No.652
Okada tested positive for the corona.
Well just cancel the Tokyo Dome show at this point, they had 1 match to build the entire show up and both wrestlers in that match have been rendered out of action. The new belt is cursed
No.653
>>652They did cancel the Tokyo Dome show yesterday. Also Okada opened last night's event with a promo and he has already recovered.
Speaking of last night's event I just finished the openner. Big Man Tsuji and Shingo jerked the curtain and had an amazing match. It was a short match but one hell of a banger. Tsuji is going to be heading out on excursion soon so it looks like they are setting up his farewell program with Takagi.
No.654
>>653Well damn, i missed out on the recent shows.
>Tsuji excursionProbably Yuya too. But with the pandemic still on, where can they even go? Also there are no new young lions to replace them.
No.657
>>656>he was injured the night before during that exchange with Takagiftfm time zones really fuck with me sometimes.
No.658
>>636Shits bad. Ospreay posted his X-rays and he has ruptured discs and his spinal cord is severely compressed. He is one bad bump away from severing his spinal cord and Hayabusaing himself. Honestly he should probably retire, but he doesn't know how to do anything but wrestling. Either Ospreay completely stops the flipping shit and packs on as much muscle as humanly possible to strengthen his back or he is, for all intents and purposes, a dead man.
He is back in England now to rest and will likely vacate the RevPro title. From his tweet this morning and the fact RevPro pretty much exists as a farm league for NJPW they are probably going to hotshot the RevPro belt onto Shooter before he returns from excursion.
>>654NJPW has three or four young lions at the moment who have yet to make an in-ring debut. They had a special on NJPWworld a couple of months ago showing them in training. None of them are big men, but they are all very young. Depending on who is mentoring them at least one will get on gear and fill out by the time they make their young lion debut.
No.661
>>658Damn, he's toast. Likely all the bumps he took over the years added up. Not a surprise since people have been saying that he'll end up like Dynamite Kid eventually and looks like it's finally happening.
No.662
>cuckime
No.673
>>672Bro I don't know how to break this to you but he is the new Goto
No.675
>>672>Lineage founded with a championship match between twink jr Ibushi and jobber jr Desparado>Inaugural champion loses on 1st defense>2nd champion is autistic jr fraudchad who who is made of glass>2nd champion's spine is literally trying to eject itself from his back>Title vacated3rd champion will be either:
A) another jr and 1st time champion.
or
2)The greatest IWGP HW champion of all time and the booker's pet project he spent a decade nurturing.
Gee, I wonder what Gedo should do?
First 3 champions being Ibushi, Ospreay, and Shingo may be the worst starting lineage to any "top" title of all time.
No.682
>>675I wish someonw would just toss that belt in the trash already
No.683
>>682When they debuted it my first thought was
>Oh it is specifically designed to match Will Ospreay's ring gear.And then they immediately threw it on him. It isn't that bad to be honest. Most belts take a period of time to get used to and learn to appreciate. The problem is the old HebbyQ was so beautiful and so iconic, that literally every other promotion in the world had tried to emulate it at least once.
To me the biggest tragedy was the loss of lineage. Every other lineage out there is filled with absolute stinkers and only a few bright shining stars. The Hebby Q was truly the annals of the kings of puro with only a few blackmarks that in a way served to elevate the legends by contrasting their reigns. The only thing I can compare it to was the GHC Hebby Q until Suzuki got his hands on it. When Ibushi announced that the IC lineage would be mingled all I could think of was
>So Fat Fuck Fale, "big" Mike Elgin, and MVP are now the equivelent to the likes of Inoki, Vader, Choshu, Mutoh, Chono, Tenryu, Lesnar, and Okada?The IC was great in its own way because of how it was basically the Nakamura belt. It was the perfect title for the guy who was famous for not giving a fuck in the ring outside of the biggest shows of the year where he would pour his heart and soul into three or four glorious matches a year. It was a secondary title for secondary players. The Hebby Q however was the heart and soul of the promotion itself. The men who wore that strap would sawdust themselves in house shows just to uphold the honor and prestige it represented. Hell to this day, even without wearing the strap, Okada kept working despite desperately needing to take basically the last year and a half off to recover. He kept working because he felt that having worn the strap for so long he had the responsiblity to appear in as many shows as possible and uphold the honor of a former champ. I mean he has basically sucked for the last year and a half since he just can't go without extreme pain, but he did it anyways. Because he had to honor those that came before him, and those he believed would come after him.
