Boss Rock

Thought the show was pretty good for the most part. Usos vs. Cesaro and Sheamus was great, Alexa vs. Charlotte was good, and A.J. vs. Brock was perhaps the greatest carryjob I've ever seen. Not since Bryan have I seen someone get so much out of almost anyone. The main event on the other hand was maybe the most bizarre and confusing thing I've ever seen. Sure it perfectly summed up everything wrong with WWE and their inability to make almost anyone not from the Attitude Era look good, but nothing about it made sense. Why bring Cena in at all if he was only in for 5 minutes and was in complete phone-in mode? Why have Owens and Zayn interfere if they ended up being completely ineffectual and have no bearing on the finish? Just unbelievably stupid stuff. Still, Braun destroying Haitch was absolutely delightful.

I haven't seen all of Flair's '86, but a huge fan of his '89.

Kobashi: 1993-1998 Jumbo: 1986-1991 Liger: 1992-1997

A.J. Styles: 2014-now. His 2005 was also great.

Chip Day has a good right hand.

Check out LU's Twitter! Season 4 is coming!

Thanks! I thought he was out for all of 2002. And the '94 Dr. Death match is on my to-watch list.

Kenta Kobashi: 1990: w/ Mitsuharu Misawa and Toshiaki Kawada vs. Jumbo Tsuruta, Masanobu Fuchi, and Akira Taue, 10/19 1991: vs. Stan Hansen, 9/4 1992: w/ Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Doug Furnas and Dan Kroffat, 5/25 1993: vs. Stan Hansen, 7/29 1995: w/ Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada and Akira Taue, 6/9 1996: vs. Stan Hansen, 9/5 1997: vs. Mitsuharu Misawa, 1/20 1998: vs. Mitsuharu Misawa, 10/31 1999: vs. Mitsuharu Misawa, 6/11 2000: vs. Jun Akiyama, 8/6 2003: vs. Mitsuharu Misawa, 3/1 2004: vs. Jun Akiyama, 7/4 2005: vs. Kensuke Sasaki, 7/18

Same here. Was a great alternative during a time when I only watched WWE and when WWE was the absolute pits. Took a lot of risks and made a lot of bold decisions to create one of the most compelling products I'd ever seen.

Mil Muertes and KUSHIDA have awesome knockout punches. Juice Robinson and Gedo are awesome punchers as well.

Yep. Gotta make Kane look good in the year of our Lord 2017.

Been on the outs a bit when it comes to 205Live but I love Drew.

I am disappointed Kurt did not come back out in his traditional singlet. Would've taken the awesome absurdity level to new heights.

Really big, really dumb spectacle. But I had fun. Just hated the treatment of Braun by friggin' Kane of all people.

In all fairness, I haven't seen much of Kross either. I just know he's done a ton of dark matches for them similar to how Cobb did before he became Matanza.

I was only into the main event, but Finn-Styles should be very good.

Just referring to the fact that Angle, who's probably more beat up than Bryan, is being booked for a match and Bryan can't even post videos of himself doing bumps.

I could be mistaken but I was under the impression that Bestia is...not good.

If I could be a fly on the wall when Bryan calls Vince about this.

