#alluctor is a dumb mark

[alluctor]

not an april fool’s, just some old-fashioned negativity behind cut

so i canceled njpw world finally. ngl, i was feeling the same underwhelming feeling i felt back in 2015 when i had to take a step back from all wrestling for about 4 months. you know, when you watch stuff you know you love but it’s not making you react the same way? i just felt numb to it. honestly i should’ve canceled in february and taken a break then but i was still super into other wrestling and exploring njpw’s history through world’s archives (watching a lot of shinya hashimoto, old mutoh matches, kensuke sasaki, tencozy’s past, uwf vs njpw feud etc).

i gave post-dome events a shot to unfold fully but honestly okada’s reign just wore thinner and thinner for me, and much as i like zack, i don’t believe in his chances to win. after jan 5th njpw became the bad kind of predictable in large parts, even if i still like a lot of what’s happening. i think naito is still awesome, suzuki is reaching new heights, heavyweight taichi is living up to his potential. there is still so much good! and yet i’m mostly underwhelmed by it, and i don’t like being a negative nelly. 

the elephant in the room is probably the GL storyline. i’ve read a lot of takes from both sides - the people who hate it and the people who love it. i’m torn between the two sides, if i’m honest. ibushi was such a pivotal figure in my early puro fandom even in GL stuff my perspective has always been, how does this affect his characterization, his story arc, his everything. and on that front, i have a fair share of complaints. he’s been a side character to kenny’s bullet club drama and i’m not enthusiastic about it, even if it’s a good storyline and i’m one of the many dorks who watches BTE to keep up with all this bs. i love that the GL are back, but i don’t love how they were reunited and what has happened since. is it nitpicky? perhaps. the initial reunion hit me in the feelings but i’ve not felt much since. this is probably the second biggest factor in my emotional distance to njpw right now - this storyline should be for me, right? i got into kota and then golden lovers in 2014 and watched as much of their history as i could and followed the story from there. but now i’m just .. not that into it. and that fucking blows.

wrestling has been an amazing fandom in the past 5 years, i always feel like i’m learning and discovering new stuff and especially this year i’ve watched everything from deathmatches in the 00′s to shoot style in the 1980′s. so even if i’m taking a break from njpw, which has been my #1 promotion since 2014, i’ll still keep watching wrestling and i’ll probably return to njpw by june when we know how dominion shakes out. 

in the meantime, hit me up with your akira maeda recs :)

[alluctor]

i will be emotional and mark out under cut

kenny didn’t have to spend 3 years being a dumbdumb and hang out with mediocre white boys and tongans he didn’t vibe to begin with while talking shit about actual perfect weirdo kota ibushi but hey he did and he got his own dumbass into this storm of white boy drama, i’m not mad i’m just saying, mistakes were made.

but now this..this... was good. even though i was lowkey spoiled for it (when a person who knows you love this shit tells you to “watch the post-match UNSPOILED” .. let’s just say i had a feeling that it wasn’t going to be anything switchblade related). kenny was dumb and kota is too good for him, but romance doesn’t have to perfect to be really fucking good, and this was really emotional for me. 

[alluctor]

i think this is the year i finally stop fucking around  and being this hyper selective puro fan and instead get actually invested and into all these smaller promotions that aren’t new japan. admittedly it took a emotional rollercoaster of a wrestle kingdom to make me finally seek out alternatives but now i’m fully in and more importantly, suddenly noticed i’m surrounded by other fans who a) want to discover new stuff b) want to help others do so as well. i have no excuses.

i’m into big japan now (both divisions), i watched a full wrestle-1 show and it was genuinely great (ashino is an awesome young champion) so i’mma keep watching, and while dragon gate loses me often, i can certainly keep one eye on them for the occasional great korakuen. and then there’s my deathmatch fave FREEDOMS, and the blessed k-dojo who has always been fun and easy to watch even when i don’t know wtf is going on. and of course ajpw will keep me coming back because joe doering’s entrance coat looks comfy and kento lays thirst traps everywhere he goes. 

new japan may have burned my heart to a crisp but i can’t hate on them too much, i’m still invested in most of this roster and wanna see the good things, even if booking turns out to be overly safe & predictable this year. this company is not looking to slow down any, i don’t think.

[alluctor]

i only watched 3 full wrestle-1 korakuens, one from this year two from last year and this raindrop sized promotion is now 1000% my shit. yeah they’ve done fucked up in the past (kai as a sloppier worse dean ambrose as champ doing jumping jacks helped nobody, neither did old man mutoh as champ) but now they got all these awesome young lads wrestling their hearts out and i ride hard for all of them. good boys, some old lads, kaz hayashi booking (AFAIK) and old man mutoh staying a useless figurehead.

if you wanna check out some of it, i’d recommend kumagoro vs shotaro ashino from the november korakuen for their main title (these lads came up together so the history and the simple, great story in the match drew me in) or jun tonsho vs seiki yoshioka (a 19 year old challenger vs the 29 year old cruiserweight champion). 

