Timbo Slice

He's been given some of the book on SmackDown so I don't think he's going anywhere for the time being.

Kay Lee Ray defends the WWE NXT UK Women's Title A match and a result too cute by half, to the point where you wonder what Meiko is doing there in the first place when it's all over. The WWE viewpoint is that they didn't just want Meiko to become another Asuka, an unbeatable Japanese Ace that can't possibly be on the same level as anyone else on the brand. The problem is that is EXACTLY who Meiko is, who she was billed as, and who she was promoted as when she came in, to the point where her moniker is literally "The Best In The World" in her ring introductions. And in 20 minutes, all of it basically vanishes? Ray still isn't great with transitions, and there are plenty of Meiko matches at this point where she has been asked to put over a young ace in the fledgling joshi promotions all over Japan, but at least in those situations, Meiko is given an opportunity to go a bit back and forth before finally putting over the ace to make it seemed earned. That's the template for this match, something Meiko can do in her sleep, but usually it's reserved for the final meeting in a short feud. The presentation is supposed to be Ray overcoming just an overwhelming force, but the match layout was extremely even-keeled, even by the 50/50 standards WWE has lived by for the better part of a decade, and that makes the end result, where Ray pins Meiko clean, even more confounding, unless the end result is that the main roster women have convinced the higher ups to not let Meiko flounder on the UK brand, and get a quick run out of her with the Horsewomen and Asuka matches while she's still relatively fresh. Considering how WWE has treated the UK brand so far, there seems to be this pretty substantial struggle to determine if the top folks on the brand have the ability to crossover into WWE's mainstream, and with both Drew and Becky's success outside of that, someone like Ray seems like a good fit given her limited exposure already, but the hierarchy as it stands leads to weird ways certain wrestlers are booked, and if that leads to someone like Meiko getting lost in the shuffle, it's hard to see much value in her presence on the brand.

There are petty fines across all professional sports behind the scenes (baseball alone is enough to make folks cringe) so I come from a different viewpoint on it, but WWE hasn't exactly done a lot to teach it out of these folks who learned it on the indies coming up.

If you look at a match, like say, Roddy vs. Finn from this week, when Roddy does his running forearms, the camera shots show how obvious it is with him slapping the thigh to the point of outright laughter. Also, this is what you get when you fire Hero, who's the greatest audible strike wrestler maybe ever and knew how to hide it well.

It's incredible to see this match only a year after the absolutely insane tag match he had with Iizuka against the invading UFO guys in Ogawa and Murakami. Always liked how these guys matched up.

Really can't get over how good this was considering the circumstances. Thatcher is an absolute badass.

Fucking banger of a match here. Casas looks like he can go until he's 85, let alone the fact that he's 58 right now and flew through this like it was 1989 or something. No let up at all. Just incredible.

I definitely do not want it to fail. I am also definitely wary of the byproduct of this.

The longer we get away from this year's Dome show, the more I feel Naito should have been put over. NJPW direction outside Golden Lovers has been subpar.

I do feel that the criticism of the fanbase who eats that stuff up is valid, though. It's insulated to the point where it can be downright cultish when criticism comes around. I don't care who you're a fan of, but if you can't handle the heat, that's on you. There's a big time hive mind vibe to these guys.

Interesting that Ricochet effectively worked a dark match at Center Stage. Guess they wanted his debut for Full Sail. It's gonna be a hell of a few weeks there, it seems.

Ospreay's biggest issue is that his athleticism overshadows any semblance of structure in his matches to a point where it becomes a distraction. The Ricochet stuff still doesn't do anything at all for me. From a purely aesthetic standpoint, I get why Dave would say it, but him being talented doesn't necessarily make him a great wrestler.

If that was a work, Matt needs to teach every wrestler in history how to sell.

