As I stated in a previous post, I wasn't sure if I was going to talk too much about the events of Wrestle Kingdom 13, but having the experience I had with it, I felt like this was as good a time as any to talk about it.
Also as I stated in a previous post, I wasn't too pro on subscribing to NJPW's streaming service because there wasn't a Roku or Samsung TV app to be found (apparently it is part of Amazon Fire, but I don't have one of those). But with some of the matches that I would potentially have to wait weeks to see on the abridged version that appeared on AXS TV, I figured that I would give it a try since I can screen share my Galaxy Tab with my TV. So I joined via PayPal last night about 15 minutes prior to the start of the pre-show.
At least, I thought I did. I do have to say this: New Japan's app/streaming service is... not great, to say the least. If you're not familiar with it, let me give you a brief overview. You get the app, and all it does is open a browser window and see the same things as you would just pulling it up on your computer. Anyway, what was most frustrating to me is that thanks to the attention that New Japan has been receiving among wrestling fans the world over, and especially in the US, I was shocked to find that they had a number of server issues with streaming Wrestle Kingdom live. This is a promotion that has to know that they have millions of fans all over and to have this many problems with showing their biggest show of the year is not very forward-thinking. And this takes me back to my attempts on two different computers to subscribe via PayPal, because as it turns out, neither of them worked. So not only were they having issues streaming the event itself, they were also having issues with allowing people to pay to sign up. Not a great sign of the quality of your service, NJPW. After about an hour, I just fucking gave up.
Friday morning, I figured that the problems would be solved, and indeed they were. So while I couldn't experience it with everyone else who was watching it live, I could at least see the match that I wanted to see the most before the AXS TV broadcast, and that was the first match of the night between my guy Will Ospreay and the champ Kota Ibushi for the NEVER Openweight title. And the only thing that really upset me about the match was the camera work, because they didn't even show Will doing my favorite of all wrestling moves, the Robinson Special. There was a declaration by the English commentary team that he had done it, and I did see the very tail end of it hitting Ibushi's head, but that's not enough for me!! I need the Robinson Special in my life. All the same, this had pretty much everything I wanted from a match between these two extremely athletic competitors. I personally can't say that this was really a 5-star match, but it was excellent for a show-opener, and it saw Ospreay capture the title. I am really looking forward to seeing what he does with this title. I was concerned, however, about Ibushi at the end of the match. I honestly didn't know if he was selling the impact of that elbow to the back of the head followed by the Stormbreaker, or if he was legit hurt, and it turns out that Ibushi was actually concussed from that shot, confirming as such on social media. Seems like it could still be a kayfabe injury, but since there has been no tweets that I could see from Ospreay being apologetic, it's likelier that it's true.
Then there was the Three-Way for the Jr. Tag Team titles with Roppongi 3K, Takagi and Bushi from LIJ, and champions Suzuki-Gun's El Desperado and Kanemaru. To be totally honest, as I've stated a number of times regarding NJPW, I'm not nearly as emotionally invested in most of these matches because the kayfabe storytelling isn't there for me so I don't really get excited about the match, but rather the performers in the match, and I don't really care too much about any of these guys, so whoever won was fine with me. As it turned out, the LIJ members ended up taking the titles from Desperado and Kanemaru of Suzuki-Gun. This match was pretty short and sweet, never really hitting the highs and lows that you want to see out of NJPW matches, but they can't all be great. And this match had something happen that happened maybe too many times through the night, but we'll talk more about that later.
Then came champ Tomohiro Ishii vs Zack Sabre Jr. for the Revolution Pro British Heavyweight title. I really enjoy watching both of these guys wrestle. Ishii is nicknamed the Stone Pitbull for a reason, and watching a lot of ZSJ matches this year, it became clear that this was someone that NJPW wanted to highlight. His ultra-fluid transitions into submission moves are a real joy to watch, but sometimes when it's early on in the match, it can feel like a bit of a slog to watch someone who pretty much does only technical catch wrestling. But these two put on a good show, and Zack came out on top with the title. It was a strong match all around, but again, mid card matches can either steal the show, or, in the case of this match, it's mostly just a place-setter for the bigger matches later that the show wants to emphasize.
Then next was another 3-way IWGP Tag title match, but this time, it was for the heavyweights with LIJ members EVIL and Sanada, the Young Bucks and champs Guerrillas of Destiny from Bullet Club. This started pretty fast right out of the gate, and didn't really slow down until the end, where LIJ won another set of titles with EVIL and Sanada defeating GOD and taking the titles. The difference between the Jr. tag match and this match was that I really enjoy watching all of these guys. This was a really fun, hard-hitting match.
