Bryan Danielson, your new GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion

[D2Kvirus]

To quote an all-time wrestling great that is currently unemployed: "We're. Taking. OVER!!!"

[The Kid]

I'd be willing to bet he drops it to Nakajima next week.

[D2Kvirus]

It's been brought up - usually in conjunction with the fact Kensuke Sasaki is GHC champ (and proof that NOAH needs to realise there are wrestlers under 35 years of age) and the probability of a Sasaki family one-two.

True, the Briscoes held the GHC Jnr. Heavyweight titles for a fortnight, but then again won it on their first appearance. AmDrag's been in NOAH for a while and building up, so it'll be interesting.

Or a riot in Philly.

[The Kid]

To be fair, I think Nakajima's probably the best choice anyway, and a NOAH title change in another country would be intresting. That being said, 2 switches outside of their company might not be a good move for them.

[D2Kvirus]

It happens a lot with the Junior and Tag titles a lot more: the GHC Junior Heavyweight Tag Tema titles (fuck me is that a mission to type) have been held by the Briscoes, Speed Muscle (Doi & Yoshino) and New Hazard (Shingo and BxB Hulk) since last year, whilst Nagata & Tanahashi have held the main tag belts (I'm too lazy to do a full list).

As alluded to on the ROH boards a lot of late, NOAH seem to botch a lot of title reigns: Marufuji and Morishima were declared failures as they had the two lowest attended GHC title defences, (against KENTA and Takeshi Rikio respectivly), ignoring the fact they were Friday night events which are typically under-attended in puroresu, or seem to be incapable of giving a list of credible challengers.

Hope over experience says AmDrag, who's been having a good run in NOAH by all accounts (albeit having to give the likes of KENTA and Marufuji their wins back first), so he might get a decent run. But, then again, with the Sasaki/Nakajima partisanship, it's likely they'll just pass it right along, which will be a bit of a waste.

[The Kid]

True that Danielson has been booked fairly strong considering he's a junior and such. Giving Marafugi and KENTA their wins doesn't really hurt him, as both are kind of considered bigger than that division now. But yeah, Puro as a whole is kind of dead now a days.

If there were more people who actually gave a fuck I would actually consider starting an ideas to save Puro thread, because right now it's pretty shitty.

[D2Kvirus]

As noted on the ROH baord, there's a pretty decent reason Puro is in trouble.

If you look at the crowd at a Dragon Gate show, they're pretty close to the average American fan, wearing T-shirts, jeans, and getting into the action. Compare this to NOAH or NJPW, where the crowd all seem to be stern-faced men in suits that don't get into the action. As a result, Dragon gate will raise the bar in order to keep the fans happy, but the rest don't. The wrestling is top quality, true, but they don't branch out as much.

NOAH in particular keep the old guard around for far too long - Misawa is broken down and can only raise his game a handful of times per year, Kobashi can still go but is prone to long absences that they should be looking elsewhere, and Akiyama has never fulfilled his potential. Yet All Japan are worse, considering Keiji Mutoh is bolted-on in the top spot, and he's broken down beyond belief - Kojima and Tenzan both deserve a run at the top, quite frankly. At least New Japan have tried to make new stars of late.

But, as alluded to, if NOAH are opening up more to members of the New Japan, Dragon Gate and even D2T rosters to give their product a shot in the arm (as well as having half the ROH roster touring, it seems), at least they're attempting to turn the tide in their favour.

[D2Kvirus]

So, he won his first defence...and promptly drops the title to KENTA in his second, just so NOAH can run a KENTA vs. Marufuji/NOAH Jr. Heavweight vs. AJPW Jr. Heavweight Title match.

Any wonder a lot of insiders are despairing at the puro scene these days?

[The Kid]

I don't mind dropping the belt to KENTA, as Danielson wasn't really over anyway. What I don't get is hotshotting the Marafugi/KENTA match without any real buildup. That Budokan show is gonna bombbbb.

[D2Kvirus]

If any matchup is getting buildup, it's the winner of KENTA/Marufuji against Shuji Kondo in the next matchup - so essentially it's two hotshotted title changes before a match with Kondo?

At times you have to ask if NOAH, AJPW or NJPW even know what they're doing anymore, not least because most of their titles are held by people not on their roster and titles seem to bounce between guys far too often - or a champion is deemed a "failure" because of low attendance on a Friday night show (Marufuji vs. KENTA and Morishima vs. Rikio are the two lowest-gate GHC defences, both on a Friday, and both used to cite as weakness of the champion), when Saturday is the traditional night. WWE quickly learned they were taking a bath on Taboo Tuesday and switched it to Cyber Sunday as Tuesday isn't the traditional night for wrestling PPVs, Sunday is as an easy comparison.