The Natural Posted December 23, 2019 Author Share Posted December 23, 2019 Dominion 2018. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kang Posted December 23, 2019 Share Posted December 23, 2019 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted December 23, 2019 Author Share Posted December 23, 2019 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AxB Posted December 23, 2019 Share Posted December 23, 2019 My 2019 Wrestler of the year: 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John from Cincinnati Posted December 23, 2019 Share Posted December 23, 2019 (edited) 18 hours ago, Oyaji said: I am the biggest Omega fan on the board and his winning the title was the climax of that era of NJPW. Tanahashi had his nice G1 and WK win after that so I guess that is the true ending but the company has been meandering and directionless since then and we can consider that an epilogue of peak NJPW creative. HOWEVER, Omega won the title in what I and many consider the greatest match ever and then lost it in a fan-fucking-tastic match on the biggest stage in Japanese wrestling. The Cody defence in San Francisco and the triple threat were seemingly not befitting of the title after Okada's reign (but let's not forget he had some "good not great" matches with the likes of Fale and a hugely disappointing rematch with EVIL after goth boy pinned him in a masterclass and classic G1 bout in 2017). The beginning and ending of Omega's reign were up there with anything we've ever seen. Regardless, I don't see how Kenny's title reign quality negatively impacts that match or its standing in a year that didn't have a tonne of incredible, must-see matches. If it were competing with last year's matches, sure. But 2019 had lots of good-to-great but not a whole lot of matches I'd put in the 5 star range beyond Rhodes bros and Tana/Omega. I'm going to watch some of the more highly regarded matches on cagematch/Voices of Wrestling next week but I have a hard time beating either of those matches. While the match certainly merits consideration among the best of the year, I think there's a lot of context for why it doesn't feel like it has that kind of buzz. You put it down to the timing and anti-Omega sentiment, but I think there's a lot of reasons why it's not being spoken of a great deal. In a vacuum, it's clearly a good example of a high-end NJ main event. But I understand why it doesn't seem to jump out at people almost a year later. And I'm not sure I agree with timing being an issue working against them. His January 4th match from two years prior was still very much in the wrestling zeitgeist by year's end. A few things I feel work against the match: AEW was announced prior to January 4th and there were still WWE rumours abound. It would not be unfair to say people were looking past this match and thinking about what comes next. Tanahashi was coming off a quality G1, but he was hardly the freshest challenger. Many people, myself included, felt that the Omega story peaked with the 2/3 match vs Okada. No matter how good the Tanahashi match was, it felt like a comedown. Speaking of comedowns, the match didn't achieve the buzz of the WK11 main event or the anticipation of Naito's potential crowning at WK12. In the time since this match, both Omega and New Japan have continued to cool off. Not existing in a vacuum, there are a lot of reasons why it doesn't seem to have much buzz. And I don't think it has much to do with anti-Omega bias. I know you're a big Omega fan and you weren't going to take the crack about his lackluster reign lying down, so I probably should have come loaded for bear and included the full context of my thinking in my post on the last page.  Edited December 23, 2019 by West Newbury Bad Boy 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jiji Posted December 23, 2019 Share Posted December 23, 2019 (edited) This is an acceptable response, sir. I clearly value the match more than you but those reasons are valid. I actually think there's another reason why it doesn't get as much respect as I think it does: the weird shooty build to the match and Kenny's incoherent "YOU WANT ME TO BE THE BAD GUY?" Cleaner promo at the New Year's hype show and the later hype videos. I get that he was very reluctant to be a full on heel especially after the stuff with the Elite/BC and him finally reaching his goal and reuniting with Ibushi. It was likely his way of rebelling against Tanahashi and Gedo's (definitely the former, maybe the latter) wanting him to be more of a heel to set-up a clean, simple black and white narrative for the fans that were so behind Tanahashi getting one last go of it. Perhaps, that is the one point I'd argue against the above. Tanahashi wasn't stale at that point. People thought his time at the top was done but his G1 run was his "revitalization" and this was his big last chance. Fans were into it and it was doing great business ticket-wise. I think that probably has more to do with NJPW's popularity constantly being on the upswing rather than being attributed to one match or one person, but the fans dug the shit out of that Tana resurrection job, even if doing Ibushi/Omega at the Dome would've been the more sensible match (and that was why Omega didn't want to run it at KOPW in Sumo Hall - the only place he and Ibushi wanted to run the big match was at the Dome - instead opting for the triple threat which disappointed but was still good). At least that question of who would embrace the "DARKSIDE" played into the match with Tanahashi using tables and such. Definitely agree with a mutual cooling down period. Omega's reasoning is at least sensible with the focus of AEW laying more with Jericho as the first big title holder to establish the company and that's clearly proven to be the right decision. He also mentioned in an interview with Big Dave that it would've felt cheap for him to just transition his Best Bout Machine personality and in-ring approach from NJPW as it hadn't been earned in North America yet. Hence why he was experimenting with other stuff that didn't really click or he didn't stick with like the "I'm just gettin' started!" craziness. There was also a lot of subtle storytelling in matches like the first Pac one that he was not focused because of a post-Japan identity crisis and being concentrated on Moxley. Maybe it's been too subtle at times but the announcers generally do a good job of bringing it up. He needs to find himself again before he elevates to title contention and this is a nice detour. Despite all of that, in a year that is lacking in five star boys or many matches approaching it (or whatever metric you want to use), I feel like that match should be in heavy contention because of the immense storytelling it has that nothing I've seen barring the Cody/Dustin match contains. PS sorry for clogging up the photo thread with wrestling discussion. Moar Hana/Giulia pics! As Fumi Saito loves to say, "RACIALLY AMBIGUOUS!" The most important match in our industry. Edited December 23, 2019 by Oyaji 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John from Cincinnati Posted December 23, 2019 Share Posted December 23, 2019 Since we're pimping some of our favourite 2019 stuff, I'll start with: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted December 23, 2019 Author Share Posted December 23, 2019 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John from Cincinnati Posted December 23, 2019 Share Posted December 23, 2019 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kang Posted December 23, 2019 Share Posted December 23, 2019 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John from Cincinnati Posted December 23, 2019 Share Posted December 23, 2019 (edited) Edited December 23, 2019 by West Newbury Bad Boy 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kang Posted December 23, 2019 Share Posted December 23, 2019 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John from Cincinnati Posted December 23, 2019 Share Posted December 23, 2019 (edited) Edited December 23, 2019 by West Newbury Bad Boy 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kang Posted December 23, 2019 Share Posted December 23, 2019 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grilledcheese Posted December 23, 2019 Share Posted December 23, 2019 17 hours ago, D.Z said: Who's the ref there? Is that Dennis Stamp? 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John from Cincinnati Posted December 23, 2019 Share Posted December 23, 2019 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wyld Samurai Posted December 23, 2019 Share Posted December 23, 2019 17 minutes ago, grilledcheese said: Who's the ref there? Is that Dennis Stamp? That is totally Dennis Stamp. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DouglasC Posted December 23, 2019 Share Posted December 23, 2019 I admire the level of commitment to one's gimmick that the back of your trading cards are bugfuck insane. Â 5 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kang Posted December 24, 2019 Share Posted December 24, 2019 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DreamBroken Posted December 24, 2019 Share Posted December 24, 2019 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kang Posted December 24, 2019 Share Posted December 24, 2019 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kang Posted December 24, 2019 Share Posted December 24, 2019 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted December 24, 2019 Author Share Posted December 24, 2019 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted December 24, 2019 Author Share Posted December 24, 2019 Hurt. Heal. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Posted December 24, 2019 Share Posted December 24, 2019 Sleep. Sleep some more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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