The Gaming Den

So, "Sweets" Makabe has decided to take a break from candy and cakes and instead try eating Suzuki's boots.

It was a great match. Followed by an amazing match that had a great Student vs Master story to it, with Okada vs Ospreay.

But it looks like this is the year that people realise: Suzuki-gun... ICHIBAN!

The New Japan Cup has its winner... HE IS! SUBMISSION MASTER! HE IS! ZSJ! HE IIIIIIIS ZACK! SABRE! JUNIOR!

That was an incredible match. Nice work on the knees there - I hear that Tanahashi's legs haven't been so great lately.

TAKA Michinoku is an amazing hypeman. The post-match mic fight between him and Gedo was better than the ZSJ/Tana match, and that match was great.

Yeah, cutting each other off there was amazing and memorable.

Joey Janela's Spring Break continues to be the must-see event of Mania weekend if you like crazy shit.

Jean-Pierre Lafitte of the Quebecers worked a legit 4+ snowflake match with WALTER, which ended with Lafitte's chest blackened from chops and a chop exchange handshake.

There were also many, many men working like they wanted to die; the Great Sasuke being one of them. And then he sang It's My Life karaoke with Joey Janela after.

I can't believe that Ospreay was cleared to go wrestle there after attempting to cave his skull and neck in on the ring apron at Sakura Genesis. He really should be resting and recovering. But what do I know? Maybe you don't actually need those things.

Chico El Luchador and Hurricane Helms formed a tag team as well.

Low Ki couldn't make it for his "No ropes, KO or Submission Only" match against former MMA guy Matt Riddle. Unfortunately for Riddle, a suitable replacement was found: Minoru Suzuki. If he used a banned move, then good luck to the state rep who has to issue the fine to him.

But I assume that starting next year, big wrestling events of that calibre will not be happening in Louisiana.

I watched Ricochet's debut(ish) match at NXT Takeover for the North American Championship and it was dope. He is the goddamn best wrestler in the whole world and he's constantly doing dope shit all match long. I have been fascinated by the idea of seeing Ricochet go to WWE for a long time because in my mind it will be the proving point of WWE creative. If Ricochet goes to WWE and they can't make him, probably the best high flying wrestler in the entire world, have an amazing run then there's simply no reason to watch any products they make. If you hand a chef Filet Mignon and they give you a terrible meal there's no excusing that.

They'll absolutely let him shine in NXT. But there is always the risk that he could go to the main roster and then they'll decide to do things their way. Basically, WWE creative might end up shitting in the Filet Mignon they've been handed.

Fucking Aces Man!
I just read it in the Newspaper, THE UNDERTAKER CAME BACK!
Roman Reigns no more!
*hyped*

That is 50% of my reason to watch Wrestling back baby! ^^

Don't get too excited. Next year's WM plan is to have Brock F5 Roman once per month of build up.

*shrugs*
the only thing that could make this better was if the insane icon made his return (just to fuck with Brock for breaking the undertakers streak.)
Or hell, even just the main event mafia . . Sting was alwys good for mindgames.

Given that it's his neck that's fucked up Sting coming back is probably the only thing with more potential to be sad than Taker coming back. Which is saying a lot because Taker coming back was pretty sad.

He doesn't have to wrestle.
Just play his beautifull mindgames ._.

Yo Ronda Rousey lit it up in the ring. I thought she was going to be pretty clunky come Wrestlemania but she is fucking incredible in the ring. Seriously just as one example there's a section when she's laying a combo of lightning fast punches into Stephanie McMahon and it looks incredible, and punches are hella hard to make work in the squared circle because they're one of the few moves that even average people know what they look like.

I'm actually pretty excited to see what Rousey does in the future.

there's rumors of rusev asking for his release from WWE and if he went to NJPW I would cry tears of joy

Taker was a big part of my adolescence but if we're taking sides then RuRu>the Uncomfortably Close To Actually Being Dead Man.

i guess it was a work and that makes me super sad because seriously fuck, wwe. give me rusev in the indies, god dammit.

They've been going into those worked shoot things a bit lately, like with "Brock Lesnar is absolutely leaving us to go back to UFC again" and that thing where Owens and Zayn were allegedly in trouble backstage but that was just being worked into their anti-authority story angle. It's like WCW with Russo all over again, I can't wait for the "X on a Pole" matches!

