On Brand Segunda Caida: Goldust on WWE Main Event

Goldust vs. Seth Rollins 10/22/13

ER: Wow, I had never seen this match before, and I loved it! Goldust was absolutely on fire as a singles match babyface, and this match was filled with his perfectly timed and excellent offense. Rollins worked this match like he was Stevie Richards working HHH cosplay, which is infinitely better than whatever style Rollins has been working the past few years. Outside of a couple punches, an enziguiri, and a nice grounded headlock, literally every piece of Rollins' offense was just him sending Goldust into objects with an Irish whip. I counted no less than 8 Irish whips, into the buckles and into the ringside barricade, and goddamn is Goldust a great enough worker that he can easily work an incredibly compelling 12 minute match based around being run repeatedly into stationary objects. He's a great control babyface because he has great, dominating offense. I love when he shows off that he can outfast a smaller, younger heel: quick armdrags and hip toss, throws his best in the company punches, and he keeps fading classics like the atomic drop and the bulldog alive (while also executing them as well as they've ever been executed). Once the focus of the match becomes Rollins whipping him into the buckles, Goldust shows just how much mileage he can get just selling the fact that he ran into things. He uses it as a great opportunity to sell damage, while also leading to a great unexpected moment of offense: Rollins whips him in, charges after a delay, and - stumbling out of the corner - Goldust catches him with his finisher worthy quick rotation powerslam. The match easily could have ended there and it would have been great. Rollins is great at taking Goldust's masterful offense, and Goldust even gets revenge by whipping Rollins into the barricade, and even dishes out a snap suplex on the ground! The finish had some good shenanigans, with Reigns threatening to get involved, only to get waylaid by Cody. Rollins wins with a schoolboy, which isn't a finish that anyone would actually hope for, but credit to Rollins as it was a deeply sunk in, finish-worthy schoolboy. This was excellent.

Goldust vs. Ryback 12/3/13

ER: If you give Goldust 10+ minutes on TV, he's going to work a compelling match. He works his speed against Ryback, although Ryback can't take armdrags and his offense in general as well as Rollins in Goldust's prior Main Event match. But Goldust breaks out a few tricks he didn't use in that match, including his heavy crossbody off the middle buckle. Goldust was good at flummoxing the big guy, hits his great atomic drop and bulldog, and I loved when Ryback got knocked to the floor off a dropkick: Goldust walks out to the apron and stomps right on the big guy's hand, then slams his arm over the ring barricade. Suddenly Dust is working as Finlay against Ryback and it's the best. He really does a lot of the best Finlay qualities (and it's possible that just means "great at wrestling" qualities), like cutting low on clotheslines and also just hitting hard clotheslines. We get some fun arm work (doesn't go anywhere at all, but looks great while it's happening) with Dust dropping knees on the arm he smashed into the barricade. Ryback grounds Dust with a body vice - and I like body vices - but things go a little awry on a powerslam. Goldust rotates fast as usual, but he's typically not slamming guys Ryback's size so Ryback does not rotate as quickly, and kind of gets spiked while landing headfirst on Goldust's body. Oops. But Dust is a pro and easily gets the crowd into it, really knows how to do that "calm before final stretch" slow clap build better than anyone. When they spill to the floor again, we get an awesome moment where Curtis Axel makes his way over to interfere while Dust/Back are tussling on the ground, and Cody leaps over both and blasts Axel out of the frame with a superman punch. Goldust even gets the visual win over Ryback, hitting the curtain call, before Axel runs in for the full DQ. Pretty lame that we get an awesome 10 minutes of this singles match, building to a tag match, and the tag (taped later at these tapings for Smackdown) only gets 4 minutes. Still, I really dug this singles.

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Reigns vs. Braun: A Match History, Part II

5. Braun Strowman/Bray Wyatt/Erick Rowan vs. Roman Reigns/Dean Ambrose/Seth Rollins (Raw 10/19/15)

ER: If I had to choose one word to describe this match, I would choose "sluggish". It was 10 minutes, but really draggggged. This continues the trend of Braun hardly getting involved in matches, as he did nothing in the match for the first 8 minutes, and by the end did no actual moves. He pulled Roman down off the apron, threw Ambrose to the floor, then got Roman into a choke. I really liked how he looked before this, so I'm unsure why they suddenly had him stop working. This was mostly Ambrose working Bray, playing FIP, leading to Rollins leaving with a fake knee injury. Dean was on fire the first minute of this, but just a few minutes in was already airmailing punches a foot past Rowan's head. When Bray locking on a grounded side headlock is the most interesting part of the match, you just move on with your life, admitting to yourself and your family that you chose the dumbest fucking hobby.

6. Braun Strowman/Bray Wyatt vs. Roman Reigns/Dean Ambrose (WWE House Show 10/31/15)

ER: Really fun No DQ house show match. There's tons of loud kids in attendance which makes house shows the best (really the only life situation that loud excitable kids add to my enjoyment of something), just tons of kids screaming for Reigns and yelling at Wyatt. At one point Ambrose gets put through a table and then gets caught with sister Abigail off the rebound lariat. Reigns leaps in from the floor to save him at the last second, and one kid - not trying to start any kind of chant - just screams out "THIS IS AWESOME!!!" And it was pretty awesome. Braun worked slow methodical monster in this one, with some nice moments like standing on Ambrose's knee and ankle while soaking in the boos, then stomping on it. Bray introduced chairs and a kendo stick, all of which got used by everyone. Roman had a bunch of fun superman punches including a great one saving Dean from another sister Abigail. The whole match built to Braun getting speared through a table, which feels like a big spot on a house show. But this whole thing was fun, definitely sent people home happy.

7. 16 Man Elimination Tag: Braun/Wyatt/Harper/Rowan vs. Reigns/Ambrose/Usos vs. Rhyno/Dudleys/Dreamer vs. Sheamus/Rusev/Barrett/Del Rio (Raw 12/7/15)

ER: What kind of a weird mess of a match is this!? Tommy Dreamer was in WWE a year ago? They were actually collectively called Team ECW?! This is such a weird match. It was the opening segment on Raw, and starting Raw with a match is weird enough, but starting it with some sort of 1997 Gang Warz elimination match is even weirder. And then The Wyatts are the first team eliminated when Dreamer pins Rowan with a DDT. But this thing is a total cluster, a kind of fun cluster, but a total cluster. A member for each team is in the ring at all times, so there's bodies just constantly getting in the way of each other. Del Rio is oddly spirited in this, stiffing up Team ECW with these cool low yakuza kicks (like a yakuza kick, but thrown to a seated opponent) and taking a couple big bumps. Rusev sells way too much for everybody, the Dudleys do a bunch of old bad spots (I like when Bubba is unprofessionally stiffing people, not so much his "working a minor league baseball stadium" style), Usos work stiff as well with some nasty uppercuts, Reigns has a fun/silly segment where he does a superman punch to three different guys on the apron. Not all at once, but Wade Barrett would get on the apron, and get punched, then ADR would climb up on a different side of the ring, and get punched, and so on and so on. This match had over half a Royal Rumble worth of dudes, and it happened, because.

8. Braun/Wyatt/Harper/Rowan/Sheamus/Rusev/Barrett/Del Rio vs. Reigns/Ambrose/Ryback/Usos/Dudleys/Kane (Tribute to the Troops 12/8/15)

ER: A much, much, much better version of the 16 man match from the day before. We drop the elimination stip, make it 8 on 8, Kane and Ryback replace Dreamer and Rhyno, and everybody works pointlessly stiff for the least watched WWE TV special of the year. This isn't really a Roman/Braun show, as they only have one moment together (Roman superman punching him while he gets Kane in his standing side triangle) but it's a hot 10 minutes. Harper was a standout here, throwing beastly palm strikes and ambushing Ambrose with a great superkick, Kane throws his nice uppercuts and gets out of the way, Ryback is dressed like the most gassed Bushwhacker, I don't remember any moment where any League of Nation member is in the ring, and out of everybody that could have taken the pin, Luke Harper takes it. Also, the Dudleys are still around, and take up time in 2015 doing the Wazzup drop, and it occurs to me that at this point there are thousands of fans who have never see any of the Wazzup commercials, and only know this as a thing that the Dudleys do. The reference is so old, it has now become their own. It would be like a team in 2000 doing a Where's the Beef double team flapjack, with a crowd of children screaming Whhhheeerrrrreee's (as the guy went up for the flapjack) THE BEEF (when he hit the mat). It would be like someone considering retiring their Austin Powers catchphrase-based offense in 2012, but then taking it out for another spin. Though I do look forward to someone doing a Borat "My wiiiiiife" bronco buster in 2022.

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WWE Payback 2016 Live Blog

1. Baron Corbin vs. Dolph Ziggler

ER: I am far far behind on NXT so I don't know if Corbin is special or not, don't know what his whole angle is other than he seems to glower a lot. And he has pants that were seemingly drawn by Rob Liefeld. Look at all those satchels and pockets and belts and patches and things tied onto other things! And this match was okayish, for a match that most people won't watch on a pre-show. The pretend it's a big deal that Corbin lost for the first time, but he's been on the roster what, for one PPV? He's had maybe 2? 3? TV matches. So he's perhaps 3-1 now. That's not a big deal. But that withstanding, what's the point of having him lose on the PPV pre-show? He's one month removed for winning the proven-not-big-deal WM Battle Royal, so I guess this establishes he can win a meaningless battle royal but not a singles match? I can't really get a read on him as a worker but he seems pretty bland. He has bad aim on things like big boots, though threw a decent right hand at one point and earned some points for shaking his hand out afterwards. Ziggler wrestled like Corbin were Big Show size, though in fairness Ziggler would probably still wrestle that way against Kalisto. This match definitely happened on the pre-show.

2. Kalisto vs. Ryback

ER: Man, US Title defended on the pre-show for a few PPVs in a row now. I dug their match before Mania so this could be good. Oh man, not only is Ryback wearing an awesome weight belt, but it even says "Pre-Show Stopper". That's incredible. And WOW then Ryback completely saves Kalisto from braining himself on the ring apron, so Ryback is officially on fire in this one. Ryback is an amusing base for Kalisto, he's good at catching DDTs and good at teasing suplexes, and also tossing him violently. The DDT apron spot was awesome, and then Ryback flies into a Kalisto crossbody, then leans face first into a spinkick. He's been cutting low on clotheslines meant to miss, and really is having a nice night. He truly is the pre-show stopper. Still think they went home WAY too early, as Ryback does a mammoth gorilla press off the top rope, I mean just a crazy spot. But Kalisto hardly sells it as he has to get up to dodge Ryback's big splash. Still, overall a fun match.

3. Vaudevillains vs. Enzo & Big Cass

ER: Really liked the opening Gotch/Enzo match stuff, with the neat monkeyflip into armbar roll through, then English tagging in and doing the awesome block on a drop toehold. It reminded me of something Finlay might do, and as I'm thinking that JBL says the same thing. Gotch tosses Enzo to the floor and he does this great unintentional "Vince not knowing how to get thrown out of the ring" bump as he flies face and neck first into the bottom rope. Good lord that looked nasty. Annnnnd it's looking like a legit injury. That sucks. Regardless of what you think about their act (and for me, they're already tired), you don't want a guy to go out like that in his big opportunity. Bummer.

4. Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn

ER: Owens starts off in dickhead mode which is great, as he launches Zayn into the steps, kicks him in the shoulder, stands on his arm, gives him a front suplex into the ropes which Zayn does a fun spring-y bump for. I think Cole has called Blue Thunder Bomb like 3 times this match. It's the new "JR calls every Dudley move the 3D". Owens hits a really great frog splash. I love when you see camera flashes when they show a move in slow motion. I always think "Aw, somebody got a really nice photo!" That arm clutch/half nelson suplex was brutal, but I'm beyond tired of the instant pop up lariat. I mean....we ALL got tired of that 15 years ago right? They go out to fight on the apron, for the sole purpose of one of them eventually taking a bump on the apron. Owens does, then takes Zayn's tope DDT. But no matter as back in the ring Owens hits a superkick and powerbomb for the win. This started really good and devolved pretty quick into the same sequences you've seen these guys work for years. I liked the early heel work, disliked the move trading kickouts. And then Owens goes to sit in on commentary and he's just fine. That match against Zayn wun't even a thang.

5. The Miz vs. Cesaro

ER: This match has been disappointing. People say Miz has improved, but he still does a lot of little things poorly. He leans out of strikes or puts his hands way in front of his face, and man if we're going to spend this much of a match in a body vice/sleeper you need to make it look way better than that. Maybe it's just because I've watched a couple Fred Yehi matches today but this was a weenie body vice. Maryse at ringside was far better than Miz in this. And it's a major problem that the skull crushing finale looks weaker than any offense Cesaro did throughout the match. Finish was a dud but sets up more matches (and Cesaro , and watch how terribly Miz takes Cesaro's Gotch piledriver. Couldn't even take a front bump, had to tuck the knees. I am not looking forward to more Miz title defenses.

6. Chris Jericho vs. Dean Ambrose

ER: Man this match just feels like death and the bell hasn't even been rung. Ambrose has been real sloppy and lazy with his offense, and Jericho is a guy who looks terrible taking offense now, they're really just terrible counterparts for each other. I have no clue what Jericho is even going for any more. He wants to be all fast workrate guy but he is terribly slow and has super dated offense at this point, and he still wants to use some in-match yuks and jokes, but can't stooge or bump well enough for a guy that could work with some good heel yuks and jokes. And then there are just awkward moments like Ambrose standing and waiting to get hit with the piddliest double axe handle you've seen. Did something get crossed up? Was that supposed to hit? If that was supposed to hit, was it actually supposed to look like THAT? Man this shit is going looooong. When Enzo went down hurt we were all wondering what match/segment would get extra time, you just fucking KNEW it was going to be the Jericho match. Give that extra time to your workrate superstar!!! You kinda need that extra time for all the extra time guys have to stand around waiting to take Jericho's #trademarkoffense. That turnaround enziguiri felt like it took an eternity to pull off.

7. Charlotte vs. Natalya

ER: I really don't care much about these two. And their timing seems really stilted in the first couple minutes. That rope running/drop down sequence was really slow and awkward. They're in full "having a WAR" mode, which just means we breathe harder and lie on the mat longer and making shocked faces when a very normal move doesn't get a 3 count. Natalya is selling like she's been lost in the desert for several days. Oh, brother, then we get Montreal. Fucking 19 years later. I just got my fucking driver's license when that shit originally happened. Natalya couldn't walk or use her knee for the last 10 minutes but she has no problem walking around after the match and getting into a deep squat to do a sharpshooter on Charlotte. Seriously Natalya lied on the mat for the last 50% of this match, and now she's walking completely normal. What's a SHOOT and what isn't!?!? Controversy CREATES CASH!!! Man the last half hour plus has been fucking death.

Forgive me while I don't watch one second of McMahons. This angle was why I had to sit through that horrific Shane match, right?

Boy I keep checking back from doing other things and we are STILL not at the next match. What in the hell is actually happening!?

Alright, got to watch a full episode of Bob's Burgers waiting for wrestling to come back on to a wrestling PPV!!  And did something happen to Jojo? Or is she just deemed not worthy of announcing later in the card matches?

8. AJ Styles vs. Roman Reigns

ER: Man AJ's haircut is bad. Bad length, bad style, it even has that annoying crimp at the end so you know he's been wearing it in a ponytail all day. Yuck. Roman is clearly working heel and I like it. I dig everything I've seen so far, like the Calf Crusher, Roman's big ass delayed sit out powerbomb, and then hot damn that flying forearm through the table was vicious. And hahahahaha we get a count out finish. Oh, but Shane McMahon is out because remember he's the guy who puts on a good show!! Not like all these dogshit terrible shows that have been put on by people with the goal of putting on dogshit terrible shows the last several years. Why didn't he come out and reverse the Montreal finish? Was he in the restroom when it happened? Or does his magic GM powers only exist for main events and men matches? But now there's a low blow that didn't look like a low blow so Steph can come out and flex HER GM POWERS. This is so fucking brainlessly terrible. Roman took that clothesline over the barricade like a man. Too bad about all the horseshit in this match because both guys have looked really good. So the stoppages completely cut the dick off this thing, and they were STILL able to craft an exciting match. They work Gallows/Anderson's interference nicely into the whole mess, craft a couple good nearfalls (the one where Reigns got his foot on the ropes legit made me think Styles was winning), cool moment with Reigns pushing Styles off the top into the throng of interferers, and yeah both guys worked a real nice match. Shame, then, that they were not the true stars of the match. So fucking sick of the hack McMahon children.

Wow, that was mostly a terrible PPV. Reigns/AJ was a MOTYC based on the work, but that work had to take a backseat to GM DRAMA!! Kalisto/Ryback had a fun Superstars match, Zayn/Owens had their 17th best match together, but man was this show some shit.

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Wrestlemania 32 Live Blog

Tim Livingston is over and we're watching Mania while my overweight cat son Tacos thought he was getting a day of restful sleep, but instead will listen to Tim and I yell about pro wrestling!

Lita looks like she's wearing a sleeveless dinner jacket. You gotta show off your ugly tats at the grandaddy of them all!! Whereas Renee is wearing the shirtless suit jacket. We can all assume that Booker has no pants.

1. Kalisto vs. Ryback

ER: Gotta put over that US title by having it defended 75 minutes before the main card! I'm calling horse apples on Kalisto having a 9.5 shoe size. Maybe in women's sizes. I worked at a shoe store in college and I've never sold so many size 6 shoes to dudes. And damn this gets really good really quick as Ryback throws great shoulder blocks, Kalisto hits the Fuerza dropkick and Ryback don't give a shit as he just picks up Kalisto and throws him, and then slams him into the ringpost. And Ryback actually looks really great throughout this whole thing. Watch him whip his nose lightning fast into the mat on the tornado DDT and launch himself into the buckles on a low dropkick. Kalisto gets the flash pin and this was super fun. Nice little start to the evening.

2. EVERY DIVA IN ONE MATCH

ER: There must be something extra in my coffee because THIS starts really fucking good too! Alicia Fox blisters Summer with back elbows, Emma slaps the shit out of Nattie, Naomi takes a wild missed crossbody into the ring ropes. Naomi is flat out on fire during this, lacing into Nattie with punches after Nattie tried to do a superplex, taking a mean bump off the apron to the floor after Paige dumps her. Lana's purple gear looks awesome and i LOVE all the heat Eva Marie is getting. That girl has zero babyface charisma so her getting pushed as an unwitting heel is really the best. Things fall apart a tad towards the end but then Brie taps Naomi with a gorgeous rolling crossface and I'm sold. This was so much better than I anticipated. This show is an easy two for two right now.

3. Usos vs. Dudley Boys

ER: Short and sweet and about the best you could hope for. Mauro actually calling the hip attack as Umaga's move, Bubba does nice things like stomp on Uso hands while they're on the mat, and then Tim correctly calls that the Usos will put Dudleys through tables, and this at least didn't drag.

ER: I hate to let the Segunda Caida fans down but I've never heard of Fifth Harmony before.

4. Ladder Match: Dolph Ziggler vs. The Miz vs. Sami Zayn vs. Stardust vs. Sin Cara vs. Zack Ryder vs. Kevin Owens

ER: Boy...they really dug into the roster deep cuts for this one. Ryder?? Miz has an amazing gold robe. Poor Jack Swagger. Everybody is on Wrestlemania except for you. And Texas' own Funaki is on Japanese commentary!!! I also love Cara in the immaculate all white gear. This starts off nice and hot with Owens/Zayn phonebooth fighting, Miz taking a bump under the ladder, Zayn taking a huge backdrop on a ladder. Ryder has a great beard and hilariously gets heat by breaking up Owens and Zayn. ZAYN WITH THE DIVE THROUGH THE LADDER! And then rolls right through and nails the ringpost DDT on Owens. Hell yes. Cara jumps from the ladder to the top rope into a gorgeous swan dive and then 4 men decide to not catch him. Gawd the Ziggler HBK aping spots are getting really terrible. Like he needs to go away. Or, again, just be a heel. We get the Dusty polka dot ladder and Cara flies face first into it as Cody Funks with the ladder. Then Cody takes the skull crushing finale on the corner of the ladder and it looks gross. Owens with the brutal splash on Zayn on a ladder and good lord everybody is showing up for this one folks! Tim fully buys into Ziggler hurting his knee falling from the ladder and Cara's dive off the ladder through Stardust on a ladder looks crazy and beautiful. Owens and Zayn make each other's foreheads and temples all purple by punching each other on the ladder, and Owens digs is thumb into Zayn's eyeball like a fat asshole. Then Zayn dumps him headfirst on a ladder. "ARE THEY GIVING IT TO RYDER?? HOLY SHIT THEY'RE GIVING IT TO RYDER!!" ~Tim Livingston. Zack Ryder just done fucked up everybody's Wrestlemania brackets. "After a decade of futility..."~Cole, calling Ryder as he sees it. Futility is defined as "pointless or useless". I mean, yeah, those can certainly describe Ryder. But fuck that's cold blooded to admit that's what you think of him.

ER: What's the over/under on how many times we hear about somebody's "Wrestlemania Moment" tonight? 13? 17?

5. AJ Styles vs. Chris Jericho

ER: I'm not excited in the least for this one but then Tim points out Jericho's G.O.A.T. trunks and suddenly my heart grows 3x. I like that they're playing up Jericho actually being a couple steps slower by having Styles work a couple steps ahead of him. Michael Cole has tried to get a lifetime of convoluted catchphrases over tonight. He's terrible. You heard it hear. Jericho is such a bad match for Styles. Man they spend an eternity on the top rope doing...something. Jericho does stick the knee on the Codebreaker and that looked really great. Tim correctly predicts Jericho kicking out of the Styles Clash. And then Tim correctly calls Jericho going over in the middle. Gotta keep these rookies in their place brother.

6. New Day vs. League of Nations

ER: I was ready to fast forward through New Day but then they tip over the giant box of Booty-Os and it's like an awesome Double Dare spot as giant bagels spill out and I can picture Mark Summers yelling "gotta find the flag! You gotta look for that flag! Check over there!" And then I just fast forward through them actually talking! And then Wade Barrett comes out and kicks Booty-Os all around the entrance. Kofi does a flying stomp directly on Sheamus' balls. Rusev throws a gorgeous thrust kick on Big E on the floor. Big E gets a little bit too ambitious trying to suplex Rusev to the floor. Then catches feet on a dive. Tim says that "Rusev has transcended selling" over the last year as he just lies on the floor not actually grimacing or anything. ADR's big stomp through Kofi's chest on the apron looked nasty. LoN is hilarious in the ring afterwards with them all slapping ass and Rusev doing celebratory bicycle kicks.

