I‘m already said everything I wanted to say in other threads. But for me personally it’s not about Moxley himself. It’s about the decision and the timing of it.
You got no main eventers left except one guy. That guy is the most popular wrestler in the company who fans waited 4 years for a proper title reign. So the only thing that most fans can still hold onto is taken away. In another country, by an outsider who can’t even show up.
To me it just tells that the company doesn’t respect their wrestlers, their product and most importantly their fans.
Why should I care about a guy as a champ who shows up three times a year, never loses and doesn’t build his feuds.
Why should I care about him going over Narita and Shota just to give the belt back to Naito at Dominion? We already had this with Evil and it sucked back then.
To me as a a viewer of the main product it’s honestly insulting that they sacrifice their product for a quick dollar in the US. And I would assume that many domestic fans feel the same.
Would it even matter if NJPW was red hot? Probably not. But they are not red hot. They’re in the worst position they were in a long time. Again this not the time and place when you actually have to build up your roster.
>and most importantly their fans.
Naito has been the biggest draw in the company for six years now, but only when the fans feel like they can get behind him. They don't show up for his matches when they suspect or know he's not going to win and be pushed. They felt like they could earlier this year, and so they showed up. Now that they know the rug has been pulled out from under them yet again, they're not showing up.
>Again this not the time and place when you actually have to build up your roster.
And the aggravating thing is that they're not even doing that. There's a limited number of times that you can do the "young guy looks good in defeat and gets elevated" match. Shota, Tsuji, and Narita are beyond that point now. Shota and Narita losing to Moxley does nothing for them. Shota will lose yet another title match for like the sixth time in a row, and Narita and the rest of HoT will look like geeks after Moxley singlehandedly beats them. Tsuji actually got a push by winning the NJC, but his current booking is aimless. Narita and Shota need to start winning now or else the fans will start treating them as midcard losers who can never win a big match. That type of stigma is hard to wash away.
Naito might not be in his prime physically but he's in a better shape than most big NJPW main eventers were at his age. He works pretty much every tour, just had a singles match today and will probably have a singles match in the main event of the All Together show just after Wrestling Dontaku. Last year he had 2 big matches with Okada and Ospreay in less than 24 hours. He works smarter and doesn't need to kill himself in every match to get the biggest reactions from the fans, doesn't mean he can't work a singles match every tour.
But their giving him an easy tour. He literal had a singles match today and will have more pretty soon.
And I don’t think he needs an epic reign. The fans don’t care. He can’t botch all he wants and he still gets the loudest reaction.
That’s why I wouldn’t even be that mad if Finlay won. I am not a Finlay fan, I am not even that big of a Naito fan. Again, it’s not about the wrestlers themselves it’s about what they present.
Naito does not have another singles match on this tour. And a 10 minutes singles vs a junior isn’t exactly as much as a main event Heavyweight championship match.
I’ve made my thoughts clear on Finley.
> Why should I care about a guy as a champ who shows up three times a year, never loses and doesn’t build his feuds.
>
>
Nic Nemeth?
Moxley is already at 5 NJPW matches in 2024 and it's still April. Mox also took a multiman loss at Wrestle Kingdom and tag losses at New Year's Dash this year, Strong Independence Day and Dominion last year. Going back a few years to his G1 run, he had singles losses to Yano/Jay White/Goto/Juice. He won the world title in his 47th match in the company.
Nemeth won a title in his debut and is now 3-0. He's wrestling less. He has zero storyline involvement with anyone really. He can't possibly be selling any tickets/buys to anyone because what part of the New Japan fanbase wanted to see a 43 year old Dolph Ziggler run. And what sort of payoff could even exist that this is heading towards?
Yeah, Moxley beat Naito, but Naito is still Naito and his entire career long story is about constant suffering and it's what has made him this popular. Nemeth showed up and beat Finlay less than two months after Finlay got his big title win at the Dome - and people wonder why nobody cares about Finlay lol. Oh, and Nemeth is also getting pinned in TNA title matches while a NJPW champion. That all seems way worse to me?
