Goodear

I don't know why the NXT show thread gets so little traction here. Anyway, be the change you want. BAMF vs. American Alpha was not surprisingly a great showcase for Gable and Jordan but let's not talk about them because that's too easy. BAMF is damned tremendous and they are like the hidden jewel of the NXT tag division just not getting the recognition they deserve for being so great as the last WCW US Tag Team Champions. Murphy and Blake made everything Gable and Jordan did look like death including Gable's arm work and Jordan's holy shitplexes. They are always in position to feed the faces like the servers at a Brazilian steak house. Their transition to heat off that misdirection lariat from Murphy was jaw dropping (and removing) but they smartly don't work heat in order to pop the crowd but to build up the tag. And boy oh boy that they go strait to hot tag to the finish in a refreshing change of pace. Get that false finish out of here! We be building here. Gerard vs Apollo Crews was a good showcase for Gerard since Apollo can't channel his physical tools into a compelling match. Watch me nerd! Charisma is his dump stat! WHOOAHH D&D reference! Apollo Snooze (Scott Keith eat your heart out) doesn't get wrestling particularly well as he has two speeds, selling and offense. He's doing one or the other and he doesn't realize there is a gear between 1st and 4th. Gerard slipped a couple of times but managed to project an image of grinding determination. I came out of this looking forward to matches with Gerard rather than Crews. Sign me up for Gerard versus Joe and Ciampa like now. Speaking of which, Ciampa vs Bull Fit was a fun time mostly due to Bull being a lot of fun in his NXT swan song. He'll probably do better in the indies being the biggest guy on the show night in and night out. I think the ga ga was really funny in this with the jumping jacks test of strength and the core strength being tremendous comedy spots which work a little better because Tomaso was working straight man. But I think this muddied the Ciampa waters a bit as he worked heel here and he's kind of been presented as a face up until now. Hey? Do you have some Bayley? Doesn't matter because this is the, no lie, Eva Marie show. She was tremendous here working with Nia Jax as the muscle and Eva being the... nothing! She did nothing right all match! It was awesome! The psychology of her being complete dead weight around Jax's neck as Nia clobbers the faces worked so well. And of course, it plays into the finish as she grabs the fall without actually doing any damage in the whole thing. Jax's frontfacelockaphobia continues to be a highlight for me as was the hot tag where Bayley just rolled over Eva and hit her with her finish because Eva sucks in storyline. Despite the crowd being kind of tired (Big Red was tired drinking his coke) Eva still got boos just by putting her hands in the air. That's her value kids. NXT are good. Yes indeed.

I'd be hesitant on that explanation. I really enjoy the two matches with Hogan in 91. I've written about them here before (though years ago, so always, there's a caveat there). But they weren't supposed to be great matches. That wasn't his role on the card. So it's more of a case that we weren't put in a position to know how good he was because it wasn't his job to have the sort of matches that would have shown us until years later. Undertaker serves again as a example of being a character first and having that drive his matches rather than being super focused on having the best match possible. People have this tendency to believe that if someone wasn't having workrate matches, then they were not capable of doing so rather than it being a actual choice to play with the medium. Early work as Mark Callous indicates at least a certain level of competency for a young guy but he was simply another guy in WCW. It wasn't until he came to WWE and started acting like a zombie that he was able to capture the audience. Why in the heck would he go back to a less successful formula just so he could become just another guy? Snowflakes don't make for good wrestlers regardless of what one might think. Roman Reigns has bunches of good matches, but his character is so empty, he hasn't connected with the adult audience regardless.

Of all the things to complain about, I don't know that the handling of Styles would make my top 20? Let's see! 1) Roman Reigns having no discernable personality traits. Seriously, without discussing his push or look, describe Roman Reigns. Can't be done. 2) See also The Usos 3) New Day having no actual program despite being the most over act in the company 4) Dolph Ziggler being a featured part of the show despite sinking multiple angles with poor performances 5) Doing nothing with Bo Dallas despite having the opportunity to run with the Flo Rida thing 6) Booking the unstoppable monster of the WWE against the grey-haired son of the owner of the company who hasn't appeared on the show in 6 years as one of the featured attractions of WrestleMania. 7) The Wyatts being defanged over and over and over 8) 40 Year Old Triple H being the lead heel in the promotion 9) Summer Rae being given nothing after a successful performance in the Rusev angle. 10) Tyler Breeze having nothing to do despite having a gimmick you could write an angle for in 2 minutes 11) Neville having nothing to do despite demonstrating he could be at least a solid piece in NXT 12) Miz being a jobber despite having a career renaissance where he's done nothing but successfully put people over. 13) The League of Nations having no reason to be together whatsoever. No stated goals. No direction. 14) Damien Sandow not being on the show ever despite 100 hours of television a week. 15) There being 100 hours of television a week. 16) All the regulars continuously having put over guest stars for the last 10 years 17) Titus O'Neil being suspended 18) Ryback turning heel again for no reason because he actually gets a positive reaction, can't have that! 19) No sense of tier system where everyone trades wins despite that method proving ineffective for years 20) The company focus on having the characters seek to 'have moments' rather than win the damn match. Boom. Done.

