Dylan Waco

Parv being a huge fan of this style is absolutely amazing to me. Would be very interested to hear what you think of someone like Shuji Ishikawa.

It's not the best, but if you watch Talking Smack too the scripting feels really toned down there and adds dramatically to the overall package. I'm off the opinion that territory era fans who don't like SD/Talking Smack or CWF have probably just seen wrestling pass them by completely because you aren't going to get anything closer in this era.

Heat evolves, just like everything else in wrestling. People have phones and tablets now - even in the biggest of big spots, some of them are going to be filming it, rather than living in it. I also just believe that people react differently. People evolve. The first 20 mins or so were the least heated moments of the 2nd half of the show. That was my point and it's one I really thought was obvious watching live (and something others were commenting on in real time).

For the first third of the match it really wasn't and that was noted by even hardcore NJPW fans watching in real time

Spirited defense Quentin. It's odd because I praised Omega's performance in the match even if I do agree with some of the criticisms others have tossed at him in the last few days. That said, I think what it really comes down to is the fact that I just have no investment in Omega or Okada as characters. I understand their respective arcs and stories pretty well, in the case of Okada especially I've probably seen every major match of his career. But I just don't care about either of them at all. I understand the story as you've laid it out, and I actually do agree that if there is a time for excess the main event at the Tokyo Dome show, in the biggest match of your life IS that time. And yet from my perspective the match was completely flat, devoid of story or meaning, and totally hollow for almost all of the first 15-20 minutes. I said at the time that I thought the match should have started with a big bang to contrast it from the slow build of Naito v. Tanahashi and I stand by that. People can say all they want about the rave review from Meltzer, or the NJPW diehards who loved the match proving that the match worked as was, but the crowd really didn't feel like they were with them at all in comparison to the previous three matches until the big spots started. It absolutely did not have the vibe of Naito v. Tana early, but what's crazy is I don't even think it connected as much as the junior match until they got to the meat of it. They won them over in a big time way down the stretch, but the crowd in the building didn't really seem to bite on the first third or so of the match. This isn't to say that people are wrong to love it, or rate it five stars, or anything like that. Just that I think the front end of the match failed to connect to the rest of the bout or to the crowd itself in the building at the level I would hope.

If Parv thought Omega looked fake in that match I can't even imagine what he would think of him say 18 months ago.

I've seen lots of praise from people I wouldn't expect to see praise from for that Goto v. Shibata match. Maybe I've just been overexposed to that style, but live I thought it was a goodish match within a style that I've largely passed carrying about. They definitely played around with the no selling tropes a bit more than normal here as well, but I didn't see anything groundbreaking or uniquely impressive about the performance from either guy. It did work huge for the crowd and I thought Goto winning was a great moment and the right move. I've flirted with star ratings more in the last year than at anytime in over a decade, but this is the kind of match that makes them ultimately impossible for me as I can grant that it was effective, had big moments, and the impact was there, but none of the other things I look for in a match were readily present.

I knew Dave would go at least 4 1/2 stars before the match even happened and I don't even mean that as a troll. It's Wrestle Kingdom. It's his favorite promotion. It's two wrestlers he is very found of. It's like me seeing Jimmy Rave v. Martin Stone at the last AWE show of the year - I expected to love it and assumed it would be great, and I loved it and thought it was great. I'm not saying you can't engage critically, but we all carry preferences and biases. I haven't read his review, but I would be interested to see if he bothered to engage with the common criticisms of the match I've seen. That said, I don't care at all if Dave liked that match or any other. I do care when he labels all who disagree with him as contrarians and then tries to walk it back when he realizes how much of an asshole it makes him look like, but I don't subscribe to the Observer at this point anyhow (in large part due to this sort of thing from Dave), so even that I take as I would take any other trolls behavior.

Still waiting for Loss to deliver on 1

I want to clarify that I did not love the last few minutes of reversal stuff at all, but I've become very desensitized to it in Okada matches, so it doesn't bother me as much as it did even a year and a half ago. I agree that the end was too excessive, but in a weird sense a match where literally nothing of note happened for 20 minutes, made the excess at the end almost charming by comparison.

