Found Footage Friday: CENA~! REIGNS~! TAMBA~! TINIEBLAS~! MAGNUM HALL~! MALUMBA~!

Tinieblas Sr. vs. Tamba [Mask vs Hair] WWA 9/19/87

MD: LA was a dead territory. Obviously WWF had success there in the 80s, but in the midst of that, these Olympic Auditorium shows were happening and they're very much a missing piece of wrestling history. There's a lot of talk about what was happening in the 90s, but these were just there underneath the surface the whole time. And while I wish we could hear the crowd a little bit better, you can't deny the trash being thrown in at the end here, and this was overall a wild scene.

Tamba is a pudgy babyfaced guy with no shirt and no mask and he was putting his hair up against Tinieblas' hallowed mask. The commentary indicates that maybe he was being nudged into this by his partner, Super Halcon, and there was a build here where they had gotten some cheating tag wins apparently. There was also an indication that the promoter too had been goaded in and that other promoters wouldn't have put up Tinieblas' mask like this. 

Halcon hangs out on the apron at the start of the match. Tinieblas nails him and Tamba gets Tinieblas from behind and we're off to the races. Tamba's stuff is, shall we say, rough around the edges. He had size and he had size and he had size and that was pretty much what he had. His forearms did not look great, but you sort of bought them given that size and Tinieblas made sure to spin and backpedal on each one on the floor. He used a chair as well. Back in the ring he hit maybe the worst top rope splash I've ever seen, just sort of falling down on Tinieblas' legs but that scored in the primera. The segunda had a couple of Tinieblas comebacks where he beat Tamba around the ring, but that size kept coming into play. Here though he missed a second rope splash after laboriously getting up the ropes, and that allowed Tinieblas to slap on La de a Caballo.

The tercera, then, was all over the place. The video cuts in and out a bit but by the end of it, Tinieblas had hit Tamba with a chair and opened him up (though maybe not a gusher). Tamba manages to come back with not just one low blow, but two, and he pulls at the mask and goozles Tinieblas. When the ref tries to get involved, Tamba tosses him off repeatedly, until he climbs on both Tamba and Tinieblas in the ropes and Tinieblas hefts both Tamba and the ref over. That allows Halcon to come in and interfere and Tamba to steal a three fall. The trash came flying, and they were very, very quick to get on the house mic (lowered from the ceiling) and let everyone know that they were reviewing the tape because of the fouls. I thought they were going to maybe restart the match, but no, they just gave it to Tinieblas and probably avoided a riot in the process, and we were left with the image of Tamba and his giant with a wound right in the middle, getting sheered with expert speed. It was more of an experience than a match but you really get a sense of the time and place.

ER: Oh, Tamba, where have you been all my life? Tamba, with his post-peak fat guy body and jack o lantern smile, 38 but moving like a 55 year old luchador, every fall the fall of a formerly great and still unique wrestler. He has among the worst fat guy splashes you've seen, falling in a controlled way on Tinieblas with no jump at all, like Cathy flopping onto her bed after a long Monday at the office. He wins the primera with a top rope splash that was an insult to the name. He landed somewhere near Tinieblas's legs with the form of a man who fell into a swimming pool while trying to fish something out. He looks like he's never climbed the ropes before and yet he's got this unique aura the entire time. He has great heavyweight punches, heavy blows that came from the side, thrown to the face, head, and chest. His punches are great enough that I know 1982 Tamba was an incredible menace. You can see him as a Super Porky who immediately fell off once the athleticism aged out to size. He got great fat guy color and did a tremendous job of almost starting a riot by taking one of the legendary lucha masks in a 100:1 upset. I don't think the lacking or loose execution held this back because the aura was there. It still felt like a big match even if the outcome was so unlikely and the opponent so washed. Underdogs got nothing to lose and it felt like there was more raw emotion in Tamba's toothless face than I expected. This felt like the right match for the occasion and felt like a look inside a scene. 

Scott Hall vs. Atkie Malumba [Cage] WWC 8/4/90 

MD: One great thing about having covered 1990 Puerto Rico so thoroughly is that we can fit this right in. This was after Hall's face turn and after the Aniversario match and they were using gimmicks to keep the feud going. You can see from the finish here that they left more meat on the bone. To me, this was right around the point where everything clicked for Hall. He could have had a serious babyface run in the back half of 1990 somewhere, but I guess he was in Germany as a heel (I saw some of that recently, a Tony St. Clair/Owen Hart handicap match).

This was from an episode a couple of years later so Profe kept joking how there was resemblance to Razor Ramon. I thought it was laid out well though. They went back and forth early, Hall's punches vs Malumba's heft, but it opened up when Malumba was able to toss Hall into the cage a couple of times. From there he leaned on him with a couple of hope spots when he tried to escape the cage through the door and Hall stopped him. There was a long nervehold (maybe too long) but it let Hall power up, the fans behind him, and start firing back. Hall finally got to toss Malumba into the cage (they had protected that), and there was a good nearfall for a cage when he dropkicked Malumba and Malumba almost went out the door from it, a finish we'd seen all too often but that I haven't seen teased like that much. Hall finally got the slam (also protected) to a big pop. He sold it well too stumbling backwards after the fact. And the finish had him go up and over but Malumba make it through the door a second before he landed. Maybe they could have shrunk that nerve hold just a little but overall this was a good piece of business and gave them room to go back for one more. 

ER: I've written a lot about Scott Hall, but almost exclusively 1992-1997 Scott Hall, which is when he became a really great worker. I've written a lot about Kimala II as well. He's probably the worst wrestler who Matt and I frequently write about, and I love him. I love both guys, but it never crossed my mind that they had ever wrestled each other. In another country. I didn't even know Scott Hall worked Puerto Rico or how big the cultural impact of Magnum PI on 1990 Puerto Rico was. I've never seen a Razor Ramon vs. Kamala match but now we have a version of that from an alternate dimension where Scott Hall wrestled like green Lex Luger and worked Gallagher Too in Puerto Rico. 

Scott Hall is an okay Lex Luger, and it's fun to see him sell like 96/97 Lex and use the same kind of punch comebacks. It's weird seeing Hall throwing lesser versions of his punch, before he perfected it, but I like how he sells for Kimala. Kimala's strikes never look great but they look correct for a Kimala. I love his shape and his big smooth back makes me think of him as a Punch-Out!! character. More wrestlers should remind me of a different ethnicity King Hippo. Kimala was a completely different opponent than we ever got to see Hall work, and it's good fun seeing Hall selling his back on lifts and throwing heavyweight dropkicks because he's a hunky babyface and not a greasy foreigner. Kimala's splashes always look good and I think he was able to have a 20 year career because he was a fat guy who worked without kneepads who stayed healthy. His deadweight landings look like they would never hold up over a decade long All Japan run, but these two were just built different. 

John Cena vs. Roman Reigns WWE 12/26/17 

MD: I'm not touching the Cena retirement tour but in watching this, I was stricken by how great a Cena retirement match this would have been, albeit 8 years too early. I don't remember the first thing about 2017 WWE. If I looked things up, I could probably piece it all together. Reigns was the Intercontinental champ apparently. This was at MSG, the big holiday show that kids get tickets for over XMas.

And I really liked it. It was Ace vs. Ace and felt like a passing of the guard moment. It has the room to stretch and breathe that you'd want in a house show. Cena leaned into it right in the beginning, going for a long lock up that let the fans chant at him (Let's Go Cena/Cena Sucks). He pushed Reigns into the corner for a clean break and basked in it. There was such a sense of mastery here, of really knowing the value of a moment.  Reigns came back and controlled on a test of strength and then won on a shoulder block.

