A Phoenix from the Ashes: Tetsuya Naito and the IWGP Intercontinental Championship
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Wrestle Kingdom 13 and New Year Dash are in the books. Spoilers ahead for both.
WK13 was a good show, but overall it felt a bit of rushed. The matches directly following the opener between Ospreay and Ibushi were extremely short and undercooked. That is readily apparent when you see the match-times from last year and this year. Last year there was no match on the card that lasted less than 14 minutes. This year there were 6 matches that last 14:20 or less. This is especially true for the two tag-team three ways for the Heavyweight and Junior tag belts which lasted 10:15 and less than 7 minutes respectively. That is far too little time for a three-way match, and I think in the junior match BUSHI was never actually officially tagged in, which is weird.
Wrestle Kingdom has always been extremely long, but also deservedly so. Thus just felt kind of rushed. Maybe they had complaints in recent years or they fear audience fatigue, which is a valid concern, but isn’t exactly fixed by annoying the audience with short-changed matches which don’t reach their emotional climax due to lack of time. In between the quasi-dark match of the 3-man gauntlet match and the actual start of the event, they showed some announcement videos. Besides major events in Dallas and London next year, which are very welcome, one of the announcements is that Wrestle Kingdom 14 will be a two-day event on January 4th and 5th 2020, both in the Tokyo Dome. I guess this gives more room to more matches, but boy am I wary about the idea of running the Dome twice in a year, much less on back-to-back days. Maybe it works out, but if it does I fear this will become a repeat thing which can only end in tears.
The event was not without its highlights though. I hoped for more from Okada vs. Switchblade, and it was a bit short-changed, but it was a very good match for the time it lasted. At the very least Okada is back in shorts, has his old music back and comes to the ring in a robe instead of a cut-off shirt and balloons. Thank fuck for that. The Jericho-Naito No DQ match was also very good, and its fun to see how much Jericho’s persona and wrestling style is different from how he does in WWE. Finally the Omega vs. Tanahashi match to end it was an absolute masterclass and very compelling.
And now for the real spoilers:
NJPW decided to do something extremely extraordinary on WK13, they had every single title change hands. Every single champion lost their title. And I am not sure that is a good thing. For one it made things a bit predictable later in the card, particularly since everybody knew that Jericho would lose the title to Naito. But more so I don’t think its a good way to do things as fans need to have at least some sense of continuity.
The question is also what this means for Kenny Omega. With the Young Bucks and Cody having now officially founded their own wrestling promotion funded by pakistani-american billionaire Shahid Khan (who also owns the Carolina Panthers whose colors Cody repped at WK13), it suggests that Kenny will join them in the new venture. However, Kenny is also a huge draw for NJPW and reportedly also now a japanese Citizen for which he had to relinquish his canadian one. I would also doubt that NJPW has any chance of selling back-to-back Dome shows without Kenny on the card, and the international audience he brings in, so I think NJPW will do anything in their power to keep him.
Finally, New Year Dash also happened. Usually you expect some sort of reveal or new thing to start-up at NYD. Three years ago Kenny kicked AJ Styles out of Bullet Club and took over their leadership. Two years ago Suzuki-gun returned. Last year Kenny intervened in Cody’s attempt trying to beat down Ibushi, basically the start of the reunion of the Golden Lovers. This year, nada.
Yeah, there were some small developments. Chase Owens and Yujiro Takahashi made up with the Tongans and officially rejoined the Bullet Club, which was a bit undercut by the fact that they were wearing Bullet Club gear in their tag match earlier. And YOSHI-HASHI returned. Good for him, but he is hardly a draw. The only real developments were Jay White challenging Tanahashi and Trent Beretta challenging Juice Robinson for their respective belts, both of which already occurred in the post-match interviews at WK, and LIJ getting beaten down by Suzuki-gun with Taichi challenging Naito for the IC title which is a laughable proposition, and particularly overdone considering how much LIJ and Suzuki-gun had already feuded over the last year with Suzuki-gun pulling the short-straw every single time.
To be honest, I am kind of worried where NJPW is going :X
There was a take on reddit that actually made sense to me regarding NYD. It seems that with AEW starting there was a huge wrench in some plans that New Japan had, as Gedo usually loves to plan way in advance. So they are probably waiting to see where the cards lay down before springing any more angles.
