despite being off-put by Osprey generally*, the guy can put on a really good match with Okada
haven’t been keeping up with everything, mostly just picked Moxley to follow, has been working out pretty well
*no selling the Paradise Lock is extremely annoying
There’s a similar Paradise Lock spot in the EVIL match. I saw someone claim that SANADA mixed up the order in which he crosses the wrists or some shit, making it easier to break, but if that’s the case the English commentary didn’t pick up on it. But since they did it twice I have to think it’s part of some storyline I’m not clued into.
It’s been a good tournament and the shows have been very easy to watch and the little things like Archer’s trash talk and the Mox/Shooter stuff and ZSJ’s breakdown has been more entertaining to me than the matches themselves. Which isn’t a complaint. All the epic matches kinda run together after awhile, y’know?
I dorked out and filled out a G1 bracket. My A block predictions were blown to hell but I’ve only missed a few in B block. I predicted an Ibushi/White grand final with Ibushi winning. I figured Ibushi/Naito was a more likely final but I do not want to see that match again. But now part of me is thinking maybe they’ll do an Okada/Naito final with Naito winning followed by an IC vs IWGP rematch at WK.
That is probably loco but I dunno man I dunno it could happen okay.
they have been building up Naito wanting to be Double Champ for quite a while, so that would make sense
seeing Mox having fun being a pro wrestler again is just so so satisfying
the big epic matches do run together but then when there’s a night without a new show I get withdrawals, like it’s a drug. I had to go back and watch some old Wrestle Kingdom matches to sate my desire for big sweaty meat hitting
Yeah I actually got upset today cuz there wasn’t a show and that’s not how I’ve felt about any previous tournament.
Mox has been incredibly fun and many of his matches have played out differently than I would have expected yet been very satisfying anyway. Like I didn’t expect the Shingo match to have so much limb work, I thought it would be way more of a brawlbut it was still a cool story and made me interested in seeing a rematch someday.
I would have considered a “Shingo struggles with transitioning to heavyweight” story would have been silly considering his pre-NJPW career but doing two intense round robin tournaments back to back makes it easier to swallow. I guess the BOSJ gives Ospreay another justification for his losses too. Pretty cool.
So hey, this last couple of weeks, I have been going to the local promotion’s (Absolute Intense Wrestling) shows and it has been a good time. What first got me going was that they brought in Daisuke Sekimoto for a show, and after I saw that beast of a man at a free Big Japan show in the Tokyo burbs last November, I knew I had to see him again when he was like a mile away from my house. Here’s a selfie I grabbed with him in Japan, where the only thing he and his wrestling bros knew about Cleveland (they asked where Iw as from) was the movie Major League, and that kinda ruled.
So the show he was at was called Sekimoto Takes Cleveland, and it ruled. I was a small ring set up in the back of a bar in Lakewood, and it was a good time. Lots of doofusy matches, and Sekimoto fought KTB in just an absolute hoss battle of two huge dudes being huge. The main event that night ended up being a six man tag hardcore kerfuffle invovling Nick Gage and a whole bunch of other dudes, including Dominic Garrini, who is worth mentioning because dude does hardcore shit without wearing shoes and that seems ill advised. A lot of it was promo stuff for AIW’s big annual event, Absolution, which was yesterday nigth at the Odeon, a small concert venue in Cleveland, and that show was crazy. I didn’t take pictures during the show, but here’s what it looked like from my seat before it began.
With all the indie people finally having to move over to being full-time AEW for the forseeable future, a lot of the promotions are having to say goodbye to some regular talent, and Absolution started with a match between Maxwell Jacob Friedman and Big Twan Tucker with the stipulation that the loser had to leave AIW. We all knew MJF was getting set up to lose for obvious reason, but it was still a fun match, and Big Twan beat the hell out of him. MJF then grabbed the mic to cut a goodbye promo, at one point even hushing a rowdy dude in the audience because he looked like he was getting all sad about shit. Then he ended by saying “I won’t miss a single fucking one of ya,” tossed his mic, and then birds up on his way out. It was great.
Sadly, that was not the only rowdy dude of the night, as there are always a couple shitheads that always wanna try to be stars of the show, but most of the wrestlers handled it well.
