New Footage Friday: LASARTESSE! VAN BUYTEN! AMERICAN ALPHA! REVIVAL! CAIFAN! HECHICERO!

Rene Lasartesse/ Double Trouble vs. Franz Van Buyten/Scott Casey/Boston Blackie CWA 1992

PAS: Lasartesse vs. Van Buyten is an all time legendary feud and this maybe one of their last matches opposite each other. This is a really fun house show style six man tag. Van Buyten kind of reminds me of the Bullet as he has some really fun old man dancing, monkey flipping and armdragging. Lasartesse struts around the ring like a total dipshit and stooges great. Really enjoyed Double Trouble, they were a totally ok roidy tag team, sort of a heel High Voltage and they should have had a solid WCW Pro run. They even hit an assisted flip senton, which is a pretty big highspot in 1992. Lots of jazz and misdirection and hot tags, exactly the way you want to see legends showcased in their declining years.

MD: Watching this, I'm not sure what I'd rather see, late 92 Lasartesse vs Lawler, with both of them letting every little moment sink in or 92 van Buyten doing that headscissors (or step over) counter to the armlock vs old man Nick Bockwinkel. We've hit a point where we've seen that counter so many times that it doesn't quite have the same zing it did before, but if it was really so commonplace, why aren't people using it in matches today? Anyway, this was a tale of two matches. About midway through, with a lot of heat and antics, Van Buyten (who had played FIP very well for a lot of the first ten minutes, so well that the camera angle/video quality really wasn't a problem at all) and Lasartesse (who had played a chickenshit old heel during that time) both got tossed and it settled down into a 2 on 2 with Casey as FIP. It was still perfectly fine, with everyone playing their roles well, but we were here for the old guys so it was a shame to see them gone. It built to a pretty amusing spot with one Trouble tied up and the second one used as a battering ram, before the heels overdid it and everything got thrown out.

ER: When I saw the name Double Trouble I thought we were getting the two big fatties who worked WWF house shows in exchange for selling the Undertaker name rights. That said, I really liked them and yes they definitely seem like a team that should have showed up somewhere. They broke out fistdrops and flying headbutts and high legdrops, each took big bumps over the top to the floor, an unexpected Drive-By, set up a great spot where one of them got tied in the ropes and the other gets rammed HARD into his gut battering ram style and yeah these are probably the actual better Double Trouble team. I liked how the first half played as the old man Van Buyten vs. Lasartesse showdown, and the second half was our Double Trouble showcase (or at least a showcase for me). Van Buyten was still super spry in his early 50s and his early headscissors is downright majestic. Van Buyten had wonderful babyface energy and I adored all the mincing and posturing from Lasartesse, the whole thing was satisfying.

Caifan Rockero vs. Hechicero Poder y Honor 1/31/09

PAS: This is the earliest Hechicero match we have on video and we get to see him against probably his greatest rival in Caifan. This was really a treat, you could tell that they had kind of a touring match worked out, and this had all of the little beats you want from these two.  They had an opening llave section with a lot of very cool twisting leg locks, the rolling leglock submissions is a Hechicero trademark, and he breaks out a bunch of cool ones here. It build to a bigger near fall section with some cool arm trap slams, a big armlock triangle submission near fall by Hechicero and a nifty top rope springboard rana by Caifan. You could see that both guys hadn't fully developed their personas yet, there was a lot of mirroring that was cool, but didn't allow then to differentiate themselves, the way they would in later matches. It felt like what it was, two super talented young guys in a garage figuring their stuff out, our boy Rob Bihari dug this one out of his crate and it was really cool to see.

MD: This is a great little piece of history and I'm glad Rob posted it. We don't have a ton of pre-2010 Hechicero online. I wrote up their 2010 match almost five years ago when I was still figuring out lucha. That was a hair vs mask match with more intensity. This had a very different feel given the sparse crowd. Hechicero didn't forget they were there certainly, but this did feel a bit like a match in a bubble or an exhibition. They had all the time in the world and a thousand things to try. It made for one tricked out hold or interesting spot after the next. I think I preferred it once they picked up the pace because they were more actively trying to foil and counter each other there. Honestly, I think my favorite thing in the whole match was Hechicero feigning not knowing that Caifan had landed on the apron after getting hoisted over the top so that he could try to launch a sneak attack. It failed, of course, letting Caifan fly in, but the set up with Hechicero tapping his head and really milking it before going for the sneak attack turned a normal spot into something with extra wrinkles just like one of his tricked out submissions.

24. American Alpha vs. The Revival WWE 4/23/16

MD: It's a little bit hard to remember just how special those first run of NXT house shows were. They didn't get around to my part of the country until Fall of 2016, and by then, a lot of the match-ups and moments I had wanted to see before had been cycled out. Top of the list was probably American Alpha vs Revival. We obviously have a number of big matches between them, southern tags turned up to 11 style, but it's nice to see one on a smaller stage.

The first fall was basically all shine, super athletic with well coordinated, complex spots and reversals, with AA looking world class and Revival being just competitive enough to make it seem like Alpha earned it. There was a transition tease at the end (with Dawson swatting down Wilder's feet from the apron to prevent a German) which really stood out.

The transition was also the end of the second fall, a set up for a shatter effect so elaborate that it could have served as a finish in and of itself. The structure of 2/3 falls tags is always interesting to look at. We have so many from Portland specifically that there are great examples. I think my ideal is when the heels takeover at the end of the first fall and the babyfaces come back at the end of the second, with a reset and second bit of heat into the third, but having an extended shine through most of the first two falls and lean into the heat for the third was a fun (and very WWF/E) house show variation here. Alpha has enough stuff and Revival stooges well enough that it worked. There were a lot of little things to like too. Dash is underrated at working the apron. Dawson doing a twenty second set up for a slingshot suplex in 2016 is how you make a move matter. I don't care whether they were just playing along or not, the fan reaction to the ref missing the tag was just what you wanted, as was the Gable chant that followed and the pop for Jordan pulling down the strap (even if maybe you wanted a bit more for the actual hot tag pop). The crowd knew that what they were getting was special and unique. Glad it popped up now.

PAS:  This was a lot of fun, I could totally see going to an NXT house show and just being engrossed with what they were doing. I was really impressed by Jason Jordan in this match, what a bummer the ending of his career ended up being. He was totally explosive, almost like Doug Furnas with better amateur takedowns, some of the better popped hips on suplexes, a total treat to watch. The Revival have their shtick down, and are really good at filling time, which is a real skill for a heel tag team in a southern tag style.

ER: I have been to three NXT house shows and all of them have been great experiences, real high bang for my buck while being set in nice smaller venues (including a gorgeous old rock venue in the middle of downtown Sacramento). By the time I got to see my first NXT house show in 2016, neither of these teams was on the tour, and this match was better than any match I saw across three shows (with a War Raiders vs. Strong/O'Reilly match from 2018 being the closest competition). This felt like an actually fleshed out (and better) version of the fondly remembered Brain Busters/Rockers tags from 30 years earlier, without ever feeling like they were aping those matches. AA just felt like such a timeless classic babyface team, a team who moved so explosively that it felt like they could be responsible for getting casual fans excited about high dropkicks and tight armdrags and classic Morton/Jannetty style headscissors (that Gable himself doesn't even do anymore). Both of them - especially Jordan - had such pop in everything they did, and this is the kind of go go go I wish had caught on as a house style instead of the learned behavior horseshit we got instead. Gable was charismatic as hell, loved him hitting an axehandle off the middle rope on Dawson, rolling through and coming up swinging at Dawson on the other side of the ring; also loved him hitting a second headscissors on Dawson right near the opposite side of the ring and pointing at Wilder on the apron while before taking Dawson over. It was like he was waving to his buddy from the top of a rollercoaster. Both teams spent their time in control wisely, and Revival particularly feel like a team that can work an interesting 5 minute or 45 minute tag match on any given night. Down the stretch we even get a perfectly timed moment of Jordan finally getting a hot tag only for the ref to send him back to the apron and admonish him for not using the tag rope. This was such a good tag, and it felt like they had material they hadn't even worked through yet. These teams worked a ton of matches throughout the Carolinas, I have no doubt that all of them ruled.


2016 MOTY MASTER LIST

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WWE TLC Gently Behind Live Blog 12/15/19

Andrade vs. Humberto Carrillo

ER: These are two guys who are perfect pre-show participants. And yes obviously Andrade should be past pre-show status, I'm just saying he's a guy who can be trusted to reliably put something hot on the pre-show. The pre-show on these cards deliver more often than not, settling firmly into the level of "Cool 8 minute Velocity match you watch at 1 AM while eating Taco Bell on a Saturday" and that's a great level to be at. Carrillo is a guy who will take death bumps on PPV, and you can tell these two really want to ignite this crowd. They did some dance sequences I actually liked, dug the way these two bounce off each other. Carrillo does indeed take a big bump, getting shoved off the top to the floor into an ad break. A big bump leading to an ad break did affect me as a child, always made that bump seem bigger, like they had to cut away from it as if something was wrong, not yet registering as just a good time for an ad. And pretty early we get a big cool spot where Andrade gets his knee hung up in the ropes, and Carrillo does his best Fenix attempt, climbs the ropes and dropkicks Andrade right in the eye. And Andrade's shutting bleeding eye shaped the rest of this match as something awesome. At first I thought Andrade was doing cool little selling touches, occasionally going to his eye as a guy who thought he might be cut, but then he was hitting back at Carrillo as a guy who WAS cut. Once I saw Andrade belt him on the turnbuckles, saw that closed eye, I was hooked. Everything had a little extra meaning to it, made Andrade look like a spaghetti western villain, firing off two knees into the corner. I thought they killed it down the stretch, not sure how many other matches will get this same kind of building crowd interest that this one grabbed. Carrillo's moonsault was the most flush I've ever seen him hit it, thought Andrade came off like a total badass even with the clean loss, and Andrade coming off like such a badass only made Carrillo's win look stronger. If anything else on this show is as cool as this match, then this will be a good show regardless.

