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Overall I liked the card, but I think my expectations were just too high. Aries vs No Way was a good match. I thought they did well to set the pace for the show. They wrestled with urgency. The match was exactly what it needed to be and the aftermath set an exciting feud in motion. Overall it was nothing earth shattering, but it wasn't supposed to be. I liked the match and thought both men actually looked better for it. Ember Moon was impressive. She gives me some hope for the division that I really felt got more or less obliterated as of late (that includes the assumption that Bayley is on her way out. I agree with the point that the finisher might need to be changed. I love it, but it is risky in that it has to be pretty perfect to work. Billie Kay actually looked a little better to me. I can't figure out how i feel about her. Bobby Roode looked really good. The Glorious thing is so incredibly goofy but it is getting over. The match itself seemed like something of a formality. Roode looked sharp, Almas was dynamic and picked up the pace where he needed to. It just always felt like a Roode showcase match and that is unfortunate. Almas has lost a lot of momentum it seems. I am not sure the character is really working (at least not for me). I think he will wind up morphing a good bit before he really gets his footing in NXT. The tag title match stole the show for me. I love me some Revival and echo all the praise from before. They do things in a match that really highlight how complex and nuanced tag team wrestling can be. They feel like true tag team specialists. If they were to face two superior singles wrestlers (say Nakamura and Balor), I would legit feel like the Revival are the favorites based singularly on their expertise as tag workers and all the little things they do. Their timing is so good. They implement team work in places that other teams just aren't doing right now. I thought Compa and Gargano had their best outing as a team. They built the drama of their near falls really well. This might have topped all the Revival vs Alpha matches for me. I will have to rewatch it, but certainly felt more invested in the moment. In all, I think that match kind of drained the crowd some. They were into the last two matches, but the energy and anticipation had been building before that and it felt like it leveled off a bit to me. Asuka vs Bayley was quite good, probably a little better than their first match as far as the actual story being told and the moments they were building. There were a few points were execution just wasn't there, but I thought the match was still really enjoyable and fun to watch. I am not sure they are opponents made for each other really. Joe vs Nak might not have ever been able to live up to the hype. I was so pumped for this and felt like it fell a little flat. I think that is probably as much or more on me than the match. There was so much heat coming in and I expected a little more pace and a little more in terms of those "holy shit" moments. That said, I need to rewatch it with fresh/more critical eyes. I liked what I was watching, it just never hit that next level to me. They were laying everything in really well and the match progressed really logically. It really was sort of an NXT/New Japan hybrid match. If this is the first match of a series, it makes a ton of sense. If this is it, it feels like a little bit of a letdown. I can see them doing 2 more and Joe getting the belt back before Nak goes up, or Nak becoming a hardened ace while Joe goes up. In all, I really liked this card, but I am not sure what to make of it. I think my own expectations skewed my watching too much. I want to rewatch this card, at least the last half of it, for sure.

I watched this match for the first time about 3-4 months ago. I will revisit a lot oft he Joshi I have been going through later. I need to see how well it holds up, especially the more I learn about the nuances or the stories. however, i think part of the appeal is the timelessness of the story here. it is really easy to discern the various stories they are trying to get over. The action is mostly good to great. The matchups this provides are incredible. The layered story they are trying to tell is legible, but not overdone. In short, I loved this match and thought it was more or less incredible, start to finish. It is - at this point - pretty easily my favorite Joshi tag match, a pretty solid ***** to me. I'll be interested to see how it sets later on since I am more or less just getting into Joshi over the last 6-9 months or so, but for now it is top shelf stuff in my book.

