WrestleMania 37 Night Two 4/11/21

Pretty hard shoes to fill after last night's show, and this lineup does a lot less for me on paper. Still, I'm excited for Asuka/Ripley and a couple others, but there is always the huge Fiend landmine bobbing around...and these waters also have a Hulk Hogan pirate promo which sounds like him hosting a shitty regional children's show. The Hogan calls the crowd scalawags and they go into this kind of gross routine of Titus playfully scolding Hogan for using bad words and Hogan doing a "Don't make me walk the plank!" bad wittle boy routine. So this is starting terribly. 

Randy Orton vs. The Fiend

ER: Oh man they're leading with Fiend. Has Orton always had full skull sleeves? I think I might have liked that Fiend entrance if I knew it wasn't leading to a Fiend match. It's probably much better for the crowd to get iced out in the first match, because then they can always get their energy back. Putting this on towards the end risks killing everybody's reaction and everyone wrestling in silence. This whole thing was really bad, but it went mercifully quick at least? They walk around slowly for awhile, and Fiend is moving slow enough that I'm not sure if that's part of his character or if Wyatt has two wooden legs. He was walking weird up on his jack in the box and he just moves so damn slow in the ring. The rope hang DDTs don't look great, the crowd chanting Holy Shit at Alexa Bliss's headgear leaking oil made me laugh, and I was happy to have this out of the way. 

Tamina/Natalya vs. Shayna Baszler/Nia Jax

ER: I'm weirdly excited for this one. The Baszler/Jax team was a slow starter but they've finally been jelling as a team the last month or so. Tamina has more momentum than she's ever had with a great short hoss fight with Nia a couple days prior, and Tamina also finally has a proper wrestling look. They had a great interaction in the Royal Rumble too, let's see what they do on the grandest stage! The early Tamina/Nia exchanges were good, thought the headbutt battle looked good and the off balance striking was a nice look. This got really good when Baszler and Nia were cutting Natalya off from Tamina. Baszler looks like she breaks Natalya's jaw with a knee lift, and Natalya's selling was really strong during the control segment, yelling and actually garnering sympathy while Shayna worked over her knee in painful ways. But Tamina is a beat late on a save and then whiffs the hot tag, Natalya makes dumb faces while waiting too long to catch a Tamina crossbody, and the match drifts on a little too long. It built nicely and kind of overshot the mark, but I also like that they were treating the title shot like a big deal. Tamina is still a little rigid in spots, but the energy is there and she actually does feel fresh out of nowhere. It's amazing what a new look will do to someone. Nia did a great job feeding and selling for her, Shayna came off punishing, and the match overall was perfectly fine. 

Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens

ER: Zayn has been really entertaining in ring the last several months, but this is a pairing we've seen a lot now. Not sure what they're going to have to do to make this iteration of the match interesting. And this match really didn't work for me. It felt like a condensed version of them at PWG, nothing but corner suplexes, apron brainbuster, drivers, more suplexes, moves dropped onto knees, all 2006 indy offense and no heart. This felt so cold and mechanical, just some big spots with no juice. Sami throwing short body blow punches in the corner made me hopeful it was taking a little left turn into something different, but we came back pretty quick. Sami has been working like a deranged Buck Robley the last year, and this was he and Owens going back and sleepwalking their way through one of their old singles. Logan Paul involvement was a total nothing, dude looked bored out their the entire time (although, to be fair to Paul, sure). He takes a great stunner, so I guess that's something. 

Sheamus vs. Matt Riddle

ER: So Matt Riddle has become a pretty unbearable personality huh? Sheamus has been awesome since coming back last summer, and I think he's been the most consisted in ring guy of 2021. Riddle's stock has never been lower. But if they beat the hell out of each other it wouldn't take much for this to be really good. And they DO beat the hell out of each other, but I thought they went too far into Riddle just kicking out of everything. The match had a lot of stiff strikes and big spots, but it felt a little uninspired and perfunctory. I'm always going to flip for spots like Riddle flipping over the ropes into a KO knee lift, but after the close Riddle kickouts down the stretch you could hear the crowd not into it, not buying what they were going for. I appreciate them going for a couple of big top that spots, actually thought Riddle was going to hit some crazy Candido style top rope powerbomb, but it's a shame Sheamus slipped off the ropes for what was surely the match finishing top rope White Noise. If that top rope kneedrop was an improv, it's a cool thing to throw into a match. I'm glad Sheamus got the title off Riddle, the guy deserves to have some belt, and I kind of think Riddle needs a retooling and some time away. 

Apollo Crews vs. Big E

ER: I'm already not into the Saba Simba-ing of Crews, but I cannot believe they actually have an entire Fela Kuti percussion section's instruments at ringside. Like what are we doing here? There are at least 9 conga drums at ringside, and not a single one of them get used in any way during this Nigerian Drum Match. It's just cane shots everyone. The stip really weakened the usual strong Big E singles match layout, and it took Crews taking a couple of Jeff Hardy level bumps to really make this pick up. Crews takes a uranage from the apron to the ring steps and misses a great frog splash through a table. But this all felt more underwhelming than it should have felt, like a Smackdown match with a hastily thought out gimmick that's not as good as the match they had on Smackdown already. Babatunde's debut would have been way better if they leaned further into having him be Giant Idi Amin (since it appears they're just treating African as its one large nebulous country). Babatunde's jacket didn't fit and his gear came off more Marching Band Leader than Ruthless Dictator. Still excited for Big E/Babatunde. 

Rhea Ripley vs. Asuka

ER: This match has an uphill battle trying to find the right tone, as nobody is going to root against Asuka, but Ripley isn't exactly a heel and even gets her full entrance song performed live by a woman who sounded like she couldn't hear where the 1 and 3 were coming in. So the fans don't really know how to react to Ripley while they cheer Asuka. This didn't really feel like the big Rhea match they wanted it to. be, and it wasn't the match I wanted it to be either. It wasn't bad, but Rhea's personality came off a little lethargic, and maybe she was having a tough time being the default heel in a Defining Babyface Moment. Tough spot to make work. Asuka looked great, and I loved that Ripley kick she caught and turned into sick heel hook, but again it came off more like a cool babyface catching a heel, and that's not what the finish wanted. Ripley's bump off the apron the Asuka's DDT was awesome, looked dangerous, but I wasn't into the finish. I don't think the moment was there, and I think Ripley losing wouldn't have been bad. Her challenge build felt rushed anyway and it wouldn't be difficult to build her more effectively into a rematch.  This didn't feel like it built well enough to its result. 

Daniel Bryan vs. Edge vs. Roman Reigns

ER: Edge is a somewhat compelling work around to have in a match in 2021, a real test for Bryan and Reigns, a difficult component of wrestling Dogme 95. "Work Edge into your heated feud as a third" is tougher than an all location shooting obstruction. And sadly, this match ain't it. Last night was a real upbeat, brisk show with a high floor. Night Two has been dragging a lot more and it's not because of "too much wrestling". The match pacing is different on Night Two and really only the women's tag match felt like it was worked with the right vibe. And now, I think we have to start talking about how Maybe There is a Problem With the Main Event Big Dog. Reigns newer Head of the Table work is starting to seem outright boring, and I don't think any of his slow paced show closers have landed with me. He's a guy who has been wrestling mostly on PPV, meaning his wrestling these days can only be judged on these over long slow main events. I actually think Edge was holding up his end of whatever this was, as if I am going to sit through an Edge match in 2021 the least he can do is make the stupidest faces of his stupid faced career, and absolutely stick Bryan with the spear. Check. Daniel Bryan was expectedly the glue to this one, and he did a really good job at it. He was better at integrating Edge and Reigns into things, and his sequences were the matches' high points. But it's a Bryan match wasted on something like this, which wasn't memorable and felt a level below for everyone involved. And that's kind of the story of Night Two, is that almost everything on the show - outside of the women's tag maybe - felt a level below everyone involved. 

