NEWM

Fucking hell, more Andre to this thread, STAT.

My counting sheep on a night if I was stuck awake was always World/IC/Tag champions from

85 onwards and it would always hit the wall on secondary titles after 06/07. I think there's definitely something to the frequency of matches and changes around then killing the stats.

 

Somebody said it on here but there seems to be a bit of protection on the World Title since the belt changed to the Undisputed one. And that's considering it pinballed a bit when Rollins got injured.

I think her music is just about all she's got going for her, unless she's in there with Bayley. It's developmental, so it's fine, but nothing quite...clicks in anything she does.

 

Whether it's physically in the ring, her look, her walk. The whole lot is precisely one step out, and as well as watching tapes of monsters, she needs to watch tapes of herself, because I get the feeling she thinks she's projecting things right, and she's one big step to the left away from cracking any of it. Her rock bottom moment for me was post-Bayley/Carmella where she wasn't even holding Carmella up properly for the Eva Marie beating. It made everybody look like fucking shit, the lot of them. She's just not very natural at doing any of the performance stuff yet, and it's an enormous issue that needs fixing before she looks close to being a finished article.

 

That said, twice now with Bayley she's proven she can be carried, and as a Khali fan, I'll say that if you're a giant and you're good enough to have great people work around you, you'll be fine. I imagine Asuka will do grand with her, as would Sasha, Becky and Charlotte probably. So oddly, her in-ring is probably good to go, apart from the fact she needs to get her fucking arse up the air a bit more if she's dropping the big leg for a finish.

Echo the Nakamura love (again!), I cheered out loud like a fucking idiot when he timed that so well. What a guy.

 

Haven't ever said this before, but I really enjoyed Finn on the mic this week, he had some real fire. So much so in the closing segment I almost thought he was about to bust out 'sack ME?! I MADE the BBC!'

 

Also stick me on the list who thought Austin Aries and Alexa would end up together. (A Triple?) Seemed an immediately natural fit.

There is a fascinating podcast on the Torch from last week, Keller interviewing Kevin Eck, who worked in WWE Creative between 2011-2014, I think one of the most recent guys that worked there who has done such an in depth interview. It runs over 2 hours and he tells some great stories about Vince and Punk, and the early ideas for the Shield guys etc. I think it's one of the free podcasts, so should be on iTunes it's well worth a listen.

Great recommendation, cheers! I don't listen to this so would have never have heard the interview. He comes across a good bloke and had some interesting tales. Didn't care for Wade Keller enjoying his own voice a bit too much but most podcast hosts do that so wasn't too much of a downer on things.

Yeah I think Aries really starts to shine when he settles in a bit. I imagine fairly soon he'll ramp up the smug heel stuff which will give him a decent feud to get stuck into, and down the line I could see him vs Nakamura in a Number One Contenders match at a Takeover being an absolute monster.

 

For me he's best as a heel who eventually gets turned for being too ace (pretty much how it went in TNA didn't it?) rather than at the moment where he's a face who's not getting cheered because he's a little unspectacular.

 

The Joe comparison is fair too, it's really hard to bring a known star in as anything other than an 'oh my god look who's here' babyface, so now that's out the way a bit with Aries, he can crack on.

I might have already said this after their Axxess match, but I reckon Dash & Dawson will make brilliant babyfaces one of these days. They've got loads of juice left as heels, don't get me wrong, but offense-wise they're awesome to watch as a team, and you'd only have to position them against heels and cut down on the cheating a bit to push them as tough good guys. I'm pleased too, as I worried that without the belts they'd be trapped in the no-mans-land between the NXT midcard and WWE call-up that Blake and Murphy have been since losing the titles.

 

I'd like to see their run come full circle, winning the belts as faces off whichever heel team eventually have to unseat American Alpha when Jordan and Gable get the call to come up to the main roster and save the entire industry.

Another blinder from E&C this week. The 'will WWE mention it' thing was as good as the AJ Styles one, and I found Christian hilarious in bits this week, singing Edges theme and calling Miz 'a fucking tool' especially. Love this show.

