Parties

Very fun trios. 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 envigorating, 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.

Liger-Hero and Fenix/Pentagon vs. Chris Hero/Tommy End sound great. Callahan seems like kind of an odd choice for a Rhodes opponent, unless part of Cody's indie rebirth is to go full Texas Outlaw and develop his brawling, in which case: shine on.

I’ll say Styles at #4 wins most surprisingly high pick, while Apollo Crews (#45) is most surprisingly low. In the end, they couldn’t help themselves. In a massive directional shift created for the purpose of boosting Smackdown’s ratings, Smackdown came away with the lesser brand, the lesser roster, the lesser influx of new/young talent, the lesser title scene. It may well still prove to be the better show. But this draft still feels like they just couldn’t go through with it in the end. There remains some strange internal perception of RAW as the McMahon family’s show, and SD as a stepchild. In the end, both RAW and SD look worse off, especially once the first segments of Steph humiliating Foley arrive. The show that ended up benefiting the most, ironically, may have been NXT. Balor's move was telegraphed and a blessing in disguise. American Alpha is a loss, but what more did they have to accomplish? The developmental tag division isn't there to support them. Ditching Rawley and Carmella is a net positive. I enjoyed the last Jax match I saw, as she seemed to have greatly improved, but she’s not a huge deficit and they’re clearly in the mindset of finding and training a lot more women in the near-term of NXT. Ditto Bliss, who I like but is totally expendable. Bryan should be forced to give a sabremetrics explanation for picking Rawley, based off a new stat he heard about from former Giants closer Brian Wilson: PUMP (Passion Unleashed Most Passionately).

Dunno, based on the post-fight press conference keeping him out of the title scene seems like a good idea for now given that there looks like to be a good chance of him wanting to fight again and trying to restart his MMA career. My thinking on this is pretty much: Your champion should be your biggest star whenever possible, and as of right now he's your biggest star. He has more main event cache than anyone else right now, meaning Brock vs. almost anyone feels worthy of headlining a PPV, which you can't say about anyone else (including Cena). With the exception of Cena (and Rock if he counts), he's the only guy they have who the media cares about. Ditto key partners (2K, ESPN, toy companies, adverisers, etc.) The "legitimacy/"he wins real fights" factors of UFC means way more to casuals than diehard wrestling fans often realize. (The counterargument to this being the failed pro wres careers of Severn, Shamrock, Rampage, etc, but none of those guys had the name that Brock has established or Brock's status on the card within pro wrestling.) I'm someone who thinks having a world champ who rarely appears is a good thing, esp. if you have two world titles and three secondary men's titles over two separate brands. The false idea that fans will think, "The RAW world title's only being defended 3 times in nine months? What a rip off!" helped cause the oversaturation we're in now. One Brock promo is worth twenty from anyone else. There's true novelty and potential in Brock being both a UFC and WWE champ simultaneously (even if you think his chances of beating Stipe, Overeem, or Cain are low). If Vince and co. are going to constantly bemoan the company's lack of credibility in the media, then they should do a better job of seizing the opportunities when they come, esp. during down periods of stagnant inadequacy. You can't say "No one takes us seriously! Our ratings are great!" and then get cold feet when big opportunities fall out of the sky. I know Dylan and others have suggested that the idea of Lesnar as a box office draw is a fallacy and that he hasn't actually moved the needle in terms of money/sales/buys, but WWE so actively works against any one talent being a draw that I don't fault him for that. I have to assume he moves merch, and he brings so many other strong marketing positives that I don't think "JYD sold out the Superdome" thinking is really applicable here.

While not having him in a title match at Summerslam now looks dumb, you can still have him beat Orton and do a Brock title program against whichever Shield guy has the belt, which would actually bring welcome heat to the usual sluggish "off-season" months of Sept-Dec. Brock winning or defending the title in the cage at Hell in a Cell (esp. against Reigns) would be pretty compelling right now.

It wouldn't be the first time, but it'll be odd if they end up renaming any of these guys after they become full time NXT workers. You'll have had this CWC show that everyone who watches NXT also watched, but that Drew Gulak guy from the quarterfinals is now being called Andrew DeGadzooks or whatever. But again, they changed Kruger to Adam Rose one week after he'd been on TV in one gimmick for ages, so the show's reality pretty clearly reserves the right to repackage guys in real time.

Based on the bracketing I'd guess the final four are Sabre, Ibushi, Gargano and Tozawa, leading to a Sabre-Ibushi final and both getting signed. Maybe Metalik in Tozawa's place, to have a lucha guy in the mix? Brackets would also point to a Gulak-Sabre quarterfinal, and a Gargano-Swann semi.

