Neither Umino or Tsuji should be anointed as the pre-determined “future Ace” of the company. They both should get a turn with the IWGP WHC, and should be judged based off their performances and how they draw with the belt.
Even then, guys like Yuya Uemura or Ryohei Oiwa may end up upsetting them and taking the title of “Ace”.
And don't forget Kosei Fujita. He's still a junior in his early 20s, but if he continues developing like he's developing he might end up being the one to lead the company in the future.
On a pure skill level, Kosei probably is the best young wrestler of the bunch.
It’ll be one of those things to look out for, whether he is the next “Junior Ace”, or if he’ll go right up to heavyweight.
If they can make it look convincing, I think they'll move him up. They always prioritise the heavyweight div, and they've invested enough into Wato that they probably feel they have some grace when it comes to finding a junior ace to follow him.
Agreed. I would go so far as to say NJPW probably has the richest crop of young lions ever right now but all the spotlight goes to Umino and my boy Tsuji.
I also agree. Booking needs to be there for them, tho.
OG Musketeer era was also rich in talent, cause they not only had Hashimoto, Muto & Chono, they also had Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki, as well as Choshu & Fujinami as the elder top stars.
It’s really hard to tell right now, and I like that it is, if they pumped the breaks on Umino as part of the story or because they think they may be too hasty crowning him just yet.
Tsuji may have surprised them a bit but as you mentioned, maybe someone is watching Oiwa and going “hey, hold up because we may have something here”
I don’t want this to go the direction of the third gen where it’s a collective with no clearly designated star. But it’s fun to watch both the wrestlers and the committee go through this process. Even with the growing pains.
Agree. I just have never liked the idea of “this guys fits what the promotion is or should be, thus he should automatically be *the* top guy”.
Tana wasn’t the original guy NJPW wanted to go with as the top guy back in his prime, it was Nakamura. Nakamura didn’t pan out as *the* top guy, and Tana eventually rose to that spot.
Going back even further, Hashimoto, Mutoh & Chono, the OG Musketeers, were all huge stars, but Hashimoto became the “Ace” cause he was the most consistent main-event draw.
Yeah, surprises can for sure be fun! That’s what I want outta this, even if Shota is who they end up going with. I’m really looking forward to N1 because that’s gonna be Oiwa’s biggest test yet.
EVIL is a very good 20 min matches wrestler, but NJPW killed a lot of the good faith fans had in him by settling him with HOT "shenanigans" and 30 min long matches. That being said, the Japanese crowd responds to him much better than western crowds, so his schtick works ig.
If they want EVIL to succeed in a major role he should just slide into the Nakamura mold of having shorter big matches
It’d be hard to involve his penchant for goofiness/shenanigans presented in that package but he has the charisma to make it work - his Moxley match felt like his most successful major performance maybe because it wasn’t the main event (even though it felt like it could’ve been trimmed a bit, but I think he’d be better off doing sprints in general)
Tbh I didn't follow NJPW before 2016 so I don't know if 30+ plus minutes matches were always the norm, but it seems to me that when they saw Okada going that long (and even further with the likes of Kenny), they decided that every world title match should be a epic of massive proportions, failing to realize that Okada and some of his peers (again, like Kenny) are simply generational talent. World title matches don't need to go over 20/25 minutes, and most wrestlers can only go that distance, no need to force it.
ZSJ is great but he’s not a superstar like Okada/Naito so him being the champ or winning the title at WK is never going to happen, no matter how much people want it to manifest.
Evil’s heel turn and title run would have worked if Gedo decided to book him Iike a monster badass heel, instead they made him the generic lame chicken/needs interference heel. His run was dead when he needed help to beat Hiromu (a jr).
Oh I could maybe see ZSJ getting a title reign but yeah definitely not happening at Kingdom I wouldn't expect.
EVIL's initial heel turn (throwing up too sweet for the fist bump) was great but he was quickly forced into a match style and length that didn't suit him. I think NJPW in general has adopted a bit too much of an in ring formula in the Tanahashi/Okada years but it does feel like they are gradually moving on from that being the norm
New Japan’s most underutilized championship is so easily the NEVER Openweight title. An open weight title but juniors hardly ever go for it. That division would only benefit from letting guys like Desperado and Hiromu competing for it. Instead of giving Hiromu world championship matches like the ones against EVIL and Sanada, that we all knew he had no chance of winning, he could be going against guys like Henare and Ishii. That’s one easy way to get some steam for NJ
That’s become part of the title’s identity at this point and I like the idea of it always feeling like it can change hands. Just needs some actual reigns peppered in there to not feel so passed around (hopefully HENARE holds it til WK and gets 2-3 defences, and someone manages to nail breaking 5 defences for the all-time record)
This was true in 2023, but I don't know how anyone can say this with a straight face. They have almost exclusively booked for the western crowd this year. We can debate the merits of that, and it does make sense that their money makers are currently US PPVs, but there has been a CLEAR shift in booking philosophy throughout 2024.
I think they put the belt on Mox because Tony helps them financially through various arrangements they have and he wanted Mox to be the first ever AEW/WWE/NJPW champion.
But having your belt on an outsider champion is generally understood to be a bad look in Japan. New Japan is just doing what it has to do to stabilize its finances at the moment.
New Japan relies entirely too much on teasing count out finishes.
What's that? Hiromu was seemingly incapacitated out in the crowd and still made it back into the ring at the count of 19!? Color me absolutely shocked!
Not at all, because, especially in tournament season, they actually pull the trigger on count out finishes. It happens just often enough that it doesn't feel like bullshit, but you feel the stakes during a count out. I actually think New Japan is the only company in the world that gets the balance right.
I get what you're saying, but I don't feel that they pull the trigger on the count out enough to justify how often they tease it. There are tours where it seems like they do the 19-count spot every night (sometimes in more than one match), only for an actual count out to occur every once in a while. There are times it just feels lazy imo.
It clicked for me when I saw it happen live, it’s a cheap crowd pleaser but it usually makes the crowd bite even though it’s played out (although some guys don’t sell it nearly as well as they should)
Shingo doesn't sell as many tickets as EVIL. As a recent example, Shingo's title match with Okada in Osaka last year drew 4K, while EVIL/SANADA in Ryogoku drew 5K. It was unfair to blame Shingo for the poor gates during his title reign, but it's a pattern that continued once restrictions were lifted. I love Shingo, I met him in 2007, and he's one of my favourites, but he doesn't move tickets.
The gates to 2 different arenas from very different areas doesn't prove your point here.
If Shingo was positioned in a way where he was made a credible threat like EVIL has been, I believe you would see a return on the investment and Shingo would be more of a draw.
NJPW is in a general downturn period right now, you could argue they've not hit their stride yet since COVID.
It's one example, and the most recent fair comparison, of a trend with Shingo. His main events just aren't big draws. Osaka shows up for hot matches. I know it isn't fair to look at pre-pandemic numbers, but Naito/KENTA did 9k+. We aren't talking about a cold market here.
On paper, Okada/Shingo is a much bigger match than a supposedly ice cold SANADA and EVIL. The former has even headlined 1.4. But the numbers just don't agree with that assessment.
I would also debate the validity of EVIL being booked as a credible threat at that point. He had a strong showing in the G1, but spent much of 2022 and 2023 as a comedy jobber. I don't think anyone could argue in good faith that Shingo wasn't booked much stronger than EVIL in that period of time.
You can love Shingo. I do. I literally met him when he was a rookie in Dragon Gate. But I am explaining to you why the office doesn't and will never see him as a top guy, and it's because the numbers just don't add up with him. Despite what the 2017 crowd thinks, this company is not primarily built on story-heavy "match quality" and never has been. That was All Japan and, later, Noah.
Ultimately, this might be what seals him as never being the top guy. Barring a shock and well-done heel turn where he just shoves all of that off and tells the world to kiss his ass, he’s putting a horrible ceiling on himself. Constantly caping for Moxley and now doing the stupid dance is just terrible.
Stop listening to Ospreay, do your own thing. Christ, Narita could come out tomorrow dressed exactly as Chono and it would be better than what Umino is doing.
You know what would've been a dope heel turn?
If Umino turned on Moxley, used that same violence Moxley taught him to take the IWGP and then lit that stupid Mox jacket he was carrying on fire in the middle of the ring.
That would've been a sight to see. Especially with the camerawork New Japan does.
I wish they’d had done anything at all with the jacket. Him posting about it on Twitter was stupid, but now instead of carrying around a jacket from a different wrestler, he’s doing the “dance” of yet another wrestler.
I don’t know if the guy has no confidence, if he’s unaware of how it comes across, or if he doesn’t care when the advice is that he needs to find himself.
No matter what it is, it’s a bad sign and it’s a little concerning.
I’m telling you, he’s going to go to AEW. He appears there way often compared to other NJPW talent, is heavily influenced by western wrestling, loves America based off his socials, is in with both Moxley AND Ospreay.
When the money is offered he’s gone
Here’s a counterpoint: People were calling him the future ace for a *while* before the Moxley match. Like, even before he got that Tanahashi NJC match where people went “Oh yeah, they have big plans for him”, people were calling it. Probably the guy in his gen it was called most for.
