El-P

Because that's what pro-wrestling needs in 2016 : this is fake, but this one stuff is a shoot. *yawn*

I tried to watch AJ Styles vs Roman Reigns. Honestly, at this point, the god awful production prevents me from enjoying anything. Every moment is ruined by cam switch or stupid zoom-in/zoom-out or cam shake. Looked like a very good match though, Styles is an amazing worker (although taking those bumps was kinda too much). The French announcing, on the other end, helps a lot compared to listening to the JBL/Cole drones. But yeah, the production just makes things impossible to enjoy.

Amazing. Certainly beats your boring endless WWE promos. I lean on "greatest". This is what modern pro-wrestling should be more like (yeah, with LU as the apex). I'm amazed at Matt Hardy's haircut. I almost want to watch that match now. Almost.

Is that Debra with the Faces of Fear ?

Well, he's the only guy I've ever seen have a bad match with Ricky Steamboat. So yeah, brain damaged sounds right to me.

No. It's juts us pro-wrestling fans who see pro-wrestling everywhere.

Being dumb as fuck isn't an excuse though.

Yep. That's makes the whole thing a bit eerie to be honest. That's what you get when you wait 30 years to seriously investigate. Maybe he's indeed mentally impaired now. He sure wasn't 30 years ago. Maybe he's still just fooling people now too. Who knows.

A guy from Quebec sounds as much from France as a guy from Tennessee sounds from London. Quebecers sound so funny to us (French people), they have a very strong and singular accent and there's differences in the language to the point some movies from Quebec are subtitled here because there's no way we can understand the slang and idiomatics. So yeah. Plus a Quebecers speaking english doesn't have the same french accent than a French speaking english.

Goldberg. Just kidding. Well, I hope.

She's actually hosting the thing for KC. Whoever she is (yeah, I know, she's "Blue Pants", ok, cool, don't get worked up about it). The stupid "veteran" talk is from the interviewed girl.

That Cornette/Davis shoot could be interesting. Meanwhile, I always get a kick out of some 20some indy worker playing the "these young workers don't know how to tell any stories // I had to pay my dues unlike those newcomers" game. Classic.

Beaver Cleavage > that guy Chaz from New-Jersey > girlfirend beater was precisely everything wrong about WWF's undercard philosophy in 98/99 during its Russoification. That it didn't work doesn't matter. It was there because that's typically the thing Russo & Ferrara wanted to do with the product, as showed later in WCW/early TNA. Stuff like these on WWF TV effectively drove my interest thousands of miles away toward Japan wrestling/

What thye should do is change the entire "Smackdown" brand. It has the B-show-that-doesn't-matter stigma for ever now, and the name evoques a catchphrase from the biggest star of the early 00's. It's like WWE had a show called "Watcha gonna do ?" in 2001, really...

I think the big spectacle LU blood brawls are now my favourite kinda match today. They deliver everytime. Hell, I can even get into a fucking Sexy Star, whom I don't care for and who isn't a very good worker, match. Well, of course, the fact it was Mariposa helped, but still. Super fun match, brawl on the catwalks, creepy run-in (well, "cimb-in") by Mart the Moth and *that* answer on the mic by Star, which I popped for. Adding the vignettes between Cueto & Catrina, and the Famous B character… damn, that TV show.

Melina brings a whole different bag of goodness. But yeah, I agree Taya totally improves Mundo's whole act. Gotta love the fur boots too. She's the greatest Berzerker ever. Honestly, I don't pay that much attention to the commentary, I find them funny on occasion and they have a buddy-buddy weird chemistry that I take over anything on WWE TV (yeah, including NXT). Then again, I think I'd take *anything* over current WWE announcing (except maybe Mark Madden in WCW, and that's maybe). And yeah, Steiner Screwdriver looked wicked. One thing I like about LU, is that despite them doing insane shit, usually, the finisher looks like the finisher, and it's a satisfying feeling.