ER: Remember, nobody on the current roster is as good as a professional podcaster, a dad giving stand up comedy a try, and a televised hunting expert. You gotta be reminded of this.

7. Brock Lesnar vs. Dean Ambrose

ER: I was really excited for this one because they've built up Lesnar as pretty invincible. And you know you're seeing tons of suplexes and cocky laughing, but how will Dean gets his shit in? And we do get tons of suplexes, and Dean hits him with a stick and Lesnar flees from it as if he was getting swarmed by bees, and then Lesnar breaks the stick and laughs like we want.....AND THEN DEAN UPPERCUTS THE BALLS! And Lesnar does the most accurate ball shot sells you have seen, and we have found his weakness. Dean jams a chair into Lesnar's throat a bunch and it looks gross, and then dropkicks the chair into Lesnar's face with the hard edge of the chair getting kicked into his nose. Lesnar's refusal to get a tan is really great because damage always shows up spectacularly on his body. You can see all the cuts and scrapes and his forehead turning purple. Lesnar takes a brutal DDT and Dean gets suplexed into a bunch of hastily piled chairs. These guys are lunatics and I love them.

ER: Can you really search for "Former Best Friends" and get results on the Network? Also, that Snoop microphone. Wowza. Sasha's Eddy tights look fantastic. Tim is flipping out about them. And finally we are doing away with the Jeff Hardy Bratz title belt. And boy. This match certainly is a three way. Sasha isn't great at doing the Eddy spots, but her frog splashing the girls out of nowhere during the figure 4 was great. And then Lynch tosses her with a trap arm german suplex. Flair flops onto Lynch during a tope and then it looks like he attempts a bladejob but I think I was just seeing things. Ehhhh they do some okay 3 way submission spots and a lot of this was pretty sloppy. Wreslemania moment.

8. Shane MacMahon vs. Undertaker

ER: Oh god in the hype video Jericho calls this a "Game of Thrones" situation. Oh brother. Shane comes out and I get excited thinking the Mean Street Posse is coming out, but then his talentless and charisma-free children come out instead. Those kids could have at least practiced the Shane dance. Shane's kids are duds. Undertaker really reached closing speed there during his walk to the ring. And hey guys, this isn't very good and it's making me sad. Undertaker looks like a guy who is being forced to be there. And the Last Ride is now a transition move. This is really sad you guys. Like this feels like some sort of wicked Saw scenario where two old men have to wrestle a match until one of them dies. Shane does the Van Terminator (I think that's the name? It's been like 18 years) and lands weirdly so the trash can gets punted directly in the balls. And then Taker does this hilarious crossed eyed lower lip sucked in ballshot sell. Wrestlemania Moment. Undertaker looks like all those videos of Danzig getting KTFO. Both guys stumble around and fall into tables and monitors. Shane finds a toolbox that's filled with neon Lisa Frank tools. Shane falls. He is noble. You still got it. Welcome Back. This was all slow walking death. I laughed. And I hated. I thought Undertaker looked like a sad broken horse the whole time. Or like a bear being forced to ride a unicycle in a Russian circus. I don't understand anything that I just watched. Where was Vince? How did Vince not celebrate or gloat or express regret over what his son went through. Instead we watched 8 minutes of fake medics working on Shane so he could have his Capt. Lance Murdoch moment. I'm so confused.

ER: I do love that Cole and JBL do their Owen voices for Shane, but then we cut away to Lita, Corey, Renee and Booker dancing at the eagle's nest and talking about what a blast they're having.

9. EVERYBODY GETS A PAYDAY BATTLE ROYAL!

ER: Bo Dallas' singlet looks like it says "RACIST" on the front. I don't know who Baron Corbin is. He doesn't look like any more or less of a star than anybody else in there.

ER: Wow this Rock segment is unbearable. His flame gun was one of the more spectacularly pointless things I've seen. And then he mugs and improvs for an eternity while talking about how people are so pumped to be there that they're going to go home and fuck without protection. This is truly the longest attendance announcement in the history of our great sport. Far and away my biggest regret of the last month of my life was catching up to the live feed of this show. This Rock segment is one of the most boring things I've seen in my life. It's so painful and slow and just bad and I'm hating most of my life decisions in this Wrestlemania Moment. This is the longest thing I've ever watched in my life.

10. HHH vs. Roman Reigns

ER: HHH kicks Roman in the balls and that's basically what this PPV feels like. HHH coming over to my house and just kicking me in the balls. This whole things really is a greatest hits played slower. This things is just never ending.

ER: Wow this thing got bad. I'd say the show got real bad in a hurry, but there was NOTHING "hurried" about the last 3 hours of this fucking show. I don't know why things happened the way they did, but I found myself asking WHY so many times that it just got confusing. Even if parts of the show weren't for me, I have no clue WHO they were for. I'm not sure who benefits or comes out looking good or who had Wrestlemania Moments or....I just don't understand a lot of what happened. Maybe I just have a lot of growing up to do.

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WWE Fastlane 2016 Live-ish Blog

1. 2/3 Falls: Alberto Del Rio vs. Kalisto

ER: Wow, the U.S. Title match is on the pre-show?? The main card is filled with such important stuff that the 2/3 falls match just can't squeeze in. That must mean the main card is stacked, right? I really haven't loved how these two have matched up in their previous 19 matches over the last month, but it's possible they'll turn it on when the lights are at their brightest (which is the pre-show of the PPV wedged in between their two important PPVs). But guess what, this completely rules. ADR went after the arm at the bell, Kalisto countered with leg kicks and tried to game him with fast roll-ups, and then ADR awesomely ended the 1st fall by braining Kalisto with a chair after taking a rana into the timekeeper's stall. I loved the psych, like Rude/Steamboat iron man of taking a step back to take a few forward. Right after getting DQ'd ADR just pounced on him and starting tossing him into every barrier, really punishing him before getting the inevitable 2nd fall. ADR hits his double stomp off the barrier into the ground and it looked really good, just stomping right through Kalisto. But Kalisto's little hope spots and headscissors were nice, loved ADR flinging himself into the mat on the short rana, loved him getting spiked on a tornado DDT, loved the snap on ADR's spinning backbreaker, loved little things like Kalisto able to roll to the floor to avoid potential pinfalls, just really thought they clicked in a way that I think has been missing from all of their many prior matches. Finish was cool with ADR setting up Kalisto for the stomp and Kalisto fighting back while on the buckles. It would have looked too ADR just lifting himself into the move) so I loved the direction they took, with him doing a lucha head drag to toss ADR into the buckles and then getting that flash pin he had been trying for early. Really fun stuff here.

2. Sasha Banks & Becky Lynch vs. Naomi & Tamina

ER: Wow Tamina is still really bad. How long has she been on the roster? 5 years? Stunned her last name has allowed her to last this long while still looking this terrible. Watch her whiff on a lariat, then admire her limp chinlock, then admire her awkwardly dragging Lynch away from the ropes to pin her even though Lynch wasn't near the ropes. You also are not shocked that she punches worse than Michael Shane. Everybody else looked really good though, but damn Tamina was in so much of this. Lynch takes a wild bump to the floor, really launching herself off a Tamina throw. I loved how they filmed Lynch trying to tag in Sasha, as at first it looked like Sasha jumped out of the way of the tag, before they revealed that Naomi had yanked her down. Loved the Sasha/Naomi segment as Naomi was great feeding Sasha, and they set up the Rear View perfectly with Sasha chasing Tamina around and back into the ring while Naomi laid in wait. Tamina for her part even hit a nice superkick down the stretch, so even she wasn't an entire waste. I really liked this, thought the ladies who normally looked good, looked good.

3. Kevin Owens vs. Dolph Ziggler

ER: Ziggler's hair immediately makes me want to watch him take a stomping. Man what an asshole. Half-mast cornrows. Wow. Either go all the way and have tons of beads, or just turn heel already. This haircut would be majestic on a heel. Imagine Rush showing up at Arena Mexico with this haircut. It would be amazing. But a guy I'm supposed to be backing? Ehhhhhh. Owens does politely grant me my wish right out of the gate, by ambushing Ziggler with a thrust headbutt and commencing the beating. I dig all of Owens' sentons, with that one to a on-all-fours Ziggler being especially mean. Both guys see who can take a bump into the buckles better, and it's a tough call between Ziggler violently running shoulder first into it (looked so painful in slo-mo) or Owens flying into the post and crashing to the floor. Ziggler's comeback is hot and his jumping elbows looked so good. We eventually break down into big moves nearfall territory, but I actually kept digging it the whole way through. Ziggler's HBK tribute act is confusing and strange. But all their shit looked good, and even though Owens seems to have taken some shit online lately I thought he was good here. Crazy that his twisting superplex is not a finisher, but I loved him scrambling behind the ref to dodge the superkick,  dug the rana into the ring steps, loved Owens mocking a fan's "Ohio Hearts Ziggler" sign and ripping it out of his hands postmatch. Yeah this mostly devolved into overkill, but it never really bugged me. Sometimes overkill immediately makes me zone out, and other times it doesn't. I am an inconsistent, infuriating human being. But I liked this. 

4. The Wyatt Family vs. Big Show, Ryback & Kane

ER: If Kane has to be around, I'd rather have him lumped in a 6 man. And Ryback with a nice missile dropkick. That looked really cool. I liked Harper/Ryback (those Harper palm strikes!!!), actually liked Ryback/Braun as Braun looks dangerous in a slightly untrained way, but still threw some really nice kicks to the stomach....but then Kane/Rowan look several miles off during their exchanges. And I just noticed Saxton is just standing there behind the announce desk. What a shithead. There are no other chairs we can get this guy? Is this one of those jackoff punishments because Saxton took the large piece of chicken breast from catering? Ryback's "Big Guy" tights are really embarrassing. That's like something you'd see on a dog sweater, or a newborn baby onesie, or something you'd wear to leather night at the White Swallow. Rowan has the pinfall break-up of the night with a massive splash out of nowhere to crush Ryback, and Big Show does a killer press slam on Harper to the floor. Love press slams and that one was huge. Love Show's running shoulder tackle on Braun too. Even Kane looked good booting Bray, who went down like a shot. Holy shit this got good right before it ended. This is a really fun night of wrestling so far.

ER: What in the hell is this Vince MacMahon Legacy Award for Ultimate Big Dick Excellence nonsense? This can't be legit, right? Is it just something for HHH and Steph to trade wins on every year? I can picture JBL now "Mahgul you're looking at the 7 time Vince MacMahon Excellence of the Universe Award winner, the Game!!"

ER: Wow the WWE Photoshop department deserves HUGE credit for making Ric Flair look like a human being in the Charlotte/Brie pre-match graphic. I mean holy shit they made him look like a god! This is beyond blending in Shawn Michaels' hair tuft, they straight gave Flair an actual person face. You see him in the hype video and his face is a bloated, stretched, toothy plastic surgery mess. But in that graphic he's got warm steely eyes, a strong jaw, actual facial definition, lush and short fashionable haircut instead of that patchy constantly wet and slick mess he's been working with for many years. Good work team, all around.

