Edwin

Looking into it yesterday on twitter introduced me to a whole different part of wrestling twitter that I did not know existed. Like there are whole groups of fans out there (seemingly with a large portion of them being Bella Stan twitter) who either legitimately think, or just pretend, that what happens on WWE TV is legit. No surprise there. There's also obsessed fans who have wrestlers names as their own and just Tweet pics and animated gifs of said wrestler all day. How do thee people get to mount to 20K followers is beyond me. Not strictly wrestling related anymore, but CM Punk was getting trolled by some dude who was trolling him about him tapping out and getting dominated in his UFC fight and Punk told him to continue making ugly kids and the guy got all riled up about it. It was quite funny. I mean, the guy got what he deserved. You troll someone, then you have to be willing to take it back.

Watched EVOLVE 71, I didn't feel it was as good as last nights show. Gulak vs. Thatcher was pretty wild and Hero vs. Riddle was pretty good. I didn't pay a lot of attention to ZSJ vs. Yehi, I didn't like the glimpse I caught of it. Hero vs. Gulak is still my favorite match of the weekend.

I was at the show, here's some thoughts: Darby Allin vs. Anthony Hicks I missed the majority of it as I decided to steep out to grab some snacks. I did grasp the second half or so of it and it wasn't anything special. Nathan Cruz vs. Jason Kincaid This did nothing for me either. I wasn't overly impressed by either guys performance to be honest. The entire match just felt kind of flat. Fred Yehi vs. DUSTIN This was alright. Nothing really special honestly. First time seeing Yehi and I thought he was alright. I'm a fan of DUSTIN, but his performance was pretty underwhelming. Gatekeepers Squash These guys are huge. I was very impressed with them, but I'm curious to see how good they'd be in a match where they're not running through their opponents. Timmy Thatcher vs. Ethan Page I thought this was pretty fun live, but I can see why some people may not dig this on video. I thought both guys were pretty good, however Thatcher's headbutt's looked very weak. Ethan's a comedic heel from what I could grasp here similar to that of Chuck Taylor or DUSTIN, except I think DUSTIN is much better at that. The Gatekeepers were at ringside and interfered and there was 2 ref. bumps which I thought was a little odd. Stolkey Hathway running out to confront and make an offer to Thatcher was pretty fun too. Stolkey reminds me of Prince Nana. Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Tracy Williams The first half of this match was somewhat uninteresting and pointless, but the second half was something else. The submission exchanges in this were beautiful. Seeing Tracy roll with ZSJ, I could tell Tracy has trained BJJ before. Tracy looked on a heel hook on ZSJ that looked gross and he looked it on with excellent technique. ZSJ's escape from it was grand as he started slapping Tracy in the face and Tracy did his best Frank Shamrock Pancrase impersonation before they started kicked each other in the face and chest while twisting each others ankles. Tracy's escape from a ZSJ triangle choke wasn't exactly Rampage vs. Arona level brutal, but it looked pretty unsafe and I'd be surprised if ZSJ wasn't concussed from it. Tracy hit a nasty Piledriver after it to boot. The strike exchanges between these 2 were brutal too. From what I've read online, the crowd reaction didn't come out on video, but the crowd was hot for the second half of the match. Chris Hero vs. Drew Gulak Holy heck was this a manly match. My pick for MOTN. This alone made the show well worth the money. These guys stiffed the heck out of each other. They held nothing back and just beat the heck out of each other for over 20 minutes. This felt a lot more like a fight than anything else. Hero's strikes are brutal. He just beat the snot out of Gulak with elbows and big boots. Hero just telling Gulak he's a piece of crap while kicking him was great. Gulak's deadlift backdrop is a thing of beauty. The build up to the backdrop was awesome as Hero continuously taunted Gulak telling him he wasn't going to let him drop him on his head, but he got a huge pop for when he was finally able to deliver it. Insanity all around. Highly recommended. Matt Riddle vs. AR Fox This was a bit short, but very fun too. Riddle is coming along nicely despite still being a rookie in pro-wrestling. His strikes seemed a little weak, but I guess he's still holding back a bit and is still a little timid. His twister submission was an awesome choice for a finisher with his MMA background as it's one of the best and hardest submissions to pull off and looks great when it's actually done. As for AR Fox, he got all of his spots in which are rather amusing.

I don't really watch NXT on TV regularly, but the times I've gone to NXT events, the fans have been behind her. She doesn't get the Bayley level reactions, but there's definitely fan support there. I guess that probably doesn't transfer as well on TV possibly.

