Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2018 8:15:25 GMT -5
A Block Hiroshi Tanahashi (17 time entrant, 17th consecutive entry) Togi Makabe (15 time entrant, 15th consecutive entry) Michael Elgin (4 time entrant, 4th consecutive entry) Kazuchika Okada (7 time entrant, 7th consecutive entry) Jay White (G1 Debut) YOSHI-HASHI (3 time entrant, 3rd consecutive entry) Bad Luck Fale (5 time entrant, 5th consecutive entry) Hangman Page (G1 Debut) EVIL (3 time entrant, 3rd consecutive entry) Minoru Suzuki (8 time entrant, 2nd consecutive entry)
B Block Juice Robinson (2 time entrant, 2nd consecutive entry) Hirooki Goto (11 time entrant, 11th consecutive entry) Tomohiro Ishii (6 time entrant, 6th consecutive entry) Toru Yano (13 time entrant, 12th consecutive entry) Kenny Omega (3 time entrant, 3rd consecutive entry) Kota Ibushi (4 time entrant, 2nd consecutive entry) Tama Tonga (3 time entrant, 3rd consecutive entry) Tetsuya Naito (9 time entrant, 9th consecutive entry) SANADA (3 time entrant, 3rd consecutive entry) Zack Sabre Jr. (2 time entrant, 2nd consecutive entry)
Well for anyone who wanted the Ibushi/Omega match...you're gonna get it. The B block would be exponentially better if they'd have just swapped Juice to the A Block for MiSu...or if they just didn't have Juice in the tournament at all because he's fucking awful but beyond that, just like with BOSJ, the B Block is way better on paper and likely will be better in execution as well. The A block's a real 'ehhhhh' situation because there's too many guys (Elgin, YOSHI-HASHI, Page, White) I have no interest in watching but the big matches should deliver well enough. It's just not an interesting block.
|
|
|
Post by Sam Fain on Jun 18, 2018 10:26:19 GMT -5
A Block seems a lock for Okada to win, honestly.
B Block is far more interesting, but you're spot on. Had they put Suzuki in or even Okada it would've been blow away. Maybe too much so. Probably. Omega/Ibushi/Natio win makes most sense and all 3 will probably perform at a high level points wise. I think they're building to Omega/Ibushi at the Dome, though it might not end up being a title match. We'll see. I know some think Naito/Okada at the dome again, but I can't. Naito has cooled off considerably and I don't think the G1 is where they start his rebuild, I don't think he even makes the block finals. Of course, the schedule will tell us a lot and Gedo could've been cooling him off to make a win here look surprising. ZSJ could be a dark horse, though I don't see him winning both the NJ Cup and making the G1 Finals in the same year. Never count Ishii out, either. He's one of my favorite wrestlers, easily, and I'd love to see him be bumped up a level, even though he's spent the year more as a gate keeper and his feud with Suzuki has legs that could go all the way to the dome, especially with them being in separate blocks. I'll go with Ibushi even though I'm probably wrong.
A Block, like I said, is most likely Okada's. Though it's tough to count out Tanahashi, I think his loss to Okada earlier this year, while not necessarily his final shot, is probably the beginning of his slow and subtle decline to eventual Nagata status. And by slow, we're talking 5 years or so. EVIL and Suzuki can't be counted out, but I don't see them rising above Okada. The rest... f me, if any of them even come into the final day in position to win, I'll be shocked. Maybe Fale or White depending on how Gedo's booking it, but the rest... No. Though, loathe as I am to say, I could see Juice having a respectable run... Still sticking with Okada.
One curveball I'll throw out there: whoever wins, with the exception of Okada, I could see a scenario where we have the winner lose the "challenge rights certificate" for the first time. It's usually defended twice in the lead up to the dome and while no one has ever lost before, I could see Gedo pulling the trigger, especially if we get a scenario where the loser in the finals had more points in their respective block than the eventual winner and challenges at KoPW.
Regardless, looking forward to the tournament. I'm curious if it can be as good as the past 5 years have been, tho. We'll be covering each day on the podcast if anyone wants to follow along.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2018 11:08:31 GMT -5
I honestly don't see any way it can't be better than 2015 was. That one kinda blew. Honestly, out of all the Bushiroad era G1s the only one that approaches how great the 2003/2004 ones were was 2014. 2016 was mostly good and last year was really solid but I don't think either were as good as or better than 2014, much less on the level of the 2003/2004 leagues.
