Mike Reviews Japan — page 5

Hello You!

Back again with some B Block action

Had a bit of an issue with this one due to the internet in rural Wales being a tad unpredictable, but I finally managed to get it to work long enough to take this one in.

Anyway, let’s get rolling and enjoy ourselves some New Japan!

Hello You!

Here we are back with some A Block Action!

I’m currently out in the countryside of Wales for a family trip, but when the Wi-Fi decides it wants me to I can still just about manage to stream New Japan World, hence here I am getting my G1 fix! I’ll hopefully find some time tomorrow to do Night Ten, as well as try to get Hardcore TV up as usual. This might mean no 205 Live this week but, if I can find the time and the WWE Network feels like behaving, I’ll get caught up on that as well.

But anyway, less prattling from me, let’s watch some gosh darn wrestling!

Hello You!

Back again with some B Block action

Apologies for the delay for this one, but I was at the football last night watching a thrilling 0-0 draw between Wigan and Everton, so sadly I could only get around to it today. Good as Tom Davies and Mason Holgate were in that contest, I doubt their performances will match some of the one’s we’ll get here.

I’m actually off to Wales for a holiday next week, but the cottage I’m staying at supposedly has Wi-Fi, so I’ll try and get some G1 done whilst I’m there. Anything I can’t get done will be mopped up when I get back. Hopefully I can get next week’s Hardcore TV done before I go and will schedule it for Wednesday as usual. I’ll catch up on 205 Live when I get back as well.

Anyway, that’s all the housekeeping done with, let’s watch some chuffing wrestling!

Hello You!

Here we are back with some A Block Action!

Thanks for everyone who has been reading these. I’m honestly somewhat grateful that there’ll be a bit of a break following this one, as staying on top of the G1 is never easy. We’re getting to the stage now where people all but officially go out of the running, so we should properly start to see A Block taking shape now.

So without further ado, let’s journey back to the world of New Japan for some top notch Puro competition!

Hello You!

No time for a long intro. This is more G1. Please read it (Cheers to Andy for the plug earlier)

Anyway, let’s get to some more B Block Action!

Hello You!

Back we come for more hot A Block action. Last time out in this block KENTA and Hiroshi Tanahashi main evented in a bout that saw the former NOAH and NXT alum go on to his second big win in the Block. Tana is currently still stuck on zero points, but can he get on the board today? Well, let’s take another journey to the land of Puro and find out!

Hello You!

We’re back to the world of G1 with some B Block Action!

First off, congratulations to England’s cricketers for winning perhaps one of the craziest games of sport I’ve ever seen with an amazing last ball victory that had me gripped to the edge of my seat. It was like a Hollywood movie screenplay for “dramatic sporting film” by the end.

I actually didn’t watch any of the weekends wrestling outside of G1, mainly because I didn’t have time and to be honest none of it leapt out at me as “must see”. I may check out this Bryan/Rowan Vs Heavy Machinery Vs New Day match though, as I hear it was a bit of corker.

Anyway, enough chitchat, let’s watch some chuffing Puro!

Hello You!

Here we are with some more G1 Climax action! I’ve actually been a bit rough today so this took a bit longer than I’d liked, but hopefully this reaches you well and you’ve had a good weekend. As mentioned in Night Two, there’s sadly no tag matches on this one because I didn’t really have time to fit them in, so this is just the five tournament matches.

Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy these and I’ll have Mondays B Block matches hopefully up after I get home from work tomorrow.

Oh, and on an unrelated note, Cricket can be bloody exciting when it wants to be can’t it?

Hello You!

We’re back to the world of G1 with some B Block Action!

Just regards the last review, I know some were unhappy that I didn’t include the tag matches. This was mainly down to me actually missing the first half of the show due to working on something else. I’ll be including the full show today because it’s a Saturday morning and works well for me, but going forward it’s unlikely I’ll include the tags.

The reason for that is simply in the interest of expediency. To give you an idea, last year I wrote nearly 58,000 words on just the G1 tournament alone, so you can imagine how much more it would be if I did the tag matches as well. Basically I have a full-time job and also have other writing commitments, so I just don’t have the time to do the tag matches as well most of time. Recaps of other shows might also not be up so promptly either (Mainly because I’ll be doing them when I get home from work most days as the shows happen in the morning here in the UK)

I know some won’t like this, and I get it. The tag matches are part of the overall story of the tournament and certainly aren’t throw away as some think, but unfortunately they’ve got to be a victim of time I’m afraid. It’s just one of those things. Kevin Kelley is usually pretty good at bringing up any relevant titbits from the tags anyway, so it shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

Anyway, now that’s out of the way, let’s enjoy some hot B Block action!

