AEW Five Fingers of Death 8/18 - 8/24

AEW Forbidden Door 8/24/25

Toni Storm vs Athena

MD: One of my favorite parts of Forbidden Door was the short film with Nigel McGuinness playing Chess with Johnny Saint (I'm more of a Marty Jones guy but that's beside the point), and I thought that played well into the Nigel vs ZSJ match and the comparison of rigid, tactical chess against an agile sort of jazz. That said, if you want to see a real example of human chess, look at the start of Athena vs Toni. 

Athena rushed in right from the get go, foot flying, but Toni was prepared for her, moving out of the way, giving her a quick mauling, and then using the hip attack to knock her off the apron. Strategic, stylized, tactical and character driven (more on that later). On the floor, Billie Starkz, and for the sake of this, we'll call her Athena's bishop and not her pawn, got right up into Toni's face. Toni, realizing the threat she was, rushed forth to take her off the board, hitting an abrupt Storm Zero out of nowhere. In doing so, however, she opened herself up for the same sort of flying kick that she was able to avoid at the start of the match. Athena sacrificed her bishop for the first two thirds of the match to get this early advantage. Chess.

Which is not to say that these were two measured, focused, clear-headed players. They're not. Toni Storm portrays a madwoman; there's no way around that. Yes, she's one that learned to love herself, learned to embrace the madness, learned to be canny like a fox, to lean into the trickster element of a Bugs Bunny or Groucho Marx, but she began this journey with a mental break and while she can ride the wave to success and skillfully employ mind games, one always sees the cracks within the character. 

Athena's not much better. She entered AEW with fanfare and excitement and quickly fell down the rankings. On one fated night in Canada, she pushed things a little too far on an Elevation taping, felt the bad faith backlash of misogynists and tribalists, and leaned hard into it, never looking back. Riding her own vehicle of madness, each and every crack just tripping her forward with more and more momentum, she became one of the most electric, unpredictable, unstoppable figures in wrestling. In both cases, there's a fine line between madness and genius, between being beloved and reviled, between being a hero and being a monster.

There was no lengthy shine here. It was a short burst ending with Toni taking Billie off the board and Athena taking advantage of the sacrifice. From there, Athena leaned down hard on Toni, focusing on her neck (already injured somewhat due to a prior pile driver on the steps). Toni, of course, fought back at every opportunity, like the champion ace she is, but Athena had one clever, athletic, and slightly askew cutoff after the next. She'd ride Toni's momentum and come back down upon the neck, would contort her body to sneak in a redirection or a trip out of nowhere. 

Toni represents the unbridled creativity of the human heart, embodying the spirit of old cinema: skilled camera tricks in a world before CGI, clever wordplay to get around the Hays Code, silent movie performances that relied upon the eyes more than anything else. Athena however, is the Fallen Goddess, chaos itself stuffed into a relatively diminutive frame, seething rage bubbling up when you least expect it, that magic forearm like its own version of Chekhov's Gun always ready to go off at any moment, loaded and primed by the sheer existence of this malignant and dynamic force of nature. 

And that rage drove her here. If she herself was a burr upon the world, an irritation, an agitation, Toni Storm was all of those things to her.  Athena had a historic reign like no others, but she had been banished to a paywall-locked show, too dangerous and unpredictable to be brought out into the light. Instead it was Toni who had the often literal spotlight. Athena was an athlete, gritty, tough as nails, agile, explosive, but Toni's over the top antics brought Storm flowers, fame, the love of the crowd. Her madness was embraced as genius. Athena's was not.

So while she pressed her advantage, the burr that was Toni Storm and everything about her pressed into Athena's soul. She started to posture and pose, to try to expose Storm to the world as the fraud that she saw her as. Prepared to add insult to injury, she lined Storm up for her own hip attack in the corner, clapping the fans up, posing ridiculously, and running right into Toni Storm's clothesline, right into the start of her comeback.

But Athena was mostly fresh and the two traded blows and bombs. Starkz, having been wiped off the board early on, found her way back up and showed her worth, distracting Storm to allow for Athena to hit a top rope 'rana. Storm went for the Storm Zero, Athena for her over the shoulder codebreaker, but neither worked. And Storm just barely survived Athena's Koji Clutch, her face, painted in white once again in ghastly homage to Baby Jane, itself a portrait of pain and perseverance, the eyes doing so much work.

Athena hit her forearm once. Storm avoided it later on and threw a jarring headbutt of her own, causing Athena to try to crawl away in desperation. In doing so, she yanked the apron cover up onto the ring, setting up Starkz to once again show her merit, pulling it back to prevent an apron Storm Zero. Storm, distracted, fell victim to an Apron O-Face over the top rope. She was left sprawled, half hanging out of the ring, as the ref and Athena had words inside. 

And here the match came full circle, right back to chess. Athena's bishop was causing havoc, about to crush Storm with a chair, but Storm's queen had been held back in wait. Mina rushed out to stop Starkz, driving her to the back and leaving Athena to face Storm alone. Starkz may be driven by fear, but Mina's loyalty comes from a place of love, and queen takes bishop and certainly takes pawn. All things now equal, king vs king (gender roles be damned), Athena managed to survive one Storm Zero, but not the Chicken Wing that followed. 

Storm's canniness had leveled the playing field early on but at the cost of falling to Athena's dogged aggression. Athena, consumed by her own fury, lost sight of the prize. That very force that drove her to such success, her unquenchable rage, here caused a misstep. Even so, she might have won the day save for Mina's intervention. Whether Toni showed herself to be the more masterful chess player or not, on this day, it was controlled chaos, composed madness, that won out, the light of a star driving Athena back into the darkness.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 7/28 - 8/3 (Part 2)

CMLL Viernes Espectacular 8/1/25

MJF vs Averno

MD: There is wrestling and then there is wrestling. And this, my friends, was wrestling. I smiled for about twenty minutes straight (past two moments of audibly mumbling "Cut him off, cut him off. Yes!" at the screen, which if you ever wondered how deeply I get into a match or how I deeply get into a match, probably sums things up more than I'd like to admit). This was about as joyful a 2025 pro wrestling experience as I've had. It was primal. It just worked. Look, I love a lot of modern wrestling, I do. I honestly do. But almost every match contains some form of personal compromise. "You have to do X because of Y (and Y is so often the crowd or the fear of the crowd's expectations)" even when it'd be better if you just didn't. But there's a magical place where you don't have to do X because Y doesn't exist, and that is the hallowed halls of Arena Mexico.

And that joy? That included the pre-match. Yes, it was cheap heat, but it was the most expensive cheap heat you could buy. Or the biggest value for cheap heat you could get? I'm not sure the metaphor is sticking. But what did stick was Jon Cruz. I liked Rocky well enough last time MJF was around, but then he was just trying to keep up. Cruz on the other hand was full on craven majordomo who took MJF saying he spoke multiple languages and translated it into saying MJF spoke twenty languages. My only regret is that we didn't get him translating Averno's stuff back to Max (it wasn't necessary) just to see what sort of ridiculous things he'd say in order to not anger MJF. And guess what? The crowd went from maybe not sure if they felt like supporting Averno on this night to absolutely getting behind him 110%. It worked. It worked big and that was on all three of them. Cheap heat? Sure, but look at what it bought them! (That metaphor was better). They popped huge when Averno threw that first fist and Max sold his jaw like it'd ended up in the fifth row.

The match that followed was beautifully minimalist. Max retreated. The crowd booed. Chills up your spine. Max got in a cheapshot trip. The crowd booed. Max got an eyepoke. The crowd booed. Max hit his swagger groin pushover (you know what I mean), and the crowd got absolutely irate. Averno started to come back at that and Max cut him off and pro wrestling is the best thing in the world, it really is. Max started in on the Irish Whips, basking in the effect of each one as Averno crumbled in the corner. 

But then Averno turned them around, Max backpedaled. He ate a dive. Back in the ring, Averno went to the top but Max kicked out the ropes (the crowd booed). He went up but Averno caught him and went for a Devil's Wings from the top. It turned into more of a pedigree bump and Averno's knee suffered along with Max's skull. Max took over, including with a nasty emotive half crab. Averno turned it in cross armbreaker (the crowd popped big). They made it back up. Max hit a truly lovely mule kick foul as he distracted the ref. Another half crab. A near instant tap, and past a few small wrinkles, that was the match. 

Averno is a rudo's rudo and him playing babyface has real early 00s Satanico vibes. I lamented when he left CMLL just as I was at my height of watching in 2014. He's someone who absolutely gets it, and here he was a great foil for Max. It's so obvious that MJF understands just what he has with the Arena Mexico crowd and with the wrestlers they put him up against. There's a purity to it and maybe I'm crazy, but I honestly think that purity can transfer back over the border if fans were just presented it without having to control for Y. But when it comes to this stuff, I guess I'm just a true believer. Can you blame me? It's hard to watch a match like this and not have faith in pro wrestling. Those boos are like nothing else in the world.

AEW Dynamite 7/30/25

Athena/Billie Starkz vs Toni Storm/Alex Windsor

MD: Nice purposeful tag match here, with a few interesting structural wrinkles actually. It started just how you'd like with Athena and Windsor chain wrestling. They had a very rough around the edges (in the best of ways) match on Collision that I was in transit for and couldn't cover but this was pretty smooth all things considered. It went right until Athena hit one of her super agile counters and celebrated with a big "Yay!" as she is want to do, which, of course, led to the tag to Toni and, after just enough shadowboxing to put the doubt of whether it might actually happen into the fans' heads, a roll and a tag to Billie. A lovely bit of heatseeking and dodging the champ. Big talk, big stalling, denying the fans their gratification just like a dangerous, delusional heel ought to do (and the whole way through this match, Athena was absolutely alive, reacting and acting and preening and getting shots in). 

Billie ended up outwrestled by the champ, who subsequently tangoed with Windsor right into a tandem kick in the corner. When Athena tried to intervene, she got scuffed up (for the first time) but immediately took a powder. Everything broke down from there, with Toni chasing Athena right into Billie's ambush and the heat starting on Windsor. Athena and Billie have been together for well over a year now (together being a fluid term) so it made sense that they'd have an advantage here. 

