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Well sometimes less is more and I think that Liger has really perfected that approach in his recent years.

They talked something about it being related to Buddhism or something like that and I suppose Goto is Buddhist? Nothing specific from what I recall.

This is a bit of fanfiction I guess, but what would people think if Rey would beat Liger and announce that he wants to enter BotSJ?

Same here, I'm kinda happy I guess that moonsault got protected a bit by him hitting a knee and there being something like 2 seconds delay till he covered Okada. And that cover looked like he barely covered him. Anyone else noticed that Nagata had his All Asian Tag Team title with him? I know that they had started working with AJPW a bit last year, but this looks like another step forward. I like Jay White more with each show. Like how he currently takes out lower tier guy and instead of pinning him starts torturing him. And by the looks of it I wouldn't be surprised if we got Jay/Juice match in the near future. I actually expected Bushi to cut Gedo's beard so was a bit disappointed when it didn't happen. Yoshi-Hashi looked great, well as great as he can look I suppose. But I'm not sure where he is supposed to go from here? Naturally he'll probably be in NJ Cup, but probably will get eliminated in first or second round. I don't know, I don't like him very much, but at the same time I feel like he is being wasted now. Also, I'm probably one of like 4 people on the internet who is looking forward to Naito/Taichi since I enjoyed their match at TakaTaichiMania. So, Mysterio/Liger at SSE. It is a weird thing honestly. I'm going to say something crazy here, but I think that Liger is bigger star than Omega and Mysterio is bigger star than Jericho. And yeah, their current standings are obviously not comparable to Omega/Jericho and they are past their prime, but I feel that it is really weird that internet, from what I have seen at least, is like "oh, hi Rey" like its no big deal. Weird. I'm going to admit that I'm just not a fan of flipping around and naturally I don't like Ospreay very much (4-way at WK12 in my opinion was weakest match on the card). But what I don't like even more is juniors doing crazy big moves and no-selling them. And it is natural thing in NJPW that some moves just get no-sold like when Ishii starts ignoring everything. But I feel like most wrestlers manage to build towards it and with their facial expressions (or just body language in general) manage to give the impression that something is going on, that he is getting fired up and his fighting spirit allows him to do what he normally wouldn't be able to do. But here, I think, I saw multiple times Ospreay get him by some ridiculous moves and when the time comes for him to come back to the match he just stands up and starts doing his moves. WIth that being sad I'm happy that he retained, I didn't like that he dropped it to Scurll on his first defence and won it back immediately so dropping it again on first defence would just have been crazy in a bad way to me. Sanada looked great and their match hooked me like it was supposed to so no complaints there. Goto/Evil was.. there? I can't say anything bad about that match, but at the same time I was never really hooked by it. So Okada/Ospreay is a thing and probably makes sense all things considered. As for Okada participating in the NJ Cup? At first glance it feels to me like an excuse to give someone a win over him without him dropping the belt. Basically same as Evil's victory at last G1. Will be interesting to see who he is facing once the brackets get released. Or he might get to the finals and lose to Tanahashi and then beat him at Sakura Genesis. Two possibilities I guess?

Honestly I'm surprised that it lasted as long as it did.

When initially Okada/Sanada was announced I was a bit underwhelmed, it screamed like a filler defence to me. After some thought I turned a corner on it and thought well, whatever, 90/10 that Okada takes it and I'm okay with that. But as we get more and more stuff with Sanada my "prediction meter" keeps shifting towards Sanada and now it is something like 60/40 in favour of Okada. That whole interview did present him not as someone who wants to challenge and beat Okada, but as someone who wants to be the main eventer. And well, if he "ends Okada" then thats a solid step towards that. I'm sure that by the time match happens I'll think that this is 50/50 and when Okada wins I will think, but of course, how else could it have gone. Congratulations NJPW, you got me again

Sounds interesting, plus with Miyahara and Ishikawa being in same block it probably makes sense to do their match as semifinal with Miyahara going over. This would make, if I'm not mistaken, their record against each other 2-2 setting up big match at later date to end their rivalry (or should it continue till the end of days?).

I think that Jay has been slightly improving in every match that he has so it will be really interesting to see how he looks in a year or two. Where exactly is his ceiling? I'll say something crazy, but if he keeps improving on such consistent pace then I won't be surprised that if Omega leaves NJPW in 2019 general reaction will be "meh, we got Jay".

Thats too much Aldis for everyone.

