2021 Ongoing MOTY List: NXT 2.0 WarGames

26. Team Black & Gold (Pete Dunne/Johnny Gargano/Tommaso Ciampa/LA Knight) vs. Team 2.0 (Bron Breakker/Grayson Waller/Carmelo Hayes/Tony D'Angelo) NXT WarGames 12/5

ER: I was so surprised by how much I liked this match. Nearly every WWE/NXT WarGames to this point has been an interminable slog. What kind of world were we creating for our children when we gave them four different WarGames in four years featuring Adam Cole? The Bobby Fish WarGames Era. America changed a lot for the worse in 2016, but I don't think Adam Cole WarGames have been given their fair share of credit for how horrible the next four years would get. Perhaps this particular WarGames only looked better because the women's WarGames that happened earlier in the night was one of the worst matches of the year, truly terrible. This show started with that 30+ minute match, which was entirely made up of half speed exchanges, bad weapon shots, and moments that looked bungled at best. When a 30 minute match ends and your immediate thought is "Well...I guess Gigi Dolin looked the best out of everyone?" then you know you just witnessed something dreadful. At least we got plenty of Cora Jade working through her acting chops. 

This might be the first WarGames in WWE brand history that didn't feel like an exercise in "Guys lying around the edges of the ring selling, regardless of how long they've been in the match". This was the first WWE brand WarGames that actually felt shorter than its runtime. Those 45 minute WarGames felt damn near PPV length, but this never felt like it was intentionally pausing action to capture hack Moments. The women's match that started the show was almost entirely set-up Moments and brother, they were all bad. This main event just focused on action, not on mapping out the best camera angle to capture somebody's gulp face. My main criticism of this match was that there was maybe too MUCH action, in that a lot of sequences were worked as if this was just a normal 8 man tag, and not specifically a WarGames match, but I have much less problem with what they did here than the new trend of working normal wrestling sequences in Royal Rumbles. This had a lot of chained sequences that didn't necessarily fit the structure of a WarGames, but here at least most of the sequences looked GOOD; they do not under any circumstances look good in a Rumble. 

The women's WarGames badly played up every participants' weaknesses, but this match managed to play to strengths. Grayson Waller bounced and sprang and flew off every surface, taking full advantage of the increased square footage. He took the most/best bumps into the cage itself, and seemed to be on the receiving end of the majority of the weapon spots. He was probably my favorite here, but I thought everyone added something. Everything was timed out really well and we never got into any dead patches. There might have been an over-reliance on weapons, but they used a lot of them for max effect. Tony D'Angelo pressing a crowbar into Pete Dunne's jaw before giving him a crowbar-assisted swinging neckbreaker off the top was a great example of an awesome spot with real added danger; a swinging neckbreaker off the top already looks cool, but with a crowbar being held around a guy's throat? Brutal. D'Angelo taking out Dunne's mouth guard before dropping him was a great touch. Waller exploded Knight through a table with a huge elbowdrop, Ciampa dropped Bron with an Air Raid Crash onto a trash can, and they all did a nice job of escalating the match to build to these bigger and bigger spots. They filled in a lot of time with just fighting, instead of lying around or pausing for Moments, and the chained finish looked good. 

I kept expecting Johnny Gargano to bring a lot of his specific type of dumb face drama, but it never came. Instead he did a lot of things that just made sense, like just grabbing onto Hayes after taking a shot to the balls, holding on for dear life to give Ciampa enough time to level Hayes with a running knee. We got to see Bron stand tall at the end - the absolute correct ending - as he speared both Ciampa and Hayes through a table to put an end to the Fairytale Ending, then gave Ciampa a nightmare ending with a sick press slam powerslam. We're not going to get blood in a WarGames, but this was the only one in the last 5 years that actually focused on fighting instead of drama, a classically simple Next Gen vs. Old Blood storyline in lieu of bad acting, and that combined with strong build and execution made it stand out as the clear best WWE WarGames since the concept returned. 

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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NXT Worth Watching: Ciampa/Thatcher vs. Strong/Cole

Tommaso Ciampa/Timothy Thatcher vs. Roderick Strong/Adam Cole NXT 2/3/21

ER: NXT has been the most entertaining part of mainstream wrestling TV of 2021 so far, and it feels like a lot of guys recognized to hold back on a lot of the melodrama. There is a lot more personality on NXT lately, beyond "I am serious about this and am shocked when you kick out of my moves". Guys are figuring out how to do "serious" without looking ridiculous, and this tag is a good example of a Mid-South style tag fusing with the modern NXT style. Modern NXT style is too obnoxious uncut, you need to cut it with an older, better regional style to make it bearable and much better. I think Ciampa has really excelled with these changes, going from seeming comically overly serious throughout the latter parts of the Gargano feud, to reigning in the sillier aspects and coming off as much more of an asskicker than before. He is wrestling more like Roderick Strong, which is a good thing. He hits hard on chops and elbows, and makes simple forgotten moments like kicks to the stomach look actually damaging. When a guy makes you notice how painful a transition kick to the stomach looks, it means he's really focusing on all details. Strong is as good as ever, maybe the most underrated worker of NXT brand history. Preposterous to think of him not having the role Cole occupies, while also excelling in the role of the clear #2 of a stable. 

Ciampa and Thatcher spend much of the match cutting Strong off from Cole, and both teams blur the line of face/heel without it ever getting dramatic and scowly. Strong is great at eating a beating while fighting back, and I especially loved a couple of body shots he threw while Thatcher was prepping for a suplex. I thought Ciampa's timing was excellent throughout, thought a knee he rocked Strong with made for a real surprise kickout, and when I rewatched the spot I thought his action was so strong throughout the whole sequence. The pinfall he sinks on Strong really added to the kickout, feels like he's paying the kind of attention to his game that stands out when you watch Bret Hart singles matches. Cole is energetic in his hot tag even if some of his stuff isn't my favorite. He fit into the match fine, and as the match turned into NXT chain spots I thought they built through them well. Strong was really awesome on offense and defense the whole match, loved him flying through the ropes with a Fuerza bump when Ciampa scouted a baseball slide dropkick, love that immediacy Strong brings to his moments. The Dusty Classic has been a fertile ground for quality men's and women's tags, and this is my favorite of the men's side (so far?). 

PAS: This didn't really do it for me. I really enjoyed the Strong vs. Thatcher parts of the match as they really had some nasty grappling and Thatcher has really dug into the sadistic parts of his character. He really does seem to gain joy out of hurting people, and Strong has always been a solid if a little colorless wrestler. Strong hits the mat just as hard, and lands some big chops. I though Ciampa and Cole were pretty bad though, especially in their exchanges which were dancey reversals as bad as the worst of this modern wrestling style. Man do I hate when two people "know each other so well", and this was some very bad "know each other so well" wrestling. Finish run just felt like the same PWG tag finisher spamming stuff we have seen for years. The individual moves look cool, but it was kind of formless and didn't build to anything. That finish run doesn't play to Thatcher's strengths and he was the guy I came into this match wanting to see. 

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NXT TakeOver: Stand and Deliver Night One 4/7/21

NXT has been my favorite mainstream wrestling program of 2021, so I figured why not check out their two night TakeOver special, despite being a few weeks behind on programming and not actually knowing anything that is on the card. Will I be rewarded for going into this blind? We'll see!

Pete Dunne vs. Kushida

ER: This was a real nice fast pace for a show opener, and also, I hated most of it! I really, really hated most of the offense that made up this entire match, a match filled with arm break and finger break spots without a single moment of somebody selling an arm or finger injury. Dunne tossed out so many finger break spots that were used to transition Kushida immediately back to offense, just an incredibly stupid usage of an already stupidly used spot. They traded arm break spots, and every time they did, all that happened was the other one would then do their own arm break spot right after. The match threatened a few times to go to interesting places, but since no move in the match was ever sold seriously, those interesting places became only "what ifs". Kushida was really good at setting up Dunne's offense, took a big suplex on the apron too, but it's like they had some odd agreement that once one got to do a move, then the other could get up and immediately take back over with his own move. There was one compelling nearfall, where I thought a Kushida small package might have ended it early, but maybe that was me in hindsight just wishing that had ended things early. This was a lot of fast movement that lead absolutely nowhere, and everything was run through so quickly that I guarantee none of it will be remembered in a day. 

Gauntlet Match

ER: I don't really like gauntlet matches where guys enter on a time limit rather than after an elimination. It never plays to anyone's strengths, too many guys have to disappear when things get too clogged, and they're never as satisfying as just a trios match would have been. Hell, give me a couple of singles matches between any of these guys, guarantee it will be better than a timed gauntlet match. Nobody in this got much time to map out anything interesting, as a Ruff/Scott singles match could have been a really cool 8 minutes, as soon enough it was two guys bumping for Bronson Reed and ignoring everything that had happened in their own match, and that's how these things go. Pretty soon you have guys no selling spots because they need to be in position for the next chain spot, so Isaiah Scott gets flipped inside out with a Reed clothesline, but is back hitting a meh superkick on Grimes 4 seconds later because that's how the move chaining works. A gauntlet match like this is really great at making six guys all come out looking worse, either by getting pinned way earlier than they should have been (Grimes, Lumis), or having to rush through your routine because everyone else is fighting for attention. Even a silly 6 man multiman would have worked better than a new guy awkwardly integrating himself into the match every few minutes, but the format we got is not conducive to a good match for anyone involved. Did LA Knight need to be in this? Did Lumis? Just a poorly laid out idea all around. 

7. Tommaso Ciampa vs. WALTER

ER: THIS was more like it, just a big throwing bomb fest that was more than just bombs. This never felt like two guys out there trying to get This Is Awesome chants, it felt like an actual big main event title match, with one guy the clear underdog who was going to take as much punishment for as long as he possibly could. WALTER and Ciampa both turned in great performances, with WALTER turning in a ton of appropriate selling and Ciampa actually working like a guy with a size disadvantage, always feeling like a guy hanging on who MAYBE had an outside chance of winning the belt. I loved how the worked in some vulnerabilities for WALTER, and having him hurt his hand by overhand chopping the announce table in half is a great way to set up a hand injury. WALTER was super punishing with his offense, all of his kicks really found their way right underneath Ciampa's chin, and he was able to be punishing while not forgetting about what happened to his hand (something that nobody else on TakeOver has been able to do). 

WALTER's best bit of selling was when he was taking a dozen lariats from Ciampa, as it's incredibly difficult to sell on your feet while waiting for someone to hit you repeatedly, yet I thought he made it look fantastic. Ciampa's lariats weren't strong enough to put the big man down, but I liked how they knocked him into the ropes, loved how he stumbled before getting turned around, loved how the next one hit him in the back of the head and made him fall into the ropes for a bit, thought he turned what could have been an extended silly moment into an excellent stubborn refusal to go down and save himself from more punishment. Ciampa is a real hard chopper, and WALTER's chest was getting nicely purple by the end of this, and the harder Ciampa hit, the harder it made WALTER come at him with full force lariats and straight kicks. WALTER's powerbombs looked great too, and I loved how he was using his weight and size to just try to hold Ciampa to the mat. I loved the spot where WALTER hopped onto Ciampa and almost tricked Ciampa into bridging up on his neck, that extra bit of temerity that seemed immediately like a bad idea, and lead directly to WALTER crushing him back on their feet. Ciampa's selling down the stretch was great too, barely escaping out of a rolling powerbomb, dead man walking getting back to his feet when he clearly shouldn't have been standing, only to be put down for good with one last chop. Several guys on NXT have really taken a lot of the stupid melodrama out of their selling and it has only made these title match epics sing. With no bullshit morality acting or shocked kickout faces, the matches seem far more streamlined and intense. 

