NEW JAPAN ON AXS- RESTART!

[DEAN]

1 hour ago, thee Reverend Axl Future said:

- My money's worth? Yeah, sure (again disputing this bogus $6 surcharge), but not twice as good as MLW in that sense. This is for me, because I like the style and presentation and fat workers of MLW. There are a few too many younger workers here who grew up on NJPW and puro tapes and are so happy to ape that style and chase an ideal and end up so similar in work, look and presentation. They are all great workers but you can't all be strong. You can't be all hard without first understanding the soft, the yielding and the gentle, and don't forget about the midgets and dancing skellingtons and the savage Samoans and vampires and Strange Style and stuff, yeah granted you got the shrieking Mongol shaman and grizzled old vet but it's all about diversity these days, man.

So great.

[Curt McGirt]

I forgot to mention probably the best thing in that Mox/Ospreay match: Mox swatting him out of the sky like a bug with his elbow. Super rewind material, somebody should make a gif. 

[DEAN]

Oh jeez, a fucking three way.  Is Scott D'Amore booking this?  Eh, it's got Jeff Cobb so I'll try to watch.  Oh jeez, a Texas Tornado Three Way Tag Match.  So the folks I want to see the most at the Forbidden Door other than Okada are Jeff Cobb, Zack Sabre Jr and Aussie Open.  Fale and Chase Owens are... not... a good tag team.   At least not in this setting.  Fale and Jeff Cobb are all about the BEEF!   Jeff Cobb should show up in AEW for the trios belts tournament as a member of Bear Country.  That would rule.  Man, I hope they go back to showing New Japan Strong stuff cuz this is some heatless garbage.  Jeff Cobb is trying, at least.  Chase Owens with a Rocket Launcher was nice.  MORE ISHII!  I have been drunk on so much Ishii lately with him showing up in AEW and especially his forays on IMPACT!  It's Hiroshi Tanahashi!  Tanahashi has a nice fuzzy boa.  He could have been in the New York Dolls.  He IS the new Sylvain Sylvain!  Man, Ishii and Tanahashi beat the living hell out of each other.  Ishii is fucking awesome.  Man, he is lacing into Tanahashi.  Tanahashi is taking an assbeating like a KING.  Nice Dragon Screw by Tanahashi that Ishii takes all freaky!  Counter Dragon Screw by Ishii!  Ishii channels Ric Flair and works the knee to set up the Scorpion Deathlock.  Ishii does his hulking up thing THAT I SAW LIVE IN NORFOLK!  He did it to the Butcher and it was AWESOME.  Tanahashi hits another Dragon Screw.   I never thought the Sling Blade ever looked that good but Tanahashi follows it up with a nice Straightjacket German Suplex.   I loved how Ishii does a Flying Body Attack into the corner and it confuses me and everybody actually in the match.   Ishii hits the same superplex like he hit against Adam Cole- really close to the ropes.  I wonder why he does that. Tanahashi hits a nice counter to Ishii;s brainbuster attempt, hitting a nice Dragon Suplex.  Two Frog Splashes for two and Ishii  hits La Majistral, which I don;t think I've ever seen him do before.  Sweet Lariat by Ishii.  It is almost as good as his Lariat against Steve Maclin!  NICE Brainbuster by Ishii.  Ishii has the best Brainbuster and I was a number one Dick Murdoch fan as a child. They decide to move to the Dangerous Headbutt section of the match and Tanahashi wins!  Ishii hits a Sling Blade!   Tanahashi hits a Brainbuster!  It's like Adam Page and CM Punk but on each other.  A Frog Splash!  And Tanahashi wins.  That was pretty good.  Ishii is having a wild resurgence.

[DEAN]

Oh man, Desperado versus Taiji Ishimori was good.  That was a cool wad of submissions, especially the run up to the finish where it was one submission after another, morphing into a submission out of submissions.  It was really cool, like Zack Saber Jr versus Zack Sabre Jr.  BRAVO!  THEN.  Tama Tonga versus Evil was actually good! Tama Tonga is a good babyface fighting through the House of Torture's Memphis heel antics.  Postmatch, the Good Brothers STAND TALL!  That was wildly better than I figured it would be.

[Curt McGirt]

I didn't care to see Okada/Naito again, especially after their last match on AXS with all the head dropping turned me off of NJ at the time entirely, but I gotta say that Juicey Boy looks good in his new Bullet Club wardrobe. Nice and sleazy, like an extra in a biker movie (I just watched Stone Cold so this is probably why I'm thinking that). 

