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Friday night, early Saturday morning I was reminded of why I love professional wrestling, watching GCW's "Now And Forever," and night one of NJPW's G1 Climax.
Game Changer had Mike Bailey defeating Yoshihiko in a 24-minute match that reminded me that wrestling at it's very core is an art form and that not all art is equal. I'm sure we'll get a half dozen podcasts crying about Bailey wrestling a mannequin and how it's going to kill the sport - all the while, lamenting about a now gone era where they wrestled bears.
I mean, just this past week, in the middle of the Adrian Adonis biopic on Vice, the story of a man whose wrestling bear was in heat and killed his fiancé. Makes the Cocaine Bear look like a pussy.
While I watched the Bailey/Yoshihiko match, there were little things that Mike did that made that match magical in it's presentation, regardless of how ludicrous it was thinking about a mannequin being able to break a three count by putting it's leg on the bottom rope.
When it happened i both groaned and laughed and fell in love with Bailey's work.
Earlier in the evening we were served a pose off between Maki Itoh & Billie Starkz in-between their entertaining pro wrestling match. Itoh is amazing in how sweetly evil she really is - how, after being upstaged by Starkz in the last minute of their pose off, she attacked the young superstar showing the cruel side of her cute demeanor.
Before that match? Matt Cardona coming out to the Undertaker's music as IndieTaker. Cardona has been killing it on the indies for what seems to be two years now. I was never really a fan of Cardona's in WWE, but this current run hes' been on with GCW has been super fucking fun. Also, Steph De Lander can step on my neck anytime she wants.
In the early hours of Saturday morning, NJPW began the G1 Climax tournament with 8 strong matches from Block A & B - with the highlight of Night One, for me, the outside ring behavior of Gabe Kidd. It really felt like I was watching old 80's tapes of Stan Hansen creating fucking havoc outside the NJPW ring, throwing chairs and steele barriers around. Really fun shit man.
Match of night one was Ren Narita and Shota Umino ending in a time limit draw. Thought the Kaito Kiyomiya/Yota Tsuji match was pretty damn strong, and in what I thought was an upset of sorts, Taichi defeated Will Ospreay.
Results for Night One:
Hashi (2) over El Phantasmo (0)
Owens (2) over Kidd (0)
Tanga Loa (2) over KENTA (0)
Narita (1) & Umino (1) DRAW
Okada (2) over O'Khan (0)
Kiyomiya (2) over Tsuji (0)
Taichi (2) over Ospreay (0)
SANADA (2) over Hikuleo (0)
Overall, I think there was a little bit of everything for the wrestling fan. I feel badly for those who participate in the tribalism that pro wrestling fandom has become - there's way to much shit out there to consume from just one menu, if you ask me.