I used to watch “PURORESU” to get away from “sports entertainment” style wrestling with its over the top ref bumps, run-ins, cheating, gimmick matches, comedy. In the 2000s I discovered NOAH and NJPW and fell in love with their products because they presented wrestling as a sport. It felt real, at least as real as pro wrestling could feel.
Is anyone else disappointed how run ins, ref bumps, and other shenanigans are now common place in NJPW? I feel like I might as well just watch WWE. I miss the sports style presentation.
by CorrectInvestment509
10 comments
Sometimes I feel this way as well, but the last decade of NJPW has always had this stuff. BC with Devitt, Styles, and White had run ins. Omega did too i think, not as sure. Early LIJ had run ins. Early United Empire had run ins.
HOT is just very prominent right now on cards. They’ll eventually tone it down, I hope lol. I personally just skip their stuff, though it does mean skipping a lot right now.
I don’t know how you can watch 80-90% of a card and say you miss the sports style presentation. If you don’t like interference and ref bumps just skip HoT because we have limited time on this planet, but that’s been a Bullet Club stable for as long as they’ve existed.
I think the idea of a heel is to piss the fans off and what better way to be a heel than to constantly interrupt matches with BS and run ins.
Pure heel antics, that will come and go
Just watch BJW instead.
Not really, it’s just HOT which I hope changes it up some day but apart from it’s fine.
For me I’ve enjoyed most times cheating was done in New Japan like BC and earlier LIJ. Look at the Tana vs Styles match in G1 25 and I think the interferences helped. One of my most underrated New Japan matches is the Okada vs Naito invasion attack match where Naito wins the belt and the interferences helped that loads.
Even with run ins, ref bumps and other shenanigans, in NJPW there are almost always decisive finishes. No screwjobs. No DQs. No countouts. No “guy shows up and distracts another guy who gets pinned” finishes.
Those are what I really hated about WWE.
You should actually just check current WWE because they have less shenanigans.
Yeah the match quality has fallen off since 2019. The G1’s are still amazing. But at one point every single event had a few great matches. It’s just not like anymore. I think the match layouts have gotten lazy. Especially with the HoT run-ins and bumps.
NJPW is never going to be a perfect sanctuary where everything you hate about WWE or North American wrestling has been completely eradicated from the company.
I think most of the matches are still pretty sports based and if anything, they’re just switching stuff up.
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