The match opened up when Cena went for a punch exchange, a traditional strength for him and Reigns clocked him. From there, it became about Reigns having a soft, punch-based advantage on these exchanges, and both men trying to unlock their moves. Instead of hitting things three times, they made getting through each part of the sequence an effort that needed to be built to. The crowd then went nuts when Cena finally hit his dropping belly to back or the five knuckle shuffle or Reigns finally got the Superman punch. There was one finisher kick out. Cena got the AA first and Reigns kicked out. Just that one and Cena wouldn't get it again, though he would cannily come close, hitting the mat as Reigns beat him again on a punch exchange only to lure him in on the pin and roll into a fireman's carry. This time Reigns escaped and hit the spear for the three, though. Just a very clever, very self-aware, very trusting match. Very little excess and because of that, what did happen mattered all the more and felt iconic. 

ER: 2017 was not my favorite John Cena year. It felt fully post-peak Cena at the time and scanning his television and PPV year now doesn't make me want to rewatch any of it. My favorite Cena match of the year had been a TV match against Jason Jordan, which feels like such a 2017 thing to say while also not sounding like it ever happened. I think I'd believe anything you told me about 2017 because none of it feels real, the timeline fake. It feels forever ago, not 8 years ago. Eight years ago, Jason Jordan was a Rising Star that I liked and wrote about, and Roman Reigns was a guy I thought might have been the best wrestler in the world. I went out of my way to watch and write about as many Roman Reigns/Braun Strowman TV, PPV, and house show matches existed - and there were a lot - and loved them all. In 2026, the idea of watching one Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman match would never cross my mind, and if suggested to me it would make me wrinkle up my nose in decline. 2017 feels like an implanted memory I only learn about from my own supposed writings and observations that I find in various notebooks that the RPG slowly reveals to me. 2017 was when you could go to a house show and see Enzo Amore vs. Kalisto but nobody saw it because it wasn't real. 

Roman Reigns was one of the best in the world in 2017 and was the best wrestler in WWE, and now they are a promotion I do not watch in part because I got tired of the new main event talk and walk style popularized by Roman Reigns. Eight years doesn't feel long, but it was a long time ago. This style isn't the main style in the fed that these two were the aces for, so this match - a great version of that style - feels like something much further back in time. It also greatly benefits from its handheld feel, shot on pro cam in the middle of the real crowd noise, like a concert recording from the taper's pit, but a taper who had a four man team and had been traveling to shows for several years. On TV everything is mic'd different, but in the middle of MSG you got to hear how much people hated Cena and wanted to cheer Roman...which made it so much better that we got to hear Cena winning them over the entire match. By the end of this, Roman's offense is being met with silence, like they didn't want to see Cena lose, and every time Cena made a comeback the crowd got louder with their support. 

Cena had one of his typical sloppy execution matches and some stuff looked hokier when played to the back rows of MSG. That big long lean over the apron while waiting for Roman's dropkick, the way his punches look so much worse than Roman's (until they start getting better when MSG is moved to cheer for him!?) are things that Cena is able to overcome stylistically, because the sloppy execution is baked into his style, and because the most important thing is his timing. Knowing when to bump, knowing when to take a beat, knowing which punch to get knocked down by. His timing was on the top of his game this whole match and it's knowing and perfecting that rhythm that had the entire building on his side within 15 minutes. 

It doesn't not matter in the grand scheme of things that his punches look loopy and cartoon-y, because he is so much better at taking Roman's punches and knowing how to bump and sell for each individual punch. I loved an early spot where he missed a turnbuckle charge and turned around into a nice Roman uppercut that sent Cena pirouetting into the mat, and there was this ongoing story where the punch exchanges never felt like they ended where Cena/Roman planned on ending them, but they ended where the punch quality and crowd reaction dictated they would end. This never felt like a match that they laid out and then worked exactly how they laid it out, it felt like something worked with room to grow into whatever the crowd wanted it to be. When Cena's tornado DDT maybe 7 minutes in got a big nearfall reaction, it's like that moment gave people a reason to believe in Cena, thus ROOT for Cena, and the dynamic change was huge. That's when this became something that felt a bit bigger and different than your usual send 'em home happy house show main. 

This was technically for the Intercontinental Title, but that seems laughably quaint. IF someone cared about that title before the match started, the title became an unimportant part of the match midway, if not sooner. This never felt like an IC Title match and by the end it only felt like a main event epic, a crowd worked to perfection, and moments timed for maximum impact. Neither man was able to hit their spots clean. Within a couple years, the WWE main event style was just finisher kickout spam, and this match got by with only one big surprise kickout (Roman kickout out of the AA, and to a lesser extent Cena kicking out of the Superman punch) because they wisely kept being unable to hit their various finishes. Finisher kickout is a lazy kind of surprise, but crafting a big main event build around stopped attempts and alternate means of attaining victory before looping back to one big finisher changed everything. Neither could put the other away because neither could connect with the big one. 

The reaction for Cena ducking a Superman punch, sloppily drop toe holding Roman into the STFU, was huge, a crowd chanting CENA SUCKS minutes before suddenly fighting with him, so much so that the pop when Roman lands his first Superman punch actually sounded more like shock than excitement. It got so Roman's offense was being met with silence. He wasn't being booed, but suddenly people were icing him out like they didn't want to actually see Cena lose. When Cena actually hits the AA (or moments where the 5 knuckle is stopped and then hit again later as more of a sudden surprise) the camera can no longer handle the decibels of the crowd and starts to distort. The finish was fantastic, with Cena leaping off the middle buckle for a legdrop but being hit with a sitout powerbomb for a good nearfall, leaping into a great punch exchange. This was the best punch exchange of the match, the one that felt like a gift to the crowd rather than one planned to go a specific length. It was a Boo/Yay exchange with people now booing Roman and cheering every punch a staggering Cena would throw, like they were the ones actually willing the men on instead of having a lengthy punch exchange foisted upon them. Cena deftly went down like a shot for Roman's best punch of the match, and it felt like it wasn't where Cena was "supposed" to go down, it just felt like he went down for the punch that felt (and looked) right. When Cena rolled through the pin and fought to deadlift Roman to his feet, clean and jerking him to his shoulders, it looked like the most triumphant Cena win and that's what everyone wanted to see. It was also the perfect way to set up Roman's win, Cena burning through all his reserves just to give everyone a look at Vintage Cena, doing it for the fans and forgetting he was in there with the new ace. 

I don't think the match happens like this if it was on TV or PPV, and I don't think it feels this good without the camera capturing the real crowd sound. This was a match that became more powerful because of its status as a house show main event (a house show in their main venue, but a house show nonetheless) and they seem to have completely forgotten that aspect of the show. Picturing this match done with their classically bad scripted commentary and all of the zoomed in reaction shaky cam and ugly LED displays just makes me nauseous. This was the right match for the right time presented in the best way. 

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WWE Elimination Chamber 2/18/23 Live Blog

Do they not do Kickoff Show matches anymore? We really need a full hour of video packages and talking heads with no wrestling? Either way, I'm excited for how excited people are for this show. WWE hasn't felt like any kind of Hot Product in several years now, but people are downright buzzing about this show. That's pretty cool man. I haven't been watching the TV but I watched Rumble, and my boy Martin caught me up on the angles. I'm in, I can't pretend I have better things to do on a winter Saturday. 

