NotJayTabb

The build up to the first Booker T/Goldust tag title run. Just the way that Booker started out not liking Goldust, then accepting him and finally becoming team mates is one thing, but I loved the way they then built up sympathy for Goldust via his self-doubt at being the "weak link" of the team. All the bits, with Booker refusing Goldust's offer to split the team before Goldie being the one to get the title winning pin over Jericho & Christian, was great.

I hope Taker cuts a promo tonight explaining he came back to get revenge for Brock breaking his younger brother's ankle last week

I pimp this match any chance I get. It was the first time I saw 4 of my favourite guys on the UK scene live and it's such a fun match. Tyler Bate was only 16 here, and still showed loads of potential.

I think it's a case that she's the best candidate for role by default. With Lana being freshly face turned, they clearly want to put her against a heel woman for physical interaction. However, Lana is no wrestler, so that rules out the Bellas, Naomi, Fox and Tamina. Layla is mysteriously absent and Paige and Natalya are faces. That leaves Summer, Cameron and Eva Marie, and Summer is easily the best of those three.

Heyman's security were the Basham Bros

Yeah, I should probably give that an explanation. My wrestling fanhood stems from watching WCW on Saturday afternoons on ITV, and Zenk was one of the first guys I gravitated towards - he work very colourful trunks, he did a lot of dropkicks and though he didn't win very often, he tried his best. These are all important factors when you're 10 years old, so liking Zenk is a holdover from then. That said, I do still enjoy watching him, especially as a tag worker. I bought a comp a few years back of Zenk's AJPW stuff, and it's really good. Zenk/Martel vs the Funks, Zenk/Brunzell vs the Fantastics, Zenk/Kroffatt vs Footloose and Zenk/Hansen vs Abby/Snuka are all good-great matches.

The mistake they've made is by babyfacing Lana by pairing her with a handsome, yet ultimately bland man. I can't believe any of the male audience were thinking that they'd cheer for Lana, if only she were dating a less hairy man.

I've always kinda liked December To Dismember, bar the main and the Daivari/Dreamer chin lock fest. Thought Striker was great in his match, and I enjoyed the Knox/Thorn segment of the mixed tag match. The main was a fucking disaster though. Logically, RVD is lucky Test decided to turn on Holly, because pinning CM Punk had left him facing 2-1 odds. Also, there were two periods of guys left on their own with no-one else in the ring, which is inexcusable.

http://youtu.be/MsWFB3OQIgMNever loved a tag team more

I feel like I've got lots of wrestling confessions, but off the top of my head: -Tom Zenk is one of my favourite wrestlers -I hate Enzo Amore and Big Cass more than any other act in wrestling -I always thought it was a bit sad when people paid for interval photos with wrestlers, even when local promotions brought in name talent like Marty Jannetty, Super Crazy or X-Pac. However, when Mason Ryan was in town, I was right there with my £5 in hand for a photo -The more US imports on a card, the less interested I am in going to a show -Despite hating the chant, last summer I chanted "This is awesome" during a Rob Terry match without a single hint of irony or sarcasm

Apparently they did tryout two women wrestlers on the recent Japan tour. One of them was Nikki Storm, who was on tour over there and would be a GREAT pick-up, but the other (whose name escapes me) was Japanese, which at least implies they're willing to look at women in Japan. They need to pick up some more experienced talent soon, the likes of Dana Brooke and Alexa Bliss can only learn so much wrestling each other. On the subject of luchadoras, is Sarah Stock still involved with training at the Performance Centre, or was that just a short term thing?

After initially not being able to go, I've bought tickets for this weekends HOPE Wrestling double-bill, running shows on Friday and Saturday night. They're my most local regular indy, and they've been on a real hot-streak of shows this year. They've got some really interesting matches lined up this weekend, either due to the promise of being really great (Damian O'Connor vs Chris Masters, Jack Jester vs Rampage Brown, Lionheart vs Bubblegum) or being a lot of fun (an intergender match featuring Viper against arguably the most entertaining guy in the UK, Martin Kirby (in drag)). Plus a rumble. Everyone loves a rumble.

It's probably just my memory doing some selective filtering, but there's plenty of good stuff in 2003 that's worth checking out: the Jarrett/Raven feud, AMW vs XXX in the cage, the rise of Chris Sabin and Frankie Kazarian, D-Lo Brown turning up as a key player and the X-Cup with Juvi, Teddy Hart and Jonny Storm making appearances. Feels odd to say it, but TNA was getting a fair bit of buzz in those days. Probably not worth watching everything, but I'd certainly cherry pick those highlights.

Cameron isn't even on Total Divas anymore, she's been dropped for the new series.

It really hit home to me how odd the US title angle was when Rusev pinned Cesaro. You had the heel, having just taken on two top guys in a match, picking up a clean win and now lying flat on his back exhausted. Meanwhile, the face champion has just finished some commentary and does a few stretches before entering to pick the bones of what is left. Despite this, the heel puts up a valiant fight and manages to lock in his submission hold, only to get screwed due to interference. Between that and keeping Ziggler off my TV by breaking a crutch into his trachea, Rusev is the biggest face in the company.