Ladder Match: New Day vs. The Revival

ER: Well I thought this was fantastic. This felt like the best parts of grimy 2000s indy ladder matches, and the best parts of a hot southern tag brawl. Revival came off like real assholes and we get a great stretch of them using all of New Day's Looney Tunes tricks against them in violent fashion. All the brawling was looking snug anyway, but things kept getting better when they were catching New Day in their own game. Kofi tries some quick work around a ladder, New Day ends up just bashing the hell out of that ladder he tried to Bugs Bunny under; same happens when they sucker Big E into hitting a sick splash onto the apron. I liked seeing Revival one step ahead of the New Day, and it went on long enough that the crowd reaction to New Day kept swelling. When Kofi finally broke away and turned the tables by teeter tottering a ladder into Revival's faces, the fans chanting "Kofi! Kofi!" felt more like a great 80s territory babyface reaction than a modern one. They were so excited just to see Kofi finally get his chance to climb a ladder for those belts. It was great once Revival was finally not a step ahead, and Kofi's tricks started working, like his wild tornado DDT off a couple of weird rope leaps. The only minor drag of the match was a slowdown for a major ladder set up, but the big moments that resulted more than overcame that, I think. Big E hit his frankly incredible spear tope, falls off the top of a ladder with a Big Ending on Wilder, eats a suplex on a set up ladder, eats a splash through that same ladder, all sick stuff. Everybody takes stupid bumps, and tried dangerous things, but there was always a sense of build and I never got the sense anyone was getting back involved too quickly. This was a lot of dynamite, great old school hate but entertain vibe to the whole thing.

Buddy Murphy vs. Aleister Black

ER: Murphy sitting Indian style in front of Black made it look like he was looking at a mirror image of his own CAW, asking "hey what would I look like with Tattoo E setting?" And I keep wondering why things are looking better tonight, why guys look like they're really leaning into strikes and flying face first into ladders and going mouth first into ring steps, and then I notice guys keep getting busted open. And I will take it! Everybody on this card is working like they want to be noticed and a busted nose is something that can actually make me interested in a Buddy Murphy match! I still don't love all the dancey parts of this match - and there are going to be dancey moments in a Buddy Murphy match - but there are enough hard shots that added to the frenetic pace that most of this came off well. Murphy doing his silly DDR strikes before hitting a nasty brainbuster, is exponentially cooler when Aleister Black's nose leaves a blood smear on the mat. And I liked Murphy mixing up some of his regulars, like kicking Black quickly three times after trapping him in the buckles. And I love the gravity that Black Mass carries, really treated as the very end, and the dance fight that built to the Black Mass was fun (and I also like Murphy going for footstomps). Match was a real crowd pleaser, and while it's not my favorite style, I thought it delivered.

WWE having a KFC table at ringside is super 1995, really capturing a Coliseum Video kind of special feature. That's a level of desperation advertising WWE hasn't hit in awhile, and I appreciate that willingness to hustle. But dammmmmn was that a missed opportunity to have a couple of big ass vikings absolutely massacre that table, just pillage through those sides and wolf down every chicken leg there. Otis would have fucked that spread up.

Viking Raiders vs. The OC

ER: This was definitely the comedown match, but it wasn't a bad one. This played more like a Raw match that surprisingly delivered, but felt like a step down on this show. The OC are pretty dead as a tag team, and there were plenty of more interesting teams we could have seen out there even in a losing showcase. Because OC got to showcase some stuff here, it wasn't a beatdown by any means. And OC are a perfectly fine team, and so I guess it's fine to have the Raiders win a decisively in a mach like this. It was the cooldown, it didn't need to be as hot, it just needed to end with a big Hanson hot tag and that KFC family losing their table. I love how they instructed the actors to never stop eating, and act like the people aren't literally directly in front of you. These big dudes were fighting right in front of them and that one guy never stopped eating his chicken while not blinking. The double teams from both teams looked good, Hanson got the big reaction, and Anderson wound up with potatoes and gravy on his butt after a powerbomb. That's what people wanted.

TLC Match: King Corbin vs. Roman Reigns

ER: I'm...not so sure how I feel about this one. I liked the slow burn of Corbin laying in a beating, knowing it would lead to a hot Roman comeback. And I liked how long the Corbin beating took, because it really did make Roman's comeback sting harder. Roman was going through paid off security, eating hard shots into the ringpost, getting leveled by Corbin's nice lariat, Corbin's big backbreaker looked, well, backbreaking, everything was lining up nicely. And sure enough, the Reigns comeback was great, and this was feeling great. But it's always weird to me when you have a ton of heels kicking the shit out of a big babyface, and the announcers are talking about how the locker room is falling in line behind Corbin, and there is just nobody in sight who is interested in saving Reigns. Are the Usos around? Ali? Gable? Nobody is around to run out and get a huge babyface reaction to save Roman from injustice? So even while the big heel beatdown was done well, it just feels like not using that chance to elevate someone knew not only makes no sense, but it makes Reigns come off like a bigger dummy too. So I just couldn't vibe with that finish, couldn't get behind it, and I really liked where the start of this was going.

The Miz vs. Bray Wyatt

ER: I'll level with you, none of this is doing it for me. I don't care about Wyatt, I don't care about the Miz, and this is something I'm not interested in. I regret sitting through this, but I'm also kind of fascinated by it. Are people into this? Some people seem into this, for reasons I might not understand. And that interests me. But I don't think I'm into whatever graphic novel juggalo detective comic this is turning into.

Tables Match: Bobby Lashley vs. Rusev

ER: I couldn't get into this one either, even though I really wanted to root for Rusev. I haven't been paying close enough attention to the details of the storyline to care either way about that, but it also doesn't feel like a story that I want to learn more about. I think this just went a little long, and should have had far more aggressive hate and bad decision making by Rusev, and some cocky underestimating that bites his ass from Lashley. And it was instead worked like a sensible yet escalating brawl with some big bumps and a fairly defeated man. That's not the correct tone, and this whole thing felt odd for it. Rusev was trying his damndest, really carrying the bumping and rough spills, actively appealing to the crowd for some support - and getting it, for awhile - but I wanted some enraged Rusev, some dangerous Rusev. I'm not sure where this is all going, but I wanted something different here.

TLC Match: Kabuki Warriors vs. Becky Lynch/Charlotte

ER: What a bizarrely messy but kind of hypnotic fight that main event was! This felt like Charlotte working as blowoff match Ian Rotten, being super unprofessional in a protected bully kind of way, and I thought Asuka (and a likely concussed Kairi Sane) turned in a couple of insane performances, the kind that should cement them even further as stars. They came off like a great stooge heel team and a never say die babyface team during appropriate parts of the same match, really connecting with every moment. Charlotte is reckless and bullet proof, and Kairi is someone who recklessly flies into everything, and that's a dangerous combo. Kairi flies into a big boot, gets tossed hard into the barricade, eats a fallaway slam that whips her head around the corner of the barricade, and just keeps sprawling out onto the back of her head. Charlotte is pretty relentlessly after her, and it peaks with a crazy deadlift powerbomb through a table, Sane looking half knocked out but still throwing stiff punches to get out of it, and getting dropped viciously through it anyway. Asuka was such a megastar here, really elevated the messy chaos of it all. She has been crushing the heel turn, adding more personality than anyone, and here she just Dikembe Mutombo bossed her way through this damn thing; having Kairi out there as your concussion zombie chair throwing maniac only makes you look more cool by association. Becky Lynch's run as The Man has been so undeniably disappointing, and that's only magnified   when Asuka is so fully in charge in there. But this whole thing had a real shoot dangerous indy match feel to it that I really loved, helped the rough edges stand out as cool features instead of awkward blemishes. They really went full out on dangerous and stiff looking spots and that made this thing come off the right amount of vicious. The only tragedy about the match, is how they IMMEDIATELY cut away from Asuka's triumphant moment. That was a genuine main event delivery on a show that was trying to be noticed, and they made it possible to miss that moment so that the viewer could instead see Roman doing an almost comical endzone celebration spot. That's a stupid note to finish the show on, totally undercutting the cool moment that had just happened in the ring the past 20 minutes.


ER: Overall I call this show a win. The first two matches of the evening were total knockouts, and the main event sent things out on a high note. The misses involved angles I don't care about anyway, so wasn't as invested in them being good or bad, so that lessened the blows. Feels like these undertalked about shows always have a high delivery %, and this was no different.

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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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WWE Extreme Rules 7/14/19 Blog

Jeeeez these things start earlier and earlier. Are 4 PM starts the norm now? They always catch me off guard. I dig Beth Phoenix's new haircut, though it feels like they're doing that thing where they make her look like Renee Young, as they made Michael Cole look like Todd Pettengill.

