SturmCRF

Which is a good thing, right? People can change, and also he's playing a heel here, maybe a year or two before the consensus changed to where you can't say bigoted things even in character. He could well still be a real piece of shit in a lot of ways, some would argue he has repeatedly proved he is, but I don't see any reason to think he's being insincere about supporting LGBTQ+ and women's rights. And if he is, if more influential people vocally supported those rights in the way he's been doing, even while secretly not meaning it, the world would still be a better place.

I'd be fine with a 20 man G1 if I got to pick the 20 men. In a world where you know they're not dropping the likes of EVIL, Chase Owens and Hikuleo, I'd much rather have a 32 man, World Cup sized tournament with lots of fresh, exciting entries like Kiyomiya, Kingston, War Dogs, even a Shane Haste. As far as the 20 minute limit, I don't think last year had any draws and that's no good. Time limit draws in wrestling are great, they let you protect big matches and individual wrestlers while still giving the fans something to sink their teeth into, and they make the whole thing less predictable. Maybe a Mikey Nicholls hasn't earned an upset win over an Okada, but he could turn some heads by just surviving him, and upset some brackets. Similarly, I love that there are quarter finals, as you can have some big names look fairly dominant while keeping a second place qualification in play in most of the other final night matches for a block. And then you have a high stakes eight man tournament to look forward to at the end of it all.

YOH is fine, and SHO has been making the absolute most out of his role, he hams it up but you can tell he's having fun, and he's all set to go on a massive run if they ever pull the trigger on him turning his back on House Of Torture. At the very least he'd be a great junior ace, and if it was up to me I'd put him in the heavyweight division, have him scythe through EVIL and give him a substantial push. He's built like a tank and was credible against Shingo about four years ago. The Voices Of Wresting Super J Cast were fairly harsh on Wato, but they've turned around on him now. I don't think they were ever unfair, his gimmick is stupid and using him as a big, ungainly junior plays against his strengths of eliciting sympathy. Now he's improved a lot and he's less blue and silly looking, but I'd still prefer him as an underdog heavyweight. Yujiro was one of my absolute favourites when I got into NJPW around 2010ish, and I swear at one point I wasn't the only one who thought he should be given a main event push ahead of Naito. Now that seems absurd, but it made sense to me at the time.

I think I like those blocks. Really holding back on giving us any of their three recent Japanese excursion returnees big matches against most of their established main eventers, but we'll get to see Coughlin against loads of fresh opponents. Block C is maybe the least interesting, and yet even that has a Shingo vs Henare rematch (hell, Shingo vs literally anyone is usually worth a look), and Eddie Kingston. I for one cannot wait, I don't know how I ever survived the (soccer) football Summer break without the G1.

This is less fantasy booking and much more speculating about matches that are realistic and would benefit both parties booking, but how about- MJF defends against Hiroshi Tanahashi SANADA defends against Darby (but would work just as well vs Jungle Perry or Sammy Guevara) No one will buy a potential title change for either main belt, but this can give MJF a huge scalp to brag about (and maybe something else to hold over CM Punk) and let SANADA notch another defence in a match that should bolster his current Being A Good Wrestler push. Plus those are two matches that can be excellent fun without aiming for main event epic and tiring people out before Okada/Danielson, Omega/Ospreay and Yano/Cassidy.

I need there to be a J5G You Already Die t-shirt, and I don't even care if the general public think I'm warning them about the cholesterol levels of slightly fancier McDonalds.

That seems like a very reasonable request, I will see to it that The American Danielson, Bryan The Dragon is extra cheered for.

Don't think there's much chance there aren't four blocks. Can't do two blocks of 16, but with four blocks you can do eight tournament matches a night and get to the semi finals after 14 shows.

I am very happy to be going to Canada for that show. Ospreay vs Omega, Danielson vs Okada, fuuuuuuck. Even expecting any other matches to be announced seems greedy.

I'll get the Xbox version so my girlfriend and I can play each other, as that happens to be the console I have two controllers for. If anyone else Xboxes and wants a game, I will mainly be playing Hook.

Oh yeah, fair. And the Cody match come to think of it, the ending was garbage but the preceding match was pretty special.

Yeah, good call. I tend to let my personal dislike of AJ Styles cloud my opinion of him, but his matches vs Brock and Roman were excellent.

