#and this kenny/bucks thing with them HAVING to be the first trios champions is another example

[biancabelairs]

i'm thrilled kenny might be coming back by all out, i've missed him dearly

i'm considerably less thrilled about hung bucks getting put on ice again and/or bucks/ftr 3 for all the belts at all out getting canned for the sake of kenny/bucks trios champs, as much as i love the three of them as a unit but like. it's been months since the timing for that was right and i'd like to see some payoff for the things that got set up in the meantime

[beingallelite]

October 2, 2019, from the sold-out Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., live pro wrestling made its explosive, triumphant return to the TNT Network with the debut episode of ALL ELITE WRESTLING DYNAMITE!

Tony Schiavone, Excalibur, and Jim Ross were the broadcast team for tonight’s event.

DYNAMITE kicked off with a bang as “The American Nightmare” Cody wrestled Sammy Guevara in the first ever pro wrestling match to air in nearly 20 years on the TNT Network. Cody was accompanied to the ring by Brandi Rhodes. Sammy was displaying amazing agility right out of the gate. There were many questions going into this contest—would the upstart Sammy crumble under the pressure of the biggest match of his young career? Would Cody overlook Sammy with his match against AEW Champion Chris Jericho at the FULL GEAR pay-per-view looming on the horizon? Cody set up a cutter off the middle rope, and Sammy one-upped him with a cutter of his own off the top rope. Cody opened up the majority of his arsenal on Sammy, and finally, after Sammy crashed and burned on a shooting star press, Cody rolled up his opponent for the victory.

As Sammy was congratulating Cody on a hard-fought victory, AEW Champion Chris Jericho blindsided a distracted Cody with a vicious assault. Jericho powerbombed Cody onto two steel chairs outside of the ring as Brandi watched on. A jubilant Jericho grabbed the microphone and taunted the fans.

Brandon Cutler squared up against Mawell Jacob Friedman (MJF) next. “This ain’t Dungeons & Dragons! This is real life!” yelled MJF as he stomped on Cutler. After landing a tope suicida onto MJF, Cutler tried to follow up with another high risk move from the top rope, but he must have tweaked his knee. MJF was quick to capitalize on this as he quickly submitted Cutler with his “Salt of the Earth”armbar finisher.

Chris Van Vliet interviewed director Kevin Smith and actor Jason Mewes of the upcoming movie “Jay And Silent Bob Reboot.” They were interrupted by Jack Evans and Angelico. Luckily, Private Party came to the aid of Smith and Mewes before things got out of uncontrol.

The trio of SCU were interviewed by Tony Schiavone about their upcoming match in the tournament to crown the inaugural AEW Tag Champs. Scorpio Sky said he was going to defer to the combined experience of Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian, since only two of them can compete in the tag tournament. He was cut off when the Lucha Bros stormed onto the ramp, declaring themselves the best tag team in the universe, and after a few tense moments, SCU and the Lucha Bros threw down in a pull apart melee.

Hangman Adam Page versus “the Bastard” PAC was the next match of the night. It was a huge change for Page to begin rebuilding after his loss to Jericho in the main event of ALL OUT last month. This was a battle AEW fans have waited months to see. They began by trading stiff forearms in the center of the ring. Page turned PAC inside-out with a clothesline and the fans chanted “That was sick! That was sick!” PAC soon gained momentum with a beautiful quebrada from the ropes to Page on the outside, followed by a springboard 450 splash. PAC went to the top rope again looking to hit the “Black Arrow” finisher, but Page countered with an Avalanche Blockbuster. PAC rammed Page’s shoulder into the steel post. PAC avoided “Buckshot” by Page, and as referee Earl Hebner was distracted, PAC hit a low blow mule-kick on Page. PAC took advantage with the “Black Arrow” and then submitted Page with the “Brutalizer” (the same move that he used to submit Kenny Omega at ALL OUT last month). PAC is now 2-0 in AEW.

Dr. Britt Baker joined the commentary team to get a bird’s eye view of the next match: “The Native Beast” Nyla Rose versus Riho, with the winner to be crowned the first AEW Women’s World Champion! The action started as soon as the bell rang, with Riho taking down Nyla Rose with head scissors. Riho had a significant experience edge, while Rose had an obvious size advantage. Riho was a clear crowd favorite with the crowd, despite this being the hometown of Nyla Rose. Riho was trained by Kenny Omega, which was evident in some of her offense, such as her running knees. Nyla caught Riho on the outside of the ring, and blasted Riho with a brutal back backbreaker. Nyla pulled out multiple steel chairs from beneath the ring, with referee Paul Turner threatening the DQ. Nyla went for a cannonball senton onto the prone Riho who was positioned on the chairs, but Riho moved just in the nick of time. Nyla crashed onto the chairs, with Riho seemingly gaining the upper hand. Riho showed plenty of moxie, and hit a near-fall on Nyla. This was countered by Nyla’s deathvalley driver, but Riho kicked out at the two-count. Somehow Riho managed to find a few more ounces of fighting spirit, and met Nyla on the top rope, hitting her with a bevy of strikes. Riho defeated Nyla with the running double knee strike to become the first-ever AEW Women’s World Champion. The celebration, however, was short-lived. Michael Nakazawa attempted to interview the victorious Riho, but Nyla nailed Nakazawa with a Liger-powerbomb. Before Nyla could grab the new champ, Kenny Omega ran down to the ring to defend Riho and prevent further destruction from the Native Beast.

The main event was up next! The Elite (Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks, Nick & Matt Jackson) versus AEW World Champion Chris Jericho and Santana & Ortiz.

Jericho and Omega started things out, but a cowardly Jericho quickly tagged out. After a superkick party on Santana and Ortiz, the Bucks took the fight outside. This left Omega alone in the ring, and prone to an attack from Jon Moxley. Omega and Moxley brawled to the VIP area. Moxley sent Omega crashing headfirst into a glass coffee-table with his DDT. Matt Jackson speared Ortiz, as the match became a 3-on-2 contest (with Omega still in the VIP area in the glass shards). Santana and Ortiz hit a sequence of double-team moves to neutralize Matt. Jericho was tagged in and attempted a lionsault, but Matt was able to raise his knees. Before Matt could tag Nick, his opponents cut off the ring. Matt finally got the tag, and Nick Jackson cleaned house and quickly evened up the odds. The hot crowd rallied behind the Bucks, but after a Judas Effect from Jericho to Matt Jackson, Jericho gained the pinfall victory for his team. Cody ran to the ring in his business attire to join his friends from the Elite and send a message to Jericho, but he was quickly countered by Sammy Guevara. It became completely chaotic inside the ring. Dustin Rhodes sprinted to save his brother Cody, but the Elite were wiped out by the surprise debut of Jake Hager!

Hager went to town on the Elite and Dustin Rhodes, sending bodies flying everywhere like Godzilla crushing a cityscape.

The debut episode of AEW DYNAMITE concluded with Jericho, Santana, Ortiz, Guevara, and Hager standing definitely in the center of the ring!

Next Wednesday we will be live from Boston!

[anthonysstupiddailyblog]

Anthony’s Stupid Daily Blog (150): Thu 11th Aug 2022

Checked out last nights AEW Dynamite: Quake By The Lake which opened up with a fantastic coffin match between Darby Allin and Brody King. King got busted open early and I'm starting to get sick of the sight of blood in AEW. I get that they're capitalizing on the fact that blood is one thing they can do that WWE doesn't but that doesn't mean you have to do it every fucking show. Mid-match the lights went out and Malakai Black, Buddy Matthews and Julia Hart were at ringside. I still think it's a bit out of place to have a dark stable with a member called Buddy. You can never be fully scared of a group of people if one of them has a dog's name. When Kibbles I mean Buddy went to open the coffin Sting was inside. Sting took out Matthew and threw the bat to Black who walked out. Darby choked King with his own chain then let go and Brody fell into the coffin and the lid shut on it's own in a fucking great visual. This was great but isn't Black supposed to be feuding with Miro? There was a vignette later in the show where Miro declared he would find his way back to God by destroying the House Of Black but could they not have worked that into this match? Next up we had a great tornado tag match pitting Andrade and Rush against the Lucha Bros. The finish came when the heels tied Penta's mask to the ropes and he took it off to break up the pinfall. Alex Abrahantes threw in a spare mask but Rush threw it into the audience. Glad to see Andrade and Rush finally get a meaningful win. We got a segment where the Young Bucks told Hangman they're sorry for treating him so shitty. They ask him to be their partner but he says he's going to be in Dark Order's corner and not in the tournament. If they're not bringing back Kenny Omega to be The Bucks' partner then I'd be fine with Andrade, Rush and Dragon Lee being the first AEW Trios Champions. Next was a squash match where Luchasaurus destroyed Anthony Henry. Jungle Boy ran backstage to fight Christian and Luchasaurus took out 12 security guards then head-butted Pat Buck which the announcers acted like such a bigger deal than attacking the guards. Dutt, Lethal and Singh challenged Wardlow to another match who comes out backed up by FTR. Sonjay looks for something under the ring but can't find it so to save the spot Lethal goes in and takes a Big Rig from FTR. Do they not plan this shit before the match so they know where it's going to be. Next was Aron Solo (AKA mini Damien Priest) vs Ricky Starks. Starks and Solo were a tag team at one point and although I don't care about Solo this match was okay. Cool ending where Solo goes for a corkscrew kick which Ricky ducks then hits him with a Spear. Stokely Hathaway tries to recruit Gunn Club but Billy tells him to fuck off. He says that he made a match between Ass Boys and Danhausen and "The big bearded fellow" (Eric Redbeard) for next week. Orange Cassidy wants to show Schiavone his new handshake with the Best Friends...urgh. But then Ari Daiviari comes up and tries to recruit Cassidy but he says no. Seriously? Two segments in a row where managers try to recruit clients? The Best Friends suck, the worst booked shit in AEW. Tony must just go "That'll do" when he writes stuff for these guys. Since Tony has done the reshuffling and getting certain people to cover certain areas who did he get to handle the Best Friends and Orange Cassidy's creative because there needs to be a reshuffling. Next was Jade Cargill vs Madison Rayne. I'm happy that Rayne is in AEW as a booker but not that arsed about seeing her in the ring as the women's division is already bloated as fuck. Nice Cross Rhodes reversal into Jaded to end the match. Afterwards Athena attacked Jade and sent her cowering to the back. I'm excited to see Athena vs Jade but the build has been quite sucky. Teaser for next week and they're already doing the Danielson vs Garcia rematch. They should have built this up for at least a month with Garcia getting some more wins under his belt and to build up more excitement for when they fight again. The main event was Jon Moxley vs Lionheart Chris Jericho and holy fuck this match was awesome, an absolute battle and not a spot-fest like the majority of AEW's matches are. Jericho did a cool cool hammerlock with his leg draped over Moxley's neck then ripped Moxley's earring out which was a cool visual but a spot that would be more appropriate for Painmaker Jericho. Regal says hopefully Moxley learns not to wear jewelry to a wrestling match. Jericho puts Moxley in the corner and stomps on his ear then Moxley in the Lion-tamer for what felt like an eternity but in a good way. Moxley ends up getting the win with a chokehold. A fucking tremendous match, like an old-school NWA match. One thing I didn't like is Mox kicking out of both a bat shot and a Judas Effect, one would have been enough. Post match CM Punk returns to help fight off the JAS and have a brief showdown with future opponent Jon Moxley.

[puroresu-musings]

NJPW WRESTLE KINGDOM 12 in Tokyo Dome Review (Jan 4th 2018)

IWGP Jr. Tag Title Match: Roppongi 3K (c) vs. The Young Bucks ****

NEVER 6 Man Title Gauntlet Match **3/4

Kota Ibushi vs. Cody ****

IWGP Heavyweight Tag Title Match: K.E.S. (c) vs. EVIL & SANADA ***1/2

NEVER Openweight Title Hair vs. Hair Match: Minoru Suzuki (c) vs. Hirooki Goto ****1/2

IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title 4-Way: Marty Scurll (c) vs. Will Ospreay vs. KUSHIDA vs. Hiromu Takahashi ****1/2

IWGP Intercontinental Title Match: Hiroshi Tanahashi (c) vs. Jay White ***1/2

IWGP U.S. Title Match: Kenny Omega (c) vs. Chris Jericho ****3/4

IWGP Heavyweight Title Match: Kazuchika Okada (c) vs. Tetsuya Naito ****3/4

Photos.

