Go2Sleep
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Posts posted by Go2Sleep
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Bryan/HHH is kind of an interesting one. It was the first match on the show (and a great one), but the Hogan/Austin/Rock promo was actually the "hot opener" in terms of card structure. Matter of perspective I guess, but it seems to me like saying Bryan/HHH opened WM 30 is like saying saying one of those Sheamus/Miz type matches that is last on the card main events Raw when there is a big promo segment to end the show.
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I gotta sick feeling Enzo is going to turn on Cass soon because he cant get the girl
That would be awful, but it looks like they're moving Carmella away from those two. She's got her own music and was acting more heelish in her last match. The best direction would be for Enzo and Cass to embrace their true calling as Carmella's goon squad, though. Those three just click together and I look forward to their segments every week now (and if you go back to the last thread, you'll see I wasn't a big Cass fan to say the least). If Carmella can work up to championship-material level in the ring, that's a main-roster caliber stable.
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With Jericho/Gedo sandwiched in the middle, HH 97 probably has the best 3-match opening combo.
If you want an Eddie match, I'd go with him vs. Dean at Uncensored 97.
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Lost in everything else is that Ziggler/Cesaro was really fucking good. Those counter sequences were quick and clean, the arm work to set up the finish was subtle, but flowed well (even if the jagoff announcers unsurprisingly had no idea how to put it over and couldn't identify an armbar takedown). And that superplex spot was BOSS. Great effort from both guys.
Everything else before the main was just there, and I'm in the "finish was trash" camp for the main, but that's been beaten to death. Their FCA match on Raw was 100x better anyway.
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Is it possible that maybe Adrian Neville is just better than everyone gives him credit for?
Brodus Clay had in my opinion the two best matches of his career against Neville and now he's had another good match against Titus O'Neil, who's probably one of the worst wrestlers on the roster,
Neville seems a lot like AJ Styles to me in that there's an inherent backlash with him due to his "flippy movez," but he's actually a pretty smart worker who has great timing and pacing. He just has the added bonus of all his big spots looking super pretty and that's what people take away. Zayn's #1 in NXT this year due to the Cesaro match, but Neville looks better beyond that. Good matches with Bo Dallas, Brodus, Titus (none have whom really have any other matches worth a damn all year), and his matches with Kidd were pretty even with Zayn's. For my money, Neville and Zayn are neck and neck for best NXT worker this year, and there's a pretty sizable gap before you get to #3.
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It would be horrible if Ambrose doesn't win clean with no gimmicks afterwards. Just let him have *a moment* please. At least save his next feud for Raw the next night. Unlike a lot of recent MITB winners, Rollins has actually been protected, so eating a clean loss here doesn't hurt him anywhere near as much as not getting a clean win would hurt Ambrose.
Is Orton good to go for HIAC? Rumor was he got banged up in the match on Raw, but didn't hear any follow-up on the severity.
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The first Wyatts/Shield match was a perfect storm. Both acts were at their hottest point, it was far enough down the card that there wasn't any overbooking in the build up, just simple promos and each group looking badass. The Shield and at least Bray Wyatt were both protected enough that the result meant something. Just had a total dream match feel, then the in-ring action lived up to every expectation. Harper showed some crazy new stuff, it was the first face Ambrose performance, Rollins was pinballing in top form, Roman and Rowan never looked better. All the little touches were there, even the smallest moves were executed well, the finish was epic, post-match selling by the Wyatts... Pretty much everything you want in a match.
My underrated matches are Zayn/Cesaro from NXT Arrival and Bryan/Orton from the 2/3 Raw.
The former is about as good of a "feisty babyface vs dominant heel" style match I've seen in years. Lots of great character work between the spectacular moves.
The latter should've been a ppv blowoff in 2013, but was still great in a vacuum. Bryan was on offense for at least half the match and got a clean win, even fending off Kane for a thoroughly satisfying win. Orton flipped the switch to "really good" for this one, displaying all the great timing, stiffer strikes, and long-term selling that separate his elite performances from his routine ones.
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That blatant "Fancy" rip-off.
