Found Footage Friday: ABBY~! KIMALA II~! RUSHER~! INOUE~! ORTON~! TAKER~! OMNI~!

Abdullah the Butcher/Giant Kimala II vs. Rusher Kimura/Mighty Inoue AJPW 12/1/90

MD: Big IWE stars vs. monsters energy here, even if Rusher and Inoue were up in the years. This overachieved from my expectations, which were set in part for seeing Abby in so many short, abruptly ending tags from this era and from seeing Rusher in so many comedy matches. I love those matches by the way, but that wasn't going to work here.

What we got instead was pretty gruesome actually. Rusher bled early and they worked over the wound with headbutts, chops, and Abby just sticking his finger in the wound awesome. When Inoue got in, he turned the tables, sitting up on Abby's shoulders and poking him repeatedly with the fork until he dropped back. Then he kept it going with a bunch of awesome headlock punches until Kimala broke it up. The kept things rolling with a couple of chairshots from the outside in. Pretty valiant stuff.

Even the finish had one or two more rotations than I was expecting as Abby hit his cool Angle Slam type suplex but Inoue survived it only to get crushed with the throat shot/elbow drop combo. Post-match, Abby and Kimala bowed to all four sides. Not a lost classic but I'd say still well worth your time.

ER: This was disgusting, extremely violent, not far off from Great. Matt said gruesome and that's a good word for it. This wasn't a Fork Stabbing Abby match, this was built around punching and bleeding and digging into cuts. The match is helped by the HD of these new episodes of AJ Classics, as the second Abby is stabbing his fingers into Rusher's head I knew they weren't going to hold back. Abdullah's stiff fingered thrusts and jabs looked so painful, and it is 50-50 whether or not he had some kind of blade in his finger tape, because Rusher's head bled quick and Abby's fingertips were soon soaked red. Kimura's blood ran in rivulets down his chest and Abby dug his fingers into Rusher's cuts and the rest of his face. It was disgusting and the cameras zoomed in close on it to show the savagery. 

But these IWE guys are tough, so when Rusher finally tags in Might Inoue, Inoue shoot punches Abby in the head a couple dozen times and it's incredible. Inoue enters the ring climbing onto Abby's shoulders and just punches and stabs away at his head. Did we know Inoue was hiding a sharp object that he was going to use to scrape and stab at Abby's head while throwing shoot hammerfists? Abdullah the Butcher doesn't stab a single soul in this match with a fork, but Mighty Inoue introduces a weapon with no warning? Maybe this match is actually greater than great. When they both go down, Inoue grabs him in a headlock and throws sick blood wet splat punches repeatedly as the camera is again right on top of these slasher movie visuals. Every time Inoue ran and flew at Abby with a headbutt, you could hear his head actually smacking into Butcher's chin! He hits one in the ropes to knock Abby to the floor, and more in the ring. Great spot. Inoue's flipping senton is always so cool. It hits with impact but has the flourish and showmanship of French Catch. Abby rolling just out of the way of a senton and leading to him massacring Inoue's throat was a great late match sudden turn. Abby's Angle Slam is a really great spot and I love when he breaks it out. Using his bulk to perform weight physics is an Abby we don't get to see as often as Stabbing Abby. 

Kimala II was the odd man out in this, and he usually is, which is why I always look forward to Kimala II matches. He is the weirdest All Japan regular during their extended run of high expectancy ring work. He is clumsy, he doesn't work anywhere near as stiff as the style demands, he falls weird on offense, and despite being in his mid 20s he moves about as well as Abdullah the Butcher. But he torpedoes into the action at fun times, including a big bump thrown through the ropes to the floor. He's probably the thing holding this match from being legitimately great, but you can't deny the crowd excitement when he started slapping his belly. 

Dustin Rhodes/Ricky Steamboat/Shane Douglas vs. Steve Austin/Brian Pillman/Barry Windham WCW 2/7/93

MD: We get the last eight minutes of this and then a big post-match brawl. On the one hand, it's a shame we lose out on the elimination match because it sounds amazing on paper, but we're better off for what we do get here than nothing at all. Part of that is because Steamboat looks like the best babyface in the world here. Some of it is the way this is shot with no commentary. It just feels closer up, right in the midst of the action, and Steamboat working from underneath here is just transcendent. The way he moves his body, expanding and contracting, hanging on to the ropes, finding strength within, expressing pain and writhing emotion, is just over the top great. 

And Austin, in his own way, is almost as good. He's put upon, frustrated, aggravated that Steamboat refuses to quite, that he paints himself as so sympathetic a figure, that he dares to appeal to his humanity. At one point, Steamboat ... it's not begging off, I wouldn't say he's begging off, but he does seem to call for some level of mercy, maybe just to get things back on a more even playing field, but Austin, framing it perfectly, timing it as dramatically as possible, cinematically in a way that would only work in footage like this, that would be overwrought or overproduced on TV, literally spits on the effort. That makes it all the more poignant when Steamboat, in the midst of his big comeback, blows a mist of spit himself later on. Just really primal stuff.

That stays through into the chaotic post-match, bodies flying and violence ebbing and flowing and ebbing again. Weirdly enough, Shane Douglas might have stood out the most here, as he came off as a real powerhouse. Still, this post match, as good as it was and with a real sense of consequence for matches to come, comes off a little like a consolation prize for the elimination match we didn't get. Still, what a look at Steamboat and Austin.

