Timbo Slice

Excited for the next run for NXT thanks to Drew, Ohno, a Biff push likely, return of Itami, and SOMEONE beating Asuka. Tag team division, which was once a stalwart, seems light right now. Heavy Machinery are interesting but not quite to that level yet. I'm all in on Aleister Black. He has the chance to be something truly special with that setup and he brings something completely unique to the table. That has some money potential. Ohno is going to be an interesting part in all this: He's obviously the workhorse type that can fit with everyone, but they can't just have him be the "Guy Who Has Great Matches With Everyone." He needs something a bit more and I hope they find it with him in the next year.

Orton seems to be one of those guys other wrestlers love for his look, pedigree, and family lineage, but he really has been playing the same guy for a long time. Interestingly enough, I think a lot of people liked the pairing with Wyatt because it was a bit of a departure from the norm for both guys, and I was definitely invested in the storyline. It just ended with a bit of a thud, and now it looks like it really is just fizzling away after the fact. Orton as the champion on SD seems like a no-win proposition considering AJ is bound for the US feud with Owens. Him and Corbin doesn't do it for me on a storyline level, either. The main issue is that he really should have been an Arn Anderson type his entire career. He's a great supporting player, but him as a lead guy just never stuck.

I would have hoped he came back as Hero, but oh well. I don't think it's that big of a deal, to be honest. NXT was alright this week. Tyler Bate match was the highlight. He really does have a great, unique presence about him for a 5-8, 175 pound 19-year-old.

I need to get back to posting more regularly on here because my sanity has been absolutely thrown asunder lately. So here are my Rumble thoughts: -Opener was fine. A bit surprised that they had the finish like that but it was at least unique, and Charlotte being pushed as a heel to the extent she is makes me think the only person left to take her down would be Asuka, which, if you asked me a year ago was the plan, I would have laughed in your face. Also, Brandon Howard saw that Sasha was the #2 female search for merch on WWE.com behind the Bellas, which makes me think if they think she can turn heel, a Reigns turn could also be in the cards. Plus, turning Sasha now would just be weird. -REALLY liked the Universal title match, especially with Owens going all out to bump like a crazy person (he did it in the Ambrose match last year too) and him really selling the Reigns comebacks well. Liked the finish because Braun rules and it also gives way to the idea that Braun could have an easier time with Owens than Reigns, which might be what his idea is here. Open-ended booking again. -Cruiserweight title match had issues getting sustained heat but the big moments were really good, and giving Neville the belt for a while so they can build someone else up to his level is smart. I could see it being Bate or even Dunne if they want once they run the UK gamut, but I think it'll be someone more along the lines of Cedrick (if they ever get around to pushing him) or Gallagher. -Cena/Styles was terrific, as they decided to just go for broke basically from the start and ran the Omega/Okada match extended stretch run instead of putting a bunch of perfunctory stuff up front. The Super AA kickout popped the hell out of me, and the finality of the finish was great. I would have loved to see the Figure Four finish even if it was a bit too much on the nose. -Great Rumble, which gave people what they wanted in some ways and with the Orton win, more open-ended booking. I can't see them doing Orton/Cena, but I could see something like Bray winning the Elimination Chamber with Orton's "help" to set that up and finish that up. Really backloaded Rumble, which meant early on until Braun showed up it was a bit slow, and the middle part was a lot of riff-raff, too. But the last part was really well done, and Brock doing good business again for Goldberg is seriously incredible to see. Corbin eliminating Braun is also sneaky good booking, too. Another one of those shows that WWE (Mostly SD Live) has basically perfected over the last year, with good balance in the booking and work while really understanding what it takes to build convincing stories AND keep a mystery going. Enjoyed this immensely.

This is correct.

So I'm going the other way and think this is better than the first match based solely on Jaguar's performance here. When she's in control, it's one of the best things ever, just absolutely systematically going after Lioness in a way that's rare for the timeframe. The stretch run was crazy, I thought the selling was great, and the opportunism of Jaguar winning right away based on the Lioness mistake while playing up the leg work was perfect. The first match is one of the best 50/50 matches I've ever seen, really built well, but the finish has always fallen flat with me because I really think they should have put Chig over leading up to the hair match with Dump six days later to have her go in strong. It's definitely a bit of nitpick regardless of where you fall because those two matches back to back is one of the best 1-2 punches ever, and even 30 years later, it's still going strong.

I actually think that move was made more out of necessity than many think, especially with Naito floundering a bit before his Mexico excursion. People seem to forget that. This really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone on the WWE front. UK is just the beginning of efforts like this. At some point, they'll come for Mexico and Japan and it'll be a similar scenario. They don't mind throwing around the money right now.

Yeah, the talking point on Kandori always was that she was tough to work with, didn't work as hard as the other person in the match, etc. Couldn't have been further from the truth.

Kobashi/Honda is the great Honda showcase match AND the great Kobashi GHC title match. Causal, not correlation, as Kobashi's GHC title matches weren't all great. The one thing Kobashi did have was the glue to have matches with multiple guys that were at least compelling. The Takayama and Minoru title defenses stand out as Kobashi working "their" match while making sure the other guy forced him out of what had become the norm in his title defenses. That norm started with the Honda match, coincidentally, but it got repetitive over time to an extent. I actually would love to hear Parv's views on Kobashi/Ogawa from November 2003, which is worked in a way I think he'd enjoy. And considering he didn't like the Joe/Styles pairing, might as well see what he thinks of Joe/Kobashi.

