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

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

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Damian Priest

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

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

Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Usos vs. Randy Orton/Matt Riddle

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

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

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

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

Big E vs. Roman Reigns

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

Read more!

WrestleMania 37 Night Two 4/11/21

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

Randy Orton vs. The Fiend

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

Tamina/Natalya vs. Shayna Baszler/Nia Jax

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

Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens

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

Sheamus vs. Matt Riddle

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

Apollo Crews vs. Big E

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

Rhea Ripley vs. Asuka

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

Daniel Bryan vs. Edge vs. Roman Reigns

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

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

Read more!

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

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

Matt Riddle vs. Mustafa Ali

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

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

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

Big E vs. Apollo Crews

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

Braun Strowman vs. Elias

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

Seth Rollins vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

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

Drew McIntyre vs. Sheamus

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

Randy Orton vs. Alexa Bliss

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

Daniel Bryan vs. Roman Reigns

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

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

Read more!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daniel Bryan vs. Roman Reigns

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

Matt Riddle vs. John Morrison vs. Bobby Lashley 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more!

WWE Royal Rumble 2021 Live Blog

Nia Jax/Shayna Baszler vs. Asuka/Charlotte

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

Goldberg vs. Drew McIntyre

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

Carmella vs. Sasha Banks

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

Women's Rumble Match

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kevin Owens vs. Roman Reigns

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

 

Men's Rumble Match

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

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

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

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

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

Read more!

WrestleMania 36 Night 1 Live Blog

ER: So I admittedly haven't been very engaged by the empty arena era. Wrestling is obviously better with a crowd (duh), and I wasn't actually expecting most of the WWE roster to be so bad at working in this new environment. This was a unique forced opportunity to do something weird with your style and change up your act in different ways, show your personality when your voice can be heard louder than ever, and instead most of them have responded by just pretending there is a crowd. Bryan, Asuka, maybe a couple of others have adapted well to the empty arena, but that's it. BUT, there are a lot of intriguing matches on the card, so let's see how it goes.


Cesaro vs. Drew Gulak

ER: I loved this, the absolute coolest way to do a short match. Gulak had the brilliant Bryan match (what feels like a lifetime ago now) and this had some of his strongest ringwork that I have ever seen. I have watched a LOT of Drew Gulak matches and not only was he breaking out tricks I've never seen from him before, every single thing he did was extremely tight. This was work that would make Finlay jealous. He had several awesome counters and reversals, including a gorgeous crossface reversal out of a Gotch piledriver. Gulak really showed off his underrated clothesline, sending Cesaro over the top to the floor and hitting a great flying clothesline off the apron (the diving clothesline is one of the hardest clotheslines to make look great, and this felt on the level of Daisuke Ikeda's diving lariat). He even does a trippy armdrag reversal on the floor off a Cesaro tombstone attempt, reminding me he was co-trained by Skayde. I love how heavily Gulak flew into everything, getting shaken by a Cesaro uppercut, and the way Gulak flew into it from the top rope make it look like he didn't know he was about to eat an uppercut. It's that extra level of committing to a move, to get thudded with a harder shot to commit to the realism. Cesaro also rewards him with the best elbow strike of the match (and surely the show), really putting over who has the power here.  I liked how on top of Cesaro he was, in the way he was constantly working for something in any second of potential downtime. Seeing a match like this and you become aware of how much some guys lie around nearly every time they hit the mat. Here Gulak takes any pin for or against him to take advantage of the prone Cesaro. Cesaro getting pinned and using the kickout to float over into a Fujiwara was logic that exposes the rest of the brand as resting on their laurels, and I loved how effectively he worked that crossface. Cesaro deserves a ton of credit for how well he played into Gulak's work, selling perfectly for all the holds and reversals but also expertly staying in position for all of it, occupying himself so realistically. The sudden explosive Cesaro finish worked for me, him realizing he won't shake the tenacious Gulak so just using his one real advantage - his crazy power - to muscle him up, disorient him, show off his traps and his balance, and then drive him hard to the mat. I loved every second of this.

PAS: This was really great stuff, it feels like given 14 minutes or so and an actual audience, these guys could have a match as good as Bryan vs. Gulak. Really makes me want to find whatever Ant Gulak was vs. Claudio from Chikara. Man Gulak was killer on the mat here, just constantly looking for an approach to grab and twist an arm, such a cool way to have a mat based match with very little time to do it in. Very weird that a guy is coming into his mat wrestling prime during his WWE stint. Cesaro was awesome as a guy whose power cannot be contained even with a bad wing. Empty arena wrestling is still weird and unsatisfying for me, but this is how you work around constraints.


ER: Until that video package I had no idea how - except for Willie Nelson - WWE has exclusively used black performers for America the Beautiful at WrestleMania. And I was weirdly into the overly long and bizarre show intro, which felt like Asylum making their version of Aquaman.


