AEW Five Fingers of Death 12/12 - 12/18

AEW Dark 12/13

Eddie Kingston/Ortiz vs Trustbusters (Slim J/JVSK)

MD: Sometimes AEW will tape something and then not show it due to changing circumstances. This was taped all the way back on 11/4 in Atlantic City, and Eddie, post Akiyama, has apparently cooled down. He was still pretty hot for this one. Still, they came through and showed it nonetheless and we're glad they did. Slim J vs Eddie Kingston is about as much of a Segunda Caida match as is possible. If Punk doesn't come back, then Slim J becomes the fifth finger sort of by default. This got a ton of time too and was a good showcase for everyone involved.

Eddie and Slim J got really stretch to start with Slim just absolutely driving Eddie nuts and goading him into things. Eddie came back by responding to some more goading with a perfect eyepoke. Later on the Trustbusters would get to really lean on Ortiz, looking pretty good working as a unit for a team that has maybe one or two Dark matches together. Slim J has been around forever but he's traveled in different circles than a lot of the other AEW guys. I think Davari said that he'd first met him the day that they started as a unit. And I don't see any signs of VSK working him before either (even though VSK has been around for fifteen years). This broke down to some pretty wonderful chaos with Eddie suplexing everyone, taking Slim J's flying reverse DDT perfectly (which not everyone does), and less perfectly eating another dive. They had Eddie break up a couple of lesser things by VSK but made Ortiz kick out of the Amityville Horror/Cradleshock, which I think is JVSK's finisher, so that was a dubious choice but it fit the moment of the match, I guess. I liked the little bit of Sonny Kiss we got as a second in this one, including to set up the finishing miscommunication. Trustbusters are just such a weird and random unit but it somehow works. Excalibur was trying one last ticket sale read as Ortiz made the final hot tag and Eddie spun into the backfist and he carried that manic energy forward into the call. If this is the only Eddie and Slim J encounter we get in AEW, it'd be a shame, but it still felt pretty substantial for a month and a half old Dark main event and I'm glad we got at least this much.

AEW Rampage 12/16

Dustin Rhodes/Orange Cassidy/Chuck Taylor/Trent vs Kip Sabian/Trent Seven/Butcher/Blade

MD: Feel good way to end a yearly themed AEW taping, especially important considering the big hometown babyface lost to end Dynamite. Lots of moving pieces here but they came together pretty well, with everyone more or less where they should be when they should be and plenty of gaga. I enjoyed the Trent-off to start and the fans got into it. Seven is a guy with a couple of unique ideas, a slightly different body type. I think there's probably more value to AEW overall to bring guys like him in occasionally instead of full time, that sense that anything can happen at any moment as opposed to just making a huge roster even huger, but he was more than happy to play along with everything here. Probably my favorite moment in this one was when he was taking Dustin's punches by really throwing his head all over the place. Sabian is someone I give some credit to, as while I don't entirely think the act works, I like how broadly he thinks about things; there was a moment during Dark a week or two ago where he was mocking Alex Reynolds about the Preston Vance turn that is something almost no one else on the roster would have done in that spot. Sort of a galaxy brain approach to his matches.

I get that WWE is better in many ways than it was at the start of the year, but it's always refreshing to highlight someone like Dustin in Texas. It's so intuitive and so special. It's part of what WWF was doing for years at the start of the war in the 80s, bringing in people like Wrestling II in Louisiana or Mad Dog Vachon in AWA territory. All of Dustin's interactions with Danhausen (constantly staring at one another) or Cassidy (playing air guitar to the theme as Cassidy leaned upon him on the entrance) were enjoyable and the sort of things I'd hope would lead to something more. I feel it's off brand to note on Segunda Caida that I would have liked a hug with everyone involved, but I kind of would have. The bits with Danhausen and the faux low blows (and the one actual one) set up the finishing stretch in a fun and different way than a dive train would have. They could run a match like this once every few weeks or once a month, highlighting a local guy, pulling together some characters and some feuds, to send a crowd happy, and it'd be part of what will always make AEW special compared to a lot of what we've been forcefed over the last two decades. I still hope this is leading to Dustin challenging Cassidy for the All Atlantic Title at some point though. I'd even take Dustin and Danhausen interacting more.

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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 Worth Watching: Dar! Ohno! Seven! A-Kid!

Noam Dar vs. Trent Seven NXT UK 10/4 (Aired 10/24/19) (Ep. #65)

ER: This was a great high concept TV main event worked much more like a TakeOver main event, with the bad and the genuinely good that can come with those. It's a great Noam Dar show and a game tagalong from Seven, working a serious match around a feud that started with a joke press conference. Dar takes everything just the right amount of not-serious to make Seven taking it very seriously work, and Dar's natural unlikable face only benefits us as we see him getting smug looks wiped away. My favorite part of Dar's smug routine is that he also beats the shit out of people, and is great at both getting his smug look wiped away and also kicking someone unexpectedly hard or grabbing their nose and twisting. Dar blindsides Seven to start, and I am a sucker for matches that begin with a guy getting knocked for a loop yet insisting on continuing. I loved how it immediately got turned around on Dar with him running hard into a Seven clothesline, and how a bunch of Dar's bullshit didn't work. Dar is capable of running circles around Seven, but Seven is able to beat him to the punch and trick the troll occasionally and it keeps giving satisfying momentum shifts. 

