Live Wrestling: What are you watching, what are you going to watch?

[Grimmas]

I think a nice thread talking about the live wrestling you are watching and going to watch might be a good idea.

 

If you list what you are going to, maybe someone in your area might not be aware of it, or maybe you can meet up?

 

Also, you can throw in little reviews or thoughts on live shows you seen.

 

Sometimes I feel the live wrestling doesn't get talked about much.

[Grimmas]

By the way, I am headed to Survivor Series and NXT TakeOver the day before at the ACC. Hopefully it can replace the best ppv I have ever seen live (and the only one the shitty SummerSlam 04).

[shoe]

So for sure hitting up Wrestle Circus in Austin, Texas on the 19th of November.

 

In January I have Royal Rumble tickets in SAN Antonio. I'll be getting my Evolve tickets for that weekend tonight.

 

Inspire pro is running Dec 18th and I'll get getting tickets to that.

[NotJayTabb]

This Friday, I'll be going to HOPE Wrestling in Mansfield headlined by Shane Douglas vs Paul Malen and Jack Jester vs Jake McLuskey. I've also got tickets for WCPW in Nottingham with Matt Hardy and Alberto Del Rio

[sek69]

One of my co workers is part of PWX here in Pittsburgh so I'm planning to catch one of their shows soon to watch her in action.

[victory]

I just went to the AAW show "Never Say Die" here in the Chicago area last Friday. I honestly didn't like it for the most part. Way too many comedy spots from most guys. Also the flips were just getting ridiculous. It almost seemed like they had a bet in the back who could do the most in a match. Jack Evans probably won the bet. Even Chris Hero couldn't make this a positive show. By the end of the show I couldn't wait for it to end.

 

I will try to catch another show down the road as i have liked it in the past.

[southofheavy]

Smackdown is rolling through Detroit towards the end of December and I'm probably gonna go to that. I wish it was a house show, but dammit, I haven't seen anything live in about five or six years. I miss the days when RoH was in its prime and hitting a venue within walking distance twice a year.

 

I need to find the good indies around here.

[AstroBoy]

I went to the AIW Double Dare tournament in Cleveland this past weekend and had a great time. Cryme Tyme and the FBI were fun attraction teams and some smaller local teams got a good chance to shine. Also the Headhunters were an unbelievable spectacle on both nights and Shayna Baszler is someone to really watch in the near future. She has an MMA background and already carries herself very well in the ring. Had a great time.

 

I'm considering going with my girlfriend to ROH in Columbus when it comes in February but unsure. I'd like to hit up more local stuff and may check out IWA-MS on some random weekend. It all comes down to finances.

[Mrzfn]

Hitting the CHIKARA double header finale in December. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it should be a good time.

[Tim Evans]

Last show I went to was Pro Wrestling 2.0 in Winter Park last Tuesday. 2.0 is a wrestling school run by Alex Pourteau and features his students and some local indies guys like Jason Cade, Martin Stone, Santana Garrett,Su Yung and the champ Sami Callihan. Sami faced Aaron epic with Billy Gunn as the ref. It was a good comedy match based on ass man spots. Lots of women wrestling on the show too. Some good, some really awful too.

 

Next show I'll go to is the final NXT tapings of the year on 11/30 at Full sail. Not sure if FIP is running again this year or not. Also, the final 2.0 is the first Tuesday of December so I'll probably go to that.

[Johnny P]

Going to hit up Evolve in Joppa on Sunday night (very odd time to book a show for N.E. indies and that promotion in general, but...) for Riddle vs Hero III. Stoked for that, and a few other things on the card I believe looked good (its been a week, I have no idea what the card is anymore). Just as excited because JR Goldberg will be there to catch up with, Pappa Hales will be around, and I think Quinton Moody too. So the people as much as the show are a draw, and an old friend lives 3 minutes away from the venue. Win all around.

[BohsJohnny]

I'm going to my local indie here in Dublin OTT on the 26th and PROGRESS on the 27th. Pete Dunne vs Fabian Aichner of CWC fame is booked for the OTT show but weirdly Dunne is also booked in England that day vs Ligero so who knows what the hell is going on there. I really hope it happens though cause the two other imports booked are Joey Ryan and Tommy Dreamer which really isn't appealing at all.

 

PROGRESS is doing the first ever Ospreay vs Matt Riddle match and I'm incredibly excited to see Riddle in person for the first time.

[Infinit]

I've got tickets for NXT Takeover and for Raw, and hoping to locate some decently priced tickets to Survivor Series to complete the hat trick.

[Grimmas]

I've got tickets for NXT Takeover and for Raw, and hoping to locate some decently priced tickets to Survivor Series to complete the hat trick.

I'm skipping Raw. Three straight nights seems too much.

