Current New Japan

[Control21]

They finally killed NJPW. This will be the first G1 final I will not bother watching. This is just totally inexcusable. That company needs surgery to remove a deep cancer.

[Dav'oh]

For a variety of reasons, the first time I got to view a Young Lion's excursion contemporaneously was when EVIL went to ROH and I was pretty excited at the prospect.

Then I saw him getting smoked by the ROH crew and it was clear he didn't have it/get it. I've never expected anything good of him since.

4 hours ago, El-P said:

And yeah, Covid did a number on them,

Covid may have oiled the dildo, but it still took NJPW to roger themselves.

[Boss Rock]

5 hours ago, El-P said:

Gotta love the discourse in "american NJPW fans" (*sigh*) about EVIL being super over in Japan and shit, but the dismal drawing power of the promotion in the last few years seems to indicate otherwise. Since he got pushed to and around the main event spot, it's been nothing but a disastrous run both creatively and business wise.

I've seen numerous arguments that HoT are big merch movers. But the NJPW merch sites don't have any of their gear in the top 10 of sales.

I know some of NJPW's woes can be blamed on losing talent to AEW and the company becoming very draconian with gifs on social media which has resulted in less buzz for their big matches. But good Lord is the booking absolutely fried. Takeshita winning would be cool and all, but unless he's going to devote more time to NJPW or leave altogether, I'm not sure putting a part-timer in the main event of WK is a good idea. Especially considering Mox's run with the title in 2024 did nothing for them.

[Jmare007]

Can't believe fans have reached "EVIL is popular in Japan" narrative  some folks will just head cannon anything, LMAO. 

It's insane to me I started complaining about Gedo 10 years ago, he's gotten worse each year since then and he still has the book. Complete insanity.

Poor Tsuji man...

[Tetsujin]

You can trace back Gedo's awful booking run to WK 12 in 2018, but 2019 as a proper year was the first time NJPW felt out of its new golden age, both story wise and in ring. COVID only made far worse a situation that was already beginning to stink, except for Naito's two first months of reign before the pandemic.

[El-P]

1 hour ago, Boss Rock said:

I've seen numerous arguments that HoT are big merch movers. But the NJPW merch sites don't have any of their gear in the top 10 of sales.

Picture me not surprised. The whole "EVIL is popular" is pure copium to distract from the obvious : Gedo's booking sucks. And yeah, I did love G1 last year and the whole ZSJ ascension. It was awesome. And the Goto win this year was a terrific feel-good story too. But apart from those and the Naito wins the previous year, the booking overall has been bad for a while now. The SANADA title reign still baffles me to this day. The House of Torture shit has been going on for 5 years now (the rumor was at one point that it was Dick Togo's influence, if true this guy needs to be fired yesterday).

[Jmare007]

I think what's hurting the company the most is what's been happening outside of the IWGP title picture. There's been no new rivalries worth a fuck since the return from COVID, no angles worth a damn and no real come up story from any new guy because they've been stuck in the same place trading wins and losses for the past 3 years. 

It's not about who is the main champion right now, it's that there's nothing really exciting about the roster. They've been badly needing a hard reset for years and Gedo keeps trotting out half assed efforts with a few months of cool IWGP title defenses sprinkled in here and there, and that's clearly not enough. There's no vision about the future nor anything really and it's depressing as all hell. 

[El-P]

23 minutes ago, Jmare007 said:

I think what's hurting the company the most is what's been happening outside of the IWGP title picture. There's been no new rivalries worth a fuck since the return from COVID, no angles worth a damn and no real come up story from any new guy because they've been stuck in the same place trading wins and losses for the past 3 years. 

It's not about who is the main champion right now, it's that there's nothing really exciting about the roster.

Yeah, also that. The heavy focus on a David Finlay (with all due respect, I find him to be really good in-ring) all foreign heel faction, calling a brand new stable JUST FIVE GUYS (might as well call themselves "We're generic", made even more terrible, or funny, by the fact they were led by charisma vacuum SANADA), or keeping a United Empire alive after Ospreay left (and giving the lead to *gasp* TJP) are exemples of what makes the mid/undercard pretty uninteresting indeed. They're also resting on the multiplication of titles which has plagued the promotion for years and has only got worse with the TV title being added. Yeah, there's absolutely a feeling of staleness. There was no surprise in the G1, no outsider, no cool veteran from another era...

Now that I think of it, it actually could have been even worse. Imagine Jake Lee coming back and getting the push to the top... (*looks around*... hoping Gedo isn't listening)

[Boss Rock]

2 hours ago, Jmare007 said:

t's not about who is the main champion right now, it's that there's nothing really exciting about the roster. They've been badly needing a hard reset for years and Gedo keeps trotting out half assed efforts with a few months of cool IWGP title defenses sprinkled in here and there, and that's clearly not enough. 

If I had a nickel for every time someone tried to claim NJPW was "back"....