Nope. There's no winking at the audience in LU. It's admitedly constructed as a fiction, with deaths and magic and shit, not a real "pro-wrestling promotion". Some of the stuff I'm referring to is in upcoming eps and season 3 discussed by Meltzer, so I won't go into it for spoilers sake, but to clarify: I love both EVOLVE and LU. But both have frequent moments in which by trying to be cooler/smarter than the audience, they poke holes in their own suspension of disbelief/kayfabe/whatever you wanna call it. I love Matt Riddle, but the dude is openly a goofball playing the role of a heel. (Some would say that makes him a unique "true" character, but the guy's still laughing when he should be scowling.) Joey Ryan vs. Mascarita Sagrada wouldn't look entirely out of place in 1987 WWF (see Bundy vs. midgets), but Cage vs. Taya might. My point was more that a lot of modern wrestling writers/producers/bookers believe that no one could never book a Kip Allen Frye style wrestling show in 2016 (or a late 80s Pat Patterson one), while I disagree and think that a show that held closer to the vest on kayfabe would actually be unique and refreshing today. But maybe - to your point - a fantastical show like LU has a unique kayfabe all its own, that's true to its own sensibility.

Interesting to re-read this from six months ago and see how appalled I was with WWE/McMahon booking at the time. While I stand by all of it, and do think their approach to wrestling is kinda scorching the earth for everyone else, I am happy that I started the Viaje del Parties thread and set out to watch a bunch of stuff that isn’t just RAW. Because yes, RAW continues to suck, but RAW is so not the world. There is way more fun, unique, worthwhile stuff to watch every week. I’m much more positive about wrestling now than I was in that first week of 2016, because even my hunt-and-peck approach has caused me to see a good variety of companies, catch lots of new workers for the first time, and enjoy the ongoing footage revolution more proactively. In ten years time, 2016 would (will?) make for a perfectly solid Yearbook, with gems all over the world. The twists and turns of who’s working where alone have made 2016 a compelling year, and those shifts have produced some fantastic matches. We had that other thread where we made 2016 predictions at the start of the year. Did anyone guess that in the first half we’d have Styles and Nakamura come to WWE and shake up everything, a new brand split causing a sudden raid of the indies complete with WWE putting on a fully blown international cruiserweight tournament, the WWE-EVOLVE union, Panteras vs. Navarros, the renaissances of Samoa Joe and Shibata, “Das Wunderkind” Matt Riddle, Anderson and Gallows going from being my least favorite team to one of the best, Galloway’s continued rise as wrestling’s Jon Stark, WOTY contenders Chris Hero and Hechicero, numerous MOTYC from CMLL, Naito inexplicably becoming a fun heel with a great faction, Lucha Underground improving, and a very intriguing crop of young/new guys (Yehi, Tracy Williams, Lio Rush, Darby Allin, the sons of Blue Panther and Felino, Team Tremendous, etc)? Because the death of kayfabe was mentioned: I truly don’t understand why more companies/workers don’t work harder at preserving it. There seems to be this “You can’t put the genie back in the bottle” idea that justifies even guys in EVOLVE and Lucha Underground doing a bunch of nudge-nudge fourth wall breaking idiocy that would have gotten Russo fired again from TNA. Workers seem so afraid right now to look dumber than the fans, without understanding that if you’re a compelling character, no one’s going to join in with the one mark in the third row making fun of your vest and chanting “You fucked up.” You could maintain kayfabe today with Bill Watts-level scrutiny, yet still do genuinely funny comedy and remain entirely sports-minded, as evidenced by pretty much every wrestling company pre-1991. Re: all that, one thing I still stand behind six months later is that fans would love a company booked like mid-to-late 80s WWF right now. Especially if you had better workers. On a good day, that’s kind of what NXT is, but not often. You’d need better skits, more non-wrestling entities, more character. I’ve said as much during the GWE polling, but I think even with work-class technicians and other straight-laced workers, we underestimate how much persona and character play into what we consider a “great match”.