The only thing good about putting the new strap on an injured Okada is that he will probably insist on ending the experiment and splitting the lineages again. He was clearly very displeased with the decision Bushiroad and booking made to unify it and, coupled with the fan outrage, he is probably the only one who can kayfabe splitting them without it looking awkward.
No.692
>>683>To me the biggest tragedy was the loss of lineage.Yes, that's the biggest reason everyone hates the new belt. You can say that the new belt is a 'continuation' of the old one but really it doesn't feel like it at all. Getting rid of the IWGP Heavyweight Belt was honestly be one of the worst decisons I've ever seen a wrestling company make.
Personally, I kinda agreed with Naito in that the IC belt also lost its place in recent years. With Nakamura it was ok and Naito's first reign too but after that, well it had its history sure but always felt second rate when placed with the IWGP Heavyweight belt. I can get over making a new title to 'unify' the belt, but I would've just done what WWE did before, unifying the WWE title and the Big Gold Belt but simply making the big gold belt inactive and continue on the main WWE belt.
No.698
Oh neat, Miho Abe is back as Taichi's valet.
No.699
Based ZSJ calling out NJPW for being shit right now and desperately needing to elevate their quality of matches unless they want NOAH to overtake them. I know he is a heel in kayfabe and a shoot commie, but that promo was 100% truth.
>The only thing worse than having to drink a ZIMA after a match is not having a ZIMA to drink after a match
No.716
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>>699I'd say that dangerous tekkers are now babyfaces. At least they were in the feud with GoD and in this promo. I know ZSJ is a skinny, self professed vegan commie soyboy but damn over the years he has grown on me. Still not a huge fan but i'll rate him above the other brits and gaijins I've seen.
No.825
Glad to see Shingo get the strap but the match was kind of underwhelming. Okada just can't go anymore. Shingo looked like he had to power down on his offense so that Okada could handle it, but even Okada's offense looked weak and sloppy. Also they buried the Rainmaker. Despite Okada nailing it multiple times, with the wrist control that kayfabe used to make it so powerful, the Rainmaker did little to nothing with even Shingo using it to little effect.
The entire card was underwhelming to be honest. Despy going over to retain was nice, but the match was shit. Yoh can't work for shit and, other than him being a pretty boy, I can't understand why they constantly push him. ELP and Ishimori came in after the match to challenge SHO and YOH for the Jr Tag Titles, but I don't see R3K dropping them despite both SHO and YOH losing their matches tonight. Ishimori may be decent but ELP is a shitter among shitters as well as Canadian. I have never see more than one ELP mark and it was a child with a sign in English so more than likely they were a plant. If NJPW wants to capitalize on the YOH marks then the Jr Tag title is the absolute ceiling on what can reasonably be accepted with his talent. It is a shame that SHO is tied in with such a shitter because he is actually good. I would honestly like to see SHO put on some mass and get a shooter gimmick which would work with his amateur experience.
The Ibushi vs. Cobb match was pretty good, but it is clear that without Ospreay the UE faction is dead in the water. They had to put over Ibushi to set up this Shingo vs. Ibushi rivalry, but that seems more a function of the fact they had to rework the main event scene now that the guy they were setting up to be the top heel is broken. I have said it before and I will say it again, Ibushi is great in the chase but sucks to hold. NJPW would be foolish to have Ibushi wear the strap again after he tanked the ticket sales as hard as he did before, but there really isn't anyone else who is capable of challenging Shingo at the moment so we are stuck with the conclusion to the next PPV event being one with a foregone conclusion.
LiJ went over the Trekkers in their six-man tag match which is just terrible considering that the same LiJ six-man tag team got completely humiliated by YH/Goto/Ishii the other day ago when they when all three submitted at the same time. I can't help but wonder if this is related to the promo that ZSJ cut when he shit on both the booking and one of NJPW's biggest sponsors. Heel or not the booking committee more than likely didn't appreciate hearing that and likely decided to abort the push they seemed ready to give the Trekkers. Miho Abe didn't show up after making such a deal out of her return so I am inclined to believe my conjecture is correct and they are being punished for Zach's loose tongue.
