#anyway i think this episode is about wales in a very significant way. we need more welsh people writing think pieces about it
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
rotating the pub scene from 73 yards in my mind i think there is so much being said there about wales and welsh/english tension that is so interesting and is going so under discussed
#blahs#dw#dw spoilers#the whole thing about castles in wales being english torture centres. much to unpack#i think it's easy for most viewers to watch it and see that the characters are taking the piss and write it off#but what's interesting about it is i think rtd is basing that on real exaggerations of oppression by welsh people#most castles in wales WERE built by the english and they WERE designed to oppress the welsh. except that was like 800 years ago#and some people use this as an example of welsh oppression /now/ when it's like. not relevant to modern wales really#and 'torture chambers' is a wild exaggeration that dangerously tries to compare wales to much more recent human rights violations#i think rtd is trying to caution against a romanticised or sensationalised narrative of old wales that certain welsh nationalists have#this is also what he's doing with roger ap gwilliam#i keep seeing people say his character is 'just nukes' and i'm not gonna pretend it's The most complex politics ever#but it's also not just nukes. it's about specific political tensions and attitudes in wales.#rtd's viewpoint reminds me a lot of my dad#my dad's a proud welshman he's a native speaker he grew up in a welsh speaking community#but he doesn't really care about old welsh history about llewelyn ap gruffydd or owain glyndwr or anything like that#he doesn't see it as relevant. to him what's important is modern wales and the tensions of the 20th century#i'd wager rtd probably feels the same#and what with doctor who being produced in wales being rtd's doing i think he's enthusiastic about collaborating with england#rather than being like. isolationist about it. (that's the wrong word but i can't think of a better one)#WHICH INCIDENTALLY ties the political strand of the episode with the personal strand about ruby#who is also dealing with a self-fulfilling sense of isolation#anyway i think this episode is about wales in a very significant way. we need more welsh people writing think pieces about it#honest to god i don't think any analysis of it that doesn't talk about its welshness is quite Getting It
39 notes
·
View notes
Text
Rumors About Ospreay + Unrest In The NJPW Locker Room; Government Adds Okinawa to State Of Emergency, Another Extension Possible; Quick Review of DSOTR Collision In Korea; Shota Umino News!; Ren Narita on Dark Elevation; Satoshi Kojima In Impact Next Week
Strap in because this is going to be a long one.
There are rumors and reports coming out now (mostly from one source, the Voices of Wrestling website, from behind a Patreon paywall) that Will Ospreay's injury may not be what it seems, and there is growing discontent to the point of "mutiny" among the non-Japanese wrestlers regarding the state of emergency, the last-minute decision to resume touring when some were already travelling out of Japan, and the constant need for quarantining when coming back into Japan. Unfortunately this is as much as I can say, because this is behind a paywall, so until it gets made for public consumption I’m kinda limited in what I can say.
I can totally buy that all is not well within NJPW, especially after the COVID-19 bubble has burst. I've already discussed the creative malaise happening in the company right now. That there seems to be backstage dissent shows possible signs of trouble ahead for the promotion, and this golden period that we've been accustomed to is well and truly over. (I mean, it already was once lockdown happened, but they did the best they could, in my honest opinion, including a Pretty Good if not great WK15. Right now, creatively, we are below 2nd-half 2018 levels of poor.) But NJPW has weathered these storms before, although not with a global pandemic looming over everything. I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that Ospreay is indeed injured, because a) they haven't exactly been shy about wrestlers being injured and needing to vacate titles before b) if Ospreay is legit injured, he is far more likely to receive treatment as a citizen of the UK from the (somehow still alive if not totally hobbled by Brexit) NHS, as opposed to Japan's healthcare system which is far more like the US model. Some wrestlers are swearing up and down he is injured, from the rumors. Ospreay certainly hasn’t said anything in his own words, beyond RTing NJPW’s announcement of his injury and vacating the title, and posting a pic of himself kissing the belt. RevPro kinda sorta said something but were also pretty vague. But for an injury suffered on 5/4/2021, this pic posted on 5/18 does not look like someone who just had such a severe neck injury they need to fly back to the UK (mind you, it COULD have been taken much earlier than that). Indeed, Ospreay’s still-active Twitter is more focused on Hana Kimura at the moment*. All this said, professional wrestling by it’s very nature has a baked-in amount of bullshit as part of it, so that this injury might be phony is always a distinct possibility.