107) Yuki Ishikawa/Keita Yano vs. Manabu Hara/Sanshu Tsubakichi (Kenji Takeshima Produce, 3/26) Yano’s aesthetic transformation in the last five years is unreal. He’s gone from being a blonde shoot-style waif in mermaid gear to a guy simultaneously wearing a Latino World Order t-shirt, a Mexican-flag colored Sting/Venom bodysuit under it, Heath Ledger joker makeup, CMLL Rush’s hair, Nakamura’s mannerisms, Union Jack tights, and furry neon pink Bruiser Brody boots. That’s the most number of gimmicks I’ve seen on one person at one time, like some Carrot Top of Japanese grapplefuck. There are many violent acts committed in the first couple minutes of this, but I forgot that perhaps the most vicious move in Ishikawa’s arsenal is his headlock. It’s unreal, but this guy applies resthold headlocks with more ferocity than most guys use to hit their title-winning finisher. Tsubakichi and Yano looked horrible here, blowing basic kicks, unintentionally falling out of the ring, bad matwork, and other measures that make it seem like Yano might be adding Jeff Hardy’s pharma to his goth gimmick box. Hara has some good stuff from his BattlARTS/Big Mouth Loud days that he shows off, but this is a mess and only Ishikawa emerges as great. Telling of the current state in Japan that you get these matches with legendary greats working against guys who seem totally clueless. 22) Drew Gulak vs Timothy Thatcher (PWG “Lemmy”, 1/2) Really liked the dual attempts at leg sweeps here. Gulak was solid, but Thatcher was the standout as this was the best and most comfortable match I’ve seen him in all year. Whereas he’s almost looked frustrated and out of sorts as EVOLVE champ, this was his home turf and his holds looked a lot better and more sensible. This also had some humorous oneupsmanship in the chops on the mat and springing wildly into holds that gave it a cool “Kill the Rabbit” vibe. For people who want a little more pro wrestling in their indie grappling, this has enough suplexes, piledrivers, and dropkicks to keep you interested. 93) Sami Callahan vs. Trevor Lee (PWG “Lemmy”, 1/2) Callahan’s lost a step for me this year, as the awesome EVOLVE tag tournament match he had is the only performance of his that I’ve loved. This has admirable fire, but Lee’s not enough of an opponent. I’m also not that interested in the story of “Better Known/More Experienced guy tortures Young Upstart with 3 Dozen Finishers”, and that’s too much of what Callahan has been of late. But horror movies almost never work for me either, so your mileage may vary. 17) Drew Galloway vs. Jack Evans (PWG “Lemmy”, 1/2) Galloway as singles King of the Indies continues to be great fun. I won’t spoil the opening spot of this, but it is so fun, smart, well-executed, and emblematic of the two characters involved that it speaks to the knowledge both guys have accrued over the years. Evans deserves to be in the conversation for Most Improved of the year. He’s got this and his Lucha Underground work, and in both manages to combine the acrobatics he’s always had with a savvy character. The intimacy of this match really gets over the Reseda crowd: this might as well be an old rec room bill of the Germs, X, or the Minutemen, for all the noble flab sweat and enthusiasm. Galloway is too much of a juggernaut beast for Evans. Initially, he overpowers. But like Mysterio or the other great cruiserweights vs. big man moments, Evans is able to find hope spots wherein he can catch the brute and hit a daredevil dive. His advantage is a capacity for risk. His chance is set upon how fast and precisely he can become a projectile. The bumps from both guys are truly amazing, in a way that reminds you of what wrestlers can achieve. 74) Meiko Satomura vs. Syuri (Sendai Girls, 3/11) Some “Your turn, my turn” moments: they’re telegraphing strikes in a way that’s either calculated or transparent depending on how you see it. But the strikes are also damn strong, and Satomura gives so much in the process. You’ll tune out at times because it’s almost too much of an exhibition, but sporadically there’s an enziguri or big kick that really works. It’s all well-performed, but I do have to ask: is anyone in modern Japan ever put over? Are we at the point where we’ve now seen a lot of mediocre young lions fall by the wayside? 102) Colt Cabana vs. Kimber Lee (Beyond Wrestling, 4/24) Gender is over (if you want it). Time and space are shifting. Good (albeit very unusual) match. The thing about this and matches like it is that there is absolutely a political lesson in place, and that if you view life as a TV dinner wherein your politics and your wrestling should never touch, you may have a problem. But “They put the flag on the Cowboy” is a lesson. The Briscoes wearing Confederate flags in the Hammerstein Ballroom is a lesson. The Gangstas in SMW is a lesson. So to pretend that this is somehow new territory is wrong. This takes some interesting twists and turns, all of it pure circus. Chief problem with the match: Kimber Lee doesn’t always carry her weight, which gives fodder to Affirmative Action trolls. Yes: her deadlift suplexing Cabana looks a tad far-fetched. Her crucial tope and cross body spots are terrible, to the point that almost any woman currently wrestling on TV could hit them better. But her big strikes look good. Lee shows up in the final 30 seconds of the match, but this is ultimately a Cabana carry job. “Cabana carry job” being a phrase that will make many on this board cringe. But damned if the dude doesn’t pull out all the carny stops to put her over.