Dar makes offense look great, so when it's coming off a trick it's even more satisfying, like him ducking a punch right into getting DDT'd on the apron. Dar is really good at keeping logic to sequences, so even though I thought this carried on too long and built to TOO many big moments, I thought the kept the motivations and consequences logical. I wish they would have went somewhere more with Dar's work on Seven's leg, because everything around the leg was really cool but had no real satisfying payoff. Dar shows a lot of nasty steps through an STF, like stomping on Seven's hamstring and wrenching on his heel while twisting the leg into the hold. There are later crazy spots like a Dar top rope double stomp to that same leg, but it all kind of just builds to Seven doing his thing anyway. The big bumps looked big and painful, the nearfall strikes looked like nearfall strikes (Dar's kick to the back of Seven's head being the tops), the level of drama felt appropriate, and it was a very fun ride to watch the good guy win. 

Kassius Ohno vs. A-Kid NXT UK 10/5 (Aired 10/31/19) (Ep. #66)

ER: This was A-Kid's NXT UK "debut" (he wrestled in a tag against Gallus earlier in the year but they are obviously not going to mention that) and it's kind of surprising to see him debuting against a force like Ohno. You'd think they'd want to let him showcase some of his flying and other abilities against a more like-style opponent, but I love this choice. Ohno has been every NXT UK's wrestler's best NXT UK opponent because he always forces them to work more honestly. If your dropkick doesn't move him, Ohno is not going to move. The honesty only makes their sequences work better because it just forces dance sequences into looking legitimate. Ohno starts with wrist control and is able to muscle Kid around, drops into cool side headlocks, gets a nice headscissors, etc. A-Kid had a bunch of cool movement to break that headscissors, showing the trick to getting ahead of Ohno is to outpace him and not make a single mistake. He locks in a nice Indian deathlock out of the escape, hits a nice armdrag (I love how Ohno takes armdrags with strong attention paid to the physics of the armdrag) but shows he can stop this momentum at any time. 

My favorite part of the match was Ohno picking Kid up in a sort of bearhug and swaying him around before kind of swinging him to the mat while keeping ahold of the arm and then immediately flattening Kid with a senton. Their chemistry was real good and as A-Kid tightened up armdrags and a rana, Ohno would do cool things like his Gotch lift out of a Kid armbar attempt. I did not love the finish and thought the match needed a couple more minutes for it to really work and get to a next level. They go to the floor, Ohno is knocking Kid around with elbows, goes to throw him back in the ring and Kid gives him a 619 under the bottom rope, and Ohno gets counted out. The execution of the finish didn't look good, the 619 was sloppy and barely connected with Ohno, and again they needed a couple more minutes to make the count out finish effective. The match up to that point was going great and looked to be building to something cool, and it's always disappointing when the worst looking piece of offense in a match is the piece of offense that ends the match. 

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NXT UK Worth Watching: Dar! Dawn! Niven! Seven!

Noam Dar vs. Trent Seven NXT UK 9/1 (Aired 9/25/19) (Ep. #61)

ER: Dar is a really annoying guy, but he also works stiff, and a really annoying guy who kicks really hard while annoying you is a great heel character. Dar also never shies away from a beating, so we had this great situation where Seven was returning after a few months and Dar kept taunting him, so Seven just started hitting Dar harder and harder. That's a great way to work a match. Dar gets too cocky with his taunting and every single time it lead to him eating a harder lariat and it was great. Dar works quick around Seven, bites him, yanks at his beard, annoying shit. Seven lands with a thud on a nice crossbody and hits a nice senton, but Dar is always really slippery and great at twisting things back to his advantage, and before long he's throwing hard kicks and uppercuts, crotches Seven on the top rope and kicks him in the collarbones. Dar keeps not only mocking Seven, but Tyler Bate as well, and winds up eating a nasty DDT going for a Tyler driver. Seven hits a nice tope and I really enjoyed the work around Seven's lariats. Dar makes Seven's 7 Star lariat look better than ever, running into it like a garage door got slammed onto his head. Dar kicks Seven's arm on another attempt and hits a nice lariat of his own, then rubs Sevens towel on his balls before getting hit with an even harder lariat. Dar pisses off Seven so much that Seven pounds away on him after that second lariat and goes on long enough to get DQ'd. Nobody really loves count out or DQ finishes, but NXT UK has been good at working strong DQ finishes on TV matches. I really liked the Joe Coffey/Dave Mastiff fight that ended with both guys counted out, and this was a cool match long story of Dar being the expert troll and chipping away at Seven until Seven snapped. A DQ felt inevitable in some ways and this was a satisfying conclusion here. 

Isla Dawn vs. Piper Niven NXT UK 9/1 (Aired 10/3/19) (Ep. #62)

ER: This was really cool, a slower more deliberate match with gritty matwork that we haven't seen in NXT UK women's matches. Niven always wants to work these modern go go go matches where the sequences seem too rehearsed, and Niven can't actually get up off the mat in time to keep the timing right. This was different. The mat and limb work is slow but satisfying, Niven working over Niven's arm and little micro swings in control. None of it ever builds to a stupid forearm exchange or mapped out reversals wrestling, just some smothering matwork with a few bursts of offense in between. Niven's slams had more purpose because Dawn wasn't getting up and running into her own next move, they were just planting her into the mat. Simple bodyslams, and then hitting something signature like her low crossbody. I like how Niven sold all of Dawn's strikes, and Dawn threw some sharp elbows before Niven would try to smother her again. Niven worked a cool straitjacket choke, but it's always interesting because it's never just Dawn sitting in the move in agony. Dawn pulls limbs out, fights against it, and it always looks difficult for Niven to hold onto. Dawn comes back with an awesome Saito suplex that Niven sells by staggering to her feet, then getting put down with a running Dawn knee. Dawn's suplex looked awesome and the ways she came back against the larger Niven were strong and believable, but I loved how Niven decided to stop fucking around and just grabbed Dawn by the hair and headbutted her. This was a little gem that was not worked how I was expecting it to be.

