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2021 Puroresu General Discussion

Jiji

By Jiji
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Control

Control

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Posted (edited)

The September 21 AJPW show will feature:

Lee vs Suwama for the Triple Crown
SUGI vs Kodama for the junior title
Kento vs Zeus for #1 Contender

Surprised that Kento is even in contention at the moment. Zeus has been getting the better of Kento lately, so I’d be surprised if he won again, and also surprised if they pull the trigger on Kento so soon.

Edited by Control
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The Z

The Z

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There just was a press conference to announce the launch of a new version of Wrestle Universe on October 1st. Sounds pretty good to me.

Some of the most interesting points from the press conference in my opinion:

  • Better video quality, better stability
  • Website will be available in English, no more Google translation
  • Time shift viewing, which means during a live stream you will be able jump to the beginning of the show, when the live stream is already going on (has not been possible so far)
  • You can switch back and forth from Japanese to English commentary directly in the video
  • Mobile Phone App is in development with Chromecast support (I forgot who the user was, that asked about this, but this is great news for you)
  • If you're already subscribed to WU right now, you won't have to pay anything for October to December, so you will essentially get four months for the price of one

Here's a complete Twitter thread with the entire transcription of the press conference:

 

 

 

Edited by The Z
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dorfus malorfus

dorfus malorfus

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My thoughts on Jake vs Suwama w/ spoilers

 

Spoiler

Pretty damn good match. I am a huge mark for Suwama and don't think I've ever not at least "liked" a match he was in. Quite possibly he is second only to Kawada in terms of my snowflake leniency (and even then, Kawada had some matches I think are real bad). 

But anyway this is good, people should watch it. Jake works over Suwama's chest pretty fiercely and Suwama sells it like a king by hacking and groaning like he's going to cough up a lung. Is it in bad taste to work over a guy's lung after he had Covid in order to get heel heat? In any case, the only guy who's health I was actually worried about after the match was Wada. He is Lucha ref slow at this point. It was hard to tell if the finish fell flat because the crowd doesn't like Jake's new brainbuster finisher, or if they just really wanted Suwama to win, or if it was because (possibly most likely) Wada's friggin slow motion count sucked all the life out of the previous nearfalls. I really love Wada and don't necessarily want him to retire but maybe he just moves to refereeing the undercard or reading the proclamation before TC matches or something. 

 

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Jiji

Jiji

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59 minutes ago, Belgian_Waffle said:

Kawada had some matches I think are real bad

Was this latter day Kawada? I have a hard time thinking of bad Kawada matches but I haven't seen a tonne of late '90s AJPW beyond the bigger stuff. Did watch quite a bit of post split Dangerous K and he was pretty spectacular for the first 4-5 years at least.

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dorfus malorfus

dorfus malorfus

Posted
Posted (edited)
8 hours ago, Jiji said:

Was this latter day Kawada? I have a hard time thinking of bad Kawada matches but I haven't seen a tonne of late '90s AJPW beyond the bigger stuff. Did watch quite a bit of post split Dangerous K and he was pretty spectacular for the first 4-5 years at least.

Yeah I think he was pretty much perfect until he came back in 2003 and started doing all the towel jobs to sell his knee injury. He was pretty banged up by then and was still doing the year-long Triple Crown reign so my heart goes out to him but his matches got really inconsistent. Still the Best of All Time imo but I'd be doing him a disservice if I pretended his final run was better than it actually was. Honestly, Mutoh has fucked up AJPW pretty badly by 2003 and most of the younger guys Kawada had been protecting/working with (Nagai, Yuto Aijima, Shigeo Okumura) were either on their way out by the time he returned or so far buried there wasn't any chance of rebuilding them, so I can't really blame him for phoning it in most nights. I like to think there's an alternate universe where they never brought in Mutoh and we got a few years of Kawada, Tenryu, Kea, Nagai and Araya trading off the TC (albeit to mostly empty buildings). 

Edited by Belgian_Waffle
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LoneWolf&Subs

LoneWolf&Subs

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The best Kawada post ‘03 match has to be that Fujita 2005 G-1 match. I think I watched that match, and was instantly fooled by the quality of the rest of that tournament. Only the Fujita matches are worth watching from that tournament. It’s the only time the fans respond, and they are almost all under 10 minutes. So it’s just him kneeing peoples heads off.

Edited by LoneWolf&Subs
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dorfus malorfus

dorfus malorfus

Posted
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:

The best Kawada post ‘03 match has to be that Fujita 2005 G-1 match. I think I watched that match, and was instantly fooled by the quality of the rest of that tournament. Only the Fujita matches are worth watching from that tournament. It’s the only time the fans respond, and they are almost all under 10 minutes. So it’s just him kneeing peoples heads off.

This is 100% how I remember that match/tournament as well. Funny how at the time everyone (myself included) was complaining about Fujita being overpushed, until we actually watched the matches and realized the rest of the NJ heavies had like negative heat by that point (obviously not entirely their fault as Inoki was burying his own guys). 

