GOTNW

I am all in on Miz and this match only helps his case for being one of the best WWE wrestlers of 2016. I absolutely love the way he transitions into offence. Nothing fancy or flashly, just wery smart use of his surrounding, whether it be the ropes, the corner, the ringpost, the steel steps or the announce table. Reigns seems to have more shtick that works now and it's astonishing how much better he is at carrying himself when he's not asked to be El Hijo Del Cena. He's also improved his selling a lot which was pretty evident here. ***1/4

Man I hate WWE's "we can only have one x wrestler at a time", this is the result of that policy, Corbin has to lose to Dolph Ziggler because being undefeated is Crews' thing and Crews has to work 50/50 matches against Cody Rhodes because being dominant is Corbin's thing. Completely unmemorable outside of Stardust busting out the most ridiculous leg submission in history (and by that I mean it looked really bad and inefficient, not funny).

Boy you could tell Sandow's WWE career wasn't going to last much longer. Corbin treats him like literal trash, takes the entire match and beats him clean. And that was way more fun to watch than the usual WWE evenly worked quasi-squash, everything Corbin did looked super nasty.

GREAT MATCH. Maybe the best WWE TV match of the year so far. It started out as a tag match between The Usos and Anderson/Gallows, then that fell apart after Anderson hit Reigns with an awesome stomp through the ropes (I'm so glad that move is coming back and won't be lost to time and only known to folks who watch thirty year old CMLL trios matches). I love AJ/Reigns interactions, I could watch them wrestle forever, there was a great sequences where AJ went from a Sunset Flip but Reigns blocked it, picked AJ BY THE THROAT and just threw him into the air and tried to Samoan Drop it, AJ tried to counter it with back elbows so Reigns put him down and drilled him with a punch, you really get the sense they are reacting to what the other is trying to do and that sense of struggle really helps the match. Anderson got a couple of great nearfalls in on Reigns, I was shocked at how much I was buying them, they really were phenomenally set up. This was about as good as a chaotic WWE trios match gets. ***3/4

In terms of WWE babyface TV workers I would probably rate Ryder above Zayn. This was a total blast, just an awesome sprint, probably the best squash match I've seen since I started watching WWE TV again and creating threads for it over here to try and document modern wrestling (you know I could use some help in that). Not sure if Rusev potatoed himself on a ringpost/a wrestling move or if he came into the match like that but the swelling on his forehead made for a great visual.

Seems like Natalya and Charlotte alternate between opening their matches between chain wrestling that looks either solid or sloppy, it looked ok here. Charlotte escaping the waistlock by using the ropes and then quickly cutting off Natalya with a big boot was a smart and efficient spot. Emma's character work on the apron was ofen more interesting than what Charlotte was doing inside the ring. Man-Emma viciously slammed Natalya's face right on the apron like LA Park did Dr.Wagner Jr. in their TxT match. And then she hit her with a bunch of good looking punches. She's really grown into a great worker. Ok, I really liked the "Charlotte pulls Emma out of the ring while Becky is beating on her and then Becky goes after Charlotte only to get hit from behind by Emma" sequences. Have to wonder if this is a reaction to me critizing agents for phoning it in. Emma is just so vicious in everything she does and I could see myself turning into a Charlotte supporter if her big boots and head kicks become like a third of their offence like they kind of were here, another really neat spot was when Emma was stretching Becky and as soon as the ref pulled Emma back Charlotte kicked Becky in the face. Holy shit Charlotte randomly Forearms Becky off the apron! I'm all in on this match. And then as the ref turns his attention to all that jazz Emma cheapshots Becky! Natalya makes the hot tag-and has some good ideas, she does an awesome like......back suplex/atomic drop hybrid followed up with her cool stomp on the back but her execution is also often lacking. Natalya gets Charlotte in the Sharpshooter but she tags out to Emma while in the hold and Emma cuts Natalya off with a great clubbing blow! Man this match ruled. I need to think up a name for this kind of spotfest. It wasn't that they just went through a bunch of moves, rather they had a lot of ideas and sequences and clearly spent a decent amount of time putting it together. Much like the American Alpha/Revival match in that regard. Sneaky good. ***1/2

