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NJPW Best of the Super Junior 2018


Raziel

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Dragon Lee/Sho was fun. I would have liked if they sold their arms a bit more and couple of catches by Sho looked iffy, but overall was probably my match of the tournament so far.

Kushida/Sabin had smart match, but at time Sabin wasn't able to keep up and I don't know. I will be surprised if this will make Kushida's top 4 matches when tournament wraps up.

Not sure whats next for Scurll. He again got all of his shit in and was chocked out rather convincingly. And with Taiji now being in Bullet Club I wonder if Scurll will be getting many singles opportunities once this tournament ends. Not that I'd complain about that,  not a big fan of his.

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No joke, Scurll might have the worst execution of any submission move ever with how loose his crossface chickenwing is. Hiromu continues to be great though so the match was okay. Him and Kushida are really the only guys I'm excited to watch in this tournament. Tiger Mask, Taguchi, and Kanemaru are all past their due date and the foreign indie guys are fine to good but not that interesting (with the exception of Flip, who I find baffling in his unwatchability). Kind of hoping Sho or Yoh have break out performances to give the division hope for the future.

And as a side note, I miss when New Japan plumbed the depths of Japanese indies to fill out the tournament. Where's Big Boss Ma-G-Ma, huh? Where's Gentaro? (I do not remember if those guys were any good.)

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You can tell Dragon Lee gets excited when he gets to come over to Japan and work the guys he knows well from their excursions in Mexico.  Those matches are always fiery, and Sho was no exception.

Marty continues to approach Michael Elgin levels of self-sabotage in terms of how much crazy shit he lets guys kick out of on the way to defeat.  I think both guys go into their matches working for GIFs.  Like, they think way more people will see the 5 second clip of them tombstoning Hiromu on the apron and think they're awesome than will actually watch the match and find out that not only did the tombstone not win it, but he LOST after that and much more, so....fuck it, do the tombstone on the apron.  Neither seem to realize that this *does* in fact have a cumulative effect over time of making you look like a shmuck.

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3 hours ago, Godfrey said:

No joke, Scurll might have the worst execution of any submission move ever with how loose his crossface chickenwing is.

I take it you have not seen SANADA's Skull End?

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Ah, just noticed the night 3 BOSJ matches from May 20 are on NJ World, but it's only the tournament matches individually, not the whole show.  I kept looking throughout the day yesterday but might just have been looking in the wrong place.

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18 hours ago, EVA said:

Marty continues to approach Michael Elgin levels of self-sabotage in terms of how much crazy shit he lets guys kick out of on the way to defeat.  I think both guys go into their matches working for GIFs.  Like, they think way more people will see the 5 second clip of them tombstoning Hiromu on the apron and think they're awesome than will actually watch the match and find out that not only did the tombstone not win it, but he LOST after that and much more, so....fuck it, do the tombstone on the apron.  Neither seem to realize that this *does* in fact have a cumulative effect over time of making you look like a shmuck.

I agree with GIFs part. I have been running thru my head this "conspiracy theory" for a while now since nothing else really makes sense.

Thou I'm not sure if it is really self-sabotage. I mean, it is to me, to you and few others that I have seen here write about it, but you look at reddit or some other places and you see guys claiming that Elgin/Ishii was their MOTY or at least MOTYC. And crowds pop for that stuff. And more movez you do more likely you are to get high rating from Meltzer which tends to help people financially.

And I'd argue that it isn't just Elgin or Scurll. We would be saying same things about Omega if he wasn't one of the top guys which meant that he is usually winning his matches. Imagine if he had 40-50% win ratio, we complain now about him spamming his V-Trigger, but if it didn't end up with him winning? Problem really is wrestling style. I remember someone pointed out in Dontaku thread how fundamentally different White/Finlay was to something like Omega/Elgin.

Anyway, my takeaway from third day was that Yoh was better with Tiger Mask than with Bushi, but not by much. So far he really isn't standing out to me and it looks like Sho is the one who might eventually get singles title shot while Yoh will remain as tag guy. But obviously it is still early and things might change. And well I hope that they will.

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55 minutes ago, S.K.o.S. said:

Ah, just noticed the night 3 BOSJ matches from May 20 are on NJ World, but it's only the tournament matches individually, not the whole show.  I kept looking throughout the day yesterday but might just have been looking in the wrong place.