[TonyPulis'Cap]

Went to Night 1 of Rev Pro's Global Wars at the York Hall on Thursday and thought it was a really good show overall - in particular Hero/Shibata was brutal in a completely good way. Took the wife with me as well as a few others who had never been to a wrestling show before and they all really enjoyed it. Some of the intricacies and backstory passed them by, but it shows that if people go to live wrestling and leave preconceptions at the door, they can have a great night out. Just gutted that I couldn't get to Walthamstow the next day (not only because I used to work in the town hall next door) as that was meant to be another great show.

 

Next Sunday off to the ROH show in London, which I'm really looking forward to. 10 years ago we went to see Unified in Liverpool headlined by American Dragon and Nigel McGuinness and so we will see how this show compares all this time later. There will be a few overlaps with the British Indy scene, now that Ospreay and Scurll have signed deals with ROH, but super excited to see the Briscoes live.

[joeg]

I'm probably going to Evolve tonight to see Riddle Hero 3.

[NotJayTabb]

This Friday, I'll be going to HOPE Wrestling in Mansfield headlined by Shane Douglas vs Paul Malen and Jack Jester vs Jake McLuskey. I've also got tickets for WCPW in Nottingham with Matt Hardy and Alberto Del Rio

End up being a really fun show. Obviously, Douglas isn't in his prime, but they gave him the right opponent in Malen, an experienced head who will work in a load of schtick and playing to the crowd so that Douglas doesn't have to work hard to keep up. Douglas seemed genuinely pleased to be there, which always helps. Jester/McLuskey was a really good main event, felt like both guys complemented the other well, and the undercard was decent. Good6-man tag featuring Martin Kirby, El Ligero, two heels and two referees and a fun Barricade squash match.

[Grimmas]

Survivor Series and Take Over were insane.

 

Take Over is one of the better shows I have seen and the tag was the best live match I've ever been to. The crowd was into EVERYTHING. Almost a perfect show.

 

Survivor Series was odd. Especially odd being in a crowd where each match has heels and faces on the same team, so who do you cheer for? Outside of that, lots of fun moments including GOLDBERG!!!!!!!!!!

 

Great weekend.

[BohsJohnny]

PROGRESS is doing the first ever Ospreay vs Matt Riddle match and I'm incredibly excited to see Riddle in person for the first time.

So seeing Riddle in person lived up to the hype, his match with Ospreay was just an amazing sprint with Riddle playing a monster to perfection. For winning his match he was put into a 7 man elimination match for the vacant title and my god he was great in that too. If you have the chance to see him on your local (or localish) indie you really should go.

[WingedEagle]

Strongly thinking about hitting the Smackdown house show at MSG on 12/26. Its up against Raw but has a really fun lineup and I've been meaning to get back to the Garden. May go solo as there's no chance any friends are up for it and not sure its worth whatever IOU would come from forcing the wife to go, but its a fun looking show.

[Malone713]

Going to OTT here in Dublin on the 17th. They are doing Ospreay vs Ricochet and Pete Dunne vs Marty Scrull is rumored but not confirmed.

[NotJayTabb]

I've also got tickets for WCPW in Nottingham with Matt Hardy and Alberto Del Rio

 

Going to C+P what I wrote about this show at DVDVR

 

So, I went to the WCPW #Delete iPPV last night and it was...good. Ish. I've been to plenty of shows with green or below-average talent, where good booking and good match layout have meant it ended up being a good show. In this case, you had a load of really good workers covering up the fact that the booking was lousy. Highlights (both positive and negative) included:

 

- Doug Williams being consigned to a pre-show dark match, against HT Drake doing a comedy Mexican gimmick. Even though Drake is a heel, he's booked as a comedy face. It's not like they're disguising who it is, as he's wearing tights with "Drake" written on the side

 

-Booking a load of matches that are heel vs heel or face vs face. Both the tag title and tag #1 contender had this issue, as did the El Ligero/Cody Rhodes bout. Worst of all, Matt Hardy vs Bully Ray had a clear face/heel divide, before they turned Bully face with a pre-match promo, then turned him heel again in the post-match. Literally, he was only an face when he was facing another face wrestler.

 

-Pete Dunne & Travis Banks had a good match with two local wrestlers, Alex Gracie (who I think is pretty good) and Lucas Archer (who is ok).

 

-Putting one of your titles on an import (Cody) absolutely stinks of 1PW "We're in awe of the ex-WWE" guy booking. They already blew the outcome by having Rhodes put his GFW belt on the line, as you knew they weren't putting it on Ligero, then had Ligs kill off three of his finishers by hitting them back-to-back for Cody to kick out of. The audience admittedly loved Cody, chanting "You deserve it" when he won the title. Not sure how being a career midcarder and the third best member of Legacy translates to deserving an indy secondary belt, but there you go.

