9 minutes ago, gonzalez said:

English commentary has gotten worse, and worse. And I used to enjoy it. Although I can tell by tone that Japanese commentary got worse too.

Charlton is really best as the third guy in a three man booth, like early Mike Tenay. When there's only two he's very exposed. When the world opens up again, we really need Don Callis back in that chair (and him ripping on Charlton would probably be great).

14 hours ago, Dav'oh said:

The Sho-Yoh feud has been underwhelming, for mine. They try hard but where's the hate?

Doesn't help that SHO has become Jr. Evil. Hopefully for him this is the underwhelming early heel push version of HBK, because otherwise this break up is gonna have two Marties.

I thought this was a pretty meh show by WK standards. Okada-Shingo was great, and the Shibata match was cool. Everything else felt fine but really lacking in emotional investment. The Jr and Tag divisions have been so diluted that the matches felt like rehashes for the sake of them rather than anything anyone cared about. Tomorrow doesn't look much better from that perspective, although I'm sure the main event will be awesome.

I still think Kevin Kelly is pretty great, but asking him to do a 4 hour show with the #3 guy on the team playing out of position is too much. 

It also doesn’t help that the bad booking is causing him to be passive aggressive on commentary  towards the stagnant stories on display.

Shingo/Okada was the only thing worth watching. I'm sure Okada/Ospreay will be good but man Ospreay looks and sounds like such a gassed up meat head. Dude looks like the gear has aged him 15 years in the past year and a half. 

 

In regards to Kevin Kelly, I think he's always sucked as an announcer and doing a 4 hour show via Zoom at a weird time isn't going to be good for anyone

Zoom Deez Nutz, Stro!

ok

 

Well, that delayed vertical suplex into a gorilla press by Cobb certainly woke me up. Watching Cobb progress was one of the better things about pro-wrestling in 2021.

Kenta's ladder's so big it doesn't fit in the screen on the hard cam. Lol that he had to build it like it was a Meccano set.

Okada last night reminded me that the space between his moves is waaaaaay too long; hopefully Osprey can make the match a bit more dynamic in the first 2/3rds.

Osprey rocking the Diogo Jota hairstyle like a girl.

Very good main event with great near-falls and the right winner (I don't think anyone expects in-depth analysis from me ).

The last 4 matches ranged from decent to great with the main event being the MOTN, and the Stardom tag was also really good. Hopefully KENTA's ok, that fall of the ladder and injury looked gnarly. Tanahashi himself took some insane punishment in that match and that ladder HFF might end up being iconic. As for what the future holds...

Spoiler

Okada vs Naito, inject that straight into my veins

 

Well with that result, and follow up, I’m expecting a very loooooong reign. 

Is this it for the former champ? I just don’t see him sticking around with all the tweets, and hints.

6.3k for Night 2. Seems like fans were more interested in watching Okada get the belt back (plus Shibata's return) than anything else.

 

Well the original pre-pandemic two night WK also had a night one that outdrew night two. That night two was Okada Vs. Naito title unification.

9 minutes ago, gonzalez said:

Well the original pre-pandemic two night WK also had a night one that outdrew night two. That night two was Okada Vs. Naito title unification.

So did last year's pandemic two night. The difference is that the attendance for last year's night one is a only a few hundred down. Night two was over 1500, a 9% drop in attendance from the same show last year. Still about a thousand more than a dome show run in the middle of last year. Had no idea that show happened

Jan 4th is the traditional wk night and people will care about that one more. Also it is a night where they know what the card is with night two you are still unsure of the main event.

1 hour ago, gonzalez said:

Well the original pre-pandemic two night WK also had a night one that outdrew night two. That night two was Okada Vs. Naito title unification.

You are right, I didn't remember the fall from night 1 to 2 was that big in 2020 (though getting 70k for both nights was still a success). I guess the real big draw is the January 4th date.

Okay what the FUCK was that Tanahashi-KENTA match lmao. That might actually be my favourite match involving any of those two in a few years. 

It was nice to see Shibata back, and both Okada matches were real strong, but man the rest of these shows straight up sucked. Two nights for Wk never made sense due to NJ's small roster that was overstuffed with rematches and multiman tags, and that was before COVID took away most of the gaijin talent that they heavily relied on. 

There's a debate going on on Twitter about Ospereay's drawing power, Meltzer himself got involved here. Since Twitter is the last place you should go to if you want serious discussion, is there anyone who has studied his drawing power in detail, with context? Not just the NJPW shows but also the independent shows he headlines. There was some chat recently because Meltzer corrected his numbers for one of those shows, and the revised number was significantly lower. 

I was under the impression he was a big draw for UK indies but admittedly I've never looked at the numbers directly. 

I believe it was one of those BritWres indies whose number Meltzer corrected from his initial reporting, from around 400 to like about 150, which is a significant revision.