stomperspc

Good show. Ended strong after a so-so start. Hero/Thatcher was match of the night. Main event was fun. Thatcher/Strong is clearly the right direction (most over heel versus most over face). They should eventually circle back to Strong/Galloway and unify the FIP title with the DGUSA & EVOLVE titles to form a WWN triple crown of sorts. I've always been a fan of the multiple belt gimmick. I liked the focus on submission endings all weekend. There were a half dozen or so matches where submissions were fought over the majority of the match and once they were locked in, the guy tapped immediately (or passed out immediately in one case). A couple of cross arm breakers, a Fujiwara arm bar, and a couple of others I think. That's smart booking because one of the things these EVOLVE Thatcher/Gulak & company matches have been missing is crowd response on the submission teases. The more you get over that a cross arm breaker equals an immediate finish, the more the crowd will eventually react to all cross arm breaker attempts. Perkins going over via submission on Gulak especially hammered home that point. They are well on their way to establishing that certain submissions are going to end a match and that should pay off down the road.

I felt the crowd and I were watching 2 different matches. Yea, I'm with you. It didn't do much for me either. On the bright side, I'll take a bad match that the crowd liked over a bad match that the crowd was indifferent to. Small victories, I guess.

Galloway and Gargano went all 1999 - 2001 WWE main event style (crowd brawling, mid-match ref bumps, mid-match moral dilemma, lots of near falls, ect.). The crowd ate it up. I think structurally it was fine. It was a big match (title vs. title) so it makes sense to ape the that "epic" match style. It didn't totally click with me. Gargano and Galloway's offense wasn't that great and it goes without saying that they don't have the charisma and timing needed to really make those matches work. They also went too far at the end. I think they had some solid ideas, but it didn't come together. The crowd loved it though, so that's something at least.

It's getting the point where I now find the Thatcher hate to be really fascinating on a sociological level. People in building were texting me burying Tommy End and the super light nature of Gulak/TJP, while extolling Thatcher. The divide on him is now reaching comically absurd proportions, to the point where I have no clue whether or not I should even seek out this show. Well, I think both matches are worth checking out in the sense that neither were bad and both are interesting to look at in the context of the larger US indie mat work scene (for lack of a better term). My personal take is that Shining Wiz's viewpoint and the thoughts relayed to Dylan definitely represent the two extremes. I saw all of that (Thatcher's work, End's work, and Gulak/TJP) in a much more neutral light. There was stuff I liked that Thatcher did and stuff that I didn't. Same for End. The match had its bright spots and overall was definitely watchable if not a bit better than that. I felt about the same way for Gulak/TJP. I do tend to find the vast majority of the current wrestling I watch to be some shade of "okay" so I am not surprised I didn't have an extreme reaction to either match. My biggest gripe was that they put these matches back to back and they were similar enough that they would have benefited from having a buffer in between. Agreed on Cage. There's definitely a real chance he goes far and that doesn't sound too appealing. We'll see.

Kevin Kelly noted on his show this past week that he and Steve are voicing over commentary on Monday, so best case is Tuesday. For whatever reason (budget or what not), there isn't a commentary team there live. Interesting - thanks. I just assumed they were doing live commentary like usual.

