Woof

Yeah, I thought this was a weird character choice and hope that it ends up being an aspect in Dario's downfall. Not just an edgy thing to do for edge's sake, which LU has been guilty of before. Well, after he committed murder last season I figure anything's on the table going forward.

For what it's worth, in the Lucha Underground episde Taya wasn't pointing out that Dario had food in his teeth, she was pointing out he had cocaine on his lip as he was snorting some at the top of the scene right before she and Mundo came in.

I'd say Joe is acting like an entitled little bitch. Did he not lose two title changes to Finn yet was still given more shots? Whereas Nakamura has been tearing shit up and clearly deserves to be the #1 contender. I think it's been a pretty good build. Nakamura has been brilliant in his taunting of Joe, whom in his turn has been great being the on-tilt, salty as fuck entitled champion. Entitled? If anything Nak is the entitled one here. SAMOA JOE NXT SINGLES MATCHES BEFORE FIRST TITLE SHOT.., Def Scott Dawson No contest vs Kevin Owens Def Axel Tischer Def Rhyno Def Mike Rawlis Def Steve Cutler Def Baron Corbin Lost #1 Contender Battle Royal Def Tyler Breeze Def Tommaso Ciampa Lost to Finn Balor © SHINSUKE NAKAMURA SINGLES MATCHES BEFORE FIRST TITLE SHOT… Def Sami Zayn Def Tye Dillinger Def Elias Samson Def Alex Riley Def Austin Aries Def Buddy Murphy Def Finn Balor Def Wesley Blake Def Samoa Joe © Each guy had 8 singles wins before they first got a shot at the title and Shinsuke's were easily against more impressive competition. Joe's claim he had to jump through hoops to get a title shot is heel justification, nothing more. He was awesome at it, but it wasn't based in fact.

AJ Styles heeling on little kids right now is outstanding. ...And John Cena defending his character is the best version of John Cena. Great segment.

The story behind the audience counting 1 step ahead of the ref over in the UK is apparently because one time at a Progress show the ref screwed up the count and missed a number so the next time they started chanting the subsequent number after him in order to "help him out". I mean, it was sarcastic, but it had an organic beginning and a point. So of course it turns into "let's try and fuck up his count" over here because us Americans can be dicks.

G1 CLIMAX – NIGHT NINE TAMA TONGA vs TOMOHIRO ISHII I have no idea what the hell this match was so I have no idea how to justly rate it. Tonga is just such an odd wrestler. I don't get his character or why he's aligned with the Bullet Club, as he doesn't seem to have anything in common with their antics. He seems to try hard in his matches and there were moments here – particularly in the second half following the odd rope-running sequence – where he does stuff to get a decent pop from the crowd, but it's all just so disjointed and kind of mindless. In a way I feel bad because I feel like I'm short-changing the guy, but on the other hand I feel like I'm more than willing to give him a chance to do something to excite me and it just never happens. Meanwhile Ishii was just kind of along for the ride here, doing stuff, but not actively bringing anything to the proceedings. The ending sucked too, as either they botched the intended counter of Ishii's suplex or Tama just no-sold the front suplex in order to hit his own move for the win. Just a weird match to me. *1/2 BAD LUCK FALE vs SANADA Oof, was this ever slow and plodding. At this point I'm wondering if it's just me and I need to come back to this show later on, because that's two matches in a row that did absolutely nothing for me and were a chore to sit through. Sanada spends so much time looking like he doesn't wanna be there while Fale is generally content to do as little as possible unless his opponent brings the fight to him. He repeated the rail squashing spot from the Tanahashi match, which was the highlight of this match, sadly. Sanada hit a nice looking missile dropkick at one point, but that's about all I can point to on the upside. Here's hoping this show picks up. *1/2 At this point I took a break from the show because I figured I was just not in the right frame of mind, especially after I did a little checking and saw that some other folks enjoyed those two matches. When I came back to it 24 hours later it still didn't do much to hold my interest even though the matches were significantly better. I didn't take notes, but here are some ratings. Could go up on a re-watch, but I don't expect to do one. NAOMICHI MARUFUJI vs TOGI MAKABE *** HIROYOSHI TENZAN vs KAZUCHIKA OKADA ***1/2 HIROOKI GOTO vs HIROSHI TANAHASHI ***1/4 This is my first time experiencing the G1 in it's entirety so I think this show was my first real encounter with tourney fatigue. Oh well.

