rolling (non-millenials) grabbing the brass ring 2015

well arn anderson was a professional dad and cena dresses like a 12 year old

watching old wrestling brings up the old time vortex brain processing problem that i'm not sure other people have, where it's really difficult to properly process the ages of people who were younger than where you are now, decades ago. rocky maivia was 24(!) in 1997, but i have trouble watching him and seeing a person 3 years younger than me. and when i can actually see it i just start to feel bad.

Oh when is the new WK?

Right now!

trying to watch this right now with Kevin Kelly and Matt Striker together on commentary, it's like some kind of special torture designed to punish anyone too pussy to just watch it in Japanese

god almighty these opening four-team jr. tag matches are unbearable. i don't get how the Young Bucks have the following that they do if they're always like this. i suppose it's kind of admirable that they've been able to carve out a niche as this self-aware post-modern thing but everything they do takes you out of the match completely.

I watched with English commentary, partly because Yoshie Tatsu was there to provide translations (in theory), but he didn't say much the whole night. Kevin Kelly was surprisingly good, and Striker was unbearable as usual. During Styles-Nakamura he kept asking Tatsu stuff like "how do you feel watching AJ Styles in the ring after what he did to you?" and it was clear that Tatsu really wasn't comfortable talking about it or at least didn't want to have it become a running thread in their commentary of the match. But Striker never could take a hint -- he always overdoes things.

No spoilers but I can't see any NJPW fan being disappointed with the show. It was definitely near or at the level of last year's WK.

should we have a 2016 thread?

As long as you make the thread look strong

rolling roman's reigns

so was wk10 fun?

personally would go with 'rolling sheamus still a thing in 2016' or just 'rolling new day 2016'

rolling don't you dare be sour 2016

rolling armbars with pentagon jr.

wrestle kingdom was fun, yes, definitely worth checking out all of the big singles matches. Shibata/Ishii was dumb as shit but good fun all the same. Styles/Nak was my personal favourite, but the main event was suitably epic. I hope they're done with Okada / Tanahashi for good now.

shinsuke nakamura may be on dis ting 2016

I'm kinda too confused about which New Japan guys have actually been reported to have given notice though, Gallows/Anderson/Styles/Nakamura seems a bit too good to be true, or bad depending on your pov

Court Bauer with the reported reporting in question

court bauer has never said a true thing in his life

meltzer seems to confirm though so yeeeeeesh welcome to wwe nakamura

nakamura in wwe fills me with dread but who knows maybe he'll be boma-ye'ing john cena's nose into oblivion every week.

wrestle kingdom was indeed good fun. alongside the matches windsor mentions i also liked the jr heavyweight tag match (though sometimes almost too smoothly executed) and the jr heavyweight match. worried for the state of shibata's and ishii's organs and brains though.

Jericho calls The New Day trap queens

Nakamura in WWE!!

The timing makes sense for all four of these guys. Nakamura has been considering this for a while I think, and he's at the age where it's now or never if there's any hope of becoming a star in the US.

Daniel Bryan would probably sign a waiver absolving WWE of anything they ask for if they bring him back to wrestle Nak.

i'm pretty sure he'd already have done that if it were a possibility

it's hard to even imagine nakamura as a regular in full sail, it seems so small time. he and tana might be the only current wrestlers in the world with the aura to make me think that. i can even imagine okada down there but not those two. i CAN see jericho calling them whip nae naes

there's no reason for it to ever happen again but i wish WWE would go back to cross-promotion cooperation and actually do it right this time. introduce the big guys over there as actual competition for the big main roster guys over here, actually spend time with their characters and build cross-promotional feuds. in my dreams.

Have the WWE ever really done it? Was always more of a nwa/wcw thing I thought.

Nakamura in WWE would be incredible. I think wrestling fans, adult ones anyway, would give him respect. Itami's start was done so well, and its a shame he got injured, because the two together* could come in like post-wm raw and run fucking cray cray and we'd all love it.