Lots of people have raved about the SCG podcast so I thought I'd give the Monday Night Wars series a try but on my phone, the oldest one in the feed (I'm on iPhone btw so it's just through the generic podcasts app) is SCG#62. Any way to get further back from that? Am I just being a bit dense? Thanks

I tell you what, I can understand the 'meh' responses from some for Nakamura after his matches so far, but not from me. His offence doesn't impress me loads and his body isn't owt to write home about, but it just doesn't matter. My third time of seeing him after Takeover and his first TV match, and his entrance just has me. Proper gets blood in it. I watched his entrance, with the way he minces about, the music, the bending his back malarkey, then immediately went online to check the ticket situations for the NXT shows, even though I live nowhere near any of the towns. I really, really want to be part of that. He's a draw!

I think it falls into the same category as Razor/Shawn 2 from Summerslam 95. There's a lot of reasons why the second ones could be considered better matches, mainly because the combatants are absolutely fucking mint wrestlers going out of their way to provide a fitting sequel to a classic original. They play off old spots, the journey the characters have been on, the lot, and the fact that they've already got an all time great match in the bank as their inspiration adds a lot of subtle depth.

 

However, (and to tie in with what Raid said), you can't have any of that if you didn't craft the masterpiece to begin with. In both cases, the first matches represent significant milestones in careers, and the emotion, drama and particularly suspense attached to them as a result is unmatched.

 

I get it though. If you asked me to pick a Bret/Perfect match to watch, I'd definitely pick KOTR 93. (And if you're a real fine diner, you know the best Shawn/Razor match is ACTUALLY the summer 94 Raw one where Vince ain't going to prison and everybody's just all having the best day of their lives).

It's always seemed pretty apparent to me that nothing about Enzo is a joke, or some sort of ironic commentary on that subculture by him. I'd say it's a huge reason why he's so good at it and knows how to get it over too.

I seem to recall Goldberg doing the rounds on SMTV and him, Ant and Dec all having a bit of a pop at Steve Austin for being a miserable bastard. I can't imagine Austin at his paranoid boozy early-2000s worst being mad keen on dicking about with Dane Bowers and Atomic Kitten for an episode of Chums.

So Nakamura hits the gym (on 'your' advice), adds 25 lb of muscle. Exactly how does that help? More aesthetically pleasing for you clearly, anything else? No surprise some people don't 'get him'. Half of you don't get 'owt unless its fucking spoonfed.

I thoroughly enjoyed my first two goes of Nakamura (on Takeover and then this week's NXT), he completely lived up to whatever expectations I had...but yeah, it wouldn't bother me if he had a slightly more impressive physique to go with everything else I liked about him. To be honest, the weakest thing about him for me were some of his kicks and punches not seeming to have loads of impact. Maybe being a bit of a stronger-looking bloke would help get that across more, I dunno.

Pretty sure the first time I got served in a pub I was wearing a black version of Sting's shirt there. Maybe a few more dragons or some Chinese letters on the side.

I love 2016 Austin just as much as anybody, but I tend to find his criticisms of today's product like an old-timer wrestler version of Internet whinges. It's not like they're not valid complaints, sometimes even with logical solutions. But in both cases, it often a) tries too hard in 'booking the territory' which is something the WWE model simply does not lend itself to anymore and b) ends up being reduced to 'I like wrestling done this way, so WWE should do wrestling this way'.

 

He's by no means the worst offender, and I certainly think he has valid things to say about individual performers and the lost art of getting over, but his simplified assessment of the product let's him down a bit.

The silent crowds in the matches were absolutely dogshit. Just awful. I haven't read any spoilers but have they overloaded this week and next in order to get through them quicker? Because having watched them back they must have noticed just how bad they are. With the exception of the Bayley match (which wasn't anything special, unlike Bayley, who has got to be the best babyface created solely within the WWE system in what...10 years?) and Nakamura, the crowd were brutal.

