Shinjiro Otani Update/Weekend Recap

where and the heck is Brian today. Well, I'm in lovely San Francisco, California, and in fact, on Friday, I will be live from the Sports Byline Studios, So that's gonna be very exciting for today. You'll have to see me in front of this beautiful wall because I talk all of the news with Mike semperviv and it is the weekend and so we have a lot of news to talk about, and as always, not all of it is good news. We'll get into the raw recap here, the preview you here in a moment, but obviously the

big news today is Shinjiro Otani. Shinjiro Tani remains paralyzed following injuries suffering in a Zero one show on Sunday. Company president Takehito Kami spoke to Tokyo Sports on Monday confirmed Otani's condition remains unchanged. It has not changed. He said he is conscious but cannot move his limbs. Currently is being treated by a doctor. As for the official diagnosis, we are waiting for reply from the hospital. Forty nine year old Otani took a German Suplex into the turnbuckle

during the night's main event and was unable to move. Afterwards, the ring ropes were removed, the fans were asked to leave. Otani was eventually stretchered out and taken to the hospital. He had been challenging the Promotions World champion Takashi Sagia. He performed from New Japan from ninety two to two thousand one. Co founded Zero one with Shinyi Hashimoto, team with Tatito Taka one Tag Team of the Year in the Observer Awards. He was also named Best Technical Wrestler

that same year. So obviously it's gonna be a while before we know, you know, what happened and whether or not he can make a full recovery or to what degree he can make a recovery. But obviously pro wrestling has dangers, and we could talk about this after the break, and not just the danger of any particular spot, but

the danger of years of wear and tear. So we'll talk about that and all the rest of the news back in a moment with more Observer Live back of the show Bright now but is here Wrestling Observer Live, mike'sumber Viv also Wrestling Observer at dot com. We got a lot of news to get into. Obviously, the bad news out of the way first Otani and uh we'll know more, presumably as time goes on, and I hope

the best for him. Uh. Sometimes when these things happen, it takes a while for the swelling to go down, and once the swelling goes down, people can slowly regain feeling in their arms and legs. But right now he does not have any, and that's certainly not good. And uh it is a it is a cautionary tale that it's pro wrestling, and uh it is Uh it is worked.

You know, the winners and losers are predetermined. The idea that every bump is a minor car crash is is overstated, but it is dangerous and it can be very dangerous. And this this story, what it, what it always reminds me of, is you know, you see, uh, you see these guys taking bumps on their heads, necks and everything like that in Regal. You know, he did that that podcast with Jericho and talked about it. And it's not even so much what happens on a particular bump, but

it is the years and years of accumulated damage. We're all of a sudden one day it can all go wrong. And that was the situation with Massawi. Everyone knows that story, an internal decapitation. He took a high angle suplex and it was a suplex he taken not only many times before, but a lot of the times when he took that that suplex he landed worse. But this was the one where, after years and years, it was one too many and you know, a German suplex into the buckles. I have

not seen it. I mean, maybe it was the move itself went horribly wrong, but my guess is it probably didn't go I mean, it went horribly wrong, but I think the bigger issue is that the accumulated damage to his neck. There was one bump too many, and that's why you know, Regal and many others have have pointed out for a long time, don't land on your neck, don't land on your head. Doesn't matter if you wake up and a couple of days later you feel fine, don't do it. So here we are wishing all the

best to Otani. Hopefully uh we get good news over the next couple of days, but right now all we know is conscious, can talk, can move his limbs, and so hoping for the best. Absolutely a legend. And you know similar situation Pero Guayo against Ray my Stereo where just bounded against the ropes and whatever happened happened there and it's just it's sad. And Shinjiro Tani is a He really is a legend. You know, he's been around

so long now. I don't know if people realize that during the golden age of junior heavyweight wrestling in Japan, the style that influenced so many of the people that you see on your TVs today, he was a very important part of that. He was the first ever w c W Cruiser Right Champion. He had feuds with Jusi and Liger and Liger's partner Al Samurai and Ultimo Dragon and Chris ben Wah when he was Wild Pegasus and

all of those guys. Eddie is Black Tiger. He was the man, and he had a team with KOJ Kanamoto and later on Iowa, I mean, him and Kanamoto would go at it. They were great partners, great enemies, fantastic stuff, and then did Hustle, went with Hashimoto, did zero one and it has to this day. Zero one has been around for a long time. A lot of people thought he was gonna fail and die plenty of times, and it has survived because he and Masada Tanaka for a

