Eddie Kingston Couldn't Sleep at Night, In Bed He Kept a Knife

 Eddie Kingston vs. Matt Riddle Hybrid Wrestling 10/27/17 - SKIPPABLE

PAS: This was shockingly bad for one all timer and a guy who normally was pretty good to great on the indies. I haven't been this surprised at a match being bad since Fujiwara vs. Kawada. They open with some comedy spots around a rubber chicken, and then each no sell about a half dozen suplexes, and it kind of goes from there. It really felt like they were just going through an indy match at 3/4rs speed, it wasn't even particularly stiff, at one point Eddie totally airballs a clothesline. Finish was really cool at least with Riddle leaping onto Kingston's back and felling him with Goodrich elbows, which Eddie sold great. Finish was cool enough to get it at least a FUN rating if everything else wasn't so bad. 

Eddie Kingston/Jon Moxley vs. Luke Gallows/Karl Anderson AEW Dynamite 3/17/21 - FUN

ER: Can't think of too many big league teams with less watchability in 2021 than The Good Brothers, but I also can't think of a wrestler I wouldn't want to see Eddie Kingston face. And this was mostly a total one man Kingston show. Gallows misses half of his offense (including an ugly pump kick on Moxley that comes up a couple feet short) and Moxley throws some terrible strikes and hits an ugly slow as hell tope on Gallows that kind of connects his hands with Gallows' hands, but we do have Eddie Kingston, and thank god for that. Kingston is active match long, always doing something, and for such a meh match his selling was really stunning. He was great at setting up offense for the Brothers, and while everyone else was waiting to take every piece of offense they took, Kingston was always falling, crawling, dropping to his knees, swinging wild, really giving this match a whole lot of gravitas that it didn't earn. Anderson took a great Kingston exploder, Gallows had a couple nice spots where he got knocked off the apron by Moxley, and the match ending small package was tightly executed. Kingston had maybe the best moment of the match towards the end, lying on the entrance ramp, trying to pull himself by the referee's pant leg to save Mox from a pinfall. Nobody else was putting in that kind of selling effort here, but that's just how Kingston can class up any match at any time. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE EDDIE KINGSTON

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WWE Elimination Chamber 2/21/21 Not Quite Live Blog

Elimination Chamber used to be my favorite gimmick match, probably because it's only seen once per year and the Rumble match has gotten far more formulaic over the past decade. The on paper lineups don't look great for this year's Chamber matches, but it's a match type that has had several great matches with so-so on paper participants. Any Chamber match has the chance to be good, so that's a good thing have going into a show. 

Mustafa Ali vs. John Morrison vs. Ricochet vs. Elias

ER: I like it when the pre-show matches have some kind of immediate implications, here the winner gets a spot in a three way match later on the PPV, makes this match feel like there are at least some stakes. The match, sadly, stinks. It's got all the problems that the weakest multiman matches have, guys getting in each other's way or lingering noticeably long in one spot waiting for someone else, and a lot of the sequences come off a little messy. Ricochet works hard trying to take folding bumps off everyone's offense, and it helps, and there's a fun moment where Retribution catches Ricochet on a dive after saving Ali. But the chained sequences felt a little off, the big moments weren't there, it mostly fell flat. 

Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn vs. King Corbin vs. Jey Uso vs. Cesaro vs. Daniel Bryan 

ER: This match had some nice highs, but had some problems with pacing and some overly scripted multiman stuff. Bryan and Cesaro are a great pair, but their starting section felt kind of rote, which is a things that's happened a lot in big WWE gimmick matches the past few years. A lot of sequences are ripped directly from other, non-gimmick matches, and it's a boring way to work a gimmick match (even if what you're doing looks good). Nobody wanted to see a War Games where guys are working their normal singles match spots, and that's what happens through a lot of this. Most would probably scoff at the idea of Baron Corbin joining a Daniel Bryan/Cesaro match and improving it, but that's what happens. Corbin beating the hell out of both of them was maybe my favorite run of the match, especially when he was ramming Bryan's knee into the support corners of the chamber pods. Corbin even smashed Bryan's face into the chains and punched him hard in the side of the head. Zayn was a fun addition but also added distracting moments that everyone else had to just sell quietly during, and I don't think his cage climb was worth the time it took to knock him off, even though Cesaro doing pull ups at the top of the chamber was a cool visual. Still, Zayn took harder bumps overall than anyone in the match, and it's important to have that guy in a chamber match. I thought Corbin's elimination was handled poorly, as he had been such a wrecking ball and then essentially got put away after a big swing and a sharpshooter. Almost right before that Corbin had caught Cesaro and slammed him into the cage, dropping him across the turnbuckles, clotheslined him back into the ring, and had taken far less damage during his time in the match. Didn't like that at all. Uso was a real highlight, and him slamming Owens' arm into the chamber exit and teeing off with superkicks was awesome, my favorite part of the match, great way to take someone out. I thought the overall quality of the match was lower than most chamber matches though, and it never really felt like it gelled as a whole match. Chamber matches have a high floor, but this leaned a little bit much into the things I don't love about chamber matches. 

Daniel Bryan vs. Roman Reigns

ER: This was a good angle to either continue a feud while beating Bryan quick, and Reigns looked strong in his quick steamrolling. The more they book Reigns as Brock Lesnar by having him work mostly PPV matches, the more special the opportunities at his belt seem. Here you get Bryan working a long match and getting immediately ground and pounded, but not before nearly getting Reigns with a flash Yes Lock. It really seemed plausible that Bryan could have tapped him, and even when Reigns lifted him up for a hard powerbomb I was expecting a Bryan triangle. However, I couldn't care much less about Edge challenging for a title.  

Matt Riddle vs. John Morrison vs. Bobby Lashley 

ER: This was mostly a typical bad three way, though I liked Lashley running through and treating Riddle and Morrison like tackling dummies. Morrison had a bunch of dumb overly flippy bumps off Lashley offense that didn't need flowery bumping, but Lashley's explosiveness made it all work. Riddle took a big high backdrop bump on the floor, Lashley caught Morrison with a huge uranage slam, and the two corkscrew topes to take Lashley out looked good. But the Riddle/Morrison martial arts exchanges looked stupid and too telegraphed, things were always better the simpler they kept it. Something like Riddle hitting a running elbow smash looked way better than any of their "missed kick/spin around" sequences, of which there were several. I thought the finish was really weak, Riddle and Morrison overshot their rope flip finishers, Lashley felt absent from the action too long, and then apparently the match was No DQ? MVP is sitting at ringside the whole match with a crutch, the match is apparently No DQ, and MVP spends the match not interfering? That's pretty dumb. 

Shayna Baszler/Nia Jax vs. Bianca Belair/Sasha Banks

ER: Another underwhelming tag from the Baszler/Jax team, another reminder that there should be more chemistry there, but there just doesn't seem to be any. I keep waiting for it to work, but I just don't think it will. This started out rough, with a bit too much acting and reacting that needs better timing to work, but when it settled into Baszler working over Banks I think it peaked. Baszler was mean bending Sasha's wrist around, but they abandon it all too early so it doesn't evolve into anything important. Sasha's comeback is good, but more because she works well with Baszler, and not because of where it came in the match. It felt like Sasha just took Baszler's offense for awhile, and then she decided to do her own. The nearfalls and backslide and cradles looked good, but they didn't really feel earned. The finish was no good, didn't need the Reginald involvement, just made Banks look like a dummy. Jax's timing continues to look completely off since her return from injury, and that seemed like it was throwing off Belair too. Belair feels stuck in a rut, and I don't anyone came out of this match looking better. 

Drew McIntyre vs. AJ Styles vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Sheamus vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Randy Orton 

ER: This was pretty easily the match of the night, even with some minor issues, as it's really the only match of the night that was good. If a show goes out on its best match, it tends to leave a better impression in my mind. I'm simple. But this was good, and it was a great long Drew McIntyre title defense. I thought they did a good thing getting rid of Orton early, with a flash high leverage Kofi roll up, because him giving RKOs to Hardy and Kingston gave us an interesting wrinkle. Styles gets in the match before he needs to be in, trying to get a pin on either of them. I like that it took him convincingly long enough to break out of his pod and get to them that they were able to kick out. Everybody was hitting hard, with Drew especially throwing huge chops and forearms with his full weight. Kingston took some big spills and hit a great tope en reversa off a pod onto everyone. I think McIntyre/Kingston/Hardy/Styles did a great job filling time until Sheamus came in, and I thought the match did a good job at building to the Sheamus/McIntyre showdown. I think a pretty strong case could be made that Sheamus and McIntyre have been the best WWE in ring guys of 2021, and it felt like a big deal when they finally went at it. The slug out looked good, both guys throwing potato shots, and I thought they did a good job of actually making any of the final 4 look like they had a shot. I was believing Hardy could win, and loved when he hit the swanton on Styles only to get his legs buckled by a Claymore. They did a good job of making the killshots unexpected, like Sheamus getting hit with a Styles flying forearm right after nailing McIntyre with a brogue kick. They did the strong form of WWE finisher chaining, the kind that are chained but feel like their bursting in unexpectedly from a blind side of the camera. 

I think the post-match attack by Bobby Lashley was good, and the way they handled the Miz cash in felt strong too. I liked the angle more than the actual result. I like all six guys in the actual chamber match and Lashley more than I like the Miz in ring, and I'd rather see main event matches with any of them instead. But, I like that this sets up a ton of worthy challengers for Miz, and there could be a lot of good matches there. 

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WWE Royal Rumble 2021 Live Blog

Nia Jax/Shayna Baszler vs. Asuka/Charlotte

ER: I thought Charlotte and Nia looked like a real mess throughout their whole Raw match earlier in the week, and they seem to have less chemistry a week later at the Rumble. I think it's pretty shocking how much Charlotte especially has regressed in the past couple years, and I wish they would hurry up and get Asuka away from her. I've mostly been a high voter on Jax but she's been noticeably slow and lazier in exchanges since coming back (ACL tears in both knees will do that to you). Things get clunky whenever Charlotte is in this one, and part of that is Baszler and Jax not being great at getting into position for Charlotte's offense, but a bigger part is Charlotte requiring people to too often be in specific position for offense that doesn't look great. She made a great diving save to break up a pin, but every one of her stomach kicks looked like she forgot what move she was supposed to be replicating. I'm also well beyond the point of needing to see Ric Flair on TV more than once or twice a year, and do not care about this angle with him and Lacey. I don't think this match ever came together as anything resembling a satisfying tag, the Asuka/Charlotte pairing does nothing for me, and the Baszler/Jax pairing has been very underwhelming. They need to separate all four of them and see if that helps freshen any of them. 