Alexa Bliss/Nikki Cross vs. Asuka/Kairi Sane

ER: This was one of the matches I was excited for, partly because Asuka has been one of the only people who has taken advantage of the empty arena to do different things. She seems to genuinely enjoy the chance to be a goofball in this environment, and I love the way Sane plays her runty second. And this was good! I loved Kabuki Warriors all throughout, with Sane mocking Cross and Bliss when she shouldn't and always paying for it, while Asuka talked trash and danced and then would land a nice forearm or knee (her hiptoss into a knee strike on Bliss was so great, and made even better by her knowing look into the camera after). Bliss and Cross had good energy to counter, especially Bliss who really felt like she was flying into everything at top speed. Her Twisted Bliss moonsault to break up Asuka's rear naked choke was awesome, really crashing hard on Asuka (and, well, Nikki), and the one that pinned Sane was accidentally nasty as she landed right across Sane's legs. I think this would have played really well in front of a crowd, and it felt like Cross wasn't really as animated here as she's been the past few months. I'm sure a crowd would have helped with that as well. I didn't want Kabuki Warriors to win and would have rather had them cheat to retain, to keep the program going a bit and test the Cross/Bliss partnership.


Baron Corbin vs. Elias

ER: Elias just shows up after taking a "flat back bump" off the top of a cherry picker and Cole just going "well we weren't sure he would show up but he's here!" is so silly. And this is a match everyone is going to dump on, but I thought Corbin was good all things considered. He works better in a crowd setting, as you can real feel the disgust and apathy and it can kind of lend itself to a better match. But his work looked strong, loved the way he pinballed hard for a big Elias mule kick, hit a couple hard lariats. He's still been the only person who can credibly pull off the Boss Man type slide before, and there have been several people who have been trying that one since the internet all apparently watched that match. I didn't care about any part of the story personally, as it all seemed very out of sync with itself. Elias gets shoved off a landing to potential serious injury, comes out (still booked even though they said they didn't know he would show), blasts Corbin with a guitar...but then basically gets his ass kicked for a big portion of the match. Still, Corbin is going to get crap for his performance, and he shouldn't.


Shayna Baszler vs. Becky Lynch

ER: Baszler is someone who seems to benefit from the empty arena, as you can really hear how hard she's smacking Lynch. Best case scenario from Baszler with no crowd is that you might hear some mean shots land with that same echo you'd hear on a sub-100 attendance Futen show. And this is really great. I would have liked it to go several more minutes and for Lynch to actually build a bigger comeback. I suppose it depends on if they get another match, but having a heel like Shayna toss around and wreck the champ all match while the champ escapes with a leveraged pin still feels like something that should continue the program. It doesn't make Lynch feel like a strong champ or babyface if she just wants to move onto someone new without actually definitively beating Baszler, so we'll see. Shayna did get that great Futen echo on her strikes, and I loved the way she treated Lynch like a kid sister she was roughhousing with. I loved that thump of her strikes, and things like manhandling Lynch up and slamming her into an armbar or swinging her into the announce table played great. I loved how dominant she worked and how Lynch was barely scraping out of match ending moments. We've seen Baszler get beat several times by this same kind of pin, flipped over from her choke, and on a show like this you'd think it would have been cool to show that she's finally learned to counter that counter after it causing her so many losses. That's a really weird mental gap that should have been solved by now. I wasn't expecting the Shayna win, and I like this finish if it furthers the program. But I'm really not sure why it would.


Daniel Bryan vs. Sami Zayn

ER: Okay, people on this show are working stiff to take advantage of the arena acoustics and I am 100% okay with that. Bryan looked like he was trying to murder Zayn, all of his regular offense looked like it was landing 20% harder than normal. This Gulak/Bryan partnership is really pushing both of these guys to new heights. How special is that? I was into all of the early Zayn stalling and running because not only does Bryan play well off of that kind of thing, but I was also confident it would lead to Bryan unleashing hell on Zayn. Bryan is so believably irked by Zayn that it really adds to the match, and the stiffness puts it over the top. Bryan's kicks and grounded strikes were so good, but by the time he built up to stomping repeatedly through Zayn's face while holding his arms, he was just over the top insanely stiff. Zayn wasn't going to just take it, and he came back with a great follow through lariat (with Bryan trying to one up him not long after with one of his best flying elbow smashes). You knew there would be Cesaro and Nakamura interference, and I loved Bryan wiping both of them out with a big tope down the stretch. We did get another sudden finish, and really every singles match on this entire show has had a finish that has come without a ton of build or kickouts. Bryan of course flew hard into the helluva kick, but I wanted a little more time.

PAS: I haven't been watching much Zayn, but kind of weird he is working as Bobby Heenan now. Still Ultimate Warrior never beat Heenan this badly, Bryan was in full Finlay mode. I don't remember him ever throwing his kicks this hard, and that was the best ever head stomp spot I have seen him do, and he has been doing it forever. I agree that empty arena suits the guys who are best at just unleashing stiffness, and don't need a bunch of dramatics and chants. Bryan is straight up channeling FUTEN now (those crowds were pretty quiet too) which I am into. I would love to see what he would do with a guy who matches him in violence.