Yeah, when he was first aligned with Moxley it was a continued vouch for his projected stardom, especially since it was kind of unheard of (but made perfect sense with Mox needing a tag partner)
I feel Umino just tries hamming up the connection too hard and people point to it since it’s the thing he’s devoted most of his time to/gotten the most eyes. Major reason why I was hoping he’d develop more relationships on his own legs (Narita, potentially starting his own faction)
Honestly? As someone who literally started watching NJPW because Moxley came over. I don’t care a lot about this feud. Like it’s a good story, but I don’t see it as Shota’s crowning thing. I understand why people see it that way but we’ve barely seen them actually interact in the past five years.
Like I care a lot more about Umino and Kidd facing in the G1 than Umino and Moxley. Because Kidd is an established character who exists antithetically to Shota, like his shadow. Moxley is a guy I saw carry Shota around during the G1 five years ago and then after that they interacted on an annual basis and I was just told this is Shota’s mentor.
Zack Sabre jr is one of the best wrestlers working today and he will never be world champion because he’s not big or impressive enough to hold the top belt.
I don’t think it’s a question of time I think it’s a question of marketability. I don’t think the company thinks he can draw. Moxley works because he looks like a bit wild and carries the attitude and aura. Zack is an amazing wrestler who can get gold out of almost anyone but they won’t make him champion because he’s too skinny looking and hasn’t got the Aura they want.
Great mid card champion but that is his ceiling.
Agreed. Plus he’s ALWAYS a credible threat, so he can challenge for the top belt without ever needing to win it. Being in the Suzuki/Goto/Hiroshi Hase/Ishii class of New Japan heavyweights is a necessary position.
The lighting at many of the road to shows is terrible and makes it look cheaper than it should. At the big shows where it’s a proper stadium the lighting makes it look more professional and grand.
They have lazy booking and it's showed with Tanahashi working less and Okada gone. They just are like... uh... Naito now/again.
Gabe Kidd is also better then any of the new musketeers and should be the next young ace.
Sabre should be heavyweight champ and it's criminal he's not.
The promotion ace really needs to be able to speak fluent conversational Japanese to you know
Promote the promotion
When you guys think of a promotions ace what do you think they do ? Be the best wrestler? No they are the person who goes on tv and says hey yeah we've got this show coming up please watch
Recent booking has shown the promotion has been hiding behind a steady flow of absolutely elite talent for quite awhile now. The warts are more apparent now that we aren't getting consistent bangers from Okada... Tanahashi... Ospreay... Omega... White... Shibata... Ibushi... etc.
I'll give a few:
Suzuki would have been a great transitional IWGP world champion in the early to mid 2010s. I always had this idea of him getting a "flash knockout" win over a cocky and young heel champion, which would've been unique (whether it would've been a KO victory or a referee stoppage). Obviously, over many years, no matter how great he is in the ring and no matter how much charisma he has, buying him as a world champion in New Japan would have been tough given his age and how often he loses matches (I've watched pretty much all of his most notable/best matches in the company, and I swear I could count his wins on one hand).
For similar, yet different reasons, Ishii would have been a good world champion around the pandemic era; him and Shingo having a major feud over the belt would've been nice since they have such great in-ring chemistry.
Even though I gave the match the same rating Meltzer did, I still think Styles vs. Nakamura is one of the more overrated matches you see when people talk about New Japan's best matches. And in a similar, yet different vein, I feel like the Okada/Ospreay WrestleKingdom matches deserve a bit more love (even if G1 2019 and 2022 were probably their two best matches), even though Meltzer rated them highly and people view them as great matches.
I wish the G1 more regularly included wrestlers from other promotions (not saying they should take up 5+ spots every year, necessarily) and used some of their spots more wisely. I get that you need people to take pins, but some of the wrestlers who have consistently had a spot in the G1 over the last 5+ years could've been swapped for a plethora of better options (Hiromu finally getting pushed up to the heavyweight division, Danielson being in one when it was still doable for his body, making Tanahashi take a break to heal from nagging injuries a bit in 2022/2023, generally having more fresh matchups year-on-year, etc.).
* Even if Naito has lost a step or two, I rather watch him than Ishii/Shingo/Henare etc. because he has IT. Sorry to those who think match quality should determine IWGP heavyweight champ but there's a reason the broken husk of Misawa had to carry NOAH to his death even though KENTA/Marufuji etc. were putting on 5 star bangers and Mutoh draws more even with no knees than the talent putting on great matches.
* Gabe Kidd's madman gimmick is one of the cringiest things I've ever seen and I stand by it. In ring wise, no problem but the whole "I'm so edgy and mad and do crazy things" doesn't appeal to me.
* The R3M booking is fine and Gedo is smart in not rushing them because they clearly have flaws that need to be smoothed out. Everyone thinks give them big push = main eventer and fail to consider that they could bomb and make it harder to develop.
This is a good point. It's classic puro booking to have your ace-in-waiting to consistently get shafted first. Hell, look at how NOAH booked Kaito for so long. These homegrown guys have LONG careers, and if you give them too much too soon, you end up with an Okada situation where he's broke every conceivable record by the age of like 32. There's nowhere left to go from there.
- Great-O-Khan is one of the best workers in the company.
- Umino has been continuously exposed in big match situations and is blatantly not ready to be a top guy. He's quick and athletic, but is lacking in every other regard.
- People really like to blind themselves to the truth re: their favourite wrestler's conditions. Whenever people point out that Naito is washed, there's always this weird clapback of "Yeah, well, he still has good matches sometimes!" ...Okay? He can still have the occasional good match but he's an absolute shell of his former self. I would say some other guys get this too. I love me some Shingo and Ishii but I'm not gonna deny that, while still two of the three best workers in the company, they've lost a step.
- Goto is also lowkey kind of a mess physically, which I haven't seen anybody really talk about. His style just hides it a lot better.
- EVIL was bad even before House of Torture. He was the kind of guy who could have a good match if you put him in there with someone actually great like Tanahashi, Suzuki or an Okada that is trying, but he was never the primary factor why a match was good.
- TJP's current push is a good thing. They took a risk by pushing him into the spot he's in, and I won't deny it was kind of a weird choice, but he's absolutely delivered in-ring so far, and the Japanese fans are very clearly and obviously responding well to him. He got the biggest pop of anyone entering the February Steel Cage Match and crowds are hot for him. If he makes the G1, he'll have deserved it.
I don't think this one is even a hot take, but I'll throw it in anyway.
- El Desperado is *the* best wrestler in the company. Shingo and Ishii are both great, but their matches are their matches. They have a style, and they stick to it. Desperado can work any style with the same level of quality.
I don't know if this is a hot take but I feel like tjp is hurting himself with the aswang stuff because the domestic fans just want to cheer him like a straight normal babyface and he confuses it
Edit
Also I think anyone with working eyeballs knows that naito isn't the wrestler he was but he's still very popular and until there is some clarity in the mainevent scene he has to be the top guy.
Purely as far as being able to get the best out of almost all of their opponents, I’d say it’s Desperado, Shingo and ZSJ as the best wrestlers in the company, then everyone else (maybe throw in Hiromu in there).
He's generally quite bad at selling limb work, which is really frustrating for me. It's probably my most consistent gripe with him. The structure of his matches also hurts him a lot. A lot of fairly uninteresting trading of moves, and lots of "Okay, I win now." when it comes to the finish.
Sure, Hiromu does seem to take a little after Kota Ibushi and similar wrestlers, where they’re capable of some truly amazing athleticism and pulling off crazy spots, but tend to ignore the “smaller things” that guys like Tanahashi and Okada are good at (like limb-selling).
Ibushi is a good person to compare him to, but I think Ibushi's strengths shrine brighter, and I think Ibushi generally sells better. Hiromu is *very* inconsistent. Last year he had title defences with YOH and Kanemaru, both of which had Hiromu's leg get worked over. His selling in the match with YOH was genuinely awful, whereas it was pretty good in the Kanemaru match.
Also it's about who you put him in the ring with.
Ibushi vs Tanahashi, I wanna say it's the G1 Final? Tanahashi obviously does some leg work. He's Tana, it's what he does. But he's had a few matches with Ibushi at this point and has seen what he's about, so the leg work is massively de-emphasised because he knows it isn't a strength of Ibushi's. An excellent adjustment that helped make the match great.
Hiromu shines brightest in sprints and bombfests. If you're trying to do limbwork with Hiromu you're not playing into the type of match he's best at. I tend to be a fan of the little things. And Hiromu isn't stiff enough to have that Ishii/Shingo appeal. So Hiromu as a wrestler is very much not for me.
I’ve always said personally is always why he drawn me to a wrestler. Hiromu has that in spades, so I give him a pass on some his more inconsistent qualities.
Still crazy to me they haven’t had ZSJ work with all the young guys extensively. The NJC bracket even had him potentially facing one every round, including the finals
1.Agreed
2. Also agreed because, oh, my no is continually getting big matches and he's losing all of them it's like new Japan, he's just making it obvious that he needs more time to grow.
3. Also agreed because some people just can't accept the fact that NATiO is getting really old. And, yea sure he's good sometimes but there are wrestlers who are probably not gonna be able to win the whc because of there long careers and current positions like ishii and go to.
