A.M.B.

Happy St Patrick’s Day! Here’s the drinking game I’ll be playing tonight (feel free to add, I know there’s many more cliches) -Run in during or after match -Ref distraction -JR commenting on someone’s physique -Promo being interrupted -Heel rubbing their palms together -“you see” uttered in any promo -Canadian Destroyer -Lights go out -Jab at WWE -JR getting someone’s name wrong

If we’re going to town on wrestlers we think are overrated, I’ve always been amazed at the seemingly unanimous love of Pentagon. I haven’t seen a single original thing about him besides the little hand gesture he does while his opponent just stands there and takes it like a chump. It’s so drawn out I cringe every time. I’ll never forget that tag ladder match where he had a chance to grab the belts but opted to do his dumb hand gesture on the top of the ladder instead. I’m not sure I’ve seen a ladder match with less attempts to actually try and grab the belts. His move set is based around Canadian Destroyers, Package Piledrivers, apron bumps; it all feels so uninspired. So yeah, needless to say, him vs. Cody is the feud I’m most uninterested in now.

Song is Rising Force by Yngwie Malmsteen Yoshihito Sasaki appears to be a tamed, pudgy house husband at this point, looking nice and happy, with a forehead that looks like laffy taffy. He married a former idol and has a huge family with her, and they regularly update a YouTube channel about their daily life. Bit jarring to see one of the most violent wrestlers I've ever seen being such a jovial dude, but I'm happy for him that he doesn't appear brain dead and bitter. He recently did a review of his Wikipedia entry and confirmed or denied things. From what I can understand, he said he blew out his knee around 2013 and the surgery/rehab did not go well, to where he couldn't do basic in ring drills. He didn't renew his contract with Big Japan while he was injured, and then quietly left the business. He says he's not retired, since he didn't have a formal retirement match/ceremony, but it also doesn't seem likely he will ever do one.

I just found this old Big Japan video from around 10 years ago I thought I lost forever, and thought some people here would appreciate it. AKA the watch Yoshihito Sasaki bleed more than any deathmatch wrestler Music Video. Sadly there's many others I made that are gone forever. I stole the song from an old Michinoku Pro music video that I also sadly can't find.

Scorpio has done nothing to get me excited for him winning the title, but I will try and be open minded if he does. To me I’d be more bummed on the fact that Darby’s reign almost made me less into him. We went from Cody having awesome matches every week to Darby having (at least according to my poor memory) 2 defenses in 4 or so months, which didn’t really make him look like a fighting champion. I just want to see him wrestle and go crazy in the ring, but instead I’ve just been subjected to a bunch of vignettes and run ins of him, while Cody’s reign looks downright legendary in comparison. And another Sting segment, ugh. This one is actually kind of warranted, it’s just too bad I’m sick of them. This is the first Dynamite I can think of where I’m most looking forward to the women’s match.

Not seeing a blue background, though the text looks large. I forget this board can’t handle me pasting something from Notes on my iPhone, but I also am not seeing a way to edit it, if a mod wouldn’t mind assisting me.

