Author: Isaac Sher

I thought folks here would like this. It’s made by David Reichgeld.

So, one of the first rounds of the Best of Super Juniors is available for free viewing on the NJPW site, at http://njpwworld.com/p/s_series_00440_1_1.

I’m out of the loop on NJPW, in that I watched Wrestle Kingdom for the last couple of years, and I’ve watched some episodes of TIGER MASK W, but beyond that, I’m not really up to date on who’s on the roster and what the storylines are.

As such, I was completely surprised to discover that one of my underdog favorites from the Attitude Era, Taka Michinoku, was still active, and about to fight Jushin Thunder Liger, no less. And on the very first match!

So I settle in to watch, and Taka’s entrance started. On the screen:

“TAKA IS COMING.” Pause. “MOTHER FUCKER.”

I damn near fell out of my chair.

So, I’m in Chicago. NXT Takeover and Backlash are coming. We had a little extra cash left over this month (not a lot, but…), and figured, hey, we’ve only ever been to a WWE show once, and that was for a Raw taping back in 2013 or so, back when CM Punk was feuding with Ryback and RVD was on the roster for a bit.

Originally, we were thinking we’d go for NXT tickets, because they’re cheaper… but then we thought about it. The NXT card is good, but not OMG great. Backlash, on the other hand, is going to have KO vs. AJ Styles… and more importantly, it’ll have SHINSUKE FREAKING NAKAMURA in his debut main roster match. Worth the extra money, even for what are still nosebleed seats. We’ve never been to a PPV, so we figure this is going to be a different vibe from Raw.

So here’s my questions for you, who are all more familiar with going to PPV events than myself.

1) If the show is scheduled to start at 6:30, what time should we really get there by?

2) If I wanted to try and get autographs from wrestlers before or after the show, is that even possible, and if so, how would I go about it?

3) Any general tips for seeing a PPV from nosebleed seats? Things we should bring or avoid?

4) Any suggestions on what sign I should make, if any? 🙂

Also… anyone else from Chicago going? Nathan Paoletta, how about you?

I have a theory/hope about Wrestlemania.

Right now, they’re building up to a match between Shane McMahon and AJ Styles. This is, to put it mildly, ridiculous. Shane isn’t a believable threat to AJ in the ring, any more than he was to the Undertaker, “guts and refusal to give up” notwithstanding.

So here’s my dream scenario for this. AJ enters the WM ring first, ready to fight, but not at all concerned. He’s got Shane’s measure, and the announcers could even play up a bit or refer to a past vignette where AJ didn’t even feel the need to warm up properly, that he’s going to pin Shane in his sleep.

Shane’s entrance music hits, and he comes down to the ring, mic in hand. He steps inside, but gestures to the ring announcer to wait before getting things started. He cuts a promo about how he’s been studying tapes of AJ’s fights, and how the more he watched, the more he realized that taking AJ on was sheer folly, that AJ is just too damn good. A bit of grudging acceptance and acknowledgement that AJ would definitely take him in a straight-up match. This could be emphasized further by having Shane receive some sort of kayfabe injury the week before — his arm in a sling, perhaps.

Shane concludes by saying that watching all those old tapes of AJ’s matches over the last few years, including those in Japan, gave him an idea. Just because he acknowledges AJ’s skill and power doesn’t mean that he thinks AJ should get away with any of this. So instead of facing AJ himself, Shane called in… a specialist.

Cue the music of SHINSUKE NAKAMURA.

Crowd loses its goddamn mind, and Nakamura enters, possibly with an army of hot violinist redheads at his heels, getting the full-blown Wrestlemania Moment treatment, on par with Rusev getting a Russian Tank from a couple years back. Ranallo is losing his mind on commentary, gushing about the battles that Nakamura and Styles have fought in Japan, the stuff of five-star legends… and then AJ and Shinsuke proceed to steal the show.

That’s how I’d book it, anyway.

So, I still haven’t had a chance to get involved with a WWWRPG game yet, so I’m going to live vicariously a little through those of you here who have.

What sort of characters have you made for this game? I would love to hear about them. I don’t need their full character sheets or anything, but I’d love to hear a little about who they are and what they look like, what their gimmicks and in-ring style are like, what their entrance music is, stuff like that. I don’t plan on using any of this info for anything, but it’d be fun to imagine a fictional wrestling fed populated by all these new characters that people have been having such fun with. Anyone game for sharing?