49) Rey Escorpion vs. Caristico (CMLL, 6/6) Escorpion was an awesome base in the first fall, and honestly Caristico’s pretty charismatic as fired-up technico. The first two falls are so ridiculously brief that it feels truly silly to indulge the format. The mask ripping and wild dives to the floor make this feel like a truly brutal main event, even with Caristico’s usual kayfabe-killer showboating. Escorpion in comparison looks like a maniac in the suicide dives he’s willing to execute. 126) Jun Akiyama vs. LEONA (Fortune Dream III, 6/14) Fujinamicito has enough of a pedigree that he’s presented as Akiyama’s equal despite having a soft Scott Baio vibe. Like the Nomura match below, I was disappointed not in Akiyama but by his opponent. Leona seemed very run-of-the-mill, which is a bad look if you’re Dad’s a top 5 all-timer. Just ten minutes by the numbers that never had genuine heat. 25) Ultimo Guerrero vs. Valiente [NWA World Middleweight Title] (CMLL, 6/17) I am a guy who will continue to list every meaningless title that’s on the line in every lucha match. This starts with the CMLL Nitro Chicas doing the same wavy-arms dance move for two minutes straight until Valiente finally enters. Kind of “Walk Like an Egyptian”, which feels apt as he’s decked out in gold King Tut gear. If you’ll indulge one more aside: there’s a weird thing that’s happened in the last 18 months or so where CMLL now looks like more of a professional sports product than WWE. Whoever’s filming it actually watches sports, and the dark arena actually makes it look more credible, even if they’re hiding the crowd. This starts with some legwork on the mat that I could see some folks dismissing as unrealistic in that lucha manner, but the theatrics of it all worked for me and it felt like them trying to put on a smart showcase of old-school holds. They could have cinched in more, but they had the right ideas: this is really the result of Valiente having to move UG into position at times and carry the baggage in moments when Ultimo’s dead-weighting him and looking a bit gassed. But even that works in the story they end up telling, as this is a bit like a latter-day Flair or Hogan match wherein a capable younger guy gets something from the megastar, and vice versa. The story becomes whether the megastar can hang with the credible worker, and UG gets in some good spots, as essentially better versions of an Undertaker tope onto Shawn Michaels. Both guys deserve a lot of credit for the bumps they took in the third fall: there is some serious barrel-chested aerial offense going on here: two miniature Hemingways colliding at top speed. I loved that these were dives that felt like two aging vets trying to do maximum damage rather than some elaborate Cirque de Soleil. By not looking pretty, it looks deadly. The Valiente Special remains perhaps the best and most underrated move in wrestling today, and Guerrero has some really brutal headdrop stuff of his own in which he’s just killing his opponent with draping power bombs and the like in the corner. There is also a moment near the end when Valiante hits Guerrero with a move you’d seen before, but never with the KO force that is shown here. This also achieves a truly earned finish that both happens abruptly yet feels decisive and worthy. This was the lucha equivalent of two guys trying to have a Wrestlemania match, complete with all of the bombast, but the result was shockingly good. 98) Guerrero Maya, Jr./The Panther vs. Arkangel de la Muerte/Virus [Arena Coliseo Tag Championship] (PROESA, 6/18) Where are the promoters even getting all these belts? Are they just the same belt renamed contextually? Are they pewter? Either way, this is a brilliant dream match pairing and we’re lucky to have CubsFan in these moments. Let the record show that pyro that is both pretty low-rent and also gigantic goes off at the top of this match. Really the whole match is wonderfully indie and wouldn’t look out of place on a 2003 Jersey All Pro tape, or one of those tight rec-room Jamie Dundee matches that ends in the crowd turning on him. The opening Virus-Panther exchange is unfortunately tedious. This improves a lot with Arkangel and Maya doing a bunch of sneaky, zealous theater of the absurd. Their shtick and brawling into the seats is a lot more interesting than Virus teaching Panther how to work the elbow, to be honest. This felt lethargic at times, but given the sheer number of matches these guys seem to be working on tape nowadays, they can’t all be gems. The last three minutes were pretty solid as you get a wild tope and some shades of Satanico out of Virus, but this one never kicked into top gear. 136) Jun Akiyama vs. Naoya Nomura (AJPW, 6/19) Dull. Always good to see Akiyama, but he’s phoning it in against a weak opponent. Nomura seems to be going for the good kind of Taue/Ogawa awkwardness, but it’s more of a genuinely bad awkwardness. To his credit Nomura does take a ridiculously stiff beating of knees and suplexes, but the takeaway feels more like one of those uneventful rookie-sadism matches that fill out Japanese cards. A skippable Akiyama match is unfortunate, but there you go.

