Opinion
Val: Minoru Suzuki HAS to Become IWGP US Champion in Osaka
Should the leader of Suzuki-Gun defeat Jon Moxley at New Beginning in Osaka ?
At Wrestle Kingdom 14, on the second night, Minoru Suzuki made a quite shocking appearance after Jon Moxley retained the IWGP US Heavyweight championship against Juice Robinson, challenging the two-time champion in the process.
In this article, I will be discussing why Suzuki should leave Osaka-Jo Hall with the US title. Ready ? Let’s take our towel off, give our meanest look to the camera, and dive into this !
To start it all off, I want to bring some eyes back to a previous article I wrote about New Japan. It was about the company’s expansion in the United States, and how they could use the US title to help the expansion process. In that piece, I tackled two main points : The first one was the creation of a “Gaijin Quartet” featuring the likes of Jay White, Zack Sabre Jr, Juice Robinson and Will Ospreay, all gravitating around what is still so far, the “Gaijin belt” within New Japan. The other point was far more simple : Let Japanese wrestlers challenge for the title, and possibly even hold it for quite some time. At Wrestle Kingdom 14, the first part of that second point became a reality, as Minoru Suzuki stepped up to Jon Moxley, delivering the Gotch-Style Piledriver, making his intentions clear.
As the match has been made official for the New Beginning in Osaka event, we are closer than ever to witness the second part of my point coming to fruition, and it is now time to explain why Gedo should absolutely make it happen.
The first thing to consider, of course, is that Jon Moxley could very well retain his championship in Osaka. However, and this is where I will start, having Moxley retain against Suzuki may cause some issues in the long run. For instance, Moxley is, as far as we know, unable to perform for New Japan in the US, which is quite problematic if he is bound to hold the US title for more than a month. After all, New Japan has set up a variety of events in Florida, Georgia and even Tennessee for their New Beginning in USA tour, but at none of these events will American fans get to see the US champion, because he is simply not allowed to appear.
Am I the only one to find this odd, as well as counterproductive regarding New Japan’s expansion in the country ?
I could even bring up AEW, and the fact that Moxley may very well end up as the new world champion there in a short while, which would limit his possibilities regarding New Japan bookings even more, as much as he wants to keep working in Japan. But, let’s not dive into that too much and keep the focus on New Japan affairs. As I just said, Moxley wants to keep wrestling for New Japan, but the real question to ask is whether or not he needs the US title to do that.
This is exactly where his Osaka opponent slides in. Minoru Suzuki is no ordinary opponent in more ways than one, and here we are not going to talk about his Murder Grandpa nickname given by the wrestling community. Suzuki is a star, a big international star. He has as beloved in Japan as he is in the USA, Australia or anywhere in Europe. The man has and brings more value than very few people within the New Japan roster, even at the age of 51. I am not going to list you his resume, you know how legendary the man is, just keep the value and popularity aspects in mind. Suzuki has not held any IWGP gold since Wrestling Hi-No-Kuni in 2018, where Tetsuya Naito reclaimed the IWGP Intercontinental championship, after Suzuki had destroyed Hiroshi Tanahashi to win the title in Sapporo… At New Beginning.
Approximately two years later, Suzuki gets the chance to once again win one of New Japan’s championships, one of the two singles championships he has yet to win. Suzuki adding his name to the list of US champions would bring instant value and prestige to the title, and you know Suzuki will treat the title as a prize deserving of his own worth, otherwise he would have never made the challenge, and would have taken a personal revenge on Moxley without caring for the title. Adding to that, in contrary to Moxley, Suzuki can appear wherever he wants, whenever he wants. New Japan could actually use their US champion in future tours around the USA, as well as having the US title show up more in Japan, just like when Jay White and Juice Robinson were champions.
Lastly, speaking of White and Robinson, let’s dive back into the “Gaijin quartet” idea I brought up a long while ago, especially one of its members in Zack Sabre Jr. In another piece I wrote which was dubbed “The twilight of Suzuki-Gun”, I brought up the idea of ZSJ taking leadership of the faction. The way to do it remains unclear, and who knows if it will ever happen, but let’s say it eventually does. Suzuki vs Zack is a match New Japan has never delivered so far, this is one of the matches the company is heavily protecting (we have seen members of the same faction colliding in the G1 for years, yet Suzuki and Zack never did), and there must be a reason for it. With Suzuki as US champion, a door opens for this match to happen. So far, Zack has been used as the standard regarding the British Heavyweight championship, which is essentially his title, but there’s going to be a time where Zack will HAVE to hold a different type of gold, IWGP gold, if New Japan indeed sees him as one of their top foreigners, which seems quite clear they do.
The point here being that, with Suzuki becoming IWGP US champion, you open the door to the possibility of skyrocketing ZSJ in another dimension in the long run, while giving one (last ?) well earned championship run to one of the most popular veterans in all of wrestling, after nearly two years of championship drought.
On that note, this is where this article comes to a close ! Do you think Minoru Suzuki should leave Osaka-Jo Hall as IWGP US champion ? If so, what would you expect to happen in the long run with an eventual championship reign ?