I'm sure it's a fairly unique opinion but at this point I'm completely convinced Miz is a better worker than Zayn. He's really great at stooging and both of his big transitions ruld (him countering Zayn's ten punches in the corner and pulling him out of the ring). Zayn is a fairly standard armdrag-flip flop babyface not really adding much. It was fairly predictable how this one was going to end as soon as Owens joined commentary and I feel like I've seen the "two heels attack one face before the other face makes the save" spot five times in the last two weeks in the IC title feud but here the post-match had a couple of neat details, like Miz pushing Zayn into a Cesaro Uppercut to save himself and Maryse trying to save Miz from a Giant Swing but Cesaro not only overpowering her but pulling her into the ring. So yeah. Miz is really good.

Slater has never gotten over to the extent Sandow has. His reward for being good at the role he is good at is his employment. If Vince's opinion is that it's much harder to find stars than wrestlers who can bump around without hurting anyone, well, I'm not gonna argue with that.

I really loved the way Rush walked the line between dominance and peril here, he'd take so much of the much just kicking the shit ouf of Maximo and acting like a dick but would also become paranoid any time something that would endanger him would happen like his second being kicked out. Rush's incredible acting really carried the match, and it was amazing to see an Arena Mexico crowd react they *should* for once, it really added to the atmosphere and the overall experience. The finishing stretch was a little subsided compared to the dramatic finishes CMLL matches can have but I don't think anything else would have worked here and the triple kiss spot was amazing. One of my favourite/best matches of the year so far.

Why? Miz is a better worker than him, better promo than him and actually draws real heat in 2016. Miz should absolutely make more money than him. Only reason Slater still has a job is because he's supposedly safe and really good at bumping and jobbing.

