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Not being contrarian, not being ironic: I loved that bit. I thought I was burned out on wrestling after the G1, but I enjoyed every minute of Dynamite this week. So much variety from match to match, and so much entertaining BS on top of everything that happened in the ring.

It's almost a relief that the G1 is over. I enjoyed the hell out of that but I think one more week might have burned me out. Not sure what I'll do with my extra free time next week. Been a pleasure watching and discussing with all y'all. Personally, I think I'll mostly stick to AEW between now and WK, but who knows - maybe the combined BOSJ and Tag Tournament will drag me back in.

Full card for the finals has been released: https://www.njpw1972.com/83035 Stoked for the Handsome Battle

Tonight, I believe that EVIL vs SANADA is going on last. If Naito wins the semi-main then SANADA can only play spoiler. If KENTA beats Naito, then the winner of the main goes to the finals. Naito needs a win and a SANADA victory. For me, Naito would be the most satisfying winner, and EVIL the least satisfying. So, I will genuinely be pulling for Naito, then regardless of how that goes I'll be pulling for SANADA. It's likely I'll be genuinely marking out for two long matches tonight. Looking forward to that! I'll be totally deflated if EVIL wins... But then I'll be marking out for tomorrow evening anyway.

Without spoiling anything, Ospreay vs Okada had a twist I DEFINITELY did not see coming, and Ibushii vs Taichi Without Miho Abe was a genuinely unique pro wrestling match. This was another night of very good and entertaining stuff from A Block. Can't wait to read everyone's reactions to Ibushii vs Taichi, Okada vs Ospreay, and the Main Event. I've been popping like Orville Redenbacher all night here.

Man... I got home from work exactly in time to catch Ishii's entrance. Like it was fate or something. That match gave me a rare gift. Marking out, not for the quality of the work or the stiffness or the spots or whatever. Marking out because I really, really wanted this particular "good guy" to beat this particular "bad guy" on this particular night. Absolute f'n roller coaster ride. Even the Gedo stuff totally worked on me tonight. I was 100% losing it: SCREW YOU GEDO! LET'S GO ISHII!!!!! Oh boy was that fun. Cannot adequately express how much I enjoyed that.

I just want to see Naito vs Hiromu. And I believe it is understood that if the current champion wins the tournament he gets to pick his challenger in lieu of the winner getting a title shot.. The current champ has won the G1 twice before (Mutoh in '95, Kensuke in 2000), but I don't think they had the "G1 winner gets a title match at WK" stipulation until, maybe 2012?

With the way things are shaping up, I am getting worried that they are planning to give us a Jay vs EVIL, Gedo vs Togo, all interference all the time, Bullet Club Explodes final. Personally, I am still hoping that Naito wins it all and chooses Hiromu as his challenger.

Not to mention that (for me, at least) having something like AEW (and recently the G1) to look forward to has made getting through"these difficult times" so much easier and more fun. Week after week, they give us something to smile about.

The young lions match was excellent tonight. Cobb v Stone Pitbull was exactly the kind of match I love. Stiff strikes. Big bombs. Power v toughness, but Cobb is also pretty tough and Ishii is also pretty powerful. Loved this match. It might just be the best of Cobb's career so far. I mean, he's had a ton of matches I haven't seen, but this one won't be easy to top. Tokyo Pimp Without Pieter v Jay was a lot of fun. A really good idea very well executed. Most I have ever enjoyed a Jay White match, and that's a shoot, brother! Long term story telling. Good Lord this show has been my cup of tea thus far! I get the feeling that two of the last three matches are going to go over 20 minutes, though. That could be good or bad. So, maybe I'm just in a good mood... because I enjoyed every minute of Ospreay v Taichi Without Miho Abe and I don't generally enjoy Taichi Without Abe. I think this was the most I have ever enjoyed him... so, yeah, good mood. Probably also good wrestling, too. And now they are playing "Kaze Ni Nare" so it's not like I won't enjoy what's coming next. Man, autocorrect really didn't want to help me write Kaze Ni Nare. And apparently now Ibushi can credibly go toe-to-toe with both Ishii and MiSu. Pretty tough choice between the more concise Cobb v Ishii and the more epic MiSu v Ibushi for MOTN so far. Shingo and Okada definitely put in the work to try and top everything that came before their match tonight. I imagine the Meltzers and Kellers of the world will rank it #1. I have it in 3rd place because of the finish (you'll understand when you see it) but the match was a strong conclusion to a really excellent night of pro wrestling. I genuinely enjoyed every match on the card. The Osaka crowd was white hot all night, and well-miked as well. Best night of the tournament so far, for me.

Finished work in time to catch Cobb v White, switched over to AJPW TV, marked out like a little kid watching the CC final, then switched back just in time to catch the start of Ospreay v Ibushi. Pretty good time to finish work early-ish then be stuck at home in front of the computer screen!! Both G1 matches were very enjoyable. As for the CC: Baba, Abdullah, Jumbo, Hansen, Kawada, Misawa, Taue, Vader, Kobashi, Tenryu, Mutoh, Kensuke, Suwama, MiSu, Akiyama, Sekimoto, Ishikawa...