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NXT UK Worth Watching: Ohno! WALTER! Andrews! Seven!

Kassius Ohno vs. Mark Andrews NXT UK 6/16 (Aired 7/17/19) (Ep. #51)

ER: This was a different match than I was hoping for based on the build, but unsurprising that Ohno is going to craft another cool match around a different NXT UK opponent. I went in (perhaps unfairly) wanting a superkick battle, like the amazing Chris Adams/Great Kabuki match from Texas. Ohno took a great jab at Andrews on TV, saying Andrews is a guy who does a superkick because of his idol Shawn Michaels, instead of respecting his British wrestling heritage and using it because of Adams. Ohno has the true greatest British style wrestler is hands down the best gimmick going in NXT UK, and that's enough to make me not as grumpy about not getting Ohno working a superkick match. We get a cravat match and it's as cool as expected. Andrews occasionally finds an interesting way out of a cravat and gets an armdrag, slips around into his own headlock, but keeps winding up getting his neck twisted in different ways. 

It peaks with Ohno catching an Andrews pescado, walking him to the ringpost, unwrapping the turnbuckle pad from the hoist, and throwing Andrews throat first into it. But that's probably not even the meanest thing Ohno inflicts on Andrews, as his cross chops to the throat are maybe the most painful looking strike on WWE TV. Andrews gets his weakened neck worked over more while Ohno also finds ways to trap limbs, and Ohno is great at making openings for him, although in the end I think Andrews got far too many openings. Ohno usually has perfect instincts for how much to give an opponent, especially a smaller opponent, but I think Andrew's comeback was a bit beyond. Ohno is great at taking his offense, helping pull off a dragonrana to the floor, a nice in ring rana, and a poison rana that Ohno took convincingly as a heavier man. Ohno's reversals of flyer offense are always a highlight, and he splats Andrews with a tremendous pancake, really slapping Andrews into the mat. Ohno built to the finish as well as possible, and even though I didn't fully buy into Andrews getting the win, I don't think anyone else on the roster could have pulled off this match layout as effectively as Ohno did. 

WALTER vs. Trent Seven NXT 6/16 (Aired 7/24/19) (Ep. #52)

ER: This was a really really great 8 minute match that was 15 minutes long, but they were doing a thing and they did that thing well. This was a big Trent Seven dying on his sword match, so that was a lot of fighting back and WALTER refusing to finish and instead choosing punishment. I thought the first half was really great, and then we had more slowdown and more fighting back down the stretch, going a bit long but making its point. The steam was really good to start, with Seven hitting WALTER with a tope on his entrance, another dive after, then keeping on him, even when it became apparent that more defense would have helped him. He would fire at WALTER with chops and WALTER would endure them, then fire back with kicks to the face and chops of his own. WALTER locked in a mean half crab and snug STF, tying up his arms. This was a real good slugfest, neither man with anyone to hold them back, WALTER hitting big uppercuts and Seven firing back with a convincing lariat. I wasn't as convinced with all of Seven's comebacks, but thought WALTER sold strong for them and I liked WALTER punishing him for his insolence with powerbomb after powerbomb. I would have preferred them slugging it out until one of them fell on their face, but this worked well for the angle. 

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

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NXT UK Worth Watching: OHNO! Imperium! Williams!

WALTER/Fabian Aichner/Marcel Barthel vs. Pete Dunne/Tyler Bate/Trent Seven NXT UK 4/20 (Aired 6/12/19) (Ep. #46)

ER: NXT UK really doesn't do many trios matches, and they have a roster that would really benefit from having some trios matches. I guess they really weren't part of traditional British wrestling (not sure I've ever seen a trios match from World of Sport, but there are a lot of things I've forgotten over the years so who knows), and there have only been a couple so far through 46 episodes of NXT UK. The highest floor NXT UK matches have strong pacing, and it's easier to pace out a trios. This was all really fun and the format made everyone's entrance into the match a little more exciting. A Pete Dunne hot tag is going to be better when he's able to tag in and hit a cool few things before being leveled by WALTER, and Bate is someone else who benefits from a tag that's not immediately stopped so he can get in all his moves. Imperium are good at controlling, sectioning off the ring, keeping things interesting by rotating guys through. WALTER felt like the real standout here, always there to cut someone off with a high kick, and his work with Dunne was especially noteworthy. WALTER is really good at setting up offense for people, and when Dunne tagged in - looking like he was just going to be getting his shit in - I loved how WALTER turned it into a much cooler segment by quickly sidestepping a moonsault and chopping Dunne in the back of his neck before locking in a rear naked. Aichner and Bartel threw themselves into their offense with gusto, like a nice Bartel kneedrop or a killer Aichner brainbuster. WALTER was really great at running things, all members of Mustache got to show off their strengths in quick bursts, with Seven chopping a great watercolor pattern on WALTER's chest, Bate getting a big double clothesline, nice dive from Seven, and then the debut of Alexander Wolfe finishes it. It's a played out way to debut someone, bring them in under a hood while announcers poorly feign confusion, but Wolfe sticks Bate with a nasty sitout powerbomb so I'm good. 

Kassius Ohno vs. Kenny Williams NXT UK 6/14 (Aired 6/19/19) (Ep. #47)

ER: Another great Ohno NXT UK performance, with him always finding ways to restrict himself during matches, always working a match specifically toward his opponent. His NXT UK run really feels like  the closest we can come to a genuine territory arrival. It has a real Finlay Return to the Indies feel to it, and that's a great feeling. Here he starts working over Williams' right arm, holding it clutched in his armpit while refusing to be shaken off. Williams tries to roll him off with an armdrag, Ohno rolls through with him and comes up trapping the same arm. Ohno put on a clinic of handless limb control, bending Williams' arm at the elbow just by moving his body. Just as I'm wondering how Kenny is going to get out of it he leaps up and grabs Ohno in a headscissors, forcing Ohno to rope break. I was wondering where Ohno was going to take the arm control, but instead Williams got cute with a sunset flip attempt and Ohno stomped him right on the underside of the jaw. 

