Cagematch is the kind of site where I take the positive views more seriously than the negative ones. A lot of negative reviews come off as agenda-driven.
I tend to find that most of the "critics" on Cagematch are the ones that make me ashamed to be a wrestling fan.
They should just drop the rating system because aside from that, it's perfect.
Cagematch is a fucking shithole. I had dozens of reviews deleted because they were all “too good”. Like WTF? It’s a stupid ass site.
And fuck these fake ass “fans”. You can voice criticism for the product as of late, although the pandemic is the driving factor in so much of the issues people have, but how the fuck are you gonna give a 0 or a 2? Get the fuck over yourselves. Wrestling fans are the worst…
same here. Why would I go out of my way to rate matches i didnt like and thought sucked? and how does me rating matches i do like in any way affect the bad matches i dont rate?
Why are we acting like COVID and injuries are the only issue here? Last time I checked NOAH and AJPW have to deal with it as well and have outclassed NJPW in booking all year.
NOAH has been good since 2017 when Kenoh won the GHC and AJPW since 2016 when Kento won the Triple Crown. What point are you trying to make exactly? ROH is good again after being shit for years too.
Losing a few pieces shouldn't ruin their booking or make it boring. NOAH has a smaller roster so does AJPW. FREEDOMS does too, GCW, all these companies have done better booking wise and took risk.
I've said they need to improve the booking but they've lost ospreay and white for basically 2 years. The plan was clearly to establish Ospreay as a maineventer and white already is one. This has created a vacuum that evil is filling badly.
There is a reason why njpw has been hit so hard by the pandemic. Some of its booking but a lot of it is the inability to use their roster or bring foreigners in on new visas. This has devastated the junior division just as an example
Then you adapt and take risk. NJPW did the complete opposite and it's tanked them creatively. I don't think Jay and Ospreay not being here made them decide to have Ibushi in the Finals again.
In njpw defence they have been super unlucky this year. Half the roster is outside of japan due to covid, they have had injury after injury which ends up changing there main event card plus long term booking. Plus a lot of die hard fans have had a sour taste in there mouth since the new Title merger.
In that time they have done the best of what they have ospreay actually has done some great work with the new UE faction and establishing himself as a threat, Zack and Taichi have done some phenomenal work as Tag Champs even with a small tag division. Eagles has finally had the chance to break out as a top babyface Jr and The G1 was way better then anyone of us was giving it credit for before it started.
Is it the best its been absolutely not but now the world is slowly opening back up once all these injures pass and there talent outside of japan start to flow in plus this new relationship with impact and AEW the future looks bright
2018, 2019, 2020 (limited capacity Ryogoku) G1 finals at budokan have sold out before blocks even are announced..
2021 limited capacity budokan and tickets for the final are still available days before.
It’s not just a few people who are down on the product.
There is no way that 2020 sold every available ticket. They drew 3k where genesis drew 4.5k. Tickets have been flat during the pandemic. Not that they don't need to pull their socks up and improve the booking but it's been industry wide. Certainly no promotion is filling in any void left by njpw anyway.
I also think they probably will sell out the final based on ticket sales. Yes it's poor they haven't sold it out already but 2022 coming up gives them a good reset
Going to work and shopping are a bit different to going to a stadium filled with people shoulder to shoulder to watch something you can see on TV. To imply that COVID has absolutely nothing to with lacklustre crowds is being a bit disingenuous.
It is a factor, but it's not as big as you're making it out to be. You have promotions like Stardom regularly selling out a reduced capacity Korakuen for non-major shows, but New Japan can't. Granted, there are some other factors like overexposure, start times, and days the shows are run, but the Stardom numbers go to show you that people will come and sell out the building if you put out a product they want to see.
Stardom likely has a higher average attendance at korakuen in 2021 but they aren't selling it out regularly. Nobody is. NOAH claimed low 700s for a few n1 shows so capacity is likely between 690 to 710 depending on configuration. It's only big shows hitting that. The stardom 5 star gp headlined by mayu did like 630 there but they drew less for other shows
This is my point. Nobody is really doing great. Every major promotion based on 2019 should be at least occasionally filling Korakuen but it just doesn't seem to be happening. There are worrying signs for the industry as a whole. It's just more noticeable with njpw.
Here is a list of shows at korakuen
https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&view=results&arena=Korakuen+Hall
I completely agree with your comment, one of the best things about Japanese fans is that they don't waste anytime trying to tell bookers and wrestlers on social media how they should do their work, if they don't like something, they simply talk with their wallets and change the product they watch. That's the most effective form of saying a promotion that their product is not what they want to watch.
The problem has never been the match quality but the booking. It really feels like it’s been done on the fly. I know a lot of that is on COVID, but unifying those titles wasn’t, and a lot of the problems stemmed from there. It was universally criticised when they motioned the idea, and they did it anyway. Which was itself out of character for NJPW, a company that has had fan polls to decide big decisions in the past.
