Found Footage Friday: GALLI~!

GALLI 1/11/09 Full Show 

Calypso vs. D-Ray

MD: The ref (animated, sunglasses, shorts) here came off as a bigger star than either of these guys unfortunately. I couldn't tell if he or D-Ray(?) was coming out to the NWO theme. Calypso had an ok act on the way out running around the ring and at times he'd grunt and scurry about, but most of the time he turned it off. D-Ray had that solid Pat Rose physique, was vocal throughout with the fans and ref and his opponent in a good way and controlled the match. At one point he had a pumphandle power slam (Wrath's meltdown) with a slightly different entry position that was kind of neat. Calypso won in less than five minutes with a small package driver (maybe wasn't supposed to be a driver?) out of nowhere. This makes me wonder just how many matches are going to be on this card.

Chilango vs. Emperador Azteca

MD: Chilango here had a tee-shirt and bandana. He did the most heelish thing possible on an indy show; he interrupted the calling out of the sponsers. After that he ran down the fans. The guy in the red mask came out stop him and they rang the bell and got a ref. Chilango was quite the stooge to start, running about. He took over with a foul and didn't really look back. Just a lot of decent jerk offense. Simple, straightforward stuff that was mean and got over who he was. Mask guy didn't even get a comeback before he won with a Sharpshooter. Not sure about the layouts here so far.

El Potro/Justiciero vs. Simbolo/Silver Dragon

MD: Perfectly fine mechanical work until the end, just with a big "but." They were moving fast and hitting things mostly clean with just a slightly tendency to land a little too close to the ropes on armdrags and what not. Things didn't feel overly cooperative. It was a good mix of advanced and basic. The de facto rudos became more than de facto after ending up on the losing end of one too many exchanges and took over with a handshake > kick. Weirdly, there was no actual comeback, just one of the tecnicos coming in on a hold, breaking it up, and cycling on to the finish which was the only thing in the match that looked way off. Some bizarre layout here. Like reality itself was clipped.

Venganza/Resistencia vs. Elektron/Silueta Dorada

MD: I had the sense we hit the part of the show with more of the GALLI regulars. This still didn't have quite the comeback I would have wanted as Elektron just stormed into the ring while Dorada was hung up and there was a bit too much stumbling all around, but in general, it fit into the pattern better and they were working both each other and the crowd in a more concerted way, while still hitting a lot of their exchanges cleanly and crisply. Dorada and Resistencia worked together best overall. They started it and it felt like a living, breathing match instead of guys trying to figure it all out and glue together their spots. So not perfect but on the right track at least.

Centella de Oro/Meteoro I vs. El Guerrillero/Pentagono del Infierno

MD: I feel like over the last few matches, it's been like the meme of the horse drawing where more and more of it is filled in and made complete. Pentagono had a second who was a kid in a mask and I wonder if he has 13 year of experience wrestling by now. There was just more connective tissue between each move, even more working the crowd, everything seeming more alive. The wrestlers tried to get tecnico/rudo chants going since the fans were likely not super familiar with them. The rudos took over after Centella teased a dive and his back was turned. The dives did come towards the finish. I will say again that the comeback was kind of missing even if everything was a bit more fleshed out but I think at this point it's probably just a victim of this being a 9 or 10 match show which is maybe not how lucha should operate?

Demencia/Payaso Blanco/Payaso Negro vs. Furia Roja/Kamikaze/Nemesis

MD: Another match where they didn't actually have a comeback but instead just went straight to the submission cycling. Very weird. The opening exchanges and action was good but needed way more Payaso comedy. That was the best part. We've already seen a bunch of things hit clean. That's what would have made this one stand out. They did have a lot of fun tandem moves when the heat started, including this nice double torture rack. This had a solid enough beatdown that you could have gotten a solid comeback out of it. Pressure was ramped up. My guess is that both the comebacks and the comedy are waiting for later matches? The fans were getting their money's worth spotswise but it's all a bit much by this point.

El Tigre/Samuray del Sol/Slayer vs. Amenaza del Siglo/Mason Conrad/Tony Scarpone

MD: This was a bit of a mess but not an unentertaining one. It never really settled down into any sort of meaningful structure. People hit a bunch of stuff and eventually it ended with Amenaza turning on Conrad and Scarpone since they wanted to use a chair to set up a roll up out of nowhere. In the meantime, Amenaza did a lot of work in trying to base for an out of control Tigre (A for effort, lower score for most other things), Conrad did admirably against Slayer all things considered, and Scarpone postured well against Samuray del Sol but maybe, just maybe, this wasn't the right card for him to be on? He seemed like he'd make a very solid 1987 Crusher opponent on one of those bar shows they ran in the mid-west. 

El Pantera/Incognito/Lince Dorado vs. Cassandro/Charley Manson Jr./Gringo Loco

MD: This was the reward for everyone sitting through the rest of the show and it was quite the reward. To start you had Gringo Loco singing and Cassandro coming out like a head of state, full the sort of methodological grace that only he could encompass, kissing babies, the whole nine yards. The pairings were good in all the falls, Cassandro and Incognito wrestling clean with just a little bit of an exotico bent, Gringo basing for Lince like only he could, Pantera and Manson going tricked out but competitive.

The primera ended with absolute chaos, just a great mass of bodies hitting the mat from every angle before the tecnicos took it. The segunda went into the rudo beatdown as Cassandro hit a cheapshot dropkick out of nowhere. Gringo and Charley had some great tandem stuff like the rolling monkey flip across the ring into a headbutt. Again, not a very clear cut comeback but you almost don't care because it went right into Cassandro and Incognito doing super cool stuff like a small package out of a cazadora and a top rope dragon rana and then right into the dive train. The rest of the show had its moments, but by the end of it, you were absolutely appreciating the competence and brilliance to be found here.

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But a Dream Like Gulak Gets Wasted, Without You

Drew Gulak/Jack Gallagher/Brian Kendrick vs. Gran Metalik/Kalisto/Lince Dorado 205 Live 6/12/18 - GREAT

ER: WWE was just giving these guys 15 minutes with no kind of feud, to just go out there and fill that time. It's incredible. We get the most Segunda Caida rudo trios team possible, and they are a great group of rudo bases for our Lucha House trio. Sending six cruiserweights out to work an unannounced 15 minute match in front of a WWE crowd feels like a bit of a prank, but they build nicely with their time and the biggest reactions come from the finishing stretch. The match is cool, with them working this as a lucha trios that veered into the rudos cutting off Kalisto from the rest of his Party, before Kalisto finally gets a fun hot tag to Metalik. It's fun seeing all of the rudos act as bases for flying, and it's a natural fit as Gulak and Dorado go way back. Dorado gets a long run of offense peaking in an assisted rope walk flip dive, but my favorite parts of the match was watching all the rudos finally halt Kalisto and make quick tags, knocking Dorado and Metalik off the apron with hard elbows, just working their "non flyer" beatdown. Kendrick comes in with a big kick, Gulak works a kneeling torture rack and shifts that into a half crab/arm lock, all cool stuff. But Kalisto hits a great jawbreaker on Gulak, Kendrick takes a tornado DDT right on his face, all building to Metalik's big missile dropkick heavy tag in. Kalisto gets a nice rana roll up on Gulak, and Gulak pays him back for almost beating him by blasting him with a lariat, the kind that gets a crowd into a match regardless of the particpants' size. Kendrick almost murders Kalisto getting him into the Captain's Hook, not sure who twisted too early, but it only makes his headlock takeover look even more dangerous. This match did not need 15 minutes, but if you're going to give some guys 15 minutes of time to fill during an already long TV taping, I can't think of three better guys than Gulak/Kendrick/Gallagher. 

Drew Gulak vs. Mansoor WWE Main Event 6/3/21 - GREAT

ER: Before I watched this, I had already seen four Gulak/Mansoor matches this year, and it's kind of crazy to look at the people who were cut or allowed to leave and then still see Gulak working as essentially the man who is working as Mansoor's personal in-ring trainer just doing his thing. The proof is in the pudding as the results have been great. Mansoor has improved as much or more than anyone on the roster in 2021. It's a testament to Gulak's powers that they can keep having matches against each other that feel completely different from their other matches, all worked around some unsaid obstacle. This was mostly grounded and over the year you can really see how good Mansoor is getting at selling holds and moving honestly into and out of holds. Working with Gulak has already elevated him above the level of performative mat guys who roll through a quick sequence that ends in a tandem kip-up. This is more about Gulak constantly catching Mansoor in a headlock and Mansoor trying to find his way out of it to a win. When Mansoor is in control you can see Gulak doing little things to direct traffic, things that Mansoor responds naturally to. 

I loved how Gulak worked like an old sensei, reversing everything Mansoor threw (grabbing a headlock off a single leg, gaining arm and wrist control after a Mansoor slap) while also keeping Mansoor's work snug (loved how when Mansoor had arm control Gulak went to cover up his face which was a sly reminder for Mansoor to plant his knee on Gulak's face). Gulak has a couple of cool takedowns off an armdrag reversal and later one where he just takes Mansoor down, traps his legs, and ties him up in a dragon sleeper. I'm going to love a match where guys refuse to break headlocks off the ropes or get tied up in messy holds that don't look as "clean" as other WWE holds. The spot of the match is Gulak blocking an armdrag and turning it into a kind of Gory special as Mansoor fights it, only for Gulak to just drop straight down into a side headlock. The pinfall trading at the end is just about as interesting as you can make that spot now, worked very seamlessly but with Gulak actually looking like someone who is trying to pin Mansoor, not just positioning himself for the next reversal. I'm not sure how long Gulak is going to be able to get away with weird subversive matwork matches on these undercards, but I am going to be in love with it as long as it happens. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 2019 Catch-Up

Another week, another TV absence from the B3. Gulak had a dark match on Smackdown, that doesn't help me much.

