Rolling Chris and Kevin's Bogus Journey 2017

WK11 and the Rumble look great. AJ Styles and Kevin Steen are world champions. British wrestling is popping like mad. Things are pretty good.

so i was theoretically planning on catching up on njpw real quick (i'm still going through G1 for the good matches) before wk, but instead i'm doing what i've done the past 2 years and getting way too curious at 3 AM and turning it on

i didn't even know what the matches were besides the main event. pissed elgin doesn't have a real match, now that i finally don't find him super boring anymore

also i still hate steve corino!!

I'm on my shitty phone so I can't link it but braun strowman on tinder needs to be here.

How was wk11? I think I have to wait till Monday

only watched the last four matches but all excellent. okada-omega was **********

oh and

https://i.redditmedia.com/VbnXF7EwQ9IQzl5eAqe7Bq6HlTZzxdJcovbVD0Puc0E.jpg?w=431&s=46cbfb25ff53e19c585bc0c3f2250ca3

I caught WK 11 from the heavyweight tag title match until the end.

Takahashi-KUSHIDA had some issues where they weren't always on the same page but I agreed with one commentator who said that it works to their advantage because Takahashi is believably insane in the ring so you don't expect everything to be crisp.

Shibata-Goto was what it needed to be, although Goto bores me these days.

Tanahashi-Naito came off like the real main event judging by the reaction in the dome. Tanahashi's new music is awful.

Omega and Okada will meet again this year, no doubt. The first third of the match was typical Okada where nothing really happens and he drags his opponent down to his level, but the match really picked up and Okada gave him a lot (the top rope dragon suplex was insane). I rewatched Naito vs Omega from the G1 recently and that's still the best match of 2016 for me -- no wasted moves, amazing selling and psychology throughout, crazy spots, and an amazing finish. Omega vs Okada felt like the director's cut of that match, but more definitely doesn't equal better and Naito is miles better than Okada right now.

I watched Tanahashi-Naito this morning. I always forget how far ahead Japanese wrestling is to what I usually see. Naito is fucking vicious. I need to see more of him. Plus I love that ref spot, never seen that before.

Omega and Okada will meet again this year, no doubt. The first third of the match was typical Okada where nothing really happens and he drags his opponent down to his level, but the match really picked up and Okada gave him a lot (the top rope dragon suplex was insane). I rewatched Naito vs Omega from the G1 recently and that's still the best match of 2016 for me -- no wasted moves, amazing selling and psychology throughout, crazy spots, and an amazing finish. Omega vs Okada felt like the director's cut of that match, but more definitely doesn't equal better and Naito is miles better than Okada right now.

This pretty much rings true for me, too. But it doesn't take away from that last 15 minutes or so being the best finish of a match I've seen in quite some time. The callback to the wrist grab from last year; the unfinished business with Omega not even hitting his finisher. What a showcase for Kenny. And the next one will hopefully be even better.

7 stars from dave?

cowardly of meltz to not follow me in giving it the full ten stars.

i love how amidst the obscene suicidal spots the most exciting thing in all of wrestling is one guy holding another guy's wrist.

Haha, alternately holding hands and one guy carrying the other guy around on his shoulders like a fun dad

Yeah I didn't quite like Okada-Omega as much as Omega-Naito either although sometimes a long match can just lose you a bit because it's at the end of a four hour show etc, so keen to rewatch it at the weekend, maybe with cardiac arrest-having Japanese commentary. With the Naito-Omega G1 match, the tension of the time limit nearly expiring and the possibility of the status quo getting shaken up a bit had me rooting pretty hard for Omega, and the finish was kind of awesomely violent and cathartic; didn't quite buy him as being as likely to unseat Okada here

Naito was seemingly dull as hell as a clean-shaven babyface but is a revelation as a casual scumbag heel. In the six man match he was in in London for RevPro in Nov he was fairly understandably in "not getting injured in front of 2000 people 6 weeks before Wrestle Kingdom" mode but it fit his character so well for him to have his LIJ goons do most of the work then get one of the biggest pops of the night doing his signature flop pose after the match. I probably marked out more for that than Chris Hero repeatedly punching Tomohiro Ishii in the forehead and making the most disgusting noise imaginable

