supersonic

International Challenge – December 22, 2006 Taped from Hartford, CT ROH Video Wire – December 14, 2006 Important news/footage in the above video: Homicide cuts a promo from backstage at one of The Chicago Spectacular events, and he sounds like he may have a cold. That could be an extra explanation as to why the cage match against Adam Pearce was lacking in substance. He says he’s been screwed over since Day 1. Not entirely accurate, but his character is irrational so it works. Either he reaches the mountaintop, or he’s done at Final Battle 2006. ROH Video Wire – December 21, 2006 Important news/footage in the above video: ROH Champion Bryan Danielson says he’s chosen to ignore his right shoulder pain since Gut Check, then incorrectly says Homicide hasn’t had time to adapt to his own shoulder injury. That took place a fucking year ago at Steel Cage Warfare. Danielson states that Homicide’s shoulder, recently weakened by Brent Albright, is perfect for the Crossface Chickenwing and Cattle Mutilation. He also claims that nobody has kicked out of the small package, conveniently ignoring that KENTA had just done it in their rematch earlier this month in NOAH. I sure hope Homicide studied that match. Danielson puts Homicide over for being such a key player in ROH since Day 1, but never to the level of Danielson, citing their most recent match at Destiny. He should’ve also referenced who came out on top in their 2005 feud. In what is very ironic all these years later considering how Danielson reached WWE’s mountaintop, he buries New Yorkers for threatening to riot if Homicide doesn’t end 2006 as ROH Champion. Homicide will have to do what James Gibson, Austin Aries, Roderick Strong, Naomichi Marufuji, AJ Styles, Jimmy Rave, Alex Shelley, Lance Storm, Delirious, Colt Cabana, Nigel McGuinness, Samoa Joe, SUWA, KENTA, Jimmy Jacobs, BJ Whitmer, Christopher Daniels, and the Notorious 187 himself have failed to do for the past 15 months. We will get our answer in the next 48 hours at the Manhattan Center. FIP Champion Roderick Strong and Davey Richards have a pull-apart that airs from this past Saturday at FIP’s Florida Rumble 2006. Richards has come across as a major cunt in that federation recently, but he finally gets his championship opportunity on December 22 in Hartford. A sweet little video package airs highlighting CIMA for his return this weekend. The Jimmy Rave vs. Nigel McGuinness post-match segment from The Chicago Spectacular Night 1 airs. McGuinness is terrific selling the heel hook. Such a shame he never broke through to WWE. Tag Champions Matt Sydal & Christopher Daniels kick off with a backstage promo. Daniels is totally boring, while Sydal annoys him with his portion and says he’s ready to carry the load for the team since he’s more familiar with the Dragon Gate style as they face CIMA & Shingo tonight for the belts. LARRY MOTHERFUCKING SWEENEY DEBUTS IN THE NEXT BACKSTAGE PROMO~! He implies we will find out his purpose in ROH soon. At this point, I should quickly point out that when Alex Whybrow, better known to the fans as Larry Sweeney, met his end in April 2011, I was very much a cunt about it, bitter about something trivial in the scope of such a tragedy that affected many people as friends, colleagues, and members of the media. It was a learning experience for me that when being let down, not to hold onto bitterness, but instead understand that people make mistakes, often because they may be in a difficult place in their lives and aren’t in the position to come through. As someone who at times has let others down in the years since, I’ve grown a great deal of empathy and compassion. At the time I met Whybrow on WrestleMania XXV weekend in Houston, he was very much a lost, troubled soul in desperate need of help. There were incidents he was involved in that I didn’t witness, but the talks I had with him definitely seemed off, even from someone lacking in social awareness like I was at the time. As a result, I wasn’t surprised by the tragic news that came 2 years later. I’ve long let go and forgiven Alex Whybrow for what happened between him and me. It helped nobody in how I acted at the time of his death, and it’s a lesson I learned in being selfless when others are suffering from grief, struggling to put the pieces together of a puzzle that has been eternally destroyed. In addition, I’ve recently been given a reality check about how many people and animals are suffering on a daily basis, and it has both given me perspective while re-evaluating what’s worthy of hostility. I pride myself in compartmentalization as well. While I have yet to review any of Chris Benoit’s work, if I ever end up doing so, I will be as objective as possible in only judging him as a performer and contributor to the industry that he very much loved. The same will go for the performer known as Larry Sweeney as I continue to revisit the “glory days” of ROH. Samoa Joe kicks off the live portion of the event with a promo of his own, noticeably not walking at 100%. He’s unable to compete tonight due to a knee injury recently suffered in TNA I believe. While the reason is obvious to why it was deleted, I really wish ROH would’ve included his comment that he suffered his injury in TNA due to tripping over bad booking. Maybe not include it on the proper feature presentation since it breaks kayfabe, but have it as a DVD extra for the LOLZ. LENNY FUCKING LEONARD HAS RETURNED TO THE MOTHERFUCKING COMMENTARY BOOTH~! Apparently, he fucked up both of his knees several months earlier while playing softball, and he puts over his insurance carrier to tie into the fact that Hartford is America’s insurance capital. Mister Saint Laurent did an exceptional job filling in, but Leonard brings a flavor that accentuates the product’s vision; I very much consider his contributions in ROH as parallel to that of Jim Ross in WWE. In a time in which I believe that quality commentary has become an endangered species for all sports programming, both real and fictional, he’s a reminder that it isn’t quite extinct yet. The ROH Debut of Eddie Edwards Eddie Edwards vs. Austin Aries Edwards is sporting a dreadlocked mohawk at this point in his career for God knows what reason. Good showing from Edwards in his debut, as he dominated most of the match to make him shine. With the exception of failing to prevent the trademark dropkick counter of Aries while applying a head-scissors, Edwards had the former ROH World and Tag Champ scouted on a number of signature moves. But once Aries kicked out of a backslide and Edwards hadn’t gotten up yet, that left him prone for a kick to the skull, brainbuster, and 450 splash. I don’t see anything that special out of Edwards yet, but this match’s structure would seem to indicate the company sees potential in him. Jimmy Jacobs claims to live in a blood-tinted world, and he now has dripping blood painted out of his left eye. Lacey was his diamond in the rough since she recruited him last year, and now he’s both torn and livid after BJ Whitmer stabbed her in the face with a spike. Her blood’s warmth and smell along with her pain now had her seeing the world as damaged as he does, and he wishes he would’ve been stabbed a thousand times to protect her. He vows to change Whitmer and Colt Cabana forever this weekend. This will not be their first rodeo, that’s for sure. Daizee Haze & BJ Whitmer vs. Jimmy Jacobs & Mercedes Martinez Based off of the Jacobs promo earlier, I decided to watch this for the storyline advancement. This is easily ROH’s worst match of 2006 that I watched. This makes the Briscoes vs. KENTA & Davey Richards look like an arguably flawless work of art on par with Low Ki & Samoa Joe vs. Homicide & Kenta Kobashi. Perhaps society has simply evolved too in terms of misogyny and violence towards women. Perhaps the tragic events that were 6 months away from this final ROH weekend of 2006 made presenting such directions in the world of professional wrestling too taboo, too sensitive, too painful to be accepted as a digestible piece of theater. I don’t fully buy into that rationale, because Prince Nana’s antics towards Jade Chung throughout 2005 still hold up a decade later. It can be argued that it’s because the malice on her was more emotionally based, that the violence was more implied. Maybe it’s because unlike most of the participants in this segment, Nana has the charisma and mic skills to make a segment like that so effective for building heat. Simply put, I was taken aback when Whitmer viciously clotheslined Martinez. It was within the rules of the match, yet I felt that it truly served no purpose, and ditto for when Jacobs attacked Haze. Stephanie McMahon getting speared at AT&T Stadium was accidental, as was Whitmer spiking Lacey a couple weeks before this. They were simply victims of self-interested attempts to insert themselves into or distract from violent battles between men. When Brent Albright also appeared after the match and put his hands on Haze, there was no charm to it. Instead of seeing a villain that needed to be conquered, I saw something that likely resembled the tragic events to come 6 months from the very date of this event involving his former on-screen WWE mentor Chris Benoit. I didn’t wanna see Albright get his ass kicked for implying that he was going to assault Haze; I wanted him to be fucking arrested and served with charges. I felt just as uncomfortable with this segment as PWG’s tolerance of exploiting the Benoit family massacre while the wounds were still fresh with the entire wrestling community. The presentation of the violence from men towards women in this segment ultimately didn’t seem to serve any kind of substantial purpose; none of those moments enhanced the Jacobs vs. Whitmer saga whatsoever. Now when Jacobs and Whitmer went at it, they were fine as always. They could sleepwalk their way an acceptable brawl if assigned such a task. The performances of Haze and Martinez are a much different story. This match isn’t just a piece of shit for ethical reasons. Both women were absolutely abysmal in this. Whoever’s fault it is, I don’t care, but very early, Haze stood in the corner for way too long while Martinez was about to launch at Whitmer to the outside, and it made Haze look like a dipshit for not taking advantage to cut Martinez off. The strikes that the women threw on each other made them look like they must’ve been trained by the same person as Shane McMahon too. These ladies were simply business-exposing on this night, and Martinez’s total lack of malicious presence did no favors for her performance. This match would’ve been a perfect addition to booker Gabe Sapolsky’s burnout showcase known as The Bitter End. Rating: less than *** Dream Match – Claudio Castagnoli’s Farewell Weekend? Briscoe Bros. vs. Kings of Wrestling These two teams showed a good amount of chemistry. The hot tags needed a bit of work by the Briscoes, but this was definitely on its way to being the best match on the entire card. The cut offs were good, tag legalities were being adhered to, the ring got cut in half, this had the recipe. Sweeney then inserted himself and struck a Briscoe with a steel briefcase to allow Chris Hero to get the victory for KOW. Hero & Sweeney celebrated together as they went to the back in utter jubilance, while Castagnoli followed behind them. I’d have preferred for this match to hit a more dramatic point before the sports-entertainment booking kicked in, but Sweeney joining up with Hero gives both something to do entering 2007, a necessity with Castagnoli apparently on his way out. With Sweeney now as a mouthpiece for Hero, this solidified Hero as my pick for a heel that would defeat Homicide in late 2006. Try telling me that’s not a huge bragging point for Sweeney and something he can use to politic for better opportunities on Hero’s behalf. Rating: less than *** Delirious is feuding with Adam Pearce. For God knows what reason, this is Sapolsky’s best idea to keep Delirious warm until whatever big plans are in store for him (as indicated by beating Danielson on the prior event.) Bryan Danielson vs. Jimmy Rave vs. Homicide vs. Nigel McGuinness This is a match that would be perfect to headline a go-home episode of TV, and since this is the penultimate event for Final Battle 2006, it makes sense why it got presented here. This match was never anything special, serving as nothing more than adequate storyline advancement. Danielson and Rave briefly worked against each other. Homicide and McGuinness briefly worked against each other. Then it basically become a tag match pitting the heels against the babyfaces, thankfully with tag legalities being adhered to. The big takeaway is in the final minute, as Danielson rams Homicide’s injured right shoulder into a ring post and Joe comes to check on his friend. The ref focuses on Joe’s plea for Homicide to get medical attention, which McGuinness perceives as sabotage from Joe based on their NOAH-rooted issue. With McGuinness distracted, he falls victim to Danielson’s small package. Sapolsky is really hammering all month long how weak and vulnerable Danielson has become. FIP Title Match Roderick Strong vs. Davey Richards This was another match on the card on its way to being best on the card. It was the usual good match between the two with various quality strikes and submissions. In particular, I enjoyed their modified homage to Benoit’s classic against Kurt Angle from Royal Rumble 2003, in this case Richards hitting a tornado apron DDT, rather than just a standard one on that particular part of the ring canvas. That led to a count out false finish that didn’t come within a fraction of what Strong pulled off with McGuinness 5 months earlier at Death Before Dishonor IV. Speaking of count outs, that’s how this match ended when Strong gave Richards an overhead suplex on the steel entrance ramp. Once again, the crowd didn’t give a shit. So why did it fail here, while McGuinness got mega heat for it during his Pure Title reign? It’s because McGuinness clearly had the charisma and personality to make count outs meaningful, especially with him playing the cutthroat, sometimes chickenshit heel role. Also McGuinness held the title for a LONG time before making this finish work against Strong, Danielson, and Homicide, and that time was done in an ROH ring. The FIP title hasn’t been given the time in ROH to be meaningful in any way at all, so the end result is an apathetic finish that dragged down a good match and had a wrestler take an unnecessary bump on steel. Rating: less than *** Joe gives a medical update on Homicide, saying that Julius Smokes has already headed to Brooklyn with the Notorious 187. Homicide will be ready for tomorrow night, and that Danielson will no longer be able to run away. The running finally ends in the “Ring of Homicide.” I like that Joe cut this promo, dead serious on behalf of his friend. Homicide and Smokes wouldn’t have been able to convey the same message as effectively as he did. Tag Titles Match Matt Sydal & Christopher Daniels vs. CIMA & Shingo Super disappointing match here. Tag legalities got totally ignored halfway into the match, which is unacceptable. This wasn’t being held under Dragon Gate Rules. Even with Sydal being transitioned into an arrogant little shit, all the dynamics were right there for him play a legitimate FIP and optimize this match’s potential. While his Blood Generation stablemates did target his left knee, with CIMA also targeting the right knee to take away his aerial attacks entirely, they played too cute to be the heels they were aiming to be. CIMA particularly needed to go above and beyond as a piece of shit to turn the crowd against him, who were totally marking out based on his fantastic work on WrestleMania 22 weekend. Had CIMA & Shingo been absolutely vicious to Sydal, regardless of their direct affiliation with him and the fact they were teaming together in a trios match the next night, this could’ve truly been off-the-charts shit. They should’ve been absolute total cunts, taking a page out of Super Dragon’s book, mocking Sydal for having too much damage in his knees to make the hot tag to Daniels. Of course, Blood Generation can get in the head of Daniels, who has proven to be a thin-skinned character at times. They can even illegally run around the ring and yank Daniels off the apron to prevent the hot tag. Just go all in on being fucking scumbags, while mixing in high-impact offense in the most devastating, vicious fashion possible. They can also play mind games with referee Todd Sinclair, who had been victim to such tactics in their state-of-the-art trios classics that had taken place 8 months earlier. I froth at the mouth imagining CIMA & Shingo taking complete mental control over this match, even going so far as to slap their own hands to falsely indicate a legal tag. There’s no excuse for Blood Generation not working in a heel fashion like SD, not after CIMA had watched SD’s work in person 3 months earlier at the 2006 Battle of Los Angeles weekend. Had they done so, it also would’ve truly sold the importance of winning the titles were to them, especially after CIMA’s failure to do so alongside Naruki Doi at Better Than Our Best. Instead, this just became a pile of moves that while mechanically sound and popping the audience, didn’t tie together in any kind of truly cohesive, substantial fashion. This match deserves some credit though, because no matter how shallow it was, it never bored and angered the live audience, who broke out in a “Please come back” chant for CIMA after it ended. Maybe that’s also a result of seeing a very underwhelming night of in-ring action, so like CIMA’s dream match against AJ Styles, at least the action, much like special effects in a not-so-great film, looked impressive. This match is another reason I hate Sydal & Daniels getting a reign in hindsight. Rating: less than *** Danielson has a backstage promo saying that he and Homicide are now truly even with right shoulder injuries. The title belongs to Danelson, and tomorrow night in New York City, Homicide will NOT be leaving with it. Period. The DVD closes with a brief vignette of many top highlights from ROH’s history, ending with the announcement that 6 events spanning from February 16 to March 4, taking place in NYC, Philly, Dayton, Chicago, and Liverpool, will be collectively known as the Fifth Year Festival. Neat idea, but I’ve seen very little as 2006 closes that would indicate it’ll be more than a poor man’s Milestone Series. My friend Aaron Glazer was in attendance for this show and I remember him stating he left incredibly unimpressed. I couldn’t believe he had a takeaway like that. After all, look at the matchups on paper that I reviewed. Briscoes vs. KOW. Strong vs. Richards. Danielson vs. Rave vs. Homicide vs. McGuinness. Sydal & Daniels vs. CIMA & Shingo. How could a card with all of that be any worse than pretty damn good? Well, here’s the recipe. Keep treading water with Delirious by having him in a program against Shane Hagadorn & Adam Pearce that has been going on for 3 fucking months. Book the Briscoes vs. KOW dream match to have a sports-entertainment finish before it ever reached a dramatic point, instead cutting off in extremely premature fashion. Make a four-way with nothing but established main-eventers just a nothing-special storyline advancement match, rather than a highly dramatic affair to bring the final night of Homicide’s journey to the same fever pitch seen at Night of the Grudges II, Better Than Our Best, Ring of Homicide, Destiny, Death Before Dishonor IV, and even The Chicago Spectacular Night 2. While planting doubt about Homicide the night before his career-defining moment is a solid direction on paper, the end result was so fucking obvious, especially due to Danielson’s legitimate injury, that I would’ve just made Homicide look fucking hot as shit coming out of this event, possibly at the close of the live event portion, to have everyone fucking HYPED on the go-home show of all go-home shows for 2006. For a good example of what I mean, see more than 7 years later for Danielson during his time as Daniel Bryan, when Raw was in Washington, DC the week before WrestleMania XXX. Like Homicide here, Danielson was also suffering from a storyline shoulder injury with the most important match at the Superdome on the horizon. Oh, I’m not done with the recipe. Take what was gonna be another good chapter of the Strong vs. Richards rivalry, and water it down with a finish for a championship that had never been given the proper time to get over with the audience. Present a men-on-women violence segment in a manner completely lacking of any substance. Then watch the women in that match put forth a dreadful performance that exposes the business as a work. Allow a very, very promising Tag Titles main event to be worked in a highly flawed, dime-a-dozen fashion that failed to enhance any of its characters or the very titles that they were battling each other for. If I had attended this live event, rather than see the DVD release with good backstage promos to soften the blow a bit, I’d have been fucking livid. While ROH had been to Connecticut a handful of times in the past, this was the company’s debut in the Hartford metro area. To me, it’s always critical to make a damn first impression. When I think of wrestling history in Hartford, it’s admittedly not the deepest. I still say it’s deep enough, because the first event that pops in my mind is Triple H. Cactus Jack. Hell in a Cell, Mick Foley’s planned retirement. No Way Out 2000. That match and that event turned out to be a classic, and there was nothing on this show that came close to that. I also think of the Undertaker character’s debut at Survivor Series 1990, a moment that will live forever. Likewise, this show had the historic debuts of Edwards and Sweeney. Those are cool trivia points in a vacuum, but in no way do they save this show. If that’s the case, I should be going a bit softer on Suffocation 2 months earlier since Albright debuted that night. That doesn’t offset the abysmal effort presented up and down the card for the live audience. What would my alternatives be then? Firstly, as mentioned in my Dethroned review, KOW are still the Tag Champs coming into this show. They are the defending champs in the main event against CIMA & Shingo. Since the crowd loved CIMA too much to probably ever give him heel heat, I let Blood Generation be default babyfaces and throw KOW’s taunting bullshit right back at them to get in their heads. I’d be really curious to see how creative such a match would’ve gotten too. The Briscoes face Sydal & Daniels, with the winner getting a future Tag Titles shot. These 2 tag matches EASILY set up KOW vs. Briscoes for Final Battle 2006. This one is kind-of hindsight, but since it was clearly not the right time yet to introduce FIP storylines into ROH, I make a modification. The Strong vs. Richards singles matches stay in FIP, but Richards wants a piece of Strong still. He’s also looking to find an ally as stated at The Chicago Spectacular Night 2, so on this night, I combine 2 matches: Austin Aries & Roderick Strong vs. Davey Richards & Eddie Edwards. This is a huge, HUGE debut for Edwards and a chance to see if also has chemistry with Richards. Of course, we know the answer to that question today. But here’s the kicker: I have the tag team that we know as the Wolves actually go over in a huge, HUGE upset, with Aries taking the fall! I will explain why this is once I reach 2007 on this project. I’d keep the four-way match as is, but just book it as a chaotic segment like I had mentioned. Instead of the intergender garbage, I just have Jacobs cut a promo in the ring about Lacey’s recovery from her facial damage, sparking a brawl with Whitmer that would also involve Albright and Cabana. So to reiterate: Aries & Strong vs. Richards & Edwards Jacobs promo leading into a Jacobs & Albright vs. Whitmer & Cabana brawl Briscoes vs. Sydal & Daniels for a Tag Titles shot Danielson vs. Rave vs. Homicide vs. McGuinness, but as a chaotic segment to enhance the momentum of Homicide’s ROH Title chase KOW vs. CIMA & Shingo for the Tag Titles C’mon now, don’t tell me that doesn’t get you the reader, either wet or rigid. With all that said, this show is certainly better than Suffocation though. So would I go with How We Roll, The Bitter End, or International Challenge as the #2 shittiest ROH event of 2006? That’s a tough call to make. I believe those who completely shit on How We Roll easily forget the very good match between Aries and Jay on that card, plus it did help set up the big takeaway that would come the next night at Ring of Homicide, although to not any kind of significant degree whatsoever. The Bitter End also has a very good match between KENTA and Sydal, something lacking on this show. On the other hand, this show didn’t generate the kind of anger, even at its lowest point as I explained in detail, the way that everything involving Jim Cornette did on his last night as ROH Commissioner. My ultimate verdict: skip this show, as it contains no matches that I gave even three snowflakes, all the big takeaways are easily explained the next night, and the Edwards debut can be found both on YouTube for free and his ROH compilation. The journey to this point ever since Glory By Honor V Night 2 hasn’t been the most pleasant obviously. But I’ve reached another point that I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to when I started this project in April 2012. It’s the match that has been building for 16 months, ever since James Gibson had won the ROH Title with his ink still fresh on a new WWE contract and the crowd hijacked Night of the Grudges II in Homicide’s favor, elevating him to a level Sapolsky never saw him at. This isn’t the same level as Better Than Our Best or Glory By Honor V Night 2, but it’s the closest thing to it in these bumpy last 3 months of ROH’s 2006. It’s time to revisit one of the defining moments of my wrestling fandom, a time that will never return to the business… Up next – Final Battle 2006 Matches will include: Christopher Daniels vs. Jimmy Rave vs. El Generico vs. Davey Richards Brent Albright & Jimmy Jacobs vs. BJ Whitmer & Colt Cabana Briscoe Bros. vs. Kings of Wrestling Jimmy Rave vs. Nigel McGuinness Matt Sydal, CIMA, & Shingo vs. Delirious, Austin Aries, & Roderick Strong Bryan Danielson vs. Homicide