The back half of the match was built to the finish in a way that most matches aren't. Why? Because the finishing stretch was so abrupt in the sort of way tag matches could finish in decades past, right after the hot tag/immediate comeback. Toni was going to come in, quickly dispatch Billie with Mongolian Chops, and set her up in the corner for the hip attack and the Storm Zero. Athena picked up a blind tag along the way, however, and hit an O-Face for the win and to set up the title match at the PPV. Working backwards, that meant some of what would conventionally be in the finishing stretch actually happened before the hot tag. 

After some double teaming on Windsor, they knocked Toni off the apron setting up everything to break down and for her to come in and help Windsor into a momentum shift. The hot tag itself came only after Windsor had Athena down for a pin and Starkz hit her swanton to break it up. They both crawled to their respective corners after that. Because the emotional high point of the match was not Toni getting her hands on Athena but Athena sneaking out with the victory instead, they managed to sneak in some of the traditional comeback before the hot tag. I'm not sure it made for an overall "better" match, but it did serve what they were trying to accomplish (set up the PPV match) without shortchanging the crowd on action. Sometimes effective is more important than "great," and it was interesting how they got to that point here.

AEW Collision 7/31/25

Max Caster vs Rush

MD: Let's work through this together. The Caster Challenge is "Who Can Survive 5 Minutes with the Best Wrestler Alive?" so the general idea behind it is that they're supposed to make it through the time limit. The joke is that Caster is the one who has to survive and never does. It's a good joke. It's entertaining each and every week. Half a segment. Easy TV.

The initial purpose of the segment was Bowens redebuting with his new gimmick. It was used productively last week to show how the gimmick wasn't working and pushing forward whatever direction Bowens is actually going now. But here's Caster back out there. Along the way, the fans went from not chanting with him to chanting but then getting insulted for their efforts. Theoretically at some point, it all goes over the top and they start to get behind him and you've got a bulletproof lower-mid card babyface who can eat loses but still be over, right?

Anyway, fans chant, Caster makes a comment about Bowens (not helpful if Bowens is turning?) and insults the crowd, and out comes Rush, who had already won one of these. The goal here was to set up a post match beatdown on a sympathetic enough Caster so JetSpeed and Fox could make the save and set up a future six-man tag with LFI. 

But it was a bit of a weird way to get there. Caster ran away from Rush early, even mocking him by making little bull horns. At this point, he was booed. That worked right until he ran into Rush's fist. Then Rush destroyed him until Caster could get some distance and hit a dive. That got the fans behind him. Then Rush took back over and destroyed him again. That got the fans back behind Rush. This went on until the time limit expired as Rush was about to hit the Horns in the corner. Then people went from confused to vaguely happy for Caster. That wouldn't last as the beating followed and the save (people like JetSpeed, so that's good!). And then Caster raised his hand in the air from a prone position, which was equal parts defiant and annoying. 

There was the making of something really good in here, but it was either trying to be too many things at once or just thrown out there in a way that it wasn't trying to do enough, and it's a bad thing I'm not even sure what the answer was or what the long term direction for Caster could possibly be at this point. But I can't say I wasn't entertained because watching Rush destroy some poor schlub is always certainly entertaining. Just imagine if there was a little bit more focus and purpose driving this though?

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 3/3 - 3/9

AEW Revolution 3/9/25

Toni Storm vs. Mariah May

MD: We live in an age of lore, where the immediate gratification of social media crashes up against corporate created media full of first episode twists, end-of-movie stingers foreshadowing sequels years away, mysteries layered on top of mysteries where every answer just brings forth two more questions. We see it in wrestling too, albeit less in AEW than elsewhere. 

In AEW, much of the storytelling happens in the matches themselves. Even here though, things tend to be bogged down by excess and bloat. Sometimes that manifests in small ways: despite being both poetic and visually brutal, it wasn't enough for MJF to meet his comeuppance from the Angel's Wings; he needed to eat a Buckshot too (no, he didn't). Sometimes it manifests in medium ways: trust me, the Swerve vs Ricochet match really, truly could have ended after the Vertebreaker on the table and the subsequent House Call. They didn't need to go into a second finishing stretch. Sometimes it manifests in huge ways: I haven't actually watched Ospreay vs Fletcher yet, but I'll get there and then make sure to do everyone a favor and not write about it. All too often Chekhov's Gun fails to go off or outright misfires. Elements are dropped, forgotten, overutilized, made blatant where subtly would be more effective. 

Yet here we had a match which cleverly and organically looped in elements from over a year's worth of television, full of what might be considered excess were it not for the skillful structuring and execution, which could have easily fallen to pretention and navel-gazing but instead led with emotion and beautiful brutality. Here we had a match which was theatrical without being forced to be "cinematic," that was artistic in its imagery but trusted in all the strengths of the medium. Instead of using the genre it evoked to escape the stigma of pro wrestling, it highlighted the form instead, enhanced it, shined a spotlight on the sort of cathartic release and dramatic finality that can only come from this violent spectacle that we love so much.

It closed every parenthesis but never in a way that felt like busywork or an obligation. Instead, each easter egg and resurrected plot point, from the image of Toni and Mariah's bodies intersected after the early Sky High all the way to the use of the shoe at the very end, felt like an opportunity that they were able to make the most of. Every perfectly crafted image (Mariah writhing after being crotched on the barricade; the first real look at Toni bloodied, as she blinked her eyes in a shot that would have made Norma Desmond seethe with jealous; Toni laying sprawled as if plucked from a grisly murder scene) contributed to the whole while never feeling fabricated, never robbing us, the viewers, of our suspension of belief and sense of immersion. 

And they hit so many of these narrative marks: the hip attacks (enhanced by the rail, the chair); the finisher stealing which makes more sense in these matches with the two characters playing one another than in any other before it; and yes, the stomach-churning climax: Mariah's trademark champagne celebration turned into a nightmarish horrorshow. There, the match called upon Onita as much as it did a Spaghetti Western, that sense of anticipation (the wrapping with tape, Mariah's determination mixed with fear, Toni's old timey bareknuckled boxer stiff upper lip, the first few ducked shots) leading to deathmatch paymatch of Mariah getting punched in the face and the glass strewn across the mat (which did a great job rationalizing some of the finisher kickouts). 

Everything led back to the hall of mirrors carnival set piece burned in our memories, the top of the entrance where Mariah betrayed Toni. Here, Toni did whip Mariah with the belt, a final act of symmetrical revenge, but once again showed just an inch of merciful hesitation with shoe in hand. Unlike in London, however, it was brief, fleeting, and when Mariah tried to take advantage of it like the unredeemable villain that she was, she brought forth her own final comeuppance. 

It was a masterpiece not just for the violence, not just for the over the top excess, not just for all the references, but for its own restraint. Everything mattered. Everything was done with care. Everything created an effect. Instead of forcing any number of contrived sequences to cascade on top of one another, it gathered all of the narrative opportunities of the last year and managed to deliver upon the full storytelling potential of each and every one. The cart didn't drive the horse. Nothing was done simply for the sake of doing it. At every point, the characters drove the action. As I said, it was theatrical and not just cinematic; full of gif-worthy images, but never meant simply to create them; a payoff worthy of the build, and a bloody classic of a finale to join the canon on the Permanent Tapes. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 5/8 - 5/14 (Part I)

MD: Instead of going longform this week, I think we'll do a two parter. Yes, it's a shame that Dark and Elevation are gone, but boy do I like house shows and while we're sure they're taping these and we are going to have to live with the fact that no footage is going to show up for some of them (Corbin, KY, we're looking at you), it is nice when a fancam pops up. Catch these while you can. I'm pretty sure the Claudio vs Daniels match was up before and now it's not.

AEW House Rules 5/13 Salem, VA

Toni Storm vs Skye Blue

MD: Obviously Storm's been active for a while, but her WWE time on the main roster was primarily during the pandemic and she only had a handful of house shows once they started touring again. But she was everything that I wanted from a live event heel here, over the top, stooging, stalling, She ambushed Skye early, posed, preened, and then immediately got shown up with an elbow and a headscissors takeover. That led to stalling on the floor, a rush back in, more stooging, and another powder. This time Skye went after her, got ambushed, but then versed a whip into the pole with a nasty thunk. Skye followed it up by beating her around the ringside area until Toni finally rolled in, begged off, and lured Skye into getting draped throat first on the second rope to set up the hip attack to the floor and the heat. It's the sort of stuff that wouldn't work on TV due to hierarchy and the current angle and Storm's current character, but here in front of a couple thousand people in Salem, VA, it was loads of fun. 

I like Skye. I'm probably going to cover Athena vs Skye on Wednesday actually. She's scrappy, leans into her shots, has that great looking knee in the ropes, isn't afraid to take a beating. I think she's got a ton of promise. Here she takes that beating with Toni bigtiming her with the posing and general Outcast attitude leading to a transition where Skye fires back after a slap (and subsequently gets her stuff in: the knee, the spinout kick, the body press). Things switch back to house show mode with Toni pulling the tights right in front of Aubrey, leading to a rare shove by Toni and the old schoolboy ref push spot and a big pop for a fun nearfall. That was followed by some goofing with the spraypaint backfiring and Toni selling it like she was getting electrocuted with Skye superkicking her (and sending it into the third row), before Toni got a lucky shot in and hit the hip attack and Storm Zero out of nowhere. For a sub ten minute match this had an almost perfect balance of early stooging, heat, hard-hitting, and late stooging. Because it hit that balance so well, it was the sort of match people were going to talk about on the car ride home. I have no idea where Storm would have picked up that level of Larry Zbyszko excellence but she absolutely nailed it.