I don't care about either of those guys, but the cage match between Mundo and Cage (in a cage) was tons of fun. Cage has grown on me a bit. He should probably stop the needle though, it's ridiculous. And that 4-team 4-way elemination match was over the top in its ridiculousness, including an amazing dive sequence and Joey Ryan getting slapped *hard* by Ivelisse, so what's not to like ? Too bad Angelico was injured though. The more I watch LU, the less I care about classic pro-wrestling thinking and "realism", at this point if a woman's offense looks good (by that I mean, not Sexy Star), I'm totally fine with the mix. Not sure Rey Mysterio fits in that well yet though.

I know I probably should. Have seen the MLW part though.

Jeff Jarrett I can’t defend this guy’s work anymore. The Double J Special is the worst kind of main event this side of self-conscious epic. Manage to sink even AJ Styles, who had good matches against Abyss & Frankie Kazarian for fuck's sake. Looks soft as hell (Lance Storm looks like Kawada compared to him at this point), has the worst looking finisher ever but still employs it after years of sucking, including from the top rope (gasp), tries to mimick a tough guy style when he’s a chickenshit at hearts. Stumble onto his words on promo but still gets more promo time than anyone else because it’s his daddy's gift promotion (feel the patterns to come ?). Sorry Jeffrey, but this year in TNA has your stock go way way down. Announcing Yep, it’s bad. Tenay’s overacting and über serious face is often hilarious though. But I gotta say that Don West is improving somewhat, and he tends to make some remarks that actually make sense in a way you wouldn’t except it from a pro-wrestling announcer. Like he’s just a regular guy who just would point out stuff logically. He’s still way too excitable though, but I’d take this announcing over WWE’s current product killing drab. Managers & Valets When they finally gave Jim Mitchell something to say, he sounds super articulate and does a great job with with. Did a lot to help the big Raven feud, which carried TNA’s product in term of angles and heat for a long while. Glen Gilberti's work as a mouthpiece for SEX then as a working manager for Diamond & Swinger was one of the best surprise of the year. If you erase his rise to the N°1 contender and the two matches where he tried to be the worst Kurt Angle ever and of course the first few weeks of Russo shit (with Mike Sanders), Disco has been a really positive addition to the product. Trinity can do moonsaults. And a bunch of other moves. Just don’t put her in actual wrestling matches. The feud against Kid Kash was effective and she was good in it, until they decided to drag it for weeks and weeks and have the woman beater actually win it at the end, then turn Trinity heel for no reason. As a valet for Siaki & Ekmo or AJ Styles, she did good work too. Alexis Laree was the best female performer for the time she was there though. She was taking some incredible bumps to protect Raven & the Gathering and was used well in that Clockwork Orange House of Fun match in which she actually turned things over to the babyface comeback. No wonder WWE grabbed her. Finally, Tracy Brooks' alliance whith Shane Douglas & Michael Shane promises to be excellent, doing her best modern Sherri routine mixed with Francine’s sluttiness and willing to show ass (in every sense of the word). Redeemed her from the awful way she was used by Russo earlier in the year. Lollipop has been the most consistant worker of the year in TNA.

X-division What was the highlight of 2002 went through a huge slump until the end of the year, especially when the division got built around indy spot monkeys like Chris Sabin (who’s got potential) and Frankie Kazarian (who looks like he went through RVD school of working, just awful). Nearly killed the division for me with awful contrived, awkward, bad video-game like matches. Thankfully Micheal Shane and his old-school Shawn Michael’s 93-like work took things a few notch down the ridiculousness scale, although the first Ultimate X was a glorious mess of absurdity. The beginning of the year wasn’t that much better with mediocre and sloppy Kid Kash holding the belt and feuding with Trinity, in what soon became the most apalling feud of the year. Über-underdog style worker Amazing Red was one of the only bright spots of the first half. Sonjay Dutt debuting toward the end shows good promises, but he needs directions. X (aka Carl Oulette in hotpants) was the big missed opportunity of the year, as he looked tremendous in his debut and matches, but he just didn’t last. 2003/02/05 Amazing Red vs Sonny Siaki
 