Refusing to sleep on how good Smackdown is though, so weird to be watching WWE and being like "ah these two guys also have an issue now, they might fight next week I guess / ah, that basic comment by the broadly competent wrestling commentator David Otunga has explained the action straightforwardly and effectively". With Raw it's like "uneasily read the first paragraph of the recap and see what sewer of context-free bullshit was unleashed in the 20 minute opening segment this week"

https://i.redd.it/zde82tyz0x7y.gif

Naito might be going soft though idk

LIJ is for the children

jeepers creepers i was avoiding this thread for a while (because i hadn't watched wk11 yet) but now that i have, man-o-man, that omega-okada match was really good huh

i mean like the entire "stakes" of it (upholding njpw vs evolving njpw) seemed so silly to me at first and none of the wrestling really... referenced it? but i found myself increasingly buying it as these two guys went deeper and deeper into the match. all of the risky spots felt like risks that needed to be taken (unlike the wwe-style "and now our requisite tope whateverita" nonsense) and earned. which in turn makes the small stuff feel more important. merdeyeux otm about the wrist-holding spot, that was so thrilling. gosh i really need to get into new japan, this is the third year in a row where AT LEAST one match blew my mind (styles-nakamura laste yr, ibushi-nakamura the year before, and one of those years one of the tanahashi-okada matches was dynamite too).

also due to getting drunk a little too fast and it getting way too late, my friend and i skipped three matches near the end so i get to watch those soon too! matches... 6, 7, 8? maybe?

Idk if i can achieve it but im trying to watch the wk11 main event before my girlfriends free. So far i love the terminator intro.

I watched the first half of WK11 (skipping through most of the Rumble and the Cody vs Juice match) and rewatched most of the rest. I loved the six man tag gauntlet, it was easily the best thing on the show outside of the top four matches. I definitely underrated Kushida vs Takahashi the first time, it was crazy intense and they had much better chemistry than I originally gave them credit for. Tanahashi vs Naito was even better the second time (and it was awesome the first time).

The main event for me was worse on second viewing, and Meltzer et al who are calling it the greatest match ever are nuts and Meltzer in particular has been willfully blind to both Okada and Omega's faults for a while. Calling Omega the best big match wrestler in the world when he's had maybe four big matches in his career is just silly. The finishes to Okada's matches are so good that you forget that nothing important happens in the first half, which makes him the Japanese version of Edge -- a great worker in the right style of match with the right opponent, but not one of the best two or three wrestlers in the world.

I love the All Japan 90's main event style too with 45-minute main events, crazy escalating finisher kickouts and guys getting dropped on their heads (I like it less because of what we know now about concussions, but they were amazing matches), but those matches slowed down towards the end like a long grueling match should. Omega vs Okada kept speeding up, which is one of the many problems with doing that style of match for that length of time. Both guys are so athletic and have such great movesets that they can fool you into thinking they're having a great match when they aren't. I never got the feeling that there was a personal issue (the build for the match was super personal with Okada supposedly defending the values of New Japan against the evil foreigners, and Omega putting Okada through tables and trying to injure him), never felt that either guy had a strategy for winning the match. They're running through their arsenals and then heading to the finish, but doing it in twice the time of a typical NJPW main event. This is why Okada needed a guy like Tanahashi with great facial expressions and character work who could also attack the leg for fifteen minutes to give the matches a clear direction.

Omega looks like a huge threat when he's put in this type of match, but inbetween big matches he's goofing off with the Young Bucks and doing comedy which is NAGL for guy who's supposed to be the top heel in the company. His matches are way more over than the character is. Naito vs Tanahashi was the most heated match by far at WK11 because they're the most over characters in the company, which is what works in front of a dome crowd. People will buy tickets to a NJ show just to see Naito and buy his merch because the character is super over, but I don't think anyone buys tickets to see Kenny Omega the character, and Okada's character has been so watered down over the years that I think the same is true for him unless he's with the right opponent. Fortunately for him, over the past year he's had amazing opponents (Naito, Marafuji) who could raise his game to another level.