This was not an insultingly bad night of wrestling, but this was a kind of boring night of wrestling. I don't think it had to be this boring, and while I was expecting it to be not good, I wasn't expecting boring. This one fell flat with me, and only a good-not-great women's tag saved this from being mostly a snooze. 

Read more!

WWE Fastlane I Didn't Know If I Had Peacock or Not Blog 3/21/21

ER: I didn't know if I had Peacock or not, and it was kind of annoying to figure out, so I wasn't going to bother watching Fastlane. But then I realized it was still on the Network, and I know how to work that!! 

Matt Riddle vs. Mustafa Ali

ER: This was active enough, but I didn't like where they took most of their activity. I like how they worked both of the Riddle lands on Ali's boots/Ali lands on Riddle's knees spots, but there were some contrived set ups for a lot of the big stuff. I thought the Koji clutch after the fisherman's buster was dumb, and the set up for the middle rope piledriver was ridiculous. But the post match Retribution angle was hilarious. It's so funny hearing Ali address them by all their silly names, and how they all acted the walk out with gravitas but it comes off next level because Ali is doing serious acting with them. "No, Slapjack come on. Don't you walk through those ropes Slapjack. You're nothing without me Slapjack!" Ali running down Mace and T-Bar was funny, because Slapjack and Reckoning just had this standing up to my boss moment, but these two are making growling sounds and acting like Ninja Turtle villains. Like who the fuck is Retribution? What do they stand for? What's in the Retribution Mission Statement? What's their ethos? Are they a union? A cult? It's really funny. 

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

ER: This tag was well managed and competently worked, but it never built to the level of interest it should have, and the Banks ego stuff at the end came off flat. Sasha's 2021 has been a major drop from her 2020, the character is just not right and the match work is suffering for it. Shayna and Nia controlling Belair made for the compelling parts. Shayna really dropped her with a knee that she would pay for later, Nia gets dropkicked into a nice Belair rana, Belair takes a big spill to the floor, it's good stuff. But Sasha looks messy on her hot tag, reaching to catch Baszler kicks before Baszler has thrown them. But she absolutely tags Shayna with a knee, and I loved her pouncing with the Banks Statement because of it. The ego drama at the end was bad, filled with dumb WrestleMania sign pointing and a stupid reaction from Banks. Nobody came off looking good because of this. For some reason I did like Belair still leaping to almost break up the losing pin on Banks, but this segment didn't help anybody. 

Big E vs. Apollo Crews

ER: They won me over a bit with the deliberate pace and stiff work, but that finish was a real loser. The match proper was filled with good looking stuff, but a disputed 3 count finish will never help any wrestler in any angle. Nobody gets excited by whether someone's shoulder wasn't actually pinned, and it leads to two awkward 2.5-3 counts where nobody is quite clear on what happened. But Big E hits Crews with the spear through the ropes and then hits two of those disgusting apron splashes he does. I don't know how much he actually pulls that apron splash or how much he just wrecks dudes' ribcages, but it feels like the WWE roster move I would least want to tank. He really gets a ton of impact on those standing splashes, they're really remarkable. His belly to belly suplexes looked good, and Crews' comeback looked decent. The finish was a real fizzle, but Crews looked a ton better during his post match beatdown of E than he looked during the match. Crews would be better off doing cool as Olympic slams and less jumping spinkick combos. 

Braun Strowman vs. Elias

ER: Elias was a decent Rick Rude-as-Johnny Polo here, and all of Braun's heaviest stuff looked heavy. Elias took bumps in fun ways that were a slight twist on standard back bumps, loved how he landed on Braun's big scoop chokeslam. Braun laid Elias out with a great clothesline that looked like Elias blindly running into a tree branch, and I dug how much Elias relished his brief time in control. This filled its role on a card. 

Seth Rollins vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

ER: Rollins PPV matches are such a drag. He's always a villain taking way too long to explain his evil plan. It is so hard to stay interested in Seth Rollins and the ways he chooses to pace his matches. Nakamura looked good when he fought back, and took a great bump to the floor after getting knocked off the buckles, really fell to the floor like a Chris Hamrick in leather rather than vinyl. Rollins does hit a very nice bullet tope, throwing his whole shoulder and side into Nakamura's torso and hurtling himself into the barricade because of it. That is a Cool Seth Rollins Moment. But Rollins also worked to Rollins up the rest of this, and by the time we got into a bunch of memorized sequences it's just impossible to stay engaged. Nothing can ever come off organic with this guy, always has to be the most focus grouped version of a wrestler every time. 

Drew McIntyre vs. Sheamus

ER: These two have really good chemistry, and I do not mind that we're getting the same match up run several times. I like the way these two beat each other up, and it's been a highlight of 2021 wrestling a quarter of the way through the year. The only thing I don't like about their matches is when McIntyre inevitably does his nice headbutt and Byron Saxton says in a leprechaun voice "Give us a kiss, Sheamus!" Byron Allen is more like it. This match was hard hitting as expected, but was more interesting when they kept things in the ring. Drew throwing Sheamus with several belly to belly suplexes (and Sheamus knowing how to land heavy on the suplexes) was engaging stuff, because no spot was moved to without one of the guys throwing a stiff body shot, or a chest welting chop, or a punch to the cheek. The brawl through the video screens had a lot of hard landings on non-mat surfaces, but it was a little meandering no matter how stiff it was. Still, a rolling senton on the floor will always look cool, and Sheamus getting thrown crashing through a video screen was a neat stunt spot and good looking fall. But Sheamus hitting a sick knee to Drew's chin in the ring is something I'd rather see more. And behold, things get immediately better the second they get back into the ring, and the slap exchange looked like two guys trying to KO each other with slaps. Crazy how much speed Drew can get behind a slap from his knees. Let these two keep kicking the hell out of each other. It's made for some great TV. 

Randy Orton vs. Alexa Bliss

ER: Maaaan who even wants this? Who out there wants this? Show yourselves! I liked Burn Victim Thing but I do not care about any of this! 

Daniel Bryan vs. Roman Reigns

ER: I thought this was a pretty tremendous Bryan performance contained within a match that didn't hit what it was going for. This was way too long in the tooth and didn't work on as grand a scale as they were hoping it would. Roman's extremely slow and methodical newer style may work for some, but for me it usually feels like gratuitous time padding, and saps a lot of a match's drama. Bryan looked great throughout though and kept this buoyant. He was good at filling time by purposely annoying Reigns, getting under his skin, and all of his stick and move strikes looked like they were actually slowing Roman. Bryan's knees all looked great, and the Yes locks kept looking more and more like they could get an actual tap. The Edge involvement was as bad acted as expected, but Uso made the most of the situation with his interference. I think Roman's slow as hell pacing was driving me nuts here because it was always very clear that things were ending with Edge and Uso involvement, so every long minute we weren't getting to that point was just one more minute until the inevitable. Bryan was put into the position of having to make a decent trade for a player who just very publicly demanded to be traded, and it's a testament to his abilities that he kept this one as interesting as it was. 

