El-P

Didn't watch the whole deal, because I don't have the time, but I watched the final show. The undercard was the usual mix of good and not so good. Although and even though I don't follow New Japan closely, the product still seemed stale as hell to me. It's like nothing much has happened since the last time I checked. Same kind of undercard, same kind of title matches (with the exception of the junior title and the Naito heel turn). The Bullet Club is a decent heel faction, but at this point, nothing seems fresh anymore, even for someone who doesn't really watch the product. That Delirious promo had the thing I hate when american are in Japan. You're being translated anyway, speak well, don't use that piss poor English-for-dummies, mixed with "ichiban" because it's the only word you know like Hulk did. Either speak good English or poor Japanese, not *poor English* !! Anyway. David Finlay, Mascara Dorada & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Jushin Thunder Liger, Sho Tanaka & Yohei Komatsu Yeah, good opener. A guy being named David Finlay is kinda confusing to me. I even liked Taguchi here. The young lions really look good. TenKoji (Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Satoshi Kojima) & Captain New Japan vs. Jay White, Manabu Nakanishi & Yuji Nagata These matches are like the workrate version of the old veterans comedy matches in All Japan in the 90's. Except nothing here is as funny as Haruka Eigen spit spot. Really, this wasn't very good nor entertaining. Michael Elgin vs YOSHI-HASHI First time I see Elgin. Good match with classic power guy vs speed guy dynamic. Well worked, good impressive spots. Interesting. CHAOS (Kazushi Sakuraba, Tomohiro Ishii & Toru Yano) vs. BULLET CLUB (Bad Luck Fale, Tama Tonga & Yujiro Takahashi) The highlight was Yujiro's stripper dressed as a panther. Decent match, but nothing special at all. Can anyone explain to me Yano's gimmick ??? He's a movie producer who fins everything funny ? WTF ? I have seen him a number of times, and I still don't get it. He is funny though. Tama Tonga looks like a great athlete. I guess he's make up is all tribal and shit, but every time I see him he makes me think of a guy from a Polynesian black metal band. Hirooki Goto, Katsuyori Shibata & Kota Ibushi vs Tetsuya Naito, Togi Makabe & Tomoaki Honma Now this is when things picked up. This was really good and I enjoyed Naito's heel act quite a bit. Homna seemed a bit in the back though, and the going ofr the headbutt early is kinda goofy at this point. What happened with Tenryu ? Does he want his retirement match against Okada ? He looked old. But what a boss voice though. reDRagon (Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly) vs The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson) Again ? Anyway, this was atrocious. The Bucks have cooled off the crotch chops and suck it chants, thankfully, but their act still is unbearable. Everything has to be cute and silly with them. They could be really good because they have the athetic ability and the comedic feel, but when EVERYTHING is wink wink and idiotic, it's just not funny at all. And as far as doing a trillion spots that you kick out of, well, if that's what ROH brought to wrestling, then really, fuck this indy mentality. Burn though five big spots in one sequence and it's sold like an armdrag. reDRagons are good, but they need to slow the fuck down. KUSHIDA vs Ricochet Wait, I just realized that KUSHIDA's gimmick is basically to be... Marty McFly ???? These Japanese people... Wait, is this the guy under Prince Puma's mask ? WTF ? You don't put a guy who looks that good and sexy under a fucking panther mask ! I didn't get the criticism of the mask before, although Puma never quite translated as a babyface to me either, but damn, I understand now. This guy is so much better without the mask. Excellent to great match BTW. I enjoyed that trememdously. Thank god the Kenny Omega experiment has ended. AJ Styles, Doc Gallows & Karl Anderson vs Matt Taven & Michael Bennett & Kazuchika Okada Really good and hot match too, and I'm not just refering to Maria, who's stunning. Gotta love those Japanese cameraman too, they just don't give a shit, they know what they're supposed to get on cam. The one comedy spot with Maria was awesome. And since it was only one spit and they let the guys work, it was the best Kingdom match in New Japan that I've seen. AJ Styles finisher is the best protected spot in the world, that's nice. Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Shinsuke Nakamura Oh man. MOTYC. Easily. Did they go *that long* ? It sure didn't felt that way. These two guys are amazing workers. So yeah. Smoked SummerSlam, of course (but what didn't ?), and the best stuff was better than on the NXT Takeover. That said, there was some stuff that badly dragged in the low undercard. And that damn Young Bucks match, which was awful as always. Still, with the two big trios matches, the junior match and the G1 Final, one hell of a show at the end of the day.

All Japan only has the best tag team matches ever. Yeah, not their style.

This 1000%. It's so annoying and devoid of any personnality. Then we they get to the ring, they do exactly the same movements/screams too. And when they get to the second rope to do a pose, it looks like a fucking animatronic (cf Randy Orton, king of void). No intent or "character work" , just a pre-planned routine that they'll do every fucking time the same fucking way.

