Jmare007

I'm legit surprised it's not a meme yet. Missed the middle portion of the match, really want to rewatch it because what I saw was real good.

Welp

Was only able to catch the Q&A early section and it was really informative, so seemed pretty good to me. Your mic sounded really low though and with some eco., I fast forwarded to the later parts of the podcast and it sounded better when you were talking to Kristen and Warren. Looking forward to catching up with the rest and more episodes as the project moves along.

Doesn't it make the promo any better to me though.

Yeah, for them to compensate losing the deathmatch division they would have to spend some real money in a couple of wrestlers that could draw at least decently. And I'm pretty sure Big Japan doesn't have the kind of money needed to pull that kind of move off. If they would only run with non-deathmatch stuff, it would be interesting to see if they would do worse than Zero-One. If that were the case, they'd probably die a quick death. Considering Akiyama and Mutoh are already "taken", they would need someone important to leave New Japan and buy them or something, lol. Now, a promotion like All Japan adding the whole strong division in their ranks would be awesome, but that's never gonna happen either.

Strong Heavyweight Title is on the line. There may have been only 450 people with Covid restrictions (no chanting), but when Korakuen wants to give us some magic, there's nothing stopping it. The match has two parts. The first 12 minutes or so have some early mat work were Nomura finds ways to keep ahead of Sekimoto working the arm. That's until Daisuke decides to use his strength advantage and proceeds to have an awesome control section that consists on working Takuya's head and neck. The work is so good -Sekimoto is just a bully, putting him in headlocks, head scissors, sleepers, hitting him with the mat, etc- and Nomura's selling is so good, that Korakuen pops and claps to every single submissions attempt and rope break. The second part of the match (some 7 minutes) is Sekimoto's mistake. Instead of continuing his bully work, he goes for the kill and tries to strike the champ to death. That's were little by little, Young Gawd starts to find little windows. First, to get his wind back, and then to even things out. They transition this very well to the final minutes and sequences, were they go FULL EXCESS WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY DOING level of brutality. The elbows are the stiffest I've ever seen Daisuke throw, and Nomura shows he learned from his match from MiSu to never hold back again. The headbutts are DISGUSTING, holy fuck, the one Takuya lands at the ends busted him up worst than when Sekimoto opened him up first and the slaps....by gawd the slaps I'm not a fan of excess on my wrestling but If they are gonna give me some, THIS is how I want it. Great fucking match.

Dustin is so fucking good man, that match was dope. Can't wait to see who Rusev destroys in the coming weeks. Didn't like Mox's promo. He basically doesn't care about the tournament when the brackets were already weak as hell. I don't think this was the time and place for the "my family is the only thing that matters to me so fuck everyone that gets in the ring with me".

Between this and Bryan being more active on social media promoting himself and his company more than ever before shows how happy and commited he is. I remember he actively hated doing social media stuff for WWE (and mocked them for years with the TOUT stuff ).

Yup. In that sense, Punk's shown more interesting stuff than Bryan back then. He was fine having to wrestle around Big Cass and had decent matches against a really bad worker, but it wasn't until the Miz feud that we could see DB getting his groove back.

Danielson's selling of the arm after the buckle bomb from Omega is tied for best selling for me with Cesaro's incredible stuff with Roman. I mean, a lot of people thought Dragon had shoot injured his wrist, it was even a talking point on WOR and Dave said he even asked and told he was fine. Shit, he was selling getting head trauma after the V-Trigger from the ramp . I can see a case for complaint about the Fish match but come on, going from that to acting like it's an overarching thing is wild.

I think it's a case of expectations. Danielson has been put in two matches were he "had" to deliver a MOTYC caliber match and at least one of the other two was worked aiming to get that too (vs Nick Jackson). In that sense, I think Dragon has been able to meet the very high expectations people had of him, while at the same time reminding people how different his character was before going to WWE. No more "flying goat underdog", he's just a little badass that's gonna beat the shit out of you. He's also given the fans what they want and worked in a way the crowd wants him to. Punk, on the other hand, was kind of a mystery. He's always been someone that works best when he has an angle/feud to sink his teeth in and after 7 years there had to be ring rust. But there are still fans that expected 05-11 Punk for some reason. In that sense, he's both surpassed and came short of meeting said expectations, weirdly enough. To me though, he's been good and has provided matches that the AEW crowd doesn't necessarily want, but has been able to make them invested, and that's impressive for someone that was gone for so long. I'm happy with both of them but Danielson kinda wins of the strength of the matches he's had and me liking how he's worked them.