Kurt Angle vs. Undertaker vs. Randy Orton vs. Mark Henry WWE 3/3/06

MD: House show match from the vault from Australia. I was expecting to see Henry assert himself. That was the draw, but really this was all about Randy Orton, especially but not only him reacting to Undertaker. It's a bit clipped and we come in after entrances with him preening in the corner only to turn around and find Taker there, going for a handshake before he gets rocked with punches. It's easy to joke about the Kyle Fletcher parallels but he was around 26 here and they're clearer here than at almost any other point of his career as best as I can remember.

This is not a version of Orton I remember well, but he was pretty effective even if I did see the strings at times. Plus it was a house show so they really played into it. There was a bit where he teased getting knocked into the crowd three or four times before finally landing on a fan's lap and thanking her after the fact. It was all pretty funny stuff. Plus he was flying around as a menace throughout, including dashing from one opportunistic pin to the next.

Angle was a bit of a non-factor overall, in part due to his current persona, I think, but just because Undertaker and Orton were taking up so much air. And then Henry just seemed there to cut people off at times. He did it effectively but his role could have been much more interesting. Still, this was fun for what it was, but it would have probably worked just as well as two singles matches. 

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Eric's WWE Survivor Series Live Blog 11/21/21

ER: Gotta say, it's pretty difficult to find much interest in WWE's programming these days. These constant roster cuts have turned things into the worst possible Oakland Athletics team, where any single one of my favorite wrestlers to watch could be pushed on one program and then released the next day. WWE hasn't been paying off storylines for a long time, making that aspect of their product completely pointless to follow, but still had a roster with a ton of people capable of great matches on any given night. But no wrestler allowed to get past a certain level of popularity, combined with my favorites to watch being on the chopping block every day, and absolutely terrible direction  - the biggest wrestling promotion in history has been presenting the literal worst visual wrestling presentation for several years now - has made this a nearly impossible promotion to get behind and enjoy. I know next to nothing about this card, but I have a tragically boring Sunday afternoon with a sudden hole in it so let's see if they give us something worth showing interest in. 

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Damian Priest

ER: This was at its best during the first half, before the part of the Damian Priest match where every exchange became a reversal of a sloppily thrown spin kick. I like Damian Priest when he throws strikes intended to land; I hate Damian Priest when he throws a strike intended to set up an opponent's strike, which is then thrown to set up Damian Priest's strike. This match was a 50-50 blend of those two Priests, and it kept things from being as good as they could have been. Nakamura isn't without flaw, but it's tough to not look like you're messing things up when you're forced to wait in place for someone's in-ring springboard axe handle reversal. Long story short: The parts where they hit each other were fun, the parts where they missed each other were dumb. 

I am so sick of seeing The Rock in every piece of media. I have had my official fill of The Rock. You gave us Rampage and we will always have that but I am tired of seeing The Rock be The Rock in things. 

Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte

ER: Regardless of how much I don't love this specific kind of match build, where both people just come off like unlikeable smarmy assholes and the heel is the one who I guess is more of an asshole, we can all agree that Becky Lynch's Toxic tribute ring gear is perhaps her greatest all time look. That's a look that feels more important than a match with an uneven worked shoot build. The two people in the ring couldn't back up the build even if the energy felt there at times. Energy can be enough to turn something like this great, but it needed to be done without Charlotte's canned ham. You needed more shit like Becky ripping out a bit of Charlotte's hair to prevent a figure 4 reversal, and less of Charlotte doing Andrade tribute offense that makes her look like George Costanza running through pigeons. Charlotte looks like a total klutz who can't hit the broad side of a barn, and after every Lynch kickout you never know where the Al Pacino overacting dial is going to land. Charlotte has the gift of making it really obvious when she is maneuvering into position for offense, while also being really bad about being in place for offense. The moonsaults looked as bad as ever, and doing a bunch of handspring moonsaults that don't connect in the middle of a worked shoot atmosphere is just the stupidest kind of energy. Bad finish that doesn't resolve anything doesn't do anyone any favors, and surely guarantees more of the exact same build to another similar match. 

Bobby Lashley/Austin Theory/Finn Balor/Kevin Owens/Seth Rollins vs. Xavier Woods/Jeff Hardy/Sheamus/Baron Corbin/Drew McIntyre

ER: When the rosters of two different TV shows have been pointlessly churned with seemingly no communication to talent, it's a bit much to sell a 5 on 5 match expressly under the banner of Brand Bragging Rights. I could not imagine caring less about a team from Smackdown beating a team from Raw, and if there are fanbases of people who have allegiances to either Raw or Smackdown but not both, then I cannot imagine that will ever be me. Best to watch a match like this as a match randomly generated by your AKI engine, since WWE's roster at this point has the consistency of me frequently erasing wrestlers and making new CAWs in No Mercy. And as a low stakes 10 man elimination match, it settles into a very fun match very quickly. Corbin was the early standout, loved his big right hands and how good he is at creating openings and setting up spots for Balor. Woods drops a great leaping fistdrop, Sheamus runs in with a leaping knee, Drew runs in with a kick, it's a cool team working in a good rhythm. These matches are about rhythm and if everyone keeps it reasonably well, it is automatically good. You just need them to be as well oiled as any All Japan Senior Circuit trios match. 

