2022 Ongoing MOTY List: Doudrop vs. Becky

Doudrop vs. Becky Lynch WWE Royal Rumble 1/29

ER: I thought this was pretty great. It's my favorite Doudrop match, the closest we've gotten to her as a small Vader, or a large Dick Togo. Becky looks like a crazed version of Rose Byrne in Physical, wild curly hair and gold aerobics leotard only adding to her need to be in control of a match. I thought this did a lot of work towards making Doudrop look like a contender, as at the start of the match nobody in the house expected anything but a Lynch victory, and by the end they were reacting loud for Doudrop's Big Ending, thinking they might actually get an upset. I liked all of Doudrop's offense. She has, at times, the best current senton in wrestling, really making her feet banana peel out in front of her while landing flush with the senton, smooshing Becky with one on her back and a great one later that they showed in slow motion landing fully on Becky's rib cage. Doudrop keeps fully committing to her offense and it makes her misses even better, and her missing the cannonball into the ring steps was nasty enough that I actually thought we were going to get a count out or injury stoppage. 

Whenever Becky got too cocky or decided to run down Doudrop, she would always fire back harder, throwing Lynch with suplexes, hitting headbutts, even powering out of a sick cross armbreaker that I thought was going to be the finish (especially when Lynch started raining down boot heels to Doudrop's head. The powerbomb and running cannonball were when the fans started to believe in an upset, and I was there with them. As Doudrop kept powering out of offense and lasting longer than the arena thought possible, Becky started doing more Woody Allen nervous facials than I needed, but those reactions only made me want to see Doudrop headbutt her some more. The Rock Bottom off the middle rope looked good as a finish, landing Doudrop similarly to how she landed on that missed cannonball earlier. The Women's Rumble right before this was so brutally bad, impressively playing against the skills of almost 30 different women, that it was great to see two women craft a great match around their skills immediately after. 

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WrestleMania 38 Night One Live Blog 4/2/22

And so, I find myself alone and with nothing at all interesting to do on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and I feel my brain slowly slipping into actually thinking the writing about WrestleMania in real time is a good idea. I know it's a bad idea, and yet I feel compelled for reasons that are beyond me. I have only seen one WWE show this year (including TV and PPV) and that was Royal Rumble, which was...exactly as bad as most of the Rumbles have been over the past decade or so. I actually thought the men's rumble was fairly salvageable, while the women's rumble was one of the worst things ever put on WWE programming. And so, after watching one bad one one mediocre 60 minute battle royals, my poisoned brain thought that writing about WrestleMania would somehow be a productive use of mine or anyone else's time. I don't know what matches are on this show, I did not watch the pre-show and I have not seen any 2022 WWE TV. All I know is that people whose opinions I trust are not at all excited about this show, and that perversely must have made me more interested. We're all sickos and idiots. Simple as that. 

1. Shinsuke Nakamura/Rick Boogs vs. The Usos

ER: It is unfathomable that they did not have a single pre-show match while hosting a TWO HOUR pre-show. Injuries and a half dozen DUI have prevented the Usos from teaming up at the past few Manias. The Usos cut Nakamura off from Boogs with some simple kicks and holds (only worthwhile one was Jey's low boot on the apron), then Jimmy and Nakamura are both exhausted 3 minutes in and must build to a hot tag. Boog's axe handle offense should look better, and I think it used to look better. Having Boogs' knee buckle while lifting both Usos is a smart way to take him out of things, and a knee blowing out from lifting too much is far easier to fake than a prolapsed asshole. I'll give the fans huge credit, because they are loud as hell for this match, which would be immediately forgotten minutes after it took place on Smackdown. The Jey superkick while Jimmy was holding Nakamura's hair looked great, and wow this is not a great start to the Grandaddy of Them All. Honestly fucked that the Harder Farmer didn't take Boogs' place once Boogs hurt his knee. 

2. Drew McIntyre vs. Happy Corbin

ER: It's weird being the one guy into Baron Corbin, but I am. Are more people into Corbin now? Do they not like him because he looks like a tall athletic Colin Robinson? I like the way Corbin and Drew move around each other. They're similar size and have a couple similar movements, except one is dressed like Waylon Mercy had Waylon Mercy worked at a Fire Island gift shop. I like Corbin's overhand rights, but liked a little underhand punch he threw a couple times even more. I don't know if I've seen him throw that punch really, but obviously I'm going to support guys adding new punches to their matches. They're the same size, but the match is clearly being worked with Corbin as the heavyweight and McIntyre as the 2000s Edge-style cruiserweight who people don't seem to realize is 6'4. Drew is out here taking the Mysterio bump into the guardrail and hitting a running swanton into Corbin and Moss, missing his running dropkick when Corbin ducks out of the way. Corbin is the one throwing big punches and going for big slams, Drew is the one constantly leaving his feet. Asskicker Drew is better than 260 lb. Finn Balor Offense Drew, but I thought Corbin did a great job pushing the pace of this and setting up Drew's big misses and leaning into his hits. This was good, but underwhelming for WrestleMania. 

3. Rey & Dominik Mysterio vs. Logan Paul/The Miz

PAS: Dominik Mysterio wearing the Gringo Locos gear as a tribute to his real dad.

ER: Dominik's gear is incredible, the first actual good ring gear of his career...and Logan Paul goes and one-ups him by wearing the million dollar Pikachu around his neck. Can't help but dig a guy who clearly gets it. I liked Paul's big leapfrogs and dropdown splits, but Bad Bunny didn't flinch on strikes in his match and you can't lean out of a Rey kick. Rey's not going to be the one who stiffs you man, you gotta stay in to the end. I love Rey's little ashy gray goatee poking out of his mask, and I love Paul committing to the running powerslam even more. Brother held on for dear life and followed it through. I wish someone had clued Paul into Kawada kicks, because Paul in the black and yellow doing trolling little kicks to the forehead would be a perfect bit of offense for him. I liked Paul's Blockbuster and his bump off the apron, and after I was ready to tease him after he flinched, he's tightened everything up since that flinch. There will be a handful of wrestlers on this show whose work doesn't look as good as Paul's (with Boogs already arguably one of them). Miz put a bunch of extra flash into Mysterio's great swinging DDT, and then showed he is the bigger man by doing the Three Amigos as tribute to Dominik's real dad. I'm fully on Team Paul when he does the Three Amigos and then does the shoulder shimmy up top before hitting a very good frog splash, but then he sets up Rey's 619 as well as anyone since mid 2000s Chavo with a great missed clothesline stumble. I thought this was pretty great. Everyone was on and the layout let everyone shine. Everyone knew when to hang back and when to take the moment, and it just coming together and building. Constant smile on my face during this one. 

4. Biance Belair vs. Becky Lynch

ER: Texas Southern marching band doing Belair's entrance is so damn cool, and I loved the big brass touches they added as accompaniment to her theme. Once they started enhancing the existing them and not just playing a marching band version, it was next level. I don't know if this is a hot take or not, but Becky's chopped mullet looks so much better than that shitty Mad Max pompadour that has covered wrestling like a foul stench. I am a mark because I fully bit on the 10 second finish. They did it before, it wouldn't be shocking for them to do it again! The longer the match goes the more I love Becky's look. She looks like she'd be at a club in Liquid Sky. Her suplexes look fine, but the rope drape legdrop needs some work. I appreciate that this thing isn't 50-50 reversals of reversals, but I think Becky was in control for way too long and Bianca is far more impressive on offense than when she's selling. It's really weird that they are not letting Bianca do anything powerful. Becky not only gets to do all of the offense, but she also gets to slip out of every piece of Belair offense. When I finally think Becky is going to be planted with a powerbomb, it gets reversed. Belair's 450 looks so much cooler with the braid, but Becky Lynch coming up way short on the Molly Go Round and axe kicking Bianca in the face looked even better. Once the Manhandle Slam (ugh) happening on the steps I again bought into that false finish, thinking they could plausibly do a count out finish and even getting me to think that they would have put this as the main event if they were actually doing a title change. So, they got me to fully bite on two different false finishes, and that has to mean it's a good match. It shows they fully understand the story they're selling and know how to play off of fan expectations, and that's awesome. I still think there were ways to give Bianca more during the match as I don't think Lynch needed 15+ minutes of control just because she was losing the belt, but I cannot argue that the match was a success. 

5. Seth Rollins vs. Cody Rhodes

I can't say I'm very excited for this match, but I'm sincerely happy for the people who wanted Cody. I was a big fan of In the Weeds AEW era Cody, a guy who was no longer really had a role in the company he helped found, an interesting take on the played out shades of gray character as he actually felt like a real shades of gray person. But Cody Rhodes in the WWE doesn't sound interesting in any way to me, it takes all of the edge away from that weird character he was leaning into. But I will give all the credit in the world to Cody, because I don't think that anyone could have predicted that he would ever be getting this kind of Stadium show WrestleMania reaction even 5 years ago. I don't know the program that pairs these two up, and I don't understand Rollins' Epic Bacon Dalton Castle gimmick but we'll give it a shot. The vertical suplex to the floor was a great sprawling Cody bump, and it feels like they're making their small scale stuff a bit more upscaled for the stadium, and that's cool. I don't know if the match itself is grabbing me, but Rollins had bigger chops and a harder back elbow than normal and Cody's armlocks looked good, Rollins flies 20 feet over a table off an okay Cody tope, etc. The pinfall trading and strike reversals mostly looked bad, but at its core this was a Seth Rollins vs. Seth Rollins match and I couldn't vibe with it even with the crowd so loudly behind Cody. The move trading doesn't work for me, the bad Rollins Kings Road Tribute strikes don't work for me, but I do like that Cody understands internal WWE match logic of Invoking Legend Offense To Set Up Finisher is a surefire victory. I never would have guessed Cody would be getting among the loudest reactions at a WrestleMania, and I don't see how he can maintain this level of intrigue while in WWE, but for now people got what they wanted. 

6. Ronda Rousey vs. Charlotte

ER: I'm not sure why I'm not more excited for comeback Ronda. She was one of my favorite things in pro wrestling during her initial run so maybe she just has some of the stink from that brutal Royal Rumble on her. Charlotte needs to throws a tighter back elbow. It's Ronda Rousey Charlotte, you can work like an asshole. The grappling was good and I like how Ronda rag dolled Charlotte on a couple of takedowns and tied her up in the ropes, but also took a cool flipping back bump to the floor when Charlotte reversed her. Charlotte responds to my note about her back elbow by walloping the entire side of Ronda's head with head arm and elbow, then runs face first into a Ronda kneelift. Weirdly, Rousey feels more like a rookie wrestler now than she did in 2018, and this whole thing is becoming a weird piece of theater. I don't know which page they are supposed to be on, I don't know who is messing up what, but it's kind of making the match more compelling? Charlotte's moonsault looks bad enough on its own, she doesn't need someone fucking up her timing. This is super disjointed and would be better if Charlotte got unprofessional, but it's staying a bit too genial. I said that it was too genial right as they stated kicking each other in the mouth on the mat. The end stretch was fine, the figure 8 and breaking of the figure 8 looked cool, but this match never threatened to be anywhere near as good as their Survivor Series 2018 match. Rousey was having great singles matches with every woman on the roster in 2018, and based on her big match performances in 2022 I just don't think that's a thing that's going to be happening this time around. 

7. Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Kevin Owens

ER: I can't believe they're actually giving us a wrestling match. I can't believe Stone Cold Steve Austin is coming back after like 20 years away and he's going to have a t-shirt and shorts match against Kevin Owens of all people. I will stop waiting for Austin to rip the shirt off, or tear the jorts off to reveal the black trunks underneath, but my only real base level hope for this is that it isn't anywhere near as depressing as the Bret/Vince match. The throwback Austin stuff in the ring certainly looked like a guy in his 50s who hadn't wrestled in a couple decades working through some of his classic mannerisms at a convention show. What I was not expecting, was this match suddenly getting great when they move it to the floor. Owens is game for taking big bumps around ringside, but I was actually shocked when Austin took a massive bump into the ringpost. I mean I was not expecting Steve Austin to wrestle, let alone take actual peak era Austin bumps, so this is insane. The crowd brawl was really good and Owens was so good at stumbling and tumbling his way down aisles at the perfect pace for Austin to follow along punching him. Good rhythm. Austin is one of my favorite wrestlers of all time, and no part of me would have predicted a few hours ago that I'd be seeing him take a vertical suplex onto concrete tonight. What a madman. This guy had a cool thing going by being the guy who never came back to give Hogan - or anyone - their dream match, and who knows maybe he sees Sting doing an insane balcony dive and goes "Hell Stone Cold Steve Austin can take a stupid bump on concrete". Owens is good a bumping down the long entrance ramp and Austin looks like he's having a great time out there, and I'm happy they're delivering much more than they needed to. I bet plenty of people would be happy just seeing a Stunner, so I imagine they are ecstatic seeing an actual Stone Cold brawl. Owens re-signs and main events WrestleMania with the biggest white whale retired wrestler in history, and my hat is off to WWE for actually giving a stadium of people a show filled with actual moments that they wanted, not ones that WWE wanted them to want. 

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Eric's WWE Survivor Series Live Blog 11/21/21

ER: Gotta say, it's pretty difficult to find much interest in WWE's programming these days. These constant roster cuts have turned things into the worst possible Oakland Athletics team, where any single one of my favorite wrestlers to watch could be pushed on one program and then released the next day. WWE hasn't been paying off storylines for a long time, making that aspect of their product completely pointless to follow, but still had a roster with a ton of people capable of great matches on any given night. But no wrestler allowed to get past a certain level of popularity, combined with my favorites to watch being on the chopping block every day, and absolutely terrible direction  - the biggest wrestling promotion in history has been presenting the literal worst visual wrestling presentation for several years now - has made this a nearly impossible promotion to get behind and enjoy. I know next to nothing about this card, but I have a tragically boring Sunday afternoon with a sudden hole in it so let's see if they give us something worth showing interest in. 

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Damian Priest

ER: This was at its best during the first half, before the part of the Damian Priest match where every exchange became a reversal of a sloppily thrown spin kick. I like Damian Priest when he throws strikes intended to land; I hate Damian Priest when he throws a strike intended to set up an opponent's strike, which is then thrown to set up Damian Priest's strike. This match was a 50-50 blend of those two Priests, and it kept things from being as good as they could have been. Nakamura isn't without flaw, but it's tough to not look like you're messing things up when you're forced to wait in place for someone's in-ring springboard axe handle reversal. Long story short: The parts where they hit each other were fun, the parts where they missed each other were dumb. 

I am so sick of seeing The Rock in every piece of media. I have had my official fill of The Rock. You gave us Rampage and we will always have that but I am tired of seeing The Rock be The Rock in things. 

Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte

ER: Regardless of how much I don't love this specific kind of match build, where both people just come off like unlikeable smarmy assholes and the heel is the one who I guess is more of an asshole, we can all agree that Becky Lynch's Toxic tribute ring gear is perhaps her greatest all time look. That's a look that feels more important than a match with an uneven worked shoot build. The two people in the ring couldn't back up the build even if the energy felt there at times. Energy can be enough to turn something like this great, but it needed to be done without Charlotte's canned ham. You needed more shit like Becky ripping out a bit of Charlotte's hair to prevent a figure 4 reversal, and less of Charlotte doing Andrade tribute offense that makes her look like George Costanza running through pigeons. Charlotte looks like a total klutz who can't hit the broad side of a barn, and after every Lynch kickout you never know where the Al Pacino overacting dial is going to land. Charlotte has the gift of making it really obvious when she is maneuvering into position for offense, while also being really bad about being in place for offense. The moonsaults looked as bad as ever, and doing a bunch of handspring moonsaults that don't connect in the middle of a worked shoot atmosphere is just the stupidest kind of energy. Bad finish that doesn't resolve anything doesn't do anyone any favors, and surely guarantees more of the exact same build to another similar match. 

Bobby Lashley/Austin Theory/Finn Balor/Kevin Owens/Seth Rollins vs. Xavier Woods/Jeff Hardy/Sheamus/Baron Corbin/Drew McIntyre

ER: When the rosters of two different TV shows have been pointlessly churned with seemingly no communication to talent, it's a bit much to sell a 5 on 5 match expressly under the banner of Brand Bragging Rights. I could not imagine caring less about a team from Smackdown beating a team from Raw, and if there are fanbases of people who have allegiances to either Raw or Smackdown but not both, then I cannot imagine that will ever be me. Best to watch a match like this as a match randomly generated by your AKI engine, since WWE's roster at this point has the consistency of me frequently erasing wrestlers and making new CAWs in No Mercy. And as a low stakes 10 man elimination match, it settles into a very fun match very quickly. Corbin was the early standout, loved his big right hands and how good he is at creating openings and setting up spots for Balor. Woods drops a great leaping fistdrop, Sheamus runs in with a leaping knee, Drew runs in with a kick, it's a cool team working in a good rhythm. These matches are about rhythm and if everyone keeps it reasonably well, it is automatically good. You just need them to be as well oiled as any All Japan Senior Circuit trios match. 

Balor sticks Corbin with the double stomp which looked good, but a shame because Corbin was the guy here who best knew how to tie this into an Actual Match. Austin Theory is someone I enjoyed in his NXT role, who feels completely fish out of water in this match. I buy him on NXT. I do not yet buy him moving Sheamus. With Corbin gone, we quickly wind into Drew/Lashley. Now, I think McIntyre and Lashley are two of the better guys in current WWE, but for the past couple years it has felt like EVERY match has come down to Lashley vs. McIntyre. It is a good pairing that also makes me feel like I'm trapped in time. Still, give me all of Bobby Lashley's big ass backdrop bump from the crowd to ringside. I think the steam gets taken out of this way too early and then continues too long after. Once it settled down to a Rollins/Theory vs. Sheamus/Hardy tag if felt like a house show tag between guys who don't know how to work a good house show tag. I will hoover up the slop on any random WWF house show handheld from the early 90s, but is there anyone out there who would get excited to watch a Sheamus/Hardy vs. Rollins/Theory handheld? This went on too long for what it overall accomplished, and I think it was a mistake to make this seem like a long epic instead of a quick paced showcase. Nobody could look at this match and think it makes for a useful Brand Showcase, and if a Brand Supremacy match can't do that then what did it really do? 

Vince needs to do more eccentric unhinged billionaire stuff like silently pantomime with a golden egg, because what the fuck else would we need from him at this point? 

This Brand Battle Royal is not a serious match and doesn't need to be considered as one. This is a Pizza Hut commercial and not a battle royal, and we don't need to act like this matters and that Colored T-Shirt Wrestling isn't one of the stupider features of modern WWE Survivor Series. 

The Usos vs. Randy Orton/Matt Riddle

ER: A not bad tag that relies on the strong timing of Randy Orton and Jey Uso. Riddle has been having a tough to watch year, with some of the worst vignettes and listless in-ring. We all get in ruts and his rut has been difficult to see so frequently this year. But it's fairly effective have him sell, run into nicely timed Jey Uso superkicks, and make dumb faces until making the big hot tag to Orton. Orton has always been a strong apron guy and he's been utilizing his apron work well in this tag team. Apron work is one of those skills that will keep on aging wrestler's floor high with me, and I like how Orton keeps leaning on it as a strength. He's good at tossing Usos around and hitting snap powerslams, and his RKO on the Jey superfly splash looked like a great finish. This match benefitted from its lackluster surroundings, but still earned enough of its status as "the best this show has given us".

Bianca Belair/Carmella/Liv Morgan/Rhea Ripley/Zelina Vega vs. Sasha Banks/Shayna Baszler/Toni Storm/Shotzi Blackheart/Natalya 

ER: I like how this looks on paper, this looks like a match I want to see! The women all have blue/red-accented gear is such a better look than the t-shirts. This looks like a real joshi final battle where everyone is taking this seriously. Guys wrestling in red t-shirts look like employees participating in a mandatory 5K.  The pace of this match is much better than the pace of the men's match. It's a shame Carmella went out so early, but Natalya did that weird thing where she memorably shows up in a match with 10 people, and I liked Baszler rolling on the mat with Ripley. The match was already the most fun of the night when we got to the great Sasha/Bianca section. WrestleMania feels like an eternity ago but their match was the best WWE match of this year and their in-ring chemistry still has a lot to offer. When they're in the ring together they really feel like the two biggest stars in the company, the two closest to being chopped down, and there are few people who actually feel like stars when I watch them. Bianca's kip-ups look punched with confidence and Sasha is able to convey the same kind of "can you believe this shit?" attitude Charlotte shouts to the back row but using only her eyes. 

Sadly, we hit a bad patch right after those two megastars made the crowd sit up and pay attention, with some quick eliminations and suddenly several women all lying dead around the ringside area selling mystery injuries. This isn't a ladder match, why are they all suddenly doing ladder match disappearance selling? A few dumb do-si-do moments on the floor lead to a Sasha count out in completely unsatisfying fashion, and the way Bianca goes from being down 4-1 to eliminating Baszler and Shotzi felt forced and cheap. The disappearance selling takes away a lot of the charm of a charismatic Survivor Series match, a series that can benefit from apron work. These women get so out of sight while selling nothing that you forget who is even still in the match! You could have made Belair look really really good while also having her plausibly fight off Shotzi and Baszler, but this felt like suddenly everybody had to be somewhere and it killed the buzz. 

Big E vs. Roman Reigns

ER: I think this was a good match, but these Roman matches have really become the blown out 150 minute MCU epic instead of the tight 90 minute action and stunts movies that he could be having. This was a long show, filled with long matches that mostly didn't deliver, and you need to be better at reading the arena than this main event was. This was a cold, tired crowd and that did not lead to any kind of pace being pushes AT ALL. That said, Roman did his specific thing that - love it or hate it - did turn a dead silent crowd into a slightly more involved crowd the longer he stuck to his routine, and there's some respect there. In its favor, even though the melodrama of them getting to the action was at times too much, when the action was gotten to it looked like a well done Godzilla/Mothra collision. Big E took some hard bumps for Roman's biggest stuff, and that uranage on the shoulders looked deadly. Roman's punches all looked big and the deadlift powerbomb was impressive. I wish we could have made this more of an unpredictable Brock bombfest and gotten out of here quicker, but they made the good stuff look good and that stands out on this show. 

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WWE Extreme Rules 9/26/21 Live Blog

Peacock is concurrently broadcasting the commentary of every single language they have right now, so watching and reviewing this PPV live certainly feels like a dubious way to spend my Sunday evening. 

Liv Morgan vs. Carmella

ER: This was a fun way to open the live show, a spirited match that went for more drama than these openers usually aim for. Carmella is quietly having a really nice year and is operating from a real natural character, leaning into a nicely balanced annoying heel role. Liv has been pretty aimless for a couple years now, and I'm not really in love with her current style. She used to be one of the women (along with Mandy Rose) who I kept seeing in strong house show performances without having any TV matches as good. Morgan doesn't feel anywhere near the person who was gluing together good house show tags, but now someone doing some bad indy offense with off rhythm timing. It's an offense that doesn't work with someone bad at taking offense, but Carmella is good at taking this dumb yet complicated offense. There are some hard strikes and kicks, and Morgan maintains a good enough 2:1 ratio of nice folding bumps to every off-timed flat back bump. The Liv win was a real surprise. Carmella has been the way more interesting TV character, and this feels like the weakest Liv work we've gotten. 