It's kind of startling how much more importantly they've treated the role of champion with the US and NXT titles than the World. The US has Cena as proud champion facing all comers, wanting to prove that he's the elite, whilst Owens clearly stated he wanted the NXT title because being champion meant he had more money for his family. Meanwhile, Rollins is just "there" as champion, the crown jewel of an authority that helped make him champion, but also have decided to put him up against an unstoppable Brock Lesnar for vaguely defined reasons.

I've only see 5 or 6 Orig matches, but I think it's fair to say he was a great showman rather than a great wrestler. He's quite enjoyable to watch, just because the crowd eat up everything he does, but he's probably not a great lost worker. That said, these were all from his Reslo days, so like you said, I don't know what he was like when he was younger. I will say his autobiography is a tremendous read though, one of the most purely entertaining wrestling autobio's I've read. He's a great storyteller.

Looking at these recaps, I'd forgotten how much tat came before the good stuff. Thankfully, after the hilarious December To Dismember, Heyman leaves and you start hitting the good stuff. By 2008, ECW had lost the terrible originals and great stuff like Ripper Burchill, the Dudebusters and Ricky Ortiz's rally towel were taking centre stage.

Yeah, the angle itself is pretty dreadful. As you said, there's nothing likable about the behaviour of the faces - Ziggler deciding to make out with the ex-girlfriend of a man on crutches RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM screams of heel - and I agree this angle is only going to hurt Ziggler and Lana. I think the thing that might save it will be the resulting match. They've done a pretty good job of making me want to see an irate Rusev beating the heck out of Ziggler, and as long as they keep the ladies out of the ring (which I admit is up for debate), then the resulting match could be a lot of fun. If Rusev wins the feud, then he leaves it still as a tough monster, but no longer stuck with a one-note foreign heel gimmick. Of course, that is a big "if". Wouldn't help Ziggler, but seeing as he's supposedly leaving and my least favourite performer in the WWE, that's no big loss.

I actually think Rusev has been holding up his end of the deal really well. I mean, Ziggler and Lana have been bloody awful at every turn of this storyline, but Rusev as a brooding, broken man who had everything, only to lose it in a few months, has been killing it. He's proven he can play a role besides mute, dominant foreign heel, and he's proven he doesn't need anyone to cut promos from him. Promising to "rip out Ziggler's intestines and hang them out in my back yard" was an amazing line. I think Summer Rae has held up her end of the deal as well, and it's only how wretched the Lana/Ziggler side have been that is bringing this feud down.

Los Fabulosos seem to fit here. El Dandy and Silver King were cruiserweight jobbers for the vast majority of their WCW tenure, but they got a couple of week-long minipush as Miss Hancock's new clients in a feud with Lenny & Lodi, even getting some lovely looking bodysuits. As I recall, it got dropped the minute Bischoff and Russo rebooted WCW, but it had the makings of a fun lower-card gimmick. Linked to that, Lenny Lane in 2000 WCW was a mixed bag of forgotten personnas. He formed a terrible "standards and practises" stable with Hancock and Lodi. That was dropped and was he renamed Lane, tag-team partner of Rave (Lodi) in "XS", before making an appearance in the crowd following the reboot, won a match to win his job back and was never seen again.

On my blog, I do an annual top 10 of the best matches I've reviewed that year, and last year I decided to do two separate lists for matches watched live and those watched at home, as it was looking like 3 years in a row of a live match coming at #1. I think they are totally different experiences - I very rarely leap out of my seat at home at the end of the match, no matter how great it was - and thus I treat them as such.

My parents refused to enable my wrestling fanhood by taking me to a show as a child, so my first ever show was an NWA:UK Hammerlock show in Leamington with my friends when I was 17. I remember very little of the card, except a one night tournament was won by a guy called (I think) the Kung Fu Kid, and Jon Ritchie, Paul Vault and Jon Ryan were on the card. My friends and I became big fans of the heel Ryan after he asked a large woman on the front row if they'd charged her double to come in "because you're so bloody fat". Oh, and local wrestler Majik got a lot of heel heat by announcing himself as hailing from Coventry, which is only 10 miles down the road and, as far as I know, has no rivalry with Leamington.

Along the same lines as Heroes of Wrestling, though without the redeeming trainwreck qualities, was the i-Generation PPV from Australia. They used to show it on TWC over here, and it was beyond terrible. The main event was Dennis Rodman vs Curt Hennig, which didn't have a clean ending, the opening match between the Public Enemy and the Road Warriors had probably the worst match of either of their careers and even someone like Little Jeanne, who I enjoyed in WCW just a year earlier, was blowing stuff all over the shop. The nicest thing I can say is that I didn't hate the Barbarian vs Brute Force (another Brutus Beefcake moniker) match.

@NotJayTabb It's mainly wrestling or references to my terrible football team