WWE Money in the Bank Mother's Day Live Blog

I visited my mother yesterday (my parents are hell on a 6' space, my calves are burning from all the backpedaling I kept having to do) and gave her a cool gift, so that excuses me to watch wrestling of potentially questionable quality on her special day. Let's hope for something good out of this show so that I can at least justify my not calling her to hear repeated stories about dumb things my father has done during quarantine.


Jeff Hardy vs. Cesaro

ER: So Hardy misses an entire year with an injury, they bring him back to Smackdown two months ago, spent the interim showing weekly documentaries about his rehabilitation (which hardly anyone gets, let alone several weeks of them), and then put him on the pre-show? I know that card placement matters less in no crowd era, but it's still really odd. It doesn't really matter to me, as the pre-show are almost always good, and they're worked in a way that makes them feel like good Velocity or 09-10 Superstars matches. They almost always hit the match length sweet spot and the layouts always feel so much less produced than main show matches. That feels like it shouldn't be the case, but there's too much of a sample size at this point. And this was really good! This was a much better singles match than I expected Hardy to physically be able of delivering at this point, but the longest straight time off of his career seems to have really done him good. He's moving quicker and more fluidly than he has in the past many years, but he's still taking the same level of awkward painful bumps so I'll just enjoy this while it lasts. He works quick enough here to convincingly fluster Cesaro, but you knew the best moments of this would revolve around what Cesaro does once he catches him. Cesaro catches him leaping off the ring steps and splats him ribs first over the barricade, later shoves him hard hip first into the ring apron. Hardy always seems to take damage on the least padded parts of the human body. Hardy's hard landings here were really entertaining, loved how Cesaro played off him (his big Fuerza bump over Hardy on the ropes was awesome), really liked all of this.

Big E/Kofi Kingston vs. Gran Metalik/Lince Dorado vs. The Miz/John Morrison vs. Wesley Blake/Steve Cutler

ER: This was good, but it feels like I've been seeing this exact match every week for the past several weeks. When they were running this on TV I just assumed the PPV version would have some extra gimmick or stipulation, but it was just longer. Still it was good overall, not always the tightest multiman, not always the pairings I wanted to see, but good. I really like Forgotten Sons, and I realize I'm in the minority on that. Gimmicks aren't the thing that sells me on a worker, ring work is the main thing I care about, and their ring work is more interesting than most teams in WWE. Their double teams are rock solid, neither skimp on small things (Cutler has far better stomps and kicks to the stomach than anyone else in the match), but also add in big bumps (Blake is always good for at least one big bump to the floor per match). Also, big fan of their double team hiptoss to an opponent draped over the ropes, and they're good at coming up with logical spots like that. I'm completely tired by the Miz/Morrison team at this point, and New Day isn't far behind them on people I wish were featured less. But it's cool seeing them work with the Sons and LHP. Dorado and Morrison pulled off a cool dragon rana, Metalik looked awesome with his while hair flowing around his mask (while working too fast for Kofi who looked like a stumblebum side by side), we got a big Morrison Spanish fly to the floor (while far more people than necessary awkardly stood around like goobs), and this was plenty good.

R-Truth vs. Bobby Lashley

ER: This match was nothing anyway, throwaway match as part of a feud I could not care about, so it's not much of a crime that I was distracted throughout this. Because once I noticed that the announcers ONLY refer to Bobby Lashley as "Bobby Lashley", it was all I could concentrate on. This is a promotion that has been weirdly obsessed with changing someone's name to a single word name, and yet we can't go through ANY part of the match with hearing "Lashley with the slam" or "Lashley with the pin", it ALWAYS has to be "Bobby Lashley with the pin!" Bobby Lashley, Bobby Lashley, Bobby Lashley. They could not stop saying this man's full fucking Christian name for 5 seconds. Nobody else gets this treatment. They either lose one of their names entirely, getting called - very normally - by ONLY their last name in a match because we know who this person is at this point, or have some kind of nickname that you can alternate with (Roman with the slam! The Big Dog with the spear!). But they can only and ever call this one person by their full name. Whose direction is this, any why? This can not be an accident and now we all have ONE MORE reason to hate Bobby Lashley segments.

Bayley vs. Tamina

ER: You have seen me write about this before, and as long as they keep doing it every year I will continue writing about it, but I cannot stand the 2-4 month period of every one of the last 10 years that WWE insists on telling us that Tamina matters and we need to be serious about Tamina and here's your yearly Tamina PPV match challenging for a title before we realize "well she's still Tamina so we didn't learn". There were people like Ruby Riott, Liv Morgan, and Sarah Logan, the former who was returning from a long injury, the latter two who have been quietly overdelivering on syndicated TV matches and house shows for years...but we're going for our 10th go round on Tamina, so you gals will have to back up a bit. You can tell she's really trying, but every year it's the same bad gear and the same way of cumbersomely getting into position for opponent offense. However, this was a real class Bayley performance, as her working aggressively and outpacing the larger Tamina made the match much more interesting than it should have been, and made Tamina's monster moments feel bigger because it's not just her badly dominating a match, it's her using a couple things in spurts. Bayley outsmarts her and it makes Bayley getting the tables turned into some interesting stuff. Bayley bumps big for her when she does eventually go on the rampage, including a big flying bump over the announce table. Tamina still comes off klutzy throughout, but the layout is really smart and she at least does her best within the layout. She does a clumsy missed superkick, but the spot is Bayley catching it and turning it into a kneebar, so her clumsy kick wasn't the important thing in the spot. The match felt carefully constructed to be about spots where her clumsiness was out of the way quickly because it set up something better from Bayley. Bayley's high cradle finish looked great, a legit pin that looked like anyone on the roster would have had a hard time kicking out of, and it went just the right amount of time. Post match is even good, with Tamina immediately picking up Bayley for a samoan drop after losing, but Sasha drops her with a great chop block and then throws a stiff kick to her chest in high heel boots. I'm calling this an easy best case scenario for a Tamina singles match, could not imagine a better version of this particular match.

Braun Strowman vs. Bray Wyatt

ER: I'm happy this was kept short, I just can't get into Bray Wyatt. I actually liked the Fire Fly match, but it's not enough to buy him any kind of goodwill. Still, this was kept short and that's good. Strowman took a few really cool big man bumps (great missed charge into and over the announce table, real sturdy shoulderblock getting thrown into the ring steps), and then got in the ring and got hugged for a long time so I could look at Twitter for a bit. Then Strowman finished him, and I like that.  But honestly this had the same amount of time to do something as Bayley/Tamina had, and this came nowhere close to accomplishing what they did.

Drew McIntyre vs. Seth Rollins

ER: Didn't feel like this one, but I'm sure Rollins talked about his destiny several times and had a Seth Rollins match, which I'm sure are for somebody. I feel bad for McIntyre that this is how his title reign is going, but I wish him the best. I saw the finish of Seth Rolling hitting a superkick by being bounced into the ropes by a nice headbutt, and the superkick causing McIntyre to bounce into the ropes and hit the Claymore kick. Claymore kick looked good, but guys hitting moves because they got hit by moves is the dumbest most played out shit at this point.

