AEW Five Fingers of Death (And Friends) 3/6 - 3/12

ROH 3/9

Athena vs. Willow Nightingale

MD: There was a very quick Kingston vs "Ben Dejo" match and while Serp is my honorary seventh finger, that's not going to get a write up. Instead, we'll go with the match right after it. Athena is someone who I felt was never allowed to reach her potential in the WWE system. They weren't sure who or what she was supposed to be and she was never positioned in a way to really come into her own. For one thing, they never used her as a heel. I saw her early last year against Thunder Rosa on the indies and it was eye-opening. Ever since, I'd hoped that she'd get to lean into that in AEW and thanks to one errant match against Jody Threat in Canada and the subsequent reaction, she got that chance. She's been my favorite thing on AEW TV (or at least YouTube) over the last many months. Moreover, this, to me, is the money feud for ROH. Darkness vs light. Optimism vs jaded wrath. Athena's working broad, a hard-hitting, cruel relentless Disney Villain. She's like something out of Wizard of Oz, or, hey, if Willow's the Babe with the Power, then Athena's a Henson-ian malignant force out of something like Labyrinth. Once she picked up the belt, she went from leading off with the forearm and smashing people into the stairs or the barricades to dancing about like a goblin as well (even as she smashes her fallen opponent's face into the belt post-match).

Long story short, she's living and breathing her character, fully present in every moment of the match. There's no off button. There are no strings to give anything away. She's swimming in the sea of action and reaction and it's a beautiful thing to see. It's that level of commitment and connection that only 2% of wrestlers ever reach, the Terry Funks and Negro Casases and Genichiro Tenyrus. And Willow's the absolute perfect opponent for her here, too big to bully, with hopes too bright to dash. Willow dominated early only to get drawn in to the drape of the arm over the top rope. From there, Athena picked away at her arm like a vulture, culminating in the spot in the stairs and Willow subsequently powering her way through it. Athena responded by slapping her repeatedly and Willow hulked up, driven by adrenaline and dropping the selling in as appropriate a moment as I've seen in a while. The moment she took a breath, that she paused, that she recentered herself and set Athena up for the Doctor Bomb, her shoulder gave out again. It was all completely believable and poetic and in the moment. She survived the targeting that followed and Athena's secondary finisher and even hit her own, but couldn't get the pin just right. Then Athena rolled out and snuck in a big power move at the top of the ramp, like a jackal with her back against the wall. One O-Face over and that was it. While I would have rather kept them apart for another few months and built and built to this, the match itself provides them a foundation to call back to later. I hope Khan sees just what he has here, because it could easily be the feud of the year and the feud to make this first full year of ROH if they manage it well enough. Like I said, Athena's working on an entirely different level than everyone around her and Willow is a once-in-a-lifetime foil for her, the other side of the twisted mirror. All they have to do is run with it.

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2021 Ongoing MOTY List: Raquel vs. Ember

35. Raquel Gonzalez vs. Ember Moon NXT TakeOver In Your House 6/13 

ER: Raquel has been such a wonderful presence in the NXT women's division this year. It was a role that seemed like she could have been rushed into and yet if she was rushed all it did was make her immediately grow into the role. She is so good at selling for smaller opponents and is so good at pacing out matches. She knows how to be dominant while leaving openings, and her selling during those openings is so good that she seems actually beatable, before she slams the doors shut again. She uses her long limbs very effectively, lashing out with big clubbing shots and reaching out with kicks to the stomach to slow an opponent, but when she's in close she unleashes different attacks. Her elbows really rock Moon, and she does this awesome over shoulder backbreaker while bending at Moon's neck and chin (then flipping her hard to get her back to the mat), and when Moon makes her big press back I loved how she paid Raquel back for all of the specific things she did.

Moon hits a fantastic running clothesline, and Moon must love Raquel as an opponent as you can always tell she throws her offense even harder than usual and Raquel just leans right into it. Moon kicked things up a level when she locked in a deathlock variation and yanked Raquel by the ponytail, mouth, and throat to pull her deeper into the submission. Moon has complicated offense and I'm impressed she almost always manages to pull it off better than it should be pulled off, but Gonzalez is again someone who has an uncanny ability to take complicated offense. Ember Moon got to hang with Gonzalez and look like she belonged, Dakota Kai was a treat at ringside (I love the dynamic of the Raquel/Kai partnership), and I love how Raquel's wins are always big exclamation marks. Dominant champ who can sell, then wins definitively, is a simple formula that Raquel is doing better than any male WWE character has done recently. Raquel is progressing as a worker in a way that is rivaling (on a smaller scale) Brock Lesnar's initial rise. Brock turned into one of the 5 best wrestlers in the world within his first year on the main brand, and while I don't think Raquel is progressing as fast as Brock the potential is now clearly there. 

PAS: This was a very good version of the WWE big match formula, which is a formula I am pretty tired of. It was pretty stiff, and they set up the big move moments really well. The nearfall on the Eclipse was really well done, and I really dug the nastiness of Raquel's match ending powerbomb. Still it felt like this match was worked the same way all of the WWE matches are worked, with everything being a set up into a big move and then moving into another set up into a big move. I really liked the couple of submissions, but I need more stuff that feels like a struggle rather than just hitting each big mark, that was especially obvious in the final run. The big marks were cool, and I agree Gonzalez has a bunch of promise, but I am not sure she can achieve it in the WWE. 

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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NXT TakeOver: In Your House 6/13/21

We still can't rewind or start from beginning on Peacock, and I had Sunday errands. Why is Peacock this bad? Remember when we complained about the Network? Nobody wants to talk about it but this is clearly digital pro wrestling slowly turning into the lamest I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. I'll go back and pick up the stuff I missed once it's actually online. It's going to be really nice watching one of these with a decent crowd. There are so many of these acts who have barely played in front of people, and right on first sight this show has a great "packed local indy" energy to it. [Edit: Was I actually on time for this? I assumed it was 4:00 PM but if it's 5:00 then I guess I made it?]

Legado Del Fantasma vs. Bronson Reed/MSK

ER: I came into this one an unsure number of minutes, but it's one I was excited about on this card. Wilde and Mendoza are a pair of underrated in ring players right now, and you could say the same but lesser for MSK. The Dusty Classic was the best TV period for WWE this year and the energy hasn't been as good since that ended. The whole thing was great, and nearly every single participant has felt lost since. This whole thing is really great, as even when WWE has matches with actual luchadors in it, they don't always connect as actual lucha matches. But this really had the feel of a really strong lucha trios, and it's a shame we don't get more TV matches with the Legado del Fantasma trio. This is the best I've seen Reed look all year, a guy who appeared to be suffering from New Keith Lee syndrome. Here he was the great lucha wrecking ball, a large presence that could flattens someone to peak a sequence, like big Super Porky spots without any jokes attached. MSK were really fun getting set up over and over but LdF, and LdF's timing and rhythm were firing hard here. Reed acting as the big cut off to LdF's runs was a good way to lay this out, and I have no doubts that they could have worked a really good 2/3 Falls match (and there's no reason they still can't, ehhhhh?). Wes Lee is a good FIP and I just love Wilde and Mendoza do their thing. Mendoza was great at taking everyone's offense, getting just leveled by a Reed avalanche and having some great vocals and facials after getting flattened with more. Reed crashing Escobar through the hockey barricade looked like convenience store footage of a compact car crashing into the front beer display. Great moment. This match is literally only the 2nd time this year we've gotten the full trios version of Legado del Fantasma, and that needs to change, because this quality can't be denied. 

Mercedes Martinez vs. Xia Li

ER: I'm probably 2-3 months behind on NXT TV so I always see TakeOvers way before the set up, so I don't know how we got here, but I really like the energy that they take into it. Pretty early we settle into Li convincingly bullying Martinez around the ring and ringside, and you need a lot of ring confidence to bully Martinez. I'm a fan of Li's current thing, a little more Lucha Underground than the typical NXT gimmick. She runs Martinez into the ringpost and the turnbuckles, bends her around the post, and eventually throws a nasty high kick right into that same damn post in a great spot. Not only does the spot look great, but it changes the total energy of the match in a cool way, as now Li is the underdog babyface and Martinez is never more interesting than when she's stalking prey. Li is compelling when desperately fighting out of slams, and Martinez drops her with some nasty suplexes and slams. I like Li as a brow furrowed ass kicker, and I like her as a big bumping babyface. If you're taking a high backdrop on the floor on a show I watch? I am into you. I love how they had Li's big spinkick be the clean finish, made it feel like a huge singles win. This went the exact right length, and this is probably the best we've seen look in a longer match. Martinez gets a lot of credit, but Li now looks like a super confident performer who can work face or heel, and her look is excellent. Really loved the energy they sustained. 