This was a great supershow that, despite its gargantuan runtime, was actually incredibly easy to sit through. I don’t think it was quite as good as the three previous WK’s (specifically the 2015 outing, which I think is one of the greatest cards ever), but it was tremendous stuff nonetheless. One (sort of) negative to the show is that there were some curious winners, but on the whole it didn't matter as the action was so good. I missed around 70% of the pre-show New Japan “Rambo”, but what I did see was suitably horrible. Despite this, it had a super happy ending in that cancer survivor Masahito Kakihara won the thing when he last eliminated Cheeseburger with an STO. He then thanked everyone for donating to the Yoshihiro Takayama foundation, which just made everything seem really feel good. I also had to laugh when Kakihara made his entrance, and the old UWFi theme played, and commentator and UWF legend, Kazuo Yamazaaki teased he was going to enter from the booth.

The main show kicked off with an excellent IWGP Jr Tag Title clash, in which The Young Bucks won the straps for a seventh time. Much like their match last year, this was a great, storyline and psychology driven match from the Jackson’s in which they worked over YOH’s injured back, and in turn RPG 3K worked over Matt’s injured back all match, both of which were sold beautifully, and played into the finish. SHO looked great getting the hot tag and hitting his impressive power spots, including the double German, and I’m sure he’s going to be a big name in the years to come. The finish came at 18:49 after the Bucks hit the Meltzer Driver on YOH, then Nick locked in the Sharpshooter for the submission win. The CHAOS team of Ishii, Yano and Baretta walked out of the Dome as NEVER 6 Man Champions after surviving the gauntlet. This was all-action, but realistically was exactly the same as every other one of these we’ve seen. Sabre Jr, Taichi and Kanemaru eliminated War Machine and Elgin, then the Suzuki-gunners were sent packing by the CHAOS trio seconds thereafter. Taguchi, Makabe and Juice were in next, but Yano rolled up the Funky Weapon to send them home, which left them against defending champions, the BC Polynesian crew of Fale, Tonga and Loa, which ended after Baretta pinned Tama with the Dudebuster at the 17 minute mark. This was all fine.

Kota Ibushi defeated Cody in an excellent match which far exceeded my expectations. This wasn’t quite as good as Cody’s match with Okada in Long Beach, but it was easily in the tope three Cody matches I've ever seen. Ibushi looked incredible here, and Cody more than held his own. The big spot was Cody hitting a hideous looking Cross Rhodes off the apron, which I was certain killed Ibushi as he landed right on top of his head. However, Kota fired back, hitting that devastating Lawn Dart spot which folded Cody up, destroyed him with Kamigoye, then turned back the clocks and won at 15:08 with the Phoenix Splash. The win here potentially sets Ibushi up for the IWGP Heavy Title, but time will tell on that front. EVIL and SANADA won their first Tag Titles over Lance Archer and Davey Boy Smith Jr in a very good doubles clash. I can't help but feel that K.E.S. are somewhat under-utilised in NJPW at present, but they looked really good here, dominating the match and destroying the Young Lions at ringside, as if they were channeling Hansen and Brody or something. I hope they get a better run in 2018, and that all these multi-man’s for these titles go away for good. SANADA predictably picked up the win for the LIJ team when he pinned DBS Jr with the Muto Moonsault in 14 minutes.

The NEVER Hair vs. Hair match between Suzuki and Goto was a dramatic, strong style war, which was the best match on the show up to that point. These guys could easily have had this match last year, if it weren't for all the shenanigan filled matches they had, and it was all the better for just being down to them without all the faction nonsense. They smacked the hell out of each other, with Goto getting the worst of it, ending up with a bloodied mouth and swollen face, and at one point Suzuki hit a sickeningly stiff headbutt. This was just great, believable stuff throughout. Suzuki almost won several times with his choke, but Goto would somehow power out with Ushigoroshi’s. Goto went for what I thought was going to be the Shouten, but he dropped Suzuki across his knee in a modified GTR, then hit the regular version at 18:04 to win the belt and keep his hair. In the post match, Suzuki teased reneging on the stipulation, but like the man’s man he is, shaved his own head. Next up was the insane 4 way for the Junior title. This pretty much lived up to expectations, and was an action packed, high flying spectacle. There was almost too much action to call, but it featured so many great spots, including Ospreay hitting a Moonsault off the lighting rig, everyone hitting dives, and a bunch of Sunset Flip Bombs out of the ring. The finish came at 21:18 after Ospreay scored a near fall on Hiromu with an imploding 450, then missed the Oscutter, but was hit with Time Bomb by Takahashi. Scurll broke it up and annihilated Hiromu and KUSHIDA with hard umbrella shots, but was hit with the Oscutter for Ospreay to win his second title. Tanahashi’s I.C. Title defence against Jay White was interesting. I’d say it was Tana’s least appealing Dome match since his IWGP Title match with Suzuki at WK6. I mean, it was a very good contest and despite his physical limitations, Tanahashi put on a great performance, but on the whole it just lacked something. I think the main problem here was that realistically, nobody bought White winning this at all, even with the Tanahashi knee injury. White worked the knee most of the match, then Tana insanely hit the HFF to the floor, hit some Sling Blades, then missed a HFF in the ring and sold the knee. White got a near fall with a Kiwi Crusher. Tana scored a near fall with a Dragon Suplex, before retaining with two more High Fly Flow’s in 19:56. Honestly, I don’t think White was hurt by the loss here. If anything a win may have harmed him more as he hardly put on a performance good enough to justify having the belt. In reality, this match was very good based on the performance of Tanahashi and not because it was a break-out star-making one by White. As it stands, I think the company are big on him, so he’ll be fine and theres no point rushing to put a top belt on him at this point. 

Then the Alpha vs. Omega co-main event. This was just a crazy brawl, as it had promised to be. Jericho was clearly having a ball here, heeling it up like nobody’s business, slapping around Red Shoes, his son Umino, and stealing photographers cameras at ringside. It was like he was channelling old boss Genichiro Tenryu, both with the grouchy old dude gimmick and the fact that, at the grand old age of 47, he may have had his best singles match ever. Kenny juiced after being rammed into a chair in the corner (not before he awkwardly dropped his gig for all you eagle eyed viewers), which really gave this the aura of something special, as virtually no mainstream promotion does juice anymore. This was an intense grudge match which was completely different to what we’re used to seeing from both guys really, even though both hit all their signature spots. After Jericho was sent off the second rope through a table outside following a V-Trigger, things really picked up. Jericho rolled through a OWA and locked in the Walls Of Jericho, which teased the stoppage, but Kenny made the ropes. Omega fired back with V-Triggers and the One Winged Angel, but Jericho grabbed the ropes for a tremendous near fall. Kenny countered a top rope Frankensteiner by dropping Y2J face first on the turnbuckles, but Jericho hit the Code Breaker for another great near fall. Jericho draped a chair over Omega, and went for the Lionsault, but Kenny threw the chair at Jericho, then hit the match winning OWA onto the chair to end a fantastic match at 34:36. Negatives out of the way first, this was maybe a little too long, but honestly this was just great pro wrestling and it makes me want to see more of Jericho in New Japan (I suspect a showdown with Naito is on the cards at some point).

Then the main event, which was under quite some pressure in the sense that they had to follow the last match, Okada’s main event from last year’s show (and really, the last three WK shows), and the fact that after a four year struggle, they're finally in the main event spot, so they had a lot to live up to. This was a fitting end to an incredible show, it was probably the match of the night, and they worked this like it was the most important match of their respective careers. Its also worth noting that Okada worked the match in these hideous, bell bottomed pants which he needs to lose ASAP. Both guys seemed to work each others necks, as they dropped one another on their heads repeatedly. Things got very interesting when Naito went up top, but missed his old Stardust Press finish (which reminds me, seeing as he’s no longer the Stardust Genius, shouldn't he really have gotten rid of the old Stardust entrance theme?). This was the turning point of the match really. Okada hit the German and transitioned into the Rainmaker for a believable near fall, then went for a Tombstone, but Naito reversed it into Destino, but was too exhausted to cover. This all built to the crazy finishing sequence that is prerequisite for Okada title defences, filled with counters and reversals, as the packed Tokyo Dome went crazy. Naito finally hit Destino again, but inexplicably elected to go for another instead of the cover. This time, the champion reversed Destino into the jumping, spinning Tombstone, then hit a final, massive Rainmaker, to retain the crown at the the 36:30 mark. Theres been a lot of anger and disappointment to this finish. I must confess that I certainly didn't see the match ending in this result, but I don’t think its necessarily a terrible mistake. I equate it to when Kobashi pinned Jun Akiyama in NOAH’s first Dome show in 2004. People’s arguments then were that Akiyama was the hottest he's ever been, and Kobashi had held the title for well over a year. However, Kobashi’s reign went on for another 8 months and he produced more classic title defences, hitting the most in Japanese history at that point (an unprecedented 13), that ultimately meant more in the long run than Akiyama winning would have. In essence, I feel like this is potentially what New Japan are going for here with Okada. Time will tell of course, but I think its much too soon to be doomsaying just yet.

On the whole, this was a truly exceptional card of action from NJPW, who never really disappoint with these big shows. Personally, I have waned on New Japan since the G1 really. This is for several reasons, most of them personal life related, but in general I feel that G1 27 was potentially the apex of modern wrestling. Shin Nihon have set the bar so high nowadays that its almost impossible to top themselves, and I feel that this is the potential problem here too. Nothing hit those sky high standards set previously (or anywhere close to Dave Meltzer’s fabled 6 star rating), so it was easy to feel disappointed by the show. Realistically, its going to take a lot to top this as card of the year. 

NDT

[daleisgreat]

G1/RoH Supercard (of Honor XIII)

Welcome to my annual Ring of Honor (RoH) blog for their annual Supercard of Honor show. 2019 was a wild year for RoH. They started the year losing access to Matt and Nick Jackson, Cody Rhodes, Kenny Omega and all three members of SCU (Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky) as they all departed after their contracts expired at the end of the 2018 to help launch All Elite Wrestling (AEW). Before that it was known that those seven wrestlers would be leaving, RoH collaborated with New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) to announce a special live PPV they would be airing on WrestleMania weekend: G1 Supercard. G1 is a recurring PPV special for NJPW, and I am presuming Supercard is short for the Supercard of Honor PPV special that usually transpires during WrestleMania weekend which is why I am covering this PPV and treating it as Supercard of Honor XIII. There is another big reason I wanted to cover this show…. That is because this joint venture between NJPW and RoH emanated from the ‘World’s Most Popular Arena’ Madison Square Garden. This was a shocking announcement because going back several decades WWE had the exclusive rights to MSG and the last other promotion that ran a show in MSG was back in 1960! WWE tried pressuring MSG and briefly got them to remove the show from their schedule….that was until the owners of RoH, Sinclair Broadcasting, called up WWE and informed them they own roughly half the FOX TV affiliate stations that would be starting to air SmackDown on FOX within several months and have control of what time to air WWE’s new flagship show and that was reason enough for Vince McMahon to back off and G1 Supercard wound up running as scheduled during the 2019 WrestleMania weekend from MSG.

NJPW and RoH have been lending talent to each other for years, but this is one of the first times they evenly split a card 50/50 for each promotion’s matches. When the tickets originally went on sale, it was shortly before the much hyped independent All In PPV put on by most of the Elite (at that time consisting of Cody, Omega, Young Bucks, Marty Scurll and Adam Paige) that RoH lent a lot of their talent for. The show wound up being a huge success and all the buzz for All In presumably was the catalyst for G1 Supercard selling out in under a day of tickets officially going on sale. By the time the G1 Supercard rolled around all of the Elite, save for Marty Scurll, departed RoH a few months earlier leaving a huge void of headline guys for RoH. The NJPW half of the card delivered with exciting match-ups, while the RoH half stuck out with a lack of top level talent. The PPV had two pre-show matches that are included as bonuses on the DVD. The first match saw Jenny Rose & Oedo Tai overcoming the handicap match odds and defeating Hung Kimura, Sumie Sakai and Stella Grey when Tai got the pin with a 450 in a bout that saw a lot of nonstop energy to get the crowd rolling. G1 Supercard will be the first PPV I can remember that had a 30 person Rumble match in a pre-show they billed as the ‘Honor Rumble.’ It was also the longest pre-show match I can recall at 49 minutes. Entrances were sped up at approximately 30 second intervals to keep up the tempo which made it enticing to see who would walk out next. Both RoH and NJPW stars competed and I only recognized roughly half of the competitors, but it was fun learning some new faces. Colt Cabana was on commentary for the night but took a breather to compete in the Rumble when Yano invited him to take his spot. Other faces I recognized were Justin Gabriel now going by PJ Black, Beer City Bruiser, Delirious, Kenny King, Cheeseburger and a trio of Asian wrestling legends in Haku, Great Muta and Jushin Thunder Liger.

