NotJayTabb

1. Tyler Bate - heard he went down a storm at King of Trios this weekend, which came as no surprise to someone who has seen him grow as a wrestler over the past two years. Was watching a match he had against Jay Lethal that was really good, and I'm no Lethal fan. Still only 18ys old, astonishing 2. Jim Breaks - My favourite discovery from the GWE project. When he starts complaining, he's like the cantankerous next-door neighbour from a 70's sitcom, and I love it. Then he wrestles, and my word how he wrestles. 3. Jack Starz - Every time I've seen him, he's been excellent, and on Saturday I saw him have two great matches in the space of an hour. He's in great shape, has a unique look and I'm certain he's going to break out in the UK scene this year. 4. Jerry Blackwell - Another guy who I'd not seen before the GWE. He's a massive fat bloke who moves deceptively well, has great "vulnerable monster" selling and looks like a brute. What's not to love? 5. Fandango - Big fan of face Fandango, his moveset is much more suited to being a face. I do feel kinda sad for him hurling himself out of the ring onto Adam Rose for a minor pop, but I cheered.

Went to my second Legacy Wrestling show at the weekend, where they were crowning their first British Heavyweight champion. I was pretty happy to see the crowd significantly up on last time, and much more into the show, which is a heartening sign for a formative company. The tournament boasted a strong line up, not necessarily the biggest names in the UK, but quite a good mix of talent (including the recently, randomly PWI500 placed Kay Jutler). It also featured three examples of my favourite type of wrestler - massive bearded fat men who wrestle like monsters (in this case both Henchmen, Jim Diehard and Benton Destruction, and the debuting Bison Brody). MVP of the night was undoubtedly Robbie Brookside trainee Jack Starz, who had two great matches in the space of an hour. First he took on local worker Will Collins in a great match. Collins is pretty green, but makes up for it by being a natural athlete and impressively strong. There was a great spot where Starz had him in a tree of woe, ready for a top rope stomp, only for Collins to sit up and throw him across the ring. Got a great crowd reaction. They ran a story here where Collins had hurt his back slamming big Benton Destruction in the first round, but as he relied a lot on his power, he was forced to grit through it to hurt Starz. However, he fatally missed a top rope splash and Starz put him in a single-leg Liontamer (complete with knee to the back of the head) for the tapout. The final was also pretty good, considering both Starz and JD Knight were on their third match of the night. However Starz had squashed underdog Arcade in 3 mins in his first round match, so was in better overall nick than Knight, plus had had a longer break before the final. Still, this was a really close, heated final before Starz locked in the Liontamer for the tapout. Really great show, they've got a nice bit of momentum building.

Her theme is Big Cass singing the theme tune to The Price Is Right. Basically, she turned up as a jobber that Cass and Enzo had chosen to put over Carmella, but got ridiculously over, in part because Cass only referred to her as Blue Pants, instead of giving her a name. A few weeks later, they brought her back (where she beat Carmella due to being distracted by Enzo) and Cass sang the song for her intro to play upon her bizarre cult popularity. The fact they used this recording to be her regular theme song is odd, but hilarious.

The repeated bludgeoning of Buck Zumhofe is my favourite on-going joke in this project.

I say this as a fan of the guy, but Kay Jutler is a really random BritWres guy to crop up in the lower part of the list. What on earth is up with some of the names in this? Johnny Fandango? Bram Cameron? Brutus Magnus? Mike Mizanin? The first two are some bizarre mix of the names they've used in the past, the other two haven't gone under those names in over 5 years. So odd.

I found myself in a position 5 years back where I was probably at my most "casual" in terms of viewership since becoming a smart fan. Basically just watching Raw and Impact if I could be bothered to catch them. Then I found a big box of tapes when I went home and helped my mum clear out her garage, and thought it'd be nice to give them a watch. Thing is, I know I'm easily distracted and that I'd be watching a tape and would start playing with my phone or throwing some toy for the dog, so I decided to start blogging about it. My thinking was that it'd force me to actually pay attention to what was happening on screen and to see if I could still be bothered watching a load of wrestling. The end result was that looking at it like this reminded me why I liked wrestling and really re-ignited my enthusiasm for it. To be honest, I saw myself flaking out after a month or two, but I'm still doing it now and still enjoying it. My big aim was to avoid long pages of play-by-play, which can be a bit overwhelming and not much fun to write, but to write about how I felt about the match as a whole, so that also made me look at what it was I was enjoying/not enjoying about each match. I've pretty much given up on writing about shows I've been to, as I realised I'd rather just go to shows and have fun than be hyper-critical of each match, but analysing matches at home has made me realise what I like in wrestling and has helped me discover more stuff that I like.