LA Knight vs. Cameron Grimes

ER: I cannot help to love how Grimes moves to his To The Moon entrance song, it just fits. I'm pretty over ladder matches at this point, but I liked what these two did with the played out ladder match. Knight especially was great at turning non-spots into big moments, with strong stuff like trying to slam the ladder on Grimes and missing. To the Moon is a great way to get fans into it, and Knight was an old indy pro at keeping it a strong rallying cry. The build was really good and they knew how to start with bullshit, build to fighting around the ladder, then throw in your painful bumps. Knight has been at this game practically as long as AJ Styles, and he felt like a great AJ Styles heel here. Knight had a killer backdrop bump onto the ladder, and a Lawler level face first run into the top of a ladder. He was great at stooging to set up all of Grimes' comebacks, snapping over on Grimes' ranas (in ring and to the floor), and fed perfectly into two nice Grimes punts. Grimes gets crazier the longer the match goes, scaling a ringside ladder and escaping to ringside rigging, then does a sheer drop onto Knight with a crossbody. He tops that with a crazy CZW type spill, getting tipped in gross fashion from the top into the entrance ramp. I liked the Knight win, but that might be just because I really liked Knight in this match. Definitely exceeded my expectations. 

 

Raquel Gonzalez vs. Ember Moon

ER: Raquel has been such a wonderful presence in the women's division, a role that seemed like she might have been rushed into and yet all it did was make her immediately grow into the role. She is so good at selling for smaller opponents and is so good at pacing things out. She knows how to be dominant while leaving openings, and then her selling during those openings is so good that she seems actually beatable, before she slams the doors shut again. She uses her long limbs very effectively, lashing out with big clubbing shots and reaching out with kicks to the stomach, but when she's in close she unleashes different attacks. Her elbows really rock Moon, and she does this awesome over shoulder backbreaker while bending at Moon's neck and chin (then flipping her hard to get her back to the mat), and when Moon makes her big press back I loved how she paid Raquel back for all of the specific things she did. Moon hits a fantastic running clothesline, and Moon must love Raquel as an opponent as you can always tell she throws her offense even harder than usual and Raquel just leans right into it. Moon kicked things up a level when she locked in a deathlock variation and yanked Raquel by the ponytail, mouth, and throat to pull her deeper into the submission. Moon has complicated offense and I'm impressed she almost always manages to pull it off better than it could be pulled off, but Gonzalez is again someone who has an uncanny ability to take complicated offense, so, well. Ember Moon got to hang with Gonzalez and look like she belonged, Dakota Kai was a treat at ringside (I love the dynamic of the Raquel/Kai partnership), and I love how Raquel's wins are always big exclamation marks. Dominant champ who can sell, then wins definitively, is a simple formula. This could be absurd hype with a year of hindsight, and I wouldn't expect him to touch his peak, but she's progressing in a way that could be as impressive as Brock's initial rise. The potential is right there. 

Kyle O'Reilly vs. Johnny Gargano vs. Pete Dunne vs. Adam Cole vs. Karrion Kross

ER: Here's the one on paper landmine on the show, and the way they start does not make me optimistic that they'll escape landmine status. I think it will all depend on the runtime. But I did not need to see Kross work his Karate Rockette routine while everyone else busies themselves on the floor, really not liking how Kross is the denominator for all the early stretches. Everyone else waits their turn to go one on one or two on one with Kross and the Kross show is the weakest routine in the match. And you know what? This match wasn't totally for me, and it almost surely wasn't ever going to be. So, knowing that, you go in hoping that it will at least be good for what it is, and it was. If you are the kind of person who sees these 5 names in a main event and assume it's going at least 30, and you are EXCITED for it, then this definitely gave you every single thing you could have wanted. It went too long (obviously it was going to go too long) but was laid out well once they moved past the Kross one on ones. 

This is modern wrestling based around constant counters, constant commentary talking about the counters, and constant guys looking over the shoulder waiting for the timing to be right. It's distracting, but it's tough to time things perfectly with an odd number of guys, and if you were a fan of late 2000s PWG main events then I'd be surprised if you didn't enjoy this. I have no interest in going through 30 minutes of spots, but O'Reilly and Gargano took some heavy bumps (loved O'Reilly getting shoved off the top to the floor and basically cannonballing to the floor), Gargano got powerbombed into the edge of the apron by Kross in what looked like the worst possible landing, both guys really kept this pumping. Gargano went really wild here, my favorite stretch of the match was when he was flying all over the place. He hit a fast bullet tope that almost sent him straight into the announce table, and his tope tornado DDT on Dunne was a real feat for both. I also found myself rooting for O'Reilly when he had that sick Volk Han leg lock sunk in. Also a big fan of the timing it took for the double superkick to actually look good on Dunne's moonsault. This spots are an inch either way from either murdering a man or looking awful, and this one looked great. I think anyone would have taken that over a continued Reign of Kross. But hey, if you already wanted to see this match, you are happy, and that is what's most important. This is about the best this style can get for me, which means it was technically my least favorite match on the show, but it didn't tank the show at all. 

ER: This was a great show, every match delivered what people excited for that match would want. Seeing  Legado del Fantasma as a trio was a treat, Xia Li stepped up into the spotlight nicely, Raquel and Ember tore it down (Raquel has delivered on big NXT shows this year like literally no other person on the roster), and the ladder match was strong. Great show, kept a great pace, only really felt like it was dragging during some stretches of the main. Highly recommended show. 

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NXT TakeOver: Stand and Deliver Night Two 4/8/21

Night One turned into a really great show after we got past the first two matches. I'm less excited about the Night Two lineup, but they got a lot of good will from me after the last 80 minutes of Night One. 

Santos Escobar vs. Jordan Devlin

ER: I think modern ladder matches have done passed me by. There hasn't been enough "new" done to the format or match layout to keep me interested. On paper I thought this was a cool pairing, but in execution it didn't work for me. You know there are going to be a couple of cool spots, and there were, but these matches are just designed to be 3 minute YouTube highlight reels at this point. That's fine if that's their purpose, but it doesn't make for an interesting match. Escobar seemed off through the first half of this, moving through spots real tentatively, like he was overly focused on hitting his marks, and it made the opening exchanges look really bad. Devlin had a few big bumps, like his fun one bouncing from a ladder to the top rope to the floor, or that nasty bump getting shoved backwards off a ladder into another ladder. We got a nice dive that plastered both guys into a ladder, and Devlin's moonsault off the ladder looked great, but took an eternity to set up. And "looked great, took an eternity to set up" is a great masthead for WWE ladder matches at this point. This was very disappointing, would have been better off with a normal singles match. 

Candice LeRae/Indi Hartwell vs. Shotzi Blackheart/Ember Moon

ER: The Dusty Classic was filled with great matches, and I'm all for this because I would love a serious tag division. And while the match itself got a bit messy at times, I liked the energy and they never let the messiness divert from the match. Now, it is true that one of my favorite things about the Dusty Classic was how focused a lot of the tags felt, like each team was bringing in their own style, and this match felt more like WWE Great Match Style, which isn't nearly as interesting. Dusty Classic had a lot of personality, this was more cookie cutter "plug in fast workers" style, and I think the personality aspect is what made those matches shine. Indi and Candice felt like a typical workrate team here, not at all like how they've been the past several months. Ember had a couple fun sequences, got an unexpected laugh out of me when she finished a strike combo with a Suck It. Shotzi will always be Shotzi, and that leads us to Shotzi spectacularly splitting the uprights on a tope con giro. I have no idea how it happened, but Shotzi has this magical ability to find no bodies on dives, and she somehow flies right in between Indi and Candice and straight into the barricade. This felt too rushed, never got the time to settle in and get anyone isolated, felt way too get in-get out the whole match. A couple double teams looked good, like the Indi/Candice pancake slam. Ember's double team Eclipse was a bit too ambitious, not sure it really worked in practice, but Shotzi's big senton landed heavy and I loved the way Indi sold it. 

