Professional Wrestling

Southpaw Regional Wrestling is back! :loudspeaker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQhiw_9CrHM

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Seth with the best Macho Man impersonation this side of the Atlantic. That and AJ’s used car salesman character made me laugh the hardest.

I remember my friend showing me the first set and I just hated them. They felt less humorous and more mean spirited, the big company with all the production values punching down at little groups that didn’t have half the resources. I also really like a good territorial wrestling show like the old NWA World Championship Wrestling shows on the WWE Network.

I was mad enough to stay up for NXT TakeOver Brooklyn III today. It is now 4:30 AM but boy, was it ever a great event, keeping the tradition of TakeOver being the best PPV series alive. All the matches were great and had some interesting twists and turns.

SPOILER WARNING!

What is most significant here is how the NXT Landscape is changing after this event in certain regards, but not in others. The event featured two title changes. SAnitY won the Tag Titles off of the Authors of Pain through some shenanigans. And then afterward they were immediately attacked by Kyle O’Reilly and Bobby Fish, both recent signings out of Ring of Honor who had already debuted as singles competitors. Of course in ROH the two were known as reDRagon, a very dominant tag team that held the ROH tag belts three times and were also two time IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag-Team champions. I find this kind of weird because none of the three teams involved now are face as reDRagon appear to be also positioned as heel. Face tag teams are kind of disappearing out of the whole of WWE with multiple face teams splitting up with one guy turning heel (#DIY, Enzo & Cass, The Golden Truth, The Hype Bros) or turning completely (Shaemus & Cesaro). I blame Jericho for putting Friendship on The List.

Then Hideo Itami lost a match to Aleister Black. This may be the curtain call for Itami in NXT, whose tenure there was unfortunately derailed by multiple injuries. Black on the other hand remains dominant.

Asuka retained her championship against Ember Moon, very much to my surprise. I thought it was time to hand the title over. There has already been speculation that Moon could actually maker her way up to the main roster, at least for a cup of coffee, on Monday just simply because of it would coincide with the eclipse.

And finally Drew McIntyre beat Bobby Roode for the NXT Championship. And then reDRagon showed up again only to distract McIntyre so Adam Cole BAY BAY! could attack him from behind. Cole also just signed with WWE out of Ring of Honor where he had been a member of Bullet Club and is a former ROH World Champion (beating Kyle O’Reilly for the Title at WrestleKindom earlier this year, funnily enough).

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I’m happy they are keeping his Adam Cole baybay gimmick alive, either that or the announcer was marking out too hard. Overall Takeover was lit, altough I wanted Ember win if only so Asuka could finally move up.

I was not impressed with Takeover. The wrestling was fine, but you can really see that the crowd was not into most of the guys here. Asuka vs Ember Moon was the only match I would say is worth going out of your way to see. The crowd was eerily silent for a surprising amount of the night. Adam Cole and reDragon is an odd pairing, and Adam Cole looked absolutely tiny, but we’ll see how things go.
On a somewhat related note, Chris Hero going back to WWE has been a complete waste. I don’t blame the guy for wanting to take one more shot at it, but I think he’ll either retire and become a trainer or go back to the indies in the near future.

Summerslam has been more of a summerputdown as of now. :sleeping:

Braun is singlehandedly saving this ppv for me.

Yeah, Summerslam was quite a mixed bag. Had a couple of completely nonsense and underwhelming finishes. However, both tag team title matches were really good and the main event fatal four-way was excellent.

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I’m a bit behind with Lucha Underground season 3, but I’m really digging the Cueto Cup. I like having such a traditional (from other sports) tournament structure, so you can see weeks and weeks in advance what the possible matchups might be, and what stories will come along with them. Sometimes I’m a bit bemused by the opaque or random-seeming matchups you get with the typical stretches of the show.

I just finished the two quarterfinal episodes, and along with the extra matches, they were all super high level and really fun. Puma vs Fox was as athletic as any bout I’ve seen, which is what I was hoping for. It was only let down by Killshot turning up at the end. Not sure I care about him any more now we have Fox.

The exact opposite style of matchup, Crane vs Mil, was as brutal as I was hoping for. And also really funny. Both those guys have great comic timing.

Can remember who Fenix was up against, so I guess that match wasn’t so memorable. But Pentagon vs Texano was good stuff. Also I could watch the White Rabbit Tribe all day.

But what’s really pushed the drama up a notch is how heel the heels are taking it in the pre-end-credits sections. What goes down with Rey’s family and Famous B and Brenda had me in hysterics. Just so good.

Anyway, on to the semi-finals!

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There is Lucha Libre streaming on Twich, at this very moment. I don’t know why, but it’s happening.

