The Natural Posted January 5, 2014 Author Share Posted January 5, 2014 Just finished watching the three matches I wanted to see the most (double main event and Goto/Shibata). Liked all three, not sure the order I'd rank them in. Have to think about that. What did Meltzer say about the show/matches as it's behind the paywall? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wakigatame Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 So, how many dicks did the Gracies' match suck? All of them. Seriously, this match was just awful. I actually didn't hate it. But then I might be the only one that liked IGF and their random MMA tags. What I didn't care for was the late 80's/early 90's Wrestlemania non-finish to that match. I didn't hate the match, either. My biggest problem with the Gracie match is that they just really looked like they didn't belong. They seemed lost a few times, and the smaller Gracie actually looked afraid at times. It just never clicked. I think a singles match with one of them versus either Nagata or Sakuraba would have worked alot better. Yeah, Daniel seemed terrified any time Nagata or Saku went to throw strikes, especially those chest kicks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niners Fan in CT Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 Kojima was over like fireworks on the 4th of July. That was a fun match. Agree with pretty much everyone... undercard was somewhat underwhelming but not terrible. The key matches all delivered. My favorite match of the night was Devitt/Ibushi for the Jr. Heavyweight title. As far as recent NJPW shows go, this was probably an average event but still good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted January 5, 2014 Share Posted January 5, 2014 And your main event. Your King of Strong Style and Master of Swag, Shinsuke Nakamura Marty's chyron read KING OF GUITARISTS. Tremendous. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mysterious_w Posted January 6, 2014 Share Posted January 6, 2014 As a guy that wrestles in front of crowds of 80, and when I'm lucky to have a curtain and not just walk through a door when I make my entrance, you cannot believe my jealousy when I saw Nakamura's entrance. I mean sure, he deserves it, but holy fuck how awesome was that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John E. Dynamite Posted January 6, 2014 Share Posted January 6, 2014 Was I the only person who thought Okada/Naito cold smoked Nakamura/Tanahashi? The second they opened that online poll up I started to groan. Yeah, the definitive matchup of this generation (well, that or Tana/Okada) is gonna get its votes, but Naito and Okada are guys that have proven chemistry together, were fighting for the bigger title, and came off as hungrier. Loved the Tombstone spots, especially. I was a little burnt out for the main. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cool arrow Posted January 6, 2014 Share Posted January 6, 2014 In case anyone was wondering, Marty Friedman has lived in Japan for about ten years, and he hasn't been in Megadeth since 2000. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Wilson Posted January 6, 2014 Share Posted January 6, 2014 Nakamura/Tanahashi is the only match I have left to watch, but I loved Okada/Naito. So many little things I liked about it, I didn't watch hardly any wrestling in 2013 so I really didn't know what to expect, especially after reading around that some people don't like Naito. Okada did outshine him but I thought the match was so smooth, they definitely have great chemistry. Really entertaining match, should have been the main event, and I say that even before seeing Nakamura/Tanahashi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hagan Posted January 6, 2014 Share Posted January 6, 2014 Just finished the first half. As noted, man...some of the more incredible entrances I've seen. And I checked out the Nakamura entrance earlier. Just great. The opener was pretty good. I like video game wrestling in small doses. Why exactly are the Young Bucks doing a DX/Kliq gimmick? They annoy the shit out of me. Tag match was disappointing. Kojima winning was fun and I liked Harley punching out the NWA guy. I can live without seeing a villain promoter character though. Skipped the Gracie match, but I liked the entrance for Nagata and Sakuraba. Muta match was okay, and Fale is pretty useless. On to the meat of the show. I assume the last four matches are bang-up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RandomAct Posted January 6, 2014 Share Posted January 6, 2014 You won't be disappointed in the final 4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Edwin Posted January 6, 2014 Share Posted January 6, 2014 La Sombra from yesterdays Arena México show. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Edwin Posted January 6, 2014 Share Posted January 6, 2014 Just got done watching this. Here's some thoughts: The opening 8 man tag was it was. It was a match mostly made to give the young lion the chance to participate at the Dome. The most bizarre thing about it were the pairings. A couple of things: Why are seasoned New Japan vets like Tenzan, Nakanishi and Liger opening Dome cards and misc. foreigners who aren't very good like Lance Hoyt wrestling for an IWGP is beyond my understanding. That and Captain New Japan is the goofiest New Japan gimmick ever done possibly. About the match itself, one of the good things is that they didn't over due the finish or the match length. And aside from the random pairings, it didn't feel so out of place. 