NJPW New Year Dash!! 2018 Surprise - Hello? Is it just me again? (Free on NJPW World)
 

Should be starting in an hour or so. Card isn't known until the show starts.

Usually it's a bunch of multi-man tag matches and then some setting up of some angles for the first part of the year, so is just a bit of fun rather than a selection of the best matches in the world as seen on Wrestle Kingdom the night prior.

Anyone else up for this one? I know it's at a shitty time for you yanks.

Feed is live

Feel like this is going to be like the Nintendo Direct threads I start here where I rant to myself

They're announcing the matches now. Only catching some of the names, but Taka is in ACTION. As is Jay White.

I think Kenny is teaming with Cheeseburger and Roppungi 3k?

Starting off with a quartet of young lions. Love how they're not given gimmicks until they graduate, so it's like a stable of CAWs.

Oh, it's The Elite (Omega & Bucks) RPG 3K and Cheeseburger

Ooo, legends team against the young lions

Kitamura is going to be going through a best of 7 proving series, here's the big roided up young lion from the rumble. Looks like he might skip an excursion if he wins this and be part of the main roster.

He's starting tonight against Jay White.

The dads win and here comes Suzuki-GUN for their win. TAKA!

Liger! And Makabe, Tiger Mask... and someone else. It's chaos and I can't see.

Suzuki-GUN just kicking their asses.

Think Kawato has graduated from the young lions. He's damn good.

Full card:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DSxKAyhWAAAtRu_.jpg:large

HERE I COME TO SAVE THE DAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Neat

Kitamura, a young lion, getting a much better reception than Switchblade.

Sorry.

Was simming a ruthless hardcore butcher with a skull for a face against a ripped, hardened looking kung fu master who is openly and outrageously gay. It went well.

Said in the WK thread that Kitamura is going to be a star.

No worries, last night I was learning video editing for my dumb WWE 2k18 simming, so I know how it goes.

What do you use?

I use X SPlit to record matches, but I'm not sure about it's video editing capabilities.

New Japan is not for kids

Jay looks so non threatening to me.

OBS to stream now, but switch between that and XSPLIT. Seems like one of them gets a major issue for my needs, so I switch to the other until that one gets an issue.

Using Adobe Premier. Tried some free options, but they weren't up to what I needed. I found one that was, but kept crashing on encoding, which wasn't ideal. I've basically taken the Raw and Smackdown replay screens and green screened them to key them out and added in the show transitions when needed. Took about 15 minutes to learn with some Google.

lol Kitamura needs to talk to Ibushi about dramatically beating the ringout count, because that was hilariously awkward

Yeah and the dude is so talented. I really hope they don't fuck him up with this gimmick and abandon it if it doesn't get better.

Doesn't need to talk to anyone about his chops though. damn.

Huh, weird way to start a best of 7 for a young lion, but Jay did need a win.

Anything else interesting happen on the show yet?

The NJPW Dads beat 4 young lions. Suzuki Gun Jr's wrecked shit. That's it so far.

Time for The Elite Vs. Cheeseburger & R3K.

that was....odd

Is he stealing Wyatt's gimmick as well as the finish?

Yeah, right guy won.

He was trained by Alex Shelley, who used that move as the ShellShock before Wyatt. He handed it over to him.

I think Sho has what it takes to graduate to the heavyweight division. Both in size and wrestling style

lol @ The Elite using the theme from their YouTube channel a fan made.

ah, okay. Just that combined with the weird head cradling immediately made the comparison to wyatt

Ugh, got a work call in 15 minutes. How dare work need me.

Nice. House show tights.

Tell them you died.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">So we just handed nearly 800,000 yen to Minoru Suzuki for the Real Hero Archive drive for Takayama. A great accomplishment by all. A million thanks to <a href="https://twitter.com/realkevinkelly?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realkevinkelly</a> for setting this up for us. <a href="https://twitter.com/voiceswrestling?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@voiceswrestling</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/davemeltzerWON?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@davemeltzerWON</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Purocast?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Purocast</a> <a href="https://t.co/z5faPr6XsH">pic.twitter.com/z5faPr6XsH</a></p>&mdash; RealHeroEric (@NjpwGaijinEric) <a href="https://twitter.com/NjpwGaijinEric/status/949211093301415936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 5, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

:)

At least they're not the old house show tights that were just rainbow coloured. I can dig the tassels on black.

lol & Nick tweaking the knee and looking to tag out to Matt with a bad back or Omega with bad ribs so jumping down from the apron.

lol this is great

Ahaha holy shit, that bad back match was killing me.

goodnight, cheeseburger

I find it funny that you can hear the western voices doing The Elite chants, then you hear the Japanese accents come up chanting for Cheeseburger.

