El-P

Oh yeah, Mr. High Voltage doing the 619 surely will gain him points with *me* of all people. The Aztec Warfare was tons of fun I thought. Much better than any Rumble I've seen for years now, and they found ways to incorporate the women and even Mascarita Sagrada without getting too awkward. Ivelisse kinda ruled in it actually. Yep, from a really good show to the first disappointing one (and no Catrina, no cookies from me).

A lot less awesome backstage vignettes. A main event push for a jacked-up steroid freak who looks like a Power Plant reject (really, he's a Robbie Rage look alike, and even got almost as generic of a name). Me not like that at all.

In this internet age, you can't erase stuff like this. In a matter of a few minutes anyone can access to videos of Chyna getting fucked by two (or more) guys. So yeah. There's no way she's getting in, if only because of this. And quite frankly, Chyna sucked back then too.

Chyna ? Triple H's former girlfriend ? Who made those porn videos including one where's she gangbanged by guys dressed up as John Cena and Mean Gene ? Really ?

He should have kept the (very) fake French accent.

Good news to me. Raven is always entertaining, and that's the most important thing to me.

That reminded me why I used to love JR at times. It was pretty great.

That show was brutal. Coming off the terrific New Japan Dome show, it felt even more unbearable. Yeah, total WCW 2000 vibes (including a damn ambulance match, but without Shaggy 2 Dope crashing down like a blob).

Last NJ shows I have watched were a bunch of G1 stuff from a few years ago, when Naito was still tagging with Yugiro. So yeah. Out of the loop. And now I remember why I loved puroresu so much. Excellent show, with nothing bad except the Kenny Omega match (damn, that guy is putrid, the most atrocious facials and maneurisms this side of Edge and Randy Orton). The multi man tags after the opener were fine for what they were, although Jarrett busting out a guitar… I mean, really ? Cool opener, in terms of spot wrestling, it was kinda terrific. The shoot-style match, well, fun in a goofy way, and I enjoyed hearing the old UWF theme in 2015, but nothing special. The tag team titles match was decent for the most part and build into quite the good stuff at the end. Ishii vs Makabe developped into quite the excellent match, really cool stiffest in the tradition of Hash and Tenryu. Naito vs Styles was good, with a very good ending stretch, but I'm not sold at all on Styles as this great worker. Some of his stuff still looks too overthought to me, and it felt a little bit disjointed at times. But yeah, good stuff nonetheless. Nakamura vs Ibushi. Ok, WTF happened to Nakamura ? When did he developped this character ? Anyway, great match, as simple as that. Tanahashi vs Okada. I'm not sure about great, but pretty close nonetheless, and it didn't feel too long to me. Tanahashi is such the Man it's not even funny. I can see why he connects with the japanese crowds so well. Agreed. And Ross was good at reining in Striker too when necessary (I enjoyed the whole "I don't know what swerve means, I've never been swerved." bit) I should follow NJ again.

Yeah, this too.

That's the whole difference between "living it" and "thinking about it". And while I've enjoyed going back a whole lot, if I'm truly honest, I never had so much fun watching wrestling than during the times I was living it, especially during the Monday Night Wars and when I was following (as much as I could) the joshi scene, especially ARSION, in 99/01. If current pro-wrestling was able to grab me, I wouldn't probably care that much about revisiting stuff from the past. And I actually am kinda bored with it at this point (I dropped old USWA watch after a few weeks, no matter how fun Lawler was). Probably burned out, probably have been underwhelmed by some of the so-called "great finds" also. So yeah. I'm waiting for Lucha Underground to kick off again.

Well, that's Japan for you I guess. Still, that doesn't tell me why she was actually on NJ TV. Was that because of some talent exchange with ROH (she's working ROH, right ?) ? I'm so out of the loop.

Corrected. He has so much insight to what the WWF was doing in 96/97 and anything about early WCW or SMW is usually gold too. So.

I'm probably gonna watch a NJ show for the first time in years. So yeah, pretty curious to see how things have evolved over there. Maria Kannellis appeared in NJ ? What was the issue with how they filmed her ?

I'm exactly at the same point, and yes, totally agree, this is great. Cornette is having a blast doing this and Duggan is a fun guest. Can't wait for the following ones.

Listening to some old Drive Thru, I'm surprised nobody mentionned how Alice said Mark Henry has been cutting awesome monster promos for the past few years. That alone should get her a free pass for life around this place.