James Valiant. Gotta stay on the York Foundation brand.

... and that's unlikely?

The sledgehammer came from the left and went up, made a U turn... A second sledgehammer...er!

So just Triple H then?

I can't quite reconcile the Roman Reigns is getting politically held down for reasons unclear despite being in two back-to-back WrestleMania main events while the other 3/4s of the internet will argue he is getting pushed down their throats despite him getting cut off on the knees every other week. To answer that particular question YES they are rediculously incompetent and have booked Roman terribly. For evidence of this, look at every other part of the show which is booked terribly which includes the entire show. Is regards to using dirt sheets as gospel, I would remind the panel that it has been reported that Undertaker is facing 3 dozen different people including Braun Strowman, John Cena, 'a person not currently employeed by the company' and El Dandy. They either aren't always right or this is going to be one glorious 7 way ladder match.

I think the show is developing a little bit of a pacing issue where the second fall is much longer than the other two with what seems like an hour being spent on individual shows there where you spend 20 minutes on the show discussions with Johnny. I think you might be better off making the pace more consistent across the show.

I'm not sure I would agree with that and I honestly mean I'm not sure if I would or not. Bob was massively strong and had the amateur wrestling credentials, but seemed to lack the charisma that would lead to a successful title run. He's almost the opposite of the standard where most guys use charisma to overcome a short coming in physical tools.

If you say so, although you can make several arguments that that things people are complaining about is what makes the match work. The odd man rush allows having the 'hero makes the save' moment 3 or 4 times during the course of a match up which is virtually always a big pop. The heels being the bad guys get to take advantage of being up a guy for two minutes at a time. Its very much an ebb and flow that gets the crowd pumped to see Road Warrior Hawk chomp at the bit to get in there and murder someone while they are squashing Animal's head up against the fence. It's like the Royal Rumble count down spot expect knowing who is coming and that Rick Steiner is going to wreck someone in 10...9...8... Yeah, the heels always win the coin toss, having the faces be up a dude all match would be backward. The match not being able to end until the teams are all in creates a sense of jeopardy for someone like Brian Pillman who gets in the match first and no matter what, his punishment will not end until the crescendo of the Match Beyond. So in theory, he could get maimed and torn apart and build sympathy without having to worry about 'winning and losing' so much as surviving.

I follow NXT pretty much 100% on Hulu since its easily digestible and a pretty solid show. I watch everything else piecemeal.

Right the whole Authority gimmick invalidates people earning things as the company can just upturn the apple cart at a moment's notice (and often do) but its deeper seeded than even that. In WWE Prime, The Rock could get a World Title shot tomorrow without having been in a match in years. The whole Money in the Bank concept is almost predicated in an unworthy champion being crowned by picking their spot. The idea of someone just walking into NXT and getting a title opportunity happened exactly once with Kevin Owens and it was explained in story terms and they made a point of having Regal argue against a title show and having Sami get suckered in to a match based on the angle.

That Wargames was even mentioned in this thread makes me sick. What is wrong with you people?

And it feels like that direction of 'everyone wants to be champion' in their respective division provides for everyone in the roster. No one is seemingly feuding for no reason like Owens and Ziggler are right now. Everything is about getting to the top of the mountain and that has provided significant motivation to several angles and story lines.

I read somewhere that a coal miner's glove was made of heavy leather and had reinforced metal in the thing. I think the thing is everyone is so removed from goddamn mining that it just falls flat unless they took the time to show the audience what it actually is. A segment showing us what the glove is and what it is capable of would get the weapon over more. Its one of those things that sounds stupid because it's become translated to work glove for most of us but could theoretically work. Dumbest thing I thought of was the Feast or Fired match from TNA. I literally don't know why anyone would want to participate in this one as you have a 1/4 of a chance to get a case that will get you removed from the company. It's not even the loser of the match that gets fired (which would at least make some semblance of sense from a high risk, high reward standpoint) but you could be the first person to get a case and be fired based completely on grabbing the wrong identical case. Or you could get a show at the X Division Title! Totally worth the risk!