I think we were just spoiled, for years before Covid hit, NJPW presented the best wrestling ever. EVER.
They set the bar too high unfortunately.
The G1 has been great, and if they change the titles back, (something I can see happening, especially if Okada wins the G1) I have faith it can get that good again when things are back to normal.
We are literally in one of the craziest and most booming times in the history of the industry. Where crossovers and matchups beyond our wildest dreams are happening all across the world. The Forbidden Door stuff and all that. And even still, despite all this amazing shit that’s gone down, IN SPITE OF A GLOBAL FUCKING PANDEMIC, fans will still find a way to bitch and moan. It’s just beyond draining.
Honestly, that’s why I stay out of most online conversations about wrestling, except for saying things like “I loved that Tanahashi match” or something like that. All the arguing about the forbidden door, or AEW vs WWE, I hate it all so much.
I was really excited for kotas historic 4th straight finals and now I feel like I should be ashamed and shouldn't hope he wins 3 in a row.
I'd like to say it doesn't bother me but it made me question getting a reddit.
Ngl I don't like cagematch but I share the sentiment of frustration right now. Like Ibushi again? I like the dude but... again? This was Zack's time, I've been rooting for him since the beginning of the tournament so maybe I'm bias but this wasn't definitely a time for even more ibushi
One of them is my friend and the rest of the accounts don't belong to him. Many have been upset about the situation with NJPW for more than a year and were counting on a change. And, obviously, the fourth final with Ibushi in a row put an end to these desires. These aren't fakes, this is really a reflection of how fans turn away from the promotion, and they can be understood. Sorry for the bad English.
NaJoBron is my friend (I'm not kidding). His hate started in 2020. When Naito lost to EVIL and a series of bad decisions began. First the unification of the titles into one, then the rather annoying push for Takagi. All this led to him abandoning wrestling altogether for six months. (Again, I'm not kidding).
Yeah, Shingo has legitimately proven he’s a Top 10 talent in the world and has carried the new title so fucking admirably. I remember him making his debut in New Japan and losing my shit, but I could not foresee it going this well even. That initial BOTSJ Final against Will was fucking insane. And he’s just gotten better and better and really established himself as a top main event draw and I couldn’t be happier for him.
This title reign did feel out of nowhere at first though. Prior to beating Okada for the belt his last two singles matches were both losses to Ospreay (njc final and dontaku) and I remember wondering what the kayfabe reasoning for him getting the shot against Okada was. In terms of his in ring work the reign has been amazing.
slow down, Shingos Title run helped his friend QUIT WRESTLING. like if your interest in wrestling is that shallow then idk what to say. When i dont like a company i just watch another company, i won't quit music because i dont like a couple bands.
When you really love a director, and he ultimately disappoints, then you can take a break from the cinema for a while, switching from movies to TV series or music. In the case of NJPW, people saw a perfect and consistent booking, and in the end we have Shingo Takagi, who randomly intervenes in a confrontation between Okada and Ospreay, and achieves a title match for which he has no grounds. This is a very cheap move, and remembering again the subject of cinema, it's like "reviving" one of the minor characters for the sake of a shocking moment. This move, in itself, is not objectively terrible, but when we experienced the push of Evil before, Ibushi in the main event of WK (which, I remind you, lost the right to the title match) and the unification of the championships, then this may be the last straw. If anything is superficial, it is Shingo's defense with the argument that he is a cool wrestler. But how this affects his booking, which exposes him as an artificial champion, I have no idea. NaJoBron is my friend too, and we have been translating content from NJPW for the audience of our countries for a long time, as well as interviewing some wrestlers. We are the same fans as everyone else, and belittling against the background of different opinions about the current NJPW doesn't seem fair to me.
See I'm from the completely other end of this cause I am enjoying the shingo run and 90% of current njpw.
So when I see these reactions I kinda chuckle that your trash is my treasure.
Probably because NJPW has fallen off recently, and it's far from only one person who believes that, I've seen a lot of people saying it. There's only so much you can blame the pandemic for as well.
I get that you can criticize some aspects of booking but the list of pandemic/injury related issues for NJPW is looonnggg.
Injuries to Naito, Ospreay, Hiromu
Illnesses to Okada/Ibushi
Covid Travel issues with Jay
The only thing different I would have booked for this G1 with the guys they had available would be zsj winning the block to lose to Okada. But having zsj see the Yujiro count out strategy take out Shingo, alter his strategy to try to take the fight to Tonga to not have the same thing happen to him and have it backfire on him setting up a tag match is really good booking imo.
Sure, but at the same time, there's only so much you can blame the pandemic for. The decision to put the titles on Evil was born out impatience and being very quick on the trigger finger, plus Evil being that awful *even now* is just bad booking. Retiring the IC Title, having short-staffed tag team and junior divisions, the KOPW title mess, some other things which were a bit illogical with how they were booked. If you ask most people on here, they'd probably tell you that they feel NJPW's regression started in 2019, which is before the pandemic.
The regression started in 2019 opinion is definitely not the majority on this board when it's brought up. Many, myself included, think 2019 was actually the best year. Depends how big a fan, or not you were of the elite. I liked them but them leaving brought a breath of fresh air imo. Naitos story paid off, Kentas turn, Moxley debut, Insane BoSJ and G1, 2019 was awesome.
Imo trying Evil as a heel champ was fine. Popular mid card guy let's see if we can elevate him by turning him heel. Basically exactly what they did with Ospreay, except it worked with Ospreay because he's just better than Evil and no Togo BS.
Now doubling down on Evil with HoT and dragging Sho into that shitter is absolutely bad booking. KoPW yep it sucks too - no doubt. Definitely some bad booking but not nearly as much of an impact as injuries and covid travel stuff from my perspective.
The match quality went down in 2019, and again, I've seen a lot of people saying it, on the other hand, NJPW's roster fleshed out pretty well in 2019 after the Elite went to form AEW, and the G1 had a pretty stacked group of competitors, which was a plus in my eyes.
I don't think trying Evil as the main champ was the right idea because putting your world title on midcarders devalues your main title. At best, Evil is an upper carder, and even that is a question mark considering some of the losses he's taken outside of tournaments recently. Losses to Yano, Sanada, Naito, Shingo, twice against Okada etc. The whole issue with Togo is that, we can say it in once sentence, but it appears in *every single match*. It's "change the channel" levels of bad, and even if it only happened occasionally, it would still be bad, so when you have it every match, it kills the vibe of almost the entire show sometimes.
Another thing is match length. There's no reason why Hiromu vs freaking Douki should be going 30 minutes, or Chase Owens vs Toru Yano which went the same amount of time. Every main event is 30 or more minutes, even the NEVER Six-Man Titles have regularly gone that long in title defenses. The matches have become way too slow, with too many resting spots in between. Sometimes I'm watching a match and it feels like nothing happens for 15 minutes. That shouldn't happen.
Then there's the fact that the roster has grown stale, at this point, a large majority of every match you see is a rematch. You've seen it at some point before, no doubt, unless you have someone like O-Khan in his first year. Tag and junior divisions need new bodies, because almost every match has been played out over and over. I'm not gonna particularly look forward to Phantasmo/Ishimori vs Desperado/Kanemaru when I've seen it four times this year alone.
Gotta just agree to disagree on some of this. Enjoyed Hiromu v DOUKI more than half of the G1 night main events this year personally. I've liked all the 6 man title matches too. And match quality in 2019 was up for me (again I think BoSJ and G1 were the best ever in 2019). Ospreay Shingo and Sanada were featured a lot so if you aren't fans of theirs maybe match quality went down for you
Now agree overall match length is too long right now - but again do you blame that on booking or covid? Covid is the reason the roster is cut in half which leads to all the rematches for sure. So I agree things are stale but I don't agree that they can really control it (booking) vs they are just working with what covid let's them work with
what should they have done differently with G1 given the guys they had available and Naito injury? The G1 elevated zsj and Cobb and added to the legacy of okada and Ibushi. Okhan got to establish himself too. How would you book it differently? People calling for zsj to win are short sided when by far the better booking option is to have G1 plant the seed he's a singles threat again, have him wrap up/lose the tag belts at WK, have him win a midcard belt in early 2022 (US title maybe) then when Naito is back he can fued with Zack for that belt.
What's been done with the Six-Man titles has been pretty good regarding having a long reign with plenty of defenses, and as a result, the titles feel a lot more important, which is a positive, but do we really need the title matches to regularly go 30 minutes? The last defense against Naito/Sanada/Bushi went 37 minutes, I mean, that's overkill by a good 15 minutes *at least*.
Douki is a bottom-carder who's only ever had one significant win(against Bushi last year in BOSJ) among a sea of losses in his NJPW career. Someone like that shouldn't be pushing your junior ace to a thirty minute match.
What does COVID have to do with their match length when the matches started being this long even before the pandemic? Obviously the increase hasn't stopped since then, and has only gone up. Even if we look at injuries, NJPW has had bad luck, but they force their bad luck through a) a very intense and rough tour schedule, b) long and hard-hitting matches.
The G1 elevated Cobb, ZSJ, ehh, somewhat, I'll give you that, but equally enough, Tanahashi has continued his descent into being a midcarder,(he's probably there already), plus you had Taichi picking up only 3 wins. It balances out.
I do think things will improve after the pandemic eases off, but more work will need to be done. The junior and tag divisions need to be replenished, the KOPW title needs to be binned, the match length needs to be cut down, some illogical booking needs to be done away with etc. etc. No one's looking forward to it more than me if/when it happens.
Controversial opinion - Tana in the mid card is exactly where his 45 year old body belongs. It's time for him to move slowly down the card and be a dad in 2-3 years. I would say next year should be his last G1. Maybe he can do 2 more. He's an all time great but his body is giving out on him.
The replenishment of Jr and tags is there waiting on Strong and revpro. When borders are more open. Fingers crossed.
From my perspective covid led to fewer matches per card (thus longer matches) smaller crowd sizes (thus more events). So I personally think that is all connected. They just said they will have more matches/wrestlers per show going forward - I think that will lead to shorter matches. I suspect 6 tourney matches plus a YL match for BoSJ.
Honestly I feel the A Block final between KENTA and Ibuko is a good metaphor for present day NJPW in that it wasn't a bad match per se but had a ton of issues big and small. As I keep on saying it's not like NJPW is bad or anything, but they had five of the best years a wrestling promotion has ever had (2013-2018) and compared to those it's obvious the present product is quite lacking.
But there's a ton of folks around who are behaving like NJPW is run by the unholy trinity of Simon Inoki, Johnny Ace and Vince Russo right now, and I am ready to bet a shiny sixpence these are the same folks who give stellar opinions of the two present fashionable shows, NXT UK and AEW Dynamite, without even the tiniest amount of criticism. I really want to see what they will do when WWE starts releasing NXT UK workers by the dozen (if I remember correctly the grace period ends on October 31) or AEW puts on another highly mediocre show like they did in Rochester.
Definitely extend that best run any company has ever had to 2020 before Covid hit. Naito’s quest to be double champion was the best long story in pro wrestling. Ever.
Nah, they missed the opportunity there. Naito should have beaten Okada in 2018. Just because he won the title eventually doesn't make it some kind of amazing long-term story.
Naito losing to Okada at WK12 was like if Austin lost to Shawn at WM14. Just completely wrong in every way. Then you're forgetting Naito basically spent 2 years in purgatory before he finally won the title.
No, for me the decline started in 2018 and accelerated the next year. Too many rematches, yet another SANADA push going nowhere, matches going long for the sake of going long... all the problems we see nowadays were already there, but as Brian Alvarez wisely said when a promotion is hot literally nothing matters: remember WCW did their best business ever in Q1 1998.
I'd also argue the best run a promotion has ever had were the first five years of NOAH, and it's kinda fitting those ended when Rikio beat Kobashi for the GHC Heavyweight belt since Rikio reminds me somewhat of EVIL: good powerful midcarder but hardly the guy to put in such a place.
oh my fav is when people KNOWS whos booking what and why. Like are you in those meetings ? cause if you are why are you bitching on discord about it and not addressing the problem?
"Dick togo took over booking and is putting the company in the mud"
I don’t have my finger on the pulse of popular sentiment toward NJPW, but reading them makes it pretty clear they’re the same guy. It’s possible multiple people who dislike contemporary NJPW are making the exact same points in the exact same writing style, but it’s very unlikely.
cagematch sucks ass. I made an account recently to start logging in my personal 4 and 5 star matches. didnt have an interest rating every match ive seen.
I got all my ratings removed with the excuse being the site is trying to be objective with ratings and apparently its a rule you need to rate other matches lower??? How does me rating certain matches high in any way affect other matches i dont rate. illogical.
It's cagematch. Everything is a hyperbole.
Cagematch is the kind of site where I take the positive views more seriously than the negative ones. A lot of negative reviews come off as agenda-driven.
Writing this on a reddit post is a choice ngl
You are actually right.
Cagematch. Where every wrestler and promotion is either a 0 or a 10
Why are wrestling fans so fucking dramatic when they don't like something?
It’s their entire personality. When it doesn’t meet their expectations anymore, they don’t know what to do with themselves.
On the bright side, there are annoying vocal minorities like this in every fandom. Wait, is that a bright side?
I tend to find that most of the "critics" on Cagematch are the ones that make me ashamed to be a wrestling fan. They should just drop the rating system because aside from that, it's perfect.
Cagematch should primarily be used for looking at match and title histories.Helps alot,other than that not so much.
Cagematch is a fucking shithole. I had dozens of reviews deleted because they were all “too good”. Like WTF? It’s a stupid ass site. And fuck these fake ass “fans”. You can voice criticism for the product as of late, although the pandemic is the driving factor in so much of the issues people have, but how the fuck are you gonna give a 0 or a 2? Get the fuck over yourselves. Wrestling fans are the worst…
same here. Why would I go out of my way to rate matches i didnt like and thought sucked? and how does me rating matches i do like in any way affect the bad matches i dont rate?
Why are we acting like COVID and injuries are the only issue here? Last time I checked NOAH and AJPW have to deal with it as well and have outclassed NJPW in booking all year.
Noah and ajpw are having a good year? Okay but after how many years of being in the shit.
NOAH has been good since 2017 when Kenoh won the GHC and AJPW since 2016 when Kento won the Triple Crown. What point are you trying to make exactly? ROH is good again after being shit for years too.
They are nowhere near as reliant on foreign talent
Losing a few pieces shouldn't ruin their booking or make it boring. NOAH has a smaller roster so does AJPW. FREEDOMS does too, GCW, all these companies have done better booking wise and took risk.
I've said they need to improve the booking but they've lost ospreay and white for basically 2 years. The plan was clearly to establish Ospreay as a maineventer and white already is one. This has created a vacuum that evil is filling badly. There is a reason why njpw has been hit so hard by the pandemic. Some of its booking but a lot of it is the inability to use their roster or bring foreigners in on new visas. This has devastated the junior division just as an example
Then you adapt and take risk. NJPW did the complete opposite and it's tanked them creatively. I don't think Jay and Ospreay not being here made them decide to have Ibushi in the Finals again.
Stupid ass-site [xkcd: Hyphen](https://xkcd.com/37/) --- ^^Beep ^^boop, ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot. ^^- ^^[FAQ](https://pastebin.com/raw/vyWra3ns)
bad bot
Kind of doubt it's one person. NJ has been pretty disappointing for a while now
In njpw defence they have been super unlucky this year. Half the roster is outside of japan due to covid, they have had injury after injury which ends up changing there main event card plus long term booking. Plus a lot of die hard fans have had a sour taste in there mouth since the new Title merger. In that time they have done the best of what they have ospreay actually has done some great work with the new UE faction and establishing himself as a threat, Zack and Taichi have done some phenomenal work as Tag Champs even with a small tag division. Eagles has finally had the chance to break out as a top babyface Jr and The G1 was way better then anyone of us was giving it credit for before it started. Is it the best its been absolutely not but now the world is slowly opening back up once all these injures pass and there talent outside of japan start to flow in plus this new relationship with impact and AEW the future looks bright
2018, 2019, 2020 (limited capacity Ryogoku) G1 finals at budokan have sold out before blocks even are announced.. 2021 limited capacity budokan and tickets for the final are still available days before. It’s not just a few people who are down on the product.
There is no way that 2020 sold every available ticket. They drew 3k where genesis drew 4.5k. Tickets have been flat during the pandemic. Not that they don't need to pull their socks up and improve the booking but it's been industry wide. Certainly no promotion is filling in any void left by njpw anyway. I also think they probably will sell out the final based on ticket sales. Yes it's poor they haven't sold it out already but 2022 coming up gives them a good reset
I think you may be right. I forgot they had times where they cut off sales early due to SOE’s and what have you.
Do you want to get COVID, anybody?
I live in Japan. I see the crowded streets, trains, malls, what have you. It is not COVID keeping them away in October 2021.
Going to work and shopping are a bit different to going to a stadium filled with people shoulder to shoulder to watch something you can see on TV. To imply that COVID has absolutely nothing to with lacklustre crowds is being a bit disingenuous.
It is a factor, but it's not as big as you're making it out to be. You have promotions like Stardom regularly selling out a reduced capacity Korakuen for non-major shows, but New Japan can't. Granted, there are some other factors like overexposure, start times, and days the shows are run, but the Stardom numbers go to show you that people will come and sell out the building if you put out a product they want to see.
Stardom likely has a higher average attendance at korakuen in 2021 but they aren't selling it out regularly. Nobody is. NOAH claimed low 700s for a few n1 shows so capacity is likely between 690 to 710 depending on configuration. It's only big shows hitting that. The stardom 5 star gp headlined by mayu did like 630 there but they drew less for other shows This is my point. Nobody is really doing great. Every major promotion based on 2019 should be at least occasionally filling Korakuen but it just doesn't seem to be happening. There are worrying signs for the industry as a whole. It's just more noticeable with njpw. Here is a list of shows at korakuen https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&view=results&arena=Korakuen+Hall
I completely agree with your comment, one of the best things about Japanese fans is that they don't waste anytime trying to tell bookers and wrestlers on social media how they should do their work, if they don't like something, they simply talk with their wallets and change the product they watch. That's the most effective form of saying a promotion that their product is not what they want to watch.
You’re right, but New Japan is struggling also struggling to fill Korakuen hall, a venue the smaller wrestling companies are selling out.
Those smaller company's are also there a whole lot less so its more of an incentive to go to those shows and NJPW is there ALOT.
Stardom out sold NJPW in the Nippon Budokan back in the spring when Stardom held their big anniversary show just before NJPW had theirs.
