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When I went six years ago, I can only imagine what Kawada thought of some tall wide-eyed dude just wandering in. And then flubbing through whatever I could say to not sound like a fanboy when he signed my shirt and took a photo. Eddie got to live the damn dream. That’s amazing. 
 

They also need to release that subtitled so we can understand all that Kawada says. Would be great. 

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I can't believe that with Bushiroad's business going to shit in the last week, and needing SOMETHING to get some momentum back, the announced matches that are aimed to sell tickets for the next Sumo Hall show is this pitiful shit


NJPW "DESTRUCTION IN RYOGOKU", 09.10.2023
Tokyo Ryogoku Kokugikan


- 7 Match Series 7th: Yuji Nagata, Shota Umino & Master Wato vs. Minoru Suzuki, Ren Narita & El Desperado
- STRONG Openweight Tag Team Title: Alex Coughlin & Gabe Kidd (c) vs. El Phantasmo & Hikuleo
- NEVER Openweight Title: David Finlay (c) vs. Tama Tonga
- IWGP World Heavyweight Title: SANADA (c) vs. "King of Darkness" EVIL

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On 8/21/2023 at 3:23 PM, Jmare007 said:

I can't believe that with Bushiroad's business going to shit in the last week, and needing SOMETHING to get some momentum back, the announced matches that are aimed to sell tickets for the next Sumo Hall show is this pitiful shit


NJPW "DESTRUCTION IN RYOGOKU", 09.10.2023
Tokyo Ryogoku Kokugikan


- 7 Match Series 7th: Yuji Nagata, Shota Umino & Master Wato vs. Minoru Suzuki, Ren Narita & El Desperado
- STRONG Openweight Tag Team Title: Alex Coughlin & Gabe Kidd (c) vs. El Phantasmo & Hikuleo
- NEVER Openweight Title: David Finlay (c) vs. Tama Tonga
- IWGP World Heavyweight Title: SANADA (c) vs. "King of Darkness" EVIL

New Japan was always buoyed by the guests pre-pandemic, but it's worse now. If the show doesn't have AEW guys, it's just not a must-see. Call me when they fly in Mox, Danielson and Omega.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Speaking about too much great content all the time, just got ZSJ vs Danielson, so of course gonna have ZSJ vs Ospreay, at the Copper Box no less. ZSJ and Ospreay are having a ridiculous year. In a company that has way too many titles (no, not that one, the other one), one of those should be the IWGP champ, really, instead of.... how gawwwd. SANADA has been such a complete bust as a champ. He showed up in IMPACT earlier, and he was fine, but he had less presence than 80% of the roster. Did not come off like a big deal at all. And SANADA vs EVIL  at Ryogoku ? Fucking really ? Why is Yota Tsuji not the champ already ? Is SANADA really gonna main event the Dome ? NJPW has totally lost the plot. Hopefully we get Nakajima showing up and kicking SANADA in the face or something, because after a very *there* G1 Climax (although the last two days were awesome), the company is cold as hell coming off the pandemic era. Ospreay maybe leaving next year (he already feels like an AEW guy at this point) will be another blow. 

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Here's some ideas I've had that could maybe help get things situated in New Japan.

1. Unify the two tag titles into the IWGP World Tag Team Titles. Gedo doesn't seem to like booking tag anyway and at least this way he can get more creative with the duos he makes.

2. Instead of continuing to expand the G1, I would have their be G1 qualifiers. If done correctly you can create angles based on who does or doesn't make the cut. The same would go for the BOSJ.

3. Retire the KOPW. I can respect the idea of trying to organically introduce gimmick matches to add variety but a lot of the gimmicks just sound dumb.

4. I would also retire the Never Openweight title. The original promise to put over younger talent largely hasn't materialized. They've never put it on a Jr despite calling it a Openweight title and frankly it's been eclipsed by the new TV title. Maybe have Tama lose a title unification match to ZSJ.

5. Have House of Torture break off from Bullet Club. There's a ready made story of Evil being pissed about getting passed over for leadership by Gedo's newest favorite. 

These are just a few random suggestions. Thoughts?

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On 10/13/2023 at 10:32 PM, Autistic Dragon said:

Here's some ideas I've had that could maybe help get things situated in New Japan.

1. Unify the two tag titles into the IWGP World Tag Team Titles. Gedo doesn't seem to like booking tag anyway and at least this way he can get more creative with the duos he makes.

2. Instead of continuing to expand the G1, I would have their be G1 qualifiers. If done correctly you can create angles based on who does or doesn't make the cut. The same would go for the BOSJ.

3. Retire the KOPW. I can respect the idea of trying to organically introduce gimmick matches to add variety but a lot of the gimmicks just sound dumb.

4. I would also retire the Never Openweight title. The original promise to put over younger talent largely hasn't materialized. They've never put it on a Jr despite calling it a Openweight title and frankly it's been eclipsed by the new TV title. Maybe have Tama lose a title unification match to ZSJ.