Then we got Juice Robinson vs champ Cody for the US title (which I didn't know I'd be seeing twice because this match was included on the AXS broadcast as well). This had something else that we saw a few times during the night and that was the other competitors using the other's signature or finishing moves against the other person. Juice pulled a Cross Rhodes on Cody and Cody hit a Pulp Friction on Juice. Ultimately, after two Pulp Frictions, Juice took the US title back from Cody in a fine match that didn't really click because it seemed, well, kinda like Cody was phoning this one in. Cody's always good, and has never been better than he's been as The American Nightmare, but he's got his own promotion to worry about now.
And now I'm going to talk about something that was a really common theme of the show: title changes. I know that Wrestlemania has a lot of title changes because it basically sets up potentially a year's worth of storytelling for either the new champ or the losing defender. I'm not a huge fan of hitting a reset button on a promotion, but god damn, New Japan really did that this year. I know there's a lot of speculation about certain performers and whether or not some of them will be leaving at some point in 2019 so I kind of get it, but (and I'm going to spoil something if you haven't watched, in which case, what the fuck are you doing? Watch the show first before you read a recap!) every single title that was in a bout changed hands. I don't know if this is NJPW potentially reading the writing on the walls and going with performers that are more in it for the long haul, or if they just really felt like these matches were booked exactly the way they should have been, but I have a feeling that this is the first look at what the upcoming year is going to look like for New Japan. Whether that's a good or bad thing, only time will tell. More on this later.
I'm honestly just going to skip to the two main events, bypassing the Jr. Heavyweight champ bout with KUSHIDA and Ishimori and the grudge match between Jay White and Okada. I'll talk about them someday, but there's a lot of show to go over here, and I wasn't particularly stunned by the Jr. Heavyweight title match (and I likely won't be until Takahashi comes back), and of course Jay White vs Okada was going to be a heavy-duty match.
But let's go to Jericho v Naito for the IC title. This was a fucking war, and it needed to be. Jericho continued to be the part-timer we wish fucking Lesnar could be. He brought it all and left it all, and so did Naito. Making it a No DQ match was also the right call. There wasn't a thing I didn't love about this match. It was booked to near perfection from beginning to end. We knew that Naito was going to come out of this one on top, so I wasn't particularly shocked that another title changed hands, but these two would have absolutely torn the fucking Tokyo Dome down...
...if it hadn't been for Omega v Tanahashi for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. Kenny went on to prove that he still had every single thing that he needed to steal the show, and The Ace proved that after decades in the biz, there's a reason they call him The Ace. This was just an incredibly dramatic bout that didn't quite hit the highs and lows of the two out of three falls match that Omega and Naito had at Dominion or the grudge match that he had at WK 12 against Jericho, but this was an incredible closer to a pretty fucking solid night of NJPW.
I've kept this blog open this whole weekend, and it's now Sunday night, and now we have to talk about the aftermath, and I'm not talking about New Years Bash, but the declarations of people leaving the company and this is indicative of what I was talking about earlier with the all titles changing hands and New Japan having its finger on the reset button. KUSHIDA announced earlier Sunday that he was leaving New Japan. There wasn't really a clue as to where he's going to go (I'm sure that NXT would love to have a talent like him), but I certainly wish him success. And then there's the shocking yet also equally predictable announcement that Kenny Omega is leaving New Japan. That is potentially the watershed moment of 2019 in pro wrestling. Now, the rumor mill is grinding out just about every possible scenario as far as the dirt sheets are concerned, but the two most consistent rumors are that he's leaving to throw all his effort into launching All Elite Wrestling with the Young Bucks, Cody, Marty Scurll, Hangman Page and whoever else they could look to add to this endeavor or that he's going to WWE for a multi-million dollar paycheck. To be honest, AEW seems like the likeliest scenario.
But.
Kenny has made it clear that there are wrestlers within WWE that he'd love to face off against, particularly a Wrestlemania match against A.J. Styles. Now, WWE has the resources to make this happen, but it would have to be something better than what we got at Mania 34 with the supposed "dream match" between A.J. and Nakamura. So I'm going to the Rumble, as you all know if you've read any of my previous posts, and if he came in at #29 or something like that, I would mark right the fuck out. I'm not saying this is at all what's going to happen, but I can dream.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on everything Wrestle Kingdom! Come back in a few days to see my tirade about what's going to happen on Raw (hint: it involves an unapologetic racist asshole making an appearance no one should ever want) and hopefully all the cool things that will happen on SD Live!