PAS: I thought this was a good stiff match, which flirted with great, but didn't get there. I thought the spot with WALTER smashing the table with a chop was a clever idea, executed well and really gave the match some structure. WALTER did a great job of selling constantly trying to adjust his attack with that probably broken hand. I also thought the multiple lariat spot was clever, although I really wish they looked better. It would have been a bigger deal if WALTER had kept standing with a dozen hard lariats, rather then just standing through a dozen B- ones. I thought the finish run had the problems that these matches often have, where they ended a couple of beats too late. The actual finishing spot looked way less nasty than the couple that proceeded it, and it came off flat. I would have liked the match a lot more if it ended on the powerbomb. Still for this style of match it had some real highs, and I enjoyed lots of it. 

MSK vs. Raul Mendoza/Joaquin Wilde vs. Grizzled Young Veterans

ER: I thought the Dusty Classic (Men's and Women's) was really good, tons of memorable matches and really made me want a legit focused tag division. This tag three way was everything the earlier match with six people wasn't, a super fun tag with a few surprising spots and a quick pace, felt more like a tag you'd see on early 2000s Jersey All Pro, and I can't think of a bigger wrestling compliment I could give over the past 20 years. Just like on those old JAPW tapes, I'd spend entire matches constantly switching who my favorite was, made me just root for all of them and seek out more. You'd flip for a big Ghost Shadow bump, then flip for the Hit Squad crushing Azrieal, then lose it for Rainchild. It was a roster I loved through and through, and everyone worked well together. I have a feeling this would have played well at the Bayonne Charity Hall. Wes Lee had this section where he was throwing out spin kick combos and leg sweeps as everyone in the match attacked like a ninja, then he pasted Gibson with a hard hitting tope, and followed that up with a huge tope con giro on Legado del Fantasma. Mendoza and Wilde are great at getting into position for things like that, and I like how they played kind of a lower key highspot role so MSK could shine with their cool double teams. Wilde stuck to hard corner clotheslines, Mendoza stuck to high dropkicks, a missile dropkick to break up a submission, and both took crazy spots on the floor to help get over the other teams. Wilde took a flat out insane looking Doomsday Device, with Drake running off the ramp to send Wilde to the floor, and Mendoza took basically a safer Burning Hammer on the floor with a slingshot double stomp from Lee to kick it off. The MSK "best buds stuff fighting for their dream" stuff can get a little hammy (though it would probably be fine if only they weren't constantly talking about it on commentary, but this is the kind of tag match you put on to show off that your tag division is really cool right now. 

Raquel Gonzalez vs. Io Shirai

ER: This was the complete opposite of what I thought it was going to be, worked totally different from what I was expecting, and I loved it. I thought this would be Gonzalez dominating, with Shirai coming back in not belieavable ways and pinning Raquel with a bad moonsault. Instead, it was somehow Shirai taking 90% of the match, which on paper sounds preposterous to me. But Raquel Gonzalez is getting really good, and it kind of snuck up on me. She is a really strong base, and not just in the kind of way that someone so much larger and taller than their opponents should be. She was so good at taking Shirai's offense and so great at setting all of it up, all of it building nicely to each stage of the match, that it felt like Shirai was organically keeping not just one step ahead of Gonzalez, but believably dominating her. They were really smart about how much offense Gonzalez took, having her block several ranas, avoid Shirai's rope feint kicks, and it was the only way this was going to work. Shirai just doing nothing but offense for 90% of the match would have come off brainless, but with Gonzalez fending off much of it, it just made Shirai come off as relentless. Dakota Kai's interference and immediate dismissal came at a good time, and I like how all it did was stop a Shirai moonsault, not turn the tide for Gonzalez. It was super impressive how they kept Shirai in control and Gonzalez staggering, but I really got into it. Gonzalez kicking out of the moonsault felt like a big deal, and the crossbody off the entrance ramp looked like a deranged Shirai throwing her body harder and harder into the monster that won't stay down. I thought it was great how suddenly Gonzalez took over, nailing Shirai with a great low cut clothesline that resulted in Shirai hitting one of her best moonsaults (this clothesline could not have flipped her over harder on her stomach). I'm really happy for Raquel's title win. There really wasn't anything left for Shirai to do as champ, and Gonzalez is someone intriguing to have on top against a bunch of interesting babyface contenders. I had this match in my head as something very different than what we got, and I'm glad, because I loved what we got here. 

ER: Those first two matches really stunk, and I was starting to regret the idea of doing this show the night of. But WALTER/Ciampa (it landed on our 2021 Ongoing MOTY List) was great and the show never slowed down from there, thought the last three matches of the night stand up next to any three match run from any TakeOver. 

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NXT TakeOver: WarGames 2020 Live Blog

I don't think we've gotten a good WarGames match from NXT...yet. That said, I think this looks like a really good card on paper, and I'm excited for both WarGames matches, really like how both teams match up. 

Toni Storm/Dakota Kai/Raquel Gonzalez/Candice LeRae vs. Ember Moon/Rhea Ripley/Io Shirai/Shotzi Blackheart

ER: Shotzi comes out in her new deluxe tank, with TCB on the front (I assume that means Tankin' Care of Business?). I like Dakota Kai to start the match, but I don't think Ember Moon was a great choice. Ember Moon is someone who always does a disservice to her own offense, because she chains it in a way that you see her opponents brushing things off quickly just to take something else. She has a very good low superkick to a kneeling opponent, but it's always done just to set up something else, even when it looks better than a lot of her other offense. I don't think her chaining things through the first 5 is a good thing, but I liked Kai a lot. Some of her offense isn't as plausible, but she uses her thrust kick wisely and it always looks good. 

And somehow they make the rookie mistake of letting the babyfaces add a man first. WHY would you voluntarily set up Dakota Kai as de facto babyface? It's the easiest mistake to avoid under the specific booking parameters of a WarGames!! Commentary keeps trying to think of things to say, and every single thing just makes it sound like Kai is a valiant babyface. "This is the hardest 3 minutes of Dakota Kai's life" or "you remember Kai was out of action with a knee injury", just everything they said about her pointed out how hard she was fighting through this genuine disadvantage. I don't know how you lay this match out and decide to make Dakota Kai the top babyface, but this is what they did, and Kai is putting in the best babyface performance of the match. She gets powerbombed down the cage by Moon, who then hits a sick crossbody into her. But Kai fights back, and soon she's down two to one, but she jumps on Shotzi's back and tries to fight off the unfair double team, gets dropped with a great Doomsday Device missile dropkick, but somehow fights back from that! Later she gets beat up by Rhea Ripley the second she entered the cage, eating a ton of short arm clotheslines as the commentary continues to struggle with the undeniable fact that Kai is the babyface here. Shotzi was so incredible in the build up to this match, and she is the most afterthought person in the entire match. This makes no sense!!

They are also working this WarGames the least interesting way: Pretending the cage is not there. The knock on a lot of these NXT WarGames is that they are normal matches that happened to be surrounded by a big cage. This is that. Kai takes a nasty spill into the cage 2 minutes in, and the rest of the match is as if the cage is only there to obstruct our view. And since you can't bleed, it means the match becomes an exercise in Singapore cane shots, which is not as interesting to me as someone getting their face smashed into chain link. Ripley eventually takes a bump into the cage 20 minutes later, and Io Shirai does a Great Sasuke tribute by flying off the cage into everyone while entirely in a trash can. Raquel Gonzalez makes a great catch in the middle of it all, really absorbing all of a tiny person wearing a trash can. Kai even gets walking tall moments down the stretch!! It's amazing! She hits a killer double stomp off the top, flatting Shirai under that trash can, then triumphantly beats down Ember Moon and stands tall with a chair. Things do finally get good and heated after, with Moon hitting a pretty disgusting Eclipse, with Kai whipping her neck across the back of a chair. I didn't think Moon was doing that move anymore (don't think I've seen it since she came back), and it's cool when someone breaks out something big like that in a big match, and I like that Moon crashing through a chair taking Kai out of the match also took her out of the match. LeRae kicks a trash can lid into Ripley's face, Shotzi sentons LeRae off a ladder, Shirai eats a Gonzalez powerbomb through a ladder, tons of great stuff down the stretch. But I gotta say I'm pretty stunned how marginalized Shotzi was in this match, for a match that really felt like it was announced and built as HER match. I don't know if anybody would have picked Gonzalez pinning Shirai for the finish of this, but most of this was brutally backwards. 

Tommaso Ciampa vs. Timothy Thatcher

ER: I've really been digging Thatcher bullying guys on NXT, but I like when we get big match Thatcher. I think a lot of this was really good, and I bought into a lot of the attacks from both. Thatcher really looked like he was choking the life out of Thatcher (Ciampa's head veins are a gift when it comes to selling a sleeper), and Ciampa's bully choke down the stretch with Ciampa attacking Thatcher's freshly bloodied ear was great. Rhea Ripley got an earring ripped out of her ear against Io Shirai, then competed in a WarGames without a drop of blood, and then immediately following WarGames Thatcher gets his ear ripped open somehow. Ciampa's back neck is a compelling match story for me, and Thatcher is a guy who can do painful looking things to a neck. So I bought into Ciampa's neck selling and also loved when Thatcher would whip his head back with uppercuts. I do think the match went way too long and really didn't need to be worked as an epic, didn't need stuff like Thatcher bumping for 6-8 straight clotheslines (things like that felt transported from a different match), and I think Thatcher should have won here. I don't want them to fall into the temptation of turning Thatcher into a shoot guy who only picks on guys that can't defend themselves but never uses those skills to beat better guys. 

Dexter Lumis vs. Cameron Grimes

ER: Trevor Lee was someone who always wanted to work long matches and big title defenses in CWF Mid-Atlantic, and he seems like a guy who would get into trying to have interesting matches within somewhat limited match gimmicks. So far his performances in a cinematic match and blindfold match have been appropriately stoogey but perhaps too silly. And he brings strong stooging to this strap match, but just like the WarGames match earlier in the evening, it is a gimmick match that keeps pretending like the gimmick isn't there. Long stretches of the match are spent without them tied to a strap, and I was actually interested in how they were going to work in turnbuckle touching until realizing that of course it would just be a normal pinfall match. The best parts of this are Grimes taking a hard beating around the ring. He did a really good job at getting dragged and flung by the strap, including two painful bumps into the protective hockey arena siding, got pulled nicely into an uppercut, did a great job of falling while being yanked. My favorite bit of Grimes offense was when he just punched Lumis in the eye, and Lumis sold it like a guy who just got punched in the eye. They worked a few good spots around getting tangled up in a strap, and I loved when Lumis wrapped Grimeses' ankles and yoinked the strap, sending Crimes crashing head first into a chair. The finish submission looked good, like Grimes getting hogtied into a choke, overall liked what Grimes tried to do with the gimmick. 