Balor sticks Corbin with the double stomp which looked good, but a shame because Corbin was the guy here who best knew how to tie this into an Actual Match. Austin Theory is someone I enjoyed in his NXT role, who feels completely fish out of water in this match. I buy him on NXT. I do not yet buy him moving Sheamus. With Corbin gone, we quickly wind into Drew/Lashley. Now, I think McIntyre and Lashley are two of the better guys in current WWE, but for the past couple years it has felt like EVERY match has come down to Lashley vs. McIntyre. It is a good pairing that also makes me feel like I'm trapped in time. Still, give me all of Bobby Lashley's big ass backdrop bump from the crowd to ringside. I think the steam gets taken out of this way too early and then continues too long after. Once it settled down to a Rollins/Theory vs. Sheamus/Hardy tag if felt like a house show tag between guys who don't know how to work a good house show tag. I will hoover up the slop on any random WWF house show handheld from the early 90s, but is there anyone out there who would get excited to watch a Sheamus/Hardy vs. Rollins/Theory handheld? This went on too long for what it overall accomplished, and I think it was a mistake to make this seem like a long epic instead of a quick paced showcase. Nobody could look at this match and think it makes for a useful Brand Showcase, and if a Brand Supremacy match can't do that then what did it really do? 

Vince needs to do more eccentric unhinged billionaire stuff like silently pantomime with a golden egg, because what the fuck else would we need from him at this point? 

This Brand Battle Royal is not a serious match and doesn't need to be considered as one. This is a Pizza Hut commercial and not a battle royal, and we don't need to act like this matters and that Colored T-Shirt Wrestling isn't one of the stupider features of modern WWE Survivor Series. 

The Usos vs. Randy Orton/Matt Riddle

ER: A not bad tag that relies on the strong timing of Randy Orton and Jey Uso. Riddle has been having a tough to watch year, with some of the worst vignettes and listless in-ring. We all get in ruts and his rut has been difficult to see so frequently this year. But it's fairly effective have him sell, run into nicely timed Jey Uso superkicks, and make dumb faces until making the big hot tag to Orton. Orton has always been a strong apron guy and he's been utilizing his apron work well in this tag team. Apron work is one of those skills that will keep on aging wrestler's floor high with me, and I like how Orton keeps leaning on it as a strength. He's good at tossing Usos around and hitting snap powerslams, and his RKO on the Jey superfly splash looked like a great finish. This match benefitted from its lackluster surroundings, but still earned enough of its status as "the best this show has given us".

Bianca Belair/Carmella/Liv Morgan/Rhea Ripley/Zelina Vega vs. Sasha Banks/Shayna Baszler/Toni Storm/Shotzi Blackheart/Natalya 

ER: I like how this looks on paper, this looks like a match I want to see! The women all have blue/red-accented gear is such a better look than the t-shirts. This looks like a real joshi final battle where everyone is taking this seriously. Guys wrestling in red t-shirts look like employees participating in a mandatory 5K.  The pace of this match is much better than the pace of the men's match. It's a shame Carmella went out so early, but Natalya did that weird thing where she memorably shows up in a match with 10 people, and I liked Baszler rolling on the mat with Ripley. The match was already the most fun of the night when we got to the great Sasha/Bianca section. WrestleMania feels like an eternity ago but their match was the best WWE match of this year and their in-ring chemistry still has a lot to offer. When they're in the ring together they really feel like the two biggest stars in the company, the two closest to being chopped down, and there are few people who actually feel like stars when I watch them. Bianca's kip-ups look punched with confidence and Sasha is able to convey the same kind of "can you believe this shit?" attitude Charlotte shouts to the back row but using only her eyes. 

Sadly, we hit a bad patch right after those two megastars made the crowd sit up and pay attention, with some quick eliminations and suddenly several women all lying dead around the ringside area selling mystery injuries. This isn't a ladder match, why are they all suddenly doing ladder match disappearance selling? A few dumb do-si-do moments on the floor lead to a Sasha count out in completely unsatisfying fashion, and the way Bianca goes from being down 4-1 to eliminating Baszler and Shotzi felt forced and cheap. The disappearance selling takes away a lot of the charm of a charismatic Survivor Series match, a series that can benefit from apron work. These women get so out of sight while selling nothing that you forget who is even still in the match! You could have made Belair look really really good while also having her plausibly fight off Shotzi and Baszler, but this felt like suddenly everybody had to be somewhere and it killed the buzz. 

Big E vs. Roman Reigns

ER: I think this was a good match, but these Roman matches have really become the blown out 150 minute MCU epic instead of the tight 90 minute action and stunts movies that he could be having. This was a long show, filled with long matches that mostly didn't deliver, and you need to be better at reading the arena than this main event was. This was a cold, tired crowd and that did not lead to any kind of pace being pushes AT ALL. That said, Roman did his specific thing that - love it or hate it - did turn a dead silent crowd into a slightly more involved crowd the longer he stuck to his routine, and there's some respect there. In its favor, even though the melodrama of them getting to the action was at times too much, when the action was gotten to it looked like a well done Godzilla/Mothra collision. Big E took some hard bumps for Roman's biggest stuff, and that uranage on the shoulders looked deadly. Roman's punches all looked big and the deadlift powerbomb was impressive. I wish we could have made this more of an unpredictable Brock bombfest and gotten out of here quicker, but they made the good stuff look good and that stands out on this show. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daniel Bryan vs. Roman Reigns

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

Matt Riddle vs. John Morrison vs. Bobby Lashley 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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WWE Hell in a Cell Approximately Live Blog 10/25/20

I think this show has a chance to have a couple big match deliveries, as Sasha/Bayley and Reigns/Uso both have strong on paper potential. Phil has a rare Sunday evening free so will also be sitting in and contributing to a couple cherry picked matches. And Jeff Jarrett is there? Jeff Jarrett is with WWE now? Is it weird I want to see Jarrett wrestling in NXT? 