Glad I wasn't the only one who caught that. That was DDP-Smells Like Teen Spirit levels of shameless.
Also Tyson saying "Why would Tyler Breeze have Nattie's phone number" was a HHH-quality burn. Made Sami look like a dope, but damn it was hilarious.
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There was some good wrestling on the show this week.
I guess I'm the only one who really liked Orton/Ziggler. It definitely sounds like fast forward material these days, but these two have always had good chemistry. The match here was a pretty sound counter-based match that avoided overkill territory because neither guy actually hit most of their big moves. Dolph catching himself on the missed elbow and going straight to the chinlock caught my attention early. Both guys were on point with their timing, and the pacing was totally "vintage good Randy Orton." Finish was nice too, obviously. One of the better surprise RKO spots in a while, and infinitely better than the played-out "countering an imaginary jumping move" spot.
Rollins/Swagger was decent too, although not quite as clean as Orton/Ziggler. Seth is really doing a great job making his what-should-be-ideal-babyface style work as a heel. There were a couple pretty inspired sequences in here towards the end like the curb stomp counter and Rollins bringing back the avada kadavra or whatever it was called in FCW. He should probably start featuring it regularly now that Del Rio's gone.
Show/Rusev was also pretty good, and they got a lot more to work with than I expected. I think Rusev could actually make a really good face some day. He's an underrated bumper and a great athlete that can pull out surprise high-impact moves, like his king-sized dropkick here. Finish was garbage, but it kept Rusev strong, and I liked the post-match where he got what was coming to him.
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Total Divas is a spin-off of WWE, using the same characters in an entirely different show. While there is some cross-promotion, the linear timelines and actions of the characters in each show are independent. Trying to establish inter-show continuity is a fool's errand.
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As fans, it'll take some getting used to watching Itami go from super-stiff minimal-selling slugfests with Nakajima, Shiosaki, Low Ki, etc to having to bump immediately and lay there for a minute off your typical terrible WWE worked punch and swing at guys who don't want to eat his slaps and kicks at full force 250 days a year.
He's also not exactly getting a lot of help by being paired with The Ascension. Those guys haven't even shown they can be carried to a good WWE match, let alone lead one on their own. They should've kept Tyson Kidd around for Itami's first feud.
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Good thing D-Bry and Naomi never hooked up. Gotta have one person in the relationship that says "maybe you should listen to the fucking doctor."
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I think one thing that really kept Akiyama from being a true ace was Kobashi's longevity disrupting Akiyama's natural career arc. If Kobashi was worked back down the card a la Misawa from 02-06, that was the perfect time for a long run on top for Akiyama. Despite the injuries, Kobashi re-invented his style and was still as over as ever during that time frame. It looked pretty obvious that the long term plan for NOAH at the outset was to start with Misawa on top to get attention, but quickly pass the torch to Akiyama (which he did in their GHC HW title match). Then in 2002 they realized Kobashi was their most over guy and had something left in the tank so they abandoned the Akiyama plan. My guess is Ogawa got the transitional champ role partially as a thank you, and partially so they didn't have to retcon Akiyama/Misawa in case Kobashi broke down again. Because looking back, it seems kinda strange for Misawa to do a torch-passing match with Kobashi after he did two of them with Akiyama in the previous three years (one in AJ, one in NOAH).
Not saying that Kobashi didn't deserve that run because it was a great one, but by the time it was over, the ship had sailed for Akiyama. Their last chance to salvage it was in early 05 with a decisive win over Kobashi, but they went with Rikioh, and welp...
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Has anyone proposed Austin vs. Sting yet? Kill two birds with one stone and all that. The MNW nostalgia trip build pretty much writes itself.
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On one hand, it kinda sucks for someone as good as Akiyama to have to live in the shadow 3 legit all-time greats, but on the other hand, it's hard to imagine his career body of work would have been nearly as strong without them being around.
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I just want Corbin vs Bull smashing each other for 15 minutes.
This sounds like the set up for some kind of "be careful what you wish for" horror movie.
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Yeah, definitely no to the Dudleys. I still haven't gotten over how sick of them I was in 2002.
