The Wrestling Thread

[Matty_the_Emo_Slayer]

Deadly spot from the Kenny Omega vs Mascara Dorada match at Invasion Attack

[Matty_the_Emo_Slayer]

Avoiding spoilers, my thoughts on NXT Unstoppable.

Breeze vs Balor was good, but far from Breeze's best match (and obviously very very far from Balor's.) Not sure if having Hideo still in it would've improved it much. The entrances were actually more entertaining than the match. I get that NXT fans believe in the product and love to chant and get this sort of faux sense of smugness that indy marks usually have over fed fans, but they are way too easily impressed. That entrance ramp spot wasn't even that good.

Women's tag match. Goddamn Charlotte is good. That bridge she does on the figure 4 is so innovative. I like Bayley too, great gimmick and very over, but she needs a better finisher than that side belly to belly. She gets zero elevation on it. Emma needs some real guidance if she's going to succeed at being a heel. Dana Brooke is not the greenest female wrestler I've ever seen but she does still need a lot of work. Lost of little things like being out of position on certain spots and throwing her clotheslines nowhere near Charlotte's head. Good body and athleticism though.

Nice to see Axel Tischer and Uhaa Nation in the crowd. I guess one positive I will say about the NXT fans is enough of them do watch the indies for guys like Uhaa to be over as soon as they step in the door. He is going to be a game changer when he has his first match.

I don't know what it is about Baron Corbin but he's still missing something. It's not his in ring work as his match with Rhyno was really decent. It's his dumb expressionless face I think. How he's getting over I do not know, he has no sense of how to use his moneymaker. And I don't believe for a second he's really 275lbs. If he looked like Test I could buy it, but his body is nowhere near what it needs to be to book him as this monster heel. He reminds me of a less talented and less goofy Johnny Ace, or a second rate Vance Archer. I don't think he'll ever be good enough for the main roster. Fair play to him for being able to jump the queue and get this far after only starting in the business at age 28, but he definitely makes me question why they take guys into NXT with 0 experience to train from scratch. You never know if your investment on them will pay off, unlike with the indy, puro and lucha guys who come in every few months.

Big Cass is a guy who I think would do the Corbin gimmick way better. Like Corbin he seems to have got into the business late, but from what I can find out he was trained by old WWWF jobber Johnny Rodz before coming to NXT. There was one point in the match I thought he looked lost but otherwise he's a really solid Test/Matt Morgan style big blue chipper. And putting him with Enzo is a brilliant pairing. He reminds me a bit of Mikey from the Spirit Squad. A late entrant into the business but a really solid worker and great talker. Little things like his really low elevation high impact cross body makes him look a lot more experienced than he actually is. And the gimmick is obviously super over. Get these guys on RAW for a programme with The New Age Outlaws, pronto.

I like Blake and Murphy too, though unlike Enzo and Cass they badly need a gimmick name. It could be the hair but they remind of The Thrillseekers in Smoky Mountain. Except that I can't see either of them being as good as Jericho and Storm became. Murphy is the one with previous experience but being trained on the Australian indies probably doesn't teach you much. They're both unspectacular on their own but they work really well together. Solid tag fundamentals, decent at selling, almost identical bodies and their powerbomb/backcracker combo is really cool. It's such a shame that WWE didn't keep The American Wolves as they could've given these guys a serious rub. Even still, it's just so nice to see a proper tag team with matching tights in modern day WWE. And this match was the best on the card so far.

Nice video package for the women's title match, though I don't like Becky Lynch using Conor McGreggor's "I didn't come here to take part, I came to take over" line. She has a similar big dorty norh Doblin accent on her like, but that's why it doesn't work. It just makes creative look weak by having to take their cues from UFC. As a once off it's okay though, just don't make a catchphrase out of it. Give her "bleedin' forgeh abouh eh" or "ah will yeh leave eh bleedin' ouh" or something instead. May as well seeing as they've given her the Sheamus treatment and dyed her ginger.

The match itself was damn near flawless though. The only things I didn't like was the near-botched catch the tope suicida spot, which really wasn't needed and didn't fit the rest of the match, and I though early on Becky looked a bit too tentative when searching for submissions. She made up for it with that sweet transition into the Fujiwara armbar though, and her weird innovative elbow hyperextender move is awesome. Sasha Banks has some killer things in her arsenal too, like what looked like a bicep slicer/double wristlock combo and a really Nigel McGuinness-looking double arm stretch. Just 15 minutes of smooth, aggressive chain wrestling, both of them selling their arms really well and a great finish. A **** match at least. I could watch these two feud for months with iron women and ultimate submission matches and not get bored.

