Wrestlemania Weekend 2018

[Robert S]

Let's see:

- the opener had Teddy Hart refusing catching guys on dives

- Ellsworth vs. Matt Riddle was fun for what it was

- PCO took way more punishment than a 50-year-old (who is not called Terry Funk) should take, I doubt that the human chest ever should have that colour

- the Clusterfuck was exactly that, a HUGE clusterfuck

- the Sasuke vs. Janella main event was insane, either plus 10* or -10*; one of the commentators at one point said "Sasuke might be the Late Sasuke now" and he was only halfway joking, at another point Sasuke was going for a spot that he in the end failed setting up, if he went with that spot he might as well be dead now

- the show ended with Sasule and Janella doing karaoke singing "It's my Life"

[Edwin]

- the opener had Teddy Hart...

That makes it a must watch event.

[Matt D]

I came in skeptical of Riddle vs Suzuki but liked it. Very little wasted motion. Real sense of struggle up and down. Eric said that it was everything you wanted from the match up and I'd add that it had next to nothing I didn't want from it, too (which isn't always the case with Riddle).

[El-P]

- PCO took way more punishment than a 50-year-old (who is not called Terry Funk) should take, I doubt that the human chest ever should have that colour

 

I REALLY need to watch that. Oulette in 2018 ? I thought he retired a while ago. The lost worker of the 90's/00's.

 

IMPACT vs LU was pretty fun overall, but you can feel there's no real buzz about either promotions. Enjoyed the six-men tag a lot. LAX vs Killshot & Mac developped into a really good match despite a terrible botch. Kinda fun to see a new version of LAX with the same damn music and look the original had in the 00's. I would have popped for Salinas... I gotta admit Jeremiah Crane/Sami Callihan warms my heart of old ECW fan, I do enjoy what he brings to the table as a garbage guy. Eddie Edward, well, I guess he's the modern day Tim Horner or something. The match dragged at time and was too long, but some parts were really good. The triple-threat main event was quite good, with a nice "Fuck Del Rio" chant. Again, old ECW fan in me approves. Loved a teaser for S4 of LU.

[El-P]

Really enjoyed the Beyond intergender show for the most part. Really worked from top to bottom and makes you think hard about what pro-wrestling is and how it actually works in term of physical dynamics and symbolic representation (not to mention how it actually evolves). Some legit good straight matches like the Kimber Lee and Twisted Sisters ones. Laura James doing the pussy flip (I guess) was brillant. Joey Janela & Penelope Ford vs. Session Moth Martina & Orange Cassidy legit cracked me up a few times. Way too meta/post-modern for some people I guess, not to mention really crass with Mr. Socko as a used condom, but I found it was funny as hell. Orange Cassidy is my new favourite gimmick.

[conker8]

Just about to watch the Crash from last night, hopefully they get that tv deal

 

How was the show ?

[El-P]

I get the feeling Crash had a lot of the same guys as LU vs IMPACT, which is a bit odd to me. Not exactly different.

EVOLVE 103 was quite the good card, with Tim Thatcher vs Garrini as a good shoot-style match, WALTER vs Darby Allin was a very good big vs small slugfest and Riddle vs Sekimoto as good as it sounds. The Dickinson match was quite solid too. Pleasantly surprised by this promotion. The only real bad thing is the announcing.

[Zoo Enthusiast]

I get the feeling Crash had a lot of the same guys as LU vs IMPACT, which is a bit odd to me. Not exactly different.

EVOLVE 103 was quite the good card, with Tim Thatcher vs Garrini as a good shoot-style match, WALTER vs Darby Allin was a very good big vs small slugfest and Riddle vs Sekimoto as good as it sounds. The Dickinson match was quite solid too. Pleasantly surprised by this promotion. The only real bad thing is the announcing.

It was actually WALTER vs Hot Sauce Tracy Williams. Darby Allin had gotten injured earlier in the day during the Progress show on a nasty bump he took outside.

[El-P]

Not familiar with some of the names yet. Too many bearded guys !

[Blehschmidt]

I have been trying to keep up with results from all of the shows from the weekend, and have managed to find everything except for yesterdays Pancakes and Piledrivers show. Anyone happen to have a lead on results for that?

[Mad Dog]

Yay or nay on Spring Break 2? I have $10 burning a hole in my pocket and that card looks interesting.

[El-P]

No time to watch that before Mania. I doubt I can watch Takeover or the ROH either. Just too damn many shows. Probably gonna spread out my WMW during the week. But the card really looks fun as hell if you ask me.

[Mad Dog]

That RoH show is like 5 hours long FYI.

