@RoxBlackburn
My week in wrestling centred mostly around Survivor Series. Please see my previous post for my full review.
Survivor Series wasn’t a bad PPV overall, the card pretty much writes itself with some emerging stories coming out of the traditional matches. The top 3 matches for me were the Cruiserweight Championship match; Buddy Murphy (c) v Mustafa Ali. These guys showcased the division well, further highlighting they deserve a spot on every PPV going forward.
The men’s traditional Survivor Series match was fun to watch.
Charlotte v Ronda Rousey had glimpses of brilliance but why are the crowd booing Ronda? Please share your thoughts with us around this.
Following Survivor Series was the WWE 365 special on AJ Styles and his year as champion. I absolutely love these types of programmes because I love seeing what these guys are like beyond their characters. It’s taken me a while to get fully on the AJ Styles bus but now I’m there, I aint ever getting off. He is phenomenal both inside and outside the ring.
I haven’t got round to watching Raw yet but I have watched Smackdown. I find it disappointing that Nakamura wasn’t there this week as following the PPV, I feel the United States Championship needed to be represented, perhaps through an open challenge. Smackdown wasn’t great to be honest. The main event was Randy Orton v Rey Mysterio and half of the match was missed due to a badly timed commercial.
Coming up in WWE land is Starrcade and TLC. I’m looking forward to the finals of the Mixed Match Challenge so this week I’ll be playing catch up with that.
Also, for those who use Twitter and who are missing Becky Lynch, I recommend following her and getting notifications every time she tweets as no-one is safe right now. She even had a go at Chris Jericho this week and it was absolute gold.
I found my Wrestlemania commemorative chairs this week and was wondering what other WWE memorabilia I have stashed away. I think I’ll go routing in the attic to see what other gems I’ve forgotten about.
My week in Wrestling began with last weekend’s offering from the WWE. The traditional Survivor series weekend began with the latest NXT Takeover show that really proved that once again you can never bet against a Takeover! None of the matches proved negative with even the opening seven second win for Matt Riddle over Kassius Ohno doing its purpose putting Riddle over strong. My favourite however was the Shayna Baszler title defence victory over Kairi Sane that saw the Japanese star work overtime in a faultless performance as she failed to regain the Women’s title. Ok so 2 out of 3 fall matches sometimes fail to deliver and can be somewhat predictable, however this match was relatively short, the interference did not hurt but made the match and the right person won, easy booking. Gargano’s match with Alastair Black was also excellent as both wrestlers really played to each other’s strength. Velveteen had his best match to date has he continues to shine with his character work, and the Wargames match, albeit a little long was great to watch. Once again an excellent showing with NXT succeeding again.
Talking of NXT, yesterday, 24/11 saw the announcement of NXT UK and their first Takeover show that will emanate from Blackpool on January 12th. No doubting that this show will also deliver with the backing of the great UK crowds.
Survivor Series itself was also a pretty decent show with good and bad matches distributed evenly! The traditional 5 on 5 matches were not good in my opinion and one feels this tradition is maybe outstaying it’s welcome. Loved the Cruiserweight title match with two men putting out an outstanding display that is prevalent weekly on the 205 Live shows. The LA crowd showed little interest from the start but were soon won over which was credit to both Buddy Murphy and Mustafa Ali. Ronda’s match with Charlotte was terrific and full credit has to be given to Charlotte who looked out with this opportunity after Becky Lynch was forced to pull out with a Broken Face! Charlotte really took advantage of her opportunity and was superb throughout. Daniel Bryan’s heel turn may be the best thing for him, his facial expressions against Brock in what was also a very good match turned a corner for me on Bryan who had become just another guy as late. Let’s hope Bryan is allowed to shine as WWE Champion continuing this character
If you listen to Podcasts, which I do, far too many maybe! Then I cannot recommend an episode of the ‘Joe Rogan’ podcast enough. Joe releases podcasts on an almost daily basis and this week his guest was Jake ‘the snake’ Roberts. This has to be one of the best two hours of my life listening to podcasts that I have spent. Jake was witty, honest and sometimes went a little dark as he opened up to Joe about everything. From his time spent recovering at DDP’s house to his growing up and the sexual abuse that he faced as a youngster to the witty stories including the time Macho Man Randy Savage made Jake’s snake bite Jake first before letting the snake bite Macho in a famous skit from Superstars of wrestling back in 1991. This podcast is also available in video form on You Tube, really suggest you watch this show.
To finish, I watched a DDT show from a couple of weeks back just yesterday titled ‘Bastardz 7’! Not sure what that means but if you enjoy comedy wrestling, and nobody does it better than DDT, then this show is worth a look. Complete nonsense this was an easy watch with the opening match proving really enjoyable as young ace Konosuke Takeshita defeating Gota Ihashi in ten minutes that was surprisingly very good. Most enjoyable match was Gorgeous Matsuno against Tatsuhito Takaiwa in a rounds match that if no pin occurred at the end of the one minute round, then a young lady would remove an item of clothing! The referee did everything to prevent the stronger Takaiwa from gaining the pin fall which was successful until the lady in question was down to full bathing costume and the pinfall gained to everybody’s disappointment!
@TWF87
The New Japan World Tag League kicked off this week, and despite having a pretty unappealing format – one block with 14 teams means around 180 matches – the first five nights have had some good matches. LIJ and Best Friends currently lead the standings, and LIJ vs Michael Elgin and Jeff Cobb along with Best Friends vs Hangman Page and Yujiro Takahashi were the highlights of the opening two nights. There are still a lot of matches left to go, but seeing Hangman Page and Yujiro on 0 points is surprising. GOD, KES, and Juice Robinson and David Finlay all sit 2 points behind the leaders, and I’d expect them to stay in contention for the rest of the tournament.