The good news is that this will hopefully lead to Big Johnny segments on Total Divas.

Wasn't there some industry event/show last year where Austin and Reigns were cutting unscripted promos on each other, and people were surprised that Roman was just as good as Austin was in that environment, as opposed to the infamous "suffering succertash" promo?

I'm probably the only Sabre Jr. voter, and I'm likely to rate both Fritz and Kevin Von Erich higher than most.

I actually like the ref-overkill in the Austin/Angle match. Really puts over how alarmed Austin is at Angle kicking out of his big moves, plus helps put over the Invasion. Austin goes frantic, and attacks the ref to lose the match (but keep the belt), only for the next ref to be WWF loyal and not willing to let him keep the title that way. This leads to a crazed Austin having to assault ref after ref, until WCW's Nick Patrick comes out and gives him the result he wants. Great stuff.

what happened with her? One way the division could get shaken up even with the severe limitations of McMahon booking is by having Kong or another complete bruiser of a woman. I hope they find one soon. We desperately need a Beast in the division. Everyone's so skinny except Charlotte and Dana with their defined muscles and Tamina being a bit bulkier but with no presence. Based on photos of Nia Jax, you'll soon have your wish

While I have no doubts that's true, it should be mentioned that for the last three years the Divas title has been exclusively held by a lady of Puerto Rican descent, a lady of Mexican descent and a pale faux-goth Brit, so they're getting a bit more diversity.

Carmella is totally miscast as a face. Not only have the fans not fully taken to her (despite being aligned with one of the most inexplicably popular acts on NXT), she has a natural air of the heel. When she first debuted, snapping at Enzo, tapping out local talent with her headscissors/crossface-type move, she was quite heelish and far more entertaining than the bouncing face we saw at Takeover. Has anyone seen Nia Jax at all? I know she's part of the extended Rock/Regins family lineage, so there's a good chance she's going to get decent, but what's she like at the moment?

Probably a dull answer, but the stars in 5 years time probably aren't under contract yet or, if they are, they're the untrained guys learning in the Performance Centre. If you look at the top guys today, 5 years ago Sheamus was just debuting, Rollins and Ambrose were still on the indies and guys like Reigns and Rusev weren't even wrestling. In 5 years time, you'll have a couple of current names on top and a load of guys we've not heard of.

I only decided I was going to do this in July, and it's been a real eye-opener (in a fun way) realising how many wrestlers I've never really seen before. I mean, amongst my friends I'm THE wrestling guy - I'm the one who watches old footage, footage from Japan or Mexico, who'll happily watch local indies on my own - and yet every time I check out footage of someone for this project, I find myself having to add 3 or 4 more guys to do due dilligence on. Heck, the other night I watched a Baba/Funk vs Hansen/Blackwell match linked on Segunda Caida just for fun, and now I've added Blackwell, a guy I'd not even considered, onto my "watch" list. I've got massive blind spots still - Bockwinkel, WoS, 90's AJPW - simply because I'm daunted at discovering another 20 odd names for my "watch" list. Don't get me wrong, I'm thoroughly enjoying it (after all, it'd just watching more wrestling, which is no great chore), but just wanted to explain the major omissions and why some of these names are likely to fall off upon final submission. Adrian Street AJ Styles Arn Anderson Barry Windham Bobby Eaton Bret Hart Bryan Danielson Curt Hennig Davey Boy Smith DDP Dick Togo Dustin Rhodes Dusty Rhodes Eddie Guerrero El Hijo De Santo Ernie Ladd Finlay Fritz von Erich Genichiro Tenryu Greg Valentine Hulk Hogan Ikuto Hidaka James Mason Jeff Jarrett Jerry Lawler Jim Breaks Jim Duggan John Cena Johnny Saint Jumbo Tsuruta Jushin Liger Juventud Guerrera Kerry Von Erich Kevin Von Erich LA Park Mark Henry Necro Butcher Negro Casas Owen Hart Psychosis Randy Orton Randy Savage Rey Mysterio Ric Flair Rick Rude Ricky Steamboat Roddy Piper Scott Steiner Sean Waltman Sgt Slaughter Shinya Hashimoto Stan Hansen Steve Austin Super Delfin Tajiri Terry Funk Terry Gordy Tito Santana Toshiaki Kawada Tracy Smothers Vader William Regal Zack Sabre Jr

