NotJayTabb

When a stable is so rubbish, you have to Google what it was called, you know they weren't exactly memorable, but that was the case when I just had to go to JBL's Wiki page to find out his band of lackey's were called The Cabinet. JBL wasn't exactly setting the world alight his title run, so I've no idea why they thought adding Orlando Jordan and the Bashams at his side would help anyone. The only thing memorable about the Cabinet was that John Cena needed to lose the US title before facing JBL at Mania, with the net result that the biggest star in post-millennium WWE ended up losing a title to Orlando Jordan. To put the lameness of the Cabinet in perspective, they were sort-of feuding with Kurt Angle's rubbish stable of himself, Mark Jindrak and Luther Reigns, and it was Kurt's boys who looked more credible. Just a waste of time

Really good chance for the BritWres guys to make an impression. Never seen a bad Andrews vs Dunne match, and I don't expect them to start here. Gallagher will win a lot of fans, but I think Haskins could be the standout, especially as his only real US exposure is his very brief TNA run.

Except that they seem to be focusing a decent amount of attention on the Shira brothers and haven't really done anything with Dar. Wouldn't be surprised to see Gurv Shira beat Dar and be ZSJ's QF opponenet. That's something that's thrown me off in the predicting, because I would have gone with Dar if not for the amount of time they spent pushing the Bollywood Boyz and ignoring him. I can see why you'd make a fuss out of a Bollywood tag team, but part of me hopes their largely ignoring guys like Dar or Nese is more a red herring than a time issue, so they can tell a story of someone quietly being the "breakout star" after not paying much attention to them. There's a 90 second special promo look on Dar on the WWE YouTube channel, which not all guys are getting, and they posted the footage of his qualifying match last month, so in my head they'd given him some build up, but yeah, you're right about the Bollywood Boyz getting a bit of coverage too. Still, there's always a chance of Dar/ZSJ

ZSJ/Dar in the quarters seems quite likely, and would be a great match

Just out of interest, what is Act Yasukawa's current status? I know she retired last year and moved into managing Oedo Tai, but I've not seen her on the shows I've recently watched. For example, I'd have though she'd be on the 16/6 Oedo Tai v Thunder Rock card, but she wasn't. Oedo Tai still wear her t-shirt in the pre-match promos, so I guess she's still about, but it seemed odd to me.

Having just returned from two weeks in France, I've thoroughly loved the Euros. Being the only Wales fan in a five-person motor home had some sad moments (the hour spent in the Lyon fan park where I spent a mute hour sipping water in a daze after the cruel way the England game finished) and some highs (arrogantly swaggering back to the motor home from the only bar in St Ettiene that showed Wales v Russia, bellowing "top of the league, having a laugh"). Went to some fun games (Iceland/Portugal had the amazing Iceland fans, Albania/Romania surprisingly turned into a good game of football), met a load of really sound fans from a range of nations and ultimately had a terrific time. The only fans who slightly got on my wick were Northern Ireland, who were bloody everywhere and far too over-the-top with their "look how much FUN we are" bollocks. Only so many times I can hear that Will Grigg chant, which is why I hope we stuff them tomorrow

Well, I for one am glad to see this back off hiatus. Mainly because I really want to see who finally dethrones Tully.

Yeah, the overuse of imports really bugs me with some promotions. PCW and Southside do it a lot, and it can get to a stage of overkill. I remember last year Southside ran a show just up the road from my house, and almost every match had an import in, normally going over the UK guy. Like, the card had Chris Sabin, James Storm, Johnny Gargano, Andrew Everett, Candice LaRae, Joey Ryan and X-Pac all either beating a UK guy or just facing another import. Only Zema Ion lost to a regular, and that's only because Mark Haskins was the champion. The matches were all ok, but who on that list of names realistically will have sold a ticket? X-Pac, maybe Storm? Who benefited from LaRae beating Nixon Newall in the worst match I've seen Newall have? What purpose did Joey Ryan handily beating Ryan Smile serve? It's no coincidence that my favourite BritWres companies, like TXW or HOPE, fill their cards with UK guys and generally have better shows. TXW got more value out of Rob Terry than Southside did with a card full of non-ticket-selling US indy darlings.

I think 2-3 hours is about right. I think that meets the right margin of getting your moneys worth vs overstaying your welcome. The last show I went to was the BEW/Stardom show in London, which was great but there were 2 30-40 minute intervals for meet-and-greets, which were interminable for someone like me who was on their own, standing, low on phone battery and checking their watch because of knowing I still had a 3 hour drive back to Nottingham ahead of me.

I always thought Repo Man was unfairly lumped in with a load of Wrestlecrap. Barry Darsow didn't have a great physique and was a ratty looking man who was already under contract, so I think this was the perfect role for him. Darsow played the role to the hilt as well, so this minor lower-card character became wholly entertaining and memorable. That has to be considered a success.