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Finn Balor

ER: Feels like there will be people upset that these two are on the pre-show, in a title match no less, but these are not concerns that I share. I prefer when the pre-show matches are guys who typically wind up on 205 Live or Main Event, as it plays like a fun 8 minute try out match at that point and they usually deliver. This just feels like a couple of established guys slumming it. I'm pretty certain that every single strike Balor threw landed about 6" to the side of Nakamura. Pele kick? Somewhere over Shinsuke's shoulder. Kick from the apron? somewhere past Shinsuke's head. Balor's cut off double stomp looked good, and Nakamura's two finishing shots looked good (knee to the back of the head looked great and then kinshasa was a good follow up), but I didn't really expect them to change the title in such a vanilla match. This felt like the touring 6 minute match these two would have around the circuit, felt very going through the motions.

Tony Nese vs. Drew Gulak

ER: Early on we get a "Let's Go Gulak" chant which is an awesome surprise. If Gulak actually starts to get over the same way Bryan got over earlier in the decade, how great will that be?? This is kind of what anybody could have expected going in: Gulak looked great, Nese did not, but Nese tried some things that worked in a stupid risk taking way. Nese has that "hey Evan Karagias is getting better" vibe to him, but he doesn't actually have babyface charisma. He does things that some fans should find cool, but Gulak is the one getting the reactions here. YES, obviously this is being held right in Gulak's stomping grounds, but that isn't a guarantee to get a great reaction and he got them throughout. Nese did a wild moonsault to the floor, hitting Gulak who was tied up in the ropes over the apron; it didn't really work, but I like him going for stupid stuff. He also overshoots a 450 and slams those knees right into Gulak's ribs, throws him messily into the corner with a german suplex, basically the nastiest parts of Nese's attack were kind of accidents. Gulak threw great kicks, and I think his reactions are going to keep getting louder, and they'll eventually babyface him. Early in the match Gulak hit an awesome diving clothesline off the apron (hard to make diving clotheslines look good) and his folding powerbomb looked great and would make a fine finisher, but I love the old school style of his spinning back suplex. Gulak is here baby!

No Holds Barred: Shane McMahon/Drew McIntyre vs. Roman Reigns/Undertaker

ER: Starting off the show with this one! And you know what? I thought it was awesome. I was hooked in throughout, feeling it the whole time. The NHB stip is mostly wasted as this was worked about as straight as you can work a tag match (until 12+ minutes in), but they worked a damn successful tag formula. The key was Shane actually treated the way Shane *should* be treated in the ring. Shane is never portrayed as an equal, he comes in with his stupid little punches, and then gets absolutely manhandled. That's what should be happening. Undertaker never once treated him seriously, which thank fucking god. Reigns was throwing big uppercuts to Shane, and Undertaker is full crazy old man. I gotta respect the guy. He got dropped his head by Goldberg not even a couple months ago and here he is, breaking out the greatest hits, dropping a big leg on the apron, throwing big boots, looking like The Undertaker. McIntyre hits a huge overhead belly to belly on Roman and he gets a cool showdown with Taker (McIntyre appeared to be taller than Taker at this point), but a lot of this was Roman and Taker working over Shane, and it was great. The turning point of the match was really well done, with Shane making a low bridge to send Roman bumping big over the top. Elias comes out to officially make use of the NHB and interfere, and we get two big Shane spots, putting Taker through an announce table with an elbow, then hitting the coast to coast in the ring. But I think those are the way Shane should be getting offense in, doing your long set up car crashes when you have two actual guys holding down your opponent. This was a smart way to set up Shane moments. The finish stretch is really well laid out, with Taker making his sit up comeback on Shane, but then DREW getting to pop up behind Taker. The camera clearly set up the shot, but it played as a great wrestling visual, something they should get video package use out of. I didn't see Roman's cut off spear coming (and the cameras didn't show it well at all), but I thought this wrapped up really cool. I wasn't expecting to be into this one going in, but I loved the formula and layout worked to perfection, thought it was fun bell to bell. And my god they said "Big Dog" literally a dozen times. Absurd.

The Revival vs. The Usos

ER: This was the match on the card I was most excited about, and they obviously had a good one. What was odd is that the crowd did not care at ALL. I wouldn't think the Taker appearance and match would kill them dead that easily, but it was eerily silent through most of this match. And this match should have gotten a great reaction! This was an exciting tag match! The Revival are a finely tuned machine, love how the set up their double teams, love their shtick, love their pace. They are good foils for Uso offense, scramble out of the way on superkicks and lean in when they need to, always good at stooging into place. We got a couple tandem Usos dives that sprawled out impressively, leading to a cool long section of Revival cutting off the ring. Dawson looked like he was having a ball the whole match, guy is so good. I kept waiting for people to get into it, but they couldn't care less. There weren't a ton of twists, but these teams match up so well you don't really need them, and I thought the finish was satisfying. This was classic tag wrestling, which has been getting great reactions for decades. No idea why the crowd would be so bored so soon. Watch this on mute and it would probably come off like a classic.

Cesaro vs. Aleister Black

ER: This was really damn cool and played like a really fun Big Mouth Loud undercard match. It got time but not too much, and saw Black slowly breaking down Cesaro with kicks to all parts of the body, throwing combos early in the match that set up other combos later in the match. The finish played directly into that with Black throwing a sharp kick to the inner thigh and then going for a high right kick, Cesaro leans in to block the high right and then gets his right temple dented in by Black Mass. Black kicked at shins and inner thighs throughout, and Cesaro was really good at selling cumulative damage in his legs, falling on a lift late in the match in a not overdone way. Cesaro still did plenty of cool Cesaro stuff, dug that big springing uppercut and snug cravate, loved the way he would try to counter Black's kicks, just a cool pairing. Black feels like a guy who could really get over if given the kind of exposure Cesaro got.

Nikki Cross/Alexa Bliss vs. Bayley

ER: I really don't get this kind of handicap match. Bayley doesn't have the kind of offense that can control two people, and nobody wants to see two people just cut off a ring by themselves. Of anything on the card, I am least excited for this. I can't imagine the crowd being won back with a handicap match, either. And this was about as lame as I was expecting. It wasn't long, but it felt too long. None of the spots where Bayley did tandem offense to Bliss/Cross looked good (at one point Bliss basically had to put herself in a headlock), and I couldn't get too into Bliss/Cross teeing off on Bayley because I still don't really understand the Bliss/Cross relationship. There were nice moments: Cross does the Finlay ring skirt trap well, and Bliss threw a nasty dropkick to Bayley while she was trapped in the skirt; Bliss's double knees to the stomach both landed hard (really stuck those moonsault knees), and Bliss hit hard on Bayley's knees doing the twisting moonsault. I just couldn't get into the result of this match. It wasn't going somewhere I was interested in seeing. My overall interested in the women's division has sunk like a rock in a lake these past few months.

Last Man Standing: Bobby Lashley vs. Braun Strowman

ER: We're in Philadelphia, and these guys set out to have a big ECW crowd brawl match, and it was better than a lot of ECW crowd brawling. Fans gave it some obligatory ECW chant (which certainly wasn't a guarantee given how quiet they've been) but two big dudes crashing through walls and taking prop bumps was enough to rouse them. They avoided the "walking and holding heads" kind of ECW brawl, and kept this more about big spills. Braun suplexed Lashley into a merch set up but not through a table, he just vertical suplexed him into a wall and let Lashley fall. Lashley speared him through the ring barricade, both fell over announce tables, they fell into concrete steps, a real nice brawl that could have been next level if they were allowed to bleed. We built to a huge moment where Lashley sprang up to beat a 10 count, leaped up and over the barricade to chase Braun, but then got tossed into the alt. language commentary pit. Lashley's bump into the pit was great, could have been a great capper to a cool match really. They wind up finish with some climbing up to a big mysterious crash pad location, with big comical black plastic gates and a big black box on the lower level that nobody noticed before. The Braun powerslam through it looks cool, and Braun crashes through the front of the box to emerge standing, but I thought it all felt too set up and phony to be effective. Braun sidestepping Lashley into the pit came off more organic.

Big E/Xavier Woods vs. Heavy Machinery vs. Daniel Bryan/Erick Rowan

ER: This was really fun, as you'd expect a match with these guys to be. Otis vs. Bryan is a pairing I really like, and I love how Otis and Tucker work together. The match is filled with cool spots: Rowan's big crossbody on the floor into Bryan's knee off the apron, Otis tossing Bryan into a Tucker belly to belly, Bryan sinking in the LeBell Lock and subsequently tying off all of E's limbs as he would reach for the ropes, E hits his best-in-wrestling standing splash and kills Bryan with the spear to the floor, Otis makes me laugh the whole time with his apron work, Tucker hits a wild plancha to the floor, Otis corgi leaps off the apron, tons of really great stuff. I didn't want to see New Day win the belts. I'm kind of sick of New Day constantly being in the title scene, really felt like this should have been Heavy Machinery's first title win. New Day don't need the belts, they'll be as over as they can possibly be just doing whatever they do. Of the three options, I would have much rather seen Bryan/Rowan retain, or HM win.