One of the most poorly executed shows I’ve seen maybe ever. Part of me feels sorry for Kingston and Mox, but there’s so many bad ideas here that were consciously made that it’s hard to give the company a pass. It’s concerning to see people like Meltzer cover up how many mistakes were made and act like things would have been fine if the final explosion worked. Pre show match was alright. Ito’s mic was too loud and her singing bit came off a bit awkward as a result. Interference count at 1 already. Opener was my favorite match on the show. Could have gone a little shorter and the finish was anticlimactic, but I didn’t have any major complaints here. Interference from Wardlow, though pretty minor. Didn’t get on my nerves yet. Tag battle royal was a bad idea. It should have been a 4 team scramble or something. Finish was good but the body of the match was typical battle royal bs that is much more fitting for an episode of Dynamite or the pre-show, not a paid, special show. Interference count hits three for three here, is Marco Stunt even supposed to be a baby face at this point? This is what I mean about this company being too equitable. Everyone’s friends with each other and seemingly doesn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings by leaving them off the show. Please leave Marco off the show, and half these managers getting their shit in. Shida vs. Ryo went way too long for me. Ryo’s Kojima spot was embarrassing and makes Shida look like an idiot for selling. Excalibur trying to cover it up by saying she’s mocking Shida, but this was way too goofy for me. Biggest tournament they’ve ever done and a big effort to give credibility to the women’s division ends not with a definitive moment of celebration but instead with a heel beat down, and once again, let’s get everyone on the show. 4/4 for interference/fuckery now, at least if we’re including post match. Page/Hardy also was a good match for a Dynamite blow off. Ending bit was nice and conclusive, but with limited spots on a limited PPV schedule, I would have much rather seen a up and comer get this spot instead of Hardy. 5/5 for interference. Miro match was a fine Dynamite segment. Blood 3 matches before a big deathmatch seems like a bad idea. Another match with interference. At this point any hype I had for the remaining matches was gone, was really just hoping to not be completely let down. Christian was a terrible disappointment. Even if you do like him, this would have been better unannounced on Dynamite. Unnecessary hype created for another veteran who brings the company closer to TNA comparisons. Please stop. Ladder match was awful, they really need to stop doing these. They have devalued gimmick matches so much. MitB was a good idea back in the day, but at this stage a ladder match should never be for anything but a title. Also, fuck right off with the “brass ring” bit. Didn’t Khan say at the start they weren’t gonna take jabs at WWE, and that they would just focus on being the best version of AEW? Then don’t do cute shit like this. They keep trying to make Scorpio Sky work and so far I haven’t seen any reason why. I should be behind him since I’ve followed his career since 05 but especially after that commentary last week where he was cringe worthy levels of bland, he just doesn’t have the charisma to be a top guy. Debuting Ethan Page (ugh) in a ladder match was a bad idea, he should have been debuted in a singles match where he can talk after. I’m assuming his gimmick is similar to MJF, and I’m not excited but we’ll see. Interference from Jake was unnecessary. 100% interference rate at this point is driving me insane. Street Fight was terrible. The music was so corny, the commentary over it was a bad idea, Sting didn’t look good, more interference, just bad. I don’t like these matches and didn’t even care for the Boneyard match, but this was still worse than it should have been. Main event was eh. I actually appreciated the tension and build, liked little things like Moxley bringing a flask, Omega getting blinded, the rope break explosion, and the bumps were good but I thought the explosions looked awful, they weren’t even attached to the ropes. Surprised some people didn’t mind them, but this entire match would have been much better if there weren’t any explosions and they just did barbed wire. The underwhelming explosion from the landline made the insane bump off the apron come off as a disappointment, which is the last thing you want. And of course, gotta make it 9 for 9 with interference. The ending made me feel so bad for Kingston and leaves me wondering what the actual intended explosion was supposed to look like. I would call this show cursed, but bad luck has nothing to do with my problems here. It’s a series of bad decisions. There should never be this amount of interference on any show, let alone a PPV, let alone what they call their “Wrestlemania”. It’s already a problem on TV, and I do get that you need to have heels cheat sometimes, but this is inexcusable. Who are the agents okay’ing all these bits, and how is this not the lead? Fuck a pyrotechnic mishap, this company can’t do a single show without shoehorning in convoluted and downright outdated interference. He’s easy to pick on, but this company really needs a mind like Gabe Sapolsky behind it, who was always great at not overusing gimmick matches and getting the most out of them (like the ladder war and CZW feud) and made sure to not overuse fuck finishes. If this show was setup different it could have been so much better. Instead of the battle royal just do Jurassic Express vs. Death Triangle (you could add in Silver/Reynolds as a 3 way but risk it being a clusterfuck). Make the women’s match (and most of the matches) 5 minutes shorter. Instead of the ladder match just do a fatal 4 way. Miro’s match deserved a stip more than the ladder match to set it apart. I’m happy people like him but Sting can’t go. Let the young eat the old. Darby and Starks have great chemistry, I really just wanted to see more of that combo in a regular wrestling context. Main event could have had a better stip. Anyway, I really hope this company starts to reign a lot of this shit in, but it seems like a lot of fans don’t even notice it somehow. For me the product in the last 6 months or so has been tilted far more towards bad than good, but I’ll keep watching for now as I really don’t have anything else, unless I like shows without any crowd heat.

