pol

The Alberto el Patrón/Mesías vs. Perro Aguayo Jr./El Texano Jr. match from last month that aired on the latest Sin Límite was really very good, I thought. It's nice to see Alberto doing his thing in front of an audience that actually gives a shit - unsurprisingly, he seems a lot more motivated now.

Given that it's pretty much a requirement to be familiar with every guy in a category to be able to responsibly vote in that category, there definitely needs to be either more restrictions placed on what categories you can vote in, or the method of getting in needs to be changed to requiring some absolute number of votes, and I have no idea how that would even work.

The most entertaining show right now, but it really lacks any evident long-term direction. I think building up big rivalries and paying them off is such a fundamental part of wrestling and I don't trust TV people to understand that. Fenix already seems like he's surpassing Prince Puma as a babyface - either Ricochet's charisma hasn't translated well to working under a mask, or maybe he's been instructed not to do his usual shtick.

Speaking of Striker, Lucha Underground was great again last night.

My favorite is probably: Aired 2014-07-26 taped 2014-07-18 @ Arena México Negro Casas & Shocker © vs La Sombra & Rush for the CMLL World Tag Team Championship That's not the title change but the rematch. I covered probably 25 of their matches this year on Segunda Caida though. I really enjoyed this. As seems to be the trend with big lucha matches for me, structurally it was excellent (all those awesome comebacks) but mechanical issues took it down a little bit. Is anyone feeling Casas for Most Outstanding? I've really enjoyed the Rush matches I've seen, the Titán and Volador Jr. matches in January were both very good... maybe he doesn't have the portfolio of a Hechicero or Cavernario by virtue of not having been in a tournament where he got to have a ton of good matches, but everything I've seen has been very good to great.

GFW will not exist as anything more than a name unless/until Jeff Jarrett can secure a national TV deal.

How about KUSHIDA for most underrated? Probably the best NJPW juniors worker right now. Had a borderline MOTYC and arguably the best match of the BOSJ with Liger. He has had two title reigns this year but both were short-lived and he's still stuck in the same spot, working in multiman tags that don't highlight his strengths. Almost seems like he pissed someone off. There have to be some really talented guys buried deep in the CMLL undercard too, right? What are the notable Rush/Casas matches other than their apuesta and the Aniversario tag? I'm leaning towards The Shield vs. The Wyatt Family for Feud of the Year right now but could be swayed.

how were the matches? looks like a lot of on-paper good stuff on this show.

This is a great explanation, thanks. Doesn't make me like the matches any more but at least I understand the philosophy behind it a little better. It seems to me that CMLL affords its guys less opportunities to put on good matches than any other major promotion, which is frustrating.

I don't think my problem is so much the structural similarity, more that they barely even resemble an actual match until the técnico comeback begins (which itself is usually so rushed that it comes off as cheap). Those rudo beatdowns are so tepid most of the time. And you see the same spots over and over; I really never need to see the 'técnico missed dropkick into getting stomped on by all the rudos' spot again.

Have CMLL trios always been so formulaic? I've only been watching for about 6 months but in that time I've come close to concluding that the average TV trios are barely worth bothering with; it's the same rudo beatdown, same técnico comeback in almost every single match.

And yet, sadly, there's still a ton of people out there whose knowledge of wrestling is very limited in scope, have little interest in learning about stuff outside of their comfort zone, yet are still willing to make objective claims about this and that, typically lent confidence by being on the side of Meltzer/smark consensus. But that's true of pretty much anything I guess.

On a slightly different tack, I often find (and try to avoid) myself slipping into what I've dubbed the 'checklist method' of evaluating matches - that is, looking at a match and asking myself 'Are they selling well? Are the transitions good? Did they tell a story?' - essentially checking off points of what I consider a good match to be, rather than trying to lose myself in the match and THEN trying to use the aforementioned high-level critical concepts to understand/explain my low-level gut reaction. It's a pretty poisonous attitude (as prescriptivism in any artform tends to be) because it doesn't allow any room for matches that bend or break the rules yet manage to be effective anyway.

I think Tenay would be great as a color guy since he actively follows the product. He can bring the back story and allow Ross to focus on calling the match.

Wouldn't that just lead to the same complaints we saw for Mark Henry-Ryback? That WWE booked themselves into a corner and neither guy can afford to lose. Quite possibly. I just want to see the matches . I don't hold out any hope for WWE booking.

