Wrestling Chatter

Hi guys,  Last month, I was lucky enough to have had a really great in-depth chat with one of the hottest young veteran wrestlers in the UK Gabriel Kidd. So, here's part one of my interview where we spoke about how Kidd got into wrestling, his influences, Defiant Wrestling and of course his part in the resurgence of World of Sport! So, welcome to my newest segment called ' Chatter With' (do you get it... you know Wrestling Chatter )...  Everyone’s love of wrestling starts at different stages of their lives, how old were you when you got interested in wrestling and what started the love in the first place? I can work out my exact age and I was probably about 9 or 10. My dad’s Irish and I was in Ireland visiting my grandma who had Sky Sports. We were flicking through the channels and wrestling was on. As soon as the screen came on, Mark Henry was in the ring and then the Undertaker’s music hit and he made his entrance. From there, I was just glued to the TV. I love...

Hi guys, With one of the biggest fields in NJ Cup history, another NJPW tournament has come and gone and what a few weeks it was! This year's New Japan Cup had a massive 32 competitors all fighting for the chance to challenge Jay White for the IWGP Heavyweight title at Madison Square Garden. The tournament started with some amazing matches on both sides of the bracket and it was only the first round. We had the amazing upset in Chase Owens beating Juice Robinson giving Owens a shot at the US title set for the final night of the Cup. Then another match with championship implications as Kota Ibushi v Tetsuya Naito stopped Naito's dream of being the first guy to hold two of the top belts in NJPW. The second round  had some of the best matches of the tournament. Taichi having a surprisingly clean match against Ishii and the giant killer Ospreay defeated Archer. However, one a stand out match but won't be for all the wrestling purist was Yano v Cabana. There wer...

Hi guys, About 6 months ago, I delved into the NJPW Faction system and basically ranked them all in order of my personal feelings toward them but things change. Looking back at that post ( https://wrestling-chatter.blogspot.com/2018/07/new-japan-factions-rated.html ), I put Bullet Club at number 3 and maybe I was being a bit too generous because the faction was basically falling apart which all culminated in a split within the faction which I wasn't a fan of. Fast forward to February 2019 and the BC OG's are the sole Bullet Club faction with the Jay White, Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, Bad Luck Fale, Taiji Ishmori, Chase Owens, Yujiro Takahashi, Jado, Gedo and Robbie Eagles. The Bullet Club have now moved straight to the top of my favourite factions and I thought I'd look at the past few months and how they've gone from being hierarchical faction with the 'main cast' to the most dominant faction again! This is especially relevant after the New Beginning Osak...

Hi guys, Welcome to part two my NJPW Preview of the New Japan Cup which starts on the 8th March! This post's going to have a lot bigger names that part one (which you can find here https://wrestling-chatter.blogspot.com/2019/02/new-japan-cup-preview-part-one.html ), and it's also got some match ups that I'm way too excited about. Just a note, I'm sorry this post is so long but I managed to have missed an entire day of matches! Will Ospreay v Bad Luck Fale When I heard that our own jr/ heavyweight hybrid Will Ospreay was going to be in the NJ Cup, I screamed slightly... but that scream faded when I heard his first round match is against Fale. I mean after Ospreay's win against Cobb, anything is possible especially when it comes to someone as talented as Ospreay. He can literally do anything he sets his mind too! For me, Ospreay being in this tournament is a great step forward for the Jr division and I can actually see him going so far . Like Chase Owens, Os...

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...