Money in the Bank

ER: Oh my god they're doing the Money in the Bank matches CONCURRENTLY!? This has potential to be a tremendous trainwreck, one of those ideas like World War 3 that you can't focus on anything. But World War 3 could have had great potential as a recorded match, as the worst thing about it was knowing there was probably something cool happening somewhere in those 3 rings, and you were likely missing it. Filming one of those and showing the finished product with the best moments chosen from the camera angles would have been a way more successful version of that match. The whole thing has this fake Michael Kamen score that makes it feel like a bunch of backyarders made a movie combining Die Hard and Rat Race. The comedy doesn't work anywhere near as consistently as in Rat Race, but there were tons of great moments and a fantastic lead performance from Otis. The cameo jokes were almost all poorly written (Stephanie plays comedy too smarmy and broad, Brother Love stuff felt forced and pointless, Johnny Ace at least at a pie to the face well), but I smiled a lot and laughed a few times. Otis is the guy who really went for it, and really it shouldn't be much of a surprise that he thrived here. He's someone who can do Looney Tunes spot well, and was constantly saying funny stuff like in the weight room before the match started where he was just saying "sets and reps, sets and reps". It was funny hearing Carmella's sneakers breaking silence with different sounds, milking a squeaky waxed lobby floor for laughs and then doing the same by doing an overly long moonwalk on office carpet. Otis absolutely plastered Heyman with a dish in catering, and Heyman mugged while covered in sticky rice. Otis and Nia smash Rey between their bodies, Dana Brooke slips on a wet floor and is never seen again, Shayna weirdly feels like the least featured person in the match, and things get decidedly less fun once they get out on the roof. The roof stuff was fairly uninspired, other than two casual murders that never get mentioned again. I'm happy with the two winners, as I wouldn't have had money on Asuka or Otis, but think that those two have been two of the best performers of the silent era. I like when matches seem to reward performance.


This show went by quickly (though there was some small help from the fast forward during the Rollins match) and had no high end matches, but had some nice performances, some over-deliveries, slightly better than expected overall.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 2019 Catch-Up

Oney Lorcan vs. Ariya Daivari 205 Live 4/23/19

ER: Another of those oddball 205 matches that get 18 minutes but could have been super effective with 9 minutes. I liked what they did here, and liked that the first 12 minutes were low offense and much more about what moves didn't hit than what moves did hit. The bulk of the match hinged around two big Lorcan spills to the floor: the first time getting a dive blocked by a Daivari forearm and later taking a big backdrop tumble. Those misses were much bigger than any hits in the first 2/3 of this, with Daivari trying a couple times for his million dollar dream sleeper and once early for his hammerlock lariat. This was mostly two guys canceling each other out, like we were getting Stevie Richards vs. Stevie Richards. And I'm into that match structure, but it probably went longer than they needed it to. Around the 12 minute mark things picked up and started grabbing the fans in the arena, with a big Lorcan pescado and Lorcan stuff like his running blockbuster and flying uppercut that always gets a good reaction. They really kept the big highspots out of this match, and it was a cool experiment to see how long you can work a match around non-sequences. But it was hard recovering them after the long draw they put them through, and amusingly after avoiding big moves all match, Lorcan goes for the half nelson suplex OFF THE TOP! But he gets knocked off, and while Daivari's finishing sequence of a frog splash and hammerlock lariat is a nice one, I can't imagine too many were excited for the Tony Nese vs. Daivari match this set up.

Drew Gulak vs. KUSHIDA NXT 5/1 (Aired 5/29/19)

ER: Gulak and Kushida working a submissions match on NXT not long after this was one of the impetus that drove us to start The Big 3 project. And I like how much of this match was spent going after submissions, a nice logical jump for them to just do a Submissions Only match a couple weeks later. That match had problems, like a goofy Malenko/Guerrero sequence (in a match with no pinfalls) and this one was more coherent without specific guidelines they were playing within. But this one also didn't hit the peaks of the Submissions Match, and I think both matches hit their valleys because of Kushida's business. The first half of this was great, just both guys trying to force the other into hard fought pinfalls or trying to slowly bend a limb into a sub. Neither had easy paths to locking in a sub or getting a pin, so I dug them just trying to use leverage to force shoulders to mat instead of going right into the big spots. And it was when they started going into more typical Kushida offense that it got less interesting. There was a lot of interrupted rope running and blocked strikes spinning Gulak into Kushida Trademark Offense, and the early match submissions that were so engaging gave way to the Kushida mindset of "this is how I always set up my sit out hiptoss cross armbreaker". We also got a weird moment of Kushida and Gulak grunting at each other while going for submissions, and it felt like an extension of that thing where indy workers are too scared to say something stupid to the crowd, that they just silently pump their fists and open their mouth as if the people in the crowd were watching them on TV. I liked Gulak catching Kushida in a fireman's carry gutbuster after Kushida overshot him running ropes, and I liked Kushida trying to force Gulak's wrist into the hoverboard lock, but the Gedo clutch felt like a silly way to end a match where actual forced amateur pinfalls couldn't get a 1 count.

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. Wesley Blake/Steve Cutler NXT 5/1 (Aired 5/29/19)

ER: This only goes a couple minutes before a Street Profits run in, definitely much more of an angle than a match (these teams were all in a fantastic ladder match at the TakeOver a few days after this aired), which is kind of a drag just because I know there is a killer Forgotten Sons vs. Lorcan/Burch tag match just waiting to happen. This was fiery as hell and I don't even think Lorcan got involved in the short runtime. Burch started things off by sending Blake flying into the buckles with a big running dropkick - both Cutler and Blake are really great about flying into guys and away from guys - and Blake fires back after some Ryker interference and absolutely brains Burch with a lariat to the back of the head.

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 12/22-12/28 + Bonus Lorcan

NXT 12/20 (Aired 12/25/19)

Jack Gallagher vs. Isaiah Scott

ER: I really appreciate what Gallagher did here, as this was a super selfless 15 minutes where he basically offers to give Scott 13 of those minutes, while finding interesting ways to get into Scott's overly complicated offense. Scott's offense often feels like he's doing a straight faced imitation of 2007 Chris Hero doing overly complicated athletic Jersey All Pro spots to confuse Japanese audiences. Scott saw a NOAH match of Hero's and liked the idea of doing a back handspring into a tuck and roll into an elbowdrop. And here's Gallagher, finding interesting ways to set up an Eliminators showcase. Most Scott matches are no different than those Eliminators showcases, where they wouldn't know how to get their opponents naturally into position for their complicated double teams so they would just move them as if their opponents were mannequins and then do the move. Scott requires opponents to take a lot of walks and turn a lot of unnatural directions just to get into position for the move, and Gallagher might have been the best I've seen at doing so. Gallagher was finding interesting twists to set up Scott's convoluted horse shit, like taking a huge backdrop bump to the floor that was to set up Scott's punt from the apron, and instead of rushing right back into place to get kicked in the face, Gallagher instead looked disoriented, heading the opposite way of Scott to see nobody was there, only to turn around and take the kick to the head. He threw two different turns into the spot that most wouldn't take the time to do, and that's what sets Gallagher apart from others. Gallagher spent the match doing little things like that, setting up offense across the ring because that's where he had to be to take Scott's stupid flipping cutter, trying to work a standing armbar so that Scott could show off a strong backbreaker, really the whole match felt like Gallagher was trying to get his buddy noticed, and that kind of selfless behavior should just make sure Gallagher himself gets noticed. He had some great individual stuff, loved the nearfall he got off the rebound headbutt, and couldn't help but admire the way he flew hard into every single landing. For his part, Scott paid occasional lip service to a sore shoulder he got from being tossed into the turnbuckle, but it sure didn't seem to slow him down any.


