El-P

Lackluster does not even begin to express the latest few episodes, and the Rikishi one is yet another. They just fly over everything from the Head Shrinkers to the Sultan in about 5 minutes, as it's basically less about Fatu than about the Rikishi gimmick. Then you have Bruce not being able to say what the fuck the word "rikishi" means, which I find really embarrassing. Talk about living in a wrestling bubble and having zero respect for the culture you're turning into gimmicks. As a sumo fan, I've never cared for the gimmick anyway. Always liked Fatu as a worker going back to the Shrinkers, but the fact he was never over more than being a fat guy doing a poor sumo cosplay dancing and shoving his bare ass in the face of his opponents says a lot about how much the Attitude Era sucked. Yeah, that show is badly, badly cruising, and the shorter format actually hurt it quite a bit. Not sure I'm gonna bother for a lot longer at this rate.

This. A few months ago, five human right activist women have been sentenced to death penalty, just because (hey, but now they can drive to their own execution, that's progressive). This regime is atrocious, and the propaganda pieces the WWE ran last time should have been enough for them to be completely blasted. Well, let's see what happens and how those awful people (the WWE I mean) will try to twist an impossible situation into more hypocritical PR. Hint : renaming the event November to Dismember would not be a sensible idea...

This story in the Prichard story was quite interesting indeed. After 30 years of sucking in the ring, Kane now sucks at politics.

Interesting guess. Funny, I was actually glad to not see much of Elgin in NJ cards lately and can't wait until Jeff Cobb shows up. Elgin can go suck in NXT for all I care. On the "Meltz doesn't get it" side (for once, I've been defending him on so many issues), his opinion of Taichi is completely ridiculous. You can absolutely not be a fan of the act if that's not you're style, but to say he's terrible and he does *nothing* makes no sense whatsoever. I'm looking forward to his match with Ospreay and not in a "Can Ospreay carry this terrible guy to a decent match ?" way, but because it's probably gonna be a really good match with some fun shit and a different dynamic. Likewise, the idea that Toa Henare should be a big star leaves me dumbfounded. The guy is decent, but he's reached the point of go-away heat with me, can't stand the gimmick, he looks like a reject from the early 90's WWF (and before someone says how offensive I am because he's playing on his "cultural heritage", fuck off already, the guy is totally overdoing the haka routine and sticks his tongue out like a goof before every spot, he's a walking cliché and he's annoying as hell.).

I really don't see what the incentive for any of those guys would be to sign with the WWE, especially *now*. Apart from an obscene amount of money, what do they have to gain ? They have worked very hard to make themselves stars in NJ and in the indie scene, All In was a huge success, all of this for Cody to get right back to the WWE ? Kenny Omega takes a great pride in his matches and style, and it's obvious he'll never get to work the way he wants in the WWE. He's about to main event the Tokoy Dome, why would he go to the WWE ? Be fed to Roman Reigns ? Work a great mid-card program with Dolph Ziggler and backstage skits with Baron Corbin ? Like I said, apart from an obscene amount of money (which comes from, well, you know whom…), there's nothing to gain for them really now, they are as hot as ever and they pretty much do what they want. In some time, sure, but right now (without even taking in account the possible incoming huge backlash of the saudi deal), I don't see it. (edit : well, of course if Meltz is actually right about the morale being down in NJ now, it's pretty different)

"As an independant contractor (wink wink nudge nudge), I'm not doing this show, thank you very much." Now, THAT would be cool.

Tanahashi vs White was a terrific match, although I must admit I'm not that crazy about that much of an US style match worked in NJ for a "main event". What I did not enjoy though, was the post match angle. White & Gedo didn't need to be associated with the Tongans, especially if that means tons of interferences in White's matches from now on. But the one thing that bugged me the most was the old nWo style beatdown, with no sight of the babyfaces. Isn't Okada the leader of a faction called CHAOS ? So, where the fuck were Ishii, Ospreay, Goto, Yano, SHO & YOH ? Unless it was specified they left the building (which would be odd if Okada stayed), it really made them look like the worst faction ever. Too much lazy style american booking, this. On the other hand, the prospect of Okada & Tana on the same side in the future is interesting. Loved the three-way main event, and I usually don't care at all for the format. My first reaction to the absence of Brandi was "Damn. :(", as the act is better than Cody by himself. Cody did prove me wrong though, as it's probably his best in-ring performance that I've seen. Ok, it doesn't hurt to have Ibushi & Omega with you along for the ride. And what a ride, so much cool stuff character wise and quite a crazy match which actually had me believe Ibushi could win (and Cody has a great nearfall with the small package). Jericho showing up and Takagi as the new LIJ member were cool moments in a decent undercard.