R-Truth vs. Drew Gulak

ER: I don't follow the 24/7 title so I do not understand any of the Little Jimmy references that Drew Gulak is making. Does Truth have an imaginary child friend that accompanies him? I don't know about any of that. Is Drew Gulak bringing his Chikara mime training into the WWE where I don't want it? This is perhaps the most Chikara match I have seen Gulak work in WWE, and it's a bummer that it feels like he had those great silent era matches with Daniel Bryan and then opted to take him off TV. Now he's bumping for Truth's John Cena cosplay (which might also be a regular thing? Again I haven't seen 24/7). This looked like they would get the comedy out of the way right at the beginning and then work their way into a good match, with Gulak twisting Truth's ankle and dropping down with Indian deathlocks. But the Cena comeback jokes came really early into the match, and went right through to the end. During the straight faced moments of the match they had real nice chemistry, and that delayed sunset flip snare was pulled off by two guys who could have turned several cool sequences. I don't think we're ever getting that match though. 

Jey Uso vs. Roman Reigns

PAS: I think this ended up being a bit much. Samoan acting is more visceral than white boy acting, so this match was better than the super dramatic NXT matches. It came close, and I bought most of the emotional beats of this match, but it was really long and there was long sections of conversation and emoting and not a ton of wrestling. I also really need more violence in the Roman goes-too-far section of the match. That stair-assisted dropkick looked like something that Tommy Dreamer didn't cleanly hit in a comedy hardcore match, not something that showed Reigns lost his soul or whatever it was supposed to convey. I thought the spears looked great and Roman has a nasty guillotine, and that the finish worked well. It needed to be about 10 minutes shorter and Jey's white pants needed some blood for it to totally work for me. Afa and Sika at the end was awesome though, and I imagine this leads to Rock vs. Roman for the true head seat at the table which should be incredible. 

ER: Is this really the first WWE I Quit in five years? But I am not really enjoying this. I am not a fan of these Marvel battles where guys speak dialogue to each other before taking theatrical bumps and gnashing their teeth at the lights. If they were doing this on a windy green grass hillside cliff I could possibly get into it more. It does not work for me as pro wrestling, and it does not work for me as high drama. It was like they were doing a musical so the story took 5x as long to tell itself, ended up going way too long, and had too much dramatic build between each bit of wrestling. The spears were spaced well and I enjoyed things like Jey scrambling to choke Roman with the strap, but this dialogue thing is boring as hell to me. I don't think guys sound cool while barking one sentence "in a fight" platitudes. I think this stuff is really terrible, at least this presentation of it. I think I Quit match structure can already have a lot of lags and downtime, but they were dragging things down with dialogue AND I quit back and forth, which means we got a ton of lying around, far too much talking, and far too much of the ref asking if Jey wanted to quit every couple seconds. The only benefit of having this long slog of a match first is that the show still has plenty of time to recover. I liked the Wild Samoans appearance at the end and even though this match bored me to tears I would be undeniably excited by a Reigns/Rock match. 

Elias vs. Jeff Hardy

ER: I've been into comeback Jeff Hardy, and I'm fully into appreciating Hardy as an all time great at this point. But this kind of thing feels like a Raw angle and not something that needed to be on PPV. 

The Miz vs. Otis

ER: I really liked this and how it felt like a late 80s Saturday Night's Main Event match. They worked straight and that benefitted the match, and I loved everything after Otis's big babyface shirt tear. This was a strong Otis babyface performance. He ran into a Miz boot and looked tough as Miz was laying in kicks to the chest. But the wild man shirt tear Otis was him having the fun kind of breakout that will keep someone memorable and durable, like Jim Duggan. Otis hit a great spinning lariat and smashed into Miz, felt like a guy who would be getting huge potential reactions if we had crowds. It isn't hard to picture Otis catching on as a durable cult character with crowds, the same way Santino was but even more pushable as a wrestler. The Tucker turn could have gotten a surprised reaction from the crowd too, like or love where they go with it. This was pretty easily the best match so far on this show, but I hope we get something stronger. 

