El-P

Can we have Kevin Nash doing a wine tasting gimmick instead ? .... like in.... VIN DIESEL .... I know the way...

I remember a reportage on French TV around 1991 or so which was about japanese female wrestlers, and there was a young Aja Kong and Bull Nakano in there. I would LOVE to find this somewhere, as I wonder how the whole thing was treated (probably as if it was real). I remember vividly watching Bull dropping the legdrop from the top of a cage at the end of the story, and I was amazed as I was just watching WWF Superstars at the time (no PPV yet were shown on french TV). But yeah, Aja/Erika would probably be a fascinating interview.

Courage ! The worst is behind you, hopefully ! Watch whatever wrestling makes you happy ! You're getting your comeback now !

I kinda agree with this. That's why it was fun to read and seemed unpretentious too. That's basically what I was doing in my WCW Highway to Hell thread and my TNA stuff too for a while, although it was not divided in two. But yeah.

Great stuff. Thanks. Aja seems to be someone you'd like to hear a 3 hour shoot interview not only about pro-wrestling, but life in general. (Amazingly, she looks exactly the same as she did 20 years ago (and baby Erika was quite cute))

So, they really are gonna have two tag champs and two woman champ... So, they really are gonna push Test/Dallas/Cass to the top eventually... So, Rusev is still clearly a heel and they still are trying to shove Roman... So, WWE still sucks (hi Stephy ! still on TV all the time castrating people ?)... Ok, back to normal activities until the NXT NXT big show.

Battlarts and older shoot style promotion had cards how often ? Once a month ? And really, shoot-style had never been about busting each other hardway with elbows anyway. Anyway, this match was terrible and the finish was dumb as fuck. Just fucking blade a good one instead of this shitty pseudo MMA nonsense that can go nowhere anyway and doesn't do anything for Brock at this point, he's all gimmicked up and his matches suck now, thanks to Suplex Citytm. (on the other hand, the *übersafe German suplex* that has been the norm in WWE since Kurt Angle, whose suplexes looked like shit compared to any japanese rookie's, are indeed not doing Brock any favors. And the WWE stance is totally hypocritical since guys are killing themselves doing really dangerous spots while the freaking piledriver is forbidden. It's not like Jerry Lawler maimed a lot of guys with it...)

The meta conspirationnist in me sees this as a reenactment of the infamous Jericho/Goldy backstage scuffle in 1998. Since we're talking about Lesnar vs Goldy at next Mania already (which is pretty much an awful idea).

It was also obvious as fuck, you could see while Charlotte setting up the move very carefully that it was gonna be a counter. Kid Kash was doing it like on every PPV in ECW in 00. So no, didn't care about that spot especially since yes, I was more concerned about them, especially Charlotte, not fucking it up and killing Sasha for good. Then again, I agree that the match as a whole may be better than I gave it credit the first time around since the botch really took me out of the match completely. Charlotte showing frustration at the end was pretty awful overracting though. If that's her her thing, just don't have her do it.

I forgot to mention Naomi's outfit was ace too. Really, the women were the best thing on this show, overall. Including Eva Marie. (where was Emma ?)

No Way Jose is the new Fandango/Adam Rose. Ember Moon has an interesting look. So does her opponent. Crappy music though, but that's the case for a lot of people. Finisher looks cool although there's so much possibility to blow it, dunno if that's a very good idea. Too much of a "modified" stuff to me. Still, curious to see what they do with these two. Bobby Roode's entrance is ridiculous in a good way, but again, the music is gloriously awful, but not awful enough (as if a Paul Orndorff way "Wonderfuuuuul "). Funny how Roode is basically himslef from TNA and pushed like a star, while La Sombra is getting the WWE facelift and looks like a mexican hipster jobber. That tag match. Excellent to great. The Revival have no look and are kinda fat and are simply a great tag team. Dawson using the fake punch into a DDT from Arn warmed my heart. Terrific run to the finish. Match of the night, easily. Asuka vs Bailey was good, but nothing special. Not impressed with how Bailey sells the beating once she gets back on offense. Well, her facials are excellent, that's why she's a terrific babyface, but after getting beat on so much with brutal kicks, she just kinda got back on offense. The no-selling kinda bugged me too, although "Hit me in the head !" was bad-ass. Don't feel these two are clicking that well, their matches are not as good as they probably should be. Bailey in the main roster should out-sell any other shitty babyface they have if treated right. Nakamura's entrance, people. Wonderful. Joe is the best Taz eve, basically, although I don't like that crew cut in HD, doesn't look too good. Excellent match. Nak does so much less than he used to do in NJ, he adapted so well so quickly. Put him in the main roster and he puts everyone to shame, this guy should main event Mania. Although of course, after that awful SummerSlam show I'm not sure I want to see this actually. Again, funny how Joe is good old self Joe from ROH/TNA while Nakamura is a 100% New Japan product and they actually let them be who they are. Makes a shitload of difference. Super fun show again. I could do without some WWEism in the production, but these are the only really enjoyable (hell, watchable to begin with) WWE shows to me. When is the next one ?

