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NJPW Wrestle Grand Slam 2021. *CONTAINS SAKURA GENESIS 2021 SPOILERS*


The Natural

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6 hours ago, Archibald said:

Same teams feuding over tag team titles has been the staple of NJPW for a number of years already.

 

Spoiler

Dangerous Tekkers never should be dropped the IWGP World Tag Team Titles to GoD at this year's Wrestle Kingdom. If I had my way, they'd still be on their first reign and defended them against Tetsuya Naito/SANADA. I can see why the latter have won, gives something for Naito to do while he's out of the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship. That's why the IWGP Intercontinental Championship was so useful and could be used as a credible semi-main/main event.

 

Edited by The Natural
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Guest Jimbo_Tsuruta
11 minutes ago, The Natural said:

Probably an unpopular opinion, I think EVIL and SANADA both suck.

The little I've seen of them I've disliked.

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I like Sanada. I think his charisma is more physical, under the radar. He doesn't wrestle like everyone else and I appreciate it. I just wish I knew if Skull End is a reverse neck crank or a dragon sleeper. It looks too loose as a choke but if it's a crank it's KOing people from the pain, I guess?

Ishii needs to beat Evil and then NJPW should ship him to NJPW Strong/Impact to rebuild himself or do something to retool since the roster is thinner right now. I used to love him but ever since Dominion last year his shtick blows. An excursion could maybe get him out of this rut. At least get rid of Togo.

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6 hours ago, The Natural said:

Probably an unpopular opinion, I think EVIL and SANADA both suck.

The little I have seen as EVIL has been solid though nothing amazing. He very much is like Makabe back in the mid-late 2000s. He wasn't good, but there was some charisma and personality there to work with. EVIL is pretty much the same.

SANADA has always been a talented but boring motherfucker. He has a good amount of physical charisma, but has never had the personality to really take advantage of it. I honestly think he would have been better off going to WWE for a year or two and learning from them. Kind of of surprised he didn't try since he was a fan.

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EVIL should have never joined the Bullet Club. I think he would have fit better in Suzuki-Gun and focused on being a surly ass kicker like he’d do when going against the Ishii and Goto’s of the world rather than being a guy who had Togo choke his opponent for most of the match. I never though Dick Togo would be someone I didn’t want to see on a show but Gedo found a way to make it happen.

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4 hours ago, Sublime said:

EVIL should have never joined the Bullet Club. I think he would have fit better in Suzuki-Gun and focused on being a surly ass kicker like he’d do when going against the Ishii and Goto’s of the world rather than being a guy who had Togo choke his opponent for most of the match. I never though Dick Togo would be someone I didn’t want to see on a show but Gedo found a way to make it happen.

I somewhat disagree with this. While EVIL is a brawler he doesn't really come across as surly ass kicker. He probably should have had his own group in general instead of joining another.

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10 hours ago, Eivion said:

I somewhat disagree with this. While EVIL is a brawler he doesn't really come across as surly ass kicker. He probably should have had his own group in general instead of joining another.

I guess it's more that he showed glimpses of being able to be a surly ass kicker in his NEVER matches a few years ago. That's when I liked him most when he would lean into that style that was the focus of the NEVER belt at the time but he's been trying other stuff and I just don't think what he's been doing really fits with his strengths as a wrestler. 

Him starting his own group would have been good too, the current groups (CHAOS and BC especially) need to be shaken up or done away with. I think EVIL taking a guy like YOSHIHASHI and helping him find a bit more edge. Oka/O-KHAN would have fit alongside EVIL well too I think. Nothing about EVIL really makes sense to be a part of BC and that's the one faction that needs to shed guys for sure. 

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I get vibes that the Tekkers are stealth-recruiting SANADA to take over Suzuki-gun, which is what I always wanted. This would have been THE MOVE to make instead of the EVIL turn - SANADA fails so many attempts at winning the big one, blames his friends, and usurps Suzuki the same way Suzuki usurped Kojima-gun. Then you've got Naito and EVIL hot at him, Suzuki gunning for his head as a babyface-by-circumstance, a legit way to elevate him to a championship level and a storyline position where his stern, cold demeanor makes more sense. It still makes sense now, but not quite as much as it would have.

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On 7/13/2021 at 2:22 PM, The Natural said:

 

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Dangerous Tekkers never should be dropped the IWGP World Tag Team Titles to GoD at this year's Wrestle Kingdom. If I had my way, they'd still be on their first reign and defended them against Tetsuya Naito/SANADA. I can see why the latter have won, gives something for Naito to do while he's out of the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship. That's why the IWGP Intercontinental Championship was so useful and could be used as a credible semi-main/main event.