Rusev going to Ring of Honor (and through that, literally anywhere he wants) would be great though.

Koumei wrote:They've been going into those worked shoot things a bit lately, like with "Brock Lesnar is absolutely leaving us to go back to UFC again" and that thing where Owens and Zayn were allegedly in trouble backstage but that was just being worked into their anti-authority story angle. It's like WCW with Russo all over again, I can't wait for the "X on a Pole" matches!

Rusev going to Ring of Honor (and through that, literally anywhere he wants) would be great though.

"Samoa" Joe Senoa vs Joe Anoai'i (Roman) in a "Rights to being a Samoan named Joe on a Pole" Match.

Wrestling Dontaku night 2 was really weird. Not bad, just... out of control.

Taichi abducted Hirooki Goto and dragged him backstage after a match that Taichi wasn't even involved in.

After a completely normal LIJ vs Suzuki-gun match (including the CRI*s and the fighting in the crowd and the heel hook being applied before they even got to the ring), a mystery masked assailant attacked Naito. And it's either Chris Jericho or Eddie Izzard, hard to tell with the lipstick. (Well, KO did tell Jericho "Go back to Japan!" earlier, I guess he took the advice.) And that was quite the assault really, perhaps more hardcore than he did to Omega. And all those Young Lions he assaulted, I'm pretty sure that made Suzuki happy.

Then Scurll trying to lift Bad Luck Fale, falling and getting pinned that way (Bullet Club vs Bullet Club is weird enough on its own, never mind the ending really). Only for Kenny to then chase Cody out backstage, and Ibushi to step back while Chase and Pimp joined the ring for the big Too Sweet.

And then answering the question of "Who is left to challenge Ospreay for the Junior title? He's basically beaten all the serious contenders, are they going to elevate someone up to his level?" by introducing a new Bone Soldier (who looks like a powerhouse of a Junior to be honest) to challenge in the traditional fashion, via knee to the face.

I'm kind of surprised the main event had no funny business, at this point. It was a great match even though everyone knew Okada would win - the journey was great. And then instead of someone jumping him to challenge, as I was basically expecting by then... he issued the challenge and declared what this year's Match of the Year is going to be.

It makes up for the fact that Suzuki's fire has basically been quashed now. He had a great start to the year, some great matches, new levels of intensity and violence, a love of crippling people's knees (it's okay, if you tear an ACL you can just walk it off). A new entrance for Suzuki-gun, a new title (and a few things in England too), the KES got over as fuck... and now they've had some big set-backs that are going to be hard to overcome. Unless Okada still overcomes Omega in their six hour extravaganza match and then Suzuki challenges and beats him - or they leave again and take over another group like RPW or Noah (again) or something.

*CRI: Chair-Related Incident. They happen often enough when Suzuki-gun are involved.

The new Boner Soldier is Taiji Ishimori, who left the sinking ship of NOAH for TNA last year and was fishing for a WWE deal.

And was also in AJPW for a while. Also today I learned that All Japan is still going. Last I heard NOAH was basically "the successor of All Japan" and had most of their talent and was outperforming them.

So if NOAH is sinking (and indeed is sub-TNA tier?), and is still outdoing AJPW, then... wow. All Japan must be "only technically still in existence" then?

Ishimori looks solid though, so good luck to him there.

NOAH hasn't been outperforming AJPW (or anyone, really) for a few years now. Jun Akiyama defected back to AJPW as booker/wrestler and AJPW has had a mild renaissance.

NOAH has had some seriously rough patches, financially and crowd wise. They're closer to "barely existing" tier.

Just about everything you could imagine going wrong for NOAH has gone wrong. Death in the ring, losing sponsors over accusations of yakuza ties, mass defections back to AJPW, main eventers leaving the company while only in their mid-30s, it's all happened. They haven't had good young main event level depth in 5 years and even if they did get a bunch of young guys in I have no idea how they'd get them over.

Okay, so they're not even doing as well as some of the Garbage Promotions over there? Ouch.

I guess the only ship you should name your promotion after is FRIEND ship.