El-P

Miz is a guy who's great at spewing WWE verbiage in medias and looking good and clean doing it. He's only been watchable whenever his wife was at his side and after 15 years can't make anything better than "passable" inside the ring (those kicks, seriously, when it was a troll on Bryan it was at least somewhat acceptable, but for fuck's sake). There's nothing comparable with MJF, who's the best heel promo in pro-wrestling in the last 30 years, and a really good worker inside the ring too. I had to say it, because really now, The Miz is about every reason rolled into why as I can't stand what WWE stands for in term of presentation.

Funniest thing is that it was actually a botch. There was no black mist. It was pretty much a transparent mist that she sold. Maybe they can pretend it was all a dream. Not turning the other week was a complete misfire, rendered worst by the fact the crowd was begging her to bash Varsity Club 1 (or 2) with the chair and unveil her black, rotten, evil eye. She would have got a big-ass pop.

Damn, the ear. Talk about a trauma for the very first episode ! I still miss Lucha Underground sometimes. Brought me back to current pro-wrestling and made me evolve. My first posts about it in late 2014 are full of "bouh indierrific movez flippity flippity flop" boomer takes ! Too bad the company was managed by assholes with unfair contracts, which never ever happens in pro-wrestling, really. But I've gotta say, I don't forget when I get Johnny Elite and Swerve Strickland and have the Lucha Brothers and Thunder Rosa and Luchasaurus (she was his queen and master) getting big push, that I've been following them since the infamous Temple. Wonder what happened to that Prince Puma fellow though, he was ok, had some potential... Heard Matanza was hiding somewhere in Japan too...

No shit. Not to mention the guy spent years reclusive in a tower with a ten years old boy or something... Mu is sus. Can you believe we got this anime in France in 1988. 1988. Two years after Japan. I was twelve and LOVED the hell out of this. Plus, I dunno how it was in Latin America, but the first version was totally unedited, full on gore and violence. That was quite something. And so I only saw the Hades arc like in the mid 00's as an adult, and although obviously the magic was gone and I had been spoiled by research on the Internet at this point, but still really enjoyed it. Makes me think, one of the great thing about pro-wrestling, is that although it's kinda like fiction, they can never do a prequel, or a re-boot. I mean, they can do "re-boot" of angles and factions, but not in the ways TV show or movies can do re-boots and prequels and offshoots. MLW tried to get some of the Lucha Underground elements and failed miserably. For sure. But what's interesting is how they will build it on week to week TV, as they need to do it in a meaningfull way, it's not like they have some other PPV to sell in the same timeframe (like WWE totally no caring about a name show that is close to a Saudi show, because they feel they gotta build the propaganda show).

Ok, I died

Actually, doesn't work the same at all. The cadence was : E-Li DRAKE ! L-A KIGHT ! Cutting the last name in two instead of the first name doesn't have the same effect at all. Especially when it has that French sounding vowel at the end (Dupri comes from French origins, basically Dupré, meaning "from the field"), which doesn't pop like -ake or -ight. Plus HE WAS FUCKING LA KNIGHT ON YOUR OWN FUCKING DEVELOPMENTAL TV SHOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This company...

This. The whole "MJF is frustrated and probably won't re-sign" has been debunked already. But yeah, of course not everybody is gonna be happy. It's not the honeymoon period anymore, so much talent competing for spots now. And really, Coach TK will have to settle the fuck down and delegate some if he doesn't wan't to drive himself insane. It's only human. The idea of running ROH honestly I never thought was a good idea, and seems even less of a good idea with weeks passing by. Two many belts that don't mean anything, too many talents and shows to handle, and the AEW brand should be the absolute priority. As far as some people being frustrated, it seems pretty obvious. The Julia Hart angle has been a mess, should have been done in three weeks. Reveal Julie Hart as a member of House of Black already ! The Men of the Year vs Sammy & Tay angle is spiraling down a Kevin Sullivanesque vortex of insanity that needs to be stopped tomorrow. Do the mixed tag match already ! Some stuff don't get addressed like Anna Jay losing her BFF, that's a feud for Tay that writes itself. Tons of stuff could be better, for sure, and it doesn't seem illogical that some people are unhappy and frustrated. But "every single of us" ? Come on now... AEW needs a Scott D'Amore. Best week-to-week-to-PPV guy of the last 20 years. I've just said it.