Bronson Reed vs. Johnny Gargano

ER: I've been really loving NXT the past several months, and it's because they've gotten away from the house style that ruined much of 2020. This match went back to that style and it sucked. Reed used to work as a big guy, but now that they don't have Keith Lee on the roster it's like they needed a big man to work 50-50 exchanges with a 160 pound man. It sucks so bad, and we all knew it was going to suck 20 seconds in when Gargano hit a sloppy headscissors and Reed missed a beat before doing a cartwheel. The cartwheel looked entirely disconnected from Gargano's headscissors, and Beth Phoenix screaming "SHADES OF BAM BAM BIGELOW" really hammered home how shitty this was going to be. Last night we got an insanely good women's main event, with Raquel Gonzalez doing an excellent job of selling for someone so much smaller than she, and here's Reed working as Gargano's equal the entire match. I hate it. This brought back all of my least favorite parts of NXT house style, the mirror exchanges, the selling entirely disconnected from the moves that each man just took, and the stupid offense that spins somebody into position to hit their own offense. Reed is not good at working equal to Gargano, so you knew they were going to throw out the stupidest tropes of the style. Was there a poison rana? Brother you bet there was, and brother you better believe that it looked like Reed leaping backwards onto his own head. Gargano was just dangling off Reed's neck, hanging there, no momentum, and Reed just threw himself over. Reed was always a second behind on every exchange like this, the entire match. Did we get a superkick exchange? Brother you KNOW we did! Reed hits a tope on Theory (he's a big man, but look at him MOVE!!) and I cannot tell you how uninterested I am in modern big man "moving like a cruiserweight" wrestling at this point. I thought Reed's crucifix bomb from the ramp into the ring looked great, but it meant nothing whatsoever because this is throwback NXT house style baybee! That move should be a finisher, not a forgotten footnote in an uninteresting match. You're a big round man, think of all the cool big round wrestlers you could be, Reed! Instead, he's like my old boss's dog who was 50 pounds and was scared of 15 pound dogs, like he had no idea what size he was. 

Karrion Kross vs. Finn Balor

ER: Feeling bad for Ray Rowe here, as they gave his whole look to the new bald guy. And it wasn't going to take much of a match to look better than the trash that came before, and it was fine! I can't really get into the Kross character, still really don't know what I'm supposed to think about him. But the Reed match set a low bar, and it looked like gold coming after. I liked how Kross actually recognized that he was larger than Balor. I personally always know if someone is larger than I am, or if I am larger than they are, but a lot of people in NXT do not know that! So when Balor locked up with Kross and Kross threw him down on the mat, I thought "Now there is a man who recognizes when he is larger than another person." And that's why this match is a win! Balor didn't play total underdog, but didn't play equal, and that's important. I like how Kross threw him around, dug how it looked like Balor was really getting upended on every big Saito suplex. We didn't go overboard with shocked faces and kickouts, no surprises whatsoever. It was just a bigger guy throwing a smaller guy around and eventually beating him, and that's all it takes to stand out in my brain right now. 

Kyle O'Reilly vs. Adam Cole

ER: This match is unsanctioned. It's on Peacock, broadcast from their own Performance Center, with commentary just like any other match, but someone back there does not agree with it and will not sanction it. Men fell dangerously into ladders an hour ago, and that was sanctionable, but one of these men is now wearing a denim vest and we cannot sanction that. The problem with giving a couple like this too many toys to use in a match, is they get too cute with their toy usage. We can't just have a couple guys braining each other with a chain, we need to have one of them bent at the waist for an eternity while the other takes forever to wrap his boot in a chain. Just hit Cole with the fucking chain, Kyle! You're holding the chain! Hit him with it! You knew this shit was going to be unbearably long, and even though it was UNSANCTIONED I wish we could have sanctioned some time limits. Save the fans from the unspeakable actions these gladiators were going to put themselves through. We go through all the same tired stuff that they always go through whenever any indy fed goes through an unsanctioned match, other than the actual ring being taken apart. You know what makes a brawl interesting? Blood and guys beating the shit out of each other. If you have a chain, you can just hit a guy with a chain. But the spots get way to cute way too fast, and you know these two are absolutely killing each other out there, but it's the worst combination of painful violence and cornball violence. I knew they were going through the ramp, I knew just knew it. It was either going to be the ring taken apart or the ramp crashing through, and I'm most shocked that it wasn't both. There were parts of this I liked, with my favorite spot being Cole grabbing the chain and clotheslining O'Reilly with it. But this was predictably long, and had too much over thought out bullshit. There's no excuse to go 40 minutes in a match like this. Going that long makes the punishing things you are doing come off LESS punishing. Cut this in half, focus on the violence rather than the humanity, and then maybe you have something. 

ER: Well, this was easily the worst of the two nights. This show was bad, not even sure what match I would most recommend to someone (probably the tag match? It was fast paced and didn't step on its own dick), but a lot of this show was a MAJOR step back. This show was a microcosm of every single thing that I hated about 19/20 NXT. I've been loving 2021 NXT so far, it's my favorite weekly show, and this show was like they decided that EVERYTHING they've done this year hasn't been working, and throwing it into reverse to bring us back into the worst era of NXT history. Absolutely terrible. 

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NXT TakeOver: WarGames 2020 Live Blog

I don't think we've gotten a good WarGames match from NXT...yet. That said, I think this looks like a really good card on paper, and I'm excited for both WarGames matches, really like how both teams match up. 

Toni Storm/Dakota Kai/Raquel Gonzalez/Candice LeRae vs. Ember Moon/Rhea Ripley/Io Shirai/Shotzi Blackheart

ER: Shotzi comes out in her new deluxe tank, with TCB on the front (I assume that means Tankin' Care of Business?). I like Dakota Kai to start the match, but I don't think Ember Moon was a great choice. Ember Moon is someone who always does a disservice to her own offense, because she chains it in a way that you see her opponents brushing things off quickly just to take something else. She has a very good low superkick to a kneeling opponent, but it's always done just to set up something else, even when it looks better than a lot of her other offense. I don't think her chaining things through the first 5 is a good thing, but I liked Kai a lot. Some of her offense isn't as plausible, but she uses her thrust kick wisely and it always looks good. 

And somehow they make the rookie mistake of letting the babyfaces add a man first. WHY would you voluntarily set up Dakota Kai as de facto babyface? It's the easiest mistake to avoid under the specific booking parameters of a WarGames!! Commentary keeps trying to think of things to say, and every single thing just makes it sound like Kai is a valiant babyface. "This is the hardest 3 minutes of Dakota Kai's life" or "you remember Kai was out of action with a knee injury", just everything they said about her pointed out how hard she was fighting through this genuine disadvantage. I don't know how you lay this match out and decide to make Dakota Kai the top babyface, but this is what they did, and Kai is putting in the best babyface performance of the match. She gets powerbombed down the cage by Moon, who then hits a sick crossbody into her. But Kai fights back, and soon she's down two to one, but she jumps on Shotzi's back and tries to fight off the unfair double team, gets dropped with a great Doomsday Device missile dropkick, but somehow fights back from that! Later she gets beat up by Rhea Ripley the second she entered the cage, eating a ton of short arm clotheslines as the commentary continues to struggle with the undeniable fact that Kai is the babyface here. Shotzi was so incredible in the build up to this match, and she is the most afterthought person in the entire match. This makes no sense!!

They are also working this WarGames the least interesting way: Pretending the cage is not there. The knock on a lot of these NXT WarGames is that they are normal matches that happened to be surrounded by a big cage. This is that. Kai takes a nasty spill into the cage 2 minutes in, and the rest of the match is as if the cage is only there to obstruct our view. And since you can't bleed, it means the match becomes an exercise in Singapore cane shots, which is not as interesting to me as someone getting their face smashed into chain link. Ripley eventually takes a bump into the cage 20 minutes later, and Io Shirai does a Great Sasuke tribute by flying off the cage into everyone while entirely in a trash can. Raquel Gonzalez makes a great catch in the middle of it all, really absorbing all of a tiny person wearing a trash can. Kai even gets walking tall moments down the stretch!! It's amazing! She hits a killer double stomp off the top, flatting Shirai under that trash can, then triumphantly beats down Ember Moon and stands tall with a chair. Things do finally get good and heated after, with Moon hitting a pretty disgusting Eclipse, with Kai whipping her neck across the back of a chair. I didn't think Moon was doing that move anymore (don't think I've seen it since she came back), and it's cool when someone breaks out something big like that in a big match, and I like that Moon crashing through a chair taking Kai out of the match also took her out of the match. LeRae kicks a trash can lid into Ripley's face, Shotzi sentons LeRae off a ladder, Shirai eats a Gonzalez powerbomb through a ladder, tons of great stuff down the stretch. But I gotta say I'm pretty stunned how marginalized Shotzi was in this match, for a match that really felt like it was announced and built as HER match. I don't know if anybody would have picked Gonzalez pinning Shirai for the finish of this, but most of this was brutally backwards. 

