Childs

This was probably my favorite match of the first two nights. I appreciated the simplicity, and Suzuki delivered an excellent performance, both with the ferocity of his offense and the way he sold the dragon screw as the turning point. These guys are always good against one another.

This started well with the character-driven one upsmanship and White's initial control section. It went slack in the middle. But then they got it back once White took it to the floor, Okada tried to rally and White finished it by going full dirtbag. Ultimately, it worked to set up the tourney and further White's story.

I agree that they match up well. They always find creative ways to dramatize the style contrast, like that cool spot where ZSJ intercepted Ibushi's backflip dive and turned it into a submission. That said, this one never quite took off from very good to great. Sabre often struggles to kick his matches into high gear, and I thought his tendency to jump from hold to hold hurt him here, because you lost that sense of him grounding the more dynamic athlete. Ibushi didn't sell as well as he could have either. So yeah, I'm always happy to see them go at it, but I feel like they have a great match in them and this wasn't it.

Dave's overall point, that it's ridiculous to pit one promotion against another in this discussion, is right on. Modern wrestling is dangerous. Fans of all promotions covet matches that push the limits. It's nothing new, and it isn't going to change anytime soon. I will be interested to see what he writes in this week's issue, specifically if there's any introspection from him about serving as a leading fan of the most physically taxing styles.

Yeah, the IC title has been held by guys like Tanahashi, Nakamura and Naito, who are roughly on the same level as the IWGP champion. When they've done pairs of big shows in recent years, they often headline one with the IC title bout and the other with the IWGP.

I'm sorry, when you wrestle a 35-minute match and create no sense (either in the building or for the regular NJ viewer) that the challenger can win, that's a problem. The ladder felt completely inorganic to me, like it was only there so they could do the one crazy spot. I did not feel an escalating sense of violence. I guess they were trying to convey that Cody pushed Kenny, as the babyface, to lose his mind. But I didn't feel it, and the crowd didn't seem to either. Compare the heat to the Juice-White match. It just wasn't there. I also thought Kenny did too much in the stretch run, because again, there was no sense that he needed to dig deep in his bag to beat Cody. Post-match angle aside, the whole thing was a real failure of pacing and structure.

The main event was a terrible, heatless slog. The ladder had no place in the match, and the narrative of Kenny's emotions toward Cody came off really garbled. The crowd did not buy Cody as a real threat, and they did nothing to change that with the work. They worked extremely hard to little effect. Juice and White blew them away, with a legit face-heel dynamic and aura of violence. Best thing on the show by far.

I come at it from the same background as you, largely, but here's how I read it. Regardless of how well he wrestled over the first two falls, Omega was fighting an uphill battle because Okada was a historically great champion riding a historically great run, and he still had the Rainmaker in his back pocket. You blow the first fall against a guy like that and you're automatically in a hell of a bind. To go for the AJPW parallel, didn't you always feel the odds were in Misawa's favor, even if Kawada and Kobashi seemed to have his number? Well, Okada is the Misawa of New Japan.

More than a very good match -- which it certainly was -- this was textbook wrestling television. They passed a lot of time in entertaining fashion, set up the next big show and teased longer term rivalries. It was like the WWE version of an All-Japan six-man from the '90s. The first two Bryan segments were terrific and a further reminder that he's still as good as anyone in the company. I want to see him against almost anyone, not just the obvious dream matches. And I dig the slow burn to him and Miz. The Rusev victory was a nice cherry, even if that last segment was merely fine.

During GWE, we talked a lot about how he represented a different kind of versatility. He thrived in disparate promotions not because he adapted his style to each but because his style worked in every setting. I find his career as rewatchable as any. RIP

So many skippable cards with the A block.

I had no idea it went 30+, would have guessed low 20s. It's a bummer that so many people had given up on the feud going in (I know I had) because this was an excellent match. I liked the dickish precision of Nakamura's offense and AJ's counterattack on the leg. And then the bombs at the end offered a real sense of finality.

The beauty of Ronda's performance was she didn't allow herself a passive second. Every movement and every expression put over the struggle and drama of the match. Her work in the bear hug was next-level shit. And that's on top of her coordination and explosiveness. I'm eager to see where this goes. Don't want to shortchange Nia either. She was very good in the hoss role.

Circled back to watch AJ-Nak and what a weird night for people to bag on Shinsuke. That was an excellent match with an excellent performance by him. I agree his overall WWE run has been disappointing, but he was on his game here, from the strikes to the selling to the character.

I appreciate the way Braun has upset the usual (boring) rhythm of the ladder match.

I'm missing something on Becky. People constantly praise her and talk about how the company could do more with her. But I never find her anything more than adequate.