2003/03/05 Kid Kash vs Amazing Red
 2003/03/19 Kid Kash vs Amazing Red vs Trinity
 2003/04/30 Amazing Red vs Kid Kash 2003/07/30 Chris Sabin vs Micheal Shane 2003/08/20 Chris Sabin vs Frankie Kazarian vs Michael Shane 2003/11/05 X-division Battle Royal 2003/11/12 Chad Collyer vs Sonjay Dutt 2003/11/26 Chris Sabin vs X Random good stuff Saturn & Bart Gunn having a very good stiff brawl, maybe Saturn’s best single match ever apart from the Raven one from WCW. Shane Douglas working all minimalistic and bashing crowds left and right ends up much better than I thought he would when he first showed up in poor physical shape (he puuuuukes !). The stupid and generic Red Shirt Security tag team having some pretty decent stuff thanks to big hoss Kevin Northcutts beating people up. CM Punk in a supporting role, already displaying tons of charisma (and dropping a sloppy elbow). Road Dog, K-Kwik & K-Dawg putting together a dream team of intro catchphrases, interracial gangbanging and gimmick-offensive moves and getting over. Erik Watts looking competent for the time of one match. Yeah. Random and fun. 2003/04/09 Perry Saturn vs Mike Barton 2003/04/23 New Jack, Sandman & Saturn vs Brian Lee, Slash & Mike Awesome 2003/05/21 CM Punk vs Kid Romeo vs Jason Cross vs Paul London 2003/07/02 Shane Douglas vs CM Punk 2003/08/20 Jeff Jarrett & Erik Watts vs Legend & Christopher Daniels 2003/09/24 3 Live Kru vs Glen Gilberti & Simon Diamond & David Young 2003/10/08 Red Shirt Security vs D-Lo Brown & Chris Vaughn. 2003/12/03 Shane Douglas & Michael Shane vs Chris Sabin & Sonjay Dutt 2003/12/10 Shane Douglas vs Chris Sabin

AMW The little team that could. Between the XXX and Simon & Swinger feuds, they easily are the tag team of the year, and one of the most consistent act in the company. They do have the tendency to work too fast and burn through spots though, especially James Storm. Chris Harris looks like a star in the making (what happened ?), although he should not get too close to a mic yet. The Simon & Swinger feud was the best surprise of the year, as I didn’t expect such good chemistry with those guys, especially Swinger whom I never cared for before. Kinda glad Simon Diamond finally got his chance to shine, he was like the « next thing » in ECW in 2000 for a while. 2003/03/26 D-Lo Brown vs Chris Harris 2003/05/21 AMW vs AJ Styles & D-Lo Brown 2003/07/09 AMW vs Simon Diamond & Swinger 2003/07/23 AMW vs Simon Diamond & Swinger 2003/08/06 AMW vs Simon Diamond & Swinger 2003/08/13 AMW & Dusty Rhodes vs Simon Diamond & Swinger & Glen Gilberti 2003/08/20 AMW vs Simon Diamond & Swinger 27/08/2003 AMW vs Simon Diamond & Swinger 2003/11/05 AMW vs Sonny Siaki & Ekmo Fatu 2003/11/12 Tag-team Gauntlet match Jerry Lynn Poor Jerry Lynn, the perennial « underdog » who was put in a stupid « Is he too old ?» angle before his departure. The working MVP of 2002 still looked very good in 2003, having some strong matches against the luchadors from Konnan and some of the up and coming stars of the X-div like Chris Daniels and Amazing Red. Showed again his versatility too by having a blood fleud with Justin Credible, often marred by poor booking but which still delivered a bunch of good brawls. Lynn never clicked that well with Micheal Shane though, maybe he wasn’t motivated working the angle. Still easily a top 5 workers in the company, only not used to his best this year. 2003/02/26 Jerry Lynn vs Juventud Guerrera 2003/03/05 Jerry Lynn vs Super Crazy 2003/04/02 Jerry Lynn vs Kid Kash 2003/04/16 XXX (Skipper & Daniels) vs Jerry Lynn & Amazing Red 2003/04/23 Amazing Red vs Jerry Lynn 2003/04/30 Jerry Lynn vs Christopher Daniels 2003/05/28 Chris Sabin & Chris Harris vs Jerry Lynn & Justin Credible 2003/06/25 Jerry Lynn vs Justin Credible 2003/07/02 Jerry Lynn vs Justin Credible 2003/07/16 Jerry Lynn vs Justin Credible. 2003/07/30 Jerry Lynn vs Elix Skipper 2003/08/27 Jerry Lynn vs Michael Shane 2003/10/01 Jerry Lynn vs Michael Shane