long time, we're the ones really grinding and out. And since Tanaka has kind of stepped back a little bit, Otani has been that guy and he's been going, you know, as hard as Otani can go. And he's forty nine years old, and all the best to him. I just want him to have a good quality of life, and I hope he does recover his feelings and just things

work out for the best. You know. Somebody on the chat here said, I can't believe that seth Roll is still doing the buckle bomb after what happened to Sting. That's my point. There's nothing inherently wrong with a buckle bomb. If you deliver the buckle bomb right and the person takes the buckle bomb right, it's not all that different from being whipped across and taking a hard buckle. The issue was that Sting had been wrestling for years and

years and years, and whatever happened happened on that buckle bomb. Now, the running buckle bomb into the barricade outside, I don't like that one because the barricade is padded, but unlike the top turn buckle with the ropes, there is no give and so you're hitting that. You're hitting that barricade pretty hard. And if you get thrown too hard, you land too high on a on a barricade, a padded barricade, and if you're not thrown hard enough, you really land

wrong and then you you splat on the ground. And that's how Finnvalor got hurt when set him with the buckle bomba into the barricade. I don't like that one, but a normal safe buckle bomb into the top turn buckle that is not an inherently dangerous move. And the other thing is, you know, if we want to start banning every move where somebody has gotten in herd. Then yeah, they're gonna be a few moves that probably aren't safe

to do one way or the other. Um. You know, I'm not big into banning moves, but that finisher that Penton Phoenix do, where you know the guy gets dropped on his neck in like the double pile driver position. Dude, I've seen that one go wrong way too many times. And if there's a move, there's going wrong way too many times. I don't think that necessarily, Like, there are a lot of moves that Penton Phoenix can do, but every move you can probably find an example of somebody

getting hurt on virtually every move. I hurt myself on a Snake Eyes once I thought the ground was gonna be there, it wasn't. My leg was too straight. I have to pretended my name. Should I be calling for the Snake Eyes to be a band? Of course not. You know, something went wrong. I mean, are we gonna band getting in the ring because Vince Wmickibhan towr two quads? Are we gonna a band walking in the ring because

Kevin nash Tork? Of course not. Things are gonna have up in and if a move is is injuring a lot of people. If a move is constantly going wrong, that's one thing. But a move that you've seen, you know, five hundred times and one time somebody gets hurt, that's gonna happen in wrestling. It's just, you know the nature of wrestling, you're gonna get hurt, and quite frankly, often you're gonna get hurt doing something that you probably shouldn't have gotten hurt doing. It was just some fluke, some

fluke deal. People calling for the banning of the snake eyes get out of here Na should be down to two moves. Well, if you had to ban a move, is there one off the top of your head that you go? You know what if I had, if I was right now, I'll tell you right now, the tree slam.

Tree slam. I I hate that move and listen. The thing to me with with most moves, okay, is it either has to be a move where the person doing it is capable of depositing you on the match safely times out of a hundred, or you take your own bump and put yourself on the mat safely. I have seen that tree slam go wrong so many times. I don't really want to bring this up because it was like it was an accident or something like that. But I think the guy's name was was it brian On.

Remember Great Collie was training and like all pro and a p W. That guy, you know, he was he was killed and uh, it was an accident, like it wasn't Great Great Collie was trying to kill the guy. But I'm pretty sure it was he was practicing the tree slam, because the tree slam, it's always first off, it's always done by a tall guy. So first off,

you're way too high. Then the guy has to throw you, and he has to he has to basically I don't know time it is the right word, but he has to do it in such a way that you're going to fall and you're gonna land flat on your back

exactly when you're supposed to win the mat. You either land too high and you land in the back of your head, or you don't rotate enough and you land on your buttocks thumb, and then not only do you land on your tailbone, but then your head snaps back and intimate if you watch tree slams way more than the time, it's it's a bad landing for the person who's getting tree slam and they have no control over the bump. You're absolutely your life is in the hands

of the tall guy who's who's slamming you. So that is the one that I would restrict. And there are those times too with that move where the person in there excitement basically slams the person down as hard as they can, which is you know, rarer. But that happens a lot with those high angle power bombs and those moves. That who was it was a Grayson Waller who was the one that actually did that Razor's edge or whatever

