General WWE II: The Most Electrifying ROH Appreciation in Sports Entertainment

[Vil]

NJPW peeps, it's Fantastica Mania time! If you don't know what to expect, it is basically a CMLL tour, where the NJPW people are not the focus. Nothing happening here will affect New Beginning or anything. It's usually pretty light-hearted for the NJPW roster. In the past, you've had Nakamura dressing like a caveman, Okada doing good lucha things, etc.

If you don't care about the CMLL only stuff and are just here for this: https://www.njpw1972.com/wp-content/...16509_4_11.jpg
then this show on now is the last time on the tour they're going to be facing off in tag matches.

Also of note, Monday's tag match is Kawato's farewell match. He's off to excursion in CMLL after this. The crowd is always into him at Korakuen anyway, so him fighting off a Boston Crab applied by Gedo and/or putting him in one will get this crowd fired up.

The CMLL stuff includes a brothers tag tournament and the main event on Sunday's show is something I'm looking forward to - Volador Jr. vs Barbaro Cavernario.

[Anoat]

In the lead up to Raw 25, WWE has been posting the classic intros to Raw, but edited to feature current superstars. They're pretty damn good.

Original Raw Intro:


New Generation Raw Intro:


Attitude Era Intro:


Ruthless Aggression Era Intro:


I don't know if they'll have the time or inclination to get to the Papa Roach or Nickelback versions before Monday, but those were pretty sick.

[Kang]

Forgot ROH tickets went on sale yesterday. There were only a few left on the floor facing the hard camera but I got them.

[Kalmado]

Kota Ibushi is the fucking best.

https://streamable.com/xh6jm

[Vil]

Day in the life, man.

That's at least the 3rd time this week I've seen a clip posted of him doing something weird from some Japanese tv show. The most normal of them was his appearance on Ninja Warrior, but since it's Ibushi, of course he was doing it in his wrestling gear. Why not?

[Delirium]

Kota Ibushi is the fucking best.

https://streamable.com/xh6jm

I think the most important thing is that Kota was being chased by a mob of people, but hesitated when seeing Aja Kong. He had to decide if the mob was more or less dangerous than her.

[Nitsuki]

The best part is the legit look of confusion in his face.

[Anoat]

WWE has an official Reddit account now. Welp the Internet was fun while it lasted but now it's over. https://www.reddit.com/user/RealWWE/...lly_on_reddit/

[Snprphnx]

In the lead up to Raw 25, WWE has been posting the classic intros to Raw, but edited to feature current superstars. They're pretty damn good.

Original Raw Intro:


New Generation Raw Intro:


Attitude Era Intro:


Ruthless Aggression Era Intro:


I don't know if they'll have the time or inclination to get to the Papa Roach or Nickelback versions before Monday, but those were pretty sick.

I'd like to see the Marilynn Manson "Beautiful People" remix myself.

[Nitsuki]

It would’ve been badass if they recreated the raw intro where they wrestle on the roof of a warehouse with a police helicopter.

[Kalmado]

It would’ve been badass if they recreated the raw intro where they sports entertain on the roof of a warehouse with a police helicopter.

ftfy

[Delirium]

Can't wait for Takeover this Saturday in Philly. Great card(see below), but Shayna Baszler has never wrestled in Philly and is a huge Vikings fan. I'll be amused while trying to avoid saying I'm a pats fan.

Andrade "Cien" Almas (c) (with Zelina Vega) vs. Johnny Gargano - Singles match for the NXT Championship
Aleister Black vs. Adam Cole - Extreme Rules match
Ember Moon (c) vs. Shayna Baszler - Singles match for the NXT Women's Championship
The Undisputed Era (Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly) (c) vs. The Authors of Pain (Akam and Rezar)

I think Lars Sullivan vs Killian Dane is going to be a match too, but hasn't been officially announced yet. Hoping Kassius Ohno, Roderick Strong, and Kairi Sane are there as well.

[Kalmado]

I've been missing NXT lately so I'll have to get up to speed. Forgot to check out FantasticaMania yesterday so will probably watch that tonight. Naito and Rush showing Kojima how to be tranquilo was awesome from day 1.

[Vagrant]

Can't wait for Takeover this Saturday in Philly. Great card(see below), but Shayna Baszler has never wrestled in Philly and is a huge Vikings fan. I'll be amused while trying to avoid saying I'm a pats fan.

Andrade "Cien" Almas (c) (with Zelina Vega) vs. Johnny Gargano - Singles match for the NXT Championship
Aleister Black vs. Adam Cole - Extreme Rules match
Ember Moon (c) vs. Shayna Baszler - Singles match for the NXT Women's Championship
The Undisputed Era (Bobby Fish and Kyle O'Reilly) (c) vs. The Authors of Pain (Akam and Rezar)

I think Lars Sullivan vs Killian Dane is going to be a match too, but hasn't been officially announced yet. Hoping Kassius Ohno, Roderick Strong, and Kairi Sane are there as well.

Kairi Sane is dealing with a minor injury reportedly so probably won't have a match but maybe some form of involvement with Baszler. Roddy did call out Lars on the last episode of NXT so maybe a three way with them and Killian.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[Kalmado]

If Roddy doesn't join UE I think it's time he gets called up. Doubt their giving him the title in NXT so what more can he do? Would a secondary title make sense for NXT?

[Zealot]

Could make a Television title like ECW had, that belt was crazy over when RVD was champ.

[Vil]

I've been missing NXT lately so I'll have to get up to speed. Forgot to check out FantasticaMania yesterday so will probably watch that tonight. Naito and Rush showing Kojima how to be tranquilo was awesome from day 1.

Eh, the LIJ stuff on this tour was kind of forgettable for me except Hiromu giving Kawato a going away present to remember him by. The matches were fine, but there are tons of good to very good LIJ 6-8-10 man tags. Today's was probably my favorite of theirs, since it was against a full CMLL team rather than some combo of those 3 NJPW guys and a token CMLL guy. You could see a match similar to that any time of the year.

A few takeaways from the tour:

Glad to see Kawato get a great sendoff like that. I laughed when it looked like he was headed towards backstage and Liger was like "no, go around, shake hands of the fans and enjoy this".

I still don't know if the tournament was for an actual championship, but I enjoyed the matches.

Volador and Cavernario rocked. I know a large amount of people probably only care about this tour for Dragon Lee, but Cavernario is who I tune in to see.

I didn't know about Niebla Roja before, but he's someone I'll be keeping an eye out for when following CMLL.

[Kalmado]

While there is no doubt Dragon Lee is a top tier star, I'll watch anyone at least a few times just to see what they have. I went into Lucha Underground only knowing JoMo and after the first season I came out learning about so much talent that probably 3 of 4 people have never heard of. I guess what I'm trying to say is, wrestling is fun and it's fun seeing new people.

[Delirium]

CMLL has a show every Friday that streams on YouTube for free.

[Vil]

I wasn't speaking about you (or anybody here) with that Dragon Lee comment. Just seeing some comments around other places acting like he'd be the only one from CMLL worth tuning in for, and my thought is that even though the shows are only about 2 hours, if you're only tuning in just for him, why even bother? Like you, I have enjoyed getting to see some old and new faces.

I know Youtube is the place, but that's not the right account, is it? The video listing doesn't have any of that, and I thought that Friday shows are the only ones that aren't free streaming by them because the other days are readily available in a few places. There are some accounts that catalog Friday shows by match, which is what I figured I'd probably use.