Charlie M.

I'm irrationally excited for the Expansion Draft.

Primo vs. Shelton Benjamin in a GREAT match from 2010 WWC. It's a travesty that the commentary is dubbed over the crowd because I'm sure they were red hot for Primo. I'm pretty sure Primo is one of the 10 most underrated/unheralded great workers of all-time. Everything he does in this match is perfect. His selling, his fire, the timing on his comebacks, it's all there.

"If you want to add an extra star rating to your match, you just slice your head wide open like this..." STEVE! NO! NO!

Becky was talking about wanting to turn heel on the Stone Cold Podcast.

Fun developmental tag. Heath is pretty good in this. Dusty is on commentary. Heath Miller & Joe Hennig vs. Dolph Ziggler & Gavin Spears - FCW October 26, 2008

Card looks pretty good to me. Miz and Ziggler have delivered in pretty much every match they've had in this run so I think they'll do the same here.

They gave Orton the week off because his wife was having a baby so I thought this was a pretty creative way to get around that. Plus we'll get a real match next week instead of a short one. If New Day is losing the belts soon on RAW, I wouldn't mind them doing the 3 person deal on Smackdown with the Wyatts where any two can defend the belts.

The idea would be that they'd win because Cena and Taker would have some kind of issue so you could begin the build to Cena vs Taker at Mania.

How about something like the New Wyatt Family vs. Undertaker & Kane & John Cena? You could start to plant the seeds for WrestleMania.

Goldberg cut another great promo. Putting him in the Rumble is a smart move. Jericho and Owens teasing the breakup was so good. Strowman vs Sami was really well done. I was enjoying the tag title match before the dumb finish. Cesaro and Sheamus are a GREAT team. Let's get this stupid record over with and move on. I want Cesaro and Sheamus versus The Revival and I want a Big E singles push. Charlotte cut a good promo too. I wonder what the crowd will be like for that match next week in Flair Country?

Good for him. I don't think he'll get a huge push or anything but you need to reward guys like that for putting in a lot of time helping everyone else out in NXT.

His kid was challenging Shane's kid to a fight.

Can someone explain Columbus to me? How are they doing so well? Is it just Bob?

The main issue with the men's match was Shane lasting after the table bump. That was a perfect spot to take him out. There was a long stretch after that where he was gassed and dragged everyone down with him.

I enjoyed most of the matches on the show which must be a sign that bad booking doesn't bother as much right now. The men's survivor series match was one of the weirdest mixes of awesome and terrible. I thought everything that didn't involve Shane or the Shield spot was really good. I liked what they did in the women's match. Becky got a big elimination on Nia. Bayley got to shine and then Charlotte got the heat at the end. The second half of the tag match was phenomenal. Cesaro and Sheamus are a GREAT team. If you're going to do another Goldberg vs Brock match, that was the way to go about it. I bet Goldberg's shoulder is fucked and he couldn't actually do a match.

Ciampa's stretch in the second fall where he was kicking ass on his own for an extended period of time was outstanding. It duped me into thinking that they must be losing and he must be turning because he was such a one man wrecking machine. I bit on the nearfalls even more at the end because of it. You're watching and rooting for Johnny to hold up his end of the team and keep them together.

On first watch, the tag match is going to be my new MOTY for WWE/NXT. Just perfect storytelling throughout. Very creative stuff using the ref that didn't feel like it was blatantly ripped off. They put their own spin on classic tag team wrestling and created something legendary. I've been thinking that NXT should move towards being a tag team territory of sorts. It would make it so much easier to get experience for the developmental guys that way. The rest of the show was average wrestling with a great crowd, IMO. Everybody tried hard but there wasn't anything I'd go back and watch a second time. The tag match I'll probably watch again tonight.

Chris Jericho did a 2 minute intro for Hockey Night in Canada tonight. That has to be a career highlight for him.

Dana Brooke is super likeable.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure he did too. He was very athletic in those days.

From my 2000's TV Match Adventure, Hardcore Holly randomly busts out a frankensteiner during a tag team iron man match...

