Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Summerslam 2018

The only real memorable moment of the show.
If it weren’t for one glorious, shining moment, I’d have been uniformly disappointed with Summerslam. That moment though.

Rusev and Lana vs. Andrade “Cien” Almas and Zelina Vega (Pre-Show): Almas/Vega win.

This match was weird garbage. Aiden English wasn’t involved, it was short, and it ended oddly. People were just filling time. (1/1)

Cedric Alexander vs. Drew Gulak (Pre-Show, Cruiserweight Belt): Gulak wins the title.

Nope. Cedric won with a rollup or some bullshit I think after a nothing match. It ended like someone told them it had to end right then. Didn’t showcase either guy. They gotta have a rematch, right? A proper one? On 205? (1/2)

The B-Team vs. The Revival (Pre-Show, Raw Tag Belts):B Team retain.

Yep. Another of their weird fluke victories. This was fine. A good Raw match, a mediocre PPV match. (2/3)

Dolph Ziggler vs. Seth Rollins (Intercontinental): Rollins wins the belt.

This was... excellent? I don’t know. It was good, in the exact same way everyone of Rollins’ and Ziggler’s last fourteen matches have been. They did good work but I’ve seen it too many times in too few weeks to get me excited, and the inclusion of McIntyre and Ambros was minimal. (3/4)

Bludgeon Brothers vs. The New Day (SD Tag Champs): Why match them again just to have the New Day lose again? New Day wins the belts.

Apparently they did this to show that if they ever come close to losing, the Bludgeons will grab their hammers, force a DQ, and beat up the opposing team. New Day tried their best but the ending made this a dud to me. (3/5)

Braun Strowman vs. Kevin Owens (MitB Briefcase On The Line): Fuck it. Owens wins the briefcase.

WHY WAS THIS MATCH A THING? I swear, it was only there so that people would be slightly surprised by Strowman’s attempted cash in later that night. Owens got totally squashed in the first of THREE matches where heels got in zero offense on dominant faces. Which is weird-ass booking any way you look at it. (3/6)

Carmella vs. Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair (SD Women’s): I’m going to say Carmella retains somehow. But I’m not comfortable with it.

The match was solid, the ending was bullshit, with Charlotte pinning Becky with Natural Selection to win the belt again... except that it led to Becky Lynch punching Charlotte’s fucking lights out in the most satisfying main roster moment of the year so far. And she got a HUGE face reaction for it, too. If WWE is smart, they’ll turn Becky into the women’s division’s Stone Cold Steve Austin. If they’re not smart, they’ll try to retroactively make this a heel turn. WWE is generally not smart. (3/7)

AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe (WWE Championship): AJ retains. The feud may continue though. 

Yes to the first, probably to the second. This was as good a match as you’re going to get out of these two guys at this point in their lives, and it featured a mid-match promo, which is always and forever a thing that I love. Joe won by DQ after goading AJ into snapping, but AJ keeps the belt and the cover spot on WWE 2K19. (4/8)

Daniel Bryan vs. The Miz: My gut tells me this is not a program. Bryan wins.

It’s a program. Miz won with a foreign object. They’ll probably wrestle a tepid match inside Hell In The Cell. This was about twice as long as it needed to be for the story it needed to tell. Good beats throughout, good performances throughout, but you could have lost five minutes from this easily. (4/9)

Finn Balor vs. Baron Corbin: Finn Balor wins.

The second face squash of the night, and the only one I agree with in principle. They sprung The Demon on us out of nowhere, with minimal supernatural hooey, and he kicke d Corbin’s ass thoroughly, making it the second match of the night with zero heel offense. (5/10)

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Jeff Hardy (US Title): Nakamura’s definitely retaining somehow. 

He’s retaining by beating Jeff Hardy mostly clean with a Kinshasa. Time for Hardy to go rest up and the rest of us to move on. Post-match, Randy Orton came out, walked to the ring, paused, turned around, and walked away, which is the perfect metaphor for both Randy Orton and most of this Summerslam. (6/11)

Alexa Bliss vs. Ronda Rousey (Raw Women’s): I’m betting they put the belt on Rousey for the publicity and protect her to such a degree that it gets annoying.

