What is DH Smith doing in the "yellow and gold" zone?

I figured he'd be in AEW

The talent are cleverly pushing away ROH if New Japan is not going to do it themselves. It wouldn't surprise me if Moxley planted a few ideas into Robinson's head about taking some initiative if he'd rather be working AEW shows.

The only thing ROH has going for it is the NJPW association and some of the folks they signed over the winter, in my opinion. They have arguably the most insidious owners in wrestling, their top guys are mix of dudes whose ceiling is ROH/maybe TNA (Taven), people whose baggage are keeping them there (Briscoes, possibly Lethal), and people who are just waiting for their contract to expire (Scurll). Still, I don't know if NJPW can just extract themselves from the working partnership they have with ROH given they'd also lose CMLL with AEW having its own network of aligned promotions set up.

Like, I think there will be a point in time when AEW and NJPW do end up officially aligned, but I think it'll take longer than anyone but ROH would like.

ROH is barely better than Impact at this point.

G1 Climax 2019 blocks:

A Block:

• Kazuchika Okada
• Zack Sabre Jr.
• Hiroshi Tanahashi
• Kota Ibushi
• EVIL
• SANADA
• Bad Luck Fale
• Lance Archer
• Will Ospreay
• KENTA

B Block:

• Tetsuya Naito
• Tomohiro Ishii
• Juice Robinson
• Toru Yano
• Hirooki Goto
• Jay White
• Jeff Cobb
• Shingo Takagi
• Taichi
• Jon Moxley

Block A seems like a lot of repeats, I think Block B will give us a lot of surprises.

Well, it seems like they made all the right cuts from last year-WAIT WHERE THE FUCK IS MINORU SUZUKI?!?!?!

Goddamn. He should be in Block B.

I say Block A and Block B instead of A Block B Block because I think it sounds less like 2nd best.

I am truly baffled at Suzuki not being in this. If he didn't ask to be taken out of the tournament this makes no sense.

But the field as a whole is way stronger than last.

A Block is loaded, B Block feels like it's Naito's to lose.

I think B Block is looking to Shingo and Jay White to be the stand outs. Also Ishii and perhaps Mox and Cobb.

How cool is it that 3 or 4 month later and Dean Ambrose is in the fucking G1.

Thinking about it...if you sub Suzuki into B Block for Goto or Yano. He'd be losing to Naito, Switchblade, and probably Mox unless they were going to do a US Title match later. So that's 3 losses but then you consider Ishii, Juice, and Shingo all seem to be higher on the pecking order than him at this point and he probably would've lost to some of them. And had he replaced Archer in A Block it would've been even worse.

So as much as I love Suzuki, I'm not sure there was a path to him getting a winning record in this tourney and if that's the case, it's probably best that they kept him out and protect his aura.

If Goto puts up his spot to Suzuki and loses I would not even be slightly surprised.

I’d rather see Goto than Suzuki at this point.

But fuck yeah, no Yoshi-Hashi! Plus Ishii and Moxley in the same block.

Well, Suzuki DID demand a qualifying match after his match today...so it's possible. But despite Goto seemingly disappearing this year, I'm not sure they'd bring him back just to lose his spot to Suzuki.

If he's going to murder someone and take their spot, I think it'll be Yano. You normally want Yano in there because he, like Fale in the other block, gives the guys a bit of a break since they won't have to work a long match against him. Also both of them are important to booking because they've got a reputation as spoilers. But with Taichi in, he could conceivably play that role in B block.

I doubt they do anything. This probably sets up Suzuki either getting a month off or murdering people in the undercard matches. Probably costs Mox his match to Taichi or something to set up the Mox/Suzuki match both guys supposedly have asked for.

I picked Goto becauce his booking this year has had him come out looking like a big contender and then fall at the first hurdle and struggle to get back on his feet. New Japan Cup first round loss and then the Jay White feud where he even got pinned in the tags. It's almost like Gedo is ribbing him.

Love Goto, he got a monster pop when they announced him and he deserves a bit of a redemptive run before they probably shaft him in the block final, I'm expecting him to finish no higher than 5th or 6th though. Yano needs to stay in the block at all costs so he can beat Jay White and we get an epic tantrum out of it.

Night 1 in Dallas will be headlined by Okada/Tanahashi with Ibushi/KENTA as the semi-main.

7/19: Moxley vs. Ishii

If NJPW sticks with the usual trend for their tournaments, G1 Finals is going to be between winner of Okada vs. Ibushi and Naito vs. White based on the final block nights.

Only other major match in those 2 nights is Ospreay vs. Tanahashi. Probably going to be a repeat of what happened with Jay White last year because its too high profile of a match to just toss away as a meaningless match.

Eh, that's who I expected the blocks to come down to anyway. Despite it being a month long tourney, announcing all of the matches in advance makes it pretty easy to work out who the real contenders are.

The part I love about it though is all of the side stories they set up during the tourney itself. I feel like almost every match involving a champion is a must watch because a loss by the champ will set up a title match.

