Current New Japan

[SirEdger]

Omega vs Big Mike is probably my favorite match of this year so far. But then again, I haven't seen Omega vs Ishii from Night 2 so I might change my mind when I see it.

[WingedEagle]

Night 2 was arguably a deeper show but I think night 1 had higher highs. Agree that Elgin/Omega was match of the weekend. Omega/Ishii was a terrific final with some truly memorable moments and a great finish, but think it would've benefited from a little editing. Now Omega/Lethal? Jay Lethal is a guy who is very much just there for me almost every time out, but this may have been my match of the night. A very basic match with Omega viciously working Lethal's taped ribs. They focused on that throughout the match until it was too much for Lethal to overcome and far from overstayed their welcome. Just tremendous work from both.

 

Ishii/Sabre was similarly simple with ZSJ working the arm and Ishii selling it like a champ. Another fun, quick semifinal with the winner pulling double duty and not looking to go too long early.

 

The undercard tag matches were also much better on this night, with a strong IWGP Jr. Tag Title match between the Bucks and Roppongi Vice, LIJ against Juice and friends, as well as CHAOS vs. Bullet Club in a match that was good fun once it got passed the comedy.

 

Really strong show and weekend. Cannot wait for the G1!

[EricR]

Saw AXS was airing Night 2 of their USA shows, figured I would do another live blog:

 

 

http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2017/07/njpw-g1-special-in-usa-night-2-live-as.html

[sek69]

Okada is wrestler of the year for being the first guy to drag something truly great out of Cody.

 

 

I must be missing something on why everyone seems to hate Cody so much. He's not like top 5 in the world, but people's reactions to him come off as "eww you got WWE in my New Japan". His heel work seemed to be finding its legs in ROH (until he got babyfaced by being put in the Bullet Club but that's a whole nother discussion).

[WingedEagle]

Has anyone taken the New Japan World app on firestick for a spin? How does it fare for streaming live, on demand and skipping around events? If its a winner I'd easily grab one to to access NJ on the big screen.

[joeg]

 

Okada is wrestler of the year for being the first guy to drag something truly great out of Cody.

 

 

I must be missing something on why everyone seems to hate Cody so much. He's not like top 5 in the world, but people's reactions to him come off as "eww you got WWE in my New Japan". His heel work seemed to be finding its legs in ROH (until he got babyfaced by being put in the Bullet Club but that's a whole nother discussion).

 

 

I think Cody is the only guy out there right now who actually gets real heat. People legitimately hate him the way they did heels 30 years ago. Kudos to him.

[EricR]

My god that was a dogshit awful show.

[Mad Dog]

He just hasn't done much beyond okay as a worker. This is the first thing from his indy run that was something you can hold up as being really great. Okada is the first guy to finally get something good out of him and deserves recognition for it.

[Ricky Jackson]

I had the match at ***. I didn't feel like I'd just seen something special when it was over. I liked Cody over the years in WWE but he didn't feel like a major star in this setting and I wasn't particularly impressed with his work

[Stiva]

Digging into Night 1 now and one thing jumped out immediately. I thought Jay Lethal put on a really strong performance in the match with Page. The selling of the ribs was sound but everything (bar his finisher) connected nicely and looked really crisp. As someone that hasn't seen Lethal for a while, I feel like I need to dig into more of his recent work. Does he have any more short, well-put together matches like that?

[WingedEagle]

Anyone else having trouble viewing the videos from Rev Pro's British J Cup on NJ World?

[JNLister]

They are region locked. Definitely not available in the UK. Don't know if it's blocked in UK only or blocked everywhere but Japan (as happens with CMLL.)

[WingedEagle]

Yep, confirmed that's only available in Japan.

[Sean Liska]

So any thoughts on the main events the last two nights? I'm not a big modern NJPW main event style guy but I thought they were fantastic, just great stuff. So maybe the bigger NJPW fans here will think they weren't as good, who knows.

[Codysseus]

I thought both were great. Okada's as good as pro-wrasslers get in 2017.

[Jmare007]

I thought Okada vs Omega III was easily the best of their trilogy. Way more focused and wasn't needlessly long.

 

Omega vs Naito was an outstanding spotfest with a red hot crowd, that always gets a thumbs up for me. It was a little too long though, didn't care for what they did in the first third of the match.

 

 

All in all, Naito winning and facing Okada at the Dome is the best decision Gedo has done in a long time - product wise, as much as I've found New Japan boring for the most part the last couple of years, it's been an undeniable success - and we'll probably get Omega vs Ibushi underneath. Really interested in how many people they can draw with those main events.

[Grimmas]

I thought Okada vs Omega III was easily the best of their trilogy. Way more focused and wasn't needlessly long.

So 7 stars or 6 and 1/2?

[Dewar]

 

I thought Okada vs Omega III was easily the best of their trilogy. Way more focused and wasn't needlessly long.

So 7 stars or 6 and 1/2?

 

Not in the dome, loses a star.

[Jmare007]

 

I thought Okada vs Omega III was easily the best of their trilogy. Way more focused and wasn't needlessly long.

So 7 stars or 6 and 1/2?

 

 

Clearly 6 and 3/4, leave people wanting that 7 stars for another occasion.

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

I saw Dave's back-to-back 6-star and 5.75-star reviews for Omega's G1 matches with Okada and Naito, and while I enjoyed both matches, it occurred to me while reading it that in two years, Kenny is going to go into the Observer HOF hailed as "arguably the best big match worker in history," and I'm gonna puke.

[Jmare007]

5.75 is even more funny to me than 6.25 for some reason I really hope this recent trend and backlash end up with people finally realizing that star ratings don't matter.

[KawadaSmile]

I hope all this leads to Naito getting a win over Okada at WK12.

 

Also Juice better be getting a proper title victory soon, as he might've been a low-key candidate for G1 MVP.

[WingedEagle]

For those with NJ World on Fire TV Stick -- is there a quick and handy way to find/navigate to older shows? Let's say I wanted to watch Wrestle Kingdom 10, G1 Climax Night 6 from 2013 or KOPW from 2012. How do I get there without copious scrolling? The search function works to an extent, but seems to bring up very incomplete results.

[Kadaveri]

So Omega's opponent for Wrestle Kingdom 12 has been revealed. Spoiler here: It's Chris Jericho

[Richeyedwards]

So Omega's opponent for Wrestle Kingdom 12 has been revealed. Spoiler here: It's Chris Jericho

Hahahahaha geriatric Jericho really? I guess it is being done to try and get some more western fans in. Tanas opponent is not that interesting either the jr title match does not have any apeall to me and I really dislike okada and naito when not Wrestling tana, so this show does not look very good.

 

At least last year you had kushida Vs hiromu, tana Vs naito and shibata Vs goto which were all good to great. This year nothing on the card looks better than good at best. I suppose the naito match will have a lot of heat but I really don't care about either man.

 

Writing spoilers on mobile is really difficult.