WWE Elimination Chamber 2/18/23 Live Blog

Do they not do Kickoff Show matches anymore? We really need a full hour of video packages and talking heads with no wrestling? Either way, I'm excited for how excited people are for this show. WWE hasn't felt like any kind of Hot Product in several years now, but people are downright buzzing about this show. That's pretty cool man. I haven't been watching the TV but I watched Rumble, and my boy Martin caught me up on the angles. I'm in, I can't pretend I have better things to do on a winter Saturday. 

1. Women's Chamber: Natalya vs. Liv Morgan vs. Asuka vs. Raquel Rodriguez vs. Carmella vs. Nikki Cross

ER: This is the best haircut Natalya has ever had, but it coincides with her face turning into a face that is more like Dana's Brooke's 2nd to 3rd face and it would have looked better with Natalya's own face. They got Raquel into the match took quick and all it lead to was Too Many Three Way Spots. I wanted Raquel killing individuals down the stretch. I can't be the only one who can't stand Nikki Cross acting like an annoying 7 year old's impression of an annoying 7 year old, right? Raquel's ring post bump looks good, Liv's bump into the pod looks better, but Liv makes a dumber face after the bump. Feels dumb to go to a big Nikki Crossbody spot wiping out everyone so early, because it just leads to everyone lying on the mat exhausted at like 6 minutes in. Carmella gets nearfalls on everyone who took a single crossbody block 4 minutes ago. Raquel is a wrestler who is great at saving matches like this. Maybe it's not that she has a track record of doing so, but she has the ability to force a long gimmick match into being something good in a way that Liv Morgan or Natalya will never have. When Raquel starts breaking out the big shit - running Nikki through a pod, pulling girls off the cage, taking a huge bump on a top rope sunset flip - the match finally comes alive. 

Raquel ramps up the crowd for two minutes, all leading to Asuka's big entrance, the perfect mood setter. Asuka knows how hot to come in, and Liv's missile dropkick to finally stop her looked great. Liv keeps getting bigger and bigger reactions the phonier her character seems. I thought people in Montreal had no time for phonies? I thought the people of Montreal were the kind of people to announce to the room "Are there any Fake People here? Because if you are, I respect your stance, but get the fuck out of my party"? Liv, you're fake. The run to the finish felt real quick, I think too quick. I'm seeing the words I'm typing and I see myself asking for more time from a Brand PPV WWE Gimmick Match, but this really did feel too short. The eliminations piled up too quick and all felt underdone. At the same time, I thought they actually did the complicated multi-man stuff and big bumps really well, and Asuka/Bianca is a match I would want to see much more than Bianca/Liv. Good match, but could have used a couple of better one on one showdowns. 

2. Brock Lesnar vs. Bobby Lashley 

Bobby Lashley's King Kong entrance is incredible. Think how much better it would be without a giant stupid PS2 graphic Bobby Lashley making a dead eye posing face. I'm excited for this match. I did a Royal Rumble live blog last month and was actually pissed when Lesnar got eliminated from the match so early. In response, now Brock tries to eliminate Lashley's shoulder socket by bouncing him across the ring with a belly to belly. I wish Lashley threw even more behind his spear, but the full nelson stuff was cool and the F5 power out was cool, but isn't it kind of weird how the F5 isn't a killshot? Like Lesnar is turning the F5 into Suplex City but without replacing it with anything more dangerous? I assume the reason he never brought back the stretch muffler was because he wound up shredding everyone's knee ligaments? Because bring that back. Finish was bunk, match pacing got tanked once they started spamming finishers and then Lashley didn't do enough with the full nelson to make it seem dire. Lesnar needed to be way more purple to seem like a man in real desperate danger, like 5 hours of terrible sex purple. 

Boy that Seth Rollins Joker stuff is just about the dorkiest shit around huh? Cowards couldn't even pay for the pedophile hockey arena song? 

3. Rhea Ripley/Finn Balor vs. Edge/Beth Phoenix 

ER: I should like a couple that looks like absolute shit, but I just cannot get into the couple of Edge and Beth Phoenix. I think they actually finally figured out the Beth Pompadour. They took the bulk out of the sides and slicked them down, makes the angles much better and avoids the Frankenstein wall of hair up top. This version works well. Edge still looks like shit though. I do think everyone's gear looks fantastic. Rhea's whole crew looks great, and the deep maroon/black/gold pattern is a very tasteful choice for Edge and Beth. I hate the moments of Beth Phoenix matches where she has to do acting. I love that Dominik is drawing heat in a real way. Rhea leans into Phoenix's nice running clothesline and takes a hard bump into the steps. Finn leans into Edge's running clothesline the same way as Rhea did, for team solidarity. The timing of everything in this has been great, it's all paced out so well. Dominik's heat keeps growing. The Phoenix superplex looked great, but the build hung Rhea out to dry a bit. Of course the second I type out the words "The timing of everything in this has been great" and then Beth Phoenix comes diving into frame a second too late for a pinfall save and then lies there on her stomach like Willie Mays Hays coming up a foot short on his slide. Rhea's brass knux punch to the side of Edge's head looked perfect. Old Man Edge is much better than Peak Edge in a lot of ways, and it's wild his spear looks this good now. Dominik should have leaned more into Edge's tope, but this was good. Rhea had an excellent performance here. 

4. Men's Chamber: Austin Theory vs. Montez Ford vs. Bronson Reed vs. Johnny Gargano vs. Damien Priest vs. Seth Rollins

ER: Oh damn this is a pretty bad looking match right? I don't think the gimmick much matters, you see these six names and that is going to look like a bad match. I don't get Austin Theory in similar ways that I don't get Ricky Starks. Did Bronson Reed come back in the last two weeks or something? How did he go from not being one of 30 men in the Royal Rumble, to one of 6 men in Elimination Chamber? I was hoping I'd get a callback to the dogshit Gargano/Rollins sequences at the Rumble, so lucky they're the two starting this. It still looks bad a month later. Okay seriously what is the deal with Austin Theory. How does any of this stand? What is that jumping stomp that he does? Vince used to fucking love Dr. Jerry Graham? What the fuck happened? Edge doesn't wrestle as much like Edge anymore, so I'm really happy we have 6'4 guys like Damien Priest to bring some spiritual Edge Offense into 2023. His running slingshot senton looked like it hurt but I think that's because he messed up the landing. Goddamn this sucks. Bronson Reed came back with a cartoon Bluto sneer and it would have been way better if they just brought him back dressed as Bluto. He has the black beard and heard and his torso is comic book large, make him a fucking dock worker. 

To Reed's credit, he has been the most interesting part of this terrible match, as at least he was just smashing people in between his body and surfaces, not doing a series of tumbles and spins. He takes the poison rana really vertical and his selling afterward was an actual good use of WWE dramatic selling. Ford's sheer drop looked great, just belly flopping stomach first over Balor's shoulder from like 20' up. The best part of the match is now gone. The Rollins/Gargano stuff on top of the pod took way too long for what it was, but that huracanrana off the top of the pod was a great spot. Rollins is the worst possible Matthew Justice but he's at least better when he tries to be like Justice. Remember when I said the Women's Chamber match felt like it needed more time? This match feels eternal. Montez Ford does look pretty great. Look at his gear! You look at his gear in Street Profits and then see these tights? Great pair of tights. The repeated flip dives into the cage looked good...but having him get pinned by Theory just tanked this whole thing. What a bad look. Anyone explain Theory to me. I'll listen. They should have had Omos come out dressed like El Gigante to carry Ford out of the cage to the back.  

5. Roman Reigns vs. Sami Zayn 

ER: I used to feel like the biggest Generico critic, a guy I liked so much less than anyone else I knew. But sometime in 2020 I really did a full 180 on Zayn and well, his last few years speak for themselves. The wife and kids at ringside! I always like when they make someone's kid watch their dad take a beating while surrounded by weird strangers with parasocial relationships who think they know them. And this match was good! I don't think it hit the heights everyone wanted it to hit, but I do think it hit several heights. This was going to be a hard match to stick the landing on, and admittedly the long drama segments don't always work for me. Maybe (probably?) they would work better had I actually been watching all of the storyline play out in real time. It felt like the match peaked too soon and then had to be carried by the drama, and I think drama carried by a match would have been a more interesting way to play this. Every week they do the drama, this is when they can do the match. Roman's cut offs were strong, and Sami's cut offs were stronger, as it should be. Roman is much better at dramatic kick outs than Sami, but Sami was great at making it look like he was done. The ref shenanigans weren't necessary and came off weak, Sami and Roman did a good job of recovering the match every time there was a storyline pause. I thought the family would be involved a lot more (Sami's family, which basically wasn't shown after Zayn kissed his wife midway through the match) and I thought the finishing stretch de-escalated the match too much. Working a match with this much downtime scattered throughout isn't easy, and they never lost the crowd for a second, which means a lot. A Sami win would have made the moment better, but I don't think it would have made the match better. 

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WWF 305 Live: BROCK! Big Show! Undertaker! Kane!

Undertaker vs. Kane WWF Survivor Series 11/15/98 - FUN

ER: I'll be writing up a bunch of matches between these two, and I'm curious if any will stand out as legitimate gems. Am I the only one with that curiosity? These two paired off a LOT in singles matches. Without checking, Kane would be my pick as the guy Taker faced the most in his career. They were both around for so long, at the same time, constantly in each other's business...but was any of it any good? Well, this was pretty good! Taker did some unique things, like work over Kane's knee. People in the crowd didn't seem to want any of it. Part of this was probably that technically Taker was the heel here, and Kane was the face, none of which made any sense to anyone, so you got left with a quiet crowd. Taker clotheslines Kane right in the back of the knee and then locks in a kneebar, and I'm sorry but that's cool as hell. But he abandons that and works a kind of sluggish punch exchange. Kane looked better than Taker on all strike exchanges, but there's something about seeing two giant guys slug it out, two "7 footers" as JR kept saying. There were a couple hard landings, big clothesline to the floor, the odd visual of Paul Bearer helping Taker cheat to win, overall not bad.

