2021 Ongoing MOTY List: Bryan/Otis vs. Nakamura/Cesaro

16. Daniel Bryan/Otis vs. Shinsuke Nakamura/Cesaro WWE Smackdown 1/1

ER: Here’s a little gem from the new year, as if the calendar turned over and these four decided to celebrate by working a quick stiff tag. Bryan and Cesaro are always going to be a cool match, but the other two are wildcards. Nakamura and Otis are both capable of coating, but their New Years resolutions must have been really motivating because they had a lot of my favorite moments of the match. Bryan had some cool amateur takedowns on Nakamura and really looked like he was refusing to let go of a waist lock, until Nakamura threw a back elbow at his eye. There’s a great rope running sequence where Bryan runs under a Nak high kick and elbows Cesaro off the apron, runs back under a Nak clothesline and hits a dive into Cesaro...except it gets even better as Cesaro catches this super fast dive and tosses Bryan into an uppercut. Brilliant sequence there. I wish we could have seen what happened right after, as the commercial break cut into Otis running full speed around the ring after Cesaro. 

Nak and Cesaro were strong in keeping Bryan isolated, Bryan taking a couple big bumps to the floor and Cesaro working him over with a smothering headlock and great elbowdrop, Nak getting a few kicks in at Bryan’s head. Otis’s hot tag is explosive as hell, everything he threw looked awesome. His avalanche has real impact, and that 360 clothesline is finisher worthy. The home stretch is filled with cool cut off spots, like Otis breaking up a Nakamura armbar with a diving headbutt to Nakamura’s chin, or Cesaro sending Otis back on his heels with a stiff uppercut before Otis punches him in the side of the head. Otis and Cesaro each take nice bumps to the floor to set up the finish (this match was filled with nice spills to the floor), and while I was hoping for one more save to set up an even bigger finish, this was a cool way to start off the wrestling year. I love a match where everyone has a legitimate claim  to best performance. 

PAS: Really fun all action tag match. Nakamura has been sleepwalking through matches for years now, but looked engaged and inspired here, and Cesaro/Bryan is a tremendous match up. I really loved Cesaro catching the dive and throwing him up into an uppercut, and I really wish we could have seen the heat section during the commercial. I thought Otis was a fun hot tag, although I could have done without him killing the momentum for his dumb worm spot. I actually liked the finish, so many of these WWE TV matches end with a rollup, so seeing Bryan countering into the Yes lock for the kill shot was really cool. 

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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WWE TLC 2020 Late Blog

My sister is moving in a month, so I spent the weekend with her packing boxes and moving things into her garage. A stunt show PPV I can have on in the background and pay partial attention to sounds like it could be fun. Not super familiar with the card so I'm kind of going in blind, which hopefully leads to being pleasantly caught off guard. Am very excited for Sasha/Carmella.

Daniel Bryan/Otis/Chad Gable/Big E vs. King Corbin/Cesaro/Shinsuke Nakamura/Sami Zayn 

ER: Bryan keeps shaving the sides of his head higher and higher, and he continues his career trend of Always Having the Hair of a 10 Year Old. Otis is wearing a Vader singlet, and this match looks like something that can't miss on paper. These 8 guys in a 2000s NOAH setting would light things on fire, so I'm high hoping this one. And it was actually really good. It had a great Coliseum Video feel to it, the way it was worked, and the way it was 4 babyfaces vs. 4 heels and they're mostly aligned because of being either a face or a heel. Zayn was avoiding Big E and running around the ring and hiding like Jimmy Hart, and it was balanced well with quick tags and a brief cool down to build to the big finish run. Corbin is good at working cool down (that's an actual compliment) and good at inserting himself in the hot finish, Bryan glues all this together to build to the big Otis hot tag, and the finish stretch move chaining all looked good. Cesaro hits this awesome deadlift Dr. Bomb and just lets him go, Corbin hits a great spinebuster on Otis, we get our big showdown between Big E and Zayn and Zayn gets caught. It's all very satisfying pro wrestling. 

AJ Styles vs. Drew McIntyre

ER: I really liked this, but thought the ladder stuff really took away from the match at points. I liked the first 8 minutes when no weapons were used the best, with Styles bumping big around the ring and ringside. He took hard hits into the buckles, got dropped ribs first a couple times on the barricade, got thrown over a table with chairs on it as if he were in a fight in a closed bar, and it was great. Setting up tables and climbing ladders changed the pace of the match, which they made up for by building to hard landings (Styles gets tossed hard on a ladder and thrown over the top through a table at ringside), so everything looks like it really stings. But I think the ladder climbing really took me out of it as the climbing doesn't feel anywhere near as climactic as had they just been wrestling. Miz cashing in his briefcase and then doing the slowest possible climb really made this stip feel stupid, though I think the fight choreography when they got to all three fighting on the ladders was good. Styles working over McIntyre's leg lead to a couple nice moments, like the calf slicer through the ladder. Styles' bump off the ladder to the floor looked sick, and Miz was made to look like an absolutely tremendous fool. Also, I do not need Miz in the title scene and him losing in this kind of fashion is perfectly fine for me. A match that lost me, but one that also had a lot of good (front loaded), but needed an editor. 

Sasha Banks vs. Carmella

ER: I thought this was really good, as good as I was hoping it to be. It had a couple twists and turns, made Carmella look like a worthy challenger, built to a feverish home stretch, one of those matches where a better opponent helps bring out the best parts of Carmella. Sasha is really great at this point, so much that it always bums me out that none of this is playing in front of live crowds. Sasha feels like she'd be the biggest thing in 2020 wrestling if there were live shows. I'm really glad this was a straight match and not worked under the TLC stip, a straight match was the right choice and the drama over nearfalls and submissions is more interesting than climbing and falling. The involvement of Reginald was good, loved him catching Carmella on a dive, ducking Sasha, and tossing her into a headscissors. And the payback was well played late in the match with Sasha hitting a meteora and then getting blasted by a couple superkicks for a genuinely strong nearfall. I thought Carmella could actually win it there. Sasha was great at running into everything Carmella had, and both kept things real close on sunset flips and small packages. It's really nice seeing such fine execution on pinfall attempts. I loved both of Carmella's submissions, both of them look like sick lucha maestro subs and are both somehow locked on just as smoothly. Both of those subs would look awesome applied by Negro Navarro or Blue Panther, but it also looks awesome applied by Carmella. It makes me happy. This whole match was fun throughout, really made me smile and enjoy the wrestling the whole time. A very tight build and explosive finishing stretch, just another great Big Match Sasha performance. 

Shelton Benjamin/Cedric Alexander vs. Xavier Woods/Kofi Kingston

ER: This was good, and kept up the same fun energy the entire rest of the show has had so far. This has been a very fun show, everyone feels like they're trying a couple new things in the ring, it's made things feel special so far. This tag was no different, and it made me realize that I appreciate that The Hurt Business actually seems to be growing as an idea. I like that it wasn't one of those ideas where WWE seems on board with it for two weeks and then loses all interest, instead it seems like they're letting it grow naturally. It's given new life to Shelton Benjamin and made him as relevant as he's been in 15 years. If they want to they could let him ride out a couple more years as an upper card tag worker and he'd be great at it. It's also been good for Cedric Alexander, who instead of being one of several similar 205 Live babyfaces, his style feels more focused for being in a regular tag team. Both teams worked a fun fast big bumps style, and kept the match to a brisk 10 minutes for maximum impact. I love how definitively Hurt Business won the belts. There was no bullshit, just a dominant team catching the champs. Benjamin hit a pop up superplex that should play in Hurt Business highlight videos, and the Alexander backcracker finisher is the premier use of that overused move, and shows that an overplayed move can still be used effectively. I'd love to see the Hurt Business continue to evolve and even add members, and would love to see them have a run with multiple title holders in the stable. This whole match really got me into the potential of them, so I'd call that a huge success. 

Nia Jax/Shayna Baszler vs. Asuka/Charlotte

ER: I was just thinking the other day that I had not missed Charlotte, and yet I was happy to see her here just because I will take any new face in this match rather than see Lana in the main women's program on Raw. It's poorly executed, it's obvious, the commentary screams all of the bullet points for how we're supposed to feel about it all, but I just don't want Lana in these matches anymore. That said, I wish it didn't feel like Charlotte was immediately Superwoman again. It felt like she just ran through Nia and Shayna, and while I admit the Nia/Shayna hasn't lived up to its potential, they should be a pair who are on Charlotte's level. You can make an argument for the surprise factor, they weren't expecting her, but they just got outmatched and I didn't like that. Asuka automatically feels like the smaller banana with Charlotte around, as she had to spend the match being the one to take a lot of Nia and Shayna's offense. But Asuka is good at that and I liked the way her hip attack took Nia out of things at the finish. Still, this match played into my worse fear, that we're going to go straight back to a Charlotte-dominated scene. 

Roman Reigns vs. Kevin Owens

ER: This didn't feel far off, but this didn't work for me. I didn't like the Uso interference, and Uso made to look as effective as a manager only type. There were a lot of big spills - maybe too many - yet I thought several of the biggest ones were shrugged off in the name of blocking someone's climbing. I was not into the slow climbs no matter how earned they were with big bumps. I thought going to Uso for every big Reigns comeback came off weak, and that it would have been perhaps more played out to have the interference happen in only one big moment instead of all through the match, but it would have made for a better match and made it appear Owens had more of a chance. Roman going through the barricade looked fantastic, and was one of the best looking "leveled barricade" spots they've done. No matter how I felt about the match layout as a whole, I thought that looked the best. Owens took some nasty falls into ladders (Roman too), but these slow paced Roman walking matches have not been my thing. 

So, I had a really fun time watching this show, and the vibe seems to be turning with those last couple matches, turning into something much less good. The tag match and Reigns match were not my thing but I also don't think they were bad. BUT. It feels like I would be tossing a lot of goodwill and pleasant memories right out the window if I put myself through a Randy Orton/Fiend match. I mean what kind of psychopath would I have to be to do that? 2020 has been difficult enough, why would I put myself through all of that? Let's go out on a high note, and be happy for the fun stuff we did get. 

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The Horror Show at WWE Extreme Rules 7/19/20

ER: I am very interested in both women's title matches, and probably not anything else! I do have a perverse interest in how they're going to pull off the eyeball gimmick without making kids hate wrestling.


Kevin Owens vs. Murphy

ER: This was given more time than a typical pre-show match, but I liked the first half of the match a lot more than the second half. The first half was based around Owens throwing stiff strikes, hard shoulderblocks, big clotheslines, and I'd much rather see that. I get less interested by the time we have a too long fight on the top rope and the big nearfalls feel too performative. The best parts were always Owens shaking Murphy with elbows and crushing him with a cannonball, but I was less interested in seeing them have a Murphy match. It played better than a lot of that stuff, so Owens kept the floor high. A spirited and plenty hot opener, just not my preferred heat.

Tables Match: New Day (Big E/Kofi Kingston) vs. Cesaro/Shinsuke Nakamura

ER: This was a big moments match with plenty of cool big moments. Even on moments where the set up was longer than needed, the spot wound up paying off. I liked Nakamura's logical work around the tables, saw him smartly position them a couple of times, liked how he shoved one out of the way when rolling to the floor. I loved the spot where Kingston flew to the ground and smacked face first into a table, held there like a wall by Cesaro and Nakamura. Big E's spear through the ropes to Cesaro looked as spectacular as ever, and we should celebrate that he is still doing that spot. The final table spot looked crazy, Kofi getting drilled through those tables by Cesaro is something that would have played for two years in an ECW intro. Nobody will think about this spot after a couple weeks, but it looked crazy in the moment. The spots with the tables, in the tables match, were good! So this was fine.