The main event for me was worse on second viewing, and Meltzer et al who are calling it the greatest match ever are nuts and Meltzer in particular has been willfully blind to both Okada and Omega's faults for a while. Calling Omega the best big match wrestler in the world when he's had maybe four big matches in his career is just silly. The finishes to Okada's matches are so good that you forget that nothing important happens in the first half, which makes him the Japanese version of Edge -- a great worker in the right style of match with the right opponent, but not one of the best two or three wrestlers in the world.

i'm glad u said this. i thought it was a fantastic match and i really like Omega but i didn't really get what distinguished it from other fantastic matches i've seen over the last couple years and it was probably 15 minutes too long. but yes the finish was tremendous even if the wrong guy won. like some of the spots were great but then bc i was prepped by all the meltzer ****** talk i kept thinking 'well yes this is great but is it better than that spot in grave consequences' etc which maybe i'm just spoiled for good wrestling but i think that it was njpw and it was wk11 and it was omega vs okada prepped the reception.

i was thinking that it would be much easier to watch wwe more consistently if instead of like 5 hours of programming btwn RAW and Smackdown they did some kind of best of show that maybe only featured the best 1 hour (or at most 2) from the shows that week. does this already exist and if not why not?

They used to do a version for sky tv for europe like that, idk if it still exists because i dont have sky and because it changed names every couple of years. It would have someone like todd phillips or joey styles i troduce clips that were relevant, and last an hour or two.

Last time i watched it, it was called WWE Experience

Yeah they don't do WWE Experience anymore to my knowledge. (First sighting of Renee Young in WWE on that show IIRC.)

There's This Week In WWE on the Network but that doesn't compare, it's only 30 minutes and only covers angles for half of that. An hour-long highlights show on the Network the weekend after that week's Raw and SD would be so good. Maybe they think everyone's watching clips on YouTube but I'm too passive a viewer for that makarley.

tbh just now i think smackdown is a resolutely entertaining show that i'm happy to spend two hours watching. but yes i could really be doing with some kind of raw digest. like, last week's show had the excellent braun - sami last man standing match and also a v good cesaro - karl anderson match along with some other innocuous-to-enjoyable things, but buried amidst a 1/2 wrestle kingdom's span of stuff who can be bothered.

anyone bothering with this UK tournament?

first match was pish, second one p. good actually. Finn Balor's weird-looking protege just kicked his opponent in the head and busted him open hardway it seems, really weird shooty ending to that match. then kicked the dude in the face again during the post-match handshake to complete a pretty fuckin effective heel turn. but the other guy, Burch, has been the best so far by a distance

He legit knocked him out which is some reckless bullshit IMHO.

Until that mess-up, Birch or Burch or however WWE spells it was channeling Shibata for real. Hopefully just in-ring Shibata, considering his Twitter drama this weekend.

I always liked Danny Burch when he showed up in NXT. I had a bad feeling he would be first-round fodder for this tournament. He deserves better.

What's this about Shibata twitter drama?

I'm not absolutely certain Burch was supposed to lose. What is clear is that the match wasn't supposed to end the way it did.

As for Shibata... Allegedly, he broke up with a partner or lover around Xmas time, and said jilted person posted a bunch of illicit details on Twitter, including stuff about him being insulting to fans. Allegedly.

fuck Jimmy Snuka

yup.

but major props to tyler 'didn't have a wikipedia article until last week' bate and pete dunne and all the lads apart from budget balor

i was not at all into trent seven but the rest of them were great! better than i expected (i had low expectations tho fwiw)

Agreed! Night 2 was so much better, partly to do with everyone having more time, partly to do with the existence of actual storylines (kicking off with Gradwell and Dunne, Dunne himself just being the biggest bastard, Tyler Bate the teenage underdog).