Quick aside, it's still great to see Drake Younger in a ref shirt and he still looks happy. But I still hope the door is open for him to start wrestling in NXT somewhere down the line. Also great to see Zayn rocking a Rick Knox t shirt in the video package as a shout out to the PWG senior official! The storyline for the main event is perfect. The only flaw maybe is Zayn saying everything Owens has ever done has had his name next to it (Steen was ROH World Champion which is the one big prize on the indies that Generico never held) but everything else they play spot on.

The match itself was not as good as their first one, much more brawling, and more of an extension of the angle than a match given the finish. But the wrestling credentials of both guys are undoubtable, this gave them a chance to show their sports entertainment skills. They had the crowd in the palm of their hands the whole way through.

And then at the end you know who shows up. I'm a bit annoyed at that because I hoped he would stay around longer in that other company he had gone home to or would have gone to New Japan, but either way it's exciting and was a mark out moment. It also means Owens now is in 3 feuds at once (because him and Zayn clearly aren't done), which makes me think he is going to beat Cena at Elimination Chamber. He'll have to drop the NXT belt to Zayn or the other guy soon enough, so coming out on the losing end of 3 feuds will do him no favours. And beating Cena in his main roster debut is a perfect way to get more attention on NXT and maybe even start another cross-brand angle.

All in all, another 7 or 8 out of 10 show from NXT.

[CrappyMike]

Someone on Facebook has just claimed Kevin Owens is a better athlete than Brock lesnar. Now while I am no big fan of Owens and lesnar has been nothing short of outstanding when he has turned up over the last year, I have to say Owens is a great wrestler and is surprisingly athletic for a fat guy. But he's not half the athlete lesnar is, surely I'm not the only one who thinks this?

[Matty_the_Emo_Slayer]

See that's why I'm very particular about which wrestling pages I follow. There are some real dumb fucks out there.

Lesnar is a once in a generation freak athlete, and even at several years past his prime and with a work schedule that allows him to be a bit lazy with his routine he still trumps nearly everyone else in the business.

But in general it's good that people are recognising that big and seemingly out of shape guys can be some of the best athletes in wrestling. It's always been that way in fact. Dusty Rhodes was never in shape and Harley Race is one of the biggest drinkers and chain smokers in the business but they both could always go 30 or 40 minutes with Flair in his peak physical prime. Mitsuharu Misawa was massively overweight towards the end of his career but still put just as much into those 5 star matches than Kobashi the gym freak did. Vader was 400lbs plus and could hang with Sting, Fujinami, Chono, Davey Boy, Michaels...



Anyway, I've noticed Samoa Joe is continuing to take indy bookings, including ROH with a tag match with AJ against Daniels and Kazarian coming up soon. I wonder if this means WWE are allowing him to work out his outstanding commitments like they did with Bryan in 2011, or if he's working with NXT without a contract and not planning on staying there long.

[CrappyMike]

Apparently he's working the Indies for a little while to fulfil his commitments. I think wwe would be stupid not to lock him into a contract though.

[Matty_the_Emo_Slayer]

Well in that case I hope New Japan have got him booked for the G1 this year!

It looks like WWE might let him keep his name this time as well.

[CrappyMike]

that call was reportedly made by triple h. its the same as when cm punk came in, and thats about the only other guy that springs to mind that got to keep his name so to me it shows they recognise his value.

[Matty_the_Emo_Slayer]

Punk came in back in 2005 though before it was standard practice to change people's names so I don't think it had anything to do with his stature on the indies. Before him and after Paul London, Spanky/Brian Kendrick, Charlie Haas, Daivari, Matt Striker, Paul Burchill, Kenzo Suzuki, Colin Delaney, Sylvester Terkay etc. all got to keep their real or indy names. Even Serena Deeb from SHIMMER kept the Serena part for her run in the Straight Edge Society and that was like what, 2010?

2010 seems to be the year things changed- Dos Caras Jr. became Alberto Del Rio, Mistico became Sin Cara, Bryan Danielson became Daniel Bryan, Low-Ki became Kaval, Awesome Kong became Kharma etc. All of those were as big or bigger outside the WWE than Punk was in 2005.