Goldberg vs. Drew McIntyre

ER: I am here for MMA shorts Goldberg. Really, I am here for Goldberg, so. This didn't really have the same kind of impact or sustained heat of the other Goldberg comeback matches, and ended really flat. It had a lot of promising steps throughout, like the spear nearfall to start, or the spear through the barricade, and I fully bit on the jackhammer kickout. Once Goldberg hit it I actually thought they were giving us another Goldberg run. And while I liked Goldberg's missed spear chest first corner bump, McIntyre needs to find something a little more interesting to do than making dumb Edge faces in the corner for FAR too long while Goldberg sells damage. I know part of the modern WWF dogshit style is to make dumbshit faces in the corner for too long before hitting your finisher, but this felt way too long, and ended this on an unfortunate note. 

Carmella vs. Sasha Banks

ER: A lot of this match really was not hitting for me, until things picked up with the Reginald involvement. It felt like they kept skipping steps within the match, like there weren't any kind of transitions between offense, they just went right to moves. Except Carmella was doing the moves deliberately slow, because heel I guess, and then when Sasha took over she was already doing "frustrated by only a 2 count" faces. It all felt really underbaked. The Reginald involvement added something unique to the match, loved him catching Sasha and eating a headscissors, this guy rules. But he's quickly sent to the back and Carmella does a dive that lands her right on her face. It used to be Sasha's job to almost break her face on dives, so Carmella is trying to do the equivalent of stealing her rival's finisher. Ending felt abrupt and not set up super well, with Carmella getting a couple nice reversals of big Banks spots, but then just getting tapped anyway. This was not a strong title match, and there aren't any weaker Banks title matches coming to mind. Major disappointment. 

Women's Rumble Match

ER: Bayley/Naomi is a good way to start the Rumble, but MAN has Naomi been a complete afterthought for seemingly 2 years. Her whole career has felt like her having a big showing on one of the big WWF PPVs, then them mostly not doing anything with that. She really could have been a major star a few years ago and they just repeatedly stall out on her. This is the first time she's been in any kind of match for 5 months, but I'm not sure if there were injuries or just a lack of interest. This really should be Bianca Belair's match. It has to be. If they just pull the trigger on her, come on baby! How awesome is Belair, skipping to the ring and removing her earrings for a fight? I've really been enjoying Billie Kay's solo run. I thought she was sunk for sure, but she's done far more interesting things than Royce since the split. Still would like it more with them together again, but oh well. I don't love Shotzi coming in and just doing all of her offense, the way she would entering a tag match. Everyone running at her, one at a time, the way you would in a hot tag or in a ninja movie is just dumb. It's one of the main reasons there aren't many good battle royals anymore, because "working a battle royal" is not the way most wrestlers work battle royals now. I don't like regular match in my battle royal, I get that in regular matches, which are plentiful. Watch a Rumble match like '89 or '90, and it's all those guys just filling the time with fighting. It's all punches and clotheslines and choking with boots. Now it's offense and I don't think it's better. 

Jillian Hall seems to be doing a Judy Tenuta thing now, and I think it works? Maybe it's an indication how well Peyton Royce is doing post Iiconics that I had no idea who her entrance music was for, and the Titan Tron video took forever to say it was Royce. Ohhhhhhhh shit I've been typing about it this entire time and I just realized they might get the Iiconics back together for this and I fucking want that so bad. It's a good way for them to get back together. Let them eliminate a couple people together and it's a great way to organically show that they're better when they're together! It would actually be a smart way to freshen up the roster, get an interesting team into the lifeless Asuka/Charlotte and Jax/Baszler stuff. But, of course, they don't do any of that. Royce almost immediately blends into the background of the match, and Kay is eliminated a few minutes later. A fruitful storyline abandoned without mention. 

Not a fan of the early and tossed off Toni Storm elimination. I've kind of unexpectedly become a big Toni fan over the past year. I am not interested in this becoming The Charlotte Match. But it really feels like a dumb thing WWF would do. "Ric had what we've defined as the Greatest Rumble Performance so now we need to give Charlotte her Greatest Rumble Performance." Please don't give us that. Too many people have been entering with missile dropkicks. It is stupid that so many have entered the match by immediately climbing to the top rope, and nobody has been punished for climbing to the top rope in the Royal Rumble. The ring is FILLED with people, someone should knock this person off the top rope while they are voluntarily standing there! This is another reason why people cannot work battle royals. The handstand set up for it was dumb, but I did like Dana Brooke hanging off Ripley's neck in a headscissors while Ripley tried to shake her off from the apron. Brooke was memorable in elimination. The layout of this has been weak for long stretches, like a couple instances of someone getting eliminated right before a new entrant, losing any impact of the elimination. BAYLEY'S elimination happened DURING Mickie James's entrance!! Who fucked that up!! Bayley was clearly one of the favorites to win this match, and they moved on within three seconds!! They showed her elimination as a replay, because the cameras were on James and not the arguable biggest name in the match being eliminated. That's really really bad layout for a Rumble. 

WWF could use Alicia Fox back. She would be a fun NXT act at minimum. Give me a Foxy/Aliyah pairing, that would be great. Strong inside cradle on R-Truth to get the 24/7 title back from Fox, good weight on the back of the thighs. I love Dakota Kai, and goddamn did she get eliminated. Ripley just dumped her face first on the apron. Not happy seeing Mandy and Kai eliminated back to back. I'm jinxing the hell out of my personal favorites. They do ANOTHER elimination RIGHT BEFORE a new entrance!! It has to be intentional at this point, and that is so stupid! Nikki Cross gets eliminated one second before TAMINA comes out. Eliminations with zero fanfare are a battle royal curse. There is a way to make eliminations sink in and at least let the announcers talk about the implications a bit, no need to be doing all of these at the exact same time as a thing that everyone is more interested in. The Naomi/Bianca stuff was good, they need to focus more on how long both have been in and they've been a little background, but I like how they're getting more screen time the longer they're in. 

They're going to do dumb Alexa Bliss stuff, aren't they. Yep. But THAT is a good elimination by Ripley! Thank god they had at least some Rumble decency, to have a dozen people in the ring just watching someone go through a long "transformation" without doing anything about it. I am so happy we didn't have to spend more than a minute on that. Ember Moon is yet another person coming in and doing all of their offense like a a normal match, but she dropkicks Naomi right in the face in a way that didn't seem intentional. Ember Moon looked really bad on her elimination, with that slow motion "setting up a spot" run she did to get backdropped by Shayna. Loved Nia's "I can't, she's family" excuse to not go after Tamina, but her hockey fighting with Shayna after Tamina's elimination looked bad. I'm not into the Nia/Shayna thing, just doesn't feel like it's going anywhere and the journey to get there isn't interesting. Do I hate Natalya's new gear? My instinct says yes, but is there an element of it I'm underappreciating? Perhaps. I'll level with you, I did not know there was important emotional history with Natalya and Lana. Was that elimination effective? I could not tell you. I have not been closely following the Natalya/Lana relationship. Charlotte has felt like a complete non-factor the entire time she's been in the Rumble. She was not working to stand out at all, so I am fully not interested in her valiantly battling against two foes, and I also don't understand her treating her elimination like a drunk sorority girl getting thrown out of a bar that overserved. 

I'm a big fan of Bianca going to WrestleMania, it's a great choice and the most interesting direction to go. But I wished I enjoyed her and Ripley's final two. I thought a lot of it looked real bad, like them doing really slow reversal sequences and slow thrown missed strikes. Ripley was hanging on the ropes dangling, and Belair just stood there waiting instead of kicking at her hands, literally standing there waiting to do the spot that came next. Working battle royals as a normal match suuuuucks. So I thought their final two stretch was not good, but the end result was great, and they did a genuinely great job of making it look like either Belair OR Ripley had a chance. That's important. Bianca's winner's speech was the kind of thing that would have been nice to see in front of a live crowd. 

Kevin Owens vs. Roman Reigns

ER: This didn't hook me until they started fighting up into the "crowd", and I liked some of the stuff up there. Owens had all these nasty chairshots to Roman's knees. He was jabbing the edge of a chair into Roman's patella, then just bashing them from the side, all really nasty stuff that should be sold throughout a match. They looked really hobbling but Reigns didn't treat them as such a moment later, which is disappointing. Owens had a nice bump off the riser and a good moment of him beating the 10 count. But once they went backstage it just felt like the same kind of slow Shane McMahon prop show that they've been doing into the ground. This whole thing is going too long, and I am so tired of these slow epic brawls that always make 20 minutes feel like 30 and 30 minutes feel like 45. These matches are more "ideas" matches than interesting fights, but none of the ideas are as good as any of the homebrew shit cooked up in the Last Battle of Burke. Sitting through an endless 25 minutes with a handcuff spot at the end taking up over 10% of the match is such a punishing waste of time. Michael Cole was right when he described this thing as brutal. I thought it would never stop. 

 

Men's Rumble Match

ER: I have not been following the storyline here, and that is just cruel to start this thing with Edge/Orton. This feels like they're fucking with me. Edge is at least a more compelling character now that his gimmick is that his body could break at any minute. Sami Zayn is looking, dressing, and wrestling more and more like Buck Robley, and I think it could make him one of my favorites. Has Mustafa Ali had his first name back since joining Retribution? Is Retribution a stable where getting back your own name is important, and that's why most of them have names like their parents were "child can choose their own name" parents? Edge has a better spear now than he did 10 years ago. When I'm not too into a match, I usually don't find myself saying "You know I bet this thing could get better if Dolph Ziggler got involved." I want to see a run from super gassed Carlito!! He looked like peak 80s gas Jimmy Snuka with cool Dick Anthony Williams facial hair. 

These things kind of stink now that the moments are all planned in the exact same way. Guy comes in, does his signature offense while people run at him one by one, do pose to hard cam, storyline for next elimination starts once new entrant is done with his offense, elimination culminates with 10 seconds until next entrant. They have gone to that exact same pattern in this and the women's rumble, and it sucks. 

Kane comes out looking more like the local guy playing Kane on an Australian knock off indy. That other guy might look better in ring at this point though. I wish Otis would have been in the match longer, thought his discus clothesline and capture suplex looked really great, but at least his elimination bump was the nastiest of the men's rumble so far. Dominik got big height, and Hurricane would be a nice guy to have back somewhere, but this rumble is not great. There are no compelling stories here, and it's felt like it's been full of restarts. Christian return is cool, and here's a thing I cannot believe: When Christian, Riddle, Big E, and Bryan all teamed up to force Lashley over, that was literally the first time in EITHER rumble that a group decided to go after one person. It's been all these stupid paired of "stories" that aren't really interesting, instead of people actually thinking like someone IN a rumble. That moment actually felt like a rumble, like a few people suddenly remembered a rumble strategy. What I said earlier about Edge having a way better spear in 2021 than he did in 2010? Still holds, as his spear on Styles looked great. Victoria Beer, seen in the background of every lucha match I've been watching lately, is now sponsoring Royal Rumble entrants? Nobody else got sponsored? Kane and AJ Styles were in there, StopTheSteal didn't want to sponsor them? Christian and Sheamus always had great chemistry. I'd love to see a 2021 Christian/Sheamus match. 

