Puroresu Love & Resources V4

[cobainwasmurdered]

NJPW WTL Lineup

A Block
Goto/Yoshihashi
ChaseOwens/KENTA
ShotaUmino/Honma
JeffCobb/CallumNewman
AlexZayne/X
SHINGO/Tsuji
Sabre/Oiwa
Kidd/SANADA

B Block
OKhan/Henare
TAKA/Taichi
TMDK
Naito/Hiromu
Tanahashi/Jado (oh how the mighty have fallen, tana)
Tome/StevenFillip
Yano/BoltinOleg
Narita/EVIL

A block feels like it has a bunch of interesting matches this year for once. Putting Hiromu with Naito to carry the workload and have them feed off each other charismawise was very smart. Not sure why they couldn't do that for Tanahashi too and spare poor Jado having to hobble out there.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

Wrestle Kingdom Lineup 1/4
1. Tanahashi Vs EVIL (for the Presidency of NJPW iirc)
2. Kevin Knight/KUSHIDA Vs Robbie Eagles/Kosei Fujita Vs TJP/Fracesco Akira Vs Clack Conners/ Drilla Moloney (for Jr Tag Titles)
3. Ren Narita Vs Jeff Cobb Vs Ryohei Oiwa (For TV Title)
4. Mayu Iwatani Vs AZM (for Women's Title)
5. SHINGO Vs Takeshita (for AEW IC and NEVER title)
6. Douki Vs El Desperado (Jr Title)
7. David Finlay Vs Yota Tsuji (NJPW IC Title)
8. Sabre Jr Vs Shota Umino (World Heavy)

Wrestle Dynasty 1/5 (may not be final)
1. Sabre Jr Vs Ricochet
2. Shingo Vs Takeshita or Tomohiro Ishii (NEVER Openweight)
3. Yota Tsuji Vs Jack Perry
4. AEW Rep Vs CMLL Rep Vs ROH Rep Vs STARDOM Rep (women's 4 way tourny finals)
5. Kenny Omega Vs Gabe Kidd
6. Shota Umino Vs Claudio
7. David Finlay Vs Brody King


The Bucks where scheduled for 1/5 but HENARE is injured so it's been taken off. I'm assuming something will replace that.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

Hiromu Vs Naito added to 1/4

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

【1ページ目】【新日本】内藤哲也が４度目の手術終え退院　高橋ヒロムは思いを込めた〝お祝い０円〟 | 東スポWEB

左目の手術を受けた新日本プロレスの内藤哲也（４２）が１９日、神奈川県内の病院を退院した...

www.tokyo-sports.co.jp

we should all have a friend like Hiromu

 

[tekcop]

【1ページ目】【新日本】内藤哲也が４度目の手術終え退院　高橋ヒロムは思いを込めた〝お祝い０円〟 | 東スポWEB

左目の手術を受けた新日本プロレスの内藤哲也（４２）が１９日、神奈川県内の病院を退院した...

www.tokyo-sports.co.jp

we should all have a friend like Hiromu

I enjoyed the ending bit from Naito:

"Do you mind if I grab this instead?" he said, taking a few bills from the reporter's wallet and heading home.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

The running gag of Naito torturing reporters by stiffing them with food bills, etc is one of my favourites.

 

[Hawk 34]

a Christmas present for @cobainwasmurdered as OMOS is announced to be working the NOAH new years event.

 

[Valeyard]

See? Gonna be the next Taue.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

Yeah I think this will be really good for him.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

NOAH 1/1
1 Battle Royal Match Shuhei Taniguchi vs. Tadasuke vs. Yuto Kikuchi vs. Harutoki vs. Yu Owada vs. Daiki Odashima vs. ??? vs. ??? vs. ??? vs. ??? vs. ??? vs. ??? vs. ???
2 GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Title Match(HAYATA & YO-HEY) (c) vs. AMAKUSA & Junta Miyawaki vs. Alejandro & Kai Fujimura)
3 Atsushi Kotoge, Go Shiozaki, Hajime Ohara & Mohammed Yone vs. Black Menso-re, Kazuyuki Fujita, Shuji Ishikawa & Tetsuya Endo
4 El Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr. vs. Galeno Del Mal
5 KENTA vs. Kenoh
6 GHC Junior Heavyweight Title Match Daga (c) vs. Eita
7 GHC National Title Match Manabu Soya (c) vs. Masa Kitamiya
8 GHC Tag Team Title Match Naomichi Marufuji & Takashi Sugiura (c) vs. Jack Morris & Omos
9 Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Ulka Sasaki
10 GHC Heavyweight Title Match Kaito Kiyomiya (c) vs. Taishi Ozawa

