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1 hour ago, ohtani's jacket said:

This article gives too much credit to Japan having a strategy in the first place. Japan's approach to coronavirus has been the same as it's approach to Fukushima. I'm sure Koike is frustrated, but there's so much bureaucracy in the Japanese political system and so much time wasted in "discussions." It seems they won't risk adversely affecting the economy unless the death toll begins to spike. 

Oddly, I’m watching SHIN GODZILLA right now. The filmmakers would seem to share this opinion.

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Kyushu Pro did their annual Kinniku Yamakasa show without an audience. Main was Genkai vs Yuji Hino for the Kyushu Pro title. Genki Horiguchi and Yokosuka Susumu are in a three way for the tag titles aganst Kenichi Arai and Minoru Fujita and Naoki Sakurajima and Kazuaki Mihara.

 

This is usually their biggest show of the year. They generally bring in one big name like Muto and Tenryu (who had his last match in Kyushu for them). I believe for their 10th anniversary show they were going to run the Kokusai Center in Hakata which only NJPW (Dontaku) and Dragon Gate (Final Gate) run and then Fukuoka got hit by a typhoon that weekend and the show went on with a much smaller crowd.

Edited by lostinube
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(No need to spoiler tag this now, I suppose.)

I'm not really sure why NOAH is going the double-champ route so soon after introducing the National Championship, but it struck me as mostly superfluous to begin with. They don't really have the roster depth to justify two big singles titles. But I guess we'll see. 

I watched Kenoh/Nakajima this morning. They kick eachother hard, and often, which I expected. The sum is... almost boring, though, which I didn't expect. I suppose they were going for a kind of deliberate violence, both men comfortable and unhurried. It felt plodding to me, though. 

And while I liked the idea behind the finish--Kenoh wins via a flash KO, after a headkick--I didn't think it was executed especially well. That is, the camera zooms in and clearly catches Nakajima talking to the ref right before the match is called. So either he's legitimately unable to continue (which I don't believe) or the camera demonstrated he wasn't knocked out at all. 

Maybe (probably) that's nitpicking, and I'd have easy justifications if I'd liked the match more to that point. (The ref asks him if he can continue; he responds with jibberish; ref calls the match. Easy.) I think I might just be getting bored of matches built almost wholly around letting the other guy hit you, and then taking your turn. I understand fighting spirit, that it's not just about trying to win, but prove something along the way; but I wish it were a trope more sparingly deployed, and a larger emphasis was put on striking to win.  

Edited by Beech27
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I remember debating the "Best Guy Who Never Won The IWGP" a few years back. I think my unpublished clickbait Top Ten List was Masa Saito, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Shiro Koshinaka, Hiroshi Hase, Naoya Ogawa, Don Frye, Hirooki Goto, Katsuyori Shibata, Tomohiro Ishii, Minoru Suzuki. And I think I still stand by it - apologies to Bigelow, Hirata, Bernard, Devitt and my beloved Osamu Nishimura. Kota obviously makes the list if things stay the same, SANADA maybe not.

Edited by John E. Dynamite
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7 hours ago, lostinube said:

Kyushu Pro did their annual Kinniku Yamakasa show without an audience. Main was Genkai vs Yuji Hino for the Kyushu Pro title. Genki Horiguchi and Yokosuka Susumu are in a three way for the tag titles aganst Kenichi Arai and Minoru Fujita and Naoki Sakurajima and Kazuaki Mihara.

 

This is usually their biggest show of the year. They generally bring in one big name like Muto and Tenryu (who had his last match in Kyushu for them). I believe for their 10th anniversary show they were going to run the Kokusai Center in Hakata which only NJPW (Dontaku) and Dragon Gate (Final Gate) run and then Fukuoka got hit by a typhoon that weekend and the show went on with a much smaller crowd.

Mihara is just the best dude. I sincerely like that guy. Sakurajima used to wrestle in Osaka Pro as Setoguchi. As much as I like Mihara & Sakurajima as a team, I really miss The Green Bears, which was Mihara's team with Shigehiro Irie. They looked, and worked, great together. I wish they'd had a longer run and earned a title reign somewhere. I'm still holding out hope for that to happen some day. 

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I think almost all the guys who wrestle full time for Kyushu Pro have changed their names to reflect their Kyushu roots. Setoguchi changed his name to Sakurjima after the volcanic island in his native Kagoshima. The former junji.com is now Junji Tanaka and he does a Yamakasa bearer gimmick which means you see way more of his butt then is normal in pro wrestling. Genkai used to be Hideyoshi in Osaka Pro, I think.

Edited by lostinube
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Was Maeda still with the company when the IWGP belt was around? Imagine him winning the strap in the 80s and defending it in NJPW vs UWF matches...

Also Triple Crown fantasy question: is there any reason to believe Baba ever thought about putting the TC on Abdullah the Butcher in the 80s? I realize Abby was already way past him prime by the time the TC was formed (and mostly working legends/comedy matches I guess?) but given what a legend he was I wonder if it wasn't a conversation at some point. 

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14 hours ago, John E. Dynamite said:

I remember debating the "Best Guy Who Never Won The IWGP" a few years back. I think my unpublished clickbait Top Ten List was Masa Saito, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Shiro Koshinaka, Hiroshi Hase, Naoya Ogawa, Don Frye, Hirooki Goto, Katsuyori Shibata, Tomohiro Ishii, Minoru Suzuki. And I think I still stand by it - apologies to Bigelow, Hirata, Bernard, Devitt and my beloved Osamu Nishimura. Kota obviously makes the list if things stay the same, SANADA maybe not.

