Edwin

That MLW show in Orlando last night was a ton of fun. Darby Allin and Jimmy Havoc vs. Shane Strickland and John Hennigan was great. Curious to see how it comes across on video. Allin maybe the craziest dude in wrestling currently. Was looking forward to Matt Riddle vs. Tom Lawlor, but it was one of the first matches and I missed most of it. Riddle and Jeff Cobb vs. Tom Lawlor and whoever he chooses as a partner. I'll definitely be back next month for the next show.

MLW is holding another event on Thursday at the GILT Nightclub in Orlando. The card looks pretty good on paper: Matt Riddle vs. Tom Lawlor Shane Stickland and John Hennigan vs. Darby Allan and Jimmy Havoc in a hardcore tag match MVP vs. Brody King Santana Garrett vs. Laurel Van Ness Joey Ryan vs. MJF Sammy Guevara vs. Jason Cade Jimmy Yuta vs. Vandal Ortagun Mike Parrow vs. Saieve Al Sabah Seth Petruzelli and Rhett Giddins vs. the Dirty Blondes I missed their last show and kinda regret it, so I'm possibly picking tickets up tonight for this one. Really looking forward to Riddle vs. Lawlor and the hardcore tag match.

Surprised this is the only mention of Dundee. Talk about throwing great looking punches, his were some of the best imo. Edit:

Shinobu Kandori is fighting Gabi Garcia in an MMA fight on December 29 for RIZIN. The fight was originally scheduled to take place last year on NYE, but Kandori had to pull out due to an injury and Yumiko Hotta stepped in and got crushed by Gabi in the fight. Hotta did get to run the ropes in the fight though! Also if youre not familiar with who Gabi is, then do a quick Google search. Shes a huge BJJ world champ.

Jim Cornette praised him a lot for this. He also said he learned to throw his punches from Bobby. If you watch the matches between the Midnight Express and the Original Midnight Express, Cornette throws a few right hands and they are very similar to Bobbys.

Tajiri benefited from great camera work that didnt make it as obvious. Michael Elgin on the other hand makes it blatant. Even for chops. Might have been in a separate thread where I read about Flair doing a similar practice technique with a string hanging from the ceiling. He had to punch it without making the string move.That Flair story is on the 30 For 30 documentary.

Anyone with obvious thigh slapping immediately is my nomination for worst striking. Michael Elgin - would take my vote. Talk about obvious thigh slapping.

Hopefully they filmed it for a future network special. Sounds like it was a good show with a good crowd. From what I've seen, it was a fantastic show, however it doesn't seem like it was tapped for TV. I would be all for a Rock 'n' Roll Express vs. the Revival tag match.

https://twitter.com/ricflairnatrboy/status/934457365298057216 Not sure if this goes here or not, but this is a thing unfortunately...

Not TV, but Starrcade is tonight. As most people who watch the current product, Im bummed this isnt airing anywhere.

Edit: Wrong thread. Delete, please.

I won't argue that Cena wouldn't do a big buy rate if he fought in MMA, but the card that CM Punk fought on did not do a big buy rate. Also the card was not solely sold on Punk making his UFC debut as he wasn't even in the main event or co-main event. Punk fought at UFC 203 which drew 450K buys which isn't considered a big buy rate (unless you compare it to most of the disastrous PPV numbers of this year). That proved that Punk was not the draw that people thought. The fact that he did not draw the number that was expected and the fact that he got wrecked by a virtual unknown are the two reasons why they are struggling to get him another fight.

OK... No one said you cared about their fighting merits, but simply because you don't care it doesn't mean that millions of people don't care... And yes, their fighting merits have a lot to do with their drawing power. The reason Ronda became a draw in the UFC was because she was finishing other WMMA fighters fairly easily. Hadn't she been able to dominate them, she wouldn't have become the star she was. I never said Ronda was a fraud, secretly a terrible fighter or anything along those lines. I implied she was a limited fighter that brought into her own hype and that's why she got wrecked. Which if you actually knew anything about fighting, would know as it's pretty obvious. Conor is a smart man. He's done some acting, has been featured on various video games, is working on a whisky company, on a clothing company, etc, etc, etc. Conor knows this is his moment and he's milking it for all he can. Conor already said he wasn't going to stick around for long which is something you obviously didn't know. He's been clear he's been in it for the big payday and then he's working on other projects and heading out to live the life he's always wanted to live. I also have no idea why you're trying to predict the future and how that could affect the current moment we are in which is what Meltzer and everyone is talking about. We are not talking about who will be remember more in 20 years or will not be remember in 20 years. We are talking about the current moment we live in. Cena's wrestling base is small. Maybe even smaller than McGregor UFC base. McGregor is the biggest draw in UFC drawing 1.65M buys in the second Nate Diaz fight, 1.5M buys for the first Nate Diaz fight, 1.4M buys for the José Aldo fight and 1.3M for the Eddie Alvarez fight. We could also add the 4.4M buys he did as the B-side in the Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight. Cena on the other hand has never drawn those numbers by himself and much less as the B-side which was when he main evented WrestleMania 28 against the Rock. And I hope you don't even try and debate that Cena was the A-side against the Rock which would obviously be absurd. OK... The UFC and MMA are also niché, but let's not act like there aren't millions of UFC and MMA out there still... Hollywood obviously dwarfs the UFC and MMA (and wrestling), but that doesn't mean UFC and MMA publicity isn't important too. OK, and? No one is debating against that as it's obvious... If the Rock had not gotten into wrestling and had followed his walk into becoming a football player like he wanted to, he would not have become the movie star he has. Again, who's talking about 20 years from now? No one but yourself. We are all talking about the current moment. And lol @ people in other sports don't have the same luxury of time. That is laughable and it obviously proves you do not follow, watch or know enough about any other sports and just live in this pro-wrestling bubble.

