Parties

"Murphy's better" chants for Blake. Dillinger selling an expertly executed eye poke. Crowd popping for Irish whips and back body drops. This match could have happened in 1982 Mid-Atlantic. #thankyoupaul

Early Nakamura chants from the packed Barclays Center. Did these plebes not receive JvK's explicit mandate? Addendum: crowd gives jobber face Tye Dillinger a rabid standing ovation and boo jobber heel Wes Blake vociferously. Pity that the masses don't know how to properly react these days.

Live take on today's show: I'll have more of a match by match breakdown after I can watch it again, but the first impressions were that Riddle-End and Hero-Cody were fantastic (such that if either WWE show has a match as good, I'll be elated), and that I like Thatcher being a full blown heel and Yehi getting mic time. There were some less enticing moments and things the crowd didn't take well to, but it was a show that at least made sense in building to their next NYC outing in a few weeks and have out-of-towners their money's worth. It's pretty cool that they're coming here so often now, and Hero and Riddle are now in a coin toss race for WOTY. Cesaro, Bryan, and Breeze were in attendance, by the way, and I was delighted by the idea of Breeze as part three of that running crew.

Black Terry, Jr's handhelds were better back then!

No one here is saying it hasn’t changed. But it’s ultimately incumbent upon the bookers to guide said fans, with the acknowledgment that sadly, neither fan nor booker will ever be able to put the genie back in the bottle and pretend that Russo never happened. “This is awesome” chants are lame, but I don’t think they’re ill-intentioned. Deriding fans for viewing wrestling with a somewhat cheeky, self-aware eye is hopeless. They’re just trying to enjoy the show in a way that is truer to their knowledge of wrestling than that of the old ladies in Memphis who’d hit Jimmy Hart with their handbags. A smart booker could get audiences back to some of that old “cheer face, boo heel” sentiment. We saw glimmers of it in the Bayley-Sasha-Izzy scenario. But it will take great writing, and there are seemingly no great writers in today’s wrestling outside of maybe Ryan Ward on a good day. The fault is with the myriad of wrestling bookers and performers (in WWE and beyond) who think face/heel dynamics are passe, or make their shows look cartoonish. There was a Kevin Steen interview a while back that got me thinking: most wrestlers today aren’t willing to be genuine heels. And they probably live healthier, better-adjusted lives because of it. The same is true of white meat babyfaces. The performers just aren’t willing to live that tough life of past wrestling generations: to make those severe sacrifices that kayfabe demanded, or risk looking foolish. Add to that the common misconception that MMA succeeds via fighters "behaving like their true selves" sans face/heel personas (clearly untrue). The sad irony of course is that pro wrestlers would make more money and ultimately look less foolish if they lived their gimmicks more. But to ask a real person to walk around in 2016 behaving like Bruiser Brody or Eddie Graham while they’re at the hotel bar is difficult for many of the workers. It’s why many of them go to their rooms and play video games after hours, or drop all pretense and play said video games on their kayfabe-breaking YouTube shows. Most of them don’t want to live the shadowy, vagabond wrestling life of yesteryear. Yesteryear produced a lot of lone wolf alcoholic/addict weirdos in chronic pain. When overbooked talks about “jaundiced, cynical eyes”, the first thing that came to mind was the way that mid-80s David Letterman had Vince Jr. appear on his show in that “Late Night baby” segment, then proceeded to openly mock Vince as an uptight square. It was kind of a dick move, but still a telling moment that illustrates how abrasive, hip media types lambast wrestling. Even wrestling fans are prone to then begin viewing Vince the way that Letterman did. Lastly: Sting was not Bart Simpson. Sting was Poochie the Rapping Dog, which is why he wasn’t a draw and comes off as terribly dated today. And while I’m by no means a Libertarian, I assure you that Austin and Magnum weren’t Libertarians either. Kane is a Libertarian. Who’s the Penn Jillette of wrestling? Paul Heyman? Jeff Jones? The Sinister Minister? Jim Mitchell might be one, I dunno. Point being that most American Libertarians are pale nerds in bad suits, not jacked maniacs flooring dune buggies through canyons while pounding Steveweisers. Dallas really doesn’t give a damn what we think. Those fans aren’t posturing to score message board points: they’re drinking beers and shouting, which in its own way is truer to your mourned old spirit of wrestling than the microanalytical autopsies from-on-high that what we all indulge in here. To blame someone like Meltzer for cultivating online insider knowledge in casual fans is particularly silly when doing so *on an internet wrestling message board.* We are all just as infected as the supposed plebes who you wish to condemn. We are also at a moment culturally across the western world in which the Masters of the Universe are trying to find the right mix of “grabbing the masses by the scruff” and “giving the people what they want.” Elites vs. Populists, no holds barred: the hottest ticket in town.

