*Official* Pro-Wrestling Thread II

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Haha **** me, do you really think so? This might well have ruined my day.

Well it depends on which Adam you're referring to. Assuming you mean Blampied and not Pacitti, then not particularly, but you're quite annoying and I quite like you both despite that.

 

[Spikey]

In terms of in ring talent LIJ must be one of the best stables in wrestling history.

I haven't caught up on the NJPW shows I couldn't watch due to net troubles, so I'm not sure if this based on a particular match, but I think there's an argument to be made that LIJ is, in terms of ring talent, the third best stable in NJPW (Chaos and Taguchi Japan being in front. See below)

LIJ's strength for me isn't in the singles matches of the members but the constant high standard of their multiman matches. They're indisputably better than the other stables in the tags and I think that's because unlike every other stable, they've just got a small well defined group of full time Japanese guys and it's basically the same people wrestling in the multiman matches. Meanwhile the people who tag with Okada are basically always rotated around. I've been really impressed with Taguchi Japan this year which I think is taking a similar approach to LIJ in terms of group numbers, as opposed to the bloat filled Chaos and Bullet Club, but the likely impending loss of Ricochet will hurt them big time.


Los Ingobernables de Japon
Bushi (fairly average in the ring but mask game is best in the biz)
Evil (I'm still not that high on him as a singles wrestler but his match finishes tend to be pretty good)
Hiromu Takahashi (the absolute boy)
Sanada (disappointing G1 has shaken my belief in him)
Tetsuya Naito

But obviously put 3 or 4 together and they deliver every time

Taguchi Japan
David Finlay (Dave's still kind of a young lion and kind of in a weird spot but he's alright)
Hiroshi Tanahashi (the ace)
Juice Robinson
Kushida (the junior ace)
Manabu Nakanishi (barely counts anyway)
Ricochet (probably top 10 in the world)
Ryusuke Taguchi (pretty great when he tries)
Big Mike Elgin (he's not for everyone, but two 5 star matches plus the Omega series kinda speaks for itself)
(I guess War Machine are associated members too. And they're great too)

So yeah there's a lotta of great wrestlers in here. But obviously the stable doesn't really stand for anything like LIJ does

Chaos
Trent Beretta
Gedo
Hirooki Goto
Jado
Jay Briscoe
Kazuchika Okada
Mark Briscoe
Rocky Romero
Tomohiro Ishii
Toru Yano
Will Ospreay
Yoshi-Hashi

hahahahahah there's 6 heavyweights here, plus the Briscoes. But amongst the bloat here you've got three top 10 wrestlers in the world (Okada, Ishii and Ospreay) plus Goto, Trent?, and Rocky. If the group was shortened down to just that 6, oh boy, that'd help so much (Although I'd send Goto elsewhere anyway and Gedo can stay)

I'm not even gonna work out who is in Bullet Club nowadays

But yeah based on how the stables actually work and all that, LIJ are probably one of the best of all time. It's a simple well structured thing built on one great wrestler and the chip on his shoulder

 

[duffer]

Haha **** me, do you really think so? This might well have ruined my day.

You remind me of Aiden English tbh. Can you sing?

 

[Athlai]

The thing with LIJ is that they're all pretty cool in their own way.

Doesn't take long getting into any other stable pretty much ever before you start getting dross.

 

[sledger]

You remind me of Aiden English tbh. Can you sing?

Yes, but very badly.

 

[Niall]

A little dodgy that Jinder promo, not a good look if the next few weeks promo from him are of similar message.

 

[duffer]

Yeah, it was tasteless to say the least. Had trouble sitting through it.

 

[OverratedSanity]

Meanwhile Rusev continues to take dogshit material and somehow makes it hilarious and entertaining

RUSEV NUMBER ONE!!!

 

[sledger]

Meanwhile Rusev continues to take dogshit material and somehow makes it hilarious and entertaining

RUSEV NUMBER ONE!!!

Haha he seems to have a knack for that tbh. I can think of several angles that were considerably better than they had any right to be because of his amusing performances.

