Thoughts on Japanese Wrestling.

A lot has been happened in the world of Japanese wrestling in recent days and I shall give my thoughts.

So New Japan Pro Wrestling concluded their yearly Best of the Super Jrs. Tournament today (June 9th). The winner was current IWGP (International Wrestling Grand Prix) Jr. Heavyweight Champion: Prince Devitt. By winning, Devitt became the second wrestler since the first since the first BOTSJ in 1994 to have a perfect record (The BOTSJ is a round robin tournament). The first was the legendary Jushin Thunder Liger in 2001.

I'm mixed on this. To New Japan's defense, I believe Devitt was an alternate as former partner: Ryusuke Taguchi was supposed to win but he pulled out yesterday due to injury and was unable to compete in the semifinals (and possibly) the finals. The tournament looked like it was going to have Devitt blitz through the round robin portion, win the semis, and then lose in the finals to his former partner turned enemy. On the other hand, I'm not sure it was the best choice since it doesn't set up any future contenders. With rumors of Devitt moving up to heavyweight soon, I hope he concludes his feud with Taguchi before moving up. The feud has potential to be good and it would be nice to see Taguchi win the title and become the next junior ace as opposed to Devitt running through the competition and vacating the title to move up.

Pro Wrestling NOAH is continuing their current tour with some interesting title matches. KENTA defeated New Japan's Toru Yano to retain the GHC (Global Honored Crown) Heavyweight Championship (NOAH's top title) back on June 2nd. In a nice twist and measure of revenge Yano and Takashi Iizuka retained the GHC Tag Team Championship over KENTA and Yoshihiro Takayama. Both results are very satisfying as NOAH needs one of their own to be heavyweight champion right now and KENTA is the best choice. Meanwhile, Yano and Iizuka are doing good as tag team champions and don't need to lose the belts right now. Not to mention, it's a nice surprise since I thought KENTA and Takayama were taking the belts since Yano & Iizuka are New Japan guys while KENTA and Takayama won the Global Tag League tournament. Kudos to NOAH for giving Yano and Iizuka are nice title reign. They're one of my favorite teams in Japan right now and it's nice to see someone give them a nice push as opposed to New Japan who seemed content with using them as a midcard team. Sure they got the tag title last year but it only last a month and a half.