 

@Custos: Spotted you are online right now. One for you, my friend.

Edited by The Natural
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I love it, cheers mate. Naito as the cheeky pre-schooler rubber-necking while he’s facing the wall in the naughty corner. I fell out from NJPW pretty much since last G1, I need to get caught back up. Nice to see Naito in a programme which won’t wear him down as quickly as getting dropped on his neck in singles with Ibushi.

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10 minutes ago, Custos said:

I love it, cheers mate. Naito as the cheeky pre-schooler rubber-necking while he’s facing the wall in the naughty corner. I fell out from NJPW pretty much since last G1, I need to get caught back up. Nice to see Naito in a programme which won’t wear him down as quickly as getting dropped on his neck in singles with Ibushi.

Pleasure, mate. Best wishes. Yeah, Naito's great at that. Wind up merchant. I've fallen out of favour with NJPW over the booking, matches on repeat, matches going too long, the wrong people going over. I hate what they've done with the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship, a new championship/lineage replacing the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, all that history and how shit the new belt looks.

Edited by The Natural
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Long post maybe, so my apologies (what can I say, I am passionate about NJPW and have been for nearly 20 years). New Japan certainly has problems, but I don't think it is as bad as some people are making it out to be. The matches are definitely too long, the Dangerous Tekkers/LIJ tag title match would have been much better if 5-10 minutes were shaved off (and I still think it was a great match!) but we also need to take into account why matches are too long. New Japan isn't running 8-10 match cards like other promotions as their way of being COVID responsible (from what I understand, could be wrong). They certainly could run a young lion match and a veteran match to make a 7 match card which would help reduce main event match times, but I can't see that happening until probably 2022. Despite this, I do think New Japan's top level matches are up there with the best matches this year (i.e. Shingo v Cobb, Shingo v Tanahashi, Okada v Ospreay, Ospreay v ZSJ).

While the booking has problems, I do appreciate the attempt to elevate some new guys to the top in the past 12 months (EVIL, Ospreay, Shingo). EVIL fell flat and I do agree he would have been served better either in Suzuki-gun (who are missing a top level singles guy - Suzuki, ZSJ and Taichi are credible but are not on that top tier) or in his own group, which I kind of feel was the original idea..but again COVID left Bullet Club with no leaders and no idea when they could be back. I wont comment on Ospreay as a personal choice, but his matches with Shingo, Okada and ZSJ this year are some of the best this year. The Takagi rise is an opportunity for a lot of fresh top level matches, as long as they don't panic and switch back to Ibushi. There are other positives too recently, the Young Lion challenge series produced some really good matches, O-Khan has really stepped up in his major singles matches (Tanahashi, Naito etc) and the NEVER 6-Man matches have been a real highlight. Dangerous Tekkers/GOD at Korakuen might be my favourite tag match of the year (I don't watch WWE or AEW so I don't have a broad scope however).

I really like EVIL, I think he has a number of upsides that unfortunately his current position doesn't highlight. He SHOULD be a relentless ass kicker, not a cowardly heel relying on Dick Togo, and his 2021 booking has made it very hard for him to recover (not writing him off yet, but he's got a mountain to climb). I'm not as high as SANADA, something doesn't connect with me to him. He is a good wrestler, but I don't look forward to seeing him if that makes sense. I am fine with the Dangerous Tekkers being plugged in the GOD place in the tag division - they are super entertaining and matches are generally good, but I am admittedly super biased as a massive ZSJ & Taichi fan.

Anyway I am very much looking forward to Wrestle Grand Slam. Having seen how much work Robbie has put in the last 8-9 months (and I loved him wearing a Velocities shirt in his challenge, super underrated Aussie team that everyone should check out), I'm really excited to see him in a featured match. I don't think he wins, but then again Australia just cut its returnee arrivals in half so he might be there a while, so there is a possibility. I still think Despe wins as I think either ELP or Hiromu take it from him, but Robbie certainly would be an interesting and fresh option for the Junior division.

Phew that was a lot...thank you to anyone that does actually read through all of that and I hope it made sense.

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Gedo's booking style doesn't seem to lend itself well to abrupt disruptions. Between the general pandemic, injuries, travel restrictions and the outbreak that completely shut them down earlier this year they have been booking on the fly. Guys like Cobb and Desperado have benefited by getting major profile matches they didn't seem set to get earlier in the year.

I still really hate the long matches though. They are all for the most part technically good but just once they need to run one or two that only go twenty minutes max. It feels tedious when you know the match isn't ending until you've heard the thirty minutes mark called. The worst offender was Hiromu-Sho. It wasn't bad but I remember Kevin Kelly kept hyping how it was now the longest jr title match ever. It feels like a match gets stretched to go an hour draw. Yeah, they went an hour but they didn't have an hour of material.

