pol

I really enjoyed this. Pagano, as best I can gather, is a Mexican garbage indies superstar. He kinda sucks but he has a Sabu-esque sloppy indie brawler/spot monkey vibe that, combined with his embarrassing Juggalo look, comes off as pleasantly nostalgic in 2015. He hits the worst looking ACH/Mascara Dorada step-up tope con giro I've ever seen and it's kind of awesome. Rush is Rush and almost always great. Just a nice short brawl.

Am I missing a thread for this? If not, there really should be one so here it is. Mostly I just want an outlet to talk about cool indie lucha finds What's exciting y'all in lucha this year? CMLL seems to have hit a rough spot after a really pretty stellar in-ring 2014. This year's En Busca might be even more disappointing than this years G1 is shaping up to be. The Dragon Lee/Kamaitachi feud is one of few bright spots. On the other hand from what I've seen the indies, especially CaraLucha and Chilanga Mask, seem to be tearing it up.

It's a shame all of the NOAH Junior League won't make tape because based on comparing block lineups and available footage it would be hard for it not to be better than the G1.

Were there any great works in Pancrase, PRIDE etc?

Not the real Sid.

I think shoot style is the form of wrestling where I'm most focused on the mechanics of what's going on. I'm looking at the details of how the wrestlers transition into and out of holds and how well the holds are being applied. From personal experience, the biggest step in getting into this stuff was getting over the habit of seeing a hold as just "oh, he has him in a hold". That often suffices for pro-style, but in shoot style things like the nature of the hold, how well it's applied and how close they are to the ropes matter. Someone using a funky counter to escape a devastating hold is a high spot. As for psychology, I think to an extent I look at this stuff like lucha trios matches where I'm looking more for a rhythm and a gradual increase in drama than I am a 'story' per se.

That makes sense, though I can't help but wonder if they would have done better business had they protected certain guys more. UFC and PRIDE booking is way closer to traditional pro wrestling booking than RINGS was, it seems.

Is it just me or was RINGS booking pretty damn bad? Seems almost current-WWE-like with the 'a bunch of guys trading wins'-ness of it. Tamura is brought in and is immediately one of the most over guys on the roster if not THE most over. He's built up strong, then loses to Han which I could understand to give him a challenge to overcome, but then he jobs to Maeda, then fucking ZOUEV? Then you have guys that lost on the last show main eventing the next show... it all just feels very random. It sometimes seems like RINGS was trying to get away from as many of the trappings of pro wrestling as possible, and maybe they saw not having clearly protected guys as part of that.

I don't think it's a stretch to think that WWE may have told workers/agents to work in more indie style spots. I doubt Dave would say something like that if he hadn't heard something from someone, or more likely several people.

Isn't Vince all about supporting Dunn to the end though?

why?

They had a press conference today. Copy/pasting from Twitter: "Lion's Gate Project": A farm promotion w/tryouts that also gives current guys another place to work "New IWGP Conception": a modern take on the IWGP concept, e.g. more guests, joint shows, licensing of visual contents, stronger connections w/promotions worldwide. Taking NJPW public. So I guess a New Japan equivalent to NXT and some kind of nebulous intention to bring in more outside talent and send more guys away to work elsewhere? Given how stale the roster has felt lately these are all good things. I guess the biggest news here is them going public but I have no clue what the implications of that would be.

Is that in the newsletter? I don't see it on Twitter.

Meltzer sure thinks this whole this is about countering ROH, but I'm sure you know better

If this doesn't convince Sinclair to loosen the purse strings a little at this point nothing will and I think we may see a slow decline for ROH in that case. Meltzer alluded to further political maneuverings between NXT and ROH that have not yet come to light too.

They have a title called the NEX*GEN title and their TV show is called Amped. Apparently whoever is doing their branding never left the '90s.

Forgot this one: Wolf from Battle K-Road http://i.imgur.com/F3EplNc.jpg

What was the deal with Yuki Ishikawa working a couple of shots for RINGS in 1993? Looks like Minoru Tanaka worked a couple of matches for them in 1994 too. Was there some kind of agreement between PWFG and RINGS? I guess I just assumed the UWF split was acrimonious.

Given how their Tokyo business has dropped lately it really does seem like a bad time to put the IC title on a B player like Goto.

When was the last time they did a Dome main event between two guys who met in the G1? I don't think they ever have while Gedo was booking, which maybe doesn't mean all that much since it's only been a few years. It's difficult to predict because both the Dome title shot and the title itself will be up for grabs in the months between the G1 and the Dome, so the G1 winner and the current champion are both not necessarily of any long-term consequence. That said I don't see Okada losing the title before the Dome given his story arc this year, and they've never actually had the G1 winner lose the shot since they introduced that gimmick. Setting all that aside, Nakamura does seem like the best pick to win it. I think the fact that they took the IC title off him is a tell, because putting Goto in a position where he's expected to draw houses makes no sense unless he's just a transitional champion because you have better things planned for Nakamura. Tanahashi seems like a strong possibility, with Ibushi as an outside pick in a similar role to Naito a few years ago. AJ and Okada seem unlikely. I'm not the biggest Okada fan but I actually really like the idea of an Okada win; the champion winning it hasn't been done in a long time and it would be a good way to cap off the 'Okada gets his mojo back' storyline. It would also lead to a feeling of unpredictability in the booking for a few months, which the promotion has sorely needed for a while now.

Seriously think that's one of the most absurd things I've ever heard Dave say.

here ya go https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-nh8mhewe4

I thought the Bullet Club stuff worked. The match was about Okada having to overcome everything to win. They did a few spots and then got rid of them. If it had gone on any longer I wouldn't have liked it, but as it was it was fine to me.

After listening to the reaction show, it seems like I was higher on AJ/Okada that most. I thought it was a MOTYC, ****1/4-1/2 level match. I thought the story they told was great; AJ controlling the match, but Okada constantly finding a counter when AJ tried to hit a really big move. Several of Okada's hope spots were really memorable; kicking the ropes to crotch AJ when he attempted the springboard, later countering the springboard with a dropkick, the Death Valley Bomb onto the apron... One thing that came to mind is that I usually really dislike matches where they go back and forth the whole way, and while I imagine the match was probably only 60-40 AJ, because of how big Okada's transitions were it came off as him having to constantly struggle to stay in it, rather than something like the first Owens/Cena match where the transitions were lazy and came off as excuses for the other guy to get his shit in. AJ definitely outworked Okada but I think Okada deserves credit as well and has shown improvement this year. He was really laying his strikes in, sold well, hit his big spots great and had great intensity. As usual I did dislike the typical Okada finishing run, since he seemed more focused on getting to the next spot than ensuring each individual moment had impact. I appreciated that we didn't get the typical Okada final third with endless Rainmaker counters that has completely jumped the shark at this point. It's interesting that Okada had really good matches with both Fale and AJ this year, I think in some ways for similar reasons even though one guy is a mostly useless lump and the other is the greatest ring general around. Working with both, for completely different reasons, forced Okada to keep his more annoying tendencies in check and focus on selling and hitting his big spots with aplomb.

Dave's praise of Dominion on the show with Semp was some of his most ridiculously blinkered NJPW fanboyism yet. Apparently it would have been a great show even if the Okada/AJ match hadn't been on the card, and the reason Makabe/Ishii was so sloppy is because they were doing 'next level' psychology to make you think the match was going off the rails because Ishii was legitimately hurt.