Nikki Cross vs. Bayley

ER: I was excited for this one and really liked the how they started it. I bought into the idea that Nikki could pull off a flash upset. Nikki was getting smart quick roll-ups and landing heavy on several straight crossbodies for nearfalls was really engaging. I like Nikki's way of not rolling through crossbodies, but actually treating it like a potential finisher by landing hard. Her crossbody off the apron to the floor was really great, and I liked Bayley being kept on the ropes. They had a couple of fun fights in the ring skirt, and I'll always react to those. But the problem is that Nikki Cross is not good in a lot of ways. It can take her forever to get into position to deliver something, which makes disbelief suspension a lot more difficult, especially since we were supposed to believe that she had the capability of surprising Bayley. She doesn't get the reactions she could on offense because she doesn't seem to know how to peak things. She has been working a vest unzip/vest removal spot for over a year now, and it's like she never quite knows how to use a proper strap removal spot within a match. She makes it look like she's just removing a piece of clothing that got in the way. This match was one I was excited for on paper, but it kind of just wound up exposing Nikki's singles match weaknesses. I'm still into the Sasha/Bayley act, and that kept the bulk of this strong.

Seth Rollins vs. Rey Mysterio

ER: I'm...not really sure how I feel about this one? It's a weird gross idea that feels hard to pull off, while also feeling like something that nobody ever asked for. Trying to stab someone in the eye is a great way to end an I Quit match, but a match where the sole focus will be on pulling out an eye? I don't know who was asking for that. I'd also be willing to bet that someone on the writing team got the idea from watching Fulci's Zombie rather than from watching Magnum/Tully. The thing is, for a match with an insane advertised conclusion, Rey busts his ass to make this work, and Rollins comes along with him. Rey was really great at inserting Rey spots in the middle of eye spots, and he takes some wild bumps to make this match feel even more dangerous. The apron falcon arrow was sick, and he was so good at working spots around turnbuckles and ring steps. Rollins was no slouch, and I liked his ringpost shoulder bump among other things, but Rey is just too good. Trying to gouge someone's eye out on the corner of a ring step is gross stuff, and Rey plays the fear of it really well. He does great with a kendo stick jammed into the corner, really going after that Fulci eye gouge where the gap between eyeball and wood slowly closes (needed more sharp jagged splintery bits). This finish is what the finish was advertised as being. Part of me thinks "Hey that owns!" It looked disgusting and Rollins throwing up after is the kind of apex to the Grand Guignol shit they have been trying to pull off in little ways. But another part of me still just finds the stip odd and unnecessary. Plus, this is a fed that chose to only use Pirata Morgan twice and was uninterested in bringing back old and crazy PCO. I'm not sure I can trust them to know how to properly book pirate Rey.

Asuka vs. Sasha Banks

ER: This was a really great match with a monumentally stupid finish. It's pretty deflating to work through such appealing match with fine drama and an exciting build, and then completely undercut every part of it with a finish that hasn't flown in 25 years. Having a ref get taken out of commission, to be replaced by a heel wearing a ref shirt, is an idea that Vince Russo buried and resuscitated hundreds of times, a man who never learned the lessons of Pet Sematary. Just a weak an unexplainable finish to be doing in 2020. But the rest was great! Sasha has been my favorite to watch weekly these past several months, and I think her and Bayley are doing a great job essentially running television. I'd much rather see them doing what they're doing, than seeing Charlotte clogging up main events. Sasha bumped huge here and really made this feel special. She flew to the floor on a charge and flew again after getting knocked off the apron by a hip attack. She kept building her bumps to mean more the deeper we got, and the way she flew into Asuka's Germans took this to another level. Sasha can come off clumsy on big bumps, but I think she's gotten so much better at body control over the years. These suplexes looked like they really folded her in half, but going back and watching them you can see her land on her back and shoulders and fold in a way that looks like she just got dumped directly on her neck. A safer bump that looks career shortening is a smart move, and it looked killer. Sasha's comebacks were good, and the Banks Statements was used really effectively. It's a great finisher that plays even better with a flexible opponent, and Asuka was really good at making it matter as she scrambled to the ropes. Both of their kicks looked good, I loved Asuka turning a Banks top rope arm drag into a nasty knee lift to the chin, I was really loving all of this. But that finish is a real deflator.

Dolph Ziggler vs. Drew McIntyre

ER: I thought this was really good. There isn't much in WWE I am less interested in than 2020 Dolph Ziggler matches, and yet this was a great title match that made great use of an intentionally lopsided stipulation. The stip (No DQ for Ziggler) made him more interesting. Ziggler throwing chairs at someone's knee in between taking painful throws over the announce table and into hard ringside objects he set up is just going to be way better than a typical Ziggler match. Ziggler was great at turning his normally athletic bumps into actually painful bumps, and Drew was wrecking him with glee. Ziggler took a great bump into the ringpost on the floor, ate several sick belly to belly suplexes in and out of ring (a cool fast on in the ring and a wild one into/over the announce table), and my favorite was probably McIntyre's awesome vertical suplex on the floor that really splatted Ziggler. Ziggler's cut off spots were strong, and I really got into the stip of him being able to cheat to stifle any momentum. The table spot was big, and they parsed out the nearfalls to keep the excitement strong. The finish was good too, and I'm unsure if that's because it's an actual good finish or that many of the other finishes have been bad enough that a competent finish feels like visionary genius. I wouldn't have guessed this would be the strongest match of the show, but it was and that's part of the fun.

Swamp Fight

ER: WWE is aiming, or more likely only capable of reaching, for deep cut straight to Netflix horror and those movies that used to be on the bottom row of Redbox kiosks. They need to surprise us by giving us a cinematic match that is based on Portrait of a Lady on Fire. We all saw the Matt Hardy stuff several years ago and I can't get too excited these days about a weekend Friday the 13th project.


ER: The show underwhelmed and underdelivered, but Asuka/Banks gave us a really good 15 minutes and McIntyre/Ziggler was an unexpectedly strong showing. Rey had a great performance in a weird situation, and other than the Swamp Fight the floor was high. But the show also felt a lot longer than it actually was. And that kind of speaks to the weirdness of this show. A show with a strong men's title match, a strong women's match, and a great Rey performance feels like a show I'd leave behind fondly. And yet we're here.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 5/3-5/9/20

Jack Gallagher vs. Akira Tozawa NXT 5/6

ER: Pretty meager stuff right here. These two have matched up several times over the past couple of years and this was easily the weakest of those matches, but their other matches at least had some time. This was under 4 minutes, and not one of Tozawa's best performances. He seemed off for a lot of this, never quite grabbing Gallagher the right way, missing beats on sequences, not landing his actual offense flush. He lets Gallagher slip on a samoan drop, flies too far past him on his top rope senton, loses his grip and makes Gallagher basically DDT himself on the apron, and some of his strikes had the accuracy of someone throwing their their eyes closed. Gallagher did his best, took a killer folding bump on a German suplex, and had a cool sequence where he held onto Tozawa's right arm like arm kept working offense from that short distance, showing a few cool things he could quickly pull off all while holding that arm, just by using it as leverage. But Gallagher wasn't going to be able to turn this into a good match.


Drew Gulak/Daniel Bryan/Otis vs. Cesaro/Baron Corbin/Shinsuke Nakamura WWE Smackdown 5/8

ER: This ruled, the kind of fast paced action trading match that it seems like WWE used to be really great at, until the focus switched to fast paced phony reversal wrestling. This was fast paced wrestling with consequences. Moves weren't thrown with the intention of being reversed, moves were thrown to hit (and did!) and thrown with such enthusiasm that the reversals were due to misses leaving guys exposed. I really loved the style of constant partner tradeoffs, where you could have big moments with several different dance partner combinations without feeling like anything was being shrugged off. Gulak has been on a real tear in 2020, and he was the major standout in this match for me, showing how great he is at taking unique bumps from different offense. Early on he took a great uppercut from Corbin and bumped it really cool, with a diagonal staggered bump instead of the played out back bump; later he was shoved off the top by Nakamura headlong into a Cesaro uppercut, and after that ate a kick to the back of the head from Nakamura. He took all of this different offense with bumps that read more like Futen than WWE to me, and it added to the feel of the match greatly.

I think Gulak was the standout, but everyone brought something different and never felt like those awful modern wrestling trios where it feels like everyone is trying to wrestle the exact same style instead of just playing to individual strengths. Otis had some cool stiff arm lariats and always seemed to be getting Gulak out of jams by running his belly into people, Bryan played more crowd control and would come in with a nice dropkick to the knee or a big running knee of his own, Cesaro was an excellent foil for Gulak (including taking a bunch of killer Gulak strikes and stomps in the corner) and I loved how he powered up and out of a Gulak chickenwing/jaw hold, and I like the way Corbin came in and got the win after others put in far more work. It feels like they're actually building some sort of Gulak/Corbin program that will lead to a dominant Gulak win, but that's just me buying into old school logical feud building.

PAS: I enjoyed this, although I think it fell short of a MOTY list level match. These quarantine matches for the most part are failures, and in the few cases that it has worked, it is when the wrestlers have acknowledged that they need to work differently. I usually enjoy Otis, but him working all of his crowd response comedy spots to silence was rough to watch. That worm elbow in an empty arena, oof. It is crazy that Gulak has somehow gotten to the main event of WWE TV, and he was the star of this match, taking a big beating and locking in some cool moves. Corbin is a nice foil too, and his big finishing slam looked great. I think I needed another couple of momentum shifts at the end, I do like this kind of WWE spots trios, but it is tough to build that momentum in silence.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 3/22-3/28/20

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Shane Thorne/Brendan Vink NXT 3/25/20

ER: Lorcan and Burch are usually the guys used to showcase other talent, so it's always fun when we get a short match showcasing them. And true to their nature, they don't treat this like just a squash match, throwing a couple bones to Thorne and Vink. Shane Thorne is a guy I have seen live twice at NXT house shows (once in the main event!) and every time he shows up on TV I go "huh must be some new guy they're debuting". I never remember him, and the second his matches end I go back to forgetting him. So, Burch starts the match against...some guy, and he has a nice short uppercut and a cool wristlock takedown, stomping on...someone's wrist right after tossing him down. Lorcan is a guy I love seeing opposite big guys and Vink is a guy with a big muscular build. When Lorcan tags in and charges Vink in the corner we get a big high delay uranage from Vink, and the move set up actually makes sense as Lorcan was flying into the corner with his flying back elbow. It's an established way Lorcan leaps into offense, so we don't have any of those "Well, I don't normally do this, but now seems as good a time as any to charge and leap at Samoa Joe" logic leaps. I begin laughing thinking that Lorcan is still going to get flattened in his showcase match, but not long after he is flying horizontally into both the Australians with back elbows and nails Vink with a hard as hell lariat, Burch hits a missile dropkick, and we rush to a quick double submission finish like it was a CMLL primera caida. These 3 minute showcases are not common for Lorcan/Burch, they should have stiffed up these goons even more.

