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sana-yan · 1 year

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tmdk's placement on the upcoming card makes me wonder about the trajectory of both factions, especially post sakura genesis

sorry to tmdk enjoyers but i'm here mainly for the soyboy and his adopted kid, even back in old pwnoah days i wasn't a fan of zacku's lads... i liked JONAH and bad dude tito's presentation a year ago but now tmdk struggles as a whole unit to be relevant... but maybe that could change

comparing how zack got a belt and was presented as a winner out of the gate post-szkg disbandment whereas j4g was on the losing end, based on the results of sakura genesis, we can potentially get these logical storylines:

tmdk = big winners: zsj retains, robbie wins belt from hiromu, both of which i think won't happen, so the next one is...

tmdk = middle of the pack: zsj retains, robbie loses. most plausible sequence at the moment to me unless they really want to give shota a push. a 15 min belt would also give him enough experience without exposing his lack of depth reserved for longer matches... but if zsj loses, it's...

tmdk = back to the drawing board & potential faction feud: honestly this is mad that i'm even implying zacku to lose the belt, i know, i dislike it too but keeping him with the tv title feels like a weight burdening him from taking on grander challenges. as the premier holder of the tv title, he's added his star power and legitimacy to it as well as had some good defenses. if i had it my way, i'd like for him to win another belt on top of it, but this is njpw and unless you're a merch mover, it's highly unlikely they'd give us two belt zachariah sabre jr

so either it'll be option 2 or 3, with a feud with lij as robbie aims for hiromu. personally, if zacku retains over shota, i can see naito challenging for the tv title. njpw loves to use lij popularity to legitimize things.

the field is murky because there is no true heel faction outside of h.o.t. getting boos from the crowd. not to say that we need face/heel always, but that in general njpw wants the heels to be booed, so they might try to see which stables can shift alignments (i.e. okada's total bitchface thing he's got going on lately that i adore. very 2017 rainmaker) so as to not steal momentum.

for example, bullet club has to go violent heel so we don't lose finlay's momentum. reverting to silly club would disrupt debbie-chan's next step into becoming The Leader. personally, i've mentioned that i'd like KENTA and elp to make their own offshoot with other members of bc coming in for bosj and leave bc for a tweener faction, and for finlay to bring in the australian tamashii boys so we can have two flavors of heel: one dedicated to derailing the matches but have the strength to back it up, and another just ready to tear their opponent apart

in that note, j5g cannot go heel. they're literally the found family underdog faction (v. similar to dark order on aew atm ). and have you seen SANADA recently? he trended on twitter every single match he had when he switched up his allegiance. the Japanese fans wanted to see him fired up like this. you would lose the surge of interest he's got going on if he decided to cheat and be dastardly.

with how factions are shaking up, tmdk's alignment could shift more into being heelish as UE is crazy over with the local japanese crowd. the camaraderie UE showed during the njcup has changed a lot of perceptions about the group. the crowd here loves fletcher and dunky's promos backstage are so good as a face.

tmdk is the one that i don't think the crowd has truly clicked with yet and so they could turn heel, but it might mean sacrificing zsj's storyline with ichiban sweet boy fujita. if they go heel, the tutor/student arc would have to then be ~evil~ and that kinda sucks since the beats in that story are wholesome and laid out nicely. one of the few tmdk storylines i find to be paced well, too.

anyway, what i wanted to say was... bring in team filthy. bring in some baddies. destroy chaos

#njpw txt #txt #*meta #*booking

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sana-yan · 1 year

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fantasy booking/meta post-nj cup 2023;

!! spoilers under cut ↴

on SANADA;

following his big njcup win, i would love to see sanada get strapped with the belt. it's a similar beat to okada, 2016 naito (sanada's debut!!), EVIL (*sighs in missed opportunities*), and ospreay. if njpw is going all-in on SANADA, and they should considering he's taken up the niche that was once kota's, they need to give him legitimacy.

i think we can foresee a reign with a lot of changeover, but i'd like for SANADA to have at least a handful of solid defences against challengers -- he has a great set of rivals now that he's in the same "league" as them: okada, ZSJ (!!!!!!!!!), naito, EVIL (*sighs in future missed opportunities*), pwnoah's soya, shingo, and ospreay (!!)

with taichi by his side, they might even tease a short tag team run too. dangerous skulls, let's goo

all in all, a great showing from sana-yan and he has a lot to show.

on OKADA & chaos;

okada's due for a changeup and i think that his recent aggression with his own stablemates and looking to milf ace tanahashi could be interesting to play into, especially since chaos hasn't been a unit lately. robbie's quiet defection into tmdk has had no effect on his stablemates, which is always kind of disappointing but at this point; what is chaos? chaos during the nakamura leadership felt more cohesive, just a couple of lads doing their thing, but since okada has moved onto greener pastures, the group as a whole feels aimless in the story they're telling together.