Well that was one long wrestling weekend. Overall I liked both shows, but I wouldn't mind if we got a bit less of those mult-tag matches or if they had a bit more meat to them. I'm not looking for a lot, stuff like Yoshi-Hashi trying to attack Naito after the match while he just keeps walking away is enough for me, but I feel like nobody else aside of LiJ really does this. Anyway, now to get a bit more detailed. I'm probably second person in the world who liked previous Sanada's mask, but at the same time I really, really like his new look. I especially like that his mask has visible lips and they look very tight and shut which works very well with his "man of few words" character. And I thought that his interactions with Okada were pretty cool. In another thread I wrote that I see it 90/10 in favour of Okada, now I'm at 80/20 probably. Suzuki again showing that he can still go when he wants to, amazing match. I saw some people saying that they'd want to see this Suzuki all the time and not the one that we saw last year with constant run-ins and cheating, but I don't know. But then, matches like this wouldn't be so special if Suzuki wrestled like this all the time. Important part I think is to find a balance for when it is okay for Suzuki to cheat and when he really should do it on his own. Clearly they failed to find it in NOAH, but it looks like they are doing it better now. It also does give certain edge to his character, he cheats not because he has to, but because he enjoys messing with you. You got his juniors chased away? Tough luck, now you'll just get ripped apart by Suzuki, maybe getting screwed by Taichi would have been better end. Suzuki also had that RevPro tag-team belt that he won with Zack. Once his IC run wraps, can we please get Suzuki/Zack tag-team in NJPW? PLEASE? There is also a bit of meta story here when we compare to what happened last year. Okada was in similar situation against Suzuki in Sapporo and Gedo was thinking about throwing in the towel, but Okada managed to prevail. Tanahashi didn't. Same event, same place, new ACE prevails, old ACE fails. I liked Young Bucks/Ropongi match, but did I miss something or Matt's back problems started out of nowhere? I know that he had problems during WK match, but if we take this match in a vacuum then it looks weird a bit, maybe he should have tapped his back or something to make it a bit more clear? Anyway, minor gripe, I hope that we will be getting third match in near future. Jay looked better against Omega than he did against Tanahashi, but he still has ways to go and I'm not sure if giving him Page is really smart decision here. From what I have seen Page is really mediocre wrestler and I suspect that Jay/Page match will just die on whatever show it is placed. So, Golden Lovers are back. I wrote my big theory in WK thread about how maybe Naito should become tag-team ACE and well just look at possibilities Naito/Rush vs Evil/Sanada vs Golden Lovers vs Zack/Suzuki vs Tanahashi/Juice. Please make it so Obviously big story is BC break-up and my initial theory was that Cody probably should become new leader since he is bigger heel than Omega ever was and now he is basically a face. But more I think about it more plausible for me looks that new leader might be... Tama Tonga. Tongans (and Chase + Yujiro) weren't around, Tama made that tweet about this not concerning BC and in his Day 1 post-match interview he basically said that he can't follow who he does not respect and maybe it is time to change things. Now when you put them next to each other, Omega/Cody/Tama, Tama obviously looks a bit out of his league here. But on the other hand being a BC leader is really not working for Omega and Cody can't always be in Japan, plus he probably wants to get back to WWE at some point. And how long can they keep Omega around? Anyway, point is that Tama is "small enough" for NJPW to lock down and control (I don't mean anything nefarious by this) and if this transition ends up working they'd have a leader for next few years easily. Plus I think that Tama speaks some Japanese too? We obviously would have big match quality drop with Tama if he would replace Omega, but then, is Tama any worse than Cody? I don't think so. So if things have to change then I'd throw my chips rather with Tama than with Cody.

Whenever someone brings up Ishikawa I get a bit sad realizing that he is already 42 years old Anyone knows anything about his early career? Was he really bad in the beginning or were there some screw ups with the booking? Because I feel like he started getting respect that he deserves (and he still deserves more than he gets) only in last couple of years.

They don't have to do much of a build either way since he was always booked "strong". All he needs is one big win this year (I'd say either taking the title from Okada or winning G1) and he'll be set as main eventer. As for 1/4 show, I don't think that we are going to get any main event that doesn't feature Okada in near future unless he gets hurt.

So assuming Rush beats Kojima... might he be in next G1?

So Young Bucks kick out the leader again?

I'd say that probably we would have gotten Nakamura/Naito before (or instead of?) Tanahashi/Naito. I know that our perception is shaped by what we saw already, but I can't really imagine where else Naito could have really gone after WK 10.

Not directly related to this tour, but anyone knows if there is some place that has older Fantastica Mania shows? If I'm not mistaken NJPW World has only few matches from 2014 and nothing from earlier tours.