[Richeyedwards]

I have been trying to keep up with results from all of the shows from the weekend, and have managed to find everything except for yesterdays Pancakes and Piledrivers show. Anyone happen to have a lead on results for that?

 

Cobb defeats Strickland

Joey ryan & Martina defeat Cabana and marty derosa

 

Juice Robinson defeated eddie Kingston

FCP Three Way Match

meiko © defeats jess havok and Kimber lee

AAW Title Match

ACH© defeats Trevor Lee

Tornado Six Man Tag Team Match

the Crists and calihan defeat ar fox, brian cage and janella

Matt Palmer won a PWR scramble title invitational match

 

Penta El Zero and rey fenix defeat Jack evans and Teddy Hart

 

AAW and PWR Tag Title Ladder Three Way Match

Davey Vega and Matt Fitchett © defeat Aussie Open and Xavier and Wentz

[Blehschmidt]

Thank You!

[Phil Schneider]

I went and reviewed a couple of matches from Wrestlecon and the Lee vs. Ohno HH

 

http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2018/04/wrestlemania-weekend-thursday.html

[Dylan Waco]

I did small podcast reviews for all the WWN live shows other than Kaiju that are available on the PWO-PTBN feed. Some quick takeaways

 

There was no real break out star this year going off of those shows. Maybe that will change when I get into the stuff at the Wrestlecon venue later, but there is no one who went from relative unknown to rising star, let alone established talent to superstar. To me that's a real indictment of this years indie shows even though I think the average match quality was up form last year (and probably roughly comparable to Dallas two years ago). Instead the story this year was the big name players who you expect to be great - WALTER, Riddle, Ospreay, ZSJ, to an extent Thatcher - all showing up and showing that they are among the best in the world. The other story on the talent front was really people like Sawa, Severn, Suzuki, PCO and Quack as old timers showing up to show they can hang with the kids and deliver at a strong if not out right elite level.

 

I didn't see a single bad show. Literally everything would pass on the pass/fail system, and I don't think I'd go lower than a C+ if I was handing out letter grades to shows (and maybe not even that low). Several shows were in the very good to great range including both Shimmer and Style Battle which I likely to be slept on which is a shame as Shimmer had one of the stronger second half/marquee match runs of anyone this weekend and Style Battle was bizarrely the most well booked show of the entire weekend at an indie level which is fucking absurd and kind of infuriating considering it's a throwaway brand WWN ostensibly doesn't care about.

 

Because it was an immersive experience and completely unique in a way nothing else was Janela's Spring Break was my show of the weekend from that venue and I doubt very seriously any of the other events I plan to catch up on this week can top it. The perfect combination of fresh matches, crazy environment, aesthetic wackiness, diversity of styles, and novelty. Extra points for the opening scramble that is one of the most underrated matches of the weekend and one of the few matches all weekend to really feature a lot of fresh talent killing it. Funny that a guy as good as Gringo Loco can't get a look from Evolve, but he's going nuts in the opener of the biggest show all weekend. Additional extra points for PCO v WALTER which was the most visceral enjoyment I've had watching an indie match in a long time both because of my weird 6 degrees of separation story relating to how the match was made, the fact that PCO has been my favorite random guy to watch on YouTube for the last 6 months, and the fact that it was absolutely tremendous.

 

The real winner of the weekend was Game Changer Wrestling. Some of us have been saying for a year now that they are the promotion to watch and I think they proved it this weekend with two completely unique shows, in less than ideal timeslots, that outdrew the host promotion and reportedly even topped the two Progress shows which had decidedly better time slots (and is a WWE propped up brand). By putting on fresh, themed shows, featuring different talent and fully utilizing excellent branding and digital marketing strategies they have helped to create stars out of both Janela and Nick Gage and it's really crazy how fast it's happened. Anyone who saw some of the other houses in that venue should be able to appreciate how insane it was to be able to draw somewhere between 2500-3000 paid running on a Thursday afternoon and Friday night/Saturday morning at midnight.

 

I'll do another podcast and perhaps a post when I watch the WC venue shows covering my matches and wrestlers of the weekend.

[Mad Dog]

Walter vs. PCO is crazy. PCO is 50. Fucking 50 and he's having this match. Holy shit.

[SteveMPunk]

 

Just about to watch the Crash from last night, hopefully they get that tv deal

 

How was the show ?

The last three matches were fun if not particularly memorable, LWO reunion was nice. Now, if Lucha Memes had a show...

[Mad Dog]

My wife watched the second half of Spring Break 2 with me. She loved just listening to the announcers getting drunker as it progressed. She actually asked me if this was a regular promotion and was disappointed when I said no.

