It Begins: B Block version

We step away from the A Block where I’m assuming Kazuchika Okada will turn Kota Ibushi’s brains into a slurry of a wide eyed anime acid trip, and turn to the B Block, where a bunch of crazy shit will probably happen, or maybe Minoru Suzuki will run in and just start wrecking everyone. Either way, some shit is gonna go down on this side of the street. I can just sense these things.

Jeff Cobb

Jeff Cobb is the ROH delegate, sent to fill the Michael Elgin role which took a weird turn at rape twitter discourse loud noises fuck it let’s just send him to Impact, but enough about the past, the point is that Jeff Cobb is the designated gaijin hoss, sent to wow the Japanese with his broad chested ways. Of course, it’s 2019 and everything is incredibly fucked up around the world, so hosses like Elgin or Cobb are actually like 5’9” now.

This works in the context of New Japan Pro Wrestling because a small gaijin hoss is still a hoss to those little dudes and lady dudes who honestly just want to go OHHHHHH whenever the hossing starts. So, yeah, Jeff Cobb is the designated hoss this year, which will be fun because who doesn’t like the hosses? Who doesn’t like wide bodied dudes dumping each other on their necks for shits and giggles?

Anyway, Jeff Cobb is pretty good at the hossing, but said hossing has always been in the context of him being a big dude throwing around tiny little luchadors which is what he did as Matanza on Lucha Underground. Those big power spots are easy when the dude you have to lift is 160 lbs, but maybe not so easy when you have hoss on hoss violence.

Cobb is freaky strong, and it seems like he’ll be able to hold up his end of the hoss, but beyond that, the dude is too bland to really get fired up about. I mean, it’s one thing to be a supernatural cartoon monster under a mask, it’s another to be Jeff from Guam and get people to care about you.

But Jeff from Guam will be fun to watch in a hoss-off, and really we can’t ask anything more from him than that, right? I can see him picking up a couple of wins, but that’s about it. Sorry, Jeff, this is the G1, not some amateur joke tourney like the Olympics. Here, you will get dumped on your head and/or get duct-taped to the post by Toru Yano, or maybe both, and no one can save you. Anyway, this is Jeff from Guam’s chance to get his dick wet, and hopefully he’ll get spirit slapped by a wild Inoki or something, anything, to give him a personality other than Hoss Jeff from Guam, which to be honest isn’t that bad a personality, but it’s not something that’s gonna get your dick sucked in a geisha house or whatever the fuck they have over there. Look, I’m not trying to be racist, I’m just ignorant.

Hirooki Goto

Goto is a dude who’s always on the edge of the main scene, which kinda sucks because he’s pretty fucking sick. I dig his whole Samurai warrior deal, and he’s very good at murdering people in the ring, but you just know that at the end of the day, Hirooki Goto is just gonna get a nice participation trophy and maybe chase around the Never Open Weight Title a bit before we wind up back in this same place next year and do it all over again.

That is the shitty hamster wheel life of Hirooki Goto. He’s always gonna be a dude who can go under the bright lights, but he’s never been given a chance to actually shine under them. I mean, not everyone can be the big dog, that’s just the way the world works, but poor Goto over here just can’t catch a break.

I like Hirooki Goto. You probably like Hirooki Goto, but no one is in love with him, and hey man, that shit sucks, I get it. Most of us aren’t THE guy in our packs, from kids to frat houses to getting high and pissing in the gas tank of the biology teacher to adult friend groups to . . . you get the point. Everyone is the hero of their own life, but pan out and most of us are just background characters, a familiar face, a comfortable presence, static.

It’s kinda sad that this is essentially what Goto’s character is in the realm of New Japan. Yes, he’s the samurai warrior dude and all that, but really, he is just THAT guy, and fuck man, that’s okay, most of us are just that guy, but it would be cool to see Goto say fuck it and be the hero of his own life. I like rooting for a dude like that, so fuck it, WAR GOTO.