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Opinion
TheChairshot.com PRESENTS: WWE Bash In Berlin Immediate Reactions
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About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY – Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
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Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
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Opinion
AJ’s Top 3 Favorite SummerSlams
AJ is back with his annual opinion article, and this time the SummerSlam buzz got him wondering about his personal Top 3.
It’s been a while since I have done any form of writing and SummerSlam is this Saturday. Of all the SummerSlams I’ve seen over the years; which ones are my favorites? While it’s not a revolutionary idea, I figured everyone loves to debate favorites of well, anything. Don’t worry though because this isn’t just going to be pure recency bias. I’ve watched the majority of them so with the ones I put on the list, it hit me more in some way shape or form whether it was story, a really good match or it just felt like a solid event.
At least this proves WWE is trending in a good direction for me, when it gets the ol’ brain juices flowing just because a show is around the corner!
#3: 2022 (Ol’ Brock Lesnar Has A Farm)
Starting off the show, we get Bianca looking for a rematch against Becky from last years SummerSlam and it was better than the 21 second affair that everyone claims was a squash. This time Bianca holds her own and beats the Man in a fairly decent match, good way to get the event started. Next up is the heat seeking missile, Logan Paul against the former heat seeking missile because, well he wasn’t cut out for it and wasn’t a guy in everyone’s eyes, The Miz. After they had their blow off at Mania with Logan coming out on top which… isn’t awful, I just don’t like Logan Paul because he has that dude bro aura and swagger to make him more hateable than any other person on the card. Which I suppose is his gimmick…so…kudos?
First Championship match is for the US Championship and it’s as expected that in Theory, he should never beat someone to the caliber of Bobby Lashley which is no surprise. Dominik and Rey still back when Dom wanted the good fight against the Judgement Day before joining them later. The former Colts players, which they hammered it dahn in this match up showed that the canal swimming, trash talkin’, podcastin’, current RAW Color Commentatin’ goofball we all love, Pat McAfee came out on top again Bum Ass Corbin.
Usos putting the Street Profits on lockdown in the penitentiary since I believe this was peak Bloodline with the belt collecting and running all of WWE. Liv beat Ronda Rousey which isn’t astonishing but it’s not something people had on their bingo cards for anything with WWE so it was a nice little shock factor. The most memorable part of the night is obviously the Main Event, Lesnar brings the tractor, Roman catching the Microphone and Brock stands on top of the vehicle. Damn good match that showed off what they do in the ring since Roman caught his stride as the main bad guy and Brock… liked people after all of this? That is still a weird statement in my head. Brock being a good guy people person. If Liv wasn’t on bingo cards for wrestling, that is not on bingo cards in any aspect of life really.
That is more of the event that had solid matches and story going for it. No weird double count out, multiple people involved, 5 tag matches on the card. Things made sense and weren’t convoluted, had shocking moments that were great to see like Liv actually getting a title defense and there were the results we all expected at the time like Theory losing in 4 minutes to Bobby Lashley.
#2: 2009 (Are You Ready for The Return?)
This event wasn’t that strong. It was strong with the star power involved in 2009 with guys like Rey Mysterio as Intercontinental Champion, Orton and Cena for the WWE Championship as it was becoming as stale as month old chips and CM Punk was facing Jeff Hardy before he ultimately returned to TNA at the beginning of 2010 after this PPV. For me, it’s not so much of the show itself, it was more of the memories because the Balai as our friends Chris Platt and Rey Cash like to call my brother and I, we were just coming back into wrestling and we were TNA Fans. We didn’t watch WWE that much really, it was just what came on after another channel had old ROH shows before they moved to three hours and swallowed the 8pm Eastern Slot. No, the reason why this has so many memories for me is three main reasons. First, Orton and Cena. They have had their rivalry since the beginning it seems, being each others foils like Hogan and Piper before them and there had to be a stipulation where if Randy was Counted Out or DQ’d, he’d lose the championship regardless. This was prime Viper Randy and the obvious joke we had of Super Cena where he very rarely lost, unless it was SummerSlam surprisingly enough.
Number two reason was CM Punk and Jeff Hardy. Hardys known for the Ladder and TLC matches in the past and this being the penultimate match for this feud and it was a banger of a match. If you didn’t know Punk before, it was a great introduction to his wrestling. I used to like Punk a lot because of this match because he could talk, wrestle… and not insanely personal with things in wrestling. In all seriousness, this was a great match. Ultimate risks, high reward for Punk grabbing the World Heavyweight Championship and he was given his next feud because of the final boss of SmackDown at that time. Thanks, Teddy Long.
The main and final reason though why this match gave me the memories flowing back is more of the fact that one of my closest and longest termed friends of 23 years, also loves wrestling. Back when we were younger, he’d do MoCap videos on YouTube with his figures. We’d have friends come over for parties at his house and we’d do the one thing WWE always told us not to do and that was try it at home. He was always stronger than me, I was always more charismatic. He had the power aspect and did things with brute force, I could talk my way out of trouble with parents if we did something wrong. There was always one thing that our respective mother’s always called us though… it’s on the tip of my tongue… oh right, ‘Degenerates’.
