Starting in January, AXS TV, previously HDNet, stated airing NJPW for 1 hour on Friday nights. Usually, Friday night is reserved for TNA for me, but with WWE becoming more and more unwatchable as the week’s lumber on, and TNA putting on decent shows but nothing I would call great, I figure I’d give it a try starting this week. It airs from 8pm-9pm and TNA goes from 9pm-11pm so I now get a 3 hour wrestling block without 30 App & Network plugs per hour. It’s pretty neat. I DVR everything so I usually don’t watch live but later on at night. With that said, here’s what I got out of watching NJPW for the first time tonight. There is a lot, and I mean A LOT, of good, but there are some drawbacks or things I found quite disappointing about the broadcast. So let me break it down.
First, let me tell you that if you hate long-winded promos featuring HHH, or John Cena, or if you’re a TNA fan, MVP, then this is for you because all they do is wrestle. If you like great quality matches, you would absolutely love this show. I watched Karl Anderson vs Tenzen and Davey Boy Smith Jr, accompanied by his IWGP Tag Team Champion partner, Taka Michino-clue, who I believe has done plenty of steroids over the years faced Kojima. (I’ll get into the significance, or lack thereof, of these matches a bit later.)
Along with the great wrestling, I gotta admit, it’s one of the better play by play announcing I’ve heard. I do enjoy Josh Matthews in TNA, but I hate Taz, and don’t get me started on WWE announcing. AXS really brings it with Mauro Ranallo and Josh Barnett. It’s very informative and they have great timing with the high spots and finishes. They don’t talk over each other, there’s no heel announcer, it’s a just a straight play by play by Ranallo with great color by Barnett. They bring excitement to the matches and that’s something that’s been missing since JR hung up the headset.
Another aspect that makes this NJPW so great is the crowd. If you think Daniel Bryan gets a great reaction with his YES chant, you should’ve heard these fans in the Davey Boy Smith vs Kojima match. You could tell Smith and Taka were the heels as they were a part of The Killer Elite Squad. This crowd was firmly behind Kojima and they were very vocal throughout the match, getting behind their baby face. There were several points throughout the 12 minute match between Smith and Kojima had the crowd roaring and brought on a few standing o’s. It was truly special.
Now of course, with the good, always comes the bad. There were a couple of, how can I say, deterrents, with NJPW. The first thing I’ll bring up is the fact that every Japanese wrestler I watched uses the Diamond Cutter/RKO like it’s an armdrag. I don’t think I can count on both my hands and feet the amount of Cutters I saw in just three matches. I know I probably need to open my mind a bit to the styles and the Japanese wrestlers are probably using moves today that we won’t see in WWE or TNA for 5 years, but I found that to be just a little annoying, sorta like how everyone in WWE is using the Super Kick these days, when just a couple years ago, HBK was finishing people off with it.
Another thing I was a bit weary of, and this may be something I’ll eventually get over, but it was Just Wrestling. There wasn’t any kind of story behind anything. This is considered good for the pure wrestling enthusiast, but maybe I’ve just been subjected to “sports entertainment” for far too long. The only thing I can really say in that regard is, it’s good that this broadcast is only an hour. Otherwise, I don’t know how much longer I’d be able to stick with it. I’m hoping that me taking on NJPW as part of my weekly wrestling regimen will break the “sports entertainment” desire that seems to lurk deep within me.
The most notable thing I will say, and this has got to be the worst part, is the matches I was watching were from August…leading up to Wrestle Kingdom…OF 2013. Yes, you read that right. It’s not a misprint. August of 2013 is the time of these matches. That means it’s leading up to Wrestle Kingdom of last year. Not even the one this year that Jeff Jarrett co-promoted and JR announced, but Last Year. So, needless to say, that was a bit discouraging.
However these three bad things are not enough to take away from what I found to be a great experience with a new wrestling promotion. I’m very excited for next week and I won’t be researching any spoilers on this as I want to see how things turn out. It’s listed as Season 1 Ep. 6 so it seems to be going in chronological order.
As a little bonus, I’ll throw out some results. Anderson defeated Tenzen. Davey Boy Smith Jr. defeated Kojima, much to the dismay of the crowd.
The Main Event was Shinsuke Nakamora vs Kota Ibushi, who is a crazy high-flyer that did moves I’ve never seen before. At one point, he delivered a snap full-nelson suplex and followed it up with a standing cork-screw moonsault. Yes, a standing cork-screw moonsault. He even, at one point, performed a back cork-screw 450 splash but landed on the knees. There were some pretty stiff shots in this match too. Nakamora ended up getting the win after a series of nasty looking running kicks. I felt bad because Ibushi cut a promo backstage to close the show, apologizing for giving it his all and it not being enough. Ugh. What a tear-jerker. I’ll tell ya, 5 stars isn’t enough for this match.
So there you have it. My first ever experience with NJPW. Two decent matches, great crowd, I think Mr. Miyagi was a ref in one of the matches, and an absolute, no doubt about it 5 star Main Event. Next week, I’m gonna make sure I watch TNA first, because by the looks of it, NJPW is going to be a very tough act to follow.
Thanks for reading everyone. Be Safe.