Another enjoyable night of pro wrestling. I though everything was at least good, but nothing on the card was excellent. I'm happy to see the young boys continue to put on solid showings. I wasn't paying close attention during Tokyo pimp without Pieter vs Taichi without Miho Abe because on paper that was the match I had the least interest in in this G1. #s 2 and 3 on that list were Yoshi-Hashi vs EVIL and Yoshi-Hashi v Juice. And now all of those matches have come and gone, and all were cromulent enough. I don't think any of those guys stink, it's just that none of them have ever really grabbed my interest... yet. I surprised myself by enjoying Ishii v Ibushi more than MiSu v Cobb. I think Ishii set the bar of my expectations for a "2020 G1 Minoru Suzuki match" way too high. I thought Cobb showed too much light a couple of times. That being said, his rolling deadlift gutwrench suplexes are very impressive indeed. I enjoyed the finish to their match. Ishii v Ibsushi was probably my personal MOTN. I liked the tidy little story they told of how Ibushi was able to hang with Ishii when they were trading strikes, but how Ishii just couldn't keep up with all of Ibushi's fancy Dan stuff. If anyone had told me, as recently as three or four years ago, that Ibushi would one day be able to believably go toe to toe with the toughest guy in New Japan in the G1... I would have thought they were insane. Yet, here we are. Hats off to pretty boy, he can go. Also, if you'd told me a few years ago that Shingo v Ospreay would be a viable NJPW heavyweight G1 battle, I doubt I'd have believed you. And if you'd told me that Ospreay would damn near out-muscle Shingo in 2020... .... ....but here we are. I wanna like Jay White more than I do, but I find a lot of his matches to be very formulaic: He begs off and bails out like a coward to start things off, works the crowd in an ironic fashion as soon as he gets the advantage, Gedo interferes... I absolutely do not hate the guy's work, and it's not like Ric Flair and Bret Hart didn't have a formula, but I am certainly not aboard the Jay-1 hype train... yet. Okada's been on an underwhelming run so far. Such are the burdens of high expectations. It was a good match. I hated the ending.

I'd honestly prefer it if they went back to sub-15-minute main events, too.

I didn't enjoy Night 2 as much as I enjoyed Night 1, and Misu v Ishii is still my favourite match of the tournament by a wide margin (and to be honest it will be very very tough to top)... but there was still a lot to like. I loved Liger on commentary, "boo-humming" (hum-booing??) and getting very into everything. I loved that Osaka crowd, doing the very best they could under the circumstances. There were some really surprising finishes as well as quite a few near-falls and false finishes that I bought into, which is something i always enjoy. Tana's high fly flow to the floor was a truly spectacular spot. It's pretty tough to "wow" me these days, but that totally did it. I sincerely enjoyed the finishes to Yano v SANADA and EVIL v ZSJ. I have a few "Old Man Yells at Cloud" opinions about Night 2, though: Did Juice and SANADA have a backstage bet about who could put on the stupidest ring entrance outfits? It's a pretty tough choice, there. It was very cool that Juice got the Osaka crowd into it... and I'm hoping that some day he'll be able to get me into one of his matches, too. I like his left hand punches, but everything else he does in there seems to ripped off directly from a "Best of the SmackDown 6" comp tape. Can somebody maybe send him a "Barry Windham in the 4 Horsemen" comp or something? I'd like to see him do a few basic wrestling moves or holds. (Like I said: "Old Man Yells at Cloud")... KENTA v Goto just went on and on, from where I was sitting. I've liked both guys a lot at various times (like, for example, Goto's amazing WK 12 match v MiSu) but I just couldn't get into what they were doing tonight. They looked a little rusty, to be honest. I liked the "technique v power" story that EVIL and Zach told in there. I wish they had teased out the "unprotected turnbuckle" spot a little, but otherwise it was a fine match. If we are definitely going to have interference in every BC match... I guess I slightly prefer Dick Togo interfering to Gedo interfering. I could see people who are really into "Epic" matches preferring tonight's main event to Suzuki v Ishii. I'd have to imagine that Naito v Tana is Meltzer's match of the tournament so far, for example. It's still not close, though, for me. I guess I'm really into the whole brevity thing these days. Obviously, the main event went really long... and it's not like those guys aren't great at "Epic." The match had enough drama and excitement to pretty much fill all that time. It was nice to see Tana not looking all banged up in there, too. I just hope that Naito doesn't try to do this every night that he's working in this tournament... but I am kind of afraid that he will.

Very very good first night of action. Spoiler-free thoughts: Young Boys match was perfectly cromulent. I'm looking forward to seeing more out o these guys as the tournament goes on. Ospreay has obviously added a LOT of muscle to his frame, but he can still fly. Jeff Cobb has a very weird-looking body, like he's made of stuck-together parts of different action figures. He hit some very impressive-looking power moves in his match with Taichi. MiSu v Ishii was everything i hoped it wold be. They just beat the living shit out of each other. It was glorious. Easily MOTN I am one of the very last people to jump on the Jay White hype train and I have been disappointed by his performance fairly often in the past, but I really liked his match v Shingo. It suffered a little by going for "hard-hitting" in the wake of Suzuki v Ishii, but they both looked pretty damned good in there anyway. I was sure that Okada v Ibushi was going to be a "NJPW Epic Match Spectacular" and I literally made some (microwave) popcorn and settled in to watch it. To my surprise, the match felt succinct (and suitably violent) to me. Looking at the clock I'd say they went about 20 minutes but it felt shorter than that to me. The finish felt abrupt, in a good way. I was really pleased that they didn't go in for finisher overkill. Not a big fan of Okada going for the Cobra Clutch so often, but I still enjoyed this match a lot and it didn't overstay its welcome. Great start to the tournament.