My gut response when I started reading this thread was to say, "both". After reading a few responses it is clear to me that that response has been fleshed out pretty well. I - like many here - really value a combination and think the context matters a lot. Small venue vs stadium, tv vs live, even binge watching for a few hours vs catching a quick match: all of these affect what I might be looking more closely at, but none of them determine what pops off the screen for me. Instead of focusing on which one i care about more, I started to think about which one of those strengths has influenced who my favorite wrestlers have been or what wrestlers really stood out to me. I recently went through a huge surge of wrestling watching, getting exposed to Lucha, joshi, and lots of 80s territory stuff I hadn't been before. I think in that I might have gone through a bit of a shift to big wrestling. I don't think it has quite as much to do with the people i really rank as personal favorites, but I big wrestling started jumping off the screen to me a little more than it used to. It is likely a matter of ebbs and flows. I have probably been paying more attention to the small stuff over the last 5-6 years and then I took in a few waves of new stuff and the big stuff stood out. In the early 2000s I was only really watching mainstream American wrestling and lost interest in wrestling as a whole until I got into the indy boom, NOAH, and backtracking into the All Japan stuff. Of course there is big wrestling in all those, but it was the little stuff that stood out to me. I think that is where the dynamic is really most interesting to me, when one strength can really jump off the page for one reason or another. For me, it is probably in my own ebbs and flows of interest, but it also stands out when someone is really good at the big stuff or the little stuff while everyone else around them tends to have the opposite strength. I have always thought this was one of the reasons Dragon connected so much with the audience. Of course it was the Yes Chant, of course it was his charm, but I really think his in ring work connected with people and it was because he was good at both, but his bread and butter is the little stuff. I think the same holds true for Kobashi. All Japan was always a place to find big and small wrestling, but - at least to my eye - the real strength was in the small stuff. Kobashi is a big stuff guy. It is what set him apart. Among the four pillars, it was his niche. That was part of the reason he stood out so much for me and why I think he connected with the audience on such a white hot emotional level. Those are two of my favorites of all time, both of them are good at the big and small stuff, but I think they really excel in different places and both contrasted every so slightly with their surroundings in ways that made them pop.

See I actually loved the early part. I haven't been a fan of Finn in a bit, but I thought his offense looked much more interesting early because it was so well integrated into the story they were telling. I thought the pace was fantastic and built a lot of drama. I think the winner was all but announced, but they told a story that made me actually second guess my assumptions and I thought it made Finn look better than he has since winning the belt. It also helped that he wasn't doing the demon thing here. I thought he was much better for it.

Agreed. I didn't care for the jetlag thing. They could have easily just said they have traveled a great deal in the last few weeks and everyone has been training hard since getting here, no telling when guys are getting caught up on rest. One wrong move in these final weeks of training can be the difference and those who travel furthest have one more thing to worry about..... yadda yadda yadda. I tend to think those little nuances bother me more than most though. I like that they busted out the handshake - ala early ROH - as a way of immediately establishing some personality dynamics for people the audience may or may not know.

I would add that "we will all continue to watch wrestling" with more signposts and paths to follow to new wrestling than ever before.

I was thinking about how tricky this is for guys, especially guys like Nak in a match like this. The story of the leg is a great one, the kind of story that should be told on big shows like this and made a ton of sense here. We - especially really invested fans - demand selling. I might even say we live in a time of elevated appreciation for selling. However, they obviously want the end to look crisp and feel big. Of course there are ways to do both, but it is a really tough spot to be in. Nak has to hit his finishers and so much of his offense in general revolves around the leg. It would be so tricky to sell that leg like some fans want and be convincing. I am certainly not saying people are wrong for wanting more commitment to the story. I was thinking the same thing during the match, but it is a rock and a hard place in this case. Personally, I tend to buy reading short spurts of no selling as adrenaline. I like the fighting spirit comeback, push out all the pain and take advantage of the situation. To an extent, that is how the body works in a real fight. I agree that Nak could have sold it better on the whole though. The end needed to be a little less contrived. Between the flow of the final sequence (a little too much waiting for Balor to get to his spots was required), the lack of commitment to the leg (even if just for a split second), and way it played with the story of the match.... it just didn't work as well for me. Then again, I thought his selling of the leg, when he did sell it, was excellent. And credit where credit is due, I haven't been a big Balor fan for a bit now, but I thought he was excellent here. I still think this was a very good to great match on story and offense alone, but it does miss the elite levels that requires a bit of that knitpickiness.

