Brock Lesnar stripped of IWGP Title

[Cuban Linx 0]

From puroresufan.com:

 

The worst possible scenario has happened, and Simon Inoki is hanging his head in shame today. Due to "problems with a working visa" (well, there's a new one), Brock Lesnar cannot attend Monday's Tsukisamu Green Dome show and New Japan has stripped him of the IWGP Heavyweight Title. For many, this was expected when he first won the belt, but when he kept returning and returning, doubts started to fade. Whether there is any truth to the "working visa" reason I don't know, but the fact is again an overpriced and undertalented primadonna has turned out to be nothing but a problem for New Japan. Simon Inoki posted a formal apology on the official site and gave refundment details (they don't usually do this, but they realize the severity of this incident), but there will be a tournament on Monday to determine a new champion right before the G1. On a personal note, and I try to stay positive (I will always support New Japan, but not everyone will), Simon Inoki should take all the blame for this and instantly be removed as New Japan president (or better yet, resign his post and take responsibility). Lesnar has been Simon's project when opposition in the company has called for him to get the belt off Brock for months now. There was a high chance that could have happened at the Green Dome, but we'll never know. After regaining so much trust this year, New Japan has again taken a step back and again has to restart from scratch in building fan trust. There may come a time, and it could be this one, that it is too late to do that. There is also the question of how this will effect wrestlers. The tournament on Monday has to be done as well as possible in this situation, and the G1 has to be done even better. The 9/1 Budokan show, an Inoki(s) brainstorm, should be axed immediately by Yuke's, and Naoki Sugehayashi or someone equally suitable has to replace Simon as president.

 

Safe to say the Lesnar experiment is officially a total disaster.

[Mole 0]

What was wrong with him?

[JHawk 0]

As far as I know, Lesnar's matches weren't exactly lighting the world on fire.

 

My question: Why not just put the belt up to the winner of the G1 and make it have some extra meaning this year?

[Lil' Bitch 0]

*starts Lesnar is coming back to WWE rumors

[haws bah gawd 0]

So, is it now safe to say that Brock has burned his bridges with nearly every major wrestling promotion? Whats next for the big lug?

[Cuban Linx 0]

If Lesnar's going anywhere it'll be to K1.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

From DM:

 

--Brock Lesnar and New Japan management had a big falling out regarding Monday's match with Hiroshi Tanahashi in Sapporo. Lesnar has quit the promotion and there will be a tournament for the IWGP heavyweight title. New Japan is offering refunds for Monday's show.

 

The wrestlers in the tournament, according to SSS:

 

- Hiroshi Tanahashi

- Hiroyoshi Tenzan

- Yuji Nagata

- Giant Bernard

- Akebono

- Travis Tomko

 

As expected, the SSS crew have begun to tear Lesnar a new one before the all the facts have come out. I'd be interested in hearing what the exact nature of the dispute was before laying the blame. As for the tournament, I think it'll be Nagata or Tenzan winning, and Tanahashi will get the belt in January.

[Hawkius Maximus 0]

Funny, and yet sad at the same time.

 

I was all for Brock in NJPW, but it's become painfully obvious over time that it was NOT working. When Brock first came in, the idea was that he'd win the title, and then tour with the promotion becoming their true ace, regardless if he's a Gaijin or not...then they put the title on him, and he refused to tour. He refused to do anything beyond a couple shows per month, if THAT. Brock would never work a tournament, he would never work a tour, simply put, he didn't give a fuck about his stay in NJPW. He was there for money, and he needed someone at the time to fight WWE for him, and NJPW was that gullible sucker.

 

Now Brock can do whatever he wants, and he doesn't want to do NJPW anymore. Hell, he might not want to do wrestling anymore period, which makes sense since he never put any effort into any of his NJPW matches. At some point, ring rust stops being a valid excuse for having subpar preformences. Brock's name was big, but he never capitalized on his name value and gave the fans a reason to want to see him. He came in, looked slightly out of shape, and proceeded to not do half, or even a quarter of the neat shit he did in WWE. He simply didn't try.

 

On top of that, Brock never drew as champion. It's one thing if you come in and suck, but draw, but Brock didn't do that. His match with Akebono, who regardless of his over-exposure still has enough name value to sell out decent arenas failed to. It should have been an automatic. Brock the wrestling machine v.s. Akebono, the legenedary sumo. it didn't work. None of Brock's matches did anything for NJPW, and now their left with egg on their faces once again.

 

It's both NJPW and Brock's fault for this. NJPW continues to rely on other promotions, and outside workers to do anything significant in the promotion. Nakamura and Tanahashi aren't fully ready, but now's the time. There's no one left who can credibly carry NJPW. Nagata's been jobbed too much, Tenzan's IWGP title reigns were complete failures and are laughed at. Chono's too old, Makabe's just now getting a push, Choshu's too old, Bernard missed his big chance against Lesnar, Tomko's not over and not good enough, Shiro's an outsider, Akebono is an outsider, Manabu's never been able to reach the next level, Omori's an outsider...they've got no one BUT Nakamura and Tanahashi to build around. Tanahashi should win the title immediately in dominate fashion, then win the G1, and hold onto the title a MINIMUM of six months before a big clash with Nakamura. Make everyone else secondary, and start building new stars and carefully keeping credibility on Tenzan and Nagata.

 

This is NJPW though...Tomko will win the title, then quit. Watch.

[The Niggardly King 0]

Brock is on track to being one of the smartest wrestlers in the business.