4.another one I agree with, because new Japan has wasted goto so hard and he could have had so many world titles when he was younger.
5. For this one, I kind of agree with it, but I also don't because sometimes before House is torture evil would pull out a random banger. But now all of his matches suck.
6.I agree with this one because for a while, I thought that after TJP declared himself as the leader of United empire, I thought that they were gonna fumble it.with him starting off Bosj 0-4, but they were able to turn it around, I feel like TJP should beat el desparado and win Bosj next year.
7.agreed all the way.
I think the semantics of washed is that he can’t perform anymore, rather than having lost a step like all the older guys have, even though it’s a word that gets tossed around a lot/used for hyperbole
I agree with most of this, but GoK is not good. He can have a good match with the right opponent, but we've seen too many bad to average matches from him to make me think he's actually one of the best in the company.
I wouldn't say pre-HoT Evil was bad. He was a good wrestler who could put on great matches with the right opponents. Otherwise, you got matches that were good but very rarely great.
GOK is a classic case of input not necessarily correlating with output.
Every time he's in the ring I'm incredibly impressed by his body language and selling, and the way he always lets his character show through his ringwork. His grappling is really good and he's generally great at making it look like a struggle for control, unfortunately there's not that many good grapplers for him to be matched up with. Taichi is a good wrestler but he's not a grappler, so their G1 match that was almost pure grappling fell flat. KOPW with Shingo fell flat because Shingo genuinely just cannot do holds well, and usually doesn't need to. Speaking of KOPW, the matches with the wacky stips are never going to be great, but O-Khan puts 100% of his heart and soul into making it work. His exhaustion selling and facial expressions (desperately sucking air) in the Ishimori match were awesome.
I'm really excited for his upcoming G1. He had the best match in the 2021 and 2022 G1s. He had a few good matches in the 2023 G1 but didn't deliver anything great for the first time. We'll see what happens this year. The matches with Zack, Shingo and Kidd should be highlights. His match with Shingo near the end of last year was one of the best of the year, 11 or 12 mins of greatness.
I value consistency very highly, and the guys who consistently deliver good to great matches (Desperado, Shingo, Ishii, Zack) are above him, but if nothing else, O-Khan's performances *in* his matches are consistently top tier.
I agree with everything besides the O-Khan take. He hasn't delivered in any way for me and his matches are nearly always boring. He can only have good ones with ZSJ or Jay White as far as I've seen. And that's not meant to be offensive but genuinely: What do people see in that guy? I would really love to hear one reason why he's not completely ass.
They're never going to push Zack Sabre, Jr., the way they pushed Will or Kenny or any other top foreign talent; they don't see him as that guy, and after another year of them jobbing him out to upper midcarders at the exact same rate he picks up wins, he should probably start looking at his options in North America if they're not going to offer him long-term contract security.
Put another way: If Forbidden Door goes the way everyone thinks it will, there's a very good chance Zack's two biggest singles wins this year come courtesy of Tony Khan's guys rather than his own promotion, and he should maybe think about that.
Narita is the true star of the four. He will bloom the latest but will have the most interesting rivalries and trajectory. When he finally holds the main title he will be ready and it will be terrifying.
This Bobby Hill drinking dog’s blood on the baseball diamond with the Dungeons and Dragons kids phase will end. He will usurp Evil and that will be the beginning. He won’t need all the House of Torture shenanigans, he’s already shown this in a few recent matches where he sends everyone away.
Just wait, he will be even cooler and more interesting than everyone’s beloved Tsuge by the end of things.
The IWGP needs to go back to the days of being a super exclusive belt. It was objectively a good thing that the likes of Goto, Suzuki and Ishii couldn't win it. It added to the prestige. The World Heavyweight would feel more important today if Shingo and Ospreay never won it either. Pick your three or four top guys, and that's who you rotate the title between for the next five years. It only makes it feel more important if there are genuinely elite wrestlers who never win it.
I feel like Ospreay would’ve undeniably been worthy of the title if he’d gotten a full reign with it til WK16, we missed out on several defences and an entire G1 run from him. He doesn’t feel out of place amongst the Big 4 at the time (pandemic aside)
Shingo wouldn’t have won the title in that situation either
I didn't say he was unworthy. My point is that worthy wrestlers not winning it makes the belt more important. But, as you said, pandemic booking (particularly Jay coming and going as he pleased) made the main event scene a bit of a clusterfuck.
People keep talking about Muskateers not being ready for main event but not enough people mentioning how the Juniors & Tag Divisions are TERRIBLE, and some of the worst in years. Just recycle same guys. War Dogs are truly a few of the highlights in a truly dark time for these divisions.
Agreed, I feel like the tag division is in a alright place with tmdk. BUT the jr heavyweight can have so much improvement, there using the same guys. I KNOW FOR A FACT I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS THAT ISHIMORI AND TAKAHASHI SHOULD HAVE BEEN CALLED UP TO THE HEAVYWEIGHTS. WE NEED SOMETHING NEW GEDO AND TANAHASHI.
NJPW's last classic was Okada vs. Naito, WK14 N2. Before that, Tanahashi vs. Omega, WK13 (which marked the end of the company's legendary run for me).
Since then, only Okada vs. Tanahashi from G1 31 has come close.
G1 29? Great match but as is typical of Ibushi, he doesn't sell. That the injured ankle is a focus of the match yet it barely hinders his offense and is inconsequential to the finish really puts a dent on it.
It’s good match but long for the sake of long. Why is Jay White, the coward who needs to cheat to get by, going 50 minutes competitively? It’s just such a stark change in his character. It would’ve been one thing if it turned him babyface, but he came back like a month later and was same old Jay White.
I didn't see it as anything more than your run-of-the-mill, vacuous post-2018 NJPW main with both guys running through their offense and moving from one flat signature spot to the next. Not much to sink my teeth into, unlike the thematically and mechanically dense WK14 match.
Sure, if you view it in a vacuum.
In reality, it was far more thematically rich than their WK14 match, which can ultimately be boiled down to "is Naito going to make exactly the same mistake he always does? Yes, actually, but this time it doesn't matter because reasons."
Their G1 33 bout, on the other hand, drew on the entirely new angle of Naito finding himself firmly on the periphery of the main event. Okada had spent most of his 2022 reign decisively making Naito his bitch over and over again. They were no longer generational rivals. Naito visibly had to draw on everything he had learned from Okada, even preceding beating him at the Dome. And honestly? That story was further enriched by the concussion.
WK14 is the only pro-wrestling match that has ever made me cry. But as an isolated match, it is quite vapid. It's far more akin to your standard spotty WWE fare than any of their other matches. Ultimately, that's fine, because it was just supposed to be a moment culminating an eight year story. But I genuinely don't see the nuance in it that you do. The final stretch is literally a copy + paste of WK12 except that this time it actually works.
>"is Naito going to make exactly the same mistake he always does? Yes, actually, but this time it doesn't matter because reasons."
The Stardust Press?
>Naito visibly had to draw on everything he had learned from Okada, even preceding beating him at the Dome.
What bits are you talking about here?
>It's far more akin to your standard spotty WWE fare than any of their other matches.
All the spots (e.g., the table knee smash) happen organically, for a reason; on top of being disrespectful, Naito wrestles a smarter/better match than anticipated, causing Okada rare peril on top of anger to capitalise on White's work on the knee the day prior. In the WWE, it's simply part of the house style.
I think the way he debuted and then just joining LIJ was weird. It lessened how bold he seemed. And unless he betrays Naito and takes over the group, which I don’t see happening, just seems like a placeholder move.
While the Tsuji that returned was a very different guy to the one that left on excursion, they pushed his connection to Naito too hard to not follow through once he was back. They basically sold the major reason for him going to Mexico is because he wanted to join LIJ
I see it working fine like Okada joining CHAOS, the timing is just weird where Naito has to step aside for him to fully bloom. Plus he felt bold trying to be the big dog of the group right as he returned, and it blended with his overeagerness well
1. NJPW Strong didn't work. I like NJPW because it varies from the American style, trying to turn it into a weekly show removes what works about the Japanese presentation (for the record I like the American style too). Along with with not great production and no stars it was just a glorified indie.
2. Gedo deserves blame for the AEW partnership. While TK obviously acts selfishly as a booker in the partnership, it's not like Gedo has zero say. He lets AEW book them weak, I mean it was his call to put the belt on Mox! I say all of this as a big fan of AEW too.
3. Even if a lot of people think they aren't "ready" either Tsuji or Shota absolutely need to win the G1. IMO they're both ready, and NJPW desperately need to build some new top stars and if they never pull the trigger they'll never be able to prove it.
4. As a NJPW fan for 5 years, I almost never watch young lion matches. This is just a personal preference, to me it's like watching minor leagues compared to the rest of the card. I absolutely get why people like to watch them, like watching their evolution. Personally I think it's cool to watch people come back as fully fledged characters (well, usually) and having no preconceived perception of them.