Brock Lesnar vs. Big Show WWE Royal Rumble 1/19/03 - EPIC

ER: I loved this, a massive collision and the crowd was losing it seeing Big Show get tossed around. Babyface Brock is a real machine, and I don't think he's ever gotten enough credit for being such a great babyface. It wasn't a long enough run, but he connected, he knew how to bump as a sympathetic face (different than his big match heel bumping), made heel offense look great, and there was not one wrestler who can compete with Lesnar's babyface comebacks. He's so tenacious, starting the match charging in for a takedown, getting headbutted off and coming back, and we get a lot of Lesnar powering over Big Show with cool belly to bellys. Big Show is one of those guys who had a great career, but also a disappointing career? Even at his best, there was always one thing off. This giant of a man had so many goober looks, with silly mustaches and various stages of balding, always with an uncanny ability to look like the world's largest IT guy. Here's he wearing Old Navy carpenter jeans and has a too thin handlebar mustache, he looks like a 7' tall Diedrich Bader character. But he looks heavy as hell to throw around, and it looks amazing every time Lesnar gets him off his feet. Brock takes a huge bump to the floor, basically getting chokeslammed off the edge of the apron, and he gets huge height on a perfect nearfall chokeslam. Brock is one of the greatest in ring actors, and his last second kickout on the chokeslam was a thing of beauty. Big Show does Shock Face a couple decades before it was the house style, and it was justified. Heyman gets involved and takes a hard bump when Brock drags him in the ring, and I thought the interference was done well. Lesnar came out looking like the Incredible Hulk, and the match finishing F5 on Big Show is one of the great wrestling feats of strength spots. What a way to open a PPV.  

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

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All Time MOTY List Head to Head 2003: Lesnar vs. Mysterio VS. Honda vs. Kobashi

Brock Lesnar vs. Rey Mysterio WWE Smackdown 12/11/03

ER: Talk about perfect match atmosphere, perfect location, perfect opponents; every element that makes a match a classic was right out in the open, and we get the pure glee of watching two of the most charismatic performers of all time do their thing. Mysterio has the hometown crowd on his side, his entire family in the front row, and Lesnar has the unreal nuclear heel charisma that makes this whole thing feel like Little Mac taking on Mike Tyson. 2003 Brock is a top contender for my favorite wrestler of all time, and I challenge anyone to watch his performance in this match and not feel the same. This was the perfect heel for Mysterio to be going up against, and Lesnar knew it. I'm a high voter on modern Lesnar, and still think he's the most unique performer in wrestling, but you watch him in 2003 and notice so many details, so many little touches that he doesn't really bother with anymore. 2003 Lesnar is the complete package, the ultimate T-800, only this Terminator also knows how to stooge wonderfully for a 160 lb. man while being a big bumping lucha base.

The kind of swagger Lesnar brings to the beginning parts of this match was exactly the kind of swagger the crowd wanted to play off. Lesnar works crowds the way a top 80s territory heel would work crowds, and that's something he kind of skips past now. He mocks Rey's size, jaws with fans like it was a 500 attendance house show, makes Rey eat dirt on a couple of lock ups by merely stepping aside, a real jerk. But he's a jerk who is so good at showing ass, and you can see that once Rey initiates a cat/mouse game and tricks Brock into chasing him all around the ring and through. By the time Lesnar realizes that Rey is just trying to gas him out (it was a long and very well done chase), he gets this impotent anger across his face, rips the ring steps from their base with the body language of a frustrated teen (or adult, ahem, couldn't be me) throwing a video game controller. And Rey gets exactly what he wants, takes Lesnar out of his zone, and flies through the ropes with a dropkick that sends Lesnar and the stairs crashing into the aisle. Lesnar is so great at doing atypical bumps, no standard flat back bumps, he falls in a way that is theatrical while realistic, not comically over the top athletic bumps, but large unique bumps that only magnify offense. Not long after his sprawl into the aisle he takes a gloriously arcing bump over the top to the floor, and it's time we just acknowledge that somehow this massive pile of lunchmeat is better than anyone else in wrestling history at bumping to the floor. Oh, and this pile of meat will also kick you in the balls from behind and then laugh about it.

I loved the vulnerability Lesnar shows for Rey's offense, and the creativity he uses in setting it up. It's weird to think Rey's best foil might be a man twice his size and not Eddie or Psicosis, but looking at how Lesnar sets up all of Rey's offense and twists it in little ways at least has to put him in the discussion for best opponent. We get the added danger knowing that anything Rey snaps off could be reversed at any part of the process, so for every time Lesnar is taking a 619 or eating a rana as fine as any lucha base you've seen, there's equal (or better) chance of Lesnar catching one of those ranas and powerbombing Rey into the ringpost, or attempting to powerbomb Rey directly through the ring in the ugliest flattest splat of a bump. 

My favorite little moment of the match was the way Lesnar got into position for the 619. I always appreciate creativity around setting up someone's trademark offense, the way Finlay would be off balance and drop to a knee before regaining his balance just in time to get plastered with Booker T's axe kick, instead of just bending at the waist waiting to take it. It's hard to come up with new ways to drape yourself over the middle rope to take the 619, and Lesnar shows just how smart his wrestling brain is here, setting it up in a way nobody else did and maybe nobody else could have: He's fighting with Rey on the apron, and Rey catches him with a kick as Brock is leaning down, and Brock - one of the most inventive bumpers in wrestling history - falls backwards, through the ropes diagonally into the ring, and in the struggle to gain his balance finds himself draped over the ropes, allowing Rey to pull off his tremendous 619 around the ringpost. It was a brilliant sequence. My only real complaint about the match was the finish could have used one tiny little hope spot from Rey, one little flash, and instead Lesnar flattened him with that powerbomb and bent Rey's body in horrible ways with a stretch muffler. But the complaint is minor, because Rey was getting so horrifically bent that it *should* have been the finish, I just wanted one tiny sliver of hope before the curtains fell.

PAS: Finding hidden gems is pretty much our raison d'etre here at Segunda Caida. You expect to dig up something off of a Japanese hand held or obscure lucha YouTube link, so it's weird to find a hidden gem on WWE Smackdown with two of the most praised wrestlers of the last 20 years, but here we are. This match has a pretty small online footprint, a PWO thread with two comments, no nomination over at the GWE board, it seems to have been forgotten to time. My goodness was this incredible, and honestly a career level match for two guys with incredible careers.

Hometown hero taking a shot at a dominant champ is a classic wrestling trope, and Lesnar is amazing as traveling Ric Flair here. He is great as a taunting jock bully early, the way he says "You're just a little guy Rey" chefs kiss, what a marvelous asshole. I love how Rey just sends him on a wild goose chase in and around the ring, until he gasses and infuriates Brock, and the pissed off rage when he can't get his hands on this little shrimp. He is such a master at portraying terrifying menace and surprising vulnerability. Brock's basing and bumping in this was incredible. It is like someone used a supervillain ray to supersize 1996 Juventud Guerrera. I am not sure anyone ever took a Rey Mysterio headscissors as well as Brock Lesnar, which is fucking bonkers considering how enormous he is. He is so good at eating offense in a way which doesn't make it look cooperative,  he always seems completely flummoxed and out of control when he is getting spun around the ring, but also seconds away from wiping someone out. 

Rey is of course a master, we get some of his incredible timing and athleticism, he gets thrown to the top rope and lands as cleanly as anyone ever has, and rips off a bunch of big spots, and he is also amazing at timing things perfectly to bring the crowd along. I actually had no problems with the finish, Rey gets a bunch of really plausible near falls on Brock with ranas and headscissors and Brock is finally able to to smash him and bend him into a horrible pretzel. I don't think Rey needed another hope spot, because he was less then a minute removed from getting the win. It wasn't one of those drawn out Brock beatings which sometimes drag down his post UFC stuff, it was a lightning strike.


Honda vs. Kobashi Review

Verdict: 

PAS: I am pretty surprised that I am going along with Eric on this one. I was expecting a fun TV match that he was overrating due to his nostalgia for 2003 Brock, but this was a perfect match, with two incredible performances from two all timers. It was actually a similarly structured match to Kobashi vs. Honda, and while Honda might have slightly inched Rey in his performance in that match (no diss here, Honda's performance in that match is my favorite title challenger performance ever), Lesnar's dominant champ performance smokes Kobashi, and I really liked Kobashi in that match. The upstart takes this.

ER: The abrupt finish was my only complaint about this match, but the rest of it was classic pro wrestling with an unbeatable atmosphere and two larger than life performers. Honda/Kobashi had its own great atmosphere, but I thought Lesnar created and thrived within this atmosphere even better. The creativity, execution, and rabid crowd puts this one ahead for me. NEW CHAMP!

ALL TIME MOTY MASTER LIST

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WrestleMania 36 Night 2 Live Blog

Big shoes to fill on Night 2, and if tonight is anywhere near as entertaining as Night 1 then I will be a happy camper. This does not have Gulak or Bryan on it, and it does have The Fiend, so the odds are stacked against Night 2. Still, I'm excited for the Brock match and weirdly excited for Otis/Dolph (because Otis is my boy).


Natalya vs. Liv Morgan

ER: This was good, but felt like it really needed Liv Morgan to make all of Natalya's stuff work. Natalya got to drive a lot of this with her offense, but I don't think her offense would have come off as well without Liv's selling. Liv's screaming and grunt selling was much better than Seth Rollins' weird pleasure moans, and I thought Liv worked sequences much tighter than some other Natalya opponents. Natalya has been working the exact same sequences for years now, so it's really easy to see what different opponents bring to a "Natalya match". Earlier this year when it was Asuka's turn, she chose to just beat the hell out of Natalya. Liv plays underdog and her roll ups all looked really tight and well placed throughout. She let Natalya work through her few pieces of offense (and I do like when it looks like Natalya really stomps vertebrae when she does her stepover to seated dropkick combo). I thought Liv's quick pins were peppered nicely throughout and I like the way she built to her finish. Nice opener, but after their high end performance in last month's Chamber match it's pretty messed up that Ruby Riott and Sarah Logan aren't on the show, but fucking TAMINA is.


Charlotte Flair vs. Rhea Ripley

ER: This is the brightest color I have ever seen on Ripley, but she pulls it off. And I thought the bulk of this match was great. I don't always love big match Charlotte, and just as I didn't like Kevin Owens' overproduced "How this for a WrestleMania moment?!" I didn't not like some of Charlotte's bad trash talk. But the work itself was super strong, especially every single attack Charlotte threw at Ripley's leg. Every pump kick, every awesome chop block, that nasty leg snap over the top rope, they all landed hard and the way Ripley sold them really made them even better. Ripley's leg buckling totally made this, as several of them looked like she was coming out of this with a torn ACL. I loved it. They held up extremely well on slo mo replays too, so maybe Charlotte was just trying to take out Ripley's knee. Ripley sold really well throughout, though she didn't seem to be laying into Charlotte to the same degree. Still, the stuff like her big dropkick to Charlotte's face worked well, and her short arm clotheslines looked and sounded great with the arena acoustics. And just like I thought Ripley's selling was good, Charlotte's selling off strikes was great. Early on Ripley kicked her while in a tree of woe and Charlotte was convincing enough to make me think she took an errant shot to the throat; later she got dropped in a pancake and Charlotte sold it like she chipped her veneers. The only thing that really hurt this for me was that Charlotte always wins, and from a storyline perspective it probably would have been better if Ripley had looked a little more dominant. Charlotte trashing her throughout for being a lesser champ and then just beating her fair and square doesn't leave a whole lot left to explore. Still, the work here was strong (even if it probably went a little long) and I probably nitpicked a bit much considering how much I loved all he stuff with Rhea's leg.