NXT 4/10 (Aired 5/1/19)

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch/Humberto Carrillo vs. Jaxson Ryker/Wesley Blake/Steve Cutler

ER: This ruled!! Forgotten Sons are a team I really dig who don't seem to get much praise. I'm not sure why that is. Lorcan starts this whole thing off by throwing his body into the Sons like only Lorcan can do, throws big chops, and smashes Blake with an uppercut that sends him to the floor  (with a great bump). Jaxson Ryker has a stupid name, but the guy has always been better than he's ever given credit for. He comes off like a wild eyed psycho leader of a gang, and that's exactly how he should be coming off. He bumps big (his fast bump through the ropes looked like it would have caused a muscle tear) but hits back twice as hard, and I love how Cutler and Blake do his dirty work while he comes in to finish the job. Cutler may take a big floating armdrag from Carrillo, but he doesn't even see it coming when Ryker catches him with a spinebuster. I like Ryker's hammer fist ground and pound and loves how he balances the roles of opportunist and sadist. Blake and Cutler are real fun flunkies, love their tandem hiptoss that flattened Carrillo over the middle rope, love how they stooge around and bump for Burch's big hot tag, love how they get clobbered when Lorcan flies into them with a tope con giro, they're just fun. The Sons run some misdirection and Carrillo accidentally hits Lorcan with a dive (sending Lorcan sprawling up the entrance), and we get a great final walking tall moment where Burch is left alone in the ring with all three Sons. Burch fights them valiantly before falling to the numbers game, and we are left with a 7 minute match that told several stories, never slowed up, and showed a cohesive and untapped team in the Forgotten Sons. This match aired almost 8 months ago, and Ryker has had only 4 TV matches since. Stupid. How long until The Big 3 is just me writing about Forgotten Sons matches?

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WWE Big 3: Lorcan, Gallagher, Gulak 2019 Catch-Up

None of the Big 3 appeared on WWE TV this week, so I will continue looking back at matches of theirs I missed in 2019, filling in those blanks.

Drew Gulak vs. Eric Bugenhagen NXT 1/30 (Aired 2/6/19)

ER: This was my first time actually seeing Bugenhagen, and I dig the vibe. A less grating, more natural fit Adam Rose. This was obviously going to be a Gulak showcase, and it was that, while also giving Bugenhagen a couple decent moments. He wanted to rock, Gulak wanted to throw boots, both got their wish. Holding an abdominal stretch while doing a Pete Townshend windmill is a good spot for the gimmick, I like his look and I like his era appropriate tights. Gulak was the sadistic parent filled with Satanic Panic worry, jumping off the ropes with hard stomps to Bugenhagen's chest, tossing him with suplexes, locking on that sick body vice dragon sleeper for the win. This was short, and the right mixture of violence with goof off. 

Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch vs. The Forgotten Sons (Wesley Blake/Steve Cutler) NXT 2/20 (Aired 3/6/19)

ER: Cool go go go match with Forgotten Sons working over Lorcan's back early, and then continuing to take their shots at it whenever they could. Lorcan is a fun guy to fight through a back injury, and I liked the ways it extended the match. Lorcan and Burch always felt like they were fighting from underneath, a regular role for them, and one they excel at. The back work was simple, just Blake throwing forearms at Lorcan's back, working some big stomps off the ropes, and I dug how it kept paying off the longer the match went. It's easy to work a simple moment like Lorcan not being able to lift an opponent, leading to Burch getting waylaid, and the Sons have a lot of offense to waylay someone. Burch had several impressive moments, mainly working his schtick around members of the Large Adult Sons getting in his way. There was on section where he dropped both of them with German suplexes, noticed one of them had rolled into the way of where he was throwing the next one, so pivoted his hips and threw his next German diagonally so he wouldn't cause a brutal crash landing. That's pro. Cutler also rolled into the way of Burch's kip up, and Burch spun slightly on his back to change the kip up direction. It's impressive when a guy is that aware of his opponents' replacement and doesn't just go stumbling through everything. Lorcan had a cool comeback where he flew hard into uppercuts and hit his wild flip dive, but I dug how things wrapped up by him getting caught in a powerbomb, throwing him right into knees. Forgotten Sons have some cool double teams, I liked this match up a lot. 

Jack Gallagher/Drew Gulak/Humberto Carrillo vs. Gran Metalik/Kalisto/Lince Dorado 205 Live 3/26/19

ER: This was okay, but Lucha House Party came off pretty sluggish in spots, really low energy for guys who are supposed to be super fast exciting spot machines. Even their Lu-Cha chants felt like they were moving their arms through cement, and the layout wasn't very interesting at all. The LHP showcase moments were pretty bland, even with an occasional nice spot (like Metalik's always nice tornillo). It got interesting for a bit when Gallagher made Dorado slip on the apron by yanking on the ring skirt, allowing Gulak to dropkick Dorado to the floor, where Gallagher threw a couple punches to his ear. The Gulak control portions were the only part of this I was really into. Gallagher felt really underused, and when he was in he was always opposite Lince Dorado, who kept throwing off the timing of everything. They tried for a big car crash moment to end things, and they couldn't even do a lot of that right. They build to a big tower of doom spot where Carrillo and Gulak get powerbombed by Metalik which also sends Kalisto taking the worst of it with a massive superplex. But of course, due to the way they laid out the car crash spot, Kalisto was right back hopping into action about 10 seconds later. Dorado flinches while taking Gallagher's big headbutt, so even Gallagher's big spot in the match doesn't end up looking like much. This was another 15 minute 205 Live match that fell way short of what it should have been. The 6 man tag feels like one of the easier formats to deliver a banging 15 minute match, and most of the 205 Live 6 mans are just a drag. You should, in theory, be able to throw any 6 people from the WWE roster in a match, give them 15 minutes, and have a fun match at the other side. But somehow this is rarely the case on 205. It's really weird.

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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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NXT in Sacramento ROAD REPORT 10/27/16

Despite me being streets behind on my NXT watching, I was still excited when it was announced they would be doing a house show run (sort of) in my area. Shinsuke Nakamura is basically Rachel's favorite wrestler, Dylan Hales is new to town and hasn't seen live wrestling in a couple months, and Tim Livingston is obsessed with NXT. So we were going to the show. A crazy rain storm hit our area the last couple days (scheduled to run another week!) so it was pouring rain on the drive down, and with traffic and accidents and more rain the typically 105 minute drive became a 200 minute drive. Yeeeeesh. We listened to the nice new LVL UP album, then I attempted to fry my brain to distract it from the traffic by listening to White Hills. My brain did not get fried and I was forced to accept my sore car butt and endless traffic, so finally put on King Sunny Ade and tranced out to his hypnotizing needling guitar sounds. That actually did the trick. We got to the Golden Bear and I pounded happy hour whiskey gingers while Rachel pounded happy hour whiskey sours, and Tim pounded happy hour water because he has impressive will power and is the skinniest I've ever seen him. Rachel and I stumbled to the Memorial Auditorium and got through the doors literally as the show was starting. The memorial is a cool old venue with wildly inaccessible bathrooms (tons of bathrooms had you walking up and down stairs once inside), and the venue was really full on the floor, and not very full up top. We were on the floor, Tim got the nice seats, but really the balcony seats looked pretty nice when I ventured up there, especially the seats on the side (venue seating is shaped like a U, so seating was better on the sides than if you were on the curve), but a great place for a wrestling show.

So yes, I am currently in the middle of July 2014 in my NXT viewing, and I don't look ahead. So I'm not familiar with most of these wrestlers, and the ones I am familiar with are very different than they were 27 months ago, so I'll try to limit the "I'm so out of the loop" comments, but know that I will be very much out of the loop. And I'm pretty sure I was the only one, as every other person bought 100% into each wrestler's gimmick, knew what to chant, when to do it. Felt like Rocky Horror Picture Show only actually entertaining.

