Ask and ye shall receive welcome. It's a special state of wrestling. I told you I would do this if enough of you asked for it this week on the podcast.

It was a giant week in the world of pro wrestling and I didn't think we could wait another full week till next Thursday morning before we got together and we talked about the show that was Russell Kingdom 12.

This week it's been over 24 hours it's been about 36 hours so I feel like I've given everybody enough time to watch the show of course we're on Sam Roberts wrestling podcast you're going to be able to check this thing out on YouTube you can watch live if you're watching now on Facebook live over at facebook.com slash not Sam so plenty of ways to watch this and to celebrate with me as we talk about wrestle Kingdom 12 from New Japan pro wrestling so.

There is always something fun it's the same way there's something fun about unconventional wrestling shows and when people communally get together to watch them so most people in the states at least I'm sure didn't watch this thing live right at least the whole way through you're talking about a show that was six hours long I think it was six hours without counting the battle royal because I didn't see the battle royal I think without counting the battle royal it was still like a six hour show.

Which five or six years ago probably would have been like oh my god what wrestling shows is six hours and you're like well wrestle mania five hours of this for six hours I guess this year wrestle mania was six hours summer slams usually four or five hours if you count the pre shows so we're getting to a point in time where a six hour wrestling show is not as crazy as it once was all that said I'll say the same thing this year that I said about wrestle Kingdom last year and it's amazing.

Watching new Japan pull off a six hour show that actually keeps attention so for us here on the east coast of the United States I'm in New York obviously this thing started at like two o'clock in the morning I do the morning radio show so I couldn't watch it live but I did wake up at like six o'clock in the morning as I usually do and as I'm getting ready and stuff I went oh wait

Russell kingdoms on live all bet and there is something very fun to the fact that before I went to work in the morning I turned on New Japan world and got to watch the end of the Omega Jericho match live and know that there were other American wrestling fans that had stayed up all night watching this thing the same way when the UK tournament was on and it was on it was weird it was like a Saturday afternoon if you watched it live on the WWE network you could watch it Saturday night they were rerunning it but there was something

fun about knowing that there was a community of people watching it all at the same time and I don't see WWE ever doing something like that for one of their paper views just because so much of the audience is here like I don't see

WrestleMania ever taking place in a foreign country because of that because of the time difference you know people want a WrestleMania or a summer slam in the UK and I just think that

because it's the same reason why I don't think UFC will ever run a giant show in one of those countries because UFC goes live on Saturday nights at 10 p.m. on the East Coast that's what time they're on WWE paper views are eight o'clock at night seven if it's a special start time on a Sunday that's what time they're on for us American viewers but New Japan is concentrating on the Japan viewers so I think it's interesting that that happens and I actually think it adds to the show

to build this community around a show that you need to be awake at a certain time for you need to set an alarm for you need to adjust your schedule just to watch it plus it's not in the middle of the week which is nuts but I think it adds to it to have the community all around so we'll talk about

everything that went down at Wrestle Kingdom but yeah I just I just am always so impressed at New Japan's ability to create a six hour wrestling show that while every single match isn't must see every single match is at least should see all matches run between must and should see there was no match at Wrestle Kingdom over the entire show that you sat there going like wow I wouldn't I would this is a skip one

this match you'll you'll never need to see this one but if you like wrestling every match on that card was at least worth a watch so a lot of things happened at Wrestle Kingdom I think I want to start with the last match we'll get to Jericho and Omega but the match that closed the show was the I WGP championship match between Naito and Okada and while Okada has become super popular over the last three or four years

and his series of matches with Kenny Omega really I think put Wrestle Kingdom on the map a couple things Chris Jericho being involved this year and this the trilogy of matches between Okada and Kenny Omega I think put Wrestle Kingdom in New Japan on a level the likes of which I've never seen you know I started watching Wrestle Kingdom like live or at least live ish I think it was Nakamura's

either last year with the company or second to last year might have been his second to last year with the company and I was sitting there gone man this guy Shinsuke Nakamura has brought a whole new level of international attention to this show well we go forward several years and it has it clips that by a lot and it's because of Jericho but it's also because of this series that Okada and Omega have had and and I think that that played it

into the choice of closing the show with Okada and Naito and also the fact that Naito's story so it's interesting with New Japan because while all of there are stories in the promotion and all of their their matches have reasoning and rationale or at least most of them do behind them it's hard for a foreign fan to figure out what the story is right but Naito is such a compare

to telling figure that you just get it with him and when you want the details it's worth it to go out of your way and figure out what his whole backstory is and I did that I went on YouTube and I watched like the long like 25 minute many documentaries kind of chronicling the career of Naito and like I'm a huge fan of him I'm a huge fan I saw him you know I knew of him obviously and I'd seen him wrestle before

but two years ago probably I saw him live when Ring of Honor did a show and it was when he was the IWGP Intercontinental Champion and it was just his presentation the mask the way he just threw the championship into the ring he just didn't care about anything and he was living it right it's not like he didn't care about anything except for the championship or he didn't care about anything even in the way he would wear that disco suit

to the ring and instead of taking it off the way Cesaro takes his off and it's this big flashy thing you literally see him undoing his cuffs taking on talking button out about it just taking his time trying kilo everything is trun kilo and I'm like it's it's amazing what's going on with this guy so at that moment when I saw him I was like that guy to me is the future of New Japan like that guy is the guy to keep an eye on I have

that feeling as much as like you know you look at a a bushy and and Taana Hashie and Okaata like to me Naito in that moment was the one that I go like that's what I would I would put all the money on that guy gives me feelings the way Nakamura gave me feelings years ago

and so I really wanted him to win and he got to a place where I think most of the audience wanted him to win most of the new Japan audience especially the people that had had watched his journey as a guy who was like this sort of young up in

Kamer and this guy with all the potential in the world and this young dude who it looked like they were going to strap the rocket on but then the fans didn't get

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