Don't forget Lesnar vs. Bryan and Taker vs. Sting

RECOMMENDATION: READ THIS VIA MOBILE APP OR MOBILE SITE DUE TO NUMEROUS YOUTUBE VIDEOS. ROAD TO PAYBACK 2016 Raw – April 4, 2016: The Good Shit Live from Dallas, TX While definitely not ideal to undo the Undertaker vs. Shane McMahon stipulations just 24 hours after the calendar's annual equivalent to the Super Bowl, it honestly does make sense as to why it happened. If Vince McMahon was gonna go soft in the slightest degree on anyone he does business with, it would be with his own children. Despite the ups and downs that the McMahon family has had on WWE TV and certainly off-screen since the Attitude Era, they are ultimately family. This is Vince's own flesh and blood, and nothing will permanently break that unless someone in that family turns into Chris Benoit. An even greater example would be the up-and-down relationship between Breaking Bad's Walter White and Jesse Pinkman. Considering how weak the roster is, I actually cannot think of a more optimal way to transition the Wyatt Family into babyface roles; it's an ingenious way in hindsight of squeezing the one remaining purpose out of the League of Nations, while also being an indictment of how the booking has marginalized the rest of the roster. Vince has left the American Airlines Center, as he doesn't wanna witness the ship going down in person. He says Shane's time as GM is only temporary, but doesn't specify beyond that. This is perhaps the most questionable NXT graduation to date. Like his opponent Tyler Breeze on this night, there's still plenty of storytelling juice and necessary development for Apollo Crews. Whereas Baron Corbin had no more interesting arcs and was very unlikely to develop anymore substantial seasoning (which is why I'm ultimately fine with him being promoted), this is way, way, way too premature for Crews to be on the main roster. Perhaps splitting time between NXT and the main roster would do well in expediting his development, while also serving the purpose of adding some main roster name value to him to help NXT as a touring brand. Crews and Breeze had huge potential to complete delayed arcs of satisfactory climax in NXT, and this comes across as a major lack in long-term vision for both. WWE Champion Roman Reigns smugly gloats about dethroning Triple H the night before, and lays down the fighting champion claim that nobody with this title was willing and/or able to be in many years. He's first interrupted by Chris Jericho, who fails to deter the usual crowd hijacking when we break out a "We are stupid!' chant. He gloats about beating AJ Styles the night before, of course neglecting to mention that he broke rules that I'm surprised wouldn't result in an automatic DQ. Styles comes out, then does Kevin Owens, then does Sami Zayn, and Reigns is fantastic in just being smug towards them. Zayn and Owens take each other out while Jericho gets the upper hand on Styles, only to eat a spear from the champion. Any of these four as the next challenger will be a substantial, significant upgrade when considering that the most recent 3 completed programs for this title (excluding the tournament) were Triple H vs. Reigns, Sheamus vs. Reigns, and Seth Rollins vs. Kane. Back from commercial break, Shane informs Reigns that the four who answered his challenge will compete in tonight's main event for a WWE Title shot. That should be very good at the very least, and is a fresh direction at the top after some of the most tedious segments in that spot ever since Rollins shred his knee. Dolph Ziggler's stock will continue to fail rising, or perhaps just outright drop even more, as he's now in a program against Corbin. Zzzzzzz... Sami Zayn's promo for tonight's main event is interrupted by Kevin Owens assaulting him, as the former IC Champ then finishes it with a powerbomb through a table. This would seem to eliminate Zayn from tonight's main event entirely. Now this is an NXT graduation that's on the pulse, as Colin Cassady & Enzo Amore have done everything possible from a storyline and gimmick-building perspective. The ship has also sailed to crown them as NXT Tag Champs, as the company missed the boat by instead crowning the Vaudevillains at Takeover: Brooklyn. In addition, these 2 were actually left off the Takeover: Dallas card! That's inexcusable, and perhaps they could've bowed out by teaming with the debuting Austin Aries against Baron Corbin and 2 other heels in a trios match that night. Nonetheless, this was perfect timing for a graduation; the tag division had gotten so thin thanks to such horrific booking that the main roster NEEDS these two, and not the other way around. Zayn is officially ruled out for tonight's main event, which is next. WWE Title Shot - No DQ, No Count Out Match Chris Jericho vs. Cesaro vs. AJ Styles vs. Kevin Owens For the first time EVER, Zayn's replacement, that being the returning Cesaro, finally, finally, FINALLY collides with AJ Styles!!! Before this night, they have NEVER battled in any fashion, not in singles, tags, multi-mans, not in ROH, not in PWG, not in IWA-MS, nowhere. It is the epitome of a dream match for all purists and fans of independent wrestling's golden age; at some point this will hopefully be presented for worldwide viewing in singles before one of them calls it a career. Cesaro sports sunglasses and a detachable business suit for his return, bringing back more reminders of Nigel McGuinness. After tossing out Jericho and Owens, the Cesaro vs. Styles dream showdown is good stuff. These two have some tremendous potential to do business with each other as the match goes to an early commercial break. The extra spring that Styles puts into so much of his arsenal looks like it'll play right into Cesaro's catching-base counter style when that day comes. Whatever we saw so far including the commercial break action must've been good, as we break out a "Better than Mania!" chant. This match really is clicking, as there's a multi-man corner spot that logically makes sense for once. Jericho and Owens are about to double-superplex Styles, so Cesaro gets underneath them and uses that position to powerbomb those two as they suplexed Styles. It looked perfect and played into Cesaro's strength gimmick. Styles looks awesome taking Cesaro's press-up aerial uppercut, which is no surprise. They got knocked to the outside, allowing Jericho and Owens to have some good stuff, but Jericho's Quebrada is countered with knees to the gut. This leaves Jericho prone to a springboard 450 splash from Styles, but Cesaro breaks up the pin. Cesaro goes to town on everyone with running corner uppercuts, and the Dallas crowd is behind him every step of the way. He delays a big one to amp us up more, allowing Jericho to hit a big boot, only for the former WWE Champion to eat a giant swing. That giant swing then leaves Cesaro prone to an Owens superkick. Owens then blocks a springboard move by Styles and drops him with a pop-up powerbomb, but that pin is broken by Jericho. Jericho evades a pop-up powerbomb and drops Owens with a Codebreaker, only for that pin to be broken by Cesaro. Jericho and Cesaro show tremendous chemistry, making me sad that Vince declined their program 3 years earlier. They exchange a Boston Crab and Scorpion Death Lock as Dallas goes crazy. Cesaro's form on the latter submission is tremendous, but leaves him prone to a springboard forearm from Styles. Owens and Styles have an exchange with Styles knocking Owens out of the ring, then kicks out at 2 after Jericho hits a successful Codebreaker on him. At this point we're breaking out "This is awesome!" chants. Jericho talks shit which is unwise as it allows Styles to make a comeback and get a bit of sweet vengeance for the prior night, pinning Jericho via a Styles Clash and winning the title shot! This was a tremendous main event with all kinds of fresh matchups, including one for the first time ever. A returning star, a fresh direction on top, and it all leading to a Reigns vs. Styles dream match that I've been wanting to see since the moment the former IWGP Heavyweight Champion made his main roster debut at Royal Rumble 2016. **** The decision to insert Styles into the main event was significant for me. Thanks to a lousy overall direction going into Dallas, and then the actual event's presentation doing nothing to compensate for that, I was going to cease keeping up on real-time WWE programming throughout the spring and summer. That cease would finally come after SummerSlam 2016; it was delayed for one reason only - after 13 years of WWE failing to make AJ Styles an offer worthy of his talent, not only had he been brought in, but he was now a main-eventer in the company. That is an example of a good business decision; I haven't even factored in how much this will benefit Reigns to help him improve his workrate even more. While not perfect and in many ways an event that trivialized WrestleMania 32, this was a fantastic close to the weekend and got me stoked with one creative decision for Payback 2016. The main event scene is a HUGE improvement compared to what it was coming out of San Jose a year ago. With this being Wade Barrett's final night on WWE TV, it's a shame that he never came close to his heights of 2010 again. While some of the injuries cannot be blamed on anyone, he was the victim of one thanks to incompetent booking of a battle royal in February 2012, a fucking dog shit match in every single way imaginable (entertainment value, cohesion, wrestler safety, structure, etc.) and my easy pick for Worst Match of 2012... anywhere. The injury he sustained in that match surely had to be a factor in injuries suffered later in his career, often cutting hard-earned momentum short for him. As someone with tremendous confidence, terrific promo cadence, and a solid in-ring ability, and haven already proven himself as a talker in the top scene, he was someone I had always hoped would find himself in a substantial position again. Hopefully the next chapter of Stu Bennett's life and career can bring him the success that was teased so frequently for him during his time in WWE. Main Event – April 5, 2016 Taped from Houston, TX Emma vs. Paige – ***1/4 SmackDown – April 7, 2016: The Good Shit Taped from Houston, TX https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKoA49iJcpw The Vaudevillains make their NXT graduation in a match against the Lucha Dragons. They’re seasoned enough and have no more storytelling juice in NXT, so this is fine to have them as JTTS, or maybe they’ll surprise me at some point and tap into something special and unforeseen. IC Title Match The Miz vs. Zack Ryder – ***1/2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BOCuAEij2c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3IIT6IjPS8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaT_rHjVgXA Chris Jericho & Kevin Owens vs. Cesaro & AJ Styles – *** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQofDE7rSKg https://www.instagram.com/p/BD_2p_bGDit/ The results of Ambrose vs. Lesnar and Jericho vs. Styles IV become much clearer now. Lesnar has to go over Ambrose. This means Ambrose needs something in the aftermath to keep him from losing too much stock. Therefore, he will be programmed against Jericho; this necessitates Jericho getting the victory over Styles at the grandest stage. This will be pacified by Styles pinning Jericho the next night to win a WWE Title shot. The ultimate end game though: Roman Reigns. Lesnar must be protected so that Reigns gets the eventual bragging rights, and now that Styles has proven himself in the eyes of Vince McMahon and his closest crew, Reigns vs. Styles is booked both to give Reigns a hot hand to work with, and also see how Styles will perform in a top spot. Once again, just to be clear: the result of Ambrose vs. Lesnar and Jericho vs. Styles IV, and where each of those four head into afterwards, is all ultimately for the goal of getting Roman Reigns over. Raw – April 11, 2016: The Good Shit Live from Los Angeles, CA Shane McMahon is in control again "due to overwhelming social media support." I'd actually much prefer the explanation that the Authority have not responded to comments about fighting for control, in a clear indication of being humbled by Roman Reigns at AT&T Stadium. Do everything in your power to paint Reigns as a knight in shining armor since nothing else has worked. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm8gnM53ZR4 MOTHERFUCKING FUCK YES EL GENERICO VS. AJ STYLES FINALLY COMES TRUE!!! My quote from their PWG encounter 11 years ago in this city also involving Kevin Owens and Christopher Daniels: Proof that 2016 has been an insane year for professional wrestling, as numerous pipe dreams have come true (other than TNA's death of course.) IC Title Shot Match Cesaro vs. Kevin Owens Cesaro has his left shoulder taped up for whatever reason. After getting the early advantage, that bandaged limb is all Owens needs to get the heat and dominate. Cesaro is able to cut this off awhile since he's superior at sudden movements; this is what makes Owens susceptible to being cut off. Even despite getting rammed into a ring post and then locked in the Crippler Crossface, both targeting the left arm, Cesaro is able to overcome the arsenal. A Scorpion Death Lock counter brings back natural memories of Bret Hart vs. Chris Benoit. Owens looks to have the ultimate advantage since Cesaro's can't get many rotations on the giant swing, but that isn't enough, as Cesaro counters a pop-up powerbomb with a hurricanrana. Cesaro never allows Owens to gain his equilibrium, forcing him to eat a cradle facebuster for the finish. ***1/2 Owens bitches at Shane about being screwed repeatedly, refusing to calm down despite Shane's request to do so. Owens implies that he'll screw Sami Zayn again, so Shane throws him out of the STAPLES Center. Anyone who claims this is equal to Stephanie McMahon talking down to talents, fuck off for not grasping the clear difference here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvLJJgit1Ek Go ahead and cream your pants about a Bullet Club invasion. I’m too busy getting rigid with anticipation over the **3/4 special possibilities for these two. Maybe I’ll genuinely give a shit if Karl Anderson gets to have the ***1/2+ singles matches he’s proven to be capable of. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaK7VBthHlc Dream Match – Sami Zayn’s WWE Title Shot Opportunity Sami Zayn vs. AJ Styles Zayn has tape on his left elbow, selling the table powerbomb of Owens the week before. They have some stalemates early with arm twists and headlock takedown exchanges, neither able to get an extensive advantage. The competitive fire remains even as Styles gives a clean break in the corner, and moments later Zayn doesn’t give one, instead chopping the Phenomenal One. Nothing dirty, but just showing that he means business and wants his fucking chance at the WWE Title. Styles delivers a receipt with an awesomely timed dropkick, saying “Got you Sami!” right before doing so. It remains testy at this point as Styles elbows Zayn for a cut off, then knees his face on the outside. But moments later, Zayn baits Styles to be dumped outside, then hits a somersault plancha as the broadcast enters a commercial break. Zayn attempts a comeback from a headlock, so Styles cuts that off with his spinning backfist combo, a clothesline, forearm, Stinger Splash, and Pump Handle Gutbuster, then follows up with an Ushigoroshi. A Styles Clash is countered with a small package near-fall, keeping this from becoming a boring squash. Zayn comes back by blocking Styles in a corner and hitting a crossbody, then moments later hits a tornado DDT for a solid near-fall. Styles keeps Zayn’s momentum short with a Pele kick, allowing him to prepare for a springboard attack, only to eat a Blue Thunder Bomb for another near-fall. He takes too long on a corner suplex, so Styles takes advantage with a Calf Crusher submission. Zayn was tremendous here selling the pain before reaching the ropes, although not quite on par with Chris Jericho a couple months earlier in Cleveland. Zayn blocks a Super Sunset Flip, hitting a dropkick, but the Yakuza kick is blocked and the springboard forearm finishes Zayn off, ensuring the obvious Reigns vs. Styles and thus, Zayn vs. Owens matches coming up in Chicago. Another good match for the evening, in a nice appetizer of what these two could do should they ever be programmed against each other. I find it fitting that this dream match took place in PWG’s hometown. ***1/2 When the broadcast returns, Shane puts both Zayn and Styles over as they exchange respect. Roman Reigns & Bray Wyatt vs. Sheamus & Alberto Del Rio Pretty fun main event, with Wyatt being the showcased performer, getting to shine while Reigns played the FIP. While nowhere near a blow away match, everyone did their jobs perfectly, including Rusev on the outside near the end interfering to trigger Braun Strowman & Erick Rowan’s equalizing arrival to take him out. The finish had a nice touch as Wyatt pinned Alberto and Reigns speared Shane, with the cult leader pointing towards Sheamus as Reigns came to his aid. The post-match seemed to tease what Dave Meltzer had reported a couple months earlier, which was that the company had “big plans” for Wyatt throughout 2016. He and Reigns simply have a stare down which gets honestly a lukewarm reaction at best. I’ll chalk that up to the company not quite realizing that their feud was still fresh in the audience’s minds, especially with this taking place at the very venue where their 2015 program had ended. Wyatt definitely seems to be heeding the Rock’s words. *** Main Event – April 12, 2016 Taped from San Diego, CA Dolph Ziggler vs. Kevin Owens – ***3/4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xce4xyrmx4Q WWE Live – April 13, 2016 Live from Milan, Italy The injury bug returns, although not as depressingly as the past year has been. Bray Wyatt suffers a calf injury in his WWE Title match against Roman Reigns, causing the match to abruptly end after a couple minutes. He looks to be out about 4-6 weeks. While he had just been cleared after a back injury, I wasn’t keen on him being groomed to refuel his feud against Reigns quite yet, so this is the opportunity to more organically build up steam while Reigns benefits from being programmed against AJ Styles. SmackDown – April 14, 2016 Taped from San Diego, CA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Su8oaKnCks Kevin Owens smugly telegraphs that he plans to intervene in tonight’s dream match main event pitting Chris Jericho against Sami Zayn. Dream Match AJ Styles vs. Alberto Del Rio It’s the match that ROH couldn’t book a year earlier due to politics! After some back-and-forth early, Alberto gets the advantage by attacking the abdomen of Styles, but that turns around when Styles avoids a corner charge, causing Alberto’s shoulder to hit a ring post. That is short lived when Alberto hits an Enziguri as Styles is on the apron and he hits a tope dropkick as the broadcast goes to a commercial break. Alberto is in control when the broadcast returns but Styles scouts the Enziguri to regain control. After being the victim of numerous Styles signature moves, Alberto scouts the Pump Handle Gutbuster, turning it into a Lungblower, only to eat a Pele kick moments later. A scary moment comes when Styles is stuck in a Tree of Woe; Alberto gives him a Reverse Superplex and Styles looks to land on his head and/or shoulder. Perhaps that’s just terrific bumping between two professionals considering Styles missed no time due to this. Styles scouts the Tree of Woe foot stomp, then Alberto scouts the springboard forearm, only for the cross armbreaker to be turned into an Oklahoma Roll pin for a Styles victory. Another good dream match for Styles this week in SoCal. Whereas I wanna see him in a program against Zayn, this match showed I’d have liked to have seen more of a rivalry against Alberto, since I’m not sure Alberto can ever reach the storyline peaks in WWE that he’s reached away from it. ***1/2 Dream Match Chris Jericho vs. Sami Zayn This didn’t come anywhere close to dream match expectations, although it still should’ve taken place the month before at Roadblock 2016 in Toronto. I don’t wanna use location excuses considering the history that these two have in SoCal; this is the building where Jericho became the “Undisputed” WWE Champion, while Zayn’s history up north on i-5 in Reseda is rich and zesty. The two did show some potential, and this can't technically be considered a good match had the match not been thrown out to due to interference from Dean Ambrose and Kevin Owens, but that wouldn’t have served the purpose of this match, which was to be storyline advancement for 2 mid-card programs. Ambrose and Owens on commentary were the true highlights of this segment, proving that when the time comes that their feud is rekindled, it could be some tremendous business. Superstars – April 15, 2016 Taped from Los Angeles, CA Dolph Ziggler vs. Tyler Breeze – ***1/4 Raw – April 18, 2016 Taped from London, England Shane McMahon is still in charge of this weekly program, and confirms the obvious matches for Payback 2016 of Dean Ambrose vs. Chris Jericho and Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbFKTl395cY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=to_RD0tNKOE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQJi_yE3zso Dean Ambrose vs. Kevin Owens - ***1/4 Main Event – April 19, 2016 Taped from London, England Apollo Crews vs. Curtis Axel - *** Kane & Big Show vs. Braun Strowman & Erick Rowan - *** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_AZ6_HF86I SmackDown – April 21, 2016 Taped from London, England https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrCO2rvrBXo The Miz vs. AJ Styles - ***1/2 NXT Live – April 21, 2016 Taped from Boston, MA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMFYvgJwii4 Once the entire match is available, it’ll be reviewed. As for the booking, don’t tell me that this would’ve helped house show tickets. Months later, ticket sales have been down for this brand, so this title change would indicate that it meant nothing. It was totally foolish not to have the title change in Dallas, as then Balor vs. Joe that night being the closing match over Sami Zayn’s swan song against the debuting Shinsuke Nakamura would’ve made logical sense. Just because the brand’s other titles changed hands that night doesn’t mean this title change couldn’t have been on the same card too; doing so would’ve easily solidified Takeover: Dallas as hands down, up and down the card when also considering the in-ring debut of Austin Aries, as the most historic event in NXT history, one that would NEVER be matched. Superstars – April 22, 2016 Taped from London, England Kalisto vs. Tyler Breeze - *** https://twitter.com/JohnCena/status/724644242224746498 OH FUCK YES~! The roster has REALLY missed him because outside of Kevin Owens, there’s been a severe lack in talkers that have the ability to polish the turds that creative passes off as acceptable television programming dialogue. This is especially true with Chris Jericho’s weak, disappointing efforts on the mic in the past several weeks. WWE Live – April 22, 2016 Live from Paris, France Dean Ambrose & Sami Zayn vs. Triple H & Kevin Owens - ***1/4 WWE Live – April 23, 2016 Live from Malaga, Spain Dean Ambrose & Sami Zayn vs. Triple H & Kevin Owens - *** Raw – April 25, 2016 Live from Hartford, CT Shane McMahon is in charge yet again, but Stephanie returns and informs him that their father Vince will decide who runs Raw going forward this weekend at Payback 2016. While tolerable, I see the argument that this makes the actual competitors on the roster come across as secondary puppets. Dream Match Sheamus vs. AJ Styles A good yet disappointing match, as this didn’t come close to the potential these two would show if this was for the IWGP Heavyweight Title or part of the annual G-1 Climax tournament. Sheamus pretty much dominated this with Styles having continuous hope spots. I’d much have preferred just a mean streak slug-fest that both of these men excel at, instead of having Styles play the intelligent underdog that won by targeting the legs of the bigger Sheamus. At least Styles went over to continue his hot streak. ***1/4 Roman Reigns agrees to have his cousins the Usos aid him in their common, yet complicated issue against Luke Gallows, AJ Styles, and Karl Anderson. A fantastic vignette featuring clips of Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens perspectives airs on their personal and professional history. Owens simply claims that he’s the victim since Zayn’s surprise appearance in the Royal Rumble match a few months earlier, while of course his choice to betray Zayn the year before in NXT was purely business. This match should be fucking fantastic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CILxrJZkdA8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYHkM2poZVk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAu5g0K7m0s SmackDown – April 28, 2016 Taped from Manchester, NH Roman Reigns vs. The Miz - *** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFHw44uKcnY Superstars – April 29, 2016 Taped from Hartford, CT Kalisto vs. Tyler Breeze - ***1/4 So let’s compare to a year ago. There were 2 weekly highlights in the aftermath of WrestleMania 31; one being the New Day’s breakthrough heel turn, the other being John Cena’s incredibly fun first month as US Champion with his open challenge gimmick. Both of those have been matched this year; Zayn vs. Owens is on par with New Day’s overnight sensation direction change, albeit both stories being very much different flavors. Miz’s ascension as IC Champion, when factoring in how much he’s been enhanced by the returning Maryse, is right on par with and also a tremendous contrast to Cena a year ago. Ambrose vs. Jericho would be my pick as the parallel to last year’s Big Show vs. Roman Reigns. A tedious storyline that has questionable chances of being any good once the PPV match happens. So what’s the difference-maker then? Simply put, the main event scene. The Reigns vs. Styles direction makes me wish it had been the main event of WrestleMania 32, as it has completely, utterly smoked Seth Rollins vs. Randy Orton a year ago. Everything involving the Usos, Luke Gallows, and Karl Anderson shits all over Kane and J&J Security. What made this buildup for Payback 2016 so impressive in hindsight is that this was done without Cena, Rollins, Orton, Triple H, Undertaker, Brock Lesnar, etc. This roster was fucking depleted; that’s very likely the biggest reason that Styles ended up getting this opportunity to help kick off what should end up being a defining WWE Title run for Reigns. This was a huge upgrade over last year, and had the 2 months leading into WrestleMania 32 been just half as exciting as this was, maybe people would actually be more optimistic with this company’s decisions more often.

