Cap

I think the show gets dominated by disgruntled fans. I was there and the whole thing was about Dragon. I know they had more or less committed at that point, but I really believe the fans would have thrown a hissy fit if Bryan weren't in the main event. I also kind of feel like that and Raw would have been the peak and fans might have moved on, slowly. I am not sure Bryan ever gets the belt if he didn't get it there.

Yeah, The NWO is still a thing for a while, but it fizzles a lot faster. We wouldn't get the terrible permutations of the NWA later, but the NWO's impact would be mitigated mightily.

Either way, the name is stupid (I just don't like the idea of or ring to them naming it after any individual), but the tournament itself should be fun. i am looking forward to it. Lots of women will be getting a chance to shine with virtually nothing to lose. That should make for some good wrestling and some memorable matches.

I am not above taking a misdirected thank you for doing absolutely nothing. Edit: Just watched it and yep, that was fantastic. I was a little skeptical because I tend to be somewhat wary of hidden gems and the description was hard for me to put together in my brain, but this was a master class in compelling grappling. Absolute classic.

Thank you muchly

I get it I get it... kind of, haha. I would say we are pretty similar in regard to our love for brawls. I haven't sat down and ordered my top 100 or anything, but if you looked at my 5 and 4.75 star matches my love for brawling comes out there. Still, I just find that match other worldly. Oh well. We have the same number one and a lot of the stuff you have high, I have really high.

I thought it over-delivered given that Jinder is at best an ok worker and Randy is in boring mode. Jinder was somewhat exposed in terms of execution here, but everything was laid out pretty well. The shock finish actually bumps it for me, though I know a lot of people hate this. ***1/4 - I liked it, but hen again I was expecting something quite different.

Finally got to this show. I thought on the whole it overdelivered. There wasn't much I was excited about (Owens vs Styles was about it, and even that was better than I expected). I am not going to go through it all. I liked Sami/Corbin for what it was. I think both men continued with their trajectories and continued to build who they are within the Smackdown roster. Sami is a good face to pair with Corbin and him getting the win was a nice surprise to me. Styles/Owens was the match of the night, pretty easy. I thought it was really really good and even kind of liked the ending. They clearly aren't done so this was a solid first outing for the two. I suspect that Styles winds up with the belt, but I kind of hope they keep it on Owens and Styles returns to the main event scene. As for the main event, my least favorite thing in the WWE is the hotshotting of the titles, period. I hate that they move the belt around so much with no real long term direction or goals. That said, within this pattern of behavior (which is very much the norm for the WWE), I'd much rather have them give Jinder a shot (based on how he has performed in the past month) than tread water with Orton. I hate the larger booking patterns, but that is what the WWE is going to do, so I am very much ok with Jinder winning the belt within that context. I mean if it is just to put the belt right back on Orton, its a waste of time, but if they really want to give him a shot to develop and run with the title for at least a couple months and see what happens, I'm down to give him a chance. I will say that he was very much exposed as a limited wrestler in the match. They have kind of been able to mask that in a number of ways during the build (though of course people had issues there too), but in this match he showed his limitations. he is inoffensive, but clearly not an excellent in ring performer. Regardless, I prefer this to Orton remaining a stale and directionless champion. This reinforces that anything can happen (and yes, sure, I would rather it be someone with some hype behind them) and it reinforces that hard work earns you opportunities (I stand by that Jinder worked hard to make his rise from jobber to contender work). I now give a shit about what is going on with that belt whereas if Orton had won I really wouldn't care at all. I can't imagine Jinder making it past SummerSlam at the latest. With luck maybe Nak or Styles takes it off him there at the latest and carries to Mania.