Cesaro lifting and throwing Strowman over the top would have been far more interesting than Strowman eliminating Cesaro, and Sheamus deserved better. Bryan and Riddle really laced into each other during their portion, and Bryan would be my easy pick if asked "Who would you like to win this rumble?" This is the first time these two have had an exchange of any kind, and it all looked really great. What looks riduculous is every person still left in the match lying around the ring while Bryan and Riddle can just have a 4 minute match. Nobody should be lying on the mat for that long, let alone four people at the same time. I thought the finishing run was pretty bad, thought the Bryan elimination was a pretty big nail in the coffin. The Edge story is not something I can get too interested in, but all of his spears looked great in this match, and I could actually see him being a part of a good match now. I'm not expecting it, but he is slightly more interesting now than a decade ago. 

ER: Disappointing show top to bottom. Both Rumbles were really uninspired and badly laid out, the Last Man Standing match felt endless, the tag title match was bad, and the Sasha match was below her level. That's a bummer of a show right there. 

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2020 Ongoing MOTY List: Riddle vs. Thatcher

15. Matt Riddle vs. Timothy Thatcher NXT 5/13

ER: Their first singles match in over two years, and it's not surprisingly a nifty TV main event. I didn't love their very brief chemistry as a tag team, but them twisting limbs and kneeing lats is the kind of chemistry I seek from them. Their kind of chemistry is the kind that is always working towards something, always trying to outpace, always looking to finish things. The big stuff looks cool, the small stuff looks cool, the kind of joy that can be found with a slick judo throw or a KO kick. The strikes played well to the empty arena, as the slaps and body shots really landed with a deep thud. When Thatcher grabbed Riddle by the jaw and unloaded open hands, not even the Lucha Underground FX crew could have made those sound more damaging, and Riddle's grounded body shots sounded like he was trying to find the ripest cantaloupe at the market. I love when these two try to cross each other up, and my favorite moment of the match was when Riddle hits a knee strike, fakes Thatcher low, and then knocks him into the commercial break with a head kick.

My only real fault with the match is that Thatcher heads into the commercial break sliding head first to the floor, and when we return Thatcher is standing over Riddle holding an ankle lock. Nobody wants a movie where the hostage negotiator is staring down the barrel of a gun, only to blink and suddenly find he's the one holding the gun. The recaps fill in a few of the gaps (including a savage foot stomp by Thatcher), but it felt like we missed something important. I'm not 100% sure what all Thatcher did to gain control, but I liked what he did once he had it, dumping Riddle with a German, stomping some more feet, big uppercut; and I love how Riddle is never inactive against Thatcher, always working in strikes when he can and trying to power through offense when possible (including a sitout powerbomb out of a triangle that had to take some unreal strength). Big move stretch run that never felt like move spamming, and the final submission/pin was handled great. Thatcher really looked like he was going to walk away with Riddle's leg, tying him up to such a degree that he has nowhere to go once Riddle leverages his shoulders to the mat. The two of them tagging together when Thatcher was brought in sounded great on paper, but it turns out the classics still play better.

PAS: This was really good, these guys always had great chemistry and it is cool that they got to do their match on a bigger scale. I loved how they both were always looking for an advantage, constantly struggling in holds, always moving to improve their positions, throwing in little body shots. Thatcher stomping right on Riddle's insole was really nasty, looked like the kind of thing that would hurt for weeks. Finish was nifty too, Thatcher getting too enamored with torture, so he gets rolled up really fits with his unhinged character.


2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Unicorn Gimmick Matches - Fight Pit!

Timothy Thatcher vs. Matt Riddle NXT 5/27

ER: I appreciate this kind of creativity during a less than ideal period for pro wrestling. Give us a unicorn gimmick match that allows two tough dudes to grind each other to a pulp in slightly new ways. The Fight Pit structure is a combination of other cool gimmicks, part Lions Den part scaffold match (although the structure might have benefitted from a being a bit shorter, as there's no great way to organically get up on a 9' platform). Riddle leaps off the top right away and roll attacks into Thatcher, and before long Riddle is treating this thing like a game of Tony Hawk, giving us what I assume is our only WWE commentary mention of Anthony "Showtime" Pettis when he springs up the cage and whips a kick into Thatcher's mouth. We get some fine Grand Guignol with Thatcher rising from the mat with a bloody mouth, and then actually looking around for teeth! Maybe this is like when someone plans on getting a haircut anyway, so they lose a hair match. But damn the teeth looked like molars, and a good molar bridge will set him back $7,000, really should have taken more skin out of Riddle to get his mouth's worth. I liked Riddle's snap German and all of the sentons looked really hard (plus lead to a great moment of Riddle missing a senton up on the surrounding platform), and a lot of the grappling utilized the cage. I wish we got even more of the two of them bullying into around around the cage, as it's a unique form of grappling that we haven't seen among former Catch Point WWE guys.

I thought the weak part of the match was getting onto the surrounding scaffold, as Riddle picks up Thatcher in a big double leg, but confusingly tries to place him up on the ledge, so after a bit it looks like a buddy helping his friend get over a tall fence, and then that friend kicks him in the face. There had to have been a better way up there, because none of what Riddle did to get the action up there made sense. Up top he really pasted Thatcher with elbows, dug the ankle lock with Riddle hanging over the side, and I actually thought they were nutty enough to go through with the butterfly suplex off the top. Riddle's corkscrew senton was cool enough, and I loved his wild animal thrashing once Thatcher hooked in the read naked, trying to shake him by running into the cage and taking that one final desperation attempt to shake him by just landing on him. WWE needs to be getting more outside the box during this whole mess, and this was a cool kind of box.

PAS: I am surprised Eric liked this as much as he did, I thought this was basically a failure. You have this set up, like this was a cage fight not a cage match, and instead of trying something different it was basically a WWE highspot cage match in a different cage. I thought the bloody mouth thing came off obviously fake and sort of silly, and the early half hearted attempts at shootstyle made the match neither fish nor foul. It picked up when they abandoned all of the pretense and just started doing spots, and I loved the rear naked choke finish, really made Thatcher look like a killer. Still they should have picked a lane and stayed in it.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 2/16-2/22/20

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Matt Riddle/Pete Dunne NXT 2/19/20

ER: This really felt like these guys' version of a spotfest lucha tag. It started with a nice Burch/Dunne mat section, Dunne stepping and kneeling on Burch's neck in a nasty deathlock, and we quickly move into a fun extended sprint of all the stuff these guys can do. Riddle and Dunne are throwing Karelin lift suplexes, Burch throws a headbutt and also punches Riddle in the mouth, both sides eat a powerbomb, both sides eat uppercuts, both sides eat knees, and it's all a lot of fun. It had a fun atmosphere for a match where the result was in no doubt whatsoever, and Lorcan/Riddle is a total dream match for me that has never been on tape. I loved all their sections together, it's really one of those super obvious match-ups that somehow hasn't used at all. I love how Lorcan flies into everything, from offense to pinfall break ups, and really my only problem with this was that Lorcan went down a little suddenly. If he had another brief comeback or held on for a couple more killer shots from Riddle, this would have jumped up much more for me. But I liked the match we got and would love to see this happen again.

PAS: This didn't do much for me. It just felt like another version of the same NXT million counters and reversals tag we have seen a million times. There were some cool moves in this, but they always have cool moves, and they never mean much. Riddle was a much more interesting wrestler as a rookie in EVOLVE then he is now, and I like Lorcan but didn't think he did much to distinguish himself here. Whole thing was worked at the same pace and you need to very the intensity a bit to make it mean anything.


Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Brian Kendrick/Ariya Daivari 205 Live 2/21/20

ER: This was one of the more surprinsgly underwhelming matches of the year. A street fight featuring two of the best wrestlers in the world, given as much time as it needed, in the main event. Lorcan and Kendrick are easily the best two guys on 205 Live now that Gulak and Gallagher aren't ever going to be on TV again, and they've matched up a criminally small amount of times for being in the same place for so long. But now they've been across from each other twice in just a few weeks, and the first match was a stinker and now the rematch was the weakest street fight in recent memory. I don't think it's because modern indy wrestling has conditioned me to expect possible death during street fights, as I don't need death for a brawl to be great. This was just dullsville for significant stretches, with perfunctory pre-bell brawling and spots laid way to far apart, and a lot of set up to get to those moments. The moments are usually impressive, but they generate reactions that seem to say "Well you finally got there, thank you." This could have been a mean, rugged no DQ match, but it seemed like everyone in the match decided it would make more sense to just act like extras from that Popeye movie. Burch filled this thing to the breaking point with goofy cartoon mannerisms and selling and facials, reaching peak "just not my night" after falling on his butt doing a kip-up, then getting booed after doing a bad Dudley Boyz "Get the tables" bit with Lorcan. It came off like someone using the Rock Bottom on a school fundraiser indy show and immediately tripping over his opponent. Kendrick's death valley driver that utilized the table looked great, just as a Daivari took a great drop toehold into a chair earlier. All the weapons that got involved were eventually used well for the big moment, but getting there felt way too silly. The home stretch made this at least land on its feet, with Kendrick and Lorcan finally really tangling up around 10 minutes in, and Lorcan hitting a big torpedo uppercut and tope con giro. But you know the match underwhelmed when one of the best moments of the match came when Lorcan and Burch tumbling to the floor, and getting immediately cheered by the cutest sounding kid, who says, "Come on guys, get up!" That kid was so earnestly cheering for these two Popeye goofballs that it just made me happy that kids love wrestling. Match still fell flat for me.

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NXT TakeOver: Portland 2/16/20

ER: I was seriously consider going up to Portland to see this, but instead I am sitting at home wearing soft pants. Nobody I knew was interested in either a) seeing this with me live, or b) spending a few days in Portland, and that is fine. It's a place I frequently look for excuses to travel to, so I will surely be there in the next couple months anyway. Let's see if friends and well wishers were correct to convince me not to go. Although, to be clear, this show could be terrible and I would have had a great time in Portland. Plus I can go up there and eat at Screen Door any time I like without having to also sit through an Adam Cole singles match.


Keith Lee vs. Dominik Dijakovic

ER: I saw the hype video with Mark Henry talking about how big these two are, and how unfathomable it is for big guys to do what they do. And I am so happy that Mark Henry did not do what these two do and instead wrestled like Mark Henry. I want to see a hoss fight, not two big guys cosplaying an Ospreay match. And this match was definitely these two having their match, and their match does very little to excite me at this point. It is their collection of "Isn't it crazy that THESE two are doing THESE moves!?" exhibition, and I have seen it a lot and I hope this is a blow off match. I think all their stand and trade spots look badly rehearsed, and Dijakovic always seems to be 25% off on every super complicated thing he executes. So these matches are always filled with "MAN that's impressive for a guy his size. Imagine if it landed!" moments. The whole thing is one Eliminators move set up after another, with one big move leading to rest, leading to the other guy doing a big move, and then more rest. Dijakovic keeps breaking out new things, and they are impressive, like his twisting moonsault in ring or his gigantic swanton to a seated Keith Lee on the floor, but these moves always seem to get sold about as long as any other less dangerous move he could have done, and that's a "him" problem. We get a lot of "your big move/strike made me recoil off the ropes/mat and bounce back with my OWN big move/strike" and that's something I typically hate from 160 lb. guys, and lemme tell you that it sucks even harder with 290 lb. guys. For every move I liked, there was a moment that immediately showed that it wasn't actually that devastating, and Dijakovic doesn't have the acting chops to pull off the bad fighting spirit faces he always attempts. This was the match I was expecting, and I probably would have praised it to the heavens if they came out and worked a Mabel/Diesel match instead.