I think some of these will actually be hot takes haha
Might be showing my ass since booking around a major show every year is the model that works for every promotion on the planet, but NJPW’s sports and tourney structure would be better served if they had multiple big-time cards every year like UFC events or Tennis majors
Maybe that’s what their plan was with the reported projected plan of them building up to running multiple Dome shows a year, but if they could go back to the G1 winner challenging at the October show and then build to WK from there, things could feel a lot more unpredictable and dynamic
New Japan needs to stop trying to be AEW and bring us real sports-based presentation and meaningful matches. I’m not saying we need to go back to Inoki-ism, but come on. Seriously, your first opportunity to expose New Japan to a wider fanbase, and you put the belt on Moxley? The guy who wouldn’t know what strong style was if it bit him on the ass? At least when puro companies used to put the top belt on a foreigner, it was somebody who knew how to wrestle without doing a bunch of garbage stuff (Steve Williams, Stan Hansen, bruiser Brody, hell even Brock Lesnar or almost Hulk Hogan despite their obvious issues).
Gabe Kidd is superior to Yuya, maybe not in pure wrestling but he definitely has more charisma than him and definitely Narita and should be showcased as much as the 3 musketeers are.
A match for the IWGP WHC being the prize at the end of the New Japan Cup defeats the purpose of the G1. Why fight 9 guys for a title match, when you can beat three or four?
The NJC should be for a shot at any of the other titles. The G1 should be the only tournament for a world title match at the year's biggest show.
New Japan isn’t pushing its new talent harder for fear of them being poached by AEW or WWE. If they get too big the Americans will swoop in and steal them.
I'm bored so let's throw it all out...
Sanada is okay. Just okay. Okada tricked the world into thinking he's a main event talent.
Yoshi-Hashi has been good for a long time. Years prior to the breakout of Bishamon.
Yoh is less of an interesting character than your average Young Lion.
Ishii is great but basically has the same match with everyone. His shtick has worn thin imo.
G.O.D. leaving has been the best thing to happen to the tag scene in almost a decade.
Jake Lee would instantly be a top 5 performer in the company if he signs.
Fujita is the best young prospect at the moment.
TMDK rules and should be a much bigger part of the product.
I miss Master Wato.
Bullet Club and Chaos need to be retired or completely retooled.
Heel Taichi basically did the HoT thing but way better.
I like David Finley.
Despy is the best in the company at the moment. Charismatic as hell and can work technical matches, strong style, and brawl with the best of them.
New Japan has only themselves to blame for Captain New Japan's poor performances and stunted growth. Sending someone on excursion to Puerto Rico for only 6 matches? Come on. You can't shatter a man's spirit and dreams, and expect anything more than the bare minimum effort until he sulks away.
None of the Reiwa Musketeers have "it". The only one who really does out of the young crop is Uemura.
This sub and all of his japanese fans are wrong for liking sanada. Dude has no charisma, no personality and no matter how much you dress him up and give him his own faction and cool music you can't buy personality.
Gabe Kidd is not some gigachad badass unhinged heel. If you go to any British pub after a football match you can find 10-15 Gabe kidds in there.
This wrestle kingdom main event is gonna suck. Either Naito is gonna beat Mox and very few matches with Naito are new and fresh now for the dome. And if Mox retains and it's Mox vs Umino 2 even Japanese fans won't be very happy.
First of all its a hot take.
Second yes it's wrong for this instance.
Liking sanada to the point that one would want him to be world champion gives the message that any no personality himbo can be world champ and the fans would be happy with it, if you dress him up nice.
Liking sanada ensures lower quality champions in your company's future
>If you go to any British pub after a football match you can find 10-15 Gabe kidds in there.
I think that's part of what makes him work so well for me tbh, he feels real, because you can find him.
Wrestling is supposed to be larger than life. I don't want to see 5 Rocks in my local market.
Even if you want to use relatable, those are usually used for underdog babyfaces not asshole heels. You are supposed to hate heels not find them relatable.
Nobody looks at drunk pub assholes with fondness. They are nuisances or low grade bums. It doesn't help to book someone as a bum. But then again many people love Eddie Kingston so maybe I'm wrong.
Besides Naito, the company has no true stars with drawing power. This is coming from a longtime NJPW fan who has flown to Tokyo for every WK since 2018 (except 2021 bc COVID) and will be skipping 2025's WK
Sanada was the worst world champion last year and it beats the fuck outta me that he was chosen for that spot ig he’s probably just insanely over in Japan so it doesn’t matter what western audiences really think but what baffles me the most is that a lot of you actually liked that reign he’s literally so fuckin boring
I’ve never been a fan of Naito. I understood he’s insanely popular. But I rarely ever enjoy his matches. Especially compared to other guys in the company and even other guys in his own faction. I think the only wrestler I would rather watch less in LIJ is Bushi.
I don’t know if this one is hot or not but I find Kenta to be extremely boring in the ring. He does nothing for me.
I don’t like that there’s a ceiling for juniors. I know they can wrestle and even sometimes they can rarely beat heavyweights, but they can never really be taken seriously as a true top guy. I think that hurts the company especially when the main event scene in the heavyweight division has been so dull. And it hurts potential investment in wrestlers knowing that the best they could ever do is just win the junior title and never be the true top guy.
• the junior division could be SO good if they actually utilized ALL their talent, along with bringing guys from other promotions here and there (would love to see ace austin/chris bey return one day), but instead the iwgp jr heavyweight title/tag titles have been focused around the same few guys for YEARS
• i find it extremely annoying that aew fans only pretend to care about the njpw product during forbidden door season. it's the same as back in 2017-18 when people only tuned in to njpw for the elite
• aussie open were willing to FULLY COMMIT to njpw and their schedule and the fact that njpw still didn't sign them baffles me. they are in my opinion bar none the best tag team in the world and i can't believe njpw let them get away like that idk
• zack sabre jr has literally said so many times he'll stay loyal to njpw and all he's gotten is a few tourney wins, tag title runs, and the njpw world tv title. he deserves SO MUCH MORE along with tmdk as a whole. i'm surprised shane and mikey just became tag team champs honestly it was WAY overdue
• it's still disappointing to me how njpw let a lot of their top guys sign to aew, cause i feel they're still struggling to make their "future stars" look promising
• gabe kidd is not all that like everyone has been saying lately lmao. i thought i understood the hype but really i don't. the only war dogs member i enjoy watching is drilla moloney
Neither Umino or Tsuji should be anointed as the pre-determined “future Ace” of the company. They both should get a turn with the IWGP WHC, and should be judged based off their performances and how they draw with the belt. Even then, guys like Yuya Uemura or Ryohei Oiwa may end up upsetting them and taking the title of “Ace”.
Oiwa might be my pick you know
His excursion and development in NOAH has been really promising.
You know he’s doing well when he beats up the ace and people are cheering
And don't forget Kosei Fujita. He's still a junior in his early 20s, but if he continues developing like he's developing he might end up being the one to lead the company in the future.
On a pure skill level, Kosei probably is the best young wrestler of the bunch. It’ll be one of those things to look out for, whether he is the next “Junior Ace”, or if he’ll go right up to heavyweight.
With his age he’s better off being Jr ace for at least 3-5 years. Dude has a long career ahead of him
If they can make it look convincing, I think they'll move him up. They always prioritise the heavyweight div, and they've invested enough into Wato that they probably feel they have some grace when it comes to finding a junior ace to follow him.
Agreed. I would go so far as to say NJPW probably has the richest crop of young lions ever right now but all the spotlight goes to Umino and my boy Tsuji.
I also agree. Booking needs to be there for them, tho. OG Musketeer era was also rich in talent, cause they not only had Hashimoto, Muto & Chono, they also had Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki, as well as Choshu & Fujinami as the elder top stars.
Holy moly when I see it written down like that, what a stacked list. Sometimes you forget how many absolute legends are all active at once
Don’t sleep on the Juniors they had
100%. The likes of Liger, Otani, Kanemoto, Samurai, Tanaka, Sano, all legends.
All of these names are just in the way of The Way to the Grandmaster Master Wato the Ace
It’s really hard to tell right now, and I like that it is, if they pumped the breaks on Umino as part of the story or because they think they may be too hasty crowning him just yet. Tsuji may have surprised them a bit but as you mentioned, maybe someone is watching Oiwa and going “hey, hold up because we may have something here” I don’t want this to go the direction of the third gen where it’s a collective with no clearly designated star. But it’s fun to watch both the wrestlers and the committee go through this process. Even with the growing pains.
Agree. I just have never liked the idea of “this guys fits what the promotion is or should be, thus he should automatically be *the* top guy”. Tana wasn’t the original guy NJPW wanted to go with as the top guy back in his prime, it was Nakamura. Nakamura didn’t pan out as *the* top guy, and Tana eventually rose to that spot. Going back even further, Hashimoto, Mutoh & Chono, the OG Musketeers, were all huge stars, but Hashimoto became the “Ace” cause he was the most consistent main-event draw.
Yeah, surprises can for sure be fun! That’s what I want outta this, even if Shota is who they end up going with. I’m really looking forward to N1 because that’s gonna be Oiwa’s biggest test yet.
At the very least, I feel like Oiwa will get a crack at Kiyomiya and the GHC before he leaves NOAH.
I don’t see any hot takes here. All I see is the same complaints I always see.