1. Women's Chamber: Natalya vs. Liv Morgan vs. Asuka vs. Raquel Rodriguez vs. Carmella vs. Nikki Cross

ER: This is the best haircut Natalya has ever had, but it coincides with her face turning into a face that is more like Dana's Brooke's 2nd to 3rd face and it would have looked better with Natalya's own face. They got Raquel into the match took quick and all it lead to was Too Many Three Way Spots. I wanted Raquel killing individuals down the stretch. I can't be the only one who can't stand Nikki Cross acting like an annoying 7 year old's impression of an annoying 7 year old, right? Raquel's ring post bump looks good, Liv's bump into the pod looks better, but Liv makes a dumber face after the bump. Feels dumb to go to a big Nikki Crossbody spot wiping out everyone so early, because it just leads to everyone lying on the mat exhausted at like 6 minutes in. Carmella gets nearfalls on everyone who took a single crossbody block 4 minutes ago. Raquel is a wrestler who is great at saving matches like this. Maybe it's not that she has a track record of doing so, but she has the ability to force a long gimmick match into being something good in a way that Liv Morgan or Natalya will never have. When Raquel starts breaking out the big shit - running Nikki through a pod, pulling girls off the cage, taking a huge bump on a top rope sunset flip - the match finally comes alive. 

Raquel ramps up the crowd for two minutes, all leading to Asuka's big entrance, the perfect mood setter. Asuka knows how hot to come in, and Liv's missile dropkick to finally stop her looked great. Liv keeps getting bigger and bigger reactions the phonier her character seems. I thought people in Montreal had no time for phonies? I thought the people of Montreal were the kind of people to announce to the room "Are there any Fake People here? Because if you are, I respect your stance, but get the fuck out of my party"? Liv, you're fake. The run to the finish felt real quick, I think too quick. I'm seeing the words I'm typing and I see myself asking for more time from a Brand PPV WWE Gimmick Match, but this really did feel too short. The eliminations piled up too quick and all felt underdone. At the same time, I thought they actually did the complicated multi-man stuff and big bumps really well, and Asuka/Bianca is a match I would want to see much more than Bianca/Liv. Good match, but could have used a couple of better one on one showdowns. 

2. Brock Lesnar vs. Bobby Lashley 

Bobby Lashley's King Kong entrance is incredible. Think how much better it would be without a giant stupid PS2 graphic Bobby Lashley making a dead eye posing face. I'm excited for this match. I did a Royal Rumble live blog last month and was actually pissed when Lesnar got eliminated from the match so early. In response, now Brock tries to eliminate Lashley's shoulder socket by bouncing him across the ring with a belly to belly. I wish Lashley threw even more behind his spear, but the full nelson stuff was cool and the F5 power out was cool, but isn't it kind of weird how the F5 isn't a killshot? Like Lesnar is turning the F5 into Suplex City but without replacing it with anything more dangerous? I assume the reason he never brought back the stretch muffler was because he wound up shredding everyone's knee ligaments? Because bring that back. Finish was bunk, match pacing got tanked once they started spamming finishers and then Lashley didn't do enough with the full nelson to make it seem dire. Lesnar needed to be way more purple to seem like a man in real desperate danger, like 5 hours of terrible sex purple. 

Boy that Seth Rollins Joker stuff is just about the dorkiest shit around huh? Cowards couldn't even pay for the pedophile hockey arena song? 

3. Rhea Ripley/Finn Balor vs. Edge/Beth Phoenix 

ER: I should like a couple that looks like absolute shit, but I just cannot get into the couple of Edge and Beth Phoenix. I think they actually finally figured out the Beth Pompadour. They took the bulk out of the sides and slicked them down, makes the angles much better and avoids the Frankenstein wall of hair up top. This version works well. Edge still looks like shit though. I do think everyone's gear looks fantastic. Rhea's whole crew looks great, and the deep maroon/black/gold pattern is a very tasteful choice for Edge and Beth. I hate the moments of Beth Phoenix matches where she has to do acting. I love that Dominik is drawing heat in a real way. Rhea leans into Phoenix's nice running clothesline and takes a hard bump into the steps. Finn leans into Edge's running clothesline the same way as Rhea did, for team solidarity. The timing of everything in this has been great, it's all paced out so well. Dominik's heat keeps growing. The Phoenix superplex looked great, but the build hung Rhea out to dry a bit. Of course the second I type out the words "The timing of everything in this has been great" and then Beth Phoenix comes diving into frame a second too late for a pinfall save and then lies there on her stomach like Willie Mays Hays coming up a foot short on his slide. Rhea's brass knux punch to the side of Edge's head looked perfect. Old Man Edge is much better than Peak Edge in a lot of ways, and it's wild his spear looks this good now. Dominik should have leaned more into Edge's tope, but this was good. Rhea had an excellent performance here. 

4. Men's Chamber: Austin Theory vs. Montez Ford vs. Bronson Reed vs. Johnny Gargano vs. Damien Priest vs. Seth Rollins

ER: Oh damn this is a pretty bad looking match right? I don't think the gimmick much matters, you see these six names and that is going to look like a bad match. I don't get Austin Theory in similar ways that I don't get Ricky Starks. Did Bronson Reed come back in the last two weeks or something? How did he go from not being one of 30 men in the Royal Rumble, to one of 6 men in Elimination Chamber? I was hoping I'd get a callback to the dogshit Gargano/Rollins sequences at the Rumble, so lucky they're the two starting this. It still looks bad a month later. Okay seriously what is the deal with Austin Theory. How does any of this stand? What is that jumping stomp that he does? Vince used to fucking love Dr. Jerry Graham? What the fuck happened? Edge doesn't wrestle as much like Edge anymore, so I'm really happy we have 6'4 guys like Damien Priest to bring some spiritual Edge Offense into 2023. His running slingshot senton looked like it hurt but I think that's because he messed up the landing. Goddamn this sucks. Bronson Reed came back with a cartoon Bluto sneer and it would have been way better if they just brought him back dressed as Bluto. He has the black beard and heard and his torso is comic book large, make him a fucking dock worker. 

To Reed's credit, he has been the most interesting part of this terrible match, as at least he was just smashing people in between his body and surfaces, not doing a series of tumbles and spins. He takes the poison rana really vertical and his selling afterward was an actual good use of WWE dramatic selling. Ford's sheer drop looked great, just belly flopping stomach first over Balor's shoulder from like 20' up. The best part of the match is now gone. The Rollins/Gargano stuff on top of the pod took way too long for what it was, but that huracanrana off the top of the pod was a great spot. Rollins is the worst possible Matthew Justice but he's at least better when he tries to be like Justice. Remember when I said the Women's Chamber match felt like it needed more time? This match feels eternal. Montez Ford does look pretty great. Look at his gear! You look at his gear in Street Profits and then see these tights? Great pair of tights. The repeated flip dives into the cage looked good...but having him get pinned by Theory just tanked this whole thing. What a bad look. Anyone explain Theory to me. I'll listen. They should have had Omos come out dressed like El Gigante to carry Ford out of the cage to the back.  

5. Roman Reigns vs. Sami Zayn 

ER: I used to feel like the biggest Generico critic, a guy I liked so much less than anyone else I knew. But sometime in 2020 I really did a full 180 on Zayn and well, his last few years speak for themselves. The wife and kids at ringside! I always like when they make someone's kid watch their dad take a beating while surrounded by weird strangers with parasocial relationships who think they know them. And this match was good! I don't think it hit the heights everyone wanted it to hit, but I do think it hit several heights. This was going to be a hard match to stick the landing on, and admittedly the long drama segments don't always work for me. Maybe (probably?) they would work better had I actually been watching all of the storyline play out in real time. It felt like the match peaked too soon and then had to be carried by the drama, and I think drama carried by a match would have been a more interesting way to play this. Every week they do the drama, this is when they can do the match. Roman's cut offs were strong, and Sami's cut offs were stronger, as it should be. Roman is much better at dramatic kick outs than Sami, but Sami was great at making it look like he was done. The ref shenanigans weren't necessary and came off weak, Sami and Roman did a good job of recovering the match every time there was a storyline pause. I thought the family would be involved a lot more (Sami's family, which basically wasn't shown after Zayn kissed his wife midway through the match) and I thought the finishing stretch de-escalated the match too much. Working a match with this much downtime scattered throughout isn't easy, and they never lost the crowd for a second, which means a lot. A Sami win would have made the moment better, but I don't think it would have made the match better. 