Which never made any sense to me ! I mean so we're told he's keeping his eyes close so with one sense not working he can focus more of his energy but then again when he opens his eyes then he's getting even more powerful except Ikki forced him to open his eyes so now Shaka is vulnerable ok WTF ?!?! I mean, Shaka was still the coolest this side of Saga, but still, that shit made no sense whatsoever. He was probably an anti-vaxx naturopath at heart too, with all the new-age bullshit in his house. And yet, it should not, because you don't squash a main event star like MJF. So yeah, it's tricky. Totally agree. Although I must say, he does not come off as big of a figure as Omega did, but that was to be expected. It's still his first reign and he was unproven before. The guy is still growing. But he has totally succeeded as a World Champ in match quality, promos and staying over after the chase was done. Rampage definitely was a B show, but that main event was excellent, as it should have been. Regal did call Jericho "sunshine". Ruby Soho is gonna get to the finals, and honestly this choice is meh. Yes, the Riho match was very good and by far her best match in AEW but guess what, Riho does that with everybody. Statlander ain't winning. Enjoyed the match with Red Velvet though, I liked the focus on big power moves by Statlander, that's a good game for her, and Velvet is even more fun as a heel. Poor Anna Jay not even acknowledging her BFF becoming an annoying bitch and now is gonna be served to Jade on the pre-show. Damn, girl. She can't even slap Stu Grayson around anymore. Hopefully she gets a bit of focus after that point. The Men of the Year / Sammy & Tay feud needs to end. They have obviously booked themselves in a hole, and I say that having enjoyed the matches and promos a lot. But this is soooo confusing now, it's like a Kevin Sullivan angle from 96 with heels vs heels and heels acting babyface before acting heels again.The fact the belt really could not be broken and then Kazarian shows up... with the heels, was the icing on the cake. Yeah, so WCW, it was funny as hell. Do the mixed tag with Ethan & PVZ vs Sammy & Tay and move on ! The PPV will probably have lots of great stuff, but yeah, the global build to me as been the weakest. It will take *a lot* from the Bucks to have that great match they want to have, but then again, they are the Bucks. Very interested in what approach they will have wth this one. Deeb vs Rosa should be very good but could also be kinda heatless. Ruby Soho in the final of the Owen is not something I wanted to see, she has been quite underwhelming to me, and Baker is not gonna carry like Riho did. The NJPW PPV build is gonna be super interesting, because NJPW doesn't build their major card the same way a US company would, and I doubt the NJPW crew will appear every week to build the thing.

Nick Khan is taking over this company like there's no tomorrow. Do you smell what he's cooking ? Speaking of cooking, couldn't they hire Brandi Rhodes for the role ? That would be some high powered trolling.

Well, now let's be fair. Kyle O'Reilly is an excellent pro-wrestler. Kurt Angle and Bryan Danielson are two of the greatest pro-wrestlers ever. Comparison = not fair.

She should have tweeted that one during RAW newt week. Like "Hey, I'm going home !". For the lulz, you see.

But in the end, O'Reilly does kick the fuck out of people and make them tap out, so where's the issue ? Not everybody has to behave like "serious ass-kicker", and that includes red-head in kick pads who come from the indies. What's funny to me is that calling this kind of guy a dork is exactly what WWE did with Bryan. Hell, Jericho in sports-entertainer mode just called him a nerd. O'Reilly has that goofy attitude while Fish is more serious, which makes a good contrast for what essentially is a team of ass-kickers. Their maneurisms as they pause is straight out of Street Fighter 2 or Street of Rage and that's a good thing, it's cool video game nerd shit. The same.

I didn't think about it that way, but it makes sense. He did call Daniel Garcia "flower", so there's that. I liked how they teased Stadium Stampede but interrupted it in a way that made sense character wise. A blood brawl is what we want.