Oney Lorcan vs. Kalisto WWE 205 Live 4/2/19

ER: These two aren't very frequent dance partners, and its kind of a style clash match up that wasn't always on the same page, and yet it felt like there was a potential great match here. Kalisto missed moments and there were a few spots that didn't come off as clean, but it didn't feel like Lorcan was the guy responsible for that. In fact, Lorcan took some of Kalisto's offense better than I'd seen anyone take it, really felt like Cesaro getting an unexpectedly great match out of some Chikara undercard goof. Kalisto's problems were the kind that won't necessarily be there one match from the next, things like a couple ropes slips that he normally doesn't do. I don't think he falls off the ropes too often doing armdrags, or slips off the turnbuckle doing a Salida del Sol, so those things just felt like unfortunate mistakes rather than flaws in the match. Lorcan is a great underdog, but this is a great showcase for Lorcan as the dominant asskicker, the guy who hits way harder but doesn't steamroll. His chops and uppercuts looked cruel, but then he would do stuff like take Kalisto's tornillo better than anyone (the way he sprung across the ring was perfect), and he's someone who can ground an exciting guy like Kalisto with a body vice and choke, and have it all build to something. Fans were excited for Kalisto to come back, not just bored with Lorcan holding him down. This felt like a Darby Allin match at times, with Kalisto in the Darby role, peppering in exciting comebacks before eating death. There was a fun thread of Lorcan going for the half nelson suplex but Kalisto getting out of it, while Lorcan kept avoiding the Salida del Sol. Eventually Kalisto hit it on the apron, but couldn't get Lorcan pushed back into the ring in time to finish him. That's a thing WWE doesn't do enough, allowing someone to hit their finisher in a decisive way, but not being able to get the win due to physics. Instead they opt for guys just kicking out of finishers, or more commonly they would have just have Kalisto sell for a long time, apparently completely wiped out by merely hitting his finisher. These two have only been in the same ring three times in WWE, but this match really made me think they have something potentially awesome in this match-up.

Drew Gulak vs. Tony Nese WWE 205 Live 4/30/19

ER: I don't think this was the best Tony Nese performance of 2019, but I think it was the best instance of working all of Tony Nese into the most compelling match possible. I think the best Nese match we have is his Brian Kendrick bout from the CWC, and that took an all time great "veteran hanging on" performance from Kendrick. Kendrick lifted Nese to another plane, and here's Gulak trying to do the same. And really, outside of one stretch where Nese was hitting a bunch of really bad strike combos, and typical Nese stuff like whiffing on his split legged moonsault, this was laid out to give a long Tony Nese match that maximum amount of success possible. There were going to be Nese moments, but they came at the best possible moments of the match. Nese did hit hard when a couple moments called for it (there was a great rolling elbow on the floor after a silly cartwheel off the apron that really stood out), and his comebacks were fit in nicely. His offense runs were kept small, so that he wasn't out here hitting 5 moves in a row, each looking more dodgy that the last. Gulak controlled this tough, so Nese would pop up with some flourishes, including some clever learned behavior shots. His biggest offense run came after the no good very bad strike combo, but it ended with Nese wiping out Gulak with a great Fosbury Flop dive that crashed his hip right into Gulak's face. And the learned behavior wasn't cutesy dance party stuff, it was stuff like Nese sidestepping Gulak when Gulak goes for his flying sunset flip, then kneeing Gulak in the chin. Gulak worked a couple of sick gutbusters in, and we had this gorgeous pro wrestling shot of the slo mo replay of Gulak hitting a middle rope gutbuster on Nese. Just planting that knee on the mat while flipping Nese into that femur, really highlighting the risky and savage nature of that move. Nese's best attribute is his ability to miss, as his big faceplant on a 450 is always welcome, and adds a great moment of Gulak snagging him directly into the Gu-lock, Gulak desperately holding that even if it meant taking Nese's scalp with him. Nese's nearfall when finally managing to flip off the ropes while in the Gu-Lock was really strong, great false finish, and the running knee in the corner after a German to the buckles looked like something that should finish. Gulak looked glazed and it felt like a good time to wrap up. I don't find Tony Nese matches engaging. Tony Nese is a guy who has been shackled to our damn ankles just because of how often he is paired with a guy we actually love...but this was a long Tony Nese match that was engaging, and that's why we spend so much time writing about Drew Gulak.

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

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

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

Kalisto vs. Akira Tozawa vs. Lio Rush

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

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

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

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

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

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Roderick Strong vs. AJ Styles

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

Pete Dunne vs. Adam Cole

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

Daniel Bryan vs. The Fiend

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

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

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

Rey Mysterio vs. Brock Lesnar

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

Bayley vs. Shayna Baszler vs. Becky Lynch

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


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

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 10/20-10/26

NXT 10/23/19

Jack Gallagher vs. Angel Garza

ER: This was a fun style clash, even though Gallagher is seemingly the only cruiserweight they don't allow to work long singles and tag matches. Tony Nese is out here getting 15 minutes and Gallagher fights to go past 5. This does not go past 5, but it has a ton of stuff you won't see in anyone else's match and that's why we value the Gentleman! He has a nice set of offense but doesn't use it all in every match. You'd think most guys would be trying to fit as much of their offense as possible into their monthly 4 minutes, but I've never seen Gallagher do the same combination of his signature stuff in any match. He always approaches things fresh, and that's a big reason I look forward to seeing him every time. They do a real cool timing spot where Garza starts removing his tearaways, Gallagher interrupts him but Garza pulls away and leaves his pants in Gallagher's hands the way a lizard would escape from a cat, and by the time Gallagher looks back up he's getting dropkicked in the face. They do a series of rolling crucifixes which is a variation I haven't really seen, and they made it looks so trippy and giddy that it felt right out of a fun Rollerball Rocco match. We get a cool sequence where Gallagher bumps big to the floor and rolls back in shaken, but recovers in time to hit his big headbutt. His headbutt is one of those moves that doesn't show up in all of his matches, and I like the ways he brings it back. I would have liked this to be twice as long, but this was fun as hell.


205 Live 10/25/19

Oney Lorcan vs. Lio Rush

ER: This was not as exhilarating as Rush's comeback match against Lorcan, but it's clear that these two are a great match for each other. They make ideal dance partners, and when you combine that with both guys having fun offense that they always execute well. Rush has a bunch of bouncy complicated moves that could potentially leave opponents looking dumb while waiting around it, but he has a cool Rey Mysterio way of getting guys logically into position for illogical offense. His bottom rope bouncing cutter should be silly, but it always looks cool. He and Lorcan each take turns pinballing across the ring: Rush takes a running knee to the gut, Lorcan gets hit with a torpedo of a suicide dive, Rush gets snapped in half by Lorcan's awesome blockbuster, and I just love the way these two take the other's offense. They're giving Rush some pretty decisive wins, and I would have liked to see a little more of Lorcan here - I would have liked to see more match period - but that Rush frog splash lands so hard that it definitely should have gotten the 3.


Smackdown 10/25/19

Drew Gulak vs. Kalisto

ER: Well this move to Smackdown has not been great for Gulak. This is a fun match while it lasts, but just when it looked like Gulak was about to break out some mean offense, Braun interrupts and allows Kalisto to finish him. Then Braun powerslams Gulak pretty unceremoniously. I would take Gulak teaming with Tony Nese for 15 minute matches over this. Having to see some associated Nese is better than this.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 2019 Catch-Up

None of the Big 3 appeared on WWE TV this week, so I will continue looking back at matches of theirs I missed in 2019, filling in those blanks.

Drew Gulak vs. Eric Bugenhagen NXT 1/30 (Aired 2/6/19)

ER: This was my first time actually seeing Bugenhagen, and I dig the vibe. A less grating, more natural fit Adam Rose. This was obviously going to be a Gulak showcase, and it was that, while also giving Bugenhagen a couple decent moments. He wanted to rock, Gulak wanted to throw boots, both got their wish. Holding an abdominal stretch while doing a Pete Townshend windmill is a good spot for the gimmick, I like his look and I like his era appropriate tights. Gulak was the sadistic parent filled with Satanic Panic worry, jumping off the ropes with hard stomps to Bugenhagen's chest, tossing him with suplexes, locking on that sick body vice dragon sleeper for the win. This was short, and the right mixture of violence with goof off. 

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. The Forgotten Sons (Wesley Blake/Steve Cutler) NXT 2/20 (Aired 3/6/19)

ER: Cool go go go match with Forgotten Sons working over Lorcan's back early, and then continuing to take their shots at it whenever they could. Lorcan is a fun guy to fight through a back injury, and I liked the ways it extended the match. Lorcan and Burch always felt like they were fighting from underneath, a regular role for them, and one they excel at. The back work was simple, just Blake throwing forearms at Lorcan's back, working some big stomps off the ropes, and I dug how it kept paying off the longer the match went. It's easy to work a simple moment like Lorcan not being able to lift an opponent, leading to Burch getting waylaid, and the Sons have a lot of offense to waylay someone. Burch had several impressive moments, mainly working his schtick around members of the Large Adult Sons getting in his way. There was on section where he dropped both of them with German suplexes, noticed one of them had rolled into the way of where he was throwing the next one, so pivoted his hips and threw his next German diagonally so he wouldn't cause a brutal crash landing. That's pro. Cutler also rolled into the way of Burch's kip up, and Burch spun slightly on his back to change the kip up direction. It's impressive when a guy is that aware of his opponents' replacement and doesn't just go stumbling through everything. Lorcan had a cool comeback where he flew hard into uppercuts and hit his wild flip dive, but I dug how things wrapped up by him getting caught in a powerbomb, throwing him right into knees. Forgotten Sons have some cool double teams, I liked this match up a lot. 