Sasha Banks vs. Bayley

ER: I am very very excited for this. For the past year plus Sasha has been one of the only people in WWE who actually makes me WATCH. She has had several stretches like this over her career, and has been a consistently great wrestler and character for the better part of a decade now. I think her work in this Bayley feud has arguably been the best of her career. And I liked this match and much preferred their method of storytelling, even if they didn't quite take things the direction I would have wanted. I liked the emotion and I liked a lot of the brawling and selling, but I didn't love the stretches where it became a propped up weapons showcase. When you actually fighting each other gets way more heat than making arts and crafts weapons, just go for the easier option of fighting each other. Sasha contributes the best parts of this for me, but they're a good pair. I loved Sasha's tope and her being crazy enough to get the back of her head whipped into a chair on a sunset flip. She's a CZW wrestler doing joshi drama and it rules. She gets trapped in the ring skirt in a cool way and is a strong enough salesman that the beatings she takes are always more convincing. All of the fighting was great, and all of Sasha's assorted meteoras looked awesome. But the prop set up slowed things unnecessarily, as a strong match was right in front of them with much simpler weapon usage. But Sasha was great at throwing herself face first into ladders and chairs, and her comebacks always played strong. The finish was great, with a Banks Statement around a chair a nasty worthy way to end a long title reign. Banks could honestly be the biggest female star in WWE history. I think she has great potential to break out on a big level. 

PAS: I thought had some very good moments, but ultimately went too long. It felt like a big time Indy wrestling stips match that didn't know when to end. They had a bunch of cool ideas and crazy bumps, and if they had picked four of them and built the match around those four moments it could have been awesome, instead they had twenty ideas and it kind of just kept going. I thought the finish of the match was awesome as was all of Sasha's double knee variations into parts of the cage. They undoubtedly took a ton of cool looking punishment, but at some point twenty five concussive shots with weapons just drags on.

 

Bobby Lashley vs. Slapjack

ER: Okay Bobby Lashley vs. SLAPJACK might be one of the weirder singles matches to land on a WWE PPV. Shane Thorne has never been on a WWE PPV, and hadn't even appeared on a TakeOver in four years. But here he is, debuting on PPV as Slapjack, and I think that is a kind of fun odd thing? It's a fun quick match, with Slapjack bumping around nice on Irish whips into the buckles and flies around for every Lashley throw. His comebacks were convincing and the big schmozz finish was used better here than the Hardy/Elias match. This was a nice palate cleanser and honestly the most interesting use for Retribution might be as a jobber stable. A stable of masked jobbers who all bump makes a ton of sense. Their faces are even covered so you don't have to see their shamed faces. WWE doesn't need revolution angles. They need 6-8 masked jobbers to flesh out their undercards and get fucking worked over by more interesting people. A dedicated crew of people who never win and nobody expects to win, bringing back showcase squash matches and 90/10 mildly competitive matches to establish new offense and alternate finishers. Do that and it will be a more successful idea than whatever Retribution ever leads to. 

Drew McIntyre vs. Randy Orton

ER: This was boring and not at all what I want from pro wrestling. They do not do this high drama wrestling as stage craft bullshit well, and it is infecting these shows. This show especially feels like ACTING has been featured far too much. They're taking advantage of the Our Town set up and getting a little bit too confident with their stage chops. This was slow and masturbatory and I couldn't stay engaged in any way. The end. 

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WWE Summerslam 8/23/20 Taking My Sweet Time Blog

I am not expecting a whole lot from this show, and those shows can sneak up and surprise me. It feels like I've been saying that about every show the last year +, and that's probably because I have not been excited by many on paper lineups they've been throwing out there. But good matches are always a possibility. Sadly, this card doesn't feature Pat McAfee, so good matches on this show aren't as likely. Also, sad to see Renee Young leaving, but obviously she is talented enough to just not be in wrestling. Her commentary with Regal during 2014 NXT is some of my favorite WWE commentary of the decade, and she was never properly utilized after that on any important program. Honestly, she stuck it out longer in WWE than made sense, and I'm sure she's going to crush wherever she winds up.


Apollo Crews vs. MVP

ER: Pre show matches deliver more often than not, and this one added to the "delivered" bucket. MVP working as an opportunist is a fun undercard thing to see, loved him shooting for a kneebar to start the match, then just blindsiding Crews while the ref separated them. His superplex was sloppy, but in a way that kind of added to it and made it feel impactful. MVP also throws his strikes with more immediacy, which is one of Crews' shortcomings. In fact the weakest part of this match was Crews seemingly holding way back on a lot of his offense. He was treating MVP like he was mid 90s Giant Baba, barely touching him with his forearm strikes, and hitting these weird weak avalanches. That was mainly a problem earlier in the match, as once he hit his nice flip dive he felt a little more normal in the ring. The match finishing dead lift blue thunder bomb ruled, and Crews needs to do more cool stuff life that.

Asuka vs. Bayley

ER: I really liked this, but felt like it lost a lot of steam in the final minute or two. They kept up a hot pace, with Asuka coming off nicely chaotic and Bayley scrambling on her heels. Asuka hits the flying hip attack to knock Bayley to the floor, and Bayley manages to take Asuka's flatliner type move off the ring steps and distracted from the fact that Asuka was splatting with a hard back bump. Bayley's scream and sell of that move was so effective in making that spot work. I liked Asuka going after Bayley's arm (even though it really didn't lead to much), and liked a couple of the spots where Bayley went after Asuka's leg. Even though Bayley's actual heel hook looked really awful, the moment where she turned an Asuka missile dropkick into the heel hook was awesome. After that there were a couple hinky moments, like Asuka waiting bent at the waist waaaay too long to take a sunset flip bomb in the corner. The finish was good and a nice call back to the beginning, and I thought the execution was great: Asuka hits the hip attack to knock Sasha off the apron, and Bayley grabs her with a small package off the ropes. Looked great. I don't have a strong opinion either way on whether Asuka should have won or lost, as I'm a fan of both acts, dig what Sasha/Bayley have been doing and have no problem with them dominating the belts.

