2020 Ongoing MOTY List: Imperium vs. Carter/Smith

67. Marcel Barthel/Fabian Aichner vs. Oliver Carter/Ashton Smith NXT UK 3/7 (Aired 3/26/20)

ER: Marcel Barthel is someone I wished showed up on TV far more often, and if more people saw performances like this it would certainly get others to agree. This was a good tag that built to some nice near falls and close calls, gave us a couple different unexpected outcomes on familiar moments, and played as a great showcase for Martel in particular. but also the impeccable timing of Aichner. It starts with Barthel grounding Carter and crossing his ankles in an Indian deathlock, and I loved how Barthel kept finding ways to keep a lock on Carter's ankles while Carter kept trying to shake him. Carter is a flier and I liked how Imperium kept trying to prevent him from leaving his feet, making it mean a little bit more when he was able to pull off stuff like his backdrop splash (with Carter rolling onto Smith's back on the apron and then getting a boost flipping back from the apron into the ring). 

Barthel took three big bumps to the floor during the match, taking a fast flipping bump after getting juked by Carter, and later getting shoved off the top rope by Smith while setting up a European Bomb. Barthel brought speed and meanness and Aichner was more of a cudgel, and they show how fun simply cutting Carter off from Smith can be. I really like Imperium's double corner dropkick, with Aichner tying up Carter in the ropes and flipping him upside down, both of Imperium flying in from opposite corners. We knew it was all building to Smith coming in and wrecking them, and I liked little twists on the familiar, like when Aichner was working over Carter and turned to cheapshot Smith on the apron, except Smith saw it coming and socked Aichner first. That's a cool way to set up a hot tag, much more unique than two guys slow crawling to their corners at the same time while one looks over their shoulder. Carter's rana reversal as Aichner was setting up the European Bomb was done really well, an excellent nearfall. With Barthel getting shoved to the floor and the way Carter hooked that pin deep made me certain that was the upset finish. Carter was really good at making the most out of those spots, and that kind of thing sets a TV tag like this apart, even when he got planted by that European Bomb just a few moments later.

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

NXT UK TakeOver: Blackpool II 1/12/20

Trent Seven vs. Eddie Dennis

ER: Eddie Dennis has a wild set of reptile gear, full boots and toxic slime green snakeskin like he's some kind of early 90s straight to video punk. It's glorious. I like him and Seven as a match up, and there's some explosive stuff. The match starts with a wicked one armed powerbomb by Seven, planting Dennis after catching him charging in. Dennis takes Seven's offense really well, bouncing right off his head on a DDT, getting dumped to the floor with a snap German. But Seven's punishment gets even better with a fast tope and and a snapdragon suplex on the floor. Their pace is really impressive for the level of big moves they're piling up. It's like a weird crazy WCW Power Plant match if they only studied NOAH tapes, with some forearms and big flipping slightly complicated slams, threats of Burning Hammers and Emerald Flowsions, and Seven hitting a right forearm in the corner as hard as Misawa's best. There are a bunch of big complicated slams, and the absolute craziness peaks when Dennis launches Seven with a Razor's Edge to the floor like he was Mike Awesome. Totally crazy spot to lead to a finish, not like any other finish I've seen on NXT UK. This was a cool ass 8 minute gem, really scrappy and portent, filled with big slams and cool bumps. Hot as hell start to a TakeOver. 

Toni Storm vs. Piper Niven vs. Kay Lee Ray

ER: I really hated how they turned this match into a 3 way. I love Toni, but she felt like a real third wheel in the build to this match, and in the match itself. Niven won the title shot, and then the week before TakeOver Storm just demands Niven let her have the match, and then they put her in the match just because she said she should be in the match! It's awful wrestling storytelling, but she's also a kind of necessary distraction in the match, and allowed them to do some big things that would have felt silly to kick out of. I hate 3 ways as a rule, but they actually kept things at a great pace to start. Niven works really well in a 3 way, as one of her issues is insisting on working fast paced singles without always keeping pace. Here she's able to pace things out and is a great wrecking ball. Niven flattens Ray with a tope and misses a fast cannonball into the barricade, but is back to flattening when she breaks up a pin with a senton. The match gets pretty bad the more melodramatic they got, with dumb stuff like Ray finding a chair under the ring and choking Storm while showing tons of light on the choke, or a big dumb face off between Storm and Niven where the camera framed them. The "making movies" thing can be real painful, but when they went back to being dangerous things got good again. Nigel on commentary calls Kay Lee Ray the "Glaswegian Sabu" at one point, which sounds near blasphemous, but when she hits a somersault plancha to the floor and bounces her legs off the barricade and head off the floor, then breaks up a pin by spiking herself with a somersault senton, this could be an Actual Thing. She looked like she under-rotated on a crazy senton, and then took a powerbomb right after. That's nuts. Storm gets to visually beat Niven before Ray superkicks her off, and I guess now that sets up Storm/Niven which feels reductive, since Storm just shoehorned herself in to begin with. There was some really good stuff here though, a lot of it. This was actually my favorite match of either Niven or Ray in NXT UK, and Storm facilitated some of that. 

Tyler Bate vs. Jordan Devlin

ER: This was a big match with a big payoff and big in-match build, a singles match that actually felt mostly worthy of the long TakeOver match lengths. I think Devlin put his time in well, liked how a lot of the offense built, I mainly just didn't like the ways Bate would just pop up to start his own sequences. Now, Devlin works around most of that really well, finding fun ways to set up Bate's comebacks. Devlin kept using the ropes in fun ways, like cutting off a Bate dive and nailing a nice rope flip moonsault, choking him in the ropes, also getting caught in a torture rack-type fireman's carry when he went to slingshot in with a cutter. Devlin, unsurprisingly, was a real asshole here. He mocked Bate and added some extra sauce to holds and strikes, the best being Devlin dragging Bate down into a Romero surfboard, then bending back on Bate's chin until they were staring eye to eye, sicko stuff.  

Devlin is good at working enough actual offense that reversals of that offense actually make sense, and Bate is good at stepping up with someone like that. I do think it veered into move trading, with Bate constantly need to shrug off whatever had just happened to him to hop up and do something impressive, but luckily Devlin is good at facilitating those hop-ups and Bate can break out something impressive. Bate does an airplane spin that starts slow and ugly and looks like it will be a dud, but keeps going and going and by the end I loved how Bate started with a bit of struggle and then kept building speed. By the time he dropped Devlin I was dizzy on my couch, which sounds stupid, but I'm not sure I've seen someone do an airplane spin this fast. Devlin had smart counters to expected Bate offense, dropping him with a cutter to the apron that almost leads to a count out win (with Devlin amusingly kicking him around 8 to keep Bate out longer), and nailing him with a Spanish Fly to counter a Bate charge. Devlin incorporated a lot of learned behavior into reversals, but Bate mostly just took big moves and then decided to do his own moves. This was the match with the somewhat infamous "punch out" spot, which I actually think is "not actually as shitty as it was made out to be". It's kind of hilarious to me that of all spots, Bate and Devlin doing stand and trade got GIF'd and laughed at, because most feds run shows with worse standing exchanges up and down the card. Do Tyler Bate's arms look short and silly when he swings them? Short? Always. Silly? Sometimes. Give me a punch exchange like this every single time over turn taking elbows and forearms. I liked how some of their punches whiffed completely, because it's frankly silly when every strike in an exchange hits perfectly. Bate needed a big finish to firmly put away Devlin, and Devlin is always great at getting spiked on DDTs and flattened by powerbombs, and the crowd was along for every second of Devlin taking it. Perhaps this went too long

Mark Coffey/Wolfgang vs. Fabian Aichner/Marcel Barthel vs. James Drake/Zack Gibson vs. Flash Morgan Webster/Mark Andrews

ER: So, this match was insane. This was easily one of the greatest highspot ladder matches in history, not just WWE history. This was 25 minutes - normally a match length that I would argue is completely unnecessary for *most* matches - but due to the furious pace that this things was worked, I was shocked at how "long" the match was when it was over. This does not feel like a 25 minute match, because from minute one every single person is flying around the ring at breakneck speed taking bumps that surely shaved months/years off their careers/lives, and I don't think that pace even took a slight break until the 18 minute mark. Not only did they work wall to wall crazy spots and dangerous moments, but they did a great job of making every team seem like they could walk away with the belts. I thought they did so well without the ladders, chaining offense together faster and faster, utilizing all 8 guys to give proper rest and generally avoiding guys ignoring damage to get to the next spot in time, that I was kind of dreading this becoming a climbing contest when it settled down. So, they opted to never settle the match down, using the ladders at first in familiar ways, but then doing twists on familiar ladder match spots before exploding with some things I've never seen before. 

