Boss Rock

There's been word Jack Swagger is debuting. Can't say I'm thrilled.

Late to the party but I saw the opening theme and it's awesome. Very nostalgic.

Such a shame about Mauro. I used to love him on SDL even if his name-dropping could be a bit much.

I like KENTA in BC but I punted on the YOSHI-HASHI match just a few minutes in. It's a shame because HASHI has been know to overachieve in these types of matches, but this and the Sabre matches were disappointments. And as good as KENTA is as a heel, he's been pretty inconsistent.

Luchablog tweeted earlier Lee is supposedly scheduled for the Junior tag league, so it seems likely he'll stick around for that long.

NJPW desperately needs more tag teams, bring 'em in full time!

Ishii and Amazing Red certainly is a tag team. KOPW looks really good, I may actually watch the undercard, heh.

I would be fine with Ibushi taking all as it really does seem like his time now, but honestly they should give Naito his redemption and then have Ibushi win at Dominion or something. Okada-Naito seems like the most likely ME of night 2 considering they've been kept apart for close to 2 years now in singles matches. Jay taking all is definitely less than 0% as there's no way the top heel gaijin stands tall in the Dome. However, I don't completely rule out Okada winning either just to give him every single glory/record imaginable.

One thing that bothers me about Nomura is that he still looks and comes off too much as a plucky up-and-comer rather than a potential generational rival for Kento. I usually don't have a problem with a wrestler's look as charisma and presence counts for way more in my book, but Nomura still doesn't look like a main eventer. It also doesn't help that his and Jake Lee's pushes feel a bit sudden. I don't watch every single AJPW match or show, but just last year Nomura was still losing the majority of his CC matches and now he's positioned as one of the top guys in the promotion. Obviously he's done a great job in these big match situations, but it's just not quite all there yet.

The little bit I've seen of Naito's early 2010's babyface work has generally been good. He certainly was bland as a character, but he was a bit flashier and had some nice offense. Obviously he struck gold with LIJ and gave us one of the best characters in recent memory. He kept some of the flashier stuff in his arsenal but took out a lot of his high-flying stuff as well. It was a smart move as he's much more of an anti-hero and cool rogue now. I'd have him as at least a top 20 worker the past few years with 2017 being his peak. I do agree that there are times where he looks off and I'm not sure if that's just laziness or years of wear-and-tear (from what I've heard his knees have been in awful shape for some time). I agree the Suzuki match is a good example of him not gelling well with a sadistic and/or dominant heel although I'm higher on the Destruction match from last year than most. I really need to see more of his early tag and face work to say if he'd make a top 100 list for me, but the next few years are probably going to be very telling.

Standard great Kento title defense, but I really think Nomura's fire and near victory at the end really took this to a whole different level. Kento's formula almost never fails, but sometimes it can be too by the numbers when the end result isn't in doubt (Kento starts strong as a cocky prick, opponent mounts come back, Kento throws a barrage of suplexes and knees, opponent gets one last surge before Kento finishes them off). The finishing sequence of Nomura obliterating Kento with forearms and escaping the Waterfall added some extra drama to an already-great match and made for one of the hottest finishing stretches this year. ****1/2

Super J Cup was pretty good. Red-Ospreay, SHO-Ospreay, ELP-Ospreay, ELP-Eagles, and the finals being the must-watches. Tanahashi-Sabre at Destruction was as good as expected but it feels like they've run that match into the ground. Hopefully they don't face off again for a while. Birds of Prey-ELP/Ishimori was great, best NJPW tag match in ages. KENTA is easily the biggest heel in NJPW. He plays it to perfection and the crowd loathes him. The Ibushi match was very good and maybe a hair better than their G1 outing. It's a shame KENTA is as banged up as he is because he would be perfect as the top heel.

He used the Pedigree again. Rollins as Triple H 2.0 confirmed.

I was optimistic about Reigns-Rowan, but that was still way better than I expected.

Nippon Budokan might be my favorite, although a lot of that comes from my love of 90's AJPW. I read a quote from Kobashi in Eggshells that he always preferred Budokan to the Dome as the crowd was much closer to the ring and easier to hear, which was difficult in the Dome.

As a consistent big match worker, he's truly one of the best in the world. I've had him as a top 10 worker for the last three years (funnily enough he might be #7 each year). His flaws have already been pointed out in that he has a formula he rarely deviates from, he's not a great long-term seller (especially with leg damage), and mounts comebacks a bit too easily. And when he relies on the same formula for almost every match, I do often find myself wanting something just a tad different. But there's absolutely a lot to like about him. He can play both cocky ace and sympathetic underdog against a larger opponent quite well (sometimes even during the same match). His offense is gorgeous. He spams the Blackout knee and German suplex a bit too much, but they're things of absolute beauty. Not to mention he brings a good deal of intensity in his strikes. He also has a very good understanding of escalation and building to that crescendo of action in the finishing stretch. Kento's also very good in tag settings as he and Yoshitatsu of all people are a really good team (check out any of their matches against the Violent Giants or Jun and Sekimoto from last year's tag league). And like Okada, his formula ends up gelling with a lot of different people to the point where he's having a legitimately great Triple Crown match against, again, Yoshitatsu of all people. Is he a perfect wrestler? Definitely not. But he's absolutely one of my favorites to watch and delivers in pretty much any setting.