Andrade/Angel Garza vs. Street Profits

ER: I think this might have been helped by a live audience. That sounds like an obvious statement, but I think these kinds of matches are really hurt by no crowd. The kind of match that plays like a cold tag or a fun Smackdown match depending on the crowd sounds, like a AAAA center fielder. It's mostly the Andrade show, with Garza practically playing this like a handicap match past a certain point. They worked over Ford and I love how they cut him off by catching the top con hilo and powerbombing him on the floor. That spot could have looked overly planned, but it came off smooth and then mean. They set up the Dawkins hot tag well, and I like his big man leaping back elbow. That move was used by a lot of mid 80s WWF guys, one that I associate with that era, and even though I'm sure he's not consciously doing it because of that, I still like seeing it. Andrade's fake out pump kick into the back elbow always looks great, and I love how hard Dawkins bit on dodging that kick and eating that elbow. Somebody's wrist tape even flies out when the elbow lands, and gear getting knocked off someone after a big impact move is never not awesome. The Street Profits as an act don't do a lot for me overall, and Vega's team actually needs to win occasionally but instead they always seem to go down clean as a sheet. Ah well.

Sonya Deville vs. Mandy Rose

ER: I wish this was worked under different circumstances, as it really shouldn't have taken this long to give these two some kind of PPV showcase singles match. The incident that happened to Deville is genuinely terrifying and it was pretty incredible she went out there and made the best of it. Oh god she wasn't forced to go out there and do this was she? Anyway, I wish this match was better, because they went out there and tried to do the right match. The stip got changed and the feud got cut short and it sucks that things turned out this way. They went out and had the No DQ fight they should have had, it just didn't look great. Rose is someone who has killed it in every house show match I've seen her in, and for whatever reason it does not come off on TV. Whatever crowd connection that I've witnessed firsthand several times is mostly gone on TV. She comes off flat and kind of dead eyed, and I think people think I'm lying about her house show work. It's No DQ, they try to throw a lot of strikes, and a lot of the strikes don't look good. Mandy does this weird thing where she just doesn't sell a lot of Sonya's elbows, just kind of holds still while Deville is throwing blows. They wanted to have a tough fight, and their heart was in the right place.

Even though a lot of it didn't look great, the bar has been lowered a lot this year and even just a match that at minimum aims to work within the story instead of having a "great match" is going to win me over. I liked Mandy trying to slide chairs off a table into Sonya's face, feels like a reckless spot where a camera guy can take a shot in the balls or something. Sonya is also someone who hasn't translated as well as it feels like she should. It didn't help when WWE brought in a bunch of actual MMA women right after she got on TV, but she's also dropped a lot of the MMA stuff that she actually did quite well. I'm sure she could have been told "hey don't work like all of these actual MMA women we brought in", but I also like the fact that she's someone who throws sidekicks without kickpads. Mandy threw some hard knees to make up for her weird strike selling, and there were a couple of nasty spills on hard surfaces. Again, it was the match they should have had and that counts for a lot, and I'm glad it happened. And it's honestly hard to care as much about a match like this when it's so closely related to an actual Manhunter fucking Tooth Fairy incident (incel-dent?), but there were small amounts of carny "on with the show" joy here.

Seth Rollins vs. Dominic Mysterio

ER: No matter how this match goes, Dominic took one of the best on screen beatdowns of the past 5 years, and that can't be taken away from him. The cane beating would have gotten over with a mid 90s ECW Arena crowd, and that's more cool carny wrestling bullshit to find sicko joy in. We are truly blessed getting a Pat McAfee match one night and Dominik Mysterio's debut a night later. Wrestling debuts (yeah yeah I know Pat worked a match a decade ago, it's fair to call this a debut) are always exciting for me. I love seeing how much someone "gets" and what nuanced (if any) part of wrestling they understand from match one. Now, even with that beatdown angle, I haven't been able to get into this feud at all. Rollins is so dull to me, and Dominik really isn't a great actor, in ring or out. I was more excited for the McAfee debut, and that was in a match with ADAM COLE! McAfee/Cole felt like a perfect amount of time to deliver the story they needed to. Yes, it should have ended after McAfee's punt to the chest, and we didn't need Adam Cole's home stretch acting chops, but it was laid out fantastically. This match went too long, and the smoke and mirrors weren't anywhere near as satisfying. Rey and his wife did what they could, and I dug their Louis Vuitton gear. And Dominik did really well for a first match! He hit some fairly complicated stuff, missed a real nasty splash into Rollins' knees, and looked like he belonged. If you saw him at your local indy and this was his first match in, you'd be leaving the gymnasium and at least bring him up positively on the ride home. There was a good match in here, even if this wasn't it. I'm more interested in what Dominik does next.