Tommaso Ciampa vs. Timothy Thatcher

ER: I've really been digging Thatcher bullying guys on NXT, but I like when we get big match Thatcher. I think a lot of this was really good, and I bought into a lot of the attacks from both. Thatcher really looked like he was choking the life out of Thatcher (Ciampa's head veins are a gift when it comes to selling a sleeper), and Ciampa's bully choke down the stretch with Ciampa attacking Thatcher's freshly bloodied ear was great. Rhea Ripley got an earring ripped out of her ear against Io Shirai, then competed in a WarGames without a drop of blood, and then immediately following WarGames Thatcher gets his ear ripped open somehow. Ciampa's back neck is a compelling match story for me, and Thatcher is a guy who can do painful looking things to a neck. So I bought into Ciampa's neck selling and also loved when Thatcher would whip his head back with uppercuts. I do think the match went way too long and really didn't need to be worked as an epic, didn't need stuff like Thatcher bumping for 6-8 straight clotheslines (things like that felt transported from a different match), and I think Thatcher should have won here. I don't want them to fall into the temptation of turning Thatcher into a shoot guy who only picks on guys that can't defend themselves but never uses those skills to beat better guys. 

Dexter Lumis vs. Cameron Grimes

ER: Trevor Lee was someone who always wanted to work long matches and big title defenses in CWF Mid-Atlantic, and he seems like a guy who would get into trying to have interesting matches within somewhat limited match gimmicks. So far his performances in a cinematic match and blindfold match have been appropriately stoogey but perhaps too silly. And he brings strong stooging to this strap match, but just like the WarGames match earlier in the evening, it is a gimmick match that keeps pretending like the gimmick isn't there. Long stretches of the match are spent without them tied to a strap, and I was actually interested in how they were going to work in turnbuckle touching until realizing that of course it would just be a normal pinfall match. The best parts of this are Grimes taking a hard beating around the ring. He did a really good job at getting dragged and flung by the strap, including two painful bumps into the protective hockey arena siding, got pulled nicely into an uppercut, did a great job of falling while being yanked. My favorite bit of Grimes offense was when he just punched Lumis in the eye, and Lumis sold it like a guy who just got punched in the eye. They worked a few good spots around getting tangled up in a strap, and I loved when Lumis wrapped Grimeses' ankles and yoinked the strap, sending Crimes crashing head first into a chair. The finish submission looked good, like Grimes getting hogtied into a choke, overall liked what Grimes tried to do with the gimmick. 

Damian Priest vs. Johnny Gargano vs. Leon Ruff

ER: I really liked the two quick Ruff/Gargano matches I've seen (I'm a couple weeks behind on NXT TV, not sure what happened right before this show), and would have preferred seeing a PPV level Gargano/Ruff singles. I am also a guy who isn't a big Priest fan. However, having one much larger guy in there could make for a fun dynamic. The story of Priest not wanting to bother with Ruff because he only cared about taking his pound of flesh from Gargano was strong, even though Gargano's work with Priest is nowhere near as well done as Gargano's work with Ruff. All the Gargano/Ruff portions were good, but the Gargano/Priest stuff had awkward timing on several spots (including stuff like Gargano having to redo a tornado DDT spot, and a silly missed ear clap from Gargano after Johnny ducked early). Ruff eats a big razor's edge through one of the safety shields, and I really wish I could hear a real crowd during his eventual comeback. I think he would really be connecting with fans and I think the Gargano angle would play great in front of real crowds. I really wanted that Leon Ruff/Mikey Whipwreck story to keep going. Ruff keeping the title is could have given him a little more legitimacy, leaves you with a Gargano/Priest #1 contender match while moving Ruff onto someone else for a bit, and instead they just have Gargano win the title back. Ruff's involvement still felt like the best thing about this to me, and right up to that spike DDT that ended him he made everything look good. This was better than I was expecting as they dealt well with getting the third man out of there, but I also didn't love a lot of the Priest/Gargano stuff. The Scream mask guys were the absolute pits and killed any chance at the match being actually good, and I can't get excited in any way for an Austin Theory higher power situation. Nobody wants that. 

Undisputed Era (Roderick Strong/Kyle O'Reilly/Bobby Fish/Adam Cole) vs. Pat McAfee/Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch/Pete Dunne

ER: Pete Dunne moves to Florida and within a couple months he's already getting that Crossfit body. He also might have jaundice? But I liked the opening with O'Reilly and Dunne, thought their mathwork had several fun scrambles, and had nasty things like Dunne kneeling on O'Reilly's arm while attacking the body. This WarGames is already so much better laid out than the women's match, with McAfee doing an awesome job being the guy acting like he wants in that cage, and Lorcan being an excellent choice to help Dunne dismantle O'Reilly. Lorcan dropping KOR with a half nelson suplex before Dunne runs in and kicks KOR's arm out from under him is a great asshole move, and seeing Dunne and Lorcan work as real assholes is great. Lorcan is also great at eating offense, so when Bobby Fish runs in Lorcan is expert at taking the UE double teams (I especially liked him getting pump kicked into a suplex). Weapons in WarGames is pretty stupid and unnecessary (you are in a cage you should act like you're in a cage and use it) but the cricket bat is a more interesting weapon that other played out stuff we've seen. Burch smacking O'Reilly in the bad arm with a cricket bat at least gives off a good sound. But we also get way too much table set up. I do not need all of these tables set up!m You have a whole cage, use the cage! WarGames matches do not need long spot set-ups.

Pat McAfee is a real genuine standout, a personality so strong that it only highlights the personality flaws in every other person in the match. It's incredible how much he gets about what he's supposed to be doing in there, and having him hit a moonsault through a table is the best kind of icing on that cake. The home stretch of the match had good energy, but also a lot of misspent energy? All of Adam Cole's offense runs looked bad, and the best use of Cole was when McAfee clipped his knee. Also, Wade Barrett refers to Pat McAfee as "one of the dirtiest players in NFL history" and...I guess I would really need to see footage of a punter who is also a dirty player. That sounds like a hysterical character (that Pat McAfee assuredly was not). I HATE the Undisputed Era "fight between the two cages" trope in these WarGames match. How does a team with guys I like keep doing things that I dislike? And this thing just goes WAYYYYYY too long. Way too many comebacks, way too many "peak" moments to build to, soooo much fat that could have been trimmed. It just felt like they kept building to the same big moment over and over again, like we were trapped in a loop and nobody knew how to actually finish the match. They build to McAfee and Cole alone, everyone else laid out, several times, and it never finishes anything. Every big move would just get a kick out, and then everyone would lie around for awhile before doing it all over again. McAfee completely knocks the wind out of himself when nobody decides to catch him on his bonkers cage swanton, Lorcan and Burch pull off a sick Doomsday Device, McAfee kicks out of Adam Cole's bunny hop flipping piledriver, everyone in the match lies in one part of the ring while Dunne and O'Reilly fight and also refuse to get pinned. This whole thing was 20 minutes too long and they kept building to things they had already built to. I like both of these teams, and like both of them against each other. But this was TOO MUCH of them against each other. I was totally burned out by the home stretch of this match, because it felt like we got too much wasted time and it felt like they were needlessly filling time. No main event should feel like it's just filling time. Still, Pat McAfee is a star. 

This was a disappointing show. But, up until the part of the main that started taking too long, I was still really enjoying this show. It was an underwhelming yet entertaining show, until it felt like I was trapped in an endless series of big encounter kickouts. There were plenty of strong individual performances, in fact every match at minimum had one real standout performance. So we end up with a show that underdelivered on quality, while also having no true bad matches and thus having an entertaining floor. You can't really call that a win, but it's not a terrible loss. 

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

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

Drew Gulak vs. Oney Lorcan

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

Apollo Crews vs. Buddy Murphy

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

Alexa Bliss/Nikki Cross vs. Iiconics

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

Becky Lynch vs. Natalya

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

Goldberg vs. Dolph Ziggler

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

Ricochet vs. AJ Styles

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

Bayley vs. Ember Moon

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

Shane McMahon vs. Kevin Owens

ER: No time, no time, no time.