5. Brie Bella vs. Charlotte

ER: Really getting sick of Ric at ringside for every Charlotte match. It's not doing her any favors at this point. Match was better than I expected it to be. Slow pace is probably the best to avoid anything blown, though even then both of them had some sketchy moments. I liked the Alabama Slam spot with Brie hanging on through a couple attempts, and the end run got good with that nice Brie dropkick to Charlotte on the apron. Dug the Yes Lock rolled into a really sick single leg crab. Submissions in Divas matches always look so killer because they're so bendy, but I thought they made it look good. I have a feeling Charlotte will be champion for fucking ever and I'm in for a lifetime of "RESPECT HER CHAMPION BLOOD" JBL horseshit.

6. Chris Jericho vs. AJ Styles

ER: Man Byron Saxton is the worst, and that's with Michael Cole and JBL plopped around you. Oh yeah, Styles grew up admiring Jericho's Japan work? What Japan stuff is that Byron? I do like that they're pushing Styles as a teenager who tape traded for WAR tapes. If at any point your booking of any wrestler is to make them sound like teenage me, it means you fucked up. "Styles used to love tape trading and practicing the trombone and going over baseball stats on his bedroom floor!" And I'm not really sure how I feel about this match. Half of it felt like AJ slowing down his shit so Jericho could keep up. But sometimes Jericho's rustiness clicked with what Styles was doing. I loved Jericho's super quick bump over the turnbuckles to the floor, and then him catching Styles with a dropkick off a plancha right after was good enough to hold up in slo-mo. But then there was flat out painful stuff like Styles setting up the springboard spot for endless seconds as Jericho got in position, or Jericho kinda just falling off the ropes to do the Walls counter. We hilariously have the Styles Clash kicked out of, in what is like Styles third match in the company. If he kicked out of it, at least the match ended right after with the calf crusher, as I can buy using the last of your strength to kick out and having nothing left to defend the sub. Jericho on TV just doesn't work for me though. I really like old man workers, as there's this extra level of sympathy with them just being older and slower and more frail, and extra excitement when they make their comebacks. They're just easier to get behind. But Jericho doesn't work as sympathetic old man, he still works like move for move workrate star, except he's slow and sloppy. His whole thing just doesn't work for me.

ER: I saw an ad for the Edge/Christian show earlier in the program and in 20 seconds they managed to make me cringe twice with Edge comedy, so this New Day/E&C segment gets a no brainer fast forward from me. I think Christian has some comedy chops, but Edge is about as broad of a hack as you can get.

7. R-Truth vs. Curtis Axel

ER: Wow. This is on a PPV. 2/3 Falls match for the US Title? Oh that's on the pre-show. I mean, there's no real difference anymore between pre-show and PPV, except I'm still far more people still watch the PPV's and skip over the pre-shows. Maybe they're trying to get people to watch pre-shows, so they're putting title matches on there now? I don't know. Gotta advance those dead hour Raw angles I guess.

8. Dean Ambrose vs. Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar

ER: Well hot damn this was all hot damn. Wow. No bullshit, all mammoth spots and ass beating, really well laid out, just a great match. Brock is just the best. I could watch him murder dudes all damn day. Like just start up a Suplex City channel on the Network and post everything Brock has ever done, and I'm there. But the crazy thing about Brock just throwing dudes, is that Brock TAKING moves is maybe even better! I love how naturally he takes offense, how it's not just rapid fire flat back bumps, it's like a level of Kawada selling. When he gets blasted with the superman punch he just staggers back fast, drops quick spaghetti legged to a knee, rolls down to the floor. It's so much more layered than most selling, really shows how he fully understands who he is relative to his opponents. Watch him get speared by Reigns whole holding Ambrose and be impressed by him having the presence of mind to get speared, while tossing Ambrose's body PAST Reigns, instead of dangerous dropping him on Reigns' back and legs. Looked great AND was deceptively safe. The "Brock gets taken out" moments of his big matches are always big time, and I loved him getting plastered through a table and covered in the wreckage. It's a shame we usually don't get the visual of the monster emerging and roaring out of the collapsed building, but I like the surprise emergence of Brock no matter how it's shown. I liked the immediacy of Ambrose and Reigns once they had the monster buried, and I love how into Ambrose the crowd was. Ambrose going big time on everybody with a chair was great, and some of those chairshots looked gnarly. I was really hoping that Ambrose was just going to continue crushing everybody with chairshots until nobody had a chance of kicking out, but the finish still worked even if it created a match I have zero interest in seeing. But damn was this match every single thing I was hoping it would be. So damn good.


ER: Really fun show overall. I don't think I've enjoyed a WWE PPV more than this since we started doing live blogs for them. They always seem to end with BS finishes or just be plagued with bad matches, but I enjoyed almost all of the matches on this one, and fast forwarded through what I'm sure was a terrible comedy segment, and I was left overall feeling super glad I watched it. Really good show.

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WWE TLC 2015 Live Blog

1. Sasha Banks vs. Becky Lynch

ER: They start with this ugly, endless sketch where Team BAD sing a terrible, cringeworthy 12 Days of Christmas rendition that....I'm not sure what was supposed to be accomplished. Was it to get Banks booed in her hometown? Who is the heel in this though? You have a hometown heel who the crowd wants to cheer, who then is forced to do an unfunny and unprepared segment to start the match, and the crowd is then just left quiet. I love the early armwork and loved Becky's ankle pick on a Banks leap frog. We hit the Banks transition and Lawler says that Banks has controlled the whole match, even though literally the exact opposite thing has happened the whole match. The facials Banks makes in between moves is great. She knows how to shit talk and make great cocky faces. I love when she shit talks mid-move and it blows up on her, like slapping Lynch and talking shit leading to her getting blasted with an elbow. Her crossface submission looks good and I liked Lynch fighting up out of it, with Banks trying to stomp the backs of her knees. Match as a whole didn't do a whole lot for me as I didn't care much about Lynch's comebacks.

2. Tag Title Ladder Match: The New Day vs. Lucha Dragons vs. Usos

ER: This starts off immediately fun with guys taking bumps to the floor, and Kofi and Kalisto doing stereo springboards onto either side of a set-up ladder. Dragons hit sloppyish moonsaults to the floor, and Usos do a stereo dive into all guys, while the guys on the floor shield themselves with a ladder. Somehow diving into a ladder doesn't hurt the Usos, it only hurts the guys taking the dive. Big E and Kofi trap an Uso in a ladder in the corner, and do all sorts of violent chokes and strikes to him, capped with a Kofi running dropkick. The other Uso gets suplexed onto the same ladder. Kalisto hits a nice bombs away over a ladder, and Sin Cara does a nice cattle branding with a ladder, then does a balls out nuts swanton to the floor onto a ladder with both Usos underneath. Daaaaamn. Oh shit, Kalisto climbs the ladder with Big E under it, and E starts fucking BENCH PRESSING the ladder while Kalisto climbs, so the ladder is tilting and at a 45 degree angle while Kalisto bails and flies into the Usos. Crazy visual when they cut to the wide shot to see E lifting that ladder. Kalisto does a 450 onto the Usos under a ladder, after being vaulted into it by a Sin Cara monkey flip. Jeez. And then he tops is all by hitting his sliced bread finisher off the top of one ladder, through another ladder set up horizontally. And then Sin Cara hits a springboard swanton. Lucha Dragons could get over huge after this match. An Uso hits a frog splash from the top through a ladder with E underneath. Aww shit Xavier throws his trombone at Kalisto!! Damn he really tossed that thing at him hard. Fun crazy match. Could be a star making performance from Kalisto if they choose to follow up on it (har har har). Not only were his spots crazy, but he did a good job of making his set up strikes and everything looked good. His punches while balancing on a ladder were especially impressive, and when those look good then doing your crazy finisher off the top of the ladder is just going to mean more.

3. Rusev vs. Ryback

ER: I love a big hoss match, but for much of this it felt like they were trying to do spots where two big lugs crash into each other, but they weren't making those spots look very impressive. I get how to huge dudes trying and blocking each other's suplexes could look cool, but it just looked like two guys taking turns hopping into place. The stuff that looked best (Rusev's chokes) got deemphasized quick, in favor of "Ryback agility spots" like his middle buckle dropkick and his crossbody. The Ryback agility spots seemed way too out of place in this, and Rusev came out of this looking bad. We had a match where Ryback took 80% of the action, then Rusev only permanently goes ahead by Ryback getting stalled by Lana AGAIN, and then Rusev hitting his nice superkick. Lana is fucking great at her part, but man they did Rusev no favors here. But really they've been doing Rusev no favors for almost a year now.

4. Chair Match: Jack Swagger vs. Alberto Del Rio

ER: Boy a chair match seems impossible to pull off under their PG rules. Feels like a match that has a chance to be violent, but is hard to make look violent to the fans unless the guys just actually get hurt. I can appreciate how nice Del Rio does worked shots to the stomach and throat, but fans like hearing and seeing big meaty thwacks. Swagger taking a chair to the throat off a Vader Bomb attempt looked great and was almost missed by the cameras. Del Rio throws about a dozen chairs on Swagger's body, and Swagger terribly sells this by acting as if he were unconscious. He doesn't even flinch for ANY of the chair throws. Just lies there, breathing heavily, getting chairs thrown at his body. Give me a little writhing, a little AGGGGGGHHH, I don't care if it's cartoonish, make me actually think you're getting hit with fucking chairs, because DUDE, you're getting hit with fucking chairs. It doesn't matter as a minute later Swagger is back in the ring hitting Del Rio with chairs. Del Rio returns the favor by being in the Patriot Lock for an eternity and immediately not giving a shit about it once he's out of it. Man this blows. Swagger has taken nothing but chairs to the body, so naturally keeps trying to do his Swagger Bomb with his battered body. ADR at least set up the corner stomp spot nicely by trapping Swagger in the corner and beating the shit out of him. The visual of Swagger getting stomped into chairs looked good. ADR immediately sells his ankle for the first time right when the match ends. Little of this meant anything to me.

5. Elimination Tables Match: Wyatt Family

ER: So they're doing individual eliminations, which means we should be getting a bunch of bodies through tables here. I thought Rhyno looked really good in the Raw multiman, and he and Strowman looked like they were lacing into each other. Harper and Bubba were throwing big blows too. Once things spill to the floor and table spots start getting set up, the match gets pretty boring. There were a couple decent individual moments, like Dreamer and Bubba going nuts on Strowman with kendo sticks, and then burying him under tables. Harper looks really good throughout, and his big man tope putting Dreamer through a table looked good. Bubba setting up the lighter fluid spot gets the crowd to actually make noise, and then in a hilarious fuck you Harper hits a nasty superkick to Bubba's throat and Strowman puts him through the table before it's lit. So the Wyatts ran through Team ECW, which is what should have happened, but the match wasn't very good.

6. Kevin Owens vs. Dean Ambrose

ER: Owens controls a lot of the start, but he's good at it, good at standing on Dean's throat and tossing on a snug side headlock, nice back elbow, then also flies into Dean's back elbow and gets rocked over the top with a lariat. I loved Owens scouting the Ambrose 360 lariat and catching him, then tossing him into the barricade with a fallaway slam. These two seem like they match up well on paper, but none of their matches have worked for me. You think Owens is a nasty asskicker, and Ambrose is a scrambly babyface with great comebacks, but nothing ever gels to make their matches against each other memorable. Both guys can have better matches against inferior opponents, than against each other. I like the rana out of the powerbomb finish, but the build within their matches just does nothing for me. Both men do spots, but none of the moves each guy takes ever causes either man trouble when trying to hit offense, it just feels like filling time.

