The Z

There just was a press conference to announce the launch of a new version of Wrestle Universe on October 1st. Sounds pretty good to me. Some of the most interesting points from the press conference in my opinion: Better video quality, better stability Website will be available in English, no more Google translation Time shift viewing, which means during a live stream you will be able jump to the beginning of the show, when the live stream is already going on (has not been possible so far) You can switch back and forth from Japanese to English commentary directly in the video Mobile Phone App is in development with Chromecast support (I forgot who the user was, that asked about this, but this is great news for you) If you're already subscribed to WU right now, you won't have to pay anything for October to December, so you will essentially get four months for the price of one Here's a complete Twitter thread with the entire transcription of the press conference:

Almost everyone who was in Season 2 of the original NXT is a strong contender: Husky Harris, Lucky Cannon, Eli Cottonwood and of course Michael McGillicutty.

Day 1 of the N-1 Victory was good, Nakajima/Tanaka especially to the surprise of noone. Are you going to provide commentary for any of the tournament shows, @Mark Pickering?

Is he going back to the UK? I still don't understand how all of the New Japan gaijin's that left for the U.S. and Europe are unable to return to Japan, but Drew Parker was able to fly to the U.S. for one weekend only and then returned to Japan.

Of course AEW has sports entertainment aspects. Most wrestling promotions throughout history had those aspects, but their aim is still to put on a good pro-wrestling show and have good pro-wrestling matches. If a good wrestling match happens in WWE it's by mere happenstance. Fans, wrestlers and even some of the people in the WWE office all got this wrong. All the time I see people saying things like "How can they look at a talent like Tommy End and not push him accordingly? How can they put a talent like Ricochet on Main Event?". They probably know how talented those wrestlers are, but they don't care, because it's a completely unimportant aspect to them. It doesn't matter to them, if a match is 1/2* or ***** on 5-Star scale, because it's not their aim to put on a good pro-wrestling show. There's an article on PWInsider right now labelled "MICK FOLEY: "WWE, YOU'VE GOT A PROBLEM"" and he's making the argument that young aspiring talent is now looking at AEW instead of WWE as their goal. But he got it all wrong. The WWE doesn't care about that kind of talent. Even their head of talent relations Triple H got this wrong. He was signing pro-wrestlers, when he shouldn't have. William Regal was scouting talent at PWG's BOLA and other Indies, when he should've gone to Gold's Gym or football and basketball games.

I think throughout the last month or so I realized something. Everybody seems to think that Vince McMahon is worried now or should be worried now, but I think he isn't. For decades now Vince has been saying that the WWE is a sports entertainment company not a pro-wrestling company and we all laughed at this and rolled our eyes. I thought that Vince was just in denial about what his company was or he just wanted to change the perception of what pro-wrestling was. But now I realize that it wasn't Vince, who's in denial. It was us. Unlike AEW, the WWE really isn't in the pro-wrestling business. They really really aren't. The WWE's target audience isn't pro-wrestling fans, it's people who are into reality shows and daily soaps and sitcoms with laugh tracks and other trash TV. The WWE's product is not pro-wrestling, it's the shitty backstage segments. It just also happens to have some form of "wrestling-like" action in a wrestling ring. The actual in-ring wrestling is completely unimportant for this company. This is why they can release all of those wrestlers and will be able to release a lot more. This is why they can prominently feature guys like Omos and Domink Mysterio on the main roster. This is why they can feature 7 ft. giants with no wrestling experience on NXT. This is why they don't see AEW as competition and why Vince isn't worried.

Jungle Boy not understanding 80s and 90s references seems to become a running gag:

They have such a good thing going right now, I hope they don't ruin it by signing that guy. Nobody I would want to see there less (except for Randy Orton maybe).

Kyushu Pro put on a complete show under UWF rules today and my favorite Japanese part time wrestler Daisuke Nakamura is in the main event. The match is super-fun, if you enjoy good grappling. Also Masashi Takeda is back in a shoot style ring after his great match against Jonathan Gresham at Bloodsport a couple of years ago (well, maybe he had other shoot style matches since then, but I haven't seen them): Full card: Kodai Nozaki vs. Yukio Sakaguchi Manabu Hara vs. Tetsuya Izushi Masashi Takeda vs. Shuri Joe Hitamaru Sasaki vs. Daisuke Nakamura ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ More Speedball Mike Bailey: Jeremy Prophet & Jessika Black vs Mike Bailey & Kristera ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ More Michael Oku: The O.J.M.O. vs. Man Like Dereiss

Nobody posted this yet? They finally uncovered the plants in the GCW crowd:

Good god,that Yano/Owens match was utterly dreadful. Can SHO and YOH finally get better names now or revert to their real names at least?

Two recent Speedball matches. First time I've seen either of his opponents, but they're pretty good as well. Embedding videos from Facebook doesn't seem to work, but here's a full FNW show from August 5th, containing Michael Oku vs. Connor Mills and Chris Ridgeway vs. Doug Williams amongst other matches: https://fb.watch/7LK6zHXrNs/

To be fair, nobody has ever accused the WWE of being art... or professional wrestling.

Well, since you mention that, AEW should also totally bring in Paul London, even if it's just an agent, since I think his in-ring career is finished. He already had that job in Lucha Underground. If you're talking about guys, that have been treated like shit by the other company, nobody fits that description more than him. He's someone that should be talked about in the same vein as Danielson, Punk, Styles, Samoa Joe and other guys of that generation, but instead just became a footnote in the history of wrestling. Nobody deserves a (semi-) happy ending more than him.

Qualifying Round: Lucia Lee vs Lizzy Evo Clementine vs Ivy Alexxis Falcon vs Chantal Jordan Rhio vs Heidi Katrina 30 Minute Fatal 4 Way Iron Woman Final Tag Team Match: The Heritage (Dean Allmark & Jody Fleisch) vs Lykos Gym Three Way Dance: Mr. Charles Crowley vs Gene Munny vs Big Guns Joe

Michael Cole's finest moment was when he brought out the gong on Season 3 of the original NXT.

Chris Ridgeway vs. Jay Joshua from the Wrestle Carnival debut show

There it is, in glorious 360p! Enjoy it while it lasts, because i've already seen another YouTube upload that's been taken down. Or just subscribe to Wrestle Universe like the cool kids.

No, when he announced his retirement, he already said he would still fulfill his contractual obligations to New Japan once he's healed up and then retire. Although, with guys like him, you never know. He could decide to unretire on a whim next week.

This was really a fantastic show from top to bottom. NJPW Strong was already one of the best weekly wrestling-shows, but it looks to be even better in the future. Never expected Ospreay to show up in the US to be honest. If he shows up in AEW as well, holy shit! Ospreay vs. Moxley at All Out, please!

Tanaka vs. Sugiura is a strong MOTY cotender, very very strong! Absolutely must see match! They also announced a Nippon Budokan show for January 1st: Such a cool announcement video. In other news, Kendo Kashin beat Shuhei Taniguchi to replace Kazunari Murakami in the N-1 Voctory. Anyone is an improvement over Murakami in my eyes, but this is still the worst replacement imaginable.

Yota Tsuji is going to RevPro starting in September: Awesome!