[DEAN]

Awesome!  New Japan Strong  episode so there is mountains more energy.  Okada and Jay White BRING IT!  Man, Hikuleo is nine feet taller than Rocky Romero.  Hikuleo and Jay White beat Rocky until he tags the Greatest Possible Robert Gibson.  Okada leans into Hikuleo's size 38 boot.  Okada and Jay White are MAGIC in the ring against each other.  Oh yeah, ONE can forget sometimes that Okada has the best dropkick in the history of professional wrestling.  Great finishing sequence where Rocky keeps escaping the Bladerunner until he doesn't escape it.  Postmatch, Jay White beats io Okada and Bladerunnerizes him!  So there are like 15 people in the Bullett Club currently?  There are four members signed to IMPACT! It's a four way and the big question is- HOW MUCH WILL MOXLEY BLEED?  Moxley is fucking awesome and he has chemistry with Ospreay more than with Tanahashi.  Moxley hits a tope on Juice Robinson and it's about time for Mox to BLEED!  And he goes head first into a chair in the corner... and BLOOD!  Juice is best described as "pesky" in this match.  Great looking table spot as Tanahashi crushes Mox.  Juice Robinson CHEATS to win!  That looked like it was a good time.   

[Eivion]

16 hours ago, DEAN said:

So there are like 15 people in the Bullett Club currently? 

Somehow its more. 17 according to wiki.

[DEAN]

Hiromu Takahashi vs El Desperado for the final of the BOSJ tournament was good.  Wrong guy won.

[DEAN]

Jay White versus Okada for THE STRAP~! is good.  The heat is a little weird for about 2/3rds of the match, but folks were into the finish.  Jay White is great and Okada is Okada.

[DEAN]

Taichi versus Shingo Takagi in a most pin counts in ten minutes match was gimmicky but it was fun.  Shingo Takagi is a Dude With Attitude now so he will be eternally in my heart.  Karl Anderson vs Tama Tonga seems like a strange choice to put on my TV but Tama Tonga brings big wads of hate so it overdelivers.  Karl Anderson is a good wrestler but he is an empty vessel that mush be filled with something interesting.  Tama Tonga brings enough interesting.  Luke Gallows and Tonga fuck up a chokeslam on the apron but everything else is fine.  Tonga is all kindsa fired up on his babyface comeback and the crowd is into it.  Nice Spinebuster by Anderson.  Nice DDT variation by Tama Tonga! Karl Anderson is WAY better in New Japan than he is in IMPACT!  This match gets actually GOOD by the end.  This definitely overdelivers.

[Salads]

Karl spells it all out for you here:

 

[DEAN]

Putting Chase Owens and Bad Luck Fale on your TV show is a BOLD choice.  JEFF COBB IS A ROBOT by manhandling Fale.  Great O'Khan is more fun than good but he is fun in this.  Fale bumps to the floor!  Chase Owens is in the Bullet Club?  Is there a Bullet Club Wolfpack? Am I in the Bullet Club?   Jeff Cobb is fucking awesome and HEY! they win the belts!  For a few weeks.  FTR! FTR! FTR!  Hmmmm... Sanada.  He is... problematic.  Will Ospreay is on a very lengthy roll though so maybe they can put enough STUFF in this match to make me overlook the Paradise Lock. Sanada looks fine in this.  Ospreay is so fun overselling a dropkick to the knee.  Ospreay IS Davey Boy Smith.  Oh right!  The Paradise Lock is the stupidest THING in all of Professional Wrestling.  Ospreay is such a freakish athlete and he shows that by bouncing off the ropes and hitting a spinning crescent kick!  Sanada isn't really doing anything in this match and Ospreay is doing too much.  They kick it into gear and do lots of counters and shit.  Sanada hits a very Great Muta styled Moonsault into Ospreay's knees!  Sanada is good in the sequence to get to the finish.  That was fine.  Needed Dax Harwood or Orange Cassidy.  