AJ Styles/Bobby Lashley/Omos vs. Big E/Kofi Kingston/Xavier Woods

ER: Quality trios with a big Bobby Lashley threaded throughout, kind of taking away from Big E's recent title win even with Big E getting the win here. Lashley looked like a dynamic traffic director, usually the role Styles inhabits in a match like this. New Day split the ring time well with Kofi playing the most effective babyface. Styles was a cool guy asshole and Lashley had some explosive stuff, hitting big on his spears and shoulder tackles. Omos was integrated well and is still good at playing into his big moments. This felt a bit more like a house show match than a big stops pulled out PPV match, but house show style always gives a high floor to a match like this. Lashley's big spear to Styles looked good, and I liked Big E instantly capitalizing on it. Weird to see the new champ E in this kind of opener though. 

Street Profits vs. The Usos

ER: Very good tag that didn't quite hit the heights it could have, but hit all the notes of the strong match you assumed they would have. I think Jey has had a real breakout year over the past calendar year, while I think Jimmy's return has been welcome I think Jey pulled ahead of him as a worker in the latter's time away. Montez Ford has also been on a tear this year, really standing out as a unique high flying babyface in a promotion with several prominent versions of that. He gets great height on offense and defense, and here he has some real standout moments. Ford hits a huge tope con giro over the ringpost, and eats knees painfully on a sky high frog splash. Dawkins came in hot on his hot tag and both Usos really fell into and threw the ropes for his impact. Crowd got more vocally involved in the match the longer it went, which is a good sign they were doing the right things. The crowd responded big to the extended nearfall home stretch, which is what you'd want in a long title match. I thought the build to the home stretch was a bit more interesting and felt more organic. Still, very good tag match. 

Charlotte vs. Alexa Bliss

ER: This is a real battle of disappointing 2021s. Both could use a strong performance in a big singles match. Bliss has been trapped for too long in a gimmick that is antithetical to good wrestling matches. Charlotte has been working with an attitude that I'm not sure anyone understands. I personally don't understand what the chip on her shoulder is supposed to be, but she comes off like a real asshole because of it. And in a match like this, where her being an asshole is supposed to be the focus, it works best. She does not make any sense to me as a babyface, and this match was a much better use of who she is right now. She still badly apes offense, with her doing fewer bad Flair knife edge chops and more difficult timing Andrade offense. She's at her best when she is taking surprising bumps for Bliss, and I think her cocky heel facials after getting knocked on her ass are one of her best features. Bliss feels a little off timing wise, but it also feels like she has consistently barely seen the inside of a ring for too long. This was the weakest match on the show so far, but it was one of the better Charlotte matches of the year. I have no comment on anything that may have happened to Alexa Bliss after the match, as I turned it to the 49ers game. 

Sheamus vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Damian Priest

ER: This was pretty dull for the most part, but they saved their good fireworks for the final two minutes. Going out on a high note earns a match a lot of forgiveness for what came before earlier. Because again, a lot of this was dull. Hardy figured out early the best way to work this, which was to let Sheamus and Priest work a one on one brawl that he stayed would mostly stay out of, then fly in with a dropkick or plancha when neither was paying attention. It was some of Hardy's best offense in months. But then, once Hardy went on a long run against Sheamus, he looked as lethargic and completely washed as I've ever seen him. He entered in fits and starts, with perhaps the best entrance being his swanton that landed heavy on Priest's back (while he was pinning Sheamus). The move chain finish lifted this out of the realm of total disappointment, but this was a drier match than it should have been. Then again, the build for this match was probably the weakest of any match on the card, so that couldn't have helped. 

Bianca Belair vs. Becky Lynch

ER: I love Becky's striped tube sock hear, but don't love the horse hair. And the match was about on the level of the Carmella match earlier, but went on too long to only to end with Sasha running in and elbowing Lynch. I'm happy to have Sasha back, but I'm not quite feeling the motivations within the Bianca/Sasha/Becky program. This had some cool Bianca strength spots, like a great high arcing fallaway slam, a press slam that Lynch managed to reverse, and a big Backlund spot where she stood to her feet with Lynch sitting on her shoulder. Lynch threw her forearms with her whole body and has some nice looking suplexes. Both have a couple of nice suplexes, actually, with Bianca hitting a nice delayed vertical. Looking back with knowledge this was going to end with a Sasha run-in, I wish they would have worked a more go go pace, and it made some spot placement seem odd. I didn't like when Bianca was raining down on Becky with hard corner elbows, the crowd was counting along with them, and Lynch just escapes out the bottom to yank Belair's braid. I always like Belair's hair getting integrated into things, but hated Lynch shrugging off Belair's best strikes of the match like she hadn't taken eight straight. The eventual triple threat match/es we're going to get won't be as good as any combination of straight singles matches they can run, but I Believe In Sasha. 

Roman Reigns vs. Finn Balor 

ER: We finally get rid of The Fiend and now we just have to deal with the Rasta Demon whose special powers I do not understand. Head of the Table Roman has been my least favorite iteration of Roman Reigns. I do not like the slow paced main event epics, nor do I like the meandering weapon brawls. This was a lot of meandering weapons brawl with some stunt falls peppered in, and it never grabbed me. Luckily for them, it grabbed the crowd and seemed to keep their interest. Roman has been on a hot streak and has worked some tight TV matches, and his biggest hand to hand stuff here looked great. I loved his strikes, and his spear was skeleton damaging. Balor took some big falls through tables and took a big tackle through the ring barricade. It was a lot of damage, but I forgot that the Demon has super powers and is the Undertaker/Fiend. He is able to fully shrug off every bit of pain that Roman put him through...but sadly the Demon's kryptonite turns out to be ring ropes. Lightning crashes, the top rope breaks, the Demon is put down by and unexpected fall. This felt like it was really really dumb. Pretty sure this was dumb. 

This was not a very Extreme show, which was probably a blessing in disguise. I wasn't really in the mood to see ladder matches or whatever else they could have done. The show ended on a down note but had a strong first 2/3. The final two matches were intentionally overshadowed by match ending angles. Extreme Rules started with a good head of steam but ended too flatly to recommend as a show. 

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WWE TLC Gently Behind Live Blog 12/15/19

Andrade vs. Humberto Carrillo

ER: These are two guys who are perfect pre-show participants. And yes obviously Andrade should be past pre-show status, I'm just saying he's a guy who can be trusted to reliably put something hot on the pre-show. The pre-show on these cards deliver more often than not, settling firmly into the level of "Cool 8 minute Velocity match you watch at 1 AM while eating Taco Bell on a Saturday" and that's a great level to be at. Carrillo is a guy who will take death bumps on PPV, and you can tell these two really want to ignite this crowd. They did some dance sequences I actually liked, dug the way these two bounce off each other. Carrillo does indeed take a big bump, getting shoved off the top to the floor into an ad break. A big bump leading to an ad break did affect me as a child, always made that bump seem bigger, like they had to cut away from it as if something was wrong, not yet registering as just a good time for an ad. And pretty early we get a big cool spot where Andrade gets his knee hung up in the ropes, and Carrillo does his best Fenix attempt, climbs the ropes and dropkicks Andrade right in the eye. And Andrade's shutting bleeding eye shaped the rest of this match as something awesome. At first I thought Andrade was doing cool little selling touches, occasionally going to his eye as a guy who thought he might be cut, but then he was hitting back at Carrillo as a guy who WAS cut. Once I saw Andrade belt him on the turnbuckles, saw that closed eye, I was hooked. Everything had a little extra meaning to it, made Andrade look like a spaghetti western villain, firing off two knees into the corner. I thought they killed it down the stretch, not sure how many other matches will get this same kind of building crowd interest that this one grabbed. Carrillo's moonsault was the most flush I've ever seen him hit it, thought Andrade came off like a total badass even with the clean loss, and Andrade coming off like such a badass only made Carrillo's win look stronger. If anything else on this show is as cool as this match, then this will be a good show regardless.

Ladder Match: New Day vs. The Revival

ER: Well I thought this was fantastic. This felt like the best parts of grimy 2000s indy ladder matches, and the best parts of a hot southern tag brawl. Revival came off like real assholes and we get a great stretch of them using all of New Day's Looney Tunes tricks against them in violent fashion. All the brawling was looking snug anyway, but things kept getting better when they were catching New Day in their own game. Kofi tries some quick work around a ladder, New Day ends up just bashing the hell out of that ladder he tried to Bugs Bunny under; same happens when they sucker Big E into hitting a sick splash onto the apron. I liked seeing Revival one step ahead of the New Day, and it went on long enough that the crowd reaction to New Day kept swelling. When Kofi finally broke away and turned the tables by teeter tottering a ladder into Revival's faces, the fans chanting "Kofi! Kofi!" felt more like a great 80s territory babyface reaction than a modern one. They were so excited just to see Kofi finally get his chance to climb a ladder for those belts. It was great once Revival was finally not a step ahead, and Kofi's tricks started working, like his wild tornado DDT off a couple of weird rope leaps. The only minor drag of the match was a slowdown for a major ladder set up, but the big moments that resulted more than overcame that, I think. Big E hit his frankly incredible spear tope, falls off the top of a ladder with a Big Ending on Wilder, eats a suplex on a set up ladder, eats a splash through that same ladder, all sick stuff. Everybody takes stupid bumps, and tried dangerous things, but there was always a sense of build and I never got the sense anyone was getting back involved too quickly. This was a lot of dynamite, great old school hate but entertain vibe to the whole thing.

Buddy Murphy vs. Aleister Black

ER: Murphy sitting Indian style in front of Black made it look like he was looking at a mirror image of his own CAW, asking "hey what would I look like with Tattoo E setting?" And I keep wondering why things are looking better tonight, why guys look like they're really leaning into strikes and flying face first into ladders and going mouth first into ring steps, and then I notice guys keep getting busted open. And I will take it! Everybody on this card is working like they want to be noticed and a busted nose is something that can actually make me interested in a Buddy Murphy match! I still don't love all the dancey parts of this match - and there are going to be dancey moments in a Buddy Murphy match - but there are enough hard shots that added to the frenetic pace that most of this came off well. Murphy doing his silly DDR strikes before hitting a nasty brainbuster, is exponentially cooler when Aleister Black's nose leaves a blood smear on the mat. And I liked Murphy mixing up some of his regulars, like kicking Black quickly three times after trapping him in the buckles. And I love the gravity that Black Mass carries, really treated as the very end, and the dance fight that built to the Black Mass was fun (and I also like Murphy going for footstomps). Match was a real crowd pleaser, and while it's not my favorite style, I thought it delivered.

WWE having a KFC table at ringside is super 1995, really capturing a Coliseum Video kind of special feature. That's a level of desperation advertising WWE hasn't hit in awhile, and I appreciate that willingness to hustle. But dammmmmn was that a missed opportunity to have a couple of big ass vikings absolutely massacre that table, just pillage through those sides and wolf down every chicken leg there. Otis would have fucked that spread up.

Viking Raiders vs. The OC

ER: This was definitely the comedown match, but it wasn't a bad one. This played more like a Raw match that surprisingly delivered, but felt like a step down on this show. The OC are pretty dead as a tag team, and there were plenty of more interesting teams we could have seen out there even in a losing showcase. Because OC got to showcase some stuff here, it wasn't a beatdown by any means. And OC are a perfectly fine team, and so I guess it's fine to have the Raiders win a decisively in a mach like this. It was the cooldown, it didn't need to be as hot, it just needed to end with a big Hanson hot tag and that KFC family losing their table. I love how they instructed the actors to never stop eating, and act like the people aren't literally directly in front of you. These big dudes were fighting right in front of them and that one guy never stopped eating his chicken while not blinking. The double teams from both teams looked good, Hanson got the big reaction, and Anderson wound up with potatoes and gravy on his butt after a powerbomb. That's what people wanted.

