cpst

That shiner makes him look like a hungover dad.

What a horribly botched near-fall there with Enzo's pin. It really seemed like he got the pin. One thing has perennially bothered me about tag rules. Why does merely touching the person making the pin cause it to be broken? I've noticed that some wrestlers go out of their way to push the guy making the pin off, but others just half-ass it and the count is broken anyways.

This promo package totally makes it look like Rollins is the babyface.

It kept telling me to log in even though seeing my account settings etc. worked.

It's that time again. The undercard is pretty questionable, but Cena vs. AJ, Reigns vs. Rollins, and the ladder match will hopefully all deliver.

I was born in Saskatchewan myself, and the idea of moving back doesn't particularly excite me.

Apparently the NXT crowd was shitting on Andrade Almas at the latest tapings and chanting for Tye Dillinger. Has the "we hate the guys they push" mentality now descended upon NXT?

this has been my biggest problem with him in NXT from day one. Especially since the announcers constantly put over how dark and violent he becomes as The Demon. But he never does *anything* different. It's like as a full-up production team they all get the concept but nobody has figured out that he actually needs to behave differently for it to work. He also seems to do it for every single big event, which makes it meaningless. He should've wrestled some Takeover events without the face paint. If Finn were to go up against Joe, lose a few matches, then decide to bust out demon Finn and wrestle differently, it would actually make some sense. It also somehow looks more third-rate than it did in NJPW. Finn Balor is possibly the wrestler with the greatest mechanical proficiency that I just can't care much about. I don't know if he was a beneficiary of favorable circumstances in NJPW with the Bullet Club, or if he is just a bad example of the WWE approach to creating wrestlers with a predictable formula. His main event run in NXT has rarely seemed like the most important or interesting thing on the show, and unless he's given an inordinate push on the main roster he won't stand out and he'll quickly fall down the card.

I would not expect Asuka to be the one out of these two to be the one to utilize ass-based offense.

Good thing Aries went back into the ring after that apron DVD instead of staying outside and risking the rana.

Corey Graves with the "greatest manager of all time" shill for Paul Ellering.

Triple H said on the conference call that "The End" has multiple meanings that will be revealed during the event. Tommy End run-in during the main event to KO both wrestlers?

Will there be a PTBN reaction show for this?

I'm still not through all of the GWE podcasts, but I've generally enjoyed the podcasts just presenting lists as a record of personal experiences with wrestling more than those that are overly self-conscious and constantly bring up 'controversial' picks, the 'narrative', etc.

I've really been enjoying Stardom World so far. It's nice being able to watch every show, and it gives you a better appreciation for some of the workers in the promotion. They do a good job of pacing their content uploads, so by the end of the week I'm really anticipating the main event. The non-wrestling content is generally pretty good, although some of it (like stuff featuring the wrestlers in pajamas) gets a bit too close to "creepy Joshi fan" territory for my tastes. Io Shirai and Kairi Hojo both have pretty good English, and Kairi comes off as one of the most likable people on the planet after watching interviews with her. As far as booking goes, my biggest complaint would be that they don't have a real midcard. Gaijin and freelancers fill that role when needed, but it's not permanent. It looks like they're getting ready to push Jungle Kyona and Hiromi Mimura up the card a bit, and if Yoko Bito's return is more than a fleeting moment they might be able to fill in a good local midcard. It's amazing to think that Stardom has done so well after the Yasukawa / Yoshiko shoot incident, the departure of Karuga and Nanae, Act's later retirement, and the abeyance of most of their titles. Hopefully Stardom World doesn't drop dramatically in quality after the switch to a non-YouTube provider, although it makes sense that they would want to be able to avoid YouTube's geopolitical restrictions and capture a wider fanbase.

It's Chelsea Diamond's first match back in Stardom in 2016, as well as Haruka Kato's last match for a while, continuing the sad trend of Stardom retirements and semiretirements. Haruka acts like a face with the prematch handshakes, but Hiroyo shrugs them off. The match starts with her and Kairi, who have a singles match coming up. Hiroyo establishes her physical dominance, but Kairi is able to keep up with everything and they have a superhero staredown before they tag out to Chelsea and Haruka. There's continued taunting from Hiroyo throughout the match, and Kairi goes out of her way to pay it off by attacking Hiroyo. A double elbow drop from Candy Crush leads into bit of a comedy spot as Chelsea is hugging Kairi while Kairi wants to get back to the match. Kairi turns it up a notch and starts giving Haruka some really stiff forearms and chops. Haruka is able to dodge the running elbow, which hits Chelsea (who is inexplicably at that corner), and tags in Hiroyo. They once again establish Hiroyo's strength advantage, as the spear attempt is countered with an Argentine backbreaker drop. Chelsea isn't the great hot tag in the business. Kairi gets back in and continues the stiffness with Haruka, but Hiroyo breaks up the pin attempt and hits Candy Crush with a double belly-to-back suplex. Candy Crush goes outside to take a breather, but Hiroyo continues the Haruka punishment and throws her over the ropes on top of them. It doesn't end, as Hiroyo repeatedly throws Haruka on top of Kairi back inside the ring. A crossbody off the top gets 2 for Haruka. Kairi continues the stiff offense until Hiroyo comes to break it up. Haruka gets a flash pin attempt and armbar, with Hiroyo preventing Chelsea from saving her, and Kairi eventually reaches the ropes. Kairi hits a bridging belly-to-belly, which is broken up by Hiroyo. Kairi is frustrated and sets up the diving elbow drop, but Hiroyo rushes the corner to attack her. That ends with a tree-of-woe double footstomp, Haruka gets another flash pin attempt and goes for a suplex, but Kairi counters and finally hits the diving elbow drop for the win. This is setting up a singles match between Kairi and Hiroyo, which should be pretty good if they have the chemistry they showed in this match. Chelsea still has a really limited range, and works best when selling a beatdown and getting a few hope spots in.

