Matches from WWE Super Show-Down 10/6/18

Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch

ER: Charlotte's boobs look weirdly inflated, but it's possible that crossing the equator does funny things. Becky is super aggressive in this and it's awesome. She attacks at the bell and kicks at Charlotte's legs, yanks her by the arm from the ring to the floor (great reckless looking tumbling bump from Charlotte) and Becky does a tornado armbar and starts bending at Charlotte's wrist and fingers. Charlotte has a spirited comeback, kneedropping Becky in the back of the leg, hitting a nice high kick, but damn does Charlotte have some of the ugliest chops in wrestling. Her arm looks like a wet noodle, and they look too dismissive. Shame she's probably required to do them. Charlotte hits a nice spear (and Lynch takes a nice spear), and I like the theme of Becky rushing her early and then basically trying to cheat from behind the rest of the way. Charlotte hits knees on a moonsault, and I like Becky cheating to get out of the match with her title. That's probably because I'm sick of Charlotte in the title picture and think she's a horrible babyface. I smiled when Lynch kicked her ass after getting her belt.

Iiconics vs. Asuka/Naomi

ER: I was fully expecting more of a reaction for the Iiconics, but it's clear the crowd either doesn't care about them, or doesn't want to boo Australians, or...look I have no idea what native Australian culture is like. This is short but has some cool stuff in it, Asuka had some nice throws, Naomi did some cool split legged offense and a plancha, Peyton had a ridiculous-but-fun house show only kind of sell off a Naomi kick, stumbling around while Naomi mocked her. WWE has people lose in their home town/country so often that it was weird seeing them win here, not only quickly and cleanly, but over two people who are clearly much higher than them on the hierarchy. Fans respond to the finish, but not much else.

28. Samoa Joe vs. AJ Styles

ER: This feud is pretty dumb, completely stupid to involve family in a fed that doesn't allow blood, just makes the babyfaces look like idiots for going out and working for a MOTY instead of just gouging a fucker's eyes out for hitting on his wife. But I was intrigued by the No DQ/No Count Out stipulation of this one. The stips don't enforce themselves much at all for the first half, which is cool, as the stips just encourage them to work stiff with each other. The opening punch exchange was good, AJ throws some kicks with thump, Joe tosses AJ to the floor and AJ takes an awesome bump on his face, then eats a tope and turns so he flies face first into the barricade, and takes a shot into the steps. Joe is heavier, and really feels like he's landing heavy on everything, to the match's benefit: He rushes in with a hard back elbow and blasts AJ with a high speed falling lariat, AJ comes up with a bloody mouth, and Joe brings the Emerald Frosion out of mothballs for the Australian Misawa fans (they call themselves AMFs). All the striking has been good throughout, both guys peppering in shots in between bigger moves, Joe sneaking in headbutts, AJ mixing up height on his, all effective. When weapons and objects do finally get involved they all have cool, more violent, messy results. Styles goes through a chair on a STO slam, AJ hits an out of control fireman's carry through a table, driving Joe awkwardly through the table. There's nice attention to Joe's leg after, and cool moments like AJ kind of stumbling through a calf crusher application, so Joe attempts to turn it into the Kokina Clutch. I don't know if Joe recognized the application was taking longer than normal and went for it, but the reaction came off logical and more interesting than him lying there waiting. Both guys are turning in ramped up versions on signature offense, with AJ aiming to hit a 450 on Joe's leg, and Joe turning a Kokina Clutch into a sleeper suplex, and I love the moment where Joe suckers AJ in by buckling his knee, suckering AJ into a rolling prawn hold that Joe easily flips into a Kokina Clutch. But also like that he played himself and while he was using his own knee as bait, his knee actually was weakened, leading to an AJ calf crusher. I think this was pretty easily the best match of their unceasing feud.