Per unbiased and steadfast journalist Court Bauer, the incident of Paige being arrested was all a lighthearted misunderstanding wherein the police and accused alike were slapping each other the back and yuk-yuking it up in no time. The weirdest thing about all this was finding out through Facebook that Del Rio’s a four-time WWE champion. Del Rio needed at least another six months on the indies to cement an identity, but the wishful thinking put forth online that 2015 WWE was going to let him be a babyface by casting himself in opposition to a former employee who made a racist remark in poor taste was never realistic. They were never going to cast themselves as true-life, stock-plummeting, advertiser-repellant heels. He could have become an over babyface on implicit vibes alone. But Vince is more of a Trump affiliate than most of us care to stomach, and so they turned him heel and put him in a bumbling stable of inept foreigners. That said, it feels like revisionist history to not acknowledge that various people on this board and similar spheres online have criticized Del Rio quite a bit as a worker and character in recent years. We’re years past his matches with Big Show and Rey, and he has taken a lot of flack in recent months. The smark view of Del Rio has been schizophrenic since his debut, and not all of it has been his push or lack thereof. Fans seem up and down on him as a perennial “guy with upside”, or guy not living up to said upside, depending on how you see it. In the tradition of everything in wrestling being ten years behind the times, Del Rio, Paige, Ambrose and Roman only this summer got the memo that coke was back. Have fun listening to Jinder Mahal’s conspiracy theories in a Silverlake apartment halfway through a two-day bender, kids.

Lesnar showing up unannounced to destroy everyone in a hardcore match, following by his even more memorable torpedoing of the Hardys were what came to mind. It was specifically augmented by not being a wrestling news/board reader at the time, so I had no idea who he was or that he was coming in. Debuts have become a different and in some ways less exciting concept when it's all "worker who you've seen for 2 years in NXT" or "worker who you've seen elsewhere for 5-10 years." The introduction isn't quite as pointed - for better or worse - as it was seeing someone like Psicosis, Sabu, or Tajiri for the first time out of nowhere. As a kid, I marveled at Adam Bomb's debut as it was an awesome look and gimmick for a seven-year old. Ditto Max Moon. In '91 I actually recall Vince on Superstars announcing the debut the following week of a new character named El Diablo, who sounded super cool to a grade school Parties. I could have never guessed it was the dastardly Jake Roberts under the hood. That I still vividly remember Vince's delivery of a basic, 10 second announcement of some masked nobody in a still frame close-up from 25 years ago tells you about impressionable ages and what enthused novelty brings to wrestling TV.

