Unbelievable that they topped last year. I had 2 non wrestling watching friends over and they both loved it as well. I marked out so much at the end of the Nakamura/Styles match.

Wow. Amazing moment. Hopefully Bullet Club is done. Seems unlikely though.

just got home from work and watched the two matches i was most looking forward to- omega vs kushida and nakamora vs styles. both were amazing and naka vs styles is probably 5 stars.

bullet club prob done

i read today that styles, nakamora gallows and KA are joining wwe

I wasn't armed with that info earlier. Defo agree that they're done if Karl, AJ are leaving as they're the top two guys. Gallows is whatever.

I wouldn't be surprised if NJPW keeps BC going solely based on gaijins buying merch. Go to a WWE show and count how many BC shirts you see.

Johnnyno.gif

I'm so hyped to watch the last three matches again. Definitely watching and rating tomorrow night.

Omega just posted this on twitter. Is this an old match or is there another live show?

"In 15 minutes we're going live on #njpwworld In a PPV quality match, I tag with @AJStylesOrg VS Nakamura/Yoshihashi. Don't miss it!"

Omega just pinned Nakamura and then beat the **** out of AJ, gave him the Styles Clash whille the Bucks superkicked him. Pretty awesome.

Nakamura/Styles was better than Nakamura/Ibushi from last year . . . and that says a lot.

Tanahashi/Okada was excellent as well. Only slight "flaw" was that Okada winning was super obvious from the build. Haven't seen the rest of the card yet (forgot to bring my laptop charger, lol).

Meltzer's ratings:

Pre-show BR: 1 Star

Young Bucks v Matt Sydal & Richocet, Bobby Fish & Kyle o'Rielly and Trent Baretta & Rocky Romero: 3 3/4 Stars

Briscos and Toru Yan v Bad Luck Fale & Tama Tonga & Yujiro Takahashi: 2 Stars

Jay Lethal v Michael Elgin: 3 1/4 Stars

Kushida v Kenny Omega: 4 Stars

Makabe & and Honma v Anderson and Gallows: 3 3/4 Stars

Goto v Naito: 3 3/4 Stars

Shibata v Ishii: 4 1/2 Stars

Nakamura v Styles: 4 3/4 Stars

Okada v Tanahashi: 5 Stars

Surprised Nak/AJ "only" got 4.75. I thought it was as good as Nakamura/Ibushi from last year.

I put Shibata vs. Ishii at 4* on my second watch. I couldn't get that much into it. For me, their G-1 match in 2014 was their very best. Their match last year was also better.

Nakamura vs. Styles. Oh my. My second watching of this was just as good as the first. Perfect match. Five ****ing stars. Back-to-back five star matches on January 4 for Shinsuke.

I've only watched KUSHIDA vs. Omega once but I thought that was 4* when watching. Great stuff.

Goto vs. Naito seems WAY overrated. I hated that match. I hated the result...especially with AJ and Shinsuke leaving. Way to build the fresh heel!

Okada vs. Tanahashi. I'm going to watch that right now. On my first viewing, I thought it may have been their third best match behind 4/7/13 and 10/14/13 but that would still throw it at 5 stars. It was amazing. It felt like it was their longest match and it felt like a war. Much like their 4/7/13 match, I bought that Tanahashi was going over, only to be relieved later.

I would have given the 8 man 4 stars. Yes, it was a spot-fest. But it was a really well-done spot fest. My first exposure to the Young Bucks. Wish they were part of the WWE acquisition. They'd have some good matches with New Day and Lucha Dragons.

I like how Okada throws a tombstone and a good flying elbow, but his finisher is an extremely ****ty looking clothesline

i really wish the Japanese crowds weren't so quiet. matches would be even better if there was an atmosphere

I think that is exclusive to Tokyo Dome shows because the sound is just setup way differently. Check out other PPVs they have. They're ruckus crowds the majority of the time.

I could give lots of examples but check this match out from 2013 between Tomohiro Ishii and Hiroshi Tanahashi. Fast forward to 3:30 and watch the whole match which is ~15 minutes.

If sold right, the rainmaker can look devastating. AJ Styles sold this **** out of it at 2:05

A lot of those look great but it's still a **** finisher.

The lariat/clothesline in Japan isn't looked at the way it is looked at here. For one, strikes in general are looked at as a lot more devastating. It is hard to explain but the closest comparison to a lariat in Japan here would probably be the RKO/Cutter; a good one will always get a pop and is a legit finish. A lot of Japanese wrestling fans even have the word lariat (or Rainmaker specifically) in their social media or forum name.

LARIATOOOOO!!!

Here's a list of recommended NJPW matches, along with links to the NJPW world website.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...htmlview?pli=1

Does anyone else have access problems with the site? I guess I shouldn't be surprised (it is in Japan, after all), but it buffers a lot more than WWE network.

It's still real to me damn it.

That was pretty cool. I had no idea what he was saying, but I knew he meant it. That ring music made me think of the old NES game, Strider