Stiva

Yeah, this felt like a really big deal and was laid out perfectly. Moose is a dude that's a bit of a freak athlete and you can really tell when he's in with someone like Aries who is similarly agile. Some great early spots like Moose meeting Aries on the dive and him shrugging off the strikes, only to get poked in the eye led perfectly into Moose just casually tossing Aries into the fucking crowd. Aries took an awesome bump on the spear too and it really did look like a killer hit and worthy of a great nearfall. Aries trying to use the belt only to have it taken away and Moose somehow surviving the brainbuster on the floor were awesome escalations of the heat until Aries finally hits his killer blow. It really felt like the first match in a series where Moose eventually wins after Aries runs out of tricks. Hopefully, that's the case as they matched up really well here and helped cap off a killer PPV.

Another wild brawl that, differentiated itself from the previous match by way of really vicious shit. I loved how we got some ROH 2005-07 callback spots with Homicide's drano in the tag match and then the railroad spikes here. What was interesting, as mentioned, was the quasi-comedy spots but they were still done in a way that heightened the violence; Callihan taking off the vest in a fit of hubris was a great character touch and then Pentagon straight up breaks the ref's arm when he was blinded. I loved that. Like the dude was so pissed off by getting dust in his eyes that he doesn't mess around this time and just breaks the guy's arm. And I LOVED how, even after realising he made the mistake, he was berating the ref for not using his broken arm to count. The piledriver through the chairs absolutely had to be the finish but that seems to be a running theme in Callihan's matches but hey, it all worked. Neat little post match work with Fenix helping his brother corner Sami and making him take his punishment. Another Slammiversary match that delivered.

Great brawl and the first of the three mains that delivered at this show. Homicide has always been one of the GOAT hardcore brawlers and he hasn't lost a step. He was taking nutty bumps onto tacks, getting awesome hits in with tame weapons and delivered the spot of the match with the crazy looking tope through the table. Hernandez looked like his old self and he and Homicide both had the air of older guys who you still would absolutely not fuck with. Current LAX held their own too with wild dives and their double team moves are super great. Solid finish that leads to more, complete with a great Kingston beatdown at the end. If Konnan was in anyway mobile, they could absolutely run another brawl with Konnan and Kingston in the mix. Great stuff.

Riddle/Rousey dream team is my fantasy booking

Man, pro wrestling is just fantastic

Yeah, I think this is it. If you take just about every WWE match in a vacuum, they're good by any conventional in-ring scale. It's when you hit the booking that things begin to take a sour turn. If you're someone who takes booking decisions into account when reviewing matches, Extreme Rules would probably be different but if you're just looking at the structure, execution, in-ring story etc, it was a high level wrestling PPV. They're their own worst enemy when it comes to creative and it leaves such a sour taste over everything else.

Yeah, add me to the list of people who are excited for the PPV. Impact has been a great mix of fun guys and wrestling how I like it to be presented. Aries comes off as a real star on top too so I’m not sure I’d have him lose it just yet, even though the winner of Sami/Pentagon is probably going to be next in line for the shot and that match will probably show which way the main is going to go.

Man, what a fantastic 5 minutes or so. Everyone looks good but man alive, La Parka was (is) one super charismatic dude and he has the crowd eating out of his hand all night. Los Fabulousos is hilarious as Silver King licks and sticks his eyebrows as El Dandy brushes that glorious mullet right before they all throw out some awesome sequences, filled with great dives, bumps and all cut at a breakneck pace. WCW could have had an astonishingly good undercard if they gave these guys the time of day.

Once more, the seemingly random nature of the clipping threatens to ruin things but luckily, it doesn't because man, what a 7 minutes. Everything they pulled off hit true and looked great and it felt like a real fight, played out at an awesome speed. Apache looked fantastic with her big power moves all looking like they could have broken Asari in half but when it came to bumping and making Asari look good, she could do that too. The bump into the chairs was a highlight but the way she fed and cut off her comebacks was great; a highlight being when Asari was giving a chance to get back into it after a missed swanton bomb but was soon cut off with a vicious spinning wheel kick. Apache is on the docket of workers I'm going to watch everything from going forward.

