NotJayTabb

My least favourite member of one of my least favourite factions in recent history. The Gargano matches pretty much killed my interest in NXT, I went from staying up late to watch each Takeover (UK time) to barely being aware they were on. None of the Undisputed Era members were big, but whereas Roddy and O'Reilly had good looking offence and could wrestle convincingly against larger opposition, Cole was never believable against a Keith Lee or an Aleister Black. When your NXT run wasn't as enjoyable to me as Lars Sullivan's, you aren't making my list.

You've got to admire the balls on Coach Tony K to conquer NXT, then go out and hire 3/4 of the act most associated with the worst era of NXT. He'll be booking hour long Gargano vs Ciampa matches next...

In fairness, he'd basically played the same character in TNA before then, so I think this is something he's happy with. It feels like a rare case of them just letting him do his previous gimmick, rather than repackaging him.

It feels risk free for KO though. If WWE fire him in April, for example, do you think AEW would pass on him? He's able to take this new contract that he's happy with in WWE, safe in the knowledge that AEW provides a safety net in case he does get cut.

He's a former 205 Live guy, who was never one of the 5 most interesting guys in the cruiserweight division at any time. He's perfectly ok.

I don't think he'll be on my list, but Kushida has a really good live presence too. I went to one of those WCPW shows where they brought in a lot of NJPW juniors, just to see Liger live, and Kushida is the only other guy who felt like a big deal. I think there's some good stuff in his NXT run that gets forgotten, that Walter match was great.

Togo is a cert for me, and I had Sasuke and Delphin in my 60s last time, so they've got a good shot. I've a few names I really want to dig into (CIMA, Dragon Kid, Mochizuki) in the next few years too.

It's kinda mindblowing that people's reaction to an indy wrestler getting a $1200 speeding fine wasn't "How dangerously were you driving to get a fine this big, you lunatic?", but rather "Oh LOL, how can I contribute you pay your fine so you learn nothing?"

I think Roddy re-signed in the past year, so I don't think he's going anywhere unless cut.

I agree with the above, the Watch Parties are really good fun and also pretty informative, to the point that I'm frustrated that the glut of football over the festive season is forcing me to miss a few. As far as getting motivated to watch wrestling again, I know how that feels. In 2020 a combination of Speaking Out, the tediousness of WWE TV, the mediocrity of the AEW roster and watching hollow no-crowd indie shows put a real hit on my desire to watch wrestling. I found the best way was to ease myself back in with wrestling "comfort food", which for me was 80s episodes of Wrestling Challenge and Prime Time, just a bunch of short squash matches I didn't have to concentrate on with fun commentary, that I could just sit back and enjoy. That, plus the return of live crowds, AEW signing better talent and NXT 2.0 being kinda fun, has helped me get back in, plus the aforementioned Watch Parties. My advice is just pick something you can sit back with easily, and just try and have fun.

I know he's on the verge of becoming a meme wrestler at this point, but the fact that Tony D'Angelo had only the 4th match of his career in a big event WarGames match, and didn't look lost or out-of-place, is pretty impressive too.

I really liked how Barb moved forward with the times too. By the time we were watching his Nitro-era run, he'd added a load of fun slam variations into this mix. The Eddie match on Nitro was an absolute blast, they worked really well together. I'll be stunned in Barbarian isn't on my list again in 2026

Vince had more overall credibility than Russo or Arquette too. He'd been part of the on-screen product for over 20 years, people fully associated him with the promotion, so it didn't feel as fly-by-night as Russo. Plus Vince had worked matches at that point, which made him feel a bit more legit, and he was built like a tank. Russo and Arquette were just normal sized men, Vince looked more like he belonged, even if he wasn't a wrestler.

