after writing that longass post about how lion's den was ending fale brought it back and i was like man fuck this shit i never gonna talk about him or his promotion again. well now i've added a new section to my site specifically for short posts under 500 words so i can talk about the recent mayhem event.

on-stage

• kam ahhing v kane harris: two new guys. i thought there was an unusual amount of people when i went in... half of them were just kane's family. literally no one else bought special price tickets (those seats are worse anyway). both of them had title cards, despite this being their first (?) match. even though i've watched wrestling for so long, i don't know what good wrestling actually is. whether or not a match feels good is kinda just driven by mass hysteria, so this guy's whole family being there made it feel exciting.
• zac kelly & fiti levi v horus & graham hughes: horus is always fighting in those damn skinny jeans. i was sure he was gonna beat up graham too.
• thor keith & sean tohi v don fale & maximillion: probably my favorite from the night. thor keith improved so much since i first saw him and he was seriously impressive. the jumping necklock was insane—i guess that's the power of the only pro athlete in fale dojo. he's the first international student in a long time, so i'm curious about why he decided to to switch from actual wrestling to this. fale's movements are really slow and luggish it's fun. he moves like a video game big boss fr. maximillion's outfit was perfect!

• generation iron v jl gold & matty short: the australian guy who makes everyone bark like a dog is back. matty short is such classic physical comedy, him being used as a gattling gun was fantastic.
• kurt brown v darryl voll: surprisingly my second favorite match of the night. my notes say it had a very fun cadence but i'm not sure what that's about. the double disqualification/draw was funnn!
• toothless nico bell v johnny recon: nico beating the ref was very funny. i fucking love this dude.
• pretty boys v the ungrateful 1s: at this point going to nj tamashii events is like traveling 1 hour to watch a pair of white boys get sexually harassed every 2 months. but while i do not care for the gimmick of the pretty boys, the ungrateful 1s are seriously the best opponents for them in their self-seriousness. trent hooper has reactions like a cartoon character.

off-stage

• nj tamashii is CINEMATIC! mangere performing arts centre is the only pro wrestling venue in auckland that actually has a full-size projector screen and it looks better than any other when they got the lights prepped too. but even in the one instance where they held a show in central, it was at the TAPAC, another performing arts venue instead of a community hall. maybe that's why i'm paying $30 a ticket each time.
• selling vintage t-shirts for $50 is so funny bro those shirts are like three years old.
• liger was in the audience as the green party's new MP candidate for mangere! kinda iconic to see him talking with fale after the show. they're both relatively old community leader types and the only NZ wrestlers who have a large audience outside of wrestling (fale is truly a full-on instagram reels creator now with a management team and everything). liger is the most woke man i know (in a good way) so if he's chill with fale i'll be too.
• tyler ernst was also there was an assistant. hi
• i haven't shared my blog on my IRL instagram because some wrestlers follow me and i honestly sound very delusional and can't stop bringing up my personal issues 90% of the time. but i do genuinely think maximillion, at least, is trying to raise pro wrestling's profile as a big thing for south auckland what with him constantly holding talks at schools and all. how he has time to do this as a literal lawyer i have no idea.
• couple months back, jake sheehan did a livestream ranking NZ wrestlers based on their in-ring skill and character presentation. these guys love getting messy in public despite the fact that there's only 50 people in the industry. fale was at the top of the top; nico scored high at S; pretty richie and magic mark at A; bruno astro, cian devin, johnny recon, and maximillion at B. so i have to wonder if the dojo training is actually... good...? after all...
• my highlight of the night was probably when a little baby turned around and i entertained her with the teddy bear i had on hand. and her mom gave me candy

why did that end up being 800 words. i'm sick of this damn promotion

aotearoa wrestling promised the biggest night in the NZ scene and they didn't disappoint! it was actually quite fucking incredible to watch pro wrestling at due drop arena; the setting and lighting was so good that every shot looked professional. it was a 3+ hour long event so i did some live drawing between matches. tee hawke jumping off the second floor was the highlight!

loved watching rangi and jamie tagataese as well—sad to see the big man go but it was a great venue for a send-off. i enjoyed the tubbs and murdoch tag team a lot, really great bumbling foolery fun in the same sense as the bushwhackers. just an amazing night. i love pro wrestling.

pro wrestling is like real life brain rot (and real life brain damage for the wrestlers) but it is my go-to comfort food when i need a pick-me-up.

there were only three people in the audience by the time i got there at opening, but by the first few matches the number had grown to ten— and none of them were people part of the local pro wrestling scene! still, the turnout was worse than i expected. i thought there would have at least been fifteen people given how well the new years showdown did.

i didn't mind the intimate atmosphere, though. the dojo got a new host instead of the guy who usually handles hughes academy's shows, and i felt like his inexperience and silliness added to the fun of the event. like you can't really take a wrestling show with an audience of ten that seriously.

the matches were pretty unserious too. first event had xander taylor up against bruno astro in a gimp mask. i guess the dojo didn't have enough people willing to fight that night because they pretended that bruno was a mysterious mexican luchador character and had him speak spanish and everything (bruno is brazillian). i'm not sure what to make of bruno's progression in the dojo— he's easily the best technical fighter and performer out of fale's boys so stuff like this feels a bit beneath his talents.

unfortunately i've soured a bit on the pretty boys. even though they're faces i just don't like how homophobic their gimmick feels. a lot of it is like jokingly sexually harassing other wrestlers or staff members which aside from being weird simply feels played out and unfunny. i don't feel like mark is even into the role as much as richie, but maybe it's because he's also taken to running a family vlog instagram reels account.

after richie's fight with tj illes, the pretty boys made an in-character speech about how they were there at the dojo since day one, always fighting and persevering despite never making it to japan, staying strong in the face of those who did and came back to laugh at them. first of all, it's like what are you on about. there have been a couple of fale boys to make it to japan but the dojo is also very infamous for not getting anyone to NJPW itself outside of one japanese guy and the two brothers from late last year.

secondly, it was just a sad, strange speech. the struggle to make it to japan might be an in-character thing but that's also eight years of your real world life spent on a goal that probably isn't going to come true. sure it's kayfabe but the gimmick of the pretty boys is to call everything hot and sexy, not to be so serious like this. the audience had ten people and i was likely the only one who's familiar with actual NJ tamashii lore so i don't know what they gained from talking about it character-wise unless there was a hint of truth. and if there was... again, it's sad that the audience only had ten people.