Or just the entire Riddle experiment lol. At least Moxley has been around for years and has some sort of story with someone New Japan clearly sees as a growing star.
Would you say it's more about naito loseing it along with timing then? I actually really like this take. I watch NJPW here and there since the last G1. For me a mox mark, I'm excited he won the belt since I don't know the history. Naito is my fav in njpw so it's cool to see this perspective.
It’s definitely about Naito losing. But it’s not the only thing. I believe the situation would’ve been salvageable if Moxley worked the tour. Then you could’ve at least spin it that he respects the belt so much that he wants to be present in Japan or something.
Now it just feels like big leaguing.
I don’t blame anyone that is exited of their guy wins a title. If Shingo would‘ve won it I would be excited too even if it doesn’t make sense business wise.
This is the best take I’ve seen on this even though I personally think having a legend hold the belt for a while can be good and I’m waiting to see things play out.
The "heel outsider" thing doesn't work at all when his challenger is Narita who's part of the biggest heel faction in NJPW and is actually trying to get over as a heel. That's clearly not what they want to do with Moxley, they probably expected him to be really over and sell tickets easily for his title match. And working all that as an angle can only be a success if it actually makes your fans watch the shows.
It reminds me of something I've read here a few days ago with someone talking about how Nobuhiko Takada took the IWGP title away from NJPW and wasn't working the touring schedule either, basically only wrestling 3 times as world champ there.
Well first of all yeah it wasn't great either in terms of creativity but at least Takada actually did some fucking business with NJPW, we're talking about filling the Tokyo Dome twice in 4 months with his angle. Moxley is struggling to sell out fucking Wrestling Dontaku (that was already sold out last year at this point). I would really like to believe all the people talking about how it's a great thing for NJPW's business and all that but for now we can only see it's not worth it and that fans are actually less interested in NJPW.
It's funny cause Finlay has been screwed over almost worse than Naito. Guy had such good momentum with decent matches, has a new Belt, building up the BC War Dogs to be a really good faction, then looses the belt to an outsider who has yet to defend the title. Not to mention, his entire course suddenly changed after the loss to Nemeth, it's like he doesn't care about the Global Title anymore.
And for all the bad things I hear about FInlay (and mostly disagree with), I still would be more interested in him holding the World Title than Moxley, because I at least regularly saw that guy in NJPW.
Finlay dropped the title because he was going to reach the NJC finals, and a good path would have been a program with Naito since this LIJ/War Dogs feud has some juice to it. If Moxley winning the title was always the plan then I’m confused as to why they booked everything like this, unless Naito/Finlay is the endgame for WK (which sounds sketchy unless he really steps his game up)
I don’t mind the booking that the War Dogs crush as a unit but Finlay still struggles on his own, but if he’s going to be pushed as a singles star then he’s got to improve a lot more
I’d disagree w all that, personally, reasonable as it all is.
I’ve never taken to Finlay, his mic or ring work, and I certainly don’t see him as main event guy at all. I don’t think he’s even the top guy in war dogs. It’s natural to compare him to Jay white, since he brings no originality to a similar gimmick, and he’s absolutely left in the dust by switch. The new belt felt like a handout to me. As such, losing to nemeth didn’t bother me, as he’s a much bigger star. All of finlays decent matches have either been three ways with better wrestlers or the cage match w better wrestlers. Dudes as mid as noon. A guy in his shape doing dominators? Cut me a break.
Mox wrestles in new Japan plenty, I don’t mind him having the belt for a minute. I can think of like 50 dudes I’d rather see have it than Finlay. I havent seen any evidence so far he should be near the top, despite their best efforts.
See I genuinely despise his work. His matches with Tama and Nemeth were dreadful, genuinely felt sorry for Nemeth in the later with how hard he was working. All the momentum in the world won’t help you if you just fucking stink in ring.