Things are definitely moving a bit. KUSHIDA is definitely gone with his contract up on January 31st. Most likely he is going to WWE. Excellent wrestler, but unfortunately never found a very compelling gimmick. At 35 he is already very deep into his career. I also wonder what the Junior Heavyweight division will now look like with him and Scurll leaving, Hiromu injured and Ospreay preparing to go heavyweight.
Takashi Iizuka, Suzuki-gun’s resident bitey boy, is retiring. After 52 years old and nearly 33 years in the ring he deserves it. Apparently he was a very promising talent in his younger years. His current gimmick is funny at times, but hardly a draw.
Meanwhile Kenny Omega gave an interview in which he announced he is taking a break. Everybody immediately started running around like chickens with their heads cut off, but in truth his words mirror his statements he gave following the dome show in 2017. Then he missed one whole tour. I would also imagine if Kenny was actually leaving, the announcement would have been bigger.
Ibushi will also miss at least that tour, having suffered a concussion in the match against Ospreay. Hopefully he will recover fully.
Finally, Impact wrestling will start streaming its TV offering live on twitch, starting this friday.
I have less fear for the Junior division because they have a good mix of people there in tags who can also hang as singles wrestlers and they’ll have young lions coming back from excursion. They can also always fill holes by having young lions show fire in losing efforts. Okada had some matches with Tanahashi before he went on excursion that confirmed for me that he would be something special, although no one knew how far he would go, of course. It’s sad to lose KUSHIDA and I don’t think he will be a good fit in WWE, but New Japan has been through this song and dance before. We’ll have to see about Kenny.
Watched a cool 7 and a half hours of wrestling over the last two days, but it was all worth it. NXT TakeOver Phoenix was excellent as always with just some great wrestling on all fronts, even though the women’s match had again a bit of a cheap finish.
However, what really stood out to me was how good the Royal Rumble PPV itself was. I didn’t bother with the Pre-Show, but the mainshow itself was excellent. Most of this can be attributed to matches getting room to breathe and not ending in cheap or dumb finishes (well, except for one). Even the weakest match from an outside perspective, you know is only on the main show because Shane is in it, made itself worth it by Shane busting out a fucking Shooting Star Press. Only match I kind of skipped through was Rousey against Sasha Banks, because fuck Rousey. Good wrestler and MMA fighter, horrible human being. Also she’s leaving after Mania so who cares anyhow.
But we’re getting into Spoiler Territory now.
I kind of spoiled myself because I am too dumb to stay off twitter and was only able to watch the Rumble like 15 hours after it happened, so I knew who would win the Rumble matches kind of. At first I actually thought that Becky would win the title off of Asuka because I saw a post of her “going to Wrestlemania”. But to my surprise and approval, Asuka retained in a very good match against her, though that gave away the women’s Rumble result for me.
The Women’s Rumble itself was very good, and didn’t include any nostalgia entrants, which is particularly surprising compared to last year’s Rumble which was filled with guest spots. I guess part of that is it not being the main event this year, but it also legitimizes the massive stride the women’s roster has made over the last year. It still had some surprise entrants, mainly call-ups from NXT. Unfortunately that also meant that some of the wrestling was a bit of a lesser level. A particular note there should be made of Kacy Catanzaro, a former American Ninja Warrior champion who has been signed with NXT since 2017. She had multiple misses, but also was very entertaining to watch for sheer athleticism and her very own Kofi-esque “eliminated but not really” spot (though they certainly overdid it with those spots this year). Zelina Vega hiding under the ring was also funny, but the ending to that spot with Hornswoggle showing up and chasing her around I could have done without (also a similar spot of a competitor hiding under the ring happened in the men’s Rumble, taking away from the novelty).
The Final four of the Women’s Rumble came down to Nia Jax, a surprisingly strong looking Bayley, Charlotte and Becky Lynch, who had replaced an injured Lana. After Bayley and Nia got eliminated, though not without Nia injuring Becky, it went down to the very strong rivals in an excellent heel-face dynamic.
Styles vs. Bryan was again very good as should be expected from two of the best wrestlers on the planet. At nearly 25 minutes they also got the longest non-rumble match of the night. However, the ending here was definitely the weakest of the night. After a ref bump A.J. hits a meaningless Styles Clash, only for Eric Rowan of all people to enter the ring, Chokeslam Styles and Bryan to pin with no additional offense. I guess Rowan and Daniel Bryan have a connection from Bryan’s short-lived membership in the Wyatt family, but he also kind of lacks credibility. After all he is the guy that The Rock beat in less than 10 seconds at Mania a couple of years ago.