G1 CLIMAX – NIGHT EIGHT (FYI: Spritied little sprint between Taguchi and Finlay opened the show. Nothing you haven't seen before, but a fun match.) TOMOAKI HONMA vs TORU YANO As soon as I saw Honma coming to the ring I thought, "he should get back on the winning track here, but I bet this is where Yano get's his fluky win". I hate being right. This match was junk, with Honma alternating between being duped by Yano's antics and sniffing them out. The ref bump was terrible as no seasoned ref would have ever been in that position to get hit. I don't mind Yano's act, but this was just schtick, kokeshi, schtick, kokeshi, schtick, low blow, backslide. Waste of time. * EVIL vs YOSHI-HASHI This took awhile to hook me, as throughout the opening half it just felt like one of those matches where guys just do stuff to each other. Nothing really compelling. I'm officially tired of Evil's "chair around the head" spot, as doing it in every match, especially so early on, kills its appeal. Things really picked up on the last third though, as they both turned up their intensity quite a bit. Yoshi-Hashi is a really good underdog, as I tend to bite on a lot of his nearfall kickouts. This felt a lot like his match with Omega on night two, where he stayed in the match despite being dominated in the early going, then just began to slowly escalate his offense towards the end and I started biting on his nearfall wins as I had the losses. In both matches I felt the opponent was probably better but neither could manage to put Yoshi-Hashi away and before they knew what was happening he had taken them out. A very solid encounter. ***1/4 KATSUHIKO NAKAJIMA vs YUJI NAGATA I didn't know much of anything about Nakajima coming into this tourney, particularly about his character/face-heel dynamic. Up till now I feel like he's been trying to cautiously win people over. Not here. He attacks Nagata before the opening bell and really takes it to him, drawing boos, which I don't recall hearing much from Japanese crowds. Nagata takes a beating outside and I liked his tease of the countout by falling off the apron just as it seemed he'd get back in. Nakajima failed to stay on top though and once Nagata turned things around this thing took off. Nagata beat the ever loving SHIT out of Nakajima. Just brutal strikes and kicks. He looked so pissed off here that I wondered if Nakajima dishonored his family somehow. Just brutal. Nakajima's sell of an early Nagata kneelift was like he'd ruptured some vital internal organ. Nakajima tried giving back what he got and while his stuff was likewise heavy and stiff, it couldn't match Nagata. Until he went after the knee, a weakness for Nagata all tourney. That evened the playing field a bit and then it was just a matter of who was going to survive. The slap battle near the end was epic and I loved Nagata's rage in administering the corner beatdown. Nakajima seemed like he was fighting merely for survival at some points. In the end he was able to take Nagata's best shots without going down for good and do just enough damage to the knee to keep Nagata weak to where he could hit a sick brainbuster for the finish. Just an epic exchange and probably my favorite match of the tourney so far (though I need to rewatch some of the middle shows since I was a bit distracted on the intial viewings). ****1/4 KENNY OMEGA vs MICHAEL ELGIN First let me say that this crowd is hot, in both the "really vocal" and "full of smokin' ladies" senses of the word. Needs to be said. As for the match itself, I've now seen enough Kenny Omega where I can agree with the general sentiment that too much of his stuff is overblown to the point of being comical and/or fake looking (even when it's clearly stiff). There were times here where I felt like he was wrestling like Shawn Michaels vs Hulk Hogan at SummerSlam '05. It distracted me quite a bit in the early going. There was also some sloppiness and more than a couple mis-timed moments in this match. Elgin getting up too early to take Omega's plancha after the Takahashi attack in the opening moments looked terrible. Warts aside, these two ended up delivering a hell of a match that just got more intense and more vicious as it went. The second half became this tremendous bomb throwing exchange that reminded me so much of the Cena-Owens series where it seemed like each guy was intent on completely unloading everything in their arsenal rather than lose. I love matches like that where there is a real palpable sense of "at all costs" from both sides where you just know that losing here is something they outright refuse to do. Elgin no-selling some of Omega's stronger kicks and strikes bugged me a little, but for the most part this really delivered on the finishing stretch. A flawed match, but a highly entertaining one. **** KATSUYORI SHIBATA vs TETSUYA NAITO I don't have a ton to say about this one other than it was a really hard fought battle that told a nice story of Shibata overcoming his various injuries to defeat a guy you could just tell it would sicken him to fall to. Shibata the warrior is a character I enjoy. They beat the tar out of each other with the railings in the early going and then it settled into a more traditional match. Not much in the way of notable spots, but just some really solid wrestling. Match never dragged, there was plenty of intensity, and Naito kept his schtick to a minimum, which he should have given the magnitude of his opponent. His low blow near the end actually felt well earned (that sounds weird) given that Shibata had gotten testy and shoved the ref for no real reason. If he was dumb enough to give Naito that opening, he deserved to take one in the yambag. The finish felt a little flat to me just because I'm not use to KO finishes so it felt out of left field, but it wasn't bad in any sense. In the end this was a really good match that may have suffered a tad for me because I was so into what preceeded it. Might be worth a revisit at some point. ***3/4 Best night of the tourney so far for me (though again, nights 3-5 need to be rewatched), with four of the five matches really delivering. Marufuji vs Okada from night one is still the best match of the tournament so far, but Nakajima-Nagata comes close and was ultimately a more entertaining watch for me.

