#also CASS was in it. triple win all around!!!

[heroesriseandfall]

So what if it takes just one short story each for me to become obsessed with DC trans characters Jules Jourdain & Xanthe Zhou…

[nightingaelic]

Companions react to the Courier doing the Infinite Money Glitch in casinos.

I had to look this up, OP, and then I had to conceptualize how this would even work in a storytelling context and write it, anyway I hope you're pleased with yourself because my brain feels like a stack of used sandpaper sheets

The courier had been saving up caps for a while, stashing them in odd places around the Lucky 38. Everywhere you looked there were bottle caps: Dresser drawers in the Presidential Suite, empty ice buckets in the cocktail lounge, in jars on every shelf in the penthouse. Saving up caps for big purchases was pretty common behavior in the Mojave wasteland for anyone, so no one batted an eye when the courier assembled all of the stashes on the carpeted floor of the casino and started counting them out, checking six times before stringing them together in batches of 50 and writing down the final total: 32,768.

No, no one so much as blinked when they lugged all 656 strings of caps out the door of the Lucky 38. No one, that is, except the lucky soul who went with them, saw them exchange all the caps for chips at The Tops Casino, then drop the chips in the back of The Aces theater during Bruce Isaac's set and return to the cashier to collect triple the amount of money they walked in with.

Arcade Gannon: Arcade cringed as the courier struggled to drag the haul of caps out the door of The Tops. The jingle of the cap strings was attracting the attention of just about everyone on the Strip, and someone across the street yelled "High roller!"

"This can't be legal," Arcade said.

"Since when..." the courier huffed and puffed, throwing cap strings over their shoulder carelessly, "... do you give a mole rat's ass about legality?"

"What is this?!?" Arcade hissed incredulously, gesturing to the jingling pile. "Is that cashier paying you off? Are those chips the currency for some wasteland tribe I've never heard of, but somehow have a better exchange rate than the NCR does? Did I just witness a payout for a hit on someone?"

The courier sighed and paused to pat the scientist on the shoulder. "Just don't think about it too hard, okay? Now help me out with this, we're going to Doctor Usanagi's to get me tricked out with as many implants as she has on hand."

Craig Boone: While the courier jingled their way across the Strip asphalt, Boone couldn't help noticing the number of eyes turning their way to stare at the enormous payout they were openly carrying. New Vegas was already a town that kept on trucking if its very creator was killed, that was certain: It wouldn't even pause if its latest mastermind was gunned down over a fortune in steel and aluminum crowns. Boone clutched his rifle close and met as many of the curious and envious stares as he could, his own eyes burning protectively behind his sunglasses.

They managed to get all the way back to the Lucky 38 before the courier stopped and spoke to him. "Nothing? Not even a guess about what this is from?"

Boone shrugged. "None of my business. Just don't carry it all at once again. Ever."

Lily Bowen: "Did you win, dearie?" Lily asked, confused. As far as she had noticed, the courier hadn't approached any of the blackjack tables, roulette wheels or slot machines.

"Yeah, Lily." The courier grinned and started handing her strings of caps to carry. "What do you want to spend your winnings on?"

"My winnings?" Lily shook her head. "Now now, pumpkin. You won fair and square, so you get to choose what you buy."

"My treat," the courier insisted. "Anything at all. We could go to the Gourmand for dinner, we could donate to the Followers in Freeside, we could get singing and dancing lessons from the King... what do you want?"

Lily thought for a moment, wracking her brains. "Brahmin for Jacobstown."

The courier looked at her quizzically. "Brahmin? Not bighorners?"

"Brahmin," Lily confirmed, shouldering the strings upon strings of caps. "Bighorners at Jacobstown will make more bighorners, but they have no brahmin. Brahmin are sweet, easier to handle. But no one will sell brahmin to nightkin."

"Okay." The courier nodded. "Then we have to go to the Gourmand for dinner anyway. I know a guy at the Ultra-Luxe who might help."

Raul Alfonso Tejada: "Dios mío," Raul muttered under his breath. "Who did you kill for the Chairmen? They finally paying you back for getting rid of Benny?"

"Pfft." The courier waved him off, dropping a few strings of caps as they did. "Whoops. Help me out here, and I'll buy you a drink."

"A drink?" Raul laughed. "Not the whole bar? You could probably convince the Garret twins to retire if you gave them half of this haul."

"And why the hell would I want to take over the Atomic Wrangler?" The courier shook their head as they loaded the old ghoul up with caps. "I already have one casino I'm incapable of running. The only customers I get are you and the other Mojave misfits."

Raul grinned. "Hey, you invited us in, amigo. We're just the only ones loco enough to ignore the robots and take you up on it."

Rose of Sharon Cassidy: "Oh, sweet squirrel stew." Cass' eyes were as big as the dinner plates in the casino's restaurant. "That's enough change to buy the Van Graffs out of business. That's enough change to tell Alice McLafferty to stick it where the sun don't shine, then back it up with enough muscle to scare her out of the Mojave."

The courier nodded and started handing her strings of caps. "It is also enough change to start funding her competitors and drive her out of New Vegas."

"Now you're talkin'." Cass smirked and accepted the extra weight. "So who're we gonna back? Far Go? The Water Merchants? Gun Runners?"

"Actually..." the courier smiled. "A little birdie told me that the Mojave Express is looking to expand its horizons. Start offering goods in addition to services. And you know me, I like to root for the home team when I can."

Cass laughed. "Well that's a surprise. You plannin' on playin' courier again? Get yourself shot in the head a second time?"

"Not if I can help it."

Veronica Santangelo: "Uhhhh, Six?" Veronica crossed her arms. "I thought we agreed we weren't going to stir up trouble for a bit after the adventure at the dam. This screams 'trouble' to me."

"Aw, lighten up Veronica." The courier winked at her and handed her a string of caps, like a consolation prize. "We're in a casino. The odds aren't in your favor, but at least you can have fun for a bit."

Veronica turned the offering down. "Math may not have been my strongest subject when I was in school, but I do know that 30,000 minus 30,000 does not equal 90,000, under any normal odds. What are you getting yourself- and more importantly, me- into?"

The courier sighed. "It's nothing. Just a little loophole I discovered when I was poking around after Benny's disappearance. I promise, we're not going to get knifed, unless we get waylaid in the street on the way home because I'm too weighed down to move."

Veronica narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "I don't trust this," she said after a few beats, "But I'm also not keen to see you try to fight off a mugger while buried under all those caps. Give me some of that."

ED-E: The eyebot beeped, confused, when the courier stopped it from picking up the chips again. Its beeps increased in volume and frequency as they loaded the little bot up with caps at the cashier's counter, until it was hanging low in the air and having trouble turning around from the increased weight. The courier patted its metal dome reassuringly and loaded up the rest of the haul on themselves, until each step they took sounded like a cascade of sleigh bells.

"Back to the Lucky 38," the courier said, pointing toward the casino door. "I've got a bet I need to settle with Raul."

Rex: Rex whined as the courier hung strings of caps off his back. He sniffed each new addition but stood tall on his metal legs, taking the extra weight admirably until he was virtually buried by the wasteland currency.

"Can you still walk, boy?" the courier asked, when they had lightened their own load.

Rex barked. Satisfied, the courier led the way to the exit, opening the casino door with a jingle and ignoring the strange looks they were getting. The two waddled their way to the Strip's main gate and down the main street of Freeside until they staggered into the King's School of Impersonation.

The King, who had been lounging inside the stage room, jumped up when he saw the pair. "Well ain't that some money, honey," he said, clearly delighted. "You actually went and did it."

"Yep." The courier dropped some strings of caps on the nearest table and leaned over it to rest. "There it is. Now, where do we get started on fixing up Freeside?"

[zorilleerrant]

Can you imagine if Batman dated the Punisher? They’d have to have one of those whole work/home separation dealies like

Frank: These waffles are delicious, thanks, Alfred.

Alfred: A bit of a tradition around here.

Bruce: Yes, they’re a favorite, he’s been making them since Dick -

Jason: Really? We’re having a conversation about breakfast when there’s a murderer at the table?

Bruce: *clears throat*

Jason: Sorry, Dad, another murderer.

Bruce: You know that was not my point, Jason.

Jason: You’re really just going to sit there all quiet, Frankieboy?

Frank: I mean, this seems like a family thing, I don’t -

Jason: Aw, but you’re our new daddy, aren’t you?

Frank: ...

Frank: Well, I guess -

Jason: So you’re okay with my guns, right?

Frank: I still really think I shouldn’t get in the middle of this.

Jason: Wow, some stepfather you are. This is winning you absolutely no points over your competition, you know.

Damian, from the ceiling: I for one hate our new stepdad.

Frank, looking up in horror: *screams*

Bruce: Our relationship is not that serious yet. You guys have to -

Dick: *triple backflips into the room and grabs a waffle*

Frank, now staring at him: Was that also for my benefit?

Dick, suddenly noticing Frank: *screams* *tries to fix his bedhead*

Cass, looking between Frank and Dick: *shrugs* *also screams*

Tim, who has been sitting there the whole time, watching this play out in real time, in genuine confusion: Why is everybody screaming?

Duke, loudly: So, Frank, did you catch the game? Any game at all?

Frank, clearing his throat: Do you watch -

Damian: Jason’s right, you know. It is pretty hypocritical of you, Baba.

Alfred: Master Damian, as much as we all appreciate the two of you agreeing on something, will you please get off the chandelier?

Dick: You reinforced it when you repaired it. It’ll probably be fine. Are we talking about the guns or the murder?

Bruce: Preferably, neither.

Jason: I just don’t see why he’s allowed to do murders and I’m not.

Bruce: You are a child, Jason, you can’t -

Tim: Boo, I call foul.

Cass: Just Damian. We voted.

Damian: Tch.

Bruce: Look, we have an agreement that -

Dick: You could probably have that agreement with Jason.

Jason: Yeah, you never punch Frank in the face.

Frank: Not at home, anyway.

Bruce: Jason, I don’t hit you when -

Jason: See, Frankie, you’re dating a child abuser! He just admitted he totally punches me in the face when I do murders.

Frank: He punches me in the face when I do murders, too! No. No. I’m not getting into this. We’re having breakfast.

Jason: Ha! Murderer.

Bruce: He doesn’t kill people in Gotham, so it -

Jason: Oh, not this again, really? In Gotham, really?

Damian: That’s the city I’m heir to that you’re disparaging right now, Jason. I think it makes perfect sense.

Jason: Oh, yeah, then where should I kill people?

Damian: *looks away*

Cass, shaking her finger at him: Bad Jason. No murder. No.

Dick: Frank may be right and this may not be a breakfast conversation.

Tim, dreamily: On the moon.

Duke: Why did I move in with you people?

Bruce: ...

Bruce, under his breath: Metropolis.

Alfred, loudly: More strawberries, anyone?

Frank, loudly: That sounds lovely, Alfred.

[river-bottom-nightmare]

Gravity

He’s 6 years old and Dat is pushing him off the ledge, laughing in his ear as he swings over to Dya, and when he reaches the other edge, she picks him up and hugs him and says not even gravity can hold you down, my little robin.

He’s 8 years old and about to perform for the first time, the excitement and nervousness threading together in his blood, and Pop Haly pats him on the shoulder and gives him a smile, not the fake one he used for the crowd but the real one that he tries so hard to copy because it makes him feel warm and happy, and he says, you’ve got this kiddo, gravity’s got nothing on a Grayson.

He’s 9 years old and trying to brighten up the stifling silence of the Manor the only way he knows how, by swinging and jumping and being as lively as he can to make up for the deadness of the walls, and he’s hanging from the chandelier because who knew they could support so much weight?, and from underneath Alfred calls up I do wish you would pretend the laws of gravity existed, Master Richard.

He’s 10 years old and fighting crime, a proud ray of sunlight flitting around the darkness of the bat, and a thug’s got a gun pointed at Bruce’s head, not the flashy kind in the movies but the real kind from the military, so before Bruce can react, he flips up onto the man’s shoulders and swings around his arms, forcing the gun to the ground, before jumping back up on a fire escape so Batman can take him down, and Bruce looks up at him with a softened grimace that he knows is secretly a smile and says I guess ignoring gravity works in our favor, right Robin?

He’s 11 years old and in the Watchtower meeting the Justice League for the first time, perched on Bruce’s shoulders, and when Hal Jordan asks whether or not a kid can even survive as a vigilante, let alone win fights, he twirls up into the air, back-flipping off a wall before spring-boarding into Hal’s chest, then swiping his legs out from underneath him before Hal can even blink, and when he returns to Bruce’s shoulders, he beams with pride when he hears Barry ask, does gravity not affect the kid at all?

He’s 13 years old and laughing harder than he has in ages, showing off his skills on the silk for an awestruck Wally, because there’s a new kid superhero and he’s already decided he wants to be Wally’s best friend and he wants to impress him, so he makes his drops as dramatic as he can and he makes his knee holds look effortless and tries to be as graceful as Dya was on the silk, and he knows it’s worth it when Wally lets out a breathless Dude, it’s like you’re ignoring gravity on purpose that is SO COOL!!

He’s 17 years old and perched on a ledge up in Titans tower, thinking of last night when Kori had pressed him into the bed and wondering why a small part in the back of his mind wished he was watching movies and eating pizza with Wally instead, but he dismisses those thoughts and puts on a smile when Kori floats up to him and says it seems we both cannot be held back by gravity.

He’s 18 years old and on the mat, training with Jason, because yes he was beyond angry at Bruce and yes, he was bitter there was a new kid taking his name, but damn if that didn’t stop him from trying to teach the kid how to stay alive because he knows firsthand what this life does to people and what living with Bruce does to people, so he shows Jason how to kick someone while coming out of a backflip purely out of obligation and ignores the little twinge of fondness in his heart whenever Jason says you’re fuckin’ forgetting about gravity, dude.

He’s 20 years old and trying to look at Tim without seeing Jason and it’s hard, it’s so hard, but bit by bit, the kid worms his way into Dick’s heart, (and him saving Bruce from himself doesn’t hurt), until they’re at the point where they’re hanging out and Dick only feels vaguely guilty for enjoying his company, so he busts out some old tricks that he used to do with the Titans, and gives Tim a sun-lit smile when he says okay, technically I know how you did that but also it looks like gravity just doesn’t affect you how the in the world did you do that-

He’s 22 years old and quietly trying to coax Cass from her room, because she hasn’t left it in a week and a half and he doesn’t know how else to connect to her, how else to get her to open up, when he remembers the light in the audience’s eyes when he used to perform, mirrored in Wally’s eyes when he did a routine just for him, so he goes into the dimly lit bedroom and asks Cass if she wants to see a trick, and when she hesitantly nods, he does a triple backflip and laughs when her eyes widen and she signs I did not know you could defy gravity.

He’s 23 years old and crushed by the weight on his shoulders, constantly two seconds away from breaking down completely because Bruce is dead and Tim’s off on a wild goose chase that will get him killed and Jason’s back but he’s different, angrier than he ever was and on a murdering rampage and refusing to speak to anyone, and Cass is in Tokyo trying to venture out on her own, so he’s shouldering all of Bruce’s responsibilities to the city and to the Justice League and to the world and on top of all that, Bruce has a son, a rude, lonely, touch-starved assassin of a son that he can’t think of anything to do with but make him Robin, except Damian is rejecting his advances of kinship, too stubborn to learn anything he tries to teach him, so he stays on that brink of exhaustion about to fall over the cliff, but every time he flies and flips through the air, weightless, if only for a moment, Damain draws him back from the edge with a glimpse of wonder concealed behind his eyes and a somewhat envious not all of us flaunt the rules of physics in gravity’s face every other day, Grayson.

