Does Anyone Watch Wrestling? (WWE, AEW, TNA, NWA, etc)

[MUSC4EVER]

Catching up with CoC, not bad overall, enjoyed the fatal four way tag match and the women's match, I agree that the KO/Sami match was all over the place and the crowd were pretty quiet during it, haven't seen the WWE title match so ill watch it tomorrow. With Smackdown.

Missed Raw as it didn't record for some reason () but I heard about the Women's Royal Rumble match (about time!) and that Dean Ambrose will be out for a while after having surgery on a torn tricep, could miss Wrestlemania

 

[Northstar]

The worst part of Ambrose being out is Raw now has no tag teams ready to challenge The Bar (Granted I could see them putting Reigns in two storylines). At least the Rumble is still far enough out where they can build a team up, but it will take some good writing.

 

[Darla Starch]

I told y'all this was coming once the final card was announced.

NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING PRESENTS:
Wrestle Kingdom 12 in Tokyo Dome

Date: January 4th, 2018
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Venue: .....duh, the Tokyo Dome.
What's the big deal?: New Japan's equivalent to WrestleMania.

FINALIZED CARD:
IWGP Heavyweight Championship
Kazuchika Okada (c) v.s Tetsuya Naito (2017 G1 Climax winner)

IWGP United States Championship
No DQ Match
Kenny Omega (c) v.s Chris Jericho

IWGP Intercontinental Championship
Hiroshi Tanahashi (c) v.s Jay White

NEVER Openweight Championship
Hair v.s Hair, nobody from Suzuki-gun or CHAOS allowed at ringside
Minoru Suzuki (c) v.s Hirooki Goto

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship
Marty Scurll (c) v.s Hiromu Takahashi v.s Will Ospreay v.s KUSHIDA

IWGP Tag Team Championship
Killer Elite Squad (Lance Archer & Davey Boy Smith Jr) (c) v.s Los Ingobernobles de Japon (EVIL and SANADA)

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship
Roppongi 3K (Sho & Koh) (c) v.s The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson)

NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Championship
Gauntlet Match
Bullet Club (Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, and Bad Luck Fale) (c) v.s CHAOS (Beretta, Tomohiro Ishii, and Toru Yano) v.s Michael Elgin and War Machine (Hanson and Raymond Rowe) v.s Suzuki-gun (Taichi, Takashi Izuka, and Zack Sabre Jr) v.s Taguchi Japan (Juice Robinson, Ryusuke Taguchi, and Togi Makabe)

Cody (Rhodes) v.s Kota Ibushi

PRE-SHOW
New Japan Rumble featuring ????
-----------------------------------------------

RUNDOWN:

Spoiler

IWGP Heavyweight Championship
Predicted Winner: Tetsuya Naito
Reasoning: Tetsuya Naito's initial push into the main event scene upon winning the 2013 G1 Climax was not received all that well, and a fair few parallels can be drawn to Roman Reigns in that regard. Ironically, not caring about tradition has caused the fanbase to care about Naito. This win completes the redemption arc.

IWGP United States Heavyweight Championship
Predicted Winner: Kenny Omega
Reasoning: All accounts point to Jericho's appearance as being a one-shot deal. Jericho's busy throughout the rest of the year with Fozzy and his wrestling cruise thingy later in the year, ergo Omega wins and probably drops the belt to the winner of the 2018 New Japan Cup

IWGP Intercontinental Championship
Predicted Winner: Jay White
Reasoning: Tanahashi is slowly winding things down before transferring into a role some loving call the New Japan Dad. Clearly there's some trust in White after his return from his young lion expedition (essentially a learning trip most Japanese wrestlers take relatively early in their careers to expose themselves to different styles) and Tanahashi's nursing some injuries. Also, Jay's just a hair over a year younger than me and is wrestling one of the all-time greats on such a big stage and I have to go re-evaluate my life.

NEVER Openweight Championship
Predicted Winner: Minoru Suzuki
Reasoning: Noted MMA pioneer and The Man With The Worst Personality In The World, also noted manga enthusiast gets the W. Goto gets his hair cut off, blah blah blah, either finally gets to take advantage of his potential or settles into a gatekeeper for the main event scene. Who knows? There's clearly something about Goto that can work, but for whatever reason won't show.

