NintendoLogic

What did Jinder Mahal do on the indies?

Plus, the optics of New Japan making a deal with a longtime WWE top guy as opposed to a midcarder like Cody Rhodes or a has-been like Billy Gunn can hardly be overstated.

They started doing European tours instead, which I assume were more profitable.

Is this the version Tabe was talking about?

If she's so great at connecting with a crowd, why are crowds dead during her matches?

Because professional wrestlers want to win their professional wrestling matches. Why would the wrestlers not want to be on the winning team? Regardless of if they're going to switch teams once the next draft/shake up happens. It's not like free agency makes pro athletes not care about winning the games they play. Athletes care about winning games with something real on the line. Raw vs. Smackdown is more akin to a preseason or All-Star game.

There's a discussion on the F4W board about Alexa Bliss. I hardly ever watch now, but what they're saying matches up with my view from afar. She's a heel champion who hardly ever gets upstaged in promo battles or has to resort to cheating to win big matches. There's the occasional countout/DQ/screwjob finish, but then she wins the blowoff match clean. Her programs consist of her calling her opponents losers and then being proven right. It'd be one thing if she were having great matches along the way. But she's a middling worker at best, so it's just a bummer all around.

I'll be honest. I had never even heard of this match, let alone seen it pimped as anything special, until I saw this post. I'm not even slightly a fan of actual shoot-style, but I do generally enjoy guys with shooter gimmicks in pro-style matches, so I figured this was worth a look. This match is for the WLW (Harley Race's promotion) Heavyweight Championship. Let me begin by saying how much I love Morishima's Inside the Heat Beats theme, largely because it's so incongruous for someone who's supposed to be a monster/power wrestler. It sounds like it could be Sakura's theme in a Street Fighter game. Then again, Morishima does look like a giant schoolgirl, so maybe it it is appropriate. Anyway, the match. I've been on a NOAH kick recently, and Morishima's lariats might be my favorite thing in wrestling right now. He dominates the opening minutes other than an Ikeda kneebar that would come into play later. There's a funny moment when Ikeda tries to block a backdrop by grabbing the referee, so Morishima just smashes both of them into the turnbuckle. This leads to a visual pinfall off an Amaze Impact. The action spills to the outside, and Morishima grabs a chair and obliterates Ikeda with a JBL to Eddie Guerrero-level shot to the head that I'm surprised didn't bust him open hardway. Morishima then tries to backdrop Ikeda off the apron through a table. It's kind of interesting to see Morishima work a brawling style rather than monster style, more Stan Hansen than Vader. Ikeda blocks it by going after the knee he worked over earlier (psychology!) and turns the tables with a Death Valley Driver through the table. Ikeda starts throwing punches in a desperate attempt to keep the big man down and gets the win with a series of kicks to the head. Super match.This is almost certainly Ikeda's best NOAH match and quite possibly his best match overall, at least for my tastes. It's a shame he never got a big run with a major promotion. With his grasp of pro-style psychology and flair for the dramatic, I think he could've gotten over.

Dude. There comes a time to just give up . I know you maniacs want to bitch and moan about everything. I get it. Youre all diseased and its not your fault. But this time, just stop. Some of you people really need to have some sort of internal sit down about how you react to Dave. If you think his opinions about matches stink than thats fine. But when it comes to reporting, history, and obituaries..all written terribly.. no one compares. So stop with the Well I know what Dave said but I have a hunch, bullshit. Dude. It should be obvious by now that I'm hardly the type to reflexively take issue with everything Dave says, so step off with that bullshit. He's by far the best in the business at what he does, but he's not infallible. He's not above making mistakes or being worked by his sources. Taking his reporting with a grain of salt when certain things don't add up doesn't make you a maniac. She must have asked for time off. But seriously, this makes the Asuka matches even more inexplicable.

The reason that is, because people who don't watch PWG don't watch it because they don't think it's good. Partially, yes. But there are also plenty of people who've never seen it and base their opinions entirely on GIFs and match reports. Those people tend to have pictures of Kevin Nash or Roman Reigns as their avatars.

I saw what Dave wrote. I remain skeptical for the reasons I stated. WWE isn't exactly known for being liberal with granting time off.

I honestly don't know what to think. The idea of someone who isn't a Reigns/Orton/Styles level star being freely granted time off for anything other than a family emergency sounds kind of fishy to me.

Dave's broader point is that most of the people who bash him for saying PWG is far above WWE ring-wise don't watch it. I think it is true that most people who watch PWG regularly consider it to be clearly superior to WWE. But it's not axiomatic, and a good amount of that is due to self-selection bias.

It wasn't that long ago that nobody said no to anything. Charlotte couldn't bring herself to say no to using her dead brother in an angle. Even Randy Orton couldn't bring himself to say no to taking full-force elbows to the head from Brock Lesnar. Now we've got midcarders who think they're Bruiser Brody.

I have no idea why WWE likes to run a battle for brand supremacy storyline seemingly every year. The motivations of the participants never make much sense and there's never anything truly at stake. Although I suppose this time is a change of pace since it's usually Raw that's positioned as the heel brand.

Just out of curiosity, what was the contemporaneous view of Fujiwara as a worker in outlets like the Observer?

He's a work/influence candidate, at least to his advocates.

How do you lose your hair in a ladder match? Would there be clippers suspended above the ring?

If it wasn't clear already, AJ Styles is a miracle worker. In the past year, he's caused me to greatly enjoy matches with Dean Ambrose, Kevin Owens, and Finn Balor, which I thought was impossible. Asuka having a competitive match with Emma in her debut on the main roster is kind of annoying, but that's just how WWE does things. My bigger concern going forward is that she'll end up being Flanderized. Like, once Vince discovers she does hip attacks, they'll center everything around her ass like with Jack Gallagher and his umbrella. I do find it amusing that they redid the WM29 Undertaker storyline to determine her opponent when at the time it was considered such an awful idea that the writer who came up with it was basically fired on the spot.

Did they just literally murder Braun?

I haven't watched Raw all year. Is Graves the babyface color commentator and Booker the heel now?

Has there ever been a kayfabe explanation for why there would be ladders in a match where there isn't an object suspended above the ring?

Why were the fans chanting for tables during that match? Still, it's a better chant than "we want puppies." Good match. Probably the best performance I've seen from Bliss.

Interesting that there's a guy in a Cease and Desist shirt in full view of the hard camera.

Jesus, people are still doing that ten shit? I hope every single match ends by countout until they cut that out. Did Booker T just say he wants to bang Asuka?