TonyPulis'Cap

I've really been enjoying these podcasts (and the podblasts and other discussions) precisely because they have been so open minded and people are really stepping up to go to bat for people more outside the box than conventional wisdom would say. With these things there is always a risk that it it's a list of just the most famous or people that won world titles, but it's really great to see so many varied opinions being shared and interesting discussion points raised that's opening my eyes to names you might not think about considering. In particular loved the women's wrestling episode where there was great chemistry between Will. Stacey and Glenn, and I'm definitely another fully on the get Trish Stratus into the top 100 wagon!

While I definitely wouldn't go as high as **** (more of the *** range for me) this was a lot of fun, and I would love to see a longer 15-20 min match between the two. With Rusev's style and Gable being an ex-Olympian, I was sort of getting a 1980s Olympic Games vibe from the match, with a plucky challenger with a patriotic support taking on an imposing Eastern European working a sambo style. Gable's hope spots in the match were nicely timed and there was a great nearfall on the moonsault. I also really enjoyed his rolling belly to belly suplexes. I know they are probably not going in this direction, but an extended rivalry where Gable takes something in losses to Rusev, learning and adapting and then using that to overcome him on a PPV event is something I could get behind.

Just got round to watching this yesterday and really enjoyed it. I thought it was kept relatively simple and didn't go overboard in terms of kickouts and 'movez' and benefited from that. As others have highlighted, I enjoyed Nakamura's reaction to the 'you can't see me stuff' and in turn I liked Cena not knowing how to take Nakamura. When Cena portrays being off guard, out of his comfort zone or vulnerability it makes him a far more compelling character to me. I think this was definitely Nakamura's best match since being on the main roster - although I did enjoy the TV match he had with Ziggler - and his strikes and kicks all locked on point, and delivered with some fire and energy, which is something people have said that he has been lacking. The reverse exploder bump that Cena took was super scary and I guess it shows why wrestlers like to make sure they have those crazy neck muscles to be able to absorb things like that. Not sure how the Nakamura/Jinder match is going to turn out, but hopefully being in such a high profile match at Summerslam will make sure we continue to see motivated Nakamura. It will also be interesting to see if this becomes an extended feud and how they play it, given it's harder to do the old 'evil foreigner' gimmick against a non American wrestler but intrigued for the match as something nice and different.

Add anyone that wrestles whilst wearing earrings - that seems like just asking for disaster when a headlock is the most fundamental move used in almost every single match at some point.

Won't spoil it for anyone that hasn't heard it, but the post production insert from Tim talking about Zack Sabre Jnr's chances in the G1 was a classic moment. Glad to hear Pete has ZSJ ranked so highly at the moment, I'm fighting a campaign with my mate who comes to Rev Pro shows with me about how he's the man while he's not a fan. Think he's always going to be a bit of a marmite worker for some, but I'm really enjoying the physicality he's bringing to his matches now alongside the usual technical brilliance. I think I remember a lack of being physical being Finlay's criticism of him when he was in the CWC.

Think from all the feedback you've got so far that you've seen people don't really mind if the footage is out there for everyone to find and we are happy for your excellent descriptions of the shows to paint the picture! Personally, with so much wrestling out there I don't always get the time to look for/see the shows but always find the time to listen to your reviews, so I guess that's the way round you'd want it! Not exactly breaking news either, given he's been on a while now, but Kelly has been a great addition and brings a nice fresh perspective. Was also fun when you had Pete and Parv on for one shots.

Drew was very much a case of a guy that getting let go by WWE was the making of him. Getting to work in Evolve, back in Scotland and across the UK and even TNA, where he was more physically imposing than a lot of the people he came up against allowed him to turn into a much more dynamic and aggressive wrestler rather than the more punch/kick/resthold bland style that he had when he first came in as the 'Chosen one'. It also enabled him to build his character and his promos and he shows far more charisma now than when he was initially pushed. He did lots of great work over here in the UK before he was resigned and developed into a guy you could trust to put your main title on and build around. What Culture wrestling can be very much hit and miss, but this promo that he cut against a guy called Joseph Connors (who has been in WWE UK) is really great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H5ZrTDc7Pk

