lostinube

Pool A is going down to the last day as Taiwa...er..Chinese Taipei beats the Netherlands. It's still possible for all five team to end up 2 -2 and we have to go to the tiebreakers. Pool B is a little clearer as Japan is already in with three wins. Australia is in the driver's seat for the other slot for now.

Henare picks up a big singles win over Takagi. Good on NJPW for giving him that win and good on the UE guys for really selling it as a big moment by jumping into the ring and celebrating.

Lars Nootbar is shining throughout two games. Also: Korea burned through ten pitchers and came very close to getting mercy-ruled in the 7th (15 run lead after five, 10 run lead after 7). Now Korea is in a 0 - 2 hole and need lots of other things to go their way to advance.

There's a bit of tension between new Bullet Club leader Finlay and El Phantasmo. The first night Phantasmo didn't too sweet the rest of the BC and tonight he reluctantly did it.

Darvish starting against South Korea tonight.

Ohtani picks up the win for Japan with 5 Ks in four innings. He also picked up two RBIs. Japan led all the way but an Ohtani single in the 8th led to Japan batting around and blowing it wide open. The Tokyo Dome crowd is so amped for Ohtani that they will go nuts if/when he knocks one out of the park.

Main event to the 51st Anniversary Show was fun.

Well, it looks like David Finlay - sort of looking like a less wet Seth Rollins - is the new leader of the Bullet Club. He came out with Gedo and of course, has his own Bullet Club variation shirt, "Rebel Club."

Haven't watched it myself but luchablog says the main of 2/23 was the best match of the first two days.

Aoyagi just lost the AJPW Junior title to Naruki Doi this past week. If he hadn't, they would have had the three major junior title holders on the same show. On another note: Nagata's Grand Slam - the Japanese wiki titles this メジャー完全制覇 (Major Kanzenseiha) which can translate to "Complete Domination of the Majors" or however you want to ( SASUKE/Ninja Warrior fans will be familiar with Kanzenseiha being translated as "Total Victory" - has him joining only Takayama, Mutoh and Kojima as wrestlers who have held all the major singles and tag titles in NJPW, AJPW and NOAH. Kensuke Sasaki never won the World Tag titles in AJPW. Minoru Suzuki "only" needs the IWGP title while Jun Akiyama and Go Shiozaki have not held either IWGP titles. Anyway, Minoru Tanaka is the only wrestler to hold the junior version of the Grand Slam (though no junior tag titles in AJPW). Marufuji needs the IWGP junior tag titles but he hasn't been a junior in a long time. Like his former boss in Suzuki-gun, Kanemaru needs the IWGP title while Taiji Ishimori needs the AJPW junior title. Tiger Mask IV needs the GHC junior title.

Participants in the 3/1 All Star Jr. Festival: Onryo (666) Billy Ken Kid, Tiger's Mask (Osaka Pro) Yumehito Imanari (Ganbare Pro) Batten X Bura Bura (Kyushu Pro) Hiromu, Despy, Ishimori, BUSHI, Taguchi, Wato, Douki, SHO, Kanemaru (NJPW) Atsuki Aoyagi, Black Menso-re (AJPW) Kazuki Hashimoto, Kouta Sekifuda (BJW) Hikaru Sato (Pancrase) Shouki Kitamura (Zero-1) HANAOKA (Secret Base) AMAKUSA, Alejandro, YO-HEY, HAYATA, Ninja Mack (NOAH) Isami Kodaka (BASARA) Jun Kasai (FREEDOMS) MUSASHI, the Great SASUKE (Michinoku Pro) Gurukun Mask (Ryukyu Pro) Volador Jr, Soberano Jr, Atlantis Jr (CMLL) Yuki Ueno, MAO (DDT) LEONA (Dradition) Dragon Kid, Shun Skywalker (Dragongate) El Lindaman, Minoru Tanaka (GLEAT) TAKA (JTO) Chicharito Shoki (2AW) Tatsuhito Takaiwa (free)

New Japan Cup 2023 Bracket

Mentai is OK. Came out of the Toryumon system. Kind of create-a-wrestler-ish in that he doesn't have any truly signature moves. Hasn't hurt anyone with his 450 splash as far as I know. Kids in Kyushu love him though so he always has support from the crowd. Haven't watched any of his recent tag stuff but his matches with Genkai over the title might be better examples than a match with TAJIRI.

Q1Q2 is a youtube channel with new Chinese releases with English subtitles. A mix of genres but they have a bunch of wuxia movies. Modern wuxia tends to feel kind of the same - everyone flies and lots of cgi in the mix. One movie I watched that had good non-wuxia action was the 18 Arhats of Shaolin Temple starring Xie Miao (or Miu Tse), who played Jet Li's son in the New Legend of Shaolin and My Father is a Hero. Oddly, Black Belt Magazine (yes, the same one that you used to see in the newsstands when you were picking up issues of PWI) has a youtube channel that puts up various action movies alongside martial arts instructional videos. They have the Five Deadly Venoms, Nine Deaths of the Ninja and Legend of the Eight Samurai there.

His last match in Kyushu Pro. The whole show is on their youtube channel but since it was a "near live" each match is a separate video. Main was the Mentai Kid taking the title from TAJIRI.

Tenryu is back in the hospital due to septic shock. He is conscious after a successful surgery but is still in the ICU. https://www.nikkansports.com/battle/news/202302110001088.html

In a reminder that time is ever moving forward, Minoru and Yumi (nee Fukawa) Tanaka's daughter Kizuna had her "pro test" at Sunday's WAVE show. She signed with them last year. Kind of weird that they made her do the whole thing in front of the crowd but it's wrestling. They don't show the test part but they do show the announcement that she passed at the end of the show: More details here: https://www.pro-w-wave.com/blog/article.html?page=967

Kensuke only won the All Asia tag belts in AJPW. Never got the World tag title.

Nagata is Kento's next challenger. The hook is that Nagata needs the Triple Crown to hold a "Grand Slam" of the top singles and tag titles in NJPW, NOAH and AJPW which I think only Muto, Kojima and Takayama have done.

Kota Ibushi has started his own youtube channel. He doesn't really say much in it but the video has 13K views already.

The 1/21 Wrestle Kingdom show is now up on NJPW World.

Note: Venues still have to submit infection prevention plans to their local governments and each prefecture has the discretion to create their own rules and criteria. While Bushiroad can say that they are lifting the cheering ban, it is still technically a show by show decision depending on the area. It's only once covid is downgraded in May that things will really become closer to what they were pre-pandemic.