My favorite thing was that after the tornado reverse DDT spot, the match still had another FIFTEEN minutes to go, whereas so many matches would be looking to finish up in 5 or less. Very rarely nowadays do you see me thinking a 30 minute match is worthwhile, but this was that and then some. They knew how to do the sequences right. They showed how much they knew each other to the point where when they hit a big move, it was earned. When Johnny kicked out of the DDT, I thought for sure he was gonna take it, and Candice neutralizing Zelina made me think more, but after the toe on the ropes during the second Gargano Escape, you kinda figured out what was coming. I don't know how you don't have these guys match up again this year, but it's now the match I want to see again more than anything else. Unreal piece of pro wrestling here.

Great main event this week with Velveteen Dream and Gargano. Strap the rocket to the Dream, baby.

So All Pro Wrestling runs the Cow Palace and they draw pretty well without The Elite. They've run Cody on top before and drew in the 1-2K range. That's just local in a big market, and not even a huge wrestling-frenzied market at that. I'm sure they lose money a bit, but still, it's somewhat of a template. The money making thing is spot on, though. I also think when NJPW comes stateside that their ticket pricing is going to be used as a model for what they try to do. There's a vague template here, but it's not going to be wildly profitable. Don't know how much they'll paper, but it might come into play, although I hope I'm wrong.

I assumed the Bryan thing since it was September. I also feel like it's a situation where Bryan could straight up leave with one month to go. In fact, that would be a much bigger deal. And Meltz doubled down on protecting Elgin after his allegations last night on Twitter and pretty much burned up his credibility. The backlash to it will be ongoing and they're gonna have to distance themselves from it.

They need to run Center Stage more regularly. It absolutely kills Full Sail from a setting standpoint. Hotter crowd, too. Doesn't hurt to change it up every once in a while.

It will be at some point this year.

I have major issues with the piece on a lot of levels, especially given the access Bruce had to the situation, but it's pretty obvious that the majority of people, if not everyone involved or knowledgable of the situation, isn't talking. Then the Meltzer Tumblr thing happens tonight and you realize it's systemic, not just limited to Bruce, and has been the case for a long, long time. Dylan's comment makes me even more upset with how Bruce wrote the story.

Yeah, the September 1 date is not a coincidence. Bryan's contract would be up by then. That's one of the draws. Jericho and Rey would be easy gets. There's a chance this is a PWG co-production, which would mean Long Beach, and probably the same arena the NJPW USA show would run. Here's the thing I'm gonna be looking out for: How many guys get signed in the next seven months. Because there's a good chance WWE comes calling for a good amount of the talent this show will be looking to add, and spiteful Vince is always the most aggressive Vince. I don't think you can headline the show with Jericho at all. I think it has to be Danielson/Omega. Punk/Jericho has a history and with Jericho's history of surprise, Punk being his surprise opponent would be worthwhile. The other thing is that I don't know how much they'll be able to hide. And with what happened to Meltzer tonight, a lot of that publicity is going to probably have to come from elsewhere. I'm rooting for it to succeed, but they have some pretty big hurdles ahead of them.

Non-Young Lion NJPW talent under 30: Page, Owens, White, Juice, SANADA, Henare, Finlay, Scurll, Ospreay, Hiromu, SHO, YOH So coming out of WK12, SANADA gets to whoop up on Okada and White gets major face time with him in the presser. Not hard to put 2 and 2 together there. It's looking like Oka really has to hit as a Young Lion on the native front, although it's obvious they're putting more resources towards it. This is part of the reason why I think Naito should have gone over: Hard for Okada to always win without ANY generational rival.

The one thing I was trying to figure out was who was going to take the fall between Kansai and Aja and having Aja take it to really put Crush 2000 over was a big play, of course, but this was a great sprint, even if the near falls went into overkill towards the end. The Towerhacker Bomb near fall was fantastic, and the sense of urgency towards the end for Crush to try and get the win was terrific. Aja and Kansai dominating was great, really made the end pay off, even if the booking was not in doubt. Fun match.

This is going to be fun because I feel like 1996 might have the toughest decision for MOTY of the 1990s.

One of the best top to bottom they've done in a long time. Without a couple big names on there, too.