PAS: I have been slacking on WWE this year, so this is the first Joe vs. AJ match I have seen since TNA days, and I thought this was easily as good as their most lauded matches earlier this century. They really laid into each other, and I loved how even stuff that wasn't clean landed with a thud. At one point Styles just lands a jumping forearm right into Joe's sternum, which looked like it sucked to take. Joe busts up Styles mouth, and while it wasn't a crimson mask, it did add a grittiness to the whole procedure. Joe hit a cracking clothesline which Styles took a big bump on, and crunched him with a great looking powerslam. I loved the knee work, Styles looked like he hurled himself through a table just to make Joe land weird, and Joe yelling to the ref that his knee popped was a great moment. The impact was so strange, that I almost bought a real injury, that is how knee injuries happen, landing awkward and weird with all of your weight. We had a weird heel in peril run, with the valiant heel fighting his way through an injury, while the vicious babyface tried to end his career, totally makes sense with all of the stuff about Joe stalking his family. I liked how Joe can still grab a choke from the ground, but was really unable to hit anything that required weight on his knee. Cool finish too, with all of Joe's tricks running out and getting caught in the calf crusher. I thought this was excellent.

Riott Squad vs. Bella Twins/Ronda Rousey

ER: Riott does something maybe no other worker on the roster does well, and it's a very important thing: Her facials are so strong that she actually comes off like she has a personal problem with her opponents. She looks like she wants to hurt them, and she looks pissed off whenever it doesn't work. All of the Riott Squad has their perks, Live throws underrated kicks and plays great at house shows, Logan comes in off a tag with an awesome running knee, Riott comes in with a low kick to Nikki's back, all of them are good at cutting Nikki off from her crew, and I like how Logan crumbles off Nikki's enziguiri, taking a heel right to the side of her head. Rousey is an absolutely undeniably fun hot tag, and of course everyone deserves credit for getting flipped fast on their tailbones, yanked over by the arm, eating her awesome Samoan drop variation, really all of Ronda's judo offense looks great. Morgan was awesome saving Logan from a sure death Rousey armbar, Morgan flying in towards camera with a hard elbow to the back of the head. I wish we had gotten one more save from the Riott Squad, but the Ronda double armbar finish is a really fun finish for this kind of show. This was worked exactly how I wanted to see it worked, with Brie kept mostly on the apron, Ronda on fire, and the Riott Squad getting to control things. So this easily checked all my boxes for what I was hoping for.

Cedric Alexander vs. Buddy Murphy

ER: You know I liked Buddy Murphy before it was cool (is it cool?), thinking he put up a strong showing at the first NXT show I went to. Amusingly, I have seen approximately zero of his 205 Live run. And indies junior Buddy is just not anywhere as interesting as house show stooge Buddy. I saw this getting talked up as one of the sprints of the year, and while it was a cool moment for Murphy, this thing felt like a couple dozen other uninteresting moves exchanges I've seen over the last couple years. Melodramatic faces, big driver variations, a flip dive hit, a flip dive overshot (the overshot tope con giro is of the UTMOST importance in having one of these matches), an empty strike exchange. Their faces can look spirited, but the matches seem so hollow. This is becoming default style now, and it's feeling like one guy fighting slightly off shadow variations of himself to eternity. However, I do like the hometown win.

ER: Well, I guess we'll never - ever - know if HHH/Taker was worthy of being on our 2018 Ongoing MOTY List, but Joe/AJ is an easy add, easily the best match they've had against each other in WWE.

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2015 WWE Royal Rumble Live Blog

ER: Well, this show doesn't look that good on paper, but Rumble has been my favorite "big" WWE match since I was a kid so I always go in with unrealistic hopes. I'll do my not-normally-necessary skim through of the kickoff show. I really love Renee Young's short haircut. Looks awesome. Byron Saxton looks like he's animated.

1. The New Day (Big E & Kofi Kingston w/ Xavier Woods) vs. Cesaro, Tyson Kidd

ER: Well this match would have been much more promising if they had dropped Rose and Kofi. But a 6 man is a pretty hard thing to mess up so we'll see. I haven't seen The New Day as a team before, but I like that their gear looks like a coordinated Christian rock band. I'd like to see promo photos of them on a beach, all facing different directions, one of them with arms lifted towards the heavens. Boy has anybody's stock dropped more than Cesaro's over the last calendar year? He's one of my favorites but teaming with Kidd and Rose (two guys who would be non-shocking future endeavors) on the pre-show is just brutal. And hey I just realized that the match is actually Cesaro/Kidd vs. Kofi/E. I'm gonna go ahead and edit that match description, but leave in my opening remarks so I sound like a doofus. This was a pretty forgettable match with a nice little finishing stretch. Cesaro threw some nice boots and hit a nice uppercut on Kofi leading to the pin, Big E got some nice moments with a massive belly to belly and his cool spear through the ropes. Kofi's offense still can't crack an egg. Crowd was actually really hot for this match, which is a good sign going into the show.