XXX Low-ki, Christopher Daniels & Elix Skipper delivered more memorable matches together and in singles than any other combinations. Skipper was obviously protected in the tag team setting, as he’s still a spotty worker in single, but he’s still part of the legit MOTYC cage match against AMW. This whole feud was by far the best in the promotion in term of in-ring work. Low-ki was absent for a while, working in Japan, but his comeback in the X-division at the end of the year was a big part of the rescue job on a division that had been sunk by bad indy work in the previous months. And of course, the MVP of the team is Chris Daniels. Here’s a guy who doesn’t deserve one bit of the criticism he gets (being robotic, being « video-game »). He showed great character, heeling up or being more babyface-like at the end of the year (when facing full fledge heel Michael Shane), having the best matches with basically everyone he met (Shane, Low-ki, Sabin), putting on superb selling clinics (like in the « head-injury » match) and holding together three-way dances. Great looking offense, excellent selling, character, can apparently do some comedic stuff too and more than hold his own on the mic when giving the opportunity. What more do you want ? From a ratio of very good matches/opportunity, the Fallen Angel is the best wrestler in the company in 2003. 2003/01/22 AMW vs XXX (Skipper & Low-Ki) 2003/02/05 XXX (Skipper & Low-ki) vs Slash & Brian Lee 
2003/02/12 Steve Corino vs Low-Ki
 2003/03/12 XXX (Daniels & Skipper) vs AMW
 2003/04/09 XXX (Daniels & Skipper) vs Shark Boy & Jason Cross vs Jonny Storm & Chris Sabin vs Jerry Lynn & Amazing Red 2003/04/23 XXX (Daniels & Skipper) vs AMW 2003/05/03 AJ Styles & D-Lo Brown vs XXX (Skipper & Low-Ki) 2003/05/10 AJ Styles & D-Lo Brown vs XXX (Skipper & Daniels) 2003/05/21 XXX (Skipper & Daniels) vs Justin Credible, Amazing Red & Slash 2003/06/18 AMW vs XXX (Skipper & Daniels) 2003/06/25 AMW vs XXX (Skipper & Daniels) 2003/09/24 Jeff Jarrett vs Christopher Daniels 2003/10/01 Chris Daniels vs D-Lo Brown 2003/10/15 Christopher Daniels vs Micheal Shane 2003/11/12 Christopher Daniels vs Low-ki 2003/11/19 Christopher Daniels vs Sonjay Dutt vs X 2003/11/26 Low-ki vs Kid Kash 2003/12/03 Chris Daniels vs Low-ki vs Kid Kash 2003/12/10 Christopher Daniels vs Michael Shane 2003/12/19 Chris Daniels vs Chris Sabin 2003/12/19 Low-ki vs Michael Shane