Damian Priest vs. Johnny Gargano vs. Leon Ruff

ER: I really liked the two quick Ruff/Gargano matches I've seen (I'm a couple weeks behind on NXT TV, not sure what happened right before this show), and would have preferred seeing a PPV level Gargano/Ruff singles. I am also a guy who isn't a big Priest fan. However, having one much larger guy in there could make for a fun dynamic. The story of Priest not wanting to bother with Ruff because he only cared about taking his pound of flesh from Gargano was strong, even though Gargano's work with Priest is nowhere near as well done as Gargano's work with Ruff. All the Gargano/Ruff portions were good, but the Gargano/Priest stuff had awkward timing on several spots (including stuff like Gargano having to redo a tornado DDT spot, and a silly missed ear clap from Gargano after Johnny ducked early). Ruff eats a big razor's edge through one of the safety shields, and I really wish I could hear a real crowd during his eventual comeback. I think he would really be connecting with fans and I think the Gargano angle would play great in front of real crowds. I really wanted that Leon Ruff/Mikey Whipwreck story to keep going. Ruff keeping the title is could have given him a little more legitimacy, leaves you with a Gargano/Priest #1 contender match while moving Ruff onto someone else for a bit, and instead they just have Gargano win the title back. Ruff's involvement still felt like the best thing about this to me, and right up to that spike DDT that ended him he made everything look good. This was better than I was expecting as they dealt well with getting the third man out of there, but I also didn't love a lot of the Priest/Gargano stuff. The Scream mask guys were the absolute pits and killed any chance at the match being actually good, and I can't get excited in any way for an Austin Theory higher power situation. Nobody wants that. 

Undisputed Era (Roderick Strong/Kyle O'Reilly/Bobby Fish/Adam Cole) vs. Pat McAfee/Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch/Pete Dunne

ER: Pete Dunne moves to Florida and within a couple months he's already getting that Crossfit body. He also might have jaundice? But I liked the opening with O'Reilly and Dunne, thought their mathwork had several fun scrambles, and had nasty things like Dunne kneeling on O'Reilly's arm while attacking the body. This WarGames is already so much better laid out than the women's match, with McAfee doing an awesome job being the guy acting like he wants in that cage, and Lorcan being an excellent choice to help Dunne dismantle O'Reilly. Lorcan dropping KOR with a half nelson suplex before Dunne runs in and kicks KOR's arm out from under him is a great asshole move, and seeing Dunne and Lorcan work as real assholes is great. Lorcan is also great at eating offense, so when Bobby Fish runs in Lorcan is expert at taking the UE double teams (I especially liked him getting pump kicked into a suplex). Weapons in WarGames is pretty stupid and unnecessary (you are in a cage you should act like you're in a cage and use it) but the cricket bat is a more interesting weapon that other played out stuff we've seen. Burch smacking O'Reilly in the bad arm with a cricket bat at least gives off a good sound. But we also get way too much table set up. I do not need all of these tables set up!m You have a whole cage, use the cage! WarGames matches do not need long spot set-ups.

Pat McAfee is a real genuine standout, a personality so strong that it only highlights the personality flaws in every other person in the match. It's incredible how much he gets about what he's supposed to be doing in there, and having him hit a moonsault through a table is the best kind of icing on that cake. The home stretch of the match had good energy, but also a lot of misspent energy? All of Adam Cole's offense runs looked bad, and the best use of Cole was when McAfee clipped his knee. Also, Wade Barrett refers to Pat McAfee as "one of the dirtiest players in NFL history" and...I guess I would really need to see footage of a punter who is also a dirty player. That sounds like a hysterical character (that Pat McAfee assuredly was not). I HATE the Undisputed Era "fight between the two cages" trope in these WarGames match. How does a team with guys I like keep doing things that I dislike? And this thing just goes WAYYYYYY too long. Way too many comebacks, way too many "peak" moments to build to, soooo much fat that could have been trimmed. It just felt like they kept building to the same big moment over and over again, like we were trapped in a loop and nobody knew how to actually finish the match. They build to McAfee and Cole alone, everyone else laid out, several times, and it never finishes anything. Every big move would just get a kick out, and then everyone would lie around for awhile before doing it all over again. McAfee completely knocks the wind out of himself when nobody decides to catch him on his bonkers cage swanton, Lorcan and Burch pull off a sick Doomsday Device, McAfee kicks out of Adam Cole's bunny hop flipping piledriver, everyone in the match lies in one part of the ring while Dunne and O'Reilly fight and also refuse to get pinned. This whole thing was 20 minutes too long and they kept building to things they had already built to. I like both of these teams, and like both of them against each other. But this was TOO MUCH of them against each other. I was totally burned out by the home stretch of this match, because it felt like we got too much wasted time and it felt like they were needlessly filling time. No main event should feel like it's just filling time. Still, Pat McAfee is a star. 

This was a disappointing show. But, up until the part of the main that started taking too long, I was still really enjoying this show. It was an underwhelming yet entertaining show, until it felt like I was trapped in an endless series of big encounter kickouts. There were plenty of strong individual performances, in fact every match at minimum had one real standout performance. So we end up with a show that underdelivered on quality, while also having no true bad matches and thus having an entertaining floor. You can't really call that a win, but it's not a terrible loss. 

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NXT TakeOver: In Your House 6/7/20

So it's Sunday afternoon, and NXT hasn't been hitting the way it used to for the past 6 months, nothing on this card jumps out as something I think will be Actually Good, but I'm gonna give this show a shot. If I'm not into something I can't say my attention will be 100% on it, but I'll give it a shot. But I dig the IYH set, which really just makes me want to get back on watching 1995 WWF and reviewing IYH shows. And I appreciate Pettengill coming back and sounding exactly the same and using the same exact vocal delivery, honestly doesn't sound any differently 25 years later. But it's pretty shitty they aren't giving anybody a house this time. Some people could really use a house right now.

I thought Damian Priest's shitty band was starting off this show, but it turns out that is Code Orange. And you guys, regardless of how Code Orange might sound on album (I listened to Forever a couple years ago, thought it was fine and remembered it sounding more like hardcore grunge and not dog balls nu metal through and through), we can all agree that they sounded like absolute shit here. Show the first minute of this performance to anyone and try to get them to explain why it is cool, and you will be met with a person who suddenly forgets how to speak. This is a bad omen.


Shotzi Blackheart/Tegan Nox/Mia Yim vs. Dakota Kai/Raquel Gonzalez/Candice LeRae

ER: This was a perfectly fine opener, and I think the trios format made it a stronger match than any combo singles match they could have done. This was the first time I think Nox has looked convincing against Kai ever since the turn. The two of them ramming heads got a vocal reaction out of me, and Nox really knocked Kai to her butt right after with a hard corner back elbow. Everybody was given good time here and nobody hung themselves, even with them trying a couple new things. The dive train was fun, dug Raquel brusquely tossing Shotzi aside, the Candice crossbody looked good, Nox's 450 to the floor a fitting closer. There were a couple of not ready for prime time moments, but those coming in a trios are way better than in a singles, because they easily kept the tempo up with quick tags. Big suplexes down the stretch were a cool way to ramp up to the finish, and it still surprises me that Mia Yim of all people is the one allowed to do a full dragon suplex. We go through years of WWE changing the bumps on suplexes - turning the half nelson into a full rotation stomach bump, having some guys throw German's so it's a flatter back bump than up on the shoulders - and Mia Yim comes in and just does bridging dragon suplexes. It would be like Eric Bugenhagen being allowed to do a Jerry Lawler piledriver. But it's good to have a spirited match like this start the show, and to actually have it all tie in to current feuds makes something like this stronger. Also Tegan Nox needs to drop the chokeslam. It looks stupid.

Damian Priest vs. Finn Balor

ER: So outside of a couple of moments, I thought this was really good. Priest has done nothing for me on NXT TV but I thought he added nice heft to this match. Balor's matches against larger opponents have always been way more interesting to me than his mirror matches against other Finn Balor guys. Priest threw a couple of brick wall lariats and really tossed Balor around, which is the kind of match where Balor can excel. Balor takes a mean bump into the ring steps, looking like he literally aimed to fly in to them like a tackling dummy. 10 minutes later and Balor still had strong ring step pattern tattoos branded into his right shoulder, and that will always kick ass. I mentioned Balor's best work comes against larger opponents, and it's also true that Priest's best work comes against smaller opponents. Watching him against Dijakovic or Lee is torture, but here his exaggerated Edge/Test offense works. His high lift flatliner looked awesome, and the sit out chokeslam from the top was killer. Really, the only part of the match that didn't work for me was when Balor decided to turn things into a step routine out of nowhere. Whatever clown thinks every NXT match needs to stop for a dance party is someone I wouldn't trust with any decision. But the obnoxious thing here, is that Priest allllllmost makes it work. I think Priest did as good a job as possible to physically respond to Balor's shots, making it come close to looking like he wasn't a man merely bracing himself for the next part of the rehearsed combo. A strike exchange is only as strong as the person being struck, and I appreciate what Priest brought to that moment. Seeing Balor's branding didn't make me consider that we'd get an even uglier moment involving the ring steps, but Balor using his shotgun dropkick to send Priest flying into and over the steps was awesome, and I love how it directly lead to the finish. Priest's bump looked great, and this whole match was satisfying as hell.

Johnny Gargano vs. Keith Lee

ER: Before the match we get Gargano sitting at his kitchen table wearing his dress up clothes and cape. When I was 6 I got to be Dracula for Halloween, and had this black cotton cape that had an easy one snap closure around the neck. And I wore that cape everywhere until at least March of 1988. If my mom was going to the market, I would be like "I wanna go! Just let me go get my cape!" And my mother is joyless so one day she just hid the cape so she wouldn't have a "cape kid" when I was 12 years old. Johnny Gargano is that kid. We also get that specific WWE Brand comedy where their idea of a joke is just showing an older WWF character. Similar to the gag of "and then Brother Love shows up and says his catchphrase and that's the joke", we get Johnny looking at a shot of Dok Hendrix. Use Michael Hayes to interview Gargano for the match or something, if you don't actually feel like writing more than the first part of a nostalgia joke. But Keith Lee is awesomely wearing Black Lives Matter gear so if that won't make Gargano a convincing heel then I don't know what will. And now it just feels like Keith Lee is going to lose. It just feels like a thing that they'd do.

And this match was actually good? I wasn't expecting that, but this is my favorite thing Gargano has been involved with in a long time. It wasn't perfect, and I hated the dance fighting stuff here as much as I usually hate it. Take that trash out to the curb and leave the rest of the match the same, and this works great. Gargano as an overwhelmed hero is way more interesting than never say die Gargano or epic match Gargano. Outside of the dancing this felt closer to Jeff Jarrett vs. Mabel on a Coliseum Video than what I was expecting, as that's obviously way better than what I was expecting. I liked Gargano working over Lee's hand and didn't have a problem with the size difference due to how Lee sold for Gargano. Lee was still able to power him around with one arm, but it slowed him enough. This is a match also greatly helped by the NXT wrestlers in the crowd. There's a certain kind of enthusiasm that can happen when wrestlers watch their peers, that same kind of energy that was on early Evolve shows. You can tell when they're not just adding heat to help vs. actually getting into things, and it just felt like we got a little bit more of that energy here. Lee body checking Gargano through the hockey shielding was awesome, a real unexpected moment right after Gargano hits the floor to shake the cobwebs out. Lee just wrecking balled Gargano through that wall and I loved it, a stunt spot that came off organic. I like the way this match rolled out, like that they didn't linger long on lame "swinging to miss" spots, and let Lee flatten Gargano in fun ways.

