I have heard it was good. 20 minutes of gold they say. I believe it. I'll have to watch later tonight.

I watched it. Breathless after that. What a match. Crowd was in that from beginning to end. I'm shocked they booked Marufuji vs. Tanahashi to go on last because they booked this match to be a classic. All kinds of spots that were abnormal for these two and they knew would be epic. MotY but I'm not going to throw a star rating at it yet. The only other match this year that I even have close to being MotY worthy is Sami vs. Nakamura. Not a great year for great matches.

The beginning when Ishii pulled out his heavy artillery ! ISHII DID A ****ING DROPKICK!!! Okada delivering the three seated dropkicks kind of mocking Ishii's seated clothesline ! Rainmaker reversal into HEADBUTTS!!!! tbf, the camera work on the headbutts really sucked I LOVED this match (if you couldn't tell)!

Finally, this girl in the crowd :


Gotta get to work on watching Okada vs. Tanahashi before I get spoiled on that.

Ishii was unbelievably awesome in that match.
Okada's last second kickouts were on point.
Probably just short of 5* for me, but that was some damn good stuff.

I forgot about WK in my "it's not a great year for great matches". I have AJ/Nakamura at 5* and Okada/Tanahashi way up there too. I'm going to have to rewatch these matches along with Ishii/Okada and Sami/Nakamura to make a short list.

Very. I noticed that he tried to kick out at the beginning of a two count and couldn't but then tried again just before the 3 and got out. That was great drama. I've never seen anyone do that and actually kick out before.

I know I'm an Omega mark but Naito/Omega was insane and another 4.5/5* imo.

I'll check it out but I'm not a fan of either tbh...especially Omega. The Cleaner gimmick is just trash imo. As with nearly everyone that joined BC (Finn, AJ, Omega, Anderson, Tonga, Yujiro), I liked him much better before joining.

edit: d/l'ing that Omega/Naito match atm. Also getting Day 16 to check out Nakajima vs. Omega and Shibata vs. Nagata. Has potential.

That Naito/Omega match was brilliant. I'm a huge mark for limb work matches that actually go somewhere. I noticed that the match was going pretty long and a minute later I heard the announcer announce that there were 5 minutes left and thought it'd go to a draw. I was pleasantly surprised.

I did think the match should've ended a few times before the actual ending (calf crusher, when Omega reversed for his finisher, and Naito hitting the reverse frankensteiner off the top). My absolute favorite part was Omega just slamming Naito into the apron ~5 minutes into the match. That spot was brutal. A bunch of other spots I 'ed but I'll just say it was 28 minutes of gold. Thanks for pimping it . As for a rating, I'd give it ****1/4 that's teetering on ****1/2.

Watched the final live..

I think Omega has huge potential but I hate his over the top gimmick too; it takes me out of the matches in the same way the Stardust gimmick did. He's at his best when he's serious and sets aside the overacting e.g. in that Naito match. I don't agree at all that the gimmick is the cause for his surge in popularity; it was the strong booking over the last year, having the best couple matches of his career, and his delivery on promos when he gets serious. The silliness and video game stuff has always been there and it never got him that popular by itself.

I can't argue with that and can see how the overacting would put people off because I don't like it in other wrestlers either but I still think his new look has a lot to do with getting people to initially take notice of him. Judging by youtube comments his WK9 entrance alone was enough for a lot of people to start following him.

That was just a tremendous match between Omega/Goto at the finals and I quite liked his match against Naito as well, the day prior.

I enjoyed his video game gimmick at times, especially the part where he's jawing and eyeing Xavier Woods and New Day. Heck, him and Woods actually clashed in a video game event and played Street Fighter against each other. Kenny won, of course, but it was a good moment to see that and he put Xavier Woods as an "authentic" gamer, not doing the Youtube stuff just for the money or the popularity or the views, but mainly just for the joy of playing video games. That stated, I can understand how the goofiness of him and the Cleaner Gimmick and teaming with the Young Bucks can turn people off and something like that certainly gets people thinking "He's too goofy, he can't be a legit draw for a company like NJPW.

