Beech27

As potentially feud-signaling call-outs go, this is certainly unique. (And if this happens, there's a 100% chance we're getting an "I'm sorry, I love you/Superkick/2.9 kickout" sequence, right?)

I could see a scenario where Shibata goes over SANADA and Evil on his way to winning the Cup, then challenges Naito to restore ~strong style respect~ to the belt Naito casually flings around. Someone else would thus have to step up and challenge Okada. Maybe Omega; maybe Ishii, who has that unavenged G1 win. But, I mean, I have no idea. I've basically been wrong about everything so far. Regarding the matches: I thought SANADA impressed; Suzuki looked pretty bored; Omega/Ishii was nuts. Like, I don't think there was a single hold, no limb work, just bombs. (Only one finisher actually hit, though.) I was really, really into it live, but I'm not really sure how good I'd say it was yet, or how well it'll hold up without the "who's gonna win?" thrill. Overkill at times, some goofy selling, some no selling, but a total spectacle. Very much an Omega main event, with everything that implies. How you feel about that is probably how you'll feel about this.

I suspect those tendencies were calculated attempts at justifying their status on a given card, which sometimes became transparent. Like, this spot will get a "holy shit/this is awesome" chant, so our main event slot will be earned. As they get more big matches, I think it'll seem more organic. Still, I appreciated the novelty, the appearance of... just trying shit, sometimes. (I do feel like I'm voting that way a lot, though, this year. So my biases are what they are.)

I agree they got awkward at times, but I typically found that more a feature than a bug. That is, each match had a novel and unique structure, with spots they hadn't done before. Now "new" isn't "good" necessarily, and it certainly isn't "best". But I routinely admired the ambition, and I thought it came through in the matches. They always seemed desperate, combative, and yeah, a little uncomfortable. Charlotte wrestled like she wanted to kill Sasha half the time; Sasha's real injury troubles certainly contributed to that drama. But it's pro wrestling; it works best when fiction and reality fray at the edges. Owens and Zayn, on the other hand, always struck me as entirely comfortable with one another, for all their kayfabe hatred. They can generate snowflakes in their sleep, but I always felt that they were halfway doing that. Everything was crisp, perfectly executed, and wholly sanitized. Another Takayama/Frye punching spot won't change that.

Watch his matches against Morishima, KENTA, Nigel... or don't, knowing what we know now about his health. His indie style was certainly more violent, especially during his "best wrestler in the world" period. The argument for his WWE run could be that he was doing the headbutt and corner drop kick spots multiple times a week, though. Less visceral, but it adds up.

"Would Bryan have achieved X without doing Y?" misses the point, I think, no matter how we fill in those variables. I mean, he had perhaps the greatest indie run ever, main evented a Wrestlemania built around his triumph, and is, to this day, the most over face in any arena he enters. He has universal acclaim and adoration. If it were possible to satisfy him with such notions of success, he'd be done, moved on. But the ends cannot justify the means, when the means are the only acknowledged end.

He does. A face-turned AJ chasing Miz for the belt is the best thing WWE could produce right now.

I'm plenty critical of WWE, and I may not watch Wrestlemania at all this year. But, like... I enjoy at least one of Raw/Smackdown/205/NXT every week, pretty much every Takeover, and most of the smaller PPVs. If I hated it that much, I'd stop watching. But I still like most wrestling most of the time, WWE included.

Omega mistakenly thinks he's as funny/clever as Jericho (who, admittedly, grates on me every bit as often); Jericho mistakenly thinks he's still as athletic as Omega, and can wrestle like it. I'll go with the guy who had good matches over the guy who did not.

It is pretty amazing. Not that long ago, I'd have paid the old PPV price for the Takeovers Bayley and Sasha worked, largely on the strength of those matches. Now? Eh. I do think the Smackdown title match benefits from the tension created by Naomi possibly returning, and even (less likely, but maybe) Asuka debuting.

I want something different for him, but this isn't totally wrong. A few clever spots and crazy bumps and it could be the match most casual fans remember fondly, given the trainreck potential of Taker/Reigns and Lesnar/Goldberg.

I agree with this. When he works as a limber underdog, scrambling for limbs and survival, he can be really enjoyable. When he drifts nearer to conventional strong style aping, with excessive finisher kickouts and strike exchanges... well, his uppercuts just don't look very good, and he has the musculature of half the guys I ran cross country with. But I honestly enjoy him more often than not. Even in the CWC, I didn't find his no selling any more egregious than half the guys in the tournament; and while his grappling can be non-combative and spot-festy in its way, at least its a variation on the usual dives and loosely choreographed matwork.

Can he bring along Luke Harper, now that his push has been killed?

The show would mostly be bad enough--a champ who can't work a match?--except it means we get absentee champ Brock next, then ceding the title to Roman, who will get all the way over this time for sure. I'm just not interested in any of that. Cruiserweights were great, though, and we're another step closer to heel Sasha.