Totally forgot to mention Fale hucking the barrier at Tanahashi. Those shots were SICK. There was no way for Tana to fully protect himself on those. Wicked.

I don't usually take notes when I watch, but I was kind of feeling it tonight and what the hell, I didn't used to do star ratings either until I started coming to this place. Time for something new, I guess. G1 CLIMAX 26 – NIGHT SEVEN HIROYOSHI TENZAN vs TOGI MAKABE Really decent hoss battle with two thick maulers just pounding on each other until one of them finally caves in. Tenzan's story so far has been his odd underdog role and I liked how that played into this match, as he was (as he's done all tourney) constantly looking to the audience for approval and reaction and against Makabe, whose story has been a methodical focus of just pounding guys, it cost him. Makabe gets dumped on I think for his lack of selling but I thought he did a great job here of putting over the accumulation of Tenzan's heavy offense. But Tenzan could never stay in control long because he wasn't keeping on Makabe and a gorilla like that won't stay down long if you lay off him. The final sequence bared that out as Tenzan had Makabe down but didn't push his advantage and Makabe caught him with an absolutely wicked Angle Slam and the King Kong Knee and that was it. I can't see Makabe's streak continuing much longer, but I like that so far in the tournament he's winning because other guys are failing to match him blow for blow, which you'd need to do. *** HIROOKI GOTO vs SANADA This one lost me along the way, as it was pretty basic with no real flow or story that I could get into. I'm still trying to get my head around Sanada as a character. He has wanderer's syndrome, which is a big pet peeve with me, where he'll hit a big move and then just sort of drift around with a look on his face that says he's thinking about nothing in particular, least of all what his next move will be. I feel like part of it is trying to play along with Naito's pseudo indifference, but with Naito it feels like a calculated mind game and with Sanada it feels vacant. Goto gave his usual solid effort but he's just so non-descript as an in-ring performer for me that I needed something extra in this match to make it pop for me and I didn't get it. **1/2 NAOMICHI MARUFUJI vs TOMOHIRO ISHII Marufuji's been probably my favorite performer thus far in the tournament. I like how he's carrying himself as this seasoned vet who's not quite past his prime, so he knows he can compete without having to fire himself up, yet he also knows the grind that he's about to undertaker, so there's real sense of "getting down to business" about him. After he beat Okada he didn't let it go to his head against Fale, and even though he lost there it wasn't because of cockiness. Fale was just a different beast. Here I thought he was generally a step ahead of Ishii throughout the match, but he couldn't quite hit a move that would put him away. Ishii can just take so much ridiculous punishment and Marufuji isn't the guy that's going to just steamroll you. The chop exchange was pretty epic and I love how Ishii then started leading with his chest at the end, to really let Marufuji know that his best wasn't going to put Ishii down. In the end I think Marufuji just ran out of steam and Ishii's bull doggedness got him the victory. Fun match. ***1/2 KAZUCHIKA OKADA vs TAMA TONGA Not sure what to make of this one, as Okada looked really disinterested in the beginning (although I can't say as though I blame him, given it would take an extraordinary set of circumstances for me to believe Tonga had a chance here). It wasn't until Tonga caught him with that clumsy stunner over the ropes that things picked up and I liked him going out after Okada to drop him on the railing since it was clear the countout victory wasn't going to happen. After that though it was just odd to see Tonga take so much of the offense, in particular countering so much of what Okada attempted. They were trying really hard to make Tonga seem like he could pull off the upset but for some reason I just wasn't buying it. Credit to Okada though because he made a couple of the nearfalls down the stretch seem like a miracle was about to happen. In the end Tonga's offense just isn't that interesting to me, so the match kind of lurched along to the finish as I waited for Okada to get that one small opening to hit the rainmaker, which of course he did. Not a bad match, but an awkward match-up that tried to sell a story I wasn't buying. **1/4 BAD LUCK FALE vs HIROSHI TANAHASHI What an odd match for Tanahashi to get off the schnide with. I liked the story of it, with Fale basically dominating Tanahashi throughout and the ace only getting in small bursts of a comeback, because it made sense. Fale is so much bigger and Hash is pretty desperate for a win, so he's leaving himself open to stuff in an effort to fell the larger guy. All decent stuff. But man, Fale's offense is just so lumbering and loose. He hit a kneelift at one point and a lariat a little while later and neither looked like they had anything behind them, though Tanahashi sold them both. I don't need a guy like Fale to be stiffing the hell out of people because his size alone does some of the work for him, but he just doesn't put enough effort into it for me to take it seriously. The fluke ending works fine in a vacuum, but as Tanahashi's first win after an 0-3 start it felt unsatisfying to me. He might as well be 0-4 for all this match did for him. A lucky win after being mauled for most of the match doesn't put him on a turnaround path from where I sit. Still though, I was entertained by this even in spite of Fale's lack of oomph. This was probably the most compelling I've found him to be in my limited exposure, though a lot of that has to do with Tanahashi's narrative coming in. ***

