February 2008

This is a Gulf of Mexico match, where the only way you can win the match is to throw your opponent into the Gulf of Mexico. This was a really fun brawl with Chavo looking totally awesome, he opens the match by taking a huge bump to the floor and is great both brawling and bumping throughout. Early WWE Punk was really hit and miss, but this is one of his better matches. They brawl out into the street, a sedan slams it's breaks on only to have Punk hurled onto the hood. They also smash the windshield of a truck and Chavo scares away some guys fishing and hurls the tackle box at Punk. The current looked really strong every time they showed it, which really added to the dange…

Super glad I randomly ran into this match. It was a super fun one - Dragon played the classic, cheap tactic using, foreign heel in front of over 800 loud English fans. Loved his pre-match promo w/ him getting heat by of course praising 'Murica & talking crap about the fans in England. His version of the American National Anthem was beautiful as well. WWE should get him to do it at Mania next year. The actual match was your classic foreign heel going against the local hero bout w/ Dynamite getting a really good shine in & having Dragon in trouble for most of the match, until he managed to sneak that victory by using cheap tactics. Awesome stuff. Dynamite impressed,…

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So this is the era of the bastardization of the gimmick. A yearly PPV. The "right to fight the champ at Mania", which also weakened the Rumble. Two matches a card. And this one has the major sin or all : it's boring. Taker & Batista to start which is odd since they are the two biggest star. It's not very good, really. Not a huge fan of MMA Taker and the more I see of him the less I think of him. Things actually pick up when Mabel gets in. They say that Matt Striker is his "handler", which is not racist at all. Man, pro-wrestling needs a fat as fuck giant tomorrow. Plus he can do shit and it actually gets better thanks to him. Sadly he gets eliminated. We…

World Heavyweight Champion Edge vs Rey Mysterio - No Way Out 2008 The Edge/Vickie stuff from the video package looks glorious. I absolutely love that type of heel shit. Vickie takes the West Coast Pop in a wheelchair! She was in the wheelchair because she sacrificed herself for Edge to take the 619. I love it. The Valentine's Day proposal, man, Edge might suck in the ring but he has a knack for this. Mysterio had a legitmate torn bicep and even with that he is a better pro wrestler than Edge. He actually gets the majority of the offense. Rana early has to use the left hand to punch. Edge hits a big boot and throws him into the stairs. Edge cant even properly apply…

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Nigel McGuinness defends the ROH World Title from the Manhattan Center in New York City. Talk about it here.

This was pretty great and a good example of Amano making a relatively basic rookie/vet squash look tangibly fun with her cocky attitude and beatdowns before inevitably paying for it with some heated counters back at her. Mizunami isn't the most seasoned (shown very easily by the pair struggling to set up a superplex, of all things) but she gets the standard fiery upstart formula pretty easily helped by Amano directing the action with awesome grappling and some stiff shots being thrown out; knees to the head, headbutts to the back of the head, mean suplexes, all that and some more. The offence here is generally convincingly stiff enough despite being relatively low-risk. T…

A face vs. face match with them exchanging control segments and it works! I liked a lot of the transitions and how they built to their bigger spots and they managed to produce an exciting finish with a hot crowd. ***

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