10 Plain Wrong Wrestling Myths Perpetuated By The IWC
2. Japanese Wrestling Is Inaccessible
When Shinsuke Nakamura arrived at TakeOver: Dallas, many comments sections were besieged by the same sentiment.
"I never watched Nakamura in New Japan, but I'm glad he's in WWE now. He's awesome!"
"I hope more guys from Japan come to WWE so that I can start watching them!"
Japanese wrestling is apparently inaccessible - but if you invest some time and effort into it, you'll quickly find that it isn't.
The commentary is cited by most as the reason they refuse to watch - yet one of the few things the IWC is in agreement with is that the commentary on WWE TV is terrible, repetitive, and places little importance on the matches themselves.
Though impossible to comprehend, the commentary on Japanese events is somehow still immersive. Much like a puroresu match itself, it begins quietly before escalating into a deafening cacophony, inexplicably thrusting you into the story - which you can easily study up on within minutes on Wikipedia.
It's well worth the effort, too. There's a reason Dave Meltzer has, post-late '80s NWA, reserved the ***** rating almost exclusively for puroresu matches - because they're high watermarks of the art.
Structured to resemble legitimate sporting contests, modern day New Japan matches in particular make it incredibly easy to suspend disbelief without sacrificing entertainment value - if you stay the course, you'll be treated to some of the most dynamic and reversal-stuffed finishing sequences you'll ever see.