Richeyedwards

This will be my first year since 31 trying to do this live and only second time i have ever tried to watch one of these live, I didn't quite manage it then as I had to go for a walk during taker vs bray to keep me awake. This year will be even longer so I think It will be going to 5am over here (cue el-p saying it will go to 6 am over there) it is gonna be tough but this is a great looking card.

Cobb defeats Strickland Joey ryan & Martina defeat Cabana and marty derosa Juice Robinson defeated eddie Kingston FCP Three Way Match meiko © defeats jess havok and Kimber lee AAW Title Match ACH© defeats Trevor Lee Tornado Six Man Tag Team Match the Crists and calihan defeat ar fox, brian cage and janella Matt Palmer won a PWR scramble title invitational match Penta El Zero and rey fenix defeat Jack evans and Teddy Hart AAW and PWR Tag Title Ladder Three Way Match Davey Vega and Matt Fitchett © defeat Aussie Open and Xavier and Wentz

so far i have watched all the way up to the start of the main event, it has been a good show so far with a largely great crowd with only one or two moments of smarkyness that i would have expected. The opener did little for me as i like mentioned by people earlier in this thread don't really know what to do with carcrash style matches now. The women's match was really good but moon was largely along for the ride and it was all down to the performance of shayna for making that match. The tag match made little sense but had its fun spots. The title match was another excellent performance by the almas and vega tandem while black was good but some of his strikes still don't look great. Gonna watch the main event after the nap i am going to need so that i can get through mania which goes from 10pm-5am over here.

Almas is great, he has the ability to do really silky smooth movements and sequences without ever looking choreographed, he has an amazing urgency to it which is rare to see in a high flyer. His control sequences are also well done not just time filling measures as it often feels in a majority of modern main events, he is a big improvement over the joe, finn, roode and nakamura reigns, he also has vega who is great working as hard as the wrestlers at ringside without taking away from the work in the ring. Black was good nothing on almas, but he was good not a none factor for me but he was third in the match behind almas and vega. They had a shorter title match than they have on these big shows before and it was better for it, Black is a man better suited to shorter displays of violence and he got that in this match, getting his bursts of offense in but being cut off by the reversals of almas and the interference of vega. I really hope that the finish of this match leads to vega and almas breaking up as a due as they are perfect for each other. This was a fine way to end almas' all to short title reign ****

This was more of a three way tornado match than a tag match also the structure seemed off in that o'reily was the biggest babyface in this match despite being supposedly a heel. He was fighting against a bunch of bigger men on his own with his only help being his friend who had already wrestled that night had injured ribs and was put through a table at the the start of the match. Also strong was beating up kyle all match and then just joins him, why? AOP were the mvp's I have not seen much of them but they are really good i would love them in the smackdown tag scene with new day and usos or a big guys match vs the bludgeon brothers. There was also a moment in this match where o'reily takes a German and pops up before collapsing like he was kawada which caused me to spit my drink out with laughter it was really bad. This match is problematic due to some of the structure reasons mentioned above but as a sprint tag match it was good it just makes little sense to me. so i am unsure as how to rank it similar to the ladder opener for me **3/4

Ember moon reminds me of Marty Scrull in the sense of being all surface and over gimmicked to make up for being really generic and boring, also like marty it does not seem sincere or real there is a major disconnect. Shayna however rules, she looks and acts baddass and the shoulder stuff in this match was nasty and well sold holding her own hair to lock in the choke was brilliant. Moon fights the choke for a long time but eventually passes out. I enjoyed this but moon was largely along for the ride for me, the back and forth at the start was not great but the main thrust of the match after shanya injured her shoulder was pretty much all gold. ***1/2

These big spotfest carcrash matches are just not doing it for me anymore. It was a collection of very setup spots where each guy got one or two big spots and then disappeared for 5-10 minutes. It also went forever. On the takeover thread i saw people saying that they had to look away at times, but what does that say when despite all those massive spots that the best spot of the match was lars and dain throwing ricochet around without diving off of something or getting thrown through something. **3/4 i guess it was decent but for people who enjoy this kind of match would love it.