Have been binge watching the end of the season (hoping there will be a season 2). No matter the stuff I don't like about it, this show is too much fun. I'm at part 1 of Ultima Lucha. So there it goes. The Mack vs Cage. Falls count anywhere, so they don't even get to the ring. That's the spirit. Ridiculous ECW style match, with tons of weapon shots and brawling in the stands and on the Eagle's nest. Yeah, selling could be better, they treat a DDT outside like it's just another spot, but what the hell, it has good pace and is quite fun for what it is. Cage is better in this setting than when he's doing X-div sequences in the ring. I like the Mack a lot. The finish was both ridiculous and really good. And sold as death. Fun stuff. Trios championship match. Ivelysse's injury really screwed up the trios dynamic, although they managed to integrate her in the best way possible. The dead guys all have cool new mask, but I admit the beating kinda has that bizarre rudos beating pace that I never cared for in pure lucha (yeah, I said it). Not that good of a match to be honest, worked too much in a texas tornado format. Angelico did another crazy dive, but it didn't look as awesome as the two previous ones. Gotta love Catrina doing her Paul Bearer tribute act though. This shit is great. The last lick of death was ridiculously hot. Catrina rules, she doesn't take shit from anyone. This is some Tarentino "Death Proof" stuff right there. Ok, I hope there's a season two to see how the story progresses between the trio of Havoc, Ivelysse & Angelico. Hernandez vs Drago. I guess the "believers" were half audience and half extras, with the audience guys not daring to actually hit Hernandez. I do think the gimmick, as good as Hernandez selling it, ampered the match a bit. Decent stuff though, and the right guys won. Fun first episode of Ultima Lucha, but nothing special in term of matches, although that has been the issue with LU at times. The production still rules, with all the cool posters around the arena which makes it look like a special events.

The cosplay match ? I give it five cosplay stars too.

"If it ain't Southern Styletm, it ain't worth a damn." Can we move on from this ? Please ?

My Tony Schiavone quote went over everybodys head.

But what are they supposed to do ? Improvise ?

I told you Roman was basically Luger in the Allied Powers. With that Braun guy or whatever is name is they're feuding with MOM.

Punches in the face. Yay.

Jericho could have busted out his Super Liger outfit. Now that's an obscure reference.

That's awesome.

This should be separated into his own thread of "pre-planned vs called on the spot" btw. Agreed. This is totally overlooked. Familiarity plays a big part in creating greatness. When you have worked a billion times together in more than ten years, of course you don't need to talk about what you're gonna do. First occurence is rarely the best one. (that's also why one night stands kinda suck, BTW)

Until you mentionned it, I never even thought about Aj or the Bellas as being "latinos". They look like "white" girls to me. Diversity in looks ? Probably. But hell, you had Gail Kim a few years ago. But I don't remember any black girl being pushed as a legit superstar (and who wouldn't be referred as "the first black woman superstar" of course, which would be patronizing as all hell). But that's beside the point. Sasha should be pushed because she simply as *it*. Not even coming to her own music on RAW makes her "just another girl" from the get go.

I didn't realize Charlotte was that "old". So yeah, seems like pure nepotism indeed. She's not that good of a worker. She doesn't have much charisma (as a babyface at least, from what I've seen), she's doesn't seem to cut strong promos. Her act has gotten way more Ricflairish that it was before, if I judge by what I've seen. And let's be honest, since it does play a role no matter how you twist it, she's not that attractive either (looks like David). The whole Sasha Banks / Rihanna deal is exactly what it should be. Then again, when was the last time a black woman has been pushed as a star ? The very fact they put three "ethnic" (stupid word) girls together for no reason other than skin color tells you as much as you need to know, sadly. Vince is supposedly stuck into the Floridian-aryan stereotype of what a hot woman is supposed to be (that being said, seems like Lana is in the doghouse now).

Saw Enzo & Cass for the second time. I still get that NOA/Too Cool/Dudleys feel out of them. It's not a good thing in my book BTW. I hate chant-along routines, it's fun a couple of time then gets annoying as hell quickly. Especially chant-along spots. Well, at least they don't do anything as stupid as the WORM. Enzo strikes me as a mix between Road Dog, Scotty 2 Hotty & DDP. Does a good job as a face in peril though. Cass on the other hand, I have no idea what's his role apart from cleaning the ring. He's Enzo's Jim Neidhart, although I doubt Enzo has any chance on the main roster. Comedy guy in a matter of a few months. Is Carmella usually still with them ? The act is kinda funny, but doesn't have any leg or depth to me. The star of the match was Chad Gable as far as work goes. No idea who he is, but he was a lot of fun.

