El-P

Mundo vs Mack, falls count anywhere, last falls of the match was just as terrific as the whole-show match. Death spot to end the match. Looked brutal, no cutesy shit kicking out of it. The trios title changing hands with the reptiles gaining it thanks to Drago switching team mid-match. Anywhere but LU, that would bother me, but in LU, it's fine. Drago is under Cobra Moon's spell. That huge guy with the freakish roses tatoos is gonna go places probably. Cueto Cup, with the winner getting a title shot ? Hum… You've done better than this Dario. Mundo vs Rey Rey, I can get behind though. Puma vs Muertes was yet another terrific brawl. I have the feeling I'll never enjoy Ricochet more than I did in LU, because I don't see him do that kinda match in NJ nor in WWE. This is how you do people trying to kill each other, not by lumbering through a bunch of ringpost spots. Terrific use of 44 mn watching pro-wrestling.

Complete yawnfest of a show. And I did ff through Bray vs Seth freakin' Rollins (that's not me being sarcastic, that's the work of the creative people backstage) and Enzo vs Test Hoyt (seriously, come on, please) Tag team match was quite good. And for a 30 minutes Hardy match, that's a feat. I never got the love for the Hardies. Jeff is still doing the sloppy flying shit he was doing 15 years ago, only slower. Matt is moving like Terry Funk when he was 50 but his crazed looks and goofy antics makes him kinda fun (he sure needs the Broke gimmick to be really fun though). Cesaro shined through and through. Sheamus was good too. Keeping the things moving with tons of pinfalls made it work, as really nothing much was happening in between falls, but they keep the flow going with the story of Hardies being behind on falls. Very good match overall with a hot finishing stretch. Sasha vs Alexi was really good I though. Ah, that funky arm thingy. Kinda fell rehashed though at points, but I enjoy the dynamic, there's plenty of "character work" as they say, and plenty good work to go along. I love Lil Bitchy Alexi. The Money Inc. finish (AGAIN) doesn't bothet me that much since we get a nice post-match angle and spot and it means this feud is going on. From there. The real yawnfest begins. I've enjoyed Miz work over the last year, but this was pretty much a nothing match. Not enough Miz being a chickenshit an too much spot working stuff, in which he's exposed as not very good mechanically. Ambrose is Ambrose. I kinda don't care but I don't think he's bad like many do around here. The Miztourage is so not needed. Sorry, but Roman Reigns vs Braun Strauman was so nothing, right out of late 1998 Austin vs Taker pedestrian brawl with stupid gimmicked up spots. Worst Braun PPV match in a while, this guy has always been very fun to watch until this one. But this was nothing. A bunch of throwing themselves in the post and the stairs outside, wich have been routine WWE clichés spots since the Attitude era. And Reigns selling is stupid because he's not a babyface worth a shit. The only funny part was Braun doing an inverted Hulking up, no selling the chair shots. Of course it didn't made a lick of sense, but whatever. The ambulance part was awkward. If I don't get Shaggy 2 Dope sliding off the ambulance roof like a slimy corpse, an ambulance gimmick is pretty much not worth my time. Post-match angle was the kind of retarded shit I hated in 1999. Still completely idiotic in 2017 guys. And please, make it the official Reigns heel turn (how could not that be ?) because he's such a complete bore (yeah, I totally echo Thread Killer on Reigns, as a whole). Braun should be let loose and kill people in an organic, chaotic way. This was a boring, nothing happening, carefully gimmicked-up WWE brawl. Joe vs Lesnar. I didn't get my hopes up because Lesnar's matches have been terrible in forever now (expect when he was being speared by Goldy). Damn. Suplex City. Low-blow. Sleeper. Suplex City. Sleeper. Finisher. YAWN of YAWNS. Another Lesnar zero star match as far as I'm concerned. Sorry, but Asuka & Nikki Cross on NXT the other week made me feel like they were killing each other a thousand times more than the four hosses in the two last matches. Very boring PPV with a downright bad last hour. Much to my surprise, a 30 minutes Hardy match in 2017 was basically the high point of the show, along with Sasha vs Alexi. (and how shit, they actually got Ray Rougeau back ? With Jean fucking Brassard ? Just so they can do the *Quebec* broadcasting ? Hey, when I told you people that the French spoken in Quebec was not the French spoken in France… still, I'm amazed they got Ray to come back. And Brassard on WWE TV in 2017 is complete WTF) Next PPV in… 2 weeks ? Damn. I'm not cherry picking enough at this point.

I always liked the HHH feud back in the days. Not watched these in forever, but last time I checked these were solid and pretty fun.

KOTR was terrific in 1993. Past that point, not so much. Owen winning was cool, but the matches were definitely throwaway already that year. So yeah. But I was thinking a tournament in general. Then again, they can't book worth a shit.

JR used to mix Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit in 2000. It's not like he needs to be drunk or to call a product he's not familiar with to mix up stuff. Timing-wise, well, not so great I guess.

I spent ridiculous money 17/18 years ago getting tapes from Poughkeepsie to my little town in France so I could watch japanese wrestling. Good for him he's still going on !

Indeed. That being said, with the Network, it's easier than ever to run such an event.

FWIW, Tony Schiavone, close friend of both Flair & Arn, recently said on his podcast that he thought it was hilarious and whatever bad blood came afterward was just misplaced bruised egos.

