KawadaSmile

This Royal Rumble lineup is looking fucking incredible, really.

I would go with 90s. I am a sucker for RINGS and shoot style wrestling in general. Also with 90s deathmatches being my gateway drug to prowrestling in general, I have a special place for that decade in my heart. Also, if this current decade keeps up in terms of in-ring quality, it might turn out to be in the top tier, really

Last week of television before the most unpredictable Rumble since '08 at least, and the most boring looking TakeOver card. Let's hope BRAUN murders people.

As much as he is consistent for the good and the bad, I think Gedo launching Okada to the fucking moon and never looking back was a pretty ballsy move, I'd say. Surely featuring someone as strongly and consistently at the top of the card helped him become a star.

Another example of fans being so conditioned on believing in the "false finish" formula was Brock vs Orton. It was exactly like overbooked mentioned, with a finish coming from out of nowhere. While the result was exactly as planned - Brock would just beat Orton into a TKO - fans were left thinking "wtf was that, is this a shoot?". On rewatch it's easier to see that things transpired like originally intended, but the live reaction was much more of a flop, akin to the streak being broken, than this sense of drama and uncertainty.

I would mark out for Naomi as a champion, really. She is my favourite female wrestler in the roster right now.

WWE is just something else, isn't it? Managed to get me into a Ziggler/Lawler feud, even by exploiting the heart attack and having Ziggler being the dirt worst at promos.

I still don't think he's particularly great, let alone good, but him throwing bombs sure is better than him slapping a headlock for ages.

Main event was a hot ass match with a great post-match segment. Roman's spear and KO's powerbomb were both really good moments.

Funny how the segment picked up with Roman and Braun getting some action.

A 19 and a 23 year old just wrestled in the finals in a WWE produced show and both looked fucking great doing it. Bate is going to be top tier material, really.

Very enjoyable event, really. Tyler Bate/Tucker and Wolfgang/T-Bone were my two matches of the night. Incredible how young Bate is, and how secure he seemed. Devlin sucked, but props to him by giving the crowd reason for him to be hated.

https://twitter.com/davemeltzerWON/status/820028434730520576 Meltzer's star ratings make less sense with each tweet, I feel.

BRAAAAAAAAAAUN and Seth having a match. Strowman clearly made Rollins shine a little bit here.

Out of curiosity, Shoe: how high were you on Shibata/Goto?

There's also a pretty short match against Kawada back in '04 that, while not exactly stellar, is a good dynamic between hungry young lion versus grumpy old vet. Kawada's selling in this match is pretty great, and even if by that point he was broken down, could still tell a good story when needed.

Personally I think that G1 match against Ishii is his best one ever. I didn't like the WK10 match on rewatch, but it's possible JvK will enjoy it, as it has the tropes found in that match, plus more ridiculous shit.

Hashimoto vs Takada is just insanely good. A molten crowd for even smaller stuff like Takada feeling the effects of an early kick by Hash, or Hash escaping a Boston Crab sure help elevate the greatness and the sense of a big fucking match.

Part of this escalation is what made me love Goto/Shibata. The hate was there from the beggining, but as the match went on and their bodies were more beaten up, the feeling of violence and even dread increased as well. Shibata selling the whiplash of normal clotheslines like he was getting hit with a baseball bat was a fucking incredible visual, and the finishing stretch was downright brutal. They didn't rely too much on big moves, despite Goto having some crazy looking bombs, and that only added to the match. It seemed that they indeed wanted to kill each other, and those two consecutive final cuts were pretty much a death sentence. Another match that is an incredible example of escalation is Terry Funk vs Bob Orton Jr. It starts as a quite friendly match, with both guys respecting each other, but then it doesn't take long until slaps to the face and headbutts are thrown. By the end of things, a quite well worked, technical match turns into a very heated brawl, and it's made in such a fashion that it never stops getting your attention. They did so without resorting to many different moves, opting instead for overall body language. It was dope.

That's the thing, to me there was no build. There was no sense of escalation. The first 15~20 minutes felt like a completely different match than the following 20~25. It started as a very uninteresting matwork/feeling out process and then went to apeshit crazy spots. Do they have counters? Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is building to something, and instead can look like just another cool looking spot. The only element of this match that had some sort of build to it was Omega being unable to hit his finisher, trying at least three times. I mean, a Dragon Superplex meant absolutely nothing in that match. Was it sold well? Depends on how you see it, Okada seemed dead when he took the move, which is appropriate, but he was back on offense not long after that. Did the move matter? I mean, in Goto/Shibata there was a bigger sense of build and progression, where Goto hurt Shibata on the back of the head enough that even clotheslines caused major pain, and therefore his finisher did as much damage as possible.

Got around finishing the whole event. Omega had his best performance ever in terms of explosiveness, bumping, and overall sense of high stakes. He was indeed giving everything he possibly could have in this match and I commend him for it. Okada, though, is feeling like circa 2015 Randy Orton, in which his matches are mostly the same, starting out boring and finishing on a more energic stretch. Like strobogo mentioned on his site, it felt odd. NJPW to me is feeling more and more like WWE in terms of main events, where we have big kickouts and big bombs and fake finishes. This match didn't feel different in tone than Undertakers vs HBK at Wrestlemania 25. It is IMPOSSIBLE to call this match "the greatest pro wrestling match ever" when almost 20 minutes had pretty much nothing, and the pacing was all over the place. Meltzer giving it 6*, even though it's blatant trolling (or is it?) is only influencing a bunch of fans to think that this sort of match is the new standard. Guardrail DDTs are completely forgotten, top rope dragon suplexes and back body drops through the top rope onto a table mean absolutely nothing to the match other than another big memorable bump. Things happen in order to pop the crowd for that instant, but they don't escalate at all. With that said, the spots *are* cool, and they do have their place in wrestling, of course. It's clear that the 2nd half of the match is what is going to make people remember this match, but the 1st half felt way too much like filler. Unfair to only pick the best parts in order to give a rating, specially when it was almost 50% of the match. I would rank it as the 4th best match on the card. The Jr. Heavy match, while a bit sloppy at points, never really stopped going. It had one pace and a clear story, and went along with it all the way. Hiromu gives off such a grumpy cunt vibe, and it's wonderful.

Currently watching the show, and up to Adam Cole/KOR there's really nothing worthwhile. That's like... 50% of the event in? Juice had a good showing against Cody, and even though he didn't have KEWL MOVEZ, he was outshining him. There's something about people considering a show to be great based on the big matches alone, which by itself is fine - WK10 got praised with three legit very good matches (Ishii/Shibata, AJ/Nak and Tana/Okada), despite having an even worse undercard.

My God. The ONLY downside of this episode was not-Renee tripping over her lines, and even that can be justified as her being nervous after that slap Maryse gave to Renee. Corbin, American Alpha and Dog Ziggler got elevated so much, and from the looks of things Apollo might get something to do, too. I love wrestling sometimes.

It started when he got all those squash matches. Each week he showcased something vicious, and it progressed until he got 2 on 1 and 3 on 1 matches, and beating Sin Cara in fun sprints. Wasn't really hard to enjoy him, really.

Will try to watch every single match from this year's G1, and not just the big stuff. Also, will get more into the independent scene, specially Evolve and Progress.