ER: I always actually dig the Royal Rumble by the numbers segment they introduced a few years ago. Though this year when it went "38: Number of participants who are WWE Hall of Famers" they showed a bunch of dead guys, so it made me wonder what the number of deceased participants all time.  Also a lot of dead guys when they were talking about the largest Rumble participants. Also made me remember that every year until I knew better I would always pick the fattest or largest guy to win. Stupid kid.

2. New Age Outlaws vs. The Ascension

ER: I have not seen a whole lot of the Ascension, couple of squash matches. The look like a couple of goons from The Guild of Calamitous Intent. Viktor in particular could make a really convincing cosplay Monarch. Like he could probably get his picture on Buzzfeed or something. Viktor locks on a chin lock 2 minutes in, but then follows it up with a nice fist drop so my heart is torn but neutral. Road Dogg looks like he gassed pretty hard. Really the final stretch when Gunn tagged in was pretty fun. But this was 5 minutes and basically wouldn't even stand out on an episode of Raw. All that goodwill the crowd was giving the kickoff match appears to have dried up. Hmmmm.

ER: Annnnnd my feed cut out. "Error. Cannot play video at this time. Please try again later." I do not have a weak internet connection. But this has happened to me literally every PPV I've tried to watch on the Network.

3. Usos vs. The Miz & Damien Mizdow

ER: Mizdow is really, really over which was something that I wouldn't have actually predicted. I also couldn't really get into this match. Maybe I'm in a grumpy mood or something. I just don't really care for the Mizdow tag team, and would rather see The Usos against practically any other team. The Mizdow stunt double spots don't really have much legs with me, especially in a match that could have actually been good. Miz also rarely interests me. I don't like much of his offense, and for the most part he also takes offense poorly. Miz set up a lot of Uso offense really lazily in this. Half the Usos moves seemed to be "foot gets caught, Uso spun around, ends up kicking Miz on the way back around." Pretty flat overall. This is looking like a horrible Sunday night decision so far. If I wanted to blow an evening I could at least watch The Doll Squad or something.

ER: I was amused by Jamie and Joey's poor read while playing WWE Immortals (is that like WoW but with WWE guys?).

4. Bella Twins vs. Paige & Natalya

ER: I really enjoyed the first 2-3 minutes of this. Things kind of went to hell when the crowd started singing and Brie blew a reverse somethingorother driver. I always enjoy Nikki Bella and think she's underrated as a worker. Always does nice kicks to the stomach, throws nasty back elbows, has surprisingly good timing a lot of the time. But yeah this was pretty much 3 good minutes and then 5 minutes of sputtering to a finish. I liked Brie's running Brie Mode knee, but Nattie wasn't a very engaging person to watch take a beating for half a match. And I'm still not sure what Paige is.

5. John Cena vs. Seth Rollins vs. Brock Lesnar

ER: Well this match was completely bonkers, and I completely loved all of it. Total show saver right here. Usually I hate 3 ways but Brock may just be the answer to this type of match as his offense is so destructive that it makes sense for guys to be out of the match for minutes at a time. There was so much great stuff in this. Lesnar basically wrestles a match the way somebody would win at King of the Coliseum. Match starts, immediately just starts throwing people as far as he can. I love it that John Cena is still powerless against his Germans. Cena always takes the Germans really great and seeing Brock toss him violently never gets old. Then you add in Brock double suplexing Noble and Mercury, Rollins taking suplexes in the most painful ways possible (jeez one of the Germans had to have jammed his shoulder). Brock is just an incredible personality to watch. I never want him to go away. Then they go and spectacularly take Brock out of the match by Rollins leaping a million feet to elbow drop him through an announce table. Brock obviously has freakish strength and it was on full display throughout, but he's also always been an incredible bumper, and not just bumper but always makes stuff look great. I'm not sure I've seen anybody make Rollins' curb stomp look as good as Brock made it look. I also love Brock being the one guy to just sell the AA as a standard back bump and just get up from it. This whole thing was a ridiculously fun blur of large men getting dumped on their heads. There were a bunch of great saves in this with my favorite being Lesnar emerging from his table to do a mighty deadlift German on Rollins. Loved all of this.

