@twf87
A major piece of news this week has been the New Japan shows in the USA – three New Beginning shows were announced for LA, South Carolina, and Tennessee, but with a week to go no cards had been announced. This lasted until Thursday, when the cards were revealed, and the immediate talking point was the lack of Japanese wrestlers on the cards. Indeed, Great O-Karn, aka Tomoyuki Oka, was the only Japanese wrestler announced for the shows. The online backlash was immediate, which New Japan responded to with a statement saying that they hadn’t been able to obtain visas for Japanese talent due to the US government shutdown. They didn’t reveal who would have been on the shows if they had been able to get a visa, but suffice to say that some of Tomohiroo Ishii, Yuji Nagata, Roppongi 3K, or other talent that haven’t been booked for the Japanese New Beginning cards would probably have been sent over. As it stands, the cards are more like ROH shows than NJPW shows, although they do feature a number of LA Dojo talent. I’m not going to any of the shows, so I don’t have a vested interest in the cards, but I can understand why people are upset. On the other hand, buying tickets for a show before the card is announced is always a risk. I imagine this will make people a lot less willing to buy NJPW tickets blind, which honestly might be good if it makes the office rethink their expansion strategy. The MSG show is already sold out, so that’s a chance for NJPW to rebuild some of the good will that they lost this time round.
In terms of actual wrestling watched this week, I mostly did some catching up on shows that I hadn’t seen. Shotaro Ashino vs T-Hawk from the Wrestle-1 show on January 5th was an excellent match – I very rarely watch Wrestle-1, but go out of your way to find this match if you like hard hitting Japanese technical wrestling with a ton of heat behind it. Stardom’s January 14th 8th Anniversary show was a good watch, with a decent undercard and some really good title matches. Utami Hayashishita defeated Viper to win the SWA title and the Eve International title, which proved to be quite controversial online, while Momo Watanabe defeated Tam Nakano to retain her Wonder of Stardom title, and Kagetsu defeated Jungle Kyona to keep the World of Stardom title. The Momo-Tam match and the Kagetsu-Kyona match were particularly good, and the ending of the World title match led into Kagetsu challenging her fellow Oedo-Tai stablemate Hazuki to a title match in Osaka (which hadn’t taken place at the time of writing). I fully expect that match to potentially be the best Stardom match of 2019 so far.
@RoxBlackburn
This week I watched NXT UK. Pete Dunne came face to face with Walter and next week, we look forward to his in-ring debut.
I’m curious to see what the ‘Worlds Collide’ tournament will look like at Royal Rumble axxess. Superstars from NXT, NXT UK and 205 Live will be competing and that’s as much as I know. If anyone on the ground in Phoenix can send us some pictures, that would be amazing. This time of year makes me so nostalgic and I watched last years Mens Rumble. I miss Philly, I miss my 113 crew and I love how much my news feed is full of wonderful memories from our time there.
It’s fab to look back at previous Rumble matches and the twists and turns that come with them. Check out the Top 10 Rumble returns on You Tube and relive those moments.
Although I haven’t got loads to say about this weekend, I’d encourage those reading to go back and read our Rumble Predictions article that was published earlier this week. I keep changing my mind on how this event is going to pan out but one thing I do know, is that I love this time of year as a fan of WWE.
@codytweetsstuff
My week in wrestling started with RAW as always. It was a pretty good episode. Seth Rollins vs Drew McIntyre was excellent and Balor looked strong despite receiving a F5 at the hands of Brock Lesnar.
Next up, Smackdown Live. An average episode really but Mysterio and Andrade put up a brilliant match and created numerous gif-able moments.
205 Live was brilliant with an excellent main event.
The final show I watched before Royal Rumble weekend was NXT. Velveteen Dream returned to take on Bobby Fish and DIY were left standing over Aleister Black & Ricochet.
Finally, my week ended with an as always, brilliant NXT TakeOver. Everyone put on a terrific show especially Undisputed Era and War Raiders with my personal favourite match of the night.
@TheCiaranJames
This was another interesting week for the sport of professional wrestling, with the build up toward TakeOver and Royal Rumble there was movement on all shows.
Last night I stayed up for NXT TakeOver, and as expected nearly all the matches delivered, the only disappointment was Shayna Baszler and Bianca BelAir. There were some choice comments on the pre-show surrounding Bianca’s TakeOver debut, and it was Sam Roberts who completely tore her down and said she wasn’t worthy of appearing on TakeOver. It’s difficult to know if Roberts comments were scripted for him, maybe WWE wanted some realism added to proceedings. It is the first time I’ve seen on screen non wrestling personality completely put down a performer, was very strange indeed.
Match of the night honours go to Johnny Gargano and Ricochet, who together produced wrestling art. Now Ricochet was good, however it was Gargano who once more solidified his status as one of the best wrestler working today, he was excellent here, every move and moment was timed to perfection, he out wrestled Ricochet and took the victory. We’ve seen and heard the praise for Kenny Omega, AJ Styles, Okada, Bryan and Seth Rollins who have been touted as the best wrestlers, but one has to stop and accept Johnny Gargano’s natural ability to have the best match time after time. ‘Johnny Wrestling’ is without a doubt, one of the best wrestlers in the world.
Today I attend Revolution Pro’s debut in Bristol, as good as the card was it was absolutely freezing, Aussie Open we’re the highlight of the show and worth admission. The venue, Motion @ Bristol was very unique, shame it was like a freezer! Hopefully that teething issues can get sorted, and they can return on a warmer day lol.
Next weekend I make the trip to Coventry to watch Kamikaze Pro, thankfully this is a warmer venue and as always it will deliver. Kamikaze have been improving that quality of their product year on year, once again they have another stacked card full of international and homegrown talent. I urge everyone fan to check out the promotion live or on demand, easily one of the best Indy companies in the United Kingdom.
The main thing for me this week was my trip up into London to watch wXw Road to 16 Carat Gold. It was my first time at the Dome and I liked it as a venue. It is small, but pretty easy to get around in as the show wasn’t completely sold out. That, and I never had to queue too long for a beer!
Shigehiro Irie and Mark Davis qualified for the 16 Carat Gold Tournament, who are the two I tipped before the show. Irie adds the Dream Match element, whilst Davis is a legitimate danger for knocking out a big guy even if he doesn’t make his way through to the finals. I managed to get hit with a Dunkzille high five and it really hurt.
The best match for me was the wild five way between Timothy Thatcher, Ilja Dragunov, Chris Brookes, Lucky Kid and Bobby Gunns. It was absolutely crazy with a bunch of guys who had had stellar 2018s and were looking to build on that. I was firmly behind Gunns for victory so was happy when he managed to earn the submission.
It is worth mentioning that Thatcher is a man who could easily haunt my nightmares – really scary in real life and pretty much jacked to the gills.
The main event between David Starr and Absolute Andy could have been an issue due to it being fairly clear that Andy would probably win. However, there were some unbelievably close counts that had even myself biting on the finish. Gunns came out at the end of the show to seemingly make a challenge for Andy’s title, and I genuinely see Gunns being the guy with the belt by the end of the 16 Carat Gold weekend.