It is completely pointless to detail all of the spots that happened in this match, because it would take me twice as long to type everything than it would take you to find and watch the match. One of the cooler aspects was that every team in the match, worked like a team. They all had tandem offense that was not always their typical tandem offense, remixing some spots and adding in ladders to others, and all the teams actually felt like they had individual strategies. They kept the spot set-up time to a minimum, and when they did one gigantic crash spot that had everyone fall like dominoes, prolonging the punishment instead of everybody just landing like shit from one giant tower powerbomb. It's tough to pick a standout, but I really liked Wolfgang a ton. He's the guy doing crazy spots while also shaking his arm out after punches. Yeah, he'll throw big ass Mark Coffey over the top rope onto everyone and then vault out himself to powerslam Drake on the entrance ramp. But, while men lay dying on the battlefield around him, he's still remembering to sell that his fist hurts, and I love it. So Wolfgang was probably my favorite, but this was a team effort. Every guy got at least one big moment (at LEAST). Mark Andrews hit a perfect shooting star press off the ladder onto Coffey, he and Webster hit a wild tandem somersault senton off a very high ladder, and Grizzled Young Vets seemed to be on the end of all the worst punishments, especially poor James Drake. Drake got smashed with ladders and under ladders and under bodies so many times, poor guy spent most of the match kicking his legs and holding his insides. Imperium looked like real beasts, squeezing their double teams into a ladder landscape even better than the others, Barthel tossing smaller guys off the ladders into waiting arms of Aichner so they could be dropped on their heads. 

It's a match with nothing but great spots, but my favorite had to be Imperium punishing Webster. With Webster laid on a ladder, which had been propped up on the ropes, Barthel holds Webster down so Aichner can hit a springboard moonsault, with Barthel rolling OVER Webster at the last minute TOWARDS Aichner's moonsault, so he wouldn't be standing where Aichner's boots were going to whip. I mentioned the car crash spot, and it really was great. They brought 5 or 6 ladders into the ring, everyone was climbing on them and climbing over each other like World War Z, one guy getting knocked to the mat here, Barthel getting knocked all the way to the floor there, Webster amusingly setting up his ladder so it smashes Gibson in between his own ladder, total madness. Wolfgang goes bet mode down the stretch and spears Aichner so hard into a ladder that the ladder breaks into 4 pieces. I don't think I've ever seen a ladder snap right in half during one of these matches, even when someone falls onto one from a great height. I thought I was pretty burnt out on stunt ladder matches, but this one had me from go and was absolutely relentless. 

WALTER vs. Joe Coffey

ER: I thought this was a pretty great 17 minute main event that made the decision to be a 27 minute main event, and treated that extra 10 minutes as if the previous 17 were just a dream. It was admittedly a bit odd how the match seemed to position Joe Coffey as the babyface and WALTER as kind of a generic heel , but I liked the actual ring work a lot. WALTER worked this mostly as a big chopping monster, and Coffey was the smaller "babyface" who kept trying and throwing WALTER with suplexes. WALTER is great at a big man getting knocked off his feet, and I loved how all of Coffey's suplexes looked like he was having trouble lifting WALTER, because he *should* be having a lot of trouble suplexing WALTER. WALTER wasn't hopping into any suplex and it ruled. If Coffey was going to hit a Saito suplex, it was going to be low to the ground with a heavy landing for both, making the suplexes look more like something you'd see in a Hashimoto/Red Bull Army match. There were a couple odd miscues every time WALTER threw a big boot (one that was supposed to hit did not at all; one that was supposed to miss, hit, and was treated as a miss anyway), but mostly it was WALTER throwing heavy chops while Coffey kept deadlifting WALTER on suplexes. WALTER threw hard elbows, cranked Coffey's neck, and worked a nice STF, Coffey hit a boss shoulderblock off the apron (flying at WALTER like a torpedo), fought for a big German suplex, and hit a surprising moonsault. 

When WALTER accidentally hit the ref with a John Woo dropkick (and the ref sold it like a drama queen rolling down a very soft incline), things mostly fell apart. Coffey gets an immediate visual pin off a powerbomb, Alexander Wolfe and Ilja Dragunov run down and get involved, Dragunov knocks Wolfe into Coffey and they basically do a full match restart for the remaining 10. Nothing felt like it mattered down the home stretch, and WALTER - who had just been "pinned" by a powerbomb moments before - now has several winds and the two trade moves until one of those moves wins the match. Every big move (WALTER powerbomb, Coffey avalanche belly to belly) was used as a way for the guy taking the move to transition back to offense, and there were more miscues like Coffey mostly missing a big clothesline and them just repeating the spot right after. After WALTER chokes out Coffey he had to give the biggest acting performance of his life, acting vaguely threatened by Adam Cole. Cole looked tinier than both referees and the camera angles made it looked like a small child ran into the ring after WALTER's win. 

This was a top to bottom great show, with the only bad 10 minutes being the last 10 minutes of the main event. Every other match was a total over-delivery, making this easily one of the best TakeOver events. WALTER/Coffey was probably the weakest overall match, and that was a match I really loved until it went crazy with the booking. Highly recommend this show. 

Best Matches: 

1. Tag Team Ladder Match

2. Jordan Devlin vs. Tyler Bate

3. Eddie Dennis vs. Trent Seven

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

Read more!

2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Imperium vs. Gallus

70. Marcel Barthel/Fabian Aichner vs. Wolfgang/Mark Coffey NXT UK 11/16 (Aired 12/12/19)

ER: My two favorite NXT UK teams were going to have a hard time living up to what I wanted this match to be, and yet, until the No Contest finish to set up the upcoming TakeOver match, they did. This match hits that perfect 12 minute NXT UK mark and is only lacking an actual finish. I wasn't sure how they were going to work the match, as both teams are heels in this setting. It settled into Imperium cutting Mark off from Wolfgang and I thought that was a cool choice. Aichner and Barthel are at their best when they're at their most aggressive, and I think Wolfgang is a really good fiery hot tag. Imperium hit like dynamite, whether they were swinging their arms at Gallus or taking big bumps to the floor. Aichner and Barthel both take great splat back bumps to the floor and Aichner takes one of the most consistently fast backdrops to the floor of anyone in wrestling. 