Jack Gallagher/Drew Gulak/Humberto Carrillo vs. Gran Metalik/Kalisto/Lince Dorado 205 Live 3/26/19

ER: This was okay, but Lucha House Party came off pretty sluggish in spots, really low energy for guys who are supposed to be super fast exciting spot machines. Even their Lu-Cha chants felt like they were moving their arms through cement, and the layout wasn't very interesting at all. The LHP showcase moments were pretty bland, even with an occasional nice spot (like Metalik's always nice tornillo). It got interesting for a bit when Gallagher made Dorado slip on the apron by yanking on the ring skirt, allowing Gulak to dropkick Dorado to the floor, where Gallagher threw a couple punches to his ear. The Gulak control portions were the only part of this I was really into. Gallagher felt really underused, and when he was in he was always opposite Lince Dorado, who kept throwing off the timing of everything. They tried for a big car crash moment to end things, and they couldn't even do a lot of that right. They build to a big tower of doom spot where Carrillo and Gulak get powerbombed by Metalik which also sends Kalisto taking the worst of it with a massive superplex. But of course, due to the way they laid out the car crash spot, Kalisto was right back hopping into action about 10 seconds later. Dorado flinches while taking Gallagher's big headbutt, so even Gallagher's big spot in the match doesn't end up looking like much. This was another 15 minute 205 Live match that fell way short of what it should have been. The 6 man tag feels like one of the easier formats to deliver a banging 15 minute match, and most of the 205 Live 6 mans are just a drag. You should, in theory, be able to throw any 6 people from the WWE roster in a match, give them 15 minutes, and have a fun match at the other side. But somehow this is rarely the case on 205. It's really weird.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 8/4-8/17

So we got thrown off schedule by none of these guys having a match one week, and then a TakeOver happening last week, so we doubled up the weeks to bring you KING SIZE post worthy of these badasses.

205 Live 8/6

Oney Lorcan vs. Jack Gallagher vs. Akira Tozawa vs. Kalisto vs. Ariya Daivari vs. Tony Nese

ER: WWE is usually as good or better than most companies at doing fast paced juniors multimans, but I don't think this one came off as natural or organic as their best ones. This one had a lot of guys shimmying into position and some of the set ups looked off, but with some of the guys involved obviously there was going to be some gold. This was all about getting Oney to Summerslam (in the first match on the pre show no doubt), and here he looked like a guy who should obviously be at Summerslam. This had the regular problems of multimans, where we would get a great spot followed almost immediately by some kind of gaffe. We got a tandem submission where Lorcan basically had to hold his legs in place while nobody was holding them, but the spots were all a bunch of fun. Kalisto took a nasty bump PAST the announce table when then other 5 chucked him, Daivari was a fun opportunist and Gallagher bumped huge for him into the barricade, we got a dive train where Lorcan's unhinged flip dive was the star (and as is a rule in multimans, 4-5 people were entirely unable to catch Nese or Gallagher on their dives), Gallagher wasted Nese with a headbutt (but terrible agenting meant that Nese kicked out of it when there were literally 4 guys who could have broken up this pin instead), Nese athletically stumbled through this whole thing and it would have been much more interesting as a 4 man, but the whole thing would make an excellent 4 minute highlight package and that's not nothing. The important thing is Oney looking like a star while keeping guys like Gallagher and Tozawa still strong enough, and I thought this match succeeded in that.

PAS: This was a bunch of fun, although pretty flawed. Nese Nese'd it up for parts of this, just flipping and flopping around and setting up his dance moves. But I liked everyone else in this. This type of match doesn't work to Gallagher's strengths, but he had some fun multiman spots, and took a couple of nasty bumps on his head: that German suplex into the turnbuckles was way too sick for a spot which didn't mean anything in the match. Davari was almost Buddy Landelish in his stooging and cheap shotting and Kalisto and Tozawa had fun flying spots and move with real grace. I agree with Eric that there was enough awkward stuff to stop this from being a highly recommended match, but I enjoyed watching it.

Summerslam 8/11

42. 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 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.

PAS: This was really great and vicious, and very different from the matches these guys were having on the indies 4 years ago. I loved how nasty they have made the Gu-Lock, every time Gulak goes for it, it is fought like death. I was watching Nate Diaz fight tonight, and I loved how Gulak's striking near the end of this match resembled that, he would throw these flurries of sharp quick punches, and slaps looking for little openings to land something hard and solid, I loved how he overwhelmed the harder hitter with volume. Finish was great with Gulak looking like he was in deep waters, only to crack Lorcan right in the throat and finish him off, it looked like a fatality in a kung fu movie.

205 Live 8/13

Jack Gallagher vs. Akira Tozawa

ER: Just another typical WWE juniors match. You know, cool matwork, two guys landing stiff shots, and one of them busting open his head doing a nutso bump off the ringpost. That kind of WWE juniors match. And it was cool as all hell. Gallagher had some of his coolest transitions in this one, and I especially loved his slick escape from an early headscissors into an Indian deathlock variation. Gallagher's placement and timing were impeccable here, he always knew the right distance to throw his great dropkick, knew right where he had to be to properly counter Tozawa. Tozawa took a wild bump to the floor after getting booted over the top, hitting his head on the ringpost and then the steps and getting a cut on his head from it. Gallagher kept his attack simple, and I liked how Gallagher kept using his nice strikes to create distance for bigger moves (really liked him using that headbutt to the stomach a couple times to knock Tozawa back on his heels). Tozawa's tope was real nice, a true classic tope where he lead with his head, and I like that Tozawa has a couple of really cool great looking signature punches. The finish appeared to be setting something up with Kendrick (they haven't crossed paths in a year and obviously that's a match up I'd love to get more TV time), but did take away from what they had been doing: Gallagher went for a superplex and Tozawa reversed to a nice front suplex, hit the senton, Gallagher got his foot on the ropes, and Kendrick plausibly accidentally knocked it off. We'll see where it leads, but even in a vacuum I loved what they did in this match.

PAS:  I really liked this, Tozawa has really great looking offense, one of the better non luchadore topes in the world, killer senton, awesome Tenryu jab. He doesn't always have the best structure to his matches, so it is great when he has a maestro like Gallagher to work with. The crazy bump Tozawa takes to the floor where he busts his head open on the ringpost, was really cool looking, but the long ref stoppage to try to clean the blood did funky up the momentum of the match a bit. I get why that is their policy I suppose but it is hard to keep a pace. Gallagher always seems to have interesting finishes to his matches, and I liked the ambiguity of Kendrick knocking his foot off, leads to some interesting business in the future.

22. Drew Gulak vs. Oney Lorcan

ER: Let's just continue giving these two as much TV time as possible, and I guarantee they will become popular names off their work alone. This match is completely different from the match they had a couple days prior at Summerslam, opting to build directly off the finish of that match into this match. Gulak really came off like a modern day Finlay here, sadistically attacking Lorcan's throat after winning their last match with a punch right to the throat. Lorcan is really great at flying into things, so here he is crazily flying neck first into ropes and buckles and the announce table, with Gulak even pulling out a Finlay staple by slamming Lorcan's throat into the edge of the ring apron (not throat related, but I also like how Gulak uses another Finlay staple, bodyslamming Lorcan leg first into the ropes to weaken him). Gulak kept attacking with hard lariats to the neck, and by the end of this I was wondering if any WWE match had more lariats this year. Lorcan is an extremely exciting "working from behind" guy, and all of his comebacks were scorching. I liked how hot he came out the gates, dumping Gulak with a half nelson suplex and hitting his great cannonball dive to the floor, flying into Gulak with uppercuts, really showing his wealth of babyface charisma. It honestly felt like Lorcan was going to keep maniacally running headlong into Gulak until he either won or could no longer run, and that kind of die hard babyface is missing from wrestling, or bogged down in shitty wide eyed heavy breathing play acting. Lorcan's huge suplex from the top was an awesome moment, and I love how him throwing Gulak so far across the ring ended up benefitting Gulak, as he got launched close to the ropes a Lorcan had to struggle to get over to him. The finish is a slick variation on learned behavior, with Gulak using a chaos theory to instead roll into a dragon sleeper. Lorcan has now cleanly lost his two singles matches against Gulak, yet due to his behavior in these losses comes out looking as strong and threatening as ever. Time to keep this feud going, to our benefit.

PAS: This was totally killer, glad we get to see this guys match up in the era of weirdly long TV main events for cruiserweights. And these are two guys who can fill 20+ minutes together.  The opening burst by Lorcan was great, and I totally bought Gulak having to get nasty with the throat shots. The simple throw into the announce table was so much cooler with the pre-existing injury and Lorcan's selling. That top rope suplex was a huge near fall, and I thought Lorcan had the match. I loved the call back to the first match with Lorcan forcing Gulak to turtle up and eat strikes to the body, as opposed to what happened earlier in the week. Finish was really cool and Lorcan looks like a total badass passing out rather then tapping. I want Gulak to have this belt forever, he is just great at putting together cool unique championship matches.


ER: Well this was pretty great for a couple week's selection of matches, with both Gulak/Lorcan matches landing on our 2019 Ongoing MOTY List. I'm with Phil, Gulak as Champ Forever.

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WWE Extreme Rules 2017 Live Blog

1. Kalisto vs. Apollo Crews

ER: These pre-show matches almost always deliver, which makes sense as they're a combination of low expectations with guys seemingly trying to get noticed. Kalisto hits an Aerostar-esque 450 from the middle rope to the floor, hopping from inside the ring to the rope on the outside, and crashing senton style into the standing Crews. Awesome. And then he follows it up with another springboard and crashes spectacularly when Crews enziguiris him on the way down. Back in there are a couple of slightly mistimed spots, but all is saved when Crews takes a gorgeous tornado DDT and later hits a huge pop up Samoan drop and a flawless standing shooting star. Kalisto kicking Titus off the apron while hitting the Salida del Sol in one motion was a nice touch to the finish.

