Honestly, it’s pretty surprising that New Japan is doing this kind of match in the first place - historically they’ve been very averse to stipulation matches, and it’s almost unheard of for a match to end with anything other than a clean pinfall.
The management must be pretty big on Moxley to let him do this kind of fight.
Good to hear Taz on the mic again. AEW is mixing the old school luminaries with the cutting edge indies and not concerned with tailoring their content to family audiences. WWE concentrates too much on making their brand marketable, and AEW just plays to the bloodlust of the smarks.
Dork Order is probably their biggest flop, but they’re willing to try anything with them, so I see them as an experiment on how to get over as mediocre heels.
I don’t recall pins always being part of the old WWWF style death match. I saw Bruno and George the Animal Steele in one and almost the whole flght was on the floor. I think Gorilla Monsoon was the special ref outside the ring for that fight. Long time ago, don’t remember all the details.
Just want to throw out some props for Aleister Black and Buddy Murphy. Their match on last week’s Smackdown was one of the best classical pro-wrestling style matches I’ve seen in ages.
And/or big on Archer. Some reports that things are very much thawing between NJPW and AEW, possibly because ROH is a bit of a sinking ship, and Anthem/Impact just kicked NJPW off of AXS TV in the US.
AXS reportedly wanted New Japan to make a talent-sharing agreement with Impact as a condition of staying in the Network, and they probably refused because of how their guys got misused in the TNA era.
Don’t write off RoH just yet. True, the best of their roster defected to AEW and Marty Scurll is on his way there, and Juice Robinson kicked them to the curb after being set up as their top babyface…
RoH begat the Undisputed Era, Kevin Owens, Samoa Joe, Seth Rollins, Cesaro, Lio Rush, Damian Priest, Dominik Dijakovic, AJ Styles, the Viking Raiders, Daniel Bryan and Sami Zayn for WWE. See how much they contribute to the success of the bigger feds? They’re needed!
I never saw a WWWF “death match,” so I don’t know how those worked - WWWF also seemed to be the only organization where a “cage match” was won only by escaping the cage (although the NWA Los Angeles promotion required a pinfall and then an escape to win), and now it’s hard to find a cage match where escaping isn’t a win, except, ironically, in WWE’s Hell in a Cell and WarGames matches - but every death match I ever heard of was of the “pinfall, then get back up before the 10 count” variety; there’s one of these on the WWE Mick Foley DVD set.
With night one of Wrestle Kingdom concluded, the card for tomorrow is set - it’s Okada vs. Naito in the main event for both belts, with Ibushi/White in the third place match, while new US Champ Jon Moxley will be defending against Juice Robinson.
I definitely ask this out of ignorance because I really only watch one kind of wrestling and I’m not an observant person in general.
What’s the actual difference between AEW wrestling and WWE?
Because NXT was doing a clip show or the awards or whatever I watched AEW for the first time in forever and I honestly saw little-to-no difference between the wrestling. I guess AEW is less averse to blood and they have harsher gimmick matches? Maybe more swearing?
Is there anyone who can explain the differences to me?
Okay, technically the “knockout” stipulation means “the referee can count someone out with a 10 count at any time,” and this is just a glorified combination Last Man Standing / I Quit match - another example of how companies are changing the way things are done because That’s How WWE Does It So That’s How Everybody Is Expecting It To Be Done Now.
AEW so far seems to have significantly more ‘spot-fests’. Supposedly, AEW is plotting their storylines further than WWE. AEW has far fewer big, buff wrestlers. AEW is tracking wins and losses and working them into storylines.
But at the end of the day, it’s just another wrestling fed, well-founded with national exposure. I hope it has staying power because competition is good.
Tetsuya Naito is NJPW’s first double champion, having bested Okada on night two of Wrestle Kingdom to claim both the IWGP Heavyweight and Intercontinental championships. A new challenger has already arisen, though - while he was celebrating his win, KENTA hit the ring and hit him with a GTS.
