AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/7 - 8/13

AEW Rampage 8/11/23

Darby Allin vs. Brian Cage

MD: There are two times when I want to see Cage, when he's up against someone ridiculously over the top like Willie Mack and the match will be so dumb that it's enjoyable and when he's up against someone small who is going to bump all over the ring for him. This was as much the latter as you could possibly get. Contrast makes the world go round. We are most easily defined by what we are not. The most straightforward stories involve two opposing forces. And no one is going to make a behemoth look better than Darby Allin. Some of the bumps in this were just gnarly. I thought he was going to helicopter to the top of the arena on the F10. He had a way of overbouncing on the outside-in suplex and a power bomb. That one topple off the top rope had him landing like an accordion. It's Darby and he has Gates of Agony, Christian, the Swerve/Fox coffin match, and Luchasaurus all ahead of him over the next few weeks, so we're probably not going to remember any specific bump here, but the overall picture is ever memorable.

I thought Cage had solid presence throughout. He was a little more methodological than usual, a little less cute, full of trash talk and posing when the time was right for it (like during the commercial break). Darby snuck in some hope here and there and got squashed for his trouble (with Nana being the deciding, disrupting factor in the stretch). While Darby made all of Cage's stuff look absolutely deadly, some of Darby's stuff seemed a bit off and weirdly labored against Cage. You'd expect a guy so big and strong to be able to hold for it better maybe? I would have liked a slightly more elaborate finish with a couple of Darby roll-ups leading to the Last Supper, but a single one causing the banana peel probably did protect Cage a little more. I'm just not sure he needs it given what Darby has a head of him. Still, what a bumping exhibition by Darby here.  

AEW Collision 8/12/23

House of Black vs. CMFTR

MD: When you write about AEW week in and week out, you end up talking a lot about the commercial breaks. When you write a lot about Collision main events that tend to go closer to 30 than 20, you end up writing a lot about multiple commercial breaks and how they structure the time. Here, they had two to deal with, which, as you can imagine with a team as monstrous and dominant as the House of Black, probably meant some sort of double heat. That's how AEW manages most commercial breaks. They end with some sort of bang and then do heat in the Picture in Picture. Here, it wasn't quite so simple. They finished the shine/initial pairings/exchanges teasing Punk vs. Malakai Black, with the crowd absolutely buzzing for it before settling into CM Punk chants that were drowned out by boos. That tease culminated with both in the cross-legged seated position and everything threatening to break down. The commercial break started with brawling on the outside (CMFTR gaining the advantage) and the challengers getting too cutesy; this time it was Cash who did the Hogan pose, to more boos than cheers even in North Carolina, and a pretty pedestrian transition moment of Black getting a reversal in on Dax in the corner. 

When they came back, we had Punk's comeback and another bit of connective tissue of CMFTR dominance that took them to the second commercial break, where Julia utilized a distraction (albeit a bit mistimed) to let Black knock Punk off the top so that Brody could crush him in the corner. That led into the commercial break and the real section of heat for the match. In truth, despite going thirty minutes, this whole thing was a tease for stories they're not going to tell right now. Joe caused the finish to set up All In, FTR are moving on to Wembley and the Bucks, who knows what's going on with House of Black yet (but some consistency with the House Rules might be nice?). But they can go back in a month or two to Black vs. Punk or FTR vs. Brody/Buddy or even Punk vs. Brody, because he was absolutely protected during the early going. That's a testament to all of these guys, that they could put together a match so long and really just leave everyone wanting more and more.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 1/23 - 1/29

AEW Dynamite 1/25

Darby Allin vs Buddy Matthews

MD: The AEW house style special. You had a full 1998 length match, something to disrupt (House of Black, Ortiz, Sting), and then a full match after it. The story here, as much as anything else, was struggle. There was a moment or two, especially before the disruption, seemed to be about Darby's leg, but you have to think of the whole show when putting together a match like this, and not only did Darby have a match the previous week against Juice which was all about his arm, but there was Cage going after Danielson's shoulder ahead of them. So it was an entry point to some offense some Buddy control, but it wasn't about the match, and frankly, it doesn't need to be. Darby is the guy on the roster who can make it about full body cumulative damage. And here, both guys had a lot of stuff and a lot of counters, and a way of making things that were just a bit contrived feel earned. Even when he was working from underneath, Darby didn't just give Matthews anything. He had to work at it, had to pry away a limb, had to get some extra shots in. Excalibur covered for some of that with the mid-match sleeper, but so much of it was just Darby's resilience against an opponent who was bigger, but not quite as big as we're used to, and how personally he was taking this, since he was the one who called for the match. And as such, it felt different than a lot of other Darby matches where he ends up taking and taking and taking, building sympathy and inspiring awe. That's one of the real positives of this last run of Darby's, though; the matches feel different, even when he, by the nature of who and what he is, is working from underneath more often than not.

Bryan Danielson vs Brian Cage

MD: One of my favorite things about Bryan Danielson matches are the entry points. How does a match start? What's that initial lock-up like? What's the early strategy? How does he first test himself against another wrestler? I can think of other wrestlers over the years where that's one of my favorite parts too. I'm a big Nick Bockwinkel guy and he always came in with an interesting kayfabe strategy or story beat against his opponent. He might do something underhanded immediately against Wahoo since he was so wary of him. He might try to humiliate Chavo Sr in Houston since he was a local hero who felt beneath him as AWA champ. GAEA Aja has a bunch of relatively short matches which are a lot of fun because of how her outclassed opponent tries to start out by solving the problem of her. You know what match that people stand by which I didn't like at the time? Danielson vs Lesnar. Then again, most 2010s Lesnar matches have terribly entry points. The big exception is the Joe match (which then has a rote back half). I liked this a hell of a lot more. The first few minutes of this were all about Danielson outwrestling Cage, out maneuvering him, having answers for not just his strength, but also his speed and agility. More accurately, it was Danielson forcing Cage to be unable to rely upon his speed or agility, forcing him to rely entirely upon his strength, and then having an answer for every attempt to use it. It was Bryan Danielson wrestling a perfect match. He was playing cat and mouse, but a mouse with fangs, and it was everything I would have wanted the opening to that Lesnar match to be.

When Cage caught him, he really caught him, sending him tumbling brutally upside-down into the corner. From there, it was everything that makes Cage interesting and everything that makes him kind of painful to watch. Lots and lots of stuff. Here though, it was redirected and honed through the lens of attacking Danielson's shoulder. It meant that he pulled from his almost endless repertoire of "stuff" to use a shoulder breaker or a bearhug with the arm hammerlocked, or a big arm driver. He wrestled with purpose, with focus, both offensively and defensively in cutting Bryan off, That allowed Danielson to take advantage of that focus to wrestle wounded, to sell his arm as he was throwing kicks, to utilize leverage in a way he might not normally, using an anklelock where you can utilize your own body to support the hold, turning it into a German with the ankle still hooked, and then selling the overall story by winning far less decisively as he had the previous few weeks, with a banana peel finish that let him just barely survive and left him open for the post match beating. So instead of a Danielson vs Cage match where they really went all out and gave us endless fireworks, or something somehow more restrained which was a giant vs an underdog, we got something in the middle: Cage was still himself, full of stuff and enjoyable ideas that may or may not hold up under scrutiny; Danielson was wounded, masterful, dangerous, his back against the wall. I don't think this will be the match in the series that people will remember, but I wonder if it won't be the one that will hold up the best years down the line.

