Stiva

Is this the greatest near fall ever? Bryan (and it had to be all Bryan) subverts the contemporary expectations of Lesnar matches ending quickly and uses it to instantly take a crowd from 0-50. Lesnar's matches against Goldberg had shown that he could be caught quickly if he dropped his guard and Bryan hitting the low blow not only threatened that again but also played into his burgeoning heel turn. What follows is Daniel Bryan: Destroyer as he finally gets to unleash some ROH Wrestling Machine on the WWE, topped off with the most brutal stomps to the face he's ever laid in. He was driving his feet into Lesnar's face like he was in there with Necro Butcher and Lesnar correctly sells the eventual victory like he's just escaped with his life. Lesnar ran this kind of formula with Styles, Bryan and Balor and he's probably not got anyone else on the roster to run it with but it was amazingly fun while it lasted and Bryan worked around it, finding the near falls and offense to elevate it well above the other two. The only Lesnar match I'm really interested in from now on is an eventual match with Matt Riddle but I don't trust them to do anything worthwhile with that, if it even happens at all. For now, we'll have this incredible look into what a fully-fledged Lesnar/Bryan feud could have been in 2014.

Kind of crazy that, even now, Tim Storm can go out there and be the most white-meat babyface in the world, give shout-outs to his momma and everyone watching him at home like a long-lost Von Erich brother and everyone on the internet is calling for him to get a major league run. I'm not disagreeing since he's great in the role but it's solid proof that what worked in wrestling 30 years ago works now.

From a quick Google, it seems like the numbers for the live showing but I actually read your post as THIRTY thousand, not three thousand. I think more people stay up until 2AM watching shopping channels than Raw at this point.

I’ll admit to not knowing when they show it these days (used to be a Friday night on Sky Sports) but is that the ratings for the live showing which we get at 2AM? They show it live and then repeat it later in the week so if it’s the live broadcast, it’s understandable. Who on earth would stay up that late to watch that shower of shit?

Another fun show but there was almost too much wrestling, all full of wild-ass flips and dives. I feel like this could have used a Nyla squash or a couple more video segments to break things up slightly. The Cody/Jericho brawl was fantastic; Cody looks like the coolest guy in the world, making sure to have his buddies as back-up and straight up smashing his way through a window. I love smart babyfaces. Hayter looks like she'd be a really good pick-up since she managed to make all of Britt Baker's Michelle McCool-aping offense look decent for a change. I also popped for MJF calling Jericho "Midlife Crisis Chris" The dude is going to be a star based on mic work alone.

I was thinking about that. This roster needs some more big beefcakes to throw these little guys around the place!

Will anything top last year's 30 minute main event where Kane's hair dropped off?

It's kind of making me want to get it and play it before they patch it, things look beyond fucked up.

This Aaron Stevens gimmick with the terrible B-roll footage is fantastic. It makes me wonder where Hollywood Bob Holly may have went in SMW with more money behind it.

Stray thoughts: Excalibur and Taz were shockingly good together. It’s strange to remember that Taz was actually pretty good at one point. Janella/Cutler was oil and water with a bizarre chop exchange thrown in the middle of it. Cutler is probably serviceable as a competitive jobber but he really had no chemistry with Janella. The Librarians are still terrible but as a cheap heat machine, Avalon is at least tolerable. Bates/Nyla was...not good. I dig Nyla’s power offense but Bates moves like she has a piano strapped to her back. I think Nyla Rose might actually move quicker. But props to Leva for taking a couple of nutty bumps to get her over. Peppering in some little promos to hype the TV is a good idea to keep Dark fresh with two good concise ones from Kazarian and PAC. The main was fun but felt like a real dark match with the comedy spots, MJF interference and Private Party working quasi-heel. Bucks/Private Party feels like the beginning of a long-term rivalry that they can always go back to. A show that was saved by its main but these have so many good workers to plug into these kind of multi-mans that they can run those matches forever.

Catching up on NXT and Oney Lorcan would get over if they let him work those awesome hot tags on either of the main two shows.

They stumbled on the formula in 2013 which is running tons of 6-man tags with a deep tag division which they completely abandoned in their post-Mania XXX creative collapse.

"Mauro. Don't be fooled by Priest's composure. His ruthless nature is focused on creating an incandescent presence" I swear to God, this commentary.

1.014 million for last night's Dynamite. Staying just about level while NXT continues to drop. They're taking an early lead.

