Matt D

So hear me out, Eddie Kingston as the third Ingobernable.

I'm quickly becoming Gordi watching everyone bitch about AEW Ticket Sales and horrible creative or whatever. Or whatever interview Andrade had recently. PWO is brutal right now. Post after post of bitching when there's still so much positive out there. You can complain about things you don't like, but when there's so much positive and I never hear you talking about it at all, it makes me wonder why you're even making yourself miserable like this? Proverbial You. That's probably on PWO. And one guy in the ROH thread. And a gimmick poster. You know who you are. Anyway, there's a lot of things to enjoy. Take this episode of Elevation for instance. You know who'd hit a missile dropkick with an engaged, into the action, "on" expression? Skye Blue. She always seems so happy when she hits spots. Adora was a good counterpoint, good base, etc. I'm as high on Blue's upside as anyone's in the company. Between how hard she hits (and gets hit) and how thoroughly she hits her character work, just a ton of potential. They should send her to TJPW on an excursion though. Cage vs Williams really overachieved. I haven't seen a ton of Cage outside of Lucha Underground but the mark against him is always that the mix of working big and working small doesn't work out. Here it sort of did. Williams was technically sound enough to be able to handle the strength spots, but he couldn't handle both the strength AND the savvy/speed/wrestling acumen. It was just too much for him. They kept it interesting and competitive though. The weird 80s backdrop promo worked for how over the top it was. I can only imagine how Wardlow vs Cage will go. On some level, I'm just glad Wardlow is healthy for it. Archer squished Cheeseburger but at least he got a little hope. I like Archer hitting the Blackout from any angle. Fans were somewhat into Cheeseburger, but really they only cared about Danhausen on this night. I always get the sense that Abadon really wants to make the most of her appearances. Here it was mimicking her opponent until she got hit and then just unloading on her. Just trying to do new things and work them in. There's no reason she's not working someone ever week on Dark from my perspective. She's really not getting a ton of work elsewhere or anything. Send her to TJPW too. Why the hell not? Dalton and the Boys weren't nearly as over as you'd expect. Except for with Big Show. I've heard Wight do some local radio interviews lately and that's a big reason why he's there, but I was missing Menard. It made sense why he didn't announce as he had the first match on Dynamite, of course. Match was good. There's something ritual/celebratory about the "Suplexes > Throwing Boys > Finisher" sequence but it works for Elevation. That's how you get stuff over. Kip and Penelope had a bunch of fun spots in there. Look, I only have seen a couple of months of Kip but I like his little dodge-play at the beginning and the crowd conducting thing is good. I will say that Penelope seems somehow lesser when she's in with him, whether it's coming out to his music instead of hers or his antics being more of the centerpiece of the match. That's a shame. They should run Kip/Penelope as de facto faces against Sammy/Tay. Lucha Bros vs Deppen/Martin was a mess, but a fun one. Deppen in there felt like a name teamed with Paul Roma, despite the fact Deppen is good in his own right. He's just not presented as such, but he made for good contrast with Dante here and I liked how he caught the glove. Fenix and Dante matching up made me want a singles match. Finish was all about a lack of familiarity between Deppen and Martin which worked for me. Main event was disappointing as I was promised Ogogo. Clayton and Solo are way too similar in their strengths to be in the same unit unless you were going to work them as some sort of samey tag team. Comoroto might be the best "Cut off" guy in the company. QT's Danhausenian antics were amusing and he got real heat. A lot of knees in this one. Maybe too many. The finish was a blast with everyone trying to do the Strong Zero and Danhausen finally getting it with a weak double axe handle.

So just to sum up: somehow the show that's consistently the best and most enjoyable hour of wrestling every week is also apparently completely ruined due to the ROH hires. That would have probably been hired and featured on Rampage anyway just without the ROH name. Got it.