Tomohiro Ishii

Oh shit, the Stone Pitbull! Ishii is sort of like Goto in that he was never meant to be the leading man, but he has somehow taken that and turned it into its own starring role, mostly by just being surly as fuck and chopping the shit out of anyone dumb enough to get in front of him. And of course, Ishii also has that thing where he can just be tossed around like a bag of meat that’s gone bad and not let it slow his shit down one bit. That makes for exciting matches, those two dudes standing naked before God kinda matches where no one takes a step back.

That can also get tedious after a while, but somehow Ishii always makes it feel earned, probably because its easy to buy that a walking potato would indeed have a grudge against just about everyone else in life and wouldn’t take shit from anyone. That’s Ishii, sort of like what Taz was supposed to be back in the day only very much realer.

Ishii is one of those dudes who will make the tournament. He won’t win it, but he’ll bring HIGH DRAMA every goddamn match. He did it last year and came out of the G1 hotter than anyone even though he was losing half those damn matches. People love Ishii, man. You just parachute that little bastard into anywhere in the world and he’ll just start chopping dudes with that dead eyed scowl and they’ll be all who is this little potato man slapping me around and then Ishii will let them start chopping him and this is how peace gets made, I guess.

Ishii will be a factor to the end because he’s earned that spot, he’s just taken it like a fuckin’ dog over the years, and that’s the hardest sort of dude to dislodge from that spot once he’s there. He’s gonna get head dropped into senility. He doesn’t really have a neck to break, and at some point I think he’s gonna end up with a lazy eye, but that is life in the G1 and Ishii is a man built to live it.

Jon Moxley

Moxley brings a sort of feral energy to wrestling that’s hard to find these days, and I dig it because in this postmodern hellscape we call culture everyone always seems like a dude cosplaying as something that came before, and it’s rare when a dude is just a singular thing that can get out there and get people excited. He’s the dude of the moment, and that’s always fun in wrestling, when you think you might be watching a dude blowing up, and Moxley in particular has always been a dude that people really want to see be that dude, which is a hard thing to live up to, especially when you’re trapped in the black hole gravity of a senile old pervert who can’t get out of his own way. 

But what does that mean for the G1? It’s funny because Moxley was never the dude when he was in WWE that seemed like the guy to go big main event strong style night after night, but so much of that is warped by the whole WWE of it all, and if Moxley can pull off being that dude in addition to being the feral energy dude, he’s gonna be a fucking megastar and that’s always fun as hell to watch being born.

He isn’t a big MOVES guy, but that’s okay because there are a million of those dudes now. He’s gonna look a thousand percent better in New Japan, I think, because there is just so much more available to him from a basic wrestling standpoint. WWE now is actually more conducive to MOVES MOVES MOVES than anywhere else because it’s so fucking restrictive when it comes to all the subtler things that actually make wrestling good. Take a guy whose strengths are those subtler things and let him have a blank canvas to work with and you can have magic.

It’ll be fun to have an old school kind of dude like that in the tournament, especially because Moxley has that sort of out of control gaijin energy that the Japanese go so fucking wild for, like Terry Funk in All Japan in 1980 or some shit. It’s funny because I was talking about hosses earlier and how they don’t really exist anymore except for the 5’9” shrunken version, but Moxley is a 6’4” dude and that gets overlooked sometimes when it comes to him. I’m not even sure what my fucking point is here other than that Moxley seems to have that rare talent where he can be whatever you need him to be in a given match. He’s big enough to get into the human meat throwing game if he wants, and he’s willing to push himself into that sort of Mick Foley lol fuck it let’s just kill myself for fun zone, or he can be all weird energy, dragging Shota Umino around like a menacing drunk before trying to saw off Juice Robinson’s head and then turning around and playing the never say die underdog that people love to get behind. That’s a rare thing to find in wrestling these days, and I think that’s what makes Jon Moxley so potentially valuable to anyone willing to just let him go out there and paint his own world.

I’m excited for G1 Moxley, if for nothing else than to see how he plays it. He’s a dude with a lot going for him right now, and that’s fun as hell to see too, that sort of watching a dude blow up before your eyes thing that only comes around in wrestling once every decade or so. Is he the Next Big Thing? I don’t know, but fuck man, I want to at least see him take that moonshot because not many dudes can. This is a really fun time to be a wrestling fan, a time when it feels like anything can happen, and Moxley is the dude who embodies that the most right now, I think.