That’s exactly what happened. This was barely a match. Bliss got no offense in. She was dominated by Rousey, it was a short match, and Rousey clearly is in no position to be a full time WWE wrestler or a champion. I wish it were different, but it’s not. She’s nowhere near even Shayna Baszler at the last Mae Young Classic level. This reign is gonna be a mess and if the fans turn on her I wouldn’t  be shocked. (7/12)

Brock Lesnar vs. Roman Reigns (Universal Championship): Please, dear God, let it be Reigns.

Before this match, my ideal version of this match was Braun Strowman setting a precedent by csshing in his MITB contract and joining the match as a Triple Threat before it even started, then winning it. Instead, he announced his intention to cash in on the winner, got beat up by both guys outside the ring, got his briefcase taken away, and then Reigns speared Lesnar to win the title. It was a fucking mess but at least the belt is off Lesnar. (8/13)

NXT Takeover Brooklyn IV

The purest of heelage
This show lived up to expecations - it was awesome. Fell a little short in some areas, excelled beyond my wildest dreams in others.

Sunday, August 19, 2018

PREDICTIONS: Summerslam 2018

Oh yeah there’s like fifteen more matches.
Summerslam! The biggest event of the summer! Honestly, it’s a pretyy meh card on paper. We’ll see how it plays out in reality.

Saturday, August 18, 2018

PREDICTIONS: NXT Takeover Brooklyn 4

Fourth time’s the charm! i 
This could literally be the single greatest TakeOver of all time. I mean, it can’t be beat on paper, so unless things go horribly wrong somehow, I’m very much looking forward to this.

Monday, August 6, 2018

Weekly Wrasslin’ Wroundup (Hey Wrestling Happened Edition)

NONE MORE HEEL.
I haven’t been in the mood to write about wrestling for a couple of weeks, partly because of a deep abiding Farpoint obsession (more on that later) that has now cleared up, but there have been some things happening over the past couple of weeks that need to be addressed. Events, if you will, of Significance.

TOMMASO CIAMPA WINS THE NXT CHAMPIONSHIP

This is huge. Tommaso Ciampa is the greatest heel in at least a decade. He is the closest anyone has come to being stabbed by a front row old lady since kayfabe died. And I was thinking this BEFORE Ciampa literally got into it with an old lady in the front row of Full Sail this week. Despite losing nine months of heat due to an injury right as they broke up DIY, Ciampa has managed to minimize even Full Sail smark tendencies to get the boos to 90/10, and the intensity of those boos up to a 12. It’s insane. And now he holds the belt heading into Takeover Brooklyn, one of the hottest Takeovers of the year.

EVOLUTION, THE ALL WOMEN’S PPV

This is a good thing. I like this thing. I hate the way they talk about it in WWE. It’s simultaneously self-aggrandizing and patronizing to the talent. Plus it’s so heavy-handed with the “say this thing that nobody would ever say in this way to satisfy branding requirements” that it’s grating. But I’m looking forward to the show.

REIGNS-LESNAR AT SUMMERSLAM

They are literally doing everything short of having Brock Lesnar eat a puppy in the center of the ring to get people to hate him and cheer Roman Reigns for beating him, and it’s sort of working? I mean, we want anyone to take the belt off Lesnar at this point, even if Reigns is at the bottom of the list. Well, near the bottom of the list. He’s above Lashley and James Ellsworth.

CARMELLA-LYNCH-CHARLOTTE AT SUMMERSLAM

This is disappointing, because they’ve been building Becky Lynch up great for a couple of months now. She gets a shot at Carmella’s title, and then they add Charlotte to the match immediately upon her return from minor surgery. I honestly wanted Lynch to interfere in Charlotte’s qualifying match, but it’ll be interesting to see if they do anything with this dynamic over the next couple of weeks.

SANE-BASZLER AT TAKEOVER

In a Mae Young Classic rematch, Kairi Sane and Shayna Baszler will go at it for the NXT Women’s Title at Takeover Brooklyn. Should be another great match, even if I don’t see Sane winning.

MOUSTACHE MOUINTAIN VS> UNDISUTED ERA AT TAKEOVER

Seriously, how shit hot is this show going to be?