1. Patrick Clark vs. Buddy Murphy

I genuinely thought Clark was Shelton Benjamin as he came out. It would be easy to make a joke about my incredibly white upbringing, but I DO think they have similar facial features, and I'm like 70% sure I remember hearing about Benjamin getting resigned for the brand extension. He's working a Prince gimmick (apparently) which is somehow more topical now that Prince is recently deceased, than when Prince Iaukea was working a Prince gimmick. In hindsight Iaukea's Prince gimmick came when Prince himself was at his most irrelevant, which is kind of a perfect WCW thing. I mean who was listening to any current Prince during 1998-2001? Clark doesn't show me a whole lot, other than an absolutely sick theme song. It's got just a looping bass groove and drum beat, sounds like something from Thundercat. Crowd was way into him, but the crowd was into almost everything tonight. I'm not totally sure if the gimmick is supposed to be controversial, or what, but there's really not much to it. He wears a ruffly shirt and a sparkly headband and walks slowly and assuredly, and I'm sure maybe more will come out explaining the why. I was one of few Buddy Murphy fans in attendance, but I liked what he brought. He had fringe on his tights which gave him instant bonus points with me, but he just worked a real solid game and played into all of Clark's spots in a great comedic way. An "unsettlingly sexually ambiguous" character isn't really interesting to me in 2016, but Buddy sold the moments well, acting like he didn't want to lock up, stealing the headwrap and wearing it, then an amusing moment where he threw the wrap down, stomped it, and then bodyslammed Clark onto it. Clark sold it like he was slammed onto a chair, we all laughed. The whole match was simple stuff, but it worked.

2. Aliyah & Daria vs. Billie Kay & Peyton Royce

Kay and Royce are Australians (so was Murphy, so we're at a 1:1 Australia:USA ratio so far tonight). Aliyah is small and cute (WWE bills her as 5'3" which is a flat out lie. I doubt she's even 5') and only 21, but age ain't nothing but a number! This was really back & forth, but Aliyah was really good at dusting herself off and trying again. Daria was not wearing a pleated skirt or army boots, which was wildly disappointing. She works a MMA gimmick and does a decent job with it, but it didn't really fit well into this match. Really liked the Australians though. They worked nice distraction spots, and I thought Royce especially looked good. She threw a killer knee on the apron and had an awesome "athletic heel" spot in the corner where she choked Daria with her boot, but was doing a sort of vertical splits while doing it, so her head was upside down and touching the mat while her boot was high up choking Daria. Daria had a fun comeback moment where she tore off her MMA gloves and started throwing bare fists blows, nice update on the strap removal spots I love so much. Aliyah was the hot tag and she didn't look great, but the energy was there which is half a hot tag anyway. Australians are really taking a hit to the Loss column on this show.

3. Roderick Strong vs. Oney Lorcan

This match really delivered, and was pretty much all you'd expect. Strong dominated, threw huge chops, nice knees, slick running kick; but it was Lorcan's comeback that made things really work. Once Lorcan started going off with uppercuts and his great lariat, we had business. It looked like both guys knew each other well and were able to work some pretty complicated fast sequences. I loved Lorcan going for some fast running uppercuts in the corner, and on the third Strong catches him mid move and drops him with a big backbreaker. Both guys had no problem leaning into the other's strikes, and the pace and build were great. It never really felt like Lorcan had a chance, and that's what made his comeback so much fun, suddenly he was pinballing Strong all around, launching him with a half nelson suplex, all of this was just a real fun go go go match. At one point, the inspired masses were moved to a This is Awesome chant. I wonder if, sometimes, a This Is Awesome chant starts up, and the guys in the ring let out a single syllable laugh and go, "We did it, partner. We did it."

4. Tye Dillinger vs. Wesley Blake

Blake is a favorite of mine from 2014 television, Dillinger - I was told - has a new gimmick, and that gimmick was very much over with the fans in attendance. Talking it over with Dylan, Lana and Tim, we came to the conclusion that Blake is working a gimmick as Keith Urban's slide guitar player, who facially looks like Balls Mahoney while dressing like 2007 Brian Kendrick, essentially making Wesley Blake = Jimmy Del Ray. We already had someone paying tribute to Prince on this show, and while Del Ray may be more of an obscure name, I appreciate what Blake was going for. Oh and I still think Blake is awesome. Dude stooged all over the place for Dillinger and his 10 chants, being perfectly fine with his own "1" chants. He wore tasseled kneepads. He had me at hello. This match went about 42 minutes and Blake was great at keeping things simple and light. His running punch off the ropes was a highlight of the evening. After being inundated with TEN chants throughout this match, I later got to ask Tim what time it was when it was 10:00, and then flashed the Tye 10 count. You guys, I was real happy with myself.

A long intermission allowed me to wade through one of the trech-uh-ruhsly wet bathrooms (seriously it was impossible not to kick through puddles of water and urine in these bathrooms) and really meet Lana and Dylan in person for the first time. They bought snacks. I stood with them. And it was good! Neither appeared to be weirdos, and I don't believe I was weird either. We talked about where my friend got me my Vader shirt (at a NOAH show! in 2002!), how genuine Papa Hales' gimmick is, other local indies, and I talked more about Wesley Blake.

5. Bobby Roode vs. No Way Jose

So Bobby Roode is legit. For a guy I've been watching wrestle for (sheesh) 12+ years, he wasn't really a guy I had much opinion on. He operated in the middle zone, not good enough for me to seek out more, not bad enough for him to become a running joke. My strongest opinion on him for  many years was "sometimes his torso looks too long". And sometimes it did! But I didn't have any favorite Bobby Roode matches, and he never struck me as bad. He just existed on wrestling programming, for a fed that I often skipped. But live? Man he is legit. This guy was Tracy Smothers up there. You watch what he did in this match and you realize how easily he could fit this into tons of different kinds of Memphis match. You could see him working his way through them. He starts with comedy and came back to it. His theme song - you may have heard - is way over. Fans wanted any excuse to sing it, just as they wanted any excuse to chant DELETE. It's amusing that "DELETE" is fast becoming the "You fucked up" of the 2010s. It's a trade I'm fine with. But Roode incorporated NWJ's dancing into the match about as well as possible. He stooged all over, he knew when to cut off Jose, knew when to turn things serious, planted NWJ with a great spinebuster. You could easily see Roode as Dutch or Tracy Smothers in this match. What is odd, and I don't think this is an insult, but I think Roode will remain a better house show worker. I don't know if the stuff I loved live will translate very well to TV, or be given the time to translate. Roode may remain a guy I don't get excited for on TV, but get excited for in the house show experience. Goldust is one of my favorite workers in the world, and I'd take him on a house show every time if my other chance was a TV match. And there aren't tons of guys in WWE I'd say that about.

6. Asuka vs. Mandy Rose

Crowd was chanting "Asuka's Gonna Kill You" which was amusing because the dreaded and feared Asuka ended up giving like 80% of the match to Mandy Rose. Mandy Rose I know only from being wisely talked out of forming any sort of friendly alliance with Eva Marie on Total Divas. She didn't strike me on Divas as someone who "came from wrestling". She seemed like a typical fashion model hired to sort of learn to fake fight. This was my first time seeing her wrestle, and I really liked her. She was better than half the people in the tag earlier, and she worked as a strong heel the entire match. Fans wanted to see Asuka murder her and I was tickled that Rose was working "not in the face" schtick, Asuka works some nice hip attacks, but I really dug Rose working simple heel stuff the whole match. The best parts were when Asuka was trying to lock on an armbar and a chickenwing, and they did a bunch of really cool rolling. Rose must be double jointed as she was bending every which way while Asuka held on. There were a couple unexpected reversals, and a nice build to Rose finally tapping to the chickenwing. Asuka has awesome body charisma, really captivating from the moment she started her entrance, and I have no doubt that helped Rose. But this was an unexpected and fun showing from Rose.

