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Puroresu General Discussion for 2019


Lawful Metal

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If KENTA and Irie were to end up there, it's pretty easy to imagine increased anxiety that New Japan might be starting to slowly exert the kind of signing power it has mostly neglected to use.

Chris Ridgeway is going to... some fed in Japan. (He hasn't said where.) To reference a dated thread, Ridgeway's a bit of a Johnny Kickpads, but I've enjoyed what I've seen. He's probably beating Walter for the Progress title soon as well.

 

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I've seen Ridgeway twice on the Tetsujin shoot style shows. He's not really a worked-shoot guy but someone who can work in that general mix in Japan now. Chris Brookes is better though as he has actual catch in his arsenal.

A proper merger between just two of those three All Japan/offshoot companies would be a real rocket up the arse of the Japanese scene. I don't want to see Vince style hyper capitalism but I think New Japan could use a domestic threat to remind them of the fans that served them in the hard times.

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3 hours ago, sevendaughters said:

I daresay you are right, meaning their hope to chase NJPW remains but an idle hope. Probably.

Also, Jun, if you're reading, Katsuya Kitamura is available.

Yeah, he should go to FREEDOMS, tell Takashi Sasaki to sign him up, Jun.

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My gigantic order from the Black Friday ivpvideos sale (and my first purchase of physical puroresu in years) finally showed up  and I'm planning on plowing through it.

I'm really committed to watching all the big show from NJPW's dark years so I ordered basically everything from the beginning of the fall to the end of 2001. Started with the late 99 show with Great Muta vs. Great Nita (so fun) & a pretty solid Blonde Outlaws vs. Nagata/Nakanishi IWGP Tag Titles match and now I'm on to the doomed 10/11/99 Tokyo Dome show where Inoki ruins Hashimoto as a draw forever. I'll be posting coherent-ish thoughts about these shows as I get through them / as the whiskey orders me to.

WHISKEY THOUGHT #1: Shinjiro Ohtani would have been a multiple time IWGP Heavyweight Champion and an key piece of the post-Inoki Transition To Tanahashi Team in a more just universe, similar to Nagata and Makabe.

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An impossible non-question with a bit of set-up:

1. Kenny has said on multiple podcast interviews that Gedo approached him about the last Okada match/title win on rather short notice. Kenny further seems to imply that the plan--or at least his goal--was to do more tag stuff with Ibushi.

2. Naito had lost to Okada at the dome, when he was presumed by many to be the winner. That much is uncontroversial. There are more than a few fans who suggest that loss was so Kenny could be the one to beat Okada, however. And of course if that's true, either Gedo didn't tell Kenny, or Kenny hasn't been honest in his reporting of circumstances. Both are possible.

3. It seems really unlikely to me that Okada's epic reign was planned to end... just, y'know, whenever, to whomever gets hot. It also contradicts virtually everything we're told about Gedo's careful booking.

4. It's also true, however, that Kenny's Golden Lovers/Bullet Club angle wasn't done, and hadn't seemed to build to a title shot.

5. Numbering this suggests some kind of logical sequencing, leading from prepositions to a conclusion. I'm not sure I have the former in any real sense, though, and I'm very sure I don't have the latter. It all just seems a little odd, to me. Either Okada's historic reign was ended without much planning; or there was a plan, but it had to be changed (Shibata?) and Kenny was the next best choice; or Kenny was the plan all along, and one or several people just haven't said so.

Work is slow today, and I can't quite figure out what I think is most likely.

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