#new year dash 2024

[gracies-dzienny]

[puroresu-musings]

NJPW NEW YEAR DASH!! 2024 Review (Jan 5th, Sumida Ward Gymnasium, Tokyo)

NJPW World TV Championship - Hiroshi Tanahashi (c) vs. Ryusuke Taguchi **1/2

Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI vs. Kaito Kiyomiya & Ryohei Oiwa ***

El Phantasmo & Hikuleo vs. Yuto Nakashima & Oskar Leube **1/2

Tama Tonga, Shota Umino, El Desperado, Master Wato, Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma vs. EVIL, Ren Narita, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, SHO, Yujiro Takahashi & Dick Togo *1/2

Will Ospreay, Jeff Cobb, HENARE, TJP & Frencesco Akira vs. David Finlay, Gabe Kidd, Alex Coughlin, Clark Conners & Drilla Moloney ****

Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi, Yota Tsuji, Hiromu Takahashi & BUSHI vs. SANADA, Taichi, Yuya Uemura, DOUKI & TAKA Michinku **1/4

KOPW 2024 Championship ~ Pinfall Only 10 Minute Sprint - Toru Yano vs. Great-O-Khan vs. YOH vs. Taiji Ishimori *1/2

Kazuchika Okada, Bryan Danielson, Jon Moxley & Tomohiro Ishii vs. Zack Sabre Jr., Mikey Nicholls, Shane Haste & Kosei Fujita ***3/4

Photos.

This was your typically fun, brisk NEW YEAR DASH!! show, that was as always was more about the angles and story progressions into the year ahead (or indeed, lack there of) as opposed to great matches or anything. Debuting in the Sumida Ward Gym, the show was a mystery card, with the matches only becoming apparent once the participants entered. Things kicked off with Tanahashi defending the World TV Title against Ryusuke Taguchi, in an inoffensive, but totally superfluous opener. It only went 5:40, and was pretty much all your typical Taguchi comedy bout, which Tana obviously won with a cradle. The post match was eventful as a video aired of none other than Matt Riddle challenging Tanahashi, so that's certainly an interesting development. Tana claimed to have no idea who Riddle was. Next up, NOAH Ace Kiyomiya and NJ Young Lion Oiwa put in a losing effort against former tag champs Bishamon. This was a nice little match which saw Goto pin Oiwa after the Shoto in 7:40.

The next outing was Young Lion's Nakashima and Leube's official last match before their excursion. They took on the new Tag Champs, ELP and Hikuleo in a standard tag match. Phantasmo pinned Yuto at the 8 minute mark with Thunder Kiss 86. After bidding the Young Lions farewell, Chase Owens attacked the champions, and announced himself and KENTA as their next challengers. Fab. It was 12 man tag action next as the entire House of Torture took on the New Japan Babyface All-Stars. This was pretty bad, and devolved into the usual HoT nonsense. Umino pinned Togo in 8 minutes after a Death Rider, then the heels beat everyone down in the post match. Narita focussed on Shota, so their feud continues, Kanemaru laid out Despy with a whiskey bottle, so there's his next Jr. Title challenger, and EVIL laid out Tama, cut his hair, and posed with the NEVER Title, which he then stole. I can't possibly pretend that any of these pairings interest me in the slightest, but if there's one positive, it's that at least EVIL isn't anywhere near the main event scene.

United Empire battled the Bullet Club War Dogs next in a 10 man. This was all excellent. The match itself only went 5:10, but it was all-action and super intense; they brawled around the building, Akira hit a balcony dive, Connors Speared and beatdown the referee, Gabe Kidd juiced a gusher after hitting the exposed buckles, the War Dogs all threw chairs and guardrails from the crowd into the ring, and the match was thrown out, ruled a No Contest. There was a crazy post-match beatdown, which included the heels trying to gouge Akira's eye out with a metal object, and he juiced too. Just when it looked like they were done, the UE fought back and cleared house, only for Gedo to blindside Ospreay with a lowblow. They were about to take him out when TJP made the save by Misting Finlay, and Ospreay hit Gedo with a running Powerbomb through an upright table in the corner. Ospreay then said his last night in New Japan is New Beginning in Osaka on February 11th, and challenged all 5 guys to 10 man war fare, and he'd let Finlay choose the stipulation. The new Global Champion chose a Cage Match, so that should be outstanding stuff. This was the highlight of the show by far.

LIJ and Just Five Guys faced off next in a total House Show affair. It wasn't bad, but certainly wasn't good, and the post match didn't fill me with much excitement. TAKA scored his first win in maybe 15 years when he pinned BUSHI with a Michinoku Driver II at 8:47. The post match saw SANADA challenge Naito to a rematch (meh). I'd much rather someone else challenge for the World Heavyweight belt at this point, maybe even Taichi, but this was the inevitable issue with putting the belt back on Naito. There just aren't many/any fresh matches for him. The 2024 KOPW Champion was decided in the next match, which was a pinfalls only 10 minute sprint. This sucked, the crowd was dead, the action uninspired and even though it only went 10 minutes, it felt 30. After O-Khan pinned everyone, Ishimori snuck in, stole a pin, then ran away to beat the clock and win the Championship. Whatever. I think this belt is way past its Use By date now.

