This was Stardom’s fourth show of the year and their second to take place on the 5th of January. That’s one hell of a work rate. It’s also served as a perfect introduction to the company for me as I already feel like I’m getting a grip on who everyone is. Now watch as I make some massive mistake during this review.
Continue readingHello friends, welcome to The Listening Booth. Pull up a chair, get comfy and grab a beer if you want one. Just don’t expect me to pay for it. This is my weekly dive into the music I’ve been listening to and, as I’m hoping will be the norm, it’s an eclectic mix of the old and the new, the loud and the quiet, the grungey and the clean. The only connecting factor? That I find it interesting (although not necessarily good). Right, let’s see what I’ve been up to.
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Fantastica Mania has been slowly making its way around Japan delivering its unique blend of lucha and puroresu. As usual, most people are ignoring this weirdly wonderful NJPW/CMLL tour, but not I! I’m the weirdo using my time to review it. Come with me and embrace the fun.
Continue readingHello friends, I’ve decided I am going to go right back to the start of ROH and watch it from show one up until, well, I’m not entirely sure. Maybe until Gabe leaves? We’ll deal with that when we get to it seeing as it’s at least five years worth of wrestling, so it will probably be a while yet. Today we kick off with the very first show, The Era Of Honor Begins which has a card full of future stars, people you’ve forgotten and people you’d never heard of in the first place.
Fantastica Mania is quietly one of my favourite times of the year. Post-Wrestle Kingdom the NJPW roster gets together with their CMLL pals to piss around for a tour, what’s not to love about that? There will be some build for New Beginning, but this tour will mainly be focused on wacky lucha fun. I can’t wait.
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It appears to be company policy at Stardom to hit the year at a sprint. This was their third show of 2019 and the first of two that they held on the 5th of January. I shall, of course, be reviewing both, so let’s get down to it.
Continue readingHello friends, welcome to The Listening Booth, the start of a weekly feature where I go dive into the music I’ve been listening to. Yes, it’s very self-indulgent, but I like to indulge myself, and I miss nattering about bands. It’s going to be a very casual blast through a mix of the old and the new, and hopefully a chance for anyone reading to discover something that they didn’t know they loved.
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Round two of my journey into Joshi came just 24 hours after the first as Japan’s early January wrestling buzz saw Stardom racking up the hours. As mentioned in my previous review, I’m very new to this company, to the extent that you could rightly claim I don’t know what is going on. With that in mind, please excuse any mistakes.
With the dawn of a New Year, I have decided to start watching Stardom. Joshi is a bit of an unknown to me, and this seems as good a place to start as any. I do now need to point out that I am going into these shows with little to no background knowledge, so be nice. My understanding of characters and feuds will grow as we go along, so until then, we can all have some fun with it, can’t we? However, if you are looking for in-depth reviews leave it a couple of months. At the moment, I’m just going to be getting to grips with things.
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If you’re new to NJPW, think of New Year Dash as a bit like the Raw after WrestleMania. With the big show out of the way, it’s time to set-up the year ahead with recent years featuring the return of Suzuki-gun and Jay White turning down Kenny Omega and Bullet Club. With the Dome seeing a changing of the guard, it’s an interesting time for New Japan fans, and this show will give us an insight as to what we should expect.
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