r/NJPWWorld

I have outside-the-match stuff I wanted to talk about, so thought I'll start a thread.

Day 1 10/6/26
Match 1 - 10 man tag Hontai vs HOT
Match 2 - Yoh/Matsumoto vs Robbie X/Ishimori
Match 3 - Shota/Yano/Wato vs Narita/SSW/Dick Togo
Match 4 - Cobb/Nagai vs Callum/ZJ
Match 5 - Wolf/Hechicero/Yasuda vs Fujita/ZSJ/Robbie Eagles
Match 6 - Tsuji/Takagi vs Oiwa/Jackson
Main - IWGP Tag Team Title Match - KOB vs Henare/GOK

Day 2 10/7/26
Match 1 - Nakahara vs Hatazawa
Match 2 - Uemura/Taichi/Despy/Yasuda vs Sanda/Yujiro/Douki/Sho
Match 3 - Shota/Yano/Oleg/Wato vs Narita/SSW/Kanemaru/Dick Togo
Match 4 - Cobb/Yuto/Oskar/Takagi vs Callum/Henare/GOK/ZJ
Match 5 - Tsuji/Ales vs Oiwa/ZSJ
Match 6 - Wolf/Hechicero/Matsumoto vs Fujita/Robbie Eagles/Jackson
Main - IWGP Jr Heavy Title Match - Yoh vs Robbie X

We can probably throw in the non-televised shows from Komatsu and Niigata too? I hope someone makes a thread for KOPW (or repost from the bigger sub).

Trying to watch Road to KOPW on the World Android mobile app. The video buffers every two seconds. Never had this problem before. Videos play just fine on other sites and apps, so it appears to be an issue with World.Is anyone else having this problem?

Hi dudes, sorry I haven't contributed to this sub in so long - very poor timing on my part just as the other place has got back in action. I finally got round to watching some matches from the past few weeks and thought I'd post summaries here, see if we can get a good ol' fashioned discussion going!

I typed this all out stream-of-consciousness while watching so apologies if it's a bit all over the place...

5th September, umino's return match. He now brings flowers out with him lol. So nice to hear the crowd excited to see Umino for once! Apparently Gabe Kidd has claimed responsibility for shota's injury. Match hasn't started and there's already been three mentions of AEW, sigh. Umino starts with o khan, the only person who arguably had a worse G1. Crowd is loving Shota! Walker Stewart went completely silent for about 3 minutes, not sure why. I'm so bored of o khan asking his opponents to hit him then tripping them up. In Kayfabe there's no fucking reason for them not to learn! Overall a fun little match with absolutely the right ending. Welcome back Shota!

10th September, Taichi and Wolf vs Fujita and Oiwa. Henare on comms (instead of Walker), always a fun addition. Very dry dismissal of any attempt to talk about Card Rumble lol. Once again, Wolf looked fantastic. This is the first match of his I've seen where you genuinely wouldn't know how knew he is to this. Fujita looks badass as always, even while two heavyweights beat the shit out of him. Oiwa feels like he really carries himself like a G1 winner. Red shoes catching Taichi's pants after he whipped them off was smooth as fuck. I like that Oiwa brought the big rock out after quite a while, didn't just immediately go for it as he sometimes did in the G1. Oiwa and Taichi exchange lariats, Taichi's so damn brutal. The crowd adore him and it's not hard to see why. At one point Fujita hits wolf with a damn palm strike and it was so awesome! Wolf's transition to the choke/anaconda vice was smooth, his mat work is top notch. And holy shit, the finish. Fujita is brilliant, and I love the way he and Oiwa have developed so that they can function as a team. If you haven't seen this match, you must. You absolutely must. 

Sidenote: Henare quote of the tour "you know your judo well" IYKYK

21st September, tag team #1 contender match, KOB vs MVP. MVP (announced as GBH) entrance is cool with a bit of folk-drumming from a pair of oni (were they oni? I've no idea). Yano looks terrifying blond. OSKAR ups the violence-stakes by hitting Yano with a guard rail. Honma baits an incredibly obvious DQ by attacking OSKAR (who no-sells it) to cover for Yano blading. Marty Asami doesn't care. Ishii sitting, unconcerned, on comms as Yano gouges Ice open with a pair of scissors about a metre away is an absurd, and absurdly brilliant, visual. Obviously half the competitors are dads - or should be - but even so this match isn't half as good as the tmdk-hontai one summarised above. Walker Stewart implying Ice has hepatitis. This match was starting to border on boring, even despite a Honma interference spot, when Takashi Lizuka - moving noticeably better than any of GBH - comes  in, does a full entrance and hits OSKAR with a chair in front of Asami. Asami still doesn't care. Somehow the crowd is into this. If it's not clear, I didn't think this was good.

23rd September, mistico and Despe vs Hot. Non title match for some reason? Generally sensible performance from the luchadors - if Douki of all people is going to steal your mask, why would you not try to take his? Always good to see Despe going into vicious brawler mode vs heels. Very soft chair throws, though. Douki seemingly steals a woman's handbag that was attached to a chair he was using. JAY on comms (did an ok job) says "turnabout is fair play" twice. Maybe it's something Americans actually say, but to me it's a very WWE phrase. Overall a fun match that maybe went slightly too long.