ER: A pretty underwhelming show, with McIntyre/Sheamus really the only full match worth seeking out, although Bryan purists would love his performance in the title match. I guess it was pretty obvious this show would only be filler due to not actually needing a PPV in between Elimination Chamber and Mania. 

Read more!

WWE Royal Rumble 2021 Live Blog

Nia Jax/Shayna Baszler vs. Asuka/Charlotte

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

Goldberg vs. Drew McIntyre

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

Carmella vs. Sasha Banks

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

Women's Rumble Match

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kevin Owens vs. Roman Reigns

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

 

Men's Rumble Match

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

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

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

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

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

Read more!

WWE Backlash Blog 6/14/20

ER: Getting a late start on this show because I visited my sister this weekend, the first time I have driven more than 5 miles in the last 3 months. When I returned I had a cat who had missed me terribly and dishes that hadn't washed themselves since I saw them on Friday. Asuka/Nia is probably the only match I'm really interested in, but there are several matches that could be good.


Andrade vs. Apollo Crews

ER: Fine pre-show opener, though it felt a little more hollow than I was hoping. Both of these guys do cool moves, and both hit those cool moves here, but it never felt like anything bigger than that. But seeing cool guys hit nice exchanges for 7 minutes is nice on the lead in show, and I liked how they jumped things up with Andrade taking a big backdrop bump on the entrance ramp. Crews and Andrade are both good at quick rope running sequences, and I dug how the ran through those at the same fast pace as Andrade slamming his knees into Crews in the corner. Crews' standing flying offense looked really good, landing flush on Andrade, and the finish was a slick sitout powerbomb reversal of Andrade's trap arm DDT. I know these two have a better match in them, but this was good eye candy to start a show.


Alexa Bliss/Nikki Cross vs. The Iiconics vs. Sasha Banks/Bayley

ER: This was kind of a mess, and these 3 way tag matches just seem too tough to work without some hitches or weird bits of laying about. I think Sasha was the big standout, with everyone else blending in a bit too much. Sasha was the one making all of her individual spots look good, like flying into the corner hard or throwing a knee into the side of Kay's head (while Bayley held her), or how perfectly Sasha handled the finish and how awesome her winning pin on Bliss looked. The match structure made everyone else feel pretty faceless, with the Iiconics far more muted than normal, while Bliss and Cross showed good enthusiasm throughout but felt out of the gate that they were losing. I don't think this was bad, but having three people in the ring at all times just leads to awkwardness.


Jeff Hardy vs. Sheamus

ER: I thought this was really good, a match worked straight with some nasty spills and great collisions, no shenanigans, no stupid finish. Sheamus is in the discussion of best 10 minute TV match worker of the decade, and he brings that to a nice clean PPV match like this one. He provides a big solid base for Hardy to slam into, he's never gonna be the guy who bails early on a rough collision, and I dig Hardy vaulting off stairs into him, flying into him in the corner, using his body as a projectile no matter how Sheamus was positioned, and then flying even harder into awful landings. Sheamus has real brick wall offense, the kind that makes the stuff of Sheamus vs. Scott Norton the stuff dreams are made from. He kept finding cruel ways to cut Hardy off, with the worst being him hitting a front suplex and catching a knee on the ringpost, or Sheamus reaching up to knock Hardy off the turnbuckles and Hardy just pitching forward into the ropes. I love seeing Hardy fold on Sheamus clotheslines, or the way his body crumples when he flies to the floor directly into a Brogue kick. This hit hard, landed hard, built nicely, a super professional match that still felt like it was worked aggressively. I never get excited for Hardy matches anymore, but he has seemed really focused since coming back, and Sheamus looks a good as ever. Strong match.


Nia Jax vs. Asuka

ER: Outside of the unnecessary 80s TV match non-finish, this was really good. I've always liked how these two match up, how Asuka knows how to ramp up the stiffness to counter some of Nia's bull in a China shop movement. Nia always looks really strong against Asuka, so I love moments like Nia simply shoving Asuka off into the ropes, because it looks like Asuka is really being flung whether she wants to or not. Nia really crushed Asuka with lariats and avalanches, and I love the way Nia tumbles when Asuka is able to side step and throw in strikes. Asuka swinging into a crucifix, leaping around Nia's body to get a great octopus, or flinging herself at Nia for a guillotine attempt all look really great, because they always look like Nia is actively struggling to prevent them from happening. Jax is really great at being broken down by submissions, really plays a great giant being brought to their knees. She shows off these cool moments every time Asuka snares her with something, and I think it's the perfect kind of spot to show of the dynamics of both. Asuka really hurls herself hips and butt first into Nia, kicks away at her legs, and Nia pays her back whenever she catches her in a big slam, reverses a sub attempt with a Boss Man slam or slapping her into the mat with a sitout powerbomb. Really, I loved all of this outside of the double count out finish. Even the post match hip attack off the apron looked great, and the facials from both ruled. There was no reason to do a double count out finish. Nia wouldn't lose any "mystique" from winning to Asuka, because Asuka rules. They give Asuka the belt without her beating the champ, then you have Charlotte beat her the night after Charlotte lost her belt, then you can't let Asuka win her first PPV title defense. She has done nothing but lose or not win ever since getting the belt, and it's totally unnecessary. As a match, though, this was really good.


Miz/John Morrison vs. Braun Strowman

ER: Modern WWE handicap matches just aren't good, because WWE doesn't want them to be good. The best handicap matches are deeply imbued with southern wrestling. WWF used to run handicap matches like this, understood that you need an element of stooging and the rhythm needed to be different than typical singles matches. Modern WWE handicap matches are worked like a singles match, only the two guys just may as well be masked twins. Something like Razor Ramon vs. Jeff Jarrett/Roadie works great, because Jarrett and Roadie know exactly how to fill time in between taking beatings and know how to gloat when they get an advantage, knowing how to perfectly act like the guys celebrating their advantage as if they don't already have the built in advantage. Braun makes for some good moments, as his misses can still miss dangerously, and I'm not sure there are many big guys who do a ringpost bump as nicely as he does. Morrison's knee strikes looked real junky here, and I couldn't get into a lot of this. Handicap matches can be more interesting than this. Modern WWE handicap layout does nothing for me.


Bobby Lashley vs. Drew McIntyre

ER: This had the feeling of two semi-trained Power Plant guys doing all of the big slams they learned and watched others do, and that is a much better vibe for this match than Main Event Heavyweight WWE Match. McIntyre tosses Lashley into the barricade with a belly to belly, Lashley runs McIntyre horizontally into the ringpost and nearly murders him with a crazy death valley bomb on the floor, the whole thing is just a big Power Plant power move spotfest and that kicks ass. This really felt like the best possible Sean O'Haire vs. Chase Tatum match, with McIntyre going on to hit a wild superplex, plus awesome stuff like grabbing a kimura off a Lashley spear. I like that we didn't get prolonged strike exchanges or tons of dramatic kickouts, but instead the focus was on two big guys slamming each other in cool big guy ways. WWE needs more Power Plant influence, as that sense of danger due to guys not knowing their limits was important.