WM33 men's focused program predictions... before Roadblock 2016 (PPV) unfolds: Dean Ambrose vs. Samoa Joe Chris Jericho vs. Kevin Owens SmackDown Tag Titles Match Bray Wyatt & Randy Orton vs. Brothers of Destruction Seth Rollins vs. Triple H Universal Title Match Roman Reigns vs. Finn Balor Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar WWE Title Match AJ Styles vs. John Cena

Turning Point 2006 – December 10, 2006 Live from Orlando, FL Kurt Angle vs. Samoa Joe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5FEiAGSUO8 A preface: The recent momentous decision of Goldberg humbling Brock Lesnar is one that I found comparable to Angle humbling Joe a decade earlier at Genesis 2006. It led to a huge overreaction on the part of many on both ends of the spectrum. What cannot be denied is that both decisions shared the similarity of being unforgettable for the history of their respective federations, year-defining moments for the wrestling industry, and opened a healthy discussion about giving the rub of a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut’s abrupt buzz-saw run to an already proven, established outsider. I bring up Goldberg vs. Lesnar because for all the buzz it has gotten, for all the analysis it has gotten and will continue to get in the coming months, one thing is for certain: WWE will not be wasting the fucking rematch at Roadblock 2016 (PPV). It will not be wasted at Fast Lane 2017. It’s very obviously planned for a much, much, much bigger stage, likely WrestleMania 33. It isn’t gonna be rushed like John Cena vs. Kevin Owens turned out to be. So rewind a decade to TNA. The Angle vs. Joe dream match was white-hot, generating all kinds of buzz and even doing some damn good business for the company. So instead of using the opportunity of Joe’s first defeat to make him stronger, angrier, more focused and determined in order to get Angle’s agreement to a rematch over a significant period of time, it just gets rushed to the next PPV just 3 weeks later. If Bound For Glory was supposed to be TNA’s WrestleMania, then there’s no excuse for Lockdown, which was under negotiations for its 2007 edition to be in a new location just like Bound For Glory 2006 had been, not to be treated as the company’s SummerSlam. With Lockdown 2007 planned to be in a new market, meaning tickets need to be sold and not in the comfortable Orlando home base, that’s the perfect event to have finally presented the Angle vs. Joe rematch, a sequel that would’ve been 5 months in the making and possibly for the TNA Title as well, serving as a compliment to the annual Lethal Lockdown spectacle. I also like the rubber match taking place at Bound For Glory 2007, making it a long-term program straight out of modern-day NJPW’s playbook. A poetic piece of storytelling would’ve fallen in TNA’s laps too, because that show would’ve been in Atlanta, where Angle had won his Olympic Gold Medal in 1996. Instead, TNA wanted to prove on December 10, 2006, “No, Pro Wrestling NOAH, you’re going back to Misawa and giving up on Marufuji? Oh fuck off, WE’RE the kings of penny smart, dollar dumb booking!” Not only was this money rematch rushed less than an entire month after the original, but it also had some absolutely wretched booking in the weeks leading up to it, booking so bad that I am ignoring it entirely as if it never happened, and I recall there was one moment that even the TNA bookers knew was so bad it had to be ignored because otherwise it would’ve murdered interest in this rematch. Rushing the rematch just 3 weeks after the original also left a bit of a bad taste for those who had ordered Genesis 2006 on PPV, me being among them. Such a historic PPV and dream match hadn’t been given time to resonate with the audience, we hadn’t had a chance to get a breather, analyze it to death for months, and ache, crave, and beg once again to see two of the best performers of the 2000s decade collide once again. With that booking analysis out of the way, it’s time to review the actual rematch. Not included in the YouTube upload is the pre-match video. I’m not a fan of Angle changing his mind about Joe’s rematch request, citing he had gotten an opportunity at an amateur rematch in the 1996 Olympics. I’d have much preferred for Angle to just keep blowing off Joe instead of going through this generosity phase. At least he says Joe deserves a rematch because of everything Joe had accomplished in TNA prior to their dream match though. Angle also admits he took Joe too lightly, explaining why Joe put him through an absolute beating. Angle goes out of his way to put Joe’s effort in their dream match over, but I still would’ve preferred him as an arrogant asshole who feels he already proven himself to Joe. “Win, lose, or draw, this is my last match against Samoa Joe.” Sure thing. Many a decade ago said this was the quality they had hoped for in their first match. I can see why that is, since this is lengthier and the content more competitive to make this feel like a battle of equals. Even though Angle had agreed to a rematch out of respect, the two had a very competitive animosity towards one another. The ferocity of their cut-offs was something to behold and I’m surprised hasn’t spilled over into WWE more as many TNA-branded talents have jumped there in the past couple years. If the Brock Lesnar vs. Shinsuke Nakamura rematch ever happens in WWE, I’m hoping it has the grumpy demeanor of this classic. I loved that Angle threw Joe’s face into the steel steps as a receipt from their first match. It was a great little piece of storytelling in a match packed with it. In particular, they had each other far more scouted with their trademark arsenal, not just the big signature moves, but even smaller tendencies. Angle also seemed more determined this time to make an example out of Joe, playing dirty at times in a sign of things to come. Joe’s selling after escaping the ankle lock numerous times was top-notch. Even as he’d make comebacks, he’d limp as he’d be forced to put weight on it in around to move around, allowing Angle to stay in the match right with him. As the match reached its third act and they countered back-and-forth between the ankle lock and Coquina Clutch, it got more dramatic with each one, surging an already-energetic crowd that was stoked from the opening bell. I really appreciated that Joe not only broke out of the ankle lock so many times, but that it was more than 3, which had been the killer for him 3 weeks earlier. The tease of him giving in again was off-the-charts, just as compelling as when Shawn Michaels tried so hard to avoid tapping out at the end of his dream match against Angle at WrestleMania 21. Of course in this instance, Joe managed to actually break it and reach the ropes, elevating his stock. Angle was equally gripping when substantially stuck in the Coquina Clutch, looking just as tempted to tap out to it as Lesnar was against CM Punk’s triangle choke years later at SummerSlam 2013. Angle is often credited as one of the few major league stars to come into TNA and give everything he possibly had to elevate TNA, and his performances so far against Joe certainly confirm that. This was on its way to being undoubtedly superior to the first match, but I was genuinely irritated when there was a ref bump. It took me out of what was on its way to challenging or possibly surpassing Joe vs. Christopher Daniels on the first-ever Thursday night episode of Impact 8 months earlier as TNA’s best match of 2006. There’s a logic to it though, as Angle took an exaggerated shove when pushed back by Joe, so it can arguably be seen as intentional. That would explain that after Angle tapped out to the Coquina Clutch as the ref was unavailable, he kicked Joe in the groin from behind, grabbed a chair, and tried using it. The commentary said he was frustrated from having tapped out even if it wasn’t counted; I prefer to see it as Angle realizing that Joe was now on his level and he couldn’t accept that. Angle eventually tapping out minutes later again to the Coquina Clutch to end this classic was a great moment, although obviously would’ve meant much more had this rematch been delayed and built for a more important event. Since a ref bump was brought into the equation so that Angle could cheat in an attempt to win, I actually would’ve preferred that story to be told with full gusto. Let Angle have this dirty victory to incense Joe, the fans, and the locker room. He then believes that he’s truly superior based on his success in the amateur ranks and WWE, plus he’s now gone 2-0 against the “unstoppable” Joe. Angle can keep coming up with excuses to avoid Joe’s quest for retribution, while also attempting to pull power-plays based on his star power and proven box office appeal. This allows the 3rd match to be built to for Lockdown 2007, with everyone thirsting and salivating for Joe, who’s now a complete babyface due to Angle’s bullshit, to get the elusive victory. Since Angle would’ve been avoiding Joe for so long too, that gives a storyline reason for it to be a cage match, rather than just because “every match at Lockdown is a cage match, dammit.” Nonetheless, Angle vs. Joe II was still an excellent main event on its way to being in the tippy-top tier in TNA’s history, only to be dragged down by half-assed sports-entertainment booking that came across as being shoehorned in this match instead of organically weaved to enhance the story. ****1/4

Marufuji vs. Misawa – December 10, 2006 This was a total carry-job by Marufuji. He brought forth an energy that Misawa simply didn’t have anymore. In fact, Misawa just looked totally cooked in this match. Even if he was still alive today, I think this would’ve been the perfect time to start winding down or outright retire. He was so lethargic without any of the fire of Kenta Kobashi, who was also broken-down at this point. Marufuji’s work on Misawa’s left leg went nowhere, which really disappointed me. There was simply too much focus done for me to accept it being forgotten, especially for an all-time elite worker like Misawa. There was also almost a business-exposing moment because of Misawa. They had a finisher blocking exchange on the apron that ended with Marufuji countering a Tiger Driver with a hurricanrana to the floor. Marufuji didn’t get enough rotation so his legs never scissored Misawa’s head, but thankfully an arm was still hooked from the Tiger Driver attempt to explain why Misawa sold for Marufuji. That wasn’t the only insipid bump Misawa took. Oh no, he had to take a Shiranui off the entrance apron to the floor for a count-out false finish. This was a missed opportunity to pay off the earlier story and protect Misawa’s body. Why not have a count-out false finish instead due to Marufuji immobilizing Misawa’s left leg? Surely Misawa would know how to sell the struggle of breaking the 20-count on a bad leg. Misawa’s cache was in full effect here, as the crowd was going crazy at the end for him and all the false finishes. The biggest credit is that Marufuji never hit the Shiranui, so therefore it was never fed just to boost Misawa. Having Marufuji kick out of an Island Driver was a good move too, but once a Super version was done, I knew that was it for such a promising title reign only 3 months after it began. Due to Marufuji’s performance and the crowd’s electricity at the end, this is ultimately a good match. As someone whose puro knowledge is from a distance, I’ve concerns though because Misawa looked very uncomfortable. At age 44, he looked 54. This title change comes across as incredibly impatient and short-sighted, going back to the well long since it’s been run dry. It doesn’t seem to serve the best interests of anyone in the long-term. In hindsight, this feels like the first booking domino that ultimately led to NOAH’s decline over the next several years, even more so than Kobashi’s iconic reign being ended by Takeshi Rikio. Rather than invest in Marufuji with the same kind of effort as WWE had done around this time with Randy Orton, NOAH made the decision of being penny smart, dollar dumb. This felt equal to had Sting’s career not ended in his WWE Title match against Seth Rollins, but he had actually dethroned the champion after having a difficult time drawing throughout 2015. Sting winning the WWE Title in 2015 would’ve been a great moment, while ultimately pointless in the long-term picture just like this direction. ***1/2

The Chicago Spectacular Night 2 – December 9, 2006 Taped from Chicago, IL Due to Matt Sydal’s knee injury the night before, he’s off tonight’s card. The scheduled Tag Titles match pitting him and Christopher Daniels vs. Austin Aries & Roderick Strong will obviously be rescheduled. The injury has triggered major changes throughout the card, and per PWInsider’s report a decade ago, booker Gabe Sapolsky stayed up until deep into the early hours of Saturday morning rebooking this event. That’s definitely a positive sign in light of his recent decisions that display obvious burnout. If I was in charge and considered making a booking change (which I would’ve legitimately been looking into actually had I been owner Cary Silkin), this kind of dedication would likely convince me to remain loyal to the bookerman that’s been around since Day 1. Adam Pearce vows to properly punish Homicide tonight in honor of former ROH Commissioner Jim Cornette. Shingo says he has friends coming in soon from Dragon Gate. Lacey says that since he’s booked against Colt Cabana tonight, she’ll pay him if he hurts the Chicago native. He accepts the offer. Missed opportunity not making Shingo & Brent Albright as a brief team as the Mercenaries. Cabana kicks off the show pissed about the night before, daring Jimmy Jacobs to come fight him. The request is obliged as he’s accompanied by Lacey, who meets her equalizer in Daizee Haze yet again. Haze takes out Lacey, only to be targeted by Jacobs. Cabana is down after Lacey strikes his freshly sore groin, so since he’s down BJ Whitmer comes out to protect Haze and get a piece of Jacobs. Whitmer’s come a long way since putting Allison Danger in harm’s way a couple years earlier. Shingo, Jimmy Rave, and Bryan Danielson come help out Jacobs, then Delirious and Nigel McGuinness come out as equalizers. I’m not sure what beef Delirious still has with Danielson, but everything in this is clicking. Whitmer and Cabana want Jacobs, McGuinness wants Rave, and Cabana makes the blasphemous statement that it’s time to eliminate Shingo’s flawless mullet. Shingo vs. Cabana in singles action is thrown out, as tonight will be an 8-man Survivor Series Style Elimination match pitting Danielson as captain with Shingo, Rave, & Jacobs against Delirious as captain with Whitmer, Cabana, & McGuinness. That whole opening segment was fucking fantastic and a major positive for Sapolsky. It was an FIP segment with ROH’s superior polishing, with the direction making sense and everyone playing their roles perfectly. Shingo and Danielson even showcase their camaraderie from FIP as DP Associates stablemates, although Dave Prazak isn’t getting involved in this at all. Huge thumbs up here and I’m looking forward to this main event, as it teases all kinds of matches and has major storyline advancement potential. I let the DVD just keep playing for a few minutes into the opening match, and Sapolsky claims on commentary that Sydal & Daniel vs. Aries & Strong was actually gonna be the main event. That’d have been interesting, but oh well. Aries & Strong will have to wait a bit longer for their title match, but will still face Daniels tonight as he teams with a TBD partner. Also, when ROH returns to Chicago on February 24, it’ll be at a different building in the actual city of Chicago instead of Chicago Ridge. Due to scheduling problems and other issues, Jared David (Mister Saint Laurent) has stepped down as commentator on good terms. “Lenny Leonard, if you’re out there, please take my job!” That tease obviously means LENNY LEONARD IS FUCKING RETURNING TO THE COMMENTARY BOOTH SOON~! OH FUCK YES~! Sydal & Daniels have a promo, and Sydal is very cocky about protecting his athleticism. Daniels doesn’t seem on-board with his shit. Daniels then reveals that Matt Cross will be his partner tonight. Sydal is then condescending to both. While I understand the need to make new stars, I’ve made my feelings quite clear about Cross. So why not just throw Sydal’s stablemate Shingo in as his replacement? It’d have made more sense for Albright to be in the main event since he’d just done business with Danielson, Lacey, AND Jacobs the night before, and it’d get someone who has some potential in a top match. While I’m not fully sold on Albright, I see far more money in him than I do Cross; at least Albright has some cache from his time in OVW. Pelle Primeau gets beaten up after his match by Shane Hagadorn & Adam Pearce, then the latter grabs a mic to call out Homicide for their strap match right now. Homicide obliges and Pearce powders to leave Hagadorn to be destroyed. Homicide vs. Hagadorn becomes an official match and I hate seeing Homicide sell for Hagadorn even for less than 30 seconds. Homicide should utterly, absolutely steamroll and obliterate Hagadorn like Steph Curry going up against a beer-leaguer. What I’ve said about Matt Cross lacking star power potential? He’s Randy Savage compared to a total scrub that brings nothing to the table whatsoever like Hagadorn. After Homicide has finished Hagadorn, he says the strap match scheduled between him and Pearce is “pussy shit.” He says the cage fencing from the night before is still available in the truck outside, so they’re doing a fucking cage match tonight. Chicago goes apeshit for that, so I don’t see the issue. I left the DVD going again into Mark Briscoe vs. Samoa Joe, and Sapolsky announces that Claudio Castagnoli will be bidding farewell at Final Battle 2006. The night before that on December 22, ROH will make its Hartford debut, and as part of Castagnoli’s farewell weekend, a dream match that looks to be once-in-a-lifetime has been booked between the Briscoes and Kings of Wrestling. OH FUCK YES~! Another reason I’m glad I let this match play is because Joe called out NOAH as he finished off Mark, then cuts a post-match promo demanding an answer from what was the #1 wrestling federation in all of Japan a decade ago. “Come get some.” Chicago breaks out in an “ROH” chant. McGuinness comes out as he’s tired of Joe shitting on NOAH, then lays down the zinger of “You don’t like Japanese people ‘cause you got your ass kicked in Zero-One?” McGuinness says he’s proud to have become a regular in NOAH, and will happily step up to answer Joe’s challenge in the future. Now this is a much better way to showcase McGuinness as a babyface. Joe accepts that they’ll fight in the future, and I’m looking forward to whatever they end up doing. ROH continues its formula of having multiple directions for various characters, and I find this as a MUCH more effective direction to get McGuinness over as a tippy-top babyface going into 2007. I’ve gotta comment here. I haven’t reviewed any matches proper on this show yet, and I’m already digging the shit out of it just based on booking alone. Christopher Daniels & Matt Cross vs. Austin Aries & Roderick Strong The on-screen graphic has some news: December 22 in Hartford – Briscoes vs. KOW; Roderick Strong vs. Davey Richards for the FIP Title; Sydal & Daniels vs. CIMA & Shingo for the Tag Titles. Damn I’m getting hard. Final Battle 2006 – Danielson vs. Homicide for the ROH Title; Sydal, CIMA, & Shingo vs. Delirious, Aries, & Strong. Holy shit, have mercy on me. ROH returns to Long Island on April 13, and will be in Hartford on May 11. Aries wishes Cross luck during the pre-match handshake, welcoming him to the big-time. He and Sydal are awesome exchanging barbs. Daniels and Strong started the match with the former trying to evade chops, but that didn’t last long. Cross got tagged in pretty early and was given the chance to be in control. As Steve Austin would describe Cross years later on Tough Enough, Cross was fine here mechanically during his control segment, but nothing he did connected emotionally with the audience. I honestly felt at times like I was watching someone that would be featured on current-day NXT as enhancement talent. The same could be said when he played the FIP and had the ring cut in half on him by Aries & Strong. They decimated him as he paid his dues, and never at any point did the crowd rally behind Cross. Once he eventually got the hot tag to Daniels, there was no big joyful reaction to it, even with Daniels being a tremendous house of fire. A shooting star press from Cross to the outside impressed this Chicago audience enough for them to forget that he failed to connect with them emotionally or display a personality whatsoever. For all the valid concerns expressed about Aries & Strong a decade ago, they worked in ways that actually showed personality, be it aggression, cockiness, smugness, arrogance, ruthlessness, selling underneath, etc. I saw nothing whatsoever, despite this being a good match overall thanks to the 3 proven veterans, that told me Cross was worthy of this spot coming in. I’m not fooled by the crowd chanting for him in the post-match. Sydal and Aries jaw-jacking yet again only further displays what a tedious chore Cross is. I love that Aries was respectful albeit intense to everyone else, but wouldn’t bother shaking Sydal’s hand, sick of his former friend’s newfound Blood Generation conceitedness. It was absolutely the right call of course for Cross to eat the fall, so kudos for that. Rating: ***1/4 Dave Prazak interviews Jimmy Jacobs at intermission, and he has a cut on his left eye. Lacey isn’t concerned whatsoever about his life or health, and just wants him to take out Whitmer and Cabana. Jacobs says his blood comes from his soul, displaying a completely twisted, pathetic viewpoint. He ends it by saying the blood is “my bleeding body, my bleeding soul, my bleeding heart.” Cage Match Homicide vs. Adam Pearce This was honestly some weak, disappointing shit. With that said, it has to be acknowledged that Homicide’s connection level with the audience here is something WWE absolutely wishes it had for Roman Reigns today. Even with all the weak storytelling in the aftermath of ROH vs. CZW, this crowd was fully behind him against their native Pearce, anxious for him to complete his journey in 2 weeks. When Sinclair got knocked down and Homicide discovered that he had his missing fork, the crowd popped huge for it like Mick Foley whipping out Mr. Socko in 1999. I don’t wanna pile on this match too hard, as it’s certainly not an awful cage match, nor is it close to the worst I’ve ever seen, or even in 2006. This was Ric Flair vs. Triple H compared to Joey Ryan vs. B-Boy earlier in the year, and even that fucking awful cage match pales in comparison to Pearce’s steaming pile of dog shit a couple years earlier against Frankie Kazarian. If there was anything I hated in this match, it was when Homicide got a sleeper on Pearce and they teased a knockout submission with it. For someone like Pearce who’s supposedly a smart worker compared to his colleagues that tend to be much more critically acclaimed, why would HE be in this position instead of the other way around? Why wasn’t Homicide teasing a submission and then making a comeback to get the crowd behind him? At no point did this ever feel like a serious grudge match either like Homicide’s classics against Steve Cornio 3 years earlier, or even other all-time classics from the cage genre like Tully Blanchard vs. Magnum TA, Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker, and Brock Lesnar vs. Undertaker (both.) While the fork came into play and both wore a crimson mask, this lacked the visceral body language that I was expecting. These two should absolutely despise each other, as this is a layered backstory of Pearce pretending to care about ROH against CZW only to be exposed as playing politics under Cornette, while Homicide had found a sense of justice in his soul along the way, albeit with negotiation demands that he was more than upfront about. With them being stuck in a cage, I wanted to see these two talking shit to each other, referencing their history and why they hate each other. Pearce can definitely hold his own as a trash-talker, while Homicide although a bit weaker knows how to verbally express himself in a way to either rally a crowd or be presented as a menacing threat. I ultimately don’t think the cage match was the best idea in hindsight. I agree with the strap match being scrapped. Of course I have an alternative. My first instinct is to suggest a Falls Count Anywhere match with the intention of recreating the magic of Chris Benoit vs. Kevin Sullivan from Great American Bash 1996. But honestly that isn’t a dynamic Homicide ever had with Pearce; he had that kind of animosity with Corino, which was on full display in their work of art at Bitter Friends, Stiffer Enemies. So I end up with changing this to a dog collar match. It keeps the two together at all times, allows the whipping and choking with a steel chain instead of a leather strap, and allows the two to get creative in the leverage they use on each other with the chain and collars. This has the additional benefit of not being used in Homicide’s feud-ender the month before against Corino, and it hasn’t been used to settle or advance a feud since Jimmy Rave vs. CM Punk at Manhattan Mayhem. Homicide wins by choking out Pearce, reinforcing that despite his recent clean loss to Rave, he’s not to be fucked with in route to facing Danielson. Instead, we got a cage match that lacked a cohesive story, had a backwards submission false finish, and a completely forgettable finish with Homicide just hitting a couple lariats. None of this resonated other than the reaction to Homicide’s fork discovery. Rating: less than *** Jay Briscoe vs. Davey Richards Richards dominates early when a strike exchange spills to the outside and he tosses Jay around onto some barricades. It continues inside the ring as he targets the neck area to soften Jay up for the Butterfly Brainbuster. After Jay has some control, it spills outside again when Richards suplexes him over the ropes, hitting his own neck on the top rope. That’s not good considering Jay’s finisher. Richards continues with more suplexes, softening up Jay’s neck and shoulders and then going for the Butterfly Brainbuster, but it’s blocked and then brought to an even point when Jay gives him a Death Valley Driver. Richards gets an Alarm Clock and then a Hammerlock Brainbuster for a near-fall, once again softening up Jay. Jay blocks a Superplex and drops Richards with a Gordbuster which the crowd loves. Richards blocks the double underhook piledriver and hits a double underhook DDT then places Jay in the Kimura Lock, and they’re both very exhausted at this point. Jay feels fighting spirit after getting kicked repeatedly, so they have another strike exchange that ends with both down and the crowd giving applause. Mark comes to ringside at this point to provide moral support for Jay, and the Briscoes surprisingly don’t do anything dirty. Jay gets fired up but shoved off and Richards attempts a shooting star press only to eat knees to the abdomen. Jay then hits a Falcon Arrow for a near-fall, but the double underhook piledriver is all he needs to finish Richards off. Good match that the crowd loved, and one has to wonder where Richards goes from here. With the Briscoes very clearly not splitting up, it would’ve seemed so obvious that Richards would’ve won this program-ender. This was an important chapter for Richards, which makes it surprising that this hasn’t been included yet on a compilation. Rating: ***1/2 Survivor Series Style Elimination Match Bryan Danielson, Shingo, Jimmy Rave, & Jimmy Jacobs vs. Delirious, BJ Whitmer, Colt Cabana, & Nigel McGuinness Team Danielson is accompanied by Lacey, while Team Delirious is accompanied by Daize Haze. Brilliantly booked match here, although certainly not a favorite of mine. Where this match really deserves credit is that there was no telegraphing like WWE so frequently does in this type of gimmick match in recent years. It was very difficult to foresee who would eliminate who. My biggest complaint is that once the match got down to Danielson & Rave vs. Delirious, the crowd wasn’t completely behind Delirious like I’d have hoped. I wanted a rabid audience during this come-from-behind portion of the match, but I guess I’ve gotta remember that not every babyface can be on the same level as Shawn Michaels, Ricky Steamboat, and Danielson during his days as Daniel Bryan. The takeaways from this match were the advancement in the saga involving Jacobs, Lacey, Whitmer, and Cabana, and that ROH really seemed deadest on setting up new top stars going into 2007. Jacobs pulled out a spike to use on Whitmer, but Cabana prevented that and Whitmer got the weapon. Lacey tried distracting Whitmer only to get distracted by Haze, and so when Jacobs evaded a spike attack, it ended up hitting Lacey! Jacobs cradled her to the back and then reinserted himself minutes later, going for the intentional disqualification by targeting Whitmer’s right ankle with a chair, clearly not giving a shit about winning this match. He needed to satisfy Lacey’s demands, and now had extra motivation to do so. Rave took full advantage of Whitmer’s damaged right ankle, eliminating him with the heel hook. He would then go on to do so once again to McGuinness too, and then eventually eliminate Cabana as well. A victory over Homicide plus this weekend’s booking really comes across as overcompensating to get Rave over as a top heel in the wake of Prince Nana’s departure. Danielson and Delirious had a good closing portion once it came down to them at the very end. They countered each other’s usual finishers and signatures, but once Delirious hit a Cobra Clutch Suplex and then returned to the Cobra Stretch, Danielson had no choice but to tap out. This reinforces to Homicide that Danielson is vulnerable, and also tells me that perhaps Danielson had to take this loss to keep himself ready for Final Battle 2006. It’s really obvious that Danielson will finally take time off to rest his damaged right shoulder in early 2007, so Delirious going over here is an attempt to groom him for something marquee as a babyface in the coming months. Crowd was ecstatic when Danielson tapped out btw. Rating: ***3/4 Davey Richards has decided that going forward, he needs someone watching his back. This would make more sense if Mark had intervened tonight to help Jay and Richards not been the defeated participant in his tag matches alongside KENTA. Recommended event for the booking overall, which across the board was actually interesting. Two new eras are about to begin. One is advertised and for the long-term over the next 7 years, while the other is felt almost immediately but unadvertised. In addition, a familiar voice returns to the commentary booth... Up next – International Challenge Matches will include: Eddie Edwards vs. Austin Aries Briscoe Bros. vs. Kings of Wrestling Bryan Danielson vs. Jimmy Rave vs. Homicide vs. Nigel McGuinness Roderick Strong vs. Davey Richards Matt Sydal & Christopher Daniels vs. CIMA & Shingo

