G1 CLIMAX 25: DAY 1

G1 CLIMAX 25: DAY ONE
Hokkaido Prefectural Sports Centre, Sapporo
20th July 2015

Press conferences watched, alarm clock beeps at 7.30am, coffee is made, where is the bread, where IS my sodding bread? I'll do this on an empty stomach then. Assholes. ANYWAY. 364 days after the commencement of last year's tournament, in the same venue, the enlarged charabanc containing the New Japan roster rolls back into Sapporo to commence another edition of the greatest wrestling tournament shut UP PWG fans. 

This review should be a rather short entry in the canon. The new format of the G1 has taken the sting out of the chances of any one night being completely blow-away awesome. At first I received the idea well, because I do believe it is important to spread these guys' workload out and let everyone recover, talk about what they're going to do out there and generally give everyone a great time. But they're all working every night, half of the time in tag matches, so it feels almost like a cruel joke.

NJPW Road to Power Struggle: Day One

New Japan Pro Wrestling

Road to Power Struggle: Day One

25th October 2014, Korakuen Hall, Tokyo

Once again featuring translations by Yottsume! Be sure to check out his website as it's pretty much the only way you can get the proper New Japan merch with the Lion Mark.  

Don't worry, it's the 2010 design. No one needs to be fired.

It didn't take much or many changes for the complexion of NJPW to alter as we hurtle toward 2015. Kenny Omega signs. Katsuyori Shibata signs full-time. Kota Ibushi extends his deal and goes heavyweight. Jushin Liger indicates the winding down phase of his career. And new alliances are formalised to help Seikigun (New Japan Army) fight back against the menace of the three major factions: CHAOS, Suzuki-gun and Bullet Club.

NJPW Road to Destruction: Day 8

New Japan Pro Wrestling
Road to Destruction: Day Eight
15th September 2014, Korakuen Hall, Tokyo

Before we get into the meat of this review it would be remiss of this site to not mention this: between the televised show from the Korakuen on the 5th, NJPW have televised two events from the Destruction tour. Neither show had any particular bearing on storyline but are at least worthy of a recap.

G1 CLIMAX 24: Day 8

G1 CLIMAX 24: DAY EIGHT
BODYMAKER Colosseum, Osaka
3rd August 2014

It's quite possible that I'm not fully ready for Day 8 after such an excellent show at the Korakuen on the 1st. Reports I've seen online suggested that after cheering themselves into a frenzy for Tenzan-Goto, Styles-Suzuki and Nagata-Shibata, the crowd was pretty much blown out for the main event. I wasn't but I can understand if someone else was: it was insane. People aren't even really talking about Naito-Makabe and it was brilliant.

I SIGNED KENTA RIGHT HERE IN OSAKA JAPAN BROTHA

The wrestlers, hopefully, will have no such problems tonight. They absolutely bloody love their wrestling in Osaka and people who consider such things consider the Osaka crowd for New Japan Pro Wrestling to be the gold standard in worldwide audiences. A little bit smarky, sure - they wrongly hate Naito - but vocal as hell and capable of pushing the in-ring work on to greater heights.