Kofi Kingston vs. Jimmy Uso vs. John Morrison

ER: It doesn't get much dumber than defending the tag titles in a 3 way singles match, but these are isolated times. Plus, it's probably not as dumb as these guys all taking ladder bumps with nobody live to react. But doing a bunch of dumb ladder spots to silence is kind of fun in a backyarder kind of way. It's not too hard to picture three teens falling off a picnic table in the public park closest to their home. Needs more of "friend filming everything reacting and distorting the mic audio. This had some genuinely great spots, and also a lot of messiness. Morrison especially looked klutzy early on, but seemed to get better as the match went on. He had a couple tough crashes into ladders, and I liked little moments like him getting a ladder pushed onto him but it landing so he came out unscathed in the middle (before eyepoking Uso). Aspiring to be ladder match Buster Keaton is more interesting than aspiring to be ladder match Shawn Michaels. I came away super impressed by Kofi. Kofi clearly got the picture from all the prior matches that stiffness was the flavor of the day, and I don't know if I've ever seen Kofi lay in shots the way he was here. His clubbing forearms were so great, you could see Morrison's back get redder as Kofi was beating him. Kofi also made his shots into the ladder look better than the others. Morrison was doing stunt falls that had little meaning behind them, and here's Kofi ramming himself at high speed into ladders and crashing hard, a simpler bump than the big spills from ring to floor but so much more effective. Uso even took what looked like an insane bump off a ladder to the floor, and it was barely focused on for two seconds. Uso himself basically shrugged it off to get in place for the finish. This felt too long (really feels like we haven't nailed the right time on any match so far, as everything has either felt too long or that it ended too suddenly), but I liked it more than I expected to like it. Finish was


Seth Rollins vs. Kevin Steen

ER: The Seth Rollins match is almost always the match I least look forward to on a PPV. I never care about his feuds, I never care about his matches, but I would rather see him in something like this than a title match epic. But even Rollins is working more stiff, and a Seth Rollins match focusing on some nice kicks (he had a couple soccer kicks to Owens shoulder that felt far stiffer than anything in a typical Rollins match) is going to be better than the modern Edge matches he usually works. His tope hit unusually hard, really crashing Owens back into the barricade, far different than his usual topes where he extends his arms to far ahead of him that it looks like he's trying to avoid contact of any kind. Owens bumps really rang out in the silence, and he had a major hand in making me more interested in Rollins, and still got to fire back with stuff, like his nice cannonball. I really liked the false finish, with Rollins braining Owens with the ringbell for the DQ. The silent building really does wonders for ringbell shots as the TANG of the bell resonates while you get a big THUNK from the wood that makes it sounds sturdy as hell. The change to a No DQ was a fun surprise, and the work after the change was even better. Rollins was really lacing into Owens with soccer kicks, and they came off painful in a way his stuff almost never comes off (except against Lesnar, who is someone who forces you into working stiff or else get run over), and we also get a couple more ringbell shots. Owens' revenge shot is great, and I really wish they had ended things with Owens just pulverizing Rollins. Instead, they lost me a bit with that big stunt fall off the sign. I didn't like the "How's this for a WrestleMania moment" call, felt really forced, and it took the shine off a big leaping elbow that actually looked great. The replay angles made it look less impressive, but the first shot was far back enough at an angle that it made it look like he was leaping really far. But they weirdly didn't cut to a replay in the aftermath, and instead held firm on both of them. Part of me was thinking "well I guess it's just part of their now played out direction style to just cut to a replay several times" but this time it felt like it needed that. Because instead, we just heard Seth Rollins making risible old man orgasm sounds for an exceedingly long time. Those sounds started making me snort laugh and then I was out of what had been a surprisingly nice ass kicking. Still, even with those old man pleasure sounds, this shot way past my expectations.


Braun Strowman vs. Goldberg

ER: I was actually excited for Reigns/Goldberg. I was fairly optimistic that both are smart enough workers that they would have put together something smart and really fun. Seeing Reigns eat a spear while up for a Superman punch would have ruled, and I hope we get to see it at some point (though there is less reason to do so now). Braun is a fine replacement but the match needed an extra twist to make it work. This was 2 minutes and okay, and I think with 1 more minute it could have been memorable. It needed at least one more miss from either guy, a 1-2-1 or a 1-2-1-2, and instead we just got a 1-2. Goldberg hit some great spears, Braun hit some nice powerslams. We needed one little surprise, and it was explosive enough even with the short runtime, that a couple of extra beats would have made it much more memorable.


AJ Styles vs. Undertaker

ER: So, I loved this. This was SO MUCH BETTER than a brutal 20 minute empty arena "regular" wrestling match. That would have been abysmal. Over the last decade the only way to get something interesting out of Undertaker has been by having him take a beating against a larger than life figure. You had him getting dumped on his head by Goldberg last year in an extremely fun old man scrap, and several years ago we got the all time great Hell in a Cell match against Brock (which is our #3 match of 2015, and was #1 for a bit). Those matches saw Taker against two larger than life men and felt like genuine dream matches with high ceilings. A 55 year old Taker against Styles didn't feel like a match with a similar high ceiling for me, and since nobody was telling us what a Boneyard Match was I was left to my nightmare visions of the Sting/Vampiro Graveyard Match.