it was where they just completely killed Yeah, that's another one. Yeah, it's not even I think it's the Splash Mountain because if you watch the normal Razor's edge, like Razor Ramon put him down perfect like you know of the time, but the one where you lift him up like that and then toss him back in the moment. Observer Live back in the show Bright Now Bare is here Wrestling Observer Live, Mike simper viv also Wrestling Observer dot Com. Yes, it is spring break for me, although it's not really

much of a break. In fact, it's exactly it's exactly like being at home, except now I gotta hang out with a dog all day visiting my I guess would be my sister in law. My wife's sister had twins, and so we're here to uh help out. And they've also got a dog. So I've been hanging around with this dog. He's the bane of my existence dog and actually a very nice dog. What kind of dog, I don't know, big white dog. It's a big dog. Golden Retriever. Yeah, no, I don't know what kind of dog it is. It's

a big, fluffy dog. It's not a Golden Retriever. All that equipment that you brought down there, and you didn't bring a mic stand or anything. I never bring a mic stand. You go, you going Dave style? I always go Dave style in the road. I never bring a mic stand. Why is that? Because the mike stands too heavy to pack number one at number two this table. As you can see from my camera angle, the table is so far down there that I would need like a giant. I just hold the mike. It's easier when

you're not traveling with your family. Do you still travel like wrestling style? You just take one gym bag, roll all the TEUs up and I got I got one little tiny mini suitcase that that holds this gimmick that I used to connect and literally everything else I have is in that backpack right there. I've got all my clothes, I've got headphones, I've got Mike, I've got cables, I've got my a cou Tremont bag. Everything I need is in that one backpack. Meanwhile, these uh, these ladies, you

saw many suitcases they brought. Holy smokes. I got a two year old. She has more clothes than I do pack for this trip. Just going to the Game Changer in Landy City, just probably four suitcases. Like it's Atlantic City. Just by default, you're gonna be one of the better people there. For Heaven's sakes. You know it's crazy, but it's Did you ever have a problem going through the

airport with any of the gimmicks? Now for the for the show, Well, I'll tell you that story here in a second, but I gotta go over this first because I'm in San Francisco and I feel we should alternate news with this jibber jabber. So anyway, I'm in San Francisco, but I did not go to the g c W show yesterday, Uh number one, because I wouldn't have been able to make it on time. And I'm actually not in San Francisco. I'm North anyway. Multiple talents to not appear.

It's Sunday's g CW Devil in a new dress show in San Francisco. Edition of Bandido Gringo Loco did not wrestle his advertise. No explanation was given, and they have not responded to a request for comment on Loco not wrestling. Jacob pat two did not appear in the show. They announced he had travel problems if music travel problems. Inability to make Sunday show announced in a tweet Sunday afternoon, and uh and of course Banditto was set to face Nick Wayne. Nick Wayne was going to get a match

with Bandido and Bandido no show. You all know why. Scared scared? He was scared to go and lose to a sixteen year old. He's not unless I wasn't invited to his birthday. It should be very very I was in his first birthday, for crying out loud, I'd better be invited to his seventeen. Not that I'd show up, but I better be invited. So he faced Jaffie instead. Certainly a unique switch and I'm looking at it, what wouldn't have been What have you been the main event

with Bandido? Or did you go from the main event to the opener because of Bandido? Well, I mean, obviously all the focus was on A lot of the focus was on Bandido Nick for that night, so certainly mine was. But man, can you believe that? You know? I guess it also proves that have never been seen in the same place at the same time with Bandido, So it was Bandido in the country. I mean I couldn't make it down there on time either. Yeah, why didn't you bring your gear as part of the rule? Because I

couldn't fit this backpack with my other stuff. Let me tell you storry about the airport. Okay. So I once went to the airport and back in the day, so you guys understand like, oh, it looks so easy Brian going to California doing the short No, no, it's take can It's taken fifteen years to figure out how to make this go smoothly. Okay, So back in the day, you know what I used to have to bring when I went on trips. I had to bring so much stuff back in the day to by the way, have

much worse quality shows than we have nowadays. But I had Mike's and I had cables, and I would bring along you know, compressor blah blah blah blah blah. So I had this this, uh, this suitcase that was full like you opened it up and it was like a whole studio in there. And I would bring this and I would I would take it through security and everything

like that. So, uh, one day I'm going through security and uh, I can't even remember what it was that got flagged, but it was it was like, I don't know, a jacket or a pair of pants, or it was. It was something where they stop you, the red light goes on, they come over, they want to look at your pain pants, They want the dog to the drug sniffing dog, they want to move their magic wand over there, anything that. So it was it was over something stupid.

