Caught Gulak in Our Room Staring' at the Light, I'd Been Up All Night

Drew Gulak/Ariya Daivari/Tony Nese vs. Gran Metalik/Mustafa Ali/Lince Dorado WWE Main Event 3/31/17 - FUN

ER: This had some real highs but also some oddly laid out peaks, giving Lince Dorado a lot of the big triumphant moments. Out of the three tecnicos in 2017, he was the least natural and spectacular - and also the clear smallest - so it was weird that the match built to him getting the hot tag and getting weaker reactions than anyone else in the match. But the peaks were strong and the pace was brisk. It starts with some pretty so-so Nese moments, but at the same time gave Metalik nice moments to shine. Metalik's nice rana off the ropes was an early highlight, but the match doesn't quite round the corner until Daivari held the middle and top ropes open so that Ali flew to the floor while running ropes. Ali is always great for one big bump per match, one real dangerous one, and him basically hitting a tope to nothing moved us along nicely. The Gulak/Ali portions were really special, with Gulak really throwing hard basics at him and Ali hitting the mat hard. Gulak throws such a hard clothesline, and he throws a straight arm clothesline here that knocks Ali into next week! The big flying moves throughout are good, like Daivari's stiff Naniwa elbow, Metalik's plancha to Nese, Ali's match winning inverted 450, even Dorado's shooting star was delivered swiftly and landed clean (Dorado's problem is more with some wait times on his set ups, and not really flowing through spots very well, all things he got much better at a few years later). Weird to me that Gulak is the one eating the pin after looking like the biggest monster during the match, but this was fun stuff.

Drew Gulak vs. Angel Garza WWE Main Event 7/22/21 - FUN

ER: Here are two modern wrestlers that I love, who have now wrestled five singles matches over a seven month span, and somehow haven't managed to have a really good one. Drew Gulak is one of the guys in WWE who you can argue has had the best matches against the widest selection of opponents over the past several years, but for whatever reason there just does not appear to be a connection between these two. Over their previous four matches, three of them never even made it to 150 seconds. Those were matches with fun, well executed ideas that didn't have enough time to build into stories. The other match went 9 minutes - longer than all but one 2021 Gulak match - and it was somehow one of the weakest Gulak matches of the year. This is more of a satisfying porridge 5 minutes, but still doesn't quite click. Their matches always have good moments, but never quite feel cohesive enough to get to that next level. Garza's transitions back to offense always feel a bit too easy, always completely shrugging off whatever Gulak just did, no matter how punishing it looked. Obviously, a lot of Gulak's offense looked punishing. Gulak never works the same offense every match, so you never know what kind of tricks he's going to pull. He throws a few cool body shots, stiff standing clotheslines, and a great bridging German that I thought was actually going to give him a rare win. Garza has great charisma and taunted Gulak in some fun ways, and he actually gets a good reaction for his tearaway pants late in the match (even though Gulak looks more and more like an idiot every time he catches those thrown pants), but it felt like he was sometimes working a totally different match than Gulak. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

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There's a Tone That Rises Gently with Drew Gulak

Drew Gulak vs. Akira Tozawa WWE Main Event 4/7/17 - GREAT

ER: I'm not sure if Tozawa or Alexander is Gulak's most frequent opponent in WWE, but I like how he and Tozawa work together. This was early in their time on the roster, in the middle of Gulak's No Fly Zone gimmick. A cruiserweight heel who intentionally grounds things feels like it would have played much better in early 2000s east coast indies, but it's still fun to watch Gulak work tight headlocks during standing exchanges and yank on Tozawa's jaw on the ground. This was a good balance of Gulak's snug work and fun personality, not as over the top with the gimmick as it would get. I liked when he saw a Tozawa dive coming, ran halfway down the ramp, and egged him on from 30 feet away. "I'll catch you, come on!" I also like that Gulak did a running elbow smash, and it was treated like something that could lay a man out. It's so weird to me how unavoidable standing elbow exchanges are in modern wrestler, and yet hardly anyone uses a simple running Misawa-style elbow smash. Gulak plays into Tozawa's offense well, including his comedy spots, and that lead to the crowd reacting louder than they typically reacted for cruiser matches during this era. I really appreciate how much Gulak adds to fast cruiser exchanges, because his missed strikes always look like a missed strike, never like a planned part of the sequence. His missed clothesline to set up Tozawa's nice finishing bridging German looked like something that would have decapitated Tozawa, thrown fast and low and believably spinning him into the German. When you can make a sequence look like something that an opponent just capitalized on, and this quickly, you've done really well. 

Drew Gulak vs. Mustafa Ali 205 Live 6/27/17 - GREAT

ER: I loved the first 2/3 of this because it had a real vicious Gulak performance. Gulak came off like WCW Finlay, confidently punishing Ali. After getting caught early by armdrags and winding up in a couple Ali headscissors he just punches Ali in the face. I mean, the kind of punch that could have plausibly finished the match 30 seconds in. If they wanted to give a wrestler a KO punch gimmick, and this was the first punch to show that KO punch, people would buy it. Gulak kicks Ali in the stomach to block a crossbody, hits some heavy stomps to the chest, then really starts laying it in. He bodyslams Ali legs first into the ropes and then hits a planted leg clothesline that Ali bumps by literally looking like he caught his chin on a clothesline. A tight cravat and snug side headlock, followed with a suplex into the buckles, and I swear during a couple of those stretches it genuinely looked like Gulak was "doing" Finlay. I don't think Ali's comeback is strong enough considering how punishing Gulak looked, and he had this habit of looking around grinning too much in between every move he hit, including a floaty cutter that Gulak had to stand around for. Match ends with a comedy payoff of Gulak's "No Fly Zone" gimmick, as he winds up seated on the top rope and then gets it in his brain that maybe flying would be okay, this once. He does a long build of missing a splash, legs shaking on the ropes the entire time, and predictably loses. I really didn't want his front half vicious performance to wind up in comedy, but his work before Ali's eventual comeback was among the best I've seen from him and that says a lot. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

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Gulak is Hidin' in the Back, Loosening His Grip

Drew Gulak vs. Hideo Itami NXT 9/14/16 - GREAT

ER: This was a real hard hitting under 5 minute gem, Gulak's post CWC debut, and his only NXT appearance in the first couple years of his WWF career. It's really interesting in hindsight that they thought Gulak could go right past NXT onto the main roster, which basically gave us a ton of Gulak/Mustafa Ali and Gulak/Cedric Alexander matches and left a ton of potential cool NXT matches on the table. Itami had come back from an injury and was running through CWC guys, and this was a compact way to introduce the toughness of Gulak and the willingness of Itami to hurt someone. Gulak slaps Itami hard, and then Itami pays that back with two hellish kitchen sink knees to the gut, and hard kicks to the chest and back. Gulak's slap was hard as hell, but it probably wasn't worth it for the two knees and kicks he had to take, and especially not worth the big boot he charges into face first. If someone is willing to be stiffed, Itami is going to be able to provide that. Gulak isn't as flashy with the stiff strikes, but does a ton of cool tough guy things, like body slamming Itami into the ropes and working over his body and limbs, dropping him with a  nice back suplex. They have a snug strike exchange, and Itami kicks Gulak in the throat before giving him a G2S that lands hard under Gulak's chin. There wasn't a single part of this match that wasn't hard hitting, total gem of a compact match, like something Regal would work with one of the karate guys on Pro. 

Drew Gulak vs. Mustafa Ali 205 Live 3/14/17 - FUN

ER: Mustafa Ali is Gulak's most frequent opponent throughout his WWE run, and this was their first match (of at least a dozen). It's short but filled with cool stuff, and Gulak is great at basing for someone like Ali. Ali at this point had a lot of offense that required opponents to be in a very specific spot, and Gulak is great at being in a specific spot. I really liked how Gulak played into Ali's assisted springboard rana (with a fun bump all the way across the ring out to the floor) and then caught a nice plancha right at the waist. Too many guys catch a plancha up by the shoulders and it leads to a lot of missed catches, and the way Gulak caught it in the midsection made it look like he was taking a cannonball to the belly. Gulak grounds Ali in cool Finlayesque ways, with a bodyslam thrown with the same kind of intensity Finlay threw his, working over Ali with stomps (springing off the bottom rope), and working a great Gory Special into a backslide. I wish there had been a more interesting way for Ali to work into his comeback, and I thought his rolling cutter was really dumb. It is completely silly to require your opponent to stand there waiting that long for tumbling. But the inverted 450 is a great finisher, and they clearly have the chemistry to have bigger and better matches. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DREW GULAK

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 11/24-11/30

Smackdown 11/29

Drew Gulak vs. Mustafa Ali

ER: "A rivalry that really heated up when Drew Gulak did a PowerPoint presentation on Twitter" is something that's going to sound just as stupid to future generations as it does now, yes? This match goes maybe 3 minutes - pretty dumb on a 2 hour show with only 4 matches - but is fairly meaty for the short runtime. Gulak is back to shaved head and is sporting some cool as boots, and he aims to make the most of his ring time (and the way things have been going this might be all the ring time he gets this month). Gulak looked sharp in control, backed Ali with hard chops, worked a nice single leg crab, and hit a wicked one arm powerbomb when Ali jumped to the middle buckle (he really flung him too, really great). Gulak made Ali's kicks look like a million bucks, and the match had an actual good use of a superkick that made for a plausible nearfall even just 2 minutes in. Sub-3 minutes is almost always going to be unfulfilling, but Gulak made the most of his time.