The Chicago Spectacular Night 1 – December 8, 2006 Taped from Chicago, IL ROH Video Wire – December 1, 2006 Important news/footage in the above video: In a promo filmed at Dethroned, Samoa Joe vows to finally dethrone ROH Champion Bryan Danielson in their cage match at The Chicago Spectacular Night 1. He then vows to bring the “Ring of Homicide” era to an end at Final Battle 2006. Pretty cocky for someone who just got humbled on live PPV by Kurt Angle. Samoa Joe cuts another promo from the same location. He’s fed up with NOAH imports padding their resumes in ROH, and dares that company to send someone to face him. He claims there’s yet to be a response since he slapped KENTA at Burnout The Bitter End. Homicide also cuts a promo, and the way they interact in support of each other is very lamely acted. Credit must be given to booker Gabe Sapolsky, as Joe vs. NOAH along with everything involving Jimmy Jacobs is keeping this company from being utter trash creatively at this point. New Tag Team Champions Matt Sydal & Christopher Daniels cut a promo also from Dethroned, reiterating that they’ll take on all-comers. Austin Aries & Roderick Strong request a title match in Chicago, and the champs agree to it for The Chicago Spectacular Night 2 as reciprocation for Aries & Strong providing a shot during their reign at Gut Check. Post-match footage of Jimmy Rave vs. Nigel McGuinness airs from Dethroned. McGuinness is a fucking douche-bag. The two of them had shaken hands, only for McGuinness to mockingly throw a toilet paper roll at Rave, who is justifiably pissed over it. That’s an awful route to have taken to heat up their program. While McGuinness still has a bit of a cutthroat nature to him since breaking out a few months back, the way he treated the respectful Rave was completely disrespectful. Awful booking when the obvious goal is to groom McGuinness as the face of the company by 2007. Unlike Homicide a year before this, who was a psychotic piece of shit that had a long way to go in his journey to the tippy-top, McGuinness was already a babyface here, with very little tweaks left to officially complete that turn. How the fuck did us ROHbots miss all these cracks in Sapolsky’s booking in late 2006? Another overall lukewarm show here, so once again C&P treatment of Brad Garoon and Jake Ziegler. Brent Albright faces Homicide in a first-time ever match on this card. The match ends when Albright is disqualified for refusing to release the Crowbar submission. Samoa Joe comes out to help his friend, and Danielson arrives to pay Albright a now obvious bounty placed on the Notorious 187. Rave pulls off the upset in a rematch against McGuinness via the heel hook submission. Colt Cabana wins his match against Jimmy Jacobs via disqualification when Lacey tosses powder into his eyes, then the post-match has quite a bit of angle advancement. Why is this Team Danielson vs. Team Delirious trios match just being mentioned now instead of on a Video Wire before this? Dragon Gate Rules Match Matt Sydal & Shingo vs. Austin Aries & Roderick Strong Yet another indy tag in which tag legalities aren’t properly enforced, when it’s actually supposed to be much easier in this instance: tag legalities change either by traditional tagging, or when the legal man leaves the ring, meaning his partner can then become legal. Referee Todd Sinclair had already officiated these types of matches 8 months earlier, so there was no excuse this time. The big takeaway from this is that Sydal looked like he hurt his right knee at the beginning and then gutted through it, then really came up limp once the match was over. The other takeaway is that he and Shingo had become Dragon Gate stablemates in the Blood Generation faction, so that combined with Sydal being Tag Champ now had him very cocky. The highlights as far as sequences both involved Sydal and Strong. By the way, Gabe Sapolsky on commentary once again neglects PWG when he says that Sydal has yet to get a victory against Aries or Strong in any kind of match. Sydal boasted after a corner moonsault dropkick “That’s what champions are made of!” This triggered Strong to come in and just deck him from behind. The other was Sydal hitting a phenomenal DDT counter on Strong, and I believed because of the reaction it got, it actually saved the match for the crowd, who applauded at the end. The result was obvious due to Aries & Strong challenging Sydal & Christopher Daniels tomorrow. They finished off Sydal with various blows and a 450 Splash, then told him afterwards the titles are coming back to them. He still acted cocky in defeat. Mechanically good but very disappointing match that can’t just be blamed on Sydal’s injury. Rating: *** ROH Title – Cage Match Bryan Danielson vs. Samoa Joe While this is a good cage match, it’s disappointing on multiple levels. The first is that this failed to be a great cage match, and I won’t blame that on any booking. Both were dealing with severe injuries sustained a few months earlier, Danielson with his right shoulder in this very building, then Joe with sciatica a few weeks later. What makes this even more disappointing outside of the vacuum scope is that this was the final chapter of one of the defining underground rivalries of the 2000s, a rivalry that had started 4 years earlier in a four-way main event also involving Low Ki and Steve Corino at Final Battle 2002. Such a rivalry-ender would ideally strive to be an all-time epic, especially since this had become such a grudge feud that it was ending inside of a steel cage. Without question, as soon as Danielson put his own interests ahead of ROH’s when he targeted Joe’s right knee in the Cage of Death feud-ender against CZW, this was officially a grudge feud. So it’s disappointing that this conclusion turned out to be one of the weaker chapters of their rivalry. A decade later, I’m no longer bothered by the finish, which was Danielson breaking a choke hold due to profuse sweating while hanging on the outside fence, and then falling to the floor for the escape technicality victory. Danielson had 15 months of established credibility going over a who’s who of contenders; it was time for him to show some true vulnerability, much like Joe did 2 years earlier by putting his feet on the ropes at All Star Extravaganza II. With Joe’s rematch against Kurt Angle rushed to this same weekend by TNA, it wouldn’t surprise me if that caused this cage match to suffer a tad bit, nor would I blame Joe at all for holding back a bit considering his circumstances. Sapolsky on commentary presented the story in exceptional fashion, explaining that more than Joe being out for blood, the reason he had an advantage is that Danielson was used to taking powders to stall his opponent’s momentum and play mind games. That was an important, polarizing factor in their 60-minute Broadway at Fight of the Century actually. Danielson was stuck in here unless he found a way to escape, or he’d have to dig down deep in this more rigid environment. I wish that when Homicide showed up to give Joe a fork, that Joe was actually recovering from a blow and the utensil had just been tossed towards him. I’d have preferred for Danielson to be greeted by Homicide while attempting to escape, because then Danielson could get irritated that Homicide is giving him a sabotaging receipt, while also reminding Homicide of who came out on top when they fought in a steel cage environment. Just something extra to make Danielson more of a cocky prick in the company’s final weekend of events before Final Battle 2006 weekend. This cage match didn’t come close to the spectacle of the one I just referenced from The Final Showdown, nor the one the night after that in this same building between CM Punk and Jimmy Rave. At no point did this match hit a fever pitch, and the crowd deep-down knew, no matter how much they enjoyed these 2 titans colliding, that Joe was not gonna dethrone Danielson 2 weeks before Homicide’s obvious career-defining moment. It didn’t matter that Danielson had been busted open, it didn’t matter how clever he got in his attempt to modify his game plan, this match had no chance of being a classic. But with Danielson the victor, it is now official in the ROH canon: ROH’s closing match of 2006, in the main event of Final Battle 2006 at the Manhattan Center, will be Danielson defending the ROH Title against Brooklyn’s own Homicide. It’s the match that’s been 16 months in the making, ever since New Jersey went crazy hijacking Night of the Grudges II in favor of Homicide. History will be made, for either the greatest title reign in the history of underground wrestling will reach its conclusion, or a company legend will be forced per his own stipulation to bid farewell in his hometown. Rating: ***1/4 The only reason whatsoever to get this show is for the most die-hard Sydal marks that wanna see him play heel for the first time in ROH. That’s it. Shingo and Aries would collide at least a couple more times for those who are disappointed like me that they never faced off in a singles dream match. While there’s some decent angle advancement on the undercard, I won’t be surprised if it’s all on the follow-up Video Wires that are free on YouTube. Danielson vs. Joe is on the Year Five compilation, so there’s your way to see that final chapter while getting a fuck-ton of amazingly superior shit from ROH’s 2006. I’ll point out the obvious way to have improved the undercard: Sydal vs. Strong and Shingo vs. Aries in singles action with the latter in both matchups going over. Also instead of a four-way, Christopher Daniels vs. Davey Richards in singles. There you go. Up next – The Chicago Spectacular Night 2 Matches will include: Christopher Daniels & Matt Cross vs. Austin Aries & Roderick Strong Homicide vs. Adam Pearce Jay Briscoe vs. Davey Richards Team Danielson vs. Team Delirious

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So you're proposing Aries eventually join the Embassy? Am I correct in assuming that this would eventually lead to Evans & Strong winning the Tag Titles too since Aries and Strong aren't stablemates?

Passive Hostility – December 2, 2006 Taped from Los Angeles, CA Davey Richards vs. Rocky Romero Richards displays aggression early when Romero reaches the ropes during a Crippler Crossface, not delivering a clean break and instead kicking and talking shit. Romero gives a receipt with his own aggression of course. Submission counters get broken in a chippy fashion too. Richards has to back off a few times, so Romero spits to get in his head and ignite a striking exchange. The action spills to the outside, including the venue stage where the live commentary team would sit at much later down the road. Romero ducks a kick, forcing the left leg of Richards to strike the ring post. That creates a perfect target for Romero and his ankle lock submission. He keeps up the aggression, not wanting to let Richards think that he can’t be just as vicious if not more. Richards makes the effort of selling his left leg when he regains control, although it’s highly flawed. Rather than just avoiding putting any weight on it altogether, he walks on it gingerly which seems illegitimate. Romero tries targeting it still but Richards cuts off various comeback attempts by the former Black Tiger. After a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker cut-off by Richards, he stops selling his left leg altogether. As someone who had very bad shin pain once, only for it to fuck off on its own after a couple minutes, I don’t see the issue with Richards moving on. Richards continues dominating including cutting off another comeback attempt and countering it with an Inverted Cloverleaf submission. This feels like Richards being pissed about not getting the last laugh on Super Dragon and trying to take it out on Romero, especially as he just taunts him. The taunting allows a comeback via a strike exchange, but both go down after Richards hits a handspring elbow and Romero responds with a Busaiku knee. Richards shoves off an ankle lock attempt only to get kicked in the chest. Romero’s jumping head-scissors is countered with a Fireman’s Gutbuster and Running Liger Bomb. A victory roll by Richards is countered with the ankle lock by Romero, who prevents numerous escape attempts. He eventually escapes and they trade more bombs, but Richards gets the submission victory via another Inverted Cloverleaf attempt. Damn good undercard match with aggressive sizzle thrown on top. Rating: ***1/2 Claudio Castagnoli’s Advertised PWG Farewell Chris Hero vs. Claudio Castagnoli Castagnoli gets streamer treatment as this is advertised as his PWG farewell, which is why he’s facing his trainer and fellow King of Wrestling tonight also. At the time a decade ago, Castagnoli had gotten interest from WWE. While the future Cesaro would become one of the best performers on the planet, he was still quite green at this time, and that he would be recruited for his height and physique instead of a total package like Alex Shelley is another piece of damning evidence about WWE’s primitive hiring practices throughout the 2000s. With this being the final PWG event of 2006, it bookends their year in the company, as they kicked off their year in PWG in a singles match against each other at Cruisin’ For a Bruisin’. The first few minutes are a bit masturbatory as they trade moves and handshakes. Once Hero uses an elbow smash, that triggers a strike exchange with Castagnoli using uppercuts to make this interesting. Now rather than beat the fuck out of each other with dangerous strikes, they simply used that exchange to hook the crowd in a bit more and get them invested in their big moves. That is evidence by the crowd’s louder pop afterwards for the big moves. With Hero in control, Castagnoli tries to spark a comeback, although it lacks the proper fire, a problem he still has today. The crowd tries to get behind it, but it’s definitely artificial, rooted only because this is supposed to be Castagnoli’s finale for the company. It’d finally happen for Castagnoli when he runs the ropes and ducks an elbow, then hits a springboard middle-rope uppercut. Once again, this successful comeback lacks fire, another reason WWE’s interest in him at this time over much more polished underground products is questionable. Castagnoli maintains control thanks to a suicide dive, and Hero scouts a delayed vertical suplex, not wanting to have blood rush to his skull. Hero makes a comeback here, and the crowd again weakly attempts to spark a Castagnoli comeback. The applause for their moves feels more polite and automatic rather than a sign of being viscerally impressed, even for Castagnoli’s Alpamari Waterslide. Hero against counters the delayed vertical suplex and mocks the crowd’s anticipated chanting, only to eat a delayed brainbuster. This showed Castagnoli knew he couldn’t waste time holding the man who knows him most in mid-air for extended period. Their exhaustion strike exchange is good but lacks drama, as does a Tiger Suplex and Pyramid Driver. Hero counters an uppercut with a backslide, then hits a modified release vertical suplex, and anticlimactically finishes Castagnoli with a standing moonsault pin. The crowd is basically silent at that finish, then breaks out a “Kings of Wrestling” chant. Before Castagnoli can get a sentimental farewell, the Dynasty come preemptively ruin it by targeting both. This sparks a “Kings of Buzzkill” chant. Scorpio Sky challenges Frankie Kazarian to a loser leaves town match for December 16. I don’t see that date in PWG’s history, but whatever. Joey Ryan tries to talk shit to KOW, but they force the faction out with chairs. Hero requests Commissioner Dino Winwood to come out and approve some sort of match. The segment takes forever to get to the point. Castagnoli will return on the 12/16 date, cancelling a booking in Europe, so that KOW can face Chris Bosh & Scott Lost. That was a painful, low-rent post-match segment to cap off what was a very undramatic swan song for Castagnoli against his partner and at the time, best opponent. The match lacked fire and was abruptly ended, met rightfully with silence. The only silver lining in this whole presentation is Castagnoli deciding this not be his PWG finale. This has to be the weakest chapter in the Hero vs. Castagnoli catalog. Rating: less than *** PWG Title Match Joey Ryan vs. Kevin Steen vs. Human Tornado Steen receives a welcome reception in the pre-match, making his first appearance since June I believe. He explains in a promo that he’s been busy working in Dragon Gate, but makes it clear that he’s missed PWG, and he’s grown tired of Ryan’s utter chickenshit antics as champion. Steen vows that the painful reign of terror, one that I would very much say is comparable to Triple H’s generally dog shit run throughout 2002 and 2003, is ending tonight, and that he’s breaking the champion’s neck. His feelings are understandable, because if Ryan leaves as champion still, then the next day will be the 1-year anniversary of his reign that started by dethroning Steen, who seems to have lightened up throughout 2006 after entering the year conquered by Super Dragon. I fucking hated this match with a passion. I’ve seen numerous examples of three-ways consisting of a heel against 2 babyfaces, many of them having taken place years before this match, that provided templates for how this match should’ve been booked. Many others three-ways featuring 1 heel and 2 babyfaces, including Uncensored 1998, SmackDown 9/26/2002, WrestleMania XX, Backlash 2004, Taboo Tuesday 2005, Royal Rumble 2015, and WrestleMania 32, all completely take a shit on this farce of a title match. Ryan played the chickenshit as expected, sitting outside while Steen and Tornado did the work. At no point when Steen and Tornado collided did it feel in any way important. There was no flair to it at all. While being mechanically sound, it was completely lacking in drama. Then once they double-teamed Ryan for an extended period, I was wondering who exactly this match was plotted for, and it went on for so long that I was getting refreshed memories of Bret Hart vs. Vince McMahon. In the three-ways I had mentioned, the heels in them actually provided some sort of credible menace. Now some of them got help from stablemates just like Ryan did in this match from Dynasty, such as Raven and his Flock, as well as Seth Rollins and his J&J Security tandem. Whereas Raven and Rollins were bailed out or used as distractions to allow them to get a dramatic underhanded advantage, in this one Steen just brawled with Bosh and Lost to the back. This left Ryan vs. Tornado, but the referee that was apparently EXTREMELY green had chased the commotion, allowing Ryan to hit Tornado with a chair shot to the head. Ryan then did that again and the ref disqualified him. I’m okay with this not being held under rules as lenient as WWE three-ways since PWG has never said weapons would be allowed in this. The problem is that this match was ruled with Tornado as the winner, allowing Ryan to retain for a whole year, which the audience had been ready to move on from numerous months earlier. Of course, that also means this sham of a three-way match ended anticlimactically, and did so with the chair blows that don’t age well in a world after Chris Benoit. They especially don’t age well when the match is plotted and executed as poorly as this one. Rating: less than *** Tag Titles Match B-Boy & Super Dragon vs. Cape Fear I’ll get the negatives out of the way first, which was the usual: the match seemed to go a couple minutes longer than necessary, and nobody bothered to remember tag legalities during the last several minutes. Also near the end, there wasn’t much drama to Quicksilver kicking out of the Argentine Piledriver, which is absolutely inexcusable. Imagine the Philips Arena politely applauding when Sheamus was the first competitor to kick out of Big Show’s knockout punch. It’s simply not fathomable. This was nonetheless a very good main event and fitting to close out PWG for 2006. The consensus MOTY for the company involved Generico, and with potential plans for him break out soon in ROH, the end-all, be-all of the underground scene, this is in hindsight the perfect booking choice to bring the year to a close. Of course, it looked like there was supposed to be another event in 2 weeks, so for this to be the end is by accident. I’m glad it was. SD was a phenomenal cunt as always, showing an aggressive mean streak that I wish heels showed more often throughout the industry, not just the sanitized product of today’s WWE. I loved when he cut off Quicksilver from getting a hot tag to El Generico, illegally interfering and charging to knock the Generic Luchador off the apron, and then mocking the hot tag. B-Boy was impressive too, showcasing that SD’s dirty tactics were rubbing off on him by not going for clean breaks. Besides the finish, the two highlights had nothing to do with the overall solid tag psychology. Instead, it was two highspots involving SD and Generico. At one point, Generico gave SD a receipt for the earlier attempt to sabotage Cape Fear’s hot tag, then followed up by giving SD a tornado DDT on the floor, using the venue’s wall as a platform. Later on when the champs were regaining control, SD dove at Generico to the outside with a Tope Con Hilo. Even the botches came off well in this match, as the impromptu positioning led to logical counters. The big one that stood was Quicksilver attempting a head-scissors move on SD, and the botch allowed SD to hit a sudden Tombstone Piledriver. But everything in this match paled in comparison to the finishing stretch after the Argentine Piledriver near-fall. Generico took out B-Boy, hit some Half-n-Half Suplexes on SD, blocked a lariat with a Yakuza Kick, hit some more of those, and finished SD off with the Top Rope Brainbuster, and B-Boy didn’t have enough in the tank to make the save, meaning 2006 ended with Cape Fear as the new champions. The crowd is very happy about this and damn well should be. Ceap Fear leaving as champs wasn’t just intelligent, but a necessity after the garbage that it had to follow. In a year in which most PWG viewers would claim the company’s MOTY was CIMA vs. Generico, this was definitely the correct decision to go with. It’s poetic that although unintentional, this was the closing moment of the year for the company. Even with this making for the 4th Tag Titles change out of the past 5 events, this was a no-brainer. Now it’s time to enter 2007 with a solid run rather than the recent hot potato booking, and I certainly trust Cape Fear to go above and beyond the lengthy, disappointing reign of SD & Richards that had ended several months earlier. Rating: ***3/4 As I close 2006 for PWG, I’ve reached a point in the company’s timeline in which I’m very rarely skipping events entirely. It seems that on almost every show, there is at least one example of what I would consider the Good Shit to be found. It’s taken over 3 years into the company’s vault, but I now feel confident enough to start treating PWG as seriously as I do ROH for the remainder of this project that has no end in sight. Obviously, I’m quite a distance away from reaching PWG’s still-ongoing aesthetic peak that has spanned for nearly a decade now. With that said, I saw enough quality material from PWG throughout 2006 that I will now have previews of what’s to be covered on the next event from now on, plus an end-of-year awards section too. The latter won’t be as detailed as ROH’s since PWG has a thin storyline history, but I can still crown the best matches, performers, moments, and breakouts. For this first time, I will be including EVERYTHING from the company’s birth in July 2003 through all of 2006. Starting with 2007, each year gets its own awards section. PWG has reached that point now in this journey to start getting that kind of respect, and I force myself to patiently await the best that’s still to come. SUPER DUPER PWG 2003-2006 AWARDS Best Wrestler: Super Dragon Runner-up – El Generico Best Debut: Tyler Black & Jimmy Jacobs @ All Star Weekend IV Night 1 Best Breakout Performance: El Generico (vs. Chris Sabin; vs. CIMA) @ 2006 Battle of Los Angeles Night 3 Best Feud/Rivalry: Kevin Steen vs. Super Dragon Best Show: 2006 Battle of Los Angeles Night 3 Runner-up – Astonishing X-Mas Best Moment: Super Dragon conquering Kevin Steen @ Astonishing X-Mas Best Match: Super Dragon & Davey Richards vs. AJ Styles & Christopher Daniels – Beyond the Thunderdome ****1/4 Runner-up – Motor City Machine Guns vs. Tyler Black & Jimmy Jacobs – All Star Weekend IV Night 1 ****1/4 PWG’s Top Ten Matches of 2003-2006 (in chronological order): 1. Joey Ryan vs. Super Dragon – Use Your Illusion IV **** 2. Samoa Joe vs. AJ Styles – All Star Weekend Night 1 **** 3. Kevin Steen vs. Super Dragon – 2nd Annual Bicentennial Birthday Extravaganza Night 2 **** 4. Super Dragon vs. Kevin Steen – Astonishing X-Mas **** 5. Super Dragon & Davey Richards vs. AJ Styles & Christopher Daniels – Beyond the Thunderdome ****1/4 6. Matt Sydal vs. Roderick Strong – All Star Weekend 3 Night 2 **** 7. Cape Fear vs. Briscoe Bros. – Enchantment Under the Sea **** 8. Dragon Kid vs. Roderick Strong – 2006 Battle of Los Angeles Night 3 **** 9. CIMA vs. El Generico – 2006 Battle of Los Angeles Night 3 **** 10. Motor City Machine Guns vs. Tyler Black & Jimmy Jacobs – All Star Weekend IV Night 1 ****1/4 Up next – Based on a True Story Matches will include: Frankie Kazarian vs. Scorpio Sky Chris Bosh vs. Kevin Steen Ronin vs. Super Dragon Cape Fear vs. Los Luchas Joey Ryan vs. Human Tornado

