Matt D

Did she just win with a basic pumphandle slam?

Fun counter-heavy stuff here. I liked Rhea selling the ankle and then seamlessly turning the motion into paintbrushing Asuka.

I'm not emotionally invested in this match like last night's main event (I think I've seen 1-2 Rhea matches ever?) and I'm definitely not emotionally invested in watching Edge. So I'll be half here as we watched the Pennyworth season finale that dropped today.

I hope they do MITB in the WWE HQ again.

I look forward to them facing Styles and Omos.

Ok, I'm back. I was picturing something more like that Car Circle match with Cena.

Then best Bulldog vs Warlord matches are towards the fall (like the one where Slick got "hurt") as they had the whole year to work it out.

Watch that match I posted. I want a second opinion on his 71 year old performance.

I'm giving my 3 year old a bath during this one. Will return at a later point.

Will they sell the ooze tiara on Shopzone?

When does the new Ghostbusters movie come out again?

Man, what do they even do with the Fiend when the endless Orton feud is over? Maybe a Miz feud?

Orton's got a line on his side. Did Belair get him with her hair too?

Were the fans booing Orton taking a powder?

I certainly don't think this specific enhancement match hurts his case. He took a bump over the top (at 47) which wasn't necessary but added to the match. There were a couple of good arm flips that had real oomph to them. His strikes were solid though not the sort you'd see in 50s-60s France (more of that from Maivia actually). I thought he interacted/contrasted well with Maivia in general.

Lawler is going to have a tough road this time around, I think. At least that's the impression I get from listening to Steven for 5 hours. I did see this the other day and thought it was worth watching though. There are some problematic cultural elements to it, maybe, but as a match with a 70+ year old in it, it was a really strong performance. Lawler has had some new matches show up, including part of a new Bockwinkel one and a rare Dundee one, and he's done a lot of indy work, which tends to be a lot of smoke and mirrors. I'd say that this match is an outlier from that, actually.

I'm very excited for people to see Peruano. In the INA collection, we have 13-14 matches of his over a span of ten years or so. Some are just JIP but generally substantial in how much can be accomplished in a few minutes. Some are very long but entertaining the whole way through. He's against different opponents and in tags and singles. He may be the most interesting and creative worker in the French Catch footage. The style has a lot of similar spots and sequences from match to match and he has some ways of coming at it that are unique to him. Just unique entry points, unique bits of recoil and reaction, unique moves, unique holds. On top of that is a personality that is almost reptilian, slimy, persistent and a little bit alien, the other, especially to 1950s and 60s France: a Negro Casas (yes), or 97 Eddy Guerrero, or Mocho Cota. He can wrestle, and slug, and lean, and bump, and stooge. As you watch him, you won't want to look away. I'm not sure how many lists he'll make, but I do think he'll be a favorite.

I wonder if it's us getting older or if it's the change in wrestling in general but at some point it went from "I want to see the face beat the heel" to "I want to see the company push the wrestler I like" to "I hope they can pull off the performance successfully."

In a Johnny Ace is in charge again sense, sure.

Do they REALLY need to do tomorrow night? They could just stop now while they're ahead for once.

Yet because it wasn't the finish, it protects the move.

The frogsplash isn't clean but it also looked like she nailed her with her knee, etc. The double rotation Tornado DDT was pretty beautiful though.

The hubris of it, the struggle of it, the fact it still worked. Sasha's super giving in this one. See? It somehow worked even better.

The most amazing thing about Sasha, to me, is that even when something goes wrong in her matches, it still somehow works. It's an almost Sabu quality. Early on here, there was an obvious bit of anticipation of Bianca putting her up for the atlantida position for the kiss of death, and Sasha was able to escape immediately and even though it didn't look great because of the early anticipation, you bought that it was why Sasha was so easily able to get out. Her matches are just full of bits like that.

I stand by this still, and my list above could be expanded a little. I'm not sure exactly when some of the Houston matches (Slater, Morton, Santana) dropped or when someone stitched together the hour long match with Brunzell. We have gotten at least one new Hennig match which helps round out the feud and a few other things through WWE Network Hidden Gems. It's easier to access the IWE matches now. We now have a HH with a few extra minutes of the Funk in Japan match. Etc. Whenever a new Bock match drops, I always wonder if it's going to be the match that makes me finally see the holes. And they're never there.