He’s 25 years old and happy, truly happy for the first time in a long while because Bruce is back and Jason’s formed a sort of tentative peace with the family and is living with Roy and Kori and he trusts them to look after him, and Tim’s back as Red Robin, the bags under his eyes and the slump of his shoulders getting a little lighter every week he spends with Kon, Bart, and Cassie, and Cass has befriended Steph, and Damian’s given up the League of Assassins for his family, and he’s becoming kinder and opening up more every day, and his family is all here together, so in the Batcave, he goes to the lyra and silk set Bruce had installed when he was a kid, and he just plays for a long time, the feeling of flying through the air a blessing again rather than a curse, and from his wineglass hang on the lyra he can see Tim at the computer with Bruce and Damian and Cass sparring, and he knows Jason dropped by for tea with Alfred yesterday, so when Bruce looks up at him and says gravity never did affect you all that much, did it, Dick? he lets loose the most warm, golden, sun-filled laugh that he can.

[starfirette]

Hello! Can u please write Helena Bertinelli with a Fem!reader tomboy that's a muay thai fighter and look like super cool and cold,but in the apartment its a very soft and lovely girlfriend with Helena? (And how the birds will react when them met her) Thank you,I Love you writing and HELENA IS SUCH A BAE!!! THIS GAL NEED MORE LOVE AND SUPPORT!❤

masterlist | word count: who fucking knows | 🏷 @kurreapormaranet @emofairygay​ | a/n: ;0 There are some things you might want to look up on youtube so you have a general idea of what’s happening. Clinch positions, tactical stand ups, thips

The rink’s seats filled massively, stretching to every wall that bounced the cheering back and forth. 

The overall mission seemed simple, but it had Helena dreading this moment since Harleen explained what needed to happen. 

The trust fund brat of the devilish Rossini family kidnapped the Rossini’s pride and joy: their little baby girl, Ayala. Ayala Rossini, four years old, is the Brat’s younger half sister and the new written in heir of the Rossini fortune. The Brat, Carmen, had been written out of the will after she kidnapped the new little bird Batman was keeping under his wing. She’d been sloppy and left behind all marks of her family’s (unbeknownst) involvement. She made serval costly mistakes which included Batman’s uncovering of the Rossini family’s plans of Gotham, Star, and Jump city. Half the family became arrested.

Carmen was all but disowned by her father, whom she already resented for marrying another woman so quick after the death of her mother. To get her revenge, she kidnapped Ayala.

So, Mr and Mrs Rossini employed Harley and her rag tag team of anti-hero thugs.

To get Ayala back, the girls would have to go undercover.

Their heroic deed would get them 30k each, so that was good enough. The Rossinis are precise and focuses; they’d been willing to pay as much as they had to in order to ensure the safety of their little crime lord baby.

Now Harley had her connections. She knew a guy who knew a guy who saw a friend with a girl outside of the 31 Flavors ice cream shoppe, and this girl just happened to know that Carmen spends her free time hosting epic fights in the secret tunnels of Smallville.

It’s a long ways away from Gotham, but is a perfect place to host such gatherings. The fights are frightfully violent and brutal. Also very illegal. No one would ever know that beneath the wheat and corn fields of Lil’ Ol’ Smallville county lays an intricate mafia maze.

Carmen Rossini is notorious for entertaining the winners to a “fine dinner with wine”. The rumors go that she runs an entire harem of Thai Fighting women, using them for sexual favors and personal security.

The entire mission is actually depending on that rumor.

The plan was to send in Dinah as a participant in the rink and hope she would win and earn the attention of Carmen. 

But then Dinah got bronchitis. It was a nasty case, too, in which she wouldn’t stop coughing and hacking up green stuff into tissues. 

The entire thing would have been called off if you hadn’t admitted that you are, in fact, trained in Muay Thai. 

You’re positive that Helena would have rather kept this a secret, because she doesn’t like putting you in harms way. It’s a nuisance to have the world’s most protective girlfriend. Heaven forbid you even get a paper cut, else she’d make you wear rubber gloves while you read a book. 

The entire group (save Helena) jumped for the chance to replace Dinah with you. You’d do perfect, Harley said, sounding so confident. 

You intended to be flawless in the ring. 

You’d not competed since high school, when Muay Thai was still just a recreational hobby. You’d had your wins and losses, but that was before you grew up to spend majority of your time fighting mafia crime lords. 

Once Dinah officially relinquished her role of the mission, you took to the heavy bags. The repetitions became intense and harsh in the following weeks. You spent every night limping into bed. 

Your sweet whispers that begged Helena for a soothing massage fell onto her deaf ears. She is stubborn, and she had been attempting to force you out of this competition since the day you’d agreed to it. 

You were not afraid of Carmen, or anyone else she’d make you fight against. For the sake of the little Ayala, you would do this. Besides, you tell yourself, what’s the worst that could happen? With the Birds and their abilities, there isn’t much that could happen. 

Nothing would slide through the cracks. 

Hopefully. 

The day did come faster than you’d imagined, though. The drive to Smallville was tense, especially in the backseat where Helena was frostily ignoring you. 

Harleen was road raging, passing every trucker on the two way road that didn’t exceed 65 miles an hour. 

“You know the speed limit is 45, right?” Montoya asked after she had taken a long drag of a cigarette. She had her legs propped up on the dash. Between her and Harley sat Cass, who was oblivious to the chaos around her as she sang along to a pop Spanish song. “Yeah, and?” Harley quipped. She cast her bright eyes towards Montoya, a wicked smile playing on her lips.“You gonna arrest me?” 

Montoya couldn’t do much but sigh in defeat. If Harley didn’t mind crashing, then she didn’t either. 

Between the bickering and the loud singing of the three front passengers, you and Helena were sitting silently in the very back seats. Your head was leaned up against the window which rattled as the tires of Harley’s ‘64 Starfire rolled across the gravely road. 

Helena had been refusing to speak to you since the fight you got into last night. It was a real fight. She’s made it clear that she’s against you fighting in Carmen’s ring, and is especially against you joining her harem. 

You’d first thought she was afraid of disloyalty; you had promised her that you wouldn’t ever cheat on her, even if it was for a mission. But it became revealed that’s not what Helena was worried about. 

She feared for your life. She fears for your life every single day. No matter how small of a task, she can’t help but worry. She lost her mother, father, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles; everyone. She’d been so helpless. She could only watch as she became the sole Bertinelli. 

Helena couldn’t live on if something happened to you. 

The fight ended on a confusing note. It didn’t end, per say, and you two did sleep in the same bed. However, neither of you has said a word to each other. You tried this morning, but she’d given you the snippy, cold shoulder. 

As much as you hate putting her through so much anxiety, you know that you can’t back down. A girl’s life is at stake; it’s not the money you care about. Not to mention Carmen Rossini is about to make the top 50 worst criminals in Gotham County. 

Harley rolled the car to a stop around a patch of gravel and dust. Everyone climbs out, rocks crunching under their shoes as they stretch and look around. 

“Where is it?” Cass asks, shoving her hands in the pockets of her loose denim jacket. Her chapped lips are stained blue from the tootsy pop that she’d crunched on in the car. The soggy stick now hung from her lips, as if she had been imitating Montoya’s cigarette. 

Harley locked, double checked, then re locked, then triple checked her car. She turned around, using her hands to shield her vision as she scanned the open wheat fields. “Dunno,” she admitted. “I guess I supposed someone woulda been here to meet us.” 

You shifted on your feet. You wanted to try and make Helena happy before you’d at least go inside and get in the ring. The only issue is, she’ll only be happy if your forfeit now. 

You would not. 

Across the way, by a few yards at most, a rustling came through the wheat that came at least up to your hips.

A young man emerged; he approached the Birds with a guarded look that furrowed his thick, blond eyebrows. “You are Carmen’s guests, yes?” 

He spoke with a thick accent. His honey blond hair contrasted his coffee brown features. He had a handsome face with a strong jaw, but something about him seemed off. He seemed intimidated despite being taller and broader than most. 

“We are,” you answered for the Birds. “I am Y/n. I am the contestant.” 

The man beckons you all forward. Helena glared at him, her hand steadily tapping the outside of her thigh. She was prepared to draw her gun and shoot anyone that could get in her way. In your way. 

You tasted a bitter foam in your mouth as you attempted to stop Helena without raising too much attention. 

“We––I––am here for the  Carmen’s...event.” 

The honey blond man tallied the Birds on his fingers, visibly distressed. “I do not thinka’ Miss Rossini expected so many of you...” 

After a brief, strangled silence, the man shook his head and waved his arm along to escort you. “The bunker is just this way,” he explained. Harley and Cass walked after him. 

Helena meets your eyes. Her gaze is firm, and maybe even angry. No way could you defuse that situation while still heading into the rink. 

The wheat and grass crunched under your boots as you marched across the pace-by-pace clearing. A trap door in the ground lifted up swiftly, silently, as if they grease the hinges every damn day. 

You remembered how this turned out for Suzie Salmon; casting one more look over your shoulder, you assured yourself with the presence of Helena. 

Down the hatch, under the ground, you, Harley, Cass, Helena, and Mr Cannoli over here shuffled down the hall to a big dressing room. The entire layout felt more like a stadium then an underground crime rink. The dressing room has lush sofas and fur blankets; in the corner a SodaStream is mounted on an Ikea book table. 

“Miss Rossini will join you shortly,” Cannoli-guy told you, nodding his head regally. He bowed out of the room, shutting the heavy oak door after him. 

Cass jumped on the sofa. She sprawled out over the furs, kicking her muddy Chuck Taylors up. “Luxury.” 

Harley snipped to Cass to get her dirty little feet off the merchandise. 

You took a seat in the swivel chair in front of the large mirror. It looked like pure Broadway with the heavy lightbulbs that wreathed the glass. 

“Can’t say they don’t know how to entertain a guest,” Harley squealed as she migrated to the SodaStream. “They got homemade cream soda!” 

Cass jumped off the sofa to run after Harley. 

Instead of facing you, Helena took a heavy seat on the couch. Her legs spread out, looking spectacularly muscular in her tight, black pants. 

Unfortunately, you’re too annoyed with her to go lounge in her lap. 

As much as you’d like to make amends, you know the only way to do that would be to back down. You’re going into that rink.

The door flew open at the second Harley had poured herself and Cassie a drink. 

Carmen Rossini strutted in and you stared in awe. You tried not to let your jaw drop. Tall, voluptuous. Her hair is wavy auburn, her eyes deepest green. 

She looked at you immediately. Reaching out for you as if you were the messiah, she chuckled. “You’re even cuter in person! Oh, sweetie, you––you do know how to drive a hard bargain. Your agent Harleen contacted me, where is she?” 

Harley waved her hand from the corner. “That would be me. Ain’t Y/n a real figure?” 

Scowling, Helena crossed her legs. She glared up at Carmen, and you remembered that Carmen is doing what Helena hates the most; complimenting you. 

It’s not so much that Helena doesn’t like that you receive compliments; it’s just that she prefers giving them to you. 

“I’m so happy to see you all here tonight,” Carmen said, clapping her hands loudly. “There’s nothing more exciting than tonight’s event. Did you know,” she cooed as she ‘boop’ed your nose, “that I’ve got people betting about two million dollars that you’ll win? I am so, so pleased that you’ve chosen to make your debut in my arena.” 

You nod, your neck stiff. “I guess I’m excited?” you mumbled. 

Carmen snapped her fingers. She signaled to one of her lackies to come forward. A box Is presented at your feet. 

“I hope you don’t mind, but I brought you a little something. A uniform of your own, courtesy of moi. Don’t you love it? I had your photos analyzed by a fashion expert, and they designed your shorts to compliment you perfectly.” 

The high waisted, Thai shorts are a deep ivory shade, with black flowers sewn into the design. They’re the most beautiful Thai shorts you’d ever seen! Your own were cute, but simple, considering that you didn’t usually think to be a fashionista while working out. 

“They’re amazing,” you admitted. Over the top? Definitely. Did you expect anything else? Honestly, you’re not sure. You weren’t sure what to expect. 

“Oh! I almost forgot.” Carmen, as she smiled, reached into the deep pocket of her red silk kimono-blouse. In her hands is a thickly wound prajoud, made of fine threads and paracord. The black and red jumped out at you like an old friend.

“I hope I got the rank right?”

“You did,” you say as you took the prajad from Carmen. “I could have brought my own if you’d asked.”

“It’s really not a big deal, my darling,” Carmen purred. She ran her hand through your hair, taking note of the silky feeling of each strand. “I will be watching. There will be people outside the door waiting to escort you to the arena when you’re done dressing.”

Her fingers are heavy with her bejeweled rings. The heavy tear shaped gems get tangled in your hair.

“You have ten minutes,” Carmen adds.

Helena glowered after her as she flitted out of the room. Her heels clacked down the hallway following the click of the door shutting in place.

Montoya took a long drag of her cigarette before she  chortled.“You just gonna let her mark her territory like that?”

Helena didn’t say anything.

“Oi, Katniss,” Harley said loudly.

Helena’s cloudy eyes finally look to her friend. “What?”

“Carmen Rossini basically stole Y/n from you, and you let her!”

As you pulled out of your jeans, you sent Harley a little glare. “No one owned me to begin with,” you snapped.

“Hey, I’m all for women’s rights,” Harley exclaimed. “But it just seemed like—,”

“I know what it seemed like,” you snapped. “That’s the entire goddamn point, isn’t it? Get in her good graces?”

Case choked back her soda. “If that’s your idea of getting in Carmen’s creepy ‘good graces’ you gotta do better than that. You didn’t act sexy or flirt back at all!”

Helena stood to her feet. She brushed down the front of her black zip-up sweater. “I’m waiting outside,” she declares before stomping out with a frown wrung on her mouth.

Harley grimaced as the door slammed shut.

“Kid, come on,” Montoya sighed.

“I’m right,” Cass scowled. “You know that I am. We knew from the start that in order to get the little girl back, sexual favors would probably have to be granted.”

You pulled up your shorts. “Can everyone shut up?” You asked.

“What’s that?” Cass proceeded to ask, given she couldn’t talk about Carmen anymore. She pointed at the arm band that lay over the counter.

“Prajoud,” you tell her. Thank you pulled out of tour shirt. The heavy duty sports bra was already in place, but it gave you major uniboob.

“What does it do?” Cass asked again. Unable to contain her curiosity, she grabbed it off the vanity and fiddled with it. 

“It’s like a belt,” you explained. “Instead of wearing a black belt, I wear a black prajad.” 

“Who come up with that?” Cass asked. 

“Uhm, Thai people?” Harley said as though it should be obvious. She snorted and jerked her thumb towards Cass. “Get a load of this guy.” 

You rolled your eyes. “It’s alright to ask questions, guys, just try not to be annoying. ‘M a little stressed out already.” 

Harley took a final gulp of her soda. “Well, I guess we know who’s not getting action tonight. And that’s Y/n!” 

“Why is Helena so upset anyways? Because Carmen was flirting?” 