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship
Predicted Winner: Hiromu Takahashi
Reasoning: He managed to get a stuffed cat ridiculously over. I mean, listen to the crowd as Bad Luck Fale murders poor Darryl. Anyone who can make such a silly thing work and not feel out of place gets the nod. I also should note that I have an irrational dislike for Ospreay, mainly based off of THAT MATCH with Ricochet from the 2016 Best of the Super Juniors tournament. (Yeah, tourneys are kind of a big thing in New Japan.)

IWGP Tag Team Championship
Predicted Winners: EVIL and SANADA
Reasoning: The greatest wrestling hoodie ever produced. Also, Los Ingobernobles move into the role of top stable in New Japan for 2018, so yeah give them the Heavyweight Title and the Tag Titles and the NEVER Six-Man Titles when they inevitably win them back.

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship
Predicted Winners: The Young Bucks
Reasoning: I dislike The Young Bucks, almost the living embodiment of everything I dislike about the "get your MOVEZ in" mentality to wrestling. But they're a proven money-maker. Sho Tanaka of Roppongi 3K looks like he's got some potential a few years down the road in the junior heavyweight singles scene.

NEVER Openweight Six-Man Tag Team Championship
Predicted Winners: Taguchi Japan
Reasoning: War Machine might be WWE bound and I love it I love me some good hoss fights. Michael Elgin might be a bit of a *WORD REDACTED*bag and not be much longer with the company after the allegations against him. Bullet Club might be like the nWo in more than just imagery in that they're a license to print money that's possibly outstayed their welcome in as prominent a role as they've had. Really just picked a team at random, this match is mainly to get more people on the show and these titles are the least necessary ones in the company and mainly exist to add stakes to how New Japan runs their house shows.

Cody (Rhodes) v.s Kota Ibushi
Predicted Winner: Kota Ibushi
Reasoning: Hopefully sets up Bullet Club splitting into their sub-groups, Ibushi moves onto the IC Title scene, possibly beats White, hopefully finally get Omega/Ibushi at Wrestle Kingdom 13. Long-standing unofficial storyline between the two that might finally get resolved.

New Japan Rumble
Predicted Winner: Satoshi Kojima
Reasoning: Mainly a harmless excuse for cameos (The Great Kabuki in the initial NJR in 2015, Haku in 2016, Billy Gunn and Scott Norton last year) and to warm the crowd up. No participants announced, picked from a likely competitor based purely off their Twitter game. Also, BREAD CLUB.

 

[Com Fox]

So Dolph Ziggler just left the United States Championship in the ring.

 

[MUSC4EVER]

Saw the Ric Flair documentary. Very very good, I highly recommend seeing it if you can.

There will be a regular edition of Raw this coming Monday despite the fact its Christmas Day, I'm sure I'm not the only one who wouldn't mind if the show wasn't on so that everyone involved can spend time with their families.

 

[Northstar]

Vince has apparently filed 5 XFL related trademarks.

That beating by KO must have given him a concussion or something.

 

[MUSC4EVER]

He has also sold $105 million worth of stock as well.

 

[Com Fox]

I was not ready for this month . First XFL, now 105 million stock sold!

 

[BKGlover]

@SecretAgentZero I've been thinking about New Japan, specifically how you are calling the Goto-Suzuki match. I've liked Goto since I first watched him, but thinking about it the matches I've seen have been against really good workers. I'm starting to wonder if all those matches were because of all parties involved. I had an analogy, but now that I'm awake it doesn't work, but you're right about him possibly becoming the gatekeeper.

 

[EngieDiesel]

Vince has apparently filed 5 XFL related trademarks.

That beating by KO must have given him a concussion or something.

It seems crazy, but given that short-form, fast action versions of other sports have been taking off recently it might just be crazy enough to work this time, especially with the NFL's image being somewhat dented over the last couple years for various reasons. If the XFL is to football what rallycross is to motorsports, it could at least survive a couple years on the novely factor alone.

