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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Jan 5, 2019 7:09:46 GMT -5
Hashi's still a JTTS I see. Which is good, because I have a feeling was this the RAW after Mania, White would have gotten a pin on Tana to "shake things up". One thing I like about NJPW's multi-tag matches is that it gets other lower-midcarders in there so the champion doesn't have to be pinned and stays protected.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 5, 2019 7:12:37 GMT -5
Hashi's still a JTTS I see. Which is good, because I have a feeling was this the RAW after Mania, White would have gotten a pin on Tana to "shake things up". One thing I like about NJPW's multi-tag matches is that it gets other lower-midcarders in there so the champion doesn't have to be pinned and stays protected. Kind of funny you're saying that when the same show had Naito being pinned. Granted he was still pretty damn protected being attacked before it then hit with the belt at the end.
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Post by EoE: Well There's Your Problem on Jan 5, 2019 7:26:13 GMT -5
I felt a bit... underwhelmed at that. Like, from what I’ve heard about New Years Dash from the past is that there were usually these massive angles that set up the next few months... Returns, big shifts with the factions, that kind of thing. A lot of that just came off as stock standard wrestling tropes that you’d see on the average RAW (“This guy just pinned the champion!”).
I don’t have any reason to believe that this is how things always are between the major shows, though.
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chrom
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Post by chrom on Jan 5, 2019 7:47:36 GMT -5
Three certainties in life: Death, Taxes and Tacos getting pinned
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Post by AwamoriRock on Jan 5, 2019 7:54:05 GMT -5
Lol
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Post by mrtuesday on Jan 5, 2019 7:54:23 GMT -5
Jay White just doesn't feel like a main event to me. He could be a got mid-carder/upper mid-carder guy, but not yet at the level where he should be challenging the top champion.
I get NJPW wanting another gaijin main eventer with expanding into the west. They may have lost Omega, and who knows when or if Jericho comes back, but there has to be better choices than Switchblade.
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chrom
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Post by chrom on Jan 5, 2019 7:57:17 GMT -5
Wrestle Kingdom post match promos are up
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chrom
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Post by chrom on Jan 5, 2019 8:09:23 GMT -5
So we have Tanahashi/White, Naito/Taichi and Ishii/Nagata being setup for New Beginning it seems
A solid show today even without the annual big twist
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Post by Captain Stud Muffin (BLM) on Jan 5, 2019 8:27:33 GMT -5
Jay White just doesn't feel like a main event to me. He could be a got mid-carder/upper mid-carder guy, but not yet at the level where he should be challenging the top champion. I get NJPW wanting another gaijin main eventer with expanding into the west. They may have lost Omega, and who knows when or if Jericho comes back, but there has to be better choices than Switchblade. There is not better choices than White because he is a star in the making for them
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Post by Final Countdown Jones on Jan 5, 2019 8:48:38 GMT -5
I felt a bit... underwhelmed at that. Like, from what I’ve heard about New Years Dash from the past is that there were usually these massive angles that set up the next few months... Returns, big shifts with the factions, that kind of thing. A lot of that just came off as stock standard wrestling tropes that you’d see on the average RAW (“This guy just pinned the champion!”). I don’t have any reason to believe that this is how things always are between the major shows, though. Yeah today's show was more of a by the numbers setup kind of show, nothing too huge, but I think a lot of that comes down to uncertainty right now with everything. I figured we'd get Omega turning heel on the Bucks to write them off the show, but it's possible Kenny's contract status being in the air and uncertainty about any potential to work with AEW makes for a situation that has them not wanting to make any big moves before anything is worked out in case they have to go back on them or have to scramble for new plans and new surprises if Kenny walks. So Kenny doesn't come out, Bucks and Cody don't get booked, Ibushi is out with "a concussion" and everything gets to kind of hang in the air until there's a clear idea of how to work through them. NYD felt unusually restrained and I think it comes down to all the question marks leaving a whole segment of the roster in stasis for the time being. Very safe while still setting up where its major players go now.
