#wrestle peter pan 2023 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

yoshihashismattebum · 1 month ago

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2024 in Wrestling - Tag Game

Thanks for the tag @sycamoretrees ! This is a great idea! To paraphrase someone (Mark Twain maybe?): sorry for the long post; I didn't have time to write a shorter one.

So, without further ado...

MVP/Wrestler of the Year

Honourable Mentions:

It would be remiss of me not to mention Konosuke Takeshita. The man has been on a tear across three different promotions this year, including having one of the best G1 runs by a newcomer in recent memory imo. If only his booking had been more interesting in AEW...

Bryan Danielson also casually produced banger after banger and tons of great stories in his final year as a full-time wrestler. Just one of the best to ever do it.

And of course El Desperado was out there living his dream, getting his arse out on live TV and having the horniest match I've ever seen.

Winner:

Zack Sabre Jr.

It had to be him, didn't it. First Brit and only the second non-Japanese wrestler to win the G1. First foreigner to win a Wrestle Kingdom main event. Champion of the world and of my heart 🧡 And every step of the way he's risen to the occasion, never disappointing in a main event position and stepping effortlessly into the role of champion. Long may he reign!

More after the cut!

Match of the Year

Look I can't possibly be expected to pick just one match, especially when I barely remember what I watched last week, let alone at the start of the year. So here are 6 matches that I enjoyed a lot, in no particular order.

ZSJ vs Gabe Kidd - NJPW G1 Climax 34

Everything I love about British wrestling and Japanese wrestling rolled together into one match. Two tough bastards beating the shit out of each other, with some flashes of technical brilliance.

ZSJ vs Bryan Danielson II - NJPW New Beginning in Osaka

I love a wide variety of types of wrestling, but if someone asked me which was my favourite, I would probably just show them this match. Intense, technical and violent, with a beautiful flow to it. Just magic.

Hiromu Takahashi & Jun Kasai vs Minoru Suzuki & Takayuki Ueki - Hardcore (Lego Deathmatch) - Despe Invitational

I am a strong believer that comedy wrestling is just as capable of greatness as 'serious' wrestling. This is a prime example. Everyone played their roles to perfection. Hiromu busted himself open on a railing before the match even started. Minoru Suzuki underestimated Lego. I don't think I stopped laughing the entire way through.

Chris Brookes vs El Desperado - DDT Wrestle Peter Pan

Extraordinary. Pro wrestling as art. Pro wrestling as a love story (or perhaps a 'lust story'). Would honestly have been *less* horny if they'd just stripped off and started having full-blown sex in the middle of the ring. It's rare to see violence and blood conveying affection/sexual attraction rather than hatred in wrestling, but wow did they ever here.

Hangman Page vs Swerve Strickland - steel cage match - AEW All Out

An interesting comparison to Chris vs Despe! Similarly bloody, similarly horny, but here the message is very much of obsessive hatred, however much they also clearly want to fuck each other. The ending also made me feel profoundly uncomfortable in a very effective way.

Will Ospreay vs Michael Oku - Rev Pro High Stakes

The best match I've ever seen live. It's testament to how good it was that I was prepared to miss the last train home rather than miss the end of it (thankfully they wrapped it up just in time!) A beautiful blend of drama, emotion and plenty of cool movez. Plus one of the best, loudest crowds I've ever been a part of.

Favourite Feud

I struggled with this one a bit, because 2024 was the year I stopped watching AEW regularly, and NJPW a) doesn't do feuds in quite the same way and b) was a bit light on big rivalries this year, imo. Still, there's one feud that immediately stands out...

Hangman vs Swerve

When they went back to this rivalry again so soon after their initial 2023 feud, I was a little concerned, because I thought there was no way it could be topped (pun only slightly intended). ...and then Hangman burned down Swerve's childhood home... A perfect blend of classic American wrestling melodrama, strong bloody violence, and psychosexual insanity. I thought it was really clever how they swapped the face/heel roles round while still making the characters feel authentic (please take notes MJF and Adam Cole).

Favourite Tag Team/Faction

Struggled with this one as well. My only regular promotion now is NJPW, which isn't exactly a bastion of great tag wrestling... I'm also generally just not a huge tag team guy.

Hon Mens:

Bullet Club War Dogs have been enjoyably camp and pleasingly violent, but the focus on Jake Lee joining really soured things for me, as I find the man incredibly tedious.