“No,” Harley explained. “See, she’s angry because Y/n’s going out and doing this fight, one, without asking her to begin with, two, for some other little kid, and three, with a evil Italian mafia tigress. She’s projecting her childhood fear that she’ll never be able to protect anyone she loves. She’s also rash, irritable, and possessive, so it’s just a cherry on top that the plan includes Y/n using her charms to sway Carmen.” 

“Bravo,” you plainly say. “It’s almost like you’re a doctor or something.” 

“Yeah,” Harley grinned. “Or something.” 

You pulled the prajad over your forearm. You pulled the band tight, holding the laces in your mouth so you could knot it tight with one hand. You looked in the mirror, unsure of what to think of yourself. 

You kicked your boots off next. 

In socks, you turned to look at Harley and Cass. “Let’s do this,” you sighed. 

Helena had been waiting loyally outside, leaned up against the jamb. Her eyes flitted up and down your figure, before rolling up towards the ceiling. “Let’s do this,” you said, sounding as if you’d already lost. 

Marching down the hall in tow of the honey blond Italian, you tried to make eye contact with Helena. She was good at ignoring you. You’re not sure if it’s because she’s angry, stressed, or both. 

Riddled with anxiety, you wish that she would look at you, or hold your hand at the very least. 

At the entrance of the arena, you could see it was filled massively to the brim of its walls. You hadn’t realized how far underground you really are until you looked at the expansive seating. The rink’s seats filled massively, stretching to every wall that bounced the cheering back and forth. 

You stepped to the stairs that wound up to the cage. You could smell the sweat and the matts; above the sound of the crowd cheering, you could hear your blood rushing fast in your ears. 

“Find Ayala,” you muttered in Harley’s ears. “I don’t want to be here longer than we have to be.”

Her blue eyes sparkled with mischief, but they were momentairly dulled by a silent question. “I thought...?”

“No,” you said firmly. “We shouldn’t be here any longer than we have to be,” you tell her. “I’ll stay here, I’ll do my thing; you take everyone and look for that girl. If you’re not done by the time the match is over, I’ll distract Carmen.” 

Harley couldn’t respond by the time you were dragged up the stairs. Outside the cage’s gate, you were given a little table at which you could rest at. It had a pitcher of ice water, some glasses, a washcloth, and a bottle of brandy. You took a large drink of the brandy first. You peeled off your socks. 

It felt like a blur as you stepped into the cage. 

Your opponent was your size; she looked your weight, too. You suppose that’s fair, at least. It’s not like in the movies. The real competitions are done by weight and height. 

You turned your head to give one last glance to your friends. 

Helena stood beyond the cage, her hand resting over the gun holster. Her eyes were fixated on you. 

You had to look away. 

Tying your hair up in a tight bun, you walked out onto the mat. Your opponent did the same; meeting you half way, you two shook hands. 

You didn’t exchange names; that would only make it harder. 

“The rules,” a voice boomed around the stadium, “are there are no weapons to be permitted in the arena. Please watch as the fighters return to their corners then begin the match on the sound of the bell. The match will consist of two rounds, each lasting seven minutes.” 

You hovered in the corner of the cage. You stretched and jogged in place. You have enough training for this. You do. You know that you can do it; hopefully, you will. 

The bell rang. You take a massive sprint out into the middle of the ring where your opponent had already paced out. 

You wound up a punch. Your feet lifted off the mat as you leap into the air, and you delivered the blow to the side of her face. 

Her teeth crunched under the impact. It was such a hit that you saw it spew out of her mouth, and hit the cage. 

The crowd exploded into a frenzy. 

Hovering at your face your hands remained in constant motion. Her kicks were well calculated and her movements tactical. She gave away all of her tricks, though, by looking twice at the target she would next go for. If she looked at your side once too many times, you would crouch and use your arms to block your ribcage. 

The sweat that built up made the more precise attacks difficult. Your punch began sliding off her face, keeping you staggering forward, and in her wide open range. 

You were struck once, twice, then thrice on your left cheek. It sent blood and saliva dribbling down your chin. 

Your prajad began to slip as you struggled to regain your balance. 

The girl’s long leg extended forward. Her foot jabbed a strong thip into the center of your stomach, practically digging against your bladder. 

The bell rang, then, marking the end of the first round. 

You fell into your corner with a wheezing gasp. You crawled for the little table. You drank directly from the pitcher. 

You looked back to the crowd, half expecting to see a flash of unfamiliar faces. 

Helena still remained at the ringside. Her hands are clenched through the cage, and her eyes are desperate to meet yours. You were confused. Why hadn’t she left with Harley? Did Harley not need her? Or did she want to stay and watch? 

You felt stronger with her just a few yards away. 

You staggered to your legs, where your knees wobbled like jello on a plate. 

The two minutes of rest time had ended, and the bell rang once more. You slid back rather than go for her first. 

She sauntered to you like a bear, her shoulders hunched and her fists close to her face. She swung hooks and uppercuts that you could just barely dodge. You were close to slipping backwards a few times. 

“Y/n, watch out!” Helena shouted suddenly. 

You couldn’t see the girl racing towards you like a battering ram through your blurry vision. Her fist slammed over your temple. You swore you could feel your brain tumbling around your skull as you fell to the floor. 

You clutched your ear with your bare hands. Pain gushed out of you like water. You thought you could see it, visibly, as it poured down bright green and crystalline. 

It wasn’t there; it was the spots dancing in front of you. Disorientation is a real bitch. 

One tactical standup later, you’re back up on your feet. You pushed yourself forward, forcing the remaining energy you had out of your hands. You grabbed the girl by her long pony tail and dragged her into a tight clinch. She attempted to swim out of it; the friction of her wrists against your neck burned. 

You tugged her down, driving a sharp knee into her stomach. She stayed in your clinch for a long time, gasping for air as she couldn’t evade the knees. You finally released her. She staggers back. She falls onto her ass, visibly shaken up and at a loss for breath. 

The crowd began to scream at you. Some did a countdown, others urged the other girl to get back up. 

It was too late for her. 

The bell rang, marking the end of the seven minutes, as well as the second round. She had lost, and you had won. 

You limped towards her. Despite your own pain, you lifted the girl onto her feet. 

“Good game?” she rasped. 

“Hell yeah,” you wheezed. 

It felt like the ultimate orgasm to go back and gulp down the water. The cold, damp washcloth made a good compress for your busted lip. You judged by the twitching of your left eyelid that you had a pretty sizable welt there. 

Helena ran to meet you as you limped down the stairs out of the cage. She threw her arms around you tightly. “You’re alright,” she gasped. 

You tried to hug her back. Your arm hung loosely over her lower back as you tried to laugh. “Did you doubt that I would be?” you asked her. “Where’s Harley and Cass? Montoya?” 

“They went to find the girl,” Helena said in your ear. “I couldn’t leave you...I had to stay and watch. I had to make sure.” 

She pressed a kiss into the crook of your neck. “Let’s go,” you said firmly, “before Carmen comes for us.” 

Helena helped you leave the arena. By the time you vanished, the stadium was already announcing it’s second match, featuring a woman named Selina. The people went into a hectic frenzy of excitement when Selina’s name was announced over the speakers. You knew as you were walking out she would never be able to escape this place. 

Honey-blond-haired Italian guy jogged to keep up with you. “Miss Carmen asks that you wait in the dressing room,” he called out. “Yeah, yeah,” Helena called out. “We’ll be there.” 

He followed you down the hallway, keeping several paces back to maintain a steady watching distance. He paused as he watched you and Helena head straight into the dressing room. 

Sitting on the sofa inside is Harley, Cass, and a little girl sleeping in Harley’s arms. You were shocked. For a four year old girl, Ayala was incredibly small and fragile looking. Her olive skin and auburn hair is just like her elder sister’s. The hollows beneath her eyes are dark and colored by her greenish veins. 

“Let’s scadadle,” Harley hissed as she rose to her feet, though struggling to keep Ayala in her arms. 

You all rushed out of the hallway, quickly as to make it before Carmen could come back from the arena. 

“Where’s the exit?” Cass asked. 

“It’s this way,” Helena says. She pointed straight down the hallway. “The car’s waiting for us above the trap door.”

“Yeah, unless someone stole it,” Cass mocked. “What if we get locked in? Like in Hotel California?” 

You could hardly begin to understand what Cass was saying. Her words were jumbles of sounds and her figure a blur of her dark hair and red jacket. 

“We’re not getting locked in,” Harley exclaimed. “Let’s just get outta here!” 

Helena climbed up the ladder first. She punched the door up, then open. “Give me the kid,” she said quietly. 

Harley struggled to lift Ayala up. 

Helena scooped her easily into her strong arms. Ayala stirred awake and whined as she became more and more aware. “I want to go home,” she mumbled, her voice quiet and empty. 

“We’re taking you home, pumpkin,” Helena assured the little girl. “I’ve got you.” 

As Cass was going up the ladder, a loud clatter arose down the tunnel. “Uh oh, spaghetti-os,” Harley whistled. She pushed you up the ladder next. “I’ll meet you guys up there,” she promised, sounding entirely confident. “Montoya,” she whistled between her teeth. “Feel like doing some target practice?” 

It was the first time all day that Montoya smiled. 

As you climbed up, you heard Harley’s shrill laugh between the shots of two, little handguns.

“Into the car,” you wheezed to Cassie. She looped her arms around your waist to help you limp into your seat. “Buckled in?” you heard Helena ask the little girl. She looked so shy despite all that’s going on. The curls of her hair were brushed behind her ear as Helena held her tightly. “You’re going back to your parents.” 

Harley came running out seconds later. “Let’s get this show on the road,” she exclaimed. 

“You have the keys!” Cassie shouted back. 

Harley jumped into the drivers seat. She honked the horn loudly. “Renee, let’s move it!” 

Montoya was limping a few feet away, struggling to keep up Harley’s pace. She crawled inside and as soon as she did, Harley pressed the gas, and sped away. 

“Smoking is so bad for you, you know that, right?” Harley chastised. “Maybe if you just used the nicotine patches I bought you for Christmas, then you wouldn’t have so much trouble keeping up with us.” 

“Take the patches,” Montoya huffed, “and shove them up your ass.” 

You couldn’t help but laugh. You leaned back into the headrest of the rear seats. Helena held Ayala beside you, stroking her hair gently as she held her cellphone to Ayala’s ear. Her parents were on the other end, and you could hear the cries of relief. 

You met Helena’s gaze, and you managed a smile on your busted mouth. 

“I love you,” you mouth to her. 

“I love you, too,” she replied. 

[daleisgreat]

WrestleMania 35

As of this writing, WrestleMania 36 is set to air in two days, and due to the fallout from the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, will be airing taped from an empty arena a couple weeks prior, and over two nights. I have been advocating for two night ‘Manias since the WWE Network era of PPVs have caused WrestleManias having bloated cards and lasting nearly SEVEN hours when factoring in the pre-show matches. Since it is WrestleMania week, I am here to continue my annual tradition of watching the previous year’s installment on BluRay and break it all down here. I broke up watching the nine-ish hours of BluRay content over a few days, which lead for a more non-overkill experience, and I ended up enjoying the overall show exponentially more this way as you will soon read on. Now even though the BluRay has around nine hours of content on the disc, the cumulative total of content the BluRay unlocked for me was about 12 hours by including a digital copy of not only the PPV, but also a digital only copy of the Hall of Fame ceremony that preceded WrestleMania a couple days prior. For the second straight WrestleMania BluRay, the Hall of Fame is not included on the disc, and is instead replaced with the following night’s RAW in its entirety, which here is just over two hours when taking out all the ad breaks.

The Hall of Fame ceremony this year saw Jerry Lawler replaced as the host with Corey Graves & Renee Young, complete with grimace-caliber jokes of the stereotypical award show variety. The 2019 ceremony also saw a different setup with a ring in the center of the arena where all the speeches were delivered, and while it provided a nice visual, it also made it easier for an overzealous fan to run in and attack cancer and stroke survivor, Bret Hart during his speech. I recall getting the faintest look at the guy before cameras cut away and at first thinking because of the goofy hair that it was Enzo again up to shenanigans a few months after dancing in the front rows of the crowd at Survivor Series, but was then further perplexed to find out minutes later that Enzo and Cass did a worked shoot run-in at the G1 Supercard concurrently taking place. It turned out it was a fan with mental health issues, and obviously WWE cut out the run-in on the final Hall of Fame video cut, and the only thing apparent of something happening is that after a cut to the crowd, Bret Hart’s hair is suddenly tangled up. If you have not witnessed that brazen fan run-in, click or press here for fan-phone footage of proceeding to get pounced by countless wrestlers almost instantly. Bizarre fan attack aside, it was a much brisker ceremony (only three and a half hours!) thanks in part to no Hillbilly Jim speech this year (which was deservingly poked at this year), and a couple inductees not having inductions either, and the ones that did must have had strict time limits because I do not recall an inductor going longer than five minutes. Honkey Tonk Man set the stage with the fun-gimmick from the Rock ‘n Wrestling years, with a groovy entrance and exit, complete by singing his song on the way out and doing a noticeably better performance than Double J the year prior. Torrie Wilson’s speech felt more of a Ted Talk, but still heartwarming and inspirational and I will give her all the benefit of the doubt considering her father and former on-screen talent and Dawn Marie love interest, Al Wilson passed away two days prior. Also pleasant was seeing Stacy Kiebler break her 13-year WWE absence by inducting her.

The legacy class of 2019 had another ten inductees with brief 20-30 second video pieces on each. Most of them are more classic pre-cable TV era wrestlers, but some are more recently noteworthy and remembered like SD Jones, Bruiser Brody and Luna Vachon and in my opinion more deserving of traditional inductions. I hope if WWE keeps this up they will at least have a family member do a separate video induction and include it on their website for a more proper way to remember these legacy stars. The Hart Foundation was the next inductee, with Natalya accepting for her father, The Anvil. Bret and Naddie gave the successful Rock ‘n Wrestling era tag team a fitting induction, filled with classic stories from their days in one of the most successful periods of tag teams in WWE history. Brutus Beefcake gave a surprisingly good speech for his induction, as did the Hulkster for inducting him as he laid out how he broke Brutus into the business. Kind of surprising it happened considering the recent disparaging comments between the two with Brutus’s tell-all biography from a couple years earlier, but maybe it ‘was all a work brother!’ Props to Brutus for giving the Doctors who saved him from his terrible parasailing accident their kudos, and for calling out Shawn Michaels for still owing him for his barbershop window! The Warrior Award went to Sue Ajtheson, a backstage WWE official who is largely responsible for their Make-a-Wish efforts. Dana Warrior and John Cena gave heartfelt, genuine inductions for her, and Sue was a gem enlightening us about her philanthropic accomplishments.