KENTA vs. Danielson – December 2, 2006 Danielson got the early advantage by targeting KENTA’s left arm with various strikes and submissions, and honestly dominated this one in what seemed to be booking reciprocation from their Manhattan classic. While this lacked Manhattan’s dramatic atmosphere to put this into all-time classic territory, this was still an excellent contest nonetheless. KENTA truly had a chance in this match about halfway into it when Danielson dove at him in the audience. Danielson’s left knee and/or shin seemed to strike a chair, leading to a count out tease for both. There’s a striking difference in the drama between Japan’s standard 20 count and WWE’s choice to use a 10 count; in the former’s case, the ring announcer’s dramatic change in voice inflection in the last several seconds of the count truly add to the intensity. Danielson almost fucked up a kip-up after a missile shotgun dropkick due to his left knee pain, so once KENTA was able to get an opportunity, he tried weakening that joint with Texas Cloverleaf submissions, making me sad we never got Danielson vs. Dean Malenko. I really appreciated around this point that Danielson had KENTA’s spinning back fist combo scouted, turning into a Regalplex near-fall. The biggest disappointment was the fault of neither competitor; the audience didn’t react in as dramatic fashion as I would’ve hoped when Danielson locked on the Cattle Mutilation. Perhaps many in attendance had not gotten around to watching the Manhattan match, although I’m 99.9% sure it was made available for viewing on Japanese television. They were went out of their way to tease that Danielson would win this rematch with the Cattle Mutilation, as the ROH Champion even dragged KENTA to the middle of the ring for it, which made the crowd’s lack of electricity disappointing. The match was so intelligently worked which is why the crowd’s mostly subdued demeanor, which is usually something I appreciate when compared to how quickly audiences in other regions around the globe blow their loads too early on a card, was a detriment in this case. I loved that KENTA had the Crossface Chickenwing scouted, shoving Danielson as soon as his left arm got hooked. Elbows to the head once again couldn’t put KENTA down, but instead of using the positioning to put Danielson into a fireman’s carry like in their prior encounters, Danielson stopped early and went for a cover for a near-fall. That was brilliant to ensure he didn’t put himself at risk of a Go to Sleep, while showing the confidence he had in his blows after finishing off many with it, including Roderick Strong and Nigel McGuinness. It’s a damn shame we’ll never get to see him bust them out to counter an F5 attempt by Brock Lesnar. Since Danielson dominated this match, KENTA tended to waste no time when he’d daze Danielson on a cut-off attempt. That was truest when it mattered most at the end. After Danielson had some fantastic near-fall counters via an O’Connor Roll and schoolboy pin, they then hit a strike exchange with another counter near-fall pin tease. Instead, KENTA blocked Danielson’s backslide pin attempt and landed a few high kicks to the head, leaving Danielson both prone to the Go to Sleep and unable to kick out like had happened in Manhattan. As stated, an excellent match. ROH fans may as well in the last 3 months of 2006 just watched all Jimmy Jacobs segments and whatever KENTA was doing across various promotions, as this along with KENTA other matches during that time span were right on par with the majority of ROH’s 2006. ****1/4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8w4Dq4yjB8c&t=14s

Dethroned – November 25, 2006 Taped from Edison, NJ Another overall lukewarm show here, so once again C&P treatment of Brad Garoon and Jake Ziegler. Some masked dude named El Generico returns for the first time in 15 months in a losing effort to Brent Albright. Must largely be due to his matches in a certain West Coast tournament or something that he’s been invited back after a cold 2005 from him in the company. Davey Richards is determined to finally beat Austin Aries. He’d already done that in the West Coast tournament I just referenced, and that was less than 90 days ago, so it isn’t impossible regardless of how much more acclimated Aries is in ROH. Jimmy Jacobs vs. BJ Whitmer There’s never an official bell since referee Paul Turner is attacked numerous times by both, including getting spiked on the forehead and cut open just like the combatants. This isn’t the typical brawl, as it’s lengthy and gets back into the ring eventually with a handful of actual wrestling moves being performer. The sickest moment of the early outside brawling is easily Whitmer powerbombing Jacobs on the top of a guard rail. The crowd ate this up as the two just wailed on each other with everything possible while Lacey urged it on for Jacobs, albeit from a negative reinforcement perspective towards him. These two very clearly despised each other and magically weaved in the occasional wrestling moves in a manner that didn’t detract from that fact. I even appreciated Whitmer’s selling here from when he hit a desperation lariat after being dropped head-first via a reverse hurricanrana. He used the momentum from that bump to smack Jacobs down, but sold his blood loss by being unable to follow up. Lacey eventually interjects and slaps Whitmer, who continues to sell the blood loss and can’t respond to her in any way. Daizee Haze comes out to even it against Lacey, and this catfight is certainly as over as Alexis Laree and Allison Danger at One Year Anniversary Show. Lacey takes a powder and Haze is concerned for both combatants, requesting assistance from the locker room to end this brawl. This was a hell of a chapter for the Jacobs vs. Whitmer saga, without either having to job yet. Rating: ***3/4 Tag Titles Match Kings of Wrestling vs. Matt Sydal & Christopher Daniels During the entrances, ROH’s on-screen graphic confirms every event through the first quarter of 2007, and an extra one too. January 26 – Boston January 27 – New Jersey February 16 – NYC February 17 – Philly February 23 – Dayton February 24 – Chicago March 3 and 4 – Liverpool March 30 and 31 – Detroit (WrestleMania 23 weekend) April 27 – St. Paul Easy highlight is after a hot tag, Sydal being pressed up by Claudio Castagnoli, landing on the champ’s shoulders, and then using the momentary stunned status of Castagnoli to plant him with a DDT. Referee Todd Sinclair enforced tag legalities as should be the case far, far, far, far more often in the minor leagues of the business. Then 2-3 minutes later, he inexplicably forgets about it. The highlight ignores tag legalities at the end, but is definitely spectacular. First, Castagnoli counters Sydal’s shooting star press with an uppercut. When KOW set up Sydal for a KRS-One, Daniels spears Chris Hero, which allows Sydal in mid-air to pin Castagnoli with a hurricanarana for a title change. I don’t have much very much to say about this match other than it was good but highly flawed and disappointing, which is a poetic book-end to KOW’s good but highly flawed and disappointing title change victory over over Austin Aries & Roderick Strong 2 months earlier. Although the fans in attendance gave KOW some heat, it never felt like visceral heat on par with the Summer of Punk or what Hero was getting during the white-hot CZW program. Even the pop for the title change feels very much like one that’s a result of a company that had done a phenomenal job building rapport with its audience in recent years, rather than for this being a historical moment on its own. This is a title change that nobody talks about and for damn good reason. This moment absolutely pales in comparison to much more significant moments that took place in the same building over the past year prior to this, including KENTA vs. Low Ki, CZW crashing ROH’s Fourth Anniversary Show, Homicide inserting himself against CZW, and even Bryan Danielson and Samoa Joe bringing the crowd to a fever pitch at the end of a 60-minute Broadway. Sydal & Daniels never got over as a babyface team to any significant degree, but I can’t entirely fault booker Gabe Sapolsky here. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were thrown together due to the departure of AJ Styles a few months earlier, who seemed a much more natural partner for Sydal earlier in 2006. That’s certainly a what if scenario – imagine Styles instead of Daniels being in this direction alongside Sydal, and how much little tolerance he’d have for KOW’s goofy heel bullshit and Poor Man’s CM Punk smugness. That would’ve given us Castagnoli colliding with Styles too instead of waiting so long for it to happen in WWE. I have to imagine Styles & Sydal winning the titles here would’ve been a much more exciting match, without the lameness of Daniels labeling himself as “Lords of the Ring” with Sydal in the post-match. Oh yeah, Sydal & Daniels say they’ll be honorable champs. We’ll see about that especially since there are major red flags in regards to their babyface stock. I know that shortly before this, Castagnoli and TJ Wilson (better known as Tyson Kidd) were offered WWE developmental contracts. A decade later, it’s poetic that the two of them would receive such opportunities simultaneously, having no idea of the natural chemistry they’d have as a tag team. Segueing back to tag teams, I still say that this particular title change was a bad idea, so I’ll offer an alternative in the overall show review. Rating: ***1/4 Nigel McGuinness defeats Jimmy Rave, then they actually kick off a program. Davey Richards vs. Austin Aries Another good match on the card but with a colder crowd than one would hope. Sapolsky on commentary really shoehorns out of nowhere that Aries is on the cusp of being a company legend like Ki, Joe, and Danielson. Not once do I recall this narrative being pushed in the recent matches I watched involving Aries at Survival of the Fittest 2006, Motor City Madness 2006, Irresistible Forces, and Honor Reclaims Boston. Putting Aries over to this degree isn’t a problem at all, as it in fact is quite accurate. It’s just something that should’ve gotten pushed immediately in the aftermath of Glory By Honor V Night 2 after he and Strong had their epic Tag Titles reign ended. Richards was very intelligent in targeting the left arm of Aries, since the former ROH Champion is a southpaw. This attempts to marginalize so much of the offense for Aries, including the brainbuster, pendulum elbow, slingshot corner elbow, Last Chancery, and crucifix bomb. While this brilliance on the part of Richards didn’t completely neuter Aries, it did a masterful job of containing a man that was now getting the respect he had earned since his main card debut at Reborn Stage 2. Aries would attempt to improvise due to his left arm being targeted, but he never had a real answer for Richards in this match. Even with the two having each other well scouted, Richards just had the superior game plan, fueled by losing so many matches against bigger-name opponents such as Aries, Strong, KENTA, the Briscoes, and even Sydal & Daniels the night before. Once Richards was able to get his version of the Kimura Lock comfortably in place on the left arm of Aries, there was no choice but for the established ROH legend to tap out. I’m not so sure about giving Richards his first big singles victory here, especially since the crowd didn’t react to it as a major deal. I wanna see the follow-up before completely commenting on this decision. Good match nonetheless though. Rating: ***1/2 Hardcore Survivor Series Style Elimination Match Briscoe Bros. vs. Samoa Joe & Homicide This holds up much better than I expected. This was just a fun, chaotic brawl to close out the event, and it was a good sign when near the beginning, the dream team hit a stereo Suicide Elbow and Tope Con Hilo on the Briscoes. These four just then threw each other around ringside on top of chairs, keeping the crowd entertained in the process. With this being a recreational arena that includes hockey set-up, Joe wore a helmet and used a stick at one point. While that was noteworthy to me, nothing compared to the highlight of the match, which was Mark walking the top of the entrance stage like a tightrope, and then hitting a Shooting Star Press. Although I don’t really mind moves being copied on the same card, because the storyline goal of everyone should be to do whatever it takes to win, including copying moves and game plans from peers, I gotta give kudos to whoever convinced Sydal to not hit an SSP earlier on the card so that Mark’s moment stood out there. As mentioned on commentary, this was actually more impressive than his SSP at Motor City Madness 2006 due to the walking balance he needed, although I say coming off of a box truck was more spectacular. Julius Smokes lit a cigar and gave it to Homicide, who used it on a Briscoe and put him in position for a Kudo Driver. The Notorious 187 waited for Joe to get his hands on the other Briscoe that was seated on a turnbuckle, so they could be in stereo like they were at the beginning, simultaneously hitting the Kudo Driver and musclebuster for the victory. In the post-match, Homicide promises a party come December 23 in NYC at Final Battle 2006. Joe says it will be a party, but Homicide will be facing him for the ROH Title, reminding everyone that no matter how unlikely it seems Danielson will be dethroned by anyone but Homicide, anything can happen. Rating: ***1/2 Much better show than the night before, albeit a B-Show with numerous flaws. Jacobs vs. Whitmer is a must-see segment, but for the rest of the card, I’m not sure what a better alternative would’ve been for certain puzzle pieces. I guess the only alternative I could see since Sydal & Daniels weren’t truly clicking, while the Briscoes were gonna remain over despite being swept by Joe & Homicide, would’ve been to cancel the Tag Titles change on this card. Just go with the KOW vs. Briscoes dream match at Final Battle 2006 and have the title change take place there; make that show even more special to have what would’ve then looked to be more than one title change that night. It’d be a redemption to close out 2006 for the Briscoes, and there’d be the ready-made challengers in Aries & Strong, who they had failed to beat in 4 other title attempts during their reign. Yes, Castagnoli was on his way out thanks to WWE recruiting him after a tryout the month before in Deep South Wrestling. I don’t accept the excuse of having Sydal & Daniels dethrone KOW on this night just to avoid a supposed lame-duck status of the belts, or that it’ll become too obvious that they’ll be dethroned soon. Have KOW go over here, and they can borrow a part from CM Punk’s farewell tour ROH Title reign. Since Punk threatened to take the belt hostage once he got bored, do something similar with KOW. But rather than taking it hostage, KOW vows that WHEN they close out 2006 still the tag champs of this company, they will simply force the company to retire the belts just like the Pure Title a few months earlier. Hero can explain that they won’t relinquish the titles to crown new champions, oh no no. Instead, Castagnoli’s advancement to WWE will allow the Kings of Wrestling to forever reign supreme as the final tag champions in wrestling history. I’ll go into a bit more detail once I get to ROH’s final weekend of 2006, but at Final Battle 2006, the Briscoes complete their babyface turn by stepping up as the last resort and dethroning KOW as mentioned, bringing their 2006 run in the company, which had started with their long-awaited return at the Fourth Anniversary Show and their Tag Titles intentions being made clear that night, to its proper culmination. Up next – The Chicago Spectacular Night 1 Matches will include: Matt Sydal & Shingo vs. Austin Aries & Roderick Strong Bryan Danielson vs. Samoa Joe

Black Friday Fallout – November 24, 2006 Taped from Long Island, NY ROH Video Wire – November 8, 2006 Important news/footage from the above video: ROH confirms for the DVD/YouTube audience the remaining live event schedule for 2006. Friday, November 24 – Long Island, NY Saturday, November 25 – Edison, NJ Friday, December 8 – The Chicago Spectacular Night 1 in Chicago Saturday, December 9 – The Chicago Spectacular Night 2 in Chicago Friday, December 22 – East Windsor, CT (Greater Hartford Area) Saturday, December 23 – Final Battle 2006 in New York City ROH Video Wire – November 16, 2006 Important news/footage from the above video: Roderick Strong has dethroned Bryan Danielson for the FIP Title at All or Nothing and has made some rules changes, including a 20 count for count outs and title changes in the events of counts outs or DQs. He will be defending it in ROH, starting against Shingo on November 25 in New Jersey. Yet another sign of burnout for booker Gabe Sapolsky, as he also had the book for FIP at this time. This reeks of a lame attempt to offset the Pure Title's retirement and the fact that Bryan Danielson's shoulder injury is preventing him from having nightly classic ROH Title defenses. Danielson being gone in late November and early December for a NOAH tour is another likely reason for this too. November 24 in Long Island - Delirious & Davey Richards vs. Matt Sydal & Christopher Daniels November 25 in New Jersey - Davey Richards vs. Austin Aries; Kings of Wrestling vs. Sydal & Daniels for the Tag Titles (if KOW still champs); Briscoe Bros. vs. Samoa Joe & Homicide in a Survivor Series Style Elimination Hardcore Match Another overall lukewarm show here, so once again C&P treatment of Brad Garoon and Jake Ziegler. KINGS OF WRESTLING VS. THE BRISCOES~! OH FUCK YES~! Gauntlet Match Final Jimmy Jacobs vs. Nigel McGuinness There is nothing on the line or up for grabs stipulation-wise in this. Yet another obvious sign of burnout for Sapolsky. Right before this final portion, BJ Whitmer went over Brent Albright to close out a tedious piece of shit segment in this gauntlet match, and the crowd’s reaction reflects that. Jacobs then makes quick work of Whitmer after hitting him with a low-blow, and the crowd is ecstatic! They fucking should be as Jacobs talks shit to one of his two career-defining archenemies, and the crowd chants his name before McGuinness comes out for a rematch from Generation Next. This was an improvement upon their prior singles encounter in ROH, expectedly so. This match makes me disappointed in retrospect that these two never had an actual program. Simply put in late 2006, there were no 2 better mic workers on the ROH roster than Jimmy Jacobs and Nigel McGuinness; not Hero, no the Briscoes, not Colt Cabana, not Danielson, and certainly not Aries yet. These two could’ve done some tremendous lengthy business, with either both continuing their roles at this time as creepy cunt Jacobs against freshly-turned bad-ass McGuinness; or possibly the other way around in the same vein that Danielson would have several years later against Triple H– the undersized babyface Jacobs standing up to the smug prick McGuinness. They certainly wouldn’t have had any issues taking risks and making each other look strong at this point in their careers either. There’s also the dynamic of how many verbal zingers McGuinness would’ve thrown at Lacey too. Nonetheless, this match was a good sample of what could’ve been. I loved that McGuinness outclassed Jacobs early by targeting the left arm, brilliant to set up the London Dungeon while also hoping to marginalize any Shiranui attempts. Jacobs was impressive though getting some control with a headlock later on, although never for a great length of time. More than his left arm being targeted, Jacobs perhaps cost himself a career-defining victory at this point by focusing on Lacey. McGuinness was clearly a hot hand even after losing his 2006 program against Danielson and then another big match against Naomichi Marufuji, so any wasted second was crucial. McGuinness was great selling the strikes of the smaller Jacobs, going out of his way to make his smaller but very talented colleague look formidable. That’s something I greatly appreciate and is a mentality that makes me miss both him and Batista as in-ring performers. I also appreciated that McGuinness was willing to pull the hair of Jacobs at times. This was him showing to Jacobs that he’ll play dirty if necessary, while also stating that he still had some ruthlessness in him from his Pure Title run. I liked later on when Jacobs countered the rebound lariat with a spear too, making we wish we had seen McGuinness or Dean Ambrose against Edge; McGuinness vs. Goldberg or Roman Reigns could’ve been super fun too. The highlight of the match was Jacobs avoiding a top-rope lariat while crotched by McGuinness, only to get hit with the Tower of London from that position for a near-fall. Lacey was going crazy at this point, and it created some sense of doubt that Jacobs could pull off the upset against one of the hottest hands on the roster at the time. But the damage to his left arm would be for naught, as when he went for the Shiranui, he didn’t have the strength to be as sudden with it as he’d hope. McGuinness used the mid-air positioning of Jacobs to crotch him , hit the top-rope crotched lariat, and finish Jacobs off with a traditional Tower of London. It’s no surprise that McGuinness was able to sniff out the Shiiranui, and perhaps he could’ve actually done so without even trying to marginalize it, thanks to his classic match 2 months earlier against Marufuji. If ROH ever releases another Jacobs compilation, this really should be on it starting with the end of the Albright vs. Whitmer portion of this gauntlet match, as this served as not just a good match, but quality character and storyline advancement for the Jacobs direction. Rating: ***1/2 Speaking of Homicide, a major upset occurs on this card when Jimmy Rave cleanly defeats him via an inside cradle. This is yet another sign of Sapolsky burnout. While it’s very wise to have at least 1 challenger for Homicide when he very obviously enters 2007 as the company’s top singles champion, Rave doesn’t seem like the best choice now that there’s no more Embassy and Prince Nana is gone. It’d have been much wiser to go with Hero as a heel to cleanly beat Homicide, since Hero never needed a mouthpiece to elevate his connection level with the audience. I say that as someone who has presented a factual case that Rave is the greatest heel in ROH's history; that case isn’t true without Nana to have complimented Rave though. Now with my idea of Hero getting the nod instead of Rave, Hero doesn’t even need to win in 100% clean fashion; he can do something underhanded to give Homicide an out. With certain directions that would soon to be taken too, Hero going over Homicide here could be magnified very soon to build to a title match between the two in 2007. I’ve no problem at all with Homicide cleanly losing a singles match just once en route to Final Battle 2006. I could actually even see an argument for losing 2 singles matches tops (the other defeat would’ve been to McGuinness to set up a huge match for the planned UK return.) There’s the reason of grooming a challenger for Homicide, but just as important to me in storyline is showing that the Notorious 187 is mortal, no matter how much momentum he’s had in recent months. I speak on this from the perspective of a Seahawks fan, and it’s not a shoehorned comparison either. I’m not 100% sure that the Seahawks would’ve gone on to win Super Bowl XLVIII had they (with a playoff spot already locked up) not suffered a stunning, humbling defeat at home several weeks earlier to the Arizona Cardinals in December 2013. It’s a reminder that the favorite to win it all must stay focused, and that every opponent will bring their absolute best in every contest to make a statement and obtain the bragging rights of derailing that favorite. That’s what happened to the Seahawks 3 years ago, and I see the same thing happening here a month before the biggest guaranteed match of Homicide’s career. Tag Titles Shot Match Delirious & Davey Richards vs. Matt Sydal & Christopher Daniels The title shot stipulation is announced from the commentary team at the start of the match. The kneejerk reaction is to ask why it wasn’t announced beforehand, but the answer is obvious. Had it been announced going into this match or even to the live audience, then the result clearly would’ve been Sydal & Daniels going over since they were a regular team and had victories over the Kings of Wrestling. This dilemma is arguably another sign of burnout for Sapolsky. The bookerman has actually been on commentary for this event, so I presume that Jared David (Mister Saint Laurent) must’ve parted ways, and Sapolsky mistakenly references Gut Check instead of The Epic Encounter II when talking about the Delirious vs. Sydal rivalry. That’s not his only mistake as the match kicks off, as he erroneously states this is the first time Richards and Daniels collide, without specifying that he means in ROH. I sure hope he was only specifically referring to ROH. Richards and Daniels have trash-talk early while evading various blows. Delirious and Sydal get tagged in quickly and have a terrific segment that ends with Sydal finally getting the upper hand via a monkey flip to the middle of the ring. Daniels practically plays quarterback early when Richards tags back in, cutting the ring in half on him. Daniels even tries to taunt Delirious while he and Sydal work on Richards, which the crowd doesn’t seem to care about. Richards finally cuts off Sydal in a strike exchange with a spin kick to the gut, then following up on that body part by dropping Sydal on it on the top rope. This is when Richards went for what’s supposed to be a hot tag, although there’s no drama to it despite the psychology being mechanically sound and the Long Island crowd’s lack of reaction reflects that. Daniels practically confirms that he and Sydal are the de facto heels when he illegally comes in to cut Delirious off, but that doesn’t work out for him. I’m not a big fan of that story since Sydal & Daniels are supposed to be a babyface tag team that’s been gunning for KOW. This isn’t a hometown match for Delirious or Richards either to make an excuse for that, as they’re both Midwest and West Coast guys respectively at this point in their careers. Sydal would have the ring cut in half on him, which he’d finally break free of by countering a handspring kick attempt by Richards with a spin kick. Daniels was fine as a house of fire, but since Sydal never had a major FIP segment either, the crowd doesn’t get as hot as I would want at this point in the match. The highlights would come in the closing minutes as Delirious and Sydal were legal. Delirious dropped Sydal with a Richards-assisted draping DDT for a great near-fall. Sydal’s selling is acceptable as he’s unable to get a nonstop comeback due to the pain, and those split hesitations allow Delirious to block a Flux Capacitor and Richards hits a Super Overhead German Suplex on the future Evan Bourne. In addition, Sydal is easily cut off by Delirious due to his neck pain and playing the FIP earlier. As Richards and Daniels battle on the outside, the archrivals go at it. Daniels has gotten the upper hand and saves Sydal from a top-rope move, which leads to the finishing sequence. Delirious eats a Uranage, BME, and shooting star press, confirming the obvious that Sydal & Daniels would win this based on the KOW match already being announced ahead of time for tomorrow night, and then the added stipulation per the commentary team on this DVD release. This was a good match with tag legalities surprisingly being adhered to, yet a horrible choice to main event this show. Anytime a booker says “this is your chance to see new talent headline” is generally a red flag that the card and/or roster depth is weak, and this was no exception. This never got super heated as would’ve been hoped, and it makes me just wish that this match would’ve happened a few weeks earlier with KENTA involved instead of Delirious. Richards could’ve taken the fall just like he had done against Austin Aries & Roderick Strong to not make him seem too over-pushed, while also further grooming Sydal & Daniels for KOW. I enjoyed Jacobs vs. McGuinness significantly more than this, and unlike that match, I’m not too surprised now that this match hasn’t been included on any compilations yet, although if a Sydal compilation is ever released, I’m sure this will be featured. I certainly would’ve just preferred another singles encounter between Delirious and Sydal on this card, with Richards and Daniels having a first-time ever singles encounter too. Rating: ***1/4 The DVD closes with Lacey berating Jacobs, as she puts herself over for winning her match and is unimpressed by him defeating Whitmer in the gauntlet match. She wants Whitmer to be maimed, and she expected Jacobs to pull off the upset against McGuinness. The brief segment ends with Jacobs, like a depressed puppy, saying “I love you” after Lacey has stormed off. Fucking creepy and pathetic, and an excellent choice to close the DVD release with this after a not-so-hot, yet mechanically good main event. This was an awful show, with a good but cold main event as stated. That isn’t necessarily the fault of anyone in particular. The crowd never fully recovered from an abysmally tedious piece of business between Albright and Whitmer, but the card didn't do any favors for itself either. Even with what I said earlier on this review, I’d have gone with Homicide vs. McGuinness as this show’s main event. It’d be a huge match between two of the hottest hands on the roster, in one corner the man seemingly on his way to the top, in the other corner the man who had recently been eliminated from competing for the tippy-top. McGuinness goes over in a shocker to groom him for a title match in 2007 should Homicide dethrone Danielson; Homicide faces mortality to keep him focused before his epic opportunity; and perhaps most importantly from a business perspective, Long Island has a match that’s worth buying tickets to see live. Long Island doesn’t continue to feel like a B-market, which has been the case for an entire year (having a memorial for Eddie Guerrero doesn’t hide that fact.) Have Delirious vs. Sydal and Richards vs. Daniels as I stated, and since Jacobs wouldn’t be facing McGuinness, I have him lose to Shingo. It accomplishes the same storyline goal of Lacey berating Jacobs, this time for failing to win a match that could’ve gotten him on Dragon Gate’s radar, and Shingo has a good match that he wins the night before challenging Strong for the FIP Title. I dare anyone to look at the card on the attached DVD cover and try to tell me that my alternative of Shingo vs. Jacobs, Delirious vs. Sydal, Richards vs. Daniels, and Homicide vs. McGuinness, along with the gauntlet match being completely scrapped, wouldn’t have significantly upgraded this awful event. Avoid this event, but find a way to catch Jacobs vs. McGuinness. Up next – Dethroned Matches will include: Jimmy Jacobs vs. BJ Whitmer Kings of Wrestling vs. Matt Sydal & Christopher Daniels Davey Richards vs. Austin Aries Briscoe Bros. vs. Samoa Joe & Homicide

Strong vs Nakajima was worth the price of admission.