A lot of people on Twitter thought it was Top Dolla, which would have been hilarious

Michael Hayes was the first guy I regretted not putting on after submitting my 2016 ballot, he's such an in-ring whirlwind of personality, the perfect contrast to the von Erich's in World Class. He feels like the key reason why the feud was so successful, at least on the heels side. What made me think of Hayes was watching a random episode of World Championship Wrestling last night, where Hayes was heavily featured. The opener was a 6 man jobber squash with the Midnight Express and Dr Death, and featured Hayes arguing at ringside with Cornette throughout. This lead to a tag title match with MX vs the Freebirds, and man Hayes was great. Such a preening dick when in control and such a coward on defence. There's a lovely spot where he goes to his knees, hands behind his back, begging Bobby Eaton not to attack him, and Eaton drops to his own knees and belts him in the face. It's just someone who understands their role, and adding extra flavour to a good TV tag match.

I'd not heard this so I checked Twitter. The only evidence I found was that he'd retweeted a chiropractor who's other tweets were anti-vax, but there was also a video promoted by England Boxing called #WinWithTheJab, where he's promoting people getting vaccinated, so I think he's in the clear.

I understand why Franky Monet is annoyed, but at the same time she's just like the lady in The Snake by Al Wilson (not that one). Its not like WWE is some start up with no history of firing people indiscriminately, they've been doing this for years

I always felt I'd be pretty offended if I was the Young Bucks. Not by Top Dolla, but by everyone on Twitter who decided "He's talking about wrestlers who wear shit trainers? That has to be the Bucks"

It really does show the lack of direction in creative when you look at these releases. Tegan Nox gets called up, is undefeated on TV in 3 months, gets released. Hit Row are called up, given TV time and hyped as a big deal, released. Even Jaxon Ryker gets a mini run where he beats Elias every week, then does nothing before being released. It really does give a sense of pointlessness to everything.

Agree with Matt D about Soho's finisher, it felt like a really flat ending in the Kruel match (probably not helped by her hitting it to Kruel's left arm rather than anywhere near her head). I felt the same when it was the Riott Kick in WWE, she ends the match on her weakest looking move.

As it currently stands, I've got Hallowicked penciled in towards the bottom 5 of my list, albeit as a heart-over-head candidate. He's not going to be my highest Chikara guy, as both Kingston and Quack will rank higher, but as I said in his nomination he's got a good 20 year career under his belt now, and I'd say he's been good for the majority of that. I'll be watching plenty of Chikara over the next 5 years, so I'll be giving myself every chance to confirm my decision here. The thing I'm maybe struggling to justify most is having Hallowicked on my "maybe" list, whilst also seeing a bunch of his 00s indy peers (Aries, Punk, Davey Richards etc) all on my "not in consideration" list, but I just like him a lot more.

Aliyah being on team SmackDown is no less logical than only having one half of the women's tag champions on team Raw. In kayfabe, Nikki was womens champion 2 months ago, now she's deemed less worthy than Carmella and Liv Morgan?

Your best bet is picking up an IWTV subscription for $10 a month. Not only is there a large back catalogue of stuff on there, but they're regularly adding content and doing live streams. They currently stream a weekly show for Beyond that's normally very good. They've got a good line up of promotions on there, I'd especially recommend Action Wrestling, their shows are routinely excellent.

I think the early 2000s indie scene changed a lot of that. I know RoH was mainly built on a premise of selling tapes based on dream matches. I also remember reading an interview with the guy who ran 1PW in the UK, where he said booking Chris Hero vs Zack Sabre Jr wouldn't sell enough extra tickets to cover the cost of flying Hero in, but it was a match that might sell them a bunch of DVDs that wouldn't otherwise sell. I guess if promoters are thinking that way, then the wrestlers would also be aware of a home audience viewing their matches later.

I'm guessing that the idea is for people like Gargano, Ciampa, LA Knight to operate as player/coaches for a green roster of developmental talent. I've seen @rovert saying on Twitter than Gargano and Candice love mentoring people, as seen with their work with The Way. Bray can say creative sucks all he likes, I don't think any of us will dispute that, but given that a tweet came out over the weekend saying he had a vision to bring all the playhouse puppets to life as wrestlers, all played by himself, I think we can safely say a lot of the dogshit Fiend stuff was strictly on his shoulders.