2. The Miz vs. Dean Ambrose

ER: First minute or so is total dullsville, and then suddenly something wakes up in Dean and he starts throwing stinging chops on Miz and a huge lariat that sends Miz super fast to the floor. Okay, we're doing this. Miz is great trying to goad Dean into using a chair, and Miz hitting an apron DDT looked real good. Both men tighten things up with Dean actually trying on a couple kicks to the stomach (something he hasn't put effort into in over a year), Miz hits a great dropkick in the corner, Dean levels Miz with his flying elbow to the floor (great timed bump by Miz) and this is definitely better than I was expecting. The fight over the figure 4 is pretty lackluster and I hate that the rebound lariat hits 90% of the time. Finish was logical but couldn't be seen as satisfying to anyone, as ending a match by arguing with the referee for 30 seconds before being hit with a finisher is just unsatisfying. Still, match exceeded expectations.

3. Alicia Fox/Noam Dar vs. Sasha Banks/Rich Swann

ER: Really liked the early Fox/Sasha tangling, Alicia going for a tilt a whirl only for Sasha to reverse to the Banks Statement looked really great. Goddamn do I hate Michael Cole constantly given the directive that black babyfaces "love to have fun!" It's a dumb as hell line that they keep going to, and it never sounds convincing and always sounds insulting. Thankfully the fun hating women get in to break up a pin and yank arms in nasty ways. Sasha hits her pretty spectacular double knees off the top into Dar on the floor and Swann plants the phoenix. This whole thing felt like an inconsequential pre-show match, but was perfectly fine for what it was. Dug Team Swasha's post-match dancing.

ER: I have no clue who Elias Samson is, but shitty guy with an acoustic singing original songs is some pretty immediate heel heat from me. It feels like more of a college heel gimmick but it works as a guy who plays open mics and works 12 hours a week at a coffee shop. Michael Cole almost makes me spit out my coffee after the song, with the hilariously mis-delivered line "That sounds like something that should be on The Ghost of Tom Joad!" Nothing like dropping a reference to Springsteen's worst album, which is also over 20 years old. That's his go-to stark singer songwriter album reference!? Compare Samson to fucking Nebraska or something if you're going old. Shit, do I now have to go back and see if GoTJ has gotten better with age? Whatever, Cole's line could not have sounded less cool. Nobody reacted to it. It was amazing. "That sounds like a cut off of No Jacket Required!!" he says in his voice that sounds like he's recording a video game soundbite. 10 stars.

4. Kendo Stick on a Pole: Bayley vs. Alexa Bliss

ER: Well this couldn't have been more disappointing. Did Miz/Ambrose go way too long and this just had most of the middle cut out? The hype video was longer than the match! I don't tend to use terms like "bury" but damn did this feel like a "Spirit Squad get sent back to OVW" moment for Bayley.

5. Cage Match: Sheamus/Cesaro vs. Hardy Boys

ER: Both teams go for escapes right away which is like the least interesting way to work a team cage match, but Cesaro does look awesome running across the ring, leaping up the ropes and springing to the top of the cage. Jeff hits on of the best lariats of his career on Sheamus. Cesaro does the Scott Hall "Bad Guy" pose. Sheamus is the only one saving this with several painful looking bumps into the cage. he really has no problem flying over the ropes into that cage in violent ways. The escape attempts don't do much for me and I'd much rather see violent asskickings and guys getting thrown into the cage, but they win me over once Jeff is dangling from the side of the cage while Cesaro is holding on to only his arm. That looked great. The psychology of team escape cage matches just never makes sense to me, as it seems like the heel team should just let one of the faces escape, and then just kick the shit out of the remaining face for 10 minutes and walk out the door. If they had let Jeff escape 10 seconds in, this could have just been both of them teeing off on Matt with Jeff unable to save. It all just makes no sense. Jeff coming back in to do a dive off the top makes confuses me even more. So is he back in the match? Is he unescaped? Cole says so, and I actually like that. THAT makes me more interested in this. And that rule totally saved the match. Cesaro and Sheamus giving Matt such a beating that Jeff reenters the match, which leads directly to them losing, is a great finish. Matt dragging Jeff for the door while C&S climb over was really well done.

6. Austin Aries vs. Neville

ER: I hate how high Neville cuts on missed clotheslines. Aries is freaking 5'5", he can duck a normal lariat. This gets good once Neville goes after Aries' left arm. Graves is good putting over how Aries is a southpaw and this is going to take his most important weapons away from him. The kicks to the arm look great and the fight to the ring ropes was quality. They lose the magic pretty kick when Aries grabs a guillotine with that same arm that's been beaten to a pulp. Do you know how hard your arm has to work to hold a guillotine? So I did not like that, but then Aries crashes hard on a missed dive and Neville hits a picture perfect red arrow, so I can't complain too much. Still, other than some Kendrick, it doesn't seem like I'm missing too much by skipping 205 Live.

7. Bray Wyatt vs. Samoa Joe vs. Seth Rollins vs. Finn Balor vs. Roman Reigns

ER: I wish they had found a 6th man, odd numbered matches are usually the pits. This is okay I guess. There's a lot of movement, so that's something. Bray is doing a nice job of not ignoring the people just lying around selling, always throwing in a kick or stomp whenever he passes one. This is pretty predictably a mess, but the fans have been engaged the whole time which doesn't always happen in formless multimans. They even counted along to Roman's corner clotheslines which made me smile. Roman/Joe do an absolutely terrible phone booth fighting spot. My god those were ugly punches. Does Rollins aim a couple feet past his opponent on every dive on purpose? All of his dives end up looking like really painless slingblade clotheslines. It has to be intentional. At least Bray throwing Joe into a tope looked nice (even if the tope was ugly). This is apparently "Extreme Rules" but it takes 18 minutes for a chair to get involved. How is that possible? The big moment in a lot of these matches is the go go go spot where one guy hits a finisher, then gets leveled by someone else's finisher, and so on. But since this match was tornado style they had already basically been doing that the whole time, so when they went into that mode it felt pretty anticlimactic. Having Joe against Lesnar is at least a new match, so I'm interested, despite not being very interested in current Samoa Joe.

ER: Overall the PPV over-delivered, though Rachel was most excited for the Bliss/Bayley match and that...was really weird. That's like the match that happens before we find out Bayley got a wellness suspension.

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WWE Elimination Chamber 2017 Live Blog

1. Curt Hawkins vs. Mojo Rawley

This was a surprisingly nicely structured opener between two of the most pointless guys on the roster. It had the feeling of a dark match where two guys were given a chance to do their thing, and it benefitted from that. These two have had minimal run-ins, no angle to speak of, and Hawkins was dead on arrival a few months ago. So they get 8 minutes to do their unadorned thing. This was the last sketch of the night on SNL, the last match of a SNME card, something with no expectations and minimal chance. And they benefit from all of that! Mojo looks leaner than usual, and moves quicker than I've seen him. Hawkins doesn't bring a whole lot to this, evading Mojo for the first couple, but once Mojo gets his hands on him things get fun. Mojo breaks out a big lariat, killer fireman's carry flapjack, and huge running forearm to the corner. Hawkins takes the abuse and picks his shots nicely, and this is the kind of match you hope fleshes out a good house show. A match you wouldn't have even noticed on paper, but keeps the good times going so the live show doesn't lag. Good work guys.

2. Becky Lynch vs. Mickie James

Was hoping James would have ditched the bell bottoms by now. That could really use an update. And I wasn't expecting this to get 12 minutes. But their must be something in my coffee tonight as I liked this match too. This is feeling like a really great house show so far, which is awesome. Becky talks about becoming the Arm Break Kid and so Mickie comes out and goes after that fucking arm. Crowd is cold and that's a shame as Mickie attacks the arm in cool ways, wrapping it grossly around ropes, and best of all wraps it around her legs and jumps to the mat. I loved the arm work, and she got a lot of time to show it off. James even has some really great mounted punches, which are the most difficult punches to throw. I don't remember her having great punches. Becky sells the arm nicely...except every single time she goes on offense, which is really annoying. I don't need her to do every move one-armed or anything, but at least acknowledge that you arm has gotten kicked in the last 10 minutes. But Becky is a good underdog in this, even takes a sick DDT on the side of her head. James looked kind of tired by the end, but unintentionally or not I dug it, as it makes sense for the returning veteran to have lost a step. Match ending could have used a bit more as the ending as is was lazy and somewhat unearned, but this was a satisfying 12 minutes, worked in a style that was a pleasant surprise.

3. Apollo Crews & Kalisto vs. Dolph Ziggler

When I saw this handicapped match listed, I thought it was a pretty dumb idea considering the participants. So I loved when Ziggler just jumped Kalisto during his entrance and took him out of the match. Dolph should be using smarts to win this stacked match at all odds, and that was the most logical start. Crews, Hawkins and Rawley are pretty low on the totem to be getting onto PPV, but I kind of love that it's a thing. Again, feels like a really fun house show. Might not be the best business plan, but I don't care at all about what benefits them. Ziggler as a cocky athletic asskicker is soooo much better as cocky babyface who bumps. And Ziggler was good, yanking on a nasty horizontal side headlock, grounding Crews and gassing him out by choking off his air supply. Crews showed a side I haven't really seen as I thought his selling was really engaging. I thought his exhaustion felt authentic, and Ziggler's smirks to the crowd and not just the camera while he picked apart Crews was great. The opening match jumping did its job, as off camera as Kalisto got to his feet the crowd noise started to swell. Ziggler did all Kalisto's sympathy build for him, as Kalisto got to lie around for 6 minutes and all his heat was built up for him. Nice idea. Crews gets an all time great enziguiri with his last gasp of strength, and Kalisto tags in for a springboard dropkick and a nice enziguiri of his own. Crews makes a blind tag and I love how he actually acknowledge the beating he took, not rushing in right away and instead grimacing hard as he forced himself through the ropes, then uses whatever restored strength he had to plant Ziggler with a killer high angle tossed powerbomb. This was another good one, and Ziggler pays him back by destroying Crews with a chair afterwards. Well done by all, a heel performance that Ziggler needed, and the first time I've actually "seen something" in Crews, beyond "athletic black man" spots.

