NJPW Sakura Genesis 4/9

[Ryan]

Reminds me when Arai would do it to, I believe, Tozawa as a gimmick in Dragon Gate matches overseas and what not and hold up a mic so you could hear the thudding death. Hero used to do a lot of them too. They were disgusting. They always are.

[RRR]

5 hours ago, John E. Dynamite said:

As much as the matches are great, that's two near-death moments in a month. That's enough, boys. You earned your snowflakes. Be.a Takayama and wise up, don't be a Misawa.

I understand what your trying to say and agree but your wording of that last sentence sucks.

[Jiji]

Bryan and Vinny did a fan-fucking-tastic review of Shibata/Okada on their Sunday show. They talked about how gross the headbutt was without knowing the outcome. But a great breakdown of the psychology of the match.

[Ryan]

Takayama didn't wise up. He nearly died. After that he was forced to stop.

[John E. Dynamite]

Fair, horrible examples, but the stiffness of the late-90's to early 00's left a number of workers seriously injured or dead and I don't want to see it happen again, not so soon after Honma. I was watching the match with the girlfriend in the room, and I'm commenting (at the time) how they're gonna kill each other and she kinda laughed but I meant it. I love the drama. The stiffness adds to it.  I taught myself to love this stuff on Kawada and Hasimoto shit-kickings. After the match ended I drank deep from my overpriced ale and proclaimed it a full five stars. Today I feel complicit. 

[The Natural]

Amazing match between Okada and Shibata, Match of the Year candidate. I went the full five though I didn't like the headbutt. Contradiction, yep.

[Ryan]

You never go the full five if it has the headbutt. New edict. Just imagine it's from Tropic Thunder.

[Jiji]

Meltz is saying he's been told the Shibata surgery is an angle. Though he also said it could be covering something else. Let's hope it's just an angle. 

[Ryan]

Or he could just be wrong. Who knows.

[Jiji]

Yeah, he certainly doesn't sound like he's 100% on this. I hope he's right for Shibata's health.

[The Natural]

Wonder what Meltz snowflakes be for Okada/Shibata? Thinking he'll go 4 3/4 with a possibility of the famous 5.

[The Natural]

Great picture.

[Ryan]

Their endless love bond will not be broken by that dastardly villain Red Shoes.

[The Natural]

Dave Meltzer gave Okada vs. Shibata *****.

[Pete]

Loved the finishing sequence to the LIJ/Sekigun tag.

Spoiler

Not too often you watch a match and go "biggest win of X's career," but yeah, that was easily the biggest win of Juice's career. No flash pin, no banana-peel job, no late kick-out... Naito put him over like fucking Godzilla, selling Pulp Friction like crazy all the way to the back. The crowd going bonkers for Juice challenging him to the IC title was great too.

 

[Spritenaut 32]

I really hope I'm not the only one who thought Yujiro would be the breakout singles star of No Limit.  

I was wrong.  So very, very wrong.  Naito's awesome right now.

[Raziel]

Finally watched the whole show.  Sue me, I'm digging Taguchi Japan, which is way more than I could ever say about anything involving Taguchi.

 

Takahashi/KUSHIDA is an example how a short match can work in an overall narrative, with KUSHIDA deciding to go balls out and making a huge mistake allowing Takahashi to catch him in a Time Bomb and end it quick.  Takahashi/Ricochet is going to be amazing.

 

Goto/ZSJ was better than I thought it would be, and kinda confirms my view that ZSJ is tolerable and better when he's in with someone who can reign him in and make his stichk work.  I still contend Goto is underrated and is a real solid worker, he's just never really given a chance to run with the ball.  Goto/MiSu is going to be great.

 

Okada/Shibata, the whole thing would've still worked fine without the sick headbutt.  It wasn't needed and didn't really add anything to the match.  That said, Okada's been the common factor in 3 straight great PPV mains, but will be tested with Fale coming up.  But there's a huge night and day difference in the way Okada worked a year ago vs today.  It's like he finally flipped the switch and realized how to lay out his signature spots throughout the match to make them mean more, build to them, and pace the match so he can work these 30+ minute matches and make them seem like they're under 20.  That's a gift few guys active in the world have.

[Jiji]

I've been digging Taguchi a lot lately. Even his title challenge was surprisingly pretty great, though Kamaitachi is so fucking good that it really shouldn't have been a surprise. One thing I didn't love about that one was how often they went back to the ankle lock after building it as a death move. 

I don't remember much Japanese but Taguchi's mic skills are really good. I get a big kick out of the overly American way he says Japan in "Taguchi Japan".

New Japan has been wonderful for a while now but it feels like there's something extra special the past half a year or so. More depth and quality between Hiromu returning, excellent gaijin, Omega stepping up in such a huge way, Naito killing it, Okada figuring out the ace role perhaps better than anybody since Misawa, and Gedo's booking being nearly perfect. If only they could trim some of the fat off the roster. 

[Pete]

39 minutes ago, Oyaji said:

New Japan has been wonderful for a while now but it feels like there's something extra special the past half a year or so. More depth and quality between Hiromu returning, excellent gaijin, Omega stepping up in such a huge way, Naito killing it, Okada figuring out the ace role perhaps better than anybody since Misawa, and Gedo's booking being nearly perfect. If only they could trim some of the fat off the roster. 

Hiromu's sleazeball charisma is spectacular.

[Jiji]

Totally reminds me of a low level thug anime character. 5/5.

[jstout]

Just got done watching the main. I've never been more hopeful that wrestling's pulling the wool over my eyes and the Shibata injury is a work, but it doesn't seem to be. That was just a breathtaking match, the headbutt was absolutely unnecessary, like they always are. Subtract it from the match and tell me if it affects your enjoyment of the match one way or the other. Probably increases it -- the headbutt took me out of the match for a bit while I was concerned about both men's health.

You could see Shibata's right side start to "droop" a bit on the walk back from the ring, and that's when I started wondering if he was legit hurt.

It's amazing how smartly done and how built to perfection this match was, and if Shibata winds up tossing away his career over an unnecessary spot in the middle of all that drama, it's going to be just a gigantic shame.

I thought (guess not) that Kushida might have knocked himself wacky on that powerbomb to the floor and they had to go to the finish earlier. It's good to have short matches in situations like that, it keeps things fresh.

 

[mattdangerously]

6 minutes ago, jstout said:

Just got done watching the main. I've never been more hopeful that wrestling's pulling the wool over my eyes and the Shibata injury is a work, but it doesn't seem to be. That was just a breathtaking match, the headbutt was absolutely unnecessary, like they always are. Subtract it from the match and tell me if it affects your enjoyment of the match one way or the other. Probably increases it -- the headbutt took me out of the match for a bit while I was concerned about both men's health.

 

I like the match as is, but I definitely would have enjoyed it more without the headbutt.  With it, I have a hard time not holding the rest of the excessive stiffness against the match.

[Pete]

And it's not like this was the first time he did it either.

It sounds crass and it would suck if this means the end of his career, but I have very little sympathy for him repeating a spot like that. I had a bad concussion a couple of years ago and this is some borderline PTSD shit.

[Ryan]

It's weird to think that indy guys like Chris Hero used to do that spot all the time and nothing ever happened. Maybe they knew a better way to do it and still make a big thud. He never busted himself open that I know of at least.