LIJ have also had a banner year as well I think, with the Naito/Hiromu stuff and Tsuji's rise. But Bushi is still there, so I can't in all good conscience pick them (joke) (mostly)

Winner:

Ichiban Sweet Boys (Robbie Eagles & Kosei Fujita)

I just love this pairing. Eagles is one of those wrestlers that I've always liked but never loved, but he seems to be having so much fun with Fujita, and it's just infectious. And Fujita is one of the most exciting junior prospects in NJPW in a while I think. Looking forward to their title reign a lot!

Favourite Show

Mention, Honourable:

Rev Pro High Stakes in February is probably one of the best live shows I've ever been to. Great atmosphere and a stacked card, with pretty much every match being enjoyable (and the Anthony Ogogo match providing a perfect opportunity for a piss break)

Winner:

Despe Invitational

In a year when AEW seemed to lose a lot of what made it fun for me, it was such a pleasant breath of fresh air to watch a show where 'fun' was the guiding principle. Literally every match on the card was fun in a different way: from the insanity of the Lego match, to the ribald joy of the main event, to the token 'sensible' wrestling match in the cooldown slot that a comedy match would normally be in. I have never laughed so much at a show I don't think. Despe is a genius.

Breakout (ish) Star

Honny Mens:

Will Ospreay. Hear me out on this one, okay. I know Ospreay has been a global star for years now, but 2024 was the year he finally found success on a massive stage. Not everything he's done this year has been totally For Me, but there's no denying that he's knocked it out of the park in AEW. I'm so happy for him!

2024 was the year I started watching DDT regularly, and discovered the joy of seeing Takeshi Masada in increasingly LGBT situations. With only 2 years of wrestling experience, he's already so impressive, not just in terms of his wrestling, but also his charisma and character. One to watch!

Winner:

Yuya Uemura

It may seem strange to pick someone who spent half of the year injured, but if the metric for "breakout" is 'opinion of them at the end of the year vs opinion of them at the start', then Uemura is the clear winner for me. After a lackluster performance at Wrestle Kingdom and in the months following, I was almost ready to write him off as having come back from excursion too soon. But then he had an absolutely incredible G1 run where he blew me away with how mature and intelligent his wrestling was. It's such a shame he got injured, because I honestly think he'd be in the mix for NJPW MVP now if not. Very excited to see what he does when he's back!

Horniest Moment

Oh man. So many contenders. A good year for horny wrestling!

HonMens:

Hangman and Swerve's promo where Hangman said "I want you on your knees"

Yota Tsuji vs Yuya Uemura - hair vs hair match - NJPW New Beginning in Sapporo.

Seemingly only @sycamoretrees and I watched this one, because I've never heard anyone else talking about it. But wow is it horny. If you're a fan of men being pulled up by their hair to crotch-level... absolutely do yourself a favour and watch this one.

Whatever toxic throuple Mariah, Toni & Mina had going on in AEW

ELP vs. Takeshita - G1 Climax

Winner:

Chris Brookes vs El Desperado

It had to be. The horniest match ever wrestled. 6 stars. 10/10. No notes.

Most Anticipated in 2025

More DDT!

One of the best parts of wrestling in 2024 was getting to watch more DDT (thanks @sycamoretrees !) It's quickly become my favourite promotion. I intend to watch even more in 2025!

Takeshita in NJPW

I was so excited when NJPW announced that Takeshita had signed a contract with them. Cannot wait to see what his NEVER reign looks like. So many exciting match-ups!

The Rise of Gabe Kidd (hopefully)

Gabe has been so exciting to watch in 2024. And his big match with Kenny at Dynasty (which I still haven't seen yet!) is going to get even more eyes on him. I'm hoping that 2025 is the year he really starts to get a proper push. Would be great to see him challenge for (and win??) a major belt at some point!

ZSJ: Forever Champ

Was so pleased that Zack retained his title at Wrestle Kingdom! Really excited to see what's next for his heavyweight title reign, now it's clear he's going to be more than a transitional champion.

Okay. Phew. That's it. Now to tag some other people.

@thewaythroughthewoods @livelaughlariat @unpairedbracket – no pressure, but I'd love to read your picks!

Anyone else who wants to be tagged, consider yourself tagged! Go on! Treat yourself!

