bradhindsight

I thought this had more of a dangerous vibe than your standard WWE match. Owens's splash from the top rope through Roman outside on a table looked devastating (still surprised Roman didn't break his nose or get busted open). They pretty much exhaust the No DQ stip and I felt the ending started really strong: Owens sold the tumble through the stacked chairs perfectly and the table powerbomb looked great. Honestly it made little sense for Reigns to wait in the corner for him to stand up for a spear since he was KO'd (no pun intended). He looked like a goof there after a pretty good brawl and battle. Interference ending has a nasty table bump for Roman before Strowman puts him through a table in the corner. ***3/4

I thought this was comfortably the best 1-on-1 match in the WWE since Brock/Reigns. Maybe took a second for Cena to get going but Styles was near perfect. Liked it more than their SummerSlam match, and LOVED Cena's definitive finish, playing off the SS ending, and then hitting an extra finisher for good measure. ****3/4

Kris and Devon break down the Royal Rumble as well as comment on NXT and Evolve from the weekend: http://placetobenation.com/ptbn-reaction-show-royal-rumble-2017/

Hey - if y'all are up for pasting your match comments into the specific threads also, we're trying to build out the match archive database for some future projects. http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/forum/857-january/ I thought this show was really good - was at **** for the tag and ***3/4 for the main, with the opening two matches still to catch. Rollins stuff was unpredictable and actually helped him get the story over (and in his favor, despite being on Trips' home turf).

Ciampa is great, except his double slap on both thighs when he hits his flying knee is so bad. Maybe it's the camera work, but man that really sticks out. I liked the callback to the end of the Takeover Toronto match with AOP instead powering out and slamming Gargano to break the submission. This was booked well. I was also right at **** on first watch.

I thought it was interesting that most of the match was Roode focused on the neck, and it still played into the finish despite all the leg stuff playing into the final minutes. So it was double limb work that did kind of weave together (and really protected Nakamura). I thought Roode was excellent in the last couple of minutes, including his shock at the first big kickout (and how it played into his disbelief when he won). I was around ***3/4

Not easy wrestling in those costumes, so don't want to ding ACH too much here. Both guys hit their signature dives fairly well, but this was a story-driven (as it should be with the anime) short encounter, which never got to that next gear. **

I was right there at **1/4, did what it was supposed to with just enough interesting stuff (some of the rail crashes, Juice getting to reverse a Cody aerial move into an overhead belly-to-belly, that crossbody counter GOTNW noted) to be plenty passable.

Scurll/Gresham from this week was as flat on tape weeks later as it was live. Weird TV debut for Scurll where Gresham got a lot more than you'd think. The main event is worth seeking out with KUSHIDA, Dragon Lee and Will Ospreay.

I loved everything about the older vets, plus Billy Gunn letting everyone know he was blown up minutes in. Man you could hear everything. Elgin seemed almost out of place, and also seemed a bit stiff and possibly hurt - but he looked fine the next night. Cheeseburger with the big pop and then really being the only foil for Elgin was odd. Scott Norton the highlight for me. No rating but rumbles are fun and this did its job.

I watched this a couple days after WK11 so I knew the result, but damn if it didn't matter at all. I'm not normally a big fan of the style here, but I was completely hooked with the Goto story helping carry things. I loved how it escalated and despite an expectation it would fall in the upper 3s for me, I was blown away. I loved this. ****1/2

I think the work here was completely overlooked due to both HBK's involvement and the Authority storyline (which at the time this was supposed to be it for Bryan). They built to this really well from their previous matches as well. Orton hadn't hit the RKO yet on Bryan and also somewhat lost in this story was how strong they kept Bryan. I remember being around **** - ****1/4 also.