Viking Raiders vs. Street Profits

ER: I hope that this satisfied the fans who were exited to see it, and the women who find Ivar cute.


THE GREATEST MATCH EVER

ER: The crowd was electric for this. There was this great sense that - even though I had no history with these two - that they had a great history with each other, and knew what to expect from the other. There were no cutesy I reverse U spots, more like physical chess with both of them knowing what to expect two moves ahead. There were elements to the work that I had never really seen before, simple things that I loved, like putting your forearms up to block an elbow strike, or dropping down to a knee to sandbag a powerbomb. Every guy I saw attempt a powerbomb before this had either hit that powerbomb right away, or got backdropped over. An actual struggle over a big move was a bit of a revelation to me. Seeing Orton drop to a knee, widen his base, grab onto Edge's leg - anything to keep himself from being powerbombed - and that was eye opening. The strikes landed harder than anything else I had seen, and well, I had never seen a man bleed from his ear before. I don't think anything good ever came to anyone after bleeding out of their ear.

And all of that stuff still holds up as special. It's a great match. The level of improv based around things you can't plan (where a guy falls after taking a move, the position he winds up in), all of the ring positioning, it's all impressive stuff. You can see gears working when a strike was supposed to land harder and it didn't, and you can watch some sequences get kind of reworked and changed and added to without ever altering the course of the match. Edge's kicks all land sharp, with that early thrust spin kick especially looking like it decapitated Orton. I actually remember seeing people use "restholds" as a complaint about this match, but I'm sorry, to watch each man's respective hold and to be so disbelieving seems a bit cynical to me. Orton's face lock looked like he was clearly trying to block Edge's breathing with his arm, and Edge's stretch plum looked as if he was trying to separate Orton's neck from his shoulders. There was nothing restful about either of those holds. We get some crazy moments like Edge punching Orton out of the air off an apron drive. Orton actually changes trajectory in mid air from being punched! Edge finally hitting that folding powerbomb was a huge moment and a great nearfall (of several), and while I didn't find the head drops excessive, that Tiger Driver 91 is still shocking. It really is quite the door slam to the match. I hadn't watched this match in probably 8+ years, and at this point I'm not seeing a reason it won't keep holding up.


ER: Strong deliveries from Nia/Asuka, Sheamus/Hardy, and McIntyre/Lashley, plus an arguably perfect main event that will henceforth be known as "6/7/20-6/14/20", means this was perfectly fine show to poke around on a Sunday evening.

Read more!

WWE Money in the Bank Mother's Day Live Blog

I visited my mother yesterday (my parents are hell on a 6' space, my calves are burning from all the backpedaling I kept having to do) and gave her a cool gift, so that excuses me to watch wrestling of potentially questionable quality on her special day. Let's hope for something good out of this show so that I can at least justify my not calling her to hear repeated stories about dumb things my father has done during quarantine.


Jeff Hardy vs. Cesaro

ER: So Hardy misses an entire year with an injury, they bring him back to Smackdown two months ago, spent the interim showing weekly documentaries about his rehabilitation (which hardly anyone gets, let alone several weeks of them), and then put him on the pre-show? I know that card placement matters less in no crowd era, but it's still really odd. It doesn't really matter to me, as the pre-show are almost always good, and they're worked in a way that makes them feel like good Velocity or 09-10 Superstars matches. They almost always hit the match length sweet spot and the layouts always feel so much less produced than main show matches. That feels like it shouldn't be the case, but there's too much of a sample size at this point. And this was really good! This was a much better singles match than I expected Hardy to physically be able of delivering at this point, but the longest straight time off of his career seems to have really done him good. He's moving quicker and more fluidly than he has in the past many years, but he's still taking the same level of awkward painful bumps so I'll just enjoy this while it lasts. He works quick enough here to convincingly fluster Cesaro, but you knew the best moments of this would revolve around what Cesaro does once he catches him. Cesaro catches him leaping off the ring steps and splats him ribs first over the barricade, later shoves him hard hip first into the ring apron. Hardy always seems to take damage on the least padded parts of the human body. Hardy's hard landings here were really entertaining, loved how Cesaro played off him (his big Fuerza bump over Hardy on the ropes was awesome), really liked all of this.

Big E/Kofi Kingston vs. Gran Metalik/Lince Dorado vs. The Miz/John Morrison vs. Wesley Blake/Steve Cutler

ER: This was good, but it feels like I've been seeing this exact match every week for the past several weeks. When they were running this on TV I just assumed the PPV version would have some extra gimmick or stipulation, but it was just longer. Still it was good overall, not always the tightest multiman, not always the pairings I wanted to see, but good. I really like Forgotten Sons, and I realize I'm in the minority on that. Gimmicks aren't the thing that sells me on a worker, ring work is the main thing I care about, and their ring work is more interesting than most teams in WWE. Their double teams are rock solid, neither skimp on small things (Cutler has far better stomps and kicks to the stomach than anyone else in the match), but also add in big bumps (Blake is always good for at least one big bump to the floor per match). Also, big fan of their double team hiptoss to an opponent draped over the ropes, and they're good at coming up with logical spots like that. I'm completely tired by the Miz/Morrison team at this point, and New Day isn't far behind them on people I wish were featured less. But it's cool seeing them work with the Sons and LHP. Dorado and Morrison pulled off a cool dragon rana, Metalik looked awesome with his while hair flowing around his mask (while working too fast for Kofi who looked like a stumblebum side by side), we got a big Morrison Spanish fly to the floor (while far more people than necessary awkardly stood around like goobs), and this was plenty good.

R-Truth vs. Bobby Lashley

ER: This match was nothing anyway, throwaway match as part of a feud I could not care about, so it's not much of a crime that I was distracted throughout this. Because once I noticed that the announcers ONLY refer to Bobby Lashley as "Bobby Lashley", it was all I could concentrate on. This is a promotion that has been weirdly obsessed with changing someone's name to a single word name, and yet we can't go through ANY part of the match with hearing "Lashley with the slam" or "Lashley with the pin", it ALWAYS has to be "Bobby Lashley with the pin!" Bobby Lashley, Bobby Lashley, Bobby Lashley. They could not stop saying this man's full fucking Christian name for 5 seconds. Nobody else gets this treatment. They either lose one of their names entirely, getting called - very normally - by ONLY their last name in a match because we know who this person is at this point, or have some kind of nickname that you can alternate with (Roman with the slam! The Big Dog with the spear!). But they can only and ever call this one person by their full name. Whose direction is this, any why? This can not be an accident and now we all have ONE MORE reason to hate Bobby Lashley segments.

