Boss Rock

Not a fan of the finish, but yeah this was a hoot.

Happy New Year!

Count me among the Marufuji fans, ha.

Yep, went through a flaming table doing a reverse superplex on Andrade. Dynamite was pretty good. Not quite everything landed though. Punk-Moriarity wasn't as good as I expected and the promo with MJF was hit-or-miss. The Superkliq-OC segment was also a bit awkward.

Wrestler of the Year I'd probably go Kenny.

I still lean Shingo Takagi given his number of high end matches and being active all year. But Bryan's versatility against a number of opponents gives him a run for his money.

I think the Easter Egg house style description is a bit of an over-generalization and really only applies to a handful of matches if that, even. It may just be some folks looking more deeply than others and looking for things that might not even really be there.

Yeah the story is that he started dating another woman and thus tried to end the relationship, resulting in the stabbing. Apparently his recovery and comeback played a big part in crowds getting behind him.

I know Taichi had had an affair years ago that caused controversy, but I don't think he was punished. Neither was Shibata when it was revealed he had an affair in 2017 (interestingly enough they broke the news that Okada got engaged to his-then fiancee on the same day, likely to draw attention away). I do recall the news TAKA had an affair, but had no idea that's what caused his absence.

Bout time.

Great show and cowboy shit.

Dark Order holding Page on their shoulders is how I booked it nearly a year ago, ha.

I didn't watch it, but they had two(!) sub-ten minute matches.

I mean if this leads to Chaos then cool, but there are better options than HFO.

When all is said and done, I'll probably have like 20-30 people who will miss the cut that could have taken the final spot.

Okada-Tonga was better than their G1 match but I thought Shingo-Zack fell short of theirs, though it was still good. Yano-O-Khan was pretty fun.

Seems to be the Fed's new MO: say someone was "difficult" to work with a la what they said about Bray.

My gut says Misawa due to having some unreal peaks and having probably the greatest performances of any wrestler ever, but that could change as Bryan has more depth and versatility.

Both have very similar strengths in having unreal charisma and presence, making everything they did seem important and epic. But I think Tenryu was a bit more versatile in working different styles and has a deeper resume (honestly, it's one of the deepest).

I've gone to bat plenty for Shawn's work in the Rockers and the Rockers as a whole, but I think Kenny's body of work at this point trumps Shawn's by a decent margin. I would put Shawn's best match slightly over Kenny's, but Kenny has more total great matches. Kenny has him beat in offense. Bumping and selling is interesting as Kenny's leg selling has been iffy just as Shawn's back selling has been iffy, and both are really good bumpers. Shawn's comeback run also doesn't hold up particularly well (although I do want to revisit) while Kenny has a ton of gems before his big NJPW run.

Literally the night they announced record profits. I'm not surprised, but I also am kinda stunned at that kind of callousness.

Bryan's have definitely been better and I don't think it's particularly close. But Punk has still been a lot of fun to watch. Some of that is obviously the novelty of not having seen this guy wrestle in over 7 years, but they've still been a lot of fun to watch.

My prediction is that Okada-Shingo is on one of the nights and then Okada-Ospreay on the final night with Okada standing tall.

Okada is my favorite wrestler and yet there was even a time circa 2018-2019 where I was ready for a change in the main event. But desperate times call for desperate measures. We need the ace back on top.

Terrible way to end the tournament. I didn't think Ibushi's run since returning from pneumonia was bad at all and he and Okada were having a damn good match up to that point. Hopefully he recovers and comes back better than ever. Okada apparently asked for the last IWGP Heavyweight Championship belt. He's clearly a conduit for the viewers' frustrations with the product. And hell yeah Shibata!!! Even if he can't be cleared to compete on a regular basis, just let him do stuff like that every once in a while. There are a ton of folks he could do exhibitions with.