I could forgive how last year's Champion Carnival ran because obvious circumstances and all the puro feds figuring out how to adjust their operations once audiences were allowed to return. Since we're past that stage though, the CC lineup looks underwhelming as hell, partly because of the limited lineup with only ten wrestlers again (normal CC would have 12-16) and also because it's almost the exact same group as last year. Most obvious expectation is that this is Jake Lee's year to finally break thru, winning the CC and getting his big TC win over Suwama, but that's also what most AJ fans thought would happen last September...
speaking of All Japan, since they've been lowest on my list for paying attention, I saw that apparently they decided to play follow-the-leader as earlier this month CIMA showed up oofn to challenge junior ace/champ Koji Iwamoto and then defeated him on Saturday to win the AJ Junior title. Not so egregious on the age side as Mutoh or Akiyama, but that's now three times this month that outsider veterans have won major titles from established homegrown champions of their respective feds