Maybe there is more post-production done than I realize, but I don't recall there being a lot of insert promos and other stuff on ROH VOD releases that would necessitate a week turnaround. For an event like this weekend's show, I would think they'd shoot it live to tape and accounting for upload times, could have it available within 24 hours of the show finishing. I know personally, I am a lot more hyped to watch a show when it comes out right away rather than when it comes out a week later and I've already "moved on". Watched the first two matches of the EVOLVE show this morning. Thatcher/Gulak was good. I am in no way down on those two, I just haven't seen the best in the world hype that they (well, Thatcher really) sometimes get. I thought this was one of their better singles matches versus each other. The mat work was solid. Their matches get praised for showing a sense of struggle which I don't necessarily always see from them, but I do think it came across well here. This was more of each guy trying to go for holds but only rarely being able to get them on fully, which created a struggle/back-and-forth type of flow to the mat work. I still think both wrestlers are lacking when they have to stand up but they were on their feet such a short time that it didn't really matter much. Gulak's diving clothesline from the top looked good. Tommy End/Biff Busick wasn't as good. I like Tommy End quite a bit and thought he had a strong debut. There were a couple of times when he looked lost for a second and I could always do without seeing back-and-forth strike exchanges, but the good outweighed the bad. It was nice seeing him do at least a modicum of mat work to open. He is good on the mat and is a good submission wrestler, but he's been more focused on high impact stuff/quick starts over the past year+. Busick is very hit or miss for me. I didn't think he had a particularly strong performance versus Busick. Thought the finish was good. Interested in seeing how Thatcher and End work one another tonight. If they stay on the mat and keep the stand up to End doing his kickboxing stuff, I think it could be really good. If they try to work more of a high-impact Tommy End style match, I think the quality will suffer. I am also psyched for King of Indies. I know people are down on it because it is not a BOLA-type super indie tournament. I am interested in seeing guys I haven't seen a ton of plus there are enough wrestlers I like (Thatcher, Cobb, Rey Horus). The 2000 KOI had a very similar and perhaps even less noteworthy lineup for the time than this lineup. We look back at the 2001 KOI now and see a stacked line up but it wasn't quite as impressive looking through 2001 eyes. I don't think this tournament has a shot of replicating the 2001 version in any facet, but I'd be surprised if it is not superior to the 2000 version (we watched that again recently and it was not very good at all).

I got to thinking how much televised/streaming (live stream) wrestling someone could watch this weekend and came up with this. Thursday 8:00 PM ET – Smackdown Thursday 11:00 PM ET – EVOLVE Friday 6:00 PM ET – EVOLVE Friday 9:00 PM ET – Impact Friday 11:00 PM ET – King of Indies Saturday 3:00 AM ET – Kaiju Big Battel Saturday 3:00 PM ET – Shimmer Saturday 7:00 PM ET – WWN Supershow Saturday 11:00 PM ET – King of the Indies Night #2 Sunday 2:00 AM ET – New Japan Road to Invasion Attack Sunday 5:00 PM ET – WrestleMania Pre-Game Sunday 7:00 PM ET – WrestleMania That’s 12 shows in 75 hours or approximately 31 hours of televised or streaming wrestling over 3+ days. The big challenge would be Saturday evening into Sunday morning. You would essentially have 14 straight hours of televised/live streaming wrestling with two hour-ish intermissions in there as well. I am half-surprised we haven’t heard that someone is going to keep that schedule this weekend and document it in some manner.

As a timely tie-in with the NCAA basketball tournament, one theme of this month's Match Guide will be pro wrestling tournaments. I am going to take a look at 3 or 4 tournaments going on this March in a couple of different ways. As sort of a lead in to that, I published a retrospective on Super J-Cup 3rd Stage (promoted by M-Pro in 2000), This was something that I wrote a few months ago and now seemed like the idea time to put it up. That tournament largely lives in the shadow of the 1994 and (to a lesser extent) 1995 tournaments, so I thought it would be worthwhile to take a look at 15 years later and see if its "also-ran" reputation is deserved. I think it turned out pretty well so let me know what you think (about the article and the tournament): Retrospective: Super J-Cup 3rd Stage (April, 2000 | M-Pro)

I think Beer City Bruiser is fine and stands out physically amongst the current ROH wrestler which in theory should benefit his ability to get over in ROH. However, I have read a lot of negative comments on him. I don’t know for certain, but my impression is a lot of them are from your core ROH fans who don’t see a guy with his look as fitting into the ROH mold. Wrestling wise, he is fine. He bumps well for a big guy, moves well for a big guy, and has enough flashy offense to get over. I don’t think he’s great in the ring by any stretch, but he is definitely good enough and more importantly unique enough to have some value to ROH. Whether they take advantage of that and the fans ultimately accept him is another story. He seems like a good candidate for a tag team. It is too bad they have already put Hanson with Ray Rowe because at least from a physical presentation standpoint, Hanson and The Bruiser would make a good tag team.

This was a great tribute, Kris. When someone dies under such seemingly random circumstances, I always have a hard time with it. I thought you did a great job in capturing what made Perro Jr.'s life so memorable and filling, as sadly short as it ultimately was.