Darby Allin/Orange Cassidy vs Powerhouse Hobbs/QT Marshall

MD: Speaking of house show stooging, here's QT. They seem to be branding a lot of these shows around the unique (and sort of out of continuity so long as they don't keep following up like they did last time) pairing of Darby and Cassidy, and as much as I'd rather they brand it with Deadly Draws/Lethal Lotteries instead, it's not a bad choice. This was another one where we had the heel charge right in but when the heel is Powerhouse Hobbs and can move with that much accelerated intensity, there's no reason to complain. Hobbs and Darby are natural opponents and it's been a while since they faced off; Hobbs is a different wrestler with different presence than he was in 2020. Starting the match off with Hobbs tossing him about made me want a singles match between these two pretty badly. That led to QT really leaning into the antics. If he had just realized that he should have wrestled like Jeff Jarrett instead of someone who makes sure to do one or two flashy spots a match just to prove that he could, he would have filled a manager who wrestles niche so much better than the wrestler who manages niche we ended up, but it's hard to fault a guy for having pride. As it is, he gives me what I want here, screwing around with the crowd by refusing to get in and then refusing to toss Darby around, right up until the point where he does it one too many times and pays for it.

Paying for it meant that Cassidy got to come in and QT's a natural foil for him as a guy completely unafraid to show ass 90% of the time (it's that 10% that gets him, but like I said, not here). Cassidy went to the pockets, QT bumped his ass off, and Hobbs imposed himself out of nowhere in the best way (followed by some fun mocking of the pockets bit, which makes me think that there's actually a ton of money in a Hobbs/Big Bill heel tag champion run). It was a bit of stretching of Hobbs' character which is one of those things you can absolutely get away with during a house show. This was during the second bit of heat which had QT mock Cassidy to set up a hope spot, the ref miss a hot tag (OC reversing a suplex with the knee and reaching out) due to Hobbs drawing him away, and Cassidy really milking that final moment, going up and over, backwards, upsidedown, and through legs in order to dive across the ring for a hot tag. The finishing stretch was all action, including Cassidy and Allin hitting a new rapid fire Stundog/Code Red combo after Cassidy reversed the Dirtsheet Driver and a triumphant finish that let them celebrate with kids. I don't think they would have worked this quite the same way on TV and even if they did, the commercial break would have made the timing trickier and the effect muddled. Instead we had a straight up southern tag with double heat with babyfaces that don't get nearly enough credit for understanding the alchemy of putting together a match because people are so distracted by the trappings they throw into the mix. My only regret is that we didn't get to see the match vs Moriarty/Big Bill from the night before.

Adam Page vs Big Bill

MD: Speaking of Big Bill, I won't linger long on this. I'm no fan of Page's matches against guys that match up similar to him (like Takeshita), but when you have him in a match with contrast, it can be a lot of fun. This, for instance, was a lot of fun, with Page constantly going to the weapons to get an advantage and Bill leaning wonderfully into that most amazing thing a heel giant can do, act like a cowardly chickenshit heel. That dissonance pokes hard at the part of our brain that registers things like fairness and honor and drives us nuts in the best way. And Bill poked hard at Page's eyepatch-clad injury to get almost every advantage in the match even though he's a literal giant. Between that and all of the character he shows as he lives in the moment, I really hope they have plans for the guy. Anyway, this was big rousing babyface stuff, Dusty in Florida or Texas standing tall against the odds, with an injury, a size disadvantage, and the numbers against him. It's exactly how they should have ended a house show, with the local hero being larger than life.

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NXT UK TakeOver: Blackpool II 1/12/20

Trent Seven vs. Eddie Dennis

ER: Eddie Dennis has a wild set of reptile gear, full boots and toxic slime green snakeskin like he's some kind of early 90s straight to video punk. It's glorious. I like him and Seven as a match up, and there's some explosive stuff. The match starts with a wicked one armed powerbomb by Seven, planting Dennis after catching him charging in. Dennis takes Seven's offense really well, bouncing right off his head on a DDT, getting dumped to the floor with a snap German. But Seven's punishment gets even better with a fast tope and and a snapdragon suplex on the floor. Their pace is really impressive for the level of big moves they're piling up. It's like a weird crazy WCW Power Plant match if they only studied NOAH tapes, with some forearms and big flipping slightly complicated slams, threats of Burning Hammers and Emerald Flowsions, and Seven hitting a right forearm in the corner as hard as Misawa's best. There are a bunch of big complicated slams, and the absolute craziness peaks when Dennis launches Seven with a Razor's Edge to the floor like he was Mike Awesome. Totally crazy spot to lead to a finish, not like any other finish I've seen on NXT UK. This was a cool ass 8 minute gem, really scrappy and portent, filled with big slams and cool bumps. Hot as hell start to a TakeOver. 

Toni Storm vs. Piper Niven vs. Kay Lee Ray

ER: I really hated how they turned this match into a 3 way. I love Toni, but she felt like a real third wheel in the build to this match, and in the match itself. Niven won the title shot, and then the week before TakeOver Storm just demands Niven let her have the match, and then they put her in the match just because she said she should be in the match! It's awful wrestling storytelling, but she's also a kind of necessary distraction in the match, and allowed them to do some big things that would have felt silly to kick out of. I hate 3 ways as a rule, but they actually kept things at a great pace to start. Niven works really well in a 3 way, as one of her issues is insisting on working fast paced singles without always keeping pace. Here she's able to pace things out and is a great wrecking ball. Niven flattens Ray with a tope and misses a fast cannonball into the barricade, but is back to flattening when she breaks up a pin with a senton. The match gets pretty bad the more melodramatic they got, with dumb stuff like Ray finding a chair under the ring and choking Storm while showing tons of light on the choke, or a big dumb face off between Storm and Niven where the camera framed them. The "making movies" thing can be real painful, but when they went back to being dangerous things got good again. Nigel on commentary calls Kay Lee Ray the "Glaswegian Sabu" at one point, which sounds near blasphemous, but when she hits a somersault plancha to the floor and bounces her legs off the barricade and head off the floor, then breaks up a pin by spiking herself with a somersault senton, this could be an Actual Thing. She looked like she under-rotated on a crazy senton, and then took a powerbomb right after. That's nuts. Storm gets to visually beat Niven before Ray superkicks her off, and I guess now that sets up Storm/Niven which feels reductive, since Storm just shoehorned herself in to begin with. There was some really good stuff here though, a lot of it. This was actually my favorite match of either Niven or Ray in NXT UK, and Storm facilitated some of that. 

Tyler Bate vs. Jordan Devlin

ER: This was a big match with a big payoff and big in-match build, a singles match that actually felt mostly worthy of the long TakeOver match lengths. I think Devlin put his time in well, liked how a lot of the offense built, I mainly just didn't like the ways Bate would just pop up to start his own sequences. Now, Devlin works around most of that really well, finding fun ways to set up Bate's comebacks. Devlin kept using the ropes in fun ways, like cutting off a Bate dive and nailing a nice rope flip moonsault, choking him in the ropes, also getting caught in a torture rack-type fireman's carry when he went to slingshot in with a cutter. Devlin, unsurprisingly, was a real asshole here. He mocked Bate and added some extra sauce to holds and strikes, the best being Devlin dragging Bate down into a Romero surfboard, then bending back on Bate's chin until they were staring eye to eye, sicko stuff.  

Devlin is good at working enough actual offense that reversals of that offense actually make sense, and Bate is good at stepping up with someone like that. I do think it veered into move trading, with Bate constantly need to shrug off whatever had just happened to him to hop up and do something impressive, but luckily Devlin is good at facilitating those hop-ups and Bate can break out something impressive. Bate does an airplane spin that starts slow and ugly and looks like it will be a dud, but keeps going and going and by the end I loved how Bate started with a bit of struggle and then kept building speed. By the time he dropped Devlin I was dizzy on my couch, which sounds stupid, but I'm not sure I've seen someone do an airplane spin this fast. Devlin had smart counters to expected Bate offense, dropping him with a cutter to the apron that almost leads to a count out win (with Devlin amusingly kicking him around 8 to keep Bate out longer), and nailing him with a Spanish Fly to counter a Bate charge. Devlin incorporated a lot of learned behavior into reversals, but Bate mostly just took big moves and then decided to do his own moves. This was the match with the somewhat infamous "punch out" spot, which I actually think is "not actually as shitty as it was made out to be". It's kind of hilarious to me that of all spots, Bate and Devlin doing stand and trade got GIF'd and laughed at, because most feds run shows with worse standing exchanges up and down the card. Do Tyler Bate's arms look short and silly when he swings them? Short? Always. Silly? Sometimes. Give me a punch exchange like this every single time over turn taking elbows and forearms. I liked how some of their punches whiffed completely, because it's frankly silly when every strike in an exchange hits perfectly. Bate needed a big finish to firmly put away Devlin, and Devlin is always great at getting spiked on DDTs and flattened by powerbombs, and the crowd was along for every second of Devlin taking it. Perhaps this went too long

Mark Coffey/Wolfgang vs. Fabian Aichner/Marcel Barthel vs. James Drake/Zack Gibson vs. Flash Morgan Webster/Mark Andrews

ER: So, this match was insane. This was easily one of the greatest highspot ladder matches in history, not just WWE history. This was 25 minutes - normally a match length that I would argue is completely unnecessary for *most* matches - but due to the furious pace that this things was worked, I was shocked at how "long" the match was when it was over. This does not feel like a 25 minute match, because from minute one every single person is flying around the ring at breakneck speed taking bumps that surely shaved months/years off their careers/lives, and I don't think that pace even took a slight break until the 18 minute mark. Not only did they work wall to wall crazy spots and dangerous moments, but they did a great job of making every team seem like they could walk away with the belts. I thought they did so well without the ladders, chaining offense together faster and faster, utilizing all 8 guys to give proper rest and generally avoiding guys ignoring damage to get to the next spot in time, that I was kind of dreading this becoming a climbing contest when it settled down. So, they opted to never settle the match down, using the ladders at first in familiar ways, but then doing twists on familiar ladder match spots before exploding with some things I've never seen before. 