Most fans who actively watch modern wrestling would happily welcome modern versions of Bruisers, Crushers, Hogans, and even Strongbows on their weekly TV. Benoit, Eddy, Bryan, and Styles would have gotten over in 1950/1970/1990 working their style or the style of the bygone era. To fault the fans is to fault the victim. I don't like "This is awesome" chants either, but they're not the problem or even particularly emblematic of the problem. The blame should be placed upon WCW killing wrestling's southern roots, 20 years of bad WWE booking, the homogenization of talent, Vince losing touch, and largely uninspired indie bookers who lack the imagination or knowledge to stop parroting WWE (TNA) or avoid cringe-worthy hackery (ROH, Lucha Underground, more TNA, even EVOLVE to a degree, etc.) Keep in mind that we're saying all of this at a moment when WWE's presentation and direction seem better than they have in years, lucha is as good as it's been in a decade, and numerous indies around the U.S. are booking fantastic matches and characters. Even some of the more flawed companies cited above still have a lot of good matches and TV segments. RevPro and all the other wink-wink kayfabe-soiling idiocy happening in the UK scene right isn't really representative of the big picture, which feels healthier and truer to the spirit of wrestling's old guard than it has in some time.

There are many counterexamples to “wrestling is ageist”, even in WWE where Vince claims to hate seeing older people wrestle/on TV. For every Jim Ross slag there’s been a nostalgia pop/GM role for Hogan, Flair, Foley ad nauseum. I’ve been very critical of Undertaker’s role for years, even if it works in the short-term on the night of his return. Wrestling is largely about icons and the “legend” of a character’s history and persona, so it’s only natural that the old-timer character would have legs when used right. It’s the Heyman idea of what ECW did with Funk as a god of wrestling, and later what he pitched to TNA, where he told them that they could have one legend who he would build stories around (and that they could pick whichever one they wanted, be it Flair/Hogan/Sting/even someone like Booker T), but that they needed to choose one and ditch the rest, as having a show full of old gunslingers dilutes the concept. Take Japan, where age is viewed quite differently: About eight or nine years ago now, AJPW (then under Mutoh’s booking) toyed with the idea of a true Masters League, wherein they’d run shows of nothing but 50+ wrestlers. I believe the idea was to build around Mutoh and Fujinami, with guys like Fuchi, Fujiwara, Choshu, and other 80s stars in your undercard. Japan and Mexico at large still use veterans very heavily, in a range of ways: Kabuki in your Dome show battle royal, Sayama on the indies, lucha maestros on Youtube, etc. Even guys like Jun Akiyama or Minoru Suzuki are the same age as Triple H. But in the States, I do think we’ve seen as many companies who’ve failed because they were too nostalgic (Cornette, Harley Race’s company, latter-day Memphis, Jimmy Hart’s various projects) as we have of companies who failed by not having enough reverence/connection to wrestling’s past (maybe something like an XPW or Wrestling Society X, or Bischoff’s ventures that never got off the ground, or one of the other many failed endeavors of the 2000s). I suspect that if you’re perceiving a lot of kvetching from younger fans about the “old fucks”, it’s not so much their age as it is the hope that wrestling can enter another boom and create new mega-stars out of workers currently in their athletic prime. This is a false choice not to be taken literally, but if there was an either/or scenario where you have to choose between Lawler getting to have a title match with the Miz *or* actually pushing someone like Drew Galloway, even a huge Lawler fan like myself would rather see the young guy with massive upside get the opportunity. So perhaps there's a questionable correlation being made by certain fans: "Cesaro and Sami Zayn are being held back because Taker-Shane has to headline Mania!" is the 2016 equivalent of "Bret and Shawn are being held back because Hogan-Slaughter has to headline Mania!" There's truth to the sentiment, but the direct causation isn't clear. If the real gripe here is that RPW booked a really stupid worked shoot Russo angle of “The old guys are keeping young up-and-comers like Will Ospreay and Evan Karagious down”, then I agree. Even if it does build to a rematch where Ospreay wins (or tag with Dunne and Ricochet), I suspect the whole angle/feud won’t age well (ha!) when looked back upon a decade from now. But how age is perceived in wrestling is a larger topic. Ospreay and Ricochet have been outspoken advocates of "Wrestling is always changing", and the name of the game is "Evolve", "Progress", "Revolution". Yet American indies still have tons of old guys and often sell whatever tickets they can on having *the* Jim Duggan or DDP or Ricky Morton or 9,000 other examples. Most fans spend money and watch wrestling with some degree of nostalgia. Whether that’s a positive or a negative depends on how the older acts are being utilized. My own personal reaction to Vader-Ospreay isn’t that ageism is a pervasive issue in wrestling, but rather a different “old guard vs. kids today” paradigm: I’m a wrestling fan in his early 30s whose fandom was changed for the better by things like that Flair DVD, and who finds the idea of in-ring feuds based around Twitter spats to be really lame. But I’m sure there will come a day where someone has like, the MS-1/Chicana of Twitter-based matches, at which point the business (and media at large) will have changed.