Drew Gulak vs. Shinsuke Nakamura WWE Smackdown 3/27/20

ER: This was really good, until it ended suddenly about 4 minutes in. The way they were working it felt like we were getting a nice 10 minute match, but quick Bryan interference and a schoolboy later, and we were out. Shame, as this was going along great. I didn't think Nakamura was putting too much  effort into the tag opposite Drew last week, but here they were really jelling. Nakamura started with some nice grounded knees (and later went back for an even better one while working a choke) and I was into the ways he was staying on Gulak. Gulak hit the John Woo dropkick and Nakamura sprawled to the floor, and hooked Gulak's leg, and upending Gulak on the apron. As they got back in Gulak snared him in a couple dragon screws as Nak was stepping through the ropes, and it just felt like they were setting up some cool stuff for a longer match. Nakamura seemed ready for a good match, loved his leaping knee off the top and the way he forced his forearm into Gulak's throat on a guillotine. However, a schoolboy finish after interference to end a cool match is almost as satisfying as finding a pube in a meal you were enjoying.

Oney Lorcan vs. Tony Nese 205 Live 3/27/20

ER: This was the best of the three matches we were given this week, which makes sense as this one actually got some time. Nese has been slowly getting more focused in-ring and has dropped a lot of those disconnected athletic combo spots, and I have to imagine being in the ring with guys like Lorcan, Kendrick, or even Mike Kanellis has benefitted him. For much of his run he's been paired with more athletic flier types and that just begets a looped series of mirror reversal backflip spots. Against a guy like Lorcan, instead of seeing mirror reversals, we get battles over tight headscissors and body vices. That is far more interesting to me, as it cuts off Nese's excesses. Lorcan is really good at doing compelling things with a headscissors and Nese has strong thighs and knows how to make a body vice look really painful. Whenever Nese tries to snap of some kicks, Lorcan is right there with big chops and hard uppercuts, and when Nese gets lulled into playing Lorcan's ground game he winds up getting punished with some ground and pound. Nese is a big bumper so he'll always take Lorcan's blockbuster right on his neck, and I thought it was really smart the way they built to Nese's bigger flourishes. Nese flipped out of Lorcan's half nelson suplex and hit him in the throat to set up his springboard moonsault, tosses Lorcan rudely into the turnbuckles with a German suplex, and nails him with a running knee. I don't quite trust him with guys who are like 2016-2019 Tony Nese, but this is a guy growing as a wrestler, and Lorcan is a great guide. I dug all of this.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 3/15-3/21/20

Drew Gulak/Daniel Bryan vs. Cesaro/Shinsuke Nakamura WWE Smackdown 3/20/20

ER: There's a chance this match was as long as every Smackdown match, combined, Gulak has been in since "leaving" 205 Live last year. This was good, but it felt like Nakamura was throwing the timing off a bit. I know why they didn't have Sami Zayn in the match, as they were building to a Bryan/Zayn singles match and part of me appreciates the distance that comes with having Zayn hold the belt, but Zayn in Nakamura's place would have fit so much stronger. Nak isn't someone who is going to go out and work hard every show (or, well, most shows), and you put him out there with no audience to play off? Yeah, he's not likely to show up. He barely showed up on Bryan's tope, leaning as far out of that thing as possible without moving entirely out of Bryan's way. He's better when it's just simply keeping Bryan away from Gulak, and that happens when Cesaro catches Bryan on a top rope crossbody and slams him with a backbreaker, drops him with a couple suplexes, and I like it more when Gulak and Nakamura get back in with each other. Cesaro and Nak working over Gulak was good, especially dug Cesaro's big flapjack into an uppercut. Nak actually takes a German from Gulak and we get a fun spot of Nakamura going for a triangle out of the Gu-Lock (but submission trading in WWE is almost guaranteed to come off underwhelming after I watched the entire WXW Ambition show yesterday), and I liked Gulak's discus lariat on him. The finish felt abrupt, with Bryan tagging in and getting a sunset flip on Cesaro, but I can't complain too much. Gulak is in an actual cool program and he couldn't be associated with anyone better than Bryan.

Oney Lorcan vs. Isaiah Scott 205 Live 3/20/20

ER: This was good, but really any Lorcan match given 10 minutes is going to be good. I was hoping this was going to be mostly Lorcan forcing Scott into working a Lorcan match, but Lorcan is too generous so I knew we would build to a long run of Scott match. So, it was going to be up to how well mapped out Scott's offense was and how nicely Lorcan ran into it. But I do get a little of what I want, as Lorcan grounds Scott in cool ways for the first long stretch. Lorcan can do a lot of interesting things around driving his knee into pressure points, fires off some nice chops and back elbows (I liked how Scott recoiled from the chops, turning his body away from them so that Lorcan had to open that chest back up to smack him more), and Lorcan starts focusing on the knee, starting with a mean dragon screw while Scott was coming back through the ropes. Now, there's obviously a problem when you opt to do focused limb work in an Isaiah Scott match, because there is next to zero chance that he will acknowledge that limb work in any way once he goes into Scott offense. And once Scott did start going on offense - and this is a problem I have with Scott matches in general - there's always a sense of inevitability. He's not great at making it look like his opponent is still in the match, he merely endures some offense until it's time to go into full Swerve mode. Lorcan upends himself on a Scott lariat, flies to the floor on a superkick, takes a Flatliner nicely, you know all the things that Lorcan is clearly great at doing. I wish things didn't feel so inevitable halfway through, but  just like that Gulak match up above, I can't complain about 10 minute Oney Lorcan matches.

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WWE Clash of Champions 9/15/19

Lince Dorado vs. Humberto Carrillo vs. Drew Gulak

ER: Fun match with typical problems that curse three ways. I don't know why Lince was added to the match, but I would have been far more interested in Gulak vs. Carrillo or Gulak vs. Dorado. But we got a three way instead, and it had awkward three way moments where timing was off or someone accidentally kinda took a move instead of dodging it, and of course disappearing for minutes. But it was genuinely fun, in spite of those accurate complaints. Dorado had a cool pescado with his arms at his side, following it up with a slick rana to Gulak on the floor, and then turns a potential silly hot shot bump into a dangerous tumble to the floor. I like Gulak against lucha guys, like how he can make flippy offense seem legit, and Carrillo is someone who tries a lot of things even if they don't always work flush. They try a wild tower spot with a Doomsday Device dive to the floor, I enjoyed the moment where Gulak got his feet up on Carrillo's moonsault but Carrillo anticipated it, Carrillo takes a great posting bump, Gulak breaks out cool things like a gutbuster, and then some other things don't work. But it was a fun opener.

Cedric Alexander vs. AJ Styles

ER: So, I enjoyed this, but I assume most people were thinking this one had some show stealing potential and didn't really want the WorldWide style showcase we wound up with. This was short, compact, and explosive, as good as you'd want a match this short to be. I dug how aggressive Alexander was and I bought that they might give him the early match surprise pin, totally thought that he was winning in a minute. The big spot counters were cool, dug Styles planting him with a Styles Clash on the floor, nice apron spot without going too crazy, Cedric hit a bitchin back elbow on the apron, and we got a fun quick action bout that I'll forget about by the end of the night.

Seth Rollins/Braun Strowman vs. Dolph Ziggler/Robert Roode

ER: You know, if I'm going to watch Ziggler and Rollins, it's at least better that they're paired with a couple other guys. Although had they just been in a singles match against each other I would have skipped it. Huh. I guess that's the better scenario. And this was mostly pretty boring when 3 of the guys were involved, and really awesome when Braun was involved. If it was easier to skip ahead in matches on the New Network I would have skimmed like a motherfucker through this one. Braun's hot tag was the clear highlight, big corner charges, big shoulderblocks on the floor all around the ring, muscling up Roode for a big flapjack out of a DDT attempt, but Seth was shortly back in and whiffing on flying knees. The full extension superkick to Roode was nice though. They kept it economical, and that was fine by me.

Charlotte vs. Bayley

ER: This was a drag. I was getting into Charlotte wrecking Bayley without Bayley getting to come up for air, Charlotte starting with a big boot and not stopping. I dug Bayley's heavy bumps into the barricades, I was really getting into the one-sidedness and wondering where they would go with it. And then moments later the thing was done. Bayley didn't look great from the moment she took over, taking three tries to grab Charlotte into a sloppy small package, and messing up the timing on the drop toehold into buckle finish. I like the finish in a vacuum, but it needed a much longer Charlotte beatdown, and Bayley needed to either look actually good, or completely overwhelmed and outclassed. She didn't shine in the couple moments of offense, and her acting isn't good enough to play overwhelmed heel. Major disappointment.

The Revival vs. Big E/Xavier Woods

ER: Big E is wearing maybe the finest singlet in the great history of singlets. What an absolute masterpiece that is. This show has been wildly underwhelming, this one now has an even heavier load on its shoulders. And the match was really good! Easily the best on the show. The finish took a little long to set up, though I don't mind that they stretched out some time to make the Revival look like punishing sadists. The Revival presented strongly is a cool thing. I like that they switched things up and had Big E cut off from Xavier, even though Big E hot tags are among the best things in the WWE tag division. Big E can Ricky just as interestingly as he can Robert, and I loved the entire sequence of him getting left for dead on the floor: He stops the momentum of a Dash tope, fixes to toss him with a belly to belly, Dash headbutts out, he and Dawson try to shove him into the post, E blocks, then eats the shatter machine. Revival both sold the effects of doing the shatter machine on the hard floor, acting like they both took bumps on concrete to pull it off. I also dig that even though Big E wasn't doing his tope spear, he was still gonna take a big bump through the ropes to the floor. Xavier looked tight as hell on the hot tag, like he knew people were used to Big E fireworks and he knew he had to really be throwing clotheslines and kicks. His handspring lariat looked great, and that's the kind of thing that guys rarely make look good. I don't think the match reached the heights it could have, but Revival looked well-oiled, I dug their post-match victory promo, liked the idea of them targetting Xavier's knee even if took a bit long, but this was all good.

Mandy Rose/Sonya Deville vs. Alexa Bliss/Nikki Cross

ER: Another under-delivery. Rose has been a great house show performer and I have a soft spot for her because of that, but she has been on the main roster a LONG time now and it has STILL not translated to a really good TV or PPV match. I am not sure what's missing. I like her and Sonya together, I've SEEN what both are capable of, and it just doesn't shake out to anything more than decent when they get a showcase. Now this did serve as background for a portion of the 24/7 chase, but I don't think they looked like total dweebs. Three of them did, but at least Bliss went for a roll-up on Truth. There was a decent nearfall save, but this whole thing felt like a time filler.

The Miz vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

ER: I don't really care about either of these two, but this was a good match. Miz always comes off a little too smooth and planned, and that's a big barrier for me, so I got a kick out of Zayn's King of Soft Style commentary. And I also got a kick out of him landing a really nice jab right when he was called King of Soft Style. I liked Miz's jumping knees in the corner to build to the corner clothesline, loved Nakamura going all jellyfish on a spike DDT, thought a couple of Nakamura's sloppy kick combos looked cool, it was a perfectly fine match.

Sasha Banks vs. Becky Lynch

ER: I didn't think the match itself was great, but I liked what they did once they went to the floor and into the crowd. The staircase brawling was better in Sasha/Charlotte, and part of the time it was way too ECW Hold Hair Walking, but all the getting tossed into hard objects stuff looked good (Sasha is good at throwing herself into railings and tables and condiment counters), and it was great seeing kids sitting 35 rows up flipping out when two wrestlers were somehow right next to them. The initial chairshots were a little weak, and the chairshot that took the ref out of contention was nothing special, but I really liked the energy at the end of the segment with Becky throwing Sasha repeatedly into a set up chair. Within the match, the most engaging stuff was anything based around the Banks Statement or the Disarm-Her, but too much of this had no fire, and this needed more hate. I also thought Graves shoehorning a comment about Banks lying down and having a tantrum felt way too produced, took away from a match that didn't need it.