One of the problems I see with the presentation of Mike and Maria, is that in ROH, especially when she first showed up and you didn't know it was going to be a regular thing, was that it seemed a pretty big deal that this hot, former WWE diva that was on the cover of Playboy was on shows in front of 400 people for a company that had always presented itself as 'serious wrestling'. Her character was essentially, someone with my CV/looks etc doesn't need to turn up for a non WWE company and me being here is bringing glamour and attention. Back in WWE, she obviously doesn't stand out like she did, as that part of her appeal/character doesn't work. For a large part of his run in ROH, Mike Bennett's character was essentially, hey, I'm a guy that looks/talks/works like a WWE guy in a workrate promotion which got heat - again, that doesn't work now he's actually in WWE. I quite liked their act together in ROH - as they did stand out when compared to the people around them - but so far in WWE, they have not stood out at all, and I think they've got their work cut out for them to make them meaningful.

Never a truer word said. I've long thought that if you look at who is in the tournament, you have all the right pieces, just completely in the wrong place. Keeping the same 8 guys, but re-arranging some of the match ups you would have a miles better tournament and in the main could keep the same stories. I know fantasy booking is not to everyone's tastes, but if you went back and did an opening round of: Angle vs Crash - rather than have this as the semi, have it as QF but you can basically do the exact same match Eddie vs Val - you can keep this the same, and they eventually build to the mixed tag at SSlam between these two with Trish/Chyna, but have Eddie go over to set up a much better potential match with Angle Jericho vs Bull - Bull can throw Jericho around, can possibly injure him but loses nothing in losing to Jericho Benoit vs Rikishi - again, you can keep this QF but have Benoit go over This leads to semis of Angle vs Eddie and Benoit vs Jericho which I think everyone can agree would be significant upgrades on what we actually got. I know they might not have wanted to run Benoit/Jericho again, but given I think Benoit won most of the matches in the rivalry, a good way to get Jericho a win. If you don't want to job Benoit considering he's going for the title the next month you could have Benoit get DQ'd for injuring Jericho like he does Rikishi in the real thing and this again build sympathy for Jericho going into the final. You then run Angle vs Jericho as the final rather than the QF and can do the same result and same finish with Steph getting involved to build that feud.

I watched the show on their Youtube page and it seemed like a decent nights action. Like you I enjoyed the the Ishii/Rampage Brown match. Rampage Brown is a real favourite of mine. Oddly, and I guess they may out them up separately but the Swords of Essex/War Machine match and the Riddle match weren't included on the full show they put up. In particular I was looking forward to the tag match and seeing the Swords hopefully being thrown around by War Machine. WCPW are obviously not for everyone, but I think the World Cup they've been running has been pretty entertaining and the round of 16 onwards looks to have a lot of compelling matches.

Couldn't agree more - one of the best babyfaces in the company that manages to get the crowd invested despite in recent months losing the majority of matches that she's in. I really enjoyed the match she had with Charlotte this week, and while there were the customary dueling chants at the beginning of the match, by the end the crowd was firmly behind her. Also look at the reaction when she knocks Ellsworth off the ladder in the second women's MIB match when the crowd thinks she's going to win. I know some find her promos hit and miss, and while there are some where the 'top of the morning to ya' Irishness is played up (which I suspect is what the company is telling her to do) the ones she cut after the first MIB and the frustrations at people having to cheat to get ahead were full of emotion and relatability.

Agree with a lot of this, although, I feel like wrestling bookers/companies for decades have enjoyed frustrating the paying customer and continue to do so - not just WWE. In terms of a chase and building heat, cheap wins/DQs/run ins/heel tactics can all be helpful points on a bigger journey, the key is knowing when to cash in and let the face go over or win the big one at the right time. Too many times, you get a cheap ending, justified as building heat, when the time is right for a payoff. I think I remember Will talking about it on either one of the reaction shows or Dangerous Alliance podcasts, but the problem a lot of the time with wrestling is that there aren't enough feel good moments when you really think about it. Obviously it would be boring - and it would turn the crowd off - if babyfaces always won against the odds, but the art of sending home crowds happy and giving them something...anything....to cheer about or get behind often just isn't there. Even when someone does get that big moment, or there is something that genuinely makes people happy, it's so quickly moved on from or taken away from them. I know that's a bit the nature of the beast with wrestling not being in seasons or having down time, but fans being able to revel in the success of a hero or feel good moment might help people to feel more invested and make dodgy/controversial finishes have more impact.

