Venomous @Venomous@mastodon.social

woooow, idk how long Mastodon has fucked up their image hosting, but uhhhh a lot of the images in my NJPW history thread are fucked

Hi. I should toot more often. Sorry. I've been less inclined to write or watch wrestling or anything lately, and it's just...urgh. I know that the G1's on right now but I haven't been excited for it, and idk.

Like, I cannot stress enough how perfect Shibata/Goto and Okada/Makabe are, especially Okada/Makabe. The latter tells such a good story between Okada's technical wrestling skill and Goto the massive powerhouse in such a perfect way. Here are the links to Okada/Makabe again. https://embedy.cc/movies/RjY5OHRQL2JpTFl6cXl6bE1rcW80TUdBYjJiK0J0bWt4clJRMllmNmtDWT0= http://njpwworld.com/p/s_series_00209_1_8

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Prince Devitt: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x59lv0i (http://njpwworld.com/p/s_series_00209_1_7)

Katsuyori Shibata vs. Hirooki Goto: https://rutube.ru/video/2016431bb94b9943379f563c66d7e1bf/ (http://njpwworld.com/p/s_series_00209_1_6) (WATCH THIS MATCH)

Kazuchika Okada vs. Togi Makabe for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship https://embedy.cc/movies/RjY5OHRQL2JpTFl6cXl6bE1rcW80TUdBYjJiK0J0bWt4clJRMllmNmtDWT0= (http://njpwworld.com/p/s_series_00209_1_8) (WATCH THIS TOO)

Makabe, however, is a former IWGP Heavyweight Champion. What he lacks in youth he makes up for in experience and, most importantly, power. He can throw Okada around the ring like it's nothing on earth, whereas Okada's young and inexperienced and he wouldn't be able to shift Makabe off his feet if he tried. Makabe wants to win this match by brute force alone, and he has all the tools he needs to do it.

There's the power dynamics here. Powerhouse former champ vs. young cocky shithead champ.

Now, Okada isn't too fond of Makabe. Sure, they both do lariats, but Okada's lariat has style and finesse and the Rainmaker looks suave as heck. He's a real professional wrestler, not some street fighter who just came in off the street one day to beat the shit out of people. Also, he's nearly 41, for Christ's sake. He's washed up, whereas Okada is in the prime of his life.

(Sidenote: I don't really like talking about Tomoakl Honma that much, because between 2011 and 2015 he would regularly beat his girlfriend, and he hasn't accepted his actions or apologised for them. He's a piece of shit. Also, he does too many diving headbutts. He's probably had hundreds of undocumented concussions in his career, like another wrestler who would go on to kill his family, and...fuck Honma. I won't really be mentioning Honma in this writeup.)

GBH would win the IWGP Tag Team Championship (Makabe and Toru Yano) and the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship (Low-Ki), but they'd lose their titles at Wrestle Kingdom III in 2009. On April 5th 2009, GBH as a faction would be dissolved after its members turned on Makabe in his match with Shinsuke Nakamura, forming Chaos afterwards. GBH'd continue as a tag team with Makabe and his last loyal member, Tomoaki Honma, apart from the one year interregnum in 2012 when Honma was fired from NJPW.

Togi Makabe is a goddamn powerhouse. He mainly attacks with these incredible lariats and punches, which is especially damaging when he wraps the chain on his neck around his waist, and he has a beautiful superplex off the top turnbuckle where he hooks his legs onto the ropes and lifts himself up after throwing his opponent. Basically, he's Roman Reigns if Roman Reigns were in charge of some flashy hardass shitheads who wanted to cause grievous bodily harm to everyone in their way.

Now. This next and final match is one of my favourite matches of all time. To start with, I need to tell you a bit about a faction in NJPW named Great Bash Heel, GBH for short. In 2006, the winner of the G1 Climax, Hiroyoshi Tenzan, announced a new stable which wanted to be cool as fuck and beat the shit out of everyone. He'd recruit a few members, but he'd soon be deposed by a goddamned brute with a steel chain round his neck who fights like a goddamn backyard wrestler. His name is Togi Makabe.

Shibata and Goto would have a match at Wrestling Dontaku, but it ended in a double KO. However, both of them were aggressive as heck, and they wanted another piece of each other, one on one. They'd have this rematch at Dominion, and believe me, it's fucking incredible.

Now, Shibata went to school with Hirooki Goto. Shibata started in NJPW three years before Goto, and until he left, Shibata and Goto would never have a match together.

When Shibata returned to NJPW in 2012 (not 2013 lmao), he would wrestle in a tag team with Sakuraba known as Laughter7. They would remain undefeated as a tag team until Invasion Attack, when Goto and Yuji Nagata would beat them by referee stoppage after Sakuraba injured his elbow. That pissed off Shibata, and he wanted revenge.

Katsuyori Shibata is a goddamn monster who doesn't have time for your grandstanding or your flashy bullshit. He will enter the ring and kick your arse without a second thought, because that is his job and that is what he is good at.

Shibata was part of NJPW's 'Three Musketeers' alongside Tanahashi and Nakamura, as they joined at the same time and they were destined for great things...until Shibata left because NJPW was shit at that time. Now that he's back, he's gonna make up that lost ground.

So that's Tanahashi/Devitt set up for Dominion. Now, I want to introduce another player to the story who left NJPW in 2005 to wrestle on the indies and pursue a largely unsuccessful career in MMA. He returned alongside Sakuraba in 2013, and until now he hasn't really shaken off that ring rust. Now, however, he means business. This man is a wrestler: a pure wrestler with the hardest chops and kicks known to man, a hardass on the level of Tanaka and Ishii. His name is Katsuyori Shibata.

Tanahashi, of course, wasn't perturbed. He'd beaten Devitt one on one before, and he'll do it again no matter how much the Bullet Club gets in his way. He's the goddamn ace of the goddamn universe, the once in a fucking century talent and he doesn't need a gang of gobshites backing him up to beat Prince Devitt. Surely. Right?

...Right?