It is completely pointless to detail all of the spots that happened in this match, because it would take me twice as long to type everything than it would take you to find and watch the match. One of the cooler aspects was that every team in the match, worked like a team. They all had tandem offense that was not always their typical tandem offense, remixing some spots and adding in ladders to others, and all the teams actually felt like they had individual strategies. They kept the spot set-up time to a minimum, and when they did one gigantic crash spot that had everyone fall like dominoes, prolonging the punishment instead of everybody just landing like shit from one giant tower powerbomb. It's tough to pick a standout, but I really liked Wolfgang a ton. He's the guy doing crazy spots while also shaking his arm out after punches. Yeah, he'll throw big ass Mark Coffey over the top rope onto everyone and then vault out himself to powerslam Drake on the entrance ramp. But, while men lay dying on the battlefield around him, he's still remembering to sell that his fist hurts, and I love it. So Wolfgang was probably my favorite, but this was a team effort. Every guy got at least one big moment (at LEAST). Mark Andrews hit a perfect shooting star press off the ladder onto Coffey, he and Webster hit a wild tandem somersault senton off a very high ladder, and Grizzled Young Vets seemed to be on the end of all the worst punishments, especially poor James Drake. Drake got smashed with ladders and under ladders and under bodies so many times, poor guy spent most of the match kicking his legs and holding his insides. Imperium looked like real beasts, squeezing their double teams into a ladder landscape even better than the others, Barthel tossing smaller guys off the ladders into waiting arms of Aichner so they could be dropped on their heads. 

It's a match with nothing but great spots, but my favorite had to be Imperium punishing Webster. With Webster laid on a ladder, which had been propped up on the ropes, Barthel holds Webster down so Aichner can hit a springboard moonsault, with Barthel rolling OVER Webster at the last minute TOWARDS Aichner's moonsault, so he wouldn't be standing where Aichner's boots were going to whip. I mentioned the car crash spot, and it really was great. They brought 5 or 6 ladders into the ring, everyone was climbing on them and climbing over each other like World War Z, one guy getting knocked to the mat here, Barthel getting knocked all the way to the floor there, Webster amusingly setting up his ladder so it smashes Gibson in between his own ladder, total madness. Wolfgang goes bet mode down the stretch and spears Aichner so hard into a ladder that the ladder breaks into 4 pieces. I don't think I've ever seen a ladder snap right in half during one of these matches, even when someone falls onto one from a great height. I thought I was pretty burnt out on stunt ladder matches, but this one had me from go and was absolutely relentless. 

WALTER vs. Joe Coffey

ER: I thought this was a pretty great 17 minute main event that made the decision to be a 27 minute main event, and treated that extra 10 minutes as if the previous 17 were just a dream. It was admittedly a bit odd how the match seemed to position Joe Coffey as the babyface and WALTER as kind of a generic heel , but I liked the actual ring work a lot. WALTER worked this mostly as a big chopping monster, and Coffey was the smaller "babyface" who kept trying and throwing WALTER with suplexes. WALTER is great at a big man getting knocked off his feet, and I loved how all of Coffey's suplexes looked like he was having trouble lifting WALTER, because he *should* be having a lot of trouble suplexing WALTER. WALTER wasn't hopping into any suplex and it ruled. If Coffey was going to hit a Saito suplex, it was going to be low to the ground with a heavy landing for both, making the suplexes look more like something you'd see in a Hashimoto/Red Bull Army match. There were a couple odd miscues every time WALTER threw a big boot (one that was supposed to hit did not at all; one that was supposed to miss, hit, and was treated as a miss anyway), but mostly it was WALTER throwing heavy chops while Coffey kept deadlifting WALTER on suplexes. WALTER threw hard elbows, cranked Coffey's neck, and worked a nice STF, Coffey hit a boss shoulderblock off the apron (flying at WALTER like a torpedo), fought for a big German suplex, and hit a surprising moonsault. 

When WALTER accidentally hit the ref with a John Woo dropkick (and the ref sold it like a drama queen rolling down a very soft incline), things mostly fell apart. Coffey gets an immediate visual pin off a powerbomb, Alexander Wolfe and Ilja Dragunov run down and get involved, Dragunov knocks Wolfe into Coffey and they basically do a full match restart for the remaining 10. Nothing felt like it mattered down the home stretch, and WALTER - who had just been "pinned" by a powerbomb moments before - now has several winds and the two trade moves until one of those moves wins the match. Every big move (WALTER powerbomb, Coffey avalanche belly to belly) was used as a way for the guy taking the move to transition back to offense, and there were more miscues like Coffey mostly missing a big clothesline and them just repeating the spot right after. After WALTER chokes out Coffey he had to give the biggest acting performance of his life, acting vaguely threatened by Adam Cole. Cole looked tinier than both referees and the camera angles made it looked like a small child ran into the ring after WALTER's win. 

This was a top to bottom great show, with the only bad 10 minutes being the last 10 minutes of the main event. Every other match was a total over-delivery, making this easily one of the best TakeOver events. WALTER/Coffey was probably the weakest overall match, and that was a match I really loved until it went crazy with the booking. Highly recommend this show. 

Best Matches: 

1. Tag Team Ladder Match

2. Jordan Devlin vs. Tyler Bate

3. Eddie Dennis vs. Trent Seven

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NXT UK TakeOver: Cardiff 8/31/19

Noam Dar vs. Travis Banks

ER: Great stuff, an excellent start to a big TakeOver. Noam Dar may be the best on the roster at doing dance step wrestling, and he does it in a way that doesn't actually make that style a problem. His timing is strong, his placement is excellent, and the way he positions himself and occupies himself while waiting for offense is second to few. The main problem, for me, with dance sequence wrestling is that nothing feels organic, everything feels like a blank eyed run back of rehearsed spots, and Noam Dar manages to do very complicated sequences while adding personal touches that keep them feeling organic. I've never gotten the sense that he is locked into a pre-planned set of steps, as he seems to respond incredibly quick to a change in plans. If a kick doesn't land the way it's supposed to, the plan does not appear to continue as initially planned, and there are very few guys this good at thinking on their feet. Dar doesn't take any shortcuts in his transitions, chopping down with his elbow to lock an arm, snatching Banks out of the air by his leg and holding it tight the whole way through a sequence, and a cool way of attacking several parts of the body while appearing to be focused. 

Banks is good at selling Dar's inflicted damage while still getting his offense in, and he's good at taking Dar's most punishing stuff. I loved Dar's two vicious snapmares, one into the ring ropes and another into the barricade, really making it look like he's forcing Banks into a painful bump. There's also cool work around the ring steps and other ring rope tricks, but all the reversals were super crisp and fit nicely into the match. Dar comes off like a Jack Gallagher peer at this point, great at crafting strong story in a 6 minute match or an 18 minute match. He's good at pulling off smug but undeniably well executed heel offense that makes things feel more heated, and gives a good babyface something real to play off. This built to some really hot, fast stuff. Banks plasters Dar with a great tope, nails him with a couple double stomps, Dar leans into hard sliding dropkicks and hits his own brutal running knees, all building to some well orchestrated kickouts. This ramped up really well and was worked snugly enough to keep throwing off sparks. Great chemistry, great gauntlet to throw down at the start of a big show. 

Ilja Dragunov vs. Cesaro

ER: This is Cesaro's first appearance in NXT UK, and I love WWE treating their Network brands like territories to send main brand stars into. It's something they should do more, give some of the best guys the opportunity to work a Star Passing Through a Territory match. Cesaro brings great main brand presence, dwarfing Dragunov and acting like the guy deservedly crossed over to the main roster. Dragunov is bigger and more muscular than most of the guys in NXT UK, but Cesaro makes him look like a Little Buff Boys finalist. Cesaro beats Dragunov pillar to post, forcing Dragunov to make some pretty awful faces, faces I loved seeing take uppercuts. Dragunov may make dumb faces, but he endures some real punishment for the right to make those dumb faces, so more power to him. Cesaro is really dominating, building from hard chops and shoulderblocks into throwing his whole body into uppercuts and headlocks, dragging Dragunov arm under throat into sick crossfaces. Cesaro throws Dragunov over the top rope to the floor, into the barricade, drawing fair comparisons to The Berzerker. Cesaro delivers a Berzerker level beatdown. He gets a huge (fast counted) giant swing and a violent belly to back suplex. I thought Ilja's comebacks were fine, though I don't think I ever fully bought into him potentially beating Cesaro. Cesaro felt too much like a larger more perfect killing machine version of Dragunov, and Cesaro as a killing machine is a beautiful sight. He hits a press slam into a kneelift and then a torpedo uppercut for a big nearfall, and finishes things with a huge pop up uppercut, immediately yanking Ilja into the Gotch piledriver. This felt like a good version of Ric Flair vs. Terry Taylor, with Cesaro coming across as a far more punishing traveling-champ Flair. 

PAS: Dragunov is kind of a goof, but an endearing one. I mean Kikuchi made silly faces too, and Dragunov takes Kikuchi level beatings. That press slam into a knee strike by Cesaro really should be his finisher, what a brutal bit of business that was. I did think when Draganov had Cesaro reeling on the floor he had a chance, and I loved Cesaro decisively shutting the door on him with that pop up uppercut and Gotch combo finish. I would love to see Cesaro in this role more often. He had a great Regal match years ago when he did this same sort of drop down. He is dead in the water on the main roster anyway, he might as well as go after the NXT UK title again. A rematch with Dragunov as the champ would be great stuff.  

Mark Andrews/Flash Morgan Webster vs.  Mark Coffey/Wolfgang vs. Grizzled Young Veterans

ER: This tag bit off more than it could probably chew, but there is plenty of joyous wrestling action to exist in matches where guys bite off too much. It's a 20 minute tag that would have exploded at 15, but gave us a big babyface tag title win for hometown Cardiff boys Webster and Andrews. Everyone here had a lot (maybe too much sometimes) to contribute, with Wolfgang standing out as one of the best guys on the brand at taking complicated flier offense. Gibson did the same, and Webster got to shine with his fun combo of dives, ranas, and top rope flips. Wolfgang is the biggest guy in the match, and he goes up for two different crazy bumps where he's on someone's shoulders. He takes a poison rana with a perfect vertical spike, and then takes a nutso Doomsday Device tope from James Drake late in the match, folding hard on the entrance floor. Gibson is good at getting into position for some big Andrews offense, both GYF taking his Stundog Millionaire as well as anyone. Fan reaction kept growing along with the match, even if I thought things could have been edited down (take out the long Gallus disappearance that only gets paid off with a Drake tope, trim the standoffs and bad showdown fighting) they clearly knew the audience and kept them hooked. Strong rudos make for strong babyfaces, and this was a fine team effort. Gibson and Drake started off hot 50 episodes ago, but they've been a stale act with the titles. Webster and Andrews will be a fun change of pace in title matches, champions that feel beatable but are capable of surprising. Gallus are the clear talent of any tag match, and the 3 way format made them too much of an afterthought. I don't think it harms them as an act, as they still remain the favorites to get the belts and have a long run. Wolfgang feels like someone who has over a year of different title defense ideas in him. 

