Death From Above

Ambrose vs. Owens I was surprised how sprint-y this was, but the crowd seemed to get into it for the finish at least. Not as long as I expected, but a good end stretch. I like Ambrose but stop that rebound clothesline. Please.

ONE FINGER

ECW vs. The Wyatts I watched a lot of IWA-Japan back in the late 1990's in my VHS tape trading days, and this was perfectly fine as the IWA-Japan match between a bunch of random people trying not to die that kills time until Tarzan Goto wrestles in the main event. This was nothing you need to see but it didn't, like, offend me or anything. Strowman should be the guy that eats 10 dudes in the Royal Rumble then gets eliminated by the winner this year.

What's with Dreamer and the polka dots? I want the Wyatts to win this match in 72 seconds then cut a 10 minute promo about demons.

Del Rio vs .Swagger I couldn't possibly care less about this match, probably the thing I was least interested in. I don't get that whole ankle lock sequence. It looked like Del Rio was looking under the ring for a prop but it wasn't where he expected it to be so they just did something else instead. This was not very good and the crowd didn't care. I actually like a lot of Del Rio's mannerisms and his general heel-ish attitude he brings but his matches aren't doing anything for me right now.

I also thought it was okay. Wasn't anything special but was never going to be. Curious where they are going with this Lana fakes injuries angle.

Lawler shooting about marriage is cracking me up.

New Day defeats Usos and Lucha Dragons by Man Throws a Trombone in 25:00 It all happened and I saw

This triple threat tag ladder match is fucking nuts and I love it.

Oh my God please tell me someone gif'd the guy behind New Day in the front row doing their big wiggle with them

"Tonight the League of Nations will leave an indellible mark on the landscape of the WWE." Stop Sripting Things Like This

The pre show seems to be coming up on the main website for most people now.

From the last couple weeks of TV there is really no justification for this, but I actually think this show could be better than expected. I'm really struggling to figure out a finish for the main event. Roman killing Sheamus really makes the last month seem like a total waste of time, but I have a hard time believing they are going to run too long with the belt on him either. I expect something WACKY and UNEXPECTED out of left field.

Those flashing sunglasses were so ridiculous even by wrestling's standards of excess. He was like a cowboy interpreted through the eyes of extraterrestrials.

Whenever I see Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake's various bizarre tights/bowtie/gloves, I imagine to myself this is what people that hate wrestling think wrestlers look like. Hee even had some where it looked like he cut out portions of the original material and replaced it with, like, sheer material from lingerie which was doubly bizarre.

Late on this thread but I'll send some more good energy your way.

I don't really understand that quote outside of the context of "wrestlers saying bullshit things" (which is what it is so now let me put too much thought into it), because isn't the whole point of that kind of testing to measure your brain against itself at other times, as opposed to your brian vs. other brains?

Is it certian that Bryan isn't coming back? That's pretty brutal. Seems almost certain that Austin is involved somehow? I mean... it's Texas.

I loved the Starrcade '87 match. I wondered for years what was clipped out of it on the original home video release, turns out years later it was just like a minute of the crowd chanting "Garvin sucks" I guess because he was a babyface they just edited it out. They just really lay into each other that whole match, Garvin really had a Rocky Balboa vibe that he hits hard enough he could beat anybody on his day. I know he's viewed as a flop champion, but that match is still damn good.

It was good enough for DVDVR #174 it's good enough for me.