Bayley vs. Tamina

ER: You have seen me write about this before, and as long as they keep doing it every year I will continue writing about it, but I cannot stand the 2-4 month period of every one of the last 10 years that WWE insists on telling us that Tamina matters and we need to be serious about Tamina and here's your yearly Tamina PPV match challenging for a title before we realize "well she's still Tamina so we didn't learn". There were people like Ruby Riott, Liv Morgan, and Sarah Logan, the former who was returning from a long injury, the latter two who have been quietly overdelivering on syndicated TV matches and house shows for years...but we're going for our 10th go round on Tamina, so you gals will have to back up a bit. You can tell she's really trying, but every year it's the same bad gear and the same way of cumbersomely getting into position for opponent offense. However, this was a real class Bayley performance, as her working aggressively and outpacing the larger Tamina made the match much more interesting than it should have been, and made Tamina's monster moments feel bigger because it's not just her badly dominating a match, it's her using a couple things in spurts. Bayley outsmarts her and it makes Bayley getting the tables turned into some interesting stuff. Bayley bumps big for her when she does eventually go on the rampage, including a big flying bump over the announce table. Tamina still comes off klutzy throughout, but the layout is really smart and she at least does her best within the layout. She does a clumsy missed superkick, but the spot is Bayley catching it and turning it into a kneebar, so her clumsy kick wasn't the important thing in the spot. The match felt carefully constructed to be about spots where her clumsiness was out of the way quickly because it set up something better from Bayley. Bayley's high cradle finish looked great, a legit pin that looked like anyone on the roster would have had a hard time kicking out of, and it went just the right amount of time. Post match is even good, with Tamina immediately picking up Bayley for a samoan drop after losing, but Sasha drops her with a great chop block and then throws a stiff kick to her chest in high heel boots. I'm calling this an easy best case scenario for a Tamina singles match, could not imagine a better version of this particular match.

Braun Strowman vs. Bray Wyatt

ER: I'm happy this was kept short, I just can't get into Bray Wyatt. I actually liked the Fire Fly match, but it's not enough to buy him any kind of goodwill. Still, this was kept short and that's good. Strowman took a few really cool big man bumps (great missed charge into and over the announce table, real sturdy shoulderblock getting thrown into the ring steps), and then got in the ring and got hugged for a long time so I could look at Twitter for a bit. Then Strowman finished him, and I like that.  But honestly this had the same amount of time to do something as Bayley/Tamina had, and this came nowhere close to accomplishing what they did.

Drew McIntyre vs. Seth Rollins

ER: Didn't feel like this one, but I'm sure Rollins talked about his destiny several times and had a Seth Rollins match, which I'm sure are for somebody. I feel bad for McIntyre that this is how his title reign is going, but I wish him the best. I saw the finish of Seth Rolling hitting a superkick by being bounced into the ropes by a nice headbutt, and the superkick causing McIntyre to bounce into the ropes and hit the Claymore kick. Claymore kick looked good, but guys hitting moves because they got hit by moves is the dumbest most played out shit at this point.

Money in the Bank

ER: Oh my god they're doing the Money in the Bank matches CONCURRENTLY!? This has potential to be a tremendous trainwreck, one of those ideas like World War 3 that you can't focus on anything. But World War 3 could have had great potential as a recorded match, as the worst thing about it was knowing there was probably something cool happening somewhere in those 3 rings, and you were likely missing it. Filming one of those and showing the finished product with the best moments chosen from the camera angles would have been a way more successful version of that match. The whole thing has this fake Michael Kamen score that makes it feel like a bunch of backyarders made a movie combining Die Hard and Rat Race. The comedy doesn't work anywhere near as consistently as in Rat Race, but there were tons of great moments and a fantastic lead performance from Otis. The cameo jokes were almost all poorly written (Stephanie plays comedy too smarmy and broad, Brother Love stuff felt forced and pointless, Johnny Ace at least at a pie to the face well), but I smiled a lot and laughed a few times. Otis is the guy who really went for it, and really it shouldn't be much of a surprise that he thrived here. He's someone who can do Looney Tunes spot well, and was constantly saying funny stuff like in the weight room before the match started where he was just saying "sets and reps, sets and reps". It was funny hearing Carmella's sneakers breaking silence with different sounds, milking a squeaky waxed lobby floor for laughs and then doing the same by doing an overly long moonwalk on office carpet. Otis absolutely plastered Heyman with a dish in catering, and Heyman mugged while covered in sticky rice. Otis and Nia smash Rey between their bodies, Dana Brooke slips on a wet floor and is never seen again, Shayna weirdly feels like the least featured person in the match, and things get decidedly less fun once they get out on the roof. The roof stuff was fairly uninspired, other than two casual murders that never get mentioned again. I'm happy with the two winners, as I wouldn't have had money on Asuka or Otis, but think that those two have been two of the best performers of the silent era. I like when matches seem to reward performance.


This show went by quickly (though there was some small help from the fast forward during the Rollins match) and had no high end matches, but had some nice performances, some over-deliveries, slightly better than expected overall.

Read more!

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.

Read more!

WWE Elimination Chamber Running Behind Live Blog 2/17/19

Akira Tozawa vs. Buddy Murphy

ER: Boy there are a lot of guys in wrestling who look like Buddy Murphy now. It seems like they weirdly do this with the PPV 205 Live matches, like there's a weird disconnect with how they market the brand and how the brand is actually executed. Murphy comes out here working a slow, methodical match while the hype is all "coming up some highflying cruiserweight action!!" and here's Buddy Murphy holding a long rear chinlock and abdominal stretch while we get a lengthy New Day inset promo. Murphy chops the ringpost but doesn't go very far with it, and they do the cool spot where Murphy catches a tope and lifts Tozawa into a suplex. Fans were amped for Tozawa's comeback and I dug his great backdrop suplex. Tozawa is pretty awesome about getting big height on flapjacks, and they do a wild spot up top where Murphy lifts Tozawa practically about his his to throw him, and Tozawa snags him with a frankensteiner. Murphy's honky tonk strike combo looked way too much like memorized square dance steps; take that shit down to Kodiak Jacks on ladies night, take it away from my wrestling this evening. Murphy did a fine stumble out of the ring after taking a reverse rana, way more interesting than running back to do something else, and Tozawa's two fast topes to the floor looked really good, he always looks like he makes solid contact on dives. And I thought they did a good job with Buddy coming back into the ring to get hit by a big Tozawa senton while draped over the ropes. Draped over ropes spots are iffy so Murphy instead "getting back into the ring" covers it better. The scramble to the finish was really fun and I totally bought Tozawa's submission as a potential finish, and really liked the groove this settled into down the stretch.

Carmella/Naomi vs. Liv Morgan/Sarah Logan vs. Iiconics vs. Nia Jax/Tamina vs. Mandy Rose/Sonya Deville vs. Sasha Banks/Bayley