I finally caught up with the finals of the Seadlinnng tournament to crown their first singles champion this week. The entire card top to bottom was pretty fantastic, and the tournament matches all delivered. The semi finals saw Arisa Nakajima defeat Hanako Nakamori and Nanae Takahashi defeat Takumi Iroha to set up a final between the veteran founder of Seadlinnng in Nanae and the current star in Nakajima. The final match was fantastic, and Nanae Takahashi emerged victorious after a battle that lasted nearly half an hour. The tag title match between Borderless and Avid Rival was also excellent. Overall this was probably one of the best shows of the year in any promotion.
In Stardom there was a major shift in the title scene as the super rookie Utami Hayashishita and Momo Watanabe defeated Jungle Kyona and Tora Natsuko for the Goddess of Stardom tag team belts in a fantastic match at Korakuen Hall. Utami only debuted in August, but her feud with Kyona has been one of the best of the year, and after her strong showing in the 5 Star Grand Prix it was only a matter of time before she got her hands on a belt. The victory means that Momo became joint tag team and Wonder of Stardom champion (their secondary title). Momo has had a phenomenal year in 2018 – she beat Io Shirai for the Wonder of Starsom belt, beat Mayu Iwatani, drew with World of Stardom champion Kagetsu, won the Cinderella Tournament, won the Tag League, and now won the Goddesses of Stardom tag titles. It’s hard to think of any woman that’s had as good a year as Momo at this point.
It is rare I think too much about my lack of watching WWE in recent months, but I did feel it at this time of year considering Survivor Series always used to be my favourite PPV of the year. Late 80s Survivor Series shows were great fun and still hold up today, providing an excellent snapshot of the company and where it was in terms of its rosters and storylines. The moment they moved away from the traditional elimination matches, things began to wane in terms of interest, though they were still able to deliver from time to time such as Survivor Series 98 and the Deadly Games tournament.
The most notable wrestling thing of my week has been convincing my friends to go to the ‘Road to 16 Carat’ show in January 2019 that wXw is running in London. Having missed out on Riptide’s last show, it will be my first lot of live wrestling for a good half of a year or so. The released names for the show are a nice mix of wXw regulars and a few UK stars who have also had bookings with the promotion, so it does feel authentic enough an experience so far. It’d be good to see WALTER on there, though he currently isn’t booked according to the first release.
@TheCiaranJames
I unfortunately couldn’t contribute last week as last Friday 16/11 I attended Kamikaze Pro, then on 17/11 I travelled to Bristol for Pro Wrestling Chaos, then Sunday I lost my voice to laryngitis, very frustrating indeed.
Kamikaze Pro, Bank on it 6 emanated from Coventry and per usual the card was amazing. The event featured their annual Bank on it (Ladder Match) which was a hotly contested match won by the very promising The Elliot Jordan Experience. Although a heel his victory was met by cheers, his rise in 2018 has been amazing to watch, after winning the briefcase he can now challenge for either the Relentless or Kamikaze Pro Title within the next year. Another notable highlight was David Starr’s excellent match with Sean Kustom, and the Four Way Tag Team Title match, won eventually by the Anti Fun Police (Chief Dunne & Millie McKenzie)
On Saturday 17/11 Chaos Wrestling held the Chaos Rumble in Yate, this would be their last event of 2018. The show was excellent, with a small undercard of three matches, then the second half which was when the Rumble took place. The evening kicked off with then King of Chaos Big Grizzly, defending against Jody Fleisch. This was a very entertaining affair with Grizzly retaining the title. Another great moment was seeing Welsh sensation Danny Jones take centre stage, he valiantly was the sole survivor of the Brotherhood vs Modern Culture match. Against the odds he took the victory after pinning James Drake.
The Chaos Rumble was the highlight and main event of the evening, it was booked amazingly well with many levels of storylines built in. There were a few debuts, the return of Mike Bird and the fan approving winner. The final four featured Beano, a Dragon Pro graduate who has made a huge impact over the last 18 months and has the potential to go very far on the UK indy scene. The evening was capped off by Dick Riley winning the Rumble then accepting the challenge of champion Big Grizzly and winning the King of Chaos Title to the end the year as champion. It was a fantastic event with a great ending that is sure to be remembered.
I finally caught up with TakeOver on Sunday, the event as all those before it was of a high quality. The standout matches were Alesiter Black vs Johnny Gargano and Ciampa defending against Veleveteen Dream. I did enjoy the WarGames match but felt it went on a little too long, the moments built well and the audience were invested so it worked.
Survivor Series was about two matches, Charlotte vs Rousey and Brock vs Daniel Bryan, these were the epitome of how to book a compelling wrestling match. The offence, selling, timing and reactions were excellent, Daniel Bryan within 4 days as completely freshened his character, he was amazing here. For all the heat Brock Lesnar gets, I still feel he is on his day on WWE’s top acts who should be treated as such. Booked to do so or not, Brock was legit impressed and showed a sign of respect when leaving the arena, nice touch. Charlotte/Ronda was compelling and thought provoking, the post match attack and reaction to Ronda was fascinating. Unfortunately as good as Charlotte was, the hard work was all undone when Ronda walked out of that arena and wrestled on Raw after having her throat crushed by a chair….Kayfabe is not dead, it’s fucked.
To end, I yesterday read the news of the WWE’s decision to hold a UK TakeOver event. Is anyone else finding it difficult to get invested in this show? I feel WWE don’t know what made the indy scene in the UK prosperous, and therefore it lets them down. The show need a permanent venue like Full Sail, a new GM and compelling acts, unfortunately a handful of the British guys lack the ability to draw fans in. Improvement is needed.
