NotJayTabb

Both HHH and Ziggler had a spell where they used a sleeper as their secondary finisher

Based on Tim Evans's most recent posts, he seems to have seen a load of different wrestling, but especially a lot of indy wrestling. I'm pretty sure he won't have seen this, one of my favourite matches I've seen live. Featuring a tiny teenage Tyler Bate

I think you pretty much enjoyed it for the reasons I chose it: namely seeing poor Geraint Clewd get massacred and the huge reaction Bandito gets from the crowd. I loved his autobiography too, his blind faith in Mason Ryan made me a fan to the extent that Ryan is one of only two wrestlers I've paid to have a photo taken with at a show. Catching up with my reviews with the UWA 6-man that Jetlag chose for me. I'm an amateur when it comes to lucha, I'm still in that stage where I find some of it a bit choreographed and difficult to get to grips with, but on the other hand I adore the likes of Casas and Santo. I found this match really easy to sit though, there was a grace and fluidity of movement that belied some of the athletes involved - I know that Super Porky is a robust guy, but the other Brazos aren't exactly svelte, yet they move around so nicely. I loved how excited the commentators seemed to get when Porky was in the ring, uttering his name repeatedly. I really liked how wrestlers seemed to be able to find a takeover or a reversal from anywhere, often arms are getting hooked suddenly into an armdrag, and the dive train rightly ends with the bulk of Porky flying though the ropes. Really neat match that reaffirms that I need to watch more lucha - looking forward to the match Matt D chose me last week.

I haven't. I don't watch anywhere near as much lucha as I intend to, so I'm excited about this.

I'm currently on holiday, so will review the lucha six man from last week in the next day or two when I get home. In the meantime, here's my match for Matt D, some 1987 Reslo.

This is the match Boss Rock chose for me in week one https://rutube.ru/video/630a7005c6882e692f3454ef3b9d5f00/ Fuminori Abe vs Takuya Nomura - BJPW I went into this knowing nothing about either guy, and not really knowing what to expect, bar Boss Rock describing it as a hard hitting sprint. I came out of it really impressed with both men, but especially with Abe. He not only looked good offensively, but I thought his selling was really on point too. There's a point in this about 5 minutes in, where they've mostly been working each other on the mat, wearing the other down, when suddenly Nomura hits him with a slap and a couple of big kicks, and Abe just crumples to the mat. It feels like a really big moment, the sudden burst of violence after how evenly match they seemed on the mat, and Abe's selling really puts over how rocked he is. There's another moment later on where Nomura catches a kick to the head and uses the leg to yank Abe to the mat, holding a kind of backwards single leg crab, and Abe is frantic, clawing at the ref and trying to fight off his need to tap out, and again it makes it feel like a big moment. The match story is simple but effective, as they work evenly at the start to try create openings to throw bigger bombs, with a hurt leg slowing the opponent down just enough to sneak in a kick. As the match wears on, both men look less steady on their feet, which makes them throw big strikes more readily, with the opponent less likely to stop it. Both men sell the effects of the fight throughout, and by the time we get to the final submission, it feels right, it's come at the right time. A ten minute sprint is perfect for this type of match, going much longer wouldn't be credible. Really enjoyed this.

That was always going to be the danger with that match. At least I was right in thinking it was a match you'd enjoy. I'll swap it with this one, pretty good chance you won't have seen it previously.

I checked out Microstatistics's Greatest Match Ever list, and saw Bret/Owen was top 5 and Bret/Bulldog was in there too. There's a decent chance you'll already have seen this, but it's a good bedfellow to those two matches.

Maybe I've got a weakness for mouth guard wearing wrestlers, but I've got Shayna Baszler and Pete Dunne battling for the top spot. Both have kept knocking out good match after good match all year, working a convincing level of stiffness without letting their matches go into overkill (we'll ignore Wargames for Pete). They're the two wrestlers I'll go out of my way to see.

I remember thinking, up until the Alexa Bliss interference, that Nia/Rousey was very good, pretty hard hitting.

Almas/Gargano still feels pretty untouchable to me. It's been top of my list all year and hasn't come close to moving. Special mention to Fred Yehi vs Cain Justice from the first Action Wrestling show. Just a beautifully worked match

"MAMMA F'ING MIA' Yeah, Mauro is just the worst, a man who manages to take me out of the matches by shoehorning in terrible references or yelling like a lunatic. Really makes me appreciate just how good the NXT pairing of Phillips and Graves were, they had an easy chemistry, told the match stories nicely and got excited at the right times.

Nia's wild punch was definitely reckless and should receive some punishment, but people on Twitter calling for her immediate sacking is a bit much. Seth Rollins managed to injure the Universal champion, cave in the nose of the company's biggest star and end Sting's career, and didn't receive this level of abuse. Plus, I felt the Vega injury was more on Tamina for totally failing to catch her

For real, the card is sneakily really good. AJ had one of Brock's best matches last year, Becky/Ronda should be a blast, AoP/Bar is going really under the radar but should be awesome, and I'm always a sucker for the elimination matches. Plus Ali/Murphy! Genuinely looking forward to the PPV

He's the brother of Johnny Ace and Road Warrior Animal, so you may see a family resemblance. He was the least successful Laurenitis brother, Marc, though he did work an AJPW tour in 87 as Tom Zenk's partner in the RWTL

This is an incredible watch. Bless Tom Burton still playing to a non existent crowd. That's a professional. "Press the button, Greg!"

Word is that Vega is nursing an injury after landing badly in the Evolution Battle Royal, so I wouldn't read too much into her absence

He said that Michaels doesn't compare to Will Ospreay. I don't even like Michaels, and that feels like a real slap in the face.

Does the winner get a title match? Because I'd be pretty into an Orton/ Styles match. They were in a triple threat (with Jinder) at a house show I went to last year, and they paired up pretty well.

I remember Scotty Riggs saying he'd faced Loch Ness in his first Nitro match, and that Loch Ness had fallen onto his head, which caused Hogan to instantly nix any programme.

Looking forward to seeing a few more of the PC trained women getting integrated into NXT over the coming year, the way Lacey Evans and Bianca Belair have in the past 12 months. In particular, Xia Li and Taynara Conti have shown a load of improvement from last year, thought both of Li's matches this year have been really good.

Not suggesting it's likely, but if she did have a good showing, they could still use her in NXT UK

Shawn and Terry Taylor are both on the Performance Centre website as coaches. I think Taylor runs the finishing class, last I read. As I recall, Johnny Moss is apparently going to be working with a lot of the NXT UK guys, so he's been learning the WWE way in the PC. I also read there's been an NXT UK camp this week with Bloom, Brookside, Moss and James Mason as coaches. Jason Jordan was apparently backstage sitting in on production meeting while injured, but apparently they do that with a lot of inactive talent.

I'm guessing it's nothing more sinister than Nia not considering herself Australian. Just because she was born there didn't mean she has to identify herself as bring from there. I've got a friend who was born in Canada to two English parents, left when he was three and has never returned, and he's certainly never referred to himself as Canadian. Nia's wiki says she was brought up in Hawaii and San Diego, so she probably has no memory of Australia as part of her upbringing. Besides, the show had the Iiconics and Murphy, who are all openly Australian, they didn't need to force that onto Nia to muddy the waters.

I'm assuming Joe didn't grab the ropes because theres no rope break in a no DQ match, so it wouldn't do him any good