TLC Match: King Corbin vs. Roman Reigns

ER: I'm...not so sure how I feel about this one. I liked the slow burn of Corbin laying in a beating, knowing it would lead to a hot Roman comeback. And I liked how long the Corbin beating took, because it really did make Roman's comeback sting harder. Roman was going through paid off security, eating hard shots into the ringpost, getting leveled by Corbin's nice lariat, Corbin's big backbreaker looked, well, backbreaking, everything was lining up nicely. And sure enough, the Reigns comeback was great, and this was feeling great. But it's always weird to me when you have a ton of heels kicking the shit out of a big babyface, and the announcers are talking about how the locker room is falling in line behind Corbin, and there is just nobody in sight who is interested in saving Reigns. Are the Usos around? Ali? Gable? Nobody is around to run out and get a huge babyface reaction to save Roman from injustice? So even while the big heel beatdown was done well, it just feels like not using that chance to elevate someone knew not only makes no sense, but it makes Reigns come off like a bigger dummy too. So I just couldn't vibe with that finish, couldn't get behind it, and I really liked where the start of this was going.

The Miz vs. Bray Wyatt

ER: I'll level with you, none of this is doing it for me. I don't care about Wyatt, I don't care about the Miz, and this is something I'm not interested in. I regret sitting through this, but I'm also kind of fascinated by it. Are people into this? Some people seem into this, for reasons I might not understand. And that interests me. But I don't think I'm into whatever graphic novel juggalo detective comic this is turning into.

Tables Match: Bobby Lashley vs. Rusev

ER: I couldn't get into this one either, even though I really wanted to root for Rusev. I haven't been paying close enough attention to the details of the storyline to care either way about that, but it also doesn't feel like a story that I want to learn more about. I think this just went a little long, and should have had far more aggressive hate and bad decision making by Rusev, and some cocky underestimating that bites his ass from Lashley. And it was instead worked like a sensible yet escalating brawl with some big bumps and a fairly defeated man. That's not the correct tone, and this whole thing felt odd for it. Rusev was trying his damndest, really carrying the bumping and rough spills, actively appealing to the crowd for some support - and getting it, for awhile - but I wanted some enraged Rusev, some dangerous Rusev. I'm not sure where this is all going, but I wanted something different here.

TLC Match: Kabuki Warriors vs. Becky Lynch/Charlotte

ER: What a bizarrely messy but kind of hypnotic fight that main event was! This felt like Charlotte working as blowoff match Ian Rotten, being super unprofessional in a protected bully kind of way, and I thought Asuka (and a likely concussed Kairi Sane) turned in a couple of insane performances, the kind that should cement them even further as stars. They came off like a great stooge heel team and a never say die babyface team during appropriate parts of the same match, really connecting with every moment. Charlotte is reckless and bullet proof, and Kairi is someone who recklessly flies into everything, and that's a dangerous combo. Kairi flies into a big boot, gets tossed hard into the barricade, eats a fallaway slam that whips her head around the corner of the barricade, and just keeps sprawling out onto the back of her head. Charlotte is pretty relentlessly after her, and it peaks with a crazy deadlift powerbomb through a table, Sane looking half knocked out but still throwing stiff punches to get out of it, and getting dropped viciously through it anyway. Asuka was such a megastar here, really elevated the messy chaos of it all. She has been crushing the heel turn, adding more personality than anyone, and here she just Dikembe Mutombo bossed her way through this damn thing; having Kairi out there as your concussion zombie chair throwing maniac only makes you look more cool by association. Becky Lynch's run as The Man has been so undeniably disappointing, and that's only magnified   when Asuka is so fully in charge in there. But this whole thing had a real shoot dangerous indy match feel to it that I really loved, helped the rough edges stand out as cool features instead of awkward blemishes. They really went full out on dangerous and stiff looking spots and that made this thing come off the right amount of vicious. The only tragedy about the match, is how they IMMEDIATELY cut away from Asuka's triumphant moment. That was a genuine main event delivery on a show that was trying to be noticed, and they made it possible to miss that moment so that the viewer could instead see Roman doing an almost comical endzone celebration spot. That's a stupid note to finish the show on, totally undercutting the cool moment that had just happened in the ring the past 20 minutes.


ER: Overall I call this show a win. The first two matches of the evening were total knockouts, and the main event sent things out on a high note. The misses involved angles I don't care about anyway, so wasn't as invested in them being good or bad, so that lessened the blows. Feels like these undertalked about shows always have a high delivery %, and this was no different.

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WWE Hell in a Cell 10/6/19, Not Live But Not Bad

Lacey Evans vs. Natalya

ER: Lacey's yellow outfit is fantastic, easily the best gear she's had. And this has become a feud that I have enjoyed far more than I ever thought I would. Tamina is probably the only woman on the roster I would want to see Natalya over, and Evans felt like someone who was a slightly better Eva Marie, but not only has Evans improved seemingly quite quickly, but their ring chemistry is genuinely really good. They have worked several matches this year, but I wasn't paying attention to them until one caught my eye on Raw a month ago. And this was definitely the best of their recent series, and what felt like a career making performance from Evans. Evans comes off really nasty, and has a ton of different attacks to the body and face. I'm not sure what it says about the state of WWE that Lacey Evans' strikes are top 5 in the company right now. She dropped some indy aspects of her offense and instead has focused on stomping limbs and throwing elbows to throats. I love how she stomps Natalya's arm just to get it out of the way, and when the action rolls to the apron she starts slamming her leg into the apron, kicking her in the knee, slamming her into the ring steps, and strangling her with the ring skirt. The moment Natalya rolled to the floor, Lacey met her on the floor with a straight kick right to the chest, and was still dropping those kicks later. Natalya seems to tighten things up opposite Lacey, her elbows hit more snug and she puts actual personality behind slaps, a bad actress that is suddenly able to look like she cannot stand Evans and wants to hit her hard. The finish is quick and satisfying, with Evans missing her really nice double jump moonsault and tapping quick to the Sharpshooter, then getting waylaid by one last Natalya elbow post match. I love the way they played up the personal elements of their ring feud, and wouldn't have guessed these two would have matched up so well. The best pre-show match this year. It's extra impressive to come out and have a nasty little match the crowd gets behind, on a card filled with gimmick matches.

Sasha Banks vs. Becky Lynch

ER: Ever since Becky Lynch reached main event feud status, the singles matches that feel like they should be great with the build, haven't been great. Most have fallen short. I don't think I've actually been that into a Becky Lynch match all year, until this one. And even this one was mostly for the big time Sasha Banks performance, easily Sasha's best performance since the Ronda match earlier this year. Sasha had an awesome violent cage match performance, getting thrown painfully into the cage several times, flinging herself back on hard dropkicks and flying into it with big splatting bumps. Sasha built to her big garbage moments well, with the Meteora off the apron into Lynch/a ladder looking great (and impressive how she aimed her knees safely between ladder steps and also not into Lynch's face), and the one into the ring was a nice mid-match nearfall. Lynch doesn't always throw weapon shots with enough force, and some of her loaded chain punches and chairshots looked a little light. Luckily Sasha was there to violently throw herself into everything, with Lynch taking plenty of mean shots as well, including a big bump through a table. Sasha set up a chair, wedged into the cell, fairly early in the match, and I love how they paid that off late in the match with Sasha reversing an Irish whip to send Lynch face first into it. The violent escalation was handled really well, the spills looked good, and they actually opened the show with a superplex into a messy pile of chairs. Awesome.

Roman Reigns/Daniel Bryan vs. Luke Harper/Erick Rowan

ER: This took a bit to get going, and it was weird how much they were overshadowed by the 4 ladies who wrestled before them. Reigns and Bryan in the same match should always be a big deal, but they found themselves with some surprisingly big shoes to fill. And this turned into a real good, exciting tag match, that was still somehow the weakest match on the card. Somehow, indeed. Things seemed a little jumbled at first but when they moved into the Bryan heat segment I was into it. Bryan is good at eating a beating, Rowan and Harper are fun to watch deliver one. They had some big spots to compete with in just the prior match, and I think they did a good job getting to them. The big ones, Bryan getting powerbombed through a table and Roman spearing Rowan through the other announce table, looked great and got their own reactions. But there were other big spots like Harper hitting Roman with a tope and nearly smashing his face in the edge of a table. The second half of this really brought the heat, and it would be a shame if they matched these teams up a couple more times to see if they have a full classic in them. This could have possibly stood out more on a weaker show, but this match overall delivered.

Randy Orton vs. Ali

ER: See, this is turning out to be another no buzz underbooked WWE PPV that ends up delivering big fun. This is a match I would probably fast forward through on Raw, but I gave it a shot and liked what they did with the time. It played as a nice gimmick free palate cleanser after the two openers, just  solid simple ring work with a no fuss finish. I'm sure people could be upset that Ali didn't go over, as Orton isn't a guy who needs wins and Ali sure could use one. But as a match in a vacuum (which is all I really care about if it's guys I'm not super interested in) it was good. Ali took big bumps and Orton came off like a dick. I like when Orton uses unnecessary stuff like eyepokes, things he clearly doesn't need to do to win. Ali took big bumps, Orton knocked him off of high places, this was fun.

Alexa Bliss/Nikki Cross vs. Asuka/Kairi Sane

ER: Asuka has been majorly lost in the shuffle ever since the winning streak stopped, but the crowd is still clearly into her and I'm glad. And this match continues the good vibes of this show. I LOVE when they go out and actually work to exceed expectations. The whole roster has felt really energized tonight and maybe that's even a happy byproduct of the new competition. Asuka came off as fresh as she's looked all year, totally dominant in all her moments and instantly tapping back into her unique charisma that has just been absent from TV. Bliss was great on the apron, really one of the best apron workers in WWE (which is a cool, undertalked about skill), and Cross was really good at running headlong into the Warriors offense. Sane throwing a full body weight elbow drop right into the feet of Cross was an awesome moment, and I was way into Asuka cutting everyone off with kicks throughout. This was real fun, and I hope it leads to more Kabuki Warriors on TV, freshen up some match-ups.

AJ Styles/Karl Anderson/Luke Gallows vs. Viking Raiders/Braun Strowman

ER: I thought this continued the streak of really great to really fun matches on this card, even with an impossibly uninspired finish. A match that just ends because another team got disqualified for unfairly kicking ass is never going to be an interesting finish. Unless you go so extreme with the one sided beatdown that it builds to a blood feud. But this just ends because of stomping, and that's pretty lame. But the rest was good! Vikings are both going to bring fun hoss moments, Styles took a bigass backdrop bump and then got leveled some more during Braun's great hot tag, Gallows brought nice uppercuts, this was a perfectly fun six man. It felt a little more TV match than PPV match, but the action was good nonetheless.

Baron Corbin vs. Chad Gable

ER: I love how the consensus opinions are turning on Corbin. He's still divisive but you can see more and more people getting into his specific brand of annoyance, because his brand is pretty undeniable at this point. He's the only guy on the roster really allowed to work this slow methodical actively trying to piss off the crowd style, and it's fun. And I really liked this one, thought they effectively laid this out for Gable to take a big bumping beating and still able to come back in the second half and start plausibly hitting some big things. Corbin was slow but explosive on control, and Gable would fly hard into his stuff. The slide in running clothesline hit big (and nicely set up an important moment in the closing stretch), and Gable was taking hard bumps for everything including a nasty rolling tumble into the ringpost. But Gable's comeback was fun as hell, and he really seems like someone who the crowd has been wanting to get behind. The "Shortly Gable" stuff on commentary comes off pretty lame, but if they actually let him go in there and kick ass like this then it won't matter. I dug him flying into Corbin, countering the sliding lariat, nailing the cannonball, hitting a big crossbody, and nailing the Chaos Theory. There was nothing screwy at all about the finish, and it made Gable come off like a cool threat. Corbin is deceptively large (he looked like he towered over the Rock on Smackdown) but he's good with working smaller guys and making them seem credible. Both guys could come out of this feud looking great.