You're hired.

Regardless of various lenses on Goldberg vs. Lesnar II, here's something we can ALL hopefully agree on. The entire presentation of the Survivor Series 2016 main event is EXACTLY how the main event of Starrcade 1997 should've gone down.

Genesis 2006 – November 19, 2006 Live from Orlando, FL X-Division Title Match Christopher Daniels vs. Chris Sabin Yep, AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels have been thrown back into the X-Division, which rather than elevating the X-Division, is actually a demotion for the two of them. It was time here to advance the two of them up the card after their run as a tag team. The X-Division title has been a game of hot potato too. Instead of continuing the program of Chris Sabin and Low Ki after their show-stealing match the month before, it bounced from Sabin to Styles to Daniels on various episodes of Impact. Sabin has also turned heel in the meantime, which I’m not the biggest fan of both in-real time a decade ago and in retrospect. Perhaps Sabin as a cocky motherfucker for having dethroned Ki and becoming a diet version of Bryan Danielson’s ROH Title reign would’ve been a bit better, building him up as a cocky winner that the fans would be begging to see get humbled. So Cal Val standing at the edge of the entrance ramp just so the camera can show her legs and short skirt definitely doesn’t age well a decade later as a production decision. Too blatant in its raunchiness half a decade after the Monday Night War had ended. Sabin is pretty natural as a heel with his early dominance, and the rapport Daniels had generated with the Impact Zone audience in the past couple years definitely played a party. It’s actually astounding in retrospect that from this point, Sabin wasn’t kept in a heel role, or in the other career-highlight role of his that’s been on-again, off-again throughout his career (more on that later.) Sabin’s cockiness was matched by the superior experience of Daniels, who was happy to go to work on the challenger. Sabin’s cut-offs were awesome though as he continued taunting the crowd and teasing but not then delivering on high-risk aerial attacks, instead getting vicious on the champion. The crowd has such respect for Daniels that Sabin doesn’t even really have to put forth much effort as a heel, but he stills does anyway. He’s fantastic cutting off the comeback attempts of Daniels. Styles prevents Sabin from using a chair; Sabin’s attempt to break the rules is enough for Daniels to finally make a comeback. Daniels is terrific still selling Sabin’s damage as he has the heat, while also remaining focused. With that said, as soon as Daniels signals for the BME, that’s enough for Sabin to sniff it out and regain control. Sabin makes the mistake of trying to repeat a springboard DDT, which Daniels counters with a Death Valley Driver and then a follow-up BME to pop the crowd. Sabin still has plenty of ammo left as he blocks the Angel’s Wings, but his Cradle Shock is countered by Daniels with a crucifix pin attempt. It then ends quickly when Daniels gets Sabin in a pin variation, which is a bit of an anticlimactic ending to what could’ve been an excellent match. I hate the post-match booking as Jerry Lynn tells Sabin not to attack Daniels with a chair, instead show respect. Sabin pretends to oblige, only to sucker Daniels anyway. What I hate about this is that this means Lynn is being inserted, when I have a much better alternative: Sabin and Daniels could’ve been feuding here, but in the tag team division in a dream program pitting the Motor City Machine Guns against AJ Styles & Christopher Daniels. MCMG could’ve won that program to then move onto a Tag Titles program against LAX, while Styles and Daniels could’ve then rekindled their rivalry. ***1/2 Christian Cage vs. AJ Styles Great match on paper to have for this event, but it was only confirmed in the past 72 hours so this has very little build. Apparently Christian hasn’t been pinned or submitted yet in his first year of TNA. Imagine him against a certain Samoan provided both come out of this event still unbeaten in TNA… The two have a terrific lockup at the beginning, one I’d show to students if I ran a wrestling school. I’d actually hope it’s being shown at WWE’s Performance Center, as it was textbook beautiful. Once that part ended and the action really started, it continued to be tremendous. There was a scary bump when Styles lifted Christian up and the latter almost landed straight on his shoulder, but they kept business as usual going. Christian took plenty of powders for mind games attempts. On the second one, Styles went for a successful somersault senton to pop the crowd, although the back of his left knee struck the top of a guard rail. Christian would get an extended advantage when he blocked an apron attack and forced Styles to bump on it, further damaging the legs of Styles. Christian seemingly had no real answer to cut off Styles before this. Styles teased a comeback via a kip-up head-scissors but got quickly cut off and also missed a Stinger Splash. Mike Tenay is awesome on commentary, pointing out that Styles missed the Stinger Splash because of his leg striking the guard rail. After awhile, Styles finally cut off Christian’s assault via n Ushigoroshi, but missed a frog splash A top-rope struggle had Styles win it via a hurricanrana. They then had a slugfest but Christian fell victim to running the ropes for Styles to hit a dropkick and more follow-up attacks. Christian begging for mercy was a false move by him, but it was mind games by Styles actually. Styles allowed a Monkey Flip and lands on the middle ropes, then hit a flawless moonsault inverted DDT. Christian avoided an aerial attack and hit a spear, reminding me of the sadness I feel that Styles never got to face Christian’s greatest tag team partner. They sniffed out each other’s finishes so Styles hit a Pele kick for a near-fall. Christian countered another aerial attack with a powerbomb for a couple near-falls. This caused Christian to become frustrated and bring in a chair, but Daniels arrived to prevent that. Styles tried to use Christian’s positioning to bring him down for a pin, but the tug-of-war between Christian and Daniels with the chair kept Christian upright, and then he sat on Styles for the victorious pin. I hated this finish, and even more so the post-match. As Styles and Daniels bicker, it doesn’t lead to a program between the two over the X-Division Title, which would’ve been a decent direction perhaps for them to settle who’s the better between the two and ultimate icon of the division after all. Instead, Rhino comes out and wants the two to squash their beef, not wanting them to become engaged in warfare like he’d done with his former friend Christian. Styles declines and says he doesn’t want advice, then just leaves. Why the fuck was Styles being programmed against Rhino a decade ago? Why the fuck did anyone think this was a good time for Styles to turn heel? As for Christian vs. Styles, it was a fucking excellent match that was ruined by horrid booking that defined this entire show prior to the dream match main event to come at the end of the evening. ***3/4 Dream Match Kurt Angle vs. Samoa Joe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_madQBbghRk&t=5s Off-the-charts atmosphere at the start of this match and for damn good reason. I fucking loved that Angle got the early advantage on a lockup and pushed Joe back to the corners. That sends a clear message that Angle has the better technique, which is further enhanced by Angle performing a single-leg takedown on Joe. This isn’t a squash match though as Joe quickly regains the advantage. That is cut off when Angle gives Joe an overhead belly-to-belly suplex. Joe goes the outside and sweeps Angle onto the apron, then gives him the same swing into the guard rail that Styles, CM Punk, and Bryan Danielson had gotten to experience in the past. Angle’s comeback via some uppercuts is for naught when he gets overzealous and charges at Joe, eating a ring post. Joe then immediately follows that up with a suicide elbow and he’s in control from there, ramming the Hall of Famer’s head into steel ring steps. From that point, Angle had a bleeding forehead and that allowed Joe to significantly dominate this classic. Without question, I was a dipshit not to see a decade ago how much this match elevated Joe’s stock. Joe was merciless going after Angle’s forehead cut. It was a thing of beauty to see Joe cut off Angle’s come back attempts. At this point as Joe crossfaced Angle, the crowd was engaged in fantastic dueling chants, with Angle surely feeding off of it. But no matter what, Joe would just cut off Angle, determined to make an example and cement his status as TNA’s true alpha male against his biggest star opponent to date. This was no squash of course though, as Angle had fantastic cut offs and near-falls, while the blood drainage would prevent him from getting an extended advantage. Angle’s experience came into play, for when Joe missed a corner attack, Angle immediately hit him with rolling German Suplexes. Like Christian earlier in the night against Styles, Joe almost took a scary bump when he slipped on the last one. Angle’s vision was clearly obstructed which explained that. Joe obviously did his homework studying Angle in the film room, countering an Angle Slam with an arm drag. A musclebuster proves to be a near-fall, which I’m fine with as the match had yet to reach a climatic point despite the amazing atmosphere provided by the audience. Angle looked to have done his homework too, blocking a Coquina Clutch and hitting an Angle Slam for a near-fall. Many fans at this point were chanting for Angle to “Make him tap!” and the Olympic gold medalist was feeding off of it, going for the ankle lock. At this point the crowd was in a frenzy. I appreciated that Joe was in position for the ankle lock due to selling the Angle Slam. Joe managed to break the ankle lock and get angle in the Coquina Clutch for another fantastic false finish. Angle grabbed Joe’s left ankle, forcing the choke to be broken as the crowd reached a fever pitch. Joe used his weight to throw Angle over to break it, only to get overzealous again and get hit with an Angle Slam. Angle gets the ankle lock on for a third time, then sits down to finalize it. Joe is unable to reach the ropes, and finally taps out for his first defeat during his time in TNA, a tenure that had started 17 months earlier. I’m fine with that from a storytelling standpoint, since it was the third ankle lock, which meant Angle had provided enough sustained damage to force Joe into submission. In the post-match, Joe admits defeat and congratulates Angle for being the better man tonight, then offers a handshake and requests a rematch. In a surprise, Angle blows it off and leaves Joe. Whatever issues I had with this booking a decade ago are gone, as I can now see that this was Angle using Joe to send a message to the TNA locker room, plus it was a competitive mind game. It was easy to forget at the time, but Angle was also established for the majority of his time in WWE as a heel, sometimes a comedic coward, sometimes a brutal bastard. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to believe that having defeated TNA’s top dog on his first night in the company, when also combined with his success in WWE, Angle was now a cocky motherfucker that thought of himself as king shit. Even in defeat, this match was structured to put Joe over as strongly as possible. He dominated the match, he forced Angle to bleed, he cut off Angle over and over again. It took 3 ankle lock submission attempts to force him into submission as well. That the match was only a dozen minutes or so didn’t hurt this either. While this dream match wasn’t on par with the 2005 dream matches pitting Angle against Shawn Michaels and Joe against Kenta Kobashi, this was nonetheless an excellent match elevated by an incredibly enthusiastic crowd. One fact that many others may not have grasped too is that Earl Hebner officiated this match, was brilliant to me. I firmly believe Hebner was the perfect choice for this as he and Angle would be familiar with each other’s habits from their time in WWE, ensuring as much as possible that Angle would deliver on such a big night for the company and help the former WWE Champion transition into TNA. This is a match that I will definitely revisit again and again in the future. What it lacks in expected usual length for a PPV main event is more than made up for by a crazy crowd and intelligent match structure to keep both guys looking like bad-asses coming out of this, capped off with a post-match that left the audience wanting to see more chapters out of these two. For the first ever Kurt Angle match I’ve reviewed, while I still have reservations of what’s to come as I revisit more of his time in TNA, I am very pleased and he certainly looked like the all-time great here that many claim him to be. ****1/4

All Star Weekend IV Night 2 – November 18, 2006 Taped from Los Angeles, CA PAC vs. El Generico PAC is much quicker than Generico here, although the Generic Luchador has done his homework and evades some of the British import’s quick strikes. PAC eventually gets the heat when faking a spapmare takeover, turning it into an inverted head-scissors. Generico cuts him off finally on the outside after a few spectacular moves, and it takes a sudden Asai moonsault for PAC to regain the advantage. Generico is able to cut off PAC when the latter blatantly projects a handspring forearm, turning it into a Blue Thunder Bomb counter. PAC is tremendous bumping for Generico’s offense, making the underground legends look like a million bucks. For everything Generico could scout, PAC had another answer that couldn’t be scouted to keep him in this one to a greater degree than the night before against AJ Styles. His arsenal against Generico while in control is both effective and spectacular, including a standing moonsault senton that dazzled the Reseda crowd. I appreciated the teased Top Rope Brainbuster, but PAC’s advantage blocking it would be for naught when he missed a Shooting Star TNT Leg Drop and then got dropped on his head via a Half.n.Half Suplex. No matter what though, PAC still kept himself in this match with surprise, sudden, spectacular counters aplenty. Even when Generico appeared to have extended heat, his moonsault attempt left him open to PAC planting him with a Super Reverse Hurricanrana. But that was for naught when PAC went for the Sky Twister and got kneed in the abdomen. Generico hit a follow-up Yakuza kick, giving him the advantage during the corner struggle and landing the Top Rope Brainbuster. Damn good debut weekend for PAC, and SoCal wants him to return. Rating: ***3/4 Tag Titles Match Davey Richards & Roderick Strong vs. Kings of Wrestling vs. Motor City Machine Guns vs. B-Boy & Super Dragon Yet another match involving Super Dragon that went on for too long, and tag legalities got ignored deep into it as I expected. This was still a hell of a fun match for the first 20 minutes or so, and how would it not be? SEVEN out of the 8 participants in this one have had very little issue getting over to a significant degree in various territories, and there were plenty of fresh matchups in this one as well. Hands down, KOW and MCMG were the standouts in this out, making me wish they had just faced each other on the undercard. I wonder if that was planned but politics kept it from happening. Hero was pretty hilarious with his antics while Castagnoli played the smug prick well, even playing the height joke successfully on Richards. I loved when Castagnoli mocked Richards as well, chopping the champ’s chest and then twisting over to deliver another one rather than a follow-up kick like Richards does. Alex Shelley was once again a fucking star in this one, just so crisp and vicious with his work. Above everyone else, he shined the most as both a worker and personality. This match specifically made me sad that nobody ever booked SD vs. Shelley in a singles match. Shelley’s aggression and especially his water-spitting brought the intensity up a notch that not even in the champions’ stiff striking could pull off. I wasn’t surprised for B-Boy & SD to regain the titles back after just one night. The booking came across that Richards got a one-day reign with Strong so that he didn’t look bad coming out of his last-minute Battle of Los Angeles tournament victory. However, I believe the better, more visceral story would’ve been B-Boy & SD coming into this as champs still, but SD being such an overwhelming cunt to Richards in victory the night before that Richards would’ve DEMANDED to be inserted alongside Strong into this main event. Rating: ***1/2

All Star Weekend IV Night 1 – November 17, 2006 Taped from Los Angeles, CA Zero1 MAX Lightweight Tag Titles – The PWG Debuts of Tyler Black & Jimmy Jacobs Motor City Machine Guns vs. Tyler Black & Jimmy Jacobs Thanks to not getting around to retro IWA-MS yet, this is the first Black match I’m revisiting from his days before WWE. His diet and workout regimen throughout his 20s is highly admirable and worthy of respect. He and Jacobs are accompanied by Lacey. Jacobs started the match with Alex Shelley, and while their natural chemistry was on display, they didn’t crank in their storied hatred on each other from their ROH collisions. Instead, Shelley showcased his excellent technical creativity, which spawned the closest thing to their storied history when Jacobs shoved him out of frustration. It would actually be Chris Sabin to have a heated exchange with Jacobs, and as someone that has gotten around to IWA-MS yet as mentioned, perhaps there’s a history there between the 2 Michigan natives. Lacey’s presence can’t be forgotten either, as Jacobs certainly had to gotten into this exchange to display his masculinity to her, and she did come in handy a couple times during the match, but neither time to an overwhelming degree. This may sound surprising since Jacobs is obviously much smaller than Black, but it was Black who got the ring cut in half on him. He was absolutely tremendous making MCMG look like a million bucks, and this was smart to have him pay his dues a bit more as just a 2-year veteran. This had to have been a tremendous learning experience for him, going up against one of the absolute best tag teams on the entire planet here. The best stuff would be saved for the third act, and it was one doozy of a barnburner. Even more impressive is that although the referee got lenient with allowing insane action, nobody forgot about who was legal, giving this a polished professionalism very rarely seen in PWG at this point. Everything made sense and everyone was on point, bringing this amazing work of art to a conclusion as MCMG retained as expected. This was an insane match that tore the house down in Reseda, and I’d put it up against any of the countless acclaimed classics in recent years to have taken place in the same building. The precision in this match was off-the-charts and even more importantly, MCMG brought a crisp ferocity, firing on all cylinders with awesome bombs, strikes, and submissions. Others would likely have this a step ahead, but I have this up to this point in PWG’s history as its second-greatest match, just barely behind Super Dragon & Davey Richards vs. AJ Styles & Christopher Daniels earlier in the year at Beyond the Thunderdome. This match in particular made me ask out loud “Why the fuck was Shelley working PWG at this time instead of killing it on the ECW brand?” He displayed a tremendous amount of aggression in his arsenal to pour sizzle onto its creativity, to go with a very marketable presence. He had also already proven his mic skills in ROH. It only looks even worse in hindsight for WWE’s hiring department throughout the 2000s, because here’s a scenario that WWE could’ve put itself in: What if a decade ago, instead of killing it on the indies and in Japan, while getting very little out of TNA, Shelley had been a cornerstone of the ECW brand, being groomed for a dream match against the inevitably returning Chris Jericho? Rating: ****1/4 Homicide vs. Christopher Daniels This never became as hot as it likely could’ve been, instead doing the interesting stuff first as they engaged in a brutal brawl based on their recent TNA feud. It was really unexpected, although fitting since there would certainly be no love lost between the two just a month removed from their cage match involving Hernandez and AJ Styles at Bound For Glory 2006. Once it got back into the ring, it could never reach the drama of the lengthy brawl beforehand. With that said, it was good stuff, although Daniels was getting bothered for whatever reason by a fan in attendance. The finish was sudden when Homicide got the victory, and I’m a fan of that decision in hindsight to keep him strong across the industry in anticipation for Final Battle 2006. PWG pointlessly includes a pointless post-match promo from Daniels, in which he easily displays being thin-skinned and lashes out at the fan that had bothered him. I couldn’t confirm in the audio option I used (commentary track) what the fan said to bother Daniels, although I’d been told before that Daniels once lashed out in PWG due to someone accurately accusing him of phoning it in. I assume this is it. Like CM Punk earlier in the year in his final ROH appearance to date, this only made Daniels look like an insecure carny that can’t handle challenging criticism. Rating: *** PAC’s PWG Debut PAC vs. AJ Styles We’ve got another example of me being annoyed in hindsight with WWE’s hiring practices a decade ago, as I asked out loud “What was I watching AJ Styles work this little saloon for PWG instead of a major league arena on Raw or SmackDown 10 years ago? Why was WWE instead trying to feed me scrubs such as Mike Knox and Kevin Thorne as the fucking future?” Totally fucking ridiculous. PAC had a good debut here although he did show his green status at times with near-botches, coming close severely hurting himself. It made sense for the more experienced Styles, who was also much more muscular a decade ago, to eventually get the victory. I could see some folks being disappointed with this considering the reputation Styles had at the time as a high-flyer, but I’ve no complaints as I knew PAC was green and Styles was awesome using his superior mat wrestling throughout. Rating: ***1/4 Tag Titles Match B-Boy & Super Dragon vs. Davey Richards & Roderick Strong This was on its way to being as excellent as MCMG vs. Black & Jacobs. Everything was clicking here, with not even B-Boy’s lack of charisma bringing this down. He was tremendous in his willingness to bend the rules, but letting SD be the arrogant cunt about it. SD and Richards were brutal on each other, and I was marking out as SD mocked Richards, who played the FIP, crawling for a hot tag. What brought this match down are two things. For one, the match simply went a bit too long and I began to lose interest. Whereas MCMG vs. Black & Jacobs was perfectly timed at about 15 minutes earlier on the card, this went for the 25-30 minute epic, and it failed in that regard. I also wasn’t surprised that unlike the mentioned show-stealing classic, tag legalities were ignored in this match. That’s a lost opportunity to me. With the way SD was acting here, I think it would’ve been fucking awesome to enhance his persona here by Richards going for the finish against an illegal B-Boy, only for SD to be a ruthless buzzkill to finish the match and then shove the rules of the match in his former fellow Tag Champion’s face, even with the eventual title change. As is, a potentially great match with Richards laying the obvious FIP, that was anchored down to just good. Rating: ***1/2 Samoa Joe vs. Rocky Romero Joe did his job here in having a good match, although his face and body language screamed that this was just another day at the office for him. Perhaps that’s because this was just 2 days from his dream match against Kurt Angle, which would be mentioned deep in the match when Rocky Romero went for a trademark ankle lock. Assuming Angle is doing his homework and keeping tabs on Joe, that could come in handy for that historic TNA encounter. That Joe was 2 days away from facing Angle made the result obvious, although Romero looked strong in this defeat. Unlike 2 years earlier when Joe was feuding with the Rottweilers in ROH, this was a respectful battle with Romero focusing solely on his strikes and sudden submissions to cut off the former ROH Champion, rather than attempt to throw in cocky mind games on top of it. Angle’s name being mentioned here made think that perhaps there’s another reason Joe didn’t face KENTA for that particular dream match in ROH at this time, even though other reasons came public. Rating: ***1/4

Impact – November 16, 2006 Taped from Orlando, FL This is a prime time debut for the company’s Thursday slot, so some PPV-quality shit got hot-shotted on here, including a gimmick cage match feud-ender and a historic debut match. Barbed Wire Cage Match Rhino vs. Christian Cage Time stamp 1:18:33 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYpPNB2_fbA Good enough although the finish was cheap. Christian wore a crimson mask at some point and pretty much got decimated by Rhino not that he didn’t room to run away and be opportunistic. However, Christian would find ways to get the advantage, including cutting off Rhino on the top rope to deliver a Super Unprettier for a near-fall, and also using a straight jacket later on. Hearing in the storyline that Rhino ignored a doctor’s medical opinion to sit out due to concussions, and then the cheap finish of Christian winning because he was speared and his feet touched the floor from a fence breaking, makes this not age as well as it should have. This won’t be the last cage match of 2006 that has a cheap ending for me to shit on. *** In a match I am unavailable to find to watch anywhere online in its entirety, be it free or purchase, be it legal or illegal, Kurt Angle wins his first-ever TNA match in the main event against Abyss, the #1 contender to the TNA Title. This is a lazy, counterproductive way to attract prime time Thursday debut ratings. There’s no excuse on the go-home show for the top title’s #1 contender to be jobbing clean, so to draw ratings and promote Angle’s dream match against Joe, and make THAT match his historic debut so people must pay their fucking money to actually see such history, have a weigh-in segment with final words and a possible white-hot brawl that surpasses all of their prior brawls.