6. Royal Rumble Match

ER: Oh good, was hoping I would get to maximize my Miz viewing for the evening. R-Truth is #2. These two starting would lend creedence to somebody's "The Rumble is actually booked with guys drawing numbers out of a hat!" theory. If these two were main eventing Superstars it would seem like an off week. Bubba Ray Dudley is #3 and that's a fun surprise. Miz took the 3D nicely so I'll give him credit there. #4 is Luke Harper. Harper/Bubba Ray is a fun match up I never realized I wanted. BRD works a little light against Harper though so I am disappointed. He threw those Mick Foley punches where he kinda aims for above the forehead. #5 is Bray Wyatt. Miz, Truth and BRD are gone at this point. #6 is Curtis Axel and I can't imagine a quieter reaction. But apparently Rowan takes his spot which is very much better. #7 is The Boogeyman. Hey. How about that. One of the only men to not have a good match with Finlay. Wyatt stiffs him with a hard clothesline and is all alone. #8 is Sin Cara. I take back what I said about Axel's quiet elimination. Since Axel never made it to the ring does that mean he's still in this thing? Surprise finalist!!! #9 is Zack Ryder. Wow the WWE has a lot of guys I do not care about. #10 is Daniel Bryan so I do love he and Wyatt getting the ring to themselves.

#11 is Fandango. #12 is Tyson Kidd. Rachel points out the stupidity of Bryan putting Wyatt on the top rope to do a rana, instead of just pushing him off the top. #13 is Stardust. Crowd is pretty quiet even though Stardust comes in with a bunch of stiff shots. #14 is DDP who comes in throwing a bunch of Diamond Cutters. #15 is Rusev and I want him to go on a run. I dig Bryan doing his big dive as you really don't get many legal dives in the Rumble. And Bryan gets hilariously eliminated because HA! I guess they just really wanted Bryan chants the rest of the night. Even Rachel assumed Bryan was going all the way to the end, and she basically only watched Total Divas and doesn't know how booking works. #16 is Goldust. #17 is Kofi Kingston. Goldust looks awesome upon entering, hitting his powerslam on Rusev and getting into it with Cody. The Rumble is pretty much the only reason to keep Kofi around as it's basically the only time I find myself enjoying him. #18 is Adam Rose. Boy. This guy still has a job. Obama could use him as an example of just how much employment is on the rise. But his horribly named Rosebuds do get an awesome spot by catching Kofi's fall on a potential elimination. #19 is Roman Reigns. #20 is Big E. Rusev does his really fun cannonballs.

#21 is Mizdow. I do not care about their storyline. #22 is Jack Swagger. #23 is Ryback. #24 is Kane. #25 is Dean Ambrose. Good, we've had a bunch of people just milling about in there for a bit. #26 is Titus O'Neill. Looks like they were trying to do a "new quickest elimination" angle with Titus, but somebody botched something and Titus didn't go over cleanly, so they had to re-do it. Yeah, JBL immediately goes "Did he just break Santino's record!?" It would be amusing if Titus were booked to break it, and then accidentally/on purpose didn't go over properly. Getting eliminated in 4 seconds instead of the 1 he was booked for would be arguably the most amusing reason to get cut. #27 is Bad News Barrett. #28 is Cesaro. It makes me sad how audibly disappointed the crowd was when they figured out who it was. What did the poor guy do wrong? #29 is Big Show. #30 is Dolph Ziggler. I hope there was some dummy out there who wanted Rock. Are they really doing Reigns/Brock at Mania? They're doing Ambrose/Brock next month anyway, right? So that would be weird if Ambrose wins even though I would love that. Still time for Curtis Axel to make his triumphant return. Damn I wonder what cut Reign's mouth up. That's some good blood and nobody is really mentioning it. "Bullshit" chants starting, crowd is turning on Reigns to the shock of not one person. This is a horrible and totally predictable reaction to Reigns winning. And then Rock comes out and I'm pretty much not interested in Rock at this point. I would be interested in Rock/Rusev. That is about it. Wait Rusev is still in the match!? Oh. There he goes. Huh. Let's cut to the "Roman Reigns in the shot look at Wrestlemania sign" (they cut to that shot while I was in the middle of typing it). Man. Bryan didn't even get eliminated by any nefarious means or anything. Dude just wasn't good enough to hang.

