10 LIVE Observations From The NJPW/ROH G1 Supercard
One of the greatest nights of my life.
Last night was a surreal and intoxicating and outstanding night of professional wrestling.
Madison Square Garden is the most beautiful-looking arena I've ever had the pleasure to step foot in. A striking contrast to the steep Barclays Center, the height of which doesn't prohibit the atmosphere or the view up in the cheap seats but does remove you somewhat from the blast radius, MSG is a wonder of architecture. Gigantic but also somehow intimate, with its perfect sloping structure, the effect was simple: a huge mass of very loud hardcore fans, buzzing at the perfect panoramic arena-wide view, were literally in the best position possible to take in and celebrate and provide a suitable atmosphere for a special night.
I had privately resolved not to mention WWE when mapping out this article, inextricably linked though the company is to the location; I didn't want to use it as a means of burying one promotion, but celebrating another. That aside: WWE are so cash rich that their reluctance to run MSG, which would hardly make a loss, is rank capitalism. That exquisite building oozes history and gravitas. It was like a magic, reciprocal thing: the crowd, collectively, agreed to furnish the show with an incredible atmosphere, as if aware that it is the premium battleground.
You don't phone in it in at the Garden - fans nor talent...
10. How To Craft The Perfect Opening Match
I'm not the most expressive of wrestling fans.
When I attend a show, my octogenarian bladder stops me from drinking too heavily and loosening up. Also, I consider it my civic duty to not indulge in the worst chants. I want to be be the change I want to see in the world. Will Ospreay and Jeff Cobb, by crafting the perfect opening match, changed all that. The hot opener is a lost art in the streaming age because, too often, the epic length ripples across the rest of the show, affecting the sequencing and, consequently, the heat. By going just under 13 minutes, Ospreay and Cobb perfected the remit with their astonishing dynamic, one perfectly calibrated to trigger the endorphins.
When it was over, all I wanted to do was watch more pro wrestling. To mainline more pro wrestling. Ospreay took a vaulting neck-first bump in the first second of the match. From there, in an absolute banger, Ospreay and Cobb essentially threw each other up into the air and across the ring with a propulsive brute force in their own unique version of the Keith Lee Vs. Dominik Dijakovic dynamic. And again, I had to smile at the bullsh*t take that Ospreay can't tell stories; here, his all-risk approach and inexperience in the heavyweight ranks informed the result. He attempted to go power move for power move with the most powerful wrestler on the planet, and lost.
At one point, at the apex of a stunning Tour Of The Islands reversal, I shouted Oh my - and when I got to God, I screamed it, with blood curdled, because they reversed it AGAIN mid-flight.