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Wrestlemania Weekend 2018


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People on Twitter seemed to really enjoy it. Apparently the ref was really, really bad, and the first few matches were awkward with guys who didn't know quite which pace and style to work, but the second half of the show, by all accounts, was very good. I'm going to watch it within a few hours and will report back, lol.

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The Bloodsport show was hit-and-miss. Walter vs. Lawlor was the MOTN, followed by the Riddle vs. Suzuki. There were a couple of really bad finishes with the action being called like an MMA fight, i.e. calling a KO directly after the knockdown or a submission immediately after the hold is being applied, which just does not work well in a pro wrestling setting. The Severn vs. Dickinson match had a particullary bad finish, know idea what the plan behind that was. Maybe a spoof on bad MMA refereeing?

The show itself was very short, like 1:50 h including a 15 min intermission.

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WrestleCon was pretty fun. Ishii vs Cobb & the lucha match were pretty terrific. The Ospreay, Strickland and stuff four way was fun in a clusterfuck way, although I admit I enjoy the fact Ospreay is still selling the neck. The guy working that hard despite the fact he's banged up is kinda crazy. Main event mostly played for comedy, which was fine.

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I dug Bloodsport, well, am digging since I still have the main to watch. I was fearing the worst when hearing about the early matches but I actually thought Kingston/Hot Sauce was really fun with Kingston donning the singlet and the pair of them throwing some mean strikes. The finish on the Stone/Masada match was really bad and I don't know if the ref went too early on that finish or if it was actually the plan but man, it killed things as it got going. Luckily, WALTER/Lawlor was awesome. Really made use of the size difference, the arm injury and managed to tease both KO and submission finishes down the stretch in a really fantastic way.

 

The show length doesn't really bother me too much since on a personal level, I have an obscene amount of wrestling to get through but I also couldn't see myself sitting through an extra hour of it all. It's it's own entity and works in a shorter 2 hour blast.

 

EDIT: Oh yeah, the Severn finish was blew but it was the same ref as Stone/Masada, right? Was it a rib to give him the shitty finishes? Is Riddle bringing back heel refs?

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On the opposite side. I though 90% of Bloodsport was like the worst of old RINGS undercards (which were dreadfuls) and shitty goofy PRIDE worked shoots. Not good nor even interesting at all. Bad shoot-style is probably the worst wrestling ever too, it has to be either really good, and just not be there at all.

 

For guys whose names are somewhat familiar to my un-indy trained hears, I didn't think much about Thatcher here (but it wasn't a good introduction probably), and Nick Gage looked like shit. Severn is still around and as boring as ever, amazing.

 

Walter vs Lawlor was a good, fun pro-wrestling match. Suzuki vs Riddle was fun enough but nothing special at all. I'm creeped out by barefeet wrestlers that aren't Islanders, so I got bad Kevin Von Erich vibes from Riddle, but he seems to be an interesting character. Or not. Dunno yet.

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I don't know, I've watched about a hundred and fifty RINGS undercard matches over the last six months or so and there certainly weren't any like Riddle/Suzuki. Ton von Maurik and Masaaki Satake sure weren't doing anything like this. I thought the main event was some fun, goofy entertainment. I didn't actually think it was very shoot-stylish in the first place, but I'm someone who finds mediocre shoot style easy enough to sit through (maybe it's because I've sat through enough mediocre MMA over the last eighteen years) so I guess the IDEA of it spoke to me? The strike exchange was kind of silly but I was into it when they were rolling around on the mat. The fact the ring had no ropes gave it an interesting dynamic as well. It was leaning more towards the Battlarts end of the shoot style spectrum, albeit a poor man's version, but I know I'd rather watch something like this than a fair amount of New Japan or current indie wrestling.

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I thought the main event was some fun, goofy entertainment.

 

Agreed. That and the Lawlor vs WALTER match, I enjoyed. The rest was FF material to me. I guess really poor Battlarts is indeed a better analogy, especially since Battlarts I always thought was overrated anyway (it was the WAR of shoot-style, for better and worse).

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Enjoyed Bloodsport as concept and kickoff for weekend but agree that some of the bad finishes left a bad taste in my mouth. I actually thought Severn vs Dickinson was a fun grapple fest but getting past that finish is a tough go. Riddle vs Suzuki was about what I thought and a smidge better than their first match.

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Going on with this ridiculous marathon and watching Evolve 102.

 

Ospreay is slowly but surely warming up on me. I really enjoyed his match with AR.Fox, which had a nice build with Fox being a really good dick heel. Also, I do notice Ospreay is doing more than just spots and shit, he insists on selling the neck, he has a true babyface allure to him (or maybe that's me just getting used to his douchebag look). Anyway, I quite enjoyed it.

The announcing is rotten though, right down to one of those idiots using the godawful WWE "For the win !" call.

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The rest of the Evolve card from the Keith Lee competitive squash and on went from very good to great (despite the awful announcing). Excellent card with quite a bit of variety to it, peaking with two excellent/great matches. Ok, what's next for me to watch... damn, that WE is insane.

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I watched Fenix vs Pentagon vs Aries. That was fun. I guess Del Rio was supposed to be in it as a tag (which would have been more interesting just because it would have had a bit more structure) but ah well. You can't actually expect him to be places he's booked. That was on youtube. That's about my speed this weekend. There are fancams of Ohno vs Keith lee out there too. People should find those.

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The rest of the Evolve card from the Keith Lee competitive squash and on went from very good to great (despite the awful announcing). Excellent card with quite a bit of variety to it, peaking with two excellent/great matches. Ok, what's next for me to watch... damn, that WE is insane.

 

I'm onto the Evolve shows after Suzuki/Riddle and then perhaps some of the WrestleCon show if I can figure out what to watch there. We'll see what I can squeeze in before dinner & Takeover. Then a couple hours tomorrow before Mania to catch up on other stuff. What a weekend. AJPW's Carnival opener will have to wait till next week, along with undoubtedly some other shows.

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Eric jumped in and watched some of the intergender stuff

 

http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2018/04/wrestlemania-weekend-cherry-picking-lot.html

I can't be the only one who's not a fan of this stuff...

 

I just love how the Clusterfuck battle royale/whatever at the Spring Break show had an invisible man win and get cheered by a building full of people who would be shit-their-pants livid if it was done anywhere else.

Not that it matters, but I believe the original invisible man match was at a micro indy show over 15 years ago. It was Danshoku Dieno vs. Invisible Mysterio:

 

 

I ordered the entire FITE TV WWN $89.99 package and I still haven't watched anything from this weekend as I've been watching/re-watching a ton of old Noah matches. I'll probably catch TakeOver tonight and 'Mania tomorrow night and then next weekend I'll dive into the indy stuff from this weekend.

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