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NJPW G1 Climax 28, LIVE AT THE BUDOKAN! 7/14-8/12


Raziel

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It’ll be interesting to see how his Okada match goes. It’s easy to picture Condescending Champ Okada dominating him, and the crowd lighting up for his ultimately futile hope spots; but Bonkers Balloon Okada is something else. Page could get quite a bit of the match to showcase himself or Okada could lead him around anyway, but I've little idea which  

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Yujiro blurting out crazy accusations against Kenny is always the highlight of BTE. "Facking pedophile!" "Are you facking wathist!?" I honestly didn't know Omega had idiots calling him racist following his criticisms of the majority of natives not putting in gym work until Meltzer mentioned it today in his always hilariously awkward recap of BTE. It's mouth breathers like those that setback progressive ideas and make them seem juvenile by association. It's a serious shame. And Dave sounds like such a dad trying to figure out what the hell new thing his kids are watching this week on the TV when he does BTE summaries. It's both very funny and great.

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57 minutes ago, Oyaji said:

Yujiro blurting out crazy accusations against Kenny is always the highlight of BTE. "Facking pedophile!" "Are you facking wathist!?" I honestly didn't know Omega had idiots calling him racist following his criticisms of the majority of natives not putting in gym work until Meltzer mentioned it today in his always hilariously awkward recap of BTE. It's mouth breathers like those that setback progressive ideas and make them seem juvenile by association. It's a serious shame. And Dave sounds like such a dad trying to figure out what the hell new thing his kids are watching this week on the TV when he does BTE summaries. It's both very funny and great.

I have stopped listening to Dave's shows (no issue with him, just not much time for as many podcasts/shows)  But if he recaps this on a regular basis then I might have to start catching these.

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SANADA looks like Dr. Wagner's long lost Japanese son in this picture, which is probably not the most important thing, but man, what an angle that would be. Maybe not surprisingly, he says a lot of the same things Naito said in his: He's excited about their match, although it's weird--and no, it's not for leadership, because that's not how this works; he'd prefer to face EVIL in the finals, or Okada; he's excited about the Ibushi match, but is kinda over it just being about their athleticism; moreover, he (again, like Naito) suggests the GL reunion has been a diversion from Ibushi reaching his singles potential, like he's just Kenny's partner now, which seems a waste. (Enough people keep mentioning that, that I think we're supposed to at least wonder if they're right--and the booking has basically supported that conclusion. Although Kenny, for all of his now-champ bravado, has insisted on speculating that Ibushi should still be considered on his level, while putting the rest of the roster below both of them.)

Aside: Wrestling twitter, so far as I can tell, has really got behind the notion that Tanahashi is winning this. Basically the idea is that the winner rarely comes from the champion's block; Okada isn't showing signs of a turnaround; Kenny and Tana haven't touched since mid-2016; Kenny's comments about the native roster could be most effectively rebuked by someone who carried the company; it'd be a nice last main event ride for Tanahashi--successful if Kenny happens to be leaving, or a valiant defeat otherwise.

I need matches to watch.

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1 hour ago, Beech27 said:
Although Kenny, for all of his now-champ bravado, has insisted on speculating that Ibushi should still be considered on his level, while putting the rest of the roster below both of them.

Well thats what a good friend would do.

Idea of Omega/Tanahashi WK main event sounds interesting, but... wouldn't that just lead us to another Tanahashi/Okada series? That isn't good for Okada.

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31 minutes ago, Archibald said:

Well thats what a good friend would do.

Yeah. It's really only interesting to me insofar as Kenny hasn't always been portrayed as a very good friend--not just the deliberate heel stuff, but the sort of accidental upstagings, etc.

Quote

Idea of Omega/Tanahashi WK main event sounds interesting, but... wouldn't that just lead us to another Tanahashi/Okada series? That isn't good for Okada.

It'd at least put it on the table. Maybe Naito, though that's been done a lot recently. Maybe Ibushi would unseat him, or White--though you could argue both would need to take the IC step first. (Hell, Ibushi still wasn't won a single heavyweight title in New Japan, if the cup doesn't count.) Fwiw, I don't think Tana's winning this, but I think it's interesting how quickly so many people seem to have reached that conclusion based on these early results, and I understand why. (Of course, I'm absurdly prone to speculation and inference based on scant data.)