Harlem Heat got inducted next, and after Booker T gave his brother Stevie Ray an outstanding tribute, it was then time for Stevie Ray sharing several stories of the trials of Harlem Heat breaking in before they finally found success in WCW. D-Generation X headlined the Hall of Fame, and as expected it was lengthy with X-Pac, Road Dogg, Billy Gunn, Shawn Michaels and Triple H all giving speeches. They unleashed some vintage DX humor to start off with. Other highlights include giving Chyna her proper acknowledgement, Billy Gunn getting razzed for being with the new competition in AEW, X-Pac getting super jittery in his sea of notes and all of them busting out Super Soakers and dousing their colleagues in the crowd, especially Baron Corbin. Now onto the 16 match WrestleMania 35 card (guys….I am sorry, thank you so much for sticking with me!). If you have yet to watch WrestleMania 35 then before reading this recap, I recommend breaking it up into a two part watch, and give this strong recommendation of preferred matches for each night to make for a better experience that I guarantee you will not struggle to stay awake through: WrestleMania 35 – Day 1 Watch Order: Tony Nese vs Buddy Murphy, WrestleMania Women’s Battle Royal, Seth Rollins vs. Brock Lesnar, SmackDown Tag Titles Fatal Four Way, Miz vs. Shane McMahon, Triple H vs. Batista, Elias/John Cena ‘Concert’, Finn Balor vs. Bobby Lashley, Kofi Kingston vs. Daniel Bryan WrestleMania 35 – Day 2 Watch Order: Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins vs. Revival, Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal, AJ Styles vs. Randy Orton, Women’s Tag Titles Fatal Four Way, Roman Reigns vs. Drew McIntyre, Samoa Joe vs. Rey Mysterio, Kurt Angle vs. Baron Corbin, Ronda Rousey vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Becky Lynch Four of those matches were on the pre-show and are included on the BluRay as extras. In a rare move, WWE had the local have a feel good moment with Tony Nese winning the Cruiserweight Title from Buddy Murphy in a nice hybrid of strong style and high-flying that got the crowd hot by the end. In the WrestleMania Women’s Battle Royal, Carmella played the surprise last second sneak-in card to eliminate Sarah Logan and win the ‘prestigious’ hip/leg trophy. In a surprising second feel good hometown hero story, Curt Hawkins snapped his 269 match losing streak when him and his fellow bro-ski, Zack Ryder won the RAW tag titles from The Revival when Hawkins got the surprise inside cradle for the electric pop! In the final pre-show match, Braun Strowman won the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal by eliminating celebrity entrants, SNL’s Colin Jost & Michael Che. A lot of hype on RAW built up the SNL stars, but the two hid under the ring until the end of the match in their failed efforts to surprise eliminate Braun.

In the official WrestleMania opener, Seth Rollins won the Universal Title from Brock Lesnar. Their follow-up match at SummerSlam is leagues better, because all there is to this is Brock getting an early attack on Seth and brutalizing him outside the ring for a few minutes, and then only a couple minutes into the actual match Seth low blows Brock and hits a few stomps for the victory. Last few years something about Randy Orton has made his stock rise higher for me. I appreciate his ring IQ and psychology that allows matches to breathe, and Orton’s skills blended perfectly with AJ Styles with some convincing sequences before Styles hit a Phenomenal Forearm for the win. The first of two four way tag title matches occurred next with the Usos, The Bar, Rusev & Shinske Nakamura and Aleistar Black & Ricochet vying for the SmackDown straps. All four teams brought it, and did not appear they were there for an easy payday with the creative spots they unleashed with an innovative tower of doom spot and Cesaro’s countless swings to the crowd’s approval until the Usos hit their double top turnbuckle splash on Sheamus for the W. I loved the buildup for The Miz and Shane McMahon’s Falls Count Anywhere match. Miz gradually won over Shane’s trust all in the name to win his dad’s precious approval, only to then see Shane turn on Miz and attack Miz’s dad! I was not disappointed with how they got Miz’s dad involved in the match with Shane shaming Miz’s dad’s ability to fight. The two had a pretty solid brawl all over the arena that ultimately saw Miz deliver a suplex from the tech area scaffolding onto a crash pad, but saw Shane conveniently laid out barely over Miz to nudge out a three count for the fluke upset. The newly established Women’s tag titles were on the line with Sasha Banks & Bayley defending against the Iconics, Nia Jax & Tamina and Natalya & Beth Phoenix. A lot of controversy was reported on the champs throwing a tantrum backstage hearing they were losing the titles, which happened when Billie Kay stole a pin with a blind tag on Beth Phoenix after she hit a top rope Glam Slam. Minus a handful of moments, Sasha and Bayley’s main roster runs have been beyond disastrous compared to their rise up the ranks in NXT.

‘KofiMania’ emerged when Kofi Kingston vanquished that vile do-gooder, Daniel Bryan to become the first full blooded African American to win the WWE title in its near 60 year history. There were a couple of extended hold sequences in the front half that overstayed their welcome, but the back half amped up big time with some creative reversals, near-falls and clever use of the New Day and Erik Rowan on the outside. I was just as happy as the WWE locker room shown celebrating for Kofi after he hit the Trouble in Paradise to win the championship. He had a killer half year run as champ….until Brock Lesnar waffled him in seven seconds for the gold and Kofi immediately went right back to the midcard in his happy-go-lucky pancake thrower days of yore and acted like his championship run never happened. Samoa Joe finally got his overdue WrestleMania debut match against a recently returned Rey Mysterio. I presumed the two had an epic match lined up, but Rey got hurt the RAW before and was only capable of performing for about a minute before Joe locked in his trademark Kokina Clutch for the submission victory. Roman Reigns was up next in his first singles match coming back after overcoming a second bout of Leukemia for the heartwarming win against Drew McIntyre. I recall dreading the buildup for this because Drew had a variety of ‘you may have conquered cancer…’ type promos and hyped himself up as deadlier than cancer, when naturally everyone knew Roman was going to win, and that is exactly what we got in a formula Roman match. The read in the ardent fan crowd throughout the match was readily apparent, they were no longer booing Roman out of the building like they normally would, because what kind of person can boo a cancer survivor (please do not answer that)? However, there was no overwhelming crowd going wild reaction either, but more of a tempered, altruistic applause instead. That has primarily been Roman’s reception for coming back since, and that is kind of how I feel too.

Elias performed a one man ‘concert’ next complete with other hologram Elias projections playing in conjunction with him until John Cena interrupted. John came out in throwback Dr. Thugganomics form and laid down some rhymes before hitting a F-U to the crowd’s approval. The presumption going in by most was that Undertaker would make his requisite WrestleMania appearance here, but 2019 marked the first time since 2000 that Undertaker did not appear or wrestle in any form on a WrestleMania. Strangely enough, Undertaker did interrupt another Elias performance the next day on RAW. Triple H and Batista squared off in a No Holds Barred brawl next, and I recall being burnt out by this point in the card and nodding off throughout it. Match held up incredibly better on second viewing with the two busting out a wide variety of weaponry in too many gruesome spots to dissect, other than that grotesque nose ring spot that reverberated throughout everyone in the crowd. The finish saw Triple H hitting probably the slickest looking sledgehammer shot ever with some added trajectory by leaping off the stairs, and following it up with the Pedigree for the pin. Kurt Angle hit the end of the line in a few months of ‘farewell tour’ matches against Baron Corbin here. I was worried for Angle as his previous few matches saw him struggling to go through the motions, but a few weeks of added rest benefitted him here with him looking remarkably better and capable of several of his vintage suplexes and throws, and even busting out an impressive moonsault….that missed and lead him walking into an End of Days that netted Corbin the pinfall. Finn Balor faced Bobby Lashley in the penultimate match of the night, and the two delivered a short, but high energy match to help inject some energy into the understandably deflated crown by this point. Balor hit his Coup de Gras for the pin.

The 16th and final match of the night saw the women headline WrestleMania for the first time ever with the Women’s titles for both RAW and SmackDown on the line in a triple threat between Ronda Rousey, Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch. All three laid it in strong style in easily one of the hardest hitting women matches I have ever seen. All three were decorated with battle scars, especially Ronda’s leg! However, one significant botch tarnished the match, and unfortunately it happened right at the finish when Lynch countered Rousey’s Piper’s Pit slam with a crucifix for the pin. Rousey inadvertently popped her shoulder up during the pin, and the ref did not restart his count and continued with the controversial three count. Even the announcers did not turn a blind eye to it and questioned the ref’s call, and it turned out the ref was later fined for blowing the call. I am not going to recap the following night’s RAW, but I did watch it and will give a couple key takeaways since the RAW after WrestleManias are notorious for returns, and unpredictable fan reactions suffering from wrestling burnout. Rollins and Kofi teased a winner takes all title match, but it quickly morphed into a tag match after The Bar interfered to the crowd’s rightful disgust! The controversial Lars Sullivan debuted on the main roster, Sami Zayn returned and turned heel after nearly a year away from double rotator cuff surgery. Dana Brooke and Mojo Rawley both deliver bizarre backstage promos. There was the aforementioned Undertaker attack on Elias and finally Dean Ambrose’s final televised WWE match that did not officially get started because he brawled outside the ring with Bobby Lashley before getting sent through a table. There is one last BluRay bonus that has footage from after RAW went off the air, where Rollins called out Roman and Dean and brought them to the ring for one last curtain call from The Shield.

That puts a wrap on the yearly monstrous WrestleMania recap. Once again I give my heartfelt gratitude for sticking with me the whole way through this. It was a chore to get through the whole show live in one shot, but it definitely helped spacing it over a few days this second time around. Again, if there is any upside with WWE having to switch up their WrestleMania plans with the global pandemic currently happening, it is that them having WrestleMania transpire over two days will make it vastly more watchable, and decrease the burnout of trying to watch wrestling for seven hours straight. Throw in the wild cards of the empty arena and undisclosed filming locations for the gimmick matches, and well….check back with me here next year to see how it all played out.

Past Wrestling Blogs Best of WCW Clash of Champions Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2 Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 3 Biggest Knuckleheads Bobby The Brain Heenan Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes DDP: Positively Living Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials ECW Unreleased: Vol 1 ECW Unreleased: Vol 2 ECW Unreleased: Vol 3 Eric Bishoff: Wrestlings Most Controversial Figure Fight Owens Fight: The Kevin Owens Story For All Mankind Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection Hulk Hogans Unreleased Collectors Series Impact Wresting Presents: Best of Hulk Hogan Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story The Kliq Rules Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman Legends of Mid South Wrestling Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story Memphis Heat NXT: From Secret to Sensation NXT Greatest Matches Vol 1 OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History OMG Vol 3: Top 50 Incidents in ECW History Owen: Hart of Gold RoH Supercard of Honor 2010-Present ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery Scott Hall: Living on a Razors Edge Shawn Michaels: My Journey Sting: Into the Light Straight Outta Dudley-ville: Legacy of the Dudley Boyz Straight to the Top: Money in the Bank Anthology Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder Then Now Forever – The Evolution of WWEs Womens Division TLC 2017 TNA Lockdown 2005-2016 Top 50 Superstars of All Time Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season True Giants Ultimate Fan Pack: Roman Reigns Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe War Games: WCWs Most Notorious Matches Warrior Week on WWE Network Wrestlemania III: Championship Edition Wrestlemania 28-Present The Wrestler (2008) Wrestling Road Diaries Too Wrestling Road Diaries Three: Funny Equals Money Wrestlings Greatest Factions WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015 WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015 WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2016 WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2016 WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2017

[darkarfs]

This is gonna make so many horrible people unhappy. EVERY Takeover has had at least one match-of-the-year candidate on it. Some of the most emotional moments in that brand have come from cards that even aren't quite as good. I even considered not doing this list, because, by all accounts, NXT Takeover: Tampa isn't even going ahead. But then I thought, fuck it, let's celebrate, taken all together, for my taste, the best wrestling product in the history of mankind. It's not just moves; it's emotional investment, sharply-focused, character-based storytelling, intricately-performed spectactle from the greatest physical specimens ever to lace their boots. It FINALLY legitimized Western women's wrestling in the mainstream (Michelle McCool, Trish, Molly, Mickie, Jazz, Victoria, you all were stunning performers in your own right, but you and your kind were, until NXT, only given 3 minutes: the longest women's match IN HISTORY, until 'Mania 32, was Trish Stratus vs. Mickie James at Wrestlemania 22, and it got 9 minutes.), it's got some of the greatest tag wrestling ever seen on ANY brand, it's created the longest-drawn storytelling ever, it's the best of the indies, the best of the WWE, wrapped up in a sequence of shows that were epic without being FIVE FUCKING HOURS LONG.

Where do I even start...?

Honorable mention: Takeover: R Evolution (I have to, because I've only got 10) Sami Zayn spends over a year, clawing and sweating and tearing walls down, just to get to the top of the mountain in NXT. He has the opportunity to cheat, but does it his OWN way, as beautiful, unique babyface Sami Zayn...before being no-scoped by his best friend, who debuted THAT NIGHT. The undercard isn't as strong, so I can't officially include it, but this payoff, this triumph, and this tragedy represents everything the first era of NXT was, and kickstarted it, truly, onto its first golden era. So, properly, then...

10. Takeover: Rival If you leave this list feeling like the title reigns, and thus, ERAS, of Zayn/Owens are a little under-represented by it, I completely understand. After all, so much good came from that time. American Alpha soldifying themselves as the dominant tag team, the Iron-Woman match between Sasha and Bayley, Becky Lynch putting all the pieces together, Enzo and Cass actually being GOOD...it was, still, at its heart, a developmental brand at that time. It had indie megastars, yes, but it also had the likes of Bull Dempsey. And that's not a dig at Bull Dempsey, it's just that those early Takeovers were an eclectic mix of skill levels, which is what NXT was at that time. It was a place to showcase these people. That said, some of these cards were truly *fantastic.* Case in point: Takeover: Rival. Not only was the undercard completely stacked (Hideo Itami vs. Tyler Breeze over-delivered; we had the first and still SOMEHOW ONLY Fatal 4-Way match between the Four Horsewomen; and Finn Balor vs. Neville was a solid match of the year candidate), but the main event was the first step in one of the most storied rivalries in the history of wrestling: Zayn vs. Owens. The video package is one of the best NXT ever did, and the match...was a masterpiece of simple-but unexpected booking. Zayn mistimes a leap to the outside, hits his head, and Owens responds by powerbombing him over...and over...and over again, until the ref stops the match. Zayn loses nothing, because he was never pinned, Owens is made to look even MORE the loathsome monster, and Zayn's title reign ends after just a month, without the champion nor the championship devalued in any way. It showed that NXT knew, even then, how to reward fans for their emotional investment.

9. Takeover: Portland Right now, NXT feels like it's approaching the very end of a special time in its life. Like it's on the verge of hitting critical mass. One of either Gargano or Ciampa probably leaving the company after the next Takeover, and the reign of the Undisputed Era seems to be crumbling, too. In yesteryear, this would indicate a raft of very important call-ups, neccessitating a shift in the roster and a period of calm centered around more patient character-building. NXT's existence now as a third brand throws that formula into uncertainty, but it definitely feels like they're ramping up to a finale, because goddamn, this is NXT almost at a point of self-parody. Every match is so. MUCH. Lee/Dijakovic is the pinnacle of HOT wrestling (and Lee, will you marry me?) Bianca Belair breaks out as an actual superstar...just as Charlotte decides to visit and to ruin everything, which is just dreadful timing. Gargano/Balor being everything we need it to be, and also Balor pinning Gargano with his fucking dick. And the Broserweights being VERY DUMB...but also VERY, VERY GOOD. The only thing that lets this card down...and this is obviously subjective...is that NXT has almost come TOO FAR, now, in its delivery on its main events, in that every kickout starts to beggar belief. On the level of Triple H/Undertaker at Wrestlemania 28, in that I still love it, but...hoo, it can be exhausting. Depends on how much Ring of Honor you like in your gumbo, I guess, but it feels like everyone on the roster is racing toward Tampa to explode, like a wrestling Crisis on Infinite Earths, and then MAYBE...things can calm down. Just a hair. Y'know, if Tampa even...still happens.