Ryback doing Positively Page and Bad News Barrett using the awful "It's me it's me" cachphrase is coincidental, right ? Cesaro doing the ever succesful "I'm just a wrestler" gimmick…. Roman Reigns is so not ready for the top spot. The Ascension. Okay. This is right out of the worst of 93 WCW. At least the Master Blasters were big. After binge watching Lucha Underground for a week, the acting and vignettes on WWE TV look even more low rent than usual. Jerry Lawler is redifining useless at this point. "The darkest day in the history of WWE". I know that Vince is shouting in his ears, but come on… Why couldn't Rusev win the IC title anyway ? Have him collect belts.

Gotta love the fact Stephy & Hunter came back the same day Daniel Bryan did. That way, if anything positive happens, you can attribute it to… well, you know the drill.

I used to read Stuart's old site back in 2000 (seems like it was in another life at this point), before he decided to go all NJ. It's amazing he stayed dedicated to SSS that long. Hat's off to him.

Week 5 & 6 kept on delivering the fun stuff. Mil Muertes having a good little match against Drago, and the Big Ryck vs Puma garbage brawl was entertaining. I actually enjoyed Sexy Star in a tag match setting working with Fenix (who's doing some amazing MOVES, yeah, and I enjoy them for what they are) against Chavo and Pentagon Jr., good main event again. The guy with the Mantaur outfit is a nice change of pace. Catrina, well, CATRINA. As much as I don't mind Vamp at this point, Striker really isn't good though.

Watched the first fourepisodes thus far. Yeah, I finally found a current pro-wrestling product I enjoy watching. I don't care if it's basically Nitro-matches, the atmosphere is really cool, the vignettes are awesome (just the coolest production ever for pro-wrestling), and I even warmed up to Vamp's announcing. I could do without Johnny Nitro and Sexy Star, but the influx of actual luchadors and different character shapes (Big Ryck & Mil Muertes as monsters, Guerno as a more power-style luchador, Mascarita Sagrada) makes the whole thing looks much more interesting now. Catrina is a very welcomed evil sexy valet, Ivelysse seems kinda cool. And I enjoy Chavo in this role too. Really refreshing.

So the winner won't get a direction.

They are so lucky to have so many other revenue streams at this point. Otherwise, this would have tanked the company a long time ago. You can safely add WWE Studios alongside Icopro, WBF, XFL and WWF New York. Note to Paul & Stephy Lesveque : you betta promote good ol' rastlin', my boys.

That was D-Lo. The Euro title never meant anything. It's been a one match (Owen vs Bulldog in Germany) title.

Finally got myself to watch the first episode. Yeah. Got tired of watching old stuff, I want to give chance to something fresh for a change. I really enjoy the presentation and the production. Dario Cueto buries everyone on any pro-wrestling promotion ever as far as acting goes. But maybe that's because he's an actor actor and not a pro-wrestler trying to act. The whole thing looks different, and that's exactly what wrestling needs. Now, I'm mostly not familiar with lucha, either old or current, neither am I with indy wrestling. Which means I'm the perfect viewer discovering this stuff from scratch, basically. Well, Blue Demon Jr. vs Chavo was a decent match, although Demon looked sloppy at times doing spots he probably shouldn't do at his age. Not setting the place on fire or anything, but good introduction with two known veterans I guess. The backtage vignettes get some awesome production. Go straight ahead into the TV series aesthetic. Why not ? Damn, Konnan looks old ! But he sure knows how to deliver his lines. I like this approach of introducing the characters. Unless it's Sexy Star, whose English promo was awkward and cheesy as hell. I guess it came off much better in Spanish and really, if you've got to use subtitles, just have her speak in Spanish anyway. Okay, a small bearded guy named Son of Havoc. Intergender match ? Not a big fan. Good enough action, but a guy beating down a girl just doesn't set very well with me. Why not two luchadoras against each others ? Hell, bring Shimoda, I believe she's still in Mexico. Johnny Mundo. Complete WWE character, he didn't even bother to change the robotic intro. Prince Puma looks quite amazing doing athletic feats. I admit having no reference at all as far as what a pure spotfest looks like these days, so I was amazed as some of the stuff he did. Mundo can't sell to save his life, so while he does some impressive looking stuff, I wasn't into him at all. Just a spot monkey just as I remembered him from his WWE days. So yeah, impressive in spots, but not the kind of match I care about, and the "this is awesome" chants and constant overpimping of the announcing (which was overall not good, so I guess we found something else that Vamp sucks at) only made me think it was nothing special sold as something special. Which is grating. Beatdown at the end by some guys I don't know of. Okay show. Interesting production. Nothing that really grabbed me, honestly. More interested in the overall presentation and vignettes thus far. Mostly enjoyed the two veterans, Cueto, Konnan and Puma.