Lesnar vs. Balor was short, but very sweet. I still don’t like Lesnar or his presence in wrestling, but he is a monster and Balor made us believe he could slay a monster. Balor also didn’t fall victim to suplex city, but worked a very “smart” match, picking his spots and striking when the iron was hot. He still ultimately didn’t make it with a surprise submission out of nowhere, but that was a very believable ending.
And then the men’s rumble, which opened with the nostalgia spot of the night as Elias Sampson starting against Jeff Jarrett in a “duett” which of course wouldn’t actually happen. Jarrett was also eliminated before the third entrant even arrived in the ring. From there the match moved very quickly. I was surprised to see that at about 5 people in the ring more or less for every new entrant an elimination would happen and the ring wouldn’t build up, though that also waned as the match reached past the 12th entrant. However, you could definitely tell that entrants didn’t actually happen in the 90 second interval, but actually a bit faster.
My man of the match is definitely Mustafa Ali, who had an excellent showing. Other entrants like Drew McIntyre, Pete Dunne and Samoa Joe, who all showed some great stuff. The match however also seemed to lack a kind of certain something which made it a very good but not Great Rumble. Personally I was hoping for surprise entries by my personal favorites Kevin Owens and or Sami Zayn, both of which have been announced to return soon but at least Owens has apparently re-aggravated his injury.
The last entry of the rumble was however a surprise. When R-Truth, who had won the #30 entry by winning the mixed-match challenged with Carmella, was making his way to the ring he was attacked by Nia Jax. Taking a page out of Becky Lynch’s playbook she took to the ring instead, becoming the 4th female Royal Rumble entrant into the men’s Rumble. She also got an elimination before eating multiple finishers as her heelish persona deserves. I guess there is some baggage with this spot as well through the whole male-on-female violence aspect, but its wrestling…
The end of the match was kind of weird. At one point we see only two men in the ring beating each other. Those two are Dolph Ziggler and Andrade “Cien” Almas (fuck Vince for his “first-name-basis” bullshit), neither of which seem like “Rumble Winner” calibre. However, besides those two there are two other men still alive on the outside in Braun Strowman and Seth Rollins, who re-enter the ring and after Strowman throws both Ziggler and Almas out, Rollins curb-stomps him on the apron and wins. Strowman winning a second Rumble, when he absolutely didn’t need to win one in the first place even though it didn’t really count for anything, would have been a travesty.
Rumble matches live-and-die from their finishes and winners. While the men’s finish was a bit lackluster, the women’s finish was excellent, and we now have two very deserving Rumble winners. I just hope that they have better results to show for at the end of the whole thing than last year’s very deserving winners.
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So, unless the entirely world is working the smarks, it seems that both Hideo Itami/Kenta and Dean Ambrose are on their way out. Itami seems like he is still wrestling elsewhere but Dean looks to be gone for good. I don’t know what to think, in one hand I love his character, both his older goofy side and how viciously he was presented before being push aside after his return. However I can understand that if he’s not interested in continuing then he shouldn’t because that would be shit to see.
Still, it seems like the start of another era shift when you look at the bigger picture. We have the current crop of NXT talent that all seem to be ready to jump into the scene, juxtaposed with people leaving to other promotions/retiring. These times have always been a gamble, either a spark happens and it kicks WWE in a good period or everyone stumbles in the shuffle.
Ambrose is retiring at 33? That seems… odd. I can definitely understand frustration with the product. He probably sat at home while recovering and wasn’t happy with his material between capturing the WWE championship and his injury, but he had pretty decent stuff since returning I thought and thoroughly reinvented his character in a good way. I did think he did rather little in the Rumble though.
I would be surprised if he was actually retiring. He strikes me like the kind of knowledgeable guy who sees guys like The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega or a good chunk of the current british talent making waves outside WWE and actually having fun, even if they’re making less money. Maybe he figures he’ll make a bit less, but have a more fulfilling, less frustrating career.
Of course, it’s also quite possible that this is a work, because it seemed rather fast that WWE would release a statement on his release before the contract is up.
Yeah, that’s why I’m not 100%, but their statement happened after all the other outlets started to talk about it. We’ll know in a couple of weeks, although his current storyline seems to have nothing to do with any retirement. Weird stuff.