It was like a pair of pants or a pair of shoes or I don't even know what it was. But meanwhile I had a suitcase filled with wires and mechanical devices. It it literally looks like a bomb that just slid right on through. Oh, don't worry about that thing with all the wires and gadgets. But that pair of pants, that pair of pants, who knows there might be kerosene on those pants. So anyway, I think gets

stopped this time. Don't leave your half gramm of coke in there, and that wouldn't happen that there was nothing in there. There was literally nothing in there. I can't remember what it was, but it's something dumb. Do you think maybe it was a smoke screen that so they can look at your other stuff or something like that to make it was my jacket and guys like, oh, that's a nice jacket. I don't need to see where

he gets that cateagonia. Okay, maybe he was taking your attention away and it was from Seattle, clearly, all right, listen tonight is Raw. Guys ready for that? Yeah? I thought I had a lineup, but I don't. Oh yeah, ok, yeah, Tamasa Champa has been uh drafted to Raw apparently. So that was on p U Insider today. We have got Sasha Banks and Naomi Versus live in Rhea for the SmackDown Women's Tag Team titles or the just the Women's Take Team titles. There is a tease, by the way

on SmackDown if you wanted. The SmackDown report, there is a tease that they're going to unify the men's tag team titles as well. So I know they're all into the brand extension everything like that, but I mean, we've been talking about this for years. Why don't they just unify all the belts. You can have your two brands, but just send your champions, brand, brand whatever. Maybe they're actually doing it, because now they're teasing another another title unification.

We have Dami Priest, JJ styles Veer will face Ray Mysterio, m v P will host the v I P Lounge with his own guy, Oh Moss, Roman Reigns and the us OS versus Drew. A New Day is advertised for the dark match, and yes, in his first raw match, and I believe six years Cody Rhodes is facing them. Is okay, So yesterday it was whatever day, I watched SmackDown. I heard that Cody Rose was facing the miss and I thought, all right, that's fine, it's easy match, you know,

beat the guy or whatever. So then I foolishly I went on I went on Twitter and every now and then you know, they have trending on the side, which is like, you know, whatever, is trending that they think you would be interested in, and one of them was the Miss, and that why is the Miss trending? I would get worried when people are trending because I'm like, I hope something bad did happened. So I foolishly clicked on the mrs name because it was trending. Oh my god.

So apparently apparently when this match was announced, Uh, the internet went crazy. I was unaware of this to like clicked on this this name. So first they were like a bunch of people that were angry, like angry that Cody was going to face the Miss. Okay, angry. I don't know why you would be angry, like who cares? But they were actually angry about it, like Cody's just come back in his first match. Uh, Bryan Danielson debut his first matching with Kenny Omega. Cody's debut matches what

them is? So then you know all the people that were angry, you know, we're going off about how much the Miss sucked. Okay, wh yeah, that's what I understand that. But then we had all of the the pro Miss people that had to come to the defense of the Miss. Oh my god, Bro I'm praying that Tony Cohn is right that most of these people are bots. Okay, because there's like the stuff that people were writing, like, oh, how can you say that the miss sucks? He's uh,

he's a grand slam. They were literally doing what he does in his promoes, which is, I'm gonna rattle off a list of all of the belts that misses one to prove that he is in fact great, and then you cannot say anything bad about the Miss. It's one thing to say, you know whatever, but to say that MSS is not good in the ring, Oh, you must be a troll. Look at all these belts he's I'm like, you've got to be you can't. You can't be a real person. So anyway, you know. But then I got

thinking about today. I'm not mad about him, but I was thinking about it. I thought, what is the end goal of Cody and the Miss, Like, is he just gonna go in there and beat him in two minutes with the Crossroads, Because I can't imagine they're gonna go in and go like nineteen minutes back and forth, because that's certainly, absolutely not what I would do with Cody. A week after he debut is going toe to toe with the Miss for nineteen minutes as like it's always

he just gonna beat him. I mean, I don't know. I thought about them more. I was like, what's the endgame here? Shouldn't he go in with somebody like his first match was with Seth, which was a great match. You know, don't you want to dam come in and have like some great matches with some guy or something like? No, we got we gotta entertain a little bit here. We're gonna have a twelve minute promo back and forth between the two bantering back and forth, which may be incredibly entertaining.