AJ Styles vs. Ricochet

ER: This did very little for me. Both guys do cool things, but it all felt pretty empty. Ricochet is obviously a freak athlete but doing silly things like a shooting star clothesline don't really help him. He's more interesting when he's throwing his whole body into attacks (and his springboard to the floor onto Gallows looked good), his big springboard shooting star looked good, but this whole thing was so dry. The middle rope Styles Clash was cool, and the interference while lame was actually well done (Anderson getting kicked from the apron into the ring was a cool moment), but this did next to nothing for me.

Kevin Owens vs. Dolph Ziggler

ER: God bless these men.

Samoa Joe vs. Kofi Kingston

ER: I thought Joe was really awesome here, bullying Kingston around the ring and throwing hard kicks to bully him into corners to attack with fists, then trip him to the ground with kicks. He had a legsweep to Kofi's shins that was so killer. Joe looked like enough of a killer that I immediately wanted this to be a dominant Joe victory. Kofi's reign just means I have to see more Kofi Kingston matches, and the prospect of more Joe matches is way more interesting. I thought Joe crushed Kofi here and this was my favorite Joe performance in some time. Kofi tries to get cute with him at one point and Joe hits a mean uranage. I wanted this to be one of those shocking beatings of a champ, for Joe to walk in and just steamroll Kofi and win the title. Something like that would make a rematch more interesting for me, Kofi going in completely unprepared for Joe, something like that. I thought Joe's beating was strong enough that it was going to make Kofi's inevitable comeback look a little silly, as I've never liked Kofi's offense and don't think it's something that looks great against a guy like Joe. Still, I thought this match delivered overall, just not quite what I wanted it to.

Baron Corbin/Lacey Evans vs. Seth Rollins/Becky Lynch

ER: This was mostly pretty dull, and filled with people I don't really care about. Lynch hasn't been interesting at all, really making her brief period as THE most interesting thing seem like a distant or false memory. First thing I notice her do here is miss a stomach kick by a foot, so she's not exactly inspiring me. It's just a bad sign when there are 4 people in the match and Baron Corbin is the one I like best. Lacey was probably the most interesting during the dull parts of the match, she had the most interesting personality at least. I didn't care about much of this, but the big table spot was genuinely spectacular. Becky just crushes Lacey with a senton/legdrop, Rollins blows up Corbin and a table with a long distance splash. But the finish was legitimately great, a super great finish to something I didn't care about: Baron Corbin absolutely kills Lynch with the end of days. It was really great within the context of the match, as they'd made a big deal the whole damn time about the women staying separate from the men. Corbin annihilates Lynch and it's the first interaction of the match, played so well. And with that, Rollins actually has the most interesting moment of the past calendar year. I thought him snapping and just wasting Corbin with kendo stick shots, chairshots, and three curb stomps was the most actual interesting character he's shown in god knows how long. A heel going too far and immediately being on the business end of a babyface's justified sadistic revenge. It's a great kind of 80s babyface comeback, with the dickhead heel suddenly backpedaling because the babyface was pushed too far. I wouldn't think Rollins could pull that off, but he did, and he did it well. Corbin gets good marks for making the curb stomps look good.

And then BROCK comes out and destroys Rollins! Brock as champ is SO MUCH MORE interesting to me so thank god. I'd much rather see people coming at Brock, Brock defending is something I like (I think more than most people), so hell yeah bring on the challengers to BROCK! I liked how the cash in was handled and do not care how it made Rollins look.

I thought this was a good show that went too damn long. 3 hours is fine for most PPV. 4 hours + a couple matches before that 4 hours is too much. Even if the wrestling is mostly good. But the show had good performances top to bottom. The Graveyard Dogs overdelivered, Revival had their good match, Cesaro/Black stood out as a cool style on this card, tag trios delivered, Braun and Lashley had a good brawl, and the final match ended strong. That's a good show! I just wished it were shorter.

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WRESTLEMANIA 35 LIVE BLOG! 4/7/19

Buddy Murphy vs. Tony Nese

ER: I was surprised at how much I was liking this early, until they got to their beyond stupid slappy Riverdance routine. Before that we got Murphy getting busted open with an errant shot, a couple hard punches, and more of the Buddy that I liked in NXT before 205. At a certain point I did find it amusing that they were doing big nearfalls and last second feet on the ropes spots, and death sell -> sprint superkick stuff in the pre-show opening, but who cares, it's Mania and these guys are in a packed stadium. Do it. The overly rehearsed strike stuff is just so garbage, impossible to look at it and not laugh, and it was really a major turning point of the match. When you choose that kind of dance wank as a major part of the match, you deserve to be laughed at. I did think some of the big things looked good, both suplexes into buckles were nasty and the Nese 450 landed flush, but I wish they would have continued the direction of the first few minutes of the match, instead they went where I thought they would go.

Women's Battle Royal

ER: Good to see they're really doubling down and sticking with the uterus/Fallopian tube trophy. They had a year to get rid of it, and either they kept it on purpose, or just forgot what the trophy was and only took it out of storage when the announce the battle royal a week ago and went "Oh right, the ovaries." And this was an awesome battle royal. This was paced out nicely, had fun moments, some good eliminations, kept eliminations brisk without doing one of those lame as hell 3 minute ones they've done before, this was an easy battle royal thumbs up from me. It's also impressive that we have so many women who are barely 5', and only Dana Brooke's (or that woman who stole Dana Brooke's identity) elimination looked silly. Asuka had a couple cool legsweep eliminations, I liked the Mandy Rose/Mickie battle on the apron (even though I wanted either of them to win), Maria had awesome show curls, Candace had a cool elimination, Lana has a cool new cut and great Wonder Woman outfit, really I liked all of this. Battle royals should be such a simple thing. They're a real wrestling joy for me but a bad one can be just as bad as anything. This was brisk but not short, people paired off well, a simple concept done well.

The Revival vs. Curt Hawkins/Zach Ryder

ER: I didn't follow how Hawkins and Ryder actually got this match (seems like a match at a single digit Mania that would have been a 3 minute squash for Revival), but I don't mind seeing weird matches at Mania. At the end of the night I'm more likely to like this match that several other things on the card. It's funny to think that these guys were teaming together over a decade ago in WWE. Who had Hawkins and Ryder on a roster for over a decade? I say that as a positive. It's great to have guys like that making money for life. And this match ruled!! This was an excellent little tag match that unexpectedly gets a perfect amount of time and really kept getting great crowd reactions all through. Curt Hawkins turned in a real good underdog babyface performance and the fans really wanted to see him win down the home stretch. That was pretty surprising to me as Revival have been internet favorites for a few years now and finally look to be rising up the card, so you get a kind of interesting crowd vibe of internet favorites vs. hometown guys. Revival are really good at cutting off a ring and all of that was compelling, from their killer Demolition Decapitation to Dawson simply shoving Hawkins into the ropes to punch him on the recoil (shaking out his fist after, naturally), all their cutoffs worked like fire. The breakdown to the match was an awesome car crash, with Wilder hitting a tornado DDT on the floor, Dawson dropping a brainbuster, all nasty stuff. I wasn't actually expecting Hawkins to break the streak here, assumed Revival would be champs for awhile, but it's great to see him get the moment at Mania. This was like the best version of a WCW syndicated tag gem, totally delivered.

Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal

ER: This was a GREAT battle royal!!! It had everything you would need from a battle royal, some big eliminations, fun twists, nice pairings, and a great finish. Everybody was trying to outbump each other on eliminations (all of Lucha House Party took appropriately large spills), EC3 splatted, Andrade eliminated himself and Apollo Crews with a great rana, No Way Jose is now apparently a cyberpunk raver from Strange Days, even Braun (looking lean and mean as hell) took a sick bump to the floor by way of ringpost introduction. You had a few big guys in there throwing down for big moments, and cameras caught Luke Harper staring a hole through Braun while looking past several other guys. All of which built to a nutso spot where Harper gets booted off the apron while suplexing Ali, and takes a bump that could have destroyed both men, leaping backwards and landing on his feet before completing the suplex, sending Ali flying fast face first into the table (barely getting his hand up). My god what an elimination. I also got to see the pairing I most wanted, my two neckless singlet boys Otis and Rhyno going at it. Everybody worked this real aggressive, and it all actually came down to a super effective comedy segment. A comedy segment in wrestling that was actually funny? I thought Jost and Che did a great job. Jost came out sporting a new Odell Beckham Jr. Browns jersey, they both had Team SNL leggings, really all of these TV comedy guys who have been in big WWE moments have totally understood how to work their personality. I laughed when Che tried to grab hands with Jost on the LONG walk to the ring, and the look on Jost's face as he pulls away. Jost calling Braun "Brock" was one of the funnier WWE comedy moments I can remember and their eliminations were ballsy and a great visual, with Braun launching Jost into a forced plancha...but DAMN did they do a great job of making it look like Jost could actually eliminate Braun. I mean it looked like something they might actually do. Every part of this match was handled excellently, one of their best battle royals in ages. Loved it.

Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins

ER: They wisely put a bunch of pinks and purples on the entrance screens for Brock, which distracts from how pink and purple he is. This match has essentially the same structure as Brock/Balor, and was good, though not as effective. There were nice twists and turns in the former match, this match really didn't have any extra twists, and Rollins didn't execute the turning point ball punch as well as we've seen Bryan do it. So in a vacuum I liked this a lot, but coming after the Bryan and Balor matches it doesn't feel as special. But we get Brock absolutely destroying Rollins to start the match, attacking with tough strikes, splatting him with F5, tossing him hard into the barricade and ring, literally bouncing him across an announce table like he was skipping stones, tossing him over the top to the floor, all looking brutal. Before the bell even rings Rollins has major welts on his back. Suplex City was fun and gave us more good angles of Rollins' welts, and Brock was super game bouncing his forehead hard off the mat on every single curbstomp, but I'm just going to need a LOT more to beat Brock. Finn suitably increased how hard he hit his offense, and while Rollins bumped like a freaking man the whole match, I didn't buy Brock being felled by a few stomps. The best part of the stomps was Lesnar taking them, and Lesnar selling them like they were something that *should* put him down. Lesnar is one of our best sellers, I just wanted more of it.

AJ Styles vs. Randy Orton

ER: This weirdly feels like a match we've seen a ton, even though I don't think we've actually seen it that much. All of this was professional while being completely uninteresting to me. Neither guy looked bad, everything looked fine, just wasn't the vibe I wanted and it felt more dull than it should have felt. There were maybe a couple more slow moments and I guess the fans just absolutely not wanting that. I wasn't wanting whatever they were doing either. It didn't feel like anyone was working up to any moment, even though they didn't really make missteps.

Usos vs. Cesaro/Sheamus vs. Shinsuke Nakamura/Rusev vs. Ricochet/Aleister Black

ER: Black is wearing his Necronomicon vest that looks tremendous. And this match was a nice tasty snack; nothing significant, but a nice palette cleanser after fans kinda died off during the previous match. Cesaro showed off his Chikara skills by helping Ricochet shine, Sheamus looks like an absolute monster especially when he folds Ricochet on a brogue kick. Nakamura works with some actual energy, Usos bump big, Black looks like a guy who is going to be a major roster star, we get the 630, it's fun. This felt like an inconsequential Smackdown match, and that's just fine.

I see neon green shirt fan wore a dark shirt to the HOF ceremony. I like how he honors the sanctimony of the gala. Acts bored front row center on every other show, but the HOF is something sacred.

Falls Count Anywhere: Shane McMahon vs. The Miz

ER: Shane starts the match with some cardio, a bold move for a man who always looks like he's about to have a heart attack at a softball game. And I really wasn't expecting this one to be match of the night so far, but here we are. Shane always has that "Dad, look at me!" kid on a diving board personality in his matches, and that works even better as a heel for me. He absolutely beats the shit out of Miz here, shies away from doing his stupid fast punches that always look risible, instead focusing on short measured shots that landed hard. He was really socking Miz in the kidneys and the cheek, threw a couple hard kicks right at Miz' jaw, even smacking him with a mule kick. The Miz Dad involvement was really well done, Shane still stiffed him too, and it opened right up into a great Miz comeback. Once Miz takes over though Shane's shots become sparse and the bumps become big, Shane taking some of his most impressive pratfalls, Miz jumping him over the barricade, tossing him into railings and on the floor, Shane gets kicked off a structure and hits the back of his head on a railing, gets tossed off a ramp onto a golf cart to the floor (a really nasty high bump that he either lost control of or was stupid enough to plan it that way). Really all the big bumps felt like something went vaguely wrong, in the best way. I loved Shane splatting on the SCF, and the mammoth vertical suplex felt like an appropriately stupid Shane spot to potentially end his life. This was an excellent overdelivery.

Sasha Banks/Bayley vs. Nia Jax/Tamina vs. The Iiconics vs. Natalya/Beth Phoenix

ER: Well this is kinda dull. Natalya and Phoenix are just dragging this pace down, really not a team I'm interested in seeing. This whole thing was desert dry. Nia and Tamina disappeared for half of it after Nia got run into the steps, and the other teams couldn't match the excitement level that would have come from Nia being in it. The rest of them worked very same-y and Nia in her brief participation made things much more exciting. I think the Iiconics make the most sense with the belts, and while they still stink in the ring I've really been enjoying their promos and mannerisms lately. Them getting chased is way more interesting than the other options. The match was nothing to see though.

Daniel Bryan vs. Kofi Kingston

ER: Nuts to think that for seemingly years people filled their diapers online about how Bryan needed to be champion at Mania, and now those people are all dying for Bryan to lose the World title at Mania. I wouldn't have guessed ANYone would ever be higher than Bryan in the internet's eyes, but if I did I certainly wouldn't have bet on Kofi Kingston to be that guy. Nobody was clamoring for a Kofi Kingston World Title run 4 months ago. Nobody was demanding a main event singles run from Kofi. These people don't know what they want. I've been a big fan of Rowan's metal band shirt selection, saw him sporting Kreator a week ago. So him crossing over into horror films is a nice move. George A. Romero now has a WrestleMania reference under his belt. And this was good! We expected this to be good. Bryan is a main event megastar. I've seen him in matches where he knew exactly what to do in front of 70 fans, and here he is an absolute master at working in front of 70,000 fans. This had a feeling like it was going to be Kofi's big moment, and you could see what an awesome hand Bryan had in that. Excellent pacing and build, with big moments playing big. Kofi had a couple cool nearfalls off of flash roll ups, Bryan had a couple cool reversals into the Yes Lock, Kofi leaned into all of Bryan's crisp offense, Bryan snapped off some sharp kicks, and fans kept getting more and more into Kofi the longer this went. They really got as much time as they could have possibly wanted to give Kofi a gigantic moment, and Kofi kicking out of the big knee and hitting his best ever Trouble in Paradise (look at how manly Bryan is running face first into that thing) to win the title did it. This was clearly the moment the fans wanted (that they didn't want 4 months ago) and I'm sure giving them the moment will slow down the nitpicking and bitching and use of the phrase "shoved down our throats".

Somewhere, the Outsiders are about to sexually assault Colin Jost and Michael Che.

Rey Mysterio vs. Samoa Joe

ER: Wow, what a drag. This is the first time these two have ever met in a singles match. This could have been a legit show stealer. 1 minute matches with guys like this feels like a specific fuck you to Rey for reasons I don't care about. I was really excited for this one.

Drew McIntyre vs. Roman Reigns

ER: This was a good enough for a Roman return singles match, but didn't really set out to do a ton to make it interesting. This was worked more like a reintroduction of Reigns, which really isn't necessary, plus he was only gone for 5 months or so. This was a decent enough TV match, but isn't something I'm going to remember in a week.

Batista vs. HHH

ER: This feels weirdly late to get a Fury Road entrance, but maybe 4 years is early for WWE timing. They could have inducted Sid into the HOF and then had him as Lord Humungus during HHH's entrance. I'm bummed that LA Park vs. Rush was a match that didn't happen at Mania (originally the reason Phil and I got the idea to go to Mania), so these 50 year old brawlers will have to make up for me not seeing park throw ring steps off of Rush's head. Batista takes a hard bump into the guardrail and into the steps, HHH bounces a tool box off his head, and if they work this match like LA Park vs. LA Park then it will be my favorite match of the year. And clamping Batista's hand in channellock pliers and stomping on his hand is definitely something that can get us there. And that sentence already looks stupid one second after typing it, because in the meantime HHH ripped Batista's nose ring straight out of his face. The cameras filmed it like someone in a torture porn movie getting their teeth removed against their will. Batista is now a certified recognizable movie star who is trusted with good-size roles in expensive movies. And here he is proving himself to a bunch of ghouls in that only in wrestling way that David Arquette was and still is. Batista is bumping hard including a backdrop bump on a table that didn't budge an inch, and a spear through the next one. They're moving slower than a Park match, but they're getting up for the sick old man spots and I dig it. This loses steam at the end. Both guys are old and did cool stuff, old and slow is fine with me as long as the spots mean something. Batista bomb still looks great and for an old guy dumb bump match this delivered better than expected. Part-timer old dude millionaire geek show is such a weird only in wrestling thing.

Kurt Angle vs. Baron Corbin

ER: Kurt Angle is kind of more of a bummer to me than the weird inspirational story they're projecting this as. I guess it's a happy story that while he may be still permanently near death, it's not as blatantly public as it was a decade ago. When he was constantly on camera pilled out and getting into weird public altercations, how his body would turn purple during matches and it was scary as hell. He can't reverse what he's done to his body, but I guess seeing his eyes looking somewhat normal is a relative going out strong moment. Don't care about seeing him and Corbin, don't care enough about Corbin to be bothered either way by his winning or losing. Hopefully this is the retirement Kurt wanted and we don't see him falling off a ladder to the floor on "Joey Ryan Presents Not Just the Tip, Beyond Balls Deep" in a few years.

Bobby Lashley vs. Finn Balor

ER: We are beyond balls deep into the part of the Mania card that I have zero interest in. Finn is doing his big event blackface, which doesn't seem as blatant on a show with Tony Nese, Drake Younger, and HHH. This is a match up I don't care about, plus it already feels like I have 2x my way through it on several episodes of Smackdown. [We've gotten 5 singles matches and 9 other matches opposite each other in the last 5 months. Jesus] This was at least kept brief and the big moments looked good. Lashley's spear to the floor was nuts, Finn giving him a powerbomb was cool, and the coup de grace looked like arguably Finn's best ever. That means something.