Everyone gets to throw their own hard contact into the mix: Coffey hits a great diving shoulderblock early in the match, Barthel throws full extension kicks, Aichner throws strikes with his entire body, and they still save some of that dynamite for Wolfgang's hot tag. It's a good one, with Aichner getting sent flying with a pounce and a spear, Barthel getting press slammed onto Aichner, and a cool in-ring moment that was almost surely an accident yet winds up adding a bit of depth to the match: Wolfgang went to flip over the ropes into the ring like he was Solar, and wound up running into the referee before getting to Aichner. Now, I'm sure Wolfgang was supposed to just flip right into Aichner's spinebuster, but I really liked the idea of Wolfgang only getting caught with a spinebuster *because* he inadvertently bumped into the ref. It added more to the match, showing how a brief distraction could swing the odds just 1-2%, which is a more interesting detail to add into a match than what otherwise would have been a very nice looking piece of chained offense. The match had plenty of excellently done chained explosions, and it was cool to see one of them get interrupted, whether intentionally or not. We don't get a good finish, as the match is used to build toward a big TakeOver defense, and it's a shame because the crowd was loud for this one from Wolfgang's hot tag on. Even without a real finish, I think this is the best NXT UK tag match through the first 75 episodes, and that's a cool feat. 

PAS: I am not particularly familiar with either of these teams, so I came in with no expectations, but man this was neat. Really hard hitting stuff, which added some real frisson to the big NXT finishing run. They do this cool spot where Barthel beats on Coffey in the corner so badly that the ref calls for the doctor to check him for a concussion, only to have Coffey stand back up and fire back. It is a spot which could have felt pretty hokey except Barthel really teed off on Coffey's skull and I kind of bought the concussion. We get a big hot tag and a series of big move near falls, all done well until the schmozz ending. The idea of Johnny Saint being the guy to call for the four way ladder match is pretty silly and I am sure that match wasn't as good as this. 

2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

Read more!

NXT UK Worth Watching: Wolfe! Aichner! Barthel! Boar!

Alexander Wolfe vs. Saxon Huxley NXT UK 9/1 (Aired 10/3/19) (Ep. #62)

ER: Wolfe is the coolest NXT UK guy who has barely been on NXT UK. He last wrestled two months ago and had one of the best matches in brand history (vs. Jordan Devlin). Now he shows back up and works a sick Fit Finlay WCW Thunder match. Huxley also hasn't been on in awhile (this was clearly a long day of tapings so they were digging deep into the roster by the time they had to fill this episode) and got the only consistent crowd reactions of his NXT UK time by happening to look like Jesus Christ. It's either going to be Vegan Brody, or Jesus, and Huxley's strappy Gladiator laced boots edged the comparison closer to the Bible than Texas. Both try to drag each other to the mat, Huxley holding Wolfe down after a headlock takeover. But Wolfe is always crafty without being cute, so he yoinks down Huxley's kneepad. When Huxley goes to fix it Wolfe kicks him in the face. Wolfe is a real asshole in control, working over Huxley's arm and knee, throwing him with a hard suplex, hitting a great enziguiri across Huxley's jaw, and the crowd was rooting for Jesus to make a comeback the whole time. It looked like Wolfe was just going to grind Huxley down, Huxley sprang onto him with a Thesz press. Wolfe is great at bumping around for Huxley's flash comeback, getting booted in the chest from the apron, but then typing Huxley into the ropes by dodging his next boot. Wolfe going for the kill is always memorable, and here he immediately bicycle kicks the stuck Huxley and tosses him with a German suplex (authentic!) and his best-in-wrestling sitout powerbomb. Put Wolfe on television more! 

Fabian Aichner/Marcel Barthel vs. Wild Boar/Primate NXT UK 10/4 (Aired 10/17/19) (Ep. #64)

ER: These teams were in a really good match on Episode 56, that was quite similar to this one. I said that match felt like the base level match these teams were capable of having, and this match felt like a better version under similar time constraints. NXT UK's sweet spot is the 7 minute match. Main Event and 205 Live also frequently utilize the 7 minute match, but the NXT UK roster hits that mark much better. This match had a real aggressive Aichner performance and a couple of nice nearfalls, easily enough to make this a nice memorable snack. Boar is really fun taking out Imperium and being beaten down by them. I loved his rolling tackle to take out Barthel at the shins, with the follow up senton while Barthel is on all fours recovering. Aichner catches a Primate tope impressively, then runs him straight into the ring steps and follows up with a running knee. They work over Boar with some stiff but simple offense, the best being a running Aichner clothesline that ran so hard into Boar that it should have separated Aichner's shoulder. The hot tag to Primate has a couple cool suplexes but he does that annoying thing where he tags in his tired partner 30 seconds after the hot tag. It's a hot tag trope I despise. Your boy just got worked over and your tagging him right back in? But these guys are smart and the match plays into that, with The Hunt going up for their diving headbutts only to see Boar get knocked off immediately by Barthel. The match went by quick but was good at adding in wrinkles. I thought that was going to be the end of the match, but we wound up with a nice Hunt nearfall when they finally do hit that headbutt, only for the pin to be broken up. Aichner is a great finisher, knows how to hit his big Saito suplex and European bomb with the confidence that it will be finishing the match. Aichner doesn't always do spectacular offense, but he runs into everything with such force that it makes a lot of other clotheslines and powerbombs look like child's play. 

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

Read more!

2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Allin vs. Aichner

106. Darby Allin vs. Fabian Aichner EVOLVE 1/18

ER: We loved basically every Darby Evolve match from his time there, and there are still a ton we hadn't seen. Evolve was a promotion I really loved while also a promotion that I didn't actually follow regularly. Fabian Aichner was the Evolve champ at one point? News to me, pal. Aichner has become one of my favorite WWE roster guys and this is him right after losing that Evolve title, and aiming to take all of his frustrations out on Darby's body. Like the greatest Darby Allin matches, a lot of this is his larger opponent (and Aichner was at the height of his beefiness in this match) hurling Allin disgustingly into hard walls and surfaces. Aichner got a lot of mileage out of literally just running Darby into the guardrails and turnbuckles, not even doing any actual offense, just running a man into things. His actual offense does look really great (if you can't make your offense look good against Allin, you should rethink your moveset), with some strike combos that really move Darby, a wicked pop-up powerslam, awesome brainbuster, powerbomb into the ringpost, all of it great. 

Darby picked his spots well, hitting a great low tope and dodging out of the way of an Aichner running knee, sending him patella first into the post. I really liked how they moved to the knee injury portion of the match, as it wasn't immediately after Aichner hit the post. Aichner rolled back in and went back to decimating Allin, with Darby only taking control when Aichner's knee buckled on a powerbomb and Darby landed with a Bombs Away, then went hard after Aichner's knee. I love how the match went from Aichner dominating, to Allin suddenly having this great in, to Aichner panicking and getting the hell out of there with his feet on the ropes. The finish was cool for a cheap finish, with Aichner essentially just throwing Allin off the top rope with an inside cradle. Allin went splat, Aichner used the feet for leverage, then walked off. It played nicely into their match the next night (where Aichner smashed Allin during his ring entrance) and I thought it was a cool way to run the same match on consecutive nights. 

PAS: I hadn't seen very much of Aichner before, but I enjoyed him as a meathead with fun power offense. He was a bit mechanical in between spots, but when he got his hands on Darby he brought Darby down really hard. I liked the delayed knee sell, I really bought that knee bar as a near fall. Darby is so fast, that staying with him is like trying to stay in front of Kyrie Irving. You throw a bum knee into that equation, you are drawing dead. It seemed like Aichner was out of answers, until he violently threw Darby down from the top rope and put his legs on the rope to steal one. Darby versus a strong guy is a really great match up and we need to see a John Silver match on Dark or something.   

2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

NXT UK Worth Watching: Barthel! Aichner! Primate! Boar! Conners! Oliver Carter!

