Migs

I think it'd probably behoove them to do a dual track (or I guess two separate files), one with the original commentary and one with some new English commentary. I also don't know if the plan would be to upload all the TV, as opposed to cherry picking matches featuring big stars in Puerto Rico.

I don't think WWE folds any time soon, but if it does, it starts with Triple H beating Punk two months after the Pipe Bomb. It kicked off an era where they were actively fighting the fans on a regular basis. Same as the way that WCW started dying the day they didn't just do a proper blowoff for Sting-Hogan at Starrcade '97.

I really enjoyed Cody and Aldis, but everything else was completely worthless.

Watching this week's TV show - how hard would it have been to paper the side with the hard cam for the taping? There's more than enough fans in the upper level they could have moved down. Looks terrible. At least it seems they might be down to taping three weeks of TV per taping, which should help the freshness.

This is one that it seems like benefited greatly from experiencing it in the moment and in context. Stumbling onto this match on a comp on Honor Club left me fairly cold (particularly, as Edwin points out, Punk hulking up almost completely out of character at the end). But the energy in the room definitely seems like it was something, and seeing Punk win the belt after the journey had to be super meaningful.

They've also done somewhat minimal work to build the undercard guys. They keep doing these shows where they bring in New Japan or CMLL or UK talent, and while it can make for a fun individual show, it means a lot of the regular roster doesn't even make these shows. And that keeps them from developing any momentum, and they haven't become meaningful talent. They've become incredibly dependent on the Elite guys and New Japan to draw - if they lose the Bucks and Cody, the bottom could fall out very quickly.

Definitely more interesting as an athletic display than for any level of storytelling in the match. Not really sure they do enough on an athletic level to recommend it over any match from the rest of these guys' oeuvre.

Obviously all rumors now, but this would make some sense as the thing Cody has been hinting about in terms of breaking down barriers in 2019. They could launch it in September with All In 2? Could all those guys stay independent for much of 2019? Cody as NWA Champ, the Bucks as NWA Tag Team Champs?

We'll be back on October 25th at 7:30PM! Our guests are Guy Evans, author of NITRO, and Mitch Fesh, promoter of Xtremely Serious Wrestling! Here's the monologue from the last show -

Picking up from War Games a few weeks ago might make sense. They pretty well explain the story there, and that gets followed Ki vs. Fenix and a whole bunch of PCO and La Parka. The Battle Riot special from a couple of months ago was also pretty fun.

Much like a lot of the MLW stuff, I think the idea behind her being the lead heel manager has been a little better in idea than execution. I do like when she goes back and forth with Konnan, though - that seems to be helping her find her footing. Building to Ki vs. Penta seems like a pretty good idea, too.

There's another path here - they're thinking of leaving New Japan to *start their own promotion*, basically a TV deal for Being the Elite, and they need cover for that (or negotiating leverage). Cody keeps talking on 10 Pounds of Gold about breaking down barriers and how exciting 2019 will be. They could easily add most of the All In roster. My gut is that they have something lined up which would probably cut ROH out of the picture, and maybe New Japan if the deal isn't right. No one really cares about ROH, but them leaving New Japan could be a big deal. And so they either need to bluff New Japan into making a deal that gives them even more freedom, or give themselves a clean excuse when they leave. A side point - all the guys in the Elite have made a point that they're recently released new Bullet Club shirt designs will be their last Bullet Club designs. Presumably this relates to them wanting to stick with merch that New Japan doesn't get a cut of. It's another point in what's clearly an ongoing conversation about what their situation looks like next year.

My best guess at this point is we'll hear about the cancellation Monday, and if they end up moving the show instead of cancelling it, we'll hear about that Monday night. They're in a pretty odd position now, where they've promoted Michaels returning, but it was clearly set up with the Saudi money as the reason. Do they simply bite the loss and pay Michaels a big number to work a replacement show? Or Survivor Series? Weasel out somehow?

The evil promoter is trying to put road blocks up before Low Ki can get to Xavier. The section with Abunai has some solid sequences before Ki puts him away with the Ki Krusher. The section with Devine is very quick. This does a very good job of selling Ki as a monster, as does the opening part of the next match where he really dominates Xavier. Xavier has a great counter to the Tidal Crush. The idiot announcer compares Ki and Xavier to Steamboat and Flair which is, uh, a bit excessive. But they do have terrific chemistry and this is a fast paced match that's a lot of fun. Messy finish with a bunch of interference, although the pin ends up being clean-ish, and it sets up the ladder match the next month.

