Pagano made his debut in 2008, and has only achieved marginal success, and seems to be a placeholder type character in any given promotion he appears in. In the second match of the New Beginning in Osaka, these teams have a pretty good match again, though one that often made me feel like I remembered better versions of the spots they were doing because they’ve tangled so many times. Maybe not the flashiest talent on the roster, if there's one man on the TNA roster that has to be counted on to deliver a good match every time out, Richards has to be the leader in that category. I’m not a wrestling business expert, but I’m pretty sure rewarding the hometown crowd by letting them get to actually see one of your biggest babyfaces win your most important championship for the first time rather than making them watch this happen 6,000 miles away through another company’s streaming service is a good business decision. The most important one is the one that wins the match, Ospreay pinning Sabre with a Stormbreaker. WOWOW had a working agreement with Akira Maeda that paid millions to RINGS when he was featured, but eventually was scrapped with Maeda's retirement and the subsequent RINGS collapse. Currently working for Lucha Underground, he's made notable pit stops in CZW and Dragon Gate USA, and only continues to improve. The 8 Best And Worst Wrestlers From The Top Promotions In The World. Of course, on mainstream television, WWE and. The opening with the chair fight on the entrance ramp, the initial barricade-assisted fighting in the crowd, and the sequences surrounding the table are all really fun. The most popular Mexican wrestler to compete in Japan is Mil Máscaras, who is credited with introducing the high-flying moves of lucha libre to Japanese audiences,[8] which then led to the style called lucha-resu, later embodied by Tiger Mask. Don't be surprised if Henry decides to move on from WWE in the near future. Ospreay and Sabre are clearly both Guy A in real life, and it seems like they should be in kayfabe too. One Of The Best Pro Wrestlers In The World Is Reportedly Coming To WWE’s NXT UK, NXT Trainees Reportedly Complained To Authorities Investigating WWE Venues As Possible COVID Hotspots, Wednesday Night’s Alright: Going Full Rat Pack, Alexa Bliss Can Be A Great Monster If WWE Gives Her The Space, Doctor Britt Baker DMD Reflects On A Year Of AEW Dynamite And COVID’s Effect On The Company’s Momentum, The 2020 WWE Draft Report Part 2: Monday Night Raw, Sanada doing some athletic stuff at the beginning, Jay White’s beard looking the most it’s ever looked like pubes when he was in Skull End. Even in joshi puroresu, a few notable foreigners have found success wrestling for joshi promotions, such as Monster Ripper, Madusa, Reggie Bennett, and Amazing Kong. While he's served his purpose in combination with the talented roster of the time, he's now, with age not on his side, simply more of a liability than he is an asset. If everybody hates this and/or I feel like it’s not working, I’ll tweak the format some more. His talent level doesn't warrant being in New Japan, and he'll be limited as long as he stays there. It’s Minoru Suzuki boiled down to wacky faces and an evil laugh, and it turns out you need all the other aspects of Minoru Suzuki to make those wacky faces and evil laugh moments work, even in a jokey match like this one. [citation needed]. But when they try to insist they’re tough guys of the squared circle (whenever Sabre does a headbutt or hangs in a strike exchange too long, whenever Ospreay does his new no-sell-flex-scream pose or decides half of a match is about him now being a Brutal Striker) as well as their own unique type of wrestler, it looks like a joke. Overall, Styles is still the man on top of the industry. Some joshi stars from AJW had wrestled for the World Wrestling Federation in the 1980s and 1990s, with The Jumping Bomb Angels and Bull Nakano known for being particularly successful. Gaea Japan once had a working agreement with World Championship Wrestling in the mid-1990s, when the latter brought in wrestlers from Gaea to bolster the ranks of their then-fledgling women's division, with Akira Hokuto becoming the first and only WCW Women's Champion, and a WCW Women's Cruiserweight Championship was even introduced and defended in Gaea shows. Anyway, this eight-man tag is alright, with Tanahashi’s hair clearly the star of the show. At first, it seems like this might be the safer version of a Hiromu vs. Lee match, opening with those fast German suplexes followed by about two minutes of each man trying to chop the other’s pecs off. He'll likely be racking up a bevy of WWE titles within the next year, coming off of his SummerSlam win against John Cena, in a match that was better than it had any right to be. International Pro Wrestling was the first Japanese promotion to link into European circuits. The stronger one is the main event on February 4, which is Chaos (Okada, Ospreay, Sho, and Yoh) vs. Suzukigun (Taichi, Sabre, Desperado, and Kanemaru.) In 2000, following the Pro Wrestling Noah split, NTV decided to follow the new venture rather than staying with All Japan. He was always patently uninteresting, despite winning the IC Title at one point in his career. With such a rich history, here is a look at the 10 best Japanese wrestlers of all-time. However, since his debut in 2006, Kzy hasn't stood out in the crop of talent that the promotion has produced over the years. In years past he could get away with his lack of in-ring ability, but now there's just no spots in terms of extracurricular roles. As long as their matches feel like a competition or wow people enough that the audience doesn’t care that they don’t look like competitions, that works. With all this and how good their match in Super Junior Tag League was in mind, this is a really promising development. When things look competitive between him and Naito, it’s exciting, but the parts of the match Kenta controls drag. I’m loving the slow burn aspect of this second round of the Sho-Shingo rivalry so far; it both heightens the drama for their inevitable match and makes it feel more like Sho might actually win. Just about any decision is the right one for him right now. If you have any takes about the new format, please leave them in a comment! It's unlikely he'll reclaim the minor success of his WWE run, and instead be relegated to Indy work for the rest of his career. It doesn't help that Hardy has fallen noticeably out of shape during various points in his post-WWE career, and now is essentially a shell of his former self. He's one of the most underrated, and best wrestlers of his era, and still has lots he can accomplish in the squared circle. While "The World's Strongest Man" has been around WWE programming in some form for the last 20 years or so, that doesn't mean he qualifies as one of the better in-ring performers the company has seen in that span. The pairs of heavyweights absolutely kill it together yet again, Ishii and Shingo confirm their singles match is going to bang, and Evil and Goto build hype for the next time they go one-on-one. 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Naito looks like he gets shoot busted open on the turnbuckle pad and starts bleeding disgustingly and it rules. A four-time IWGP Title-holder, he has consistently produced and wowed audiences. Usually, these talent exchanges are chances for puroresu stars to learn other styles to add to their own strengths, a tradition that started with Rikidozan himself between 1951 and 1953. Japanese wrestlers who appear in other American circuits such as Impact Wrestling (originally Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, or TNA) and Ring of Honor rarely change their names.