Aleister Black vs. Bobby Lashley

ER: Has Lana even been on TV since that abortion of an angle that everyone knew would be awful from miles away? Is there a reason these two are fighting or is this just one of those "getting people on the show" matches. Is Lashley a secret member of The Skulk and is trying to pay Black back for the Black Mass he laid on Leon Ruff a couple weeks ago? I could not get into this one, no matter how cool I thought Lashley looked in black and gold tights. This is a 2nd hour Raw match that showed up on WrestleMania for some reason. Lashley looked good, Black looked good, but it's weird something like this is on the show getting more time than something brilliant like Gulak/Cesaro.


Dolph Ziggler vs. Otis

ER: I've actually been into the Otis/Mandy stuff so this was one of the Night 2 matches I've been looking for. But I'm not sure how good of a friend Sonya is if she was trying to trick her friend into a relationship with Dolph Ziggler of all people. Sonya is the friend who would convince her Ted Bundy's car is a way quicker way home than the subway. One real annoying thing about Ziggler is that he wrestles every match the same, no matter the circumstances. He went for the same kind of layout here as he has in any other match this month, a guy who will go out and work the same match regardless of stakes. I liked all of the work from both, but outside of the actual involvement of Mandy and Sonya this didn't feel like they had been through any kind of personal drama. Dolph flew around nicely once Otis made his comeback, smashing his face into the middle buckle off a catapult, running hard into the buckles on Irish whips, and I loved Otis throwing him to the floor with a fallaway slam and smashing him with a great lariat. The finish was the easiest way to wrap this, and I had been wondering why Mandy wasn't out there from the beginning anyway. It was all pretty basic but the match itself just didn't feel like anything that was built to, and it should have. And if Otis has any doubts whether Mandy likes him or not, the fact she kissed him on the mouth during a pandemic should be a real confidence booster.


Edge vs. Randy Orton

ER: I had forgotten this was Last Man Standing and that makes me even less interested. It feels like the counts have gotten slower and slower on those, and it always takes me WAY out of a match when every time someone takes a back bump we get 15 seconds of paused action. Also, lol at Edge working a match with like three people at ringside, and not doing a quick check to make sure the guy who frequently hides to sneak attack people is not one of them. And just like the Boneyard Match was so insanely good and infinitely better than an actual in-ring Taker/Styles match would have been, THIS match would have benefitted from ANY other format. A 10 minute in ring match between them, with each doing the same spots they did in any of their matches 15 years ago, would have been so much better. Because folks, this was bad. And I thought it actually had some promise early on, because Randy was throwing hard right hands and Edge had a bunch of actually painful looking clubbing offense. But this whole thing weirdly played out like they were doing it all live, because you assume had it been taped in advance that this would have been edited down to at LEAST half the runtime. And the crazy thing is that you know this actually WAS edited. A group of people watched THIS and thought they had kept it tight enough. Which means that the original match was probably somehow EVEN LONGER. This came off like a joke brawl that they forgot to write jokes into, and the longer it went on the longer it felt like they were just playing a prank on anybody who actually works in the Performance Center. How many disinfectant wipes are going to be needed to clean off all the surfaces these sweaty germ machines are carrying? Also, the announcers have been yelling over everything on both nights and suddenly they decide this match to speak in hushed whispers, probably because drama and acting like this shouldn't be distracted from.

I actually like a LOT of the landings in this match, and thought Edge was throwing some of his best actual strikes. He was always a lousy striker, and here it looked like he was really battering Orton's chest and ribs. The problem is the stipulation lead to an abundance of moments that relied on the acting of both men, and Edge is one of the worst actors in wrestling history. The drama required to make a 30+ minute match work was not going to be found in Orlando this evening. And I typed all of this before the referee tried to reason with Orton. THAT right there might be the dumbest thing I've seen in wrestling. "Randy come on, he has a family!" Hey dummy, if either of them actually cared about their families they wouldn't have subjected them to any part of this match. This was abysmal, they didn't have nearly enough decent ideas to justify a match even half as long as this, and as predicted the Last Man Standing stip made a long match into Shoah. Every single person involved in the making and execution of this match made exclusively wrong choices.


Angel Garza/Austin Theory vs. Street Profits

ER: Another match that felt like a 2nd hour Raw match, nothing at stake, nothing that made this felt like it was a "big show" match. Garza hits a nice moonsault to the floor, Ford does a nice tope on hilo that was caught almost entirely by Dawkins, and I guess I'm wondering what Austin Theory was supposed to bring to this? If this past week has taught me one thing, it's that Austin Theory not only cannot catch a dive, but there's a chance he might not actually know what a dive is. I guess he can jump high? This would have been more interesting as a 6 man with Vega and Bianca added to the match itself.


Sasha Banks vs. Lacey Evans vs. Tamina vs. Naomi vs. Bayley

ER: Again, I must point out that Ruby Riott and Sarah Logan both actually looked great at Elimination Chamber and somehow they're not on the show but TAMINA is in the title picture. Matches with odd number participants always have an uphill battle, they easily could have just had Riott and Logan in this one and Tamina could have watched at home. Tamina is always put into these situations where she gets all her offense in one clump right up front, before everybody teams up to get rid of her, and they always do that because Tamina has somehow been on the roster for a DECADE and still gets crossed up doing one minute of offense. So this marks yet another time where they bring back Tamina, immediately insert her into a big match, but seemingly realize that she is still actually bad and get her out of there right away. It's easy a "what does she have on Vince?" joke, but it has to be something. It can't just be weird family murder cover-up loyalty, because we never got a decade of Deuce getting put into title matches. And Tamina was just one part of what made this not work. Nearly everyone in it was made to look like a chump: Naomi's great comeback reactions from earlier this year seem like a distant memory, Bayley retaining after she's already shown to be a completely uninteresting champ, Sasha loses at Mania again, etc. The only interesting thing was the interaction between Sasha and Bayley, I actually loved their moments of working together. Sasha coming back at the end to help Bayley in spite of getting eliminated by a nice Evans' Woman's Right. Also I watched this match after watching a feature length Edge movie, so now I'm just grumpy.


Firefly FunHouse

ER: This show has been terrible, I mean the attitude I had when watching Charlotte shoulder tackle feels like hours ago. This show desperately needed HUGE performances from this match and Brock/McIntyre, and seeing Bray Wyatt come up when your team is one out from elimination is the last thing you wanted to see. But then this match goes out and has their Travis Ishikawa in the 9th moment, and has the first actual creative and fun segment of The Fiend gimmick's lifespan. Cena being Luke Skywalker battling his demons on Dagobah was highly entertaining, and wonderfully different from the Boneyard Match. John Cena reliving his greatest failures and greatest successes was tremendous, and the editing of all the old footage integrated it was fantastic. John Cena whiffing on Ruthless Aggression punches, getting cricket sound effect reactions opposite his best rhymes, and him acting like a malfunctioning Ultimate Warrior robot on Saturday Night's Main Event were just some of the great moments, WWE improbably coming up with two outrageously entertaining cinematic matches on back to back nights. Seriously, John Cena doing lightning fast curls had me in stitches, and if they had smoke come out of his ears I probably would have howled. Just like the Boneyard Match, just think how lame this would have been as a straight match. Instead, this was awesome, and hey, it was a third the length of one of the worst segments in Mania history. I can't believe they did it, but they did it.


Drew McIntyre vs. Brock Lesnar

ER: This was a good moment for Drew, and it's cool that they're going through with it for him. He's been a good soldier and them getting behind him would be cool. And I love Brock, but I think he really needs a crowd to mock and feed off of. Brock crowds always react, even on the coldest shows. Brock gets noise, and Brock reacts great to noise. He's great at reading a room, and he's incredibly fun to watch which he reads a room, and this had no room. Brock has crafted several excellent and unique matches built around finisher spamming, but two guys trading finishers in an empty room just kind of feels like move practice after awhile. You need that reaction of shock, you need that excitement. When the whole story of the match is "It is shocking that this guy kicked out of this" over and over, you need to hear shock. I don't think this kind of match was going to work here, in this situation. I think this match probably would have worked really well with a stadium of people living and dying with it, and I wish I could have seen that version. This was just a longer Goldberg/Braun, and Brock can have a much better match than that.


Well this show was nowhere close to Night 1, and without THE FIEND match - of all things - it would have been one of the weakest cards of the past couples years. But the stupid Firefly FunHouse put a big smile on my face, and left me on the other side feeling positive about all of it. We endured whatever that Edge/Randy Orton match was, we slayed that dragon together. We experienced that shit together, and it was maybe the most united I've ever seen wrestling fans. And in 10 years, if one person tries to nostalgia gif us with "You know what match never got respect but was actually great" posts, that person will get collectively shouted down and humiliated by every person who lived through that in real time.

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All Time MOTY List Head to Head 2003: Lesnar vs. Benoit VS. Honda vs. Kobashi

Brock Lesnar vs. Chris Benoit WWE Smackdown 12/4/03

This match has been recommended a couple times as a contender for the 2003 crown, and it's notable to me because of my personal connection to the match, and for how entirely different it may be viewed in 2020. Outside of WCW TV, we really haven't written up many Benoit matches since 2007, and I don't anticipate that changing. He was a favorite of mine for many years, and he's decidedly not a favorite of mine now, and that's only partly related to him being a child murderer. His style hasn't aged well for me in the past 13 years, similar to the Christopher Daniels effect. Daniels was one of my very favorite live workers and favorite workers period around '99/'00, and then a few years later I aged out of being interested in Daniels. In going back and watching Benoit matches, they don't hit me the same way they did when I was there experiencing them in real time. His limitations seem more glaring now, in the same way Daniels' limitations seemed obvious even by 2003. Also, to my knowledge Christopher Daniels is an upstanding citizen who has yet to kill his family.