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Found Footage Friday: SMOTHERS~! CENA~! MYSTERIOS~! REIGNS~! USOS~! PANAMANIAN APUESTAS~! MICHAELS~! WELL DUNN~!

Cirujano de la Muerte vs. Emperador Panamanian Lucha 1988

MD: I'm not sure if anyone else is keeping up with the vein of Panamanian lucha we've gotten over the last year but we'll be sure to revisit it now and again. This was a mask match that dropped recently and it was bloody, heated, minimalist, and at times a little odd in ways that's right down our alley. Cirujano de la Muerte, being the Surgeon of Death, had the traditional medicinal wrestler white mask look. He reminded me of the Assassin or Dream Machine in some ways. He had pretty solid strikes that came from interesting angles and once he ripped the mask and really got going on Emperador, used an object to high effect. He also had a way of stooging on his bumps and strutting around the ring like a chicken to get maximum heat. I'm a fan. Emperador, in his eventual comeback after getting bloodied up, had a novel sort of running, jumping hammer shot, but otherwise, his strikes weren't as good. Still, he ripped at the mask and worked a wound and the crowd went nuts when he got the objects and started to get revenge and made the surgeon's white gear red. It was short lived though, as Cirujano smashed a bottle over his head and went back on him as they moved towards a finish, an out of nowhere 'rana.  There were a copy of spots in this, coming occasionally at slightly odd angles like Cirujano's strikes did, but for the most part this was straightforward woundwork the whole way through. Post-match continued the antics as Cirujano got what was coming to him. A match like this isn't for everyone, but to us, it's timeless and effective and beautiful. Now if Emperador just had slightly better punches.

ER: It's always a joy to find stuff like this. We have some full territory documentation of several 1988 territories, and then you get something from Panama that looks comparable to other stuff from that era while also looking somehow influenced by nothing. You can't really tell who they learned on, and it reveals a lot about how a lot of this is just knowing when to hit your beats and pace the momentum. Both throw their signature strike in a way you haven't seen anyone quite replicate, Cirujano throwing a hooking jumping right hand, and Emperador throwing a variation on the Baba chop. Nobody else throws a Baba chop, nobody else has quite the same hopping headbutt delivery as Carlos Colon, nobody throws a punch like the Crusher; these two have their own strikes, that might not be as good as those others', but they are different and I always like that. Cirujano had an all time great dance taunt. It was part chicken dance, part merengue, just a flawless combination. It's like Paul Lynde doing Jagger. If Jeff Jarrett had learned this dance taunt instead of just aping the Fargo strut, he would have been the biggest heel in Memphis. Emperador has some fantastic stumble selling, rolling and bouncing into and off of the ropes, like a standing Red Bastien gag, theatrical but really great body movement. There's mask ripping, a fucking bottle of chianti used as a weapon, a real good crowd brawl that sends people running (including a great dad running off with a little boy under each arm), and a mirthful unmasking. Love it.  

Tracy Smothers/Chris Michaels vs. Well Dunn Brandenburg, KY 2000s

MD: Some of my favorite wrestlers are the ones that are always on, always in the moment, always engaged. Terry Funk, Negro Casas, Nick Bockwinkel, Eddy Guerrero 97-on, Eddie Kingston. There are those guys and then there's 2000s Tracy Smothers, the guy who breaks the meter. There's not a moment of this match, including the period before and after it starts, that he's not engaging, engaging with his partner, with his opponents, with the ref, with the crowd, with the ring announcer, with his valet, with the laws of physics. He engages so thoroughly, so constantly, so dynamically, that he invokes wrestling to one of its highest possible degree, he engages with a reality of his own making and forces us to watch. That's a bit different than drawing us all into a shared reality where we toss away, for a time our suspension of disbelief, but it's certainly fun to watch nonetheless. 

I'm not sure if the crowd believed any more than usual on this night, but they certainly felt something, and he didn't give them a second to catch their breath long enough to think about any of it. He was constantly and consistently jawing with the fans (almost causing one guy to charge the ring simply because Smothers called him old repeatedly), trying to trick the ref with phantom clap tags, frustrating the crowd by trying to start a babyface clap when he was clearly a heel, bumping off of his opponent's offense and taking an extra bump just for the hell of it, hugging Michaels when something went his way, taking a powder after feeding like a champ when they didn't, from the first moment he walked out, to the finish where he got his comeuppance after using an object, to the post match promo putting over their next appearance at the next show and getting his heat back almost instantaneously by teasing the crowd that there was more to come. Michaels and Well Dunn played their parts, but you could have sent him out alone with a mic or with a broomstick to wrestle and he would have move hearts and fried brains just as soundly.

ER: This was pure heaven. Tracy Smothers has an act that makes me laugh at things I've seen him do a couple dozen times, playing some of the oldest hits in wrestling and always playing them with passion. Tracy is the angry southern Iron Mike Sharpe, and I'd hope you know that is a high compliment of an excellent character. Mike Sharpe did some of these routines in opening matches in the Northeast for a good decade, and Tracy takes it and ups the anger and violence and death threats. It's beautiful. This is Tracy stooging, stalling, and aggressively pointing fingers at every person in attendance. He gets into it with an old man, threatens to punch an "old hag" in the face, threatens kids, anything but actually lock up. This is a match where Tracy does more fake tag hand claps than I think I've ever seen in a match. Tracy Smothers holds a good crowd in a small rundown Kentucky building in the palm of his hand for 15 minutes, and I don't think he did any offense other than a handful of well timed (and loaded) punches. 

I like Well Dunn a lot, and I like Chris Michaels, but this could have been Tracy with literally any three wrestlers on the planet and been the exact same show. A team like Well Dunn is almost wasted in a role like this, because this was a role any green babyface team could have pulled off. Tracy was the ultimate in-ring safety net in a match like this. There is a lot of Not Wrestling and it is all Very Entertaining Wrestling. Tracy takes a couple of big bumps, one on a noggin knocker on the apron, others just bumping for punches, one just because he didn't realize Steve Doll was behind him. The match built to a great Rex King hot tag where he lays out Smothers and Michaels with consecutive hard clotheslines, and does his awesome hooking heel kick in the corner. Tracy's valet distracts King and Smothers blasts him with a loaded fist, then does the most hilarious and ridiculous pin, sitting down on King's chest and flexing his biceps, leaving himself wide open for King to steal the win. The post-match is great, with Smothers and Michaels blindsiding Well Dunn with a great loaded fist (Smothers) and an excellent superkick (Michaels, far and away the biggest piece of offense in the match), then some classic Smothers mic work. When Smothers ends the night saying "I got a major surprise for you on the 8th. Somebody's gonna DIE!" you know that's the good stuff. 

John Cena/Rey & Dominik Mysterio vs. Roman Reigns/Usos WWE 8/1/21

MD: This was just last year, but it's found footage to us. It's a little amazing how conservative this was structurally, very Tito Santana, more so than you'd expect out of a Strike Force tag even. Rey started, teased Cena coming in but ate a cheapshot. That meant he had to handle things himself and when it came time to tag, he tagged Dominik. They hit a double team, but Dom got stuffed by the Usos pretty quickly and then played face-in-peril for most of the rest of the match.

