Tim Evans

Tonight's NXT tapings were basically just to build up the Febuary 27th live show.. Also Sami Zayn and Paige didn't wrestle cause they are injured although Sami will be back on the 27th when Cesaro vs Sami 3 happens. Main event will be Bo Dallas vs Neville in a ladder match for the title.

I've been watching some Muta matches under his Kokushi-Muso gimmick. Why didn't it last longer than just a few matches? His team with Hakushi was decent and then he teamed with Low Ki in Zero one under the same name. How did the gimmick start?

I had the show on in the background while watching CWF Mid Atlantic but the final segment really impressed me. That was the first time Magnus really looked like a champion. Dixie tried her best to ruin it with her shitty acting but Magnus and AJ did a good job I thought

Kruger's Michael Hayes mixed with Adrian street gimmick on the house shows is something to see. If you hated the first Kofi/Rusev match, wait till you see the rematch. I'm hoping Miz is booked vs Rusev on the 9th. It just makes sense.

I went to the final NXT house show or 2013 tonight at the armory. It was pretty much the same show as the NXT arena show except not Bayley, Emma or Steve Keirn. It was mostly a casual crowd so they really didn't get the Solomon Crowe gimmick. In fact they booed the finish which made me sad. He's gonna be over huge at the NXT arena though. Best match of the night was Ty Dillenger/Baron Corbin vs CJ Parker and Jason Jordan match. Jordan did a split leg moonsault off the top rope. I was not expecting that. Parker is a fun house show gimmick. Kruger's new gimmick reminds me of Michael PS Hayes without the robe or charisma. Billy Gunn vs Bo Dallas was something else. Billy was blown up after his entrance and couldn't do much but brawl outside and take punishment. I marked out for the random Robbie Brookside and Eugene run ins. The scary moment of the night featured Bill Demott doing a run in to do the No Laughing matter on Bo. Byron Saxton run out and hits Bill in the knee and Bill falls off the ropes and lands badly on his head. I thought for sure he broke his neck and he was down for a while but he walked out of the ring. The telling thing of the night is how much the drop off is in the nxt roster after Sami/Neville/Paige/Emma/Bayley etc. They got some good talent but when those guys leave, it's gonna be rough.

He's dressing as a bear on the JBL and Cole show and getting kicked in the nuts every week by people like Bad News Barrett and Rene Young.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbg9nj_6-man-wcw-tag-action_sport Here's a WAR style 6 man tag with Rick Rude/Jake Roberts/Cactus Jack vs Barry Windham/Dustin Rhodes and Barry Windham from the Halloween 1992 edition of the Power Hour.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZPjrz87kek This is probably my favorite Davey Richards match. Either this or the one he had with Ray Gonzalez the same weekend.

I've also been watching some Memphis lately but from 1994. I'm up to May 1994 and it's very tag team heavy with the Eliminators, Rotten Brothers and Spiders(Headbangers) all in. The tag champs were Brian Christopher and Eddie Gilbert and they were feuding with Doug Gilbert who manages the Eliminators. The main feud in the area was Jerry Lawler vs Dream Machine. It's a shame Dream Machine wasn't around during the attitude era cause he's like Austin mixed with Dusty Rhodes mixed with Chris Colt. Great talker that could brawl with the best of them. Jimmy Hart brought in Dream Machine to help Lawler but of course, he turned on him and Brian. Adam Bomb and Dream Machine is the most War tag team in Memphis in the 90's. Well that and Road Warrior Hawk/Bart Gunn/Giant Silva in 1998 Power Pro wrestling.

I went to the FIP show in Orlando tonight. It was a fun show with matches like Trent Barretta vs Lince Dorado, Andrew Everret and Caleb Konley vs the Washington Bullets and Roderick Strong vs Rich Swann that morphed into a tag title match with the Bravados. The doors were supposed to open at 7 but didn't open until after 8. I guess that's indie wrestling. The turnout was pretty sad, about less than a 100 I would say. I get that kayfabe is dead but during the intermission, guys that faced each other earlier in the show were selling merchandise next to each other and being friendly. I mean come on.

It was a house show in Tampa. The main event was Emma/Neville vs Bo/Banks. I bet that was a good match. Also Becky Lynch had her first singles match in NXT.

I think IV is the only one that's till active but III and V still wrestle sometimes. They're also 4 or 5 Villano kids that wrestle.

Kalisto hasn't even debuted on NXT TV yet. I guess he could go the Ambrose route? Hopefully he's the new Sin Cara.