Chris Jericho was able to beat Tanahashi, which probably means that AEW title match won’t be happening unless shenanigans prevail. (It’d certainly be one hell of a main event for Revolution next month.)
Jon Moxley retained the US title over Juice Robinson, but Minoru Suzuki has announced himself as the next contender for the title, which should be an awesome match when it happens.
Surprisingly, Jushin Liger took the pin in both of his final matches. I guess going out on your back is the old school way of doing things, but I really wish he could’ve gotten one last hurrah.
Overall, Wrestle Kingdom was pretty good this year, though the stream got pretty choppy on the second night and I missed some of the early matches because of it. The first night had way too many multi-man matches of the type that usually wind up on the undercard on NJPW shows. I get the impression that they felt like they had about a show and a half’s worth of important matches and decided they could do either one eight-hour show or two five-hour shows with some filler, and went for the latter. The execution wasn’t perfect, but at least the crowd didn’t get worn out by the time the main events came around.
Will Ospreay vs. Hiromu Takahashi, Okada/Naito, and ZSJ vs. SANADA were probably my favorite matches of the show.
as ive said before aew is ecw lite with talent …they should let Jericho go full heyman and and unleash some of the crazy matches hes thought up over the years
since i didnt have time for this ccause of holidays ill give the version i know
The NWO originally came about in japan when njpw bought out a bunch of 10-15 man touring feds(think michnoku pro types) and had a ton of mid-carders with some who were training under muta now
NO ones sure if it was management or mutas idea but since they hadn’t had a heel/rudo faction in a while and guys needed to get over the NWO was formed with muta in hogan’s role… it pretty much was a bullet club/young bucks lasted a year or so but was popular as hell for a while … Well since wcw still had new japan connections and wrestlers who went back and forth had spoken of it… wcw made a deal for the use of it
Originally some of the new japan guys were supposed to join wcw but i dont think it happened in the us although there were mentions of a “NWO japan” here and there
But the NWO shirt with “new world order” written in Japanese under the block is worth money because they really didnt sell them to the public
They had Rick & Morty one episode.
Paul Heyman announced on RAW that Brock would be the first entrant in the Royal Rumble (and of course win it).
So, if he does win, that means nobody challenges him for the World title at WM, and he challenges Bray Wyatt for the Universal title. I think WM tacitly requires both titles be on the line, so that means Brock won’t win RR. Besides, the SD storyline is building up Bray vs Bryan, not Bray vs Brock or Broken Matt or the Brood or any Bros.
So, will we get the Brock Lesnar show the whole match until the very end? It worked for Rey and Ric, because they won by using guile, not brutality. I’m not keen on seeing Brock for over an hour, but maybe Heyman will think of enough interesting twists.
Or, they have a “unified champion” until the next Money in the Bank, which ends with Brock defending his unified belt, only to be beat down afterward, then there’s a cash-in by whoever had just won the briefcase - and then it is pointed out that the contract says that the winner gets to challenge for one title, thus bringing back the title split.
Nothing much must be going on if I’m marking out over Alex Shelley coming to NXT. Shelley was announced as Kushida’s partner in the Dusty Rhodes Classic. All they did was show his picture. No inaugural match, no run-in, no promo.
Shelley and Kushida were the Timesplitters in New Japan for three years and won the IWGP tag titles bunches of times. Prior to that, he was part of the Motor City Machine Guns with Chris Sabin, and they won the Impact tag titles bunches of times. He eventually wound up in RoH, reunited with Sabin, and won the RoH tag titles. A year later he announced he was retiring, but apparently didn’t mean that year. He’s definitely an influence on the Young Bucks and other junior heavyweight tag teams. He should have gotten a better intro. The dude’s fucking amazing, and I hope his return isn’t just for one match.
Mexican Wrestler La Parka has died after suffering severe in-ring injuries
Note that this is NOT the same person who wrestled for WCW.
The Cauliflower Alley Club has announced the passing of WWE Hall of Famer Rocky Johnson, father of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, at 75 years old.
My memories of Rocky include one of the sweetest drop-kicks in the business, and his time as a tag team partner of Tony Atlas