Somewhat on the topic of Tana's sustained popularity:

Top five are: Naito, Tanahashi, Nakamura, Okada, Omega, and then Ikemen Jiro at number 6, which I did not expect. Hiromu is the top junior, at 7; Kairi Sane the top woman, at 9; other noteworthy things including listing the Giant Panda, Kento Miyahara being all the way down at 25, behind people like BUSHI; and Mutoh/Muta being given seperate numbers. But now I'm way off topic...

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Thanks for posting the SANADA interview. Love hearing that guy's thoughts on wrestling. I also cannot believe Kuroshio is the sixth most popular wrestler in Japan. That is insane.

It would be classic Gedo booking not to have White win his block after those two big wins but I still think it's his. I do hope he gets DQd now that the refs should know what's coming. Still have no idea who's coming out of B Block. It really does feel like the right time to pull the trigger on Ibushi with the GL match and him never winning a major trophy beyond a NJ cup win. 

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Three things for me pop out from that list:

1. Naito and Tanahashi are still very close to each other.

2. Naito and Tanahashi are so way ahead of everyone else.

3. There really isn't big gap between Okada and Omega. If I'm not mistaken voting was already going before Dominion so likely they'd be even closer since Omega got that huge win there.

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And has an even longer entrance than Undertaker. I don't mind him but ahead of most every other wrestling personality in Japan tho? Craziness. Also, had no idea that Tarzan Yamamoto was still so relevant. Seemed cool but I detest casual banter over intense matches, so his commentary on just about every non-major commercial tape from the '90s and '00s spoiled many a great match for me. Another crazy high name = Jun Kasai. How? Freedoms draws like 300 people on a good night with the occasional half full Korakuen show too.

And how is this list formulated? Fan poll? SO MANY QUESTIONS!

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Ikeman is a Wrestle 1 under contract wrestler. Mostly more popular than everyone else they have. They're giving him the slow push even if they know he isn't that good in the ring.

Hana Kimura is the most popular Joshi in Japan.

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Caught up on Night 1-3 with the exception of Naito vs Kenny (saving that for tonight).

Night 1 was better than I heard. Big Mike has looked pretty good and clearly seems motivated. I've liked Hangman so far, too. 

Zach vs Ibushi was load of fun. 

Agree on too many ref bumps and interference spots. They did the same thing a few years ago during the big BC push and later when Suzuki-Gun came back, but...yeah, it's egregious so far. 

The two big Jay White main events were fine. I dunno about Switchblade. He's young and he has the character done pretty well but I just don't see him at that top level yet. It feels like an overpush. He's pinned Omega, Okada and Tanahashi this year and I feel that someone like Sabre Jr. is a much better choice to be in that spot. 

 

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I honestly feel like Jay White would look better in NXT where he could just do character work 90% of the time and, like, one long-ish match every couple of months at Takeover.  He's really not at a point in his development where he should be counted on to fill 20-30 minute matches on a regular basis, but that's where he's slotted right now, and it's not doing him a lot of favors.

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Well, that was a great night. Tama still hasn't brought anything at all, but bemused babyface SANADA was fun enough--so too was the battle of pinning combos that followed. The next three were obviously great matchups on paper (on graphics?) and delivered as such. Juice and Kota showed great mutually stoked weirdo good dude chemistry, and Ishii and Goto are basically perfect ~serious fighting men~ foils/compliments for their respective opponents: Ishii both grounds and elevates Naito, and Goto can hang with Omega's style of main even artillery war. In both cases, the trolling/stunting/taunting escalates the violence and then, well, it just hangs out there for 15-20 minutes (excepting Kenny's kinda shitty headlocks), and you see the crowd after the fall is counted, and everyone just has these ecstatic expressions splashed over their faces, because everything got pro wrestling as hell, and I felt basically the same watching on my computer. I'm gonna watch the final two matches again this afternoon and have a stupid good time. 

 

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