Jay Briscoe Tribute and Celebration of Life 1/26

Eddie Kingston vs QT Marshall

MD: House show/amusement park Eddie is a thing of beauty. There's a world where stumbled his way into FCW in 2011 and basically became the WWF Jim Duggan for the mid-2010s. It's not all that different, not really. He's still going to kneel down and ask you to punch him in the face repeatedly. He's also going to have the crowd hold you so he can chop you. QT, is, of course, a perfect foil for this. Maybe, just maybe, he takes a little too much for a guy who is a player/coach as a character, but as mentioned before, AEW needs credible mid-level heels that can lose. That's the value of Jay Lethal, and they'd be worse off without QT in that role. He's smarmy and confident enough that he can transform every bit that he takes into value for when he ultimately shows ass. Maybe someday he can be (a relatively tall) version of the Bobby Heenan that still worked, but Heenan was 40 in 1984 and Marshall's only 37 now. This was a celebratory night and a celebratory match so the finish just having one rotation around the airport before landing instead of two or three matched the mood. If you're going to have a tribute match to Jay Briscoe, being as much of yourself as possible seems like the absolute best way to go, and they nailed that here.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: 9/19 - 9/25 Part 2

AEW Rampage Grand Slam 9/23

Darby Allin/Sting vs. Buddy Matthews/Brody King

MD: Unless they're in there against a team that's the top of the top, like FTR who can carry the heat in a more conventional structure no matter the opponent, Sting's tags always have a bunch of bells and whistles. That's in part because Darby Allin is bell and a whistle and his matches probably should have big set pieces anyway. It's in part to cover Sting's physical limitations. It's always amazing how well the matches go regardless and that nothing ever goes wrong. Here, things went wrong, but as with most wrestling, when things go wrong, they tend to create an even bigger dramatic effect. For the most part, these matches are tied together by Sting's presence, his star power, Darby's ability to bump and throw himself into situations, and the big stunts that everything builds to. This was no exception. There was the early ambush, the visual image of Julia going full Sherri (as she did often in this match) hanging on Sting's back, things ending up in the ring with Sting standing off and then fighting off both Matthews and King. There tends to be less of an overall narrative in matches like these. You're building from moment to moment and capitalizing on the opportunities the last moment presented. Darby hitting King with a code red and then himself out on a dive on Matthews allowed for Sting to match up with Matthews and set up his own dive. King recovering early enough meant that Sting could go flying through the tables (which included the first mishap that made everything more grisly and helped justify how out of it Sting would be for the rest of the match). That allowed for the handcuffing and Darby to fight back up the ramp during the commercial break and the 2-on-1 at the top with all of the individual story beats, ultimately leading to them revisiting the dangling choke that started this feud and both men crashing into tables and ultimately out of the match.

It's a tricky balance, having everything weighty enough, having it all make sense, having it all justified, having it remain consistent with everything that's happened in Sting's other matches and across the rest of the card. The weight of things here had to balance with the Starks/Hobbs street fight for instance. But I think they more or less nailed it, aided in part by some of the mishaps like the tables not cooperating or Julia's huge bump going wrong at the end to help get across the weight of the finish. Obviously, everything here built to the big surprise of Muta and it worked because the crowd went up for it and because Matthews portrayed shock and fear exactly when he should have. Plus he took an absolutely amazing dragon screw. That helped too. But that highlights a broader point. There wasn't a moment in this match where any of the wrestlers (including Julia, though maybe not Muta) wasn't entirely engaged and putting everything they had into it. When you've got a stunt show held together by star power and spots, that engagement is absolutely everything.

Sammy Guevara vs. Eddie Kingston

MD: I've been watching a lot of 1986 New Japan lately. Actually, let me rephrase that. I just finished watching every single NJPW match we have on tape for 1986. The throughline of that year is the NJPW vs UWF feud and there are two matches in particular: Fujinami vs Maeda and the match where Koshinaka wins the title from Takada that you can sum up like this: the NJPW guy had to wrestle an absolutely perfect match to hang in the UWF guy. In both cases, Fujinami and Koshinaka rise to the occasion and you end up with two just great matches. As this started towards the finishing stretch, I kind of had that same feeling. After all that had happened, given pent up rage in Kingston that had been simmering and simmering, given that Sammy robbed Eddie of his revenge against Jericho, given how Ruby Soho was hurt, and most especially given the way Sammy repeated his line to start the match, he would have had to wrestle an absolutely perfect match to hang with Eddie, to have any sort of chance of actually beating him. That would have meant leaning on every advantage, his speed, his agility, Tay at ringside, Eddie's own rage used against him, everything. If he had managed that, he would have had a shot, not to pin Eddie, not to make him submit, but maybe to knock him out. 

Sammy did not wrestle that match. He got beat around the ring. He capitalized on a mistake. He drew some heat during the commercial break doing snow angels in the ring and yes, leaning on Tay. He survived a strike exchange even. But the tide was too much. It was not his perfect match. It's not within his character to do so. What he did manage to do, however, was to tap into that rage, that pent up aggression, a symbolic throbbing heart of AEW that is connected to everyone sitting at home and every missed opportunity past and present. He unleashed a monster too big for him to stop, but also too big for itself to stop. Eddie had been stretching Jericho in his own head for months. With Sammy in his grasp, he couldn't let go. So Eddie lost a victory and Sammy won a Pyrrhic one, celebrating down the ramp while Eddie's angst and frustration, the towering monster inside of him, only grew stronger and more intense. It got me thinking though, got me wondering. Maybe someday we'll see them run it back. Maybe someday we'll see what Sammy's perfect match against Eddie might be. Koshinaka spent all of 86 getting better, made stronger against the hard steel of Takada. Maybe Eddie is exactly what Sammy needs?

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AEW Five Fingers of Death: 8/29 - 9/4 Part 2

All Out 9/4

Sting/Darby Allin/Miro vs. House of Black (Malakai Black/Brody King/Buddy Matthews)

MD: While this broke down at the end, it also felt very different from the last couple of far more chaotic Sting PPV matches. I loved the roles in the first half, with Miro taking the shine, Darby eating the heat, and Sting in there for the comeback. That was a different layout to the opening pairings in the FTR trios for instance. There was a sense throughout of real unity for the House of Black, something that, when combined with their size and presence, means even after their loss in the trios tournament and here, they'll be viable challengers for the trios belts or the tag titles without much effort. Miro sort of dropped out as the match went on as much more of the focus was on Sting or Darby but I liked his interactions in general, first refusing to tag in Darby and then telling Darby (who was trapped in a neutral corner) that he had to listen to him and make it over to make the tag. The bit at the end with Sting refusing to break the Scorpion even as he was getting battered and then with the mist (learned it from Muta) were both iconic. This probably could have played just as well on TV as PPV but it was still a lot of fun.

