January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935287 Gotta love serendipity. Chase Owens cosplaying AJ Styles is....distracting.
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935288 I love how offended Ishii's face gets when someone thinks their moves will faze him.
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935289 Ishii's head seems to be shrinking even further into his spine, if that's possible. His shoulders look to be growing straight out of his ears. (edit: it was most pronounced as he walked to the ring.)
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935290 I know he's not everyone's cup of tea but Yano always cracks me up.
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935291 "Everything's coming up Yano!" That's fucking gold, Kevin Kelly. Count me among the Yano fans. I always look forward to his G1 runs, especially.
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935293 I used to not dig him but Yano is a guilty pleasure for me anymore, honestly. Chase Owens though? That dude is the drizzling shits. Still.
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935294 Used the intermission to discover Molly Holly is running in the third at Angle Park dish-lickers (DOUBLE omen bet! Triple if you count WK being on) in fifteen minutes. 13/1. (Feel free to tell me no-one cares about my wrestling-themed gambling and I'll cease and desist. I just find it an amusing diversion, like seeing a wrestler in a TV show. Except they're small horses). Back to the wrestling!
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935296 Each time my interest in wrestling waned, for reasons within and without actual wrestling, someone pulled me back. It was Yamada/Liger and Flair 88/89, Bret kept me following from a distance until Austin's KotR speech fully reeled me in. Benoit next, then the tragedy took me out. Bryan and the Shield coincided with my sobriety and proper internet access, then seeing WWE waste Sami and KO and Nak and Bryan (to a large degree) and the WWE product as a whole had me teetering. Hiromu brought me fully back, and AEW keeps me watching between episodes of the Hiromu Show. It's pretty much the highest praise I can give a wrestler - "HE was the reason I watched".
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935297 Gotta admit I didn't expect much from KENTA/Kojima since it was a last minute injury replacement but it was pretty good. Looks like they are going to have KENTA go to the US and face Mox at the LA Dojo. I guess as long as it's on NJPW World and not on US TV it won't run afoul of AEW's contracts.
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935299 Admittedly I don’t hate the Great O Khan gimmick but the man playing it.. is not great.
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935301 Watching Okada-Ospereay really drives home the point of how much I absolutely despise modern NJPW strong-style strike exchanges. They are masturbatory, self-indulgent bullshit. Like they watched Misawa-Kawada but absolutely did not understand any kind of context in their matches.
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935302 Nifty/nasty Japanese Table Spot, though. Standard Big-Match Okada stuff, otherwise. It's a pretty good standard he sets, for mine, strike-exchanges notwithstanding. I think Ospreay needs the win more than Okada here.
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935303 Okada once again proving he's the best both in kayfabe and for realsies.
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935304 You can't say "I will become God" (and that's "God", not "a God") and then lose, Shirley?
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935305 This event is reinforcing my belief that Okada and Ibushi are the only NJPW wrestlers who are all-timers, since they are the only ones who can overcome the terrible aspects of modern NJPW house style to actually stand out and feel impressive and excellent
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935307 The strike exchanges in Ibushi-Naito have been much better than they were in Okada-Ospereay. Maybe that means I have been overrating Okada all along. I honestly have been feeling the latter for the past few months, since Okada started doing that stupid gimmick in front of no fans. No way would Misawa-San have been so underwhelming and disappointing in a similar situation
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935308 Love "going for a pinfall five minutes after the match has finished". Never seen that one before.
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935309 43 minutes ago, Dav'oh said: You can't say "I will become God" (and that's "God", not "a God") and then lose, Shirley? lol true and he did win here, but doesn't this mean Ibushi can never lose hereinafter. Like, how do you claim you are God and then lose at any point?!?!?!
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935310 Karl Gotch and Sachin Tendulkar are the only sporting gods that come to mind, and they weren't self-proclaimed. Seems like a heel move from Kota from afar, but the crowd didn't see it that way so what do I know.
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935311 Okada's big matches always have slow starts and I can usually get into them, but for whatever reason, I couldn't get into the first ten minutes of Okada v Ospreay. Everything after the backdrop was really good stuff though (except for the strike exchanges).
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935324 8 hours ago, Dav'oh said: Karl Gotch and Sachin Tendulkar are the only sporting gods that come to mind, and they weren't self-proclaimed. Seems like a heel move from Kota from afar, but the crowd didn't see it that way so what do I know. A Sachin Tendulkar reference on a wrestling forum delights the Indian in me. 2021 shaping up to be a better year already
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935326 My brain is a little scrambled from the late night and a toddler who decided she wanted to join me for the festivities, but that was a great show. Pretty much everything met or exceeded expectations (although of course the middle of the show had some low expectations) and I thought the top 2 matches were a pretty great 1-2 punch. I kinda liked how Ibushi and Naito played with how terrified everyone was for them to do crazy shit and were able to get a little more mileage out of a fewer bigger bumps. Okada and Ospreay was as spectacular as I imagined. Looking forward to night 2 more than I thought - very curious about the main event from a storyline perspective.
January 4, 20214 yr comment_5935337 Okada-Ospreay was incredible. Just a terrific match. Really enjoyed the main event as well. Naito and Ibushi have had better matches together, but I like how this match felt more...deliberate I guess?
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