Current favorite wrestler to watch: Roman Reigns. If the heel turn isn’t coming, he’s still doing great character work, putting it into great matches with a variety of opponents, and now has an excellent dance partner in a feud that reestablishes the US title. Last fun match you saw: First thought that came to mind re: “fun” is Galloway vs. Jack Evans (PWG “Lemmy”). But a better answer is probably the short but great Dragon Gate trios I discussed in the Vieje del Parties thread (CIMA/Gamma/Peter Kaasa vs. Genki Horiguchi/Kagetora/Ryo Saito from 6/2). I’m really surprised to be praising Jack Evans and Dragon Gate, but 2016’s been an interesting year. Wrestler you want to see more of: Old would be Jackie Fargo, new would be Kaasa. Last live show attended (if applicable/different from last time you answered): EVOLVE 64. Was unable to go to the “Lucha Underground” show of local indie guys at the same venue a week later, main evented by Pentagon and Fenix having their touring match. Match you're most looking forward to watching: Rusev-Reigns, though I am curious about what the No Holds Barred version of Thatcher-Riddle looks like. Last fun interview/promo you saw: I quite liked the Eric Embry segment that ran on a recent Between the Sheets, but that was only heard, not seen. Also: while this was more just curious than fun, the WCW Saturday Night from the night before Luger-Windham for Flair's vacated world title has like five different Paul E. segments, and it was at least interesting to see TV where he's essentially hosting the show in the months leading up to the Dangerous Alliance. Last interesting thing you read about wrestling: The @MeltzerInThe90s Twitter account. Last worthwhile podcast you listened to: This past week’s episode of 6:05 - the first without Bix co-hosting - ended up being surprisingly smooth and fun. Scott Cornish was really good, Brian was game, plus three interesting guests. I never tire of hearing Terry Funk or Sabu talk, so their recent Art of Wrestlings have been cool. Most fun you've had watching wrestling lately: I liked seeing the Rumble at a packed bar. The crowd was fired up, and it helped. Watching Hero vs. Riddle live was truly something, particularly Riddle’s flying knee. Favorite recent post on this board: In truth I haven’t been reading as many of late, but I quite like seeing live reactions during shows, and getting folks’ funnier takes in real time. Favorite thing about the wrestling landscape in the past three months (if you live in the past, then go with your past three months of time-traveling): Between May and now: Meltzer’s renewed interest in lucha, and the continued influx of quality podcasts and access to old footage. While time-traveling: I think this Jerry Lawler kid shows a lot of potential.

Yeah, New Japan is the right answer. I like his work, but he should go somewhere where stiffing dudes is welcomed and he'd be presented as a true monster. Plus it'll result in smark fans thinking he "learned how to work/actually got good" in two years time or less, because Okada or whatever.

