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Wrestle Kingdom 15

Big Beard Booty Daddy

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I have work, but it’s going to be a slow week since all tv and movie productions shut down at the end of the year, and first week is really to get things back up and running, so I’ll be able to watch the shows while I work from home. I tend to go online when I wake up, but I am going to make sure that I stay off until after I watch.
 

King Kamala

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I have a gut feeling him Vs Ospreay will be match of the night or a massive disappointment. No middle ground.
 

Epic Springs

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I always watch WK the morning after it airs. I think for my first show (2015) I tried staying up all night in the chat and tapped out around 2 AM. It's better to be well rested and just enjoy the show.
 

tekcop

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I physically can't make it past 1am anymore, so it's always the next day for me.
 

King Kamala

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I think that could be the sleeper match of the entire two nights, @Laz .


Also as excited as I am for Kojima to get a (presumably last singles?) WrestleKingdom match, I feel pretty bad for David Finlay. He works really hard to come back from injury IIRC pretty much just as pandemic hits and he improves lot this year IMO just to get passed over for one of the dads.

Tho this could (should?) be justification for a heel turn.
 

cobainwasmurdered

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the lack of dedication here and possibly from @Slayer is truly disenheartening. However WK might be canceled/postponed considering Tokyo is asking the goverrnment to shut everything done immediately due to COVID.
 

King Kamala

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Honestly, a 5,000 person mute crowd isn’t much worse than an empty Tokyo Dome to begin with.

As responsible as NJPW has been during this pandemic, I don’t see them postponing the biggest shows of the year with one or two days notice. I can imagine them canceling New Year’s Dash and their post WK tours though.
 
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cobainwasmurdered

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It hasn't been a very good year by NJPW's usual standard but there has still been a ton of great wrestling. Both the Cup and the G1 had a lot of really good stuff even with the limited rosters. The EVIL turn was well-executed even though the followup sucked. BOSJ from what I've seen was good. Guys like YOSHIHASHI, Despy and Taichi really stepped up this year.

The booking was a mess but aside from EVIL's run with the belt I think the inring has been really great considering NJPW has been the company whose roster has been hardest hit by COVID.
 

King Kamala

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Yeah. There hasn’t been a huge decline in workrate quality but creative hasn’t made best out of a bad situation. Semi-explicitly saying Okada is going to be more boring now (and delivering on that promise) and effectively pushing Tanahashi way down the card and kind of turning him into a New Japan Dads are two moves that I could have been saved for after a global pandemic that decimated roster depth.
 

Slayer

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Oh neat, I finally got some negative reactions!

I've largely said enough as is with my NJ opinions the last few months, but I should note it's not like they've totally turned me off from watching at all, it's just the difference between "WK looks so good I gotta power thru the night and watch live!" vs "eh I can wait until morning and watch the VOD." Hell this isn't even the first time of the Gedo era that I weighed out such a decision as two years ago with Omega/Tanahashi I ultimately passed on watching live and waited until morning

Back after the G1 though I did say if everything held (which btw is its own issue) I would not be looking forward to Naito/Ibushi HeadDropMania VIII and I do stand by that, so in that regard I would watch maybe half of the show live and then catch the rest when I wake up
 

Slayer

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Also watching two live overnights in a row is a hard sell in general, and if a good portion of the second night is dependent on outcomes from the first, I feel more likely to watch the first night on VOD and only watch the second show live (which is what I did last year, though coming home from vacation at 11PM on night one didn't help)
 

cobainwasmurdered

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fun night. jr tag and kenta/kojima were good stuff and the top two matches were excllent. avoid the heavy tag and okhan/tana (tana did his best but its boring, the tag is just a nothing match that re-establishes the status quo)
 

Big Beard Booty Daddy

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I just started the show, but the Rumble was fun. Nothing spectacular, and I was rooting hard for the Lions. The end got a laugh out of me, because it was perfect.

Chase being #1 (he asked to be #1), and having Ishii, Suzuki, and Nagata be 2-4 was great, although those three should be in matches on the main card, but that's another discussion.

El Phantasmo might be one of the later additions to Bullet Club, but he's about the most perfect person they've added in a long time. He embodies BC perfectly. I wish he were the leader, although I am a big Jay White fan.
 

King Kamala

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Just starting the show but it opens with a Japanese Don King impersonator (in 2021? Is Vince secretly booking this) and Riki Chosu carrying his crying grandson to the ring so I know we're in for a good night.
 

King Kamala

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When I think NJPW 2020 booking wasn’t that bad, I realize Great O-Khan got a singles match at WrestleKingdom while Minoru Suzuki, Tomohiro Ishii, Hiroki Goto, Sho, and others (YOSHI-HASHI) were stuck in the pre show Rumble RANBO.
 

Big Beard Booty Daddy

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When I think NJPW 2020 booking wasn’t that bad, I realize Great O-Khan got a singles match at WrestleKingdom while Minoru Suzuki, Tomohiro Ishii, Hiroki Goto, Sho, and others (YOSHI-HASHI) were stuck in the pre show Rumble RANBO.

I know he's hated around here, but I liked the O-Khan/Tana match. It wasn't a 5 star classic, but it was easy to watch and didn't bore me. I like that they went away from the stupid, racist, in-ring gimmick that he started with, so he's easier to enjoy. Not saying others could have gotten the spot, but they didn't, and this is the card we got.
 

King Kamala

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As good as Okada/Ospreay was, Ibushi/Naito was even better. Reminds me why I love NJPW.

Also assuming Ibushi wins tomorrow, him going from 0-2 to 2-0 is nice, long term storytelling.
 

Valeyard

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The last two matches were masterpieces. Okada is the best in the world.

I don't get what the point of O-Khan is in 2021, and just isn't the right guy for that gimmick anyhow. The star power discrepancy in that match was like if Shawn had a match with Pat Tanaka in 1995. As an outsider looking in, there is zero reason to me why he got on the main card while MiSu, Nagata, and especially Ishii just got in the rumble.

Honma looks like he's made of paper mache and was kind of pathetic to see out there, to be honest. I hope Chase Stevens falls into the pit of suck he was in the last time I saw him

The last two matches (and KENTA/Kojima, but not close to the same level) are exactly what I wanted out of the show so I'm really fucking happy I watched it live.
 

Slayer

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as a PSA, tonight's main show starts at the same time as last night's, 12AM PT/3AM ET

there is a pre-show an hour before like last night but they're Stardom matches so AFAIK they won't be broadcast thru NJPW because rights shit
 
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