Sasha Banks vs. Asuka

ER: This was the match I was most excited for. Sasha is probably the wrestler who I like the most, without ever thinking to answer "Sasha Banks" when thinking about wrestler I like the most. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I *always* get excited for big Sasha singles matches. I think she has easily been the women's MVP over the past 5 years, and I think she's easily the most consistent and delivers more often in big matches than the rest of the 4 horsewomen, and she has by far the most natural charisma of the 4. This was the match I was most excited for, and it delivered. These two both took some shots, it felt like it peaked perfectly and ended right where it should have, and the way they laid into each other made it feel important. Sasha went after Asuka's leg and it backfired, as Asuka just started throwing kicks, and I love Sasha when she realize a plan isn't working. The match is tough right from go, loved Asuka yanking Sasha off the apron into a kneebar, felt like a cool dickhead babyface thing to do. Asuka hits ringpost on a kick and winds up eating a nasty powerbomb off the apron to the floor, big THUD sound. Both flew gleefully into moves that targeted their heads, Asuka taking that powerbomb and then immediately eating a head kick, Asuka later landing a DDT off the middle rope that Sasha takes on her face. Sasha is great at taking Asuka's offense, they're an awesome super complementary pairing. Sasha takes the missile dropkick better than any other heel, her bumps less athletic but more ragdoll and interesting. I love their dueling arm and leg work, the battle over the Asuka Lock and Banks Statement is a strong finishing stretch. The double callback hip attack finish was handled well, and the tap for the Asuka Lock felt nicely triumphant. Sasha Banks really deserves a lot of praise for the character work and personality she's brought to the empty arena era. And this was her strongest match of the year.

Randy Orton vs. Drew McIntyre

ER: Very low expectations for this one, which may be to the benefit of the match. Orton starts with a lot of smug stalling, which is the closest we get to Jacques Rougeau style buffoonish smug stalling. It's not anywhere near as good, but I like the tradition. This is a slow paced match, but it felt more natural in its pace than the other purposely slow "dramatic" matches from this weekend. This felt hard fought in its slow pace, and that makes this kind of thing work. Orton is someone I have to be in the right mindset for these days, but he can still work within that window of interest. I liked him spamming RKO attempts early after weaseling out of contact, then ramping things up to meaner stuff like two back suplexes on the unbreaking announce table. McIntyre's spinebuster to comeback looked good and the overhead belly to belly landed heavy. I liked it a bit less once we went into the longish feeling second half, where it felt like it was based entirely on attempts at Signature Offense. The stuff where Orton was just stomping on him and dropping him from a high place where stronger. Still, for a modern WWE title match epic, this felt above average. I wish we could have just had Drew pin Orton with the Claymore kick. Randy Orton is fucking 40, guys. Let a dude in his mid 30s win with his finisher. Let a 6'5 265 lb. guy win a match differently than a Terry Taylor finish.

Braun Strowman vs. Bray Wyatt

ER: It's sad when a match between two heavy dudes doesn't inspire me. They keep it short and to the point, and for that I am thankful. But this should be more exciting. The chokeslam into the announce table looked hard and the spear through the barricade was a nice crash. But this felt kind of stale on arrival. This should feel bigger and be cooler, and it shouldn't be that hard. It wasn't terrible by any means. The Braun powerslams where impressive and Wyatt's tool box attack had a stupid 1999 quality to them. Both a pretty uninteresting to me at this point (think of the sadness in that. Braun is 375 and he's not an automatic What Worked for me), so who won or lost didn't interest me. Therefore, the uranage and double Sister Abigail on the exposed ring boards was a cool enough finish to make me come around a bit on it.

BUT of course this match was just a mere slow set up for the real main event, which was Roman Reigns returning after 6 months to kick the shit out of both of them. Reigns looked like an absolute superstar destroying both men, and it's cool as hell seeing him in pure destruction mode. His spears on Wyatt were among the best of his career, and the visual of him wrecking Braun with chairshots was strong. This was the best way to bring Roman back, having him Walking Tall as we fade out. Roman really saved this segment and made it immediately feel more electric. Roman had Braun's best matches and some of Bray's best as well, and it immediately felt like that.

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Matches from WWE Crown Jewel 10/31/19

What an uncomfortable Halloween treat we were gifted by WWE! I'm going to go through and try to cherry pick a few matches before Monday's inevitable RAW Tribute to Mohammad bin Salman episode, featuring between match pre-tapes of guys like AJ Styles saying "You can tell how much the people over there really love him, and respect how much he does for them."

Brock Lesnar vs. Cain Velasquez

ER: This was like 2 minutes of a great Bloodsport match when it should have pretty easily been at least 8 minutes of a great Bloodsport match. There was a lot of crowd anticipation during all of the early grappling, Brock backing Cain into the corner and Cain trying to sneak in shots, people excited for the first blow that would actually cause one of them to pause. And when Cain landed a hard knee to the body and followed up with a perfect head kick, Brock sold it perfectly (as Brock almost always does, even in his frustrating matches) and the fans sounded like they were about to see Brock lose in a punishing upset. But, a quick kimura happens and that's that. Obviously this was a disappointment, as this was a singles I was excited for the moment it was announced, and I'm not sure what it would have taken for me to be satisfied with a 2 minute match. Is this it for Cain in WWE?