[Matty_the_Emo_Slayer]

So out of nowhere ROH are now on Destination America in the time slot before TNA Impact starting next week. Meaning while TNA will be airing at the same time as Lucha Underground on El Rey and NXT on the WWE Network the ROH show will be on national TV in the states unopposed. Given that most people have digital recording boxes and watch a lot of their TV online this isn't such a big deal as it was in the 90's, but anyone who has the network can watch NXT at their leisure, Lucha Underground is still very niche and TNA is still a toxic brand to a lot of people. To me ROH are in the best position, and alongside NXT have the best roster and product at the moment. Hopefully Challenge pick them up too and they can start doing proper UK tours as well.

Sure they'll lose Alberto El Patron to Lucha Underground soon, Samoa Joe will be exclusively on NXT and AJ Styles won't be a full time ROH guy, but they've still got some of TNA's best former talent (Daniels, Kazarian, Sabin), Matt Sydal, soon to be world champ (I'll wager anyway) Jay Lethal, ReDRagon, O'Reilly finally getting primed for his singles push, Elgin, Roderick Strong in the best run of his career, The Briscoes, War Machine, the brewing Corino vs Whitmer feud, The Kingdom (with Adam Cole now back from injury!)... And on the rare occasions they do have AJ on the show they'll also have the rest of the Bullet Club.

If (when?) they start to beat TNA in the ratings I can see the slots getting reversed so that TNA is the lead in to ROH and not vice versa, more former ROH talent jumping ship (Aries, Low-Ki, Eddie Edwards) or maybe even TNA getting cancelled altogether. It'll be sad to see them go as they have tried their hardest to turn things round, but the major story is well done Ring Of Honor. I honestly never thought they'd get on cable unless Sinclair sold the company, and now in one announcement they're close to leapfrogging into second place. Good for fans, good for the business overall.

[Ensorcelled]

So, Hulk Hogan is an Orange Supremacist.

[CrappyMike]

So what did everyone think of takeover and summerslam? I thought takeover was overall the better show, not a fan of bailey but I can see why she won the title. Don't think she's close to Becky or Sasha's level but I'm hoping to see one of them win the divas title very soon. However, I can see Charlotte winning it which would be a shame because while she's good, Becky and Sasha are better.
The performance of the weekend has to go to Seth Rollins though. Not Seth Rollins and John cena, Seth Rollins alone. Seth was incredible in that match while cena was just cena. Proves why Seth is the man right now, and I really hope they don't take the title from him until at least wrestlemania.

[Matty_the_Emo_Slayer]

Cena still calls and structures most of his matches though so this attitude that he has to be dragged to a good match by a better wrestler is unfounded. I do absolutely agree on Rollins though. No one other than Roderick Strong has had more great matches this year.

I loved both shows, or rather the last 5 matches of Summerslam I watched. Liger and Breeze should've got an extra few minutes but I've no complaints other than that.

[CrappyMike]

I believe it was Alberto del Rio who said cena is the best he has been in the ring with,and the only person he allowed to call his matches for him. Cena is a great wrestler no doubt, I just find him boring to watch at this point.
And yeah my only problem with summerslam is it was about 2 hours too long. The second half of the card was all good.

[CrappyMike]

So takeover confirmed what I thought all along, bayley isn't half as good as Sasha banks. First women's main event in NXT should have been Sasha and Becky, bayley just isn't good enough. Quality of women's wrestling in NXT is about to plummet with Sasha and Becky gone.

[Matty_the_Emo_Slayer]

Asuka is great but it's not going to be enough. She comes from a wrestling culture where as a young wrestler if you mess up your spots your own tag team partner will kick you in the head so putting her in there with people with no experience is only going to end badly. The other girls will either not want to work with her and quit, or Asuka will be told to tone down her style and she might quit.

Hiring girls with no experience like Dana Brooke and Nia Jax makes absolutely no sense when you've got about such a strong women's indy scene in the USA. Signing both Blue Pants and Sarah Dobson to proper contracts would be a good start but really they ought to be looking at the likes of Cheerleader Melissa, Athena, Hania The Howling Huntress, Candice LeRae and especially Tessa Blanchard as well. Tessa's family connection to the business would make a great pairing with Charlotte and they could really run with the Four Horsewomen gimmick.