I'm mesmerised by the size of Tyler Bate's thighs. He gives Big E a run for his money.

Was the tournament worth watching?

Will the uk champ be rumble fodder? They dont actually have a tv show lined up yet right?

first night was alright, it felt a bit amateurish but was generally decent with a v good main event. the second night was excellent start to finish. and yeah, they did a great job of very quickly building up characters and storylines. pete dunne is immediately more hateable than any main roster wwe heel.

agreed about trent seven, will, i'd heard good things about him but he left very little impression on me.

Kurt Angle was announced for the WWE HOF. I guess the question now is who will he face at Mania? Cena? Styles? Joe?

best news. god bless Kurt Angle

fuckin hate wrestling fans that haven't go

t time for Kurt Angle. i meaan the guy lost his way for a while there but from 99-03 Kurt Angle was simply fuckin astonishing on so many levels

Kurt Angle. Kurt Angle. Kurt Angle.

kurt angle "you suck" during theme song was the beginning of a terrible tradition but is still all kinds of lol imo

(not a zing on angle himself, plz don't put me in an angle lock windsor)

saw a vid clip fairly recently of Kurt Angle coming out to wrestle (I think) Zack Sabre at a Rev Pro show where they played out 'Medal' in full, bcuz clearly WWE is bigger than that kinda bullshit these days, and I tell you what, it was p. frickin special

hadn't realised until now that i has this whole "I MUST USE THE FULL NAME AT ALL TIMES" Edin Dzeko thing going on w. Kurt Angle but there we are

i think there is a cogent case to be made that Kurt Angle in 2001 is about as good as anyone ever got. the transition from weasel heel champ working The Rock to technically perfect ultimate submission master working Chris Benoit to all-time better-than-Atsushi-Onita garbage death match at King of the Ring to beloved babyface p. much revolutionising the WWE main event spectacular / WORKRATE hybrid that dominates to this day, all while being totally dope on the mic and also probably the best comedy character of the decade, ONLY 2 YEAR INTO HIS CAREER

idgaf what other shit ppl try and blame on him retrospectively ito the development of WWE main event trends, in those days he was untouchable. it's true, it's etc.

Angle seems to really have his life back on track after a bunch of really messed up years. I couldn't be happier that he's back in WWE. I'm assuming he gets the Taker/Lesnar treatment where he wrestles two or three matches per year, which has me stoked for all sorts of amazing matchups.

i think there is a cogent case to be made that Kurt Angle in 2001 is about as good as anyone ever got.

He's up there. Angle was WWE's last chance to save the Invasion angle, the Summerslam match vs Austin is one of my all-time favourites and I still wonder how big he could have gotten if they'd given him the belt there and let him carry the company for a few months. Instead they went all-in with Austin's second failed heel turn, Angle turned to the Alliance for no reason (and then back again) and was damaged goods until the Smackdown Six era picked up in late '02.

Kurt Angle > Benoit by an astronomical factor, in my view.

I see the board is as excited for Royal Rumble as I am.

i'm actually always excited about the rumble tbh, it's the funnest dumbest thing. i've actually been watching old rumbles over the past 2 weeks! it was the first thing i cared about as a "casual" because it had ALL OF THE DUDES and to this day i still love the glorious idiocy of it all

i'm excited bc it really does feel unpredictable this year, but i'm sure they'll find a way to disappoint

The Royal Rumble is the WrestleMania of wrestling.

That being said, it's always best to go into the things with low expectations. Even with the NXT show tonight, I'm not holding my breath. And I'm not staying up for it, either; one all-nighter for the Rumble is enough for me.

Anyone watching the G1? A lot of guys are having amazing tournaments, it's hard to pick an MVP thus far. Ibushi vs Naito is my pick for the best match of the tournament (through Night 11), with Elgin vs Okada close behind. Don't sleep on any of Nagata or Tanahashi's matches though. Guilty pleasure: SANADA vs Yano.