Honestly this G1's kinda easy to call. Okada's the easy A Block winner. He hasn't made the G1 final since 2014 and he's still the ace of the company, so he's a lock plus they're gonna have him in the Dome main event anyway. This is an easy way to get him there without sacrificing Kenny or having to force them to top their last match so soon after it happened. B Block comes down to Naito or Ibushi. Okada/Ibushi sounds like a reasonable final since Naito can just pin Kenny during the league and then for the title in October to set up Naito/Okada at the Dome again or they can just have Naito lose to Okada again in the G1 final and give us Okada/Kenny again because Gedo loves repeating stories.
On note of Okada/Omega, while I give them credit for what they did and I enjoyed the match, this company is in desperate need of a style change because the over produced, heavily manufactured melodramatic 'epic' style has been beaten into the ground over the last few years to where I think they've killed the style a lot quicker than the Tanahashi main event style was killed or even the head drop crazy AJ style of the late 90s. There's really nowhere left to take it.
|
|
|
Post by Sam Fain on Jun 18, 2018 12:50:49 GMT -5
I knew we'd be on fairly opposite ends of the spectrum here :-)
'03 & '04 were great. '04 produced one of the best finals in the history of the tournament. Perhaps the finest... Until the last 4 or 5 years. The tournaments have produced some of the best matches in the world recently and the finals have been MOTY candidates and helped to elevate talent and lead into even bigger stories for the Dome. Basically doing exactly what a tournament of this nature should do, but rarely does in other organizations. 2015 was probably the low point of the past 5, but the final was incredible. Probably the best of the Tanahashi/Nakamura matches and maybe the best Nakamura match ever. '16 & '17 have been high points for the tournament with plenty of plots and sub-plots working, in addition to the incredible matches.
As for Okada winning... I don't know. I'm torn. Part of me thinks this might be his year off from the main event of the Dome as we slowly build to Naito/Okada in 2020. I think the logical story is a build to Ibushi/Omega, but, as I said earlier, it might not happen with the title on the line. I also don't think we'll be getting Okada/Omega again for quite a while. I do think that story/feud is spent.
However, I can't agree with the assessment on the style. I don't think they've killed it and a big reason has to do with the characters in the story. Okada/Natio isn't spent, neither is Omega/Ibushi. They're creating theatre, and doing it at a level I don't think we've seen since AJPW in the 90s. Plus, changing up the style in the midst of an international expansion wouldn't be a good idea in my opinion. This "style" (and I don't even know how comfortable I am even saying that there's one NJPW style right now) has been built for the past 6 years or so and led them to the greatest heights they've attained in and out of the ring in the past 20 years. I think their main event scene and style still has plenty of mileage.
That said, it is, of course, subjective. And I appreciate your point of view even if I don't agree. For instance, I hadn't seen the Endless Survivor match between Takeda/Kobayashi you have pegged as your MOTY. Since watching... It's not for me. But I'm no longer a fan of that style, really. I thought the Suzuki/Sekimoto match prior to it was better. I don't watch a lot of BJ these days, tho. Haven't really since the Matsunaga days, if that tells you anything. Regardless, this is all just one man's opinion. Some might agree, completely, partially, or very little. And some may disagree. We like what we like and we're lucky there's so much of it readily available in a way it's never been before.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2018 13:35:12 GMT -5
Well..yeah we're usually on different ends of things!
I liked the 2015 G1 final a lot but I think my favorite Nakamura/Tanahashi match might still be the February 2009 title match. I will say that Tanahaashi/Nakamura from 2015 was the only final out of the last several that I thought was an all time classic. Okada/Anderson in 2012 was good but they had a better match later. Tanahashi/Naito in 2013 was...not great. Okada/Nakamura in 2014 was a match I've only watched one time and I did so after not sleeping for roughly 30 hours and wasn't a big fan of as it was happening. Again, thought 2015's final was great. 2016's was...eh. Didn't come close to the Naito/Kenny match from the day prior and if I really thought about it I could name 10-15 matches from that tournament that were better which is more a testament to how underwhelming the final was than anything else. I know a lot of people liked the 2017 final---I was one of them---but I thought the 2016 match was better but at that point you're picking between matches that were top 15 at worst for their respective years. Me saying that none of them come close to 2003-2004 for me isn't me condemning recent leagues, it's more of a compliment to how great the 2003/2004 leagues were. It's not just G1s, there are Champion Carnivals that I don't think come close...though we didn't see CCs in full until the last decade or so.
Do you remember when they did Okada/Tanahashi in 2013 and Tanahashi said he'd take a break from the belt if he lost and Meltzer got an email from someone in New Japan telling him he didn't understand business if he didn't think Tanahashi should main event the Dome? And then do you remember who wound up in the main event of the Dome in 2014? Tanahashi, by fan vote obviously but it speaks volumes about how hard New Japan push the idea of the ace in the main event. That's a big part of why I think Okada figures into that main event either by winning the G1 or taking the belt from Kenny some other way. I really don't see Kenny defending the title in the main of the Dome unless it's against Okada. This era of NJ is really big on ending the Dome show with the top guy winning. See: Tanahashi 2011-2015. Okada 2016-2018.