I guess something lost here is how great of a booker Gedo is. Props to him as he's responsible for the last 5 years of greatness in NJPW.

Something that really sours me in WWE is that when main event wrestlers (Cena's specifically horrific at this) get upset about not winning a match with a signature move...it's not even your finisher. Even when it's a finisher! You've been in this situation every month since HBK/Undertaker at 25 when you hit the first finisher. They act like they can't win and then look at their hands and up to the heavens questioning themselves and then leave the ring even when their career's on the line! At least in NJPW these guys hit signatures/finishers and get 2, they follow up with more offense to try to win.

Watching NJPW makes me wonder why I ever bother with WWE. NJPW's so ****ing great.

I thought Naito was gonna get the win in the G1 but I understand why he didn't, that dude has been so money over the last 5 months he honestly didn't need it. Might as well make another top draw so you can have a big 4 between Tanahashi/Okada/Naito/Omega.

Cleaner thing is meh. As I said, I've previously been a fan of his. I've always pimped his match vs. Bryan @ PWG 100 where they thumb wrestle and do other wacky ****. I thought he was great when teaming with Ibushi way back in 2010/11 as a part of The Golden Lovers.

Thought you'd like this:

You and mooro seem to dislike the cleaner gimmick for different reasons. You prefer the funner side while he prefers the serious side. I think he does a good job of balancing it but it obviously isn't for everyone.

He has potential to be a mega star in the WWE. More so than most of the loved indies that have gone there recently. I'd like to see him there one day but not anytime soon.

Naito v Omega got 5 stars as I thought it would

Surprised Omega/Goto didn't, thought that was much better than Ishii/Okada

Nice to hear that after a really slow start to quality matches in the G-1 this year.

In a way, I'm happy to see Goto/Omega didn't get 5* because 3 5* matches within ~10 days of each other is going to be viewed as meh.

What's a good news website to follow NJPW? I used to follow NJPWspirit or some such site that was the best at the time (stopped updating earlier this year). It was a site that mainly just announced upcoming cards and had very little news attached to it and that's enough for me.

You could just go to the Wrestling Observer site, then under news pick Japan.

Here's a quick documentary on Johnny Gargano's farewell from EVOLVE. Incredibly well done angle:

[QUOTE=Bigdaddydvo;50835918]Here's a quick documentary on Johnny Gargano's farewell from EVOLVE. Incredibly well done angle:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E2kp46kcjVs

Awesome Rolling Stone article on WWE's growing relationship with EVOLVE:

http://www.rollingstone.com/sports/g...luence-w441734

Gotta be honest, not really feeling NJPW's current direction. Everyone feels kinda stale except LIJ who are stuck feuding with LOLROH guys.

Well, that usually happens when we got less than three months to go before Wrestle Kingdom and the main event is already been confirmed to be Okada/Omega.

Another rumored match is bound to be Tanahashi/Naito for the IC title and Tanahashi keeps mentioning on how he wants to be back in the Tokyo Dome main event and won't give up in terms of rallying support to be in that spot again. Could lead to another fan vote to decide the main event like in WK8 (which is ironic since Naito got booted out of the main event for Tanahashi/Nakamura for the IC title).

Until then, November's big event, Power Struggle, looks to be an ok card. Main event was to be Elgin/Naito in a rematch for the IC title (and the two time they faced each other in singles and in the tag matches they were in looked to be great watches), but Elgin had to pull out due to a face injury due to a dropkick by Naito or something like that.

Now it's Jay Lethal against Naito and I'm not quite thrilled about that since while Naito has been uber-popular this year in NJPW, Osaka seems to have something against him and whilst there's nothing wrong with that as long as they got a good babyface to cheer for (which Elgin could have easily filled), Lethal has not looked as strong and over in Japan as Elgin (Japanese crowds sure do love powerhouse guys that can move well and throw people around effortlessly). It should be a decent match, but it does not help that this is probably a lame duck match where no one is thinking Lethal wins this match and the title and be going into Wrestle Kingdom the IC champion.