The Jinder promos on Naka have been absolute garbage for the past two weeks though. Smacks of a "hur dur it's not a white guy saying this stuff so it can't be racist" type attitude. Not doing anybody any favours.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

They really have to move on from Jinder as the Champion and revitalise the title scene. They really should build to a Nakamura vs. AJ Wrestlemania match, with AJ winning the Rumble to get the shot or something. Doubt that will happen tho, probably headed towards a Corbin reign or something else really stupid. They don't have enough good heels on Smackdown.

 

[sledger]

I think AJ vs Naka is definitely in the works. They seem to be deliberately keeping them apart other than from the odd really non-subtle tease.

Agree about the whole Jinder thing though. I was happy to give him the benefit of the doubt but it's never really kicked on and is now pretty stale. A worrying sign when the programme involving the WWE champion is the least interesting thing on the entire show (and it's not like this Styles/Corbin thing or the women's division are hot **** by any stretch).

 

[Agent TBY]

The worst thing about the Jinder promos is the whole "the one crying about racist America is the REAL racist" undertone to it.

And no. Just... no.

 

[Niall]

Think we can safely say Jinder got the belt for the Indian audience, I understand the logic, 1 billion people, and they have very few oversea draws since Rey left.

However is there any actual proof is drawing money from the Indian market? Because if not, the title reign can't be justified much longer, not really over with American audiences and a new champ would freshen things up.

 

[duffer]

Apparently network subs in India have gone down during his reign. Not sure if they thought they'd significantly increase them when all PPV's are on here for free the next night.

Also not sure they realise how many people here believe kayfabe (and there are quite loads of them), so a douchebag who cheats to win every time he fights anyone won't really draw lots of new fans.

He's had a terrible run so far, so they need to change something.

 

[sledger]

Think we can safely say Jinder got the belt for the Indian audience, I understand the logic, 1 billion people, and they have very few oversea draws since Rey left.

However is there any actual proof is drawing money from the Indian market? Because if not, the title reign can't be justified much longer, not really over with American audiences and a new champ would freshen things up.

Arguably it's just as much about the way his body is about twice the size of it was during his first run with the E. If he was still the same as he was during the 3MB days he ain't getting near that title, not for all the Indian fans in the world.

 

[Spikey]

WWE Forcing Fans to Hate Jinder Mahal for All the Wrong Reasons | Bleacher Report

I can't wait for this to finally be over

Also I can't wait for Rusev to be pushed as a uber patriotic American who we're supposed to hate

 

[Niall]

Apparently network subs in India have gone down during his reign. Not sure if they thought they'd significantly increase them when all PPV's are on here for free the next night.

Also not sure they realise how many people here believe kayfabe (and there are quite loads of them), so a douchebag who cheats to win every time he fights anyone won't really draw lots of new fans.

He's had a terrible run so far, so they need to change something.

Think that network India story has been proven to be false, caught fire due to forbes totally misreading a Meltzer story tbf.

However yeah a chicken **** heel like Jinder isn't the obvious choice to crack India, but I suppose with not many options they took a punt and so far the jury is out.

What makes the promo worse as others have said if Jinder wins the PPV. Ugh. We all thought Trips would lose to Booker as the angle was so rotten so people were somewhat giving him the benefit of the doubt, but when Trips won easily, it really soured a lot of people. And nope not all heat is good heat.

 

[OverratedSanity]

I just saw that promo. Eugh. "Let's get a brown guy to say it to a Japanese guy, so it can't be called racist" is basically what they must've been thinking.

 

[OverratedSanity]

What makes the promo worse as others have said if Jinder wins the PPV. Ugh. We all thought Trips would lose to Booker as the angle was so rotten so people were somewhat giving him the benefit of the doubt, but when Trips won easily, it really soured a lot of people. And nope not all heat is good heat.

Trips didn't just win. He made Booker's ultra rare finisher look like a joke, and pinned him clean a full 15 seconds after hitting the pedigree.

 

[Athlai]

TBF the feud was supposedly playing on Bookers real life armed robberies record. He absolutely shouldn't have lost though.