Zoo Enthusiast

I'm conflicted about it. It's my first Mania in person, so I kind of like that I get to see a match between these two. However, I would have loved something like Joe vs Cena or Styles vs Cena. I'll be holding out hope that Cena can make it into a good live experience.

Exactly. That’s why I think tapping the brakes on the Cody praise after that match is a good idea. The biggest thing he had done prior was dropping the ROH belt to Castle and that was a very underwhelming match with a flat finish. I agree that Brandi was very good in the Ibushi match, though.

No one is acting like he is the Shockmaster. You can be bad without also falling through a hole in the wall.

Dude is terrible. He had a pretty good match with Kota Ibushi. That's pretty much the extent of it. Credit to him for latching himself on with the Bucks/Omega and going along for the ride, though.

Yeah and all the injuries he has had over the past few years really hurt his athleticism. He should pretty much just be a punch/kick asshole with a mustache at this point. Which, like you said, fits the character anyhow. Lariat for a finisher and he'd be gold. He should bring back the “Stan Hansen’s nephew” gimmick, then.

Yeah and all the injuries he has had over the past few years really hurt his athleticism. He should pretty much just be a punch/kick asshole with a mustache at this point. Which, like you said, fits the character anyhow.

Terrible news. I hope he recovers quickly.

A lot of the '81-'82 stuff was in Classics on Demand, but the '83 stuff is all new. That's what I thought. So we're going to see classic stuff from Flair, Piper, Steamboat, Brisoes, Race, etc, that hasn't been seen in 35 years. Why isn't the internet freaking out with me?! This is fantastic. Agreed. Fantastic!

I thought that was a really good show again. Roman has so many irons in the fire. Its awesome, and one positive about such a long break between PPVs. Love zany Braun stuff and have really been enjoying Jason Jordan the past few weeks. Oh, and I hope they are setting up Joe vs Cena for Mania. Would be thrilled for that.

I'm going to attempt to locate last year's files later. Have a laptop and external HD it could be on. Sweet, that’d be awesome.

If that does happen, I hope he turns it up for the Styles match since I’ll be there. I was really pumped at the thought back when I bought my plane ticket to NOLA but he has been so uninspired.

These shows were so great. Any chance you can throw all the old shows from before the new feed/website somewhere (Google Drive, etc.)? I’d love to be able to listen to more of them.

Yeah, I can’t watch the English commentary for those reasons. I don’t want to hear talk of star ratings, calling people marks, etc. If the English commentary is supposed to help draw in a more casual audience, I don’t see how talking about Dave Meltzer helps achieve that end. For instance, a fan like my dad (56 years old), who is mostly a casual fan these days but watches the AXS show for his New Japan exposure. He would have no clue what the hell they are talking about half the time if he watched the NJPW English versions.

Yeah, Omega being great is pretty much a given for me. That’s built into my saying it is a great match. It goes without saying that Jericho can’t have that match with any opponent. Hell, he even had a weak match with AJ Styles a couple years ago.

Really?! And you guys accuse Meltzer of being too easy on Japan. Look, the match was fun, very entertaining, and Jericho deserves more of the lion's share of the credit for that with his great heel work. No doubt, he surprised people and exceeded expectations. But calling it the best match of his career is a major stretch IMO. If this same match happened on a WWE PPV or NXT show, no one would be gushing about it nearly as much. I guess Meltz was onto something with his ridiculous "the match is better because it's in Japan" talking point (or whatever the hell he said that one time), because some of you are parroting the exact same sort of thinking. I hesitated even posting this, because I'm not looking to dampen anyone's excitement or shit on a super-fun match - I really enjoyed it too - but the hyperbole on this board can sometimes be excessive. (Another example: I remember everyone acting like the match where Rusev beat Sheamus for the U.S. Title was one of the greatest matches they'd seen in years, when in reality, it was just a fun hoss brawl and nothing more.) Edit: If you meant it was the best match of Omega's career, disregard this entire post, haha - I am not familiar enough with Omega's matches to argue against that. Nah, I think Jericho is generally quite overrated, so I wasnt being facetious at all. Its easily his best match post-09. I can see the Raw tag match being above it, though, so maybe I should rephrase to say best singles match. It wasnt as much of a compliment as it was a statement of wow, a pretty average wrestler had an unexpected pretty great match. I would give it about 4 stars if I was forced to. Youre accusing the wrong guy of NJPW homerism. I thought the show on the whole was pretty average. Id have this match and the main both at about ****. My third favorite would have been the junior tag match. No amount of hair dye can make Cody fucking Rhodes even mildly compelling to me, even in the Tokyo Dome.

It’s a way of life, bruh.

I've only watched it once so far, but plan on revisiting it. And you're right. It felt like something special - an elite level, top-shelf showcase for Jericho's personality. From abusing Red Shoes & the young boys to carelessly letting Callis get flattened at ringside, it was just tremendous. The way I remember it though was Jericho calling a fan "fuckface" after they'd piped in for Chono to kick Chris' ass. Good stuff either way though. I think it was the best match of his career.

That's even better than Duggan at the Preds game last year. Side note, I really really wish DeAngelo Williams would get into wrestling. He was really good when he wrestled that match for TNA last year. I was hoping it was a Nick Gage match when I saw the video was named GCW Match.

Well, they should have just given it to Roman at the end of an all-time great Mania match with Brock. Instead, we got the Rollins cash-in/disaster.

But I need Dave to tell me how bad booking is actually good booking if it happens in Japan. . Standards change.

I thought it was a pretty good show. My favorite match was definitely Omega/Jericho. Nothing blowaway to me.

Will probably wind up watching the whole show Friday night.

Do they really want to put Ronda on the B show, though? Just give Asuka the belt on Raw before Rumble (injuring Alexa in the process - broken arm, or something so she's not in the Rumble) and make it a mystery about who will fill the newly opened slot. It's Ronda, she wins, and they do Asuka/Ronda at Mania.

I haven’t had any issues with mine so far, but obviously you’re not paying for a high-end piece of equipment for $29.99.

Absolutely, and the Express is like $29 and works brilliantly. They are hands-down the leader in the market of streaming devices and I cant see anyone catching them. Apple TVs look slicker but still lack the channels, even on the new platform. The Amazon devices are generally always pretty much junk across the board from my experience, though like I said, I do have the Firestick solely for NJPW World. Have had four Rokus, two Apple TVs, and the Firestick since 2011. Only reason I needed more Rokus was older models getting phased out and buying a house. Do you have the first-gen model of the Fire Stick? How is it with NJPW World? I have a first-gen Fire Stick collecting dust. I have the voice remote one. Target had them on sale on Black Friday so I got one for the hell of it. In other news, a bunch of random old CZW shows from the Smart Mark library popped up on Powerbomb today. HighSpots has 243 of them, currently, and usually gets the brand new ones up very quickly.