4. Heath Slater & Rhyno vs. Breezango

I wish Breeze had gotten a better shake on the active roster. He is/was a favorite of mine in NXT, but some guys play the big stage, some need to fill out the small stage. Slater is a feel good story and an easy guy to get behind, and Rhyno is great at apron work. Fandango doesn't have tons to do so he makes up his time by hamming it up while not falling right away on a sunset flip, and tossing tons of fashion citations onto Slater. Slater throws a nice high kick and great Memphis overhand right to the forehead, and Breeze bumps properly around on for Slater's comeback. Could have been more, but we have 14 tag teams to get through.

5. Heath Slater & Rhyno vs. The Vaudevillains

Aiden English, like Tyler Breeze, was one of my favorite things in NXT. In other words, nobody in a position of authority should trust my taste in professional wrestling, and how it relates to making money. This is sadly short, but English got some nice moments, hitting a boss knee drop and taking Slater's match ending DDT incredibly. Slater lifted him into the air to deliver it, and English kicked his legs in a panic while falling. Gotch didn't manage to murder anyone during his brief time in, and I actually liked his little kick combo and rolling fireman's carry.

6. Heath Slater & Rhyno vs. The Usos

Okay each match has been shorter than the last. Hate where this is going. Jey hits an amazing pop-up Samoan drop, and the superkick finish made sense, but this was a steamrolling.

7. The Usos vs. American Alpha

Usos are getting easier to tell apart, now that Jimmy is chubbier. Usos get dumped with double Germans but from then on it's all Usos and they're pretty vicious taking Gable apart. The superkick to Gable's ribs while he was being held prone was nasty. Gable is a good underdog and the Usos as heels have been sadly wasted but good whenever given the chance. But I had a feeling the Usos aren't advancing here. Jordan's hot tag was good, one of his more fiery ones. But the ending felt too rushed and predictable. These teams are capable of having a great match, I'm sure of it, and we've gotten glimpses and teases and one really good TV bout, but damn they need to just given them 17 minutes and say "GO!"

8. American Alpha vs. The Ascension

The best thing about this was the best part, with Ascension hitting the Fall of Man with a spinning back elbow instead of a kick, and I liked the idea of a flash upset. But the rest of this didn't do much for me. After that opening flurry didn't work, the Ascension had no chance of winning the belts. Having them as the last team sucked out any kind of drama. Clearly AA was getting the belts. Crowd would have deflated had Ascension won after a long, hard fought contest. No way they would do that. It only would have worked if it happened 10 seconds in. After that they were just waiting around to die. This whole gauntlet was overall disappointing, as we all expected it would be.

9. Nikki Bella vs. Natalya

This is pretty dull for a grudge match. It's possible Natalya was grinding down Nikki with boring holds on purpose, to tease her for not being as good a wrestler, but Natalya doesn't do "subtle", so if she was trying to get that story across we would have heard a lot of "You're not stronger than me, Nikki! I'm a better wrestler than you!!" Since we did not, I have to imagine she was not. Nikki hits hard on her comeback, Natalya takes a nasty landing while delivering a superplex, and good lord Nikki genuinely looks like she's choking the life out of Natalya on BOTH STFs she does. The second one was especially gross as Natalya's tongue starts sticking out and her eyes get wide. Either Nikki delivers the best looking headlocks in the company, or she is just strangling people while Natalya is suddenly a great seller. Either way, the match finish blew, but the match was totally worth it for them chokes.

10. Randy Orton vs. Luke Harper

I do not like this nearly as much as the recent Wyatt/Harper house show singles match (review coming tomorrow!!), and I guess that had a better built in story. But it was also worked bigger, and was the match we were hoping it looked like on paper. Here Orton overpowers Harper to start, which is stupid. He just muscles Harper around and beats him up. Harper's the dude who should be overpowering EVERYone around. I like that he can sell, but this should have been Orton scrambling for his ass.That Harper/Wyatt match went barely 10 minutes, started big, caught its breath in the middle, and ended big. This has been 13 minutes of methodical. Admittedly, all that build made Harper's epic superkick feel that much more epic. I loathe when Orton pounds his fists on the mat, it looks so stupid. So I loved Harper blasting him with a superkick right when he stops Vipering or whatever the fuck that is. Vipers don't have fists. Gawd. But that kick was a lifesaver, and I thought for sure the follow up kick was getting the big win. AND THE CROWD GETS BEHIND HARPER!!! And fucccccccck they didn't let him kick out of the RKO. I'm telling you, if Harper kicks out of that motherfucker, we have a new babyface superstar. How killer and unexpected would that be? Harper shocking Orton by kicking out of the RKO and going on to win; Orton flips out and puts up his WM title shot if Harper will face him again; Harper wins the title shot and goes on to be featured in a singles match at WM; Wyatt tries to bring him back as a follower mid-match, and Harper gets one final moment against Bray, turning on him officially in front of the biggest live crowd of the year. He commits, and the fans get committed in his commitment. He wins the title from whomever has it (Cena?) and Harper is the new bearded World Champion babyface superstar and former tag team partner of Necro Butcher.

Is that so fucking difficult??

11. Naomi vs. Alexa Bliss

I love Alexa's cartoon villain facials. David Otunga sounds like a black Brett Gelman. But yes, Alexa Bliss cartoon facials. I especially like her snarl. Or when the ref admonishes her and she snaps "I know!" That kind of work goes a long way. Naomi is a good face with a great look, but sometimes she can get a little lost. The kick combos can get a little complicated, but her energy is good. Bliss did her a lot of favors in this, really flying into her stuff. The best is Alexa running fast into the rear view. I love the rear view as a part of Naomi's offense, but I don't always love the Irish whip set up. So Alexa running into it is the best. Alex comes back but then misses a great twisting body press into knees, real nasty. Then Naomi hits her own monsault, with her knees whipping right into Alexa's stomach. Yeesh that hurts. And I was NOT expecting a win for Naomi, that's kind of awesome. I think this is her first, and why not? They're switching the titles a lot, but I like that this makes it seem like ANY of these women can win the title on any given night.

Chamber hype video was AWESOME. They get older Chamber workers to come back and talk about what they loved and hated about it, they show a lot of grisly black and white footage of Chamber bumps, all good stuff. I'm hyped.

12. Elimination Chamber: Dean Ambrose vs. Baron Corbin vs. The Miz vs. Bray Wyatt vs. AJ Styles vs. John Cena

Styles is GOD in this match so far. He has been bumping like wild for everything. Cena roughed him around, then Ambrose clotheslined him over the ropes, powerbombed him on the side plank, and then crashed into him with an awesome clothesline off the top of a pod. Cena hits a German on both of them at the same time, and Bray Wyatt comes in just as things are really getting good. And he feeds off that energy. Wyatt hits his crazy high/fast cross block, then gets knocked to the side plank by AJ and takes a wicked post shot. Moves look so damn unforgiving on these side panels. Cena and Styles do some of the best "fighting on top of a cage" that you've seen, and Cena takes the death plunge. Then Ambrose and Styles take turns seeing who can bank the others' head off a pod panel, and this is reminding me why I love the Elimination Chamber gimmick so much. Suplex powerbomb spots suck ass, look dangerous and never look "worth it", so that can get the hell out of my chamber match. Corbin comes in, and I finally notice how fucking lame it is to where a "lone wolf" t shirt when you're called the Lone Wolf. Like, Disco Stu don't advertise. Everybody is taking such full force bumps into the chain link parts, it's reading really well in HD. The structure seems unflinching so every bump into any part of it is coming off dangerous. And Ambrose gets plastered through a pod after eliminating Corbin, makes it look amazing. Miz wisely hides in his pod, knowing he will get his skin ripped off by Corbin if he reveals himself. Cena has some ridiculous strength and I'm glad his body allows him to display it sometimes, because him rolling through a Miz crossbody to stand up - holding a 225 lb. man! - to lift him to a fireman's carry, and THEN AA him?? That's epic as hell. AJ has the makings of a legendary Chamber performer. Rey Mysterio is the obvious king of the Chamber match. He invented these things. But AJ gets it. Some day when Rey comes back for a superstar glory tour, these two need to cross paths in a Chamber. Wyatt gets to pin Cena, which is and should be big, and Styles and the newly energized Wyatt are the finalists for the belt. And both guys sprint to the finish. AJ Styles hits his sliding elbow, and then a bonkers springboard 450. Holy cow. Styles toss out a strike combo and Wyatt spins into a huge lariat. Styles is great at taking lariats. And Styles gets caught going for his flying forearm, as Bray snags him and plants him with Sister Abigail. Super match, loved the order of entrants and the stories that unfolded. This is doing the most with what you are given.

Awesome night of wrestling, well worth the time spent. The show had a lot of undercard performers stepping up on a smaller show, while the headliners delivered strong performances. Really great stuff all around.