That’s fantastic news! Plugging Kingston’s promos into their presentation would be so great.

Ken Anderson showing up is genuinely enough to stop me watching so there's at least one segment I'm skipping every two weeks. Sandow is a far more enjoyable television presence than that joker will ever be. Murdoch/Starks was a highlight, just to see that Trevor Murdoch has fully embraced his fat man status; I demand to see him deliver jiggly goodness every week. Starks was great on the mic and seemed fairly smooth in-ring too. The Tony Falks commercial was like a Tim and Eric sketch; they're by and away the funniest thing on any wrestling show. Laser focus and tremendous execution. Like said, I assume they're building toward a supershow so you'd hope there's some hot angles coming up once they've established everyone. Still, this is still a fun hour of wrestling, even if I'm not going to get my fix of good matches just yet. And, I know this is Eddie Kingston's retirement year but it's an outright crime that the closest he got to a national run with Homicide was Impact, years after anyone was watching. A late-day Homicide run in AEW with Kingston as his mouthpiece would be so great.

Yeah, he's a great high-concept thinker and creative dude but I really don't want to watch him wrestle. Having said that, the 8-man tag was a good TV match but the Aubrey Edwards interview was great. Another excellent piece of low-key, serious presentation that speaks to how they're adding genuine depth to their roster, right down to the refs.

Considering the cell match and the bumps therein were the thing that pushed Foley over the top and into the main event as an eternal, respected fans favourite, I’m not surprised Rollins doesn’t understand that.

The street fight allows for more crazy Allin bumping which is another thing that will get him over. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a missed Coffin Drop through a table or something to get over that Foley style of taking massive punishment and continuing to move forward. I really hope they have something lined up for him after this brief little exposure. Guevara seems an obvious choice but I’m not sure either should be losing much atm.

I thought that NXT was a good show, had some good to great matches but you can only compare it to AEW since this is the self-proclaimed war and Dynamite was so much more vital, energetic and exciting. NXT put out a good show, AEW hit it out of the park but there’s a worrying feeling that “good” is all NXT can muster up at this point.

Yeah, I know all of that, it's just the idea that WWE are explicitly stating that the respective TV networks are the ones picking people for their shows. There isn't even the pretence of GMs at all.

I watched the show, genuinely enjoyed it and the look and feel didn't bother me in the slightest. It hit all the cliches but there was some good promo work, some neat video packages and Cornette's best commentary in about 25 years. I do hope that, as the show rolls on, it feels slightly less over-produced though and dishes out the chaos and fireball angles. What it needs is the 2019 version of Tracy Smothers coming in and causing havoc. Hell, maybe that's just Tracy Smothers.

The draft being framed as two TV companies picking wrestlers is weird as hell. Or is that some form of regular occurrence in other sports that is being lost on me in the UK?

Everyone interacting with everybody else is filling my heart with glee. For far too long, TV wrestling feuds have been self-contained to the wrestlers in that feud but that show closing angle with everything spilling over was amazing. Props to The Bucks for putting in an unbelievable performance; they actually came across as the best team in the company who got caught by the young prodigies and, in the process, have blown what looked like a predictable tournament wide open. Everything on this show worked, it was a real killer night.

Hosted by Tony Schiavone in front of some truly terrible green screen but, nevertheless, a really fun B show outing. Commentary from JR and Excalibur for the most part. Darby Allin/CIMA was a good little TV sprint with CIMA meshing pretty fantastically to Allin and his ludicrous body control. The 8 man was a mess of spots, some fluid, most kind of awkward and the crowd was fairly dead throughout it. And to make matters worse, the cameras didn't catch Orange Cassidy interacting with the kid dressed as him in the front row. It really feels like The Lucha Bros have to win the tournament and then they need ROH to finally fold so we can get The Briscoes in the division. The women's tag had some decent moments but Ford seems really green and there was some bad miscommunication and timing with some of the spots. Though Allie feels like she should be someone that they can focus more going forward; she was a good FIP and hot tag. The 6 man was probably my favourite of the night; it was a condensed, TV match version of the PPV one and probably better for it with all the guys getting a shine, some fun comedy spots and more build for the tag tourney. Even though I'm not high on all the teams they have, they've done a good job of casting enough doubt over each match in the tag tournament so far. Either way, this is a show that's certain to have some awesome little gems on it going forward.