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Post by The Kevstaaa on Jan 5, 2019 10:15:25 GMT -5
![](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/oZaac0ugriYQnCA8j0SyhOx-7CY=/0x0:797x449/1200x800/filters:focal(336x162:462x288)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/62761311/nyd2019.0.jpg) NJPW New Year Dash January 5th, 2019 | Korakuen Hall in Tokyo, Japan
It’s New Japan’s “Night After WrestleMania” show. The event where they give us the fallout from Wrestle Kingdom and usually set some stuff up for the coming year. In 2016, Kenny Omega took over the Bullet Club and kicked AJ Styles out. In 2017, Suzuki-Gun made a big return. In 2018, Jay White turned down Omega’s offer to join the Bullet Club. What’s in store following a great Wrestle Kingdom?
The Killer Elite Squad and Takashi Iizuka vs. Rocky Romero and Roppongi 3K Poor Roppongi 3K got put in there with a heavyweight tag team. Whenever that happens in NJPW, it means the juniors will have trouble getting anything going. That was mostly the case here. Suzuki-Gun attacked early and often, including their usual brawl around the arena. Rocky was isolated and interestingly, the hot tag kind of went to both RPG 3K members. Not literally but they both came in with tandem offense. As always, Iizuka did a bunch of nothing. The surprising result saw YOH roll up Iizuka for the win in 8:34. An inoffensive start to the show. The Suzuki-Gun guys didn’t seem to bring it, but the CHAOS boys gave us fine effort. [**¼]
Chase Owens and Yujiro Takahashi vs. Toa Henare and Tomoaki Honma MORE PIETER! Yujiro Takahashi is my favorite wrestler. It seems like neither side of this Bullet Club BS is interested in Chase and Yujiro. Meanwhile, there’s some drama between Honma and Henare over who gets to be Makabe’s tag partner. And Henare was apparently upset he wasn’t on the Dome card. Lots of small storylines thrown into one match. I appreciate that. The match itself wasn’t much. Chase was kind of a jerk during it, trying to hit his own Kokeshi and such. Honma had to show him how it was done at one point. Owens picked up the win for his guys with a Package Piledriver on Henare in 9:24. Solid little tag match, bolstered by some of the ongoing stories. [**½]
The Best Friends vs. David Finlay and IWGP United States Heavyweight Champion Juice Robinson I love the team of Juice and Finlay. Before Juice’s singles push took off, I wanted them to be Tag Team Title contenders. Beretta had his mother in the crowd and went up to give her a hug during the action. RevPro official Chris Roberts was in charge here, by the way. Both teams have strong chemistry with their partners leading to good action. I liked the character stuff, like Finlay and Juice hugging to mock the Best Friends and Juice going in for a kiss only to get rejected. They seemed to tease Beretta vs. Juice for the US Title down the line. It all ultimately led to Chuckie T losing his shit again and using a steel chair to get disqualified in 9:03. I’m not into the ongoing Best Friends angle. However, I enjoyed the match due to the solid interactions. [**¾]
Post-match, Chuckie kicked Juice to lay him out and then hit Finlay with a piledriver on a chair.
Hirooki Goto, Tomohiro Ishii, and NEVER Openweight Champion Will Ospreay vs. Jeff Cobb, KUSHIDA, and Yuji Nagata We finally have a match that feels like it matters somewhat. Ospreay and KUSHIDA kicked things off with their usual back and forth. Will may have moved up to heavyweight, but the NEVER Title can get a challenge from anyone. However, I’m good on KUSHIDA/Ospreay matches for a long time. Anyway, the real treat was Nagata against Ishii. There’s no rivalry right now, but Ishii was a dick to him simply because. That led to some awesome exchanges. Anyone who thinks Nagata shouldn’t be featured anymore is bugging. I couldn’t help but smile as he tossed Ospreay with ease on an Exploder. Then, we got the Cobb against Goto battle. It was better here than in their singles match. Gedo, make Nagata and Cobb a consistent team. Your putrid tag division needs it. Ditto for Ishii and Goto. Ospreay eventually got the win for his team by hitting Storm Breaker on KUSHIDA at the 14:09 mark. Where the hell did this come from? It was mostly a random tag, but they brought a wild level of intensity. Everything felt like it mattered, while the Ishii/Nagata and Cobb/Goto stuff ruled. [***¾]
After the match, Nagata and Ishii slapped each other and had to be held back. Their G1 match in 2017 was fantastic. Give me more!
