It ain’t MSG.

Surprised they didn't just do the show outside in Times Square. Seems like a very Japanese thing to do.

Soooooooooo, the Wrestle Dynasty show that was planned at MSG before the Pandemic hit is..........what? Forgotten? On the back burner? Still being planned?

Kinda pointless to have a show just up the road.

They cannot book MSG right now or the foreseeable future without AEW'S help, in my opinion.

Another reason AEW might not be the best thing for wrestling.

Eh. They can do it.

The problem is if Gedo half-asses his booking and loads the bulk of the NJPW roster up in pointless tag team or multi-team matches, then yeah, he's gotta pluck a few people from ROH/AEW.

I don’t know what main event moves the tickets at MSG.

Omega/Okada would probably cut it. I would say Danielson/Okada but I think Danielson would prefer that in Japan.

Oh, I meant from purely the New Japan roster. But yeah, those matches have that western audience appeal. Okada vs. Danielson should be the New Japan vs. AEW match, but Danielson is a mid-carder in AEW.

I hated the 28-man, 7-block G1 format. Some guys would have like a week off and it just became too much of a hassle to follow and too confusing to track the brackets.

Not that I wanted the tournament to expand but if they were going to expand it this much above 20 I would've just gone all the way up to 32 (with it being G1 32 and all). 8 tournament matches a night across 14 shows, then semi-finals and finals. Technically means 2 less shows from what people were used to in a normal G1 (19) but there's a lot more matches of consequence since everything would be a tourney match and prelim tags are no longer a thing. I know the tags are meant to build stories for the next tourney match but there are other ways you can build.

Would just be way easier to track tourney progress if an entire block wrestled on the same night.

No one’s talking about this, but G1 results:

New Japan feels so cold.

They should work with WWE. Seth Rollins would be so itchy to wrestle Tanahashi. Okada and Reigns. White and Cody Rhodes. Shingo and Brock. Naito and AJ Styles. Ibushi and Nakamura. The Usos and whoever they decide to make tag champs. New Day and House of Torture. Ricochet going for the Jr. Heavyweight. Rey & Dominik going for the Jr. Tag. Finn Balor & Damian Priest against GoD. Asuka vs. Iyo vs. whoever for the new Women’s Title.

There’s a whole card.

You hear nothing about New Japan anymore. How is it’s actual popularity doing? It feels like pandemic and the AEW deal has put it on its ass.

Royal Quest II is the next major show. FTR vs. Aussie Open for the IWGP Tag Team Titles. Does anybody care?

Not me

Damn. I wish they could get something rolling.

NJPW goes in these waves. They are probably waiting on the next big thing that to carry them through the next 10 years. They repeat so much there. This dip is because of AEW but also the pandemic. Last time they dipped like this was when they tried to infuse MMA into the product.

Has it actually affected their business, or is this dip just reflected in the online communities? Because the hangover from Inokiism is a pretty infamous decline to be coming back from.

Royal Quest II is on soon. Doesn’t look like anything major. Seems like the biggest things coming out of it will be a #1 Contender for Will Ospreay (Naito or Zack Sabre, Jr.) and a first round match in the women’s tournament. In their defense, they’ve got Jazzy Gabert in there, who is at least visually interesting.

Women’s tournament could actually end up being half-way decent. I kind of balked at the idea at first, but this could be a good way to introduce myself to some of their joshi.

Participants from stardom are Starlight Kid, Utami Hashishita, Mayu Iwatani, and Giulia. Definitely worth watching.

Kairi is also in it, facing the winner of Jazzy vs Ava. In other words she's facing Jazzy.

I’m hoping the tournament puts some focus on things that STARDOM as a full promotion can’t. I dunno. We’ll see how it goes.

If anyone remembers Katusuya Kitamura who was an extremely muscular Young Lion from 2016-2018 before disappearing to injury and retiring.

He sadly passed away, only 36.

https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploa...size=480%2C360

Fuuuuuuuuuuck

Remember seeing him thinking he would be the next huge star in new japan. Fucking sad, man.

I remember having this feeling they had big plans for him down the line. Very sad.

Kitamura had "it". What a shame. My condolences to his family for their loss.

Hate to say it, but I'm betting it was related to steroid use. Probably affected his heart in some way.

Thats not just an assumption based on how he looks. He was busted for it before.

Add in the surging rates of myocarditis in the last 18-24 months that are rising for inexplicable and mysterious reasons absolutely no one can explain for any reason whatsoever and id wager a lot of guys who are on gear are going to drop in the immediate future.

Rough cocktail

The bodybuilding scene has been flooded with deaths in the last 2 years.

NJPW has put out an official statement that Karl Anderson will vacate the NEVER title if he goes to Crown Jewel instead of Osaka (he was double booked for that day).

Sour Boy is the worst.

Eh, fuck New Japan.

I wasn't even aware he was the NEVER champ.

Fields announced for both the World Tag League and Super Junior Tag League, which will be running concurrently. Winners get shots at the respective division tag champs and Wrestle Kingdom.

World Tag League:

* Bishamon (Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI)
* HOUSE OF TORTURE (EVIL & Yujiro Takahashi)
* Los Ingobernables De Japon (Tetsuya Naito & SANADA)
* United Empire (Aaron Henare & Great-O-Khan)
* Be-Bop Tag Team (Toru Yano & Hiroshi Tanahashi)
* Aussie Open (Mark Davis & Kyle Fletcher)
* Suzuki-Gun (Lance Archer & Minoru Suzuki)
* BULLET CLUB (Bad Luck Fale & Chase Owens)
* TMDK (Shane Haste & Mikey Nicholls)

Super Junior Tag League:

* Catch 2/2 (Francesco Akira & TJP)
* CHAOS (Lio Rush & YOH)
* Los Ingobernables De Japon (BUSHI & Titan)
* BULLET CLUB (Ace Austin & Chris Bey)
* Flying Tiger (Robbie Eagles & Tiger Mask)
* HOUSE OF TORTURE (Dick Togo & SHO)
* Wild Hips (Ryusuke Taguchi & Clark Connors)
* Suzuki-Gun (DOUKI & Yoshinobu Kanemaru)
* Kevin Knight & KUSHIDA
* El Lindaman & Alex Zayne

Damn! 36 is young.

I'd have thought for sure FTR would be in the World Tag League. Round out that bunch to an even 10 teams.

Kenny Omega vs. Will Ospreay for the U.S. Title at Wrestle Kingdom.

Per the main page.

Watched historic X-over. I was only interested in a few matches, because most of the card was tag matches. As much as I like the individual wrestlers in stardom, I can't stand multi person matches. Clusterfucks that may as well be tornado tag matches. That said, it was cool to see a lot of these women get to show what they can do on a bigger stage. Oedo Tai/Suzuki-gun match was fun given who was involved.

Muta's last njpw match was cool even though guy can barely move.

Ospreay vs Shota Umino was very good. Umino has come a long way. Umino going for a high leapfrog and ospreay leaping up and turning it into a liger bomb in mid air is one of the craziest reversals I've ever seen. Also, had a bit of the feels when ospreay came out in the hayabusa gear. Hayabusa was my entry into japanese wrestling, and hearing the story behind the gear choice was touching.

Kairi vs Mayu was tremendous. Absolutely worthy of the scale of this event. It's between this and Becky vs Bianca for women's match of the year. Nothing else comes close.

Lol, New Japan has a better women’s division than AEW and it’s existed for only a sneeze.

In fairness their "division" is a joshi promotion that has existed and built itself up for over a decade.

Watch stuff from the first couple years of stardom and ask yourself if its better.