Current New Japan

[Jmare007]

Of all the shows Goto could've lost the belt, "Tanahashi JAM" was not in my bingo card

[El-P]

Funny because watching Dominion two days ago, I kinda thought Goto's title reign was losing steam. 

But yeah, this was quite the surprise. ZSJ IWGP champ during the G1 and at Forbidden Door certainly up my interest.

[Dav'oh]

As a long-time fan of both, I wasn't fussed who won, it was just great to see two world-class workers show how "easy" (for want of a beter term..."simple"?) it is to have an excellent match.

No dialogue, no run-ins, no international objects, no blood, no flips whips chains dips, no ref bump - absolutely nothing extraneous to pro-wrestling.

Was it a zillion stars? No, but not everything has to be perfect to be great.

[El-P]

Gabe Kidd getting injured on the very first day is terrible luck. Also hurts the G1 quite a bit, as he most certainly was gonna be a major part of it. 

[El-P]

Desperado vs Jun Kasai for the IWGP junior title in a crime scene looking like deathmatch says a whole lot about how things have evolved since 25 years ago when Onita was treated like garbage because of his style. Despe really has been the bridge to the "normalization" (under quotation because it was still a special show, it's not like you'd see that at WK), but Jun Kasai is without a doubt the best deathmatch wrestler ever. I did not realized he was 50 years old either. Match was awesome, easy MOTYC level if you don't mind the bloodletting. And that was one hell of a bloodletting.