NEVER Openweight Six Man Tag Team Championship: The Guerillas of Destiny & IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion Taiji Ishimori vs. The Most Violent Players (Ryusuke Taguchi, Togi Makabe, and Toru Yano) This stemmed from the Gauntlet match win for the Most Violent Players last night. Tama Tonga was back on his “good guy” schtick. I don’t know if there’s ever been a team I cared less about than the Guerrillas of Destiny. Everything they do just doesn’t work. Yano, always scared of Tama Tonga, got beat up and took the heat for his guys. It’s dull. Ishimori against Taguchi was an improved exchange. It’s about that time Taguchi rises up for one of his random Jr. Title shots on a B or C show. Makabe did his usual thing and had help from Yano hitting Loa with a chair. Jado got involved but was sent packing. Then, as Makabe set up for the King Kong Knee Drop, Yujiro and Owens showed up to knock him off the top. Package Piledriver on Makabe, followed by Apeshit, and Togi surprisingly ate the pin in 11:33. This was pretty lame, as are most G.O.D. matches. [*¾]
Chase and Yujiro officially hugged Tama Tonga and this incarnation of the Bullet Club exists. How does anyone still care about the Bullet Club?
Los Ingobernables de Japon (IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Champions BUSHI and Shingo, IWGP Tag Team Champions EVIL and SANADA, and IWGP Intercontinental Champion Tetsuya Naito) vs. Suzuki-Gun (El Desperado, Minoru Suzuki, Taichi, Yoshinobu Kanemaru, and RevPro British Heavyweight Champion Zack Sabre Jr.) Seeing LIJ all holding titles is beautiful. If only Hiromu was there as Jr. Heavyweight Champion. Naito still treated the IC Title like crap. During Naito’s introduction, Taichi WRECKED him with a steel chair shot. That triggered a massive Suzuki-Gun style brawl around the arena. Taichi’s focus was Naito, meaning that could be our IC Title program. Taichi’s boring, but Naito got a good match out of him last year, so I’m open minded. The more exciting stuff was watching Suzuki and Sabre work together against EVIL and SANADA. I am ALL for that as a Tag Title program. That could bolster things in that division. Taichi won by pinning Naito following a chair shot and Air Raid Crash in 16:45. There were some good moments, but the brawling stuff early on lasted far too long. Give me that Tag Title match, though. [***]
Bad Luck Fale, Gedo, and Jay White vs. IWGP Heavyweight Champion Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kazuchika Okada, and YOSHI-HASHI It’s the big return of YOSHI-HASHI. I mean, I don’t care, but still. Last time we saw him, Okada and Tanahashi were kind of playing tug of war with him. He also face planted during a run in. It’s kind of wild that we live in a time where Okada and Tanahashi are partners. The crowd popped for YOSHI, but I didn’t. He came in and kind of just got beaten up. I got a kick out of Okada coming in and doing a dragon screw, prompting Tanahashi to give him the thumbs up. He and Tanahashi did well, but once YOSHI got tagged in again, he fell to the Blade Runner in 15:16. A fine main event, but one that was more about establishing White vs. Tanahashi than anything else. [**¾]
Post-match, Jay White officially challenged Tanahashi. The Bullet Club guys beat down Tanahashi and Okada to close things out.
Overall: 5.5/10. I never expect fantastic wrestling from New Year Dash. I usually get good action with several angles being set up. This year lacked that big “wow” moment and most of the matches were kind of just there. From a wrestling standpoint, just watch the Nagata tag. Other than that, I’m looking forward to Tanahashi/White and the idea of Sabre & Suzuki/EVIL & SANADA.
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Post by The Summer of Muskrat XVII on Jan 5, 2019 10:58:56 GMT -5
I felt a bit... underwhelmed at that. Like, from what I’ve heard about New Years Dash from the past is that there were usually these massive angles that set up the next few months... Returns, big shifts with the factions, that kind of thing. A lot of that just came off as stock standard wrestling tropes that you’d see on the average RAW (“This guy just pinned the champion!”). I don’t have any reason to believe that this is how things always are between the major shows, though. It definitely felt alot less eventful then in past years. I mean, the big angle was the BC Job Squad rejoining BC. Next years at the Tokyo Dome should be interesting.
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Post by cabbageboy on Jan 5, 2019 11:23:26 GMT -5
The problem with using White as someone to appeal to the west is that White is despised in the States. Not a cool heel type, but a nasty scumbag heel that isn't out to sell merchandise or gain fans. Makes for a decent heel in Japan itself but not someone to expand around.
Gotta be honest, the stuff they set up here sounds utterly dire. Tana/White, Naito/Taichi...dear god.