Randy Orton vs. Kofi Kingston

ER: Nope.

Roman Reigns vs. Erick Rowan

ER: Big boy battles are all the rage these days, and my god did this show need a big boy battle. This stood out especially on this show, but would have stood out most places. Both guys threw bombs, took bigger than expected spills, threw full weight into shoulderblocks and back elbows, Reigns crushed the Superman punch, and Drive-By looked great, and the crowd brawling was nice and dirty. Rowan missed a big awful charge in the ring steps, a hard running forearm, nice splash, and we build to him hitting a huge powerbomb through an announce table. These guys were really landing shots and it ruled. I had mentioned to someone a few days ago that WWE appears to be phasing out elbowdrops, and here's Rowan dropping his full damn weight into Roman's side with one. I dug the ringside brawling, liked the stuff with the crane, and then got even more excited when the lean as hell Luke Harper came back!! We got Amon Amarth and Enslaved represented, and I keep expecting Harper to turn, and instead we get a welcome reunion (for now). This was easily my favorite thing on the show, gave me exactly what I wanted out of these two, tons of great bomb throwing set pieces.

Seth Rollins vs. Braun Strowman

ER: Braun is at least someone who is gonna get me to watch a Seth Rollins match, and we established that twice in one night. Shameful. The match structure was good, even though I think Rollins looked pretty lousy in the parts that needed him. It's smart that they have Rollins double and triple up on his offense, as most of his offense doesn't look credible in any way against Braun. So you have him do a few superkicks, you have him do a few leaping knees (you know, the ones he threw tonight where on all but one of them Michael Cole had to throw out some kind of "well I don't think he hit all of that, but..." to cover for how terrible they looked), several dives, several curb stomps, etc. Almost all of it looked trash, but it was smartly laid out within the match. Now Braun, he more than held up his end of things, and completely made this match. He flew his body into offense (loved him not holding back on shoulderblocks), and he threw his body into everything to make Rollins' offense look lethal. He took a drop toehold into the announce table, took a tope into the table and broke it, worked a leg injury, did an insane looking splash off the top, I mean this was probably Braun's best performance in a year. Even with Rollins' kind of dim bulb performance, Braun's epic level performance and the strong layout made this whole show end on a high note, no small feat.


ER: Not an offensive show, but a fairly unmemorable show in terms of match quality. Nobody went out and stunk up the joint, but there weren't many matches that were lighting fires. There was stuff I enjoyed littered all throughout, and we ended on a cool high note, but I'm not sure how much of this show I'll remember by the next one.

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WRESTLEMANIA 34 REPORT!!

Andre the Giant Battle Royal

ER: Love me a battle royal, hopefully that is not a secret at this point. Dolph Ziggler is being so obnoxious, spamming like 7 skin the cat spots in the first few minutes, really terrible battle royal schtick. BUT aside from Dolph we get a really full pool of a battle royal and a bunch of guys taking great elimination bumps. English flops big, Hawkins flops big, Sin Cara gets tossed onto a bunch of guys, Goldust is tearing it up - really the perfect battle royal worker that's not Finlay. His snap powerslam on Ziggler was flawless. Mojo has been great in this as well, pouncing Ryder out of the ring in a spectacular spot. Good on Ryder for taking that. Fandango takes a great bump to the floor. But MOJO takes the best elimination bump, getting launched into a flat back bump on the floor. Mojo is really fun and I was rooting for him to win again (once Goldust was eliminated). As battle royals go, this was cluttered as hell, but the eliminations made it a good one. A worthwhile battle royal.

Cedric Alexander vs. Mustafa Ali

ER: This starts out okay, but they are moving weirdly slow through spots. That might read like a weird criticism. I guess I'm saying that they are getting to that point of "big move - both guys down selling" weirdly quick in the match. And there's some goofy "I'm gonna somersault towards you and then jump up and pull your face into the mat" Edge kind of offense. Then they take a long time setting up some top rope spot. BUT It picks up nicely with a big splat bump chest first to the floor from Ali (guy can bump, you heard it hear first) and a bunch of great kicks to the chest (during a commerical break for Ronda Rousey), and I was really rooting for Ali. His inverted 450 was great but Cedric gets his boot on the ropes. Didn't love the finish, really dislike when a guy takes the big finisher, and then basically both slowly stand up and the guy who just took a finisher does his own. It's lazy. Overall the match was fine.

Women's Battle Royal

ER: I'm really excited for this one. Team Rose all the way. Or Bianca. Bayley comes out dressed like 1996 Rocky Maivia. I kind of like them starting with a bunch of spots where a girl gets surrounded and jumped. I didn't want the whole thing to go that way, but it was a unique way to start. The NXT girls all had a nice showings, Peyton Royce got her head kicked in and dropped headfirst on the apron, it goes a little bit too briskly as everyone is gone all at once. Bianca hits the greatest hair whip, right to the stomach, loudest sound of the night so far. Love it. I like this finish with Naomi getting the surprise win, because Naomi is awesome.

Seth Rollins vs. The Miz vs. Finn Balor

ER: I can't stand Balor so then he rubs it in my face by being super accepting and pro equality and supportive of LGBT and I'm the guy going "This guy is the worst!" So I have to root for intolerance, or Balor. Really annoying. This has a lot of common 3 way problems like Rollins disappearing for awhile and guys waiting around, but they worked the right match for this crowd. The crowd kept getting hotter the longer it went, so they clearly did something right. We hit peak stupid with Balor taking a superplex and immediately getting a small package roll up, and then just up and fine 30 seconds later. That's really dumb. But the end run is hot as hell, with some great saves, Balor hitting a huge double stomp on Miz while Miz is covering Rollins (just before the 3 count), some big curb stomps, really made me interested in a match that I was really not interested in. Crowd wanted it, and they delivered.

Charlotte vs. Asuka

ER: This starts out hot and stays good. Damn good. they do a bunch of cool rope running and dropdowns, with Charlotte snagging her with a slick ankle pick using her own leg, all really fast work, really stiff. Charlotte hits a moonsault into a waiting triangle in a great moment, felt like Asuka could put it away early. But Charlotte slickly reverses to a Boston Crab. These two are really jelling. Asuka hits a vertical suplex off the apron to the floor, both taking the tumble, totally nuts. Charlotte is doing this great cry sell. Charlotte yells that she's the queen and Asuka cuts her off with a bunch of slaps. Charlotte returns the favor with some nasty chops to a seated on the top rope Asuka. Asuka kicks out of a wild Spanish Fly that went up vertically and landed hard, and later rolls Charlotte into a BRUTAL grounded octopus hold. Charlotte's neck was bent at a vicious angle, it looked so painful. The finish run is hot and I can't believe they gave Charlotte the tap. The figure 8 looked really great, Charlotte bridged up super high, leveraging it up with one arm, and Asuka taps clean. I don't think Charlotte winning was the right move at all, but the match was awesome.

PAS: This was really fun, Charlotte is a little awkward, but I really enjoy how she uses her height and length, that ankle pick was awesome. I loved how Asuka pointed out the bad shoulder and how she worked on it, that grounded octopus was a nasty bit of violence, as was that crazy verticle suplex. I could have done with out the Spanish Fly it looked like she almost lost Asuka on the way down and I am always worried that Charlotte is going to either kill herself or someone else on that. I did like that they ended with mat rolling, and the one arm figure 8 was a nice touch. Reminded me a lot of the finish to the NXT women's match the show before. Both ladies really delivered. I did think they would save Asuka streak for Ronda, but there is plenty of juice still in a Ronda vs. Asuka match up.

Bobby Roode vs. Rusev vs. Jinder Mahal vs. Randy Orton

ER: Jinder Mahal has a spectacular formal jacket. This match should be fun because it at least has an even number of participants, and my goodness the shape Rusev has gotten himself into. He hits a big cannonball off the apron onto everyone and announces THAT'S how you do Rusev Day. Fans are over the moon for him. Rusev gets dropped hard on barricade, really deserves more. We go on a fun trainwreck moment with Orton hitting RKOs on everyone, Mahal somehow getting the pin over Rusev which is BS. I like Mahal and think the guy has worked harder than some give him credit for, but Rusev has been busting butt and getting big reactions for so damn long now. This was at least worked at a quick pace and had a bunch of nice moments, Mahal leapt into a super snappy Roode spindebuster, huge slam from Mahal, nice selling from Orton, Rusev taking an RKO on his forehead, but man did I want a Rusev win.

HHH/Stephanie vs. Kurt Angle/Ronda Rousey

ER: This also starts really great. Stephanie rarely gets her comeuppance, but she really is a wonderful heel, knowing just how to play all of this off. Angle has that classic old man amateur wrestling hunch, and Stephanie is fantastic at getting in cheap shots, choking Angle in the ropes, shoving him into the ring steps, all so great. The old man Angle/HHH exchanges are way more interesting than the younger athletic show off exchanges in 2000s Angle/HHH matches. HHH hits a big spinebuster and we get a nice moment of HHH almost punching Steph when Angle moved. Stephanie is fan-fucking-tastic in this match, like performance of the night levels. Steph breaks up an Angle tag by yanking Ronda down and prancing back to her corner. HHH takes his perfect Race bump over the corner to the floor, and we get a lonnnnnng and PERFECT slow Angle crawl to tag in Ronda. Steph is freaking out on the apron and can't do a thing about it, HHH is knocked out on the floor, and Rousey just SPRINTS at Steph and drags her into the ring. Rousey hits tons of cool stuff, a flipping lariat and a couple neat takedowns, rolls Steph into mount and it's all so great. Steph begs off and Ronda is just this looming presence over her, Steph rakes eyes and Rousey's eyes turn all pink from it. Holy shit. 

All of the Stephanie/Ronda stuff is perfection, Steph is the best heel worker in WWE. Ronda stops a Steph punt and hits a violent Angle Slam, leading to a great return of HHH, pulling ref Drake out of the ring. The timing in this match has been flawless. Angle takes a nutty table bump, getting tossing from one and skittering across another into the barricade. Finish is fucking great, Ronda goes full ham on HHH, buckles him with strikes in the corner, and STEPH comes in to save him!!! This whole match is improbably great. We get another nearfall with HHH getting a late kickout against Angle, people have been integrated so flawlessly in this, with people reappearing at just the right times, the match-ups have all been ordered great, just flawless match making. Ronda reverses a Pedigree and grabs the armbar on HHH and he's scrambling for the ropes. The layout for this match could not be better. Someone laid out a once in a lifetime gem. Steph gives an all time great gimmick match heel performance, HHH shows all of the ass against Ronda, Ronda gets her huge Steph tap, and the dragged out alllllllll of the best moments. The slow Angle tag, Ronda milking that final tapout, just great. I am so over the moon for this match. This was better than Mayweather/Big Show. This exceeded any expectation anybody had.