I just watched the first round and really enjoyed it. Admittedly, I enjoyed it a lot more so because of the novelty and its appeal to sort of smart fan culture. I am not entirely sure it will hold up quite as well in a few years. That is neither here nor there though. I thought Ibushi predictably stood out. He just had a crispness and fluidity that stood out. He didn't have seem to have the nerves others may have. God, he is just such an athletic freak that his offense always jumps off the screen. That pele kick in the corner and the power bomb at the end looked so much bigger and more impressive coming from him. My hat is off to Maluta as well. I really liked his offense and he kept pace with Ibushi. Aside from that biffed dive, which could have looked much worse, he was very much on. I loved some of his combo moves, especially that kick right into the neckbreaker. Overall, this was just a really fun match and a great choice to headline the first show. Clement Petiot was definitely a nice little surprise. Some of the best in ring charisma on this show, really crisp too I hope - and am sure this will happen - that if he doesn't get a chance in the E he gets more looks elsewhere. Alot of these guys are going to get a lot more attention after this show. I thought the first two matches were fine for what they were, certainly not offensive. Hoho Lun didn't impress me as much as I kind of hoped he would, but that could have been any number of things. Alejandro Saez is a guy I liked more and more as he went. He was kind of awkward at times but there was something about him that I liked. I also thought it was a solid match to set the tone. They didn't go out and do too much, but they hit some good spots, kept up the pace, and both men were putting in a lot effort. I liked Bryan announcing pretty well. I agree that he wasn't a great at it just yet, but just having him call the matches added a little something to them for me (and I am sure many others). Plus, his energy for wrestling - especially this kind of stuff - always comes off as genuine, even when he is a little awkward. If he wants to do this kind of thing long term he could be elite once he translates his knack for storytelling in the ring to storytelling on the mic.

My take on these guys has been changing a lot lately. I hadn’t watched much pre 90s All japan until the last 6 months or so. I got the 80s set and really started taking a look at some of the 70s stuff I have access too as well. Right now it would probably look something like this for me if I was looking ONLY at their work in All Japan. 1. Kobashi – I know he isn’t as popular pick for that top spot, but Kobashi had something about him, something that set his matches apart that you can’t buy. His connection and his ability to deliver in the big matches is otherworldly. Can he go overboard? Oh yea, but there are very few wrestlers I would rather watch. I think he is also a lot better at the nuances in his matches than he sometimes get credit for. To me, some of the best All Japan is the story of Kobashi in All japan. 2. Misawa – On an overall list there are a few other guys I would put above him, but I have really developed an appreciation for the nuances of his work and how so many people depended on Misawa being Misawa to get their own work and characters over. 3. Jumbo – Jumbo is a guy I have really learned to love in the past 6 months or so. I know some people don’t buy into him as much, but I really like how he slow builds intensity and anger into his matches when it counts. Most of my favorite jumbo stuff is in All Japan, which really helps his case. He is another guy that would fall behind if I were considering this more broadly. 4. Hansen – My number 1 overall, but so much of his case is made in PR, New Japan, and the AWA for me that he slides a little. He gave Kobashi and Kawada two of my favorite matches from them (though Misawa probably gave them the better matches). I never get tired of watching this guy’s AJ stuff. Some of my favorite singles and tag matches from the promotion. 5. Kawada – I love Kawada and there are times I think he was the best of the pillars. I think he was probably the most well rounded, a better tag worker than the two I have above him and so good at being great and losing. 6. Taue – It is tough to put him any lower than this for me personally right now. Amazing tag worker and has some incredibly strong singles performances. Really stood out a lot not just physically, but in terms of how the matches were laid out and appealed to the audience differently. 7. Tenryu – This feels a little like a footage thing for me. I would probably have him higher if I had seen more. I really just have only seen a part of his career. 8. Akyama – I like Akyama a lot and I can almost feel myself going through a big Akyama stage in the future. I rarely see a match of his that I outright don’t like. His longevity really helps. If I did this again in a year he might end up higher because I got to see even more Akyama or he may end up lower because I see more high end stuff from Baba or Funk. Tough to say. 9. Baba – Another guy I only recently learned to love, but he is one of the smartest wresters I have ever seen. He has some fantastic early matches that I am just getting into and a lot of pop up good matches here and there later. 10. Funk – This is another issue of footage for me. I have seen some of his All Japan work, but not all of it. Almost everything I have seen is super high end, so maybe he should be higher as is, but I just couldn’t put him over some of the promotions native mainstays based on what I have seen. 11. Robinson – Admittedly, I wasn’t thinking this until I got to Joeg’s post, but it makes sense. Robinson is the guy who made Baba click for me. His stuff with Jumbo is high end and I think he worked that 70s All Japan Style brilliantly. Honestly, it brings a different dynamic and sort of meanness and urgency to it that style.