One thing I think of when reading this thread is: your tastes are largely defined by the company you keep, or as a product of your environment. If my entire experience of wrestling (esp. fan communities) was Reddit and Meltzer, then I'd likely think Tanahashi was better than Cena too. To that end, lucky break that I (we?) got exposed to DVDVR/Wrestling KO/Segunda Caida early on.

Just bought NXT: Brooklyn tickets. Last year's was one of the best shows I've ever been to, esp. in terms of crowd reactions, but it'll be interesting to see who's even in NXT on August 20th.

152) Shockercito/Último Dragóncito vs. Pequeño Olímpico/Pequeño Violencia (CMLL, 6/3) This minis division has sucked for a while: I’m not sure what happened to all the guys who used to be great here (Bam Bam, Demus, Pequeno Pierroth, etc.). Olimpico seems too big to even be working here, but he does get in a good faceplant slam on Dragoncito. Shockercito does some bad posing and headstands while Ultimo does all the work. Not horrible, but a lot of awkward high-flying that feels way too rigid and telegraphed. 20) CIMA/Gamma/Peter Kaasa vs. Genki Horiguchi/Kagetora/Ryo Saito (Dragon Gate, 6/2) This only goes six and a half minutes, but I wanted to check it out to see what Kaasa - one of the most intriguing guys in America right now - is up to there. CIMA hits an insane tope a minute in, Horiguchi’s new act as a Macho Man tribute is a lot better than Jay Lethal’s, and everyone else admirably runs around like mad men. Not sure where this fits into the contrarian rubric, but it does feel like a lot of us are coming around to Dragon Gate, or at least entertaining the possibility that it could be good again. This stuff is way, way more fun than the Shingo/Doi/YAMATO-dominated era of '06 and beyond when this company was a wasteland, and is more reminiscent of the madcap laughs that early DG and Toryumon brought. This is lucharesu through and through, complete with muscle-freak Kaasa as the spoiler throwing dudes around and doing kip ups. Unlike the worst of DG, there’s nothing dumb or disbelief-upending here. Even the goofiest stuff here remains coherent, and the team dynamic works beautifully. Best of all, Kaasa gets a pretty staggeringly great showcase where he looks like the prodigal gaijin son who can Make Japan Great Again. His offense is spectacular, and he works with these opponents in a way that suggests he intrinsically gets it. It’s odd to say a match this short is one of the best of the year, but if anything it just makes me want to watch more DG to see if this is the exception or the rule.

The pictures of #1 Paul Jones and Ashura Hara’s “I’m Feelin’ Horny” shirt are worth the price of admission. Also cannot believe I wasn’t the high vote on Los Traumas, or that I was the high vote on Jumbo/Yatsu. I also regret not voting for Chavo and Hector, especially after their amazing photo.

People can read my actual review of this in the Viaje del Parties thread, but this is an odd match for people to get up in arms about. It's clearly the high-profile, polarizing nature of the NJ Juniors scene at work, and the previously stated oddness of the whole GIF/Vader/Twitter dust-up. As someone who's watched a good amount of recent Ricochet and Ospreay, none of this feels surprising or offensive. The match is in fact an improvement on recent Ricochet that I've seen live and on tape. Lucha Underground has helped him along, as he was a guy I dreaded seeing back when he was working Uhaa Nation and the like in DGUSA. It's a huge, huge improvement over Ospreay-Sabre Jr. (EVOLVE) and Ospreay-Skuril (RPW), two highly acclaimed matches that I think are two of the worst I've seen all year. Those were selling-free, self-indulgent, kayfabe-killing misfires. Those felt like the work of immature wrestlers whose physiques exceed their brains. This was not nearly as bad as those, and felt better worked (in selling, strikes, and atmosphere) than their Mania weekend match. People who think there was no selling or storytelling here are watching something different from what I saw. There are indulgent moments for sure (Ricochet in particular couldn't himself toward the end of the match, hitting a bunch of superfluous flips and head drops), but this is still in the top half of all matches I've watched/written about this year. The most controversial thing I can say about the match is that it doesn't feel all that controversial. I don't like star ratings, but if I used them I'd give this... three stars? Maybe three and a half if feeling generous? It's an entertaining novelty that I'll probably never watch again. In my ongoing rankings, it's the 69th best match I've seen this year. There's a mutual masturbation joke in there somewhere, but I'll let you be the one to find it.

