Jmare007

All that matters to me is that Roman/Bryan vs Bludgeon Brothers gets 20 minutes on PPV. I hope Rock actually shows up in Staples and isn't via satellite on Friday. I'll miss the show live but I'll check it out on Saturday mourning, would be cool if I don't feel the need to skip most of it.

Swagger is a very underwhelming choice for a reveal/surprise. Mox planting Kenny head first on a glass table felt more important and worthy of ending the show, imo. Having said that, it was a successful first show. They established Guevara, Riho and Swagger and started to promote the tag tournament, which will carry the show in the coming months. Did this show make me change and my mind and be interested enough to keep watching? Not really, but as I've said before, I'm not this show's audience. Unless MJF is on, I'm on anything they do right now.

Riho with a textbook underdog performance, those last 3 minutes were pretty dope. BTW Tony has been great, his job is basically delivering one liners and he's been killing me every time he sees something that doesn't make sense

He entertains me, that's what matter most to me, more than taking him seriously. Specially at this point of his career.

If there's one person that can make me tune it is MJF, dude is can't miss.

"He's resurrected!" He sure was Jim. And of course a cradle does the job after all those moves Crowd was going apeshit but I just can't get that excited for these type of matches when there's so little reason for me to invest in them going all out like that. But again, if the point was to give those fans a memorable first match, I'm pretty sure they delivered that in spades for them.

Gotta say, Tony's voice just feels RIGHT for this occasion.

Near the 40 minute mark Punk says he did that test for the Fox show, he's open for "anything" but shuts down the idea of actually wrestling. Also says he's in conversations with Fox and that the fact that he revealed it might fuck the deal up He says he's not dealing with WWE at all for this, just with Fox. He's asked if WWE has reached out after this test and he says no. Says his agent told him Fox asked for him to see if they could work something out and that they are going all in trying to make this WWE work. EDIT: Near the 1hr5min mark he tells some interesting details he discovered in his lawsuit against the WWE. He was able to get access to emails and conversations between people in the company discussing stuff like his mental health and not paying much attention to it because they needed him working some show. And of course, never actually discussing that kind of stuff with Punk.

Eh, wanting to push a part time guy in his 40's who is very popular and has "nostalgia" on his side doesn't sound like something WWE wouldn't want to do lol.

As others have said, taking the analyst gig will lead to pressure from fans (and eventually Vince) to make a return to the ring almost from the get go. If he really doesn't want to wrestle he can't think taking a commentator role wont lead to fans pestering him about coming back for "one more match" or whatever. And we know how Punk ins with annoying ass fans and Vince asking him for favors If he's legit interested in coming back in any capacity, he has to be aware of what that entails. I'd be very interested in the type of contract he would accept signing though.

I haven't kept up with anything these past few weeks. Is the belief that Bryan will go back babyface or is it all a swerve for him to turn on Roman and be revealed as the mastermind behind all of this? I can see his character being capable of taking several beatings from Rowan so he can trick Reigns tbh, if would also be an awesome promo by D-Bry

The TNT debut can't come soon enough, the level of nitpicking right now is something else. At least when the TV show is up and running the arguments will be a bout stuff that could actually matter

I mean, they did a horrible job promoting a fucking G-1 show, which is mind boggling. But at the end of the day, it seems doing a sellout or 50-60% of building in the U.S doesn't seem to matter to them. Not saying it's a good or bad thing, just that's the state of things at this point.

Doing a bad job at promoting their US shows is the norm for them at this point. It's not like it really matters though.

1) Naito gets his big win 2 years after he should've gotten it. Though in kayfabe, this win is one of the biggest in New Japan history. 2) Naito gets weirdly destroyed by booking and doesn't get any redemption. 3) If 1) happens, then Ibushi would be the one getting the same treatment Naito got at WK 12. 4) If Jay White or Okada are the ones getting both belts it would be too damn funny I think the winner take all angle for both Dome shows is a great idea in itself, one of the best Gedo has come up with in a long time. But with him taking so damn long to pull the trigger on japanese wrestlers he has pretty much booked himself into a corner.

Saikyou Tag League Beautiful tag match. Instead of the typical "big dudes throws little guys around" sort of match that these four could totally pull off, they went the minimalistic route and I fucking loved it. There's so many little things to love about this match. Astronauts gain the upper hand early because they lull Sekimoto and Bodyguard into working holds instead of clashing head on - which they have done plenty of times against Sekimoto & partner -, and only way the big dudes gain control is by doing big dudes things. But they have to fucking work for it. Once they get on top they choke Nomura almost to death, the selling by Takuya was stellar, I legit thought the young gawd was about to pass out. It takes them 10 minutes to hit the first chop, and it's not missed at all, it's that kind of match. This is another sensational performance by Abe btw. Little fucker is the best cotdamn partner on the planet, the way he cheers Nomura on when he's getting manhandled, how he picks his spots to interfere, to hit a stiff strike and to do a cool counter is some next level veteran shit, and dude is 24 years old! He's role in the match is to allow Nomura to stay in the fight and to go into the finishing sequence with a chance to win. And boy, once that final 5 minutes happen... This was right up my alley. MOTYC for sure, not even the tame Yokohama crowd hurt this match.