http://youtu.be/c46JC32BUrY I'm probably the last person qualified to talk about lucha as I've seen less lucha than probably any of the super serious wresting fans on this board, but this seems like the kind of thing worthy of discussion as a slight oddity due to location at the very, very least. I'm stunned by how few Youtube views this has because I found it on a whim running a search for, to me, two of the biggest names ever in lucha just curious to actually see a singles match between the two. This was a match that was part of a university exhibit in England on Mexican wrestling. This seems to be an old event listing of it that is still available: https://www.essex.ac.uk/arenamexico/events.htm I'm pretty sure this is the match that several years ago board member S.L.L. had a really long, detailed post about breaking down how much he enjoyed seeing these guys work a non-traditional wrestling audience. Overall this is probably a great match for someone like me that hasn't been exposed to a lot of these guys or Mexican wrestling on the whole, because it does definitely feel like a big match being worked as an exhibition for an audience where they're trying to show them the whole range of stuff they can do. Crowd is really great for this and are 100% behind Santo. You have to love a crowd that gives Blue Panther heat basically any time he throws any kind of strike at all. With pre and post-match cut this is probably right around 30 minutes even. It's interesting that they work about 10 minutes on the mat, then things pick up into a big action sequence for a while, then they take it back to the mat, and then go into another big action sequence for the finish. It's definitely easy to stay into their wrestling sequences as both guys have ways of getting themselves into positions for crazy lucha holds without being totally over-contrived about it. The majority of the match is controlled by Santo which means a lot is put on Panther's selling and he overall does a great job of taking a lot of holds and moves here, while also getting in his good share of offense in a couple stretches. There are a couple slightly unclean moments when things don't come off the way they'd like but again both guys are veterans and pros and really don't have any problem at all working around that without it disrupting the flow of the event at all. To me, I feel like I got what I came for here. A really long, entertaining match where two legendary workers really show you the range of their skills. Kind of surprised that based on view count this is a fairly obscure match. It seems like exactly the sort of thing these folders are about finding and discussing, so what the hell, I thought I'd put a thread out there.

I actually wasn't watching WWE in '05 but Eddie's promo after turning on Rey is fucking amazing. Basically boils down to "because the Dark side makes me feel strong".

The Warlord will nominate himself and you will sit there and you will like it.

I'm not even sure how to describe this if you haven't seen it. The level of violence in this is just so far above what pro wrestling is usually aiming for. I'm not really that familiar with Super Dragon but I've seen quite a few Necro Butcher matches and he's really a goddamn unique, and scary worker. There aren't a lot of guys in wrestling that actually scare me, but Necro Butcher does. He does shit that just makes him seem... unhinged. Like, any dude that will do this to himself you really don't want to mess around with. The funny thing is I've seen a couple out of character clips of him on Youtube and he seems like the calmest, mellowest guy. Judging from this match Super Dragon is only slightly less crazy than Necro Butcher. This match is like wrestling's versioin of a Dario Argento Italian galleo horror film. It's gonna be intense. Necro's hand selling is great and comes off a lot less forced than other times I've seen guys try doing the same thing, and it definitely adds a lot. Necro is also a guy that can do crowd brawling segments that actually work, as opposed to bad crowd brawling which is really just "guys holding each other and walking around" you see sometimes. Not here, fans know well enough to get the hell out of there because you just don't know what these guys will do next. The finish to this match is one of the craziest bumps I've ever seen and it might not even be the craziest bump in this match. I have no idea how Necro Butcher isn't dead. This is a match where I don't really think breaking down individual sequences gets across the overall effect, which is that you just watched something you're not sure if you ever want to see again but at the same time... it was amazing. Scary, brutal, but amazing. You couldn't really duplicate this even if you tried.

I thought the Rose segment was funny. I yelled a lot last night on DVDVR about that main segment but it boils down to I honestly feel bad for both Sheamus and Roman that this is what they're being ordered to do because that was hopeless. One thing I didn't mention that's really bugging me, Sheamus is actually playing a great "dumb guy gets lucky but thinks the success is all him" thing, and the company isn't even playing it up at all because they're so committed to GRRR SERIOUS WORLD TITLE ACTION. This angle would be so much better if it was just openly "hey, Sheamus is gonna die if the League of Nations and Authority don't help him" but instead they want us to buy Sheamus as a threat based on.... absolutely nothing Sheamus has done in the past month. They're just totally neutering everything the guy is going for because if they'd actually just openly go in that direction it would make so much more sense.