#tag game #long post #wrestling

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fallynleaf · 6 months ago

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!مرحبا

took another unintentional tumblr hiatus because i've been extremely busy doing irl activism for most of the past year, but especially over the past 6 months. it has been really stressful and scary at times, and i'm not really cut out for it at all, but i've been trying to do my best to learn on the job so to speak. i can't talk too much about that here though lol so my life probably won't seem that exciting just from reading this post fgkjhdh

some other life updates:

finished reading the tanka book in Japanese! i wrote several poems, including one for Hyper Misao's produce show (and yes she did in fact see my poems on twitter!)

started learning Palestinian Arabic with a few local Palestinian friends after seeing this post on twitter! i'm still continuing to study Spanish and Japanese, though i've scaled back a bit on those because i'm pretty solidly intermediate in both so i can maintain them just by reading and listening to media in the language. Arabic was always kind of vaguely the third language i wanted to learn after Spanish and Japanese (i think i listed it in every single "if you could instantly learn 5 languages, what would they be?" posts on here lol), and so i ended up going for it when the opportunity to learn it presented itself. no idea how far i'll get, but even knowing a little bit has been very rewarding

our Arabic lessons are currently on hold due to irl stuff on our end, and i worry every day that we won't be able to resume them due to the West Bank being invaded...

started playing my first VN, Umineko: When They Cry, after being a lifelong hater of the medium lol. i'm playing it in Japanese along with our book club here on the WK forum

had several extremely bad depressive episodes and strongly considered killing myself. the only thing that has really stopped me so far is knowing that Palestine needs me to be alive rn

almost quit watching pro wrestling, translating TJPW, and studying Japanese entirely. i had made up my mind to retire as a fan translator (and as a pro wrestling fan, period) after Nao Kakuta's retirement, but then a few days before that show i watched DDT Wrestle Peter Pan, and Kota Ibushi came back to DDT for the first time in like eight years, and i cried my eyes out and knew i couldn't quit yet

reached my TJPW translation account's two year debut anniversary

i'm going to try to be around a bit more going forward, and will try to go back and catch up on at least some of the stuff i missed (i still have a bunch of old posts from 2023 left to read lol)

hope y'all have all been well! life has been pretty bleak for me for quite some time, so i'm kind of barely holding on. but i do miss seeing what my friends have been up to here, and i hope the world has been kinder to you than it has been to me

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schadentekkers · 2 months ago

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Jackie i need to ask what is the footage of your latest chrisdrew gif because they look really adorable in it

sadly i still haven't found where the original footage is from, but the small bit that i've made the gifs from is in the video package before chris' title match against yuji hino at wrestle peter pan 2023!!

#💌

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dontchopmebro · 1 year ago

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I am so normal about Takeshita v Ueno at Wrestle Peter Pan 2023

part 1/2

#first time ever trying to make gifs lmao #I know in my heart that they all look a little different but thats okay #im learning still #ddtpro #konosuke takeshita #yuki ueno #professional wrestling #gifset #Dreamerator

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sana-yan · 2 years ago

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fantasy booking/meta post-nj cup 2023;

!! spoilers under cut ↴

on SANADA;

following his big njcup win, i would love to see sanada get strapped with the belt. it's a similar beat to okada, 2016 naito (sanada's debut!!), EVIL (*sighs in missed opportunities*), and ospreay. if njpw is going all-in on SANADA, and they should considering he's taken up the niche that was once kota's, they need to give him legitimacy.

i think we can foresee a reign with a lot of changeover, but i'd like for SANADA to have at least a handful of solid defences against challengers -- he has a great set of rivals now that he's in the same "league" as them: okada, ZSJ (!!!!!!!!!), naito, EVIL (*sighs in future missed opportunities*), pwnoah's soya, shingo, and ospreay (!!)

with taichi by his side, they might even tease a short tag team run too. dangerous skulls, let's goo

all in all, a great showing from sana-yan and he has a lot to show.

on OKADA & chaos;

okada's due for a changeup and i think that his recent aggression with his own stablemates and looking to milf ace tanahashi could be interesting to play into, especially since chaos hasn't been a unit lately. robbie's quiet defection into tmdk has had no effect on his stablemates, which is always kind of disappointing but at this point; what is chaos? chaos during the nakamura leadership felt more cohesive, just a couple of lads doing their thing, but since okada has moved onto greener pastures, the group as a whole feels aimless in the story they're telling together.

