[JoeRulz]

Wrestle Kingdom 7 review, bitches!

Spoiler for WK 7 REVIEW:

1. CHAOS (Jado, Tomohiro Ishii & YOSHI-HASHI) vs. Captain New Japan, Wataru Inoue & Tama Tonga

*


2. Ryusuke Taguchi, KUSHIDA & BUSHI vs. Jushin Liger, Tiger Mask & Hiromu Takahashi

**


3. CHAOS (Yujiro Takahashi, Toru Yano & Takashi Iizuka) & Bob Sapp vs. Akebono, MVP & Muscle Orchestra

Weak opener. Needed more of Ishii and Yujiro, and less of Nakanishi and Strong Man.

*1/2


4. NEVER Openweight Championship: Masato Tanaka © vs. Shelton Benjamin

Basic as fuck.

**


5. IWGP Tag Team Championship: Killer Elite Squad © vs. Sword & Guns

***


6. Minoru Suzuki vs. Yuji Nagata

Excellent match, loved this. MiSu’s character work was pure gold. This was fitting for a big Dome rubber match. Basic, yet so great and effective storytelling about one-upmanship. They made little and simple things look like million bucks. Not to mention fantastic mind games, especially from MiSu. Awesome, awesome match, and I would go even higher on the snowflakes if Nagata won with the armbreaker.

****


7. IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship: Prince Devitt © vs. Low Ki vs. Kota Ibushi

Low F’N Ki fucking stole the whole damn show with his Hitman outfit. It made for an awesome visuals. Anyway, this was a very good 3-Way, really nice and simple booking. Few great moves. They didn’t go over-the-top, thank God. Devitt confirms his Jr. Ace status, big win for him.

***1/2


8. TenKoji vs. Keiji Mutoh & Shinjiro Otani

Solid nostalgia match, nothing special. Good to see Mutoh and Otani back in the Dome.

**1/2


9. Togi Makabe vs. Katsuyori Shibata

Good match. Probably needed to be better, but nevermind. Shibata was surprisingly good here. Didn’t really care for Makabe’s face-in-peril segments. The table spot rocked, however, the finish was not very good, IMO, but that’s just nitpicking, I guess. I really appreciated how they ended the match after Makabe’s finisher, it was a nice dose of realism. Shame that Shibata lost, though.

***


10. IWGP Intercontinental Championship: Shinsuke Nakamura © vs. Kazushi Sakuraba

Oh boy, this could’ve gone either way in terms of match quality, but thank God it ended up being really good. I was skeptical after 2-3 minutes in, though. They were way too defensive. Not that there’s anything wrong with that in general, but it bugged me here because their mat work looked too soft and awkward. But hey, this is SHINSKAY we’re talking about, right? As soon as he pulled some swag out of his ass, the match got much better. He’s a psychological master, and it makes his matches sooo good. That bitchslap to Sakuraba… And you gotta give Sakuraba a lot of credit too, this is probably his best singles performance ever. Looked very dangerous and compelling on offense. The match was really exciting down the stretch, I’m so glad I watched this unspoiled.

***1/2


11. IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Hiroshi Tanahashi © vs. Kazuchika Okada

Yes, we all expected and wanted to see Okada as the new Champion. Now can we stop judging the match because of it, please? Because this was absolutely fantastic. You know you’re watching something great when it lasts over 33 minutes, and you’re disappointed it ended and want more. Well, that’s how I felt. Thank God I watched this unspoiled, because all those counters on Rainmaker wouldn’t be so exciting and dramatic. One-upmanship, mind games, great wrestling in general, selling, counters, big fight feel, drama, struggle, suspense… This match was total package, I swear. And it happened in the Tokyo Dome. Tanahashi retaining was a shock, though. I wonder why they didn’t crown Okada here. But nevermind, this match was almost perfect in my book, therefore I’m going full boat here.

*****


Great show overall. Nothing really newsworthy, but it was a nice spectacle with a lot of good/great wrestling and moments. The main matches delivered, that’s all that matters to me. Thumbs up for WK 7.

[EmbassyForever]

DDT - El Generico (c) vs Kenny Omega - ***3/4
Great match, finally Generico was over in DDT as he should have been in the series with Ibushi which helped the match a lot. I wish it was a little longer but the out-of-nowhere finish was actually great.

