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1 hour ago, Migs said:

Did they really almost perfectly set up Mox-Ospreay, with Mox cheering as his young boy valiantly fought but then was brutally defeated, only to insert fucking David Finlay?

Mox popping into the main event to fire up Umino but not overshadow things was really awesome. But, yeah, they did. Gedo is determined to show us that Finlay is next in the AJ/Omega/Ospreay line of top foreigners, but its an understatement to say that his work or presence aren't exactly matching the push.

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Will Ospreay in a three-way at the Dome is a complete waste, after the year he's having in 2023. Even if he's going away (and he sure is playing all of his cards in every directions), they could make a big deal out of him vs Yota Tsuji in a return match or something as he puts over the guy who should be the IWGP champ right now. Dave Finlay is doing a good job for what it is, but he's not AJ/Omega/White/Ospreay. He's just not, not even close. He would be better than SANADA as champ, because anyone would really, but his megapush reminds me of EVIL (expect his matches are actually much better, because no Dick Togo), it just feels forced as hell. They're also putting way too much effort in finding "the next big foreign star", as they will eventually go away for greener pastures eventually anyway if they get really great (White was supposed to be a NJPW lifer at one time, oh well).

I still don't get the SANADA push to the top though. That for me is even more incomprehensible. Maybe they thought the conjonction with Muto's retirement would bring him something, as Muto's student. But he clearly doesn't have it at all, I can't remember such a dry figure as champ in forever. There's no way him and Naito follow Okada vs Danielson.

The Vegas show this week looks a lot more fun that the Dome thus far (yeah, Hiromu vs Despy is gonna be terrific, but haven't we seen that one too many times already ?), with ZSJ vs Mike Bailey which is gonna be ridiculous, CMLL talent galore (Stephanie Vaquer vs Miyu Iwatani !), Kingston vs Kojima, Shingo vs Beretta, the WTF pairing of Joey Janela vs Toru Yano. 

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On 11/6/2023 at 3:11 AM, Migs said:

Did they really almost perfectly set up Mox-Ospreay, with Mox cheering as his young boy valiantly fought but then was brutally defeated, only to insert fucking David Finlay?

Even worse in execution than on paper. Especially after Ospreay vs Umino went from being 25 minutes of already awesome pro-wrestling to the last 15mn pushing it toward all-time great, career defining stuff. Gedo has his head so far up his own ass it's not even funny. 

Show was excellent though, fun undercard with a great second half. Mox vs O-Khan was a hoot, the six-men title with the dream-team vs TMDK was excellent, the junior tag league was very good (this is a rare case of House of Torture bullshit kinda working because of the result, like EVIL vs Okada at G1, although not nearly as heated), Takahashi vs Ishimori was excellent and Ospreay vs Umino was yet another MOTY level match by Ospreay (how many at this point, in how many different promotions ?).

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Takagi getting Tama Tonga at the Dome is so meh. We just had that match. Yes, it was excellent, guess what, Takagi vs anyone good will be. But it's really not very interesting for the biggest show of the year. 

Word is ZSJ is getting Tanahashi. Again, it's been a great pairing in the past and even ay this point it will probably be really good, but one would have hoped something bigger or different for ZSJ. I don't get any hype going for this WK apart from Danielson/Okada II.

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I think the WK card is pretty good. Naito vs SANADA is a big match, especially after Muto's retirement last year. There's a good story there. 

The WTL is looking pretty good with the inclusion of CMLL talent. As far as I know, this is the first time NJPW has booked CMLL talent in a heavyweight tournament so hopefully that means we'll get CMLL stars in the G1 down the road.

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Here is the full lineup for the 2023 World Tag League.

Block A

Shota Umino & Ren Narita

Chaos (Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano)

United Empire (Great O-Khan & Henare)

TMDK (Shane Haste & Mikey Nicholas)

Bullet Club War Dogs (Alex Coughlin & Gabe Kidd)

House of Torture (Evil & Yujiro Takahashi)

Kaito Kiyomiya & Ryohei Oiwa

Gates of Agony (Bishop Kaun & Toa Liona)

Block B

Chaos: Bishoman (Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi)

 Guerillas of Destiny (Hikuleo & EL Phantasamo)

Yuji Nigata & Minoru Suzuki

Just 5 Guys (Taichi & Yuya Uemera)

Yota Tsuji & Z

Sobrano Jr & Atlantis Jr (CMLL)

Monstersauce (Lance Archer & Alex Zayne)

Bullet Club Rouge Army (Bad Luck Fale & Jack Bonza)

Based on these brackets, who do y'all think will advance to the semi's and beyond?