The adventure rolls on with a trio of very good matches... WWE Smackdown #197 - May 29, 2003 Eddie Guerrero & Tajiri (c) vs. Team Angle (Charlie Haas & Shelton Benjamin) - WWE Tag Team Titles Last week, Eddie hit the ref with a chair and framed Team Angle so they would get DQ’d. Team Angle jump the champs before the bell and isolate Eddie in the early going. Tajiri gets in with some nice offense on Shelton until there’s a double knockdown and we head to the break. When we come back, Team Angle viciously attack Tajiri’s knee. Eddie is great working the apron while Team Angle methodically work over Tajiri’s knee. They incorporate a nice sequence to tease a hot tag before it gets cut off. Tajiri surprises Shelton with a headscissors out of nowhere and makes the hot tag. Eddie monkey flips Team Angle into each other! Three amigos on Haas. Frog Splash! Shelton makes the save. Some more good action leading to Haas countering a tornado DDT by Tajiri with a northern lights suplex requiring Eddie to make the save. Tajiri sells his bad wheel on offense. Eddie does a big dive onto Shelton so it appears everyone is wiped out when Haas gets Tajiri in the Haas of Pain. The bell rings and Haas lets go but the ref never called for it. Eddie sneaks in with the belt but Haas grabs it away. Eddie lays down, the ref sees Haas with the belt and DQ’s him in 14:02. RATING: B+. Very focused match with Tajiri’s injured leg being the main focus for Team Angle. It helped make it more believable that Eddie would resort to illegal tactics when Tajiri was trapped in the submission. The crowd was red hot for Eddie throughout the match. Team Angle were solid and worked their gimmick well. WWE Smackdown #280 - December 30, 2004 Rey Mysterio & Rob Van Dam (c) vs. Booker T & Eddie Guerrero - WWE Tag Team Titles It’s Night Of Champions 2004 and every champion on Smackdown is defending against their choice of opponent. Rey and RVD take the first few minutes of the match that includes a double legdrop called the 420. Cole explains it’s because they have 4 feet and their shoe sizes added up to 20. Tazz is skeptical. Booker & Eddie shift into subtle heel mode by tossing both guys out of the ring heading into a break. Rey posts himself and that allows the challengers to take over. Eddie improvises a nice chickenwing variation on Rey. The subtle heel stuff turns into full blown cheating as Booker knocks RVD off the apron so they can double team Rey. RVD gets a hot tag that ends up with him hitting the Five Star Frog Splash but Booker makes the save. Instead of going to the finish here, Eddie posts RVD and the match settles back down. Rey has to save RVD after a Book End. RVD finally hits a kick and makes the real hot tag. Mysterio comes flying in and Eddie takes a bunch of stuff including a super frankensteiner. Booker takes out the ref by mistake with a Harlem Sidekick. Everyone gets taken out leaving Eddie as the last man standing in the ring. He gets a devious smile on his face when he sees the ref down. He’s very conflicted about cheating. He finally decides to grab the title belt and frame Rey. When the ref has his back turned, Eddie pops up and waves at Rey. The ref catches him the second time! Rey rolls Eddie up for the pin and retains the titles in 21:30. RATING: B+. 20 minutes of quality tag team wrestling. They made the smart choice by having Eddie Guerrero and Booker T go subtle heel early in the match. They built to two separate hot tags with Rey’s being the better one. Eddie was so good at the comedy stuff at the end. This one felt like a bit of a hidden gem because it was buried on a end-of-the-year show. WWE Smackdown #302 - June 2, 2005 MNM (c) vs. Charlie Haas & Hardcore Holly - WWE Tag Team Titles 15 Minute Iron Man Match We get off to a good start with Charlie Haas taking Nitro down and going for some pinning combinations. Hardcore Holly gets tagged in and MNM want nothing to do with the old ass kicker. There’s a funny spot as Nitro sneakily tags Mercury in. He lights up Holly with a hard chop and pays for it moments later as Holly unloads on him with some of the hardest chops you’ll ever see. Holly goes for the Alabama Slam but Melina distracts the ref and Nitro hits a superkick. Mercury gets the pin and puts the champs up 1-0. They stay on the attack for a little bit until Holly fights back with some armdrags. During the break, Haas hit a big dive but then got posted and pinned so it’s 2-0 MNM. Nitro instructs Mercury to go for another pin but Haas reverses him and gets the challenger on the board with 5 minutes to go. MNM goes into defensive mode now. They’re stalling, cutting off the ring, making Haas fight his way back in from outside and generally taunting Holly about the clock. Haas has to hit a bunch of different moves to FINALLY make the hot tag to Holly. He’s cleaning house with clotheslines and suddenly busts out a FRANKENSTEINER! WHAT?! Tazz is shocked. He nails his great dropkick on Mercury for a nearfall. MNM goes for the Snapshot on Holly but Haas cuts it off. Holly hits the Alabama Slam but Melina gets in the way of the cover allowing time to expire! MNM win 2-1 to retain the titles. RATING: A. What a revelation this match was! The psychology here was perfect with the babyfaces going for constant pinfalls right from the start and the heels trying to run out the clock once they got the advantage. Michael Cole sold throughout the match that there would be sudden death overtime if there was a tie. MNM were fantastic chickenshit heels. Bob Holly was on FIRE here. He was like his old younger pure babyface self with an edge. WATCH THIS MATCH! I bet it’s under the radar because Haas & Holly weren’t a sexy team.

Harper and Crews had a really strong match on Main Event this week. Probably the best Crews has looked in his WWE run. It's good to have Luke Harper back and he didn't show any signs of ring rust or being diminished by his injury.

It'd be crazy to vote for anything else.

Very entertaining show. Miz and Ziggler managed to have another great match. The women's brawl was fun. The Undertaker thing added some intrigue to Sunday.