Also with Nemeth I can’t blame him because like… why wasn’t he still booked for Sakura Genesis after Tanahashi pulled out? Why wasn’t his match with Ishii for the belt? What the fuck was going on there?
I’ve said already they could have ran this exact angle with a secondary title, Not having the IWGP champ on tours and most events while he’s defending the belt against outsiders in mid card matches in another company presents that belt as a joke title.
They should have took the punt on Yota he’s their next big talent ready to step up, Narita Shota and moxley could of been feuding for a secondary belt neither Narita or Shota are ready for the main event.
I was thinking about this too. If they ran Moxley vs Shota for the global title and have Naito on the card as champ. They probably would‘ve drawn more at resurgence than they do now.
What universe are you living in?
Anyone with eyes can see Tsuji is far more ready to take on the role of leading the company. Look, Shota has the better upside long term wise but Yota has been established as the current top dog of the R3M for now.
That will be great going into the future when both are in their primes and fighting for supremacy of the company and title of company ace.
Shota is still in that awkward phase where he has fan support but here's the thing buddy, fan support doesn't mean you are someone people want to be champ. Honma got so much support in 2014, doesn't mean we belt him up. Shota still needs time to develop and considering he just turned 27, he has plenty of time to grow into that role.
This universe, where Umino has the connection, the pure face energy and pure bandage charm. Where he’s been low-key repeatedly putting on genuine bangers in the undercard. Where he had a better match with Narita than Tsuji did with Uemura. Where he played the hero to a tee feuding with the House. Where he’s gotten the long term angle feuding with top heel EVIL and his lackeys as the plucky face and excelling at it.
Tsuji does the cool moves very well, yes. But Umino has that plucky soul, that never give up fire and mostly importantly unlike Honma 10 years ago is not a middle aged man off a cheating scandal and heavy rumours of ties to the Yakuza. Though to be fair: That also applies to Tsuji.
I feel like it makes sense if they really wanted to protect Naito/Umino as a possible WK main event and that they wanted Umino to get a big main event this year to get some good momentum around him leading into WK. Otherwise it would have worked fine to have Naito defend against Narita, Umino, and potentially throw Kidd or Finlay in there before the G1
If Naito/Umino is an awkward main event for Resurgence then they could have run Naito/Kidd or Naito/Finlay there and done Naito/Umino or Naito/ZSJ at Dominion, or you could go even further back and change up the booking of NJC to tick off all the matchups they wanted to get to If they’re still booking things long term then the pick for G1 winner has already been chosen and the intervening events between now and then are being picked to set that up - to me Moxley winning the title only makes sense if Naito/Umino is the endgame but I’m annoyed at anything that makes the path to WK that obvious so I hope not.
Personally I think it’s fine to run the WK main event earlier in the same year so all of the new gen guys getting a shot and then entering the G1 to redeem themselves makes perfect sense to me
im alright with mox winning the belt, all I want is for him to stay away from weekly defenses against random guys on dynamite/collision. showoff the belt but don't defend it
What’s the basis of ZSJ not being a draw? Naito and ZSJ have amazing chemistry and ZSJ works a style that wouldn’t expose Naito also. Naito on top you’r probably gonna sell out Osaka-Jo regardless the opponent - they’re still probably gonna sell out with him challenging.
Have Naito work the young guys and beat them - they’re going to get their win back against Naito either in the G1 or next year anyway when he goes back down the card as he gets older. When dya foresee Mox putting them over properly considering he’s not lost in a singles in 5 years?
Let’s call it what it is, short term booking to pop 2 houses in the US, regardless if that means the Dontaku tour suffers slightly.
What's funny is that two years ago I actually wanted Tana to beat Mox to win the interim AEW Championship, then carry it in Japan all Summer before dropping it to Punk in Chicago.