I'd argue Okada/Naito don't really have anywhere else to go from an in ring standpoint. Their first title match at Korakuen in 2012 was the classic that showed what the style could be (and also convinced Meltzer that Okada was the man and somehow he's still oblivious to the fact that Naito lead the whole damn match) and the only time they've come close since was the 2014 Dome match. They had the chance this year but the end result was a match that just kinda happened for about 20 minutes or so before they started doing stuff. It was weird...I expected a lot better from those two especially given the importance of the show. The way a lot of the matches play out now doesn't feel organic. Like the camera angles, the goofy facial expressions, the way they sell exhaustion even feels really rehearsed to me. A lot of comparisons get made to 90s All Japan but I never felt like any of those guys were hamming it up and the melodrama in those matches felt a lot more real and raw than anything I've seen in modern NJ that didn't involve guys Shibata or Ishii. I don't think the style is bad, I just think we've started past the point of diminishing returns and we're going to hit the wall eventually just like 90s AJ (and later NOAH) did.
On note of Abby/Takeda - deathmatches that have a sense of structure and progression usually score a lot higher with me. Those two did a bunch of wild, violent shit and it all made sense and the action was good as well I thought. DMs aren't for everyone and the post-Abby and Ito era tends to get a bit gorier than the freakshow DMs of the mid-late 90s but I think the style is a lot better off for having guys like Abby who can build a match around the gimmicks instead of building the idea of a match around gimmicks, if that makes sense.
Also, if you liked that Suzuki/Sekimoto match I'd definitely recommend you watch the two matches they had last year for the Strong Title. The first (which was a draw like the Endless Survivor match) was excellent and a better draw than they had this year and the rematch was a top 5 match for me last year.
|
|
|
Post by Sam Fain on Jun 18, 2018 14:23:50 GMT -5
I'll definitely check those matches out. Thanks!
I absolutely see where you're coming from here, too. In regards to all of it, honestly.
RE: Naito/Okada. I'm honestly on the fence about the'16 match vs the '17 match. I know you're not alone in giving the edge to '16, but something about '17 to me puts it ever-so-slightly above '16.
'03 and '04 did have incredible talent rosters and did feel like a representation of not just the best in NJPW, but the best in all of Japan. I'll grant you that.
RE: Nakamura/Tanahashi. It's funny, we do a classic matches segment on our podcast and I selected the Feb '09 match as a pick a few weeks back. I love that match. It's an incredible bout and excellent story and Nakamura comes out on top for the title to boot. But there's something about the fully formed King of Strong Style in 2015 that edges out the proto-KoSS we get in '09. He's no longer the super-rookie or chosen one, but he's not quite made the transition. I can get that for some that's a more interesting character. Even as I type this I'm almost talking myself out of my original premise, but I do think I prefer the 2015 version of Nakamura and that makes the '15 G1 Finals a standout in their feud.
RE: Okada. You're probably right. And I think I concede on this one not because I so much as see Okada in the Dome main event being a lock, but because I do have a hard time seeing him get beat in the finals. I'll amend my earlier statement by saying I'm allowing for the possibility of Okada not being in the main event at the Dome, but it's not very likely.
As for Okada/Natio, your assessment of their Dome match form January is actually why I think they have somewhere to go yet. It's all a part of the bigger story for Gedo. He knew he was building Okada to beat Tanahashi's record and then have Omega dethrone Okada. By virtue of that, he could, as crazy as it sounds, afford to waste a Dome main event that didn't really go anywhere (though I still think it was a damned good match, it did underwhelm), in order to save a bigger Okada/Naito confrontation down the road.
While Omega can definitely be found guilty of hamming it up, I don't think this last match was evidence of that and that, for the most part, neither has the majority of Okada's reign. I think Okada has ended up having some of the most honest, if not as raw as Kawada, Kobashi, and crew, certainly as truthful. There's no denying how incredible Ishii and Suzuki are and, perhaps even moreso, Shibata was at bringing what I think you're talking about to the storytelling. But I'm still standing by this being the best type of in-ring storytelling we've seen this side of 90's AJPW.
Abby is amongst the best ever at doing what he does, there's no doubt. And Takeda's current title reign, based on the handful of matches I've seen and read about, does seem to be up there, but, yeah, I've not followed much of the DM scene, so I don't know if my opinion counts as much on this one. I was a huge fan in the late 90s and early aughts, but even when I've tried to watch some recent stuff if just doesn't click with me anymore.
Great discussion, man. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and opinions.