Spoilers ahead: Dragon-Matanza was pretty good. Great high-flying work by Dragon and Matanza was excellent in throwing him around (seriously, what happened to Jeff Cobb?). Dragon is thrown through the cage but Dario decides to make it pinfall or submission only. I get that Dario has always been a heel, but I preferred when he wasn't so outwardly so and was an opportunistic businessman. Or at least if he were an outward heel, then the babyface would be able to overcome (a la the Crew-Team Havoc match). Black Lotus returns and does a dive off the top of the cage to cost Dragon the match. She then attacks Matanza and forces Dario to confess that Dragon Azteca Sr. was innocent. Matanza lays out Lotus. I liked this development and that they were able to continue this story, but I'm confused as to why Lotus cost Dragon the match if she knew Dragon Sr. was innocent. I get that they fought last year, but still. Overall a pretty good and violent cage match. Cage-Crane-Muertes: Holy shit was this awesome. Dario made this an elimination match at the last minute and boy was this violent. Not quite as violent as Hell of War, but there were still some pretty brutal spots. This was also very long, so huge props to all three for never losing steam for a second. The ending was a tad abrupt but very good nonetheless. Mil got the gauntlet and right as he does his pose...lights out. One light comes back on...KING CUERNO! Cuerno is back as he lays out Catrina and Mil and takes the gauntlet for his own. I'll admit I read the spoilers a while back and knew this was coming, but man was this a great return. The lighting really added to the surprise and suddenness of it all. He is a hunter after all. Think Striker could have done a better job of playing up the surprise of Cuerno's return, but I'm not complaining either way. Mundo-Puma: Watching this match reminded me of their very first encounter in season 1. Lots of cool, athletic things happening but just couldn't keep me invested. I dunno, I LIKED this match, but I often found myself not paying attention at times. That being said, it was a good match and lots of high stakes drama. Worldwide Underground interferes after a ref bump and Jack Evans can talk again! Taya drags Rick Knox into the ring and even though he can clearly see Puma getting beat up on, decides to count anyway instead of calling for a DQ. Maybe the timing was off, I dunno. But Angelico returns YET AGAIN to save the day and Rick Knox hits Worldwide Underground with a tope! Probably my favorite part of this match and the crowd went nuts. Puma eventually won after a well over 20 minute match. "HOLD ON!!!" Dario announces one final match. Pentagon told Dario last week that he wanted to exchange Gift of the Gods and face the winner of the match. Dario didn't announce it ahead of time because rules, like bones, are meant to be broken. OK, sure. He also adds the caveat that it's career vs. career. Pentagon breaks Puma's arm almost immediately, but Puma pops it back into place and wraps it up. He's still in bad shape and does a great job selling the arm. Like their other matches, this was good but not great. I also though Pentagon gave up way too much on offense considering Puma just had a match and was fighting with one arm. I understand resilient babyface and all, but this was close to 50-50. Vampiro saves Pentagon from a 630 and one package piledriver later...new champ. Finally great to have Pentagon reach the top of the mountain, but I thought this could have been done better. I get having Vamp interfere to show he was in cahoots with Pentagon and Pentagon is technically heel, but it still felt a bit cheap considering how much offense Puma got. Not to mention Pentagon is a de facto babyface, with the crowd firmly behind him the entire match and even briefly chanting "Nah nah nah hey hey goodbye" to Puma. I did like how Pentagon wave off Puma while saying "Bye!", though. Closing vignettes: MAJOR SPOILERS Puma unmasks (without seeing his face) and walks off. Great visual on Puma's mask. Thank God we tied up some loose ends here. Sexy Star gets another spider in a box, although I seriously wonder if they bring Sexy back if they get a season 4. And despite never being a Sexy Star fan (especially after Triplemania) I really liked how we got some continuation on this story considering they had seemingly just dropped it without explanation. Cuerno has the gauntlet in his trophy room. Looks like he doesn't fully understand the power it holds. Daga is back! He cuts off Pindar's head while Drago looks on disapprovingly. Looks like he wants out. Fenix and Melissa drive off with Catrina and Jeremiah both looking on. Confirmation that Fenix is still Catrina's true love and that Crane is gonna want to take him out. Grave Consequences 4, perhaps? Vamp's master turns out to be a Skeletor-looking dude. Speculation that this will be Kevin Kross. Apparently, the plan was to cause Puma to fail and Pentagon to succeed so this new guy can take him out. Not sure why Puma needed to be brought back from the dead unless there was some kind of prophecy about Vamp's students fighting to the end. Matanza is in his cell and...OH HAI Rey! Really wonder if Rey would come back for another season considering he supposedly wanted to go back to WWE. But with that door closed, maybe? Agent Winters shoots Dario for his failures and says the Temple is under new management. Dario calls his father before passing out. As much as I haven't liked the more heelish characterization of Dario...there's no way they can kill him off. Like, absolutely no way. A lot of interesting prospects here that really make me hope season 4 does happen. Overall, I thought Ultima Lucha Tres was a huge turnaround compared to the disappointment that was Ultima Lucha Dos. Better matches and for the most part better booking. I thought season 3 as a whole really delivered in the in-ring department while seriously lacking in storytelling until the very end.

Just when it looked like Hell of War would run away with being the best match of Ultima Lucha, Crane, Mil, and Cage said "Hold our beers". Not sure if I would say it was better, but practically on the same level.

Nominating: Kento Miyahara vs. Suwama (AJPW 10/9) Great bomb-throwing title match. Suwama starts working the knee of Kento early to take away his mobility and running knee (he even kicks his knee out to avoid the deadlift German). Kento responds in kind by going after Suwama's knee and we eventually get to a crazy bomb-throwing stretch. Kento is super resilient and keeps Suwama offguard with his speed only for Suwama to cut him off with a huge strike or clothesline. It ultimately comes down to who has a deeper tank and can land the bigger blow. Only issues with this match are that Kento is still able to hit the running knee despite Suwama working it over early and the fighting spirit spots (Kento is basically immune to German suplexes). But other than those, really great selling by both men. ****3/4.

Saw the preview for tonight's episode on Youtube. The three-way for the gauntlet looks to be a bloodbath.

Well, this was an awesome match. Usos/New Day has not only been the best tag team feud this year by a landslide, it's also one of the very best feuds overall. Started off rather light-hearted with New Day using multiple, brightly-colored trombones but quickly escalated into some unbelievable violence. Absolutely jarring visuals such as pinning Jey to the cell with three kendo sticks and Xavier being hoisted onto the ring post with handcuffs. Proof that you don't necessarily need blood to sell a violent match. The Usos continued to prove their the best tag team in the world not named the Revival but Big E and Xavier showed incredible resiliency and fire. Great nearfalls and incredible drama make this one of the best WWE matches of the year. ****1/2

Was really bored by this match. Way too many chinlocks to try and build heat. Nakamura's comebacks were decent but not enough to save this trudge. Ending was also pretty underwhelming considering the Singh Brothers got sent to the back and Nakamura STILL lost clean. **, and that's being generous.