PAS: I was expecting this to be bad, and thought it might get to passable, and totally did not expect it to be great. Loved Stephanie as Memphis Jimmy Hart, and this might have been the best heel manager in a match performance in wrestling history. Is there a Cornette match as good as this? Heenan? She is so detestable and smirking and you are just begging for her to get her arm broken. Her actual offense looked pretty good too, which isn’t something I remember from her last run as a wrestler. Angle and Helmsley’s stuff was fine as needed time filler between the Rhonda parts, man the definition on Helmsley was nuts, it is good to have the corporate exception from wellness testing. I was really worried that Angle would stroke out though, he was turning purple during the german suplexes. Eric was right about the timing I loved every nearfall and save, and the finish was perfect. Stephanie smirking turning into fear was great emoting, and I loved the begging before getting her arm broken. I have been fast forwarding through her promos for 20 years now, so I can’t say if it was worth all of that to get to this point, but this was the ultimate comeuppance for her Ivanka Trump character, honestly we should never see her again and she would be going out like Jordan beating Utah. I do have a feeling we are going to be getting some Jordan Wizards years after this.

New Day vs. Usos vs. Bludgeon Brothers

ER: Fun match with a great Rowan performance, but this was shockingly short. Everybody looked good, but it was really short. Rowan and Harper look like beasts, Rowan takes a big double suplex on the floor, Usos bump big and toss in some well timed superkicks, but this probably underperformed what most people were expecting. I was certainly underwhelmed, but really it had no chance of coming anywhere close to the mixed tag, so who really cares. Bludgeon Brothers have been getting slow played so if this means they tag the ball and run then I'm cool.

John Cena vs. Undertaker

ER: I loved the stuff with Elias, the blackout lights with an Elias guitar strum breaking the silence was exactly how the play that. And we do get Undertaker, and we do get a 15 minute Taker entrance, and Taker really works hard in the 4 minutes that it lasted. Cena leans impossibly far out of a big boot, but he also does a wonderful pants shitting reaction when Taker sits up from the dead. Taker did his big spots and was moving quickly in short bursts. Cena put the man over and I'm SUPER happy that it was only a 4 minute match. We all know they should have run this match 5 years ago, and it would have ruled, but I'm so thankful this didn't go 26 minutes.

Shane McMahon/Daniel Bryan vs. Kevin Steen/Sami Zayn

ER: The opening YES! video package is really cool, making it seem like an actual cool movement. Bryan is stupid and gets taken out of the match early with a freaking apron power bomb, and we get SO MANY Shane MMAcMahon and it's silly and hilarious and kind of adorable. We saw a Rousey match earlier and Shane is doing all these flowery punch combos, and even takes out Zayn with a Glacier-esque flying spinkick. Shane is FIP through most of this and it's not bad at all. Zayn is a great dickhead and heel Zayn throwing nice punches to taunt Shane is the best stuff in the match. Bryan IS knocked out cold for like 8 minutes, which seems like a pretty serious thing. Bryan gets back into the match with a great save. The do some cool things to build to the Bryan hot tag, really kicking things up and making this immediately work. Shane pulls himself to Bryan using the ring ropes, something he learned while on a WWE Corporate Retreat and thought "oooooooo I'm gonna fit that into a match!" Bryan goes on a killer hot tag tear and Zayn flies into EVERYTHING. Zayn flips inside out on a flying elbow, takes a missile dropkick right to the neck, eats unhinged corner dropkicks, and Bryan paid him back by eating a huge yakuza kick. Shane takes a superkick on the apron and takes a big backwards bump into the barricade. Shane is a good guy to be the guy not working a tag match. Zayn is having one of his best WWE performances in this match. His spit sell on the penultimate YES! kick was timed immaculately. All of Bryan's greatest hits are really great to see, and Zayn couldn't have been a better dance partner. No screwy stuff with Shane looking like cool red-faced gassed heel, just a nice simple comeback match. Good stuff.

Nia Jax vs. Alexa Bliss

ER: I am so excited for this match. This is one of my favorite women's angles they've ever done. I really loved the moment where Nia and Alexa said I Love You. The Bliss insults came a bit too suddenly, but I am really excited for this. Nia crushes Mickie James before the bell and bounces her around ringside. Nia is throwing Mickie into the barricade by her hair, and her glare at Alexa is sooo good throughout. Nia gives a pick Samoan Drop on the floor and James does this awesome ragdoll sell of it. "Somebody get a shovel to scrape Mickie James off the floor."~Corey Graves. The Bliss/Jax faceoff was great with Nia screaming in anger and Bliss screaming in fear, loved that. Bliss takes a zillion hiptosses in a row and Bliss starts cheapshotting Nia after getting tossed to the floor. Once Bliss starts going after Nia's knee this gets great. Bliss jumps off the middle rope on Nia's knee in one of the more brutal moments of the night, and starts jumping on Nia and stepping on her back. The size difference is so vast, that Bliss standing on his next to the ropes looked like a guy posing on the dock after catching Jaws. But Nia is a great seller and is making all of Bliss' offense super credible, and Bliss is doing all her best material. Nia's comeback is fantastic with her just overwhelming Bliss with fast heavy offense. Bliss got bodyslammed, tossed multiple times, took a great avalanche, all of it came boom boom boom back to back and they ran through it all great. Bliss has these nasty comeback eye rakes and Nia just starts slamming her around the ring anyway. The ending is what it should have been, Nia crushes Bliss and makes sure she won't get up, hitting the (first time ever used by Nia?) Samoan Drop off the middle rope.

PAS: This was really good. I loved Jax just slaughtering Mickie James, the face beating up the heel manager to even the playing field is a great wrestling trope, but you rarely see it this big, that spot where she was ragdolling James into the barricade was nasty stuff. I also liked the eye poke as a turning point, especially how Nia sold it like she lost a contact. Tiny heel versus giant face is an odd match layout, but they do a nice job with it. Bliss is just hateful, her mock apologizing was just nasty, she really feels like a 17 year old who cyberbullied a girl into a suicide attempt. Nia has gotten really good at using her size to maul and much like the Ronda, you really want to see the mauling.

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. AJ Styles

ER: Nakamura is starting this by making so many funny dumb faces, and Styles is really great at playing into Nakamura's shit. He knows the timing of his goofy kicks, and Nak is throwing a lot of them. They're landing well, and pretty effective, especially a wild one legged missile dropkick that AJ took on the chin. Nak is generous back, taking an inverted driver on his forehead, and we go through a cool Nak legwork section. AJ is good at working a leg and Nak is selling nicely. I think the Calf Slicer is finisher worthy, so I love AJ locking it in, but we get some fun Nak reversals into a nice triangle. AJ is tough as hell and standing up out of the triangle with Nak and hits a nasty neck first death valley driver. Nak sells a missed knee by amusingly bunny hopping on one leg. Crowd is pretty damn quiet for this match, considering this would be the internet dream match main event. But this might be a problem with the build up to the match. This match was basically promoted as "This will be a good wrestling match" whereas something like Nia/Bliss was getting great reactions the whole way through because it had this throwback friend betrayal angle. This match is technically good, and they worked a quality match, but it didn't really connect like it could have and maybe should have. It was mechanically sound, but oddly vacant. Nak hits a crazy knee to the back of Styles' head which probably should have finished the match. But Styles gets the win in a perfectly fine match, that played to a tired crowd. Nak does a heel turn after the match with a sore loser beatdown that goes on a LONG time. They really let it play out. Nak doing his dances as a heel will actually be pretty great. Those will be so annoying.

Cesaro/Sheamus vs. Braun Strowman/Nicholas

ER: This is actually really great. Braun does this HUGE search for his mystery partner, and lands on a FUCKING PETRIFIED 10 year old child named Nicholas. THIS POOR CHILD. Nicholas is absolutely terrified standing on the apron the entire time. Nicholas stands on the apron shacking in TERROR the whole match. He never lets go of the ropes and looks like he's going to pass out the entire time, and he's already the most sympathetic worker in the Network era. Braun works the whole match and regularly dispatches The Bar. It gets infinitely more intriguing when Cesaro dropkicks Braun in the leg, and we suddenly realize that Nicholas MIGHT HAVE TO TAG IN. We get a great slow tag to Nicholas, and he REACHES FOR THE TAG! Good for fucking Nicholas. I really wanted Nicholas to put his shoe up on the top rope for Braun to throw Cesaro into, like he was in the Skyscrapers or something. Cesaro makes these great Snively Whiplash facials as he stands up to face Nicholas, and Nicholas tags immediately out (for awhile I was wondering if they were going to gimmick Nicholas and have him be a child gymnast who does moonsaults or something) and braun wrecks Cesaro. The Bar don't totally connect with me, seems lesser than I think they should be, so I didn't mind them dropping the straps to a child with progeria.

Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar

ER: The Roman hate really gets pulled form the exact same sources, and everyone thinks they're the brave soul who is standing up against Roman. It's so unlike any other wrestling fan thing in history. This unsurprisingly goes big immediately, with Lesnar throwing bombs, Reigns throwing superman punches, and soon Brock is throwing suplexes on the floor. Roman eats two big overhead belly to bellys, one of them bouncing him off his head and shoulders. Reigns eats Suplex City in the ring, but we get a good moment of Roman shoving Brock into the ringpost. We've had a couple good ringpost spots tonight, and the LED screen shots make for a good spot. Reigns hits a couple big spears to target Lesnar's diverticulitis stricken intestines. Roman eats a couple F5s and starts cursing when Reigns kicks out of them. Lesnar is all purple and red and it really makes it look the babyface puts him through a real bitch of a time. So Brock casually destroys Roman, F5 through a table, F5 back in the ring, and the tiny wang fans all get so upset that Roman keeps kicking out. Brock punches Roman right in the head a whole bunch of punches to Roman's hairline, just mammoth meaty fists getting bounced off Roman's head. This is some damn color, really dripping out of Roman's head. Roman really gets no comeback at a certain point, he just takes punishment and drips blood. Pretty shocking to see Roman decimated like that to end a show, was not expecting that.

PAS: I really liked how this started out, Brock still has incredible explosion, there is nothing in wrestling like his first burst out of the block. Reigns really isn't afraid to take a huge beating to put over Brock too, he was eating belly to bellys like Necro Butcher right on his forehead. The long F5 section really killed the match though, it just was interminable and the same thing over and over again. I would have been fine with a long beatdown if there had been some variety, or a quicker beatdown, or even if the blood had come before the kickouts, but the layout of this killed the crowd, most of my interest in the match and probably Roman's career.

ER: This is easily the best Mania in years, nothing else close to it. This was front to back a seriously fun show with some great moments, and really felt like a classic spectacle show. All the big matches delivered or overdelivered, with both women's title matches being strong and the mixed tag defying anyone's expectations. Nobody should be dissatisfied with this show.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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WWE Clash of the Champions 2017 Live Blog

1. Mojo Rawley vs. Zack Ryder

ER: I liked these two together, more than I'll ever like Ryder on his own, and I guess I'll never really understand their need to break teams up before they really do much with them. If we strung together all the PPV pre-show matches from 2017, you'd wind up with a pretty great 2 hour special. This is another nice showing, with Ryder taking a couple big bumps, getting a nice comeback, and then getting obliterated on the finish. Ryder gets shoved from the top rope to the apron to the floor, taking a mean tumble, then Mojo runs around the ring to awesomely check him into the barricade. Back in and the camera nicely picks up a Mojo big boot with his boot staying on Ryder's face all the way down to the mat. Ryder's comeback is at minimum explosive, even if the cameras zoomed in too hard on his thigh slaps, the impression of impact was at least there. But Mojo's 1-2 finish was really cool, taking out Ryder's knee with a diving block, and then blasting him with that running forearm in the corner. Fun opener, hopefully Mojo doesn't get totally lost.