Bryan Danielson vs. Chris Jericho

MD: Full disclosure. Due to things like parental responsibility, I didn't get a chance to catch most of the PPV until Monday morning and then I jumped around a lot. This was probably the third match on the show I saw. That meant I wasn't experiencing it like the live crowd or a lot of you. I know there were criticisms of this maybe being placed wrong on the card or that it went too long, and while I agree with the latter to a degree and in a specific way I'll get into in a moment, I can't really speak for the former. Therefore, overall, this was a hit to me, not a miss. This might well be Jericho's career year and I thought the overarching story of the match was excellent, really. He had dusted off the Lionheart persona and style and had great success against Jon Moxley with it, as it played against very specific weaknesses of Mox. Now, with pride on the line, he came in expecting to repeat his success against Danielson, only to find he was brushing up against Danielson's strengths. You could see it early through his facial expressions. He came out posing and grinning through an immediate successful exchange or two, got immediately knocked on his ass, threw a chair, and came back finding the grin again. He had a couple of tricked out moves that had worked wonders against Moxley but when they failed him against Danielson, he had no recourse other than to go right back to them and fail again. That, as much as anything else was the story. He may have been able to escape a lot of what Danielson was putting him in, barely, but Danielson was easily escaping his holds and shifting back to being the aggressor. 

Whatever the Lionheart was, it was less of one thing than the whole of Bryan Danielson. Lionheart was a mask that Jericho put back on, an artificial guise, but as much as it freshened him up and gave him novel angles to attack from, he found himself too married to it and it limited him and forced him into stubborn mistakes (like the plancha to the outside which cost him). Danielson on the other hand, was the sum of everything he'd ever been, something that culminates with the seated zen position he's been using to absorb damage and throw his opponents off as of late. Where Jericho hid in his own past (and as the match went on, hid poorly, constantly adjusting pants that no longer fit correctly), Danielson wrestles like a man fully actualized. The story was so clear and clean that I wouldn't have cut any of the matwork from the beginning or middle of the match. It wasn't gratuitous. It was the point. That said, I do think the finishing stretch (everything from the first, countered Lionsault) probably went too long. There was escalation desperation in Jericho but they could have cut a few minutes and still gotten that across. In the end, they got to where they needed to be, delusion and cowardice and rationalization and a low blow to prop up a false, flimsy pride, as Daniel Garcia watched on shaking his head. Jericho, like all the greatest heels, came in expecting to win on his own merit and only succeeded to lie to himself once again.

Jon Moxley vs. CM Punk

MD: Going to stick straight to the match here. A couple of days ago, Phil wrote an explainer on the Ringer on where the backstage stuff stood and by the time this gets posted, Dynamite will have aired and things that are moving quickly will reach some other destination. I won't make this a retrospective or wax poetic on the last year. I did think this was very good though. It inverted the match from Cleveland, where Punk came in looking for a title match and Moxley rushed forward, unrelenting from the bell. There, that forced Punk off his balance and caused him to blow up his own leg. Here, he was ready both for Moxley's Hansenian onslaught, which he met head on and for his own kick, which hit picture perfect. That meant instead of early Death Riders, we got the early GTS. Things went to the outside after that, Moxley's domain, and maybe Punk hurt his arm on the dive or maybe he was selling that he did, but Mox was able to take over and open him up. The crowd, despite being in Chicago, couldn't deny Moxley at times and despite his attitude, despite (or because of?) his barbarism and dominance, they gravitated back towards him. For a while, he'd get heat by taking it so over the top. After Punk was opened up and after he made sure that the opening became a gusher, he licked the blood. Shortly thereafter, he jammed his own head against Punk's so that it'd be all over his face. When Punk started to come back from the woundwork, he went straight to the leg to cut him off. With Moxley, the malice is personal, but you shouldn't take it personally. It's universal. He carries disdain for each and every person he faces. He's a storm and it's up to his opponent to endure it and to cobble out a meaningful match from it. If you cut him (scrape him even), he will bleed. If you punch him, his head will rock. If you stretch him, he will know pain. But it's up to you to channel and redirect the forward motion, the potential energy of him, into something coherent. 

As Mox continued to dismantle and batter his opponent, Punk was able to endure however he could, was able to tough it out, was able to survive, even if sometimes that meant going for an eye. Moxley returned favor by biting the wound, by stubbornly, and unfairly (because fairness has nothing to do with pro wrestling) cutting him off by going after the leg. But eventually, Punk lasted long enough to get under Moxley, literally, and to drop him down into a GTS. In another world, that's the image that would stick with us of this night, the remnants of the match's second GTS and all the damage that had been inflicted on Punk since the first, a hobbled Moxley draped over a bloodied and exhausted Punk, and Punk's eyes opening as he saw what he needed to do. A talking point in our circle about Survivor Series 97 was that the main event between Bret and Shawn was actually shaping up to be their best match together. I might not go so far with this one, but it had a lot of merits on its own, and I can't help but wonder if in years to come, all of those will simply be a similar afterthought to everything that transpired after.

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WWE TLC Gently Behind Live Blog 12/15/19

Andrade vs. Humberto Carrillo

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

Ladder Match: New Day vs. The Revival

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

Buddy Murphy vs. Aleister Black

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

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

Viking Raiders vs. The OC

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

TLC Match: King Corbin vs. Roman Reigns

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

The Miz vs. Bray Wyatt

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

Tables Match: Bobby Lashley vs. Rusev

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

TLC Match: Kabuki Warriors vs. Becky Lynch/Charlotte

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


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

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WRESTLEMANIA 35 LIVE BLOG! 4/7/19

Buddy Murphy vs. Tony Nese

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

Women's Battle Royal

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

The Revival vs. Curt Hawkins/Zach Ryder

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

Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal

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

Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins

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

AJ Styles vs. Randy Orton

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

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

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

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

Falls Count Anywhere: Shane McMahon vs. The Miz

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

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

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

Daniel Bryan vs. Kofi Kingston

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

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

Rey Mysterio vs. Samoa Joe

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

Drew McIntyre vs. Roman Reigns

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

Batista vs. HHH

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

Kurt Angle vs. Baron Corbin

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

Bobby Lashley vs. Finn Balor

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

Ronda Rousey vs. Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch

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

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

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WWE Elimination Chamber Running Behind Live Blog 2/17/19

Akira Tozawa vs. Buddy Murphy

ER: Boy there are a lot of guys in wrestling who look like Buddy Murphy now. It seems like they weirdly do this with the PPV 205 Live matches, like there's a weird disconnect with how they market the brand and how the brand is actually executed. Murphy comes out here working a slow, methodical match while the hype is all "coming up some highflying cruiserweight action!!" and here's Buddy Murphy holding a long rear chinlock and abdominal stretch while we get a lengthy New Day inset promo. Murphy chops the ringpost but doesn't go very far with it, and they do the cool spot where Murphy catches a tope and lifts Tozawa into a suplex. Fans were amped for Tozawa's comeback and I dug his great backdrop suplex. Tozawa is pretty awesome about getting big height on flapjacks, and they do a wild spot up top where Murphy lifts Tozawa practically about his his to throw him, and Tozawa snags him with a frankensteiner. Murphy's honky tonk strike combo looked way too much like memorized square dance steps; take that shit down to Kodiak Jacks on ladies night, take it away from my wrestling this evening. Murphy did a fine stumble out of the ring after taking a reverse rana, way more interesting than running back to do something else, and Tozawa's two fast topes to the floor looked really good, he always looks like he makes solid contact on dives. And I thought they did a good job with Buddy coming back into the ring to get hit by a big Tozawa senton while draped over the ropes. Draped over ropes spots are iffy so Murphy instead "getting back into the ring" covers it better. The scramble to the finish was really fun and I totally bought Tozawa's submission as a potential finish, and really liked the groove this settled into down the stretch.

