Official Wrasslin' Thread (renamed to reflect the discussion) (10 Viewers)

What the hell is this, Elias?
 
Wait. So they broke up the IIconics to put Royce in another tag team?
What?!

I‘m still not over the Iconics being split up (or at least Billie Kay not being allowed to be Peyton’s manager).

I’m not here for Peyton being put in another tag team.
 
For all the teeth-gnashing and hand-wringing about WWE's booking (I abandoned the product long ago and now only intermittently watch AEW, though was fortunate enough to catch Dynamite live when I was in Nashville en route to the Saints/Bucs game last year), y'all should just immerse yourself in the greatness of NJPW. The whole G1 Climax tournament this past month has just been brilliant professional wrestling - a must-watch every few nights. It would take something significant to get me to watch the WWE at this point.
 
For all the teeth-gnashing and hand-wringing about WWE's booking (I abandoned the product long ago and now only intermittently watch AEW, though was fortunate enough to catch Dynamite live when I was in Nashville en route to the Saints/Bucs game last year), y'all should just immerse yourself in the greatness of NJPW. The whole G1 Climax tournament this past month has just been brilliant professional wrestling - a must-watch every few nights. It would take something significant to get me to watch the WWE at this point.
I’m a big AEW fan (and was also able to catch a live show, which I loved, last year) but I’ve heard a ton of good things about NNPW and the G1.

Is there a website or streaming service I need to watch New Japan? I’m definitely interested but I honestly don’t know how to watch it.
 
I’m a big AEW fan (and was also able to catch a live show, which I loved, last year) but I’ve heard a ton of good things about NNPW and the G1.

Is there a website or streaming service I need to watch New Japan? I’m definitely interested but I honestly don’t know how to watch it.

They've got a streaming service called New Japan World, but I think the majority of everything as far as text is still in Japanese.

The thing about New Japan(and Japanese wrestling in general) is it doesn't really use the same model as American wrestling, where the TV product is the primary driver. They operate on the old school live show model, where they do tours around the country with house shows that build to their big events, which are televised. So in a sense there's not really a weekly show to follow. And normally this would be NJPW's "quiet" time of the year after things crescendo at the G1. Their big thing for the fall/winter is World Tag League, which is fun but usually pretty inconsequential. Then things pick back up in January with Wrestle Kingdom (their Wrestlemania, basically), then the New Beginning shows that set up the new angles after everything gets their blowoff matches at WK.

That said, it's been my favorite wrestling product for several years now.
 
I’m a big AEW fan (and was also able to catch a live show, which I loved, last year) but I’ve heard a ton of good things about NNPW and the G1.

Is there a website or streaming service I need to watch New Japan? I’m definitely interested but I honestly don’t know how to watch it.

www.njpwworld.com (though its currently down for scheduled maintenance). There is both a Japanese and English language version of the site.

It's 999Y per month, which works out to about $9.50USD - cheaper than the WWE Network. I promise you won't regret it. There's also English language commentary led by Kevin Kelly (yes, the same Kevin Kelly who worked as an interviewer/commentator with the WWF for years).

If you sign up, I highly recommend starting out by with the Kota Ibushi v Minoru Suzuki match from about 10 October 2020. Suzuki is a 52 year-old, hard as nails, tougher-than-a-two-dollar steak old sunnuvagun. Ibushi is arguably the best in the world today - you might recall he was an unsigned participant in the WWE Cruiserweight Classic a few years ago. It probably wasn't the best match of the whole tournament, but it was my favourite. Just brilliant, hard-hitting pro-wrestling.

After that, check out Shingo Takagi v Will Ospreay from around 27 September 2020. If Ibushi isn't the best in the world right now, then Will Ospreay is, and these two just have an incredible chemistry. I think Meltzer gave this match five stars but I would have rated it 5.25 or 5.5 They also met in the Best of the Super Juniors final last year in what was, in my estimation, the best match of 2019 (and I wasn't alone in this thinking).

It's also worth checking out a Toru Yano match. He is comic relief in the context of a hard-hitting, work-rate focused product which defines NJPW that puts a premium on in-ring ability, but he's a comedic character whose mischievous underhanded tactics actually make sense. He's not an idiot for the sake of it.

The whole product is just great. They ran shows in Australia in 2018 and 2019 which has really consolidated my fandom, but it was watching the G1 Climax last year that took me from "watching Dominion and Wrestle Kingdom" (their Summerslam and WrestleMania respectively) to "I gotta see this all year round". Indeed, my interest was piqued last year because of Moxley's involvement, and he was great, but there are very few skippable matches. And the long-term booking is just so much more coherent. People are getting excited because Tony Khan has supposedly mapped out plans a year or more ahead of time, but this is typical of NJPW.