7. Paige vs. Charlotte

ER: So I also don't get who is the heel here. Charlotte is a face acting like a heel who will do anything to win, and Paige is acting like a heel who should be a face. Sounds like another combination that will equal a quiet crowd. And jesus do they still think toting her father around with her is hoping Charlotte get over? They've been doing it for fucking months now. Flair gets a reaction, but it just acts as a constant visual reminder that Charlotte needs a LOT of help getting over, like they're afraid of her reaction if not with her father. But the reaction WITH her father is hardly there. They are still desperately constantly saying Flair is her father, she learned from the best, because her father is Flair, she's just like her father, who's 16 time world champion Ric Flair, blah blah blah. It's not making a difference. Charlotte aping Flair spots is just brutal. Charlotte seems like a natural heel, but the Flair spots are just so bad.

8. TLC World Title Match: Sheamus vs. Roman Reigns

ER: Boston crowd immediately distracted with Cena chants. Reigns' mounted elbows looked really good. Sheamus gently tosses a ladder into Reigns. Reigns feebly bumps into the barricade. Both guys are moving startingly slow for the first minute of the match. Sheamus takes a nice backdrop bump over the barrier because Sheamus always takes big bumps. And match starts to get good when it's based around Sheamus taking wild bumps. He sprawls through tables and set-up chairs and tables set up on chairs. He gets a big scrape on his arm and the deep red looks cool against his pale skin. Sheamus always bruises up well. Chair shots start looking more nasty, Reigns throws some nice rights, Sheamus hits an awesome lariat after luring Reigns in to do the apron dropkick. Sheamus does a huge White Noise through a table and Roman ends up grabbing Sheamus' foot getting back in the ring. Sheamus does this great look of disgust at Reigns. All of Reigns' punches and strikes look good in this. His superman punches have been on point. Sheamus takes a couple crazy moves onto and through ladders. One to the floor was sick. Reigns takes a super ill-advised bump off the ladder into the ropes, reaching his leg out for the ropes for some reason, like he was actively trying to tear an ACL. But then Reigns runs up the ladder with a superman punch that sends Sheamus flying off the ladder into a table. That looked great. ADR and Rusev run in. Rusev sells the superman punch really great, dropping to his knees and face planting. Match itself was really good and violent. Reigns flops again when faced with obstacles, but both men matched up really nicely. It's the kind of thing that works better in a vacuum, as the crazy violent spots come at the end of a night filled with crazy violent spots. Everybody wanted their spots to look violent, and while I think the ones in this match were more violent than most of the others on the show, it still feels silly to have to think "was that the best or the 6th best table spot we've seen tonight?" HHH comes out and leans about as far out of the superman punch as possible. Reigns threw like 6 superman punches in the match itself, and they all looked great and everybody went face first into them. So leave it to HHH to bump 3 feet early when it's his turn. Stephanie always seems to be making the wrong faces, like she doesn't understand actual human emotion. Roman throws some more nice rights and HHH takes a powerbomb into an announce table. The long build up of HHH being helped up by tons of officials while Reigns walks away, into Reigns sprinting back to spear him was awesome. Sheamus has been selling for like 8 minutes.

So, I liked the tag team ladder match and the main event. That's two more matches than I liked on the last PPV so there's an easy step-up. Still didn't feel like a great show, possibly didn't feel like a good show. I'm almost always left feeling like a specific match should have been better. That's a feeling that's been with me for months now concerning WWE, seems like every match should just be better. Sometimes it feels like the fed is actively working to have the matches not be better. Is this just me?

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WWE Survivor Series 2015 Live(ish) Blog

So I basically have not been watching any WWE television. If I remember something is on then I'll flip over to the channel, see if anything catches my eye. The product is not doing a whole lot for me right now. I'm going into this not knowing literally any of the matches on the card. That sounds like a terrible idea.

1. Traditional Survivor Series Match: The Miz, Bo Dallas, Stardust & The Ascension vs. Neville, The Dudley Boyz, Titus O'Neill & Goldust

ER: Kind of hilarious that we get a "traditional" Survivor Series match on the pre-show of Survivor Series. Can't have this Survivor Series shit getting in the way of Survivor Series. And woof that is one dogshit 5 man team right there. I mean good lord. The team name should be "The 5 guys Eric would switch channels to avoid". I mean come on. I'm watching you BLIND Survivor Series, and this is what you immediately do to me!? But I cannot skip it, because they had to throw Goldust into the thing. And he was the 10th guy announced. If it had been pretty much 90% of the rest of the roster, it would have been skippable. But I gotta watch any and all Goldust. And he immediately eliminates Viktor with his gorgeous powerslam. I'm not too broken up about that. Titus' corner strikes on Konnor look really good. Konnor's jumping elbowdrop on Ray looked pillowy soft and terrible. Neville gets a fun flurry against Stardust and then gets pinned by a bulldog. We're going into dumbshit quick pin mode. This is mostly awful. Cody punches Goldust in the ear and things get better. Bo Dallas has a shitty chinlock. Match ends awhile later. Nothing to see here. Goldust looked good. None of the eliminations had any build or meant anything. This is clearly a horrible idea of mine.

Byron Allen (?) says that match reminded him of all the Survivor Series matches from when he was a kid. Yeah. There's zero chance this match reminded anybody of anything.

2. Roman Reigns vs. Alberto Del Rio

ER: Roman is getting what they call a "Cena reaction". Del Rio looks like a star. He looks like he's in the best cosmetic shape of his career. He looks pretty massive. I didn't realize he was larger than Reigns. Del Rio looks really good throughout this. Dug his hotshot and enziguiri, then he takes a nice thud on a Fuerza bump. Reigns takes a nice ringpost bump. ADR makes me buy his missed double stomp off the top. He did a real great knee buckle stumble sell. JBL tries to make it out like he faked that knee buckle as part of a strategy, but faking a knee injury to take a superman punch sounds like a pretty fucking stupid strategy. I liked ADR in this, and the match got about 14 minutes to do something, but didn't do much for me. They tried to make the stretch run dramatic, but really they just had ADR lock in the armbar a couple times only to have Roman power out. Kinda made all the babbling about a weak shoulder come off as a shrug. Nice individual moments. Pretty unfulfilling as a whole.

3. Dean Ambrose vs. Kevin Owens

ER: There's a fat guy in the crowd clearly telling his woman the back story on every match so far. You can totally tell. He's pointing at each guy and leaning in, you can just picture him saying "alright so this guy beat a guy named Dolph Ziggler. I know, right? I don't know. Yeah it's probably not his real name. But Ambrose. Yeah the skinnier guy. He beat Ziggler. This is a semi-final. There's a whole tournament." And boy this isn't doing a whole helluva lot for me either. And as I type that they start to win me over. Owens hits a mammoth superplex, Dean hits one of his best ever rebound lariats, Ambrose eats a couple nice superkicks, takes a gross slam into an announce table. But the build for these matches has done absolutely nothing for me. Both have come off like guys doing moves with no consequences. I mean jesus even though I thought they looked nasty, in the last minute of the match Dean got slammed into the announce tables, took two superkicks, and then still got the pin.

The SNES commercial for TLC looked really great. The Reigns superman punch animation was perfection.

4. Ryback & The Lucha Dragons & The Usos vs. New Day, Sheamus & King Barrett

ER: Unhip Sheamus made me chuckle saying they were gonna get jiggy on these poseurs. Big E avoiding eye contact with him afterwards was perfect. Woods has an amazing James Brown pompadour with a ducktail mullet. The construction of the whole thing is really impressive. Sadly it will probably all tumble down after one bump. Sheamus takes a couple really great bumps to the floor working Sin Cara: one nice tumbling one landing on his side, and taking an enziguiri and bumping on his knees to the floor. Ouch. Ryback hits one of the ugliest dives ever, but we'll just go A for effort on that one, like when Road Dogg tried to moonsault off a cage. This whole thing is pretty fun. Big E's spear to the floor is such a brutal spot. New Day is probably the best possible use of Kofi ever. He doesn't have to do tons of offense and let Big E carry the load. New Day ditching Sheamus kinda makes sense, and Sheamus works shockingly well with smaller workers. I loved him stomping on Kalisto's hands. Sheamus did about as good a job as possible holding down the fort without a team. This elimination match was a massive step up from the garbage one on the pre show.

5. Paige vs. Charlotte

ER: Charlotte has never impressed me before. Paige has a really great abdominal stretch, pressing down hard on the side of Charlotte's head every time she wrenches it in. Paige also takes a mean electric chair bump onto the apron. Charlotte's rolling headscissors was both goofy and painful looking, so it gets a pass. But it's not as nasty as Paige's surfboard lock or her great knees in the corner. But those were not as nasty as Charlotte's scream and face after hitting a so-so spear. Match overall was pretty decent. Charlotte still doesn't do much for me. I don't think she has much body charisma, and a lot of her offense feels very dependent on somebody leaning way into her offense.

6. Tyler Breeze vs. Dolph Ziggler

ER: Ziggler has an updated look on mid 90s cruising attire Shawn Michaels. Even has those same awful boots. Kenny Omega douche hair + Shawn Michael lube guy at the fisting station gear = profit?  Match itself was decent enough for a completely heatless affair. Both guys did some things that looked cool, also never made me care about the things they were doing. Some of this may be the announce team. The announce team is the ultimate limp dick tonight. They sound rehearsed to say what is happening in front of them, while also not making it important or interesting or dramatic. It's a brutal combo. Breeze bumps into Dolph's stuff well, flying into a dropkick and planting himself on a flapjack. Announcers push this as a HUGE win for Breeze, but really it would have been far more shocking to everybody if Ziggler would have won. That dude loses to everybody, and has been doing so for years.

7. Wyatt Family vs. Undertaker & Kane

ER: Undertaker's slow menacing walk to the ring looks less doomy and more accident victim learning how to walk again. But in the ring he looks spry enough against Harper. Kane takes an awesome bump over the announce table. Cole is desperately trying to push every single Undertaker movement as "ANOTHER CLASSIC #UNDERTAKERSURVIVORSERIESMOMENT!!!" He's beyond insufferable. Braun takes a fine bump through an announce table, Undertaker impresses me by getting Harper up for a Tombstone eventually, and really this was Undertaker going through some greatest hits so Cole could cream his jeans and scream VINTAGE!

8. Dean Ambrose vs. Roman Reigns

ER: This was pretty easily the best match of the night, but that wasn't really saying a whole bunch. I almost always like it when Shield guys match up, and this match was short for them (about 10 minutes) but was worked at a quick 10 minute match pace. I don't care for the spear as a death finisher, but Ambrose is great spilling all around for Reigns, and I liked the kneeling punch exchange. Also thought Ambrose looked badass with his torn shirt from the previous Owens match, made him look like a hero towards the end of an action movie.

Sheamus cashes in MITB afterwards, and yeah that concept is pretty beyond played out. It's an amusing dick move to cash in on Reigns while Reigns was celebrating in his massive confetti pile Good lord whoever ordered confetti accidentally checked the "case" measurement instead of individual confetti packages, so on the "Confetti Celebration Dial" instead of getting "Tasteful World Title Celebration" we ended up getting "Rip Taylor Just Died Two Days Before Pride Weekend and We Must Celebrate His Memory".

