NXT TakeOver 31 Live (Until 49ers) Blog 10/4/20

I'll level with you, this card does not excite me. Phil asked me yesterday if there was anyone I even liked currently wrestling in NXT, and I actually had to think about who that would be. The brand is really stale to me right now, and the few people I have been still tuning in for are not even on this show. The brand was great when there was frequent promotion turnover, but ever since it began being promoted as its own thing it has stagnated and seemingly run out of ideas. Maybe guys on the roster realize things have been blah, maybe they take this opportunity to put on a show that will get people talking. I don't care one iota about the AEW/NXT online feud, but maybe a few of the guys on this show DO care about it and want the internet to buzz about it for a few days. Or, maybe it will be the uninteresting show that it looks like on paper, and I will only have myself to blame.

Also I saw HHH called this new performance center something like "The ultimate heavy metal soundstage" and I am curious see what that means. From Damian Priest's entrance it looks like they have a large tron and a screen wrapping the lengths of at least a couple sides of the room. I'm more excited that there are at least some people (in masks) around the hockey rink baseball backstop like guardrail shields. We still have the home viewer screens in the majority of the crowd, but down front is actual people, and it's good having actual people there. On commentary is Sebastian Gorka.


Damian Priest vs. Johnny Gargano

ER: I don't think Priest is a bad wrestler, in that I think he has the tools to be a compelling wrestler, but he would have to be completely broken down and retrained to not be 2020 Edge. Like Edge, Priest is someone who loves to work even sized with small guys, and it comes off like a large dog who doesn't understand that he's a large dog and gets bossed around by tiny aggressive dogs. Priest is 6'5 and 250, similar size to Edge, and yet he works matches like he's a bad version of Billy Kidman working Ultimo Dragon. And I do not like this match. It came off like a modern update of a Lance Storm/Jerry Lynn match from ECW. 20 years ago that was a match and match type that felt fresh and was done well by then. But it's not a style I want to see in 2020. There are other things from that era that I'd rather seen updated than that specific counter based evenly worked style with some extra shitty If-Nova-Was-Taller embellishments from Priest. Priest's tope con hilo looked good, and a couple of the reversals do work, Gargano takes a hard powerbomb on the apron, and a couple of the nearfalls were effectively placed, and Gargano's low blow kick leading right to the finish looked great, but overall I just didn't like this.

Velveteen Dream vs. Kushida

ER: Dream is dressed like Doc Brown to counter Kushida's McFly, which sounds like something I'd shit on but it's also a fact that I went to a high school dance as George McFly. It was a Hollywood theme dance and you were supposed to come as a celebrity or movie character, and I had found a neat vintage suit jacket at the Salvation Army, and a character with big nerdy black glasses was easy for me to aim for. Now, I suppose I was also 16 years old, and not a grown man playing cosplay dress up as one of my last appearances before pressure mounts to have me punished for being a nonce, so I think I can still shit on Dream.

But I thought their match was really good, albeit perhaps a bit too long. The chemistry between them was stronger than I expected, and the strength was that there was an impressive (and unexpected) amount of struggle to everything that happened, so no parts of it felt like a competitive partners dance. Kushida kept going after that arm for the hoverboard lock, and I liked his tenacity. Dream kept using energy to fight back in cool ways, like refusing to go down on drop toehold and making Kushida work for moves like that. It looks so much cooler when Dream struggles and fights before getting dragged down, makes all of Kushida's passes look fought for and earned. I loved how Kushida rolled through to an armlock after finally getting the drop toehold. There was a lot like that, and Kushida built to some vicious stuff like kicking the ring steps while Dream's arm was pinned between stairs and ring, or catching Dream in various triangles that always felt important. This had the feel of a match that was writing Dream off for a bit, which is a thing that I think will only continue to be demanded. The finish felt like a big FU but a cool finish, with Kushida taking working the arm and Dream powering to his feet for a dream valley driver, only Kushida doesn't let go of the arm and gets the immediate tap. Kushida attacked him too long after the match though, and Dream was doing this weird theatrical screaming and crying. It felt like Kushida turning heel and them making Dream a sympathetic babyface, but I hope that's not what they're doing. I hope it was them just writing Dream off TV. We'll see I guess.

Isaiah "Swerve" Scott vs. Santos Escobar

ER: This had a lot of moments I liked even though I think a lot of Scott's embellishments are really annoying. The match really came alive when Scott hit a one man dive train, and that Fosbury Flop was a cool highlight of that. I like Escobar's stable and would like to see them do things other than feud with Scott, but this match felt like the best case scenario for the pairing. Scott's big stuff looked good (one of Escobar's strengths is taking offense, and that shines here) and Escobar got to plaster Scott with his great tope. This one also could have used an editor, as I think it would have been more effective under 15 minutes, but I also think they did a good job at filling those 15 minutes. Ashante Adonis came back for (I believe) the first time in NXT since his name change from Tehuti Miles, and I could see him having fun matches on this roster. He's a guy who is low on offense, but works a similar style to other offense deprived wrestlers who I enjoy (i.e. cruiserweight Stevie Richards is more interesting to me than Isaiah Scott). I'm glad Escobar retained and would love to see his group presented as an actual threat, even pushed to the level of Undisputed Era.

Candice LeRae vs. Io Shirai

ER: I think this one had the right energy and built in a nice exciting way, but the Wife Guy Johnny stuff coming out for the finish and bumping around like he was on a trampoline while making shocked Gargano face was something the match really didn't need. The ref bump to set up the Gargano new referee silliness was inventive and fun, with Shirai eating knees on a moonsault and letting her momentum carry over and basically Pele kick the ref. The ref bounces to the floor and LeRae's curb stomp looked really gross, mashing Shirai's face into the mat. I think the Johnny stuff really took away from all the drama they had built in the match, as it came off cartoony in a way that the match hadn't been. I liked Candice here more than I did the last time these two had a big singles match (last year at TakeOver Toronto). She kept taking me out of that match with weird selling and getting into position too early for Shirai, and she worked this better as an aggressive heel. I don't think Shirai was as strong in this one as that one, but she made the big moments count and took offense nicely. Still, I thought some of the 50/50 stuff in the middle lost track of things, and then when they won me back Gargano took me back out of things, plus the finish looked a little ugly. Toni Storm and Ember Moon returned in two different post match segments, but it's really weird to bring back two people to the same division in segments immediately following each other. It kind of lessens the impact of both, although I can't deny that Toni Storm is a welcome return. Anything that gets a little less Tegan Nox blandness off the weekly show.