Naito/Ibushi is probably my favorite too, though Omega/Suzuki was an awesome crazy brawl, and Elgin/Omega was just as great. My MVP, oddly, might just be Juice - he's had awesome matches with a bunch of guys you'd NEVER think he'd mesh with (EVIL, Suzuki) as well as the usual suspects, and his selling has come like a million miles in a year or so. The sky is the limit for that dude.

I'm still not sure about Juice, he's improved a ton since starting in NJ, but I can't see him as a future superstar. It's too soon to know whether he's this year's YOSHI HASHI (lovable jobber turned great underdog babyface who wins the occasional match against a top guy, but that's his ceiling) or something more. His main event matches with Okada and Naito were really basic, but they were exactly what they needed to be, which is perfectly fine (Juice gets dominated, sells his ass off, gets in just enough offense to make you think he has a chance, and loses clean).

Ibushi is looking like the clear MVP now, having completely different but great matches with every opponent. Either him or Nagata, who's still going out in a blaze of glory every night.

MAJOR G1 SPOILERS

The Osaka show usually overdelivers and Night 14 was no exception. All the underdogs went over, which happens once in every G1 of the past few years. After Omega's loss, Okada losing was kind of telegraphed in order to keep some suspense in the block. But that helped the EVIL vs Okada match -- the crowd wanted the upset and was ready for it. EVIL's performance was almost unreal after getting knocked out by Omega just three days ago. Finally Okada's dickish insistence on putting an exclamation point on his matches with multiple rainmakers came back to bite him in the ass. I think he's only been pinned once in the past year, by Omega in a tag match to set up WK.

I'm still betting on Naito vs Omega for the finals though.

I've fallen way behind on the G1, but I heard some buzz about last night and guessed EVIL might have gotten the upset. Sure enough, he did, and it was a really great match.

SANADA has the look of a future champion, but EVIL might be the best wrestler in LIJ after Naito, and they've given him singles wins over both Okada and Tanahashi (although the latter was via interference and mist). So maybe now they'll finally give him a scythe that doesn't look like it came from one of those pop-up Halloween stores.

I think he's only been pinned once in the past year, by Omega in a tag match to set up WK.

I'm not sure if he lost as part of the build to Omega/Okada at WK, but Okada had been pinned once this year, by Bad Luck Fale (teaming with Omega) prior to Fale's title shot in May.

I loved Suzuki vs Okada, it blew away their IWGP title match from earlier in the year. It was one of Okada's best career performances in terms of storytelling. From the start he looked tired and less sharp than usual, no doubt worn down (both in storyline and real life) by the grueling tournament and the huge loss to EVIL. By the end he was running on fumes, losing confidence in himself, not knowing how to finish. His facial expressions were incredible, compare this with one of the more overrated "great" matches in recent memory, the WK 10 main event vs Tanahashi, where he looked bored for the first half of the match against his top rival.

Totally agree. Their IWGP match was a spectacle, but it leaned way too heavily on those never-ending leglock segments. This match was much more fun. I'm thoroughly tired of my-turn-your-turn strike sequences (which appear in just about every NJPW singles match not featuring Toru Yano), but the battle of the slaps worked here. Okada's ability to go from cocky bastard to completely sympathetic from one match to the next is impressive, and yeah, it has a lot to do with his facial expressions. And Suzuki's got some great ones too.

The slap battles work in Suzuki's matches because he loves hurting people for fun and embarrassing them. They were also exhausted at that point in the match so it made sense. I think Tanahashi is still tops in NJPW when it comes to playing subtle heel or virtuous babyface from one match to the next, but Okada's almost there. I honestly didn't think he had it in him.

Okada vs Omega III was easily the best of their series so far. The 30 minute time limit meant they couldn't waste meander around for the first 20-25 minutes like in their previous two matches, so they had to pick up the pace and try to kill each other from the opening bell, and that's exactly what they did. The pacing and storytelling was perfect, with Okada's injured neck, his wearing down during tournament, and his inability to put guys away when he has the chance all playing into his loss. Omega looked fresher and more determined to win, Okada looked like he was just trying to survive. And now Naito vs Omega tomorrow (last year's G1 meeting was favourite match of 2016)!!