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WWECW Workrate Report: 7/9/09

So there seems to be some nostalgia lately for WWECW and I totally get it. Any fed that throws out weekly Finlay, Goldust, Mark Henry, Regal, Christian, and Matt Hardy matches and gives them plenty of time to work is something that I definitely miss. I liked that WWECW was booked in a vacuum as it gave it more of a WCW Sat. Night feel. I like Main Event, and I enjoy Saturday Morning Slam, but ECW had a real awesome feel and really did feel like it was booked separately from the other shows. That is pretty important because the matches have a little more weight than other syndie matches. You get the feel that weird things can happen like Yoshi Tatsu getting a push without Vince noticing. It brings me back to odd things like Stevie Night Heat with Stevie Richards coming up with a gimmick without office approval because nobody watched his show. In a day of micro-managed wrestling this is an important thing.

1.  Nikki Bella vs. Katie Lea Burchill

Seems like kind of a horrible show to start off on when this is the match that leads things off, but then Nikki takes a giant bump to the floor to start and I shut my mouth. Nikki doesn't seem to be very good but it works for her as it makes her bumps way more dangerous (one spot sees her supposed to land on the apron but she ends up tumbling all the way to the floor), making Katie's backbreaker seem more brutal and taking a neckbreaker more painfully than most girls would take it. The match was only 3 minutes long but you've seen way worse Diva's matches than this.

2. Yoshi Tatsu vs. Shelton Benjamin

So...when did Shelton Benjamin get good? I don't remember liking his stuff around this time, and I know I didn't like his ROH stuff, but he was pretty great here as a smug methodical heel (as opposed to his usual role of black guy who jumps high, which has since been filled by Kofi Kingston). I mean there are not many 8 minute Shelton singles matches that I enjoy, but this was really good. Tatsu's comebacks were peppered in nicely and Shelton had a cool fighter's way of trying to block Yoshi's kicks. And when Shelton would cut Yoshi's offense off it was always followed by him actually selling prior damage! The fans were getting way behind Tatsu here and that's just further evidence that Shelton was working as an effective heel. Match was also worked in a way that whenever Shelton tried any of his high jumping antics, they would always backfire and would lead to Tatsu getting the advantage, but when he stuck to clubbing and throwing Tatsu around he stayed in control (he hit a vicious standing overhead belly to belly which is like something Dave Taylor would pull out). Only complaint was with his finisher, which was that awful jumping leaping DDT-ish faceplant-y sort of thing that always looks like he's taking the move and the other guy is not sure how to land. That needs to go.

3. Ezekiel Jackson vs. Jack Meridol

AWESOME squash match. Jackson just beat the snot out of this kid. All his clubbing shots sounded like Meridol was getting hit with a 2x4 and Zeke was tossing this guy around recklesssly and it looked awesome. He just plants Meridol with a urunage and my spine ached. Is Zeke even still employed by WWE? I haven't heard his name in over a year.

4. Vladimir Kozlov vs. Christian

Boy not quite 4 years later and this show is just a total graveyard of past WWE talent. Is Christian still with WWE? I don't remember the last time I saw him. This is a number one contenders match for Tommy Dreamer's title (boy the ECW title looks awful), and boy this match was awesome. I know Kozlov has been involved in matches I liked, but it seems like he had become a genuine good worker at this point (although Christian was really great at working TV matches during this period). The opening mat exchanges are all really good, and then Kozlov takes a great bump over the top to the floor after missing a charge. Christian was never one to allow somebody to top him with stupid over the top bumping, so a minute later Kozlov knocks him off the apron and Christian lands on his side in a nasty way. All Kozlov's offense looks cool and painful, especially his sit out torture rack that ragdolled Christian. Kozlov also leans into a missile dropkick head first and that's awesome. Match was really good.


WWECW MASTER LIST

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