And from then on Ohno does not give one good damn about Williams' arm, just wrecking Kenny with chops and strikes, hard boots, flattens him with a Finlay roll (there's that name again...), and comes up with several cool ways to shove Williams' throat into the ropes. I do think Williams took it down a bit with his comeback, breaking the nice rhythm they had going. There was just a bit too much hesitation with a few of his moves, and Ohno is someone with precise timing. Ohno's sequences are all tightly orchestrated, so it's obvious when Williams is making him wait too long on a mark. It's not super offensive, and he still manages a couple cool things like a multi step ankle pick, and it's mostly a strong pairing. Ohno hits knees on his senton after being too cocky, but I think Williams needed to work quicker than he did. It felt like Ohno had to sell too long for offense that looked like some of Williams' weakest. The worst offender was him doing a sloppy upside down rebound off the ropes (similar to a poor Jon Moxley night) and hitting a too pulled penalty kick after. I mean...he could have just kicked Ohno. He didn't need to navigate a ropes course before kicking him. 

Kenny hits a dive and waits a bit too long to hit a back elbow off the top into the ring, and things immediately get great again when Ohno cuts him off and aims to murder. Williams tries more silly flouncy rope tricks and Ohno rams him throat first into the ropes again, then doesn't waste time smashing him in the back of the head with a roaring elbow while Williams was still hung up in the ropes. These two match up again 9 months from now, in a match I saw before I saw this match. I think their second match is better, but they make a great set as both matches are very different. Ohno could have had unique matches with every member of the UK roster several times through. There's no reason this couldn't be the reality we are living right this moment. 

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NXT UK Worth Watching: Barthel! Aichner! Mark Coffey! WALTER! Mustache Mountain!

Marcel Barthel/Fabian Aichner vs. Trent Seven/Tyler Bate NXT UK 1/13 (Aired 1/30/19) (Ep. #27)

ER: This was great, probably the best UK tag match so far. This was a more successful version of the GYF vs. Mustache tag from TakeOver, with all the fat trimmed out and nothing but action remaining. This is half the time of that tag and really hits the target. The first 2/3 of this felt like a great early 90s WCW tag, with no overly long heat sequence or too long shine. It had quick tags and constant momentum changes, making it feel more like a Brainbusters/Fantastics match, which is a great thing to see in modern wrestling. Barthel is really great at getting into position for offense, and that's important against someone like Bate who goes through a lot of "same moves in the same order" offense. The quick tags by both sides made this match feel more epic than it probably was, as I was shocked it was only a 13 minute run time (felt longer, in a good way). Aichner and Barthel control with cool suplexes and body scissors, both Bate and Seven get runs at wild hot tags (I really liked Seven running wild with a DDT, snapdragon, big lariat, and Bate going wild with a no hands running plancha to the floor), and they did a great job of ramping up the crazy. 

The teamwork from Barthel/Aichner is excellent, and they're smart about using Bate's actual best strength: running into painful offense. My least favorite parts of Bate matches is when everyone has to line up to take his offense in a specific order. I never like when guys selfishly derail things like that. But he has a real gift for taking some stupid bumps and crash landing his body in very unselfish ways. There was an awesome moment here when he went to do his Ray Stevens shoulder spring into the ropes, except he springs directly into a Barthel enziguiri. Bate has a way of committing to these spots that I truly admire. It always surprises me, because when he does his own offense there is always him waiting for guys to make sure they're in proper position; but when the plan is for him to intentionally miss a tope or something he just does that tope the exact same way he would have done it if someone were catching him. So he flies into that top rope and just catches Barthel's boot between the eyes, and it looked so great I was hoping it would be the finish. Bate's willingness to die at some point of a big match always makes it more annoying when he comes back with his planned comeback, but again, Barthel/Aichner are great at taking fast offense (it's not easy to plausibly take that rolling double kappo kick but GYV and these two make it look good). The finishing stretch is hot, and while I wish Barthel and Aichner would have won (Mustache Mountain is already established and I'm really not sure losses would hurt them at this point, the others have far more to gain with a win), this whole thing was great action. 

Mark Coffey vs. WALTER NXT UK 1/13 (Aired 2/6/19) (Ep. #28)

ER: NXT UK is great at delivering on these compact ass kicking matches that get out of there before any of the violence is deemed pointless by repetition. If two guys are beating the hell out of each other, you really only need several minutes of it, as the longer it goes the more redundant the damage becomes. WALTER debuted in ring last week, crushing Jack Starz, and I like how they sent him out the next week against someone much closer to his size. A WALTER squash is plenty fun, but seeing him trade chops and clotheslines with another big guy is much more fun. Coffey does cool things with his control, and I think a lot of his offense hit even harder than WALTER's. Coffey's chops can't come close to matching WALTER's, but his body punches sure as hell hit harder. Coffey also throws hard kicks to WALTER's back, stomps his calf to set up a chinlock, works in and out of a snug back stretch, and a truly great elbow smash to WALTER's jaw. Having a big meaty opponent gives a nice canvas for WALTER's offense, big strikes landing hard across a broad surface. He drops Coffey with a nasty backdrop on the apron, throws loud chops in the corner, hits a nasty running kick, and stretches Coffey over the top rope by jamming his boot underneath Coffey's chin. More chops, uppercuts, clubs to the chest, both guys really dealing, all of it heavy. Match ends a little simply, with a WALTER dropkick and powerbomb. It wrapped things up a little neatly, but I much prefer the match wrapped up neatly in 6 minutes than seeing 10 more minutes of chop exchanges. This is one of the harder hitting NXT UK matches we've gotten so far, here's to more!