Bayley vs. Charlotte

ER: Gotta say the first thing that impressed me with this match was how vocal the crowd still was. They were loudly Wooing along with all of Charlotte's chops, and that's a testament to this being a hot show. It's impressive that we're 7 or 8 matches in and the crowd hasn't burnt out. The good stuff has been constant, the Great stuff has been peppered in, and it's had a great vibe that's held interest the whole night. Even as the match was feeling a little slow or a little too dry, the crowd was right there breaking out the loudest chant of the night, people loudly split between Charlotte and Bayley. This was the weakest match of the night, but the crowd was still hot for it, and that's cool. It felt a little too basic, felt too anticlimactic, and felt like a match that Charlotte definitely should not have won. Sasha lost in nasty fashion earlier, and then Bayley kind of just goes down easy like this was Charlotte vs. Dana Brooke in the last hour of Raw. That seems kind of dumb. Charlotte worked a basic attack the knee story, and that looked good, and it logically lead to her winning with the figure 8. But I wanted a more interesting journey on the way to the destination.

Seth Rollins vs. Bray Wyatt

ER: So, I don't care enough about either guy to waste much energy going off on how bad this was and how stupid the booking was. I was at least curious to see where the whole Fiend thing was going to go, but goddamn am I just tired of seeing Seth Rollins matches. The dude stinks. I have skipped several of his main events on nights I wasn't digging the PPV, but I was so into the rest of this show that my mood was strong and I wanted to see if we could implausibly knock it out of the park. Obviously, they didn't fully, because this match blew. Bray losing dumb, Rollins matches bad, the end.


ER: The last match sucked in ways that people are loudly and justifiably complaining about. It is fair. But since I really don't care in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't affect how much I enjoyed this show. This was one of the most fun overall shows of the year for WWE, and if only 85% of it is good then I don't honestly care that the lame 15% came in the last 15%. The rest of the card kicked ass, with Evans/Natalya being my favorite pre-show match of the year, Sasha delivering her best performance of the year, and Gable/Corbin being a great non-gimmick match. This was a blast of a show, even if I do wish Seth Rollins was not a thing.

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WWE Clash of Champions 9/15/19

Lince Dorado vs. Humberto Carrillo vs. Drew Gulak

ER: Fun match with typical problems that curse three ways. I don't know why Lince was added to the match, but I would have been far more interested in Gulak vs. Carrillo or Gulak vs. Dorado. But we got a three way instead, and it had awkward three way moments where timing was off or someone accidentally kinda took a move instead of dodging it, and of course disappearing for minutes. But it was genuinely fun, in spite of those accurate complaints. Dorado had a cool pescado with his arms at his side, following it up with a slick rana to Gulak on the floor, and then turns a potential silly hot shot bump into a dangerous tumble to the floor. I like Gulak against lucha guys, like how he can make flippy offense seem legit, and Carrillo is someone who tries a lot of things even if they don't always work flush. They try a wild tower spot with a Doomsday Device dive to the floor, I enjoyed the moment where Gulak got his feet up on Carrillo's moonsault but Carrillo anticipated it, Carrillo takes a great posting bump, Gulak breaks out cool things like a gutbuster, and then some other things don't work. But it was a fun opener.

Cedric Alexander vs. AJ Styles

ER: So, I enjoyed this, but I assume most people were thinking this one had some show stealing potential and didn't really want the WorldWide style showcase we wound up with. This was short, compact, and explosive, as good as you'd want a match this short to be. I dug how aggressive Alexander was and I bought that they might give him the early match surprise pin, totally thought that he was winning in a minute. The big spot counters were cool, dug Styles planting him with a Styles Clash on the floor, nice apron spot without going too crazy, Cedric hit a bitchin back elbow on the apron, and we got a fun quick action bout that I'll forget about by the end of the night.

Seth Rollins/Braun Strowman vs. Dolph Ziggler/Robert Roode

ER: You know, if I'm going to watch Ziggler and Rollins, it's at least better that they're paired with a couple other guys. Although had they just been in a singles match against each other I would have skipped it. Huh. I guess that's the better scenario. And this was mostly pretty boring when 3 of the guys were involved, and really awesome when Braun was involved. If it was easier to skip ahead in matches on the New Network I would have skimmed like a motherfucker through this one. Braun's hot tag was the clear highlight, big corner charges, big shoulderblocks on the floor all around the ring, muscling up Roode for a big flapjack out of a DDT attempt, but Seth was shortly back in and whiffing on flying knees. The full extension superkick to Roode was nice though. They kept it economical, and that was fine by me.

Charlotte vs. Bayley

ER: This was a drag. I was getting into Charlotte wrecking Bayley without Bayley getting to come up for air, Charlotte starting with a big boot and not stopping. I dug Bayley's heavy bumps into the barricades, I was really getting into the one-sidedness and wondering where they would go with it. And then moments later the thing was done. Bayley didn't look great from the moment she took over, taking three tries to grab Charlotte into a sloppy small package, and messing up the timing on the drop toehold into buckle finish. I like the finish in a vacuum, but it needed a much longer Charlotte beatdown, and Bayley needed to either look actually good, or completely overwhelmed and outclassed. She didn't shine in the couple moments of offense, and her acting isn't good enough to play overwhelmed heel. Major disappointment.

The Revival vs. Big E/Xavier Woods

ER: Big E is wearing maybe the finest singlet in the great history of singlets. What an absolute masterpiece that is. This show has been wildly underwhelming, this one now has an even heavier load on its shoulders. And the match was really good! Easily the best on the show. The finish took a little long to set up, though I don't mind that they stretched out some time to make the Revival look like punishing sadists. The Revival presented strongly is a cool thing. I like that they switched things up and had Big E cut off from Xavier, even though Big E hot tags are among the best things in the WWE tag division. Big E can Ricky just as interestingly as he can Robert, and I loved the entire sequence of him getting left for dead on the floor: He stops the momentum of a Dash tope, fixes to toss him with a belly to belly, Dash headbutts out, he and Dawson try to shove him into the post, E blocks, then eats the shatter machine. Revival both sold the effects of doing the shatter machine on the hard floor, acting like they both took bumps on concrete to pull it off. I also dig that even though Big E wasn't doing his tope spear, he was still gonna take a big bump through the ropes to the floor. Xavier looked tight as hell on the hot tag, like he knew people were used to Big E fireworks and he knew he had to really be throwing clotheslines and kicks. His handspring lariat looked great, and that's the kind of thing that guys rarely make look good. I don't think the match reached the heights it could have, but Revival looked well-oiled, I dug their post-match victory promo, liked the idea of them targetting Xavier's knee even if took a bit long, but this was all good.

Mandy Rose/Sonya Deville vs. Alexa Bliss/Nikki Cross

ER: Another under-delivery. Rose has been a great house show performer and I have a soft spot for her because of that, but she has been on the main roster a LONG time now and it has STILL not translated to a really good TV or PPV match. I am not sure what's missing. I like her and Sonya together, I've SEEN what both are capable of, and it just doesn't shake out to anything more than decent when they get a showcase. Now this did serve as background for a portion of the 24/7 chase, but I don't think they looked like total dweebs. Three of them did, but at least Bliss went for a roll-up on Truth. There was a decent nearfall save, but this whole thing felt like a time filler.

The Miz vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

ER: I don't really care about either of these two, but this was a good match. Miz always comes off a little too smooth and planned, and that's a big barrier for me, so I got a kick out of Zayn's King of Soft Style commentary. And I also got a kick out of him landing a really nice jab right when he was called King of Soft Style. I liked Miz's jumping knees in the corner to build to the corner clothesline, loved Nakamura going all jellyfish on a spike DDT, thought a couple of Nakamura's sloppy kick combos looked cool, it was a perfectly fine match.

Sasha Banks vs. Becky Lynch

ER: I didn't think the match itself was great, but I liked what they did once they went to the floor and into the crowd. The staircase brawling was better in Sasha/Charlotte, and part of the time it was way too ECW Hold Hair Walking, but all the getting tossed into hard objects stuff looked good (Sasha is good at throwing herself into railings and tables and condiment counters), and it was great seeing kids sitting 35 rows up flipping out when two wrestlers were somehow right next to them. The initial chairshots were a little weak, and the chairshot that took the ref out of contention was nothing special, but I really liked the energy at the end of the segment with Becky throwing Sasha repeatedly into a set up chair. Within the match, the most engaging stuff was anything based around the Banks Statement or the Disarm-Her, but too much of this had no fire, and this needed more hate. I also thought Graves shoehorning a comment about Banks lying down and having a tantrum felt way too produced, took away from a match that didn't need it.

Randy Orton vs. Kofi Kingston

ER: Nope.

Roman Reigns vs. Erick Rowan

ER: Big boy battles are all the rage these days, and my god did this show need a big boy battle. This stood out especially on this show, but would have stood out most places. Both guys threw bombs, took bigger than expected spills, threw full weight into shoulderblocks and back elbows, Reigns crushed the Superman punch, and Drive-By looked great, and the crowd brawling was nice and dirty. Rowan missed a big awful charge in the ring steps, a hard running forearm, nice splash, and we build to him hitting a huge powerbomb through an announce table. These guys were really landing shots and it ruled. I had mentioned to someone a few days ago that WWE appears to be phasing out elbowdrops, and here's Rowan dropping his full damn weight into Roman's side with one. I dug the ringside brawling, liked the stuff with the crane, and then got even more excited when the lean as hell Luke Harper came back!! We got Amon Amarth and Enslaved represented, and I keep expecting Harper to turn, and instead we get a welcome reunion (for now). This was easily my favorite thing on the show, gave me exactly what I wanted out of these two, tons of great bomb throwing set pieces.

Seth Rollins vs. Braun Strowman

ER: Braun is at least someone who is gonna get me to watch a Seth Rollins match, and we established that twice in one night. Shameful. The match structure was good, even though I think Rollins looked pretty lousy in the parts that needed him. It's smart that they have Rollins double and triple up on his offense, as most of his offense doesn't look credible in any way against Braun. So you have him do a few superkicks, you have him do a few leaping knees (you know, the ones he threw tonight where on all but one of them Michael Cole had to throw out some kind of "well I don't think he hit all of that, but..." to cover for how terrible they looked), several dives, several curb stomps, etc. Almost all of it looked trash, but it was smartly laid out within the match. Now Braun, he more than held up his end of things, and completely made this match. He flew his body into offense (loved him not holding back on shoulderblocks), and he threw his body into everything to make Rollins' offense look lethal. He took a drop toehold into the announce table, took a tope into the table and broke it, worked a leg injury, did an insane looking splash off the top, I mean this was probably Braun's best performance in a year. Even with Rollins' kind of dim bulb performance, Braun's epic level performance and the strong layout made this whole show end on a high note, no small feat.


ER: Not an offensive show, but a fairly unmemorable show in terms of match quality. Nobody went out and stunk up the joint, but there weren't many matches that were lighting fires. There was stuff I enjoyed littered all throughout, and we ended on a cool high note, but I'm not sure how much of this show I'll remember by the next one.

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WWE Summerslam 8/11/19 (Not at ALL) Live Report

ER: I've had an unexpectedly long, very much trash day, so am not *really* in the mood to go through this show. But it's good to commit to things, so forgive me if I do not commit to watching some of the matches I'm unexcited for while battling the now-unusable WWE Network.