Dave Mastiff vs. Joe Coffey

ER: I thought this started incredibly, with the first 4 minutes stacking up well against all my favorite NXT UK stuff. I wish this was just a violent street fight instead of a last man standing as when they were fighting, rather that doing stunts, this was excellent. So we have those first 4 minutes, starting with a great fight in the entrance way with both going after the injuries suffered in their excellent match that set this match up. There's a sick early moment (very early) where Coffey gets whipped into the turnbuckles hard and the whole top rope snaps off. Coffey really flew into that buckle and the PONG sound when he hit was great, and I really don't think that rope was supposed to break. They kind of try to go on with the match in ring but once Coffey eats shit off the middle rope they go with a more weapons and plunder approach, which is fine. It lead to cool things like Mastiff jamming a turnbuckle support bar in Coffey's mouth and throwing him mouth first on the mat, and I wish they would have played more around with that instead of going to the floor so quickly. The under ring weapons portion was my least favorite of the match as it felt so much more manufactured than the body/injury targeting fight this started as. But Coffey still took some crazy bumps, like a sky high backdrop on the floor and a release German suplex, plus getting walloped a couple times by a cricket bat. 

They both take some gnarly spills, both get put through tables, but some of the stuff is so silly in its violence that it doesn't really vibe with their super serious attitudes. Take, for example, when they both get chairs and run headlong down a long aisle at each other, collide, and then both spill backward down the aisle. It was like Homer and Bart running at each other wearing pots on their heads. Coffey takes the Finlay roll on the announce table, both fall off the second landing through another set of tables, you know the drill with WWE brand Last Man Standing matches. The finish is clever, with both men getting to their feet after their tandem spill, leaning on those rolling load-in containers, and as Coffey is standing he kicks the rolling container out of Mastiff's hands and causes him to fall, or, not stand. There was a lot of great in this match, but while they did a ton of damage to each other, things felt much more mapped out once they went to the floor. Coffey for his part turned in a great overall performance, and the first 4 minutes play as a killer follow up to their excellent TV match. 

Toni Storm vs. Kay Lee Ray

ER: Disappointing. Not the kind of match you want to change a title on, and the title change came off completely flat. I loved how they started things, with Ray refusing to lock up and repeatedly hopping to the floor, until Storm hit a great tope suicida past the ringpost, Storm slams Ray into the barricade, throws forearms and kicks, and generally dominates most of this match from there. In fact, the whole thing felt so flat because it felt like Storm was either too dominant, OR too dominant so that she would save face with a title loss? I can't explain it, but whatever it was, it didn't work for me or the fans in attendance. This was the Toni show, with a couple of big German suplexes (one tossing Ray from the middle turnbuckle), Code Red, big headbutt, and a Storm Zero that only gets 2 (with a suitably doofy Toni face accompanying it). Storm even nails another tope suicida, but they get to the finish so quick that it almost felt like something was wrong. Ray hits a knee, big senton to the floor (Toni with a nice catch so Ray doesn't die), and then Ray hits a couple Gory bombs in the ring for the title win. Now, I loved the Gory bomb set up, with Ray dropping Toni over the top rope with the first and a traditional one for the pin, but I don't think anybody watching thought this was the finish. It wasn't a short match (10 minutes or so), but this didn't feel like a finish they had actually been building to (even with Ray hitting a Gory bomb earlier). This landed flat, and if they were going to put a belt on a heel then Jinny would have been a much more interesting choice. This match never felt like the match they were building it to be, never felt like any kind of unique history played into it. 

WALTER vs. Tyler Bate

ER: This was a 2019 match that even people who pretend online to not watch NXT UK went out of their way to watch. This was the first NXT UK match that Meltzer went real cuckoo about, choosing once again to break the rules of his own established star ratings, and being perfect-plus still means something to some people. But you know? I just did not need 42 minutes of perfect-plus. I don't think that length was necessary and I would've loved to have seen a 21 minute edit. But it's also an impressive physical feat to work over 40 minutes of hard striking and harder bumps, and this match somehow managed to get more physical the longer it went. I did not buy Bate standing up to all the damage and making all the comebacks he did, but I also must acknowledge that there was some absolutely brutal punishment he took that was not pulled, and I can't take that away from him. Tyler Bate took a genuine beating, and still kept the awareness to pull off some very complicated runs. 

I do think there was far too much down time, and that it's hard to sustain disbelief when WALTER is laying it on full strength. WALTER threw enough full arm chops to purple up Bate's chest 20 minutes in, and that chest was one thing Bate never forgot to sell. WALTER crashed hard on shoulderblocks and lariats and went to the chin with his elbows, and his rudest offense made it seem like he should have no problem disposing of Bate in under 20. Bate had a few impressive throws on WALTER, but I never once bought any of his strikes. When there's this much of a size difference you REALLY need to tighten things up to narrow that gap. Instead Bate had a lot of big blows that were supposed to be moment payoffs, and I think they all landed flat. I am just not going to buy into a single Bate short left hook putting WALTER down for longer than anything he did to Bate. And to buy into this match, you have to buy into several moments just like that. Implausible as I found the last 20 minutes of Tyler Bate comebacks, they did work a ton of very good nearfalls that really build nicely. Bate was at his best when he was using his body as a weapon, hit or miss. His tope suicidas were unhinged full body crashes into WALTER, his top rope corkscrew senton was great, he flew into a chop to the shoulder blades and got powerbombed horizontally into a ringpost. So while I hated a lot of Bate's payoff strikes, his peaks were majestic. The crowd was truly along for the ride and wanted to see Bate win the title, and that goes a long way towards the match's favor.  So while I wish I could have seen what their 20 minute main event looked like, they do manage to fill 42 minutes with some strong peaks. That's an overall success. 

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2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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NXT UK Worth Watching: Ohno! Jinny! Storm! Ligero!

Jinny vs. Toni Storm NXT UK 2/23 (Aired 4/10/19) (Ep. #37)

ER: These two have worked together a lot, and always manage to bring a couple unique things to each subsequent match. Some things won't always work, but there is enough creativity to overlook some lesser moments. I don't think this was as strong as their first NXT UK match (way back in episode 10), as this match had a couple of strike exchanges that I think were out of place and unnecessary, and that first match was a little tighter because of it. There was a strike exchange in their first bout, but it felt more in place within the match. This match started with a bad hockey fighting spot, but improved once they quickly moved past it. Jinny always does at least a couple little things in her matches that I love, and one that caught my eye here was how aggressively she tried to trip up Storm on a dropdown. So many wrestlers use dropdowns as part of an accepted wrestling sequence, without seemingly knowing what the purpose of a dropdown should be. Here Jinny slides into Storm, flinging her body towards her while dropping down, showing that she aims to take Storm out at the ankles.

I liked their mat struggles, think Storm's STF with her elbow crook hooked around Jinny's neck looked great, and I think that there aren't many - if any - better submission sellers in NXT UK than Jinny. There is a cool battle over a pendulum, and I love how Jinny incorporates possible mistakes, turning them into things that make a match better. Here she loses one of Toni's arms and instead of abandoning the submission, she just pulls on the arm she still does have with both of her arms. I thought their reversals were strong, and it's impressive that they'd worked together so often and can still do a lot of sequences that come off organic. I imagine the more familiar you are with a fellow worker, the easier it can be to dance through sequences. But their reversals felt surprising, and I liked when Storm turned the tables and got Jinny in a pendulum of her own. Jinny was great at selling her back (Storm didn't really sell any of the damage Jinny inflicted), paying attention, and I like how it played into her strikes and axe kicks and stomps. There were some hard suplexes down the stretch, with a cool sequence around Jinny fighting to prevent rolling Germans, before Storm is finally able to dump her. Jinny taking suplexes is one of my favorite things in wrestling, because her long limbs fly all around and really make it look like she got ragdolled. Alicia Fox used to have this same gift. There's a great nearfall coming off Jinny spiking Storm with a faceplant after catching her on the ropes, totally nasty looking spike made even better by Storm's foot almost naturally landing on the bottom rope, making it look like the match was Jinny's if not for bad luck. I really didn't like the end run strike exchange, thought it felt really shoehorned and it just feels like wrestlers now think every "big match" needs one to show people the war they are having. It's dumb, as they had already done a good job showing this. But the strengths of the match outweighed the few weaknesses, and I hope we get another singles between them some day. 

Kassius Ohno vs. Ligero NXT UK 4/6 (Aired 4/24/19) (Ep. #39)

ER: This started out like a mean Ohno squash and then built into something that felt like a big upset was imminent, with several neat twists. And honestly, had this been an Ohno squash, I would have loved it, because a big portion of this was Ohno trying to kick Ligero's horns right off his head. Ohno was really pasting Ligero with kicks, big running front kicks, and when Ligero was on the mat Ohno would run in and boot him again in the side of the head, for good measure. Ohno felt one step ahead for much of this, every duck and dodge pulled by Ligero, there was a boot waiting for him the second he turned around. My favorite was Ohno grabbing Ligero's right arm and bending it back, and as soon as it approached the breaking point Ohno rained down on him with a kick to the ear. Ohno drops knees on Ligero's jaw and then digs his forearm across the jaw during a pin right after. And we got this really great spot I don't think I've ever seen, where Ligero caught an Ohno boot, but Ohno kept his balance and pushed through, so we wound up with Ligero on his back still holding Ohno's boot, while Ohno is still trying to push and connect with chest. 

