El-P

Well, Aztec Warfare III was awesome. Terrific from start to finish. Mostly perfectly booked, with the only disappointing part being the use of Drago, who basically did nothing of note and was eliminated quickly. Apart from that, it was a great match with a bit of everything for everyone, great spots, insane brawling, good comedy and a pace that always went faster and faster until it approached the final part. And although I never cared for Sexy Star, I was proven wrong (or more accurately, the bad vibes I heard from haters were proven unwarranted) as they did the best job imaginable with her winning the title (yeah, not exactly a spoiler). From her match to Pentagon to this, I must admit she was just a great underdog and made the whole thing work. Props to Mil also and to Rey, the two standouts of the match along Matanza. The surprises were quite terrific too, with the Black Lotus triads making a glorious debut and Angelico diving his way back into the game. Awesome match. MOTYC, for any year that is.

E10 was everything that is great about LU. Although that ten person tag was clusterfucky as hell, but worst of all Ivelisse seemingly re-injured her ankle. That would suck so bad, she's my favourite female performer of the show and she sure deserves a break. On the other hand, Famous B. vs Mascarita Sagrada was great bullshit mixing garbage brawling and comedy. They even got a flytox Arrogance perfume out of a box. Wonder if WWE still got ownership of that stuff. Super, ridiculous fun. Grave Consequences II was different from the first one as this time Prince Puma was taking it to Mil Muertes in a much more agressive manner. No idea if this was as good, but all I know is that people would go apeshit if the same stuff was on a WWE PPV. Crazy how LU totally went under the radar for that third season. Terrific, insane brawl, with a climatic and eerie finish. So, is Ricochet done already with the promotion ? Next, Aztec Warfare.

Damn, Kenny Omega buried Jim Cornette on the last Metz podcast where he announced he wouldn't be at the Rumble. The guy knows what he's doing though in term of managing his career. Unless something unexpected happens, I totally see him signing with WWE next year.

Watched the Ivelisse interview she did with Highspots a few years ago. Damn, that girl didn't had it easy. Mucho respect to her, plus she came off like a cool person.

Kenny Omega will be at Mania 34. There, I just said it.

He'll get in the discussion soon enough. Enough people love his stuff.

Please, no Shane bullshit this year. Last year's debacle made it possibly the worst Mania ever. And yeah, AJ vs Miz would be quite the cool match.

Agreed. Excellent bad-ass vs underdog match. One could argue Joe didn't kill Sabin enough, but it would have been too much with Sabin's profile at this point. I didn't mind Lynn's trick at the end since he stayed pretty much invisible until the final moments. Again, excellent match with Waltman doing a terrific job doing the subtle heel thingy. Aj's reverse DDT still is an issue in term of execution but apart from this, excellent work from the two. Much better than I thought it would, although Williams did grew on me and improved over the months. He's more digestible in tags, but the odd dynamic here actually helped him. By off dynamic I mean this was heel vs heel but Williams ended up being the de facto "babyface" since he was put in an underdog role, which actually suits him better since he's not good an working control stuff (lack of basic solid offense). So we get Daniels being super solid and focused on the back after a brutal powerbomb on the edge of the apron and Williams selling decently until some fiery comeback stuff. Good ending too, which put over Daniels as the super-heel. Also enjoyed Raven vs Abyss from this PPV, in a brutal bloodletting which actually built over time to some sick stuff at the end. Abyss working the entire match with a bloddy ten dollar bill stapled to his forehead was quite the visual. Gotta love a super smart spot by Raven to set up the powerbomb from the turnbuckle into the tacks : Abyss is just punching Raven in the face as he's standing up on the second rope, but instead of just having Raven powerbombing him, Raven falls down on his ass after a few punches so Abyss has to grab him and get him back up, and as he does Raven pops up and powerbombs Abyss. Great stuff. Rhyno's debut as a typical Jarrett "swerve" was efficient, if nothing else. D'Amore has been booking this stuff for a month or so, and TNA has indeed never been any better.

Probably the same as last time, because it's just a bunch of subjective lists using a goofy snowflake system. Funny though to see so many matches pimped as *stars. And then people make fun of Da Metlz for his infamous 6*. I don't think I would have more than ten matches I would give ***** to after 25 years+ of watching pro-wrestling. I'm not sure I have ten at this point.