205 Live 11/29

Jack Gallagher vs. Angel Garza

ER: 14 minutes of Gallagher on my TV on a Saturday morning is just not something I'm going to complain about, but I am really not a fan of the way Garza transitioned to comeback throughout the match. The bones of a killer match were there, with Garza working over Gallagher's stomach and Gallagher being the one to try to keep him at bay with cool strikes. You don't see a lot of stomach work, but Garza was clearly targetting Jack's stomach, setting up a big dropkick to the gut in the corner, dropkicking him again in the stomach on a missed Gallagher crossbody, and in maybe the coolest moment of the match breaking out a slingshot gutbuster. Gallagher hasn't been done many favors with the way he's been portrayed. He's the guy they use as a heel or face depending on what's convenient that week, and throwing a pasty British guy into the ring for almost 15 minutes in Alabama is the kind of thing that has been leading crowds to root for matches to end. Gallagher is diligent and eventually wins them over, but it is not easy. And I think part of that is because almost all of Garza's comebacks are structured to come immediately after taking a big move from Gallagher. This was the worst use of the Gallagher standing thrust headbutt (he has a nice one early in the match where he rains it down on Garza while trapping him in the corner), and he lays that headbutt in, causing Garza to bounce off the ropes and hit a superkick. Obviously that is one of the worst trends in go go go wrestling, where a guy can take a move that has always been used for a nearfall, but this time the momentum from getting headbutted really hard makes him bounce off ropes and throw a kick. Maybe there's a way to make a spot like that work. I'm sure Finlay could find a way to make it work. But I don't think I've seen it work. Gallagher does win the people over when he kicks Garza in the face on a corner dropkick and begins landing stiff windmill punches. The windmill punches were hitting hard enough and landing quick enough and overwhelming Garza enough that the folks in Birmingham couldn't help but make a little noise. But Gallagher got crippled by another lazy transition: Late in the match Gallagher leaps onto Garza and tries dragging him down with a guillotine choke, shifting weight, gradually seeming like it could work...but Garza just gets choked for awhile and then hits the wing clipper. Oh. The layout only seemed to work to the match's detriment, and the worst version of a 50-50 match is where one guy responds to a big move immediately with a big move. This had the chance to eclipse their better, shorter match from a couple weeks ago, but alas.

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2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Men's Money in the Bank

Baron Corbin vs. Finn Balor vs. Ricochet vs. Andrade vs. Ali vs. Drew McIntyre vs. Randy Orton vs. Brock Lesnar WWE Money in the Bank 5/19

ER: Within the first two minutes of this, Andrade takes a gorgeous Jerry bump, Ali gets backdropped on a table, Balor gets backdropped on a table, Ricochet hits a springboard 450 to the floor, and Ricochet gets backdropped on a table. This match feels like it knows it can definitively be the best of the night. They do a lot of big things here, and it consistently looks good and painful. Ali and Ricochet both eat backdrops onto ladders, and Andrade spectacularly springboard dropkicks Orton off a ladder. This has been a night where agents have laid out some real clunkers, so guys stepping in and having one of those fun WWE Heavyweight X Division matches is going to come off even better. WWE has a decent history of being able to do a "many guys chaining together offense" multiman, and this played like one of the good ones. Andrade hitting a sunset flip powerbomb on Finn off a ladder through another ladder - Andrade landing on his feet and Finn recoiling like a skinny kid getting bounced off a trampoline by two fat kids - was one of the most spectacular WWE spots of the last decade. That was WWE stealing the brilliant insanity from the Crazy Crusher vs. Hell Storm Canadian backyard ladder match. Ali, Balor, and Ricochet really sacrificed their backs for some cool moments tonight, all of them taking multiple back bumps onto ladders, onto the floor, and onto unbudging tables. Ricochet taking a mammoth hip toss from McIntyre, from the ring through a ladder set up at ringside really made this feel like we were getting an ECW match with 3 Spike Dudleys. Corbin is pretty good as modern Justin Credible, pushed cartoon rat faced heel who has been shaving his head for hairline reasons since late 20s getting a ton of go away heat. I would have preferred an actual finish with the guys involved, since really everybody here absolutely busted their ass and someone deserved some credit for that. But I also love Brock more than most people so I can't deny that I think he's a fun guy to be running around threatening to cash in briefcase. What an absolutely scary monster in the closet, knowing that Lesnar could run out at any time to potentially concuss someone! This match played a lot more like something you'd see on a dirty indy show, everyone taking some impressive risks and the fans really getting into it. This show desperately needed to go out on an exciting note, and this match delivered that.

PAS: This had a pretty amusing structure with all four juniors taking enormous disgusting bumps, while the three heavyweights just pinball them around. I mean Orton takes about 10 minutes of this match completely off, I wouldn't be shocked if he went to take a shit or grab a cup of coffee, and meanwhile Ali dies five hideous deaths and Balor nearly snaps his back in half. It almost felt like this was booked as a rib by Kevin Nash. In that sense Brock running in and winning the match while taking zero bumps works perfectly.  Hell of a career shortening bumpfest performance by Ali, Balor, Andrade and Ricochet, and those are super athletic guys to die in interesting ways. I am pretty tired of ladder matches, but can't hate the hustle.

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I Forgot WWE Money in the Bank Was Today Blog! 5/19/19

Got it in my head that this thing was happening next weekend, went on a nice jog during the breaks in the rain, hot shower, cozy pants, sitting down with coffee and Phil texts me if I'm gonna write up the PPV. Crap. I had been planning on watching a Death Wish sequel, a couple Beyond matches, and the Schitt's Creek finale I've been saving...but let's dive in blindly to Money in the Bank!

Daniel Bryan/Erick Rowan vs. The Usos

ER: Pretty genuinely surprised that this wound up on the pre-show. Now, I don't actually know what the rest of this card is (been only skimming through TV the past several weeks, and now that I'm watching it's more fun to just see what happens), so maybe it will knock my socks off! And this whole thing delivered the usually fun pre-show match quality, but with these guys it should have been way better than that. It was good, it was fun, but it really wasn't that much more fun than if we had gotten a Mojo Rawley/No Way Jose 8 minute match. The timing looked just slightly off throughout, things like one of the Usos leaping far out of the way to set up Bryan catching him in an armbar, or Bryan arriving at the edge of the ropes and having to wait a split second to be hit by the double superkick, Usos double splash finish looking ugly with both guys landing more on their feet than landing the splash, just felt like a lot of this was worked at 75%. There were cool moments - hard not to be with these guys - and Bryan pretty clearly looks like the best wrestler in the company right now. I liked Rowan catching both of the Usos on dives, thought each Uso took a nice big bump, but this underdelivered expectations from these four.

Naomi vs. Carmella vs. Nikki Cross vs. Mandy Rose vs. Ember Moon vs. Dana Brooke vs. Natalya vs. Bayley

ER: Everybody has new gear which is cool as I don't even remember people having notably cool new gear at Mania. Was their seamstress running behind? Naomi in the afro puffs and bumblebee look is fantastic, she pulls it off so well. I really, really love that gear and look on her. And Carmella is finally out of the Baywatch swimsuit and into a money two piece. This whole match is somewhat sloppy, a little disjointed, but they went for a ton of shit, tried out some cool new shit, and tried to be a little unique with the concept. Not all of the spots worked, some of them felt way too choreographed (stuff like Carmella holding the ladder too long waiting for Mandy to kick her knee out (and the extremely awkward aftermath of that spot, with Carmella weirdly shoving her away with one arm and saying "get away from meeeee" like they were two kids play fighting and one actually got hurt), or Dana Brooke reaching right over the briefcase to grab the rope because the spot was for her to swing from it, that stuff never looks good and I hate when we see the end of the sequence telegraphed by the process. But the painful stuff was painful and the cool stuff was cool. Mandy Rose took a couple big nasty bumps, one over the top to the apron to the floor, the other getting kicked off a ladder; Sonya Deville came in to fireman's carry Mandy up the ladder, and that looked awesome; Ember hit the Eclipse off a ladder into the ring, Nikki does a nice version of Finlay's ring skirt trap beatdown, Naomi took a painful as hell atomic drop bump on a ladder, Mandy ran up a set up ladder to hit a knee in the end, tons of cool stuff. Overall I thought it was too mapped out and a little messy, but it was an appropriate length, and fun! And Bayley could make for a fun title chaser.

Rey Mysterio vs. Samoa Joe

ER: Man are we ever gonna actually get a total badass match between these two? This is a genuine dream match and we've gotten a pointless Mania match, a rushed Raw match, and now an even more rushed PPV match. This was more angle than match, with Joe getting legit busted open by a shot and then getting pinned fairly quickly while his shoulder was nowhere close to the match. It's pretty lame to have them both wildly celebrating a late career Mysterio title win, while also getting thoughtful Michael Cole voice saying "You now Samoa Joe has a legitimate beef about that pin." This match needed Dominick to take a real shit kicking. Instead we got Cole saying weird things like "He's making Rey's teenage son watch his father get beat!" First, Mysterio's large ass adult son has to be in his 20s by now, old enough to foolishly run in to help his dad. We've had Miz's dad eat a beating, Dominick needs to get busted open. If you don't want to have Dominick eating a beating on the same show where that happened in a different feud, then what is the point of even debuting Dominick at this point? What we got of a match was fine, these two are nice dance partners, but we just didn't have the time to make it very interesting.

Shane McMahon vs. The Miz

ER: I really enjoyed their Mania match, thought the stunt spots were genuinely nutty and built too nicely. Having them fight in a cage kind of contains the stunt aspect more than I'd like, but they bring good energy to this. Shane is a fun stuntman, but here he shows that he's a fun cornered animal. I was fully expecting him to work a fully equal match, because for whatever reason Shane is always treated like an equal. But here he comes in playing desperate strategy, scrambling for escape any way he can. I do like the moments where he can't help himself but always pays for it, even if Miz catching him on the coast to coast was kind of awkward. Miz unleashing actual punishment was really good, with Cole calling him a sadist (which is a weird thing to have your announcer saying about your babyface who isn't doing a heel turn) as he beats Shane with a chair. I was hoping they'd end it like this, with Miz getting some revenge and dropping him face first on a chair. But they opted to go a pretty stupid route instead, as they apparently think the hot way to draw fans into this PPV is some refs making mistakes! The ref stops the match when Shane gets his foot on the ropes, even though it's a No DQ cage match. Two matches in a row where a ref mistake changes the outcome of a match is just stupid, uninteresting, and lazy. That Shane eventually wins the match by dropping to the floor, ensuring the feud continues, was not what I wanted. This started very promising but didn't go in a direction anybody could have wanted.

