Stiva

Ronda Rousey Admittedly, she has a very small pool of matches and this nomination is based on the assumption that she’s going to eventually come back and pick up where she left off. But for that year, every one of her big matches was appointment viewing; she had one of the best modern Mania tag matches where she already looked like a natural and then came the title run; staring down the assembly line of WWEs women and delivering every time. Was able to work matches underneath (Bayley, Nikki Bella) with great selling and attention to detail, she could work as the superior grappler who gave just enough to her opponent (Sasha, Alexa) and when she had to bring it in hot angles in the build to Mania, she did. A lot of her matches felt like the Brock template of 12-15 taken one further as she added more vulnerability, fantastic bumping along with a great mix of strikes, submissions and an almost unnatural understanding of how to construct a main event match. I really hope she comes back since, even as good as her one year is, I don’t think it’s enough for her to get on but the prospect of her coming back and working the likes of Io, Asuka, Shayna, Bianca and even Mercedes Martinez feels like she could have a top tier run before 2026. RECOMMENDED MATCHES: Ronda Rousey vs Bayley 28/01/2019 Ronda Rousey vs Nikki Bella 28/10/2018 Ronda Rousey and Kurt Angle vs HHH and Stephanie McMahon 08/04/2018

Brock vs Bryan is up there for me. The nut shot alone is one of the all-time great momentum shift spots and that simple reversal of the usual Suplex City section sets the match into overdrive. Bryan unleashing ROH World Champion wrestling machine on Lesnar while building a WWE Main Event climax is pretty stupendous. The Styles and Balor matches had a similar blueprint but neither man could structure it better and make it more memorable than Bryan

Does anyone do a Best of Mania weekend comp for people like me who are either asleep or too busy to watch all these shows?

The last three matches delivered in a way that NXT hasn’t for me personally in a long while. Io is absolutely fantastic and really should get the rocket strapped to her on the main roster. Really dug how WALTER/Ciampa was worked exactly how it should have been and it’s been long enough that I forgot at how good WALTER is at taking offence, selling incrementally while still retaining that presence and believability. I can take or leave Ciampa but thought he was great too. Got to think Vince sees big money in WALTER, if he even watches NXT anyway

Maybe the Bucks could write a new book called “Killing the Territory” This whole stuff is putrid; get the tag belts on Death Triangle, lead into a feud with Moxley and Kingston and banish The Good Brothers back to Impact. Then run a straight up, simple story with Omega and Page for the title. Garbage overacting, completely nonsensical motivations from week to week with shitty promos. Nobody is coming out of this looking good. Darby was the clear star again.

At this point, I think Darby has to be the one to take the belt off Omega tbh. He’s the only guy that feels ready to be pushed to the top considering how special his matches feel and how over he is. He also has that Foley quality where he can remain strong in defeat because it takes so much punishment to actually pin him that he wouldn’t lose much if Miro took the TNT title off him and completely murdered him in the process. Then he could come to Moxley’s aid against Omega by doing a 360 Benihana from the roof of Dailly’s Place and he’s good to go. As for Jungle Boy, Jurassic Express feels like an albatross round his neck now. I think he doesn’t need to split from them per se but I think he should be positioned as a predominantly solo act who teams with the others rarely. I actually agree that the MJF/Jericho thing is designed for Sammy to be the guy who comes out of it the strongest. Wouldn’t surprise me if he gets the win in whatever big match is coming up with the factions. These guys are all positioned well enough and kept strong but there definitely needs to be steps made to remind people that these sorts of guys are the future and feature them more often. I’d have thought an easy tap-in would have been to do vignettes showing Page growing into the leader of the Dark Order, maturing out of his insecurities and gaining that mentality he needs to win the big one which he’s been missing. Instead, they had him ride a lawn mower around and waste time with Matt Hardy’s Midcard Maniacs. Britt Baker getting more promo time out of a loss feels like the right step to me. Reminds me of when Austin would always be allowed a good chunk of time to speak and get over on Raw in 97, even when he’d been beaten.

I think they hand the workers a list and they pick the least shit one. So imagine what must have been on the list for Chris Hero to go with “Kassius Ohno”

I don’t even watch WWE and I’m annoyed that they split The Hurt Business up. They just can’t let anything run, can they?

I really dug this weeks TV. Nothing overly ambitious, just sensible matches and a real sense that this is an interconnected wrestling promotion after some time where everything felt very segmented. Darby and Silver have good chemistry, I wouldn’t be against them running that back again soon and Tay Conti has felt like the next woman they should push for a while now so it’s all good. Fun episode. Having said that, I have no idea how QT Is the heel in this program. Cody is gallivanting off, trying to be famous, leaving the Nightmare Factory workload solely in QTs hands and QT is the heel?! I’m with him tbh. And another week, another baffling Young Bucks performance. Get the titles on to FTR again or even Moxley and Kingston and send the Bucks to New Japan on a 6 months excursion ASAP

They had better not translate any of his speech.

