#independent world junior heavyweight

[wrestlingmgc]

PROGRESS World Champion & GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Champion Chris Ridgeway

[blorbocedes]

In his own words: Christian Horner on world champion Max Verstappen

Verstappen won another world title on Saturday.

written by: Christian Horner, originally published on The Independent, 08, October 2023 [x]

I remember raising it to Helmut Marko – Red Bull’s motorsport consultant – that this kid looks the real deal. Helmut watched him at the Norisring in Germany and he was convinced.

There was interest from Niki Lauda and Mercedes, but Red Bull could take him to Formula One immediately. So, he came to us a very young age. He was 16. And I remember in his very first outing for us – a demonstration run in Rotterdam – he took the front wing off the car! But you could tell in the seat fitting the confidence he had for a young guy was exceptional.

All of the drivers that came through the junior categories learned their trade out of the spotlight, but Max became the youngest driver in Formula One ever. He was only 17. Every move and every mistake he made was scrutinised.

Jean Todt, who was the FIA president at the time, changed the regulations to ensure someone as young and inexperienced as Max could not enter F1. There will never be a driver that moves so rapidly from karting to F1 again. But the way he dealt with it mentally made him a standout character.

It was obvious in his first full F1 season when he drove for Red Bull’s sister team Toro Rosso, that he was an emerging talent, and at the beginning of 2016 he was performing beyond the capability of the car.

Daniil Kvyat was struggling, and there was a lot of interest in Max. We made the decision to move him to Red Bull at the Spanish Grand Prix.

Mercedes did their thing when Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg crashed into each other on the first lap and Max, who started fourth which was already stunning, made the one-stop strategy work to win in his first Grand Prix with the team. He became the sport’s youngest ever winner, aged 18. It was a fairytale. Max had arrived.

He won races in 2017 and 2018, and in 2019 he became the team leader following Daniel Ricciardo’s departure to Renault. He grew up, and it was a transformative year for him.

In 2021 we had a car and an engine that could take the fight to Mercedes, and that season will go down as one of the most competitive sporting duels the sport has ever had.

From the first race in Bahrain through to Abu Dhabi, Max and Lewis were like two heavyweights going up against each other. Max was a dog with a bone. He wouldn’t let it go. And you couldn’t script that they would head to the final race tied on points.

Max was very cool. He put the car on pole, and we took our opportunity under the final safety car. Max had one lap to get the job done. I don’t think Lewis expected Max to attack in the corner that he did, and people overlook that he still had to beat Lewis. He still had to win the race. It wasn’t about two unlapped backmarkers. It was about Max reacting to the circumstances and getting the job done. And under the most intense pressure he did just that. He sent it down the inside and the whole place went bananas.

To see him and his father, Jos, celebrate was a very special moment because it was the culmination of all the effort that his father had put into him at a very young age. Max achieved his goal, and anything after that was the icing on the cake, because for him, it was all about becoming a world champion.

Max has still got all the tenacity he had when he got in the car as a 17-year-old, but he now marries that with experience. Outside of the car, he is a normal guy, too. He has his feet on the ground and he hasn’t had his head turned by fame and fortune. He still loves racing, and he has got good, grounded principals.

He is competitive and wears his heart on his sleeve. He is very honest. He will give you everything, but he expects everything in return.

He can go on to achieve so much more. We are riding a wave at the moment, and we want to continue riding that wave for as long as we can.

Will Max be in Formula One for a long, long time? I don’t think so. He has ambitions beyond F1 and beyond racing. And at 26, 36 seems a long way away.

We have a long-term agreement with him until 2028, and he has always said he will be happy to start and end his career here, but motivation will be a crucial factor.

[wrestlingisfake]

Best of the Super Jr. night 1 preview

This is the opening night of New Japan's annual junior heavyweight tournament. Twenty men will compete in two blocks of ten. Each participant will wrestle nine matches, against everyone else in his block. The goal is to finish the block with the best win-loss record. The top two in each block will advance to semifinal matches on June 3; the winners of those matches will meet on June 9 in the final. The tournament winner traditionally becomes the next challenger for the IWGP junior heavyweight championship.

A Block: Titan vs. El Desperado - Titan is the CMLL world welterweight champion, but titles aren't at stake during this tournament. This is sort of a battle of the bridesmaids; neither man has won the tournament, but Despe was the runner-up in 2020 and 2022, and Titan took second place last year.

Despe is a three-time IWGP junior champ, and for the past five years the title has largely been controlled by himself, Hiromu Takahashi, and Taiji Ishimori. On top of that, New Japan is helping him promote his own independent show on June 10. So you'd have to figure he's a heavy favorite to win the tournament. On the other hand, this is the main event of the opening night of the tournament, so you'd have to figure there's going to be a big upset. Something tells me this is going to be Titan's night to shine.

B Block: Hiromu Takahashi vs. KUSHIDA - Kushida wasn't originally announced for this tournament, but after YOH suffered a shoulder injury, he cleared his schedule. As a result, we get a match between two of the best in the modern NJPW junior division. Kushida won BOSJ in 2015 and 2017; Hiromu won it all in 2018, 2020, 2021, and 2022.

Hiromu rose to prominence in the junior division just as Kushida was starting to move on to other stuff. So in most of their singles encounters, Kushida was the old ace putting over the new ace--Hiromu leads the series 4-1. Now would be a good time for Kushida to get a win back, to help Hiromu look a little vulnerable before he racks up a bunch of wins. I wouldn't bet money on a Kushida win, but I'm leaning towards that outcome.

A Block: TJP vs. Kevin Knight - TJP appeared in the last two BOSJ tournaments, and finished 4-5 both times. Knight debuted last year with a 3-6 record, so there's practically nowhere to go but up. TJP's big thing now is that he's trying to be an openweight wrestler, and the "captain" of the United Empire. I doubt that'll play into this match much, but it stands to reason that he needs a good showing in the tournament to shore up his lofty ambitions. This isn't a safe match for him, but Knight is still booked pretty much like a young rookie, so a TJP win is pretty likely.

B Block: Taiji Ishimori vs. DOUKI - Ishimori was the runner-up in 2018's tournament, whereas Douki has never done better than 3-6.

Ishimori was injured near the end of last year's BOSJ, during a match with Hiromu Takahashi, and forced to withdraw. So aside from the usual goals of winning the tournament and chasing the junior title, he's no doubt looking for retribution against Hiromu.

Douki's big thing this year is his major victory over Hiromu on February 24. I'm glad he's finally getting wins like that, but that was almost three months ago and he hasn't really accomplished anything since then. He really needs to at least finish this year at 5-4, but I'm not counting on that. Ishimori is probably going to eat his lunch.

A Block: Blake Christian vs. Clark Connors - Christian is a stand-out in the US indy scene, and I'm surprised to find this is his first appearance in BOSJ. Although he's billed as representing Ring of Honor (where he does appear sporadically as a jobber), Christian is surely better known as the current GCW world champion. In fact, it was just last week that he retained the title in a controversial Dusty finish against Danhausen. I don't expect him to be protected at all in this tour, but it is pretty cool for GCW to have their champ here.

Connors is one of the IWGP junior heavyweight tag team champions. This is his third year in the tournament; in 2022 and 2023, he finished in the middle of the pack at 4-5. As one of Bullet Club's War Dogs, he's going to be more focused on bullying and hurting his opponents than seriously trying to win, and that's going to cost him many key matches. This feels like one of the matches he'll win to keep him out of last place.

B Block: SHO vs. Drilla Moloney - Sho is the IWGP junior heavyweight champion, so he isn't defending his title during this tour, but the tournament will decide his next challenger. (Unless he wins the whole thing himself, which probably won't happen.) Moloney holds the IWGP junior tag title with Clark Connors. Sho's personal best is 6-3; Moloney's is 4-5.

This is technically a Bullet Club vs. Bullet Club match, since House of Torture and the War Dogs are still officially subgroups within the same faction. Traditionally, when two Bullet Club guys face off in a tournament, they try to work out a deal where one lays down for the other, and it always backfires and turns into a vicious brawl, and then they make peace after the match. That probably won't work here, because nobody trusts House of Torture to live up to their agreements, and nobody expects the War Dogs to go easy on an ally. One way or another, though, I figure Sho will bring in enough interference to steal a win.

A Block: Kosei Fujita vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru - This is Fujita's first time in the tournament. Kanemaru's personal best in BOSJ was in 2017 when he finished 4-3, so he's never been a top contender.

Fujita has been a member of Zack Sabre's TMDK faction for over a year, but he's still little more than a Young Lion, so I expect him to finish at or near last place. If he's going to beat anybody in this block, however, it's probably Kanemaru. That alone makes this worth watching, but all the same I have to favor Nobu to pick up the win.

B Block: Ninja Mack vs. Robbie Eagles - Mack, who makes his BOSJ debut here, is the GHC hardcore champion at Pro Wrestling NOAH. Robbie is a mainstay of the tournament, but he's never done better than 5-4, which is a long way from clinching a semifinal spot. This match comes down to whether they want to give Mack a hot start, or if they want to big-league him by jobbing him to a middle-of-the-pack New Japan guy. I'm honestly not sure which way they'll go with that, so this is a pick-'em.

A Block: HAYATA vs. BUSHI - Hayata, another NOAH guy making his debut, is the GHC national champion. Bushi has been in twelve of these things; his personal best is 6-3, which is pretty good, but not always enough to make it out of the blocks. Of all the outside guys coming in this year, Hayata seems like the one they'd take most seriously, and Bushi jobs to pretty much anybody. I'll pick Hayata to win here, though he'll probably finish up around 4-5.