Based on such positive reviews, I guess I will be watching this show now. Even though the idea of seeing adam coles stupid face more than once is a little irritating.

But not cut the time down with the clock that they had one year where I think the funks got 90seconds or something absurd like that.

I have asked around a bit and so far I know that people have had it working via chromecast not sure about fire stick.

Zeus has been a guy who the fans seem to want to win the word title since 2016. He was the person many thought would end Kento's first reign it would be very welcome if he won, at the start of the year he was very over vs Joe. But with Shingo vs kento pretty much penciled in after Shingo's win, even if zeus wins the carnival and faces Kento then it would seem that kento would win before defending it against shingo. But that would apply to anyone who wins the tournament and somebody else beats the champ.

On today's Opener Atsushi Aoki def. Kazuki Ebina Koji Iwamoto, Atsushi Maruyama, Yohei Nakajima & Carbell Ito def. Hikaru Sato, Yusuke Okada, Josh Bodom & Aizawa #1 Joe Doering, Yoshitatsu, Naoya Nomura & KAI def. Takao Omori, Ryoji Sai, Bodyguard & Yutaka Yoshie Ultimo Dragon def. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi Yuji Hino def. Shuji Ishikawa Champion Carnival 2018 A Block Match Jun Akiyama def. Dylan James Champion Carnival 2018 B Block Match Shingo Takagi def. Kento Miyahara Champion Carnival 2018 A Block Match Zeus def. Suwama Champion Carnival 2018 B Block Match Ebina was wrestling his first match against his trainer, he is 27 and has a background in basketball and has wrestled in the student pro wrestling scene years ago. He is from sendai and was very well received by his home crowd. The jr tag was good, Carbell ito is an owner of one of AJPW's sponsors and dresses up in a tiger mask to wrestle on random AJPW shows he is actually not dreadful. Kikuchi is just sad to watch in such a comedy match. Zeus' leg did not look to be in good shape for the main event, his thigh was all taped up and he had trouble moving around as fluidly as he usually would. The finish to hino vs ishikawa was really impressive with Hino pulling off the FUCKING BOMB to big shuji. https://twitter.com/PuroTalk/status/982594231087849478 Over all a really good opening show with all four of the cc matches being at least good.