Was reading this board for some time now and I feel like this is as good place to start posting as any. Not going to say anything about the matches since I don't feel like I can add anything that hasn't been said multiple times already, but I feel like pitching in some of my thoughts on Naito. On why Naito lost, well it looks like they want the Ace winning every Dome main event and Okada is the current Ace. Regardless of what we think about it I think it makes sense to have your main star, that you are building company around, to be showcased on your biggest show. Looking back at recent stuff in AJPW I think that for similar reasoning Kento defeated Ishikawa on their anniversary show and then immediately dropped the title to Suwama. I have seen many people theorizing (mostly in other forums/reddits) that this is basically Naito's WK9 moment and he will overcome Okada next time just like how Okada finally overcame Tanahashi at Wk10. And I just don't see, Naito and Okada don't have anything in common really asides of both being top guys so why they both would have to go thru same story arc? Besides, it doesn't really make sense to dethrone Okada in 2019 (or even 2020) so that Naito can stay on top for couple of years before he gives it back to Okada? I think they'd just end up hurting Okada with such booking while not doing that much for Naito. Will Naito beat Okada on some non-Dome show and get another title run down the line? Maybe, probably, does it really matter? People often talk about how IWGP title is most prestigious wrestling title in the world and it is hard to argue against that, but at the same time I think that Naito isn't wrong in that quote. He is bigger than that title, just how Tanahashi was bigger than it at WK8. AJ held the title for some time, Omega hasn't touched it yet (and might never touch it for all we know) yet I think nobody is going argue that Omega currently isn't bigger star in Japan than AJ ever was. And I think that good point was made in this thread about how the title is now basically a part of Okada's gimmick so do we really need Naito to get another run with it? Probably will just hurt Okada more than it will help Naito. So I think it is all about the status, I remember in some interview last year Naito said that he isn't excited about beating Okada or becoming the champ, because he has done these things already, he is looking way more to main eventing WK because that was his dream since he was 15 years old. Main eventing WK matters more than getting a run with the title (and thats I'd say is one of the main reasons why Omega is bigger than AJ). Winning WK main event obviously matters even more. And here I think we have a bit of a problem. Omega can really take Nakamura's place as alternate Ace because, at least to me, it looks like he is enjoying his time as US champ and won't mind at all being the face of their western expansion even if it means that it will place him below Okada for rest of his NJPW career. But Naito? I feel that to him becoming "alternate Ace" would be same as defeat, he is Shuyaku, he isn't here to be supporting player and as we seen last year he finds idea of secondary singles titles idiotic (many people say that he hates IC title solely due to WK8, but in his interviews he said same things about NEVER and US titles too) so what can he really do maintain (and hopefully grow) his status? Has Naito reached his peak already? Earlier in the thread there was a post about how biggest Kawada's wins against Misawa were in tag teams. And I find this idea interesting, now, maybe I'm wrong but I don't remember Naito ever shitting on tag team titles. Granted, I think that it is possible that since he wasn't really involved with them he didn't really have an opportunity to do that. So could Naito do that? Imagine, semi-main event at WK for tag team titles with Naito in it. I'm sure that someone is going to ask "how that is different from Nakamura and Omega situation?" and I think it is different. I don't think that anyone can seriously explain what exact purpose of IC, US and NEVER titles is in terms of kayfabe. I mean, we all know that they are there so that lower tier guys could get some accolades, but in terms of kayfabe they don't mean anything. Probably only NEVER title could have some meaning if it was actually open weight and would serve as a bridge between heavyweight and junior divisions. So anyway, back to tag teams. Tag Team titles are actually fundamentally different to singles titles so Naito being the Ace of that division could give him higher status than someone holding second rate heavyweight title. In terms of kayfabe I can, without a doubt, say that Okada is stronger than Tanahashi, Goto and Omega in singles competition despite all four of them being champions, but could I say that any of them are better than Naito (if he would become the Ace of that division) at tag team wrestling? No. But what we could say is that "Okada is best in singles and Naito is best in tag teams" which is fundamentally better than "Okada is best in singles, but if you don't like him maybe you'll like Omega who isn't as good in singles as Okada". And remember how during WTL Naito spent more time talking shit about that tour than about his upcoming match with Okada? At the time we all assumed that it was "Naito gonna Naito" thing, but maybe he really wants WTL to be a big fucking deal and he is going to show us this year? And yes, I realize that most likely all that I wrote here is wishful thinking, but I don't know, I honestly doesn't see any other path further for Naito that wouldn't betray (or regress) his character. A bit of a side-topic, but I think that Sanada beating Okada is possible. I mean, I'd say that Okada winning is at something like 90%, but if it happens I won't be surprised. They can really do a story here about how Sanada ends up stopping his two big title runs and when they meet again in 2019 or 2020 they can build whole "Will Okada finally prevail against Sanada?!?!?" narrative around it and sell some tickets. It could also give some material for Naito/Sanada match because Naito would obviously say that he, not Sanada, ended Okada's previous run and they both would have a point. Anyway, most likely outcome is still battered down Tanahashi trying and failing to stop Okada from breaking his record, but since it looks so obvious... maybe we are not going to get that.