B Block: Francesco Akira vs. Dragon Dia - Dia, representing Dragongate, is a last-minute substitution for Ryusuke Taguchi. Akira, like his tag partner, TJP was in the 2022 and 2023 tournaments, and both times he finished 4-5. Dia strikes me as the kind of guy they'll book like he's just happy to be here, so it's okay to beat him a lot. If he's going to score any wins this year, it'd probably be against someone like Akira. But I think Akira will score the victory this time.

[keepingthespiritalive]

K-DOJO results for March 18, 2017

K-DOJO “CLUB-K SUPER in Blue Field”, 3/18/2017 [Sat] 18:00 @ Blue Field in Chiba (1) GO Asakawa & Dinosaur Takuma vs. Kyu Mogami & Marines Mask ◆Winner: Asakawa (9:17) with a Stretch Plum on Marines. (2) Bambi vs. ERINA ◆Winner: Bambi (5:41) following a Shining Wizard. (3) Ricky Fuji & Daigoro Kashiwa vs. Kotaro Yoshino & Malik ◆Winner: Yoshino (11:31) with an Air Scissors Drop on Kashiwa. (4)…

[thegiftofviolence]

The Dominance of Kota Ibushi ,The Golden Star.

Dramatic Dream Team

IMGP World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

Independent Junior Heavyweight Champion (1 time)

Ironman Heavymetalweight Championship (3 times)

DDT KO-D 6-Man Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Gota Ihashi and Kenny Omega (1) and Daisuke Sasaki and Kenny Omega (1)

KO-D Openweight Champion (3 times)

KO-D Tag Team Champion (5 times) - with Daichi Kakimoto (1), Kenny Omega (2), Danshoku Dino (1) & Daisuke Sasaki

Go-1 Climax (2014)

KO-D Openweight Championship Contendership Tournament (2008, 2009)

KO-D Tag League (2005) – with Daichi Kakimoto

DDT48 / Dramatic Sousenkyo (2012, 2014)

Best Match Award (2012) vs. Kenny Omega on August 18

New Japan Pro Wrestling

IWGP World Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

IWGP Heavyweight Championship (1 time)

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship (3 times)

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Kenny Omega

Best of the Super Juniors (2011)

New Japan Cup (2015)CEO Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Kenny Omega

NEVER Openweight Championship (1 time)

IWGP Intercontinental Championship (2 times)

IWGP Tag Team Championship (1 time) - with Hiroshi Tanahashi

[johnstibal]

Career advice for law students wanting to practice in international law

Hello,

I was recently asked by a law student for some career advice on how to get a job internationally, and particularly how they could get engaged in international (public and private) legal work.

While my legal background stems largely from doing multinational corporate work, particularly in the IT sector, here are my basic ideas outlining a few generic things to think about in terms of your career planning and some key approaches to pursuing these types of careers.

My background.  For the past several years, I have worked primarily in London, and secondarily in Paris, for a very large telecommunications company.  I was originally working for another one of this companies' affiliates in USA, and this enabled me to move internally to another one of their companies in the UK.  Making this move internally within a large company allowed me to move abroad far easier, especially in terms of sorting out work visas and professional qualifications, etc.

Three Career Principles to Never Forget.  In terms of general career advice, there are three principles which you must keep in mind to work in international law related field.  While I recognize the risk of sharing a 'firm grasp of the obvious' (and I can almost hear some cringing already) most law students do not receive this message framed in this sort of a utilitarian light.  So, here it goes:

The sole purpose of your first legal job is to enable you to get a better second legal job.

It is all about Brand.  Your CV / Resume is a personal marketing tool.  It is your personal ‘brand’.  The choice of your first job should strongly take into account the value which the ‘brand’ of your new employer will add to your CV, and your future ambitions.  This lasts for decades.

You cannot save the world if you cannot pay the bills.  Public international law has some of the most interesting legal work around.  Unfortunately, or fortunately, it also has a tendency to attract incredibly brilliant people who will work for a minimum salary.  If you are independently wealthy, then great, no problem.  If you have large education debts, please do not neglect the fact this will undoubtedly impact your choice of jobs in the short term, even if not necessarily in the longer term.

Your first Legal job.  Getting your first Legal job is always a nerve wracking experience at best, and especially if you want to take a track other than going directly into a large law firm.  Unfortunately, nearly all major law schools are set up to build a funnel for large firms.  For your interests, even if you do not wish to 'end up' in a law firm or major global corporation, it usually makes considerable sense for you to go out to find the best ‘brand’ firm which you can, either in the US, UK or elsewhere.  You will be able to extract the majority of the benefits during this time by working at a firm for exactly two years (or three years, if in New York City) doing whatever type of legal work - - of course, its even better if your firm or company has a public international law practice, but this is not required.  By the end of this time, you will have ‘checked the box’ on your CV, and you can happily move on to what you really want to do.  This is by far is the safest option for most, and also incidentally, completes one of the requirements enabling you to be admitted to practice in other common law countries (e.g. the UK).  I’m not certain whether this is as helpful in other civil law countries, but I suspect it would be.

There is no question that working at a law firm, and potentially billing in ‘6 minute’ increments gets very tiring.  Reviewing e.g. commercial leases is even less fun than watching paint dry.  But this said, you will probably be practicing law for a very long time off and on anyway.  Having a good initial first employer on your CV, who has ‘trained’ you is always a good investment for your CV even if not necessarily beneficial to you over the long term.

As a lawyer who has graduated from a US law school, you are able to come to Europe with a well respected professional background (speaking generally).  In terms of global perceptions, US lawyers are highly respected, maybe in a similar form of the admiration to being world-class in other professions e.g. French engineers, British accountants, or Indian mathematicians - - not to foster bad stereotypes…  But, needless to say, the USA legal professional qualification travels well around the world, particularly among global employers.

This being said, there is a particular area of confusion when you first come out of law school.  Legal training is not the same around the world, meaning in France, a jurist has may have only attended the equivalent of undergrad and not graduate school (in terms of USA style nomenclature, depending on their qualifications).  In the UK, while there are some permutations, most young associates at large law firms will attend around a year and a half or so of graduate school, followed by two years of a training contract to learn how to practice law.  In Germany, many associates hold an LLM, or a PHD, at minimum, staying in school much longer.  While you probably can research the differences in the number of years of schooling better than me, you should be particularly aware of this issue when you turn up to speak with a new potential employer in Europe.  There is a risk of being perceived as wanting to find only a training contract, which is not needed as a USA law school graduate.  After your first job, the timing issue goes away as you accumulate more PQE (Post Qualification Experience).  The same is true in France, as I understand it.

An alternative path in human rights / non-profit sector for law students.  This is an area where my knowledge is limited.  But, if I wanted to pursue a career in this field, I would adopt some of the following key approaches.

First, figure out who are the heavyweights thought leaders in your particular field of interest, either individuals or organizations - - and, do your best to somehow associate yourself with their organization or sphere of colleagues.  You want to try to figure out who these organizations interact with, and by extension, which of these organizations might hire you.  Linkedin is an extraordinarily powerful resource for this research.  To test your hypotheses, try calling up or meeting up with the General Counsel of any public interest foundation (if not possible to meet in person, then email / Skype also works  but is far less effective than in person).  Introduce yourself, and ask him or her for some general advice, in particular what ‘outside counsel’ their foundation typically uses - - make clear that you admire the work of their foundation, and look to gain relevant experience by doing similar work in the future.  Ask about their Legal department organizational structure (General Counsels - GCs) love talking about this stuff), and what skills they look for over the long term, but even if not necessarily immediately.  If it goes well, you might get some really good information, and maybe even a referral to a firm or sister organization.  Senior Executives are very used to people asking them for jobs on a daily basis.  But, they get asked for their advice far less often.  Use this to your advantage... but do not be a pest.

As an example coming from NGOs, from time to time, I have occasionally dealt with some of the affiliates of the United Nations as a supplier. There are probably 20 of these, e.g. World Bank, IMF, UNHCR, IATA, WIPO, Red Cross, Red Crescent, and Red Crystal.  Some of these organizations you are probably more familiar to you than others.  There are two consistent traits that I see when dealing with their personnel.  First, many of the staff are about to retire, and second, their staff have all consistently bounced around the world working in many different UN affiliates and national governments doing all sort of different roles, both legal and non-legal.  The first of these is a well known problem for the UN and its agencies, at least, at a macro level, which might be helpfully to you. While I’m not certain what formal hiring programs may exist in these orgs, you should check with them around world, and particularly in Geneva, Switzerland and New York.  Also, in terms of firms which advise this types of groups, you should also talk with McKinsey & Company.  They do some very impressive pro bono work consulting for non-profits, and like to hire people with diverse backgrounds often having law degrees.

To get the attention of any large organization, and not just the UN agencies, you will always want to first find a way to get through the door, even if you need to do the unsexy type of legal work.  Once you are inside, it is usually far easier to move internally.  For example, if you work for a big organization like the UN, they have a vast array of legal needs, ranging from the basic to the exotic.  It is undoubtedly the case that a large portion of the UN’s legal budget goes to HR and Procurement legal advice (e.g. doing commercial leases, procuring pencils and IT projects) (whether done in-house or by external firms.)  When a UN agency needs to lease a building in sub-Saharan Africa, some lawyer somewhere in the world needs to review and advise on the tender process (often in combination with other local lawyers).  Therefore, this is an opportunity to target.   Yes, this is not sexy work, but it gets you a pass into the ‘club’ to work on other more interesting projects in the future.