I think this (and all other comparison polls in the GWE subforum) should be moved to the microscope so we can continue to commen on them if this forum ever be locked. And it just seems more fitting. And it doesn't seem right for comparison threads to be sllit between the microscope and the GWE forum. Many of the comparison threads in the microscope were started for GWE discussion purposes. I've grown to like Satanico a lot but Casas takes this for me easily. Casas hits a higher peak for me. His matches vs Santo, Bestia Salvaje, La Fiera, Ultimo Dragon and El Dandy are all all time classics for me. Only Satanico match that comes close is the Atlantis 1984 one (actually the Sangre Chicana one too). Casas has a much longer sustained and consistent run of greatness we have on tape. Satanico has a great match in 1983 and 2015. He also has bad matches and performances in AAA no one seems to talk about (to be fair AAA makes everything worse) and disappears for big chunks of time. I don't remember ever seeing a bad Casas performance. Only thing where I woule give an edge to Satanico is graplling, and even then Casas is a very good matworker in his own right and has produced more title matches I love than Satanico. I generally find Satanico a disappointing brawler, especially in non-Sangre Chicana singles matches. A lot of it may come down to me connecting to Casas' character work more strongly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSONU1F9Uuc Ah yes, the infamous "worst Fujiwara match ever", so bad that it apparently made Phil Schneider loathe Fujiwara for years. I had a really hard time imagining a scenario where these two would have a shitty match honestly. I mean I could easily imagine it being disappointing or dull, but actively bad? No way. Let's see what he had to say about it: Ok. So: "Fujiwara no sells almost everything" "gets kicked in the head, starres at Kawada" "no sells German suplex" hey! I'm the one guy that likes Tatsuhito Takaiwa! I have a thing for wrestlers with recklessly dangerous offence. It adds to their aura I guess. "takes a ton of the match with JYD headbutts" "shitty Choshu finish" Ok. Let's break down the match now. Match starts with Fujiwara playing with the streamers. This is pretty much where I stopped buying this as a potentially bad match. They grapple a little bit. Kawada gets on top to establish dominance and they slap each other around. Re-start. More grappling. Fujiwara grabs a neat wristlock, Kawada gets out, grabs a Sleeper and Fujiwara's selling goes from his usual dismissal of the peril of the hold he is in to selling as he fails to get out of the move. Kawada hits a great looking knee drop. This is pretty good so far. Fujiwara is clearly rocked after the big knee drop. This is what is known in professional wrestling as "selling". He gets up and Kawada starts kicking his head in, Fujiwara quickly fires back with punches and great looking headbutts. Fujiwara grabs a Sleeper, Kawada pushes him back in the corner for the break. Fujiwara breaks it with a big slap and Kawada goes after Fujiwara. Fujiwara moves back to the other corner as Kawada is going after him (you could understand this as either him selling the threat of Kawada or as defensive positioning). Kawada kicks him a bit after which Fujiwara makes awesome "fuck you" facial expressions, grabs Kawada by the throat and shoves him into the other corner and starts rocking Kawada with punches and headbutts. First Fujiwara Armbar tease. Fujiwara transitions into a "regular" Armbar instead. Kawada gets out and start kicking Fujiwara in the back with his signature kicks. Fujiwara gets up and goes back into the corner. Kawada starts kicking him again and right as Fujiwara is about to fight back like he did earlier in the match Kawada rocks him with a big chop that Fujiwara sells the shit out of. Another big chop and Fujiwara falls down. Kawada starts stomping Fujiwara's head but Fujiwara counters it by grabbing his leg. It is a theme in Fujiwara matches (especially against kickers) that he will counter their kicks by grabbing their leg often, I remember that making the 1989 UWF match vs. Maeda especially gratifying as Maeda just shitbeat him to hell. That was also played up in the Super Tiger matches and the Hashimoto matches etc. Fujiwara stretches Kawada a little and hits him with a nasty headbutt to the back of the head. They headbutt each other for a bit and Kawada does his awesome staggering selling after headbutting Fujiwara. IDK much about JYD but these dueling headbutts are clearly making real contact. Fujiwara controls the match for a little bit but does nothing of note before Kawada takes over and slams Fujiwara's head into the ringpost. Come on, you're not going to throw "no selling" at that? That's an awesome signature Fujiwara spot, even if it is tehnically no selling. Fujiwara hits a few more headbutts but Kawada hits a huge slap to fight back (Fujiwara is "selling" again). Slap-off! Those are fun! Big Spin Kick from Kawada knocks Fujiwara down. More "selling". Stretch Plum. Ok Fujiwara is totally guilty of no selling here. He kicks-out at 1 and starts headbuttings Kawada as soon as he gets up. I don't really care for the big boot/headbutt battle BUT! They start slapping the taste out of each others mouth again! He does pop up again after the controversial German but at that point I'm fine with it as Kawada quickly cutting off Fujiwara's futile attempt to fight back fits into the narrative to the match and worked for me. Come on. That's not even top 20 for worst Choshu finishes. It's not even a bad Choshu finish. I mean surely everyone watching Fujiwara's pro style matches has grown accustomed to him doing Choshu finishes but come on. His late kick-out was pretty weak and he continued to lay on the mat after doing so. I was expecting he was going to instantly pop up and put Kawada into a Wakigatame or something. So there you have it. I don't think this was complete shit. Disappointing for a Fujiwara-Kawada match? Sure. But perfectly solid.