I do not care how aged Haku is because he still looks like one of the baddest guys on the planet I would not want to mess with. I have no idea how active Muta is, but he was not at all agile and seemed very careful with his movements. Liger could still go, but he was in the midst of his retirement year tour and it was apparent his best days were behind him. The end of the Rumble saw it looking like it would come down to Liger and Muta, but then Kenny King pulled the ‘ol hide under the ring trick card and emerged to toss Liger and Muta out to win it all. That was a fun crazy Rumble with the frequent entrances and it brought back memories of that bonkers Rumble match on a 2000 episode of Thunder with all kinds of unique entrants that were AWOL in that time of uncertainty for WCW and also marked the last appearance of Macho Man in WCW. The start of the actual PPV saw a ‘winner takes all’ match with two titles on the line in RoH’s TV Title and NJPW’s Never Openweight Title. Jeff Cobb beat Will Ospreay here to walk away with both belts in a bout that did not fail to deliver a ton of insane spots. Dalton Castle was the RoH champ on a previous SoH PPV I covered here, but now his stock has dwindled as he lost to Rush in 15 seconds here after three straight Shotgun Dropkicks. After Castle collected himself, he turned and obliterated his eccentric seconds, The Boys. The RoH Women’s Title was on the line next and saw Kelly Klein beat Iwatoni with an Airplane Spin slam in a decent bout. I had no idea TNA/Impact Wrestling’s The Beautiful People were still a hot commodity after their countless stop-n-go runs in that promotion, but when Velvet Skye and Angelina Love walked out after the match and attacked Klein the announcers put it over as the biggest thing ever to happen to their women’s division.

DJ/Hip Hop artist Mega Ran came out for a musical performance next, the song is a decent catchy beat for the DVD menus too which is a nice relief from the generic basement-rock that dominates most other RoH releases. Anywho, Bully Ray interrupted and harassed Mega Ran and laid out an open challenge that turned into a six-man tag with Bully Ray, Silas Young and Shane Taylor taking on Flip Gordon, Juice Robinson and Mark Haskins. This was a surprisingly a fun weapons brawl with lots of creative spots. The finish saw Ray fall victim to the Wassup Headbutt and the Gordon hitting the 450 for the win. The IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title was on the line next in a triple threat between Bandido, Dragon Lee and Taiji. In a bout that I will remember as having a sick tower spot, it saw Bandido capture the gold after hitting a variant of a driver-pin combination. Another winner takes all titles match transpired next for both the RoH and NJPW tag team titles in a four way between The Briscoes, Guerillas of Destiny, Evil & Sanada and Brody King & PCO. RoH contributed some production dollars for PCO’s electric (literally) entrance that saw him get the Frankenstein electric chair treatment in a thrilling visual. Speaking of production dollars, this is easily the best looking RoH show I have ever seen, especially compared to the first couple of SoH shows I covered here. The Guerillas of Destiny walked out with all the tag gold when they hit their double powerbomb finisher on Brody for the victory. RoH caught a lot of heat for running a ‘worked shoot’ segment after the match ended with the wrestlers formerly known as Big Cass & Enzo running out and attacking the Briscoes after the match before they got escorted out, but RoH never officially acknowledged it on camera and after all the negative reception it got did not request feature services from Cass & Enzo so I will link to this fan footage of the run-in instead.

A third promotion contributed a match to G1 Supercard with Revolution Pro having their British Heavyweight Title on the card with Hiroshi Tanahoshi challenging Zack Sabre Jr. for the championship. I only remember Zack’s excellent work in the Cruiserweight Classic from a few years back so it was great seeing him again, doubly so since he was accompanied by another old favorite of mine I have not seen in over a decade in TAKA Michinoku. This bout saw a heavy emphasis on heavy duty technical and submission wrestling which was a breather from the spotfests that dominated the rest of the card. I want to re-emphasize ‘heavy duty’ because both Tanahoshi and Sabre did a superb job at conveying how much they laid into each other with a sick submission Sabre Jr. kept amplifying in unbelievable ways that I cannot even describe until Tanahoshi convincingly tapped out. Thinking about this now I would rank this as my favorite match from the night! The tenth contest of the night saw the IWGP Intercontinental Title on the line between Naito and Kota Ibushi. I recognize both guys from the handful of NJPW Kenny Omega matches I tracked down after hearing a ton of buzz for and also recognize Ibushi from his Cruiserweight Classic run too. This match delivered, and had a great NJPW produced video package too. Both guys delivered a lot of intense neck and head spots, and Ibushi wound up winning after a rising knee strike in another match that was close to my favorite for the night. The RoH World Title was on the line next in a triple threat ‘Ladder War’ between Marty Scurll, Matt Taven and Jay Lethal. Lethal was hyped going into this as having the title the most number of days compared to all other previous champions….but I could never buy into him as a top level guy, and I recall despising Matt Taven on previous RoH shows and Scurll I have bad memories of his match against Castle last year where he spent eons trying to find a weapon under the ring so I did not have a vested interest in the bout. It was a solid match with a few unique spots and saw Taven winning the title after fighting off Lethal in the end, but I felt rather ho-hum coming out of this, and apparently so did the crowd watching their tepid reaction to Taven’s title win.

The headlining main event saw Jay White defend his IWGP Title against Kazuchika Okada. I love how NJPW produces their video packages, and this one got me amped up going into the main event. The duo told a great story, and White’s manager, Gedo found clever ways to get involved. I recognize Okada from another Omega match I saw that I believe went to a time limit draw, and this match also went on a while going just over a half hour before White fell victim to the RAIIIIIIN-MAKERRRRR Lariat with Okada capturing the IWGP Title. I saw online reception noting the weak RoH half of the show, and compared to the New Japan offerings, they definitely were a couple notches below, but RoH still had a couple of really good matches like the TV Title and bout and Bully Ray’s open challenge was the perfect refresher for this long of a card. I will give big ups for the Honor Rumble, Tag Titles and IWGP Title matches, but my two favorites that blew everything else away on here was the Zack Sabre/Tanahoshi and Naito/Ibushi matches. More than anything I came out of the G1 Supercard wanting to get more into NJPW, but with so much other wrestling out there to keep up with, I will probably only be picking and watching the occasional match or two a year that generates a ton of buzz. Collectively, I will give G1 Supercard a strong thumbs up and recommend to track down, especially seeing both promotions operate in a big time atmosphere like Madison Square Garden made the event truly special and standout like few other cards from RoH history. Past Wrestling Blogs Best of WCW Clash of Champions Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2 Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 3 Biggest Knuckleheads Bobby The Brain Heenan Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes DDP: Positively Living Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials ECW Unreleased: Vol 1 ECW Unreleased: Vol 2 ECW Unreleased: Vol 3 Eric Bishoff: Wrestlings Most Controversial Figure Fight Owens Fight: The Kevin Owens Story For All Mankind Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection Hulk Hogans Unreleased Collectors Series Impact Wresting Presents: Best of Hulk Hogan Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story The Kliq Rules Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman Legends of Mid South Wrestling Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story Memphis Heat NXT: From Secret to Sensation NXT Greatest Matches Vol 1 OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History OMG Vol 3: Top 50 Incidents in ECW History Owen: Hart of Gold RoH Supercard of Honor 2010-Present ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery Scott Hall: Living on a Razors Edge Shawn Michaels: My Journey Sting: Into the Light Straight Outta Dudley-ville: Legacy of the Dudley Boyz Straight to the Top: Money in the Bank Anthology Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder Then Now Forever – The Evolution of WWEs Womens Division TLC 2017 TNA Lockdown 2005-2016 Top 50 Superstars of All Time Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season True Giants Ultimate Fan Pack: Roman Reigns Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe War Games: WCWs Most Notorious Matches Warrior Week on WWE Network Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition Wrestlemania 28-Present The Wrestler (2008) Wrestling Road Diaries Too Wrestling Road Diaries Three: Funny Equals Money Wrestlings Greatest Factions WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015 WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015 WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2016 WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2016 WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2017

[latestnews2018-blog]

Kofi Kingston Says He Was "Baffled" New Day Was Able To Work With The Young Bucks - Kenny Omega

New Post has been published on https://latestnews2018.com/kofi-kingston-says-he-was-baffled-new-day-was-able-to-work-with-the-young-bucks-kenny-omega/

Kofi Kingston Says He Was "Baffled" New Day Was Able To Work With The Young Bucks - Kenny Omega

Kofi Kingston spoke with Sport Illustrated’s Extra Mustard section on having a singles run in WWE, winning titles while staying The New Day, and working with The Young Bucks / Kenny Omega at E3. Here are some of the highlights:

Having another singles run in WWE:

“All of us want to be top-tier singles champions. That’s the goal all the time. Now a lot of people think you have to break up to do that. We’re told, ‘You know, you have to go your separate ways.’ I think that’s the dumbest thing in the world. Why would we ever break up? We are stronger as three than we are as one. There is no need for us to break up.

“We always talk about having the ‘Freebird Rule,’ or now the ‘New Day Rule,’ as singles champions or even with the Money in the Bank briefcase. That would be awesome, too. We bring a different element and aspect to the potential of what a singles championship run could possibly be. Our bread and butter is in our chemistry. We’ve all done singles careers on our own, and it’s a crapshoot whether you’ll go up or go down. You never know. But we feel like we have something very special between the three of us, so there is no need to go back to doing what we were doing.”

Becoming champions while still remaining a group:

“Exactly. We’re working on etching that thought in people’s minds, that idea of ‘Maybe they can do that all together.’ WWE is all about doing things that have never been done. That’s the way you get to the top and you stay at the top, so that’s what we’re always trying to do: be unique, be different, be fun, be inclusive, include the crowd, and have good times.”

Working with The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega at an E3 event:

“I’m still baffled that that actually happened. Think about WWE, when was the last time you saw them do any kind of inter-promotional stuff? Not in this era, right? On top of that, with a group like Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks, The Elite, these guys are at the top of the independent scene right now. Since we became a trio, everyone’s been talking about us doing stuff with The Elite. And we came close. We actually got in there, interacted, verbally jousting, and I still get goosebumps just thinking about it. Hopefully that opens the doors for some things in the future.

“If it does happen, and they end up here or likewise, we had the first step in doing that. You talk about breaking barriers and breaking rules, that’s what it’s all about. You try to push that envelope and keep the wrestling business thriving, keep people interested and do things out of the box. You’ve got to go out of the box, and be able to adjust and change with the times. That’s what wrestling is all about. This is a very special time right now. You’re seeing things in the industry you never thought you’d see. You never thought you’d see AJ Styles in the WWE or you never thought you’d see Kevin Owens or Shinsuke Nakamura or Asuka in a WWE ring, but yet here we are.”

Kingston also discussed throwing out the first pitch at a Boston Red Sox game. You can check out the full interview by clicking here.

(function(d, s, id) var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = “http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.10&appId=123325808288224”; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); (document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));

[wrestlingisfake]

G1 Climax B Block finals preview

Kenny Omega (12 points) vs. Kota Ibushi (10 points) - This is for 2 points in the G1 Climax tournament’s B block.  Omega’s IWGP heavyweight title is not at stake, although if he loses that would virtually guarantee Ibushi gets a title match later, regardless of who wins the G1 tournament.

I already ran through all the scenarios of who can win B block (to face the A block winner in the finals).  If Omega wins this match, he wins the block.  If Ibushi wins, then either Ibushi or Tetsuya Naito wins the block, depending on whether Naito loses his match.  If this match goes to a 30-minute draw, either Omega or Naito will win the block, depending on the outcome of the Naito match.

As far as I could determine this is the first one-on-one Omega/Ibushi match since August 2012, when Ibushi defeated Omega to retain the DDT championship, during their original run as the Golden Lovers tag team.  I haven’t seen the match, but people talk about it in awestruck tones, and the NJPW English announce team has alluded to Kota and Kenny refusing to rematch for fear that they would go too far trying to top it.  Watching both of them damn near kill themselves against other opponents, I can see why there’d be concern about them working with one another.  So the hype for this thing is off the charts, and it’ll be very difficult to live up to.

The Golden Lovers gimmick is that Omega and Ibushi aren’t just friends but in an ambiguous romantic relationship.  I mean, it’s not ambiguous to the fans, but the wrestlers themselves don’t directly spell it out and New Japan seems to actively avoid commenting on it.  Regardless, the idea is that Kenny was damaged and incomplete while the team was disbanded, but their reunion this year has turned everything around and contributed to Kenny winning the IWGP title.  What matters here, then, is that neither man wants to seriously harm the other, but they can’t go easy either, so we’ll be seeing a lot of mixed emotions beyond the usual “friends have to fight” match.