Marcel Barthel/Fabian Aichner vs. Primate/Wild Board NXT UK 7/19 (Aired 8/21/19) (Ep. #56)

ER: This felt pretty base level for these two teams, but base level for these teams means that two of my favorite teams had a good tag match. This is probably our best Primate showing so far, getting to slam into Aichner before biting at his ear, throwing a big waterwheel suplex, then taking a crazy late match spinebuster on the apron to separate him from Boar. But this also felt like Imperium really starting to gel as an actual team, with Aichner dropping big spinebusters and slams, and Barthel coming in to crank limbs and throw mean kicks. Wild Boar absorbed a lot of those cruel shots, really got pulverized by the spinebuster/penalty kick combo while fighting back in cool ways (loved his senton to a hands and knees Aichner). The couple minute finishing stretch was really exciting and kept ramping up, with Barthel and Primate taking big bumps to the floor, and Boar hitting his cannonball then missing a gnarly spear sternum first into the middle buckle. Barthel flips him and gives him a brutal running kick while Boar is tied in the ropes, he and Aichner sandwich him with another kick, Aichner plants Primate with the spinebuster on the apron, and the nice flying back elbow into another Aichner spinebuster is the finish. I could have easily seen another 5+ minutes of this, as these teams have the material to add some extra beats. But i'm a big fan of the 6-10 minute NXT UK TV window, and this hit all the marks. 

Joseph Conners vs. Oliver Carter NXT UK 7/20 (Aired 8/28/19) (Ep. #57)

ER: One of the strengths of NXT UK is how well they cycle their roster. There are some guys who deserve to be featured more (like Tyson T-Bone, or Jinny), but the brand is mostly great at staggering debuts and quietly churning through the roster, keeping match-ups fresh and always building to something new. This match is something they do really well, which is giving a nice debut to one guy, while rehabbing a forgotten member of the roster at the same time. Conners hasn't been featured in any way in at least two months, and Carter is a guy with decent size making his debut, and it turns the match into a fun battle of "I have no clue where either of these guys are in the roster hierarchy". Carter works like a stiff Kofi Kingston, and I think that's a very good thing. He lands heavy uppercuts, a nice standing dropkick, super hard clotheslines, nasty double stomp, big belly to belly, works a nice showcase for a debut. Conners gets his showcase by leaning into all of Carter's offense and making him seem like a potential force, taking big bumps to the floor and into the ropes, while being good at cutting of Carter's offense and hitting his own good suplexes and clotheslines and a nice neckbreaker. I actually like the idea of debuting a guy with a loss. It's become far more common for WWE to debut someone with a title win than debut them with a hard fought loss, and the latter is far more interesting. Carter didn't come off worse losing to Conners (who has lost to many people), but instead this came off as a "welcome to the bigger leagues" match that played to the strengths of both. 

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

Read more!

NXT UK Worth Watching: OHNO! Imperium! Williams!

WALTER/Fabian Aichner/Marcel Barthel vs. Pete Dunne/Tyler Bate/Trent Seven NXT UK 4/20 (Aired 6/12/19) (Ep. #46)

ER: NXT UK really doesn't do many trios matches, and they have a roster that would really benefit from having some trios matches. I guess they really weren't part of traditional British wrestling (not sure I've ever seen a trios match from World of Sport, but there are a lot of things I've forgotten over the years so who knows), and there have only been a couple so far through 46 episodes of NXT UK. The highest floor NXT UK matches have strong pacing, and it's easier to pace out a trios. This was all really fun and the format made everyone's entrance into the match a little more exciting. A Pete Dunne hot tag is going to be better when he's able to tag in and hit a cool few things before being leveled by WALTER, and Bate is someone else who benefits from a tag that's not immediately stopped so he can get in all his moves. Imperium are good at controlling, sectioning off the ring, keeping things interesting by rotating guys through. WALTER felt like the real standout here, always there to cut someone off with a high kick, and his work with Dunne was especially noteworthy. WALTER is really good at setting up offense for people, and when Dunne tagged in - looking like he was just going to be getting his shit in - I loved how WALTER turned it into a much cooler segment by quickly sidestepping a moonsault and chopping Dunne in the back of his neck before locking in a rear naked. Aichner and Bartel threw themselves into their offense with gusto, like a nice Bartel kneedrop or a killer Aichner brainbuster. WALTER was really great at running things, all members of Mustache got to show off their strengths in quick bursts, with Seven chopping a great watercolor pattern on WALTER's chest, Bate getting a big double clothesline, nice dive from Seven, and then the debut of Alexander Wolfe finishes it. It's a played out way to debut someone, bring them in under a hood while announcers poorly feign confusion, but Wolfe sticks Bate with a nasty sitout powerbomb so I'm good. 

Kassius Ohno vs. Kenny Williams NXT UK 6/14 (Aired 6/19/19) (Ep. #47)

ER: Another great Ohno NXT UK performance, with him always finding ways to restrict himself during matches, always working a match specifically toward his opponent. His NXT UK run really feels like  the closest we can come to a genuine territory arrival. It has a real Finlay Return to the Indies feel to it, and that's a great feeling. Here he starts working over Williams' right arm, holding it clutched in his armpit while refusing to be shaken off. Williams tries to roll him off with an armdrag, Ohno rolls through with him and comes up trapping the same arm. Ohno put on a clinic of handless limb control, bending Williams' arm at the elbow just by moving his body. Just as I'm wondering how Kenny is going to get out of it he leaps up and grabs Ohno in a headscissors, forcing Ohno to rope break. I was wondering where Ohno was going to take the arm control, but instead Williams got cute with a sunset flip attempt and Ohno stomped him right on the underside of the jaw. 

And from then on Ohno does not give one good damn about Williams' arm, just wrecking Kenny with chops and strikes, hard boots, flattens him with a Finlay roll (there's that name again...), and comes up with several cool ways to shove Williams' throat into the ropes. I do think Williams took it down a bit with his comeback, breaking the nice rhythm they had going. There was just a bit too much hesitation with a few of his moves, and Ohno is someone with precise timing. Ohno's sequences are all tightly orchestrated, so it's obvious when Williams is making him wait too long on a mark. It's not super offensive, and he still manages a couple cool things like a multi step ankle pick, and it's mostly a strong pairing. Ohno hits knees on his senton after being too cocky, but I think Williams needed to work quicker than he did. It felt like Ohno had to sell too long for offense that looked like some of Williams' weakest. The worst offender was him doing a sloppy upside down rebound off the ropes (similar to a poor Jon Moxley night) and hitting a too pulled penalty kick after. I mean...he could have just kicked Ohno. He didn't need to navigate a ropes course before kicking him. 

Kenny hits a dive and waits a bit too long to hit a back elbow off the top into the ring, and things immediately get great again when Ohno cuts him off and aims to murder. Williams tries more silly flouncy rope tricks and Ohno rams him throat first into the ropes again, then doesn't waste time smashing him in the back of the head with a roaring elbow while Williams was still hung up in the ropes. These two match up again 9 months from now, in a match I saw before I saw this match. I think their second match is better, but they make a great set as both matches are very different. Ohno could have had unique matches with every member of the UK roster several times through. There's no reason this couldn't be the reality we are living right this moment. 

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

Read more!

NXT UK Worth Watching: Ohno! WALTER! Bartel! Aichner! Dennis! Williams!