Kyle O'Reilly vs. Finn Balor

ER: Watching this one got delayed by me watching a mildly crushing 49ers loss, with an uninspiring Nick Mullens performance paving the way for an exciting but ultimately futile comeback from CJ Beathard. George Kittle is a more fun to watch wrestler than anybody on TakeOver tonight. I want to see Timothy Thatcher work a shoot style match with Kittle, based around Thatcher being unable to take down Kittle but being persistent about it. Brandon Aiyuk hit a ridiculous leapfrog hurdle for a touchdown, the coolest and best utilized leapfrog spot I've seen tonight. But the Niners lost and this match will now lift my spirits.

And this one won me over early, overcoming it's NXT Main Event Epic Drama layout with compelling selling and nice targeted attacks. Kyle O'Reilly put on one of his strongest singles match performances that I've seen, coming off like Bryan Danielson working like a 2001 NJPW kickpads junior. We get the cool story of O'Reilly exacerbating a Balor shoulder injury early, leaving him susceptible to a near match ending attack on a different limb. Both guys hit the strikes and offense harder the longer the match goes, justifying the overly long near half hour match length. It felt like things really ramped up throughout and never skipped ahead at any points. O'Reilly has a cool set of rolling double underhook suplexes and some knees, but gets a rib kicked in by a great solebutt and then run sternum first into the turnbuckles. From here on out O'Reilly is gamely selling a rib injury and while it was dramatic I also thought it was effective. O'Reilly had a couple of big comebacks (I especially loved him dumping Balor with a real high bridged Regalplex on Balor's neck) but Balor did cool things like work an actual persuasive abdominal stretch and stomp the hell out of O'Reilly's guts.

Both guys bleed from the mouth, and there's some some strong camera shots of O'Reilly stuck in a nice sharpshooter while blood cuts down his cheek. They also do some nice close up magic, as the closest the camera ever got to an O'Reilly knee strike it happened to be the hardest knee strike he hit all night. Finn stomps him in the ribs more, and O'Reilly fights back with a cool standing guillotine that looked nice and snug. O'Reilly played well as a lower rung FUTEN guy who hangs for 13 minutes against Katsumi Usuda. O'Reilly catches Balor with a couple of dragon screws over the ropes, and then hits a totally killer kneedrop off the top rope directly onto the back of Balor's thigh. O'Reilly's kneebar he locks on is some righteous Volk Han shit. He really twists and bend the ankle and when Balor tries to kick him away he grabs that leg and twists it violently over Balor's other leg. The kneebar was so good it made me suddenly start rooting for O'Reilly to win the title here, wanting Finn to tap. That kneebar got me Immediately invested in seeing a specific result, made me spontaneously root for a guy I've never been super high on, and that kind of moment is special. Balor doesn't tap, and he does finally make the ropes no matter how much I wanted him to tap. And, somewhat disappointingly, while his double stomps to finally slam the window shut on O'Reilly's ribs looked really great, I wish more respect was paid to the tendon damage that kneebar should have caused. Even so, I think the double stomps were a fitting end to the match and worked well in context. This was an unexpectedly strong main event within a style I don't adore, building to actual drama and justifying the overly long runtime with some stiff work.

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NXT on USA Workrate Report 9/18/19

Since we have an old fashioned wrestling war again, I figured I would dust off the old DVDVR Workrate Report format. Eric and I are planning on alternating shows each week, we will probably have them up normally on Thursday, but I was home for this show and checked it out. I only did the USA portion this week, as that is what is relevant to this discussion.

What Worked

-I think overall the Woman's four way was a well worked wrestling match. I haven't been watching a ton of NXT before this, and did not realize Mia Yim was working a distaff Homicide gimmick. Her offense is way too elaborate to pull off gangster street brawler, she has neither the dead eyes or lacquered nails of real Korean gangbanger girlfriends I have known. Belair has a bunch of fun offense, and a really well developed look. This felt very WWE formula four way, right down to the near fall run. I guess Canadce hasn't been beaten by Shayna yet so she makes sense as a challenger, but I am going to have a hard time buying her as a threat.


What Didn't Work

-If you are going to do the 5 second squash match you are going to need to have a nastier looking finish then that double stomp. He didn't hit it clean and it didn't look like a KO blow. I am used to watching Trevor Lee matches which go really long, it is funny to give the guy best known for 70 minute matches a 8 seconds and out gimmick. Also what exactly is Cameron Grimes's gimmick, evil Jam Band Bassist?  Guy who sold you bad Mushrooms? Hippie panhandler?

-The main event had some moments, I really liked all of the early scrambling on the mat, and some of the back work by Roddy, but man it really devolved into a bloated 2.9 fest at the end. Dream has a lot of sauce, but he still doesn't hit his simple stuff cleanly. I can't believe that the final impression of the first show, is four 5'8 white dudes celebrating like they are the four horseman. I liked some Roddy and Kyle O'Reilly tag matches, but there is nothing cool or dangerous about those guys.

-Mauro's hipster Chris Berman act is one of the worst things on television, period. He is just so insufferable with his name dropping and bellowing voice. "Io Shirai is burning up the ring like Lizzo is burning up the music charts" get the fuck out of here.