I dislike most of the World Class and AWA that I've seen, with some notable exceptions. Bockwinkel nonetheless made my GWE top 10. Heenan is the greatest manager ever. The Freebirds were my #1 tag team. But generally speaking I find the overall vision and style of both companies to be low-rent, tedious, drab. I tend to like any given match/worker less when placed in either promotion. As I get older, I've come to like a lot of guys who take themselves way too seriously. I enjoy Bret's ego. I like maudlin Flair. I've enjoyed tons and tons of podcasts starring curmudgeon with bad opinions Lance Storm, even if I never want to watch one of his matches again. Workers like Ken Shamrock, Dan Severn, Mike Rotundo and Steve Blackman reward repeated viewings. I've begrudgingly come to enjoy the self-indulgent egos of Punk and Cabana. I was a huge Inoki Genome fan, as I was/am of other Japanese groups putting on shows of dull three-minute worked shoots. Sometimes plain oatmeal is what you want to eat. Basically I think a Good Serious Boring Guy (or Good Serious Boring Woman in the case of someone like Natalya) is a novelty and singular type of character onto itself, in wrestling and lots of other fiction. The Good Serious Borings' earnestness-at-all-costs-including-numbing-others-minds lifts all boats. You need these people to serve as contrasts on the palette for the Fujiwaras and Satanicos.