Also, it might mean the return of this, which I would be all about:

 

[Northstar]

It seems crazy, but given that short-form, fast action versions of other sports have been taking off recently it might just be crazy enough to work this time, especially with the NFL's image being somewhat dented over the last couple years for various reasons. If the XFL is to football what rallycross is to motorsports, it could at least survive a couple years on the novely factor alone.

Arena football has been trying to fill that niche to no avail since the 80's, I just can't see it suddenly working with Vince at the helm.

 

[EngieDiesel]

Arena football has been trying to fill that niche to no avail since the 80's, I just can't see it suddenly working with Vince at the helm.

Arena football has never really had the same marketing budget that Vince has, nor the brazenness to present its product as a direct competitor to the NFL. I don't think it's a guaranteed hit either, but the timing to try it again is certainly better now than it was back when the NFL was considered untouchable.

Granted, he may have just been renewing the trademarks to make sure no one else uses them, so this could just be irrelevant anyway.

 

[Com Fox]

I actually enjoyed Smackdown this week. Tag Team is still proving strong with 2 storylines going on for the division (Raw can barely maintain it's only one), AJ Styles appears to moving on with the whole Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Shane McMahon and Daniel Bryan drama which I might be in the minority but I see this as fine, they seem to care about this story more than others so throwing the champion in the mix does improve it but I do think it needs to be them being thrown in with the Champion not the Champion being thrown with them, but there seems to be no sign of Jinder Mahal this time as he moves on the US Championship, so I'll take what I get

I do want to address my concern for their Women's Division however, the entire segment made me realized there is only 2 faces while the 7 others are heels. Granted the 2 heel groups (Natalya's group and Riott Squad) are also going against each other, so it is fine right now but they might need to do some face turns, unless Naomi is supposed to turn heel and it's Charlotte against the world

 

[m8h3r]

Paige was injured at a house show last night. Took a stiff kick from Sasha and they brought the stretcher out. She managed to get to the back without it but with help from trainers.

 

[Com Fox]

https://www.fightful.com/former-wwe...esktop&utm_source=Facebook&utm_content=Writer

I find this really interesting coming from a writers point of view.

It gives you an insight on how WWE was back in 2011 and how it was such a mind boggling year for some (I for one hated 2011). With writers being in such rotation over the course of the year. It gives some situations that came in 2011 stories a bit of an understanding.

 

[Northstar]

Curt Hawkins has finished the year 0-152 with 123 of those coming this year.

Gotta hand it to the guy for having some fun with his jobber status.

 

[MUSC4EVER]

And stealing a living!

 

[Com Fox]

In other news, in the last event of WWE for 2017. We have a heel turn and a return: https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe/wwe...shey-pennsylvania-december-29-2017?key1=fbwad

 

[MUSC4EVER]

Roman Reigns v Samoa Joe for the IC title tonight but this time if Reigns is disqualified he loses the title, also there is Enzo Amore v Cedric Alexander for the Cruiserweight title. AJ Styles v Sami Zayn non-title match has been made for Smackdown tomorrow.

Braun Strowman was sent home from live events last week because of illness, his status for tonight is unknown.

 

[Northstar]

Paige is supposedly in Miami but hasn't been cleared. Hopefully she will be able to compete in the Rumble.

https://www.cagesideseats.com/wwe/2018/1/1/16839290/paige-raw-injury-scare-house-show-wwe-report

 

[MUSC4EVER]

Lesnar will be on Raw tonight too and John Cena tweeted earlier saying he will be entering the Royal Rumble.

 

[Northstar]

Women’s Royal Rumble will have 30 participants. Which means there will be quite a few from NXT and possibly returning former wrestlers.

Hopefully they don’t blow it like they did with the Money in the Bank match.

 

[Darla Starch]

The day before Wrestle Kingdom 12, New Japan's running it's annual Fan Festa mini-event. No earth-shattering matches announced, just three tag matches between competitors who'll likely only compete at WK12 in the New Japan Rumble.