It is utterly believable there is conflict between wrestlers and management, and communication is piss-poor at best. It is also believable that NJPW and Bushiroad are only taking their cues from a government Hell-bent on holding an Olympics an overwhelming majority of those polled are against, and who are treating the extended state of emergency as a vague suggestion rather than as a, you know, state of emergency. Pretending everything is hunky dory hasn't worked so far, so not sure why NJPW, nor the Japanese government, think eventually it will. (And NOAH is on my shit list right now too.) On that note, the government has now officially added Okinawa to the state of emergency. There is also talk that it will be extended further, as a government subcommittee member is quoted in the article as saying “it is difficult to think” that it will be lifted on 5/31/2021. Among that talk is word that Tokyo particularly will be under a stricter lockdown if this goes on. On a piece of actual GOOD news, it has been announced that the government has approved both the Moderna and AstraZeneca versions of the vaccine, so perhaps the vaccination rates will start to go up at last.
* - The anniversary of Hana Kimura’s tragic death is tomorrow (5/23/2021). I still sometimes struggle with the idea she is gone. Tonight at 10:30pm EDT (which is 5/23/2021 12:30pm in JST), FITE TV will be showing a live Hana Kimura tribute show put on by her mother, Kiyoko Kimura. Have a look in if you can
I was able to watch the Vice Dark Side Of The Ring episode on Collision in Korea, the two-night joint NJPW & WCW show from May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea, on 4/28 & 4/29/1995, as it aired Thursday. It will hit YouTube here pretty soon. I am working on a podcast project about this documentary, and the (WCW version of the**) show itself, with the good lads at the Days Of Thunder podcast, so I won't talk too much here, but I will say a few things about it:
I did appreciate the detail here, as well as being able to get an interview with Antonio Inoki for this, especially as he was the principal driver of this show happening. I did also like that they took time to detail Inoki's mentor, and the "father of puroresu," Rikidozan, who himself was a North Korean national by birth. I did not appreciate the mythical pathos they added to the death of Rikidozan, which by all accounts was a random street fight with yakuza over a perceived insult (stepping on Rikidozan's shoe). I also felt they could have done a better job explaining the situation between Japan and North Korea at the time. When the event was first proposed to the NJPW roster, Scott Norton recounts Masahiro Chono telling Norton that "they want us dead," but it took until introducing former CNN foreign correspondent Mike Chinoy nearly halfway through the documentary to (briefly) explain the brutal colonialism that Japan wreaked on North Korea in the first part of the 20th century.
Also, as salacious as DSOTR can get, I am very surprised one of the most famous rumors/stories about this show did not get discussed, the internet wrestling legend that Kensuke Sasaki and Akira Hokuto were, erm, Quite Vocal when they were together, which of course did eventually lead to their marriage four months later which continues to this very day. But that was also part of another critique I had, which is, they mainly focused on the WCW part of the events, when this was an NJPW promoted show. The way it was told on DSOTR, the only Japanese wrestlers there were Antonio Inoki, Shinya Hashimoto, Akira Hokuto and Bull Nakano. I'd love to hear more from the NJPW side of things, besides how proud Inoki was of this political stunt that did not get him re-elected to the Diet anyway.
Overall, I do recommend watching this when and how you can, because it is absolutely bonkers. I will definitely keep you posted on when the podcast project for this drops. ** - I've tried looking for the NJPW version and have failed so far. NJPWWorld only has two matches from this, Antonio Inoki v. Ric Flair, and Akira Hokuto v. Bull Nakano. The WCW version is not officially released, even on WWE Network, so yeah search the internet to see it.
We finally have an update on Shooter! That is, Shota Umino. Earlier in the week, RevPro's official Twitter had a tweet saying This Summer, showing Umino in not only his white/pink Tanahashi-esque tights, but holding his Death Riders jacket from Jon Moxley, that Shota retweeted, making this his first tweet since September 2019. Two days later, a hype video appeared with footage of Shooter, including performing Death Rider. Now a Sports Illustrated article is claiming that Shooter was supposed to have reunited with Mox on the NJPW Strong episode that had Mox & Chris Dickinson face Yuji Nagata & Ren Narita, but Umino had an unspecified injury preventing that. (They further say that Mox v. Nagata’s IWGP US title match was originally set for Strong but Tony Khan convinced NJPW to hold it on AEW Dynamite.) Umino's last match listed on Cagematch was on 3/14/2020 in ATTACK! Wrestling in Cardiff, Wales, on the winning side of a 6-man tag match with Kyle Fletcher & Kid Lykos II defeating Shigehiro Irie, Chief Deupty Dunne & Los Federales Santos, Jr. It's great to have him back wrestling again, and I hope we get that reunion with Moxley soon enough too.