EDIT: Just out of curiosity, did you like Tenzan winning two in a row or do you think the first should've gone, but for obvious reason didn't, to Akiyama?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2018 14:39:47 GMT -5
re: Nakamura - I get why people like the post 2011 incarnation of him but my favorite version of him will always be 2004 Nakamura since it's the first incarnation of him I saw and the first match of his that I saw was the classic with Shibata in the G1. Even like Rise/Black Savior Nakamura was really cool to me. He still had good matches as the coked out gyrating king of the disco clubs (the Sakuraba match is one of my favorite matches of the decade) but I kinda miss stoic all black Nakamura.
Takeda's current DM title reign has been probably the best title reign since the mid 2000s. The title change and rematch with Masaya Takahashi were both among my top matches for last year. Just absolutely incredible, batshit insane violence. I'm hesitant to call it my favorite DM Title reign ever but it's produced at least two of my favorite DMs of all time (Death Vegas vs. Takahashi and Endless Survivor vs. Abby).
Tenzan absolutely needed to win the 2003 G1 or else he was pretty much screwed. Of course he wins that one and then gets a one month title reign because they thought Nakamura was the second coming...and then he wasn't. The 2004 one is weird because I've always thought Nagata would have been better off winning that one than Tenzan. If you think about it, Nagata was basically on ice from his title loss in 2003 to the Tanahashi classic in 2007. He had the bloodbaths with Kensuke in 2004 but like...can you name a noteworthy thing he did in 2005 or 2006? Maybe the 06 NJC Final vs. Bernard but other than that...
As for Akiyama I think had they not been in a position where Tenzan HAD to win, he would have been the best pick for that G1 victory. His run in that tournament was ridiculous. He got a great 30:00 draw out of 2003 Chono for the love of god! Also had what might be Tanahashi's first legitimately great singles match, two bangers with Tenzan, the classic with Nagata, the match with Nishimura...man that tournament ruled.
|
|
|
Post by Sam Fain on Jun 18, 2018 15:01:50 GMT -5
I get where you're coming from with Nakamura. I first saw him around the same time, though it may have been his G1 with Nagata that I saw first. Back in those days it wasn't easy to always see things in order. The match with Shibata was awesome and felt very different for it's time. I was a big fan of his tag match with Tanahashi vs Sasaki/Suzuki from December of that year, too. End of the day, he's one of my favorite wrestlers ever, so it's had to truly pick a favorite incarnation, but I'll stick with the post-'11 one. For now. Also, up above I realized I mistook the Feb '09 match for the Jan '08 match. Don't know what I was thinking.
Nagata will always be fascinating to me. A great wrestler, deserving of his place in NJ history... But he could've been even greater. I blame a lot of that on the MMA bullshit they forced on him and other wrestlers in the early aughts. By the time '05 and '06 rolled around, you're right, nothing. He's still a legend and his latter day renaissance as keeper of the Young Lions is very entertaining. I've really enjoyed his matches on the Lion's Gate Project shows.
Tenzan and I have a weird relationship, haha. I genuinely like him and get why he was great, but probably because I was a huge Akiyama fan and felt like he got iced in NOAH when he shouldn't have been, I think I was pulling for him at the time. But you're right, Tenzan needed that one and it led to that first, albeit short, reign. I think I just thought that Tenzan had a better '04 than '03 in both placement on the card and match quality.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2018 15:33:52 GMT -5
I'm an Inokiist, so the wackiness that happened from 2000-2005 or so is stuff I'll always love but yeah, putting Nagata in a shoot with Cro Cop four days before he was supposed to beat Fujita was fucking stupid. And then Fujita gets 'hurt' so he doesn't have to drop the belt and Yasuda of all people wins the title so Nagata can get his big title win over a real fighter...even though beating Yasuda in 2002 clearly didn't carry near as much weight as if Nagata had beaten Fujita for the belt. Granted, he did successfully defend vs. Fujita during his big title reign but that match was nowhere near the masterpiece they had in 2001.
I think part of why Akiyama got such a strong run in the '03 G1 in the first place was because they let Nagata come in to NOAH and ice him in like 7 minutes, so him showing up and beating Nagata to get to the final was part of the rebuilding. Of course we could talk about how NOAH fucked Akiyama over time and time again and how he never wound up being as big of a star as he should have been despite being a legit all time great in terms of talent. In that way...he really does parallel Nagata more than just 'they're guys who debuted in 1992 who also use exploders as their finishers'.
|
|
|
Post by Sam Fain on Jun 18, 2018 15:39:52 GMT -5
Spot on about Akiyama. And Nagata.
By the way, I just went back and rewatched Akiyama/Tenzan... It really is a fing great match. And based on the crowd alone, Tenzan really did have to win.
|
|