2. Bobby Roode vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Baron Corbin

ER: Just FYI, it still sounds incredibly stupid when someone bumps over the barricade and someone shouts that they just got knocked "into the WWE Universe!" They got clotheslined over a short wall. Does the WWE Universe only start once we've passed the plane of the barricade? Does nothing happening inside a WWE ring count as part of the WWE Universe? Are the concession stands part of the WWE Universe, since they're beyond the barricade? Is someone urinating in the arena bathroom urinating into the WWE Universe? Does it apply to both people AND places? Is someone buying a WWE t-shirt an example of "The WWE Universe purchasing the WWE Universe within the WWE Universe'? It's beyond the worst. Roode and Ziggler don't match up well, Ziggler leans out of simple things like stomach kicks and then just doesn't connect on his own. But someone (Graves?) just said Ziggler may be the greatest performer in WWE history, so what do I know? I have no clue what actual performance metrics you would have to fudge to even squint and believe that statement. Roode has taken big moves nicely in this, splatting face first on the famouser and getting big height on a spinning slam from Corbin, takes Ziggler's big DDT really nicely. I really liked Corbin trying to vulture Roode's win, only for Roode to throw him to the floor and Corbin breaking up the pin anyway. If I didn't care for him the rest of the match, Ziggler at least made the finish work: Corbin was about to hit End of Days on Roode and Ziggler jumped in at the perfect moment with the Zig Zag, the momentum also slamming Roode tailbone first into the mat to presumably keep him from breaking up the pin. This was fine, crowd was really into it though and that counts for something.

3. Aiden English/Rusev vs. Shelton Benjamin/Chad Gable vs. Big E/Kofi Kingston vs. The Usos

ER: Fans are really stoked for Rusev Day, so we got a nice hot crowd tonight, good to hear, and it warms my heart to hear English getting a great reaction. This starts with a pretty great car crash as Kofi gets tossed into a plancha, an Uso hits his big no hands plancha to the other half of the match, and Benjamin launches an Uso with a belly to belly off the top. Kofi eats a great boot and ring post shot courtesy of Rusev after goofing around. Rusev doesn't have time for that nonsense on Rusev Day. I like how English is doing a bunch of solid little things in what most want to be a spotfest: doing nice grounded punches off in the corner of the camera, locking in and wrenching a nice headlock. Don't let the match style conform you. The Texas Tornado style of the match feels a bit to crowded, and it's making half the guys wait to do their spots while the other half does their spots. It's messing up flow. Why is this the match without extra refs? This is kind of a mess even though everyone is working hard. I think Big E might have arguably the best standing splash in wrestling history. It's got the incontestable best height and the impact is great. Kofi springboards into the ring and gets stuck with a great Benjmain powerbomb, and they are freaking killing me with these Rusev/English nearfalls. There were three pins all in a row that looked like they could plausibly win the belts. Come onnnnn. The finishing stretch is flat out GREAT. Rusev and Big E have a great battle over the Accolade, with E almost powering out before Rusev bends him back violently. Gable comes in and hits a tremendous deadlift German on Rusev, just dumping him on his shoulders, then hits a rolling chaos theory on English that dumps him even more violently. We get a sneaky Uso tag as Gable tries for another chaos theory, couple superkicks and a big splash finishes him, straight up fire finish. Awesome stuff.

4. Natalya vs. Charlotte

ER: Alright, and now for nobody's favorite gimmick match! Natalya is a far better heel when she doesn't actually realize she's being a heel. Her acting like a heel is just hammy. She's a much better A-Rod style "heel who doesn't know that she's disliked" heel. Who in wardrobe allowed Carmella and Lana to both wear red swimsuits? Also, Carmella's suit looks like a placeholder for her actual, real gear...except she's been wearing it for months. Tamina continues having the worst gear, it's like they tailored Viscera's old gear and gave it some darting. Charlotte takes a nice awkward bump to the floor, and I liked the bridge up to dodge a baseball slide. Charlotte is good at coming up with cool ways to engage the lumberjacks, really liked Natalya pushing off the figure 4, sending Charlotte flying into a dive on Ruby Riott. Tamina runs point on catching a Charlotte moonsault to the floor, which predictably means that she bumps out of the way before the moonsault hits and 6 women take bumps anyway. Tamina is so bad you guys. She did absorb all of the Naomi springboard, so I guess I shouldn't be so harsh. Thankfully we don't have to endure a Natalya win, and Charlotte worked hard in a difficult gimmick match.

Natalya threatening to leave WWE is like a parent threatening to take their kids broccoli away. "That's it, you keep mouthing off, now I'm giving you another spoonful of mac and cheese and YOU don't get any more broccoli! Actually, why don't you go to your room and play video games and then see how you feel!"

5. Breezango vs. Bludgeon Brothers

ER: I know I just said a few minutes ago that Tamina has the worst gear possible...but my god the Bludgeon Brothers. They look like a Hot Topic was destroyed in a hurricane, and a seamstress assembled their outfits out of found scraps. I have no idea what vibe they're going for. So many studs and zippers and hanging bits and that riveted cummerbund corset awkard tight bits side by side awkward loose bits. And the match is over. A straight match between these two would have been really fun. But, I guess we were running long (no we weren't)?

6. Shinsuke Nakamura/Randy Orton vs. Sami Zayn/Kevin Owens

ER: I'm not totally sure who this match concept is supposed to appeal to. This tag match with a normal referee already had a chance to be pretty uninteresting, but jamming two authority figures into it as mildly disagreeing distractions should practically guarantee it's no good. The fans, to their ever loving credit tonight, are into it. Still! They're still excitedly chanting for this show. The great finish to that tag match feels like an hour ago and we haven't accomplished much since then, and they're still chanting for their guys. I like it. Props to Orton for hitting a chinlock literally 10 seconds into the match. Zayn and Owens are also working their share, but they at least are making them look good, with Zayn going after the eyes and nose bridge and Owens making his snug. I'm kind of okay with them cutting the ring off with chinlocks for as long as the crowd can take it. All of Nakamura's kicks to Owens look really good, loved the falling enziguiri as Owens caught a kick to the chest. Bryan and Shane haven't even been very involved in the match itself but man they are so distracting, with the camera purposely keeping them both in frame most of the time. "Triangle!" "Shoulders were down!" means that someone decided to get a Dental Plan/Lisa Needs Braces joke into things, which we were probably all hoping for. My god Shane's facials and movements might officially make him a worst guest ref than Shawn Michaels. I think he's been worse than current Red Shoes in this...but may even be Michaels bad. That's really bad. Boy that finish was really bad. Who could have wanted any of this? I know Orton has been snail slow in his PPV matches the last two years, and this whole match he seemed even slower as everyone had to let this guest ref angle breathe a bit. Woof.

7. Jinder Mahal vs. AJ Styles

ER: I really liked this, and while a lot of it was because of another excellent Styles performance, I thought Mahal worked smart and didn't overreach, thought both worked together to craft an interesting match around each man's strengths. There was also that real fear from a lot of people that Mahal was going to win the title again (while I don't hate Jinder, I also wanted to see AJ hold the belt longer), so the fear and tension on some of the nearfalls was there. Jinder worked over AJ's ribs in simple and effective ways, and AJ made a point of landing in all sorts of nasty ways on his ribs. Styles bumped huge into the timekeeper's area, just about the most painful way you can get into that area. Jinder just worked simple knees and kicks and holds targeting AJ's ribs. The springboard block was great, with Jinder hitting the ropes to knock AJ off, and AJ naturally landing ribs first again. Mahal keeps up the targeted attacks with a big gutbuster and awesome flapjack (Styles takes a flapjack better than maybe anyone), and I liked Styles' comeback Pele kick (with Mahal going for the kill with his cobra clutch slam only off the middle rope). I didn't love the finish with Styles just kicking out of the slam to eventually roll Mahal into the Calf Crusher, but the whole thing built really solidly and I love how serious they're treating the Calf Crusher. I loved when the top guys all had submission finishers in 2003, so I would not mind going back to that. Styles can basically do no wrong at this point.

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WWE Hell in a Cell 2017 Late Blog

1. Hype Bros vs. Chad Gable/Shelton Benjamin

ER: I almost always end up enjoying these pre-show matches, they're usually structured more satisfying that the actual PPV matches. I have no clue why. And the pre-shows continue to deliver as this tag was awesome. Gable was a real beast, and the trap arm belly to belly on Mojo alone would have probably made this work, and I dug the sequence that set it up (Gable lands on his feet missing a moonsault, catches Mojo in the suplex, then hits the moonsault). Mojo played a good FIP, had some well-mapped kickouts off some big Gable spots, but was also there to make some nice saves for Ryder. Gable eats a big shoulderblock from Mojo, hits Ryder with a killer spear in the corner to knock him to the floor. We had a lot of constant movement, which made the nearfalls more exciting. Wasn't sure which team was gonna get the win, which also helped add to the excitement. I could watch a match like this every day. Classic formula, good personality.

2. The New Day vs. The Usos

ER: These guys start with absolute lunatic bumps and crazy bumps are gonna make me get into a violent cagematch. Big E is a nutso bumper for a guy his size, and in one minute we get to see him splat onto the floor at high speed, then hit his spear to the floor (that I can't believe he still does!), an Uso takes a running leap into the cage, and things are crazy. Woods gets a chair thrown at his head and bumps to the floor and we get a good nearfall off a superkick. I get less interested in kendo stick use, but full credit to Usos for clever usage when they trap Woods in the corner to set up the hip attack. E gets caught on a spear and Jimmy punches him right in the freaking ear, then E runs him into the ringpost. They set up some crazy spot where E gives Jimmy a uranage off the apron to the floor, onto the sliding knees of Woods. It doesn't go flawless, but it's something that looks more violent the more messy it was. You basically had Uso getting thrown violently off the floor and landing off kilter on a pointed knee. It could have injured several men at once. Now Jey gets locked into a cell corner by 4 strategically placed kendo sticks, with Woods throwing shots to the ribs while Jey can't move (So.....New Day are the babyfaces...right?). They keep coming up with more dangerous spots, now with the Usos setting up a doomsday device on the floor with Big E up on the shoulders, and an Usos flying through the ropes with a crossbody. Knees and elbows and bodies are flying everywhere. Usos do a couple great big splashes, and then the handcuffs come out. Usos hang Woods over the ringpost by his cuffed wrists and beat his prone body with kendo sticks. Good lord. But they spend so much time on Woods that by the time they get to E he is ready to do damage, and proceeds to do some spectacular damage, throwing them with suplexes and running them violently into the cell. But the Usos keep going back to Woods' ribs, more kendo attacks, huge double splash, this whole thing was nuts. New Day had a great comeback and Woods valiantly tried to keep going despite the beatdown. These guys went all out, came up with some clever uses of tired gimmicks, really amped up the violence. I don't anticipate anything else on the card approaching this level of violence.

3. Rusev vs. Randy Orton

ER: After a match like that, you know Orton is the guy to go out and try hard! He does momentarily shut my mouth by taking a nice bump to the barricade and a fallaway slam on the floor. I miss Rusev as a top heel, and I miss Lana being on TV. Rusev is better than most at setting up Orton offense. I really liked the strikes he was throwing that were meant to be caught by Orton, and liked him holding the ropes to make Orton miss an armdrag. But things get fairly uninteresting once Orton went into his finishing run of offense. They made it pretty clear that Rusev had no chance. Fans were into it, but Orton is super stale to me (unique hot take!). I guess just gimme a Rusev/English tag team so I can see them work the other fun teams every week. I'd rather see that at this point since I doubt Rusev will make it back to the main events.

