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Very excited to see Okada vs Suzuki, Tanahashi vs ZSJ and especially KENTA vs Ishii in person in the Copper Box. I was unsure as to how strong a line-up we'd get so I can't have too many complaints about this one, even with no Ospreay singles.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/13/2019 at 8:12 PM, Boss Rock said:

Ospreay not getting a singles match is definitely surprising.

Maybe doing the Super Jr and G1 back to back has finally gotten him too beat up to pull off another big singles match in such a short turn around time.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Super J Cup was pretty good. Red-Ospreay, SHO-Ospreay, ELP-Ospreay, ELP-Eagles, and the finals being the must-watches.

Tanahashi-Sabre at Destruction was as good as expected but it feels like they've run that match into the ground. Hopefully they don't face off again for a while.

Birds of Prey-ELP/Ishimori was great, best NJPW tag match in ages.

KENTA is easily the biggest heel in NJPW. He plays it to perfection and the crowd loathes him. The Ibushi match was very good and maybe a hair better than their G1 outing. It's a shame KENTA is as banged up as he is because he would be perfect as the top heel.

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11 minutes ago, Boss Rock said:

Super J Cup was pretty good. Red-Ospreay, SHO-Ospreay, ELP-Ospreay, ELP-Eagles, and the finals being the must-watches.

Tanahashi-Sabre at Destruction was as good as expected but it feels like they've run that match into the ground. Hopefully they don't face off again for a while.

Birds of Prey-ELP/Ishimori was great, best NJPW tag match in ages.

KENTA is easily the biggest heel in NJPW. He plays it to perfection and the crowd loathes him. The Ibushi match was very good and maybe a hair better than their G1 outing. It's a shame KENTA is as banged up as he is because he would be perfect as the top heel.

Haven't seen the J Cup yet, but mostly agree on the other points. Really dug the Jr tag match from today, would be pretty excited to see more of both teams. 

I will say, I didn't really love the KENTA-Ibushi match. Just felt like we'd seen the formula of "sneak attack -> near falls -> interference gaga -> near falls -> babyface comeback" done in a similar way a couple of times this year and the match never totally clicked for me. I do think KENTA's done a great job of embracing the lead role and he and White at the top makes the BC more effective as heels than they've been in years.

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So they just did an angle where Liger upped his feud with Suzuki by bringing back the famous Kinshin Liger persona from the match where the Great Muta pulled off his mask to reveal face paint. They even did an homage to that when Liger tried to stab him with the spike they use to tighten the turnbuckles.

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1) Naito gets his big win 2 years after he should've gotten it. Though in kayfabe, this win is one of the biggest in New Japan history.

2) Naito gets weirdly destroyed by booking and doesn't get any redemption.

3) If 1) happens, then Ibushi would be the one getting the same treatment Naito got at WK 12.

4) If Jay White or Okada are the ones getting both belts it would be too damn funny :lol:

 

I think the winner take all angle for both Dome shows is a great idea in itself, one of the best Gedo has come up with in a long time. But with him taking so damn long to pull the trigger on japanese wrestlers he has pretty much booked himself into a corner.

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I would be fine with Ibushi taking all as it really does seem like his time now, but honestly they should give Naito his redemption and then have Ibushi win at Dominion or something. Okada-Naito seems like the most likely ME of night 2 considering they've been kept apart for close to 2 years now in singles matches.

Jay taking all is definitely less than 0% as there's no way the top heel gaijin stands tall in the Dome. However, I don't completely rule out Okada winning either just to give him every single glory/record imaginable.

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1 hour ago, Jmare007 said:

Doing a bad job at promoting their US shows is the norm for them at this point. It's not like it really matters though.

I think it matters if the lineup ends up being even somewhat disappointing. It's very possible to go from having fans who buy the minute tickets to go on sale to ones who wait and see (and maybe never purchase at all). Look at the way ROH's advances have nose dived (not to say NJ is in imminent danger of that). There's a such a hierarchy to New Japan shows, from very important to total house show, and it's pretty hard to tell in advance where any individual US show is going to fit (unless it's a G1 night). 

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17 hours ago, Migs said:

I think it matters if the lineup ends up being even somewhat disappointing. It's very possible to go from having fans who buy the minute tickets to go on sale to ones who wait and see (and maybe never purchase at all). Look at the way ROH's advances have nose dived (not to say NJ is in imminent danger of that). There's a such a hierarchy to New Japan shows, from very important to total house show, and it's pretty hard to tell in advance where any individual US show is going to fit (unless it's a G1 night). 

 

I mean, they did a horrible job promoting a fucking G-1 show, which is mind boggling. But at the end of the day, it seems doing a sellout or 50-60% of building in the U.S doesn't seem to matter to them. Not saying it's a good or bad thing, just that's the state of things at this point.

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While New Japan tends to wait to the last minute to announce cards even for Japanese shows, they're supposedly afraid of announcing US cards too far out in advance and having some bullshit happen that prevents everyone from being able to make it. It seems they are waiting until they are sure everyone they plan to book is cleared to be able to make the trip.

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It's odd, the G1 Climax has been by far the most fun I had watching pro-wrestling in the last two years, but I could not really get into the Destruction shows big matches. I will surely catch KOPW. Agree the final two matches aren't that exciting (I loved Okada vs SANADA in the G1 though) and Mox vs Juice and Phantasmo vs Ospreay should steal the show. Liger vs Suzuki should be a lot of fun too.

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13 minutes ago, El-P said:

It's odd, the G1 Climax has been by far the most fun I had watching pro-wrestling in the last two years, but I could not really get into the Destruction shows big matches. I will surely catch KOPW. Agree the final two matches aren't that exciting (I loved Okada vs SANADA in the G1 though) and Mox vs Juice and Phantasmo vs Ospreay should steal the show. Liger vs Suzuki should be a lot of fun too.

Agree, although the Ospreay/Eagles vs Phantasmo/Ishimori match was probably by favourite tag of the year.

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