people might dislike bullet club drama but at least the players are trying to make a script that involves everyone. :/ chaos as of late only get together to film a ytr dvd

which is why okada's tag match against bishamon was super cool! he went all heelish on them to the point where it's like -- kazu, those are your stablemates, mate, you have to see them later after the match -- if they pull the trigger on okada breaking up chaos (instead of another chaos defection) or his stablemates worrying about his recent attitude change and challenging him, that would be a fresh take on a severely underdeveloped stable as of late

on STRONG STYLE (ren, szk, despy);

what did they do to my beautiful boy desperado.......... i hate cheap mask removal spots, especially with despy. it just pains me this is where he is at when he's elevated the jr.'s scene while hiromu was injured for so long. now that he's down in the muck with h.o.t. on the undercard, that signals his contract might be a freelancer's (see also suzuki).

i am torn because despy is a very versatile wrestler and he will be a crowd fave for this year's wrestle peter pan, but i hate that his home promotion in njpw didn't give him the big win over hiromu. (bosj 27 kicked ass btw so if you haven't seen it, i strongly recommend thistle's watch guide here.) maybe he's taking matters into his own hands and raising his value in other promotions, but it saddens me that they'd resort to unmasking him like that when bosj 27's unmasking scene was story-laden and signified a big moment.

SHO is a funny lad and all but this felt such a disservice to have h.o.t. beat down ren and despy. what happened to their tag partners, taguchi and yano? where did they escape to? this is the issue i have with njpw face factions such as hontai. if they're faces, shouldn't they try to help ren and despy?

ren has the opposite throughline to shota and i'm sensing some darker edge to him which has got me fantasy booking like crazy. if the honorable fighter style of his mentor, shibata, didn't work, why not fall into the darker desires to finally defeat h.o.t.?

with suzuki-san and despy supposedly out of new japan's main scene for the time being, it sure would be interesting if ren went to the other fighter with ties to shibata who isn't afraid to get sadistic to win... aka give me the shibata-kenta lovechild ren narita. son of strong style gone dark with KENTA as his new influence. KENTA's been talking on about how ren is shibata's clone, so it wouldn't be a stretch to give ren backup just to spite shibata and also because elp hates h.o.t.

ren, elp, and KENTA vs h.o.t. doesn't sound too bad, depending on how bullet club is going to fracture following debbie-chan's loss this tournament. the never trios have gone down in quality, so adding KENTA's star power and elp's surge of popularity could elevate the trios scene, as well as give ren some more charisma with the crowd that shota is surfing on.

i think suzuki is going over KENTA in their upcoming match. suzuki wants to work more in the US and him holding the strong belt is good branding for the njpw strong show.

on TAICHI & J5G;

taichi, my beloved

that is all

nah, nah, i'll do a more focused meta on the breakdown of taichi's character someday but i'll say that this era of "kingmaker taichi" is a logical progression of his character. while j5g has no leader (based communist stable lmao), it's clear that the "emotional leader" is taichi.

i expect to see more of douki and kanemaru in bosj, and of course, for SANADA to be heavily protected (as he should! that's their ace!) in upcoming matches. while i will weep with a heavy heart at our holy emperor might be staring up at the house lights like TAKA, he has a "kenta kobashi"-lite underdog grit that i think that his losses only further develop his character and won't cool him off that easy. his backstage promos are witty, and the moments where he heavily blames himself for not being up to the standard of his partnering ace (milano, ZSJ, and hopefully sana-yan) signify the character's hardships. he also gets the crowd going hot when he's doing his mid-to-late match fire ups. idk if the man behind taichi just binge-watched a lot of classic ajpw and king's road but i am all for it. he's got kingston-like vibes but instead of addressing his enemies, he's addressing his friends.

i don't expect j5g to suddenly dominate the scene, but i hope we get a kobashi type payoff for taichi and douki like we just had with sana-yan.

on TMDK;

this pains me to say but imo tmdk are the least interesting active stable as a whole. individually, zsj + fujita is great, but the way that tmdk formed its group feels rushed and out of the blue to the majority of the crowd who didn't know the wrestlers had connections from way back. i know those two other dudes are zack's best pub lads but comparing them to the the presentation of early united empire, they don't stand out for me much. robbie relocating to tmdk might be a good move since chaos is... chaos... however, just like zack's induction in the group, i wish their major beats wasn't skipped or spedrun.

i guess they'll say that zack's lads talked with robbie at tamashii in australia? the others should try to find something to grip onto outside of relying on zsj's popularity and his current storyline with fujita vs the spurned young lions. i hope they can turn it around. i don't really enjoy eagles as a performer and i'm holding on for the payoff to the zsj story, but without an interesting storyline, this is low on my priorities. perhaps a full faction vs faction feud can spice up tmdk outside of shota vs zack for the tv belt.

