Rolling Chris and Kevin's Bogus Journey 2017

yeah you're probably right. but again, i'd argue that after they reached a certain point of skill and credibility those guys listed above didn't need to work dumb in the way they so often did. lessons were not learned. similar arguments were made about Daniel Bryan when he came back after his long lay-off - good enough and smart enough to work as safe a style as you like while still putting on great matches, but chose instead to do legit-headbutt spots in bang average multi-man ladder matches and dared Sheamus to hit him in the face as hard as possible on nothing episodes of Smackdown in the name of "art" etc. etc.

but again, you're right that it basically doesn't matter what you do once you start factoring in the simple fact of decades of constant bumping. aside from total aberrations like Jericho and the Funk bros it seems most wrestlers are basically doomed no matter what style they work. it did occur to me in my previous post when i wrote that most of the greatest workers in history were fundamentally pretty "safe" that it never works out that way. i tried to put together a list of names - besides Flair and Savage, I was thinking of Bret, Steamboat, Austin, Owen - to a man, pretty disastrous ends to their careers, to one extent or another. and look at a guy like Hogan, who never took a dangerous bump in his career basically, certainly not between 1983 and 2003, and he still wound up a broken down old buffer due to too many leg drops.

that's the craziness i guess - that even the guys who worked pretty safe throughout their careers ended up dead or crippled, and yet the current style is what it is.

i do think that the style currently in vogue is probably an inevitable consequence of the way both fans and wrestlers have been "trained" over the years, and i don't just mean by the WWE or NJPW here (nor specifically Meltzer, tho I think he's played his part too). there's culpability on all sides. the wrestlers destroy their brains and bodies because they view that as their only viable route to get over, and the fans all cheer for it and the promoters encourage it.

there's culpability on all sides. the wrestlers destroy their brains and bodies because they view that as their only viable route to get over, and the fans all cheer for it and the promoters encourage it.

Yeah that's more what I was getting at, but you put it better.

It's the thing I feel like people only really started talking about, in the US context, with Daniel Bryan - a rift opened, to some degree, between those who realise 'oh shit, this really damaged his health' and others who call for 'one more match', perhaps in denial about how much he's sacrificed for entertainment, or a misguided sense of honour an accomplishment (as much as one can have those in a staged sport). At least people are talking about it, though.

Lana is... now a happy stripper or something?

Donald Trump get the order from Putin to repackage her and her husband?

v. interesting if it's true:

https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe/sk-exclusive-how-did-cenas-marriage-proposal-change-the-face-wrestlemania-33

Essentially it would have meant AJ Styles as champ heading into Mania, Cena vs Taker, and Nakamura making his debut vs Miz.

On paper, it sounds 1000X better than what we got. But it probably means the Hardys don't come back for the ladder match (because you probably don't want to book two surprise debuts on the same show), Styles vs Shane ended up being pretty good, and Taker wasn't capable of doing much anyway.

I guess Cena's comment on Smackdown about wanting to face Taker at Mania instead of wasting his time with Miz was a shoot.

this was overall a pretty ok ppv (house of horrors was fucking lol tho, god why)

Best of the Super Juniors has been pretty banging so far

I am not particularly on board for the further expansion of Marty Scurll's "an 8 year old's idea of a cool heel" act; I would say I am relatively on board for Taichi and TAKA having a ten minute long match with no physical contact whatsoever until the last ten seconds

Takahashi, Dragon Lee, Liger, Ricochet, Ospreay: yep

Yes to all of that (incl. Taichi vs TAKA, which I thought was clever).

I haven't watched NXT TV in months, and didn't watch the UK tournament, but I thought Bate vs Dunne was off the charts and the main event was an OK match but an awesome angle. It was so refreshing to see a championship match on a WWE show that was wrestled so differently from the in-house "WWE style" main event level match (referring to the UK championship bout).

Yeah, the execution (on some pretty advanced stuff) was incredible too, I needed the replay to even figure out what Bate had done with that mad torpedo rebound off the ropes. The corkscrew senton properly looked like it must have burst Dunne's nuts though, ouch

Mad to have two of the best young wrestlers in the world killing it on WWE TV and they're from Birmingham and Dudley

The Tomato Chomper turn was good but I really hope somebody seriously talked to AOP guy backstage because that ladder shot to Gargano was fucking awful, and imagine him taking that blow to the head knowing he's got to take an extended beatdown post match

DOMINION SPOILERS

At the risk of going on a big rant, that main event was mostly garbage. I could see the draw coming after about 25 minutes when it became clear that Okada was ignoring all the leg work to that point and there was nothing resembling a home stretch happening.

From then on, they were mostly biding their time and cycling through blatantly obvious callbacks to their first match. Okada hit the rainmaker (among other big moves) a bunch of times and would wander around the ring in a manner that's completely uncharacteristic of him. I guess we're supposed to want a third match now, but Okada had Omega beat a bunch of times, including at the end. More importantly, Okada has nothing to prove! He's the champ and he's already beaten Omega, he didn't need to win here and now has no reason to defend against him again.

In a time limit draw you're supposed to build towards the big moves at the end, making you believe that the match was about to end when time finally expired. Here they'd already hit all their stuff by 40 minutes in, so there was no drama and each comeback/delayed sell meant less and less as they messed around trying to fill the last 20 minutes with the same moves over and over.

Tanahashi (with one arm, bless him for gutting out the match but he's crazy and I fear for his career) and Naito stole the show again.