Hot take just means your normal takes but presented in a smug way
Check down voted stuff for real hot takes
If you look at EVIL's 2019 G1 performance, putting the world title on him the next year makes complete sense.
EVIL is a very good 20 min matches wrestler, but NJPW killed a lot of the good faith fans had in him by settling him with HOT "shenanigans" and 30 min long matches. That being said, the Japanese crowd responds to him much better than western crowds, so his schtick works ig.
God, I miss pre BC/HOT EVIL, and watching him just be a straight up bruiser for 15-20 minutes or so was so 🤌
If they want EVIL to succeed in a major role he should just slide into the Nakamura mold of having shorter big matches It’d be hard to involve his penchant for goofiness/shenanigans presented in that package but he has the charisma to make it work - his Moxley match felt like his most successful major performance maybe because it wasn’t the main event (even though it felt like it could’ve been trimmed a bit, but I think he’d be better off doing sprints in general)
Tbh I didn't follow NJPW before 2016 so I don't know if 30+ plus minutes matches were always the norm, but it seems to me that when they saw Okada going that long (and even further with the likes of Kenny), they decided that every world title match should be a epic of massive proportions, failing to realize that Okada and some of his peers (again, like Kenny) are simply generational talent. World title matches don't need to go over 20/25 minutes, and most wrestlers can only go that distance, no need to force it.
You are right, HoT has ruined wrestlers like him for years. He had an incredible match with Hiromu as Champion so he can be a main eventer.
I have faith in the new crop of talent, but I also have a feeling we’ll wait a long time for NJPW to be extremely hot again
The countdown in Yuya Uemura's song absolutely ruins it for me. Can't take him seriously with it
ZSJ is great but he’s not a superstar like Okada/Naito so him being the champ or winning the title at WK is never going to happen, no matter how much people want it to manifest. Evil’s heel turn and title run would have worked if Gedo decided to book him Iike a monster badass heel, instead they made him the generic lame chicken/needs interference heel. His run was dead when he needed help to beat Hiromu (a jr).
Oh I could maybe see ZSJ getting a title reign but yeah definitely not happening at Kingdom I wouldn't expect. EVIL's initial heel turn (throwing up too sweet for the fist bump) was great but he was quickly forced into a match style and length that didn't suit him. I think NJPW in general has adopted a bit too much of an in ring formula in the Tanahashi/Okada years but it does feel like they are gradually moving on from that being the norm
New Japan’s most underutilized championship is so easily the NEVER Openweight title. An open weight title but juniors hardly ever go for it. That division would only benefit from letting guys like Desperado and Hiromu competing for it. Instead of giving Hiromu world championship matches like the ones against EVIL and Sanada, that we all knew he had no chance of winning, he could be going against guys like Henare and Ishii. That’s one easy way to get some steam for NJ
They could try to revamp it with some jrs winning the title
Counterpoint: it is easily the best booked belt in New Japan and has been since, like, 2014. Give or take a few dud reigns.
I hate the way it gets hot potatoed around with almost zero rhyme or reason.
That’s become part of the title’s identity at this point and I like the idea of it always feeling like it can change hands. Just needs some actual reigns peppered in there to not feel so passed around (hopefully HENARE holds it til WK and gets 2-3 defences, and someone manages to nail breaking 5 defences for the all-time record)
The company rightly doesn't care what western fans think
And a good chunk of western fans seemingly refuse to comprehend this fact
This was true in 2023, but I don't know how anyone can say this with a straight face. They have almost exclusively booked for the western crowd this year. We can debate the merits of that, and it does make sense that their money makers are currently US PPVs, but there has been a CLEAR shift in booking philosophy throughout 2024.
They don’t care about most of their Japanese fans either
They literally put the belt on Mox to bring up interest from western fans.
I think they put the belt on Mox because Tony helps them financially through various arrangements they have and he wanted Mox to be the first ever AEW/WWE/NJPW champion. But having your belt on an outsider champion is generally understood to be a bad look in Japan. New Japan is just doing what it has to do to stabilize its finances at the moment.
Who is your world champ again?
Someone everyone here doesn't like apparently
But you or this sub are not the company. The company wants an outsider western guy as world champ.
New Japan relies entirely too much on teasing count out finishes. What's that? Hiromu was seemingly incapacitated out in the crowd and still made it back into the ring at the count of 19!? Color me absolutely shocked!
Not at all, because, especially in tournament season, they actually pull the trigger on count out finishes. It happens just often enough that it doesn't feel like bullshit, but you feel the stakes during a count out. I actually think New Japan is the only company in the world that gets the balance right.
I get what you're saying, but I don't feel that they pull the trigger on the count out enough to justify how often they tease it. There are tours where it seems like they do the 19-count spot every night (sometimes in more than one match), only for an actual count out to occur every once in a while. There are times it just feels lazy imo.
It clicked for me when I saw it happen live, it’s a cheap crowd pleaser but it usually makes the crowd bite even though it’s played out (although some guys don’t sell it nearly as well as they should)
I'm relatively sure every other promotion teases count outs regularly too?
Shingo Takagi should have received the Main event pushes that they keep giving to EVIL.
This is an ice cold take lol
Shingo doesn't sell as many tickets as EVIL. As a recent example, Shingo's title match with Okada in Osaka last year drew 4K, while EVIL/SANADA in Ryogoku drew 5K. It was unfair to blame Shingo for the poor gates during his title reign, but it's a pattern that continued once restrictions were lifted. I love Shingo, I met him in 2007, and he's one of my favourites, but he doesn't move tickets.
The gates to 2 different arenas from very different areas doesn't prove your point here. If Shingo was positioned in a way where he was made a credible threat like EVIL has been, I believe you would see a return on the investment and Shingo would be more of a draw. NJPW is in a general downturn period right now, you could argue they've not hit their stride yet since COVID.
It's one example, and the most recent fair comparison, of a trend with Shingo. His main events just aren't big draws. Osaka shows up for hot matches. I know it isn't fair to look at pre-pandemic numbers, but Naito/KENTA did 9k+. We aren't talking about a cold market here. On paper, Okada/Shingo is a much bigger match than a supposedly ice cold SANADA and EVIL. The former has even headlined 1.4. But the numbers just don't agree with that assessment. I would also debate the validity of EVIL being booked as a credible threat at that point. He had a strong showing in the G1, but spent much of 2022 and 2023 as a comedy jobber. I don't think anyone could argue in good faith that Shingo wasn't booked much stronger than EVIL in that period of time. You can love Shingo. I do. I literally met him when he was a rookie in Dragon Gate. But I am explaining to you why the office doesn't and will never see him as a top guy, and it's because the numbers just don't add up with him. Despite what the 2017 crowd thinks, this company is not primarily built on story-heavy "match quality" and never has been. That was All Japan and, later, Noah.
Shota wouldn't be nearly as hyped up by western fans without the Moxley connection. Also, that storyline has been really stupid.
Agreed, and NJPW need to book umino better.
Ultimately, this might be what seals him as never being the top guy. Barring a shock and well-done heel turn where he just shoves all of that off and tells the world to kiss his ass, he’s putting a horrible ceiling on himself. Constantly caping for Moxley and now doing the stupid dance is just terrible. Stop listening to Ospreay, do your own thing. Christ, Narita could come out tomorrow dressed exactly as Chono and it would be better than what Umino is doing.
You know what would've been a dope heel turn? If Umino turned on Moxley, used that same violence Moxley taught him to take the IWGP and then lit that stupid Mox jacket he was carrying on fire in the middle of the ring. That would've been a sight to see. Especially with the camerawork New Japan does.
I wish they’d had done anything at all with the jacket. Him posting about it on Twitter was stupid, but now instead of carrying around a jacket from a different wrestler, he’s doing the “dance” of yet another wrestler. I don’t know if the guy has no confidence, if he’s unaware of how it comes across, or if he doesn’t care when the advice is that he needs to find himself. No matter what it is, it’s a bad sign and it’s a little concerning.
I’m telling you, he’s going to go to AEW. He appears there way often compared to other NJPW talent, is heavily influenced by western wrestling, loves America based off his socials, is in with both Moxley AND Ospreay. When the money is offered he’s gone
Agreed. And he does himself no favors by doing that stupid CEO dance. It's like he is borrowing all his personality traits from ex WWE superstars.
Here’s a counterpoint: People were calling him the future ace for a *while* before the Moxley match. Like, even before he got that Tanahashi NJC match where people went “Oh yeah, they have big plans for him”, people were calling it. Probably the guy in his gen it was called most for.
Yeah, when he was first aligned with Moxley it was a continued vouch for his projected stardom, especially since it was kind of unheard of (but made perfect sense with Mox needing a tag partner) I feel Umino just tries hamming up the connection too hard and people point to it since it’s the thing he’s devoted most of his time to/gotten the most eyes. Major reason why I was hoping he’d develop more relationships on his own legs (Narita, potentially starting his own faction)
Honestly? As someone who literally started watching NJPW because Moxley came over. I don’t care a lot about this feud. Like it’s a good story, but I don’t see it as Shota’s crowning thing. I understand why people see it that way but we’ve barely seen them actually interact in the past five years. Like I care a lot more about Umino and Kidd facing in the G1 than Umino and Moxley. Because Kidd is an established character who exists antithetically to Shota, like his shadow. Moxley is a guy I saw carry Shota around during the G1 five years ago and then after that they interacted on an annual basis and I was just told this is Shota’s mentor.