2015 wXw 16 Carat Gold - Night #1 Overall, I thought this was a much stronger first night than the 2014 version. The two big reasons were a stronger field and better time allocation amongst the matches. Until the Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Axel Tischer match (the last tournament match of the first night), none of the other seven tournament matches went longer than 14 minutes and five were under 10 minutes. The three matches that went over ten minutes were good choices to be given more time (Sabre/Tischer, Axel Dieter Jr./Thatcher, and Tommy End/Chris Sabin). Those three matches all had at least one guy if not two or who knew how to fill a 10+ minute match appropriately. For the most part, the execution supported that idea. On the flip side, none of the sub-10 minute matches felt like they were too short at all. Best Performance by a US based wrestler: Timothy Thatcher had the best performance out of a field that also included Andrew Everett, Chris Sabin, Uhaa Nation, and Cedric Alexander. His match versus Dieter Jr. was no worse than the third best match on the card. The usual Thatcher match in the sense he was solid or better on the mat and subpar or mediocre while not working holds. I don't think Thatcher is quite the total package (yet) and that was reflected here, but he was probably the most solid of the US indie guys. Dieter Jr. is a young and very game wrester who recently has shown the ability to hold his own in mat based exchanges. He's had a good start to 2015 with good outings versus Tommy End & Drew Gulak in January. wXw clearly sees him as a future top guy. He and Thatcher worked well together in the submission heavy parts of the amtch. Thatcher's strikes and other stand up offense still struck me as the weaker part of his game (and something he should try to minimize as much as possible) but this was his usual solid performance. Biggest Surprise: Chris Sabin. I have never been a big fan of Chris Sabin and (right or wrong) had written off him off as being sub-replacement level at this point in his career. I thought he wrestled a good match against Tommy End, however. He took End's offense reasonably well. More importantly, I thought Sabin's own offense worked in the context of what they were going for (End getting a convincing win over a US "star") and that surprised me. His comebacks and hope spots were engrossing and he didn't try to do to much. The match was the 2nd or 3rd best of the night, right in line with the Thatcher/Dieter Jr. match. Best Match: Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Axel Tischer. There was very little separation during the first seven minutes. Basically all hold and counter holds during that time with Sabre leading the way and Tischer more than holding up his end. I think they ran the ropes once or twice in the final minutes (they also did some corner charges) but that was about it. There were a few times where I thought they took a misstep. There was a strike exchange that I thought they handled relatively well, but something that I still thought disrupted the flow just a tad. There was a no sell spot that was totally unneeded and an awkward looking top rope spot right before the finish, but overall, this was very good. I want to watch it again to see how good, but definitely match of the night. I thought Sabre was very good here and Tischel kept up. Loved the opening stuff and the finish. In between was a mixed bag, but leaning towards good. If you like the Thatcher/Busick/Gulak/Sabre stuff, this is worth seeing. I think Sabre is the best of that group so I was predisposed to like this match but I think it holds up on its own merits. Everything else was "just there". As said, the other matches were kept relatively short so no big complaints. Looking forward to the next three rounds.

He's not going to make my list and I am not even really considering him, but for me Allmark is one of those wrestlers who gets the desired reaction and that's a big part of the battle. He knows his audience and gives them what they want. There is *something* to be said for that. He clearly works for the reactions, too. This isn't a Hogan deal where he is over almost entirely independent of his in-ring work. Allmark's selling and ability to milk comebacks play a big role in the reactions he gets. He is one dimensional save for the Wrestle-1 match, PCW matches, and occasional ASW matches (American Dragon from '08, James Mason match from '13, ect.) where he steps outside of his comfort zone a bit. He's also not so transcendent in his style (and his style might not be good enough either) to overcome that. He's not Volk Han in terms of guys that did one thing but did it so well that they warrant heavy consideration. I am a fan of his act though and think it is hard to ignore the reactions his matches get.

