Puroresu General Discussion for 2018

[Control]

http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2018/04/2018-ongoing-moty-list-mammoth.html?m=1

Here’s a positive review of a Toru Sugiura match.

[FlaeBlazer]

TAKA Michinoku is being dismissed as Kaientai Dojo company director/board member and he won’t be paid from November 2018 to October 2019.

[Control]

What’s the deal with Kenny Omega sitting out parts of tours—or (I think?) whole tours except the big shows? Doesn’t he live in Japan?

[Beech27]

He sorta addressed it a couple weeks ago:

Basically, he always makes the argument that video game convention appearances, the Jericho Cruise, and other such things do more to promote New Japan than wrestling in front of people who are, by definition, already fans, on smaller shows. (I am old, and would prefer if the champion wrestler was around, wrestling, but it's fine. I also think this sort of thing is the biggest reason to believe he won't go to WWE; he seems to have no interest in that kind of schedule.)

[Raziel]

I get he's doing appearances, but Tag League is the last big tour before WK and basically 3 out of the 4 Heavy singles champs are sitting out the go home tour for the biggest show of the year and meanwhile Tanahashi is teaming with Okada all tour and facing Firing Squad while the fucking Elite are no where to be found.  I bitch out Red Belt Champ Brock being absentee 90% of the time, but at least Brock shows up in the build up shows, Omega and Cody can't be arsed.  I'm pretty much done with the Elite.  At least during Power Struggle, there was a logical proxy with Ibushi facing off with Tana duing the show and ignoring his opponent but now, nope, not even a proxy.

[Curt McGirt]

The boss of a tiny indy named after his wrestling stable not getting paid by said indy, which probably doesn't make much money anyway, is amusing to me. 

[Nice Guy Eddie]

3 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

The boss of a tiny indy named after his wrestling stable not getting paid by said indy, which probably doesn't make much money anyway, is amusing to me. 

At least, it will save them some money.

[Archibald]

18 hours ago, Control said:

What’s the deal with Kenny Omega sitting out parts of tours—or (I think?) whole tours except the big shows? Doesn’t he live in Japan?

From what I remember Omega always said that he doesn't like doing house shows or smaller shows in general and thats why often he'd half ass them going 80% comedy and wearing "house show tights". So my guess would be that when he was working out a new deal with NJPW they agreed to cut those shows down. Argument probably could be made, is no Omega worse than house show tights Omega? Personally I haven't really missed him doing his "I don't care" shtick.

And well, I guess thats why he cut that promo after Dominion about native talent being lazy, knowing that he'll skip good chunk of the shows after G1 while Tanahashi (or some other potential G1 winner) will be there and make him look like a hypocrite. Or at least that was the idea, because I think that he went a bit too hard at this meta/shoot angle and whole thing started getting annoying.

[Curt McGirt]

Fucking primadonna. 

[Jiji]

I don't mind comedy Omega most of the time. He usually has some creative, funny spots. Is it any different than half-assed t-shirt Naito? I get it's him showing disrespect but I don't see him really doing much on midcard tags.

[EVA]

If Omega was able to negotiate fewer dates, then good for him.  Its not like New Japan didn't know what his dates were when they made him the champ.

[MapRef41N93W]

18 hours ago, Archibald said:

I think that he went a bit too hard at this meta/shoot angle and whole thing started getting annoying.

That's certainly the case for me. I'm sure I've griped about this before, but building to a big title match by basically saying that the real guy who plays your opponent puts on boring fake wrestling matches is one of the stupidest ideas imaginable. I mean, how could that ever be a productive kind of heat? Even if Tanahashi wins, it's just the character Hiroshi Tanahashi beating the character Kenny Omega in predetermined match, not the real Tanahashi somehow beating the real Tyson Smith. It's a feud with no possible payoff. And it's disappointing, because I thought that New Japan and Tanahashi, at least, would reject that kind of thing.

At first, it didn't seem like a critical mass of fans shared my sentiment. But now I am starting to notice some extra impatience with Omega going around. It seems like a lot of the appeal of Kenny Omega has come from people thinking the real guy behind the persona is cool, and so I wonder if he's burning some of that goodwill by basing the Tanahashi feud around obnoxious "shoot" insults of a wrestler almost everyone loves.

[Archibald]

20 hours ago, Oyaji said:

Is it any different than half-assed t-shirt Naito?

I'd say that yes. Naito still does his usual stuff in t-shirt, he just obviously tries less. I guess it depends on how much you like Omega's comedy, but to me he'd often turn into a parody of himself and it wouldn't even look like he is same character that does big singles matches.

[Ryan]

I'm just sitting back and laughing as people argue over this like it really matters. 

[Kang]

https://uproxx.com/prowrestling/njpw-president-ceo-harold-meij-interview-2018/6/

Harold interview.

[Ryan]

Basically, what I've always figured they were doing. Trying to bring the New Japan style to the rest of the world, but they know they need to adapt to make it work to get people used to the style they do. The 5000 people or whatever at some show haven't been tape trading since the 90's to know how all this stuff has shifted and gotten more nuanced depending on the period of time and the wrestlers in question like some folks. I've paid attention to New Japan since 2001 and watched a lot of it and lived through all of that, so it's fairly easy for me to grasp what they're doing. Also, I'm not full of hate. Shame on all of you! I hate you so much. Wait...

[Godfrey]

I just caught Omega/Fenix on Highspots and it's pretty great. Honestly, I can see why Kenny would rather do matches like that instead of schlepping across the Pacific to work inconsequential 6-mans. And really, Omega's absence is only a crime if the house show attendance drops when he's not there, which as far as I know it doesn't. Plus he put New Japan over after the match so if he gets some new World subscribers in Poughkeepsie he's done the job (I'm going to go out on a limb and assume anyone who's watching on Highspots is already familiar with the other streaming services). Meanwhile, Tanahashi is holding down Japan. It's a two pronged attack, a version of WWF running A and B shows only in 2018.

[John E. Dynamite]

I really have to follow DDT more closely. Go Shiozaki and Shinya friggin' Aoki are entrants in this year's Gran Prix.

[Kang]

[Kang]

Kaz from Wrestle 1 and Rongai are added to the Baba show, vs the mascaras brothers.

[Control]

What's with these tights and can they always wear them?

[Kang]

Old AJPW ring colors tribute plus the red and blue thing AJPW used to market stuff.

[Control]

It’s less the colours than the, uh, sparkles.

[Jenalysis]

On 11/10/2018 at 12:47 PM, Oyaji said:

I don't mind comedy Omega most of the time. He usually has some creative, funny spots. Is it any different than half-assed t-shirt Naito? I get it's him showing disrespect but I don't see him really doing much on midcard tags.

 

Halfassed Naito is lot less likely to get hurt for the big shows Naito.   That's why you have guys like BUSHI.

The CEO show - it was great exposure for NJPW- lot of video game fans were seeing it for the first time, and Kenny did not halfass it at all there (I'd put that CEO main as a top-10 NJPW match this year)

 

[Kang]

Fancam