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NJPW 2020 NJ Cup


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On 6/17/2020 at 5:09 AM, alstein said:

Nagata/Suzuki was a legit hossfight.

 

I think there was 4 wrestling moves the entire match. A takedown and leglock by Suzuki and 2 suplexes by Nagata.

It was all I hoped it would be.,

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23 hours ago, Raziel said:

Today proved one huge thing,

 

Yuji-san still has a few Classic matches left in the tank.

I had really hoped he’d get a TC shot against Kento, back when he was tooling around in AJ with Akiyama. 

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29 minutes ago, Archibald said:

Yano vs Hiromu in hair vs hair match, book it Gedo.

Yano terrorizing well coiffed individuals with an electric razor isn't the horror movie franchise we need, it's the horror movie franchise we deserve.

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My top 5 matches through the first three shows of the Cup:

  1. Ishii/Desperado
  2. Shingo/Sho
  3. Nagata/Suzuki
  4. Hiromu/Honma
  5. Gedo/Okada

I liked Taichi/Tana a lot but I feel like of all the matches so far, that was the one that was hurt the most by not having a crowd. Taichi's attack during the entrance and methodically wear down and cheat his ass off approach works best with a crowd booing, same with Tana's old school fire ups. Well done match and the time went by rather quickly despite my being exhausted and it being the wee hours of the morning when I got to it.

Shingo/Sho was a great junior hoss sprint stiff-fest. Sho always had the most potential of the two despite not being as charismatic or as smooth as Yoh because of his looks and style. Sho has already started to shed a lot of the cringey 2002 US indie garbage offense in favour of stiff strikes and suplexes. Not sure Yoh will ever move beyond that stuff. Sho's also learned to emote more, even if it's his really intense face. Anyway, this match didn't have a lot of nuance beyond Sho's armwork perhaps taking off enough of Shingo's offense to save him in the end but it was fantastic just the same.

Ibushi/ZSJ was the disappointment of the tournament so far. They've had fantastic matches that often tell completely different stories in the past. Last year's match wasn't on their previous two (i want to say) matches but was still very good. This was fine.

SANADA/Taguchi was very fun. It's obvious these two have a similar view of wrestling, but they come at it from completely opposite directions (cool stoicism vs. goofy comedy). It was a good comedy/technical match that set the table for the rest of the show and gave Shingo/Sho something very different to play off of. 

I have Gedo/Okada so high because of Gedo's Lawler routine is so fucking great. He taped a wrench to his stomach under his shirt. The second pair of brass knucks taped to the ring post was so clever too. I was eating that Memphis cartoon bullshit up with joy.

Today's show looks like dog shit on paper. I'll watch it begrudgingly later today.

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I'm not sure if this is quite worthy of spoiler tags, but I guess to not mess up the progression of the story for those who haven't watched....

Spoiler

How long until Hiromu's Lion Mark-branded hard hat shows up in the Tokon Shop? Much longer than a few weeks, and I'll start to get concerned that the NJPW merch crew is losing their touch.

 

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For those interested years ago NJPW had uploaded to Youtube that Yano/Hiromu match that ended in Hiromu getting shaved:

Serves as a good reminder what POS Yano was back then.

And I'll second that Yoshi/Tenzan was good. Kojima/Evil was also hurt by lack of crowd because I think they would have gotten rather agitated for that ending sequence.

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In that case, I finally gotten around to purchasing NJPW World and I watched Together Project Special (TPS) and I must say what a fun show. No crowd but IDK they were able to make it compelling even without the audience maybe New Japan's style lends its self to crowdless shows or whatever but I had a ton of fun watching this show now I gotta catch up on the NJ Cup before Dominion which is gonna have an audience btw.

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Yano might be one of the best trash talkers ever.

 

 

Edit: apparently Karl Fredricks has graduated from the LA Dojo.   I think he's counted as excursion status now, though with corona he won't be on excursion.

Edited by alstein
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