ER: I dug that they had Carmella out first, and how much of a boss she looked with an extra long moonwalk. Entrances alone got me excited for this one, with the Iiconics talking trash and laughing at the other teams, Peyton Royce's new warm hair color looking great,  Rose and Deville taking their time getting to the ring, Deville wearing cool new pants, this whole thing could be really good. I think it's a great idea to start with Rose and Deville as it feels like this puts them into a good spot to get more heat and more attention. There's a lot of good stuff to start, a little awkwardness with rope running, but Bayley bumps big a couple times into the grating around the ring, Rose takes a nasty neckbreaker onto the grating when she gets a foot stuck in the cage, cool stuff. I love Mandy Rose but damn does girl have some wild lipstick teeth. Someone really needs to do a fishhook spot and wipe it off, it makes it look like she's missing her front teeth. They do a big suplex tower stuff and I never understand why the people on the bottom of the tower sell. All they did was powerbomb someone, they didn't take a bump, but there's Logan and Morgan, just as wiped out as everyone else who took a superplex. The Iiconics coming in was my favorite part of the match as they immediately go for a dozen pinfalls and suddenly I want them to be tag champs. Things get a little crowded after awhile as nobody has been eliminated and we need to thin things out a bit (I assume Nia will do that). A few scattered incels try to ruin Carmella's team entrance but people are into it moments later when she hits a couple nice superkicks on Logan. There are 17 people on commentary I think. Trainwreck spot with people hitting suplexes and superkicks back to back to back comes off less better than WWE matches usually do those spots, and it ends with more lying around. There's lying around, but nobody getting pinned, so I'm curious where and how they want to peak this. I thought the Iiconics double pin elimination looked great, and we get the desired Nia Jax wrecking ball entrance. The horror movie monster build up to Nia and Tamina dragging Iiconics back out of a pod - like Michael Myers crashing through the closet door looking for Laurie - was long but well done, and them violently swinging the Iiconics into the cage looked great, probably best spot of the match so far. I like Nia's dominance but the match isn't totally doing it for me once the Iiconics are out of it, but Nia does an insane Bull Charge crashing through a pod at full speed and KOing herself, which is a smart way to get her out of there so everyone can target Tamina. Graves keeps talking about his daughters watching at home and it feels pointedly gross. Down to two teams the intentions are good, even if some of the executions aren't. Every time they did a pod spot it looked good (Sasha and Bayley each got their backs run into support beams) but some of the moves looked a little off, had some timing glitches. But it was laid out well enough that the fans were way into it the whole home stretch, so I'd say it was a definite success even if I thought the match underdelivered on quality.

The Miz/Shane McMahon vs. The Usos

ER: This is pretty fun as the Usos are a good team to have in there working a straight non-gimmick tag with Shane. Usos are tough but they're lean and mean now so Shane actually has a little size on them, but they still look like guys who should run over Shane. The crowd feels a little burned out after the big Chamber match so this feels like a good spot to have Shane, and the crowd is quiet throughout but does get up a bit for his flurries. Shane is the quintessential dorky dad at a BBQ, who is cracking jokes and getting too drunk on IPAs, so ends up doing some stupid stunt while his wife asks him not to, please. The coast to coast dropkick is obviously a guaranteed pop (it better be!) and him flying off into a superkick looked great. I thought the finish was actually pretty dumb though. Shane does another "dad goofing around on the roof spot" and flies through the announce table, but then we have Jimmy Usos eat knees on a splash and take the Skull Crushing Finale, but then he just rolls up Miz while getting pinned. I hate those finishes that involve a guy just taking a couple big moves and just deciding he was still the stronger man. I didn't need to see tag champ Shane, but I thought the finish could have played out better here.

Lio Rush/Bobby Lashley vs. Finn Balor

ER: I can't really get into this one too much, even though it has some fun flashes. I do perk up when Lashley takes a nice bump to the floor, and shortly after catches Balor and basically double legs him all the way into the ring barricade. I don't really care about this feud or the stakes though, so I just can't get too into it. They handle Balor's big comeback well though, with him making small strides against Rush after he's been worked over by Lashley, then hitting a big flip dive on both and immediately separating Rush from Lashley. Him easily moving from flip dive to attack on Rush was a smart touch, but a lot of this match didn't move me.

Ruby Riott vs. Ronda Rousey

ER: Ronda is wearing a cool version of Tamina's outfit, and this is probably pretty easily the match I'm most excited about on this card. Aaaaaaaaaaaaand it's a quickie. Riott stalls, Ronda hits her twisting fireman's carry and grabs the arm. Damn, what a drag. I get having a huge Goldberg finish for Ronda, but she doesn't need it, people already know she's dangerous. Every PPV match Ronda has had has made her opponent look more badass even in losing, and there's no reason that couldn't have happened here. Riott Squad feels like something the fans are dying to get behind, and their legs keep getting kicked out. A hot 8 minute matcha against Ronda would have legitimized Riott, so this was a major disappointment for me.

Baron Corbin vs. Braun Strowman

ER: Kendo stick stuff to start didn't do a lot for me, but Corbin sliding out of the ring super quick to reverse an Irish whip, then sprinting back in the ring a swinging a low as hell lariat, really shows he's been watching The Big Bossman in AJPW stuff. Tim Livingston had told me this earlier in the week when he was over, but I thought he sounded like a crazy idiot. Turns out I just haven't been paying attention to Baron Corbin matches. And in no time flat this match kind of rules, with Corbin chucking a huge ergonomic office chair at Braun and then tossing him straight into the ring steps, then clonking him with the steps. I guess I should have known that we would get a lot of interference in a No DQ match, though it robbed us of the nice brawl we were getting into. The big finish looked like a big finish, with him getting triple powerbombed through two stacked tables, read like a classic ECW spot. But I would have rather had a cool match than an advanced angle. This show has majorly underdelivered so far.

Kofi Kingston vs. Jeff Hardy vs. Randy Orton vs. AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe vs. Daniel Bryan

ER: The Chamber has routinely been my favorite of the WWE gimmick matches. The 2011 Chamber with Lawler almost winning the title from Miz was one of the most fun live shows I've ever been to. But I'm not too excited about this Chamber match, although I'm amused at just how 2006 it is. Seriously look at the names in this one! Who would have guessed in 2006 that all 6 of these guys would be high up on arguably the largest B-level WWE PPV? The "Apex Predator" is one of the worst nicknames ever. That's about one tick away from sounding like "Dumpster Rapist" Randy Orton. Bryan and Joe start and do a nice greatest hits package, Joe throwing kicks and rolling into a kneebar, Bryan's chest getting nicely reddened, Joe attacking with more kicks and my god Bryan takes a real beating that he sells as if the beating was taking an eternity. Kofi got the big gauntlet run on Monday and he gets to look pretty triumphant and on the level of Joe and Bryan here, which is a surprising development. I would have much rather seen Big E be the breakout singles star of New Day, though I liked Kofi's tope en reversa off the cage. These guys are putting together a pretty nice collection of stuff, Samoa Joe does a huge senton right on Bryan's hip that had to have screamed. Styles has casually been taking big spills around the edge of the cage, and Hardy hitting a swanton off a pod onto Styles while Styles WAS DRAPED ACROSS THE TURNBUCKLES looked wild, total Chamber highlight reel spot. That he ate an elimination Bryan knee right after was a great touch. You knew from the gauntlet and how commentary couldn't stop talking about Kingston the whole match, that this was coming down to Bryan/Kingston. I've never been a big Kofi fan outside of cute Royal Rumble spots, and for awhile several years I thought he had the worst offense on the brand. But you cannot deny this reaction he's getting here, and Bryan is a total master and feeling like a big deal while making it seem like anybody has a chance. Kofi gets a couple of HUGE reaction nearfalls, hitting the SOS and later hitting a double stomp that almost sees him stomp Bryan's dick. Fans sound like they want a Kofi win SO bad, which is exciting. Kofi gets rammed into the pod in a real nasty way, and gets a great nearfall kickout after Bryan hits the knee. I didn't love Bryan reversing a pin immediately after taking the Trouble in Paradise, feels real dumb that someone's finisher didn't buy them a single second of dazed opponent, and they already did that exact same thing earlier into the show. Some agent needs to think of a better way to build drama. Crowd is obviously still rabid so I'll shut my idiot mouth though. It's actually kind of shocking to me how silent and disappointed the crowd got when they realized Bryan was winning. Like they wanted to see Kofi win SO BAD that once Kofi missed a big Superfly Splash (and looked like he whipped his head into the mat) the crowd got silent, like they knew THAT was it. I'm really impressed with the connection the crowd had to Kofi, it always makes a match better even if it's not a reaction I share.