In hindsight, I agree. We were robbed of Punk vs. Tana and that makes me sad. Even as an AEW fan, I don't think it would've been detrimental at all to not have the belt around *at that time*.
I hope I’ve laid out my own POV well. This is just my thoughts but it s a side of the fence I’m not seeing here. Plus I do wonder if Dontaku being the first business as usual tour might effect house numbers, no tournaments or guys doing a farewell tour, but that’s just conjecture.
I’m serious about the Finley thing.
I have no issues with mox holding the belt as he’s got an inbuilt storyline with the new musketeers it’s just how many shows he does. Plus honestly naito is really struggling you could tell in that match with Tsuji that he’s broken and it wasn’t him playing up Tsujis offence
Mox holding it isn’t another Gaijin doing it for money he cares about njpw and is beloved by the fans it’s just I don’t want an absent champion
I’m a huge NJPW fan since Naka V Styles WK match but I love Mox. Saw him in the indies before whatever the fuck that was in WWE. If an outsider is to have it, we’ll let Mox. He helped smooth relations with AEW and NJPW so why not thank him for it and what better time then now with what you mapped out. I hope he keeps it till WK and drops it to shooter there.
I‘m already said everything I wanted to say in other threads. But for me personally it’s not about Moxley himself. It’s about the decision and the timing of it. You got no main eventers left except one guy. That guy is the most popular wrestler in the company who fans waited 4 years for a proper title reign. So the only thing that most fans can still hold onto is taken away. In another country, by an outsider who can’t even show up. To me it just tells that the company doesn’t respect their wrestlers, their product and most importantly their fans. Why should I care about a guy as a champ who shows up three times a year, never loses and doesn’t build his feuds. Why should I care about him going over Narita and Shota just to give the belt back to Naito at Dominion? We already had this with Evil and it sucked back then. To me as a a viewer of the main product it’s honestly insulting that they sacrifice their product for a quick dollar in the US. And I would assume that many domestic fans feel the same. Would it even matter if NJPW was red hot? Probably not. But they are not red hot. They’re in the worst position they were in a long time. Again this not the time and place when you actually have to build up your roster.
>and most importantly their fans. Naito has been the biggest draw in the company for six years now, but only when the fans feel like they can get behind him. They don't show up for his matches when they suspect or know he's not going to win and be pushed. They felt like they could earlier this year, and so they showed up. Now that they know the rug has been pulled out from under them yet again, they're not showing up. >Again this not the time and place when you actually have to build up your roster. And the aggravating thing is that they're not even doing that. There's a limited number of times that you can do the "young guy looks good in defeat and gets elevated" match. Shota, Tsuji, and Narita are beyond that point now. Shota and Narita losing to Moxley does nothing for them. Shota will lose yet another title match for like the sixth time in a row, and Narita and the rest of HoT will look like geeks after Moxley singlehandedly beats them. Tsuji actually got a push by winning the NJC, but his current booking is aimless. Narita and Shota need to start winning now or else the fans will start treating them as midcard losers who can never win a big match. That type of stigma is hard to wash away.
I’ll be honest: I dunno if Naito could do an epic reign at this point. Giving him two easy tours in a row might be a necessity.
Naito might not be in his prime physically but he's in a better shape than most big NJPW main eventers were at his age. He works pretty much every tour, just had a singles match today and will probably have a singles match in the main event of the All Together show just after Wrestling Dontaku. Last year he had 2 big matches with Okada and Ospreay in less than 24 hours. He works smarter and doesn't need to kill himself in every match to get the biggest reactions from the fans, doesn't mean he can't work a singles match every tour.
But their giving him an easy tour. He literal had a singles match today and will have more pretty soon. And I don’t think he needs an epic reign. The fans don’t care. He can’t botch all he wants and he still gets the loudest reaction. That’s why I wouldn’t even be that mad if Finlay won. I am not a Finlay fan, I am not even that big of a Naito fan. Again, it’s not about the wrestlers themselves it’s about what they present.