8. Takeover: Philadelphia If there's one man that's become synonymous with NXT, it's Johnny fucking Wrestling. You know, what would happen if a meerkat put on muscle mass and became the best set-piece wrestler this side of Daniel Bryan. We knew since he started his tag team with Tommaso Ciampa that he was an exceptional wrestler, but it wasn't until Philadelphia, and his INSANE match with Andrade "Cien" Almas, that we saw him as truly the industry's next star. It was the first Takeover match to go over 30 minutes (Sasha/Bayley at Respect went EXACTLY 30, don't @ me), it was the first NXT match to get 5 stars from Dave Meltzer (if that matters to you), and it set a new bar for Takeover main events. And while the undercard doesn't live up to it, it's still loaded with excellent matches. A.O.P. vs. the Undisputed Era is something special. Shayna Baszler makes her Takeover debut, and while she's nowhere near her prime, it cemented her immediately. Velveteen Dream and Kassius Ohno have a very fun match, and Aleister Black and Adam Cole have a ludcriously stupid no-holds-barred match, featuring two men doing with chairs what no one ought to do with chairs. But as good as all of that is, it's really a one match show, but what a match, and Ciampa ending it by being an utter bastard yet again.

7. Takeover: Brooklyn I Does the first Brooklyn Takeover feature Canadian Destroyers, 18 kick-outs and "fight forever" chants? It does not. Does it create moments of wrestling happiness that are rarely, if ever, replicated? It sure does. Firstly, Blue Pants appears and helps the Vaudevillains defeat Blake and Murphy. Seems quaint to look back on it, but it made everyone SO goddamn HAPPY that night. If you're forgetting, Leva Bates (that wrestling librarian in AEW right now) was once a comedy jobber in NXT, who wore Blue Pants. Adorable. Ignore what happened on the main roster (which is something you'll probably have to do with a lot of these shows, I imagine), but the Vaudevillains were once incredibly over (I promise!), and their win was one of several beam-inducing moments from this stellar night. Samoa Joe destroyed Baron Corbin at the height of his game, Apollo Crews debuted brilliantly (again, ignore what happens next!) and Balor and Owens' ladder match was also fantastic. Also, what's Jushin Thunder Liger doing here?? Wrestling like he's in his early 30s, that's goddamn what!! But of course, the reason we're all here is Sasha Banks vs. Bayley, and...there's still something in my eye. Anytime people want to rag on NXT for being "predictable," remind them that giving the people a moment they've genuinely prayed for...is a good thing. Bayley besting Sasha Banks at her prime just made us all...so happy. All of us. Everyone. When that curtain call took place, it was so earned. The narrative of women's wrestling dominated most of 2015, and this moment, this match, was the apex of that narrative.

6. Takeover: Chicago I And speaking of feelings...hello, Ciampa, you godless fuck. And so begins maybe the actual greatest rivalry in all of NXT. It is truly an odyessy, with twists, turns, injuries, betrayals, wounds torn open, and this is the nexus point. Well, the seeds had already sort of been planted, because Triple H knows what he's doing. Ciampa almost ALMOST turns on Gargano after their terrific match in the Cruiserweight Classic, only for the team to die another day...and what a death it was. After a great ladder match, the two stand atop the ramp, and you think "will it happen?" And the absolute bastards show you the copyright logo, just to make you think the show ends there, because it always does, seconds after that happens. You unclench, you breathe out, relax...Ciampa whispers "this is MY moment" and then...It is a perfectly engineered bait-and-switch, and exactly as vicious as it needs to be. Pats on the back, all 'round. This moment alone makes this a worthwhile Takeover, but there's also a hell of an undercard. The women's triple-threat (Ruby Riott vs. Asuka vs. Nikki Cross) is stellar, Bobby Roode and Hideo Itami have their respective best Takeover matches ever, and then there was Tyler Bate vs. Pete Dunne. An absolute show-stealer of a match, a star-making performance for both men (especially Dunne), it cemented the career of several men, and was a fully-formed GREAT show, as opposed to a good show in service to a storyline.

5. Takeover: Brooklyn IV Gargano and Ciampa's battle of brotherhood, betrayal and brainwashing was supposed to blow off at Takeover: New York, but because God hates necks, Tomato Champion was out of action, making this the final singles encounter to date, until Tampa (again, IF it even happens). This is the weakest of their 3 excellent encounters (which still makes it better than any match over SummerSlam weekend), but it also features Johnny Stupid running into a speaker, because his dumb ass can't seem to quit Ciampa. It's one of the greatest long-form feuds for a reason, mirroring Bret and Owen from 1993 into 1994, with all the repeated imagery, the callbacks, the nuances, the psychological cruelty. The street fight at Chicago II is MAYBE better, but this undercard, for me, is a lot stronger. It featured the Undisputed Era vs. Moustache Mountain, aka the Brothers Shithead vs. the Proud Circus Bear and His Beautiful Son. Velveteen Dream vs. EC3 was the closest NXT got to WWE-style storytelling and was still brilliant (remember when EC3 wrestled?), and HEY, wouldn't you know it, Kairi Sane was once a character with dimensions, as evidenced by an amazing match with Shayna Bazsler. But what makes this undercard truly stellar is Adam Cole vs. Ricochet. It is so nice to see Ricochet used well, etc., but I will still never stop pissing myself at Cole nailing him square in the jaw with a superkick WHILE HE'S MID-MOONSAULT UPSIDE-DOWN SWEET JESUS. Sometimes...sometimes...things fall exactly into place.

4. Takeover: WarGames (2018) The WarGames Takeovers are just so silly. It's a silly shoebox, filled with huge, silly men who only barely know why they're killing each other. It's as close as we ever get to WWE's now-terminal problem of "set aside whatever feuds you have right now, because it's Stipulation Month!" (see: Hell In a Cell, most Money In the Bank shows, though Elimination Chamber largely sidesteps this). The other Shoebox Takeovers are really good, no doubt, but this one stands head-and-shoulders above the rest. But there is not a bad match on this card. Kassius Ohno rides Matt Riddle's knee all the way to heaven; NXT shows why 2-out-of-3-falls is fast becoming its signature stipulation with the excellent blowoff between Sane/Baszler; Sexy Mindgames Prince had a star-making match against Tommaso Ciampa, showing why he may be the best overall character in NXT right now, and sweet lord, Aleister Black vs. Johnny Wrestling. It somehow showed that Gargano was JUST AS, if NOT MORE engaging as a dirtbag than as a good guy. And those Black Masses are presents just for me, a guy who tends to like more community theater in his wrestling than flips ("I ABSOLVE YOU...OF ALL YOUR SINS!"). And then we get to the Shoebox, and gosh it's silly! The Viking Experience, Ricochet and Pete Dunne take on the Undisputed Era, and...its a fucking LOT. 45 minutes of spots and smashing, with just a sprinkling of story, with Fish locking Dunne in his cage so he can't participate in the match. Since this seems to be what this match is designed for...let's rattle off some spots! Ricochet, jumping from one ring to the other! That amazing face-off that recreates the Captain America: Civil War poster! Perhaps the beefiest Tower of Doom in all of wrestling! And then Ricochet proving just how amazing he is...with the double moonsault off the top of the cage. What a stupid thing to do in an amazing, amazing show.

3. Takeover: Dallas I get it; a lot of people might not rank this Takeover quite so high. But it might be my actual personal favorite...? Overall...? More than any other Takeover, this show feels the most like it's filled with living, breathing superheroes. Many NXT stars are seen as just indie guys whose only gimmick is "I'm a very good wrestler," making them almost anti-WWE at the core. But NXT doesn't get enough credit for being, at its core, the best aspects of WWE. The showmanship, the things that elevate mere wrestlers to things like monsters, gods, and demons. I will always like my NXT WWE-style: the best wrestling cut with the most theater, the most camp. And Dallas is that concept, writ large. Baron Corbin coming out with lil' skulls on his shoulders. American Alpha finally becoming Super Saiyan Nerds. Asuka killing our hero, because Bayley is a person, and Asuka is a goddess who can perform brain surgery with her feet. Finn Balor coming out and going actual Texas Chainsaw Massacre on Samoa Joe. It's excellent wrestling, near-mythic visuals...and then we get to Nakamura/Zayn. The most special moment of a very special night. It is, from nearly every perspective, perfect. The hype of the crowd, salivating with anticipation. That moment when Nakamura appears in silhouette, and that violin note slides like a knife across steel, to reveal the man who set New Japan aflame. Sami Zayn getting the best possible swan song in a promotion built almost entirely on HIS back. The end of his era. That bit where they just KEEP PUNCHING ONE ANOTHER. I know it's not a perfect show (Balor/Joe stops for 3 minutes to address a cut on Joe's forehead, stalling its momentum; that Corbin/Ares match isn't as good as it could be) but that all means nothing. It's a sentimental choice, and I'd make it #1 if I could.

2. Takeover: New Orleans I went around and around in my head, and this one and #1 kept jockeying for position in my brain. But these top two Takeovers are literally note-perfect, from ship to shore, soup to nuts, top to tails. So if this is YOUR favorite? (Honestly, maybe 1 person I know who loves wrestling as much as I do will even see this mess). I'm here for you, and I understand. But this show has TWO 5-star matches from the Wrestling Observer, and I don't ever agree with that. In this case, I agree with BOTH, in the North American Championship ladder match, and the first (and so far, BEST) match in the Gargano/Ciampa feud. Everything. Is. Amazing. Shayna Bazsler became Women's Champion after BEAST-MODING her SHOULDER back INTO IT'S SOCKET to show that, YES, she gets pro-wrestling. Roderick Strong shocked the world (and the System) by joining the Undisputed Era and becoming the final Chaos Emerald needed to make that stable Super Sonic. Aleister Black took the championship from Andrade "Cien" Almas and SMILED, I fucking SAW IT! And it all depends on what you want from your wrestling, but Gargs/Tamps might actually be the best main event in Takeover history, at least from a storytelling standpoint. The crutch, the neckbrace. Each man going back to their DIY roots (the tag team - they didn't build another ring when that one broke), and then sitting side-by-side, like they did at the Cruiserweight Classic. Brothers. Completely spent. Destroyed. No one but each other. And then Ciampa shits any chance at redemption up the goddamn wall, cementing his own destruction. Every. Bit. Counts.

and #1...

Takeover: New York For a whole bunch of other wrestling fans, this has the greatest main event in Takeover history. But first, let's take a minute to appreciate how lucky we are, or were, that NXT exists. It justfies the existence of WWE, artistically, almost by itself. If this one's only slightly worse than New Orleans, it is argued, it's that the North American title ladder match was TOO good, and hurt every other match on the card. It has been argued. Not by me, but this one is somehow the most perfectly paced, perfectly sized wrestling card, on its own, ever. Every match, through alchemy or magic, manages to enthrall the crowd equally, and completely. The Viking Raiders vs. Grumpy Smaller Undertaker and the Human Pinball was off the hook incredible, and that warm "thank you" feeling has translated, currently to a man trapped in a room and a man trapped in Vince McMahon's scorn for smaller wrestlers, respectively. Matt Riddle and Velveteen Dream put on an absolute fantasy match, pitting the best of MMA vs. the best of WWE-style theatricality, and adds to the complete, demented character-world of this brand, and the fact that Dream WINS against one of the hottest new prospects is so deserved, and shows that he can, and will, shine forever brighter. Then AAAAGH WALTER vs. Pete Dunne! WALTER LAYS into poor Dunne, his chops alone having you believe that after the match, he's going to run into the arena's parking lot to FIGHT THE CARS. Then Shirai vs. Baszler vs. Sane vs. Belair and goddammit how do I even expound on that without crashing thesarus.com? And then Johnny Gargano and Adam Cole wrestled for. 40. MINUTES. With Gargano as the defacto heel because it was allegedly Cole's time. And by the match's end, he had the crowd more behind him than maybe they ever had been before. Is it a bit much? Yes. Too many kickouts? Probably. But it stands as the apex of Johnny Wrestling's journey. After everything had been taken from him: DIY, his health, his sanity, even his chance at revenge...the only thing he has left is the NXT Championship. And in that moment, he is invincible, he is more than enough.

What a show. What a host of shows.

Thanks for reading, everyone.

[gamerssphere]

Today we got to see the very first event in Saudi Arabia for the WWE when they brought the Greatest Royal Rumble. This event had to be rather compliant with many different requests from the country’s organizers, as well as laws, of course, therefore, they had to be really specific on what sort of show they’d be bringing.

The very first match of the night featured the Cerebral Assassin, Triple H, facing John Cena. The match started with some clash of strength by both of them, trying to show who was more powerful. This is certainly set to be an interesting show. Triple H was getting the upper hand at the beginning, going as far as mocking Cena’s “You Can’t See Me” hand gesture multiple times.

The match is really good and interesting, Triple H is going slowly, methodically, paused, and every single time Cena tried to attack back, Triple H was able to counter his attempts. This is a visual beauty of a match; however, Cena is looking too weak against The Game. I hadn’t seen such a weak John Cena since his Wrestlemania match against The Undertaker, but before that, I don’t remember seeing him in such a weak state.

Finally, Cena starts to fight back and goes as far as hitting an Attitude Adjustment on Triple H, but The Game was able to kick out. Right after that, Triple H got out of a second Attitude Adjustment to go into his Pedigree right away, but Cena kicked out at 2 as well.

Then, after a chain of an STF from Cena, to a crossed clutch by The Game, Cena hits Triple H with 2 Attitude Adjustments to win the match.

The second match of the event is for the Cruiserweight Championship between the current champion, Cedric Alexander and Kalisto. This starts completely different to the previous match, both competitors are going through some chain wrestling with the usual agility that is the main weapon 205 Live contestants bring to the ring. After a great match between them, the champion retains his title.

The third match of the event has The Bar (Sheamus & Cesaro) versus Woken Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt for the RAW Tag Team Championship. This is an interesting match given how The Bar is no longer part of RAW as they were moved to SmackDown Live during the Superstar Shake-Up.

At first, the newest Tag Team from RAW was dominating and animating the crowd, until The Bar started to play their heel roles during this match, which turned the table for the match.With great combination of a Twist of Fate with the help of Bray, Matt and Bray finally become the new RAW Tag Team Champions!

The next match of the event is for the United States Championship as we have Jeff Hardy defending against Jinder Mahal. The match starts with Jinder’s usual aggressiveness against Jeff, but the champion is able to counter him, keeping in mind that Jinder isn’t alone as he comes with Sunil Sighn.

There was an interesting botch in this match as Jeff tried the Whisper in the Wind but failed, and Jinder still went down, a few seconds late.

After an intervention by Sunil, Jeff is able to counter Jinder’s Khallas and use his normal Twist of Fate + Swanton Bomb to retain his title.

Now we have the SmackDown Tag Team Champions, The Bludgeon Brothers, defending their titles against The Usos. The former champions came into this match completely synchronized, using that to their advantage against the current champions. However, The Bludgeon Brothers are too strong, and fast, and they ended up retaining their titles.

The next match of the event is a Ladder Match for the Intercontinental Championship between Seth Rollins, Samoa Joe, The Miz and Finn Balor. This ought to be a great match, a contender to steal the show.

To nobody’s surprise, this was a great match all around. Every single one of the competitors went all in for the title, giving a good use to those ladders, of course. The Miz, former Intercontinental Champion, gave a great match, going against all of his opponents and coming out on top of them in multiple times.