Kassius Ohno vs. WALTER NXT UK 1/27 (Aired 2/27/19) (Ep. #31)

ER: Ohno is someone who can work tiny masterpieces in just 10 minutes, so of course these two get to the point quick and don't abuse nearfalls. No, instead they just hit each other, working in rhythm but doing things to break each other's rhythm. We got plenty of big chops, WALTER built to big kicks, Ohno tried to slow him down with a cravat, and occasionally he'd hit a nerve and WALTER would plow him over. Ohno took an almost Harley Race bump to the floor when WALTER kicked him in the ropes, and he kept trying to come back firing, with WALTER absorbing a bit while laying in wait. I loved Ohno hitting a senton on WALTER's arm when WALTER was rolling back in to the ring, and we get a fun sequence where WALTER grabs for a sleeper but Ohno blocks it by grabbing WALTER's arm and thumb. WALTER eventually gets that sleeper, Ohno grabs the ropes, but WALTER smacks his arms away and drops him with a German suplex. WALTER-as-weapon is always fun, and it was fortuitous that Nigel was comparing WALTER to young Andre, and not long afterward WALTER ran and flattened Ohno with a bombs away. Ohno's missed moonsault is an impressive spot, made more impressive when a WALTER dropkick sends him the rest of the way across the ring right after, and I am a huge fan of these under 10 minute Ohno matches that end with no overkill. They have a bigger war in them, but I was into these warning shots, and I think it's the best, most complete NXT UK match we've seen so far.

(This match landed on our 2019 Ongoing MOTY List. My review here has some additions and changes from the original.)

Eddie Dennis vs. Ligero NXT UK 2/23 (Aired 3/20/19) (Ep. #34)

ER: We've had some fun short Eddie Dennis matches against smaller guys, but they've mostly been under 5 minutes. This was the first substantial one and it was good, nice chemistry between he and Ligero. Some of Ligero's offense doesn't quite work against the taller Dennis. The set up on the lower rope cutter could have been better, and I wish that move wasn't a thing he did every match, it can feel a little shoehorned in. But Dennis is good at missing offense to set up Ligero, and things got really good when Dennis caught a Ligero dive and splatted him on the apron. Ligero really throws himself into the turnbuckles on Irish whips, Dennis works a nice cravat, and I think it's great that Dennis throws his clotheslines that miss the same way as the clotheslines that hit, makes everything mean more. Ligero's comeback works, because Dennis is smart in the ways he bumps around for him, including a nice bump to the floor to set up and awesome Ligero slingshot rana. We get a nice springboard splash and Ligero's code red was pulled off really well, but Dennis catches Liger with a great superplex and ends things a short while after. This was filled with a ton of moves, but they all felt smartly placed throughout, never drifting into back and forth. It felt like Dennis sold it all appropriately, Ligero really got planted by all of Dennis's big offense, and it ended right when it should have. They knew exactly how much material they had and they didn't overstuff it. 

Marcel Barthel/Fabian Aichner vs. Kenny Williams/Amir Jordan NXT UK 2/23 (Aired 4/3/19) (Ep. #36)

ER: I've said this several times before, but NXT UK really excels at the kind of match where one side gobbles up 80% of a match while the other side hangs on, and they know how to make that imbalance action packed and always interesting, even when the winner isn't in doubt. And yet sometimes there are surprises, and while they've been giving the Williams/Jordan team some surprise wins lately (their first wins on the brand), I was still surprised by the match ending twist. The bulk of the match was Aichner and Barthel dishing out perhaps their most impressive beating yet, every single thing they did had extra mustard on it, and this felt like they were really making examples of Williams and Jordan. Barthel refused to play along with Jordan's silliness and instead cross chopped him in the throat. That was early in the match, but every single Aichner/Barthel cut off spot was just as sudden and violent. Aichner gave this really fun tiring performance, as he was constantly flipping back and forth between hitting a big power move and taking a huge bump to the floor. Aichner took no less than three bumps to the floor off Williams' offense, flipping through the ropes and splatting off a rana, getting kicked off the apron, eating a great Williams baseball slide dropkick as he was getting up to the apron, all this great aggressive bumping that was counterbalanced by aggressive sudden cutoffs. The double teams were fantastic, like Barthel distracting Williams and Jordan while Aichner ran in and hit both with lariats to the back of their heads, or Barthel hitting a brutal dropkick on Williams after Williams was hung up in the ropes after dispatching Aichner, or that big spinebuster slam into Barthel punt that I was certain was the easy finish. Williams kneeing Aichner in the head on a vertical suplex, then getting a narrow escape schoolboy for the photo finish sneak win, looked really good and the reversal felt honest. This was easily my favorite Williams/Jordan tag, holding up their end while Aichner and Barthel looked super threatening even with the loss. 

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

Read more!

NXT UK Worth Watching: Barthel! Aichner! Mark Coffey! WALTER! Mustache Mountain!

Marcel Barthel/Fabian Aichner vs. Trent Seven/Tyler Bate NXT UK 1/13 (Aired 1/30/19) (Ep. #27)

ER: This was great, probably the best UK tag match so far. This was a more successful version of the GYF vs. Mustache tag from TakeOver, with all the fat trimmed out and nothing but action remaining. This is half the time of that tag and really hits the target. The first 2/3 of this felt like a great early 90s WCW tag, with no overly long heat sequence or too long shine. It had quick tags and constant momentum changes, making it feel more like a Brainbusters/Fantastics match, which is a great thing to see in modern wrestling. Barthel is really great at getting into position for offense, and that's important against someone like Bate who goes through a lot of "same moves in the same order" offense. The quick tags by both sides made this match feel more epic than it probably was, as I was shocked it was only a 13 minute run time (felt longer, in a good way). Aichner and Barthel control with cool suplexes and body scissors, both Bate and Seven get runs at wild hot tags (I really liked Seven running wild with a DDT, snapdragon, big lariat, and Bate going wild with a no hands running plancha to the floor), and they did a great job of ramping up the crazy. 

The teamwork from Barthel/Aichner is excellent, and they're smart about using Bate's actual best strength: running into painful offense. My least favorite parts of Bate matches is when everyone has to line up to take his offense in a specific order. I never like when guys selfishly derail things like that. But he has a real gift for taking some stupid bumps and crash landing his body in very unselfish ways. There was an awesome moment here when he went to do his Ray Stevens shoulder spring into the ropes, except he springs directly into a Barthel enziguiri. Bate has a way of committing to these spots that I truly admire. It always surprises me, because when he does his own offense there is always him waiting for guys to make sure they're in proper position; but when the plan is for him to intentionally miss a tope or something he just does that tope the exact same way he would have done it if someone were catching him. So he flies into that top rope and just catches Barthel's boot between the eyes, and it looked so great I was hoping it would be the finish. Bate's willingness to die at some point of a big match always makes it more annoying when he comes back with his planned comeback, but again, Barthel/Aichner are great at taking fast offense (it's not easy to plausibly take that rolling double kappo kick but GYV and these two make it look good). The finishing stretch is hot, and while I wish Barthel and Aichner would have won (Mustache Mountain is already established and I'm really not sure losses would hurt them at this point, the others have far more to gain with a win), this whole thing was great action. 

