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Fwd: the goods..

Random WRESTLE KINGDOM of the Day. Believe the hype.


God bless NJPW and YouTube.  

Comments

  1. Oh sweet upload! Meltzer was in freakin love with this show on the radio show! I just watched 2003's Kobashi vs Misawa match last night and I'm ready for my first foray into a New Japan ppv....Meltzer said he'd be surprised if this did NOT end up as Show of the Year haha

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  2. Isn't Meltzer in love with anything from Japan ? That said, Can't wait to watch this.

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  3. I barely know a thing or two of Japanese wrestling. Watching this vid, it amazes me how there's barely anyone there at the show. NJPW was once a power house of a company no? How long have they been falling down the tracks? Are they closing soon?

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  4. Are you kidding me? There was like 50000 there.

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  5. How is that possible? It looked like there were only people on the floor. Unless the Tokyo Dome (I assume) is just that big.

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  6. Oh no, later on in the show there's crowd shots from the bleacher level. So this seems to have drawn well. In fact, the Observer reported that the company's chair stepped down saying the company had "turned a corner." Seems like the ship is at least stable.

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  7. Wikipedia says 29,000. I'd say that doesn't qualify as "barely anyone."

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  8. "I have never been paid so much to do so little. #ILoveJapan" - MVP

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  9. I really wish we'd get an overdub of these shows in english.

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  10. The 3-way was the one that did it for me. But as I'm sure you all have heard, there's basically 4 or 5 ****+ matches, and a couple ***1/2 tag matches. Just a really good show..

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  11. And there goes any chances of me being productive today. I'm loving these full Japanese shows. I remember how mythic and cool Japanese wrestling seemed to me back when I was a young fan and you would only occasionally catch glimpses in guys like Muta and Liger. Then the internet became a thing and I ordered some All Japan tapes, saw Misawa, saw Benoit's Japan stuff, saw some Dragon's Gate and sated my craving for the time. ECW and, later, indies like ROH really plugged the workrate gap for a long time and I stopped keeping tabs on New & and All Japan--and never really got into Noah. But I watched that last ppv that was posted with Tanahashi/Suzuki and was really hooked on the style and environment. Even through the language barrier, I could understand the reverence and interest the commentators were showing the matches and the build of the fans' responses throughout each match really drew me in. While I wish I knew more about the wrestlers and angles, I'm enjoying figuring out the stories of the matches as I watch them. It's been a fresh experience as a wrestling fan--which is, in the WWE dominated landscape, something I haven't had in a long time.

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  12. And... They've already annonunced some matches for February's PPV..

    KES vs. TenKoji for the tag titles..
    Prince Devitt defends against the Funky Weapon
    Kushida & Shelley defending the Jr. tag titles against Romero & Kozlov (not vlad)
    Tanahashi puts the world title up against Karl Anderson

    That card sounds DOPE~!!!

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  13. Here's the card, to put it in a convenient spot:

    Dark Match

    CHAOS (Jado, Tomohiro Ishii & YOSHI-HASHI) vs. Captain New Japan, Tama Tonga & Wataru Inoue




    Dark Match

    Hiromu Takahashi, Jushin Thunder Liger & Tiger Mask vs. BUSHI, KUSHIDA & Ryusuke Taguchi




    Eight Man Tag Team Match

    CHAOS (Takashi Iizuka, Toru Yano & Yujiro Takahashi) & Bob Sapp vs. Muscle Orchestra (Manabu Nakanishi & Strong Man), Akebono & MVP




    NEVER Openweight Title Match

    Masato Tanaka (c) vs. Shelton Benjamin




    IWGP Tag Team Title Match

    Killer Elite Squad (Davey Boy Smith Jr. & Lance Archer) (c) vs. Hirooki Goto & Karl Anderson




    Singles Match

    Minoru Suzuki vs. Yuji Nagata




    IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title Three Way Dance

    Prince Devitt (c) vs. Kota Ibushi vs. Low Ki




    Tag Team Match

    Keiji Muto & Shinjiro Otani vs. TenKoji (Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima)




    Singles Match

    Katsuyori Shibata vs. Togi Makabe




    IWGP Intercontinental Title Match

    Shinsuke Nakamura (c) vs. Kazushi Sakuraba




    IWGP Heavyweight Title Match

    Hiroshi Tanahashi (c) vs. Kazuchika Okada

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  14. It should be noted NJPW is only announcing the amount of people who paid. 29000 paid for their tickets. The rest didnt. They are not releasing papered tickets anymore.