Trish Stratus vs. Charlotte Flair

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

Kofi Kingston vs. Randy Orton

ER: I'm sure they did just fine.

Bray Wyatt vs. Finn Balor

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

Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins

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


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

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Ronda Rousey's European Vacation

So Ronda has now had two PPV matches, and they are among my favorite matches of the year. So now I'm thirsty for more. I'm greedy for the verse of Rousey. But there just isn't very much Rousey footage out there yet. WWE did a European tour last month and it looks like half the trios matches with her are online (these are the Vienna and Paris matches, very possible the Switzerland and Italy ones are out there) so I dove in.

Ronda Rousey/Ember Moon/Natalya vs. Mickie James/Ruby Riott/Liv Morgan WWE 5/17/18

ER: An already short match with a big chunk clipped out of the middle. Was the clip 5 seconds? Was it 5 minutes? I'm not sure but we never see Mickie's tag in and don't see her much at all. Even in its 5 minute form the match is plenty of fun. I really liked Liv Morgan as the Ronda antagonizer. Natalya did a long Ronda tag tease while holding Morgan by the hair, reaching out to get Ronda in, and Morgan used it to her advantage to get Natalya out of the way and then taunt Ronda with bad shadowboxing. Morgan also took a big bump to the floor when things were breaking down, a nice little performance and the only one stooging. Moon had a cool legsweep and I liked Natalya's dropkick to Morgan's face after running up her back and head (and Morgan really whipped back on the kick making it look worse than it was). But the big payoff is obviously Ronda, and she came in like the coolest hot tag around. She dumped Riott with a couple of nasty throws that she makes look so effortless, but would probably give me vertigo if I tried taking them. Her final takedown on James was awesome, doesn't even look like she's throwing people in there due to her leverage making them weightless, and she's doing these safe takedowns where the person taking them looks like they have no control over their landing, just an awesome set of throws. I wish this had been twice as long, but it had plenty of rewarding moments.

Ronda Rousey/Ember Moon/Natalya vs. Mickie James/Ruby Riott/Liv Morgan WWE 5/19/18

ER: I love watching these house show matches close together, as it's always cool to see ways they opt to mix it up from prior matches, while also seeing things they opted to keep. This match (the Paris match) is worked very differently from the Vienna match, with a long heat section on Natalya, minimal Liv Morgan involvement, some good near falls off of roll-ups, a couple of fantastic/hammy showcase moments from James, and essentially the same beginning and end. We still start with Ember Moon doing the same nice leg trip and slingshot splash to Riott, and we eventually settle down to Natalya getting beaten down and trying to tag Ronda. There is a great Morgan moment where she cuts off a tag, taunts, then almost gets rolled up for the loss. Mickie was used more prominently here (and she could have been in the last one, but her time got camera phone clipped out), and she soaks it up. Talk about someone who I haven't sought out in years who is now putting out her finest work. James has been on fire in 2018. Here she knocks Ember off the apron with a crescent kick, then flies into Rousey to knock her off. We build to a GREAT house show moment, with Mickie slowly loosening her belt while Natalya is slumped in their corner, and Riott is running and gleefully highstepping the length of the apron, and James whisks that belt out, runs towards Natalya...and the ref catches her by the belt to stop her. Awesome spot. Ronda gets in and runs through approximately the same stuff in the same order as Vienna (this had the addition of a short straight jab to knock Morgan to the floor), but I do think the throws felt bigger in that match. We do get an extra Mickie James bonus roll up, going high on the cradle like she does and making it seem for two seconds that they could feasibly give Mickie James the pinfall win over Ronda Freaking Rousey....but alas, James ends up almost losing that arm moments later. Also, can we just stop recording things in portrait mode? Turn your phone sideways, people.

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Raw 10 Woman Tag

35. Mickie James/Sarah Logan/Alexa Bliss/Liv Morgan/Ruby Riott vs. Nia Jax/Ember Moon/Sasha Banks/Natalya/Bayley WWE Raw 4/23

ER: Is this match the consolation prize? WWE is about to play a major stadium in Saudi Arabia, and at minimum 50 members of the roster will get to be there...but none of the people in this match. It's a pretty bold move to talk about the #WomensRevolution while also shunting a portion of the match into 1/8 of the screen to give most of the screen space to an ad for the event that women aren't allowed to participate in. So it was pretty awesome to watch these 10 go out there and work an intense main event with some real standout performances from Mickie James and Sarah Logan. Logan starts and really bullies around Sasha, rubbing her face on the mat, hitting a knee, grinding her forearm into Sasha's face, and the Riott Squad working over Sasha is really fun. Sasha is a fun FIP because she makes really great faces where she looks annoyed that people are getting one over on her, loved the spot where Morgan matrix'd out of a Sasha clothesline only to get popped when she came back up. Ember makes the most of her time, hitting this awesome front flip forearm in the corner that looked like she was attempting to punch through the back of Liv's head, and hits a big dive. We get more of Logan bullying Sasha around, giving us the female Skinner Steve Keirn we never knew we wanted, but Mickie tagging in puts this over the top. Mickie looked like a total monster. She's quietly had an awesome April, especially her performance getting ragdolled by Ember Moon. She absolutely rips into Sasha, including a flat out mean boot choke in the corner, and actually make a chinlock look like a submission by leaning her weight forward over Sasha. I loved Nia in this,  just taking out all her aggression on Riott. I love press slam spots and she hits a doozy, then drops the leg. We get a big moment of Nia diving off the apron onto all the gals, with all of them scattering like bowling pins (with Moon sadly taking the brunt of it). We get a big Ronda appearance as Mickie James is attacking Natalya (who got clipped in the leg by Logan earlier) and James pastes her with a great baseball slide dropkick. Ronda actually has a leather jacket that fits now, and I liked how Mickie actually went after her when Ronda charged the ring. But one nasty judo toss and Ronda almost rips Mickie's arm off for the DQ, and I thought all of this was awesome. A consolation prize perhaps, but they made the most of it.

PAS: I really enjoyed this, they really have developed a deep pool of women's wrestlers. I enjoyed everyone in this, even Natalya, and I am not sure RAW could put together a 10 man tag where I like everyone. I have a lot of time for Sarah Logan, she was someone I dug in the Mae Young classic and is a rawboned beast in this, her chop block looked like it caused a serious knee injury and Natalya sold it great. Nia wasn't a focus in this, but she looked great in her cameo, that wink during the press slam actually reminded me of the Rock, she is just great and has all the potential in the world. If they are really trying to run with Ronda as the biggest star in the fed, I could see Nia vs. Ronda headlining a Wrestlemania. I also want to second Mickie James out for praise, she was so hateable,  she has that vicious older lady vibe down, she feels like a Republican State Assemblywoman posting a birther meme. She gets that this Ronda feud is the biggest opportunity of her career and is stepping up huge.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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NXT TakeOver: New Orleans 4/7/18

EC3 vs. Killian Dain vs. Adam Cole vs. Velveteen Dream vs. Lars Sullivan vs. Ricochet

PAS: I don't really go out of my way to watch car crash ladder matches, this may have been the first one of these I have seen in a couple of years, and I enjoyed it. Great debut for Ricochet who got to show off some of his nutso spots he has such crazy athleticism, and the spot where he moonsaulted off of a ladder as it was falling showed some pretty great timing in a dangerous atmosphere. Really dug Dreams elbow drops, the regular ones got great distance, and the one off the ladder was bonkers. Sullivan was awesome too, it is always great to have a beast in these matches and he was really killing people with throws and clotheslines, he also took some really unnecessary bumps for such a big guy. Cole seems like the least interesting of these six guys, and did the least memorable stuff, so him winning was a letdown, still this was pretty great.