Not by accident, Phil has reviewed at most four Chris Benoit matches since 2007, and I'm not about to ask him to start reviewing more now. But this match was suggested as a 2003 challenger, and it's an extremely important match to me and my pro wrestling fandom, so it felt appropriate that I would review it alone. This was actually the first big wrestling show I ever attended. When I was younger my parents wouldn't allow me to attend wrestling shows, so I didn't start seeing live wrestling until I turned 18 and began attending Bay Area APW shows. My dad actually went with me and friends to my first wrestling show (APW 1/16/99) right after my 18th birthday. He hated it, but wouldn't say so. He used to attend Cow Palace shows when he was a youth so was not yet fully ashamed at my level of wrestling fandom. The only name he really remembered was Pat Patterson, because he and his buddies had all called him "Fat Pat" while heckling.

In college, a friend of mine had a WWF ticket connection through the radio station, but that connection dried up from '99-'02 due to the insane demand. By 2003 demand had lessened enough that he was finally able to get us some comped seats. WWF's west coast ticket guy was Will McCoy, and he hooked up a tiny little college radio station with some great seats for several years - long past the time any of us were still attending college - and for that I am still thankful. When we showed up in San Jose to get our Smackdown tickets, one thing we were not expecting was Will McCoy hooking us up with 2nd row ringside seats. Radio giveaway tickets were always good, but nowhere near this good. Typically they would be lower bowl, same side as camera. Those were the less desirable seats, as it meant your unfunny sign had zero chance of ending up on camera. And yet here we were walking closer and closer to the ring, until we found our seats directly to the left of the announce tables. My god, was I excited.

At that point in time, my favorite wrestler in the world was Brock Lesnar. First run Brock Lesnar is STILL among my favorite wrestlers in the world, and by that point I was watching enough Japan and Mexico footage to be confident that Brock was the best wrestler in the world, period. And whenever I go back and watch footage I'm reminded of how undoubtedly inarguably correct I was. Plus, we all knew that due to the battle royal the prior week, we were guaranteed either a Brock/Benoit or Brock/Cena main event, both of which sounded great. We were all rooting for it to be Brock/Benoit, as Benoit had been a favorite of ours for far longer than Brock had been, the pairing seemed like a natural fit, and - this is big - it was a singles match that hadn't yet happened on TV. Midway through the show, once Benoit beat Cena, we knew we were guaranteed what probably would have been my literal dream match at that point in time. Three months later I got to see my next dream match, Brock vs. Eddie, but on 12/2/03 Brock vs. Benoit was the match I wanted to see more than any other. I was so excited that early in the match when they brawled near us on the floor, my friend Sean turned to me and asked "pretty into this one, huh?" When I asked how he could tell, he informed me that I had been jumping up and down with my arms in the air the entire time they brawled on the floor. I did not realize I was doing this, but I can say 17 years later that you can clearly see an idiot 22 year old near-sighted goober pogoing in place, arms lifted directly above my head, nearly the entire time they brawled on the floor. I was that excited to be seeing this match.

When we left we all thought it was one of the greatest matches any of us had ever seen live. Two months prior a couple of us had driven down to Tijuana to see El Hijo Del Santo vs. Super Parka, Mascara contra Mascara. The live atmosphere for that couldn't be beat (and I still hold out hope that Roy Lucier is going to randomly throw that match up on his YouTube channel some day, as I have not seen it since), but Brock vs. Benoit was the match I had been dying to see for months at this point, and we all felt so lucky that the match had been given every opportunity to live up to its on-paper potential. I watched the match on TV a couple days later, loved it again, and haven't seen it since.

The match benefitted from a strong, concise TV build. Benoit tapped Brock at Survivor Series, and Brock was pelted with You Tapped Out chants every time he appeared in the ring afterward. Brock was so dynamite on the mic during this era. I think people forget how often Brock cut promos, since Paul Heyman has been used almost exclusively as his mouthpiece for the past decade while Brock hops around behind him. In 2003 Brock was one of the most confident mic workers of all time, able to expertly manipulate and taunt crowds while coming off intense and unscripted. He knew how to shut down chants, while also showing a small amount of ass for those chants. The crowd saw Benoit tap Brock, and they wanted him to do it again, and Brock saying boastful hyperbolic things like "I will NEVER tap out to anything EVER again" was said with such undercutting pride that it thread the needle of "he's definitely going to tap" and "maybe he really WON'T ever tap again". In addition to Brock's jock hubris, we got very effective segments backstage from other wrestlers. The best job of selling this match may have actually been done by A-Train. There was a running gag during this era where Nunzio, assisted by Chuck Palumbo and Johnny Stamboli, was running a backstage gambling ring. Nunzio laid the odds at 3:2 Brock, because while Benoit had tapped Brock, Benoit had also worked a match against Cena already that night. We got a great shot of the chalkboard with every wrestler's laid bets, and A-Train comes into the room wanting to drop 10 grand on the match. And we got this simple, but perfect exchange:

Nunzio: "Alright boys, put 10 G's on Brock!"
A-Train: "No. I'm putting it on Benoit."

That's the kind of easy attention to detail that is completely absent from modern WWE programming. Portraying wrestlers with no allegiances to either guy, actually expressing interest in who wins and who loses. A-Train was aligned with Brock at this point, was on his team at Survivor Series, and this simple action of betting against the odds - and against his own interests - is the kind of moment I would be stunned to see on TV in 2020.


The match itself delivered exactly what I wanted, and watching it back it's still a testament to how great a talent Brock Lesnar was in 2003. Brock is obviously still a guy I am going out of my way to watch, and has been in some of the best matches of the decade since his return. But in 2003 he was even better, and he was doing it full time, and it was incredible. In hindsight this came off like an incredible Brock performance, and I get the sense he could have done this same match with Edge, Test, Shelton Benjamin, Rodney Mack, honestly anyone on the roster at that time. Benoit brought an intensity that others on the roster couldn't, a toughness that many others didn't project, and - most importantly - the fans believed he could beat Brock. For his part Benoit went at Brock like there wasn't a massive size difference, attacking with chops, a couple of big Germans, and a brutal diving headbutt. But Brock was The Terminator here. He came at Benoit with big swinging arms, brutal kneelifts, and threw him around at will (including a wicked hotshot on the announce table, and a German suplex that whipped Benoit's head disgustingly into the mat). Where Brock excels as more than just a great smashing machine, was his attention to small details. Brock knows how to make a big bump mean something (check out his explosive bump into the ring steps, as I cannot imagine someone crashing harder full weight into those steps), and he connects the dots on all of his smaller moments. 

There's a moment in this match that I love, and it's a spot we've all seen hundreds of times, where someone pulls down the top rope to send a charging opponent tumbling over. And Brock did that spot here better than I've ever seen it done. Nearly every time we see that spot, we see the guy pulling down that top rope and we see the opponent clearly seeing the top rope pulled down, and yet charge over anyway. What move were any of those guys doing? What did they have planned if the rope hadn't been pulled down? Were they just planning on awkwardly colliding? Well, just like that first time you saw someone actually try to take out an opponent's legs during a drop down, here Brock does every step of the spot perfectly. It's amazing when you see a common spot executed perfectly, reminding you of what a poorly set up crutch the spot almost always is. Brock busied himself excellently while Benoit was charging, looking like a sitting duck, Benoit charging in for a lariat, and Brock yanked that top rope down at the precisely CORRECT time, when it was too late for Benoit to stop, and Benoit takes an absolute gem of a fast dangerous bump to the floor. It seems like a small thing, performing the top rope feint correctly, but it's one of those moments - of many - where you see what an excellent pro wrestling brain Lesnar has. This is a guy who truly gets it, truly understands why moves are done and what they mean.

We get the great section where Brock hoists Benoit up for the F5 and accidentally, or not, bashes swings Benoit hard directly into ref Brian Hebner, and the fans get that visual tap out as Brock taps repeatedly to the Crossface while the ref is down. Brock survives, the ref doesn't see, Brock gets a chair, and wastes Benoit's knee. We then get treated to the debut of the Brock Lock, the greatest main event submission during an era where WWE was giving their main event guys submissions. This is an absolutely body damaging submission, with Brock not only bending that damaged leg around his traps, but sitting back into it so deeply that Benoit's body gets as contorted as a Peking acrobat. Benoit passes out from pain, Brock retains, and in a perfect meathead moment, Brock applies the Crossface to a passed out Benoit, making Benoit's free arm tap.


Honda vs. Kobashi Review


Verdict:

ER: This is not unseating Honda vs. Kobashi, but it's a fantastic Big Match Brock performance, and remains a favorite (if tarnished) live wrestling memory for me. The stuff with the referees was inconsistent in a way I didn't remember. Hebner goes down and Hebner misses Brock tapping, but then Nick Patrick runs out the second the match is over to save Benoit. It's annoying when a ref misses a finish, but even moreso when it's made clear that another referee has been watching the match and surely saw what happened. It also could have used more of Brock bashing Benoit's knee before the Brock Lock, but the hold itself was applied so painfully that a pass out finish was totally acceptable. This is still a great match, and if anything, it cements Brock's standing as a true all time great.

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WWE Royal Rumble 2020 Actually Kind of Live Blog

ER: These PPVs start HOW early and go HOW long!? This thing had already started by the time I got back from freaking brunch and will end hours into darkness. But I think the card looks good on paper, and the Rumble has traditionally been a favorite gimmick of mine. Admittedly, I do not get as excited for the Rumbles as I used to. Even when I end up liking them (I remember really liking the 2018 Men's Rumble, for example), they have still felt very same-y the past decade. I'm not sure what it will take to freshen it up a bit, whether the answer is to move the concept forward or backward, but I'm here for it.