Carmella/Naomi vs. Liv Morgan/Sarah Logan vs. Iiconics vs. Nia Jax/Tamina vs. Mandy Rose/Sonya Deville vs. Sasha Banks/Bayley

ER: I dug that they had Carmella out first, and how much of a boss she looked with an extra long moonwalk. Entrances alone got me excited for this one, with the Iiconics talking trash and laughing at the other teams, Peyton Royce's new warm hair color looking great,  Rose and Deville taking their time getting to the ring, Deville wearing cool new pants, this whole thing could be really good. I think it's a great idea to start with Rose and Deville as it feels like this puts them into a good spot to get more heat and more attention. There's a lot of good stuff to start, a little awkwardness with rope running, but Bayley bumps big a couple times into the grating around the ring, Rose takes a nasty neckbreaker onto the grating when she gets a foot stuck in the cage, cool stuff. I love Mandy Rose but damn does girl have some wild lipstick teeth. Someone really needs to do a fishhook spot and wipe it off, it makes it look like she's missing her front teeth. They do a big suplex tower stuff and I never understand why the people on the bottom of the tower sell. All they did was powerbomb someone, they didn't take a bump, but there's Logan and Morgan, just as wiped out as everyone else who took a superplex. The Iiconics coming in was my favorite part of the match as they immediately go for a dozen pinfalls and suddenly I want them to be tag champs. Things get a little crowded after awhile as nobody has been eliminated and we need to thin things out a bit (I assume Nia will do that). A few scattered incels try to ruin Carmella's team entrance but people are into it moments later when she hits a couple nice superkicks on Logan. There are 17 people on commentary I think. Trainwreck spot with people hitting suplexes and superkicks back to back to back comes off less better than WWE matches usually do those spots, and it ends with more lying around. There's lying around, but nobody getting pinned, so I'm curious where and how they want to peak this. I thought the Iiconics double pin elimination looked great, and we get the desired Nia Jax wrecking ball entrance. The horror movie monster build up to Nia and Tamina dragging Iiconics back out of a pod - like Michael Myers crashing through the closet door looking for Laurie - was long but well done, and them violently swinging the Iiconics into the cage looked great, probably best spot of the match so far. I like Nia's dominance but the match isn't totally doing it for me once the Iiconics are out of it, but Nia does an insane Bull Charge crashing through a pod at full speed and KOing herself, which is a smart way to get her out of there so everyone can target Tamina. Graves keeps talking about his daughters watching at home and it feels pointedly gross. Down to two teams the intentions are good, even if some of the executions aren't. Every time they did a pod spot it looked good (Sasha and Bayley each got their backs run into support beams) but some of the moves looked a little off, had some timing glitches. But it was laid out well enough that the fans were way into it the whole home stretch, so I'd say it was a definite success even if I thought the match underdelivered on quality.

The Miz/Shane McMahon vs. The Usos

ER: This is pretty fun as the Usos are a good team to have in there working a straight non-gimmick tag with Shane. Usos are tough but they're lean and mean now so Shane actually has a little size on them, but they still look like guys who should run over Shane. The crowd feels a little burned out after the big Chamber match so this feels like a good spot to have Shane, and the crowd is quiet throughout but does get up a bit for his flurries. Shane is the quintessential dorky dad at a BBQ, who is cracking jokes and getting too drunk on IPAs, so ends up doing some stupid stunt while his wife asks him not to, please. The coast to coast dropkick is obviously a guaranteed pop (it better be!) and him flying off into a superkick looked great. I thought the finish was actually pretty dumb though. Shane does another "dad goofing around on the roof spot" and flies through the announce table, but then we have Jimmy Usos eat knees on a splash and take the Skull Crushing Finale, but then he just rolls up Miz while getting pinned. I hate those finishes that involve a guy just taking a couple big moves and just deciding he was still the stronger man. I didn't need to see tag champ Shane, but I thought the finish could have played out better here.

Lio Rush/Bobby Lashley vs. Finn Balor

ER: I can't really get into this one too much, even though it has some fun flashes. I do perk up when Lashley takes a nice bump to the floor, and shortly after catches Balor and basically double legs him all the way into the ring barricade. I don't really care about this feud or the stakes though, so I just can't get too into it. They handle Balor's big comeback well though, with him making small strides against Rush after he's been worked over by Lashley, then hitting a big flip dive on both and immediately separating Rush from Lashley. Him easily moving from flip dive to attack on Rush was a smart touch, but a lot of this match didn't move me.

Ruby Riott vs. Ronda Rousey

ER: Ronda is wearing a cool version of Tamina's outfit, and this is probably pretty easily the match I'm most excited about on this card. Aaaaaaaaaaaaand it's a quickie. Riott stalls, Ronda hits her twisting fireman's carry and grabs the arm. Damn, what a drag. I get having a huge Goldberg finish for Ronda, but she doesn't need it, people already know she's dangerous. Every PPV match Ronda has had has made her opponent look more badass even in losing, and there's no reason that couldn't have happened here. Riott Squad feels like something the fans are dying to get behind, and their legs keep getting kicked out. A hot 8 minute matcha against Ronda would have legitimized Riott, so this was a major disappointment for me.

Baron Corbin vs. Braun Strowman

ER: Kendo stick stuff to start didn't do a lot for me, but Corbin sliding out of the ring super quick to reverse an Irish whip, then sprinting back in the ring a swinging a low as hell lariat, really shows he's been watching The Big Bossman in AJPW stuff. Tim Livingston had told me this earlier in the week when he was over, but I thought he sounded like a crazy idiot. Turns out I just haven't been paying attention to Baron Corbin matches. And in no time flat this match kind of rules, with Corbin chucking a huge ergonomic office chair at Braun and then tossing him straight into the ring steps, then clonking him with the steps. I guess I should have known that we would get a lot of interference in a No DQ match, though it robbed us of the nice brawl we were getting into. The big finish looked like a big finish, with him getting triple powerbombed through two stacked tables, read like a classic ECW spot. But I would have rather had a cool match than an advanced angle. This show has majorly underdelivered so far.