I feel like I'm voting against the wrestler I like more, and generally consider to be better pretty often this year. Same thing, here, so, Charlotte gets the vote.

I'm curious if you wouldn't mind expanding on this. I get that Naito's finish pretty transparently involves some help, but man, watching that Dragon Lee tag you posted in his thread... there's an absurdly high degree of choreographed sprinting around, kicking out before you're even covered, diving directly into submissions, etc. And I really like that match, and Dragon Lee in general, so this isn't even a criticism. It just seems odd to me to be bothered by Naito, and like the other. (To say nothing of Japan in general, which is an impossibly large conversation.)

I love both guys, but Rusev got very little to do, whereas Naito consistently performed in increasingly high profile matches.

I like Hechicero a ton, but Omega had an incredible run of matches, plus the not entirely kayfabe significance of winning the G1, the Okada match, and the subsequent worldwide buzz. He made himself a star. Don't feel it's a hard choice.

The point of all the other stuff is primarily to interest people in the matches, which then have to deliver. Jericho matches are always bad. Also his character update was... wearing a scarf with a limp wrist. If that's all it takes, I'm charismatic as hell every winter. (Hyperbole for the sake of a bad joke, I'll admit, though I did mostly find his work grating until Owens' reactions helped it along.) Caveman dude had plenty of matches that were really good, and is a caveman.

I find Zayn the most consistently sympathetic face in the world, and I think the Nakamura match was as good as the "two dudes with no history dream match" style can produce. I think it does a disservice to Ishii to think of him as, like, Generic Strong Style Man #6. He's too good against everyone, in any any setting, for that. And New Japan is full of much more flamboyant characters now; a black trunks wearing, ass kicking cinder block is actually pretty unique. And shit, if that does exemplify New Japan... well, New Japan has been really good for a while now. I'll watch both guys do anything.

Voted for Shibata, but it's close, and I could talk myself in to a different conclusion every hour or so. Admittedly I think it came down to expectations, like voting a guy coach of the year just because he finished 3rd in the conference and not 9th. I've never enjoyed Shibata as much as this year; working all over and with a ton of different opponents helped keep his act fresh. I do think he was generous enough when appropriate. Just recently, he sold being KO'd by Will Ospreay, and put over Goto as clean as can be. Joe, on the other hand, has had far better years. I really expected something MOTY caliber from him and Nakamura also, and felt they never really produced at that level. Still, very good work in big matches, as you'd expect. Maybe I just took it for granted.

This is the only result so far that really baffles me. I hate to guess at motives, but maybe people are voting for the idea of Bray finally winning the belt, and what a Harper face run could have been? That is, I still like the idea of the Wyatts, but I can't recall anything I really want to watch again. And while Harper alone is better than Elgin--or almost anyone--he so rarely got to showcase that, so I can't say he had a better run. Overall, it was a year in which they mostly floundered, were suddenly a successful tag team--and then not--and now we have the nonsensical Orton turn, wasted Harper potential... Elgin's not my favorite guy, but his best singles work blows Orton and Bray away, and Harper's peaks were so much less consistently on display. (But damn, give him Elgin's New Japan opponents, and he might win the whole thing.)

Ugh. Edited to reflect what I meant/reality. I'd just watched Suzuki/Okada again last night, so... who knows what I was thinking. What I get for posting in a mostly hidden window in my office, I suppose.

Stoked for Suzuki/Shibata as well. Though I can talk myself in to a couple other scenarios, it does feel like Omega is winning (and probably should).

Opening was intense, and both Miz and Cena are good enough to sell it. But by saying Miz just delivered the same attacks Styles and others have, Cena missed an opportunity to make this unique. In the past, it was people questioning his commitment to wrestling and (with only half a wink) "workrate". Miz has spent the past few months explicitly arguing that those are bullshit concerns, though. He's not Punk or Bryan, and doesn't want to be. If Cena doesn't love wrestling in the abstract, who cares? He's not mad because Cena "sold out", not really, but because he's done a better job of it. Cena's stock "I'm John Cena, love me or hate me, RESPECT, you'd be booked better if you were better" was functionally the same retort he's given for years to those other guys, and as such, mostly a retort to a promo Miz didn't give. So, not as interesting as it could have been, for me, but still probably better by force of personality than a feud about who does more local media for the brand should be. Broadly, I'm just tired of every Cena feud being about the existential weight of John Cena, the character, and the associated meta-narrative. I enjoyed what we got of Harper/Styles, and would have liked it more with a different finish. But I'd also like both guys to be doing something else (or anything at all, in Harper's case) at Wrestlemania. Styles, at least, seems valued. Shane is a high profile opponent, and JBL isn't throwing around HBK comparisons for anyone else. Orton is a lunatic, an asshole, and has always been. So I'm perhaps willing to go along with the lack of reason for his turn, and even the corny nature of the execution. It's stupid, but then, he's stupid.