Sheamus vs. Chad Gable

ER: Damn this feels like a pretty big match for the pre-show. Maybe it's just because I'm very excited for the on-paper potential of this match. I've been a high voter on Sheamus and I think higher than average on Gable, and the pairing seems natural. This is Sheamus' first TV match in over 9 months, and it's a tough spot to be in for your comeback match: 75 minutes before the actual PPV starts, while people are filing into a large baseball stadium. And Sheamus *does* look rusty for the first couple minutes of this, mainly in the way he perfunctorily went through standing exchanges; Sheamus is a good wrestler, he's not someone who sleepwalks through missed clotheslines and rope running, but he was clearly a guy finding his steps, looking a little careful. They even start talking about ring rust on commentary (and after the match) which sounded like they were smartly covering by just admitting. But Sheamus knocks Gable hard to the floor in a fun violent way and the tone shifted to more stiff and confident from there. Sheamus worked like a more WWE-style Timothy Thatcher, bending Gable by the hand and wrist, kneeling on his head, pushing on his face while stretching a limb, even busting open one of Gable's ears. He also aims to cave in Gable's chest with 20 or so clubbing forearms, really getting that filing in crowd going the more the match went on. Gable fought back in cool ways, tons of foot stomps and hard elbows, and ever harder overhand chops. He threw a couple different overhand chops that landed loud and left Sheamus in an almost stunned laughter, and then he would go right back to nasty stomps to the feet. Gable hit a nice dropkick to take out Sheamus' knee, and Sheamus is a compelling limb seller who works in some nice knee moments. I really liked him catching Gable off the top rope and buckling his knee, leading to Gable spiking him with a nice DDT. The nearfalls were exciting, Gable broke out a cool Chaos Theory and it looked plausible that Gable could actually beat Sheamus in the latter's big return match. I thought this played honestly and was a real nice return match delivery. This was a real good "first match" from these two, plenty of cool ideas I wasn't expecting, and a nice reminder of what Sheamus can bring.


Humberto Carrillo vs. Andrade

ER: This had a lot of ideas I liked and what I thought was a great Andrade performance, but also thought it was one of those matches where Carrillo oversteps. Carrillo has a lot of fun ideas with sometimes iffy execution, and his best matches tend to be when his dance flourishes get reigned in. He was pretty free to try things here and Andrade is a generous base, and I do think we got a few too many dance sequences muddying up things (for a guy who likes dance-y missed kick reversal sequences, Carrillo isn't always great at them). But there was a ton of match that wasn't those kind of things, and Andrade put fun twists on a couple familiar Carrillo spots. I liked the fight over a crucifix pin, like the way Andrade can insert some struggle into moves that could come off too smooth. Andrade has great small stuff, which adds to matches like these: hard stiff leg kick to the stomach, heavy back elbows, sharp forearms to the jaw (he had one early that really snapped Carrillo's head back). There were also good believable nearfalls in this one (a nice theme for the show) and the pairing is really good when Andrade is running the show. The match ending springboard rana reversal was cool and there probably aren't many guys in the fed (maybe Cesaro?) who could have taken it better. This match also benefitted from Zelina Vega's fun ringside presence, a loud, active manager with always amusing reaction shots.


Falls Count Anywhere: Roman Reigns vs. Baron Corbin

ER: This was one of those matches where I started the match into it all, and got less interested every passing minute. Before the match, Corbin was carried out to the ring in his meh throne, and Roman jumped him during the entrance and threw around the guys carrying him. I was into it. Turns out, that would be my peak moment of interest. The match didn't really land for me. Sometimes it literally didn't land, as early on Corbin seemed to be leaning way out of strikes. The brawling through the crowd felt sluggish, the concept of brawling around an entire baseball stadium was hurt by keeping most of the camera shots too close. They may as well have been brawling around a civic auditorium for over half of the brawl. By the time we got to the interference from Ziggler, Roode, and The Usos, my interest was waning. By the time we get a porta potty spot I was more than ready to get to the next match. You go to the extremely stupid lengths to set up a fake row of porta pottys, you need to go the lengths of making the spot as stupid or as dangerous as possible. Either Corbin comes out of that thing covered head to toe in fake shit, or he needs to take a stupid bump through a row of toilets. They did neither. The match goes 22 minutes which was so much more time than it needed, and the few big moments (and Uso dive off a high stack of equipment, some impressive bumps through tables) didn't sustain the match. "These two have been through hell and back," Michael Cole says unconvincingly. Nope.


Women's Rumble Match

ER: Alexa and Bianca is an opening combo I can get behind. Stadium entrances make Rumbles infinitely cool, and when Bianca's music hit I said "Man I hope Bianca skips all the way down the long damn entrance," and she did, and it was great. Great Big PPV Gear from Bianca, killer black/gold combo with 10/10 gold glitter boots. Alexa's faces as Bianca danced were also great, so I am firmly on the side of this match. And a Molly Holly appearance is clearly only ever going to be a plus. Let's do a Backlund moment and keep Molly in there for the match. Lana is genuinely terrible on the mic, has no originality, stumbles over words, and isn't quick on her toes...but she clearly puts energy into it and seems to enjoy the role, and she plays a good dummy who isn't as smart as she thinks. And that kind of saves the act. Mercedes Martinez is a nice surprise. The Lana/Liv pull apart brawl felt better than it should have been. Mandy looked good in her first two minutes, getting into it with Nikki Cross and stopping her with a shoulderblock, nice running knee, and a slap that echoed hard in the stadium.

And goddamn I am into the comical Mandy fake elimination. She gets casually tossed by Alexa in what seemed like an incredibly underwhelming elimination, almost a punishment to Rose. She was thrown to the far side of ring from camera, meaning we didn't see her hit the floor. And when when the camera shifts to her side we see she landed perfectly onto Otis, who was weirdly laying flat on the floor for some reason. Otis plays it like a fetish, coming off like the world's largest Jimmy Valiant under a glass table. The fans reacted bigger than I expected to it, made a really odd spot come off great. The involvement of Otis on both Mandy and Sonya's elimination was amusing, but Otis had just started being fun yelling ringside encouragement to Mandy, and I wanted the bit to continue longer.

We hit a boring little stretch where Dana Brooke and Mia Yim and Tamina do that annoying modern Rumble trend of coming in and just running through your offense on several people, just a stupid string of ninjas attacking once at a time for trademark spots. Older Rumbles felt like they had more small moments where a guy enters and quietly finds a the most advantageous dude to go after. Tamina has the worst ring gear in WWE women's history, a terrible look, a terrible run of offense, just a clumsy bull in a Houston china shop. Her elimination is thankfully quick, with her taking a stumbling bump to the floor like someone falling for the first time. Once Tamina was gone, things picked up. I liked the Bianca/Alexa hair tug of war on the apron, and Naomi came back after 6 months away and had her greatest look ever, an immediate contender for greatest wrestling hair of the decade, obviously Naomi paying respects to Mr. Niebla in a totally iconic look. And she gets a gimmick moment we've seen before, getting knocked from the apron but leaping to the side of the barricade like spider-man. But whether Intentionally or not, she lands VERY low on the wall. Her feet were just a few inches off the floor, giving her almost no wiggle room. It looked several times like she might just give up and let them hit the floor. Her crawling up to the top felt like a genuine dramatic moment, and I don't care how stupid that sounds. Beth Phoenix apparently suffers a massive head wound at some point, as suddenly there is a huge spreading dark red spot on the back of her head, and it somehow isn't getting nearly the attention it deserves from commentary. Super excited to see Shotzi in the Rumble. We were wondering if it would happen as I know they like to debut fairly new workers like that, and when her name came up I popped. Santina stuff felt dumb and more than a little out of place but they didn't linger on it, which has been a strength of the match. Shayna's entrance run is great, but let me tell you: Not interested in how easily Charlotte dispatched Shayna. That's just dumb. Charlotte was in this match as long as anyone, and made absolutely no impression. Overall I thought this was a good Rumble match, veering into great at times. Finish disappointed me though, and I'm bored watching Charlotte point at the Mania sign. Belair's elimination was disappointing and didn't come off like a big enough deal, and Naomi's long journey back to the ring felt was undercut by her getting eliminated immediately once back. A Naomi Rumble return leading to a big Mania match would work, disappointing they went with such a bland choice.


Bayley vs. Lacey Evans

ER: Not a match-up that's super intriguing to me, and I think most of that is I have not been into heel Bayley one bit. And I don't think I'm alone, as the match played real cold to the crowd. The crowd still seemed to like the Roman match that I didn't, but this match was quiet. This was a better match than Reigns/Corbin, but it did not connect. Stuff looked good, but it needed Sasha making noise at ringside or some other element than them just going out and having a match. This was worked without history and wouldn't feel out of place on an episode of Main Event, and played like a match that would be considered a good match for Main Event. But it felt light and unimportant here.


Strap Match: Daniel Bryan vs. The Fiend

ER: This was slow paced, and the crowd was quiet, and I have very very little interest in the Fiend gimmick or the Funhouse stuff, and there are dozens of guys on the roster that I would so much rather see Bryan face on a big PPV. But I was into this. Bryan comes hard with punches to the head, but before long we get long sets of Fiend slowly whipping Bryan over the back and chest, and Bryan getting a bunch of ugly welts. I thought they made a very compelling match based almost entirely around whipping each other. Both guys knew how to throw nice strap shots, and Bryan added big bumps at key moments. Getting eaten alive by a lariat on the floor and running into the Sister Abigail nearfall are things Bryan does better than most. But they lost me maybe 3/4 of the way through, started overstaying its welcome, and then hit us with some lame character aspects of the Fiend. Bryan really got made to look like a chump, and the Fiend's revolutionary gimmick of just walking through shots and clowning people, has absolutely zero legs. Bryan tried to get people into it postmatch, tried to pull those strings, clearly doing as much as possible to put some sort of dignity to this ending. But man I'm pretty positive the Fiend sucks.


Asuka vs. Becky Lynch

ER: This one felt like a big deal going into the match, but Lynch has a way of turning feuds with potential into kind of boring matches. I don't know why she doesn't seem to connect, but her run of matches during her long feeling title reign have consistently underwhelmed. This didn't get the crowd response it could have and should have been better. But it was not bad, and I thought Asuka brought a lot of color to it. She had my favorite moment of the match, when she splatted with a nasty belly flop bump to the floor off a front suplex from the apron. She threw nice thrust kicks into Becky's face and threw herself enthusiastically into her offense. It had a good finish too, with Becky landing a kick to Asuka's stomach right as Asuka was going to mist her, making cartoonishly mist herself. It's a spot I can see working all through the territories and I liked it here.