ER: Really fun giant trainwreck ladder match, that went a little long and had some expected problems with slow climbing and guys disappearing. But the highs were high and made this an easy win. I loved having a couple of monsters in there, and Sullivan/Dane each had nice showings, and I loved the atmosphere building to their big Godzilla vs. King Kong moment, and them bealing Ricochet across the ring towards each other like those monsters throwing a tree at a helicopter. But everybody got nice individual showcases and all performed well. Adam Cole isn't my favorite guy but I thought he came off well here, thought the timing on all the superkicks was nice (with Ricochet setting up the big springboard into kick). Dream has nice whipping right hands and just about the most gorgeous top rope elbow ever, tons of hang time, tons of grace, tight compact landing, really a treat to watch him fly as far as he does. Sullivan was really good glue throughout, as he kept being held at bay by big moves, but he was looming there as a presence the entire time. EC3 and Cole wisely team up to take Lars out, and I liked this big ape getting pinned into the corner by having a huge ladder slammed into his guy. The big moments are big and certainly memorable, with Sullivan and Dain both setting up huge slams from the apron through ladders (really amused by Cole getting grabbed by Dain and Dain just butt splashing through a ladder). Ricochet springboards into Sullivan while Lars is climbing a ladder, looks like they were going to attempt Ricochet latching on and scrambling over him, but the ladder tips and both end up in a messy painful tangle. Ricochet hits an insane spot, moonsaulting off a ladder to guys on the floor, while he's being tipped off a ladder, just amazing timing that could have easily seen him slip and die on the ropes. Too much cool stuff to list, also loved Cole hanging on to Dain during a Vader Bomb, and getting whiplashed violently upon landing. The "Everybody Climbing" moment was a bit much and the climbing in general was pretty lousy during this match (a lot of guys - especially Cole - looking up and reaching after they were two rungs off the mat), but you came for crashes and they found a ton of unique ways to crash.

Ember Moon vs. Shayna Bayzler

PAS: I thought this was spectacular, one of the better WWE women's matches I can remember seeing. Loved the story of Moon delivering the receipt by dislocating Bayzler's shoulder, such a nasty move loved how Moon escaped the same attempt early, and the fear on Bayzler's face when Moon was setting it up. Bayzler popping her shoulder back in by slamming her shoulder into the post was nuts, and an awesome bit of character work. You really don't see many matches where heels sell a body part, and it was really well done. Loved the finish with Bayzler countering the Eclipse and all of the fight Moon was putting on. Bayzler grabbing her hair because her shoulder was shot was so neat. I am a Bayzler mark from her early pro-wrestling matches, and this was her putting it all together and knocking out a classic.

ER: Yeah this one easily ranks among the best WWE women's matches of all time. This is far and away the most complete Baszler has looked and the two of them had an awesome clash. Moon has a ton of cool takedowns that could look bad with a klutz taking them, but Baszler goes down with a snap. I love the sliding trips Moon does, logic stuff I could see Finlay using, like log rolling into Baszler's shins to trip her. Baszler doesn't skimp on strikes (my gosh that boot between the shoulder blades, and punting Moon in the top of the head while she hung upside down) and you got this cool battle of flashy offense versus focused striker. The stuff around posting the arm was fantastic, the promo package really made it look like Baszler had been snapping arms in half for months, and the selling from both when they're about to get snapped was great. Moon looked terrified, and Baszler's facials really put over the danger. She's been using this dangerous weapon and now has it turned right back against her. Baszler's selling was so strong down the stretch, really elevated this even more. Ramming her shoulder in the post was a great visual, but her anguished screams were the REAL. Her faces in between shoulder rams were some of the best selling I've seen this year. The finish was great with that Eclipse counter into the rear naked. I love when someone counters a standard headlock takeover by keeping a wide base and refusing to go over, so the visual of Ember doing her awesome flip off the top...only to have Baszler completely block it with her neck muscles, so awesome. Both women's singles matches at Mania were awesome, and this one topped it.

Authors of Pain vs. Roderick Strong/Pete Dunne vs. Adam Cole/Kyle O'Reilly

PAS: This was fine, I like AOP as a pair of taller Hit Squad, and there was some fun spots by everyone in the match. Hadn't seen Strong in forever, but he looked fine. I thought O'Reily had a couple of nice moments, but there was some bad stuff, his little slap fight with Dunne was pretty cringey. I imagine if I had watched more NXT the Strong heel turn would have meant more, but coming in cold it left me cold. Undisputed Era are just so cornball. Not bad, and if it is the worst match on this show it's a hell of a show

Aleister Black vs. Andrade "Cien" Almas

ER: Another absolute banger of a title match from Cien. Almas and Vega are legitimately one of my all time wrestler/manager duos in wrestling history, they make such a perfect team. Almas is so good in this role, playing an opportunistic heel who also goes aggressively after big moves that might backfire. He is currently the best "going in for the kill" wrestler out there. Vega is an all time great at interfering in matches. Her interference is super fast, timed to precision, done so flawlessly that nobody has to stall or keep their eyes averted longer than normal, just a series of quick in & out hits. I don't think there is currently a better big match worker than Almas in the world. I liked Black in this, but this was the Almas/Vega show and Black was competently along for the ride. Big match Almas layouts are so terrific about building to several peaks, sneaking in moments where you're positive something will backfire only to have it play out a way you didn't expect, and the Vega interference always is used perfectly.

Black has great flash to start, cool strike combos that are mixed up so that his opponent never has to look like a guy just standing and eating strikes. Black is also one of the best guys at incorporating moonsaults into a match/ His moonsaults are fast and rotate low, they aren't high and loopy, and it totally works when he chases Almas out of the ring only to scramble to the other side and nail him with a fast low moonsault, and back in locks in a painful octopus variation. So Black establishes early but Almas and Vega are just too good at building to moments. All of the Vega interference lead to something big, her running off the apron and sending Black into the steps with a rana, spiking him with a rana in the ring when Almas is trying to use the title as a weapon, yanking Black's boot on the outside allowing Almas to set up the running double knees on the apron, all her interference is perfect and actually leads to big momentum swings. Almas is really great at missing as big as he hits; he'll wreck you with those double knees, but he'll fly hard into the corner when he misses those knees. We get a cool Almas offense run with a snap German out of the corner and a wild tornillo from the middle rope to the floor, The nearfalls in this are bananas and build so well, first that Vega spike rana, then a scramble leading to Black hitting Black Mass, but some more expert Vega involvement when she gets Almas' foot on the ropes. Her saves and teamwork are so key to the duo, it's really difficult to rate Almas on his own. He'd be great solo, but her involvement adds so much to his big singles matches. The offense keeps ramping up with a huge Almas double stomp to the floor, and we even get a great moment off of a move that basically missed: Black goes for a big flip dive and overshoots, throws Almas back in the ring, but Almas hits the Hammerlock DDT, and I would have bet money on that being the pin. Now, they probably would be doing that spot whether the tope con giro hit or missed, but the fact that it mostly whiffed made this spot so much better, as Black threw Almas back into the ring as if he had the advantage, but Almas capitalized as the move hadn't hurt him much. The actual finish is perfect though, with Vega's interference finally blows up, as she gets desperate and goes for a crossbody, Black ducks, Almas has to catch her, and BOOM Black Mass spin kick. The finish really paid off so many months of Vega interference, and I just loved this whole thing. Someone tell me they have a handheld of any of the Vega/Almas vs. Gargano Familia house show matches?

PAS: Man is Almas putting in a heck of WOTY candidacy for 2018. His timing on spots is totally great, he and Vega always seem to be perfectly in place to capitalize on a wobble or misstep. He is also great at getting stunned and wobbled and selling frustration. His offense isn't fancy, but it is great looking, I think the coolest move of the entire match was Almas catching Black mid spin and dropkicking him right in the back of the head, which Black sold like he was concussed. Timing was perfect, impact looked brutal, selling was on point. Vega is a champ too, her rana's look credible and land violent, and she is a tremendous asset to the match. Finish was great, Vega has been the secret weapon for the entire title reign so it was perfect that she cost Almas the title in that way. Black has really offense and nice selling, but he felt a bit like a passenger. I really want Almas to get the title back and just go on a year long title run, I think a rudo this skilled could really do something awesome with Ricochet, and Almas vs. Velveteen Dream could bang too.

Tomasso Ciampa vs. Johnny Gargano

PAS: Gargano is really great at taking match tropes I dislike and turning them into undeniably great matches. His Almas match was pretty much the apex of near fall 2010s wrestling, this match was the apex of over dramatic WWE Emo main events. You could see the nadir the next night at Wrestlemania with Cedric Alexander and Mustafa Ali yelling "Show me the heart" and "Show me the Soul" during a heatless nonsense Cruiserweight title match. This match had those tropes. Gargano and Ciampa yelling "This is my moment", the whole finish with Gargano hesitating before putting down Ciampa, but this was a two year story they were paying off and both guys are much better facial sellers then your normal wrestler. The look of defeat on Ciampa's swollen face as he looked up at Gargano was really demonstrative, he really looked like a guy staring into the abyss he created. The work in here was really brutal too, both guys ended up with pretty bad facial swelling from those slaps and kicks, Ciampa looked like he was trying to pulp Gargano's skull with those stomps to the back of his head, and both the suplex on the floor and the powerbomb on the floor were nasty and sold like it. I do think this went a bit long, they could have hit all the emotional beats and big spots with five less minutes, but it is hard to argue with the crazy year Gargano is having, and that is coming from a pretty big indy Gargano skeptic.