CM Punk's T-shirt >>>>>> everything. In Texas no less. Speaking of Texas : Yep. Steve Austin really ruined it for everybody when he came up with that. We're in fucking 2022 already. I fucking called Johnny Elite is the AAA Thread ! Apparently he's gonna be Johnny Game Changer in GCW too . Cool that he's there. He's like an RVD, he's a guy you can do a lot with because of his abilities. As long as no one sells his shitty finisher, that's cool. Plus, another one of the Lucha Underground gang ! When is Ricochet's contract ending already ? I for one thought Regal underwhelming on the mic. That comeback was pretty weak. Mox & Eddie saved the segment on the babyface side. I did find the Serena Deeb segment pretty intriguing, more intriguing than most of what they did around the Women's title for a long while, including Rosa elbowing Dustin by accident. Good stuff there. Fénix vs O'Reilly was awesome. O'Reilly's counter of Rey's cutter was next level kinda work. The idea that O'Reilly is a dork is amusing, since he's basically totally out of the Bryan Danielson mold. Page vs Takeshita was awesome. You know Page is one of those guys who wants to do the G1 again. I had not seen any Takeshita before he showed up, because I really don't watch DDT, but the guy has been impressive. When you think NJPW is still pushing guys like EVIL, yikes... Wardlow no selling the lashing I did not see coming and it was a brillant idea. Great execution too. They have totally sold me, especially in the last few weeks, for a program I did not give a shit about. That's good work. Speaking of getting over to an uncaring audience : This. Itoh is an interesting case because it makes you question about "What getting over means ?" in a context that has nothing to do with a promotion strapping a rocket on your ass or using promotional high weaponry, nor having an already strongly established status. She shows up and gets over. Always good to have people like this. I thought it was odd too at first, but actually she was kinda covering her face because she was *that close* to cracking up, you can clearly see it. Made my day. On the other hand that promo by Statlander was yikes. Can I get my alien back ? That certainly was a Jeff Hardy circa TNA 2011 match or something. Even Adam Cole can't work miracles when there's no ladders involved. Tag match should be fun though, because Young Bucks are the GOAT team (and no, I don't throw that acronym as a meme, they legit are). It is. And it is too. Amazing when you think of it. Three years is more than peak Nitro (which lasted about 2 years and a half, really). Three years is the entire Attitude Era. Three years is more than peak ECW. And without even having to think twice about it, these three years have been the best US pro-wrestling TV ever in term of match quality and consistency. By a wide, wide margin. Booking wise in term of big angle, I wouldn't say anything got close to the early nWo or Bret vs US, or even some of the best ECW angles (which really were very niche but also incredibly fresh, visceral and different). But really, in three years, they have accomplished so much more than anyone could have dreamed of when it started both in term of getting competitive with WWE (which they should not be, not with the Coca Cola of the industry) and in term of attracting major names and working with so many promotions around the world. Coach TK, hat's off to you, really, made my last few years way easier than they would have been otherwise, best years of my life as a pro-wrestling fan since 1990.

