Current New Japan

[WingedEagle]

Call me crazy but I thought Cobb vs. Yoshi-Hashi was one of the tourney's best matches with Okada/Despy.  Tana/Naito was good but I thought very underwhelming given their history.  At ***1/4-***1/2 its not a waste of time but hardly the standout it looked like on paper.

[Boss Rock]

I enjoyed Naito-Tana as well and really appreciated the ending, but wish they hadn't taken it so slow the first few minutes. 

[kas]

How far have attendance restrictions been lifted in Japan? Because New Japan drew 1000 in Korakuen Hall today, which is by far the highest Pandemic crowd there

[El-P]

2 minutes ago, kas said:

How far have attendance restrictions been lifted in Japan? 

I dunno, but probably lifted quite a bit, I'm watching the current Osaka basho and the floors are pretty full.

Hiromu vs Suzuki sounds like it was quite the spectacle.

[Boss Rock]

Now that we're farther into the tournament, more exciting matches happening/could happen. Cobb-Naito and Okada-CIMA were both good.

[Migs]

ZSJ-Ospreay was the match of the tournament. Just spectacular. 

[sek69]

7 hours ago, Migs said:

ZSJ-Ospreay was the match of the tournament. Just spectacular. 

Indeed, that was fantastic pro wrestling. 

[Boss Rock]

Yep, terrific chemistry and still manage to change things up a bit every time. Shingo-Hiromu was great as well, but one of those matches I was hoping would be just a LITTLE bit better. And I ain't mad at the final four, but considering we've already seen Shingo-Sabre twice, was hoping for Hiromu to shake things up.

[kas]

My expectations for Shingo/Hiromu were sky high, meaning it ended up being a little disappointing, but Zack Vs Ospreay was terrific, they're just so good together.

[Boss Rock]

Shingo-Sabre had their best match yet together. Still not sure it unseats Ospreay-Sabre as the tournament best, though. Okada-Naito was also great, around the level of their last one. Some really good near-falls.

[sek69]

I haven't been watching New Japan as closely until recently (empty arena wrestling isn't my bag if it's not in Memphis), when did ZSJ go from Dean Malenko style vanilla technical expert to  El Hijo del Bryan Danielson? Gotdamn he's been tearing it up.

[Boss Rock]

Honestly I think he's been wrestling pretty much as he always has since he first came over full-time. He just hasn't had a ton of singles opportunities outside of the G1 due to tagging with Taichi.

[kas]

Naito vs ZSJ rivals Shingo vs Ishii for best match of the tournament, what a match

[Migs]

On 3/26/2022 at 4:01 PM, sek69 said:

I haven't been watching New Japan as closely until recently (empty arena wrestling isn't my bag if it's not in Memphis), when did ZSJ go from Dean Malenko style vanilla technical expert to  El Hijo del Bryan Danielson? Gotdamn he's been tearing it up.

I think he locked in when he got to do a bunch of tagging with Suzuki in 2018-2019. He had a sort of good but quiet 2021 doing tags but was awesome in the G1 last year. 

[Boss Rock]

Sabre wins the NJ Cup and Bullet Club having another expulsion angle. Like we're back in 2018.

[Tenese Sarwieh]

While it's a foregone conclusion that Okaka is retaining, there's a sliver of hope that ZSJ wins. It would bring fresh energy into the main event scene of him having a Shingo-type run in 2022.  

[Timbo Slice]

I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion. They’ve played this card before and ZSJ gave Okada all he could handle, so there’s more than enough here to think ZSJ can do it this time. 

[NintendoLogic]

The last few years of New Japan booking have me fearful that if ZSJ does get elevated, it'll be a monkey's paw scenario where he becomes part of a new Bullet Club faction and all his matches have a million run-ins and end with Dick Togo choking someone with a wire.

By the way, Dangerous Tekkers have been my favorite tag team in the world the past few years. They even managed to have a good match with SANADA.

[El-P]

I need to catch up on some of the last few days to watch the best matches. I fully expected ZSJ to win, and I really hope they pull the trigger on him this time. He was so awesome last year during G1, and yeah Dangerous Tekkers especially since their "face turn" of sorts has been an awesome tag team. And then just have Zach vs Danielson for the IWGP title somewhere. 

[Ed.]

Apparently Ibushi was supposed to be the winner of the tournament before his injury, so given that would have been Zack’s round 2 opponent I wouldn’t hold your breath that this is some big push for Zack.  He’s just gonna fall to Okada in April then be back down to where he was before the cup started.

Looks to me Naito will challenge Okada for the title after Zack loses after he beat Okada in the cup. 

[Migs]

1 hour ago, El-P said:

I need to catch up on some of the last few days to watch the best matches. I fully expected ZSJ to win, and I really hope they pull the trigger on him this time. He was so awesome last year during G1, and yeah Dangerous Tekkers especially since their "face turn" of sorts has been an awesome tag team. And then just have Zach vs Danielson for the IWGP title somewhere. 

I'd say the matches to see are, in rough order of quality:

• ZSJ-Ospreay
• ZSJ-Shingo
• ZSJ-Naito
• Okada-Naito
• Hiromu-Suzuki 
• Shingo-Hiromu
• Okada-Desperado

I don't see them taking a shot with Sabre here, it feels like they have longer-term plans for Okada's run. But I do think this win and his G1 run have elevated him a bit. (This is the problem with NJ getting rid of the IC Title - this would be the perfect moment for him to win that and have a run, but alas, it's not there anymore, replaced with two belts that have basically no meaning.)

[Boss Rock]

3 hours ago, Migs said:

I'd say the matches to see are, in rough order of quality:

• ZSJ-Ospreay
• ZSJ-Shingo
• ZSJ-Naito
• Okada-Naito
• Hiromu-Suzuki 
• Shingo-Hiromu
• Okada-Desperado

I don't see them taking a shot with Sabre here, it feels like they have longer-term plans for Okada's run. But I do think this win and his G1 run have elevated him a bit. (This is the problem with NJ getting rid of the IC Title - this would be the perfect moment for him to win that and have a run, but alas, it's not there anymore, replaced with two belts that have basically no meaning.)

This. I know New Japan has had a lot of titles, but honestly the tag titles should've been merged years ago.

[sek69]

New Japan has always had a pretty firm line between junior and heavyweight titles, as opposed to the IWGP and IC title both being main eventer belts (often held by the same person) so I get why they haven't merged the tag titles. 

What I don't get is why they had to make a new belt for the New Japan Strong show when I thought that was what the US title was for.

[Migs]

3 hours ago, sek69 said:

What I don't get is why they had to make a new belt for the New Japan Strong show when I thought that was what the US title was for.

I feel like the NJ Strong title is sort of like a TV title? Title defenses almost never main event the live shows they've done. The US title is a weird one, though - you'd think it would have made sense for that title to go from Archer to, say, Juice Robinson, so it could be defended in the US. I guess they wanted the title to be able to be part of the big shows, but it's been passed around to the point it seems pretty meaningless. My gut is that Ospreay was going to win it from Sanada and bring it to the US shows, but then Sanada got hurt and they're stuck again.

[sek69]

The pandemic damaged the US title. They could either put it on someone in the US who wouldn't be able to appear on big shows in Japan, or put it on someone in Japan who couldn't get to the US. No real good choices either way. 

At least things have opened up to the point we should start seeing people go back and forth easier.