Tetsuya Naito

Naito is obviously one of the favorites to win this B block, and even if he doesn’t he’ll be in it to the end. His I Don’t Give A Fuck vibe combined with his willingness to turn his neck into sawdust pretty much guarantees a real good time.

Obviously, I dig the whole Tranquillo thing because it speaks to my whole fuck it outlook on life, and also because it just fits Naito so perfectly. He always looks half stoned and half contemptuous of the rest of the world, and Tranquillo is the essence of that aesthetic. It’s also fun to watch him literally spit in people’s faces even though he is probably the most popular dude in New Japan. Everyone loves a good antihero, that shit just transcends cultures.

There a bunch of fun matchups with Naito in this block. The Moxley one is interesting because it has that dueling antihero thing going for it, and the Shingo Takagi matchup is an LIJ bros showdown. And then there’s the Jay White matchup, which will be fun if only to see them try to out-dick one another. Really, any Naito match is inherently interesting just because of the nature of the dude so . . . yeah, fuck it, Tranquillo baby.

Juice Robinson

It’s really easy to dismiss Juice at first glance because he just seems so damn goofy, but man, I don’t know if there’s a better babyface dude in wrestling right now because after a while the goofiness becomes endearing, and it’s fun to see a dude who should by no means ever gotten himself over in Japan be fawned on as an adopted son.

He kind of has that loose Dusty Rhodesish thing going on where he just gives off that kind of mellow man of the people vibe and that is a sort of physical charisma that’s easy to get behind. After a while, you just want this dude to succeed because he’s willing to take an ass kicking and scream motherfucker every other word, which I guess makes him the Neil of New Japan. I don’t say that lightly, but it checks out: curses a lot, may always be vaguely drunk/high, has questionable friends, etc.

You start watching New Japan and you think who the fuck is this idiot, but then then you hear those Japanese fans chanting JUICE JUICE JUICE and it becomes quickly apparent that there is something sympathetically endearing about this guy. I mean, he’s kind of a loud, obnoxious idiot and yet he is still beloved by people who aren’t exactly fond of loud, obnoxious idiot Americans so there must be something there that makes them actively want to love him. I think it’s because everything he does seems so genuine, so just part of who he is, that it’s hard to hate on it. He’s just a lovable young puppy that shits everywhere but you can’t get mad at him because awwww look at what the lil’ guy is doing now.

It’s a hard thing in wrestling to get people to care about you at all, harder still to get them to care about you in a positive I Will Pay Money To See This Guy Win In The End way, and yet that is what Juice brings without really having to try. He isn’t gonna win this block. He probably won’t ever be a real factor, but I don’t know if there’s anyone in this block – in either block, really – I want to see win more than him. And that’s about as much as you can ask for if you’re a goofy white dude who talks too much and too loudly.

Taichi

Oh man, this dickhead. As easy as it is to root for a dude like Juice, it’s just as easy to hate on this kind of douchebag. Basically, his whole deal is that he’s too fucking lazy to really get anywhere and yet he is the most obnoxious shit talker at the same time. Lazy shit talkers are always the worst (please don’t tell me to look in a mirror) and lazy shit talkers who slowly make their way to the ring doing an embarrassing lip synched karaoke deal are even worse. The best thing about Taichi is Miho Abe hanging around as a Highly Problematic Ingenue but we won’t get into that without embarrassing ourselves and shaming our families.

So . . . yeah, it’s easy to dismiss Taichi and yell Taichi Go Home! at him along with the rest of those Japanese fans, but beneath it all is a dude who was trained by Toshiaki Kawada aka Your God and Mine, and sometimes this training comes out and when it does, it’s always a fun time. Basically, the whole deal with Taichi both in real life and gimmick-wise is that he’s a petulant little shit until suddenly he’s not and, well, okay he’s still a petulant little shit, but he’s also a petulant little shit who will kick you real hard in the face.