-I assumed they would try to make their first show on USA special in someway, but this was a pretty basic episode of NXT TV. All of the angles were sort of joined in progress, and there was never a moment which will be remembered in a couple of weeks. Lio Rush coming back and Imperium invading all happened on the network hour, I am not super interested in either thing, but at least they were moments. Maybe they are saving whatever ammo the have for the first head to head show, but I can't imagine this show excites anyone.

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NXT TakeOver: Toronto 8/10/19...Everything Except...

ER: So I was unable to actually watch this as it was actually airing, but I always look forward to big NXT shows (no matter how much I've been dreading their main events the past year) so I figured I would watch as much as possible tonight before getting sleepy, then finish the rest tomorrow before Summerslam (and then do Summerslam)!

The Street Profits vs. Kyle O'Reilly/Bobby Fish

ER: I thought a lot of this was pretty boneless and emotionless, big parts feeling like O'Reilly especially were some kind of automated driverless wrestler, just mechanically running through spots in really unattached ways. But Montez Ford brought some actual personality and freak athleticism and salvaged a match that felt too long. Ford seems to glide sometimes and it's cool to see, watch him hit a neat kip up and standing moonsault, super graceful tope con giro, and an absolutely great top rope splash for the win. People had moments in this, liked some Dawkins cut off spots, liked O'Reilly kicking Dawkins in the inner thigh, but a lot of this felt a little phony and I couldn't match the crowd's appreciation.

Io Shirai vs. Candice LeRae

ER: This was up there with the most I've ever enjoyed Shirai in a singles match, but I really didn't like LeRae and thought she kept screwing up the pacing and doing terrible drama. LeRae leads off with a terrible double leg takedown and everything else seems about as out of place from there. She was really obnoxious about immediately getting into position to go back on offense, right after taking a KO move. She takes a nasty 619 to the back of the head, and she sells it by standing up immediately, bounding off the opposite ropes, and hitting a tope tornado DDT; later she eats a huge German suplex and sells it by getting immediately to her feet and waiting patiently in place for Shirai to bounce back off the ropes to run into LeRae's obvious offense. It made things pretty uninteresting to me, and creating drama by merely taking a big move and having it not affect you, is not drama in any way. Shirai hit some of the meanest stuff I seen from her, a crazy double underhook backbreaker, Spanish Fly that landed hard, wrenching LeRae around with a backbreaker, but none of it ever felt appropriately absorbed by LeRae. LeRae's emotion and fighting spirit and selling were all over the map, and even though the match had some fantastic moments and a more grown up Shirai performance (still overshooting that genius moonsault though), but Candice kept taking me out of things.

Velveteen Dream vs. Roderick Strong vs. Pete Dunne

ER: This gets a fun personalized Canadian entrance, with what appears to be the Raptors dance squad coming out and jamming to The Mountie's old theme song (a personal favorite) before throwing it to the Dream's entrance (who comes out in Canadian red and white). And I had a blast with this match. I t was a really great showcase for Dream and Strong, and Dunne was also in the match to mostly add stupid offense but also take exciting offense. They kept up a really insane pace for the duration of the match, without anyone getting crossed up or standing around waiting to hit their marks. This had some pretty impeccable layout, with nobody really having to get up and hit a spot right after taking a beating because that's what the layout dictated. Three ways are difficult to pull off, because you need to get it into singles action a lot of the match but also believably get the third man out of the ring during that time. Most 3 ways a guy just rolls to the floor after taking a fairly standard move and then disappears for 4 minutes. Here we had regular involvement from the 3 players with nobody feeling like they got in the way.

Strong really stood out like a big deal to me. Funny thing is, he almost always does. Strong has been consistently great for probably a decade now and it's still somehow surprising to me when I watch another great Strong performance. I don't think this thing works as a Dream/Dunne singles or as a 3 way with somebody other than Strong. He kept peppering this match with big backbreakers and suplexes, big kneelifts, and appropriate bumps and selling for his opponents. Dream really seemed to benefit from being in their with Strong, as Strong took every axehandle like a gunshot, went down hard for every long arm lariat, and seemed to be orchestrating every car crash spot involving all of them. Dream has really great body movement. He's not a very large guy, but he throws his most simple attacks with such unique movement and flexibility that he comes off like Mr. Fantastic. There was a stretch where he whipped off a couple great punches, threw a couple weird straight arm lariats, hits a Rockette kick, the way he rubber man bounces out of the DVD, and he gets such great stretch from his limbs that it makes him look like he could catch you with a strike no matter where either of you are standing in the ring. Some of the spot set up is brilliant, like Dream slithering away from Dunne only to get his legs grabbed by Strong, who crotches him around the ringpost; or Strong running around dropping both with back suplexes on the apron and barricade; or Dream hitting that big elbow all the way across the ring during a tree of woe spot. The big moves hit big, and they even did some stuff that comes off silly during 3 ways but I think was elevated here by Strong. Really the only thing I thought looked bad was whenever Pete Dunne would try to do any strikes. I don't know why he thinks his slap fight girly hands look good, but he looked like he was defending himself from a backseat big brother attack than stand up to Dream and Strong. Those little flimsy slaps need to be dropped immediately, and his bad punches when trying to fend of Strong should literally be in the running for worst strikes thrown in a major company. My god. The finish stretch was hot as hell, loved Dream hitting the DVD only for Strong to throw him over the top rope and hit a big backbreaker on Dunne, only for Dream to rebound right back in with the big elbow. This was the match I needed after the first two.