I thought about this thread while listening to Meltzer complain on the radio show this morning that there were “too many dives” at Rey de Reyes. Any AAA show is going to have lots of dives. A major AAA show is going to have even more dives. That’s just the way it is. That’s the promotional style. You know – or should know – going into a AAA show that there are going to be a bunch of dives. Using that as a criticism of the matches/show feels hollow. If Dave wants to argue that the number of dives in AAA matches is an inherent flaw of the “AAA style”, then fine. Maybe that’s even what he actually meant, but how he said it came off as a specific criticism of this particular show rather than a criticism of the style worked in AAA in general. I see it as a two-step evaluation. First, is the style of the promotion inherently flawed? If the answer is “yes”, the ceiling of any match worked in that style is limited. The next question is how was the match relative to other matches in that style? If it was a good match relative to its peers (even with the inherent stylistic flaws) than it is worthy of some level of praise. To go back to Meltzer’s point about AAA and the dives, perhaps he feels that “a lot of dives” is an inherent flaw to the current AAA style. That’s fine, but he should know that going in. The style worked in AAA is successful on some level because AAA is successful right now. Meltzer being down on the matches for "too many dives" without acknowledging that's the promotion's style (and it works for their fans) is pretty poor. Its like criticizing a WWE main event for having finishers traded at the end or a Dragon Gate match for having a lot of rope running. That's the style of the promotion and it might be a significant flaw, but don't blame the wrestlers for not going outside of their promotion's usual style. His comments on Blue Demon Jr. vs. Villano IV were similar, although that was more of a lucha stylistic thing than a AAA stylistic thing. They worked that match straight up apuesta match style and they executed well. The fans threw money in the ring afterwards to show how much they liked it. Nonetheless, Meltzer just said it would have been the worse match on a WWE show. I don’t know if I agree with that, but even if that’s true that’s missing the point. Why is he docking a lucha match in AAA for being worked in a style that wouldn’t get over in WWE? Anyway, I think that shows the importance of at least acknowledging promotion styles when evaluating matches. Where the discussion goes from there is probably more open ended but I think contextually at least, it is important to accept and mention that promotion styles do exist and do have an impact on how matches are worked.

If they even come within 1,500 of selling out Sumo Hall at its max capacity (11,500), that would be noteworthy. If Cagematch and the Internet Wrestling Database are to be trusted, New Japan has not sold out a non-G1 finals show at Sumo Hall since 1996! There are quite a few 11,000 attendance numbers listed there which is a near sell out, but even then you have to go back to 2012 with Sumo Hall 40th anniversary show (joint AJPW/NJPW show) for the last time they broke 10,000 in Sumo Hall. The last New Japan only show to break 10K was October 2009 for Chono's 25th anniversary show. So selling out or even breaking 10,000 would mean something. The thing is, I think Meltzer just looks at the ticket listings himself (or someone else does and reports back to him) and is getting the near sold out from here. I think he probably just looks at this: http://www.njpw.co.jp/match/ticket.php?e=00956. The problem is there is no way of knowing if 1,000 of the cheaper tickets are left or if 3,000 are left. I'd take Meltzer saying they are "nearly sold out" with a grain of salt for that reason.

Their video quality is really good. Everything is shot up close and crisp.

Sorry, was out of town and am just seeing this. There is something funky going on with the emails. You can use the direct link to download it after you make the "purchase". I am working on fixing the email issue. Sorry about that. Emails should be working now. Thanks for point that out!

Joe has been an out and out failure in Japan. Was NJPW really going to bring him in ? Not sure where you are getting the "out and out failure" idea from. Here is the entirety of his work in Japan: * 30 matches for ZERO1 form 2001 - 2003, all of which occurred before Joe developed into the worker he would later becomes. He was used on the under card which was probably appropriate placement for him at that point in his career; * 2 random matches in NOAH from 2007 including a title shot against Misawa. NOAH was grasping at straws at this point as they didn't have anyone but Misawa who could draw on top. So in order to get through a 450 day Misawa title reign, they seemingly thought that giving Joe a random title match with no build was a good idea; * A pair of 2012 NOAH tags as part of the NOAH/TNA working agreement; and * A pair of 2014 Wrestle-1 matches as part of the Wrestle-1/TNA relationship. That's it. That's not the resume of a wrestler who failed in Japan. That's a resume of a wrestler who never had much of a chance in Japan. There was (is?) a stigma attached to guy's in Japan who worked indies or lower level promotions (like ZERO1) which certainly might have attributed to the lack of interest in Joe in Japan during his ROH run. The fact that he wasn't over there more during his TNA run probably has a lot more to do with the fact that he was tied up working TNA than anything else. I am sure there were Japan promotions that would have been interested in Styles but he worked Japan just as infrequently as Joe did during his stay in TNA. I am not seeing where the "failure" part comes in. To me, it looks more like Joe is a wrestler who never got a real chance in Japan for whatever reasons. Post-Joe turning into an upper tier worker, he had a total of 6 matches in Japan spread out over seven years. That's way too small of a sample to draw "failure" from. In any event, the 3/2 edition of the Observer reported that there was interest from New Japan so all that's moot anyway.