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WWE Night of Champions 2015 Live Blog

ER: So I have watched maybe an hour total of WWE TV in the last couple months? I'm pretty uninterested in the product right now, which I don't think makes me very unique right now. As I understand it that's how many people feel right now. I mean as recently as last year I was DVRing Raw and Smackdown and watching all the PPVs, now I can't even remember the last time I watched Raw or Smackdown. Rachel watches Total Divas, but that is probably months behind actual current TV. So I don't know any of the current stories, don't know who current champions are, don't even really know the card. I'm basically going in blind. We'll see how that goes.

1. Cody Rodes/The Ascension vs. Neville/Lucha Dragons

ER: "You call them henchmen, I call them two dangerous cosmic dark horses", gawd fuck off Michael Cole. Boy, commercials during the pre-show match seem pretty pointless. And this match was nothing to blog about, that's for sure. The Ascension are still somehow a thing, Cody isn't very good without his brother, Dragons are really fun but seeing Ascension take their offense looks pretty ludicrous. Neville (arguably the worst ever "one word" WWE name ever) tags in towards the end and he and Cody don't seem to click very well. This was one forgettable TV match right here. Cole was abysmal throughout.

2. Ryback vs. Kevin Owens

ER: I thought this was really good. Steen goes after Ryback's arm and Ryback does an admirable job selling it throughout (loved little moments where he had it clutched tight to his body). Early we get a cool press slam spot with Owens taking a big drop to the floor. Steen trapping Ryback's arm and ramming it into the ringpost looked sick, Ryback really flew into it. Steen wrenched that left arm in a few painful looking ways, really bending it around. Ryback had some cool spots powering out of the arm work, and it didn't overstay its welcome. Finish was sort of cheap, but also really smartly set-up. Ryback had Steen up, Steen raked his eyes leading to a roll-up title win, but Steen smartly raked the eyes while the ref was behind him so it looked good. And I imagine it will lead to an immediate rematch (probably on Raw since they love doing that).

3. Dolph Ziggler vs. Rusev

ER: Oooooo we get some earring drama. God what has happened to this storyline? Match itself was really good with both guys bumping around for each other, Ziggler more obviously, a lot of big moves that hit, and then an amusing finish. Ziggler really flew into stuff, which is not very surprising if you've seen a Ziggler PPV match before. I was more surprised he leaned out of a Rusev boot before bumping off the apron into the railing. Rusev has a great looking spin kick. I dug how quick all of this was worked, and I actually dug Summer Rae's involvement. She throws her high heel and banks it right off Rusev's face (announcers speculated she was trying to hit the ref, but I have no idea what this storyline is so who knows what she was doing), but Rusev really got a shoe banked off his head which lead to Ziggler hitting the Zig Zag. Disappointed nobody said "Summer turned heel".

Between them using replay to show how Steen raked the eyes away from the ref, and how Dolph had his head smack off the mat, I have to give huge credit to whomever is directing this PPV. I've seen so many replays just expose something that looked good at normal speed, but tonight they're all specifically helping further get over the participants. There was a moment where Ziggler spikes him with a DDT and Rusev's head is clearly several inches off the mat, and I fully expected to see a replay of it, but they just moved on. Good work boys.

Between HD Terry Bradshaw and HD Ric Flair, I'm not sure which towheaded blonde good ol' boy is aging worse on my TV screen today.

4. New Day vs. Dudley Boyz (still going with that "z" spelling)

ER: As a jazz minor trombonist, I am 100% fully behind Xavier Woods using a trombone for ringside heat. Except it's clearly just getting them over as not heels. I had no idea the Dudleys were even back.  Quite the coup for WWE to nab the TNA hall of famers. Woods is kind of dangerously TOO "on" on the floor. He's got funny material ("they don't even have the same color camouflage, and I STILL can't see their legs), but he's kind of a constantly running faucet down there. He needs some more contained bursts. Here he's yelling during down time, but also yelling during the big moments of the match. It came off simultaneously entertaining, and more grating than Chris Tucker screaming his way through every second of Fifth Element. Director deserves more props for replaying Big E's nasty apron splash on Bubba Ray. That looked tough. Match itself was good. Dudleys still have gas in the tank, even D-von threw out some nice clotheslines (including a great flying one on Kofi), Kofi took a nice high backdrop, and (except for the limp finish) this was all super solid tag work.

5. Charlotte vs. Nikki Bella

ER: Charlotte has an impossibly non-existent butt. She's like Masa Chono. It's just lower back right down to legs. Charlotte apparently reminds JBL of Mildred Burke. Really? I guess he's seen tons of film footage from the 40s. Because obviously she's more of an Ed Strangler Lewis. I really liked this match, up until the finish. Nikki looked awesome here. Her leg work was really smart and well done, and she had a surprising amount of leg based offense. There was a great moment where Nikki kicked Charlotte's leg before suplexing her into the corner, then we had other cool stuff like a dragon screw from the apron to the floor. Nikki was relentless in this and was just all over Charlotte. But the finish kinda blew and really felt tacked on and totally independent of anything that had happened in the match. Nikki hardly took anything from Charlotte, but then Charlotte was able to effortlessly lock on her finisher, bridging up on her bum wheel for extra leverage. Felt like they suddenly had to go home and couldn't properly build to a real finish. Charlotte really doesn't do tons for me. Nikki however looked really really good. The strut postmatch was amusing but at this point I would be 100% fine with never seeing Flair on TV again. He just bums me out at this point.

6. Wyatt Family vs. Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns, annnnnnnnnnnnnd Jericho

ER: Some guy in a flak jacket jumps into the ring when they're about to announce the mystery opponent, Bray was really great with a "Is that your guy!?" reaction. Dean was trying to hold back laughter and that's probably not what they wanted, but I'm amused. Michael Cole is in full desperation "What a moment!" selling Jericho's participation. JBL mentions Jericho working for "Riki Tenryu" as a junior heavyweight. Match itself was plenty of fun. I had never seen Strowman before and he was a kick. I'm kind of a sucker for big lugs and this guy is pretty mammoth. Really impressed me standing next to Harper. That is a team I wouldn't mind seeing more of. I loved Strowman's finisher as it really looked like he was squeezing the life out of Jericho. Jericho's legs dangling was a great visual, like fucking Darth Vader choking out a dude. Luke Harper is so damn good, he really should have been given the ball. These teams work together nicely and it always just serves to piss me off that they broke up both teams as we could still be in the middle of awesome trios, with some new members being added or cycled out.

No matches have blown me away this show,  but everything has been good (outside of the meh pre-show match, but technically that shouldn't count against a PPV).

7. John Cena vs. Seth Rollins

ER: Surprised they're running each Seth match back to back, but we'll see where it leads. His white get-up is both cool, but also like one chest piece away from him being the White Ranger. I wish white tights in WWE meant the same thing as white tights in lucha. I think Rollins hits a demonstrably worse Slingblade than Tanahashi. This match was fine. They did some stuff I really liked, some stuff I disliked. I liked Cena's rana off a running powerbomb, with Rollins taking a nasty bump into the buckles. The big move overkill Cena certainly had a short shelf life of enjoyability. I'd be more interested in these guys toning things down instead of this PWG stuff. Although one point in their favor is that the matches only go half the length of PWG matches. So yeah, this was overall fun and didn't overstay.

8. Seth Rollins vs. Sting

ER: So I have no interest in Sting, he's never been a guy I liked, rarely saw WCW growing up so don't have any sort of nostalgia for him. But I really loved this. This is probably more entertained than I've ever been by a Sting singles match. Once he took that wild bump into the announce table I was fully on board. Then Rollins takes that lunatic bump off the top into the barrier. Sting flies into the buckles on a powerbomb, then must be insane as he does a really great crossbody off the top to the floor. I mean that was a great crossbody right there. Just splatted right into Rollins. At this point the match was beyond just "worth watching", it was actively really good. But then I'm not sure what happened with the medic coming in. Maybe I missed something. They were speculating on him maybe getting hurt on that corner powerbomb. But we just sort of had a major stop to the match, which had to have been due to actual injury, which kind of blows a hole into every single match where a guy has a hurt limb and makes Sting look wimpy for the entire match needing to be stopped. Everybody else has to "survive on their injury". Took a lot of steam out of the thing. I still got sucked back in as Rollins put over the Deathlock nicely but this was a weird way to end things.

And then Kane. Because of fucking course Kane. Kane is that fucking herpes sore you're constantly dreading flaring up. You know it's gonna flare up and you keep hoping it won't but you have fucking herpes and you're always going to have herpes.

(I don't have herpes)

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WWE Money in the Bank 2015 Live Blog

We've done most of these, and I got some time before watching the Silicon Valley/Veep season finales, so let's do this until I get bored.

1. Wade Barrett vs. R-Truth

ER: Seems like almost anybody who ends up winning KOTR, and then starts dressing like a king, always ends up just completely dead as a character in mere weeks. I think King Regal was the only one I actually enjoyed. I think he's the only one who played it with the proper gravitas. I mean just look at how far this crown has gotten him! He has the honor of appearing on the kickoff show of arguably the 8th most important WWE PPV of the year! Feuding over a crown feels not quite as important as feuding over a really nice parking space, or an upgrade to a first class plane ticket. Those feel like things that the crowd would get more invested in. I can't imagine people caring about a fake crown, but I can see people thinking "Man, more leg room would probably be sweet on a long flight".  That's already getting me interested. But this match felt exactly like a match that took place on a kickoff show. Short match with a commercial break in the middle, literally nothing of note happens. I mean I *just* watched this thing, and remember nothing about it. Great start to the night!

2. Money in the Bank Ladder Match: Randy Orton vs. Neville vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Kane vs. Kofi Kingston vs. Sheamus vs. Roman Reigns

ER: I wish they had Cena and Owens in this match. Seems like that would have more interesting story potential than just immediately rematching them 2 weeks later. This whole briefcase gimmick does nothing for me anymore. It's silly to put it on a face as it makes them look like opportunistic weenies if they cash it in while a guy is weak, but makes them look stupid if they don't. And it's beyond played out to use it as a device to get over a heel. Early on and they might have set the record for "earliest time 5 guys all lie around outside the ring selling death so 2 guys can fight easily inside the ring". Seems like we hit that around the 3 minute mark, just everybody lying around the ring as if they had been through a war. Some people had hardly even taken a bump at that point! This whole thing is one giant mess of 5 people death selling and two people slow climbing. Kofi at one point was selling on the floor for 7 minutes! Cool he put over a nasty powerbomb, but jesus get the doctors after minute #2! Just not enough logical ways to put a guy out of commission for that long. Michael Cole screaming "WILL THIS BE THE BEGINNING OF THE NEVILLE ERA!?!?" made me laugh. "The Neville Era". That sounds so fucking stupid. Eventually Sheamus shows that HE is the greatest climber of them all!! Man this was bad. A couple of good spots, liked Orton pulling Neville off the ladder into an RKO, Kofi getting tossed onto the group looked good, but the amount of selling on the floor was absurd when you think of what moves each individual actually took in the match. Cole is BAFFLED after the match, cannot think of ANY reason why Bray Wyatt would attack Roman Reigns. Yeah, it's a total mystery. These guys have worked together for so long, after all.