[DEAN]

Hiromu Takahashi vs Taiji Ishimori for the whole hour for THE STRAP sounds pretty good.  I remember when Ishimori was on IMPACT!  Ishimori destroys Takahashi's shoulder immediately with a shoulder DDT to the floor and works on it from there.  Ishimori has lots of fun ways to ruin Hiromu's shoulder.  This got good when Hiromu starts mounting a comeback after Ishimori slams his shoulder into the ringpost.  Ishimori is such a perfect dick and Hiromu is all about the fighting spirit!  I loved the section where Ishimori keeps applying shoulder submissions and the crowd claps really fast as they get behind Hiromu STRUGGLE to escape the mauling and mutilating shoulder submissions of Ishimori.  And then Ishimori OPTS to fucking KILL Takahashi with a fucking NASTY piledriver on the apron.  Hiromu flies into a Triangle Choke and the tables TURN!  Ishimori eventually escapes but Hiromu crushes him with a Lariat and hits a TimeBomb!  FOR TWO!  Hiromu tries to paralyze... or actually, upon rewinding, Ishimori tries to paralyze himself by spinning out of a Dragon Sleeper Into A Suplex to apply another shoulder submission.  Ishimori turns it into a Brainbuster but Hiromu counters it into a stunner.  This match is great. They do this really great convoluted thing on the top turnbuckle FOR TWO!  Ishimori hits his one-legged lungblower for the win!  That was good!   

[DEAN]

I've noticed that I dig Jay White as a face in IMPACT! waaay more than his annoying heel persona in New Japan (and AEW).  White and Will Ospreay are as annoyingly unappealing as heels as they are impressive in the ring, which is not good.  They just need to dial it back about 75%.  I also have trouble with Sanada.  Jesus Christ, the Paradise Lock is the worst concept in the history of wrestling- worse than hypnotizing an opponent to dance in GLOW.  So stupid.  Yeesh.  It was horrendous when Johnny Saint did it and it sucks ass now.  Jay White having to sell it ruins this match.  At least Emi Sakura masks it by sitting on her opponent and pretends to drink tea instead of walking around the ring.  Ugh.  The rest of this match is based on testicular trauma, which is perfectly fine.  Fun nearfalls as Sanada fights back from his crushed testicles to crush White's testicles and get in some fun roll-ups.  Cool sequence of counters out of the Skull End to finally counter into a Blade Runner for the win.  I would have actually liked that if there was no Paradise Lock involved.  Jeff Cobb, ROBOT, wrestles Okada who can sometimes be the best wrestler in the world.    Jeff Cobb is the Best Possible Scott Norton.  Preposterously strong but also agile, he is so underrated.  I love Okada hammering down blows on his back and Cobb is just a solid mass of muscle so much that it doesn't even quiver.  Cobb sells a bunch of Okada's offense, which seems kind of anemic when applied to the monster that is Jeff Cobb.  Cobb doesn't do VADER and it hurts his matches.  He hits a nice dropkick for such a gigantic guy, but he really needs to bring the intensity and do less selling.  Great toprope deadlift Gutwrench Suplex off the toprope.  What a ROBOT!  They exchange Tombstone Piledrivers.  Cobb is Brodie King in ROH.  He needs to turn on his Monster Switch and become Brodie King in AEW.  I mean Okada should be SURVIVING this match.  Nice Lariat by Cobb.  Okada hits the Rainmaker and we call it a match.  That was fine.  It wasn't NEARLY enough of an ass beating by Cobb.  

[Curt McGirt]

Big problem with Cobb, he hasn't seemed like a true monster since Lucha Underground when he was a literal monster. Maybe it's those boyish good looks. 

[John E. Dynamite]

On 7/30/2022 at 10:51 PM, Curt McGirt said:

Big problem with Cobb, he hasn't seemed like a true monster since Lucha Underground when he was a literal monster. Maybe it's those boyish good looks. 

Cobb has "presence" without being "present". He's as talented as he is frustrating and I've never seen him transcend his flaws. Try to imagine what Jeff Cobb's angry face looks like. I can only speak for myself but all I can picture is his Matanza mask.

[Curt McGirt]

All that aside I just watched him give FALE a Tour of the Islands. That is some straight up carnival strongman shit right there. Right before that he gave him a vertical suplex and I thought the crowd was gonna break the rules and start screaming. 

[DEAN]

Jeff Cobb, ROBOT, wrestles Bad Luck Fale!  Fale uses his fat early to beat down our man Cobb and then he goes to CLUBBING FOREARMS!  Fale is crushing Cobb with his mountains of fat and Cobb is selling the damage.  Yeah, that vertical suplex is impressive.  As is the Tour of the Islands.  That was a quick HOSS BATTLE.  Tanahashi and Naito didn't really draw me in until the end when they started beating the hell out of each other.  Great finish.  

