pol

I haven't seen that much of him, but from what I have seen, I think he has gotten much better lately at working in his WoS-inspired stuff in a way that seems organic and less like a cutesy tribute act. Would be interested to know if anyone else feels the same or if I'm just imagining it. I find his team with Ogawa to be one of the more entertaining junior tag teams of the moment, although that's not exactly a super high bar to clear.

I would've thought it's difficult for any Mexico guy to have the body of work on tape that Japanese and American guys do just due to the availability of footage issue.

Something that came up elsewhere: Who are the guys with the greatest body of work on tape (quality and quantity) among guys not in? Akiyama, Fujiwara are the names I came up with.

Great post. I will say that I could juuust about tolerate it this time, because at least they were doing something historic in main eventing the show. The problem is I really, really doubt it stops here, because ultimately this is all about putting Triple H over.

nailed it

Proud Dad Triple H is awful. Just another example of the guy putting himself over.

Yeah I thought it was a SOTYC. Everything was good and the show built well. Very easy to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcLcVdSdrsQ I can just about tolerate this this time, because it must have been a huge moment for them. But they've blazed all the trails there are to blaze now (at least in NXT). If the kayfabe breaking bullshit and crying constantly continues from this point on it's going to become insufferable.

Corbin looked like the lightbulb finally went off tonight.

Seems like the most contentious candidates are almost always those whose case is made primarily with work. I can understand debating work if it's a matter of "this guy was great, but just how great was he?" using arguments of longevity, versatility, career vs. peak etc., but if it's a fundamental disagreement regarding if the candidate was even good it seems like a waste of energy. You might be able to convince someone that a guy they see as great just doesn't have the body of work to justify HOF inclusion, but you probably aren't going to convince them that they aren't that great to begin with.

Supporting Susan G. Komen is a heel move

Dave made a very similar point in the newsletter a few months ago; that many promoters would have said Bryan couldn't be a star, but once they saw he was getting over, all of them would have ran with it. Said modern WWE's insistence that a guy can't get over after he is already over is pretty much unprecedented.

Dave completely buried the decision on Observer Radio. Said they didn't even bother to call JR or Ranallo.

I try to avoid this stuff. It's not that I have anything against it, it's just it's a very disillusioning experience in terms of how the mechanics of executing moves actually works. I don't want to know how the magician does his trick

1. Tag Team Match Masanobu Fuchi & Yohei Nakajima vs. Naoya Nomura & Yuma Aoyagi 2.Royal Road Tournament 2015 Semi Final Match Akebono vs. Shuji Ishikawa 3. Royal Road Tournament 2015 Semi Final Match Jun Akiyama vs. Yuji Hino 4. Eight Man Tag Team Match Big Guns (The Bodyguard & Zeus), KENSO & Suwama vs. Xceed (Go Shiozaki & Kento Miyahara), Takao Omori & Yutaka Yoshie 5. Six Man Tag Team Match Evolution (Atsushi Aoki & Hikaru Sato) & Takeshi Minamino vs. Kotaro Suzuki, Ultimo Dragon & Yoshinobu Kanemaru 6. Royal Road Tournament 2015 Final Match Akebono vs. Jun Akiyama - Every match was good. - Ishikawa/Bono was a great example of how to do a heavyweight slugfest/bomb-throwing match without resorting to no-selling and strike exchange bullshit. - Hino/Akiyama was a match that fully indulged itself in said bullshit but was still awesome because it was worked as a sprint and Akiyama is great. I'm tempted to call it a MOTYC, and the Meltzer/Lanza type fans should go crazy for it. - Both multi-mans were really good, especially the 8 man. All Japan does a much better job of making these matches feel meaningful than NJPW, largely because the work in them is much more interesting. I feel like you can see Akiyama's fingerprints all over the layout of these matches. - Akiyama/Bono was another borderline MOTYC. Very classic big vs. little layout with Akiyama mounting the big comeback. Best matches were all the singles and the 8 man, but at that point you may as well watch the entire show

The AJPW Royal Road final was an absolutely fantastic show.

I agree that Ibushi should get a run with the IC title. There are two explanations for his treatment right now: either they're doing a slow build with him or he's a victim of politics, likely due to his dual contract with DDT. Time will tell on that one. I don't want to come off like a defender of NJPW booking. It has been stale as fuck for much of the past year. But I think in this particular situation, given the available options, they made the right choice.

Gedo uses title changes to extend programs a lot. The IC title needs to headline B shows so they need it on someone who they trust to draw. Outside of one match in CMLL, there hasn't been an IC title match that didn't involve Nakamura for over 3 years. I would be more salty about the Goto thing if I didn't find him incredibly vanilla to begin with. I can definitely understand why people are upset about it as fans, but when you consider the business reasons I think you have to at least concede that it makes some amount of sense.

I think that's way too harsh, but it sure has felt stale. Gedo's reputation among fans clearly benefits from the generally poor state of wrestling booking in 2015. In fairness, though, their big shows continue to do better and better business, though smaller shows have begun to fall off, including several G1 stops with what should have been marquee matches. So while there are definitely some signs of a potentially less rosy future on the horizon, it still feels premature to start calling for Gedo's replacement from a business perspective. As a fan, though, I'd definitely like to see someone else get a run with the book for a while. Maybe give Liger a shot; he has a proven track record and I'm positive that at the very least he'd do a better job booking the juniors.

Feelings about the booking of the latest show? Most annoyed I've been at a New Japan show in recent memory. I can just about live with Ibushi losing since I still think they have big plans for him long-term, but they totally chopped KUSHIDA's balls off with that loss after all his talk about how he was going to be the new Ace of the juniors. And going back to Ishii/Makabe....UGH.

Re: Amusing Japanese pronunciation of "Big Bubba". They transliterated it as ビッグ・ブーバー (Biggu Buubaa), whereas the standard transliteration would be ビッグ・ババ (Biggu Baba). You can probably guess why they made that change.

I don't think "heel" and "babyface" were really insider terms in Japan at this point. You can hear NJPW commentators talking about "WCW Top Heel" in reference to Muto in the early 90s. This is total speculation, but I think part of the reason Shooto didn't take off like Pancrase was because it wasn't marketed as pro wrestling. I don't think Sayama wanted anything to do with pro wrestling at that point.

They're doing Rush vs. Volador Jr. next Friday. Could be great. The attendance of that show should provide some insight into the appeal of the guys that will be main evening for the next decade or two.

I'm not the most informed on this, but the trend over the past few years seems to show them losing TV viewership at a rate far greater than the average drop in viewership across all TV (the Alvarez talking point is 25% over 3 years, but I don't know how accurate that is). That's a trend they really need to reverse; as others have said, milking their hardcore audience for more money is a band aid solution. It's kind of scary to think about where they could be in a few years if the decline continues at its current rate.

Workers are concerned with methods, fans are concerned with results.