Welcome to a new episode of Tape Study by Marie Shadows! Hello everyone! Hope all is well!
The concept of Tape Study Series is to be observant with pro wrestling and breakdown matches so wrestling fans can have a deeper appreciation for the art and wrestlers can learn from the masterclass of the review and live reaction. Tape Study Series does not invoke any kind of toxicity or negativity. Tape Study won’t dive into a simple: this sucks - and leave it as such and like we’ve seen so many times on the internet. Tape Study is about breakdown characters, stories, angles, and more.
I’m passionate about wrestling.
AJ Style vs Naomichi Marufuji
This is a dream match done correctly and had the right amount of buzz surrounding a bucket list of a match in our lifetime. WWE always had a small hand in the Japanese wrestling market with their few shows in Japan some years ago. But currently, WWE has inked a media rights deal to showcase and broadcast WWE programming in Japan on their media rights deal to showcase WWE programming in Japan on the Abema network.
Now we are seeing the rise of other Japanese promotions wanting to work with WWE. Pro Wrestling Noah is one of the few.
AJ Styles vs Naomichi Marufuji is the match we did not know we needed. It was a game of chess between the two. Very well-seasoned veterans with legendary careers fought like warriors with counters and power moves to see who the best was/is.
It seemed like Marufuji studied AJ Styles just based off of the counters you see during the match. AJ Styles gave us a phenomenal match. It felt like NJPW AJ appeared.
The ending is a surprise — to me at least. I won’t spoil it, but I would love to hear your comments!
I hope you enjoyed the breakdown video!
Leave me a message!
What was your favorite part of the match?
Was this your dream match?
How many ‘stars’ do you feel AJ vs Marufuji deserves?
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In Case You Missed It:
New: Wrestle Threads
Wrestle Threads is a thread forum presented by Substack to take conversations to the next level with our lovely subscribers and readers. Threads on Substack was created to have deep conversations or even further conversations from newsletters with the awesome wrestling community we are building here. I’m grateful and thankful for everyone joining the newsletter.
Wrestle Threads Issue #1 talks about Stephanie Vaquer and her joining WWE right after CMLL and NJPW - jointly - released and cut ties with her commitments and championship titles. This issue also talks about the source of the information being spread. All of us in the wrestling community was learning about Stephanie Vaquer’s ordeal in real time together. No one “reporter” knows more than us. And watching videos of past interviews and recent interviews to use it as source information to repeat back to the audience isn’t “reporting.” It’s ok to learn as everyone learns because times are changing for wrestling as it pertains to social media.
Join in on the discussion over at Wrestle Threads Issue #1 about Stephanie Vaquer:
Wrestle Threads Issue #2 will be released on Friday.
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