The “Bullet Club OG” group (Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, and Bad Luck Fale) have basically made it their mission to ruin this tournament, especially where it concerns Omega and Ibushi.  They started out taking blatant disqualifications to protect one another from being pinned, but then they escalated to interfering in matches they had nothing to do with, and then to forcing a no-contest in the Omega/Young Bucks vs. Ibushi/Scurll/Owens match.  I can’t see this match ending in a draw or a double-disqualification, but the NJPW bookers clearly want the idea in your head.

Given the choice between Omega, Naito, and Ibushi to win B Block, I’d pick Ibushi just because I think that’d be more novel.  However, I’m increasingly thinking that Omega is going to pull off the big “win the G1 as reigning champion” feat.  One way or another, I think he’s going to come out on top here.

Tetsuya Naito (12 points) vs. Zack Sabre, Jr. (10 points) - Sabre is already mathematically eliminated from winning the block, and Naito will be too if Sabre wins this match.  If Naito wins, he’s still alive, but he needs Omega to lose or draw.  Even if this match goes to a time limit draw, Naito is still alive, but he needs Omega to just plain lose.  Sabre has scored some key wins to get him into the midcard title hunt, but I don’t see him beating Naito unless it’s necessary to set up a plot point in the Omega/Ibushi match.  And maybe it is, but since I’m not sure I gotta pick Naito to win.

Juice Robinson (4 points) vs. Hirooki Goto (6 points) - Robinson is the United States champion and Goto is the NEVER champion, but neither title is on the line.  Juice cannot strike with the “cast” on his left hand (more like a plastic splint wrapped in wrist tape) or he will be disqualified.

Robinson’s run this year has been interesting.  On the one hand, he’s stepped up his game since his G1 debut last year, and he’s a champion.  On the other hand, he suffered a (legit?) broken metacarpal a few weeks back, which is particularly disastrous because his specialty is his left-handed knockout punch.  Robinson gutted through the injury (and the added stip about the cast) to win the US title, but competing in the G1 is a longer, more relentless task.  After mounting losses (which translates into many future challengers), Juice started removing the cast to bring his knockout punch back into play, but that also increases his risk of aggravating the injury and prolonging his recovery time.  It’s a simple and delightfully effective storyline.

It’d be a nice feel-good moment for Juice to get one last victory to end on a high note, but this isn’t the part of the story for feel-good moments.  That will come later in the year, I think, when he has to defend the title against all the guys who beat him in this tour...but his hand will be 100% and he’ll be steamrolling through them.  (I hope.)  So for now, the right finish is for Goto to get the win.

Tomohiro Ishii (8 points) vs. SANADA (8 points) - Ishii always gets rave reviews for his G1 matches, but I can’t ever get fully invested in them because I always know he can’t actually win enough matches to constitute a push.  He does have a win over Kenny Omega and I’m sure he’ll get a title shot this fall, which will be well-received.  But I don’t believe for a second he’ll ever be IWGP champion, so it all feels kind of hollow.  Sanada is more or less in the same boat, though, so at least this match should be competitive.  It doesn’t matter who wins, really.

Tama Tonga (6 points) vs. Toru Yano (4 points) - Tama has basically stopped giving a shit about winning his matches or even trying to prevent the referee from noticing his rule-breaking.  Yano, on the other hand, has turned sneaking things past the ref into an art form.  In other words, they’ll both cheat like crazy, but Yano is more apt to get away with it, which means either Yano wins by DQ or Yano wins by sneaky pinfall or count-out.  The only thing working in Tama’s favor is that it’s a running gag that Yano acts like he’s literally a spooky demon or something.  Me too, Yano, me too.

Kazuchika Okada & YOSHI-HASHI & Gedo vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma - Okada and Tanahashi are coming off of their big match to determine the A Block, but the big story here is actually Honma, who suffered a neck injury during a March 2017 match, which nearly left him paralyzed and required surgery.  Honma returned to the ring a couple of months ago, but this is only the second match in his comeback.  This was originally going to be an eight-man tag with Elgin on the Tanahashi team and Jado on the CHAOS team, with the idea that Honma could seek revenge on Jado for the move that nearly left him paralyzed.  But Jado hurt his foot recently so he had to pulled from the tour.

I’m concerned Honma’s comeback is premature or ill-advised, and I’m not sure it’ll be much fun watching him work knowing how important it is to keep him safe.  You’d hope the other five guys can carry the match for him, but if that’s what it takes he probably shouldn’t be back in the ring yet.  Or maybe he’s really made incredible progress and he’s back to 100%. But I doubt it.  Honma should probably get the pin on Gedo, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they just have him set Gedo up for Makabe to finish him off.

EVIL & BUSHI vs. Minoru Suzuki & El Desperado - Just a random undercard tag match, doesn’t matter what happens.

Nick Jackson & Matt Jackson & Marty Scurll vs. Jay White & SHO & YOH - Scurll and the Young Bucks are the NEVER trios champions, but that title is not on the line here.  (Neither are all the other championships the Bucks currently have.)  This could get interesting since White has been teaming with Yoh, and treating him like shit, throughout this tour, but now he’s also teaming with Yoh’s regular partner Sho.  Also, Yoh and Sho’s coach, Rocky Romero, has been losing his fucking mind about White’s shenanigans on English commentary.  In theory a win for White’s team would put them in line for a trios title shot, but I can’t believe this trio can coexist for more than ten seconds.  That won’t stop White from trying to direct traffic, I would imagine.  The Bucks will probably pin Sho or Yoh after slapping their thighs a lot.

Bad Luck Fale & Tanga Loa vs. Hangman Page & Chase Owens - Page and Owens have been regular partners on this tour, but they’re kinda fucked against two of the Bullet Club OG group.  This is either gonna be a win for the Tongans or a DQ loss preceded by a savage mugging.

Michael Elgin & David Finlay vs. Toa Henare & Shota Umino - This was originally going to be Finlay vs. Henare, but Jado’s injury caused Elgin to get bumped from his match, so here we are.  If you’ve been listening to English commentary you’ll recall that there was some ironic hype about Finlay/Henare--which had been the one and only non-tournament singles match on the schedule--which was jokingly referred to as “C Block.”  So Kevin Kelly and Rocky Romero might be unusually jazzed for this one.  I’m pretty sure Finlay will just pin Umino, but watch the announcers treat it like Wrestlemania.

[wrestlingisfake]

Wrestle Kingdom 12 preview

This is set to start around 2am Eastern time Thursday morning and go maybe five or six hours, so lllllet’s get ready to make bad decisions about our sleep schedule!

Kazuchika Okada vs. Tetsuya Naito - Naito defeated Kenny Omega to win the G1 Climax tournament in August, earning the right to challenge for the  IWGP heavyweight title here.  Okada has held the title for 564 days, far and away longer than any other reign with this championship. 

Okada vs. Naito was famously supposed to headline Wrestle Kingdom 8, but fans turned on the idea.  In the end, the intercontinental match (Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi) went on last, forever putting a footnote on what was supposed to be Okada’s first Tokyo Dome main event outside of Tanahashi’s shadow and Naito’s first Dome main event period.  Four years later, both men have earned the respect they were denied then.  So it’s morbidly amusing that fate has yet again cast doubt on whether Okada vs. Naito is “really” the main event, thanks to the buzz surrounding Jericho vs. Omega.  Obviously Okada and Naito have something to prove.  Again.

Okada had a hell of a year in 2017.  Kenny Omega tends to get most of the press for the three matches that Dave Meltzer rated six stars or better, but I watched all three and frankly I’d give Okada just a smidge more credit for those performances.  It’s also worth noting that Okada had epic matches against other opponents, like Katsuyori Shiabata, Minoru Suzuki, and EVIL.  The man’s a wrestling machine, and while he’ll never be my sentimental favorite in NJPW, he’s got my confidence as the man who makes the belt feel important.

Naito did pretty well for himself this past year as well, although I’d argue that’s more from a storytelling and entertainment standpoint.  Little things like his treatment of the intercontinental title belt and his interplay with his stablemates have added that little extra something to his game.  The Japanese audience already loves him but it’s getting easier to for the rest of us to get into his head, and see what the appeal is.

Either man can win here.  If Naito wins, it’ll be the much-delayed Tokyo Dome coronation that he’s been chasing for four years, and a proper milestone in the ascendance of Los Ingobernables de Japon as a key faction in the company.  If Okada wins, it will be his 9th consecutive successful title defense and his second consecutive title defense at the Tokyo Dome; he looked unstoppable after last year’s show, and now he’d be practically godlike.  The only thing for sure here is they’re going to fight and fight for like half an hour, and they’ll leave it all in the ring.

Kenny Omega vs. Chris Jericho - Omega’s IWGP United States championship is on the line.  The match is no-disqualification, which is itself interesting because it’s already pretty hard to get disqualified in New Japan, suggesting that these guys are going to go far beyond the carnage that usually gets a pass.

The backstory here is that Omega got his old buddy Don Callis a job in the commentary booth, and then Callis helped his old buddy Jericho get in touch with New Japan to put this match together.  So it’s the battle of an NJPW guy who leads the hottest faction in ROH against a longtime WWE guy, and the guy who made it happen is now VP of Impact Wrestling.  Weird.

Jericho is specifically here to try to do his own version of the Connor McGregor/Floyd Mayweather fight that generated so much buzz and money.  To that end, the buildup to this match has been extremely heated.  The two of them have barely coexisted in the same building for more than five minutes without beating each other senseless.  Jericho has vowed this will be Kenny’s last match in Japan.  We’ve been assured this will not be about getting star ratings or match of the year votes--it will be a brawl.

These guys had me hooked in with the press conference.  I don’t really care who wins, but you’d figure it has to be Omega unless they’ve got something else lined up for Jericho later in the year.

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Jay White - White is challenging for the IWGP intercontinental title.  This is kind of cool for me because I got into New Japan when White was still a rookie jobbing in the openers with the plain black trunks, and then I watched him say farewell before going on excursion, and now he’s back with this wacky new “switchblade” gimmick.  It’s pretty incredibly to think of him advancing to the #3 match on the biggest show of the year, so it’ll be interesting to see if he can deliver the goods.

Tanahashi is hurting.  Aside from the torn biceps he’s been working through since the summer, he’s got a knee injury too, and that’s on top of all the usual wear and tear to a top wrestler in a Japanese group.  Ideally they’d let him gut it out for this one night, put the other guy over, and then send him the fuck home to heal up.  But if NJPW or Tanahashi were going to make such a rational decision, they wouldn’t have booked him for the G1 Climax last year.  So this could get excrutiating to watch, especially if Tanahashi just wins and therefore is set up to keep defending his title through the next couple of months.

I’m a Tanahashi fan and I hope he can deliver a good match, but I gotta root for White to just win quickly and decisively to give the poor guy a break.

Cody Rhodes vs. Kota Ibushi - This was booked to be a defense of the ROH world championship but Cody lost it to Dalton Castle a few weeks ago.

You can look at this match as a sort of consolation prize, in that both guys were viewed as top choices for Kenny Omega’s opponent on this show until the Jericho thing came up, and now they’re pitted against one another.  The problem with that is that neither guy has much in the way of upward momentum.  Cody is primarily an ROH guy, and there seems to be no interest in putting him in line for an IWGP or NEVER title.  Similarly, Ibushi is a free agent, and the issue with him has always been that NJPW will only push him so far without a contract.  So it’s hard to buy that the outcome of this match matters.  Maybe they can defy expectations or steal the show, but as it stands I’m just not worked up about it.

As far as predictions go, I’m vaguely leaning towards Cody.

Minoru Suzuki vs. Hirooki Goto - Suzuki’s NEVER openweight championship is at stake, as is the hair of both participants.  The winner of the match gets the title; the loser gets his head shaved.  Additionally, Suzuki’s henchmen in Suzuki-gun and Goto’s associates in CHAOS are barred from ringside, to prevent the usual clusterfuck finishes that happen with Suzuki-gun matches.

This could go either way, although a Goto loss would be pretty humiliating and send his storyline in a very dismal direction.  After weeks of just trying to get this match, Goto really needs to get the last laugh.

Marty Scurll vs. KUSHIDA vs. Will Ospreay vs. Hiromu Takahashi - This is a four-way match, and the first man to score a fall on any of his opponents will win Scurll’s IWGP junior heavyweight championship.  Basically the minute Scurll won the title, the three previous champions all demanded a title shot, so he offered to face them at the same time.  Not sure that was such a bright idea.