Tony Nese vs. Ariya Daivari

ER: Damn this feels like a couple deep cut guys on the roster to be getting PPV time. I don't really have the time to watch 205 Live, but damn what is the state of that program? Tony Nese really stinks. This whole thing is ice cold (possibly by design) and Nese doesn't help any one soul in the building get warm. His prepared combos are so sloppy and shitty looking, he runs through this awful high kick/kneelift, leg sweep, leg drop combo that is so slow, and manages to look shittier literally each step of the way through the combo. Daivari has a couple more interesting things than I remembered. I liked his jab and a couple of his cheapshots, but he doesn't have anything interesting enough to make the crowd care about Tony Nese. We do eventually get a Boring chant, and it's stupid but not undeserved. Nese doesn't deserve cheers for his shitty elbow exchanges and slow kicks, all delivered with absolutely zero personality. Nese is such a zilch. Fans at least make a little noise for his flip dive and 450, but I actually laughed when it got a kickout. These guys are going for This Is Awesome Please Don't Stop epic without earning one damn ounce of it. I hate it but I kind of love it. The finishing stretch was nonsensical and cut short right when they decided to do some silly kickouts. Really this whole thing showed that neither of these guys are anywhere close to deserving PPV time. This was outright bad.

Lacey Evans vs. Becky Lynch

ER: I really have not been into any of the Lacey Evans stuff we've gotten so far, so this is a decent chance for her to win me over. I think I'm still upset that we never got the culmination of this exact same run for Eva Marie. I wasn't expecting any good matches from that, but I got a genuine kick out of the Eva Maria stuff. And Lacey looks if not great, interesting. Her arm work was nice, whipping Becky's arm into the match, wrapping it around a post, stomping on the wrist, kneeing the elbow, all of those are cool things. She threw a hard elbowdrop to the stomach, overall a nice attack. The crowd doesn't really seem to buy into her game though, and it makes for some pretty quiet control segments. Perhaps worse, is that Lacey doesn't eat a babyface beating very well. She is really stiff - not in a cool strikes kind of way, stiff as in "kind of a lug" - who doesn't bump excitedly for explosive offense, kinda just clunks her way over on big dropkicks, and always seems just slightly out of position. The finishing sequence building to the Disarm-her was messy and unconvincing, with another bizarrely out of place ref leading to the sequence looking even uglier than it should have. Was this a case of "refs call it like a shoot and the shoulder wasn't down" or have they not been instructing the refs to act like it's a shoot for a decade? This whole PPV has felt both cursed and like a curse over the past hour.

Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte

ER: This could be a nice way to turn our misfortune around. This overall feud has had some unfortunate detours and misdirections, and has been a disappointment, but it still has high ceiling potential and it's always a possibility one of the matches could reach that ceiling. It doesn't really get to that ceiling, and is also kind of a dull mess. There were also several moments where one of them intentionally or unintentionally flinched out of the way of important strikes, so you got a few moments of sold strikes that ate a ton of air, including the kick that literally ended the match. That stuff is ugly as hell and the wrestlers need to be given the confidence to call audibles more often. The match didn't work to any interesting peak moments, was not memorable, and then it ALSO turns out it's even more of an angle than a match, as we get the full fan requested Bayley run in complete with her cashing in the briefcase.

Charlotte vs. Bayley

ER: This was at least memorable for the fans' legit large pop for the quick Bayley win. It would be a real kick if Bayley suddenly got a groundswell of support the way fans suddenly took to Kofi. I would love if the end result of all of this fairly botched Becky/Charlotte feud is Bayley becoming as popular as Becky was a year ago. Bayley running through the crowd was a genuinely fun moment.

Elias vs. Roman Reigns

ER: You guys I really don't like this PPV and I definitely would rather be listening to the angular guitar synth sounds of Jimmy Page while Paul Kersey takes down a sect of LA new wave gutter punks. I am starting to resent the PPV a little at this point. "Big Dog" Commentary Count: 3

AJ Styles vs. Seth Rollins

ER: This was not the match I was hoping for, when I was hoping for my luck to turn around. AJ has been a noticeable step down over the past year, and Rollins is arguably my least favorite guy on the roster. This just wasn't the match I wanted. It's a match that I'm very tired of. We haven't really seen these two in a match, but that's not what I'm mean, I mean that I'm tired of these Seth Rollins style fitness routine epics. This stuff is such soulless junk, I always wind up totally zoned out 5 minutes in. There were things that looked cool: AJ sets up a nutso piledriver off the apron and Rollins drops hard to his escape, Rollins hits his dive a little more recklessly (not as daintily) as he can, stuff like that. We get an actually AWESOME reverse suplex off the top, with Rollins whipping Styles with a low arc, making it look like AJ bounced right off his face. It was great and infinitely cooler than any other piece of Rollins' offense. So naturally it was used as a mid-match nearfall surprise. The missed and hit superkick tradeoffs look as silly and overdone as they usually look, and "The Beast Slayer! Looking to burn it down!" is so cringe that I don't even know if Manowar could make that sound cool. It certainly doesn't sound cool when describing Seth Rollins. This may have been a good version of "this match". It didn't go anywhere deep into overkill, even if I thought the layout was boring and predictable. That makes it at least an above average version of this match, but I'm tired of this song.

Lucha House Party vs. Lars Sullivan

ER: Pretty sure this match was booked as a Vince dogwhistle to trump showing he fully supports the burgeoning market of white guys with questionable tweets pushed too far and taking the matter of getting rid of brown people into his own hands.

Kevin Owens vs. Kofi Kingston

ER: I'm not expecting to really enjoy the "not against Daniel Bryan" portions of Kofi's title run, but we'll see. I don't have much skin in either of these guys, so it's tough for me to get into this, but they do well with the time they're given. Owens superkicking Kofi out of the sky on a big plancha to the floor looked cool, Owens took a big double stomp on the apron, Owens takes a big upside down bump in the corner and drops on his his, and more. This does continue the unfortunate trend of the night of every single match having an absolute dogshit do si do reversal sequence that looks like slow mo play fighting. Those sequences are really bugging me tonight, so things weren't perfect here. But it's probably the best match on the show since the MITB women's match, and that wasn't a particularly high bar.

Baron Corbin vs. Finn Balor vs. Ricochet vs. Andrade vs. Ali vs. Drew McIntyre vs. Randy Orton

ER: Within the first two minutes of this, Andrade takes a gorgeous Jerry bump, Ali gets backdropped on a table, Balor gets backdropped on a table, Ricochet hits a springboard 450 to the floor, and Ricochet gets backdropped on a table. This match feels like it knows it can definitively be the best of the night. They do a lot of big things here, and it consistently looks good and painful. Ali and Ricochet both eat backdrops onto ladders, and Andrade spectacularly springboard dropkicks Orton off a ladder. This has been a night where agents have laid out some real clunkers, so guys stepping in and having one of those fun WWE Heavyweight X Division matches is going to come off even better. WWE has a decent history of being able to do a "many guys chaining together offense" multiman, and this played like one of the good ones. Andrade hitting a sunset flip powerbomb on Finn off a ladder through another ladder - Andrade landing on his feet and Finn recoiling like a skinny kid getting bounced off a trampoline by two fat kids - was one of the most spectacular WWE spots of the last decade. That was WWE stealing the brilliant insanity from the Crazy Crusher vs. Hell Storm Canadian backyard ladder match. Ali, Balor, and Ricochet really sacrificed their backs for some cool moments tonight, all of them taking multiple back bumps onto ladders, onto the floor, and onto unbudging tables. Ricochet taking a mammoth hip toss from McIntyre, from the ring through a ladder set up at ringside really made this feel like we were getting an ECW match with 3 Spike Dudleys. Corbin is pretty good as modern Justin Credible, pushed cartoon rat faced heel who has been shaving his head for hairline reasons since late 20s getting a ton of go away heat. I would have preferred an actual finish with the guys involved, since really everybody here absolutely busted their ass and someone deserved some credit for that. But I also love Brock more than most people so I can't deny that I think he's a fun guy to be running around threatening to cash in briefcase. What an absolutely scary monster in the closet, knowing that Lesnar could run out at any time to potentially concuss someone! This match played a lot more like something you'd see on a dirty indy show, everyone taking some impressive risks and the fans really getting into it. This show desperately needed to go out on an exciting note, and this match delivered that.

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WWE Fastlane 3/10/19 Adjacent-to-Live Blog

Shinsuke Nakamura/Rusev vs. New Day

ER: Lana's got a cool new shoulder length 'do, though it's styled a bit too triangularly. This is kicking off the pre-show, and was treated as such when it got the smaller square of screen during a Roman Reigns promo vid, and the smaller screen on a cutaway to Miz talking with his dad and Shane. Rusev and Nak cut off Wood's tag to Big E well enough, but nothing flashy or very interesting. This feels like a house show match, without the charm of a house show match. Rusev and Nak are complementary partners, but they don't do a ton more than stop action here and Nak just always seems lethargic. I liked Woods' missile dropkick off the top, and Big E has the greatest standing splash in pro wrestling history, with no close contenders coming to mind. Finishing stretch gets betters when some interference from Lana adds intrigue to a nearfall, and both Rusev and Nak bump to the floor to set up Woods hitting a flip dive, which they catch and powerbomb him on the floor. But as a heel team both of these guys seem completely uninterested in making things interested, and it's rare that the crowd is this quiet for the very first wrestling action they're seeing, but there it is. This match got plenty of time to do something, but this wasn't it. Pre-show matches don't typically feel this low energy.