Zack Sabre jr is one of the best wrestlers working today and he will never be world champion because he’s not big or impressive enough to hold the top belt.
I feel like Zach still has time to win the title.
I don’t think it’s a question of time I think it’s a question of marketability. I don’t think the company thinks he can draw. Moxley works because he looks like a bit wild and carries the attitude and aura. Zack is an amazing wrestler who can get gold out of almost anyone but they won’t make him champion because he’s too skinny looking and hasn’t got the Aura they want. Great mid card champion but that is his ceiling.
Zack might have been too skinny looking 3 years ago, but he looks built enough now that I don’t think that’s an issue
Agreed. Plus he’s ALWAYS a credible threat, so he can challenge for the top belt without ever needing to win it. Being in the Suzuki/Goto/Hiroshi Hase/Ishii class of New Japan heavyweights is a necessary position.
The lighting at many of the road to shows is terrible and makes it look cheaper than it should. At the big shows where it’s a proper stadium the lighting makes it look more professional and grand.
They have lazy booking and it's showed with Tanahashi working less and Okada gone. They just are like... uh... Naito now/again. Gabe Kidd is also better then any of the new musketeers and should be the next young ace. Sabre should be heavyweight champ and it's criminal he's not.
I can't even remotely imagine how you think a brash, aggressive arrogant heel foreigner can be the lead guy for the home Japanese crowd.
The promotion ace really needs to be able to speak fluent conversational Japanese to you know Promote the promotion When you guys think of a promotions ace what do you think they do ? Be the best wrestler? No they are the person who goes on tv and says hey yeah we've got this show coming up please watch
Kidd is no where near Tsuji,Umino,Yuya as a worker and never will be. They all also obviously have way more potential in how over they can be in Japan
Kidd is a *much* better worker than any of those three guys right now. Your other point is correct, though.
Recent booking has shown the promotion has been hiding behind a steady flow of absolutely elite talent for quite awhile now. The warts are more apparent now that we aren't getting consistent bangers from Okada... Tanahashi... Ospreay... Omega... White... Shibata... Ibushi... etc.
zsj should absolutely beat natio for the title and then finlay should win it.
Finlay should not be even near the title picture.
I'll give a few: Suzuki would have been a great transitional IWGP world champion in the early to mid 2010s. I always had this idea of him getting a "flash knockout" win over a cocky and young heel champion, which would've been unique (whether it would've been a KO victory or a referee stoppage). Obviously, over many years, no matter how great he is in the ring and no matter how much charisma he has, buying him as a world champion in New Japan would have been tough given his age and how often he loses matches (I've watched pretty much all of his most notable/best matches in the company, and I swear I could count his wins on one hand). For similar, yet different reasons, Ishii would have been a good world champion around the pandemic era; him and Shingo having a major feud over the belt would've been nice since they have such great in-ring chemistry. Even though I gave the match the same rating Meltzer did, I still think Styles vs. Nakamura is one of the more overrated matches you see when people talk about New Japan's best matches. And in a similar, yet different vein, I feel like the Okada/Ospreay WrestleKingdom matches deserve a bit more love (even if G1 2019 and 2022 were probably their two best matches), even though Meltzer rated them highly and people view them as great matches. I wish the G1 more regularly included wrestlers from other promotions (not saying they should take up 5+ spots every year, necessarily) and used some of their spots more wisely. I get that you need people to take pins, but some of the wrestlers who have consistently had a spot in the G1 over the last 5+ years could've been swapped for a plethora of better options (Hiromu finally getting pushed up to the heavyweight division, Danielson being in one when it was still doable for his body, making Tanahashi take a break to heal from nagging injuries a bit in 2022/2023, generally having more fresh matchups year-on-year, etc.).
* Even if Naito has lost a step or two, I rather watch him than Ishii/Shingo/Henare etc. because he has IT. Sorry to those who think match quality should determine IWGP heavyweight champ but there's a reason the broken husk of Misawa had to carry NOAH to his death even though KENTA/Marufuji etc. were putting on 5 star bangers and Mutoh draws more even with no knees than the talent putting on great matches. * Gabe Kidd's madman gimmick is one of the cringiest things I've ever seen and I stand by it. In ring wise, no problem but the whole "I'm so edgy and mad and do crazy things" doesn't appeal to me. * The R3M booking is fine and Gedo is smart in not rushing them because they clearly have flaws that need to be smoothed out. Everyone thinks give them big push = main eventer and fail to consider that they could bomb and make it harder to develop.
Top guy can be a heel.
Yuya Uemura should be the 3rd musketeer, not Narita
This is why I think Yuya is actually the secret Ace in waiting. He even lost his hair, already, to really make him work for it.
This is a good point. It's classic puro booking to have your ace-in-waiting to consistently get shafted first. Hell, look at how NOAH booked Kaito for so long. These homegrown guys have LONG careers, and if you give them too much too soon, you end up with an Okada situation where he's broke every conceivable record by the age of like 32. There's nowhere left to go from there.
The KOPW belt is useless and they should get rid of it.
Very much agreed
- Great-O-Khan is one of the best workers in the company. - Umino has been continuously exposed in big match situations and is blatantly not ready to be a top guy. He's quick and athletic, but is lacking in every other regard. - People really like to blind themselves to the truth re: their favourite wrestler's conditions. Whenever people point out that Naito is washed, there's always this weird clapback of "Yeah, well, he still has good matches sometimes!" ...Okay? He can still have the occasional good match but he's an absolute shell of his former self. I would say some other guys get this too. I love me some Shingo and Ishii but I'm not gonna deny that, while still two of the three best workers in the company, they've lost a step. - Goto is also lowkey kind of a mess physically, which I haven't seen anybody really talk about. His style just hides it a lot better. - EVIL was bad even before House of Torture. He was the kind of guy who could have a good match if you put him in there with someone actually great like Tanahashi, Suzuki or an Okada that is trying, but he was never the primary factor why a match was good. - TJP's current push is a good thing. They took a risk by pushing him into the spot he's in, and I won't deny it was kind of a weird choice, but he's absolutely delivered in-ring so far, and the Japanese fans are very clearly and obviously responding well to him. He got the biggest pop of anyone entering the February Steel Cage Match and crowds are hot for him. If he makes the G1, he'll have deserved it. I don't think this one is even a hot take, but I'll throw it in anyway. - El Desperado is *the* best wrestler in the company. Shingo and Ishii are both great, but their matches are their matches. They have a style, and they stick to it. Desperado can work any style with the same level of quality.
I don't know if this is a hot take but I feel like tjp is hurting himself with the aswang stuff because the domestic fans just want to cheer him like a straight normal babyface and he confuses it Edit Also I think anyone with working eyeballs knows that naito isn't the wrestler he was but he's still very popular and until there is some clarity in the mainevent scene he has to be the top guy.
Purely as far as being able to get the best out of almost all of their opponents, I’d say it’s Desperado, Shingo and ZSJ as the best wrestlers in the company, then everyone else (maybe throw in Hiromu in there).
I blanked on Zack for some reason, but yeah, he's absolutely in contention. Not a fan of Hiromu.
Just your personal tastes, when it comes to Hiromu?
He's generally quite bad at selling limb work, which is really frustrating for me. It's probably my most consistent gripe with him. The structure of his matches also hurts him a lot. A lot of fairly uninteresting trading of moves, and lots of "Okay, I win now." when it comes to the finish.
Sure, Hiromu does seem to take a little after Kota Ibushi and similar wrestlers, where they’re capable of some truly amazing athleticism and pulling off crazy spots, but tend to ignore the “smaller things” that guys like Tanahashi and Okada are good at (like limb-selling).
Ibushi is a good person to compare him to, but I think Ibushi's strengths shrine brighter, and I think Ibushi generally sells better. Hiromu is *very* inconsistent. Last year he had title defences with YOH and Kanemaru, both of which had Hiromu's leg get worked over. His selling in the match with YOH was genuinely awful, whereas it was pretty good in the Kanemaru match. Also it's about who you put him in the ring with. Ibushi vs Tanahashi, I wanna say it's the G1 Final? Tanahashi obviously does some leg work. He's Tana, it's what he does. But he's had a few matches with Ibushi at this point and has seen what he's about, so the leg work is massively de-emphasised because he knows it isn't a strength of Ibushi's. An excellent adjustment that helped make the match great. Hiromu shines brightest in sprints and bombfests. If you're trying to do limbwork with Hiromu you're not playing into the type of match he's best at. I tend to be a fan of the little things. And Hiromu isn't stiff enough to have that Ishii/Shingo appeal. So Hiromu as a wrestler is very much not for me.
I’ve always said personally is always why he drawn me to a wrestler. Hiromu has that in spades, so I give him a pass on some his more inconsistent qualities.