Ohno was great at getting the advantage back, taking sure advantages for Ligero and twisting them immediately to his advantage. Early on Ligero hits a cannonball off the apron, but Ohno uses his momentum to throw Ligero into the ring steps as he is falling from taking the cannonball! Later, Ligero actually got a boot up in time for a charging Ohno...who merely stopped in time to catch the boot and then violently twist his ankle. Things weren't looking great for Ligero. But he did finally catch a charging Ohno, and went on a little tear himself, including throwing some nice kick variations and now, finally, staying one step ahead of Ohno. There were some nice reversals, nice dodges (that cool sequence with Ohno refusing to give up a boot, then whiffing on a follow up senton), and I love seeing Ohno take code reds and big roll ups and make them look like close escapes. Ohno is so good at giving opponents convincing near wins, dominating a match while showing he is beatable. We got a cool reversal where Ohno caught Ligero and immediately turned into what I thought was going to be the sudden match finishing tombstone, but Ligero rolled through that as well. The finish was what really put this over the top for me, as Ligero springs off the bottom rope with a cutter, but Ohno catches him, traps him in a cravat, unties Ligero's mask a bit....and then turns it to the side!! Ligero is looking at the inside of his mask, and before he can hardly react he gets absolutely waylaid by an elbow to the back of the head. Awesome. 

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NXT UK TakeOver: Blackpool 1/12/19

Tyler Bate/Trent Seven vs. James Drake/Zack Gibson

ER: Talk about underwhelming. I've actually seen this tag talked about as "the best WWE brand tag of the decade" and that is just madness. This was an overly long tag match that occasionally threatened to get good, but was always derailed. First things first, this did not need to be a 24 minute match. The work within in the match did not justify the length, as it basically broke down into a long heat segment on Seven, building to a Bate hot tag that required Drake and Gibson to either hold still or dump themselves on their heads (Drake especially leaned into and flew for every strike, lariat, and suplex Bate threw). Bate's offense was nothing but GYV repeatedly getting into position to take something ridiculous, from Gibson having to constantly be flustered by any strike Bate threw, on up to both Gibson and Drake having to hold perfectly still for several seconds just so Bate could do one of his Big Strong Boy spots and lift both in a short airplane spin. Gibson and Drake did excellent work finding plausible ways to fall for the same Bate tricks and make the offense look as good as it did. Seven turned in fine work as the FIP and I would have liked to see more of that, building to an actual comeback from him. Instead it felt like Bate kept hogging all the big babyface moments for himself. Seven did hit a nice low elbow suicida early, but much of this was built around Bate as the big star. Drake and Gibson had some great moments down the stretch. I thought both had real on point elbow strikes, and they hit a twisting suplex/Drake 450 that looked like something that should definitely finish a match. The wildest spot of the match was GYV hitting a Doomsday Device tope that Bate is pretty damn crazy to even consider taking. For a match that felt built around Bate in some selfish ways, I can't deny he took the silver bullet with that one. With some editing and a more of Bate's nonsense cutoff this could have been really good, as it was I will just remember it as a tag match that was too long. 

Jordan Devlin vs. Finn Balor

ER: This was going to be Devlin/Banks and then they changed it to a surprise Balor appearance. He got a great reaction from the loud crowd, but the match wasn't as satisfying as it could have been. They were bringing up the teacher/student aspect a lot throughout the match, but that aspect was kind of the monkey wrench of the match. Devlin has been dominant and mean during the entire run of NXY UK so far, and this match just made him look like a weaker version of Finn Balor. This should have been Devlin surprising the returning star, not the returning star showing that he's still on top even though he hasn't been there. I just don't see the point in running a "new guy dominating everyone here is always a step behind guy who has been up on the main brand". This was where Devlin needed a definitive win. Balor did look good, and that at least made him mauling Devlin make sense. I can get more behind a cocky heel student underestimating his teacher. Devlin is generous about running into Devlin's best stuff, but he throws harder. His kicks really land well here, the sliding apron dropkick looks decapitating and his shotgun dropkick makes Devlin's fast corner bump belieavable. Devlin's offense paled next to Balor's, and he had been looking like a real killer on the weekly shows, but he still made offense look great. He really got dumped with a great Balor brainbuster right after impaling himself into Balor's knees while attempting a moonsault. So it was not a match without great moments, and Balor looked like a star, but it all felt backwards. 

Eddie Dennis vs. Dave Mastiff

ER: This took a little bit to get going, but eventually came through on delivering what I wanted from it: The heaviest guy on the brand going at it with the tallest guy on the brand. The No DQ stip was the thing that slowed things down at first, as not far in we were taking long breaks to go grab chairs and ring steps and set up tables, and when you look at a 10 minute match and realize that 15% of it was plunder retrieval you gotta wonder about your resource allocation. But I appreciated Mastiff's dedication to John Cena's specific kayfabe ritual of preserving the sanctity of the ring steps' weight. Mastiff hoisted these steps into the ring like the weight 200 lb., a thing I always genuinely got excited to see Cena do. Cena would stumble around struggling to lift the ring steps in the way Marcel Marceau would struggle to keep his kite line straight, and while Mastiff doesn't have that same commitment I still always like wrestlers giving some integrity to their weapons. Mastiff ends up eating a nasty side slam on those ring steps, and the Singapore cane shots where metered out and delivered to strong effect, never devolving into exchanges and always given time to sink in. We got a couple cool visuals off of Dennis catching Mastiff up top and planting him with a Razor's Edge, didn't actually think Dennis would be able to pull off the lift and he did these great shaky legs as he was walking to the center of the ring to deliver it. Awesome spot. 

Things got really good when Dennis flipped out and tore back the ringside mats, knocked Mastiff off the apron with a hard back elbow after blocking Mastiff's suplex off the apron. But Mastiff winds up planting him on the ballroom floor with the Finlay roll and then squashes him with a senton. Dennis gets one last nice shot at a win after Mastiff misses a split legged moonsault, and even muscles Mastiff up for the neck stop driver. Mastiff handled the kickout so well that I actually thought Dennis was winning. But, Mastiff slips out of another Dennis Razor's Edge attempt, and bounces Dennis off his neck with a sick German suplex, then a cannonball through the table that Dennis had set up. I thought the violence worked well in this match, and they didn't shoot way past the time they needed to have a nice big man war. The big spots that got nearfalls were built to well, and the lack of overkill made the spots they did do mean a lot more. 

Toni Storm vs. Rhea Ripley

ER: I liked the first 2/3 of this a lot more than the final stretch, as the finishing stretch really felt like they threw out everything that was working for the match in favor of doing the same strike exchange/finisher trading that you see in a lot of modern title matches. The first parts of the match where filled with little things and attention to detail, stiff work over melodrama. Once the melodrama and ugly crying and Home Alone faces kick in you know what kind of match it turned into. The opening cat and mouse was fun, loved the timing the went into Ripley running out to the floor only to be nailed by a Storm tope, and I love how Ripley switched up her game to work this obnoxiously dominating style, always yanking Storm around the ring by her hair and mashing her face with palms and boots. Any time Ripley was in control it would be filled with these dirty exchanges, not just locking a move on but pulling hair before hitting a move. When Storm would kick out of something, Ripley wouldn't just lie there before picking her up for another move, she'd be instantly kicking at Storm, and not enough wrestlers fill those spaces with actual action. I thought Storm was great at fighting back, and I liked how the worked in the headbutt cut off spot as an almost equalizer, giving Storm recovery time while making Ripley vulnerable. Storm's Germans kept landing, and I liked where this was heading. Until I wasn't. I didn't love the hockey fighting (and the fact that it looked better than a lot of other hockey fighting spots just shows you how awful these spots almost always look), and the big melodramatic shocked face 30-45 second waiting period in between hitting finishers a few times just felt like a different match, or a big fat forward to the end of this match. 

Joe Coffey vs. Pete Dunne

ER: I correctly pointed out the needlessness of the tag title match going nearly 25 minutes, so obviously when you get a main event that goes 35, there will be complaints. This is one of those long matches where the longer it goes, the more flaws you notice from both wrestlers, things that could have easily been avoided if they just stuck to their strengths and didn't try to take such a big slice. If you turn this into a 17 minute title match - which is more than enough time to hit literally every single beat you would want to hit - then this could have been something worth talking about. It's biggest crime? It didn't feel like it built at all for 30 minutes. The opening mat work looked good, I was into Coffey trying to bend Dunne's wrist and Dunne making Coffey stop that by bending on his fingers, the kind of opening couple minutes that could lead to good things. But once they got that out of their systems this turned into a match where minute 5 looked eerily similar to minute 35, and that's almost always a problem with this overly long "wars". Guys are dead on their feet throwing...and they remain dead for a half hour. There was a spot where Coffey locked in a nice crab and started stomping on Dunne's head, and of course Dunne was then "knocked out", which lead to Dunne selling the crab the exact same way he sells any submission: lie there motionlessly until it's time for him to just get out of it. It also revealed how much Dunne requires his opponent (especially larger opponents) to do all of the lifting while he's planning his next move. Multiple times I saw Coffey have to roll himself into the ring, move his arm into a submission, place himself just right in the ring so Dunne could get to his next spot. The rolling into the ring annoyed me the most, as Dunne couldn't even go through the motions of attempting to lift Coffey, just put his hands on him and let Coffey roll himself back in. It's the equivalent of a wrestler who just puts his hand on his foe's shoulder and lets the guy stand back up on his own before getting hit with another move. It's lazy and unfocused.