Thought it was excellent overall, with a great ending stretch, but Hash was sleeping on his ass when Mutoh was controlling at first. Not my favorite Mutoh match and clearly not my favorite Hashimoto match nor performance. Hash vs Mutoh was usually very good, sometime better, but never reached the peak of great Mutoh matches. I mean, of course if you consider his peak to be ten years, then it's not short, obviously. To me his peak is 5 years at best (which honestly is also not that short when I think about it). The Tenzan match was *good* at best to me, obviously Hash was the better guy. Haven't seen the four way with Corino, but those two factors only makes me doubt it can be a great match (4 way + Corino, whom I enjoy but...). The Choshu match at WK001 was very good, and Choshu was as much responsible as Hash to me (again, maybe my Choshu bias, did I mention I love Choshu ?). I will probably end up watching more of his 00's stuff eventually though, but that's really adjustment. Won't hurt him, won't help him that much either I don't think. Zangiev, Vader and Choshu were great then (I totally mean it including for Zangiev). To me Hash really did not figure it out before late 1993 and was the great Hash for the first time at the Tokyo Dome against Sasaki in 94 (BTW, Sasaki is a guy who really got a bad rep for his 90's stuff, but his stock has risen quite a bit, maybe not to the point of getting into my list, but still). And at his very best I'd say until G1 Climax 98. Doesn't mean he wasn't still very good after that point, but not at the same level to me. To be clear, there are 4 guys who will get in my list in solely on their NJPW career in the 90's (and by that I mean that it was enough for them to make it, not that it's the only thing taken in account) : Liger, Hase, Ohtani and Hashimoto. That's a pretty elite company no matter what. Well, I'm glad it doesn't seem that crazy. I'm currently going through Nagata's prime years, and I'm really, really impressed. I liked the guy before but wasn't too sure how his best years would compare... But that's for another thread.

Well, I'm going through UWF-I anyway, so he's not a guy I'm gonna skip, but yeah, not looking for anything specific nor expecting some high quality stuff, although the very early stuff was kinda fun to watch (against quality opponent) with the hindsight of what he would become. Slim, in shape Takayama is pretty odd to watch !

I've been watching quite a bit of early to mid 00's stuff lately and : He was indeed quite the big match worker at this time, really consistent too and could work with many kind of different guys and always make the most out of his own game. Him destroying a young Nakamura at the Dome in 2004 was an ace monster heel veteran performance. I was a fan back then, but re-watching him now (and more than I had previously seen), I've been enjoying him even more. Gonna watch some of his UWF-I stuff too eventually.

It killed Hashimoto dead and he never was the same after this. It hurt the promotion. The work was shit. Totally disagree in them being some of Hash's best performances (those would be against Fujinami, Tenryu and Choshu). He had such an aura that of course it got super heated, but Ogawa was abysmal and Hash himself did not really shine doing the pseudo-MMA bullshit. Some super heated comebacks don't balance taking a dozen FTO in a row until the match dies (very proto Lesnar in term of finisher spamming on repeat, btw). Rewatching them with a fresh eye did not help their case at all, in a way it made it worse because it still pisses me off how they ruined Hashimoto. Their match in 97 was actually pretty good, although Hash really never was that great at the pseudo-shoot-fight stuff, ironically enough.

Well, because I only developed the reasons why he won't be as high in my list as he probably will be in a lot of others (judging from his last rankings and the fact he pretty much gets universal praise and barely any criticism). If I developed the reasons why he will make my list, then you probably would agree with most of what I'd say. But since I don't have a lot more to add in term of why he was a great worker and basically I know I'll be a rather low vote, well, had to explain why. But like I said, this is a case where the GWE process makes it less fun (same thing happened when I was doing the top 25 TNA matches, some matches I really enjoy a lot seemed "lesser" only because they wouldn't get selected in the end, and it would not have been the case if I wasn't worrying about making a ranking list.).

They just publicly buried her. Dunno what's next for her, but "giving her a strong push" would be really odd. It would also send quite the message backstage.