NOAH's big show to kick off the year. It feels like a really mixed bag.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

Well KENTA Vs Kenoh was decent but that's about it so far. Masa Inoue was in the battle royale and looked like he was gonna die walking down the little steps.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

Wrestle Kingdom Tonight! Starts at Midnight Pacific

No.	Matches*	Stipulations
1P	All TBA	New Japan Ranbo to determine the #1 contender for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship[7]
2	Intergalactic Jet Setters (Kevin Knight and Kushida) (c) vs. Ichiban Sweet Boys (Robbie Eagles and Kosei Fujita) vs. Catch 2/2 (TJP and Francesco Akira) vs. Bullet Club War Dogs (Clark Connors and Drilla Moloney)	Four-way Tokyo Terror ladder match for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship[8][9]
3	Mayu Iwatani (c) vs. AZM	Singles match for the IWGP Women's Championship[10]
4	Ren Narita (c) vs. Jeff Cobb vs. Ryohei Oiwa vs. El Phantasmo	Four-way match for the NJPW World Television Championship[11][12]
5	Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Evil	Lumberjack match[13] If Tanahashi loses, he must retire from in-ring competition.
6	Shingo Takagi (Openweight) vs. Konosuke Takeshita (International)	Winner Takes All match for the NEVER Openweight Championship and AEW International Championship[14][15]
7	Douki (c) vs. El Desperado	Singles match for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship[16]
8	David Finlay (c) vs. Yota Tsuji	Singles match for the IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship[17]
9	Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiromu Takahashi	Singles match[18]
10	Zack Sabre Jr. (c) vs. Shota Umino	Singles match for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship[11]

If that's too late for you then tomorrow's Wrestle Dynasty starts at a much more reasonable 8pm Pacific time

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

I DONT WANT TO SPOIL BUT OH SHIT TANAHASHI VS SHIBATA TOMORROW/TONIGHT!

 

[One Epic Winter (OEW)]

Sabre/Umino was LOOOONG. Both men tried but not the best WK main event. My MOTN was Finlay/Tsuji.

 

[JHawk]

I really wanted to like this show but aside of Finlay-Tsuji and Shingo-Takeshita most of felt like it was kind of there.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

I enjoyed the show but it wasn't the best WK by any means. Douki going down with an injury really sucked as I was looking forward to his match with Despy. I loved his entrance. Also fuck yeah this is Goto's year!!

I'm SUPER psyched to see Shibata Vs Tanahashi.

1P	Willow Nightingale (AEW) vs. Persephone (CMLL) vs. Athena (ROH) vs. Momo Watanabe (Stardom)	International Women’s Cup final four-way match[17][18] Winner receives a women's championship match from the participating promotion of their choosing.
2P	The Sons of Texas (Dustin Rhodes and Sammy Guevara) (c) vs. House of Torture (Sho and Yoshinobu Kanemaru)	Tag team match for the ROH World Tag Team Championship[19]
3	Four NJPW wrestlers and four CMLL wrestlers TBA	Eight-man Lucha Gauntlet match[20]
4	Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Katsuyori Shibata	Grappling match[21]
5	Mercedes Moné (Strong) vs. Mina Shirakawa (British)	Winner Takes All match for the Strong Women's Championship and the Undisputed British Women's Championship[22]
6	David Finlay vs. Brody King	Singles match[23]
7	Shota Umino vs. Claudio Castagnoli	Singles match[24]
8	Konosuke Takeshita (c) vs. Tomohiro Ishii	Singles match for the NEVER Openweight Championship and the AEW International Championship[25]
9	United Empire (Great-O-Khan and Jeff Cobb) vs. The Young Bucks (Matthew Jackson and Nicholas Jackson) vs. Los Ingobernables de Japon (Tetsuya Naito and Hiromu Takahashi)	Three-way tag team match for the vacant IWGP Tag Team Championship[26][27]
10	Yota Tsuji (c) vs. Jack Perry	Singles match for the IWGP Global Heavyweight Championship[25]
11	Kenny Omega vs. Gabe Kidd	Singles match[28]
12	Zack Sabre Jr. (c) vs. Ricochet	Singles match for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship[29]