As a final thought.  Having outlined all of above, if you truly want to work in the non-profit / human rights space, it might be the case that being a ‘junior file clerk’ for Google.org or the Gates Foundation is equally beneficial (from a brand perspective to get your next job) as being a senior associate at Skadden Arps.

On the one hand, being at a big firm allows you to potentially develop a deep legal specialty, which might be later retooled for a good purpose.  For example, undoubtedly, at some point, a brilliant lawyer in some large law firm will figure out how to package up millions of ‘microfinance’ loans using mezzanine financing techniques (i.e. allowing Wall Street money to start funding billions of very small loans around the world) - - in so doing, they could indirectly create prosperity in Africa for a life time.

At the same time, NGOs have a potential to do great things too.  These are the people who are likely to generate the next generation of new legal concepts / quasi-regulatory regimes.  For example, a newer area which I am following lately relates to 'conservation services' and 'natural capital' (see Conservation International) (www.conservation.org).  These structures are, essentially, quasi-voluntary regulatory schemes to allow companies to share and manage ecological externalities (see Jennifer Morris's speech at Stanford).  For me, CI's approach is just a start of a major trend in this area: soon there will be ISO certificate schemes covering externality pricing, as well as voluntary business case weighting methodologies which hopefully over time will become a standard approach in global commercial activity - - yet, this said, few individuals in the world understand how these types of governance tools work in practice.  It simply cross too many intellectual domains, which so far has stymied adoption on a global level.  'Deep Greens' are not well suited to create these types of applied 'corporate' innovations around externalities, but maybe you are the one given your legal background.

Highly innovative organizations, such as the Gates Foundation, look great to onlookers because, in large part, by comparison, the other large global NGOs have tired ‘business’ models.  Often major NGOs have been doing the same exact thing for decades.  For me, I could see this as creating an opportunity.  It might be great fun to join one of these NGOs for the express purpose to reshape it, remake it, and help them to reinvent their bag of tricks as an NGO.  As a lawyer, you can have this level of influence within these types of organizations - - but, remember, always ask for forgiveness, never for permission when trying to affect major change within large organizations.

Keep in touch.  If you like this or have other items to add, please drop me a note.  I always enjoy hearing from people and what they think.  These are changing times!

Best of luck,

John

[ultimateburningvigor]

If you’re a combat sports fan with an affinity for pro wrestling then chances are you probably have already seen New Japan Wrestling’s Wrestle Kingdom 14. This year, their traditional January 4th show was turned into a 2 night extravaganza. NJPW was having a great year to start off with a great 2 night event and the subsequent shows after.

A major part of their calendar was altered by the 2020 Summer Olympics meaning that they decided to change their G1 Summer tournament into a fall tournament to avoid the Olympics detracting from their audience and other factors. Unfortunately, that would not be the only detraction in their events.

The global pandemic forced NJPW to alter their plans and in effect cancel all of their March events and shows. NJPW being a company that has in the past, shown a want to provide content to their audience and be that outlet of fun, excitement and exuberance that only NJPW can do, decided you use their talent to entertain in different ways.

The long anticipated anniversary show was canceled along with the equally hotly anticipated match between popular Los Ingobernables de Japon stablemates, the NJPW Double Gold Champion (Heavyweight and Intercontinental) Tetsuya Naito and NJPW Junior Heavyweight Hiromu Takahashi was also shelved.

The long held tradition of the NJPW anniversary show being headlined by the Heavyweight Champion Vs the Junior Heavyweight Champion would not happen this year, but the two ultra popular competitors and stablemates would join forces to create content for their fans as part of NJPW’s Together project.

This initiative kept the value of having the NJPW World service. The Los Ingobernables duo would do an interview show and a talk show together. Other events were planned as party of this initiative and for the Japanese audience, these were fun takeaways to help ease the cost of paying for a subscription that wouldn’t be delivering content like have been.

For the English speaking fans, unless you can speak or understand Japanese, you were sorta left out, but to NJPW’s credit they did continue their stead clip of content by adding English commentary to match that haven’t had the English commentary treatment and now NJPW is giving fans who stepped away or haven’t stepped in a reason to come back.

NJPW is providing this years Wrestle Kingdom show (both nights) completely free. So if you have a friend that isn’t in on NJPW then share this check this out. It’s a very long show both nights are in the 4+ hours range but are chock full of action and pageantry.

Pro Wrestling has long been my favorite form of escapism and right now we could all use this. If you saw it before rewatch it, if you haven’t seen it, then please you owe it to yourself to watch and be entertained for 8+ hours.

Also if you can afford to drop $10 on a niche streaming service then do so here or at the very least do so on independent pro wrestling. A lot of talented folks have seen their chance to shine with a large watching audience evaporate because of the pandemic, and as such so did their chance to make money to live their dream and entertain their new and long time fans. Buy a shirt, buy stream, enjoy a show. This is possibly the best chance a lot of will have to catching up or checking out a show or an event so go do that. Not like there’s much else to do.

Take care fighters, and never stop fighting.

[evilmiku]

why are you simping for nemu

Golden Lovers

Golden☆Lovers (ゴールデン☆ラヴァーズ, Gōruden☆Ravāzu) is the professional wrestling tag team of Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi. The team was formed in January 2009 in the Japanese DDT Pro-Wrestling promotion, where, over the next five years, they won the KO-D Tag Team Championship on two occasions. The team also made appearances for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), where they won the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship once. The team disbanded when Omega left DDT in October 2014. Omega and Ibushi reunited at The New Beginning in Sapporo in January 2018.In July 2008, Canadian wrestler Kenny Omega started his first Japanese tour with the DDT Pro-Wrestling promotion, where he quickly became friends with Kota Ibushi,[2] with the two forming a tag team named "Golden☆Lovers" in January 2009. On January 24, Ibushi and Omega defeated Harashima and Toru Owashi to win the KO-D Tag Team Championship for the first time. After one successful defense, they lost the title to Francesco Togo and Piza Michinoku on May 10. Over the following years, Omega and Ibushi established themselves as one of the top tag teams on the Japanese independent circuit. On January 31, 2010, the Golden☆Lovers made their debut for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), defeating Gedo and Jado by referee stoppage, when Jado was legitimately injured. Afterwards, the Golden☆Lovers engaged in a rivalry with Apollo 55, a tag team made up of Prince Devitt and Ryusuke Taguchi. On October 11 at NJPW's Destruction '10 event, the Golden☆Lovers defeated Apollo 55 to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship, in a match that was later named the 2010 Match of the Year by Tokyo Sports, becoming the first junior heavyweight tag team match in history to win the award. After making successful title defenses against Apollo 55 and the team of Gedo and Jado, with both matches taking place back in DDT, Ibushi and Omega lost the title back to Apollo 55 on January 23, 2011, during NJPW's Fantastica Mania 2011 weekend. The Golden☆Lovers received a rematch for the title on August 14, but were again defeated by Apollo 55. Meanwhile in DDT, Ibushi and Omega came together with Gota Ihashi to form the Golden☆Rendezvous～ stable, with the three holding the KO-D 6-Man Tag Team Championship from May 26 to June 23, 2013. On January 26, 2014, the Golden☆Lovers won the KO-D Tag Team Championship for the second time by defeating reigning champions Yankii Nichokenju (Isami Kodaka and Yuko Miyamoto) and the team of Konosuke Takeshita and Tetsuya Endo in a three-way match. On April 12, Ibushi and Omega became double champions, when the two, along with the newest member of the Golden☆Rendezvous～ stable, Daisuke Sasaki, defeated Team Drift (Keisuke Ishii, Shigehiro Irie and Soma Takao) for the KO-D 6-Man Tag Team Championship. The trio's reign lasted until May 4, when they were defeated by Shuten-dōji (Kudo, Masa Takanashi and Yukio Sakaguchi) in their second defense. Ibushi and Omega continued holding the KO-D Tag Team Championship until September 28, 2014, when they were defeated by Konosuke Takeshita and Tetsuya Endo.On October 3, 2014, Omega announced he was leaving DDT and signing with NJPW, where Ibushi was already a semi-regular. However, with Ibushi having recently moved to NJPW's heavyweight division, Omega stated that the Golden☆Lovers were done as a tag team due to him wanting to remain in the junior heavyweight division. The Golden☆Lovers wrestled their final match together on October 26, 2014, when they defeated Danshoku Dino and Konosuke Takeshita in Omega's DDT farewell match.

On January 28, 2018, the Golden☆Lovers were apparently reformed after Omega was seemingly kicked out of Bullet Club and attacked by fellow member Cody. Ibushi made the save for Omega as Bullet Club fled the scene. At first, Omega refused to shake Ibushi's hand, but moments after, both Omega and Ibushi emotionally embraced as confetti fell to the ring. At Honor Rising: Japan Night 2 on February 24, the Golden☆Lovers won their return match as a team against Cody and Marty Scurll. After the match, Omega and Ibushi were confronted by The Young Bucks and challenged to a match at Strong Style Evolved on March 25, which the Golden☆Lovers won. At Dominion 6.9 in Osaka-jo Hall, Omega defeated Kazuchika Okada to win the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. After the match, Omega reunited with The Young Bucks, forming the Golden☆Elite along with Ibushi. On the finals of the World Tag League, Ibushi defeated Hirooki Goto to win the NEVER Openweight Championship. At Wrestle Kingdom, Ibushi lost the NEVER Openweight Championship to Will Ospreay and Omega lost the IWGP Heavyweight Championship to Hiroshi Tanahashi. At the end of January, Omega left NJPW to join All Elite Wrestling in the United States meanwhile Ibushi stayed in NJPW full-time, disbanding for the second time.