Reigns came in sparingly, but I really liked how the first hope spot, where Dominik tried to fire back on him, was less about him potentially getting the tag and more about him daring to show defiance. There was a real sense of hierarchy there that almost never plays so well in WWE. As the beating continued, he got his reps in against the Usos, with some subsequent hope spots better than others (the one where he kicked them both over the top from a prone position was pretty dubious). Meanwhile, Cena and Rey worked the corner as well as you'd expect. Cena wasn't going to be in for more than a couple of minutes, but he was still having a blast out there. After the hot tag, Cena played the hits, though there was a pretty inexplicable ref bump that didn't feed into anything. I wouldn't call the structure of the match lazy so much as it was distilled and set up to hype the crowd as much as possible to see the attraction. It was still a little weird when you think about it, because in a babyface Andre trios, for instance, he'd do more in the first third and wouldn't be saved all for the end.

ER: I really liked this, and I think it's another piece of evidence that Dominik is an underrated worker. He's not ever going to be his father, but that's a dumb statement because no other wrestler is his father. This whole match settled down pretty quickly into a 12 minute Dominik vs. The Usos match, and I thought Dominik was just as good as the face in peril as the Usos were at bumping for him and preventing his tags. I liked how Dominik stood up to Roman on the apron, and how that got him an immediate headbutt that lead to his next 12 minutes of trouble. Everyone in the match had main event house show timing down perfectly, with Dominik really good at getting *this* close to Cena's reaching hand before an Uso would get him back to the corner, or a great moment late in the match where both Usos gets bumped to the floor and Dominik begins his slow crawl to his corner. Roman was great on the apron as his cockiness turned to frustration and his frustration turned to panic, yelling at both Usos to get up off the floor to stop the tag. Jey eventually ran in and dropkicked Cena and dragged Dominik by the leg back to their corner. 

It's all house show timing, but the timing needs to be there or it just feels rote. I don't think this ever felt rote, I think they teased it along really well and the crowd just wanted to see Cena the longer Dominik took a beating. When Dominik did finally make the tag it was explosive, making me feel a nostalgia for Cena that I didn't realize I had. I didn't actually know Cena worked any house shows last year, just thought he worked Roman at Summerslam. Seeing he worked 15 matches - all house shows and dark matches save Summerslam - was a surprise, and after years of hearing every male in the building loudly boo him, I loved hearing everyone cheering for him like they were little kids. 

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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 Backlash Running Late Blog 5/16/21

ER: So apparently there STILL isn't a rewind feature on Peacock and I didn't realize. I'll go back and pick up whatever I missed when it's uploaded. 

Sheamus vs. Ricochet

ER: I thought this kicked all kinds of ass, great way to kick off a show (even if it was the last match I watched). This one really cements Backlash as a super strong show, high floor, high ceiling. This is the first singles match ever between Sheamus and Ricochet, and it's a really great time for it to happen for the first time. Sheamus has been on fire since his return, and Ricochet is having his best in ring year since at least 2018. It's a good time for them to finally cross paths in a singles. Sheamus lays in his beating, really pounds Ricochet's chest, and throws a couple different knees that POP in replay. I love watching Sheamus kick, knee, and elbow his way through a match, and Ricochet's flying added some fun flash. I love a guy who can lean jaw first into kneelifts and then hit some fly springboards. I never got the sense Ricochet could win this match, but that's fine because he also didn't look like a total joke. He looked like a guy who could surprise Sheamus at some point, and Sheamus remains on his tear. 

Asuka vs. Rhea Ripley vs. Charlotte

ER: I thought this was good! I was not excited to see two three ways on this card (three, including the Mysterio handicap match), but I wound up enjoying or even loving all of them. This felt like Charlotte's best performance all year, which is amusing as I'm pretty sure I said that about Rey Mysterio and Roman Reigns, so this show was apparently the time for the big stars to show the hell up in 2021. I also think this was one of Asuka's best performances of the year, had a nice run through all of the match, felt like the most involved in many ways. But my main take away was that it was good to see Charlotte lean into her better qualities, and find better ways to integrate her more recent Barry Darsow constant chattering. I don't think every wrestler intends to become Barry Darsow, but sometimes it happens, and Charlotte's turn as a Mean Girl Barry Darsow have been mixed. Charlotte has downright stunk in the ring lately, looking completely distracted and dominating too much TV time for the low quality of work. This felt like a step in the right direction. 

Dolph Ziggler/Robert Roode vs. Rey Mysterio 

ER: Dominik taken out earlier in the night, and it gives us this really great old school handicap match, with an all time legendary babyface gutting it out against what feels like a tag team of Hennig and Rude. The Dirty Dawgs are - believe it or not - one of the best teams in 2021 wrestling, and Roode/Ziggler have been putting on their strongest work in years. Their team name is horrible, but it also fits, and their ringwork and chemistry are good enough that the work surpasses the name. This is Rey's strongest performance of the year, a year that started with him looking aged to me for the first time in his career. A slow first 2-3 months has lead to a wildly resurgent Spring, and it still amazes me that we get to still be seeing REY MYSTERIO performances. He is so good at making this a compelling handicap match, knowing the exact moments to make his comebacks, knowing exactly how to take a valiant but sympathetic underdog beating. Roode and Ziggler are great at working their end, and I really think this tag is the best possible role for each. Both thrive within this tag structure, have very good timing for it, and it really plays to their individual strengths. Their cutoff spots are good and they stooge very well for all of Rey's best spots. There's a fantastic callback spot, where early in the match Rey hits his sliding body press to the floor, and then later Roode throws him into that spot and directly into a Ziggler superkick. Rey's selling from the spot is superb, and the later match payoff of him sliding out on the offensive again, sunset flip powerbombing Ziggler into the apron was great. Dominik's late match involvement was well integrated, and I think he keeps showing improvement. Working pros like Roode and Ziggler is helping him, and I think that bears well on them. But this match was a Rey match, and was one of the great Mysterio performances, a genuine later career highlight of one of the greatest careers ever. 

PS: Very happy we get to see Rey still delivering on a big stage. He is only 46 which is pretty much still luchador prime (I mean Black Terry is still having MOTYs in his late 60s), and I enjoyed him working in this classic tag team structure. Handicap match with the partner coming from the back is tag team wrestling going way back (we even see a version of it in French Catch), and Mysterio and Ziggler and Roode all play their roles well. Dirty Dogs have some really nasty double teams, some good shit talking, if this was a new team instead of two guys who have been around forever, I really think they would be getting a ton of props. That baseball slide into the superkick was incredible, as was the Rey final cut off baseball slide into the powerbomb. I didn't love the timing of the final frog splash, Dominick took forever to get up to the top rope, and the impact looked more like a celebrity frog splash (I think Snoop Dogg had more impact) than a wrestler's version. Seems like keeping Dominick in the locker room for 70% of the match is the way to go, but I am all for Rey getting another run.

The Miz vs. Damian Priest

ER: A zombie lumberjack match, in tribute to the first episode of the real ECW, and it actually winds up being much more fun than I expected it to be. Dumb as hell, but I'd rather these two work dumb than work serious. I liked Miz a lot here, and I think acting like a doofus around zombies while taking silly Edge offense from Priest is a good spot for him to excel. There's a fun moment where Miz and Priest stand back to back and fight zombies together, man united, then back in the ring Miz goes for a high five as a way to Trojan horse a kick to the stomach (that gets caught). Morrison comes out and wipes out a bunch of zombies with parkour, and then gets SWARMED and dragged to his death by zombies! Part of me wants Morrison to disappear for 6 months to commit to this and come back like parkour Onryu. Zombie Parkour is a brilliant gimmick for Morrison, as then he doesn't have to act or promo, he can just brainlessly go through gymnastics showcases and it would give everything much more substance. This was a good use of time, and we got to see two different people kick a zombie in the face with a spinkick. 