58) Chavo Guerrero vs. Cage [Gift of the Gods Title] (Lucha Underground, 5/25) Smart little match that made both guys look good. Chavito’s always been underrated as a wily gatekeeper vet who helps guys establish themselves. Look at his matches with Danielson and Sydal early in their WWE runs. This is his most high-profile match in about a decade, and he delivers doing simple heeling and cheating that would make Chavo Classic proud. Cage looks like the juggernaut that they want him to be, and wow is he over with this crowd. The power offense here is remarkable, and I liked Chavo working constant defense to try to minimize the blows and try to counter with things like the failed bicycle kick. The Michinoku Driver here is one of the most brutal moves I’ve seen on TV in a while. 36) Rey Mysterio/Prince Puma/Dragon Azteca vs. Johnny Mundo/Jack Evans/P.J. Black (Lucha Underground, 5/25) You can really see here the difference made by LU’s choice to create a hyped-up studio environment and acknowledge its fans. It makes the workers - especially the technicos - feel like much bigger stars. Parts of the Azteca-Evans opening were sloppy, but that’s to be expected and Evans felt like his old self: an insane bumper and one of the more charismatic guys in the business. There were shades of early 90s Shawn Michaels in him here, in a good way, as he’s making spectacular leaps across the ring to break up pins, arguing with the ref, and looking better than he has in many years. The action was so fast and fun and athletically impressive here that you can forgive the overkill. (More on this topic later with Ricochet-Ospreay.) In a match like this, you see what a smart Moneyball team the LU roster is. You have all these WWE rejects mixed with aging journeymen, some indie scum guys with drug problems, and a handful of really young talents who are gonna get picked up by the Stamford Yankees in due time. But for now it’s a great mix that makes guys who aren’t compelling on their own into something really fun. It feels like a lot of these one-time “movez” guys have developed a wiser sense of psychology and match structure while remaining true to their aerial instincts. 69) Ricochet vs. Will Ospreay (NJPW, 5/27) First off, I loved the entrances and pre-match buildup of this. The crowd’s response and how it helped the early action never felt forced or awkward. The start of this match also shows that you can’t teach swag. Whereas this stuff might have looked lame coming in a meaningless match between two scrubs, there’s a star power aspect that makes the flips and counters feel like two pros reacting to each other in real time rather than some void Cirque de Soleil idiocy. If anything, this illustrates why you can’t judge a match by some out-of-context GIF. Ospreay’s a guy I’ve strongly disliked this year, in large part because I’ve found him so void of charisma, but he is clearly starting to pick up good qualities in that regard. He felt much more confident and entertaining here, as though he’s had to do some growing up at 23 that he wouldn’t have achieved without this push. Compare him here to how immature and impotent someone like Kenny Omega looks most of the time. My problem with overly-elaborate spotfests is wasted motion. Setting up needlessly complex stuff that in a fight would be not nearly as effective as simply punching or slamming your opponent. So I liked that in between giant spots here, both guys took the time to also just sporadically kick each other really hard. They took advantage of opportunities in sensible moments. You still get some excess (see: Ricochet somersaulting his way into DDTs for no justifiable reason), but there’s so much solid submission work and selling throughout that you can forgive their sillier indulgences. Even if elaborate, they both worked to put over each other’s moves as violent and purposeful, as with Ricochet hitting a gigantic backbreaker that Ospreay sells like he’s been shot. The last five minutes are where it starts to fall apart and you get a lot of the standard Ricochet overkill. Shooting starring his way into quick two-counts, too many head drops, his poor selling, etc. Ospreay whiffs a kick. But those are small grievances in an overall good enough match. Not one of my favorites of the year, but fun stuff. In an NBA Finals week, you can buy into a spectacle of two megastars in a tournament doing some over-the-top stuff to get over a rivalry of agility and showmanship.

One effect of this is that in hindsight it makes Reigns-Lesnar look even cooler, and makes the Taker-Lesnar stuff look dumber.

The shot in the arm that Japan badly needs right now. Togo-Akiyama is the dream match, but Togo's shown he can have MOTYCs with any given indie scrub, so he doesn't even need elite opponents to make a big impact. Great news, IMO.

