Welcome to a brand-new episode for Tape Study. Tape Study is dedicated to breaking down matches to explain what’s happening, explain stories and characters, and give suggestions on how to improve upon the match and what’s taking place.
Previous Tape Study sessions:
I review Moxley vs Naito at Forbidden Door 2024 and it’s not as bad as the IWC made it seem like. Wrestling fans who are online 24/7 to stir the pot rather than listening and learning from others who WORK in the business gives wrestling a bad name when their narratives and crying are pushed.
Naito and Moxley have two conflicting ideologies and thoughts about how a wrestling match should happen in the states and wrestling in general. I explain the differences in the video and reiterate that many times.
Moxley wants every standard match to be a hardcore match as if relying on chairs, barbed wired baseball bats, tables — not only keeps him alive and energized which is a bad addiction replacement for alcohol (drinking is just as bad too but the concept) — but Moxley thinks that the American crowds ALWAYS wants to see blood, brawling, and chaos as if it’s a bar fight. This doesn’t work as well. This constant need for blood, brawling, and chaos doesn’t push story if it’s not needed and turns a lot of fans off from those matches. Not every match should be a deathmatch just because Moxley can’t maintain a standard match.
Why does Moxley need those crutches in order to have a match? Why doesn’t he just ask for hardcore matches instead of turning a standard match into a hardcore and doesn’t get disqualified for it? Moxley does not know or understand the audience he wrestles for. Not every fan is a fan of deathmatch/hardcore/bar fights.
Naito is very old school, Japanese traditional wrestler with an acute prowess of psychology to get under the skin of his opponents. Naito has created wonderful memories and matches with the way he structures his matches.
There’s the clash: Naito is all about structure. Moxley is all about chaos. And in finding a balance, there should be a bit of both rather than learning to one side or the other in a whole fashion. You can only be the anarchy but so many times before it gets old, and stale and no new character and story layers can be added to make the wrestling interesting. That is what Moxley doesn’t understand about being a wrestler.
And when he doesn’t get his way, he checks out and gives us what we saw at Forbidden Door. Naito gets the same way too; however, Naito gives people the ‘I don’t care’ attitude but still does what is needed. I talk about their body language in the video as it pertains to this paragraph.
Overall, it was a common case of wrestling politics mixed with egos. Thankfully, Naito won and brought back the championship to NJPW. When Naito showed up for the latest NJPW show, the Japanese fans gave Naito a standing ovation. Moxley never got that in Japan.
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