Woof

Except that they seem to be focusing a decent amount of attention on the Shira brothers and haven't really done anything with Dar. Wouldn't be surprised to see Gurv Shira beat Dar and be ZSJ's QF opponenet.

Watching the Bracketology special and they've done a really nice job of making it seem like a legit sport, which is just such a weird thing coming out of WWE sponsored project. Daniel Bryan is really good in the analyst role, actually discussing strategy and style. Really looking forward to how they present the actual broadcast. Even if the matches don't all deliver, should be an interesting peek into where wrestling may be headed.

"You call him 'Broski'?" "Sure. What do you call him when you talk to him?" "I don't. I call him 'Zack Ryder' when I talk *about* him. [pause] It's not socially acceptable to say what I call Mojo Rawley when I'm off the air." Graves is awesome. Him and Phillips are my favorite pairing since Cole & Tazz at their Smackdown peak (and how weird does THAT feel to say?)

I particularly loved Aries showing a bit of ass by getting into the dancing for longer than you'd normally see before turning. He didn't just give a few token moves and then turn. He played into it for a while. Sometimes just playing with the timing on things like that can make it seem fresh even though you know it's coming.

I don't remember where but I saw a rumor/report that Strong was looking at going to WWN/Evolve File under: "Just continue roaming the super indies" He's been in Evolve before, even while working for ROH. Going back there is fine, but he's pretty much wrestled all those guys at some point in time. He's kind of all dream matched out.

You got cut off at the end there, Pete.

If that's not already a band it should be. Somebody get on that.

Same kind of name as: - Westley Blake - Buddy Murphy - Dash Wilder - Scott Dawson - etc. For all of the great things NXT does, coming up with names isn't one of them. With the possible exception of Dash Wilder, the rest of those are at least legit names. Not flashy perhaps, but a name you would hear. I mean, Lorcan is an Irish *FIRST* name (and not a very common one), so why the hell did they make it a last name? And Oney? The hell is that? Plus they sound terrible together. Gives you no feel for the guy. Total head scratcher.

Roddy's done everything he can really do in ROH, so now's a good time to move on. Wonder where he ends up from here? I could see him having an Aries style role in NXT, but they already have Aries and Roode for that, so I'm not sure he's needed. Can't see him in WWE otherwise. Just continue roaming the super indies?

Totally forgot to thank JDW for his insight on All Japan last year. It was extremely helpful. So thanks, man.

So they changed Biff Busick's NXT name from Christopher Gerrard to Oney Lorcan and gave him an upset win over Dillinger. I like Biff, but what the hell kind of a name is Oney Lorcan?

You should really check out Cedric Alexander vs Trevor Lee from the 5/18 edition of CWF Worldwide. Runs close to an hour, but never dull IMO. Easy MOTC for me.

Johnny chastising adults using coloring books for clinging too tightly to things from their childhood while in the midst of hosting a wrestling podcast struck me as deliciously ironic.

This fascinates me because it doesn't appear there's a single contracted WWE guy in this thing. Which makes me wonder what they're hoping to accomplish with it. Is it to see if cruiserweight action can support its own show (in which case this serves as a scouting mission as well) or are they trying to see if non-traditional WWE product will fly on The Network. NXT has been a success, but it's still clearly part of the "WWE Universe". I wonder if they're looking to bring in completely outside stuff as a way to augment their stuff. Yeah, they have the archives they own, but that's all past stuff. The one thing they haven't tried yet is non-WWE current product. Almost feels like this is a test for that. "Will people watch something new that's not part of our normal style/booking structure?".

Updated with late April, May and a little bit of June.

Gotta agree with Johnny here. Aries has been pretty douchey from the get-go. They were just smart enough to know you can't bring in an indy darling as a pure heel at the start. Even though the shows haven't been quite as good since they lost their writer to Smackdown awhile back, they still have the big picture stuff down pat.

What's the hold-up there? He was ringside for Takeover: Dallas but hasn't appeared on any TV since.

I for one am looking forward to the budding Scott Keith vs Marty Sleeze fued. Should be a total slobberknocker. http://blogofdoom.com/index.php/2016/05/30/half-a-decade/

Curious if anybody follows CWF-Mid Atlantic regularly with their YouTube show. They've really hit a groove over the last couple of months with Trevor Lee as champion. I'm not necessarily partial to long-form matches, but he's had a couple of great one recently (Lee vs Jesse Adler was a really great "make a young guy" match) and the Lee-Cedric Alexander match from a couple episodes back was a tremendous deal. Felt like a legit MOTY candidate to me, with some fantastic crowd interaction in the first half and then some snug work in the body of the match. Very well structred too. Seriously just a total breeze to sit through and makes me wonder just what the hell ROH doesn't see in Alexander that causes them to misuse him so. I was lukewarm to Lee based on the limited Evolve and PWG stuff I saw from him, but he's really turned me around in CWF-MA. I love the old-school studio feel of their show and how they keep the wrestling more grounded without all the super-indy flash.

I'll be happy to have the Joe/Balor feud end, hasn't been my favorite NXT title feud. It's gone on too long for sure. They could have got away with a four match series if they had mixed in other meaningful title programs along the way. That's the WWE PPV model of booking for ya though. Guys only ever face the guy their fueding with until the fued is over. If they had broken up the Cena-Owens series over more than a month-and-a-hald last year it wouldn't have felt so samey.

Pretty shocking that both Kushida and Ospreay lost their opening two matches. Not a great start for either when you consider those two along with O'Reilly and maybe Ricochet seem like the most likely finalists.

Pretty sure "The End" is in reference to the final Joe-Balor match and then where do they go from there with the title. They're not gonna pull the plug on NXT just because of a brand split.

Ok, the slow-mo replay on that mid-air Superman punch was pretty boss.

I threw on my headphones and watched music videos during that nonsense. Somebody wanna do me a solid and tell me what the net result was of that segment?

Is it me or does Steph look insanely skinny?