*sure its the wwe and all ppl who look alike/are the same race go together but also theyd be so dope, with like paul e as a voice piece too. Lol fantasy booking

that's an interesting point about the cross-promotion cooperation as they've clearly had their greedy little eyes on NJPW for quite some time now. it's interesting to see this news remembering how WWE reportedly wanted to strike up a deal to show New Japan stuff on the Network and NJPW refused on the basis that they had no interest in becoming a developmental territory for WWE to just swoop in and snatch up anyone who started getting any kind of global traction. i understand the sentiment i suppose, but lol all the same.

these are really intriguing signings in so far as Styles and Nakamura are supposedly both broken, with Nakamura in particular only up to having a limited number of big outings each year. I hope they don't completely neuter his style (though of course it'll be toned down a lot).

Maybe this signals a big push into Japan to try and flog the Network to a different market and they're going to save all the big performances for shows over there? Nakamura, Styles, Balor, Itami, Asuka - they could run some pretty massive Japan shows as 'Beast In the East'-style Network specials with all of that talent.

I'd be really surprised if Nakamura signs or has signed with WWE. It just doesn't make a lot of sense on paper--he's 35 years old, doesn't speak fluent English, isn't immediately physically impressive, is weird in a way that might not work for a mass U.S. audience, doesn't promise to attract a large or lucrative demographic (the way a major Mexican star might, c.f. their gamble with the original Sin Cara), would have to change the way he works to suit the WWE house style, might also have to change his ring name, and would be leaving the biggest promotion in his home country where he's a huge deal to work for a company that has never made a major star out of an Asian or non-Anglophone wrestler, ever.

Add in the infamously grueling WWE main roster schedule, and stuff about his injuries (which I wasn't even aware of), and it looks even more unlikely. I can't see why WWE would want him, nor why he would trust them to make good use of his talents.

And if the idea is to bring him in to NXT, then presumably they'd be offering him good money (at least as much as he makes in Japan, one would think) to come work for their unprofitable, internet-only developmental league, a move which isn't likely to increase viewership at all since the kinds of fans who follow Nakamura watch NXT already.

I know they signed KENTA/Hideo Itami, but I don't think he was ever a star of Nakamura's stature in Japan. I'm guessing it's easier to lure a main eventer away from NOAH than from NJPW.

I can only really understand it as an ego thing: WWE signs Nakamura because they like the idea of being able to poach the top stars of any promotion anywhere. So they promise him whatever combination of money, light schedule, and push it takes to make the deal--even though, from a dispassionate business perspective, there's not much reason to think he's worth it.

All of which is to say that it would be super interesting if he did sign, so I hope it's true.

They have a bit of a problem generally where the guys who get most over with the core, vocal fanbase are well-travelled indie/international guys who are 30+ with 10+ years of topes and stiff kicks on the clock, whose bodies are going to immediately start to disintegrate on contact with the WWE's road schedule. It's basically in the fans' interest to learn to like reigns and Baron Corbin because they probably won't die in the ring or become depressingly deluded burnouts like Bryan (and Zayn and Balor soon enough)

Nakamura will probably be way more over than Itami in NXT from day one just shouting yow and kneeing people but yeah it's a bit hard to envisage a long term career path for him in wwe. Their apparent determination to make Itami seem like a big deal in the build up to Wrestlemania followed by him getting flicked out of the battle royal by big show was.... yeah

Kenta kanna devitt and nakamura all sign to nxt within a year or so. Network in Japan gotta be seen as hella lucrative. Also the main roster is REALLY depleted atm, this seems like man city or real madrid buying a squad of stars cos a starting 11 cant cut it if you have a few injuries or poor form etc.

As shit as this year has been, its been the first year in like ten that Cena, Orton, Kane, Big Show, HHH or Punk havent been the main event. Hopefully one day soon this rebuilding will pay off.

Btw i still know this is all gonna go to shit.

At this point NXT is more of its own touring brand than a purely developmental division within WWE. They keep adding house shows to their schedule and they sell out quickly, so they need to add more established talents to keep that going. The Takeover specials are a big drawing card for the network (i.e. where they need to make their money in the long term). Most NJPW house shows are in halls with 500-1000 fans, the PPV's are in larger arenas with a few thousand people (sometimes more), so it's essentially the same as what NXT is doing. For Nakamura that's a lateral step at worst, with a chance of being called up to the main roster and becoming a much bigger star.

Yeah the WWE's record of making stars out of foreign wrestlers (or any visible minority) is horrible, but Nak is the kind of OTT, charismatic character that could work in front of American audiences.