5. Have House of Torture break off from Bullet Club. There's a ready made story of Evil being pissed about getting passed over for leadership by Gedo's newest favorite. 

These are just a few random suggestions. Thoughts?

1). I've never been a fan of NJPW's tag team division so I don't disagree here. This is one of Gedo's weak points.

2) I think they should go back to simplicity when it comes to the G1, BOSJ, and NJ Cup. The expansion of those tournaments over the years has diminished their quality somewhat. Going back to a 16-man tournament for the NJC and two blocks of 10-12 for the G1 and BOSJ would probably be the best course of action. You have to leave some guys out then, but those tournaments should be the best of the best.

3) I agree here, the KOPW title hasn't added much and it's a cute gimmick that gets old quickly unless you get cool matches out of it like the O-Khan/Shingo match.

4) I like the NEVER Openweight title on paper, but the booking is lacking sometimes. I think NJPW would be better off by bringing back the IC title again, but that will never happen. The US title should probably be retired.

5) HOT seems like an independent unit already, it's only a formality. But in general, I find the House's shtick very tiresome. The same goes for the new "War Dogs" Bullet Club...at this point, the Bullet Club gimmick has run its course. I'm a firm believer in that. It's reaching NWO levels of creative fatigue. New Japan should borrow from Dragon Gate's playbook and disband factions more often...freshen things up once in a while.

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The expansion of the G1 has really hurt the content, because in the end it doesn't change there's only a handful of guys who can win it, so it's just adding NPC's for the heck of it. It totally dilutes the tournament. Of course it's been done so it's less tough on the workers bodies, so from that point of view, it's understandable, the G1 was hell.

Bullet Club I guess is still selling loads of merchandise, which is why they don't want to end it. If not, then it's just Gedo being way too conservative/lazy/stuck in his ways. That being said, if the new genius ideas are stuff like TAKA Michinoku's awfully named "Just 5 Guys" (oh, the irony because SANADA absolutely comes off like "Just One Guy" as opposed to a world champ level guy, he's been such a bust in this role), keep the Bullet Club going, really. Plus the current faction really has some good young foreigner workers. David Finlay is what he is, he's not coming off as a main eventer at all, and he's a big step down from the previous leaders, but he's doing a fine job at it. 

Meanhile, the Copperbox show was quite a load of quality wrestling and fun. Bad audio notwithstanding, which does hurt some matches, both main events especially. Well, hurt their perception, but of course Ishiii vs Takagi was awesome (Ishii looks older by the day, yet his work remains all-time great level, it's incomprehensible at this point) and Ospreay vs ZSJ was probably some of the best counter-wrestling I've ever seen. Just ridiculous, never seen before stuff. Ospreay is probably the most ridiculously versatile wrestler ever, and not on a small scale either, he's versatile at the biggest main event scale possible. He can do everything, and can do everything better than most. His last two years are possibly the greatest I've ever seen. I sure hope I get that Danielson match in the upcoming months, because as of now that's probably the last biggest dream match that's not happened yet. ZSJ has also been peaking at the same time so when stars align, just enjoy it while you can.

You could see how much it meant for Ospreay too after ZSJ kissed him on the nose of something (yeah, he did, ZSJ be ZSJ), he was visibly emotional. The sign with the Wembley Attendance being brought in the ring was quite funny too (for those who don't know, Ospreay had the Wembley attendance tattooed, before the controversy about the real number popping out). 

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  • 3 weeks later...

NJPW really is so dependent on who is Will Ospreay facing these days. He made Naito the epic story of the G1 during a mind-blowing semi-final. He was the headliner in England against ZSJ in yet another awesome match. Now he's facing the "New 3 Musketeers" apparently, after Yota Tsuji now it's Shota Umino. The Naito vs SANADA built for the Tokyo Dome feels cold as fuck, as SANADA just reeks of "Why he is the champ ?" energy. If Ospreay doesn't resign with NJPW, and all seems to indicate he won't, it's gonna be pretty rough.

The NJPW Strong show last week-end was plenty fun though, with the CMLL presence (Stephanie Vaquer is just my new everything right now), Eddie Kingston living his best life and some cool matches all around, capped off by Shingo doing his thing against Tama.

Power Struggle looks like, well, a struggle apart from the two top matches, the 6 ways which should be fun and Mox vs Great O-Khan for the fuck of it. Maybe it's enough, but they better build a solid Tokyo Dome card, because that IWGP World title match ain't it at all (no woman match also betrays the fact they made a belt strictly for Mercedes and really aren't that interested if she's not around, sounds promising for the future...).

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If they can't have a dope match with a more established story and more defined roles (Danielson in control trying to "break" Okada, who has to work from underneath before doing what he does best: a great finishing sequence and a W), then this pairing was meant to never meet in the ring.

I'm actually not excited about the match at all, which is fucking crazy. But having low expectations is probably for the best.

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