The atmosphere in the finishing run of the 2016 Naito Omega match was incredible, it's amazing what a time limit can do for a match

Not onto today's matches yet but enjoyed the end of Nagata's magnificently violent run and another v good Tanahashi Naito match

I think the G1 final wasn't quite as good as the main events from the past two nights (too much finisher overload, and it peaked about five minutes before the finish) but was still off the charts amazing. I seriously feared for their lives at a couple of points. The Jr. tag match delivered and then some, and the rest of the card set up the next few months of main events as expected.

yeah if i had a problem with the final it would be that they both took an implausible amount of punishment, but it would only be nitpicking over what in many other years would have been match of the year.

striking to leave behind the g1, feeling that wrestling is good and worthwhile and maybe somehow even valuable, and tune into smackdown to see the crowd aggressively booing a woman singing the indian national anthem. ffs

striking to leave behind the g1, feeling that wrestling is good and worthwhile and maybe somehow even valuable, and tune into smackdown to see the crowd aggressively booing a woman singing the indian national anthem. ffs Corbin chump himself and ruin any chance to be anything other than jobber for the rest of his contract and LOOOOOOL.

― lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more, in riotous living (Merdeyeux), Wednesday, 16 August 2017 13:34 (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Corbin chump himself

You know it's fake, right?

I do, yes.

However, his recent terrible promos and week of being made to look like a complete prat on Twitter to Meltzer (of all people) aren't fake. It's been about 2 months since he won the suitcase to showcase enough to Vince that his booking was a mistake. And this is on a show where Jinder fucking Mahal is somehow holding the belt still.

There have been MANY versions throughout the years of Vince fucking with a guy as punishment or relishing them before. A couple that come to mind straight away is brock losing in his first match back and triple h having to eat a Godwin slop bucket for months after the curtain call.

I can't think of many as embarrassing as losing yr guaranteed title push to JINDER MAHAL in 6 seconds.

They have no idea what to do with MITB anymore, every cash-in plays out exactly the same and every MITB winner goes on a jobbing spree before winning the title (guaranteeing they look like a weak, loser champion) because that's post-2010 WWE booking logic. Corbin might be better off without the briefcase, it was doing him no favours.

I'm no Corbin fan, but he was picked to win MITB – when he so clearly wasn't ready, so the fault goes with the one who picked Corbin more than Corbin himself. But of course *cough*Vince*cough* won't accept that responsibility.

Like, what are you supposed to do? The boss comes along and picks you for a major push and you say 'sorry Vince, I don't think I'm ready'? That's a shortcut to future endeavorment right there.

I watched rasslin religiously from like 1985-2005 but had to peace out after shit got brutal (the hhh-kane feud over necrophilia was a bridge too far) but now apparently I am going to No Mercy this Sunday. Not sure what to expect..

There's nothing as brutal as Katie Vick anymore, thankfully. The tag title match looks like the best thing on the card. The women's match has great talent involved though it's a five-way so likely not much room to shine. The rest is... well it's a brand PPV between bigger shows, you'll remember what that's like before you lapsed. Enjoy what's good and try to ignore the shit bits!

Lesnar v Strowman will probably be quite a spectacle in the flesh. Two big dudes

No Mercy has a freaking wrestlemania card, it's gonna be great. Wrestlemania maybe not so much

Yeah, this is the biggest non-big 4 PPV in some time.

yeah i don't really get that tbh. why are they bothering? have they even put a big promotional push behind the two main-events here? seems like a bit of a waste of two of their money matches

leaving aside the on-paper lineup, would anyone actually advocate tuning in for this show? is there a single hot angle? i saw that Cena had been chatting breeze about Roman Reigns on tv in a sufficiently "ooooohh is he kayfabing or is he FOR REAL?!!!!" sort of a way to get the internet all excited. anything to it?

