Chat! culturecrossfire.slack.com

Puroresu Love & Resources V4

Latest report is they sold all the tickets they put out for the Dome AGAIN and there are no more left to put out. Might be a legit total sellout of over 60k. Really fantastic news.
 
WK is only going to be 7 Matches this year.
*A trios gauntlet match with all mystery teams except champions Toru Yano & Yoh & Master Wato for the trios tiles
*Saya Kamitani vs. Syuri for both the IWGP women’s title and New Japan Strong women’s title
*Shingo Takagi & David Finlay & Gabe Kidd & Hiorumu Takahashi & Drilla Moloney vs Great O’Khan & Callum Newman & two mystery partners
*El Desperado vs. Kosei Fujita vs. Taiji Ishimori & Sho with the winner facing Douki down the line for the IWGP jr. title
*Evil vs. Aaron Wolf for the Never title
*Konosuke Takeshita vs,. Yota Tsuji for both the IWGP and Global titles
*Hiroshi Tanahashi’s retirement vs. Kazuchika Okada

I think keeping it tight and focused is probably smart tbh. It sucks that some big names will either be left out or put in the trios gauntlet match but this is NJPW's chance to get in front of a huge audience for the first time in a long time so they need to focus on making a big impression.
 
I think the card is basically set now:

1. 6-man tag team Ranbo for the 6-man Title. (Most notably Sabre, Goto, and several other big names left off the card otherwise will be in this. As will Kaisei Takechi from DDT who is some kind of JPop star.)

2. El Phantasmo Vs Chris Brookes for the TV Title (Brookes is one of the top DDT stars and they've had at least one previous match outside NJPW.)

3. Saya Kamitani Vs Syuri, both Women are Champs and winner takes all (I don't follow Joshi much but Saya won the MVP award this year which has never been awarded to a woman before.)

4. War Dogs and Unaffiliated: Finlay/Kidd/Drilla/Shingo/Hiromu Vs United Empire : Newman/OKhan/Henare/Andrade/TBA (Empire has been without a leader ever since Will left and is now finding a purpose. The remnants of LIJ still team together but not as an actual unit. War Dogs are tweeners)

5. Desperado Vs Kosei Fujita Vs Ishimori Vs Sho, #1 Contender for Jr Title (nothing really interesting to say here. I think they're holding the actual junior title match off so as to have a draw in the new year.)

6. EVIL Vs Aaron Wolf for the NEVER Openweight Title (If anything other than the main event is really important than this is it. Wolf is making his debut here and he's a Two-time Gold Medalist for Japan in Judo. EVIL is his trainer so between knowing him well and all the interference they'll run he's probably the best bet to get the most entertaining debut out of him)

7. Takeshita Vs Yota Tsuji, Winner Takes all (Takeshita is the IWGP Champ and Tsuji is the Global Champ. Hopefully the belts will merge and result in the return of the good IWGP belt design.)

8. Tanahashi Vs Okada (The reason the Dome legit sold out. Tanahashi has a connection with the fanbase that is crazy to watch. Okada is still one of the best in the world. It's going to be special.)
 
I'm gonna try and stay up for the Aaron Wolf match and see if he stinks up the joint. Assuming Tana's retirement celebration is going on last, no way am I gonna be able to stay up for that on the east coast.
 
WK flew by. Not the best WK ever by any means but the top matches overdelivered. Aaaron Wolf has serious star potential. Tsuji/Takeshita was excellent and Tsuji looks like he's finally putting all the pieces together to be the top guy. Tanahashi/Okada was magic. Okada played the heel perfectly.

Tons of great surprise guests after the match as well. Very emotional.
 
You were higher on Wolf-EVIL than I was but it was the first match of the show that I felt like the crowd cared about, which helped it.

Those last two matches were both fantastic though
 
I was judging it by the standards of his never having worked before and it being a HoT/EVIL match tbf. I think he showed a lot of fire and played all the right notes for Japan. The fact they also pulled the trigger and put the belt on him was also impressive given Gedo's booking the last however many years.

I thought the United Empire Vs WarDogs/NotLIJ match was good but not amazing. More interesting for the return of Jake Lee and solidifying UK as a top heel unit. I thought Newman looked impressive as well.

Women's match was too short to really judge them but both seem talented from this and other things I've seen.
 
Dash was actually somewhat eventful again this year!

We have a new faction as War Dogs and what's left of LIJ have merged to become "Unbound Company":

pbzyutzghjbg1.png

Whether that will include others not in the picture wasn't said.
Tsuji also brought back the 4th Gen IWGP belt as you can see in the picture. He also asked to be announced by the old title name, so it sounds like they're restoring the original title lineage.