Mark Coffey vs. WALTER NXT UK 1/13 (Aired 2/6/19) (Ep. #28)

ER: NXT UK is great at delivering on these compact ass kicking matches that get out of there before any of the violence is deemed pointless by repetition. If two guys are beating the hell out of each other, you really only need several minutes of it, as the longer it goes the more redundant the damage becomes. WALTER debuted in ring last week, crushing Jack Starz, and I like how they sent him out the next week against someone much closer to his size. A WALTER squash is plenty fun, but seeing him trade chops and clotheslines with another big guy is much more fun. Coffey does cool things with his control, and I think a lot of his offense hit even harder than WALTER's. Coffey's chops can't come close to matching WALTER's, but his body punches sure as hell hit harder. Coffey also throws hard kicks to WALTER's back, stomps his calf to set up a chinlock, works in and out of a snug back stretch, and a truly great elbow smash to WALTER's jaw. Having a big meaty opponent gives a nice canvas for WALTER's offense, big strikes landing hard across a broad surface. He drops Coffey with a nasty backdrop on the apron, throws loud chops in the corner, hits a nasty running kick, and stretches Coffey over the top rope by jamming his boot underneath Coffey's chin. More chops, uppercuts, clubs to the chest, both guys really dealing, all of it heavy. Match ends a little simply, with a WALTER dropkick and powerbomb. It wrapped things up a little neatly, but I much prefer the match wrapped up neatly in 6 minutes than seeing 10 more minutes of chop exchanges. This is one of the harder hitting NXT UK matches we've gotten so far, here's to more!

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

Read more!

NXT UK Worth Watching: Devlin! Aichner! Barthel! Banks! Modfather! Mandrews!

Fabian Aichner/Marcel Barthel vs. Flash Morgan Webster/Mark Andrews NXT UK 1/12 (Aired 1/16) (Ep. #25)

ER: NXT UK is really good at putting on 80/20 matches that feel the right amount of competitive even though you know one side doesn't have an actual chance of winning. This is a 10 minute match that feels more like 5, and that is a very good thing. Aichner and Barthel are great at bumping around for the much smaller Webster and Andrews, and they do so without looking like complete goofs, with their biggest bumps coming from surprise ranas or missed attacks. Barthel flies wildly over the top to the floor because of Webster misdirection, Aichner goes for a pop up powerbomb on Andrews and gets caught with a rana, Webster hits a similar rana (and I love Webster's rana) on Barthel, all bumps from the bigger guys make sense. And in between those bumps they lay total waste to the flyers. Aichner is a real asshole who will just blindside either one of them with an elbow strike while they're on the apron, and they pull off cool double teams that focus more on the move impact than on the cleverness that bogs down so many tag team double teams. 

The heels isolate Webster and it leads to a fun Andrews hot tag (with an assisted 450 splash), and I felt like our babyface team got the exact right amount of offense. And I think the punishment by the heels as a response to that hot tag was excellent, and really my only issue with the match was with Andrews kicking out of what looked - to me - like a match finishing brainbuster and going back on offense almost right after that kickout. It was a gorgeous spot, Barthel tossing Andrews off the top, with Aichner catching him vertically and dropping him with a brainbuster. It's not the kind of move someone should be running around immediately after taking, but alas. Aichner makes damn sure Andrews sells on the floor to take him out of the save, picking him up for a spinebuster and just running him as hard as possible into the guardrail. Their actual finish is as good as that brainbuster, with Barthel lifting Webster up for a powerbomb and Aichner hitting a flying back elbow off the top to put that powerbomb into motion. This was one of those performances that immediately made Barthel and Aichner look like either the best or 2nd best team on the brand. 

Jordan Devlin vs. Travis Banks NXT UK 1/13 (Aired 1/23/19) (Ep. #26)

ER: There was plenty of this that I wasn't a fan of (the opening strike exchange, any time Banks did his fighting spirit faces before fighting back, sometimes improbably), but there were too many sicko stiff shots and big moments for me to deny how much I dug this. Devlin isn't perfect, but he knows how to craft different match types depending on his opponent, and that kind of thing makes you really stand out in modern wrestling. Really this is the match that should have happened on TakeOver, and was much better than Devlin/Balor. I'm sure the return of Balor to the UK got more eyeballs than a Travis Banks match, and you need something eye popping on your first big special, so I get it. Still, build your brand a little bit and put on this match. To their credit, they worked it like it was a big TakeOver match, and that won me over in spite of some of the excess. I was ready to write it off after the first couple minutes, bad strike exchanges and uninteresting crowd brawl, but I snapped to attention when Banks hit a big Thesz press off the barricade they pretty much had me after that. Devlin hit this sick hammer fist shot to the side of Banks' head and I liked how Devlin missed a stomp on the ring steps that slowed him down just enough to eat a high kick to the eye. Devlin always leans into kicks and he took so nice thumpers to the chest from Banks. 

Devlin's sudden Spanish Fly off the apron to the floor was really surprising, as we didn't get the prolonged choreographed fight on the apron, and that made it feel like Devlin made a snap decision to do something crazy and attempt to injure them both. Devlin is a guy who can fit a ton of highspots into a match while always making them feel like part of the match, never like a guy trying to get his shit in, always to the service of the match. When he caught Banks with an in ring Spanish Fly I thought it would have made for an awesome flash finish, so while I didn't love when Banks used his fighting spirit to get up and immediately lariat Devlin, I at least appreciated how much Devlin ate that lariat. His big flipping bump actually felt borne out of the lariat, and often those big flipping bumps feel removed from the move that caused them. Devlin eats knees on a moonsault better than maybe anyone, always making it look like he's hitting that moonsault and doesn't actually know he's about to land face first on knees, and that kind of in ring honesty lifts a match like this so much. I liked how they handled the double count out finish, as the tumble to the floor looked good and it actually helped both stay strong (instead of an appeal to parity), and while I'm not sure where they go with the feud after this match, I really liked what both brought.

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

Read more!

WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 10/13-10/19

NXT 10/16/19

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Fabian Aichner/Marcel Barthel

ER: This was cool, even if we got Imperium's heat on Burch cut out by commercial break. But we got a ton of stuff crammed into the short runtime, and they made it feel like a much bigger match due to the layout. These teams have good chemistry, and all know how to set each other up. Burch had some cool early moments, especially dug him knocking Barthel out of the air with a headbutt. And I really liked Aichner; he would do little things I love like hold on to headlocks, hit a nice brainbuster, but his big stuff like his double jump moonsault looked great. Of course Lorcan's hot tag was going to be a highlight, and he doesn't disappoint: big flying uppercuts, nice pescado, and a fun sequence where he knocks Barthel off the apron into Aichner, then hits a tope con giro into both. The double teams in this were smoking, like Barthel hanging Burch in the ropes before he and Aichner hit a perfectly timed dropkick on him, or the tandem powerbomb from Lorcan/Burch, right up to the excellent finish run from Imperium. They really strung the finish together nice, with a nice spinebuster into a PK, and that Hart Attack uppercut off the top is a real killer. This tag felt much closer to a hot AIW tag, and considering AIW consistently has the best tag matches in wrestling, that's obviously a great thing.

PAS: This was a great sprint, with everyone looking great. Lorcan is one of the great hot tags in wrestling and he just unloads with some great wild offense. Loved the giro into both guys. I am pretty over highspots by biggish guys, but Aichner's double jump moonsault is a true holy shit spot, and made a great near fall. Didn't have the bloat that some of the tags we have reviewed have, they just went out and burned through a killer TV tag.