Block A: Kento Miyahara (triple crown champ) Shingo Takagi Yuji Hino Shuji Ishikawa (defending champ) Joe Doreing Naoya Nomura Bodyguard Ryuji Sai Block B: Suwama Jun Akiyama Zeus Dylan James Naomichi Marufuji KAI Yoshi-Tatsu Yutuka Yoshie Day 1 Sendai sun Plaza 7/4 Live on AJPW TV - A Block: Kento Miyahara vs. Shingo Takagi - A Block: Shuji Ishikawa vs. Yuji Hino - B Block: Jun Akiyama vs. Dylan James - B Block: Suwama vs. Zeus Day 2 Akita 8/4 Available on demand the next day - A: Joe Doering vs. Shuji Ishikawa - A: Kento Miyahara vs. Naoya Nomura - B: Suwama vs. KAI - B: Zeus vs. Yoshitatsu Day 3 Niigata 10/4 Available on demand the next day - B: Naomichi Marufuji vs. Yoshitatsu - B: Jun Akiyama vs. KAI - A: Joe Doering vs. Bodyguard - B: Yutaka Yoshie vs. Dylan James Day 4 Ishikawa 11/4 Available on demand the next day - A: Joe Doering vs. Yuji Hino - B: Yoshitatsu vs. KAI - B: Zeus vs. Dylan James - B: Suwama vs. Yutaka Yoshie Day 5 Tooyoka 12/4 I think this is the only show not being shown on Tv it may appear in a shortened version or highlights at some point - B: Naomichi Marufuji vs. Dylan James - B: Jun Akiyama vs. Yutaka Yoshie - A: Naoya Nomura vs. Bodyguard Day 6 Hiroshima 14/4 Available on demand the next day - A: Shingo Takagi vs. Bodyguard - A: Kento Miyahara vs. Ryoji Sai - A: Naoya Nomura vs. Yuji Hino - B: Zeus vs. Yutaka Yoshie Day 7 Hakata star lanes 15/4 Live on AJPW TV - A: Kento Miyahara vs. Shuji Ishikawa - B: Jun Akiyama vs. Suwama - A: Shingo Takagi vs. Yuji Hino - A: Joe Doering vs. Ryoji Sai Day 8 Kagoshima 16/4 Available on demand the next day - A: Kento Miyahara vs. Bodyguard - A: Shuji Ishikawa vs. Naoya Nomura - B: Yoshitatsu vs. Dylan James - B: KAI vs. Yutaka Yoshie Day 9 Matsuyama 18/4 available on demand the next day - B: Jun Akiyama vs. Yoshitatsu - B: Naomichi Marufuji vs. Yutaka Yoshie - B: KAI vs. Dylan James - A: Ryoji Sai vs. Yuji Hino Day 10 Osaka Pref Gym 2 20/4 Live on AJPW TV - B: Zeus vs. Naomichi Marufuji - A: Joe Doering vs. Shingo Takagi - A: Yuji Hino vs. Bodyguard - A: Naoya Nomura vs. Ryoji Sai Day 11 Osaka Pref Gym 2 21/4 Live on AJPW TV - B: Naomichi Marufuji vs. Suwama - A: Bodyguard vs. Shuji Ishikawa - A: Shingo Takagi vs. Ryoji Sai - B: Jun Akiyama vs. Zeus Day 12 Aichi 22/4 Live on AJPW TV - A: Joe Doering vs. Kento Miyahara - A: Shuji Ishikawa vs. Ryoji Sai - B: Naomichi Marufuji vs. KAI - B: Suwama vs. Yoshitatsu Day 13 Korakuen 25/4 Live on AJPW TV - B: Jun Akiyama vs. Naomichi Marufuji - B: Suwama vs. Dylan James - B: Zeus vs. KAI - B: Yoshitatsu vs. Yutaka Yoshie - A: Shingo Takagi vs. Naoya Nomura Day 14 Korakuen 29/4 Live on AJPW TV - A: Shuji Ishikawa vs. Shingo Takagi - A: Kento Miyahara vs. Yuji Hino - A: Joe Doering vs. Naoya Nomura - A: Ryoji Sai vs. Bodyguard Day 15 Korakuen 30/4 Live on AJPW TV Winner of A block vs Winner of B block

D-von had a really nice speach and they had me for a few seconds with the music at the end before guy came out and everyone knew it was time for the tables.

I just looked it up and Reigns has had three world title runs but combined they are only 118 days, Both of AJ styles's title runs have been longer than all three of reigns', while he has been pushed as a top guy as you say he has no way close to being pushed as an ace. He does not necessarily need to go undefeated for 2 years but he should at least have year long title reign with 15+ successful title defenses if they want him to be the top guy ace. That post mania 32 run you mentioned was only 72 days, it was nothing maybe it would have been longer without the adderall.

This week I received Matsunaga vs Goto from one of the early FMW shows from Jetlag http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/41513-tarzan-goto-vs-mitsuhiro-matsunaga-fmw-120489/ For Jetlag I have Given them Hotta vs kandori from March 1998

Tarzan Goto Vs mitsuhiro matsunaga This was a secret Santo project match from jetlag. The story of this is goto trying to get in close and on the ground so he can avoid the barage of fast and sometimes silly looking kicks from matsunaga. Whenever they are standing matsunaga is in control but when on the mat he is completely outmatched as it should be in a striker Vs wrestler match. Matsunaga looses his top for round three and here the match breaks with furious back and for the striking down to the point where goto gets dq'd for attacking the ref. Goto and matsunaga continue fighting after the bell. Matsunaga was very green in this match and clearly had no idea what he was doing when it came to Wrestling and that made this really good, because matsunaga only had his kicks to fall back on that gave an air of desperation to his atracks. They packed a lot of action into less than ten minutes here and none of it was wasted. ***1/2

The mania 32 thread was really the best thing about that mania and the meltdown of several posters on that thread particularly during shane vs taker and main event entrances.

