Alucard

I've never thought negatively of the JR/Barnett duo in NJPW, not his best sure but haven't thought of JR to be terrible there.

Announced for Raw is Ronda/Sasha vs. Nia/Tamina and Rollins v. Ambrose v. Lashley for the IC title. Tomorrow is also Shane McMahon's 49th birthday so Miz is promising the best birthday bash in the world.

I thought this past week's Kross/Johnny no DQ match was good stuff with Kross looking great as the monster that can't be kept down. Agreed on the above mentioned Moose/Eddie match.

Probably my favorite Shimmer match ever was between them, nobody did as good but Kay also had a really good series with Nicole Matthews there as well.

I would've loved to have seen Drew in his 2010 incarnation ascend to being WWE or World Champ, he was so perfect as the cocky prick IC Champ back then and it seemed like such a natural rise up the card until it was abandoned. His Impact run was really good, showed he could also be a surprisingly effective babyface.

2002-2005 was my favorite era of PPV themes. I don't always pay attention to NXT but I've loved when they've used Halestorm and the like.

Agreed 100%. Exposed horribly this past Monday and I think they might finally lose faith in him after that, knowing how much WWE favors promos as a strong point for top guys. They've already Brock beat him twice, first in under ten minutes in 2017 then in under 5 minutes a few months ago... so not much interest in what else they will do at the Rumble but I'm beyond ready for Brock to move on to anyone else, Seth or whoever.

Co-signed on the Eagles love. The best in the world IMO during her Shimmer title run 2010-2011 before the knee injury took her out of 2012, also felt was Shimmer's greatest run.

It went out for like 15-20 mins, came back and they resumed.

Great review, Thread Killer. I agree with most points though I did like Johnny/Cage a good bit before the finish (and I actually like Moose a lot). While Tessa/Taya was good, the first match from Bound for Glory, which was their straight up wrestling match without any outside gimmicks, was pretty great.

I would love an all out ECW tribute style match filled with run-ins and cameos like Raven's. Could also be looked at as an Asylum tribute as they've been using a bunch of 02-04 clips in video packages leading up and back then, there was no telling who was gonna show up next.

Homecoming this Sunday looks like another really solid card from Impact Final lineup:

Decent, just four basic tag matches with the first three being 6 minutes or less and the main going 10 but nothing really standout. Ronda/Natalya vs Nia/Tamina vs Riott Squad (this was the most fun match of the show I thought) Balor/Elias vs. Lashley/McIntyre Becky/Charlotte vs. Sonya/Mandy Styles/Rollins vs. Bryan/Ambrose

Co-signed on Razor's gear, always great in all different colors. Similarly with Michaels. Ultimo's pink gear was always my favorite of his. Loved when Triple H switched up the colors in 2003, wearing red, purple, and blue. Very Flair like. Randy Orton did that as well around that time.

Agreed, the Thanksgiving tradition is always classic. Love to see more old vets included in Impact like Gilbertti, Dreamer, Raven, Steiner, etc. Last year's was also pretty hilarious with Josh Mathews & Borash cracking each other up on commentary.

I feel like they've done several in the past.... AOP/Sanity last year... maybe Sasha/Becky years back I think both were still heel. But I could also see Bianca turning face. I haven't watched NXT the last 5-6 months or so but she was always a highlight whenever she was on.

Basically just an elevated boston crab. HHH was using the Indian Deathlock in 02-03, I believe JR tried to call it the "H-Hold Indian Deathlock" at one point and it was in his moveset in the games at the time. He also busted it out against Rollins last year. On a side note, every Triple H/Maven match was awesome, really great 'top star vs underdog babyface' formula matchups.

He did, beat Heath Slater in the lead up to RAW 1000 then appeared on RAW 1000 in the Slater vs. the Legends segment. I wish more Sid in WWE followed.

Undertaker definitely always kept the Last Ride as a near fall, often in the spot of 'guy doing 10 punch in corner is shockingly caught in Last Ride position' which was also the finish vs. Mark Henry at Unforgiven 2007. As mentioned Rollins' pedigree, there was a few weeks in between where he was trying that weird forward DDT/facebuster type move. Kane's falling powerbomb finish in the early 2000s. Jericho's Breakdown finish in 01/02. Zack Ryder's Zack Attack finish before he just went with the signature Rough Ryder as his finish. Sheamus original High Cross crucifix bomb before settling on the Brogue Kick as his finish. I'd forgotten about Raven using the ankle lock. A lot of the times when guys that didn't normally do submissions suddenly started using one, it didn't stick, outside of Cena keeping the STF. I think of Lesnar's Brocklock, originally the bearhug he used on Hogan in 02 then the stretch muffler in 03/04 but even now the Kimura seems rare compared to his 2012/2013 matches. Jeff Hardy using "the spine line" in 2004 TNA to combat Jarrett's figure four. Triple H using a sleeper hold to win a couple matches in late 2002. I feel like there's a lot of recent examples that are slipping my mind.

I was thinking AJ was heading towards the Viper at Mania as that's still a relatively fresh match Triple H (if not injured) I thought was going for Batista if available.

I really liked Ronda/Natalya, went about 15 mins with a fun story of Ronda being hesitant to beat on her friend while Natalya would capitalize on any opportunity of Ronda not pulling the trigger.

The three womens matches were all pretty awesome. Main event was insane, Ronda and Nia seem to work well together, and Natalya/Ruby was great with a hot crowd.

This is amazing, we need the next 2 hours!

That initial August 2016 to April 2017 era of SDL felt like peak level stuff where everything was firing on all cylinders, new stars were being created, awesome matches/feuds were happening, it was on fire. Until as you said the shakeup bombed the roster. These days it feels like there's some pretty good stuff going on but there is still so much of the 'half the roster disappears for weeks/months at a time with no mention' going on, whereas the 16/17 era had most everyone being used well.