I just...well, just take a look at this damn thing: I don't even know where to start.

LOVE this match. Nakano as grumpy guy thinking Tamura is beneath him but Tamura thinks he's still got the technical skills to hang makes this for me. Young, fiery Tamura is the Tamura more people need to check out.

Asuka's basically there as the barometer for everyone else to get up to speed before they go to the main roster. Problem is that, well, as it's been said, there's really nobody that's close to her right now.

Asuka's over as all hell. It's just that they have nothing to do with her. Nobody's credible enough to beat her, not even Ember. I also love how they're making Roode such a huge heel, and then he's going to his friggin home town in a month against a fellow Canadian and he's going to get a definitive hero's welcome. ADR has too much sour grapes to take anything he says seriously at this point. Plus, Andrade as a heel is much better anyways, especially if we get anything near an Ingobernable-type run once he's established. Give Tino six months and he's gonna be the biggest heel on NXT.

Weird bump, but the Hotta double title match on 3/21/98 is this incredibly violent PWFG-style match with Hotta doing what Hotta normally does (and even going with a fucking shoot headbutt like a crazy person), but Kandori putting on a selling clinic. It's not even remotely everybody's cup of tea, but it's up there with some of my favorite sprints ever and to get that type of match out of Hotta is pretty nuts. The rematch where Hotta won the belt back a year later doesn't even touch this.

Nak at Dallas still gives me goosebumps. An incredible combination of anticipation and payoff that I don't think WWE has ever really done. Including Styles. Also, the pre-Attitude era answer is Ricky Steamboat as the mystery partner at Clash XVII, damn it. The dragon mask had me intrigued that it was another Muta-type guy, and then when it was Ricky Steamboat, 7-year-old Tim marked the FUCK OUT.

Complaining about Raw being three hours at this point is pointless. It's not going away until their TV contract is over. They actually have me a bit excited for Orton/Brock. I can't believe it.

PRINCE MOTHERFUCKING ALI IN THIS THING. HELL YES.

Favorite things about last night: -Nak's actually getting how to wrestle on WWE TV. He's doing cool little things that only he can do with his charisma and it really adds to matches. I know they aren't the matches his fans are used to seeing from him, but I enjoy him figuring out how to work guys like Buddy Murphy and actually make them compelling matches because he knows how to work some different things in. -Corey Graves totally calling out Tom Phillips on the idea that whoever he's around gets fired in an offhand comment had me HOWLING. -Nia Jax went to the powerbomb for the finish. FINALLY.

So, I think at this point, almost anything he does is going to be talked about in a way that doesn't show good on him. He's basically Sheamus at this point, as Randy, even at his worst, was over thanks to the RKO. He's been unbelievably bungled, and now they have basically zero golden boys ready to step in for him. Rollins thinks he is, but at this point, I'm not seeing it as a heel. He has to be a true face at some point.

I think it was way better than just your normal NXT good match, especially because it forced Nak to work a different style. He's so used to working 50/50 in big matches that actually working from underneath was a nice change of pace, even if Aries didn't have the best control segment. The stretch run was great, too. Much more like a struggle than a your turn/my turn run. Really good stuff.

Dude in the lower right hand corner of that picture always slays me. Opener was fine, but it actually came off more like a Tye showcase than an Andrade showcase. Andrade is a quick learn, though, and I hope they let him do something akin to the Ingobernables stuff at some point, even though Cesaro has the suit gimmick on lockdown. Tag match was fire. This is it for now, but if Alpha gets the call up and Revival drops the belts to Gargano/Ciampa, they need to feud over the WWE tag belts for the next 10 years. They seem like they are smart enough to mix it up from show to show to the point where it doesn't get stale. Great cutoff spots here, making the guys actually kick out and give more drama to the pin falls. That's a smart, subtle change to tag formula. Aries/Nakamura was a terrific match, Aries' best showing, and great to see it not a 50/50 Indy Dream Match. Aries had a good control segment (fine with the leg selling, 2 minutes a leg work does not a legless Nakamura make) and the stretch run was different and added a lot to Aries' ability to pull off the win. Finish was great, too, as Nak baited the Missile trying to beat the 10 count to set up the win. People who said Nak was coasting here are absolutely 100% wrong. Women's match was really good, as Asuka's dangerous enough to take out even the biggest of competitors, and Jax did enough to make you believe all she needed was one shot. She's definitely improved a lot since the London match, and her getup was straight out of the Combat Toyoda wardrobe, so I'm fine with that. Finish was great, but Asuka/Bayley II is gonna have to deliver something big because I'm not sure how the crowd is going to react after Dallas. Main event was solid, but cage matches in WWE probably need not exist anymore, to be honest. They don't really add anything unless people are doing stuff off the top of them (sad, but unfortunately true), and without blood and without the idea of outside interference helping things aesthetically, it doesn't do much. That being said, Finn bumped like a moron (in a good way) and Joe was just an absolute beast. I'm so happy to have him back and he's right now amongst my Top 10, maybe even Top 5 in the world. Joe/Nak is going to fucking rule.

It was the night after he beat Taker if I remember right. The timing was either then or right before it.

Not to mention that in a weird roundabout way Ali directly influenced Billy Graham's promos, which then influenced Dusty, which then influenced basically everyone.

It was always going to happen. Simmons is a mark for Shoemaker.