Sorry, was out of town and am just seeing this. There is something funky going on with the emails. You can use the direct link to download it after you make the "purchase". I am working on fixing the email issue. Sorry about that.

Agreed that the IC situation is a bit of a mystery right now. An IC title match will almost certainly headline either the late April show or the 5/3 show. Maybe one of Naito, Goto or Makabe pins Nakamura in the six-man at Invasion Attack to set up a title match? That seems like a strong possibility but none of those matches are terribly intriguing. There is not an obvious opponent for Nakamura now. Best realistic match up at this point would seem to be Shibata but that looks like a July show match at best. Its hard to see them getting there for the May show. To be fair, after Invasion Attack there are only 2-3 majors shows before the G1. Not sure how big of a show the 4/29 Kumamoto event will be. There is just Dontaku (Fukuoka) on 5/3 and Dominion (Osaka) on 7/5 with the ROH tour and BOSJ's in between. So we are really talking about one or two IC title defenses tops between now and then. If they do something like Naito and Shibata, I don't think that's terrible. My guess is Nakamura holds the IC title all year and defends against either Ibushi (in a re-match), Styles (in a first time match), or Okada at the Dome. IWGP title is similar in that after Invasion Attack, they only need 1 or 2 defenses to get to the G1. That one is also tricky because you have to figure none of Tanahashi, Okada, and Nakamura are options for a spring/early summer Styles title defense. Like with the IC title, it really comes down to Shibata and less appealing options like Goto and Makabe. They could really use at least one more upper mid-level wrestler which is why Joe would have been a great get.

Here is the article that mentions that: http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/other/ultimate_fighting/2015/03/cable_network_expands_on_fight_game Judging by that, it doesn't sound likely that Spike would invest in ROH has heavily as they did with TNA. It sounds like the a major barrier is whether they even want to do any pro wrestling programming at all. It would take a big leap for them to go from that point to investing all sorts of capital into ROH. Also, the WON has been reporting that the talks center on monthly (or less frequent) televised specials. That does not sound like a scenario where Spike TV would get heavily involved in funding the promotion. From ROH’s standpoint, a deal with Spike makes a ton of sense. ROH is on Sinclair stations in roughly 40% of the country. That TV exposure has clearly helped them draw at live events but it is still only 40% of the country. They also have an issue where they aren’t maximizing their non-live viewership. In 2015, $45 for HD PPV’s is a limited market. VOD is still a rather limited market. They are (rightfully so) shy of doing iPPV’s given their past issues in that realm. They are putting on these live shows that are doing well at the gate and are getting good reviews, but there is only so much exposure they can get with VOD/DVD sales and/or airing some of those matches on TV. This would be an almost perfect solution that problem. It would give them a legitimate outlet to air one show a month while also providing an outlet to shill the VOD/DVD/TV stuff to a nationwide cable audience. It’s a big missing piece to their current puzzle.