Street Fight: Tegan Nox vs. Dakota Kai

ER: I haven't been sold on heel Kai, but her street fight gear is legit. This is the coolest that Dakota Kai has looked. Kai is channeling mid 90s AJW street fight attire and it rules. Meanwhile, the person I'm supposed to root for is just wearing her normal wrestling gear and has her hair bumped up to absurd levels. I think a lot of the small stuff worked here, while a lot of big stuff did not. This was my favorite Kai performance, and it worked because she was making small things look as good as big things. She took an early drop toehold into the barricade and just went into it mouth first. And she continued to pay that kind of attention to every little spot, and it elevated things. My favorite moments of the match were not complicated, they were things like Kai snapping off a quick kick from the apron to Nox's face, or Kai splatting hard on her stomach on the apron, or Nox calculating wrong and throwing a low right while Kai is meeting her head with a trashcan lid, or Nox swinging a chair right into Kai's knee and Kai going down like someone who actually had her bad knee beaten with the odd angle of a trash can. When they kept it to basic street fight elements, I thought it was working well, and only fell apart in the moments where they got too cute or overthought what they were doing. No matter how nice Kai's kicks looked, duct taping Nox's wrist to the ringpost comes off a little silly when Nox is watching you do it, and her hand only shoots up to stop you the second you stop wrapping duct tape but not a moment before. But I liked stuff like trapping Kai's knee in a chair and smashing it, the German suplex into a trash can was nasty, and the visual of Kai's head in the chair on the table was strong. Now, using this street fight as a way to reintroduce Reina Gonzalez (with a painfully flat "Oh My God That's Raquel Gonzalez" read from Beth Phoenix) came off more than lame. She looked bad in her big moment, futzing around on the top rope with Nox, before Nox has to jump entirely on her own "through" the table. Gonzalez took forever and couldn't get into a good position to throw her, so Nox did everything on her own (no camera angles could make Gonzalez look good) and the painful bounce off the table came off much more accidental than "intentional badass move" from Gonzalez. Bad reintroduction, flat finish.

Johnny Gargano vs. Finn Balor

ER: This one was one of the on paper matches I was mildly dreading, having those "I just volunarily agreed to watch a show with a likely hour worth of Balor and Cole matches" thoughts, and then this started out just fine. The problem was that it kept going, and I did not want it to keep going. But I was fairly involved with this when they weren't doing "well scouted like looking into a mirror!" wrestling. Heel Finn don't interest me, Face Finn don't interest me, so there wasn't likely much they could have done to win me over other than surprise me with something different. And I was into this, until I wasn't into this. Once this started getting overly sequenced it got the same kind of silly I was expecting. It's so funny that they work on crafting these fast elaborate reversal sequences, and I am into stuff like Finn catching Gargano's spear from the apron. But I can't help but giggle when they run this fast sequence, Balor drapes Gargano over the top rope, sprints to the apron...and then carefully climbs up every single buckle on his way to the top rope. No matter how quickly and ironed out these sequences get, I'm always left with silly little moments where someone is holding themselves in an awkward position waiting to take a move. And so before long Gargano is doing that offense that Gargano does with a lot of pointing, and I chuckled at Balor kicking him off the announce table. Went too long, but the odds of this ever being "for me" left the building pretty quick.

Bianca Belair vs. Rhea Ripley

ER: This was the match I was most excited for, and while it didn't hit the high level I was hoping for, it was still a good match that delivered much of what I wanted. This was a tough position for Bianca, as the match has clearly been treated like a lame duck to Charlotte/Ripley in all of the build. This match was so clearly second banana, with a result so obvious, that getting people invested was going to be like not getting robbed blind in a trade after the player publicly demands a trade. So they don't work this cute, and they throw hard shots, and the occasional messiness on suplexes added to things for me. NXT has had to much cleanness in their main events, I like a little mess. The important thing is that Rhea threw harder clotheslines to the chest and harder knees to the head than Lee and Dijakovic earlier in the evening. I enjoyed how they handled learned behavior, like Belair eating a big boot after going for her series of leapfrogs, and Ripley scouting the hair whip after taking one to the midriff earlier in the match. I really wish Bianca had been treated like more of an overall big deal, as she's lost on every single TakeOver I've watched so has that "Luger always loses" mid 90s WWF feeling to her. Belair as Luger isn't actually crazy now that I think about it...and I really like Luger...and I really like Belair's power here. This was good, and pretty easily my favorite match of the night so far, even if I am getting very tired of Charlotte.

Kyle O'Reilly/Bobby Fish vs. Matt Riddle/Pete Dunne

ER: This was good! I expected this to be good! Some restraint would have been welcome, but the NXT house style is getting further and further away from any kind of restraint. I got into it from the beginning, with UE jumping Riddle and Dunne in the aisle way, babyfacing themselves by stopping the awful Bobby Fish song, which had the special power of getting less funny every time it was spoken. I thought this was an especially cool showing for Fish and O'Reilly. Bobby Fish is basically the least talked about member of UE, but he brings a cool salt and pepper old athletic guy energy to things. Fish is like the best possible Frankie Kazarian, that tanned guy in his 40s who is now leaning deep into his aged hair, only Fish does great offense catered to his age, and is maybe the finest example of a silver fox wrestling has seen. Dude was owning the silver and I thought he came off with actual star appeal. O'Reilly had a real nice very fast kick combo, that didn't actually look like he was just thinking about the next step, it really just came off like he was winging kicks. Sure he had some silly wobbly legs down the stretch, but there were a lot of things O'Reilly did great in this one. My one hang up is that I don't really think the Riddle/Dunne team works as well as I thought it would. There's something missing and they just aren't as complementary as I thought they'd be. I like both of them, Riddle especially, but the team just keeps coming up lesser than sum for me. Riddle is always going to do things I like, and here he's hitting sentons and taking big bumps barefoot and tossing out Germans and I'm just going to like that. I don't think this reached the kind of fluidity that some of the best of these NXT go go go tags can hit, and of course doesn't touch the same kind of match from To Infnity and Beyond or Philly-Marino, but this was very fun and part of a really enjoyable 1-2 with Ripley/Belair.

Adam Cole vs. Tommaso Ciampa

ER: Nope.

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AEW Dynamite Workrate Report 12/11/19

What Worked 

-I really liked Jericho's promo. I'd been off Jericho for quite some time, but his promos are very impressive within the specific environment he's working, and it's clearly because he knows the environment he's working. But...

-It appears that many people hadn't heard of QT Marshall before the AEW tag, because he was Matt Riddle's third ever opponent in what was a really good match. And I really liked this tag! We got Butcher and the Blade naturally cutting QT off from Cody, and while it looked like some of B&B's best moments came during the commercial break, the whole thing was structured simply and everyone came off well. Cody really does come off like a big deal, really looked like a guy worthy of being the star tagging with a nobody. Marshall gets to throw a couple nice punches that are treated as big, surprising moments, and he gets a fun sloppy tumbling dive to the floor onto B&B (I liked it because it looked like whenever Akira Taue would try a tope and it looked more like him stepping over the ropes to the floor real quick). I don't love a lot of Cody's offense, but a good hot tag needs good energy, and he carries that end easily.

-Overall dug Swole/Sakura, even if it went a bit past its effective runtime. It was hurt a bit by actual commercials cutting into it, and them going to the comedy spots in the final 2 minutes instead of the first 2 minutes. Sakura grabbing fists of braids by the roots and snapmaring Swole was great, made exponentially better by Swole popping her right in the jaw after warning her to lay off her head. Do you how long those braids took? Swole should have beaten the shit out of her the rest of the match. Sakura is fun and hits hard, although I wish there was some more focus to her matches, but working with Swole felt like a fun shake up.

-Shawn Spears made it look like Hangman Page has a good lariat. Shawn Spears managed to look good in ALL of his exchanges with Page, while Page was looking like Page. Is Spears the secret super worker of AEW? Page is typically the anchor who takes anyone down with him...but not Spears.

-I'm a sucker for a sneaky manager rana from the apron, and Penelope Ford had a nice one.

-Guevara continues to be the non-Darby MVP of Dynamite. This kid is money and Luchasaurus is a fun opponent for him. Guevara's bump off the top to the apron to the floor was wild, and they integrate some fun takes on spots we've seen, like Luchasaurus catching Guevara by the throat off a standing shooting star attempt. Luchasaurus throws a bunch of strike combos that shouldn't work, but most of them worked here; I especially liked his knee strike that went right to left instead of up. They kept this at a good pace and it went out at the right time.

-Wonder if they're going to run a Hager/Stunt angle where Hager mistakes Stunt for a child and spittle mouth yells at him on Twitter using seemingly random capitalization.

-Main event too long in the tooth and just about everything was shrugged off, but I can't hate on guys going through like 7 tables without me having to see any table set up time. The table bumps came off shockingly natural for being so damn frequent (and meaning so damn little) but they all looked great. Looked Great/Didn't Mean Anything feels like a cool catchphrase for AEW.

What Didn't Work

-...Jericho talked for 7 straight minutes while Moxley stood there making as many silent dumb faces as Jake Hager. I don't need there to be lively interplay, but it just came off really odd to me to have Moxley standing there dumb and confused, thumbs in belt loops. He looked like a kid who was getting a stern talking to from a teacher because he brought his paintball gun to school, and that's just not allowed, even if you DID "leave it in your locker".

-Whipped my head up to the screen way too fast when I heard Swole was going to be on my TV. That was an unnecessarily cruel trick, AEW.

-I chuckled at "shitty little lisp", but MJF ruined it with a bad fake laugh and way too much ham. I just can't take this guy seriously as a threat.

-Kenny Omega wrestles like a chorus member of Jesus Christ Superstar, the one who has to constantly be told to stop abusing jazz hands and spirit fingers.

-Brandi does not have the acting chops to pull off her new role, and I am comparing her to others in wrestling who have done this kind of cult leader role, which is not a high bar.

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Much Later Than Live NXT TakeOver: WarGames 11/23/19

I had a co-worker's 50th birthday party to attend earlier in the evening, so couldn't get a reasonable start to this one. But it's not tooooo late and I'm all partied out, so let's see if this WarGames is going to be decent.