But this felt better than the TNA Broken Hardys stuff, and it felt better than the similar stuff that Lucha Underground did. This was much more like a late VHS era straight to video release, like you went to the video store and found a 1999 Lance Henriksen supernatural biker action movie that you didn't know existed. Or like when you found out that there was a third Prophecy movie in 2000 and not only still had Christopher Walken but also Brad Dourif. The match could have benefitted from a character actor cameo (Mark Boone Junior feels like a guy who could have been affordable, just have him ride in with Taker and then toss him a pistol or something later). It used sound FX far better than Lucha Underground (which seemingly only had one SLAP effect and one bone crunching effect. It also looked like, even with the added FX, that Taker wasn't risking it and laying in big right hands to AJ. Taker kept relying on that right hand and I loved when eventually he was surrounded by druid goons, he just kept turning and punching guys with that hand. No blade attacks, no weapons, just a right hand. This had the cool outdoor bumps that other similarly filmed spectacles have had, and the actual brawling between Taker and AJ had more in common with the Regal/Finlay Parking Lot Brawl than with the awful Graveyard Match or even the Hardy Boys stuff. The twists were all fun, the spills into open graves looked good, and you KNEW there was going to be a tombstone with AJ Styles' name on it. AJ fell all over this graveyard and haunted barn, tossed onto old wood and crashing through fences. I thought all of those effects looked good, like the druids breaking through the barn (which had the proper horror lighting) or the two of them breaking through a fence. I mentioned Lance Henriksen earlier and some of these overhead shots looked like the land where Pumpkinhead was filmed, and it was lit the same way as the final showdown with Pumpkinhead. And yet this did not set unreasonable Pumpkinhead hopes, because everything they had done had been cool in its own way. Within their own canon I think this came off even better than something like the crazy street fight violence of the Hollywood Backlot Brawl, and instead of Piper breaking his hand on Goldust's face we got Taker cutting his arm on a window and AJ yelling about a broken finger. This whole thing was a ton of fun and again, SO MUCH BETTER than any "normal" match we could have had between them.


So I thought this show was great. The matches I absolutely did not care about (Rollins/Owens and Styles/Taker) WAY overdelivered, and you also had Gulak/Cesaro and Bryan/Zayn (added to our 2020 Ongoing MOTY List) that came off impressively violent and cool. This whole thing was more than enjoyable, it kept me entertained the whole way through, and these days it doesn't always take much to make me lose my concentration. I'll come back tomorrow to do the 2nd half, although it has some BIG damn shoes to fill.

Read more!

WWE Elimination Chamber Close to Live Blog 3/8/20

ER: Chamber shows seem to deliver a higher rate of success than other yearly WWE PPVs, and this card looks especially strong on paper. I'm so used to not being very excited by cards (and then being pleasantly surprised) that it feels weird going into a show actually excited for most of the matches.


Viking Raiders vs. Curt Hawkins/Zack Ryder

ER: I'm used to seeing Hawkins and Ryder work even matches with guys who most people don't even realize are on the roster, like Eric Young or Shelton Benjamin. But every year or so they show up on a PPV pre-show and suddenly they're the ones cutting of the Viking Raiders. I expected this to be the Vikings absolutely wasting these two, but instead we get a cool section of Hawkins and Ryder cutting off Erik from Ivar. Hawkins even dropped Erik with a vertical suplex on the floor. That ended once Erik tagged in Ivar, and Ivar had the kind of hot tag that really snaps a pre-show crowd to life. Ivar's timing looked really good, hitting a huge lariat on Hawkins after cartwheeling past him, flattening Ryder with a crossbody, drops down with a great butt splash, and their finish looks like a damn finish, a big flapjack into an over the shoulder powerslam. The finishing stretch of this really made them look like the kind of wrecking ball tag team that WWE hasn't been featuring as much, but I also like how we got a fun stretch of them selling. Typical good pre-show match.


Daniel Bryan vs. Drew Gulak

PAS: I am used to seeing these kind of non-WWE style matches hidden on 205 Live or NXT UK, but this is the most un-WWE match I can ever remember seeing on an actually big card. It is crazy that Bryan has the juice to work a 15+ minute match with Drew Gulak, have it go almost entirely on the mat and get in on PPV.  So much to love here, total star making performance for Gulak, who got to dominate most of the match, with the story that he knows Bryan better than he knows himself. He is like the Survivor super fan who knows all of Tyson or Boston Rob's strategies.

Bryan took a hellacious beating to put over Gulak, that Saito suplex was awesome looking with Bryan selling a stinger, the released suplex looked a horrific as one of those has ever looked, and I actually thought Bryan might have Misawa'd his neck. All of the little things were cool too, with Gulak able to either win the mat exchanges or fight Bryan to a draw. Nasty grinding mat wrestling too, after the leglock exchange, Gulak had a mouse over his eye, and Bryan had multiple welts and bruises.  Finish run was so class, the Ultimo Guerrero reverse suplex into the Gulock was perfect, and I really thought Gulak might go over. But the desperation reversal into the super violent Yes lock for the pass out, was really great grappling. I had super high expectations for this match, and it exceeded them. Gulak's career match and honestly really high on Bryan's career list too.