 

-Moustache Mountain and Nixon Newell were both really great and really over, so of course they jobbed to the questionable Swords of Essex

 

-Johnny Mundo was due to face Alberto Del Rio, but Alberto was stuck at his airport. As a replacement, they booked Mundo vs Gabriel Kidd, which worked surprisingly well. Kidd is a local wrestler, a trainee from the local Stixx-run House of Pain wrestling school, and despite being only 19 has been wrestling for 6 years. He's mainly wrestled on HOP academy shows, so I had no idea how he would do against a big name like Mundo, but he put on a really good performance. Mundo was really generous in making Kidd look competitive against him, to the point I nearly believed in an upset. This worked.

 

-Rampage vs Primate had great moments, but fell to terrible booking. It was a lumberjack match, but they could only muster 6 lumberjacks, all the lads from the two pre-show matches. Rampage and Primate threw big bombs at each other, before Rampage looked to have the bout won. But no, Primate's stablemates Gracie and Archer, who were lumberjacks, came in to attack Rampage. This was right in front of the ref, but rather than draw a DQ, the match continued and allowed Primate to choke Rampage out for the win. The question is: why didn't Primate's team just attack Rampage at the bell if there was seemingly no DQ?

 

-Hardy vs Bully was a reasonable no DQ match, which still saw a ref bump and one of the What Culture "personalities" run in to low blow Matt, leading to the Bully win. This, on top of a table spot being teased but not delivered, seemed to piss off a lot of the crowd, and there was a mass exodus before the next match started...

 

-...which is a shame because Johnny Moss/Liam Slater vs the Coffey Brother was the match of the night to this point. The highlight was any time Moss and Joe Coffey squared off, two big tanks exchanging big bombs and massive suplexes. Loved this

 

-Martin Kirby vs Will Ospreay in a 2/3 falls match was even better. Heel Ospreay is exactly the route he needs to take, as he was excellent as a smarmy dickhead. It'd also be better for his long-term wellbeing as, aside from a few big bumps, he didn't need to give his body anywhere near as much abuse. After both won falls with roll-ups (Ospreay's with his feet on the ropes), Ospreay won the final fall with a weapon's shot and a springboard cutter. The post match saw the Matt Hardy table spot finally paid off, as he rescued Kirby from a beatdown from Ospreay's goon squad, and set Ospreay up for Kirby to hit a top rope powerbomb through a table

 

-Finally, the main event. This was a triple threat steel cage match for Joseph Conners' WCPW title. The opponents were Joe Hendry (who I quite like, but looked bushleague as fuck with his gold ring jacket and big grey granny-pants trunks) and Drew Galloway, who was fucking massive compared to his opponents. This was all really good, as all three guys can go, and the cage setting meant no "wrestler lies on the floor for ages whilst the other two fight". But then, the ending. No idea what that was all about. Hendry was up-and-over on the cage, when Conners called out to him, with Galloway set in position for his finisher, the Righteous Kill. No-one could hear what he was saying, but it lured Hendry to climb back into the ring. As this was happening, Galloway broke free and hit the Futureshock DDT on Conners. Rather than break the pin, Hendry decided to try to escape the cage again, which of course gave Galloway time to pin Conners and win the title. Not sure if the idea was that Hendry thought Conners could hits his finisher on Galloway and pin him before Hendry could escape, but it seemed unlikely, given that Hendry was 3 rungs from the win. Just an odd ending, and more proof that the booking in WCPW leaves a lot to be desired.

[Tim Evans]

Went to the 2.0 show tonight. It was actually really fun as the card changed completely from what was originally booked. It featured two fun matches in Aaron Epic/Jason cade vs Snoop Strikes/Martin Stone and Joey Ryan/Tessa Blanchard vs Rachel ellering/Darby Allin. First match had some good comedy and wrestling. Stone is just the best and Cade is fine too. Strikes is a student of 2.0 and he's going to be really good in a couple years. I'm not a big fan of Joey ryan or intergender wrestling but this match worked for me. It was legit funny and I dug the blow pop spot. Rest of the show ranged from not bad(Callihan vs Shane Strickland in a 15-minute time limit draw) to really bad(the student matches). This promotion usually does the indie "stars" matches first and then the student matches after the intermission. They are running again on 12/27 so I'll see at least one more show before the end of the year.

[Wahoos Leg]

Going to NWA Smoky Mountain this Saturday.

 

Kincaid vs Elgin is the main

[BohsJohnny]

Going to OTT here in Dublin on the 17th. They are doing Ospreay vs Ricochet and Pete Dunne vs Marty Scrull is rumored but not confirmed.

Going to this too and to round out the year PROGRESS are doing their own version of "Mystery Vortex" on the 30th with no matches or wrestlers announced but they've sold out the show well in advance.

 

I'm just hoping Riddle cancelling on AIW who are also running that day means we're going to get a Bro surprise in the Electric Ballroom.