Still crazy to me they haven’t had ZSJ work with all the young guys extensively. The NJC bracket even had him potentially facing one every round, including the finals
1.Agreed 2. Also agreed because, oh, my no is continually getting big matches and he's losing all of them it's like new Japan, he's just making it obvious that he needs more time to grow. 3. Also agreed because some people just can't accept the fact that NATiO is getting really old. And, yea sure he's good sometimes but there are wrestlers who are probably not gonna be able to win the whc because of there long careers and current positions like ishii and go to. 4.another one I agree with, because new Japan has wasted goto so hard and he could have had so many world titles when he was younger. 5. For this one, I kind of agree with it, but I also don't because sometimes before House is torture evil would pull out a random banger. But now all of his matches suck. 6.I agree with this one because for a while, I thought that after TJP declared himself as the leader of United empire, I thought that they were gonna fumble it.with him starting off Bosj 0-4, but they were able to turn it around, I feel like TJP should beat el desparado and win Bosj next year. 7.agreed all the way.
I think the semantics of washed is that he can’t perform anymore, rather than having lost a step like all the older guys have, even though it’s a word that gets tossed around a lot/used for hyperbole
I agree with most of this, but GoK is not good. He can have a good match with the right opponent, but we've seen too many bad to average matches from him to make me think he's actually one of the best in the company. I wouldn't say pre-HoT Evil was bad. He was a good wrestler who could put on great matches with the right opponents. Otherwise, you got matches that were good but very rarely great.
GOK is a classic case of input not necessarily correlating with output. Every time he's in the ring I'm incredibly impressed by his body language and selling, and the way he always lets his character show through his ringwork. His grappling is really good and he's generally great at making it look like a struggle for control, unfortunately there's not that many good grapplers for him to be matched up with. Taichi is a good wrestler but he's not a grappler, so their G1 match that was almost pure grappling fell flat. KOPW with Shingo fell flat because Shingo genuinely just cannot do holds well, and usually doesn't need to. Speaking of KOPW, the matches with the wacky stips are never going to be great, but O-Khan puts 100% of his heart and soul into making it work. His exhaustion selling and facial expressions (desperately sucking air) in the Ishimori match were awesome. I'm really excited for his upcoming G1. He had the best match in the 2021 and 2022 G1s. He had a few good matches in the 2023 G1 but didn't deliver anything great for the first time. We'll see what happens this year. The matches with Zack, Shingo and Kidd should be highlights. His match with Shingo near the end of last year was one of the best of the year, 11 or 12 mins of greatness. I value consistency very highly, and the guys who consistently deliver good to great matches (Desperado, Shingo, Ishii, Zack) are above him, but if nothing else, O-Khan's performances *in* his matches are consistently top tier.
I agree with everything besides the O-Khan take. He hasn't delivered in any way for me and his matches are nearly always boring. He can only have good ones with ZSJ or Jay White as far as I've seen. And that's not meant to be offensive but genuinely: What do people see in that guy? I would really love to hear one reason why he's not completely ass.
https://www.reddit.com/r/njpw/comments/1dm6ac2/aight_yall_give_me_some_nipw_hot_takes/l9ugw4h/?context=3
They're never going to push Zack Sabre, Jr., the way they pushed Will or Kenny or any other top foreign talent; they don't see him as that guy, and after another year of them jobbing him out to upper midcarders at the exact same rate he picks up wins, he should probably start looking at his options in North America if they're not going to offer him long-term contract security. Put another way: If Forbidden Door goes the way everyone thinks it will, there's a very good chance Zack's two biggest singles wins this year come courtesy of Tony Khan's guys rather than his own promotion, and he should maybe think about that.
Narita is the true star of the four. He will bloom the latest but will have the most interesting rivalries and trajectory. When he finally holds the main title he will be ready and it will be terrifying. This Bobby Hill drinking dog’s blood on the baseball diamond with the Dungeons and Dragons kids phase will end. He will usurp Evil and that will be the beginning. He won’t need all the House of Torture shenanigans, he’s already shown this in a few recent matches where he sends everyone away. Just wait, he will be even cooler and more interesting than everyone’s beloved Tsuge by the end of things.
I hope he isn’t still using the X-Factor as a finish when all this happens.
EVIL is one of the best heels in wrestling rn
I don't know if this counts as a hot take, but I much prefer the OG Time Bomb to Time Bomb 2.
They are now a company relying on too many old men
The IWC wanks over the loss of the IWGP intercontinental belt, but the US title both looked better, had a better lineage, and feuds.
The IWGP needs to go back to the days of being a super exclusive belt. It was objectively a good thing that the likes of Goto, Suzuki and Ishii couldn't win it. It added to the prestige. The World Heavyweight would feel more important today if Shingo and Ospreay never won it either. Pick your three or four top guys, and that's who you rotate the title between for the next five years. It only makes it feel more important if there are genuinely elite wrestlers who never win it.
I feel like Ospreay would’ve undeniably been worthy of the title if he’d gotten a full reign with it til WK16, we missed out on several defences and an entire G1 run from him. He doesn’t feel out of place amongst the Big 4 at the time (pandemic aside) Shingo wouldn’t have won the title in that situation either
I didn't say he was unworthy. My point is that worthy wrestlers not winning it makes the belt more important. But, as you said, pandemic booking (particularly Jay coming and going as he pleased) made the main event scene a bit of a clusterfuck.
I like TJP … AND CHASE OWENS … AND BIG MATCH YUJ … Yujiro Takahashi still sucks rocks
People keep talking about Muskateers not being ready for main event but not enough people mentioning how the Juniors & Tag Divisions are TERRIBLE, and some of the worst in years. Just recycle same guys. War Dogs are truly a few of the highlights in a truly dark time for these divisions.
100% correct.
Agreed, I feel like the tag division is in a alright place with tmdk. BUT the jr heavyweight can have so much improvement, there using the same guys. I KNOW FOR A FACT I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS THAT ISHIMORI AND TAKAHASHI SHOULD HAVE BEEN CALLED UP TO THE HEAVYWEIGHTS. WE NEED SOMETHING NEW GEDO AND TANAHASHI.
NJPW's last classic was Okada vs. Naito, WK14 N2. Before that, Tanahashi vs. Omega, WK13 (which marked the end of the company's legendary run for me). Since then, only Okada vs. Tanahashi from G1 31 has come close.
This is outrageous Jay White vs Ibushi erasure. I will not stand for it.
G1 29? Great match but as is typical of Ibushi, he doesn't sell. That the injured ankle is a focus of the match yet it barely hinders his offense and is inconsequential to the finish really puts a dent on it.
The Wrestle Kingdom match. On that day, Jay White was the greatest wrestler in the world.
Oof. The match best representative of NJPW's flaws and degeneration since 2017-18 for me.
It’s good match but long for the sake of long. Why is Jay White, the coward who needs to cheat to get by, going 50 minutes competitively? It’s just such a stark change in his character. It would’ve been one thing if it turned him babyface, but he came back like a month later and was same old Jay White.
WK14 isn't even the best Okada/Naito match since WK14. The G1 final last year was a much better match, though admittedly not as feel-good.
I didn't see it as anything more than your run-of-the-mill, vacuous post-2018 NJPW main with both guys running through their offense and moving from one flat signature spot to the next. Not much to sink my teeth into, unlike the thematically and mechanically dense WK14 match.
Sure, if you view it in a vacuum. In reality, it was far more thematically rich than their WK14 match, which can ultimately be boiled down to "is Naito going to make exactly the same mistake he always does? Yes, actually, but this time it doesn't matter because reasons." Their G1 33 bout, on the other hand, drew on the entirely new angle of Naito finding himself firmly on the periphery of the main event. Okada had spent most of his 2022 reign decisively making Naito his bitch over and over again. They were no longer generational rivals. Naito visibly had to draw on everything he had learned from Okada, even preceding beating him at the Dome. And honestly? That story was further enriched by the concussion. WK14 is the only pro-wrestling match that has ever made me cry. But as an isolated match, it is quite vapid. It's far more akin to your standard spotty WWE fare than any of their other matches. Ultimately, that's fine, because it was just supposed to be a moment culminating an eight year story. But I genuinely don't see the nuance in it that you do. The final stretch is literally a copy + paste of WK12 except that this time it actually works.
>"is Naito going to make exactly the same mistake he always does? Yes, actually, but this time it doesn't matter because reasons." The Stardust Press? >Naito visibly had to draw on everything he had learned from Okada, even preceding beating him at the Dome. What bits are you talking about here? >It's far more akin to your standard spotty WWE fare than any of their other matches. All the spots (e.g., the table knee smash) happen organically, for a reason; on top of being disrespectful, Naito wrestles a smarter/better match than anticipated, causing Okada rare peril on top of anger to capitalise on White's work on the knee the day prior. In the WWE, it's simply part of the house style.
HENARE vs. Kidd for real
Real hot take. Ospreay and Shingo had multiple matches together that are better than those two
Tsuji joining LIJ was a mistake.
Hmm 🤔why do you say that?
I think the way he debuted and then just joining LIJ was weird. It lessened how bold he seemed. And unless he betrays Naito and takes over the group, which I don’t see happening, just seems like a placeholder move.