In the end, surprisingly, Seth Rollins was able to retain his title due to how quick and agile he is, as Finn was about to reach the belt, but Seth jumped from the ropes to the ladder, and “stole” the belt from Finn.

  Now we get the introduction of 4 candidates to join the WWE from Saudi Arabia, but in the middle of this promo, the Daivari Brothers come into the ring with the flag of their country: Iran.

The next match of the night is for the WWE Championship between AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura. First thing to note is that the WWE gave Nakamura’s entrance some lyrics, and the way in which Nakamura moved was completely different than what we are used to see. It is also worth saying: it is great to see AJ’s entrance with pyro.

After about 2 hours and a half of almost complete silence in the crowd, we finally see them chanting, moving, cheering. Saudi Arabia seemed to need AJ vs Nakamura to wake up, because they do not chant the usual out-of-the-ring count, they don’t chant the usual “1, 2,…” when there’s a pin going on. But now, the crowd is reacting, and it is awesome to see and hear.

In the end, AJ Styles retains his title due to a double count-out. This keeps Nakamura in the championship run for sure, maybe we’ll see them in a no disqualification match in a future PPV.

Next on we have The Undertaker versus Rusev in a Casket Match. After a rather quick and aggressive match, The Undertaker got both, Rusev and Aiden English into the casket to win the match.

It is now time to go into the Steel Cage for the Universal Championship match between Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns. We have to admit how great entrances are when pyro is in place.

The match starts with a Suplex City, there was no time to do anything, Brock literally went in to kill Roman. Four consecutive German Suplex followed by one F5. This is overkill. Lesnar is only sweating because he sweats like a beast.

Roman finally counters with 3 Superman Punches followed by a spear attempt that Brock defends against. Roman is close to get out of the cage until Brock takes him back in, leaving him the space to get out of the cage himself; however, Brock doesn’t seem comfortable at all going up the cage, which gives Roman time to get back on his feet.

Roman hits the first spear on Brock, immediately followed by a second one. Brock is still alive in the match though, so he uses the same spear he used against The Undertaker in Wrestlemania 33, with some push from the ropes and counts, but Brock kicks out. Roman is about to get out of the cage through the door, but Paul Heyman closes it on Roman’s face to help his client. Brock hits the second F5 and pins Roman, but he kicks out. Heyman throws a chair into the cage and Brock takes his gloves off before taking the chair, but Roman hits his fourth Spear. Brock kicked out again.

Roman takes the chair and starts hitting Brock with it. Even the referee cringes to these hits. Roman hits the fourth Superman Punch of the match. Roman hits a Spear against the wall of the cage which breaks it, and the ref says Brock has retained the championship. Contested, Roman’s feet were the first ones to hit the floor. This won’t end like this.

It is time for the main event of the show: the 50 men Royal Rumble match. There’s a shiny trophy accompanied by a Championship Belt waiting for the winner of this match.

The very first entrant is Daniel Bryan, followed by Dolph Ziggler. There’s really no point on talking too much about what happened in the hour and 30 minutes that it lasted for, so let’s jump to what happened at the end, and which surprise contestants we got to see.

Surprises:

And, after 1 hour 16 minutes and 5 seconds in the match, Big Cass throws Daniel Bryan over the top rope, to get to the ending of this match between him and Braun Strowman, who has thrown over 10 men over the ropes. In the end, the winner of the very first Greatest Royal Rumble is Braun Strowman.

Overall, the show was really good, although, there were absolutely no changes in championship belts, which is highly disappointing. When it comes to the crowd, it was quiet for most of the show, which is also disappointing given how wrestling is alive thanks to fans’ reactions, and even though matches were super interesting, it is a rather bittersweet ending, with an awful ending to AJ vs Nakamura, a controversial ending to Brock vs Roman, a 50 men Royal Rumble in which most of the wrestlers didn’t last 5 minutes. At least, Braun has won this match, and I hope they do something with that quite stylish belt.

  #WWEGRR #Recap #WWE #GreatestRoyalRumble Today we got to see the very first event in Saudi Arabia for the WWE when they brought the…

[wrestlingisfake]

Great Balls of Fire preview

BROCK LESNAR VERSUS  SAMOA JOE~!

Joe won a five-way match last month to earn this shot at Lesnar’s universal championship.

Since his return to WWE in 2012, Lesnar’s big opponents have mostly stacked up with him in terms of star power (John Cena, Triple H), freakish size (Big Show), explosiveness (Goldberg, Randy Orton), or the inevitability of their push (Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins).  Joe, however, rivals Brock’s aura of sheer physical dominance.  Nobody else could do that so far but the Undertaker, and while Taker was an old dude on the way down, Joe is a new-ish guy on the way up.  You look at Joe, and believe he could beat up Brock.  You listen to him talk, and you believe he won’t stop until he beats up Brock.

One thing I like about Lesnar’s matches is that literally anything could happen.  He could maul Joe and take absolutely no offense.  He could throw Joe around for 25 minutes and then make a mistake and lose.  The match could end in 90 seconds.  Somebody could get cut open, forcing a ref stoppage.  All of these things have already happened, though, so that just raises the odds of some other crazy outcome.

I’m hoping for a vicious, brutal, back-and-forth fight.  I want them to brawl all over the place.  I want Brock to think he’s got Joe dead to rights, and then Joe just smiles and asks for more.  I want Brock to take everything Joe gives him, and then find out Joe has more.  I want these guys to make horrible, guttural noises as they fight to the death.

Originally, it looked like the plans were for Lesnar to beat Joe and go on to headline Summerslam against Braun Strowman.  But there are reports that plans are changing, and while none of those reports have suggested Joe could end up with the title, I’m sure WWE has been impressed with his promo work for this program.  I’m just saying, if I’m Vince McMahon, and I want to get the title on Roman Reigns without blowing Reigns vs. Lesnar before April, then Joe vs. Reigns for the title sounds like a good Summerslam main event to me.  The smart money’s still on Brock, but Joe could come through.

Roman Reigns vs. Braun Strowman - This is an ambulance match, so the re will be no rules except that the only way to win is to lock one’s opponent inside an ambulance parked in the arena.  The implication is that you have to gravely injure your opponent to do this, but in practice it often just means slamming the door before they get a chance to jump out.

This was originally planned to headline last month’s Extreme Rules show, with the idea that Strowman would win to set up title matches with Brock Lesnar at this show and at Summerslam.  Strowman’s elbow surgery forced WWE to alter those plans, but it’s generally assumed that the winner of this match will be the #1 contender for the universal title next month.

Strowman has really clicked lately and I think it’s because he's such a perfect opponent for Reigns.  Since his entire character is defined by the single issue of crippling Roman Reigns, he gives Roman-haters somebody to cheer for, without dividing the loyalties of Roman’s fans.  This is crucial because far too often I feel like the anti-Roman crowd tunes out because they don’t really like the other guy in the match either.  But it’s hard to be ambivalent on the issue of “should Roman Reigns be sent to hospital?” which means you can get a crowd reaction that is both mixed and fully engaged.

Roman has to eventually get the last word in this feud, but it doesn’t have to happen right here.  A loss for Strowman now will kill his momentum, but a win now and a loss to Reigns later in the year would probably be a net gain.  The good thing, though, is that either of these guys would make a good Summerslam opponent for either Lesnar or Joe, so WWE has lots of options.  I’d like to think that means Braun has a good chance to win.

Alexa Bliss vs. Sasha Banks - Banks won a gauntlet match to earn this shot at Bliss for the Raw women’s title.  This could be interesting since we haven’t really seen these two wrestle much since Bliss turned heel in 2015.  Given that Summerslam is coming up I could see this going to a fuck finish to set up a rematch.  That, and WWE’s passionate efforts to make Bliss the super heel of the universe, make me think she’s going to retain.

Seth Rollins vs. Bray Wyatt - After Wyatt lost the big five-way match Extreme Rules, he delivered a pretty speech about casting judgement upon each of the other four men in the match, starting with Roman Reigns.  Then Roman just kicked his ass, so Bray moved on to the next guy on his list, Seth Rollins.  So yeah, this feud is about Bray trying to beat story mode on “hard,” getting spanked, and then starting over on “easy” and hoping nobody notices what a chump he is.  Which makes Seth “easy mode,” so good job making your babyfaces look strong.

Bray’s matches are tough to predict because Bray’s storylines are completely unaffected by wins and losses--Seth could beat him with his own finisher five seconds into the match, and the next day Bray would just ramble about how everyone trembles in fear of him.  So the real question is whether they’re setting up Rollins for anything that would require him to rack up some wins, but there’s no sign of that right now.  That kinda makes me think Seth is going to eat some losses for a while, to keep him out of the way until they need him back in the title picture...which doesn’t seem to be for a while.  So, reluctantly, I pick Wyatt to win.

The Miz vs. Dean Ambrose - Miz is defending the intercontinental title.  The added wrinkle this time is that Miz has now recruited Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel to be his entourage.  So before Dean just had Miz and Maryse to worry about, but now he’s got to deal with four people at once.  Seeing as Miz already beat Dean for the title with just Maryse’s help, I don’t see why we’re supposed to believe Ambrose can overcome the odds this time.

Logically, Dean should do well as long as it’s one-on-one, and then lose when the Miztourage triple-teams him.  That would lead to Ambrose searching for some guys to even the odds in a later match, and I don’t think Heath Slater and Rhyno are gonna cut it.  Gosh, if only Dean Ambrose knew two babyfaces on Raw that had good chemistry with him...

Cesaro & Sheamus vs. Matt Hardy & Jeff Hardy - Cesaro and Sheamus are defending the Raw tag team title in a 30-minute iron man match.  Normal rules apply, except that the match cannot end until the time limit expires.  Whichever team scores the most falls in the given time period will be win the championship.  (In the event of a tie, the champions retain the title, unless the officials approve an overtime period.)

This feels like the end of the feud--it’d be pretty awkward for the team that loses here to demand a rematch.  I don’t see the point of putting the title on the heels just to move it back to the Hardys a month later.  But I also don’t see the point of moving the Hardys away from the tag title picture.  (I guess they could split the Hardys up, but I don’t see that happening unless Matt gets his TNA gimmick cleared with legal, which probably won’t be soon.)

All other things being equal, the most credible challengers for the tag title going forward are all heels, so that kinda points to the Hardys winning the feud.

Enzo Amore vs. Big Cass - Apparently Cass always secretly hated Enzo, so a few weeks ago he decided to clobber Enzo backstage.  But apparently Cass didn’t want to split up the team, so he went to great lengths to make it look like he didn’t do it.  Then after a few weeks of intrigue Cass was exposed and he re-betrayed Enzo to his face.  Then Cass pretended to make amends so he could re-re-betray Enzo.  Cass’s motivations are inconsistent, is what I’m trying to say here.

Spoiler: They are not breaking up this beloved tag team so they can push the plucky little babyface.  Cass is going to win pretty easily.

Neville vs. Akira Tozawa - Neville defends the cruiserweight title on the pre-show.  The closest thing to an angle here is that Tozawa recently aligned himself with “Titus Worldwide,” the faction that emerged from Titus O’Neil trying to teach Apollo Crews to be a heel until somebody suddenly decided they should be babyfaces.  With Austin Aries leaving WWE, Finn Balor working in the heavyweight division, and Aleister Black in NXT, Tozawa is arguably the strongest opponent Neville has left.  This will make it all the more frustrating when Neville just beats him.

[renaroo]

Wednesday Roundup

We have an interesting week! Not the least of which because of Saga’s newest volume release which I have been highly anticipating for months. There’s a lot of storylines beginning, ending, and everything in between this week, and we’ve got a spread between DC, Marvel and Indie. So let’s see how it plays out!

Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows, DC’s Detective Comics, Image’s Saga, DC’s Titans, DC’s Wonder Woman 

Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man: Renew You Vows (2016- ) #6 Gerry Conway, Ryan Stegman, Jesus Aburtov

We’ve officially gone into territories that I honestly hadn’t expected for this series to take, that being the confirmation as of this issue that this is a parallel universe where the Superhero Registration Act and Civil War never happened. But... oddly enough it seems to also be a world where Conway is happily ignoring Slott’s miniseries that started Renew Your Vows because the X-Men, including ones we very much saw were dead in the mini, are well and alive and running the Xavier institute just fine. 

And just to add to weirdness, everyone’s in their 90s uniforms but Jean is married to Logan and they have an adorable daughter. How’s that supposed to work with my perception of reality? I have absolutely no idea, but Annie gets a possible future friend in little baby mutant so I think I can consider myself happy. 

It’s interesting to see Gerry Conway, who in many ways as I revisit the various comics of the past (as you may have noticed through my liveblogging here) really is fundamental for me personally in how I perceive Peter, MJ, and their relationship, is writing the first book I’ve been able to read in a long time that feels like them. And it’s not perfect marital bliss -- there’s conflict, opposition, and a sense of flaws that both of them bring to the table. 

Basically all the things that Slott and co. whined and bemoaned were gone simply because Peter and MJ tied the knot. y’know. Thirty years ago. 

Still enjoying the book, but I’m extra curious/worried where our cliffhanger leaves us. Also wow, poor Beast.

DC’s Detective Comics (2016- ) #954 James Tynion IV, Marcio Takara, Marcelo Maiolo

*long heralding sigh and a wistful look into the distance*

We’re smack in the middle of this storyline and I’m sure there’s a lot of things that will be better once it’s fully played out, but I’m running out of ways to defend Tynion’s run on ‘Tec. Mostly because for all the frustration that I have with people being way too critical of this run -- which there more than has been -- I’m getting less and less out of Tynion’s work that fills me with the joy and exuberance that helps me want to defend his comics to begin with.

Probably because I have always said his pacing is awful, his reveals have almost no setup, he repeatedly robs us of emotional catharsis, his views of morality are about as black-and-white as someone can get out of a high school creative writing class, and just structurally I’ve never enjoyed his arcs. 

What I do like from Tynion and have defended again and again is his understanding of the main team’s characters. The Belfry team, as written by him, have so many amazing character moments that they far outshine his stories and villains time and time again. He understands why people love these characters and he wants to share why he loves them, and that enthusiasm has repeatedly been a saving grace on issues that had everything else working against them during his run.

Soooooo This issue is completely devoid of those good things. Because our only goodguy left standing is Bruce. I continue to be... less than apathetic toward the Colony and the assassination of Jacob Kane’s character, or Ulysseus’ gamer-brat return. Bruce continues to be an IDIOT about this League of Shadows thing to the point that my brain breaks trying to figure out why in Detective Comics it seems like the World’s Greatest Detective can’t get a clue. And it all just blehhhhssss toward the middle. 

Now for the controversy. Because god forbid we not have controversy every week ‘Tec comes out. Cass’ reentry in the last two pages is awesome for the first page and stupid on the giant splash page. yes, she’s going to be the one to take down the League of Shadows, and she’ll probably FINALLY get to say one of her famous lines herself for once (IMAGINE). but Tynion or Takara one dropped the ball on that last page by having Cass holding bloody katanas and make it look like she had actually killed Shiva’s ninjas. If this was a mistake, DC is... itself again and we’ll have to ignore it. If it’s meant to make us doubt Cass and that she’s taken Shiva’s words to heart it’s a cheap cliffhanger and we know better. If if if, doesn’t matter, it’s not what it seems and it annoys me.

I was annoyed by this issue and outside of Takara’s continued excellent work in the art department this is going to be lost in the overall storyline of this arc like every single other middle issue Tynion has written for this run. Nothing was gained for this experience. 

