El-P

Since the women were the only thing that interested me in my last months/year or so of following WWE, I may lift my ban to watch that particular show. But I will definitely call it Feminist Washing Evolution though. The card looks kinda lame indeed. As much as the oldies were fun in the Rumble, because of the nature of the Rumble itself, having Lita work a match in 2018 sounds horrific (considering she was horrific in her prime to begin with).

Funny how he's become just another corporate drone. Those people are just sad.

This. You could already see the difference at Mania itself. The second he was carried out and Shan-O Mac did that long heatless awful babyface in peril sequence, Bryan's comeback was fucked. They just have no idea how to do anything worthwhile anymore.

No one in Japan gives a flying fuck about Dave Meltzer. I bet 99% of the native New Japan audience doesn't know who the fuck he is. And New Japan still is a japanese promotion for a japanese audience above anything else. And as far as the english announcer mentionning Meltz's stuff, well I watched the entire G1 in English and I don't think they mentionned him more than twice or three times over a nineteen 3 hours events span. If they did more than that it flew over my head, really, it's not like they hammer you over the head with it either. It's just silly at this point.

Well, apart from Madusa being cool as hell (singing "Happy birthay Mr. Schiavone", showing how to "ride bitch" and being a good sport despite the fact she really wasn't aware of the content of the show), the Starrcast edition was kind of a mess, honestly. Barb did tell the context of the infamous "Tommy Young !" gimmick. Scott Steiner cut an offensive promo to close the show (calling Trip & Steph "cunts", among other things !). And really, watching Conrad basically bothered more by his phone than the show really made him look like a douchebag to me.

It's the same with their music industry. Ringo Sheena could/would/should have been a worldwide star like Björk. But they just aren't interested that much. Which I find pretty appealing tbh. They don't *have to* please the Western audience. I take NJPW production over WWE's sterilized shit any day. If anything, I don't enjoy the americanization of the product. Anyone watched some of the Starrcast stuff ? I'm definitely going to watch the Tony Schiavone show and the Jarrett one too.

Considering the hype, the line-up is a tad bit disappointing. Hopefully it will over-deliver and some cool stuff will happen there.

That episode was just awesome, for the most part. Angel Azteca being a good friend to Melissa, hinting on something more to come with Fenix. Catrina smashing Melissa's face in the cage and even better, on the floor. Mil Muertes going all Mr. Pogo on Mack's ass. Catrina denying the lick of death, again. That red dress... And then, the cool and gory pre-wedding vignette. The main event which exceeded any expectation, with Penta having his best performance in a long time, with some actual sympathy selling and trying to murder and cripple Cage (whose selling is still crap, but considering his style, this kind of match is exactly what he needs to be fun to watch). My jaw actually dropped with that Canadian Destroyer from the ropes through a table. The glee in Penta's eyes afterward was pretty great (as was Catrina's looking at Mack bleeding like pig earlier on). Of course Jake Strong is the big miss of this season (there's one each season it seems), he's got nothing going for him at all. But apart from that, this episode was up there with LU as its best to me. Just hope they gonna do this wedding right (and by that I mean, all gonna get fucked up).

Teddy Hart... Morrissey... There's something there.

Clear highlights : The pretty girl with he headset (is she a producer ?) behind the announcers, looking totally bored or checking her phone all the time. "Where the fuck is my music ?" The amazing slaughterhouse that was the 6-men extreme lucha match. Pagano is fucking insane. Murder, whoever he is, is a pretty awesome monster. And hell, that summoned the spirit of FMW (I know BJW has been doing this for 20 years now, but I'm an old FMW fan). Gotta love that this is happening before a family audience. Ahhh, Mexico. It's another world. Watching Faby Apache, 20 years after I pretty much saw her debut in ARSION, in a major match. And damn, she's good. I could have done with less bullshit (the evil referee is terrible), but it was still a hot match following an impossible match to follow. Cool that it was featured third from the top too. Gran Apache would have been proud. Jeff Jarrett stooging, stalling and seeking heat old school style like nobody's business. That and Fenix almost costing himself his career in AAA by missing Miss Pena's face by not much. Well, that was a fun Double J Special match, and cool to see him healthy. L.A. Park's spear, which looked better than anyone's since Goldy. And the main event as a whole, although the result was never in doubt even for me who hasn't watched a lucha show in two years and don't know much about it. No way Park was losing his mask to Hijo del Fantasma. I really could do without the heel referee, which always comes off cheesy as hell, not to mention he's just fucking terrible. And yeah, I admit it, Striker & Vamp, who say a lot of shit but it feels like real life as opposed to corporate drones, so it's more in line with the show itself, which is gritty, full of misses and fuck ups. Like life is.

