tim

Yeah, watching the 99 set WCW still had some momentum after the Fingerpoke. The weeks after the Hogan/Flair double turn and then going into Nash's real title reign, that was where things crashed and burned.

I agree, I can deal with a lot of the NJPW no selling stuff but that was a disaster of a sequence. The match didn't excite me much in general although there was some good stuff in it, and an especially great ending. I still don't think there's been a match this year so far that I'd put in the top 10 of last year's G1 matches, though I should probably rewatch AJ/Ibushi.

Worse. At least for that match every other option for a finish sucked just as much as the non-finish or worse.

That Seth Rollins match is good but if you want the real high-end replace it with vs. Cesaro from July 2013.

Just do Taker vs. Liger for Summerslam while they're at it.

Okay, NXT girls on the main roster, fine. But Steph basically co-opting the debut for her own PR campaign and giving herself the spotlight as the forward thinking feminist executive is annoying as fuck and sort of ruined it for me. The triple submission spot was still cool, very over and felt significant. Can't complain too much because although there were great options to bring in the NXT girls and make it feel like a huge event, zero of them were going to happen.

I'd rather they just did five matches a show and gave the off-guys time to rest rather than throwing them in meaningless tags. It adds filler to the show and doesn't even give the guys as much time off as they should have with this schedule.

Sakuraba/Shibata was one of the best matches of the year. So unique and awesome. I really wish Sakuraba would be in a G1.

Bram/Morgan sucked and the finish looked like shit.

That match started with some great energy but started to drag toward the end and didn't really finish on a high note. Robbie looked good generally.

Pretty fun opener but god damn this camera work is almost unwatchable.

I'll probably watch the first and third hour, True Detective taking up the middle. Don't know if I'll make it through though, I just saw this was on tonight and felt like watching a wrestling show anyway.

Good match worked in a way that felt like an important main event. Lethal's finisher is awful. I don't care for Lethal at all but his family in the crowd makes me give the win a thumbs up just for the moment even though I think it's a bad move. Mediocre undercard.

this show gets a 0/10 if there are no dueling "lets go jay/lets go jay" chants during the main event

How much money would the WWE lose if they went private again? Honest question, I have no idea how that works. Does any company ever do that? Vince is the shareholder, Vince does what he wants. I'm extremely skeptical of this idea that WWE are restricted by what shareholders are thinking. Vince owns an overwhelming majority of the shares, no one could possibly challenge him or put real pressure on him to do something he doesn't want to.

Jacobs vs. Whitmer I Quit match from 2008 is one of my favorite matches ever. I don't know that it's up on any streaming sites anymore though.

I've heard the talking point that MITB feels like Survivor Series' "replacement" in the "Big 4" PPVs quite a few times. I think most people view it as distinctly bigger than most of the PPVs.

the ladder matches fucking sucked tonight

This is how I feel. The PTP are a great act but with WWE you always have to worry that because of this New Day will fade into obscurity. WWE has some really strong tag acts but are far too incompetent to utilize more than two of them at a time. I do appreciate how simple the match was: a long FIP, then on the first hot tag Titus wins during his big run of offense.

I thought that match sucked. First the EC now this, who is agenting these gimmick matches the last month? Boring and Reigns/Bray is probably the least appealing feud I can think of.

Barrett was so hot before his injury when his Bad News gimmick started to really catch on. Now he's totally, absolutely dead.

If I had my pick, Kofi would win MITB.

Eh, this is sort of the story of NJPW for the past year. This will probably end up producing plenty of very good matches and the shows will be fun to watch but there's nothing interesting or exciting about it at all. Nothing to really anticipate. Last year we basically got everything that was good about the previous year's G1 plus two big additional sources of interest in Styles and Honma. This year we get a major contributor SUBTRACTED from the field, a reliably solid guy removed in Davey Jr., and a guy who totally blows added (Elgin). Only thing of note in a positive way is Ibushi when he was out last year. Like all of NJPW for the past year with the exception of last year's G1 and WrestleKingdom it's very disappointing because NJPW has the resources to be a lot more interesting than it is. Really the Japanese WWE in a lot of ways.

Smaller field with way more dates? How is this working? No Suzuki is a big disappointment, the last two years he was a big highlight.

Titus is ALWAYS crazy over when he's given the spotlight. The crowd was going nuts for him during his run of offense.