So either this match is going longer than 30 minutes on what’s likely gonna be a 4 hour show and their last death match already suffered from being too long, or there’s not gonna be a time bomb explosion. Damn, kind of a lose/lose here to me. I feel like the trauma involved with deathmatches necessitates shorter matches, and this kinda guarantees the nearfalls won’t be believable until 30 minutes in. I’m far from an Omega hater, but his first match with Moxley and the hardcore slog with Janela from the first Dark kind of temper my expectations here. I can only think of one deathmatch that went longer than 30 minutes I enjoyed and that was Takeda/Isami vs. Miyamoto/Sasaki from 2009. Rewatched that recently and it actually could have used some trimming down too. Kasai/Ito was also a 30 minute near-draw (even though it was a shoot 27 minutes) but they also had to fill some time.

It could be transcribed as Lyo or Ryo, the Japanese r is essentially in between those letters. I can forgive just saying Riyo, that’s close enough, but Riho is a completely different name.

I enjoy Mizunami, though some of her mannerisms (like the mime bit) are too over the top for me, but I don’t see the wider audience taking to her like they would with a lot of other Japanese talent. I’m thinking the ladder match mystery wrestler will be Mike Bailey. Excalibur randomly name dropped him a few weeks back and I’m starting to think that was intentional.

Last nights show did a great job in feeling like a build up and a blow off at the same time. Some of the past go home shows felt predictable or overly gimmicky to film bits for the hype videos, but this one held my attention the whole time. I think not having Shaq’s match on PPV was definitely for the best. The biggest problem with the show is still the pacing and production to me. I’m so sick of the entrance music with run ins (they always do this with Darby Allin) and then playing them off as soon as one small string of offense is hit. The lights out bit is also really overdone and especially with no crowds feels unnecessary. Really wish they would slow things down and let post match angles fade out just a few seconds longer; often times it feels like a hectic episode of Impact to me. Even on an episode like this that I really enjoyed, I’m always looking back in amazement at how many matches have some form of interference or post match beat down. I’d be really interested to see some statistics since Dynamite’s inception, but it seems like 75% of the matches have some variation of a manager interfering, a heel cheating behind the refs back, or someone getting beat down post match and chased off. It’s getting tiring fast.

Edit: Sorry for the large text, C&P’d this from notes on my iPhone. Too busy at work rn to change it, if a mod wants to thanks in advance. I enjoyed the show but am slightly conflicted in feeling like it was rushed and had way too much going on but also feeling like WWE shows are way too plodding, boring, and a chore to get through. Just like All Out weekend NXT has the best match but the shows feel too predictable and sterile. These two hours flew by and left me wanting more. But three out of four matches had post match beat downs and at times it reminded me of TNA Impact and how they always had to cram too much shit in. Plus the other two matches had heels going over as well. I would have taken the Nyla Rose bit out and let Riho’s title win sink in more but instead it just felt like they were overly committed to establishing bad guys. The Moxley interference lacked foresight as well. They didn’t even attempt to explain why there was no DQ. You could say something like the refs are free to give leeway as they see fit and have the Bucks pleas with Knox not to stop the match but to then not even attempt to explain it again reminded me of TNA when I use to (try to) watch. The Kevin Smith segment was unnecessary IMO and Pentagon and his stupid 0M bit makes me cringe as usual. Nothing will top him doing the 0M when Matt Jackson had his fingers on the title belt in the ladder match though. Peak stupidity. Tony Khan said they weren’t gonna try and fit every character in these shows and rotate people in but these bits felt a little shoehorned, especially when it felt like everyone was rushing their ring entrances to save TV time. SCU are fantastic tho so that helped at least. Nyla/Riho was probably MOTN for me but it’s really gonna hurt the quality of the matches when the crowds get more burnt out, as they really encourage matches to come off better than they are. Nyla is pretty hit or miss but her presence does add a lot to the face/heel dynamic. She definitely belongs but I chortled when Cody and Brandi said in an interview that Kenny recommended her as one of the best in the world and that none of them knew she was trans until she disclosed it. Yes, Mr 6 star match who’s a joshi connoisseur thinks she’s better than the hundreds of more proficient girls there are in Japan. And then when Cody on the conference call said the women’s battle royal was far superior to the men’s, “soft bigotry of low expectations” comes to mind. Also the Orange Cassidy kid made me pop. Somehow Cassidy and Jurassic Express are my favorite acts in a company that’s filled with elite level “pure” wrestlers and I can see them bringing in a lot of younger fans.