I won't try to discredit Punk and can appreciate the fact that he actually went through with it, but he didn't do that well. He tried throwing a wild looping right hand and got taken down easily by Gall who then proceeded to dominate him on the ground. Punk showed no hip movement and just looked like a fish out of water on the ground. I'm not sure what Punk's belt ranking is in BJJ right now, but he looked like a novice white belt on the ground. I doubt he's a white belt as he's been doing BJJ for a couple of years, but he didn't look like he had been doing BJJ before. If he's still a white belt after the amount of years he's been doing BJJ, then he's a very slow learner or didn't train 4-5 days a week. Gall is a brown belt, so that fight went exactly as it was expected to go. There's a reason why white belts and brown belts shouldn't be rolling competitively and it was visible there. Gall is a brown belt, but from what I understand he's kind of a grappling savant. He has won multiple high level jiu-jitsu tournaments and held his own against Gordon Ryan, who a lot of people think is the best grappler in the world. Gall is a legit MMA prospect who is really smart about how to market himself. Honestly, he was only in that fight because he is so young, and only had two pro fights. He called out CM Punk after his first pro fight, if he had 5 or 6 fights there is no way they would have put Punk in the cage with him. His next fight is against Sage Northcutt, who is a guy who the UFC has been pushing as a blue chip prospect. I would not be surprised if Gall beats him. The problem with Gall is that he lacks experience and he's never fought anyone on Sage's level yet. He's only beat virtual unknowns in MMA, so it's hard to say how good he currently is. Gall has a ton of potential, but I don't see him beating guys as experience as Sage yet.

MMA fans hated the idea of Punk fighting in the UFC entirely. They knew he was going to get steamrolled. The MMA media on the other hand is a joke.

I won't try to discredit Punk and can appreciate the fact that he actually went through with it, but he didn't do that well. He tried throwing a wild looping right hand and got taken down easily by Gall who then proceeded to dominate him on the ground. Punk showed no hip movement and just looked like a fish out of water on the ground. I'm not sure what Punk's belt ranking is in BJJ right now, but he looked like a novice white belt on the ground. I doubt he's a white belt as he's been doing BJJ for a couple of years, but he didn't look like he had been doing BJJ before. If he's still a white belt after the amount of years he's been doing BJJ, then he's a very slow learner or didn't train 4-5 days a week. Gall is a brown belt, so that fight went exactly as it was expected to go. There's a reason why white belts and brown belts shouldn't be rolling competitively and it was visible there.

The ref screwed up the finish and they keep on replaying it. Cedric Alexander's brainbuster is a thing of beauty. I wish more guys would start using this regularly. I also hope they tell the fat guy in the front row with the Paul Heyman Guy to sit still. He's been extremely annoying and distracting.

Super pumped to see TJP made it to the finals. I thought he looked much better in the match than Ibushi.

I believe I read somewhere that this was his last match and that he's going away. Seriously Jericho maybe the worse wrestler in the world right now.

At this point, I don't think they even know what he is aside from being "THE GUY" whatever that means...

Reigns vs. AJ II from Extreme Rules -- Another great match between these 2. These guys just mesh well together. Reigns popped out a ton of new amazing power moves that looked brutal and they worked extremely well against AJ who's open to taking crazy bumps. The false finishes were excellent too and the run ins were well timed. The result was expected, but it was still an amazing match. Also voting yes for Reigns vs. AJ I from Payback and to Nakamura vs. Zayn from NXT TakeOver Dallas.

Expected finish, but another great match between these 2. I hope they drag this feud out a little longer.

Agreed. Reigns particularly benefits from AJ being much smaller and willing to take crazy bumps.

Kinda figured. Being a "technical wrestler" is one of heck of a gimmick. I ask a friend of mine who was telling me how Bret, Angle, etc. were great technical wrestlers and I asked him what exactly a good "technical wrestler" was and he replied and I quote: "Someone who does a lot of moves..." I just laughed and said how is Bret a technical wrestler then as he did the same 5-6 moves per match.

It's quite fun.

You know, I really don't even know what being a good wrestler is or what being a technical wrestler is anymore.

And that Nattie is awful.

She looks nothing like she did in NXT. That match was awful. Natalya isn't any good or at least she hasn't been any good on anything I've ever watched her in. Charlotte isn't lighting the world on fire either, but at least she can have some decent matches when paired with the right opponents. That Ambrose Asylum maybe the worse match I've ever watched. Completely awful.

There original plan was have Taker facing someone willing to take a beating and flying off the top of the cage.

Even though I didn't pay that much attention to Kalisto vs. Ryback, from what I grasped of it, I thought it was good. I really liked KO vs. Zayn. Not as good as most of their indy matches, but still good. KO is easily the best heel they have. Not sure what the general opinion is on KO going after Cole and Byron, but I think it's good fun. Miz vs. Cesaro was alright. Seems like another 4 way feud over the IC title. DIdn't pay attention at all to Ziggler vs. Corbin, but it didn't look like anything special. Sucked what happened to Enzo. I hope he's ok.

It's being ran during an NXT taping setup, so it surely seems like it's a Trips project completely. Triple H with Gabe Sapolsky backstage at an EVOLVE show during Royal Rumble weekend in Orlando around the time this entire thing was starting to get rumored. Regal and Gable were also there.

I read that rumor a couple of days ago and I hoped it was just a rumor. The brand split sucks for the obvious reasons. The rumor I read was RAW would be run by Shane and would feature most of the top names, while the Authority ran Smackdown and they kept the rest and had NXT guys working there.

I think it's funny/sad how HHH wears a suit and is all corporate for the entire show. 10 minutes left and he's in t-shirt, jeans and leather jacket and he's ready to go... I guess that's the transition from Corporate Triple H to Cerebral Assassin Triple H or something.

Ok -- I asked in the weekly WWE thread and got no reply, so here's another shot: