- Joined
- Feb 9, 2018
they've always done that and its never not been cringey
General Wrestling Discussion
- Thread starter Frank Rizzo
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- Joined
- Jun 26, 2024
its hopeful but yeah I agree, its honestly amazing (in bad way) how much Smarks will follow Tony into oblivion simply because "its not WWE"
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2021
Trentina Carpenter
- Joined
- Jul 30, 2016
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2018
its like watching a match from a wwe game in a created arena
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2022
Cope (seethe dilate) looks great for a guy his age but Jericho...Jesus Christ he looks and moves like a bloated corpse.
ElHijodeDeficienciaCogni
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2024
Jeribloat like a tube of biscuit dough popping on the counter. Cope (S&D) looks like an old testament prophet comes to spell doom on a fallen nation. Got that Street Preacher vibe where he be looking to crucify John Wick.
Shota Umino is a fucking geek. They need to stop playing Weekend at Bernie's with Naito's corpse.
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2019
Imagine going back in time 25 years, getting an audience with Vince's echelon, and telling them all that the future of their business would be Edge and Chris Jericho botching moves while looking like confused and scared nursing home residents.
Anchors-Away
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- May 9, 2019
NJPW's decline is multi-layered and stems from more than Okada's departure. I've ranted about this prior in this general, but fuck it let's deep dive given it's 2025.
First we need to talk about the mishandling of talent and in my mind, Kushida is a great example of this. He was loyal, worked any spot on the card and was very good at getting international acts coverage; if it be via tag-teams or general recruitment due to his time abroad. Plus a legitimate, undefeated MMA background. So you would think given his hard work, he'd be rewarded? Kushida had been in NJPW for 10 years and requested a chance to move above Junior Heavyweight and work in the Heavyweight division. He was denied. 10 Years and they still didn't wanna push him. So he walked, made some easy money in WWE, TNA and works as a freelancer now.
Now do I think Kushida would have revolutionised NJPW had he got that push into the Heavyweight division? No. But at some point, you need to elevate who you have to allow for a natural hierarchy to form. The same is ongoing right now with acts like Bushi, Douki, El Desperado, Hiromu Takahashi, all of whom have nearly spent a decade locked in as "Juniors" despite all on the cusp or having passed the age of 40. Yoh and Sho are also "prospects" that should be getting elevated vastly higher than Junior and yet aren't.
NJPW's inability to refresh the card isn't just a problem, the stables are heavily stagnant too. Bullet Club is divided into three sub-groups, CHAOS barely exists, TMDK and United Empire are creations of now departed Western talent. Nobody has any fucks to give for "Just 5 Guys" and it shows given the leader bailed to Bullet Club a few months ago. A way to drastically shake up the matches had, the direction talent is going etc. within NJPW is to form new groups with new goals. But that would require NJPW to actually want change. You'd think a country so deep into consumerism would understand that to make people spend more on merch, you make new things to invest into...
The new generation (who are already mid 30's) getting pushed right now, they've only got broken down heroes to work with. Tana' is soon to retire, Naito has recently had eye surgery again. You spent close to a decade making Goto a choke artist and have got him fighting ZSJ. Shingo is looking more like he has one foot out the door to AEW with the stop-start momentum and Ishi might as well be listed as AEW talent. This leaves them with a cold as ice Sanada, lolEVIL and Great O-Khan as viable contenders. I like me some Great 0-Khan, but to say he hasn't been presented as a legit contender in recent is an understatement. With the average rate of 2 Young Lions returning from aboard a year, NJPW is never going to catch up with the likes of DDT or NOAH when it comes to youth development. Fuck the fact that Kaito Kiyomiya is only 26 is testament to that. He is what NJPW should be striving to produce.
You could argue that maybe more short-term international freelancers could at least help elevate the talent present, take advantage of the indies and build stock. But NJPW went and buried half of the core roster when they brought in Moxley just the other year from AEW. Meanwhile Finlay is rumoured to be going to NXT in the coming weeks (lol) and Jake Lee I am willing to give at least two more years before WWE come knocking too. So any attempt to keep one long-term is diminishing year by year.
NJPW's entire model just fucked to be frank. It's more than a rebuild, the very foundation needs amending.
First we need to talk about the mishandling of talent and in my mind, Kushida is a great example of this. He was loyal, worked any spot on the card and was very good at getting international acts coverage; if it be via tag-teams or general recruitment due to his time abroad. Plus a legitimate, undefeated MMA background. So you would think given his hard work, he'd be rewarded? Kushida had been in NJPW for 10 years and requested a chance to move above Junior Heavyweight and work in the Heavyweight division. He was denied. 10 Years and they still didn't wanna push him. So he walked, made some easy money in WWE, TNA and works as a freelancer now.
Now do I think Kushida would have revolutionised NJPW had he got that push into the Heavyweight division? No. But at some point, you need to elevate who you have to allow for a natural hierarchy to form. The same is ongoing right now with acts like Bushi, Douki, El Desperado, Hiromu Takahashi, all of whom have nearly spent a decade locked in as "Juniors" despite all on the cusp or having passed the age of 40. Yoh and Sho are also "prospects" that should be getting elevated vastly higher than Junior and yet aren't.
NJPW's inability to refresh the card isn't just a problem, the stables are heavily stagnant too. Bullet Club is divided into three sub-groups, CHAOS barely exists, TMDK and United Empire are creations of now departed Western talent. Nobody has any fucks to give for "Just 5 Guys" and it shows given the leader bailed to Bullet Club a few months ago. A way to drastically shake up the matches had, the direction talent is going etc. within NJPW is to form new groups with new goals. But that would require NJPW to actually want change. You'd think a country so deep into consumerism would understand that to make people spend more on merch, you make new things to invest into...
The new generation (who are already mid 30's) getting pushed right now, they've only got broken down heroes to work with. Tana' is soon to retire, Naito has recently had eye surgery again. You spent close to a decade making Goto a choke artist and have got him fighting ZSJ. Shingo is looking more like he has one foot out the door to AEW with the stop-start momentum and Ishi might as well be listed as AEW talent. This leaves them with a cold as ice Sanada, lolEVIL and Great O-Khan as viable contenders. I like me some Great 0-Khan, but to say he hasn't been presented as a legit contender in recent is an understatement. With the average rate of 2 Young Lions returning from aboard a year, NJPW is never going to catch up with the likes of DDT or NOAH when it comes to youth development. Fuck the fact that Kaito Kiyomiya is only 26 is testament to that. He is what NJPW should be striving to produce.
You could argue that maybe more short-term international freelancers could at least help elevate the talent present, take advantage of the indies and build stock. But NJPW went and buried half of the core roster when they brought in Moxley just the other year from AEW. Meanwhile Finlay is rumoured to be going to NXT in the coming weeks (lol) and Jake Lee I am willing to give at least two more years before WWE come knocking too. So any attempt to keep one long-term is diminishing year by year.
NJPW's entire model just fucked to be frank. It's more than a rebuild, the very foundation needs amending.
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2021
Seems like Takeshita has signed a contract with NJPW. If this is to be believed, he has a contract with DDT, AEW and NJPW. To be honest, once his time with AEW is done, he's back in Japan anyway.
- Joined
- Jun 26, 2024
to think these two were once competing over the World Title at WrestleMania, oh how the mighty fall
wouldnt surprise me if Tony has stock in NJPW at this point considering how badly its declined, he does seem to be influencing some booking choices at the very least, it sucks for Japanese fans now to have to put up with his bullshit, even TNA is more tolerable
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2013
- Joined
- Oct 9, 2024
Wm 1 and 2 are fucking unwatchable dogshit. Wccw Parade of Champions at 84 was miles better
Anchors-Away
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- May 9, 2019
Close to ten years ago, NJPW was able to bully ROH, TNA, Progress and RevPro into being glorified feeder systems. Now THEY are the ones feeding from AEW. Such a sharp decline might be noticeable with Okada gone now, but it's not as if the Rainmaker was helping put talent over in his final years. Tony might be taking advantage of the current status change, but Gedo is to blame for getting them here in the first place.
JustStopDude
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- May 7, 2017
It's funny how much Vince shit that Tony is currently doing, that how AEW smarks like and defend.
Japan, as a culture and a country, are hyper risk adverse to change since the start of the "Lost Decade" started in the 80's and it's only gotten worse.
You can still buy a new VCR and blank tapes in Japan. If something works, even poorly, you don't get rid of it because new things = bad..
Innovation is very hard to push in established companies.
I.B. Niggin
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jun 25, 2020
Gedo should have lost the book half a decade ago. It's fucking criminal how he turned EVIL from a fun midcard talent in LIJ into the most boring, hackneyed piece of shit worker imaginable. Never had any business being in anything longer than 15 minute matches.
Should have taken a page out of Dragon Gate too and had Bullet Club and CHAOS disband in some kind of big, elimination match. That United Empire/War Dogs cage match from a year back could have worked for something like that too.
Anchors-Away
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- May 9, 2019
Does Bullet Club even push merch anymore? Last time I saw a Bullet Club shirt worn in public or at a indie wrestling event, it was some obese Hispanic chick wearing the fucking Marty Scrull variation.
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2018
Loving the WWE YouTube Vault.
With that said what a crappy collection of matches here, it’s a Paul Bearer hosted collection and it’s only one forgettable Undertaker match? I only watched pieces of this and it seems to have been house shows I’m guessing USA Network didn’t let them put Raw matches on VHS? Odd but I guess it made these tapes extra valuable for the hardcore fans who recorded everything.
Is it just my boomerism but I don’t get why commentary is so boring now. Johnny Polo’s (Raven) yukking it up with Gorilla Monsoon was the highlight of the tape. Also Macho Man was great on commentary I get why Vince wanted him to shift to that they should have ideally just kept Randy on mic but also wrestle as well. Imagine how great it could have been to have Randy and Steve Austin trade barbs.
Is it just my boomerism but I don’t get why commentary is so boring now. Johnny Polo’s (Raven) yukking it up with Gorilla Monsoon was the highlight of the tape. Also Macho Man was great on commentary I get why Vince wanted him to shift to that they should have ideally just kept Randy on mic but also wrestle as well. Imagine how great it could have been to have Randy and Steve Austin trade barbs.
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- Joined
- Feb 9, 2018
the fact that bullet club is still a thing is astounding. should've killed that shit off a few years ago
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2013
Those VHS compilations usually didn't have anything too amazing. Maybe a title change here and there? Like Bret beating Flair in 92 was on one. But it was usually just dark matches that they filmed.