The way her head bounces on the mat, I'm sorry but I wouldn't call that "very light bump", especially for a 12 year old girl. It's just plain stupid.

She's 12. No one that age is "trying to make this a long term career", nor should be. That's child exploitation, basically, like parents putting their childs through stupid beauty pagents and shit. I'm sure she's having a blast *now*, but still, this is unhealthy as fuck (and yeah, "meet and greet", really ?).

Well, yeah, it takes the old Mick & Colette "Let's sit first row while daddy is getting a dozen or so concussions" deal to a whole new level of fuckery.

To me it was "ok", at best. Foley was washed up. Angle looked like Flair in 90 figuring out how to work around JYD. Foley still took two stupid bumps because I guess he could still do that, but it was a nothing main event, like every Foley match in TNA save for KOTM (which had all other guys to carry the load). AJ Styles vs Kevin Nash was better. Samoa Joe vs Sting was better. To have such a nondescript match against Angle (whose became a better worker in TNA to me) in 2009 says a whole lot. The highlight of this show was easily Jenna Morasca vs Sharmell. Now, that was a whole new level of so-awful-it's-great. Sharmell was just your average non-worker WWE Diva level bad (which I guess is why Tara/Victoria was considered a good worker in that environment, because her work screams 00's WWE in a bad way thus far), but when Jenna got on offense, holy shit ! This guy in the first row actually facepalming was pretty funny. She could not even throw a proper slap ! She could show dat ass though, her entrance and cover were the highlights of the match. She was so inept (I guess not trained one bit) that Amazing Kong just squashed her at the end instead of going for any of her usual big spots, Jenna would probably have killed herself taking the powerbomb. Awesome, awesome bad match.

Still going through TNA. I'm a dumb fuck.

Well, it was released as No Pain No Gain in France. Another case of French distributors using a different English title instead of keeping the original one or translating it (which very seldom happens now). Often it's way more absurd than this one. Of course it's bloated, it's still Micheal fucking Bay.

I didn't say shit about Don Muraco. I wouldn't dare.

That would be No Pain No Gain. Which is also the only worthwhile movie Micheal Bay ever did (which is a miracle in and of itself, it's kinda like those great Goldust vignettes that Russo produced).

"We know who that is." Well, I wouldn't mind him in the next season (hopefully) of LU either.

Wait, Ayako Hamada retired from pro-wrestling after a drug sentence ? Wow, that totally flew under the radar, I haven't seen anyone here reporting it. That's pretty sad.

The Smackdown episode is highly recommended, like most of the time an episode is all about behind the scenes and production stuff. The whole argument about the word "wrestling" is another deep dive in Vince's psyche. Really good stuff this week, best episode in a long time to me.

Well, who am I to doubt Lucha Underground. Really loved E9. Although I'm gonna Miss Mala Suerte and his legendary top rope attack. A oddball team of Joey Ryan & XO ? I'm there. Mariposa jobbing quick was just the appetizer for what's coming with Marty, so I have no beef for that, but it did seemed rushed. Tha Atomicos match was maybe my favourite since the beginning of this season. And well, as far as straight babyface turn go, this was one hell of a 1-2 punch for Mundo. Taya crying because she didn't get the wish was goofy as hell I thought though. The proposition worked and although I wrestling wedding always suck (and hell, I don't like wedding IRL either), if there's one promotion who can do it right and make something cool out of it, it's LU. Immediately cutting to Ricky and his doll was the perfect set-up. So we get the closure of an old angle and the beginning of another one, all tied up in one sequence that made sense. Yeah, it can be written, crazy, uh ?

Don't tease KawadaSmile like this. It's cruel. We almost lost him this week already.

I popped. Honestly, it's the highlight of this season thus far. That and the Catrina/Mil intrigue (hell, Mil has been the best character & worker in the company since the beginning). I'm at E8 and I admit I'm less into it than the previous seasons. Maybe the very indieriffic nature of the matches kinda wears down my interest at this point. I do enjoy Dragon Azteca Jr. being put into the main event mix (which is very underwhelming to me, as I never cared for Cage and I'm down on Penta). Too bad for Vibora indeed, but the vignette was pretty cool. That's the kinda nonsense I want from LU. And less tigh slapping matches, and more garbage ECW-like brawls.

Don't comment on John Cena's body, please. Leave his body alone. But yeah, that's disgusting. He also looks old as fuck here.