Eastern Lariat

This week on the Eastern Lariat, Dylan flies solo and guides you through nights 9 & 10 of the G1 with thoughts on both shows and his take on the whole tournament through it's halfway point. Then he covers the latest in Pro Wrestling NOAH, talking the announcement of the MLW partnership, the announcement of the first 2 N1 Victory competitors in Hije del Dr. Wagner Jr. & Alex Hammerstone, plus the situation involving Atsushi Kotoge. Finally it's AJPW talk as he covers the weekend's shows from Osaka, covering the Jr. Tag Battle of Glory last two nights and 3 different title matches capped off with a wonderful Triple Crown match between Kento Miyahara & Zeus. Check us out & support on Patreon for cool bonus shows and content including everyday G1 Climax 29 reaction shows: patreon.com/easternlariat & follow us @STRIGGA & @DylanZeroSky

Dragon Gate ran their biggest show of the year and maybe their biggest in the company's history because it saw the return of Ultimo Dragon to the promotion after over 15 years. Because of that and for the main event between Ben-K and PAC for the Open the Dream Gate Championship this show was highly emotional and featured some outstanding matches and moments. STRIGGA & Dylan got together to talk about this show from Kobe and also some other news and notes regarding Fujita „Jr“ Hayato, Sareee and Pro-Wrestling NOAH.

The Eastern Lariat returns with a new show covering the G1 Climax triple header that saw some outstanding matches between Thursday and Saturday and after 7 events of the tour STRIGGA & Dylan name their top 5 matches of the tournament. Before going to the main topic of the show though STRIGGA runs down some news and notes on Guts World, 666, Big Japan, ZERO1, All Japan, Jiro “Ikemen” Kuroshio and Takayamania.

This week on Pure Heart, Pure Lariat Dylan Fox (@DylanZeroSky) is forming his super trio of Joshi focused podcasts with Justin from the Joshi Joshi podcast (@coffeeyay) & Derek Tillotson (@PrivateEyeball) of the Private Eyeball Show returning, with the three talking about the best of Joshi Puroresu so far in 2019. We have a plethora of fun categories we had nominations and picks for, controversy and debates, capped off the only way it reasonably could, an honorary shoutout to Ai Hara. Nearly every major promotion had at least one pick, check it out and get the perspectives from 3 of the biggest and best Joshi focused podcasts. Whether you're a dedicated follower or casual and wanna catch up, the 2019 Half Year Awards Show is where it's at, and it's right here on Pure Heart.

A lot of great matches, moments and rivalries of the first half of each year in japanese wrestling get forgotten by the end of the year due to the G1 Climax being so domineering which is why the Eastern Lariat team decided to introduce the Half Year Awards. Based on the Tokyo Sports Awards STRIGGA & Dylan go through each of these categories – and more! Besides the top three for each you will also get some honorable mentions and some ballots that you, the listeners sent in!

The holiday Umi no Hi traditionally is a very busy day in japanese pro wrestling so STRIGGA & Dylan at first focus on DDT's Wrestle Peter Pan show from Ota Ward Gymnasium before going over the G1 Climax show from Hokkaido that saw Jay White vs. Tomohiro Ishii and Tetsuya Naito vs. Taichi. In a rare preview the Eastern Lariat crew talks about the big Dragon Gate Kobe Pro-Wrestling Festival that will see the return of Ultimo Dragon and towards the end they debate Jun Akiyama stepping down as president of All Japan Pro Wrestling.

It's this time of the year! STRIGGA & Dylan return to action with their review of the Ota Ward double header of the G1 Climax that saw some great matches for the G1 Climax beginning on japanese soil after it started in the United States. The Eastern Lariat crew discusses all the matches, stories and possible routes for some of the wrestlers and they also look a little bit more behind some of the characters and their motivations like Jay White, Hiroshi Tanahashi or KENTA.

Dylan's join by first time guest and TJPW expert Matt (@mattsdl on Twitter) to talk about the entire Tokyo Princess Cup, the Final, and TJPW as a whole in 2019.

Dylan Fox rides solo to look back at the opening show to this year's G1 Climax tournament from the American Arilines Center in Dallas, Texas!

This week on Pure Heart, Pure Lariat Dylan (@DylanZeroSky) brings on his first repeat guest, going back to the original, WH Park (@whpark9) from POST Wrestling as we take a look at fellow POST Worker Damian Abraham (lead singer of Fucked Up) and his documentary show on Viceland TV, The Wrestlers, with this entire show dedicated to the episode focused on World Wonder Ring STARDOM. The episode itself revolves around Mayu Iwatani, Rossy Ogawa, Fuka, Kris Wolf, Jungle Kyona, AZM, with cameos by others. The conversation turns much longer than expected when we take a deep dive into Japanese culture as brought up on the documentary and WH gives his thoughts on Western takes on Japan and Japanese culture, along with both he and Dylan talking about Rossy Ogawa, a live perspective of Korakuen Hall, a deep dive on Shin-Kiba 1st ring's "locker rooms", and the native Japanese fans of STARDOM with some records getting set straight and pure talk about more than just wrestling.