7. Shinsuke Nakamura/TM-61 vs. Samoa Joe/Authors of Pain

I gotta say it was pretty adorable watching Rachel scramble for her phone when Nakamura was coming out, as if there is anybody in her life (who wasn't standing right next to her) who would have anything but a single raised eyebrow if she showed them pictures of some guy named Shinsuke Nakamura. Who knows, maybe the gals in her office would get it. I've never seen either Authors of Pain or TM61, though apparently not knowing TM61 shows how little NOAH I watch these days. Authors of Pain definitely appear to be not Da Hit Squad, and I couldn't get a feel for either of those guys. This was a pretty lazy main event, as Nak was perfectly fine standing on the apron and looking only semi inspired while actually tagged in. While working an armlock sequence with one of AoP he even accidentally kicked him right in the eye while cartwheeling; felt like a classic Rayo de Jalisco Jr. move, like whipping his cape into a referee's eye while being announced. I've heard Joe getting a lot of praise for his work in NXT, but here he was just doing the same few moves in the same sequences that he was doing on indy shows 10 years ago. Jab/chop combo in the corner, walking away from an opponent's blind crossbody, chop/kick then a senton, it was the same Joe that I haven't really cared about for awhile. He has more charisma and comes across as more tough than a guy like Christopher Daniels, so he gets more out of not updating the old routine than other guys, but he didn't do a whole lot for me here. TM61 did a double team moonsault/fistdrop so I loved that, and they seemed fine overall although I'll have to see more of them to fully judge. Crowd was so crazy into Nakamura, all he really had to do was wriggle or point and the crowd would flip out. He was definitely a lot of the draw here, and I get it. The match wasn't much but it was a blast seeing him do (part of) his thing live and up close. Joe kicks one of TM61 low and gets the kokina clutch and Nak goes crazy on everyone with flying knees after the match and does a lot of goofy/great poses.


Well that was a really fun show. I'd definitely go out of my way to see NXT live again, so hopefully it becomes some kind of small venue touring commodity. If instead this was more of a test run that never takes off, well I'm glad I got to see it, and I'm glad Rachel got to see Nakamura. Tim, Dylan and Lana got to see them again the next night in San Jose, which also sounded like a fun show. And with that we drove back home in the super low visibility rain, road lines completely invisible, me blindly following the GPS as I was left completely turned around by the blurred out rain. The processed vocals of the new Bon Iver took us home.

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NXT 230 7/10/14 Review

1. Bayley vs. Summer Rae

This is just about the most natural of personality match-ups, as Bayley is inherently likeable, whereas Summer Rae has a face of someone who should never be booked as likeable. It's pretty basic, and both are good at what they do. Bayley is good at frustrating Summer with her kind of playful sloppiness when doing amateur rolls on the mat (with Summer hilariously kicking her legs in a tantrum), and Summer does mean unnecessary things like palm Bayley's face during pinfalls. Neither thing would make a victory more likely, but they were perfect character moments that illustrated why this was a nice match-up. Albert is back on commentary and as awful as ever, unable to make satisfying points from a logic or kayfabe perspective. "She didn't get all of that kick!" he was quick to blurt over everybody, after a Summer kick that mostly hit fine and was sold as such. After saying Summer earned a title shot because she was in a movie, he then compares her to Trish Stratus. None of his points make sense within a storyline or any other sense, his allegiances switch mid match, he's just really really bad at his job. Sometimes he goes for comedy, other times he supports a heel, none of it lands. But Bayley/Summer is a fun match and Albert is NOT going to ruin it for me! Summer is someone who really wasn't utilized much on the main roster as a wrestler, which is a shame as she's really not bad, and has more personality than most. Her role on Total Divas has made me laugh more than most on that show. And here I liked the struggle over the finish, with Summer blocking the Bayley to Belly a couple times before planting her with her axe leg drop. So far all the people coming back to NXT after a "demotion" have been really fun and nicely integrated into the existing NXT roster.

2. Sin Cara vs. Wesley Blake

I think I may be the biggest Wesley Blake fan. I like keeping mostly out of the present day NXT loop, so it's fun watching and enjoying a guy like Blake and not knowing what is going to happen to him. Maybe he's released before 2014, maybe he's repackaged and super popular now. My only real insight into NXT beyond the stuff I've watched so far, is the guys who show up on WWE TV. I obviously know guys like Aiden English, sadly Big Cass, sadly Mojo Rawley, etc. will continue to be in these reports because they eventually made the main roster. But a guy like Blake? I have no clue, and that's fun for me. Blake is really good at constructing 3 minute matches, with him on the losing end. Cara is in to hit all his shit, and it can't be a coincidence that this was the best I've seen some of Cara's spots look. Blake got into position for runs of Cara offense better than anybody I've seen on the main roster, ate those springboard crossbodys, took a huge bump over the top and then sprawled big into the entrance ramp catching a dive. For his part he made his brief moments count, blasting Cara with a great uppercut and surprising him (and me) with an even greater right hand. His single arm DDT was swank and lead to him stomping the arm and yanking on it, and Cara was kind enough to sell it for him. Super fun match, did tons with the time. I think with 90 more seconds this would land on my "Recommended NXT" list.

They're kind of bonering up this Tyson Kidd bitter vet angle with the inclusion of Nattie. Kidd as the dickhead falling from grace relegated to developmental vet? Awesome. Nattie asking him about his moral compass? Death. Unless it's building to a Nattie heel swerve, her presence is just muddying waters. We already see them on Total Divas and know they're essentially a normal married couple, her inclusion tries to bring too much real life into a great wrestling angle, and it's coming out worse on the other side. They're overthinking this thing.

CJ Parker comes out to offer a somewhat loaded apology to Xavier Woods, and "I'm offering you peace. I suggest you accept it," is a quote that perfectly nails the annoying heel nuance of Parker's character. The manipulative dirt fuck hippy is a great heel character, and Parker gets the finer points correct. A guy who makes good points but has a smug and self righteous way of delivering those points is the kind of character who works great on a show like this, and something that would get immediately clipped to hell on the main brand. On Smackdown he would just be a hippy heel, and the crowd would just be expected to boo him because he's a hippy. His apology to Xavier is somewhat sincere and that's what makes him jumping Xavier even better.

3. Bull Dempsey vs. Angelo Dawkins
At first all three announcers were laying it on real thick about Dempsey's body, really putting over that he's unique because he doesn't have abs. Just within this match it was already making me want to dislike Dempsey, and that's crazy if any of you know how much I love fat wrestlers. And yeah having a guy who looks like Dempsey on your roster is much more rare these days, but announcers didn't have to point out just how fat Blackwell or One Man Gang or Tenta were, because they were clearly big awesome fat dudes. And maybe that's part of the problem with Dempsey, is that they're spending so much time talking about how unique his round physique is, but truthfully he's not that far away from being in fine cosmetic shape. Those other guys either died fat or - in the case of OMG - spent the last 20 years slowly slimming down so that he now suddenly looks like Richard Moll. Dempsey looks like a guy who can go on a 6 month crossfit binge and look like a hairier version of every other physique in NXT. So it comes off like them trying hard to point out just how unique he is, because the thing that they say is unique isn't really special. He comes off more as an out of shape guy than a wild fat guy. The guy needs to pack on another 50 lb. to actually look wrestler fat. BUT. But. Eventually everybody shuts up, and I can just enjoy Dempsey beating up Dawkins, and that is very enjoyable. While he might not totally live up to how they're billing him, he comes off very well in the ring. Loved him turning a Dawkins' armdrag into a slick side headlock, his body shots are great, his elbows are great, really carries himself like a tank throughout the whole thing. He's a guy I would have liked anyway, without all of the spoon feeding from the announce crew. This match was basically a Dempsey showcase, but also gave us by far our longest look at Angelo Dawkins. We've seen him get zero offense against Big Cass, zero offense against Tyler Breeze, and not even get tagged in against the Vaudevillains. We know he's tall. That's about what we know. But this match filled things in a bit! He took a nice beating from Bull, threw an insanely high dropkick, seemed like a guy you wouldn't mind seeing more from; another guy like Wesley Blake who for all I know was never used again after this taping. I'm excited to see where he and Bull go, and I liked all of what I saw here from both.