ER: I thought this PPV overall was a miss, but it ended strong. The main event chamber was easily the best match on the show, and there's something to be said about ending any situation on a high note. The rest of the card didn't do much for me: Women's chamber had some great moments but some drag throughout, tag match was unexpectedly fun with a finish I didn't like, Riott got her momentum slammed shut again, I got deprived of another great Ronda match, got robbed of a big guy brawl as it was getting good...everything until the main basically left me flat. The show did end on a sustained high note, and that counts for something.

Read more!

WWE TLC 12/16/18 Late Blog

Late to the show as we had a fun day seeing Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas at a local theater and getting pizza, getting me in a righteous Christmas mood. There are a few matches I'm into on this card (really all the women's matches have potential, even the Natalya one) and it should be fun overall. Afterward I'll watch Silent Night, Deadly Night 3.

 Cedric Alexander vs. Buddy Murphy

ER: This was a mostly fun cruiserweight opener that hits some fun flippy vibes, and it's amusing that we opened a 8 hour PPV with a big apron bump that gets blown off a minute later. It's silly, guys. But I liked Murphy a lot here, loved the great kneelift counter to Cedric's bottom rope cutter, thought he bumped really impressively for Cedric's offense (especially that big backwards bump into the barricade off Alexander's nice dropkick to the floor). I did think it went too long and thought going to the apron spot was unnecessary. Even though Murphy recovered what I thought was too quickly, I like that he immediately took the lumbar check but had his foot over the ropes. Rope escapes are an underutilized way to avoid big move kickouts, so I thought that worked to the match's favor. Overall it was good cruiser action, Murphy delivered on some of the hype I've seen from him this year, and Cedric is at least consistent.

Ladder Match: Elias vs. Bobby Lashley

ER: This didn't do a whole lot for me, felt like a poor ladder match that would get cut from a Coliseum Video. This was really dull and we also have a guitar hanging above the ring, and apparently the winner gets to use the ladder as a weapon. But then when Elias gets the guitar the bell just rings, so he won the match just by getting the guitar. So...why would it matter that he gets to use it as a weapon? This felt not only boring but rushed, there was a big bump but not a lot of interest. Majorly disappointing as Elias has been delivering as a character, but nothing about this match delivered.

Alicia Fox/Jinder Mahal vs. Carmella/R-Truth

ER: This was pretty sloppy, pretty messy, and it was worked as if it were main eventing an indy charity show. That charity show vibe worked to its advantage even if some of the execution was ugly.  We got some comedy breaks, Carmella and Truth doing a dance break when Jinder and Fox bumped to the floor, the Singh brothers getting involved and getting their culture mocked before getting tossed to the floor, Fox and Truth attempting to stumble their way through physical jokes about Fox's large hat, it all felt very crowd pleasing support the troops charity show. The work as I said was often messy, but since pristine execution wasn't really the vibe of the match it didn't affect things the same way as it would have if Murphy/Alexander had been even 1/4 as sloppy. I wouldn't expect a ton from Truth or Jinder (though I liked their early match sequence where Truth hit a crossbody for a pin and followed it up with two surprise nearfall inside cradles), but Fox has always been a favorite of mine and Carmella had been looking better so I was hoping for better showings from them. Still this was fine for what it was and kinda funny that this was what was chosen to open the actual card.

New Day vs. Usos vs. Sheamus/Cesaro

ER: Matches between these teams always have a decently high floor, but never seem quite as good as they should be, and they're almost always worked like nothing at all matters until we get to the boom boom boom finish sprint. You know those sprints, where several guys leap into superkicks as if their only plan was to get kicked in the face. Plus Woods/Kingston is easily the weakest version of New Day so we don't get any great power battles between Big E/Cesaro. But we still had some fun spots and the guys involved always work with an energy that the live crowds respond to, and that counts for a lot. I liked Sheamus hitting Woods with the brogue kick as he was bouncing in off the bottom rope (two cool reverses of that spot tonight) and Kofi's trust fall off the top onto everyone looked cool. But damn for all the times we've gotten this combination of guys going against each other, you'd think we would have more of their matches on our MOTY lists.

TLC Match: Baron Corbin vs. Braun Strowman

ER: It's a No DQ match so Gable, Angle, Crews and others just beat down Corbin so Corbin is removed from authority on Raw. But since I always fast forward through those kind of storylines I didn't actually have any horse in the game. I have no clue how Corbin has been as a leader, no clue what he had done to make him lame or whatever we were supposed to think, so I was way more interested in just seeing these two have an actual match. Corbin's best stuff has come in stips matches and the two could have done something cool. But I assume the crowd would have chosen this match over an actual match. And now I assume Vince will be back on Raw tomorrow specifically to say that Raw has sucked without him.

Tables Match: Natalya vs. Ruby Riott

ER: Nobody wants to see a Natalya featured story match, but I'm optimistic about this one as the Riott Squad has really shone when given the opportunity. And a couple minutes in we get the spot of the show so far when Riott is on the apron and Natalya runs to kick her off through a table set up on the floor, and Liv Morgan pushes her out of the way and takes a crazy backwards bump herself, right through the table. It looked great and snapped me into it. Natalya is a little clunky with some stuff, not really connecting when dropkicking a table into Sarah Logan, but the Squad is providing nice smoke and mirrors to this when Logan also goes through a table. There's some silly and kind of welcome melodramatics when Riott rubs Natalya's face onto a table they brought out with a picture of Natalya dead dad on it. Anvil coming out and interfering on behalf of his daughter is going to fuck people up BAD. Nice moment where Natalya gets Riott up in an electric chair but Riott manages to knock over the table should would have gone through, but Natalya drops her hard anyway. We get a wayyyy too long moment where Natalya pulls out a table with a full size Riott picture on it (but how is that a burn, is it some unwritten table code that going through a table with your picture on it somehow stings more? I'm not seeing how it's more humiliating). And once Natalya pulls out her dad's old ring jacket (Jesus how does that fit her so well? When was the slender Anvil period?) and does bad fake cry face you kind of know how the rest of the match was gonna go so I just wanted it over with. Natalya takes an eternity setting up the finishing spots but the powerbomb on Riott off the turnbuckles through the table looked good at least. I wish Natalya as the pushed winner of feuds wasn't a thing. This really could have been a big moment for Riott and a great heel moment for her to still win and leave Natalya crying. Natalya handling the entire Riott Squad all by herself is just wayyyy too much.

Drew McIntyre vs. Finn Balor

ER: McIntyre was so good on his post WWE indy run and I don't think he's been in anything that interested me since coming back. This one isn't going to be it. Balor is the pits and hits some absolutely comical offense in this one, it was embarrassing seeing Drew have to bump around for it. Balor's flying forearms couldn't crack an egg and his slingblade might be the worst version of any of the bad versions of that move. The best moments were McIntyre catching Balor with power spots, a big overhead belly to belly that launched him across the ring, a big back breaker, big air raid crash off the middle rope ("If he hits this it's over!" Graves says, which always guarantees we're getting a kickout). Ziggler interferes so the babyface can get a win which makes a lot of sense, but at least the big double foot stomp off the top looked really good. If Balor has to win, at least the move he won with looked better than the rest of his stuff. Last couple matches really felt like the wrong people won.