As soon as we were called that, we kind of parodied the DX line. I was limber enough to do the HBK pose and do a Superkick before it became the new DDT and he would just Spinebuster people and knew how to do the water spit. So what do you think was the main reason we even ordered this PPV for his 13th Birthday? I think the two guys we were pretending to be were set to return on a tank and toss out some glow sticks. The return of DX, Shawn Michaels coming back after Mania with Triple H to deal with the Legacy problem was an amazing return for them and made everything so much fun.
So we have the solid card and this one has a personal story… what’s my number one SummerSlam? Is it personal? Well yes but not going into that. Is it a good card? To me, it was a phenomenal card! Is it memorable? Seeing how wrestling fans still mention at least three matches to this day.
#1: 2005 (Octopus in the Washer, Lover’s Quarrel and Where the F%#$ is Vickie?)
Quite possibly some of the best matches I’ve seen and one that was just the most hilarious moments of overselling in wrestling history, I know why I love this SummerSlam but it’s also a really good card at the same time. Redacted beats Orlando Jordan in 25 seconds for the US Title and they made jokes about it like, he can make a coffee faster than he beat Orlando and stuff like that, it’s pretty funny. Angle getting sick of Eugene’s antics for his Gold Medal was also a great bit they had play up, the Year long feud of Randy Orton and Undertaker was still going on where Orton comes out on top this time around to get the win back from Mania, Jericho returning for the match with Cena in a whole promotional thing for each other’s groups, Fozzy for Jericho and the Chain Gang doing Bad, Bad Man for Cena leading up to a match for the WWE Championship. JBL won a 20 man battle royal on SmackDown to win the Championship…… Opportunity to face the newest member of SmackDown, Batista but the three main matches that a lot of people talk about to this day; Edge vs Matt Hardy, Rey vs Eddie for Dominik and Hogan vs HBK in the Main Event.
I have reasons to enjoy the Hardy/Edge match but it looked like a real fight, it really made us believe that Matt Hardy was going to kill Edge because real names were dropped during this tirade from Hardy. It wasn’t Edge and Lita, it was Adam and Amy. Matt was so dead set on beating the hell out of Edge that they made a situation into gold and it was a great moment for this match to happen, I believe it was also an Unsanctioned Match too which added the intensity until matt got concussed and knocked senseless that it looked like he couldn’t fight for anything but the build up was what made it seem like a marque match. It made it feel real, it made it feel awesome and it made it feel personal.
Eddie kept tormenting Rey Mysterio about Dominik not being Rey’s but Eddie’s for the summer. That’s all you heard from Eddie being the weasel he was is hanging out with Dominik, making the world believe it’s his son and what not (Let’s not do a fast forward to today where he has the mullet, mustache and everything like Eddie) but they settle this in a Ladder Match where the top of it is a document for the custody of Dominik and my god, this match is better than it should have been. I expect nothing else from Eddie because the man hated having a bad match, Dom got involved and stopped Eddie, Vickie was late and stopped Eddie. The whole match was good it was just very weird with the premise but was a great match. I wonder if Rey regrets his decision to win the match now…
Octopus in a Washing Machine… those five words have resonated with Shawn Michaels’ performance in this match, forever. It was supposed to be an amazing match up between Hogan and Michaels, Icon vs Icon it said and suddenly Hogan’s back gives out, can’t do a trilogy of matches so we can only do the one and then pull out of everything after. This match was set up to be a classic and instead turned into the most unbelievable sell fest ever. A Hogan big boot caused Shawn to tumble 3 or 4 times, getting crotched on the ropes had HBK bouncing higher than he should have, being tossed out of the ring made it look like Shawn never broke his back in 1998 from how much he flopped and flipped around like crazy. It’s bad… or maybe even good that a lot of current wrestlers watched this match that went, “I can sell like that, I want to be a wrestler” and did. So good or bad, I don’t know but for some reason this PPV has always had a place in my heart for how memorable it was.
Those are my top three SummerSlams so far but who knows, 2024 has potential to maybe bump something or at least get me to consider a shift. Should be fun to see how the show plays out! What are some of your favorite SummerSlams?
About Chairshot Radio Network
Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!
MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)
TUESDAY - Musical Chairs (music) / Hockey Talk (NHL)
WEDNESDAY - The Greg DeMarco Show (wrestling)
THURSDAY - Keeping the news ridiculous... The Oddity / Chairshot NFL (NFL)
FRIDAY - DWI Podcast (Drunk Wrestling Intellect)
SATURDAY - The Mindless Wrestling Podcast
SUNDAY - The Front and Center Sports Podcast
CHAIRSHOT RADIO NETWORK PODCAST SPECIALS
Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE's PPV/PLE history)
TheChairshot.com PRESENTS...IMMEDIATE POST WWE PLE REACTIONS w/ DJ(Mindless), Tunney(DWI) & Friends
Patrick O'Dowd's 5X5
Classic POD is WAR
Chairshot Radio Network Your home for the hardest hitting podcasts... Sports, Entertainment and Sports Entertainment!
Powered by RedCircle
Let us know what you think on social media @ChairshotMedia and always remember to use the hashtag #UseYourHead!