Rhea Ripley/Candice LeRae/Tegan Nox/Dakota Kai vs. Bianca Belair/Kay Lee Ray/Io Shirai/Shayna Baszler

ER: I really was not feeling Candice in the opening minutes of this, didn't think most of her offense looked good; but I really enjoyed everything being done to Candice, and that's important. Shirai boots her with a big missile dropkick, Belair cracks her with an elbow, powerbombs her several times, throws her into the cage with LeRae sliding uncomfortably down the metal, really everything done to punish LeRae works. But once Ripley gets in, takes a long time grabbing the same exact weapons you've seen for decades now, we build to several dumb uses of them. I think your work should be able to stand alone in a match like War Games, and going to trash can shots and propping up chairs and having everybody make increasingly stupid decisions to get into a big tower in the corner, just comes off lazy. Even when the end result is LeRae getting the back of her head whipped into a pile of chairs,  it still feels like they spent way too much time on dumb bullshit. I didn't anticipate the Kai turn, but I also am not an avid TV follower and Kai has never done much for me anyway. I do like how Kai kept running back to repeatedly attack Nox. Belair is I think the only person making strikes and weapon shots mean something. There has been a comical amount of bad hockey fight spots in the match, and here's Belair finding three different cool ways to make a trashcan look dangerous. Belair is really the mega star of this match, and it's kind of crazy how much of a non-factor Shayna was after getting into the ring. Shayna is in the ring for 2 minutes and then sells on the mat for the next 10. But Belair just won't quit, she's whipping the hell out of Ripley, jumping around like she's getting swarmed by ants at a picnic when LeRae is whipping her, in with a great nearfall save, tasked with catching Shirai on an ill-advised top of cage moonsault, Belair was just EVERYTHING in this match. Mauro Ranallo was expectedly unbearable, and my least favorite Mauro moment is when he described a "top rope avalanche poison rana" by LeRae as "desperate". I will not be able to understand how doing a move that you have done before, here performing it when your opponent gave you the opening and it could lead to a win, is "desperate". Shitting your pants and smearing Kay Lee Ray with your own shit would be a desperate move. That is the move of someone with zero options left. But performing a complicated reverse rana? That seems like someone very much in control of things. Shayna stopped selling long enough to lose the match, just a bizarre misuse of her, but Belair's performance made me overall like this match despite not liking a TON of directions this mess went.

Damian Priest vs. Killian Dain vs. Pete Dunne

ER: This was a much too long 3 way that had the problems nearly every 3 way has, and could have ended earlier after a few specific spots and been better for it. I'm a Damian Priest novice and will probably opt to stay that way. Priest feels like a better version of Matt Taven, which means he is a worse version of just about anyone else. He's not good at occupying himself, forced Dunne and Dain into unlikely scenarios just to get his shit in (most egregious is Dain having to get up way too quick so he can be ready for Priest's spinny kicks), he's the guy who is always too early or too late to his marks. Dain had a real nice match, kind of got stuck in the thankless role of getting shunted aside so we can continue to watch Dunne/Priest have zero chemistry together, or have his very good offense shrugged off early so we can get to more stupidly chained 3 way moments. But Dain had cool stuff, leveled Priest with a dive, did a bombs away on Priest while hitting a Michinoku Driver on Dunne, and was the guy who was actually bringing something a little rough edged to the dance fighting of Priest and Dunne. The finish I thought was pretty dumb, with Dunne getting Dain in a backpack choke, leading Dain to leap onto Priest while wearing Dunne...but then Dunne just shoves Dain away and gets the pin. This match was filled with moments of "Wait why is that guy selling so long...wait why is that guy selling nothing at all?" (much like that War Games we just sat through) but damn did that finish come off dumb as hell to me.

Matt Riddle vs. Finn Balor

ER: I dug a bunch of this, while this also made this the third ending of the night that I just really did not like at all. I haven't read what anyone else has said about this show, but I cannot fathom logging on tomorrow to find out the rest of the internet thought this was a night of the sickest finishes. These matches finishes have been fucking terrible to me. I liked too much of this to shit talk too much, as these two were super complementary wrestlers breaking out some wild stuff in their first ever match of any kind opposite each other. I really dug all the submission stuff, and liked how Balor was actually lacing in some nasty stuff to rub Riddle's face into it. That baseball slide dropkick was just plain mean, and we even got a very special All Japan Comm Tape slo mo shot of Riddle's mouth going all rubber face mask after eating that boot. Now, it left me a little cross when Balor sent that boot straight into Riddle's teeth, but then bumped noticeably early the first time Riddle went for a big kick. I mean you gotta give and get, and luckily Riddle made him pay with some nice throws (his early Karelin lifts will always look cool), and I like how he just showed Balor how shit his German was by hopping up, hitting that V trigger, then dumping him with his own German. Riddle catching a Pele kick was probably my favorite part of the match, as it turned into an actually good ankle lock sequence, something I could have actually bought as the finish - and would have loved for it to be the actual finish. Riddle caught that Pele kick perfectly, twisted that ankle, sent an axe kick down into Balor's kidneys, grabbed the other ankle when Balor gave it to him, and I just really wanted that to end things. Balor was actively good at selling that ankle, and I even got into all the performative shit like Balor coming up lame while getting thrown into the ropes, because Balor was actually doing it really well! Now, obviously, that ankle selling went WAY out the window when it came time for Balor to do a double stomp of the top, and...I can't speak for everyone here, but I, if I was limping badly on an ankle, unable to even run, able to put no weight on it....and then I was given the opportunity to jump as high into the air as I could, and stick a landing right on my Kerri Strug'd ankle...I probably wouldn't take it. But Balor cannot WAIT to jump as hard as he can right onto that ankle, a man literally incapable of coming up with ANY other offense to do to Riddle, a man so set in his ways that he is obviously going to just jump into the air and land upright. I don't think Balor needed to win this match, and I didn't like that he did, and I didn't like the stupid double stomp because man what the fuck.

Roderick Strong/Kyle O'Reilly/Bobby Fish/Adam Cole vs. Keith Lee/Donovan Dijakovic/Tommaso Ciampa/Kevin Owens

ER: This came off like a big, bloated, overly dangerous indy War Games, and I mean that in a good way. I like the regional indy flair it had: An oafish giant, an anti-hero team captain wearing weird facepaint, a big man taking stiff shots to the side of his cinderblock dome, guys going through tables at awkward angles, and just the way the big moments kept inching up bigger and bigger, bumps getting dumber and harder. Some of the prop set up was too focused and mapped, but at times it added to the cheap charm of them being big stage backyarders pushing their limit. I really loved the first 5 minutes, Ciampa vs. Strong. I thought the match did get weaker once we got the tables integrated, but the first 5 minutes were those two really laying in stiff strikes and constantly pushing pace. Ciampa hits a wicked kneelift after tying Strong up in the corner, and it was the start of a really great match long performance for Ciampa. Keith Lee is a super fun wrecking ball, takes a few big ass bumps, and deals with multiple moments of Undisputed teeing off on the side of his head. Lee is a great Hulk to sit there and be slowed by hard shots to the ear. Owens got a good reaction and seemed to feed off it, turning in a real spirited performance with dangerous bumps, including my actual favorite use ever of Adam Cole's bunny hop flipping piledriver. I really loved the struggle the two of them went through, fighting on the metal plate joining the two rings, like they were fighting on a stadium's catwalk in a Bond movie or something, and they way they fought over it I had no clue who was going to be dumped on their head. It went long, but it felt like it ramped nicely, felt closer to real epic than faux epic.


ER: I really didn't like the finishes of the first three matches, but the PPV ended on a decent note for me because I liked each subsequent match more than the last. I was majorly disappointed in the women's War Games - fantastic Bianca performance aside - and the three way felt clunky during all the Priest/Dunne moments. Riddle/Balor was very fun for much of the duration, and the main event delivered better than I was hoping. So it kept getting more enjoyable as it went on, which will make it seem better than it was in hindsight. But it was still one of the weaker TakeOvers I've watched.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 10/27-11/2 + Bonus 2019 Gulak

205 Live 11/1/19

Jack Gallagher vs. Ray Jazikoff

ER: Only a 3 minute sampler this week, but I will always be tickled by WWE giving 3 minutes of TV time to a pale British guy working slow paced holds in a squash match. I like how Gallagher takes the full 3 minutes to ramp things up, not so much worrying about displaying flash but peppering it in short bursts. He worst some stuff around limbs and works a slow leveraged recline into a pinfall attempt, aiming for legitimacy as the smallest stretcher on the roster. He runs into a Jazikoff shoulderblock but the rest is all Gallagher laying in a stiff attack. He slams into Jazikoff with the Gentleman's Headbutt that sends Jazikoff into cool backwards bump through the ropes to the floor, then Gallagher slides out past him and tosses him upside down into the barricade. Gallagher lays in two really high speed flipping dropkicks, smooshing Jazikoff into the barricade and into the turnbuckle, and I always like how Gallagher has several ways to end a match and doesn't do most of them per match. Gallagher showcases are always cool, but we're overdue for a 10 minutes Gallagher singles.


NXT 1/30/19 (Aired 2/6/19)

Drew Gulak vs. Matt Riddle

ER: Not too surprising that, given 10 minutes to work with, these two would go out and crush it. This was a helluva short scrap, with Gulak almost writing off Riddle at the start and immediately regretting it when Riddle almost catches him in an armbar. The fights over Riddle's armbar attempts were always dangerous, and both get tangled up good. This whole match was nothing but cool stuff, like Gulak working a crossface into a chickenwing, Riddle landing a couple of big punts (with him hitting a seated senton after one while Gulak was still sitting up), Riddle running into a big Gulak kick, and I loved when it was time for Gulak to punish Riddle for making him look desperate against those armbars earlier. He gets hold of both of Riddle's arms and drives his knee into Riddle's back, and Riddle pays that back with a tight sleeper. I love Riddle's delayed German; he doesn't hit it the same every time, seems to change the delivery depending on when he catches his opponent. Here Gulak tried to weigh his soles back to the mat, but Riddle froze him in midair and whipped him over. And that wasn't anywhere near as mean as the deadlift powerbomb Riddle hit to set up the finishing sub. I had no clue whether Riddle was going to dump Gulak directly on the top of his head or directly on vertebra C1-C3, and yet he somehow muscled him up into an awesome folding powerbomb. So far this is the only Gulak/Riddle match we've seen in a WWE ring - and really it's not a match that's been run a ton - and obviously I want more.

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NXT on USA Workrate Report 9/25/19

This is the last week of this half and half NXT, the official war starts next week and they are loading up three title matches and I imagine a big surprise or two. This was still sort of a soft opening, and I am hesitant to judge fully until I see next week

WHAT WORKED

-Keith Lee came off like a big star, Dijakovic is his touring partner, but this felt less like a showcase of both of them, and more like a showcase for Lee. This matchup is one of my least favorite Lee matchups, he has shockingly impressive athletic explosion, and it is less impressive when there is a tall guy doing shittier looking versions of the same sort of stuff. I was amused how Dijakovic's tale of the tape listed his striking as an advantage, because his stuff looked crappy, while Lee was throwing forearms right through him. Dijakovic is DOA, his haircut and gear look awful, as do his tough guy faces. Tall guys who can do a moonsault are a positional glut in wrestling, no need to see anymore. Lee should be moving on and up. Also as a 80s baby raised on reruns I appreciate how much Lee looks like Bookman from Good Times.