Some new details regarding the debunked Gedo rumor. Seems the origin of the rumor was a reporter in Japan making an assumption about the ending to Dominion and it got quickly taken as a fact of Gedo quitting as the head booker.

Save the date.

It's the main event for that night, so its going to get plenty of time.

Mox/Ishii might wind up being the match of that block. Though Naito/Shingo also has me seriously interested. And Yano/Taichi.

Mox is skipping the press conference and the Dallas show.

I'm guessing his AEW contract doesn't allow him to take televised bookings in the US.

Words from our god and savior @ 2:37

<iframe width="907" height="510" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hOJUzRB-Xiw" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

He's such a dork and that was great :lol:

I especially like Okada's confidence in his tag team partner by immediately saying he can't wait to wrestle Zack.

Apparently ticket sales haven't been great for the Southern Showdown in Australia. People who had bought balcony seats have been getting notified that their seats are being relocated to the back rows of the floor.

Seen a few people saying they will try to get refunds because floor seats suck.

To be fair, neither card for the tour looks that appealing overall.

The card for the Sydney show looks terrible and the one for the Melbourne show looks decent at best. Nothing really mouth-watering outside of the IWGP Jr title match and maybe the Romero vs. Phantasmo match.

New Japan greatly misjudges their foreign markets.

The London show has sold well and the Long Beach shows have drawn as well. I can write off the January tour not drawing well to all of the visa issues.

But the fact that the G1 show in Dallas isn't selling well despite a loaded A Block is pretty damning. They'll draw in cities like NYC or Chicago but if it's not a city people want to travel to, it's not going to be well received.

Observer on the issues leading to Davey Boy Smith's departure.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This Davey Boy Jr. story is basically the plotline for an episode of a potential wrestling sitcom: <a href="https://t.co/avNxZVUnzA">pic.twitter.com/avNxZVUnzA</a></p>&mdash; Trevor Dame (@TrevorDame) <a href="https://twitter.com/TrevorDame/status/1141639803240239104?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

https://www.pwtorch.com/site/2019/06...ans-drop-dead/

TLDRL - foreign fans can't get Tix to Wrestlekingdom anymore since they blocked a commonly used proxy service that gave foreign fans access to a Japanese address which is a requirement to be in the NJPW fan club for presales...but they still took their fan club money.

WK never sells out though, so that can't be entirely valid.

LOL at the headline of that article being so incendiary.

You shouldn't use shady third parties to buy tickets for you that require a Japanese address if you don't have a Japanese address. It would seem to be common sense that you should only buy tickets directly from New Japan or from other official channels (i.e. respect whatever rules NJPW adopts for ticket sales).

It is hypocritical for any American to criticize a Japanese company putting its Japanese fans first while claiming, without evidence, that Americans would "be outraged" if WWE put its American fans first. I think it'd actually be pretty popular in the US if WWE followed suit for WrestleMania (and if they'd ban scalpers from buying tickets to resell them at inflated prices, but not much you can do with that).

The idea of prioritizing the interests of your own country's people over those of foreigners may be completely alien to American journalists and American corporations, but it is normal to most people in America and most people in most countries around the world. NJPW is intentionally giving up money they could make from raising ticket prices and selling to foreigners who are willing to pay outrageous scalper-like ticket prices in order to ensure their Japanese fans can get the best seats at the Dome. That's admirable and is an example that the American companies that shipped our jobs to other countries where they can get away with offering terrible pay and terrible working conditions could learn from.

Didn't they sell out this year?

I think they misunderstand how valuable Americans see tournaments as -- especially as the start of tournaments. They took ages to announce a card and there aren't really any major stips in the sense that Westerners appreciate them. Getting a start in the G-1 isn't really a deal to them.

They really should have gone in gun's blazing with a card like:

* Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega for the IWGP Heavyweight Title
* Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Chris Jericho
* Kota Ibushi vs. Tetsuya Naito for the IC Title
* Jon Moxley vs. Tomohiro Ishii for the US Title/NEVER Openweight Title
* Jay White vs. Hirooki Goto
* GoD vs. The KES for the Tag Titles (give KES the belts in Archer's hometown)
* EVIL & Sanada vs. Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre, Jr.
* Will Ospreay vs. Dragon Lee vs. Bandido for the Junior Heavyweight Title
* Shingo Takagi vs. Taiji Ishimori
* Juice Robinson vs. Jeff Cobb
* Togi Makabe, Toru Yano & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Rocky Romero, Sho & Yoh

It may not have sold out, given the location, but something like that would drum up a lot more interest than "Start of the G-1."

I think that would be fine but you can't alter tbe G-1. As this is the start of the league I think they should've begged AEW to let Jericho appear and work against Tanahashi as a non tournament main event for the show.

However if I was Jericho I'd be like "nah" because even his name isn't going to fill up 10,000 seats in Dallas. His draw would look weakened if he took a booking on that card.