Kofi Kingston vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Randy Orton vs. AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe vs. Daniel Bryan

ER: The Chamber has routinely been my favorite of the WWE gimmick matches. The 2011 Chamber with Lawler almost winning the title from Miz was one of the most fun live shows I've ever been to. But I'm not too excited about this Chamber match, although I'm amused at just how 2006 it is. Seriously look at the names in this one! Who would have guessed in 2006 that all 6 of these guys would be high up on arguably the largest B-level WWE PPV? The "Apex Predator" is one of the worst nicknames ever. That's about one tick away from sounding like "Dumpster Rapist" Randy Orton. Bryan and Joe start and do a nice greatest hits package, Joe throwing kicks and rolling into a kneebar, Bryan's chest getting nicely reddened, Joe attacking with more kicks and my god Bryan takes a real beating that he sells as if the beating was taking an eternity. Kofi got the big gauntlet run on Monday and he gets to look pretty triumphant and on the level of Joe and Bryan here, which is a surprising development. I would have much rather seen Big E be the breakout singles star of New Day, though I liked Kofi's tope en reversa off the cage. These guys are putting together a pretty nice collection of stuff, Samoa Joe does a huge senton right on Bryan's hip that had to have screamed. Styles has casually been taking big spills around the edge of the cage, and Hardy hitting a swanton off a pod onto Styles while Styles WAS DRAPED ACROSS THE TURNBUCKLES looked wild, total Chamber highlight reel spot. That he ate an elimination Bryan knee right after was a great touch. You knew from the gauntlet and how commentary couldn't stop talking about Kingston the whole match, that this was coming down to Bryan/Kingston. I've never been a big Kofi fan outside of cute Royal Rumble spots, and for awhile several years I thought he had the worst offense on the brand. But you cannot deny this reaction he's getting here, and Bryan is a total master and feeling like a big deal while making it seem like anybody has a chance. Kofi gets a couple of HUGE reaction nearfalls, hitting the SOS and later hitting a double stomp that almost sees him stomp Bryan's dick. Fans sound like they want a Kofi win SO bad, which is exciting. Kofi gets rammed into the pod in a real nasty way, and gets a great nearfall kickout after Bryan hits the knee. I didn't love Bryan reversing a pin immediately after taking the Trouble in Paradise, feels real dumb that someone's finisher didn't buy them a single second of dazed opponent, and they already did that exact same thing earlier into the show. Some agent needs to think of a better way to build drama. Crowd is obviously still rabid so I'll shut my idiot mouth though. It's actually kind of shocking to me how silent and disappointed the crowd got when they realized Bryan was winning. Like they wanted to see Kofi win SO BAD that once Kofi missed a big Superfly Splash (and looked like he whipped his head into the mat) the crowd got silent, like they knew THAT was it. I'm really impressed with the connection the crowd had to Kofi, it always makes a match better even if it's not a reaction I share.

ER: I thought this PPV overall was a miss, but it ended strong. The main event chamber was easily the best match on the show, and there's something to be said about ending any situation on a high note. The rest of the card didn't do much for me: Women's chamber had some great moments but some drag throughout, tag match was unexpectedly fun with a finish I didn't like, Riott got her momentum slammed shut again, I got deprived of another great Ronda match, got robbed of a big guy brawl as it was getting good...everything until the main basically left me flat. The show did end on a sustained high note, and that counts for something.

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WWE TLC 12/16/18 Late Blog

Late to the show as we had a fun day seeing Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas at a local theater and getting pizza, getting me in a righteous Christmas mood. There are a few matches I'm into on this card (really all the women's matches have potential, even the Natalya one) and it should be fun overall. Afterward I'll watch Silent Night, Deadly Night 3.

 Cedric Alexander vs. Buddy Murphy

ER: This was a mostly fun cruiserweight opener that hits some fun flippy vibes, and it's amusing that we opened a 8 hour PPV with a big apron bump that gets blown off a minute later. It's silly, guys. But I liked Murphy a lot here, loved the great kneelift counter to Cedric's bottom rope cutter, thought he bumped really impressively for Cedric's offense (especially that big backwards bump into the barricade off Alexander's nice dropkick to the floor). I did think it went too long and thought going to the apron spot was unnecessary. Even though Murphy recovered what I thought was too quickly, I like that he immediately took the lumbar check but had his foot over the ropes. Rope escapes are an underutilized way to avoid big move kickouts, so I thought that worked to the match's favor. Overall it was good cruiser action, Murphy delivered on some of the hype I've seen from him this year, and Cedric is at least consistent.

Ladder Match: Elias vs. Bobby Lashley

ER: This didn't do a whole lot for me, felt like a poor ladder match that would get cut from a Coliseum Video. This was really dull and we also have a guitar hanging above the ring, and apparently the winner gets to use the ladder as a weapon. But then when Elias gets the guitar the bell just rings, so he won the match just by getting the guitar. So...why would it matter that he gets to use it as a weapon? This felt not only boring but rushed, there was a big bump but not a lot of interest. Majorly disappointing as Elias has been delivering as a character, but nothing about this match delivered.

Alicia Fox/Jinder Mahal vs. Carmella/R-Truth

ER: This was pretty sloppy, pretty messy, and it was worked as if it were main eventing an indy charity show. That charity show vibe worked to its advantage even if some of the execution was ugly.  We got some comedy breaks, Carmella and Truth doing a dance break when Jinder and Fox bumped to the floor, the Singh brothers getting involved and getting their culture mocked before getting tossed to the floor, Fox and Truth attempting to stumble their way through physical jokes about Fox's large hat, it all felt very crowd pleasing support the troops charity show. The work as I said was often messy, but since pristine execution wasn't really the vibe of the match it didn't affect things the same way as it would have if Murphy/Alexander had been even 1/4 as sloppy. I wouldn't expect a ton from Truth or Jinder (though I liked their early match sequence where Truth hit a crossbody for a pin and followed it up with two surprise nearfall inside cradles), but Fox has always been a favorite of mine and Carmella had been looking better so I was hoping for better showings from them. Still this was fine for what it was and kinda funny that this was what was chosen to open the actual card.

New Day vs. Usos vs. Sheamus/Cesaro

ER: Matches between these teams always have a decently high floor, but never seem quite as good as they should be, and they're almost always worked like nothing at all matters until we get to the boom boom boom finish sprint. You know those sprints, where several guys leap into superkicks as if their only plan was to get kicked in the face. Plus Woods/Kingston is easily the weakest version of New Day so we don't get any great power battles between Big E/Cesaro. But we still had some fun spots and the guys involved always work with an energy that the live crowds respond to, and that counts for a lot. I liked Sheamus hitting Woods with the brogue kick as he was bouncing in off the bottom rope (two cool reverses of that spot tonight) and Kofi's trust fall off the top onto everyone looked cool. But damn for all the times we've gotten this combination of guys going against each other, you'd think we would have more of their matches on our MOTY lists.

TLC Match: Baron Corbin vs. Braun Strowman

ER: It's a No DQ match so Gable, Angle, Crews and others just beat down Corbin so Corbin is removed from authority on Raw. But since I always fast forward through those kind of storylines I didn't actually have any horse in the game. I have no clue how Corbin has been as a leader, no clue what he had done to make him lame or whatever we were supposed to think, so I was way more interested in just seeing these two have an actual match. Corbin's best stuff has come in stips matches and the two could have done something cool. But I assume the crowd would have chosen this match over an actual match. And now I assume Vince will be back on Raw tomorrow specifically to say that Raw has sucked without him.