Was quite interested to spot Regal had chimed in on the "controversy" “I watched the match and was shocked. You need to start doing real stuff like people from my era like kip ups,flying head scissors,cart wheels and criss crosses. Get a grip! When I started the job in ’83 a lot of the older fellas used to say that Marc Rocco and Marty Jones (who were the real pioneers of the CW style) had killed the business because they did to much. Although they may not admit it anymore, most of the heavyweights in Europe thought the brilliant lightweight and middleweight wrestlers were bad for the job because their style was “not believable enough”.. Every country I worked in before I came to the US had different styles and ways of doing things.As long as there’s effort then it’s right.If the people paying you are happy and you get reactions then make your stuff as good as it can be with what skills you have.May not be for everyone but that’s ok.In the match I saw two fellas who looked like fighters having an excellent,hard competed match in a different style.Win win!”

I think Savage taking money out of Vince's pocket by taking the Slim Jim's sponsorship to WCW with him is a more realistic cause of the split than the Savage/Steph rumour.

Hopefully this leads to the return of the Bragging Rights show as a Network special. I always liked the dynamic of teams that didn't really get on, but would try and put their differences aside for one night. Something about heel Jericho and face Matt Hardy celebrating together with their winner trophy in 09 made me quite happy.

I'm perfectly happy for New Day to keep the tag title as long as possible, as it delays the inevitable Enzo & Cass title reign. It's odd, because part of me gets why they're so popular (people like to chant along with wrestlers) and another part just doesn't understand why (because they're obnoxious loudmouth arseholes). Cassady in particular is a lousy promo - the "spell it out for you" spiel used to be Enzo's bit, but I think they gave it to Cass because everything else he says sounds terrible. Before the Payback aborted match, he cut some dreadful promo about Hey Arnold that made no sense and would be torn apart if given by another wrestler. The only time I ever liked these two is when they debuted in NXT and got squashed weekly by Mason Ryan. But, they're massively popular. They're going to win the tag title and probably hold it for a long time. I've come to accept it, though it doesn't mean I'm going to like it

Watching some old C-shows from 2014, it's really interesting to see just how average AJ was compared to a lot of the roster, especially when you watch people like Layla or Alicia Fox managing to get watchable stuff out of the Funkadactyls. It came to the point when I was watching tiny AJ barrel over Natalya with clotheslines that I realised she was having a worse match with Nattie than Aksana did a month earlier.

Shirai/KLR was probably split 2/3 in favour of Kay Lee. Iwatani was cheered in her first round match against a heel, but Nixon was heavily favoured in the second round match. Hojo was pretty much unanimously cheered. We also got a Heidi Katrina match, unadvertised, against a tiny Italian wrestler (Laura DeMatteo?) who was less than physically imposing. Totally forgettable, other than them badly blowing a tilt-a-whirl spot (where Katrina stood in the middle of the ring, waiting to grab an opponent who was supposed to run towards her, but instead stood still....then eventually decided to run into the move)

Fully agree, that's why it'll be interesting to see how the Roman matches compare when AJ gets to feud with another good/great wrestler

It'll be interesting to see at the end of the year how the Roman matches compare with other matches Styles will have in the next 6 months. For all the talk about Roman "holding up his end" of matches, Brock and the Big Show didn't have better matches with anyone else in 2015, and Reigns has had much better matches with AJ than Jericho did.

Yeah, the queues for the Shirai/Hojo/Iwatani meet-and-greet was pretty big, and Ogawa was at the head of that (in a boss-looking "Rossy Ogawa" jacket), so I think he'll have seen how popular the Stardom product is over here.

So did anyone else make it to the show last night? Thought it was a really good show, albeit maybe a touch long. Having two 40 minute intervals was a bit much, and the local guys elimination match, though not bad, felt like it was playing to an audience who weren't that invested in it. Still, some really great matches: thought Shirai vs KLR was the standout, they both took some nutty bumps and it felt like a real war. Loved Nixon vs Iwatani too, thought it was a really great night for Nixon. She had three good-great matches throughout the card, she's really improved from the first time I saw her. Female/Hojo vs Storm/Black was a fun squash match, and I loved that submission that ended the lucha match. Liked the venue too, due to it's small size I ended up stood at the bar all night, meaning I had to quickly move as Alpha Female hurled Dahlia Black into the spot where I was stood. Top night.

I love Charles Robinson as a ref. He's really good at not being noticeable, until the referee gets bumped and the fact it doesn't look terrible makes you realise it's Robinson in there. He never does things to distract from the match, and the fact he's been around for nearly 20years is still great is testament to him. Plus he had one of the few good referee matches, vs Gorgeous George of all people in WCW

Zack Sabre Jr placed at #327 this time around, and he's only really been getting US bookings for a year or two, so I can see him placing higher in 10 years. As a wildcard, Mark Andrews wasn't nominated this time, but he's been at worst "good" for 4 years now, crops up a lot in places with good online presence like Progress and Attack!, plus is primarily based in the US so has the scope to get more eyes on him than other BritWres guys. Plus he's only 24, so time is on his side.

Looks like Adam Rose isn't far off joining him. Has been charged with domestic battery and tampering with a witness - all this whilst on 60 day suspension. Doesn't look too promising for him.

I was thinking about the lineage of NXT title, and how in the last batch of champions had been all big name indy guys (Neville>Zayn>Owens>Balor>Joe) and how interesting a Round Robin NXT champs tournament would be, then it suddenly hit me that one of the matches would be Big E vs Joe, and man I really want to see that match.

Given the fact that she's already had a WWE.com interview (plus the fact that she's great), I can see them debuting Nikki Storm and giving her a push from the off very soon too