And just as the opening tag felt like everyone in the match was working just to give Tyler Bate showcase spots, this whole match was selfishly and overbearingly the Pete Dunne Show. Every move that Coffey did, no matter how devastating, was used as a way to get Dunne back into the match. I'm not even certain Coffey was able to string two pieces of offense together, because there were so many times where he hit a powerslam, or a suplex, or a clothesline, and it would lead to Dunne getting to his feet first or Dunne kicking out and going right back on offense. When you factor in that Dunne was the one going for cheap shots by attacking Coffey's fingers, the whole match felt like Coffey was the underdog babyface who couldn't keep down a heel Terminator. The whole match was about Dunne's explosive offense, so everything Coffey did was just to set up Dunne being explosive again, and every big spot in the match was used as a match restart. That's the main thing that lead to this feeling like it had zero build, is every big spot for 30 minutes just lead to either both squaring off in bad looking exchanges as if there hadn't just been a big crash. I think Mastiff/Dennis earlier on this show was a good example of making the biggest stuff in a match mean something, give them consequences. This could have built into a match with consequences at any point, but they kept choosing to make their own offense mean little. 

These complaints would have been there without them doing other annoying fluff like "my elbow strike knocks you into the ropes which allows you to bounce back and lariat me which allows me to spin around with a punch!" Dunne has a few bad strike combos that make opponents look like total clowns when they fall for them, made me appreciate more of Tyler Bate's misdirection attempts before hitting his combos. Dunne's combos all require Coffey to duck stupidly just so Dunne could hit bad left/right combos. By the end we lose the thread so much that we get a couple of weird "both men fall off the top rope but we don't know what move they were supposed to be hitting so we'll just act like it didn't happen but also act like it was extremely damaging even though both wrestlers just went back to doing things." Through 20 minutes of this match I still thought there was a salvageable match. They clearly wanted to do something special in the first UK TakeOver main event, but their idea of "something special" was always "let's get to another run of big Pete Dunne offense!" This needed an editor, badly, but post HHH wrestlers have this weird aversion to hiding their weaknesses. 

ER: I was hoping for a better show considering it was the first TakeOver, and the people wrestling clearly wanted to put on a great show. Sadly, it appears that I dislike the instincts a lot of the guys when constructing a "big" match. It felt like the time could have been much better utilized on the show. They could have easily trimmed 12 minutes off the main event and had Jinny vs. Isla Dawn, showcasing two other women to set up a future title contender. Having only 5 matches, one of them FAR too long, just means less people showcased on the biggest show the brand ran so far, and one of those matches was used to show that the already established Finn Balor could still easily best someone who had been looking like a title threat. This show should have been used as a springboard and it came off like a muddled, confusing show when looking at what it actually accomplished.

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NXT UK Worth Watching: Jinny! Toni! T-Bone! Mastiff! Devlin! Ligero!

Jordan Devlin vs. Ligero NXT UK 8/25 (Aired 11/21/18) (Ep. #9)

ER: This was a good modern indy main event, that perhaps went a bit too long. It was well timed, well executed, and hammier than I wished it would be, but it built nicely, had a bunch of stiff strikes from Devlin, and a couple strong nearfalls. Ligero is someone with good comebacks who can take a beating, so a lot of this would be Devlin cutting him off with surprisingly hard strikes (I am not always into Devlin's offense, but the Devlin in this match was easily the most agreeable to my wrestling taste sensibilities). Ligero throws a really tight headscissors and always throws a nice honest Code Red, making it look like he's actually bumping his opponent rather than his opponent bumping for him. Devlin is great at taking these and then firing back with hard elbows and a great back elbow smash, or cutting Ligero off with a uranage, or a nice backdrop driver. Ligero would make inroads and then hit a brick wall, and it was always compelling. There's a great moment where Ligero gets ambitious and goes for a big splash off the top, only to land directly on Devlin's knees, with Devlin perfectly rolling him into a pin in one motion. I thought that was the finish. This managed to be practically 75/25 for Devlin (maybe more) but it never felt like it because Ligero was active, he was just cut off a lot. Going on a run and suddenly eating a quick Spanish Fly, fighting on the floor and suddenly finding himself eating ring steps. It always felt competitive even if one guy was always farther ahead on points, and they made it work very well. 

Tyson T-Bone vs. Dave Mastiff NXT UK 8/26 (Aired 11/21/18) (Ep. #10)

ER: These are the kind of hot short sprints that NXT UK has been better at than any other WWE weekly program. There's no reason the 4-7 minute matches on Main Event, NXT, or 205 Live can't be as good as this match. There are talented people used on all brands, but none of their short matches entertain me as much as the ones on NXT UK. This is a nearly 5 minute match that feels like it's 2 minutes, as T-Bone starts rocking Mastiff with punches to start and we don't let up until T-Bone is dumped with a German and squished by a cannonball. I like British boxer turned street fighter as a gimmick, and T-Bone pulls it off great, mixing up hard right hands to Mastiff's cheekbone with big thundering shots to the stomach. Mastiff would get backed into a corner and outclassed on strikes, then respond the only way he could, by just barreling into T-Bone. T-Bone worked a really awesome cravat, yanking on Mastiff's hair and beard while also forcing the chin, and I dug how Mastiff powered up and stayed in close, getting distance with a couple of different violent headbutts. The quick sequence where Mastiff hoisted T-Bone up in a fireman's carry, only to see T-Bone squirm out into a nice sunset flip attempt, ending with Mastiff slamming the garage door down with a butt splash, was really well done and the kind of thing I like to see in a big man battle. Guys are very good at filling time on this brand, which seems like such a far cry from the bloated epics of NXT US. Just give me something like this every week or two and I'll be a satisfied customer. 

Jinny vs. Toni Storm NXT UK 8/26 (Aired 11/21/18)

ER: UK wrestling fans are no stranger to this pairing, as this is a match that's been run several times over the past few years. This one came just a couple weeks after their Mae Young Classic match (though it aired a couple months later), and that match was one of my favorite first rounders of the 2nd MYC. This is very similar to that match, but I think it's the tighter version. They work a lot of nice tough grappling and collar elbows, both looking like they're actually struggling through lock-ups. The struggle peaks with Storm locking in a great Indian deathlock and choking Jinny after hooking her in a side headlock around the chin. Storm really looked like she was cranking it in and Jinny is great at selling while in holds. Jinny's fight to get her fingers on the bottom rope was a good one, and I love how Jinny punishes Storm for it with hard stomps. Jinny has great force on her stomps, and her stomps are just one of the parts of her game that benefit from her long limbs. She's 5'6" but has long legs and arms that make her look like she's 5'10, so when she's throwing stomps it really looks like she's rearing back with force. The limbs also really contribute to her bumping, as she really ragdolls on a pair of suplexes, limbs flying around and folding over her body in cool ways. 

There was an elbow exchange that started on the knees and built up to them standing, and it actually looked earned and not just something that has to be in every main event epic. Jinny especially looked like she was fighting off balance to her feet while throwing stiff elbows, and she was really great at selling her jaw to fill downtime after delivering offense. Jinny has a lot of offense I like that utilizes her limbs, like that nice Japanese uppercut to catch a charging Storm and sending Storm sprawling to the mat after tripping her on an Irish whip. Storm makes her big stuff look really good, like a hard contact running hip attack, or getting dumped on her head off an X-factor. These two know each other, and they only have one singles match after this one so it has that feel of something that's been getting better.  I do wish they had worked the match out to build off the MYC match - this felt like it was their touring match worked the next town over - but they have a strong formula and genuine chemistry, so it was still really good.

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WWE Evolution 10/28/18

ER: Nita Strauss and Lizzy Hale start us off with some shredding, which is a cool touch, but I am already a bit worried that every single woman who is on this show is going to be called a trailblazer and a groundbreaker. Which is fine. But it feels like they say this about everyone, which makes them come off more like them talking about how inspirational it was for someone in a wheelchair getting pushed over the finish line of a marathon.

Trish Stratus/Lita vs. Mickie James/Alicia Fox

ER: Lita and Trish are Team MOB here, Mesh OverBoard. I know a little about fashion, and it's weird for Lita to want her outfit to have an intentional whale tail. Bliss/Fox/James definitely smoke them with their Queen of Hearts attire. And a lot of this is really James and Fox doing an excellent job at setting up offense for two non-active wrestlers. They're both really great at stooging; Fox has been the women's division bumping MVP for a couple years now at least, and James has had one of her absolute strongest wrestling years ever, and I think her contribution in getting Ronda over has been really undersold. Here James handled a 2 count kickout as well as some of these great Meiko kickouts we've seen in the MYC. I really thought they were giving Trish and Lita a quick feel good win do go a different way after Bliss was no longer involved. After a fairly one-sided run of offense, Lita misses the ALMOST GED STUDENT OF THE SKY moonsault to allow our favorites to finally control. I wish James and Fox got more control though, as it was good but still made them feel way inferior to two women who aren't going to be around much. Lita and Trish wrapped things up way too neatly, the end stretch could have used a couple more momentum shifts, and with Bliss on the floor there was no need to have Trish and Lita be so dominant, overcoming essentially three women with very little trouble. Fans were into seeing Trish and Lita, so if the point of the match was to give them a strong showing leading to a double comeback, then it was a huge success. I'm pretty sure they aren't planning on that though.

ER: Just noticed Beth's Bull Nakano shirt and I want it.

Battle Royal

ER: Big battle royal with practically every single WWE women's wrestler returning. We get Molly Holly, but throw in Layla and Bull Nakano and this PPV gets 10 stars for me. Molly still looks exactly the same. And I loved Iiconics telling the old timers that they were going to throw them over the top rope and back into obscurity. It's also funny how Tamina is lumped in with the present since she's just been around for almost a decade, and was in WWE longer than most of the women in "the past". Who actually would want Tamina on their side, though, is the predicament. Carmella is dressed up as an all time great GLOW worker, love the gear. Torrie Wilson takes an unexpectedly big bump off the apron from a Mandy Rose knee, and Rose eliminates Deville too. If Rose gets the win here this will be the best. They are really desperately trying to Make Tamina a Thing. She won't ever be a thing. There is literally nothing they can do that will make people interested in seeing Tamina. She is 40 years old and she has been doing this for a decade. I totally forgot about Zelina and liked the stuff with her at the finish, LOVED Nia's huge press slam to eliminate her, chucking her far into Tamina on the floor. They were giving Moon some big moments and when she eliminated Asuka I really thought she'd be winning, but am excited to see Nia back in the title scene.