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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 Matches Worth Watching: Devlin! Gallus! Ripley! Isla Dawn! Mustache!

Rhea Ripley vs. Isla Dawn NXT UK 10/14 (Aired 12/19/18) (Ep. #17)

ER: Strongly worked women's title match with a nice build and no overkill, plus a ton of very engaging headlocks and collar elbows. Their lockups looked really good and both looked like they were putting full weight into them, and both leaned really heavily into every chinlock, headlock, and submission. Ripley was really pressing her weight on a grounded chinlock and Dawn's standing side headlock looked really wrenching. This was the toughest Ripley has looked so far and she looked really dominant stomping the hell out of a collapsed Dawn in the corner. Her kicks, clubbing strikes, and then cool low angle Saito suplex all send Dawn folding in believable ways, and they never lose that sense of actually working for a move. Dawn fights out of another suplex but gets locked in the standing cloverleaf. Ripley had fought to get the cloverleaf earlier and got kicked off, and I loved how that played out because it actually looked like Ripley stumbled getting it on which gave Dawn the opening to kick her off. This time there was no fumble and she was able to lock it in convincingly, leading to a nice rope break (with Ripley awesomely kicking Dawn's rope grab arm after she broke the hold). Dawn's comeback looks good, she brings sharp elbows with her full body being thrown into them, dodges Ripley's dropkick and gets to run hard into the ringpost. I really didn't love the standing exchange, thought the strikes were the weakest part of the match, and thought the exchange felt totally out of place within the match they had been working. But I liked Dawn returning the Saito suplex favor with a nice one of her own, and I liked how succinct the finish was. Oddly, the middling strike exchange did a nice job of setting up the sudden finish, with Dawn again going back to standing kicks and missing, leaving her wide open to getting her arm trapped and then getting planted with the Riptide. 

Jordan Devlin vs. Kenny Williams NXT UK 11/24 (Aired 12/26/18) (Ep. #19)

ER: Devlin has been unexpectedly good at these 5 minute matches with interesting stories and satisfying internal builds. Devlin worked this like a squash and loudly kicked and elbowed Williams around the ring, and it made Williamses' big comeback come off huge. Devlin worked quick on the beating, with that same Dynamite Kid-style domestic bully speed, pursuant. If Williams would spill to the floor Devlin would just out immediately after him to beat on him some more. And when Williams started firing back Devlin put that same energy into bumping hard to the floor, and starting it all off by catching kneebone right to the balls as Williams counter the standing shooting star. Williams hit a great tope, running around the ring determined to do the dive no matter where Devlin was going. But Devlin was not down for long and always came back more vicious than before. He catches and throws Williams with a half nelson suplex that has a very non-WWE allowed arc to it, and yanks Williams by the arm into a sick Saito suplex. Williams has a lot of offense that requires his opponent to be in a specific place and that leads to hitches and phoniness in his matches, but Devlin is really great at anticipating his marks and because of that brought about the best Kenny Williams match so far. 

Wolfgang/Mark Coffey vs. Tyler Bate/Trent Seven NXT UK 11/24 (Aired 1/2/19) (Ep. #21)

ER: I always heard NXT UK crowds were quiet, but apparently nobody else is watching loud main event tag matches like this one. The crowd kept getting louder and louder for a Trent comeback as Gallus kept holding him down with awesome bearhugs and body vices. I thought this was a standout performance from Wolfgang and Coffey, both working convincing bearhugs without losing any of the drama. I'm someone who's already going to be interested in long grounded bearhug sequences, so getting two from Wolfgang and one from Coffey is going to make me happy. Coffey is really mean whenever he tags in to work over Seven, really laying in some forearms and even driving a fist into a kidney. The crowd gets rightly invested in Seven fighting closer and closer to making tags, Gallus great at cutting him off and laying in boots. Seven gets tossed rudely to the floor by Wolfgang, and when Coffey goes out to retrieve him he catches a hard surprise vertical suplex on the floor from Seven. Seven tags in and Bate runs through both with a nice hot tag, hitting a pair of topes, including one that would have sent him into the 2nd or 3rd row if Coffey hadn't slowed him down. I do think Bate's hot tag goes on a bit long and has a couple of his strongman spots that requires opponents to get into tough positions naturally. This one was wearing Coffey as a backpack and while also German suplexing Wolfgang. That's a tough spot to make Gallus get plausibly into position for that, but the crowd eats it up and it gets a genuine (loud) NXT chant. There's some ringside distraction from Joe Coffey and Pete Dunne and the vibe the match had been building to kind of went out the window, but overall this was a good tag. NXT UK has been kind of light on quality tag wrestling so far, their best matches clearly leaning towards main even singles and hot 5 minute singles. But Mark Coffey and Wolfgang seem to be the reason for the best stuff so far, the ones that have the best heel tag shtick for babyfaces to work off. 