can't front, the only WWE show i've watched in the last, idk, 18 months or so was the Royal Rumble (because no matter how much i disengage over the course of the year, i will always watch a Royal Rumble) and before that it was probably an NXT special? Or the bizarro-world Wrestlemania from hell in 2016. and nothing i read about anything that they're doing makes me want to check back in. which is horrifying really because i love wrestling and they've got so many potentially awesome guys and girls on the roster, and i just do not gaf about any of it. the presentation of everything they do is terrible

WWE is like the pro-wrestling Saturday Night Live. It gets a bunch of talented performers, gives them the highest production value of any show in their genre, and uses it all to churn out mediocrity and worse. But people watch it because it's the big leagues for that kind of entertainment, and every once in a while there's something brilliant. (And fans are always nostalgic for an earlier era that mostly sucked too.)

Impact/TNA is MadTV in this analogy.

yeah maybe. tho i do wonder how much blame should fall at the feet of the wrestlers? lots of "top guys" on this roster who are fundamentally bang average at lots of the important bell-to-bell stuff (Rollins, Ambrose, Owens, there are others). it's like they spent their whole life watching really good and special wrestling but totally failed to identify what it was that made it good and special. or is this style being imposed upon them from above? idk, i feel like if i ever have to watch another 30 minute WWE main-event with finisher trades and hundreds of kickouts etc. ever again then it'll be too soon. i don't really want to watch Cena vs Reigns this weekend, but more importantly i don't really think i need to, i already know exactly what that match is gonna be like, whoever wins

That SNL analogy is so OTM.

lots of "top guys" on this roster who are fundamentally bang average at lots of the important bell-to-bell stuff (Rollins, Ambrose, Owens, there are others). it's like they spent their whole life watching really good and special wrestling but totally failed to identify what it was that made it good and special.

I think that's too harsh; Owens really gets what it means to be a live performer with a nuanced character. Maybe it doesn't translate as well on TV but that's not necessarily his fault. Commentary, for one, does an exceptionally poor job of explaining WHY we should, as viewers, be invested in any particular match.

Well sure, Owens has an excellent line in mannerisms and trash talk during his matches which admittedly does add a whole lot to the overall effect, but I'm still not convinced that he has the least idea how to put together a match that I want to sit down and watch

And that's OK too. I can't pin down exactly why I enjoy his matches, I've never sat down to analyse it in any depth, but I do. On the same note I also cannot understand how anyone can rate Randy Orton when he puts me to sleep (only exception being his Mania match with Rollins).

I think this card and other ppv cards (as well as the apparent return of starrcade in november) are being used to prop up network subs, which the higher ups have been thinking will sag in q3

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cagesideseats.com/platform/amp/wwe/2017/7/27/16050802/wwe-network-subscriber-count-down

not sure if the hoo ha over jinder's clumsy "you hated me because you're racist and you secretly hate nakamura too because you're racist" promise these last two weeks will help on that front either

"If you hate the ethnic heel then you're a racist too" is like the modern day "shades of grey" character profile in WWE-universe Land.

the wwe style where every single match is structured the same boring way is absolutely an imposition on the wrestlers, evident via 1. every single match being that way, and 2. it not corresponding to how those wrestlers wrestled in the indies (and often even in nxt). i'm not as anti-wwe style as a lot of people are, but it's nevertheless probably no coincidence that my favourite wwe match of 2017 is the bate-dunne takeover match that seemed unrestrained by that standard format.

had a great time last night.. crowd was really into it and very generous with the 'this is awesome' chant. show kinda lost steam at the end, and the main event finish seemed kinda out of nowhere. womens match was amazing!

