway)

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Because the comparisons are inevitable, I should probably lead with saying I like their broadway best. 1/4 would probably end up in my top five, were I to plot out a top 20. Though god, that’s hard. The more there is to see the more you feel you miss! Okada/Suzuki from the G1 is probably the only other match I know I’d have above it; I’d have to have one of the Tana/Naito series; Takashita/Endo’s broadway was an athletic marvel, but I don’t know if I adore it or am bored by it; Miyahara and All Japan’s trio of clubbering heavyweights all had incredible matches against one another; I’ve not seen enough Joshi but I’d have to find room for Mayu against someone and Meiko/Hashimoto; Ibushi might be my favorite guy in the world right now, but I don’t know that he has that ONE match this year; I loved Okada/Shibata at the time, but I can’t begin to evaluate it now...

But those are all pretty high profile wrestlers and matches. Back when this was A Thing the Puro folder did, people would dig up so much my favorites were often the sort of thing I know I’d miss now. 

Having said all that, from a “most valuable” match standpoint, they probably made the right choice—that is, if I think of 2017 wrestling, it’s the match that most defined the agenda—even if it’s just short of my personal favorite. 

 

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As much as I loved the second Okada/Suzuki match of 2017, I don't think it had the all time special feel of Okada/Omega I. I actually forgot about it until you brought it up, whereas I've never been so worked up by a wrestling match as I was the Dome match. If I wanted to nit pick it, I certainly could but I could feel my blood rushing, I was probably hollering at some of the bigger spots and the final run. I never do that. I felt that sense of dread and acceptance in the concluding series of moves. I bought into what they were selling 100% like I was a kid again and that just doesn't happen anymore. As great as the rematches were, the first one was so much more special and stands out more because of just how different of a feeling it was from anything I've seen prior to it. In my mind, it's the second best match I've ever seen behind 6/9/95 and I haven't watched that in ages, so who knows how I'd rank them after another viewing.

I can understand why some people get turned off by how far Omega and Okada took things in their matches but watching Miyahara's big matches from this year, I can recognize they're generally smartly worked matches, great even... but I have zero emotional investment in them and they don't particularly stand out in a year where I've probably seen 25+ 4 star matches just from Japan alone. The Tanahashi/Naito G1 match is like the Miyahara matches but with way better atmosphere and drama in my opinion. That's probably the closest I saw from Japan to touching either of the first two Omega/Okada matches. The selling, pacing, and psychology in the block decider was so amazing and off the charts that I thought it blew away their Tokyo Dome match, which is saying something and I prefer it to the third Okada/Omega match, which was fantastic in its own right.

I saw Takashita's title win and was impressed but going just on that he's not close to the level of Miyahara, much less the New Japan guys.

I've been subscribed to Stardom World since like February or something and haven't used it nearly enough. Hopefully during the Christmas break I can watch some of the stuff from Kevin's recommendations, Alan's star rating list, and whatever listomania Voices of Wrestling produces at the end of the year for both joshi and Japanese indies. I'm also finding that I adore WXW's style more than I previously thought. Walter vs. Dragunov may be in my top 3 from 2017. Just unreal work and atmosphere. The tournament match Walter had with David Starr was phenomenal too. That's the beautiful thing about 2017 wrestling. There's so much variety and it's almost all available at an affordable price.

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Takeshita and Endo both are more prospect than finished product at this point, and their title draw is for sure the thing I mentioned I’m least sure about. It really seems they saw the former DDT guy have an impossibly athletic one-hour draw, and though, “Well we beat the Golden Lovers on their way out, surely we can do better?” And they didn’t. They might not have even done well. But they did an insane amount of stuff, and I... might love it?

With Miyahara, there’s a level of emotional investment for me because I sort of saw his big matches as rooting for Jun the booker and All Japan in general.

I may also be overcorrecting for any New Japan bias I may have. It’s the only promotion I’ve seen EVERYTHING for, so maybe it gets too much of my focus? But maybe not; maybe it’s just a historically good run. (I lean towards that.)

But yeah, Omega and Okada cumulatively led the year in times I shouted at my laptop or nearly tossed it.

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Seriously, I'm kind of shocked with how little talk of New Japan there is on this board when they're in the middle of such an insane year that matches up nicely with any other year from any company in history. I get that it may not be everybody's cup of tea but there are like, what? 10-15 people talking about it regularly on here. Seems weird, especially when WWE isn't having the strongest year in terms of match quality and the storylines are mostly dogshit.