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2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Chair Match

19. Kalisto v. Baron Corbin WWE TLC 12/4

ER: The feud that's been driving all those new Network subs! This starts really fun though, with Kalisto using speed to stay a step ahead while Corbin sets up chair spots that backfire. The opening was really cool David/Goliath stuff with Kalisto trying to spin kick a chair into Corbin but Corbin wisely just letting go of the chair, then rushing Corbin with a chair but Corbin just holding his arms out to catch it. Corbin chokes him on the floor and wings him upside down into the barricade by his neck. Corbin hits a high slam in the ring and sets up tons of chairs, and Kalisto hits a short rana into the set up chairs, then hits a massive Thesz press off the top sending both through a bunch of set up chairs. This is unexpectedly really great. Kalisto flies to the floor with a dive and Corbin catches and just plants him with a brutal backdrop. We get some fun stuff with Corbin chasing Kalisto with a chair, and Kalisto dodging shots, but then Kalisto throws a chair at him and hits a nice rana off the barricade. Back in and Kalisto does a moonsault kneedrop onto a chair/Corbin and my god these guys are really trying out there. Crowd does not care. But they're wrong. Kalisto bashes Corbin around the ring with a chair, but then leaps into a nasty shot when jumping off the top, and Corbin hits a nasty end of days on a pile of chairs which had to be no walk in the park for him either. This far far far exceeded any kind of expectations. Who would have any expectations for a WWE Chair match!? But both guys were nuts and this worked terrifically.

PAS: I really enjoyed this, it felt like the worlds greatest Sabu v. Brian Lee match. If someone told you they found an awesome Sabu v. Brian Lee ECW HH on Youtube, you would want to go watch that right? Corbin was pretty great in this, I liked some of his early squashes, but I wasn't sure he had a actually match this good in him. Maybe my favorite spot of the match was him pinning Kalisto's head against the barricade and smashing it with forearms, it felt like the kind of thing Finlay or Ikeda might do. I also loved him stalking Kalisto around the ring trying to squash him with chair shots. Kalisto hit all of his big spots cleanly and they were high risk crazy stuff, it was almost too well executed, Sabu would awkwardly blow one or two of them which makes him finally hitting them even better. Loved that finish too, holy moly that was nasty.

2016 Ongoing MOTY List

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WWE TLC 2016 Somehow Ended Up Being a Live Blog

I'm not going to really attempt to stay live on this one, but still wanted to see the show. So I'll be a little more pokey than normal. The brand extension and its ushering in of seemingly weekly PPVs is the bane of Rachel's existence.

1. American Alpha/Hype Bros./Apollo Crews vs. Vaudevillains/Ascension/Curt Hawkins

ER: Leave it to Mauro to call out a battle of the Edgeheads. Mojo debuts a "Hammer Time" fist drop that is genuinely so stupid that it might be the very thing to get him over. Every single person in this match is super vocal. There is constant chatter going on. It's like every Barry Darsow gimmick having a multiman tag against themselves. Viktor still works really hard which is pretty impressive considering how things have gone for his team ever since the NXT call up. Him matching up against Gable was fun and the flapjack into a superkick looked impressive. Crowd is mic'd really well, feels like you can hear really strong reactions, but they all sound individual, not just bulk roars. It's like it's mic'd in stereo. I was really enjoying the scenic pace things were traveling at, but you can tell immediately when they got the "everybody's finishers" signal which is kind of a bummer. This could have easily gone 20, just trim some time from the kickoff show. Hawkins runs nicely into a Crews high kick and suplex from the ring to the floor was cool. Nice little kickoff match.

2. Randy Orton/Bray Wyatt vs. Heath Slater/Rhyno

ER: Here's four guys I really didn't care much about several months ago, who I could see having a good match. And I love all the stuff with Slater on the apron. He gets totally upended by a lariat to his legs, and then gets almost alleyooped back into the ring right into an Orton powerslam. Rhyno looks super orange here. Curt Hawkins looked super orange in the first match. Are these guys trying to subtly play to Vince's Trump boner? Especially Hawkins, with his orange glow and swept back hair and spreading of facts that are in fact nothing close to factual. Oh and things ended while I was rambling. That felt quick.

3. Nikki Bella vs. Carmella

ER: Love people pointing out Nikki's MMA braids. So awesome. They both have their hands and wrists wrapped too. Carmella's figure 4 headscissors is a great spot, especially with her grabbing her own foot. Though Nikki's stick shot to break it up could have looked way way better. But she more than made up for it with that roundhouse kick off the barricade. Carmella ran right into it, too. The boot into Carmella's shoulderblades to set it up was gross too. Man Nikki really went out of her way to fire extinguish Carmella's ass and vagina. Her finisher was literally set up by an extended icing down of Carmella's asshole. Which, would probably leave someone fairly vulnerable, so, sure.

4. Ladder Match: Dolph Ziggler vs. The Miz

ER: This starts nicely with a bunch of fast work, especially loved Ziggler trying to grab a ladder under the ring and getting blasted by a through the ropes dropkick. All of their stuff fighting around an upright ladder looked good too, and then Ziggler takes a great drop toehold into a ladder. This is good! We're almost 10 minutes in and haven't gotten any silly climbing spots, which is refreshing. This is more ladders being used as weapons, and guys taking spills into ladders, which certainly comes off more painful. Setting up the propped ladder in the corner spots was a little wonky, but the Ziggler elbow off the top looked nice. Once they start climbing and falling I lose some interest, thought things were going way better during the first 10. Miz hears me complaints and starts slamming Ziggler's knee in the ladder a bunch, then locks on a vicious figure 4. Ziggler gets a little medodramatic on the superkick attempt but I appreciate what he was going for and liked how it lead right to the SCF on the ladder. Miz dangling from the belt and getting a ladder smacked into him was novel and Miz sold the hell out of that knee. Maryse as a second has been really fun and I love her selling Miz' knee injury not with a flip out, but more of a "awkwardly sucking in through teeth". And I love that horizontal ladder in the corner callback spot, with Dolph getting powerbombed into it. This was good for 10 minutes, lost its way a little bit, and has now come rushing back to being real good. Miz limping up a ladder while Ziggler does pull ups up his ladder was suuuuuper overwrought but kind of wonderful pro wrestling. And Rachel predicted the finish before the match even started by saying "Well Ziggler never wins, so that can't happen right?" When she's right, she's right. This match was real good. And then Miz calls Maryse over to the apron to help him with his bad wheel, and that's awesome as Dolph is just fetal position crying on the ground in the background.

5. Chair Match: Kalisto vs. Baron Corbin

ER: The feud that's been driving all those new Network subs! This starts really fun though, with Kalisto using speed to stay a step ahead while Corbin sets up chair spots that backfire. The opening was really cool David/Goliath stuff with Kalisto trying to spin kick a chair into Corbin but Corbin wisely just letting go of the chair, then rushing Corbin with a chair but Corbin just holding his arms out to catch it. Corbin chokes him on the floor and wings him upside down into the barricade by his neck. Corbin hits a high slam in the ring and sets up tons of chairs, and Kalisto hits a short rana into the set up chairs, then hits a massive Thesz press off the top sending both through a bunch of set up chairs. This is unexpectedly really great. Kalisto flies to the floor with a dive and Corbin catches and just plants him with a brutal backdrop. We get some fun stuff with Corbin chasing Kalisto with a chair, and Kalisto dodging shots, but then Kalisto throws a chair at him and hits a nice rana off the barricade. Back in and Kalisto does a moonsault kneedrop onto a chair/Corbin and my god these guys are really trying out there. Crowd does not care. But they're wrong. Kalisto bashes Corbin around the ring with a chair, but then leaps into a nasty shot when jumping off the top, and Corbin hits a nasty end of days on a pile of chairs which had to be no walk in the park for him either. This far far far exceeded any kind of expectations. Both guys were nuts.

6. Tables Match: Alexa Bliss vs. Becky Lynch

ER: The rules of a table match seem pretty weenie after the two matches that just happen. Those matches had chairs and ladders being used as weapons, and people taking rough spills into both, and now this one is built around avoiding one bump through one table. But we shall see. Becky is good about bouncing her face off various surfaces for Bliss offense. Liked the mini curb stomps, and in general whenever a move requires a face to be whipped into a mat, Lynch goes in fast with a nasty whip motion. Tough for me to get into this one as it's based all around avoiding the one big bump instead of just taking tons of big bumps. It's the escape the cage vs. violent cage match problem. They do start winning me over with that sick DDT on a flipped over table, with Lynch technically taking it but Alexis going back first over the table brace. Becky is real nasty about bending Bliss' arm through the table legs in painful ways. And then Bliss flies ribs first into a table edge and on replay it doesn't look as good but I'll pretend I didn't see that. And yeah this mostly didn't work. Building to one bump that was not even a top 10 impressive bump on the evening just isn't a really satisfying match to be handed. They did about all they could with a kind of limp stipulation, but that doesn't make it any more interesting.

7. TLC Match: Dean Ambrose vs. AJ Styles

ER: Styles is working OT in this one. Everything in the first few minutes is Ambrose lightly doing things that requires AJ to fly recklessly into ladders, across tables and into chairs. Dean caps off the half-assery with the lightest running lariat to the back of AJ's head. I don't know how AJ even knew how to bump for that. But this does just continue to evolve into a real AJ show. He's bumping like mad and throwing himself so impressively through everything. But Dean amps it up about 10-12 minutes in. His jab/chop combo is the best it's looked in ages. But this is the Styles show, baby, and not just talking about the ever widening split in his tights revealing more and more of his buns. He takes a wild bump through a table but can't stop there as we also get him doing a balls out (maybe soon with those tights!) springboard 450 to the floor through a table, crashing through Ambrose and face planting into the floor. This dude is nuts. James Ellsworth comes out and gets booed as they liked the match just fine as it was. Styles takes a nutso fast flipping bump off the ladder and to the floor, and then Ellsworth turns on Ambrose and shoves Dean off a ladder through two tables, leading to the Styles win. Boy, Ellsworth. That guy is still around. It's weird when somebody good gets over on their own and WWE flips out and cuts their legs out, but then someone like Ellsworth gets over and WWE pushes them more than anybody ever actually wanted.


