maciej

Gabe just announced a bunch of matches on Twitter. Evolve: - Eddie Kingston & Joe Gacy vs. Konosuke Takeshita & MAO - Darby Allin vs Anthony Henry - Harlem Bravado vs Adrian Jaoude - Curt Stallion vs Kazusada Higuchi - Montez Ford vs. Shane Strickland - Austin Theory vs Kyle O'Reilly Supershow: - AR Fox, Leon Ruff & Adrian Alanis vs. Daisuke Sasaki, Tetsuya Endo & Soma Takao - Eddie Kingston, Joe Gacy & Shane Strickland vs. Team wXw (tbd) - JD Drake vs. Kazusada Higuchi - Austin Theory & Brandi Lauren vs. Darby Allin & Priscilla Kelly Skulk vs. Damnation & Drake vs. Higuchi make me very happy about having tickets for that WWN show (as does not having a big Theory singles match as the main, tbh).

quick list while killing time on a Saturday. Def more Gargano than I'd imagine I'd have in the first few months and I still need to watch most of NXT UK, but here we are. 1. Johnny Gargano vs. Ricochet, 1/26 2. Sasha Banks vs. Ronda Rousey, 1/27 3. Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Andrade Cien Almas, 1/15 4. Velveteen Dream, Aleister Black, & Ricochet vs. Adam Cole, Tomasso Ciampa, & Johnny Gargano, 2/3 5. Matt Riddle vs. Drew Gulak, 2/6 6. Finn Balor vs. Brock Lesnar, 1/27 7. Velveteen Dream vs. Johnny Gargano, 2/20 8. War Machine vs. The Undisputed Era, 1/26 9. Velveteen Dream vs. Tyler Bate, 2/6 10. Men's Smackdown Title Elimination Chamber, 2/17 11. Mustache Mountain vs. the Grizzled Young Vets, 1/12 12. Women's Tag Title Elimination Chamber, 2/17

Both the elimination chambers were pretty great overall in different ways, I thought. The women’s tag match had the less great finishing stretch (tho that last submission was dope) but the body of the match had a lot of good brawling, good bumps, and interesting pairings. The men’s match I thought was very blah in the first half but goddamn that Bryan/Kofi match at the end more than made up for it.

I know AJ is a beloved babyface but good god, what kinda herb do you have to be in that audience to be cheering against Kofi Kingston at that point in that match.

hey, I wasn't the only one who voted for that Fuerza/Demus match!

The main event on this is the non-finish shitshow you'd expect (though pretty fun while it lasts tbh), but the semi is Dragon Lee & Golden Magic vs. Fenix and Flamita and is awesome (don't be fooled by the youtube title this is the whole show).

I very much still don't love the "guy hanging on the ropes waiting to get attacked" spot, but leave it to Fenix to at least do something that looks cool with it.

This year, by far my fav has been 5/18 vs. Mistico, Soberano, & Angel de Oro. Other fun ones: 1/6 vs. Drone, Guerrero Maya, & Esfinge; 2/15 in Lucha Memes vs. Iron Kid, Alas de Acero, & Aramis; 6/1 with UG replacing Cuatrero vs. Mistico, Caristico, & Flyer; 6/8 vs. Audaz, Titan, & Soberano, 8/31 vs. the Casas fam, their Aniversario match (9/14 vs Atlantis, Mistico, & Soberano). They also had a really terrific run in October of last year.

I'm in Chicago visiting family for Thanksgiving so I went to AAW last night and saw Trevor Lee and ACH go to a 60 minute draw that I assume people will be talking about because it's a 60 minute draw between two good wrestlers. I'm interested to see what people on here that see it have to say about it. I certainly did enjoy seeing those two go on the mat for an extended amount of time, because that's not something you see very often and they're quite good at it. I do think that the length of the mat segment did make it somewhat obvious, even before the halfway point, that they were going all the way, but I didn't mind that so much (though some of the middle did drag a little). The thing that really took me out of it, though, was Trevor Lee with maybe ten or fifteen minutes left picking up the mic and cutting a racist-ass promo mid-match, telling ACH to go back to "the ghetto" a few times. There's an argument to be made about wrestling as fiction and obviously I know that Lee's just playing a role, but I was mystified as to why he felt the need to do that; it's not like Trevor Lee has trouble getting over as a heel without that incredibly cheap fucking heat. The worst effect of this for me was that the handful of (white, obviously) dudes cheering for Trevor (over a pretty loudly pro-ACH crowd, including an incredibly cute kid leading the charge) kept cheering for him after the promo bit, now just straight up cheering for a racist, which is a bit of a different level from just cheering for a heel you like.