ER: Wow. The other night I watched a real dream match for me, Eddie Kingston vs. LA Park, and it landed at #1 on our MOTY List. And now the very next night I get ANOTHER genuine dream match of mine, and it immediately, easily becomes my favorite match of 2020. This is a real teacher vs. student match, trailblazer vs. acolyte, two guys having a match that looks like no WWE PPV match has looked before. Gulak wouldn't be in WWE if it weren't for what Bryan did in wrestling in the 2000s. There's a chance Gulak wouldn't be in wrestling at all if it weren't for what Bryan did in wrestling in the 2000s. This match is Gulak's return to TV wrestling, a guy who has seemed rudderless since they took him off 205 Live with no warning almost a half year ago, and here he is in his first WWE PPV match. Nobody rightly expects dream matches to fulfill their potential to this degree.

These two take it to the mat and work it so intensely that you really see how easily a WWE audience could get trained to get fully behind that style. They built the matwork in a way that kept the crowd engaged, even thought they weren't working strikes or highspots for the first half of the match. This kind of extended matwork is rare on any TV (even lucha TV format has phased out a lot of extended primera matwork), and here is an all time legend making another star on a big PPV working a rugged mat style. They cranked headlocks, twisted ankles, bent knees, fought with intent over kneebars and each wrangled over Boston crabs. Gulak booted Bryan right in the chest to break a hold, and it wasn't long into the match before both bodies were showing bruising. The fans got into a surfboard as if it were a move they'd never seen before, and by the time Gulak dished out chops and elbows in the corner they were even more into it.

Gulak and Bryan kept that matwork looking like a fight at all times, so that by the time the two were actually fighting, the building had been ramping up for 7 minutes. We got some of the nastiest throws and suplexes seen in WWE history, like the two were fighting to be included in highlight packages featuring Brock and the Steiners. Gulak throws Bryan with a Saito suplex like a Russian Olympian, and his release German is one of the most holy shit spots I've seen in WWE (which is saying something since the match also had a vertical suplex from inside the ring to the floor). Bryan got launched halfway across the ring and lands squarely on his left shoulder, and as the cameras linger on his body slumping and folding into the mat you get to visually see how much punishment his body has been through. The expertly teased count out finish really felt like it could have been the actual finish. Bryan took a complete beating here, and his known history of neck problems made every fall feel even worse. Sure, he had his own shots, Gulak had his own bruises and got dumped with a nasty dragon suplex, but Bryan looked like a guy really getting put through the shredder. Bryan takes a hard fall onto the top buckle, and as Gulak is locking in the incredible reverse superplex, I think Gulak really has a chance to win this. This really was built to make Gulak look like a star, and he looked all of it. This match hit a point where it ceased mattering who won or lost, just because of how unforgettable they had made it. That superplex and Gulak bending Bryan's body backwards into the Gu-lock would have been violent enough to successfully run a fake Bryan injury retirement angle. But Bryan's victory seemingly opens the door for them to do more. This was really the first time in WWE that Gulak hasn't been featured as a comedy figure on the main stage, and I have to think this match really opened some eyes.


Andrade vs. Humberto Carrillo

ER: I thought this ruled too. Andrade went out there clearly realized he had to follow what Gulak and Bryan just did, and so he beats the hell out of Carrillo. These two have had a lot of matches already, several on TV and one great one a couple months ago at TLC. All of their matches have gotten a lot of time to do their thing, so they've really been able to grow their style a bit. Phil and I were chatting about the match, and he thought they should have worked more of a Rey/Juvy match than working a similarly stiff match to the already legendary match that preceeded them. But I've seen them work their Rey/Juvy match, and I liked it, but now I'm glad I got something different. I actually thought they were going to have a 4 second match, and honestly thought that would have been cool. Andrade's whipping back elbow looked like it decapitated Carrillo, who took it like he ran headlong into a doorframe he didn't see. Carrillo kept pasting him with shots, and I liked the way Carrillo worked into slick flying spots around the violence. Carrillo benefits from being in there with someone like Andrade, and Andrade takes his payment in bruises. All of his shots landed hard, from his elbows looking like Carrillo was getting knocked back to his heels, to his running knees threatening to break Carrillo's collarbones. But then he made Carrillo's biggest moments look even bigger. That super rana showed they had retained the crowd after a real tough match to top, and he put that kind of bumping energy into everything Carrillo did. The finishing roll up sequence was inventive and I thought the narrow win off a quick leveraged pin was a great way to have him escape. This PPV has started great.