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NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn IV 8/18/18

28. Undisputed Era (Roderick Strong/Kyle O'Reilly) vs. Mustache Mountain (Tyler Bate/Trent Seven)

ER: Really bonkers spotfest tag, one of those kitchen sink matches, with a bunch of cool stuff chained together. There were a couple holes, a couple awkward O'Reilly moments, and a really overly hammy section with Seven in agony over whether he should throw in the white flag or not, while Bate butt scooted across the ring to him in a inside heel hook. That moment laid it on a bit thick. The rest of this was a fast paced death wish that ramped up the whole way, in a way that felt like they really understood the pace they wanted this to be. Strong was a real savage here, and a real nut. He took some big bumps to the floor, flipping over the top, getting knocked off the apron when O'Reilly was suplexed into him, flying onto the apron and tumbling down, making MM look real good. But man did he lay it in on a couple of cool timing spots, a flying elbow that looked like Seven got hit with a harpoon, and a wicked leaping knee to set Seven up for the killshot at the end of the match. The British guys were a little overly theatrical throughout, but when most of your shots land hard that can be forgiven pretty easily. And a lot of their shots had some thud. Bate hit some big uppercuts, had a fantastic lariat on the floor (bouncing neck first off the bottom rope and whipping around into a McGuiness-like wide swinging lariat), he also sold his knee impressively after O'Reilly worked it over with an awesome inside heel hook. I did think Bate tagged back in way too early after that big butt scooting moment, but I liked him foolishly limping and dragging his hurt ankle up the ropes. There were so many big spots, some big dives, Bate powerbombing O'Reilly into Strong to break up a submission, some brainbusters, a ridiculously kicked out off Burning Hammer, But we got some good nearfalls, some nice saves, tons of big moves, and a really fine build. Very, very hot opener.

PAS: I really wasn't looking forward to this match, over the years I have has some distaste for British indy guys, Kyle O'Reilly, Roderick Strong and indy spotfest tags. So I really wasn't looking forward to seeing Kyle O'Reilly and Roderick Strong take on some British Indy guys in a spotfest tag. Still I admit this really won me over. Really great performance by Bate and Strong especially, with their tag partners being along for the ride nicely. Bate was great in both fighting for the hot tag and getting the hot tag. I loved both of his peril sections, O'Reilly and Strong are really great and continuously tagging in and out and keeping the heat on, and when Bate evades multiple attacks to finally get the tag it felt like Indiana Jones escaping the cave at the beginning of Raiders. His hot tag after they worked over Seven was dope too, laying waste to everyone, including a great dive and a Niebla fake into a lariat. The second peril section got a little overly emotional which is a real flaw in the NXT house style (who is agenting these matches, Chris Carrabba?), but that heel hook looked great and Bate sold it well. Bate also may have pulled off the only two hit-both-partners-with-moves combos I have ever liked. Strong was a bulldozer in this too, I loved how he kept flying in to obliterate people and all of his classic Strong offense looked great. That kick out on the burning hammer knee combo was a bridge to far for me, but otherwise this was pretty damn good.

Velveteen Dream vs. EC3

ER: Overall good match with a few brief hiccups and a little awkward positioning, made up for by each guy taking the other's offense with gusto. Dream is a guy who comes off totally natural in his gimmick and movement, and EC3 doesn't always. You can see this in the awkward way Carter comes out for his entrance doing weird bunny hops. Dream is a good bumper, although I didn't like the early parts of this where he was just aping a few signature Curt Hennig bumps. Once he unnaturally got himself belly first over the turnbuckles it looks like he had to motion for EC3 to go through the old Hennig/Michaels kick to stomach/fly crotch first onto top rope spot, then moves right into taking Hennig's flip bump in the ropes off of some clotheslines. Now Dream was taking these on his shoulder on the apron, so there was a little twist, and they looked great, but something came off forced. But these two had no problem bouncing their heads and faces off the mat and floor. EC3 took a nasty floatover DDT on the metal ramp, Dream made that silly forward facebuster DDT look great in the ring, and both guys took a lot of fireman's carry slam variations (EC3 uses that a bit much and he's not really great at setting it up). Dream throws really nice right hands and I liked him using those to set up flashier things. And the finish was fantastic, with Dream hitting two Dream Valley Drivers - one in the ring and one on the apron - and then hitting his fabulous elbow drop from the top to the apron to finish it. I thought this delivered what it was going to deliver, but I'm not sure these two are good dance partners. The build was fine, but both guys kind of cancel the other out in a few ways. Their styles are almost more complementary as partners than as opponents, but I also don't need to see them as a team. Still, I liked this.

Ricochet vs. Adam Cole

ER: This match had a few fantastic big moments, and a bunch of those moments that makes me zone out during indy strike exchanges. And a couple of the biggest moments didn't really get the proper gravity that they deserved. The two big moments I loved were Cole going for a leapfrog and eating a dropkick, and Ricochet going for an Asai moonsault and getting superkicked in the face. The superkick spot looked especially match finishing (and it was even followed up by that stupid brainbuster on knee) but moments later we were just running and whipping around into our next sequences. We got a long stretch of that thing where one guy hits a strike, and it spins him a bit into position to do his own strike, which then spins the first guy into a different strike, and then they eventually all fall into a big This Is Awesome heap and breathe heavily like they were in a Godspell curtain call. And so they had these few big moments that landed big and looked great, but they were all just treated the same as the moves that looked decent and okay. A crazy flipping moonsault to the floor that sorta grazes Cole keeps him down for about the same time as Ricochet high jumping the top rope to rana Cole off the apron. A lot of their offense looked good, it just didn't appear to be very important, and there were too many of those autopilot sequences where a guy half asses step 2 of a 3 step memorized sequence, because he's already rushing to step 3 (like Ricochet not really getting height on a apron enziguiri because he's already worrying about the timing for the follow up). I didn't think this was bad, but it felt empty.