I haven't kept up with ROH that much this past year. I was at the Anniversary weekend, but that was about it. Reading the results from this, it sounded pretty fun. For some reason Sullivan with Whitmer vs Corino sounds pretty fantastic to me. I wish Roddy wasn't leaving and Jay won, but I knew both were coming. If Roddy isn't going to NXT I just want him wrestling as much as possible. I haven't been keeping up with any of the indies as much, but when i have seen Roddy in the past couple years I have loved him every time. He is next level, so clearly ready for the big time, to my eye at least.

It is all pretty clear. See HHH and Curry are pretty good friends. Trips has been smarking curry up a bit by taking him to PWG, NXT, and Evolve shows. he even apparently sent him some Progress DVDs. What's more, word is he has been in Curry's ear about how Reigns isn't really that good for over a year now. Consequently, Curry hates Reigns. That is why he threw two games to force a game 7. He wanted to overshadow his main event and further the narrative that Reigns can't draw. Word going around from unconfirmed, nonexistent sources is that Curry was heard telling teammates that he was "tired of Reigns being shoved down the fans' throats" and "Reigns can't wrestle" recently while wearing an old school ROH shirt. But he didn't know that HHH booked the venue strategically so it would align with game 7, hoping that they could derail the Reigns hype before Summer Slam HOWEVER, HHH and Curry didn't know that LeBron and Ambrose have an in-state rivalry that dates back years. When James got word at halftime that Ambrose was going to cash in he refused to let Ambrose one up him. This motivated him to make sure Cleveland won so that no mainstream outlets would cover Ambrose. Apparently Vince is the one who had the information leaked to LeBron when he conceded to having Reigns drop the belt in the first place. See Vince knows about the political hit out on Reigns wanted to exploit the Ohio-based-beef between the two mitigate the buzz around Reigns losing AND the failed drug test. So you see it isn't that the WWE was stupid for making the change on the night of the big game, it is that the big game might have never happened in the first place without Reigns being the polarizing character that he is.

I watched the little intro earlier. I am such a mark for Dragon. I was getting excited just hearing him read cheesy lines about the competitors. I just believed them more, ya know. haha. This thing looks like it is going to be so much fun. I have a buddy who is there watching live. I know it isn't exactly going out on a limb, but I got Ibushi.

I see Bayley doing a lot better than expected, though I understand the cynicism. Enzo and Cass, the vaudvillains, and the other three horsewomen have done WAY better with their transition than I imagined. WWE's main roster still has some trouble booking women, but I think Bayley will get over and I think she will stay over. What she will lose a bit by being in a bigger physical and metaphorical space (which she will lose something to her act) she will make up selling more merch being on a bigger stage. Her act is a merch selling act for sure (bright colors, likable character, appeal to kids and adults). Vince will love that and make sure she is in a good spot.