157) El Torito vs. Demus 3:16 (WWC, 6/25) Solid mix of the usual topes and chain wrestling. You’ve seen each guy do their stuff before, and this lacks the hijinks of even a Torito-Hornswaggle match. Demus in control with Torito selling is a lot better. Torito has at least three major botches. Granted, he’s going for big, impressive stuff, but it really felt like something was wrong with him here, either from lingering injuries or the possibility that he got knocked out during the match and was trying to wing it from there. It felt like a great athlete whose body was trying to still excel on Autopilot, if only because he didn’t know how to quit. Minis continue to be a letdown in 2016. 108) Diamante Azul/Johnny Idol/Rush vs. Cibernético/Sam Adonis/Último Guerrero (CMLL, 7/2) This came on Autoplay and I normally wouldn’t have stuck with this given the roll call, but it ended up being pretty interesting, and truer to an old-school 80s trios than anything I’d seen in a while. Azul, Idol, and Rush are a competent technico team, with Rush even breaking that mold and the other two being such patsies that the dynamic works. Adonis is relishing being a rudo, such that him and UG can look like Los Infernales in order to make up for Cibernético being useless. 196) Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Chris Jericho [Handheld] (WWE Live Japan, 7/1) This goes up fifty spots higher than it would for me, because we get to see a fan cam version of Nakamura’s entrance. The match in truth is pretty sluggish as Jericho tries once again to have an athletic match that he shouldn’t be having. He should be a stooge begging off, yet weirdly at times it feels like Nakamura’s doing that on his behalf? 31) John Cena vs. AJ Styles (WWE Live Japan, 7/1) Textbook in all the right ways. You could argue this is a Cena formula match, but this is so perfectly executed by both guys that I don’t see that as a bad thing at all. Tremendous agility from Styles throughout, and the pace of this would not have looked out of place in the best 80s NWA matches. 137) Johnny Gargano vs. Cedric Alexander (EVOLVE 64, 7/16) I got to see this show both live and re-watch it on the stream. The early wristlocks here looked rote at the time: two guys slowly exchanging arm drags and the like. Gargano reminds me a lot of Orton or even Jericho in that they somehow seem better live than they do on tape. Closeup you can see the flaws in his game (weird stilted selling, light hand on holds). 104) Fred Yehi vs. Tony Nese vs. Chris Dickinson vs. Darby Allin (EVOLVE 64, 7/16) This was Allin’s show, taking an insane series of bumps already hitting GIF airwaves. Yehi’s foot stomps and shtick were good, but I would have liked to have seen more of his matwork, even if this really isn’t the match for it. Nese is being built up as the star of the four and is dull in a Gabe project sort of way. Dickinson does nothing for me as generic powerbomb dude. 145) Ethan Page vs. Wheeler YUTA (EVOLVE 64, 7/16) Good squash in which YUTA (billed from Silicon Valley) actually looked better on tape than I’d thought live, getting more offense in and taking a mauling from Page. Nothing bananas, but I liked Wheeler’s kicks and routine as some DDT-style version of Mike Bailey. 53) Zack Sabre, Jr. vs. Jigsaw (EVOLVE 64, 7/16) I was disappointed to see Jigsaw and Taylor on this show as it felt like a step backward stylistically and to a less fruitful time for the company, but Jigsaw holds his own here. What these two lack in strength or technique, they make up for in agility. Jigsaw even works as the more vicious of the two in twisting holds, while Sabre’s more escapology, bridges, and flash pins. They get over the idea that if hit with precision at the right moment, a tope con hilo or missile dropkick can beat submission work. Good stuff. 9) Matt Riddle vs. Roderick Strong (EVOLVE 64. 7/16) Outstanding Riddle performance. He is the prodigy in wrestling right now. So versatile throughout: sometimes he’s the arrogant heel Von Erich, sometimes he’s a beast on the mat, he can strike, and he can even sell the beating from Strong’s backbreakers. One spot here where Strong camel clutches Riddle by the nostrils feels like the right tenor for each guy right now. Strong’s finishing run is on point (though a simple stomp to Riddle’s face was my favorite moment), and Riddle’s springboard knee is perhaps the best move in wrestling today. 114) Timothy Thatcher vs. Marty Skurll (EVOLVE 64, 7/16) Thatcher continues to look lost this year, and Skurll continues to be a cheesy facade. He’s like what nerds think a cool guy looks like. Goatee, shaved ponytail, peacock rave fashion: basically a Warren Ellis character come to life. I don’t buy his work at all either: dude reeks of technical prowess that isn’t actually impressive and a whole lot of lame mannerisms. Every move is nudge-nudge wink-wink without any genuine excitement. Skurll’s choke attempts recall the glory days of 2005-07 Shawn Michaels as really bad submission work that has to be put over as good. Commentary on wrestling without any verve behind it. Not sure what’s going on with Thatcher right now, but he feels like young Backlund in a lost kind of way, not the good powerhouse Backlund with relentless power and stamina. It also doesn’t help that he’s been portrayed as a goofy coward getting chumped out by several dudes on the roster at once. 144) Drew Gulak/Tracy Williams vs. Drew Galloway/Dustin Howard [Tag Team Titles] (EVOLVE 64, 7/16) I’m sorry, but I am not referring to this goon as simply “Dustin”. I’ll disagree with the EVOLVE thread crowd and say that having now watched this twice (live and on tape), I really don’t like the match or the booking. Howard has some touches of the Honky Tonk Man that I like, and many that I really don’t like. Galloway is always great as a juggernaut, but Gulak and Williams don’t really work as a team getting competitively squashed. Williams needed more time working as an underdog this year, as Catch Point has been a step backward for almost pretty much everyone in the group. He’s now being presented a top guy without really feeling like one. In some ways this showed that EVOLVE shows without Hero feel somewhat lacking. 