GOTNW

I explained a point in a style that bothers and specifically why it bothers me. It it doesn't resonate with you I'd rather move in in the discussion than rewatch matches pointing to moments and specifically explaining why I think a transition is good or bad if it includes running, I don't think I'm ready to go that far, you'd need to respond a little more dastardly. Let's put it this way. Kenny Omega has some running moves. I'm sure I could think of some, he's got the, urgh, the running knee and he's got the bulldog where he jumps over the opponent. The bulldog requieres his opponent to be turned backwards, and it's something that I don't remember seeing get countered, so it isn't really a factor. The running knee is a big move he does in the finishing stretch, and it's also not something he ever runs the ropes for. Often his opponent is downwards or hanging on to the ropes or he'll just bust it out mid-sequence. He's not going to set it up with an elaborate rope run. So if Kenny Omega runs the ropes five times a match and I know he's got no offence he can use in that situation I know he's getting countered. I don't think Okada has any running strikes, certainly not those that require him to run the ropes while his opponent is standing. Only thing that pops up is the kick he does after he snapmares his opponent, and that never gets countered. Someone like Elgin I don't even know or care to remember what his move-set is, I just know his move isn't going to connect because he uses that transition so many times and when he actually wants to hit a lariat, a big boot or whatever move that would require him to run those ropes, he isn't actually going to do run the ropes, he's just going to use that move in the middle of a pop-up sequence. I haven't really deeply analyzed how that particular transition is used in every wrestling style ever, because it's not something that crossed my mind before I saw it in New Japan and modern puro and kept it seeing over and over again, and then that made me think about how someone like Jumbo Tsuruta used irish whips to base pretty much every move he'd hit, how 90s All Japan used rope running, how it evolved and so on. To some "John Cena has five moves" is a valid criticism, to that you could provide evidence in the form of a "top 150 moves of John Cena" on youtube and emphirically prove their statement incorrect. If someone says Cena has shitty execution and his matches have been dumb PWG tributes in the last two years then you are moving in the direction of taste and it might not bother you that Cena's matches have 15 finisher kick-outs but it could bother me, I could think that Omega's facial expressions are dumb, you that they're great, it's normal. We disagree over things. There were four other points in my initial post, I'm sure I could think of many more, the notion I'm a hypocrite based on your interpretation of my interpretation of a match is a little silly.

There's a pretty big fanbase out there that agrees with his view of New Japan. People like what they like. There's no huge anti-Meltzer/contrarian agenda making people check out different types of wrestling. Maybe, just maybe, people check out CMLL, Black Terry matches, Puerto Rico tags, Otto Wanz matches, French Catch and whatnot because they like wrestling and not because they need to prove to anyone there are two million styles of wrestling that are better than the style a notorious critic is proclaiming to be so good. No one's stopping you from reviewing CMLL, Black Terry and southern indy matches and shitting on them. Maybe you find points like those I made "nitpicking", they're just my explanations of why I dislike a lot of New Japan and don't want to watch certain acclaimed wrestlers more than twice a year when a match gets MOTY/best ever hype. The reality is people shit on everything. No one gets mad when it's done to WWE because everyone gets mad whatever they do. No one gets mad when someone shits on matches from companies with less hype, or they do to the degree that's not really comparable because there simply aren't that many people discussing it. New Japan is in the place it is right now where it's the cool alternative so the people that do take shots at it are frowned upon as hipsters, contrarians, and whatever buzzwords you want to use when the reality is there's not that many of them and most of them made up their minds independently, often before Meltzer even started watching New Japan again. Every wrestling style ever has had running transitions. The problem with the New Japan is that it's specifically overusing them to such a ridiculous degree that you can see them from a mile away both due to their frequency, bad set-ups and the wrestlers lacking the actual *running offence* to create investment in the spot. All Japan had a bunch of irish whips and rope running in the 80s and 90s, they might as well have used them as frequently as New Japan does right now but because of the threat of actual moves that was there when transitions were done it's never been an issue like it's been with current NJ stuff.

I don't care much about Io's last big match or non-Sendai Girls joshi in general. This thread isn't Io Shirai vs John Cena. Maybe slight hyperbole, I don't actually count the number of transitions to come up with exact percentages but there has absolutely been a significant number of matches where they amounted for at least half of the transitions. It sucks elsewhere too. So now we've gone from contrarians to a backlash? What does that have to do with anything? What are the tangible results of this backlash? Results in polls done by wrestling media are the same, the people who disliked Tanahashi now dislike Okada, nothing has changed.

-actual knowledge of how to execute basic offence like low kicks, punches, bodyslams etc. that Omega, Okada, Tanahashi etc. don't execute any better than wrestlers in backyard promotions -transitions that varied more than just "run the ropes and and get hit by a move" which is how 90% of transitions occur in New Japan -actually good matwork -selling that isn't limited to "moves only hurt unless you reverse them, that frees you of all damage you've taken. unless of course you've countered with a finisher, then both wrestlers must miraculously fall down because we can't do a finisher kick-out but want to get a finisher in anyway" -not having to miss the first finisher five times before there's even a chance of it hitting in an elaborate, robotic and overly formulaic manner and so forth What the fuck are contrarian reasons? Is this where we act like people pretend to like or dislike something for some cool on the internet points? No one who lives a remotely healthy life gives a shit about wrestling enough to argue about it for any reason other than to present their own opinion.

Wasn't your gimmick that you hated Japan and loved PWG? What did I miss?

He complained about someone "stealing" a Blue Thunder Driver from him to which I replied "you got all your moves from Fire Pro".

I love Dragon Lee but this year he took a little detour with the injury and his style has been a little exposed, he is one of the best in the world at doing a bunch of high spots but I much prefer how much LA Park gets out of basic brawling and hitting people over the head with chairs making it look like he's Benoiting them without actually doing so and this year we got a lot of high end Park matches due to Elite's more focused booking, his stuff vs Rush, Rey Escorpion, Caristico etc. ruled.

Voted for Miz because he's the one that had actually good matches and also didn't block me on twitter. If great wrestling is a lot of moves immediately followed by no selling pop-ups sure.

Hashimoto vs Kawada.

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Yoshihisa Yamamoto-RINGS 24.6.1999. is the one.

Obvious answer here is the Hashimoto/Nagata vs. Misawa/Akiyama tag which is similar to the match you choose except better in every aspect. Bigger stars, more heat, more satisying finish followed by a way better post-match with a great chaotic brawl. Ohtani/Murakami brawls are also amazing, especially the first one (3/2 so it might be from the same/first Zero-1 show)

I'm not sure how related the two incidents are (not that anyone would care about it). The one you mention may have been just my countrymen making fools of themselves (thought it also could have been a sabotage like this one was) but this particular incident was carefully orchestrated and planned for months in advance. There is a portion of folks with a lot of free time and no life that are very bothered about how things are run in the Croatian Football Federation (it's about as shady and illegal as anywhere else) and always try and make a ruckus when the national team plays to get our national team punished and/or suspended and try and make the people in charge step down. It hasn't worked and it never will but that won't stop them from trying. Your average fan despises them but our inefficient laws make dealing with that group of people quite hard.

It's kind of like that song you liked as a kid that was about colours and stuff and then you grow up and realize the guy who wrote it was just high as hell. That's Jeff Hardy.

https://twitter.com/SURVIVALTOBITAA Yes-that's exactly what it is. Survival Tobita's twitter.

Something inbetween but more the latter.