The Miz/John Morrison vs. Robert Roode/Dolph Ziggler vs. Gran Metalik/Lince Dorado vs. Heavy Machinery vs. Big E/Kofi Kingston vs. The Usos

ER: New Day are wearing all white Paint By Numbers gear, with a key for the colors on the back, and it's some absolutely all time gear. Is Paint By Numbers style a trend that I haven't heard? I love it. The crowd is noticeably quiet during the Usos/New Day opening, and those are teams that usually get reactions. It's possible they got burned out from the previous two matches, but I think the ring entrances for this match alos dragged on too long. Too many long, separate entrances felt like too much of a cooldown. But they didn't let it discourage them, which can happen. The match gets fun when Lucha House Party gets in. Just as Drew Gulak had his first PPV match, this was somehow the first PPV appearance for either Metalik or Dorado. That's really cool, and they both come into the match hot (a little too hot, as Metalik ends up taking a powerbomb on a failed rana attempt on Big E, but they treat it as if the rana connected) and once they settle down we get a great run from them. Metalik does his gorgeous ropework that always gets a reaction, and he and Dorado work some fun misdirection chained spots, ending with two nice moonsaults. Metalik was also getting reactions from big bumps (always gotta have a lunatic taking the hiptoss bumps on the edge portions of the Chamber), and Dorado gets to be the guy flying off a Chamber pod onto guys, and then gets to hitting a Spider-man shooting star press onto everyone from the top of the Chamber. Dorado's spot off the center of the Chamber is probably the most successful version of that kind of spot. Shame they got eliminated by a Heavy Machinery compactor literally right after, but I like the attention to detail in having Otis be the only one to be left standing after Dorado's big moment. Tucker tossing Ziggler off a pod and Otis catching him was a super impressive spot, and the hotshot Otis gave Ziggler right after looked great, but catching Ziggler felt like such a big deal that it felt like it needed a bigger exclamation point than the hotshot. Felt like it needed a big slam. But then Tucker flies off the top of the pod with a cannonball into the remaining bodies and goes tumbling away from the group. Tough to top that right?

Well Otis immediately tops it by crashing through two walls of the pod to fly completely out of the Chamber to the floor. He crashed through those pods like Pee Wee riding a motorcycle through a billboard. It was a total Wile E. Coyote spot, and one of the all time greatest spots in a gimmick match that has created a ton of all time great spots. Otis slander can stop now, this guy is a tank. I wish they would have gone all the way through with Heavy Machinery, would have been nice to see them have a run, even keep the Mandy story going with a Roode/Ziggler feud. Usos vs. Miz/Morrison doesn't excite me much, feels like I've been watching Miz fight the Usos frequently for the past 5 years. Morrison brings something different to the equation in theory, but it still feels like a thing I've seen too much. Ending a Chamber match with a feet on the ropes roll up is a pretty amusing way to do it, but I'm not sure it was the right move. I like the dichotomy of the match having some really crazy moments, then ending with the oldest trick in the book, but the purist in me feels like you need something stronger there. Good match overall though, plenty of memorable big moments.


AJ Stlyes vs. Aleister Black

ER: This had a lot of strong work, but was much slower paced than not only other No DQ matches, but slower than the two very similar matches we've had on this card. This was focused on some stiff striking and wrenched in submissions in the same way Gulak/Bryan was, with Black hitting several kicks to the chest that Styles made look like he was getting hit with a full baseball swing, and Styles throwing several kicks and stomps to work over Black's leg. Styles would kick his leg at a buckling angle, and had a couple real sick calf crushers. But the downtime in between the cool stuff left a lot of the crowd cold, in a way they perhaps wouldn't be had they been attending a lesser show. This was a show that already had a lot of stiff strikes and big highpots, so this was a tough position for these two. Plus, the Singapore cane stuff felt far less interesting than any of Black's kicks. I also didn't care a ton for Black's knee selling, getting a little too performative at times. It's kind of neat seeing a guy hopping around on a leg selling a limp, but after seeing him go for another quebrada you start to think he's maybe asking for a sore knee. This match loses me once the OC get involved, but at least the finishing Black Mass looked good (it always does, but still). The No DQ stip didn't lead to anything interesting, a regular match between them would have been fine. This might have stood out more on a weak show, but this has not been a weak show. The Undertaker stuff does not move me in either direction.


Street Profits vs.  Seth Rollins/Murphy

ER: Hey here's a match I didn't want. How to lose my interest in a great show, check out these past two matches. This match is really shoveling on the dirt, and the quiet crowd appears to be with me. Street Profits keep some fans interested, but Rollins is so cold for me. What's funny is that Rollins and Murphy each had a headlock that I really liked, it was all their athletic spots that I thought looked light. Murphy can make a scary bump off the apron look like a routine tumbling exercise, and he has a tendency to bump everything with the same level of impact, actually doing his opponent's offense a disservice. Dawkins' hot tag was good, big man lariats and his 360 spin avalanche is a great signature hot tag spot. Ford takes some big bumps (really liked him eating knees on a high frog splash, and liked Rollins turning it into a small package), but can also come off a step slow in ring. Rollins/Owens isn't a match that I am interested in seeing, don't care about the match involvement, but this match made the show feel an hour longer. But I will watch Viking Raiders vs. AOP.


Braun Strowman vs. Shinsuke Nakamura/Cesaro/Sami Zayn

ER: This is another match that I don't really care about, so the unfortunate Styles/Black match followed by the dull tag, capping it off with a kind of silly handicap match, isn't going to help the show. BUT giving Sami Zayn an IC Title run is an actual great move. His kind of opportunistic undersized weasel works great as a mid level title holder, always making a babyface look good in the chase, and he's a good guy at getting clowned for 75% of a match and still somehow win. So this was a kind of nothing match that had a fun end result that should make for some entertaining programs, so it was an overall win.