Didn't think it was really an epic. But they worked it into a decent match, even though I don't like Seth and Elias mostly stinks. That late burst where Elias caught Seth on the tope attempt and hit a flurry of offense was cool.

Interesting to read people saying this was less bloated than their first match, because I thought it got really loose on the back end. The set-up of the stage/stretcher stuff felt interminable. It worked overall because they effectively conveyed the hatred and Gargano damning himself with his own loss of control. But it didn't pop like a true classic. I'm not sure what they have left for chapter three.

I wrote about it in the NJPW and Meltzer threads, but I agree it was a classic.

In my experience, 90% or more of the conversations I have about wrestling (online and in real life) are about WWE and mainstream US wrestling. The people I can talk about Misawa/Kawada are the same that would have no issue checking for Tamura if I asked about him or recommended to watch some of his matches. And that number has gotten bigger in the last few years as it gets easier and easier to go into deep dives into anything that interest people. I understand your larger point though. Specially because we now have wrestlers that try to cater to Dave's tastes to get a big rating, maybe more than ever. I guess I just struggle with the thought of Dave and his views being so important because besides this board, I've found way more people that either laugh about his ratings, don't take it so seriously or understand he just loves New Japan and the Young Bucks. This is an interesting point. Because even though it's true the last fall was as minimalistic (sp?) as a New Japan main event has been in the last 7 years or so, the first two falls, and specially the first one, had a TON of excess of moves and kickouts. The match probably isn't seen as the best ever without that initial dose of "tons of moves and nearfalls" that lasted longer than the simple finishing stretch it had. I guess it could be seen as the best of both worlds? I tuned out for most of the first two falls because it isn't what I like but I can totally understand were people are coming from with the praise the match got. Might be risking going off topic now, but I can't agree with this 100%. There were tons of moves but comparatively few pin attempts during the first two falls, mostly because they were selling the damage it took executing them on each other. On a quick rewatch I counted maybe 13 pin attempts with maybe half being what I'd call actual dramatic nearfalls, and that didn't seem too excessive in the context of trying to score the all important first fall. In the second fall I counted 3(!) pin attempts included the OWA for the fall. A lot more time was spent out of the ring, in the cobra clutch, both guys down etc.So it really built in a logically way where they were so almost too worn down to capitalize until one guy was completely dead. Good post, didn't feel like that at first watch. I'm fairly prone to going numb during near-fall-happy bomb fests, and that never happened to me with this match. I thought they were particularly smart in the way they hung onto and ultimately deployed their finishers. For a match with so much going on, it was unusually well-constructed. I agree that the 7 stars thing is silly. It should be enough to give it 5 stars and says it's the best of its time. I also don't buy that it's on another scale of greatness from something like Gargano-Almas.

This one didn't do a lot for me relative to the hype. It featured several cliches that automatically take me out of a match -- the walk-your-opponent through the crowd "brawl," the big fighting spirit exchange and the my-turn, your-turn elbows. None of those is individually disqualifying, but the match also dragged quite a bit in the middle. Both guys came out of it looking good, so I didn't think it was a failure by any means. And some of the individual spots were spectacular/horrifying. It just didn't strike me as a classic cruiserweight match.

Thought Dominion was well-paced and nicely varied. I've been more skeptical than not of Okada and Omega, but they pulled off a hell of a match -- this generation's version of Misawa-Kobashi. You could argue it's counterproductive in the long-term for them to work such demanding matches, but few others would or could achieve such a spectacle. The idea of a 70-minute match horrifies me on paper. But in practice, they kept me (and more importantly, the crowd) completely invested, and I started watching the match after midnight. They touched on all the key spots from their rivalry. They created the sense that any mistake or moment of cockiness would be punished. They doled out the big moves in a way that built suspense. They created an exciting duel within the duel between Omega's knees and Okada's dropkicks. They sold the toll of the match. I know it's easy to bag on Meltz for saying they broke the scale. But it makes complete sense for him to feel that was the greatest match he's ever seen. He's a fan of maximalist wrestling,and that was maximalist wrestling done exceptionally well.

The crowd made this with their all-out affection for Tanahashi. And I dug the finishing stretch, with Tanahashi slapping the piss out of Okada to ward off the Rainmaker. But I didn't see the dense, psychological masterpiece that Meltzer and others described. Just struck me as a slower, less ornate version of their usual dynamic. There were callbacks and learned counters, sure, but they've been doing that for years. I actually thought it was weird that they started selling like they'd been in an epic war at the 20-minute mark. Because really, the match hadn't been terribly punishing to that point. This was an easy way to spend 35 minutes but not a MOTYC for me.

I'm envisioning 8-page threads on what constitutes "peak."

Fujinami should be on the list. Had the great jr. heavyweight matches vs. Ryuma Go in 1978 and the MUGA classic vs. Nishimura in '06.