In the spirit of 2000s Indy guys being hot right now, I'd like to see Kaval or moderately-in-shape Chris Hero in the current landscape.
Also, Kharma if she was up for it.
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Bryan continues to own this show.
Brie: What am I supposed to vent about... (Insert laundry list of first world problems)?
Bryan: Yes. That's a lot better than being mean to us.
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I loved the Hardy/Punk cage match, but then again I'm sucker for matches where guys sell their injuries from a brutal match a show or two before and Punk's heel character was just starting to blossom in WWE around then, so it was kind of a perfect storm for me.
On another note, I don't know what inspired me to look up this match, but I totally went back and re-watched TWGTT vs. Rey/Kidman from Vengeance 03. Ah, the days when Rey was mobile and Haas/Benjamin looked like future stars. Kidman was on the downhill side of his career by this point, but he rose to the occasion. This was a really fun match in the same vein as some of the better Raw matches from the 3-hour era, but weren't all too common ten years ago. The crowd was super hot also.
Any other ppv recommendations for mid 2000s SD tags? I remember WGTT, MNM, and London/Kendrick being really fun from that time frame, and I'd like to go back and see how those matches compare to Shield, Usos, Dust Bros, etc.
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The Vaudevillains new theme sucks, but their transition to a full babyface tag team rules. Makes it even more puzzling that they dropped their more upbeat theme for a lame new one which makes it sound like William Regal is interrupting them.
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Ambrose/Rollins right now reminds me of an alternate universe Rock/Austin feuding over the IC, except here Shawn Michaels gets thrown into their feud for no reason.
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Went and re-watched that Angle/Shane match. It was better than I remembered, but still had some problems. The opening minutes are good with Angle charging in and schooling Shane on the mat. Shane hard-ways Angle with a wild elbow amidst some otherwise really bad-looking offense. Angle gets him back with a forearm to the mouth later. Shane controlling angle was a little too drawn out for my liking. If they cut this part of the match down and made Shane's offense more weapons-based and in quicker bursts, this could've definitely approached being a great match. The shooting star press took forever to set up and didn't even end up looking that good, but it wasn't the worst case of a bad SSP ruining a Kurt Angle match. The transition to the glass spots was terrible. Minimal lazy brawling up the entrance way, Shane suplexes Angle, both guys lay there for a couple minutes, Angle gets up first and they go straight to the glass. The spots with the glass were certainly sick, practically CZW-ish. I always thought of Shane as a backyard wrestler with a dad who happened to own the biggest wrestling company ever, and he delivers here with the stupid amount of times it takes him to break the glass panes with his body. Not to mention both guys laying around in a pile of broken glass bleeding from damn near every part of their bodies. They certainly took this too far, but it was memorable for what it's worth. The last segment ended up playing out pretty well with Angle carting Shane's limp body back to the ring, a short desperation comeback from Shane, then a decisive finish for Angle with the avalanche Angle Slam.
Good opening, good closing, one memorable spot and a lot of unnecessary crap in the middle.
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Re-watched Cesaro/Sheamus and it definitely felt like the best match these two have had. The strikes are stiff, the matwork is tight, and the pace is perfect. The action escalates nicely and there's something to check out every step of the way. The counter sequences are fluid and natural, and both guys do a good job getting height for each others moves for the most part. The ending sequence is very fighting-spirit-y and has a lot of heat (credit to both guys since there wasn't much to start).
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Added: Cesaro vs. Sheamus (Night of Champions)
Added: Orton vs. Ziggler (Raw 10/13)
NXT SEASON 8 THREAD
in WWE PROGRAMMING
Posted
I think either guy would do well as a heel, and I'd love to see both of them get a shot at it at some point. I love it when guys can use cool moves and still be hated heels, as Seth Rollins has done recently.
This time around, I think it'll be Neville, since he's pretty much exhausted as a face. He's been dominant all year with an upstanding "take on all comers" attitude, booking that is actually becoming of a champion. There's not much left for him to do except fight Sami, whereas Sami's face run still has a lot left. He still needs a major triumphant victory, then he can go into the ace phase Neville has been in without feeling stale at all.