Its probably the weakest in a while on paper as Dylan suggested. Looking at Cagematch and excluding G1 shows, you probably have to go back to October 2012 to find a clearly weaker Sumo Hall card from New Japan. Having said that, there is a lot on the Invasion Attack card that interests me. Yano/Sakuraba vs. Tanahashi/Shibata is much more appealing to me than Tanahashi/Yano. The singles match would have had the added benefit of being another singles blow off match but I am not sure it would have the bigger or more appealing match. Okada/Fale is three months in the making and an okay semi-main that would have been a very good third match from the top. The six-man fourth from the top is pretty stacked in terms of names. Can certainly question not doing Makabe/Ishii and Nakamura/Yoshi-Hashi vs. Goto/Naito, however. The rest is standard New Japan undercard fare. Not sure that undercard is noticeably different than any other recent Sumo Hall under cards. I don't know for certain but my gut also tells me that the undercard has very little impact on how well these shows do. Like Dylan said, Styles/Ibushi is the key here in terms of drawing and the quality of the match will go a long way in determining whether the show is an artistic success. The crowd at the New Japan Cup finals certainly seemed to be excited for the match. Ibushi is the most obvious opponent for Styles in New Japan who he hasn't faced yet so I'd imagine there'd be some intrigue there. New Japan has another big card at the end of April and another one a week later in May (the second being in Osaka). I didn't necessarily expect them to go all-in on this card because they almost never do anymore aside from the January Tokyo Dome card. WrestleMania this year seems so odd and underwhelming because WWE historically and currently builds to it as the major event of the year. Invasion Attack is just another "big" card on the New Japan calendar. I am not surprised they didn't roll out everything they have been building up on this card. They don't seem to do that much anymore. They have a depth problem and not much in the way of reinforcements on the way, so I think it makes sense given their current state to not load up on big matches on any one non-Dome show. They sort of need to spread it out. That's also why stuff like Okada/Fale feud and stuff like the Bullet Club taking all of the titles are necessary moves. The alternative is burning through all of their big matches in a short time frame which wouldn't be wise given the lack of depth up top. If they can slow things down and maintain acceptable results, it is probably in their best interest to do so. My guess is the show will do in the 8,500 range they've been doing at Sumo Hall for non-G1 shows. Last five New Japan non-G1 shows have done 9,100; 8,500; 9,000; 8,200; and 9,000. That's about 8,800 average. I think they fall somewhere in that range which New Japan seems to be comfortable with. The match quality is more up in the air. There's lots of upside to Ibushi/Styles and the 2nd through 4th matches seem like a good bet to be solid or a little bit better. Everything else is kind of just there.

I think he had a strong match and did a lot of things right. He hit a gusher which obviously added a ton. His selling was spot on. The pre-match and early match stuff was good, traditional fiery babyface stuff. His offense just didn't do much for me and I thought the tribute move stuff (while it fit into Spud's character) did not work as a comeback in a match like this one. It really doesn't matter to the match at the whole because good, legit heat is good, legit heat regardless, but I think if Spud wrestled that exact same match in front of a NY crowd, Orlando crowd, or almost any other non-England crowd that Spud and the match as a whole doesn't get nearly the reaction that it did. That's not a knock on the match because obviously they booked it in London for that reason. More of a commentary on Spud's personal performance. It was a very good performane, but I am not sure it is what drew all of the heat that the match got. Anyway, I re-read my first post and it might not have sounded like it but I did like the match. On first view, it just did not bowl me over or strike me as a MOTYC. Like Matt said, very good but I didn't see it as great on first watch.

I thought the 1/10 match was a decent and average match. Not a big fan of the back-and-forth forearm/elbow changes that take up a lot of Sugiura (and to a slightly lesser extent) Tanaka matches, but I thought they kept that to a minimum here. TMDK is generally a good babyface tag team and Tanaka's stuff in this one was fine. Didn't think much of the 3/1 match. I am not totally down on Sekimoto but his bad tendencies have been more on display recently (the no-selling for the heck of it, ridiculous power moves, ect.) while downplaying what I like most about him which is using his size to apply painful looking submissions and normal power moves. Thought the 3/1 match was just too much in terms of of no selling and ridiculous stuff. If Perro Jr. vs. Myzteziz from the 2/8 AAA TV taping had the heightened crowd emotion of a hair vs. mask match, I think I would have enjoyed it significantly more than EC3 vs. Spud. As it is, I am not sure I still didn't enjoy the AAA match more. I think that's an apt comparison because both matches leaned heavily on blood, a long rivalry and hatred. Both matches had very good heat. The AAA match stood out even more so in that regard because it was a feud builder and not a feud ender (nor did it have the advantage of a hometown hero as the babyface) and got just as good if not better heat. They also got as good or better near falls than the Spud/EC3 match. Spud's babyface performance was better than Myteziz's certainly but I am I didn't think it was out of this world. The point being, I didn't see this as an extraordinary great match because I am not sure it was significantly better worked than a AAA, non-blow off TV main event. I agree with some of what Dylan said. Spud gave a traditional and strong babyface performance. The heat was excellent and blow away by TNA standards. You don't get bloody feud enders (or blood period) much anymore and it added a lot to the match. I thought the finish was exactly as it should have been. I also thought the offense was relatively weak. Spud's comeback was in line with his gimmick but it wasn't any less hokey in a bloody blow off than it is when done in a regular match. The Borash stuff was Shawn Michaels-level eye rolling pageantry type stuff. I look at MOTYC matches (at least normal to strong contenders) as being the total package which includes (at the very least) okay announcing. The call of this match (particularly Taz's stuff) was pretty bad. I did like the match. For TNA, it was a huge breath of fresh air. As others have said, there were some elements to the match that were a breathe of fresh air in 2015 wrestling, period. When compared to some current matches from other promotions and definitely when compared to similar historical matches, I just don't see this as being particularly close to a MOTYC. I'd probably have it at *** 1/4 give or take, where **** is a lower end MOTYC in a normal year and **** 1/2 is a surefire MOTYC. It was a fun and good match given the circumstances, but I didn't see it as a MOTYC. (FWIW, I have followed the entire feud and watched TNA on more or less a weekly basis during the time the feud ran on TV. It was an appropriate way to end a competently booked feud.)