[alluctor]

i was asked to watch the all japan this morning so i did

ajpw undercards .. hoo boy. make my boy fuchi champ.

masakado looks vaguely like the great deathmatch luchador violento jack, but is not, in fact, violento jack. which is disappointing.

all asia tag match was fucking dope. loved nomura, uncle jun worked great, nagata was fire, sai was good. everybody brought it.

tajiri vs atsushi aoki sure happened!

violent giants vs tatsu & kento was great! was surprised by the result, though.

i have absolutely no feelings on the fujita angle. i will see what happens.

joe doering whomst i will befriend to steal his entrance coat vs kai the former geek done good was a good match. i like joe doering as champion a lot, and i have a feeling they will keep him on a good long run. i guess kento can’t chill tho even with all those other titles. let him get pulverized, it’ll be fun.

[alluctor]

i am back on gedo's bullshit ie catching up with njpw

so many good juice robinson promos ruined by sami callihan's unnecessary fuckwittery. i don't need this level of bushleaguery in my shin nihon, thanks very much.

mind you, tenzan being heartbroken sami kissed kojima before him was kinda priceless.

[alluctor]

me, before i watched fight club pro: pete dunne..tremendous talent, underrated...wow.. me, after: fuck this dude.worst wrestler. cheater. bad at wrestling. wrong champion. kids cannot look up to this vile boy. evict him from wolverhampton, banish him to tipton.

[alluctor]

dominion

the easiest thing to do in wrestling is to just live through the story as told, take it in as it is given to you, accepting all its problems and warts without complaint, and living through the emotions as they are meant to be lived through. but it’s also the hardest thing, because stories requite so much, and we require so much out of our stories. sometimes, you can just bliss out and enjoy something on a level that is so perfect because it demands nothing out of you - you feel the feelings through your body, the excitement, the anguish, the happiness, the sadness. but other times, your brain gets in the way, because nothing makes sense, or parts make sense, but the whole doesn’t. you want to invest, but you can’t. something just doesn’t allow you to ignore these things. 

there’s also disappointment of two kinds in wrestling - the disappointment you feel when you live through a story, and its sudden turn leaves you wanting, though it makes sense and even your feeling makes sense in it, but more visceral is the disappointment you feel when something happens, and none of it makes sense - to you, within the story, none of it. 

in the past i’ve been the mark who’s been overwhelmed by stories and have found it easy to give myself to that feeling of excitement or sadness or whatever. sometimes i’m completely able to just enjoy something so fully that nothing else matters. your favorite wrestler does his or her things and you love it and you want them to win. simple, perfect.

i think i’m still there, sometimes, when it comes to new japan. i’m definitely there with guys like ishii, or kushida, or hiromu or even less massive faves like juice. i trust the stories i’m being told. i mark out like hell. i’m just a big fan of whatever is thrown at me.

but then there’s other things, stories where i have to think it through and ponder a bit, consider all the implications because i just can’t give into the feeling  - the feeling is not there. that’s been the tale with this okada reign. it started out so sublime and then turned into something else when naito lost - partly because of the story they told with that loss, partly because of the fact they even had him in the match, if he was going to lose. it disappointed me in a visceral way, in a quite unexpected way, but i figured, okay, whatever, let’s see where it goes. 

naito is fine now, but okada less so. something about the reign’s latter half just failed to move him forward in terms of character development. he won, and he won, and then he won again, but like, why? how? you could make the argument facing him moved along the opponents, but i’d argue even that isn’t the case. SANADA was not radically altered by getting close to beating the champion. neither was sabre jr. tanahashi again, bested by the new ace, a cool little story but i just couldn’t sink my teeth deep enough into it. 

then there’s kenny. i’ve written before how torn i have been about his 2018. a story that should be manna from the heavens to me, a golden lovers mark, simply hasn’t hit the mark, because kenny has lost so little and gained so much and for what? where’s the growth. where’s the suffering, the realization of the error of his ways. “i was a jerk, but my ex forgave me, and i said some things but my best friends also forgave me” .. i don’t know. i’ve read plenty of justifications, explanations and elaborations on the topic. none of it lands for me, emotionally. some of the BTE stuff is fine, but in the context of this bigger, larger thing, his path to this whole new (old?) version of himself, it’s not hitting me where it needs to hit me. 

but it is hitting plenty of people. i’m happy for them! but i can’t lie. and while i won’t harsh anybody’s buzz, i guess i also can’t keep quiet. and i’m torn, because kenny as iwgp champion is somebody else other than okada and right now that feels very right to me, but the details in the journey that it took does not.

in positive news, however, i did love the tag match - both of them, in fact. the bucks winning is fine, because i genuinely love the bucks in njpw - these days they have the sort of tag matches i can always invest myself in. and evil and sanada are gonna be just fine. i liked, maybe even loved, naito vs jericho, in all its oddities, osaka still booing naito and chanting for jericho, even as he heeled it up in every conceivable way. naito lost a belt he did not need or want, and he’s coming out with the sympathy on his side regardless. hiromu’s the right winner, much as i like ospreay. rey being lost in a weird six man with bullet club bullshit is whatever. 