Hello You!

I decided to stay up and watch this one tonight and also decided to write up the G1 matches from the show as well. If I get a chance I’ll do this more over the course of the tournament. I’m sure there’ll be someone covering it in full as well.

Obviously this contains SPOILERS, so don’t read beyond the “Read more” section if you’re trying to avoid the results.

Hello You!

This one worked out well for me due to it happening 8am UK time, so I decided to do a write up for it. The main event on this one is Kazuchika Okada defending the IWGP Heavyweight Title against Chris Jericho, but there’s also a match scheduled between Kota Ibushi and Tetsuya Naito, which is a big rematch from the MSG Show over WrestleMania weekend, and that’s even before we get to a match between Will Ospreay and Dragon Lee, which should be all kind of awesome.

So please join me as we take a journey to Osaka for New Japan Pro Wrestling’s presentation of Dominion!

The event is emanating from Osaka-Jo Hall, in Osaka, Japan

Calling the action are Kevin Kelley, Don Callis and Chris Charlton

Hello You!

For those not aware, 25 years ago today a very notorious bout took place in All Japan Pro Wrestling between Mitusharu Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada. In case you don’t recognise the names, both Misawa and Kawada were the top two stars of All Japan at the time and this was a much anticipated collision between the two.

Both men had actually been tag team partners and allies in the not too distant past prior to this contest, but by the time 1994 rolled around both men had become heated rivals, both on and off screen. Thankfully it led to magic between the two and they often produced an epic chemistry together, one that helped make All Japan incredibly successful during the 90’s.

The two hadn’t met in a match for the famed All Japan Triple Crown of Titles for nearly two years, so this match had a lot of hype going into it and was the talk of the internet wrestling world following its conclusion due to how great a match it ended up being.

Seeing as today is the anniversary of the match, I thought I’d review it seeing as I haven’t watched it in a while and the milestone deserved some recognition. So without further ado, let’s say the way back machine to Budokan Hall for some Retro Wrestle action!

I’ve got a day off from work today and this was on, so I decided to watch it as I rarely get a chance to watch New Japan as it actually happens anymore and I was interested to see how the main event would turn out.

This is the Anniversary of New Japan’s first ever show on the 6th of March 1972, which saw Antonio Inoki take on Karl Gotch.

Wow, 47 years of New Japan, it’s done well to last so long, especially as thinks looked a bit dicey in the early to mid 00’s when Inoki was pushing anyone with shoot fight experience to the main event. Thankfully Inoki was eventually booted out and the company decided to put the world title on Hiroshi Tanahashi, and the rest is history.

I’ve had this one in my tape library for about 14 years but have never bothered to sit down and watch it all the way through, mainly because I really went off New Japan during this era and was instead mostly watching NOAH. I was looking for something to review so I thought we’d set the way back machine to 2003, when the New Japan product was pretty awful. It’s amazing to watch shows like this and see how far the company has come since these darker days.

This show took place during a period in New Japan where Antonio Inoki was obsessed with shoot fighting and was filling New Japan shows full of judo, K1 and PRIDE guys. His booking was getting increasingly erratic and it wasn’t leading to success at the box office. This show actually has three legitimate shoot fights on it, as well as an appearance by Hulk Hogan and a big 5 on 5 elimination match.

Hello you!

I’ve been a bit bogged down with covering G1 Climax over at Gaming Respawn for the past few weeks, which has limited the time I could spend watching classic All Japan.

However, I’ve got a free evening so I decided to fill it with some hard hitting AJPW action!

First off, I’d like to thank Scott for giving me a chance to produce some content for the blog. I stumbled across the YouTube page of Roy Lucier, who has uploaded a tonne of classic All Japan Pro Wrestling episodes, so I thought I’d go a write up for one at random due to the fact they’re little more than 40 minutes long and would probably feature some good wrestling as well considering AJPW was killing it in the 90’s.

All of these matches are from the 1994 Champion Carnival, which is like All Japan’s version of the G1, so it seemed somewhat apt to review seeing as we are currently smack dab in the middle of G1 season.