Grimmas

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?

For those who have seen the NJPW matches, are they all worth the nominations? I've read on twitter there has been at least three five star matches the last three nights.

Harts vs Killer Bees is the only thing close for me. Grimmas, I know you are from Toronto. Were you of the right age to have attended the Frank Tunney Memorial Tag Team tournament at Maple Leaf Gardens? I was there, and (as I recall, although this may be nostalgia, not an accurate reflection of quality) it was great. The Killer Bees won the tournament and got a shot at The Hart Foundation in the Main Event. For a long time, many of the matches were available on YouTube but sadly I don't think they are anymore. Anyhow, +1 for the Killer Bees vs. Harts love. I grew up in Brockville a 4 hour drive away. Never got to Maple Leaf Gardens. However saw that show on dvd a few years ago and it's a lot of fun.

Harts vs Killer Bees is the only thing close for me. Gotta be Strike Force vs Islanders Shit, forgot those. Harts are fresh, b/c I'm rewatching every Bret match ever. The Bees was their best opponent. Yeah, SF-Islanders is outstanding. I don't like the Rockers-Brainbusters series, but people like that as well. I think Demolition-Brainbusters is an all-time great feud, but what do I know.

Harts vs Killer Bees is the only thing close for me.

I signed up for Stardom World like a week ago and have already watched every Kourakaen Hall main event, plus everything else that looked cool from 2017. I am loving this promotion, great characters and variety and awesome matches with logical booking. Subtitled promos and no announcing are other huge pluses. Very pumped to follow this tournament along. Lots of fun potential matches, and it will be neat that the entire heel stable is all in one block. Going to be wild. Lots of different ways to go with booking, but I'm hoping for a Mayu vs Toni Storm finals.

Yes you do, the Glamour Girls ruled! There is a good amount of Jumping Bomb Angels vs Glamour Girls matches, that were on par or above anything else going on the WWF in the 80s.

Me too, I thought it was a great show. Plus it was nice to watch something wrestling with my wife and having her really like it. That only happens with Bayley in NXT.

Come on people:

I think this is something that could be a lot of fun. I this thread, nominate any awesome matches you see (that took place in August 2017) with a little reason why. We can discuss the match, people can approve and disagree. Sometime later on, we will pull the top nominations and do a poll. This is something that can keep going with a new thread every month. Anyways, it's August, what is great? I'll start it off with the only August match I have on my database, so far. Nomination: John Cena vs Shinsuke Nakamura (WWE Smackdown, 8/1) This gave a glimpse of what could be a great rivalry, as they chemistry is really good. The charisma really stood out here. Absolutely loved Nakamura's not seeing and then seeing Cena motions. It was a bomb fest sprint, as it was a TV match, but I thought it was super entertaining. **** for me, and an easy nomination.