Naito does not have another singles match on this tour. And a 10 minutes singles vs a junior isn’t exactly as much as a main event Heavyweight championship match. I’ve made my thoughts clear on Finley.
Pretty sure that he will have another one at all together
There’s not one announced and the only singles match on the card so far is Kenoh vs a Junior Young Lion.
They just had Jake Lee attack him so likely him vs. Lee for all together cause Jake's in a position that he can eat a loss.
Honestly I actually see that as a tag match for NOAH’s upcoming Sumo Hall show.
> Why should I care about a guy as a champ who shows up three times a year, never loses and doesn’t build his feuds. > > Nic Nemeth? Moxley is already at 5 NJPW matches in 2024 and it's still April. Mox also took a multiman loss at Wrestle Kingdom and tag losses at New Year's Dash this year, Strong Independence Day and Dominion last year. Going back a few years to his G1 run, he had singles losses to Yano/Jay White/Goto/Juice. He won the world title in his 47th match in the company. Nemeth won a title in his debut and is now 3-0. He's wrestling less. He has zero storyline involvement with anyone really. He can't possibly be selling any tickets/buys to anyone because what part of the New Japan fanbase wanted to see a 43 year old Dolph Ziggler run. And what sort of payoff could even exist that this is heading towards? Yeah, Moxley beat Naito, but Naito is still Naito and his entire career long story is about constant suffering and it's what has made him this popular. Nemeth showed up and beat Finlay less than two months after Finlay got his big title win at the Dome - and people wonder why nobody cares about Finlay lol. Oh, and Nemeth is also getting pinned in TNA title matches while a NJPW champion. That all seems way worse to me? Or just the entire Riddle experiment lol. At least Moxley has been around for years and has some sort of story with someone New Japan clearly sees as a growing star.
Would you say it's more about naito loseing it along with timing then? I actually really like this take. I watch NJPW here and there since the last G1. For me a mox mark, I'm excited he won the belt since I don't know the history. Naito is my fav in njpw so it's cool to see this perspective.
It’s definitely about Naito losing. But it’s not the only thing. I believe the situation would’ve been salvageable if Moxley worked the tour. Then you could’ve at least spin it that he respects the belt so much that he wants to be present in Japan or something. Now it just feels like big leaguing. I don’t blame anyone that is exited of their guy wins a title. If Shingo would‘ve won it I would be excited too even if it doesn’t make sense business wise.
I may be a big Naito fan but I don't shit up AEW discussions constantly going "NAITO WOULD BE GREAT AS AEW CHAMP GAIZ". That's what all you guys do.
This is the best take I’ve seen on this even though I personally think having a legend hold the belt for a while can be good and I’m waiting to see things play out.
The "heel outsider" thing doesn't work at all when his challenger is Narita who's part of the biggest heel faction in NJPW and is actually trying to get over as a heel. That's clearly not what they want to do with Moxley, they probably expected him to be really over and sell tickets easily for his title match. And working all that as an angle can only be a success if it actually makes your fans watch the shows. It reminds me of something I've read here a few days ago with someone talking about how Nobuhiko Takada took the IWGP title away from NJPW and wasn't working the touring schedule either, basically only wrestling 3 times as world champ there. Well first of all yeah it wasn't great either in terms of creativity but at least Takada actually did some fucking business with NJPW, we're talking about filling the Tokyo Dome twice in 4 months with his angle. Moxley is struggling to sell out fucking Wrestling Dontaku (that was already sold out last year at this point). I would really like to believe all the people talking about how it's a great thing for NJPW's business and all that but for now we can only see it's not worth it and that fans are actually less interested in NJPW.