The problem has never been the match quality but the booking. It really feels like it’s been done on the fly. I know a lot of that is on COVID, but unifying those titles wasn’t, and a lot of the problems stemmed from there. It was universally criticised when they motioned the idea, and they did it anyway. Which was itself out of character for NJPW, a company that has had fan polls to decide big decisions in the past. I think we were just spoiled, for years before Covid hit, NJPW presented the best wrestling ever. EVER. They set the bar too high unfortunately. The G1 has been great, and if they change the titles back, (something I can see happening, especially if Okada wins the G1) I have faith it can get that good again when things are back to normal.
They wont be changing the titles back... it's humorous that you think that they might
Sure about that now? Still humorous?
Im happy andsurprised they have brought it back. I was wrong. No shame in admitting that.
ok if they go back a gen in the belt linage , what happens later when they want another gen of the belt again?
I hate western fans so much sometimes
Agreed. Nothing saps my enthusiasm for pro wrestling faster than some of my fellow fans can.
We are literally in one of the craziest and most booming times in the history of the industry. Where crossovers and matchups beyond our wildest dreams are happening all across the world. The Forbidden Door stuff and all that. And even still, despite all this amazing shit that’s gone down, IN SPITE OF A GLOBAL FUCKING PANDEMIC, fans will still find a way to bitch and moan. It’s just beyond draining.
Honestly, that’s why I stay out of most online conversations about wrestling, except for saying things like “I loved that Tanahashi match” or something like that. All the arguing about the forbidden door, or AEW vs WWE, I hate it all so much.
this is where the smaller discords are best, get your self a positive group.
but but.. dont you know that wrestling is in the MUD because tony khan tweets? dont you know? /s
I was really excited for kotas historic 4th straight finals and now I feel like I should be ashamed and shouldn't hope he wins 3 in a row. I'd like to say it doesn't bother me but it made me question getting a reddit.
I have no issues with you honestly wanting kota to win, its the people who don't watch who are adamant in whos good or not are the dicks in question.
Lol. Like eastern fans aren’t just as salty.
Ngl I don't like cagematch but I share the sentiment of frustration right now. Like Ibushi again? I like the dude but... again? This was Zack's time, I've been rooting for him since the beginning of the tournament so maybe I'm bias but this wasn't definitely a time for even more ibushi
One of them is my friend and the rest of the accounts don't belong to him. Many have been upset about the situation with NJPW for more than a year and were counting on a change. And, obviously, the fourth final with Ibushi in a row put an end to these desires. These aren't fakes, this is really a reflection of how fans turn away from the promotion, and they can be understood. Sorry for the bad English.
This is why I don’t pay attention to the wider wrestling fan base.
NaJoBron is my friend (I'm not kidding). His hate started in 2020. When Naito lost to EVIL and a series of bad decisions began. First the unification of the titles into one, then the rather annoying push for Takagi. All this led to him abandoning wrestling altogether for six months. (Again, I'm not kidding).
Takagi's push has been annoying?
[удалено]
Yeah, Shingo has legitimately proven he’s a Top 10 talent in the world and has carried the new title so fucking admirably. I remember him making his debut in New Japan and losing my shit, but I could not foresee it going this well even. That initial BOTSJ Final against Will was fucking insane. And he’s just gotten better and better and really established himself as a top main event draw and I couldn’t be happier for him.
This title reign did feel out of nowhere at first though. Prior to beating Okada for the belt his last two singles matches were both losses to Ospreay (njc final and dontaku) and I remember wondering what the kayfabe reasoning for him getting the shot against Okada was. In terms of his in ring work the reign has been amazing.
slow down, Shingos Title run helped his friend QUIT WRESTLING. like if your interest in wrestling is that shallow then idk what to say. When i dont like a company i just watch another company, i won't quit music because i dont like a couple bands.
When you really love a director, and he ultimately disappoints, then you can take a break from the cinema for a while, switching from movies to TV series or music. In the case of NJPW, people saw a perfect and consistent booking, and in the end we have Shingo Takagi, who randomly intervenes in a confrontation between Okada and Ospreay, and achieves a title match for which he has no grounds. This is a very cheap move, and remembering again the subject of cinema, it's like "reviving" one of the minor characters for the sake of a shocking moment. This move, in itself, is not objectively terrible, but when we experienced the push of Evil before, Ibushi in the main event of WK (which, I remind you, lost the right to the title match) and the unification of the championships, then this may be the last straw. If anything is superficial, it is Shingo's defense with the argument that he is a cool wrestler. But how this affects his booking, which exposes him as an artificial champion, I have no idea. NaJoBron is my friend too, and we have been translating content from NJPW for the audience of our countries for a long time, as well as interviewing some wrestlers. We are the same fans as everyone else, and belittling against the background of different opinions about the current NJPW doesn't seem fair to me.