Adam Cole vs. Velveteen Dream

ER: This is a tough one for me, as I don't want to see these two in a cinematic brawl, but I would probably rather see that than these two in a 30 minute Adam Cole main event epic. Dream's stock as a character has fallen a lot for me and Cole is just not a wrestler that I enjoy. Dream destroy's somebody's mom's 2001 Saturn and I'll always enjoy somebody bumping onto a windshield. Dexter Lumis shows up, and he feels like a genuinely refreshing addition to NXT. He comes off like a pro wrestling version of an abusive cop taking his family out to Olive Garden and ruining the night when he finds out they missed never ending pasta bowl. The stuff at the finish through the chairs looked good, felt more like an indy garbage spot than a big match WWE spot, and that helps things. I'm glad this was kept to 15 minutes, even though I am not excited for Cole still champ. Why is Cole the guy? Why is Strong not the champ in UE? Cole is such a weird choice to me.

Karrion Kross vs. Tommaso Ciampa

ER: This ruled and was exactly the kind of match I didn't expect them to have. This show has really come off stronger than expected for me, because they have played against type for the entire show. Priest/Balor and Lee/Gargano were sensibly and smartly worked, the Cole match went half as long as I expected, and it's almost like I keep dreading the epic and they keep going more understated (compared to recent big match NXT). This was hugely successful for me, a near total steamrolling by Kross, in a way that I don't think hurt Ciampa while making Kross come off big. Kross murdered Ciampa with strikes and lariats and as they were doing his big choke finish I'm sitting here excited because it actually felt like a finish. It's only been 6 minutes, no way they laid this thing out that smartly, and I dug it all. Ciampa really leaned into everything Kross threw, loved how he sold his beating. His small comeback came off really well but I like that it was contained to more of a last gasp than any sustained back and forth. I just really like that they went this route, came off like another breath of fresh air and a nice change of pace from the last two matches.

Io Shirai vs. Rhea Ripley vs. Charlotte

ER: I liked parts of this, but I am beyond tired of big match Charlotte. Ripley seemed like a genuine big deal just a few months ago, and that feels like another lifetime ago. Shirai had some big moments but is still someone where the loud Mauro praise feels real hyperbolic. Ripley felt a little sluggish throughout, Charlotte isn't a good "constantly vocal" Barry Darsow, and three ways in general stink. Three ways being the big main event payoff of the women's division has been death. I liked Shirai going off the house, Charlotte sold the downtime well selling Shirai landing on her nose, we get one of those cutesy three way finishes with Shirai moonsaulting and pinning Ripley before Charlotte could tap her. It came off like a big Shirai moment, but I just couldn't get into a lot of it.


I don't think this show was great, but it delivered better than I was expecting. Kross/Ciampa, Lee/Gargano, and Priest/Balor made sure that it wasn't at all a waste of time, and I call that a win.

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Much Later Than Live NXT TakeOver: WarGames 11/23/19

I had a co-worker's 50th birthday party to attend earlier in the evening, so couldn't get a reasonable start to this one. But it's not tooooo late and I'm all partied out, so let's see if this WarGames is going to be decent.


Rhea Ripley/Candice LeRae/Tegan Nox/Dakota Kai vs. Bianca Belair/Kay Lee Ray/Io Shirai/Shayna Baszler

ER: I really was not feeling Candice in the opening minutes of this, didn't think most of her offense looked good; but I really enjoyed everything being done to Candice, and that's important. Shirai boots her with a big missile dropkick, Belair cracks her with an elbow, powerbombs her several times, throws her into the cage with LeRae sliding uncomfortably down the metal, really everything done to punish LeRae works. But once Ripley gets in, takes a long time grabbing the same exact weapons you've seen for decades now, we build to several dumb uses of them. I think your work should be able to stand alone in a match like War Games, and going to trash can shots and propping up chairs and having everybody make increasingly stupid decisions to get into a big tower in the corner, just comes off lazy. Even when the end result is LeRae getting the back of her head whipped into a pile of chairs,  it still feels like they spent way too much time on dumb bullshit. I didn't anticipate the Kai turn, but I also am not an avid TV follower and Kai has never done much for me anyway. I do like how Kai kept running back to repeatedly attack Nox. Belair is I think the only person making strikes and weapon shots mean something. There has been a comical amount of bad hockey fight spots in the match, and here's Belair finding three different cool ways to make a trashcan look dangerous. Belair is really the mega star of this match, and it's kind of crazy how much of a non-factor Shayna was after getting into the ring. Shayna is in the ring for 2 minutes and then sells on the mat for the next 10. But Belair just won't quit, she's whipping the hell out of Ripley, jumping around like she's getting swarmed by ants at a picnic when LeRae is whipping her, in with a great nearfall save, tasked with catching Shirai on an ill-advised top of cage moonsault, Belair was just EVERYTHING in this match. Mauro Ranallo was expectedly unbearable, and my least favorite Mauro moment is when he described a "top rope avalanche poison rana" by LeRae as "desperate". I will not be able to understand how doing a move that you have done before, here performing it when your opponent gave you the opening and it could lead to a win, is "desperate". Shitting your pants and smearing Kay Lee Ray with your own shit would be a desperate move. That is the move of someone with zero options left. But performing a complicated reverse rana? That seems like someone very much in control of things. Shayna stopped selling long enough to lose the match, just a bizarre misuse of her, but Belair's performance made me overall like this match despite not liking a TON of directions this mess went.

Damian Priest vs. Killian Dain vs. Pete Dunne

ER: This was a much too long 3 way that had the problems nearly every 3 way has, and could have ended earlier after a few specific spots and been better for it. I'm a Damian Priest novice and will probably opt to stay that way. Priest feels like a better version of Matt Taven, which means he is a worse version of just about anyone else. He's not good at occupying himself, forced Dunne and Dain into unlikely scenarios just to get his shit in (most egregious is Dain having to get up way too quick so he can be ready for Priest's spinny kicks), he's the guy who is always too early or too late to his marks. Dain had a real nice match, kind of got stuck in the thankless role of getting shunted aside so we can continue to watch Dunne/Priest have zero chemistry together, or have his very good offense shrugged off early so we can get to more stupidly chained 3 way moments. But Dain had cool stuff, leveled Priest with a dive, did a bombs away on Priest while hitting a Michinoku Driver on Dunne, and was the guy who was actually bringing something a little rough edged to the dance fighting of Priest and Dunne. The finish I thought was pretty dumb, with Dunne getting Dain in a backpack choke, leading Dain to leap onto Priest while wearing Dunne...but then Dunne just shoves Dain away and gets the pin. This match was filled with moments of "Wait why is that guy selling so long...wait why is that guy selling nothing at all?" (much like that War Games we just sat through) but damn did that finish come off dumb as hell to me.

Matt Riddle vs. Finn Balor

ER: I dug a bunch of this, while this also made this the third ending of the night that I just really did not like at all. I haven't read what anyone else has said about this show, but I cannot fathom logging on tomorrow to find out the rest of the internet thought this was a night of the sickest finishes. These matches finishes have been fucking terrible to me. I liked too much of this to shit talk too much, as these two were super complementary wrestlers breaking out some wild stuff in their first ever match of any kind opposite each other. I really dug all the submission stuff, and liked how Balor was actually lacing in some nasty stuff to rub Riddle's face into it. That baseball slide dropkick was just plain mean, and we even got a very special All Japan Comm Tape slo mo shot of Riddle's mouth going all rubber face mask after eating that boot. Now, it left me a little cross when Balor sent that boot straight into Riddle's teeth, but then bumped noticeably early the first time Riddle went for a big kick. I mean you gotta give and get, and luckily Riddle made him pay with some nice throws (his early Karelin lifts will always look cool), and I like how he just showed Balor how shit his German was by hopping up, hitting that V trigger, then dumping him with his own German. Riddle catching a Pele kick was probably my favorite part of the match, as it turned into an actually good ankle lock sequence, something I could have actually bought as the finish - and would have loved for it to be the actual finish. Riddle caught that Pele kick perfectly, twisted that ankle, sent an axe kick down into Balor's kidneys, grabbed the other ankle when Balor gave it to him, and I just really wanted that to end things. Balor was actively good at selling that ankle, and I even got into all the performative shit like Balor coming up lame while getting thrown into the ropes, because Balor was actually doing it really well! Now, obviously, that ankle selling went WAY out the window when it came time for Balor to do a double stomp of the top, and...I can't speak for everyone here, but I, if I was limping badly on an ankle, unable to even run, able to put no weight on it....and then I was given the opportunity to jump as high into the air as I could, and stick a landing right on my Kerri Strug'd ankle...I probably wouldn't take it. But Balor cannot WAIT to jump as hard as he can right onto that ankle, a man literally incapable of coming up with ANY other offense to do to Riddle, a man so set in his ways that he is obviously going to just jump into the air and land upright. I don't think Balor needed to win this match, and I didn't like that he did, and I didn't like the stupid double stomp because man what the fuck.

Roderick Strong/Kyle O'Reilly/Bobby Fish/Adam Cole vs. Keith Lee/Donovan Dijakovic/Tommaso Ciampa/Kevin Owens

ER: This came off like a big, bloated, overly dangerous indy War Games, and I mean that in a good way. I like the regional indy flair it had: An oafish giant, an anti-hero team captain wearing weird facepaint, a big man taking stiff shots to the side of his cinderblock dome, guys going through tables at awkward angles, and just the way the big moments kept inching up bigger and bigger, bumps getting dumber and harder. Some of the prop set up was too focused and mapped, but at times it added to the cheap charm of them being big stage backyarders pushing their limit. I really loved the first 5 minutes, Ciampa vs. Strong. I thought the match did get weaker once we got the tables integrated, but the first 5 minutes were those two really laying in stiff strikes and constantly pushing pace. Ciampa hits a wicked kneelift after tying Strong up in the corner, and it was the start of a really great match long performance for Ciampa. Keith Lee is a super fun wrecking ball, takes a few big ass bumps, and deals with multiple moments of Undisputed teeing off on the side of his head. Lee is a great Hulk to sit there and be slowed by hard shots to the ear. Owens got a good reaction and seemed to feed off it, turning in a real spirited performance with dangerous bumps, including my actual favorite use ever of Adam Cole's bunny hop flipping piledriver. I really loved the struggle the two of them went through, fighting on the metal plate joining the two rings, like they were fighting on a stadium's catwalk in a Bond movie or something, and they way they fought over it I had no clue who was going to be dumped on their head. It went long, but it felt like it ramped nicely, felt closer to real epic than faux epic.


ER: I really didn't like the finishes of the first three matches, but the PPV ended on a decent note for me because I liked each subsequent match more than the last. I was majorly disappointed in the women's War Games - fantastic Bianca performance aside - and the three way felt clunky during all the Priest/Dunne moments. Riddle/Balor was very fun for much of the duration, and the main event delivered better than I was hoping. So it kept getting more enjoyable as it went on, which will make it seem better than it was in hindsight. But it was still one of the weaker TakeOvers I've watched.