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2 minutes ago, Oyaji said:

Seriously, I'm kind of shocked with how little talk of New Japan there is on this board when they're in the middle of such an insane year that matches up nicely with any other year from any company in history. I get that it may not be everybody's cup of tea but there are like, what? 10-15 people talking about it regularly on here. Seems weird, especially when WWE isn't having the strongest year in terms of match quality and the storylines are mostly dogshit.

Well even in RAW/SD threads it is generally the same 15 or so people each week posting a lot. I think that most of the people that visit this board don't actually watch wrestling as regularly as they probably used to. But its still a fun place to hang out.

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I think a lot of us totally recognize how amazing NJPW has been this year but are just kind of burned out from the hype they're getting everywhere else. The stuff AJPW does is, for me, way more emotional and nourishing just because it's operating on a smaller level but with maximum spirit, and just seems much more in tune with the history of the company than the current bombastic NJPW stuff is. If that sounds like I'm chastising NJPW for being innovative, I'm not---they've had like 50 phenomenal matches this year, but their product is crisp to the point of being manufactured at times. It's the same logic that tells me the Ramones were a better a band than, say, Led Zeppelin were. I would never in a million years argue that Miyahara/Ishikawa I is technically a better match than Okada/Omega I was...but at the same time if I were putting down my top 20 matches of the year I'm going to vote with my heart and not my "what qualifies as first-rate pro wrest;ling in 2017" scorecard, and thus give #1 to Miyahara/Ishikawa (a match I've watched probably ten times this year, as opposed to all those great NJPW matches which I only watched once or twice...when all else fails, you can rate these things based on your own personal replay value). 

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12 hours ago, Beech27 said:

And they just won Tokyo Sports tag team of the year.

All Japan also got rookie of the year with Yuma Aoyagi (anyone have recs?)

Otherwise...

Naito is MVP again (seems right)

Okada/Omega, Jan 4 is MOTY (wouldn’t be my choice but is so important—and very good—it’s hard to argue against)

Io Shirai is Joshi MVP (wonder if a healthy Mayu would have won it? And maybe someone else should have anyway)

I'd have gone with Kazuchika Okada as MVP. Tokyo Sports got the MOTY right. The best of the Okada vs. Omega trilogy came at Wrestle Kingdom 11. My runner up for MOTY also happened at the same event, Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi.

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Months after the Okada/Omega trilogy, has your order changed? Mine hasn't:

1. Wrestle Kingdom 11.

2. G1 Climax 2017.

3. Dominion 2017.

Wrestle Kingdom 11 is the best of the three matches. G1 Climax had a worn down Okada from all his matches and Omega focusing his attacks on Okada's neck, it was the shortest match. Dominion was the only match I didn't like. I'm the minority on that going by the posts preceding mine.

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still feel the same. Dominion was a surprise and a well-structured match considering the length but not one I'm dying to revisit. G1 was a great and necessary conclusion that leaves the door open for more. But WK was completely unforeseen and radical and they smashed it out of the park. It may end up having a negative influence on the company and the biz but in that moment they had pretty much all of our hearts racing legitimately.

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The G1 was a better conclusion than I thought was possible, given how much it had to accomplish (and how much it still had to leave on the table). It's so unfair a standard I can hardly even call it a criticism, but the extent to which it incorporates their previous matches and G1 tournament journeys leaves it a tick below as a stand-alone match, to me. That is, the story doesn't work perfectly if you haven't seen Okada/EVIL and Okada/Suzuki. And as someone who loves watching everything and indulging that level of narrative investment, maybe that's more a point in its favor than anything? I don't know. I'm kind of talking myself in circles here.

I think my only real criticism is that Omega's uranage counter to the Rainmaker should have been saved for later and accomplished more. (You could say the same for the Jay Driller and Croyt's Wrath, albeit to a lesser extent.) As is, he busts out this new secret weapon... then gets spammed with Rainmakers anyway, and really only wins because Okada started the match from behind and couldn't hold up, not because he made any adjustments. Of course, maybe that's the story they wanted to tell? That Kenny didn't really solve Okada, so much as win via circumstance? And so when they wrestle next--presumably, both at 100%--there's still an open question of how he can win.

And for all of that micro-analysis, I like their draw best because the finishing run made me feel a sort of deluded euphoria that's usually reserved for the moments following a marathon or something. Just stupid stoked.

(If I could I'd cheat and say the trilogy is my favorite "match" of the year, taken together. That would also leave me more room in a top-20 I'll never make to represent the insanely great year had by others and elsewhere.)

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