4. Sami Zayn & Adrian Neville vs. Justin Gabriel & Tyson Kidd
I was really liking this, even through a couple of clunky Kidd cross-ups, but Natalya's involvement in the veteran dickhead Tyson Kidd story is just the pits. She's a lousy actress, and there were too many moments where she acted all over the place. She's too over the top when she's supposed to be subtle, and I just really wish the storyline had not included her. Unless it leads to a Natalya NXT heel turn, which it probably won't. But I enjoy heel Natalya far more. But I really this was just a straight up tag with two demoted assholes up against a couple top NXT guys. That's all that this needed, the simpler approach. Is there anybody watching out there that would see that tag, and then go "I liked it, but I wish the tag could have furthered some sort of collapsing marriage storyline." It's always a bummer when a person not in the match takes a match you would recommend, and makes it less recommendable. That's Natalya's tombstone right there : "Made Things Less Recommendable". Zayn and Neville are a fun babyface tag team, wouldn't mind seeing both utilized currently this way. It's not like they do tons of double teams (outside of a nutty sky twister press that Neville did off a kneeling Zayn), they just complement each other nicely; just as, Gabriel and Kidd complement each other nicely. Kidd has been a standout as a heel, though he had a couple stumbles in this one. Gabriel turned in one of his better performances though, he's also a guy who makes a better heel than face. And so this was a real nice 10 minute tag, something I easily could have added to the recommended NXT list. But Natalya man. Natalya as TJ's moral compass is just awful.


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NXT Episode 217 4/17/14 Review

1. Colin Cassady vs. Aiden English

The world's largest Bobby Fulton! Colin Cassady was so ridiculous in that Bo Dallas match, and it's really incredible how tiny he made himself seem. So I'll give credit here since he managed to do much less of that, and really both guys worked a really fun match. Cassady actually spends most of the match in control, you know, as a giant should, and English hits real hard in his comebacks. English throws a couple nice thrust kicks to Cassady's cheek, Cassady throws nice clubbing blows and a nice big boot, English took a nice high backdrop too. When English came back Cassady DID immediately shrink down, but at least he worked this more even. English isn't much smaller than him, so it didn't look as weird as him working Spike Dudley to Bo Dallas' Mike Awesome. I liked English finding ways out of Cassady's silly spinning slam, and Regal was killer putting over English's strikes. English had these sharp knuckle point strikes to the ribs, and Regal was right there talking about the edge and extra pain that the point of the knuckles can bring when thrust in between someone's ribs. I think English's offense looks good anyway, but Regal analyzing it and driving the point home just enhances everything. I really liked this and with another minute or two could easily have added this to my NXT recommended matches list.

2. Camacho vs. Oliver Grey

Not how I was expecting this to go, with Camacho winning a 2 minute squash over the returning Grey. It makes sense that it would happen, Camacho is established despite being kind of an NXT jobber, and Grey is coming back from his ACL injury. But it's such a different approach to the norm, having a returning wrestler get dominated in his return match, that it was surprising and kind of refreshing. It fully makes sense for a guy to get dominated in his return, showing he's dealing with ring rust, showing that while his body has recovered, his ring instincts need to get back to speed. It's like when Kendrys Morales opted not to sign with a team until the 2014 season had already started, and then he spent the whole year two steps behind players who had gone through spring training. It's an approach you never see in pro wrestling, but makes so much logical sense from a presentation standpoint that I really liked it. Plus Camacho is a good hand and deserves a nice win now and then.

3. The Ascension vs. Wesley Blake & Cal Bishop

This is worked like a lot of Ascension squashes. Bishop plays the role of man standing on apron who gets knocked off by Viktor before hitting the Fall of Man, and Blake takes all of the offense. This was less violent than other Ascension squashes, and they're sort of running out of tricks.

4. CJ Parker vs. Great Khali

I had no clue Khali was still employed by WWE in 2014. And Parker goes above and beyond to make him look good, especially taking a huge clothesline over the top and then taking a big back bump on the floor. Khali was surprisingly effective here as well, and while this was kept short it actually could have been something if given more time and a couple more twists. As it was the ending was never in doubt, but it was nice seeing Parker bump around for chops, and Regal was great talking about all of the physical problems that can happen when you get clomped real hard on the head.

5. Jason Jordan & Tye Dillinger vs. Baron Corbin & Sawyer Fulton

What the fuck is a Sawyer Fulton!? I don't think I've seen any of these guys before, but Fulton instantly stands out just by looking like a complete goof. He's a taller guy with some size, but he's dressed like an anonymous backup dancer at the Tony awards. He wears flare leg dance pants with a shiny stripe down the side, little shiny Capezios, a single strap tank, horrendous bleach blonde crew cut, an anachronous barbed wire bicep tat....He just looks like an awkward man in conflict with himself. Like you'd be watching a Kristin Chenoweth number and he would stand out a bit too much from the other dancers, and in a bad way. Jordan and Dillinger are working that lazy and annoying "smiling, athletic guys" gimmick, where they do dropkicks and fist pumps and in the gym they probably push each other to do one more set of burpies bro. They are positively forgettable in their positivity. Corbin is also a big guy and I'd at least like to see more of him. The other guys? Ehhhhhh.

6. Brodus Clay vs. Adrian Neville

Not much of a match. Crowd was back in "get over" mode with silly chants the whole time, Brodus didn't look great on all his missed stuff. The match ended with Neville laid out on the floor and Brodus missing a splash off the ring steps, but he landed on his feet first on the splash and that was supposed to be what kept him down long enough for Neville's count out win. Neville was fine enough keeping Clay away with leg kicks and flippity dippity stuff but yeah this disappointed.

Man what a dud of an episode this week. They're getting into a real bad habit of cramming in more and more matches each week, which means with six matches on a one hour show you're getting a bunch of 2-4 minute matches. When I started watching the show they were doing 3-4 matches, with one match always getting a nice main event time, but all these short matches with bland workers are just dullsville. I liked English/Cassady and gladly would have done without that tag match if the English match could have gotten more time. This was just a poorly laid out show, and show layout and pacing was one of their strengths when I started watching. Six matches in 50 minutes is just too much when you have to account for entrances, backstage interviews, Network ads, etc. Horrible layout.


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NXT Episode 212 3/13/14 Review

1. Paige vs. Sasha Banks

Albert calls Paige "the closest you can get to a total package in wrestling" which...seems a wee bit hyperbolic. I mean, you can't just go saying that about everybody, and the person you choose to say that about is...Paige? Match itself was short and not bad, though the ending was kind of abrupt and didn't make Sasha look very strong. Paige was working the match as seasoned vet, and Banks was kind of more Stevie Richards as she doesn't really seem to have tons of offense, so she gets by on body charisma and stuff like back rakes and hair pulling. It works, as she comes off like a gal who would give zero fucks about ripping out a chunk of some girl's extensions. Sasha locks on a nice arms-crossed camel clutch, even if it doesn't ever feel like it could end the match. They must have gotten the sudden call to go home though as Sasha lets get back up, then Paige just kinda knocks Sasha down and immediately works to lock on the Paige Tapout. I mean, Sasha was good at fighting to keep out of it and avoid getting her arms locked in, but it was a really weird sequence with Paige sitting in a sub, then getting up and just locking on her own sub for the win.