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NXT TakeOver: Phoenix 1/26/19

War Raiders vs. Undisputed

ER: Soooooo....I think the War Raiders entrance was the baddest ass version of all of the HHH rape and pillage if-Mad-Max-were-a-Meat-Loaf-video entrances. Them rising up out of the fog in loincloths and helmets could have easily looked silly, but I think it genuinely looked cool. And this match feels like NXT doing late 90s FMW workrate tags, and it's some pretty tasty popcorn. This was a nice big spotfest that earned the This is Awesome chants and was worth cringing through the Fight Forever chants. I used to always be underwhelmed by Hanson on the indies and in New Japan, but thought he looked great when I saw him at an NXT house show in November, the tightest I had seen him look. And he continued making that impression here, having one of the most joyous hot tags of recent memory, crashing through Undisputed in several ways, hitting a high leaping crossbody, upending O'Reilly with a lariat, banzai drop, running Porky senton in the corner, a hell of a run. He's also just a real bump freak, and he takes one here that would rank respectably on the Hamrick Scale, going for a tope and finding everyone had gotten out of the pool, just a big thudding back splash. Roderick Strong was a really great Tully in this one, nasty when he needed to be, but also great at being sneaky and working to cut off the ring. We got big moments like Hanson being bodyslammed off the apron into Undisputed, big splashes off the top, Strong sticking some mean backbreakers, O'Reilly planting a great kneedrop off the top rope, and War Raiders hitting many big running lariats. This was a real fun spotfest that felt like it nicely spaced out the big moments, and I think this delivered in a way that made the titles feel like a big deal worth fighting for. Real fun start to the show.

PAS: That entrance, man alive, this match this had the feel of a internecine Unite the Right battle between Convington Catholic MAGA teens and Vargsmel Zorn 88 cosplayers. I kind of want to hate the Undisputed Era, that cornball fantasy booking name, combined with the Davey Richards residue still sticking to O'Reily, it is hard for me to admit that these guys are pretty great at this kind of car crash tag match. I thought this was a star making performance for Hanson. He timed all of his cartwheels really well, so they were an organic part of the match rather then just a taunt, his crash and burn to the floor was nuts, and he made both a good hot tag and face in peril. I really liked how Rowe kept hurling him at the opponents like a gigantic Spike Dudley.  O'Reiley and Strong are great at finding ways to pick away at bigger men, always running in to clip a knee or land a cheap shot. I thought the War Raiders both did nice bits of no-selling when they got hit head on, only to sell big when they didn't see it coming. I thought they had a kick out or two too many in the end run by Hanson, but they definitely kept the crowd on a string and the finisher combo was really impressive.

Matt Riddle vs. Kassius Ohno

PAS: These guys had a really great series in EVOLVE and they brought that chemistry to this match. Ohno brought a bunch of fun new offense, including blocking a sunset bomb to the floor by putting Riddle's head in the ring skirt and stomping on it (shout out to Fit Finlay), they also steal the Yair Rodriguiez vs. Korean Zombie finish with the odd angle back elbow. Ohno is a maestro at leg slapping, maybe the only guy in wrestling who can pull that dumb stunt off, and he really looks like he is pummeling Riddle with big elbows and kicks, something that was helped with the visual of Riddles swollen and bloody lip which came after Ohno stomped right in his open mouth. Riddle threw some great stuff too, his slow motion Everest German looked great and the sleeper suplex dropped Ohno really nastily on his neck. I dug the finish with Riddle getting a tap out on strikes, although it really buries Ohno, they kept mentioning his 0-4 record at Takeover and he was basically crying after the match. They might be redoing the old Hero losing streak gimmick from early 2000s IWA-MS, or they may just be taking him off TV, but man was that finish convincing.

ER: Loved all of this, just a real great sprawling fight between two guys who I like a ton. It's wild how long Hero has remained one of my favorites, and I love the moveset he's settled into that still allows for surprises.  I was into this one, but I really got into it once they moved into a Finlay adjacent spot, with Ohno slipping Riddle's head into the ring skirt with his foot, like a jersey pulled over his head in a hockey fight, and then stomps on Riddle's head. Later we get slo mo footage of Ohno throwing a running boot right into Riddle's mouth, his face contorting in freakish ways. It reminded you of the first 90s All Japan Comm. tape you ordered, and you didn't quite get All Japan on first view but then you got to a slo mo shredding guitar music video of Misawa and Kawada hitting each other and sweat flying off Kawada's hair as he eats a huge elbow, and it all started to make more sense. I love all of Ohno's kicks, and love the knees he yanks Riddle into, and love the way a guy can go into a match 0-3 and still be shit talking. Riddle had some impressive as hell throws, hitting a cool Karelin gutwrench, and the always great slo mo German, and my god that sleeper suplex was just brutal; Ohno's head looked like it bounced diagonally off the mat. Just like the match before, these guys felt like they were pulling out all the stops, and this one managed to build all the action to a fever pitch before crushing Ohno down to 0-4. Genuinely curious where they go with this, would love to know Ohno will still get to be in matches like this. Because this stuff is among the best in wrestling.

Johnny Gargano vs. Ricochet

ER: I really loved the long, Low-Ki/Red Jackie Chan throwback at the beginning, with modern turns to it, with this being the extended cut. There were long portions of this match where everything, all the sequences came off very rehearsed. BUT, they were executed so well and laid out cleverly enough that even the overly prepared presentation was still almost always fun to watch. Yes, long sections felt like bonus extended features on the Only the Strong dvd, but it brought us a ton of fun dodges and escapes, and it felt like that oddball stage fight from last year's Red/Low-Ki House of Glory main event. I appreciated that Gargano always stuck to the heel persona, didn't sucker people into an dumb faced Gargano sells, always looking for ways to cut corners but not always overly. There were plenty of moments I thought were eyerolly, some big kickouts and some mirror kind of stuff that didn't work as well as their best sequences, and of course we get a poison rana on the floor that doesn't actually lead to the finish.....but then something would happen like Gargano taking a nasty tumble to the floor and hitting the apron on the way, and I'd be snapped back into enjoying everything. The ways the match ramped up were cool, and the finish was mean as hell: Gargano drops Ricochet with a brainbuster on the floor, mats removed, Ricochet's body making a sick smack on the concrete. Back in the ring and Ricochet gets spiked with a DDT and Gargano's victory actually did feel like a big deal. Everyone is busting their asses to an absurd degree on this show, really feels like a cool environment where everybody wants to be noticed. Definitely a 3 for 3 show right now.

Bianca Belair vs. Shayna Baszler

PAS: This was a match which clearly owed a lot to Baszler's greatness and whoever lays out the women's matches at the performance center. Belair is clearly still a rookie and has a long way to go, but they put together a pretty good match with Baszler being a vicious asshole tearing at the bad shoulder, and Belair having a couple of huge moments. That hair whip is an all time great bit of shtick, I loved how Baszler used her hair against her, and how Belair opened up that cut when she used it as a whip. The power out of the rear naked choke was pretty awesome, and I loved how she almost did it a second time before collapsing. I didn't think they needed all the bells and whistles with the run ins, and Belair still isn't there in between her big moments. This was about as good as it could have been though, and Baszler is a star.

ER: I was really into big parts of this. The stuff that worked REALLY worked. Shayna yanking the braid to tug Belair into the ringpost was a great start to all the arm work, and Shayna's armwork is always guaranteed to be high end. I thought Belair did a fantastic job selling it, several cool spots revolved around her not being able to fully pull something off due to her bum wing, and she made it come off naturally. Her body movement on the missed flung right hands was really cool, and the build all the way up to that horrific whip crack braid shot across Baszler's stomach was insane. I can't believe Belair opened up a CUT on Shayna's body with her HAIR. Her hair is a marvel of course, so at this point it probably wouldn't take a lot to convince me that she could swing from it. I thought the run-ins were a bit too predictable and silly. Duke and Shafir looked like such boobs that it would have just been better to have them not out at all. They got dispatched immediately and then moments later Duke got easily kicked off he apron and pratfalled into Shafir, looked like Keystone Cops. The finish was dope as hell with Belair powering through a rear naked and slowly shifting Shayna's whole body to be able to do an awesome, hard suplex. The immediate missed 450 was a cool own petard finish, and I appreciate that they gave us a nice looooooooong tease that the clutch would actually finish or Belair would be able to power through again. The layout of this was awesome, Phil is right that whomever is helping agent the women's NXT matches is someone with a brain worth picking. The layout really felt like it turned Belair into a full babyface, totally nailed it, and both came off bigger. This is a great show so far.

Aleister Black vs. Tommaso Ciampa

ER: This was a big batch of sexy dance fighting, but it was really well done sexy dance fighting. To me sexy dance fighting feels like something that always feels within itself, like you're watching a pre-taped performance that wants live performance reactions; there's a disconnect that's always present, every step feels workshopped or overly organized, or like a great match as conceived by a computer simulation. When you're locked into the formula, performance and execution are key, and the execution was great here. It's exhausting and always impressive, but doesn't always engage because you get the sense early that they're locked into exactly what they're locked into, regardless of reaction. The pace is persistent and impressive, and they threw out a lot of sequencing I really liked. I liked how Black played the knee injury, shaking it a little after landing a tope con giro (though even that felt overly planned as Nigel jumped in and point it out a little too quickly) and leading to a few fun moments where his knee failed him. The best was during the very finishing stretch where Ciampa was rolling him through on multiple Fairy Tale Endings, and Black came up to his feet with a Black Mass that fell way short because of the knee, allowing Ciampa to hit another FTE for the win. But there was a LOT of that swing dance vibe happening through out, and it's hard for me to stay into a match that has a lot of that. You catch my leg, swing me one way, I come through with a kick from my other leg that bounces you off the ropes, your momentum off the ropes with a lariat sends me bouncing in another direction, etc. It all looks impressive when it's as well executed as these guys can do it, but it never really feels like pro wrestling to me. They're doing something seamless...while also showing too many other seams. And a lot of impact is lost when guys have to be in position for the next dance move, so you get awesome moments like Ciampa perfectly timing a missed Black Mass to catch Black with a nasty elbow in the back of the head, looked like a perfect nearfall shot...but because the dance must go on, twas merely a flesh wound to Black. I am both very impressed by this match, and left somewhat cold.

ER: Awesome show, even with the main event that wasn't always my thing, but had impressive action with an unmatched pace. We're landing three matches from this on our newly growing 2019 MOTY List, and this was a very fine way to spend 2.5 wrestling hours.

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NXT TakeOver: WarGames 2 11/17/18

We went to the NXT Tapings/House Show in San Jose on Thursday, had a great time, and have dug every single TakeOver I've watched so far. Plenty of potential on this card.

Matt Riddle vs. Kassius Ohno

ER: Well this was not quite how I was expecting to start off TakeOver, but Ohno *did* sound pretty whiny on the pre-show, so he kinda had it coming. Mauro says the match lasted "about as long as a Hollywood marriage" which was probably a pretty hot reference when Drew Barrymore married some bartender 25 years ago.

Kairi Sane vs. Shayna Baszler

ER: Bummed I didn't get to see Shayna live on Thursday, but she was there with her Horse Girls. I'd never seen Duke or Shafir wrestle (and have no clue how much they have wrestled), but they were fun. I knew they would get involved here but wasn't expecting it so soon, and I do like the trope of a heel getting an immediate pinfall advantage in this kind of match. 2nd fall was fun with Baszler attacking immediately with a knee to the chin, and the knee looked good enough that I thought they would be running two incredibly short matches in a row. Baszler always looks good in control, although Sane isn't an interesting seller, just kinda flops and rolls around no matter what happens. But things ramp up when Baszler eats a crazy DDT on the ring apron, really planting that head in a great visual. I also liked the Horse Girls interference backfiring, especially Duke missing a kick and hitting the ringpost, and Sane doing her wild elbow off the top onto all of them. Things get pretty silly from there with the match basically serving as the background for Dakota Kai and Io Shirai running out and taking out the Horse Girls. Kai looked good, really booting Duke in the face, but Shirai does that super dumb thing where you run out to save your friend, and instead of attacking them when they're 4 feet away, takes all the time in the world to slowly climb to the top and hit a moonsault onto all of them. The visual looked good, but it's really dumb when you think about it for one second. The finish I don't think worked at all, with Sane hitting her elbow but Baszler immediately rolling her over for the crucifix pin. I don't get how the elbow can finish all her matches, but also be instantly ignored and reversed into a pin. Maybe it wasn't supposed to hit and it was supposed to look more like Baszler catching her? Whatever it was, it didn't work, and this whole thing underdelivered. I guess they're focusing on this as a trios match instead down the line, which is a match up that can be fun.