I mostly enjoyed it but the superman comebacks were getting pretty devalued for me, not sure how I'm supposed to believe one of these big moves are going to put one of you down when you keep popping up to hit another big move one second later

Okada's dropkick is meant to be a big deal, signal the beginning of the end etc: here are like four of them and nothing of any consequence happens

incredible as it is, I really have no idea where the current Jr Heavyweight style is supposed to go post Hiromu-KUSHIDA, short of guys putting people over by actually dying to their moves

I nearly bumped into Hiromu on the way out of the RevPro show in Bethnal Green a couple of months back. He was the same height as me but in better shape. I gave him a weird smile and he gave me a weird smile. Wish I'd done the LIJ fist bump

I loved Okada/Omega II, didn't see the draw coming until at least 80% of the way in. That rope break on the One-Winged Angel is my favorite rope break spot ever. There were definitely some overkill aspects to the match, which I really don't like in general, and at least there was no top-rope dragon suplex this time.

Okada's dropkick is meant to be a big deal, signal the beginning of the end etc: here are like four of them and nothing of any consequence happens

This was one of the reasons why the draw looked telegraphed for me. It was the same with Omega's V-trigger, he hit like ten of them and it never built to anything.

The OWA rope break spot was also obvious from where they were positioned, at least in WWE they can usually disguise it with clever camera angles.

I guess Omega now goes back to being a comedy midcarder with the Young Bucks until he decides whether to re-up with NJ. The kayfabe build up to this match also annoyed me -- Omega "earned" the match by going 1-1 vs Ishii, but Ishii has a singles win over Okada and never got a title shot, whereas Omega already had his chance and lost.

Overall it was a great card, everyone worked their asses off (Omega and Okada too -- the effort was obviously there, it was the match layout that sucked) but it all led a fairly disappointing reset for the promotion. Tanahashi won the IC title but is tough to root for when you know he's working hurt and might be jeopardizing his career, especially after the Honma and Shibata situations. Kushida is feuding with BUSHI again for the junior belt, and Cody vs Okada isn't exactly the match and feud to launch their move into the US.

I totally bit on the rope break. I noticed how close they were, but it didn't look like Okada was in position for it, since he was all folded up and upside-down. But Omega put him in exactly the right position and he got his foot on the rope at exactly the right moment. It was brilliant!

I loved the match, but I also accept all these criticisms as fair.

I didn't see the draw coming till after 50 minutes had passed, and that did take the wind out of my sails.

But you see, I'm not really an Okada fan; I watch his matches with better wrestlers like Kenny, and Tanahashi before him, because I can focus on their struggles against him. They swept me up in what they were doing. That counts more for me than 'workrate' or whatever ever will.

<i>Ishii has a singles win over Okada and never got a title shot, whereas Omega already had his chance and lost</i>

I don't know, Okada/Ishii is CHAOS business that they might have sorted out off-panel. It's not that big a plot hole for me.

I'm all for getting swept up in the drama of a match, but when the first 20 minutes is completely irrelevant to the story then it's not a great match in my book.

Ishii/Omega II was positioned as a #1 contender's match from what I recall. Maybe Ishii wouldn't have gone ahead with the challenge in the interest of keeping the peace in CHAOS, but Omega still didn't do anything to earn the title shot beyond what Ishii had already done. It's not that big a deal but it bother me a bit (although I'd still love to see an Ishii/Okada title match at some point).

i was just watching the marty the moth / killshot weapons of mass destruction match from the beginning of s3 of lucha underground and holy shit i must've audibly gasped like 4 times

warning tho matt stryker's commentary on it is exceptionally bad

Is it worth watching still? Ive been kinda tempted to do a poll about the sudden lack of giving a shit - which dropped off quicker, neville/breeze/ kidd/zayn nxt or prince puma/mil muertes season 1 lucha underground?

I guess since even posting that the highs werent any of those names, it was sasha/bayley or vampiro/pentagon but i feel like those other matches were 'peak' in a way that wasnt necessarily just match hype, more 'you must watch this' promotion hype

lucha underground? i still enjoy it. it's basically the only wrestling i still regularly watch. i'm totally burnt out on wwe.

it's certainly dipped and certainly seems less essential than it did in the first season, but it still has very high peaks and is fairly consistently enjoyable imo. mack and mundo going 'all night long' a few weeks back was pretty great. that said, i haven't bothered to watch the last couple of weeks, since dario's launched a 32-luchador tournament so we've had a momentum-killing run of overpowered monster vs chump glorified squashes.

Nakamura vs Cena is a thing that actually happened. I wish the WWE wouldn't beat everything into the ground by yelling "DREAM MATCH!!" over and over until it has no meaning, but it was awesome to see and Cena put Nak over huge.

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.

That match was great (except for the big commercial break in the middle). Did you see at the end when Nakamura apologized for that hard bump and Cena told him not to be sorry?

Also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xayP9ErP5Nw

after they did the x-files one i was praying for a twin peaks one, and i was richly rewarded.

i'm so far behind with the g1, i need time to freeze for a few days so i can catch up. even with the principle of only watching matches that people seem to think are ****+ it's an avalanche of content...

I didn't catch the "I'm sorry" when I watched live. Cena looked in rough shape during the post-match segment with Corbin, hopefully he's OK.

The spot looked brutal, how the hell can guys like Naito land on their neck like that (intentionally!) in every big match without dying?

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