Ronda Rousey vs. Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch

ER: ARE THEY PAYING OFF THE HELICOPTERS THROUGHOUT THE SHOW WITH CHARLOTTE LANDING AT THE STADIUM IN ONE!? It will never approach the level of badass that Ric landing on the field to face Ricky Morton was, but they did a good enough reboot of that, complete with red carpet exit. Did kinda just make me want to go back and watch the original entrance though. Robe doms was a nice touch though. Charlotte couldn't have handled the entrance any cooler. Joan Jett missed her chance to be wearing a Sonya Deville shirt (also forgot to ask if this was the first time that Deville publicly displayed on a show? If so that's pretty cool). This match starts out pretty hot with Ronda doing some of her more insane bumping, and she's always been someone who took risks. We get one of the best spots of the night when Ronda had Charlotte in a hanging armbar, then got dropkicked to the floor by Lynch and got knocked almost vertically by the apron. Ronda was taking cool bumps all through this, and at a certain point it was sadly all that was entertaining to me. It felt a little sluggish down the stretch as the match kind of needed those wild Ronda bumps to keep it going. I don't think the Charlotte stuff was as compelling and Becky kept doing that same stupid grimace the whole damn match. Ronda gets tandem hiptossed through a set up table and Becky whips herself face first right into the table and then has to do her grimace face right after for a showdown. The finish really came out of nowhere and looked bad. It was a match that started hot and hit a point where it kept petering out every minute it kept going.

ER: This was mostly a tale of two show halves. Or it could be it's a long show and I've seen a ton of wrestling the past several days, and 8 straight hours might wear on me a bit. But I think it's more that the 1st half of the show was way more fun to me then the sloggy 2nd half. I still think that show had a lot of fun stuff on it, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would (I was not very excited by the on paper card). I liked the overall presentation and regret nothing.

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WWE Fastlane 3/10/19 Adjacent-to-Live Blog

Shinsuke Nakamura/Rusev vs. New Day

ER: Lana's got a cool new shoulder length 'do, though it's styled a bit too triangularly. This is kicking off the pre-show, and was treated as such when it got the smaller square of screen during a Roman Reigns promo vid, and the smaller screen on a cutaway to Miz talking with his dad and Shane. Rusev and Nak cut off Wood's tag to Big E well enough, but nothing flashy or very interesting. This feels like a house show match, without the charm of a house show match. Rusev and Nak are complementary partners, but they don't do a ton more than stop action here and Nak just always seems lethargic. I liked Woods' missile dropkick off the top, and Big E has the greatest standing splash in pro wrestling history, with no close contenders coming to mind. Finishing stretch gets betters when some interference from Lana adds intrigue to a nearfall, and both Rusev and Nak bump to the floor to set up Woods hitting a flip dive, which they catch and powerbomb him on the floor. But as a heel team both of these guys seem completely uninterested in making things interested, and it's rare that the crowd is this quiet for the very first wrestling action they're seeing, but there it is. This match got plenty of time to do something, but this wasn't it. Pre-show matches don't typically feel this low energy.

Shane McMahon/The Miz vs. The Usos

ER: Shane is actually plenty good at doing things like armdrags and has a nice Russian leg sweep, because he throws his body entirely into the move, guy is pretty fearless with landings. His stuff only really falls apart whenever he thinks his strikes look good. The second he starts throwing strikes in matches it looks like a bad White Collar Brawlers bumper. I'm not sure who decided to start the evening's action with these two tags back to back, but it feels like someone is specifically trying to highlight how poor Rusev and Nakamura are in their current roles, as the Usos immediately step into a cut off the ring situation and work a far more interesting match with the same formula. Shane is a really fun FIP for them and there's a great moment where the Usos shoot him into a rope running sequence with one of them forcing Shane's movement with a dropdown, leading to him eating a lariat the way someone would eat a good spear. Miz has a spirited hot tag that the crowd is hyped for, even coming in with a springboard axe handle, and ends it with him doing a big plancha off the top onto both Usos. I'm not sure I've seen Miz do either of those things, and he's clearly playing to the hometown crowd and they love it. We go into the run that feels like the finish, and Usos are really good at bringing the match back from those moments to get more heat. The whole match builds to a ridiculous spot where Miz is on the mat and an Uso is slumped in the corner, with Shane and the other Uso on opposite buckles. Uso and Shane jumped at the same time and I guess it was supposed to look like Shane intercepting him out of mid air? It looked like two guys trying to avoid each other at the last minute, and then not sure what either was supposed to be selling upon landing. They both kind of held their balls and kicked their legs. It might have seemed spectacular on paper, but it came off confusing and overly thought out in execution, took away from the finish for me. I don't care about, nor do I understand the Shane turn, so I FF my way through. From what I did see, I'm amused that Shane appeared to tighten up his strikes for the first time since his comeback. He threw a couple of closed fist body shots to Miz that were better than any strikes he's thrown in an actual match the past year.

Mandy Rose vs. Asuka

ER: Really excited about this one even though I'm not sure it can deliver to my expectations. I've seen them both (especially Mandy) have such strong house show work, and that doesn't seem to come through nearly as often on TV. I know there's a good match to be had here though. But I fully dig how they start this, doing some quick mat reversals and some nice stuff around a waistlock, ending with Mandy locking in a nice octopus hold that Asuka reverses into an even better octopus. They don't bring many strikes into it until 4 minutes in, thought that was cool. Though once they do get to strikes Asuka comes up too short on what's supposed to be a big knockdown high kick, so that was awkward. Mandy has a couple really nice knee strikes, a great high knee early in the match, and a nice moment with Asuka missing her hip attack and getting hung in the ropes before eating a knee. Finish was a little sudden but had a nice set-up that felt like a Finlay agented spot: Sonya had lifted up the ring skirt at ringside to get a kendo stick from under the ring, and Mandy got reversed into the ropes, slipped on the ring skirt that had been gathered into the ring, and then got to her feet just in time to eat Asuka's heel across the right side of her face. The finish didn't really feel built to, and the match was a bit underwhelming, but the finish was great. They even do a slo-mo replay at the end that felt like the first time you saw Misawa rearrange Kawada's face in slo-mo with an elbow, seeing Asuka's boot turn Mandy's face into a rubbery Jim Carrey expression.

Kofi Kingston vs. Cesaro/Sheamus

ER: This was an angle, not really a match, and the fans hated it but in the way that will make them cheer louder for Kofi when he actually gets his big singles match. So it wasn't very exciting for me to see a 2 on 1 beatdown, and the fans didn't want to see it, but it felt like something that would at least advance the angle. I did like when the crowd was chanting This Is Boring, Cesaro said, "No, this is OVER!" before going for a pin.

Ricochet/Aleister Black vs. Chad Gable/Bobby Roode vs. The Revival

ER: I've been so hyped for Revival this past year, Dawson especially might be my favorite WWE male to watch right now. I like how this turns into both Revival and Roode/Gable working over Ricochet, really wish that would go on for the duration, it's a fun layout you don't often see from a triple threat tag (which is a clunky concept). Ricochet snaps off a nice headscissors and after that it's all him getting worked over. Dawson has a great back suplex, does nasty things like tear at his nose, Gable comes in and snaps Ricochet's arm around by trapping it in his ankles and dropping a knee on it. Gable bumps big for an Aleister front kick, though I think Roode might have been the weakest choice for guy to take all of Black's hot tag offense. I dug the sequence of Gable rolling through the chaos theory German before Wilder hit a top rope splash onto Gable; Black totally made the sequence by flailing all four of his limbs wildly as he was going over for the suplex. WWE guys are almost always really great at setting up those runs of chain smoking offense, where one guy hits a move only to get up and get hit by someone else's move. They aren't easy to naturally layout but someone there must be great at doing so. However, I don't think they're good at all at setting up big spots involving EVERY member of the match. I hate when a match like this devolves into the moment everyone is waiting around for, grinds things to a halt too much and the spot always looks too prepared. Ricochet hits a wild as hell dive over the ringpost, but I think that 6 person spot (Dawson getting rana'd to the floor onto everyone) peaked the match awkwardly and made the finish coming shortly after come off flat.

R-Truth vs. Andrade vs. Rey Mysterio vs. Samoa Joe

ER: What a bunch of dirty dogs, telling me I was getting more Mysterio/Andrade and instead getting another multiman. I actually got the push notification from WWE telling me "Andrade vs. Rey Mysterio kicks off the pre-show!" so I am not sure what kind of last minute call got made or what angle I blew past. The whole things starts off as a pretty great Joe showcase. He was really turning it on, loved his tope onto everyone, his corner chops looked brutal, and his headbutts looked great. Joe appears to be working at 2006 stiffness levels and I know it won't last, but it looks great while we're getting it. Rey is getting as high on offense as ever, and it makes no sense. His hang time always looks so damn elegant, and he makes implausible stuff look effortless, like giving a leaping rana to Andrade and Truth at the same time. My mind blows wide open when I suddenly realize that we've never seen Mysterio or Joe oppose one another until the past couple months. I'm watching them work, watch Joe take a great tornado DDT off the side of his head, and just thinking about what natural dance partners they make...and realize we've only ever even seen them dance together three times, all from the past couple months. Some nice moments down the stretch, Andrade had a gorgeous tornillo to the floor, Vega got involved and you know it was good because she lost an earring, and a lot of the ringwork looked good, but I again thought it could have used more build, and could have gone through a ton more nearfalls.