My dream scenario is for us to get Jon Moxley vs Jimmy Havoc, Fall Count Anywhere at Double or Nothing, but that’s probably just a dream/Fire Pro Wrestling scenario
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That’s along the same vein as my Seth Rollins vs Kenny Omega dream match, but as they are now, not as they were when they had their match ages ago.
I might get to see my other dream match though, Walter vs Samoa Joe, the amount of beef in the ring would be out of this world. 
WWE have released Hideo Itami, Tye Dillinger, TJ Perkins and Arn Anderson. The first two apparently requested their release, the other two did not. I kind of feel sorry for Itami, who was severely derailed by injuries. Possibly heading back to Japan. Dillinger was good in my opinion, but kind of wasted with more than 10 years in developmental. Hope he finds a spot soon. Perkins is a surprise, not that they were using him at all this past year, but also how WWE did nothing with him after having win the CWC three years ago. Anderson was in a producer/road agent role backstage and his release is also kind of weird. Getting fired at age 60 definitely sucks.
I’m told that TJP had a history with obnoxiously complaining to any higher-ups who would listen, and didn’t have a good gauge of which hills were worth dying on. And there’s a rumor going around that Arn did something that forced WWE’s hand and, as a publicly traded company, they had no choice but to let him go. The specific reason hasn’t come out yet, supposedly because it’s potentially litigious. Meltzer will probably have the scoops before long.
It came out that Arn Anderson was fired because Alicia Fox showed up to a House Show drunk, and Arn knowingly let her wrestle anyway. Naturally he pretty much had to be let go after making that call. They also sent Alicia to rehab, but apparently she’s been blowing it off. So if she won’t try to clean up, I don’t expect her to last long either.
I feel like I say this every takeover.
But holy shit that was crazy.
Supposedly this attack was not fake. Those security guards roughed up that dude with definitely non-fake punches to the face.
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Yeah, one of the wrestlers there decked the intruder pretty hard. What a dumb move, storming a room full of wrestlers.
As for Wrestlemania, this was the best Wrestlemania since 30. All of the matches were bangers, save for the ending of the main event. Although now with a sleep behind me I hope that they use that and twist it to build the winner’s next story line. I can see an authority based battle versus Stephanie Mcmahon over this.
It was one of the better Manias in recent memory for sure. But to the surprise of no one, NXT Takeover was a million times better at half the length. Honestly 7.5 hours of wrestling is too much wrestling.
The first half of Mania was excellently paced, but the second half seemed to drag a bit. They could have saved quite a bit of time and tightened the second half up significantly by:
- Cutting Samoa Joe vs Rey and moving Joe into the Orton vs. AJ match to make it a Triple Threat instead
- Cutting Roman vs Drew, having Roman win the Battle Royale instead and having Drew beat Angle (because Corbin? Really?)
- Cutting the length of HHH vs Batista in half. There’s no need for the two old guys who can’t move anymore to have the longest match of the night.
And Re: The idiot who attacked Bret Hart, someone found his Twitter account, and I guess he’s a sexist crazy person who constantly writes posts directed at Vince McMahon expecting him to answer, and he was real salty about the women’s match being the main event this year. Someone posted a picture of his mugshot where his face looked like ground beef from the beating he got from the wrestlers who jumped to Bret’s aid. It was very satisfying to see.
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Poetic justice!
Weird, I never posted after watching those things. TakeOver was amazing. Mania was good though I skipped through a lot of unnecessary matches I had no interest in (Corbin vs. Angle, Reigns vs. McIntyre). Best match of the weekend was WALTER vs. Dunne in my opinion, though Kofi vs. Bryan was also very good. I have however not watched the G1 Supercard yet, which I will hopefully manage to do tonight.
In other news, Kazuchika Okada has married his girlfriend Suzuko Mimori who is best known as the voice of Umi Sonoda from Love Live. The only thing I know her voice from is as the female lead in Tiger Mask W. She is also apparently the voice of Pinkie Pie in the japanese dub of MLPFIM.
Of course people are joking about the perfect baby they’re going to eventually produce. All I can think about seeing these talks is the scene in Kung Pow! Enter the Fist with the baby fight, imagining the baby grabbing the arm of the doctor during the birthing procedure (wrist control!), jumping out of the womb and delivering a perfect clothesline.