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| Silver King |
In less unpleasant news, we have confirmation that AEW is, in fact, going to be on TNT!!!
— TNT Drama (@tntdrama) May 15, 2019I'm thrilled - I'll be tuning into TNT come October, when AEW starts their show! How exciting!
Now, speaking of exciting, Z & I went over to our Wrestling Friendos' new place and watched night two of NJPW's Wrestling Dontaku!
At a little over two hours in length, this PPV's second night was a great show.
First up came the Young Lions' tag match between Ren Narita & Shota Umino (who are the next incarnations of Sho & Yoh, in my opinion) and Yota Tsuji & Yuya Uemura (who are also darn good hands in the ring!). It was a good match, but it felt a little short, only being 7:36. In the end, Narita & Umino triumphed, and it felt right.
Next was a ten-man tag match. To be honest, these are a bit insane to watch. They're hard to keep track of, and no one gets enough time to shine, however since it was Suzuki-gun vs Team 69, I was very, very entertained. El Desperado (in one of his last matches before he broke his jaw and had to be replaced with DOUKI on the Best of Super Juniors), Minoru Suzuki, Taichi (ugh), Taka Michinoku, & Yoshinobu Kanemaru took down the team of Ryusuke Taguchi, Tiger Mask, Jeff Cobb, Toa Henare, & Yoshi-Hashi. It was a good mix of ages and styles, and I'm sure these two groups will be facing off pretty often.
The third match was a six-man tag. I like the tag matches, but... honestly, it's a bit much, sometimes. The ring can feel crowded, and it feels like the office wasn't quite sure what to do with all of these men. Well, at least there's a six-man-tag title, I believe... Regardless, watching Jyushin Thunder Liger in the ring with the MVP tag team (Most Violent Players Togi Makabe and... Toru Yano?!) go up against and defeat Bullet Club's Jado, Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa was pretty good. It does lead me to wonder what Tama & his brother have done to annoy the guys in charge, since it's been a while since I've seen them victorious, and they're really, really good.
Fourth in line was yet another tag match. This time, we had an eight-man match between Chaos (Goto & newcomer Mikey Nicholls) with Juice Robinson & Tomoaki Honma and the rest of the Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale, Chase "Dad Bod" Owens, Hikuleo & Jay White). Did the Bullet club in general annoy the writers/bookers?
We had two tag matches left.
Next up we had Bullet Club's first victory of the night, with newcomer (and genius) El Phantasmo & Bone Soldier Taiji Ishimori utterly obliterating the dream team of Dragon freaking Lee and Will Ospreay. This was a brutal, brutal match. If you're looking for a perfect melding of aerial vs strong styles, this was it. It was a showcase of ridiculously well-executed top-rope moves and horrifying power moves. Chances were taken, somehow no one was injured. Sadly, we're not going to see Ospreay for a bit, since his visa is a bit wonky.
Our last tag match of the night is another six-man affair pitting Los Ingobernables de Japon (Bushi, Shingo Takagi & Tetsuya Naito) against Roppongi 3K (Sho & Yoh!) and KOTA FREAKIN IBUSHI. This match was made of pain. Everyone was blasting each other with as painful-looking a series of moves as they could, and since Ibushi is maybe insane, he happily took everything. Seriously, this was a Strong Style showcase. At nearly 14 minutes long, this was one of the longer matches on the card. That's over two minutes per performer. That's a pretty darn good look at what each man can bring to the ring. It's probably one of the best six-man matches I've seen in a while!
Ah, but now for the singles matches!
At 23:08, the match between Tomohiro Ishii and EVIL was a dream match for Z, who is obsessed with EVIL. It was brilliantly laid-out, and I wasn't bored at all, which is very, very unusual for me during a match between two giant beefy boiz. I'm not usually a power-man fan, but these two had great chemistry. Between EVIL refusing to acknowledge his own limits and Ishii just... not seeming to have any, they can really go hard. Somehow, Ishii is supposed to be a great guy to work with, "taking care" of people in the ring. It looks like he's just... punching them in the face with his elbows, but apparently it's nowhere near as brutal as it looks?! That's incredible skill, if true. I strongly recommend this match to anyone looking for evidence that a match between two mountainous men can be fast-paced.
Our Main Event is a championship match between IWGP Heavyweight Champ Kazuchika Okada and Cold Skull Sanada. I found it hilarious that Sanada came out in a version of his older babyface gimmick, since it felt like he was dragging Okada a bit, pointing out that their blondie gimmicks were very similar. The match itself, however, was anything but comedic. These guys brought each other to their limits. It was a very strike & submission based match, which is perfect because frankly, Okada's long and lanky body looks odd flying through the air, and Sanada is such a consummate technical wrestler that anything less than three knotted bodies per match feels like we've been cheated. And boy, was this a great match for submissions. And the Rain Maker lariat. Seriously, the way the Rain Maker was started and cancelled several times during the match, coming off of aborted piledrivers or suplexes as often as it was halted by Sanada striking Okada out of it, was brilliant. This was a great match for storytelling, I think.
Now, you may have been spoiled for the post-match moments with this one, but basically, Chris Jericho has been chasing down Okada and sneering at and taunting him, telling he'll steal the belt from him, but it's incredibly effective. It's especially effective when you realize he's interrupting Okada telling Sanada that not only are the two of them true rivals, but that he cannot wait for their matches to get even more brutal so that they can really prove themselves to each other.
So now we have something of a hyper-competitive three-way-dance going on for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. Okada holds the title in his golden grasp, Sanada is racing towards it like a thoroughbred, and Jericho is claiming it as spoils of a war that he's all to eager to start against people he views as inferior to himself. From being that obnoxious upstart in the US to being an unsettling madman in Japan, I think that Jericho's has been one of the most fascinating personality journeys I've ever seen. I've never had the opportunity to watch a Heel go full-Joker and be good at it before.
The total in-ring time for Dontaku Night 2 was 02:03:25.
Seriously, Wrestling is looking pretty sweet this year.
Go Enjoy Something!
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