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Wrestle Kingdom 12


KawadaSmile

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I haven't been this excited for a wrestling show in a long time.

 

Natio's title chase for the past 18 months or so has been the most compelling title chase since Daniel Bryan in 2013. But at the same time they have Omega chasing the title so its not a guarantee that Naito is winning which is part of what keeps it so interesting.

 

The build up to the Jericho vs Omega match has just been awesome. When it was first announced my thought was that it will be like any of the big name Americans we've seen go over for a one off at the Tokyo Dome - a fun special attraction, but an upper midcard match without any heat or build up. Almost like the celebrity or legend appearance at Wrestlemania. Instead the build up has me anticipating something closer to Valentine Piper.

 

On the undercard I'm really looking forward to Sho and Yo vs Young Bucks. I'm not a Young Bucks person really, I can take them or leave them. But I've loved Sho and Yo since they were young lions and this is sort of match that builds to them being the next Apollo 55 or No Limit.

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Watching live on New Japan World. The New Japan Rumble was a pretty average match featuring the following participants: Katsuya Kitamura, BUSHI, Delirious, Leo Tonga, Manabu Nakanishi, Chase Owens, Yuji Nagata, TAKA Michinoku, Yoshinobu Kanemura, El Desperado, Jushin Thunder Liger, Tiger Mask IV, Gino Gambino, Henare, Yoshi-Hashi, David Finlay Jr, Yujiro Takahashi, Cheeseburger, Satoshi Kojima, Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Masahito Kakihara.

Kakihara won.

 

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Young Bucks vs. Sho & Yoh was excellent. Don Callis was great on commentary, as usual. The Young Bucks worked over Yoh’s back. Matt Jackson hurt his own back when he landed on his back outside the ring. Yoh and Matt Jackson sold their backs being hurt really well (or they were really hurt?). Yoh finally made the hot tag to Sho, which led to several minutes of back-and-forth action. When Matt and Yoh were in the ring together, they worked over each other’s hurt backs again. The match lasted 18 minutes.



The Young Bucks won the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship for the seventh time

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The gauntlet match was okay. There was one pretty cool spot where Tama Tonga hit Beretta with a jumping Ace crusher in mid-air when Beretta went for a moonsault.



Beretta, Ishii and Yano won

 




Cody (w/ Brandi Rhodes) vs. Kota Ibushi was good. Brandi did a good job as heel manager. There was a spot where Brandi fooled everyone into believing she was hurt and it only turned out to be an act, which resulted in Cody and Brandi laughing like evil heels.



Ibushi won.

 

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Yeah, definitely a very good show so far.

 

The hair vs. hair match between Minoru Suzuki and Hirooki Goto was very good. Suzuki dominated most of the match. Goto started bleeding from the mouth after a series of stiff blows by Suzuki.

Minoru Suzuki lost the NEVER Openweight Championship and shaved his own head

 

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Only saw the main event, the no selling for the first 3/4 of the match kept it from being truly great from me for I still thought it was really fucking good.

 

As much as I shit on Gedo's lazy booking, I honestly can't believe he didn't pull the trigger on his most over superstar who is also a legit draw. It's not like getting the title from Okada will hurt attendance, Naito has held his own and is super fucking over. Any other company pulls this bullshit off and people would be losing their minds over it.

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I started watching with the 6-man tag match. Good show overall. There's nothing I'd rate as a MOTYC, but there's nothing I actively hated either.

 

A couple of notes. One, I thought Jericho was clearly the better wrestler in the Omega match. I don't recall ever thinking that in a Jericho match before. Two, I wonder what's next for Okada. He's run through the entire division and Jericho and Jay White, who could be plausible challengers if properly built up, both lost. And his bell bottoms were distractingly bad.

 

Who was the chick on the Japanese announce team? She was pretty cute.

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Just got back from watching the show on TV at my friends house. Turns out he has a satellite dish and gets all of the New Japan events, which is how we got to watch the show.

 

5 hours is a LOT of pro wrestling, but the time just flew by. I had a blast, enjoyed the show from top to bottom and thought that almost half of the matches were really excellent.

 

I missed the New Japan Rumble and the very start of the Bucks match because I finished work at 16:30 and got to my friend's place about 5:15.

 

The Young Bucks match was pretty flippy... but I thought that 3K did a good job of selling. I didn't hate it.

 

The Six Man Gauntlet Match didn't completely hold my attention. That's partly because my friend had just been to see Last Jedi and we were talking about Star Wars. Ishii and Fale had some pretty cool stuff going on near the end and that got us focused back on the match.

 

Cody vs Ibushi totally exceeded my expectations. Bad guys doing bad guy things, everyone selling the gradual accumulation of damage, a sick bump or two, a nice escalation of the action. I did not expect that Cody vs Ibushi would be a damn fine pro wrestling match. Well, let me tell you: Cody vs Ibushi was a damn fine pro wrestling match. I love Cody's Dustin Tribute hairdo, and thought Brandi did a great job as a heel manager.

 

During the Tag Title match, I got really distracted by how much Junior looks like his dad in the right light and from certain angles. Other than that, I had the feeling that this one played up everyone's strengths and camouflaged their weak points; and I really liked the structure of LIJ having to struggle back from underneath against big and mean opponents. Totally solid tag team action. Enjoyed it a lot.

 

I love love loved Goto vs MiSu. Stiff and violent. An even better fight from underneath story than the tag match. Hardway blood. I genuinely thought that Goto got choked out on the Hanging Sleeper. That was some crazy good selling. Suzuki tossing the doctor out of the ring was a nice, sick touch.

 

The Four-Way had some inventive spots. I enjoyed Scurl's heeling. I was surprised by who won.

 

I don't feel like Jay White has put it all together yet, and maybe he is not quite ready for a big Dome Show singles match just yet. Also, Tanahashi legit seemed to be working hurt. The match did not suck, but it wasn't very good. I liked the ending.

 

Jericho vs Okada blew me away. Best Jericho performance in years. There was hate and emotion and sweat and blood, and yet again there was the selling of accumulated damage. The crowd was awesome, as well.

 

 

Wrong guy won the main event

and I was a little burned out by the time it started... but it was obviously well-worked, well-paced, and had a strong layout.

 

Great show overall. Better than I had expected. Very glad I got to watch it as it happened, with a friend.

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