3. Nikki Bella vs. Paige

ER: This is pretty easily the best match of the night so far. Paige appears to be working over Nikki's tits as I've seen more than one back elbow straight to a boob. Also dug Paige's weird over the shoulder single leg takedown out of the corner. Nikki has fun offense which she's actually good at executing, and I liked some of the knees and stomps in this. Brie tossing out her boob padding was amusing, and Nikki's KO blow on Paige looked great. Clearly a much more interesting and better laid out match than the MITB match. Who the hell is even laying out their gimmick matches now? Between that ladder match and all the horrible Chamber matches, somebody is badly fucking up.

4. Big Show vs. Ryback

ER: Fairly fun match until that completely bankrupt finish. Miz is one of the most fast forwardable guys in wrestling. I'm surprised he's still wrestling after those concussion years ago, as ever since he came back from those he has never been able to take offense, especially strikes. He holds his arms out extended almost completely whenever taking anything to the head or face.

5. Kevin Owens vs. John Cena

ER: After Elimination Chamber, Phil talked about how Cena may have become the best indy dream match worker, and after this match I'm with him. It's too much fun seeing Cena pull out all sorts of new offense in his late 30s, and work reversal heavy indy matches. It's also kind of crazy just how much offense they're letting Owens do. I mean they have made every single wrestler reel in their arsenal, and Owens is wrestling almost exactly the same as he would in PWG. I can't totally wrap my brain around it. Has their been any worker of the last decade who they have changed LESS? This rematch is a little overly long, but if you're working a PWG tribute match than obviously you HAVE to go too long. That is of utmost importance. It did get a bit move-tradey which isn't my favorite, but it was balanced out by seeing Cena break out a Code Red and a nice rana and take shit like rotating superplexes and a powerbomb into the apron. Steen stealing all of Cena's offense and doing it better was a nice touch; loved his fist drop. Steen also did a good job covering for the potential Code Red blunder, acting like he was attempting to reverse it and do EZ Money's old Money Bag finisher. This was all super fun but I will repeat that I wish these two would have been in the MITB match instead, so we wouldn't have Cena getting his win back just two weeks later.  At least Steen got to be a total shithead postmatch, people will remember him killing Cena after more than they'll remember his loss.

6. Xavier Woods & Big E vs. Prime Time Players

ER: Good tag and nice to see PTP get the belts. Hopefully they get to hang onto them for awhile. Young played FIP most of the match and Titus is a great hot tag guy. Great clothesline over the top, great backbreaker followed by tossing Woods aside, nice Pounce. This guy has major star potential and it seems like they may be realizing that. Big E takes a nice missed shoulder into the post, and then breaks out a CRAZY suicide dive/spear while Young was on the apron. Also loved Big E locking on an abdominal stretch while slapping the New Day Rocks chant on Young's ribs. Nice little touch. Nice tag match.

7. Ladder Match: Dean Ambrose vs. Seth Rollins

ER: Man I really dug this, my favorite singles match between these two. I mean jeez I'm not sure any match needs 35 minutes. I wonder what was the last WWE singles match that went 35. Still this was plenty brutal and there were some just lunatic spots, the kind of things you expect to see when you go to an indy show that takes place behind a bar with untrained workers. I loved how most of this wasn't a climbing contest like that shitfest of a MITB match. Instead it was more of a fight that used ladders as weapons, and only for climbing when necessary. Focusing on the asskicking instead of the climbing is a simple but HUGE difference. Ambrose was great at getting his knee worked over. I don't recall the last time I bought into a figure four that much, I bought into the pain, and Rollins was killer with his "How ya gonna climb the ladder, Dean!? How ya gonna climb!?" The knee couldn't be sold the WHOLE time but I thought he was good at going back to it. Rollins took some manly shots, getting annihilated with a clothesline off the top rope, getting knocked ass over elbow off the rebound lariat (which was nicely countered a couple times). All of the nasty bumps onto ladders, over announce tables, into the barricades, it was nutty fucking stuff. The big stuff looked great, the small stuff like Ambrose's shots to the ribs and Rollin's shit talk all worked, and I actually enjoyed the shitty finish. Not sure where this leaves Ambrose though.

Overall a good show. The actual gimmick match the PPV is named for was atrocious, but everything else was inoffensive at worst, all the way up to really good. So that's not a horrible night of wrestling right there.

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WWE Elimination Chamber 2015 Live Blog

Been a while since we did one of these, EC is usually my favorite WWE gimmick match, and while I don't know the card outside of Cena/Owens, I'm stoked.

1. Zack Ryder vs. Stardust

ER: This was on the kickoff show, and man I'm glad I rewound to see what I missed. Who could have missed out on a Ryder match!!?? They had a pretty tidy little 6 minute match, didn't make me regret watching it. I don't understand one iota of the Stardust character, but I like Cody as a wrestler more than most people, it would seem. I like the little things he adds to moves, takes a couple extra steps that others don't. For his reverse roll the dice finisher I dug how he pinched Ryder with a nerve hold to make him drop a bit to put him in better position to do the move. Most guys would just awkwardly and cooperatively bend the guy back right out of the gate. Ryder has some decent stuff in this, really liked his dropkick off the apron. Fun little match.

ER: Just saw Macho Mandow and Axelmania for the first time and.....wow. The last thing on my TV with less legs was Oscar Pistorius (take that Pistorius! I knew we'd get some use out of the 2011 Unused Segunda Caida Joke Folder).

2. New Day vs. Los Matadores vs. Lucha Dragons vs. Ascension vs. Cesaro/Kidd vs. Prime Time Players

PAS: Kind of mess, but a fun mess. Loved Cesaros tribute to Nick Gage face wrap, just kind of made me wish Nick Gage was in this match. Rey was always the king of these Elimination Chamber matches, and Kalisto is no Rey, he kept climbing and almost falling. He kind of looked like Homicide when almost fell off a cage on the first Monday TNA show. Really liked the couple of crazy El Torito dives, probably should have left the highspots to him. Match probably could have used Rowan and Harper, they would have been way better then the bush league Ascension (as would the H8 Club, hey WWE sign Nick Gage) in the role of team who cleans house before the main event run. Really liked the New Day v. PTP section, Titus was wrecking people, and the PTP flew around for him. Finish with everyone chopping him down was really cool. Would have loved this back last year when the tag division was really killing it, think about how much better this would have been with Rhodes Brothers, Wyatt Family and Shield.

ER: Out of all the teams that could have started this match I must say that Ascension was right at the bottom of my wishlist. If we started with Cesaro/Kidd opposite the Dragons they could have done some big things. They've been tearing up TV lately. I love Torito standing on top of the Matadores pod, like a little gargoyle. Sin Cara's swanton off the pod was impressive but took forever to set up, and then Kalisto sold on the New Day's pod for days. But we got a wild Cesaro uppercut and superplex out of it at least. I thought the Kalisto spot was awesomely goofy, much better than Homicide literally getting stuck at the top of the TNA mouse trap cage. I was hoping Kalisto would just spider cling to the top of the cage for the whole match. It would have been the greatest twist on the old "Jimmy Hart hiding under the ring during the battle royal". The strength to climb upside down like that is just nuts. Serious question: have there ever been more than 5 black dudes in a WWE ring at once? New Day vs. PTP may have made history, people. It depends how many members the Nation had and if they ever went up against a team featuring Ahmed Johnson. Overall I thought this match was pretty bad, really disjointed. I think New Day looked pretty awful, although most of that was Kofi. I don't think the tag team chamber concept worked very well. It just leaves too many guys in the ring and too much waiting around for spots to happen.

ER: Rusev is apparently out with a broken foot so WHO will replace him in the chamber?! I'm hoping for Savio Vega myself.

3. Nikki Bella vs. Naomi vs. Paige

PAS: This is not the WWE Women's wrestling everyone is talking about right? Awkard mess of a match with a couple of nice potatoes by Nikki Bella, and some really awkward bumps on the head. Kind of reminded me of a IWA-MS rookie match where meth-heads would try puro moves they couldn't do to impress Ian Rotten. Didn't look like something that belonged on a professional stage.

ER: I don't think a 3 way dance is going to make anybody look that good, so I personally wouldn't rush to judge the "new and improved" Divas division. Also, Naomi works much better as a face. She had a great face moveset. Her heel stuff isn't nearly as good, though the Rear View while Nikki had Paige in a fireman's carry was nice. Ending was super awkward with the botched reverse rana and then Nikki just hitting her finish. I've seen all three women look way better, and yeah, 3 ways stink.

4. Kevin Owens vs. John Cena

PAS: Man Cena may be the best indy dream match worker ever. He is really great at putting over the ROH roster. Owens deserves a ton of credit, the trash talking and stiffness really added a ton to the Cena formula, and I loved that crazy throw off the top rope, and his almost package piledriver. It has been a long time since every WWE main event was guys doing their opponents finisher, so those spots were still novel, and fit nicely with what Owens was trying to do. Cena is a master of working his formula, like Flair or Santo or Choshu he can plug someone in, and let them provide the flourishes. I thought there was a decent chance of Owens going over, but clean as a sheet in the middle of ring was a bit of a surprise. Wouldn't think a guy who according to my wife looks like a slightly fitter Kevin Smith, would be the indy guy who would get the full push, but it seems to be working.

ER: I really love matches where Cena works from under, as he's really great at taking moves (that DDT with him bumping it the way Christian used to bump DDTs??) and selling. So him vs. modern indie workers is a pretty satisfying match up since many of these guys have large movesets. It's a trip seeing Cena take all these big indie moves and it's so obvious he would be colossally over in PWG or Evolve. Owens was put in a big spot here as he controlled like 80% of this and always knew what he was doing next, always building to things, and his execution was spot on throughout. Owens going over clean in the middle was awesome and I will always love shocked and said cutaways to fans in the crowd. Steen broke out tons of cool things and I loved Cena's little comebacks: him grabbing Owens' leg when Owens was mocking him with the fistdrop, dropping butt first on Owens from the top, Owens leaning face first into a Cena lariat, and I really really love Cena's springboard stunner. It's kinda goofy, but I think it works and is a good addition to Cena's moveset. It's still wild to see Steen in the ring, still looking like Steen, gym shorts and a sleeveless T, wrestling exactly like Steen. Just not something I thought would happen, and I couldn't be happier that it is. Great showing from both guys here, really every step of the way in the match.

5. Bo Dallas vs. Neville

ER: Boy "Neville" has to be the stupidest example of WWE shortening names to one word. Who would want to buy a shirt that just said "Neville"? And boy this was a dud. Bo Dallas has come back to absolutely no heat, and people did not care to watch him for 8 minutes. Him working his schtick to total silence is uncomfortable, like when a SNL sketch is really dying. Neville obviously has some cool offense but one minute in he's already hitting a chinlock. Dallas took a nice bump to the post, but seemed to gas real early. This was not worthy of being on the PPV. Stardust/Neville would have matched up better, then Dallas could have been relegated to the kickoff show.

6. R Truth vs. Sheamus vs. Ryback vs. Mark Henry vs. Wade Barrett vs. Dolph Ziggler

PAS: Oof what a mess. We had some ok big man brawling and Ziggler bumping, but the match completely fell apart when Sheamus couldn't get out of his pod. You would think veterans would be better at improv-ing. Always happy to see Mark Henry, but he didn't do a ton here. When Sheamus got in he beat on some folks, but this was long off the rails by then. They did some tired Ziggler v. Sheamus counter wrestling, and a Sheamus v. Ryback section, which was really nasty but weirdly paced. I can't ever remember seeing an Elimination chamber this bad.