[Zoo Enthusiast]

 

 

I have been trying to keep up with results from all of the shows from the weekend, and have managed to find everything except for yesterdays Pancakes and Piledrivers show. Anyone happen to have a lead on results for that?

 

 

 

Cobb defeats Strickland

 

 

Joey ryan & Martina defeat Cabana and marty derosa

 

 

Juice Robinson defeated eddie Kingston

 

 

FCP Three Way Match

 

meiko © defeats jess havok and Kimber lee

 

 

AAW Title Match

 

ACH© defeats Trevor Lee

 

 

Tornado Six Man Tag Team Match

 

the Crists and calihan defeat ar fox, brian cage and janella

 

Matt Palmer won a PWR scramble title invitational match

 

Penta El Zero and rey fenix defeat Jack evans and Teddy Hart

 

 

AAW and PWR Tag Title Ladder Three Way Match

 

Davey Vega and Matt Fitchett © defeat Aussie Open and Xavier and Wentz

Having been there live, this show was a total blast. Far exceeded my expectations. The only less than good show I saw all weekend (aside from ROH having been excruciatingly long) was the CZW show. That also was partly due to a terrible crowd.

[shodate]

match of the week

suzuki vs riddle my first ***** match from any promotion since 2012 that was a suzuki match also myonly my 2nd **** plus match all year as well but there you go

[hammerva]

My top 5 matches of the weekend that I saw live in no particular order:

 

1. Lucha tag team match - Flamita & Bandito vs Fenix & Ray Hourrus (Wrestlecon Supershow). I don't really watch a lot of lucha but this was incredible to see live. Nobody was off their game that match. I really would be interested in what hardcore lucha fans think of the match

 

2. PCO vs WALTER (Janela spring break 2) - pretty much everyone has said what needed to be said. He is 50 years old and is still doing dives like a madman at pretty good speed. And took one of the worst beating to your chest in the world and perfectly fine doing it. Incredible

 

3. Matt Riddle vs Will Ospreay (WWN Live Supershow) - I can understand why people don't like Ospreay given his style in the ring but nobody can shit on this man's toughness and heart he showed this weekend. He is clearly hurt and probably badly. Yet he is still working close to the same style. After Will almost broke his neck again and they did the injury angle, Riddle up the asshole meter to 10 and this match was just great.

 

4. WALTER vs Zach Sabre Jr (Progress Saturday show) - I really don't know if this was Sabre's best match of the weekend because his match against Ishii at Rev Pro on Saturday was also great. But I loved this match because it was 2 guys beating the shit out of each other with Sabre selling like a maniac. Joining Suzuki-Gun was the best thing that ever happened to his career because now he is just an awesome dick in the ring.

 

5. Jeff Cobb vs Ishii (Wrestlecon Supershow) - I really was disappointed with Cobb last year at the weekend but between this match, his match with Suzuki at Rev Pro, and a match against travis Banks at Progress he really brought it. Great hard hitting match with nice buildup to the brutality at the end. This match might get more love if it was on a Friday or Saturday.

 

It isn't a match but a top 5 moment definitely was Joey Ryan doing a killer Andy Kaufman impersonation completely with the robe and ring gear and then the Jerry Lawler surprise.

 

Show of the weekend - NXT Takeover was probably the best show but I didn't see that live. Wrestlecon Supershow was the clear winner of shows I saw live

 

MVP of the weekend - Ishii had great matches with Cobb & Sabre Jr and probably had Punishment Martinez best match ever at ROH. So many contenders this weekend with WALTER, Sabre Jr, and others

 

Breakthrough star - I agree there wasn't really one although I was very impressed with Adam Brooks who I never saw before this weekend. Looked great in the Wrestlecon 4 way flippy match and pretty good against Brian Cage at Rev Pro show

 

My only recommendation for next year is a special battle royal match where your elimination determines the number of times you can be on fucking shows. I am really tired of seeing Brian Cage and Sami Callahan on every single show regardless of the type. Flip Gordon was on every single non WWN Live show and apparently 3 fucking times at the ROH show. David Starr was on probably the most shows this weekend as he was everywhere. Given that hundreds of wrestlers are down there in the weekend, it is painful to see the same ones EVERY FUCKING SHOW.

[Mad Dog]

Are the Evolve shows or the WWN Supershow worth watching? I haven't seen much Evolve but the cards are kind of interesting on paper.

[El-P]

I enjoyed both EVOLVE shows. Some really good stuff dispatched in those (I talked a bit about them earlier in this thread), with strong main events on both cards. Not yet watched the Supershow.