Who knows. Then we're probably gonna have a match. But if you believe that Backlash is Logan Paul and the Miss, then you know this, maybe it's just a quick win for Cody and something to do for this week, you know. But if it's going to be a match for Backlash, I mean, maybe this is where it starts up. So I have a feeling this is not going to lead though to what I really want, which of course is

Brandy and Maurice back in them on with morebs. You're alive, row Miss people, he made a end and wrestle media. He doesn't suck dual Grand Slam champ. Why do people actually do that for the I mean, look, the Miss is somebody that you would probably want your child, depending on what you thought about wrestling, to grow up and be.

He's been injured once in the entirety of his career. Uh. He came from a a background of being on MTV, not anything else MTV, and that jump started his shot to get to w w E. He married Maurice, He's got a great family. He's parlayed this into a career outside of w w E. You don't have to quadruple out on Miss Luth as type of in ring wizard. You can just throw all that to the side and say, if you're entertained by the Miss and like the Miss and think he'll match up well with Cody, Okay, you

don't have to take it that far. No, dig and you understand, he said, people trying to get a rise out of me. No, this had nothing to do with me, literally nothing. I I didn't write or say anything. I went on the internet and it said MS was trending, so I clicked on his name and everybody was just going up. I had nothing to do with any of this. If you don't listen, you can all go up there but yourself. And and if you want to click on mrs name and see him to dungee right now? What

is what is going on here with him? Punk? Let's see see him punk top If see him punk Defete's hangman page for the title Eddie Kingston should have thrown him. It's just that it seems to be just a bunch of people talking about cempunk really see all right, hey, listen, we had two shows this weekend speaking of a w WE add the A Rampage show. Which are you guys stick of hearing about this one yet? Too bad to uh to? Well one was a very good match and uh one was actually a it's a great match Brian

Danielson and Trent. I mean, I go out of my way to watch it. But unfortunately for these two guys, they were on the undercard. In fact, every match on this show, like Swerve and QT for five minutes, was a really good match. And I enjoyed watching Red Velvetet Boot against Willow Night and Gale since it has to be an angle at this point. This is the third time that they have put her in the ring with a hometown baby face and she's got booed. There's no

way that's not by design. So I think Red's ultimately gonna be turning heel here. And then, yes, John Moxley and Wheeler Utah, it's one of those times that I wish I actually had that fight VPN or whatever it's I could have seen the whole thing unedited. But you know, even what I got to see was absolutely just. I mean, this is textbook how to get a guy over and losing, how to make a star are in one night. John Moxley is just he's so great when his role is to go in there and win, but get the other

guy over. I mean, there's nobody better nowadays. I don't think because he did this with he did this with I think it was Darby and then obviously he did this with Wheeler Utah and uh, blood and guts and it was a river of blood, just like Moxley had promised. And Uh, he couldn't submit the guy every movie put him in you to got out. He couldn't pin the guy, including with his his DDT which everyone likes to argue about.

I need to get Moxley in the show and n't explain the Death Writer and the Paradigm Shift because I believe that the Paradigm Shift is the d DT and the Death Rider is the brain Buster version. And uh, you know there are people that are for some reason, it makes people irrationally furious like, no, it's just a paradigm shift, It's only the Death Writer. If it's in Japan. End one of these days will ask, yeah, not kidding?

Is that like the I well, I guess, hey, the the Accousa kick and the Mafia kick, I guess, you know, for for Chuno, I guess they would call it differently, But anyway, the point is he hit him with both the Paradigm Shift and the Death Writer and you two kicked out of both of them, but then was put in the bulldog choke and went unconscious. So he lost the match and and Moxley won the match. But Moxley was unable to like defeat him. He was unable to

pin his shoulders or make him give up. He had to put him unconscious in order to get his hand raised. So I thought this was just it was fantastic. And the look on Moxley's face afterwards, the one we see too much of the bug eyes and the jaw dropping Tom and Jerry cartoon style face in wrestling. I'm the two count I and Standard. They do it too much. I know. Look there's a reason obviously it's done in

a W and WW so much on the indies. It really drives me nuts because it's like there's no camera there or there's not enough people to do this, so don't do it. Just stay on your opponent, for Christ's sakes. But in this case with Moxley, it worked because I just hit this guy with I thought everything, and he still somehow kicked out. And then to see his face as Danielson gets in the ring behind Regal, who's all excited and doesn't he wants to kick him. Me so happy,