10/18/90: Tenryu/Kabuki vs Team Takano: I'm missing Thunder Storm already. This was the finals of the one night tournament and Kabuki has washed off the paint which was weirdly jarring. Shunji looks and moves like Terry Gordy and it's a damn shame that there isn't another AJPW match with them from 90 that I just hadn't gotten to yet. I need to watch more obviously, but in the tags I've seen with this promotion so far, there's just much more of a sense of a southern tag. Maybe it's because the tags are slightly shorter, I don't know, but there's been less back and forth momentum shifts and more of a beating on one person or one side. Here, it was first on George, who got beaten down early and just really crushed. Tenryu must have known about how cool his stuff in the corner looked with the camera because he really milked the corner clothesline. Shunji would intervene and give him hope (including with a huge corner clothesline and missile dropkick; they loved calling his stuff BAZOOOOOKA!) but they were doing a good job of cutting him off and keeping him in or near the corner. George Takano is a fresh person for Tenryu to beat up so that's enjoyable. Eventually Shunji did make it in but he mainly ate a shinbreaker from Kabuki and a bunch of kneebars and a figure four. But, as is the style, that gave George time to recover and he came in with an actual hot tag. There was even some actual danger on Tenryu for a bit where Kabuki had to save him, but he's Tenryu so he came back. Ultimately, they got Kabuki on the floor but by then Tenryu was doing the lift up chops and the Kawada (stolen from Tenryu who did them first! but does anyone speak about that?) kicks on George when Shunji came out of nowhere with a shot that allowed George to get the huge upset with the German. The fans went nuts as you can imagine. I need to see more but I'm feeling some stylistic differences from first half 90 AJPW so far. But this was good!

Your reporting on this experience has been terribly lax, old pal.

Yeah, the Martinet-followed-by-a-top-rope-splash bit was pretty weird layout, but other than that..

It’s funny we’re getting Namor and Black Adam so close together.

I've not been tuned in for a few years but caught Jarochita vs Reina Isis this morning and that felt like the most 2015 NXT Women's match that I've ever seen in CMLL. By a wide margin. They left it all out there.

All marks for legitimacy. Angle pro wrestling made them all feel more legit. If he ever got onto the mat like would think he would or actually took the time to sell instead of being hyperactive and rushing to his next spot during his WWE run….

Seeing just a ton of negativity elsewhere whether it's over ticket sales or people sad about the Elite or some elements of the booking or whatever. And we're good at being more balanced here, which is really a hell of a thing, to be honest. And tomorrow, we're being rewarded with a webshow with... Skye Blue vs Trish Adora Lance Archer vs Cheeseburger An Abadon squash(Abby James) Dalton Castle and the Boys vs Primal Fear Kip Sabian and Penelope Ford squash (Gia Scott/LSG) Brian Cage vs Tracy Williams Lucha Bros vs Dante Martin/Tony Deppen Danhausen/Rocky/Chuck/Trent vs Factory (QT, Solo, NICKY BOY, Ogogo). Doesn't that sound like a bunch of fun?

What a world in which we live:

They should get Gangrel to do a promo.

He’d make Hulk lose his hair.

The build for 10 vs Andrade has been a little weird with all the Brodie mentioning, how it's the anniversary of his last match, how he gave 10 the mask, how he'll do it for him. Unless there's a turn coming WEDNESDAY night on Dynamite for the Hangman/Rush match and this apuestas match is just a smokescreen, it feels like a situation where 10 can't lose without either things looking pretty bad or them trying to give Andrade massive heat in a way they usually don't touch.

10/18/90: Tenryu/Kabuki vs Jeff Jarrett/Bob Orton, Jr.: This was the first round of a one night tag tournament. I'm not convinced they had any idea who the Americans were as they were billed as Jeff Jallett and Bob Outon Jr. There were a lot of in your face production values in general. Maybe the coolest thing in the match was Jarrett eating a chop from Tenryu in the corner captured by the corner ringpost cam. Lots of shots at ring level too. This was absolutely a southern tag with the heat on Kabuki. Jarrett didn't entirely embarrass himself or anything but it was Orton who felt like he belonged, hitting hard, but in his own way, and getting some real heat as he goaded the crowd from the apron. They cut off the ring and it was as shine/heat/comeback as almost any match I can think of during this era. It probably went ten, twelve minutes which made that easier though. Orton did his awesome "heft the guy up on his head, press him up, backbreaker" spot. Can't forget that. Finish was Jarrett vs Tenryu and Jarrett tried to scrap, he really did, but it was probably a bad idea. 10/18/90: George Takano/Shunji Takano vs Takagi/Yatsu: Other first round match. Yatsu and Takagi looked less wild, better groomed. Coolest thing here was Yatsu catching a kick and holding onto the leg as he hit the enziguiri. Shunji was the one who looked more wild, almost having a Terry Gordy sort of thing going Takagi seemed recovered from his injury and had a good mix of size and speed considering. This was back and forth but Takagi and Yatsu had been in more tags earlier in the year before the injury while the Takanos, despite being brothers, had been in different companies, and despite hitting a double dropkick at one point, I got the sense that they weren't too used to working with each other actually. They ran back the spot where Takagi got completely stomped to death in the corner but he beat the count this time, only to fall a minute or two later.