Tables Match: Natalya vs. Ruby Riott

ER: Nobody wants to see a Natalya featured story match, but I'm optimistic about this one as the Riott Squad has really shone when given the opportunity. And a couple minutes in we get the spot of the show so far when Riott is on the apron and Natalya runs to kick her off through a table set up on the floor, and Liv Morgan pushes her out of the way and takes a crazy backwards bump herself, right through the table. It looked great and snapped me into it. Natalya is a little clunky with some stuff, not really connecting when dropkicking a table into Sarah Logan, but the Squad is providing nice smoke and mirrors to this when Logan also goes through a table. There's some silly and kind of welcome melodramatics when Riott rubs Natalya's face onto a table they brought out with a picture of Natalya dead dad on it. Anvil coming out and interfering on behalf of his daughter is going to fuck people up BAD. Nice moment where Natalya gets Riott up in an electric chair but Riott manages to knock over the table should would have gone through, but Natalya drops her hard anyway. We get a wayyyy too long moment where Natalya pulls out a table with a full size Riott picture on it (but how is that a burn, is it some unwritten table code that going through a table with your picture on it somehow stings more? I'm not seeing how it's more humiliating). And once Natalya pulls out her dad's old ring jacket (Jesus how does that fit her so well? When was the slender Anvil period?) and does bad fake cry face you kind of know how the rest of the match was gonna go so I just wanted it over with. Natalya takes an eternity setting up the finishing spots but the powerbomb on Riott off the turnbuckles through the table looked good at least. I wish Natalya as the pushed winner of feuds wasn't a thing. This really could have been a big moment for Riott and a great heel moment for her to still win and leave Natalya crying. Natalya handling the entire Riott Squad all by herself is just wayyyy too much.

Drew McIntyre vs. Finn Balor

ER: McIntyre was so good on his post WWE indy run and I don't think he's been in anything that interested me since coming back. This one isn't going to be it. Balor is the pits and hits some absolutely comical offense in this one, it was embarrassing seeing Drew have to bump around for it. Balor's flying forearms couldn't crack an egg and his slingblade might be the worst version of any of the bad versions of that move. The best moments were McIntyre catching Balor with power spots, a big overhead belly to belly that launched him across the ring, a big back breaker, big air raid crash off the middle rope ("If he hits this it's over!" Graves says, which always guarantees we're getting a kickout). Ziggler interferes so the babyface can get a win which makes a lot of sense, but at least the big double foot stomp off the top looked really good. If Balor has to win, at least the move he won with looked better than the rest of his stuff. Last couple matches really felt like the wrong people won.

Chair Match: Rey Mysterio vs. Randy Orton

ER: Mysterio is decked out like a mini version of CMLL's Nitro (friend their live thinks he's doing an LA Park thing, and he does kinda have the gloves for it), and I'm down for this match. I weirdly liked Orton/Rey from Smackdown the most out of our WWE return Mysterio matches, they have good chemistry and haven't gotten stale even though they've worked matches dating back almost 15 years. Chairs are set all around ringside and there are a ton of them so it looks cool, looks like we could get some real mayhem. Neither guy skimps on shots in between chair moments, so it's cool when you don't see them just standing around, you get nice kicks, nice elbows, snug work in between the chair violence. We get a couple absolute banger chair spots, Rey slides belly first on a chair landing on Orton on the floor, and Rey crashes and burns on a Thesz press off the apron, crashing through a chair seat. Orton takes a headscissors that sends him into a chair in the corner, but rebounds with a nice snap powerslam to catch Rey. Graves starts talking about Randy Orton with a bunch of facts that make him sound like a sociopath date rapist, like "Orton is so good at luring people into a false sense of security" or "It's eerie how calm Orton remains while inflicting violence". So that needs to be workshopped a bit. Orton is always fun with Rey, knows how much of a bully to be with Rey's body, little actions like Rey climbing to the top and Orton just yanking his ankle with a snap of the wrist. The finish takes a little long to set up, with Orton lining up several opened chairs, but the finish itself was unique and cool: Orton tries to hit the RKO on the chairs, Rey stops it with a kick and hits a weird leg drag headscissors to send Orton face first into a chair, then hits a victory roll to a seated Orton. This was pretty easily the best match of the show so far,

Nia Jax vs. Ronda Rousey

ER: This was the match I was most excited about on paper, both have consistently delivered on the big stage this year. And I thought this was good but not as good as their best stuff. Ronda gets more confident literally every match at this point, but here I thought she maybe tried too much new stuff. Practically every weird bit of offense she pulls out winds up looking great, so I get the temptation to keep breaking out new stuff. This maybe felt a bit too much like new move exhibition in spots, even if her stuff is always cool. Nia is really big and wears it well, but I love how Ronda bounces off of her and how Nia tumbles. Ronda starts with peppered in strikes which is a way she's never really started a match, and you knew it was a matter of time before Nia caught her. When she eventually does with a big sit out powerbomb it's a cool moment, great looking bomb. Ronda has some cool reversals, a rana out of another powerbomb attempt, and I liked her fun super hang time superman punch. Nia breaks outs some stuff I love, her elbowdrop might be the best on the roster right now and is somehow weirdly the most Stan Hansen elbow on the roster; plus, she always hits and misses her legdrops with authority, and her miss was a good one. Ronda always has at least one nutty bump in a match it seems, and here there's an awesome moment where Nia smashes her arm into the ringpost (even though that didn't really seem to go anywhere). We get some awesome monkey bars spots as Ronda slips out of a cool vertical suplex into a standing rear naked and climbs all over Nia's body, and Ronda hits one of the finest crossbodies to the floor, Nia taking it with an awesome catch. The finish stretch was good though not quite as exciting as past big Ronda matches, not as dynamic of a build, but some great Ronda trash talking as she kisses Nia's fist before locking on the armbar. I really wouldn't mind if these two had more matches.

AJ Styles vs. Daniel Bryan

ER: These guys are both clearly great wrestlers, but I kinda want to see Bryan against someone else at this point. This is the 4th AJ/Bryan singles match we've gotten since Bryan came back, and they've all been fun but I'm a fan of new match ups. I was much more excited for the Mustafa Ali match this past week. I have no doubt this will be good, it's just a good thing that I've seen a lot. They've fought in WWE this year almost as much as they fought in 5 years together working the same indies. Match is kind of weird as it's slow and worked deliberately (which I dig) but the announcers keep talking about how "emotionally" each man is presenting himself. "Look at the emotion Styles is showing" as Styles is throwing a chop, "Bryan showing a lot of emotion here" as Bryan throws a kick to the liver. An announcer I don't know paints Bryan as questionable because "he never wants to have a fun time". I don't understand any of these motivations. But the boys are taking their time and it starts to pay off, Bryan working this slow mocking style with ramped up stiffness makes for some damn good Bryan. Bryan is practically acting like Naoya Ogawa as he runs into the corner to hit multiple hard dropkicks, Styles knocks Bryan silly with a lariat, Bryan hits the nastiest spot of the show when he grabs Styles in a cravate and hits a bunch of sharp knees to the side of the head before throwing him by the neck. Bryan is throwing his kicks harder than normal and working cool slapping body shots, like Bryan is just trying to work a 90s Japan shoot fight gimmick. They do a couple things down the stretch I don't like, the head kick countered with a head kick feels way too indy epic. But they do a bunch of cool stuff around Styles wrenching Bryan's ankle, hitting a fast and violent dragon screw, wrapping it around the ringpost, working a super visually effective half crab and the great calf crusher, all of that stuff was awesome. On the floor we get some cool gymnastics with Styles leaping the barricade into the timekeeper's station and blasts Bryan with a hard elbow when he comes rushing in. Finish even feels like a tribute to Bryan working PWG, getting the win with a small package battle. Needed him getting dizzy doing an airplane spin and dizzily dropkicking the turnbuckle. This was a really hard hitting match, paced in a cool deliberate style that gave it a cool fight feel. We've gotten three really good ones right in a row.

Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins

ER: Oh no what's happening my WWE Network is skipping at 5x speed through this entire match oh no what is going on?

TLC Match: Asuka vs. Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch

ER: This was kind of a tale of two matches for me, sometimes switching back and forth between those two matches. It was a violent match, but also a match that took too long and looked too unnatural in endless spot set up. The former was great, the latter was tired. But it was worth sitting through the latter to get to the former. We got some great nastiness, Lynch splashed Charlotte through the announce table, except the table didn't really give so we actually got Lynch's body basically bouncing off Charlotte's ribs. And I flipped out when Charlotte hit a spear on Asuka that sent them crashing through the ringside barricade. That's a spot that was done with such conviction that it would have worked great no matter what happened to the wall. The way the wall buckled on impact looked really cool, and if it hadn't budged I think Charlotte would have compressed all her vertebrae with the speed she was charging. Charlotte also hit a big moonsault to the floor that kinda dropped Lynch and Asuka like she was doing a wild reverse DDT, and did a dumb-as-Jeff Hardy senton through Lynch on a table. Guh. While I didn't love all the work and thought the stipulation actually got in the way of them just beating ass, they worked the match like they honestly didn't like each other and that added a lot to the vibe. It needed that, and they knew it. The finish totally works and I'm happy to see Asuka back with the belt. She's taken the backseat to some super emerging women over the last year (since her big Rumble win a year ago you have Ronda debuting, Becky moving to the next level, Charlotte being a wildly resurgent heel, Bliss stepping into her heel role, Nia delivering in big matches) so I like moving her back to more spotlight with the title, while Charlotte and Lynch didn't get knocked down a peg at all. They can all continue to fight and it'll continue getting over, which is awesome. I thought this was a step below some of their other stuff together, but it was still a great way to cap a PPV.

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

Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch

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

Iiconics vs. Asuka/Naomi

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

28. Samoa Joe vs. AJ Styles

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

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

Riott Squad vs. Bella Twins/Ronda Rousey

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

Cedric Alexander vs. Buddy Murphy

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

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

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NXT in Sacramento ROAD REPORT 10/27/16

Despite me being streets behind on my NXT watching, I was still excited when it was announced they would be doing a house show run (sort of) in my area. Shinsuke Nakamura is basically Rachel's favorite wrestler, Dylan Hales is new to town and hasn't seen live wrestling in a couple months, and Tim Livingston is obsessed with NXT. So we were going to the show. A crazy rain storm hit our area the last couple days (scheduled to run another week!) so it was pouring rain on the drive down, and with traffic and accidents and more rain the typically 105 minute drive became a 200 minute drive. Yeeeeesh. We listened to the nice new LVL UP album, then I attempted to fry my brain to distract it from the traffic by listening to White Hills. My brain did not get fried and I was forced to accept my sore car butt and endless traffic, so finally put on King Sunny Ade and tranced out to his hypnotizing needling guitar sounds. That actually did the trick. We got to the Golden Bear and I pounded happy hour whiskey gingers while Rachel pounded happy hour whiskey sours, and Tim pounded happy hour water because he has impressive will power and is the skinniest I've ever seen him. Rachel and I stumbled to the Memorial Auditorium and got through the doors literally as the show was starting. The memorial is a cool old venue with wildly inaccessible bathrooms (tons of bathrooms had you walking up and down stairs once inside), and the venue was really full on the floor, and not very full up top. We were on the floor, Tim got the nice seats, but really the balcony seats looked pretty nice when I ventured up there, especially the seats on the side (venue seating is shaped like a U, so seating was better on the sides than if you were on the curve), but a great place for a wrestling show.

So yes, I am currently in the middle of July 2014 in my NXT viewing, and I don't look ahead. So I'm not familiar with most of these wrestlers, and the ones I am familiar with are very different than they were 27 months ago, so I'll try to limit the "I'm so out of the loop" comments, but know that I will be very much out of the loop. And I'm pretty sure I was the only one, as every other person bought 100% into each wrestler's gimmick, knew what to chant, when to do it. Felt like Rocky Horror Picture Show only actually entertaining.

1. Patrick Clark vs. Buddy Murphy

I genuinely thought Clark was Shelton Benjamin as he came out. It would be easy to make a joke about my incredibly white upbringing, but I DO think they have similar facial features, and I'm like 70% sure I remember hearing about Benjamin getting resigned for the brand extension. He's working a Prince gimmick (apparently) which is somehow more topical now that Prince is recently deceased, than when Prince Iaukea was working a Prince gimmick. In hindsight Iaukea's Prince gimmick came when Prince himself was at his most irrelevant, which is kind of a perfect WCW thing. I mean who was listening to any current Prince during 1998-2001? Clark doesn't show me a whole lot, other than an absolutely sick theme song. It's got just a looping bass groove and drum beat, sounds like something from Thundercat. Crowd was way into him, but the crowd was into almost everything tonight. I'm not totally sure if the gimmick is supposed to be controversial, or what, but there's really not much to it. He wears a ruffly shirt and a sparkly headband and walks slowly and assuredly, and I'm sure maybe more will come out explaining the why. I was one of few Buddy Murphy fans in attendance, but I liked what he brought. He had fringe on his tights which gave him instant bonus points with me, but he just worked a real solid game and played into all of Clark's spots in a great comedic way. An "unsettlingly sexually ambiguous" character isn't really interesting to me in 2016, but Buddy sold the moments well, acting like he didn't want to lock up, stealing the headwrap and wearing it, then an amusing moment where he threw the wrap down, stomped it, and then bodyslammed Clark onto it. Clark sold it like he was slammed onto a chair, we all laughed. The whole match was simple stuff, but it worked.

2. Aliyah & Daria vs. Billie Kay & Peyton Royce

Kay and Royce are Australians (so was Murphy, so we're at a 1:1 Australia:USA ratio so far tonight). Aliyah is small and cute (WWE bills her as 5'3" which is a flat out lie. I doubt she's even 5') and only 21, but age ain't nothing but a number! This was really back & forth, but Aliyah was really good at dusting herself off and trying again. Daria was not wearing a pleated skirt or army boots, which was wildly disappointing. She works a MMA gimmick and does a decent job with it, but it didn't really fit well into this match. Really liked the Australians though. They worked nice distraction spots, and I thought Royce especially looked good. She threw a killer knee on the apron and had an awesome "athletic heel" spot in the corner where she choked Daria with her boot, but was doing a sort of vertical splits while doing it, so her head was upside down and touching the mat while her boot was high up choking Daria. Daria had a fun comeback moment where she tore off her MMA gloves and started throwing bare fists blows, nice update on the strap removal spots I love so much. Aliyah was the hot tag and she didn't look great, but the energy was there which is half a hot tag anyway. Australians are really taking a hit to the Loss column on this show.

