The Eastern Lariat returns right before the final stage of the 2025 New Japan Cup with a look back at the tournaments' early rounds, an assessment of the overall tournament quality and where the roads might lead for some of the main players such as David Finlay and Shota Umino and for some up and coming talent like Drilla Moloney and Callum Newman. Besides the New Japan Cup, STRIGGA & Dylan also cover DRAGONGATE's Rey de Parejas tournament trying to figure out how the tournamen could lead to a new challenger for YAMATO. The third big chunk of the show is All Japan Pro Wrestling and their March series including the World Tag Team Title match between the Saitos and Business Tag and a great Junior Title match. The shhow concludes with a brief look at this past weekend's Cinderella Tournament final.

The Eastern Lariat presents the second class of The Eastern Larait Hall of Fame, a pantheon that doesn't celebrate the most successful or necessarily the best wrestlers in japan, but those who matter most to this specific podcast and STRIGGA & Dylan. Some of them might be both the best and those who matter the most – a lot seems possible with this Hall of Fame. In the second half of the show STRIGGA & Dylan return from their trip down memory lane to discuss current events and developments in DDT, TJPW, Marigold and Pro Wrestling NOAH. Join in for some historic and modern japanese pro wrestling talk!

Join the Eastern Lariat in celebrating the impropable coronation of one of New Japan's most loyal and hardest working wrestlers as Hirooki Goto, despite all the setbacks, despite all the losses and despite all the nay sayers finally won the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship on a very good show with lots of developments up and down the card. STRIGGA & Dylan discuss how long Goto's reign might be and who might be the next guys to step up until the G1. After this big thunks, the attention is on a quick digest of Stardom & TJPW before STRIGGA & Dylan discuss All Japan's recent events and the Champion Carnival line up including early favorites. Then the attention lies on DRAGONGATE, their Rey de Parejas tournament and once more their disappointing streaming schedule of a major tournament. Finally, let us know who you'd consider for the Eastern Lariat Hall of Fame as STRIGGA & Dylan prepare their induction speeches for the next episode!

After returning from Japan, STRIGGA share some of the stories he's expierenced during his vaction that fell into one of the most busiest times in japanese pro-wrestling. Given that, Dylan not only asks him about all the venues he went to, which food and drinks were on the menu, but they also discuss most of the events from late December until early January which includes DDT & Stardom in Sumo Hall, AJPW in Yoyogi, NOAH in Budokan and of course NJPW & AEW in the Tokyo Dome. Join in and listen to this first hand experience of a wrestling trip to Tokyo!

The end of the year upon us means time for looking back, and time for looking ahead. This episode we do both! First Dylan gives a preview of the year end awards and talks about last year's winners and how things may play out this year. Then after that we get to predictions dropped on us by YOU. We got a lot from the fans and it's time to talk about all of them, before ending the show with STRIGGA reappearing as if by magic! Dylan and STRIGGA bring up their predictions and set the stage for what 2025 could bring us all, in the beautiful world of Japanese pro wrestling. Happy new year!

0:00-31:00 - Awards Preview

31-1:25:00 - Listeners Predictions

1:25:00-End - Dylan/STRIGGA Predictions

For more coverage of Japanese wrestling, and wrestling past and present please check out our Patreon for literally 1000s of hours of audio and written content as well: https://www.patreon.com/easternlariat 

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Special thanks to Souichi Sakagami & Mikado Miyabi for the OFFICIAL Eastern Lariat theme song: "Rainy Day" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3yWeS1ILdE

A first in Eastern Lariat history, Dylan welcomes on Yannik from the Dramatic Dream Dragons for a fantasy booking special. An idea from the Swiss Icon that takes our draft concepts to a new level, introducing a full fantasy booking exercise. The first half of the show is the draft portion of the show where they select from every Japanese company as well as gain a couple of wild card wrestlers from outside of Japan at various points. The second half shows the creative minds in action for the utterly bizarre companies these two ended up running with, after a shocking trade shakes things up immediately after the draft. Names, matches, titles, factions, stories, it all comes out to play as we put it all on the line to end the year and bring Christmas cheer through the art of Japanese pro wrestling.

For more coverage of Japanese wrestling, and wrestling past and present please check out our Patreon for literally 1000s of hours of audio and written content as well: https://www.patreon.com/easternlariat 

Follow us on Twitter/X:  

https://www.twitter.com/easternlariat 

https://www.twitter.com/sbadoosh  

https://www.twitter.com/viva_zero

https://www.twitter.com/strigga

Follow us on BlueSky!

easternlariat.bsky.social

vivazero.bsky.social

sbadoosh.bsky.social

strigga.bsky.social

Follow us on IG:

https://www.instagram.com/easternlariat

Special thanks to Souichi Sakagami & Mikado Miyabi for the OFFICIAL Eastern Lariat theme song: "Rainy Day" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3yWeS1ILdE

STRIGGA & Dylan are back in the ZONE and dive into the latest action from Japan including DRAGONGATE's King of Gate tournament that saw Dragon Dia come out on top which offers an interesting main event for Final Gate. Less interesting and somewhat head-scratching is the build for NOAH's big show on January 1st with Kiyomiya vs. OZAWA for the GHC Title. Since the end of the year is always all about tag team wrestling, the Eastern Lariat of course also takes a look at the Tag Leagues in NJPW and AJPW – with diverging interest. In both cases, the discussion turns towards both promotions' big shows on December 31 for All Japan and on January 4 & 5 for New Japan – PLUS Suwama resigning as managing director in AJPW.

It took a while for the Eastern Lariat crew to catch up with the events that took place on Bunka no Hi, the Day of Culture in Japan this past Monday – and it was a lot. STRIGGA & Dylan first discuss New Japan's Power Struggle including the big title matches, SANADA's turn, Umino's challenge and the reaction to it and the Tokyo Dome double shot in January taking shape. Moving on, All Japan's Hokkaido tour was less eventful than the NJPW show, but the sudden title switch to Davey Boy Smith Jr. Caught many spectators off guard and raises the question where former champion Aoyagi goes and for how long Smith holds the championship. The third big topic is last weekend's Gate of Destiny from DRAGONGATE that left many questions unanswered that fans expected to be answered. Finally, STRIGGA quickly goes over the DDT show from Sumida before the team discusses the Kota Ibushi/DDT situation and Yoshiki Inamura leaving for „unsual“ WWE training.

Join STRIGGA & Dylan Fox for episode 289 of the Eastern Lariat podcast as they dive into the latest developments in japanese pro wrestling. First, they discuss NJPW’s recent Royal Quest and the difference between the live experience and watching on stream. From there on, they touch on the ongoing Super Junior Tag League, Power Struggle and specifically Shota Umino's role in the lead up to Wrestle Kingdom. The Eastern Lariat crew then turns to AJPW, covering the star-making battle between Yuma Aoyagi and Ren Ayabe and the contrast between ELPIDA and Zennichi Hontai. In Marigold, the standout match was Sareee vs. Bozilla, with the rest of the card leaving more to be desired. The episode also covers the opening of Stardom's Goddesses of Stardom Tag League and finally it preview DRAGONGATE’s Gate of Destiny, where a Unit Disbands Match may shake up the promotion's entire landscape.