Mia Yim vs. Shayna Baszler

ER: This never really clicked with me. They chose a couple of interesting directions to take, with both gals going after arms, but none of the arm stuff ever actually went anywhere interesting. I liked some of the exchanges, and some of the actual moves, but the selling seemed like it was part of a different match than they actually wound up with. It was kind of odd. Yim set up a spot where she kicked Baszler's arm in the ring steps, and Baszler sold her arm the rest of the match...but Yim weirdly skirted the arm several times. There was a spot where she set up the Code Blue off the tope rope, and specifically trapped Baszler's arm in her knee crook, and I'm thinking "Oh man that's an awesome arm break spot that I've never seen! Flipping over and using her own weight and momentum to kick the arm work up another level!" And then she just did the sunset flip bomb and went for a pin and I was left wondering why they even bothered paying attention to her clearly setting up a focus on the arm during the move. Shayna kinda did the same thing in a way, establishing an attack on Yim's arm (leading to the great spot of her stomping the posted out elbow), but it's not uncommon for Shayna to establishing arm work to then making it easier for her to sink in a choke. So I was expecting that, but then also thought it didn't make as much sense within this match. Not only was she then doing rear naked chokes using the arm that Yim had been working over, but I would have liked to see her punish Yim for having the balls to even come after her arm. And was anybody else expecting the Horse Girls? They made such a big deal about Yim taking out and injuring the Horse Girls, that surely that meant they were going to come out and do something, so I was amused when that never happened. But I was still left so confused about why they never really cashed in anything they actually set up before or during the match. I have no major complaints about the ring work, it all looked fine, though perhaps the obvious silence of the crowd during much of the match was a sign they weren't sure what was happening either. At one point Yim yelled at the crowd to get into it, and the quiet that came after couldn't have felt good. Even right after that when she hit a nice dive, it merely got scattered polite applause. It feels like this is a frequent NXT TakeOver criticism I use, but...It felt like these two have a good match between them, and this had the potential parts of that hypothetical good match, but this wasn't it.

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NXT TakeOver: XXV 6/1/19

I spent the day up at my parents' place as my sister was in town, and now after hearing my mother tell me in detail about her 50th class reunion three different times, as well as hearing a 20 minute story about how she had a very normal trip to the supermarket, I'm ready to just write as much as I can about tonight's TakeOver as I can before I drift off to slumberland. Whatever I don't finish tonight I will finish tomorrow when I wake up.

Roderick Strong vs. Matt Riddle

ER: Totally wild stiff overkill battle, a match that kept things interesting with inventive reversals and showcasing several ways for men to land knees and elbows to faces. Riddle is a guy who looks like he could really eat Strong's lunch, and yet three minutes into this Strong is dropping Riddle on the apron with a fast backdrop suplex and hammerfisting him in the stomach from the mount I find myself wondering "How is Riddle going to last against this!?" Both guys land such jaw jacking shots that I'm not always sure how they stay standing in a long match, but when I get Riddle dragging Strong by the arm chin first into his knee, or Strong hitting an insane running jumping knee into the ropes, I just want more. Both men move so fast, and land so hard, that it really adds to everything they do. Riddle scrambling down out of a press and locking in a choke, Strong landing a couple hard backbreakers, Riddle landing flush onto Strong's knees on a twisting press, Strong bouncing back and forth off the ropes with hard elbows, Riddle flinging Strong with a German suplex, A top rope superplex from Strong, it's all done with such speed and precision that they always seem a millimeter away from stopping a match due to brain bruising. They never get trapped in a strike loop, they always advance, and I'm never quite sure where every sequence is going. I don't really mind the way these two do overkill, because some of the stiffer sequences just impress me that they're able to keep going, and while somethings weren't as focused as other big matches from these two, I thought they did a great job at building the threat and the violence. Hot start to a show.

Street Profits (Montez Ford/Angelo Dawkins) vs. Forgotten Sons (Wesley Blake/Steve Cutler) vs. Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Kyle O'Reilly/Bobby Fish

ER: They're really letting matches go long on this show so far. This one probably goes a little too long and features a definitely too long run in from Forgotten Son Jaxson Ryder (and really someone who has that name is probably overstaying every life situation they're ever in), but also has a bunch of crazy stuff on par with most of the crazy stuff in the MITB matches two weeks ago. It genuinely felt like everybody in this match had several opportunities to fit in a couple crazy spots and a couple crazy bumps, like they were all filling quotas. I really liked Forgotten Sons, both guys really exited the ring in dynamic ways when they needed to clear space, and they willingly threw themselves into getting suplexed while wearing a ladder around their necks, or Blake doing a tope INTO a ladder. Montez Ford had some big stuff (overall I thought the Profits came off like a team who kind of snaked a victory, which is weird since they were the favorites going in) including a frog splash so big that it sent him vertical into a perfect headstand and a tope con hilo with a painful landing (a LOT of dives in this match had painful landings, felt like every guy here was taking flat back bumps onto the hard ground), even does a bonkers leap from the top rope to a ladder. Lorcan used his body as a weapon and flung it into people and ladders, Fish and O'Reilly took some nasty spills into ladders, Dawkins hit a huge dive to the floor, O'Reilly may have taken the most painful bumps onto ladders (and another where he just took a big Hamrick back bump from ring to floor), and this whole thing was pretty crazy. This show is a pretty easy 2/2 for me so far, every guy is working this show like it's their WrestleMania or something. Trying to take buzz away from AEW? I don't know but whatever it is I dig it.

Tyler Breeze vs. Velveteen Dream

ER: Breeze is someone I thought was one of the most consistently good performers in NXT history, who got kind of predictably chewed up on the main roster. He's a guy who showed he was really good at 8-11 minute matches, a guy who could have been a real valuable Smackdown TV match guy, who never got much of a chance to work the kind of match he's really good at. So on paper I'm excited as hell for this match, and really WWE should be more willing to send people back down to NXT if things aren't working out. MLB teams do that all the time, send a guy back to work on mechanics before giving them another shake. It doesn't have to be seen as a negative, but it obviously always will be. And I thought this match was pretty awesome, while also thinking that they probably had more than enough tricks and moments for a rematch, and I think they took to much time fitting them all into this match. This was a really good 18 minutes that I think could have been a flat out awesome 14 minutes. Breeze is a guy with a limited offense arsenal, who finds cool logical ways to create openings and reverse moves. I don't think a lot of his stuff feels like a modern do-si-do dance sequence reversal, he just finds simple ways to dodge and strike fast. Breeze is one of the better guys about making space, about not rushing through sequences, and he comes off more like a solid Stevie Richards type than a modern 2.9 count guy. His simple stuff hits hard and he finds ways to smartly get into position for Dream's offense, while having an impressive sense of when a strike doesn't land as hard and thus doesn't need to be sold as hard.