Generally for any tournament not named G1 Climax, NJ World splits it to just the matches no commentary for the small venues (which would be Shizuoka).  You're only really going to get the Korakuen shows in full, and maybe the Osaka show.  

 

 

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1 hour ago, S.K.o.S. said:

Ah, just noticed the night 3 BOSJ matches from May 20 are on NJ World, but it's only the tournament matches individually, not the whole show.  I kept looking throughout the day yesterday but might just have been looking in the wrong place.

They always do that for the BoSJ house shows. Hard cam, no commentary, just the tournament matches. They can be fun. Only watched the first one from yesterday but Tiger Mask was really getting the crowd into his nearfalls??

The two shows booked at the Nagoya International Conference Hall Event Hall are marked as Samurai TV tapings so I assume they'll get the full show treatment on World. The mains on those are Ospreay/BUSHI and Hiromu/Taguchi.

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Lots of great action, lots of small details, lots of good visuals and lots of character. This match was perfect example of why I watch NJPW.

And best part about all of that is that while at times it looked like they legitimately wanted to kill each other it never felt like they were "overdoing" it like Elgin or Scurll with big movez.

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19 minutes ago, Beech27 said:

Also noted a few places on twitter that YOH's singles gear looks a bit Stardust Genius, which fits with his history with Naito, and the LIJ swerve.

What is his history with Naito and LiJ? I don't recall anything for some reason.

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38 minutes ago, Archibald said:

What is his history with Naito and LiJ? I don't recall anything for some reason.

Naito focused much of his harassment on YOH(ei Komatsu) when he was a Young Lion, kicking him, making him hold the ring ropes open, etc. Then, at Fantasticamania (billed as his sendoff), Naito invited him to the ring, gave him and LIJ hat, and acted like this was all a long initiation and he'd be invited to join...

DdjetDzVAAEM7LV.jpg

... then the group beat him down, left him in the ring, and he vanished to North America.

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5 hours ago, Infinit said:

FTFY

Um, thanks?

Hiromu/Desperado was indeed fantastic.  I feel like Hiromu is on a mission to prove he should be the face of the division in this tournament.  And one of the downsides of NJPW keeping such a huge roster is that they can hide a great guy like Desperado in plain sight.

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10 hours ago, Beech27 said:

Naito focused much of his harassment on YOH(ei Komatsu) when he was a Young Lion, kicking him, making him hold the ring ropes open, etc. Then, at Fantasticamania (billed as his sendoff), Naito invited him to the ring, gave him and LIJ hat, and acted like this was all a long initiation and he'd be invited to join...

DdjetDzVAAEM7LV.jpg

... then the group beat him down, left him in the ring, and he vanished to North America.

Thanks, I have fully watched only 2018 Fantasticamania and probably haven't seen that particular moment at all. But now knowing that, I guess that his win over Bushi makes a lot more sense. Sometimes I wonder how many details we end up missing in NJPW shows due to lower card guys usually referencing some obscure, relatively speaking, moments.

6 hours ago, EVA said:

Hiromu/Desperado was indeed fantastic.  I feel like Hiromu is on a mission to prove he should be the face of the division in this tournament.  And one of the downsides of NJPW keeping such a huge roster is that they can hide a great guy like Desperado in plain sight.

I don't really understand why he has to prove anything to be honest. Talent, connection with the crowd and popularity in general is there and makes him superior to every other Junior by big margin. If Gedo doesn't see him as the face of the division for some reason then additional few high end matches probably won't change anything.

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There are so many guys who could be face of the Division that Despy gets lost in the shuffle behind Osprey, Kushida, and Hiromu , and the Japanese crowds love the Villain shtick so Marty gets his shots ahead of Despy as well.

Taichi going heavy was the best thing ever to happen to Despy.

 

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Desperado had some cool things to say after his victory:

"I hide and I run and I lie, too. Do you know why? Because I'm a champion."

And other part is a bit longer so I won't quote it, but basically he hopes that all those juniors talking about elevating the division will succeed and then he'll just conquer everything they built.

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He's such a good promo. It's a shame he's so good at his undercard heel role and making his opponents look really good, because he could be a legit top guy in the division.

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