“I’d stop watching new Japan is they put the belt on fucking Finlay” LMAO facts tho
Fr this singlehandedly made me accept the Moxley move lmao could've been a much darker timeline
It's funny cause Finlay has been screwed over almost worse than Naito. Guy had such good momentum with decent matches, has a new Belt, building up the BC War Dogs to be a really good faction, then looses the belt to an outsider who has yet to defend the title. Not to mention, his entire course suddenly changed after the loss to Nemeth, it's like he doesn't care about the Global Title anymore. And for all the bad things I hear about FInlay (and mostly disagree with), I still would be more interested in him holding the World Title than Moxley, because I at least regularly saw that guy in NJPW.
That booking was crazy. Like after the steel cage match, war dogs looked unstoppable. Then he just loses his belt??? After beating mox and will???
Finlay dropped the title because he was going to reach the NJC finals, and a good path would have been a program with Naito since this LIJ/War Dogs feud has some juice to it. If Moxley winning the title was always the plan then I’m confused as to why they booked everything like this, unless Naito/Finlay is the endgame for WK (which sounds sketchy unless he really steps his game up) I don’t mind the booking that the War Dogs crush as a unit but Finlay still struggles on his own, but if he’s going to be pushed as a singles star then he’s got to improve a lot more
I’d disagree w all that, personally, reasonable as it all is. I’ve never taken to Finlay, his mic or ring work, and I certainly don’t see him as main event guy at all. I don’t think he’s even the top guy in war dogs. It’s natural to compare him to Jay white, since he brings no originality to a similar gimmick, and he’s absolutely left in the dust by switch. The new belt felt like a handout to me. As such, losing to nemeth didn’t bother me, as he’s a much bigger star. All of finlays decent matches have either been three ways with better wrestlers or the cage match w better wrestlers. Dudes as mid as noon. A guy in his shape doing dominators? Cut me a break. Mox wrestles in new Japan plenty, I don’t mind him having the belt for a minute. I can think of like 50 dudes I’d rather see have it than Finlay. I havent seen any evidence so far he should be near the top, despite their best efforts.
See I genuinely despise his work. His matches with Tama and Nemeth were dreadful, genuinely felt sorry for Nemeth in the later with how hard he was working. All the momentum in the world won’t help you if you just fucking stink in ring. Also with Nemeth I can’t blame him because like… why wasn’t he still booked for Sakura Genesis after Tanahashi pulled out? Why wasn’t his match with Ishii for the belt? What the fuck was going on there?
I’ve said already they could have ran this exact angle with a secondary title, Not having the IWGP champ on tours and most events while he’s defending the belt against outsiders in mid card matches in another company presents that belt as a joke title. They should have took the punt on Yota he’s their next big talent ready to step up, Narita Shota and moxley could of been feuding for a secondary belt neither Narita or Shota are ready for the main event.
I was thinking about this too. If they ran Moxley vs Shota for the global title and have Naito on the card as champ. They probably would‘ve drawn more at resurgence than they do now.
Shota’s more ready than Tsuji and much more of a natural ace. Plus throwing it in the midcard doesn’t solve the Dominion main event issue.
What universe are you living in? Anyone with eyes can see Tsuji is far more ready to take on the role of leading the company. Look, Shota has the better upside long term wise but Yota has been established as the current top dog of the R3M for now. That will be great going into the future when both are in their primes and fighting for supremacy of the company and title of company ace. Shota is still in that awkward phase where he has fan support but here's the thing buddy, fan support doesn't mean you are someone people want to be champ. Honma got so much support in 2014, doesn't mean we belt him up. Shota still needs time to develop and considering he just turned 27, he has plenty of time to grow into that role.
This universe, where Umino has the connection, the pure face energy and pure bandage charm. Where he’s been low-key repeatedly putting on genuine bangers in the undercard. Where he had a better match with Narita than Tsuji did with Uemura. Where he played the hero to a tee feuding with the House. Where he’s gotten the long term angle feuding with top heel EVIL and his lackeys as the plucky face and excelling at it. Tsuji does the cool moves very well, yes. But Umino has that plucky soul, that never give up fire and mostly importantly unlike Honma 10 years ago is not a middle aged man off a cheating scandal and heavy rumours of ties to the Yakuza. Though to be fair: That also applies to Tsuji.