But rusev already has a very important spot on the card, being eliminated by accident by aiden English in the Andre battle royal.

Breaks vs Kamikaze We start with a lot of back and forth mat work, very flashy but without ever seeming too silly, breaks puts in some character work to rile up the crowd a little. Towards the end of the first round some of the strikes come out with a dropkick and slap from kamikaze and a slap from breaks. Time runs out with breaks going for a breaks special and Kamikaze rolling through, nice first round nothing too special yet. At one minute 15 seconds of the second round Kamikaze scores the first fall with a rolling reverse clutch after goading breaking in with some slaps and kicks. Breaks has been a master crowd worker so far as he has been in all of my limited viewing of him. After the restart breaks is laser focused on the left arm of Kamikaze going for the breaks special at every moment, this puts across his desperation well. He takes advantage of a downed Kamikaze with the breaks special and gets an instant tap. We then get one of the most bizarre finishes I have ever seen, Kamikaze builds up a come back hits a running chop then goes to run the ropes and just falls out, injures his leg and breaks wins, it was a really bad finish to a fun match. I really enjoyed this, Breaks has been a great crowd worker in everything I have seen him in and this was no exception. I really should watch more world of sport ***1/4 That was really enjoyable, For Oldbirds here is a match from 1997 AJPW I saw just this morning, it is a match that is VERY different to what was going on in the main events of AJPW at the time with some really good matwork between these four guys. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bwpbsa8C2iSmWlpxZmZIME03VG8

This was rubbish. As a Match the structure was bad and counter intuitive. The match was nearly 40 minutes long and was fought under normal tag rules but a good 30 min of it was done tornado style With JR regularly commenting on how the match was out of control and tagging did not seem to matter. Then every so often they would do a Face in peril segment that would last a few mins before they go back to tornado stuff. Going into this match i assumed that it would be the golden lovers who were the faces and the bucks the heels but that changed several times over the course of the match with the bucks being heels at the start but then being babyfaces later Until changing again to take out omega before finally finishing the match as faces. It was a mess. As for the work itself it was your usual young bucks and omega fare where everything looks very choreographed to the nth degree, but if they get things wrong everyone looks stupid which did happen several times during this match. There was one outstanding spot in this match though and that was the elbow through the table to the floor. Naturally however omega who took the move was up and in the ring within one minute, this happened twice with him in this match, he did nothing for the majority of the match took two huge bumps and then on these bumps was when he decided he would get involved again, completely ass-backwards selling. Also, do the young bucks have any offense that does not involve the corner in some way, be it jumping off the ropes, throwing somone into the corner, hitting a strike out of the corner etc. Now we get to the 'story' and the 'acting' Good god this was bad, Shawn Micheals would look at this and think "you know what that is a bit much". At one point omega has Matt Jackson up for the one winged angel a move that hits the neck and shoulders, he hesitates and Matt begins to get free before screaming at Kenny to hit the move on him, Not in the way of a defiant blood-soaked babyface telling a heel to give them there best shot like a badass but like a screaming child, it felt to me first time that Kenny had messed up the spot and Matt was acting like Eddie in that ladder match with Rey screaming about Vickie. I had to watch that bit several times to understand what the fuck they were going for. The crowd is also really nothing, they livened up at the really big spots like the elbow through the table but for the most part they were quiet. The best parts of the match were the aforementioned elbow to the outside and some of JR's confused calls such as talking about how tags don't seem to matter and that he did not understand what was going on, or him getting in the government mule line when they started to use the belts. around 1/2*