WHAT DIDN'T WORK

-I want to like Taynara Conti, but outside of her Judo throw, she looked green and off. Dakota Kai had some kicks that landed, and some kicks which did not. They probably should keep both of these ladies off TV for a bit. Feels like if NXT is going to be on USA, these type of matches should be on EVOLVE shows or NXT UK.

-I have watched a ton of Matt Riddle matches, and have loved some and hated some, this was one of the duller Riddle matches I can remember. He brought so little of what makes him a compelling guy to watch. This was a typical walk around the arena WWE brawl. I wanted Riddle to at least bring some spice to that, and outside of a cool Fujiwara finish, I didn't see much cool or interesting. Tough spot for Dain to be main eventing a show with a Keith Lee opener. Lee really exposes Dain's fat guy flying. Not sure why they switched Riddle's finisher from a twister to a Fujiwara, especially since Becky Lynch is using a shittier version main eventing shows.

-Adam Cole looks like Bagel Boss coming down and trying to intimidate Riddle. He should be celebrity boxing Lenny Dykstra not holding the main title on a cable wrestling show.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 7/13-7/20

EVOLVE 131 7/13

Drew Gulak vs. Matt Riddle

ER: Gulak gets Catch Point druids!!! As a match I think this underperformed and never felt like anything new. This felt like kind of a greatest hits collection from both guys without some of the drama that their best matches have. It felt like a slightly sanitized version of a match they would have had a couple years ago. The good news is that I happen to love the greatest hits from these two. We get a pair of cool belly to belly superplexes (Riddle getting the worst of it), both guys throw hard shots to the body (which were weirdly maybe my favorite thing about this), big Riddle senton, both throw hard uppercuts, Gulak always cutting in for single legs, it's them doing things that I like to watch them do. But this kind of felt like the recent run of 205 Live main events, where good workers are given 20 minutes to do their thing and it doesn't totally live up to the time. There were obviously hot stretches of this, and the Riddle corkscrew senton into Gulak's rear naked choke felt like a cool spot to end things. They didn't end it there, with Riddle simply picking Gulak up and hitting Bro Derek that didn't look finisher worthy. It really just looked like Gulak taking a heavier than normal slam, didn't read as a piledriver at all. This match was going to have a high floor - both guys are great - but it felt like we only bumped our head against their ceiling a couple times.

PAS: I liked this more then Eric (he has been grumpy lately). Greatest hits from these guys are pretty great, and it sort of makes sense to run a match like that when EVOLVE debuts on the network. I really enjoyed how Gulak used space in this match, always looking to keep close, grabbing for limbs, throwing body shots, negating Riddle's size advantage by grinding on him. Riddle is more explosive and I liked how Gulak tried to limit that explosiveness. I agree about the finish, that Gulak rear naked choke would have been perfect, and the Riddle finish was the weakest thing about the match, but lots of this was really great. Riddle seems to have tightened up his strikes and moved away from New Japan overkill since coming to the WWE, and both things are welcome additions. Loved all the Catch Point stuff in this match, and now that this is WWE canon Gulak really should bring Catch Point back on 205 Live: Oney Lorcan, Cameron Grimes and Chad Gable would make a pretty rad Catch Point.

Extreme Rules 7/14

Drew Gulak vs. Tony Nese

ER: Early on we get a "Let's Go Gulak" chant which is an awesome surprise. If Gulak actually starts to get over the same way Bryan got over earlier in the decade, how great will that be?? This is kind of what anybody could have expected going in: Gulak looked great, Nese did not, but Nese tried some things that worked in a stupid risk taking way. Nese has that "hey Evan Karagias is getting better" vibe to him, but he doesn't actually have babyface charisma. He does things that some fans should find cool, but Gulak is the one getting the reactions here. YES, obviously this is being held right in Gulak's stomping grounds, but that isn't a guarantee to get a great reaction and he got them throughout. Nese did a wild moonsault the the floor, hitting Gulak who was tied up in the ropes over the apron; it didn't really work, but I like him going for stupid stuff. He also overshoots a 450 and slams those knees right into Gulak's ribs, throws him messily into the corner with a german suplex, basically the nastiest parts of Nese's attack were kind of accidents. Gulak threw great kicks, and I think his reactions are going to keep getting louder, and they'll eventually babyface him. Early in the match Gulak hit an awesome diving clothesline off the apron (hard to make diving clotheslines look good) and his folding powerbomb looked great and would make a fine finisher, but I love the old school style of his spinning back suplex. Gulak is here baby!

PAS: I thought Nese was pretty terrible, for a guy I have had to watch a bunch due to this project he is one of my least favorite guys to watch in the world (I have excised most wrestlers I can't stand). He was in full dance fight mode in this especially early, and I agree with Eric that most of the good looking stuff he did seemed like a botch. Gulak looked great and I dug Philly getting behind him. Really simple wrestling, especially while matched up with a flipster like Nese, big lariat will always be cooler then a cartwheel. Happy that he won, hopefully he puts Nese in his rear view mirror and matches up with some of the cooler smaller guys in different parts of the fed. I am not a Shane Strickland guy, but it is cool that Gulak is mixing it up outside of the 205 live roster.

205 Live 7/16

48. Jack Gallagher vs. Chad Gable

ER: We got a great 10 minute sprint between these two a month ago with nary a mention of it since. Without a warning they bring us back into that feud and continue in the unexpected recent tradition of letting the 205 Live main event fly past the 15 minute mark. This felt like the 2019 indy version of their fantastic first match. I thought their shorter match was tighter and laid out in a more interesting way, and thought this one turned more into a shocked-by-nearfalls finisher trade-off that their first match didn't really attempt. I think both guys have the material to go this length, but I think dynamite short bursts keep their style stronger. The first match was two unknowns exploding off each other, while this match integrated learned behavior and the longer runtime perhaps made more sense because now both men were wrestling more cautious around each other. They were known quantities at this point, and neither wanted to rush into a mistake. The crowd couldn't care about those plans as we got several attempts at BORING chants through the first third of this, which is an odd thing to come up with right after watching a Mike Kanellis match.

I didn't think this was as focused as their first match, as both guys spent a long time looking for openings, Gallagher working a short arm scissors (which may have been done so Gable could show off his 0.7 Backlund strength), Gable working the arm, working the leg with a dragon screw, and while I like how these guys flow it was also hard to shake that we were just getting some limb work to pad time before we got to the match proper. And sure enough, by the time Gallagher planted a dropkick firmly on the chest and then hit his delayed vertical suplex, people were more on board with the match. I think some of the learned behavior benefitted the match, and other stuff felt a little out of place or inorganic. My favorite moment of that was Gable catching Gallagher over his shoulder in the corner off a dodged dropkick and then swinging him back down into a DDT. One of the announcers even said "I've never seen Gable do that before!" and that's really important, as it wasn't Gallagher just doing a dropkick he never does so that he's in position for Gable's over shoulder DDT. This was Gable scouting Gallagher's corner dropkick and turning it against him. I like Gable rolling Gallagher into the ring after the German on the floor (last time Gallagher got counted out after taking it), but Gable also had to pretend he didn't really get hit with Gallagher's tope to do the spot. That's part of the inorganic feeling I was talking about. Even Gallagher's great headbutt spot is done in a 2019 indy way, with Gable hitting a koppo kick that sends Gallagher bouncing upside down in the ropes and back into the headbutt. I don't think these guys need to drift into "I hit you which causes you to swing around and hit me which causes me to swing back around into an..." wrestling, they've shown they have more interesting ways to get to those moments. The closing stretch had some great moments (Gable reversing a belly to back superplex into a hard landing on Jack, and Jack landing high and hard on the Chaos Theory suplex), but it felt like two really talented guys inputting their skills into a match style I don't love. I'm going to like Gallagher doing it more than others, but more pieces of this than I expected didn't really work for me.

PAS: I liked this more then Eric did. Gable really unloaded a ton of great offense early, awesome armdrags, killer koppo kick, some big throws. Really overwhelmed Gallagher, the short arm scissors reversal was more of that domination, I am an enormous fan of the short arm scissors reversal and these were two cool guys to pull off that move. I did like how Gallagher was able to use his craft to get some advantages, his reversal out of the ankle lock was really slick grappling, and I thought the hammer fists after were great looking. I also thought his big end of the match offensive explosion was nasty, with Gable's moonsault landing on an upkick, and an incredible dropkick in the corner. I did think it got a little indy in the end, but these are a pair of guys with awesome looking stuff for a this is awesome section.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Monday AIW - Double Dare Tournament Night 2 11/5/16

PAS: So in classic Segunda Caida style, I watched night 1 of this tourney a year and a half ago, watched 80% of Night 2, and then it sat in our drafts forever. As part of Monday AIW I decided to finish off this review, and there is some fun stuff here.

Night 1 Review

Jollyville Fuck-Its (Nasty Russ/T-Money) vs. Massage NV (Dorian Graves/VSK)

PAS: Massage NV's gimmick is less rapey when it is against guys, although it is still pretty stupid. Once we got through their shtick and got to the Fuck-Its beating their ass it got pretty fun. T-Money was especially laying in the clotheslines. I wasn't really buying the offense of Massage NV when they had control, although their spot where VSK oils himself up and slides on Graves back into a headbutt is amusing. Finish was pretty great as T-Money nearly murders VSK with a pounce, great bump by VSK he honestly looked like he broke his neck.

ER: I dug this the whole way through. The comedy massage stuff was relegated to the beginning, and then we transitioned suddenly into the violent part of the program. I've never seen Massage NV, but I actually thought the massage stuff was pretty amusing. I don't know how much legs it has (probably not a gag I'm going to be chuckling at during my 5th NV tag) but I got a kick out of them working out T-Money's traps and doing some deep tissue work between the shoulderblades. Maybe it's just because my neck could use a good massage, and watching this is like going to Trader Joe's when I'm hungry. It didn't crop up at all when things got serious (outside of some oil), and I don't think it overstayed its welcome. And the actual tag wrestling we got was really good! Jollyville really laced it in when they finally went on the attack, and I thought NV held up their end. Graves did a great classic bulldog, and I loved a spot where Money missed a charge in the corner and Graves shot out of the corner to knock Russ off the apron. It felt like something the Fuck-Its would do and it was cool to see the tables turned on them. But not long after, T-Money was throwing lariats through them and hitting his big spinebuster, Russ hot tags in and is throwing even harder lariats and whipping VSK violently into a cool as hell spinning blue thunder bomb, all great. I was impressed by Graves throughout; his elbows packed a wallop and he threw his whole body into pinfall saves. VSK's oil slide headbutt was freaking great, he really lawndarted himself into Russ (little did I know what was about to happen). The actual finish was spectacular, Russ planting Graves with a tornado DDT to get him out of the ring, and a shocked VSK taking the absolute worst neck crunching bump off a Pounce that you've seen. He really takes it on the back of his neck, and there's no way someone should be kicking out of that.