Johnny Gargano vs. Aleister Black

ER: They start with a bunch of cat and mouse that feels directly inspired by Low-Ki/Red or like they were jacking Anderson Silva highlights, but I thought it was cool, Gargano using head movement to dodge jabs, eventually getting caught when Black faked a jab to get Johnny to duck and then nailing him with a kick. Also liked Black doing his little yogi pose and Gargano running right in to kick him. The whole first several minutes are a bunch of fun bullshit, but a modern indy twist on stoogey bullshit, using a lot of constant movement without really gaining ground. But it's tougher to make that kind of swing dancing bullshit work when you're getting into the meat of the match, as you start taking big bumps that then get kind of immediately ignored for more ladies night square dance spots. Black eats a crazy DDT off a Gargano tope, and then back in the ring eats another DDT that leaves him suspended vertically on the mat for awhile, but seconds later they're back do-si-do'ing and springboarding into superkick trade-offs. A lot of it looks cool, but a lot of it also feels like total nonsense. Sometimes I find really fast spotfests exhilarating, but this feels like they need to be letting some of this breathe a bit. A lot of the stuff would still look great if it was slowed down a bit, and things do get better when Gargano stops Black with a couple of big flying knees. But there's just not a lot of space here. We go into a formula strike exchange that ends with Black teeing off on Gargano, but Gargano immediately shoves him to the floor, and Black immediately no sells a bump to the floor by kneeing Gargano out of the air on a tope. Again, a lot of the stuff they're doing looks cool, and almost all of it feels completely hollow. Even the finish seemed to come almost out of nowhere, as Gargano had been running around the whole damn match barely fazed by anything, but then goes out like a light. They went for go go go, and a lot of it just went went went in one ear and out the other. Also, I'm trying to write more 1980s Gene Shalit punchlines in my reviews now.

Velveteen Dream vs. Tommaso Ciampa

ER: Dream's 1998 Hollywood Hogan gear is fly as hell. He was Macho Man when we saw him Thursday, and did a ton of great Macho axe handles including a great one to the floor. I mean he's clearly a Savage acolyte anyway so it's a pretty lateral transition. And as I'm typing that I'm realizing that means we might see him doing a bunch of Hogan cosplay here and....and  man that sounds lame. But Dream is one of my absolute favorites this year. I think he's improved incredibly in the past two years and if he can make some Chikara horsehit work then he might be top 25 in the world. It's a big if though. And there is some Hogan cosplay, but mainly with a legdrop and boot, which is something you can work into your offense. He's not out there working a death days Charlie Haas gimmick or anything. And I like a lot of this but really loved the moment where Dream locks in a ringpost figure 4 on Ciampa's chronically bad knee. Not only because ringpost figure 4s fucking own, but we get a surprising tap from Ciampa while the ref isn't looking, and it's cool because maybe he did it to break the hold, maybe he did it because Dream beat him. Once Dream starts working the knee it gets really good, and I liked the figure 4 drama, liked the big dramatic spill on the floor...but fully expected and was fully annoyed by Ciampa limping around on one leg, but still doing every single bit of his offense that involves dropping Dream onto his own hurt knee. "Oooooooo my kneeeeeee!!! Whelp, time to powerbomb a guy onto my knee!" The finishing stretch was both hot, and kind of long winded. There were some awesome moments and awesome nearfalls. I loved how all of the DDTs were set up: Dream jumped off the top but stopped short and caught Ciampa's boot, got kicked to the floor and got planted with the DDT coming back in. Great set up for that DDT. On the floor both flew over the announce desk but Dream caught him with the rolling death valley driver and rolled him in to plant the elbow for a great nearfall. The Dream DDT on the belt looked great, we got Dream crashing and burning to the floor on a crazy missed elbow, tremendous bump, and the match finishing hanging DDT on the metal joining the two rings was an awesome use of a ring. That metal grating is never there otherwise, and it feels like a great Finlay idea to utilize that into a unique finish. But I think there was some unnecessary excess and wasted time, and I think we had some unrealistic kickouts instead of creating actual drama. I don't think this was far from being a really good match, and I thought Dream looked fantastic (getting a little bored with Ciampa's whole thing at this point), but I don't think this quite got there.

WarGames Match: Undisputed Era vs. War Raiders/Pete Dunne/Ricochet

ER: Man those shark cages are dorky as all hell. And Adam Cole was not at all the guy I wanted to see wrestling this entire match. But at least they're smart and put the heels up 2 to 1. It's insane how often that gets screwed up. Everybody screw over Roderick Strong on his entrance, doing all of their selling at the same time in the ring farthest from the cage door. So Strong runs in like a house on fire and has to run through a fucking Double Dare obstacle course to get to everybody standing around watching him like an idiot. And this whole match is just a reallllllll...slog. First off, you know a WarGames with no blood is just always going to be lame as hell. One of the first VHS wrestling tapes I rented from the video store was the big beautiful Great American Bash '87 clamshell, with two different WarGames: THE MATCH BEYOND matches. I was WWF only at this point in my life, and the wrestling I was so used to was so much more...grimy and violent than I was used to. I knew most of the wrestlers in those '87 matches, most had been in the era of WWF that was my first wrestling, but it felt so different than the wrestling I had been watching. This didn't feel grimy or violent. It felt like a series of uninterestingly laid out spots. It had some of the sloppiness of a big CZW cage match, but without any of the grime or violence. There are always going to be good moments from something like this, but my god I was so young when this match began. Mauro says "It must be a nightmare for all involved" and it's the only time he's made sense tonight. This match is a neverending nightmare of a match. If I was King of the References Mauro Ranallo I would say "This match is such an unending nightmare that I'm begging for Freddy Krueger to appear and rip me apart asshole to throat!" Ricochet had some big flying spots (including 7 guys managing to miss catching him on his huge backflip senton), and there was an awesome moment where Rowe alley-ooped Fish into a killer Hanson powerslam, but man did this whole thing draaaaag. I can't decide if the stupid 8 man dude Christmas tree powerbomb off the ropes was really really stupid or just really stupid, but I was laughing hard enough that it didn't really matter.

ER: This was easily the worst TakeOver that I've watched, with few positives. Velveteen Dream delivered huge, but a lot of the match structures felt like they failed huge. And really, Mauro turned in a show long atrocious performance. He stinks.

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NXT TakeOver Main Event: Phil and Eric Disagree, Now You Decide

Last Man Standing: Johnny Gargano vs. Tommaso Ciampa

ER: What a fantastic main event, super violent and hate-filled, a match that truly deserves to be called a war. They've been so good at taking this match to match, building upon other interactions and throwing in neat callbacks, that it's really easy to follow along and get hooked in. The energy they throw into every big moment is great, and they know how to space those big moments to make them as effective as possible. I've seen some complaints about drag during a couple portions of this, but I thought the pacing was super successful and made all the biggest moments stand tall. Their street fight at the last TakeOver felt like a classic ECW brawl, and this match was basically a culmination of all their interactions and match styles: the learned behavior counterpoint match, the big match nearfall epic, the late 90s brawl, and the overly emotional "Fight Forever". And Last Man Standing was a great way to combine all of those into one blowout. But LMS matches have their own pitfalls (guys asking for counts too frequently is one that happens a lot, which can grind a tempo down immediately), the big moments landed big, and they nicely wove in their ongoing drama.

This managed to feel like a fight for it's 30+ minute run time, never a This is Awesome contest or a Kurt Angle "We're going to have a MOTY" showcase. This felt like two guys who used to like each other, who really hate each other. Barely into the match Gargano is already exposing concrete on the floor, and not long after Ciampa is exposing the ring boards. They knew what this was. There were so many great set pieces, and I loved the escalation. Outside of the big moments we had a ton of small painful moments, like Gargano getting his back rammed into the edge of the steps, or Ciampa getting a chair flung hard off his patella, or Ciampa eating a DDT onto the edge of the exposed ring boards, to some nice messy strike exchanges where not every punch lands because not every punch needs to land, or Ciampa waiting out a count while sitting in a chair, only for Gargano to beat the count and find Ciampa at the perfect height for a superkick.

The big moments were tremendous, I especially loved Ciampa running full bore into Gargano with a knee on the floor, with a chair leading the way, sending both of them crashing through the barricade, That looked devastating enough, but when Ciampa starting piling other humans and chairs and anything he could find on top of him to make it harder to get up, that's just a guy after my heart right there. Ciampa tossing big announce chairs onto a heap is a visual I won't soon forget, and the whole count he's just perched on the announce table like King Kong. I kept waiting for things to feel like they've gone too long, but that moment never came for me. By the time Johnny had Ciampa handcuffed on the stage and was superkicking him while mocking his apologies, my own inner dark side had taken over and I just wanted Johnny to give him 50 straight superkicks, to guarantee he wouldn't be getting up. I wanted kids crying. "Stop! Stop! He's already dead!" But I loved the finish as it's real evidence of how badly these two want to make this match and feud work. Gargano flying knee first into Ciampa's face, his own momentum sending him violently sprawling over equipment crates to the floor, was as crazy looking as anything I've seen in wrestling. Ciampa falling off the stage onto his feet was delicious icing, as Johnny lied crippled on the floor. These two really got me hooked on this one. This was something I really loved.

PAS: We don't normally have this big of a disconnect on a match.  There have been times when we have had long back and forth discussions over whether a match is 19 or 26 on a list. Or whether something is 2 or 5, or whether a match makes it low or misses it,  but here is a match that Eric thinks should be near the top of a MOTY list, and I would be perfectly happy leaving on the cutting room floor. For the most part I thought this was a pretty standard WWE Last Man Standing match, the kind of thing they do half a dozen times a year, with some pretty big highs and some pretty cratered lows .

There was stuff I really liked, Ciampa's running knee with the chair into the barricade was great, and I loved him tossing chairs, containers and a KO camera guy on top of Gargano to keep him from getting up.  That is up there with some of my favorite LMS spots ever, although the WWE LMS matches tend not to stick in my brain, Big Show had some cool ones right? The exposed ring boards is getting to be a bit of a 2018 trope, but I thought it was done well here, and is a good way to escalate a match when you can't have blood.

There was some smaller stuff I didn't like too, some of Gargano's punches got a little Lisa Simpsony, there was one turnbuckle punch spot that was especially windmillish. I thought the big table spot, which was teased and teased, ended up looking pretty weak, Ciampa ate a superkick and kind of gently fell through the table with no height. For a match with a lot of reckless bumps, this was super safe and looked it. Did the Dudley's ever put Linda McMahon through a table? That felt like a bump she might take.

I had two main issues though. For one 35+ minutes is just too long for a match with this many big spots. We both criticized Kairi Sane for shrugging off that vicious ankle smash, but this match had Gargano take Ciampa's finisher three times less then half way through the match, plus taking his secondary finisher on ring steps. Ciampa got lawn darted into a chair 3 minutes in. Yet they still soldiered on seemingly forever. This kind of brutal war works best in a third of the time they did this in, I can't imagine Magnum vs. Tully would have been good if it was 30+ minutes long. Last Man Standing rules mitigate that a bit, at least we don't have a million 2 counts, but man this started to drag.