on UE;

aussie open are perfect lads!! njcup was their place to shine, and they did rightfully so. i adore big men such as dunky, the stan hansen comparisons are appropriate, and kyle's little brother vibes mesh well with the cockiness of the UE. hoping they get a good rivalry with bishamon. while i'm not high on catch 22, i love cobb, o-khan, and henare's trios bond. tbh i am not as invested in ospreay's journey vs kenny, but i am excited for potential matchups with sanada, taichi, and okada.

on BOSJ :(;

as pointed out earlier, despy is out. :(

if hiromu's goal, and njpw's goal, is to elevate the jr.'s scene as much as liger did back in the day, they can't have hiromu dominating this field so much. liger's time felt amazing because they built up great rivals for him (naoki sano, wild pegasus).

the parallels with okada are fine and all but because njpw devalued so many of hiromu's rivals, i'm not as invested in the scene anymore, which is wild since the jr.'s scene is what made me subscribe in the first place.

the most i can hope for is douki to advance far and for new fresh blood to join this year's tourney.

on BULLET CLUB;

i am so glad debbie-chan lost because this added pressure to the angle is what they needed to differentiate it from previous power struggle storylines. before, it was leader vs leader or mini factions within bullet club duking it out with each other, but now this feels more like an ideology of who and what bullet club should be and aspire to do.

as unhelpful as chase is with his "both sides have a point" schtick, elp's focus on bullet club and finlay's focus on bullet club will determine the post-jay white era. i have mentioned it in previous posts but wishing for jay white to return won't help to revitalize the club as a whole. bullet club merch moved because the leader was getting belts and wins, and jay advocated for himself a lot. cheating as well, same with breaking the pace, and cooling off the crowd. all of these are great and they work for jay.

but people seem to have recency bias. jay wasn't universally respected or beloved when he positioned himself as the new leader. a lot of people hated him because he wasn't kenny omega, the best bout machine workhorse. we're seeing it again with finlay.

i think gedo knows that recreating jay will never get finlay over. he's harkening back to the workhorse heel like late aj styles and heavyweight kenny omega. i think that's the best foot forward in a post-jay vacuum.

i flung this idea around before but i would not be opposed to finlay cleaning house and replacing who he thinks are "soft" with the bc rogue army at tamashii. they are fierce and vicious. not only are they based in australia, making it easier to bring them, maybe ace austin and chris bey will be in this upcoming bosj, making it a numbers game between those who side with elp and those who side with finlay.

on ELP;

i love this cheeky little jevil (jester/devil) and unlike the popular takes, i don't want him to go pure babyface. i know he can, but he shines the most as a smarmy tweener-heel who loves derailing the match. only he can pull off his petty tactics without getting "go home" chants from the crowd.

if not in bc proper, it wouldn't hurt to put him in more tweener or other heel factions. i know for sure i do not want him in lij, his beef with shingo works best as it is, and chaos is dead in the water. with how njpw strong is being remade, and my unbidden bias for the filthmeister, i'm going to throw a curveball and fantasize about a team filthy!elp. team filthy is small enough for elp to have a bigger spotlight and also raise the brand of strong to the audience. also i really like tom lawlor and want to see him and royce more in japan lmao

on SAKURA GENESIS 2023;

bishamon vs ao: gonna be a banger

hiromu vs eagles: ngl, if they don't amp up the story, it'll be a forgettable fued. while it'll be no doubt, flashy af, if it doesn't rejuvenate a "lolhiromuwins" scene, the jr.'s are kind of bland. i actually thought lio rush was a perfect foil to hiromu as a rival b (with despy being rival a), and he'd be sorely missed. a draw between the two would have been very rare but also very awesome. others have brought up KUSHIDA to challenge hiromu because i think it'll be a hiromu win at skr gen 2023, but i think if they want to move the jr.'s forward, they're going to have to bring in new beats to old rivalries, or new rivals altogether. i don't think eagles has it in yet, but i am always looking forward to be proven wrong, so i hope the build to this is good for both wrestlers.

okada vs sanada; ngl their feuds have not been up to par with sana-yan's previous persona, but if njpw keeps these matches shorter, this okada vs sanada could really be truly worthy of moty. i personally would love to see sanada winning, with more borrowed new moves added to his set, but i won't be surprised if okada goes over. i'll keep a close eye on both competitors because now this match up finally has a dramatic gravitas.

#njpw spoilers #*meta #njpw txt #txt #( disclaimer: these are my interpretations and opinions )#( i just want to see the wrestling scene in njpw thrive )#*booking

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