I think the G1 is the perfect platform for him because it will force him to bring the Kawada stuff or die at the hands of murderous Ishii head-drops and throat chops. Also, *giggles* oooohhhh, Miho Abe *erases internet history before getting dragged away as a sex pest*

Shingo Takagi

Everyone loves them some Shingo, but I don’t know man, there is just something I don’t like about the dude. Is it because he is hideously ugly? Maybe, but am I really that shallow? I think a lot of it stems from him being shown as a destroyer of men even though that reputation has largely been built by being a heavyweight who just beats up juniors all day. I’m not sure how that translates to doing it against dudes bigger than him, but that is what the G1 is for, I guess. He’s still ugly as fuck though.

But Shingo is gonna get a lot of shine in this tournament because so many people dig him and who am I to obnoxiously get in the way? Look, everyone has that one dude who they just irrationally don’t like and Shingo is that dude for me, alright? But that is all relative. I only dislike Shingo in the context of New Japan, where I pretty much like everyone more than I do dudes who aren’t in New Japan if that makes any sense. He is just near the bottom of a list that by its nature is already top tier, like arguing about the worst blowjob. In the end, he’s still a dude who’s gonna make me cum and okay, this has gone in a really weird direction. You get my point though, right? Please say you get my point.

Jay White

Jay White gets a lot of hate and I get it because it’s easy to hate on a young white dude who has been handed the keys to a rocket ship even though there are seemingly a lot of other more qualified rocket ship pilots waiting around for a chance just to take one out for a spin. Basically, he’s the young rich asshole whose daddy bought him a Viper.

But I don’t think that’s fair. I mean, for starters, Jay White is a PERFECT young dickhead, and wrestling needs more of that, dudes who you actually love to hate instead of dudes who get automatically sorted into LIKE and HATE boxes based upon their ability to string together fake fighting moves.

Jay White is also good at the Moves too, though, which combined with his natural dickhead appeal, makes for a perfect modern bad guy. He can go in the epic strong style match and still get fans to want to see him get his ass kicked. That automatically makes him more compelling than 99% of dudes out there.

He’s obviously one the favorites in the block and will be in it to the end, which is fine because at some point you need a dude who inspires actual feelings beyond MOVES to make you care when you’re on day 1,000 of the tournament and all the matches start to blend together into a fever dream of chops and head drops. I mean it’s hard to get those crowds to boo you consistently and that adds a flavor that’s often hard to find to Japanese wrestling. I have no problems with Jay White and neither should you.

Toru Yano

My man Toru Yano is another dude who inspires sharp division among wrestling fans. Dudes like Meltzer who often have a hard time breaking out of their mindset of MATCH QUALITY = THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS don’t really like him because they can’t understand why he isn’t even trying to have a good match, but that’s not his deal and you have to judge him based on the understanding that he’s going for a totally different aesthetic.

I get Toru Yano because, well, come on, I basically am him, and I get that his whole deal only works if the clown is something he’s choosing to play even though there is so much more to him if he chooses to show it to you. That is the essence of a good clown and Toru Yano pulls that off perfectly. I mean, for all his shenanigans, it’s hard to find a wrestler who fans won’t immediately get behind when he starts doing freaky rollups and threatening to win matches he should have no business winning if you approach it from a strictly MOVES based aesthetic. That takes talent that most wrestlers don’t have, and you have to judge him based off of that and if you do how can you not appreciate him?

There’s a reason he’s always in the G1 even though there are always dudes who seem like they deserve it more and that’s because at the end of the day, he gets people to care about his matches, no matter how absurd they are and no matter how little they conform to the whole MOVES aesthetic that is so paramount in a company like New Japan. Toru Yano is my dude and that’s that.

Of course, there is no chance that he is going to win the block or even be a factor, but that’s hardly the point. He breaks up the monotony of the rest of the matches in a way that’s vital if you don’t want your goddamn brain to eventually start bleeding like the rest of the dudes in this tournament who are always one Shibata away from going full Misawa and making parasitic sloths like Bix get all self-righteous and start demanding brain tissue samples so they can muckrake on Deadspin. Toru Yano saves you from being swarmed by Bixness and for that he is always the unspoken MVP of the G1. Also, his rollup game is the sickest of anyone going and in 2019 that is such an underrated thing. Also, also, he is my avatar in the pro wrestling game and to hate on him is to hate on me and how dare you, how fucking dare you.