FWIW, I think he speaks English reasonably well. He did some training in the US and is supposed to be close friends with Finn Balor and Karl Anderson. Cutting a promo in English is a different story obviously. He's way better than Hideo Itami. It might not even matter -- Asuka delivers one word promos and is as over as anyone in NXT. If Nakamura throws knee strikes and yells yeeeoh all the time he'll probably be fine. That's pretty much all he does in Japan right now!

Didn't realise what with all the hoo-haa about these signings that the Royal Rumble match is gonna be for the title this year. That is actually a pretty interesting sideways step that I hadn't anticipated, gives them a lot of room to manoeuvre in the build for Wrestlemania. Would be a hell of a way to give a debuting global sensation a rocket push right off the bat... lol

should i watch raw? i just read the results and im interested for once

I'ma watch the first hour and ffwd the rest, which is about as much as I can ever stomach

Meltzer saying Nak and Styles not intended for NXT but main roster? Seems kind of counterintuitive, NXT seems a better fit for big-but-not-massive-in-America stars with too many niggling injuries to work 300 dates a year? They're getting good money by the sounds of it though, fair play

Re: Nakamura's English, big fan of this Twitter exchange with a hairy Northern Irish wrestler he had recently defeated:

https://twitter.com/ShinsukeN/status/650082164772614145

Would be a hell of a way to give a debuting global sensation a rocket push right off the bat... lol

Reigns vs Gallows at Mania ... hoss fight ... bank on it.

should i watch raw? i just read the results and im interested for once

― nerd shit (Will M.), Tuesday, January 5, 2016 11:37 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Jericho calls The New Day trap queens

DAAAAAAAAAAAAD

watching wk finally and wow am i glad to hear kevin kelly ????

ts: yoshi tatsu vs matt striker trying to figure out how deal with yoshi tatsu

i just watched the 4-way tag and then skipped to syles/nakamura and okada/tanahashi due to sleepy constraints

was not disappointed, wow

(literally almost fell asleep during okada tanahashi but not their fault)

i will watch all the other matches tmrw probs

I hadn't considered that they might be trying to push the WWE Network in Japan. But I disagree that the main roster is depleted. Just last night they put together a new stable of Heath Slater, Curtis Axel, Bo Dallas, and Adam Rose--four main roster wrestlers who had been doing nothing for months on end. Damien Sandow, Fandango, Jack Swagger, Mark Henry, Los Matadores (and El Torito), The Miz, Goldust, and R-Truth have little or nothing to do on the main shows. They have tons of wrestlers, they just don't make good use of them on TV, despite having vast quantities of time to fill.

Maybe they're depleted at the top of the card, with Orton, Bryan, and Rollins gone (the former two possibly permanently). But there are guys already on the main roster they could elevate to those roles, not to mention an NXT wrestler or two. They don't need the likes of Nakamura and AJ Styles at all.

The interesting is question is why they would want them. Nakamura and Styles are great wrestlers, but they're 35 and 38, unknown to most of the audience, and have nagging injury problems. Wanting network subscribers in Japan is an interesting conjecture, but could that alone make them worth the investment? I continue to suspect that part of this is just that WWE likes the idea of taking top stars from another promotion (even if that promotion is not really a competitor).

you listed a bunch of warm bodies. depleted = http://images.artistdirect.com/Images/Sources/AMGCOVERS/music/cover200/drf400/f498/f49817ttqzw.jpg

nak and styles SHOULD skip NXT.

debut nak in front of smarky crowds where he's already over and just let do his thing, get the rest of the world used to loving him (they could honestly just do this with most of NXT callups but they seem to love throwing new wrestlers into the deep end without a paddle)

of course still no idea how he'd play out in the WWE style of Jericho calls The New Day trap queens

rolling Jericho calls The New Day trap queens 2016 please

god idk what happened with that post but every other word is missing it's past my bedtime

you listed a bunch of warm bodies

That's exactly what Styles and Nakamura will be to most of the audience when they debut. If they're going to be draws, they're going to have to be pushed and booked well. The exact same could be said of, and done with, wrestlers who are already on Raw or NXT.

Which is not to say I'd prefer that scenario--I'm very interested to see what they might do with the NJPW guys. I'm just saying that if they're worried about a lack of main-event wrestlers, springing for obscure broken-down thirtysomethings AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura is a weird response.

rolling Jericho calls The New Day trap queens 2016