 

He quits WWE at the height of his drawing power because he didn't want to turn into Kurt Angle, waits it out until he's signed by NJPW for ridiculous amounts of money, gets a limited scheduled, destroys everyone, and leaves with his head held high.

[CheesalaIsGood 0]

Don't rule out a WWE return no matter how badly the bridge is burned with Vince. WWE put alot of time and money into him to just let him slip entirly away. They may not take him back right away, but they will take him back. He won't HAVE to go anywhere else.

[Hawkius Maximus 0]

Lesnar seems obsessed with doing MMA right now. If he does, he'll likely get his ass beat if he doesn't take time to train. If he goes into it thinking he'll smash people based on his wrestling and strength, he'll be in for a ruuuude awakening real fast.

 

If that fails, Ican see Vince taking Lesnar back, and then gloating his way to the bank.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

I believe the intent was for Brock to begin touring properly around the start of the year, as that was when the talk began to come up of New Japan wanting Brock to tour came up. If Brock was able to negotiate a sweet deal for himself that was to the detriment of New Japan then the blame lies solely with New Japan for giving him such a deal. A wrestler should try and get the best deal for himself he can, because nobody else is going to get it for him.

 

Lesnar is meant to be signing a deal with an MMA group soon, almost certainly HEROES, so that is where he is likely headed.

[World's Worst Man 0]

I wouldn't be surprised if Nagata wins the tournament and drops the title to Tanahashi sometime later this year/early next year. As for Lesnar, he brought nothing to the table for New Japan. He wasn't drawing, he was god awful in the ring and he wasn't touring. It wasn't originally a bad idea to bring him in, but once it was apparent that he was a bomb, New Japan should have moved on.

[Guest wildpegasus]

Personally, I hope A-Train wins the belt.

 

 

Lesnar may not be what he used to be in the ring but I think a lot of people don't realise that a good deal of that was due to not working the WWE style.

If he does go into MMA it sure will be interesting and you better believe I'll be checking out those matches.

[Hawkius Maximus 0]

I don't buy that without the WWE style Lesnar's skills weren't as good. Or that the WWE style stunted his ability as a wrestler. The more obvious example against that is Jamal. He went to AJPW and became their top gaijin, and one of their most popular workers. It wasn't just his push, he showed charisma he never had shown before, and his ring work (And them allowing him to be as stiff as he wanted) was significantly better. Tomko's gotten decent/good reviews in NJPW too. TAJIRI is excelling in HUSTLE. I don't buy that Brock's ring-work suffered due to WWE style...it suffered because he didn't give a fuck.

 

Bernard should have beaten Brock for the title. It was perfectly set up. Bernard crushes Brock, and becomes the top gaijin in Japan. It would make sense, because Bernard's shown loyalty to NJPW that some of the natives haven't given them. They have given him the status that they wanted Brock to have, in that he's a full NJPW worker. He's not an outsider anymore, he's a NJPW loyalist. They dropped the ball BAAAAAD with Brock beating Bernard, and now their paying for it. As is usual with NJPW's mistakes. This is only the what....Fifth time this has happened in the last few years?

 

Edit: I just thought about it for a second...and I can think of a few examples without looking it up.

 

Fujita vacates title

Nakamura vacates title

Sapp vacates title

Fujita pulls a fucked up ending with Sasaki which basicly amounts to a vacate, if not worse

Brock vacates title

 

...Just off the top of my head. Then throw in Tenzan's mutliple one defense combined reigns, Nagata's long reign, Takayama's reign, Yasuda's disaster reign, Sasaki getting two lameduck reigns, the Kojima run unifying the TC and IWGP titles. The last time a NJPW worker, looking at SSS records that had a SIGNIFICANT reign with the title with no outsider ties? Nagata. He won the title FOUR YEARS AGO.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

On his recent F4 Daily appearance, DM said there really was a visa problem, but that isn't what caused the break up. Whatever it is, people aren't talking about it, so it sounds big.

[Open the Muggy Gate 0]

My only guess can be Brock getting cold feet on dropping it to Tanahashi. Could be money, but I'm gonna say the first one. Probably thinks it'll damage his MMA future or some bullshit.

[Guest BrokenWings]

Fujita pulls a fucked up ending with Sasaki which basicly amounts to a vacate, if not worse

 

What's the story behind this, if anyone cares to explain? Thanks in advance.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

Fujita pulls a fucked up ending with Sasaki which basicly amounts to a vacate, if not worse

 

What's the story behind this, if anyone cares to explain? Thanks in advance.

Fujita was still doing MMA and the best finish they could get him, and his people, to agree to was Fujita getting Sasaki in a sleeper and falling on his back, essentially pinning himself.

[Hawkius Maximus 0]

Don't forget to add that Fujita got up and started smiling and LAUGHING right after, if I remember right. NJPW fans nearly fucking rioted. That was easily the worst moment in current NJPW, with the only close ones being Nakamura getting fucked up in a shoot fight, stalling his career out hardcore, and Nagata doing...what else...MMA, stalling HIS career out.

 

Right now, NJPW has the title on a native, and just need to build strongly from within. They can do it still, it's just a question if they wanna or not.

[FroGG_NeaL 0]

Brock is on track to being one of the smartest wrestlers in the business.

 

He quits WWE at the height of his drawing power because he didn't want to turn into Kurt Angle, waits it out until he's signed by NJPW for ridiculous amounts of money, gets a limited scheduled, destroys everyone, and leaves with his head held high.

 

 

The truth.

 

He'll probably show up here and there and do it agian from time to time.

 

If TNA could get him to work a program with Joe, where Brock is motived and put Joe over in the end, It could be awesome.