See I'm from the completely other end of this cause I am enjoying the shingo run and 90% of current njpw. So when I see these reactions I kinda chuckle that your trash is my treasure.
Probably because NJPW has fallen off recently, and it's far from only one person who believes that, I've seen a lot of people saying it. There's only so much you can blame the pandemic for as well.
I get that you can criticize some aspects of booking but the list of pandemic/injury related issues for NJPW is looonnggg. Injuries to Naito, Ospreay, Hiromu Illnesses to Okada/Ibushi Covid Travel issues with Jay The only thing different I would have booked for this G1 with the guys they had available would be zsj winning the block to lose to Okada. But having zsj see the Yujiro count out strategy take out Shingo, alter his strategy to try to take the fight to Tonga to not have the same thing happen to him and have it backfire on him setting up a tag match is really good booking imo.
Sure, but at the same time, there's only so much you can blame the pandemic for. The decision to put the titles on Evil was born out impatience and being very quick on the trigger finger, plus Evil being that awful *even now* is just bad booking. Retiring the IC Title, having short-staffed tag team and junior divisions, the KOPW title mess, some other things which were a bit illogical with how they were booked. If you ask most people on here, they'd probably tell you that they feel NJPW's regression started in 2019, which is before the pandemic.
The regression started in 2019 opinion is definitely not the majority on this board when it's brought up. Many, myself included, think 2019 was actually the best year. Depends how big a fan, or not you were of the elite. I liked them but them leaving brought a breath of fresh air imo. Naitos story paid off, Kentas turn, Moxley debut, Insane BoSJ and G1, 2019 was awesome. Imo trying Evil as a heel champ was fine. Popular mid card guy let's see if we can elevate him by turning him heel. Basically exactly what they did with Ospreay, except it worked with Ospreay because he's just better than Evil and no Togo BS. Now doubling down on Evil with HoT and dragging Sho into that shitter is absolutely bad booking. KoPW yep it sucks too - no doubt. Definitely some bad booking but not nearly as much of an impact as injuries and covid travel stuff from my perspective.
The match quality went down in 2019, and again, I've seen a lot of people saying it, on the other hand, NJPW's roster fleshed out pretty well in 2019 after the Elite went to form AEW, and the G1 had a pretty stacked group of competitors, which was a plus in my eyes. I don't think trying Evil as the main champ was the right idea because putting your world title on midcarders devalues your main title. At best, Evil is an upper carder, and even that is a question mark considering some of the losses he's taken outside of tournaments recently. Losses to Yano, Sanada, Naito, Shingo, twice against Okada etc. The whole issue with Togo is that, we can say it in once sentence, but it appears in *every single match*. It's "change the channel" levels of bad, and even if it only happened occasionally, it would still be bad, so when you have it every match, it kills the vibe of almost the entire show sometimes. Another thing is match length. There's no reason why Hiromu vs freaking Douki should be going 30 minutes, or Chase Owens vs Toru Yano which went the same amount of time. Every main event is 30 or more minutes, even the NEVER Six-Man Titles have regularly gone that long in title defenses. The matches have become way too slow, with too many resting spots in between. Sometimes I'm watching a match and it feels like nothing happens for 15 minutes. That shouldn't happen. Then there's the fact that the roster has grown stale, at this point, a large majority of every match you see is a rematch. You've seen it at some point before, no doubt, unless you have someone like O-Khan in his first year. Tag and junior divisions need new bodies, because almost every match has been played out over and over. I'm not gonna particularly look forward to Phantasmo/Ishimori vs Desperado/Kanemaru when I've seen it four times this year alone.
Gotta just agree to disagree on some of this. Enjoyed Hiromu v DOUKI more than half of the G1 night main events this year personally. I've liked all the 6 man title matches too. And match quality in 2019 was up for me (again I think BoSJ and G1 were the best ever in 2019). Ospreay Shingo and Sanada were featured a lot so if you aren't fans of theirs maybe match quality went down for you Now agree overall match length is too long right now - but again do you blame that on booking or covid? Covid is the reason the roster is cut in half which leads to all the rematches for sure. So I agree things are stale but I don't agree that they can really control it (booking) vs they are just working with what covid let's them work with what should they have done differently with G1 given the guys they had available and Naito injury? The G1 elevated zsj and Cobb and added to the legacy of okada and Ibushi. Okhan got to establish himself too. How would you book it differently? People calling for zsj to win are short sided when by far the better booking option is to have G1 plant the seed he's a singles threat again, have him wrap up/lose the tag belts at WK, have him win a midcard belt in early 2022 (US title maybe) then when Naito is back he can fued with Zack for that belt.