The Dudleys coming back provides a bit more depth to what has become a pretty decent tag division, one that has more than two teams in it (unlike in years gone by). The PTP's have quietly become a really good team, boasting a great FIP and a great hot tag guy, and having them, the Dudleys and the New Day on top of the division sounds pretty good to me. Los Matadores and the Lucha Dragons are perfectly good second-tier teams, and even the Ascension are ok. Add to this the return of the Usos, the rumoured Adam Rose/Brad Maddox team and the number of decent units in NXT, and tag team wrestling is looking really fun at the moment.

The most ham-fisted thing about the "revolution" is that they've managed to make their most popular face in the division less over. Paige was getting some good reactions as the lone wrestler up against Fox and the Bellas, but that seems to have gone out of the window.

It's been touched on above, but this 3-way faction war has caused the Bellas's face/heel positioning to be all over the place. It's hard to build heat on characters who're face when facing Team BAD and heel when facing anyone else. The Bellas should always be heels in this "war" - not only is Nikki the Divas champion, but the Bellas are blessed with the most annoying voices on the planet. Give Nikki some mic time (but not on commentary....awful) and you could stick any Divas out there against her for a face pop. Has there actually been a Divas title match since this "revolution" started? Winning a 3-way tag match at Summerslam doesn't mean much if no-one seems interested in becoming champion. No-one has even hinted at wanting a title match, they just want to "save the division from the Bellas", which doesn't seem to really mean anything. As regards Tamina, I don't think she's as bad as people say. She's got great presence, throws a mean superkick and has been in some good matches. I remember a PPV match vs Beth Phoenix that was booked as a hoss match, and was really fun. She should be booked as the female gatekeeper, like Meng in WCW, but I can't remember the last time I saw her win a singles match.

Not much I can add to the preceding pages about the show and how good it was, but the three matches I was really looking forward to (the three title matches) delivered in spades. One little detail in the ladder match I loved was in the ending: I always hate those "Jeff Hardy has the match won, but he's going to hit a 15ft high Swanton onto Edge instead of escaping the cage" moments, so I liked the fact the big match ending spot (Coup de Grace from the ladder) actually made sense (Balor can't reach the belt from the ladder, so his quickest way down to fix it also involves hitting his finisher on Owens)

I'd bet good money on that happening next month. Rusev wins at Sslam due to Summer interference, mixed tag next month

You could make the argument for the Undertaker, who, following his massive push and brief title reign in 1991, didn't win the world title for another 6 years and instead spent time in the midcard fighting IRS, Kama, Bundy, Mabel and a fake version of himself.

Mark Henry circa 2011? He was an upper-midcarder who'd get the odd title match, got dropped to the C-show in ECW (admittedly as their champion), became MVP's midcard face tag-partner then got a monster push to the world title with the "Hall of Pain" resulting in improved ratings.

I agree that Enzo has more main roster potential than Cass. He's like a ratty little chihuahua that wont stop yapping. He's so naturally a heel, and I think he'd be really effective as a heel manager, hiding behind a bigger client with the payoff being him getting his clock cleaned at the PPV. As a face, I think his schtick will quickly wear thin on a week by week basis. Big Cass is terrible, and he's so lucky he got paired with Enzo early. He's the least intimidating 7 footer I've ever seen, and nothing he does looks like it would hurt. On the mic, he's way too forced and it really shows when he's partnered with a guy who probably is that irritating in real life. Honestly, the only time I've enjoyed Cass is on his debut, where he got squashed by Mason Ryan.

The other issue is that Balor is a guy they've clearly got big plans for, and having him lose his title one month into his reign in order to hot shot his belt to an upper-midcarder who loses more than he wins would damage his aura.

Part of me suspects that Enzo and Cass are headed for the main roster shortly. They've been downplayed a little bit in NXT recently - they're the only team I've seen lose to Dawson and Wilder on the show - and you'd think they'd be getting the title match in Brooklyn if they were going to be in NXT for a while. Personally, I find Enzo/Cass horrific on every level, in-ring and out, but I can imagine them getting a great reaction if they were to debut on Raw on Monday and challenged a title-holding New Day. The only issue is how they'd deal with Carmella. I can see her being fun as an outside equalizer against Xavier, but she's nowhere near good enough to wrestle on the main roster, and she'd be lost on her own in NXT.