El-P

No time to watch that before Mania. I doubt I can watch Takeover or the ROH either. Just too damn many shows. Probably gonna spread out my WMW during the week. But the card really looks fun as hell if you ask me.

Oh my God, for fuck's sake. Maggie, no less. Stephy is even worse than I thought.

Not familiar with some of the names yet. Too many bearded guys !

I get the feeling Crash had a lot of the same guys as LU vs IMPACT, which is a bit odd to me. Not exactly different. EVOLVE 103 was quite the good card, with Tim Thatcher vs Garrini as a good shoot-style match, WALTER vs Darby Allin was a very good big vs small slugfest and Riddle vs Sekimoto as good as it sounds. The Dickinson match was quite solid too. Pleasantly surprised by this promotion. The only real bad thing is the announcing.

Modern shoot-syle if I've ever saw one. Super solid match. Fun stuff.

Don't feel the love for this match, but maybe I'm not familiar enough with Tim Thatcher to really gauge it. Interestingly worked, at the very least.

Really enjoyed the Beyond intergender show for the most part. Really worked from top to bottom and makes you think hard about what pro-wrestling is and how it actually works in term of physical dynamics and symbolic representation (not to mention how it actually evolves). Some legit good straight matches like the Kimber Lee and Twisted Sisters ones. Laura James doing the pussy flip (I guess) was brillant. Joey Janela & Penelope Ford vs. Session Moth Martina & Orange Cassidy legit cracked me up a few times. Way too meta/post-modern for some people I guess, not to mention really crass with Mr. Socko as a used condom, but I found it was funny as hell. Orange Cassidy is my new favourite gimmick.

What a mess. This guy won't find work anywhere anymore. (well, it's pro-wrestling, he may show up in the Crash or something in two weeks)

That's it. I was thinking about some cover album, silly me (it does exist, but the same way the kneepads do then). Thanks !

Trivia : what is the album artwork on the Doom Patrol kneepads ? I know it, but I can put my finger on it.

I REALLY need to watch that. Oulette in 2018 ? I thought he retired a while ago. The lost worker of the 90's/00's. IMPACT vs LU was pretty fun overall, but you can feel there's no real buzz about either promotions. Enjoyed the six-men tag a lot. LAX vs Killshot & Mac developped into a really good match despite a terrible botch. Kinda fun to see a new version of LAX with the same damn music and look the original had in the 00's. I would have popped for Salinas... I gotta admit Jeremiah Crane/Sami Callihan warms my heart of old ECW fan, I do enjoy what he brings to the table as a garbage guy. Eddie Edward, well, I guess he's the modern day Tim Horner or something. The match dragged at time and was too long, but some parts were really good. The triple-threat main event was quite good, with a nice "Fuck Del Rio" chant. Again, old ECW fan in me approves. Loved a teaser for S4 of LU.

Ember Moon is super solid and has a cool look. Nothing to hate. And yeah, she had the best Asuka matches in NXT too. Love me some Ember Moon. I'll probably watch NXT tomorrow sometime before Mania, or wait until Monday to keep a fresh head for what should be a terrific card.

Impact vs LU. Melissa Santos : "We're not starting this until you guys get fucking excited !" Best intro ever. Damn, now I have to watch the Spring Break show too.

How fucking stupid "Dana Warrior" sounds anyway ? Why the fuck is she even featured ? Her dead husband was a hateful piece of shit, so she gets rewarded to do some PR charity business. That's just cringeworthy on every level.

I know the feeling. I'll probably try to watch it live too if I'm not totally burned out by then. I mean, gotta watch NXT and ROH tomorrow before Mania during the night ? Really ?

The rest of the Evolve card from the Keith Lee competitive squash and on went from very good to great (despite the awful announcing). Excellent card with quite a bit of variety to it, peaking with two excellent/great matches. Ok, what's next for me to watch... damn, that WE is insane.

I just did (tag match on the first EVOLVE show of the week-end). Yeah, I really like him.

Great match. Mat wrestling clinic + a few funky pro-style leanings. Reminds me a lot of Angle vs Joe from Lockdown in 08, which looked like a possible future for pro-wrestling style with an MMA feel. Sabre is kinda wooden in a Dean Malenko way (which includes the subtle heelish tendencies), but he's a fantastic worker. If'm WWE, I want to sign Matt Riddle yesterday. Bordering MOTYC.

Now we're talking. Its must be at least 10 years since I've seen Sekimoto. Still looks freaky as hell, in a good way. That's a pro-wrestler. Sawa is how I remembered him. Terrific match. WALTER vs Sekimoto trading chops was as ridiculous as it was fun. Excellent match indeed, and WALTER looks like a can't miss prospect.

Going on with this ridiculous marathon and watching Evolve 102. Ospreay is slowly but surely warming up on me. I really enjoyed his match with AR.Fox, which had a nice build with Fox being a really good dick heel. Also, I do notice Ospreay is doing more than just spots and shit, he insists on selling the neck, he has a true babyface allure to him (or maybe that's me just getting used to his douchebag look). Anyway, I quite enjoyed it. The announcing is rotten though, right down to one of those idiots using the godawful WWE "For the win !" call.

Now that was fun. I am not familiar at all with the indies, so that was my first look at WALTER. Well, I like him already. Lawlor was a cool dirty heel. Good pro-wrestling vs MMA guy match worked with a total pro-style mentality. Really effective and fun, with tons of character.

Complete nothing match, really. Thatcher didn't impress me much, Gage's stuff looked awful. Yikes.

Agreed. That and the Lawlor vs WALTER match, I enjoyed. The rest was FF material to me. I guess really poor Battlarts is indeed a better analogy, especially since Battlarts I always thought was overrated anyway (it was the WAR of shoot-style, for better and worse).

On the opposite side. I though 90% of Bloodsport was like the worst of old RINGS undercards (which were dreadfuls) and shitty goofy PRIDE worked shoots. Not good nor even interesting at all. Bad shoot-style is probably the worst wrestling ever too, it has to be either really good, and just not be there at all. For guys whose names are somewhat familiar to my un-indy trained hears, I didn't think much about Thatcher here (but it wasn't a good introduction probably), and Nick Gage looked like shit. Severn is still around and as boring as ever, amazing. Walter vs Lawlor was a good, fun pro-wrestling match. Suzuki vs Riddle was fun enough but nothing special at all. I'm creeped out by barefeet wrestlers that aren't Islanders, so I got bad Kevin Von Erich vibes from Riddle, but he seems to be an interesting character. Or not. Dunno yet.

It was fun for what is was, but not particulary good either. Watched way too much old shoot-style and great Suzuki matches to be overly enthousiastic about this. The elevated ring with no rope is dumb as fuck and very dangerous. To me it was exactly the opposite. I have loved shoot-style, but these days where MMA is a legit sport, this looked like the best of the shittiest worked-shoot of early PRIDE and the most boring RINGS undercard stuff which was always a chore to get through. This is dated and not interesting as a revival to me.