Sasha Banks/Bayley vs. Nia Jax/Tamina

ER: Boss Hugg would have been such a great name for the tag team, they were this close but they went and fell on their face with their actual name. And this starts off plenty good. Tamina is less offensive than normal, and every quick tag in to Nia is Fia. Tamina would handily carry the brunt of working over Bayley, then Nia would come in and plant her with a powerbomb, and get right back out. I would have liked them building more to Sasha coming in, think they should have had Bayley miss a couple tags first. Tamina is so damn lumbering while taking offense, she moves like she's wearing a suit of armor. Then they go for a spot where Tamina backdrops Sasha into a Nia Samoan drop, but Tamina whips Sasha WAY too fast into Nia and the spot gets wrecked but Nia saves Sasha from a vertical landing, so that counts for something. I did like Tamina's missed charge into the ringpost, so that's something, and Bayley hitting a tope onto everyone looked great, even though it crossed my mind that was the 4th time that near exact thing had happened, and the 3rd match in a row. That's not helping the freshness feel of this show, which has very much underwhelmed so far. I would mess with a Nia/Beth Phoenix feud though. Aw shit, Natalya is involved in it. My sails appear to no longer have wind in them.

Kevin Owens vs. Daniel Bryan vs. Mustafa Ali

ER: Fans are naturally acting like puds because they aren't getting Kofi/Bryan on this specific show, but they're clearly building to that, so it's annoying when they try to tank a different match when they will eventually get what they want anyway. It's like they're turning on Ali even though they were all in Ali's ass like 3 weeks ago. It's this obnoxious thing where the loudest fans in these situations are the ones who think WWE is somehow screwing them and not pushing their favorites, but Kofi is a guy they've been officially flipping out for now for...like a month. People clearly dug Kofi before, but none of these people were clamoring for Kofi to get a long singles run with 8 star matches against Bryan before that. They were shown Kofi was worth getting behind, and then started acting like they somehow weren't getting what they wanted, while thinking they're making a demand against authority, who actually agrees with what they think they're rebelling against. It makes no sense. Anywho...

Bryan's demeanor in these scraps really is incredible, guy leers around the ring and looks like someone with no time for bullshit. Ali is doing his best in a dumb situation and takes an insane bump off the top, looking like he falls forever before hitting the floor. Crowd appears to be less shitty after that. This match obviously would have been much more interesting if it was a singles match between any two of these guys. We've had one singles match on this show and it feels like one of those indy shows that are nothing but 6 man scrambles, and 3 way tag matches. The pacing is totally screwed because every match feels like a variation on the same match. There's plenty of actual great looking stuff in this - Ali hitting a 450 to the freaking apron, Owens almost damn dying flipping too fast on a tope con hilo (and almost smashing his face into the announce desk), Ali bumping his way into shutting the fans up and hitting a big ass high arc Spanish Fly - but the triple threat stip kept taking me out of the match. There's a wild sequence down the stretch where Ali gets shoved off the top and basically does a moonsault landing on his feet to the floor (my poor ankles would be at 90 degree ankles best case scenario), then Bryan misses a leaping knee off the apron, and Ali hits a wicked tornado DDT on him, Bryan whipping super fast into it. But it felt like the actual finish came too quickly after that, felt like Bryan was back in the ring too quick after what felt like a big moment. Him kneeing Ali out of the sky looked like something that should definitely end a match though, so no complaints about what finished, but plenty of complaints about how we got to there.

Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch

ER: Charlotte's boots are sick as hell, probably my favorite thing on the show so far. The maroon and gold scheme doesn't go with her magenta gear, which means Charlotte just needs to get herself some damn maroon and gold gear! Maroon is an underutilized gear color (he says, without taking even one second to think about it). And this match was great. Lynch comes out limping and Charlotte mocks her and spends the whole time going after Becky's leg, and it's the best stuff. There are a bunch of nasty short spills that Becky is forced to take, and they do some shots that look like they came straight out of BattlArts, no joke. Little things like Becky kicking at the side of Charlotte's knee from her back, or Charlotte kicking at Becky's knee while standing over her. Honestly it felt like Ikeda vs. Ishikawa in parts, and I realize how stupid I can come off saying that. Charlotte practically dumps Becky onto her head hitting a sliding tackle into her knee, and I'm all in on it. Becky fights in with little cornered animal attacks, Charlotte takes a big bump off the top, and the thought of a figure 8 seems even more exhilarating since Lynch's has had her knee smacked around for a week. Naturally we get a Ronda run in, giving Becky a nasty as hell punch while about to maybe get tapped, giving Becky the win and the Mania appearance. I'm thankful as all hell I remain purposely oblivious to Ronda Rousey Online Activity, so I'm going to also assume that she hasn't done anything stupid this week on the internet. So saying that, I absolutely love her shitty smirk and bad eye makeup as she stands in the corner, and I could see this match being the best match at Mania.

Baron Corbin/Bobby Lashley/Drew McIntyre vs. The Shield

ER: I'm just not caring about this one too much, and that's too bad because Shield trios were my absolute joint in a not too distant past. I don't care about the Shield anymore. It's over. The McIntyre/Roman moments felt like they should have been better, and the crowd is really quiet the whole time. This has been a pretty suck crowd almost the whole night, honestly. It gets better when Dean hits a really nice elbow off the top to the floor, there's a big powerbomb, and they work some decent crowd brawling stuff which was at minimum a welcome change of pace to the cold ring work. Fans do eventually get really into this and there are big spots, a great Roman spear on the floor, McIntyre going through an announce table, and the crowd really loves getting to see all three Shield guys get Corbin alone in the ring. The match eventually came off like a success but it never grabbed me. Maybe my mood was down because I think the PPV almost entirely underdelivered compared to my (reasonable) expectations. This certainly wasn't a bad match, but it felt like it should have been better.

ER: This was a kind of disappointing PPV. That seems kind of harsh, because I don't think there was anything bad on the card. But there wasn't a lot that moved the needle for me. I really got into Becky/Charlotte, even the Ronda finish (even though I still wished there was more match before Ronda), but the rest felt like it had a good amount of nice moments, but not great matches. Felt like a high potential card going into the night, but I don't think this was my fault.

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WWE Survivor Series 2018 Live Blog

New Day/Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson/The Colons/Sanity/The Usos vs. The Revival/Lucha House Party/The Ascension/The B-Team/Bobby Roode & Chad Gable

ER: Can I get an over/under on how many times we'll hear "Brand Supremacy" spoken on commentary tonight? I don't think we're ever going to get an actual "good" version of this type of match again. It seems impossible to have a bad version of a match with this many people, yet now you always just get a bunch of super quick eliminations, no strategy, and still somehow get people lying in holds even though there are nearly a dozen guys who are fresh. There are a ton of guys who get eliminated after taking moves that would never finish a match normally, so we clear out a bunch of guys and cut to Revival, Gable/Roode, New Day, and Usos. We do get an extremely fun trainwreck spot, dives from everyone, awesome spear to the floor from Big E, Big E tossing Wilder with great overhead belly to belly suplexes, Gable getting backdropped to the floor, a huge suplex to the floor, just a fun extended crash segment. I wasn't expecting things to come down to Revival/Usos, but I'm happy the Revival are there. I was hoping they'd get to have more of a tag match once they were alone, but it went straight into a finisher stretch. The stuff looked cool, like Revival connecting on the Power Plex, and we got some nice saves to amp things up, and it was fine. This could have been really good, but it wasn't bad at all, and that's something. Some of these teams were total non-factors, Ascension was limited to basically Viktor locking Kingston in a headlock, Sanity was gone with I think only Dane getting in the match, and you end up with a 90 minute pre-show and this match still feeling incredibly rushed.

Carmella/Naomi/Mandy Rose/Sonya Deville/Asuka vs. Mickie James/Tamina/Nia Jax/Sasha Banks/Bayley

ER: Love the huge heat Nia is getting, haven' really heard anything like that, and her blowing and dusting off her knuckles is THE BEST. Becky vs. Nia is gonna be DOPE. Right off the bat Naomi and Tamina get eliminated, and while I'm not happy with Naomi being out so early, I'll accept the sacrifice to get Tamina out of this thing. I dug the extended Rose/James section, James getting a cool heel hook reversal and Rose working a nice abdominal stretch. And before long Mickie is practically running this for Raw, working through Asuka and Sonya Deville, and they've oddly fallen into the trap this match of having all the heels be the ones taking heat. We're also getting an odd amount of partners making zero attempts to save a member from their team. Is there some rule against breaking up a pin? People are just getting eliminated left and right, a member of their team always ready to replace them but rarely ready to save them. This makes no sense. None of this feels like it has any kind of team make-up to it. But things get pretty hot once it's down to Nia/Bayley and Asuka/Deville. Nia milks heat when she comes in but takes a big bump to the floor, eating an Asuka kick after a missed charge. They do, however, their best to suck that heat out of the arena by having Deville and Bayley counted out. It was all supposed to come down to Nia, but they've taken a ton of uninteresting ways to get there. Neither of these "traditional" matches felt mapped out well at all. Still, it was smart to make Asuka the final survivor on SD as she's felt a bit too much a part of the crowd lately, it was good having her fight back against Nia and Sasha, and I like how Asuka matches up with both. I thought the end stretch was handled well, liked a lot of the Sasha/Asuka stuff, Sasha took a wild German suplex, and thought it was smart for Nia to throw Sasha to the wolves to then be able to wreck Asuka. The match didn't add up to a whole lot, really both elimination matches have been pretty mindless, but they're moving ahead perfectly with Nia. Nia/Becky is going to be fire, and Nia/Asuka until we get that match should rule.

