Join us for all-day talk on NBA free agency and NJPW’s G1 Special in USA, which is LIVE on AXS at 8pm ET.
Got POP? Specifically PTBN Pop? Well our crew just released their mid-year 2017 awards. Check out the show right here:
Our guys from the Strong Style Story podcast are on-site in Long Beach for the G1 specials. Check out their Podblast after the press conference:
And here’s the Strong Style Story Night 1 preview – recorded out in Long Beach today!
Happy Saturday everyone! Any good plans today?
Work. And wondering why the hell my fantasy baseball team sucks so bad in the PTBN league.
Fantasy is a fickle bitch.
It really is, I get into looking at the prospects too much and it screws me over.
I have three fantasy teams and all of them are riddled with injuries. I have the best DL squad in history.
Yeah I’m inn the three as well. I have a fantasy sports problem.
Stacked Day of kid’s birthday parties for me. The wife and I are already planning margaritas on the back porch once this craziness is over.
Steph Curry will sign the first supermax deal in NBA history. 5 years/$201 million. Bananas.
Makes up for him accepting a cheap extension years ago due to his ankles.
Wow
1994 on the Sirius 90s countdown today! Little Bump N Grind right now!
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a little Bump N Grind. I don’t know who says differently but they are wrong.
I went on a cruise back in the day and I couldn’t hear a song without bump n grind before it.
Think anything else big will happen in the NBA today? Anymore out of nowhere trades or head scratching signings?
If you guys have AXS, they are running a marathon all day leading up to the special tonight
Hey Kev…do you happen to know if AXS is going to have Night 1 on demand after like their usual episodic NJPW show?
Is JR on commentary tonight? I sure hope he shows up more enthusiastic than he does on these taped AXS shows
I’m not positive on this one. I know KK and Callis are there for NJPW World
As good as JR is, watching him call Okada/Omega 2 last night he just seemed so unenthused, chalked it up to perhaps it’ll be different when he’s in a live environment as opposed to watching the match in a studio basically talking over it
I actually thought he was pretty good during Okada/Omega 2. Better than he usually is on the New Japan shows. To answer your question, it’s JR and Barnett on commentary tonight.
Jrue Hoilday re-signs with the Pelicans for 5 years/$126 million
Ringer piece on this is pretty good. $$ in the NBA is crazy (not a new story), but they’d be hardpressed to find anyone else given their cap. So they go Holiday (still only 27!) and the two big studs and try to fill around with 3 and D guys I guess.
Anybody else thinking that Cody wins the title tonight?
I doubt it. I feel like Okada’s run is going to lead to a bigger showdown down the line…maybe even holding to WK12. That said, it would be a shocking way to kick off the first true NJPW step into the US.
No way Okada’s ending this run in front of less than 8000 people.
Would favor Okada but have Cody with punchers chance
There’s been a lot of scuttle (I assume partially shtick) that he’s going to win, but i don’t see it at all. I also didn’t (for whatever it’s worth) see any reason why they’d move the belt from Okada to Omega back in January. An interference-filled main event with Okada losing would do a lot to damage the goodwill of the US fanbase. I just don’t see it.
I’ve been saying for a while its the most logical storyline.
Okada weak from his matches this year loses to Cody who swoops in finishing what Omega started.
Starts a rift in the BC where Kenny eventually gets kicked out and turns babyface.
Kenny wins G-1
Omega-Cody for the title at WK, Omega wins
Omega beats Okada on the next big show to finally win that match
Now the problem is
Cody is the ROH champ
I doubt NJ wants an American and Canadian fighting over their top belt and headlining their biggest show
All the Star Trek movies are up on Prime.
Dont remember seeing this last night, but Wale is hosting a rap battle between the Usos and New Day on Tuesday.
Well think we lost one of our dogs today. Got out of our backyard.
Sorry to hear bud.
We’ve looked everywhere and asked some neighbors to look.
Don’t sweat it Homie. They’ll come back. My dog did it once and came back a few days later.