[gdwessel]

Fighting Spirit Unleashed 2019 Night 1 - 9/27/2019; Rush, Dragon Lee Fired By CMLL, How This May Affect NJPW; Where Are Kawato & Oka?; Tonight’s NJPW on AXS: Double Header

The three night East Coast tour Fighting Spirit Unleashed began last night. There was a title match on that show, and we begin to say goodbye to Tiger Hattori.

Fighting Spirit Unleashed 2019 - 9/27/2019, Lowell Memorial Auditorium, Lowell, MA

Karl Fredericks d. Alex Coughlin (Elevated Half-Crab, 8:47)

Lance Archer [SZKG] d. Ren Narita (EBD Claw, 7:23) 

Juice Robinson & Mikey Nicholls [CHAOS] d. TJP [FREE] & Clark Connors (NIcholls > Connors, Mikeybomb, 8:04)

Chase Owens & Jado [Bullet Club] d. Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson [FREE] (Owens > Morton, Package Driver, 9:10)

Tomohiro Ishii [CHAOS] & Amazing Red [FREE] d. Shingo Takagi & BUSHI [Los Ingobernables] (Ishii > BUSHI, Vertical Drop Brainbuster, 8:48)

Hirooki Goto, YOSHI-HASHI & Rocky Romero [CHAOS] d. Jay White, KENTA & Gedo [Bullet Club] (YOSHI-HASHI > Gedo, Butterfly Lock, 12:28)

IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championship: Tama Tonga & Tanga Loa [Bullet Club] © d. SHO & YOH [CHAOS] (Tonga > YOH, Gunstun, 16:43) - GOD succeed their 7th defense

Kazuchika Okada [CHAOS], Kota Ibushi & Hiroshi Tanahashi d. SANADA, EVIL & Tetsuya Naito [Los Ingobernables] (Tanahashi > Naito, Ground Cobra Twist, 20:26)

Naito doing the job here seems a bit shit but Naito doesn’t have a title match to look like a contender for coming up either. Guerrillas of Destiny continue to hang on to the titles and let’s face it will do so until WK14 where they will be beaten by the eventual World Tag League winners. The tag division is trash and GOD are the face of it now. The match may end up on NJPWWorld on tape delay eventually. Chase Owens pins his trainer Ricky Morton, and the Rock’n’Roll Express lose their NJPW debut match. His partner in the match, Jado is 51 years old today.

In the wee hours of the night, something rather major happened behind the scenes in CMLL.

Firstly, Rush defeated Matt Taven at Ring of Honor’s Death Before Dishonor PPV to become the first-ever Mexican ROH World Champion, with his brother Dragon Lee and father La Bestia del Ring (and son, above) in attendance. Rumors had been flying for weeks about Dragon Lee’s status in home promotion CMLL, stemming from Dragon Lee disobeying a directive from CMLL to not work Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’s Battle of Los Angeles last weekend (Barbaro Cavernario was also booked for BOLA, but did withdraw his participation under that same directive; the reason given, is CMLL is once again considering both Pentagon Jr./Penta el 0M and Rey Fenix as AAA wrestlers once more so they are forbidding wrestlers from working with them). From this, Dragon Lee was pulled from CMLL’s 86th Aniversario, which also ran last night.

Within the hour of Rush winning the ROH title, Rush posted a video on his Twitter announcing both he and La Bestia del Ring were now independent wrestlers, and indeed both KAOZ Lucha and The Crash have announced Rush as working there soon as El Toro Blanco, as CMLL own the Rush trademark. Not long after THAT, CMLL tweeted out that they have fired both Rush and Dragon Lee. Dragon Lee posted on Facebook he was devastated by this, and indeed this really seems to be retaliatory. There are reports he may be working ROH’s TV taping tonight. Dragon Lee was also CMLL’s Welterweight champion at the time of his release.

I will stop right here and say that friend of the show/blog TheCubsFan posted a podcast with Rob Viper late last night summarizing this situation and you should listen to it; it’s only 40 minutes, but packed with information.

But it should go without saying that both Rush and Dragon Lee were pretty integrated in their way with New Japan as well. Dragon Lee especially has been pretty popular in NJPW, and of course his story is very well tied in to that of Hiromu Takahashi, and indeed Hiromu tweeted at Dragon Lee this morning. There are reports he was due to be in the upcoming Super Junior Tag League, presumably paired with another CMLL wrestler. but who knows if that can or will happen now. It’s become very murky politically. NJPW could outright sign Dragon Lee (or whatever he calls himself now -- there are reports of Toro Rojo being a possibility) if all parties agree, but he could also go to WWE, or somewhere else. 

It all kinda depends on how strong the relationship between NJPW and CMLL is at this point and whether NJPW values CMLL or Dragon Lee more. There have been signs of strain between NJPW and its partners, ROH and CMLL; the ROH relationship has been the more obviously strained, especially since G1 Supercard at MSG, where ROH’s contributions were, frankly, absolute shite. However, other than Fantasticamania (which is usually a great payday for the visiting luchadors) and appearances in Best of the Super Juniors and Super J-Cup, there doesn’t seem to be much going on with the CMLL relationship right now. The last couple of excursions ended suddenly and without notice, as when Sho Tanaka & Yohei Komatsu were Raijin & Fujin and then... weren’t (Hirai Kawato, I discuss below). Shota Umino and Ren Narita both are on excursion now, but neither went to CMLL, where before it was assured at least one would. Jushin Thunder Liger appeared at Arena Mexico this summer for a retirement show, but Liger is able to make his own bookings without NJPW’s involvement (which is how Liger was able to wrestle Tyler Breeze at the 2015 NXT Takeover in Brooklyn). Consider that around this time last year, Kazuchika Okada, Tetsuya Naito, EVIL & BUSHI all made appearances in Arena Mexico. This year, there were no NJPW wrestlers at the CMLL Grand Prix, where usually there is at least one or two, even if it were the likes of Michael Elgin, Satoshi Kojima, or even David Finlay. As NJPW broaden their global profile on their own, there seems to be a gradual withdrawal from their partners. As I said, which do NJPW value more, a continued partnership with CMLL, or Dragon Lee on their roster?

Then there’s the other elephant in the room: the status of Los Ingobernables. Straight up, CMLL own the trademark, and always have. There’s a CMLL trademark on LIJ shirts. The unit started in CMLL, between Rush, La Sombra and La Mascara. La Sombra is now Andrade Cien Almas in WWE, and the other two have been fired for various reasons. Los Ingobernables as a functional thing in CMLL is now dead, unless they want to do the typical lucha promotion business where they just shellac other wrestlers onto a popular gimmick after the original wrestler(s) behind said gimmick leave - indeed, it’s how Rush & Dragon Lee’s brother became the second Mistico. (His status is unknown, assumed not leaving, but who knows. If he does, Caristico can reassume the Mistico identity, which would make the Arena Mexico crowd happy.) There is a possibility that CMLL could keep Los Ingobernables alive with Terrible and some others, but I can guess how well that’s going to go over. 

Los Ingobernables de Japon has to end, at some point. It’s just inevitable. Rush is still in ROH until at least 2020, so there is a possibility that Naito and the boys will reunite with Rush (although the last few times Rush and LIJ members were on the same ROH cards, they deliberately kept them apart, even at meet & greets). If the NJPW and CMLL relationship is starting to disintegrate, a very large part of NJPW’s current identity, and merch money, will be going away soon. Rush being shown the door by itself doesn’t mean LIJ is over just yet. It is not the first time the NJPW branch of a famous stable outlasted its home company. But this could be the harbinger of that unit coming to an end, until LIJ goes into its TEAM2000 phase.

Long story short, shit is wild, and complicated, and political, and who knows what ripples this pebble in the river will produce.

Above, I mentioned Hirai Kawato and his excursion in CMLL as Kawato San. I’ve been teasing a piece for weeks, and, well, here it is. 

Hirai Kawato has not worked a match since 7/28/2019, a Sunday night show at Arena Mexico, teaming with Dark Magic & Misterioso Jr. in a losing effort v. Rey Cometa, Flyer & Dulce Gardenia. Prior to that, on 6/30/2019, Kawato had bested Audaz to win the CMLL World Super Lightweight title vacated by (ironically) Dragon Lee. Since then... nothing. 

Apparently, according to TheCubsFan (him again), Kawato got seriously ill and had to go back to Japan for recovery. There’s been no official word about his status at all, including whether or not he will return to Mexico. It’s a real shame, as his excursion looked to finally be working, evidenced by getting a title, and it looked like they might begin an actual program with Audaz, but such is not to be right now. I hope he is recovering OK, no matter what happens next for him, as it sounded serious enough for him to go home.