Well, it gave me the energy to rant. And I know that’s what some of you come to this blog for, so it gave you that much. 

Image’s Saga (2012- ) Volume 7 Brian K. Vaughn, Fiona Staples

Few comics hit the milestones and accolades which Saga have without stumbling across bumps in the path, and that goes nearly triple when it comes to pushing the envelope with themes of interracial relationships, multiethnic found families, clashing cultures, war, sexual politics, and discussions of sexuality and gender all at once. 

But somehow, amazingly, Saga not only continues to maintain this path and always manages to find new and impressive ways to surprise me -- someone who I’d consider to be a pretty hardened veteran of nearly all forms of storytelling in comics at this point -- but it manages to make each punch still feel like a direct hit to my gut. 

There is so much anguish in the trials of our space opera family for this adventure, so much loss that it’s hard to pin down what hit me harder -- the loss of a long time friend, the sanity of a former dignitary, the home of a beloved survivor, the respect of a former mentor, or -- as Hazel herself so eloquently put it in the last pages of this volume -- the loss of things that never were, the missing energy of what could have been. 

There’s a lot throughout this, and as always Saga delivers. We continue to have one of the most badass trans women I’ve seen in comics to date, the fall from grace of Marko’s professed pacifism, and the fear of Sophie’s inevitable manipulations at the hand of The Will, something that will break my heart a thousand times more. 

Fiona Staples’ art is next level comic storytelling, but I also need to emphasize just what a fantastic writer Brian K. Vaughn truly is. As someone very aware and concerned about portrayal and voices of women in comics, I have to say that Vaughn is up there with Rucka as some of the few male writers that write female characters in a way that truly speak to me on a fundamental level.

DC’s Titans (2016- ) #10 Dan Abnett, Brett Booth, Norm Rapmund, Andrew Dalhouse

Our fight with the Fearsom Five comes to quite the stunning end, really utilizing all of our characters and their strengths as well as their weaknesses. But what really captured my attention here was just how well the comic did when it came to showing off how truly formidable the Five were, with maybe only Gizmo not getting a real moment to shine out of the entire lot. 

The Titans were believably taken down, but not without showing off their prowess first and foremost, an that’s really all I ask for in a story where our heroes ultimately don’t win -- that their strengths are still on display and it’s believable how the battles’ outcome got to where it was. 

Perhaps our Seventh Ranger’s late entry with Bumblebee really showing off her powers and surprising us all does seem like a cheap way to end a battle the Titans mostly lost, but I think that was softened by showing that, in return, Karen has lost something that we have spent many issues building up as being highly important to her: her family and the memories and love she holds for them. 

That plus the reintroduction of H.I.V.E. and Deathstroke has me very curious about just how the “Lazarus Contract” is going to play out here, especially with its title’s obvious signifiers. 

Very good issue through and through, really enjoyable.

DC’s Wonder Woman (2016- ) #20  Greg Rucka, Bilquis Evely, Romulo Fajardo Jr. 

I have been incredibly curious to see what is Veronica Cale’s motivations in all of this and why she wants to get to Themyscira so badly, and it seems as though our past and present storylines have finally come to a head, proving my suspicions correct that the two Doberman that Cale has with her are the twins -- though I thought they were common disguise and not binding of them thanks to a revamp of Circe.

Now, of course, if you follow me long enough to know my Wondy opinions, you know that Circe is by far my favorite villain in Diana’s rogues gallery, and so I have been very excited about her turn to come into Rucka’s reimagining. And it didn’t disappoint, I rather like her modern redux. 

And in all honesty, Rucka’s second time around with Veronica Cale has been delightful to see take form -- moving her motivations to something more powerful and more relatable than “women be jealous of other successful women” is just so much more engaging. There’s definitely been a lot learned since his last run of Wonder Woman and I appreciate it.

The art continues to be just beautiful for the past storylines, I mean beyond gorgeous and so colorful. Which just makes me dread the upcoming more dour, dark, and all around depressing take on the present. 

And if that isn’t a culmination of my feelings about comic trends in general I don’t know what is. 

If I didn’t think it’d be entirely unfair, I’d easily give this week to Saga which just continues to impress and amaze me every volume, but as I read it by volume rather than by monthlies, that seems completely unfair. 

Usually my weeks are difficult because there’s more than a few standouts but this week I didn’t really have anything that really stuck out to me. But, ultimately I’m going to give my pick of the week to Wonder Woman. Rucka’s past storylines are just a joy over and over again. 

[katalytic]

Raw or Smackdown?

See, if I was not sleep-deprived, this would be an easy answer, and we could go on with our lives after I replied with one or the other. BUT since I got like… two? three? hours of sleep, and I tend to ramble when tired, I’m going to reply to this with A Very Long Post about my (very jumbled) thoughts on each show. Click on the “Read More” to, uh, read more (unless you’re on the mobile app – whoops).

Raw:

Since the brand split, Raw has had this issue where they either pull the trigger on a story line too early OR they let a story line limp to its sad conclusion, thereby ensuring no one gives a fuck by the end of it. However, in the past few weeks (since WWE has been “on the road to Wrestlemania”), they’ve gotten better at letting stories breathe while still adding a couple of new wrinkles to keep things fresh.

Please let this be the start of a trend and not something that stops as soon as Wrestlemania ends.

The Universal Title looks deadass like Lord Zedd from “Power Rangers” after a bedazzling accident.

Raw has my very favorite wrestler, Sami Zayn. Unfortunately, being a Sami Zayn fan right now feels like what it felt like being a Chicago Cubs fan in 2014 – you knew good things were around the corner, but can we see at least two wins strung together? Why Must I Suffer Like This?

Raw also has my other favorite wrestler, Bayley… whose character has suffered since joining the main roster, in my opinion. However, if WWE pulls off the Sasha Banks heel turn and shows how Sasha has slowly been manipulating Bayley this entire time, all will be forgiven.

Sasha Banks returning from her injury and decking Dana Brooke in the face was what cemented my wrestling fandom.

Can we talk about the women’s division, though? Because there are literally only four women they’re using in the division on Raw right now: Charlotte, Sasha Banks, Bayley, and Nia Jax.

Alicia Fox is busy having messy relations with Noam Dar.

Emma became Emmalina for a hot minute before she was “lol nah” and disappeared back into her cocoon or whatever.

Dana Brooke is JUST NOW getting out from under Charlotte’s thumb. This is a story line that should’ve been done ages ago.

Paige’s neck is, like, dead or something.

There are probably other women I’m forgetting because I haven’t seen them, like, ever.

Like, why? Why just these four?

Also, Nia Jax seems like a lovely person in real life, and I dig her in-ring character. But she does entire promos through her nose, and her theme makes me go “(dismissive wanking motion)” every time I hear it.

The first time I ever knew what a Seth Rollins was, he was returning from injury and then screaming at the crowd for cheering him. Iconic.

That’s probably why I didn’t really buy into his whole “yes I am a babyface now” act until he did his in-ring interview about his new knee injury. He just seemed like a snotty brat acting out because Mom and Dad had a new baby to dote on up until that point.

The whole Kevin Owens/Chris Jericho friendship thing went on for way too long but the Festival of Friendship was worth all of it.

Chris Jericho… what a goddamn delight he was this year. I’m going to be sad when he leaves to tour with Fozzy after Wrestlemania.

I’m glad Kevin Owens is being Actually Evil again.

I can’t believe it’s taken them this long to finally figure out Roman Reigns’ sweet spot as a character (tough as nails, dismissive of the old guard, doesn’t really give two shits about the crowd booing him because he knows what he’s about), but I’m glad I’m here to witness it. Now don’t fuck this up.

Because oh lawd before this Roman Reigns’ characterization was… A Mess. The less said about his reign as United States Champion, the better. Let’s all just… agree to forget this happened?

(I still want him to admit that he misses The Shield and that’s why he keeps everything vaguely Shield-like AND why he was so quick to be friends with Seth again.)

The tag team division is another mess. The New Day seem like they’re finally back on track in new IDGAF personas now that they don’t have the weight of the longest championship reign in tag team division history!!11! holding them down. But everyone else? Yikes.

Except, weirdly, Sheamus, who is actually pretty fun now.

Enzo Amore and Big Cass probably suffered the most out of everyone in the tag team division while The New Day were busy making history. (The whole storyline with Rusev and Lana? Let’s never speak of it again.) I used to look forward to them, but now, their music hits, and I stare off into an invisible camera like I’m on “The Office.”

Listen. I appreciate what Stephanie McMahon has done behind the scenes, and I get that her character on “Raw” is supposed to be an asshole. I understand. But I still want someone to hit her with a chair.

Triple H looks like he needs to take a dump. Like, all the time. He has permanent dumpface.

Come back to me, Finn Balor.

SmackDown:

SmackDown, to me, has been the more coherent and consistent of the two brands since the brand split. I think that the one thing that people were touting as its detriment at the start of the brand split – the smaller roster – actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Less characters means less working parts you have to shuffle around for stories to work.

Of course, the smaller roster means that you had the same four dudes vying for championships at the start of the brand split, but to the writers’ credit, they’ve been expanding that pool a bit.

The Randy Orton/Bray Wyatt story line. I mean, fucking hell. Did anyone expect it to be, like, good? Who knew Orton getting his head split open like an overripe melon during SummerSlam would lead to this? Shout out to everyone involved for being completely invested in it and taking even the most ridiculous parts of the story deadly seriously, because any sort of wink and nod to the audience would ruin it.

The Miz is the greatest heel on either brand, and it’s not even close. He even got me to feel sorry for Dolph Ziggler for a minute, there. Genius.

I know a lot of people still don’t like John Cena, and after watching older episodes of Raw and SmackDown on WWE Network, I can understand why. But the Meta Cena of this past year is the best version of John Cena possibly ever. 

Also, Nikki Bella coming out to save Cena three weeks in a row makes my heart flutter. LOVE IS REAL.

The women’s division needs more women, but at least they’re using everyone in the division.

I would vote Alexa Bliss as WWE Rookie of the Year if there was such an award. (Is there such an award?) Yeah, she’s still green in the ring, but her character work has been fantastic to watch. A sneaky-good NXT callup.

The tag team division is a mess on this show, as well. American Alpha won the titles and then went a month without having to defend them. That’s how much of an afterthought the division has been.

Hopefully, the Usos winning the titles last night will help. Their heel turn has been one of the few bright spots in the entire division this year, so I’m hoping that’ll help elevate things.

Dean Ambrose growing a beard was a significant highlight for WWE this year, as far as I’m concerned. Now he doesn’t look like a baby with a combover anymore.

AJ Styles is probably one of my favorite characters in WWE right now. He’s like the Cool Old Guy crossed with the Only Sane Man who’s also Wrong Genre Savvy. Like, he’s the one dude on this show who sees it as an actual athletic competition and cannot comprehend the chicanery that surrounds him.

Take him calling out Daniel Bryan and Shane McMahon for giving Randy Orton a match against him to be in the main event at Wrestlemania. Yes, on LITERALLY ANY OTHER SHOW, he would be completely right about how COMMITTING ARSON should not somehow grant Randy Orton a chance to be anywhere else other than jail. But he doesn’t realize he’s on a TV show about a wrestling show. Like, you shared a locker room with a an undead zombie wrestler AND a mystical cult leader, both of whom can teleport, my guy. That’s fine, but arson – ARSON is where you draw the line. Okay, buddy.

And then, when he sort of figures out that, hey, the rules of the outside world don’t matter on this show, he manages to break the ONE RULE he shouldn’t have: attacking a McMahon. And he still gets kind of rewarded for it (if you think having to carry Shane McMahon through a match where he is guaranteed to attempt to destroy himself at least once is a reward – which, honestly, it is, in WWE-land).

After all this, you’re probably wondering “So… Raw or SmackDown?” tl;dr: Raw has more of my favorite wrestlers, but SmackDown has the story lines I’m more invested in.

[ryanonwrasslin-blog]

Wrestlemania 33 Review

RI’m going to keep this relatively short because I’ll have the full review of the week later on, but as one of my gimmicks around here is ranking things, I thought I’d put together the definitive ranking fo the matches from NXT and Wrestlemania, along with some assorted thoughts, from worst to first, and grouped together by category.

Terrible

18. Randy Orton vs. Bray Wyatt

There were a couple of letdown matches on the main card that I came into with high hopes, but nothing compares to this one. Against the right opponent each of these guys can have fantastic matches. But neither has a style that meshes well with everyone, and unfortunately it’s now clear that they just don’t have chemistry with each other in the ring that’s even 1% as interesting as their chemistry outside of the ring. I don’t know what Smackdown’s plans are, but the air really felt like it was let out of this feud last night.

17. Roman Reigns vs. The Undertaker

Poor ‘Taker. And honestly, poor Roman. The Big Dog has mostly had good matches for the last year-plus no matter what his critics might insist. But I don’t think even a wizard like Shawn Michaels or AJ Styles could have pulled something worthwhile out of the Dead Man last night. We’ve seen this deterioration in the ring really since the Mania loss to Lesnar, but ‘Taker was always able to at least give us something. Last night was dreadful and thankfully it’s the end for ‘Taker. That spot with Taker turning to putty as Reigns tried to put him into the Tombstone hurt to watch. In all honesty, he shouldn’t have gone past the CM Punk or first Lesnar match. Thank you for so many good moments, ‘Taker, but it’s time to rest in peace.

Mostly Dull

16. Dean Ambrose vs. Baron Corbin

I don’t think I’ll ever understand why this wasn’t made under like hardcore, No-DQ rules. I get that there were multiple other matches that made use of no rules, or bent the rules, but there’s always a place for a schmozzy match that battles backstage and uses lots of props and barely resembles a technical match. That’s what this needed to be. Instead, it was a perfectly okay pre-show match where, for some reason, Dean Ambrose retained.

15. Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal

Even a bad battle royal is still perfectly fine, and that’s more or less what this was. I liked the strategy involved in getting Strowman thrown out. That kind of stuff needs to happen every now and then to keep fans from complaining too much about how dumb the wrestlers are. And Mojo is an interesting choice. I can’t see a world where he’s ever even worthy of being more than a placeholder for a midcard belt, but hey, the guy is fun to have around and it takes all kinds to build a wrestling company.

Too Long By Half

14. Seth Rollins vs. Triple H

Woof. This match. Why in God’s name was this match the longest on the card and yet Samoa Joe still didn’t show up? There were basically zero shenanigans you wouldn’t see in a typical episode of Raw. If they wanted to book it this way, they should have shaved probably eight-plus minutes. And if you wanted it to be 20-plus minutes several hours into a card, you needed to do something more interesting than a typical Triple H cerebral assassin match. They’ve known this match was coming for like eighteen months, so thank God it’s over, and I’m sure that’s why they made it this epic battle, but sometimes you’ve go to realize how that sort of thing will play in-house and this crowd was not interested and neither was I. Also, I know Seth hitting Trips with the Pedigree was the money move, but how you gonna deflate the goddamned Phoenix Splash by kicking out? That 100% needs to be a Rollins finishing move going forward.

Left Something To Be Desired

13. Alexa Bliss vs. Natalya vs. Becky Lynch vs. Mickie James vs. Naomi vs. Carmella

On the one hand, the shortened time led to a frenetic pace that, this late in the show, was needed to keep the crowd from utterly dying. But on the other hand, I would have liked to have seen this get at least another 2-3 minutes so that it wasn’t entirely a spot fest and didn’t feel as much like a throwaway. They do gain points for making the right call in the end result, with Naomi being one of the best calls to win of the night.