Schedule:

11:00 AM Site opens for NJPW Fan Club members (Only the outside area is available)

11:30 Site open for general attendees

12:05 PM Traditional breaking of the New Year’s mochi, with Togi Makabe, KUSHIDA and Jurina Matsui (SKE48)

12:15 NJPW video game announcement

1:00 Wrestle Kingdom 12 Open Press Conference (part 1)

2:45 Special talk show with WK12 Official Ambassador, Jurina Matsui

4:00 Wrestle Kingdom 12 Open Press Conference (part 2)

5:00 Three live matches (see card here https://www.njpw1972.com/tornament/18631?showCards=1

■ WRESTLE KINGDOM Fan Festa 2018 : LIVE Streaming on NJPW World! Sign up to Watch the live https://njpwworld.com/

Bolded is the main thing I'm interested in. Fingers are crossed for a WWE 2K competitor....

 

[Com Fox]

Women’s Royal Rumble will have 30 participants. Which means there will be quite a few from NXT and possibly returning former wrestlers.

Hopefully they don’t blow it like they did with the Money in the Bank match.

I wonder how timing is going to go for this. Worried either Royal Rumble match might be too short or the Title Matches will be sacrificed in quality.

Seems like The Club is back with Finn Balor.

 

[Darla Starch]

The day before Wrestle Kingdom 12, New Japan's running it's annual Fan Festa mini-event. No earth-shattering matches announced, just three tag matches between competitors who'll likely only compete at WK12 in the New Japan Rumble.

Schedule:

12:15 NJPW video game announcement

Bolded is the main thing I'm interested in. Fingers are crossed for a WWE 2K competitor....

Update:



*hopes this also covers the PC version*

 

[Com Fox]

Are we gonna have another Lay-cool after the Royal Rumble

 

[Niku Driver HC]

Update:



*hopes this also covers the PC version*

Well, it's a pleasant surprise for sure, but how will it work? Paid DLC content for both versions? PS4 exclusive portion? Either way, it's good to see Spike earning the stripes to finally use a NJPW license again after King Of Colosseum II...

 

[Darla Starch]

Wrestle Kingdom 12 is in the books and

Spoiler

interesting choice to have Okada retain the belt. Not totally sold yet, but hopefully New Year Dash (think post-WM Raw in terms of setting up storylines for the next year) will clear things up.

Full results:

• Masahito Kakihara made an apparent one-night return to wrestling and won the New Japan Rumble. Dedicated the win to his friend and former wrestler Yoshihiro Takayama, who is (last time I checked) paralyzed from the neck down after an injury at a DDT event in March. Only notable cameo was from independent star Delirious.
• Young Bucks defeated Roppongi 3K to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championships for a seventh time, extending their own record of most reigns with the belts as a team, one reign short of the record for most reigns by an individual, that record currently being held by Rocky Romero
• CHAOS (Beretta, Tomohiro Ishii, and Toru Yano) won the Gauntlet Match to win the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championships, beginning their first reign as a unit and Toru Yano's third.
• Kota Ibushi def. Cody (Rhodes)
• Los Ingobernobles de Japon (EVIL and Sanada) def. Killer Elite Squad (Lance Archer and Davey Boy Smith Jr) to win the IWGP Tag Team Titles, beginning their first reign.
• Hirooki Goto def. Minoru Suzuki to begin his second reign as NEVER Openweight Champion. Post-match, Suzuki-gun looked at first to get their leader to ignore the stipulation, but Suzuki ended up shaving his own head anyway.
• Will Ospreay 🤬 def. Marty Scurll, Hiromu Takahashi, and KUSHIDA to begin his second reign as IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion.
• Hiroshi Tanahashi def. Jay White to retain the IWGP Intercontinental Championship.
• Kenny Omega def. Chris Jericho to retain the IWGP United States Championship.
• Kazuchika Okada def. Tetsuya Naito to retain the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. At this point, I'm expecting him to break Tanahashi's record for most defenses in a single reign (current record is 11, Okada's up to 9)

Haven't watched yet because figures my hours at work are being cut when I've got this and the Royal Rumble coming up. Jericho/Omega sounds like it lived up to the hype behind it.

 

[BKGlover]

Felt like watching some old Royal Rumbles. 1988 made me realize something...Jake Roberts' standing right punches looked legit.

 

[Northstar]

For anyone that relies on AXS to get their NJPW fix like myself, they are doing their WK12 special tonight at 8ET.