Grimmas

Agree on Sage Beckett and most of your thoughts comparing it to CWC. Although I'd go four stars on the Viper-Garrett and the Hojo-Blanchard matches. I am really wondering what they are going to do with all this talent. Unless they start expanding their shows to having more women's segments (they really should have 2-3 feuds going on each brand, minimum, but alas) what are the options? Their current thinking makes it difficult, unless they get their own show. Not sure if that is good or bad. I am high on Toni Storm than you Dylan. I think maybe your issue is that she is a less sloppy female Chris Jericho?

Wow, no desire to see any of that. Drop some Coliseum Home Videos, Superstars, house shows, etc..

Thanks for liking the show. Yeah, my Vince sucks. Maybe I just don't have the grapefruits.

Thanks for the Allie updates, doesn't sound as promising as I like, but maybe I'll fit it in once the 5 star GP ends.

Maybe I need to go back and re-watch, but remember I don't remember the low-end preliminary round matches of the CWC beings as pedestrian as the low-end first round matches at the MYC. My recollection was that nearly every match was at least fun, if not good. I'd say a third of the matches here were tepid as all get out. By the time we get to the final eight, the mediocre wrestlers should be eliminated and the quality should improve markedly. Also, I don't mean to sound completely negative. I'm just frustrated that the MYC is only good when it could have great with just a little tweaking. I remember after the first round of CWC being dissapointed with some nothing matches. Of course nothing as bad as Rachel Ellering though.

JAC I think if you only watched the first round of the CWC you'd be in the same spot.Useless talent, lots of matches some awesome, some good, a few nothing.

It's been two weeks, so let's get caught up on the wrestling world with another podcast! s01e02 "No One is at Ron Bass' Table" Join Steven Graham (@StevenGrahamTWS), Steve Williams (SteveDubRN), and JR Goldberg (@wrestlingbubble) as they "watch" the 1988 Royal Rumble. On this episode we discuss: Jeff Jarrett and TripleMania, the awfulness of Sexy Star, the greatness of Asuka, our stories of meeting wrestlers in real life, how does WWE push main eventers?, plus much more!

For some reason I thought the match was particularly sloppy. I thought it was Rachel's fault though, so what do I know? Me too.

She's been awesome in singles in Stardom all of 2017 at the very least.

I've seen the whole first round now. Some amazing production as the CWC. About the same quality for the first round. The "main event" of each of the first four episodes were all awesome, with there being good to ok matches on the under cards. They should sign about 25 of these wrestlers at the least. Lots of great talent.

Ok, I don't like JR either and I have seen people hating the commentary. It's fine. It's not that shitty, it's not heel Michael Cole or anything. There are annoying parts, but it's fine.

Are they doing anything with Allie right now?

I reviewed this on my blog, way better than I thought. I really enjoyed the story of Io being cocky and Mandy just surprising her. Mandy was a little sloppy, but the story was good. Shocking ending though. *** 1/2

I'm in shock. I am going to assume you made up that rating to smear Dave's name.

Triple H won him the belt a year ago and that was never paid off?

I loved it.

I thought this was pretty good. It followed there feud well from the house shows. Kagetsu and her cronies did a great job of throwing everything at Mayu and she had to overcome them all. Plus, Mayu got hung, dropped from a high height, then thrown down the stairs. Fuck. Finishing stretch was intense, including Kagetsu hitting an insane choke slam, and Mayu killing her with vicious suplexes. I'd go with like *** 1/2.

It started at 7, you missed 4 or 5 matches. It's not been good.

That's odd, because that is the exact way I'd want to watch it. One week to watch half of it, seems like a perfect amount of time. Doing an hour a week, is too slow for me in how much I want to see this.

They were both awesome and I think it may be a toss up. Loved last night's match, best thing on the show.

Thank you so much. That's what we are aiming for, just fun wrestling discussion.

This sums up my thoughts perfectly. It's become a vicious cycle of fans following the WON getting into wrestling and learning what a great match is from reading the WON.

Considering his history and taste over the years, it makes perfect sense. Flair > Michaels > Angle > Omega. You can see the morphing of old NWA style turing into a go-go-go style matches (Flair) to the same classic US stuff with way more athletic spots (Micheals) to an even more go-go-go style with lots of finisher kick-outs and reversals "like in Japan" (Angle) to the mutation of the style through the latest Japanese stuff influenced back by the US indies mentality (Omega). (and that's not to say I mean Flair is like the other three, although my feelings about Flair as a worker are pretty clear by this point, great but overrated too; in that respect, I can see the "flow of taste" from Meltz making sense to me although I obviously strongly disagree. I'd rather watch Bockwinkle, Bret, Joe or Naito) This is sort of it. It makes sense. It's an actualization of Meltzerism in wrestling to a big degree. It's fans of fans of wrestlers wrestling now. It's a processing of wrestling to maximize what he values and minimize what he doesn't. I won't fall into the argumentative trap that people in wrestling never wanted to have good matches, but I don't think we've ever been at a point where people want to have matches that would specifically earn them five stars from a single source. It makes sense that people seeking to do that would manage to do it more than anyone before them. The issue is if a watcher happens to think that Dave's criteria are backwards and clownish. Johnny P, JR Goldberg, and myself discussed this very topic on the Royal Ramble podcast this week. We talk about this for about an hour, if anyone wants to hear our thoughts.

https://soundcloud.com/prowrestlingonly/royalramble101 Royal Ramble - s01e01 - Five Star Fear Welcome to the season premier of the Royal Ramble. Join Steven Graham, Johnny P, and JR Goldberg as they barely (and I mean barely) live watch the 1995 Royal Rumble. Turn to the 59 minute mark on the WWE Network to watch along at home and press play with the buzzer. On this episode we discuss: divides among wrestling fans, New Japan Pro-Wrestling, evolution of wrestling fandom, gatekeepers, Dave Metlzer and taste making, "this is awesome!" and much much more!

So 7 stars or 6 and 1/2?