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NJPW 2017 G1 Climax 27


Raziel

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1 hour ago, Ace said:

LIJ isn't really tweener. It's just that some people dig Hiromu and Naito. EVIL, Bushi,  and Sanada are strictly heel.

 

This is true. LIJ and BC are  both in this situation and it seems to matter which crowd they are infront of as to where each group would fall on the spectrum. I'm biased toward LIj and against most of BC so that may have infkuenced my categorization

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49 minutes ago, Ace said:

I so wish Suzuki did the Long Beach shows, just for him to experience a couple thousand Americans singing his song.

Reminds me of Kojima's matches in ROH where everyone yelled "IT'S OVAAAHHHH" with him. He clearly got a kick out of it.

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instant day 11 from Kagoshima reaction

missed most of Fale-YOSHIHASHI as I decided to nip out and get some lunch to eat in front of screen. last I saw was Tacos getting launched through the seats.

watched Makabe-ZSJr with the sound on mute (can't eat with headphones on) but it seemed like their styles meshed really well. Makabe has been completely fine this tournament - in the bottom half work-wise, but that's no shame in this company. Sabre reminds me of Punk - not just because they're skinny, obv - but because I think they do know how to intelligently work bigger men/brawlers. Which you should if your gimmick is that you're smarter and more technically able. ***

Ishii-Nagata is going on my watch-again-to-determine-best-of-G1 pile. This was great. Two of my favourites just crashing away. It was the match you expect (strikes, suplexes, that selling that people call no-selling but isn't) but with lots of naked emotion and smart moments that I bought into. Maybe not quite as good as the 10-car pile up that their 2014 G1 match was, but that was the last night of the tournament so they left it all out there. they at least held enough back to get to the ring for their next tournament matches. ****1/2

Naito-Goto my gf popped up on WhatsApp to pepper me with questions so I caught this with one eye but it seemed to be pretty good - carving a space between the previous bout and the coming attraction. Naito is getting to that stage where he can barely miss with his matches. Goto is Goto and you either enjoy that or you don't. I do.  ***1/2

one of the great treats in wrestling is heel Tanahashi and he was out in force against Ibushi in the Golden Star's hometown. they brought it up to pace slower than the matches before them, but they had that luxury with the crowd firmly ready to hate Tana and cheer Ibushi through every spot. once they got going this was very much the standard you expect. some really good stuff in this, the spots that Ibushi saves for his big performances. the ending was very interesting to me too. no spoilers though. ****1/4

good day then. Ishii-Nagata MOTN. didn't catch up with the two matches I missed on day 10 yet. not sure I need to rush.

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Felt like the show had some work to do, in order to overcome my (sorta unfair) assumptions that certain matches basically had to go a certain way to keep the block interesting. It accomplished that; I was roped in to everything save Yoshihashi/Fale, neither of whom I care that much about. I'm even willing to talk myself into Ibushi's (relative lack of) knee-selling: a match he needs to win, against a big opponent he's never defeated, in his home town, etc. And once you're one move away from getting that win, you do what you have to, whether it hurts or not. He's never had good self preservation instincts anyway.

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23 hours ago, Sublime said:

Solidly Face: Taguchi Japan

 

Taguchi Japan isn't really a faction (they're not recognized as one), they're more like a group of guys that are all buds, and just indulge Taguchi's Soccer Coach fantasy, and just happen to be each other's first choices for tag partners.

 

EDIT: Scratch that, they area stable, just not treated as one (or act like one, really) in announcements.

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Since this thread has hosted previous "future of the Bullet Club" discussion and speculation, I figured I'd drop this here. It's not really a spoiler, but I have free time today and my mind is wandering, so I'm gonna connect a couple dots:

Spoiler

First, we had Cody mention a phone call from Tama in the most recent episode of Being the Elite. Notably, Scurll didn't get the call, and doesn't share Cody's skepticism regarding the Bucks. Then, in an interview today, he says that he wants to keep 2018 relatively open so he can work New Japan more. So, for all the wild hypotheticals, maybe he will just be the guy to usurp Omega.

 

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Elgin/Kojima- was ok,didn't enjoy it as much as other Kojima matches.

Okada/Juice- good match with a very enjoyable finishing sequence. Juice/Kojima definitely my 2 favourite guys to watch in the tournament so far.

Kojima/Omega-good story even if it was a bit rushed. Kenny (as someone previously mentioned) looked very beat up.

EDIT: Just watched Ibushi/Ishii and its my match of the tournament so far (I'm watching matches in random order so I expect this to change). A hard hitting war which had a great crowd to make it even better.

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1 hour ago, peterien said:

Kenny (as someone previously mentioned) looked very beat up.

IIRC, Meltzer said at the onset that a lot of these guys were beat up coming into the tourney. Wouldn't surprise me if Kenny were one of the guys putting that bug in his ear. 

Watching Okada-Juice right now. As a casual fan, a question: Does Okada often go to the stand-on-the-chair-and-clap to telegraph his crossbody over the guardrail? For some reason that knocked me through a loop. 