Men's Rumble Match

ER: I'm into the idea of a full match Brock run. I don't care. People are tired of Brock, but he's a total freak and I'd love to see him wreck dudes for 45 minutes. And I think he has the selling ability to actually provide some dramatic openings along the run. Right out of the gate, doesn't feel like a necessary move to throw Rowan to the wolves so quickly. At least give his comeback some kind of chance of success, this felt undercutting. But it also kind of makes sense, because Brock *should* run through these dudes. Elias, Roode, yeah, Brock should crush them. Roode shouldn't be hitting a spinebuster on Brock, so hell yeah, toss these men! I am into this idea and into the execution so for. I'm already excited for who will be the first entrant to last until the next entrant, who will finally last long enough to have someone else distract Brock for a bit, and who might be the first guy who Brock actually *isn't* excited to see? This is a different way to book the Rumble, and I am into it. The answer comes quick, as Rey enters while Kofi is still in the ring, and the star power feels bigger and it feels like a bigger moment to see Brock manhandling these two. And when we build to Big E, Kofi, and Rey all swarming Brock, it's a full great sequence of early Brock vulnerability. Trouble in Paradise, Big Ending, 619, Spear, and Brock is just so great at taking finishers. And with a finger snap he tosses Rey, jumps off Big E to hit a superman lariat through Kofi, lariats E to the floor, and disposes of Kofi. Brock as the Royal Rumble Ken Jennings is great pro wrestling for me. The pairings are well thought out: The Shelton Benjamin stuff was amusing, Nakamura hit a cool sneaky spin kick before getting tossed (would have liked a longer pairing here, as that's a 15 year old match I'd actually love to see re-run), MVP is a decent enough nostalgia return and takes super huge bump off the F5 for a guy pushing 50, and Brock keeps making things better with his reactions to Keith Lee at 13.

Keith Lee vs. Brock is a great dream match, and Brock is so good at getting run over by Lee. Lee doesn't hold back, both guys crash into each other like an airshow disaster, and I lost it when Braun was 14. Those 3 are a 305 Live dream, and all the interactions came off like a sequel to Rampage. The only problem is I wish we got way more. Let the three of them throw out the next 6 guys and have them absolutely ruin a city's infrastructure in between. And I was really into the idea of Brock going to the final 4 at least, but how pro was McIntyre's elimination of him? Brock leaned cheek first into that claymore kick, and Brock's big bump to the floor while Heyman flips out was classic. But Drew isn't done many favors as they kind of just have him do exactly what Bock had spent half the match doing. It's a big spot for Drew, but it almost did him no favors to have him be dominant. Plus he gets the bum luck of a few dud entrances, Ziggler and Karl Anderson, people aren't gonna be into that. The Edge return is obviously a gigantic moment for many in the crowd, and while there are few returns that could have been less exciting to me personally, he's a guy the fans filling out a Texas stadium clearly want to see. Edge felt like a major deal, people were flipping out like they were on an Oprah's Favorite Things. But we've fallen into a rut of people I'm not interested in (Gallows, Orton, ugh these are the Raw matches I skim through) and they eliminate Riddle in a minute. That pissed me off. I do NOT have interest in Randy Orton & Edge dancing their age old dance, and this thing is screeching to a halt for me. Is it the show that's too damn long? Or the participants that got less interesting? By the time Seth Rollins hits the ring, the ring is nearly entirely filled with men I do not want to see in a long WrestleMania title match. The final 8 really dragged for me, though it got a little better with the final 4. Edge hitting a spear on Roman came off big, and Drew really killer Roman with the claymore. If this is the big McIntyre push, I'm curious what a Brock match looks like. I could see fans getting into Drew with some momentum behind him, so let's see where this goes.


ER: The show had strengths but a big weakness in just being too long. A lot of the wrestling was good while rarely rising to great. The very first match of the night was my favorite, and that wasn't a match that is going to wind up super high on a MOTY list at the end of 2020. I liked both Rumbles, preferring the women's one overall due to less drag and down moments, but the first half of the men's match showed it could have hit greatness. We had a lot of good individual performances (Bryan, Andrade, Asuka) in so-so matches, which kept the floor of the show high but the ceiling low.

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New Footage Friday: WWE MSG HandHeld 9/20/03

Full Show


MD: I was at this show. My college roommate was from the area and got me a ticket for my 22nd birthday right before I went off to grad school in England. This was the only time I ever went to MSG to see wrestling and as you can tell from the first few seconds of video, business was way down. That meant we ended with great seats, not ringside, but close. I'll be honest. Past the main event and the Taz surprise, I don't remember this card that well. While it was nice to see guys like Spanky, London, Mysterio, and Dragon in a setting like this and the main event felt special, I think, at the time, the main draw was just being in MSG to see wrestling.

Chris Benoit vs. The Big Show

PAS: This was far enough away that I am going to go ahead and try to pretend this was Quiet Storm vs. The Big Show and review it as a match instead of talking about all of that. Mark "The Shark" Shrader vs. Big Show was always a really great match up because John Walters would always move forward constantly while bouncing off of Show. This was a pretty great Nitro length match with Dingo hitting a great looking top rope shoulder block, and locking in the Josh Daniels crossface for the tap.

ER: I didn't love the layout of this one. Big Show took his offense up front, Benoit took all of his in the back, and that might be my least favorite layout in wrestling. I enjoyed all of the work, especially liked Benoit's shoulderblock off the top. But too often this had the vibe of a formula Randy Savage match, where he'd sell the whole match, hit a bodyslam and then finish with the elbow. This was better than that formula, and I liked how the tracking line skipped when Big Show hit a legdrop. Cooler version of the rumble effect WWE always tries.

MD: I don't see a lot of Benoit these days. He was perfectly serviceable chopping from underneath and the timing and explosiveness of the finishing stretch (headbutt, chokeslam reversal into a crossface) was great. The crowd was as behind him as they ever would be too, but to me, this was all about Show. He'd gotten it by this point and the way he controlled the ring, even in just a few minutes, was perfect, absolutely larger than life. This was a victim of the number of matches on the card, much shorter than it needed to be to move the needle, but they gave us a very good TV C show sort of match.

Matt Hardy/Shannon Moore vs. Spanky/Paul London

PAS: Really fun TWA vs. OMEGA tag match you could imagine seeing on Break the Barrier. It was really interesting to see how much bigger the OMEGA guys were then then London and Spanky, how even a three year difference in indy juniors meant 3 inches and 35 pounds (and I am sure London and Spanky would look like giants against the Undisputed Era). Hardy and Moore were the heels here and did a nice job cutting off the ring on Spanky after he took a big bump to the floor (his crazy bump would be topped by Shannon Moore later in the match). I thought the London hot tag was cool including a nicely set up SSP after spring off of Spanky's back. Just what you wanted from this cool matchup.

MD: This was good. I didn't like it as much as the later tag but that was more of a structural preference than anything else. You really got the sense that Hardy was glad to be in there with these guys and that Spanky and London had a lot to prove. They fit a lot into a short period of time and everything looked good with people in the right position at the right time. Again, with a card this stacked, they needed contrast and this was there to get the crowd going after their appetites had been whetted by the early burst of size, spectacle, and star-power.

ER: This is really cool, as Paul London hadn't actually made his TV debut. He had done some Velocity job work, but I bet 90+% of the crowd had no idea who he was, and the reactions for his biggest spots really showed they liked what they were seeing. I also had no memory of Brian Kendrick actually working WWE as "Spanky". What a silly name to have used for so long, and another name to add to the list of "Wait so Bryan Danielson had to be Daniel Bryan, but..." I obviously remember London & Kendrick, I had no memory of a London & Spanky WWE team. I dug this tag, felt like something that would fit in perfectly on this era Velocity. There were a couple minor timing issues and a swinging neckbreaker that looked like it didn't really swing, but the fans were reacting big to London's dropkicks and flipped out for that shooting star off Spanky's back (which is a fantastic spot), and the finish was really great. Spanky goes for a pescado and Moore dunks him right into the floor, then runs halfway around the ring in time to shove London off the top into a Twist of Fate. I thought they added in a couple of good twists, like Spanky being unable to get to his hot tag while Moore got to his, the kind of things that add different gears to a fun spot tag.

Sho Funaki vs. Nunzio

PAS: The Bloodsport version of PWFG trainee versus UWFI undercarder would be pretty cool. The WWE house show version is a pretty basic undercard juniors match. Lots of dropkicks and armdrags. Nunzio did take a big backdrop which was pretty cool, otherwise this was pretty dry.

MD: Nunzio was really great here, just excellent at working the crowd and keeping people engaged, from having the ref mimic his mannerisms pre-match to mocking Funaki. Because of that, even though you had guys down the cruiserweight chain and basically your third-string Japanese guy on the card in a time where you'd be liable just to have one or two, they never lost the fans, which is saying something because this was a crowd that was capable of tuning out in the midst of a good match.

Bashams vs. Ultimo Dragon/Jamie Noble

MD: Enjoyable southern tag, with Dragon playing face in peril and the Bashams dismantling his arm with perfect precision. Here, they did lose the fans, though it wasn't necessarily the fault of the match. It certainly wasn't Noble's fault, since he was working the apron hard and expressing real indignation in his attempts to get in there, even at his partner's expense. The Bashams had only been on TV for a few months and they didn't have Shaniqua to get them heat here (not that she would have necessarily helped). While they were sound in everything they did, it was the opposite of Nunzio. They barely acknowledged the crowd. When the boring chants started, Noble redoubled his efforts on the apron and Dragon went right into hope spots, but it didn't really work out. Noble was fiery enough that the comeback more or less worked out and the finish was effective and elaborate but the crowd just didn't want to come along for the ride of the match. Shame.

PAS: I thought this was spectacular. The Bashams were really great at making a heel beatdown interesting, and they really worked over Dragons arm in cool ways, while feeding him some nifty comebacks and hope spots. I am sort of a low voter on Ultimo, but he can really be breathtaking when he gets on a roll. Noble was really awesome in this match too, knocking out some cool quick takedowns early, being a killer house of fire, including jumping into a guillotine, and then eating that killer super spine buster for the pin. This is a show with some of the most talented wrestlers in wrestling history on it, and it takes a lot to stand out, and he really did.

