El-P

Because it is. NJPW has been running it since 89, tons of iconic moments and cards have happened in this building.

Highlight to me was the opener (although Private Party absolutely aren't ready on the big stage at this point, Isaac in particular as a tendency to do some real sloppy stuff) and Cody's promo. Shida's competitive squash against That Brazilian Girl was pretty fun too. Wasn't crazy about Britt's segment this week, really lacked the dynamic of her and Tony, who was out there to do nothing. Wasn't crazy about the Tyson angle either. I see what they try to do, but it kinda get a feel of WCW-Hoganesque stuff where they refer a WWF angle of the past (actually, two of them, one of which I don't even know about). Jericho has made everything work thus far, so maybe it'll catch on, but tonight it didn't feel like anything interesting to me. The Battle Royal on the other hand had plenty good little things, like Cutler & Avalon eliminating themselves, their feud has to peak with a match ending in a double-KO or something. That's pretty fun. I'm all for a Wardlow face turn, as really I have no interest in this guy as he is now. Like, zero interest. They already have too many big monsters (think about that, they had none when Wardlow was signed) on the heel side anyway. Cody vs Jungle Boy should be terrific. Omega & Hangman working their magic with Havoc & Sabian (fun team, but that match today wasn't that great, I feel like SCU is at the end of the road and they should try and push Scorpio Sky as a single) should be really good too. Jericho vs Orange should be gold. Interesting stuff with Allie (who was referred as such on Dark, as opposed to The Bunny) getting all the attention from QT and Cabana getting a Dark Order flyer. Of course, FTR showing up would have been much more awesome in front of the crowd. So many big debuts for AEW during the worst time possible. So much for them working The North and those NJ teams, but oh well, they will rule against the Bucks and it was all expected anyway.

Yes. Heels are called "méchant", which means "mean". Same as in movies, like I said.

The issue with Cornette is that he's got the emotional balance of a 3 years old.

Holy shit. BTW, can we talk about that Blue Lives Matter T-shirt thingy again ? yeah... maybe not the best timing... ok another time then... Anyway. Looking closely on his arm to see if there's no svastika or SS symbol hidden somewhere...

IMPACT is confident enough to put a vignette on their TV. And considering they are gonna tape weeks of TV again I would guess, if she's part of these sessions she'll be on IMPACT TV for several weeks anyway.

She was on IMPACT yesterday already. And IMPACT does not have the track record of putting people who aren't secured on TV (*cough* MLW *cough*). So, who knows about contracts and whatever, but yeah, she's been on IMPACT already.

Honestly the whole Drew Gulak thing reeks of him just playing around to get a much better deal from WWE than he would if he had just resigned. Glad IMPACT is keeping things moving and lively. They have been killing it with the women's division for a long time now, although they have struggled a bit with Dashwood's character, who hasn't quite caught up despite being quite the good worker. I hope Taya doesn't end up in WWE wasteland when her deal ends and either resigns or goes to AEW (she's a friend of the guys there since she was on those BTE regularly).

Considering their match at Mania was pretty much universally panned, isn't this supposed to be some kind of elaborate joke ?... probably not.

Per Meltz, Hiromu is pushing for the G1 and BOSJ happening at the same time. Which would make for insane cards. Do it ! No one cares about the tag leagues anyway.

Why is Nia still employed (I know, big girl from the samoan family) ? At this point she's an injury machine.

And samoan.

Yeah, I dunno the stuff I've seen from him in the 90's really wasn't anything to write home about and looked dated as hell. Plus I will never, EVER be able to unsee this episode of the cult show TV show Strip-tease (the show has nothing to do with actual strip-tease of course, it's because it presents characters in the most naked, unfiltered way possible). Don't be sad you don't speak French, it is cringe as fuck (the stuff he says about women and sex makes you want to crawl under a rock, and I'm not easily offended). He looks like Keiji Mutoh now if you wonder...

To me the saddest thing is JR trying to sell Gail Kim, who's a fantastic worker, by mentioning Asian porn sites... That's appaling (that would be appaling about anyone, but it's not like her role was to be eye candy anyway like say, a Kelly Kelly).

Tons of idiots makes money out of the Internet 2.0.. The most followed Youtube channels are completely idiotic. I'm not that surprised.

Well, if you're going into Flesh Gordon territory, that last sentence is gonna come up more often than not. The name itself reeks of bad 80's porn actor.

This is insane to even think about Asuka and Sane having nothing to do. Who are these fucking guys in creative, seriously ?

BTE this week had quite the cameo by Marty Scurll. I have a hard time believing this guy is not gonna end up in AEW eventually.

Yes you can, AEW just did that...

So it took them what, two months ? Always a step ahead...

No. Midcard at best. Super solid worker, decent character but not exactly oozing with charisma either. Nothing special on promos. Your typical good hand that would have had a bunch of really good matches maybe if the other guy would be giving enough and maybe a handful of fun angles. I don't see him moving much past that point. I doubt he would get ahead of D-Lo level in 1998 WWF for instance. I remember liking him already as Rad Radford but also immediately spotting him as former jobber Louie Spicolli back then, so even I, as unsmart as I was, was smart enough to see he wouldn't get anywhere despite the gimmick revamping. He was part of the "workrate JTTS crew" from 95 with Candido, Horowitz, Hakushi. He would be probably remembered more if he stayed in ECW longer, as he almost immediately jumped to WCW to be Hall's lackey, a role in which he was quite good, but not exactly super memorable. Really good worker, but midcard guy 4 Life, as they said.

More like JWP, really, with Plum Mariko's death followed by Candy Okutsu's retirement the following year or so and Oz switching more toward GAEA and Dynamite Kansai getting ill. That company never recovered either.

Genius !

Beards is the mid to late 2010's equivalent to the 00's crew cuts and awful tribal tatoos. I wonder what the next trend will be. I hope it's not gonna be neck tatoos.

With the emergency state finally coming to an end in Japan, it'll be interesting to hear if New Japan plans to get back into activity. They have been the most responsible of any of the big companies, by far, shutting down immediately despite a business model still heavily depending on live shows (they haven't even fired anyone, now imagine doing that). If you compare with what happened with sumo, the NSK had cancelled the May basho after running the March one in an empty building (which was basically the first empty arena shows I watched) and one rikishi actually died fro Covid a few weeks ago. The July basho should take place without spectators. Does that mean NJ could produce empty arena shows now first before allowing spectators to come back ? I remember the last day at Korakuen where 100% of the audience wore masks and it was a pretty striking visual.