NXT Takeover Dallas: Nakamura-Zayn YES Bayley-Asuka NO Joe-Balor NO Revival-American Alpha YES for comments see NXT Takeover Dallas thread Payback: Zayn-Owens NO AJ-Reigns YES for comments-match discussion archive Owens-Ambrose Royal Rumble NO Dumb generic WWE gimmick match with them setting up spots forever and questionable transitions and predictable use of finisher for "nearfalls" that weren't believable and one cool bump. Brock Lesnar vs Roman Reigns vs Dean Ambrose (WWE Fastlane, 2/21)-YES Sure, I'll shit on enough WWE matches so I might as well properly praise those I did like. Think this did a good job of working around Lesnar, Ambrose might be a good wrestler if his offence was limited to just hitting other dudes with weapons. Kalisto vs. Alberto Del Rio (2/3 Falls, Fastlane 2/21/2016)-YES I don't remember much about this other than I really liked it? And it lacked the blown spots their match at RR had but also had the neat sequences and whatnot that their first match had. Was their Smackdown title change match in 2016? That one was really neat. Should nominate that one later. Sasha Banks vs Charlotte vs Becky Lynch (WWE WrestleMania, 4/3)-NO Cesaro vs. AJ Styles vs. Kevin Owens vs. Chris Jericho (Raw 4/4/2016)-NO See match discussion archive Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada (NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 10 1/4/2016)-NO Tomohiro Ishii vs. Katsuyori Shibata (NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 10 1/4/2016) -NO Shinsuke Nakamura vs. AJ Styles Wrestle Kingdom 10 NJPW 1/4/16-NO Kushida vs. Kenny Omega (NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 10 1/4/2016)-NO see Wrestle Kingdom 10 thread Will Ospreay vs. Kushida (NJPW Invasion Attack 4/10/2016)-YES match discussion archive Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kenny Omega (NJPW New Beginning 2/14/2016)-NO let's see what I wrote about it on DVDVR: yeah. that sounds good enough I guess. Dragon Lee vs Kamaitachi (NJPW, 1/24)-YES once again-see match discussion archive Marty Scrull vs Will Ospreay (PROGRESS Chapter 25, 1/24)-NO My least favourite match of the year. They blow thourgh a bunch of kung fu spots, a third of them doesn't look good, a third of them doesn't make sense and the even the stuff that does like wrestling offence doesn't matter since nothing is sold, I don't care, stop blowing through so much stuff, I'm too old for this, learn how to throw a punch.

This match was fascinating. You have Perro jumping Hamada at the bell and a bunch of wild brawling that followed, also long sections where they are *wrestling* and getting a lot of heat by projecting struggle over basic holds and also Hamada flying around. All if it was wedded perfectly, of course I liked the brawling bits best, Perro was just otherwordly in here, when he rocked Hamada with a sickening chairshot I thought to myself they could sit in a chinlock for the next 20 minutes and it would still be one of my favourite matches. But instead they opted to continue punching the shit ouf of each other and then Perro started fucking stabbing Hamada with scissors and thens started cutting his hair and the whole thing disintegrated into a 10 man brawl and then they continue brawling and the other guys are trying to hold them back and they push them back and just throw themselves into one another and it's really great pro wrestling is kind of neat when you think about it. I'd have this at ****1/2-****3/4 I guess.

Incredible sprint. It's easy to imagine an under 10 minute sprint with a bunch of bomb throwing falling apart due to questionable selling and transitions but luckily Akiyama is here and he is about as good as you'll get when it comes to japanese wrestlers and structuring matches. Every transition here felt logical and satisfying AND managed to accomplish what they were going for in the match. Loved how the initial onslaught was vindicated in the finish. And I must say The Bodyguard has a badass Powerslam. ***1/4

This was awesome and worked in a strange hybrid neo King's Road/Battlarts style, you could tell by the early grappling this wasn't going to be the usual All Japan match, I loved how Akiyama pulled Super Tiger out of the ring to transition into offence and he followed it up by just blasting him with knees, they smacked each other around a lot but any time Akiyama had even the smallest opportunity to obliterate Tiger with a knee strike he'd go for it. Tiger fired back with a bunch of kicks and slaps and the sense of constant struggle really added to the match. Incredible out of nowhere KO finish that was sold and presented perfectly. ***1/2

Gender neutral names becoming predominantly used can really only be a thing in languages without grammatical gender.

This was a blast, a super fun action packed 6 man tag just like you'd see in 2013, what really put it over the top for me was the post-match brawl, Reigns looked like such a badass in that, just tossing AJ everywhere with Styles taking these lunatic bumps. We know how a feud of this kind ends (Gallows and Anderson turning on AJ) but it's been a surprisingly fun ride so far. This continues to confirm my theory Gallows and Anderson and the kind of brawling and skillset they bring is much more suitable for WWE than New Japan. ***1/2

Look I get WWE is big on nepotism but this is the kind of match that should be getting PPV spots. Becky is really good and Emma is a top 10 WWE wrestler right not at worst, maybe top 5. The way she used Becky's hair while in offence was super nasty, she'd stretch her and throw her around in all sorts of ways. Loved the finish and how they incorporated Becky going for her finish into Emma taking a cheapshot. Emma now has a Northern Lights Michinoku Driver finish to confirm her transformation into a great 1993 puro worker.

