Oh absolutely, though he has a lower home run percentage. He's kind of like Jorge Soler, when he hits one it's a rocket but he's probably a 30-40 HR guy instead of a 50 HR guy

I saw Jay White when he was on excursion at Smash Wrestling in Toronto probably in 2017. He was really good even then, but he's really developed that star quality over the past couple of years. Certainly did not think he would be one of the top wrestlers in the world when I saw him, but it was obvious he was really talented for sure.

In general, I like to go see the wrestlers that are on excursion from NJPW, as they usually have pretty good intentions for them.

I'm not a fan of about 99% of the "cinematic" stuff floating around pro wrestling in recent years.

This? This is that other 1%.

Whether you like Drake Maverick, hate him, or don't care about him, this is really hard to not be impressed by on more than one level.

Drake Maverick on Twitter: "My immediate thoughts...

#wwe @wwe #nxt @wwenxt #thankyou… "

Seth Rollins got attacked by a fan as he was leaving the ring last night.

Chris Van Vliet on Twitter: "This angle of the “fan� attacking Seth Rollins from @kash_vL is pretty crazy

https://t.co/faM5fMhXA4"

That's not even the crazy part of this story. The fan was catfished by a fake Seth Rollins on Twitter who scammed him for a few hundred dollars on a fake ticket purchase. Even after he was scammed, the fan still thought it was the real Seth Rollins scamming him. So he attacked him at the event.

Steven Zoto on Twitter: "The fake Seth seemed to have scammed this dude out of hundreds of dollars and then got the guys “bae� arrested because of a fake check. This is sad all around https://t.co/LuAnAQgLyp… https://t.co/aGPcfneRSf"

Interesting that AEW went to MFJ vs CM Punk mic battle. Seemed clearly that they wanted to get Punk's face rub back after the Kingston reaction.

It worked from the reaction, I just thought it was interesting.

Eek.

Watch: Cody Rhodes Slams Andrade El Idolo Through a Flaming Table on AEW Dynamite

Funniest part of that is it was only Rhodes that hit the table, Andrade totally went over and past it.

Has a fire spot in wrestling ever gone well? I feel like I've seen a hundred stories about a promotion using fire and it just ending up with someone getting burnt badly or looking dumb.

Not only did this look unnecessarily dangerous, but it looked incredibly dumb.

Dudleys come to mind off the top of my head

Just watched the video (haven't got around to watching the episode yet) I can't wait to hear Jim Cornette review this one on his podcast LOL

This one?

https://youtu.be/pmfjFvv-V30

2021 is completely broken.

One of the most nuanced and subtextualized promos in recent memory comes from ... The Great O'Khan? What in the everlovin' hell has the world come to?

Saw AEW did a segment for MJF returning to Long Island. Learned it was mostly true, he was a pretty damn good high school linebacker back in the day.

Max Friedman - Hudl

Just ... damn :(

Jimmy Rave, aka James Michael Guffey, has died at 39.

News announced, and an obituary written in part by his daughter, released by Bill Behrens a short while ago.

Bill Behrens on Twitter: "Ok this sucks
Kailah helped write it… "

That's terrible. Saw his struggles recently and heard about the amputations. Didn't know it was life threatening. RIP.

I think this one is a little harder for me to get my head around cause, as I worked out the math, he was just about 18 years old when I first saw him working for NWA-Wildside.

That cements in my head how young he was to be dead, and how rapidly things can change in what seems like it ought to be a relatively short time.

Yeah, I had no idea he was still in his 30's. Kind of like Jay Lethal where they started so young.

I mean, I was watching him hold his own with A.J. Styles who was five years older (and still green as grass himself despite the obvious talent).

MJF is just f'n gold

“I didn’t realize that having an undefeated streak in a string of underwhelming matches against underwhelming opponents made you championship material…

…I thought that just made you the new Ryback.” - MJF to CM Punk

Wrestle Kingdom cards for day one and day two have been revealed, only thing missing is Shibata's mystery opponent (I'm thinking Danielson if possible)

January 4:

KOPW 2022 New Japan Ranbo - Kick-Off Show
SHO vs. YOH
Hiroshi Tanahashi, Rocky Romero & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. KENTA, El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori
Tetsuya Naito, SANADA & BUSHI vs. Will Ospreay, Jeff Cobb & Great-O-Khan
Katsuyori Shibata vs. Mystery Opponent
Tomohiro Ishii (c) vs. EVIL - NEVER Openweight Championship
Dangerous Tekkers (c) vs. Hirooki Goto & YOSHI-HASHI - IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship
El Desperado (c) vs. Hiromu Takahashi - IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship
Shingo Takagi (c) vs. Kazuchika Okada - IWGP World Heavyweight Championship


January 5:

Kick-Off Match
Robbie Eagles & Tiger Mask (c) vs. El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori vs. Ryusuke Taguchi & Rocky Romero - IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship
Mayu Iwatani & Starlight Kid vs. Tam Nakano & Saya Kamitani
Four-Way for KOPW 2022 Trophy
EVIL, SHO & Yujiro Takahashi (c) vs. Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI & YOH - NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship
SANADA vs. Great-O-Khan
Tetsuya Naito vs. Jeff Cobb
KENTA (c) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi - No DQ Match for the IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship
Winner of Shingo Takagi vs. Kazuchika Okada (c) vs. Will Ospreay - IWGP World Heavyweight Championship

Its hard to believe he is still only 25, it is refreshing to see someone that age embrace the craft like he does, unlike some of the acrobats that wear tights now.

Know thy talents. He's a natural born smartass and he's found a way to make that work for him.

Ya gotta love it.

It's weird but I saw an interview with him from a few years ago where he wasn't in character (which is rare). Just so bizarre to see him act like a nice, normal guy. He's so good in his role that you never think it's a character.

Another guy who is kind of like that is Adam Cole. Outside wrestling, completely different persona that feels the opposite of who he is in wrestling.

Watched part of Smackdown last Friday and even though he's older and maybe played out, Brock Lesnar is still the most intimidating person in wrestling. There's just something so violent about how he works.

Just yesterday someone forwarded me this pic of Brock at 20 years old:

Yet not quite on the same level as former Patriot guard Stephen Neal.

Easily the best PPV of the year

WK night one was ... okay?
I suspect WK night two will also be ... okay.

The two night format almost guarantees a much lower ceiling, that's just reality.

The last single-night event was WK13 (2019)
10 matches, 8 for titles, 1 to qualifier gauntlet (the opener) and Okada vs White part two

Compare to this year
Night 1: 9 matches, 4 for titles, 2 six-man tags, 1 gimmick singles match, 1 singles grudge match (that's already kinda happened), and the Ranbo

Night 2: 8 official matches (plus a 3 match preshow), 4 for titles, plus the KOPW four-way, a Stardom exhibition, and two singles to progress kinda lukewarm feuds

10 matches, all with something to pay off
vs
17 matches, 8 - 10 with something interesting.

They simply don't have 17 matches in 48 hours worth of compelling depth. Hell, nobody does. And it's even worse with a reduced roster due to injury and/or quarantine and/or travel situations.

They had THE premiere quality event in the business ... and they've fucked it up.

I hate the 2-night events. Wrestlemania has been ruined with it as well. But NJPW seems worse because they actually put on more matches and give the wrestlers more time. So you can't fill half your show with gimmicky crap like WWE does. You need top-tier talent to pull it off and lots of it.

Just too much for me and I think the quality dips a lot. This is an event I'll get to later and probably skip half the matches.

From night one:
The Ranbo had a nice surprise if you follow smaller promotions and a nice surprise related to the 50th anniversary year. Otherwise, you know how it went.

Yoh vs Sho was ... a match.

The two 6-man tags were NJPW staples: stuff that existed only to at least mildly enhance future matches. Otherwise entirely skippable.

The Shibata match had a decent surprise for his opponent and another wrinkle as well. Worth watching unless you have zero interest in Shibata.

Evil vs Ishii .. there's not been an Evil match worth watching in quite a while, this did nothing to change that.

Goto/Yoshi vs Tekkers ... I mean, it wasn't awful, there just wasn't much there for ZJS/Taichi to work with either.

Despy vs Hiromu ... worth the watch and, compared to expectations, really didn't take all that long.

Okada vs Shingo ... it was fine, nothing wrong with it, aside from feeling like you had a pretty good notion where it was going to end up.

from @EasternLariat
The attendance for the second day of Wrestle Kingdom is 6,379. HALF the number compared to day 1.

The upcoming NJPW vs Noah show in Yokohama sold out in under an hour IIRC, 8,000 ish for that.