Headhunters vs. Dr. Daniel C. Rockingham/Brian Carson

PAS: Short squash as might be expected. You aren't going to have the Headhunters work two long matches on one night. Couple of nasty chairshots and a big second rope splash call it a night. Headhunters v. Fuck-Its is the match I want to see in this tourney.

Team IOU (Nick Iggy/Kerry Awful) vs. To Infinity and Beyond (Cheech/Colin Delaney)

PAS: This match kept bringing me in, losing me and bringing me in again. All of the opening matwork by Iggy and Delaney was cool, as was IOU's double team beat down on Delaney. I thought Cheech's hot tag kind of sucked and the TIB offensive set was full of improbable double teams where their opponents end up suplexing each other. Lots of set up for not a ton of delivery. We had a pretty hot finishing run with Iggy killing folks, and then IOU ends up winning with a goofy "make a guy Canadian Destroyer his own partner finish. It had more I liked then didn't like, but I really didn't like the parts I didn't like.

Tracy Williams/Matt Riddle vs. Crazy Pain (Steve Pain/Gringo Loco)

PAS: When Riddle quit AIW he shit on this match, claiming the promotion jobbed him to "two luchas who couldn't work," but this was one of my favorite Riddle matches of 2016 and Crazy Pain were awesome in it. The match opens with Riddle hitting a flying armbar, and quickly all four guys throw on cool submissions with Riddle and Williams being more shoot and Crazy Pain being more llave. I also loved the story of Pain being a tough motherfucker and refusing to stand down from Riddle's big shots, and Riddle getting pissed that this guy is stepping to him. At one point Riddle eats a bunch of body kicks and hits this great flurry ending with a springboard rana, which he ripped off like he was Soberano or someone. Finish run is pretty dominant for Crazy Pain with them hitting a bunch of big double teams including this awesome move of Pain putting on a step over toe hold on Riddle, quebradoring Williams and holding him as Loco gives him a Demolition Decapitator, I have no idea how it didn't shred Riddle's achilles.  Match end with a clean win for Crazy Pain with Riddle getting Pain Killered on top of Williams. I was expecting this to be a bit of train wreck, but it was awesome instead.

ER: Yeah this ruled, a style clash that I never thought of but loved that it happened. I never heard the Riddle comments at the time, but I have to assume there were two different luchadors, because this was constant fun. I honestly have no clue what part/s Riddle would even be complaining about. I dug all of this. Williams rolling Loco around in painful crossfaces, Pain throwing strikes at Riddle until it kept inevitably blowing up on him, Pain throwing hard elbows but staggering around great to get caught by BroSauce's shots, throw in all the crazy double teams and this was tag mismatch heaven. Riddle's rope walk rana was impressive as hell (weird how everybody has an impressive landing on their flying when Steve Pain is the one whose feet are on the mat), we get a couple big dives to the floor (love Pain vaulting over the ref with a tope con giro), and Phil is damn right about some of the craziness of these double teams; that sequence ending with Williams getting upended by the Decapitation was flat out crazy, but then moments later Loco is vaulting off the top, onto a prone Riddle on Pain's shoulders, and coming off that with a splash on Williams (that isn't far off from him coming in vertically). This was a wild spotfest, a great clash that never crossed my mind as a possibility, the kind of thing that would have made me flip out the whole time live.

Flip Kendrick vs. Eric Ryan vs. Lucky 13 vs. Facade vs. Angel Ortiz vs. Mike Draztik

PAS: Fun six way scramble with three of the eliminated teams trying to one up each other with crazy moves. Eric Ryan was the highlight, taking way too many bumps and doing way too much for a throw away non-tourney match. He has a spot where he three straight topes on three different guys only to tope the ring rail ribs first with the fourth. He also smushes Flip's face with a huge double stomp and gets bealed over the top rope through a barbed wire board to the floor. Ryan is nuts. Kendrick gets the win with some flippy stuff. Nothing I will remember tomorrow outside of maybe Ryan being a loon, but it was a fine use of 8 minutes

Jollyville Fuck-Its (Nasty Russ/T-Money) vs. The Headhunters

PAS: I expected this to be a wild brawl, but it was actually a pretty deliberate Southern tag, with the Headhunters dominating Nasty Russ for a large part of the match. One of the Headhunters missed a second rope senton which let Russ tag in T-Money. T-Money gets a little offense including a great over the top rope tope, but then the Hunters took over again with chair shots. and a nasty Michinoku Driver on two folded chairs. Finish comes with one of the Headhunters missing a moonsault onto the chairs (totally nuts that such a fat old guy is still doing moonsaults) and then Russ hits a crossbody which gets caught and T-Money hits another and they get a banana peel win. The work in this was fine, and the Fuck-Its make surprisingly good underdog babyfaces, but I am not sure why you would book your tough guy team to get dominated by semi-retired fly-ins only to win like the 1-2-3 Kid. If the Headhunters wouldn't cooperate, book Horace Hogan and Crash the Terminator or something.

Team IOU (Kerry Awful/Nick Iggy) vs. Crazy Pain (Gringo Loco/Steve Pain)

PAS: This is a match where despite liking all four guys, I thought it fell a little short of my expectations. Crazy Pain were put over huge in this tournament, as they dominated much of this match too (which is a match structure which doesn't maximize what a pair of big bumping rudos do best.) I have mostly seen the Carnies work heel, so it is strange to see them work strict babyface, Awful is a pretty great hot tag, and I loved his Warriors Way style Earthquake drop. Parts of this just looked a bit ragged, although the structure was good, this was the best Loco's platform dive superfly splash has looked, he really lands on Iggy hard. I have a feeling this would be better now, as they would have a chance to iron out some wrinkles.

No Strings Attached (Alex Daniels/Gregory Iron/Marti Belle/Ray Lyn/Veda Scott) vs. Weird Body/Garry Baller/PB Smooth/Dick Justice/Space Monkey

PAS: I want to start with the positivity. Alex Daniels and Weird Body had some really fun exchanges, with Weird Body taking some really sick bumps on slams and a great looking discuss lariat. Outside of that stuff, this was a rough watch. Lots of borderline non-consensual spots with the Twerk Team, including Dick Justice jamming one Twerk Teams face into the crotch of another, gonzo porn isn't what I want in my wrestling, I guess I am getting to be a prude in my old age. Most of the match is guys cycling through all of their comedy spots, and a lot of the actually wrestling looked pretty bad, with some moves really whiffing. Maybe just fast forward to the Weird Body spots.

Shayna Baszler vs. Britt Baker

PAS: Man Baszler was so great so early. Her she is Fuchi mode for most of the match, twisting and pulling at Baker's joints and limbs, super nasty stuff. At one point she throws Baker to the floor, ties her calves up in the ring barrier, places the ring steps on her back and puts on a camel clutch. Baker gets a couple of spring boards, and some tetchy forearms which Baszler sells her ass off for, before falling to a rear naked choke. Baker was game, but I can imagine this match would have even been better with someone with better looking offense.

Crazy Pain (Gringo Loco/Steve Pain) vs. Jollyville Fuck-Its (Nasty Russ/T-Money)

PAS: This was a lot of fun, but kind of short, and it really makes me want to see a match between these two teams that wasn't a tourney final. First part of the match is all ringside brawling, and these are four pretty great brawlers. Pain and T-Money were especially heavy handed. There was a really cool spot where T-Money goes for his pounce and ends up hanging himself on the second rope, and some really nifty dives by Crazy Pain. It felt a bit abbreviated, as both teams seemed to leave stuff in their bags, but everything we got looked really good.

ER: This did come off short, even though it was 8 solid minutes of action, and I actually liked how fatigued the Fuck-Its came off. They came out selling a tournament's worth of injuries, Russ especially had some great zombie stagger throughout, even while on offense. I thought it played great. The crowd brawl stuff was fine, Russ smacking Loco with his inflatable middle finger before just punching him in the face, people getting tossed through chairs, Loco getting suplexed on the ramp, all done as tired guys who already hurt. Loco and Pain's flip dives were really impressive, super graceful with heavy landings while also looking totally safe. My favorite spot of the match was T-Money missing a Pounce but committing to it, flying hard into the middle ropes and recoiling. It was such a cool moment I wished they had saved it for part of the finish. Crazy Pain brought some mean stuff, like Loco hitting a missile dropkick to start Pain spinning on a blue thunder bomb, or double stomping Russ in the ribs to eat Money's knees on the big splash. Russ breaks out a dragon rana to the floor, which - c'mon, you guys are crazy - and then really gets whipped into the mat on Pain's powerbomb, then rolled directly into the Pain Killer. Russ took the PK better than anyone in the tourney, really getting crazy height and landing flush, looked like something that would finally finish two asskickers.

ER: Another AIW show, another AIW show that lands a couple matches on our 2016 Ongoing MOTY List. I think these two shows had the earliest Jollyville matches I saw, and it's fun looking back before they became my favorite team. The Catch Point/Lucha Base tag was fun as hell, AIW is fun as hell.

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EVOLVE 131: 10th Anniversary Special 7/13/19 Live Blog!

This is weird! But I'm home alone on a Saturday night, and there's no way I'm going to miss Eddie Damn Kingston's debut on the WWE Network.

Josh Briggs vs. Anthony Greene

ER: I've gone out of my way a couple times to watch Greene, because he's been getting talked up a lot lately, but I watched him have a lame match with Stevie Richards and I pretty much wrote him off at that point. I dug Briggs/Chris Dickinson from earlier this year, but even in that match Briggs came off like "Test on an above average night". And this match started off plenty fun, but it was really same-y and started to feel like 2 minutes for every 1 minute that passed. Greene has a nice straight right hand that he used several times (and even a nice straight left that he used once), and I think his offense looks good but a lot of it is tied together with combos, which I kind of hate. I liked the stuff worked on the apron, thought it was cool when Briggs got knocked down to a knee and to the floor, dug Briggs catching a tope and chokeslamming Greene on the apron. They work some fun stuff out of the corner, with Briggs getting caught with a kick charging in, but kicking Greene in the chest anyway and then hitting a follow up yakuza, and plenty of things looked cool (Briggs' chokeslam into a powerbomb was killer, his release suplex looked dangerous but was safe), but around the 7 minute mark they started going into the "He can't believe it!" shocked pinfall faces and more learned behavior stuff, and then I just wanted it to stop. This wasn't bad, though with the tools each guy brings they could have laid this out in a more interesting way.


We get an Eddie Kingston promo on the Network, and I'm a happy man. There is nobody in modern wrestling close to Kingston when it comes to promos, no clear second place.