3. Roderick Strong vs. Oney Lorcan

This match really delivered, and was pretty much all you'd expect. Strong dominated, threw huge chops, nice knees, slick running kick; but it was Lorcan's comeback that made things really work. Once Lorcan started going off with uppercuts and his great lariat, we had business. It looked like both guys knew each other well and were able to work some pretty complicated fast sequences. I loved Lorcan going for some fast running uppercuts in the corner, and on the third Strong catches him mid move and drops him with a big backbreaker. Both guys had no problem leaning into the other's strikes, and the pace and build were great. It never really felt like Lorcan had a chance, and that's what made his comeback so much fun, suddenly he was pinballing Strong all around, launching him with a half nelson suplex, all of this was just a real fun go go go match. At one point, the inspired masses were moved to a This is Awesome chant. I wonder if, sometimes, a This Is Awesome chant starts up, and the guys in the ring let out a single syllable laugh and go, "We did it, partner. We did it."

4. Tye Dillinger vs. Wesley Blake

Blake is a favorite of mine from 2014 television, Dillinger - I was told - has a new gimmick, and that gimmick was very much over with the fans in attendance. Talking it over with Dylan, Lana and Tim, we came to the conclusion that Blake is working a gimmick as Keith Urban's slide guitar player, who facially looks like Balls Mahoney while dressing like 2007 Brian Kendrick, essentially making Wesley Blake = Jimmy Del Ray. We already had someone paying tribute to Prince on this show, and while Del Ray may be more of an obscure name, I appreciate what Blake was going for. Oh and I still think Blake is awesome. Dude stooged all over the place for Dillinger and his 10 chants, being perfectly fine with his own "1" chants. He wore tasseled kneepads. He had me at hello. This match went about 42 minutes and Blake was great at keeping things simple and light. His running punch off the ropes was a highlight of the evening. After being inundated with TEN chants throughout this match, I later got to ask Tim what time it was when it was 10:00, and then flashed the Tye 10 count. You guys, I was real happy with myself.

A long intermission allowed me to wade through one of the trech-uh-ruhsly wet bathrooms (seriously it was impossible not to kick through puddles of water and urine in these bathrooms) and really meet Lana and Dylan in person for the first time. They bought snacks. I stood with them. And it was good! Neither appeared to be weirdos, and I don't believe I was weird either. We talked about where my friend got me my Vader shirt (at a NOAH show! in 2002!), how genuine Papa Hales' gimmick is, other local indies, and I talked more about Wesley Blake.

5. Bobby Roode vs. No Way Jose

So Bobby Roode is legit. For a guy I've been watching wrestle for (sheesh) 12+ years, he wasn't really a guy I had much opinion on. He operated in the middle zone, not good enough for me to seek out more, not bad enough for him to become a running joke. My strongest opinion on him for  many years was "sometimes his torso looks too long". And sometimes it did! But I didn't have any favorite Bobby Roode matches, and he never struck me as bad. He just existed on wrestling programming, for a fed that I often skipped. But live? Man he is legit. This guy was Tracy Smothers up there. You watch what he did in this match and you realize how easily he could fit this into tons of different kinds of Memphis match. You could see him working his way through them. He starts with comedy and came back to it. His theme song - you may have heard - is way over. Fans wanted any excuse to sing it, just as they wanted any excuse to chant DELETE. It's amusing that "DELETE" is fast becoming the "You fucked up" of the 2010s. It's a trade I'm fine with. But Roode incorporated NWJ's dancing into the match about as well as possible. He stooged all over, he knew when to cut off Jose, knew when to turn things serious, planted NWJ with a great spinebuster. You could easily see Roode as Dutch or Tracy Smothers in this match. What is odd, and I don't think this is an insult, but I think Roode will remain a better house show worker. I don't know if the stuff I loved live will translate very well to TV, or be given the time to translate. Roode may remain a guy I don't get excited for on TV, but get excited for in the house show experience. Goldust is one of my favorite workers in the world, and I'd take him on a house show every time if my other chance was a TV match. And there aren't tons of guys in WWE I'd say that about.

6. Asuka vs. Mandy Rose

Crowd was chanting "Asuka's Gonna Kill You" which was amusing because the dreaded and feared Asuka ended up giving like 80% of the match to Mandy Rose. Mandy Rose I know only from being wisely talked out of forming any sort of friendly alliance with Eva Marie on Total Divas. She didn't strike me on Divas as someone who "came from wrestling". She seemed like a typical fashion model hired to sort of learn to fake fight. This was my first time seeing her wrestle, and I really liked her. She was better than half the people in the tag earlier, and she worked as a strong heel the entire match. Fans wanted to see Asuka murder her and I was tickled that Rose was working "not in the face" schtick, Asuka works some nice hip attacks, but I really dug Rose working simple heel stuff the whole match. The best parts were when Asuka was trying to lock on an armbar and a chickenwing, and they did a bunch of really cool rolling. Rose must be double jointed as she was bending every which way while Asuka held on. There were a couple unexpected reversals, and a nice build to Rose finally tapping to the chickenwing. Asuka has awesome body charisma, really captivating from the moment she started her entrance, and I have no doubt that helped Rose. But this was an unexpected and fun showing from Rose.

7. Shinsuke Nakamura/TM-61 vs. Samoa Joe/Authors of Pain

I gotta say it was pretty adorable watching Rachel scramble for her phone when Nakamura was coming out, as if there is anybody in her life (who wasn't standing right next to her) who would have anything but a single raised eyebrow if she showed them pictures of some guy named Shinsuke Nakamura. Who knows, maybe the gals in her office would get it. I've never seen either Authors of Pain or TM61, though apparently not knowing TM61 shows how little NOAH I watch these days. Authors of Pain definitely appear to be not Da Hit Squad, and I couldn't get a feel for either of those guys. This was a pretty lazy main event, as Nak was perfectly fine standing on the apron and looking only semi inspired while actually tagged in. While working an armlock sequence with one of AoP he even accidentally kicked him right in the eye while cartwheeling; felt like a classic Rayo de Jalisco Jr. move, like whipping his cape into a referee's eye while being announced. I've heard Joe getting a lot of praise for his work in NXT, but here he was just doing the same few moves in the same sequences that he was doing on indy shows 10 years ago. Jab/chop combo in the corner, walking away from an opponent's blind crossbody, chop/kick then a senton, it was the same Joe that I haven't really cared about for awhile. He has more charisma and comes across as more tough than a guy like Christopher Daniels, so he gets more out of not updating the old routine than other guys, but he didn't do a whole lot for me here. TM61 did a double team moonsault/fistdrop so I loved that, and they seemed fine overall although I'll have to see more of them to fully judge. Crowd was so crazy into Nakamura, all he really had to do was wriggle or point and the crowd would flip out. He was definitely a lot of the draw here, and I get it. The match wasn't much but it was a blast seeing him do (part of) his thing live and up close. Joe kicks one of TM61 low and gets the kokina clutch and Nak goes crazy on everyone with flying knees after the match and does a lot of goofy/great poses.


Well that was a really fun show. I'd definitely go out of my way to see NXT live again, so hopefully it becomes some kind of small venue touring commodity. If instead this was more of a test run that never takes off, well I'm glad I got to see it, and I'm glad Rachel got to see Nakamura. Tim, Dylan and Lana got to see them again the next night in San Jose, which also sounded like a fun show. And with that we drove back home in the super low visibility rain, road lines completely invisible, me blindly following the GPS as I was left completely turned around by the blurred out rain. The processed vocals of the new Bon Iver took us home.

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