Indeed, it's probably in their online library, but there was a match I attended at Festival Hall (the same venue that Jim Barnett used to run in the 60s when his World Championship Wrestling dominated Australia and was arguably the biggest promotion in the world at the time when everything in the US was regional) between Robbie Eagles and Will Ospreay for the Junior Heavyweight Title at an event called Southern Showdown, which is the best match I've seen live. And I did Mania weekend in 2017 and all the sideshows that go with that so I've seen plenty of great wrestling in-person.

Don't waste a minute! Try it out. I'm envious as it's been 20 years since I've genuinely been enthused by pro-wrestling; I would love to go back and through the process of discovering NJPW all over again.
 
They've got a streaming service called New Japan World, but I think the majority of everything as far as text is still in Japanese.

The thing about New Japan(and Japanese wrestling in general) is it doesn't really use the same model as American wrestling, where the TV product is the primary driver. They operate on the old school live show model, where they do tours around the country with house shows that build to their big events, which are televised. So in a sense there's not really a weekly show to follow. And normally this would be NJPW's "quiet" time of the year after things crescendo at the G1. Their big thing for the fall/winter is World Tag League, which is fun but usually pretty inconsequential. Then things pick back up in January with Wrestle Kingdom (their Wrestlemania, basically), then the New Beginning shows that set up the new angles after everything gets their blowoff matches at WK.

That said, it's been my favorite wrestling product for several years now.

Snap. Beat me to it.
 
They've got a streaming service called New Japan World, but I think the majority of everything as far as text is still in Japanese.

The thing about New Japan(and Japanese wrestling in general) is it doesn't really use the same model as American wrestling, where the TV product is the primary driver. They operate on the old school live show model, where they do tours around the country with house shows that build to their big events, which are televised. So in a sense there's not really a weekly show to follow. And normally this would be NJPW's "quiet" time of the year after things crescendo at the G1. Their big thing for the fall/winter is World Tag League, which is fun but usually pretty inconsequential. Then things pick back up in January with Wrestle Kingdom (their Wrestlemania, basically), then the New Beginning shows that set up the new angles after everything gets their blowoff matches at WK.

That said, it's been my favorite wrestling product for several years now.
Thanks. I’ve heard lots of good things (and seen some Bullet Club & other misc big moments on YouTube) but have also been told that it’s a bit “different”.

The differences have never really been explained to me before though, so I appreciate it. And thanks for identifying the streaming service.
 
www.njpwworld.com (though its currently down for scheduled maintenance). There is both a Japanese and English language version of the site.

It's 999Y per month, which works out to about $9.50USD - cheaper than the WWE Network. I promise you won't regret it. There's also English language commentary led by Kevin Kelly (yes, the same Kevin Kelly who worked as an interviewer/commentator with the WWF for years).

If you sign up, I highly recommend starting out by with the Kota Ibushi v Minoru Suzuki match from about 10 October 2020. Suzuki is a 52 year-old, hard as nails, tougher-than-a-two-dollar steak old sunnuvagun. Ibushi is arguably the best in the world today - you might recall he was an unsigned participant in the WWE Cruiserweight Classic a few years ago. It probably wasn't the best match of the whole tournament, but it was my favourite. Just brilliant, hard-hitting pro-wrestling.

After that, check out Shingo Takagi v Will Ospreay from around 27 September 2020. If Ibushi isn't the best in the world right now, then Will Ospreay is, and these two just have an incredible chemistry. I think Meltzer gave this match five stars but I would have rated it 5.25 or 5.5 They also met in the Best of the Super Juniors final last year in what was, in my estimation, the best match of 2019 (and I wasn't alone in this thinking).

It's also worth checking out a Toru Yano match. He is comic relief in the context of a hard-hitting, work-rate focused product which defines NJPW that puts a premium on in-ring ability, but he's a comedic character whose mischievous underhanded tactics actually make sense. He's not an idiot for the sake of it.

The whole product is just great. They ran shows in Australia in 2018 and 2019 which has really consolidated my fandom, but it was watching the G1 Climax last year that took me from "watching Dominion and Wrestle Kingdom" (their Summerslam and WrestleMania respectively) to "I gotta see this all year round". Indeed, my interest was piqued last year because of Moxley's involvement, and he was great, but there are very few skippable matches. And the long-term booking is just so much more coherent. People are getting excited because Tony Khan has supposedly mapped out plans a year or more ahead of time, but this is typical of NJPW.

Indeed, it's probably in their online library, but there was a match I attended at Festival Hall (the same venue that Jim Barnett used to run in the 60s when his World Championship Wrestling dominated Australia and was arguably the biggest promotion in the world at the time when everything in the US was regional) between Robbie Eagles and Will Ospreay for the Junior Heavyweight Title at an event called Southern Showdown, which is the best match I've seen live. And I did Mania weekend in 2017 and all the sideshows that go with that so I've seen plenty of great wrestling in-person.

Don't waste a minute! Try it out. I'm envious as it's been 20 years since I've genuinely been enthused by pro-wrestling; I would love to go back and through the process of discovering NJPW all over again.
Thanks for the recommendations and info.
 

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