Dylan Waco

He left and was brought back as a secret employee

Definitely not being a contrarian. Dean was a guy who did a lot of stuff, but rarely put it together in interesting ways. Not a bad worker by any means, but he was never in the same universe as many of his peers he would get lumped in with.

Dean Malenko...there is a great candidate for most overrated, or at least he was at one point

I hope all the best for most of these guys. But for Bob Ryder and Davey Richards...well I don't wish all the best for them

Unfortunately no. Hidden elsewhere and (I just discovered) butchered by a board upgrade

If you want I can copy and paste some of the reviews I did of Lance matches to this thread, but I don't want to do that if you think it will detract from discussion on the rest of the show

Imagine Impact with the old "wild and young" NXT theme.

I think it's far too early to tell what the impact and legacy of The Shield will be.

I killed TNA with my reviews

Heard this rumor late this evening from a local promoter who books TNA talent. Talked to some other people tonight confirming it. TMZ just reported it. Russo was a big blow. Expect some bullshit excuses ASAP.

There is a hilarious rumor floating around that I don't want to publicly speak on right this second, though it has been mentioned on this page

Just finished night four and I have to say it was a great show and a serious show of the year contender. I have a pretty fixed top tier when it comes to MOTY this year, and nothing on this show cracked into that level, but I do want to watch Ishii v. Honma back to back with their first match, because I absolutely loved this go round. To me that was the match of the night, but I expected that going in. What was far more surprising was Nak v. Nagata and Syles v. Naito, both of which saw Nagata and Naito - two guys that more often than not annoy the shit out of me - really put on solid performances against top level opposition. I kind of feel like the wrong guy won both matches (Nak coming back with little fatigue after the late head drops, was the one major problem I had with Nak v. Nagata), but in terms of match quality alone both really delivered, with Naito's cut adding to his match. I was also really surprised in that I thought Okada v. Anderson was on pace to being close to the level of the other big stuff on the show if not for a cringy finishing stretch and some flat moments here and there in the body of the match. Still it was much better than I would have guessed, as was Kojima v. Fale which was a legitimately good match an the best individual Kojima match of the tourney. I also loved Yano's "cheat, cheat again" win in the sprint v. Goto, and the rest of the undercard was perfectly watchable. As for Shibata v. Tanahashi? Well I definitely liked it, but I think it suffered from being overhyped. This was a match that I thought really could have benefited from Tanahashi having better offense as you kind of wanted to see him go toe-to-toe with Shibata but he just doesn't have that in him. I thought the match layout was good, though the first half of the match didn't grab me the way I would hope. They did do a lot of really good stuff in the second half, and the finishing sequence was legitimately great which helped the match a lot. On first watch I didn't see anything in it that would make me put it at the level of Ishii v. Honma, and to me it was closer to the level of Naito/Styles and Nak/Nagata. If Anderson and Okada didn't have that dance routine finishing stretch I could actually see an argument for Shibata v. Tanahashi as the fifth best match on the show, though I could also see an argument for it as high as two. For those who are following along I'm interested to hear who they would rate as the MVP of the tournament up to this point. I'm pretty torn myself.

That is very true. I also think when you are watching these things in real time (or even near real time) with your friends live tweeting, the good is enhanced and the bad feels worse. That's not a knock on New Japan, just my perception of how/why the product is so hot and highly rated by many people.

I literally just watched that too. Great match. Match of the tourney so far easily. The way they are using the teased no sell/hulk up as a way for Honma to set up for eating kill shots in all of these matches is genius because when he does finally make the full comeback it's going to be huge

No better than Cena is the opposite of damning someone with faint praise.

I've softened a lot on Tanahashi in the last 18 months. He's never going to be a favorite of mine, and I still think he's comically overrated by his biggest advocates, but I also think he's a guy that is more enjoyable if you watch NJPW in an episodic way and not in terms of isolated matches. No one is ever going to convince me that he's not heavily flawed, and he often does things that drag down my enjoyment of matches (I really hated his offense in the Kojima match from Night Three for example, though I did think he did a very good job eating Kojima's bombs), but he absolutely can put on great performances.

Busick is the weakest of the the three BUT he's also the one I think would probably appeal the most to fans of your more "go,go,go" style

I agree with Joe on Gallows. I'm a huge fan of the guy, but he really has brought nothing to the vast majority of his New Japan run. I did enjoy the Tanahashi match for what it was, but even that was more novel than anything else.

I think this is the best way to view New Japan. If you go in looking at the snowflakes and talk it is very likely you will be disappointed. I've seen this consistently with friends and non-hardcore (at least at our level) fans I know who have given heavily pimped NJPW matches or shows a try and responded with shoulder shrugging or "What the fuck?" reactions. That said they employee some strong talent, put on some good shows, and will occasionally knock a match out of the park. My rule of thumb is to subtract a full star or so from every hardcore NJPW fan rating if you are talking about snowflakes and usually that's closer to where I stand on the matches

