Edwin

Jim Smallman from PROGRESS has also had his hand in NXT or at least has been spotted backstage with HHH and Gabe, so he may have his hand in it too. The UK indy scene has been booming. PROGRESS in my opinion is the top organization there. They also have strong ties with WWE for the reason I mentioned previously and the WWE UK title defenses there. Depending on my mood, I'll watch a show from an organization, but I'm really looking forward to seeing what EVOLVE's 2018 looks like. They already got off to get a start with the Ringkampf vs. Catch Point and ZSJ title defense against Darby from EVOLVE 98 last month.

This was great. I like Darby a lot, but I am not too high on ZSJ as I feel a lot of his stuff comes off to exhibition-y, however that's not the case here. Darby does a great job working from underneath the majority of the match and using his aerial attack and quicker pacing to try and pull off a flash pin or submission on ZSJ who's built as the superior grappler. ZSJ does a great job at using his grappling based offense and Darby looks like a contortionist getting bent in all type of painful submissions. That's pretty much the tone of the majority of the match. ZSJ strikes usually look terrible, but here he didn't throw that many aside from some pretty neat looking slaps. Darby also punching and slapping his himself to try and fire himself up was a great visual. His fiery comeback was great too. The finishing stretch was neat as they avoided going into overkill and they kept Darby looking like a lunatic as he refused to tap out despite getting his arms all brutally twisted up and having the referee stopping the match instead. Great stuff. ***3/4

Yeah, this was fantastic. The highlight for me were the early grappling exchanges between Thatcher and Garrini. That banana split by Garrini was great. Also the tribute to Frank Shamrock vs. Bas Rutten with them exchanging slaps while in double leglock attempt ws great. I wish this segment of the match would have been longer. WALTER coming as the big bruiser manhandling Williams was also great. The FIP segment was pretty great and those enziguri's from Thatcher along with Williams counter to the bridging pin with the kimura ruled. Very good stuff. ***1/4

Adam Cole: This weekend, I scratched the surface of what I’m capable of here in @WWE...I’ll prove to the world that I am what I say I am...#Undisputed #AdamColeBayBay #NXTTakeover #RoyalRumble Chuck Taylor: hey @ShutUpExcalibur you see this fat piece of shit try to cover up his gut with that silly DDP belly tape? Excalibur: That type of injury only occurs when you've eaten a three tier wedding cake by yourself in one sitting.

Austin Aries vs. ACH has been announced for the MLW show next week. So far they've announced 8 matches: World Title Tournament Opening Round: MVP vs. Tom Lawlor Matt Riddle vs. Jeff Cobb Brody King vs. Shane Strickland Jimmy Havoc vs. Maxwell Jacob Friedman Sami Callihan vs. Darby Allin Chelsea Green vs. Priscilla Kelly Simon Gotch and Seth Petruzelli vs. Jimmy Yuta and Jason Cade Austin Aries vs. ACH Plus they announced: Low Ki Barrington Hughes Mike Parrow Vandal Ortagun Salina de la Renta Kotto Brazil Rhett Giddins

Last year I attended 5 events (EVOLVE, CHIKARA, Pancakes and Piledrivers, ROH and WM) and even though they weren't sold out -- I don't recommend you purchase tickets at last minute for any show. The lines to get into the shows themselves are pretty lengthy despite them not being sold out, plus you would have to add in the time you would spend in line to get tickets. I recommend you grab them directly from their websites. For the WWN events -- EVOLVE, PROGRESS, SHINE, Kaiju Big Battel, Joey Janela Spring Break Bash, etc. -- You can get them from morethanmania.com For the other major events -- WrestleCon Supershow, The Crash, Rev Pro, Impact Wrestling, Pancakes and Piledrivers, CZW, etc. -- You can get them from wrestlecon.com

I fully support Rusev calling Bobby Roode, Bob Roode every week.

If you look up the WrestleCon website, I'm sure there's more shows if you want to attend more shows. Also, last year they began running shows on Tuesday, so if you want to go to other shows during the week, then I'm sure there will be options for that.

I am jealous we didn't get half of these line ups last year. Remember there's also Matt Riddle's Bloodsport where you can only win via KO or submission on Thursday.

https://twitter.com/vicecanada/status/958395648612560896

If you follow them, just skip everything and watch the cage match. It's underwhelming, but there's story progression there.

Not really much else to add to this. This was fantastic. Easy top MOTY candidate and it's going to be hard to surpass it. *****

Sasha looked pretty terrible early on, however she redeemed herself as the match neared the end when she began making somewhat of a heel turn. Aside from that, the current main roster regulars and NXT surprises looked very good. Thought some of the surprise entrants were forgettable, but they got the fans going with the nostalgic pop. Vicki Guerrero smashing Carmella with the briefcase after she moonwalked in front of her was hilarious. Also, stuff like Nia taking a nap mid match was odd. The finishing stretch with the final batch of participants were very good. Overall the match was entertaining and it never dragged. ***1/2

Yes, we heard this about a dozen times from Cole and Graves last night.

Yeah, I believe El-P brought this up when it happened. She's playing homage to Dean Ambrose.

Curious to see how they send Asuka over to SDL... I'm guessing after last night, Sasha vs. Bayley will also be happening at WM too. Most likely in a heatless 7 minute pre-show match.

From the little bits she's been on the mic for the MYC and her UFC interviews, she was pretty bad on the mic. Not judging her based off of that, but just putting that out there. Not that I've watched a whole lot of her, but I thought her whole thing was she came in when no one cared about women's MMA and built its popularity almost from the ground up by cutting pro wrestling style promos on her opponents? No. The first UFC women's division was created to feature her due to her dominance in Strikeforce, not pro wrestling styles promos or anything else.

From the little bits she's been on the mic for the MYC and her UFC interviews, she was pretty bad on the mic. Not judging her based off of that, but just putting that out there.

Odd. She was a pretty big celeb when she was beating every female in the UFC. She co-mained and main evented some of the bigger drawing UFC PPV's for those years, plus she's played some roles in some movies like the Expendables 3 and Furious 7, plus she's had a lot of late night talk show appearances. Since going on that brutal 2 fight losing skid though, her popularity took a massive hit.

Anyone catch wXw Back to the Roots XVII yet? Pretty underwhelming overall. I was really looking forward to the women's title match and the WarGames style single ring cage match, but they were OK at best. I like Killer Kelly a lot, but she's still obviously very green and from what I've seen of Toni Storm, she's seemed OK'ish. The cage match was literally all over the place though and it lacked blood and intensity unfortunately. I started following the organizations this year, so I will try and keep up with all the weekly Shotgun events and the marquee events.

That Vicki -- Carmella interaction... Uhhh...

Just re-watched Almas v. Gargano. Unbelievable stuff. Talk about setting the bar high for tomorrow...

Yeah, this was very good. Shayna's arm work, namely that arm spot were fantastic, as was Ember's selling of it. However the extensive armbar section was waaaaay to long. Ember should've pulled off the flash pin way before, but Ember scratching Shayna's back and arm while screaming in pain was a pretty cool visual. Good stuff. ***1/2

This was a fantastic big vs. little tag opener. I dug UE going after that one AOP's knee to try and bring them down to their size. Some pretty cool selling from that one AOP who got his knee attacked to boot too. I also really dug those knees/thigh strikes in the corner on O'Reilly, ain't no thigh slapping there, just thud from thigh on face/chin. Good stuff. ***1/2

Am watching this in it's entirety now as I missed the majority of it earlier. UE vs. AOP was a fantastic opener. lol @ one of the Gatekeepers from EVOLVE holding onto the pillow with Velveteen Dream's mouthpiece.