 

Aries will be a heel before too long I reckon. He's great at playing both, but the initial pop has dissipated substantially and he will have no problem playing the cunt for a year or so before the crowd start to turn him back like they're doing with Joe.

Aw shit, yeah you're probably right there. Never mind.

The main harridan from Britain First, Jayda Fransen (sp?) has just been trolled spectacularly on Twitter, getting her followers to retweet an image apparently of three 'Syrian hatemongers' who are here and ready to spread the bad word.

 

The picture of the supposed baddies in question is of the Dudley Boyz and Tommy Dreamer!

15 years to the day since Wrestlemania X7, that felt like a show that we'll use as a bit of a benchmark in the same way. Slightly gutted for Joe and Balor that the blood obviously repeatedly got in the way of them crafting something even better than what they did, but that's a minor gripe on an otherwise staggering, staggering evening of wrestling.

 

Elated for Jordan and Gable winning the belts in that spectacular opener, thought Corbin and Aries performed their roles magnificently in the (by design) quiet gem of the night, I was left heartbroken for Bayley, and having never seen Nakamura, was given a boatload of reasons to get excited about his future in NXT. He's not really about the old wrestling moves is he, he's about making the stuff he does do count - I'm really on board with that. Charming feller. Underneath all that, the show was a fitting swansong for the initial NXT run of Sami Zayn. I was one who enjoyed the Joe TV match the other week but this one was on another level to that. As somebody else said, built and built and built, loved it. They've kept his 'first 2-time champion' story in their back pocket too, which I think will be helpful when he returns there after his main roster run stutters a bit.

 

I hadn't read any spoilers or rumours too, so my jaw hit the deck when Bobby Roode appeared.

 

Absolutely outstanding show.

 

EDIT: And I assume Kota Ibushi is another big deal for the japwres fans? Great night!

Can't believe I forgot Adam Bomb and Crush. They're everybody's boys aren't they? They should be. I know when I first got the respective Hasbros they went over everybody in the territory and the imaginary crowd went ballistic.

The never ending Jonny Curtis/Derrick Batemen feud was personal highlight of my wrestling viewing at one point, probably still evidenced in the NXT thread as it kicked off in the Redemption era. Loved those two. Darren Young was a fantastic dickhead heel too actually, I've always wanted more for him on the main roster.

 

D'Lo is surely the ultimate boy, and though it technically breaks the rule as he's held a world title, I'd like to sneak The Miz in if I could. Up until his recent little renewed thing with Y2AJ people wouldn't have pissed on him if he was on fire, but I've been a Mizaniac since the sparkly jhorts days.

Has a bit of Reese from Malcolm in the Middle about him too.

I genuinely enjoyed the Bayley-Eva Marie title match for its nuclear heat and Attitude-style shortcuts, distractions and run-ins than some of the "better" / "good wrestling" matches that have been on NXT, because it felt like more of a story.

Me too, I think I gushed on it in this very thread actually. It built through the whole episode, with Cole as acting GM at the staff, Eva getting her fancy WWE dressing room etc. It was exactly as you describe, Attitude era deck-stacking where you've got the right mix of a babyface the audience care about enough to not have it all hurt the heel too much when they still can't get the job done. AND it kicked off the Bayley/Nia Jax story to head towards Takeover:London, so it had the added bonus of having a bigger purpose. One of my favourite single episodes of a wrestling show in years.

 

EDIT: Yes, because this was the episode where Joe came out after turning on Finn, signed the contract without making eye contact, and fucked straight off. That was brilliant!! God, NXT proper gets blood in it sometimes.

The Eva Marie thing's just a bit of panto now isn't it? But something that works a treat because it adds loads to the match.

 

If they've got that much real distaste for her, that's more of a comment on them. She's a run-of-the-mill Diva heel, no more, no less. The heat she gets is fantastic, but it's not like she particularly works for it in the way a Dana Brooke would attempt to is it?