Bianca Belair vs. Bayley

ER: Belair's gear is incredible, like the kind of iconic look that they need to have on an action figure to memorialize it. Her whole look is superstar, and it's one of the moments where I think Sasha and Bianca could one day be talked about as the two biggest American women's wrestling stars ever. It's an attainable career destination. And this match was good, a strong Belair performance in her first big title defense. They were both active in good ways, and Bayley did the kind of performance that makes someone like Belair look like a strong champ. Bayley bumped big and didn't work "crazy" (I don't actually know if Bayley is supposed to be working a Woman Driven Mad gimmick right now or if she just got into large crimping and it's humid). This felt like a good showcase for Bianca, she looked like someone confident in her spots, and Bayley really knew how to make those spots look good. Very satisfying. The finish is somewhat odd with Bayley appearing to kick out, but it's a simple way to lead immediately to a good rematch that Bianca wins decisively. 

Drew McIntyre vs. Bobby Lashley vs. Braun Strowman

ER: I've enjoyed the way these three have interacted, it's been one of the positives of 2021 WWE. They are three heavyweights who all wrestle their size, and that is going to give you a big advantage in 2021. I don't typically like three ways, but I am confident in them having a good one, all are good at coming up at ways to be out of a match and/or get someone out of a match for long stretches, and they go hard when they not the one disappeared. And this was good, because of those reasons, heavyweights crashing into each other like heavyweights. Drew had another good performance, one of the most consistent performers this year, a cool big babyface who can throw bigger guys like Braun and Lashley. Braun has never looked more cut, and Lashley has found the right way to play his personality. It's a good combo of elements for a match like this, with all men taking some good bumps and picking their moments. Braun lands on his shoulders on a couple of gnarly suplexes, Lashley flies hard into his spears, McIntyre takes a wicked Braun powerbomb through the announce table, and they do a couple of entrance ramp bumps and a big stunt spot. Now, I think the in ring stuff was much cooler than the stunt spots, because these dudes have unique things they can bring in ring. Give me more of Lashley/Drew hitting a delayed vertical suplex on Braun, please. They kept a good pace, had some impressive big man stuff, good heavyweight fight. 

Cesaro vs. Roman Reigns

ER: I thought this was a pretty great main event, the kind of match that felt like it earned its main event gravitas indulgences. This was my favorite Reigns performance of the year, a year that has been good for Roman promos but bad for Roman matches. This felt like more of a classic Roman quality main event, worked within his modern heel character. The fit felt good here, and it hasn't totally before for me. Cesaro on the other hand has a realistic claim to best in the world right now in ring, and is now doing it during one of the strongest pushes of his career. Cesaro doing his thing on the main stage is something I've wanted to see, and Reigns is someone who makes a good opponent for him. A lot of things felt big here, lots of Cesaro uppercuts that look fully absorbed by Roman, no theatrical followthrough, just Cesaro throwing his whole arm into Reigns' chest and neck. Reigns' superman punches look good in all the slo mo shots, and this match is the best kind of balance between a main event I enjoy and a main event WWE wants their wrestlers to have. It's the kind of match that looked really great in highlight form, but sustained interest over nearly a half hour. It was probably too long, but they filled the time well and everything looked snug. Roman can lose his "gotta work 25 in the main" HHH influences tomorrow and I'd be happy, but this was good. They made big suplex spots look great, crashes into barricades and posts look great, but Reigns also made so many veins pop out on Cesaro's head during a headlock choke that I thought it was going to burst. That kind of thing will always make a match kick ass, and it did. 

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

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

Matt Riddle vs. Mustafa Ali

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

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

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

Big E vs. Apollo Crews

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

Braun Strowman vs. Elias

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

Seth Rollins vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

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

Drew McIntyre vs. Sheamus

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

Randy Orton vs. Alexa Bliss

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

Daniel Bryan vs. Roman Reigns

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

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

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2020 Ongoing MOTY List: Two Pre-Pandemic Smackdown Gems

24. Roman Reigns/The Usos vs. Baron Corbin/Robert Roode/Dolph Ziggler WWE Smackdown 1/31

ER: Super hot Friday night main event, with a Loser Eats Dog Food stipulation straight out of late 80s Memphis, enforced and hyped to a hilarious degree. A ridiculous stip taken seriously, a gigantic chili pot full of fake dog food, and Michael Cole on commentary putting over how horrific the dog food smells from ringside. It's a silly thing that they've been giving time to, and then the six men involved go out and have a seriously great territory style showdown, filled with excellent nearfalls and effective twists in momentum. The match was worked like a super professional crowd pleasing house show main event, with Roman really coming off like prime Cena. He was hitting big dramatic uppercuts, big leaping clotheslines, dodging Corbin's attacks and hitting his own while he got gigantic babyface crowd reactions for everything. Usos were pinballs and cannonballs, taking big bumps to the floor, one of them ate a spinebuster on the floor from Roode, Ziggler stayed out of things only to run in with occasional nice punches or a big bump off the apron, Roode had a bunch of great apron work, Usos hit a pair of dives that sent Roode and Ziggler flying dramatically over the announce tables, all of it played to maximum crowd effect. Roman had a couple of great nearfall kickouts, really milking a close count for peak drama, a huge Corbin spinning slam looking like a plausible ending. The layout was great, total hot match from bell to bell, with a kid humor level mid 90s feeling post match vibe. All of it worked for me.

PAS: I really enjoyed this, Eric hit the nail on the head by calling it an entertaining house show main event, which is a great match style. Ziggler as a guy who just runs in to get bumped to the floor is a perfect use of him, and Roode hit his big spinebuster on the floor which is great spot and one good spot is a great use of him. I thought Roman's timing in this ruled, he was such a good babyface worker, and new just when to land a big move or give the heels a moment. The Uso dives on to the floor were both cool too, just cleaned out the heels for the babyface to finish him off. I also loved the roll up, such a different way to end a match. The current WWE is so antiseptic and overproduced, it is cool to watch something so pro-wrestling.

40. Bayley vs. Carmella WWE Smackdown 2/14/20

ER: WWE is quietly delivering some really high end women's wrestling right under our noses this year, with a great Asuka/Natalya match early this month, and now this surprisingly great show opening title match. Just like Asuka/Natalya, this was worked unexpectedly snug, and that really elevates a match like this. This was worked like an important title match, and the fans picked up on that quickly as their reactions kept getting more and more live-or-die as the match went on. The match drew the crowd strongly enough that the crowd didn't feel the need to chant dumb stuff, they just kept reacting louder and louder to nearfalls and close victories. This was the best Carmella match I can remember, and a strong champ performance from Bayley. Both of them leaned into each other's strikes, and I really snapped up and took notice when Bayley gave a hard shove to Carmella's head and bounced it off the bottom rope. But both of them were running face first into boots, and they were setting up bigger moves with stiff shots. 

I loved when Carmella posted up in the corner to push a hard kick into Bayley's face, before hitting a rana. Carmella hit a big tope that landed most of her body on Bayley, and Bayley paid her back by trying to snap her in half with a hotshot into the announce table. The hotshot is a great move that really looks savage when you have two people like this taking it seriously. The nearfalls they built to were really strong, with the crowd reactions really ramping up when Carmella kicked out of the Bayley to Belly. The years WWE spent ending matches quickly with school boys or small packages have learned my behaviors and I always react to well done backslides or roll ups, and the crowd really buying them made me get even more into it. Carmella's great headscissor submission looked like something trippy that Negro Navarro has broken out, and I flipped out when Bayley knocked Carmella's posting arm out from under her to break it. When Carmella locked it in again moments later I thought for sure we were getting a shock title change, but Bayley got her feet on the ropes with a champ's desperate intensity to save her belt.