Kairi Sane vs. Shayna Baszler

ER: This didn't totally land with me, and mostly because of that awesome achilles stomp spot that Shayna did. Something like that is almost too vicious to happen early in the match, as it's so extreme that your opponent basically has to ignore it just to be able to function. There's ways you can work around it better than what Kairi did, but it's a tough wrench. But aside from that, they didn't really seem like they were having the same match. They both wanted different things, and this felt like a collection of parts from different matches. I could have seen Shayna being more sadistic, or Sane getting a stronger win, but it all felt a little disjointed. They still both do a lot to like, and that stomp to the achilles was one of my favorite things on the entire show. I loved all of Baszler's work around that right leg, bending it in all sorts of great ways, popping that ankle, bowing it out, and then curling the toes up before the big stomp. Shoot I even liked ref Jessika Carr's reactions as it was about to happen. Her face read "I feel really bad for what's about to happen to you but can't technically stop it from happening." Shayna looked like she was occasionally holding up on elbow strikes, and there were an abundance of Sane's strikes that looked like they would barely fluff a pillow. But her lunatic elbowdrops are as much of a sure thing as anything in wrestling, and they crushed Baszler. But it was hard to stay invested in Sane with all that running on that devastated leg, all that bridging, all the holding the standing crab, it was just a bit too much. I don't want people to think this was in your face bad, it wasn't. I'm sure these two have a good match against each other at some point.

PAS: I think this was a pretty great Shayna performance that got all joshied up by Kairi. I loved Shayna's taunting and shit talking. Doing Sane's goofy goosestep while kicking her ass was great. I also really liked Shayna's selling, that collapse from the spinning back fist on the temple was totally killer, as was how she snapped into killer mode any time she had a chance to throw on the rear naked choke. I thought Sane wasn't good though, this was a Manami Toyota match with only 2/3rds of Manami's athleticism. That ankle spot was an all timer, and she was up running around doing dropkicks a minute later, she was also doing a ton of over the top emotive telenovela selling, no subtlety about her reactions, everything was on a ten. I really liked the finish, and Shayna is at the point now where almost everything she does is worth a spot on an MOTY list, but I am sure there is better stuff out there, so I am fine leaving this off.

ER: So the tag match is landing on our 2018 MOTY List, but the main event...well, we disagree strongly on the main event. We'll be posting that match tomorrow, separately, and trying something a little different from how we've done things
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Tetsujin Shoot Style 11/20/15

Really cool oddity of a show. A British wrestling radio show promotes a shootstyle tourney made up of mostly under the radar British guys (no Sabre, Scurll, Ospreay, etc.) and it comes off way better than it should have. You can order it here.

1. Jack Gallagher v. Zack Gibson

PAS: Gallagher is in full gi here, he is guy I had seen before and enjoyed, he always seemed like one of the more natural guys doing new age WOS stuff. Here he was really cool as a Tamura-ish shootstyle grappler, he kept falling into guard and inviting Gibson to roll with him.  I though Gibson looked fine, but Gallagher was on another level. This built nicely to a pretty hot finish, with Gibson doing a deadlift powerbomb for a near KO, and Gallagher ripping off a nice flying choke and doing a cool arm shift to synch in the choke, almost looked like the way Cody McKenzie would sleep people during the Ultimate Fighter.

ER: I loved the way this was paced, loved the RINGS vibe. Trying to do a whole show featuring these kind of matches worked by guys who don't normally do these kind of matches seems like a Brawl for All type disaster waiting to happen. Just torn muscles and knocked loose teeth and ligament damage.  I know nothing about these two guys so if there were any pre-existing hierarchy I'm unaware, and it's probably best that way. Gallagher was loads of fun, like a little coiled rattlesnake. Gibson had some nice stuff as well, including an awesome abdominal stretch which he smoothly rolled into a rear naked, and later almost ripped Gallagher's shoulder out of the socket. My tricep ached just watching Gallagher's bend back to his shoulder blade. The powerbomb was a real holy shit spot (wish he had tidied up the follow up punt, however) and I just really liked the way all of this built.

2. Tyler Bate v. Chris Brookes

PAS: I enjoyed this a bunch too, Brookes is way taller then Bate and he really uses his length in the way tall shootfighters use their height, he has nasty upkicks, and uses a jab. Bate has kind of weird body, he sort of looks like a giant baby like Sekimoto. I really liked how Bate kept going for german suplexes, which Brookes would block, made it a big deal when he finally hit one. Finish was really awesome here too with Brookes fighting for an ankle lock from the ground, he blast Bate with an upkick and sinking in the pick.

ER: I really loved this one. I had seen Brookes before wrestling in a "normal" tag match, but here he's like a young Semmy Schilt which looks ludicrous when paired with Bate and his weird overly muscled smaller frame. Actually Bate has kind of eerily similar posture to Bob Backlund. But man do opposites attract as the tradeoffs ruled. The standing exchanges and grappling looked really great, especially at one point where they lock hands and have a kick exchange, like a bizarro MMA version of the knife fight from Beat It. The headlock takeovers looked like they would pop heads off shoulders, the struggle during suplex attempts was real, that upkick right across Bate's cheek was sick, and this was just awesome.

3. Dan Moloney v. Chris Ridgeway

PAS; This was too short to get much of a sense of either guy. They have a slap fest which mixed some good strikes with some iffier ones, and Maloney dumps Ridgeway on his head and lands elbows to the back of the head for the KO. Those forearms to the back of the head are hard to work well, and they didn't look particularly good here.

ER: Yeah those clubbing forearms didn't look good which is a shame as I really liked the lead up to it, with both guys tossing out off-time kicks and slaps really quick, until Moloney scouts a missed kick and uses Ridgeway's momentum against him to grab a go behind and quick German. Everything up to the stoppage was good, but the stoppage looked poor.

