Eastern Lariat

In this episode the Eastern Lariat podcast opens up the tournament headquarters as STRIGGA & Dylan talk about all four ongoing heavyweight tournaments in japanese wrestling at the moment: ZERO1's Fire Festival, All Japan's Champion Carnival, NOAH's N-1 Victory and of course the 30th G1 Climax of New Japan Pro Wrestling. For AJPW & NOAH STRIGGA & Dylan shout out the best shows and best matches while they cover the G1 Climax in a comprehensive overview by debating every participant's performance and best matches so far.

With the 30th anniversary of the biggest tournament in japanese professional wrestling right around the corner New Japan Pro Wrestling finally announced the full line up of the G1 Climax 30 stat's starting on September 19 in Osaka. Like every year STRIGGA & Dylan got together to discuss potential winners, dark horses, alternative candidates and of course who gets to beat the champion. This time the field of 20 also raises the question why there are no new entrants for the first time in the tournement's history and what that says about NJPW as a whole.

The Eastern Lariat returns with a huge episode covering all the events that occured last weekend in New Japan, Big Japan and All Japan. From New Japan's first outdoor show since 1999 over the last Yokohama Bunka show ever STRIGGA & Dylan go to All Japan's Korakuen Hall show. Other talking points are the AXIS split in Pro Wrestling NOAH, the new Joshi „Assemble" as well as the first GLEAT card.

The tournament season continues on the Eastern Lariat podcast! This week STRIGGA & Dylam take a deeper dive into All Japan's Champion Carnival as well as Pro Wrestling NOAH's N-1 Victory. They rate the blocks, go over every wrestler and their chances and lay out some potential scenarios as well as dark horses in each tournament. Another big talking point this week is the formation of GLEAT, the new promotion under the banner of LIDET, the former owners of NOAH. What does Kiyoshi Tamura have in store for the wrestling world?

In a new edition of the Eastern Lariat STRIGGA & Dylan first discuss corona numbers in Japan rising and a possible correlation to crowds at wrestling shows. Dylan then goes over his reccomendations for the Stardom 5 Star Grand Prix so far while STRIGGA jumps in as the two debate Tokyo Joshi Pro's Tokyo Princess Cup and Dramatic Dream Team's King of DDT tournament. Another huge talking point is Pro Wrestling NOAH with their 3 big shows in early August to celebrate their 20th Anniversary. In the end the two go rapid fire on the Aoki Memorial and the N-1 & Champion Carnival line ups.

After an eventful weekend in the realm of japanese pro-wrestling and an unexpected eventful Monday with the announcement of CyberFight The Eastern Lariat returns yet again to discuss a bunch of different topics starting with smaller companies such as Ganbare Pro, ZERO1, DOVE, BASARA and from there going to Stardom, their recent shows and the upcoming 5 Star Grand Prix. STRIGG A & Dylan also talk about the big title matches in All Japan (Suwama vs. Ishikawa, Yokosuka vs. Iwamoto) and New Japan (EVIL vs. Hiromu, Takagi vs. Desperado) that happened over the weekend and also discuss about the directions both companies are going in.

In another super sized edition The Eastern Lariat looks back at possibly the most challenging and unusual six months in wrestling history from a japanese stand point. Like most other countries, Japan was affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 and still though wrestling found a way – mostly through empty arena shows. That's why this year for the first (and only?) time the Half Year Awards saw the awards for best empty arena wrestler and show besides the regular categories like MVP, most outstanding, best promotion, most underrated and so on and so forth. Join the Eastern Lariat for a fun ride through the entire japanese wrestling scene!

Calling the New Japan double shot eventful would probably be the understatement of the year. We saw turns, title changes, returns, ref bumps and shenanigans en masse. The Eastern Lariat tries to make sense of it all as STRIGGA & Dylan dicuss all of the important matches, EVIL joining the BULLET CLUB, the debut of his new "pareja" Dick Togo, Dangerous Tekkers and much, much more in a HUGE episode of the Eastern Lariat.

With the New Japan Cup hitting the home stretch STRIGGA & Dylan return to discuss all the tournament matches plus some of the key non-tournament developments in New Japan Pro Wrestling. There also is a lengthy discussion about Master Wato's debut, gimmicks in NJPW and elevating talent – something New Japan seems hesitant about.

The Eastern Lariat is back with a review of all the first round matches of the New Japan Cup. STRIGGA & Dylan highlight the best matches, surprises, upsets while also discussing the low light of the tournemant so far.