107) Tommaso Ciampa vs. Cedric Alexander (EVOLVE 65, 7/17) I’ve praised Ciampa’s intensity and over-delivery in matches that didn’t much matter this year, but this in contrast is too jokey-dokey at the outset, esp. for Ciampa in front of his hometown crowd. It’s like he’s reassuring his high school friends, “Don’t worry: I’m not really a pro wrestler.” Cedric’s dives are fun but this is otherwise too indie-showcase pour moi. Still, you have to give it to Cedric for being so agile in working that style. The finish is athletically impressive in the back-and-forth. 158) Ethan Page vs. Travis Gordon (EVOLVE 65, 7/17) Fine squash, but repetitive if you’ve seen much Page this year. I liked the dangerous, irresponsible-looking power bombs and headdrops, but what I’d rather see drop is the other shoe on this angle already. But kudos to them for doing what feels like a yearlong commitment to a heel turn, even if this would have been less telegraphed by just having him behave like a real dude. 83) Matt Riddle vs. Marty Skurll (EVOLVE 65, 7/17) Tremendous Riddle performance: the selling, the kicks, the Germans, the big Fisherman Buster. Skurll continues to be a pretender to the throne. 110) The Usos vs. Fandango/Tyler Breeze (WWE Battleground, 7/24) This was very shticky at the points where you had the heels doing groin spots where one accidentally headbutts the other in the junk, but this was fast-paced and entertaining. “Both teams extra motivated tonight” from Mauro sounds like a warning as much as praise, but all four guys looked good and I dug the finish. 67) The Wyatts vs. The New Day (WWE Battleground, 7/24) Very fun match. I missed the women’s opener, but this and the pre-show match have this looking like one of those good sleeper PPVs. Bray was savage with the lariats and Sister Abigail here. The rise of Kenta Woodsbashi at the end was surprisingly invigorating, and Big E looked great until he implant Ganzo Bombed himself on the floor with that crazy dive that he always kills himself on. I even liked the Kofi FIP spots and Rowan casually stepping on Woods’ chest. 113) Rusev vs. Zack Ryder (WWE Battleground, 7/24) Felt like “just” a portfolio builder for Rusev, but a good one. Ryder is fine in these moments, and while we’ll now get more midcard wheel spinning from Rusev-Mojo, I’m actually fine with Rusev as your perennial king of the midcard, even if I think more could be done with him. But saying “more could be done with him” in WWE is like acknowledging that he lives and breathes. 51) Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn (WWE Battleground, 7/24) I enjoyed how pro-Owens this crowd was. I don’t like either guy, but this was solid. Don’t know how legit the Zayn injury was, but that dive looked crazy and it’s a testament to them that it at least looked believable in the moment. Most indie-tastic finish in a while with all of the 2,9 finishers, but they were well done and the crowd loved it. The match peaked in its last two minutes, and the decisively finished the feud. Highlight of the match was the exchange of giant slaps to the face. It felt like their best match in the company together - way beyond the dull 4-way stuff with Miz and Cesaro - and probably the best match either guy’s had in WWE with anyone save Cena. 156) Becky Lynch vs. Natalya (WWE Battleground, 7/24) Fine. (Probably honestly better than I’m giving it here, but seven minutes of control work felt like an intermission on this show, and I’m not one to say that of the women’s matches). But the real stories here are Dean Ambrose: Ironic Comedy Champion, Bryan’s fired-up promo, and Darren Young’s theme song being a series of grunted Bob Backlund expressions. 77) John Cena/Enzo Amore/Big Cass vs. A.J. Styles/Karl Anderson/Luke Gallows (WWE Battleground, 7/24) How weird is Cena’s life that he has to work this match, then fly to New York to host the Today Show to do summer reading segments with Savannah and Hota? Also: why are both of these trios being broken up? This feud could run six more months just by treading water on what they’re already doing. The promo work from Enzo and Cass feels so much like what actually gets over with casual fans, sells merch, etc. I’ll be curious to see if it works. Enzo’s flying DDT on Anderson was deranged. Lots of really good action throughout, even if Cena on the periphery felt weird. Not the best Cena/Club match by any means, but a solid way to continue their run and push it into Summerslam. 82) Dean Ambrose vs. Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins (WWE Battleground, 7/24) 1) Foley looking the way he does and portraying an authority figure looks deranged to any new or casual fan. He's an Appalachian meth den bounty hunter at best and a headcase Christmas obsessive at worst. Oh wait, he is the worse thing. 2) Faces win!