I just watched this week NXT, and there were two women's match on it. And I ask myself this question, how many of these girls are really that good ? Because honestly, Carmella vs Eva Marie was awful. Eva Marie is drop dead gorgeous, but she's no worker. Carmella, no idea. She wasn't as over as when she comes out alongside Enzo & Cas (is she still with them ?). And then there was a four way match between Charlotte, Becky Lynch, Emma & Dana Brooks. Not impressed by Dana. Charlotte, not a big fan either especially because her entire gimmick nowadays is being Ric's daughter. The Wooo, the strut, the chops, the figure 8 (?), the kneedrop. Way too much referential gimmicky too me, it's not doing her any favour, and doesn't put over her athlecisism. Ok, Becky's good, and I like what I saw of Emma too. The ending was odd though, Emma seemed surprised to have won, and the annoying "for the win" of the announcers, followed by an awkward reaction tells me that there was some screw up there. If not, well, that was pretty odd. Anyway, my question for the regular NXT followers, what is the consensus on all the girls ?

The spot looked awesome when I saw it during the PPV. On slow-mo, watching Sasha landing square on her head, no, not so awesome. It was botched. Botched moves than can result in bad injuries are not awesome. It's that simple. It's not a matter of morals.

This.

Do they get humiliated next week on Raw and then fired ?

Yep. Except that one time where they had Fit Finlay vs Chris Benoit with the winner going against Saturn later in the show for the TV title. Finlay got over, but not with the crowd, who died a horrible death immediately. But yeah, of course match order matters a lot in how the show flows. SummerSlam's ordering was instance, was piss poor. Among other things, of course.

Yeah. That Jon Stewart screwjob was totally worth it.

Ok. So, what was that big deal about ? The New Day are awesome. The trombone was hilarious. Ok so... oh fuck. The Duds. So, we're back to that old "hey, remember the REAL stars, from when there were REAL stars, back 15 years ago when Trips was ruling the world ?" mentality. I never cared for the Duds. Cool, "we want table" and "wazza" spots in 2015. How fresh. At least they brought both guys this time, which prevent the racist bit of having a token black guy play D-Von like at the Rumble. Couldn't care less, but hey, the Duds are real stars. It's twice as old as bringing the LOD in 98, but what can you do ? So. The Wyatt family have their own Big Dick Dudley now ? Cool. Guy looks like Phineas Godwinn on growth hormones. Looks like a shitty worker to boot. I get a Kurrgan vibes from this crap. Wait, Kurrgan at least looked kinda freaky. No, seriously, this was bad and absolutely unimpressive. Too bad, the Wyatts getting together was cool for three minutes. Poor girls. That Miz segment. That match. That crowd. That being said, bitching in tweeter about it really makes them look like, well, little whining bitches. Where the fuck was Sasha Banks anyway ? Poor Lana. She used to look like a star. Gotta love those skirts who won't lift at all during a catfight, there's a secret somewhere, you know it wasn't like that back in 2000, when wrestling was hot (cf The Duds). Yeah, that Ziggler spasming selling was hilariously bad. Why is this guy considered a good worker by guys like Cornette, Meltz, Austin and pretty much everyone in the business ? I don't think I've ever seen a guy with that much waisted motions (and I don't mean in a cool kinda way like RVD). Is Big Show going back to WCW ? That's why he insisted on screaming "I'm a Giant !" lately ? Stephy switching from bayface back into heels in the same promo. These people don't give a shit anymore. Stephy looks more and more like Vince, which makes the cleavage disturbing, kinda. Ok, so, as I was advised, fast forward until the unveiling of... oooooh ! That guy who was a star 20 years ago. And who got beat clean by HHH at Mania and shook hands with him. He's back and he's pissed off ! Cool. Another matter of "back when we were kings". Why does he get a title shot BTW ? Didn't settle his differences with the Authority at Mania ? Didn't he lost his only match in WWE ? Ah, who cares. RETROMANIA is running wild, brutha. (wait, the Ultimate Warrior, of all people, got a statue alongside Andre & Bruno ? WTF ? All because he died just after the Hall of Fame ? Holy shit) Ok, back to normal folks.

It's been said earlier, I don't know if WWE people realize that in their WWEUNIVERSEBRAND bubble, but the term "diva" when you talk about a woman (hell, or a man), is a pretty negative, derogatory term. Makes all these woman sound like they are some big-headed obnoxious annoying bitches. That's what a diva is, unless you're working in the classical lyrical realm.

I wouldn't really recommend it but if you do, you should absolutely fast forward through every word of that last talking segment until they do the reveal of what's under the sheet. Damn. Because I was thinking, sometimes those post-Mania RAWs are better than the PPV, so... Well, thanks for the warning. I'll watch that tomorrow (the advantage of watching the next day is that I can fast-forward, and also I get to read the entire thread of comments and bitching over here, which can be more fun that the PPV's)