20) Aja Kong vs. Chihiro Hashimoto (Sendai Girls, 1/9) I’ll cop to having seen shamefully little Aja over the years, and having not enjoyed many of her performances that I have seen. This is a really cool flavor where she’s a veteran working evenly against a young shooter, which gives this an appealing Vader-in-UWFi vibe. (Do other people like Vader in UWFi? No idea.) Hashimoto - a small tank whose legs would be compared to two glorious jamon ibericos were this a Dean Rasmussen review - excels throughout. Rather than squashing Hashimoto (as Kong seems to do to a lot of her opponents), this is more evenly worked and better for it. There’s some matwork early in which accomplished ground game worker Hashimoto is working bridges and headstand spots in order to try to get a grip on Kong. The result feels like a really good shoot stylist trying to apply holds to a refrigerator. And I mean that as a compliment. The strikes here are also BattlARTS great: Hashimoto teeing off to throw vicious roundhouse slaps, Kong punching and kicking Hashimoto like a swatting grizzly bear. I’ve disliked Kong’s reliance on weapons in the past, but the deathblow here is really sudden and well done. Check it out!

116) Detective Joey Ryan vs. Mascarita Sagrada (Lucha Underground, 5/25) On one hand, it’s really dumb that LU does matches like this. On the other, this was fun, even in its absolute demolition of kayfabe. 77) HHH/Kevin Owens vs. Dean Ambrose/Sami Zayn [Handheld] (Paris Accorhotels, 4/22) Faces! Heels! Strange how effective these outdated concepts appear to be when put into motion. Here, the the future owner of their company has the sort of simple, old-school match that vastly exceeds his Wrestlemania main event, and which Vince and Dunn have spent fifteen years actively removing from television. I may be overrating this for its novelty as it never really kicks into top gear, but it’s so close to what WWE can be at its best that I won’t bother going into my usual soapbox spiel. 35) Los Panteras vs. Los Terrible Cerebros (IWRG, 4/13) I can’t believe I missed this when it first dropped, but such is the cubsfan goldmine. Black Terry’s been at times depressing this year: he’s suddenly become an old man with a bad mustache who has to wear a t-shirt in the ring and no longer works at the level of his 2008-2011 glory. But he’s also a mercurial one, in that even within a single match, he’ll alternate between looking lousy and brilliant. His matwork with El Pantera that kicks this off is weak and uninspired. But then this transitions into smooth chain wrestling between Pantera Primera and Dr. Cerebro. This then gets way better once the Cerebros are on offense as Terry still knows how to tear someone’s arm off at the elbow. All of the Cerebros transform into knee-stomping, mocking, finger-bending, teeth-kicking heels, and there’s a lot of great Southern tag formula here in the way the ref is utilized as both blessing and thorn in the sides of the Panteras. This has fantastic back-and-forth momentum as just when the technicos seem to be on a roll, you get something like Dr. Cerebro hitting a textbook springboard dropkick that completely cuts them back down.

Styles-Cena showdown was awesome, and putting it on directly at OKC-GSW halftime was well done.

Hey people on here who purport to have insider WWE sources: can you elaborate on why we're getting Charlotte's Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic frontrunner for the second year in a row? Is this whole angle a means of punishing Ric for his HOF speech/airport incident? There's also this weird tinge they're now throwing into it where you have Ziggler saying she was kinda in the right and that it's time for the "old generation" to step aside, but that just seems like more of the New Era stuff of recent weeks. With the understanding that Ziggler's entering his eighth year as a midcarder, and that this "old generation" doesn't include Taker, Hunter, Brock, Big Show, Jericho, Goldust, or the McMahons. So basically just Flair and Mark Henry then.

I don't watch week-to-week, so sorry if this is common knowledge, but what's with Vampiro on this show? In Meltzer's recaps of previous weeks, he talks about how the character arc is that he's gone crazy and has been torturing Pentagon Black in a sensei role to toughen him up for an eventual Matanza showdown. This week's show opens with the two of them talking and Vampiro in his old makeup, looking like Colonel Kurtz. Then ten seconds later, the camera cuts to the announce booth and he's sitting there sans makeup with Striker, back in his Drew Carey glasses playing with his phone as if nothing we just saw ever happened. Is it supposed to be that he's both at once? Or just a weird editing choice that they don't explain?