Cesaro vs. Mansoor

ER: This was my first time seeing Mansoor. He was a Bay Area indy guy who worked mostly for a fed that I don't attend, but I am a total sucker for a big regional babyface. This is WWE forcing a connection the same way they've always done, except the fans in Saudi Arabia are not as jaded towards pro wrestling and they respond to the whole thing as if Mansoor really is the superhero representing them all. Mansoor was the local being propped up for cheap pops, again, but the fans treated him like the Riyadh God and it ruled. Cesaro threw and bashed Mansoor in pretty spectacular fashion, and Mansoor takes some pretty gross bumps. This match might have the best possible version of someone getting their dive interrupted with a strike, as Cesaro completely shifts Mansoor's momentum with an uppercut during his tope, but Mansoor legit just toped into Cesaro's uppercut and dropped, looked insane. Later Cesaro swept Mansoor's legs while Mansoor was up top, and he took a tough back bump on the buckle before whipping face first down to the mat. It looked fantastic. Cesaro got to show off a bit, basing for Mansoor's headscissors and tornado DDTs, but best of all was him hopping to the middle buckle and deadlifting Mansoor from the apron, launching him with a tremendous Karelin throw. And it lead to a huge moment at the finish where Cesaro went to do a similar throw and Mansoor reversed it to an impactful sunset flip bomb. This whole thing was really good anyway, two complementary dance partners - Cesaro is clearly the perfect type of opponent for a wrestler like Mansoor - but seeing all of the kids in the building absolutely living and dying with Mansoor put this way over the top for me.

Braun Strowman vs. Tyson Fury

ER: So let me say that before he got brought in to feud with Braun, I had no idea who Tyson Fury was. I still don't. I don't follow boxing, I'm unsure what his significance is to Saudi Arabia (wouldn't it have made more sense to use him on a big UK show?), BUT - and this is a big but - I LOVE when non-wrestlers do wrestling. It's always interesting to me seeing their athletic skills kick in within a pro wrestling structure, and I think it provides a helpful barometer on the actual wrestler doing the heavy lifting. I think it's cool when wrestlers get to show what they can do opposite a limited opponent, see how good they are at highlighting any ability. But Tyson Fury did not do a whole lot for me. He seemed scared to bump, and scared to get backed too hard into anything. Braun seems to work a little more snug in the opening parts of this, and by the end he was backing way off shoulderblocks, so we would up with light shoulderblocks followed by Fury bumps that looked like me getting on the floor to do sit ups. Crowd was into Fury, and Braun did a nice job running around and making his offense look like more of a spectacle, building to a big moment where he ran all the way around the ring into a Fury drive-by kick (and Braun threw a great worked punch on the floor that Fury sold like he had an itchy beard), but Fury projected as very uninteresting for a larger guy. I would take any guy with the last name McCully over Fury.

Lacey Evans vs. Natalya

ER: This is pretty exciting, more so than other "first ever" occurrences, although Natalya's overdone "this is a big moment and I'm almost overwhelmed by it" facials almost ruined it. They're wearing full body suits, yoga pants, boots, and big baggy t-shirts, essentially dressed as "girl looking through Trader Joe's tea selection". The crowd responds well throughout, even though this ended up being pretty easily the weakest of their several match series. It didn't have the snap or violence that their best matches have had, the matwork didn't have the same uncooperative feel, but it did have a couple nice moments. Lacey had a nice slingshot dropkick that look like it took Natalya's head off, but there may have been some nerves at play from both, which is understandable. Things felt kind of trepidatious, different tone than their other matches.

Chad Gable/Ali/Roman Reigns/Rusev/Ricochet vs. Baron Corbin/Drew McIntyre/Randy Orton/Bobby Lashley/Shinsuke Nakamura

ER: This wasn't much by WWE multi man match standards, though it played well as a big house show main event. I think this could have been special but they played it too down the middle: Not letting it unspool as a big chained spotfest until the end, but also not really isolating anyone to build to anything big. It just kind of kept churning until it stopped, though we got some pretty nice build toward the finish itself. The presence of Hogan and Flair was awkward and pointless. Hogan looked like he could barely walk as he shuffled to the ring, and the two of them just stood around at ringside barely even showing emotion. I also have zero clue what the Saudi Arabia fans think of the Rusev/Lashley angle, but the moments where Rusev was going after Lashley at least felt big, felt like a babyface really gunning for a heel (even though his big moment was basically interrupted by a Reigns superman punch). Fans were way into Reigns, and his big dive onto everyone was cool. I can't decide if I like or dislike Ali's RKO "block", because he blocks the move exactly like he takes the move. Yes, I saw that his head missed the mat and so I saw that it didn't connect, but his head never connects with the mat even when it lands. So visually it came off like him eating the RKO and then springing back to his feet. The "everybody chains together finishers" part of the match felt too rushed and came kind of suddenly, the layout on all WWE multi mans used to be much better and more satisfying. Also, and this is VERY important, Hogan looked like he was wearing his sunglasses as if he didn't have ears; his bandana appeared to be holding his sunglasses in place. And it annoyed me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daniel Bryan/Erick Rowan vs. The Usos

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

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

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

Rey Mysterio vs. Samoa Joe

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

Shane McMahon vs. The Miz

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

Tony Nese vs. Ariya Daivari

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

Lacey Evans vs. Becky Lynch

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

Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte

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

Charlotte vs. Bayley

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

Elias vs. Roman Reigns

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

AJ Styles vs. Seth Rollins

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

Lucha House Party vs. Lars Sullivan

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

Kevin Owens vs. Kofi Kingston

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

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

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

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WWE 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.

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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.

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