4. Tye Dillinger vs. Baron Corbin vs. AJ Styles

ER: Tye Dillinger's entrance cape looks like something Meng the Merciless might wear to a long weekend at Fire Island. I haven't really been following this story so I'm not sure why Dillinger is added, but Styles makes it known pretty early that he'll be trying his damndest to have a killer match. Corbin hits him with some hard elbows and Styles gets launched off a hip toss. It looked fantastic. We get some fun misdirections with Dillinger splashing Styles in the corner, then Corbin missing an attack on Tye but hitting AJ, then Styles gets pinballed ribs first off the ringpost and skids to the floor. Styles is a loon in this, flying full force into every possible surface. He seriously looked like he was trying to break down the ringside barrier with his body. Corbin locks on a super nasty cravate on Dillinger and Styles continues stealing the show, getting punched out of the air on a springboard by Corbin and ragdolling to the mat. Corbin takes a nice bump to the floor and eats a cool sliding knee from Styles, then Styles takes a big backdrop from Dillinger. Dillinger has some shockingly nice corner 10 count punches (I say shocking because his other strikes don't leave much of an impression on me), and if you're going to have one good set of punches with his 10 gimmick, those are the ones to have. I also really liked Dillinger kicking his way out of the Clash, which is weirdly something they don't do that often. Styles is turning in maybe his greatest performance since the Elimination Chamber earlier this year, and as I type that he takes a bananas choke slam from Corbin, insane height. And the finish was real fun with Styles levelling Dillinger with the forearm, then getting booted violently to the floor by Corbin (and you know Styles splats onto the floor, Corbin punts him right in the chest and Styes flies down practically head first) as Corbin steals the win. This match...was really damn good, and I went into it not caring at all. People are really busting ass on this show.

5. Charlotte vs. Natalya

ER: I tend to really like "big match" Natalya, while almost completely disliking Natalya. Charlotte is good at selling a knee injury and Natalya is good at doing perfunctory legwork. This took me a while to get involved but I got there once Charlotte's knee buckled doing a kick to Nattie's jaw. The moonsault to the floor was crazy, and chair to the leg finish was fine. I liked the touch of the ref removing Charlotte's boot, and Natalya had a great grin while posing with the belt. It seems like people really hate Natalya and think she's a bad heel, but I get annoyed just by looking at her, sooo...

6. Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Jinder Mahal

ER: "What Nakamura needs to do is grind this match to a jinder maHALT." Me, making grade F puns off of things Corey Graves says. Nakamura was like Rachel's favorite wrestler before he got called up to the main card, now she hardly reacts to him. One year ago she was flipping out live for him at the NXT show, scrambling to get out her camera. Now she just left the room to change the laundry. Admittedly she has zero interest in Mahal, so that could play into it. "Slow, Methodical, Effective" should be the slogan on the next Jinder Mahal shirt. Nak maybe didn't get the memo that you're supposed to be recklessly violent with the Singhs. He gives a couple knees, but very safe. They're only out there to take super dangerous bumps or get kicked in the ear. One of them takes an okay bump off the apron, but Styles took like 5 crazier bumps to the floor earlier. The nearfall off the kinshasa was decent, and I wish we could have gotten more brawl through the crowd so I could see more bald event security guys joylessly pretending men aren't fake fighting inches from their face. They're like the Queen's Guard, but with bald heads and tucked in blue polo shirts. And my god they are going to have Jinder break Backlund's title reign record, aren't they?

7. Bobby Roode vs. Dolph Ziggler

ER: You hear those stories about prospective employees who don't get a job because the employer finds a bunch of embarrassing drunk or stoned photos on their public Facebook page? Some day an employer is going to find a bunch of 2009 posts where I constantly praise Ziggler and realize I am clearly the least qualified person for any job. Ziggler locks on an early sleeper and Graves says "Ziggler might put Roode to sleep!" If Heenan were still with us he then would have said "He's already put the viewing audience to sleep, why not Roode!?" Rest in peace, Bobby. Though I don't really hate the minimalism of this match. It feels like a house show match, out of place on a PPV. Ziggler hitting the famouser out of a sleeper looked good. But whatever the reason this isn't grabbing me. I did really dig the finishing stretch, so that's something. Ziggler misses a superkick, gets hit with a boss spinebuster; Dolph hits a slick roll up to reverse the glorious DDT, Roode misses a corner charge and they do a just-the-right-amount-of-silly rolling prawn holds, each one showing more and more butt. Dolph hitting the Zig Zag immediately after the match while Roode's music starts playing. That's the kind of teeth the rest of the match needed.

8. Shane MacMahon vs. Kevin Owens

ER: I am unashamed to admit that I am completely loving this match. Shane jumps Owens and starts throwing those MacMahon brand potato punches (I could totally see a poorly designed WWE shirt with cartoon potatoes that says MacMahon Brand Potatoes and then the back says something stupid like "Want Fries With That!?") where 60% of them miss completely and the other 40% all land on the most annoying places possible. Shane is the blind squirrel accidentally finding Owens' ear and nose bridge. I am now over the moon as Shane sweeps the leg and then does a cartwheel kick!! Holy lord this rules. Shane dropkicks the cage door into Owens and Owens boots him off the apron, with Shane taking a big no look bump backwards into the cage. Match still rules. Shane eats a senton and cannoball, then Owens swantons right into Shane's knees. Shane sells the knee convincingly afterwards, then punches Owens in the ear a few times. Shane's face keeps getting redder, and then he misses a shooting star press! And then Owens hits a full force frog splash! OMG Shame MMAcMahon grabs a triangle off a pop up powerbomb, then grabs it again from the apron leading to him getting powerbombed onto the steps. People are shitting on this match but it feels like a total miracle match to me. Owens misses a cannonball off the apron through a table with aplomb. This still rules. Shane gets DDT'd hard on the entrance ramp, and it was the least flashy spot so far but looked great. You knew they were going up to the top of the cage, because MacMahon wants to make his father proud or something? And the Russian leg sweep on top probably won't get talked about after the show, but you know they both smacked the back of their heads on the support beam part of the cage. They're doing a lot of stuff up on the cage, and I keep waiting for a giant hole to get torn through as they both die on their way down. I likely would have rolled an ankle taking my first step onto the top of the cage. I dug all the teasing around getting thrown off the cage, and Shane's kicks to the ribs while climbing down were sharp. Owens takes a big bump off the cage and yeah, you know Shane's gonna do something stupid now. And my god that was crazy. And Zayn saved Owens!! Holy cow the timing of that was amazing, with Zayn grabbing Owens' hand as Shane came violently crashing - HARD - through that table. That did not look like a classic Shane crash pad landing. That looked like a Parkour Fail video. And weirdly this doesn't totally feel like Zayn turning heel, it feels like Zayn pushing slightly towards heel and Owens getting pulled slightly towards face. This match FAR exceeded any kind of expectation I had for it. I'm kind of stunned how much I loved it. Really.

ER: Was this the WWE PPV of the year? There's so damn many that I honestly can't remember what has happened this year. But the low points were kept brief, the two Cell matches overly delivered, and that triple threat over-delivered. These WWE shows that look bleh on paper seem to always crush it. This was a quality PPV man, these folks busted butt.

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Wait, Summerslam is Today!? WWE Summerslam 2017 Not Live Blog

I forgot this was on today! Whoops!

1. Hardy Boys/Jason Jordan vs. Miz/Bo Dallas/Curtis Axel

ER: Wow they really started this one early. This is essentially an empty arena match, wouldn't be shocked if there were thousands of people still trying to filter in. It sounds like there is nobody there, real quiet crowd. We do eventually get a Brother Nero chant so it's something. Corey Graves wonders if Jordan's career is going to stall similar to Curtis Axel's career, as Jordan is wrestling in a pre-show match taking place in front of a fraction of the crowd. Jordan has some really bad hot tag offense. His back elbows were an embarrassment. But his spine shortening corner spear looks good. He hits a few of them here. This wasn't much. It had a nice stupid Jeff Hardy bump on the turnbuckle, but I have no clue why they held this match so damn early in the night. It seriously looked like they were just trying out their match in the ring before fans got there. Weird choice.

2. Adrian Neville vs. Akira Tozawa

ER: They work this one at a pretty decent slow pace, with Neville grinding in stomps and reclined headlocks, looking miserable and grumpy. Crowd wakes up with a killer Tozawa dive, cracking Neville with a forearm on the dive. Loved the spot where Neville catches a springboarding Tozawa on his shoulders, and Tozawa maneuvers into a nasty octopus hold. Neville whips Tozawa's arm violently into the mat and Tozawa's anguished scream makes me believe in the violence. It doesn't seem to go anywhere interesting, as moments later Tozawa is climbing up for a top rope senton and Neville is a guy who can take a front suplex off the top in ugly fashion. Finish came off kinda weak, as Tozawa hits knees on a senton (but not really) and Neville hits the red arrow to Tozawa's back (even though it landed lighter than any other red arrow I've seen from him). Flat finish, mostly flat match. Real shame as I think this might have been the weakest of their matches. Neville does wear & carry that belt nicely, so I think the result makes sense.

ER: I'm not a guy with a lot of sneaker style, but Otunga's purple and gold Ait Otungas are perfect flash. And I FF through the Elias Sampson Son House cosplay. I was the music director at a college radio station in the 2000s, I heard enough beardy white guys playing folk/blues. There's a new Iron & Wine album in my inbox if I'm that interested in listening to beard folk with my pro wrestling.

3. Usos vs. The New Day (Big E/Xavier Woods)

ER: Weird to see these teams shunted to the pre-show as well. Usos have been doing their career best work as heels, but it's weirdly been their least profile work. They're real mean with Woods and Woods is a guy who can build some sympathy to a hot tag. I love the heel Usos now-staple move of building their opponent for a hot tag, only for one of them to yank down the guy from the apron right when the tag is getting made. They did it to perfection in the American Alpha series, andI liked it here too: Woods finally getting there one Uso running himself into the post but still hitting his mark yanking Big E down. New Day's run of offense is real fun when it happens, Woods hits a weird flipping wheelbarrow that slam's Jey's face into the mat, then gets E on his shoulders to whip E into a splash. Usos hit a double back suplex on E and he eats a huge hip attack in the corner. The uranage/back stabber timing was off, so it wasn't pretty, but it was still a guy getting slammed into another guy's knees, so the pain is there. The rope running forearms is a silly spot, but at least the guys were landing. I like Woods breaking out headbutts and Jimmy takes a big bump over the floor off a lariat. Big E eats a nutso top rope apron splash as he's draped over the bottom rope, and Woods kicking out of a top rope splash is a nice nearfall. Woods hits a nasty tornado DDT on the floor and New Day hits a combo big ending/leaping DDT, but Jimmy makes the surprise save. They keep upping the crazy, as they toss Woods from the ring to the floor for an alley oop Samoa drop, and then Big E hits the "can't believe they still let him do that" spear to the floor. I really disliked the rest of it though, as Jimmy is back on the apron 10 seconds after taking that spear, which feels like way too little time. That move is so risky and spectacular looking, but it was sold far less than many moves in this match. The double big splash finisher always looks epic, but my interest dropped out when that spear was treated as a transition move. Still, overall killer match, hated the layout of the finish.

