Wrestling Chatter

Hi guys, After a week (in which I started my new intensive journalism course), I'm back for a preview of the New Japan Cup which is always exciting and really full on with the schedule! Like all the other tournaments, I'm going to run down all the participants who've been announced and the possible match ups that I'm mega looking forward too! With all the guys chasing Jay White for his title, the stakes are massive! I was initially going to do the usual ‘look at each competitor’ thing, but the card's so stacked and there’s 24 competitors. So I’ve decided to look at them in terms of first matches. They changed it up this year by putting most of the heavyweights which is nice! Also, I’ll split this preview into two posts because there’s so much to write about - I don’t want to blow your mind. Hope you enjoy! Yuji Nagata v Tomohiro Ishii When this match was announced, I was literally over the moon considering what happened at Iizka's retirement show. Both

Hi guys, One part of the New Japan shows that I've really been loving since I started watching are the Young Lion matches we see on the tours and the whole concept of young lions in general. I've seen a lot of amazing guides to the Young Lion system and I won't be trying to copy it but I'm going to focus on the current young lions. Obviously I'll give you all a bit of a short introduction including a brief summary of young lions including alumni and their role in NJPW. However, most of the post is going to be me looking at the current Young Lions based in Japan which means that I'm not counting Hirai Kawato and Tomoyuki Oka who are both on excursion at the moment in Mexico! I am going to look at Teruaki Kanemitsu, Shota Umino, Ren Narita, Yota Tsuji, Yuya Uemura and Ayato Yoshida. The NJPW Dojo has been said to be one of the toughest experiences wrestlers have gone through, but I've not heard of anyone who hasn't come out the other side as

Hi guys, Sometimes there's nothing I love more than a bit of live wrestling and I don't always get the chance to go and watch it live either because of timing issues or costs. However, I was lucky enough last Saturday to go to watch Defiant Wrestling's PPV Unstoppable as well as a taping of their weekly show Loaded (which airs on YouTube). I didn't really know what to expect when I dragged my mum along (she loves it really) to the Manchester Academy in the cold to watch some of my favourite wrestlers, but I was happily surprised at how amazing it was! This post's going to look at my experience and, because by the time this is published the shows will have been aired, there will be spoilers in this post just to warn you if you wan't to go and watch them, but I'll try to avoid writing who won each match but rather the highlights. I've never been to an, I guess you could say, independent show which hasn't been run by either WWE or NJPW so I did

Hi guys, We've finally come to the end of The New Beginning Tour where we ended the crazy tour in Osaka with a special singles match and two huge title matches for both the IWGP Jr Heavyweight and IWGP Heavyweight title. If anyone missed my last post reviewing the Sapporo leg of the tour, you can see it here  https://wrestling-chatter.blogspot.com/2019/02/njpw-new-beginning-sapporo-review.html . The second leg of the New Beginning Tour paved the way for The New Beginning in Osaka on 11th February which included Taguchi challenging Taiji Ishimori for the IWGP Jr Heavyweight title (which was made even more exciting after Taguchi submitted Ishimori to win the NEVER openweight 6-man tag belts) and Jay White challenging Hiroshi Tanahashi for the IWGP Heavyweight belt (which I booked the day off specifically for). In this leg of the tour, there was only one show that was streamed on the Road to Osaka but it was a show with a jam packed card from start to end. Show one on Satur

Hi guys, So it's been more than a month since Wrestle Kingdom and time has seemed to fly by with Fantastica Mania and now the New Beginning's tour (obviously with the Road to shows as well). There's been a lot of matches on this tour that have been being built up since New Year's Dash and my mouth was watering just thinking about them like Taiji Ishimori v Taguchi for the IWGP Jr Heavyweight title and of course Switcblade Jay White challenging for the IWGP Heavyweight title against the champ Hiroshi Tanahashi. But, because the tour's been so big and so many things have happened, I'm going to have a look solely at the New Beginning Sapporo leg of the tour and then look at the Osaka leg in the next post. So, I hope you enjoy my look at The New Beginning tour from the 'Road To' tour to the main shows in Sapporo. The New Beginning (Sapporo) The Road to New Beginnings Tour, which led up to The New Beginning in Sapporo on the 2nd and 3rd of February