"Oh crap" SHOTAI

I do love the Indietaker

Damn, was hoping it was going to be an intermission. Time to take this work call.

Happy to see Brandi before that though.

lol cody and marty

Thank fuck that was quick... Yeah, I think I prefer Brandi in front of the camera than on a mic.

I honestly don't know if Leo is going to make it. Seems really uncoordinated.

Yeah, he doesn't seem like he's a natural at the very least.

I feel like Hangman Page gets a lot of shit, but he's pretty good from where I sit.

Hnnnnng Kushida is so fucking good

lol awful positioning

Maybe he wouldn't counter it if you didn't scream it first

hate the whole indy call out your move thing

I kinda dig it the way Scurll uses it with the "just kidding" and then the "for gods sake" when it didn't work.

Someone last night said Finlay looks like Ohno.

While Finlay does have a bit of a muffin top, Ohno has a muffin top if muffin tops could get giant tumors in front

God bless Brandi for not wearing pants

Oh fuck yes, Omega saving Ibushi!

oooooooooooooooooo this is good

this is a phenomenal way to start the omega/cody feud. I wasn't even thinking about that last night.

Kenny saying "I'm the leader" then Cody accepting it. That will boil over. Kenny has a mic though.

Mic botch

lol you could see that Japanese woman's sphincter clench as cody walked by

SWITCHBLADE?!

what

I mean that definitely helps Jay white, but I dunno how that helps bullet club lol

he's gonna refuse

OH FUCK

Nice.

Honestly, that was a great segment. Multiple threads with Omega saving Ibushi, heat between Omega and Cody and then that whole Switchblade thing.

I think that actually does more for him than joining bullet club would. Could actually be a cool gimmick, being a complete lone wolf where factions are such an important factor.

Kind of want the Tongans and Fale to split from BC and form their own faction. There's money in Tama as a singles guy.

Makes sense, then there's potential down the line for GOD V The Elite and Tama V Omega. Think it might happen with Fale and that honorary Tongan shirt too.

Boom, down goes the ring announcer.

That one week mini feud between Omega and Tama during the G-1 was great, and legitimately tense

Something about Beretta I just don't like.

Like, I know he's really good, but his look is so "2004 smackdown midcarder"

It's especially evident in NJPW where there is such great variety and uniqueness in ring attire

I think a heel turn would do wonders for Trent, but the crowds seem to be behind him.

Ishii has been really under-utilised in the last few months. Hopefully 2018 is a bit of a breakout year for him.

I think he'd be a good candidate to unseat Tanahashi

I love him but I can't see NJPW putting the world title on him. He's like the definition of upper midcard mechanic.

Totally. I'd be happy just seeing him in more singles matches in the big events over these tag matches.

germaaaaaaaan

Great ending sequence from Tama and Trent there. NEVER belts change hands again, as always.

Good. Thought the title win was odd to begin with, and should of been retained by G.O.D.

Suzuki-GUN time. I was thinking they would have a shake up or tease one by the end of this. Could still happen, but with the BC storylines I'm less sure.

The Suzuki-GUN of last year was kind of wasted as Suzuki spent the year coming up short. Think they need to do something.

Was really torn on the tag titles last night. I really love the Evil/Sanada team, but Killer Elite are such a great heel team. They're SO MEAN

ooooo boy more awkward war machine elgin interactions

Yeah, I thought it was going to end with all of LIJ in the ring with the belts for a feel good moment.

Could be Big Mike's final NJPW date. Contract expires after this.

Ahaha the boos for Big Mike too.

still want a Suzuki gun jump suit. Got to style all over town

I'd be happy if this ended with ZSJ making Mike tap.

lol the boos super audible now

Loving Suzuki just beating on Tanahashi outside the ring. Protects Tanahashi from not having to enter with all his injuries and makes Suzui look as sadistic as always.

And as I said that, Tana tagged in anyway.

Jesus at a man the size of that War Machine dude doing the Ric Flair corner flip deal.

I swear to fucking god if this is leading to a Suzuki/Tanahashi program and Suzuki loses again, then fuck everything.

Clearly leading to that now, but goddamn, give Suzuki the strap. And no run-ins.

No Suzuki Gun suits, but I found the ones the young lions wear and they're pretty fucking rad too.

http://shop.njpw.co.jp/iwgp/g/g1881054287/

NJPW hasn't had a steel cage match in 14 years. Stop the Suzuki-GUN interference and just have Suzuki beat Tana in a cage.

Elgin helping the only guy on his team that will talk to him because he doesn't read American dirt sheets