Kadaveri

I can't think of any long singles match where Braun looked bad and he's had several really good ones. Don't think that's his problem at all.

Kushida has confirmed that he's leaving NJPW at the end of the month.

Except that was just made up by fans to justify giving her abuse. That was actually the first time Brie had ever injured anyone (debuted in 2006), whereas Meltzer's been warning people to enjoy Ospreay is gonna be "the next Dynamite Kid" with how often he injures himself.

They booked Bryan perfectly by accident. Don't think they could have had him any more over going into WM30 had they booked him any differently. That it wasn't intentional doesn't really matter here, when the point is WWE seemed to have learned a bad lesson that booking top babyfaces to lose repeatedly gets them more over, so they did it intentionally ever since.

The booking of Bryan in 2013/14 was perfect. The problem is thinking it was a formula they can use with anyone, rather than a story that only worked with a specific person in a specific context.

On merchandise sales, this is what Dave Meltzer reported in April this year:

This was great. Really action packed fairly short PPV match (10 mins) that never has a dull moment. Big Show really dominates the vast majority of it wrestling like he really should have done a lot more often. Taker's really good working underneath. ****

I don't see them firing someone for things posted 10+ years ago long before they were ever employed by WWE. It's gonna be a "I was dumb, won't ever happen again" conversation.

It didn't get them heat, they were being mocked; which isn't a great for a monster heel team.

I don't find it at all credible that this is just WWE repeatedly "screwing up" rather than by design. Part of the "WWE The Brand is the draw now" era necessitates cutting the legs underneath anyone getting over enough to potentially be a big individual star, and they don't want that happening lest wrestlers start getting leverage over the company.

I'm most confused by his talk of the 'greater variety of styles' in current wrestling. What is this based on? Wrestling right now seems more homogenised than ever. WWE, US/European Indies and NJPW are all predominately the same kind of 'lots of moves and kickouts' wrestling now.

The way they work is WWE still pays you for the 90 days provided you don't work anywhere else. They can't actually stop you, it just means you forfeit 90 days pay if you do. Raven just decided he'd rather wrestle immediately (if I remember correctly it was because TNA pitched the Jarrett angle to him but told him it either happens now or never we're not waiting three months).

Remember when Daniel Bryan got injured in 2014 and had to vacate the belt? WWE responded by having Brock Lesnar squash John Cena...

No one on PWO has pointed out that Bayley & Sasha did the 6/9/95 Kobashi/Misawa spot? Shame. Great show.

Who says Sara "can't" wrestle? She probably just doesn't want to anymore.

They wouldn't have banned Sami just because he's Syrian. It's most likely because of his political activism, he doesn't exactly hide that he's a leftist and cares about Middle East issues.

I second that Cena vs. Big Show match being excellent. Show has a really great performance here actually wrestling like an unstoppable giant for once, anytime Cena looks like he's getting some offence in he just gets squatted away like an irritating insect.

Amazing to me that WWE seemed to genuinely think that segment doing a huge rating was because of Edge and not "Lita's gonna get naked." Made him a main-eventer for years.

As well as just being shitty in general, it's long-term bad for the company to keep feeding their fans the idea that their female wrestlers are lazy talentless hoes. Why would anyone want to pay money then to see them wrestle then? You know if Nikki Bella was a man they'd be promoting her as a super-tough badass who wrestled for two months with a broken neck and keeps coming back to wrestling when she doesn't need to because it's her passion.

Wow, they really haven't built for this show at all have they? Feels like the only thing that's happened the past few weeks is Trish and Sasha hyping a match... that isn't happening.

Meltzer just called Akira Taue "way overrated", which surprised me. Has he always been low on him?

I'm writing this review now on just having got home from seeing the show. It should be available to watch on their streaming service in a few days and this match is really worth seeking out. It's for the Progress World Title. Tyler is the "Big Strong Boy" who's facing a huge strong man in the champion Walter. Walter (got a live violin duo playing his entrance theme) totally dominated the opening half, lots of basic wrestling and tests of strength type manoeuvres, however hard he fights nothing Tyler does seems to have any significant effect on Walter. It's like he's just made out of brick. The fighting spills out to the floor at one point and Tyler manages to reverse a suplex attempt into one of his own to the floor! I don't think I've ever heard a simple vertical suplex get such a loud pop from the crowd. Pete Dunne and Trent Seven are now at ringside urging Tyler on, as well are the crowd who are 75% loudly behind him (and the remaining 25% is mostly a vocal pro-Walter section). Now even the pop for the suplex wasn't as loud as the huge roar for Tyler as he's stuck in a sleeper hold urging him to fight out of it. It's remarkable how a match mostly consisting of moves that wouldn't look out of place in the 1970s is getting the biggest reactions of the show and feels like a real big match showdown. The match reaches it very logical outcome at the end. Yet another strong title defence for Walter. ****1/2

Going through the WWE Matches of the Year for 2003 pack and this really caught my eye as its midcard heel Cena vs. Biker Taker and gets 15 minutes. The commentary note that Taker has an injured arm that he's delaying surgery for, and that he's here to put Cena in his place after being disrespected backstage. Cena looks like a little punk here in the opening minutes. Can't seem to really hurt Taker at all, the one time he lands a good kick just seems to really piss Taker off and he gets a chokeslam for his trouble. Taker unloads a flurry of strikes in the corner only for Cena to clock his skull with a steel chain, the same way he took out Brock Lesnar 9 years later in their classic. Cena actually looks really vicious here when he gets in control. Relentlessly going for Taker's injured arm first with a shoulder tackle that takes him out the ring, slams it into the barricade, dropkick through the ropes on the arm, stands on Taker's arm atop the steps and stomps his arm into the steps. Taker gets a bit of a comeback going and attempts a Last Ride powerbomb, Cena slips out using Taker's hurt arm and turns it into a cross-armbreaker. Taker's selling is really good in this match. Never stops looking pained after Cena's first bit of control and I like how he occasionally falls into the ropes to recuperate any moment he has Cena down. ***1/4

Couldn't go one month without Brock making the full-timers look like chumps.

Anti-Ronda stuff is complaining for the sake of it. She's got really solid offense/selling and every feud she's had so far has had one of the best matches of that opponent's career. How many wrestlers can say that in their debut year?