Speaking of Zach shooting on ZIMA they seemed to have noticed and taken offense since there were bottles there for the post match promos for the first time in a good long while.
No.827
>>826The belt was too big for him so Tsuji had to hold it on him while he cut his promo. Also the Japanese NJPW store sent out a mass email to what I assume is all their customers apologizing for running out of Shingo merch and saying they still had a few pieces of his stuff in stock but it was almost gone.
No.828
>>827wew, maybe things can be salvaged after all
though I still wouldn't put it past gedo to have ibushi beat takagi as fucking retarded as that sounds. Though I feel that it wasn't in the plans for Takagi to hold the belt so I kinda doubt he'll be a long term champion. Hopefully they can see how much fans love him so that he can have a long reign. Also if he beats ibushi, I'm excited to see the kinds of matches in store. I feel like Naito will surely toss his name in the hat at some point. Also since Tanahashi beat Takagi for the NEVER belt, I feel that Takagi could put out a challenge to Tana and I hope so, their match for the NEVER belt was great, my MOTY so far.
No.832
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>>828I think the biggest thing to get over with hotshotting the belt on Takagi is that he spent eight months or so being Ospreay's personal jobber. They used him to build up the new HebbyQ CHADspreay as a legitimate powerhouse who can mow through the most aggressive wrestler on the roster through sheer power while tanking his powermoves. The only upside is that HW Ospreay was built up so strong in Kayfabe that he may as well have been a seperate person from flippyshitter Ospreay. This leaves them a little whiggle room to say
>Well of course Shingo Takagi lost to Heavyweight Ospreay, he was the strongest guy in the company until all his lightweight injuries caught up with him.As for Naito they absolutely will book him in at least one angle but the chance of any sort of extended program or Naito going over are slim to none. They guy is broken and old. He hasn't been able to pull off a clean Destino in over a year. He can start a match strong, but five minutes of work and you will notice him slowing down. He struggles with the most basic shit he would have had no problem with three or four years ago. Naito is very rapidly entering Tanahashi territory, the only difference is Tana has figured out exactly how to work a match he can do at reasonable speed without looking like shit to cover for his age, injuries, and weakness. Granted that one match he does every time nowadays is amazing and people will show up to watch it, but it isn't going to work as a main event draw.
The future of NJPW is not too bright. I can honestly see them pushing GKO into the main even scene prematurely in a desperate bid to buy time while they wait for Kidd, Yuya, Ren, and Big Man Tsuji to go/return from excursion. Ren will return first and hopefully Shibata can beat some of his charisma and toughness into Ren so that he is able to immediately legitimize himself and escape the undercard.
Speaking of LA Dojo I was not a fan of the idea at first, seeing as little more than a shallow attempt to court the American audience and expand into North America. Now, with the relative collapse of RevPro into a joke of a promotion, it seems a viable option for getting a young lion out of Japan and away from the Japanese audience's eyes so that he can season himself and shape his future character. Shibata himself can still move and he is able teach his charges what it takes to make wrestling believable, while hopefully helping them avoid the mistakes that sent him into an early retirement.
No.833
>>832Honestly I never liked how Ospreay would beat Takagi. Takagi is a beast amd Ospreay never overpowered anyone ever. But in their matches it always looked like Takagi would have to hold back so that Ospreay could get his shit in to appear stronger.
>The future of NJPW isn't brightI can see that. Their big stars of the past decade: Tana, Naito and even Okada to an extent are reaching their limits. Jay White is the only top guy right now that could go on for the rest of the decade since he is still young and ospreay is fucked, out of the picture for the foreseeable future. O-Khan is their only prospective Japanese star but it is way too early to put the strap on him now. Sanada could have been a player but they've booked him to be Goto 2.0 so far. At least he is still over with the fans. Problem is they don't have a hot new Japanese babyface to carry the company like Tana or Okada did so NJPW are kinda screwed in that regard for now.
