...TG

Hunter is gonna Hunter That probably could have waited but oh well.

Bryan is losing his voice halfway through this show I like his untutored enthusiasm, it's great for this series. That was a fun little tag match, promising stuff if the cruiserweights are given similar time on Raw.

DEAR LORD, TJP-Ibushi was goddamn great. I never thought much of Ibushi before, but I'm pretty sure he's had the best three matches in the CWC (Cedric Alexander, Kendrick, and tonight). MOTYC for sure.

ZSJ-Metalik was damn good. ZSJ's best match of the tournament, I think? He showed more of what I've enjoyed from him in Evolve, anyway. I like Mauro, but he needs to chill with the puroresu references. Just cut them in half or so, they feel really forced.

I only listened to the Dutch episode because of Dutch, as he doesn't do many interviews. He was indeed pretty great, especially talking about his work habits while booking in Puerto Rico. It got a little bit good-old-days by the end, but that seems par for the course with Cornette. I'll probably keep listening, if only because I like Brian Last.

So nutty to think AJ was wasting away in TNA for so long, now he's quite deservedly the champ. Like Migs said, would love to see a long, slow build to Styles/Cena III at WrestleMania.

Parties is right, those two matches were great. Sabre's counter of the Ricochet's SSP into a triangle was amazing, really should have been the finish. And I too wish Ricochet would sell better but he's so graceful, especially live. Riddle continues to amaze. He actually blew a spot tonight, which I don't recall happening on Evolve at least. TJP's send-off with Stokely was nice - Stokely should have more of a role going forward.

Chuck Taylor/DUSTIN is just not very good right now. Evolve is the only indie I watch, is he good anywhere else? They're much louder than last night, but man Parv would hate tonight's crowd.

I wasn't super-enthused about this - my attention drifted away a bit during the hold exchanges that took up the first 15 minutes or so. But they ramped it up, and started slapping the hell out of each other. They tumble to the outside and continue brawling, and Jumbo ends up busted open! So he responds by trying to rip Mil's mask! Jumbo is no Fuerza Guerrera in the mask-ripping department, but props for the effort. There's a double-countout, but they roll back in the ring and continue brawling as Jumbo bleeds a gusher. The young boys (including teenage, skinny Misawa and Kawada) hold them back. Jumbo is super pissed-off, and punches two of the lads holding him back to go after Mil. It's either restarted or the second fall begins - I didn't get what happened here, alas. Once it's restarted, we get five minutes or so of nearfalls, and Jumbo dripping blood all over Mil. And i guess there's a time limit draw? Or a double-DQ? I don't know. In any event, love the fired-up, bleeding Jumbo we saw during the brawl and after the restart. First time during the set I've really loved Jumbo.

WWE.com has an article up about the LBOA, with a bit about the discovery of it: The "no restoration" bit was interesting, I wonder how much of their stuff needs a lot of work besides a straight digitization and changing music? Anyway, I hope the buzz this has gotten convinces them to put more rare stuff like this up, even if it's temporary.

TJP - Rich Swann was good too. Really good selling by Swann - the knee injury affected all the moves he did, he went much slower and less explosively than he showed in the first round. Hopefully Swann keeps developing, he has a ton of charisma, a great story, he has a big chance to become a star I think. Having said that, maybe a bit too many leg selling stories in this tournament? Next week is the 2-hour live finals, this has been a great couple of months of TV.

Zack Sabre Jr. v Noam Dar was good. Dar looked better than he did in his first two matches, but I'm just not seeing it. I've liked ZSJ a lot in Evolve, but something's just not clicking with him in this setting. Still, this match seemed to get over, though it wasn't as good as either of last weeks' matches.

New Day wasn't the issue with that segment, it was with whoever wrote it. I love the First Amendment but if he/she/they were arrested, I would happily be in favor.

Dear lord that was terrible. Then it kept going. It's still going on for chrissakes

Jack Gallagher and Akira Tozawa were in the latest cruiserweights promo. Hopefully this means they'll be coming in full-time. Now Bo Dallas gets a squash match to utter silence. Didn't he get drunk and arrested at an airport recently? WWE usually frowns upon that sort of thing.

Not sure where else to put this, but Jumbo's son Yuji has a tribute page on facebook that he's pretty active with, posting scans of old All Japan programs and such: https://www.facebook.com/TommyJumboTsuruta/. I'm an AJPW mark and sucker for memorabilia like this in general, so I love the work he's putting in to keep his dad's memory alive. Gordi, give Yuji my thanks.

Oh yeah, this was awesome. Loved Kendrick as the crafty, cheating old bastard mercilessly working over Ibushi's neck. And that goddamn burning hammer...never thought I'd see that, and hopefully we don't see it again, as Kota took that right on his head. Anyway, great finishing stretch, playing off the Nese-Kendrick finish.

I was worried before Metalik-Tozawa that there would be a style clash, but man was I wrong. Great match here! Built really well, kinda mat-based to start and picked up with the highspots later on. Metalik did that nutty springboard from the inside of the ring flip dive that he did in the first round. Tozawa looked better than he had in the first couple rounds, and had some great facials. Really fun, I don't imagine Tozawa will sign full-time but hopefully Metalik will, as rumored.

Stan Hansen: Nemesis - Giant Baba Archenemy - Bruno Sammartino (I'm way off on that one, I know. Kobashi is a good fit too, maybe.)

I thought Gargano's leg selling was exceptional. As far as the other selling went, it didn't seem particularly egregious by the standards of 2016 work.

Another really good match with Johnny Gargano and TJ Perkins. The story with this one is that Johnny was selling the knee that was hurt at Takeover, never mind that this was taped a month ago . I was really surprised that TJP went over, would have figured they would push Johnny to the final four at least. What a great hour of pro wrestling. Kudos to the WWE for doing this, hopefully it gets enough viewers that the cruisers will get over for Raw and they keep doing out of the box stuff like CWC.

Gulak really brought it against ZSJ. They did a Gulak feels disrespected story, and came out really aggressive. ZSJ didn't exactly show much in his first round match, but had to access his mean streak to counter Gulak - not at all the overly smooth, showy stuff he did before.

Rich Swann v Lince Dorado was a really fun spotfest. They did this crazy double scissor kick spot where they got each other in the face at almost the exact same time, don't think I've ever seen that before. Hope we see Dorado more often, both guys really because that was a ton of fun.

If this is true Jericho is incredibly stupid. Not just for getting worked by a planned finish but to think getting into a fight with Lesnar would lead to anything but him getting his ass kicked. He's been backstage enough to know it would have been broken up quickly, and maybe he's lucky and gets a shot in. Zero risk for Jericho.

Thought it sounded fine, FWIW. Devon was a great addition to the show, glad to see an almost full crew back.