ER: WHY WAS THIS SO BAD!? I have seen Chamber matches with far worse guys than this, and I believe this was the only chamber matched I've ever actively disliked. God this was boring. That Sheamus stuff was laaaaame. Especially since we've seen guys break out of their pods before, and we've seen pods get broken by guys getting thrown into them. But there's Sheamus, lightly smacking the pod with his palms and begging refs to let him out. Just kick the fucking thing down, man! This whole thing was worked half speed. Watch Ryback feebly pump his arm while the crowd tepidly mumbles "Feed Me More". Everybody lies around, other times people just stand watching each other.  Dolph flew into some stuff the way Dolph can fly into stuff, Henry as the replacement could have been a big moment but he hardly did anything and also spent tons of time just lying on the apron, waiting. A lot of times guys would be lying around selling after not even taking offense. They would do a move to somebody else and then get out of the way, but couldn't think of a better way to get out of the way than lying on the side breathing heavily. Cole says "Sheamus has never won the IC championship, says it's on his bucket list!" and just picturing anybody saying that winning the IC title is on their "bucket list" makes me laugh, but in a sad kinda way. Just imagine Sheamus cutting a promo going down a checklist "Kiss a girl at the top of the Empire State Building", "Tour the Old Bushmills Distillery""Win the IC Championship". Ryback, Sheamus and Henry looked like somebody ground up a bunch of Somas into their protein shakes. Ryback's powerbomb into the ring on Sheamus looked good, but man this really was the worst Chamber match ever.

ER: I'm taking a break before the main to watch Grace Helbig. My spirits need to be lifted in some way.

7. Seth Rollins vs. Dean Ambrose

ER: This Corpus Christi crowd has been silent death almost the whole night. The only thing Corpus is good for is going fishing, and making sure you get yourself seen around town while a shady P.I. back home is murdering your estranged wife and her lover/your bar employee. I wasn't feeling this match BEFORE they went to some throwback Malenko/Guerrero 2 counts (is there any move sequence that needs a retirement more than that?) but they brought me back in with that Ambrose dive and both tumbling over the table. But then they lose me again by doing a stretch where they kept going for pins after each move. We still get some nice moments, like Rollins bumping the rebound lariat, and Ambrose hitting his wild elbow to the floor on Rollins' goons, but this just never gelled for me. I think TV length singles matches just seem to work best for some of these guys. This was maybe my least favorite Ambrose singles match in a year, and I just typed that BEFORE they announced the fucking horrible finish. Oh man. Fuck this show (props to Owens/Cena though, a nice little gem hidden in a massive pile of shit).

PAS: Yeah this wasn't very good, this went the extra 10 minutes that the Owens v. Cena matches avoided. It really felt like those guys were trying to work a PWG match which really sucks when you are just waiting around for the bad finish to happen. I really liked the tope and some of the bumping, but it all felt formless and meaningless. A straight Dusty Finish did make me kind of nostalgic honestly. They should have brought out Tommy Young just for the hell of it.

ER: Hopefully Silicon Valley and Veep continue to deliver tonight, just so something doesn't feel like a massive waste of time for me tonight.

NOTE** Cena/Owens was good enough to nab a spot on our 2015 MOTY list, so I'll just go ahead and link to that:

2015 MOTY MASTER LIST

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WWE Fastlane Live Blog

1. Dolph Ziggler, Erick Rowan & Ryback vs. Seth Rollins, Big Show & Kane

PAS: Pretty fun poor man's Shield trios match. They should just open every PPV with a six man, and give it some time. It is a good way to hide limited guys, they can just come in and hit their stuff. Thought Rowan looked really good, the bump to hurt his knee was cool, and his selling was good. Finish run wasn't as great as your Shield end runs, but I loved the running KO punch finisher. Not the most unique way to reintroduce Orton, but it was a good idea to have him go away for a bit.

ER: A six man is pretty tough to do poorly if you give it time, and this was a perfectly good six man. I read they had plans to make Rollins look strong on this show going into WM, and Rollins arguably looked like the weakest guy in the match. Rowan owned this match, if they wanted to push it as such it could be a real nice way to advance him. He looked strong in all his early stuff, big elbow and leg drop, and was going toe to toe with the big guys, until the brutal spin kick into the post (which looked good). Then he was a good FIP (even putting over Show doing goofy-but-amusing Indian deathlocks) all building to him using his dead leg to spin kick Rollins. Ryback was over and came in and hit some cool stuff, loved his powerbomb that just launched Rollins. Finish was a little lackluster and Kane really needs to stop getting PPV wins, and I was really enjoying my Orton vacation, but again the six man is tough to mess up and this worked  in a vacuum. As far as booking going forward? Rollins was an afterthought throughout, Ziggler refuses to not get any sort of chance, and I doubt Rowan gets a strong singles push.

2. Goldust vs. Stardust

ER: I thought they did about as much as possible with the full non build they received. A rushed break up one week before the show, thrown out on PPV with not much story or reason. I'll never understand their obsession with breaking up teams who nobody actually thinks will be better off solo. They've tried Cody solo, he's always far more successful in team. Goldust is obviously a great singles worker but they're not actually going to push him as a singles star. So I thought the match was fine even though Cody works much better as a tag guy. Goldust tried his damnedest to get the crowd into it and I liked his selling of the body vice, even holding his side convincingly all through the post match. Goldust dished some nasty back elbows while in the vice, and even though that finisher came out of nowhere I thought Goldust setting it up was super impressive. The guy is 45 and moved through all those reversal sequences like butter. Cody only really looked good in the backstage post match stuff, lacing into Goldust with stiff rights and nailing a low superkick. Still not sure about the need to break them up, or where the hell they take things from here.

3. Usos vs. Cesaro/Tyson Kidd

ER: Cesaro is wearing knee pads and after years of being conditioned the other way this now looks weird (even though it took a long time to get over guys like Casas who go in there with just boots and undies). And damn I really dug this. Cesaro/Kidd worked really great as a team. Usos have been dry as dirt the last few months so I liked Cesaro/Kidd working over the leg in the first part. The knee stuff was cool with Cesaro hitting the wild double stomp. This is the best Kidd performance I've seen in some time, he looked really on point and his timing was spot on. Loved the stuff on the apron with him booting an Uso in the face, going for another and getting rocked with a Samoa drop into the guard rail. That was a great spot. Cesaro gets to break out his epic superplex lifting the guy from the apron, and I'm glad they put the titles on them. Usos had a good run and I think they need to go back to fighting from under. Finish was abrupt but I liked the call back to the leg as Kidd blasting him in the knee was enough to allow him to hit his rolling fisherman suplex to win it. Nice tag. Still kinda crazy to think that we were getting a couple tags better than this every week on TV one year ago.

ER: I have zero interest in seeing a HHH/Sting confrontation. It will lead to HHH vs. Sting, which sounds horrible. I switch over to the Oscars during this. I saw most of the Best Picture noms this year. Boyhood and Whiplash were really great. Imitation Game was brutally bad. I liked what Birdman went for but felt more like a good idea than a good movie to me. Not a shock I loved Grand Budapest as well. American Sniper sounds like the name of a Toby Keith album.

4. Paige vs. Nikki Bella

ER: Boy another abrupt finish. Paige looked somewhat clunky, as her roll up into a turnbuckle was really weird. Dug the kick to a charging Nikki's arm, liked Nikki's selling of it, loved her big powerbomb. But I've seen better Nikki performances.

5. Dean Ambrose vs. Bad News Barrett

ER: Crowd is ice cold for this whole show and I think it's making things come off way worse than they actually are. Some guys have gotten chants but for a full looking house (all the cheap seats look full on cutaways) there have been a lot of silent moments. There's a black dude dressed up as Sting in the crowd but with his beanie it's reading more like Dead Presidents.

Oh god and we a DQ finish for not breaking a hold? Are we back to that thing where refs are supposed to call matches as if they were a shoot? That was about as limp a way to end a PPV match as possible. And hilariously it happens one minute after the crowd was actually threatening to get into the match. Both guys leaned way into each other's shots with Dean making all of BNB's big boots look great, and Wade really taking Dean's running dropkick and two rebound lariats nicely. Loved Dean's rebound lariat on the floor when BNB tried to throw him into the ring, and the rebound in the ring was the most the fans reacted to anything all night it seemed. And then. that. finish. Good gracious.

ER: Pretty sure the only people in the arena who thought Undertaker was in that casket was Cole and JBL. Although it is amusing to think about Bray Wyatt going through the process of hiring druids for this bit. Also liked them putting over how silent the crowd was out of reverence to the Undertaker. Looks like they've been paying that reverence for almost 2 hours now.

ER: I was just reminded that we didn't get Elimination Chamber this year because we got this show. Blecch. The Chamber was my favorite WWE gimmick match, always a fun way to use 6 guys. But hey. We got Fastlane.

6. John Cena vs. Rusev

ER: Really excited for this one as Cena vs. Monster matches are usually almost as dependable as Lawler vs. Monster matches. And the match ended up being good. Not the epic I was hoping for, but hopefully setting up an epic. I'm glad Rusev went over (although with their booking that usually means he will be going down at Mania), and I like him blasting Cena in the nards and locking on The Accolade. Cena's biggest strength has always been his bumping so he's always really effective in these kind of matches. Rusev still sometimes comes off as a guy with fake "real strength" but Cena is good at working with those types too, making throws seem more devastating. Cena also totally plants himself on a DDT that was a great spot. Loved the reversal into a Crossface by Cena, and enjoyed the match as a whole.

7. Daniel Bryan vs. Roman Reigns

PAS: Man you forget how good Daniel Bryan is at wrestling. This was really excellent. Reigns is a guy with some impressive spots, and Bryan built a really cool match around those spots. The liver kick was an awesome looking counter and working around him being stunner, makes Bryan smacking around a bigger guy much more credible. I loved Reigns as Rampage Jackson beating his way out of submissions with nasty forearms. I would hope that we get a rematch if Reigns wins the title. The Memphis crowd acting like this was Bill Dundee v. Big Red Reese hurt this a bit, but I still think this was WWE Match of the Year.

ER: Yeah this was really good, although I didn't love the finish of Roman taking tons of abuse and hitting a flash Spear. Not really loving the idea of The Spear as a death move, and didn't love how Reigns not only got to kick out of the knee but acted like he was pretty okay afterwards. Those are my complaints, the rest of the match was awesome, easily the best singles match Reigns has been a part of, and an awesome return to form for Bryan. This had some great moments and an epic build. I loved Reigns getting caught in an armbar, and then it looked like Bryan lost it but it worked great kayfabe as it allowed him to maneuver naturally to the center of the ring and lock in a particularly nasty YES lock. Bryan really laced in with those kicks, and the sequence of Roman catching that last kick (and you knew Bryan was taking just a biiiit too long to throw it), leading to them throwing slaps was awesome. Also loved Reigns catching the second dive was great, as after the first dive I thought "That didn't have the same impact his dives normally do" so it was already in my head that it was blockable, and then bam, caught, nasty throw. Jeez then we had the one spear attempt countered into the small package. Great match.

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