I’ll start — when Nathan Paoletta ran a demo of the game, I created “Brimstone”, a young up-and-coming wrestler with a mixture of high-flying and technical skills, sort of a cross between The Hurricane and T.J. Perkins. His gimmick was that he was a gamer geek, who would name his moves things like “DPS” or “Omnislash”, the latter of which was a finisher that included a flurry of high-speed kicks that ended with a double-palm strike to the chest for the knockout blow.

He would pepper nerd culture into his promos, like referring to “grabbing aggro” on someone or “tanking the boss”. He’d wear green and black, with a sort of eldritch flame motif, but also wear a bit of cosplay gear to the ring for spice — but if he went heel, he’d drop the happy gamer approach and go for more of someone who actually thought he was a monster, kind of Finn Balor’s Demon but with the brakes removed and a helpful dollop of obvious delusion.

Anyone else care to take a turn?

Remember Nakamura’s “violin orgy” entrance at Takeover Toronto?

Remember that smoking hot redhead who played the violin over him in the ring?

I just found out what her name is, completely at random, because she commented on a youtube video of that entrance. Brigit O’Regan. She’s made a point of saying that doing that show was the BEST GIG EVER, in her words. And dear god, she’s even hotter when you can see her face up close. Damn.

Whatever happened to LUCHA UNDERGROUND coming to Netflix on Feb. 15th? It hasn’t happened yet, but I haven’t been able to find any news reports about it beyond the initial announcements at the start of February saying that it was coming. Anyone hear any further details on this?

So, here’s a question for my fellow smart marks and wrestling industry insiders.

Why in the world is Shinsuke Nakamura not on the main WWE roster yet? I can understand why he spent 2016 down in Florida – to get used to working “WWE Style”, to boost the NXT brand as a dominant champion, and perhaps to brush up on his English-language skills and promos. I get that. It’s not like he needed any pointers on how to put on a freaking amazing match – his WWE debut with Sami Zayn proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt, for anyone who wasn’t already familiar with his NJPW work.

But here’s the thing. It’s been a year, and he’s had two solid runs with the NXT Championship, recently dropping the belt to Bobby Roode. Usually, when someone loses the NXT belt, it’s a sign that they’re about to “graduate” up to the main roster, but I have heard no rumors about Nakamura moving up anytime soon.

Is the language issue really that big a concern? He’s proven in NXT that he can get his points across, and if WWE is really concerned about this, why not assign him a manager to do his promos? I mean, this is exactly the sort of guy that Paul Heyman could work wonders with. Imagine Brock turning on Paul in frustration over his Goldberg problems, and Paul calling in The Most Dangerous Striker In The Game, The King of Strong Style, to defend him from the Beast? Or Paul creates a new stable of monsters with Brock as the foundation, and then adding people like Nakamura and Asuka (there’s another one overdue for the main roster) to that stable, striking absolute terror in anyone they cross paths with. Nakamura tears it up in the ring, getting massively over on the strength of his ring work, raw charisma, and awesome entrances, and Paul handles most of his promo work until he can smooth out his own English skills a bit. What’s wrong with that?

It doesn’t even need to be Paul – there’s got to be plenty of wrestlers who speak fluent Japanese from their travels, for example, so maybe Nakamura pairs up with one of them who acts as his translator? Sami Zayn comes immediately to mind as someone likely to speak the lingo. Zayne and Nakamura have huge in-storyline respect for each other after last year’s match, so they could cut promos together with Sami helping Nakamura convey some of the trickier aspects of whatever storyline they’re in.

My hope is that they’re quietly preparing Nakamura to make some sort of massive surprise entrance at Wrestlemania, to try and create a new “Wrestlemania moment”, although I don’t know off-hand who they would likely aim him at for his first feud. I don’t see Nakamura/Undertaker as being a thing, and it seems unlikely that they’d be comfortable with the massive pop that Nakamura would get for cracking open Roman Reigns’ head with a well-placed Kinshasa. Maybe have him debut with Sami Zayn again, a callback to last year’s NXT debut, and try to have them recreate that magic?

What do you all think?

He’s got the whoooooole world… in his hands….

Lucha Underground seasons 1 and 2 are coming to Netflix in mid-February! WOOT!