NJPW World

[AshC]

I stuck this on social media after the G1 final, for a mixed crowd of wrestling fans and non-fans.

After the best part of 35 years, I had pretty much stopped watching wrestling on TV...

Every match seemed the same. All of the meaningless video game fight sequences. The opening dance routine, with stand-off at the end. The 'let's pull my best amateur dramatics face' storytelling. Dives in every match, Canadian Destroyers left and right, kicking out of everything, ever.

My favourite wrestler of the last 25 years is Hiroshi Tanahashi. Without speaking a word of English, the man spoke volumes. He was the spiritual successor to Bret Hart, a man who made people care so deeply, without sacrificing the fundamental foundations of what professional wrestling is...

A sport. You can have mad angles, I love my mad angles. But the burning sun the entire thing orbits around is the presentation of a competitive sporting universe - even if it's one that accommodates undertakers and repo men as participants at times. 😂

I've gone on a tangent... so, I subscribed to the NJPW streaming service to see the last match of Tanahashi and it was glorious, the best match presentation of the year.

This weekend, I watched the final of the G1 tournament, which, to the uninitiated, is the biggest annual tournament in pro wrestling. A star maker and a solidifier of legends.

NJPW have lost almost all their top guys, be it to retirement or the American scene. And so, two relative newcomers were given the big final; Yuya Uemura and Ryohei Oiwa.

And in this huge, spotlighted match, one of the biggest on the global wrestling calendar, they veered away from how people think we must present pro wrestling in the 2020s and put on this *absolute struggle*, a believable sporting contest, with high stakes and logic.

It wasn't smoothly polished to the point was transparent, wrestling wasn't meant to be... what fights are? They're a *struggle*.

And, after years and years of this perception that things have to be a certain way, as this particular group of modern fans pops for certain things, it's fascinating to see the reception for it. High, high praise. Huge. 

Because pro wrestling still works! 

This match could end up being an outlier.

Or it could end up being one of the most consequential matches of the century.

Maybe I'll be watching a bit longer yet.