Csonka’s NJPW Fighting Spirit Unleashed 2018 Takeaways

WELCOME back to column time with Larry! Today, I am going to discuss the NJPW Fighting Spirit Unleashed 2018 event (Review Here). While the show lacked buzz heading into it, I felt that it ended up being a really great show and one I tremendously enjoyed. I have some takeaways from the show I’d like to discuss today. Feel free to share yours in the comment section. Thanks for reading! It’s wrestling, we love it and will disagree. The only rules are to “have a take, be respectful, and don’t be a dick.” Thanks for reading.

Having a great time so far. #njfsu pic.twitter.com/vXFG251Ixq

— Anthony Kamar (@anthonykmart) October 1, 2018

Yes, Attendance Was Down: This is one of those odd/touchy subjects that some want to mock and others don’t want to discuss because they don’t want to accept reality. New Japan announced a crowd of 3,007 fans for Fighting Spirit Unleashed in Walter Pyramid, which is 1,300 down from their last Long Beach show. Like I said, some want to mock it while others don’t want to accept it instead of looking into why sales are down. There are several reasons.

– They have oversaturated the market. You can’t keep running California with shows that don’t come across as big or important events on paper. NJPW Fighting Spirit Unleashed 2018 ended up a great show, but there was no buzz, and the show felt like just another NJPW US show.

– Between ROH & NJPW proper, there have been more shows with more NJPW talent on them in the US than ever before. Seeing the stars of NJPW was previously a special thing that didn’t happen as much, but now there are more chances and more shows to spend money on, and even the most diehard fans can’t attend them all.

– With how NJPW books, the timing of the show was bad. They didn’t have a full card set until 6-day before the event, and I’m sorry, but Juice vs. Cody, Ospreay vs. Scurll, & the Bucks vs. Guerrillas aren’t selling 5,000 seats on their own. But the reason they chose the date was to keep it in sync with ROH Death Before Dishonor weekend, which on paper seems to make sense with the talent overlap, but in actuality just caused another issue. With the show date and location being so close to the ROH Death Before Dishonor event, you were splitting your audience (a mistake by both ROH & NJPW), and making some fans chose between the shows.

– To many people, the NJPW US shows don’t feel enough like “NJPW” shows, due to the lack of marquee singles matches between NJPW stars.

The bottom line is that there is nothing wrong with discussing the attendance for the event being down. It’s a fact, it’s out there, and there are several reasons for it, which NJPW needs to address going forward.

Jeff Cobb Has Arrived: Jeff Cobb had a huge weekend, appearing at ROH Death Before Dishonor, taking the TV Title the next night (which isn’t much of a spoiler anymore as he wore the title at Fighting Spirit Unleashed), and then put in a hell of a performance in his tag match. Word is that Cobb plans to heavily focus on ROH & NJPW going forward and into 2019 and this weekend was the start of that. NJPW usually doesn’t do anything without purpose, and Cobb’s dominant performance on top of his post match altercation with Hirooki Goto all point to some big things coming for him. Cobb is a great get for any company, and the reports were that Impact, ROH, & NJPW were all interested in him. It appears that ROH & NJPW are the big winners here, and with Martinez gone from ROH, they need him. He also provides a ton of fresh matches for both ROH & NJPW. It’s a huge score for both and a great career move for Cobb.

Cody Wins The US Title: As many predicted going into the show, Cody defeated Juice Robinson to win the IWGP US Title. While it was a lot of Cody bringing the circus to town as usual, the match was very good as Juice was a tremendous babyface and Cody’s heel act came off well in terms of making the fans dislike him. Cody plays his role very well, but I strongly feel that the act and work he uses would come off much better if he didn’t use it in every major match. Because if it was something he only brought out when he really needed, out of desperation, I think that it would mean much more when he does use it. The thing is that this match was that tie, but when you see it all the time, even in minor matches, it loses its desire effect, at least for me. Juice’s run was been completely underwhelming, a G1 filled with losses, and around 90 days as champion with no defenses to his credit, only made the run one to say he was a champion and to avoid him being a choke artist in big matches following failures against guys like Goto & Naito. But while I personally am not a huge fan of the move, Cody’s NJPW matches in the US had been a disappointment (in terms of results) losing IWGP Title matches to both Okada & Omega. My hope is that this leads to a Juice redemption at WrestleKingdom as Juice gets revenge and going full circle from his loss at WrestleKingdom 10 to Cody. The fact is that NJPW sees Cody as a star and a possible big name in their goals to expand into the US market and what it led to did make sense…

They Are Making us Wait For Omega vs. Ibushi II: The big closing angle of NJPW Fighting Spirit Unleashed 2018 was Omega looking to set up the rematch with Ibushi for next week’s King of Pro Wrestling event. But just as Omega was setting the stage, Cody arrived. They may all be friends now, but Cody is as opportunistic and manipulative as ever. Two belts aren’t enough for Cody, so in a move that has seemingly angered several fans, Cody proposed a triple threat match so that the Golden Lovers didn’t have to break their promise and fight again. Cody’s challenge not only works due to him being NWA Champion and IWGP US Champion, but also because he’s defeated both Ibushi & Omega in the last year in singles matches. But more importantly than all of that, it also delays the Omega & Ibushi match, giving us a longer and more appropriate build. Omega spoke about the rematch needing to be bigger than the first if it happens, bigger than Buddakan Hall and the G1, so what’s bigger than that? Madison Square Garden over WrestleMania weekend, that’s what…

– End Scene.

– Thanks for reading.

“Byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye Felicia!”