suzuki / sabre vs yano / ishii was fantastic. this ishii vs suzuki feud has no rhyme or reason to it, but it makes sense on that level where i just go “YES!” on the inside whenever i think about it. i think suzuki might win the revpro title. and that’s cool as fuck.

i’ve said it before, as much as i joke, “no more white guys in puro 2018″ it’s not about white or japanese, it’s about whose stories make sense to prioritize and whose don’t, in terms of crowd connection and appeal and longevity. kenny yes, i may argue details until dawn, however, and think they told an emotionally incomplete story there, as much as they tried not to. juice, yes, he’s a cheesy bro but he’s *our* cheesy bro. jay white, sure, even if he’s not as over as maybe he ought to be. hiromu, sho & yoh, evil, despy, every damn dojo guy you better do right by (even oka when the time comes, even if he’s the worst), because those guys suffered and ate shit just to get there, and the crowd will always give them the time of day because of it. ospreay? debatable, but the kid’s shown he may stick around. elgin? nah, lose it, mr harold meij can use a google. no excuses. hangman? white mediocrity. cody? must we? flip? don’t fuck with me.

it’s a balancing act. i’ll continue to look at them critically to see how they continue to do on it. but at least now, i’m optimistic. i’m not pessimistic and feeling withered by the emotions i’ve been put through.

[alluctor]

i watched a couple of old tenzan vs kojima matches (i’m talking 90′s old, not the koji return feud they had) and hot damn, these two hated each other as much as they love each other now. the viciousness and one upmanship and no-selling of each other’s offence is just awesome, works so well. shame not a whole lot of it is available, on world or elsewhere. i know for a fact they’ve had a million matches against each other. 

[alluctor]

here are 10 of my favourite njpw matches of 2015 in no particular order (with links to njpwworld)

hirooki goto vs tomohiro ishii, g1 climax - fact of the matter is, goto is never as good against anybody as he is against ishii. their chemistry is off the charts in another hoss fight where it feels like anything could happen. this match is everything.

jushin thunder liger vs gedo, best of the super jrs - new japan’s best kept secret is that gedo remains friggin’ excellent in the ring. his dickish heel tactics against liger, liger working hard to win despite and a hot korakuen crowd made this one really memorable.

aj styles vs kota ibushi, g1 climax - their invasion attack match had the finish of the year but this one was so good i was yelling about it ten days later.

kushida vs kyle o’reilly, best of the super jrs - stiff as fuck, hype as fuck, everything the junior heavyweight division needs. incredible.

shinsuke nakamura vs hiroshi tanahashi, g1 climax - i was worn out by wrestling by the end of this tournament, but the final delivered so hard i couldn’t but be overwhelmed. that good.

aj styles vs yano toru, g1 climax - i rewatched this to make sure i wasn’t just being odd by putting this on the list. i swear i’m not; this is a delightful match, and i fucking adore everything about it. styles is great, yano is funny, the story of the match makes sense. i love it.

kota ibushi vs shinsuke nakamura, wrestle kingdom 9 - moty, motc, motm, fucking moma, guggenheim, hermitage and louvre. put this on display and print copies. this match is that good.

will ospreay vs kazuchika okada, global wars uk - ospreay is 22 and wildly good. okada is 28 and beyond good. this match makes perfect sense and i love that it happened and i hope it happens again, many more times down the road.

bobby fish vs kushida, best of super jrs - fish had an awesome tournament, and i thought this match just killed it.

tomoaki honma vs kota ibushi, new beginning - my favourite honma match during the year where he went from underdog to problematic fave. ah well. i still love this match.

[alluctor]

Highlights of PROGRESS Super Strong Style 16 of 2016 included: -Actual cinnamon bun Jack Gallagher whose subtle facial expressions make every his grappling antics even better -Winner (In My Heart) Mark Haskins sadly having to withdraw due to illness, he was so my pick to win, dude deserves all the belts -Kevin Owens' unofficial body doubles the London Riots (total hotties too tbh) slayed the human irritants The Origin in night 1's main event and it was SO GOOD -Chris Hero had three stellar matches and would be the MVP but I love Mark Andrews' flippy underdog bbface so he is my MVP of the weekend -Zack Gibson who's gimmick is that is from Liverpool and therefore is hated (bc Britain) was also fucking brilliant and I wanted to cheer him because I have nothing against Liverpoolians but he is a heel so I boo'ed him louder than anybody -TOMMY END THO (forms a Satanic sacrifice altar) (cries blood onto it) (gets kicked in the head) - Dark lipstick won't make Tommy End love me but hey I should get an A for effort - I saw Jinny get a drink and never been more starstuck by a wrestler in my life

[alluctor]

in two weeks i’m going to be in london to see all my britwres lovelies in a big ol’ tournament at PROGRESS, featuring some foreign imports like matt cross and chris hero (!!!). sadly will ospreay fucked off to new japan (not that i’m complaining, this is such a good move for him and that KUSHIDA match was everything) so i won’t be seeing him but still, i am all hype.

i hope tommy end or mark haskins wins & takes the belt off marty scurll, because marty’s a no-good scoundrel.