This is shot fan came style, which can make it hard to follow, but at least there's no annoying CZW announcers. For a match with Triple Asai moonsaults thirty seconds in, they actually do get into a bit of a structure here with heat segments by the SAT and Red (although only after a matrix sequence between Jose and Blade that is, uh, not good). There was a lot to dislike here, but also a lot of effort and things to enjoy. Yes, there's an insanely long missed move train and a convoluted tiered superplex that they can't even get right, but they are also working real hard (getting a "Fuck the Hardys!" chant). I'm not sure I'd recommend this without reservations, but it's sort of an interesting look at a common match type on the 2001 indies, with all the highest highs and lowest lows of it.

I'd skipped some Power Pro, so it's sort of nice to see Dragon without the mask again, although I'm not sure how they got there. Just a great technical exhibition. Loved the work in the armbar. "Welcome to the south, buddy. This ain't Blackpool. Put on your Lynyrd Skynyrd and get on with the match." "Dragon says 'that's it.' Any time someone says that's it, it's never it." But the following move actually is it. Very fun, recommended.

We have the Boogie Knights on commentary, which is not bad by 2001 junk indy standards. This is a tag match with singles belts on the line. Starts out with good action, but a mess with no flow. Red hits an Asai sky twister press, which looks amazing. This slows down and the heat segment on Red is pretty great, with some neat moves (surfboard on red, springboard double knee from Devine; gorilla press with double kicks on the way down). Mikey gets the hot tag and hits a Whippersnapper on Xavier and throws Red on top for the win (which is blown, as it looks like its broken up but isn't). Watchable but not essential.

I watched a lot of indies around this time and have no recollection of Powers and Giovanni. They introduce a manager who is... goddammit, Rob Feinstein's homophobic character. The ECW guys come out and there's a lot of bad "comedy" revolving around the sexual orientation of the heels. The heels get control on Whipwreck, and the heat segment is dull but competent. Hot tag and a ref bump leads to Mikey getting the Whippersnapper and then attacked by someone who looks Sgt Slaughter's much less talented child. The heels double team Corino while Feinstein is attacked by a large woman in face paint. Jack Victory and Lou E Dangerously come out and Jack turns on Corino. Corino blades. Babyfaces finally clear the ring. This sucked, totally skippable.

Oh god, Rob Feinstein is actually on commentary. Ick. He's a running stream of terrible jokes. The announcers completely ignore the match to talk shoot interviews while Low Ki clubs the shit out of Elax. Elax works the leg and Low Ki does a nice job selling it (it prevents him from doing Tidal Crush), but Ki is too strong and this is close to a squash for him. The match works as a nice sample of Ki's stiffness. Ki wins with a knockout forearm strike, which was a nicely surprising finish.

Maybe I misheard this morning because it was very early, but it sounded like they were talking up him and Bushi for the Jr Tag League tournament.

This is obviously not cheap for Fox, but it is probably a discount on producing enough TV shows to fill that Friday slot 52 weeks a year (especially given that they've lost the upside on those shows with their production arm being sold to Disney).

I'm usually up early with the baby, so I'll probably give a shot at watching this live (although we'll be hanging with friends, so I'll probably dip in and out, which should make it tolerable). Friends aren't big wrestling fans but do watch Total Divas, so curious to get their take on this shit.

I think Martinez is solid, but ROH was never going to book him correctly - they constantly make the big monster try to wrestle these long, ROH-style matches. Never totally works (same with Dijak, for example), and he'll be way better off in NXT. I'm not exactly sure how Cobb will fit in, but I like his odds better than Martinez. Looks like the direction for Final Battle is Lethal vs. Taven, which is the right decision - at some point they've pushed Taven hard enough that they just need to take a shot with him (especially if they don't want to put the top belt on a Bullet Club guy at the moment). And I LOVED the purple belt he debuted. Can't say it's my first choice to main event the show, but I get why they're booking around the Bullet Club guys.

The bottom half of the card is way too ROH heavy, but I think everything from White/Gedo-Tana/Kushida on is pretty interesting to me. They don't want to give away the singles match, but they're putting Okada and Omega in the ring together for the first time since Dominion - that should be a fairly big deal for a US show.

Agreed on the show - I really don't need everyone attempting to have a 5 star classic every week. I think they've done a good job of building some smaller feuds to build the characters, and they're finally getting to the point where people are invested enough in some of the characters to do deeper stories.