Matt D

One thing I can definitely say is that Bryan works the apron better than Nicholas.

Youre still stuck with Lesnar holding down the title though I'd say they can build Lashley to it at Summerslam, but he was definitely just another guy last night.

Glad to see the opinions on this one. In general, I fall in line with most people, in that the first 2/3rds were just wonderful and the last 1/3 was somewhat problematic. I'm probably the biggest critic of excess we have but there's a fine line between excess and escalation, and I think this managed to walk it pretty well until the very, very end. First, the good stuff. I don't know what I was expecting from this match, but it wasn't something so struggle-oriented, logical, and character driven. I guess, especially in a finals, I was expecting more spots. Kanemoto was a star bully here, filling time perfectly with kicks and grinding. Samurai was great from underneath. Both of them sold moments very well. There was a real feeling of exhilaration when Kanemoto locked on the Figure-Four for instance, or frustration when the ref was getting in his way later on. I loved how he missed so many top rope moves. That made him hitting the flipping senton off the second rope matter all the more when he does hit it. Even that was set up by how quickly he rushed up to the second rope the second time he missed it, and paid off even more fully when he misses it from the top to set up the finish. The leg focus was a joy. Kanemoto just went back to it and back to it and back to it and the fans popped in the back half of the match whenever he put on a leg submission. They bought it completely. So, let's talk about the finishing stretch. It was too much, absolutely, but some of that was mitigated by a few factors. First, Kanemoto did it to himself to a degree. I completely bought him refusing to pin Samurai at certain points, even given the stakes. He'd been in control for most of the match. He knew he could go back to the leg to cut him off if he had to. I think he had some sense of how explosive and dangerous Samurai could be. A lot of it was just that sheer bullying mentality he kept with him through the match. So I was fine when it backfired on him. I was less fine on the Tiger Suplex kickout. It's one thing to pick a guy up and pay for it, or to take your time and lose an easy pinfall, something like that. It's another to pick the guy up, hit an even bigger move, and then have him kick out. The logic isn't there. So while the reverse rana or the moonsault could have ended the match, it was due to Kanemoto's believable choices that it didn't. He paid for it, but it was just a bit too muddied. The flip side was Samurai's offense. I'm not saying wrestlers have health bars or anything but by the time Samurai was hitting the big stuff at the end, he'd taken way more offense than Kanemoto had. I buy some of those late kickouts from Kanemoto just because he hadn't taken as much. I also buy the late flurry from Samurai and the shaking off of the leg selling in the stretch. I don't always or even often buy that, but a guy's mask getting ripped off COMPLETELY, so that you can see his whole face, is so striking a moment, that I just bought the burst in the moment. I didn't really buy the cross-arm breaker and I'm glad that didn't end the match. I think it was ill-fitting within the match itself (though Samurai had done some arm stuff early on). Basically, he could have done one less reverse DDT type move at the end. He was still sort of riding the energy from the mask ripping though so it wasn't the world's worst sin or anything. It was just a bit too much. Like some of the AJPW matches from around this time (or shortly before), if this match was the end of history, as in there was nothing that ever followed it, the final bit of escalation might have worked and been worth it. As it was, it probably didn't quite pan out but it sure came close.

In another situation they could use Joe to cost him the match, thus heating up Backlash and moving things forward while at least protecting Reigns a little bit, but the cage stip makes that pretty much impossible (or at least implausible and overcomplicated).

If theyre going to keep Bray and Matt paired for the next x months, they could do worse than Broken Hardys vs Bray/Bo.

He got a bunch of guys Vince values. Kayfabe, he probably gets a raise.

I'm pretty sure an Owens/Rollins chinlock is the worst single in-match thing WWE could possibly produce in 2018.

I know things look good for SD, but let's all remember that we'll be getting a 10 minute Paige promo segment every week.

Mickie has the best Eclipse bump.

Part of the problem is that they didnt give us anything else up and down the card.

Wait, what ? I think this is what he is referring to. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thesun.co.uk/sport/5092137/wwe-divas-sasha-banks-alexa-bliss/amp/ Oh wait, that was UAE. My bad there.

That makes me wonder if there was some sort of pushback to the Alexa vs Sasha match and the chants within?

Yeah but it's fine because Jose IS the biggest geek. Honestly, the real solution would have been just to do it on the pre-show or to have to not set up the match in the first place or to have Braun as part of the main and have him help beat the crap out of Roman too. It's not like this was some sort of "best possible scenario." They're the ones who got themselves in this situation in the first place.

No Way Jose was right there and probably would have fit what they were going for just as well and given him a more meaningful debut.

The podcast was certainly interesting, and I think the match is terrific. But if a podcast 20+ years later is necessary to appreciate it than they didn't do their job that night. I think there's a difference between appreciating the whole match and grapplingwith one potentially frustrating element.

Eternal youth? Not sure if you're trying to suggest that I'm "old" and out of touch. I'm really, really, really fucking sick of WWE car crash matches. *Shrug* With that said, this was a very good one. Not five-star good, though - IMO. I thought Meltz was very selective about what he gave five stars to, which makes this all the more shocking - especially with the legit five-star Gargano vs. Ciampa match on the same show (which he also rated five stars). 'Course, I'm not one to put much stock in his ratings to begin with - I'm just surprised. It seemed less petulant and more even-handed and even potentially positive than me saying that what you were lacking was "Arrested Development."

Eternal youth?

I'm now much more interested in figuring out who the best in-ring wrestler in the WWF in 1993 was than any direct comparisons. (I doubt Michaels would be in my top 5, from either an input or output perspective. I'd probably have Borne, Bret, Yoko, Kid over him easily. Maybe Hennig too).

I'm certainly not saying someone can't have an opinion the match without any other supplementary material, but anyone who cares enough to have an opinion that's lasted 20 years really ought to listen to the recent podcast where they talk about the match, including that very specific issue and their own reluctance when it was told to them that it was happening.

Roode is a really good house show worker. He's just a lot less of a TV/PPV worker.

Headcheese, I'll take laz' match (assuming you didn't pick something for him specifically) and give you this: One of the best, funniest midget matches we have on tape. Astroboy, happy to watch that. Here's yours. One of the best Super Astro matches we have on tape: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oxrDvBYenI Solar, Ultraman y Super Astro vs. Sergio El Hermoso, Bello Greco y Rudy Reyna

Do you think that also current wrestlers think in this way? I know current wrestlers love Randy Orton because he's apparently very easy to work with (though occasionally hard to get to take a risk). The whole "Working with him is like a night off" mentality. That's obviously a metric that we as fans would almost never really rate someone on. Likewise, Christian and the fact he never got blown up no matter what you wanted to do.

Guys like Angle and Brock are so beloved by old-timers because wrestlers are marks. They give everyone who ever wrestled more of a sense of faux legitimacy. Bryan on the other hand generally looks like a guy off the street and hates to party.