Aug 17, 2017 So the last two shows this year are Destruction and King of Pro Wrestling. Leading up to both there will be "Road to (event name)" shows that'll be composed of multi man matches featuring the people who will be facing eachother, similar to how they did during the G1. The actual shows should have some multiman matches but in general there will be a lot of single matches and title matches. For example, EVIL will almost definitely get a shot at Okada's title on one of these shows, since he beat him in the G1. Juice beat Omega...maybe Omega will defend the US title against him. Elgin as well. SZJ has gotten the best of Tanahashi several times recently-- expect a program between those two for the Intercontinental belt. Fale and Ishii will probably be in action against Naito, since they defeated him. And of course you have the Jrs, which will have KUSHIDA probably defending against Desperado.
Aug 17, 2017 I had one major pet peeve with omega/okada 3 Spoiler I heard Kenny tell okada to reverse his pikedriver a handful of times, up until that moment I hadn't heard any form of communication between any wrestler other than trash talk. I was beginning to think they were doing all of this s--- off the top . Small gripe but it really bothers me
Aug 17, 2017 What other promotions are worth getting into? @Changeling @Gloku @Pinhead @AdultishGambino
Aug 17, 2017 I'm here too ya kno And Ring of Honor does some good stuff. As does Lucha Underground. PWG gets a lot of love but it ain't my cup of tea.
Aug 17, 2017 I'm a huge fan of PWG. Gotta throw in a shameless plug for my local company, Cape Championship Wrestling, as well. You can catch them on FiteTV
Aug 17, 2017 @Raziel are you interested in older Japanese non-NJPW wrestling like AJW or AJPW? I know of an online archive with most of the important matches from back then. That's how I watched the likes of Kobashi, Misawa, & Manami Toyota.
Aug 17, 2017 Pro Wrestling NOAH, PWG, ROH and Lucha Underground but you need to watch LU with an open mind it's not a traditional wrestling promotion they treat it more like a TV program.
Aug 17, 2017 @Raziel here is the realhero archive for literally all puroresu (Japanese wrestling) not regularly viewable in America....I'm talking Stardom, Dragon gate, a dozens of others I'm sure none of us here have even heard about. This has stuff decades old and in pretty sure new stuff too. https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/0B5rK95X3mRiiSDNvTnQ0aUhWODg?usp=drive_web Here is an archive entirely dedicated to AJPW (featuring the 90s, with the likes of Kenta Kobashi and Mitsuharu Misawa-- both of which have the most 5* matches awarded by Dave Meltzer, over 40 5* matches combined). https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/0Bwpbsa8C2iSmZXJuaE44bm40eHc?usp=sharing I recommend going to cagematch.com, it's a wrestling database. When you find the profile of ANY wrestler, you can view a match guide which lists ALL of their matches with appropriate dates, event names, and Meltzer star ratings. Go there and sort by match rating, and decide on any match you want to watch. Using those two archives you can pinpoint the year and event the matches took place, and stream them. My recommendations: Kenta Kobashi and Misawa had a legendary string of matches in 97, 98, & 99 in AJPW, and one in 2003 in NOAH. The 2003 NOAH match is my pick for greatest wresting match ever. Other than that I've also watched a lot of All Japan Women's wrestling. Many people that have been watching since the 80s and 90s site Manami Toyota as the greatest women's wrestler (and one of the best wrestlers period) of all time. My favorite WWE women's match is Natalya Vs Charlotte in NXT...I never thought a woman could have a 5* match. I was wrong. Use her cage match profile to find matches with Aja Kong, Kyoko Inoue, Toshiyo Yamada, and Akira Hokuto. They are LEGENDARY. I specifically recommend these: Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs Dynamite Kensai & Mayumi Ozaki 12/6/1993 (MY FAVORITE TAG MATCH EVER) Toyota vs Aja Kong 11/20/1994 Toyota vs Akira Hokuto 9/2/1995 I had a blast catching up on all of this stuff over the past year. If you find yourself liking the style of these matches and want more, I can recommend you a ton of other matches. Sorry if it's information overload
Aug 17, 2017 I'll just tag @NJPWBros if you're interested in essential classic puro featuring legendary wrestlers like Kawada, Misawa, Aja Kong, Toyota and the like, check the post above.
Aug 17, 2017 I kilt that s---... And really I know it's not for everyone and it likely won't be. But I implore any of ya'll if you're interested to try it out. Those matches can all be found in those archives and on YouTube for free and I really really enjoyed them. Maybe you will too
Aug 17, 2017 I like the 5+ rating. It'd be different if it was for cinema or something, but wrestling is limited enough in how stories are told that the mold can be broken, whereas in film the benchmark has been set so often in so many different time periods that discerning between multiple levels of perfect would just be absurd. Dave also doesn't re-watch old matches, so a 5 from him in 2000 naturally wouldn't be judged the same way with the added context of everything that's happened since. Wrestling has, at least in North America, been adhering to the expansion of a very old school, classical style of working that could only be analyzed on a critical level since the 70's/80's. When we got into the 90's, that's when the new age of sequenced, athletic type wrestling started to take over. All Japan, HBK/Bret (his size helped), the WCW cruiserweights, ECW at the time were all part of pushing for the more performance based wrestling that we've seen take over on the indies since the early 2000's, and now pretty much everywhere as we went into the 2010's. WWE is still WWE, but we know that the best guys there can transcend their limitations. We're at a point now where these guys - Ospreay/Omega/Okada/Naito/Tanahashi/etc - have a complete grasp of the fundamentals but at the same time are breaking down all the things in wrestling that you're told to "not do" when you make it to the big leagues. They're completely changing the game, in/out of the ring, and the people in charge of them realize that and are open to that change.
Aug 17, 2017 This has gotta be one of my favorite matches EVER. Just rewatched and it's still A++ also here is a gif of waifu Manami in action