Hopefully they parlay this into a Rusev/Ryback singles program

Yeah I probably shouldn't be so quick to assume that. I did think he looked pretty good at times; I liked his wobbly legged deal after getting the knees up for Liger's splash. His forearms really sucked though.

I think Bill covered that pretty well above. It's not that he works light, it's that he works light in a company where the house style is stiff.

Finally got around to watching Hechicero vs. Black Terry. I thought it was very good, but I guess when it comes to lucha stuff I kind of relate to what Dylan says about knocking a star off any NJPW fan's ratings of NJPW matches . It's something I almost feel bad about, because I think you guys clearly have a much more nuanced appreciation of wrestling than the average modern NJPW fan, but oh well. I've only been watching lucha for about six months so it's quite possible my appreciation will grow over time. Anyway, about the match. Loved the opening matwork - much less cooperative-looking than much of the maestros stuff I've seen but no less stylish. They escalated into brawling well. The comradely atmosphere between the two combined with them inflicting brutal violence on each other was a really fun dynamic that you don't see very often. The finish felt anticlimactic, although the visual of them punching each other in the crappy seats of some scuzzy Mexican building was so great. I really thought the individual parts of this were pretty damn superlative, especially the matwork, but the total package was just lacking a little something for me to put it at the level of, say, Rush/Casas, Virus/Titán or Hechicero/Cavernario. Maybe a little faster pace, better crowd, a little more time, a better finish or, of course, blood . Definitely a very fun watch though.

Thoughts on Power Struggle? I thought Liger/Owens was a really impressive carry job. Hopefully Liger's run with the NWA Jr. belt isn't just him taking on whatever stiffs Tharpe can provide. Liger proved in his BOSJ matches, especially the one with KUSHIDA, that he can still go out and have excellent matches. I enjoyed the Jr. Heavy tag quite a bit. I wish reDRagon would focus more on the striking and submission part of their act and less on the spotty stuff. I'm not typically a stickler for this kind of thing, but the go-nowhere arm work bugged me here. KUSHIDA has been given two title reigns this year and still feels like a top two candidate for WON most underrated. That said, he's probably better off getting out of the Junior tag division since there's an expectation of delivering the kind of match that doesn't play to his strengths as a worker. I remember Bix referring to later BattlARTS as a "spotfest of potato shots" and I can't think of a better way to describe Ishii/Goto, though obviously the potatoing was a lot tamer than the stuff Bix was referring to. Pretty much no narrative, just two guys crashing into each other for close to 20 minutes. I have to admit I now go into this stuff wanting to hate it because of how much shit I've taken elsewhere for being a detractor of this style, but the sheer intensity and the incredible crowd ended up winning me over. Ishii coughing and spluttering up blood everywhere was such a great visual. That said, this now has a really good shot at being the WON MOTY and that seems insane to me. It was a very good spotfest but it was still pretty much just a spotfest. AJ/Yoshitatsu kinda sucked and Yoshi looks like a dork in that 80s babyface attire. Yet another guy almost kills themselves taking the Styles Clash. Shibata/Nakamura was disappointing. They ran through their usual stuff and just when you think they're about to kick it up a notch and go into the next act it ended. It would be nice to see a pure mat-based match from these two since I believe they can both work the style, but it's unlikely we'd ever get that. Overall a very enjoyable show. They did a great job building to the Dome and now almost everything for that card is in place.

I don't have much to add here but I just wanted to chime in and say that I'm really enjoying the discussion. I've started to come around on Tanahashi quite a bit and a lot of that is thanks to the work of guys like OJ. I'm definitely still someone who would rank Ishii above him overall, but I'd much rather see a Tanahashi style match than the kind of match Ishii had with Hirooki Goto on Saturday's show - which is being called MOTY in many places around the internet.

Dave LOVED the Ishii/Goto match from today's New Japan show. I was actually surprised by how much I liked it myself, though a good part of that was the incredibly hot crowd. That said, I will never understand the superlative praise for matches that could be simulated by a 5 year old smashing action figures together.

Bryan was absolutely insufferable on today's show whining about TNA not protecting fucking BRODUS CLAY.

I've been wondering who started the animal name thing among the Japanese women. There are a ton of them.

uh