Drew Gulak vs. Oney Lorcan

ER: Yes sir. This was what got me excited for this card. And there is nothing else that can happen on this card that will take this match away from me. This ruled, and was a killer showcase for both men. We were so excited seeing TAKA Michinoku doing quebradas on WWF TV 20 years ago, so excited for cruiserweight wrestling on our TVs, and now we have evolved to TV cruiserweight wrestling being two guys ripping at beards and punching throats. Look at the things we as a people can do. This was an unhurried an unsanitized version of what these two can do, and it got to happen on (the undercard) of one of the biggest shows of the year, and that's a very cool thing. It was a tidy 9 minutes filled with a dozen cool ideas, and just made me want to see them match up a dozen more times. Gulak slams Lorcan into the ropes in a flat out sinister way, and is practically inventing cruel subs to try to trap him in. Lorcan's aggression is his double edged sword. He flies into everything with abandon, which allowed him to come so close to beating Gulak, but it also meant he lost to Gulak. These guys made me buy into everything they did, moves had consequences, actions lead to finishes. Gulak took on the persona of a big brother who picked on his little brother too long and accidentally pushed him over the edge, and it was great. The look on Gulak's face as Lorcan is grabbing him by the fucking beard and muzzle and slapping him was classic. Both read naked choke spots were great, with the first looking like a genuine finish as Lorcan is not close to the ropes, and Gulak drags the arm closest to the ropes back across Lorcan's throat. That they went back to it soon after and created an organic Lorcan false win showed they understand their characters and the match they were having 100%. I loved Lorcan flipping out of that rear naked and almost getting the "fluke" pin, everything they had done made that finish an absolute possibility. Lorcan's flying uppercuts are a thing of beauty, and I'm not sure I've seen someone just lean into them standing the way Gulak did. It's one of those spots that somehow made both men look tougher, Lorcan flying into Gulak and Gulak absorbing the shots but refusing to show ass. And the finish was great, with Gulak being drug into the ring holding onto the ring skirt for dead life, then at the earliest opening just punching Lorcan in the throat and hitting the neckbreaker. Lorcan's sell of his throat was palpable, and I just want to see these guys continue to crush every opportunity they're given.

Apollo Crews vs. Buddy Murphy

ER: Damn, I thought this was really cool. On paper this didn't do much for me, and it got ended after just a few minutes with a big boss Rowan run in, but I liked what they did with their allotted time. They knew that had 4 minutes to make an impression, and they did! Murphy attacked at the bell with a running knee, making me think it was actually going to be a 5 second match, and the rest played out like a cool Worldwide match. Crews got a couple big throws and showed off his leaps, we got a couple cool things on the floor like Crews getting run into the steps and Murphy hitting a big flip dive, and with that opening knee the whole thing felt like it could end at any time. That's a cool vibe for a match with essentially no stakes. I would actually like to see more of this. And by that I mean more of these guys, making unimportant matches feel important. More guys on the roster should actually work like it matters.

Alexa Bliss/Nikki Cross vs. Iiconics

ER: Damn, not only is Colin Delaney better than a large % of WWE's active roster, but now Alexa Bliss is robbing the Buzz Lightyear aesthetic? Give Delaney the run he deserves, you cowards. But I think this match had a lot to like. Iiconics are like a really great WoW team, with similar WoW wrestling ability. I genuinely get excited to see them when they come out, and don't really care that they don't always look great in ring. They entertain me. This match had a couple nice nearfall saves, and Royce catching Alexa's boots in the corner only to get sent absolutely wobbly with an elbow was a fantastic moment. I thought Royce's crumple sell was the best, and the whole spot worked because it was an appropriate sell for the strike. This was quick, fun, and made me appreciate what the Iiconics bring to a telecast even more.

Becky Lynch vs. Natalya

ER: I do not fucking care that they are in Canada, it is flat out bullshit that Natalya gets trotted out there entering AFTER the champ. Being Canadian is the one thing Natalya has going for her in this one, and I fully respect this Toronto crowd not giving one shit about Natalya being born thousands of miles away. If WWE actually got self aware and turned Natalya's insufferable nature into her onscreen character (I mean, intentionally), it could actually be good. If we are going to be plagued with Natalya, use her natural unlikability. And I liked this! I didn't really love the finishing stretch, as it was essentially just both getting put all the way into submissions and screaming a lot because they are all the way into a submission, but then just getting out of them and putting their own full submission on. Lynch gets put in a sharpshooter for the better part of a minute, and reverses it by just locking in the Disarm-her and not acknowledging any of the actual work that she's been through. I had a hunch this stip was going to be hard to actually pull off, but it worked better than I thought it would. The work getting to the finish was fun. I liked Natalya's turnbuckle sharpshooter, the superplex looked great, I liked the work around the arm, and thought they moved interestingly into submissions (like Natalya catching Lynch's kick in the corner to slam her leg into the mat). There was a weird moment where Becky was in a sub while her feet where completely hanging off the ring, and another where she was flat out crawling down the side of the ring in a sub, but the ref wasn't breaking the hold. This wasn't No DQ, right? There are still rules. Those kind of things bugged me in the match, but the match still delivered stronger than I was expecting. Toronto fans are sellouts for eventually rooting for Natalya. How low can you get? I understand pride in your country, but have a spine, Canada.

Goldberg vs. Dolph Ziggler

ER: For some reason I knew they would nail this one. And I am a total rube, because I actually fully bought into that opening match superkick. I don't know why, that just felt like something that could happen, and I dug it. This was worked exactly how it should have been: a couple superkicks, a spear for the ages, big Jackhammer, and Dolph hilariously talking shit after the match to his own detriment. These kind of pieces really liven up a card, really give us a different mix of energy, and this was an easy win.

Ricochet vs. AJ Styles

ER: I cannot remember the last match involving these two that I enjoyed as much as this one. This was incredibly fun, innovative, and economical. It took a simple story of Styles taking out Ricochet's knee, while Ricochet fought through not only that bum wheel but also attempted to fend off Gallows and Anderson. And it worked great! Styles does some nasty things to the knee, and Ricochet hops around that ring on one leg like he was Zack Gowen. AJ would kick his leg out and Ricochet would spill out spectacularly but fight back valiantly. I really liked Ricochet's aggression, made him come off real tough and AJ was good at taking advantage of opportunities. The one legged springboard crossbody was a coconuts thing to pull out, and I liked when Ricochet would deliver a kick but then have to deal with his knee going out. Ricochet made all of AJ's offense look finisher worthy; I don't know if I've seen anyone snap his neck like that on AJ's fireman's carry drop on his knee. The finish was wild, with Ricochet ducking and diving and kicking Anderson/Gallows away, only for AJ to catch his dragon rana and plant him with the Styles Clash. This was super effective, and was able to have a match filled with back and forth action without it ever feel like move trading. This card has been delivering on best case scenarios so far.

Bayley vs. Ember Moon

ER: Man I thought this ruled, too! There is something in the water in Toronto tonight, as I have seen several people on this card now have their most interesting matches in ages. Everybody looks like they're trying to stand out on a card filled almost exclusively with singles matches, and so far, everybody is doing just that. Moon was throwing heavy strikes, kneeing Bayley in the back, jamming her knee in with a bow and arrow, did cool things like break a Boston crab by striking at Bayley's leg,  hit a nice big rana off the top and followed it up with knees to the face. Moon looked like someone that should have a belt, and Bayley had her tightest performance that I can remember. Bayley had a match against Ronda earlier this year that I adored, and I think Bayley has looked sloppy as hell ever since. But I liked her here. The top rope Bayley to Belly was cool as hell, and it was a nice follow up from her nice superplex earlier in the match. And she kept throwing nice cut off strikes throughout, hitting a sharp elbow to the back of Moon's head, stopping a tope with a forearm, focused one shot attacks to stop Moon's flurries. This was another match that over delivered, a sentence I should have just been copying and pasting by this point.

Shane McMahon vs. Kevin Owens

ER: No time, no time, no time.

Trish Stratus vs. Charlotte Flair

ER: So if my continued use of the word "overdeliver" hadn't convinced you yet, not a soul among you would have guessed this match would be as entertaining as it ended up being. Trish has only a few matches over the past year, and certainly not enough ring time to think she could have a fun 15+ minute match. This was about as miracle match as you can get, and it's great that someone would work this hard to go out in what is probably the best singles match of her career. There were moments she moved a little slower than someone more active, but I thought she did great overall. She added a few painful bumps (loved her big back bump off the buckles to the floor, no non-wrestler needs to be taking drops like that), and she brought big match emotion to something that could have been a real mess. Charlotte handled the match incredibly well, finding the exact notes to hit so that this was not only a successful retirement match for a legend, but it never looked like she was working elderly Baba. Trish didn't get spared for being a non-regular, but Trish has always been good about leaning into everything (remember, this is a Finlay trainee we're talking about here!). The powerbomb turned into a rana off the top rope was an awesome moment, thought Charlotte looked so cool climbing up top with her entire face obscured by the body of Stratus. Stratus got to shine and took a bunch of bumps, Charlotte got to help a WWE legend shine while looking no worse for wear, the whole thing should NOT have worked this well. Full respect for both for putting this together, fuller respect for Trish for going out on top.

Kofi Kingston vs. Randy Orton

ER: I'm sure they did just fine.

Bray Wyatt vs. Finn Balor

ER: I thought this was fine, although it might have been a tough part of the card to be put on. I have no real dog in this fight, but I dug the weird Bray Wyatt head lantern, and the match itself was short and sweet.

Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins

ER: My god Paul Heyman has hit 1.0 on the Sorrell Booke scale. The fact he isn't in a white suit means that he has failed every single boy in the back, and every one of those boys has failed him. And this match? Yes yes yes yes YES! What kind of sweaty sorcery has consumed Brock Lesnar, having excellent singles matches with Finn Balor and Seth Rollins in one calendar year? This whole thing ruled, and it wasn't just Brock. Seth threw everything he had at him, and the quantity over quality approach worked, while his ragdoll crumpling body after suplexes was perfect. Lesnar was great at being vulnerable here, he made superkicks interesting and bounced his head off the mat several different ways while taking curb stomps throughout. When he went on offense he looked powerful in a different way than normal. His Germans looked faster and thrown at a lower angle than they typically are, and his rollthroughs after them were smooth as hell. Brock is great at working non-weapon objects into a match, things like angrily removing his gloves, or even running full speed into the ringpost, or even better catching Rollins on a dive and running him as hard as humanly possible into the ringpost, he knows how to integrate available objects in really cool ways that always make a match feel different. I think Brock is fantastic at selling and moving in a way that nobody else in wrestling does, the way he stumbles around and takes non-canon WWE bumps that aren't just fast flat back bumps, it makes all of his matches even more unique than they already are. He took spills for Rollins and always stumbled into taking Rollins' sometimes questionable offense in such a way that he looked beatable. The layout of this was so good, easily the best Rollins match of the year (and probably the best Rollins match of the past three years). I thought this was excellent.


ER: Well, I did a little personal editing to skip past a couple things that didn't interest me, but had I watched them and they were awful, I still would have loved this show. This show started with a great Gulak/Lorcan match and finished with a great Brock/Rollins match, and kept me entertained the entire time in between. This was an awesome show, one that on paper looked flat out bizarrely stuffed with almost all singles matches. It would have been very easy for this show to feel overly same-y, yet I thought everyone on this card did a great job of filling a different niche. Great time all around, great card.

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WWE Stomping Grounds Live Blog 6/23/19

ER: I don't know a ton about this card, only know the early online "WWE is dying and putting on terrible cards!" vulture chat. I write up all these damn things, and usually it's these kind of under the radar cards that end up delivering, whether its because of the low expectations of me the viewer or the wrestlers themselves knowing there are low expectations. Either way, let's hope for some good wrestling to kill time with until I gotta watch Meryl Streep's weird ass fake teeth.

Akira Tozawa vs. Drew Gulak vs. Tony Nese

ER: This definitely starts out as Gulak and Tozawa working a Tony Nese match, which I understand that's how this was likely to go. Nese is the champ, you work the champ's stupid match. I'd much rather see them just running a Tozawa/Gulak match, or Nese vs. Gulak, or Nese vs. Tozawa, but we get the worst option and it's fine. Gulak and Tozawa are GOOD at working a Tony Nese match, so it works. Nese even wears 205 Live colored gear which...feels like I hate Tony Nese. But after they got the early dance party out of their system, this settled into a really exciting 3 way. Pretty much from the moment Tozawa hit his great high impact cannonball off the apron into Gulak, I was on board. It was very "I hit this guy into that guy and that guy winds up suplexing me into the first guy" but I thought they were mostly good at avoiding dumb waiting around set-ups. This got into some pure fire territory when Gulak sunk in a nasty dragon sleeper on Nese, with his ankles locked tight in a rough body vice. Nese kept breaking out in various ways forcing Gulak to adjust the hold as his own limbs would break free, totally great way to advance drama throughout one submission. And then, with the absolutely best exclamation point, Tozawa flew from out of nowhere with a heavy ass hell senton off the top, right into Nese, with Gulak underneath. Great involvement of all three guys. Tozawa was really fun here, and really he always is. He's a guy I hope lingers under the radar on the roster for a decade, like Funaki. He's already almost 3 years in! His solo stuff with Gulak is fun, loved his exchange with Nese that ended with him popping Nese in the jaw with a right, he took a cool backwards bump falling off the apron, just a great guy to put in matches like this. I wish they let Gulak tee off on Nese a little more, but I'm too genuinely excited for Drew Gulak: Cruiserweight Champion to much care. Gulak has been nothing but great during his WWE run, and I'm so happy that it will presumably start paying off with more feature matches. This match got better the longer it went, I thought, as we started feeling like a 6 minute rush job and we instead got a fun 12 minute fireworks show.