This will surely be an entertainingly flippy diversion form strong style and big mean guys.  I’m not sure it matters who wins, but I gotta pull for my man Hiromu and his cat Daryl.

Davey Boy Smith, Jr. & Lance Archer vs. EVIL & SANADA - Evil and Sanada won the 2017 World Tag League tournament to earn this shot at the IWGP heavyweight tag team championship, held by the Killer Elite Squad (Smith & Archer).  You know it’s gonna be a mean guy match when one side’s best line is “EVERYBODY DIES” and the other side’s best line is “EVERYTHING IS EVIL.”  I smell a title change coming.

5-team gauntlet match - This is for the NEVER six-man tag team championship.  The gauntlet starts with two trios wrestling a normal six-man tag match.  Once a fall is scored, the losers are eliminated and another team comes out.  This continues until the final team enters the match, and the winners of the final fall get the title.  They did this kind of match last year and the teams entered at random except for the champions who got to enter last, so I assume that’s the rule here, too.

The teams are:

Bad Luck Fale & Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa (the defending champions, representing Bullet Club)

Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano & Beretta (representing CHAOS)

Michael Elgin & Raymond Rowe & Hanson

Ryusuke Taguchi & Juice Robinson & Togi Makabe

Zack Sabre Jr. & Taichi & Takashi Iizuka (representing Suzuki-gun)

A title change seems inevitable, since the NEVER tag belts are the hot potato of the promotion.  Of the fifteen guys in the match I think Ishii is the most protected, so I tend to favor his team to win, although Sabre is overdue to get some gold.

It’s worth noting that War Machine (Rowe and Hanson) are wrapping up their New Japan commitments and are widely expected to be reporting to WWE soon, so I wouldn’t bet on them to win here.

SHO & YOH vs. Nick Jackson & Matt Jackson - Roppongi 3K (Sho/Yoh) are defending the IWGP junior heavyweight tag team title against the Young Bucks (Nick/Matt).  The Bucks are so dominant in the junior tag division, and 3K is still so new, that a win for the Bucks will accomplish absolutely nothing.  There’s an opportunity here to help make 3K into the future of the division, so all we can do is see if they’ll take it.  I expect we’ll be seeing these teams trade the belts for many years to come, but I don’t think it’ll happen just yet.

New Japan Rumble - This will most likely be on the pre-show.  It’s a gauntlet battle royal, with wrestlers entering the match at one-minute interval; eliminations can occur via pinfall, submission, or exiting the ring over the top rope to the floor.

This is typically used to get people on the show who aren’t otherwise booked, so I’d expect to see:

Satoshi Kojima

Hiroyoshi Tenzan

YOSHI-HASHI

Yuji Nagata

Jushin Thunder Liger

Tiger Mask

Yujiro Takahashi

Hangman Page

Leo Tonga

El Desperado

TAKA Michinoku

Chase Owens

Gedo

Jado

ACH

Yoshinobu Kanemaru

Manabu Nakanishi

David Finlay

Yoshitatsu

New Japan usually brings in some old-timers and joke entrants for this thing, so you never know who’s coming or how many participants there will be.  I could imagine some of the Young Lions being in this, but if so they’ll just get clobbered so it kind of doesn’t matter.  Typically the winner is someone credible but not necessarily in line for a push, so that has me thinking Liger or Kojima could come out on top.  But really, who’s to say if Billy Gunn shows up at the last minute and shows us all who the ass man really is?

[beingallelite]

Expectations are high for the inaugural AEW World Championship match between Chris Jericho and Adam Page, a ladder match between the Lucha Brothers and The Young Bucks for the AAA world tag team titles, and Cody Rhodes vs. Shawn Spears to settle their deeply personal feud.

Seven other bouts fill out the mid-card with intriguing stakes and storylines. It's also the last major event before AEW's weekly show begins Oct. 2 on TNT.

Here's the breakdown of every announced match at AEW's All Out.

Where and How to Watch

All Out will be held Saturday, Aug. 31, at Sears Centre in Chicago.

Those in the U.S. and Canada can order the event for $49.99 on B/R Live or through cable providers.

The main card starts at 8 p.m. ET, preceded by a two-match pre-show called The Buy In at 7 p.m.

Main Card

Chris Jericho vs. Adam Page (inaugural AEW World Championship)

Lucha Brothers (c) vs. Young Bucks (ladder match for AAA world tag team championship)

Cody Rhodes vs. Shawn Spears

Kenny Omega vs. Pac

Best Friends vs. The Dark Order (winner earns a first-round bye in the AEW world tag team championship tournament)

Darby Allin vs. Jimmy Havoc vs. Joey Janela

Luchasaurus, Jungle Boy and Marko Stunt vs. SoCal Uncensored

Riho vs. Hikaru Shida

The Buy In

21-woman Casino Battle Royale (winner earns a match for the inaugural AEW women's world championship)

Private Party vs. Angelico and Jack Evans

Private Party vs. Angelico and Jack Evans

This should be a good one to warm up the Chicago crowd before All Out's main card begins. Both tag teams are athletic and charismatic, which should translate to a fun match.

Private Party's Buy In match at Fyter Fest against Best Friends and SoCal Uncensored gave many fans their first glimpse at Isiah Kassidy and Marq Quen as a tag team.

It was a good AEW debut and especially impressed executive vice presidents Matt and Nick Jackson, better known as The Young Bucks, who offered the duo full-time contracts backstage after the match.

Private Party and The Young Bucks face off in the first round of the AEW world tag team championship tournament on Oct. 9.

At All Out, Private Party goes up against Angelico and Jack Evans, who lost their two previous matches at Double or Nothing and Fight for the Fallen. It'll be interesting to see if they play a role in the tag team tournament.

21-Woman Casino Battle Royale

You might remember the men's version of the Casino Battle Royale from Double or Nothing. It was the first match in AEW history, and Page won to clinch his spot in the inaugural AEW world championship bout.

The women's version will also have similar stakes, with the winner earning a shot at the AEW women's world championship Oct. 2 at the weekly show's first event in Washington D.C.

Britt Baker, Nyla Rose and Brandi Rhodes are just a few of the announced participants, but there's still roughly half the field to fill out. It's not a reach to expect a couple surprises in this one.

Riho vs. Hikaru Shida

Fans will be relatively familiar with Riho, the only women to compete in all three of AEW's previous events. She faced off against Hikaru Shida on opposite teams during their six-woman tag match at Double or Nothing.

Although not officially signed to AEW full-time, Riho comes highly praised by executive vice president Kenny Omega who has worked with the 22-year-old in Japan since she was 14.

Shida, meanwhile, is a 15-time world champion during her work for various Japanese promotions.

The 31-year-old will be eager to continue showcasing the Japanese women's wrestling style of Joshi with her compatriot to a North American audience.

Luchasaurus, Jungle Boy and Marko Stunt vs. SoCal Uncensored

A matchup between one of the fastest-growing acts in AEW against a veteran three-man tag team that rarely underperforms was added earlier this week to the All Out card.

Luchasaurus and Jungle Boy, charmingly known as "A Boy and His Dinosaur," quickly won fans over at Fight for the Fallen as a babyface tandem during their three-way match against The Dark Order and Angelico and Jack Evans.

Their chemistry is already there, and the fighting spirit of Jungle Boy as an undersized high-flyer balances well with the physically imposing Luchasaurus.

They added Marko Stunt to their team, another diminutive high-flyer who made a name for himself at Fight for the Fallen by delivering a hurricanrana off the top turnbuckle to an opponent of his two newest comrades. Let's see how he fits into the already-over tag team.

SCU's short-handed team of Frankie Kazarian and Scorpio Sky lost their previous two matches, but their win at Double or Nothing came with Christopher Daniels completing the three-man stable.

What effect will he have on the team this time, and how could this match factor into AEW's tag team tournament?

Darby Allin vs. Jimmy Havoc vs. Joey Janela

All three of these men have pulled off an array of extreme spots in their early AEW tenure.

Although this match doesn't technically have any hardcore stipulation, it would be surprising if we didn't see a couple of heart-pounding moments from it.

After the trio competed in a tag team together at Fight for the Fallen and lost, they took their frustrations out on each other by brawling backstage.

None of them have won a match at AEW yet, so it'll be interesting to see in which direction this match goes.

Best Friends vs. The Dark Order

Both teams are coming off good performances after Best Friends defeated Private Party and SoCal Uncensored at Fyter Fest and The Dark Order outlasted A Boy and His Dinosaur and Angelico and Evans at Fight for the Fallen.

Both matches were fast-paced, but that won't necessarily translate to this one as neither team is known for high-flying.

Instead, expect more of an old-school tag team match that's grounded and tries to tell a story more through in-ring psychology than jaw-dropping spots.

The winner earns a first-round bye in the AEW world tag team championship tournament. Although the rest of the bracket hasn't been announced, The Dark Order are likely favorites in this one considering how they've been pushed as top tag heels to this point.

Pac vs. Kenny Omega

This isn't the match we originally expected, but it'll certainly do.

With Jon Moxley being forced to pull out of his match against Omega due to a staph infection, Pac (formerly known as Neville in WWE), got the call as a replacement.

Although he was one of the first signings in AEW's history, the former WWE cruiserweight champion makes his debut for the promotion after creative differences kept him off the previous events.

It begs the question: Was the plan for Pac to always make an appearance at All Out in some fashion? It likely wasn't going to be as an announced competitor in order to keep his debut a surprise, but it seems rather coincidental that he happened to be available after having creative differences at past shows.

Regardless, another well-known name on the roster is a good thing for AEW. Let's see how this match affects Pac's early trajectory with the company.

As for Omega, he still seems to have his attention on Moxley.

Rather than just forget about his original match, AEW capitalized on the moment for when their highly anticipated bout does eventually come and added another layer to their budding rivalry with this promo from Omega:

Cody vs. Shawn Spears

All Out is stacked with intriguing matches. The feuds developed over the first three shows in company history laid the foundation for Saturday's event. None have gotten as deeply personal as Cody Rhodes vs. Shawn Spears, though.

The feud began with no obvious backstory as to why Spears plastered Cody on the head with a chair at Fyter Fest. It's blossomed because of the intricate storytelling AEW fans hoped to see from the young promotion.

After Spears laid Cody out with a chair shot, he brought in wrestling legend Tully Blanchard for psychological insight into what he can expect from his opponent at All Out.

Blanchard and Spears added a clause in the match contract stating only one person would be allowed in the corner of each competitor during the bout. It was obvious who would accompany Spears, but who accompanies the AEW executive vice president has yet to be announced.

Could it be Brandi or MJF? Could we see someone from Blanchard's past who can match wits with the Horseman? There are plenty of options, most of whom already have their own stake in the feud. The surprise addition will add another layer to this bout.

This is the promotion's first real test in building a storyline that stretched for months, and so far it's worked. AEW's four events before its weekly show begins have given the promotion the opportunity to get its feet wet creatively. This feud has yet to feel far-fetched or disingenuous.

The match itself is what fans will really remember. If both wrestlers—and everyone else involved in the match—can deliver a satisfying finish, it would be a strong bridge to the start of AEW's weekly television.

Lucha Brothers vs. The Young Bucks (Ladder match: AAA World Tag Team Championship)

This rivalry between two of the top tag teams in the world reaches new heights in what's being referred to as an "Escalera de la Muerte", the Lucha Brothers' version of a ladder match.

It's unknown just how different this will be from a typical ladder match, but The Young Bucks did hint at this playing into the Lucha Brothers' style as well as the potential addition of tables.

It seems these tag teams are destined to put on great match after great match at this point, and adding ladders to their rivalry keeps things fresh.

The Young Bucks defeated the Lucha Brothers at Double or Nothing before teaming with Kenny Omega to hand Ray Fenix and Pentagon Jr. another loss in a six-man tag match at Fyter Fest.

It's already known that The Young Bucks will face Private Party in the first round of the AEW tag team tournament, so it's unlikely they will strip the Lucha Brothers of the AAA titles.

However, this match could be further proof that AEW is serious about being an industry leader with their tag team division rather than just an afterthought. The Young Bucks are leading that charge as executive vice presidents of the company and hope to continue backing up their words with a good display.

Adam Page vs. Chris Jericho (AEW World Championship)

The All Out card ends with a bit of history as AEW crowns its first world champion.

Page, who won the Casino Battle Royale at Double or Nothing to earn his spot in the title match, comes into All Out undefeated after additional wins over Jimmy Havoc, Jungle Boy and MJF in a four-way match at Fyter Fest and most recently a victory over Kip Sabian at Fight for the Fallen.

After his last match, Jericho ambushed Page and left him with a battered eye. Later that night, "Hangman" returned the favor and assaulted his rival before both men were pulled apart by a plethora of officials, referees and wrestlers.