Kinda ridiculous ? Try "dumb as fuck". That being said, some people around this place have been saying the same kind of dumb as fuck things lately about Meltz. (and I would not have given more than 3 stars 1/2 at most to Okada/Omega myself, so that tells you all I think about the infamous 6*)

Great work, Bix.

The 90's. For all the reasons already mentioned.

And of course, Shawn Michaels "losing his smile" infamous promo. Which basically forced Vince to book Bret vs Austin II at Mania 13.

"Austin 3:16 says I just whipped your ass." "Hulk Hogan, you can go to hell ! You're outta there. Straight to hell." Yeah, I know, not very original. But I can't think of any bigger ones.

I did enjoy Rey vs Chavo, with the added bonus of Chavo Sr. at ringside resulting in quite a funny Dusty finish / restart moment. They tried to push it as a truly big time match (loser leaves lucha) and it's a case of Striker & Vamp trying way too hard and being quite bad in the process (I know most think they are awful anyway, but I don't). People chanting "this is awesome" at every solid/good TV match is ridiculous too, but this is how it's become everywhere it seems. Lastly, I must say this match highlighted an annoying flaw of the WWE style of working with a very awkward 619 set-up by Chavo Sr. and the ever annoying "counter the third suplex in the Three Amigos" spot, which never makes any sense since it means two suplexes in a row are basically harmless. That being said, it was a good Smackdown circa-04 (or so) match. I guess Chavo is done as far as in-ring work, a la Kevin Sullivan in WCW.

Wow. Hey, good that he does ! But still. Wow. Vince must be so happy...

De Niro in Angel Heart would be perfect to play Father James Micthell. Probably because Mitchell was very inspired by the role for his own character I would guess.

Yeah, because the Boogie-Woogie man wasn't making it look stupid, and Kamala the Ugandan Giant who didn't know how to pin his opponent was absolutely credible. Heard him on Metlz and yeah, he came off like an humble and smart guy. Very pro too. Actually made me want to re-watch that Dome show.

Fukawa is a tiny woman. LCO working ARSION was my favourite tag team getting into my favourite promotion. And did it pay off big time at the end of the year !

Manami Toyota and Kyoko Inoue working a 60 minute sprint in 1995 put them in the head of that pack too.

Fascinating indeed. Are we gonna see WWE vs NJPW in the years to come ? That would be quite crazy.

Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Tatsuhito Takaiwa Both these guys pretty much are vicious bastards. Takaiwa is your power junior worker from Z1, Kanemaru is NOAH's favourite dickhead champion. Lots of power spots from Takaiwa, some of them quite impressive. Heeling up back and forth, with some good stuff from Kanemaru. Takaiwa shows in the not sharpest guy around by wasting a great DVD outside, as he followed it with a figure-four instead of a dramatic pinfall attempt. Ends up with a bombfest, as most Takaiwa's matches do, with some übermacho one count kick outs, which I have no issue with, but maybe Takaiwa's latest pop up at the end is a bit problematic (although his two counters of Kanemaru's low-blow was quite neat). Still, a very good junior heel vs heel match, with impressive bombs being thrown. NOAH was the brand new thang, no doubt about it. Misawa had it right.

Mitsuharu Misawa, Naomichi Marufuji, Takuma Sano & Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Akitoshi Saito, Jun Akiyama, Kentaro Shiga & Yoshinobu Kanemaru (08.15) What the hell is this ? Some outdoor show in the Michinoku region during the summer, Akiyama's bastard faction against NOAH's trve soldiers. And it's the greatest match no one ever talked about. They even do some comedic bits during beatdowns, with poor Kanemaru being the recipient of a double dose of revengefull acrimony from Misawa's men. This goes long so everyone gets to shine, although both Shiga and Sano wait until the last act to do so. Stand outs are Ogawa, who's just so perfect in everything he does, Akiyama who's being a dick and Kanemaru, the asshole GHB (or something) junior champ. But really, everyone contributes and it's a mix of fun, heeling up and great comeback and payoff spots. Great fun match. NOAH was going in the right direction with this shit, with a dynamic clearly different from the AJPW they left behind.

I did laugh.

Wow. That's really pathetic at this point. I have no idea why you're still allowed to post these kind of shit troll posts repetitively.