RECOMMENDATION: READ THIS VIA MOBILE APP OR MOBILE SITE DUE TO NUMEROUS YOUTUBE VIDEOS. WrestleMania 32 – April 3, 2016 Live from Dallas, TX IC Champion Kevin Owens once again declares this to be KO-Mania, and buries all 6 challengers in tonight’s ladder match Paul Heyman joins the Social Media Lounge for a Q&A, reiterating that Brock Lesnar with his bare hands will beat Dean Ambrose down in tonight’s hardcore match, thanks largely to a visit or two to Suplex City. He laughs at the thought of the Lunatic Fringe conquering the Beast Incarnate. He gets incredibly condescending, deflecting the question as a fictional hypothesis and putting Lesnar over. US Title Match Kalisto vs. Ryback Significantly superior to much more important matches later on the show, and Ryback has improved tremendously as well. The story was that Ryback took his size advantage for granted, even with him constantly cutting off Kalisto’s comeback attempts. Ryback played a tremendous base and I was surprised by the chemistry between these two, similar to Kalisto’s series with Alberto Del Rio. Ryback didn’t get the hint that he was being too cocky even after a delayed superplex was countered into a crossbody near-fall, perhaps because he quickly cut Kalisto off there. After a different’s corner middle turnbuckle pad got removed, Ryback failed to mind his surroundings. The Big Guy got overzealous charging at Kalisto in that corner, leaving the former IC Champion prone to a drop toe hold into the exposed steel buckle, then eating a Springboard Shiranui for the win. Had the entryway into AT&T Stadium not been such a delayed clusterfuck, I could’ve gotten to see this pleasant little surprise live in its entirety, which is something that pisses me off now. *** Brie Bella, Natalya, Paige, Alicia Fox, & Eva Marie vs. Emma, Lana, Tamina, Naomi, & Summer Rae Decent surprise here that never once became an embarrassing clusterfuck as feared. Brie gets the one after a decent dozen minutes or so with the LeBell Lock, paying tribute in her obvious swan song to her husband Bryan Danielson. The standout to me during the match’s content wouldn’t be any particular move or heat segment; it was simply Lana mocking the Yes Chant, reminding me that Rusev vs. Daniel Bryan will forever be one of the lost dream matches that could’ve possibly happened on this show. What truly matters is obviously the post-match, as neck brace-clad Nikki Bella comes out to celebrate with Brie’s team, and Mrs. Danielson gets put on her team’s shoulders to send her off on a high note. For whatever reason the stream/broadcast immediately cuts away from that emotional moment that the live audience got to bask in, so I assume that wasn’t planned. Awful production decision. WWE Hall of Famer and former Women’s Champion Lita reveals the new Women’s Championship, which will replace the Divas Title tonight and continue its lineage. Tonight’s No DQ, No Count Out match between champion Charlotte and challengers Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks will be for the new Women’s Title. In addition, the female roster members will no longer be referred to as divas, but as superstars just like their male colleagues. Long, long, long, LONG overdue, especially for a company that targets much of its product and creative direction towards children. The Usos vs. Dudleyz Nothing of note here at all. Bubba was a great cunt showing what a wasted opportunity his return has been. Usos win in minutes after the Dudleyz pretty much dominated. Dudleyz go for the tables in the post-match only for it to backfire; this serves as another reminder that the bookers made a MAJOR fuck-up not throwing these 2 tandems in a TLC match against the New Day and Lucha Dragons for the Tag Titles. IC Title – Ladder Match Kevin Owens vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Zack Ryder vs. Stardust vs. The Miz vs. Sami Zayn vs. Sin Cara #2 Stardust has polka dots on his one-piece to pay tribute to his father Dusty Rhodes. It is fucking awesome to see the Kevin Steen vs. El Generico never-ending feud come to AT&T Stadium for a match on the Granddaddy of 'Em All, even with other participants involved. This isn't an all-time classic ladder match, although it was certainly an incredibly well-paced one. Like the Money in the Bank contract match at Money in the Bank 2014 involving Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins, the most heated segments were Owens and Zayn going at it. Stardust also got a great pop when he pulled out a polkadot ladder for another Dustry tribute. Zayn provided 1 of the 2 highlights. After hitting a Tope Con Hilo through a ladder placed inside the ring, he then immediately followed that up with his through-the-ropes Tornado DDT on Owens. The other highlight would be Sin Cara #2 dumped from the middle of the ring to the outside, hitting an unintentional senton on a ladder platform. The finish came down to Owens vs. Zayn, which was the obvious correct call to make. Zayn took out Owens with a head-drop-style suplex on a ladder, only to be taken out by Miz, who was then taken out by Zack Ryder, allowing the Long Island native to achieve his boyhood dream and capture the IC Title! While Owens vs. Zayn in singles would've been far more appropriate for the gravitas of this event, there are no complaints about this match, especially when seeing Ryder celebrate in the ring with his father. After a decade or so in the company, it was rewarding to see someone who had endured significant career sabotage get a cherished moment, and that is the defining quality of WrestleMania to me. **** Chris Jericho vs. AJ Styles A scenario I had envisioned for over a decade: Y2J vs. The Phenomenal One at the Showcase of the Immortals. What was lacking by this happening so late in Jericho's career, was somewhat made up for by its AT&T Stadium location to give this an extra epic boost. This simply couldn't measure up to their great match at Fast Lane 2016. For whatever reason, they didn't click as well here as on that night. With hindsight, it may have been better storytelling, although not appropriate timing yet with Styles still in the fledgling stage of his WWE tenure, for Jericho to be the old babyface veteran, targeted by the younger Styles that wants to use the proven WrestleMania headliner to cement his name in the company immediately. This would be karma for Jericho 13 years in the making after he tried doing the same to Shawn Michaels. This never reached the fever pitch that I would've hoped for, and I know that Jericho at his age is still capable as proven in his excellent match the year before against Finn Balor in Tokyo. Perhaps Jericho is now too set in the heavyweight style to properly acclimate to the sudden movement Styles utilizes. There were definite peaks in this match though. I loved Jericho's Boston Crab being turned into a Calf Crusher for Styles, and Jericho was once again fantastic in selling the pain of that submission. They came close to botching the springboard moonsault reverse DDT of Styles, but managed to make it work; that'd have been a disaster to botch it on this stage. They had each other scouted from their prior matches and due to keeping tabs on one another's careers. Jericho would evade the springboard forearm, while Styles kneed Jericho in the gut on a Quebrada attempt. The scouting came in handy for Jericho at the finish, as he forced Styles to hesitate hitting the springboard forearm for the finish by grabbing the referee; by the time Styles had propelled forward, Jericho took advantage with the Codebreaker. That was the wrong finish to do. This show draws casual fans and therefore it was imperative for one of the new blood names, and not just the handpicked batch in the company's eyes, to be put over by a recognized star from the prior generation. That is how the current roster is made to be perceived as important for the elusive casual fan; otherwise, why should they even bother becoming full-time customers of the product again? Of course, this was a sign of things to come throughout the rest of the evening. ***3/4 New IC champ Zack Ryder could retire tomorrow and he’d be satisfied. What a crazy concept to make this seem important. The New Day vs. Rusev, Sheamus, & Alberto Del Rio New Day come out in a giant cereal box and wearing Dragon Ball Z attire. The League of Nations are accompanied by Wade Barrett. Total nothing match here, although at least the crowd cared in bits and pieces, more than I can say about another match later on the card. Inexcusable for the League of Nations to win; the faction was simply put never over enough to be groomed for future plans that this result seems to indicate. The result of this match, and that it pales in comparison to my four-way TLC match idea, ain't the only thing that infuriates me about this. Oh no, we've got the post-match. Barrett's post-match promo is interrupted first by Shawn Michaels (who admittedly looks tremendous), then by Mick Foley and then Steve Austin; the latter 2 carry themselves as 2 old geezers that have long seen their peaks evaporate. This certainly goes in the “Dave Meltzer is Right” folder, as he said this faction battle was booked because there were big plans at the end or after the match. Without a doubt, the moment of these 3 Hall of Famers appearing is awesome in a vacuum. However, this segment epitomizes more than any other the short-sighted, casual-aiming direction taken up and down this card. The 3 HOFers along with New Day take out the LON, and it pisses me off especially to see Sheamus, who was WWE Champion just a few months ago and had a fucking brutal TLC match against Roman Reigns, have to eat Foley's arsenal. This beat down on LON totally negates that they won this match too. We're not done here, as Xavier Woods is eats a Stunner from Austin after what appears to be a friendly beer beverage toast. So now the faces and champs of the tag division, the #1 merch sellers of this weekend, and one of the most over full-time acts on the entire roster, get fucking fed in front of 97,000 fans and certainly millions watching online to these 3 old geezers. Why would casual viewers bother tuning in tomorrow night, let alone throughout the rest of the year? Having the 3 legends is obvious move to make on this show. There were significantly better ways to do it that would've enhanced the stock of the current roster, rather than devalue it just to once again remind us all that today's wrestling just can't measure up to the War. At some point in a different column, I will share the details of how they could've been utilized on this show in productive fashion. Hardcore Match Dean Ambrose vs. Brock Lesnar Lesnar winning this one isn't the problem. In this case, it's that it was very much a poor man's version of Lesnar vs. CM Punk. Ambrose never got a highly dramatic extended advantage on Lesnar, even after a low blow, using a fire extinguisher, and countering an F5 with a DDT on steel chairs. Ambrose just got suplexed repeatedly and after about a dozen minutes, missed a baseball bat swing, ate another German Suplex, then an F5 on the chairs for a very flat finish, making this match's goal a failure, which was to raise Ambrose's stock. While we now know that Lesnar turned down many ideas, and we're not sure which ones, there are some smoke-and-mirrors that could've been pulled out here without him putting what now looks to have already been a planned return fight at UFC 200 at risk. Instead of a barbed-wire baseball bat and fire extinguisher, I'd have booked Ambrose to light a wooden object on fire and chase Lesnar around with it, causing Heyman to distract the former indy sensation. Lesnar is humanized to a degree by his natural instinct of running away from a burning piece of wood, and Heyman's distraction allows him to get the underhanded advantage to make Ambrose look good. I realize that using fire is a tremendous risk to involve for these human beings, and perhaps it's actually foolish to even suggest it. This is the stage though to implement such risks, especially for those in attendance who paid gouged prices on Ticketmaster since WWE knew the novelty draw of this venue for WrestleMania. I'd have booked the finish to also be Ambrose getting a major sustained advantage, looking like he could possibly pull off the upset like Danielson had done to Takeshi Morishima at Final Battle 2008. Whereas in that classic the finish came down to weapons-assisted submissions, I'd have Ambrose deliver repetitive blows such as chair shots and shotgun dropkicks to the legs and torso to take away Lesnar's base and equilibrium. Have a table set up nearby and Ambrose goes for the double underhook DDT, but Lesnar sniffs it out thanks to Heyman screaming at him. Lesnar would then use the positioning to fight out of the double underhook DDT, and then after winning that struggle, hoist Ambrose up and surprise him with a dramatic F5 through the nearby table. This keeps Lesnar strong while showcasing the intelligence and resiliency of Ambrose in this environment, thus elevating his stock as was planned. Instead, we got a cheap plunder match that never reached a fever pitch, one belonging on some fucking low-level indy card, not at fucking WrestleMania inside the home of America's Team. Women’s Title – No DQ, No Count Out Match Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch vs. Sasha Banks Snoop Dogg contributes to the live performance for his cousin Bank's theme song, and this show is now actually starting to feel larger-than-life again. Meanwhile, Charlotte is wearing her take on the vaunted Flair robe, and is accompanied by her father Ric as always. Poor Lynch not getting an OTT entrance, but she got a good reaction coming out anyway. Finally another good match takes place on this card. The action was all good with one exception, which is when Banks jumped forward too much for a sunset flip attempt. The women rebounded very well from that though, and the Charlotte vs. Lynch portion was very good to pick up where they had left off earlier in the year while Banks was taken out of the picture for awhile. Lynch was clearly the glue that kept this match as smooth as possible, as she had far more smoothness and precision in her submission attempts. She was absolutely deadest on winning this historic match via her seated Fujiwara arm bar finisher, and perhaps that backfired on her, not having a backup plan or ability to improvise. Lynch was thankfully protected, although the booking was once again off here. Banks had Lynch finished via a Lungblower and follow-up Banks Statement, only for Charlotte to take Banks out and accept the victory. This finish was deflating, as Charlotte's time as champion was at the right time to conclude, while Banks was in the moment to ascend to the throne on this night. Even more than that, now that Lynch has been beaten a few times, I can't think of one program I wanna see for Charlotte's reign coming out of this except Banks, but that singles match would best be saved for SummerSlam 2016, so that means the next few months would likely be a waste of time for those hoping this division would be a weekly highlight of WWE's programming. It doesn’t help that Banks is the common denominator for the 3 greatest women’s match in WWE history, with Charlotte involved in none of them. ***3/4 Contrived Stipulations That Nobody Takes Seriously – Hell in a Cell Undertaker vs. Shane McMahon Shane's entrance admittedly feels like a very big deal here, both in person and part of the broadcast. There's an intimacy to it that very few can compare to, and his children participating on stage add to that. Why can't the full-time roster be presented to this degree of importance? The highlights of this match first: Shane's coast to coast shotgun missile dropkick; Taker falling back on Shane through a commentary table to brake a sleeper, and Shane's unforgettable elbow drop from the top of the Cell. A few cool spots, especially for a match that literally spanned for half an hour, does not make for a great match. I hated this match because it was very lethargic while also being very difficult to take seriously as a competitive battle. Perhaps if Shane had used weapons aplenty, rather than just a toolbox in the last 3rd of the match to set up the big elbow drop, that'd be believable. Fifteen years earlier, Shane was able to have acclaimed matches against his father Vince and the bad ass Kurt Angle for damn good reasons. The former was against his own father, so that's a much older man in a smoke-and-mirrors spectacle. The latter had already competed twice earlier on the night Shane faced him in that unforgettable hardcore match, so with Angle not at full strength, that gave Shane a fighting chance. Neither of those dynamics applied here. Perhaps had Shane occasionally competed in MMA during his 7-year absence from WWE, his submission work wouldn't be so laughable against a company cornerstone. Trading triangle style submissions, including the Hell's Gate, for false finishes was ridiculous to watch. Even worse, seeing Shane counter the Hell's Gate into the Scorpion Death Lock felt like a kick in the nuts, serving as a further reminder that Sting would never got to properly place the Phenom in that submission on the Grandest Stage of 'Em All. This was a lethargic stunt show that went long for the sake of going long, rather than tell a more condensed, fiery story between the two that could've check marked the same shit while being far more dramatic and less time-consuming. It looked like Shane may have suffered a concussion when his head hit a commentary table too, and yet the match continued. If he really did suffer a concussion, it's fucking deplorable that this continued, and not just because of how plodding this was. The final minutes were flat as both just laid down when Shane missed the big elbow drop. Taker simply carried him into the ring and finished him off with one Tombstone Piledriver, perfectly capping off what a waste of time this experience was for me. Objectively speaking, some of the mentioned highlights during the "This is awesome!" chants, and the big elbow drop will eternally be a part of WrestleMania video packages for decades to come. For whatever reason, these 2 personalities had enough stock with the audience to compensate for this charade of a match, and to that I give them credit. At least this match also didn't harm any full-time roster member's stock, although this opportunity Shane had could've been used to elevate a full-timer, even in a losing effort like had been the plan for Ambrose against Lesnar. With that said, I will never watch this farce again. Period. 4th Annual Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royale This has 2 surprise entrants in former WCW Champion DDP and Basketball Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal. DDP’s inclusion is questionable considering he had to retire due to a neck injury (TNA booking him doesn’t change that fact based on TNA's history in not taking roster safety seriously). Shaq is interesting as he finally gets to battle against Big Show after their phenomenal confrontation 7 years earlier on Raw. Everyone else gets made a non-factor, spilling out of the ring while Shaq and Big Show have a stare down. Fandango and Damien Sandow attempt to ruin the moment, only to both get easily eliminated. WWE deserves major credit for finding the last remaining arc, that being the long-delayed Shaq collision, to making Big Show interesting. They reached a choke stalemate, allowing everyone else to take advantage and eliminate the 2 giants. I certainly wouldn't complain about Shaq having the official singles showdown against Show when WrestleMania returns to the city that saw the birth of Shaq's professional hardwood career. The returning Tatanka is in this match and too along with DDP, gets some nostalgic shine. The Social Outcasts gets some shine too, which is cut off by Kane and NXT star Baron Corbin, who is making his main roster graduation in this match. Texas native and former World Champion Mark Henry gets a moment to shine, in what would expect to be his final WrestleMania ever based on his contract expiring soon and stating he won't re-sign. He would have been a fantastic winner here as a going-away gift, but Corbin eliminates Kane at the end to graduate in as good of a fashion, considering the former NFL player's limitations. Damn good pop at the end since it's a bit of a cool moment admittedly. Someone new on the scene always gets the novelty pop at the beginning. Lillian Garcia introduces the Dallas Cowboys cheerleading squad, and they turn out to be the introduction for the Rock. I believe AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" was used for the live broadcast, but is dubbed over with pleasant but generic music on the WWE Network on-demand stream. Absolutely ingenious to use the Cowboys cheerleaders for the Rock, as it feels like a hand in a custom-made glove, A-list individual being introduced by A-list entertainment act. Rock pulls out a flamethrower to put this OTT and symbolize the heat that's about to generate in this already-historic venue. He then uses the flames to set a ROCK entrance setup on fire. Awesomely major league, and the cheerleaders are a fantastic touch lined up on the entrance ramp as he comes towards the ring. Rock puts over the crowd as usual, and it becomes obvious he'll announce that we set an attendance record. The announced number is a bit inflated, but not too much, and the real number is impressive (approximately 97.000), breaking both the worked and legit number set at the Pontiac Silverdome when it hosted WrestleMania III, while also shattering the company's legit attendance record at Wembley Stadium for SummerSlam 1992. With that out of the way, Rock says it's about to get good, only for the Wyatt Family to interrupt him. I certainly didn't foresee this dynamic coming into AT&T Stadium, but I'm open-minded. Bray Wyatt for once takes his terrific promo cadence and weaves into a compelling, coherent piece of dialogue, saying he chose to interrupt Rock because of both his Hollywood success and for being a "lie." Wyatt says this moment doesn't belong to the Rock or the people, but to himself, then threatens to inflict harm on the Hall of Famer in front of us 97.000+ strong in attendance. The motive is actually clear and logical, so I'm on board so far in this segment. Rock retorts by voicing his disappointment that instead of Wyatt being celebratory about the history made tonight, he's in essence just being a hater. Rock then accuses Wyatt of "hitting the bong for about 8 days straight." That's actually amusing, but Rock admits this isn't gonna end well. Rock lays the kind of zingers that only he and probably Kevin Owens could get away with, saying Erick Rowan's parents are related, and Braun Strowman has been breastfed far beyond the typical age. Rock then puts Wyatt over for his tremendous charisma and ability to connect with the people, and for his natural leadership as well as his unique look. Rock is disappointed that Wyatt chooses to be a hater, warning that won't end well for Wyatt. Wyatt says he's not here to knock on doors, but to kick one down. Why can't every Wyatt direction be this simple? Rock takes his shirt off and lays down the challenge for any member of the Wyatt Family to face him in an official impromptu match, in a moment that certainly had his Hollywood insurance carriers shitting their pants. Rock then reveals his trucks, boots, and kneepads, and finishes Rowan off in less than 10 seconds via a Rock Bottom. Hilarious, fantastic, highly entertaining moment so far for all kinds of layered reasons. The faction is none too pleased and is about to mug the Hollywood star, only for fellow Hall of Famer John Cena to return from injury and help his former rival! He's certainly been missed. Rock and Cena win the battle against the Wyatt Family. What makes this work is that the 2 HOFers, unlike Foley, Austin, and HBK, are presented still as current threats, one of them currently the face of WWE still. It's not the most ideal, but it's something I can swallow; perhaps even a fully focused Shield wouldn't be enough to overcome a united Rock and Cena. What also makes this segment work compared to the New Day segment earlier is that Rock put Wyatt over verbally before getting the eventual upper hand, pinpointing Wyatt's strengths. Perhaps this humbling for the Wyatt Family on such a grand stage, after completely failing in their quest to sabotage Lesnar in the weeks leading up to this, will be enough for Wyatt to reevaluate himself and take heed to Rock's compliments. Will Wyatt have a change of heart stemming from this, one that leads to his stock rising? WWE Title Match Triple H vs. Roman Reigns Stephanie McMahon presents a superiority speech as part of HHH's routine. A total fucking failure considering a very small portion of the audience wants to see Reigns as a conquering hero. This wouldn't been a nice additional touch two years against Daniel Bryan of course, or even against Sting a year later. Bell to bell, this match’s execution was perfectly fine, and even told a solid, methodical story. In many ways, this could be compared to HHH’s dream match against Lesnar at SummerSlam 2012. Like that match, it had one very simple problem, but in this case far more magnified due to this evening’s goal: nobody wanted to see an Arn Anderson style match from these two. Of course even worse, nobody wanted to see HHH vs. Reigns on this night. Period. With that said, I know that these two and those who coordinate the matches behind-the-scenes could’ve produced something much more emotionally impactful than this approximately 45-minute waste of time (entire segment) for the viewers, time that they’re never getting back, in addition to the gouged prices for this event. There are a number of angles to analyze this from. I’ll start with the fact that the company pulled the trigger on this matchup way too late. In the summer of 2014, HHH and Reigns had an electrifying stare down, fresh off the heel turn of Seth Rollins as he had just become Mr. Money in the Bank as well. As the Cerebral Assassin locked eyes with the company’s next chosen franchise face, the crowd fucking blew up with “This is awesome!” chants. The fact that the company didn’t move Reigns’s singles match against Randy Orton that summer to Battleground 2014, as a stepping stone to Reigns facing HHH the next month at SummerSlam 2014, is absolutely mind-boggling even more in hindsight than it was at the time. There’s no excuse for why the match didn’t happen at the time the people were salivating for it; that it wasn’t even announced for Night of Champions 2014, when day one WWE Network subscriptions were in their renewal period and thus the Lesnar vs. Cena rematch got thrown on there, is even more disappointing to think about from a business perspective. There’s zero excuse to not have presented HHH vs. Reigns deep into 2014, as the plan all along was Lesnar vs. Reigns at WrestleMania 31 no matter what. Now fast-forward a year and a half later for the company finally coming around to the HHH vs. Reigns direction, and not only is the timing completely off, not only does the feud come across so obviously shoehorned due to the unprecedented injury bug, but the storytelling can’t even come close to being on the pulse of the audience’s desires. Nobody cared about Reigns having an overcoming-the-odds chase journey. If anything, he’d have been far more effective just bulldozing his way back to the throne that the Reigns character knew fucking belonged to him. I don’t need to recap the abysmal crowd reactions this program got in the early months of 2016. From another angle, despite how cold this direction was and how frustrated the audience was getting, I still believed that these two could find a creative way to deliver an acceptable main event, rather than the tedious chore that was presented when HHH faced Orton in the main event of WrestleMania XXV. I needed TWO all-time classics at the Grandest Stage of ‘Em All from HHH for me to forgive him for that dog shit excuse for a mega match, which he went to do against Taker and Danielson. I’m now gonna need two more from him again, because his performance here was unacceptable. He’s been in this business too long, built up so much clout, and been in this position too many times for me to cut him any slack, especially with being in the important position of giving Reigns the ultimate coronation and start a new era that had been delayed for a year. This is the third time that HHH has failed to draw in the audience in the most important match of the year, and that’s something that should eat at him. I guarantee both of the Patriots’ Super Bowl defeats to the Giants ate at Tom Brady for many, many years, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it still does to this day despite his night of redemption at Super Bowl XLIX. Some will wanna give Reigns some slack for this match. I’m not part of that crew. Although only 6 years in the business up to this point, he’s delivered too many quality matches and has too much clout as the next chosen face of the company to allow something like this to happen. This was his moment and he failed to improvise to make this as special as possible for himself. He should’ve been vetoing ideas for this match left and right. “You guys want me to replace Cena? Well shut the fuck up, listen to me, and let’s make this shit happen!” Joe Lanza is correct that nobody else in this position would present such an ennui-inducing, off-the-mark performance like Reigns did on this night. Not Cena, not Rock, not Austin, not HBK, not Taker, not Styles, not Owens, not Rollins. Okay, maybe HHH or even Orton. As stated, the work in this match was fine. I can appreciate HHH targeting the left arm and shoulder of Reigns as the challenger did a great job of selling it. I gushed and gushed and gushed over the same story told when Reigns faced Cesaro several months prior to this in their lone singles encounter to date. The fact is that the people wanted to see that story told in Cesaro vs. Reigns, and that match was on Raw, not in the most marquee slot of the entire fucking year for the industry. While HHH has been able to tell such stories like this before and it got over, specifically against the likes of Danielson and Chris Benoit, Reigns lacked the magical sympathy and timely character booking for it to click here (the only exceptional foil being Lesnar of course, but he’s a brawling-type beatdown monster heel instead of a methodical game planner.) HHH’s character wasn’t much better either, as he was ice-cold at this time, so nobody gave a shit enough to voice any type of visceral disapproval for his antics or dominance in this match. I must mention too that at no point in the stadium were we ever in an extended rocking period like we were the year before for Lesnar vs. Reigns, or 2 years earlier for HHH vs. Danielson. Any pops were just brief acknowledgements in their own little vacuums from the audience. “Okay, that one little part there is cool, but we still don’t give a shit.” No matter what the circumstances, that simply is a failure on both as well as whoever pitched in on putting this match together. That this match didn’t have the stipulation of the Authority’s power being up for grabs is also astounding to me. Reigns NEEDED every single little piece of extra assistance to get the crowd behind him. What better way than advertising in advance that if this guy wins, the oppressive motherfuckers that have spent the past 3 years boring you with monologues and sabotaging crowd favorites would finally fuck off? There was no reason for that dynamic to be wasted on Taker vs. Shane, not with the #1 priority of establishing Reigns as Cena’s heir to the throne still in jeopardy. I provided a booking dynamic going into this match that could’ve helped it connect more, now here’s an idea for the actual match itself. Rather than HHH trying to embody Arn Anderson or Harley Race like he did against Lesnar at SummerSlam 2012, I tell him it’s time for him to prove that he really does care about the company’s future. “Signing all the big names of the underground and international scenes? Cool, Paul. Now we need all hands on deck with this Reigns project. So I’m gonna have you do what Cena did for us just a couple years back. Reigns is gonna destroy you in 10 minutes or less, to coronate him the best way we can and send the Authority era out on a decisive note. Period.” At some point, the Lesnar vs. Reigns match will inevitably happen, likely with Reigns getting his delayed bragging rights clean victory over the Beast Incarnate that nobody else has gotten. What better way to market that historic rematch than not just “there will be a winner, we WILL find out who the alpha male of WWE is,” but also “in one corner, it’s the man that destroyed John Cena, and in the other corner, it’s the man that destroyed Triple H”? Although as I’m about to reveal in the show’s overall assessment, here’s a what if idea, a true alternative to have closed out what was supposed to be the grandest WrestleMania of all-time: What if Roman Reigns had just come into this show as the defending WWE Champion, and his challenger would be none other than the man who on his first night in WWE, won the Royal Rumble match, that being AJ Styles? I can’t think of anyone else still active that I’d have trusted more to carry on the company’s goal for Reigns. I also can’t think of a booking decision that would’ve sent bigger shockwaves coming out of Royal Rumble 2016, while also sending this message to the rest of the wrestling world: if you come to WWE, this is our proof that we will give you a fair opportunity to enhance your brand and career. Nonetheless, this match is a huge blemish and black eye for both men’s resume. I won’t hold it fully against Reigns since he had a classic the year before against Lesnar and is still relatively young in the business; as for HHH, I’m gonna need 2 more WrestleMania classics out of him before he’s fully forgiven by me. Loading the roster up with more terrific performers from other companies isn’t gonna be enough. As I left AT&T Stadium on this night, I was told the perfect word to describe this event: vanilla. This entire card up and down was conservative bullshit aimed lazily at the casual fan’s perception, rather than using this event and the already established legends as a springboard to hook the casual viewer onto the full-time roster. Several months later, this event does not age well at all. There were no off-the-charts classic matches to point to, although there were 4 quality matches for sure, and more importantly, there were no organically presented special moments to define this historic event. Up and down the card, the full-time roster found itself catering to what was previously established instead of being presented as at least on par with the likes of Taker, Austin, HBK, and Lesnar. The match selections were also very poor, cramming way too many matches onto a 7-hour event when including the pre-show. The complaints about this show’s lengths are misplaced. While I have yet to jump on the ongoing NJPW bandwagon of the past several years, I am aware that company’s annual Granddaddy of ‘Em All tends to go on for several hours, and there are no complaints about that. Simply put, this particular WrestleMania failed to provide the special matches and moments that had defined both itself and Wrestle Kingdom in recent years. This show’s problem was both the booking and its pacing. I have zero sympathy for Vince McMahon and those around him failing to overcome the adversity stemming from the injury bug. At some point I will share all the details going into this alternate card as well as its game-changing results. For now, here’s the card that should’ve been using the same roster while throughout 2015 carefully orchestrating a deep backbone that would’ve managed to overcome the numerous absences. Pre-show portion: Total Divas tag match as is 4th Annual Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal (Since this entire show was offered for free, it doesn’t matter if Shaq appears on the pre-show or PPV portion. Having him on the pre-show possibly entices a few more casual viewers at the last minute to order the WWE Network too.) PPV portion: US Title – Chris Jericho vs. AJ Styles TLC Match for Tag Titles – Big E & Kofi Kingston vs. The Usos vs. Dudleyz vs. Lucha Dragons Women’s Title as is – Charlotte vs. Becky Lynch vs. Sasha Banks IC Title – Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn Rusev vs. Undertaker Hardcore Match w/ Career vs. Authority stipulations – Dean Ambrose vs. Triple H (this is where Austin and HBK make surprise appearances on the card. Foley can appear too if he must, or maybe even be cast as the referee.) The Rock’s segment with John Cena and the Wyatt Family as is WWE Title – Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns The epitome of less is more, with only 7 matches on the PPV portion that gets everyone important on the card in logical creative directions and matchups that people actually wanna see. No League of Nations whatsoever. No full-timers being showcased at the expense of important full-time talents. Instead, what we got is a show that marginalized this event’s importance for the rest of the year; that can be reversed by saying this show made the rest of the year feel irrelevant. We got questionable matchups that reeked of cynicism. We got potential defining moments passed on in favor of just further showcasing the company’s chosen favorites. We got a triple main event that failed to deliver anything organically memorable, with only 1 moment of note coming out of them, and it was just a stunt designed to get a synthetic pop. Most of all, we got a presentation that has a number of customers vowing that coming up this spring in Orlando, they’ll attend everything else, but under no circumstances will they attend WrestleMania 33 due to the shitty pacing and booking of this event that failed to live up to the hype (that is despite the poor weeks of television leading into this of course.) If that isn’t a defining example of “bad for business,” since those are potential ticket sales not coming to fruition, then what is?