Also I thought that finish was incredibly stupid. The whole multiple superkicks where Ciampa is begging for mercy and Gargano is making his hack "I am a good man? Have a forsaken my humanity" faces was duuuumb. It felt like someone making fun of an antihero basic cable show about a pediatrician with a gambling problem who ends up working for the Sinola cartel. The last spot, where Gargano dramatically removes his kneepad (let me remind you this is a match where they have been bashing each other with chairs the whole match), like he was pulling out a machete or something, and then Shockmasters himself off the stage felt less like an epic wrestling finish, then something you put Benny Hill music over and mock on Twitter.

ER: So there it is, and since we're at an impasse we're leaving it all up to you. The poll is up on Twitter to decide how to handle this great and/or atrocious match.

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NXT TakeOver: Chicago II 6/16/18

Roderick Strong/Kyle O'Reilly vs. Danny Burch/Oney Lorcan

ER: Holy shit this match starts off my night go go go go. They are taking no breaths and it is hot as hell. Burch is working fast and everybody is whipping around the ring, and we get an awesome early match exclamation point when Burch catches O'Reilly on a leapfrog and catches his ankle, slamming it to the mat. Strong is working a weird MMA bully style, grounding Burch and peppering him with mounted punches, and O'Reilly works that too with a nice hardway double leg. O'Reilly's mounted elbows look pretty lousy, but his palm strikes have a nick smack. I'll allow it. Strong has a super underrated dropkick and he absolutely scalps Burch with one. But this match is all about the Lorcan hot tag, one of the hottest we've seen in ages. Lorcan throws a lariat straight outta hell, a couple of massive flying European uppercuts, sick fast flip dive onto everyone, total house on fire. They dump Strong on his head for good measure, Lorcan takes a disgusting bump off the top rope to the apron to the floor. We get a great dramatic 90s direct to video action movie moment with O'Reilly locking Burch in an armbar and a slow camera zoom as Burch is holding two fingers together to keep his arm from being fully extended. Lorcan re-eneters the match to hit a double blockbuster off the apron to Strong and O'Reilly, and then hits a bonkers doomsday device European off the top. Good lord that sentence is a mouthful and this match is really fun. I didn't love the Adam Cole interference and thought it slowed the match down a bit too much, and I didn't like the phone booth fighting spot, but the end run picking apart Lorcan was great. Strong saved his most vicious shots for the death blows, a nasty chop to the neck, a leaping knee to the face, a great diving lariat while O'Reilly hit a legsweep. A lively match, hotly paced, real crowd pleaser.

PAS: Lorcan is a blast, one of the better guys I can remember at pure intense sprint wrestling, actually reminds a bit of Sting as a hot tag, just an intense explosive killer. Lorcan sprints have been some of my favorite things in wrestling for the last couple of years, and I am glad he got a showcase match finally.  That bump to the floor was totally nuts, the kind of thing we might praise Jerry Estrada or Cactus Jack for, it felt like an all time bump freak bump. I am pretty lukewarm about the other three guys in this match, although they all had moments I dug. I am into Burch and Gallagher bring the barfight headbutt into the WWE, I have been in fist fights with Englishmen, that is a move you always have to be weary of.  I am with Eric on praising that cross arm breaker spot. So much of NXT is built around these cinematic moments, sometimes it comes off as hokey (as it does later in this show for example). Here though  I thought the two finger hold worked really well, and would have actually made a great finish, although the actual finish with Lorcan getting pounded from all sides until he collapsed was really great, reminded me of a cinematic death, I could see that being the way Jon Snow dies at the end of Game of Thrones (if he dies, this isn't a spoiler).

Velveteen Dream vs. Ricochet

ER: This is really rope runny but not in a too annoying way. They're both kind of slithery so it works as a fun style battle. Dream has some fun throwback offense, like a great clubbing double axehandle over the bridge, and modern flash like a ankle flip somersault senton, and hits a cool Aerostar-like springboard flip dive that just floats. Ricochet hits his own big tope and a no hands moonsault that kinda misses, but Dream sells it like it totally upended him. There's a little drag in spots and it's a tough pace to work after the previous long tag. The crowd maybe doesn't react as strong because of that. Dream is a loon though and really throws his body into a middle rope death valley driver, properly selling the damage by bumping almost just as big. His rolling dvd is a legit thing of beauty. I don't really love the stand and trade stuff, kind of goes on a bit long and some of the response bumps are a little too planned. But again this crowd is absolutely on fire for this so who am I to be the joyless crap sack? But I don't know, I think Ricochet doing his own just as good rolling dvd is a little silly, and then he hits his own elbow (and we don't even get the best elbow in the business from Dream!?!?), but he eats knees on a crazy far shooting star press, but then Dream whiffs on his elbow, literally landing almost completely across the ring a couple feet from the ropes. It was a bit longer and slower than it should have been, but they kept the crowd through most of it and that counts. A solid if flawed match.

Nikki Cross vs. Shayna Baszler

ER: Nikki's crazy act takes up the first couple minutes, and it's cheesy, but she's committed and it works enough. But once Baszler takes over then I get into this, dropping her in a backpack on the ring entrance ramp and kicking her around, locking in snug chokes, but then giving generously on Cross' comeback, taking a big bump on her shoulders on a back suplex. Baszler throws such awesome knees, but the finish came off a bit too cheesy to me. Shayna locks in a great choke, but Cross lasts way too long in it and ends with Cross eventually passing out while smiling a big inauthentic Joker smile. Baszler almost saves it while screaming crazily during the choke, and her black mouthguard screaming is a pretty great heel gag. Short and not bad, but I think it comes down to me not liking Cross a whole lot.

Lars Sullivan vs. Aleister Black

ER: Fun quick start after a staredown with Sullivan catching the Black Mass again, but bumping to the floor and eating a double knees and a high knee in the ring. There's a lot of near miss back and forth but it's been done well so far. We've not yet gone full do-si-do. Love the spot where Sullivan runs through a clothesline as if he's breaking the tape at the end of a marathon. Sullivan catching Black on the quebrada to the floor is a great strength spot, and we get a cool powerslam into the barricade and a crushing avalanche. Black is so much fun, I really stupidly want a RAMPAGE battle against Braun Strowman. Love that pop up powerslam but I don't know if I love him going up top. I kind of hate when big guys go up just to get caught, felt a little too cheap Hogan Nitro spot. But the clothesline from the apron was devastating and Sullivan does do a big awkward diving hippo splash off the top, catching a knee to the jaw. It looked messy but that may have been to its benefit. Black has some fun 2006 fast indie offense and I like his kicks to various parts of his legs. But Sullivan has some cool tricks too. You don't usually see big guys with neat offense tricks. His chop block to the front of Black's leg is sick, and a giant dude doing a stretch muffler is a wonderful sight in wrestling. The flying headbutt is stupid as all hell to be doing in 2018, Race was saying to cut it out like 30 years ago. And then it gets a 2 and is it worth it Lars? Lars missing the chop block and eating a double stomp to his lower back is a great Jackie Chan moments, and Sullivan sells for Black's kicks better than maybe anybody else in NXT. Fact. He has 4 different crumbling sells, like he's Kawada with a pituitary gland condition. I thought there were a couple minor missteps, but this felt like a pretty great Street Fighter II tournament final. This worked for me.

Johnny Gargano vs. Tomasso Ciampa

ER: This starts off like a fun 1997 ECW Tommy Dreamer brawl, I mean as if they were following a script, with a crowd brawl that sees Gargano get handed a Gargano sign from a fan, that has a stop sign hidden in it. It's so ECW that the crowd ends up doing an ECW chant. My word. The Gargano dive was big, filmed in a way that made it look like he flew 15 feet. Such a TNN garbage brawl, which is hitting the right spot on a Saturday night after a couple cold drinks. I mean this is taking me right back to some 2001 wrestling in college, watching Benoit doing rolling Germans and worked with that Crash aesthetic. Ciampa gets tossed over the announce table and he essentially spin kicks Percy on the way down. We're going through a bunch of greatest hits from 80s to 90s, Gargano whipping him with a belt and we still get a bunch of 90s garbage trash can spots, trash can lid spots, feels late 90s but violently so.

I love the exposed ring as a prop. It doesn't get used that often so it really does have some freshness and mystery to it. It feels like crossing a line. The vibe with the mat pulled back and exposed padding and glossed wood made it feel like two guys doing a drywall job in a halfway built house and getting into a fist fight over who has a nicer car. We get some nice set pieces here, feels like a really intricate stage fighting scene, tons of props. Gargano attacking that knee gives this some edge, both guys not afraid to go low. There is some wonderful soap opera drama on display. I'm sure there were at least two episodes of Passions that had someone remove off someone's wedding ring and spit on it. End gets really silly. They tease a big Gargano jump and don't pay it off, and I think Gargano goes to "nerve damage" selling a bit too often. But he cuffs Ciampa and delivers a bunch of superkicks he can't defend. The move that finishes the match is something that plays even better the more I see it, with Ciampa hooking Gargano by the neck as Gargano is getting back in the ring, and planting him with the DDT on the exposed ring. I really loved it because they exposed that ring 10+ minutes ago, and I love that exposed ring as a looming danger, and it went just long enough and just far enough away from the ring that we weren't thinking about it anymore. It was a quick power outage and Ciampa came off really hatable. This felt a cut below the other TakeOver Gargano main events, but I liked it's overblown style.

This was a good but not overly good show, but it never felt like a bad show. Everybody was working hard even if they were working at something that I wasn't digging. I think all the matches essentially accomplished what they wanted to accomplish. I also think a couple of these matches could improve on a rewatch, so it always felt like a show that mattered.

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NXT TakeOver: New Orleans 4/7/18

EC3 vs. Killian Dain vs. Adam Cole vs. Velveteen Dream vs. Lars Sullivan vs. Ricochet

PAS: I don't really go out of my way to watch car crash ladder matches, this may have been the first one of these I have seen in a couple of years, and I enjoyed it. Great debut for Ricochet who got to show off some of his nutso spots he has such crazy athleticism, and the spot where he moonsaulted off of a ladder as it was falling showed some pretty great timing in a dangerous atmosphere. Really dug Dreams elbow drops, the regular ones got great distance, and the one off the ladder was bonkers. Sullivan was awesome too, it is always great to have a beast in these matches and he was really killing people with throws and clotheslines, he also took some really unnecessary bumps for such a big guy. Cole seems like the least interesting of these six guys, and did the least memorable stuff, so him winning was a letdown, still this was pretty great.