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Yeesh, ZSJ/Makabe is near the top of my list for worst of the tournament so far.  I generally hate Makabe, but this was terrible even by his standards.  He was clearly displeased to be putting over the skinny Brit and went out there and sat on his ass for 10 minutes.  As a result, ZSJ really got nothing out of subbing one of the toughest guys on the roster.

And I really want to criticize ZSJ here, because he went back to a lot of the unfocused matwork that I always hate.  Now I work your leg!  Now I work your arm!  Now I work your neck!  It's a 10 minute match, man, pick one body part and go with it.  But I think he was just trying to do the best he could with what Makabe was giving him to work with.

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Ishii/Nagata was yet another fantastic performance by Nagata in his last run. I am sure his body will hate him in the morning, but I appreciate him going blow for blow with the human fireplug for our pleasure.

Not sure exactly why but I really dug Yoshi-Hashi Fale. That spin out sleeper counter to the Bad Luck Fale was slick.

I love Naito, but Goto just does nothing for me, so this was just kinda there.

Makabe/ZS Jr was the weakest of the night for me. Zach never should have traded shots and consistently worked smarter throughout. This story just never seemed to get off the ground before it was over.

Ibushi/Tanahashi had a great finishing run and the sketchy selling by Ibushi just seems par for the course so it didn't take me out of the match too much.

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insta-reaction to day 12 from Fukuoka

SANADA-Juice a solid traditional wrestling match with selling and facials and a clear heel/face dynamic that won't set the world alight but was good. ***1/2

Yano-Elgin think Big Mike wanted none of this and though the finish makes sense for the match it makes a lot of the tournament look stupid. *1/2

Kojima-Suzuki another stupid listless brawl with interference. you'd think with the history between the two and Kojima probably working his last G1 they might make this more of a traditional match. but no. 3/4*

Okada-Tonga Okada did a good job of letting Tonga seem like he might pull off the upset in this house show semi-final style bout. **3/4

EVIL-Omega this will probably be talked about by quite a lot of people because of a couple of completely dumb moments. first EVIL hits uranage on Omega from apron to a table that is part damaged and has a frayed surface, leading EVIL to nearly lose an eye. he bleeds and looks like he's doing alright. then something knocks him silly in the last minute or so and is clearly trying to crawl to a corner to die in peace and get a referee stop. Kenny comes in and carries right on, picking up a non-cooperative EVIL and getting his shit - some knees and the One-Winged Angel - in before the win. I'm sure some people who have worked more professional matches than me (2) will tell me that this was ok or maybe even part of the finish but it felt uncomfortable and wrong and I wasn't into all the table stuff on a weekday show like this to begin with. It makes Kenny look unsafe and inconsiderate in his mania to go MOTY candidate. Sometimes you just got to tell the story. DUD

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I can't imagine Evil wasn't out on his feet--or rather, out on his back, then pulled to his feet, hit a few more times, then allowed to stay down. I liked the match a lot (until the obvious), plunder and all, and thought Evil acquitted himself really well in a very effects heavy main event... but it's really hard to overlook that finish, which was at best uncomfortable, and probably outright dangerous. Accidents happen, of course, but I wish Omega had simply pulled his arm from under the rope when the ref refused to count, and pinned him. That didn't happen, though, so now I'll just hope Evil's as ok as possible, and if he's suffered the magnitude of concussion that seems likely, I'll hope he isn't just sent back out there. 

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4 minutes ago, Beech27 said:

Dave was asked how Evil is doing; this is good news, I suppose, though you have to wonder how bad he was hurt before...

 

Dave was pushing Shibata's hospital stay was a work a while ago, so I'm going to take him reporting on japanese injuries with a grain of salt for a while.  I find it hard to believe that Evil is fine after watching that end a few times.

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Thanks to a couple of slowish days at work I'm all caught up (which I'm glad because I'm not going to able to watch anything next week so I'll be well behind and will probably be watching the finals a week late).

EVIL-Omega - I was really looking forward to this and it was pretty good most of the time. EVIL almost losing an eye was bad, but the V-Trigger against the ropes and everything after that was truly awful. Gotta say WTF to Omega, he seemed to realize something was wrong while EVIL was trying to die in peace and covered him but then he picks him up knees him in the face, V-Trigger and then had to dead lift squat him up for the OWA that is some terrible judgement Kenny a rollup would have done just fine or either let him roll or roll him to the outside and take a countout. Pretty much everything about the ending was wrong and terrible, just glad that the against the rope v-trigger didn't go as bad as it could have that's the tinniest silver lining I could find.

other notes from what I watched the past few days

-Juice is still awesome 

-The finish to Elgin/Yano was silly and odd for the tournament seeing has how Suzuki (and co.) brutalize his opponents with chairs throughout the match in plain sight with out a DQ

-Ibushi is amazing. I thought his match with Tanahashi was great.

-Naito/Goto was as fine of a Goto match in the G1

-Surprised how ZSJ is faring in the standings and in my enjoyment of him overall 

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