Sidenote: World has GOT to get better "we don't have the rights to this" music

YOH vs Ishimori. Serviceable but nothing crazy. lovely slam from YOH taking Ishimori from a standing to prone position mid-anaconda vice. Ishimori hit an incredible low blow and I thought that was it, my jaw genuinely dropped at YOH potentially losing the title. I'm so invested in YOH right now. Right winner, YOH vs SHO at WK is still an option. Robbie X comes out after the match. Did he beat YOH on bosj? What a random person to have challenge.

DESTRUCTION

Oiwa and ZSJ vs Taichi and Wolf. No Fujita or Uemura owing to "injury and illness" - Fujita with a knee injury. Fingers crossed he's OK and back in time for the NEVER match. Stewart refers to Taichi and Oiwa as "meat and potatoes", and it sounds like that's their nicknames. Lovely mat wrestling from ZSJ and Wolf. ZSJ hit Wolf with Zack driver while both were illegal which was an odd choice at that point in the match.

Callum Newman def former WWE 'superstar' JC Mateo (low blow, Make Way). Seriously, why would they welcome this guy back after what happened with the tag titles? Anyway Newman has his broadsword again instead of the katana he had during the G1. Geoff Collywobbles hasn't lost a step after a year in Americaland at least. Cobb headbutted Newman on the outside and it was LOUD, I don't think enhanced with a foot stomp etc. Cobb thew a young lion MILES into Newman, absolutely hilarious. At one point Newman runs the ropes repeatedly and Cobb sells the confusion of facing someone who's that freakishly fast probably better than anyone. Very good match.

Shun Skywalker def Takeshita. I watched this on YouTube a few days ago, can't remember too much. Maybe I need to have watched more of the road-tos, but I'm not especially won over by Skywalker. Standard HoT match with interference and powder blinding.

Shingo Takagi def Claudio Castagnioli (Last of the Dragon). Claudio is so huge, so agile and so stupidly strong, it's always fun to see him wrestle. His gear is fucking horrible though. Both men look great and work well together. There's a guy holding a directional microphone, it looks like he's menacing the wrestlers with a steampunk cattle prod. Brilliant match, as expected. 

Right winner, thank god. Let's hope we can go 3 for 3 on njpw beating AEW invaders. Speaking of...

Kidd def Moloney (fisherman buster) 

I LOVE Moloney refusing to fight Kidd outside the ring. Kidd very disrespectful to Tana, for shame. The crowd is really behind Moloney, as they have been all summer, and I have a horrible premonition of him winning this and Shota immediately coming out to demand a title match and instantly using up all the crowd's goodwill. I hope I'm wrong.

"who's a pusseh?"

"you're a pusseh"

"who's a pusseh?"

"you're a pusseh"

Very good, hard hitting, the ideal Gabe Kidd style match. Moloney hits a slingblade!! Kidd responds by spitting on the lion mark. Moloney hits the Drilla killa but kidd takes the opportunity to kick Marty Asami, then hits Drilla with the belt. God damnit. Rare failure on the part of NJPW's camerawork, totally missing Gabe getting his foot on the ropes after a 2nd Drilla killa. Totally wrong result, very disappointing. I was right to think Shota would come out, but Kidd is doing such a good job as a heel that the crowd is pleased to see him. He desperately needs to win this rematch though, then maybe run back the ZSJ match at WK, only this time with the stakes and crowd response at the correct level?

Tsuji vs Goto.

Fucking awesome match. Honda headbutt, Marlowe stomp (as opposed to marlowe crash), kaiten (sp?), just brilliant. Very much looking forward to Tsuji-Oiwa, my favourite two new gen lads. Interestingly Tsuji has said he wants to beat all previous WHC holders, and then SANADA beat him in the G1, but absolutely nothing has come of it. That's how little NJPW cares about my boy SANADA.

I’ve been building a project called プロレス MACHINE that uses real Japanese pro wrestling reporting as Japanese study material.

The newest episode breaks down a Tokyo Sports report on Ryohei Oiwa vs Hirooki Goto.

Rather than just throwing an English translation underneath the Japanese, I’m trying to show how the Japanese sentence actually builds its meaning. In this one I’ve started color-matching Japanese sense groups with their corresponding English meaning, which I think is making the structure much easier to see.

There’s also a vocabulary/grammar section covering things like:

真夏 — midsummer
祭典 — festival / major event
残り — what remains
全力 — full power / everything you have
つもりだ — intend to / plan to

The source is Tokyo Sports article 398519, so the Japanese comes from actual wrestling journalism rather than textbook dialogue.

I’m still refining the format episode by episode, so feedback from either Japanese learners or puroresu fans is very welcome.

Source image/article: Tokyo Sports

If you already know the Oiwa/Goto story, I’d especially be curious whether this kind of Japanese/English semantic coloring makes the original Japanese easier to follow.

This was streamed live on 8/28 on NJPW World.
Milano AT reviews all the moves of the G1 36 finals with Yuya Uemura.

I don't have the time to translate right now, but an interesting thing in the end.
Milano asks, "It didn't look like you tapped here."
Uemura says, "I was trying not to tap out, but I quietly said 'give (up)' unconsciously."

I thought it was the camera angle that didn't show the tap out, but he didn't tap after all.

There's also a little segment of Kushida's interview at the end, which is another video whole interview that's been uploaded.

Milano AT Deep Dive is having a FREE live stream of the G1 36 finals with Ryohei Oiwa on 10/5. So excited to see that one as well, although Oiwa speaks really nasal-y and is occasionally hard to hear 😅

I hope to add bits of translation later.