I think that was a case of Sabre's match itself being a little low key whereas the main event had more sizzle to it. Sabre-Dux never really hit next gear for me, which is a problem I sometimes have with Sabre's style when he's working shorter matches (granted, not that often). Both guys looked fine and if you didn't know Sabre beforehand that was a nice primer, but it wasn't quite the "wow" match that Ibushi had in the first week. Meanwhile Kendrick and Mendoza told a more interesting story, so I can see how someone would come away thinking they were a bit better. I'm with you though, Soup, I can't see what 2 other guys would have pushed Sabre to 5th. Nobody in the middle matches did anything of note to me.

I have this weird desire to see Dux, Nese and The Drifter as a unit in NXT now. Hell, Nese could pass as Drifter's brother with his current look. Either way Dux looks like he could have a real solid couple year run in the NXT midcard if they gave him the chance.

So Bennett vs Nese was nothing special, but Mendoza-Kendrick brought that crowd to life. I enjoyed Kendrick going heel, as it gave the match some weight as opposed to the exhibitionary feel of the rest of the night. Sort of a weird show this week as the opener and closer were really good but those middle two were dogs. I wonder how it'll come across on a re-watch.

Odd choice to put Zack Sabre Jr. and Drew Gulak matches back-to-back this week. They really needed to break it up with something more traditionally "cruiserweight", as all that grappling doesn't really fly at Full Sail. Sihra and Gulak had no chemistry to boot, so that didn't help. Meanwhile I'm starting to hear what Johnny's been saying about Daniel Bryan on commentary. A little too much "oh wow!" cheerleading, plus he and Mauro keep stepping all over each other. Curious to see what the Kid-N-Play guy has to offer.

This match was an unholy tornado of stiffness. Just beautiful chaos from beginning to end. Talk about 4 guys playing their respective roles perfectly. Kawada as the insolent little shit constantly popping up to antagonize Hansen or Gordy on the apron just to take another asswhooping was glorious. So much fun.

Cole was excellent during that 03-06 period working with Tazz. Graves has a similar style, in that he tends to keep his comments grounded in strategy and the (kayfabed) reality of wrestling, minus all the Tazzisms. He was a little heavyhanded last night with the picking on Byron stuff, but at this point that's become a company mantra. Why they insist on keeping Byron in that role is beyond me, as he adds nothing to broadcasts and the other commentators treatment of him is distracting at best and degrading at worst. All in all though, I'm with everyone else in that I really enjoyed the cosmetic changes. Just made the show feel fresh. They need to mix shit up like that every couple of years just to keep it from getting overly stale. Curious to see what they do on Smackdown tonight, whether it's a copycat reboot but in blue, or something entirely different.

Have they mentioned any affiliations with Superstars and Main Event? Or are they just gonna be catch-all shows for both brands.

The return of jobber matches makes me happy. A couple a week would not be a bad thing.

Here's a link for CWF-MA for those who may want to check them out. https://www.youtube.com/user/CWFMidAtlantic And to answer your question, Pete, Brad Stutts is currently the booker.

WWE, king of the match stips, and these two are wrestling a straight-up match to settle a years long feud. Weird.

Any film by David Lynch.

Slater is the only one who wasn't drafted. And they just shut the lights out on him sitting alone in the draft room. They HAVE to make that into something.

So Raw winds up with 40 superstars: 33 men, 7 women, 7 existing tag teams. Smackdown gets 31 superstars: 25 men, 6 women, 5 existing tag teams (6 if you count the Hype Bros). Of course this doesn't include all the "free agents" they've been supposedly reaching out to, so I guess we can expect some surprise debuts/returns in the coming weeks.

Heath Slater goes undrafted. Ouch.

Smackdown took Naomi though. The Ascension ended up being a extra pick in the round. I wonder if they're abandoning the 3-for-2 format now to help balance it out.

Jack Swagger drafted before Zack Ryder. Doesn't Ryder have a US title shot this Sunday? Wow.