Norwegian Rudo

Kind of weirded out by the complaints about kick-outs. It was like 25% of what you see on any indie show, and maybe 10% of a PWG show.

I assume you're talking about Marcel? You don't really need to start worrying until he get's his new name. If he's still doing it then, he's in trouble.

Nah, another injury to her bad knee would have been worst case scenario.

Or, you know, they've got enough sense to block obvious trolls...

Makes sense. This way they can arrange the brackets better so the girls who got over/impressed the brass the most don't face each other in round 2.

She's always that I can remember been fairly slim. She's tall and imposing, not fat.

She presumably can't do basically any part of her act though, and her actual wrestling is mediocre at best (though improving).

It's still 30 matches taped in 2 days. Let's not set the expectations too high.

https://www.wwe.com/shows/maeyoungclassic/article/meiko-satomura-mae-young-classic-2018

Someone did the math after the latest Okada-Omega match and the Jericho match on the same card Dave raved about would have been something like 2 3/4* stars if there were any logic in his ratings. Making it basically an infinite scale while acting like that has no impact on anything below 5* is just incredibly stupid.

I can see Duke at least getting the technical parts of wrestling quickly. She was a very skilled fighter, just had absolutely no killer instinct.

Seems I was wrong about the "in particular" part then. I don't follow PWG (when I try to watch their shows I'm tired and bored of highspot/kickout by midway through the second match) so I just assumed Dave's gushing about everything they do meant he had given them a bunch of 5*. The general point I stand behind though. Once Dave gave NXT it's first 5* rating he's followed it it with another three this year alone, and the ladder match in particular was nowhere close. Before he went all the way so to speak, there were other matches I thought were very deserving, the Toronto tag match in particlar for me was an easy 5*.

It seems to me it takes something spectacular for Dave to give 5* to a promotion, but once he does they start to fly freely (see PWG in particular).

According to her she is currently in the process of renewing her work visa, which means she can't leave the country under any circumstances.

Is Sarah Stock gone?

Barbi Hayden is a yuck no. Saw her and a rookie two months in face the Reality of Wrestling champion (whose name escapes me), and the rookie had BY FAR the better match. Jinny is a great heel whose personality work is absolutely top notch. If they let her do her character she'll have Full Sail absolutely hating her before her match begins. Her wrestling is improving, but she's still mostly about some cool moves rather than being a complete wrestler.

Didn't we know that like the day after Takeover? He posted an x-ray and everything. It'll be interesting how they play it with Dijak. He's better known and has been featured more than the usual "do jobs and then change their name before bringing them back" people in the past.

Well, I'm not into the Florida indy scene, and I've heard about him many times...

He's a lot more than D-list Florida indy dude. He is/was Santana Garrett's boyfriend (aka the reason she is never getting signed), runs one of the best known wrestling schools there and has at various times had people like Scott Hall and Larry Zbysko living at his house. Like it or not he is one of the best known guys there to anyone who has even the slightest "inside" knowledge.

It's common knowledge online, and I would assume even more so among people actually in wrestling. Kenny might not, but aside from the Japanese guys I would say everybody else backstage would know.

You might not want to read the Reddit thread on the tryouts. Numerous people basically saying the exact opposite...

First day was good not great, hurt by having to do 7 tournament matches + a couple of others, but I thought day 2 was really good.

This is exactly what happened (at least what I've read). The problem is that Flair winning it back was so obvious all the "real" title contenders refused to take part in the storyline, which was how we ended up with Ron Garvin, NWA Champion.

To quote the great Raylan Givens; "you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. You run into assholes all day, you're the asshole".