Very fun match. I think this suffered from a lack of heat from the crowd as Yokohama once again showed they suck, lol. Kamitani has been disrespecting and asking for a fight with Kohei since before he got the Strong Title so this match made sense. Hideyoshi had a fiery performance that Korakuen would've melted over but you can't have the perfect setting every time. I think this was the most "vulnerable" I've seen Sato against a young guy in a can't remember how long, and he did what he always does, just unleash stiff strikes and tries to obliterate whoever is in front of him.

I love when Daisuke focuses on the neck area because he doesn't do as much filler stuff and just goes TO WORK on that body part. This was kinda similar to the 2012 classic between Sekimoto and Yoshihito Sasaki were Daisuke does everything in his power to attack the neck (including a top rope elbow instead of the frog splash and going straight to the STF instead of 1-2 minutes of a boston crab) and his opponent has to crawl back to even things up. Korakuen is hot as fuck as usual for a match like this, still kinda surprised it sounded like the majority of the crowd were women and children instead of your typical hardcore puro male fans. This was fucking awesome and I LOVED they didn't went too long, simple and effective story with a hot crowd will always have my vote.

Kento just gets it man. Instead of having bloated matches he just works around a very simple story and then transitions to a dope finishing sequence were the drama escalates and any flaw the match has is reduced to a minimum because the length is short enough for them not to bother anyone. Another really fucking entertaining match from him that doesn't go past the 20 minute mark. Probably the easiest wrestler to watch back then in Japan that will give you a fun match every time.

It's the kind of match that some people will love and others will hate. I'm kinda in the middle but lean on liking it because it wasn't long enough were the flaws made the match drag. The first half is pretty standard with both of them just clashing against each other until Shuji gets the upperhand. He has an average control segment working the back, strong enough for me to buy the damage and short enough for it not to need Kento to sell like crazy (he still does a very good job at selling though). The second half is just bomb throwing and trading near falls with a red hot Korakuen getting more and more anxious about who's gonna win. They managed to keep building momentum and going for bigger stuff so it felt like the drama was building with each bomb and the finish felt very definite.

A fantastic 13 min. match that told a legit story and had different layers. They took advantage of every minute they had and delivered in spades. Crowd was very good, and it got really into it thanks to Joe's work on top and Kento's good selling. People should definitely check this out.

I think all of these are very much worth a watch vs Joe Doering 4/22 from the CC vs Jake Lee 4/16 from the CC vs Shuji Ishikawa 5/21 (excess + red hot Korakuen crowd) vs Suwama 6/11 vs Shuji Ishikawa 8/27 (the Sumo Hall match) vs Suwama 10/9 (excess + red hot Korakuen crowd) The Triple Crown match against Sekimoto from the year before (5/25/16) is a must watch too, of course

The "one of the best in the world" talk seems like a reactionary take from people that are noticing Kento just now because Dave has been pimping him so big this year because he got to see him live. I know Meltzer has been watching his top matches for quite a while now but just like he did with Tanahashi in 2011, he has turned in up a notch this year so more people a getting his eyes on Miyahara. I wouldn't call 2019 a great year from him, at all. In fact, a lot of people that have followed him closely have soured on him a bit, I'll get to that a little bit later. It could also come from people that have been on the "Kento is really fucking good" for a long time train that are finally seeing him get his due, so they just push the narrative too. Even though I haven't followed his whole career nor watched everything from dude in the last 4-5 years, I've seen a lot and enough to be confident in saying you could make a good case for him being a top 5 in the world in 2016 and 2017, with the latter year being his best case for a BITW argument. But Kento is very much a wrestler from this Era in terms of ring style. He does flashy, high speed stuff and tends to shrug off the work from the first half (or 1/3) of a match because he wants to speed things up and get into a higher gear for the last 10 minutes of his matches, were he will hit a lot of moves, do reversals and trade a lot of nearfalls with his opponent while the crowd gets hotter and hotter. That is a formula that works, but that to me has suffered from two things: 1.- Shit does get old after a while. It's rare watching Kento have a match that goes away from his formula. And while that's not a bad thing in itself, I think this particular formula doesn't lend itself from so much repetition, specially because... 2.- His matches have gotten longer. One of the things I truly appreciated from Kento when I started to really follow him more (2016) was that his matches, while mostly following this formula, were mostly worked in 15-22 minutes. Which made it waaay easier for me to forgive/forget flaws, as what Kento does suits a sprint way better than any other type of match. Now it's more common to see him do longer stuff, and the more "epic" he tries to make his matches, the more they drag imo. There are exceptions of course, like the Shuji Ishikawa match from 2017 at Sumo Hall (a top 3 singles MOTY from 17'). Now, a lot of fans don't really care for excess in their wrestling , and if that's the case, there's very little NOT to like about Kento. And if you are fairly new to his work, I don't think his repetitiveness or flaws will hit nearly as hard as if you've been watching him for long. He has a shit ton of charisma and he clearly looks up/idolizes Tanahashi, as it's pretty evident he's taken a lot from his persona/character. Specially late 00's cocky/asshole young guy (next Ace) Tana. I've lost count how many of Miyahara's matches have fuckery involving Kohei Wada and I never get tired of it because they just make it entertaining to watch.

Nah.

Exactly, the only one that sounded like he belonged in the ring with him.