Chair Match: Rey Mysterio vs. Randy Orton

ER: Mysterio is decked out like a mini version of CMLL's Nitro (friend their live thinks he's doing an LA Park thing, and he does kinda have the gloves for it), and I'm down for this match. I weirdly liked Orton/Rey from Smackdown the most out of our WWE return Mysterio matches, they have good chemistry and haven't gotten stale even though they've worked matches dating back almost 15 years. Chairs are set all around ringside and there are a ton of them so it looks cool, looks like we could get some real mayhem. Neither guy skimps on shots in between chair moments, so it's cool when you don't see them just standing around, you get nice kicks, nice elbows, snug work in between the chair violence. We get a couple absolute banger chair spots, Rey slides belly first on a chair landing on Orton on the floor, and Rey crashes and burns on a Thesz press off the apron, crashing through a chair seat. Orton takes a headscissors that sends him into a chair in the corner, but rebounds with a nice snap powerslam to catch Rey. Graves starts talking about Randy Orton with a bunch of facts that make him sound like a sociopath date rapist, like "Orton is so good at luring people into a false sense of security" or "It's eerie how calm Orton remains while inflicting violence". So that needs to be workshopped a bit. Orton is always fun with Rey, knows how much of a bully to be with Rey's body, little actions like Rey climbing to the top and Orton just yanking his ankle with a snap of the wrist. The finish takes a little long to set up, with Orton lining up several opened chairs, but the finish itself was unique and cool: Orton tries to hit the RKO on the chairs, Rey stops it with a kick and hits a weird leg drag headscissors to send Orton face first into a chair, then hits a victory roll to a seated Orton. This was pretty easily the best match of the show so far,

Nia Jax vs. Ronda Rousey

ER: This was the match I was most excited about on paper, both have consistently delivered on the big stage this year. And I thought this was good but not as good as their best stuff. Ronda gets more confident literally every match at this point, but here I thought she maybe tried too much new stuff. Practically every weird bit of offense she pulls out winds up looking great, so I get the temptation to keep breaking out new stuff. This maybe felt a bit too much like new move exhibition in spots, even if her stuff is always cool. Nia is really big and wears it well, but I love how Ronda bounces off of her and how Nia tumbles. Ronda starts with peppered in strikes which is a way she's never really started a match, and you knew it was a matter of time before Nia caught her. When she eventually does with a big sit out powerbomb it's a cool moment, great looking bomb. Ronda has some cool reversals, a rana out of another powerbomb attempt, and I liked her fun super hang time superman punch. Nia breaks outs some stuff I love, her elbowdrop might be the best on the roster right now and is somehow weirdly the most Stan Hansen elbow on the roster; plus, she always hits and misses her legdrops with authority, and her miss was a good one. Ronda always has at least one nutty bump in a match it seems, and here there's an awesome moment where Nia smashes her arm into the ringpost (even though that didn't really seem to go anywhere). We get some awesome monkey bars spots as Ronda slips out of a cool vertical suplex into a standing rear naked and climbs all over Nia's body, and Ronda hits one of the finest crossbodies to the floor, Nia taking it with an awesome catch. The finish stretch was good though not quite as exciting as past big Ronda matches, not as dynamic of a build, but some great Ronda trash talking as she kisses Nia's fist before locking on the armbar. I really wouldn't mind if these two had more matches.

AJ Styles vs. Daniel Bryan

ER: These guys are both clearly great wrestlers, but I kinda want to see Bryan against someone else at this point. This is the 4th AJ/Bryan singles match we've gotten since Bryan came back, and they've all been fun but I'm a fan of new match ups. I was much more excited for the Mustafa Ali match this past week. I have no doubt this will be good, it's just a good thing that I've seen a lot. They've fought in WWE this year almost as much as they fought in 5 years together working the same indies. Match is kind of weird as it's slow and worked deliberately (which I dig) but the announcers keep talking about how "emotionally" each man is presenting himself. "Look at the emotion Styles is showing" as Styles is throwing a chop, "Bryan showing a lot of emotion here" as Bryan throws a kick to the liver. An announcer I don't know paints Bryan as questionable because "he never wants to have a fun time". I don't understand any of these motivations. But the boys are taking their time and it starts to pay off, Bryan working this slow mocking style with ramped up stiffness makes for some damn good Bryan. Bryan is practically acting like Naoya Ogawa as he runs into the corner to hit multiple hard dropkicks, Styles knocks Bryan silly with a lariat, Bryan hits the nastiest spot of the show when he grabs Styles in a cravate and hits a bunch of sharp knees to the side of the head before throwing him by the neck. Bryan is throwing his kicks harder than normal and working cool slapping body shots, like Bryan is just trying to work a 90s Japan shoot fight gimmick. They do a couple things down the stretch I don't like, the head kick countered with a head kick feels way too indy epic. But they do a bunch of cool stuff around Styles wrenching Bryan's ankle, hitting a fast and violent dragon screw, wrapping it around the ringpost, working a super visually effective half crab and the great calf crusher, all of that stuff was awesome. On the floor we get some cool gymnastics with Styles leaping the barricade into the timekeeper's station and blasts Bryan with a hard elbow when he comes rushing in. Finish even feels like a tribute to Bryan working PWG, getting the win with a small package battle. Needed him getting dizzy doing an airplane spin and dizzily dropkicking the turnbuckle. This was a really hard hitting match, paced in a cool deliberate style that gave it a cool fight feel. We've gotten three really good ones right in a row.

Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins

ER: Oh no what's happening my WWE Network is skipping at 5x speed through this entire match oh no what is going on?

TLC Match: Asuka vs. Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch

ER: This was kind of a tale of two matches for me, sometimes switching back and forth between those two matches. It was a violent match, but also a match that took too long and looked too unnatural in endless spot set up. The former was great, the latter was tired. But it was worth sitting through the latter to get to the former. We got some great nastiness, Lynch splashed Charlotte through the announce table, except the table didn't really give so we actually got Lynch's body basically bouncing off Charlotte's ribs. And I flipped out when Charlotte hit a spear on Asuka that sent them crashing through the ringside barricade. That's a spot that was done with such conviction that it would have worked great no matter what happened to the wall. The way the wall buckled on impact looked really cool, and if it hadn't budged I think Charlotte would have compressed all her vertebrae with the speed she was charging. Charlotte also hit a big moonsault to the floor that kinda dropped Lynch and Asuka like she was doing a wild reverse DDT, and did a dumb-as-Jeff Hardy senton through Lynch on a table. Guh. While I didn't love all the work and thought the stipulation actually got in the way of them just beating ass, they worked the match like they honestly didn't like each other and that added a lot to the vibe. It needed that, and they knew it. The finish totally works and I'm happy to see Asuka back with the belt. She's taken the backseat to some super emerging women over the last year (since her big Rumble win a year ago you have Ronda debuting, Becky moving to the next level, Charlotte being a wildly resurgent heel, Bliss stepping into her heel role, Nia delivering in big matches) so I like moving her back to more spotlight with the title, while Charlotte and Lynch didn't get knocked down a peg at all. They can all continue to fight and it'll continue getting over, which is awesome. I thought this was a step below some of their other stuff together, but it was still a great way to cap a PPV.

Read more!