I think I honestly like two Nia Jax matches this year better than my favorite AJ Styles match this year, hahahaha

Dunno if there's a better thread for this, and I certainly didn't expect to be siding with Ryback ever in my life, but don't y'all think this Nia reaction is a bit overblown? How many wrestlers have injured people much worse than this many times? Not to mention that on Monday 99% of the reaction was "someone accidentally made Becky bleed and this is the coolest thing in the world" and now that the effect of the exact same thing is worse than we thought, there are people on twitter posting GIF threads of like 5 things NIa has done wrong (including not catching a dive correctly, as if most everyone in WWE wasn't guilty of that) that prove she's unfit to be in the ring.

Rhea Ripley's stomach claw

That Alistair/Nikki ending was actually pretty cool, but the Nikki/Bianca match was AWESOME. Nikki lets Bianca hit her hard as hell takes really cool bumps, and I really enjoy that while Nikki is a feral beast she's also a much more well-trained technical wrestler than Bianca and willing to take advantage with the odd head scissors and roll-up. Meanwhile, Bianca's strength and athleticism spots (that dropkick!) look great and, even with the non-finish (or maybe to make up for it), they get a ton of time and use it all well. That was one of my fav NXT TV matches of the year for sure.

I might should add, as this is turning into the Let's All Go To Mexico City thread, that this year I went to the Sunday show as well because I was still there and I figured why not, and while it was a completely different vibe, the arena was like a third full, and the matches weren't as big, it was still very, very fun. We actually got a match with Soberano, Niebla Roja, & Angel de Oro vs. Cuatrero, Forastero, and Mascara Año 2000 that would have stood out on a Friday and like $20 gets you a ticket close enough to the action that if Soberano gets rudely tossed over the barriers you might get to hang out next to him for a second:

well, shit.

Yeah, y not?

I thought the finish to the main event was a little lame, but I was so happy to see Cavernario have his moment. As goodhelmet said, just one of the best atmospheres to watch wrestling in (crowd seemed even hotter than last year, tho I dunno if that's just recency) and a very fun show overall. Also want to echo that Mexico City is just an absolutely wonderful city and if you have any interest in tasty food or art (or tree-lined streets or mezcal or specialty coffee or etc) scheduling a vacation that just happens to coincide with a major lucha show is something I couldn't recommend more strongly.

not on YouTube, but the Riddle match at Evolve 57 is pretty great

This is maybe the just the opinion of someone who has a ticket to the Aniversario and is trying to make himself feel better about the card, but Cavernario/Taven on Friday was kinda really good!

I kinda loved that Pagano & co match. It's neither the dirty, serious violence of your indie lucha handhelds nor the workrate bloodletting of the average BJW main event, both of which usually get praised more (and generally for good reason), but this kind of giddy, occasionally hilarious hardcore match can be special when done well, and I thought it was a ton of fun.

yes, a perfectly reasonable post right after a reminder of that racist piece of shit saying the n word a bunch of times is a complaint about people being fake outraged

So I just noticed that a few weeks ago Mas Lucha put up the full version of Ricky Marvin vs. Cavernario from April (there had been a JIP version up, this adds like two minutes, but it's a good first two minutes) and it's fucking awesome! Ricky is absolutely not having any of caveman's shit.

That Darby/Walter match, btw, completely lived up to my sky-high expectations.

yup, it's in two weeks in Queens and I'm quite excited for it. Also, main-eventing that show is Matt Riddle/Shane Strickland, and I highly recommend their match from Evolve 104 if you get a chance to watch it. Strickland just decides to be a huge asshole and wrecks Riddle's arm, forcing Riddle to wrestle from underneath with one arm and it's really great.