The other big send off of the night was supposed to be the final Joey Janella match in Cleveland, but apparently Janella’s flight got completely screwed up and he was stuck in an airport Tweeting about it. He was booked to wrestle Swoggle, and instead, Swoggle wrestled John Thorne, otherwise known as the founder of AIW, in a quick but effective hardcore match where Thorne got tossed through a door, onto a pile of legos, and otherwise mauled. Swoggle then grabbed the mic to show a lot of appreciation for Thorne and AIW as a whole, which was nice. Per Swoggle, once they knew Janella wasn’t gonna make it, he walked right up to Thorne and said “well, I guess you’re in the match tonight” and Thorne just said “yup” and they went to work.
Tim Donst and Dominic Garrini had a Surrender match that was brutal as all hell, involving most painfully a piece of plywood set up between the apron and a barrier that they attempted to drop Garrini through unsuccessfully twice (that board would not break) and it was ridiculous as hell. Those two beat the shit out of each other, only to have Nick Gage and Zach Thomas go even more brutal at each other in a “Murder Death Kill” match that involved all kinds of barbed wire props and weapons, including a chair made of barbed wire that tore Zach Thomas’s back to shit.
There were so many broken doors and chairs by the end of this night. The chairs mostly still had the tags on them, which was a hilarious little detail.
The night included three title matches, the first (IIRC) being the tag title match between the winners of the Chandler Biggins Memorial, The Philly Marino Experience versus the champs, To Infinity and Beyond. The crowd was way behind PME the whole time, but it was a solid match. One fan yelled some gross shit out, got called on it by one of the Infinity guys, and thankfully shut the fuck up. The rest of the match was some fun tag work, with PME getting the win and the crowd losing it. Not too many ridiculous spots (don’t worry, the next match has that) but some good fun tag team stuff.
The next title match, for the AIW Intense title was a Falls Count Anywhere brutal festival of dumbass shit in the best way. Joshua Bishop (with some guy whose name I don’t remember as his coach) versus Matt Justice with ECW’s Bill Alfonso as his coach. Lots of ridiculous shit went down in this match, including Bishop’s coach getting dropped off a second floor balcony onto a bunch of the AIW equivalent of Young Lions, Matt Justice climbing a ladder beind the entrance ramp to jump over the background ontos Bishop on a table, and just lots of malarkey. It was great. Justice won, and people lost their shit.
Final match was for the main title, between the champ Filthy Tom Lawlor and Eddie Kingston. This was just a fucking slug fest, with one protracted battle of chest chops that had every fan just wincing in pain, and just some brutal fighting between the two dudes. Eddie eventually resigned, but man, it was hardfought.
Man, there was so much other shit I forgot to mention. KTB fought a bunch of dudes and it was a great time (three little dudes versus one beast is always fun) and I love the crowd chanting “FROM THE WOODS” for KTB because that is maybe the best birthplace after Parts Unknown. Swoggle tossed out a bunch of White Claws at the start of his match. Wheeler Yuta won a four way match. Mance Warner dropped Jock Samson through a couple of doors stacked on top of chairs on top of each other. It was a fucking glorious mess. Bunkhouse Buck came out to, after beating the crap out of the BitcoinBoyz, give a salute to Chandler Biggins, a guy who started out as a rowdy fan of AIW and eventually ended up co-owning it before he died in 2017.
So yeah, probably gonna try to go to more of these in the future.
bray wyatt’s new theme song sounds like cop by swans. when i actually watched wrestling in 2013 i knew that would be money
“bray wyatt is an AAA rudo that comes out to swans” was some shit i would make up in wwe 2k14
the iron is hot for psycho clown to make an e run
I guess I’m good at this. 
I should have entered a prediction contest cuz my picks were way better than most folks.
I’m watching the finals live cuz they started early and I rarely sleep nowadays.
I went to brush my teeth just in case I nodded off and I missed most of what would have been the most exciting angle in my entire fucking life. It was still very exciting on replay. But I probably would have been screaming at 3AM had I seen it live.
Man SpOiLeRs.
I got so far behind in the g1 that I am debating just skipping to the end, but I want to catch up on a few matches before then.
I’m glad they’re pushing new guys but at the same time Ibushi/White might be the least interesting Final possible to me a week ago.
I swear the Fyter Fest video game themed CEO guy MCed a MvC3 tournament here a couple years ago.
what?!
Shingo is my main
If they end up killing Shibata I will never watch another NJPW match again.
it would be karmic justice for him killing fukuda! kind of a crime that they haven’t allowed/forced ishii to get shoulder surgery over the last five years.
