NJPW World

[mim731]

19 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said:

Never knew that, but then again I haven’t heard his name in years either. And apparently Omega hadn’t heard about it either. If he had known, As he has said in that statement though, I’m sure he wouldn’t have even entertained the idea of booking him had he known.

Yeah that's very much how I read it. Omega clearly had no idea, but it's a lesson learned for booking future shows.

Edited July 2, 2018 by mim731

[BomberPat]

18 minutes ago, WyattSheepMask said:

Never knew that, but then again I haven’t heard his name in years either. And apparently Omega hadn’t heard about it either. If he had known, As he has said in that statement though, I’m sure he wouldn’t have even entertained the idea of booking him had he known.

I've not really had chance to read into it, but Omega issued an apology that seemed pretty genuine and heartfelt, and David Bixenspan dug up photos from 2016 showing Omega posing for a photo with the guy, and saying that Omega's claims of not knowing him don't really ring true. I think Bix is probably overstating it - if you wrestle all over the world, for years, you're not going to remember every person you ever meet at a show - but he might have more backing up his argument; he seems to think that it's either a case of Chasyn Race misleading Omega about the specifics of his conviction, or Omega downplaying it in hoping that no one would find out. I don't think Omega's stupid enough to risk that for a guy who brings nothing to the table, but wrestling's not short on that behaviour, so who knows?

[Polish Dad]

I think the problem that kicked it off is that Omega's apology came after he initially tried to brush it off as not a big deal, which then made his apology ring false.

[AdamTH17]

SSE Manchester was a fantastic show. I left with the genuine feeling it had been one of the best shows I'd ever attended live. The venue was slick, production values were great, it all came off really big time. I think they nailed the setup of the place.

Oka's new gimmick is fucking hilarious. Exactly the stupid bollocks that wrestling needs every now and again. And he won with a flying Mongolian Chop. *****.

Seeing Nagata live for the first time was great. There wasn't a single person inside the building who didn't respect the bloke. Umino showed good babyface fire as per but yeah, this was all about Yuji. He gave Shota quite a lot of offense considering their respective hierarchy standings. Wish I'd had grabbed a picture with Nagata now, but he had crowds of people just lining up to shake his hand.

CHAOS/Suzuki-Gun 6 man was the weakest match of the night but everyone loved Yano so it wasn't unbearable by any means. YOSHI-HASHI is so shit. Iizuka fucking stormed down my aisle, guy is jacked.

WALTER vs Yujiro was what it was. Not exactly the most inspiring opponent for WALTER but he got his chops and lariat in so people were happy enough. Wouldn't shock me at all to see Ringkampf enter the World Tag League later this year.

LOVED Taichi/Ospreay. A brilliant blend of crowd work, athleticism, crowd brawling, a little bit of everything. Might have just been my crowd section but I was surprised to hear that was pretty much a 50/50 even split. Taichi looked like he was having the time of his left everytime someone popped for something he did, bless him. People willingly paying Ospreay a tenner to get a chop off him is amongst the funniest things I've seen this year. I've never seen anyone do the high flying stuff as smoothly as Ospreay does in person.

El Phantasmo had a really strong showing last night. He's looked great on Rev Pro's cockpit shows for a while now, so I wouldn't have been surprised in the slightest to see him get the win. Was expecting perhaps a little more from Ishimori, but perhaps that's just wishful thinking after everything he did came off great. Tiger Mask was getting really great reactions, didn't do much but can't blame him when he's getting a bigger reaction from standing and waving than the other three did almost killing themselves. 

Switchblade wasn't very good. I genuinely want to like him, but he hasn't got the gimmick nailed down at all. Taichi? Convincing. Yujiro? Yep, can buy that. I'm just not buying White as this dark, broody assassin character when the only personality traits he displayed last night was a bit of head jiggling and "oooft" after delivering a couple of chops. His ending sequences are always decent, but he really struggles at keeping an audience hooked in his control stages because there's fuck all for them to work with. It's just him doing moves and doing a bit of selling. There wasn't any connection with the crowd. Fletcher looked good, I think he had a better match than Brookes would have managed. Probably the best singles showing I've seen from him.

Okada/ZSJ was filth. Neither man held back, neither man made it feel like a house show match, both men were outstanding. Okada has such a star aura, he looked just as immense in front of 2500 people as he does in front of 40,000. Just a tremendous match. Seeing Okada work a singles match 20 minutes from my house felt like a massive privilege. Seeing Sabre pin him clean as a whistle was stunning. Doesn't matter if it's a smaller scale show, clean wins over Okada are once every blue moon. Feels special to have witnessed one.