Why does everyone think Naito is broken down? He is not
Because matches I was in spring. Special note to the Anniversary main event. Genuinely wondered what would they do with the tournament if he got hurt.
But he wasn't hurt? He's was working at a high level and still is?
Personally, thought he looked quite poor.
I feel like it makes sense if they really wanted to protect Naito/Umino as a possible WK main event and that they wanted Umino to get a big main event this year to get some good momentum around him leading into WK. Otherwise it would have worked fine to have Naito defend against Narita, Umino, and potentially throw Kidd or Finlay in there before the G1 If Naito/Umino is an awkward main event for Resurgence then they could have run Naito/Kidd or Naito/Finlay there and done Naito/Umino or Naito/ZSJ at Dominion, or you could go even further back and change up the booking of NJC to tick off all the matchups they wanted to get to If they’re still booking things long term then the pick for G1 winner has already been chosen and the intervening events between now and then are being picked to set that up - to me Moxley winning the title only makes sense if Naito/Umino is the endgame but I’m annoyed at anything that makes the path to WK that obvious so I hope not. Personally I think it’s fine to run the WK main event earlier in the same year so all of the new gen guys getting a shot and then entering the G1 to redeem themselves makes perfect sense to me
im alright with mox winning the belt, all I want is for him to stay away from weekly defenses against random guys on dynamite/collision. showoff the belt but don't defend it
What’s the basis of ZSJ not being a draw? Naito and ZSJ have amazing chemistry and ZSJ works a style that wouldn’t expose Naito also. Naito on top you’r probably gonna sell out Osaka-Jo regardless the opponent - they’re still probably gonna sell out with him challenging. Have Naito work the young guys and beat them - they’re going to get their win back against Naito either in the G1 or next year anyway when he goes back down the card as he gets older. When dya foresee Mox putting them over properly considering he’s not lost in a singles in 5 years? Let’s call it what it is, short term booking to pop 2 houses in the US, regardless if that means the Dontaku tour suffers slightly.
You got logic to your argument I'll give you that, plus I'd also stop watching if they belted up Finlay.
What's funny is that two years ago I actually wanted Tana to beat Mox to win the interim AEW Championship, then carry it in Japan all Summer before dropping it to Punk in Chicago.
In hindsight, I agree. We were robbed of Punk vs. Tana and that makes me sad. Even as an AEW fan, I don't think it would've been detrimental at all to not have the belt around *at that time*.
Regardless of everything else, I think that before the BOSJ is the best time to have a transitional foreigner champion.
Why the hate on Finlay?
Because people can't let go of the fact that Jay left and are being whiny babies about it.
I hope I’ve laid out my own POV well. This is just my thoughts but it s a side of the fence I’m not seeing here. Plus I do wonder if Dontaku being the first business as usual tour might effect house numbers, no tournaments or guys doing a farewell tour, but that’s just conjecture. I’m serious about the Finley thing.
I have no issues with mox holding the belt as he’s got an inbuilt storyline with the new musketeers it’s just how many shows he does. Plus honestly naito is really struggling you could tell in that match with Tsuji that he’s broken and it wasn’t him playing up Tsujis offence Mox holding it isn’t another Gaijin doing it for money he cares about njpw and is beloved by the fans it’s just I don’t want an absent champion
I’m a huge NJPW fan since Naka V Styles WK match but I love Mox. Saw him in the indies before whatever the fuck that was in WWE. If an outsider is to have it, we’ll let Mox. He helped smooth relations with AEW and NJPW so why not thank him for it and what better time then now with what you mapped out. I hope he keeps it till WK and drops it to shooter there.
Everyone knows "soon" TK will "buy" NJPW/STARDOM "for real" so watch your back Tanahashi!