Yeah, I agree that it can be a hang up, but it has never been a personal problem for me because I always want to explore new styles. I just - sometimes, not always - wind up starting with top stuff because I will look up what people like and where people suggest to start and all that. Personally, the expansion part comes for me in not really wanting to jump from style to style too quickly. For example, I am really excited to get into some WOS and shoot style eventually, but I am still making my way through some more Joshi and Lucha first. Plus, I got in the mood to rewatch some mid 00s ROH recently. So I am putting off getting into Shoot and WOS until I am ready to commit some weeks and months really wading through it. So even if I wind up starting with some top end stuff there, I will want to immerse myself in it for a while so I feel like I understand it. Once I am pretty familiar with a style or genre I feel better about jumping in and out a little more freely. The larger point is a good one. Everyone watches differently and finding methods for one's self that help expand one's horizons is - I think - really important.

Just listened to the show. Made me want to go back and give Styles/Cena another watch. I liked it, but was sort of doing a few things at once while it was on, but it seems like it may be worth a revisit.

I mean at some point they can't schedule around who may or may not win. They COULD have called an audible when they found out the result of the game, but were they honesty going to get much more press if Cleveland lost? I doubt it. At that point the building is already booked and the date is set well before we know there is going to be a game 7. I would rather them stick to the plan than do the seat of your pants planning they often time (reportedly) do. I think this is probably less of a thing outside Cleveland. Cleveland is one of my favorite cities (grew up a few hours away) and I was super happy at the result, but I don't think other things are getting lost in the shuffle outside Cleveland really. LeBron failing to bring a title to Cleveland would have sucked up just as much mainstream media and ensured title change didn't get much mainstream traction, at least in terms of a broader audience.

It kind of depends. I actually think the approach of understanding the style or the wrestler in the week to week or month to month before jumping into their best work. It is probably a lot better, I rarely do it. I recently jumped into Joshi and Lucha. I didn't immediately find the best matches, but it didn't take long. Falling in love with stuff like MS-1 vs Sangre Chicana El Dandy vs El Satanico helped motivate me to look at as much Lucha as I could. Part of it is that I assumed there is stuff I would like as much or more out there that other people were lower on, part of it was I saw how good lucha could be and wanted more. The same thing happened with Joshi. After watching Hokuto vs Kandori I became sort of obsessed with Joshi. Another part of it for me - at least with styles - is that I tend to get really into something and more interested in the nuance when I find my favorites. I immediately fell in love with Sangre Chicana and El Satanico when was watching the 80s lucha set. Watching their matches helped me get into other wrestlers and start to really parse out nuanced differences. Same with Kandori. She blows me away and because of that I have watched a lot of joshi that isn't necessarily heralded as the top stuff and really enjoyed it. One sort of strength - though, again, I don't recommend it - to this pattern of watching is that when you go back and watch the really high end stuff it takes on new layers. In some ways it lets you see some of the top shelf stuff twice. Those spots that might amaze you the first time and be boring the 10th can still bring you a lot of joy watching. I know I wind up paying attention to the nuances differently. It can also bring some weight to the move, weight that at least to some degree it should probably have not completely lost just because it is a regular spot. Watching some of my favorite matches at different points has always provided me with a more well rounded picture of what is happening in the story they are trying to tell. When it comes to elite stuff I watched cold, even if I didn't get the nuance the first time it is something I gain an appreciation I am not sure I would get without that first blind watch. I would love to watch everything chronologically, but I just don't have time and more often than not when I do have time to sit down with some new wrestling I want to see good wrestling. I often find myself thinking that life is too short to not watch great wrestling when you have the chance.

I am not sure it does make much a difference in terms of general reaction to him and how that may influence how he returns/evolves. People seem to be looking for a reason to boo him and hate him so I don't know that nuance and details will get in the way. Plus, I am assuming if it were pot the WWE would have come out ASAP to make it clear that he wasn't juicing, but who knows.

I honestly don't see how they bring him back as anything but a heel now.