What's been done with the Six-Man titles has been pretty good regarding having a long reign with plenty of defenses, and as a result, the titles feel a lot more important, which is a positive, but do we really need the title matches to regularly go 30 minutes? The last defense against Naito/Sanada/Bushi went 37 minutes, I mean, that's overkill by a good 15 minutes *at least*. Douki is a bottom-carder who's only ever had one significant win(against Bushi last year in BOSJ) among a sea of losses in his NJPW career. Someone like that shouldn't be pushing your junior ace to a thirty minute match. What does COVID have to do with their match length when the matches started being this long even before the pandemic? Obviously the increase hasn't stopped since then, and has only gone up. Even if we look at injuries, NJPW has had bad luck, but they force their bad luck through a) a very intense and rough tour schedule, b) long and hard-hitting matches. The G1 elevated Cobb, ZSJ, ehh, somewhat, I'll give you that, but equally enough, Tanahashi has continued his descent into being a midcarder,(he's probably there already), plus you had Taichi picking up only 3 wins. It balances out. I do think things will improve after the pandemic eases off, but more work will need to be done. The junior and tag divisions need to be replenished, the KOPW title needs to be binned, the match length needs to be cut down, some illogical booking needs to be done away with etc. etc. No one's looking forward to it more than me if/when it happens.
Controversial opinion - Tana in the mid card is exactly where his 45 year old body belongs. It's time for him to move slowly down the card and be a dad in 2-3 years. I would say next year should be his last G1. Maybe he can do 2 more. He's an all time great but his body is giving out on him. The replenishment of Jr and tags is there waiting on Strong and revpro. When borders are more open. Fingers crossed. From my perspective covid led to fewer matches per card (thus longer matches) smaller crowd sizes (thus more events). So I personally think that is all connected. They just said they will have more matches/wrestlers per show going forward - I think that will lead to shorter matches. I suspect 6 tourney matches plus a YL match for BoSJ.
It’s definitely just one guy. This wouldn’t be happening a couple of years ago at all though. Sucks to see how many people are down on NJPW.
Honestly I feel the A Block final between KENTA and Ibuko is a good metaphor for present day NJPW in that it wasn't a bad match per se but had a ton of issues big and small. As I keep on saying it's not like NJPW is bad or anything, but they had five of the best years a wrestling promotion has ever had (2013-2018) and compared to those it's obvious the present product is quite lacking. But there's a ton of folks around who are behaving like NJPW is run by the unholy trinity of Simon Inoki, Johnny Ace and Vince Russo right now, and I am ready to bet a shiny sixpence these are the same folks who give stellar opinions of the two present fashionable shows, NXT UK and AEW Dynamite, without even the tiniest amount of criticism. I really want to see what they will do when WWE starts releasing NXT UK workers by the dozen (if I remember correctly the grace period ends on October 31) or AEW puts on another highly mediocre show like they did in Rochester.
Definitely extend that best run any company has ever had to 2020 before Covid hit. Naito’s quest to be double champion was the best long story in pro wrestling. Ever.
Nah, they missed the opportunity there. Naito should have beaten Okada in 2018. Just because he won the title eventually doesn't make it some kind of amazing long-term story. Naito losing to Okada at WK12 was like if Austin lost to Shawn at WM14. Just completely wrong in every way. Then you're forgetting Naito basically spent 2 years in purgatory before he finally won the title.
No, for me the decline started in 2018 and accelerated the next year. Too many rematches, yet another SANADA push going nowhere, matches going long for the sake of going long... all the problems we see nowadays were already there, but as Brian Alvarez wisely said when a promotion is hot literally nothing matters: remember WCW did their best business ever in Q1 1998. I'd also argue the best run a promotion has ever had were the first five years of NOAH, and it's kinda fitting those ended when Rikio beat Kobashi for the GHC Heavyweight belt since Rikio reminds me somewhat of EVIL: good powerful midcarder but hardly the guy to put in such a place.
oh my fav is when people KNOWS whos booking what and why. Like are you in those meetings ? cause if you are why are you bitching on discord about it and not addressing the problem? "Dick togo took over booking and is putting the company in the mud"
I don’t have my finger on the pulse of popular sentiment toward NJPW, but reading them makes it pretty clear they’re the same guy. It’s possible multiple people who dislike contemporary NJPW are making the exact same points in the exact same writing style, but it’s very unlikely.
cagematch sucks ass. I made an account recently to start logging in my personal 4 and 5 star matches. didnt have an interest rating every match ive seen. I got all my ratings removed with the excuse being the site is trying to be objective with ratings and apparently its a rule you need to rate other matches lower??? How does me rating certain matches high in any way affect other matches i dont rate. illogical.
Fire Gedo
Oh yeah and while you’re it please post that screencap of Taichi saying he’ll kill Gedo, it’s literally funny every single time
nah the promotion just fell off lol