NotJayTabb

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.

Yeah, finally got a spare hour to give it a listen, really enjoyed it. Looking forward to the next few

I voted for Kevin, he was my highest placed von Erich in 2016 because of how much I love his scrappy nature, but I'm glad to see some votes in for Fritz too. Everything I've seen of him suggests he was an excellent wrestler, love the Baba matches and even his retirement match with Bundy is a lot of fun. If he had more footage available, I suspect he'd do really well.

Almost all my knowledge of US geography comes from WCW ring announcements in 1992 If I need to think what state Austin/Robbinsdale/Cincinnati are in, I just hear the name in Gary Michael Capetta's voice, and the state name follows automatically

As far as I'm aware, Aichner was born and raised in Italy, so it's probably his first language.

I'd forgotten about Gulak, but I think he's comfortably better than Cassidy and Ultramantis. Jigsaw is an interesting comparison, he's probably more well travelled than Hallowicked, possibly got good quicker too, but there's a reliability and consistency I like from Hallowicked

There's 5 von Erich's nominated for GWE, albeit with Waldo not a real part of the clan, and I'm interested to see who ends up higher. Kerry had the highest spot in 2016, but it feels like this could go any way. Maybe not Lacey, I guess...

Hallowicked May seem an odd choice on the surface of it, but he's got a near 20 years career at this point, and he's been good for the vast majority of it. Probably tied with Kingston for the best Chikara graduate, he's an interesting case where we've pretty much got his whole career on tape, especially in his formative years and he just gets wrestling very quickly. He has good matches with the likes of Mr ZERO in his first year, and managed to get a rare good match from Joey Janela in 2019, with plenty of good stuff in between. Good tag worker, reliable singles wrestler, and still one of those names that interests me when he'll pop up on a random indy card. Not saying he'll make my list, but he's definitely due consideration Matches vs Mr ZERO (International Invasion of the International Invaders 2003) vs Eddie Kingston (Anniversario? 2007) vs Joey Janela (Chikarasaurus Rex 2019)

I'd possibly be more excited for Danielson working a three week gauntlet of the Gunn Club, culminating in a Billy Gunn match, than anything else

Messiah was always my guy in CZW. I think because, given that a lot of the top card guys seemed like degenerates and fat guys in metal t-shirts, he just came across as a normal guy, who just happened to be a decent wrestler with only one thumb. I also remember seeing a clip on a Botchamania where he messed up a move, and responded to the subsequent abuse by telling the audience "Sorry, I've not been wrestling much lately". Glad to hear he's doing well.

I guess part of it is that Cole never made it to the main roster. His entire run was being pushed as the top guy in NXT, the leader of a dominating stable and working with his idol Shawn Michaels. His dealings with Vince were likely pretty minimal, so he's not going to have the frustrations others got.

Interesting to note the swing currently since 2016. In the master list, Reigns finished #416, Ambrose #275 and Rollins way in front at #207. Feels like it could be a complete swing around this time, a damning indictment on Rollins' post-Shield career. I voted for Reigns, I think he's proven himself to be a great main event worker, and he's the one I most enjoy watching. I also think he's the only one who's kept improving since the last GWE. The last time I really liked Ambrose was 2014 (there's a match he has with Mark Henry in that time frame on Main Event that's really excellent), but "Lunatic Fringe" era Ambrose was pretty blah for the most part. Even in AEW, where he's been let off the leash, he feel like an unconvincing tough guy, though the only PPV match I've seen from him was the unsanctioned match with Omega that I thought sucked, so he might have some decent big match stuff I've not seen. Rollins is a very distant 3rd.

Three guys who were pretty much linked together in GWE 2016, but have embarked on solo careers that have taken them in different directions since then.

Rising: John Tenta - wasn't on my ballot in 2016, but he's got a very good shot this time. Rewatching the Summerslam 90 match made me realise just how great it is, it's a proper big time main event even with it's non-definite finish. He's not going to be my highest superheavyweight (Vader, Henry and Blackwell are all currently above him), but he's a really great details wrestler, and that's something I always appreciate. He knows how to sell to maximise both his opponent's offence but also maintain his aura, where he's established that he's not easy to knock down, but he sells babyface offence like it MIGHT do. Steve Grey - had him too low last time (95), he's a great babyface fire worker, which is one of my favourite kinds of wrestler, and giving him a deeper dive is already proving I needed to watch more. WoS guys in general are probably trending upwards, and I want to have a deeper dive into Pat Roach, who I had at 86 last time, because I want to bang the gong for him in 2026 Falling: Ric Flair - my #11 last time, and I felt that was because I couldn't really have him any lower, and that was me giving into his reputation. Already I look at guys I had below him (Funk, Bock, Steamboat, Misawa) who I think are better, and I can see him dropping into the 20s this time around Kevin von Erich - look, I love Kevin. He's my favourite von Erich and I think he's awesome. Pure fight, all action, just a lot of fun to watch. But I had him at #24 last time, which is insane in hindsight. That's 4 places higher than Tito, and as a pure fire babyface I've got to admit Tito is better. I think I let my heart overrule my head.

My foolish completist nature means I've sat through a lot of chaff, but one of the useful things about watching old cards on the network is having the length of each segment available to help with decisions like this. An 18 minute segment titled "Sal Bellomo vs Tony Garea" is a helpful red flag to skip.

The interview with Reigns does seem to be partly in character, but I also don't think it's that surprising that he's not a big CM Punk fan. That "keep Roman strong" shit followed him round for years, even though Reigns ending up as comfortably the best all-round talent in the Shield proved that it was the right thing to do, so taking a few pot shots back doesn't seem unfair

Bam Bam doesn't make the cut for me. When I was rewatching 94 WWF, it was surprising to me just how often Bammer was pretty disappointing. Even his squashes were pedestrian, which is damning when you consider the likes of Kwang and Adam Bomb were having fun jobber matches on Raw at the time. Admittedly I've not seen much of his ECW run, not my favourite promotion to watch, so I can still be turned. What would be the 3 best ECW Bigelow matches to watch as a starting point?

The more Fritz I see, the more I think he's my favourite wrestler from the family. Just a big nasty bastard, his Texas Death match with Baba is so good

I'll admit to being an absolute mark for the claw. I love it being used by heel Fritz in Japan as a device to mean he's always a threat (like when he kicks out of a Baba pinfall and is able to immediately apply a claw to Baba's prone stomach), and I love his sons using it as a babyface move where they build a bunch of drama out of trying to apply it and the heel trying to fend it off. It's greatness is in it's simplicity.