Anyway... There is a lot of wrestling that goes on here but a lot of the crowds are the typical southern fans. The Orlando fans for NXT are somewhat of an anomaly that seem like wwe fans (cheer and boo the "right guys") but seem to really grab onto the dudes who are legitimately GOOD. Which I like. One of the reasons NXT is good is because I think the crowd is the perfect mix of smart and legit into what is going on. Outside of some people turning their back on Bo, none of the fans seems to be trying to get themselves over. tldr; lots of good wrestling in Florida, weird crowds. The NXT tv tapings are mostly filled with Students mixed with families mixed with Impact zone people. It's a weird mix that works really well. As for getting themselves over, it's not as bad as indie crowds but the last tapings did feature a "we are awesome" chant. I blame the Impact guys. The NXT house shows are mostly filled with familes and casual fans. They are fun because it's mostly cheering for the babyfaces and booing the heels. Very traditional. Then you get big pops for something like multiple headlocks and armdrags. The Orlando wrestling scene has really picked up in the last year or 2. Along with Evolve and FIP running shows, you got I believe In Wrestling which is Chasyn Rance/Larry Z's wrestling school that runs shows about once a month. I've never been to one of those shows but they got guys like Tim Zybisco, Lince Dorado and Jesse Neal. Then you got USA Pro that used to run up in the northeast. They have a lot of old guys like The Headbangers, Manny Fernandez, Steve Corino, Too cold Scorpio and even Tommy Rich did a show along with some of the local guys. They run the same building NXT runs house shows which is a National Guard Armory. Other groups in the area are Vintage Pro and SCW which I hear are decent. The Orlando wrestling scene is the busiest it's been since probably the Attitude era.

http://instagram.com/p/hQjy-qCoLY/# This isn't a GIF but it's an amazing instagram video. Big E is the best at social media.

That's Darkside Yoshi from the yellow ropes forever version of NXT Redemption. He wasn't a bad guy and kept the same music he always had. I think it started when he was feuding with Tyson Kidd over Kiss breaking Yoshi's action figure and hanging it in Yoshi's locker. He went with the character until NXT went to full sail and they stopped booking him.

Tonight was the final NXT tapings of the year. The shows had some good matches along with some bad ones. Regal vs Cesaro was amazing as expected.

They went by their real names. Davey almost broke his neck after landing on his head on a botched backdrop by Rick Victor. They were really over with the crowd so I"ll be surprised if they aren't signed.

Doomsday runs through a wall at the WMC studios after losing the unified title to Steven Dunn. A month later, he would debut as Kane at Bad Blood.

I know I'm gonna catch a lot of flack for saying that, but when you think about it the CWA in the 70's-80's was the best of Memphis wrestling, not USWA. Also, and I know that I shouldn't base my opinion strictly off of this, but they did get the "award" for Worst Promotion Of The Year in 97, the year they went belly up, and from some of the stuff I've seen (matches, overall TV shows, etc.) I can clearly see why. USWA was pretty much dead by June 97 with the final weeks just being recaps of old shows. It was pretty bad in 97 but I don't think it's fair to based the whole promotion on that year. 1990-1993 had some great stuff like the Lawler/Snowman, Moondogs, Embry vs Tennessee and heel vince feuds.

The thing about Graves it he crowd just find him boring as hell. They don't hate him like they do CJ Parker and Bo. It's like the Ascension matches. The crowd just doesn't care. Neville's heat got hurt a lot teaming with Graves. Luckily at the next taping he was over.

I've been watching a comp of all the Sting vs Flair matches in WCW. Best match was the one from WCW Saturday Night in 93 i thought anyways. I noticed that over time, WCW refs changed from wearing a blue shirt with bowtie to the white shirt with black stripes. When did that happen and why? Must have been between 1996 and 1999.

WWE had Eva Marie and Aksana in the same match and they didn't have a 5 minute segment. That's a total fail. Dream match for me. Hopefully Vince comes back soon. This HHH/steph 15 minute segments every week is getting old.

Yeah. I thought the crowd was good tonight for the first 2 hours but got burned out in hour 3. That's been the pattern most weeks ever since they went to 3 hours. The Rhodes-Americans match was really f'n good, but the crowd was just dead for most of it. Goldust was trying really hard to get them into it, yelling at the crowd when he was on offense late in the match. Crowd did pick up more for the finishing stretch, but that match would have been so much better with a hot crowd. Then poor Del Rio gets thrown out there in the 3rd hour to get serenaded with "WHAT?!" chants by a tired/bored crowd. His promo would have come off a lot better if done earlier in the show. Heck, even the girls were trying really f'n hard just to get the crowd to react to anything. With the pre-show tapings and dark match, you probably end up being in the arena 4+ hours, right? That's too long for a tv taping. It's too long for almost any wrestling show. Got in the building about 7:30 and left a little after 11 after HHH had everyone thrown out. That was great. Trying to get JBL to call the police for tresspassing and then hiring everyone only to fire them. Scripted HHH sucks but unscrpited live HHH is fun. I felt bad for Natalya/Summer. Sure it wasn't very good and it wasn't put in the right time but the crowd gave it nothing. 30 seconds in they started a "this is garbage" chant. Also the crowd really loved the Goldust match. I guess most of the heat happened during commercial?

Please tell me they showed Steph and HHH patting Torito on the head when they walked to the ring during the final segment? That was awesome. This was a fun show live but man 3 hours is too long. It was crazy how more over Daniel Bryan was compared to Cena. Sure Cena got a big pop but the people chanted for Bryan all night. Best match of the night was Santino vs Kofi on Superstars. That fucker Kofi did his kick to the Cobra. He should turn heel for that.