I said it when it happened and I feel like hindsight has proven me correct: Kenny beating Okada was a bad decision. Naito should have won it at WK instead. The big difference is that Kennys entire story was just about Okada while Naito's was about growing as a person and earning redemption, so you can use Naito's story to progress to future feuds while Kenny just floundered and spun his wheels with no interesting stories in his reign since his story was over when he beat Okada. It was flat. Secondly, you gave the biggest win your company has seen in a long, long time to a guy thats likely leaving your promotion less than a year later. It's just a shortsighted business decision. His reign was uninspiring.

As for WK, solid but not as good as the last few years. Stop me if you've heard it before but Naito had the best match on the card. That was a fun brawl. I think you could tell Cody had other priorities and he phoned it in. Okada and White was surprisingly good! I've not been impressed with White so far but Okada made him look wonderful.

This was the weakest NJPW year since I started watching. Hopefully with Cody/Bucks/Omega heading to their new promotion we can get some fresh starts going and this year can be new and exciting again.

I don't quite agree with this wrt no interesting stories. The story to tell given everything that led up to Omega's title win shoukd have very obviously been Ibushi winning the G1 facing Omega for the title at WK. Total layup and completely missed opportunity.

Yeah, maybe it was the fact that they ignored stories that would have worked instead of there not being any stories in the first place. I just know that I didn't care about any of his title defenses because none of them seemed to have an interesting rivalry or story to them.

The big issue with having Omega/Ibushi main event WK 13 is neither was signed past this month (and Ibushi hasn't had a long-term contract in forever). So that was never going to happen.

I agree, of course, that an Ibushi/Omega match would have been far more compelling, especially if Ibushi had heel turned.

Ibushi suffered what New Japan's calling a "minor" concussion. Will trying to kill all the popular Jr's. Watch out KUSHIDA!!!

It had to be on one of those kicks when Ibushi was upside-down in the corner. Those were brutal.

Actually it could have been one of those superkicks that hit the side of Ibushi's head from behind. I've always hated those things. I cringe every time Fujinami uses it, too.

Nobody knows for sure atm. Bryan A. speculated that it could've been the spot where he hit the post that made him bleed a little bit.

I didn't think the post did it. *shrug* But you're right. Who knows, really.

I feel like having Naito lose to Okada last year is like the NJPW version what would have happened if Shawn Michaels beat Stone Cold Steve Austin at Wrestlemania 14.

My thought has been HHH beating Cena at their mania but I think both are pretty spot on

After watching a little bit of New Years Dash and reading the results I think NJPW is in serious trouble. They have nothing at the top of the card that is even remotely interesting.

NYD could be summed up as "They have no idea who will be with them in four months so they were very careful to only give a spotlight to those they know will be". Usually something sweet, shocking, and exciting happens but this year it was just jay white challenging for the title.

Ive heard the opinion that AEW will do more to damage NJPW than it ever will to compete and affect WWE and that's an opinion I share

The bolded may be too strong because who knows where wrestling will be in a decade or longer? But in the near term, the quoted statement is absolutely true.

Also, I still believe NJPW will be fine (at least domestically). Ishii, Sanada and Ospreay can instantly be elevated if needed (and IMO it's badly needed). Those are my three favorites for pushes. And of course if Ibushi ever stops being a freelancer he will get a push, too.

However, NYD was quite discouraging.

I think njpw will be fine as well. Their strength over the last few years has been their booking and that shouldn't change. Plenty of talented people on the roster even if AEW gets everyone people think they'll get. It's just likely been a bit rough for booking with everything more up in the air and under wraps for the last half year+. I fully expect them to rebound. It just might take a little bit for the people to buy in on the jump up to the next level for people like White.

I can't be objective about White. I hate him. Starting to think he's the Roman Reigns of NJPW.

I do like him as the leader of a revamped BC, and am happy BC is back to being real heels.

nothing about the last year+ of NJPW makes me think they'll recover to get back to where they have been over the last 4 years. They've shot themselves in the foot constantly and haven't really developed anyone's character so it would make sense in the upper card other than Jay White in quite some time. They basically became Japanese Ring of Honor overnight and that's really too bad.

Like for guys like Sanada/Osprey, what is their character beyond does flips and is british (Osprey) and crony with crazy hair (Sanada)

As someone who was really starting to get into it about 18 months ago and now doesn't give a ****, fully agree. The booking decisions have been absurd.

Bumping thread for Da Meltz's ratings:

Dave literally loses the plot rating Omega matches.

Am I crazy for thinking Cody/Juice at 3* is worse than Omega/Tana at 5.5 given Da Meltz's history.

Cody juice should have been 1 star at best. It was legit horrendous.

Big Dave's ratings haven't been worth taking seriously for at least two years.

Apparently the government shutdown is making it impossible for NJPW to apparently get visas, so rather than reschedule like a smart company would, they're throwing up 2 horrendous cards for the New Beginning US tour with a grand total of 1 japanese wrestler.

NJPW is run by morons, unbelieveable how badly they've botched everything this last year.

Imagine this happens for beginning of the G-1.