Just finished For Your Consideration #2, great show yet again. Will share my take on those discussed in a bit.
I finished watching the three ROH Best in the World matches that NJPW World put up. Some ratings:
KUSHIDA/Scurll ***3/4
Three-way tag with Best Friends/Bucks/WM ***1/2
Daniels/Cody **
It’s also not a stretch, nor anywhere near outlandish to say that KUSHIDA is easily the best worker in ROH right now, and i don’t think it’s particularly close.
Kushida is having an awesome year but hard to knock Okada off the perch as best wrestling in NJPW. Takahashi has been really good this year as well
Yeah for NJPW i’d say Okada and Hiromu jan to july. Kenny shouldn’t be dismissed either!
Daniels/Cody was really disappointing, no heat, a lot of sloppy back and forth, an early ref bump which did nothing and then a real scripted looking elaborate final sequence that fell super flat.
Part 2 of our live recordings at the G1 Special shows – it’s a night 1 preview by the SSS guys:
https://soundcloud.com/prowrestlingonly/strong-style-story-the-g1-special-in-usa-special-part-2
My predictions for the U.S. Title tourney
Ill go Omega over Elgin
Lethal over Hangman
Juice over Sabre
Ishii/Naito is a tossup. Either Naito loses here or loses in the finals….Ill go with the upset of Ishii
Next round
Omega over Lethal
Ishii over Juice
Final round
Omega over Ishii
Which than means the Michael Elgin is going to win Block B but lose to Naito in the finals of the G1 is my prediction as well
I’m with you that I think Naito loses tonight, probably a part of a multi-man tomorrow then. His comments at the presser yesterday cracked me up. (summarizing) “I don’t want the US belt. I don’t even know why i’m in this tournament”. So good.
I’m with you. I like Omega to win the whole thing.
Here is my predictions:
Im going:
Lethal over Page
Omega over Elgin
Sabre over Juice
Ishii over Naito
Omega over Lethal
Sabre over Ishii
Sabre over Omega
He’s a son of a son…
… and a son of a gun
Hey buddy, Sling gets AXS – you dipping your toe into NJPW with the G1 Special tonight?
Going to try… we maybe having some neighbors over so depends how that goes.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/560323147426335/permalink/790071741118140/
Good piece here
http://thebiglead.com/2017/07/01/the-pacers-trading-paul-george-for-nothing-may-go-down-as-an-all-time-bad-nba-trade/
J.J Reddick to the 76ers. 1 year/$23 million.
Good on him getting paid
One Year 2.3 million.
$23M brah
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/881243180880076803
Nope. You were right. He robbed the bank on that deal. Zero lateral movement. He can’t defend a statue. A second tier shooter at best.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4656908/British-woman-dies-injured-Canaries.html
Reddick to the Sixers… 1/23m
Sale was great again today
He has a great game.
Under 30 mins till G1 Special, Who’s Pumped
Really looking forward to it.
Is this Fale’s first match in the US?
I actually think Fale’s Grenade move is pretty good. I like the creativity.
Fun opening match.
Gordon Hayward big favorite to sign with the Heat, according to 3 NBA sources.
I’m surprised the BC jobbed. Thought forsure someone was taking an Indytaker
Thanks to this chat, I just was able to record the show. I’ll catch up when my studies
Hot opener. Thought they’d put over the club, but pushed the Bucks vs RPG Vice match for Sunday.
Liger’s theme is an all timer!!!
I love Takahashi. So damn good.
Liger was the glue. Established the heel/face dynamic matter. Then it let those highspots later felt more built to after the FIP.
How is the atmosphere?
They seem hot. Both matches got over huge. Liger treated as a legend.
Feels like the crowd isn’t mic’d up very well. But it’s a good crowd not trying to get themselves over
First subpar match of the night.
Which match was it?
Lethal/Page
Page isn’t very good at all.
I’m not a huge fan of his either.
DIDI!