4 way was exactly what you'd expect it to be. A flippy floppy IWA-MS multi man match. It's sad the Young Bucks pumped their fists after every cute move in the beginning of the match and received little to no reaction from the crowd. Time Splitters entrance was easily the highlight of the match though. Not particularly spectacular or innovative as i'm sure there's at least a dozen of these matches that have been done before in front of smaller crowds in US indies. Tag title match wasn't good. NWA title match was a lot better than it had any right to be and it still wasn't good. Conway wasn't very good and like someone said before, Kojima's charisma was what held this match together and got the crowd into the match. Conway's struggle to put Koji on the top for that suplex/neckbreaker move he does only for Koji to land on the apron maybe the fakest looking spot on the entire card. The Gracie tag match was something I was looking forward to mainly cause I wanted to see how the Gracies would do in a worked environment and it was atrocious. The Gracies looked lost and simply didn’t know what to do. They were really timid on offense and it hurt the match. There’s some moments where Daniel locks on a triangle choke on Saku and the camera’s up close and it looks like he’s really holding back on the pulling it on tightly and it looks really sad. Lets not place all the blame of this not working on the Gracies though since Nagata really doesn’t do anything to make this match any better. Saku’s the only one trying to make this work, but he fails to do so. It’s funny how Saku tries to use subs he used to submit Gracies in PRIDE like the standing kimura he used on Renzo, but sadly it doesn’t work since there’s no build to it in the match and the fans have probably forgotten about it or don’t care. Can’t tell which though. I also dislike Nagata’s crucifix armbar which he does when he rolls his eyes back. It’s funny how they used that in the highlight to build up this match. I think this would’ve been better if it was Saku vs. Rolles in a straight up singles match. I also think it would’ve been better if the Gracies wrestled in MMA trunks instead of gi’s since Rolles continuously tried to keep his gi tucked in and it was goofy looking. Muta/MiSuzuki tag wasn’t good and I don’t really think I need to breakdown why it wasn’t good. Makabe/Fale wasn’t very good either. Makabe’s hardcore chain gimmick got stale to me in a week when he began doing it years ago. The fact that he’s still doing it in 2014 isn’t a good thing. At least he dropped the middle finger forced heel stuff which was even worse back then. This type of match where you can only win by KO works better when you’re using guys who can throw stiff strikes who can actually act if they KO’d someone like that ROH years ago between Samoa Joe and Low Ki. I don’t remember it correctly since i haven’t seen it in years, but this rule set seemed a lot better with wrestlers like that than with wrestlers like this. Goto/Shibata I had high hopes for too and it ended up not delivering to my expectations. Aside from the stiff beating Shibata gave Goto, it was Big Move Japan Pro-Wrestling until the finish. Jr. title match was exactly what it was supposed to be. As the majority of these flippy floppy flashy big move matches, they go all out every time they face each other and it leaves nothing new for them to do when they get on a bigger stage. So despite it not being good, there wasn’t any spots you’ve probably never seen before, so it’s skippable. IWGP title match wasn’t particularly great, but it was good. Easily the best match from the Dome show and the only thing worth while. Okada needs to work on his tombstone piledriver. He makes it look like a really low impact move and that’s something he can probably learn from a dozen Joshi wrestlers or Mexican luchadors. How to make the tombstone piledriver look like a high impact move without breaking your opponents neck. Loved Naito’s headbutts. Loved how Okada didn’t overdue the Rainmaker and 1 was more than enough. Both guys have serious potential and should be taking over Tanahashi and Nakamura’s sports as the top 2 stars. The big advantage that Okada and Naito have over guys like KENTA and Marufuji is that they’re big guys in frames of heavyweights instead of being small Jr. heavyweights who they want to transition over to heavyweights. Tanahashi/Nakamura was what you’d expect from these 2. It was a horrible idea placing these 2 after Okada and Naito had put on such a good match. New Japan has really overdone this match and having them face each other again next month isn’t a good idea for them in the long run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ace Posted January 6, 2014 Share Posted January 6, 2014 Just got done watching this. Here's some thoughts: The opening 8 man tag was it was. It was a match mostly made to give the young lion the chance to participate at the Dome. The most bizarre thing about it were the pairings. A couple of things: Why are seasoned New Japan vets like Tenzan, Nakanishi and Liger opening Dome cards and misc. foreigners who aren't very good like Lance Hoyt wrestling for an IWGP is beyond my understanding. To be fair, Nakanishi and Tenzan are pretty awful and immobile nowadays. And Hoyt has improved tremendously in NJ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Wilson Posted January 6, 2014 Share Posted January 6, 2014 Man I hadn't seen Nakanishi wrestle in all of 2013 but he looked really rough. It was like I was watching Taue wrestle in a Nakanishi fat suit. Sad to watch wrestlers go over that edge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raziel Posted January 6, 2014 Share Posted January 6, 2014 So, having not watched New Japan in years, and how fuggin awesome that Okada/Naito match was, this is a good jumping in point to get back into NJPW, yes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RandomAct Posted January 6, 2014 Share Posted January 6, 2014 It's not a bad jumping point. I'd almost recommend at least tracking down some G1 stuff and the Okada/Tanahashi matches from last year though. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stay Gold Posted January 6, 2014 Share Posted January 6, 2014 Also, if you liked Naito/Okada from last weekend, you should check out the match they had in 2012, also for the IWGP Heavyweight championship. In my opinion, one of the best matches of all time for any company. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Edwin Posted January 6, 2014 Share Posted January 6, 2014 Past his pride old man Taue is better than Nakanishi, Tenzan and Hoyt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hagan Posted January 6, 2014 Share Posted January 6, 2014 So, having not watched New Japan in years, and how fuggin awesome that Okada/Naito match was, this is a good jumping in point to get back into NJPW, yes? Yeah, I jumped back in last year after the Dome show after hardly paying any attention to puro for like 7 or 8 years. All the G1 Climax stuff was gold. That's probably the best jumping off point into getting into the current roster, especially as the tag stuff isn't featured, which is really the weakest part of the shows. Watched Shibata vs Goto. Excellent feud ender. Loved the post-match stuff. Devitt vs Kota was a perfect blowoff to his reign. The Bullet Club clusterfucks every month annoyed the shit out of me so I loved the story of the plucky babyface overcoming interference, finally getting the one on one fight, and then prevailing. Devitt's entrance was all-time great stuff, too. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cool arrow Posted January 6, 2014 Share Posted January 6, 2014 Past his pride old man Taue is better than Nakanishi, Tenzan and Hoyt. Sure, but Nakanishi and Hoyt were never any good to begin with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Natural Posted January 7, 2014 Author Share Posted January 7, 2014 So, having not watched New Japan in years, and how fuggin awesome that Okada/Naito match was, this is a good jumping in point to get back into NJPW, yes? I timed jumping into NJPW at a great point in March 2012. Here are the matches I'd recommend taken from a word document of mine: 2012: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada. NJPW The New Beginning, 12th February. Kazuchika Okada vs. Tetsuya Naito. NJPW 40th Anniversary Show, 4th March. With you liking Okada/Naito, I'm sure you'll like this even more. My 2012 Match of the Year from Japan. Kazuchika Okada vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi. NJPW Dominion, 16th June. Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Minoru Suzuki. NJPW King of Pro-Wrestling, 8th October. Kazcuhika Okada vs. Karl Anderson. NJPW King of Pro-Wrestling, 8th October. Kazushi Sakuraba/Katsuyori vs. Togi Makabe/Wataru Inoue. NJPW King of Pro-Wrestling, 8th October. 2013: Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kazushi Sakuraba, NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 7. Masato Tanaka vs. Tomohiro Ishii. NJPW, 3rd February. Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada. NJPW Invasion Attack. Katsuyori Shibata vs. Hirooki Goto, NJPW Dominion, 22nd June. Kazuchika Okada vs. Togi Makabe, NJPW Dominion. 22nd June. Tomohiro Ishii vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi, NJPW G1 Climax 23, Day Two. Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kota Ibushi. NJPW G1 Climax 23, Day Four. Kazuchika Okada vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi. NJPW G1 Climax 23, Day Eight. Kazuchika Okada vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi. NJPW King of Pro-Wrestling 2013. My 2013 Match of the Year from Japan. The shows top to bottom I'd recommend are NJPW King of Pro-Wrestling 2012, NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 7 though I didn't rate it as much as the majority do and NJPW Invasion Attack 2013. Hope this helps mate! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hagan Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 I really liked Tana and Karl Anderson from last year as well. Finished the show. I'm on board with the thinking that the Okada match was a bit better than the main. Naito was perfectly acceptable in the match, which is damning with faint praise, but the match worked. The main was fine, but they obviously have better in them. Naka's entrance, though, is a work of art. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Belgian_Waffle Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 the Nakanishi thing is kind of sad. I never liked the dude and he was truly awful for a long time but he improved a lot towards the end of the last decade. when I watch him now with Strong Man it's like a Legends match or something. guy should pack it in and stay on as an on-screen character...he has the weird personality and goofy charm to still have some appeal outside actual wrestling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wakigatame Posted January 12, 2014 Share Posted January 12, 2014 Any word on what Meltzer rated the stuff on this show? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JRV Posted January 12, 2014 Share Posted January 12, 2014 I wasn't really even super into it, but god damn, does Tanahashi know how to take a big show home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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