You couldn't be anymore wrong than you are. Ronda at her peak was nowhere near Conor, so comparing them is horrible. Also Conor is an entirely different fighter than Ronda. Ronda brought into her own hype and that's why she got wrecked. Conor on the other hand is a smarter fighter and picks fights carefully. That's why he avoids taking certain fights. He knows who he matches up with better stylistically and he also knows who he can draw the most money with. He also got choked out by Nate Diaz and TKO'd by Floyd Mayweather Jr. and if anything those 2 loses made him a bigger star than he already was. That pretty much disproves you're argument. Also lol at implying that Cena's rise to popularity has anything to do with Big Match John and not because he's extremely charismatic and marketable. I'm sure whenever he's being considered for movie roles the producers and writers are thinking "Jeee, hopefully we can get Big Match John to show up."

A couple of days ago he was arguing that Conor McGregor was more popular than John Cena because he made more money... Sigh.

I get that you're not impressed with Finn and that there's nothing I could say to make you change your mind, but... Finn vs. AJ was excellent. I know you'll credit it to it being AJ and negate Finn's performance, but that was fantastic. IIRC his match with Reigns on that RAW where he earned a spot in the Universal title match was pretty good too. He was also super over in NXT and is super over on RAW. How has Nakamura been a flop on the main roster? They built his debut as one of the selling points for that one PPV in which he debuted on, gave him various title matches and has been featured as one of the top guys on SDL beating some fo the big names on the show. The fact that he hasn't won the title yet doesn't mean he's been a flop.

On DEEP -- I wrote a little on them in the Comments that don't warrant a thread - Part 4 thread. There were originally going to be a pro-wrestling organization instead of a straight up shoot MMA organization per the PRIDE Secret Files. Here's the bit on them: On Sakuraba vs. Newton -- There's always been talk that there was a gentleman's agreement backstage where they agreed to focus mainly on grappling and thus the lack of strike exchanges in it. The best grappling exchanges I've ever seen in MMA fights featured Daisuke Nakamura. He's a former U-Style guy who transitioned over to MMA. He's a master at armbars. His 2 fights against Bogdan Christea and Hideo Tokoro are amazing. Tokoro had some particularly great grappling exchanges in some fights IIRC too. I believe he had a great grappling center match against Abel Cullum in DREAM some years ago, but I haven't seen that fight in forever.

Mauro's better suited for MMA than pro-wrestling. His commentary for PRIDE and Strikeforce was fantastic.

Those last couple of minutes after the Tornado DDT botch were fantastic.

So RAW has the better contenders and SDL has the better champs...

Charlotte going to the top rope in a single match is pretty much a guaranteed missed moonsault spot.

My biggest problem with these Survivor Series matches is the fact that the partners just let their teammates get eliminated without trying to break up the pin or submissions. They encourage and applaud this in tag matches, yet it goes ignored in Survivor Series matches. Also Cesaro standing on the middle rope while one of the Usos countered White Noise and tried pinning Sheamus reminded me of this.

I read the PRIDE Secret Files some years ago and I posted some cliff notes of it on Sherdog. Here's the wrestling side related of it for those of you interested: I posted more cliff notes on Sherdog forum. If you'd like to read the rest including the MMA portion such as them negotiating for a Mike Tyson world tour featuring boxing matches against Fedor Emelianenko and Mirko Cro Cop, Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Evander Holyfield, "Sugar" Ray Leonard or Oscar de la Hoya and such, please visit this link: PRIDE Secret Files.

7 stars. Unbelievable main event.

Not sure if anyone has brought this up yet, but I attended the second night of tapings and I'll just say it was far better than I expected it to be. It was actually very good. Tons of very good matches, although I'm not sure how they'll do after all of the editing.