205 Live 10/18/19

Jack Gallagher vs. Brian Kendrick

ER: This felt like the first several minutes of a really good match, but had a pretty uninteresting finish (unless it leads to more of a feud, I suppose) that from two guys who are good at coming up with interesting finishes. Gallagher is one of the more underutilized guys on the roster. This is the first time he's shown up in a month, he doesn't work house shows, rarely works indies, and could feasibly make it through 2019 with only 20 matches worked. That's weird. He doesn't appear to be injured, just unused. I love how great both of them are at building matches around merely getting thrown into walls and corners. A huge chunk of this match is them getting run into walls, and they're great at it. They know how to make slamming into a flat wall look really painful, and both find interesting ways to make hitting a turnbuckle look like actual offense. The best was at the finish, when Kendrick threw Gallagher by the front of the trunks chin first into the top buckle, and Gallagher just smashes into it. The match had a ton of cool things: Heavy deadlift back suplex on the floor by Gallagher, Kendrick throws an actual damaging superkick out of the corner, Gallagher pays him back with a nasty corner dropkick, and I loved Kendrick rolling through to make the Captain's Hook last even longer. But kendo sticks in 2019 are pretty lame, and Gallagher taking forever to go grab a kendo stick and truly contemplate the seriousness of the line he was about to cross by using a stick was some dumb stuff. Gallagher throws harder strikes with his head and all four limbs, who needs to go get a stick?

Oney Lorcan vs. Ariya Daivari vs. Tony Nese

ER: This was like "The Problems with 205 Live: The Match" in a lot of ways, but had a ton of endearing qualities that it kind of won me over. This had all the bizarre bad 205 Live tropes: It was absurdly long for (I still cannot get over WWE having weekly 18 minute cruiserweight matches), the worked it as a slow burn with the crowd actively turning on the match because of how long and slow it was, before Lorcan and some crazy bumps actually rallied the crowd into a satisfied submission. This was flawed, but I actually liked the different tone and pace they worked. It seemed ridiculous at first (and was actually ridiculous in several ways; we did NOT need a 90 second Tony Nese chinlock in the middle of this while Daivari disappeared on the floor), but they won me over with their dedication to the specific match they were doing. It was slow, it defied the crowd reaction, and it peaked strongly after the deliberately slow first half. I liked Daivari a lot. After this match I think he's officially a guy I'm going to remember I like. Tozawa was that guy last year, a guy I kept forgetting I enjoyed. Then finally it stuck. Daivari doesn't get talked about much, but he's been kept relatively strong on 205 for a guy who loses a lot on 205 Live. When he is given the time to look tough, he always looks great. He had a squash a week or two ago with Chris Bey bumping huge for him, but he looked real mean in it. He plays a real good Yoshinari Ogawa heel in multi mans. He went almost exclusively for sneaky schoolboy roll ups for the first 8 minutes of this, and it was pretty great. His bumps have snuck up and become one of my favorite bumping styles in WWE: He goes does hard with his legs shooting out first, like he's actually sprinting straight into a clothesline he didn't see. He ping pongs around for Lorcan uppercuts and also gets good lift on slams and suplexes. He's a strong addition to a match like this.

Now the match does have a lot of Nese just Nese-ing it up. I hate his kick combo that looks like an elaborate Bash Brothers celebratory handshake. But his athleticism can lead to fun spots, and he showed a really smart understanding of peaking a sequence, with a real deft closing sequence. I loved him climbing to the top to hit Lorcan with a 450, seeing Daivari getting up on the floor so opting to hop down and take him out with the Fosbury Flop, then going back to hit the 450 only to find he gave Lorcan too much recovery time, realizing it when he smacks his face into the mat on a missed 450. It's smart scene construction that you don't always get in these matches, and Nese - while throwing out shitty looking offense sometimes - also feels like he now has equal amounts of offense that look good, is getting better at building a match, and will still take a violent bump. He gets knocked off the top rope to the floor and flips head and neck first onto the apron.

Lorcan keeps getting a restless crowd back on his side, really fighting to hold their interest, and I think succeeding. He flew into horizontal full force uppercuts in a way that demanded attention, and his two reckless flip dives to the floor back to back got rewarded for giving that attention. I liked all his work around the half nelson suplex, when he caught both Daivari and Nese in them and when he would get them reversed; Nese landing on his feet off the half nelson and hitting a perfectly timed double stomp to Lorcan's chest was a strong moment. The whole finishing stretch was the best thing on this 205 Live episode, and even if I wasn't along for all of the too long match, I appreciated a ton of it.


Smackdown 10/18/19

Drew Gulak vs. Braun Strowman

ER: A fun squash featuring someone I'd obviously rather see not squashed. These two could easily match up and have a great 8 minute match, both are smart enough to work that, but we knew that's not what this was going to be. Gulak at least gets to work the mic and begin showing his PowerPoint, but after that it's a mauling. Gulak added little things where he could, my favorite being him eating a headbutt and falling to the floor, but desperately grasping for the bottom rope as he fell off the apron. Braun hits a big avalanche, crazy good shoulderblock on the floor, big powerslam, all cool things. But shit have him do all those things against Tony Nese, not Gulak.

Read more!

WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak Catch-Up

ER: At the Nashville airport waiting to fly back to SFO, and none of these guys showed up on WWE TV this week! So I'm gonna take this chance and find each of their earliest match from this year that I have not seen, and write them up. This feels like a good way to play some 2019 catch-up while waiting for new material, while waiting for a flight, while just wanting to be home this second.


Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Fabian Aichner/Marcel Bartel WWE NXT 1/3/19 (Aired 1/23)

ER: I wasn't expecting this one to be so hotly contested, but Aichner and Bartel worked most of this as if they were exact same level as Lorcan and Burch, and I didn't realize that was ever the case. Maybe Lorcan and Burch's stocks have just risen that much in only 6 months. But this was cool, filled with hard suplexes and big back elbows and uppercuts. Burch had a couple nasty cut off moments - the dropdown out of air single leg being one - and threw a big headbutt, but I was surprised (pleasantly) at how much Bartel and Aichner ran this. That mostly stopped when Lorcan started his big comeback, flying in with an elbow and hitting a wild flip dive out the other side. This was under 5 minutes but filled to the brim, everyone shining, crazy highspots like Aichner's triple jump moonsault, or hard strikes to the neck, fun watch.

Drew Gulak vs. Mark Andrews WWE World Collide 1/26/19 (Aired 2/2)

ER: I liked this, but a lot of it felt like Andrews along for the ride, and even though it really wasn't long I found myself just wanting Gulak to put this little floppy haired guy away. It had good basics, side headlock takeovers that whipped over, some fine headscissor reversals, neat wrist control segments from Gulak, rolling foreheads off each other, stuff I like. And I have dug Andrews before, think he always has the talent to show up, but I also don't like a lot of the times he's shown up. I don't think he looked bad here, but he looked like Gulak was schooling him and it felt long. I liked Gulak's stump puller arm bar, but we got probably a couple too many sunset flip roll up sequences (though I think the one where Gulak jumps backward to catch one with opposite momentum is almost always a great looking spot and was here). Rolling through pins into chokes is something Gulak does well, and all moments of it here were nice. An enjoyable match that really wasn't too far off from being list. One more tiny something would have boosted it well.

Gentleman Jack Gallagher vs. Tyler Bate NXT UK 1/27/19 (Aired 2/27)

ER: This had the beginnings of a seriously great match, but I thought the finish was sudden (by design), distractingly long, and more than a little silly. Since the entire match is essentially matwork leading to pinfall, with not much in between, the matwork portion was great and then things basically ended. I'm unsure if I would have been better with the match just ending as a 10 minute draw, rather than the finish we got. It's a little tough to evaluate a match with some of the best mat tricks WWE has seen, that then ends with a dozen one counts and a schoolboy. So let's just look at the matwork and soak in it pleasantly. Bate was aggressive on the mat, going after Gallagher's arm but not ever really doing too much damage, and always eventually getting shown up and punished by Gallagher. Gallagher had some smooth reversals into a headscissors, and Bate had a slick moment where he kneeled down on Gallagher's ankles to get him to loosen his legs enough for Bate to pop his head out.  Jack's Indian deathlocks and work on the knee were great, sinking in holds and doing things like digging his knee into Bate's thigh. I really liked how Bate sold the knee too, being wobbly on his feet and using his bum wheel to still do kneelifts into Gallagher's face (while making it clear that he has made the choice that it's better to use his in-pain knee as a blunt instrument than trust putting weight on it to weaponize his good knee). It looked like the match was getting off the mat and into a crazy stretch, and then the silly little finish happened. And that's fine. Wrestling isn't all about Match of the Year status and can also be about the unexpectedly good and bad. This whole thing is well worth seeing just for the opening 5-6 minutes alone, some of the most fun scrambling and transitions I've seen in wrestling this year, regardless of promotion.