Shane McMahon/The Miz vs. The Usos

ER: Shane is actually plenty good at doing things like armdrags and has a nice Russian leg sweep, because he throws his body entirely into the move, guy is pretty fearless with landings. His stuff only really falls apart whenever he thinks his strikes look good. The second he starts throwing strikes in matches it looks like a bad White Collar Brawlers bumper. I'm not sure who decided to start the evening's action with these two tags back to back, but it feels like someone is specifically trying to highlight how poor Rusev and Nakamura are in their current roles, as the Usos immediately step into a cut off the ring situation and work a far more interesting match with the same formula. Shane is a really fun FIP for them and there's a great moment where the Usos shoot him into a rope running sequence with one of them forcing Shane's movement with a dropdown, leading to him eating a lariat the way someone would eat a good spear. Miz has a spirited hot tag that the crowd is hyped for, even coming in with a springboard axe handle, and ends it with him doing a big plancha off the top onto both Usos. I'm not sure I've seen Miz do either of those things, and he's clearly playing to the hometown crowd and they love it. We go into the run that feels like the finish, and Usos are really good at bringing the match back from those moments to get more heat. The whole match builds to a ridiculous spot where Miz is on the mat and an Uso is slumped in the corner, with Shane and the other Uso on opposite buckles. Uso and Shane jumped at the same time and I guess it was supposed to look like Shane intercepting him out of mid air? It looked like two guys trying to avoid each other at the last minute, and then not sure what either was supposed to be selling upon landing. They both kind of held their balls and kicked their legs. It might have seemed spectacular on paper, but it came off confusing and overly thought out in execution, took away from the finish for me. I don't care about, nor do I understand the Shane turn, so I FF my way through. From what I did see, I'm amused that Shane appeared to tighten up his strikes for the first time since his comeback. He threw a couple of closed fist body shots to Miz that were better than any strikes he's thrown in an actual match the past year.

Mandy Rose vs. Asuka

ER: Really excited about this one even though I'm not sure it can deliver to my expectations. I've seen them both (especially Mandy) have such strong house show work, and that doesn't seem to come through nearly as often on TV. I know there's a good match to be had here though. But I fully dig how they start this, doing some quick mat reversals and some nice stuff around a waistlock, ending with Mandy locking in a nice octopus hold that Asuka reverses into an even better octopus. They don't bring many strikes into it until 4 minutes in, thought that was cool. Though once they do get to strikes Asuka comes up too short on what's supposed to be a big knockdown high kick, so that was awkward. Mandy has a couple really nice knee strikes, a great high knee early in the match, and a nice moment with Asuka missing her hip attack and getting hung in the ropes before eating a knee. Finish was a little sudden but had a nice set-up that felt like a Finlay agented spot: Sonya had lifted up the ring skirt at ringside to get a kendo stick from under the ring, and Mandy got reversed into the ropes, slipped on the ring skirt that had been gathered into the ring, and then got to her feet just in time to eat Asuka's heel across the right side of her face. The finish didn't really feel built to, and the match was a bit underwhelming, but the finish was great. They even do a slo-mo replay at the end that felt like the first time you saw Misawa rearrange Kawada's face in slo-mo with an elbow, seeing Asuka's boot turn Mandy's face into a rubbery Jim Carrey expression.

Kofi Kingston vs. Cesaro/Sheamus

ER: This was an angle, not really a match, and the fans hated it but in the way that will make them cheer louder for Kofi when he actually gets his big singles match. So it wasn't very exciting for me to see a 2 on 1 beatdown, and the fans didn't want to see it, but it felt like something that would at least advance the angle. I did like when the crowd was chanting This Is Boring, Cesaro said, "No, this is OVER!" before going for a pin.

Ricochet/Aleister Black vs. Chad Gable/Bobby Roode vs. The Revival

ER: I've been so hyped for Revival this past year, Dawson especially might be my favorite WWE male to watch right now. I like how this turns into both Revival and Roode/Gable working over Ricochet, really wish that would go on for the duration, it's a fun layout you don't often see from a triple threat tag (which is a clunky concept). Ricochet snaps off a nice headscissors and after that it's all him getting worked over. Dawson has a great back suplex, does nasty things like tear at his nose, Gable comes in and snaps Ricochet's arm around by trapping it in his ankles and dropping a knee on it. Gable bumps big for an Aleister front kick, though I think Roode might have been the weakest choice for guy to take all of Black's hot tag offense. I dug the sequence of Gable rolling through the chaos theory German before Wilder hit a top rope splash onto Gable; Black totally made the sequence by flailing all four of his limbs wildly as he was going over for the suplex. WWE guys are almost always really great at setting up those runs of chain smoking offense, where one guy hits a move only to get up and get hit by someone else's move. They aren't easy to naturally layout but someone there must be great at doing so. However, I don't think they're good at all at setting up big spots involving EVERY member of the match. I hate when a match like this devolves into the moment everyone is waiting around for, grinds things to a halt too much and the spot always looks too prepared. Ricochet hits a wild as hell dive over the ringpost, but I think that 6 person spot (Dawson getting rana'd to the floor onto everyone) peaked the match awkwardly and made the finish coming shortly after come off flat.

R-Truth vs. Andrade vs. Rey Mysterio vs. Samoa Joe

ER: What a bunch of dirty dogs, telling me I was getting more Mysterio/Andrade and instead getting another multiman. I actually got the push notification from WWE telling me "Andrade vs. Rey Mysterio kicks off the pre-show!" so I am not sure what kind of last minute call got made or what angle I blew past. The whole things starts off as a pretty great Joe showcase. He was really turning it on, loved his tope onto everyone, his corner chops looked brutal, and his headbutts looked great. Joe appears to be working at 2006 stiffness levels and I know it won't last, but it looks great while we're getting it. Rey is getting as high on offense as ever, and it makes no sense. His hang time always looks so damn elegant, and he makes implausible stuff look effortless, like giving a leaping rana to Andrade and Truth at the same time. My mind blows wide open when I suddenly realize that we've never seen Mysterio or Joe oppose one another until the past couple months. I'm watching them work, watch Joe take a great tornado DDT off the side of his head, and just thinking about what natural dance partners they make...and realize we've only ever even seen them dance together three times, all from the past couple months. Some nice moments down the stretch, Andrade had a gorgeous tornillo to the floor, Vega got involved and you know it was good because she lost an earring, and a lot of the ringwork looked good, but I again thought it could have used more build, and could have gone through a ton more nearfalls.

Sasha Banks/Bayley vs. Nia Jax/Tamina

ER: Boss Hugg would have been such a great name for the tag team, they were this close but they went and fell on their face with their actual name. And this starts off plenty good. Tamina is less offensive than normal, and every quick tag in to Nia is Fia. Tamina would handily carry the brunt of working over Bayley, then Nia would come in and plant her with a powerbomb, and get right back out. I would have liked them building more to Sasha coming in, think they should have had Bayley miss a couple tags first. Tamina is so damn lumbering while taking offense, she moves like she's wearing a suit of armor. Then they go for a spot where Tamina backdrops Sasha into a Nia Samoan drop, but Tamina whips Sasha WAY too fast into Nia and the spot gets wrecked but Nia saves Sasha from a vertical landing, so that counts for something. I did like Tamina's missed charge into the ringpost, so that's something, and Bayley hitting a tope onto everyone looked great, even though it crossed my mind that was the 4th time that near exact thing had happened, and the 3rd match in a row. That's not helping the freshness feel of this show, which has very much underwhelmed so far. I would mess with a Nia/Beth Phoenix feud though. Aw shit, Natalya is involved in it. My sails appear to no longer have wind in them.

Kevin Owens vs. Daniel Bryan vs. Mustafa Ali

ER: Fans are naturally acting like puds because they aren't getting Kofi/Bryan on this specific show, but they're clearly building to that, so it's annoying when they try to tank a different match when they will eventually get what they want anyway. It's like they're turning on Ali even though they were all in Ali's ass like 3 weeks ago. It's this obnoxious thing where the loudest fans in these situations are the ones who think WWE is somehow screwing them and not pushing their favorites, but Kofi is a guy they've been officially flipping out for now for...like a month. People clearly dug Kofi before, but none of these people were clamoring for Kofi to get a long singles run with 8 star matches against Bryan before that. They were shown Kofi was worth getting behind, and then started acting like they somehow weren't getting what they wanted, while thinking they're making a demand against authority, who actually agrees with what they think they're rebelling against. It makes no sense. Anywho...

Bryan's demeanor in these scraps really is incredible, guy leers around the ring and looks like someone with no time for bullshit. Ali is doing his best in a dumb situation and takes an insane bump off the top, looking like he falls forever before hitting the floor. Crowd appears to be less shitty after that. This match obviously would have been much more interesting if it was a singles match between any two of these guys. We've had one singles match on this show and it feels like one of those indy shows that are nothing but 6 man scrambles, and 3 way tag matches. The pacing is totally screwed because every match feels like a variation on the same match. There's plenty of actual great looking stuff in this - Ali hitting a 450 to the freaking apron, Owens almost damn dying flipping too fast on a tope con hilo (and almost smashing his face into the announce desk), Ali bumping his way into shutting the fans up and hitting a big ass high arc Spanish Fly - but the triple threat stip kept taking me out of the match. There's a wild sequence down the stretch where Ali gets shoved off the top and basically does a moonsault landing on his feet to the floor (my poor ankles would be at 90 degree ankles best case scenario), then Bryan misses a leaping knee off the apron, and Ali hits a wicked tornado DDT on him, Bryan whipping super fast into it. But it felt like the actual finish came too quickly after that, felt like Bryan was back in the ring too quick after what felt like a big moment. Him kneeing Ali out of the sky looked like something that should definitely end a match though, so no complaints about what finished, but plenty of complaints about how we got to there.

Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch

ER: Charlotte's boots are sick as hell, probably my favorite thing on the show so far. The maroon and gold scheme doesn't go with her magenta gear, which means Charlotte just needs to get herself some damn maroon and gold gear! Maroon is an underutilized gear color (he says, without taking even one second to think about it). And this match was great. Lynch comes out limping and Charlotte mocks her and spends the whole time going after Becky's leg, and it's the best stuff. There are a bunch of nasty short spills that Becky is forced to take, and they do some shots that look like they came straight out of BattlArts, no joke. Little things like Becky kicking at the side of Charlotte's knee from her back, or Charlotte kicking at Becky's knee while standing over her. Honestly it felt like Ikeda vs. Ishikawa in parts, and I realize how stupid I can come off saying that. Charlotte practically dumps Becky onto her head hitting a sliding tackle into her knee, and I'm all in on it. Becky fights in with little cornered animal attacks, Charlotte takes a big bump off the top, and the thought of a figure 8 seems even more exhilarating since Lynch's has had her knee smacked around for a week. Naturally we get a Ronda run in, giving Becky a nasty as hell punch while about to maybe get tapped, giving Becky the win and the Mania appearance. I'm thankful as all hell I remain purposely oblivious to Ronda Rousey Online Activity, so I'm going to also assume that she hasn't done anything stupid this week on the internet. So saying that, I absolutely love her shitty smirk and bad eye makeup as she stands in the corner, and I could see this match being the best match at Mania.

Baron Corbin/Bobby Lashley/Drew McIntyre vs. The Shield

ER: I'm just not caring about this one too much, and that's too bad because Shield trios were my absolute joint in a not too distant past. I don't care about the Shield anymore. It's over. The McIntyre/Roman moments felt like they should have been better, and the crowd is really quiet the whole time. This has been a pretty suck crowd almost the whole night, honestly. It gets better when Dean hits a really nice elbow off the top to the floor, there's a big powerbomb, and they work some decent crowd brawling stuff which was at minimum a welcome change of pace to the cold ring work. Fans do eventually get really into this and there are big spots, a great Roman spear on the floor, McIntyre going through an announce table, and the crowd really loves getting to see all three Shield guys get Corbin alone in the ring. The match eventually came off like a success but it never grabbed me. Maybe my mood was down because I think the PPV almost entirely underdelivered compared to my (reasonable) expectations. This certainly wasn't a bad match, but it felt like it should have been better.

ER: This was a kind of disappointing PPV. That seems kind of harsh, because I don't think there was anything bad on the card. But there wasn't a lot that moved the needle for me. I really got into Becky/Charlotte, even the Ronda finish (even though I still wished there was more match before Ronda), but the rest felt like it had a good amount of nice moments, but not great matches. Felt like a high potential card going into the night, but I don't think this was my fault.

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WWE Survivor Series 2018 Live Blog

New Day/Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson/The Colons/Sanity/The Usos vs. The Revival/Lucha House Party/The Ascension/The B-Team/Bobby Roode & Chad Gable

ER: Can I get an over/under on how many times we'll hear "Brand Supremacy" spoken on commentary tonight? I don't think we're ever going to get an actual "good" version of this type of match again. It seems impossible to have a bad version of a match with this many people, yet now you always just get a bunch of super quick eliminations, no strategy, and still somehow get people lying in holds even though there are nearly a dozen guys who are fresh. There are a ton of guys who get eliminated after taking moves that would never finish a match normally, so we clear out a bunch of guys and cut to Revival, Gable/Roode, New Day, and Usos. We do get an extremely fun trainwreck spot, dives from everyone, awesome spear to the floor from Big E, Big E tossing Wilder with great overhead belly to belly suplexes, Gable getting backdropped to the floor, a huge suplex to the floor, just a fun extended crash segment. I wasn't expecting things to come down to Revival/Usos, but I'm happy the Revival are there. I was hoping they'd get to have more of a tag match once they were alone, but it went straight into a finisher stretch. The stuff looked cool, like Revival connecting on the Power Plex, and we got some nice saves to amp things up, and it was fine. This could have been really good, but it wasn't bad at all, and that's something. Some of these teams were total non-factors, Ascension was limited to basically Viktor locking Kingston in a headlock, Sanity was gone with I think only Dane getting in the match, and you end up with a 90 minute pre-show and this match still feeling incredibly rushed.

Carmella/Naomi/Mandy Rose/Sonya Deville/Asuka vs. Mickie James/Tamina/Nia Jax/Sasha Banks/Bayley

ER: Love the huge heat Nia is getting, haven' really heard anything like that, and her blowing and dusting off her knuckles is THE BEST. Becky vs. Nia is gonna be DOPE. Right off the bat Naomi and Tamina get eliminated, and while I'm not happy with Naomi being out so early, I'll accept the sacrifice to get Tamina out of this thing. I dug the extended Rose/James section, James getting a cool heel hook reversal and Rose working a nice abdominal stretch. And before long Mickie is practically running this for Raw, working through Asuka and Sonya Deville, and they've oddly fallen into the trap this match of having all the heels be the ones taking heat. We're also getting an odd amount of partners making zero attempts to save a member from their team. Is there some rule against breaking up a pin? People are just getting eliminated left and right, a member of their team always ready to replace them but rarely ready to save them. This makes no sense. None of this feels like it has any kind of team make-up to it. But things get pretty hot once it's down to Nia/Bayley and Asuka/Deville. Nia milks heat when she comes in but takes a big bump to the floor, eating an Asuka kick after a missed charge. They do, however, their best to suck that heat out of the arena by having Deville and Bayley counted out. It was all supposed to come down to Nia, but they've taken a ton of uninteresting ways to get there. Neither of these "traditional" matches felt mapped out well at all. Still, it was smart to make Asuka the final survivor on SD as she's felt a bit too much a part of the crowd lately, it was good having her fight back against Nia and Sasha, and I like how Asuka matches up with both. I thought the end stretch was handled well, liked a lot of the Sasha/Asuka stuff, Sasha took a wild German suplex, and thought it was smart for Nia to throw Sasha to the wolves to then be able to wreck Asuka. The match didn't add up to a whole lot, really both elimination matches have been pretty mindless, but they're moving ahead perfectly with Nia. Nia/Becky is going to be fire, and Nia/Asuka until we get that match should rule.

Seth Rollins vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

ER: Everybody always looks like such a goon when they're forced to wear their brand colors. Nakamura looks like he's wearing a blue version of Green Man, and Rollins - who doesn't really need help looking dorky - isn't helped by his half/half Rawlins shirt. And the layout of this match is not something that's going to make me like this match, as we get a long slow Nakamura control to build to some lousy Rollins FIRE offense. Those topes look bad, dude. We get some nice kicks followed by a silly slap fight, then some more Rollins silliness with a buckle bomb and that beyond dumb superplex/Falcon Arrow. And it's all very serious, people. This match is definitely as uninteresting as I feared it would be. They gave it an effort but this constant back and forth with kickouts replacing actual drama just doesn't do it for me. I'm sure if Graves calls it an incredible match-up a few more times, I might come around. This felt like a lot of motion for what we got. This PPV is still turn-aroundable, but my enthusiasm is waning.

The Bar vs. AOP

ER: Does Drake Maverick always look like a smoked orange peel, or is the color on my TV all wonky? This tag match is perfectly good wrestling although it never went up to "next level" and felt about as good as something you'd typically see on weekly TV. I've not been too impressed with AOP, but like some of their clumsy power spots. It was pretty uneventful and we soon realize that the whole match was basically a set piece to have Drake Maverick pee his pants after getting scared by Big Show. Oh wow. Oh wow that's lame. Big Show was literally only out there to build to a pissed pants spot. This ain't good.

Mustafa Ali vs. Buddy Murphy

ER: This starts really good, Ali snaps off a nice rana and Murphy shoots out to the floor (much smoother than Anderson's clunky take of a rana in our first match), but Ali is crazy and gets shoved off the buckles by Murphy and flies backwards into the barricade. The replays really made it look like he flew far. Murphy also launches him to the floor after blocking another move, leading to another massive Ali bump to the floor. Murphy follows with a big tope con hilo, and Ali sells that back in the ring by hitting a superkick and reverse rana. He also makes bug eye faces when Murphy kicks out of things. Ali is clearly one of those guys who does some things I like, and then proceeds to wrestle like all of those indy guys I'm already tired of. Each man is both completely dead while also completely able to break out a sunset flip powerbomb or any other Modern Indy Offense at a moment's notice. They did things to make me care about the match early, but they quickly turned this into the same match I've seen from dozens of wrestlers in dozens of feds this year. Murphy catching Ali with a knee off the ropes at the finish looked great, and really was cool enough to be the finish. BUT, it didn't involve one or both guys flipping, so it could not finish this match. Crowd was into this and they seemed pretty dead after that tag match, so they get some credit for that.

Bobby Lashley/Finn Balor/Dolph Ziggler/Drew McIntyre/Braun Strowman vs. The Miz/Jeff Hardy/Samoa Joe/Rey Mysterio/Shane McMahon

ER: So who was the agent for these matches? Did we really need every one of these matches to start with an immediate elimination? This is bad, man. This whole concept works better when you have teams who actually want to team together; having in-fighting while also fighting with another team of in-fighters just makes for a big mess of spots. And some of the mess of spots is good! Nobody needs Shane wrestler cosplaying with armdrags, but watching him do a really stupid stunt through a table is welcome. It's wild how Mysterio has barely been back and just feels like some guy. That said, it's hilarious how easily he dispatches with Balor. You'll be shocked to know that according to Cole and Graves, that this match - just like every match that we've seen so far tonight - is ALSO an incredible match. It's just literally impossible to believe how incredible this night of wrestling has been. Everything is incredible! I'm in silent awe, like an immigrant seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time. I can't care too much about Shane eliminating Ziggler, but it's amusing watching Lashley throw him with huge suplexes. And I dug Shane, red faced, tired getting urged to the top rope by Miz, needing to hit that coast to coast, and getting hammered out of the sky by Braun. Really just having Braun smash through everybody is the most fun this can get, and I sickly love that this comes down to Shane McMahon heroically having to stand against 3 men. We didn't get enough of Shane fighting valiantly and he went down pretty easy to Braun, whole match wound up being pretty flat. The elimination matches have all felt like set-up matches to get to bigger matches - which is totally cool - but weird to spend an actual PPV setting up matches that feel more important than the PPV. And is Braun vs. Corbin something that people want to see? This had some strong showings throughout, Miz was good as active team leader, Rey turned in a typically good Rey multiman performance, they integrated Shane about as well as possible. This is most likely the best match on the show so far, though that's not a very esteemed title.