4. John Cena vs. Baron Corbin

ER: Usos/New Day delivered them a nice molten crowd for this match. The "where's your briefcase?" is a fun chant to get under Corbin's skin, and he has no problem showing ass by letting it get to him. I really liked Cena hitting his sloppy dropkick, only for Corbin to get bounced in the ropes  and come off with a right hand. Cena sells that right hand better than anybody will sell most things tonight. Match starts getting great when Cena actually misses the five knuckle shuffle, and then Corbin does an insanely high chokeslam right onto his own knee, with Cena dropping onto the back of his head. Cena's new thing is apparently taking a rough drop on the back of his head every match. Between this and the Nakamura suplex drop, this is a bad trend. Cena sidesteps Corbin and sends him sliding to the floor, then blasts him with a lariat and AA for the win. Cena should just use that lariat as his new secondary finisher. It looks great, but he criminally only uses it in quick thrown off comebacks. It has the thump to mean more. Fun match.

5. Natalya vs. Naomi

ER: Natalya exists in a weird place in my brain, as I can't stand her personality but I realize I enjoy her wrestling more than most, especially when she works heel. She should always work heel. I don't think the green/orange cyber rave look is working for Naomi. She looks like someone passed out in the grass at the Electric Daisy Carnival, or a cut extra from Strange Days, or someone about to be slaughtered in the Daft Punk "One More Time" video. Natalya hits a mean snap suplex and throws nice short elbows to Naomi's temple, and seems to take Naomi's complicated headscissor moves better than most. Natalya doesn't take short cuts on things like stomach kicks (though she doesn't know how to occupy herself in the ropes very well while Naomi does the slingshot legdrop). Cool spot where Natalya catches a kick and slams Naomi's leg straight into the mat, forcing her to do the splits. Natalya also locks on one of the better sharpshooters, and there have been some people with genuinely terrible sharpshooters over the years. Natalya always gets a great low base which sets her's apart. I still didn't expect her to get the belt, but I think it's for the best. Naomi works better as someone chasing a title, I didn't really find her reign itself that memorable.

6. Big Cass vs. Big Show

ER: I...don't know why I'm actually excited for this match, but I am. Enzo in the shark cage is so stupid, Show is working on a busted right hand...and I think that's it. I love giants working a vulnerability. It's why I loved Andre in the last few years, he was this mammoth man who was in crippling pain, so it gave him this who air of vulnerability. So Show with a bad hand is money. Cass is dry as desert for me, but I liked him weaselly going after Show's bad hand, hammering it with fists, kicking it, and Show's devotion to throwing lefty lariats. Cass goes back to the hand, slams it into the ringpost, and I like how Cass always reverts to working like such a little guy. He's billed as 7' yet he always instinctively starts working like he's trying to make up 100 pounds on a guy. It's like when Edge working HHH, you'd see people saying "this was a good big guy/little guy match" even though Edge was as big as HHH. Match finish is a total fart noise as Enzo amusingly greases himself up to escape from the cage...but then just hops to the mat and eats an immediate big boot, followed by Show going down just as easy. Super anticlimactic. I don't mind Enzo immediately getting toasted, but he could have done any other thing other then just hop down. You have him missing a crossbody, or him getting caught on a crossbody and used on Big Show, those seems like better avenues to a Cass win. I just don't see Cass ever amounting to anything, even if he does eventually get a title because of his size.

7. Randy Orton vs. Rusev

ER: I really dislike how much of a joke Rusev looks like. I loved his first Gable match, loved him wrecking Gable in the rematch, and am just totally sick of Orton. So we get Rusev jumping him in a sneak attack, and Orton still catching him with an RKO. Rusev to his credit took the RKO in a nasty snap, but man who cares about this.

8. Sasha Banks vs. Alexa Bliss

ER: Banks comes out with an awesome boss cloak that the announce team totally ignores it. And the crowd is noticeably quiet after that Cass match and the Orton non-match. But these two start to get them back. Bliss hits a middle rope version of the double knees and then the double knee moonsault, and that really feels like something that should be more than an early match spot. They try some new things that work, like Bliss getting the back of her head whipped into the buckles, and I especially like Bliss yanking the ring skirt and causing Sasha to slip off the apron. Very cool, subtle spot, timed right when Sasha's foot hit the skirt. I thought the ending was a bit abrupt since they took their time getting there. Sasha has built much better finishes with Nia and Charlotte, but the match itself was fine. It seems a little flat to do a title change here, just an hour after Naomi lost the title. But this show has been all about surprising or weird finishes so far.

9. Bray Wyatt vs. Finn Balor

ER: Finn is a demon, but a demon with really lousy strikes and a running forearm that misses Bray Wyatt's face by a foot. He would have mostly whiffed a flip dive but Wyatt leapt in and to his left. Wyatt makes me interested in the match by suplexing Finn on the floor, but Finn as a demon is so hokey to me that I can't stay in for long. Finn does some more light running forearms, not even leaving his feet, and at least his double stomp from the apron to the floor on Bray's neck looked good. Finn hits the lightest slingblade I've ever seen and man does this demon stink. Wyatt generously sells Finn's light dropkick on the floor by flying into the barricade, and Wyatt hits a nice clothesline back in the ring. This was not much of a match, I just cannot take Balor seriously when everything he does looks so bad.

10. Cesaro/Sheamus vs. Dean Ambrose/Seth Rollins

ER: Okay, Cesaro and Sheamus look awesome in their entrance gear. Those army jackets with matching kilts, and the back to back pose making them look like they were fusing was pretty neat. Ambrose and Rollins as a team mean that I don't have to watch an Ambrose or Rollins singles match on this show, so that feels like a win. Cesaro and Sheamus should be doing more crazy power spots against these two, but I liked them catching Rollins' always-slow tope. Cesaro rips up a beach ball from the crowd, making him a hero to non-asshole live sports fans everywhere. That's too much of a face move right there. I hate when some doofus brings a beach ball to a baseball game, always cheer security when they catch and deflate. Just once I'd like to pop one. Cesaro grabs a nice front choke to prevent a tag out and I dig all the ring cut offs. The hot tag doesn't do much for me, Ambrose run looked pretty soft. I did like the jumping elbow to the floor though. The babyface double teams don't do a lot for me, but Cesaro making the save after the frog splash on Sheamus ramped things up a little. Sheamus warms my heart by kicking Ambrose in the back to stop the rebound lariat, and the double crucifix bomb was a nice visual. Match went on too long, but I liked Rollins' full extension superkicks during the finish, and like that this keeps Ambrose/Rollins tied together instead of taking up two matches on a card. Apparently all of the titles are getting changed on this show as well, though something tells me Jinder will still have his belt at the end of the night.

11. Kevin Owens vs. AJ Styles

ER: I'm...beyond ready to see these two fight other people at this point. It feels like Styles has been married to Owens for months. A quick count shows that 10 of Styles' last 14 TV/PPV matches have been opposite Owens, dating back 4 months. Please, make it stop. The Shane involvement doesn't interest me as it just seems like it's going to lead to somehow another match. All the big spots in the match are built around Shane getting in the way, eating part of a 450, getting knocked through the ropes to the floor after Styles gets kicked into him, getting the big moment of shoving Styles into a nearfall schoolboy. At least they throw some nice bombs during the standing exchange, and mix up the strikes so it's not just forearms back and forth. Shane gets to repeat his shove into nearfall spot with Owens. I'm ready for the feud to end, AND the match stopped the streak of title changes. Shane's tan is ridiculous by the way. He should work a masked gimmick as Burnt Sienna.

12. Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Jinder Mahal

ER: I don't think Jinder is really built to take Nakamura's offense, so it makes sense that Nak worked early parts of the match like Bugs Bunny, just getting Jinder to run into things and fall to the floor. Jinder doesn't sell kicks in interesting ways, but he takes a nice bump into the ringpost and that's a plus. Singh brothers are probably happy that they just have to take a couple knee strikes tonight instead of letting Orton dump them on their necks. They're digging their heels in on Jinder, which, whatever. It would be easier if the matches were better.

13. Braun Strowman vs. Samoa Joe vs. Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar

ER: Well this was pretty much exactly what I wanted. This is the match I was excited about a couple months ago, this was the match I wanted to see tonight, and it delivered. This was total chaos with bigger men making for bigger landings, some inventive sequences, and some great saves. Braun and Brock finally get an actual showdown. It's crazy how these two have been kept apart, as usually WWE doesn't have that kind of patience, but I don't think these two have ever crossed paths outside of a Royal Rumble. I don't think they crossed paths for more than a moment in the Rumble, either. Which was probably for the best, as it would have created a nuclear shockwave that would have likely snapped all the ring ropes and taken out the first couple rows of fans. I loved that Brock tried to suplex Braun and couldn't budge him. Braun is a real beast, starting by taking a mean shot into the post, and before long just murdering everybody. I always love the ways Brock gets taken out in multimans, and him getting flattened through two tables is a pretty great way to take him out. Braun flips a third table onto him and all the agents and medics run out to help. Finlay's presence makes me sad we never got Finlay/Brock (or Finlay vs. the others). But Lesnar is gone for now and Reigns starts unloading all of the superman punches, Joe starts trying to lock in a choke on everyone, and Braun starts Brauning all over everyone. Braun Brauns through stairs and chairs and tables and bodies...but then Brock comes back and things get even better. Vulnerable Brock is the best as I think bumping and selling is far and away his best feature. His stumbling and selling is the best in wrestling, and desperate Brock is far and away the most interesting Brock. I love him yanking the ref out of the ring, knowing it was his only chance at retaining. We get awesome moments like Brock getting bulldozed into a corner by Braun, Brock locking in a kimura, then Roman hitting a superman punch on Braun. There were a couple of moments where Roman inadvertantly saved Brock's bacon, another when Braun had Brock up but Roman hits Braun with a spear. Joe was somewhat of an afterthought, but whenever he would appear he would lock in his choke and seem just as credible as the others. These heavyweight multimans are just incredibly satisfying pro wrestling, everybody remaining protected through complicated saves, everybody looking strong by taking turns demolishing everything, playing out like a real life version of the arcade game Rampage.

PAS: This landed like a bunker bomb on the arena, and was exactly the type of Godzilla v. Mothra v. King Ghidora v. Mecha Godzilla battle you wanted it to be. What an awesome performance by Braun, it has to rank up with the greatest monster wrestling performances I can remember ever seeing. He looked so scary and destructive, while still having moments of vulnerability, when you think about all of the giants who have proceeded him and failed, it is quite the credit to his talent and the WWE booking that he has gotten to this point. He has Sid's aura and prime Giant talent, and he was incredible here. Braun destroying Brock, was as shocking as Brock destroying Cena in 8 minutes, but it allowed Brock to play roided Ricky Morton, which he is great at. Loved Roman in this too, as a guy who just looked for opening to throw shots, he found all of these cool moments to throw in superman punches and spears, and I love how they have been having him get so close to putting down Brock but failing, when he finally gets over the hump it will be a great moment. Joe was sort of marginalized, but had some cool moments (loved his Misawa elbow tope), and was certainly not hurt, glad he wasn't pinned again by the same counter.

ER: Crap show due to length. If this had happened over a normal 4 hour PPV then it would have been fine. I liked both women's matches, the Usos tag and that main event was blowaway. The lows were REALLY low, but we ended on a real special high, so...Phil and I had a long back and forth about where to put the monster main event on our 2017 MOTY MASTER LIST, and it came down to putting it at #1 or #2. It was a tough call. This match had the better finish, but Ki/Callihan somehow had even more violence. We eventually decided the next day to make it our #2 match. But it was close.

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