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13 hours ago, Control21 said:

I think the WK card is pretty good. Naito vs SANADA is a big match, especially after Muto's retirement last year. There's a good story there. 

I agree, it's pretty good. Which, for the biggest show of the year at the Dome, doesn't cut it. I don't feel there's any hype about Naito vs SANADA at all. SANADA doesn't come off as a legit big time main-eventer at all, he never gets those kind of reactions (on the contrary, every show I watched since G1, to me he was always one of the least charismatic guy in the ring). Naito's rise in the G1 only really happened in the last two days, thanks to awesome performances by Ospreay & Okada. The emotional reactions these two days were ridiculous, but I'm not sold on Naito getting the same support 6 months later after a cold-as-hell SANADA title reign. It will take a whole lot to make this a worthwhile Dome main event, and that's basically all on Naito and his charisma. 

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Yeah, as much history as SANADA and Naito might have, I have a hard time believing the Dome gonna be fired up for that match. They gotta be expecting a title change so that might play in their favor but it's gotta be the least interesting IWGP title match on January 4th since WK when Tana vs Kea couldn't even main event, lol.

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3 hours ago, Jmare007 said:

Yeah, as much history as SANADA and Naito might have, I have a hard time believing the Dome gonna be fired up for that match. They gotta be expecting a title change so that might play in their favor but it's gotta be the least interesting IWGP title match on January 4th since WK when Tana vs Kea couldn't even main event, lol.

I mean the Tokyo Dome is on pace to sell over 35,000 tickets right now. 

I know SANADA has a reputation among internet fans for being boring but that's where the subjectivity of pro wrestling comes in. I think he's actually a great wrestler and has had a pretty solid title reign while reinventing himself. There's a pretty lazy narrative about SANADA for some reason and it's one of those cases of the popular narrative being horribly incorrect 

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Looks like Yota Tsuji is getting most of the action then. 

Speaking of which. No big single match for him, nor Shota Umino, who just had a career defining match against Ospreay ? Utter nonsense. Well, they may end up having a match against each other or something I guess. If they end up in some tag match in the undercard, then it's really ridiculous.

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6 hours ago, WingedEagle said:

Is there a way to play full shows on the new NJPW World? Perhaps I'm missing something but I seem to have to select each match file individually.

If you open the full show on the app, it seems to automatically go into a playlist sort of format. It's seamless, but appear to be watching individual files.

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It's autoplaying for me. It seems like a better system, actually (as long as it works).

But I just canceled. It's useless for what I use it for, and it's galling that they expect me to pay the same thing for a service that they just gutted. They only have one Fujiwara match now. Fujinami is down from something like 80 matches to 15. Keeping up with the tag league just isn't that important to me.

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On 11/27/2023 at 10:46 AM, William Bologna said:

It's autoplaying for me. It seems like a better system, actually (as long as it works).

But I just canceled. It's useless for what I use it for, and it's galling that they expect me to pay the same thing for a service that they just gutted. They only have one Fujiwara match now. Fujinami is down from something like 80 matches to 15. Keeping up with the tag league just isn't that important to me.

WAIT!?! What the fuck? When they updated the service? They got rid of matches. NOOOOOOO!

Do we think they will re-upload the matches eventually?!?

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Big Bang Vader and Choshu Force are classics. Kimo Leopoldo had a match and was listed as "liver" - turns out "kimo" is "liver" in Japanese.

Chono was identified as Masahiro Butohno for one match. Poetry Echanaka was Shiro Koshinaka. Gedo & Jado were "heresy heresy" once. Kotetsu Yamamoto got rendered as Yamamoto Small Iron Game Yamamoto Small Iron.

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2023 World Tag League Leaderboard.

Block A:

10 pts: TMDK (Shane Haste & Mikey Nicholas)

8 pts: BC War Dogs (Alex Coughlin & Gabe Kidd), Chaos (Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano)

6 pts: Shota Umino & Ren Narita, United Empire (Great O-Khan & Henare)

4 pts: Kaito Kiyomiya & Ryohei Oiwa, House of Torture (Evil & Yujiro Takahashi)

2 pts: Gates of Agony (Bishop Kaun & Toa Liona)

Block B

8 pts: Monstersauce (Lance Archer & Alex Zayne), Just 5 Guys (Taichi & Yuya Uemera)

6 pts: Guerillas of Destiny (Hikuleo & EL Phantasamo)

5 pts: Bishoman (Hirooki Goto &Yoshi-Hashi), Atlantis Jr & Sobrano Jr

4 pts: Yota Tsuji & Zandokan Jr

2 pts: BC Rouge Army (Bad Luck Fale & Jack Bonza), Minoru Suzuki & Yuji Nigata 

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