2. The Ascension vs. Travis Tyler & Cal Bishop

You'll never believe it, but according to our announce crew, The Ascension are also "The Total Package". Five stars for everybody! Everybody gets a Trophy Day! Travis Tyler draws the short straw here and takes the brunt of the 3.5 minute beating. And to their credit Ascension know how to work squash matches. It helps having a guy like Tyler who was really great at being blitzed and blindsided by shoulderblocks and double teams. I've never seen Tyler before but he's at minimum a guy who makes offense look really great, and he was real good at naturally stumbling into position, conveying that his bell was rung early and he wasn't sure where the next shot was coming from. Viktor hits a real nice boma ye off the middle buckle, with Konnor Irish whipping him into it. Nice, satisfying extended squash.

3. Mason Ryan vs. Wesley Blake

Damn I actually really really liked this. It was two green guys, but having a fun "Power Plant green guys getting a little time on Pro" and they're trying new things and some of them don't totally work, but they look game in trying these new things, and they kind of surprise you a bit. Here the green sloppiness added to the match for me, as it made things come off with a cool confused struggle. The headlock stuff in the beginning was really good because of that, as instead of a clean headlock push into the ropes, we get some nasty struggle over a sloppy choke with guys getting their ears pinched and forearms going across noses. So we get a couple of sloppy struggles, but they looked better in their sloppiness. Blake takes a punch well and we also get some nice ground punches which feel more like an MMA guy sensing his opponent was finished so dives in excitedly with some sloppy ground strikes. Ryan plays around with some headlock takedowns and fireman's carry takedowns, and those benefit from sloppiness as well. They came off more as uncooperative throws. Nice segment with Ryan missing a corner charge and hitting his shoulder, and the match actually including some nice callback spots to a potential shoulder injury. Blake later hits a single arm DDT and a nice stomp to the shoulder, and there's some fun fighting over an arm wringer. Eventually we get the kind of abrupt Power Plant guy GO HOME call where someone just hits their finisher. But this surprised me and I really dug it, in the same way I was surprised and really dug Sick Boy vs. Renegade.

4. Xavier Woods vs. Alexander Rusev

Tyler Breeze comes out and begs Woods for the shot against Rusev, sounds genuine, wants the chance to fight Rusev for hitting his face. Woods refuses and as Rusev comes out, Breeze jumps Woods.

And damn this match was good too, although needed like...30 more seconds to make it substantial. But it was good. Woods is reeling from getting jumped and taking shots to the back of his head, so Rusev bullies him into the corner and laces in with low shin kicks and nice knees to the ribs. He's working like a bulky RINGS Russian, like Bitsadze Tariel, with shin kicks and rolled shoulder throws. Woods gets a really great comeback too, as Rusev bullies him into a corner but Woods knows the shin kick is coming this time. So Woods catches it and starts throwing all the strikes at him, nice low kicks, elbows to the jaw, a really great chop, just peppering them in off time, staggering Rusev. But it is fleeting, as Rusev grabs hold of him and tosses him into a pancake. With one more twist or turn, this could have been a perfect little short match.

5. Colin Cassady vs. Bo Dallas

Colin Cassady is hilarious to me. As in, I giggled through this whole match. Cassady is a giant. He is clearly a tall guy, even though he just kind of looks like Edge slightly stretched out. So he's this giant guy, who loses ALL of his height once there's any kind of lock-up. He and Dallas lock up, and suddenly Dallas looks bigger. He starts wrestling like Spike Dudley the second they lock-up. Even his comebacks are like Spike Dudley, or any blowjob babyface tag team ever. BUT, when he makes his comebacks, his offense is sold like he is a GIANT. So he's wrestling like Bobby Fulton but then makes a comeback and Dallas is taking flip bumps like he's being tossed around by Andre. So I'm dying laughing as Dallas easily grounds Cassady with a headlock, and then Cassady starts elbowing Dallas' stomach to get out of it, but Dallas is jumping while taking these shots like he's comically  taking the offense of a giant man, but Cassady is facially acting like he's a tiny babyface desperately fighting for control. It's fucking hilarious. He works like fucking Tommy Rogers except he's 7 feet tall!! I can't stand it. It's too good. He'll always be desperately struggling to fight back, but then he'll hit a big boot like a giant and Dallas will go flying like he took a bat to the face. HOLY SHIT Cassady just threw himself down to the mat while whipping Dallas into the corner. Holy shit. He did it in the way tiny juniors throw themselves down, as if they're using ALL of their strength, every possible muscle in their little body, to whip this man into the buckles, like Mitch Williams falling off the mound after pitches because he was throwing so hard. I can't take it. That's like something Kalisto would do when wrestling Rusev. So, aside from breaking out in tears every time GIANT Colin Cassady worked as if he were Rey Misterio wrestling Kevin Nash on Nitro, I really liked Dallas in this. He worked a smarmy slow style, really rubbing it in that he was being methodical. And the crowd was booing and chanting boring, and that makes Dallas make a BO-lieve joke out of BO-ring. Dallas throws awesome back elbows and at one point plowed through Cassady with an awesome running back elbow variation. But Colin Cassady man. I can't deal. I love it.

Fun episode, sometimes for the reasons they weren't totally going for. HOWEVER, fun is fun is fun.


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NXT Episode 211 3/6/14 Review

1. Adrian Neville vs. Camacho

Oh yeahhhhh I forgot about the Camacho/Hunico tag team. And this whole thing was more of a victory lap for Neville after winning the title. Camacho gets a couple forearms to start, but the rest is Neville throwing some nice dropkicks and easily setting up the Red Arrow. Camacho doesn't get talked about during the match, but amusingly right after losing Regal says "and this was a good win for Neville, as Camacho is no joke". Seems like something you'd say before a guy gets steamrolled. Rachel comments that Neville looks like a hobbit without any SFX makeup, and moments later he says in a promo that he looks like "a crazy elf man".

Bo Dallas cuts a nice heel promo on Neville postmatch, congratulating him, but saying he didn't actually pin him, he just climbed a ladder "like a dad cleaning out the gutters" (awesome line), and cashed in his rematch clause.

We also get a couple backstage segments with Flair and Charlotte confronting Emma and Paige. Flair comes off like a leery creep and Charlotte can't really talk well. She talks like Lenny James doing his awful American accent. But one thing is obvious is that people handle their NXT promos very calm, as opposed to in big booming "promo voice" and it works so much better. Bo Dallas was nice and calm in his segment, and it got over his intentions much better. Just a few short sentences. You don't really need much more. So even though Charlotte doesn't talk well, she easily got over that she was gunning for the belt, and really that's all that's needed.

2. Emma vs. Charlotte

Short match but decent. Emma hits a nice thrust kick to Charlotte's throat on a corner charge. Charlotte goes down with a convincing ankle injury after a landing, Banks distracts Emma from the apron, and then Charlotte does a nice cocky kip up behind Emma's back before hitting a nasty flipping DDT/Blockbuster.

3. Yoshi Tatsu vs. Corey Graves

Match doesn't happen as Graves gets on the mic, runs down Sami Zayn for having a lot of heart, but never actually winning matches. Graves walks out on the match, Tatsu follows and gets leveled with a clothesline, then feebly counted out. Graves rolls him back in and locks on his really nasty looking inverted figure 4/heel hook that's apparently called Lucky 13.

In a backstage promo Xavier Woods calls himself Creed and calls Rusev an Ivan Drago looking mother. I assume Woods has never in his life seen a Rocky film, as nothing about Rusev looks like Ivan Drago. There are about 20 guys in NXT who are closer matches to Drago.