Other great post 2003 Kawada matches are the epic TC slugfest with Hashimoto (where Kawada found a way to make Hash's bullshit towel job finish actually make sense in the context of the longer storyline of Kawada losing to so many towel throws leading up to the match) and an absolutely fantastic tag match with Hijikata vs Kojima and Hayashi that serves as a working model for that alternate universe I mentioned where Kawada takes all the young guys under his belt (in this instance, his shooty lil sidekick Hijikata) and ensures that Mutoh's cronies aren't immune to doing jobs. I don't have a date for the tag (it used to be online) but it was on the same TV broadcast as Kawada vs Mutoh for the shot at Hashimoto (also really good!!) and Hashimoto vs Arashi in a TC match that kind of exemplified everything weird and shitty about the early Mutoh days of All Japan. 

Edited by Belgian_Waffle
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Control

Control

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Posted

Full 10/16 AJPW card (via purolove):

- Rising HAYATO vs. Ryoma Tsukamoto 
- Raising An Army Memorial Series 2021 Special Eight Man Tag Match: Masanobu Fuchi, Ryuji Hijikata, SUSHI & Chikara vs. Mitsuya Nagai , Masao Inoue, Kikutaro & Devil Murasaki 
- The Road to Real World Tag League 2021 Special Eight Man Tag Match: Zeus, Koji Iwamoto, Ryuki Honda & Kengo Mashimo  vs. Jun Saito, Rei Saito, Koji Doi & Kuma Arashi 
- 3 Way Tag Match: Hokuto Omori & Yusuke Kodama vs. Black Menso~re & Andy Wu vs Hikaru Sato & Dan Tamura 
- AJPW TV Six Man Tag Team Title: Yoshitatsu, Seigo Tachibana & Carbell Ito (c) vs. Takao Omori, TAMURA  & Raimu Imai  
- Special Tag Match: Yuma Aoyagi & Atsuki Aoyagi vs. Tatsumi Fujinami  & LEONA  
- AJPW World Jr. Heavyweight Title: SUGI (c) vs. Izanagi 
- AJPW World Tag Team Title: Suwama & Shotaro Ashino (c) vs. Shuji Ishikawa & Kohei Sato 
- Triple Crown: Jake Lee (c) vs. Kento Miyahara

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dorfus malorfus

dorfus malorfus

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7 hours ago, D.Z said:

NJPW 

  Hide contents

Probably could book Shingo vs Zack for the IWGP World HW title. I expect Zack to lose.

 

Spoiler

When I saw he was (on paper) headlining the final day of the tournament it made me wonder if he isn't going to the finals. Even if he doesn't win the tournament they will almost certainly run Shingo vs Zack in between G1 and the Dome. Maybe he'll win the whole thing and they'll try to recreate some of the unexpected vibe Omega's win had in 2016?

 

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Control

Control

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On 9/21/2021 at 11:03 AM, D.Z said:

2021 World's Strongest Tag Decision League. 16 teams in first 4-block system.

E_zIHgvUcAMQ3s2?format=jpg&name=small

Was hoping that Mashimo would be in this, but was hoping he’d maybe be a partner for Jake. 
 

I understand them wanting to switch things up and keep it short. Still, not the most thrilling blocks. Every one has a jobber team (Saito Bros, Purple Haze juniors, Nagai & LEONA, and probably Iwamoto & Honda).

NEXTREAM vs Stronghearts should be fun.

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dragonzombie

dragonzombie

Posted
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New title for Ganbare, The Spirit of Ganbare Openweight Title. The winner of the Ganbare Climax 2021 will be the first champion

Keisuke Ishii
Yumehito Imanari
Kouki Iwasaki
Ken Ohka
Shuichiro Katsumura
Tetsuhiro Kuroda
Nobuhiro Shimatani
Shota
Tatsuhito Takaiwa
Shinichiro Tominaga
Baliyan Akki
Taison Maeguchi
Seiya Morohashi
Mizuki Watase

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The Natural

The Natural

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On 9/23/2021 at 5:38 PM, D.Z said:

NJPW 

  Hide contents

Probably could book Shingo vs Zack for the IWGP World HW title. I expect Zack to lose.

 

 

On 9/24/2021 at 12:46 AM, Belgian_Waffle said:
  Hide contents

When I saw he was (on paper) headlining the final day of the tournament it made me wonder if he isn't going to the finals. Even if he doesn't win the tournament they will almost certainly run Shingo vs Zack in between G1 and the Dome. Maybe he'll win the whole thing and they'll try to recreate some of the unexpected vibe Omega's win had in 2016?

 

 

Spoiler

Thrilled Zack Sabre Jr submitted the IWGP World Heavyweight Champion, Shingo Takagi in the G1 Climax 31 to go with making Tetsuya Naito quit in his opening match. Sabre Jr is long overdue a singles push. I'd have liked him to have won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship or the IWGP Intercontinental Championship by now. Give me Zack Sabre Jr as IWGP World Heavyweight Champion over the Brit who won it, Will Ospreay. Dangerous Tekkers is so much better than the Aerial Assassin. Fuck Will Ospreay. British Dragon vs. American Dragon in a dream match please and thank you.

 

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Ramo2653

Ramo2653

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Posted
22 hours ago, D.Z said:

Japan is a bit more moralistic when it comes to cheating. KAIENTAI DOJO fired him and then renamed itself 2AW. Taka now works for JTO, (Just Tap Out) his newer promotion he owns and promotes. 

Sorry to be messy, but didn't Shibata get caught cheating before? Is it a case of Shibata was too high up the chain to lose so they worked through it?

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