Jericho defeated Omega in the main event of Double or Nothing for a shot at the inaugural AEW World Championship. Since then, the former WWE world champion has demanded a thank you from fans for putting AEW on the map.

Will we see him add another major title to his long list of accolades or will Page actually ride a horse out of the Sears Centre?

[puroresu-musings]

NJPW DOMINION 6.11 in Osaka-Jo Hall Review

David Finlay, Tomoyuki Oka & Shota Umino vs. Tetsuhiro Yagi, Katsuya Kitamura & Hirai Kawato **½ 

Jushin Thunder Liger, TenKoji & Manabu Nakanishi vs. Togi Makabe, Yuji Nagata, Tiger Mask & Tiger Mask W **3/4

NEVER Six Man Title Gauntlet Match: SANADA, EVIL & BUSHI (c) vs. Ricochet, Juice & Taguchi vs. Ishii, Yano & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Fale, Yujiro & Page vs. ZSJ, Kanemaru & Taichi ***1/4

IWGP Jr. Tag Title Match: Roppongi Vice (c) vs. The Young Bucks ****

IWGP Tag Team Title Match: War Machine (c) vs. Guerrillas Of Destiny ***1/2

Michael Elgin vs. Cody ***

IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title Match: Hiromu Takahashi (c) vs. KUSHIDA ****3/4

NEVER Openweight Title Lumberjack Death Match: Minoru Suzuki (c) vs. Hirooki Goto ****

IWGP Intercontinental Title Match: Tetsuya Naito (c) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi ****3/4

IWGP Heavyweight Title Match: Kazuchika Okada (c) vs. Kenny Omega *****

Photos:

New Japan did it again and hit it out of the park with another superb super show. This featured hugely entertaining undercard and three astounding matches. Things started fun but unspectacular with the pre-show six man and the opening eight man. Both of which were decent little outings where everyone got their spots in. The NEVER Six Man Gauntlet was vey rushed but really picked up with the final two teams. The CHAOS trio firstly eliminated the Bullet Clubbers when Yano school boy’d Yujiro, then almost immediately the Suzuki-gun gang took out the CHAOS guys when Sabre Jr. got a bridging cradle on Yano. Taguchi Japan was next and eliminated the Suzuki Army when Juice hit Pulp Friction on Taichi (how I cheered), though the gun put a beating on all three of them whilst LIJ made their entrance. That lead to the best part of the match and ended up saving what was up to then, a blur of spots and movement. Ricochet looked like he was nearly killed when he tried to catch a power bomb on SANADA during a tower superplex spot, but thankfully he seemed OK. There was a dramatic finish as Taguchi had the ankle lock sunk in on BUSHI, but SANADA locked on the Skull End, whilst the masked man hit the MX for the win to retain the belts.

The Young Bucks regained the Jr. tag straps for a sixth time in a great little match with RPG Vice. This told a similar story to their bout at WK11, in which the Jacksons isolated one member of the team (in this case Baretta) and got the heat forever. The finishing sequence was really good as the Vice hit Strong Zero on Matt, but Nick broke it up with a Swanton Bomb, leading to the Bucks each locking on Sharpshooters to Romero, after working his back the whole match, before hitting the Indytaker and getting the submission win with another Sharpshooter (and setting the tone for what was to come). The G.O.D. won the IWGP Heavy Tag belts from War Machine in a very good match. This started off great, but got a little shaky near the end. There were lots of good near falls and sequences, including Tonga hitting a Gun Stun out of Fall Out, before Roa nailed Rowe with a chair, leading to the Guerrilla Warfare finish. Cody beat Michael Elgin in a good encounter, which was Cody’s best NJPW outing yet. This featured the usual impressive power spots from Big Mike, but he was pinned after Cody escaped a second floor deadlift Falcon Arrow, and hit Cross Rhodes for the win. Whilst this was good, it by no means made Cody look like a worthy title contender. 

BOSJ winner KUSHIDA looked for revenge against Takahashi in a superb Junior Title contest, which told a great story and featured loads of really meaningful spots and sequences. This was just a war as KUSHIDA heeled it up here (and was audibly boo’d in the process) by trying to play the LIJ at their own game, coming out super aggressive from the off. The Challenger nearly killed the Champion when he sat Hiromu down on a chair over the barricade, then hit an incredible springboard dropkick off another chair. They laid into each other with forearms in intense sequences, KUSHIDA hit a great, Spanish Fly version of the Hoverboard Lock off the top, Takahashi did that horrible sunset flip out of the ring, and KUSHIDA hit Back To The Future off the middle rope again which saw both guys down. KUSHIDA then channeled his winning ways in the BOSJ, stomped Hiromu’s face in, and lock in a Hoverboard Lock to get the submission win. This was fantastic stuff and the best match of Hiromu’s reign in my opinion, which is saying something. KUSHIDA celebrated by starting another Mexican wave, but BUSHI ran in and gave him the dokukiri to set himself up as the next challenger, probably in Long Beach. Minoru Suzuki kept hold of the NEVER title in a wild Lumberjack Death Match. This featured some great brawling and submission work, and was never anything approaching boring. One of the highlights saw Suzuki slap Jushin Liger, who was on commentary, and Liger flipped out, throwing chairs and going crazy, all of which helped the wild, heated feel of the match. All of the Lumberjacks ended up in the ring and brawling around ringside, before YOSHI-HASHI wiped everyone out with a Tope Con Hilo. Goto hit the GTR for a sure win, but Taichi pulled the ref out and nailed a hard chair shot to Goto, allowing the “Ill-Natured Man” to lock in a choke and retain the belt with a Gotch Piledriver. YOSHI-HASHI attacked Suzuki and the rest of Suzuki-gun in the post match, setting him up as Suzuki’s next title challenger.

The Intercontinental Title Match was tremendous, and another MOTYC in a year in which there are already seemingly hundreds. The heat for this was incredible as Naito is very much despised by the Osaka faithful, and everyone loves themselves a High Fly Star. Tanahashi deserves special praise here as he pulled out all the stops, having a classic Tana Big Match, but with a torn biceps, which is remarkable really. The story telling here was wonderful, with the main story being; if Naito is going to target Tana’s injured arm, Tana is going to target Naito’s surgically repaired knee. Tanahashi attacked while Naito was making his entrance, furious at the way the champion has disgraced the belt. This was just an out and out fight that saw Naito bleeding from the right ear after Tanahashi started punching the hell out of him on the mat. Naito worked over Tana’s arm, which had an added intensity and believability because, you know, he really does have a torn biceps, and the stoppage teases were great. Despite the injury, Tanahashi hit all his trademark moves, including the HFF to the floor, and destroyed Naito’s knee with dragon screws. Naito dropped Tana on his head with a swinging DDT, then scored a close near fall with a swinging Destino off the second rope. Tanahashi fought back, hitting Sling Blades, then went up top, did the Shinsuke hand gestures and hit the High Fly Flow for a ridiculously close 2.99. Tana then locked in a deep Texas Cloverleaf, which he had on for what felt close to two minutes, before Naito tapped out, and Tanahashi rescued the title. The execution of the move was fantastic as when Tana first applied it, the crowd weren't buying it as a finish, but the way he cranked down on it and the way Naito masterfully sold the hold, they completely bought it and popped big once he submitted. This gives Tana his second IC reign but, as amazing as he was here, I really do worry about him as he seems to be falling apart these days, and matches like this are going to bring it about sooner rather than later.

Then the main event. This was an interesting match as, for the first half, I wasn't especially blown away by it. It didn't suck me in like the Tokyo Dome match in January did, and I was thinking it was a bit of a disappointment. However, it built, and it built, and it built, and by the end it was one of the most dramatic wrestling matches I've ever seen. On the whole I’d say it probably wasn't as good as the WK 11 match, but it was a completely different animal. This wasn't the big bumps and moves spectacle of their previous bout, instead it told a marvellous story and just had unreal drama. The main story arc being that Okada was the aggressor this time, going out of his way to finish Omega off and prove once and for all he's the best around. There were of course a lot of big spots; Okada hit a Tope con Hilo, Omega hit a gigantic Asai Moonsault, the Champion hit a nasty looking Heavy Rain on the ring apron, and top rope elbowed Kenny through a table on the floor. Okada hit a Rainmaker, then another, which caused the whole Bullet Club to come out. Cody teased throwing in the towel, but he was prevented by the Young Bucks. This fired Kenny up, who came back with a V-Trigger and a reverse Frankensteiner, to start his big comeback. Omega finally hits the One Winged Angel on Okada in a match, but Okada was too close to the ropes and got his foot on them at 2. Kenny made the gun hand gesture, but Oakda quickly recovered, grabbed his arm and hit a third Rainmaker as Osaka-Jo Hall went crazy. The final 10 minutes were unreal, and the drama built expertly with Okada countering everything Kenny did with a dropkick. Kenny tried another OWA, But Okada reversed it into a Tombstone, and goes for the Rainmaker yet again, however Kenny collapses as he tries to hit it, and both men fell to the mat. Okada then destroyed Omega with a dropkick and hit yet another Rainmaker, but was too exhausted to make the cover as the 60 minute time limit expired. This was so good, and as previously said, very different to the Dome match. There were a lot of callbacks and similar spots, but this one was all about the story and the drama. Hour broadways are difficult to do as they are the wrestling equivalent of a 3 hour epic movie; either you get bored and restless, or you are completely enveloped by the ensuing drama. In my opinion, this was definitely the latter. Backstage in the press section, Cody Rhodes, of all people, challenged Okada to a title match in Long Beach, which was accepted. I’m sure the match will probably be great, but I don't think Cody has necessarily had the best of builds to a title shot. All in all this was yet another brilliant super show from New Japan, perhaps even surpassing Wrestle Kingdom as Show Of The Year. Lets face facts, when it comes to these shows, New Japan just can't be touched.

NDT

[wrestlingisfake]

G1 Special in USA Day 2 preview

New Japan held back on the full card until we knew who was advancing in the US title tournament, so several of these matches have only just been announced.  This show will air live tonight at 8pm EDT on NJPWworld.com, and I think it’s supposed to air in its entirety on AXS next week.

Kenny Omega or Jay Lethal vs. Tomohiro Ishii or Zack Sabre Jr. - This is a tournament final, with the winners of the two semifinal matches earlier in the card.  Whoever wins here will become the first IWGP United States champion.

All things being equal, this match comes down to political factors.  Supposedly New Japan wants the US champion to regularly defend the title at Ring of Honor events in the States.  Sabre probably can’t do that due to his commitments with EVOLVE.  Lethal could, but with his rib injury angle it’s going to be awkward to put him over Kenny Omega without some shenanigans.  Omega has done little if any work in ROH lately, but if the plan is for him to feud with Cody over control of the Bullet Club, it would make a lot of sense for him to do more US stuff.  NJPW could easily spare Ishii from the Japanese schedule to appear on more ROH shows, but there’s no way to know if the company really sees him as the best face to put on their American expansion movement.

Of course, it’s possible the winner of this tournament will simply drop the title in short order to someone else better suited to New Japan’s plans for the rest of the year.  Cody would make a lot of sense as US champion in many ways, and if he’s going to rain on one of these guys’ parade, Omega would make the most sense.  Then again, Cody could simply interfere in this match to cost Omega the title.

It would be easier to pick a winner if the semifinals had already been completed, but based on what we know now I have to figure Omega beats Ishii to win the title.  It’s the best main event for this show, and it sets the stage for Kenny to deal with internal Bullet Club stuff for a while before he gets back to chasing Okada’s title.  It’s Omega’s tournament to lose, and until a reason pops up for him to lose I gotta bank on him.

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Billy Gunn - Tanahashi is defending the IWGP intercontinental championship.  This is basically equivalent to what it would be like if John Cena went to Japan in 2017 to defend a title against the fake NWO Sting.

I kinda know what to expect from a Tanahashi match when he’s up against guys like Okada, Nakamura, Omega, AJ Styles, and Naito.  Billy is...not like any of them.  He was a big tall “hoss” in the 1990s, who slid by in the Attitude Era by being the butt of ass jokes and Jim Ross’s line about him being the “best pure athelete in the WWF.”  He’s likeable enough and maybe worth having in your undercards, but he’s not going to suddenly get super-good and deliver the kind of match you’d expect from a Japanese promotion’s semi-main event.

(Fun fact: Billy Gunn was born two weeks before the Kennedy assassination.)