He'll probably get "You've still got it" and "You deserve it" chants back in the US instead. (On a side note, I find it quite ironic yet totally logical (when you actually think about it) that the born-again christian would come back for a huge fat check from the wahhabis...)

Damn, Harold Meij is actually Jim Herd.

When even Erdoğan is on the "babyface" side, you know things are really fucked up... Can't wait for the backlash.

The booker wanted Ultimate Warrior to win...

You mean the journalist who "disappeared" in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul ? Well, people do disappear in Istanbul these days, but yeah, it looks pretty fucking bad. Honestly it was only a matter of time before something like this popped up. They deserve all the shit, and more.

Of course it is. Mercedes didn't impress me that much last year either. I did check out this match because of the hype, and yeah, what you said. But since it happened in the WWE, it's pimped like it was some kind of great match (whereas I'm sure Meiko had about a few hundred matches as good as this one in the last 20 years, and I was never a huge Meiko fan back in the days of joshi craze either, so it's not me assuming things about an old favourite).

Acting class, probably.

It's kind of funny that Steve Corino was never considered good enough for the holy WWE roster, but he's certainly good enough to train the future stars. Good for him though. Plus I guess the trainers get pension and health care.

And there George Carlin pops up in my mind.

The Flair shoot interview is addressed in details. The rest, not so much, it's a bunch of factual elements with Bruce rationalizing every step of the stop/start push without ever really giving a thought about why this guy never got over or why the booking never found a way to put him over (and I don't think there's much interesting told in term of context of the company at the time either). The episode to me was as dull and uninteresting as Carlito's career (and work). What shocked me though is how high Bruce seems to be on the guy, talking about him like he had It, like he was some kind of great worker. It's ironic that it begins with Corny thinking Carly was coasting in OVW and ending with Carly effectively coasting for years in the main roster. In the end, the one thing that can explain such a lackluster stint appears to be as simple as this...

Why ?

Because Nia being Australian doesn't go well with the story of her being related to The Rock and Roman Reigns, who are Samoans but good ol' red white & blue 'mericans, god damnit. She has to be from San Francisco and make a difference.

So I've reached EP6. It slowly kinda progress into a nice little show, although some of the most über indieriffic matches I've really not cared about. Not too sure about the kinda revivalist stuff either as of now (I mean, trying to really go into full 80's mode with the Stud Stable... it's reaching). On the other hand, I've really enjoyed Schiavone on commentary. Salina de la Renta is quickly becoming a favourite of mine, she seems to be an excellent heel manager, which has been such a lost art. Tom Lawlor and Gotch are quite a good act too. Although I know it's different in nature and context, it kinda amuses me to think of Lucha Underground as ECW and MLW as SMW...

I agree. Cody as a character and working along with Brandi as an old-school heel + valet >>>>> Cody by himself doing the modern workrate style match.

DDPY update. 6 months in of using the App (+ one year of the old videos). I've done my best Extreme Psycho workout ever (got up on those damn extreme push-ups, no reps but going up twice was already a feat as far as I'm concerned) and finally hit the 10 Ten seconds push-ups today (ok, 7 done allright, the 8th was a struggle and the last two were as godawful as that Taker vs HHH aussie match, but I never hit the ground with my knees so it counts damnit!). Yay me.

One thing that struck me, is that Ronda really looks like she's on the verge of being "just another girl", if that's not already the case. It's crazy, she should be nothing less than a super special attraction working very near or at the top of the cards (of course, we're not there yet in term of women in WWE). You know, kinda like Lesnar (except without the suckitude).

He's both underrated (by Meltz, in this case) and overrated (by the "he's as good or better than the other Four Pillars" crowd). There has been points when he was actively bad when he was teaming with Jumbo or Kawada up to 95 (after that point, not so much anymore). His best stuff in NOAH is terrific, but overrated in the sense of it's been often portrayed as him "carrying overrated Kobashi/ broken Misawa", when it was clearly not the case. For instance, I just watched the infamous (and great) Kobashi title defense from 2004. Taue's best performance since the Nagata match. Yet, people are confusing the fact that he looked great and better than Kobashi and the fact that the story of the match was him looking great and better than Kobashi, while Kobashi had to give a more subtle, understated performance of a guy who was exhausted by his title reign and had to hang by a thread and use an killer death spot at the end to escape his fate. It has been described by some as "Taue carried Kobashi to a great match and reigned his worst head-dropping tendencies", while in reality, Taue was great at what he did, being a terrific offensive worker, but Kobashi actually made the match really great because of his performance and psychology.

The ending was like the Curtain Call at the glue factory... (until the angle to set up the Saudi show of course, because that's what it was all about)