Because of that skill we got a few sequences that weren't really "clean" but I think benefitted from looking messier. Dream threw a backhand that didn't really land, but followed it up quick with a shot from the other direction that landed much harder, and Breeze knew exactly how to play it. Dream is someone who throws a lot of his body into shots, so when one doesn't hit flush it can look silly, and Breeze is a perfect guy to cover for that kind of flash. I love how Breeze doesn't skimp on shots and doesn't cut corners. Weirdly my favorite part of the match was when Breeze was setting up a superkick, but opted for just a simple (killer looking) front kick to the face to set up the kick. We've seen superkick overkill for a few years now and I thought it was cool that Breeze didn't just go right to it, he kicked Dream into a better position for it. Even though I thought we got maybe two too many kickouts, I thought the placements of them rolling out of the ring and working count outs was really well done, and I thought a lot of the reversal sequences looked cool because they didn't look overly smooth. Dream has a way of looking incredibly graceful while occasionally looking totally stumbly, and I'm genuinely unsure if it's intentional or not, but I think it works. It leads to moments like Dream stumbling face first into a hard enziguiri, which winds up looking nastier because it was face first and he looked off balance. Breeze barely beating a 10 count only to slide back into the ring to get blasted with the Dream Driver felt like a perfect spot to finish things, even though part of me is glad the went longer to make Breeze look more threatening. And late in the match we got an absolute freakshow eye popping move set up where Dream jumped off the top to land past a laid out Breeze, landing right where he needed to so he could hook Breeze's leg to roll him through into sticking him with Breeze's own Unprettier. It looked insane. And I loved the set ups where Dream would purposely throw off Breeze's timing on spots (which is something Breeze did to him a couple times earlier). I really loved this, warts and all, and this show is firing on an easy 3/3 for me.

Io Shirai vs. Shayna Baszler

ER: Apparently Tokyo Sports at one point called Shirai the "greatest wrestler in the world" which just feels like someone somewhere had to have wrongly translated a quote. This was the first match that felt like a miss, felt like something that would have been a decent hour one Smackdown match, but didn't have any big moments to make it stand out on this card. Really the most exciting part of this was Candice LeRae running out to wreck Shafir and Duke with a kendo stick. Candice was really swinging hard, broke the damn stick over them both, really liked that whole section. But the match itself seemed really basic. Shirai just doesn't seem very good to me, and as Shayna is working her over I'm sitting here knowing that it's going to just lead to a bunch of fairly implausible Shirai offense. Baszler toying with Shirai was fun, kicking at her and getting her to flinch, before ACTUALLY kicking her. Shirai isn't a very interesting seller, so her selling limb damage always feels comical, and her staggering around for shots looked like when Jeremy Irons was awkwardly learning geisha movements in M. Butterfly. Her flying does little for me, although I think she may have had a decent missile dropkick in there. The finish itself was really good, as the bridge looked like a plausible way to win but I was confident Shayna would turn it into a choke. I think I'm more interested in the inevitable Shirai/LeRae vs. Shayna/Horse Girl tag as Shirai works better in a tag or multiman setting, but this underwhelmed.

ER: Just want to make a note here about how godawful Mauro Ranallo has been on commentary the entire show. He isn a very specific and infuriating kind of awful, a different side of the Matt Striker coin. The specifically infuriating part about Ranallo - I mean aside from his constant fucking screaming - is that he seems to genuinely LOVE the product that he is announcing for. He seems like he adores NXT and he is living his absolute best life. But he's just so fucking annoying about enjoying his favorite thing. He's the fan you hate to hear talk about the thing he loves, and you hate the specific way he loves it. Striker is unbearable in that way you picture him sitting at home writing hack shoehorned references trying to get himself over, Ranallo is the guy who does that because it's how he can best express his love for NXT.

Adam Cole vs. Johnny Gargano

ER: I actually somewhat unexpectedly enjoyed the first 15 minutes of this match! But as we all know this was not going to be a match than ended shortly past the 15 minute mark. Pro wrestling inspired by the Marvel Cinematic Universe is absolutely one of the worst things to happen to pro wrestling. It just makes me dream of Stan Hansen running into the ring and beheading either of these goofs with lariats. There are always things I enjoy! Gargano can take some bone rattling bumps, and they both have some cool ideas about building off past matches and past interactions. But FUCK them. That Star Search dance routine with Gargano hitting a reverse rana and then waiting patiently on his knees while peeking over his shoulder, waiting for Cole to bounce of the ropes with a superkick, or their little Total Eclipse of the Heart dance recital where Gargano kept getting kicked chest first into the ropes and bouncing off and hitting his own bullshit only to spin Cole into his arms as rain pours down in dramatic fashion, that kind of horseshit can just die. I hate all of Marvel's final 25 minute "Two invincible guys not able to do a ton of damage to the other while causing millions of dollars in structural damage" and it's not something I'll ever want to see in pro wrestling. Nothing damages these guys, until something damages them. Fuck Off Forever.