In what should be a great few days of wrestling, the day after the Rev Pro Summer Sizzler, also have tickets to the ROH London show in the same building. Given it's a tour in conjunction with Rev Pro, CMLL and NJPW, hoping for some unique matches. The ROH show in London last year was a great show and so really excited for this as well.

Last Saturday a mate and I went along to the Rev Pro British J Cup show and wanted to share some thoughts before watching it back on demand as I think that can often be a very different experience from seeing something live. Case in point, in the building I really enjoyed it, even if I think the first round matches might not be ones people rave about when they see them on tape - but I thought all were enjoyable and they all showcased a lot of variety. You had some comedy in the Scurll/Tiger Mask match, a storyline quick pin in the Bodom/Liger match which played into events later in the night and built a match for the next big show, high flying in the Ospreay match and then technical grappling in the Kushida/O'Reilly one. What's more, none of the matches had 'too much' in them, saving that for the final. The final - which was a four way, rather than there be semi finals - was a huge amount of fun, with Liger getting continually knocked out of the match by Scurll. There were some great moments and it was tons of fun with good storylines and narratives running throughout it. Scurll managed to get two sneaky eliminations on Ospreay and Kushida and then pinned them with the same roll up combination. That meant that when he got it on Liger, and he kicked out, it got a massive pop. In the end, Liger managed to roll back the years and win the tournament. I heard someone moaning after that it should've been won by a 'young guy', and while there is of course some logic in that, the story they told with a veteran Liger throughout the tournament was really good and paid off beautifully. Even with Scurll being incredibly popular over here and being in an age where so often people want to cheer the heels, it was so refreshing to see a match where a clear babyface was getting massively cheered rather than booed and where people were so happy that the babyface won. That seems rare in wrestling these days. Plus, if this is something they want to do every year - and the suggestion is that they do - then you now have Liger in the record books as the first winner which adds prestige straight away. In my opinion Rev Pro gets unfairly labelled as a company that doesn't do storylines and just puts on big matches, and while it's true that they focus on putting on indy dream matches and they don't have convoluted stories with lots of soap opera elements, booker/promoter Andy Quildan books really simply and effectively with in-ring stories and from show to show. If you've watched the cockipt shows they put on there is plenty of simple storyline development, and if you go back through their On Demand service and watch older shows, you can see how things progress without having to have lots of backstage segments and ridiculous beatdowns that never have any long term consequence. The British J Cup show was another great example - a show that had the Liger trying to win one last tournament running through it and then peaked with the show stealer matches at the end. On that note, the semi main event of Matt Riddle vs Tomohiro Ishii was brutal (in a good way) and having watched him against Hero live last year, Ishii has an aura to him when you watch him in the flesh that makes every match an event. A really enjoyable show and a pretty fun venue of the Walthamstow Assembly Hall, which has the entrance on the stage at one end and then also has a balcony (where we were) opposite that gave a great view. It's a building that has been in use for around for decades so lots of history. Was a bit bizarre given I used to work in the Town Hall opposite and had been to council meetings there, but a unique looking venue is part of the live experience for me. In saying that it was a roasting hot day though and as a Brit, definitely not used to that! It very much whets the appetite for the next big Rev Pro show in August at the York Hall I'm going to, with Liger's win also setting him up for a shot at Josh Bodom's Cruiserweight Tile. Again, this is the strength of the booking - Liger beat Bodom in the first round and then Bodom attacked him when he was being presented with the trophy which puts a lot of heat on that match. A heel everyone hates facing a hero everyone cheers for - will be great to see. Oh yeah and Rey Mysterio is on the show so cross that off the bucket list. Plenty to look forward to!