Asuka vs. Sarah Logan vs. Liv Morgan vs. Shayna Baszler vs. Ruby Riott vs. Natalya

PAS: This was clearly designed to get Baszler over, and pretty much everything after she came in was an angle, but man what a delivery. I want to give real props to Logan, Natalya, and Riot who all absolutely killed each other in their section before Baszler came in. The Riott senton off the side of the Chamber was nastier and cooler then any of the crazy highspots in the tag chamber, and Logan's running knees to Natalya and the plexiglas were super nasty. Once Baszler came in she rampaged. I think they should have worked the times a bit, I think Baszler had to dance around a minute or two too long before the pods opened. I also would have liked to see her tap the women with different submissions instead of always the RNC, although I get how you want to establish that as deadly to people who don't watch NXT. I am a Baszler fan, so I enjoyed the monster push, and hope they have her beat Becky too. You need to set up Baszler vs. Ronda when she comes back.

ER: I really liked the looks of this match on paper, almost all of my favorite women on the roster in my favorite gimmick match. And I thought this match absolutely ruled...whenever there was actually a match happening. There has been a killer violent streak happening in the women's division this year, with some nasty under the radar TV bouts (Asuka vs. Natalya, Carmella vs. Bayley, and a host of other individual performances) and this continues that trend. Riott, Natalya, and Logan really killed each other. All of the stuff pre-Shayla was hitting hard on every level for me. Riott had a great return to prominence. Her trash talking was great as she smashed Natalya with shots, but then took a hard beating of her own with a couple nasty bumps on the Chamber edge (including a great powerbomb). Logan looked like she broke Natalya's face when her pod opened, flying into her knees to chin. When Baszler came in I felt bad that those three got completely steamrolled by Brock Baszler, after all they had just all clearly worked their ass off in the main event of a big show, but the killing was handled so well that I loved it. Baszler murdered Logan and Riott with knees, and her rear nakeds on both looked braincell reducing. Logan especially sold it incredibly, and Riott had a great sell from the kneelift.

But the match made a major faceplant by hanging Baszler and Asuka out to dry by stubbornly sticking to actual real time. This desperately needed a worked clock, as Baszler did not have enough material to fill in the incredibly, fast forward worthy downtime. How did nobody call an audible? The downtime was so long, and the crowd got deservedly restless. Who in the back is so dedicated to the art of taking proper time, that they didn't realize the MAIN EVENT was in danger of dying? Baszler/Morgan and Baszler/Asuka delivered, even though I wish Liv got a longer go. She's been a strong house show performer that for some reason hasn't been given much of a chance on TV the last year, and she died a valiant death here but deserved a run in charge. Asuka vs. Baszler felt like a big deal main event (one that fans had to wait a deathly long amount of time to see), and Baszler was killing her with knees. Asuka has so much charisma and has been absolutely unleashed the past several months, and I thought she was actually going to conquer Shayna with her chickenwing choke. But the final showdown came off great, they just bizarrely blew out two of their tires on the easy trip to the finish line.


2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

NXT TakeOver: Toronto 8/10/19...Everything Except...

ER: So I was unable to actually watch this as it was actually airing, but I always look forward to big NXT shows (no matter how much I've been dreading their main events the past year) so I figured I would watch as much as possible tonight before getting sleepy, then finish the rest tomorrow before Summerslam (and then do Summerslam)!

The Street Profits vs. Kyle O'Reilly/Bobby Fish

ER: I thought a lot of this was pretty boneless and emotionless, big parts feeling like O'Reilly especially were some kind of automated driverless wrestler, just mechanically running through spots in really unattached ways. But Montez Ford brought some actual personality and freak athleticism and salvaged a match that felt too long. Ford seems to glide sometimes and it's cool to see, watch him hit a neat kip up and standing moonsault, super graceful tope con giro, and an absolutely great top rope splash for the win. People had moments in this, liked some Dawkins cut off spots, liked O'Reilly kicking Dawkins in the inner thigh, but a lot of this felt a little phony and I couldn't match the crowd's appreciation.

Io Shirai vs. Candice LeRae

ER: This was up there with the most I've ever enjoyed Shirai in a singles match, but I really didn't like LeRae and thought she kept screwing up the pacing and doing terrible drama. LeRae leads off with a terrible double leg takedown and everything else seems about as out of place from there. She was really obnoxious about immediately getting into position to go back on offense, right after taking a KO move. She takes a nasty 619 to the back of the head, and she sells it by standing up immediately, bounding off the opposite ropes, and hitting a tope tornado DDT; later she eats a huge German suplex and sells it by getting immediately to her feet and waiting patiently in place for Shirai to bounce back off the ropes to run into LeRae's obvious offense. It made things pretty uninteresting to me, and creating drama by merely taking a big move and having it not affect you, is not drama in any way. Shirai hit some of the meanest stuff I seen from her, a crazy double underhook backbreaker, Spanish Fly that landed hard, wrenching LeRae around with a backbreaker, but none of it ever felt appropriately absorbed by LeRae. LeRae's emotion and fighting spirit and selling were all over the map, and even though the match had some fantastic moments and a more grown up Shirai performance (still overshooting that genius moonsault though), but Candice kept taking me out of things.