Barbarian is one of those guys with immense physical tools and skills but is missing an intangible charisma that would have made him a transcendent superstar. Not that he had a bad career by any measure but you would have thought he had the potential for a main event run somewhere when you consider his physical gifts.

Why don't you all go find some 5'10'' guy in shorts and kick pads to fawn over?

I don't write a lot since I'm lazy (let us be honest) but I subscribe to 'Matt D. style' where play-by-play is relegated to a live notes portion of the review (usually under a spoiler tag) so you can see where certain strands of thought came from that are referred to in the main body of the review. I find that covering things from a long-range viewpoint is generally better than getting into minutia but you should be able to support your thoughts with specific information. I always like to include the finish to the review and I feel it serves as a good ending note especially if you are telling the story of the match from a narrative perspective. Looking at one of Parv's reviews I grabbed (because it was short) allow me to show where I would change things in bold. I'm not trying to pick on Parv in any regard here because this is obviously a 'quick hit' review where he is boiling things down for the sake of length although I would argue that fewer reviews with more information would be my preference. Mil Mascaras vs. Dory Funk Jr (1/30/79) This is from All Japan. Not positive on the date, but this is from 1979 and the numbers "30" and "1" can be glimpsed in the Japanese text, so I'm guessing that means 30th January. Dates don't mean nothing to me because my brain doesn't work that way. But I have to ask if the date is in any way significant? To me, dates only matter if there is some sort of context there. 'Dory would be a year into his reign or something..." I love the Funks' All Japan music (Spinning Toehold. Mascaras comes out to Sky High. AJPW is just so cool during this period. Dory is sporting a beard. Mascaras takes off his mask to reveal another mask. This is all very 'what' but doesn't answer the question of 'why'. Why does the the music work? Why do the beard or extra mask matter? This wasn't a very good match. It was worked super clean babyface vs babyface with clean breaks and handshakes. That isn't a problem in and of itself but the feeling out process never came to an end. It was parity all the way, with neither guy really giving the other guy much. Too much protection all around. Here is where I think you can add some meat to your review by using specific examples that build to your conclusion. Were there handshakes that stopped the match's momentum? Are there examples where one guy blew stuff off inappropriately? This is also where having a description of the finish would help the review as it helps tell your story of the match being too even. Was there a 30 minute draw? Did Mil take a count out? Matches are supposed to tell a story, reviews are you telling us what that story was. ** Star ratings work as a short hand. I have no issues here on a short review like this just tossing stars. For longer reviews, I think a summary would help here.

So not trying to be a dick about it, but here is the preview for PWG All Star Weekend 11 Night 1 that the company put up on their website. It opens with a toy chainsaw attack... I have no further comment about that. But the opener highlights contain a suplex on the outside of the ring to the apron, a standing corkscrew splash, a pop up powerbomb, a backflip into a tornado DDT and a pumphandle piledriver. The way the card is presented makes it seems like it is hours of more bomb throwing craziness with no breaks. I was tired by the end of the 6 minute hype video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_PMNezYNK4

Daisuke looks like someone pushed down on the top of his head until he became a foot shorter and twice as wide.

I do not watch PWG so I want to make it clear that I have about as little actual backing to this comment as can be. But just from watching the highlights, it strikes me as a very samey "everyone is doing flips!" which I find exhausting at this point in my life. Watching someone doing a shooting star something in three strait matches just makes me think that you have a bunch of people working hard but who don't have a bigger picture of card construction and roster diversity in mind.

Considering the way people pop for part timers, it would be like Wrestlemania all the time. Which would suck.

I personally find the lean/muscular guys like Rude and Del Rio appear too skinny in that they appear almost breakable. I prefer guys to have a sort of thickness to them that allows them to absorb bumps. I think Orndorff is a good example of that build even if he can be a little too jacked for my liking. I prefer Piper at the time as being obviously muscular but not bursting from the seams. Vader also has a great big guy physique with some belly hang but not sloppy 'falling over the tights' fat. He looked like a NFL lineman.

Neville is your face mechanic answer. Over enough to a degree that if a heel works him over, it will matter to the crowd. He would also be able to upset anyone easy since his finisher works regardless of size and is over. Neville also has enough spots in the tank that he will be able to get reasonable near falls on guys above him in the pecking order like the dead lift German suplex and a nice sit out powerbomb. He's a guy that could reasonably job to or go over the whole roster right now.