It did seem like a great crowd at No Mercy (judging from TV). The women's match, tag title match, and Cena vs Reigns really delivered. The main event was an all-time stink bomb in terms of expectations.

cracking up at how michael cole was dancing around saying "bullet club" to intro this finn/aj match

watched Lesnar - Styles last night, my first match in god knows how long. it was very good. AJ Styles seems to be fast approaching the Flair / Funk / HBK / Hart god-tier status and WWE are unexpectedly acknowledging it and playing to it. and Lesnar still sells better than just about anyone else has in the past 20 years when he can be bothered.

seriously, if you missed this match, seek it out. 15 mins or so, one of those ones where they actually let Lesnar's opponent look competitive. rock solid storytelling, totally comprehensible strategy from both men and some fantastic near falls that made sense in context, not just the usual finisher kick-out bullshit.

seriously seriously. there's a bit where AJ gets Brock caught in the Calf Crusher and Brock is forced to use an unorthodox counter. it's unbelievable. shocking. a moment of visceral brutality that no one other than Brock could make work. best spot i can remember in WWE

That was a good match for sure

didn't bother with the rest of the show, apparently the main event was a stinker? lol at the idea of putting together a match with all that talent involved and turning it into a story about Triple H punking Kurt Angle. Shane McMahon top babyface in 2017, jfc

one of those ones where they actually let Lesnar's opponent look competitive

Except for that first half where Brock completely rag-dolls SD's top superstar.

'Rock solid storytelling'? What are you on?!

I really liked it but Yeah, brock should have just pinned him after 5 mins.

I also watched velveteen dream v Alistair black on recommendation. They both seem like guys with a lot of potential. I cant believe noone has tried to be modern rick rude before. That he has also tried to make him a strong face character instead of vince's awkward attempts at queerer cowardly heel types made it even more interesting. The guy has a lot of potential, especially as he has cena's physique.

Were any other matches from this weekend worth watching? I dont think I will ever be so down on life that I would watch that main event.

Lol agree to disagree. If you don't think lesnar should be ragdolling styles then I don't know what to tell you. He's like 5 times the size of him!

And the storytelling was rock solid! Lesnar obviously has too much if you try and go toe to toe, take out the leg, take away his base, hit every big move you've got in your arsenal while he's grounded, pray like hell you keep him down for 3. It was bang on!

Anyway, dope match.

Oh I get it on principle, but it falls apart when I consider the whole thing holistically: Brock being an older part-timer who hasn't actually *wrestled* a match in years, and who got obviously blown up in minutes, versus the (slightly) younger, better conditioned and more highly skilled WRESTLER. One can't be all graps-mad one minute then change the tune just 'cause it's Brock. It's bullshit.

Idk, I kind of take the point but brock is a special case, no? Through virtue of his sheer size, athleticism and legit fighting skills. I don't think it'll ever be believable NOT to have him toss around any given opponent like a sack of straw in his matches, certainly not during the early exchanges. Maybe once he's considerably older and more broken down.

Besides, I still love that aura that he has and the fact that they protect it. Obviously too often these days they go too far the other way (ambrose squash lol) to the detriment of his matches. But I thought that they got it about right this time

Brock as a special case - that's where we differ. For me it just breaks my suspension of disbelief to make exceptions for this one man, whose big fight aura is completely blown out of proportion in my estimation. And a man whose presence never fails to undermine the active roster, too. He's just one aspect of many, but the way he's booked is not unconnected with the worrying decline in house show attendance, I'd argue. But hey, that's really a blend of my objective and emotional reading of it all. If you or anyone else gets a kick out of him, then fair enough.

To be fair I've not actually seen him recently - missed the Goldberg, Samoa Joe, strowman stuff - and I gather he's been consistently phoning it in harder than ever this year while still being the super protected end-game boss baddie the whole time, which certainly isn't great from an entertainment perspective.

WWE house show attendance / business health generally is pretty high on the list of things I don't gaf about, makes no odds to me if they wilfully tank their own company

Anyone watch the njpw big shows? Is there anything actually interesting enough going on in wrestling for a rolling 2018 thread title? "Rolling Samoa joe is the only really interesting wrestler in 2018"? "Rolling young bucks sell all the merch to people who have never watched them wrestle 2018"?

i'm excited about the mixed tag challenge, but i'm more excited about rusev day

http://www.wwe.com/shows/wwe-mixed-match-challenge/article/rusev-to-team-with-lana-at-wwe-mmc

Rolling 2018: Where Every Day is Rusev Day