4. Adam Rose vs. Wesley Blake

Blake is working a cowboy gimmick but just has shiny black boots, not even the sweet Windham cowboy wrestling boots. This is Rose's debut (as Rose) and Byron Saxton and Tensai are unbearable at putting over just how much of a fun guy Rose is. This gimmick had small time written all over it. Saxton honestly says the phrase "This guy's fun!" six different times in this match. It's so desperate. Rose has a nice stiff shoulderblock, bad mounted MMA downward elbows, and a decent falling clothesline.

5. Corey Graves vs. Sami Zayn

Good match. These NXT main events have been delivering. Graves works a good ground game and really any time these two are in close it's good. There's a lot of detail to their headlocks, scraping ears, clawing at mouths, grabbing at jaws, wrenching necks; all of it felt like actual nastiness and not just grabbing a perfunctory headlock to start. Graves is really good at smothering Zayn, locking in a snug quarter nelson. It's fun listening to Regal on commentary as he's practically giddy with Graves' submissions. Graves doesn't even work over Zayn's surgically repaired knee, and Regal puts over how Graves already knows the knee is bugging him, so he's using that to his advantage to work over the rest of Zayn's body. Once they get up things stay good as Zayn fights back and eventually goes for his nice running boot in the corner, but Graves cuts him off with an exclamation point elbow, then hits an awesome backbreaker from a samoan drop, kinda rolling Zayn off his shoulders and onto his knee. Graves goes to lock on Lucky 13 and Zayn gets a quick, smart roll-up that I thought was the end but was pleased when Graves kicked out. The end sequence is nice with Zayn going for his tornado DDT, Graves catching him and going for that awesome backbreaker, but Zayn reversing that with another really great roll up. Match was probably only 6 minutes but I really loved it.


Nice show that set up some things for the future, had a nice main, and a dorky Sami Callihan as Adam Rose's DJ. Adam Rose has always come off really cringeworthy to me, so I'm not looking forward to his NXT run. I'm avoiding looking timelines up so I'm more surprised by things, but I'm REALLY hoping Rose got a main roster call up quick into the gimmick.  They were already desperately putting over just how much fun he is in his debut, instead of just letting it happen. When Michael Cole was doing that stuff during Rose's WWE run I assumed that was classic WWE micromanaging, but they were doing it right from the first second of the gimmick.


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NXT Cocoa Beach Road Report 6/26

My wife and I were down in Orlando for a week for our anniversary and some how I convinced Chelsea to tag along with me to an NXT house show. This is the first wrestling show I have been to in years (outside of a lucha show in DC which was more of an art instillation), last time was Sami Callihan v. Fit Finlay in EVOLVE, and in my return I got to see Sami versus a much lesser Irishman.

The show was in a tiny National Guard armory and as a whole it really felt like the old ECWA shows we went to en masse back in the early 2000s, some pretty good matches, some really green wrestlers trying some things and some shocking bush league gimmicks. No great matches, but most were at least entertaining, and everything moved pretty quickly.

Uhaa Nation v. Axel Dieter

Solidly worked opener, with Dieter working over Nations arm with some fun Euro holds, and Nation doing a fine job of timing some exciting comebacks. Dieter is a weird guy to get signed, kind of tubby, not very big or dynamic. He is a guy I have seen a handful of times before and never really stood out, not one of the WXW guys I would have guessed would move on. Nation was fine here, but he did really stand out. He is a guy who has main evented in front of some pretty big crowds in Japan, but he wasn't commanding the room like I expected him too. He felt like someone who is still aways away.

Devin Taylor/Charlotte v. Lina Fenene/Cassidy

Lina is the Rock's cousin and is really huge. She is clearly pretty green still, but did a nice job working a big brick wall which the faces were trying to knock dow. She looks like a taller Patty LaBelle and I imagine that Patty wouldn't sell very much either. Charlotte has really improved her chops, which is very important for a Flair scion.

Bull Dempsey v. Mike Rawlis

Bull Dempsey is basically working as 2009 Super Porky. Lots of comedy spots about being too fat to hit his moves. He had a really amusing spot where Rollins does a kip-up and Dempsey tries a bunch of times and fails, he also has a rope running spot where he loses his wind. Dempsey is a fine fake Super Porky, kind of like Brazo De Platino, and this seems like a gimmick with some actually legs. He was over, and amused Chelsea. I don't see why they just don't rehire Super Porky, but I enjoyed this. Rollins was terrible though, kind of reminded me of 1998 Tom Brandi. Nice hair, good body, sub Jim Powers in the ring.

Sasha Banks v. Blue Pants

Blue Pants is clearly an NXT inside joke I don't get. This was Banks working as arrogant heel champ who ends up wrestling someone they believe is beneath them. It is a classic wrestling match trope, and Banks is really good as Flair getting frustrated as Rocky King rolls him up. She totally gets her character, interacts with the audience well, and comes off vulnerable without hurting her character or looking weak. Banks felt big league in a way that most people on this show did not. Blue Pants isn't much and a better George South student would have made this a better match.

Hype Bros v. The Mechanics

Shocked at how much I enjoyed this, really thought Mojo Rawley felt like one of the most ready to go guys on this show. His execution wasn't perfect, but he brought a bunch of energy to the match and worked perfectly as a meathead tag partner to Zach Ryder. Great working the apron, great as a hot tag and the doomsday device leg lariat thing they did was pretty cool. The Mechanics were baffling to me, they were basically a short B- version of a southern heel tag team, a homeless Death and Destruction, a sawed off Bad Attitude. I have no idea how they ended up in a WWE feeder system. One guy had Captain Roughneck on his trunks, and fuck that noise. Match would have way better if Hype Bros had Damien Wayne and Preston Quinn to work against, instead of their scab replacements.

Marcus Louis v. Angelo Dawkins

This was the only absolute stinker match of the show. Dawkins is a black dude who kind of has the body of a pretty good high school football linebacker three years after graduation who eats like he still is doing 2 a days. He does the James Harden cooking pot motion, and I think Lil B cursed this match. Louis is a French guy who spends the whole match doing nerve holds and making crazy guy faces. Long, dull, poorly executed, boring, a failure in every way a match can fail.

They have a segment where Louis Valentine comes out and wants to dance with the ring announcer (who was getting sexually harassed by the scumbag fans all night). He get interrupted by Preston Cunningham Jr. who does the worst most implausible spoiled rich kid promo I have ever seen in wrestling (think about how much ground that covers). This would get laughed out of an ECWA Super 8 battle royal, I have no idea how something this yarder got past the curtain, just awful.

Finn Balor v. Solomon Crowe

It has been so long since I have seen Crowe actually get a chance to spread out and work a match. When Callihan was in the indies he was one of the best wrestlers in the world. Really happy I got to watch him actually do his thing a little bit. Balor isn't my cup of tea, but he can execute his moves, and did a pretty good job selling his knee, which Crowe worked over really viciously. This felt like a second round US Indy tourney match, worked pretty simple, nice execution, nothing anyone will remember in six months, but very exciting in the moment. Crowe is still really good, I hope he gets a shot to do something.

Vaudevillains vs. Blake and Murphy vs. Chad Gable/Jason Jordan

Last time I saw Blake and Murphy they were dull faces, but I really liked them here as a sleaze bag pretty boy heel tag team. They do Heavenly Bodies way better than the Mechanics do Anderson Brothers. Vaudevillains have some fun shtick, and worked your car crash workrate spots really well. Gable is still a little raw, but is clearly going to be great. It will be interesting to see an Olympic wrestler working as a junior (he wrestled at the Olympics at 185). Jordan is much bigger and already has a fun suplex based offense, he seems crazy strong as he was just deadlifting pretty big guys. Match had the most action of the night, and I enjoyed the pace after some slowly worked openers.

Fun overall show, missed going to live wrestling although I didn't miss wrestling crowds. Might actually be able to convince my wife to come to another show with me sometime.

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