Until next time, kids...
Also as I stated in a previous post, I wasn't too pro on subscribing to NJPW's streaming service because there wasn't a Roku or Samsung TV app to be found (apparently it is part of Amazon Fire, but I don't have one of those). But with some of the matches that I would potentially have to wait weeks to see on the abridged version that appeared on AXS TV, I figured that I would give it a try since I can screen share my Galaxy Tab with my TV. So I joined via PayPal last night about 15 minutes prior to the start of the pre-show.
At least, I thought I did. I do have to say this: New Japan's app/streaming service is... not great, to say the least. If you're not familiar with it, let me give you a brief overview. You get the app, and all it does is open a browser window and see the same things as you would just pulling it up on your computer. Anyway, what was most frustrating to me is that thanks to the attention that New Japan has been receiving among wrestling fans the world over, and especially in the US, I was shocked to find that they had a number of server issues with streaming Wrestle Kingdom live. This is a promotion that has to know that they have millions of fans all over and to have this many problems with showing their biggest show of the year is not very forward-thinking. And this takes me back to my attempts on two different computers to subscribe via PayPal, because as it turns out, neither of them worked. So not only were they having issues streaming the event itself, they were also having issues with allowing people to pay to sign up. Not a great sign of the quality of your service, NJPW. After about an hour, I just fucking gave up.
Friday morning, I figured that the problems would be solved, and indeed they were. So while I couldn't experience it with everyone else who was watching it live, I could at least see the match that I wanted to see the most before the AXS TV broadcast, and that was the first match of the night between my guy Will Ospreay and the champ Kota Ibushi for the NEVER Openweight title. And the only thing that really upset me about the match was the camera work, because they didn't even show Will doing my favorite of all wrestling moves, the Robinson Special. There was a declaration by the English commentary team that he had done it, and I did see the very tail end of it hitting Ibushi's head, but that's not enough for me!! I need the Robinson Special in my life. All the same, this had pretty much everything I wanted from a match between these two extremely athletic competitors. I personally can't say that this was really a 5-star match, but it was excellent for a show-opener, and it saw Ospreay capture the title. I am really looking forward to seeing what he does with this title. I was concerned, however, about Ibushi at the end of the match. I honestly didn't know if he was selling the impact of that elbow to the back of the head followed by the Stormbreaker, or if he was legit hurt, and it turns out that Ibushi was actually concussed from that shot, confirming as such on social media. Seems like it could still be a kayfabe injury, but since there has been no tweets that I could see from Ospreay being apologetic, it's likelier that it's true.
Then there was the Three-Way for the Jr. Tag Team titles with Roppongi 3K, Takagi and Bushi from LIJ, and champions Suzuki-Gun's El Desperado and Kanemaru. To be totally honest, as I've stated a number of times regarding NJPW, I'm not nearly as emotionally invested in most of these matches because the kayfabe storytelling isn't there for me so I don't really get excited about the match, but rather the performers in the match, and I don't really care too much about any of these guys, so whoever won was fine with me. As it turned out, the LIJ members ended up taking the titles from Desperado and Kanemaru of Suzuki-Gun. This match was pretty short and sweet, never really hitting the highs and lows that you want to see out of NJPW matches, but they can't all be great. And this match had something happen that happened maybe too many times through the night, but we'll talk more about that later.
Then came champ Tomohiro Ishii vs Zack Sabre Jr. for the Revolution Pro British Heavyweight title. I really enjoy watching both of these guys wrestle. Ishii is nicknamed the Stone Pitbull for a reason, and watching a lot of ZSJ matches this year, it became clear that this was someone that NJPW wanted to highlight. His ultra-fluid transitions into submission moves are a real joy to watch, but sometimes when it's early on in the match, it can feel like a bit of a slog to watch someone who pretty much does only technical catch wrestling. But these two put on a good show, and Zack came out on top with the title. It was a strong match all around, but again, mid card matches can either steal the show, or, in the case of this match, it's mostly just a place-setter for the bigger matches later that the show wants to emphasize.
Then next was another 3-way IWGP Tag title match, but this time, it was for the heavyweights with LIJ members EVIL and Sanada, the Young Bucks and champs Guerrillas of Destiny from Bullet Club. This started pretty fast right out of the gate, and didn't really slow down until the end, where LIJ won another set of titles with EVIL and Sanada defeating GOD and taking the titles. The difference between the Jr. tag match and this match was that I really enjoy watching all of these guys. This was a really fun, hard-hitting match.