he wants to kiss him, me so happy. You see Regal out there, and Danielson looks over at Moxley, who's looking over at Danielson. The whole thing I thought when perfectly and even the gusher that you would have got, I mean, it looked so good. I mean aesthetically is nasty as this may sound, blood doesn't bother me, you know, it's never bothered me in wrestling or anything like that doesn't bother me in general. So to see that face, I mean just every the color of the blood, everything

about it. I thought couldn't have been any better. Now, does this help Rampage long term? No, unfortunately not because of the position that it's in, but it certainly helps out Wheeler Utah and wherever they're going with this Blackpool Combat Club when he comes to Dynamite. Also the New Japan show over the weekend where your main man, Zack Saber Jr. Didn't win the i w GP heavyweight title.

Mike Rearend, Hey, listen. First off, no, he couldn't. Second off, I I advocated on numerous shows and I will advocate to get on this show that he should have won

the title, but he didn't. Really and I did. I thought that he should win the title because you know, they announced the line up for the next show, and uh, you know it's the stadium show again and they want to sell a bunch of tickets, and so you know, after after Okada one, you know, he has to do his challenge, and uh, he challenges Nito and uh you know, even Nito comes down and goes. I was actually leaving.

I was not expecting you to say my name, but hey, if you want to have the match, we can have it. And I just thought, Bro, listen, I know the match is gonna be great. Okay, I've seen this match a thousand times. Okay, I think they've already done the match twice in it's April, Okay, it'll be May. This will

be the third time they've done this match. And I'm all for, you know, seeing great matches, But I mean, I would be a hypocrite if I didn't bring up the fact that I really like watching Bianca bell Air and dew Drop. But when they do the match four times in six weeks, I'm over it. Okay. So the point is, Bro, I've seen o'conda NIGHTO a thousand times. Like if Zach Saber Jr. Would have won the title, yeah, you're gonna see matches you've seen before, but now it's different.

Zach Saber Junior is the champion, Zach Saber Junior defending the title against this guy, against that guy, against this guy. Any other thing is when Zack Saber Junior is the champion every match that he has, because it's I'm not saying he's a week champion, but he's not Ocada. So if you put Zack Saber Junior in there with anybody, you're gonna have a portion of fans that think we

might have a title change here tonight. So there's a little bit of an added intrigue and a lot of these matches as opposed to you know, I guess maybe Nighto CoA beat Occada, But I mean, okay, why am I wrong here? I want something new and different. I want to see some new made events with some different people. I'd like to see, you know, Okada did or Zach did that promo and he's like, I want to defend this title against um what's his face? Osprey? Great. I'd

love to see Osprey and Zach Saber Junior for the title. Instead, I'm getting Okada and Nito for the five thousandth time, apparently, because well, you know, we gotta sell tickets to a Dome show and it's our strongest match. Well it's your strongest match if you haven't done it twice already this year, number one and number two. Maybe we shouldn't be running a stadium right now, especially if we're limiting everything to have capacity. That's that is absolutely true, and you're right.

I mean, if you wanted to put it on Zach. I understand. The only reason that I'll give him a pass here for a night though in Okada is because it is going to be such a good match, and what do we see at the end of it, you know, And I think that could be really important too. You know, I don't know when the Boushi's coming back. Osprey is obviously in the mix. Osprey. It's interesting too because he's gonna face Tanahashi now right for the for the US title,

you know him. It will be interesting to see if he takes the US title. It would make the most sense. Tana Hashi could come over here too. I mean, you know, Tanahashi with the US title as an ambassador would be fantastic. But I could see Osprey with it. And you talked about new Blood. One thing that Tag division is needed desperately because it's been so much with Zach and Taiichi and with go O D and with very few tag teams great o'con and Jeff Cobb. I love that. I

hope they can develop some opponents for them. I couldn't hope they look that that's a team too, because o'kahan is still young in his career. He did not spend a lot of time in America, very little, in fact, almost none, him coming over to the States with Jeff Cobb to do things in New Japan strong, or to possibly do things as the doors open. I love that team. I love that combination, and with Osprey, you know, you

built them all up in some sort of way. No complaints out of me, you know what, actually almost argue I think a Tanahashi should win that that US title. Yeah, I mean I'll tell you why keeps Osprey in the world title mix? Well, because New Japan is getting visas for a lot of the foreign talent to come over. And if all these foreign talents are coming over, that's a lot of brand new matches in Japan for will Osprey.