Velveteen Dream vs. Roderick Strong vs. Pete Dunne

ER: This gets a fun personalized Canadian entrance, with what appears to be the Raptors dance squad coming out and jamming to The Mountie's old theme song (a personal favorite) before throwing it to the Dream's entrance (who comes out in Canadian red and white). And I had a blast with this match. I t was a really great showcase for Dream and Strong, and Dunne was also in the match to mostly add stupid offense but also take exciting offense. They kept up a really insane pace for the duration of the match, without anyone getting crossed up or standing around waiting to hit their marks. This had some pretty impeccable layout, with nobody really having to get up and hit a spot right after taking a beating because that's what the layout dictated. Three ways are difficult to pull off, because you need to get it into singles action a lot of the match but also believably get the third man out of the ring during that time. Most 3 ways a guy just rolls to the floor after taking a fairly standard move and then disappears for 4 minutes. Here we had regular involvement from the 3 players with nobody feeling like they got in the way.

Strong really stood out like a big deal to me. Funny thing is, he almost always does. Strong has been consistently great for probably a decade now and it's still somehow surprising to me when I watch another great Strong performance. I don't think this thing works as a Dream/Dunne singles or as a 3 way with somebody other than Strong. He kept peppering this match with big backbreakers and suplexes, big kneelifts, and appropriate bumps and selling for his opponents. Dream really seemed to benefit from being in their with Strong, as Strong took every axehandle like a gunshot, went down hard for every long arm lariat, and seemed to be orchestrating every car crash spot involving all of them. Dream has really great body movement. He's not a very large guy, but he throws his most simple attacks with such unique movement and flexibility that he comes off like Mr. Fantastic. There was a stretch where he whipped off a couple great punches, threw a couple weird straight arm lariats, hits a Rockette kick, the way he rubber man bounces out of the DVD, and he gets such great stretch from his limbs that it makes him look like he could catch you with a strike no matter where either of you are standing in the ring. Some of the spot set up is brilliant, like Dream slithering away from Dunne only to get his legs grabbed by Strong, who crotches him around the ringpost; or Strong running around dropping both with back suplexes on the apron and barricade; or Dream hitting that big elbow all the way across the ring during a tree of woe spot. The big moves hit big, and they even did some stuff that comes off silly during 3 ways but I think was elevated here by Strong. Really the only thing I thought looked bad was whenever Pete Dunne would try to do any strikes. I don't know why he thinks his slap fight girly hands look good, but he looked like he was defending himself from a backseat big brother attack than stand up to Dream and Strong. Those little flimsy slaps need to be dropped immediately, and his bad punches when trying to fend of Strong should literally be in the running for worst strikes thrown in a major company. My god. The finish stretch was hot as hell, loved Dream hitting the DVD only for Strong to throw him over the top rope and hit a big backbreaker on Dunne, only for Dream to rebound right back in with the big elbow. This was the match I needed after the first two.

Mia Yim vs. Shayna Baszler

ER: This never really clicked with me. They chose a couple of interesting directions to take, with both gals going after arms, but none of the arm stuff ever actually went anywhere interesting. I liked some of the exchanges, and some of the actual moves, but the selling seemed like it was part of a different match than they actually wound up with. It was kind of odd. Yim set up a spot where she kicked Baszler's arm in the ring steps, and Baszler sold her arm the rest of the match...but Yim weirdly skirted the arm several times. There was a spot where she set up the Code Blue off the tope rope, and specifically trapped Baszler's arm in her knee crook, and I'm thinking "Oh man that's an awesome arm break spot that I've never seen! Flipping over and using her own weight and momentum to kick the arm work up another level!" And then she just did the sunset flip bomb and went for a pin and I was left wondering why they even bothered paying attention to her clearly setting up a focus on the arm during the move. Shayna kinda did the same thing in a way, establishing an attack on Yim's arm (leading to the great spot of her stomping the posted out elbow), but it's not uncommon for Shayna to establishing arm work to then making it easier for her to sink in a choke. So I was expecting that, but then also thought it didn't make as much sense within this match. Not only was she then doing rear naked chokes using the arm that Yim had been working over, but I would have liked to see her punish Yim for having the balls to even come after her arm. And was anybody else expecting the Horse Girls? They made such a big deal about Yim taking out and injuring the Horse Girls, that surely that meant they were going to come out and do something, so I was amused when that never happened. But I was still left so confused about why they never really cashed in anything they actually set up before or during the match. I have no major complaints about the ring work, it all looked fine, though perhaps the obvious silence of the crowd during much of the match was a sign they weren't sure what was happening either. At one point Yim yelled at the crowd to get into it, and the quiet that came after couldn't have felt good. Even right after that when she hit a nice dive, it merely got scattered polite applause. It feels like this is a frequent NXT TakeOver criticism I use, but...It felt like these two have a good match between them, and this had the potential parts of that hypothetical good match, but this wasn't it.

Read more!