As an update to an item from an earlier post, it appears that the Ren Narita v. Royce Isaacs match that was teased but then not aired on AEW Dark this past Tuesday will actually be on AEW Dark: Elevation this coming Monday instead. Also part of that will be approximately 35 other matches (I only slightly kid), one of those being Rocky Romero v. JD Drake. This usually drops on YouTube at 7pm EDT / 6pm CDT Mondays.
This past Thursday on Impact, a video package showed that Satoshi Kojima would be appearing on next week's episode. This will be Kojima's first time ever wrestling in Impact under any name, as the last time NJPW and TNA were working together, Kojima was still away in All Japan Pro Wrestling. No word as to what he will be doing or whom he will be wrestling.
Also on Impact, Juice Robinson & David Finlay Jr. successfully defended the Impact World Tag Team titles against Ace Austin & Madman Fulton... before getting blindsided by two members of the Violent By Design unit (in this case, ECW veteran Rhino and former AJPW Triple Crown champion + cancer beater Joe Doering) with whatever Impact's version of a Anytime Anywhere Challenge is, and took the belts from FinJuice. They claimed FinJuice were going back to Japan, but, erm, who knows if that's the case or if it was for a time period when Wrestle Grand Slam was still a thing that was happening.
Also also, it seems Don Callis is no longer in any executive capacity at Impact. This is a little significant as it seems it was Callis who opened the negotiations back up for Impact to work with NJPW. Of course, lately he's spent more time as an on-screen heel manager for Kenny Omega, the Good Brothers and now the Young Bucks on both AEW and Impact programming. We'll see how much longer Kenny Omega's belt collector shtick goes on for with Callis no longer part of creative or management.
And that is actually it for now! Yipes!
#NJPW#new japan pro wrestling#Will Ospreay#IWGP World Heavyweight Championship#COVID-19#dark side of the ring#collision in korea#scott norton#Masahiro Chono#Antonio Inoki#Rikidozan#kensuke sasaki#akira hokuto#shota umino#ren narita#AEW#Satoshi Kojima#juice robinson#david finlay jr.#impact wrestling#joe doering#don callis#Kenny Omega#rocky romero#hana kimura
4 notes
·
View notes
Text
#blahs#dw#dw spoilers#the whole thing about castles in wales being english torture centres. much to unpack#i think it's easy for most viewers to watch it and see that the characters are taking the piss and write it off#but what's interesting about it is i think rtd is basing that on real exaggerations of oppression by welsh people#most castles in wales WERE built by the english and they WERE designed to oppress the welsh. except that was like 800 years ago#and some people use this as an example of welsh oppression /now/ when it's like. not relevant to modern wales really#and 'torture chambers' is a wild exaggeration that dangerously tries to compare wales to much more recent human rights violations#i think rtd is trying to caution against a romanticised or sensationalised narrative of old wales that certain welsh nationalists have#this is also what he's doing with roger ap gwilliam#i keep seeing people say his character is 'just nukes' and i'm not gonna pretend it's The most complex politics ever#but it's also not just nukes. it's about specific political tensions and attitudes in wales.#rtd's viewpoint reminds me a lot of my dad#my dad's a proud welshman he's a native speaker he grew up in a welsh speaking community#but he doesn't really care about old welsh history about llewelyn ap gruffydd or owain glyndwr or anything like that#he doesn't see it as relevant. to him what's important is modern wales and the tensions of the 20th century#i'd wager rtd probably feels the same#and what with doctor who being produced in wales being rtd's doing i think he's enthusiastic about collaborating with england#rather than being like. isolationist about it. (that's the wrong word but i can't think of a better one)#WHICH INCIDENTALLY ties the political strand of the episode with the personal strand about ruby#who is also dealing with a self-fulfilling sense of isolation#anyway i think this episode is about wales in a very significant way. we need more welsh people writing think pieces about it#honest to god i don't think any analysis of it that doesn't talk about its welshness is quite Getting It (via @aerithisms)
rotating the pub scene from 73 yards in my mind i think there is so much being said there about wales and welsh/english tension that is so interesting and is going so under discussed
#yesss all of this op#that scene is also so funny bc as someone else pointed it's like......#''oh look at this english girl she doesnt think we know what phones are''#but it's like. she's a time traveller. she was like oh dang i forgot i need other currency#so it's like a in a way also subtly telling u the ppl at the tavern have a chip on their shoulder dslkfj#dw meta
39 notes
·
View notes