Intro
Using other totally legal methods to have Spotify the summer of '23 freed up some monthly cash I could spare. Since I was enjoying King's Road puroresu but didn't bother watching any modern promotion up until that point, I thought about renewing my subscription to NJPW World. I used to have a sub there like 6 years ago for a couple of months but little me wasn't impressed by NJPW puroresu and I quickly unsubscribed. After looking around online, people said that Wrestle Universe is more bang for your buck. I was feeling adventurous, so I bought myself a subscription, despite not knowing anything about these companies other than a few NOAH matches I'd watched from the mid-2000s with KENTA, Sugiura and Nagata. That's how I started watching modern NOAH. (TJPW too, but that deserves its own page.)
Akiyama sick knee on Kobashi! Haven't watched this match, just wanted a gif to break up all the text, stole this from enbywrestlingfan on tumblr (no permission)
First Impressions
I was lucky to catch the beginning of the N-1 Victory Tournament, so I didn't need to have knowledge of pre-existing storylines, the tournament was something I could latch on to immediately. What I had problems with was adjusting to the tour schedule. I only realized after a while that most dates on a tour are basically house shows with some storyline buildup. All the major matches and story beats still happen on the bigger shows, that's where the wrestlers only ever go all-out too. A few hints:
- Commentary means must watch show
- More camera angles -> bigger event
- Big shows have custom posters
The opening exchange of one of my favourite matches ever...
Useful Gaijin Links & Resources
Obvs I got hooked, otherwise I wouldn't be making this page. Soon I wanted a place to read up on what happened on the shows I watched, "a second opinion". The fact that I hate the English commentary on both NOAH and TJPW (it's annoying, distracting, not helpful in translating and puroresu with english commentary does not sit well with me), did not help with my limited capability to comprehend what was happening. After looking around, here are some useful English sites that provide me with all the information I want:
- Noah's Arkive
- The best site for all your NOAH needs. Covers every event, big or house show, translates every backstage comment, excellent news source for wrestlers leaving, companies closing, new wrestlers coming in, excursions, this literally has it all and then some. They occasionally translate parts of Misawa's diary, too, which is a pretty light and fun read. Ever wanted to know rookie Yu Owada's improved Salt Chanko recipe? Noah's Arkive got you covered. MUST FOR ANY NEW NOAH FAN who doesn't know Japanese.
- purolove.com
- Useful for figuring out schedules and upcoming events, but if you watch any big NOAH event, they usually show their schedule on the end of those, anyway. TJPW schedule you can also find in the DDT Pro Official Website. Still probably a helpful source, it covers a lot of puro feds.
- cagematch.net
- Pro-wrestling database! Matches, wrestlers, events, titles, anything you can think of and more! See my thoughts on cagematch below and the western pro wrestling fandom/online community below.
- wrestlingdata.com
- Cagematch alternative that's way prettier imo. I think it's not as thorough, some of the lesser known japanese wrestlers aren't on here, but maybe that's just my idea. Big plus, comments are hidden really well so I am spoiler-free and, most importantly, away from smart marks! This has been my go-to recently.
- Youtube
- Some promotions upload promos and backstage comments in their youtube channels. Youtube's extremely helpful English auto-translate feature is rough, but it usually works pretty well (when the person talking isn't crying or screaming their lungs out). It was pretty wild to me that I could somewhat understand what they were saying without knowing Japanese. Check it out!
Strike battles are my favourite spot in puroresu... And this match has one of the wildest and stiffest strike battle I've ever seen...
Oh, by the way, all the gifs in this page were made by me (unless specified) by hacking together a little script in linux using screencast and ffmpeg. I will show it off here someday.