Tomoyuki Oka is another one who’s been MIA. Last seen in RevPro UK under the gimmick of Dominator Great O-Kharn, Oka has not wrestled a match since his appearance as the only Japanese talent at the ill-fated New Beginning USA shows, beating Harlem Bravado on 2/2/2019 in Nashville. There is even less info about his whereabouts - his last tweet was on 3/4/2019, advertising the NBUSA shows on NJPWWorld. (FWIW, Kawato’s last tweet was on 7/26, and last Instagram post was on 7/3.) 

I wish I had more, but I simply don’t; I don’t have sources or anything like that. But it’s a little disconcerting when not one but two Young Lions have gone missing in action whilst away. Makes you wonder what the future holds for Shooter and Ren.

(Whilst we’re here - David Finlay is still recovering from injury and surgery. He is still pretty active on social media.)

Ideally I should’ve posted this earlier but there were no posts and we’re here now. After taking last week off, NJPW on AXS returns tonight with a double header of episodes, all taking place from various Destruction shows from a couple of weeks ago. Advertised matches are:

9pm EDT / 8pm CDT - RevPro Undisputed British Heavyweight Championship: Hiroshi Tanahashi (c) v. Zack Sabre Jr., Destruction in Beppu, Oita Beppu B-Con Plaza, 9/15/2019 10pm EDT / 9pm CDT - Tokyo Dome IWGP Heavyweight Challenge Rights: Kota Ibushi v. KENTA, Destruction in Kagoshima, Kagoshima Arena, 9/16/2019

There will be other matches as these alone are not enough to fill an hour of TV each. It’s also preceded by an all-new WOW Women of Wrestling. Incidentally, it looks like AXS’s new owners Anthem are moving their own wrestling company, Impact, to Tuesdays later this month, so there is some assurance of them not actively messing with NJPW, at least, not yet.

Of course, you are spoiled for choice of watching NJPW tonight, as tonight’s FIghting Spirit Unleashed show from the Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC is live on NJPWWorld. Show starts at 7pm EDT. Once again we have a title match tonight, too, although... let’s face it, we know who’s winning this.

- 9/28/2019, Hammerstein Ballroom, New York City, NY (NJPWWorld)

Ren Narita v. TJP [FREE]

Karl Fredericks v. Lance Archer [SZKG]

Juice Robinson & Mikey Nicholls [CHAOS] v. Clark Connors & Alex Coughlin

Rocky Romero, SHO & YOH [CHAOS] v. Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa & Jado [Bullet Club]

Hiroshi Tanahashi, Ricky Morton [FREE] & Robert Gibson [FREE] v. Tetsuya Naito, Shingo Takagi & BUSHI [Los Ingobernables]

Hirooki Goto [CHAOS], Tomohiro Ishii [CHAOS] & Amazing Red [FREE] v. Jay White, Chase Owens & Gedo [Bullet Club]

NEVER Openweight Championship: KENTA [Bullet Club] © v. YOSHI-HASHI [CHAOS]

Kazuchika Okada [CHAOS] & Kota Ibushi v. SANADA & EVIL [Los Ingobernables]

[hazyheel]

NXT Breakout Tournament Competitors

If you are just a WWE fan, then you probably don’t know too many of the guys in the NXT Breakout Tournament that was announced on Wednesday. These are some people from all around the Indy world, and even a couple big companies. Most of them are great in the ring, and have impressive resumes to boot, so here is some quick background on each of them.

Dexter Lumis was formerly known as Samuel Shaw, and is an alumni of Impact Wrestling. He was a psychopathic character who had an obsession with a ring announcer there, having a feud with Mr. Anderson. He left the company in 2015, and has been touring the independent scene since then. He has won various championships on the independent scene, but only won the Gut Check tournament while in Impact. While I have never seen him myself, he is described as a good wrestler, although not great. I think that he will have a similar psychopath gimmick in NXT, given that he is using Dexter as a first name. 

Bronson Reed was known as Jonah Rock on the indie scene, and spent some time in Pro Wrestling Noah in Japan, RevPro and PROGRESS in Britain, WXW in Germany, and PWG in the US. I don’t know much about his character, but I do know that he was a good worker when I saw him in PWG. He wrestles as a powerhouse, and is known for being on the smaller side, but built like a truck. He did not win any titles in those bigger companies, but he has won several in indie promotions in Australia.

Isaiah “Swerve” Scott was known as Shane Strickland on the indies, as well as Killshot in Lucha Underground. He has been all over the independent scene, wrestling in Evolve, WXW, CZW and PCW, as well as some larger companies such as Lucha Underground, Triple A and MLW. Scott has played several different characters across his many companies, so it is difficult to say what he will be using in NXT. Scott is a talented high flier and a striker, wrestling a very exciting style, but is also known for competing in deathmatches. He has tons of championships during his career, such as the world championship and the Wired Championship in CZW, the world championship in Evolve, the Trios Championship twice in Lucha Underground, the World Heavyweight Championship in MLW, the Ultra Heavyweight and Ultra Lightweight Championship in PCW, and the Tag Team Championships in WxW. He also won the World Tag Team League 2016 in WxW alongside David Starr, and tagged with Dante Fox (AR Fox), The Mack (Willie Mack) and Son of Havoc (Matt Cross) in Lucha Underground. Strickland is a great wrestler, and one of the ones that I know more about in this batch, and I cannot wait to see him in the tournament.

Cameron Grimes was known as Trevor Lee in Impact and on the independent scene. He was one of the more prominent stars in the Impact in recent years, as well as competing in PWG and several other independent companies. Grimes was an awesome heel in his runs, presenting himself as an entitled star of a larger company while on the Indies, as well as a generally nasty and slimy heel while in Impact. Grimes has an interesting style that blends hard hitting strikes with some flying moves making him a great fit for NXT. He has won the Impact X-Division Championship 3 times and the Impact Tag Team Championship with Brian Myers once, and won the PWG Tag Team Championships and the DDT4 tournament in 2016 with Andrew Everett, and plenty of other belts on the Indies. Lee is another great wrestler, and it’ll be awesome to see how much heat he can get with the NXT crowd. 

Angel Garza was known as Humberto Garza Jr or simply Garza Jr on the independent scene and in Triple A. Garza has competed in a lot of independent companies, (mainly ones that were in Mexico or Lucha Libre themed) as well as in both Triple A and Impact. He was formerly known under a mask, but unmasked himself on a dating show of all things. Garza is a high flying wrestler, known for both that and his tag team prowess alongside Laredo Kid. While he has not won many championships in the larger companies he has been a part of, he did win the Turkey Bowl 2017 in Impact, alongside Eddie Edwards, Allie, Richard Justice and Fallah Bahh. I haven’t seen Garza compete before, so I am very excited for another luchadore to enter NXT.

Joaquin Wild was known as either DJZ or Zema Ion on the indies. He has competed in a whole load of companies, including Ring of Honor, Impact, PROGRESS, Triple A, Evolve, PWG, and so many others that I can’t possibly list them all here. Wild is another high flier, being a mainstay of the X-Division in Impact for a number of years. Most of his championship reigns came in Impact, where he won the X-Division Championship twice, and the Tag Team Championships once with Andrew Everett. Also in impact, he won the X-Division briefcase in the 2013 Feast or Fired Match. I have not seen much from DJZ, but from my limited experience with him in PWG I can say that I am excited to see him work in the WWE. 

Jordan Myles was known as ACH on the indie scene and in several larger companies. He was known for wrestling in PWG, New Japan, Ring of Honor, Triple A, MLW, Pro Wrestling NOAH, RevPro and the NWA, while also wrestling in independent promotions like CZW, PROGRESS and WxW. Myles was also a high flier, much like many of his compatriots in the tournament, and while I only ever saw him in PWG and the Best of the Super Juniors Tournament in New Japan, he had an interesting character in PWG, where he would impersonate Stone Cold Steve Austin. I doubt that will be his character in NXT, but it may pop up a bit here and there. He has won lots of titles on the Indie scene, such as the tag team championships in Evolve with Ethan Page, as well as winning the NTV G+ Cup Junior Heavyweight Tag League in Pro Wrestling NOAH with Taiji Ishimori. Myles is another great wrestler in this bunch, and I am thrilled to see him in the WWE. Even if he goes to 205 live, which of the wrestlers in this tournament he is probably most likely to, he will bring so much talent to that roster. 

And lastly, we have Boa, who oddly enough is not a new signee from the Indie scene. I had never heard of him, so when I looked him up online, I realized that he only ever competed in the WWE performance center, and on the house show circuit. While he is not a veteran wrestler from the indies, he did used to do Brazilian Ju jitsu. I have aboslutely no idea who he is or how good he is, so I guess positive thoughts.

So these are the participants in the NXT Breakout Tournament. Lots of really good wrestlers here, should be a fun tournament. Keep your eye on the Grimes vs. Scott match in the first round, that looks really great on paper. As for a winner, I’ll throw a prediction out there. I think that Jordan Myles will win the tournament, really just a guess as I have no idea who they like and who they don’t. But I guess we will see. I hope all of you will enjoy the tournament, and I will be reviewing it each week.