Has to be the Mania match with Brock at, I think, Wrestlemania 31, that Seth interrupted. Best Roman singles ever, maybe the last great match either man had that wasn't against Bryan Danielson?

Parts of it were genuinely very sad, but there were also several points where I laughed as hard as I ever have in my life.

I mainly agree with this, but I'd argue it's more weak from the perspective that no one can imagine any way MJF doesn't retain. The mistake isn't doing this match, it's failing to build it so that any of the other three pillars can really win. They've badly telegraphed MJF having a long, 2002 HHH kind of a reign, and it's therefore very tough to create any interest in his defences only a couple of PPVs into it. Wardlow win some time in 2024 is probably predestined, which would be good long term storytelling but also very boring until then when you can see it coming. And I say this as a huge AEW fan, but one who thinks their world title scene has nearly always suffered from this to some extent. Give me chaos, I want Swerve as champion, or Malakai, or Fenix. I want them to put the belt on a Sanada, whose title reign will be interesting as long as it lasts because you always wonder if they'll cut bait and put it on the challenger.

I only found out about this just now, (while listening to the excellent Okada's Shorts podcast), and was just about to alert everyone else to it if nobody had yet. I was undecided on getting Rev Pro tickets in case AEW ended up doing a live Collision somewhere in London on the same night. I know they almost certainly won't, as part of the draw of All In is it being their UK debut and Rev Pro are fellow NJPW partners, but still wanted to be sure. Now? Signed straight up for the pre sale, because what the fuck could AEW even run on Collision that would make me regret seeing Ospreay vs Shingo live?

It wasn't top tier by any means, but I thought she came off quite well. The bits where she got angry looked to me like she was trying to be heelish, while sticking to the spirit of things. Ruby Soho's was one of the worst, because she was a face at the time, but seemed very touchy and genuinely put out by some of RJ's questions. And Andretti, because he just came across as a bit dim. Mark Briscoe, Hobbs/Starks and Danielson stick out to me as the Hey! EW pinnacle. Saraya's also stood out as doing more to make her likeable than anything she did on actual TV before she turned.

A friend of mine was recommending this show to me just a couple of weeks ago, but there were too many episodes and I didn't know where to start. Now I have my answer!

She wasn't there at the beginning, when it was daylight, was she? So maybe she drove from Baltimore to North Carolina while The Firm were trapped in the space/time continuum, and arrived at night when they all returned to this layer of temporal reality. Or, thanks to her Fallen Goddess powers, Athena contemptuously referring to the ROH interviewer as Lexy on that show on Thursday caused multiple other Lexy Nairs to spawn throughout the Eastern United States, and one of these newly corporealised Lexys Nair blindly followed her journalistic instincts to seek out the Hardy Compound, knowing that a great happening was about to occur. Ignore all that if she was already there at the start though, then there's no plausible explanation.

Also, in case anyone hasn't seen Dan Moloney since the WWE UK tournament, he's reeeeeally fucking great now. Hardly a junior, but then neither was Shingo when he was in BOSJ, and he ruled too.

My girlfriend and I will be at Forbidden Door from deepest north London, I'd be up for that. I regretted not really interacting with anyone when I went to Wrestle Kingdom five years ago, this sounds fun.

Rest In Peace Dean. I feel so sorry for your family, and everyone here who knew you personally. Absolute legend, you seemed like one of the best dudes ever and it seems pretty unanimous on here that that's because you absolutely were. From now on, whenever the thought even flashes across my mind that I'm watching too much wrestling, I promise to remind myself that DEAN would watch even more wrestling than that, and keep on going.

It's hard to separate DEAN from this magical place that's fed and nurtured my love of wrestling for literally half my life, but his ability to be endlessly positive about it while simultaneously having a sharp critical eye must have osmosed into my brain over the years, because I try to apply that to everything and it's immeasurably improved my life. I definitely used to be a much more miserable individual, and he's been one of the best examples I've ever come across of how to just really fucking enjoy the things you enjoy, and waste as little time as possible on all the rest. Not to make this about me, but so many people have already written most of the things I would have liked to say, so seconding all of that, too. Best wishes to him and his family, get well soon. Benj

I got basically the same tier of tickets, a couple of sections along. Should be close enough to see the wrestlers doing wrestling, but not so close that I'm paying £1000 per seat for a show that isn't even guaranteed to be main evented by Orange Cassidy vs Toru Yano.