people might dislike bullet club drama but at least the players are trying to make a script that involves everyone. :/ chaos as of late only get together to film a ytr dvd

which is why okada's tag match against bishamon was super cool! he went all heelish on them to the point where it's like -- kazu, those are your stablemates, mate, you have to see them later after the match -- if they pull the trigger on okada breaking up chaos (instead of another chaos defection) or his stablemates worrying about his recent attitude change and challenging him, that would be a fresh take on a severely underdeveloped stable as of late

on STRONG STYLE (ren, szk, despy);

what did they do to my beautiful boy desperado.......... i hate cheap mask removal spots, especially with despy. it just pains me this is where he is at when he's elevated the jr.'s scene while hiromu was injured for so long. now that he's down in the muck with h.o.t. on the undercard, that signals his contract might be a freelancer's (see also suzuki).

i am torn because despy is a very versatile wrestler and he will be a crowd fave for this year's wrestle peter pan, but i hate that his home promotion in njpw didn't give him the big win over hiromu. (bosj 27 kicked ass btw so if you haven't seen it, i strongly recommend thistle's watch guide here.) maybe he's taking matters into his own hands and raising his value in other promotions, but it saddens me that they'd resort to unmasking him like that when bosj 27's unmasking scene was story-laden and signified a big moment.

SHO is a funny lad and all but this felt such a disservice to have h.o.t. beat down ren and despy. what happened to their tag partners, taguchi and yano? where did they escape to? this is the issue i have with njpw face factions such as hontai. if they're faces, shouldn't they try to help ren and despy?

ren has the opposite throughline to shota and i'm sensing some darker edge to him which has got me fantasy booking like crazy. if the honorable fighter style of his mentor, shibata, didn't work, why not fall into the darker desires to finally defeat h.o.t.?

with suzuki-san and despy supposedly out of new japan's main scene for the time being, it sure would be interesting if ren went to the other fighter with ties to shibata who isn't afraid to get sadistic to win... aka give me the shibata-kenta lovechild ren narita. son of strong style gone dark with KENTA as his new influence. KENTA's been talking on about how ren is shibata's clone, so it wouldn't be a stretch to give ren backup just to spite shibata and also because elp hates h.o.t.

ren, elp, and KENTA vs h.o.t. doesn't sound too bad, depending on how bullet club is going to fracture following debbie-chan's loss this tournament. the never trios have gone down in quality, so adding KENTA's star power and elp's surge of popularity could elevate the trios scene, as well as give ren some more charisma with the crowd that shota is surfing on.

i think suzuki is going over KENTA in their upcoming match. suzuki wants to work more in the US and him holding the strong belt is good branding for the njpw strong show.

on TAICHI & J5G;

taichi, my beloved

that is all

nah, nah, i'll do a more focused meta on the breakdown of taichi's character someday but i'll say that this era of "kingmaker taichi" is a logical progression of his character. while j5g has no leader (based communist stable lmao), it's clear that the "emotional leader" is taichi.

i expect to see more of douki and kanemaru in bosj, and of course, for SANADA to be heavily protected (as he should! that's their ace!) in upcoming matches. while i will weep with a heavy heart at our holy emperor might be staring up at the house lights like TAKA, he has a "kenta kobashi"-lite underdog grit that i think that his losses only further develop his character and won't cool him off that easy. his backstage promos are witty, and the moments where he heavily blames himself for not being up to the standard of his partnering ace (milano, ZSJ, and hopefully sana-yan) signify the character's hardships. he also gets the crowd going hot when he's doing his mid-to-late match fire ups. idk if the man behind taichi just binge-watched a lot of classic ajpw and king's road but i am all for it. he's got kingston-like vibes but instead of addressing his enemies, he's addressing his friends.

i don't expect j5g to suddenly dominate the scene, but i hope we get a kobashi type payoff for taichi and douki like we just had with sana-yan.

on TMDK;

this pains me to say but imo tmdk are the least interesting active stable as a whole. individually, zsj + fujita is great, but the way that tmdk formed its group feels rushed and out of the blue to the majority of the crowd who didn't know the wrestlers had connections from way back. i know those two other dudes are zack's best pub lads but comparing them to the the presentation of early united empire, they don't stand out for me much. robbie relocating to tmdk might be a good move since chaos is... chaos... however, just like zack's induction in the group, i wish their major beats wasn't skipped or spedrun.

i guess they'll say that zack's lads talked with robbie at tamashii in australia? the others should try to find something to grip onto outside of relying on zsj's popularity and his current storyline with fujita vs the spurned young lions. i hope they can turn it around. i don't really enjoy eagles as a performer and i'm holding on for the payoff to the zsj story, but without an interesting storyline, this is low on my priorities. perhaps a full faction vs faction feud can spice up tmdk outside of shota vs zack for the tv belt.

