lostinube

Gabe has been protected fairly well in his losses. He basically outsmarts himself in his pursuit of violence. The crowd ate up SANADA and Takagi. It was a first time match-up that ended with them giving each other a fist bump because they know they hit it out of the park. Both inter-faction match-ups (Gallum/O-Khan and Gabe/Jake) ended with no hard feelings which the crowd also ate up.

Ah, oh well. Brazil woke up after Japan got close and went cold.

Tight men's basketball game between Japan and Brazil right now. Japan down four going into the fourth quarter. It looks like the crowd is rooting for Japan. Yuki Kawamura is having another good game.

Big3 would have to change their rule set.

In terms of points, the US team is the number one ranked FIBA 3x3 team and the same group of guys came in 2nd in the 2023 World Cup. So it's not like this is just a bunch of randos. They've put in the time and deserve to be there. But if Jimmer is out and if he was playing hurt prior to that, that's just the way it goes. At the same time, Serbia apparently takes 3x3 pretty seriously with multiple World Cup wins.

3x3 became an Olympic sport with the last Tokyo Olympics. It's a big international sport because they can play it anywhere since they use removable flooring. The 3x3 league in Japan sometimes holds events in shopping malls. https://3x3exe.com/premier/game-watching-guide/ For whatever reason, a lot of the Japanese teams add "(dot)exe" to their names making them look like a bunch of executable files.

Had a good time at tonight's show in Yamaguchi. Uemura had another good match with Henare. I still laugh at HOT guys getting wins with relatively minimal cheating. Takeshita/Finlay was exciting live and I think it's fine that Finlay won.

The winners in 2020 were 13, 13 and 16. Rayssa Leal is a two-time Olympic medalist at the age of 16. One of the skaters on the men's side for Japan is 13 but I don't think people will make as much of a fuss about it if he wins a medal. Jagger Eaton turned pro at 11 but there weren't any Olympic skateboarding events back then. If anything, it's partially due to the X Games. One of the winners at this year's X Games is a 9-year-old from Australia. The X Games "youngest ever" in skateboarding has been going down almost every year.

It's a Dragon Gate way of booking units. The main heel unit has had some kind of continuity for the last decade. Mad Blankey to Verserk to R.E.D. to Z-Brats.

Whoa. Could they really be going all in on Uemura? (Probably not)

Naito left the belt on the apron on the first night after losing to Shingo. ZSJ immediately went for the belt after he won so it was probably at least discussed. Technically, though, since Naito lost on the first night to Shingo and Shingo lost to Umino the next night, your lineal IWGP champion is Gabe Kidd.

Bought my ticket for the 7/31 show in Yamaguchi today. It's a B Block show with a Takeshita/Finlay main. It's still early on so who knows who wins where. One thing of note is that young lions Shoma Kato and Katsuya Murashima are going to get murdered by Jake and Gabe if they aren't already dead after facing Takeshita and Henare this coming Saturday.

Jake probably needs a win but will they really pull the trigger and have Naito lose three in a row? If people were frustrated with too much HOT interference before, imagine how they are going to feel when EVIL (and Narita) still keeps winning matches with only a (relative) bit of cheating? At least in EVIL's case, he earned his tough guy credentials during the time when the NEVER belt was all about guys hitting each other really hard. That was always the most interesting thing about those more DragonGate than DragonGate HOT matches. Yeah, you could counter the cheating but EVIL will always be a bastard to put down.

After Peter Pan, Despy announced that he'll be out indefinitely to get surgery.

In my dreams, Narita, Tsuji, Uemura and a returning Oiwa all decide to band together. First to beat up Umino (for being the chosen one) and then to battle all the olds. Also, they finally gave DOUKI the junior title so things are looking up.

Hell yeah DOUKI.

Newman and Boltin beat YOSHI-HASHI and TAICHI, respectively, to restore balance to normal capitalization secure slots for the G1.

From what I gathered about Stardom from the internet: Before the Conversion: Wtf is Stardom doing these days? They're done. The future is Marigold. After the Conversion: This is the most interesting thing Stardom has done recently and the future is bright. So I guess people were...converted.

Thanks Tony Khan.

Re: Kanye West showing up in a TJPW ring. It wasn't a TJPW show/event. It was an event for the just renovated Alexander Wang store in Aoyama, Tokyo. The "card" was a single tag match with Mizuki/Nao Kakuta vs Miyu Yamashita/Yuki Kamifuku.

Henare beat Shingo for the Never title. Despy beat SHO and called out DOUKI to be the first challenger.

Yeah. He made a quick comment during today's show that he's ending the group. If he does more with New Japan I can see why they wouldn't need someone like Nakajima. They are the only people with a legit chance at a main title grandslam with a IWGP title win (sorry Go Shiozaki fans).

AJ Styles v Marafuji on the NOAH July 13 show

Konosuke Takeshita has just been announced as a participant in this year's G1 Climax.

Play-in A BLOCK Ishii YOSHI-HASHI Newman KENTA Chase Yujiro B BLOCK Tanahashi Yano Boltin Kojima Taichi TJP