AstroBoy

Love listening to this on my lunch break. Glad to see it back.

I want to do one of these ongoing match of the year lists this year Zack Sabre Jr. vs Tomohiro Ishii 1/4/19 NJPW I am sure tons of stuff will surpass this but I was not disappointed at all by this. Super simple story of striker vs submitter stripped down to a lean, bare, runtime. The superplex no sell was really stupid and silly but at least led to probably the most brutal spot of the match. I liked this alot.

https://www.prowrestlingonly.com/blog/celebrating-the-shield-harbingers-of-a-tag-team-renaissance-part-8 Check out Part 8 of Celebrating The Shield, which looks at the WWE starting to force The Shield into a decidedly non-special midcard role throughout the summer. Highlights include that awesome match against The Usos at the Money in the Bank pre-show!

As a new year rolls around, it brings to mind renewed efforts to try to follow the wrestling world at large. My viewing habits over the past year have personally been pretty spotty and I'm finding myself kind of overwhelmed/curious at how others manage even keeping track of what's going on in different promotions all over the world. I know that there is no way to watch everything and I'm not really trying to, but just out of curiosity, how do different people follow stuff in a way that works for them? I guess I subscribe to some YouTube channels and that helps, following certain promotions and wrestlers on Twitter is a help. Any other good resources?

Kind of worn out on Gargano and Ciampa-centered stuff to be honest. It's really sad they can't fit Ohno-Riddle on the show for a 6 minute sprint or something. I am sure the wargames match and women's match will deliver, though.

Good call on the Ronda tag I had somehow forgotten that. Also the Almas vs Gargano match from Rumble weekend would be way up there for me.

It's getting to be that time of year. So what does everybody have as their current match of the year? I am woefully behind on current viewing but I binged a little bit early in the week. The Darby Allin matches against Zack Sabre, Matt Riddle, and WALTER for EVOLVE were pretty fantastic (particularly the WALTER match). I really loved Drew Gulak vs. Jack Gallagher from the UK tournament but probably not at the tip-top level. Bryan vs. AJ from a few weeks ago was great and that would be high for me. I haven't caught up with much lucha or Japan stuff yet but plan to this week. So. . . thoughts? Recommendations? What has everybody loved this year?

Awesome! One of my favorite time periods from any company ever

Thank you for the kind words. Big fan of the Divas Deep Dive as well!

Part 5 is up! https://www.prowrestlingonly.com/blog/celebrating-the-shield-harbingers-of-a-tag-team-renaissance-part-5 The Shield makes their WrestleMania debut, and then transitions into having kick-ass matches on a weekly basis against all variety of opponents. Check it out!

Thought I would throw out a plug for my continuing series on prowrestlingonly.com Celebrating the Shield covers the entire run of The Shield from their debut until their breakup in summer 2014. I explore not only matches involving the group, but also their impact on tag team wrestling and its presentation in the company. Check it out! Here are links for all the installments up to this point: Part 1: https://www.prowrestlingonly.com/blog/celebrating-the-shield-harbingers-of-a-tag-team-renaissance-part-1 Part 2: https://www.prowrestlingonly.com/blog/celebrating-the-shield-harbingers-of-a-tag-team-renaissance-part-2 Part 3: https://www.prowrestlingonly.com/blog/celebrating-the-shield-harbingers-of-a-tag-team-renaissance-part-3 Part 4: https://www.prowrestlingonly.com/blog/celebrating-the-shield-harbingers-of-a-tag-team-renaissance-part-4

Awesome stuff fellas!

I think things like the Saudi show and Australian show might hurt any kind of consistency and long term planning in the company. We've seen them shift into WrestleMania mode and shelf logical/hot storylines in favor of attractions for awhile now. The same thing is creeping into the current booking. Why settle anything at a ppv when you need to keep filling up these supercards? So we get even more rematches and placeholder nonfinish matches in between. It's only going to get worse.

Really loving this series. Good work and giving me lots to check out that I hadn't thought about in a long while.

I think Reigns is very good and, in the right context, could be a big star. Really though I think that the overreacting on both sides to either tear him down or defend him is making any meaningful discourse really hard. The guy deserves better. But we are in an era where Reigns simply not getting booed out of the arena at SummerSlam was considered a brilliant success.

Remember when Triple H got hurt and came back to all those U2 hype videos and won the Rumble? And he was a heel when he got injured! WWE had a perfect story fall into their laps and within weeks Bryan was jobbing on TV to Rusev, who couldn't even make SummerSlam the following month. Of course Bryan is gonna stay over but really they are so stubborn and stuck in their ways and have no fucking clue how to present a strong babyface.

People defending the way Bryan has been marginalized post-comeback has been one of the things that shows how beaten down and apathetic the modern audience is.

Clearly we all watch a ton of wrestling here, but I get the feeling that most of us don't just aimlessly watch matches and shows with no larger picture in mind. Seems like most people enjoy diving into certain styles, wrestling, eras, etc. . . in big chunks and working from a more holistic place, so let's hear it. For those of you who are working on some kind of larger project or watching wrestling from a certain perspective right now, I'd love to hear about it. I know there was talk some months back about groups of us doing more focused sort of side projects about concrete groups or time periods. Personally, besides keeping up with some modern WWE stuff, I am mostly focused on working my way through PWO2K at the moment. Beyond that, I have some of the Puerto Rico and Portland discs that need re-watching. Longer view, I've been waiting to tackle some kind of World of Sport project and maybe begin watching Joshi at some point as well. Stupidly I'd like to try some kind of 24-hour wrestling marathon sometime and keep a stream of consciousness journal while I do it. In the far, far off. . . sort of considering doing some kind of podcast if the right partner comes along. So yeah, what's everybody doing with all this crazy amount of footage right now?

It is sad to think that Asuka couldn't make this card. What a waste.

I liked this a good bit. Jun Kasai would have been an awesome third Nasty Boy. His demeanor here is great and he pairs well with Zandig. Honma helps keep this one together and takes a specifically painful looking powerbomb in the post match. ***

This was pretty good as Lazz has lots of character and carries himself strongly even if he is fairly average. AJ of course bumps big and he is a good cocky heel, though a bit one note. He also didn't link things together well on offense and the heat he put on Lazz was kind of stop and go. **1/2

Tracy is working double time here, really busting his ass to get the match and Killings over. Perfect example of his character work is when he covers Kwik, who kicks out at 2, so Smothers looks into the crowd and says "God almighty what do I have to do to beat this guy?" Just a pitch perfect small moment that did so much to get over the frustration and also put over his opponent. The crowd is into hating Tracy and I thought they built to a pretty good finish. This was a really good effort. ***