102) The Miz vs. Cesaro vs. Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn [intercontinental Title] (Extreme Rules, 5/25) Beginning of this wasn’t great: I agree with the post-show podcast idea that Zayn hasn’t actually been that good on the main roster, so him and Cesaro starting together looked telegraphed at times (particularly Cesaro having to pause hunched over in the Sunset Flip stance for way too long). They’re doing a ton of the usual multi-man spots that take too long to set up. So much stuff where guys have to stand in an awkward position while visibly calling spots, waiting for the third or fourth guy to come slam them. The Zayn-Owens segments are particularly boring and awkward. It’s remarkable how they’re building this whole match around Cesaro. Displays of his talent, his charisma, his capacity as a ring general guiding the rest. The final 2.9 kickouts with Cesaro and Zayn are good insofar as they’re working hard, but there’s an element of this that feels too post-Kayfabe. Unlike a Reigns-Styles, you never believe either guy’s trying to win a match. These are friends going through spots, making each other look good. This is anything but a fight. I think the major reason why people have liked Miz in this feud and have responded to his act is that he’s a different flavor, whereas Owens and Zayn and even Cesaro blend into each other in some ways. Miz is a true blue heel getting heat. In a strange way, this is Miz doing the Ric Flair title defense. It’s a match built around making everyone else look good, but he takes the win in a manner that is at once disputed, yet generous, while establishing him at the top of the hierarchy. Will be interesting to see who lands where in the Draft: I worry we may be getting Cesaro as the new and improved Ziggler on RAW. 84) Chris Jericho vs. Dean Ambrose [Asylum Match] (Extreme Rules, 5/25) Terry Funk help me and keep me: I didn’t think this was that bad. In fact, it was kind of good. Jericho works like a chickenshit heel. That said, he’s still Jericho. He’s still gonna trip over his own two feet and put his hands up four feet from his face when getting thrown against cage walls. But he did some things right here, and I think we have to be fair to him when he does. I liked his glam take on bunkhouse attire as a form of mild self-parody. I enjoyed that he sold fear in his entrance and got over the cage and weapons as a dangerous spectacle. As for Ambrose: part of the disappointment in him comes from this idea that he could be Austin, or could have been. Two years ago I thought that was a possibility (albeit very distant, esp. with that Alkaline Trio haircut). This match and the Brock debacle before it show what WWE is now booking him to be: their new Mick Foley. And all things considered, that might be a fairer, more realistic role for him. They think naming the houseplant and mops and straight jackets are a means toward writing quality Mick Foley comedy. It’s just another instance of 1998 recalled through the scattered mind of 2016 Vince. As for that mop being the first thing they use: what, do you want them to go for heavy artillery first? It had to build. The use of weapons actually struck me as well done in an FMW sort of way: a mix of comedy, lunacy, and stiff shots. I’d rather watch something that’s humorously weird or even bad than something that’s technically fine but dull as that IC Title 4-way was. I had more problems with Ambrose’s spotty approach to bump-taking than I did to anything Jericho did here. Like, the bump Heath Slater took into a sheet cake on RAW this week was a 100x better than any bump Ambrose took here. The match was probably a bit too long, but this didn’t feel as bloated as Styles-Jericho at Mania, even if Styles is the better worker. Because this was Jericho working to his present capacity (closer to a veteran using blood at the end of their career) than trying to work up to Styles’. Plus you get Jericho doing the Funk shakes at the end. Most matches on Mania this year were worse than this, including the main event. 136) Charlotte vs. Natalya [Women’s Title] (Extreme Rules, 5/25) Kind of a nothing match: short stuff leading to a cheap distraction finish. The matwork was boring and aside from a technically impressive moonsault from Charlotte, there’s nothing here that I’ll even remember a week from now. But I will say that by far the highlight of this match was Dana Brooke, who’s become really entertaining and a truly fun heel. I don’t think she’s particularly good in the ring, but you could see from her work with Flair here that she’s one of these dynamo types who are up for anything and will put over badly-scripted nonsense that they’re given, which is perhaps the best career asset one can have there. I understood for the first time watching this why they’re so high on her. 10) Roman Reigns vs. A.J. Styles [World Heavyweight Title] (Extreme Rules, 5/25) Who’s the heel here again? Early on I liked this, but wondered if it was even as good as the Payback match. Somewhere around Styles teasing a piledriver on the exposed concrete floor - and the crazy table bump he then took - I started wondering if Styles really is what people think Shawn Michaels was. A spectacularly agile, highspots-plus-psychology junior heavyweight ace who's been top notch for 15 years and counting. If nothing else, he’s Walt Disney’s “Shawn of the South.” But I liked the finish of this in the ring more than the hardcore spots. The exchange of big moves and near falls is where they excel, and between the Styles Clash and other key moments, Styles managed to make me think he could win this even when I knew he wouldn’t. Tremendous outing that as others have said is the most textbook outing of what Styles can be, and perhaps even a career-changing match for these two guys by having it at exactly the right time.