Fair enough this is why I came back to this board, you guys are sharp and strong in your conviction. I still wanna hear more of Rory MacDonald’s opinion though.

It’s just gonna come down to the semantics of the word unfathomable. I never stated I thought it was a work. I think it was real. You guys are preaching to the choir. But if it did come out as fake, I wouldn’t be in disbelief. That is I was saying. Chael/Tito seemed kinda weird watching it but I didn’t think it was a work. I agree to all those ridiculous why’s. Why would they do this and that. But also, why would New Japan put their biggest star Nagata in Pride after just a few weeks of training and risk everything they built for him? Why would they put Sakuraba in over his head way too many times when there was no chance he can win? There’s been some pretty stupid calls in Japanese fight booking so doing something even more stupid isn’t beyond comprehension to me.

Okay dude I get you need to convince yourself. And Rory MacDonald, Robin Black, etc are borderline retarded. A fix in JMMA is absolutely not unfathomable.

Ospreay looking a lot more British now.

Schaub’s an easy target, there’s plenty of better educated people that agree with him. However you feel I think both sides have an arguement. The first knockdown is one of the most bizarre reactions I’ve seen in a fight in a long time.

Never mind there was a Craig H(erwill?) I used to buy bootlegs from back in the day. Definitely not Ditch, a lot of the BJW on Ditch’s site was uploaded by me. But Craig H brought classic Big Japan to the masses. Anyway. Can’t wait for Ryan Hall’s next fight in two years. Hope I’m wrong.

This year I’m most interested in the 145 and 155 pound divisions and where they’re gonna go (as usual). That said, it sucks that there’s such a log jam at 155 and now Dana’s talking about doing Conor/Khabib rematch. It really shouldn’t surprise me, but I just want to see Khabib defend his belt against fresh blood and different styles. Specifically wrestlers. Would love to see Gaethje pick up a few big wins and get there, while he may not be the overall number one contender there’s something I really like about that fight, as we’ve never seen Gaethje get held down. Somehow I see that being a tougher fight for Khabib than Tony or Porier. Really excited to see Gregor Gillespie’s next fight too, it kinda bums me out that Alexander Hernandez is getting the Cowboy fight at just 2-0 in the UFC vs. Gillespie’s 5-0. Yancy’s a decent name but Gregor’s 31, undefeated and unranked in a lighter division with great credentials and hype, so I’d be booking him with a tiny bit more urgency. Hopefully he dominates his next fight and gets a guy like Kevin Lee after that, dude has been nothing but impressive.

Random af but it’s good to see you still posting here Craig H, haven’t been on this board in years and finding your BJW vids on Limewire back in the day was what got me into puroresu. Jon Jones is likely taking Cheque Drops, I can’t believe there is any doubt he is dirty when he’s popped 3 times and has 2 brothers who have popped as well. How is any of this hard to wrap your head around? Not to mention Jamie combs through and deletes every single comment mentioning Cheque Drops on Joe “You can’t stop the internet” Rogan’s podcast with Novitsky.

Going to see Sekimoto/Okabayashi vs. Sato/Ishikawa for the BJW tag titles in two days, might as well reserve this spot for our new MOTY.

Doing a presentation for a Japanese culture class on puroresu and Japanese MMA and how they are intertwined, was wondering if all you kind folk could help me out with some of the most quintessential puroresu and JMMA photos. Like Kobashi getting back dropped kind of stuff. FMW, Pride, Joshi, all that good shit.

Repeated injuries combined with being in NOAH, which gets very little attention. Can't think of anything he's done post Misawa that really stood out, and while I feel sorry for him having to deal with retiring, I can't say I'll miss him as he never seemed to take off like he should have after the ROH title run.

I know very little about WAR but have been wanting to check it out for a long time, as my impression of it is that they had a whole bunch of super heated quality tags with a random assortment of wrestlers.

Naito is really frustrating to watch. He has all the tools to be the best. Great move set, athleticism, and if landing on your head is a skill, he's second to none in the business, but goddamn does he need some charisma.