PAS: I may have never watched Carmella wrestle before, and without that context, I thought she looked pretty green for someone who has been wrestling for a while. This was a great Bayley carry job though, it felt like she was aware of every thing Carmella could do competently and was going to build around those spots. Sometimes it felt like Bayley was rolling up her self. It was a great rudo performance by her, down to the little tricks like hiding behind the ref to sneak in a shot. I thought this was borderline for most of the match, until that finish run, the Carmella submission was awesome looking and that counter where Bayley knocked out the base arm is the kind of little clever counter I absolutely love, and you don't see nearly enough of these days. That did it for me. 

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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WWE Survivor Series 2020 Live Blog

This show looks like it has strong on paper potential, as all of these matches could be good. I'm most excited for Sasha/Asuka, but there is a lot that can go right on this card. Let's see!

Pre-Show Battle Royal

ER: I'm always going to be happy about a battle royal getting good time on TV or PPV, even when they don't really deliver what I want. This was a battle royal worked with modern style, which is not nearly as good as any battle royal from 1991. Guys don't know how to occupy battle royal time as well now, and there's a lack of vets from times when battle royals were more commonplace and can show people how to occupy time. Nobody ever took the flag from Lawler, or Funk, or Finlay, who knew ways to work shtick and stories through a battle royal. Here the older guys like Jeff Hardy were among the least visible or noteworthy performers in the match, and the time filling felt more modern and mapped out. There were a lot of apron duels and they all looked good enough while feeling rehearsed and soulless. Ricochet throwing Cedric Alexander onto the apron with a half nelson suplex should be a major thing - and feels bizarre seeing on WWE PPV - but looked safe (good!) but meaningless here. Rey Mysterio has probably the only exchange he's ever had with Kalisto, and we get a quick 2 second cool looking headscissor spot and then they separate for no reason. There felt like too much timing worked around Dominik, Carrillo and Garza looked like they had no clue how to work battle royals, felt like nobody was looking to stand out. Shelton Benjamin probably looked the best and like someone who knew the small increase in stiffness that can make a battle royal performance stand out. Nobody else felt like they were working with his intensity, nobody else felt in the moment, stuck remembering when their sequence came. 

AJ Styles/Matt Riddle/Keith Lee/Braun StrowmanSheamus vs. Jey Uso/Kevin Owens/Otis/Seth Rollins/King Corbin

ER: Pretty early on this does not seem like a good match. The Raw vs. Smackdown shirts are so dorky, and they're even worse with USA and Fox on the back. Fox Corporation vs. NBC Universal! It's like a match they were paid to do at a weekend corporate conference. And Seth Rollins is just the kind of guy that would cause a big dumb scene at that corporate retreat, and I could not care less about his sabotage or whatever weird Jesus stuff it was supposed to be. You can't not have good moments with good wrestlers in the ring, so there were cool things like AJ taking a really high backdrop bump, or Otis working shoulderblock exchanges with Keith Lee. But the Otis/Lee and Otis/Braun stuff should be better. Otis is someone who has been dropping more and more of his actual good in ring work in favor of more and more dumb guy Jake Milliman routine. I've been watching a lot of 1993 WWF lately, and Otis basically comes off like modern Bastion Booger. We could have a fat grappling tank and he keeps working further away from that. Braun's powerslam on Otis looks good, Lee's spirit bomb on Uso looks good, but I did not care about any of the consequences of this match. I don't think there WERE consequences to this match. Does the Raw clean sweep mean something? Is this PPV just Bragging Rights? 

The New Day vs. Street Profits

ER: I love how Big E looks in his Gears of War cotton candy Lisa Frank armor. Kingston/Wood is the least interesting New Day combo, and these teams don't match up in ways I like. The match did snap my attention when Kofi hit one of the heaviest cannonballs I've seen into Montez Ford's stomach, crashing over the top rope and landing powerfully. They even work that into the match and do more body work on Ford, and that's a nice surprise. But I knew it wasn't going to mean much, and it didn't. We build to competent move chaining sequences, a missile dropkick bounces someone across the ring, the person delivering the dropkick stands up to take a big crossbody, it all looks fine. Street Profits are really forgettable to me, and I don't love writing that about a wrestler because that would really hurt to hear. But for guys who can do some impressive things, they are such an out of sight out of mind team for me. 

Sami Zayn vs. Bobby Lashley

ER: This didn't feel like it had the same kind of energy that the best Zayn IC champ stuff has had. And part of that is because most of the time Lashley works matches like he's half asleep. This was half asleep walking Lashley, and Zayn's energy and couple bits of big offense don't come off big or threatening when Lashley barely reacts to them. This did not work for me. 

Asuka vs. Sasha Banks

ER: This is easily the match I am most excited for, even if the face/heel dynamics are screwy. Sasha is the defiant babyface in her Bayley feud, but is default heel against Asuka. It could have been worked compellingly as face/face but Sasha shows that's not the plan with her body language so we'll see. And I'm not sure if it was the cold dynamics or that things took an inorganic turn, but this doesn't come off as well as it should. I liked when each were working arm locks on the mat, but once they got to their feet and Sasha was whiffing with full wind up elbow strikes, everything after felt like a 90% speed rehearsal. A lot of seams showing through signature spots, like Asuka missing a hip attack in the ropes but there being a missed beat before Sasha kicks her, or Sasha missing a shoulderblock through the ropes but there being a missed beat before Asuka kicked her. It's too mechanical for the heat to work. The backslide and roll up sequence to end the match felt like the way you go home when you're given your minute warning on a house show, and even though I liked how the sunset flips and roll throughs looked, liked how natural the lost shoulder leverage looked, it just didn't come tacked to a match that worked. 

Nia Jax/Shayna Baszler/Lacey Evans/Peyton Royce/Lana vs. Bayley/Biance Belair/Ruby Riott/Liv Morgan/Natalya 

ER: I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about this, honestly. We get a highlight package of Nia Jax putting Lana through the announce table in literally the exact same way 9 different times. They are really hammering the Lana as demoralized underdog who doesn't quit, and Byron Saxton is awful and phony trying to broadly hammer home the details. But Lana acts mopey and it comes off too grade school. The match is dry as hell, and feels loose. A lot of quick camera cutaways from moves that look messy or strikes that catch air, people staggering awkwardly around unsure how to sell a strike they know didn't land. The quick eliminations in the middle made it so none of them felt like an accomplishment. You had what could have been a huge moment where Peyton Royce of all people - someone whose specific charisma I really like - hits a huge superplex to the floor (after nearly every person in the match stood assembled for ages) and back in the ring finishes Bayley, only to be eliminated herself by freaking NATALYA of all people less than a minute later. And Natalya, who they still in 2020 pretend is a thing, gets eliminated by Lacey Evans not long after that, confirming that Natalya will never be a thing and they'll not figure out why that is. It's an awful layout that shows bland parity, nobody gaining or losing anything from their eliminations. Lana stands on the ring steps the whole time and it's the most predictable thing ever to have her become the sole survivor. Byron Saxton fake laughs his way through the whole thing, the man whose voice goes up a register when he's laying it on real thick. Baszler and Nia and Belair get eliminated in unconvincing ways that require them to be idiots, Lana stands on the steps with her weird smeared lipstick with a comically large frown on her face, and again I STILL have no idea how they exact people to be reacting to this. This was a bad match. 

Roman Reigns vs. Drew McIntyre

ER: For a non-crowd modern WWE main event, this is probably as good as you can realistically hope for. This is the kind of match that didn't completely work for me, but likely would have worked incredibly well in front of a live crowd. Daniel Bryan knows how to work big matches with no crowd, but this kind of big build Marvel match needs a live crowd to really thrive, and really connect with me. I think they did all the right things, and I think this would have killed, so that's a shame. As it was, it was a strong way to not kill Drew and keep a couple different stories going into potentially interesting directions. The nearfalls played well the big finisher kickouts played well, the surprise Uso table spot played well. The match was probably the only match on this show that felt like it actually accomplished something when it was over, and as backhanded as that sounds I do mean that in a very good way. 