Charlotte vs. Ronda Rousey

ER: I guess Rousey is going for geisha makeup? It...doesn't not work, I guess. I don't get why else you'd be doing the white pancake makeup if not for a geisha look, but her wrestling has been so strong that the only place she really needs to be reined in is at Sephora. Ronda is nice and tenacious to start and I love her relentlessly going after Charlotte, even jumping right back in after the ref separates them, constantly going after that arm. Ronda's greatest strength may very well be her bumps, she's a crazy bumped whose specialty is flying face first into things. You saw her excellent ringpost bumps in the Nikki match, and here Charlotte gets an opening when Ronda flies fast face first into the bottom buckle, really looked nasty. Ronda gets a busted mouth and Charlotte begins taking over. I really dug Charlotte kicking out Rousey's leg when she was on the top, even though I was dying to know what Rousey was going to do off the top. I'm going to need a Steiner 450 from Ronda. The rolling armbar off the top is a cool spot I hope doesn't start getting overused. Ronda is so great at building drama, great at selling (look at how she stood up with that rolling fireman's carry, look at the emotion she showed) and I don't think anybody has made Charlotte's spear look that great. That spear looked so nasty and Rousey's kickout was so great that I fully bought that finishing the match. Ronda is good at paying service to the work Charlotte has done to the leg, without being obvious and hammy about it, really feels like she has a grasp on complicated selling, moreso than many in WWE. I normally think Charlotte's chops look a little flimsy, but here I loved her firing out of the corner with them. Ronda getting a chest full of bruises only helped with that visual. We get the DQ finish, which is disappointing, but I like that they at least went with a full beatdown and not just a one move DQ. Charlotte beats her with a kendo stick and Ronda takes a great bump into the ring steps. It continues the trend of this PPV being used to set up actual important matches, but I thought this match ruled. I think it's undeniable that this is the best Charlotte has looked in ages, and it's not a coincidence it came against Ronda. Rousey is legit at this point, she's arguably the best salesman in the fed, right up with the best bumpers, and has strong offense. It's pretty shocking how good she is, so quick. This blew away anything else on the show, by a mile.

Daniel Bryan vs. Brock Lesnar

ER: Well. This completely owned. This is one that I imagine most wrestling fans have been interested in seeing for a long time now. I didn't think we'd ever get this match, and it feels weird that we finally get it. And they take things slow, circling, Bryan mocking Brock, and it feels like Brock is going to wreck him once they make contact with each other. Bryan throws a hard kick but Brock walks through it and wings a lariat at the side of Bryan's head. It's going to be that kind of match. Suplex City comes early, with Brock mocking the chants, and then throwing some ungodly suplexes to Bryan, really sending Bryan crashing in all sorts of ragdoll ways. This goes on for awhile, and the longer it goes the more it genuinely seems like Brock is going to completely steamroll Bryan. He's done that before, and it looked like he was doing it again. But just as the extended Brock thrashing was starting to feel a bit too long, the match gets flipped, when the match gets flipped things get great. Bryan gets F5'd into the ref, which slows it down and allows Bryan to land on his feet, then he punts Brock in the balls behind the fallen ref's back, and they turn a massive ballshot into a fantastic nearfall, like a elementary school playground version of David & Goliath. We get this awesome run of Bryan slipping out of Brock's grasp and Brock getting tricked into a bunch of big bumps (and Brock big bumps are unlike any other), and Bryan laces into Brock with an absolute BEATING. Bryan is throwing stiff kick to the ribs of the grounded Lesnar, then Bryan grabs Brock's arms and starts stomping the hell out of Brock's face. We get a moment I don't think I've EVER seen, as the cameras show BRYAN'S BOOT MARK imprinted on Brock's freaking face!!! This is next level. The stretch run is just killer. Brock gets his leg worked over, gets it wrapped around a ringpost, but is still capable of catching Bryan, and we get an awesome Lesnar moment where he catches a sprinting Bryan up on his shoulders and coming *this* close to an F5, but Lesnar's knee buckles and drops Bryan right down into an awesome Yes Lock. Brock's tap teasing was engaging as all hell throughout, totally looked like they could have given Bryan a plausible win over the beast, and Bryan looked like he was going to flat out knock Lesnar out once he started clonking him with the sickest crossface strikes. Holy shit. Bryan hung with Brock and it was glorious, but Brock eventually smashed him after Bryan looked as good against him than anyone. I really loved this one, thought they knocked it out of the park.


ER: I really wasn't digging this PPV, was chalking it up as a major weekend loss as I didn't really like the TakeOver either. And then WRESTLING GOD RONDA ROUSEY showed that she's an instant great, and Brock Bryan gave me exactly what my lizard wrestling brain wanted to see. Can't help but recommend this PPV after those last two matches put me in a great wrestling mood. All of that last hour owned.

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New Footage Friday: Fishman, Black Cat, Fritz Von Erich, Kabuki, Hercules Ayala

PAS: Network put up a nearly complete Star Wars card from 1981 (Kerry vs. Race was out there before, and we took a pass on Killer Tim Brooks vs. Mil and a Battle Royal) so we decided to review a couple of the matches from that show and threw on a cool NJ HH to close out the week.

Kevin Von Erich/David Von Erich vs. Hercules Ayala/Ali Mustafa WCCW 2/21/81

MD: There was a lot to like here. I know David and Kevin had won some of the other tag belts in Dallas but this was their first time winning this one and it felt like a huge deal. Some of that was the setting. Some of that was the post-match celebration. A lot of it was the match itself though. They were a very good babyface pairing, with a lot of energy and just enough stuff between the double teams, the flying, and the claw. Ali was just a tremendous stooge, bumping, feeding, full of underhanded offense. I loved how he threw himself into dropkicks. Ayala brought the power and the size, more than doing his part. What really stood out was how often they went back to heat. I think the Von Erichs had ten comebacks here but between the size advantage and heel chicanery, they kept ending up fighting from underneath. It's not a well that's gone to all that often to begin with, but because they never took back over for long, it made for more of an escalation than any sort of stuttering and really got the crowd to build more and more for them as the match went on. As much as I tend to resent the Dallas crowd for their hero-worship, it's really hard to blame them given matches like this.

PAS: This was a bunch of fun. I loved the Von Erich's meathead charisma, they are great as big fired up country boys ready to fight. Kevin is a totally under rated flyer. He doesn't have the gracefulness of some, but he has a ton of power in his legs and really gets in the air on dropkicks and big elbows. Matt makes a great point about the structure, heels really controlled the match, and they were great at it, and the Von Erich's made a bunch of mini comebacks leading up to the big comeback which really blew up the crowd. Don't know much about Ali, but he was really great in this match, offensive looked nasty and he was a great foil, Ayala was a beast too, great press slam, and he had this moment where he came into break up a pin and just punched David right in the liver, a liver which was already working hard I imagine.

Fritz Von Erich vs. Kabuki WCCW 2/21/81

PAS: Kabuki is such a cool act, the weird penis nose mask, the spinning around, the face paint, the crazy bendy fingers, I am all in, wrestling needs more exotic weirdos. I am a fan of 80s old man walking tall matches, loved the Bill Watts stuff from Mid-South and any time Jackie Fargo or Eddie Marlin wrestled in Memphis. Fritz may be a garbage person, but he is pretty good at walking tall. Lots of Kabuki gesticulating and Fritz countering with a big punch. I loved the spot where Kabuki went for a nerve pinch under the arm, and Fritz countered with the claw. Gary Hart starts punching at Fritz's leg and a fan attacks Hart, have to love wrestling that can get drunks ready to jump barricades. Finish was kind of BS with David running in and beating up Kabuki, actually made Fritz look kind of weak. Still I dug this, although it is very in my wheelhouse.

MD: This was minimalist in the best ways. They knew what they were doing. Fritz came in first which both allowed Kabuki his elaborate pre-match rituals and let him sign about a hundred autographs for kids. About half the match was them looking for an opening an that made when either found an opening all the better. Listen to the heat for Kabuki's first real burst of offense. The crowd was irate because of the build for it. It kills me that we live in a world where the claw probably wouldn't work, because it's such an effective, visual tool that can be built towards throughout a match, that can be consistently countered or defended against, that can be the perfect instrument for a comeback. Fritz was the real deal here, absolutely genuine Americana. He was a gnarled old bastard who looks close to 73 than the 53 he was at this point. Kabuki was electric with his theatrics and Fritz' response, putting his finger to his head and spinning it to indicate in his slow, bigoted way that Kabuki was a crazy weirdo will be the image that sticks with me as much as anything else. The finish was definitely muddled. The idea was that Hart was interfering so thoroughly that David (who wanted revenge anyway) had to run in, but you had both a fan and Manning attacking Hart first which really muted the threat of him. I get that they had to protect Kabuki and Fritz but the sequence felt overstretched and neither of them or David ended up looking good.

ER: I love it! Fully agree with Phil about old guy Walking Tall matches. I would wager a substantial amount that I was the high vote on the Eddie Marlin/Tommy Gilbert Memphis match (and also bet that Phil was the 2nd highest vote) and I assume if you've read much of anything I've written you would know that I have a general fondness for old guys wrestling. That juxtaposition between an incredibly tough man, who is now also very vulnerable due to humans' peculiar habit of eventually dying. Fritz was in his 50s here but looked large, and powerful; a vast aging physique that still flashed plenty of muscle. The man looked like someone who could still muscle around cattle. And what a sight it is to see the ringside area swarm with children and adults alike, all trying to get their programs signed by a man they would later grow to not respect. And we get a simple yet effectively hot kick and punch match with Fritz lifting heavy legs into Kabuki's gut, and throwing punches that....well, realistically I could watch an old cowboy punch another old cowboy like that for 20 minutes and have it be one of my favorite matches of all time. See, our 1976 MOTY. Kabuki grounds him and bites at his throat, Fritz reverses to a stomach claw from his back, and we all know how silly the stomach claw was but it somehow never looks silly in the least when Fritz is applying it. Hart attacks Fritz's leg when they're in the ropes and a drunk fan charges in to save Fritz. It is a fact that any spectacle that can inspire a drunk man to play hero, is almost always going to be great. This is not a man who runs onto a baseball field or charges the Nitro ring or makes jack off motions behind a live on the scene news reporter. Those people are in it for the fleeting fame. This man is not Soy Bomb. This man was so incensed watching his legend get treated unfairly, that he felt it necessary to step in and show Fritz he was NOT ALONE. This man was so wrapped up in the drama that was professional wrestling and the Von Erichs, that he - in that moment - felt that HE was the solution. In that moment he was the guy thwarting an armed robbery. And that's a level of performance that most performers will never achieve. David Manning annoyingly gets the biggest babyface spot of the match when he punts Hart from the apron, Kabuki throws great uppercuts but gets pinned by a backdrop, DVE is somehow a babyface for beating down a man just so his dad can pin him....but I don't care, because this was 10 great minutes of pro wrestling.

