I have been a NJPW and Puro fan since I discovered it in 2017 with the famous Omega vs Okada. At the time I just turned 12 and for the last 8 years and my whole teenage years I have been obsessed with the Japanese interpretation of this magnifient mix between sport and art. Not only watching New Jap (and progressively other companies) semi-religously but also digging in the past, learning about the Hashimoto, the Fujinami, the Inoki. Now I'm 20 and I'm a student. In my curriculum we have a mandatory year abroad and I choose to go to Japan in large part because I wanted to finally be able to watch my obsession live. And for the last 4 months I've been living a dream. I went to the Korakuen and Ryogoku, I saw guys like Suzuki, Shibata, Naito, Tanahashi, ZSJ even Tatsumi the Dragon Fujinami. And this week was amazing DDT , Stardom, AJPW, NOAH in the legendary Budokan, Marigold, TJPW these were all so fun in so many differents ways. And these last 2 days really felt like a culmination not only of my time in Japan but of my whole lifetime of fandom, no matter what the rating will say yesterday will stay in my memory as one of the best nights I had in my life. But today, today was different. Because today Kenny Omega and Gabe Kidd created a masterpiece. As I said I got into this with Okada and Omega so seeing the Cleaner live was a dream of mine. Yet like 90% of my full Japanese section I was rooting for Gabe because he was, he is the fucking soul of this company. He embody everything I love about this, he is Fighting Spirit, he is Strong Style , he is Inoki, he is New Japan and just like the dad and his son sitting next to me or the two grandpa behind me I gave everything I had shouting his name, showing him that no matter how great Omega is ( and we all know he might be the greatest to have ever entered a ring) we still believe in him, we still love him because he's given everything for this. He loves it just like we do.
Now it's 6PM here , and as I'm writing this I'm crying in a Mos Burger and I too must look like a mad man but Wow I just love wrestling , I love Puroresu, I love NJPW
Thank You Gabe, Thank You Kenny, Thank you King of Sport.
by TokyoThrowaway41