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

I'm also curious if the Main went longer because of the Douki injury because it definitely felt stretched.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

preshow starts in a few minutes

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

only 5 minutes is some kind of weird punishment from njpw for shibata going into business last time at the dome imo but if it is, it's very self-defeating. I still enjoyed it for it was but it's very funny that the guy who isn't "medically cleared" by njpw looked 10x better than Tanahashi.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

Now that is the Ishii I love and AEW only watchers don't get to see enough of. Total show stealer. Takeshita has the best forearms in the business.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

I hate on Omega a lot but that was a great match (verging on overkill as he tends to do) but he MADE Gabe Kidd tonight. He also knew how to adapt to the crowd perfectly. The fans wanted to cheer for Gabe so he leaned into it and went heel. Loved the blood from both guys. Tanahashi was so affected after the match he was in tears.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

way better than last night

Preshow was nothing special but nothing bad. Thank goodness HoT lost as expected.
Ishimori winning the title shot against Despy is very standard booking but it's fine.
Tana Vs Shibata was like I said in previous post not what I wanted given the time limit but I still loved it. Give me more!
Mone Vs Mina was good but I'm ready for Mone to lose her belts not add another.
At the start of Takeshita/Ishii I was thinking Ishii had slowed down a lot but man this was GOOD SHIT. Takeshita makes everything look so fucking crisp. Ishii HAS slowed down but he still brings it. Loved this.
Tag 3 way was a Bucks match. It was not good.
Brody wrecked Finlay for most of the match so I liked that. I wish he'd won but this was fine.
Shota just feels so lost. This was technically fine but again a match where a guy gets beats on then wins.
Tsuji is the future star of the company but he still isn't able to carry someone who is just "good". Perry is just good.
Omega and Kidd had the match of both shows. Great stuff.
Sabre and Rico did their best but almost no one could follow the last match.


Everyone should seek out the two Takeshita matches and Kidd Vs Omega from these shows. Bonus for Finlay/Tsuji

 

[Broward83]

So was ZSJ/Shota that bad? Twitter is telling me that Tana had an Inoki moment out there after it.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

It was just way too long and the crowd turned on Shota a bit because he should never have been in the spot. The match had no real build or logic for Shota being in the main, etc. Tana looked a bit unhappy but it was nowhere near Inoki storming the ring to stop a match lol. The contrast with the next night with him in tears after the Omega/Kidd match was pretty drastic though.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

【1ページ目】【ＡＥＷ】柴田勝頼　棚橋弘至の引退ロードに〝闘魂エール〟…中邑との再会に「迷わず行けよ！」 | 東スポWEB

新日本プロレス、米ＡＥＷらの合同興行「レッスルダイナスティ」（５日、東京ドーム）で、ＡＥＷの柴...

www.tokyo-sports.co.jp

Among other things he says Tanahashi needs to wrestle Nakamura and he wants all three of them to reunite, and he believes that Tana has the pull as President to make it happen. YES PLEASE!

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1876312262845374523

I told you @Slayer that he was being annoying as fuck!

 

[One Epic Winter (OEW)]

Damn, whenever I watched the English feeds of shows, he always seemed mild mannered and informative. Didn't think he'd pop off enough to get a suspension.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

He was so bad Rocky Romero repeatedly told him (very nicely) to calm down. It was clearly over the line and happened across the show so it wasn't just in the contest of one match. I like Chris a lot and have followed him since before he was with NJPW but this was really bad and weird. It didn't make any sense even if he was trying to work an AEW Vs NJPW angle because the stuff he was saying was weird reddit/twitter shit that was just burying AEW and totally unhelpful.

If njpw ever lost the aew relationship theyd be beyond fucked.

 

[Hawk 34]

Schiavone had a butt hurt response that he had to take down and delete.

Tony Schiavone Responds To Chris Charlton In Now Deleted Tweet | Fightful News

Tony Schiavone responds to the Chris Charlton news.

www.fightful.com

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1878342333592473857

Probably an angle but I hope he actually is leaving and frees up some space.

Also I only saw bits and pieces but Battle in The Valley is getting hyped as the best NJPW US show in years so its worth checking out.