Toni Storm vs. Io Shirai

ER: This was about the level of match I was expecting from these two, and just makes me more annoyed that we didn't get Meiko/Ripley. This was fine enough, and you could tell both busted ass and wanted to have a really good final, and they were able to pull out some tricks that nobody got to use in the regular tournament. Shirai hit a moonsault to the floor, and Storm gave her a German suplex on the apron, don't think we got a top rope to floor or apron spot in the 8 MYC episodes. So if so I liked that they mapped things out to be that way. They didn't do anything wrong here, really, only it was a structure that I'm really bored with, as it was basically the structure of a lot of 2018 wrestling: we're in a war, a finisher gets kicked out of to a shocked face reaction, both have moments where they can barely get to their feet but are up on offense a moment later, there's a strike exchange in the middle (and Shirai just doesn't have very good strikes. Dawn Marie had better strikes. Shirai's might be closing in on heel Torrie Wilson. She's probably above face Torrie Wilson), a big move hits knees; it all looked pretty good, it all just felt way too familiar. I do agree with them that Storm has potential to be a big star, so I fully get why she was season 2 champ.

The Riott Squad vs. Natalya/Sasha Banks/Bayley

ER: While watching this Rachel shows off her gamer dork knowledge and says that Liv Morgan should go as (Liv) Morgana from Super Puzzle Fighter II, saying she already has the pink hair and just needs a black bodysuit. She says this will solidify the 30-and-Up nerd fan category, which I told her is the last category of fan these girls would want obsessing over them. Those are the guys who would show up to her house with a knife concealed inside a teddy bear. This match was also decent enough, and was getting great reactions from the crowd, but just felt like a longer than normal Raw match, and there were some pretty rough spots like Sasha barely tumbling to the floor with a flip dive, or a really dumb spot where Natalya puts the Sharpshooter on Morgan and Logan at the same time, even though Logan alone is larger than Natalya. Plus this show feels a little too intentionally feel good, 4 straight face victories and everyone having this weepy overly smiley ugly cry finishes for all of them, every face acting like they simultaneously won the Hunger Games and also were retiring from wrestling after the match. It's all a bit thick. However, Rachel thinks that a lot of the emotion the girls are showing post-match is genuine. She makes a lot of sense in her defense of why, and it genuinely feels like she's gee, Riott Squad really feel like a team they should run with, Riott has been impossible to ignore the last 6 months, they're just wasting so much time keeping Natalya inexpicably strong. Everyone knows she's the biggest heel on Total Divas, because she is awful but thinks she's the nice one. The Squad could be a way bigger deal than they are. Natalya  cannot. I liked the Squad launching Sasha into the barricade, liked Bayley's fast tope con hilo at the finish, but I wanted something very different from this.

Shayna Baszler vs. Kairi Sane

ER: This was a nice tough fight that went longer than I thought it would, but also made really good use of its time. It does require you to think that Sane could stand and strike with Baszler in an exchange, which is a bit much, but I think that while small Sane is still really good when she's using her body as a weapon, so it makes up for the overall size difference. Shayna dominated for much of this, but Sane never really felt out of it. Sane was valiantly getting beaten down, while getting in some stuff, but it felt like Baszler was always dominant. Baszler ran her into the steps, then we get several different nasty Baszler knee strikes, a cool as hell gutwrench slam, starts working over Sane's arm including a nasty stomp. Shayna handled the Sane strike exchange portion well, threw a kick at the arm to end an exchange, but ate a nice spinning backfist from Sane. I do really like Sane as cannonball, and she's convincing on a suplex, and we go into some bigger spots. Shayna drops her arm first over the top rope to the floor, Sane winds up hitting a hard crossbody to the floor, really smashing into Shayna, Sane takes a big bump into the crowd right into Shayna's squad. We get a big interference portion that I think they make work, timing it well enough and making it fit in. We get a really tight nearfall that fooled me, with Shayna locking in a tight rear naked choke and Sane rolling through like the Bret Hart/Austin finish. I could buy Shayna losing with that and it wouldn't make me upset. But Jessamyn Duke sneaks in a shot just behind the ref's back and immediately allows Baszler to lock in the clutch again. Both rear naked sequences were handled really well, by both parties. Baszler made it look like something that should finish a match, and Sane looking like a person getting choked out. I really liked this one.

PAS: Really great performance by Baszler. I don't think Sane is particularly good,  she is a stylistic daughter of Manami Toyota without Toyota's otherworldly athleticism. She can take a good beating though, and Baszler delivers one. That arm work was so vicious, that Sane should almost be out six months with surgery, rather then delivering offensive moves (the selling issues were what damaged their last NXT match, it wasn't as bad here, but still present). I just loved the way Shayna would manipulate the arm, the set up for the stomp on the elbow looked almost as painful as the stomp itself. The move where she hung her over the top rope by the arm was so violent looking, and I loved the mock salute afterwards. Some of Sane's offense looked ok, the plancha was nice, and I love a good backfist (and like an OK one, and this was OK). Finish angle sets up some cool stuff, although both Shafir and Duke have the same horse girl straightened long hair and thus are hard to tell apart, one should get a different haircut unless they are going to do Killer Bees tag spots. Still I am excited for a distaff Makai Club running shit.

Last Man Standing: Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch

ER: You know, I've never been a major fan of either, although Lynch has really won me over since the turn, and I really like how both of them are playing their face/heel dynamics. Charlotte is playing it up perfectly smug, cold bitch straight-facing those boos, snottily bouncing off the ropes to steal a little thunder from Lynch's name being announced. Lynch, the champ, holding up that belt knowing she's going to get cheered? I'm into it, and they have immediately got me into this match without locking up. They know exactly what they're doing. And this sauce has some heat to it. Both of them look downright pissed when the other comes out ahead and it is simmering fire.

But overall I thought the match was pretty so so. I thought it was overly sloppy, had an abundance of time stand still moments (and not just during prop set up moments), had some glaringly bad ref involvement, had weapon shots that looked piddly, and jacked a big moment from literally the last Last Man Standing match in WWE (and didn't do it anywhere close to as effectively). However, the reactions they got for nearly everything was tremendous. The crowd was extremely invested in this from beginning to end. There were some pretty nasty spills and the intensity was a plus at times, but for every intentional nasty spill (like Becky taking a back suplex into a big pile of chairs) there was something that looked bad, like Charlotte overshooting a moonsault and knocking over a table leading to Lynch landing right on top of her, and then both selling because neither knew what to do. We got a too long segment of Lynch lying perfectly still while Charlotte could do a convoluted figure 4 set up with Lynch's leg for a stretch of leg work that doesn't really go anywhere interesting. We got Lynch absolutely burying Charlotte through a table with a huge legdrop, but then we get a total repeat of Ciampa burying Gargano in anything he can do keep him from getting up, except Becky gently lays down several things on top of Charlotte and we get an odd ref count as Charlotte inevitably gets up before 10. I remember Ciampa wasting Gargano with these weapons as he buried him in them, and  this was just Becky tipping over a chair onto Charlotte and then placing things on her the way someone might see how many flip flops they could put on their sleeping cat to get the best Instagram picture. We get the cliché reaction of Becky being terrified when Charlotte feebly stands up from the rubble, and Becky eats a spear really nicely, but Charlotte fights back with a bunch of weak looking cane shots and middling chops (I've said before that it's a shame she's forced to cosplay her dad as she's really clunky with a lot of her Flair cosplay offense). The fans were still fully along, and I'll give them credit for that, and I was happy Lynch kept that title and Charlotte really flew through that table to the floor...but this whole thing I thought was decent enough, but underwhelming in a lot of ways. It's possible I missed some nuance, but I was pretty stunned to see some of the hype that was being thrown on this, as I thought there was just too much awkwardness to ignore.

Nikki Bella vs. Ronda Rousey

ER: Now this totally owned. I thought the layout was super smart, the use of Brie was smart, and Ronda's selling was awesome. Match starts with Ronda completely toying Nikki, showing her several ways that she can toss her ass over elbow and break her arm, repeatedly letting her get up after having her likely beat. And as you're wondering if this is just going to be a total Ronda mauling, Ronda eats two of the best shots to the ringpost you've seen, I mean full Lawler, just fantastic looking post shots on the floor (and another great one inside the ring) and the spends the rest of the match shaking off the cobwebs. Ronda made those post shots so important, not just by making them look as great as they did, but really treating them as a big deal throughout the match. I had just watched a match with several potential big moments that could have been treated this way, that were moved on from pretty easily. Seeing Ronda taking the postings so seriously, and really turning in an impressively evolving sell throughout the rest of the match, was a real treat to watch. Nikki takes over and Ronda feels like she's in it but also struggling to stay focused, working like she got her bell totally rung and went spaghetti legged and was now fighting from behind. The Bellas throw her around ringside, into the barricade, Nikki hits her big kick off the buckles and locks in an abdominal stretch, Ronda misses a huge crossbody when it looks like she was possibly turning it around, all of it was handled really well and turned what could have feasibly been a 3 minute match into an exciting 15 minute match, great turns and build. Brie finally gets hers when Ronda rolls through an ankle pick into a fireman's carry (and I LOVED how she did it, playing up her dizziness and looking fully unsure if it would work, relying on muscle memory, awesome spot), and when Brie has to reach too far over the ropes to stop it, Ronda uses that leverage to her advantage and also drags Brie in to dispose of them both. Brie gets tossed over the announce table and we get an awesome nearfall as Ronda takes a nasty Alabama Slam and the Rack Attack; easily could have seen the match ending there. But Nikki goes up and Ronda rolls through shakily (which, seeing as how she was selling during that rolling fireman's carry, easily could have been more of the same selling paying off those postings) and yanks that arm. I thought this was completely awesome, a really terrifically laid out match, and a killer main event. I cannot imagine this match being better than what they gave us.

ER: A fun, fresh PVV, if a little overrated. But I liked the concept and it was nice not having to write up a Rollins or Ziggler match. Nikki/Ronda was white hot fire, far exceeded my already high expectations, and we dug Baszler/Sane as well. Both land on our 2018 Ongoing MOTY List.

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