WWF/E Championship: Shawn Michaels vs. Mankind, In Your House: Mind Games 1996 NWA World Heavyweight Championship: Terry Funk vs. Ric Flair, Great American Bash 1989 Triple Crown Championship: Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi, 1/20/1997 GHC Heayvweight Championship: Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi, 3/1/2003 IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Kazuchika Okada vs. Katsuyori Shibata, Sakura Genesis 2017 AJPW World Tag Team Championships: Mitsuharu Misawa and Kenta Kobashi vs. Akira Taue and Toshiaki Kawada, 6/9/1995 (Greatest Match Ever) All Asia Tag Team Championships: Kenta Kobashi and Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Doug Furnas and Dan Kroffat, 5/25/1992 Open the Dream Gate Championship: Shingo Takagi vs. Masaaki Mochizuki, The Gate of Destiny 2015 IWGP Intercontinental Championship: Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Kota Ibushi, Wrestle Kingdom 9 IWPG United States Heavyweight Championship: Kenny Omega vs. Tomohiro Ishii, G1 Special in USA 2017 IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Jushin "Thunder" Liger vs. Naoki Sano, 1/31/1990 WCW/WWE Cruiserweight Championship: Eddy Guerrero vs. Rey Misterio Jr., Halloween Havoc 1997 NXT Championship: Johnny Gargano vs. Andrade "Cien" Almas, NXT Takeover: Philadelphia NXT Tag Team Championships: #DIY vs. The Revival, NXT Takeover: Toronto NXT Women's Championship: Bayley vs. Sasha Banks, NXT Takeover: Brooklyn NXT UK Championship: Tyler Bate vs. Pete Dunne, NXT Takeover: Chicago WWWA Tag Team Championships: Manami Toyota and Toshiyo Yamada vs. Mayumi Ozaki and Dynamite Kansai, Dream Rush 1992 Lucha Underground Championship: Aztec Warfare 2, 12/12/2015 (3/23/2016) NWA/WCW/WWE United States Championship: Magnum T.A. vs. Tully Blanchard, Starrcade 1985 ROH World Championship: Bryan Danielson vs. Nigel McGuinness, Unified 2006 TNA X Division Championship: A.J. Styles vs. Samoa Joe, Turning Point 2005 WWE Universal Championship: Samoa Joe vs. Brock Lesnar vs. Braun Strowman vs. Roman Reigns, Summerslam 2017 KO-D Openweight Championship: Dick Togo vs. Antonio Honda, Sweet Dreams 2011 BJW Strong Heavyweight Championship: Hideki Suzuki vs. Yasufumi Nakanoue, Big Japan Death Vegas 2017 WWE Raw Women's Championship: Sasha Banks vs. Charlotte Flair, Hell in a Cell 2017 WWE Smackdown Women's Championship: Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Asuka, TLC 2018 Progress Atlas Championship: WALTER vs. Timothy Thatcher, Chapter 62

I sorta get wanting to announce it on the TV show, but I think announcing it now and then setting up the angle on the first show is fine. They've also done a decent job building matches with the Youtube content (especially when it comes to Cody) so I expect some good stuff.

Haha I mean I do watch the matches of wrestlers I really like (Yuji, Sekimoto, Hideki, Nomura). I'm just not a "show-to-show" type viewer so I just wasn't sure if I was missing any context with the result.

I don't follow BJW all that much but the finish was a bit surprising. I agree that it was very much like Sato-Sekimoto in January but better. Sekimoto is great but Yuji has been on a whole other level this year. ****

Didn't Big Boss Man once return the Million Dollar Belt to DiBiase?

Give THIS man the belt...when you find it of course.

I get that and I think one of the reasons I'm OK with Nyla winning is that she seems to have the most buzz out of anyone on the women's roster.

My thing is that Britt hasn't really had a chance to stand out much. She got the win at Double or Nothing but Nyla felt more like the star of that match. And while some of that hasn't been Britt's fault due to the concussion, I feel like she could use a quick tune up feud. Nyla also came off as a big deal at Fyter Fest even though she took the pin. Brandi or Kong feels way too much like "heel authority figure's chosen champ". Even if either one lost in the end it's easily my least favorite trope in wrestling and one I don't want near the title. Now would Shida have been a better choice over Riho? Probably. But I think Riho has a ton of potential as an underdog babyface.

Okada and Suzuki have always had amazing chemistry together and this match was no exception. At 30+ minutes, one might normally expect the "inconsequential first third/first half, hot second two thirds/second half" formula NJPW main events have become known for. That was not the case here and one of the reasons for that was how well these two complement each other. Okada is a bad mat worker and not a particularly great striker, two things that Suzuki is very good at. Meanwhile, Suzuki is 51 and understandably slower while Okada is a freak athlete who is a master of finishing stretches and making things feel important. Suzuki was terrific as the sadistic yet focused heel hell-bent on breaking Okada down. Okada sold everything like death and yet admirably did his best to withstand everything Suzuki threw at him while not quite beating him at his own game. It made everything come off as much more of an intense struggle than a lot of NJPW matches (and this is from someone who loves the promotion and style). I was particularly impressed with how Okada really layed into his forearms in the latter half of the match and how he slapped on a pretty impressive looking sleeper hold. It was ingenious storytelling of the ace who normally relies on his athleticism and gas tank realizing he was going to have to step the rest of his game up. Suzuki also did a great job adding a wrinkle to Okada's normal reversal-heavy finishing stretch by pummeling his way out of Rainmaker attempts. Okada's struggle to avoid the Gotch Piledriver to finally secure victory was also pretty riveting stuff. My only real criticism of the match was that I think Okada could have shown a bit more urgency during his initial comeback after being walloped by Suzuki, but that's more of a nitpick than anything. This is quite possibly the best match of the year and the best match between these two, which is really saying something. ****3/4