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Post by Mozenrath on Jan 5, 2019 11:37:39 GMT -5
I kinda dig Taichi. I don't think he's amazing or anything, but I am kind of down to see him and Naito's feud, even if I doubt Naito will drop the title to him. I don't see it being a longterm feud, but a palette cleanser after the long-ass Y2J feud. I feel no closer to finding out who the mole is, or if one even exists. Ishii versus Nagata, huh? That could be a fun "they're killing each other out there" brawler feud. No surprises on the Jay White stuff, but I guess with the Elite out, they had some Bullet Club baggage to tie together. This is honestly one of the most meh incarnations of the group, but it's pretty obviously a rebuilding period. Guessing we'll see whoever the mole is, plus someone else, join to bolster their power in the near future. Could see it being the Best Friends, with Trent having been in on Chuck's "episodes" from the start. That does create the problem of "why did they get DQ'd in that tournament on purpose?", but given GOD, that really doesn't discount much. Maybe that's why Jay White's the Bullet Club ace, because he has the sense to not get himself DQ'd while cheating. ![:P](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/tongue.png)
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Jan 5, 2019 11:49:12 GMT -5
I kinda dig Taichi. I don't think he's amazing or anything, but I am kind of down to see him and Naito's feud, even if I doubt Naito will drop the title to him. I don't see it being a longterm feud, but a palette cleanser after the long-ass Y2J feud. I feel no closer to finding out who the mole is, or if one even exists. Ishii versus Nagata, huh? That could be a fun "they're killing each other out there" brawler feud. No surprises on the Jay White stuff, but I guess with the Elite out, they had some Bullet Club baggage to tie together. This is honestly one of the most meh incarnations of the group, but it's pretty obviously a rebuilding period. Guessing we'll see whoever the mole is, plus someone else, join to bolster their power in the near future. Could see it being the Best Friends, with Trent having been in on Chuck's "episodes" from the start. That does create the problem of "why did they get DQ'd in that tournament on purpose?", but given GOD, that really doesn't discount much. Maybe that's why Jay White's the Bullet Club ace, because he has the sense to not get himself DQ'd while cheating. ![:P](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/tongue.png) The mole was whoever Ishii discovered and gave a look of disapproval. Issue resolved. Taichi is one of the best natural heels in the business now. I don’t like how he sometimes stalls too long at points during matches, but it does get him heat. I wasn’t too sore about him going over Naito as it was in such a dirty fashion, and Naito generally is protected to where beating him still really means something IMO, whereas tonight wasn’t the time for White to pin Tanahashi just yet.
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Post by Mozenrath on Jan 5, 2019 11:51:24 GMT -5
Yeah, after the war Naito had, plus hit with a chair and all, they obviously protected Naito. That doesn't bother me any, plus he's not one of those acts who can't ever lose without it hurting his credibility.
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chrom
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Post by chrom on Jan 5, 2019 12:10:46 GMT -5
The problem with using White as someone to appeal to the west is that White is despised in the States. Not a cool heel type, but a nasty scumbag heel that isn't out to sell merchandise or gain fans. Makes for a decent heel in Japan itself but not someone to expand around. Gotta be honest, the stuff they set up here sounds utterly dire. Tana/White, Naito/Taichi...dear god. If a heel is despised by the fans, than he's doing his job right. The cool heel era needs to fade away. You think Roberts worried about fans thinking he was cool when he had his cobra bite Savage?
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chrom
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Post by chrom on Jan 5, 2019 12:16:11 GMT -5
Shingo stated after winning the tag belts he aims to go higher
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Post by Convoy on Jan 5, 2019 12:16:49 GMT -5
I liked NYD overall. Sure, there wasn't some big angle, but the matches were solid and got me excited for the immediate future of the company.
Most importantly though, Chase and Yujiro are finally home. Right in the feels, man.
That CHAOS/NJA tag was out-of-nowhere great. Very thankful if New Japan is giving us Ishii/Nagata for the hell of it.
I'm assuming Osaka gets Tana/White; Sapporo gets Naito/Taichi and the Jr. Tag; USA gets Juice/Beretta and maybe the Tag Titles.
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Post by Clash, Never a Meter Maid on Jan 5, 2019 12:22:45 GMT -5
Shingo stated after winning the tag belts he aims to go higher Ishii/Shingo or Shingo vs. Okada would be off the charts badass.
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