Well this ended up being a really great show that went by super quick. Some of these PPVs have been total never ending slogs but this one was paced just right. Miz/Ziggler and Kalisto/Corbin were great in totally unexpected ways, other stuff was kept inoffensively short, and really only the tables match left me sorta flat. Can't actually remember the last PPV I enjoyed as much as this one.

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WWE Survivor Series 2016 (Not Quite) Live Blog

Saw some friends in town from Australia and got momentarily obsessed with the new show The Killing Season, so got home a little after the show started, but I'm here now and starting it from the beginning! Brand supremacy is incredibly stupid!

1. Ariya Daivari, Drew Gulak & Tony Nese vs. Rich Swann, Noam Dar & TJ Perkins

Still a bummer we don't get Gallagher and have been getting Dar, but at least Gallagher's picture has been in the 205 Live lineup. Pre-PPV matches always have a hot crowd because people are just excited to see live wrestling, and this match is immediately ice cold. People DO NOT care about the cruiserweight division, likely because they threw all of these guys onto TV cold and just said "here are cruiserweights!!!" The word "cruiserweight" probably doesn't even mean a whole lot to most current fans. They weren't the ones whining about the nWo interrupting WCW lucha matches 20 years ago. And this match is weird. They're presented as cruiserweights but then they go out there and put on a standard WWE TV match with guys being put into arm locks that won't go anywhere. The whole thing was pretty flat. Gulak did things I liked, but he doesn't have the flash to get over in a 6 man like this. Dar shows us how bad of a catcher he is, the ref stops TJ doing a dive for no reason whatsoever, Swann hits the ugliest standing 450 that he's ever hit. This whole thing shouldn't get anybody excited for 205 Live, which is a shame.

2. Kane vs. Luke Harper

Oooooo a bonus kickoff match! And Kane hits the chinlock to start the match! This whole thing is pretty chinlock-y. Harper gets some moments of nice clubbing, some neat short knees to Kane's head, a big senton that the crowd dug. Kane is pretty sluggish here. Realllly going through some motions. JBL makes a dud of a Walking Dead reference. This was a lot of nothing and naturally you gotta keep Kane strong. He looked really really slow and bad here.

3. Bayley, Alicia Fox, Nia Jax, Sasha Banks & Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch, Naomi, Alexa Bliss, Carmella & Natalya

I think most of this PPV will be individual entrances. Nikki was attacked backstage by an unknown assailant (maybe the return of Midnight!?!?) and replaced by Natalya. Natalya and Nikki confuse me, because I watch Total Divas with Rachel, and that has to be a scripted show. But in these backstage "acting" segments both (especially Natalya) are such terrible actresses, in a way that never shows up on Total Divas. Are the situations scripted and not actual words? Because Nattie is completely unconvincing whenever she has to act. I didn't really get into this match until the Carmella/Fox segment, oddly. I liked the way they matched up. Bliss hits a neat moonsault to quickly eliminate Foxy though. I like Jax but man was it a dumb choice for her to wear a big red Raw shirt. Couldn't they have just made her some red accessories for her outfit? Her and Naomi match up nice with Nia absorbing a big crossbody to the floor, and Naomi bumping big on the floor as Jax destroys her. I do hate how these eliminations just come so quickly. Natalya is really getting the weird push suddenly, with her just steamrolling Sasha and then dominating Charlotte, until Charlotte hit one kick to eliminate her. Really hard to get too into this match where every single pairing has just ended with someone getting eliminated. Hardly any tag outs or drama, just new pairing, new elimination. Becky takes an eternity to set up an armbar and somehow Jax just taps to it. Man this match is really bad. No flow whatsoever. Bliss gets eliminate as I type that. This suuuuuucks. Half the stuff Lynch does looks really good. She always throws a nice legdrop (all the variations), some of her suplexes are great. But sometimes her move set up can take an eternity. The Bayley to Belly really did not look like a "killshot" move. Lynch took like 90% of their segment together and Bayley just wins the match with one suplex. This was terrible. I've made a terrible choice.

4. The Miz vs. Sami Zayn

This is a real nice, hot match. I don't love either guy but they're matching up really well in this one. The small knee selling work is good and Zayn ramps up the selling after hitting a Blue Thunder Bomb. Maryse interjecting herself on the floor was great and her work and timing as a second is always worth watching. She knows when to hold back and has great reactions (her whipping her arm around while Miz is locking on the figure 4 is Wendell Kim-esque in it's animated excitement). Zayn locking on the figure 4 was a little clunky, with Miz pulling his own leg into position to help him out and we all knew there would be some sort of masturbatory '97 reference on this show, because they can't help themselves. If there HAD to be an SS97 spot this was probably the best case scenario, as the cut over to Maryse ringing it was great. Overall match was good. But damn at this point I'm pretty sure they just book shows in Canada so that they can rub the SS97 finish in their face. They're like a guy who had awful 90 second teenage summer camp sex with a girl who then sends her a letter every couple years reminding her of it.

5. Enzo Amore & Big Cass/The Shining Stars/Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows/Sheamus & Cesaro/New Day vs. Heath Slater & Rhyno/Breezango/Usos/Hype Bros/American Alpha

I don't mind Enzo and Cass yammering on for several minutes, as it allows me to FF with zero hesitation and attempt to get closer to live. Cesaro's dinner jacket/carnation look amazing, but he really needs that shit to be tearaway. Who takes a jacket off over their head? I like whenever Michael Cole slips up and says "Hype Brothers", but sadly he's not on commentary here. I don't know why it makes me laugh. Is there an ECW chant? We immediately start with two different eliminations. "This changes everything!!" Probably not. Gallows punches in the corner on Mojo looked really great, and Anderson throws an awesome knee to Ryder's face. Gallows and Anderson appear to get better as WWE's interest in them gets lesser. These matches are the pits with all the fast eliminations. How are these pins not being broken up!? Everybody has fucking 8 partners just standing there watching. And they all look like total goobers in their branded shirts. Primo does a cool weird bump in the corner that ends with his leg getting hooked. Man the way every single person tonight is getting eliminated after one move of offense, I'd be terrified to get in the ring. Does everybody have a fucking bus to catch or something? Slater's stage dive off the top looked great. But it's really hard to care about any of this. Not one once of psychology. I much rather would have seen a normal tag match between any of these teams. Usos vs. Sheamus/Cesaro for 10 minutes would be really good. Almost none of this match was good.

6. Kalisto vs. Brian Kendrick

Really fun start to this one, especially the "Kendrick using environment" spots: Holding onto ropes, the funky schoolboy into the bottom turnbuckle, kicking Kalisto's trapped body in the ring steps, but really anything he does has looked good. Kendrick breaks out a nasty back suplex and a cravate, and I loved Kalisto's fast head and arm drag to try and shake the cravate. Kendrick makes leg kicks look good and is really smart with his rope usage without getting cutesy. And then they break out the Spanish Fly from the apron which is pretty crazy, and then Kendrick catches Kalisto's tope in a really awesome way, just completely getting barreled over. This is really fun. This is really a PPV with some fun singles matches and horrible multimans. Damn that headlock takeover to set up the bully choke was sick. Really got into all of Kendrick's choke, with Kalisto gamely fighting to the ropes. Kendrick looks really great in this, even landing a vicious diving axe handle. When was the last time you saw a nasty axe handle? Kalisto's offense is really benefitting from Kendrick too. Nobody whips their head into the mat for Kalisto's kneeling rana quite like Kendrick. Well, that finish blew and I was not expecting to see Kendrick win. So the cruisers are staying on Raw....but 205 Live will be taped after Smackdown? How will any of that work?

7. Shane MacMahon, Bray Wyatt, Randy Orton, AJ Styles & Dean Ambrose vs. Braun Strowman, Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, Chris Jericho & Kevin Owens

They're starting this off really slow which makes me think this is getting way more time than the other (terrible) elimination matches. Not tons to comment on at first, except for Shane's goofiest punches ever. It was nice to see Jericho's missile dropkick catch Shane right in the jaw. He is far and away the easiest guy to root against in this match. Is windbreaker pants really the best he can do for ring gear? How is the casual fan supposed to feel about him? He's supposed to be some kind of legend, right? Yuck. Ambrose hits a really nice lariat on Owens, then whiffs by a few feet on a tope that I think was supposed to not whiff. Styles hits a pretty wild flying elbow to the floor, Owens hits a nice fat guy senton to the floor and eats a back breaker over the barrier. This is actually pretty fun. Strowman kicks Shane in the face and I love it. Shane almost hangs himself clotheslining Braun over. Looked sloppy as hell, but the sloppiness gave it a nice reckless feel. Oh my but those Shane punches in the corner are the shittiest. Graves sucks the company dick and calmly puts over all the time Shane spends in the boxing gym. Good lord Braun tries to murder AJ by throwing him over the top to the floor, and either threw him too short or too far and AJ takes a nutso bump rolling over the top rope backwards to the floor. Good gravy. Much as I will continue to root against him, Shane's elbow through Braun on the announce table looked awesome, and Ellsworth grabbing Braun's leg to keep him out of the ring was a pretty clever way to keep Braun strong-yet-eliminated, and about the best use of Ellsworth. Also a good use of Ellsworth, having Braun launch him off the ramp through a table. Why were there pizza boxes on a table next to the entrance ramp? Who was just sitting there eating pizza and couldn't clean up his garbage? Somebody on the ring crew is going to have to leave an anonymous comic sans note asking people to clean up after themselves.