Fishman/Black Cat vs. The Cobra/Shiro Koshinaka 10/6/85

ER: This was a fun low stakes tag, making me want to seek out more and more Black Cat. He was so cool here at dickish little things, yanking Koshinaka out of a pinfall by his hair, swiping at Cobra from the apron when he ran the ropes too close to their corner, nice aggression; he really did little things you don't typically see in juniors matches. Koshinaka was also a pleasant surprise. He has been wrestling for more years than I've been alive, and it was neat seeing him even younger (he showed up a lot on the NJPW 80s set, but mostly from '87-'88, nothing this early). He was on the good guys team here but showed plenty of spunk, slapping both heels around (especially taking it to Fishman), landing a heavy plancha on Fishman, good punk charisma. Fishman we recently saw in an unearthed 1998 match against Santo, a real treat of a match that made me curious to see more of him. Here he was mostly feeding Koshinaka, but he throws meaty chops, bumps hard for dropkicks, takes a squirrelly backdrop bump on his shoulders, and throws a killer back elbow. Takano lightens up on some things, but gets crushed by a Black Cat lariat (after landing on his feet after a flip, the best) and throws some cool armdrags, rolling across Cat's back to do so. The match ending sunset flip is reckless but smooth. Nothing blowaway, but a really fun match.

PAS: Fishman is a truly legendary lucha libre figure, and I have never gotten it. He worked the Monterey show I did commentary on years ago and was the worst guy on the card. He was old then (although old luchadors normally rule) so I am always looking forward to catching glances at him during his prime and trying to figure it out. This match doesn’t do it though, he seems like a replacement level tecnico and feels like the least interesting guy in this match. Black Cat is one of those guys who was around NJPW forever, but man is he great, he feels like a great regional rudo, like Toro Bill or Arandu, a guy you know had dozens of classics which never showed up on tape, but just radiates professional asskicker. He had an awesome journeyman career, starting out as a Villano IV tag partner in UWA, worked as a trainer and ref in New Japan for years, had a weird AAA run as a Gringo Loco and even had a WCW Worldwide match against Chris Adams. Nothing spectacular in his performance in this match, but impossible not to enjoy him.

MD: I'm glad I'm on the same page with Phil and Eric here re: Black Cat. This was a great showcase for him. All of his stuff looked mean including these little bursts of bullying chain wrestling, and he based perfectly for his opponents. The rope running sequence with Cobra definitely stood out: he threw himself into the arm drags and they managed some fairly complex fakeouts before ending with a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker. I wasn't quite so high on Fishman. There's something very iconic about him as an entity but to me, here was just there in this one, effective but forgettable. I do think we have more Black Cat in this footage and we should poke around to see what we can find.

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Brian Kendrick's Ready to Close His Eyes, Now He's Ready to Close His Mind

Brian Kendrick/Tony Nese/Noam Dar vs. Rich Swann/Akira Tozawa/Jack Gallagher (WWE Raw 5/1/17) - VERY GOOD

ER: They could have done more with this, and it eventually felt like everybody was rushing to the finish, but the work within was plenty fun with some nice moments. The commercial break really hurt the flow as they had to spill all the heels to the floor for the "Gallagher's team is rolling!" moment. Post break and things finally settle into a real match, with Kendrick grounding Swann and punching him viciously in the back of the head. Swann and Tozawa hit stereo dives and the camera crew manages to miss both, and we finally get to the Kendick/Gallagher showdown I wanted the whole match. Gallagher levels him with a headbutt from the apron and Nese gets a good save, and I think Kendrick is going to get the win over Gallagher with the bully choke, until Tozawa hits a great shining wizard to knock Kendrick off. I'm a sucker for good saves in a match, they always go a long with with me. Nese continues to slowly improve (I really need to get back to 205 Live...do I? Is it good? I haven't even been checking results...), and while this needed more Kendrick and Gallagher, it was still a solid trios.

Brian Kendrick/Drew Gulak vs. Mustafa Ali/Jack Gallagher (WWE Raw 7/17/17) - FUN

ER: This is a pretty generous "FUN" designation as the match itself is barely over 2 minutes long. But there are no faults with the ringwork, and in fact there are a few nice gem moments, they just occur in an overall meaningless match. I like Gulak's "No Fly Zone" gimmick, dug him screaming in with an elbow to knock Ali off the apron, and everything surrounding his tag in to Kendrick is great, with Gulak taking a flying leap thanks to Gallagher, all the way to the floor, and Kendrick tagging in on his way down. My favorite stuff of the match was the bit of Kendrick preventing Gallagher from getting to Ali, and Gallagher blasts Kendrick with a great KO headbutt. Ali's inverted 450 is an insane spot, the whole time it always seems like he's definitely going to snap his neck on the ropes, quite the high wire act. Still, 140 seconds? Fuck out of here with that.

Brian Kendrick/Jack Gallagher vs. Mustafa Ali/Cedric Alexander (WWE Raw 10/9/17) - FUN

ER: Sheesh, it took them long enough to give us the skinny pants team of Kendrick & Gallagher. That only took 10 months. I think they complement each other nicely as a team as both are really good at selling offense. I especially liked Gallagher selling a Cedric kick, stumbling around in a truly wonderful stumble, to give Cedric enough time to tag in Ali. Kendrick still gives me an awesome Tarek the Great vibe, and I liked his standing crossface punches. Ali is super smooth even if I think some of his stuff hits too light sometimes, and the rolling neckbreaker is a little overly complicated, but I like the kind of sloppiness Kendrick brought to the finish. It made him look like he was to hit Ali with a shoot Sliced Bread.

Brian Kendrick/Jack Gallagher vs. Cedric Alexander/Rich Swann (WWE TLC 10/22/17) - GREAT

ER: Love the Gallagher/Kendrick team. They both lean into dropkicks and bump big, really the perfect opponents for these two. As I type that Kendrick leans chin first into a Cedric dropkick and flies to the floor. Kendrick is a guy who can really put over things we take for granted, like nice chops. Gallagher gets popped by a (nice) Swann punch from the apron, allowing Kendrick to yank Swann off the ropes and onto his face. Gallagher locks on a snug cravate, grabbing onto Swann's braids, and Nigel talks about his fine Burberry duds. Our heels do a fine job of cheating to cut off the ring, which ends when Kendrick charges Swann and takes a huge backdrop bump over the top to the floor. Kendrick not only yanks Cedric out of the ring to save Jack from a pin, but then catches a leaping Swann into a northern lights on the floor. Back in and Kendrick blasts Kendrick with a couple of great looking kicks and locks in the captains hook, which Swann breaks up with a freaking phoenix splash. Kendrick gets caught with a lumbar check and makes it look better than anybody but maybe Gallagher. I would've liked to see the heels get the win here, but we still got a quality tag, and probably Kendrick's best performance of the year.


COMPLETE & ACCURATE BRIAN KENDRICK 2014-PRESENT

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2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Gulak v. Ali 2/3 Falls

55. Drew Gulak v. Mustafa Ali WWE 205 Live 7/18

PAS: I have fallen deeply behind on 205 Live never to catch up, but when I saw Drew Gulak had a long showcase match I wanted to check it out. Gulak has been working sort of a RTC era Stevie Richards gimmick except anti highflying instead of anti Russo boob jokes. This was the culmination of a long series between these two guys and they got a ton of TV time to work a long match. Really enjoyed the quick first fall with Ali using his speed to get an advantage on the mat. Second fall has Gulak grind him out more, including finishing with a nasty dragon sleeper after Ali tries to go to the top. Third fall was more a big move fall, including Gulak getting spiked on a reverse rana and Gulak wasting Ali with a nasty clothesline. Finish was a little dumb with Gulak going to the top rope and developing a fear of heights. Both guys are really fun wrestlers to watch, and it was pretty neat to see them get this long to do their thing on TV.