[bigbuxxx]

Spoiler for WK7:

11. IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Hiroshi Tanahashi © vs. Kazuchika Okada

Yes, we all expected and wanted to see Okada as the new Champion. Now can we stop judging the match because of it, please? Because this was absolutely fantastic. You know you’re watching something great when it lasts over 33 minutes, and you’re disappointed it ended and want more. Well, that’s how I felt. Thank God I watched this unspoiled, because all those counters on Rainmaker wouldn’t be so exciting and dramatic. One-upmanship, mind games, great wrestling in general, selling, counters, big fight feel, drama, struggle, suspense… This match was total package, I swear. And it happened in the Tokyo Dome. Tanahashi retaining was a shock, though. I wonder why they didn’t crown Okada here. But nevermind, this match was almost perfect in my book, therefore I’m going full boat here.

*****

I could see giving this 5*. I haven't made up my mind on stars because I just watched the first time and enjoyed the fuck out of it. I also thought their second match was a GOAT match but after watching a second time I didn't really enjoy it all that much. Gonna watch this a second time today or tomorrow and again in a month or two and see if it still has IT. My initial impression is that it will hold because while Tana worked the leg it wasn't a long control segment on the leg and this had DRAMA. I marked like a little kid when they leaned on each other to pick and hold themselves up. To me that was a GOAT moment and really goes to your point from the other thread that they're equals. Had Okada won I'd throw this at 5* because it would be epic and memorable.

[Cactus]

Spoiler for WK7:

NJPW Wrestlekingdom 7 in the Tokyo Dome

Wataru Inoue, Tama Tonga & Captain New Japan vs Tomohiro Ishii, YOSHI-HASHI & Jado
Tama Tonga's finisher was ...weird.
★¼

Jushin Thunder Liger, Tiger Mask & Hiromu Takahashi vs Ryusuke Taguchi, KUSHIDA & BUSHI
The opening matwork was pretty good and Takahashi continues to grow on me with every match I see of his. I hope a push is in store for him in the future.
★★

Manabu Nakanishi, MVP, Strong Man & Akebono vs Toru Yano, Takashi Iizuka, Yujiro Takahashi & Bob Sapp
This match was an awkward mess and overall pretty bad, but I got some enjoyment out of it in the same way as I do when I'm watching a bad action movie. Enthusiastic Nogami on commentary and Bob Sapp added a lot to this match by simply being over-the-top.
★

Masato Tanaka © vs Shelton Benjamin - NEVER Openweight Title
Benjamin is the drizzling shits; he has zero charisma and was busting out german and northern light suplexes like they were side headlocks here. Tanaka managed to get a serviceable match out of him though. I also thought the finish here was pretty good.
★★¼

Lance Archer & Davey Boy Smith Jr. © vs Hirooki Goto & Karl Anderson - IWGP Tag Team Title
This was pretty decent. The finishing stretch was very back-and-forth especially. Like most IWGP title matches nowadays, the final part of the match was really the saving grace of the match. That's not to say the stuff before the final 5 minutes was bad, it was just extremely uneventful.
★★¾

Yuji Nagata vs Minoru Suzuki
I don't care how many times these two have faced each other; it'll never get old. This match was mostly about one-manship and features many back-and-forth strike exchanges but these two know how to do them right and they do new stuff to make them not feel too similar to their other encounters. Nagata's comeback during the sleeper was awesome and highly-charismatic. His selling gets a tad selective in the final minutes, but it didn't hurt the match too much.
★★★★

Prince Devitt © vs Low Ki vs Kota Ibushi - IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title
Really fun flippity-shit match. Plenty of insane spots to be found in this one but there were plenty of awkward looking moments too. I love Low-Ki's random but awesome Hitman costume.
★★★

Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima vs Keiji Muto & Shinjiro Otani
I don't think anyone was expecting a great match here. What I got here was solid stuff. The only thing that sticks out are the huge reactions the highly charismatic team of Muto and Otani got. Crowd reactions can't make a bad match good, but they can make them much more watchable.
★★½

Togi Makabe vs Katsuyori Shibata
An entertaining short brawl. Shibata mostly just beats the shit out of Makabe for most of the match until Makabe gets a lucky move in and it's all quite similar to Cena/Lesnar from last year, just nowhere near it's level though.
★★★