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2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Riddle vs. Dream

23. Matt Riddle vs. Velveteen Dream NXT TakeOver: New York 4/5

ER: I really liked this, with Riddle going on dominant runs, catching Dream in submissions and nasty throws, with Dream scrambling just to keep up. Riddle broke out some increasingly brutal stuff: rolling gutwrenches, exploder, building up to Riddle catching Dream on an axe handle to the floor and dropping him with a slow German, and then going beyond that to Riddle dragging Dream up over the ropes and hitting a suplex into the ring from he middle rope. All of these were awesome visuals. Dream looked like he was scrambling the whole time, even when he was in control. He was still cucumber cool, but Riddle was going for constant strikes and submissions, and even when Dream would counter one it would end with Riddle elbowing him as punishment. I like the Riddle match structure where he is dominating but kind of cockily distracts himself thinking things should be over. I love moments like Riddle catching Dream's big elbow or Riddle breaking out a new twisting moonsault, the latter really helped give this a bigger match feel. The finishing stretch is real quality, with cool trading, Dream stunning Riddle out of the triangle but getting hit with another knee and German. I'm not sure how I feel about the finish, I liked that Dream flipped his desperation switch into panic mode and went for the last pinfall he could get, but also think Dream should have controlled for a bit more earlier in the match. When this was all over it practically felt like Riddle bullied him around at every turn of the match. I loved the personality in this and the work looked spectacular, would love to see this run back again. I'll have to watch it again to see how much Riddle dominating affects that for me. Still, these two matched up great together and I dug it.

PAS: We have watched a lot of Riddle, he was a C+A guy (I guess still is, but we soured a bit on his last indy run), this match had some of the best Riddle I can remember. He really wrestled this like Dr. Death, using his power and wrestling ability to really dominate. I loved how he could yank Dream out of the air from almost anywhere with a huge throw, him catching the axe handle into the german on the floor was great as was the flash gutwrenches. I also liked how he refused to break and pummeled Dream in the ropes. Dream's conk was amazing, he looked like Nat King Cole, and I loved how his hair does a ton of selling for him, by the end of the match all of the processing was gone and he basically had an afro. Outside of the hair, I didn't love him in this match. Riddle is killing him with shots and when Dream gets on offense, he is doing goofy cosplay offense which lands like a feather, at least he won with a roll-up and Riddle didn't have to pretend any of that stuff would actually put him down. Still a Riddle performance this good will get you on a list.


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE MATT RIDDDLE

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NXT TakeOver: New York 4/5/19

Didn't actually get to see or watch this show live, but I also don't actually know anything that happened on the show, so I'm back home and figured why not watch some TakeOver?

War Raiders vs. Aleister Black/Ricochet

ER: So this is one way to open up a TakeOver! This starts as very much a sexy dance fight learned behavior match, that I was ready to dislike for being too dance-y but then they just kept going and pulling out bigger and wilder things, and by the end I thought this was a fantastically paced out tag. We had some early tape studying spots, fun stuff like Black anticipating a Rowe knee, or Rowe anticipating a Black kick by catching it with his head and neck. And as the train really starts leaving the station the match's charms become a bit impossible to ignore. There were still some silly dance fighting spots - namely Ricochet running 4 steps across the ring to leap into getting handspring elbowed by Hanson - but this was some well done go go go. The dives we built to were great, with Rowe hitting a tope, Ricochet naturally flipping in several ways, and peaking with Hanson flying off the top like a falling piano. This whole tag had a ton of moving parts and the pace they kept was really impressive. We got smart use of saves, with Rowe certainly getting beat before Hanson crashes everybody into them to break up the pin, and Black getting an awesome surprise pinfall save by landing a double stomp off the top. Ricochet was a fun ham throughout, getting knocked around plenty of times by the Raiders, but also hitting all of his stuff tighter than he's looked ever since getting called up to Raw. And the chained spots can be a real impressive thing when they're done as fluidly as they did here. Everything was mapped out and executed at high speeds, so that you feel like you're seeing a lot, while also feeling like a big Hanson tope is still treated as a big deal. Not many events will be able to start off this hot.

Matt Riddle vs. Velveteen Dream

ER: I really liked this, with Riddle going on dominant runs, catching Dream in submissions and nasty throws, with Dream scrambling just to keep up. Riddle broke out some increasingly brutal stuff: rolling gutwrenches, exploder, building up to Riddle catching Dream on an axe handle to the floor and dropping him with a slow German, and then going beyond that to Riddle dragging Dream up over the ropes and hitting a suplex into the ring from he middle rope. All of these were awesome visuals. Dream looked like he was scrambling the whole time, even when he was in control. He was still cucumber cool, but Riddle was going for constant strikes and submissions, and even when Dream would counter one it would end with Riddle elbowing him as punishment. I like the Riddle match structure where he is dominating but kind of cockily distracts himself thinking things should be over. I love moments like Riddle catching Dream's big elbow or Riddle breaking out a new twisting moonsault, the latter really helped give this a bigger match feel. The finishing stretch is real quality, with cool trading, Dream stunning Riddle out of the triangle but getting hit with another knee and German. I'm not sure how I feel about the finish, I liked that Dream flipped his desperation switch into panic mode and went for the last pinfall he could get, but also think Dream should have controlled for a bit more earlier in the match. When this was all over it practically felt like Riddle bullied him around at every turn of the match. I loved the personality in this and the work looked spectacular, would love to see this run back again. I'll have to watch it again to see how much Riddle dominating affects that for me. Still, these two matched up great together and I dug it.

[sorry, started writing up NXT and then got incredibly sleepy and zonked out AT the computer. Writing up the rest of this before Mania]

WALTER vs. Pete Dunne

ER: Rachel, wholly unfamiliar with WALTER, looks up as he's walking to the ring and asks, "Did they give someone an SS officer gimmick??" She's not wrong. Also, it appears referee Drake Younger is working a full blackface ref gimmick. This match was kind of weird for me, as Dunne has had this belt 700 odd days, and I don't think he ever looked like he really belonged with WALTER in there. This match got a ton of time 25 minutes, and at no point did it look like Dunne should be hanging with WALTER. And really, he didn't. Any time he did start to pull away from WALTER, he would do a light enziguiri or something that looked like it shouldn't be sold that much by WALTER. I liked stuff with Dunne avoiding the big chops, and his only chance looked to be targetting WALTER's fingers (and smashing his hand on the ringpost was a good moment), but I don't think any of the finger work went anywhere exciting. I don't think it ever even slowed WALTER down outside of the precise second it was happening. This felt like a similarly structured match to Dream/Riddle, only those two looked like they belong in the ring against each other. By the time they got to the inevitable strike exchanges it kind of felt ridiculous. WALTER just crushed Dunne the whole match, big kicks, nasty sleeper suplex off the top that felt like something you end a match on (but instead leads directly to Dunne doing a German and crucifix bomb that felt entirely like WALTER doing the moves to himself), big lariats, and of course that superbomb/splash combo to finish it. WALTER came in and definitely, the whole match, looked like a guy who should be the champ. So I'm glad they gave him the belt. If/when they do the rematch, I'm interested in seeing how they actually make Dunne look on WALTER's level.