I think Kota Ibushi's time will come. If it wasn't for the Double Gold Rush at Wrestle Kingdom 14, I suspect Ibushi was going to take the IWGP Heavyweight Championship from Kazuchika Okada at this year's WK.

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He had a couple against Kawada in 91 that are really good. Kobashi was later in ascending, and Taue was still a faction underling to Jumbo at the time.

Edit: I was wrong! The Tsuruta singles matches against Kobashi were more substantial than I’d recalled. Which means I know what I’m watching for the next few days.

Edited by Beech27
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I was gonna say, I'd have to check the dates but he has a couple classics with Kawada and Kobashi. I'm sure I'm not alone in that I lost my reference points to a lot of those obscure (but essential) AJPW matches when the Dynamic A AJPW Pimping Post got deleted from the archives of this site way back when. 

Very much on this note, does anybody know if the Jumbo/Taue vs  Miracle Violence Connection tag title match from 7/10/92 is anywhere online? Their first match from 4/3/92 is excellent as well but I remember the 7/10 rematch really feeling like the last Truly Great Jumbo Match (as well as probably being the first Truly Great Taue Match). 

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I want to find my Dynamic A Jumbo/Misawa VHS and upload it. I think it may have been an 8 hour recording.

Belgian Waffle, this somewhat sketchy Russian Facebook-alike site has Sugiura Holdman's archive of AJPW footage which includes most everything pre-split from the '90s, including the October '92 rematch. Not sure why there is dueling commentary on that show though. You'll need to sign up. I recommend using a burner email account and information.

BTW, speaking of AJPW commentary from its golden age, Kenji Wakabayashi... Apparently he was involved in some sort of scandal where he and a fellow professor at a university at which he taught media classes were using their privilege to entice students to get real comfortable at one of their places, including hot tub and I think sex. It was google translated but I was shocked to see an image of him. I can't seem to find the source, so I hope I'm not misrepresenting what I found out a few months ago. Wakabayashi was the more formal of the NTV commentators and the voice of Giant Gram 2000. He looks unwell. 

元・日テレ 若林健治アナに男子学生へのセクハラ疑惑を直撃! | 週刊 ...

Spoilered due to size

Spoiler

元・日テレ 若林健治アナに男子学生へのセクハラ疑惑を直撃! | 週刊 ...

 

Edited by Jiji
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2 hours ago, Belgian_Waffle said:

I was gonna say, I'd have to check the dates but he has a couple classics with Kawada and Kobashi. I'm sure I'm not alone in that I lost my reference points to a lot of those obscure (but essential) AJPW matches when the Dynamic A AJPW Pimping Post got deleted from the archives of this site way back when. 

Very much on this note, does anybody know if the Jumbo/Taue vs  Miracle Violence Connection tag title match from 7/10/92 is anywhere online? Their first match from 4/3/92 is excellent as well but I remember the 7/10 rematch really feeling like the last Truly Great Jumbo Match (as well as probably being the first Truly Great Taue Match). 

It’s posted to the All Japan Pro Wrestling Classics page on Facebook.

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11 hours ago, Jiji said:

BTW, speaking of AJPW commentary from its golden age, Kenji Wakabayashi... Apparently he was involved in some sort of scandal where he and a fellow professor at a university at which he taught media classes were using their privilege to entice students to get real comfortable at one of their places, including hot tub and I think sex. It was google translated but I was shocked to see an image of him. I can't seem to find the source, so I hope I'm not misrepresenting what I found out a few months ago. Wakabayashi was the more formal of the NTV commentators and the voice of Giant Gram 2000. He looks unwell. 

 

From a quick online search (obviously this is not a definitive answer) those photos and the story accompanying it are from 2017 about an incident in 2015. He looks better now.

He has been running his own announcing school for a couple years and apparently he had invited over some announcing student from Senshu University and he sexually harassed him. As far as I can tell, he is still in business and is still working. Most of the stories about this case are either republishing the original story or slightly repurposed versions almost all using the same photos. Jprime is a tabloid and the story used an anonymous source so it's hard to tell what exactly happened and if the story is just being used as way to imply that Wakabayashi is gay.
 

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I am fine with the NOAH double crown thing.  Part of me wishes they would unify the titles fully and restart the title history from scratch to further move away from the past. Would undo lot of post Misawa death booking baggage from the top title,  create many new firsts as well all over again.

I guess NOAH might book Kenoh to win and then lose the double crown to Kaito or have Go winning both titles and then face Kaito. Or maybe Muto wins his match against Kaito and faces Go or Kenoh for both belts.

NOAH may however just do 60 min draw and neither person wins both titles.

 

Edited by D.Z
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If Go instigates another 30-minute staredown, a draw is definitely on the table. 

But I don’t see NOAH wiping the GHC history in any case. Go is winning matches now by comboing Misawa and Kobashi signature spots, Kaito’s whole thing is being a Misawa fan, and they’re one parent-company decision away from booking Jun Akiyama again. 

Kenoh has said a lot of things about leaving the past behind, but I think they just want him to be—or he wants to be—NOAH’s Naito, rebelling against every corporate decision in newspapers and magazines. 

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Actually they mention not every wrestler will be on the same cards. Limited roster.

Anyway Kaito is practising the Space Rolling Elbow. He did the Dragon Screw and the original  Shining Wizard (knee).  He did the knee attack in one match.



 

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