This is for Dragon Lee's World Lightweight Title and I would very much challenge how Cavernario fits that weight class. Cavernario wrestles like a smaller guy despite his size and Dragon Lee is impressive in powering the lucha caveman around. Sneaky good psychology as Cavernario takes off the corner padding, and his motive is two fold - they use this to do damage (he hits an elevated powerbomb on Lee into it) but he also needs it gone to do his running tope through the ropes when on the outside. He gets caught up there, which I guess shouldn't be surprising given his size, but its covered well. We get double powerbombs to the apron, and double stomps off the top rope (to the outside) from Lee and Cavernario hits a gigantic splash off the top also. Wicked headbutts on the top rope - this match has nearly everything. Lee is most impressive when he does the guillotine into that sit-out suplex. Incredible strength. Reverse rana (of course) on Dragon Lee, but Cavernario dislocates his shoulder and hey - if you ever wanted to see a close up of guys trying to use a t-shirt to put someone's shoulder back in their socket, this match is for you! They trade some strikes before Lee essentially deadlifts him into a back suplex with a cradle to the abbreviated finish. This got a lot of time prior to the injury and felt like it slightly overstayed. I dug it though. ***3/4

This certainly had a big match feel and I liked how Takahashi attached before the bell given the build. Takahashi is out of control throughout there and I fall in the camp where some of the botches/misses added to his character and recklessness. Plus he's such an interesting counter to KUSHIDA. We do get to the pointed arm work then and it's a huge deal that Takahashi breaks this hold. That whole sequence kicked it into another tier for me. ****

This purported high flyers match actually is based around limb work with Takahashi working over Titan's knee. I actually liked how this initially was set up and the crowd bought in. Credit this to Titan also, I never felt he brushed it off. He would sometimes start limping when he went into his run and I thought he sold well enough between moves/sequences. It's high spots and ranas early and then into the knee stuff before we get to a pretty wonky mid section with some obvious issues and misses. Despite this, Titan had a couple sweet rollup counters that I almost bit on as the finish. Takahashi goes over strong in the end, firing off his big offense before the Time Bomb finishes. These two definitely have a better match in them, but I still found a good bit to like here. ***1/4

Bumping this for all the new members. It's easy to create match threads and you should totally use the archive to log your thoughts. Help us cultivate a fantastic resource - doesn't matter if it's 2017 or 1971.

There are behind the scenes technical reasons for why they have been so slow to get the back catalog up. Not sure if it's my place to say exactly what past that it's not the fault of WWN or Flo. They clearly need PR help and you just did a better job than they have. Throw your name in the hat , Bix.

I'm fairly certain Naito had not just the best winning pct for NJPW heavyweights (along with the most wins), but that he also main evented more cards than Okada last year (and more than everyone else). And he drew well on top, beating out the same venues/shows the prior year. That sure sounds like a push to me.

Appreciate you putting the work in there, I just procured it. I may cherry pick the trios.

The context isn't one-off stars, its funding a pseudo Japanese territory like the U.K. tournament. Given what happened before I'd be very surprised they'd be outbid. was Balor a money thing? Nakamura told them for months he wanted to go. Styles wanted to be closer to his family.

New Japan is backed by plenty of money - what kind of big bucks can the WWE throw around? 20k per dude like the U.K. deals?

They were a small investor in FloSports when it went looking for capital. FloSlam had not been created yet.

Honestly makes a lot of sense to me that they wouldn't want those talents on someone else's iPPV (in this case, appearing on FloSlam). Dunne's still competing, not that it doesn't still hurt both IPW and FloSlam. This comes a day after we were just talking about FloSlam seeing (or well that they should be seeing) the WWE Network as competition and now they lose a draw because of an enforced contract provision. Very interesting stuff.

IPW just announced they had to pull Riddle/Dunne because WWE contracted wrestlers cannot appear on FloSlam. So it's now for the live crowd only.

I've seen them tweet to people asking about it that they're working on it, and then they say something to the effect of "you can watch Evolve 61-67 right now!" Um, ok that's a sliver of 2016 guys. Come on. They also said (again to this egg twitter fwiw) that they're still deciding on the Dragon Gate USA archive.