It's Kris Wolf's return after a few months absence. This is established as a comedy match from the beginning, as Kris Wolf acts traumatized when the ref inspects her tail. There's a pre-match hand-tail shake between the two competitors. They work the usual opening armwrench exchange, which Kris ends by biting Kid's arm. Oedo Tai distracts the ref and Kris bites the ear of Starlight Kid's tiger mask. This is probably the comedic peak of the match. There's a nice bit of continuity later as Kris traps Starlight Kid's head with a hold and pulls on the part of the mask she bit. They have a lot of counters and reversals, including a transition from a giant swing into a Boston crab that is reversed into a pin attempt by Kid. I don't understand some of the psychology of Kris breaking up her own pin attempts. Kris hits the double knee off the ropes, but Kid gets a Fighting Spirit kickout, but the comeback is short as Kris gets a small package for the win. This match reminded me that we need more minis and comedy matches in wrestling. I'd rather watch this stuff than WWE preshow matches.

With the seemingly endless discussion around the best wrestlers and matches, I'm surprised there aren't more critiques of particular aspects of matches, e.g. timing of comebacks, strike exchanges, hope spots, cutoffs, timing of kickouts, setups for dives, etc. In this respect, critical analysis lags behind analysis of other forms of human expression. We're still in the afterglow of a sharp increase in the availability of footage, so it makes sense that people are focusing so much on breadth to discover new wrestling, but it would be nice to see discussion of wrestling change direction a bit and gain more depth.

I feel like this Takeover has a pretty wide range of possible outcomes. The only match that seems like a sure shot on paper is American Alpha vs. The Revival. Aries hasn't impressed me much in NXT, but he might really try to bring it with Nakamura to show he can have a great match. I really don't like Nia Jax in the ring at this point, but Asuka should be able to carry her to something good, especially because Nia can probably take more punishment than the other women on the roster. Balor and Joe have done pretty well recently, and they've excelled when the level of violence has been turned up, but I'm not sure how well the WWE cage match gimmick will work out. Definitely looking forward to watching this one live.

It's the debut of another gaijin in Stardom, this time Shanna from Portugal. She's going up against the rookie Hiromi Mimura, who has recently had some good outings in tag matches. Hiromi brings the chops at the beginning of the match, with little effect to Shanna. Shanna throws Hiromi into the opposite corner, which leads to an awkward looking dropkick from Hiromi and a poor wind-up punch from Shanna. In the middle of the match it looks like Shanna is just moving from point A to point B to set up for the next spot. Shanna looks a lot better when she's on offense near the end. She milks the crowd a lot longer than most wrestlers do in Stardom, but she gets a decent reaction so I can't blame her. A nice looking top-rope splash, leading to a kickout, followed by a variant of the facebuster I can't name for the pin. She's getting a Stardom World Alliance title shot against Io Shirai on 6/4, so we'll see how she looks against a more seasoned opponent.

In addition to what was already mentioned, there were some nice touches throughout the match. In the beginning of the match they did a pretty good job establishing Dark Angel's strength and size advantage over Io, without driving it home repeatedly. Io teased the tombstone finish early, which led into a stretch of offence from Dark Angel that was targeting Io's back, peaking in the apron powerbomb. The next time Io unsuccessfully went for the tombstone, she fell to the mat in pain. When Dark Angel had Io in that Boston Crab variation (which I am sure has a name), Io kept going for the ropes even when the hold was released. I really liked Io's agonizing selling of the moonsault counter turning into a battle cry for a striking exchange. And the "well she's reversing all of my normal end-game moves, so I might as well just kick her in the head to keep her down" aspect of the finish.

Stephanie flies home on Tuesdays to be with her family. Vince currently doesn't even travel to Smackdown. HHH and Ryan Ward write and run the show now, so the politics of all of that will be very interesting. Steven Guerrieri was lead writer of Smackdown for a few years. Did he get demoted when Ryan Ward started working on Smackdown again?

I signed up for the 2 week trial and have been enjoying it so far. There's often a huge disparity in quality between the opening matches and the main / semi-main of each show, but the stuff at the top of the card is really great. Io is probably the best active women's wrestler in the world.

Dana's interactions with Charlotte seem really awkward.

Distraction finish in a submission match. Way to use the stip, guys.