Shinsuke Nakamura © vs Kazushi Sakuraba - IWGP Intercontinental Title
We are only 6 days into the year and I can comfortably say that this is definitely going to be a top 5 match of the year. Saku dominates Nakamura for most of the match and Nakamura is just awesome at busting out the desperation moves. I also marked big for the Landslide and Nakamura eating a knee in the same way he did from Takayama from years before. All-in-all, this was a great match that made Nakamura look like a true champion, made the title look very important and also kept Saku looking pretty dangerous himself, despite his loss. I hope both Sakuraba and Shibata stick around as they could really freshen up the main event scene.
★★★★½

Hiroshi Tanahashi © vs Kazuchika Okada - IWGP Heavyweight Title
The first 20 minutes of this was really boring and it felt like they were just going the distance for the hell of it. They could of established everything they did in the first 20 minutes in a few minutes and not bore me to death. The match picks up as soon as Tana uses the Rainmaker taunt. It manages to escape being your usual Tanahashi formulaic back-and-forth finishing stretch and Okada kicking out of the High Fly Flow was pretty unexpected. I feel the more Tanahashi matches I watch, the less I'm going to like him. I can't see the other matches between these two holding up on a re-watch either.
★★★

Overall:
A step-up from last year's show, that's for sure.

[EmbassyForever]

Not MOTYC but still worth mention.

NEVER: Masato Tanaka vs Tomohiro Ishii - ***1/2
Other pals talkes about this match enough, don't have too much to write that they didn't. Great strong-style match as exepcted, Ishii is awesome.

NJPW 10.03.2012: Prince Devitt (c) vs Davey Richards - ***1/2
Yep, they had a match in 2012. The match was very good, and believe it or not - Richards was great in this match. Didn't went balls to the walls as always and actually worked smartly and in much slower pace than usual. Man, Richards in Japan is like a diffrent person to Davey Richards in North America. Enjoyed the match a lot and you can't go wrong with PRINCE DEVITT.

[spandak2]

Originally Posted by MF83

While we're on the subject, what's a good free program to convert DVD5 .VOB files into .avi files and the like?

convert files from vob to avi, you may try freemake video converter, free and works well.

[Jack Evans 187]

For those interested, IVP had a gigantic update today, including Wrestle Kingdom VII & a Best of Okada Series:

NJPW 1/4/2013 DVD (3 Discs)
http://new.ivpvideos2.com/product_in...oducts_id=9867

NJPW 1/4/2013 Download (3 Discs)
http://new.ivpvideos2.com/product_in...oducts_id=9868

Best of Okada in 2012, Vol. 1-4
http://new.ivpvideos2.com/advanced_s...keywords=okada

[Obfuscation]

Spoiler for Wrestle Kingdom VII Review:

NJPW Wrestle Kingdom VII

1) Manabu Nakanishi, Strongman, MVP, & Akebono vs Yujiro Takahashi, Toru Yano, Takashi Iizuka, & Bob Sapp ~ *1/4


2) NEVER Openweight Championship
Masato Tanaka(c) vs Shelton Benjamin ~ **1/2


3) IWGP Tag Team Championship
Killer Elite Squad(c) (Lance Archer & Davey Boy Smith Jr) vs Sword & Guns (Hirooki Goto & Karl Anderson) ~ ***1/2


4) Yuji Nagata vs Minoru Suzuki ~ ****1/4


5) IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship - Three Way Match
Prince Devitt(c) vs Low Ki vs Kota Ibushi ~ ****


6) Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima vs Keiji Muto & Shinjiro Ohtani ~ ***


7) Togi Makabe vs Katsuyori Shibata ~ ****


8) IWGP Intercontinental Championship
Shinsuke Nakamura(c) vs Kazushi Sakuraba ~ ****1/2


9) IWGP World Championship
Hiroshi Tanahashi(c) vs Kazuchika Okada ~ ****

Rewatched it and the only things that lowered was the awesome three way by a 1/4* and Tanaka/Shelton being a bit less in the good department as I recall. It's still quite a bit of fun with a nice ending, imo. Great event and should be seen by any and everyone. Nakamura steals another show. He's the absolute best.

[Jack Evans 187]

Best of Tanahashi in 2012 Vol. 1-4 available at IVPvideos.com. Got all dem dere MOTYC from last year.

[Obfuscation]

Didn't Seabs have one first?