In general tribute shows for deceased workers are tear jerkers to get through, but for me, there always seems to be the reaction of one person that can set you off - for the Owen Hart show it's Jeff Jarrett's reaction, makes me well up whenever I've seen it. In the same vein, but a bit more uncomfortably it's Benoit's reaction on stage when they are doing the 10 bell salute to Eddie. That and the video package set to the Johnny Cash version of Hurt had me in floods back in the day.

I'd definitely agree that ROH at this time burnt through contenders far too much. As you say, with Joe's reign it was novel, but also helped by a few more left field title defences against guys like Matt Stryker, Dan Maff and Rocky Romero. Not sure anyone really bought them winning the belt but it meant that when someone like Austin Aries challenged for it at Final Battle 2004, he hadn't already had three or four previous unsuccessful attempts. With the later reigns, where you had to have challengers at least once, sometimes twice every month, and people were expecting long title reigns, it meant that people like Roderick Strong, Colt Cabana, El Generico, Claudio would wrack up eight or nine defeats in title matches. The matches still tended to be good, but fell flat and meant those guys at that upper midcard level struggled to get moved to the main event as they were seen as serial chokers. I'm a big Roderick Strong fan, but by the time he won the ROH Title I'd lost count of the number of times he'd challenged for it and lost.

Isn't that the start of all loving relationships? I can't recall 100%, but wasn't it implied as part of the heel turn that she was in on the whole thing and so that part was staged though? Could just be making that up, as my brain is hurting thinking about it! I think one of the most uncomfortable moments I can remember was the Allison Danger/Bobby Dempsey/Larry Sweeney incident from ROH. This was at the time when Bobby Dempsey was an under card trainee guy who was being berated for being fat and was under Sweeney's control. From memory, Danger is a guest on a Sweeney talk show item where he basically berates her for being a slut. Sweeney then knocks Danger out and tells Dempsey 'to be a man' and feel her up. When he says no, Sweeney then knocks him out and he falls on her in a 69 position or something. If that's not 'subtle' enough, we then get Sweeney kicking Dempsey to make it look like he's having sex with her. I haven't seen it in a long time so I can't remember what the crowd reaction was, but part of me worries that some people may have been cheering... after it, Gabe came out and apologised and said they were just dropping all reference to it and moving on. It makes you wonder how anyone thought it was a good idea in the first place.

Reading this just makes you so angry - the idea of Ric Flair getting his iconic hair shaved should have been one of the ultimate heel acts to garner huge heat and lead to the huge payoff of Flair returning and getting revenge on the dastardly heel that would have been able to milk the fact that they were the guy to shave Ric Flair's head for the rest of their career. Instead you get this, a throw away match/stip that meant absolutely in the long term outside of the initial shock value during the moment in which it's happening. Which basically sums up Russo's entire booking philosophy.

A personal one is Nigel McGuinness between 2005 when he won the ROH Pure Title to 2009 when he lost the ROH World Title. In that time I thought he had some fantastic matches, and while I know some don't rate his title reign as highly, I thought he was an excellent champion. His 2009 continued nicely into the matches he had with Kurt Angle in TNA, unfortunately until injuries (in some way brought on by the very physical style he worked during his ROH time) curtailed his career. Not relevant to the topic of course but am really enjoying his work as a commentator on NXT and happy for him to get that success.

It's not from WCW, but when you guys were talking about the Armstrong curse and those recurring, subtle stories or running gags that played out for years, one of my favourites is from Wrestlemania 23 when Vince gets his head shaved. During the period when you had Vince, King and JR on commentary the other two - esp. King - were always ragging on Vince for having a toupe. Fast forward 10 years and when he's getting his head shaved, JR shouting out "it was real all along!" is a moment I always pop for. Anyway, loving the show guys - really helping fill that void of nostalgia left by the end of Letters from Kayfabe.

Been a few ROH title changes noted, but for me the most shocking was the first one - Xavier beating Low Ki. At the time, Low Ki had been presented as a bad ass killer who was pretty much unbeatable and you thought he was building up to a long title reign and title showdown with Christopher Daniels, with Xavier just a token challenger. If I recall correctly, Xavier was a pretty bland face who it turned out was then used as a pawn by Daniels to get the belt of Low Ki as he didn't think he could beat him himself. A decent storyline that made some sense in retrospect, but at the time, I don't think anyone could believe that someone so unheralded had been the guy to stop Low Ki's title reign before it had really even got started.