ER: I love that Gulak finally gets a chance to stretch out in WWE, and love it even more that the two of them really got the crowd into this thing. There have been a lot of painfully silent 205 Live matches, and Gulak has been in plenty of them. His style wasn't always something that entertained indie wrestling diehards, it's definitely not going to be a style that will look good in 3 minute matches. The "No Fly Zone" is a good gimmick within the brand and gives his wrestling style a base and context, and allows for a more accessible personality in shorter matches. And these two built something really fun. It didn't really need the 2/3 falls stip, but if that allowed it to get more time to do its thing then cool by me. What did work about the 2/3 falls is Ali winning quickly in the first without using flying, which makes Gulak ramp up the viciousness to get the 2nd fall. Third fall was a real showstopper with Ali's "flying" coming naturally out of reversing Gulak, like hitting a rana off the barrier or concussing Gulak with a reverse rana when Gulak was trying to whip him into the ropes. I still genuinely have no clue how guys don't die after reverse ranas. The replay certainly looked like he just got completely brained, right on his dome. But I like Gulak's strikes, murderous lariat, a powerbomb that was one of my favorite powerbombs of recent memory, and the constant threat of reversing Ali's flash into that dragon sleeper. The finish was incredibly bad, I hate how guys like Regal and Dave Taylor and Gulak and I'm sure others I'm forgetting are apparently flight-averse because the mere act of not being on solid ground makes them quake. Gulak climbs a turnbuckle and his knees are suddenly wobbly. It's awfully dumb and they've gone to the well before. I DO appreciate Gulak appealing to the crowd, felt like a lucha kind of reaction, appealing to the fans. But it all took way too long and I hate how it lead directly to the finish. It was really obvious, but in a pretty stupid way. Still, match delivered and I'm happy we got something like this.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST

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205 Live 12/14/16

1. Jack Gallagher vs. Drew Gulak

ER: Not the flat out classic I was hoping for, but still two guys I really like having a likable match. I thought Gulak looked pretty vicious here. People might not want to see cruisers doing headlocks, but I love his side headlocks and cravates. Love the spot where one guy has a headlock and the man in the headlock tries to push him off, but he holds on. Seeing Gulak hold on and wrench it in looked great, and then seeing Jack handstand out of a headlock takeover was gravy. Also love how he tightens the cravate by going for a snapmare and stopping short. The fans really do not care about Gallagher's knot tying at the moment, which I think is for the best long term. They respond much better to his great uppercuts and sick headbutt and dropkick. Them responding to his violence and not his comedy is a good sign going forward as he'll veer towards ultra stiff Dean Malenko instead of just becoming Scotty II Hotty. But Gulak was a real asskicker here and I did like how the (too long) butt kicking spot lead to him immediately transitioning back to ass beating with a big running kick, then pie facing Gallagher off the bottom rope in a cool spot. Would have liked to see a longer strike exchange (weird comment right there) but I liked the brevity of Gulak's ear cup slap leading directly to the KO headbutt (with king douche Mauro naturally mentioning New Japan). Hopefully these two match up again.

PAS: Yeah this was a really fun Worldwide style match up between these two guys. I guess I don't mind the knot as a set up for the heel to get pissed off at Gallagher, which seems to be how they are using it, but I would love to see that retired. Loved mad Gulak, that pie face into the bottom rope was super nasty looking. I really wish the Davari feud was between these two guys, as I could see them having multiple matches against each other and find new interesting things to do.

2. Lince Dorado vs. Mustafa Ali

ER: I quite liked this up until the shrug finish. Lince's matches will always be as good as the spots he hits, and he hit everything clean. More importantly Ali had a real impressive showing, really lacing into Dorado with stiff clubbing forearms and being a great base for his flying. He certainly looked more impressive than in his CWC match against Dorado, and I like some indy stuff I've seen from him and also dug how he carried himself here. It's nice to see they're at least attempting a "you only boo me because you don't like my name" angle, instead of having him be a sheik. Finish was something, but I dug him jumping Dorado back in the ring, and then he went and bumped huge to the floor to put over a spin kick. Not bad.

PAS: Eric has a lot more faith in the WWE racial  then I do, the last time the ran a "you just boo me because I am Muslim gimmick" three weeks later we had Jihadi's beheading the Undertaker. Of course that was before Linda joined the Trump administration, a place full of nuanced opinions on the Muslim world. Ali looked great here, I also enjoyed this more then their CWC match, everything got hit cleanly, and I really dug the nastiness of both bumps which set up the double count out.

3. TJ Perkins vs. Rich Swann

ER: The parity in this division is tearing me apart!!! Everybody beats everybody and then rematches and the other guys beat the other guys and everybody is equal to everybody. There are 15+ guys in the division but it feels like we're seeing the exact same matches already. That said, I liked this match and thought it was one of TJP's best performances in WWE so far. He's definitely a "timing & execution" guy, so sometimes things just click better than normal. Opening stretch was simple but nice and fluid and I liked the way they worked in the knee tweak and the way TJ started going after it.  Perkins was nice and aggressive and it lead to some fun Swann nearfalls, especially the cool victory roll into a tiger driver. TJ's knee bar has come replete with some cool reversals, and I love when he rolls under a guy as they're doing some sort of flip so he's lying there in wait to lock it on. Fun, satisfying match with logical progression. It went the direction you thought it would, and was better for it.

PAS: Yeah I am tired of seeing the same match ups over and over again, but I did enjoy this. I thought Swann did a nice of job of selling his knee on the jumping 480 splash, and the knee bar finish was really nasty looking. I am not a huge fan of mirror sequences, but TJP and Swann are really good a mirrors. I really hope they move into something different after this weekend though.

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WWE Cruiserweight Classic 7/20/16

1. Tajiri vs. Damian Slater

ER: I know nothing about the Australian indy scene, so again I love how far reaching WWE actually made this whole CWC. It's about the last move I expected from them when this was announced. And I liked Slater in this. There were really basic things that he didn't do very well, like he seemed tentative on wristlocks and lockups, seemed to be some hesitation during sequences. But he did some nice dead arm selling off Tajiri's kicks, hit a really slick and awesome fireman's carry roll through into a bridging pin, tossed out a tornillo that Tajiri caught kind of awkwardly, and most importantly he fed into Tajiri's trademark offense. Tajiri was sort of a let down as he ran through a standard 4 minute Tajiri Jakked/Metal match, even doing things in the same order as he used to, just a little slower. He just kind of skulked around waiting for Slater to get into position for his signature offense, when I thought he should have been a little more aggressive about getting Slater there. He felt a little sleepwalk-y. Plus all those teenage Tajiri fans watching ECW in 1999 went on to become indy kickers, so he kind of came off like a Jerry Lynn or Christopher Daniels, still working the same game that was novel in '99 but not as effective in 2016. That said, I'm excited to see how he looks in a non "showcase" setting in later rounds.

PAS:  I liked Tajiri way more then Eric did here, I loved all of his little carny counters like reversing the hammerlock by walking through the ropes and his hammerlock where he used the knee to hold down the opposite arm. Those kicks are still nasty looking and really nicely timed. Slater was fine, had a couple of slick moments, but had such a generic look and offense, nothing that made him stand out.

2. TJ Perkins vs. Da Mack

ER: Thought TJP looked really great here, didn't care much for Da Mack's 2000s indy tribute gimmick. TJP has tons of tricks to show off, so a showcase to potential new eyeballs works nicely. Him hitting his usual stuff so crisp only added to things. His spin kicks looked great, his roll throughs into subs looked good, the way he maneuvered off of and through the ropes looked kung fu flick smooth. Mack hits a really nice flip dive over the buckles and almost landed grossly face first on a spinning flapjack, but also threw a bunch of weak uppercuts, cribbed Human Tornado's old jive kicks (I get stealing spots from your favorite guys but man is that a super specific thing to lift) and overall didn't come off like a guy I'm going to seek out.

PAS: Yeah fine TJP showcase, I have seen a ton of him before so his stuff wasn't new to me, but for folks who weren't trading for NJ Dojo tapes 10 years ago I imagine it looked awesome. Mack had a really nice dive but his shtick was pretty bush league.

3. Mustafa Ali vs. Lince Dorado

PAS: This felt like an IWA-MS showcase match from 2005 with green indy guys busting out a bunch of their big spots to earn the post match Ian attaboy speech. The big spots were big spots, that reverse rana was seconds away from breaking Ali's neck, but looked awesome. Still the connective tissue of the match was pretty bad, these guys have been doing this along time and they really should have had better looking simple stuff.

ER: This match kinda won me over by the end, even though I fully recognized it as an Eliminators style "stand there and take my shit" type of match. Dorado has some big spots but usually doesn't hit all of them clean. So for him to go go go and not actually flop was pretty exciting. It made every spot seem bigger, wondering if THIS was going to be the one that was going to murder himself or Ali. Plus seeing a freaking springboard reverse rana and a double jump springboard Spanish Fly on WWE TV is just totally surreal. Ali almost lost me towards the beginning as his missed moves to get into position for Lince's shit looked flat out baaaad. That slow motion spinning backfist was so ugly that Danielson had no choice but to bring up how terribly slow it was on commentary. Then he missed a charge in the corner, when Lince jumped to the apron, so Ali somersaulted out of the corner and then just slowly stood up and turned around. It looked so terrible. "Well, gotta stand up and turn around and take some more offense I suppose." But Ali won me over by taking all sorts of stupid shit and missing some flying moves in ways that alllllmost look like he barely rotated in time. He flopped painfully on a missed moonsault and later on an inverted 450. The springboard reverse rana was nuts, dug Dorado's little sliding kick that planted the flat of his boot into Ali's forehead, Ali was a nutjob for taking that big ol' headscissors off the apron to the floor, and yeah. I knew what this was, but they busted ass and won me over at the end.

4. Akira Tozawa vs. Kenneth Johnson

PAS: Really dumb for both of the last match of the last two shows to have the exact same match layout. Japanese overdog having too much trouble finishing off green kid with lots of heart. Johnson is pretty sloppy and green and parts of this were actively stinky. Tozawa has a bunch of charisma and that final pair of german suplexes looked great, but I thought this was the worst match of this show.

ER: I...actually didn't dislike this. Johnson does do too much choreographed sexy dance fighting, has some offense where you aren't actually sure if he did a move or took a move, and good heavens that missed flipping whateverthefuck off the top (that landed 5 feet from where Tozawa would have been even if he hadn't moved) was atrocious. But compared to his first round peers I thought he showed way more acuity than Ho Ho Lun. I actually enjoyed the very opening with both men rolling wildly while in a wristlock, reminded me of when my cat accidentally got a paper bag hooked around her neck and ran wildly through the house to try to get the bag off. And even in some of his more aimless mat reversal segments he would surprise me by doing a competent hammerlock into side headlock. He ate Tozawa's stuff nicely, ate that nice high jump senton, took some kicks to the guts. Tozawa is going to be fun in later rounds, those scoop and delayed Germans are arguably spot of the show so far. The snap on that scoop one and the way Johnson folded through it was like the floweriest poetry. If someone had a looped gif of that as their sig it feels like something I would get stuck watching like 6 times through every time I scrolled past their posts. But then that delayed German where he just pops him over like nothing, just awesome. I liked Johnson here more than I've ever liked Killshot. That's not saying much, but it's not nothing.


COMPLETE CWC GUIDE

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