Which is why I'm not hyped for the Dome show. I fully expect Shingo-Ibushi to go near forty minutes, probably longer. I liked Ibushi-White earlier in the year and Ospreay-Shingo, they had matches that justified the time. It's hard to get excited to watch though because I know I'll have to set aside an hour for one potentially drawn out match. I can't blame people for hating the time the matches are going even though I understand why they are going that length.

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On 7/14/2021 at 9:47 PM, John E. Dynamite said:

I get vibes that the Tekkers are stealth-recruiting SANADA to take over Suzuki-gun, which is what I always wanted. This would have been THE MOVE to make instead of the EVIL turn - SANADA fails so many attempts at winning the big one, blames his friends, and usurps Suzuki the same way Suzuki usurped Kojima-gun. Then you've got Naito and EVIL hot at him, Suzuki gunning for his head as a babyface-by-circumstance, a legit way to elevate him to a championship level and a storyline position where his stern, cold demeanor makes more sense. It still makes sense now, but not quite as much as it would have.

Sanada not winning the big one is kinda of a lame excuse since we might as well have betrayals in every faction every few months. Even if he was not winning the big one he was getting higher and higher on the card so progression was there. Sanada's elevation has been working perfectly till Covid, and arguably after that with G1 finals and singles win at WK. Why change his path? Like, obviously they could do it, but "don't fix what isn't broken" and all that.

Evil on the other has been coasting for a while and was 5th most relevant guy in the faction, ahead of only Bushi who is content with being #6. Evil needed change, Sanada doesn't.

5 hours ago, Horangi said:

Anyway I am very much looking forward to Wrestle Grand Slam. Having seen how much work Robbie has put in the last 8-9 months (and I loved him wearing a Velocities shirt in his challenge, super underrated Aussie team that everyone should check out), I'm really excited to see him in a featured match. I don't think he wins, but then again Australia just cut its returnee arrivals in half so he might be there a while, so there is a possibility. I still think Despe wins as I think either ELP or Hiromu take it from him, but Robbie certainly would be an interesting and fresh option for the Junior division.

I really didn't like Eagles as a heel in BC, but I think it is possible that he might join Empire here and pick up the surprise win after Oka runs in. It would be rather easy to rationalise - when he joined NJPW he decided to forge his own path instead of following Ospreay and he flopped in BC, now he isn't going to make the same mistake, he is going to follow Ospreay wherever it takes him. And Empire has a bit different style so maybe he would fit there better than in BC.

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For the third time in a ten-day stretch, Kota Ibushi has been pulled from an NJPW event. 

NJPW announced Friday that Ibushi is off the Monday, July 19 Summer Struggle card in Ryugasaki due to illness. In its announcement, NJPW noted that Ibushi took a PCR test, which came back negative for COVID-19. 

Previously, NJPW cited side effects from COVID-19 vaccination as the reason for removing Ibushi from the July 10 and July 11 Summer Struggle in Sapporo events. 

Ibushi last wrestled on the July 2 NJPW Kizuna Road event.

Monday's scheduled Ibushi, Master Wato, Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima vs Shingo Takagi, Tetsuya Naito, BUSHI & SANADA match has been changed to Yuji Nagata, Wato, Tenzan & Kojima vs Shingo, Naito, BUSHI & SANADA. 

Ibushi is currently still scheduled to challenge Shingo for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship in the main event of Wrestle Grand Slam in Tokyo Dome on Sunday, July 25.

f4wonline.com

Might be best pulling Kota Ibushi now so he can recover. That NJPW World Heavyweight Championship is cursed even when Ibushi's the challenger.

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This goes better here with the EVIL and SANADA talk. I really believe that Jay White would have won the New Japan Cup 2020 and beat Tetsuya Naito for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship/IWGP Intercontinental Championship the next night but EVIL took his place due to the global pandemic.

Edited by The Natural
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12 minutes ago, Archibald said:

Club of 1982 has been mentioned here and there, but I think it is first time it was actually referenced in official NJPW video. I wonder, are there any other years that have produced so many high quality wrestlers?

That's a great question!

1949 leaps to mind: 

Ric Flair, Jerry Lawler, Stan Hansen, and Yoshiaki Fujiwara at the top of that class make it pretty hard to beat. Then you've got Paul Orndorff, El Felino, Austin Idol, Iceman King Parsons, Don Muraco, Jerry Blackwell, Jim Brunzell, Chavo Guerrero, Sr. and quite a few others rounding out the list. 

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