And then it was main event time, as the Dream Team of Okada, Ishii, Mox and Danielson took on the TMDK guys. This was lots of fun, everyone looked great and all the individual stories made for a compelling watch. Ishii tore the house down every time he got in there, and Danielson and ZSJ's exchanges were the best wrestling on the show. Obviously. The finish saw Haste and Nicholls put Ishii away with the Tank Buster whilst Sabre had Danielson tied up in a Manjigatame at the 13:50 mark. The post match saw Zack challenge Danielson (now THAT'S a rematch I can get behind!), with both guys promising to tap each other out (despite all the talk of submissions, their last match ended in a pinfall), then Fujita said he, Nicholls and Haste were next for the NEVER 6 Man Titles. Okada was very annoyed at this, saying Fujita was in no way ready to face him, then they stared down Tanahashi on commentary to end and eventful show.

NDT

[applesartt]

Happy New Year 🥳

[allelitewrestlings]

BLACKPOOL CHAOS CLUB • njpw new year dash!! 2024

[rennarita]

[patchoulol]

[thewhimsyturtle]

🎉🎩🐢  Happy New Year!   🥳🎊

Wishing you all a deliciously sparkling 2024!  ✨🥂🍾

[kopw]

📷: hm_njpw_picture

[checkered-egg]

new years :)

[spiderwarden]

A Wonderful Happy New Year of 2024 to ALL! Whether it has happened yet, or has not! Here is to you! - From Minthara and I, both!

[thatoneluckybee]

Did you enjoy the keisou mpreg

I haven't had the chance to read it yet (hyperfocus killed me yesterday and I am NOT READING THAT ON SCHOOL WIFI) but trust me. I am going to. I am going to read all 30k+ words of this.

[transmascnepetaleijon]

i feel like one day ill be 37 sitting in my studio with no ideas on what to draw and will think "hmmm. ill just draw men" and start sketching, and then when im finished ill look at the paper and dave strider will be there staring right back at me

[amaurotine]

new rule: every time the localization team gives a blatantly incorrect translation that makes the english story vastly different to the original jp story, or the devs say utterly nonsensical shit that contridicts lore they literally just wrote, i resurrect an npc they've killed and write them 100x better :o)

[stingslikeabee]

tag nine people you'd like to know better

I. favourite colours: black, blue and silver used to be it, but these days I'm more over shades of green, purple and more colorful stuff in general? I think turquoise is my current favorite.

II. favourite flavours: warm spices! I love cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves. I also really enjoy paprika on the savory side of things, which made living in the Netherlands easier for me, haha.

III. favourite genres: pretty open question here - but I really enjoy sci-fi and fantasy for mostly everything (videogames, movies, books, shows) while my music style is mostly rock-based but with so many crazy pop varieties.

IV. favourite music: my favorite bands are all Japanese (GLAY, LUNA SEA and BUCK-TICK are my top 3, and I'm still processing the loss of Sakurai Atsushi, really). But a look at my Spotify wrapped will tell you that I can listen to mostly everything, particularly if ship-inspired. Some artists I've been listening to a lot lately have been Gabriel o Pensador and Gloria Groove.

V. favourite movies: Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl.

VI. favourite series: Star Trek (TNG and SNW are my favorites!), Doctor Who, Community, Penny Dreadful (the original one with Eva Green), Brooklyn 99, The Good Place.

VII. last song: 'Até Quando?', by Gabriel o Pensador.

VIII. last series: 'The Continental'. Wanted more lore than fighting scenes but it still made me write up an entire verse, haha.

IX. last movie: 'Saltburn' - I watched it with Dawn aka my bestie and we had very similar reactions to it. Very pretty aesthetic-wise, weird (lazy?) choices for plots and often uncomfortable to sit through.

X. currently reading: nothing that is not work-related, I really should pick up this hobby again as I used to.

XI. currently watching: I am currently obsessed over 'Beef' - I started it because of Ali Wong but damn. Daaaaamn. This show is like an incredibly well-directed trainwreck and I'm hooked, not gonna lie.

XII. currently working on: new routines, mostly exercising! I really want to be healthier in this next year.

tagged by: @drippingheart (although the tags did make this post vanish for a while, hehe~) tagging: instead of tagging nine people I'm just going to pester a few mutuals who have been online lately such as @hisroyalmagnificence . @desiccation . @lnsknndy . @holyguardian . @cybrvce & you!

[allelitewrestlings]

Jon Moxley • NEW YEAR DASH!! 2024 backstage comments – photos by IssitaMarie on Twitter

[rennarita]

for @elphantasmo