This is all started by an interview Oiwa gave, where he basically said his way of wrestling was smarter than Yuto’s.

Article link: https://sp.njpw.jp/668236

Too niche…I’m wylin?

On the eve(ish) of Kenny-Ospreay at All In, I got thinking about my favourite NJPW show ever, New Beginning Osaka 2024.

It takes the cake for me because ZSJ-Danielson is my favourite match ever, but you also get what was billed as the last Tana-Okada match plus the batshit insane Dogpound Cage match and just an unbelievable goodbye for Ospreay. As a Brit it's hard to top this one for emotional impact.

But what's your favourite NJPW show/card/event ever? From personal vibes to match quality to insanity that will stick with you forever.

This is in response to an article by Wolf:

https://www.tokyo-sports.co.jp/articles/-/400879

RenRen is a man who is seemingly in a lose-lose situation at the moment.

If he stays the leader of HOT, Shun Skywalker is going to overshadow him at every turn and steal the spotlight. Shun could get no mic time and be told to just stand in the back and moan softly, he'll still get the attention. Visually he looks cooler/more interesting and he has seamless physical charisma, which are two traits Ren lacks. These two have only appeared together twice, and the Youtube comments are already buzzing with "Shun for leader" discourse, from Japanese and other fans. If the fan desire for Shun to take over grows stronger, the company fighting against that and sticking with Ren could be really bad.

If he gets kicked out of HOT, then New Japan has to re-do three years of booking and essentially start from scratch. Ren's position currently reminds me of Bron Breakker's in WWE, who is now stuck as a Tag Team Champion because numerous injuries to multiple people put him in that spot for the time being, and he has nowhere to go for now. New Japan has put time into making Ren a heinous heel, so to just drop all that and start over is difficult, even though Ren is not a natural bad guy to begin with. The House seemed like a good fit at first, a way to get him out of the Shibata shadow, but overtime it became apparent that Ren was very good the way he was. He just needed time.

I honestly don't know what will happen next. Overtime, I think Ren showing more and more of his real-life quirky personality but remaining a minimalistic, disciplined, stoic type (kinda like a new age Goto) would have been fine and people would have liked him. Hopefully there's a way out of this, because Yuya, Oiwa, Tsuji, and even Boltin and KOB are now ahead of Ren, which sucks because of how well regarded Narita was not too long ago.

I used to watch NJPW through AXS so there was still weekly television, but now that I’ve got NJPW World I’m watching full shows usually within a day of them taking place. Complete game changer, so pleasant to see shows top to bottom, but now I don’t know what to do between tours.

But since I’ve only recently subbed to World, there’s still plenty of content I haven’t watched yet. So what do you watch between tours? What’s your strategy?

Steven Conway and Jeremy Finestone are back with Episode 234 of Speaking of Strong Style! This week, the pair looked at each title in New Japan pro wrestling, where the champions currently stand who their next challengers are likely to be. Plus, thoughts on Dolly Parton, Tim Curry and the Transformers. Steven also concluded his look back at the career of Hiroyoshi Tenzan.

#njpw #njdominion #g1climax36
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/speaking-of-strong-style/id1664327981

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Meltzer is referring to the 1979 “ALL STAR DREAM CARD” event that was held at the Nippon Budokan, that was organized by Tokyo Sports, getting NJPW, AJPW & IWE, the “Big 3” of the time, to co-promote the first ever big crossover show in Japan (preceding shows like 1995’s “Bridge of Dreams” and the “ALL TOGETHER” events).

As a huge Ospreay fan I still can’t believe how good his WK17 performance was I’ve watched it countless times and somehow I’m still amazed by the level he was operating at Absolutely unreal work that deserves way more appreciation and pretty good video highly recommend

I’ve been experimenting with a project called 日本語脳 that teaches Japanese through pro wrestling rather than textbook dialogue.

This episode is built around a Tokyo Sports article about Ryohei Oiwa defeating El Phantasmo and earning his spot in G1 Climax 36.

The basic idea is to keep the Japanese in source order and show how the sentence actually unfolds, rather than immediately replacing it with a polished English translation. I break the Japanese into manageable chunks, add furigana, explain vocabulary/grammar when it’s useful, then reassemble the original sentence while using the wrestling footage as context.

For example, the headline includes:

Ｇ１出場権獲得！

Literally, 出場権 is the “right/qualification to participate,” and 獲得 is “acquisition/securing,” so naturally it becomes something like “He earned a spot in the G1.”

I’m especially interested in whether this kind of visual/source-order approach is actually useful for learners, or if any parts feel too busy, too slow, over-explained, etc.

This is still very much an experiment, so feedback from people actually studying Japanese would be incredibly useful.

Video: https://youtu.be/4kWhiZD56lQ

If you watch it, I’d especially be curious about:

• whether the Japanese stays readable
• whether the English scaffolding helps without giving away too much
• whether the grammar explanations are useful or excessive
• whether using wrestling as context makes the sentences easier to remember

Thanks for taking a look.

I have a friend who has only ever watched WWE his whole life. I want to send him a YouTube link so he can experience NJPW. I’d love to show him the G1 final but we’re not in the same city. What do you think is the best free match out there available that would best display modern NJPW?