I though this was one of the better overall NXT matches in a while. It was pretty solid show, top to bottom. I had Strong/Young on in the background and liked what I saw, but it did seem to go kind of long. Young is solid for what he does and is pretty clearly sort of a mid-card placeholder to position more mobile guys. How guys do against him tells you a lot about their trajectory. Given how Dillinger struggled to get a win over Sanity/Young, getting this nod was pretty big for an upwardly mobile Strong. The UK title match was off the charts good. It is right there with their finals match for me. They were quite different and both great. I am glad they decided to build the UK title/division/promotion (whatever it is) around these two for now. It is a MOTY candidate for sure, especially a WWE banner MOTY candidate. The women's match was ok, but I thought it was a little clunky. Triple threats are just so hard to do really well and parts of it were tons of fun. It just didn't stand out much. I am much more intersetd in Asuka vs Moon II and Riot vs Cross in a legit one-on-one. I liked the title match, but I get why some didn't. I thought Roode was good here. I am good with heels winning clean sometimes. It makes their eventual heelings mean a lot more. Itami was never going to get the belt here and is probably not in NXT's long term plans, so building him up quick to give us some Roode highlights for down the road was good. This one just felt very sanitized and plastic to me. It was very well planned out and rehearsed, but to a fault really. Nothing rough around the edges. It also more or less went one speed, which is a Roode match, but that isn't an Itami match. Itami worked on top enough that this should have been a little more dynamic. Itami feels like he was rushed back into this and his charicter/position isn't quite established just yet. I think some of his cocky face, killer striker offense just didn't have the meaning it should have because it lacked some context. I still thought it was quite good. They accomplished what they needed to and almost everything was executed well. The ladder match is exactly the kind of ladder match I hate. Everything was so contrived and didn't really make sense. They were having a ladder match instead of a match that had ladders in it. Even still, they built the drama with selling and the way the match was constructed in a way that sold me and made me kind of love it. Some of the spots were bonkers. This had that rough around the edges feel with the really brutal looking spots, the broken in half ladder, and then the eventual really well executed turn (more in a second). Basically, they made me like this match in spite of it doing a lot of things I hated. I thought this was easily AOP's best performance as it felt less like DIY was working against them to have a god match. Gargano really is an incredible face. He has come into his own as being the Ricky Morton face and I hope he can carry that momentum into a singles run in NXT/WWE. The turn was really well done. It is funny. I expected this long ago as I thought they were laying it on thick last summer int he CWC and the way matches were executed around that time, then they stuck together with success. I had actually come to accept them really recently as a longer term tag team. I always liked them, but was ever-ready for the break up because babyface Ciampa is strange to me. I wanted the psycho killer. But it makes sense; as long as they were winning, Ciampa was fine with it and as soon as it was clear they weren't going to get those belts back, he snaps. Sure, I wanted more DIY matches, but I think that is the best time to break them up, when everyone wants just a little bit more. Both men played this up perfectly. Their facial expressions were fantastic. Their feud will be great and they are both set up to be impactful singles wrestlers now, top-shelf stuff.

I really liked this match. Bobby Roode works as champion for me, but that is really the only position on NXT that he has been interesting to me. Itami can and should have been a little more dynamic in his offense. He controlled the most important stretches and he did seem to get lulled into a match that just went one speed. Still. His offense looked good, especially some of the counter strikes the threw (that first overhand looked great). Roode's offense was limited in the body of the match, but it was targeted. I wish they picked up that Roode used the repaired shoulder of Itami a couple times to get out of jams through the match. They sold the damage late pretty well. It was kind of plastic and contrived selling from each, but they were doing what they needed to do. Those sell jobs, like the match, just felt a little too clean and rehearsed for me. Regardless, the story was really compelling. Itami came across as a guy who should probably get a shot down the road again. Roode looked like the champ that just gets it done. I ony wish Itami had been a bit more dynamic and added some pace to the match and that the match was a little rougher around the edges. ****

I liked the match quite a bit. Bate did his usual stuff, but with some more urgency and a little extra. Dunne was doing his thing really well. I am a big fan of both men. As people have mentioned, the strike exchange was quite good and the airplane spin was bonkers. Bate - for his age - is really good as working as champion and his downfall was really well put together here. ****1/4 (just outside my top 10 for the year right now)

Here I am thinking from your ratings and our conversations that you are a reasonable person and you go put Bock vs Hennig at 113.... for shame

Its smart. They can see how he feels he night of and make sure they have a surprise backup on deck.