Shane commits on a missed dropkick and nicely sneaks in knees to counter a Lionsault. His timing on getting the knees up was really good. Damn Jericho slamming AJ's head into the mat looked nasty, just grabbing him by the hair and violently slamming the back of his head into the mat. The stuff with the clipboard was all realllllly stupid. The match goes 30 minutes with only 2 eliminations, and two guys go out because of the clipboard. That's really dumb you guys. Fuck I hate that I've actually liked a lot of Shane's stuff in this match. He's eaten several nice Reigns punches, and then flies wildly off the top rope into a spear. Though Reigns wasn't totally accounting for the weight and almost spiked his own head. It looked like Shane nailed him with a DDT. Oh, and they're sort of selling it that way, so that works for me. Some of his awful punches aside, Shane has clearly looked better than Rollins in this match, at minimum. Orton has been in like 30 seconds of this now 40+ minute match. I've actually been surprisingly into this whole match but it's finally starting to drag for me. But that's okay because it's over!! It looks like this has been getting pretty roundly shit on, and yeah there really wasn't any psychology outside of "These guys were randomly picked to be on one show, these were picked to be on the other show, they have zero alliances, but this time it counts!!!" So that's really stupid. Nobody actually cares about "brand supremacy". And yes a lot of this was constructed as valiant hero Shane fighting the odds. But I thought this was totally fine. Long as hell, but I was never bored. Not glowing praise I know, but this was definitely not as bad as some are making it out to be.

8. Brock Lesnar vs. Goldberg

I understand the modern medical age we live in, but I still am amazed that 50 year old Goldberg looks essentially the same as he did 16 years ago. Goatee is whiter. That's it. I'm kind of foolishly excited for this one. And HOLY SHIT THEY BOOKED A SQUASH!! THAT was not the finish I was expecting. The whole build up I've been asking "how is a 50 year old who hasn't worked in 12 years going to get thrown around by Lesnar??" and then they go and have Goldberg squash him. Two spears, jackhammer, done. I'm kind reeling, and don't totally know if this was the stupidest way to book this, or the smartest. Lesnar has dominated almost everybody for 18 months, and now a guy who hasn't wrestled in 12 years beats him in 90 seconds. This has to send a terrible message to every single full time wrestler. BUT it also kind of makes sense that the first big Lesnar loss in ages would come in Warrior/Honky Tonk fashion. Just totally surprise Lesnar and mow through him, don't let him even get to suplex city. BUT then you go right back to thinking that there were other guys that are actually ON the roster that they could have booked to do that. This program is over, right? Goldberg isn't sticking around? So does Lesnar go back to dominating the actual roster and they just stop talking about how Goldberg came back, squashed him, and now Lesnar is right back to being better than the regular roster? I don't know!!! It seems kind of dumb and kind of hilarious but was also kind of awesome. I bet nobody was expecting this finish, which is amusing and I was certainly left with my jaw dropped. They built this up for like 2 months!! And then it takes 90 seconds and they go "Thanks for watching, universe!!" This is like one of those UFC fights that get 24/7 type specials, crazy build up, and then someone catches a high kick one minute in. So ridiculous.

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NXT 227 6/19/14 Review

1. Sasha Banks vs. Alexa Bliss

Another match furthering the BFF angle, with Charlotte and Summer bickering at ringside leading to a distracted Sasha getting rolled up. Bliss is very much not good but she's clearly trying, she's just super klutzy and not ready for TV. She seems like she almost falls over on every move she attempts, just constantly off balance. Sasha looked good when the match allowed her to, loved her surfboard as she set it up by yanking on Bliss' hair and smacking her to get ahold of her arms. Other little "not actually offense" furthered her likeness to Stevie Richards, like her just grabbing a grounded Bliss by the back of the head and smacking her forehead into the mat. But yeah, there's trouble in the BFFs.

2. Mojo Rawley vs. Garrett Dylan

I was wondering when Jody Kristofferson was going to pop up, after they showed his dad in the crowd a show or two ago. This is not the first time I've seen a fed act like Kris Kristofferson just happened to show up at their event, without mentioning his son was wrestling. And Regal was amusingly harsh on Kristofferson, saying "Mojo Rawley versus...well, essentially a nobody" and pointing out that anybody who wears brown trunks surely doesn't care about their appearance. And this was your typical Mojo match, which is frustrating as it really doesn't do him favors to just work the same formula every match. His matches are always 2-3 minutes of opponent control, then him running through his moves to the end. If we mixed up the order a little bit we could have a more interesting ebb and flow, instead of just waiting until the point where he starts hitting moves. He is not good a taking a beating, although he at least attempted to sell body work that Kristofferson did, so that was welcome. Kristofferson threw really great body blows and had some nice old Arn Anderson type moves, like short knee lifts or stomping the mat while pressing Mojo's face to his knee. He was also real good about absorbing Mojo's stuff, and Mojo hit a killer flying shoulder tackle, really smacked into him. This was fine.

3. The Vaudevillains vs. Angelo Dawkins & Travis Tyler

This is the debut of the Vaudevillains and I love how absolutely giddy Regal is about guys essentially working carny strongmen gimmicks. Fans are flipping out too, and really it is a wonderful gimmick for these two. English is super talented so it will be great to see him actually winning matches. Gotch is a guy who I've actually seen from the very beginning, as I was there live over a decade ago for his very first pro wrestling matches as Psycho Seth in APW. He was terrible. He clearly didn't get it. Outside of a bad "psycho" gimmick (which only involved wearing Hot Topic jeans with an anarchy symbol on the leg while grinning "evilly"), there was an impression that he just didn't get pro wrestling on a deeper level. In maybe his first match he busted his lip open, and there was a little blood, and a couple people were showing some concern. And then he went on the APW message board and let everybody know he was okay, he had just bit his lip. Before that people had been wondering if he had taken a couple of stiff shots, gotten busted open hardway, but no. No he had to let people know it was just an accident. The only other post in the thread was somebody saying "Dude. Kayfabe." He jumped to Modest and Morgan's promotion PWI a year or two later as Ryan Drago, and still seemed like a guy who just didn't get it. Once PWI shuttered I completely lost track of him, and was absolutely shocked when I looked up who Simon Gotch was. I cannot believe he kept working for the next decade, plugging away, getting seen, and ended up in WWE. No matter what I thought/think of him as a wrestler, that's dedication and I have nothing but huge respect for that. This match is clearly a showcase for the Villains, I'm not even sure Dawkins gets tagged in. English looked really great, got crazy height on a legdrop, finished with a nice senton, and I love some of their double teams like the uppercut to back of the head into a quick snap Aiden neckbreaker. Excited to see them develop, although I wish we got more Aiden singles stuff, hopefully the team still allows for that.

4. Kalisto vs. Tyler Breeze

Wonderful little match that felt like a tight short match, and then you realize it got 11 minutes. Both men were so good at their roles and it was paced so well that an 11 minute match turned into a 5 minute WorldWide classic. Kalisto gets matched up a lot with big guys, but Breeze grounded him better than any of them, and most importantly knew how to take Kalisto's offense the best I've seen. Breeze does some fantastic detail work, and there are two specific spots I want to highlight: Kalisto's kip up rana and Kalisto's handstand headscissors. Breeze made these spots look unexpected, stealth and effective, when especially in the case of a man standing on his hands before clamping a headscissors, is an impressive accomplishment. A handstand headscissors is something that requires boatloads of cooperation, and often looks very cooperative. Breeze was able to distract himself, look off balance enough, that the look of surprise when he walked into the headscissors was perfect. Later as Kalisto is on the mat, about to do the kip up rana, Breeze makes his way towards him and makes sure to throw a darting glance over at the crowd, so that his head is turning back towards Kalisto as he's throwing the rana. It made Breeze look totally unprepared and surprised by the move, even though it was clearly the spot, and those kind of details make a match click on such a higher level. And the rest of this is really good too, as Breeze grounds Kalisto with headlocks, and Breeze is a guy I've noted as being good at headlock work in a match. He was good at trying to smother Kalisto and Regal was good at noting that, even pointing out different names for the different kinds of headlock leverage he was locking in. Kalisto had some cool locking stuff, loved his fast tornillo quebrada. And some of his feints when evading Breeze were cool, like a silly little quick handstand vault off the top rope to sidestep him. Ending is killer as Breeze whips Kalisto into the ropes, Kalisto holds on, Breeze stutter steps as he notices Kalisto held on, and when Kalisto tries a quick springboard move Breeze blasts him with the beauty shot. I was way into this match, Breeze is really busting butt these last couple months.

5. Tyson Kidd & Sami Zayn vs. The Ascension

It's a shame this match was actually just an angle/Tyson Kidd heel turn because the match we got was really damn good, maybe Zayn's best performance in a match this year (which covers some nice ground) and definitely the best overall Ascension performance. And no, that's not meant in a backhanded way, I really liked both Ascension in this and Viktor especially looked great. The story goes, that Kidd and Zayn are teaming up because they've both had rough luck lately, so they got their little slumpbuster team, recognizing that the singles belts aren't working for them so maybe combine forces! It makes sense and it's a fine kayfabe reason for two guys to team up for the first time. But the way they have Kidd turn is stupid, as Zayn is taking quite a beating from Ascension, and Kidd gets jealous of Zayn's ring time, actually saying something dumb like "oh, so you want to take all of the match?" and then walking away when Zayn would have been able to tag. Before the angle kicked in we had a nasty fight between Zayn and Viktor, with Zayn hitting his stuff better than ever (his crossbody off the top was perfect) and Viktor working fast and vicious, throwing great strikes, planting Zayn with a back suplex when Zayn tries to tag. Konnor would come in with nice stomps and man now I'm really upset that it wasn't built up as a proper tag match. The first 5 minutes of this are so good! They easily could have had a full match, had Kidd and Zayn lose, and then Kidd flip out afterwards. Instead Kidd comes off lame, jealous of Zayn for taking too long of a beating. Have him turn on Zayn as he blames him for the loss, not because he was jealous that he wasn't in there hitting flippy moves. Zayn is distracted, Konnor hits an avalanche, Fall of Man is delivered and taken brutally, but man now I just wanted the actual match. What could have been.


Good show this week, and next week we get RVD!! Nobody wanted that. I had completely blocked his 2014 return from memory.


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