"This is awesome". Pro-wrestling as artistic skating. Mike Oles was right !!!!

Holy shit. I totally should have gone to bed just after Sasha vs Charlotte, which, at the end of the day, is still probably the best match of the show. I'm SO glad I didn't try to stay awake to see that great Roman Reigns vs Rusev match. Ok, so this is Rusev & Lana turing babyface and officialy becoming Savage & Liz, right ? It has to be. Because if not, what the fuck. Already complete bullshit than a freaking angle on the PPV. The camera work is still killing everything BTW. Lana's outfit was the highlight if that second half. Eva Marie's non entrance. Damn straight. She's got an official troll gimmick. That's pretty awesome. Now they have to figure how to make it work inside the ring... Bottle of piss. Ok. The Demon's entrance has jumped the shark a lot time ago, but at least he's getting that title. Well. Oh. Didn't watch Ziggler vs Ambrose. Come on. Orton still has nothing to bring to the table. Brock does suplexes. Fuck, Brock was so unique at first, ad now every match of him is like Dan Severn vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara from Climax 96. That suplex city bullshit has made him a total gimmick worker instead of an actual spectacle. Terrible match. Oh, blood. Fuck me, Shane is gonna get more attention now ? BROCK VS SHANE AT MANIA, HELL IN THE CELL !!!! Terrible show. Mania was bad, but this was awful. You know, a 2 and a half hour NXT PPV with a great last hour is perfectly acceptable. These mega overlong WWE PPV's really don't do that dull as fuck product any favors. Cena vs AJ Styles will be the staple of self-conscious epics for year. I don't want to see any match like this, ever.

Cena's acting was the worst this side of "Sorry, I love you". WWE self-conscious epic at its all time worst.

they did it last night. Not at all. Nak doesn't work like he was in New Japan, doing a lot less actually, but the Joe match was excellent. Code Red... Cena needs to dig up the Canadian Destroyer at this point. The submission exchange is sad.

Usual "kick out of finisher / rince / repeat" WWE self-conscious epic. I'm in no hurry to see Nakamura or Joe get thrown into this shitty formula.

Looks like old Cena to me. I've seen AJ Styles have way better matches with Kid Kash during my TNA 2004 watch.

Damn Sasha. Wait WHAT ? 0-3 ? This will be a feel good show I guess. It's already too long too. Give me Rusev vs Reigns already so I can go to bed and watch the rest tomorrow, no way I'm staying up until 5 in the morning for this.

Ah ah ah ! That troll pin by Jericho after a botch spot. I don't give a shit about Enzo & Cass, so good. Hey, make Jericho & Owens sing "We're not the mountie !" on their way to the ring, Owens can be Oulette & Jericho can be Jacques. Sasha Banks vs Charlotte was pretty good, but way too much instance of Charlotte simply anticipating spots pretty grossly. That setup for the counter to the top rope Razor's Edge took forever and was way too obvious, and after that botch spot I was in fear. Oh yeah, *that* botch spot. Scary as hell. Hope Sasha is well. And... ok, so she already had the big win before SummerSlam, and now she jobs the title clean in her first defense ? Boss booking... *yawn* Maryse is ridiculously hot. Miz is just ridiculous.

Enzo & Cass are The New Age Outlaw coupled with Kid Kash & Lance Hoyt. I couldn't give less of a fuck. The annoying sing-along catchphrases and shit, are we in 1999 again ? You know Cass will get the Diesel push eventually and Enzo will be the next whatever comedy figure. Holy shit, Jericho does look like a guy straight out of Boogie Nights ! Old and sleazy. Awesome look. Fuck, I got used to the NXT camera work, I have to ajust. Thank god I'm watching it in French, so the announcing is really fun at least (Agius & Chereau)

That would be meta and hilarious.

Exactly. Plus you can argue that doing so, WCW broke the mold in giving lighter, smaller workers an exposure and credibility that the WWF never was able or willing to. Does anyone think WWF would have got their hands on guys like Eddie, Benoit, Malenko, Jericho & Rey (much less pushing them near top of the card) if these guys had not been a big part of those exciting and hot WCW undercards during the hottest Nitro years ?

And teach him how to work too.

Of course. He made them even bigger stars of course, on a national and international level. But he took every big star from every territory. If you narrow it down to the people he created from scratch, there isn't much left actually. Warrior… But it's beating on a dead horse. (funny how NXT today is basically a bunch of guys who already were stars elsewhere. I mean, are we gonna say in 5 years that Trips & Vince made Nakamura a star ?)

No. We're just pointing out why Parv is full of shit and double talk with his own criterias. It's fun. To some extent. Funny no one talked about the Mastunaga Brothers, because really : Mastery over crowd: 10 (CRUSH GALS) Innovation: 10 (they invented joshi puroresu as we know it) Angles: 10 (CRUSH GALS) Quality of Cards: 10 Finances: 10 (during the glory years, hell yeah) Talent spotting / New stars: 10, at the very least. So yeah. The winners are : the Matsunaga Brothers.