RECOMMENDATION: READ THIS VIA MOBILE APP OR MOBILE SITE DUE TO NUMEROUS LINKED YOUTUBE VIDEOS. The Road to WrestleMania XXX: The Good Shit - http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/33558-the-road-to-wrestlemania-xxx-the-good-shit/ The Road to WrestleMania 31: The Good Shit - http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/33559-the-road-to-wrestlemania-31-the-good-shit/ The Road to Takeover: Dallas & WrestleMania 32: The Good Shit - http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/33560-the-road-to-takeover-dallas-wrestlemania-32-the-good-shit/ NXT Takeover: Dallas – April 1, 2016 Live from Dallas, TX NXT Tag Titles Match The Revival vs. American Alpha The excellent, obvious choice for the opener since a title change was very apparent. Rather than modify their game plan, the champs intensified their underhanded tactics in an attempt to overcome the mat wrestling and suplex arsenal of the challengers. That ultimately proved to be the end of their title reign. Whether it was mind games, attempts to cut the ring in half, manipulating the ref with false illegal tag attempts to get a cheap shot, the champs were never able to get a lengthy, momentous advantage on either Chad Gable or Jason Jordan. While the ring was cut in half at times, it was never for very long. In particular, Gable drilling Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder simultaneously with DDTs told the story of the match; no matter what, the Revival couldn’t crush the focus and heart of American Alpha. Not with slaps to the face. Not by cutting off a hot tag by climbing under the ring. Not even bailing each other out from certain punishment. This night belonged to many names, and among them were American Alpha. They were not to be denied. The best part was the finishing stretch as Dawson and Gable exchanged near-falls that got the crowd rocking. At this point the match beautifully had the Dallas crowd guessing, even with the booking and match placement making the end result crystal-clear. Once the near-falls got out of the way, the challengers double-teamed Dawson, leaving him prone to the Grand Amplitude and title change, with Wilder being a non-factor as Jordan cut him off. A tremendous opener as expected. **** KOTA FUCKING IBUSHI, one half of the reigning Wrestling Observer Newsletter Match of the Year Award, is sitting at ringside. Per Corey Graves on commentary, there will be a “global cruiserweight tournament” coming as well. OH FUCK YES~! The WWE Debut Match of Austin Aries Baron Corbin vs. Austin Aries Not the most ideal debut for Aries as this got quite tedious when Corbin was in control, although I could still appreciate the story being attempted. Simply put, the storyline of the match was that Aries did his homework, while Corbin didn’t. It was absolutely foolish for the former NFL player not to hit the film room and respect that Aries had been successful against much larger men throughout his career. There’s of course one of his career-defining moments in dethroning peak Samoa Joe at ROH’s Final Battle 2004, but also his participation in Generation Next thwarting off the monstrous Abyss and the rest of the Embassy, humbling Bubba Dudley in TNA, and taking Takeshi Morishima to the limit. This cockiness and disrespect was all the advantage Aries needed to embarrass Corbin. That wasn’t the only thing that hurt Corbin in his failure to study Aries. While he got an advantage in targeting the right shoulder of Aries, it still allowed the southpaw Aries to make a successful comeback with his left hand. Knowing something as simple as which dominant hand Aries possesses could’ve helped Corbin’s youth and size become too overwhelming for the mileage and experience of Aries, who perfectly scouted an End of Days attempt to get a roll-up victory. Roman Reigns would never get this embarrassed, as his frequent counters of big moves prove that unlike his fellow former gridiron colleague, he actually hits the film room. Stepping away from the actual fictional storyline, it was another brilliant piece of booking for Aries to win his LONG, LONG, LONG overdue debut. Dream Match and Shinsuke Nakamura’s WWE Debut Sami Zayn vs. Shinsuke Nakamura Prior to April 1, 2016, I had seen one match involving Nakamura, and it was before his breakout persona that ultimately led to his Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame induction as well as his departure from NJPW to WWE. It was an absolutely FANTASTIC ****1/2 level tag match on March 1, 2009 in NOAH, with Nakamura & Milano Collection AT being total cunts in a brutal collision against Go Shiozaki & Takashi Sugiura. While I am absolutely aware of his legendary status and current star power, I know damn well just from that one match during his “so-so” period as a personality that he is an elite performer. Without question, Nakamura has already stood out from the majority of other outsider debuts for WWE, displaying perfect charisma and personality just during his entrance, completely in tune with WWE's style of production. Amazing how that happens when WWE caters to the talent’s natural habits instead of forcing a playbook on that talent. The pre-match and early off-the-charts atmosphere that I recall experiencing in person translate masterfully to the broadcast version, displaying what a truly historic match this is. The bell hasn’t been rung yet and this is already the 2010s decade version of the Samoa Joe vs. Kenta Kobashi epic. Nakamura's mind games are immediately on display, showcasing just fantastic psychology and even more personality, but Zayn has done his homework, evading Nakamura's deadly stomps and kicks. Nakamura looks like he may not have done as much studying as he should have, getting placed in arm twists and arm drags while Zayn returned the taunting from minutes earlier. The Hall of Famer seems to know he did himself a disservice, getting vicious with surprise knees to Zayn's gut and then targeting the left arm. He cuts off Zayn's comeback attempt with an Enziguri-style knee to the face, then cuts off the former NXT Champ with a spinning heel kick. Zayn finally cuts Nakamura off via a snap suplex, then unleashes standard offense to wear down the company's newest top free agent signing. They exchange forearm strikes in the corner, causing Nakamura to topple to the outside. Rather than get aggressive, Zayn lets Nakamura get on the apron, leaving him prone to a kick to the face and follow-up knees to the skull. This gets a wonderful reaction as the action gets back into the ring, triggering dueling chants in the process. Zayn's attempted counters to the swaggering Nakamura's corner knees are for naught, as he gets placed on the top rope and eats one anyway. Moments later, Zayn outsmarts the overzealous Nakamura, causing him to dive to the outside. This time, Zayn wastes no time with a Pescado on the outside, and then a crossbody inside the ring for a near-fall. Nakamura blocks a suplex attempt with a knee to the skull, then follows that up with some more as well. He runs the ropes which is a mistake, as it allows Zayn to block him and hit a deadly Michinoku Driver. They then have a mid-ring forearm exchange that has Dallas rocking, and Nakamura's nose is now bleeding. Both are running on fumes at this point as the crowd gives the continued exchange a standing ovation. Zayn tries bouncing off the ropes for balance and momentum, leaving him prone to Nakamura forearms, knees, stomps, and kicks. Nakamura seems to get cocky when he runs the ropes, for Zayn hits a lariat and then a clothesline; a second clotheslines attempt puts Zayn in position to get locked into a cross armbar submission, but Zayn clasps his hands to block it, so Nakamura goes for a Triangle Choke. Zayn twists a bit so that he can stomp on Nakamura's head and get the hold broken. Zayn returns the favor from earlier with stomps to the head, then scouts Nakamura's forearms with a counter into the Reverse STO and follow-up Koji Clutch. Nakamura turns his positioning for a near-fall, then cuts off Zayn with another Enziguri to daze Zayn. At this point the crowd breaks into a "Fight Forever!" chant, a true display of respect and admiration from the audience. Zayn blocks an Inverted Exploder attempt, only to eat more knees. Nakamura goes into the corner for my favorite moment of the match, proving that indeed, he did his homework by blocking Zayn's Yakuza kick. With Zayn's leg stuck on the top turnbuckle, Nakamura takes advantage with a successful Inverted Exploder, but Zayn shows he did his homework by avoiding the Bomaye, then hits a Blue Thunder Bomb for an off-the-charts near-fall, bringing the crowd to a frenzy. Considering I can't think of one time that move has actually finished a match for Zayn, it's a testament to these two that they had us biting. Nakamura lands a high kick counter when Zayn goes for his through-the-ropes Tornado DDT in yet another highlight. Both are highly fatigued and Nakamura can't hit whatever he has in mind off the top rope, so Zayn goes for what I assume is a Top Rope Brainbuster, but Nakamura blocks it. Zayn tries to hit a Corner Exploder on a running Nakamura, but that's blocked with elbows to the head, then gets followed with a knee to the back of the head, then it finally ends with the Bomaye Knee, bringing this work of art to its masterful conclusion, and not just for this match, but for Zayn's NXT tenure. Post-match, both show the obvious respect that only grew even more after this all-time classic as the crowd thanks Zayn, knowing this is his NXT swan song. Zayn is left alone to get the standing ovation he earned, marking the end of an era. In one night, Nakamura proved he was ready to do whatever WWE needed him to do, be it the face of a brand, a solid hand on the undercard, a workhorse groomer for other future main-eventers, or maybe even a tippy-top star. Everything he did was on point from the moment he stepped through the curtain both before and after the match. His entrance, his mannerisms, his offense, his psychology, all of it was just flawless. For Zayn, this match was critical in showing he still had elite workrate capabilities in him, which seemed to possibly no longer be the case since his return from shoulder surgery a few months earlier. For one man, it was the perfect beginning, for the other, the perfect finale. The only way to have made this even better would’ve been to have this close the event, and Zayn’s post-match goodbye to be interrupted by Kevin Owens. It’d had fit everyone’s characters and only further given last-minute extra heat to their ladder match coming less than 48 hours later at WrestleMania 32. This is simply the best match I saw all weekend this past April in Dallas, better than any of the spectacular and genuinely great shit involving the likes of Owens, the Revival, Chris Hero, Will Ospreay, Fred Yehi, Ricochet, AJ Styles, Marty Scurll, Zack Sabre, Jr. and others to come later on this same card. This truly felt like a historic match in person, and on the broadcast I felt that I was watching an all-time important mega match on par with The Rock vs. Triple H at SummerSlam 1998, Kurt Angle vs. Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 21, and Edge vs. John Cena at TLC 2006. The electricity in the building was absolutely undeniable and added to what would've already been a fantastic match just based on the ring work of both performers. Even further, this surpasses the Undertaker vs. Triple H "End of an Era" Hell in a Cell masterpiece from WrestleMania XXVIII as the second-greatest match I've ever witnessed in person. So with that in mind, I will add this quote from my review of the only match I have ranked above it on this list, that being Bryan Danielson vs. Roderick Strong from ROH's Vendetta: This is a match stockpiled with moments that I'll remember for the rest of my life, and serves as a reminder that despite current financial difficulties, if I can find the money to end up being in Orlando this spring and override my recent cancellation of it (a certain Phenomenal main event would be enough to convince me), then I'll be there. I will cherish this match forever, a match that surpasses Sasha Banks vs. Bayley from Takeover: Brooklyn as the greatest match in NXT history. Last but not least: if this does not end up being The Road to Takeover: Orlando & WrestleMania 33 Match of the Year, then holy motherfucking shit are we in for an historic year of workrate from WWE. ***** NXT Women’s Title Match Bayley vs. Asuka An early submission exchange gets broken when Asuka strikes Bayley's face, which is a nice message to send. This isn't gonna be a monster heel or arrogant opponent trying to keep Bayley down; Asuka will just come right for the fucking throat. This is further proven when Asuka lands kicks, but Bayley tries to show she can strike to, although Asuka has the ultimate advantage early. Bayley scouts a running butt-butt after having just experienced one seconds earlier, allowing hereto get the advantage. After various attacks, a clotheslines attempt is turned into an arm submission by Asuka. Bayley quickly regains the heat by ducking corner roundhouse kicks. She puts Asuka in the Tree of Woe, allowing for an elbow drop. Asuka ends up on a turnbuckle and eats a Hurricanrana, then gets placed in the guillotine choke. Unlike Nia Jax, Asuka doesn't fall to this, instead positioning it into an ankle lock submission. Bayley throws her out of the ring, but the left ankle damage is done. Despite the damage, Bayley hits a head-scissors on the outside before bringing Asuka back in the ring. Asuka gets fighting spirit from Bayley's strikes and uses that to regain the heat with various attacks, including numerous kicks. Bayley finally scouts the kicks by blocking one and hitting a forearm, only to eat a knee strike to the head and then a Shining Wizard for a near-fall. Bayley scouts another butt-butt and turns it into a backdrop suplex after Asuka attempts to block it. After ducking an Enziguri, Bayley eats an immediate follow-up kick to the face, and both go down sour and fatigued. After a brief stalemate, they have a strike exchange which would seem to favor Asuka, only for Bayley to catch a kick and turn it into an ankle lock submission of her own, then drives Asuka's right knee onto the mat. She then targets Asuka's left leg, which is perfect to fuck up the base and kicking abilities. That's for naught, as Asuka catches Bayley's arm for a cross arm bar submission. Asuka even gets into position for a hyperextension, but Bayley escapes for a couple near-fall pin attempts. Asuka goes for the Asuka Lock, but Bayley has that scouted. She follows up with more signature attacks, then hyper-extended Asuka's shoulders in a submission that won her the Iron Man match against Sasha Banks. That's turned into a pin attempt, so the champ goes for the belly-to-belly suplex, which is blocked of course. Asuka ducks a clothesline, hits a roundhouse kick, a snap suplex, and then locks in the cross arm bar submission again. Asuka's attempt at the Asuka Lock again is almost broken by a rope grab, but the challenger drags her down on the mat in the middle of the ring. The champ won't give up, but Asuka gets her back down on the mat, and there's no escape, as Bayley passes out for this historic title change. This was definitely a great match with a terrific story of Bayley being resilient but outmatched, while obviously hurt by following Zayn vs. Nakamura, further evidence that the match placement on this card was flawed. The finish was perfect, as it makes Asuka even more of a juggernaut while making Bayley even more deserving of an inevitable rematch. This could've possibly been a MOTYC had it not followed Nakamura's epic debut. **** NXT Title Match Finn Balor vs. Samoa Joe Former TNA Champion BOBBY FUCKING ROODE is sitting front row. OH FUCK YES~! Balor uses a Texas Chainsaw Massacre gimmick as part of his entrance; such a novelty would be the entrance of the evening on a normal night. Joe came into this one seemingly with the dominant strategy that would indicate a title change in storyline. However the early bleeding on his face early was enough to keep this even and allow Balor to avoid any sustained disadvantage. Even with Joe scouting some of Balor’s signature moves, the blood loss clearly affected Joe’s ability to relentlessly deliver his standard punishment from his prime a decade or so earlier. The crowd of course got fucking irritated with the match being paused at points to fix Joe’s bleeding face, breaking out in chants of “Let Joe bleed!” and “Fuck PG!” Wrestling fans really are as low on the intellectual totem pole as stereotyped; if were truly creative and zesty with displaying our sense of entitlement, we’d have screamed shit such as “Let him gush blood!” and “Fuck these doctors!” and “Fuck your sponsors!” and “Fuck his safety!” Joe did himself no favors in storyline with the WWE clichéd shocked facial expression after Balor kicked out of the musclebuster. This was time wasted in which Joe could’ve delivered additional punishment on the NXT brand’s absolute best competitor, and it allowed Balor to make an easy comeback and win the match with by countering the Coquina Clutch with the same finish Bret Hart used at WrestleMania VIII and Survivor Series 1996. At least the finishing moments were red-hot, a sign that this match had the potential to be a MOTYC even after a far hotter, more newsworthy piece of history earlier on the card. Even had Joe not been busted open early, it was a clear mistake to close with this match. Here’s why: as soon as the bookers got cold feet on a title change, then the crystal-clear peak of the show was going to be Nakamura’s live debut, along with the fact that everyone with common sense knew this was Zayn’s final night on the brand. Having Zayn vs. Nakamura close the evening allows for the anticipation of that historic dream match to continue building just a bit longer, and having Owens ruin the Zayn’s post-match swan song ceremony closes out the event with more buzz for WrestleMania 32, which is supposed to be the grandest event EVER in company history due to Jerry World’s attendance size. By doing this, the crowd also isn’t quite as drained for Bayley vs. Asuka, and that title change is therefore more impactful for those in attendance. As is, this is a very good match that wasn’t just handicapped by Joe’s blood loss, but by flawed match order on the card. ***3/4 Easily the North American show of the year that I’d sentimentally put on par with Punk: The Final Chapter. Like that show, the reasons are obvious here. This was worth every penny spent on the vacation I took in Texas…easily. NXT @ WrestleMania 32 Axxess – April 2, 2016 Taped from Dallas, TX The following aired on April 13, 2016: NXT Champion Finn Balor knows that Shinsuke Nakamura’s ultimate goal in NXT is the obvious, which will be to become NXT Champion. This would seem to indicate that either Nakamura will be gunning for it VERY, VERY soon, or he’s gonna be exclusive to NXT for a lengthy period of time. Earlier in the day, NXT Tag Champions American Alpha bask in an empty Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center. Colin Cassady & Enzo Amore arrive to congratulate and make the challenge for the NXT dream tag match, even if it’s non-title. Bayley vows to reclaim the NXT Women’s Title in the future, and that the defeat to Asuka will not break her. American Alpha vs. Cassady & Amore is next week in a non-title match, as is Samoa Joe vs. Apollo Crews in a first time ever matchup. The following aired on April 20, 2016: American Alpha vs. Colin Cassady & Enzo Amore – *** No Way Jose makes his debut after a few weeks of hype videos. Seems fun and energetic, and upon first impression doesn’t give off a big money vibe, more of a curtain-jerker to make the crowd feel welcome on the card. Who knows, maybe he’ll be more than that, after all, Colt Cabana went on to headline the greatest ROH show ever in a violent feud-ender against Homicide. Samoa Joe vs. Apollo Crews – *** The following aired on April 27, 2016: NXT Women’s Champion Asuka has a stare down with Nia Jax, which would seem to indicate the next Takeover direction for that division. This follows up on the tease at Takeover: London, and Asuka vs. Bayley II makes far more sense for Takeover: Brooklyn II. The Revival mince no words in stating they’re aiming to reclaim the NXT Tag Titles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hTsM_x1dYI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq9jPw4m9-M