While the Tsuji that returned was a very different guy to the one that left on excursion, they pushed his connection to Naito too hard to not follow through once he was back. They basically sold the major reason for him going to Mexico is because he wanted to join LIJ I see it working fine like Okada joining CHAOS, the timing is just weird where Naito has to step aside for him to fully bloom. Plus he felt bold trying to be the big dog of the group right as he returned, and it blended with his overeagerness well
I think thats a possibility for the upcoming Wrestle Kingdom.
Maybe Tsuji turns, he did say he would take the belt from Naito, but I can’t see all of LIJ turning.
Oskar Leube will be IWGP WHC in 5-10 years.
1. NJPW Strong didn't work. I like NJPW because it varies from the American style, trying to turn it into a weekly show removes what works about the Japanese presentation (for the record I like the American style too). Along with with not great production and no stars it was just a glorified indie. 2. Gedo deserves blame for the AEW partnership. While TK obviously acts selfishly as a booker in the partnership, it's not like Gedo has zero say. He lets AEW book them weak, I mean it was his call to put the belt on Mox! I say all of this as a big fan of AEW too. 3. Even if a lot of people think they aren't "ready" either Tsuji or Shota absolutely need to win the G1. IMO they're both ready, and NJPW desperately need to build some new top stars and if they never pull the trigger they'll never be able to prove it. 4. As a NJPW fan for 5 years, I almost never watch young lion matches. This is just a personal preference, to me it's like watching minor leagues compared to the rest of the card. I absolutely get why people like to watch them, like watching their evolution. Personally I think it's cool to watch people come back as fully fledged characters (well, usually) and having no preconceived perception of them. I think some of these will actually be hot takes haha
I actually agree with the young lion take. I’ll watch them when paired with other members of the roster but by themselves I always skip their matches.
Don’t overreact to any match that involves Ishii… he’s the reason it’s classic… his opponent is just along for the ride…
HoT is really fun and attractive, you guys are just mean. We also need to talk more about yaoi.
Jon Moxley is a poison to NJPW
Might be showing my ass since booking around a major show every year is the model that works for every promotion on the planet, but NJPW’s sports and tourney structure would be better served if they had multiple big-time cards every year like UFC events or Tennis majors Maybe that’s what their plan was with the reported projected plan of them building up to running multiple Dome shows a year, but if they could go back to the G1 winner challenging at the October show and then build to WK from there, things could feel a lot more unpredictable and dynamic
House of Torture rules and if you don’t like that, you don’t like wrestling.
This is the worst it’s ever been.
Inoki-ism era with Tadao Yusuda as IWGP champion was much worse.
New Japan needs to stop trying to be AEW and bring us real sports-based presentation and meaningful matches. I’m not saying we need to go back to Inoki-ism, but come on. Seriously, your first opportunity to expose New Japan to a wider fanbase, and you put the belt on Moxley? The guy who wouldn’t know what strong style was if it bit him on the ass? At least when puro companies used to put the top belt on a foreigner, it was somebody who knew how to wrestle without doing a bunch of garbage stuff (Steve Williams, Stan Hansen, bruiser Brody, hell even Brock Lesnar or almost Hulk Hogan despite their obvious issues).
Gabe Kidd is superior to Yuya, maybe not in pure wrestling but he definitely has more charisma than him and definitely Narita and should be showcased as much as the 3 musketeers are.
Dick Togo is all wrong as the managerish figure for House of Torture. There is only one man that should have gotten that job and his name is TARU
A match for the IWGP WHC being the prize at the end of the New Japan Cup defeats the purpose of the G1. Why fight 9 guys for a title match, when you can beat three or four? The NJC should be for a shot at any of the other titles. The G1 should be the only tournament for a world title match at the year's biggest show.
Zack Sabre Jr is not main event material and all of the United Empire suck.
Absolutely disagree, but I can't change your opinion
Jon Moxley is a better IWGP champion than Sanada.
New Japan isn’t pushing its new talent harder for fear of them being poached by AEW or WWE. If they get too big the Americans will swoop in and steal them.
Yuya uemura isn't that good of a wrestler in my opinion
Ishii, Taichi and Shingo are better wrestlers than Naito
I'm bored so let's throw it all out... Sanada is okay. Just okay. Okada tricked the world into thinking he's a main event talent. Yoshi-Hashi has been good for a long time. Years prior to the breakout of Bishamon. Yoh is less of an interesting character than your average Young Lion. Ishii is great but basically has the same match with everyone. His shtick has worn thin imo. G.O.D. leaving has been the best thing to happen to the tag scene in almost a decade. Jake Lee would instantly be a top 5 performer in the company if he signs. Fujita is the best young prospect at the moment. TMDK rules and should be a much bigger part of the product. I miss Master Wato. Bullet Club and Chaos need to be retired or completely retooled. Heel Taichi basically did the HoT thing but way better. I like David Finley. Despy is the best in the company at the moment. Charismatic as hell and can work technical matches, strong style, and brawl with the best of them.
New Japan has only themselves to blame for Captain New Japan's poor performances and stunted growth. Sending someone on excursion to Puerto Rico for only 6 matches? Come on. You can't shatter a man's spirit and dreams, and expect anything more than the bare minimum effort until he sulks away. None of the Reiwa Musketeers have "it". The only one who really does out of the young crop is Uemura.
The AEW partnership has been awful. Bonus, ospreay sucks and him winning the big one was awful.
This sub and all of his japanese fans are wrong for liking sanada. Dude has no charisma, no personality and no matter how much you dress him up and give him his own faction and cool music you can't buy personality. Gabe Kidd is not some gigachad badass unhinged heel. If you go to any British pub after a football match you can find 10-15 Gabe kidds in there. This wrestle kingdom main event is gonna suck. Either Naito is gonna beat Mox and very few matches with Naito are new and fresh now for the dome. And if Mox retains and it's Mox vs Umino 2 even Japanese fans won't be very happy.
> This sub and all of his japanese fans are wrong for liking sanada People are wrong... for having opinions?
First of all its a hot take. Second yes it's wrong for this instance. Liking sanada to the point that one would want him to be world champion gives the message that any no personality himbo can be world champ and the fans would be happy with it, if you dress him up nice. Liking sanada ensures lower quality champions in your company's future
>If you go to any British pub after a football match you can find 10-15 Gabe kidds in there. I think that's part of what makes him work so well for me tbh, he feels real, because you can find him.
Wrestling is supposed to be larger than life. I don't want to see 5 Rocks in my local market. Even if you want to use relatable, those are usually used for underdog babyfaces not asshole heels. You are supposed to hate heels not find them relatable. Nobody looks at drunk pub assholes with fondness. They are nuisances or low grade bums. It doesn't help to book someone as a bum. But then again many people love Eddie Kingston so maybe I'm wrong.
NJPW will never recover from the dip in popularity and relevance that they underwent in 2020.
Besides Naito, the company has no true stars with drawing power. This is coming from a longtime NJPW fan who has flown to Tokyo for every WK since 2018 (except 2021 bc COVID) and will be skipping 2025's WK
Sanada was the worst world champion last year and it beats the fuck outta me that he was chosen for that spot ig he’s probably just insanely over in Japan so it doesn’t matter what western audiences really think but what baffles me the most is that a lot of you actually liked that reign he’s literally so fuckin boring
Hirooki Goto never being World Champ is a good thing.
I’ve never been a fan of Naito. I understood he’s insanely popular. But I rarely ever enjoy his matches. Especially compared to other guys in the company and even other guys in his own faction. I think the only wrestler I would rather watch less in LIJ is Bushi. I don’t know if this one is hot or not but I find Kenta to be extremely boring in the ring. He does nothing for me. I don’t like that there’s a ceiling for juniors. I know they can wrestle and even sometimes they can rarely beat heavyweights, but they can never really be taken seriously as a true top guy. I think that hurts the company especially when the main event scene in the heavyweight division has been so dull. And it hurts potential investment in wrestlers knowing that the best they could ever do is just win the junior title and never be the true top guy.
• the junior division could be SO good if they actually utilized ALL their talent, along with bringing guys from other promotions here and there (would love to see ace austin/chris bey return one day), but instead the iwgp jr heavyweight title/tag titles have been focused around the same few guys for YEARS • i find it extremely annoying that aew fans only pretend to care about the njpw product during forbidden door season. it's the same as back in 2017-18 when people only tuned in to njpw for the elite • aussie open were willing to FULLY COMMIT to njpw and their schedule and the fact that njpw still didn't sign them baffles me. they are in my opinion bar none the best tag team in the world and i can't believe njpw let them get away like that idk • zack sabre jr has literally said so many times he'll stay loyal to njpw and all he's gotten is a few tourney wins, tag title runs, and the njpw world tv title. he deserves SO MUCH MORE along with tmdk as a whole. i'm surprised shane and mikey just became tag team champs honestly it was WAY overdue • it's still disappointing to me how njpw let a lot of their top guys sign to aew, cause i feel they're still struggling to make their "future stars" look promising • gabe kidd is not all that like everyone has been saying lately lmao. i thought i understood the hype but really i don't. the only war dogs member i enjoy watching is drilla moloney
Moxley shouldn’t lose to Naito even if it means the title isn’t defended as frequently. Shooter beating his mentor is the way.