Seth Rollins vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

ER: Everybody always looks like such a goon when they're forced to wear their brand colors. Nakamura looks like he's wearing a blue version of Green Man, and Rollins - who doesn't really need help looking dorky - isn't helped by his half/half Rawlins shirt. And the layout of this match is not something that's going to make me like this match, as we get a long slow Nakamura control to build to some lousy Rollins FIRE offense. Those topes look bad, dude. We get some nice kicks followed by a silly slap fight, then some more Rollins silliness with a buckle bomb and that beyond dumb superplex/Falcon Arrow. And it's all very serious, people. This match is definitely as uninteresting as I feared it would be. They gave it an effort but this constant back and forth with kickouts replacing actual drama just doesn't do it for me. I'm sure if Graves calls it an incredible match-up a few more times, I might come around. This felt like a lot of motion for what we got. This PPV is still turn-aroundable, but my enthusiasm is waning.

The Bar vs. AOP

ER: Does Drake Maverick always look like a smoked orange peel, or is the color on my TV all wonky? This tag match is perfectly good wrestling although it never went up to "next level" and felt about as good as something you'd typically see on weekly TV. I've not been too impressed with AOP, but like some of their clumsy power spots. It was pretty uneventful and we soon realize that the whole match was basically a set piece to have Drake Maverick pee his pants after getting scared by Big Show. Oh wow. Oh wow that's lame. Big Show was literally only out there to build to a pissed pants spot. This ain't good.

Mustafa Ali vs. Buddy Murphy

ER: This starts really good, Ali snaps off a nice rana and Murphy shoots out to the floor (much smoother than Anderson's clunky take of a rana in our first match), but Ali is crazy and gets shoved off the buckles by Murphy and flies backwards into the barricade. The replays really made it look like he flew far. Murphy also launches him to the floor after blocking another move, leading to another massive Ali bump to the floor. Murphy follows with a big tope con hilo, and Ali sells that back in the ring by hitting a superkick and reverse rana. He also makes bug eye faces when Murphy kicks out of things. Ali is clearly one of those guys who does some things I like, and then proceeds to wrestle like all of those indy guys I'm already tired of. Each man is both completely dead while also completely able to break out a sunset flip powerbomb or any other Modern Indy Offense at a moment's notice. They did things to make me care about the match early, but they quickly turned this into the same match I've seen from dozens of wrestlers in dozens of feds this year. Murphy catching Ali with a knee off the ropes at the finish looked great, and really was cool enough to be the finish. BUT, it didn't involve one or both guys flipping, so it could not finish this match. Crowd was into this and they seemed pretty dead after that tag match, so they get some credit for that.

Bobby Lashley/Finn Balor/Dolph Ziggler/Drew McIntyre/Braun Strowman vs. The Miz/Jeff Hardy/Samoa Joe/Rey Mysterio/Shane McMahon

ER: So who was the agent for these matches? Did we really need every one of these matches to start with an immediate elimination? This is bad, man. This whole concept works better when you have teams who actually want to team together; having in-fighting while also fighting with another team of in-fighters just makes for a big mess of spots. And some of the mess of spots is good! Nobody needs Shane wrestler cosplaying with armdrags, but watching him do a really stupid stunt through a table is welcome. It's wild how Mysterio has barely been back and just feels like some guy. That said, it's hilarious how easily he dispatches with Balor. You'll be shocked to know that according to Cole and Graves, that this match - just like every match that we've seen so far tonight - is ALSO an incredible match. It's just literally impossible to believe how incredible this night of wrestling has been. Everything is incredible! I'm in silent awe, like an immigrant seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time. I can't care too much about Shane eliminating Ziggler, but it's amusing watching Lashley throw him with huge suplexes. And I dug Shane, red faced, tired getting urged to the top rope by Miz, needing to hit that coast to coast, and getting hammered out of the sky by Braun. Really just having Braun smash through everybody is the most fun this can get, and I sickly love that this comes down to Shane McMahon heroically having to stand against 3 men. We didn't get enough of Shane fighting valiantly and he went down pretty easy to Braun, whole match wound up being pretty flat. The elimination matches have all felt like set-up matches to get to bigger matches - which is totally cool - but weird to spend an actual PPV setting up matches that feel more important than the PPV. And is Braun vs. Corbin something that people want to see? This had some strong showings throughout, Miz was good as active team leader, Rey turned in a typically good Rey multiman performance, they integrated Shane about as well as possible. This is most likely the best match on the show so far, though that's not a very esteemed title.

Charlotte vs. Ronda Rousey

ER: I guess Rousey is going for geisha makeup? It...doesn't not work, I guess. I don't get why else you'd be doing the white pancake makeup if not for a geisha look, but her wrestling has been so strong that the only place she really needs to be reined in is at Sephora. Ronda is nice and tenacious to start and I love her relentlessly going after Charlotte, even jumping right back in after the ref separates them, constantly going after that arm. Ronda's greatest strength may very well be her bumps, she's a crazy bumped whose specialty is flying face first into things. You saw her excellent ringpost bumps in the Nikki match, and here Charlotte gets an opening when Ronda flies fast face first into the bottom buckle, really looked nasty. Ronda gets a busted mouth and Charlotte begins taking over. I really dug Charlotte kicking out Rousey's leg when she was on the top, even though I was dying to know what Rousey was going to do off the top. I'm going to need a Steiner 450 from Ronda. The rolling armbar off the top is a cool spot I hope doesn't start getting overused. Ronda is so great at building drama, great at selling (look at how she stood up with that rolling fireman's carry, look at the emotion she showed) and I don't think anybody has made Charlotte's spear look that great. That spear looked so nasty and Rousey's kickout was so great that I fully bought that finishing the match. Ronda is good at paying service to the work Charlotte has done to the leg, without being obvious and hammy about it, really feels like she has a grasp on complicated selling, moreso than many in WWE. I normally think Charlotte's chops look a little flimsy, but here I loved her firing out of the corner with them. Ronda getting a chest full of bruises only helped with that visual. We get the DQ finish, which is disappointing, but I like that they at least went with a full beatdown and not just a one move DQ. Charlotte beats her with a kendo stick and Ronda takes a great bump into the ring steps. It continues the trend of this PPV being used to set up actual important matches, but I thought this match ruled. I think it's undeniable that this is the best Charlotte has looked in ages, and it's not a coincidence it came against Ronda. Rousey is legit at this point, she's arguably the best salesman in the fed, right up with the best bumpers, and has strong offense. It's pretty shocking how good she is, so quick. This blew away anything else on the show, by a mile.

Daniel Bryan vs. Brock Lesnar

ER: Well. This completely owned. This is one that I imagine most wrestling fans have been interested in seeing for a long time now. I didn't think we'd ever get this match, and it feels weird that we finally get it. And they take things slow, circling, Bryan mocking Brock, and it feels like Brock is going to wreck him once they make contact with each other. Bryan throws a hard kick but Brock walks through it and wings a lariat at the side of Bryan's head. It's going to be that kind of match. Suplex City comes early, with Brock mocking the chants, and then throwing some ungodly suplexes to Bryan, really sending Bryan crashing in all sorts of ragdoll ways. This goes on for awhile, and the longer it goes the more it genuinely seems like Brock is going to completely steamroll Bryan. He's done that before, and it looked like he was doing it again. But just as the extended Brock thrashing was starting to feel a bit too long, the match gets flipped, when the match gets flipped things get great. Bryan gets F5'd into the ref, which slows it down and allows Bryan to land on his feet, then he punts Brock in the balls behind the fallen ref's back, and they turn a massive ballshot into a fantastic nearfall, like a elementary school playground version of David & Goliath. We get this awesome run of Bryan slipping out of Brock's grasp and Brock getting tricked into a bunch of big bumps (and Brock big bumps are unlike any other), and Bryan laces into Brock with an absolute BEATING. Bryan is throwing stiff kick to the ribs of the grounded Lesnar, then Bryan grabs Brock's arms and starts stomping the hell out of Brock's face. We get a moment I don't think I've EVER seen, as the cameras show BRYAN'S BOOT MARK imprinted on Brock's freaking face!!! This is next level. The stretch run is just killer. Brock gets his leg worked over, gets it wrapped around a ringpost, but is still capable of catching Bryan, and we get an awesome Lesnar moment where he catches a sprinting Bryan up on his shoulders and coming *this* close to an F5, but Lesnar's knee buckles and drops Bryan right down into an awesome Yes Lock. Brock's tap teasing was engaging as all hell throughout, totally looked like they could have given Bryan a plausible win over the beast, and Bryan looked like he was going to flat out knock Lesnar out once he started clonking him with the sickest crossface strikes. Holy shit. Bryan hung with Brock and it was glorious, but Brock eventually smashed him after Bryan looked as good against him than anyone. I really loved this one, thought they knocked it out of the park.


ER: I really wasn't digging this PPV, was chalking it up as a major weekend loss as I didn't really like the TakeOver either. And then WRESTLING GOD RONDA ROUSEY showed that she's an instant great, and Brock Bryan gave me exactly what my lizard wrestling brain wanted to see. Can't help but recommend this PPV after those last two matches put me in a great wrestling mood. All of that last hour owned.

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