[uselessshit13]

January 6

59 Ray Gunkel Don McIntyre Georgia international tag champs

59 Joe Christy Texas brassnucks champion

62 fritz Von Goering pacific northwest champion

65 Tony Borne Argentina Apollo Texas tag team champs

66 Stan stasiak mighty ursus pacific northwest tag champs

67 Larry Henning Harley Race AWA tag champs

68 Mike DiBiase AWA Midwest champion

68 Kintaro ohki michiaki Yoshimura all Asian tag champs

69 the mighty Yankees Memphis southern tag champs

69 Karl Von stroheim treach Phillips tri state us tag champs

70 ciclon negro jack Brisco Florida tag champs

73 bockwinkel and Steven's awa tag champs

74 hurricane Castillo Don Serrano wwc north America tag champs

74 Jose Miguel Perez wwc Puerto Rico champion

78 Leo Burke stampede North America champion

79 Don Kent WWC Caribbean champion

79 Dynamite kid stampede British commonwealth mid heavyweight champion

80 Ronnie Garvin icw Southeastern champion

82 Pierre Martel WWC Caribbean champion

84 Hercules Ayala King Tonga WWC world tag champs

84 Harley Race Missouri champion

85 Brian Blair Florida champion

85 negro Navarro uwa junior light heavyweight champion

85 Sheephearders WWC North America tag champs

85 Joe salvodi al Perez wwc tag champs

86 buddy roberts world class ch 11 champion

86 Norvell Austin Southeastern champion

86 Brad Armstrong Southeastern TV champ

87 Youngbloods wwc world tag champs

87 gran mendoza bob Heffernan wwc North America tag champs

88 invaders 1 3 wwc tag champs

89 Tama the islander Dan Kroffatt wwc tag champs

90 Harley Race wwc Caribbean champion

90 nasty boys Florida tag champs

91 miss a uwa women's international champion

92 Heartbreakers wwc tag champs

92 miguelito Perez WWC Caribbean champion

92 Dick Murdoch WWC TV champ

94 Mr pogo fnw brassnucks champion

96 Carlos Colon wwc universal champion

96 Sean Evans Vince Charming pwx tag champs

96 sweet brown sugar wwc TV champ

96 invader 1 wwc Puerto Rico champion

96 Abdullah the butcher wwc Caribbean champion

98 Mr gannosuke fmw independent world champion

99 Darren Dalton cwf Manitoba champion

99 Carlos Colon wwc universal champion

99 corporal Robinson iwa mid south champion

00 Val Venis Ricky Santana iwa tag champs

00 Shane the Glamour boy WWC TV champ

01 Carlos Colon WWC hard-core champion

01 a j styles nwa Georgia wildside TV champ

99 damaja David c ovw southern tag champs

01 suicidal tendency nwa Georgia tag champs

02 benkei dalkokubo bjw champion

02 shiniro otany Masato Tanaka zero 1 nwa intercontinental tag champs

02 minoru Fujita uwa junior heavyweight champion

03 Miguelito Perez Abyss iwa tag champs

03 Steve Corino zero 1 us champion

03 Lance Storm William Reagal WWE tag champs

04 chicana Stefano iwa tag champs

04 super gladiator vengador boricua wwc tag champs

04 quinten Lee Hwa TV champ

05 chicky star hurricane Castillo Jr wwc tag champs

05 Eddie Colon WWC universal champion

06 thunder lighting iwa tag champs

07 Eddie Colon wwc universal champion

07 Josie nwa Midwest women's champion

08 la artillery posada wwc tag champs

08 bj wwc TV champ

09 bison Miguel Perez Jr iwa tag champs

10 empio iwa extreme cruiserweight champion

10 la Doble r iwa tag champs

10 James Thomas ovw champion

12 Party Boys NWA smokey mtn tag champs

13 kayoko haruyama Tsubasa Kruragaki Daily sports women tag champs

16 Eric Young tna King of mountain champion

17 Iron Empire nwa world tag champs

18 Samantha Starr pwx women champion

19 shuichiro Katsumura independent junior heavyweight champion

19 rich Swann impact x division

19 Taya Valkyrie tna ko champion

[wrestlingmgc]

Independent World Junior Heavyweight Champion Keisuke Ishii

[frontproofmedia]

Press Conference Notes: Miguel Berchelt Set to Climb Lightweight Ladder

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Published: March 25, 2022

LAS VEGAS — Former WBC super featherweight world champion Miguel "El Alacran" Berchelt is all about new beginnings. After reigning at 130 pounds for more than four years, he has set his sights on conquering the lightweight division. Berchelt's road to two-weight supremacy begins Saturday evening in a 10-rounder against Jeremiah Nakathila at Resorts World Event Center at Resorts World Las Vegas (ESPN, ESPN Deportes & ESPN+, 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT). In the 10-round featherweight co-feature, Jose Enrique Vivas (21-1, 11 KOs) will battle Eduardo Baez (20-2-2, 7 KOs) in an all-Mexican showdown. Undercard action will stream live and exclusively on ESPN+ (6:45 p.m. ET/3:45 p.m. PT) and includes Puerto Rican junior featherweight puncher Carlos Caraballo (14-1, 14 KOs), welterweight U.S. Olympian Tiger Johnson (2-0, 1 KO), featherweight prospect Haven Brady Jr. (5-0, 3 KOs), junior welterweight contender Josue Vargas (19-2, 9 KOs), and rising light heavyweight Dante Benjamin Jr. (1-0, 1 KO). This is what Berchelt and Nakathila had to say at Thursday's press conference. Miguel Berchelt “I feel good. I feel happy. I want to thank Top Rank and Zanfer for always handling my career well. I feel very motivated and focused on winning this fight. I know I’m facing a tough fighter in Jeremiah Nakathila, whom I respect a lot. But I’m coming to show that I can once again be world champion. This Saturday, I will show that.” “The process following my last fight went well. It allowed me to rest. It helped me to get rid of the fibrosis that I had as a result of COVID. Now I feel new in this new city and with a new trainer. I’m in a new division, and I have new dreams to achieve. I want to be world champion again.” “I feel better. I feel stronger. I think my body needed to move up in weight. I was a world champion for four years. Now I’m coming for the victory this Saturday.” “I’m very focused and prepared for what I want to do this Saturday. I want to win this Saturday and make it so that the name of Miguel Berchelt is considered among the top of the division. They definitely will have to take me into account, and I will show that this Saturday.” “Fans can expect a great show. Miguel Berchelt is coming very hungry and with a strong desire to once again become world champion. I’ve been training for this fight since November in Las Vegas. I left my family. I left my house. I left a lot of things behind just like I did when I started in boxing. I will make sure that all those efforts were worthwhile.” Jeremiah Nakathila “I like fighting. Him being an aggressive fighter is a good thing for me. I can see that he’s awake now. But I want to tell him to be careful because I will put him back to sleep." “I’m very excited to be fighting at this level. Boxers train to fight at this level. I’m grateful, and I’m grateful to my team to be fighting at this level. I’m here to obtain the victory. March is a big month in my country {Namibia}. We just celebrated Independence Day for us, and I will for sure make history again for my country.” “I feel much stronger at lightweight. It was a good decision to move to lightweight. It was a lot easier to make weight compared to junior lightweight.” “This is a very exciting time for me. Seeing all that promotion and excitement motivates me a lot. I just like the way Top Rank promotes the events. It’s on another level.” “Expect fireworks. Come Saturday night, I’m going to destroy Miguel Berchelt, and I will be victorious.” Promoted by Top Rank, in association with Zanfer Promotions, tickets starting at $25 are on sale now and can be purchased at www.rwlasvegas.com/experiences/top-rank. SATURDAY, March 26 ESPN, ESPN Deportes & ESPN+ 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT Miguel Berchelt vs. Jeremiah Nakathila, 10 rounds, lightweight Jose Enrique Vivas vs. Eduardo Baez, 10 rounds, vacant WBC-USNBC Featherweight Title Live and Exclusively on ESPN+ 6:45 p.m. ET/3:45 p.m. PT Carlos Caraballo vs. Luis Fernando Saavedra, 8 rounds, junior featherweight

Tiger Johnson vs. Sebastian Gabriel Chaves, 6 rounds, welterweight Josue Vargas vs. Nicolas Pablo Demario, 8 rounds, junior welterweight Haven Brady Jr. vs. Jose Argel, 6 rounds, featherweight Dante Benjamin Jr. vs. Kevin Johnson, 4 rounds, light heavyweight Arturo Cardenas vs. Juan Hernandez Martinez, 4 rounds, junior featherweight Adrian Serrano vs. Estevan Partida, 4 rounds, lightweight

(Featured Photo: Mikey Williams/Top Rank via Getty Images)

[wrestlingisfake]

All In preview

This is the big independent show everyone’s been talking about.  Several big promotions have allowed their talent to do this show, but none of them are directly running this show.  Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks are promoting this out of their own pockets, which is pretty amazing when you think about it.

This all came about because some guy on Twitter asked Dave Meltzer asked if Ring of Honor could run a 10,000-seat venue and Dave was like “not anytime soon” and Cody was like “I’ll take that bet.”  Then everyone was like “what market is going to have enough hardcore fans to fill a building that big?” and Chicago was like “hold my beer” and the place sold out in 30 minutes.  So yeah, fuck Wrestlemania going to New York and Florida all the time, we’re gonna do our own Wrestlemania with indy guys and stupid storylines off of Youtube!

This will be airing live on pay-per-view, ROH’s Honor Club service, and Fite.tv, with a one-hour pre-show on WGN America.  September 1, 6pm Eastern/5pm local.

Nick Aldis vs. Cody Rhodes - This is for the NWA world heavyweight championship, which Aldis won last year--the same title Cody’s father held in 1979, 1981, and 1986. 