Read more!

WWE Cruiserweight Classic 8/3/16

1. Jason Lee v. Rich Swann

ER: I suppose WWE must have really wanted one of the Chinese guys to advance to the 2nd round, but after this few minutes I wish we would have gotten another Jason Lee match. Ho Ho Lun was arguably the greenest guy in the tourney, Lee had some presence and personality (loved him telling Swann to bring it while Swann was dicking around), had some real cool kicks (that snapped off mule kick to Swann's temple!) and a weird uppercut, and had no problem running into Swann's kicks. Swann can do some crazy things with his body, and he doesn't have that same problem that afflicts Petey Williams style flippers: His stuff actually hits with impact. His standing splash and *standing* (crazy) 450 hit with a thud (well, as much thud as a 165 pounder can thud...), he doesn't look like he's covered in flubber and just bounce off everything. Ending felt a little sudden, but I liked what we got.

PAS: This was fun stuff, I thought Swann might have been a little overacty with his charisma faces, but overall I liked his shtick, he really has crazy agility that leap into the rana may have been even nuttier then the standing 450. Swann being this crisp and athletic and being this over kind of makes guys like Tony Neese and Lince Dorado kind of obsolete, if Swann can do the same stuff but land with impact and not wrestle like a robot, why do we need those dudes.

2. Noam Dar v. Gurv Sihra

PAS: Not good, both guys seemed like they were on different pages, and while parts looked OK, most of it looked kind of weak sauce. I get why they want to push Dar, but he seems like he needs some more seasoning to get a push on TV, I am assuming he is out next round and should just hang around the training center for a while. Bollywood Boys should use their TV time to get more random indy bookings, but they don't seem ready for prime time.

ER: Yeah, they got lost a couple minutes in and looked like they spent the next 3 recovering. They would just kind of stand there filling time until you'd see a lightbulb go off like "oh right, the spin kick!" I thought Mauro and Bryan covered nicely on a couple of the noticeably clunky spots, and sadly before things stumbled I was enjoying Sihra, especially that nasty back elbow he busted out. Dar is a bit too muggy for me, for what he's trying to do, something I didn't care for in his qualifying match either. Bryan was good at pointing that out, even reasoning that he's so young that he's just excited to be there. This was the first match that the commentary was more interesting to me than the match itself. I was much more interested in hearing about Sihra's proud, blind grandfather listening to the CWC, than I was watching Dar throw another thigh slap dropkick.

3. Jack Gallagher vs. Fabian Aichner

PAS: YEAH!! Segunda Caida favorite Jack Gallagher makes his big show debut. Gallagher has been sporadically available over the last couple of years but every time he showed up he looked awesome. I think Gallagher is the best mat worker in the world right now, incredibly slick at the kind of WOS tribute stuff he does here, as well as really awesome fast and violent shootstyle matwork. It is funny how much better Gallagher is at the counter wrestling British stuff then Sabre Jr., kind of exposes ZSJ the same way Swann exposes dudes like Neese, and man alive was that dropkick finish amazing looking. Aichner was really fun too, his suplex throw into a powerbomb was totally nuts and the double jump moonsault was one of the bigger highspots of the tourney (although it was totally numbnuts to show him practicing that move during the preview video, took a lot of the surprise out the move). Think they should keep him around after this tourney. Gallagher however was at another level and looks like one of the best guys in the world, we have been saying it for a while, glad to see everyone else get a chance to see it too.

ER: This was too much fun and it was amusing hearing Bryan clearly marking out on commentary for every single movement Gallagher made. We all saw that moment in the early 2000s when indy workers started seeing WOS tapes, we all saw moments where guys would awkwardly shoehorn lady in the lake spots into their matches after they saw a Johnny Saint match for the first time, and gradually have seen a lot of WOS elements bleed into indy wrestling. But Gallagher is really the first one to actually feel transported from the early 80s and not just doing a tribute act. He does things so seamlessly and naturally that it feels like he was raised in a box with only WOS tapes to watch, and he just thinks that this is genuinely how people fight. I had never heard of Aichner before and came away impressed. If Swann and others hadn't already exposed Nese then here's a guy with the exact same 200ish lb. muscular build doing the same cool shit as Nese, but throwing in more interesting power spots and also able to hang with cool mat reversals, but also doing basic stuff like locking on a chinlock that actually looks painful. Gentleman Jack has such a wonderful quirky personality, like when Conan O'Brien's "Gentleman Masher" boxing character or Conan playing 1800s throwback baseball. His reversal teases, his astonished facials at Aichner's reversals, the ability to look silly one second while blasting a stiff dropkick the next, all great stuff. Loved Aichner's vertical suplex into a powerbomb, just a real great showoff spot, and Gallagher plants himself brutally on the landing. Gallagher's finishing dropkick seemingly broke physics, as he was able to plant the dropkick and then basically land a cannonball all in one motion. Man, among Kendrick, Gallagher and Gulak I have no idea who I'll be pulling for (but they damn well better make Gulak/Gallagher happen).

4. Johnny Gargano vs. Tommaso Ciampa

PAS: Pretty impressed by this match. I came into this match not liking Gargano and having no real opinion of Ciampa and they really sucked me with the story they were telling. These two were given some advantages that other guys in this tourney didn't have, the emotional background is a gimmick the same way blood or weapons shots are, they also got the kind of big dramatic near falls that the other tourney matches really didn't have. Still they took those advantages and used them well, Ciampa really laid into Gargano including some truly nasty back elbows and huge bombs. Gargano's offense is pretty indy, but he did a good job milking the 2 counts and I did like how he pulled out the win at the end. The finish with Ciampa devastated that he couldn't pull of the victory but still hugging his friend had real pathos. Probably the second best match of the first round and it wasn't a match I was particularly looking forward too.

ER: I'm with Phil on this one, I wasn't coming in expecting much but the simple story worked for me, and both guys familiarity with each other added to this. Ciampa laid it in the whole match and Gargano was right there to take it. That back elbow to kick of the striking was really something, and Gargano had a great spit take and tumble to the floor. And the familiarity was great as it kept revealing itself throughout the match, giving nice built in transitions to both guys. Gargano catches a punch to hit one of the more believable trapped arm superkicks with Ciampa's head against the buckle, later after getting hit with a dive Ciampa catches Gargano with a brutal knee when Johnny was coming in for his slingshot spear. Ciampa's knees looked great throughout which made the kill shot moment of truth have a bit more heft, as he knows his knees have been great and he hesitates before the kill shot. The ending flash roll up sequence was good and a nice surprise, as the match sucked me in enough that I wasn't sure who would win. I figured Gargano was the favorite, but also figured they didn't really have any 1st round upsets, so maybe we were due. I did think Gargano took a bit too much offense without giving back, but I loved the post match hug, with Ciampa plopping down next to his friend. Reminded me of the Baba/Rusher hug in my favorite tag match (them vs. Hansen/Tenryu from '89). Great end to the 1st round.


COMPLETE CWC GUIDE

Read more!