NotJayTabb

Ah sorry guys, I've been away the past week, didn't spot that we were restarting last week. If I can be included on the next shuffle, I promise I'll be more on the ball

I think comparing KO to Val is downplaying Owens a bit. He's a former world champion and has been an upper card player for his entire run. Yes he lost to Kofi, but Kofi is the world champion and is getting a good run with the belt. Plus KO has just turned face, and the pushed face always outsmarts the heel. Here, Dolph was caught unawares by a Stunner, which is a death move in WWE canon - and the pushed face won.

Enjoyed this at Christmas, I'll hop back in

Tom Phillips and Vic Joseph are comfortably the best play by play guys in the company because they just quietly and competently get on with it. They also give the colour commentary room to breathe- it's notable how much better Nigel is when paired with Vic than with the aural anthrax that is Mauro Ranallo.

It's been such a good story, loved their section in the Infinite Gauntlet, where Dasher wanted to teach his son a lesson in the ring, but every time another entrant got in, the Hatfield's took them straight out. Boomer's post match promo was great, and the mask vs mask was excellent. All this, plus the ladder match with Mr Touchdown at the Mania weekend show, had Dasher surprisingly high in my WOTY list, but Drew Gulak has been awesome this year.

Match of the Year - Matt Riddle vs Roderick Strong (NXT Takeover XXV) Major Show - CHIKARA The Infinity Gauntlet 2019 Promotion - NXT (assuming I can't pick 205 Live as a promotion) Interviews - Daniel Bryan Feud - Dasher Hatfield vs Boomer Hatfield (CHIKARA) Most Improved - Kris Statlander Wrestler of the Year - Drew Gulak

The head trainer is, or at least was, Yuki Ishikawa, so possibly quite good.

As I recall, Cornette said he didn't want to be a hypocrite by slamming Omega and the Bucks, then making money by piggy-backing off their event. Like Vince Russo was going to do, before Cody had him kicked out.

TBF, the crowd was hot for last nights show. A bit quiet at the start of Jack/Gable, but they soon got into it, and the main event got over huge, with "205" chants busting through. There may not be many size differences to the main roster, but something about the show feels fresh in comparison, the wrestlers felt like they were going all out and were given time to do so.

Absolutely, Chad Gable vs Jack Gallagher was just terrific. Some lovely matwork to kick off, before Gable unleashed some beautiful suplexes and Gallagher laid in some big bombs of his own. Good to see both guys get some time to work with, would happily see the two paired up again.

Goldberg hitting a shoot brainbuster on Taker probably wasnt in the planned match.

I think that was the crux of his NXT gimmick, terrifying monster in the ring, but calmly and politely talking to "Mr Regal" in the back I loved it when Mike Knox had a similar gimmick. One time he came to the ring and just destroyed Rey. He goes backstage and gets stopped by an interviewer asking why he hates Rey Mysterio, where you'd expect an angry, raging promo. Knox stops, looks puzzled and calmly says "I don't hate Rey Mysterio" and walks off. That was great stuff.

Obviously comparing football to wrestling is like comparing apples to oranges, but Tony Khan's stewardship of Fulham is not the example to be looking at. They were a freshly promoted, promising team when he decided to become more 'hands-on'. In the following 12 months they spent £100m on transfers, went through three managers in a season, were comfortably relegated with a month left of the season and Fulham fans dislike him so much that he was trolled into an embarrassing public tantrum on Twitter over a clearly photoshopped flag proclaiming "Tony Khan wanks dogs". Not saying this will have any bearing on his running of AEW, and he seems to be hiring wisely with experienced heads, but I would be loathe to use "runs a large-ish football team" as proof of his acumen.

Thomas Santell was one of the Heartbreakers, right? I love the fact you never know in wrestling who is going to get a late career reinvention

I think it's a fun idea. Gives TV time till guys who would otherwise only appear on Main Event, and if one or two of them make themselves stand out in the process, then it's worth it. A little bit of chaos to liven up the shows. Plus those guys who are more creative can use this as a vehicle- already Drake Maverick is on Twitter, shooting videos hunting down R-Truth for the belt

If it is suicide, that's terribly sad and really hammers home that you never know what's going on in people's lives. Her last tweet from a day ago was a cheery message about sending out some fan mail, while Bull James tweeted that she'd been training for a wrestling comeback and, in his words, was SO excited about it. RIP

Just before the chest bump, when Bret has Magee in the opposite corner, you can see him nod his head as Bret gives him instructions too. It was nice to get Magee as part of the documentary, he seemed like a nice guy.

I think it's mainly because she's been wrestling for years, but still makes Peyton Royce look like Meiko Satomura.

Apparently the actual reason Andrade got moved back is because Fox want someone to appeal to a Latino audience when the show moves over. Which meant Zelina Vega moved back, in turn bringing Aleister Black for the ride.

Dasher/Touchdown is my match of the weekend so far. Apparently only the third ladder match in Chikara history, which is pretty impressive for a 17yr old promotion. They built to the big payoff spot nicely, and everything made sense. Really good. The whole Chikara show was really good TBH, really enjoyed it. The Orange Cassidy show was a hoot. I'm not a huge fan of comedy wrestling, but in this case I went in knowing it was going to be goofy, and if you're going to be goofy, at least be entertaining with it (a lesson Joey Ryan could stand to learn), and this was really fun. The scramble match was a legit good spotfest tho, and the UMB/Gage Christmas death match was really fun.

So Bully Ray has apparently gotten some power in creative, which explains why they marked their MSG debut by introducing Enzo, Cass and the lesser workers from the Beautiful People.

WWE is a global brand though, whereas while I'm aware of SNL, it has no visibility in the UK, and I suspect that's true for the rest of the world.

Amused by the idea of AJ "carrying" Orton, given that his Mania matches against Jericho, Shane and Nakamura have hardly set the world alight. Certainly nothing as good as Orton dragging a decent match out of Rollins. I have no doubt the AJ/Orton match will be very good - I saw them pair up in a house show three-way that was great whenever Jinder wasn't involved - but I think Orton will be an equally important factor in it being good.

Gene Munny Nia. Jax Beano Chris Dickinson Cara Noir

At this point, Seth is probably the member of the Shield the audience is least excited about getting into the match. Roman is having his first match back from cancer, there's happiness that Dean has returned to the side of his Shield brethren after a terrible heel run, whilst Seth is just there.