4. Trent Seven v. Dave Mastiff

PAS: Mastiff is a big fat dude and I like a big fat dude. This was the longest of the first round matches and was a little dull. Mastiff and Seven lied around a lot instead of doing cool holds. I did like Mastiff's cool back elbow and german suplex, but otherwise this wasn't anything special.

ER: Mastiff is another one of the guys I had seen before, because fat. He's like Jake the Milkman Milliman without the rattail. I kind of expected this to be slower paced as it would be odd to see Mastiff rolling around and doing quick go behinds, but I though the slow pace was rewarding as Mastiff brought a little fish out of water vibe to things, but showed he could still throw you right quick before you realize what's happening. At one point we get into a fun Frye/Shamrock ankle lock battle and I liked the handshake compromise to get out of it. I loved when Mastiff started bringing strikes, like his upkicks from his back, his elbows, and then that big German to end things, leading to him being the first guy to sort of show heel leanings as he pounces on Seven a couple times to get more shots in, long after the bell.

5. Dan Moloney v. Chris Brookes

PAS: This was another very short match (I hope they didn't pay Maloney by the hour). Thought Brookes looked good again, his slaps looked nasty in the slap exchange, and his jumping ankle pick was very cool. Really short match, so not a ton to say about it.

ER: Match goes over 4 minutes so it's not exactly that much shorter than the other matches so far, but it does kind of expose Moloney. He had some smart strategy at one point, feigning a KO during a slap exchange to get the ref to back Brookes off him, then springing up and surprising Brookes with a German. But earlier he had some goofy missed strikes where he was firing way over Brookes' head, which given the size difference couldn't have looked like anything other than one guy purposely trying to miss strikes. I did like Moloney realizing he was only going to win with slams, so I dug Brookes going for a rolling armbar only to find himself getting dropped with a front slam and scrambling for the ropes. This was fine but I'm glad Brookes advanced.

6. Jack Gallagher v. Dave Mastiff

PAS: This was great stuff. Gallagher is a little guy trying to fell the oak tree. Meanwhile Mastiff is just tossing him too and fro, with some very cool throws. Gallagher has very little success until the very end with Mastiff clubbing him with a big forearm and running headbutt, and when Mastiff leaps on him to finish it, Gallagher is able to grab a desperation triangle, which he is even able to sink in after getting powerbombed. Really cool flash finish which reminds me of the kind of thing Fujiwara would pull off.

ER: This fell a little more flat with me, as the slow pace Phil complained about that didn't bother me in the first Mastiff match, bothered me here. Funny, that. The bulk of the match didn't feel like taking down an oak tree, it felt like Mastiff being a fish out of water, not knowing how to deal with Judo Jack, floundering on his back like a turtle. His frustration eventually turns to him using strikes, when he just levels Jack with a mean forearm, then when Jack beats the count he runs straight into a Mastiff headbutt. The finish didn't feel genuine to me, felt much more planned out than all the other finishers we've seen so far. After the headbutt Jack barely beats the 10 count, and then Mastiff does an awesome STO and starts beating him in the face. And it goes on WAY longer than any of the other finishing match stretches, which have all seen sudden quick calls by the ref. So Jack barely beats the 10 count, and then is just taking several shots to the face, and once the ref didn't call the match it telegraphed the finish, as sure enough Jack grabs for a triangle. Mastiff hits a nice powerbomb to desperately try to get out of it but Jack holds on for the win. The finish may have looked better on a show that hadn't already set up its universe, but it came off too "fake MMA" to me on a show that had better looking and more surprisingly suddenness.

7. Tommy End v. Big Daddy Walter

PAS: This was a Superfight between two WXW guys. End has as a cool look and has gotten some US Indy love in PWG and Evolve, and Walter is a long term WXW mainstay who works an indy Vader gimmick. The early grappling part of this match was a little dull, but the end run was fun stuff. They really had a bomb throwing feel, much more BattlArts then RINGS, End really laid in his kicks and Walter landed some big suplexes. Sort of a poor mans Ikeda v. Fatter Otsuka, not at that level but pretty fun.

ER: This was fun. I got to see End live during WM weekend last year and came away impressed. If you shaved a little off the front you might have something here, as once they got to the strike portions this got really awesome. End especially is a really cool striker, mixing up heights and arm angles and tossing in kicks when you're not even expecting a foot to enter the fray. One of his flash kicks was a top 3 moment in this cool tourney. It's kinda neat the powerbomb is being treated like a sudden death move in a couple matches here, as it makes Judo Jack Gallagher look even tougher for surviving Mastiff's bomb to win with a triangle. That's a nice subtle way to build up the advantage of a main eventer.

8. Jack Gallagher v. Chris Brookes

PAS: This felt like the right final, these were the two best guys in the tourney and I was amped to see this matchup. It didn't disappoint. Gallagher was super fast and impressive in his grappling, he was always moving and squirming and looking for an advantage, while Brookes used his height to throw leg kicks and keep Gallagher off him. Gallagher took a suplex about as nastily as I have seen in years, and I loved his jumping arm bar for the tap. Really good finish to an impressive tourney.

ER: Fun final and a nice capper for the evening. Judo Jack even shows up in a new black gi, looking like the Final Boss. I knew these two would match up well as Gallagher showed off his quick reactions all night, and I wanted to see how they went up against the quick strikes of Brookes. And it all works. Their scrambles are good, their rolls are quick and always end interesting, Jack is good at getting to the ropes and some of the sub attempts looked like they would make him a goner. The flying armbar was a surprising fun finish, but this style lends itself to surprising finishes and the possibility of those finishes makes these matches more intense. Good final on a good, really fun show.

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