Yeah, this looks like a match that had a lot of good stuff that is either destroyed by the clipping or killed in its tracks by the goddamn interfering. Kong entering after a long wait and not even getting the chance to lay the hurt on the cheaters opposite kind of sums the disappointing nature of it up but GAMI coming in and hitting moves in front of the ref like it was a Prince Devitt Bullet Club IC title match is the kind of thing that completely loses me.

Fun sprint that manages to fit a pretty huge amount into 4 minutes or so. Despite his great debut, Tazz just never really worked in WWE and it's Jericho and Angle who look the best here. The crowd is hot for their interactions, including a nutty bump to the floor from Angle and a proto-double superplex spot. The finish is slightly overworked but it's fun to see Backlund around, even if it was for a short time and man, Chyna is STILL with Jericho. Still, a good TV spot and it was clear that they had two megastars on their hands

Not to derail but how could you watch that match and think ENGLAND were the underhanded ones? My word, there have been some TERRIBLE takes about the World Cup from people who have a surface level knowledge of it

Man, this sucks. Not just one of the best big men ever, one of the best ever full stop. Loss put together a great list of matches on Twitter that I'm going to spend an hour or so bouncing around. RIP

Stick to the wrestling, brother. That was a wholly professional performance against a side whose intention was to disrupt and kill momentum at any chance. Kind of like what Switzerland did but you didn't have a Harry Kane Though there hasn't been any World Cup result as thoroughly disappointing as Dolph Ziggler becoming IC champion. Though Rollins is so over, they should probably push him toward the title when they can, depending on if Lesnar feels like working or not.

What in the HELL are they putting Sami Zayn and Bobby Lashley through? Those poor men

If they're booking Reigns vs Lesnar and Bryan vs Miz on the same card, they can't possibly expect the former to be the main event. If the former goes on last then they, once more, deserve everything they get.

And Nitro continues its slide into complete irrelevance. As Loss says, the tag match is actually really solid; everyone works hard, Luger and Elizabeth is a really solid act and Hennig looks like he has a ton left in the tank, even if the opposite was true. As much as they try to build heat around their top guys, WCW is dead. This is a really solid TV main event but Rock/Big Show is much more fresh, exciting and booked in a way that is actually interesting and that was just a repeat of a PPV match. God bless the old guard of WCW for trying but success had escaped from them and Vampiro was certainly not the guy to bring it back

It's been years since I've seen this and my fondness for it has diminished. Largely down to my weariness with brawling through the crowd but, to be fair, it was kept fairly short here but the match still does have it's pluses; Corino makes everything look great and getting that cowbell and tape out of his hair must have fucking sucked later on. Dusty is elder Dusty but he manages to make everything that should matter, matter but there's just something missing. And yeesh, that opening angle. Terrible insider remarks topped off by really uncomfortably harsh man on woman violence. What a shitty time.

Kid Kash is an absolute bumping machine here, just incredible height and snap on everything he does. I enjoy Awesome in settings where there's a size discrepancy and they can bump and fly for him, making his power stuff look really good but I thought this was some degree worse than the Spike matches. At this point in ECW, Awesome is like a bad Brock Lesnar with table spots replacing German suplexes.

God damn it, they ran Bryan/Miz in my patch and I missed it

This annoys me too. It's even worse when it's "Earlier today, Sasha Banks took to Twitter and said "It's my time tonight. #TheBossisHere #BankHoliday" with Cole taking a dramatic pause before saying each hashtag out loud

Mike Adamle's stint on ECW was certainly something. Didn't it all but drive Tazz out of the company? I mean, that was no great loss but still.

Hash bleeding as he walks to the ring is a fantastic visual and he is ready to lay a beating in on any fool that comes into contact with him which includes his partner, Ogawa. BB Jones is The Yeti dressed as some CHIKARA offshoot and he manages to drag this down pretty badly whenever he's involved which is actually a shame as I enjoyed any pairing of the other three guys (as you'd expect). Tenryu is pretty subdued but it's all a backdrop to the heated Hash/Ogawa feud which boils over here in a nice, violent exchange. More of a heated angle than anything else but I still dug it.

Why send the fans home happy?! So they leave satisfied? So they come back the next time you're in town? That can't be a serious question?