Day Three was a weird show. The bad stuff on the show was just awful. I really didn't like Archer v. Anderson at all and Fale v. Nagata was holy shit level bad, among the worst matches I've seen all year. I am completely amazed people enjoyed that match at all, and it makes me laugh thinking about how heavily the match would have been shit on if it had taken place in the WWE between someone like Roman Reigns and Randy Orton. Then you had Ishii and Honma matches that were hurt by their opponents (I like Gallows, but he stinks in New Japan). Then you had matches like Shibata/DBS and Tanahashi/Kojima which were really good at parts and really weak or disjointed in other ways an thus felt incomplete. Then you had Yano and Tenzan putting in really fun efforts again, even if their routines are on route to becoming really stale if they aren't careful. Amazingly the Suzuki v. Goto sprint might have been my favorite match going into the main event which was the biggest surprise as an New Japan main actually lived up to the hype once. I am not even a fan of Makabe or Okada, but I thought they put together a very good match, that built well and delivered in a big way. As a whole it was a hodge podge of a show, that I don't feel overly positive or negative on

I've enjoyed listening to these in part because of how much I disagree with the opinions of the panelists. This show may have set a record in that regard as I felt myself almost completely disagreeing across the board. Even in areas where I did agree with the general line - for example I'm probably the hardest of the hardcore anti-Sting as HoFer advocates and reserachers on the web - I thought the reasoning was flat (focus on buyrates over total ppv buys for example, arguing that Foley was a better opponent for Vader which I think is a massive stretch, failure to talk about his massive failings as a house show draw, et). I thought the Lance Storm discussion was interesting. I can't begrudge anyone who was trained by someone for defending their mentor, and I imagine it is true that people loved working with him because he is one of the loosest workers I've ever seen. But in terms of the "name a bad Lance Storm match" argument I could name dozens. i watched every ECW match that exists on tape a few years ago, handhelds included, and Storm was one of the dirt worst guys in wrestling during his tenure there. Bad match, after bad match, after bad match. Just a dogshit wrestler. But I don't really consider him overrated because I don't think that many people rate him. I also thought the Heyman discussion was interesting because a lot of the stuff mentioned in his defense sounded like something straight out of Heyman's mouth from one of his various podcast appearances. I was a huge ECW fan, and what Heyman did there was impressive in many ways, but at the end of the day I think his accomplishments there are far more often exaggerated than denigrated. He gets far more credit as a promoter than someone like Victor Jovica/Carlos Colon who drew much bigger houses, started from nothing, lasted far longer (hell they are still around) and in many ways were at least as influential as Heyman was (I contend the Death Match/Garbage wrestling world owes a ton to WWC). He also gets far more credit in that regard than Don Owen who headed a territory that produced or groomed more top talent, was around forever and was able to turn his size and relative obscurity into a net positive through a unique business model that accentuated his positives and hid his weaknesses. Hell he probably gets more credit as a promoter than Jerry Jarrett who pretty much has all the positives you could say about Paul except magnified (survived in a cutthroat environment longer than you might think, was willing and able to work out business deal with theoretical rivals to their mutual advantage, influential in terms of unique television that shaped the landscape of the business) and with none of the negatives. That doesn't even get into Heyman the manager who has a dismal record at getting over his talent during the most recent run,and during the one point where he was focal point manager headed a stable that was artistically incredible, but was a business disaster (The Dangerous Alliance). The guy is a great talker when he's on, but awful in my view when he's off. Even still Bill was hardly alone in terms of his views on Heyman, and this is coming from someone who did a mostly positive podcast running down his career about a year ago. Anyhow I could keep bitching about things I disagreed with, but I figured I would just throw those brief thoughts in here, while also noting that despite my strong disagreement with the views expressed, I have enjoyed these shows

Man the Ambrose and Cesaro matches have been disappointing for two guys at that level

Is that because when you watch something from the 70s, you expect what you get? If you went to a show tomorrow, and a Lou Thesz match broke out, how would you react? What do you mean by a Lou Thesz match? Some of my favorite contemporary wrestlers are guys who work lengthy portions of their matches built around holds and build to highspots that are relatively mild. My least favorite current active promotion is Dragon Gate. When I watch something from the 70's I'm hoping for a good match. When I watch something from 2014 I'm hoping for a good match. That is literally the extent of it. The tools it takes to get to the good match may differ some based on context, but I don't think they differ much if at all based on time period. I am not opposed to highspots. Some of my favorite wrestlers have incredibly dynamic highspots. Some of my favorite matches have explosive sequences of big moves. But I don't think Aerostar's blindside cannonball dive is an innately better highspot than a butterfly suplex. It's about the journey that gets to the spot, not the spot itself

Note that I'm not arguing that offense can never look dated, just that in context it is extremely rare for me to have that thought. Rare enough where I can't think of a single time I"ve said that when running through tons of footage from promotions all over the world in the 80's and 90s (and even 70s)..

Could be any number of things. You could be watching the match surrounded by the angles and build and see that it doesn't deliver on the psychology or story in a way that you would think. Some matches are better in isolation/as a stand alone, but weaker in the context of the story they were telling over the course of several months. Sometimes it's just that you aren't as excited for something. In real time if you are hyped because you have wanted to see a match so badly, sometimes you will yourself to like it more than you would in other scenarios. Some would probably argue that's not a bad thing, and I don't necessarily disagree, but in my mind the truly great matches hold up. I've talked about this with Will and others recently, but in the old days a lot of times it was trying to justify a purchase that kept the rep of certain matches in tact. If you heard a match was great via Meltzer, or another well known wrestling critic, you'd have to drop some coin to pick it up on a VHS. When it shows up you've already lost that money and you have an incentive to say "jeez, I guess that was really good." even if you think something sucked.