ER: I loved this, a great violent emotional spectacle that required compelling acting, and the acting was good enough that the ending staredown had me pulled in all of the directions. I wanted them to hug, I wanted them to get coffee, I wanted Gargano to murder Ciampa, I wanted it all, and I love the direction the took it. This show had a crazy violent 6 man ladder car crash that went 30 minutes, and 2 hours later they had to go out and have a violent match at the end of an already long weekend, after everybody in the building saw numerous people go through tables and ladders and fall from great heights. There's a scenario where you could easily see the crowd burnt out for this match, but Gargano and Ciampa did not give anyone a minute to feel burnt out. While I did think things went on a bit too long overall, I thought they filled the time admirably, and it really makes me wonder if I just completely missed on liking Gargano on the indies, or if he's just gotten really, really great in NXT. Because he is, that.

They built to everything so nicely here, and the big moments felt huge. Ciampa was great at showing frustration through rushing, and I thought it played great, things like trying to rip the floor mats up while still standing on it, or ripping all the monitors up and getting somewhat tangled in the cords; he wanted to wreck Gargano and he didn't plan on being patient about it. Both guys laid it in and I liked that there was actual struggle to the stand and trade, with Gargano's punches and elbows looking especially sharp (Ciampa looked like he had battled a swarm of bees by the end of the match). The big spots were big and used well, that suplex off the table sounded bone breaking, and the powerbomb onto concrete sounded like when I dropped a watermelon on my sidewalk when unloading groceries. It should also be noted that we had the only great use EVER of the "You deserve it chant", directed at Ciampa after he got powerbombed. The big Gargano Escape tease was great, truly could have seen Ciampa tapping there once Gargano shoved off the ropes, but you knew we would end bigger, and Ciampa breaking it with a brutal eye rake/nose rip was important. The weapons attacks were all cool, far more interesting than the typical tables and chairs stuff. You knew the crutches were coming into play, but I hadn't considered the leg brace. Everything with the leg brace was savage and looked far meaner than any Singapore cane shot I've seen. The ending was so well done that I didn't know what was about to happen: Was Ciampa genuine? Was Gargano wanting a polite resolution? Were we going to bookend all of this with another lean-in hug on the mat? Ciampa goes for his pistol and Gargano was smart enough to suspect he would, and the final Gargano Escape with the leg brace smothering Ciampa's face was an awesome final visual. Both guys knocked this out of the park.


ER: What more could you want out of a pro wrestling show? I cannot remember a wrestling show that had two matches I loved as much as Almas/Black and Gargano/Ciampa (maybe Royal Rumble 2007?) but throw in an all time great WWE women's match and a great ladder scramble and this show should be viewed as legendary. Four of the five matches are easy adds to our 2018 Ongoing MOTY List, and they all lived up to some potentially hyperbolic hype. If you've somehow not watched this show, I could not imagine recommending something more.

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NXT Sacramento LIVE REPORT 8/12/17

I couldn't make it to the San Jose show on 8/11 (driving to San Jose during Friday rush hour traffic? It would have taken 3.5 hours), so Rachel and I drove to the Sacramento show on 8/12. I have the historic worst luck with driving to Sac. It's always something. Road closures, massive rain storms, accidents that cause huge traffic delays, literally every time I drive to Sac it's a non-stop stream of omens telling me to never return. Last night was no different, filled with accidents causing traffic delays, and getting trapped in Sac post-show due to freeway onramps being closed for construction. The detour signs literally lead in a loop around Sac. It was a disaster. It felt like we were being sealed inside Sac like some kind of Escape from NY colony.

But the show itself was great, and the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium might be my favorite wrestling venue. It's been around for decades, has killer concert posters from old acts that played there, such as "The Beach Boys - America's #1 Surf Band!" There were two Beach Boys shows, a "pre-teens and childrens" matinee with "one parents admitted free per child" and "25 FREE LPs given away per concert!" The tickets were $1.75 in advance and $2 at the door. WTF?? Even with inflation that's like $15! They also have great posters for other shows there, the Dead playing 12/22/70 (a show with no known tapes!), great blown up photos of The Clash and Zappa (not playing together, obviously), just a cool old venue, tons of original beautiful moldings, weird quirks like having to go down a few flights of stairs to use the bathrooms (people in wheelchairs had to use employee bathrooms!), genuinely classy and classic place to see pro wrestling.

We showed up right as the first match was starting, bought the cheap $20 seats, and really the balcony is a perfect view at this venue. We were lined up perfectly with the ring on the left side (looking from the entrance):

1. Andrade Almas vs. No Way Jose

ER: Good opener, Jose has been way over with live crowds both times I've seen him. Almas works almost nothing like he did as La Sombra, I don't think he even does as many highspots as Albert Del Rio. But he looked good and was almost playing up a low rent WWE Eddie Guerrero sneaky heel. He bumped big for Jose (including a great bump to the floor into the railing) and ate the pop-up KO punch great, made it look like a deserving finisher.

2. Ruby Riot/Sarah Logan vs. Sonya Deville/Mandy Rose

ER: This might have actually been my favorite match of the night (this or the women's title 3 way), which I wouldn't have expected had I seen the specific match listing before the show. But I came away really impressed with the Deville/Rose team. Deville may have actually been my favorite performer of the night, but both were great as a team. Both really knew how to work from the apron, better than almost anyone else on the show. Deville especially was awesome, always throwing cheap shots (even ones that weren't meant to land, just always keeping the idea there) and was smart at how she moved around the ringpost to attack. Rose kept fans in the front engaged while not distracting from the match, both had good timing on their sneak shots. I think a couple of Deville's nastiest strikes came while she was on the apron, namely Riot getting tossed into the ropes and Deville laying a kick right into her lower back. Riot was a great FIP and we got two versions of a spot I really love, the babyface trying to leap to the hot tag but getting caught in midair by the heel, and those seconds spent with the face caught but still tryyyying to reach for that tag but falling short. The way they handled it was great: Riot ran for the tag but Deville caught her, Riot coming really close to a tag (and Logan doing a great job of reaching for the tag while still being mindful of the tag rope), but Deville threw her off. Riot caught up and charged back looking to do the same, and Deville just speared her out of the air. Awesome spot. Rose bumps really acutely as a heel, she whips over super fast on armdrags, really making the faces look like superheroes. Logan I had never seen before (she appeared to be working a female Skinner Steve Keirn gimmick, or maybe a girl you would talk to at a small town tailgate party) and wasn't too impressed; she didn't really know what to do on the apron, and had a kind of stilted hot tag. But Rose worked around it fine and I came away really loving the match.

3. Oney Lorcan vs. Lars Sullivan

ER: Lorcan wasn't announced ahead of time for these shows (and they announced like 18 people), so I wasn't expecting him, so he was quite the pleasant surprise. He's definitely one of my favorites and the crowd was into him. Lars was a guy I had never heard of before, and the dude is a monster. He looks like Nate Diaz, if Nate Diaz had grown to hideous proportions by chugging Venom all day in Arkham Asylum. It was a fairly short match with Lars dominating, and while the guy is super green he still looked impressive. We got two different press slam spots (and I love press slam spots), with him pressing Lorcan from the floor into the ring, and him holding up a delayed slam in the ring. Lorcan gets a couple nice moments, like him switching his weight on a slam to maneuver into a sleeper, but the match peaked once he snapped and started going off on Sullivan. Lorcan started flying wildly into him with his awesome uppercuts, grabbed Lars by the beard and started slapping the hell out of him, but then flies off the ropes for another uppercut and gets demolished by a lariat. Sullivan wins with a huge uranage (does another after the match for good measure), but I was hoping for ONE more Lorcan hope spot; if he had reversed that uranage into a guillotine choke or DDT, before the inevitable Lars win, this could have been MOTN. As it was, it was still a blast.