The Eastern Lariat is setting sail for a voyage on the ark! Pro Wrestling NOAH and their Mitsuharu Misawa Memorial show plus their upcoming N1 Victory tournament are the two main topics of this new edition of the show. But before that, STRIGGA & Dylan also discuss ZERO1's Fire Festival and how to watch it and also take a look back at an at most times puzzling All Japan show from Korakuen Hall.

Next week on our Patreon we will drop the second season of "A Week of Lariat" and this time we will be talking about Shinya Hashimoto matches outside of New Japan Pro Wrestling. However in the first season we went through his career in NJPW an of course also came across the highly controversial match against Naoya Ogawa from April 7, 2000. For more episodes of this series sign up to the 5$ tier at patreon.com/easternlariat !!

This week Dylan's joined by Derek Tillotson (@PrivateEyeball of the Private Eyeball Show & Marvelous expert) to discuss three shows with three widely discussed match of the year candidates. From Ice Ribbon we saw Osaka Ribbon headlined by Maya Yukihi vs. Giulia, SEAdLINNG's Stay Tune main evented by Takumi Iroha challenging Nanae Takahashi, and then Stardom's Shining Destiny main evented by Tam Nakano challenging Arisa Hoshiki. We close off by discussing Stardom's 5*GP and the 18 wrestlers announced for it.

With a crazy weekend of rumors surrounding Gedo STRIGGA & Dylan are back with a new episode discussing what led to STRIGGA tweeting about Gedo allegedly stepping down from the booking position of NJPW. Amidst all this turmoil the G1 Climax announcements can't be forgotten though and so the Eastern Lariat crew goes over both blocks, picks their favorites, runner ups, dark horses and the overall winner. How does the tournament compare to last year's? What about the drop outs and the newly added participants? Other topics include NOAH heavyweight & junior heavyweight tournaments as well as some bits about All Japan, 2AW and Dragon Gate.

Time for Dominion! STRIGGA & Dylan look back at one of the biggest and most important New Japan shows of the year since this is always kind of a midway point of New Japan's business year. The Eastern Lariat crew discusses all the matches from this show plus some from the final of the Best of the Super Junior. Another big talking point is of course KENTA's debut and the upcoming G1 Climax.

Dylan rides solo for V3: - Command Bolshoi Retirement Show - Catch the WAVE - Princess Cup - Gatoh Move - Ice Ribbon in May - Stardom in May

After the untimely passing of Atsushi Aoki STRIGGA & Dylan got together to talk about Aoki's death, but more importantly about his career and impact that he made in japanese pro-wrestling since he started his career in 2005. He would quickly become one of the closest friends and associates of Jun Akiyama and was part of some memorable matches and moments both in Pro Wrestling NOAH and in All Japan Pro Wrestling. This is „The Life and Death of Atsushi Aoki ~ Assault Point Forever!“

The 26th Best of the Super Junior is almost over, but with two days off before the Block B final the Eastern Lariat crew got back together to give their takes on 7 more events from the biggest Junior Heavyweight tournament in New Japan history after looking back at the first 6 days on the previous episode. Besides that STRIGG A & Dylan also make sure to debate the announcement of Jon Moxley being Juice Robinson's opponent and what that all has to do with comfort zones.

The Eastern Lariat returns with a show focusing on the first 6 days of the 26th Best of the Super Junior tournament by New Japan Pro Wrestling. STRIGGA & Dylan highlight the best performers, name their top three matches, talk about ongoing storylines and how the English commentary adds to the overall enjoyment of the product. This tournament is no different than others so where's light there's also the shadow realm. Oh, and there's a discussion whether Taichi is a Pokemon or a Digimon.

This week on Pure Heart, Pure Lariat, Dylan' (@DylanZeroSky)'s graciously joined by a trainee from his favorite promotion, Ice Ribbon, the Manila born YAPPY! (@Yapi on Twitter, @Yapitori on Instagram) After her debut teaming with Rina Yamashita we talked about her start and what got her into wrestling (it's pretty surprising) and what led her to Japan. Then after a personal touch we talk about her run in the dojo and the trials and tribulations involved in the Dojo system in a modern Joshi company, who helped train her and who she was most impressed with in her year and a half leading to her debut. Then we go into her debut itself, the unusual nature of how it occured and how fast it happened (not to mention being in a new tag team right off the bat), followed by a brief foray into where she and other Ice Ribbon wrestlers' goals are in the future. Then they talk about meat to end the show. Check it out for a breezy conversation about all sorts of topics in regards to Ice Ribbon and wrestling training in gene