No.834
>>833Oh and I completely forgot about Ibushi lmao. But they fucking buried him so hard with the new belt, i can't see him recovering from it anytime soon. Also he was a shit champion.
No.845
Excerpts from Shingo Takagi's recent interview with Pro Wrestling Weekly
>Gaijin wrestlers of today are a waste of money. Naito agrees, Hiromu and Bushi agree, SANADA doesn't care.
>The issue with Gaijins of today is they are nothing like the Gaijins that used to come, the Hulk Hogans, Vaders, Scott Nortons. America can no longer produce men of that caliber. All the Gaijins we get are selfish loud mouths that are hard to work with and bring their political issues to us thinking we give a shit.
>Jay White once tried to get us to support some black guy that died, Goto told Jay to shut up, every Japanese wrestler but Tanahashi began to laugh.
>As for AEW, look, I understand we are going through a rough time, the Chinese disease has benched half our roster, our new main title is not so popular with the fans and even brought a bad reputation of being cursed thanks to Ospreay. Our ticket sales have been so bad even our little sister company Stardom beat us. But I assure you I would rather die on my feet fighting to bring the popularity back to NJPW than to let some cunning fox like AEW absorb us
>You see, AEW is like a Fox while WWE is like a wolf, with a wolf you can see the danger coming, but with a Fox they steal from behind your back and attack you when you least expect it. That's not good for our company and the Japanese people.
Shingo ended the interview talking about his love for Japan in general
>Japan is a beautiful place and our people forget about how amazing it is, I want to remind them of that. Japanese pride is my top priority. People like Tanahashi, who are too nice and would sell us out to make some foreigner happy, are not welcome. This is Takagi Shingo's New Japan and I will bring it to the top.
No.858
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>>853I like the fact that Shingo is an ethno-nationalist who holds his beliefs because he understands that it is in the best interest of his people, but Goto is just a straight up racist who thinks you aren't actually a human if you aren't Japanese.
It is like the bell curve meme.
No.880
>>270lmao a year ago this dude was the world champ. Now he is getting outwrestled and made to look like a complete jabroni by fucking Yoshi-Hashi.
No.881
>>617>R3K's 5th reign with the tag belts end in their 2nd defense as they lost the belts to Ishimori & PhantasmoSeriously, fucking break them up already. 5 title reigns but only 4 successful defenses. Teams with only 1 or 2 reigns have had more successful title defenses than R3K. So much for being the premier tag team of the Jr.s, they can barly even hold the belts. Break them up and let Sho have his singles push and let Yoh do whatever he wants as well.
>>880Evil, damn, I don't think I've seen anyone in NJPW get buried as hard as he has.
>Win the NJC>Betray LIJ>Become double champ>Biggest heel in the companyAnd since then
<Can't win matches without Dick Togo<Lose the belts almost instantly<Lose the rematch as well>Starts some shit with Jay white eluding mutiny in the bullet club<It's fucking nothing, nothing came off of it<Lose to Sanada at the WK15<Lose to Yano for the gimmick match trophy<Stuck in tag matches without any big singles match in months<Bullet job squad outwrestled by Yoshi-hashiWhat the fuck, seriously did he fuck Gedo's wife/daughter or something, Evil's at the worst he's ever been.
Not to mention his fiancee left him. I can't even see a road to salvage him. A good showing at G1 or even a title reign still won't do enough unless he completely revamps things like how he did last year when he betrayed LIJ. What a waste.
No.882
>>881>Not to mention his fiancee left him.Speaking of Io Shirai she disappeared from the E for a few months and went back to Japan. Now that she is back pics have been popping up with her and the rest of the E Japs at some baseball game. All the other Japs have asian boyfriends/girlfriends with them. Even fucking Saray who just got to the WWE not to long ago is snuggling up to Akira Tozawa while they pose for pics. Everyone except Io, who is in the arms of a guy with an emoji covering his face. That emoji guy has very blonde hair, very pale skin, and is tall and cut.
EVILetty got buried so hard his fiance left him for the BWC.
No.883
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>Goto jobbing to 3rd gen boomer
How much lower can he go?
No.908
Hiromu's back and gets an instant title shot against robin eagle