AJ Styles He was the MVP of the promotion the previous year along with Jerry Lynn. And he is even better in 2003. The booking did him no favors though, as his first title chase and reign was totally screwed up by the booking. He had to job clean to Glen Gilberti, he had to tag with Russo, he had to work a bunch of Double J Specials, take a backsteat to the tease of Hogan showing up and to Sting doing appearances. Despite all of this, put anyone with AJ and he’s gonna get a good match without forcing any formule : old Larry Z., brawl with the Sandman, Glen Gilberti in a street fight, X-div awful worker Frankie Kazarian, worst monster ever Abyss. Doesn’t matter, Styles is gonna get something good out of everyone. Of course he’ll also have lots of good matches with D-Lo Brown, whom he feuded with for a while (again, no favor from the booking as D-Lo, as good as he looks, just isn’t a main event playa), and of course Lynn & Low-ki. He also showed he could be a terrific heel. Best overall in-ring performer of the year. 2003/01/29 Larry Zbyszko vs AJ Styles 2003/02/19 AJ Styles vs Jeff Jarrett 2003/02/26 AJ Styles vs Sandman 2003/04/09 Glen Gilberti vs AJ Styles
 2003/04/16 AJ Styles vs Glen Gilberti 2003/04/30 AJ Styles & D-Lo Brown vs Sonny Siaki & David Young 2003/06/03 AJ Styles vs D-Lo Brown 2003/06/11 Raven vs AJ Styles vs Jeff Jarrett 2003/06/18 Jeff Jarrett & Sting vs AJ Styles & Sean Waltman 2003/07/02 AJ Styles vs Frankie Kazarian 2003/07/09 AJ Styles vs D-Lo Brown 2003/07/23 AJ Styles vs D-Lo Brown 2003/08/06 AJ Styles vs D-Lo Brown 2003/08/13 AJ Styles vs Low-Ki 2003/09/17 AJ Styles vs Jerry Lynn 2003/10/22 Jeff Jarrett vs AJ Styles 2003/11/19 AJ Styles vs Abyss 2003/12/10 AJ Styles & D-Lo Brown vs Jeff Jarrett & Kid Kash 2003/12/19 AJ Styles & D-Lo Brown vs Diamond & Swinger

Raven I’m a Raven fan. One reason I wanted to dive into early TNA was to watch his last « major company » stint. And I didn’t expect it to be that good, honestly. He’s easily the MVP of the promotion when you put everything together : star power, promos, angles and matches. Not that he had the best matches, although the AJ Styles one from 08/27 is the best single match of the year, but he was always consistent and his approach was very much one of a very smart veteran. I also love the way he made his character evolved into a total fiery babyface without losing his edge, cutting some of the best promos he ever did in the process. You can see that he had input in his angles because of the usual slow, logical slow build too, and he tried to keep himself the furthest away from Russo during the first few months. His babyface stuff from the Gauntlet match and the James Mitchell feud are tremendous. His stock his going way up to me thanks to this. 2003/02/12 Raven vs Sandman 2003/02/19 Sandman & Steve Corino vs Raven & Low-ki
 2003/03/05 Raven vs Sandman 2003/03/12 Raven vs AJ Styles 2003/03/19 AJ Styles vs Raven 2003/04/16 D-Lo Brown vs Raven
 2003/04/30 Raven vs Jeff Jarrett 2003/07/30 Raven & Julio & Alexis vs Shane Douglas & Brian Lee & Slash 2003/08/13 Raven vs Shane Douglas 2003/08/20 Gauntlet Match 2003/08/27 Raven vs AJ Styles 2003/09/17 Raven vs Shane Douglas 2003/09/24 Raven & CM Punk & Julio vs Shane Douglas & Slash & Sinn 2003/10/22 Raven vs Slash 2003/11/19 Raven & Sandman & Erik Watts vs Red Shirt Security 2003/12/10 Raven vs Abyss

Playing catch up. EP 13 was so grand with a cool trios match, a new meaning to the words "heart punch" in that freaky vignette with Catrina and the Disciples and a monster monsters match ending with a terrific theatrical bump and Dario declaring war to Catrina. I wants it to get even more comic book like at this point. Would love a Japanese version of the shit too.