I watch this and wonder if Vince still does cocaine. Since they have Goldust touring with them you'd think they could stick him against Corbin and Crews, add an extra half stars to their showcase matches, teach them how to work, but he works comedy matches instead. And to be fair I thought this a pretty hilarious one. Just about the most stupid and wacky narrative ever with Goldust and R-Truth constantly ribbing each other now their tag fell through.

Miz at ringside instantly makes me care more about this one. Fun match that was basically just them going through a bunch of cool spots. Non-finish was fitting and probably added more to the storyline than a clean finish would've. Cesaro ripping Okada's Dropkick spots is cool but I don't really see why would he start using chops. **3/4

Holy shit this was amazing. It's a serious best WWE match ever contender for me. I really don't get why people get so upset over the overbooking, and honestly it was fine here. I don't remember the last time a WWE match so ambitious. The early portion was PERFECT in establishing Reigns' power and AJ made himself look good in the process too because when he did overcome it it meant that much more. I loved how it was paced, it had the greatest table spot in WWE history and a plethora of neat little touches. AJ avoiding Reigns' big suicide dive and then quickly leaping on him with the diving forearm was such a neat spot that made him look great. All of the big counters looked almost shockingly organic and natural for a 2016 WWE match and the rope break nearfall made my heart stop for a second. They both took some disgusting bumps here. Another thing I loved is how AJ used the Pele Kick as a way to upgrade his striking combo after it failed to take Reigns down earlier in the match instead of using it as a counter spot like he usually does, and to that point AJ quickly hitting Reigns with a Snapmare after Reigns survived his striking combo also made him look like a smart wrestler. I want to re-watch this and I don't remember when was the last time I felt that way about a WWE match. And Reigns hitting AJ with another Superman Punch after the big counter one also put AJ over as a serious threat and was just a badass thing to do and then AJ did that awesome delayed selling instead of popping up like you'd see in the Zayn-Owens match. These two have a five star match in them. ****3/4

Man-some of the early wrestling and rope running here was reminiscent ot the days of Kelly Kelly and other "glorious" WWE superstars. Natalya does work quite sloppy. Charlotte's Big Boot looks great. Her Knee Drops were so bad you can't blame Kevin Dunn for focusing on literally anything else. I liked this more once the limbwork started. I like the idea of Charlotte slapping people around but there seems to be a disconnect between the idea of her character and her willingness/ability to commit to it. And for all the shit she gets I would easily rank her above Natalya at this point. Good grief was the finisher kick-out spot heatless. Natalya's early Shaprshooter teases were cool. I wanted to like this but between the awful acting and the general slopiness it didn't really do much for me. Finish amused me. IDK two star-ish. A classic compared to Jericho/Ambrose from the same show though.

Results are now stylized. Nominating: Masato Tanaka vs Hideki Suzuki (Zero-1 1/1) http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/32886-masato-tanaka-vs-hideki-suzuki-zero-one-010116/ Yuji Okabayashi vs Ryota Hama (BJW 1/24) http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/34195-yuji-okabayashi-vs-ryota-hama-bjw-1242016/ Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Atsushi Aoki (AJPW 1/3) http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/33113-yoshiaki-fujiwara-vs-atsushi-aoki-ajpw-312016/ Jun Akiyama vs Jake Lee (AJPW 1/3) http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/34194-jun-akiyama-vs-jake-lee-ajpw-132016/

Great match, easily one of my favourite this year has produced so far (this comment was three months ago but remains true). I liked the matwork a lot as well as all the strike exchanges, loved how Suzuki made Tanaka fight for every transition instead of just getting all his spots in. Suzuki's matches being meaningfully suppressed added a lot to the nearfalls and they didn't go overboard with them. Suzuki's Billy Robinson throwback gimmick rules.