ER: I'm with Phil, I thought this was great. Bashams were always a team that I was fine with but never fully got into them, always thought they didn't live up to all of the OVW hype Meltzer gave them at the time. There would be flash standout performances, but I also remember them being tied down with Tough Enough manager Linda Miles and I don't think the act worked. But everything about this tag worked for me and made me want to go back and revisit a ton of Bashams. This was easily one of the best Ultimo Dragon performances I remember seeing in WWE (a stint I thought was super disappointing overall). Dragon was the reason for me to buy WAR tapes back in the day, and at this point in my life there are probably on average at least 15 guys on any given WAR show that I would rather watch. But this was the ideal version of WWE Dragon, all his combos landed and I flat out loved the missed strikes between he and Danny Basham. Danny Basham was full of awesome missed strikes here, I don't remember him cutting so low on missed lariats and punches; he really made Ultimo duck and was throwing them super fast. Noble really did look like a much better and more interesting version of Benoit here, everything he did looked fantastic, that running low knee especially was something that I don't think any current worker does as well. But everything he did was done with such exciting speed and impact. There are plenty of guys with speed on the 2020 roster, but Noble was using his speed to make his impact look greater, not using it to work out overly complicated dance routines based around missed your opponent a bunch. Great tag that I would have loved to see get more time.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Tajiri

MD: Everything hit, but I wanted a little more out of this, just given who was in there. I liked how they didn't dally in getting to the transition (which was smart and flowed, as Mysterio went up one too many times and ate a kick), but past one roll-up out of nowhere, there weren't any hope spots and and cut offs. This is the sort of match that needed a few extended comeback spots where Mysterio could get a few things in. The finishing stretch was as good as you'd expect and I liked how they protected Tajiri's kick for the post match, though it was a little weird that Mysterio would rather celebrate with the crowd than go after the guy who snuck in a cheapshot.

PAS: I thought these guys worked really well together, for a pairing you don't necessarily think about. It felt like Tajiri was trying to out Rey, Rey almost trying to one up him in slickness and speed especially at the beginning of the match. The fact he kind of pulled it off is pretty amazing. Loved how Tajiri went after the ribs, using the big kick as a cutoff spot, and then peppering in little body shots and additional kicks. Great stuff which really makes me want to track down all of their other matches against each other.

Charlie Haas vs. Billy Kidman

MD: I haven't seen either of these guys in a long time. There were some things I really liked: Haas' initial intensity with the mat wrestling (though it didn't last long enough; the way he jammed Kidman's outside-in shoulder to set up the posting and the heat, then how Kidman had to work to get that shoulder for a hope spot later; the back-work in general which was intense, and the comeback took effort and the finish was solid. They had the crowd early, probably due to Haas getting promo time, and lost them midway through, but not for long. I outright laughed when Haas tried to power bomb Kidman, because I didn't think that was still happening in 2003. So I liked the brunt of the storytelling here. Some of the spots were awkward and Kidman's offense in the stretch wasn't great but you couldn't have wanted much more from a cold house show match between these two.

Eddie Guerrero vs. John Cena vs. Rhyno

MD: As triple threats go, I thought this was pretty good. They kept the laying-on-the-outside to a minimum. Cena was definitely full of star power and willing to throw himself into everything. Eddy had this way of creating chaos so effortlessly and then taking advantage of it. You should have been able to see the strings but you never did.

PAS: Three ways are far from my favorite kind of match, but you put two of the most charismatic wrestlers of all time along with a fine utility man like Rhino, you are going to get something really worth watching. I just love watching Eddie move, even in a minor key house show match like this he just exudes something. It is like watching Prince or Richard Pryor, really that kind of kinetic star power was supremely rare. Cena has it in smaller doses, but this was before Cena was Cena really. I did like his squat press suplex, and he didn't look out of his depth in there with Eddie. Rhino was shaped like a cardboard box, and I always enjoyed him bouncing around like a Box Troll.

Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker

MD: It's hard to ignore the complaining from the fans. All of the heat here was ultimately on Vince, and yes, the match did come alive in that back third when he was involved. Before that, though it was more of a traditional WWF cage match, lacking hate, lacking blood, not nearly enough violence, with a lot of transitions and spots based around trying to escape the cage, peppered with good use of the cage to do things their size wouldn't usually allow and a few bits of matwork that you know Taker was excited to be able to work with Brock. Vince brought so much energy and excitement relative to the actual wrestlers, which is weird to think considering how the entire world seems to buzz when Brock is in a ring now.

PAS: These guys had an all time great Hell in the Cell match around this time. This wasn't that, but these guys do match up really well. Brock is such a freak athlete and even on simple bumps is just flying around the ring. They also laid in their shots which is really what you want from Matt is right about the match really picking up when Vince comes in. Vince can really emote to the last row, and takes some big bumps for an old man with a lot of money. I really loved his post match celebration only to get ripped by Taker. Fun stuff, although it really could have used the plasma which livened up the Hell in the Cell.

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Late But Not Bad: WWE Survivor Series 11/24/19 Blog

Luke Gallows/Karl Anderson vs. The Revival vs. Wesley Blake/Steve Cutler vs. Bobby Roode/Dolph Ziggler vs. Montez Ford/Angelo Dawkins vs. Curt Hawkins/Zack Ryder vs. Tyler Breeze/Fandango vs. Gran Metalik/Lince Dorado vs. Fabian Aichner/Marcel Barthel vs. Otis/Tucker

ER: Oh man this is exactly the kind of thing I love to start a show. Gimme a big colorful 20 man battle royal with a long as hell entrance time, every single team getting a separate entrance but an abbreviated one. I'm not kidding here, I was into this from the second I heard there was a 10 team battle royal to start this PPV. I do prefer when BOTH members of a team have to be eliminated, it makes more openings for different psychology scenarios. And this was a good battle royal! I would have changed the order of several eliminations, and you bet your ass the first team eliminated would have been the team that won the damn thing. Wait, do I like this match? I would have rather seen any of these 9 teams win than Ziggler/Roode, so I can't like this match too much. But the work within the match was above average for battle royals. There were plenty of quick glimpses of nice battle royal close quarters striking; Gallows would punch Otis in the head, grateful to be here Curt Hawkins would throw a couple decent punches, people busied themselves well. We did get too much awful Ziggler 1996 HBK cosplay. Too much. How the hell is he allowed to do such hammy tribute? But guys really threw themselves into their eliminations, I was crushed when Otis had his Caterpillar interrupted before the elbowdrop, Aichner should have absolutely slaughtered  Ziggler while he was dangling over the top rope for the zillionth time. Worst possible team won, match was still fun.

Kalisto vs. Akira Tozawa vs. Lio Rush

ER: This was plenty fun, some nice go go go, kept the spotlight shifting to each of the three guys without ever feeling like an exhibition or outright showcase, a weirdly natural way for these three to show their specific skills. This had the feeling of a Amazing Red trainee match, in a good way, with Rush being one of the best post-2000s Red combo of fast precise bumps and great inventive kicks. Tozawa is always a great cog in these cruiser three ways, even when it feels like he's nowhere close to the focus. He's clearly good at helping direct these things, he winds up in good ones too often for that to be false. Kalisto gets all Fenix on us in cool ways, and I dug the Salida del Sol attempts and successes. We get Tozawa's big senton and one of the better sliding kicks in the company, Rush throws the nicest kicks of the match and his frog splash looked tremendous, just a fun match that left the party at just the right time.

Big E/Kofi Kingston vs. Kyle O'Reilly/Bobby Fish vs. Viking Raiders

ER: So far it feels like everything has been given a lot of time, guys getting time to try some new things and stretch out in some ways. This match felt longer than it needed to be, yet came with an absolute superstar performance from Ivar, a guy who has been improving every year for the past few years. This was one of my favorite performances of his, a total wrecking ball, looking bigger than I think I've ever seen him but still flattening with crossbodies, flipping over that top rope like a he was prime Berzerker, working this super fast lengthy hot tag where he just nailed every single mark. Big E takes a big bump on his missed spear to the floor, throws some big belly to bellies, then takes an even bigger bump when he hits his spear to the floor. Viking Raiders are so cool, really a team that was always fun and just keeps finding ways to improve, keeps tinkering with and tightening up offense, evolving. How did they never do a Vikings vs. Harper/Rowan match? What a colossal fuck up. But this was all fun.

Sasha Banks/Lacey Evans/Nikki Cross/Dana Brooke/Carmella vs. Asuka/Kairi Sane/Sarah Logan/Charlotte/Natalya vs. Bianca Belair/Rhea Ripley/Io Shirai/Toni Storm/Candice LeRae

ER: This really did feel closer to some of the overstuffed Survivor Series tags from 30 years ago, though it was also rife with some bizarre character contradictions (Charlotte is just never going to be the likable one in any situation, it does not work), Lacey Evans shunted WAY too far into the background and coming off like nothing (unfair for how far she's come over this year), I have no idea why Candice and Shirai's big plan was just to let their team almost get beat but then run out, and we got a weird tentative performance from Ripley literally one night after she was this Braveheart leader against the odds in War Games. Made no sense. Asuka is still popular than any woman in this match, Kairi Sane came off like the cool smallest/craziest member of a team, Belair should have been made the sole survivor of this and then shot to the top, but her star will be undeniable soon. Her 450 is so rock solid and she knew how to work team bragging better than most here. Carmella deserves a lot of credit for her genuinely good Survivor Series throwback performance, bringing levity but fine execution to all her segments. Dana Brooke also made the most of her actual airtime, thought she took some risks she normally doesn't. I didn't agree with some of the eliminations (Natalya should not be getting the better of her feud with Evans), and it felt like their attempt to keep at least 8 of them even stevens, wish they would have let someone come off more dominant while being confident.

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Roderick Strong vs. AJ Styles

ER: This one had moments but was a little long in the tooth. I mentioned earlier how it felt like some people were allowed to stretch out on this show, but I could use a little editing at this point. This one had peaks and valleys, but did come into the peaks nicely. It's hard for me not to like Strong getting this kind of showcase; the guy might not be a trendy wrestler to like, but he's had a real phenomenal decade while still feeling underappreciated. Styles was really good at running into offense face first, and it was either all AJ or Nakamura was also throwing some of his nicest kicks in recent memory. Roddy had some big cool version of backbreakers, Nakamura is basically Japanese Randy Orton as it's annoying how good they can be sometimes while noticeably holding back on things. Styles has a brighter performance than he's been turning in lately, and this flows relatively smoothly for a 3 way. And I must say I LOVE Strong going over, even if it was of disputable means. A overall nice delivery.

Pete Dunne vs. Adam Cole

ER: This was a lot of what I didn't really want to see. This is a long show, too many matches, but this was the first one I wanted to skip past. Dunne is kind of a frustrating guy for me, and let's just say the Adam Cole Championship era is not something I am enjoying, or looking to more of. Both do a lot of Offense I Don't Like and this was filled with it, like a nightmare 2005 indy match that grew up watching 1999 offense and did it more dangerously in stupid evolved variations. So here we are growing up from doing a Burning Hammer onto a picnic table on an amusing Dateline special, you're a couple of dudes breaking out a flipping piledriver on the apron, in a company where the piledriver is a banned move. But we'll always have a bunch of close ups on derpy faces after unexpected kickouts. I will thank them for keeping this (barely) under 15 minutes, but I don't have to like it. This was not the match to work after War Games, and these two wouldn't realize that.