I’ve barely liked any Trent singles match but I also understand that I’m not the audience for that and the greater AEW audience is so he’ll probably get a decent run, yeah. Plus that street fight with Santana and Ortiz means they’ll always have goodwill with me. Matt Sydal as an undercard TV babyface works for me but his green as gooseshit brother getting airtime is baffling. Janela and Kiss are actually a really fun team if you watch their Dark matches so I wish they’d get featured more. Ryan Nemeth seems to be around so they can get Ziggler if/when his contract is up. Sabian should be written out of the promotion after Miro kills him but maybe they see him as an attraction for teen girls? And I think I’m the only one who pops at some of Castor’s lines so they can stay. AEW feels like it could do with some kind of huge, over-arching tag tournament though. Khan seems to have a booking philosophy that every person on the roster should have a team-mate or an allegiance (other than maybe Archer) and I agree with that a lot but some kind of over-arching big tag tournament would go a long way to helping people get some focus back on them. Basically, Sonny Kiss is someone I always watch the Dark matches of and I want to see more of him.

I’m only here with Dynamite but that was my first thought too. It was really obvious during the Moxley feud too where Mox went off course slightly and he struggled to get back. The eventual Batista-esque Wardlow turn will be great

The card looks like fun on paper and I assume Baker wins this feud to build her up to finally taking the title off Shida. That’s their hottest women’s match by a mile.

I’m at this point too. Taking the company as a whole, AEW has done more things right than wrong so far and they’ve done more things I’ve liked than hated so I’m willing to put up with the 10-15 minutes per show I don’t enjoy. I’m just slightly concerned that the ratio may slide the wrong way in the future

As for Khan needing a sounding board, JR used to sit in on WWF booking meetings when they had logical booking in the 90s, I wonder how much he’s consulted on angles, workers etc. I suppose there’s a wider point in there about how few known options they are for booking wrestling TV that have made themselves known in the last twenty years

What I will say is that, coming out of a PPV that tied up a lot of stories, or, reached pivotal moments in those stories, I thought they did a good job of beginning new threads that could go interesting places. I don’t have too much of an issue with the random Penta/Cody set-up since I feel like it could be a good little TV program and the Scorpio Sky heel turn freshens him up. Despite the issues I’m having with some inconsistent booking and presentation, they’re at least planting seeds for things I personally will be interested in down the line. I thought this was a really good post-PPV show in that sense.

Is there a catch-all thread for PWO members on Twitter? I’m on there as @HansensLariat even though I have very little idea what I’m going to use it for.

I actually thought it would have been a lot cooler if MJF said his line and then his crew happened to be around ringside and hopped the rail. You achieve the same result and MJF planting them at ringside has the end result of making him look smart anyway. I also questioned why MJF was so intent on breaking up the Inner Circle and having them all attack Jericho if he was just going to assemble his own team anyway. It’s not that it’s established that he hates Jericho so much that he wants to see his friends turn against him. I get his professional jealousy of Sammy coupled with Sammy seeing through him as a reason to get rid of him but seems like a weird long con to run if your plan was to have your own Horsemen anyway.

Classic Wrestling Stuff has been uploading 92 WCW in chronological order for the last month or so https://youtube.com/c/ClassicWrestlingstuff Haven’t looked too closely but seems like the only missing things are what’s on the Network? Seems like no episodes of Pro but still, a nice easy way to watch some fine TV wrestling.

Basically agree wholesale with this. NXT is off Wednesdays in the near future, their TV ratings are going to be rock solid no matter what so I really hope they get back to having strong weekly TV that builds to the big shows. There’s so many potential matches they could build to that don’t need grand stips or gimmickry. Just give me 6 months of simple, effective wrestling TV.

I can’t believe they had the greatest idea for Kingston’s babyface turn and they fucked up the execution so badly. Like it or not, that’s straight from WCWs worst. I actually thought the show delivered for the most part but man, what a damp ending. Omega vs Christian should be a good DON main though.

From week to week, the Bucks have been the most maddening act in the company. BTE is unwatchable dreck so it would be helpful if they could just choose a disposition and stick with it for a couple of months instead of trying to be too clever by half. And they do shit like these table spots all the time and they don’t give them the proper time and build they deserve; like when they randomly added the retirement stip to the FTR match a week before the match. Or when they argued with the Good Brothers because they were gonna pick them to defend the title after they lost the battle Royale and then just chose their opppnents for the next week anyway. Not to mention, the actual promo about their dad wasn’t too bad but now, the only thing people will remember is the dumbass shoot comment since it was designed to fire up comment sections. Seriously, these two. Jericho and MJF are much more interesting opponents for whoever is up next. Them retiring SCU is far more of an appealing program. I agree with Loss about a lot of what he said; you could see the Shaq match was built around a few spots that would get media coverage but I actually dug it; it had a good energy to it but I do question where Cargill goes from here since she’s nowhere near ready enough to be given a real singles push. And I also agree on Starks; the guy presents himself and talks like a complete star. I’m hyped for Revolution and I think this has been a strong few weeks of build but it’s definitely went from a promotion that feels like it’s angles and matches are planned weeks ahead to one that is being booked week-to-week and I think that’s where a lot of the internal consistencies, or lack there of, are coming from.

I actually really dug the tables match on Impact this week. Maybe I was in a giving mood but I thought they had some good teases and a lot of Deaner’s transitions involved Something crashing into the edge of tables in nasty ways.

Matt really should be cutting this sort of thing on Dynamite tonight.

I’m calling that he ends up being the ref for the Cody/Shaq nonsense to lead into Wight/Shaq at Double or Nothing.