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Semifinals of the New Japan Cup are set for Saturday, winners go on Sunday and the winner gets Switchblade at Madison Square Garden for the IWGP Heavy

 

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Also on Sunday is Juice vs Chase Owens for the IWGP US Title. I don't question Gedo too often on his booking decisions because even the questionable ones turn out all right (though he does have a weakness when it comes to consistently booking tag team scenes ironically enough), but I think he's really flubbed Juice. He's applied traditional Japanese-style secondary-title booking to Juice and I don't think that works well when you're trying to build a title that can main event shows in the United States and build a star to be synonymous with that title. I like that Chase is finally getting something else to do but I don't like that Juice's US Title competition is not all that strong, especially with that roster.

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We seem to have the full card for Madison Square Garden.

 

- Honor Rumble: (Only Jushin Liger on his retirement tour confirmed so far, I assume everyone else already not on the card will get on it just for the appearance)

- Title For Title: NEVER Champion Will Ospreay vs RoH TV Champion Jeff Cobb :nod:

- Dalton Castle vs RUSHHHHHHHH (I'd normally be a bit more excited for this, but Castle's been wrestling injured since he came back)

- Women Of Honor Title Match: Mayu Iwatani vs Kelly Klein (I think Iwatani is the Champion. She was part of STARDOM's Big Three with Io Shirai and Kairi Sane as far as I know)

- NYC Street Fight Open Challenge: Bully Ray vs [x]

- IWGP Jr Heavy Three-Way: Taiji Ishimori (c) vs Dragon Lee vs Bandido :shiny:

- IWGP Heavy and RoH Tag Four Way: GoD (c) vs PCO and Brodie King (c) vs The Briscoes vs SANADA/EVIL

- British Heavyweight Championship: Zack Sabre Jr (c) vs Tanahashi :nod:

- IWGP IC Title: Naito (c) vs Ibushi :jumboshiny:

- RoH World Title Ladder Match: Jay Lethal (c) vs Marty Scurll vs Matt Taven

- IWGP Heavy: Jay White (c) vs Okada

 

Wrestlemania weekend is going to be horrifying to keep up with

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  On 3/26/2019 at 12:41 PM, DeJaPon said:

- NYC Street Fight Open Challenge: Bully Ray vs [x]

why.jpg

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Jay/Okada is the only match from the G1 Supercard I really loved. A few others I liked. RoH held the show down, they feel more behind-the-times than WWE does. The audio was really bad, RoH-TV levels of bad.

 

I think the western expansion when it comes to America hit the wall once Kenny left, I'd prefer they scale it back to a few California shows per year. UK is different because Rev Pro seems to utilize the roster pretty well and ZSJ is being put massively over, though I dunno how well that plays to the UK indie base.

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Dontaku tour had some good matches, new roster member (El Phantasmo) and a teaser for another new roster member going after Juice.

 

Feels kind of same-y right now, though, the roster "rebuild" is probably more of a long-term project. Jay White is more Finn Balor than Kenny Omega (I think Balor only became popular for the Bullet Club in NXT), and the real replacement on the roster for Kenny, Will Ospreay, is being slowly built up to that level instead of rushed to it.

 

Though...

 

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BOSJ Roster is pretty impressive

 

Block A

 

Bandido (debut)

Bushi

Dragon Lee (vs Bandido, holy shit)

Desperado

Flip Gordon

Jonathan Gresham :nod:

Marty Scurll (huh, I thought his contract was up)

Robbie Eagles

Rocky Romero

Taguchi

 

Block B

 

Shingo

Sho

Boner

Taka

Tiger Mask

Titan (Not a debut, but hasn't wrestled in the tournament since Balor was on the roster)

Ospreay (huh...)

Yoh (first singles match against Sho since they were Young Boys)

Kanemaru

El Phantasmo (debut)

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Bandido vs Ospreay happened at today's BOSJ show (Ospreay probably saved Bandido's life on a shooting star press)

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Oh my fucking GOD, I was wondering who Death Rider was :rip:

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Moxley and Juice had their US Title Match at the BOSJ Final today. The tournament was effing good this year, Robbie Eagles (apparently he's both an Australian draw for NJPWWorld and the his merch is selling to Japanese fans because he's half-Asian) and Rocky Romero (dat armbar) in particular stood out more than I expected they would, and NJPW might be finally utilizing Shingo like they should be. El Phantasmo had a good showing, but he rubs me the wrong way (he's sort of like if Ospreay did more obnoxious Young Buck stuff before that became popular)

 

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Addendum:

 

Ospreay v Shingo was one of the best matches of the year so far :rip:

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Plan to watch the Finals sometime today.

 

But holy shit. Holy shit. Suzuki tweeted that he wants to face Moxley. Holy shit. I need this in my life. :drool: :rip:

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Juice and Moxley post-match backstage promos (spoils obvs)

 

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How did you manage to post that in a way that the link doesn't work both as something that auto-converts to the video and as something you can click on? We actually have to copy and paste it in a browser to watch it... what are we, savages? 

 

 

Also, awesome promos from both :shiny:

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  On 6/7/2019 at 4:21 AM, Blackjak said:

How did you manage to post that in a way that the link doesn't work both as something that auto-converts to the video and as something you can click on? We actually have to copy and paste it in a browser to watch it... what are we, savages?