I could knock New Japan for misreading what will appeal to American audiences, but as a fan I’m looking forward to this trainwreck simply because I’ve never seen anything like it in New Japan.  The spectacle of Tana trying to figure out what to do with this guy should be worth it.  And to be honest, with Tanahashi’s biceps all messed up, I don’t really want him working a 30-minute classic against a strong-style guy.  Let the poor guy take it easy doing a short, three-star match against an old man who’ll just toss him around a little.

It’s an outside possibility that Gunn could actually capture the title, if only to shock the world and then drop it to someone else next month.  But let’s face it, Tanahashi is going to win this thing.

Kazuchika Okada & Will Ospreay & Jay Briscoe & Mark Briscoe vs. Cody Rhodes & Bad Luck Fale & Marty Scurrl & Yujiro Takahashi - If this feels like an amalgam of two matches from last night, that’s because it is.  It’s a standard pattern for New Japan to take the big matches from the night before and remix them into the undercard tag matches.  They don’t want to wear out Okada and Cody, but if they sent them home some fans wouldn’t get to see them live on the second show, so this way they appear on the show without having to work as hard.

At Dominion we saw Cody come out (with most of Bullet Club behind him) trying to throw in the towel to stop Kenny Omega’s title match.  Last night we saw Omega (with none of the Bullet Club behind him) trying to throw in the towel to stop Cody’s title match.  Both times, the Young Bucks tried to oppose the towel-throwing, suggesting they’ll be the peacemakers in this issue.  The question is whether the rest of Bullet Club has already quietly taken Cody’s side, and we might get some signs of that here.  Mostly, though, I expect Okada will pick up another win here, to remind the US audience that he’s the top guy doing top guy things and such.

Nick Jackson & Matt Jackson vs. Rocky Romero & Trent Beretta - The Young Bucks (Nick and Matt) won the IWGP junior tag team title from Roppongi Vice (Romero and Beretta) a couple of weeks ago, so this is the rematch.  I feel like I’ve written that about 300 times in the last couple of years.

Look, gimme a break.  I could lay out this match in my sleep by now.  The Bucks act like prima donnas, they cut off the ring and isolate one of the faces, every time RPG mounts a comeback the Bucks magically pop up and do a bunch of superkicks and indytakers, which don’t keep anybody down for long because the Bucks’ gimmick might as well be that their fancy moves don’t work, and you can really just skip to the last two minutes of the match because nothing that happens before that will matter.

The Long Beach crowd is super into Bullet Club so the Bucks will probably retain for the big pop.

Raymond Rowe & Hanson & Michael Elgin vs. Tama Tonga & Tanga Roa & Hangman Page - War Machine (Rowe/Hanson) won the IWGP heavyweight tag title from the Guerillas of Destiny (Tonga/Roa) last night.  Elgin and Page were both eliminated from the US title tournament last night.  So this is something for all of them to do.  Page is the lowest guy in this match, and that’s probably enough to ensure that he loses the match for his team.

Tetusya Naito & Hiromu Takahahsi & EVIL & BUSHI & SANADA vs. Juice Robinson & Jay White & Dragon Lee & Voldaor Jr. & Titan - I was kinda hoping Evil/Bushi/Sanada would defend their trios championship here, but I guess someone wanted all five members of Los Ingobernables de Japon in one match.  This is basically a retread of last night’s LIJ eight-man match, but with Naito and Juice added, since they were knocked out of the US title tournament.  LIJ will almost certainly get the win, unless maybe they want to set up a Naito feud with Juice or something, but they probably don’t.

Tomohiro Ishii vs. Zack Sabre Jr. - This is one of the semifinals in the US championship tournament.  Ishii is all about strong style and close-range clubbering; Sabre is all about chain wrestling and fancy, low-impact submission wrestling.  It’s tough to imagine how this is going to go, but it should be interesting.  I think Ishii will win.

Kenny Omega vs. Jay Lethal - The other semifinal in the US tournament.  Last night Lethal was selling his rib injury angle from ROH, and it became very clear that about 90% of his moveset involves landing on those ribs.  It’s one thing for Hangman Page to job to Lethal in that condition, but it’d be idiotic to have Omega lose clean to an injured and exhausted Lethal.  Unless Cody comes out and starts some shit with Omega, there is zero chance of Kenny losing here.

KUSHIDA & Jushin Thunder Liger & David Finlay vs. Yoshitatsu & Sho Tanaka & Yohei Komatsu - Same match we saw last night, minus Tanahashi and Gunn.  There’s even less reason for Kushida’s team to lose this time.

[wrestlingisfake]

Dominion preview

Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega - This is for the IWGP heavyweight championship.  Omega challenged Okada for the title at Wrestle Kingdom 11 back in January, and came up short in a 46-minute epic.  I think almost everybody who saw the first Okada/Omega match enjoyed the hell out of it.  Dave Meltzer thought it was so far beyond anything he’d seen that he literally gave it six stars out of five.  So there’s been demand for a rematch since the moment the first match ended, and a whole lot of hype to live up to.

I want to avoid kissing the ass of the first match, except to say that it turned me on to Okada, which is extremely impressive.  Before I thought he was New Japan’s Randy Orton, in that I find Randy Orton dull as shit.  I can’t even imagine seeing an Orton match in 2017 that’s so good I become an Orton fan, but that’s what Okada/Omega I pulled off.  I wanted Kenny to run rings around that wet blanket and have a star-defining performance, but Okada held his own and played the role of a champion who won’t let a great challenger walk over him.

It’s unlikely this match will get the unreserved adulation of the first.  A lot of people are going to be scrutinizing this, including people who thought everybody made too much out of the first match.  My advice is to not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  Okada has been having a really good run of title matches for the past year, so it’s best to anticipate another really good match instead of some insanely godlike match.

Everybody is expecting Omega to finally win the title, but we all expected that last time.  The key seed Omega planted for the rematch is that he never actually hit his finisher on Okada, so we still don’t know if that will make the difference.  In theory, the Canadian Omega would be a better ambassador for the California tour in July than the Japanese Okada, so that sounds like a reason to do a title change.  But honestly, at this point I take Okada seriously as a world-class global champion, and if he beats Omega again, I think everyone will.

I don’t know who’s going to win.  I kinda don’t care.  I just gotta see this match.  Even if they fuck it up and let everyone down, that’s going to be huge news, and I’d want to see the trainwreck.  But I’m willing to bet they do pretty damn well.

Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi - Tanahashi is challenging for the IWGP intercontinental title. 

This is Tanahashi’s first big match since he was pulled off the road on May 18 due to a torn right biceps.  He didn’t get surgery, and he hasn’t had nearly enough downtime to let the tear heal on its own (if that’s even possible with such a severe rupture).  It is a short-sighted mistake to not scrap this match, and I think it’ll be tough to watch just like when Rey Mysterio did something like this in 2008.  I’m not a fan of this.

What really scares me is the thought that Tana and New Japan expect that he can gut his way through entire G1 Climax tournament (July 17-August 13).  Ideally, a big injury angle will cut this match short and send him home for (at least) the rest of the year.  But the circumstances of the storyline may work against that idea.  Since winning the intercontinental championship, Naito has abused the belt to the point that it is literally falling apart.  The angle is clearly that Tanahashi has to win the title if only to save the title belt.  Having him fail–even due to a legit injury–really screws up the storytelling, which may be half the reason there’s so much pressure for him to make the date.

This is probably not going to be fun at all.  I’d like to think a Naito win and a big Tanahashi beatdown are assured, but I can’t rule out the possibility that Tanahashi wins the title and pretends to have two working arms for the rest of the summer.

Minoru Suzuki vs. Hirooki Goto - Goto lost the NEVER openweight title to Suzuki in April, so this is the rematch.  It’s a lumberjack match, so the ring will be surrounded by wrestlers to prevent either participant from going out to the floor. 

I haven’t seen this stated anywhere, but I presume the lumberjacks will be Goto’s teammates in CHAOS and Suzuki’s henchmen in Suzuki-gun.  The entire Suzuki-gun stable is notorious for turning matches into brawls outside the ring, so hypothetically lumberjack rules would help maintain order.  In practice, though, this just means more guys are going to be at ringside when Suzuki-gun inevitably starts a fight.  The fight may be more fair, but it’s bound to happen and color this match.  That works in Suzuki’s favor, so I’m pretty sure Goto is fucked.

Hiromu Takahashi vs. KUSHIDA - Last week Kushida won the Best of the Super Juniors tournament to earn the right to challenge Takahashi for the IWGP junior heavyweight championship.  It’s a necessary first step towards redemption after Kushida was absolutely spanked in a humiliating two-minute loss to Takahashi back in April.  To fully recover, he absolutely needs a title win here–not a 25-minute back-and-forth loss, not a tie, not a moral victory, but a championship.  Whether he gets it or not remains to be seen.  They wouldn’t have booked that squash match if they weren’t super-serious about Hiromu, so they may be so super-serious that they’ll just totally throw Kushida under the bus for him.  It’s hard to bet against Takahashi right now.

Michael Elgin vs. Cody Rhodes - Cody has been riding the wave of his dramatic departure from WWE and whirlwind tour through every other promotion.  But the honeymoon is nearly over and I can’t see him coasting much further on a “hottest free agent in wrestling” gimmick.  His matches need to start being about what he’s doing now, not where he’s been and who he’s related to.  He seems to have settled into Ring of Honor and New Japan as a member of Bullet Club, but I haven’t seen his work since his first NJPW match in January, so I’m eager to see what he’s got.  Elgin is his toughest opponent yet in New Japan, and a win here would probably mean that he’s moving up to bigger things.  I figure both guys will be eligible for the G1 no matter who wins this, but a victory for Cody probably means a championship match later this year.  I’m going with Rhodes to win.

Raymond Rowe & Hanson vs. Tama Tonga & Tanga Roa - Rowe and Hanson are War Machine–the defending IWGP heavyweight tag team champions–and Tonga and Roa are the Guerillas of Destiny.  Both teams are the kind of stuff you can’t get in WWE, which is good.  Imagine the Ascension if anybody gave a shit and the Usos if they looked like they would murder you.  War Machine in particular has freshened up the roster, since the New Japan fans love big monster teams but haven’t really had one in a while.  I’m pulling for Rowe and Hanson to retain and get some of the momentum that gave Michael Elgin a boost a couple of years ago.

Trent Beretta & Rocky Romero vs. Nick Jackson & Matt Jackson - Beretta and Romero–Roppongi Vice–are defending the IWGP junior heavyweight tag team title.  The Young Bucks are the ROH tag team champions, but that isn’t on the line.  These two teams have held the junior tag title for 550 of the last 850 days, and I’m getting a little tired of seeing them trade off.  I assume the Bucks win to keep the feud going perpetually.

5-Team Gauntlet Match - The NEVER openweight six-man tag team championship is at stake, with these five trios competing for it:

SANADA & EVIL & BUSHI (the defending champions, from Los Ingobernables de Japon)

Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano & YOSHI-HASHI (from CHAOS)

Ryusuke Taguchi & Juice Robinson & Ricochet (from Taguchi Japan)

Bad Luck Fale & Yujiro Takahashi & Hangman Page (from Bullet Club)

Zack Sabre, Jr. & Taichi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru (from Suzuki-gun)

“Taguchi Japan” is kind of a made-up faction, where Taguchi has been feuding with LIJ and doing a spoof of them with any of the non-aligned babyfaces that want to team up with him.  He’s actually won the six-man title from LIJ a couple of times this year, although that was with teams that featured Tanahashi.

The rules for this match haven’t been made clear (or at least, not in English), but I assume it’ll be like the gauntlet match at Wrestle Kingdom 11: Two teams start, whichever team scores a fall goes on to face the next team, and so on until only one team is left.  The order of entry may or may not be random, so I don’t know if the champions are guaranteed to get the last spot, which would be a massive advantage.

You’ve got three heel stables in this match, and the two face teams feature  Yano and Taguchi, so I’m expecting a lot of shenanigans.  I’m kinda thinking excessive shenanigans favors Suzuki-gun, and a win for them would help put Sabre on the map.  Then again it’s the NEVER six-man title so it sort of doesn’t matter who has it.  But this is the doorknob of New Japan, and everybody gets a turn, so a title change is all but assured.

Togi Makabe & Yuji Nagata & Tiger Mask W & Tiger Mask IV vs. Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Jushin Thunder Liger & Manabu Nakanishi - This is your standard undercard eight-man tag match.  Not much to analyze here except that Kojima has been doing homage spots for Tomoaki Honma (who was injured in March), which might get awkward when Honma’s partner Makabe is on the opposite team.  Liger just finished up an emotional final run in the Super Juniors tournament, so it’d be nice if he picked up the win here.