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AAA is the “other” big lucha libre company in Mexico. The more traditional company, CMLL, streams most of its shows on Youtube, but AAA is running highlights on Twitch in the lead up to its big show of the year, Triplemania, at 8pm Eastern tonight. The main event is a giant match between Psycho Clown, a younger star, and a veteran at the end of his career, Dr. Wagner Jr, in a mask vs mask match. Wagner is an all time great wrestler, but he’s hard to work with behind the scenes, so the end result will be very interesting.

I just watched an awesome match and I’d like to share it with you all.
https://youtu.be/4dbStziIADs
it’s the 1994 All Japan Real World Tag League Final, so you get some highlights of other matches before the main event. Giant Baba and Stan Hansen are at the very tail end of their careers. Baba was in his 50s and Hansen in his mid 40s, both beloved veterans of the Japanese scene. Kawada and Taue were part of the new generation of mega talents in All Japan and half of the 4 Corners of Heaven with Misawa and Kobashi. The key question in the match is this: can the old veterans pull out the win, or will the new stars of All Japan prove to be too much? Baba’s stuff looks weird if you’re not used to it, but just listen to how the crowd explodes when he hits a big boot or his signature running neckbreaker. I think my favorite part of the match is when Baba, after getting beat down and beat down for a while, finally tags in Hansen and the Lariat pulls a face that tells you everything. It’s good stuff from the very best time period in All Japan, and it’s a gateway to more, if you like the style.

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Rest in peace Bobby Heenan.
https://youtu.be/rKRI6MfBKMU

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R.I.P.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFdaKRRDkvw

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This hit out of nowhere: Basically all of the on-screen personalities from their wrestling channel are leaving WhatCulture. That is to say Blampied, Pacitti, Jack, King Ross and Sam Driver.

I know they have a lot of detractors, but they helped me a lot getting familiar with the history of wrestling. Speculation is that they are going to start their own YouTube thing. Not sure what will happen to WCPW after this. While the exact reasons are not known, a former writer for WhatCulture piped in explaining what a horrendous ass the boss of WhatCulture is.

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It seems that, on top of the awful working conditions, that they didn’t like the format they were made to take; so hopefully this leads to a better channel that puts their encyclopedic knowledge to good use. I don’t mourn the loss of the talent from wc knowing that the total number of awesome YouTube content will rise as a result. Especially since a lot of third party wrestling media is juvenile at best.

The format for their shows we’re good awful, now let’s hope they make a better experience in presenting that information.

Just finished Hell in a Cell. That was a really good PPV. The Tag Team HIAC match that started it was excellent. The New Day vs. The Usos is definitely the best rivalry currently going but it has to end at some point. I didn’t really care about Rusev vs. Orton so I kind of ignored it. The triple threat match for the U.S. title was also very good. Definitely Corbin’s best match I have seen so far, though I think he was getting a bit carried by Styles and Dillinger. Also very happy that Dillinger got a very good PPV event because I think he is severely underutilized.

The women’s title match, the men’s title match as well as Roode vs. Ziggler were fine. Unfortunately the wrong people won in almost all of them.

And then there is the main event Hell in a Cell match between Shane McMahon and Kevin Owens with a “falls count anywhere” stipulation added. SPOILERS AHEAD Hell in a Cell matches are always kind of crazy, and even more so when Shane is involved. I have no clue why this guy has such a death wish. In any case, the brawling inside was already very good, including a table spot and the always entertaining Coast-to-Coast. And then they went up on the roof. Even though I knew nothing would happen because I would probably have heard off it by now (as I did the twist ending kind of, unfortunately), I still held my breath every time someone dropped onto the roof. The fact that on both the way up and the way down people hung precariously off the side of the cell didn’t help either.

Eventually Owens fell off the side through the Spanish announce table. Instead of pinning him, Shane puts Owens on the american announce table and climbs back up on the roof of the cell. You’d think he’d had learned from his 'mania match against Undertaker last year. No he didn’t and jumps off the roof toward Owens. At the very same moment a black-clad figure appears and drags Owens off the announce table. Shane smashes through the table and is out.

The figure turns out to be Sami Zayn, the most underutilized guy in the whole company who is in a long-standing feud with Owens dating back to December 2014 (if you disregard their feud in ROH before that). In fact, they had a match against each other two weeks before in which Owens power-bombed Zayn onto the ring apron. So it doesn’t exactly make sense why Zayn would do this. Even more, after Shane crashes through the announce table, Zayn pushes away the EMTs and drags a still lifeless Owens onto Shane. Pinfall is counted and the match is over.

I have heard that Zayn was supposed to be given a bigger push after Summerslam, but nothing really happened with him since, hardly even appearing on TV. Not sure if this signifies a heel turn. Speculation is some sort of gaslighting by Owens or similar. In any case Zayn doesn’t really make sense as a Heel. He is just a naturally born babyface.

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AJ Lee talks about her bipolar disorder

https://youtu.be/Iud8wIilY5Q