James Ellsworth was very lucky not to end up with a broken neck taking the Styles Clash - did exactly what you shouldn't do and tucked his headAJ saw that on the way down and stood up whilst falling. Amazing reflexes.
(I saw what you did there… didn’t say “tucked his chin”.)
The funny thing is Lesnar is booked as unbeatable despite being severely restricted in what he is allowed to do: he could amateur wrestle everyone there (or close enough to that) to death too.They've hit a point where the only credible way to beat Lesnar will be to shoot him with a gun.
I don’t mind it. Harks back to the real old school days of the big special attraction a la Andre the Giant.
Steel Cage Match between Joe and Nakamura confirmed for NXT’s Melbourne show. Trips has also announced they’ll be taping “content” for WWE Network during the show - what “content” means is anyone’s guess. Someone on BigFooty stated they’d received an email offering upgrades with a purchase of a ticket, so sales are evidently not to the level they expected - I suspect the pre-tour leaking that there’d be a Takeover which ended up being BS hasn’t helped matters (not sure whether that Reddit poster was a plant for WWE or TEG Dainty, the Oz promoter - if I had to guess I’d say TEG).
TNA continues to collapse upon itself - Billy Corgan is now suing the company he was attempting to buy, before Dixie got more cash from somewhere to stave it off.
Yeah I got that email the other day with a free seat upgrade.
NXT’s in a weird spot. They took a lot of talent for the brand split (and then barely used them in SD and Raw) and 9/10 NXT matches now feel like they’re building up someone’s profile more than adding to a storyline. Outside of Naka/Joe there’s not a real lot of continuity going on.
They had three straight matches with an Aussie (5 across those three matches) on this week’s show, though!
Its only been a bit over 2 months since the brand split and some of those guys stuck around on shows until the Brooklyn Takeover, so it’ll take another 2-3 months to re-establish some depth especially in the tag and women’s divisions where they took almost everybody established. Elias Sampson seems to be fit again from his ankle break - as much as I can’t stand him that’ll give them another semi-established singles guy to insert into the mix.
On the downside, Itami is out indefinitely apparently with another (unspecified) injury, so no Itami/Kota tagging to look forward to - if you haven’t seen the ugly footage (https://twitter.com/Falkerman - Oct 2 tweet), earlier this month Riddick Moss botched a snap powerslam on him at a house show, which spiked his head/neck straight into the mat - would seem a fair chance the injury is related.
The Drifter!
Paige and Del Rio… oh man, even Russo couldn’t write this ■■■■.
Paige and Del Rio… oh man, even Russo couldn’t write this ■■■■.Proposing in the ring...all kinds of tacky. Her father is less than pleased.
Her mother is the scary one...Paige and Del Rio… oh man, even Russo couldn’t write this ■■■■.Proposing in the ring...all kinds of tacky. Her father is less than pleased.
- Goldberg surely getting fined for his first word back on TV: it takes little lip-reading to identify a mothercrucker
- Bit of piped chant, lots of people just passive initially
- Decent promo though
- If he can’t lift his kid onto his shoulders, what hope does he have of doing the same to Lesnar?
How have you watched it already?
I want Jericho to add him to the list.
Crowd seemed into it.
Paige and Del Rio… oh man, even Russo couldn’t write this ■■■■.
am i the only one who like what Vince Russo wrote and did in wrestling (his wwe stuff mainly)
Yes.
By total coincidence I saw Botchamania #38 today — with Lesnar/Goldberg. Crowd was harsh 
This led me down a track of alternative ways to make money, like putting the three former IWGP champions in the ring and letting them go nuts, before a much worse idea occurred, using only current WWE talent:
Truth vs AJ Styles © vs Rhino vs Joe vs Roode vs Aries vs Young (should also include Foley, but I’ll be kind to everyone and name him as guest referee instead)
Will write about yesterday's NOAH show at Korauken Hall later (possibly much later!)Ah yeah, I never did that. And now I find out this was Shelton Benjamin’s final NOAH show. No wonder the poor bastardo ate the pin.
Some stuff you don’t see on the telecasts: a shot of the hall not pointing at the bleachers to the right, millions of posters for upcoming shows, the freakin’ smoking room during intermission.
Disco Stu Mohammed Yone with a leg hold in the opening match:
Jado is a funny dude:
Don’t get into a chopping contest in Japan. This is Takashi Sugiura of the heel faction Suzuki Army. This shot is during an 8 man tag with teammates Shelton, Lance Archer (Hoyt) and Davey Boy Smith Jr. They interfered in the first match, had their tag match, and came back to play a huge role in the main event later. It worked so well, the crowd ate it all up and booed the crap out of them. Lance Archer is incredibly over as a water-splashing crowd-intimidating (but funny) heel.
Shelton’s reaction to losing, after a white-hot last couple minutes against Katsuhiko Nakajima:
Suzuki Army (Minori Suzuki and Takashi Iizuka) would challenge for the GHC Tag Championship in the main event, which was 20 minutes of massively overbooked but massively enjoyable chaos. Suzuki Army had half their competition tied to the ring rail for much of the match (you can just see a hand here). The fan to the left had quietly tried to untie him, and the “what the hell do you think you’re doing?!?” looks when the heels caught him at it were gold.
After half the locker room rushed to ringside to counteract the heels, Suzuki himself ended up tied to the railing and could only watch the finish:
Takashi turned 50 shortly after this but still looks pretty damn good, and has a bit of a George “The Animal” Steele kind of gimmick — get out of the way of the crazy man!
Japanese crowds may be quite polite but you book a good heel faction to “ruin” the show and the crowd will go as nuts as any other around the world. The night just built and built and built really well. But you have to do it right: down here MCW did it perfectly with the TMDK invasion over the past six months, but were godawful with The Estate before that, getting pure X-Pac “go away” heat.
I like the Aussie girls but their promo work needs … work
MeekMahan is OBSOLETE.
Odds on Charlotte doing a moonsault off the cage?