I am enjoying, however, Shibata's run as the NEVER Openweight championship. He is taking on all comers for that belt that ranges from old NJPW veterans that wants one last shot at glory, ROH up-and-comers like REdragon, EVIL, and he's looking to come after NOAH guys eventually and his matches has been very very physical (he does headbutts that makes himself bleed).

It's been a couple of years since I watched a PWG show so I figured I'd give just a few thoughts about it.

I watched PWG Thirteen, The Thirteenth Anniversary Show.

Adam Cole vs. Brian Cage: Pretty fun match. I usually don't like Cole matches but since he wasn't trying to steal the show in the first match I thought he was tolerable and Cage is always fun to watch. I guess I'll throw star ratings to show how I feel about the matches. ***

Roderick Strong vs. Timothy Thatcher: I'm not a fan of Roddy. This match was a Roddy exhibition as he got ~85% of the offense which was shocking because TT is the Evolve champion and this is Strong's goodbye show. **1/4

Jeff Cobb vs. Trevor Lee: Fun match. Cobb is a newcomer and he seems really good. Like really good. Think Michael Elgin but with talent. He's still a bit green in some of his mannerisms but he'll get better.

Chuck Taylor vs. Trent? (yes there's a "?" in his name): These two are in a tag team (or a stable, not sure) called "Best Friends". These guys are known comedy guys, especially Chucky. I was ready for some great comedy. It started out that way but then we got chair shots, tables, more chairs, brawling, a ladder, and everyone's favorite, thumbtacks. INCREDIBLE match. I wouldn't put this on par with Cactus/HHH from Rumble 2000 but this is reminiscent of it in that it's kind of a garbage match but it's really good while not clumsy and plodding. ****1/4

Marti Scurill vs. Sami Callihan: and here is where PWG becomes the PWG I stopped watching. Fun beginning with some comedy but that wore thin with the same joke too much. Then big move, kickout, no sell, ad nauseam. They had like 5 finishing sequences before the match was over. I was ready for it to end 5 minutes before it did. Funny enough, this is the first match that got "this is awesome" chants and the first match that I thought absolutely sucked. *3/4

Young Bucks vs. Chris Hero & JT Dunn: Hero, please do something about that gut. Wear more clothes or work it the **** off. This is just like the above match except that it's a tag so it's a bit more legit. However, I felt there were about 20 false finishing stretches in this match. TYB's do superkicks. The other teams nickname is "Death by Elbow". So much thigh slapping in this match. I **** you not, Hero had red marks on his left thigh/quad from slapping it so much during the match. Absolute garbage match. So taken out of this match when so many moves are kicked out of that are ****ing finishers. What wins the match? A backslide. DUD

Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Kyle O' Reilly: ~25 minute grapple fest to get all kinds of indy marks wet. This did have a good story to it with Kyle coming in with a hurt shoulder and the match did end with him submitting to a shoulder submission so I'm cool with that. The problem with matches that are all grappling where the guys are just showing moves is 1) it looks more fake and choreographed than a Young Bucks match and 2) it takes a leap of logic to see why Zack or Kyle would release a move that had their opponents legs, arm, and head tied up. Unlike the last two matches, this finish came out of nowhere because it wasn't a spotfest, however, it's still boring as ****. **1/4

Zack vs. Roddy in an impromptu match for the PWG title. It's a cluster**** with TYB, Scurll, Adam Cole, and Kyle getting involved. It's a ~3 minute match that has like 4 finisher kickouts that by this point just give me an aneurysm and I thank god that's the end of the show when Zack pins Roddy in what's likely his last PWG match before he heads to WWE. DUD

Overall: first few matches were fun and easy to sit through. The last 4 are hard to sit through as you think you've sat through the finish 25 times by the end. I give this card a 3.5/10. Your main events/title matches (YB was a title match) have to deliver to be a decent card. Steer clear of the event overall but go check out Chucky vs. Trent?.