Ishii/Suzuki was everything I wanted and more. Similarly to Okada and Zack, they really didn't tone anything down, which they could have easily gotten away with given how hot the crowd was for them. The elbow/forearm sequences were brutal. The sound these lads make simply by whacking the fuck out of one another is ridiculous, really. Really excellent main event to cap off an excellent show. Paid £40 for my seats and feel though I absolutely got my moneys worth. 

[Snitsky's back acne]

4 hours ago, air_raid said:

Biggest show of his career to date.

Exactly - and he got over HUGE with my 10 and 11 year old nephews who were at their first ever wrestling show.

It was fun seeing it through a kids eyes too - they thought Phantasmo was like something from a video game, they loved Iizuka rampaging through the crowd and biting people and Walter annihilating Yujiro with a massive dropkick was one of their favourite spots of the night.

The response to Sabre pinning Okada was unreal [and my nephews loved the two tombstone spots too - Zack landing on his head the second time looked crazy and was ruined only by the fact he was absolutely fine just seconds later but, hey, modern wrestling] and the main event was just two guys 'battering the Granny' out of each other as Regal would say.

I didn't like the Switchblade v skinny Aussie kid match. As has been said, it felt like it went on forever. I wasn't massively impressed with Taichi v Ospreay too tbh but still thought it was decent. 

Overall, really enjoyed the show and I would imagine Rev Pro/NJPW were ecstatic with the turn out/crowd response so hopefully this will lead to more shows in the future. 

[pol_pot_rick]

 

[Snitsky's back acne]

4 hours ago, pol_pot_rick said:

 

Banks can still change 'em to legal tender. Get him to pop down to the local Halifax or something.

[Daaaaaad!]

Not really the point is it. They knew the Japanese wrestlers wouldn't be up on what was still tender and what wasn't. It's a prick's move.

[Guest]

Don’t see why someone has held onto them for so long when they could have went to a bank with them themselves. Ospreay has swapped all from the guys and will be banking them himself, good move by him and hopefully hasn’t soured the guys experience of working over here 

[Snitsky's back acne]

1 hour ago, Daaaaaad! said:

Not really the point is it. They knew the Japanese wrestlers wouldn't be up on what was still tender and what wasn't. It's a prick's move.

Agreed, just trying to find a silver lining.

[Scrappy]

Big shout out to the five guys who let me tag along with them yesterday. Was totally lost and ended up chilling with them before the show. This is why I love wrestling. 

[BrodyGraham]

1 hour ago, Scrappy said:

Big shout out to the five guys who let me tag along with them yesterday. Was totally lost and ended up chilling with them before the show. This is why I love wrestling. 

There's a chance that could be me and my mates!

[Supremo]

22 hours ago, air_raid said:

Biggest show of his career to date.

Oh, really? Is he a Rev-Pro guy, then? I just assumed he was a New Japan guy I'd never seen before. If this was indeed El Phantasmo's biggest show to date then he did a cracking job of making a name for himself and stealing the show. I definitely want to see him again. I can't get over that tight-rope, to-rope moonsault to the floor.

22 hours ago, kamicazze said:

was there another match after the Sabre jr vs Okada one? I left at that point thinking that was the main. if it wasn't then I feel sorry for what had to follow that. 

Minoru Suzuki and Tomohiro Ishii followed them and, although a very different style, they arguably had a match as good if not better than Okada vs. Saber Junior. Two old bastards smashing the shit out of each other, the crowd were going apeshit by the end. Probably the best finish I've seen all year with the delayed, dramatic Pile Driver, too.It was super fun but it did make me wonder - how do these guys throw and take these shots without doing damage to themselves and each other? Do New Japan test for concussions? Am I just being worked? I'd hope so because some of those shots looked fucking brutal.

[BomberPat]

3 hours ago, Supremo said:

Oh, really? Is he a Rev-Pro guy, then? I just assumed he was a New Japan guy I'd never seen before. If this was indeed El Phantasmo's biggest show to date then he did a cracking job of making a name for himself and stealing the show. I definitely want to see him again. I can't get over that tight-rope, to-rope moonsault to the floor.

He's a Canadian guy, relocated to the UK last year. I thought it was a bit out of nowhere when he was booked for CHIKARA's King of Trios in the UK last year, but hadn't realised at the time that he lives here now. Most of his big matches since living in the UK seem to have been with RevPro - they've booked him against Ospreay, Cody, Tyler Bate, Pete Dunne and Zack Sabre Jr.

I had vague memories of him as a fairly generic flippy indie guy on some mid-00s ECCW shows I'd seen, but was very impressed with him at King of Trios. That moonsault spot is gorgeous.

[Snitsky's back acne]

It seems 'The Great O-Kharn' is sticking around for at least another week as he has been added to The Cockpit show on Sunday v Martin Kirby.