Kairi Sane vs. Bianca Belair vs. Io Shirai vs. Shayna Baszler

ER: I thought this ruled. It felt tidy and like they could have gone longer but I'm happy they did it, just kept it at 15 minutes of fast action and no overkill. A lot of this was worked as the Sky Pirates working against the other two, while Belair and Baszler were against the other three. The 4 way brawling could have been an absolute mess but I loved how the Pirates crossed up the rope running and used that misdirection to sneak in their shots. Belair's hair is such an integral part of her matches and it's great when she uses it, and great when it's used against her, like when she gets whipped into the corner by her braid. And I LOVED the early ringpost spot, Baszler tossing Belair around the post and holding her braid to pull her into it, only Belair got her boot up to block and used the power of her thick ass amazing braid to yank baszler into the post instead. Mauro says, "Bring back any memories, Nigel?" To which Nigel should have humorously replied "No...actually. None at all." Belair is great at showing her power, hard shoulderblocks and catching a crossbody for a fallaway slam, big spear right at the chest, huge press slam to the floor, she totally looks like a boss. I also thought Shirai looked more explosive and violent than I've seen from her. She usually looks flimsy and nothing connects, here she hits a missile dropkick and the corner knees land hard, and I dug the way they worked themselves into the match (their acting got a little melodramatic at points, acting like saving a pinfall was the most physically exerting thing they'd ever done, but joshi gonna joshi). The corner suplex/powerbomb spot actually looked good and they kept the set-up brisk, the flying to the floor looked cool, Shirai's moonsaults actually hit hard for once, the pinfall saves were all expertly timed, Belair's KOD on Baszler looked great, and THEN she got to plant the Sky Pirates with one, Sane's elbow slammed hard into Baszler, Baszler had a cool counter of Belair's double chickenwing into the clutch, really the whole thing was a blast.

Johnny Gargano vs. Adam Cole

ER: Totally serious here, but are these the two smallest guys to ever be fighting for a WWE World Title? Did Rey ever defend against someone similar sized? And you know, I really liked this. I was expecting to not like this very much. I figured it would go long, and figured there would be tons of wide eyed heavy breathing shocked kickout faces. Both of those things happened. The latter happened a lot. And there were little things I didn't like, such as the way Cole threw the most half-assed missed clothesline right before he hit the knee to end the first fall. It's when guys halfass their way through things like that, where you can really see they were just not focusing on step a and only thinking about step b. It's an ugly trend but it's been where we're at for awhile. I also don't think I'll ever get used to the "I'm dead, I'm dead, I can't move, also I'm up and sprinting" brand of selling, and we got plenty of that. I also will forever laugh at how outright stupid Adam Cole's finisher looks. That little bunny hop off the middle buckle never ceases to crack me up. It's so isolated and never part of a smooth turn into the flipping piledriver, possibly the dumbest and silliest any big league wrestler has ever looked setting up a move.

But again, I liked this match. This was the match where Johnny Gargano fulfills his destiny and finally pulls out the big win, overcoming the numbers, defying the odds, all things that could have been insufferable. But they built a nice match with some memorably wild moments, and I was impressed at Gargano's timing throughout. This kind of match hinges on timing, hinges on guys being in the right place at the right time, and I don't think this came off as dance-y as it could have. Gargano's big spots looked big, the spear through the ropes, the slingshot DDT, big flatliner, big Air Raid Crash, and even more importantly he helped uberwuss Cole actually look dangerous. Gargano bumped around spectacularly for Cole, especially impressing me with two consecutive ringpost bumps. He really flew into ringposts in the classic Lawler post bump style, my personal favorite post bump, running in fast with the face and throwing the legs up high on the back bump. His ringpost shots looked great and I liked that we got some Gargano color, and later on Gargano tops his ringpost bumps by flying over a table and then getting pulverized into the top of said table by the Devil's Wings (my god is anything about Adam Cole cool?). That table was the true heel of the match, as good lord that unbreaking table must have hurt like hell. The finishing run of the third fall felt like smart use of non-falls and bullshit. Gargano hitting the reverse rana and superkick only for Cole to fall out of the ring is a great way to not burn kickout, and I actually liked the involvement of UE as a way to make fans flip even harder for Gargano. Once O'Reilly was ripping at Gargano's face to break the Escape, I found myself actually annoyed in that "No! Not like this!" kind of way. Gargano fighting off UE and getting the Escape tap was very satisfying, really feels like they need to get far away from emo wrestling as there's nowhere else they can go with it.

ER: Even with Dunne's performance not resonating with me (apparently that match was called match of the weekend at one point, which never approached that for me), this was still a really great show. I loved the tag, thought Riddle/Dream was fantastic, and thought the women's match was one of the hottest women's sprints we've seen in WWE. The main event delivered the best version of what I was expecting, and there was nothing approaching "bad wrestling". TakeOver's are a thing I always look extremely forward to, and that's because they've just rarely let me down.

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Misawa! Texas Terminator Hoss? Battle Royals! Brauuuuuun!

Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Texas Terminator Hoss AJPW 4/14/91

ER: We've been blessed by several new handheld matches over the past couple years, and my favorite thing about them isn't the classic main events that have been unearthed - those are surely the most important things - but my favorite thing is the weird match ups, the kind of matches that would never make TV, the natives I love against the weirdest gaijin. THOSE are my handheld dream matches, odd pairings or unique singles matches from people who only showed up on one tour, those are the kinds of things that set my wrestling heart aflutter. Texas Terminator Hoss (who later became one of the Kongs in WCW) did one AJ tour, but in that one tour got to work tag matches against guys like Andre and The Funks, and got singles matches against legends like Stan Hansen and Dynamite Kid, and future legends like Misawa and Kobashi. Cactus Jack was the other first-and-only timer on this tour, and things went differently for him in his career. Hoss was just a super big tubby guy who looked like John C. Reilly wearing his Oliver Hardy fat suit, in the coolest way. And I love seeing this because how cool is established Misawa going against not only a fairly new wrestler, but a gigantic gaijin wrestler! Misawa vs. Giant is a match I feel we didn't get enough of, so it's awesome we get to see him work opposite a style we rarely saw him against, and it's awesome that a giant gets to work someone as good as Misawa in a singles match.

It's a simple match, but a match I really liked. Hoss is a huge guy and it's cool seeing him work collar and elbows with Misawa, see him hit a big leaping avalanche in the corner, and then work a classic fat guy arm chinlock. Misawa is a guy I like in a chinlock, he always starts awkwardly breathing through his nose and fidgeting, and Hoss pushes forward with his weight. But I really like Misawa finally lacing into him, backing him up with two hard elbows and hitting a crisp chop before sending him to the floor with a dropkick, hitting his big missile dropkick in a cramped corner. Hoss gets his own eventual comeback too, catching Misawa off the ropes with a great full rotation powerslam, but belly flops on a missed standing splash. Unretired Gunslinger era was always a fun "Let's Bring This Home" guy when he was working lower in the card, someone on the apron who would come and and announce he was finishing things by hitting a few elbows and the pin. He had a bunch of great "alright let's end this" faces. It was essentially his resting face. Our finish gives us an awesome glimpse of that Misawa, when he hits one of his best ever spinkicks, cracking Hoss right in the chin with the outside of his right boot. Go back and watch that kick - I did 5 times - watch how there's no contact other than boot to face, and listen to that thwack as Hoss mans up and leans face first into that boot. Misawa finishes with an elbow to the face off the top, a cool rarity for a Misawa finish, though obviously everyone watching at home was dying to know how the hell he was going to give Hoss a Tiger Driver.

Worlds Collide Tournament Battle Royal 1/26/19

ER: This was a battle royal held during a fun Rumble weekend "three brand" showcase, with 5 reps each from NXT, 205 Live, and NXT UK. The show featured an entire tournament, and started with a battle royal, but I didn't expect the battle royal to get a full 20 minutes! I'm a real battle royal queen and really dug this one. We got a bunch of fun match-ups that we don't normally see, and some standout performances from Velveteen Dream and Tyler Bate, among others. Battle Royals are sometimes made by their eliminations, and not only did this have many of the guys really flying out of the ring to elimination, it also had a bunch of high wire act elimination teases. There were probably 10 different times that someone grabbed Dream by the head to chuck him wildly over the ropes, only to see him hold onto that top rope as his body swings wildly. It's like there was an ongoing bet to see who in the match could get more air on a non-elimination. It looked cool and really made it feel like there were constant near escapes. They didn't overshadow the numerous big eliminations, like Humberto Castillo getting knocked silly over the top, TJP getting run down the length of the apron before getting hiptossed over the buckles, Dream hitting a lariat so hard he almost flew out himself, Dijakovic hitting a wild spinning powerslam to toss someone over the top (also, is Dijakovic among the most pointless name changes they've done? Is his gimmick that he's a washed up Croatian center?), Tyler Bate throwing hard strikes on anyone that would come close, just a super satisfying battle royal. We don't get a ton of battle royals on WWE TV anymore, so this was more than welcome.

Braun Strowman vs. Bobby Lashley WWE Raw 2/25/19

ER: This wasn't even really a match, no bell ever rang and Braun just stomped off after he demolished anyone, but this was a great throwback to a favorite style of mine that I feel is underpraised. I really love those 1998 Shotgun Saturday Night/WCW Saturday Night roids guy power battles, just big dudes hitting each other pretty hard for 3 minutes. Throw some older tough vets into the mix and looking back there were a ton of fun short big boy slugfests on those syndicated shows, and this gave me the same rush. Sure, some could argue that Braun (and maybe even Lashley) should be presented a little higher than "cool undercard power guys" but whatever this whole thing worked. Lashley threw a nice beating to Braun, but you know all of that was just building excitement to a Braun Smash explosion, and it was great when we got there. Braun kicked Lashley around and threw a hard clothesline and hit a great big boot. The fireworks come right as the match culminates, with Braun and Lashley bailing to the floor, Braun crashes hard into Lashley with a shoulderblock that Lashley sells like he got thrown away by a strong gust of wind, then Braun turns around without missing a beat and crashes through Lio Rush. This didn't even get to 3 minutes, but a quick power battle like this is going to win me over every time, then send me spiraling into looking for weird Faarooq singles matches on YouTube.

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NXT TakeOver: WarGames 2 11/17/18

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

Matt Riddle vs. Kassius Ohno

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

Kairi Sane vs. Shayna Baszler

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

Johnny Gargano vs. Aleister Black

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

Velveteen Dream vs. Tommaso Ciampa

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

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

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

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

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NXT TakeOver: 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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NXT TakeOver: Chicago II 6/16/18

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

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

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

Velveteen Dream vs. Ricochet

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

Nikki Cross vs. Shayna Baszler

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

Lars Sullivan vs. Aleister Black

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

Johnny Gargano vs. Tomasso Ciampa

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

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

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

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NXT TakeOver: New Orleans 4/7/18

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

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

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

Ember Moon vs. Shayna Bayzler

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

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

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

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

Aleister Black vs. Andrade "Cien" Almas

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

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

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

Tomasso Ciampa vs. Johnny Gargano

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

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

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


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

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