4. Kassius Ohno vs. Killian Dain

ER: Ohno is rocking the Sac Kings gear and Dain...is another of those War Machine Hanson types who is big and burly and hoss-like but usually doesn't come off like a hoss. I keep getting tricked by this guy as my brain goes "OH GREAT a big fat hairy guy" but then I remember that I've never actually seen a Big Damo match that I liked. He doesn't have great strikes, but he still has a higher floor than most guys because he has moments where he uses his fat. Being fat and using your fat will get at least some reaction from me. Ohno was the reason to watch this and Hero as Buddy Rose is extremely entertaining. This could have been more of a bomb throwing hoss battle, but what we got was good stuff. Dain is kind of a lousy seller, and doesn't take very interesting bumps, but he leaned into plenty of elbows and kicks from Ohno, and as one would expect Ohno's elbows and kicks loosened jaws. Ohno had some fun show off moments, like his rope flip Misawa feint, and still nuttily busting out his handspring from in the ring to the apron to the floor. He does that and blasts Dain in the jaw, I flip out. I still don't know how Ohno makes his roundhouse pump kick look so good, but it always does. We get both men using fat guy sentons, Ohno does a great elbow pad removal before attempting a killshot (you all know how much I love Lawler taking down the strap, Valentine moving the shin guard, etc., so Ohno tossing the pad is 8 stars from me), Hero misses a great moonsault (and calls his shot by pointing at Dain through his legs from up top!), Dain finishes with a nice Vader bomb (got good and horizontal), and more good spots that I'm forgetting. I don't think we could have expected a better match from these two, so I was plenty pleased.

5. Nikki Cross vs. Ember Moon vs. Asuka

ER: This was my other contender for favorite of the night, even with the 3 way aspect kind of making itself known too often. I'll give credit to all the gals involved for busting ass and getting around the stip. Even though there WAS a lot of "person sells on floor longer than normal so other two can work", they got to those moments in quality ways. I hate in a 3 way where someone is in the ring having a normal match, then takes a move, holds their midsection and rolls to the floor for a few minutes. It's so unnatural. Nobody ever does that in a singles match. Here the attacks themselves actually knocked the person to the floor, with the best being Asuka doing a baseball slide dropkick on Nikki but Nikki catching her in the apron skirt and clubbering her to a pulp. All three women looked great, with Asuka looking like a superstar. She has awesome charisma, I like her moveset, great look, and she has no problem leaning into strikes. I did think Nikki's frayed bootcut jeans were a little amateur, but she seems like she wrestles like a female Dean Ambrose, so I guess it fits. And she's probably better than current Dean Ambrose so why not. Asuka landed some nice hip attacks and locked in a sick abdominal stretch/cravate, Cross and Moon both had some nice respective clubbing forearms and kicks, but surprisingly the real good moments of the match happened with all three in the ring. We got a superplex/powerbomb spots, which are a little played out at this point, but a superplex is always going to look nasty. Best spot was a beautifully timed moment where Cross was getting back into the ring but got nailed with a running butt attack by Asuka, knocking her into the guardrail. It leaves Asuka sitting on the middle rope (where she made contact), and one beat later Moon nails her with a superkick (and it was the nastiest strike of the night, even factoring in Lorcan and Ohno). The hit all the beats perfectly, sequence of the night. The end involving all three was also great, with Moon hitting the eclipse, really nasty finish that Cross made look like a whiplash inducing snap. Asuka runs in from the floor, attacks Moon, throws her to the floor, vultures the win. It doesn't sound special, but the timing was so exact that it was a great finish. The misdirection was strong, it genuinely looked like Moon could get the win, and Asuka made it in, tossed Moon, and stole the win in perfectly believable bam bam bam timing. Great stuff.

6. SAnitY (Eric Young/Alexander Wolfe) vs. Authors of Pain

ER: Well, Authors of Pain still stink. These guys are a bad Ascension, and you can see how well Ascension have done on the main roster (they do probably have better looks than Ascension, so that may help them). This whole thing started pretty ugly with a before-the-bell brawl that was supposed to look unhinged, but just looked like four guys throwing mostly bad punches. Wolfe's punches especially looked terrible. BUT he was redeemed later. So let's skip to later, because this match was dry as a desert. AoP had dud control segments, though EY is still a good face bumper. I had written most of this off, but then EY got the hot tag and Wolfe had an actual good hot tag run. His timing was on point and his energetic elbows and clotheslines and house on fire offense was surprisingly effective. We built to a couple nifty nearfalls, and AoP won the match by DQ by dragging ref Drake Younger out of the ring and punching him. So, pretty lame. BUT, then Wolfe hits a wild flip dive and EY hits a fast bullet tope, so for a match with a cheap finish it sure exited the ring better than it entered. Salvaged.

7. Hideo Itami vs. Johnny Gargano

ER: I'm sure many would say this was the match of the night, and I liked the first half, but once it devolved into sexy dance fighting and clumsily set-up signature offense I think it got a little cold. The early parts were worked slower, with Itami grinding in headlocks and playing an amusing "Budro not wearing kneepads" stalling house heel, avoiding contact and rolling to the floor to avoid stuff. I was digging it. Itami kept taking nice little bumps to the floor, landing in painful ways, falling into the railing, great bullshit. But at a certain point went into our rehearsed we're having a real WAR part of the evening, with unnatural spot set up and strike exchanges and dramatic kickouts that weren't dramatic. Itami still has a bunch of holdover 2004 offense, nowhere near as good as his stalling heel work. Gargano gets into the ring, Itami stops him with a nice kick to the chest. Then Gargano has to act like he's stuck entering the ring, hanging in the ropes, for 10 seconds so Itami can stomp him off the ropes. The stomp looked nasty, the landing rough, but the set up is just absurd in 2017. Gargano has a bunch of smaller versions of those moments, unnaturally rushing over to roll Itami over so Gargano can hit his sliding pivot kick, or getting kicked into place just so he can deliver a strike in a certain way. It's unnatural and silly. The finish was at least hot, as I liked the reversal. Itami went for the Go 2 Sleep, Gargano caught his knee on the way down and locked in the Gargano escape. The crowd even seemed to get more robotic during the "hot strikes" section, doing a lethargic "This is Awesome" chant (though this match was the first match back after intermission, so I don't think I can fully blame the crowds lethargy on their robotic match structure).

8. Roderick Strong/Aleister Black/Drew McIntyre vs. Riddick Moss/Tino Sabbatelli/Bobby Roode

ER: This really had to win me over, as entrances alone took 16 minutes. I knew I had a 2.5 hour drive back home, and it was already 10:15. Jesus, Aleister, walk a little bit faster to the ring. So the entrances take an eternity, I was ready to dump all over the match, but everybody really busted their ass. I expected nothing from Moss and Tino, two guys who you might recognize from their trick bartending work at The White Swallow, but they were really great at feeding all the face team offense and stooging around, nicely playing off Roode's stooging. They acted like Roode acolytes and it was amusing the way Roode kept throwing them to the wolves. Strong looked great here, and it's kind of wild to think that my favorite period of Strong's career has been the last 2-3 years. He's been around so long, I just think he's really finetuned his game. His chops blister and he's great at crowd control in a busy match like this. And those backbreakers still break. Aleister Black worked stiff and did some nutty stuff on a non-taped house show, peaking when he hit a moonsault to the floor on Moss & Tino. Roode kept trying to avoid McIntyre the whole match, rolling to the floor, even getting shoved back towards the ring by an older woman at one point (A STUNT GRANNY!?!?). All three heels did some inspired apron work, acting like great meatheads. We got a hot sequence where everybody hits their finisher, where one guy hits his, then he takes the next guy's and so on. WWE is always pretty shockingly great at the timing of those and this was no different. Tino makes it work by running fast into McIntyre's shotgun knee, but the whole thing was hot. Again, I was pretty tired at this point, just sat through an intermission and the two weakest matches of the night and THEN 16 minutes of ring entrance...but they won me back over. No small feat.

Another great NXT house show, I really hope they keep doing these so that I can see them once a year. According to special live guest William Regal, he was happy that they got 1,500+ people there, since early NXT shows "did 50 people on a good night". Is he acting like NXT used to play smoky bingo halls until they took them to the big time?? But this show was a great time, filled with a crowd that loves pro wrestling, watched in a great old wrestling venue. Yes, please.

Oh, and a final shoutout to the NXT ring announcer, who had no protected seat so had to sit right at ringside with the ring bell, and ran around ringside away from the action all night in very high heels. She put on a Julie Newmar-esque performance of high heel running and irked facials.

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