Going through the 90's, and Hashimoto's stock has fallen with me. Which kinda makes the GWE process frustrating, because if you ask me : are you a Hashimoto fan, do you think he was a great worker, do you love watching Hashimoto ? My answers would be yes, yes and fuck yes ! Still, in the context of the GWE, and considering everything else, yep, I probably will end up being a low vote for good ol' Hash (that is, unless you don't vote for him at all). In short, because I'd rather focus on more positive things : "short" peak, basically from late 93 to more or less 98-99 (and if I'm honest, I'd go 94-98). Before that, he wasn't that great, after 99 and the god-awful Ogawa feud, he's kind coasting to me (although if I ever get to watch more of his post prime maybe I'll change my mind). Few matches that are classics, and of course it wasn't his fault in a company like NJPW in the 90's where the great dance partners were few and far between, but the issue is that I don't think I've ever seen a truly great Hashimoto match in which I thought he was the better guy (not even talking about getting a great match out of a not so great worker). Not against Hase, not against Takada, not against Tenryu, not even against Choshu in 96 (and this one may be my Choshu bias). The Fujinami matches are terrific, but again, the awesome performances from Fuji are a big part of why they stand out so much from a usual Hash big match. And then there's the fact he never really had those great matches with Mutoh (who had several, from the very early 90's up to 99 and beyond) because, unlike most Mutoh's opponents who would actually try to work with him during the rather dire matwork sequences, Hash, especially in one match in 96, just laid the fuck around doing nothing forever and showed total disinterest. Which really is a black mark to me, as it occurred then that he was a great one note worker, absolutely awesome at what he did as long as it was what he did. But when confronted with a guy with a totally different approach, he could just lay around until he could throw some kicks and chops. Hash had the huge advantage of being the charismatic top star of NJPW when it was at its hottest in the 90's, so his aura played *a lot* in how he's perceived. Throw him in the dead early 00's for one hour against Nakanishi or useless Yasuda, there's no way he's getting the most out of that the way Nagata did. No way. It was also talked about how he was hurt working in NJPW, and I even mentioned that fact earlier, but it also worked to his advantage to me, I'm not convinced he would have shined as much as a worker in AJPW for instance without the aura of the NJPW megastar. NO idea how he would have fared in post 00's NJPW either. Since this doesn't exist, and from what I have seen, as great as he was, and he was great, to me he absolutely doesn't measure up to the best of the current (Tanahashi and later) generation, nor to Nagata's excellent body of work over 25 years. So there. I could go on and on about what's great about Hashimoto's game and what I love about it, but it would be being redondant with some of what's been said already. So yeah, re-watching Hashimoto has been both fun (because he was great) and a bit less fun (strictly because of the GWE process, which forces you to position yourself on a list while looking out only for what your perceive as the absolute best stuff). Don't hate on me, I still love Hashimoto. One of the greatest theme ever too.

It was the big hype at the time, as was GAEA in general, and back then I never quite figured it out, it was kinda cool but also pretty overrated (then again, in a scene that was totally self-destroying, there wasn't much left to be excited about). In retrospect it really seems it was a huge nostalgia ride in which Chiggy (and Lioness, always in the corner where she can put herself over everyone) reclaim that role of the biggest star in the scene that she had 15 years before. She never really put anyone over, letting Aja, Kansai and Hokuto make Satomura and rode the wave of her past glory in a rather tired Crush Gals comeback. Sure, the big shows were cool because they packed so much big names of the 90's and 80's, but the in-ring stuff wasn't always the most interesting. Again, haven't watched that stuff in 20 years, so I have no idea what I would think about Chiggy's work from this period now (from memory her stuff in JWP in the early/mid 90's was much better). I was much more interested back then in the first years or so of ARSION, which had a cool concept (but didn't draw at all), and it's pretty interesting that, not unlike NJPW which 10's really are way removed from its past, the most successful women's promotion in Japan in 20 years ended up being another Rossy Ogawa creation, with the same philosophy which you can criticize (aka : focusing on mostly attractive young women, which was also one of ARSION's selling point) and seemingly a strong disconnect from the past eras in term of audience.

WTF, really. Wasn't Nia Jax done with pro-wrestling anyways ? And Lana resurfacing here of all places is puzzling to say the least. Cool undercard though. The women tag match is basically an IMPACT match (love those four, too), AOP vs Forgotten Sons in a old-school (see what I did ?) NXT match, Kross vs Jonah vs Del Sol is an interesting mix (I mean, Del Sol and Jonah can do so much cool stuff together).

Those Kayfabe Commentary Comedy Roasts were such a mistake. None of the actual comedians were funny, the Hall incident... Such a mess. Yeah, I can see this turning out bad, or somebody making an offhand remark that will really offend some people, or Flair just making a fool out of himself (that never happens, right ?). The Dragon is smart for not taking place in this match too.

That being said, I'm not sure actual Nazi sympathizers actually cosplay as Hitler.