I stayed up and watched the show live with Exposer. It was the first time he's ever done that and was pretty cool watching with him. My big takeaway is that it was a good show, but I can't call it great and couldn't even if I was higher on the top four matches than I am (more on that later). Going to so many live shows in the last few years has really changed the way I look at shows. In the past I would have been way more forgiving of an undercard that was largely just there, but having seen so many shows live that were good top to bottom I just can't do it anymore. i didn't hate anything on the NJPW show, but having watched Battlecade in full earlier in the day it didn't compare in terms of matches feeling like they served a purpose, delivering on their potential, and being well placed on the card. To me the biggest strength of the show was the booking. Yes there were a lot of title switches but they worked to raise doubt about every title match on the show which gave every new match an added touch of drama. On top of that with the exception of the main event, I think the right guy/people won in every match. And I don't think Okada was a terrible choice to retain all things considered so that feels like a minor misstep at worst. As for the matches...the undercard as I said was largely there. I am honestly mystified at people giving 3 1/2-4 stars to three or four matches underneath the junior title match, but nothing was awful. Juice Robinson deserves a ton of credit for working hard to make Cody look passable, Kojima/Finlay/Ricochet were very explosive in their match, and the tag title match had a fun stretch run. But nothing prior to the Kushida match was in the same league as last nights Smackdown (to be fair Smackdown was a very strong show). The top four matches will be pointed to as all timers by New Japan hardcores, and in truth if I was more invested in NJPW top guys I might have been higher on them. That said I thought all four of them were both effective and good in their own ways. Kushida v. Takahashi worked because it was a match about body part psych and the reckless lunacy of Takahashi. It would not have worked if it wasn't a combination of those two things, and it's a rare case where the sloppiness added to the match. The match got over big and the title switch felt huge. Goto v. Shibata was exactly what you'd expect. It was very over and i thought Goto wining did a lot to redeem him which is important for NJPW. It was worked in a style that I don't love, but was legitimately dramatic, and not as excessive as that style can be at it's worst. Naito v. Tanahashi was great, though it didn't reach the level of a classic to my eyes. I admit this may be a case where my lack of investment clouds my judgment. The match was slowly built, but logically built and while the leg work that was the focus of the match didn't play into the finish per se, the selling was fairly consistent from both guys throughout. I thought Naito especially did a great job with it at times and the finish felt huge. Naito looks to be going full babyface and this had the feel of AJ v. Cena from Summerslam, without the great near fall, but also without the wild excess. Omega v. Okada was a brilliant single man performance by Omega. Keep in mind I strongly dislike Omega. I will grant that I've liked a lot of his matches over the last two years but he's a guy I've never been able to like as a personality and I always dread watching his matches regardless of his track record (which has not always been good). In the first half of the match Omega's execution was good. In the second half he carried the match with his bumping, facial expressions, timing, and snap/fire. Okada on the other hand came across as a guy who was just there and had little of note to contribute. I came away thinking Omega could have had the exact same match with Cody Rhodes, excepting the fact that Okada is far more over in NJPW. I also agree with Chad's broader comments on the match. It was WAY too long, with nearly half of the match being unnecessary filler. I could have lived with it if they had gone broadway (which I actually convinced myself they were doing about 40 minutes in), but a match with 20 minutes of completely egregious filler that goes nowhere at all is not something I can overlook. They were not building to spots. The were not working momentum swings or a story of one ups manship. They weren't working body parts. They were literally just filling time because hey it's an NJPW Dome main event and it's supposed to be long! As a result the crowd really was not with them until the closing stretch, which featured some things that I'll never really love, but was still a tremendous singular performance by Omega as noted earlier. In a way too good as in the end it felt wrong for Okada to get the duke on such a total coast job.

Should have held off on these until BattleCade dropped. I'll leave it at that. Edit: That said, don't bump the SCI Final

1. Find out what the PWO2K thing even is. 2. Watch every CWF Mid-Atlantic show of the year and possibly rate every match at years end. 3. Went to 45 shows in 11 states for 20 different promotions last year. Would like to break 50 shows this year, and visit at least ten new promotions.

