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Post by bossrock on Aug 29, 2018 19:44:47 GMT -5
It seems inevitable that Okada will be judged more harshly this year than he was last year. Quite simply, he hasn't had the resume he had last year when he had 3-4 MOTYC's under his belt by September. He was also forced to carry a G-1 block that largely sucked. And by being New Japan's top dog, he's the easiest target when it comes to criticisms of the unofficial 30-minute main event rule. But with all that being said, Okada has still managed to find ways to prove he's one of the best in the world. His title defenses were always padded, but they always had moments where you thought maybe, just MAYBE there was a chance he was going to lose. Being able to do that when your victory is already a foregone conclusion is not an easy thing to do. It also helps that the matches themselves were great. The second half of the SANADA match had some of the most thrilling NJPW action this year. The Sabre match was an awesome clash of styles and continued to establish Zack as a star. And the Omega match where he finally lost the title is a surefire MOTYC (seriously who would have thought that going over an hour long would give them their best match?) And while he had one of the worst G1 blocks in recent memory to work with, he proved his worth as a character worker with "Broken Okada" and gave nearly every opponent their best match of the tournament. He'll most likely fall from number 2 where I had him last year, but unless his output absolutely falls off a cliff the rest of the year he's a lock for at least the top 10.
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ed
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Post by ed on Aug 30, 2018 15:19:43 GMT -5
I hated the Naito match to almost TJ Hawke levels, I thought the Sanada match was fairly good but Sanada's had much better matches in the G1, and the Zack title match I found utterly frustrating because Zack was excellent in the match, tying him in knots and presenting Okada with new challenges the likes of which he's never come across in his title reign and then rainmaker tombstone rainmaker it's over. He just put Zack away the same way he puts everyone away because he can't deviate from his closing stretch sequences so Zack ends up feeling like just another guy.
I'm not sure bringing out balloons to the ring and adding a discus lariat to the closing stretch is showing that much depth as a character worker. Gedo chose the wrong time to tell that story because he still ended up on the same amount of points as he did in 2017 and only lost to Switchblade and Fale because of cheating, it's hard to get invested in the idea that Okada is spiraling down and struggling to come to terms with not being the champion anymore when you know he has to win 6-7 matches in his block in order for the Budokan Hall Tanahashi match to be dramatic.
That all being said, I still have Okada floating around the 30s on the strength of other stuff. I hated the Omega/Okada matches last year, and their title switch this year was easily my favourite match of theirs. He was one of the better wrestlers in the horrible Block A capped off with another great draw with Tanahashi. I think the tag title shot with Goto against LIJ is the best tag match from the company this year.
So yeah, a mixture of highs and lows for me.
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Post by mlev76 on Sept 1, 2018 13:34:42 GMT -5
There has certainly been some decline in his game since the title loss, but that seems by design than by an declination in his skills. His big matches-Naito, Omega, Tanahashi-were all great and even though his G1 was weaker than I'd care for, I currently have him in my top ten. This may decline depending on where he ends up booking wise (and I still need to see the ZSJ match) but I don't expect him to fall too far.
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Post by notoriousgib on Sept 3, 2018 2:53:10 GMT -5
Yeah, I haven't really felt his new gimmick too much either. He's still having plenty of great matches but I think they're coming at a less consistent rate this year. As far as mostly NJPW guys, I'd say Hiromu, Ishii, Ibushi and Naito are firmly ahead of him (ZSJ too but he works for outside companies more consistently). I could see Omega, Tanahashi and Goto finishing ahead of him as well.
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Post by problematic on Sept 3, 2018 7:11:34 GMT -5
I was high on him last year after years of being a critic (he finished in my top 15), and I certainly enjoyed some of his matches in the first half of the year, but I also think he's been badly exposed as one of the most stale acts in wrestling. It's a fresh wound, and probably not the fairest way to judge him, but the match with Scurll was among the most tone deaf matches I've seen from an alleged great wrestler in recent memory as they went 12 minutes over in front of a crowd that clearly did not give a fuck for the first half of the match and seemed to really only want the final third or so that was given to them. That to me is a pretty big indictment. He's got one track and one speed and it creates a lot of good matches but they almost all seem excessive and bloated in the same way. Depending on how I'm feeling about my methodology when I cast a ballot he could finish anywhere from 50 to not at all.
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jrn
New Member
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Post by jrn on Sept 4, 2018 0:30:06 GMT -5
Last year felt like His Year, where if you already loved Okada he was the best guy in wrestling and reached a different stratosphere and even if you didn't he was still so good you had to go high. This year feels like a regular Okada year, where the great stuff is great and there's enough great title defenses to really put him up there. But as stated above, he did feel stale to the point where even if the spreadsheet has him in my Top 10 I could see myself bumping him down to the 20-30 range.
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