Aldis is probably best known as Magnus for his run in TNA, where he held what is now the Impact world title.  (He also held the Global Force Wrestling world title for most of that group’s existence.)  Cody is, of course, a former ROH world champion and WWE intercontinental champion; he’s a top act in ROH and part-time special attraction with New Japan Pro Wrestling.  He’s also one of the promoters of this show, which may or may not give away the finish.

The great irony here is that “independent wrestling” used to mean “wrestling unaffiliated with an NWA member,” but now the NWA has no members, which means it has the most prestigious championship that is truly independent of the major players today.  The current NWA business model, under Billy Corgan, is to fly the champion around to other people’s indy shows, resembling the old-school pattern of Harley Race or Ric Flair coming to an NWA territory once or twice a year.  Since this show isn’t being promoted by a group with its own world champion, it’s a perfect fit for that model.  So it’s a good thing Aldis got booked, because if he hadn’t the NWA would’ve looked pretty bush-league.

The main story here is that Cody and Corgan arranged this title match without consulting Aldis.  Aldis then tried to hold out for added incentive to defend the title, suggesting that if Cody regained the ROH world championship they could have a double title match.  Cody came up short, but still managed to goad Aldis into accepting the challenge.  Obviously the crowd for this show is going to be solidly behind Cody simply for making this show possible, and moreover they’re going to be into the angle that Cody has a chance to recreate one of his father’s career highlights.

I don’t foresee a lengthy NWA title reign for Cody, since his obligations to ROH and New Japan probably don’t line up with Corgan’s business plans.  However, if I was Corgan, I’d want to get the belt on Cody while he’s the talk of the wrestling world.  At the very least, I’d want to set up a Cody/Aldis program to run through October’s NWA anniversary show and maybe even the ROH/NJPW Madison Square Garden show in April.  So a title change makes sense, but it’d depend on a lot of things falling into place behind the scenes, so it’s not a lock either.  In the end, though, this is a bad weekend to bet against Cody.

Kenny Omega vs. Pentagon, Jr. - Omega holds the IWGP heavyweight championship--the top title of New Japan--but the title is not at stake here.  Penta works all over the place but is probably best known from AAA and Lucha Underground.  His biggest accolade is possibly the LU championship, but he also briefly held the Impact Wrestling world title earlier this year.

This is easily the biggest dream match that this show could book.  To the average US wrestling fan, Omega is the hottest guy in Japan and Penta is the hottest guy out of Mexico.  But since Penta’s never really been to NJPW or ROH, and since Omega’s never really been to AAA or Impact, there’s never been a way to book this match on a big show...until now.

I don’t really know anything about Pentagon except that he’s fucking scary, dude, and I’m pretty stoked to finally see what this cat’s deal is.  Omega has made a name for himself delivering some of the best matches of the decade, but Penta is a brawler so this won’t be a wrestling clinic.  It should be a unique spectacle, worthy of this one-of-a-kind event.

I feel like New Japan would not authorize this appearance if their champion was going to lose, so I would be very shocked if Penta wins.

Kazuchika Okada vs. Marty Scurll - Okada isn’t quite the ace of NJPW, but he’s getting there, especially after a record-setting 720-day run with as IWGP champion.  Scurll is a junior heavyweight in NJPW, but in ROH he’s approaching the main event level, and if he sticks around long enough he’ll probably become their world champion.  In Japan, heavyweights and junior heavyweights almost never compete against one another one-on-one, so this match is automatically a rarity.

Scurll is sort of just there in the grand scheme of things, but within the context of a 10,000 indy wrestling fans in Bullet Club shirts, he’s practically the second coming of Christ.  Between the quality of his opponent, the historic nature of the event, the favorability of the crowd, and the timing of his peak popularity, this could be the match of Scurll’s life.  But that said, he’s bound to lose, because I can’t imagine New Japan allowing an upset to disrupt their pecking order among the weight classes.  That’s fine with me, because while everyone else will be whooping for Scurll, I’ll be there to see Okada.

Rey Mysterio & Fenix & Bandido vs. Kota Ibushi & Nick Jackson & Matt Jackson - Fenix is the brand-new AAA heavyweight champion.   Mysterio is a former WWE champion and the current champion of Mexico’s #3 group, The Crash.  There isn’t much info (at least, not in English) on Bandido except that he’s worked in CMLL, AAA, and various smaller promotions.  Aside from being a finalist in NJPW’s G1 Climax tournament this year, Kota Ibushi is legendary for his high-risk style and his preference to be a freelancer rather than commit to a single company.  Nick and Matt, the Young Bucks, are currently the IWGP heavyweight tag team champions, and have become synonymous with the post-ironic style that has defined the modern age of indy wrestling.

There really isn’t a story or direction to this match beyond getting all these guys in the ring at the same time to work with each other.  The Bucks do their spots with everyone in the indies, this is their big special show, and so as a special treat they’re going to do their shit with Rey and Fenix.  Ibushi seems to be here because Kenny Omega is occupied elsewhere, and to get his last chance to work with Rey before Mysterio returns to WWE.  Bandido seems to be here primarily to do the job, which kinda suggests Ibushi and the Bucks are winning.

Hangman Page vs. Joey Janella - Page is one of the lesser white guys in Bullet Club, but he had a decent run in the G1 Climax recently, and it seems like he’s starting to move up in the world.   Janella is best known for a) Joey Janella’s Spring Break, GCW’s Wrestlemania weekend event and b) a 2016 match with Zandig where they did an insane rooftop bump into a pickup bed filled with glass and barbed wire.  This is being billed as a Chicago street fight, which could mean anything really but generally means no count-outs, no disqualifications, so you can fight all over the place, but you still have to score a fall in the ring.

The, uh, storyline in this match is that Page, yeesh, either murdered Joey Ryan or believes that he did.  Joey Ryan is arguably the most popular American indy wrestler who is not booked on this show, and he’s conspicuous by his absence since a good chunk of the build for this show is about his fate.  Anyway, Page is, uh, afraid to wear his cowboy boots because they keep...well...talking to him about how he’s going to kill “another Joey,” apparently meaning Janella.  So yeah, the big idea is that it’s significant that Ryan and Janella have the same first name.  It’s like that whole “Martha” thing in Batman v. Superman, only dumber.  This is what happens when the main television for your show is Being the Elite, which is slightly less absurd than Southpaw Regional Wrestling or Z! True Long Island Story.

In any case, Page is suitably deranged enough to brutalize Janella, which means Janella has sufficient motivation to go sickhouse on Page.  These two ought to give us a good brawl and some nasty hardcore spots.  Dave Meltzer seems to think this could steal the show, and I wouldn’t go that far, but it might have everyone talking afterwards, if only for sheer wtf-ness.  I’m not sure it matters who wins, but Page is the one who’s friends with the promoters so I’d bet on him.

Jay Lethal vs. the winner of Over Budget Battle Royal - Lethal (probably best known for his Randy Savage impression in TNA ten years ago, and a sexual harassment scandal this summer) is defending the Ring of Honor world title against whoever wins the battle royal in the pre-show.  Since the battle royal includes at least one woman, there’s at least a chance this could become an intergender match.  This is the biggest match on the show that does not involve any members of Bullet Club, although I suppose the battle royal winner could, like, join Bullet Club or something.

Being the Elite has been setting up the idea that Lethal’s “Black Machismo” persona is re-emerging, so the big angle for this match is the hype that Lethal might bring that stuff back.  I don’t know how that will play off of whoever wins the battle royal, but I guess they have some crazy idea.

For historical purposes, a title change at this show would be a feather in ROH’s cap.  But I don’t expect them to see it that way, or for the battle royal winner to be anywhere close to ROH’s ideal world champion.  I’m picking Lethal to retain.

Christopher Daniels vs. Stephen Amell - Daniels has been around so long that he appeared (as a jobber) on both sides of the Monday Night Wars, won the first King of the Indies, held the IWGP junior tag title with Daniel Bryan, and became a founding father in the early history of both ROH and TNA’s “X” division.  These days he’s primarily known as the leader of ROH’s SoCal Uncensored faction.  Amell plays the superhero Green Arrow on TV, and became friends with Cody Rhodes through Cody’s appearances on that show and a celebrity tie-in match at Summerslam 2015.

During the whole “Joey Ryan was murdered” storyline, Amell was arrested but then later it came out that Daniels framed him.  I feel like that should leave Daniels in deep legal shit but I guess we’re not worrying about that.

Amell is looking to prove he can hold his own in the ring despite his limited experience, and Daniels has the challenge of making him look even better than that.  I think they’ll probably do fine.  That said, I don’t watch Arrow or Being the Elite and I barely even pay close attention to ROH weekly television, so I sure don’t give a fuck about this match.  I guess Amell wins. 

Tessa Blanchard vs. Madison Rayne vs. Chelsea Green vs. Britt Baker - Blanchard is the reigning Impact women’s champion and WSU world champion; neither title is not at stake.  This is presumably a standard four-way where the first wrestler to score a fall wins the match.  This is the only women’s match on the card--okay technically Jordynne Grace is in the battle royal but that’s not really the same thing.

Rayne is probably best known for her tenure in TNA/Impact (she held the women’s title five times), although she recently competed in both the ROH Women of Honor tournament and WWE’s Mae Young Classic.  Green wrestled as Laurel Van Ness in Impact and is of late appearing in Lucha Underground.  Baker has yet to really move up into the bigger indies, so her biggest claim to fame may be as one of the jobbers Nia Jax squashed early in her run on WWE Raw.