I am a big Doug Williams fan, and back in 2003 was really into the FWA. Looking back, some of what the company did might not have aged too well, but in other aspects they were very much the blueprint for some of the more successful BritWres promotions that have revitalised the UK scene in the last few years. At this point Doug Williams was the FWA champion and into a one and half year title reign that would go well into 2004. The best comparison I can think of, given it spanned a very similar time frame, is to Samoa Joe's ROH title reign, in that, while the rest of the shows were often being built on personal rivalries, Doug's title matches seemed to have an air of detachment from the rest of the show - he was a champion going out there to be the best and taking on different challengers, rather than getting involved in feuds per se. This is one of those matches. Dragon had been wrestling in the UK on the holiday camp circuit and at this point I think was still trying to find himself and connect completely with the audience - similar to how he was in ROH at the time. In this match he is masked and that proves a bit distracting, only in so much as it distracts the crowd who direct a few chants/attention to it. I guess for those who don't enjoy some of the elements of how us Brit crowds can be now, even back then we could be a bit annoying! The match itself is fun, if a bit emotionally distant at times - a criticism that I would accept of some of Doug's matches - but I enjoyed some of the more traditional British/WOS exchanges as both are highly proficient in this way of working. It gives the match a bit of a throw back feel, especially with the 2/3 falls stipulation. It's worth noting at that time that in a nod to British wrestling tradition all FWA title matches were 2/3 falls, which continued until Doug dropped the belt to Alex Shane who as part of his heel.on/off screen authority figure role scrapped the rule. I enjoyed a lot of the mat work and reversals, and feel they do a nice transition into the more 2000s indy style of bigger impact moves without feeling like it is disconnected from the first part of the match which can often happen. Doug was hugely consistent throughout his career - still having good matches today - but I think if they'd have had the same match a couple of years later around 2005/06 when Dragon was locked into his ROH title run then this could have been much more dramatic and broken the **** range. As it is, this is fun and well worked, but lacks an emotional connection and sense of real drama to push it past the *** 1/4 - *** 1/2 range. Recommend checking it out though, the match is linked right there in good quality!

I think Heenan's perhaps works the other way round, but as people have pointed out, it's tough with a number of people to do this with a lot of blurred lines. Like for example The Rock, I want to say... Nemesis: Austin Archenemy: Triple H ...but think a case could be made to flip those as well.

That's a really interesting point, and I definitely agree that with the raft of streaming services and monthly subscriptions to a whole library of content costing the same as what one VHS tape used to back in the day, you are much more able to track workers across several promotions and get a much more well rounded view of them. I agree, that Jody/Jonny match is not one of their better efforts, and from what I remember pretty short as it was just a first round match and none of those got much time. Their matches are not for everyone as they always tended to be very spot heavy and 'early 2000s indyriffic', but if you watch them have a match now, having to go slower can actually work in their favour. Back in the day they worked at 100 mph and I think if you watch the CZW match or some of those that they had in the FWA they were much better than the ROH encounter. Glad you enjoyed revisiting Doug Williams' work, he's one of my all time favourites and really underrated, He was the glue in many a BritWres Indy match and on many a BritWres Indy card for most of the 2000s. I like his run in the first 3 years of ROH with lots of fun matches, and felt he brought a different style than a lot of the other workers in the promotion at the time. On the whole UK/ROH tie in, I know it's not until 2003 and for some not an official ROH show in the canon, but are you planning on covering the ROH/FWA Frontiers of Honor show? Some pretty interesting matches on there.

AJ Styles vs Rey Mysterio. This happened for the odd 5* promotion in the UK at the beginning of 2016, just before AJ came to the WWE. While I still love Rey, and have quite enjoyed some of his Lucha Underground matches (where I guess there's probably some heavy editing work going on) I think we can agree that a few years earlier this match would've been tremendous.