ER: It was fun to see the Godwinns again, and it's cruel that no handhelds have ever shown up of the 2007 WWE house show matches Henry had with Gordy's son against Regal and Dave Taylor. I really wanted that 2007 comeback for Godwinn, when they were bringing back guys like Animal, Tatanka, and Duggan, HOG would have been a cool mid 40s addition to C shows. 

This show was not very good. Both elimination matches felt consequence free and mechanical, and "mechanical" is the overall best description for this show as a whole. For a show with nothing but the traditional elimination matches and title matches, this was not a show filled with excited/exciting performances. Vince looks like shit, and that rules. Good night. 

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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 Clash of Champions Disinterested Not Live Blog 9/27/20

I'm running behind. The last 24 hours I have spilled coffee on and fried my work/personal laptop, watched the Giants decide to not make the playoffs this year, then after found out my sister tested positive for COVID (she is a doctor, this was pretty much expected. She is also asymptomatic this time and thinks she caught COVID in January), so forgive me if my heart or brain isn't too focused on this show. I was interested in the women's matches but apparently it's a real hot time for women to give COVID a spin. It's not been a great day, and honestly I kind of just want something in the background that I don't have to focus too hard on. If I get a couple details wrong or opinions seem off, go easy.


Lucha House Party (Kalisto/Lince Dorado) vs. Cesaro/Shinsuke Nakamura

ER: This was our usual fine kickoff match; these things always deliver in almost the same satisfying way. They feel like a good 8 minute Thunder match. It fills time well and gets the right amount of runtime, not everything is hit clean but they also do some things they wouldn't do on Raw. That's my bar for a kickoff match (and pretty much my bar for any match really) and they clear it. The big fun stuff was big and fun, like Dorado hitting a tope to send Kalisto into a tornado DDT on Cesaro like a lucha Rube Goldberg machine (a tribute no doubt, RIP Notorious Rube Bader Goldberg) and a fun every turnbuckle moonsault spot (Cesaro scooted in on the top rope one and Kalisto overshot him by the amount he scooted in), and we got a bunch of Cesaro showing off his Chikara base skills. Nakamura had a fun performance as the less used heel, but the guy taking cheap shots from the apron. One of my actual favorite parts of the match was Nakamura just kind of rubbing Kalisto's head with his boot from the apron, Kalisto slumped in the corner getting his head lazily shoved around by a Nak boot. I love that kind of stuff. This cleared the kickoff bar.

AJ Styles vs. Sami Zayn vs. Jeff Hardy

ER: I cannot stand them, but I also always kind of love when Jeff Hardy brings back the eyeball lids. He's such a perfect little weirdo goofball. I'd be more into this as a singles with any two guys, but eyeball lid Hardy will probably do a couple of stupid things. But you know what? This was awesome! These three took turns trying to find ways to die off a ladder bump, they keep putting title belts on Zayn (love it) and they pull off some clever spots without coming off like they were being too clever. Jeff should not be taking these bumps, but Jeff is taking these bumps and he's nuts. He falls hard on his hip (I hope he wears pads under his Jnco jeans), crushes Styles with a swanton, gets tipped into the ropes, gets a ladder thrown at him, and eventually gets his droopy earlobe handcuffed to a ladder. Jeff Hardy has to drag this ladder along while it's attached to his body and it gives him a Joseph Merrick at Burning Man vibe. Zayn takes a couple a great bumps into the ladder, flying high on a backdrop and then managing to bump on 3 (4?) parts of a ladder, bouncing around like Sonic before hitting the mat. Zayn and Styles both had big welts on their back from hitting ladders so hard, and we got a really engaging Styles/Hardy exchange. Jeff was lobbing hard elbows at Styles' temple and their early fight at the top of a ladder was a real good version of that. The handcuff stuff played much better than it could have, and Zayn being a total brat really helped with that. A merry prankster in a wrestling ring is something that could be unbearable or really fun, and he seems to know the things that could make it work. I love that they put the belts back on him, Styles cuffed helplessly to the ladder, Hardy dragging his ladder coffin around by his ear, and Zayn walking tall. Great presentation.

Zelina Vega vs. Asuka

ER: This was fun, probably the best Vega singles we've had. It's a smart match strategy to just focus on an arm. It's a good way for her to get back into the match at any point, and I like heels making they way back into a match by just grabbing a face by the waistband and pulling them into the ring steps. Asuka knows how to work a match around Vega's limits and they give us decent breadcrumbs throughout. Could have done without some things down the stretch, but I liked Vega attempting to ape Daniel Makabe's bridging pin trick only to get caught for the immediate tap in the Asuka lock. The match had a smart layout and benefitted from it.

Apollo Crews vs. Bobby Lashley

ER: This one didn't grab me. There were some moments I liked, such as Crews' nice running back elbow that sent Lashley to the floor, the nice frog splash nearfall, and Crews getting a quick press slam on the bigger man (press slams are always a good thing). But Lashley matches always leave me dry, MVP needs to be involved for the Hurt Business stuff to hit. This was inoffensive and that's fine.

Andrade/Angel Garza vs. Street Profits

ER: Dug this, thought it built nicely and had a couple surprises, wasn't sure who would come away with the win. Ford looked cool as hell flipping into the ring like Solar and timing a perfect dropkick after doing so, but Andrade pastes him across the face with a dropkick tagging into the match later and that is also cool. I dug the ways Garza mashed Ford's face while cutting him off, really palming his face into the mat like a jerk. We got some nice moments of Ford juuuuuust about tagging in Dawkins, with a great moment of Garza yanking Dawkins off the apron at the last second. The Garza/Ford Spanish Fly looked like a super dangerous early 2000s CZW spot, which is kind of cool and kind of scary. Couple of off moments but an overall super satisfying tag title match.

Bayley vs. Asuka

ER: Oh man I am way more interested in Bayley vs. Asuka, even though Nikki could have been fun in a singles title match. And I WAS getting into this match, until the sudden DQ finish. That's not too satisfying. I would have really been into Asuka Two Belts and then more of a violent Sasha/Bayley feud with no belts at stake. This wasn't given the chance to be much, which is a shame. The energy was good up to the DQ, loved Asuka's fast German suplex and was getting into where it was going. Ah, well, nevertheless.

Randy Orton vs. Drew McIntyre

ER: This is not the night to spend 20 minutes with Randy Orton. Once I saw Orton take 7 minutes to get in the ring during McIntyre's long entrance, my brain screamed out for an audible. I saw Alopecia Big Show came back, and looked small (is Big Show okay?), and that's neat. I also saw Drew hit a Claymore kick through an ambulance door and that looked cool too. This was never going to be as cool as the parking lot brawl from last week, and I guess I'm kind of glad they didn't try to be? I'm sure these guys did great (I will never get excited for drama based around closing a car door).

Roman Reigns vs. Jey Uso

ER: This one did not work for me. I thought they at least put a good effort at inserting personality and family drama into a slow paced cousin fight, but it went on too long for me and wound up having the same effect as the Hart/Michaels Iron Man, in that I shortened the match by dozing on and off during the final half. They should have had this match at their auntie's house so that we could have seen them brawling past photographs and getting shoved over the couch with plastic on it and pressing each other under the floor runner. I did think the nearfalls all worked, as there was a point where I actually thought they were going to give Jey the big win. I think the offense should have been laid in a bit more if they wanted the slow drama to really connect, and I never got that. A lot of the talking didn't work for me, but I still really like what they did and what they went for. It is very possible in a different head space I will love this, so I may run this one back in the near future.

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