ER: Really fun giant trainwreck ladder match, that went a little long and had some expected problems with slow climbing and guys disappearing. But the highs were high and made this an easy win. I loved having a couple of monsters in there, and Sullivan/Dane each had nice showings, and I loved the atmosphere building to their big Godzilla vs. King Kong moment, and them bealing Ricochet across the ring towards each other like those monsters throwing a tree at a helicopter. But everybody got nice individual showcases and all performed well. Adam Cole isn't my favorite guy but I thought he came off well here, thought the timing on all the superkicks was nice (with Ricochet setting up the big springboard into kick). Dream has nice whipping right hands and just about the most gorgeous top rope elbow ever, tons of hang time, tons of grace, tight compact landing, really a treat to watch him fly as far as he does. Sullivan was really good glue throughout, as he kept being held at bay by big moves, but he was looming there as a presence the entire time. EC3 and Cole wisely team up to take Lars out, and I liked this big ape getting pinned into the corner by having a huge ladder slammed into his guy. The big moments are big and certainly memorable, with Sullivan and Dain both setting up huge slams from the apron through ladders (really amused by Cole getting grabbed by Dain and Dain just butt splashing through a ladder). Ricochet springboards into Sullivan while Lars is climbing a ladder, looks like they were going to attempt Ricochet latching on and scrambling over him, but the ladder tips and both end up in a messy painful tangle. Ricochet hits an insane spot, moonsaulting off a ladder to guys on the floor, while he's being tipped off a ladder, just amazing timing that could have easily seen him slip and die on the ropes. Too much cool stuff to list, also loved Cole hanging on to Dain during a Vader Bomb, and getting whiplashed violently upon landing. The "Everybody Climbing" moment was a bit much and the climbing in general was pretty lousy during this match (a lot of guys - especially Cole - looking up and reaching after they were two rungs off the mat), but you came for crashes and they found a ton of unique ways to crash.

Ember Moon vs. Shayna Bayzler

PAS: I thought this was spectacular, one of the better WWE women's matches I can remember seeing. Loved the story of Moon delivering the receipt by dislocating Bayzler's shoulder, such a nasty move loved how Moon escaped the same attempt early, and the fear on Bayzler's face when Moon was setting it up. Bayzler popping her shoulder back in by slamming her shoulder into the post was nuts, and an awesome bit of character work. You really don't see many matches where heels sell a body part, and it was really well done. Loved the finish with Bayzler countering the Eclipse and all of the fight Moon was putting on. Bayzler grabbing her hair because her shoulder was shot was so neat. I am a Bayzler mark from her early pro-wrestling matches, and this was her putting it all together and knocking out a classic.

ER: Yeah this one easily ranks among the best WWE women's matches of all time. This is far and away the most complete Baszler has looked and the two of them had an awesome clash. Moon has a ton of cool takedowns that could look bad with a klutz taking them, but Baszler goes down with a snap. I love the sliding trips Moon does, logic stuff I could see Finlay using, like log rolling into Baszler's shins to trip her. Baszler doesn't skimp on strikes (my gosh that boot between the shoulder blades, and punting Moon in the top of the head while she hung upside down) and you got this cool battle of flashy offense versus focused striker. The stuff around posting the arm was fantastic, the promo package really made it look like Baszler had been snapping arms in half for months, and the selling from both when they're about to get snapped was great. Moon looked terrified, and Baszler's facials really put over the danger. She's been using this dangerous weapon and now has it turned right back against her. Baszler's selling was so strong down the stretch, really elevated this even more. Ramming her shoulder in the post was a great visual, but her anguished screams were the REAL. Her faces in between shoulder rams were some of the best selling I've seen this year. The finish was great with that Eclipse counter into the rear naked. I love when someone counters a standard headlock takeover by keeping a wide base and refusing to go over, so the visual of Ember doing her awesome flip off the top...only to have Baszler completely block it with her neck muscles, so awesome. Both women's singles matches at Mania were awesome, and this one topped it.

Authors of Pain vs. Roderick Strong/Pete Dunne vs. Adam Cole/Kyle O'Reilly

PAS: This was fine, I like AOP as a pair of taller Hit Squad, and there was some fun spots by everyone in the match. Hadn't seen Strong in forever, but he looked fine. I thought O'Reily had a couple of nice moments, but there was some bad stuff, his little slap fight with Dunne was pretty cringey. I imagine if I had watched more NXT the Strong heel turn would have meant more, but coming in cold it left me cold. Undisputed Era are just so cornball. Not bad, and if it is the worst match on this show it's a hell of a show

Aleister Black vs. Andrade "Cien" Almas

ER: Another absolute banger of a title match from Cien. Almas and Vega are legitimately one of my all time wrestler/manager duos in wrestling history, they make such a perfect team. Almas is so good in this role, playing an opportunistic heel who also goes aggressively after big moves that might backfire. He is currently the best "going in for the kill" wrestler out there. Vega is an all time great at interfering in matches. Her interference is super fast, timed to precision, done so flawlessly that nobody has to stall or keep their eyes averted longer than normal, just a series of quick in & out hits. I don't think there is currently a better big match worker than Almas in the world. I liked Black in this, but this was the Almas/Vega show and Black was competently along for the ride. Big match Almas layouts are so terrific about building to several peaks, sneaking in moments where you're positive something will backfire only to have it play out a way you didn't expect, and the Vega interference always is used perfectly.

Black has great flash to start, cool strike combos that are mixed up so that his opponent never has to look like a guy just standing and eating strikes. Black is also one of the best guys at incorporating moonsaults into a match/ His moonsaults are fast and rotate low, they aren't high and loopy, and it totally works when he chases Almas out of the ring only to scramble to the other side and nail him with a fast low moonsault, and back in locks in a painful octopus variation. So Black establishes early but Almas and Vega are just too good at building to moments. All of the Vega interference lead to something big, her running off the apron and sending Black into the steps with a rana, spiking him with a rana in the ring when Almas is trying to use the title as a weapon, yanking Black's boot on the outside allowing Almas to set up the running double knees on the apron, all her interference is perfect and actually leads to big momentum swings. Almas is really great at missing as big as he hits; he'll wreck you with those double knees, but he'll fly hard into the corner when he misses those knees. We get a cool Almas offense run with a snap German out of the corner and a wild tornillo from the middle rope to the floor, The nearfalls in this are bananas and build so well, first that Vega spike rana, then a scramble leading to Black hitting Black Mass, but some more expert Vega involvement when she gets Almas' foot on the ropes. Her saves and teamwork are so key to the duo, it's really difficult to rate Almas on his own. He'd be great solo, but her involvement adds so much to his big singles matches. The offense keeps ramping up with a huge Almas double stomp to the floor, and we even get a great moment off of a move that basically missed: Black goes for a big flip dive and overshoots, throws Almas back in the ring, but Almas hits the Hammerlock DDT, and I would have bet money on that being the pin. Now, they probably would be doing that spot whether the tope con giro hit or missed, but the fact that it mostly whiffed made this spot so much better, as Black threw Almas back into the ring as if he had the advantage, but Almas capitalized as the move hadn't hurt him much. The actual finish is perfect though, with Vega's interference finally blows up, as she gets desperate and goes for a crossbody, Black ducks, Almas has to catch her, and BOOM Black Mass spin kick. The finish really paid off so many months of Vega interference, and I just loved this whole thing. Someone tell me they have a handheld of any of the Vega/Almas vs. Gargano Familia house show matches?

PAS: Man is Almas putting in a heck of WOTY candidacy for 2018. His timing on spots is totally great, he and Vega always seem to be perfectly in place to capitalize on a wobble or misstep. He is also great at getting stunned and wobbled and selling frustration. His offense isn't fancy, but it is great looking, I think the coolest move of the entire match was Almas catching Black mid spin and dropkicking him right in the back of the head, which Black sold like he was concussed. Timing was perfect, impact looked brutal, selling was on point. Vega is a champ too, her rana's look credible and land violent, and she is a tremendous asset to the match. Finish was great, Vega has been the secret weapon for the entire title reign so it was perfect that she cost Almas the title in that way. Black has really offense and nice selling, but he felt a bit like a passenger. I really want Almas to get the title back and just go on a year long title run, I think a rudo this skilled could really do something awesome with Ricochet, and Almas vs. Velveteen Dream could bang too.

Tomasso Ciampa vs. Johnny Gargano

PAS: Gargano is really great at taking match tropes I dislike and turning them into undeniably great matches. His Almas match was pretty much the apex of near fall 2010s wrestling, this match was the apex of over dramatic WWE Emo main events. You could see the nadir the next night at Wrestlemania with Cedric Alexander and Mustafa Ali yelling "Show me the heart" and "Show me the Soul" during a heatless nonsense Cruiserweight title match. This match had those tropes. Gargano and Ciampa yelling "This is my moment", the whole finish with Gargano hesitating before putting down Ciampa, but this was a two year story they were paying off and both guys are much better facial sellers then your normal wrestler. The look of defeat on Ciampa's swollen face as he looked up at Gargano was really demonstrative, he really looked like a guy staring into the abyss he created. The work in here was really brutal too, both guys ended up with pretty bad facial swelling from those slaps and kicks, Ciampa looked like he was trying to pulp Gargano's skull with those stomps to the back of his head, and both the suplex on the floor and the powerbomb on the floor were nasty and sold like it. I do think this went a bit long, they could have hit all the emotional beats and big spots with five less minutes, but it is hard to argue with the crazy year Gargano is having, and that is coming from a pretty big indy Gargano skeptic.

ER: I loved this, a great violent emotional spectacle that required compelling acting, and the acting was good enough that the ending staredown had me pulled in all of the directions. I wanted them to hug, I wanted them to get coffee, I wanted Gargano to murder Ciampa, I wanted it all, and I love the direction the took it. This show had a crazy violent 6 man ladder car crash that went 30 minutes, and 2 hours later they had to go out and have a violent match at the end of an already long weekend, after everybody in the building saw numerous people go through tables and ladders and fall from great heights. There's a scenario where you could easily see the crowd burnt out for this match, but Gargano and Ciampa did not give anyone a minute to feel burnt out. While I did think things went on a bit too long overall, I thought they filled the time admirably, and it really makes me wonder if I just completely missed on liking Gargano on the indies, or if he's just gotten really, really great in NXT. Because he is, that.

They built to everything so nicely here, and the big moments felt huge. Ciampa was great at showing frustration through rushing, and I thought it played great, things like trying to rip the floor mats up while still standing on it, or ripping all the monitors up and getting somewhat tangled in the cords; he wanted to wreck Gargano and he didn't plan on being patient about it. Both guys laid it in and I liked that there was actual struggle to the stand and trade, with Gargano's punches and elbows looking especially sharp (Ciampa looked like he had battled a swarm of bees by the end of the match). The big spots were big and used well, that suplex off the table sounded bone breaking, and the powerbomb onto concrete sounded like when I dropped a watermelon on my sidewalk when unloading groceries. It should also be noted that we had the only great use EVER of the "You deserve it chant", directed at Ciampa after he got powerbombed. The big Gargano Escape tease was great, truly could have seen Ciampa tapping there once Gargano shoved off the ropes, but you knew we would end bigger, and Ciampa breaking it with a brutal eye rake/nose rip was important. The weapons attacks were all cool, far more interesting than the typical tables and chairs stuff. You knew the crutches were coming into play, but I hadn't considered the leg brace. Everything with the leg brace was savage and looked far meaner than any Singapore cane shot I've seen. The ending was so well done that I didn't know what was about to happen: Was Ciampa genuine? Was Gargano wanting a polite resolution? Were we going to bookend all of this with another lean-in hug on the mat? Ciampa goes for his pistol and Gargano was smart enough to suspect he would, and the final Gargano Escape with the leg brace smothering Ciampa's face was an awesome final visual. Both guys knocked this out of the park.


ER: What more could you want out of a pro wrestling show? I cannot remember a wrestling show that had two matches I loved as much as Almas/Black and Gargano/Ciampa (maybe Royal Rumble 2007?) but throw in an all time great WWE women's match and a great ladder scramble and this show should be viewed as legendary. Four of the five matches are easy adds to our 2018 Ongoing MOTY List, and they all lived up to some potentially hyperbolic hype. If you've somehow not watched this show, I could not imagine recommending something more.

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