If Steve Blackman and CM Punk switched bodies in some sort of Freaky Friday situation, Punk would very much resemble Aleister Black/Tommy End.

I took a pretty long break from wrestling podcasts last year, after summer. Started to get back in recently and I have listened to a few of these. I am really enjoying it: interesting topics, good depth, solid flow. Nice work.

Yeah, I am not sure I have ever heard him cut one either. That makes me think it may not be his strength. Regardless, they gave him a persona he can work with with in silence as they work with him on promos, if it is in fact a weakness.

Will never really get the recognition he probably deserves. I never really go into him until well after his time, but god damn did he entertain.

I don't have any interest in "sides" in this. I am not even sure this can be seriously reduced to just two sides. I suppose I did say "I am with Ricochet", but all I really meant was that I thought he sort of took the high road with his remarks and I agreed. I also thought the Jimmy Savile stuff Rip was posting was unfortunate. Other than that, I got no dog in this fight, and really haven't in years. I am not even sure there is a "truth" in any of this, just a bunch of realities about the demands of the wrestling business in different generations and a bunch of opinions about what constitutes good/compelling wrestling.

He is clearly fishing for a booking (earlier post about getting ready if Will is ever ready for a contest) or working to sling shirts. That's pretty tasteless. I am going to commence ignoring ol's Rip's part in all this.

I assume it wouldn't be called NXT Women, and would be it's own thing like the cruiserweight and UK shows. Yeah, I don't mean that they will name it NXT women, I just think that whatever show they do with women will be framed, presented, and ultimately approached as a less important show than NXT (or whatever they make the "male" version). I would be a little more optimistic if they kept women on NXT, went about 50/50 there, and in addition started a show exclusively for women that would obviously start as an implicit feeding system into NXT but they could work to grow into its own thing. Then MAYBE if it catches fire you move all the women who aren't on the "main roster" over. Even then I just think NXT is too much of a hyped and respected brand to just take all the women off and start something else with them without losing momentum for the women.

I am with you. I was actually thinking about this the other day as I watched Mike and Mike talk endlessly about how people shouldn't talk about this guy because that is what he wants as they more or less created a two hour commercial for those insanely overpriced shoes for like 3 days in a row. That dude is delusional and may be an outright ass hole, but he is keeping his son's name and his son's brand front and center and did so through the NFL draft and so far through the NBA playoffs. Impressive.

Look, I get the premise of giving women their own show and in theory it sounds fantastic, and I have no doubt they are talking about it and have been for a while. I just don't have faith in them to treat the show as equal to a "men's" NXT. I hope I am wrong, but there is really not a lot on the company's resume to make me believe it will be treated as anything more than a B-show for what will ultimately come across as "the real" NXT show. Again, if I am wrong no one will be happier than I am about it.

I kind of hope not. They could just embrace the fact that the show will be at least 50% women, sometimes more, given ebbs and flows of the show and the roster. I would much rather them do that and/or come up with some new programing. I would watch and I know women's wrestling has a lot of momentum right now, but splitting NXT into a men and women's show seems like a really good way to slow that momentum and I think they would have to put real work in to fight their (and wrestling culture's) instincts to turn the women's show as the B show.

I kind of have a feeling this is going to be somewhat disappointing. I hope I am wrong.

I think the Almas stuff is smart. They need a guy with some name recognition that can lose because they have so many guys they want to get some (at least vaguely) meaningful wins behind. Almas gets to stay relevant and he can always snap out of it down the road and turn his career around when the time is right... or he can be embarrassed completely by someone and amp up his effort and remain heel. I think there are lots of ways to go with it and it gives them some options for now.