Becky Lynch vs. Lacey Evans

ER: This was messy, but in a way that I think benefitted the match. Lacey doesn't have great application on everything, but the story of her just attacking Lynch's stomach was more than enough, as Lacey was really good on every single shot she threw to the stomach. When a match has a ton of someone punching and kicking at someone's stomach, that's a cool thing I'm going to enjoy. I think it was also a really smart way to get around having Lacey do more complicated offense, just have her able to cut off Lynch with a low punch to the gut or wrapping her around a ringpost or jamming her boot in Lynch's ribs. I liked Lacey fighting to get out of the Disarm-her, and like how Lynch would throw her around (although Lynch did a few of her really dumb extended Woody Allen reactions after an Evans kickout, sitting there and doing this stupid stammering "Um well, yes, I guess, um, well, you see, I thought that would, gulp, thought that would get the, heh, you see, the pin" face. It's awful). They really push the pace in this too, and so the kind of messy moments combined with the fast pace gave this a cool runaway train vibe. I wish Lynch would have paid more lip service to her worked over stomach, but I liked this.

Sami Zayn/Kevin Owens vs. Big E/Xavier Woods

ER: They're keeping everything on this show at 10-12 minutes so far, and I think that benefits everyone. No guarantee we keep it that way, but three matches in and it's turned this into a fun, quick moving card. We get a long FIP segment from Woods, with both Zayn and Owens being really fun in their roles of taunting Big E on the apron. Owens especially would stomp on Woods' face, then look over at E holding his face and mocking him. But I also like how Owens and Zayn went for quick pinfalls right out of the gate, throwing out superkicks and sentons and cannonballs and a big Owens top rope splash. Obviously the Big E hot tag was going to be great, he's always been awesome and running through people in quick order, with Zayn right in the line of belly to belly suplex fire. Nothing on this show has hit next level, but it has made the show highly watchable, and that's really all I care about in the end.

Ricochet vs. Samoa Joe

ER: We've hardly seen any Joe vs. Ricochet, almost all of their matches have been on house shows, so this has a cool fresh feeling to it. This match really felt like they gave people the match they would want to see. It got tons of time, and both guys did their cool stuff against a new opponent, and Ricochet got a big ol' clean win! This is all crowd pleasing stuff! And, perhaps not surprisingly, the crowd has been making genuine noise all damn night. That's a good sign! They also threw in a bunch of slo mo replays, so it gave parts of the match a "AJPW 1995 Comm Tape" feel to it that I will always love. Ricochet taking a uranage on his shoulders? Great. Seeing an All Japan sweat flying off bodies slo mo replay? Impossibly better. Joe hitting a hard elbow? Awesome. All Japan slo mo of floppy haired Joe channeling floppy haired Misawa and crushing Ricochet with an elbow while sweat flies off? Impossibly better. This was what I assume everyone wanted. Joe hitting all of his classic Joe offense in classic fashion (really loved him hitting a big German suplex and turning around and laying him out with a lariat), Ricochet landing his flying moves where they were supposed to land (though he kind of whiffed on a springboard elbow). I do think they really front-loaded the Joe offense as Ricochet felt a little bit too Superman coming back after all of this beating. I wish they could have kept him a little more in this over the length of the match.

Heavy Machinery vs. Daniel Bryan/Erick Rowan

ER: Fans going nuts for home state boy Bryan is fun to see, and continues the trend of the crowd starting loud for this show and getting louder. I am far more excited for this match than I should be, as Bryan vs. Otis is a match-up I can't help but get excited for. Otis is someone I'm really happy is on the roster, the type of shape that just hasn't been around enough lately (I mean his shape is plenty around, but you know what I mean). Otis' arms are shaped exactly like his legs, he has cool strength, and he seems like a great unique partner for Bryan. And I'm not wrong, as the Otis/Bryan moments are incredibly fun. The whole match is incredibly fun! This is another fresh match and it leads to a ton of new cool stuff. I could watch Bryan kick away at Otis's pork barrel chest all damn day, and Bryan throws more kicks on Otis in this match than any match this year, and Otis hits a big damn press slam, big powerslam on Rowan, big capture suplex on Bryan, the big high angle sitout powerbomb on Bryan was awesome, he passes off a vertical suplex to Tucker, and  - even though the fans are booing Heavy Machinery the whole match (and I loved that Otis was somehow getting the most heat of the night so far) - he still did that damn worm. Tucker showed a ton of agility I didn't realize he had, there was this killer early moment where he somersaulted over Bryan to get into position to lariat him out of his boots, and later he missed a big moonsault, took a big bump over the top to the floor, and was a part of a neat double team powerslam on Bryan. I do wish they would have made slight alterations to the match structure once it was so obvious that the crowd was going to treat Bryan like the face and HM like the heels, it made things a little silly when Tucker was fighting to the Otis hot tag while the crowd booed. Still Otis clearly knew what was going on and made a bunch of faces to show that he was just rubbing it in to the fans. His dorky chunkster hype movements while Bryan was lacing kicks into his chest made me laugh, and I just thought the pairing was insanely entertaining the whole match.

Alexa Bliss vs. Bayley

ER: This one didn't do much for me. Bliss worked too long and too dry a control segment, and Bayley's comebacks often leave me flat as they can look clumsy and revolve way too much around her opponent getting into an unnatural series of positions to take her specifically ordered offense. There were good moments, dug Bayley taking out Cross with a dive, dug Bliss hitting knees on the rotating splash, but this was pretty dry overall. This was the first match on the card I couldn't get into.

Drew McIntyre vs. Roman Reigns

ER: This show appears to be dying fast after a legitimately fun and exciting first couple hours, as this is filled to the brim with Shane interference, none of which is interesting. It really chumps McIntyre when he not only can't put Roman away, but has to also get out of the way while Shane does his thing, and still can't beat Roman. It's not a very satisfying match structure. Just like the prior match, there were some exciting moments: Roman hit one of those big Undertaker no hands dive (and he gets nutso height), but this all felt too predictable, and it spent too much time propping up a feud I have no interest in.


ER: And with that, I'm sad to say that I have already filled my life's quota of Dolph Ziggler/Kofi Kingston matches. We've been seeing 10 minute + singles matches from these two for literally a decade, sometimes enduring stretches of TV where they were happening every other week, and they do not have anything new to add to their match story. And there is no chance I'm going to sit through a Seth Rollins main event when I can be watching a bananas new season of Luther. I had a great time with the stuff I liked, and I pulled the plug by using common wrestling sense. Bless.

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WRESTLEMANIA 35 LIVE BLOG! 4/7/19

Buddy Murphy vs. Tony Nese

ER: I was surprised at how much I was liking this early, until they got to their beyond stupid slappy Riverdance routine. Before that we got Murphy getting busted open with an errant shot, a couple hard punches, and more of the Buddy that I liked in NXT before 205. At a certain point I did find it amusing that they were doing big nearfalls and last second feet on the ropes spots, and death sell -> sprint superkick stuff in the pre-show opening, but who cares, it's Mania and these guys are in a packed stadium. Do it. The overly rehearsed strike stuff is just so garbage, impossible to look at it and not laugh, and it was really a major turning point of the match. When you choose that kind of dance wank as a major part of the match, you deserve to be laughed at. I did think some of the big things looked good, both suplexes into buckles were nasty and the Nese 450 landed flush, but I wish they would have continued the direction of the first few minutes of the match, instead they went where I thought they would go.

Women's Battle Royal

ER: Good to see they're really doubling down and sticking with the uterus/Fallopian tube trophy. They had a year to get rid of it, and either they kept it on purpose, or just forgot what the trophy was and only took it out of storage when the announce the battle royal a week ago and went "Oh right, the ovaries." And this was an awesome battle royal. This was paced out nicely, had fun moments, some good eliminations, kept eliminations brisk without doing one of those lame as hell 3 minute ones they've done before, this was an easy battle royal thumbs up from me. It's also impressive that we have so many women who are barely 5', and only Dana Brooke's (or that woman who stole Dana Brooke's identity) elimination looked silly. Asuka had a couple cool legsweep eliminations, I liked the Mandy Rose/Mickie battle on the apron (even though I wanted either of them to win), Maria had awesome show curls, Candace had a cool elimination, Lana has a cool new cut and great Wonder Woman outfit, really I liked all of this. Battle royals should be such a simple thing. They're a real wrestling joy for me but a bad one can be just as bad as anything. This was brisk but not short, people paired off well, a simple concept done well.

The Revival vs. Curt Hawkins/Zach Ryder

ER: I didn't follow how Hawkins and Ryder actually got this match (seems like a match at a single digit Mania that would have been a 3 minute squash for Revival), but I don't mind seeing weird matches at Mania. At the end of the night I'm more likely to like this match that several other things on the card. It's funny to think that these guys were teaming together over a decade ago in WWE. Who had Hawkins and Ryder on a roster for over a decade? I say that as a positive. It's great to have guys like that making money for life. And this match ruled!! This was an excellent little tag match that unexpectedly gets a perfect amount of time and really kept getting great crowd reactions all through. Curt Hawkins turned in a real good underdog babyface performance and the fans really wanted to see him win down the home stretch. That was pretty surprising to me as Revival have been internet favorites for a few years now and finally look to be rising up the card, so you get a kind of interesting crowd vibe of internet favorites vs. hometown guys. Revival are really good at cutting off a ring and all of that was compelling, from their killer Demolition Decapitation to Dawson simply shoving Hawkins into the ropes to punch him on the recoil (shaking out his fist after, naturally), all their cutoffs worked like fire. The breakdown to the match was an awesome car crash, with Wilder hitting a tornado DDT on the floor, Dawson dropping a brainbuster, all nasty stuff. I wasn't actually expecting Hawkins to break the streak here, assumed Revival would be champs for awhile, but it's great to see him get the moment at Mania. This was like the best version of a WCW syndicated tag gem, totally delivered.

Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal

ER: This was a GREAT battle royal!!! It had everything you would need from a battle royal, some big eliminations, fun twists, nice pairings, and a great finish. Everybody was trying to outbump each other on eliminations (all of Lucha House Party took appropriately large spills), EC3 splatted, Andrade eliminated himself and Apollo Crews with a great rana, No Way Jose is now apparently a cyberpunk raver from Strange Days, even Braun (looking lean and mean as hell) took a sick bump to the floor by way of ringpost introduction. You had a few big guys in there throwing down for big moments, and cameras caught Luke Harper staring a hole through Braun while looking past several other guys. All of which built to a nutso spot where Harper gets booted off the apron while suplexing Ali, and takes a bump that could have destroyed both men, leaping backwards and landing on his feet before completing the suplex, sending Ali flying fast face first into the table (barely getting his hand up). My god what an elimination. I also got to see the pairing I most wanted, my two neckless singlet boys Otis and Rhyno going at it. Everybody worked this real aggressive, and it all actually came down to a super effective comedy segment. A comedy segment in wrestling that was actually funny? I thought Jost and Che did a great job. Jost came out sporting a new Odell Beckham Jr. Browns jersey, they both had Team SNL leggings, really all of these TV comedy guys who have been in big WWE moments have totally understood how to work their personality. I laughed when Che tried to grab hands with Jost on the LONG walk to the ring, and the look on Jost's face as he pulls away. Jost calling Braun "Brock" was one of the funnier WWE comedy moments I can remember and their eliminations were ballsy and a great visual, with Braun launching Jost into a forced plancha...but DAMN did they do a great job of making it look like Jost could actually eliminate Braun. I mean it looked like something they might actually do. Every part of this match was handled excellently, one of their best battle royals in ages. Loved it.

Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins

ER: They wisely put a bunch of pinks and purples on the entrance screens for Brock, which distracts from how pink and purple he is. This match has essentially the same structure as Brock/Balor, and was good, though not as effective. There were nice twists and turns in the former match, this match really didn't have any extra twists, and Rollins didn't execute the turning point ball punch as well as we've seen Bryan do it. So in a vacuum I liked this a lot, but coming after the Bryan and Balor matches it doesn't feel as special. But we get Brock absolutely destroying Rollins to start the match, attacking with tough strikes, splatting him with F5, tossing him hard into the barricade and ring, literally bouncing him across an announce table like he was skipping stones, tossing him over the top to the floor, all looking brutal. Before the bell even rings Rollins has major welts on his back. Suplex City was fun and gave us more good angles of Rollins' welts, and Brock was super game bouncing his forehead hard off the mat on every single curbstomp, but I'm just going to need a LOT more to beat Brock. Finn suitably increased how hard he hit his offense, and while Rollins bumped like a freaking man the whole match, I didn't buy Brock being felled by a few stomps. The best part of the stomps was Lesnar taking them, and Lesnar selling them like they were something that *should* put him down. Lesnar is one of our best sellers, I just wanted more of it.

AJ Styles vs. Randy Orton

ER: This weirdly feels like a match we've seen a ton, even though I don't think we've actually seen it that much. All of this was professional while being completely uninteresting to me. Neither guy looked bad, everything looked fine, just wasn't the vibe I wanted and it felt more dull than it should have felt. There were maybe a couple more slow moments and I guess the fans just absolutely not wanting that. I wasn't wanting whatever they were doing either. It didn't feel like anyone was working up to any moment, even though they didn't really make missteps.

Usos vs. Cesaro/Sheamus vs. Shinsuke Nakamura/Rusev vs. Ricochet/Aleister Black

ER: Black is wearing his Necronomicon vest that looks tremendous. And this match was a nice tasty snack; nothing significant, but a nice palette cleanser after fans kinda died off during the previous match. Cesaro showed off his Chikara skills by helping Ricochet shine, Sheamus looks like an absolute monster especially when he folds Ricochet on a brogue kick. Nakamura works with some actual energy, Usos bump big, Black looks like a guy who is going to be a major roster star, we get the 630, it's fun. This felt like an inconsequential Smackdown match, and that's just fine.

I see neon green shirt fan wore a dark shirt to the HOF ceremony. I like how he honors the sanctimony of the gala. Acts bored front row center on every other show, but the HOF is something sacred.

Falls Count Anywhere: Shane McMahon vs. The Miz

ER: Shane starts the match with some cardio, a bold move for a man who always looks like he's about to have a heart attack at a softball game. And I really wasn't expecting this one to be match of the night so far, but here we are. Shane always has that "Dad, look at me!" kid on a diving board personality in his matches, and that works even better as a heel for me. He absolutely beats the shit out of Miz here, shies away from doing his stupid fast punches that always look risible, instead focusing on short measured shots that landed hard. He was really socking Miz in the kidneys and the cheek, threw a couple hard kicks right at Miz' jaw, even smacking him with a mule kick. The Miz Dad involvement was really well done, Shane still stiffed him too, and it opened right up into a great Miz comeback. Once Miz takes over though Shane's shots become sparse and the bumps become big, Shane taking some of his most impressive pratfalls, Miz jumping him over the barricade, tossing him into railings and on the floor, Shane gets kicked off a structure and hits the back of his head on a railing, gets tossed off a ramp onto a golf cart to the floor (a really nasty high bump that he either lost control of or was stupid enough to plan it that way). Really all the big bumps felt like something went vaguely wrong, in the best way. I loved Shane splatting on the SCF, and the mammoth vertical suplex felt like an appropriately stupid Shane spot to potentially end his life. This was an excellent overdelivery.

Sasha Banks/Bayley vs. Nia Jax/Tamina vs. The Iiconics vs. Natalya/Beth Phoenix

ER: Well this is kinda dull. Natalya and Phoenix are just dragging this pace down, really not a team I'm interested in seeing. This whole thing was desert dry. Nia and Tamina disappeared for half of it after Nia got run into the steps, and the other teams couldn't match the excitement level that would have come from Nia being in it. The rest of them worked very same-y and Nia in her brief participation made things much more exciting. I think the Iiconics make the most sense with the belts, and while they still stink in the ring I've really been enjoying their promos and mannerisms lately. Them getting chased is way more interesting than the other options. The match was nothing to see though.

Daniel Bryan vs. Kofi Kingston

ER: Nuts to think that for seemingly years people filled their diapers online about how Bryan needed to be champion at Mania, and now those people are all dying for Bryan to lose the World title at Mania. I wouldn't have guessed ANYone would ever be higher than Bryan in the internet's eyes, but if I did I certainly wouldn't have bet on Kofi Kingston to be that guy. Nobody was clamoring for a Kofi Kingston World Title run 4 months ago. Nobody was demanding a main event singles run from Kofi. These people don't know what they want. I've been a big fan of Rowan's metal band shirt selection, saw him sporting Kreator a week ago. So him crossing over into horror films is a nice move. George A. Romero now has a WrestleMania reference under his belt. And this was good! We expected this to be good. Bryan is a main event megastar. I've seen him in matches where he knew exactly what to do in front of 70 fans, and here he is an absolute master at working in front of 70,000 fans. This had a feeling like it was going to be Kofi's big moment, and you could see what an awesome hand Bryan had in that. Excellent pacing and build, with big moments playing big. Kofi had a couple cool nearfalls off of flash roll ups, Bryan had a couple cool reversals into the Yes Lock, Kofi leaned into all of Bryan's crisp offense, Bryan snapped off some sharp kicks, and fans kept getting more and more into Kofi the longer this went. They really got as much time as they could have possibly wanted to give Kofi a gigantic moment, and Kofi kicking out of the big knee and hitting his best ever Trouble in Paradise (look at how manly Bryan is running face first into that thing) to win the title did it. This was clearly the moment the fans wanted (that they didn't want 4 months ago) and I'm sure giving them the moment will slow down the nitpicking and bitching and use of the phrase "shoved down our throats".

Somewhere, the Outsiders are about to sexually assault Colin Jost and Michael Che.

Rey Mysterio vs. Samoa Joe

ER: Wow, what a drag. This is the first time these two have ever met in a singles match. This could have been a legit show stealer. 1 minute matches with guys like this feels like a specific fuck you to Rey for reasons I don't care about. I was really excited for this one.

Drew McIntyre vs. Roman Reigns

ER: This was a good enough for a Roman return singles match, but didn't really set out to do a ton to make it interesting. This was worked more like a reintroduction of Reigns, which really isn't necessary, plus he was only gone for 5 months or so. This was a decent enough TV match, but isn't something I'm going to remember in a week.

Batista vs. HHH

ER: This feels weirdly late to get a Fury Road entrance, but maybe 4 years is early for WWE timing. They could have inducted Sid into the HOF and then had him as Lord Humungus during HHH's entrance. I'm bummed that LA Park vs. Rush was a match that didn't happen at Mania (originally the reason Phil and I got the idea to go to Mania), so these 50 year old brawlers will have to make up for me not seeing park throw ring steps off of Rush's head. Batista takes a hard bump into the guardrail and into the steps, HHH bounces a tool box off his head, and if they work this match like LA Park vs. LA Park then it will be my favorite match of the year. And clamping Batista's hand in channellock pliers and stomping on his hand is definitely something that can get us there. And that sentence already looks stupid one second after typing it, because in the meantime HHH ripped Batista's nose ring straight out of his face. The cameras filmed it like someone in a torture porn movie getting their teeth removed against their will. Batista is now a certified recognizable movie star who is trusted with good-size roles in expensive movies. And here he is proving himself to a bunch of ghouls in that only in wrestling way that David Arquette was and still is. Batista is bumping hard including a backdrop bump on a table that didn't budge an inch, and a spear through the next one. They're moving slower than a Park match, but they're getting up for the sick old man spots and I dig it. This loses steam at the end. Both guys are old and did cool stuff, old and slow is fine with me as long as the spots mean something. Batista bomb still looks great and for an old guy dumb bump match this delivered better than expected. Part-timer old dude millionaire geek show is such a weird only in wrestling thing.

Kurt Angle vs. Baron Corbin

ER: Kurt Angle is kind of more of a bummer to me than the weird inspirational story they're projecting this as. I guess it's a happy story that while he may be still permanently near death, it's not as blatantly public as it was a decade ago. When he was constantly on camera pilled out and getting into weird public altercations, how his body would turn purple during matches and it was scary as hell. He can't reverse what he's done to his body, but I guess seeing his eyes looking somewhat normal is a relative going out strong moment. Don't care about seeing him and Corbin, don't care enough about Corbin to be bothered either way by his winning or losing. Hopefully this is the retirement Kurt wanted and we don't see him falling off a ladder to the floor on "Joey Ryan Presents Not Just the Tip, Beyond Balls Deep" in a few years.

Bobby Lashley vs. Finn Balor

ER: We are beyond balls deep into the part of the Mania card that I have zero interest in. Finn is doing his big event blackface, which doesn't seem as blatant on a show with Tony Nese, Drake Younger, and HHH. This is a match up I don't care about, plus it already feels like I have 2x my way through it on several episodes of Smackdown. [We've gotten 5 singles matches and 9 other matches opposite each other in the last 5 months. Jesus] This was at least kept brief and the big moments looked good. Lashley's spear to the floor was nuts, Finn giving him a powerbomb was cool, and the coup de grace looked like arguably Finn's best ever. That means something.

Ronda Rousey vs. Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch

ER: ARE THEY PAYING OFF THE HELICOPTERS THROUGHOUT THE SHOW WITH CHARLOTTE LANDING AT THE STADIUM IN ONE!? It will never approach the level of badass that Ric landing on the field to face Ricky Morton was, but they did a good enough reboot of that, complete with red carpet exit. Did kinda just make me want to go back and watch the original entrance though. Robe doms was a nice touch though. Charlotte couldn't have handled the entrance any cooler. Joan Jett missed her chance to be wearing a Sonya Deville shirt (also forgot to ask if this was the first time that Deville publicly displayed on a show? If so that's pretty cool). This match starts out pretty hot with Ronda doing some of her more insane bumping, and she's always been someone who took risks. We get one of the best spots of the night when Ronda had Charlotte in a hanging armbar, then got dropkicked to the floor by Lynch and got knocked almost vertically by the apron. Ronda was taking cool bumps all through this, and at a certain point it was sadly all that was entertaining to me. It felt a little sluggish down the stretch as the match kind of needed those wild Ronda bumps to keep it going. I don't think the Charlotte stuff was as compelling and Becky kept doing that same stupid grimace the whole damn match. Ronda gets tandem hiptossed through a set up table and Becky whips herself face first right into the table and then has to do her grimace face right after for a showdown. The finish really came out of nowhere and looked bad. It was a match that started hot and hit a point where it kept petering out every minute it kept going.

ER: This was mostly a tale of two show halves. Or it could be it's a long show and I've seen a ton of wrestling the past several days, and 8 straight hours might wear on me a bit. But I think it's more that the 1st half of the show was way more fun to me then the sloggy 2nd half. I still think that show had a lot of fun stuff on it, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would (I was not very excited by the on paper card). I liked the overall presentation and regret nothing.

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