JR is pretty bad out here. Making me fearful for the Mae Young classic.
I’ve seen people that prefer him over KK for NJPW and it shocks me every time. He is going to be a mess for the Mae Young.
He is good on AXS call of big matches but that has capabilities of retakes.
I’ve seen that change a bit with Calis onboard. KK getting more respect (as he should).
Great match between ZSJ and Juice.
Yeah, I skipped the 2nd and 3rd matches to get live and I really enjoyed that match a lot. Sabre was good working the limb and Juice sold well and was sympathetic. ***1/4 or so.
I also just started there and will catch the openers later. Really good stuff
Yanks all over Houston’s bullpen again. Grand slam for second straight game.
Juice quite possibly could be the best white meat babyface today. Clearly has watched his Steamboat tapes.
His NJ Cup opener against Yujiro is a totally unheralded fantastic baby face performance. He’s terrific.
Of course my dish just went out as we had a thunderstorm, hopefully it is back for the final 3 matches.
Real good chance that Tanahashi/Gunn tomorrow night is really bad.
It gives me chills.
https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/881324515233480704
Celts will have to make a very strong pitch tomorrow
“We have Jimmy Bu…… We have Paul Geor……..We have candy bars!!!”
I do buy Cody as a top guy doing promos.
Pete, what’s your prediction for how the crowd receives him?
Well ROH crowd loved him which I never would have guessed. I still expect him to be booed , but have smackering of cheers. What about you.
Same. I can’t believe the pops he got at BitW weekend. Maybe more an indictment how stale ROH is.
Clint Frazier first career dinger! OK, back to NJPW talk…
War Machine has top guy aura.
As “free agents” now (reportedly), really hoping they stick with NJPW/ROH. They’re over in Japan; i was surprised they moved the belts at Dominion.
Is Jim Ross drunk??? Holy Moses, he’s been rough.
Well he just called Cody “The American Dream” so things are GREAT
I’m pretty interested to watch Tama Tonga in the G1. He seems like a guy who could be a really good singles.
That was a bad ass finisher by War Machine.
I’m very close to watching the rest of this show on mute.
He starting to become how Gordon Solie was at the end
Hearing JR tonight feels like how I felt when my Grandfather started to get senile.
He is cooked. He is a legend, but he shouldn’t be doing live wrestling. WWE should just use him for roundtables and stuff like that.
Him doing this show I though was important for NJPW because he’s the face of wrestling to U.S audiences. His performance has been weak .
Nice thumbprint right over the main camera lens. Come on man!
Awesome pop for Naito
Finish was bad ass but I didn’t really dig the garbage style nature of War Machine vs G.o.D, probably **3/4 for me.
Probably biggest news is with War Machine getting the belts back, they’re seemingly sticking around. This encounter was really forgettable.
Great stuff from Naito and Ishii.
Yeah really fun.
Ishii clearly got to JR. He clearly felt in his Mid-South wheel house.
Massive pop for Omega.
This is great!
Easily the match of the night. Fantastic match.
Yeah that was really awesome.
Great match , but Omega needs to take a Steamboat gear changing class.
That match was nuts. I’d go ****1/4
Thank God Cody is the heel here.
Okada is only 29?!?!
I thought the best Cody has looked this year was in the wXw 16 Carat Gold Tournament. Let see if that changes here
100% agree.
I actually think his match against Bad Bones Klinger was his best ever as a singles
Hope nobody is taking a shot every time JR calls Cody “Rhodes”.
Thought Brandi was the highlight of the match.
Match was fine. Not great but not outright bad either.
That being said, it’s probably Cody’s best match in NJPW.
I accidentally fell asleep after the Ishii/Naito match and just caught the finishing stretches of the last two matches.
I thought Ishii/Naito was terrific. I also loved how strong the crowd was behind Okada.
I liked that they did the match rundown in the ring prior to the first match. A small thing that emulates the experience in Japan.
And then after the show they cut right to the press conference. Cool touches.