That Tama Tonga tweet is quite funny... (has he been called Tonga Kid on the show ?)

Being happy > Being in WWE. These people don't need the WWE anymore. They can have a career without having to deal with their shit. And unless WWE manage to kill the indies, the hardcore scene is stronger than ever, so...

Really good stuff here : https://www.cagesideseats.com/2017/7/7/15933046/globalization-and-homogenization-pro-wrestling-njpw-wwe-kenny-omega-okada-dave-meltzer-star-ratings

He wants to work in a place where people actually care about his matches so he can sell some merch in the process maybe...

And Russo will get even more pissed.

Interesting take. I tend to agree with it too (as far as US goes of course).

Yeah but Bill Watts is old-school and shit and a genius and booked the greatest pro-wrestling territory that ever was. Or something. FWIW, I remember when I was going through the Mid-South TV back then (like ten years ago), the feeling I got was that there was a lot of really good stuff but that it was also overrated in the grand scheme of things. Especially the UWF days.

Ambulance stip always takes matches down. It's a shitty gimmick. But anyway. I do enjoy caustic Meltz, even when I disagree with his tastes (which is more often than not) or takes. And there's a world of difference between Braun/Rusev/Tenta/Bossman and fucking JYD, who basically sucked in Mid-South too (and yeah, I went through all this shit on TV years ago, JYD was more mobile and moved a bit quicker than he did in WWF, but he was still one hell of a crappy worker).

He didn't say WWE wrestling was terrible. I know people around here love that narrative of Evil Meltz Hates WWE, but he very regularly pimps WWE matches as great. As much as I don't care at all about Meltz's tastes for finisher kick out spamming orgies (which also happens in WWE, mind you, as it's the staple for the company's big match self-conscious epics), people being all boo-boo because he loves NJ never ceases to be funny to me. Or, actually, pretty sad actually. Get over it already. Who the fuck care ? People and their need to be validated has gotten even worse it seems these days. Maybe because of the social network shit and the culture of "likes"...

Mariko Yoshida.

Weren't you pretty much in tears the entire time you were reviewing the Russo era of WCW? And I imagine now that you're viewing his run in TNA, your cheeks are pretty tear-stained as well. Nah, that ship has sailed. The name is not Cornette. I just fast-forward a lot through the TNA stuff, the TV show is mostly very uninteresting, with all the terrible WWEism (written promos with awkward delivery, with a thousand overemphased "TONIGHT !") added to Russo's brutal "creative writing" (the whole Abyss & Sting angle is some of the worst rehashed shit). I'm just trying to look for a few cool matches and angles, which I give full credit to Dutch Mantell (Storm feuding vs Harris, LAX vs Team 3D stuff).

Well, Casas certainly was phoning it in hard when he worked Japan in the 90's. His stuff against Liger is the most dull Liger stuff of the decade and Motegi had better J-Cup/J Crown matches than Casas. (not saying it's relevant to his Mexico stuff, but there's some phoning it in performances from Casas on super famous shows)

Mike is still selling stuff ? I'm amazed !

Considering the praise it gets, let's try "Most overrated studio match ever". This was fun for what it was but was totally goofy and amounted to zilch. I'll never get how Garvin gets so much praise. I guess doing a thousand open hand slaps passes for great work. Yeah, it's stiff. And so ? Exchanges at first are nice. Then Ron injures his left arm on the outside post, which doesn't mean much since he's right handed. This will be forgotten pretty quickly anyway. Tons of slaps. A bunch of headbutts. Hey, if you do five fucking heabutts in a row and don't KO your opponent, that's piss poor use of a spot. And people give Kurt Angle hard time, like this kind of shit is any better… Ron does some random no-selling comebacks. Flair and him brawling is goofy, with usual Flair delayed bumps, Garvin's punches that aren't that great, the selling doesn't carry any sense of exhaustion either. Then it ends up in a giant schmozz. I wouldn't even call that match *good*. Fun stiff-fest. Okay. And before any pissant gets on me with "you want more MOVEZ LOL" bullshit, on the same TV show, Ole Anderson and Magnum TA beat the shit out of each other for 15/20 minutes in a match that actually had less "highspots" (I believe one dropkick and an axhandle from the second rope from Magnum), was all about punches and body shots exchanges and trying to punish each others arms if you could. It had nice transitions, excellent selling on both part, it looked like a real struggle and a fight (as opposed to a stiff chop exchange wankery). The more I see Ole, the more I think he's a completely overlooked and forgotten great (which is odd considering how minimalistic and to the core is was). The more I see Garvin, the more I think he's been ridiculously overrated in the last few years.

In general tribute shows for deceased workers are tear jerkers to get through, but for me, there always seems to be the reaction of one person that can set you off - for the Owen Hart show it's Jeff Jarrett's reaction, makes me well up whenever I've seen it. I haven't watch any other tribute show (except maybe JWP's tribute to Plum, but that was different as it was years after the fact, I wasn't following WWE at all when Eddie died) and I hate tear-jerkers in general. But for Owen you could feel the genuine emotion of many, Jarrett being indeed the hardest one to watch, you could feel how devastated he was.

Owen Hart's tribute show.

That's actually pretty cool !