Daniel Bryan vs. The Fiend

ER: Man this PPV has run into a ditch and I am really hoping we right this rig before blowing a tire. The Fiend is just slow crawling death, the light is bad, and Bryan almost made this into something interesting. Bryan was interesting! Bryan worked with what he had, and it wasn't much, but he somehow got the fans semi-involved in something that The Fiends was actively trying to not court. Bryan's plancha looked great and was filmed great, Fiend did have a couple nice moments of catching Bryan in mid air and dispatching him, punching him out of the sky or just catching him with a slam. But Bryan was flying into any of that (and into the ringpost) like someone desperately trying to make lemons out of lemonade, and it just did not work. This may have been the worst match on the show, and that should never be the case with a Bryan match.

Roman Reigns/Braun Strowman/Chad Gable/Baron Corbin/Ali vs. Drew McIntyre/Ricochet/Randy Orton/Kevin Owens/Seth Rollins vs. Matt Riddle/Tommaso Ciampa/WALTER/Keith Lee/Damian Priest

ER: So, I did not like a lot of this. This PPV has turned into my own personal nightmare as time has slowed way down and this feels like I will never not be writing about the happenings of this show. Braun got to run ham on people on the floor leading to a big Lee collision, and the home stretch Roman/Lee battle felt like a real Clash of the Titans that SHOULD really elevate Lee. Lee got given a moment, and he made the moment. And there were good moments. But this took a long damn time and just felt hollow and incorrect for much of the runtime. Riddle got what looked like a big moment, and maybe it leads to an Orton feud that he wins, but Riddle is someone that fans are ready to get behind in the biggest way, a guy clearly primed to make the huge crossover jump from NXT. WALTER went out quick and that's really dumb. Rollins is someone I dread at this point. Gable got tricked into looking like a goof, sounding like a goof, and getting treated like a goof. Priest looked like a goof. This was just no good. This has been bad.

Rey Mysterio vs. Brock Lesnar

ER: We know this was going one way or another, and it went the way nobody wanted it to go. I was genuinely excited about this match. We knew Brock was going to destroy Rey. Obviously he was going to snap him in two. But with the added No Holds Barred stip I was expecting Rey to make WAY more inroads than he made. Rey got steamrolled. Rey looked great getting steamrolled, but this was a real flattening. You want to see Brock destruction, but Brock is one of the great selling monsters, so you get more excited to see how small old Rey is going to take a pipe to Brock's balls and maybe somebody gets shoot busted open somehow and Brock ends up beating Dominic with a chain. We get the destruction; Brock throws cruel short arm clotheslines and big Germans and Rey gets ragdolled unprofessionally over the table and into the barricade, but the comeback that comes is just a blink, and comes off more like Barry Horowitz ducking an Undertaker lariat and landing a couple punches before shitting his pants when his luck runs out. We knew this was a possibility, but the thought of the great possibilities was too intriguing.

Bayley vs. Shayna Baszler vs. Becky Lynch

ER: I cannot get over how bad Bayley's haircut is. It is so dated on arrival, the worst kind of late 2000s mom framing, and the battle of The Man vs. The Mom cannot interest me. And they did not do much in this match to interest me. This goes WAY too long - the central theme of almost this entire show - and is just total Dullsville. I thought this was fairly interminable at times, and early this year there was nobody hotter in the company than Becky Lynch and a former MMA crossover star. Now Lynch feels ice cold and Baszler has gone from being a super aggressive asskicker in her 2018 matches to just hanging so far back in the mix in 2019 that it almost feels like she's injured and working 50%. The story was Baszler dominating Bayley but I don't think it came off great other than the nice hanging choke over the apron. This needed to be a real statement and it feels like this just continues a trend of bad main event women's trios. Now the main takeaway - the fair takeaway - is that 3 WAY MATCHES ARE ALMOST ALWAYS TERRIBLE. In some ways the women have been completely upended by these dismal main event PPV 3 ways. But it's only because they won't commit to one or two women that we keep getting these main event 3 ways and multimans that just blow. This never shifted into 2nd gear, and I'm not sure it's they're fault. None of them feel like they're being put in a position to succeed.


ER: This show started promising and had some on paper goodwill, but it just wasn't happening for me. I like some of the wins given to NXT, but a lot of this felt like a flop. And it's tough to sit still during such a long show that also feels like a flop.

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Matches from WWE Crown Jewel 10/31/19

What an uncomfortable Halloween treat we were gifted by WWE! I'm going to go through and try to cherry pick a few matches before Monday's inevitable RAW Tribute to Mohammad bin Salman episode, featuring between match pre-tapes of guys like AJ Styles saying "You can tell how much the people over there really love him, and respect how much he does for them."

Brock Lesnar vs. Cain Velasquez

ER: This was like 2 minutes of a great Bloodsport match when it should have pretty easily been at least 8 minutes of a great Bloodsport match. There was a lot of crowd anticipation during all of the early grappling, Brock backing Cain into the corner and Cain trying to sneak in shots, people excited for the first blow that would actually cause one of them to pause. And when Cain landed a hard knee to the body and followed up with a perfect head kick, Brock sold it perfectly (as Brock almost always does, even in his frustrating matches) and the fans sounded like they were about to see Brock lose in a punishing upset. But, a quick kimura happens and that's that. Obviously this was a disappointment, as this was a singles I was excited for the moment it was announced, and I'm not sure what it would have taken for me to be satisfied with a 2 minute match. Is this it for Cain in WWE?

Cesaro vs. Mansoor

ER: This was my first time seeing Mansoor. He was a Bay Area indy guy who worked mostly for a fed that I don't attend, but I am a total sucker for a big regional babyface. This is WWE forcing a connection the same way they've always done, except the fans in Saudi Arabia are not as jaded towards pro wrestling and they respond to the whole thing as if Mansoor really is the superhero representing them all. Mansoor was the local being propped up for cheap pops, again, but the fans treated him like the Riyadh God and it ruled. Cesaro threw and bashed Mansoor in pretty spectacular fashion, and Mansoor takes some pretty gross bumps. This match might have the best possible version of someone getting their dive interrupted with a strike, as Cesaro completely shifts Mansoor's momentum with an uppercut during his tope, but Mansoor legit just toped into Cesaro's uppercut and dropped, looked insane. Later Cesaro swept Mansoor's legs while Mansoor was up top, and he took a tough back bump on the buckle before whipping face first down to the mat. It looked fantastic. Cesaro got to show off a bit, basing for Mansoor's headscissors and tornado DDTs, but best of all was him hopping to the middle buckle and deadlifting Mansoor from the apron, launching him with a tremendous Karelin throw. And it lead to a huge moment at the finish where Cesaro went to do a similar throw and Mansoor reversed it to an impactful sunset flip bomb. This whole thing was really good anyway, two complementary dance partners - Cesaro is clearly the perfect type of opponent for a wrestler like Mansoor - but seeing all of the kids in the building absolutely living and dying with Mansoor put this way over the top for me.

Braun Strowman vs. Tyson Fury

ER: So let me say that before he got brought in to feud with Braun, I had no idea who Tyson Fury was. I still don't. I don't follow boxing, I'm unsure what his significance is to Saudi Arabia (wouldn't it have made more sense to use him on a big UK show?), BUT - and this is a big but - I LOVE when non-wrestlers do wrestling. It's always interesting to me seeing their athletic skills kick in within a pro wrestling structure, and I think it provides a helpful barometer on the actual wrestler doing the heavy lifting. I think it's cool when wrestlers get to show what they can do opposite a limited opponent, see how good they are at highlighting any ability. But Tyson Fury did not do a whole lot for me. He seemed scared to bump, and scared to get backed too hard into anything. Braun seems to work a little more snug in the opening parts of this, and by the end he was backing way off shoulderblocks, so we would up with light shoulderblocks followed by Fury bumps that looked like me getting on the floor to do sit ups. Crowd was into Fury, and Braun did a nice job running around and making his offense look like more of a spectacle, building to a big moment where he ran all the way around the ring into a Fury drive-by kick (and Braun threw a great worked punch on the floor that Fury sold like he had an itchy beard), but Fury projected as very uninteresting for a larger guy. I would take any guy with the last name McCully over Fury.

Lacey Evans vs. Natalya

ER: This is pretty exciting, more so than other "first ever" occurrences, although Natalya's overdone "this is a big moment and I'm almost overwhelmed by it" facials almost ruined it. They're wearing full body suits, yoga pants, boots, and big baggy t-shirts, essentially dressed as "girl looking through Trader Joe's tea selection". The crowd responds well throughout, even though this ended up being pretty easily the weakest of their several match series. It didn't have the snap or violence that their best matches have had, the matwork didn't have the same uncooperative feel, but it did have a couple nice moments. Lacey had a nice slingshot dropkick that look like it took Natalya's head off, but there may have been some nerves at play from both, which is understandable. Things felt kind of trepidatious, different tone than their other matches.

Chad Gable/Ali/Roman Reigns/Rusev/Ricochet vs. Baron Corbin/Drew McIntyre/Randy Orton/Bobby Lashley/Shinsuke Nakamura

ER: This wasn't much by WWE multi man match standards, though it played well as a big house show main event. I think this could have been special but they played it too down the middle: Not letting it unspool as a big chained spotfest until the end, but also not really isolating anyone to build to anything big. It just kind of kept churning until it stopped, though we got some pretty nice build toward the finish itself. The presence of Hogan and Flair was awkward and pointless. Hogan looked like he could barely walk as he shuffled to the ring, and the two of them just stood around at ringside barely even showing emotion. I also have zero clue what the Saudi Arabia fans think of the Rusev/Lashley angle, but the moments where Rusev was going after Lashley at least felt big, felt like a babyface really gunning for a heel (even though his big moment was basically interrupted by a Reigns superman punch). Fans were way into Reigns, and his big dive onto everyone was cool. I can't decide if I like or dislike Ali's RKO "block", because he blocks the move exactly like he takes the move. Yes, I saw that his head missed the mat and so I saw that it didn't connect, but his head never connects with the mat even when it lands. So visually it came off like him eating the RKO and then springing back to his feet. The "everybody chains together finishers" part of the match felt too rushed and came kind of suddenly, the layout on all WWE multi mans used to be much better and more satisfying. Also, and this is VERY important, Hogan looked like he was wearing his sunglasses as if he didn't have ears; his bandana appeared to be holding his sunglasses in place. And it annoyed me.

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