There really isn’t anything at stake in this match.  In theory a victory over Blanchard would set up a title match, but this isn’t Japan and I don’t know if Impact or WSU will really care who wins here.  So it kinda just comes down to whoever Cody and the Young Bucks want to go over.  I tend to think that’ll be Blancard since she’s the next big thing in women’s wrestling.  Although if somebody’s looking to make a statement about the next next big thing, that could be a case for pushing Green or Baker.

Jay Briscoe & Mark Briscoe vs. Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky - This is currently scheduled for Zero Hour, the free pre-show.  The Briscoes are the current Ring of Honor tag team champions, but as far as I know the title is not on the line.  To build for this match, SoCal Uncensored made a video where they’re training like it’s Rocky III.  The Briscoes responded with a video in which they can’t really be bothered to watch a damn 12-minute YouTube video, but then they do and they like go all dark and shit like it awoke something inside of them.  I don’t understand why every angle for this show has to be like one of those Channel Awesome crossovers where they team up and fight supervillains or whatever.

Anyway, I always kinda dug the Briscoes, it’ll be neat to see ‘em live finally, and I think they’re gonna win.

Over Budget Battle Royal - This is set for the pre-show.  Assuming it’s a standard battle royal, the match begins once everyone has entered the ring, and can only end when all but one participant has been eliminated.  The last one left is the winner, and qualifies to challenge Jay Lethal for the ROH world title later in the show.

This has been announced as a 15-person battle royal, although I doubt the exact number is a hard requirement.  Named participants so far are:

Colt Cabana (ROH)

Moose (Impact Wrestling)

Brian Cage (Impact X division champion)

Jimmy Jacobs (Impact Wrestling)

Punishment Martinez (ROH television champion)

Rocky Romero (New Japan)

Billy Gunn (WWE legend)

Austin Gunn (Billy’s son)

Jordynne Grace (WSU Spirit champion)

Ethan Page (Chandler Park from Impact Wrestling)

Marko Stunt (a very small indy guy)

Brandon Cutler (PWG)

It’s worth pointing out that CZW champion MJF was booked for All In but as of this writing hasn’t been put in a match.  So I’m kind of expecting him to end up here, although I don’t see the point of withholding that information until the last minute.  Similarly, a huge part of the All In promotion has been Flip Gordon’s failed attempts to get on the show, and it seems ridiculous to resolve that by just not using him anywhere.  Also similarly, I can’t believe the “murder” of Joey Ryan is such a big deal with this show and that the actual real live Joey Ryan won’t be wrestling on it.  The promotion of All In has been really weird, basically.

Other surprise entrants that I could see happening include Pac (formerly Adrian Neville, who has very recently been released from WWE), and Austin Aries (the Impact world champion).  Considering Jordynne Grace is already there, it wouldn’t be a big deal to add additional women.  However if there’s any group that I believe Cody and the Bucks want to see more represented in this match, it would be one-note running joke performers like Papa Buck, Cheeseburger, or Chico El Luchador.

The finish here is going to depend on which winner can have the most entertaining title match with Jay Lethal.  If we’re talking “biggest match possible,” that’d probably be Brian Cage or (if he’s available) Austin Aries for the “ROH vs. Impact” vibe.  If we’re talking “local guy hometown pop,” then Cabana is the obvious choice.  But if the plan is to follow through on an angle that’s particularly important to the target audience, then it pretty much has to be someone who hasn’t been announced for the match yet, which means literally anything is possible.

[keepingthespiritalive]

DDT results for October 4, 2017

DDT “Pro-Wrestling Kokeraotoshi! Kibun Seijo” 10/4/2017 [Wed] 19:00 @ Seijo Hall in Tokyo (1) Yukio Sakaguchi vs. Mizuki Watase ♦Winner: Sakaguchi (8:00) via referee stop, with a Modifed Cobra Clutch. (2) 4WAY Tag Match: Tetsuya Endo & Mad Paulie vs. Soma Takao & Saki Akai vs. Antonio Honda & Nobuhiro Shimatani vs. Kazusada Higuchi & Diego ♦Winner: Endo (8:02) with a Swing style Torture Rack Bomb…

[pwrestlingxpress]

Best of the Super Juniors 25:  Participants and Predictions

Down below are the 16 participants who will be competing in the 25th annual Best of the Super Juniors Round Robin tournament, with the winner (considering he’s not the champion) to receive an shot at the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship in Osaka-Jo Hall on June 9, 2018.  Before we reveal the participants, here’s who’s not returning this year and why some of these participants are not competing.  If I don’t give out an explanation, that means I don’t know why they’re not competing this year:

Jushin Thunder Liger:  Has stated 2017 would be his last one and intends to hold on to his promise

Ricochet:  Signed with the WWE in early 2018 and is now a part of their NXT roster as he has entered a feud with “Velveteen Dream” Patrick Clark

Taichi (Suzuki-gun):  Moved up to the Heavyweight Division at The New Beginning in Osaka by challenging Tetsuya Naito to a match at the 46 Anniversary Show where he lost to the LIJ leader.

Taka Michinoku (Suzuki-gun)

Volodar Jr. (CMLL) 

Now, let’s take a look at those who are participating in this year’s Best of the Super Juniors:

A Block Participants (Pictured from right to left):

Will Ospreay (Chaos):  Reigning IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion competing at his third straight Best of the Super Juniors (2016 winner)

Tiger Mask IV:  17th straight Best of the Super Juniors and the only one to ever win back-to-back Best of the Super Juniors (He won the event in 2004 and in 2005). 

ACH (Independents):  Second straight Best of the Super Juniors 

Flip Gordon (Being the Elite/Ring of Honor):  Best of the Super Juniors Debut

Yoshinobu Kanemaru (Suzuki-gun):  1/2 of the reigning IWGP Junior Tag Team Champions (with El Desperado), Second straight Best of the Super Juniors

Yoh Komatsu (Roppongi 3K/Chaos):  Second Best of the Super Juniors (Competed only once in 2015)

BUSHI (Los Ingobernables de Japon):  Sixth Best of the Super Juniors (First competed in 2012, Missed the 2015 event due to injury)

Taiji Ishimori (Bullet Club):  Second Best of the Super Juniors (Competed only once in 2010 where he was one of the two winners of his block that year)

B Block Participants (Pictured from left to Right)

KUSHIDA:  Ninth straight Best of the Super Juniors (2015 and 2017 Winner as well as the 2014 Finalist)

Ryusuke Taguchi:  15th Best of the Super Juniors (2012 Winner, 2011 and 2016 Finalist)

Chris Sabin (MC Machine Guns/Ring of Honor):  Best of the Super Juniors Debut

Dragon Lee (CMLL):  Second straight Best of the Super Juniors

El Desperado (Suzuki-gun): 1/2 of the reigning IWGP Junior Tag Team Champions (with Yoshinobu Kanemaru). Third Best of the Super Juniors (Did not compete in 2015 and 2016 due to stable excursion in Pro Wrestling Noah)

Sho Tanaka (Roppongi 3K/Chaos):  Best of the Super Juniors Debut

Hiromu Takahashi (Los Ingobernables de Japon):  Fourth Best of the Super Juniors (Did not compete in 2015 and 2016 due to excursion in CMLL and Ring of Honor)

Marty Scurll (Being the Elite/Bullet Club/Ring of Honor):  1/3 of the reigning NEVER Open-weight six man Tag Team Champions (with Matt and Nick Jackson), second straight Best of the Super Juniors

Now with the participants intact, here’s who I believe will be in the finals for 2018 and while I have the A-Block winner intact, I’ve yet to decide the B-Block winner.  Here you go:

After he laid Will Ospreay flat back on May 4th, I knew that Taiji Ishimori would win the A-Block because he is simply one of the best high-flyers as well as one of the best technical wrestlers I’ve ever seen.  In his lone Best of the Super Juniors event back in 2010, he finished first in his block and along with Ryusuke Taguchi (B-Block runner up), Kota Ibushi (A-Block winner), and Prince Devitt nka Finn Balor (A-Block runner up) was able to advance to what was at the time called the “Final Four” of the Best of the Super Juniors but ultimately lost to Devitt in the semi-finals of that tournament in fast-pace time I might add.  I think now he’ll have a easier path to reaching the finals simply because the only competition in his block is Will Ospreay and I don’t really think any will stand to his level. That, and the winner automatically advances to the finals, not having to worry about going to a semi-final type match. 

Predicting the B-Block winner was really complex because it has three of my favorites there (Chris Sabin, Marty Scurll, and Hiromu Takahashi) but I feel Chis Sabin will not advance so that leaves it down to Marty Scurll and Hiromu Takahashi.  Both are slated to face each other on May 19th and pending on who wins that night in my opinion could win the block.  However, I’m leaving this decision to Chris Sabin since he’s one of my favorites as well.  With Marty slated to face Sabin first, I’m thinking that whoever beats Chris Sabin is my pick to win the B-Block.  But if both defeat him, I really can’t predict it so it’ll be interesting to see who comes out on top of the B-Block. 

Best of the Super Juniors 25 presented by Fire Pro Wrestling World begins on May 18th at 5:30 AM Eastern (6:30 PM local) on NJPW World with the Block finals taking place on June 3rd and the finals taking place on June 4th.  Before I go, down are the matches that I’m anticipating the most at the tournament this year.  Enjoy the best New Japan has to offer this summer starting off with Best of the Super Juniors 25.