To touch quickly on the first question on the original thread, I don't so much have a problem with them feuding, but I hate that they seem to just throw them together without much thought. Their feud is a great way to bring Zayn in give him some character right away, but they are just putting them together, calling it a feud, and expecting it to work. it is just a generic hate at this point and they really need to work to add a new wrinkle to it. In the very least Owens should have started a little more dominant so they could build Zayn's credibility through his pursuit of beating Owens. Building off what they were doing in NXT would make sense. This is more or less a reverse of that where Zayn has unceremoniously gotten the best of Owens already. Now they are just feuding because they generically don't like each other, which is in such a drag given how intense and personal their feud has felt elsewhere. As for Reigns, this feels like a big deal to me. Not that I am devastated or surprised or anything, but he is going to have quite an up hill battle ahead of him. I actually thought he was settling into his role as unbeatable monster champ pretty well, but this (on top of losing) really derails that and I am not sure people really care enough about reigns outside of booing him. I have kind of liked the guy for a while and thought he could really get that Cena type heat where the hate is a great thing, extending him beyond the heel/face dynamic, that feels deflated now.

I think that point about style is a good one. I was listening to one of the podcasts earlier and started pondering how the project really seamed to push people to expand their horizons and that was one of the key ways of manifesting things like "doing your homework" or "doing due diligence" etc. I think a lot of fans are implicitly or explicitly uninterested in checking out stuff that they aren't already into. Expanding one's horizons is often "organic" at best and "accidental" at its most honest, rarely methodical outside of populations as invested in something as those on this board are in wrestling.

I thought this was a really solid show, capped off by an on point main event (pretty good match, perfect angle). Everything has been said, but I will add that I am a little surprised/sad that they didn't make Reigns' first clean job a bigger deal. I mean he has kicked out of EVERYTHING to the point where I was starting to dig his tough guy/impossible to keep down thing as an underplayed but super important wrinkle in his character. I thought (yes, perhaps foolishly) giving that to someone clean on a big show was going to be meaningful, but the whole thing tonight sort of overshadowed it. I guess maybe the thought is this doesn't count since they did the ref bump and the visual pin, but this still seemed like a bigger deal that then immediately didn't feel like a big deal. I think - well... . I hope - they play it up in the ongoing feud between the three at least.

I go back and forth on Ambrose. I do think he is inherently pretty interesting because he keeps sort of pushing against (or at worst taking jabs at) the WWE prototype and has sort of kept his momentum despite the odds. I am excited by the prospects of his feuds, but rarely really find myself loving his matches that much (a few exceptions exist). I think I replied to this earlier when I was sort of down on him, but in general I have always liked him and I think he might even be growing more on me a bit. The thing I really like about him is that he is kind of walking that tweener line that Vince said all wrestling was a while back, but doing it as well or better than anyone. I mean he is obviously super over as a face, but he is really cocky and kinda crazy and it really wouldn't take too much of a change to his wrestling style to make him a heel. So for him, it is all about story. I always thought the Austin comparisons were way overblown, but I think they have that ability to be who they are and earn a different kind of love from the fans for it. I saw this morning some article talking about his heel turn and my first response was like, "what heel turn"? I don't see him getting turned on unless they really alter who and what he is in any significant way. He is feuding with a guy many fans already hate (got that Cena love/hate) and a guy that fans actually seem to like booing as a genuine heel, but respect as a performer. I don't see the broader audience turning on him. As for his run. I kind of thought this was a possibility to set up a triple threat match for Summer Slam (though I am surprised they put Rollins over Reigns first. Not sure what they do next month, but I imagine they are planning to build to the big blowoff in Aug. There, I anticipate them putting the belt on Rollins or Reigns.

Ah... I suppose that shouldn't surprise me.

yeah, the list is very short. I don't assume that it would be hard to get Vader to put Osprey over, but if he really is upset about this he might. I don't know, maybe Vader would have trouble doing it anyway.