SANADA also announced he is leaving NJPW to "go on a journey". He really needs to take time off because if you look at any pics his arms are atrophied. Apparently when he was getting his big push he suffered a couple big injuries and didn't take the time off to heal and now his bicep is totally fucked. That's the main reason he ended up in HoT not doing a lot, since he isn't able to do as much.

Will Ospreay also returned and said he wanted to work with UE once he was healed. Callum Newman tried to take him out with a chair (Will did not see this) but the rest of the faction stopped him.

Likely Future Matches

  • IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Yota Tsuji (c) vs. Jake Lee
  • NEVER Openweight Championship: Aaron Wolf (c) vs. Ren Narita
  • IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship #1 Contender: Gabe Kidd vs. Andrade El Ídolo (unofficially confirmed for February 11, The New Beginning in Osaka)
  • IWGP Tag Team Championship: Knock Out Brothers (Yuto-Ice & OSKAR) (c) vs. Shota Umino & Yuya Uemura vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Taichi
 
I see a lot of chatter online bemoaning that WWE didn’t let Nakamura attend WK for Tanahashi’s retirement, instead booking him for a worthless backstage segment with Tama Tonga on SmackDown.

On the one hand, yeah, that sucks. On the other hand, if you want to cash those WWE checks, you do so knowing this stuff comes with the territory.
 
Tino Standard said:
I see a lot of chatter online bemoaning that WWE didn’t let Nakamura attend WK for Tanahashi’s retirement, instead booking him for a worthless backstage segment with Tama Tonga on SmackDown.

On the one hand, yeah, that sucks. On the other hand, if you want to cash those WWE checks, you do so knowing this stuff comes with the territory.
Click to expand...
Well the thing is wwe and njpw had negotiated to let him do it at one point. WWE also allowed Nakamura to send in a video for a a joshi stars retirement. There's really no reason they couldn't have at least let him send a video in beyond being petty. It makes WWE look small.
 
was aew willing to let aew talent appear at Cenas farewell? not being snarky, im legitimately asking.
 
I'm sure Tony Khan would have negotiated for it but WWE likely never considered it
 
@Slayer just saw that Shimizu returned to DG after his one year suspension. Hopefully sitting out a year will be enough of a punishment and they won't make him eat shit continuously to prove he'll be good because he's one of the guys who generally manages to be over with the crowd and a fun worker.
 

NEW JAPAN PRO-WRESTLING

www.njpw1972.com www.njpw1972.com

Hiromu is a legit loss for the company as he's always been over and a minor draw and over the last year he's really put it back together as a worker after being dogged by injuries for a few years. I don't know if he's going to come to the US or move over to NOAH where he's been working a lot the last year. If he goes to NOAH he can join Naito's LIJ-lite crap.

Not confirmed but also seen reports that Clark Conners is signing with AEW.
 
Yeah, not a good wrestler, but still RIP.

I remember marking for him on the Collision in Korea PPV as a kid for some reason. He did always seem eager, it's just someone like Fujita had way more aura and came across more legit as a killer MMA badass.
 
Last edited:
He always worked hard and was perfectly fine on the undercard, I feel. I think had he been on another company he'd be more highly thought of.
 
I could see him catching on with the crowd in late 90's/early 00's as an undercard guy in All Japan. Especially, post split.
 
Same. He's one of those guys I could see thriving in the AJPW midcard, or even upper card as part of a tag team. Hell I think he would've been a solid upper card guy in early Zero One, especially post Hash.
 
https://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/1r23xwa/ceo_takaaki_kidani_on_x_to_all_card_game

Tsuji took a shot at Bushiroad last night and Kidani got pissed lol. I don't think I posted it but after WK there were some reports about the main reason Okada left is that he hated Kidani and felt Kidani and Bushiroad didn't value him. I hate to say it but we're really seeing the cracks in NJPW more and more.

I haven't watched the show yet but it was the last night for Hiromu and possibly David Finlay. Drilla Moloney announced he signed a new contract. Aaron Wolfe lost his belt to HoT bullshit which seems like a terrible choice. Andrade won his match and will challenge Tsuji for the Global Title.
 
en.png


Notable that Gabe Kidd is not in this which will add fuel to the speculation that he's AEW bound. That would bring the list of recent/expected departures to Kiid, Conners, Finlay, Hiromu, and EVIL.
 
NJ Cup Semis are set
  • Shota Umino vs. Callum Newman
  • Yuya Uemura vs. Oleg Boltin
I know they want to make Newman for a possible Ospreay match at some point but to me they need to gowith Shota Vs Uemura in the Finals. Uemura beats Umino which builds to tension between them and Shota eventually turns heel and ends the failed Tanahashi-lite experiment.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top