on UE;

aussie open are perfect lads!! njcup was their place to shine, and they did rightfully so. i adore big men such as dunky, the stan hansen comparisons are appropriate, and kyle's little brother vibes mesh well with the cockiness of the UE. hoping they get a good rivalry with bishamon. while i'm not high on catch 22, i love cobb, o-khan, and henare's trios bond. tbh i am not as invested in ospreay's journey vs kenny, but i am excited for potential matchups with sanada, taichi, and okada.

on BOSJ :(;

as pointed out earlier, despy is out. :(

if hiromu's goal, and njpw's goal, is to elevate the jr.'s scene as much as liger did back in the day, they can't have hiromu dominating this field so much. liger's time felt amazing because they built up great rivals for him (naoki sano, wild pegasus).

the parallels with okada are fine and all but because njpw devalued so many of hiromu's rivals, i'm not as invested in the scene anymore, which is wild since the jr.'s scene is what made me subscribe in the first place.

the most i can hope for is douki to advance far and for new fresh blood to join this year's tourney.

on BULLET CLUB;

i am so glad debbie-chan lost because this added pressure to the angle is what they needed to differentiate it from previous power struggle storylines. before, it was leader vs leader or mini factions within bullet club duking it out with each other, but now this feels more like an ideology of who and what bullet club should be and aspire to do.

as unhelpful as chase is with his "both sides have a point" schtick, elp's focus on bullet club and finlay's focus on bullet club will determine the post-jay white era. i have mentioned it in previous posts but wishing for jay white to return won't help to revitalize the club as a whole. bullet club merch moved because the leader was getting belts and wins, and jay advocated for himself a lot. cheating as well, same with breaking the pace, and cooling off the crowd. all of these are great and they work for jay.

but people seem to have recency bias. jay wasn't universally respected or beloved when he positioned himself as the new leader. a lot of people hated him because he wasn't kenny omega, the best bout machine workhorse. we're seeing it again with finlay.

i think gedo knows that recreating jay will never get finlay over. he's harkening back to the workhorse heel like late aj styles and heavyweight kenny omega. i think that's the best foot forward in a post-jay vacuum.

i flung this idea around before but i would not be opposed to finlay cleaning house and replacing who he thinks are "soft" with the bc rogue army at tamashii. they are fierce and vicious. not only are they based in australia, making it easier to bring them, maybe ace austin and chris bey will be in this upcoming bosj, making it a numbers game between those who side with elp and those who side with finlay.

on ELP;

i love this cheeky little jevil (jester/devil) and unlike the popular takes, i don't want him to go pure babyface. i know he can, but he shines the most as a smarmy tweener-heel who loves derailing the match. only he can pull off his petty tactics without getting "go home" chants from the crowd.

if not in bc proper, it wouldn't hurt to put him in more tweener or other heel factions. i know for sure i do not want him in lij, his beef with shingo works best as it is, and chaos is dead in the water. with how njpw strong is being remade, and my unbidden bias for the filthmeister, i'm going to throw a curveball and fantasize about a team filthy!elp. team filthy is small enough for elp to have a bigger spotlight and also raise the brand of strong to the audience. also i really like tom lawlor and want to see him and royce more in japan lmao

on SAKURA GENESIS 2023;

bishamon vs ao: gonna be a banger

hiromu vs eagles: ngl, if they don't amp up the story, it'll be a forgettable fued. while it'll be no doubt, flashy af, if it doesn't rejuvenate a "lolhiromuwins" scene, the jr.'s are kind of bland. i actually thought lio rush was a perfect foil to hiromu as a rival b (with despy being rival a), and he'd be sorely missed. a draw between the two would have been very rare but also very awesome. others have brought up KUSHIDA to challenge hiromu because i think it'll be a hiromu win at skr gen 2023, but i think if they want to move the jr.'s forward, they're going to have to bring in new beats to old rivalries, or new rivals altogether. i don't think eagles has it in yet, but i am always looking forward to be proven wrong, so i hope the build to this is good for both wrestlers.

okada vs sanada; ngl their feuds have not been up to par with sana-yan's previous persona, but if njpw keeps these matches shorter, this okada vs sanada could really be truly worthy of moty. i personally would love to see sanada winning, with more borrowed new moves added to his set, but i won't be surprised if okada goes over. i'll keep a close eye on both competitors because now this match up finally has a dramatic gravitas.

#njpw spoilers #*meta #njpw txt #txt #( disclaimer: these are my interpretations and opinions )#( i just want to see the wrestling scene in njpw thrive )#*booking

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