[DEAN]

Lance Archer vs Filthy Tom Lawlor wasn't a technical classic but it was plenty fun.  Juice Robinson and David Finlay was a spirited affair.  David Finlay is the Darby Allin of New Japan because he will completely sacrifice his body to get his opponent over.  He needs a semblance of any kind of memorable offense.  I mean, Darby Allin is fun on offense while destroying himself to make his opponent look like a killer.  He did look good throwing Robinson into the railing multiple times.  I love how Robinson took a backbreaker like RVD taking a DDT.  Finlay mutilating Robinson's hand is awesome.  GREAT Psicosis bump by Finlay after Robinson removed the corner padding.  Great nearfall off the Shiranui by Finlay.  Swanky Piledriver on the floor by Robinson.  Finlay needs a better finisher!  Just do a Brainbuster!  Listen to me!  That was good.

[Eivion]

Archer/Lawlor was decent fun though Archer could have been a pinch more motive at times.

Juice/Finlay is my first time ever catching Fit's (eldest?) son. He looks and wrestles nothing like his father though to be fair I am mostly familiar with Fit's Smackdown run. Anyways the match was damn near great and really only missing a noisy crowd to push it to the next level. The story it told was well done with even the Japanese audience getting into Finlay's vengeful moments when he made his big comeback. Juice played a good asshole on offense and a good sniveling coward when getting his ass beat. Was nice to see NJPW giving the two the chance to showcase in the main event like this. They made sure it was deserved.

[Curt McGirt]

YEEEEEEAAAAAAAH BUDDY! The Time Splitters 'Asplode match I didn't really watch but as soon as I noted that Desperado was coming out to face Moxley my interest was perked, and then it peaked when I saw the match was No DQ... and there were barbed wire boards in the ring. Fuck yeah! This was a total W*ING/IWA Japan main event. Despy did the best skewers spot ever by having them hid in a bouquet of roses, then pulling the remainder out of Mox's head one at a time, even throwing the next to last skewer at the camera. Somehow Despy managed to not get as damaged by the wire as Mox nor did he hit a gusher, but they pulled out a BOARD OF CUT SODA CANS for the full indie scum death match point and that fucked up his elbow. All the same we had a through-line of Desperado working Moxley's knee so there was actual psychology! If I had came to a random show at a warehouse in Memphis this is what I would want to see, though if I knew it was a New Japan show I CERTAINLY would not think this is what I would get. 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Curt McGirt

[DEAN]

Awesome!  New Japan Strong episode with Ian Riccoboni and Matthew Rheinwoldt so this already has better commentary than any major wrestling promotion on earth- other than IMPACT!  It's Timesplitter versus Timesplitter!  Alex Shelley is on a roll.  KISHIDA is also on a roll.  I love that both of their rolls are in IMPACT! and they have this match in New Japan.  This match is good.  Shelley is fun, mangling Kushida's fingers while doing the shoulder submission.  Kushida does his own nasty shoulder submission.  Good finishing sequence with Shelley going from submission to submission.  That was a good run up to going BROADWAY!  That was good.  It's El Desperado in Nashville!  It's MOX!  I last saw Desperado on New Japan on AXS was against Okada and it was a good mat-based match.  Then I saw him go Strange Style with Shane Strickland at Forbidden Door.  Now he is in a death match against Jon Moxley.  What a strange wrestler.  Mox, of course, bleeds first as Desperado plunges skewers into his skull!  I love that Mox bashes Despy in the head with a guitar!  EL KABONG!  The barbed wire boards are cool when they fly into them but they needed to explode.  The board of aluminum cans is the new Board of Nails!  I love how it then becomes a straight match.  Mox applies the Bulldog Choke and that's that.  That was fun.  Needed explosions.

[Curt McGirt]

Ah, Nashville not Memphis. Well the guitar works in either town. Mox should have done a Fargo Strut either way though. 

[Eivion]

Did not know Desperado has a deathmatch itch he apparently scratches every now and then. His match with Mox was good fun. Now I want to check out Despy's matches with Kasai.

[Web Conn]

If anyone hasn’t go watch that David Finlay Vs Juice Robinson match holy shit was it really good. Star making performance from Finlay. And holy shit is Juice a great heel.