I think so. The Cleveland show sold out at 1,100 according to the WON. The usual (current) ECW Arena Set up holds about 1,000. So at least in that small sample, they are running about 1,000 seat venues. The next step up then would be 1,500 - 2,000 capacity buildings I'd think. I think if NXT was built around Bryan they would have a good shot of adding the 500 - 1,000 fans needed to make that step up. Just in terms of the "indie audience", I think having Bryan on top would give them a boost. On paper Bryan vs. Itami, Owens, Zayn, Neville, and Balor feel like bigger/fresher matches than any of those guys wrestling each other. Bryan vs. KENTA was a big match on the indies and those two haven't had a singles match in 6 1/2 years (they haven't had a singles match in the US in almost 8 years). Its hard to imagine that they couldn't do 1,800+ in Philly, New York, Chicago, ect. (historically strong ROH cities where ROH draws 1,000-ish currently) with that match on top, particularly if they avoided running it on TV before hand. Bryan only wrestled Pac once (in the UK in 2009) and as far as I am aware, he's never wrestled Devitt. I feel like those matches would probably entice the ROH/indie audience. Beyond that, Bryan headlined house shows are drawing in the 4,000 range recently with him and Kane working singles matches on top. Obviously he has help below on those shows underneath and they benefit from being promoted as "main roster" WWE shows. At the same time, you are only talking about needing a couple of hundred more casual fans to go to an NXT show for Bryan to make it worth it. I don't think its a stretch to say that could happen. As you said, not sure they should do it unless they have a specific end game in mind to "elevate" NXT from developmental brand to secondary brand. I am not sure that they do. I also have a feeling that the novelty of NXT will wear off at some point. It will be interesting to see what happens if they start going back to non-FL cities a second, third, or fourth time. If the interest level remains high, eventually they will have to elevate those guys up the ladder or at least start compensating them similar to the main roster wrestlers.

I agree that Vince probably finds justification for every significant decision he has made. That's probably especially true if you asked him this question now, given that he is is the undisputed king of wrestling. I think these two miscues might have the best chance: * Letting Hogan walk - From 1996 to 1998, WCW presented the biggest threat to WWF that any promotion ever has. Hogan was the catalyst for that. Vince's justification would likely be that Hogan was damaging the WWF's ability to move forward with his refusal to step out of the spotlight in 1993, so cutting ties completely was totally necessary. Of course, WWF more or less treaded water for another 3 years while WCW made up ground with Hogan. Vince might see letting Hogan go as a necessity to get to the Attitude Era, but WCW managed to just fine during the beginning/middle stages of that era with Hogan. Maybe Vince might admit that he would have saved himself a lot of trouble by handling Hogan differently, not letting him go to WCW, and getting to the attitude era with Hogan as a bridge (a heel Hogan who speaks out against a babyface like Austin would have been money). Probably not, but maybe if he was caught in the right situation he might relent on that one. * WCW Invasion - The excuse for this is that the Bagwell/Booker match bombed so badly that they had no other choice but to do what they did with the Invasion, but I wonder if Vince couldn't be persuaded to admit that they mishandled at least some aspect of the Invasion. Even if it is as small as "I should have brought in Flair/Nash/Hogan/Hall a bit earlier". He never has admitted that they blew the Invasion and that it wasn't the fault of other circumstances, so this is probably unlikely too. That was such an obvious screw up that if Vince was ever going to admit to regretting how he handled a major angle, that would be high up the list.