Then we got Juice Robinson vs champ Cody for the US title (which I didn't know I'd be seeing twice because this match was included on the AXS broadcast as well). This had something else that we saw a few times during the night and that was the other competitors using the other's signature or finishing moves against the other person. Juice pulled a Cross Rhodes on Cody and Cody hit a Pulp Friction on Juice. Ultimately, after two Pulp Frictions, Juice took the US title back from Cody in a fine match that didn't really click because it seemed, well, kinda like Cody was phoning this one in. Cody's always good, and has never been better than he's been as The American Nightmare, but he's got his own promotion to worry about now.
And now I'm going to talk about something that was a really common theme of the show: title changes. I know that Wrestlemania has a lot of title changes because it basically sets up potentially a year's worth of storytelling for either the new champ or the losing defender. I'm not a huge fan of hitting a reset button on a promotion, but god damn, New Japan really did that this year. I know there's a lot of speculation about certain performers and whether or not some of them will be leaving at some point in 2019 so I kind of get it, but (and I'm going to spoil something if you haven't watched, in which case, what the fuck are you doing? Watch the show first before you read a recap!) every single title that was in a bout changed hands. I don't know if this is NJPW potentially reading the writing on the walls and going with performers that are more in it for the long haul, or if they just really felt like these matches were booked exactly the way they should have been, but I have a feeling that this is the first look at what the upcoming year is going to look like for New Japan. Whether that's a good or bad thing, only time will tell. More on this later.
I'm honestly just going to skip to the two main events, bypassing the Jr. Heavyweight champ bout with KUSHIDA and Ishimori and the grudge match between Jay White and Okada. I'll talk about them someday, but there's a lot of show to go over here, and I wasn't particularly stunned by the Jr. Heavyweight title match (and I likely won't be until Takahashi comes back), and of course Jay White vs Okada was going to be a heavy-duty match.
But let's go to Jericho v Naito for the IC title. This was a fucking war, and it needed to be. Jericho continued to be the part-timer we wish fucking Lesnar could be. He brought it all and left it all, and so did Naito. Making it a No DQ match was also the right call. There wasn't a thing I didn't love about this match. It was booked to near perfection from beginning to end. We knew that Naito was going to come out of this one on top, so I wasn't particularly shocked that another title changed hands, but these two would have absolutely torn the fucking Tokyo Dome down...
...if it hadn't been for Omega v Tanahashi for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. Kenny went on to prove that he still had every single thing that he needed to steal the show, and The Ace proved that after decades in the biz, there's a reason they call him The Ace. This was just an incredibly dramatic bout that didn't quite hit the highs and lows of the two out of three falls match that Omega and Naito had at Dominion or the grudge match that he had at WK 12 against Jericho, but this was an incredible closer to a pretty fucking solid night of NJPW.
I've kept this blog open this whole weekend, and it's now Sunday night, and now we have to talk about the aftermath, and I'm not talking about New Years Bash, but the declarations of people leaving the company and this is indicative of what I was talking about earlier with the all titles changing hands and New Japan having its finger on the reset button. KUSHIDA announced earlier Sunday that he was leaving New Japan. There wasn't really a clue as to where he's going to go (I'm sure that NXT would love to have a talent like him), but I certainly wish him success. And then there's the shocking yet also equally predictable announcement that Kenny Omega is leaving New Japan. That is potentially the watershed moment of 2019 in pro wrestling. Now, the rumor mill is grinding out just about every possible scenario as far as the dirt sheets are concerned, but the two most consistent rumors are that he's leaving to throw all his effort into launching All Elite Wrestling with the Young Bucks, Cody, Marty Scurll, Hangman Page and whoever else they could look to add to this endeavor or that he's going to WWE for a multi-million dollar paycheck. To be honest, AEW seems like the likeliest scenario.
But.
Kenny has made it clear that there are wrestlers within WWE that he'd love to face off against, particularly a Wrestlemania match against A.J. Styles. Now, WWE has the resources to make this happen, but it would have to be something better than what we got at Mania 34 with the supposed "dream match" between A.J. and Nakamura. So I'm going to the Rumble, as you all know if you've read any of my previous posts, and if he came in at #29 or something like that, I would mark right the fuck out. I'm not saying this is at all what's going to happen, but I can dream.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on everything Wrestle Kingdom! Come back in a few days to see my tirade about what's going to happen on Raw (hint: it involves an unapologetic racist asshole making an appearance no one should ever want) and hopefully all the cool things that will happen on SD Live!
Until next time, kids...
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