Shibata being back (in whatever form or fashion) is the best news New Japan has had since the pandemic started. Ibushi's injury is just another chapter on the cursed year the promotion has had. I agree he'll benefit from being away for some months but the promotions needs his star power, today's show wasn't that good drawing wise (wasn't bad either though. It's the best NJPW's done in Budokan during the pandemic. But still not better than NOAH). The road to WK is gonna interesting.

Yup, if there's one thing fans would benefit from re-learning or finding out is that talent having runs in different companies is not a bad thing. I'ma gonna cringe when Seth Rollins is the one leveraging a top spot with AEW though

As expected, B Block Finals did horrible at Budokan with only 2088 in attendance. By far the worst from any promotion that has run the building during the pandemic (including NJ's previous shows). Like I've said, the real test is the final show but regardless of how well they draw with that one, they have a real job ahead of them to get interest in their product back up. Would be baffling if Covid restrictions continue and Gedo's stance is still "well, can't do anything until foreigners can work here!".

I fucking love MJF man. LMAO at having a 50 minute interview in character (and teasing the Wardlor, Danielson and Punk feuds), speaking that fast and being that quick witted.

When Gedo does it he's called a genius so I can picture some fans in Twitter thinking that might be a good idea even though it's horrible.

Yo @gordi Osaka Pro returns!!

I'm thinking the same thing. Though making Hangman beat Omega and Danielson back to back would be one hell of a way to establish his championship run... It's pretty clear that right now his kayfabe reason is the same as the real life reason: to fall in love with wrestling again. He will lose eventually, and as Matt says, he's gonna get beat up badly by someone. Then he's gonna be pissed off, find new motivations and eventually feel he deserves a title shot. It's a character arc that's gonna work way better lasting months than hotshotting it for the sake of it.

Hell yeah Dragon vs Dustin!

Daniel Bryan Danielson

Yeah that promo by Page was very good. I like how he still sells with his expressions that he might not be fully convinced about what he was about to say. And that promo by Miro was incredible. Can he win the tournament? I know the leak for the finals is out but change your plans Tony!

Danielson vs MiSu was even better on a rewatch. I was able to appreciate all the nuances they did to basically everything they attempted much more the second time around. The strike exchanges are obviously the make or break part of the match but man, there was a lot more going on than just that.

This was even better on a rewatch. Once you take out the "holy shit, I'm actually watching these wrestle each other" feel the live watch had, the little things they did were more evident to me. As SLB said, they knew when to go slow, fast, no sell, scream, make a facial expression, etc. Everything to make this feel less generic in terms of both just trading blows, which was truly needed because this was very, very simple match. There's literally one bump and it's a very small one (Suzuki's back bump after Dragon avoided the Gotch piledriver) and I think only two pin attempts in a 20 minute match. Loved how they kept trying to lock on a submission and how they reacted quick as fuck to get the ropes every time they got locked in with a hold. How high you rate this will depend on how much you can enjoy strike exchanges but man, there's a lot of others things to appreciate with this (like Dragon's pin attempt transition after realizing he couldn't lock Cattle Mutilation, that shit was tight as hell and MiSu had to fight to kick out). Loved it. PS: MiSu's elbows being vicious is something I was expecting, but man, I've never seen Danielson land harder elbows than the ones he threw here.

Suzuki finally looked like a beast. Which was something he lacked in the Mox matches. If an AEW fan that didn't know anything about him saw this match, I think he/she would understand what the aura/reputation of MiSu might be all about. Kind of off topic but I I'm kind of tired of hearing the "I wish Danielson didn't do X" because of his health. Don't know what else dude gotta do to keep folk from treating him like he's special in terms of the damage these guys take in the ring (and specially when working a stiffer style). I understand if you just don't like the style overall, but man, there's so many wrestlers that are people in way worse shape than he is that keep doing this style and I never read "man, wish he was working different!".