 

Happens to me all the time on here :p

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Fixed it.

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Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwww SHIT

 

Dominion spoilers

 

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Guys guys guys guys

 

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Dragon Lee/Ospreay

 

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Naito/Ibushi

 

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OH MY GOD THESE G1 BLOCKS :jumboshiny:

 

A Block

 

Okada

Tanahashi

Ibushi

ZSJ

Ospreay ( :shiny: )

KENTA ( :shiny: )

Sanada

EVIL

Lance Archer

Bad Luck Fale

 

B Block

 

Naito

Ishii

Switchblade

Juice

Yano

Holy Lord Taichi

Shingo ( :shiny: )

Goto

Jeff Cobb ( :shiny: )

Moxley ( :shiny: )

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It's interesting that the Observer rewinds are finally spilling into the NJPW dark ages and it sounds like Inoki wasn't just promoting wrestling and MMA together in a bizarre mishmash, he was trying to job out the wrestlers and the promotion to his MMA guys to put them over instead because he had some involvement in booking for K-1 and Pride too

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Kind wish they'd stay doing just what they're doing. This stuff kinda died once Kenny left

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Yeah. The Elite leaving RoH gutted them, and CMLL's experiencing some backstage turbulence right now that might harm that relationship, so they don't exactly have as strong of international ties as they did before too.

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Watching parts of the Wrestle Kingdom Press Conference. Ospreay started pushing that the double-title tournament wasn't that popular with the Osaka crowd and said him and Hiromu should be in the main event of one of the shows instead, and goes off how he's been put in every match and every tournament when they need someone to have a big moment.

 

And then Jay White comes out for his press conference with Naito, interrupts the press conference introduction to absolutely bury Ospreay, mentioning he hasn't won any of the tournaments he's been in put in and his big wins are limited, and tells him to stop whining about having to work so hard and just stop taking the opportunities if you don't want them.

 

Fucking natural heel. I don't know if this is going to lead somewhere (it would tip off that Jay White is winning the double titles, and I don't think that's gonna happen at the Dome), but that felt so natural that even if they're not, they should start going that direction.

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Digging this year's World Tag League so far. All 16 teams are in the same block so very show is 7 tournament matches and then a Wrestle Kingdom main event build-up match. It's a skippable tour regardless, but I like that least almost every match on almost every card matters for something.

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Low-key the best part of this tag league has been KENTA's after-match promos. He has a spicy relationship going on with the camera, pretends that Ishii/TOMO and Goto/HIRO are boyband members, gets them confused because TOMO and HIRO still spells out Ishii's name, brings up their twitter beef but corrects himself when he pronounces twitter the Japanese way ("Tweet-er AH, I mean Twih-ter") and then ends every promo by making fun of how ugly Yoshi-Hashi is.

 

We're currently in the phase where KENTA got jealous of camera-kun because he was talking to Yujiro alone (Kenta at the time was getting his ass beat by Goto), and now camera-kun's asking about KENTA hanging around Pieter all the time.

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Liger will be missed (yes I know this isn't NJPW, but I don't care)

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Got NJworld and didn't realise it had access to original Los Ingobernables matches in CMLL.

 

Omfg proper asshole heel Naito is amazing!

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That was a baller few weeks. Naito, Rush, Sombra/Andrade, La Mascara and I think Marco Corleone (he subbed in when someone got hurt for a little while) :nod:

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New Beginning in Sapporo last night, Ishii vs EVIL and Goto defending the NEVER against Shingo. Strong style as fuck :shiny:

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I liked both of those matches more than most of Wrestle Kingdom.  I actually have those two and the New Year Dash matches right next to each other under Okada/Naito, Ospreay/Hiromu and Okada/Ibushi.

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Ishii/Goto/Eagles vs Hiromu/Shingo/EVIL from Road To New Beginning Feb 4th was p. gud

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Highly enjoyable Mox/Suzuki match, has me dying to see them go at it again.

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Mox/Suzuki is one of those matches that I could pick out imperfections, but it added to the vibe of the match.  Really unique feeling, and a wonderful clash of personalities I didn't know I wanted so bad, yet felt so right.  One of my favorite matches of the year so far.

 

Watching Naito/KENTA now :shiny:

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Well, fucking hell.

 

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I think my top matches go Hiromu/Lee, then Moxley/Suzuki, followed by Naito/KENTA.  The first half had some good bouts that didn't stand out, but these last three were gold.

 

Hell of a tour in general, really.  Maybe the first time I've been hyped for all of the big New Beginning shows.

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I felt that lariat that Suzuki stayed standing up for in my soul

 

There's a point early in the match where Mox stiffs Suzuki with a forearm and you could see on Suzuki's face that he wasn't expecting it, and then he cracks Mox back and it's fucking ON. Love that shit.

 

I'll get to KENTA/Naito a bit later, but that match feels way bigger than it should be because of the promos they've been cutting on each other. KENTA's become promo-gold, and they're kind of petty mirrors of each other (both left and came back with attitudes, both don't take shit seriously, both use psychological warfare and/or passive aggressive comments to mock their opponents)

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The Anniversary Show and the New Japan Cup were cancelled because of coronavirus fears

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