Styles should also not be dismissed as a top act on SD. He endured the de facto Jericho feud. He made Gallows and Anderson into something tangible. He had two of Reigns' best matches and made their pet project look great in the process. He provided Cena's best match in ages. Time will tell what he becomes, but as of now he feels like at least an Orton-level "top guy who isn't *the* guy". He's also wrestling's 2016 MVP and the likely Thesz/Flair award winner, no small feat in a year where he had to transition from Nakamura at the Tokyo Dome to tagging with Jericho against Curtis Axel and Adam Rose.

At this rate we stand a chance of seeing a 2016 PPV headlined by the Ambrose-Tyler Breeze hair vs. hair match that I fantasy booked to run halfway through this year's Mania as a Piper tribute.

Let the biennial month of Dolph fever begin. I know Strummer already said this, but it bears repeating: if you correctly predicted Summerslam's top 3 matches as Rollins-Balor for the new Puerto Rican championship, Ziggler-Ambrose, and a returning Orton vs. newly UFC-victorious/UFC-litigious Brock, you win the goddamned Powerball.

This seems accurate and well-described from my memory of it. Anecdotal evidence notwithstanding: the amount of heat Nigel had lost six months later was a topic of discussion in live crowds, as was Vader-Monster Morishima coming off as anything but a killer heel when you realized he wasn't nearly as big as he looked working KENTAFuji, and that he was a soft dude in pastel t-shirts who'd take grinning photos with everyone outside the Manhattan Center. It was a misfire at a time when ROH felt more "on the rise" than they have since.

Foley looking the way he does and portraying an authority figure looks deranged to any new or casual fan. He's an Appalachian meth den bounty hunter at best and a headcase Christmas obsessive at worst. Oh wait, he is the worse thing. Faces win!

Jericho going to a video package by abruptly saying, “Play the tape, monkeys!” got a laugh out of me. Probably ‘cause I like monkeys. I also liked Ryder looking like a better dressed version of Shane backstage in the SD locker room. Ryder as “dress for the job you want” trying too hard perma-associate is a smart nuance to his desperate character.

Yeah, not starting the main event until five of 11 just to have multiple doses of the bad pre-show analysis roundtable is weird. Meanwhile, Bryan and Shane's enthusiasm feels like a telegraph of Dean losing the belt, but that's me being conditioned by years of WWE "Steph always wins" logic.

How weird is Cena’s life that he has to work this match, then fly to New York to host the Today Show for summer reading segments with Savannah and Hota? Also: why are both of these trios being broken up? This feud could run six more months just by treading water on what they’re already doing. The promo work from Enzo and Cass feels so much like what actually gets over with casual fans, sells merch, etc. I’ll be curious to see if it works. Enzo’s flying DDT on Anderson was deranged. Lots of really good action throughout, even if Cena on the periphery felt weird, even as the finish was his. Not the best Cena/Club match by any means, but a solid way to continue their run and push it into Summerslam.

I thought this as well, and it seemed noticeable that the announcers didn't even bother to call Young's, as an acknowledgment of, "Yeah, some other guys beat you to it." Such things often get labeled as bad agent work, but I suspect it's more just that dudes start thinking of something new-ish as a transitional move and everyone starts half-consciously mimicking it. Typical WWE move to have Darren Young steal indie up-and-comer Marty Skurll’s finisher.

Lynch-Nattie was solid (probably better than I’m giving it, but a match built around control work and jockeying for leglocks felt like an interlude on this show, which in terms of tempo on this show may not be a bad thing). But the real stories here are Dean Ambrose: Ironic Comedy Champion, Bryan’s fired-up promo, and Darren Young’s theme song being a series of grunted Bob Backlund expressions.

I enjoyed how pro-Owens this crowd was. I haven't liked either guy in recent months, but this was very good. Don’t know how legit the Zayn injury was, but that dive looked crazy and it’s a testament to them that it at least seemed believable in the moment. Most indie-tastic finish in a while with all of the 2,9 finishers, but they were well done and the crowd loved it. The match peaked in its last two minutes, and they decisively finished the feud. Highlight was the exchange of giant slaps to the face. Their best showing in the company together - way beyond the listless 4-way stuff with Miz and Cesaro - and probably the best match either guy’s had since their respective Cena matches. Or at least since the Rumble's Ambrose-Owens LMS that I dug (and lots of other folks seemed to dislike).

Felt like “just” a portfolio builder for Rusev, but a good one. Ryder is fine in these moments, and while we’ll now get more midcard wheel spinning from Rusev-Mojo, I’m actually fine with Rusev as your perennial king of the midcard, even if I think more could be done with him. But saying “more could be done with him” in WWE is like acknowledging that he lives and breathes. The added torque on Rusev's finisher has given him new life.