I remember him talking about changing his style so he would not be endangering his health as much when he was off in 2014-15. But in his return he was doing repeated headbutts with Dolph ziggler both at mania in the ladder match and then on smackdown after. I would love to have him back as a full time or maybe not even that but I am always going to have some part of me that is apprehensive about watching him.

http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/18532-mitsuharu-misawa-vs-terry-gordy-ajpw-super-power-series-060191/ Misawa is my favorite wrestler ever and while watching wrestling be it modern stuff from all japan, noah, bjw, DG or maybe some WWE. I could be looking back at some 80s wwf or Hashimoto or ocasional lucha or whatever, but every-so-often I find myself watching a Misawa match again and just marveling about how much better he is then pretty much everyone other than Kawada and Jumbo. This match was one such occasion I loved this. In reply I shall be giving you a classic Jr tag match from the start of the NJPW vs NOAH jrs feud of 2002-2004 in which kikuchi is the biggest babyface in the world

This match was given to me by Jmare007 Misawa vs Gordy AJPW 1/06/91 This is on the same show that one year earlier Misawa pinned jumbo in the greatest starmaking match ever. This year Misawa is facing off against another big heavyweight in Terry Gordy a man who had pinned jumbo, baba and might have pinned Hansen all in the last 18 months. Since the win against Jumbo 1 year ago Misawa has not beaten one of the absolute top pushed guys, this is his moment to do so and also to rebuild after loosing to jumbo for the second time a month before. We start with a hot crowd and a lockup followed by an extended struggle for a break by both men which is done extremely well showing real intensity from both to start the match. The problem with doing something like this early on is that now they have set that president they have to keep it up throughout the match. An elbow is thrown by Misawa and they lock up again now Gordy throws some elbows, Misawa fires back with elbows of his won every Misawa elbow is worth 5 Gordy elbows this is established fairly early on. They go on to establish that Gordy is largely in control but Misawa is using his superior striking and speed to make counters while Gordy relies on size and a whole lot o’ clubberin. Gordy takes control and unloads with a brutal lariat to the forehead of Misawa. Misawa comes back with elbows and his jumping kicks one of which looks to catch Gordy right in the mouth. Later in the match Misawa hits a nasty enzugiri and busts Gordy wide open Misawa therefore just starts kicking him in the face again and again. A tiger driver on the floor is reversed the mats are pulled back and Gordy goes for a powerbomb, Misawa kicks to gets out and in doing so gets Gordy’s blood down his back and onto the camera lens before getting lariated again. Gordy then for some reason keeps putting Misawa in a sasorigateme or sharpshooter, its not a very good sharpshooter. Things pick back up again with a DDT from Gordy, Misawa comes back with some pointed elbows to the cut really nasty work. Gordy hits a powerbomb for the first big nearfall which Misawa grabs the rope to get out of. FACELOOOOOOOCCCCCKKKKK FACE LOOOOOOOCCCKKK, Gordy hits a cross body which Misawa rolls through in a callback to the Jumbo Match for a two count and we get my favourite sound in wrestling the sound of the crowd in the budokan all stamping their feet which sounds like a seismic rumble. German gets a two and we are back to the facelock which gets a two after Gordy goes down. One giant running elbow later and Misawa gets the three. This was great it was heated throughout with some real struggle and some very good bomb throwing at the end, once or twice Gordy threatened to bring the match down by sitting in holds like he would sometimes. I think the blood really helped, Misawa’s performance was impeccable he is the best wrestler ever and his selling offence and timing and crowd connection were all brilliant in this match. Certainly one of Gordy’s best singles offerings but for Misawa this is buried under a Barrage of outstanding matches. ****1/2

So some more has come out today, AJPW TV will launch on march 19th with a show from korakuen hall. All shows from march will be shown for free, this includes the big saitama super arena show on the 25th featuring kento Vs deoring for the triple crown. The other march shows for free are one from Nagoya featuring a sai Vs Nomura title match and one show from Shinjuku building up to the carnival. From April onwards it will be 900 yen per month with 14 champions carnival shows on the service 8 of them live that means only one show will not be filmed.