David Finlay & Tomoyuki Oka & Syota Unimo vs. Katusya Kitamura & Hirai Kawato & Tetsuhiro Yagi - They’ve basically put all the rookies in this pre-show match.  Finlay stopped being a Young Lion last year, but he still has to sit at the kids’ table.  Pretty sure that’s enough to ensure victory for his team.

[wrestlingisfake]

Wrestle Kingdom 11 preview

This is the 26th annual wrestling show on January 4th in the Tokyo Dome, and the 11th to be called Wrestle Kingdom.  The show airs Wednesday evening at 5pm Japan time, so Americans get to pull an all-nighter Tuesday night and Europe will have to skip work Wednesday morning.  Or you could just watch it on demand on njpwworld.com, whatever.

Kazuchika Okada vs. Kenny Omega - Okada is defending the IWGP heavyweight title, which is essentially the world championship of New Japan Pro Wrestling.  To qualify for this match, Omega won the G1 Climax tournament, becoming the first non-Japanese man to ever do so.

It’s been a big year for Omega, who stepped out of the junior heavyweight division to help fill the void left when AJ Styles, Shinsuke Nakamura, Karl Anderson, and Luke Gallows went to WWE.  In short order, Omega turfed out Styles, took over Bullet Club, and then beat Hiroshi Tanahashi for the vacant intercontinental title.  He dropped the belt in a ladder match that really put over Michael Elgin, and then delivered a top-notch performance in the G1.  Omega can’t replace any of the four guys who jumped to WWE, but he has unquestionably filled the role of “main event foreigner” left behind by Styles.  He’s on the rise, and it’s probably time to pull the trigger.

Okada spent most of 2012-2015 under Tanahashi’s shadow, but this year there’s been a clear effort to establish him as THE guy while de-emphasizing Tana.  It’s tough to say that has worked.  There’s still a feeling that Okada is overpushed, especially when you look at how he dropped the title to Tetsuya Naito earlier this year and then quickly regained it in spite of Naito’s obvious popularity.  With that in mind, it’s hard to say whether Okada will go over here, but it’s also hard to say if that’s because putting him over is such a great idea.

Since they’d been in separate weight classes, Omega and Okada hadn’t really crossed paths until this year, and they haven’t wrestled much beyond some tag matches here and there.  So I’m hoping this match will feel fresh and innovative, and that it can hold my attention after five hours of the rest of the card.

It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if Okada retains, but it would be the most boring thing they can do here.  It would be a pretty big moment if Omega climbs all the way to the top of the mountain and captures the title at this, the biggest show in Japan.  I don’t know what Omega as champion would mean, but I’ve seen plenty of Okada as champion and I know that doesn’t turn my crank.  So even though Kenny is bound to be doing annoying “I am a smark nerd heel so I will heel on you now” stuff, I’ll be pulling for him.

Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi - Tanahashi is challenging for the IWGP intercontinental championship.  He was supposed to feud with Omega for this title back in the summer, but an injury sidelined him and Michael Elgin took his place.  Elgin won the belt and eventually lost it to Naito, and now Elgin’s the one who’s hurt.  So I don’t know if this match is about Tana filling in for a planned Naito/Elgin match, or if it’s about finally getting back to that IC title shot he missed a few months ago.

This is far and away the clearest good guy vs. bad guy match on the card.  Tanahashi a beloved hero to all, like WWE wishes John Cena was; Naito is a total jerkwad, the leader of the sinister Los Ingobernables de Japon.  New Japan fans have started to like Naito as a “cool heel,” but I don’t know if that goes as far as turning against Tanahashi.  This could end up having a Cena vs. CM Punk vibe to it.

The best move, I think, would be for Omega and Naito to both go over at this show, and spend 2017 building to a big showdown between them and their respective stables.  (I guess one has to turn face, but I don’t care which.)  I think most American promotions would jump at the chance to do that, but NJPW strikes me as being more conservative with their booking, and more protective of their franchise players.  It would make a big statement to job Tanahashi and Okada on a January 4 show, but it’s not the kind of statement I’d expect.  And since I’m expecting Omega to go over, I’ll predict they play it safe with Tanahashi here.

Katsuyori Shibata vs. Hirooki Goto - Shibata is the defending NEVER openweight champion.  These two seem to always seem to be just a step below the real top guys, so you can think of this as the Dolph Ziggler vs. The Miz of New Japan.  They’re always fighting, except sometimes they’re on the same side, and neither of them ever gets ahead long enough to do anything more important.  The main thing these guys have over Dolph and Miz is that they seem like genuine ass-kickers who will beat the fuck out of you, rather than two extras from an 80s movie about challenging the preppies in a sports thing.

I keep thinking they’re about to push Goto any day now, but they always seem to stop short of actually doing it.  So, ennh, Shibata wins.

KUSHIDA vs. Hiromu Takahashi - Kushida had just recaptured the IWGP junior heavyweight title when Takahashi made his high-profile return to New Japan and…uh, licked the belt, so now they gotta fight over it.  Kushida’s a good dude but it’s pretty obvious he’s gotta lose here.  New guy wins.

Tama Tonga & Tanga Roa vs. Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma vs. Toru Yano & Tomohiro Ishii - The Guerillas of Destiny (Tonga & Roa) are defending the IWGP heavyweight tag team championship.  GBH (Makabe/Honma) earned this title shot by winning the 2016 World Tag League tournament.  Yano just sort of wandered back from Pro Wrestling NOAH to add himself to the match, naming Ishii as his partner.

I’m not sure I’ve ever even seen New Japan do a three-way match, so I don’t know if this is like WWE’s triple threat rules (anything goes, first to score a fall wins it all) or if it’s elimination style or gauntlet style or whatever.   I have absolutely no idea why they’d add Yano/Ishii to this match except to book some wacky swerve, but that isn’t really New Japan’s style.  Then again, it’s totally Yano’s style, so maybe.  Certainly if Yano steals a win it sets up months of programs with the other two teams chasing them.  So, uh, sure, Yano and Ishii win the titles.

Kyle O’Reilly vs. Adam Cole - O’Reilly just won the Ring of Honor world title from Cole at Final Battle, so this is the rematch.  I haven’t been keeping up with ROH but I like that this is the continuation of a major program from ROH storylines, rather than just throwing two random guys out there for a midcard match.  Like, the only things I even know about O’Reilly are a) he’s best friends with that hipster guy with the mouthpiece and b) he and Adam Cole want to murder each other.  The last O’Reilly/Cole title match involved thumbtacks, I believe, so hopefully this will be similarly intense.  I always root for the ROH title to change hands at the Tokyo Dome, but I don’t think they put the title on O’Reilly just to move it back after like a month.  O’Reilly wins.

Nick Jackson & Matt Jackson vs. Rocky Romero & Trent Baretta - This is for the IWGP junior heavyweight tag team championship.  Roppongi Vice (Romero & Baretta) issued the challenge for this match right after winning the Junior Tag League tournament, and the Young Bucks (Nick & Matt) accepted.  I think this is about the 47th time these teams have faced each other for these titles, but I can’t remember the last time it was two-on-two.  Usually junior tag title matches end up being clusterfucks with reDragon and Ricochet/Sydal in the mix.

I like RPG Vice because Rocky is a cool dude and Baretta is like his goofball friend that eats McGriddles from Japanese McDonald’s super-early in the morning.  The Bucks are like that guy you know who thinks a joke stops being funny if you keep repeating it but then it turns around and becomes even funnier if you repeat it even more.  I’ve seen enough Bucks matches to know how this one is gonna go.  I’d like for Baretta and Romero to win, but the Bucks have become (for better or worse) a cornerstone of counter-WWE major league wrestling, so it’s like hoping Harlem Heat or the Steiners will beat Hall & Nash.  The title stays with Bullet Club.

Satoshi Kojima & Ricochet & David Finlay vs. EVIL & SANADA & BUSHI vs. Bad Luck Fale & Hangman Page & Yuriko Takahashi vs. YOSHI-HASHI & Will Ospreay & Jado - Kojima’s team is defending the NEVER openweight six-man tag team championship.  The other trios represent the three major stables in New Japan–Evil’s team is from Los Ingobernables de Japon, Fale’s team is from Bullet Club, and Yoshi’s team is from Chaos.  (Jado is replacing Tomohiro Ishii, who was booked for this before being moved to the IWGP tag title match.)

This is a gauntlet match similar to WWE’s “tag team turmoil.”  Two teams have a match, and whichever team wins advances to another match with the third team; whoever wins the second match goes on to a final match against the fourth team.  The winners of the last match will get/keep the championship.  The order of entry in this match hasn’t been announced, except that reportedly the defending champions will enter last, giving them an enormous advantage.

This trios title is kind of a hot potato in New Japan–I get the feeling they don’t like to hot-shot the IWGP championships, but with this one they feel more free to book some crowd-pleasing title changes.  Kojima and Ricochet won the belts back in July with Matt Sydal, but when Sydal was busted for pot they had to vacate and re-capture the championship with David Finlay.  In the process, Finlay got to suddenly step up from a curtain jerker “young boy” to a genuine undercard guy, so that’s kinda neat.  But it’s been about six months with more or less the same team on top, so it’s probably time for a change.

Assuming we get a title change, the outcome may help indicate which stable will be dominant in 2017.   I think there are big things coming for Yoshi and Ospreay, but if Chaos were slated to win I don’t think they’d have swapped Ishii for Jado.  A Bullet Club win could reinforce the idea that Omega is rebuilding the faction, after a couple of years where everyone thought they had run their course.  On the other hand, LIJ is in a position to possibly have all five members holding gold by the end of the night, which would indicate that they’re still the hot new thing and Bullet Club will have to fight to not be yesterday’s news.  I’m liking that last scenario best, so I’ll go with LIJ.

Cody Rhodes vs. Juice Robinson - Cody recently left WWE to begin a whirlwind tour of many wrestling promotions.  As of this show, he’ll be the first man to appear at WWE’s Wrestlemania, PWG’s Battle of Los Angeles, TNA’s Bound for Glory, ROH’s Final Battle, and Wrestle Kingdom in a single year.  Juice, better known to NXT fans as CJ Parker, left WWE a couple of years ago and has been working his way up the card in New Japan.  But he’s still little better than a prelim guy, and that makes him the kind of guy they’d feed to a debuting star.

Both guys have a lot to prove, so this should be interesting.  For one thing, I’m curious to see if Juice’s act holds up when he’s in there with another white guy his size that’s a bigger name than he is.  He stands out among New Japan midcarders, but against Cody he may look more like WWE dark match material.  Cody, meanwhile, is just starting to turn heel as a member of Bullet Club, and it’s not clear what his “American Nightmare” character is going to be, or how it’ll stack up with gimmicks like Dashing Cody, Masked Cody, Mustache Cody, and Stardust.

It’s pretty obvious Cody wins here, but I’m more concerned with both guys showing something on this big of a stage.  Can’t I just bet that all the horses have a good time?

New Japan Rumble - This is part of the pre-show.  It’s a gauntlet match where wrestlers enter at one-minute intervals, similar to WWE’s Royal Rumble except that eliminations occur by pinfall or submission.  This mainly exists to ensure everybody on the roster that isn’t otherwise booked (like Hiroyoshi Tenzan or Yoshitatsu) gets to be on the show, and usually there are some old-timers brought in for surprise appearances.  One time Haku showed up.

One possible wrinkle that could make this interesting is the working relationship between New Japan and Pro Wrestling NOAH.  There are a bunch of New Japan names (like the entire Suzukigun stable) that have been supplementing the NOAH roster for years, but with NOAH recently being sold it’s possible they’re all about to come back.  Also, a lot of the usual NJPW/ROH names (reDragon, the Briscoes, Michael Elgin) are notably absent from the card, so they might pop in here.  In any event, the outcome of the match probably won’t matter beyond whatever comedy spot they think of to blow it off.

Tiger Mask W vs. Tiger the Dark - Another pre-show match, to promote the new Tiger Mask W cartoon.  New Japan has a guy wrestling as Tiger Mask IV in prelim matches, but W is a new iteration of the gimmick.  Similarly, Dark is a modern take on Tiger Mask’s archenemy Black Tiger.  Dave Meltzer believes Kota Ibushi will be playing W (he has before) and Ring of Honor’s ACH will be playing Tiger the Dark, but I assume NJPW isn’t terribly picky who they stick under the masks.

The last time I saw Ibushi wrestling in the Tiger Mask W gimmick, he had a much more realistic mask than previous Tiger Masks, which didn’t look easy to breathe through.  That could affect match quality, but then again they might have tweaked the design a little for this show.  I assume W has to win because he’s a superhero and stuff, but Dark looks pretty tough so ya never know.