I don't have as much time for wrestling anymore, so for me, MORE is always too much. The 3hr RAW killed me many years ago, and it drove me to being a casual fan, the goodness was way too diluted.

Backstage cuts as NXT moves further away from what it once was.

Reportedly gone are William Regal, Road Dogg, Scott Armstrong, Ace Steele, and Ranjin Singh

fwiw, night two of WK was noticeably better than night one.

I don't really have a problem calling Okada/Ospreay a 5*, an early sequence about 10 minutes in was among the best counter after counter sequences I've seen in a long time.

Some talent also in the WWE cuts today apparently


Interesting there to me is Hideki Suzuki, who got a top 125 ranking out of PWI as recently as 2018. He's only 41, trained by Billy Robinson, first promotion was Inoki Genome, and he's already in the U.S. ... seems like a guy that could turn up as the NJPW Dojo in L.A. (if he didn't burn bridges when he left IGF to become a freelancer)

yeah, don't look at Rey Fenix's injury tonight. It's arm-based, but sid-level

I don't know much about the others, but how do you fire Regal when you have guys like Bruce Pritchard still working there? No wonder the product is unwatchable.

I get what they're doing with NXT, but I just can't get into it at all. Just a lot of big, green wrestlers. I get wanting to develop homegrown talent, but there has to be a way to mix them in with established wrestlers who can help them improve and at least put on passable matches. I've seen local no-name indy shows with better wrestling than you see on the new NXT.

That's as nasty as it gets. Not sure how they messed that spot up from the replay.

from PWI, fwiw

Dislocated elbow would be a good thing after watching it. Still out for a little while but could be much worse.

Yes, the level of wrestling has never been the actual issue with WWE. It's always been about storylines that don't make sense because of endless re-writes. So Vince should actually fire himself if he cares about the product.

Sort of watched night one. About what I expected although I did fast forward through a lot. Not bad considering whats out there today, but no where close to where they were a few years back.

Also, the Regal thing still baffles me. So many successful people in the business sending out messages about how influential Regal was to their career. Maybe there is more to the story, but I can't fathom why you would want to get rid of someone who has that much wrestling knowledge. Especially when you're trying to invest in a ton of big, green, wrestlers at the performance center.

Pretty strong suggestions that yesterday's round of backstage firings were entirely directed at removing anyone who was perceived as "a Triple H guy". That accounts for Regal and Road Dogg for sure, I believe he was behind the Ace Steel hiring as well.

Why they seem so hellbent on running Trips off is a mystery all unto itself.

I understand why some people don't like HHH, but I always thought he had an eye for talent. And I kind of liked his booking which was a nice mix of old school with a modern twist (slow builds, not overexposing talent, etc).

He brought in a ton of talent to NXT and they got massively over on that brand. Seems like the failures on the main roster are due to poor booking and changing their character in dumb ways. How do you fuck up Kevin Owens, Nakamura, Bayley, Samoa Joe, and so many others?

I'm not a huge Karrion Kross fan or anything, but I thought he had a cool gimmick in NXT. Relied a bit on the entrance and having Scarlett with him, but it worked. Then you read about how they wanted to ditch Scarlett, ditch his entrance, and have him wear a gimp mask on the main roster. Are they clueless or just destroying a HHH guy out of spite?

Just feels like an ego thing where they didn't want someone else getting credit for creating a star.

One of the few guys on the roster who legitimately looked like a badass in the ring. Maybe his age and injury history turned them away, but not sure how you completely fuck up Samoa Joe.

There was a period where he feuded with Brock and was really over. The only guy I can remember who felt like he could match Brock's intensity and violence level in the ring. This segment was awesome.

When it was active, the most likely reason he wasn't pushed harder was his look. And, I mean, I can kinda get that. He did get a little, umm, portly at one point.

Now? This is just another "oops, a HHH guy, fire him"

from njpw tonight


1/8 Yokohama = NJPW vs Noah

I get Walter is not a great wrestling name, but Gunther seems worse. Especially for a guy who is a known commodity in your company.

Still not as bad as Bron Breaker when you can just use the Steiner name for him.

What happened behind the scenes to turn almost everyone at WWE against HHH and his gang/hires? I thought he was onto something and Vince was the problem but it would seem that somewhere someone is poisoning HHH's well.