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  15. For those of us without hours to spare to watch the whole thing - what matches are the standouts?

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  16. Fairly obvious I guess, but is the silence during some of the entrances due to music licensing issues, as I presume? It seems weird that a company the size of New Japan would simply shrug off such a big production issue if they're doing these shows as ppvs.

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  17. The three way is really good,Suzuki/Nagata is stiff as hell,nakamura/sakuraba is great with super hard knees to the head and tanahashi/okada is not their best but still a very good match it is a great show.

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  18. It's awesome that Smith and Archer's careers have found this second life. They actually make a really good power/brawler team, reminding me a bit of Hansen/Brody. I'm glad they didn't go to TNA where they would still be wearing masks fleeing from Sting.

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  19. Apparently Loki is now the Irwin R. Schyster of his generation.

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  20. I know nothing about Makabe and Shibata, but the opening seconds of their match informed me that they dislike each other a great deal. That is what a feud is supposed to look like.

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  21. Low-Ki's "Mr. 47: suit is awesome.

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  22. That's pretty much it. Devitt, for example, uses "You're The Best" from the Karate Kid. And Makabe's theme is a cover of the Immigrant Song.

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  23. That three-way dance... fun, yes, but when you're doing sequences that contrived it always looks silly when someone's standing there waiting to get hit, even if the delay is only a couple of seconds. I always thought Low-Ki was a video game wrestler; good to see he's admitted it to himself.


    Tanahashi's the face, right? Because that air guitar stuff is LAME. Is it meant to be ironic or something? Like Cody's moustache? Still, we're a heel turn away from 4MB - surely a Four Horsemen for the 21st century.

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  24. Xenophobic horseshit. Why on earth would you want to hear a bored, disinterested English-speaking commentator when the Japanese bring the passion like no other.

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  25. This post makes me want to kick my dog across the room. And I love my dog.

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  26. Xenophobic? Are you fucking mental? It's simple, I don't understand or speak Japanese. I don't watch a foreign film without subtitles, do you? If anything, subtitles would help like the old iron chef. Ass.

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  27. I'm with you, I haven't been able to figure out WTF Tanahashi's deal is for the last four years ago. Great wrestler (I've loved him ever since the G1 final against Tenzan - nearly a decade ago now), but I think his character gets lost in translation somewhat. I get that he's a ROCK STAR and I presume those guys with him during the entrance were some Japanese music group, but I think his character needs a bit more context than, say, Nakamura.

    (Nakamura's weirdness is simply that you wouldn't think a skinny guy wearing Test's old leather pants would be that awesome, but there you go)

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  28. More importantly, that was apparently the legit number. NJPW is never going to be what it was in the 90s again, but even at their peak they likely were papering like all hell.

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  29. Yeah, I was heartbroken to not hear Sakuraba's entrance music; the entrance is the most fun thing about him these days. At least TenKoji's was intact, as I presume that's an NJPW composition.

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  30. Dave's been a LITTLE over-enthusiastic about NJPW lately, but they've certainly turned the corner from the days when people were worrying that they wouldn't even be able to run a dome show anymore. And if they've finally figured out how to get people to pay for major shows via iPPV, it would solve a LOT of their issues.

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  31. No one should come to the ring to "You're the Best" and have it be unheard. Fix this New Japan.

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  32. I don't understand what's ironic about Cody's mustache. I think it really enhances his look and helps him move away from the dashing gimmick. It would be nice if the WWE would let it just be though and stopped making the mustache the focus of all comments related to him.

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  33. Triple H needs to watch this IC title match. That's how you knee somebody!

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  34. I'm with you, clearly a good wrestler, but I'm guessing you need context to 'get' the character. I suppose the YES! thing makes just as little sense.

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  35. they had an AWESOME 2012.. the love is warranted.. though I'll easily admit Dave can fan boy it up a bit at times..

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