Arena Pro Wrestling Discussion

All that was missing is Sting yelling, "It's...showtime folks!!!!"

 

I caught up with the Impact I missed (it clashed with the world cup final) and **** me, it was awesome! Tag, X-D and Knockout title matches, plus a battle royal to decide who faces Lashley for the world title next week (or tomorrow, for American viewers). Every match was fast paced and high quality, there was minimal faffing about with promos and the like (just enough to remind us of feuds that didn't have a match that night and to explain Rhino's feud with Bully Ray) - and stuff actually made sense. I think TNA has turned a corner.

 

Rock's on the ESPYs pre - show.

 

Punk's contract has officially run up and WWE has put him in the alumni section of their site.

 

Don't know if anyone is interested but tomorrow New Japan kicks off one of it's biggest events of the year, the 24th G1 Climax tournament. 22 wrestlers are divided into two groups of 11 called Block A and Block B. The winner of Block A will face the winner of Block B on August 10th to determine the winner of the tournament. The winner becomes the number one contender for the IWGP championship, assuming AJ Styles doesn't win because he is already the champ.

Block A
Hiroshi Tanahashi
Shinsuke Nakamura
Shelton X Benjamin
Bad Luck Fale
Doc Gallows
Tomohiro Ishii
Davey Boy Smith Jr.
Katsuyori Shibata
Satoshi Kojima
Yuji Nagata
Tomoaki Honma

Block B
AJ Styles
Kazuchika Okada
Hiroyoshi Tenzan
Lance Archer
Hirooki Goto
Togi Makabe
Karl Anderson
Yujiro Takahashi
Toru Yano
Minoru Suzuki
Tetsuya Naito

The biggest match from day 1 is a rematch between AJ Styles and the man he took the IWGP title from Kazuchika Okada. Also on day 1 Shelton Benjamin faces Doc Gallows both guys most of us would know from their time in the WWE. No westerner has ever won the G1 Climax and only twice has a westerner even reached the finals, "Ravishing" Rick Rude in 1992 and Karl Anderson in 2012.

My guess is that Hiroshi Tanahashi will win. He is a 6 time former IWGP Champion and the most popular wrestler in Japan. Basically he is the John Cena of Japan. Except he can wrestle. Winning the G1 seems like an easy way to get him into a fued with Styles, who is playing a heel as the leader of the Bullet Club - a sort of nWo style group made up of mostly foreign wrestlers. Doc Gallows, Karl Anderson and Bad Luck Fale are also members of the Bullet Club.

Much more interesting than Battleground to me but YMMV.

 

It'll be interesting to see how far Honma does as he was brought in as a replacement for Kota Ibushi (who's been diagnosed with a serious concussion sustained in a match on July 4th).

Given he's facing Tanahashi, I'm guessing he won't last as long as Ibushi might have in the tourney.

 

Yeah given that he is a last minute replacement I don't see them having him booked to win the group or anything.

Adam Rose and Cameron pick up wins on the battleground preshow. Tag team title match is starting now.

 

I'm confused as to what Adam Rose's gimmick is... Trust Funded party animal aggressive homosexual bully tea salesman?

 

Keep expecting the Wyatts to take the titles but I don't think it is going to happen. Usos win again.

 

Their probably saving the title switch for SummerSlam.

 

Until WWE hires another tag team I can't see the Usos losing. Same with The Wolves in TNA, there's just no decent competition....

 

The Miz wins the battle royal for the IC title. They teased Ziggler winning but the Miz was hiding out on the floor and came back in after Ziggler had eliminated everyone else.

 

Short interview with KENTA who just signed with WWE.

 

I think a lot of fans are ready for the Wyatts to have the tag belts, but I think WWE wants to wait and have the switch off at SummerSlam.

It almost feels like they had some idea of where to go (for once), but Bryan's injury threw everything off and now everything is in a holding pattern until Brock returns at SummerSlam.

 

Pretty much. He just wants to party, but then he gets upset and he unloads.

 

AJ Styles vs Kazuchika "Rainmaker" Okada from day one of G1 Climax 24. Really good match.

 

Well the WWE is getting backlash for Lana's promo last night. Story here.

 

Quite an odd match, not really my cup of tea. Quite a slow pace, it reminded me of 80s British style at the start... But most of the match was rest holds and there was a ref bump! It lacked urgency... AJ seems to be playing a different character in this promotion. I guess a lot of that is to do with the style of Japanese wrestling..?

Still, it was better than the average WWE main event farce.

 

Yeah the pace of Japanese wrestling does seem to be much slower than American. For me it varies from match to match as to whether that is a good thing or not. There was another match from day one Nakamura vs Shibata that seemed to be well received by the crowd but to me it didn't even seem to be a wrestling match it was almost more like kickboxing, all kicks and knees. So I definitely get that Japanese wrestling isn't for everybody.

 

Still surprised (and slightly disappointed) that they didn't have Brock beat down Cena at Battleground to do a 'quick' injury angle to start setting up for SummerSlam instead of the end of RAW last night.

 

Sting says he has one match left in him

 

Sad to hear, but not surprised. He does look happy though.

 

I'd love to see a Sting/HHH match. If Taker is out of the question because the streak is broken then perhaps Kane could fill that role.