Sean Maluta vs. Curt Stallion vs. Stephen Wolf vs. Harlem Bravado

ER: Harlem Bravado is such a goofy dude, like if Adam Driver lost 30 pounds and got a tech job. And I thought this mostly stunk. We got a dive train spot where Wolf shot a couple feet past everyone on a tope con giro, then Maluta shot only one foot past everyone with his tope con giro, then Stallion at least hit a decent Fosbury Flop. Bravado is bad at setting up offense, doing some silly bad missed clotheslines; Maluta threw a bunch of superkicks, and some of them looked good; Stallion would throw a nice big boot and then do a blatant thigh slap knee. It boiled down to a fairly dumb strike exchange between Wolf and Stallion that had a total of one nice strike (a cool rolling elbow by Wolf). The brief finishing run was hot and had a couple finishers chained together nicely, but I couldn't wait for this one to end.

Arturo Ruas vs. Anthony Henry

ER: I've never actually seen Ruas before, and this is kind of exciting! I don't actually know if his amateur credentials are a work or not, but he's a guy my age doing cool body scissor takedowns on WWE TV so I'm ready to buy in. And this match was a really great change of pace after that last clunker. It comes out of the gates looking like it's going to be a 4 minute match, worked like something off that awesome Tetsujin Shoot Style show from 2015. And I think this would have benefitted from being 4 minutes. It was a good 10 minute match, but it felt like it could have been a classic 4 minute match. Ruas brings some unique takedowns and strikes, coming off like a capoeira guy trying jiu jitsu, going for scissor takedowns and armbars, throwing kicks at ankles and chest, a fun replacement for my boy Jaka (who disappeared in January). I'll typically be into any Evolve guy who would fit into Check Point. Henry is a pro, and I liked how these guys scrambled, though again I do wish we cut the time and kept some of the mystery. Once it crept past 6 minutes or so it got a lot more pro style, which I didn't find as interesting. But that still had some gold, like Henry trying to burst Ruas's gallbladder with a gross stomp off the top, and the finish was great with Ruas surprising Henry with a gorgeous sweeping high kick. I dug this and would love to see more Ruas. Hell, tell Ruas to cut a few pounds so I can see Gallagher/Ruas, or bring back Gulak as a special challenge opponent.

No DQ: Brandi Lauren vs. Shotzi Blackheart

ER: Really it didn't matter what happened in this one, as Shotzi wound up hitting one of the nastier crazier bumps we've seen, and this alone is going to be GIFed to eternity. She had several crazy moments, but this was another match that felt too long at 10 minutes. Since this was No DQ Lauren had Natalia Markova work this like a handicap match, but Shotzi did away with her in barely 2 minutes, which is odd as I'm not sure why Markova bailed. Shotzi appeared to bust open her nose delivering a missile dropkick, and she comes off as a kind of unathletic Darby Allin, willing to take some absolutely dumb reckless bumps, but without Allin's landing ability. Lauren hits a killer baseball slide dropkick to the floor, sending a hard chairshot into Shotzi's face, and you'd think that would end up being the most violent spot in the match. Ha. Shotzi sets up a bunch of chairs, Lauren and Greene wind up in them, but by the time Shotzi's tope gets to them nobody is home. Shotzi crashed so damn ugly through several set up chairs, looking like 6 different chair backs hit her in 6 painful spots before she hit the ground. Absolutely nutso spot, in a match where she had already fallen onto the apron and floor. I liked Lauren beating her senseless with a kendo stick for the finish, but this felt like it would be more effective as a short wild violent brawl.

Colby Corino vs. Babatunde

ER: Hell yes. Gimme that absolute Reis/Juventud energy baby. I've not seen Babatunde (probably not going back to check out the Greatest Royal Rumble), but I'm down for any new 350 pounder. Colby at least actually looks like a wrestler now and not like a little kid (which he did as of like 2 years ago), and really he just looks the same as his dad in the late 90s. Babatunde doesn't have tons to offer yet besides size and presence, but that's fine. We get a couple great spots in this one, the best being Corino hitting a springboard swanton right onto the back of the kneeling Babatunde, but close second was Corino getting caught off the top with a huge chokeslam. This was only a couple minutes, but a welcome breather.

Eddie Kingston/Joe Gacy vs. AR Fox/Leon Ruff

ER: This was a ton of fun, starting with a ton of dives and not really letting up. Fox and Ruff hit dives to start (Fox flying into the front row) and then do it again on different sides of the ring, Gacy accidentally hits Kingston with a dive, letting Ruff hit another. Good god guys. Fox does his wild inverted cannonball to the floor and basically crashes right through everyone to pavement. And I think this got pretty great once we moved into Kingston and Gacy's double teams, as they have a bunch of mean stuff. Gacy hits a hard elbow while Kingston dumps Fox on his head with a back suplex, Kingston hits a superplex into a Gacy powerbomb on Ruff, a big damn time Gacy lariat into Kingston german suplexing Ruff across the ring, Kingston hits a great powerslam off the middle rope, they both throw big chops, they're a team I'd love to see do more of their thing. They really packed some cool stuff into the run time, thought Ruff hitting a tope con giro over the turnbuckles to put Gacy threw a table looked spectacular, thought Fox's pop up Spanish Fly on Kingston was suitably crazy. I obviously didn't want to see Kingston lose, and it felt like Ruff took too much of a beating to instantly come back from, but these guys were fun opposite each other.

PAS: I didn’t like this as much as Eric. I am a Kingston super fan, and this kind of spotfest isn’t really going to use him to his best. This felt like a 12 minute match jammed into 5, and we never got to see Kingston and Gacy really take it to anyone outside of some work on Ruff which he kind of shrugged off. Gacy also had some of the worst “ONLY TWOOOOOOO” faces I have seen in a long while. Fox and Ruff really looked dancey when they were stringing spots together, I have been watching a lot of AIW tag spotfests and that set a bar Fox and Ruff couldn’t live up to. There were some cool dives, and I did like some of the Unwanted’s double teams, but I was hoping for more from the Mad King on the Network.

Matt Riddle vs. Drew Gulak

ER: Gulak gets Catch Point druids!!! As a match I think this underperformed and never felt like anything new. This felt like kind of a greatest hits collection from both guys without some of the drama that their best matches have. It felt like a slightly sanitized version of a match they would have had a couple years ago. The good news is that I happen to love the greatest hits from these two. We get a pair of cool belly to belly superplexes (Riddle getting the worst of it), both guys throw hard shots to the body (which were weirdly maybe my favorite thing about this), big Riddle senton, both throw hard uppercuts, Gulak always cutting in for single legs, it's them doing things that I like to watch them do. But this kind of felt like the recent run of 205 Live main events, where good workers are given 20 minutes to do their thing and it doesn't totally live up to the time. There were obviously hot stretches of this, and the Riddle corkscrew senton into Gulak's rear naked choke felt like a cool spot to end things. They didn't end it there, with Riddle simply picking Gulak up and hitting Bro Derek that didn't look finisher worthy. It really just looked like Gulak taking a heavier than normal slam, didn't read as a piledriver at all. This match was going to have a high floor - both guys are great - but it felt like we only bumped our head against their ceiling a couple times.


So I'm pretty in the dark on large patches of Evolve, but Leonard says that Bryan Idol was involved in "maybe the most important match in Evolve history"? Did I mishear that? Is that correct? Was there a really important Earl Cooter match that I need to see?

Austin Theory vs. JD Drake

ER: Well hey, this had some good moments in the first half and hit nothing but "this isn't wrestling I enjoy" down the back stretch. They would do cool things and not go back to them at all, like Theory cracking his elbow on the ringpost really early on, then never once hesitating to throw elbows the entire match. I hate when they burn a cool spot like that when the match would otherwise be the same. Theory is a guy who works like a dickhead Finn Balor, and that's not something I wanted. He has stuff I like: his elbows in the corner to Drake looked really good, and that running elbow to Drake's kidneys was really great. I need more of that guy. That guy rules. The guy doing a doofy pose before hitting a very normal standing moonsault? I don't want that guy. Drake is super hard for me to pin down. Half the time he's a fat guy doing things I enjoy fat guys doing, the other half he's working like a 50 year old never was doing recognizable spots on a minor league baseball show. And to be clear, written out that probably sounds something that I would actually write a couple themed posts about, but Drake would be the bad version of that. Sometimes he's throwing hands, throwing clubbing blows, landing a great fat guy dropkick, great second rope leg lariat, hitting a Vader bomb, making me go "oh yeah I do like this guy" and then before long he's doing a derpy Stunner (and you know Theory is a guy who is going to take a Stunner like a real bouncy idiot), and overshooting a rickety moonsault the exact same way he always overshoots his moonsault, and I'm like "THAT'S why I don't like that guy!" They're doing the "exhausted and holding each other up" just 12 minutes in, and the back stretch has a dumb on our knees elbow exchange. Drake gets hit and plainly says "You can't hit me harder than life has," came off like a pretty flimsy line. Eddie Kingston could make that line work. JD Drake couldn't. They knew exactly what kind of cherry I wanted on this sundae, too, because Theory did some hilarious overblown pump handle slam finisher that landed Drake 100% on top of Theory. I am not familiar with Theory's signature offense, so I genuinely thought Drake had reversed something. Nope! Austin Theory won the title by strategically throwing a larger man onto his own chest. Hey WWE Network, This Is Indy Wrestling!

Akira Tozawa vs. Adam Cole

ER: I wound up enjoying this a lot more than I thought I would, and I gotta give a lot of that credit to Tozawa. Tozawa has always been a guy I've liked, but this year I really realized I had been underrating him. I don't think he's wrestling any differently this year than he did last year or the year before, I just now appreciate him the correct amount. He really turned an interesting match out of a guy I don't like. I didn't think Cole was as annoying in this one as he is in his interminable NXT main events that I now dread. You read it here: Tozawa is good enough that he takes the dread out of Adam Cole main events. I really like what he throws behind his strikes, they look good and they look his own. He comes off like a guy who takes cool risks, and his matches benefit from that. Cole, for his part, worked an actual good side headlock. That might sound like a putdown, but a good side headlock is a pretty important thing to me. His was better than I thought it would be. Tozawa's offense is always explosive, his dive always looks like it's going to punch both guys through the barricade, he throws a great spinning heel kick, great low dropkick, bumps big and fast, etc. He's a 1999 Taka Michinoku in 2019 and that's great. I think Tozawa winning would have actually been good for NXT, interject a new and credible opponent into the mix, wouldn't seem like a demotion. Really the only thing I didn't like about this was the finish, and that's because Adam Cole has arguably my least favorite finish in wrestling. That bunny hop flipping piledriver looks so damn silly, and then he pulls his kneepad off his scrawny little knee and hits a low end "2002 indy guy working a shining wizard he just saw on a tape into his moveset" vibe to it, more like a sliding leg lariat to the back of the head which is...well it just didn't do it for me.


ER: No breakout classics on this one, and it wasn't one of the better Evolve shows I've seen - and there are a lot of great Evolve shows - but there was plenty of stuff I enjoyed. I liked several individual performances, thought the Kingston tag was a fun style clash, and I dug seeing Ruas for the first time. Plus, that Shotzi bump made me jump forward in my seat, and seat jumping moments are always special.

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