Whereas you know, I love Tanashi and everything like that, but I mean, he's getting older, he doesn't move as well as he's not, they're not going to build the promotion around him. And Tanahashi is a guy and Osprey would as well. But I mean you may as well use Osprey in Japan and send Tanahashi to America to sell a bunch of tickets for these shows where they're going all over the place. I mean, listen, I love will Osprey, okay, but if New Japan is coming to

my town, they're running split to hers. One's going to Bothel, one's going to Afrid. One show's got Osprey, and one show's got tana Hashi. No disrespect Osprey, but I'm gonna go see tana Hashi because he's an all time legend, and God only knows how many more chances I'm gonna have to see him having a match in Bothel I

Bothel will be zero. Whereas I'm pretty sure that if I go to a bunch of shows over the next few years, I'm gonna have plenty of opportunities to see will Osprey, you know, for some big show here there or whatever. So I think that it would be better off to have ton of Hashi win the title come to the US, leave Osprey in Japan, and we got a bunch of programs with guys coming over talking about

former New Japan guy for a minute. Just because it took place on SmackDown, I didn't have a chance to hear any of your shows that but Shinski Nakamura being the guy who I I look I because I know some people have been negative on him was wondering if you were like I like this for the just this reason Cruise control Nakamura at this point in his career. I love it for him. I love the fact he gets to go to the beach every day and all

that sort of good stuff. But I know he can turn it on for one more match, and I think under the circumstances, because they don't have anybody there and anybody ready and it's not Drew and You're gum throw is all that they don't have anybody, So at least I know I'll get Roman reigns and knock Moura in at least one good match if even though the story sucks, May I I'm not sure you're gonna get that match,

And that's the main reason. That's the main reason I hated this segment because Roman Rains was supposed show up on Raw and tell us what's next. So Roman Rains shows up on Roddy. He says, I'm gonna tell you what's next on SmackDown. So we go to SmackDown and Roman Rains doesn't tell us what's next. Nakamura comes out. They literally lay him out like the world's biggest geek. And when it was over, he still didn't tell me what was next, and I thought, I hope what's next

is not Nakamura after that angle. How in the world are you gonna make me care about? I mean, yeah, I like Nakamura. I'm sure you could have a good match with Roman, but that's your bill to Nakamura being the next challenger after Roman unified two belts against brock Lesner. So I think he's gonna go to Raw and there's gonna be a challenger from Raw and Nakamura just got geeked out because I don't know. I could be wrong, but I thought that's second blame boogs oh poor books

back in a moment. Observer Live back the show. Brian Alvarez here Wrestling Observer Live mixumbur viv also Wrestling Observer dot Com. Alrighty well, Ross tonight is noted and at about an hour, it's gonna be myself and Filthy Toma Lawlor. If you want the full review of the SmackDown show from Friday night, we're gonna do that as well as this week's New Japan Strong and in fact, I'm gonna watch the Filthy Tom match from last week's New Japan

strong with Clark Conners where spoil everybody? Tom beat him? Which do you apologize to him? Yet? I thought that Clark might have had his number, especially when Clark he promised to win as a baby face. You're supposed to do that unless you're gonna win, dude, stop back in all these horses against the stallion himself. Filthy Tom Lawler, you're a new japan Strong open weight champion. And halftime festivities at the Clippers game? See that? Yeah, check his

twitter before you do that show. Check his twitter. He and uh Finley and I believe it was Jonah All lifted up the Clippers mascot and took him out of the court, and I believe maybe threw him across the floor and then made out with the cheerleaders. But I didn't see the entire club. Wow, how about that? Well, maybe I'll check that out. I know his twitter is a filthy Tom Lawler, and I know my Twitter is at Brian Alvarez, and I know my cameo is at

four W online. All cameos this week from beautiful San Francisco, California. Wa here looks like everybody, let's see if you can see I'm gonna mess this up somehow. But oh man, look at that the Hollywood Hills, even though we're not in Hollywood. Yeah, apparely, it's just my fingers. I covered up the camera. Can you see that? Everyone? No, there you go. Tom. I'll see you Friday, See you later, everybody.

Wrestling Observer Live. You've been listening to the Wrestling Observer Daily podcast on the eight Side Network