I like Terry v Wotan, but maybe I need to watch it again, because I didn't think it was even close to as good as Trauma v Lupus on first watch

It's probably my favorite singles match of all time.

I've been to four NXT house shows this year. Everyone of them had at least one match that was very good, and two of them had truly excellent matches on them.

Pynchon is terrible

The older I get the more I think this is true. I still love 80s wrestling and greatly prefer the method for story telling that was the norm during that error to what we see today. That said, I've argued for some time that there is vastly more quality wrestling available in the modern era than there was in the 80s or the 90s. On top of that I think the 80s benefits heavily from mythologizing certain things. A guy like Chris Hero probably has double the number of great matches on tape as someone like Ricky Steamboat, and his career in the ring is roughly as long, but a lot of people who default rank Steamer higher. I suspect this is due to years of being told that him and Flair had great matches that no will ever see, and the fact that the Steamboat's best stuff stands out more due to the way things were booked in his day (i.e. there was build to the big matches, and things weren't lost in the shuffle due to insane oversaturation).

I actually forgot Heroes and Legends was a thing. Never been, but I know a couple of vendors who go and do well there.

Don't know. I do know Japan is not in the United States and yet at least one promotion out of Japan has been covered extensively in wrestling media for the entirety of my time as a hardcore fan.

Manhatten Center can hold up to 2000 for wrestling. I don't know (or care) what the attendance was for the Danielson/Morishima match, but throwing out incorrect facts isn't going to help any argument. I looked and could only find 1000 as capacity. Does anybody know attendance, can't find it. There are indies in America that draw 1000 people and get zero coverage as well. When ROH was blowing up online and drawing 800 fans was this incredible feat, there were shows in Alabama or Arkansas drawing the same or more with the Rock N Roll Express and Bobby Eaton, AJ Styles, etc. No one ever talked about them. There is a indie show that brings a bunch of legends and hot indie guys to Indiana every year that draws 5000 people. It gets zero coverage. No one cares about those baseball stadium shows. And these are in America, with a language that people know. Yet you're unsure of why a random Mexican indie match isn't being covered as much as something from AAA or CMLL? What legends show draws 5k in Indiana? The shows that do the best in the U.S. and get the least coverage are probably lucha shows as I noted earlier.

Someone pointed out why would this small indie match be a match that could win match of the year. Well they outdrew and is easier to watch then a match that won in 2007. The ease of watching isn't terribly relevant. It doesn't not matter, but it's far less important than being something people actually realize exists, featuring recognizable stars, and being touted by the type of places that can spread the word to large enough segment of people.

My understanding is that there are multiple rooms inside the Manhattan Center. I believe for example the room Raw used to air in is different from the Hammerstein Ballroom which may be the biggest room in the facility. I think for wrestling Hammerstein can hold in he neighborhood of 2500 tightly packed, whereas the room Raw ran in is closer to 1000 though I admit this could be a false memory on my part

One other interesting thing to consider for those who have completely dismissed cultural factors in coverage/appreciation of lucha - the only other major wrestling hotbed (that we are aware of) from a Spanish speaking area has also been under covered and largely ignored by the house organs of wrestling fandom. While you could argue that in some ways Puerto Rican wrestling has gotten more coverage than lucha, it's not really thought about or discussed much at all, and is largely treated as an afterthought both as a product and in terms of history discussions. This despite having been an area that drew tremendously for decades, featured tons of American talent, and which featured a style that was very much in line with the American wrestling tradition. It is barely covered at all today, despite still drawing reasonably well by the standards of 2016, having regular tv, et. Before the hysterics start I'm not accusing anyone of racism in this thread or in general. Just making the point that Spanish speaking areas seem to be covered far less than one would expect considering their proximity to/relationship with the U.S. and the size and scope of the business in those areas.

A very sizable percentage of GWE contributors weren't even active participants on this board.