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Wouldn't say it's the best NJPW match all year but ZSJ-Ibushi was quite fun. While Ibushi doesn't have that nice limb selling I enjoy, he does bring a lot of intensity to his matches that seem to be structured around moments meant to up the ante of the match. That much I enjoyed as well as his struggle to hit the V Trigger.

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The show was super easy to watch. Yano being over like rover was pretty cool. The main event was excessive, but it is the zeitgeist. (ok, I didn't watch Hangman vs Vampiro Jr. because what the hell, life's too short) Okada & Ishii vs Sabre & Suzuki was great. The Cody match I enjoyed a whole lot, bullshit and all.

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I wrote up the Strong Style Evolved show. I really liked Liger/Ospreay and the Sabre/Suzuki tag. Main event was what I expected, with some great peaks, and plenty of stuff that I've seen called "subtle" that couldn't have come off more hammy. But overall it went by smooth (except for White/Page, which took a couple hours).

 

http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2018/03/new-japan-pro-wrestling-strong-style.html

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Signed up to NJPW World today and saw the 2 multi man tags from the post Dome Korakuen Hall show and they were exactly what you'd expect from these post Dome show Korakuen Hall multi man matches -- throwaway tags. I'm going to watch the Dome show and some of the other matches mentioned on here -- the Young Bucks vs. Roppongi 3K, Bullet Club vs. Golden Lovers, SANADA vs. ZSJ, Elgin vs. Ishii, Tanahashi vs. Taichi, Ibushi vs. YOSHI-HASHI, Naito vs. ZSJ, Tanahashi vs. ZSJ, etc. That should give me a solid idea if I should cancel this early or keep it for another month.

 

I watched them both with English commentary and that was a huge mistake. I don't speak Japanese, but I much prefer the Japanese commentators to the English commentators.

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I've been thinking about signing up for a month as well. I kind of want to try and catch up with some stuff I've missed from the point it blew up again around 2012, but there aren't that many guys I like and in general it's not a style I'm a fan of, so I'd need to be picky. If I wound up tapping out on the more recent stuff early then I'm sure I'd find enough from the 90s to keep me going for at least a month, so I guess there's always that.

 

I also would not be fucking with the English commentary.

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Kevin Kelly and Don Callis aren't bad, Callis in particular toned down his schtick when he became an exec with Impact. The AXS shows with JR and Barnett are another story. AXS's production has been WCW level and JR has been mailing it in so hard that Kevin Nash would call him lazy.

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Thought most of the show was skippable but there were still some good matches. I could watch LIJ and Taguchi Japan fight all day. Those are the kind of multi-man tags I want to see: balls-to-the-wall, fast-paced action. Ospreay vs. Liger was good and proof that Liger needs a gold watch championship run of some kind. Dude is still great. Ishii and Suzuki were incredible in the tag match with Okada and Zack and the main event might be my favorite match this year despite how hokey the acting got.

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I enjoyed JR calling the Long Beach show a lot more than I did Kelly over the years, especially since he's been on "5 stars matches" bullshit mode. JR's laid back, it's quite refreshing compared to the overexcited bots we hear everywhere.

 

I've always preferred listening to the Japanese commentary anyway (I don't speak a lick of Japanese, btw), but I'm all about commentators from yesteryear who were prone to over-excitement or hyperbole making a comeback in 2018 by just chilling and calling the action straight. Tony Schiavone was on the MLW show I watched recently and I had no idea he was doing pro-wrestling commentary these days, but there was something about him being there that just felt RIGHT. I'll absolutely check out more MLW this year and it honestly has a lot to do with Schiavone calling things.

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As for Sakura Genesis, I think the main event has the potential to be great if they stick with the formula Zack used for the NJ Cup and not what Suzuki used at New Beginning last year. Very tired of Marty getting these title matches but he and Ospreay have good chemistry even if their matches tend to get out of hand. And the Golden Lovers stuff has been fire thus far so I expect the match with Cody and Page to be good.

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I enjoyed JR calling the Long Beach show a lot more than I did Kelly over the years, especially since he's been on "5 stars matches" bullshit mode. JR's laid back, it's quite refreshing compared to the overexcited bots we hear everywhere.

 

I've always preferred listening to the Japanese commentary anyway (I don't speak a lick of Japanese, btw), but I'm all about commentators from yesteryear who were prone to over-excitement or hyperbole making a comeback in 2018 by just chilling and calling the action straight. Tony Schiavone was on the MLW show I watched recently and I had no idea he was doing pro-wrestling commentary these days, but there was something about him being there that just felt RIGHT. I'll absolutely check out more MLW this year and it honestly has a lot to do with Schiavone calling things.

 

 

I watched the show in Japanese because I heard they were really bad. I also thought they were bad last year as JR sounded like he didn't care and didn't know at least half the guys' names. Josh is also pretty useless. I will co-sign on Schiavone in MLW, though. Only saw one of their shows but thought he did a good job of just trying to have fun, which ended up working really well for him.

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Watched a lot of the matches ShittyLittleBoots posted about and am less than thrilled with the majority of them. Glad he enjoyed them, but they're not my thing. And even though I'll most likely continue some new NJPW stuff, I'm not sure how long I'll stick around if a lot of those matches I watched are their best stuff. I still haven't watched anything from the Dome show, however.

 

Suzuki vs. Tanahashi was the best out of the bunch from the ones I've seen and even then that was good at best, but way to long.

 

I'm a big fan of Ishii, but I'm not thrilled about watching a close to 30 minute match with Elgin who's pretty terrible from what I've seen.

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I haven't followed New Japan regularly since around 2004 and even then I thought Noah was far better.

 

I'll give the G1 a shot this year as long as I don't have to sit through a Goto 30 minute time limit draw.

 

Also I like Ishii a lot, but I prefer watching work against Japanese indie scum like Sekimoto or Mammoth instead of American indie scum like Elgin.

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