12. Bayley vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Sasha Banks vs. Nia Jax

At some point we need to have a discussion about Bayley, right? I mean she’s not outright bad or damaging for sure, but she is just not working as well as she should be on the main roster. People want Sasha to win big, and are perfectly happy to hate the hell out of Charlotte. But this was not a good match after the fun of taking out Nia was accomplished. And if they turn Sasha tonight, I’m concerned fans are not going to be nearly as behind Bayley as you’d expect. Sasha is an amazing heel, but she’s also a brilliant character that fans respect the hell out of. 

11. SAnitY vs. Tye Dillinger, Roderick Strong, Kassius Ohno, and Ruby Riot

The mixed tag rules still leave us in such weird places. Unless the match is booked damned near perfectly, at some point it always turns into a frustrating plot point. I do wonder if NXT ever comes close to pulling the trigger on Dillinger. It almost feels like too little too late after another L.

10. John Cena and Nikki Bella vs. The Miz and Maryse

I hoped for more from this given how phenomenal the booking leading up to the match was. Instead they mostly protected Maryse, let Miz have a couple nice minutes, and then it was time for the Cena family to get their shit in and get to the real point of all of this: the proposal. Fine for what it was, but given how good 3 of the 4 in this match are in the ring, and how Maryse’s ring rust could have played into Nikki’s strong style dominance, I hoped for better.

Perfectly Fine, And That’s Okay

9. Aleister Black vs. Andrade Almas

Almas has settled in as a nice mid-card hand in NXT and a welcomer to the card, and this showed why. It was a nice match, showed off both men’s skills, and put Black over as a force to be reckoned with in the months ahead in NXT. At some point, I hope they get on the Almas train. That dude has it figured out now and needs to get something of a push.

8. Chris Jericho vs. Kevin Owens

I wanted this to be Savage/ Steamboat. I wanted it to steal the show and make it impossible to follow in every way. But this just never clicked as much as I wanted it to. That’s not to say it was bad. It wasn’t. It was a strong story of two guys who know each other’s moves so well that they constantly have the moves and counters scouted. That’s a fine story, but it needed more to really work. We didn’t quite get there, I’m sorry to say.

Fun

7. Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar

This was the best possible version they could have done of Goldberg/ Lesnar. I didn’t want another 2 minutes or less affair but asking these two to go ten or more minutes is not being realistic about what you have in them, and it’s risking the crowd turning on it. Instead, both guys got to hit their combined four moves, it told a coherent story, and was a lot of fun. Everyone involved deserves serious kudos for stretching this out to just the right length and making it as good as it could possibly have been.

6. Bobby Roode vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

This was a far better version than their first matchup. Roode is developing a nice tendency of working smart, dare I say cerebral, matches. The knee work to neutralize the Kinshasa was good, as was his ready counters. Shinsuke’s matches in WWE have all been fine, but not one has ever lived up to the man’s hype, charisma, and most of all his entrances. I hope that changes on the main roster.

5. Neville vs. Austin Aries

In terms of technical skill on both sides of the bout, this was certainly the winner at Wrestlemania. Just a well-booked, entertaining match all around. Neville continues to be both smart and devastating, and this didn’t take any shine off of Aries. Let’s do this again with these two.

4. AJ Styles vs. Shane McMahon

If I could get past the booking oddity of making Shane McMahon look on the equal of AJ Styles, this would almost certainly be the match of the night, and I can’t believe that’s something I just typed. AJ is a demigod in the wrestling ring, and full marks go to Shane McMahon for learning from the worst parts of the overlong Undertaker affair. This was fun, relatively strong from a technical perspective, and should cement AJ as a goddamn miracle worker in the ring to the decision makers at WWE.

3. The Club vs. Cesaro and Sheamus vs. Enzo and Cass vs. The Hardys (!)

I gave this match shit for using up the ladder stipulation for three team who seemed in capable of making it worthwhile. But the, things got a little bit Broken. Without a doubt the biggest pop of the night went to the freakin’ Hardys showing up at Wrestlemania. From there it turned into 11 electric minutes. Everyone got cool spots, crazy ass Jeff Hardy jumped off an enormous ladder, and the crowd lost their shit repeatedly through it all. It won’t score high by any technical measure, but goddamn if this wasn’t a ton of fun.

These Are The Actual Good Matches

2. Asuka vs. Ember Moon

It seems like I like this match more than most, even though I don’t have a ton to say. And yes, I know that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The tag match was hot fucking fire, but this told a strong story and made both women look great. Ember is coming for Asuka, and coming soon, but Asuka’s surprise semi-turn tonight was beautiful.

1. The Authors of Pain vs. The Revival vs. #DIY

A great, possible swan swong, for what has been the best division in all of WWE for over a year. I have to think at least one of Revival and #DIY are being promoted, and honestly they both should be. I’m not sure AOP can keep this up without them, but that’s a question for another day. For Saturday night, we got brilliance from the three teams. The combo finishers, the frenemies dynamic between the two smaller teams, and AOP’s just incredible physicality. My only issue is just how much damage AOP had to overcome to win. It got to be too much when whichever Author sat in double submissions for forever without tapping, and within another minute or two was up hitting his moves. That was a step too far, and the only thing that kept it from being another all-time classic.

[wweblogging]

Wrestlemania 33 Predictions

This is actually the first Wrestlemania I will be watching because I only started watching WWE about May of last year. Anyway, we have around 13 matches to go through, so goodness this will be long Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal- this is tough because we don't know who is in. My heart wants to say Tye Dillenger will appear and win but I'm going to go with Braun Strowman Austin Aries v. Neville (champ) for the Cruiserweight Championship- this is going to be match of the kickoff show without a doubt. Neville will win Every available woman on the Smackdown Live roster in a match for the Smackdown Live Women's Championship- Ok so they had time for PITBULL but not this. And why did Naomi come back on Smackdown and not Wrestlemania. Also she will win, hometown face return-ish Enzo and Cass v. Cesaro and Sheamus v. The Club (champs) in a TRIANGLE LADDER MATCH for the Raw Tag Team Titles- I'm calling it a triangle ladder match because it's my predictions. This seems like it'll be slow (Sheamus and the Club aren't known for their speed) but Cesaro might do something fun. I'm gonna go with the Club on this one Baron Corbin v. Dean Ambrose (champ) for the Intercontinental Title- Baron Corbin better win this and if he doesn't he should just maul Ambrose. Put him through an announce table or something because that's what Corbin does. That and attempt murder Kevin Owens v. Chris Jericho (champ) for the United States Championship- This will be match of the night. I'm taking Jericho and I've got a great end spot. Owens goes for a Pop-up Powerbomb and on the way down, Jericho hits the Codebreaker and that's it Charlotte v. Sasha Banks v. Nia Jax v. Bayley (champ) in a Fatal 4 Way Elimination Match for the Raw Women's Title- This match also has high potential. I think Nia will go first (everyone gangs up on her), then Bayley after Sasha distracts her, which sets up a feud later I guess. Charlotte will pick up the win after The Miz and Maryse v. John Cena and Nikki Bella- I am more excited for this match than I should be. The promos leading up to it have been fantastic, and the Miz is on the run of his life. As much as my instincts tell me Cena will win, I'm going to go with Miz and Maryse. Then, like Wrestlemania 7, John and Nikki can still celebrate like Macho Man and Miss Elizabeth did. Also there better not be a proposal AJ Styles v. Shane McMahon- First off this should have been a no holds barred match like Triple H v Seth Rollins later on. Second off, I am also more excited for this match than I should be. Styles could wrestle a coat rack and I'd still watch, and Shane's interesting offense may make this much better than anyone expected. Pick is AJ though Seth Rollins v. Triple H in a Non-Sanctioned Match- WWE has, like, 3 different names for a no DQ match. I think Triple H will take this one, but with some assistance from Samoa Joe Undertaker v. Roman Reigns- Undertaker wins here and retires next year in the building where the streak ended. Wrapped in his victory, however, is that elusive Regins heel turn. Roman can't just hit him with a chair, he needs to make Taker bleed. Even if Reigns wins, the end result needs to be an injured Undertaker, bloodied at the hands of Roman Reigns Brock Lesnar v. Goldberg (champ) for the Universal Championship- Oh boy two part timers fighting for the World title. Brock is the lesser of the two evils I feel, and will finally get the win over Goldberg Randy Orton v. Bray Wyatt (champ) for the WWE World Championship- this better be the main event. Don't let Lesnar v. Goldberg be the main event. Please. Anyway, the story for this match is super interesting to me and I hope to see a good climax and a victory for Bray Wyatt at Wrestlemania And that's it. This Wrestlemania has good potential. Also I didn't include Shaq v. Big Show because I'm not sure if it is on or not and we all know Shaq will win, so that's basically a free point. Let's hope I can keep my schedule up for a while

[daleisgreat]

G1/RoH Supercard (of Honor XIII)

Welcome to my annual Ring of Honor (RoH) blog for their annual Supercard of Honor show. 2019 was a wild year for RoH. They started the year losing access to Matt and Nick Jackson, Cody Rhodes, Kenny Omega and all three members of SCU (Christopher Daniels, Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky) as they all departed after their contracts expired at the end of the 2018 to help launch All Elite Wrestling (AEW). Before that it was known that those seven wrestlers would be leaving, RoH collaborated with New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) to announce a special live PPV they would be airing on WrestleMania weekend: G1 Supercard. G1 is a recurring PPV special for NJPW, and I am presuming Supercard is short for the Supercard of Honor PPV special that usually transpires during WrestleMania weekend which is why I am covering this PPV and treating it as Supercard of Honor XIII. There is another big reason I wanted to cover this show…. That is because this joint venture between NJPW and RoH emanated from the ‘World’s Most Popular Arena’ Madison Square Garden. This was a shocking announcement because going back several decades WWE had the exclusive rights to MSG and the last other promotion that ran a show in MSG was back in 1960! WWE tried pressuring MSG and briefly got them to remove the show from their schedule….that was until the owners of RoH, Sinclair Broadcasting, called up WWE and informed them they own roughly half the FOX TV affiliate stations that would be starting to air SmackDown on FOX within several months and have control of what time to air WWE’s new flagship show and that was reason enough for Vince McMahon to back off and G1 Supercard wound up running as scheduled during the 2019 WrestleMania weekend from MSG.

NJPW and RoH have been lending talent to each other for years, but this is one of the first times they evenly split a card 50/50 for each promotion’s matches. When the tickets originally went on sale, it was shortly before the much hyped independent All In PPV put on by most of the Elite (at that time consisting of Cody, Omega, Young Bucks, Marty Scurll and Adam Paige) that RoH lent a lot of their talent for. The show wound up being a huge success and all the buzz for All In presumably was the catalyst for G1 Supercard selling out in under a day of tickets officially going on sale. By the time the G1 Supercard rolled around all of the Elite, save for Marty Scurll, departed RoH a few months earlier leaving a huge void of headline guys for RoH. The NJPW half of the card delivered with exciting match-ups, while the RoH half stuck out with a lack of top level talent. The PPV had two pre-show matches that are included as bonuses on the DVD. The first match saw Jenny Rose & Oedo Tai overcoming the handicap match odds and defeating Hung Kimura, Sumie Sakai and Stella Grey when Tai got the pin with a 450 in a bout that saw a lot of nonstop energy to get the crowd rolling. G1 Supercard will be the first PPV I can remember that had a 30 person Rumble match in a pre-show they billed as the ‘Honor Rumble.’ It was also the longest pre-show match I can recall at 49 minutes. Entrances were sped up at approximately 30 second intervals to keep up the tempo which made it enticing to see who would walk out next. Both RoH and NJPW stars competed and I only recognized roughly half of the competitors, but it was fun learning some new faces. Colt Cabana was on commentary for the night but took a breather to compete in the Rumble when Yano invited him to take his spot. Other faces I recognized were Justin Gabriel now going by PJ Black, Beer City Bruiser, Delirious, Kenny King, Cheeseburger and a trio of Asian wrestling legends in Haku, Great Muta and Jushin Thunder Liger.

I do not care how aged Haku is because he still looks like one of the baddest guys on the planet I would not want to mess with. I have no idea how active Muta is, but he was not at all agile and seemed very careful with his movements. Liger could still go, but he was in the midst of his retirement year tour and it was apparent his best days were behind him. The end of the Rumble saw it looking like it would come down to Liger and Muta, but then Kenny King pulled the ‘ol hide under the ring trick card and emerged to toss Liger and Muta out to win it all. That was a fun crazy Rumble with the frequent entrances and it brought back memories of that bonkers Rumble match on a 2000 episode of Thunder with all kinds of unique entrants that were AWOL in that time of uncertainty for WCW and also marked the last appearance of Macho Man in WCW. The start of the actual PPV saw a ‘winner takes all’ match with two titles on the line in RoH’s TV Title and NJPW’s Never Openweight Title. Jeff Cobb beat Will Ospreay here to walk away with both belts in a bout that did not fail to deliver a ton of insane spots. Dalton Castle was the RoH champ on a previous SoH PPV I covered here, but now his stock has dwindled as he lost to Rush in 15 seconds here after three straight Shotgun Dropkicks. After Castle collected himself, he turned and obliterated his eccentric seconds, The Boys. The RoH Women’s Title was on the line next and saw Kelly Klein beat Iwatoni with an Airplane Spin slam in a decent bout. I had no idea TNA/Impact Wrestling’s The Beautiful People were still a hot commodity after their countless stop-n-go runs in that promotion, but when Velvet Skye and Angelina Love walked out after the match and attacked Klein the announcers put it over as the biggest thing ever to happen to their women’s division.

DJ/Hip Hop artist Mega Ran came out for a musical performance next, the song is a decent catchy beat for the DVD menus too which is a nice relief from the generic basement-rock that dominates most other RoH releases. Anywho, Bully Ray interrupted and harassed Mega Ran and laid out an open challenge that turned into a six-man tag with Bully Ray, Silas Young and Shane Taylor taking on Flip Gordon, Juice Robinson and Mark Haskins. This was a surprisingly a fun weapons brawl with lots of creative spots. The finish saw Ray fall victim to the Wassup Headbutt and the Gordon hitting the 450 for the win. The IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Title was on the line next in a triple threat between Bandido, Dragon Lee and Taiji. In a bout that I will remember as having a sick tower spot, it saw Bandido capture the gold after hitting a variant of a driver-pin combination. Another winner takes all titles match transpired next for both the RoH and NJPW tag team titles in a four way between The Briscoes, Guerillas of Destiny, Evil & Sanada and Brody King & PCO. RoH contributed some production dollars for PCO’s electric (literally) entrance that saw him get the Frankenstein electric chair treatment in a thrilling visual. Speaking of production dollars, this is easily the best looking RoH show I have ever seen, especially compared to the first couple of SoH shows I covered here. The Guerillas of Destiny walked out with all the tag gold when they hit their double powerbomb finisher on Brody for the victory. RoH caught a lot of heat for running a ‘worked shoot’ segment after the match ended with the wrestlers formerly known as Big Cass & Enzo running out and attacking the Briscoes after the match before they got escorted out, but RoH never officially acknowledged it on camera and after all the negative reception it got did not request feature services from Cass & Enzo so I will link to this fan footage of the run-in instead.

A third promotion contributed a match to G1 Supercard with Revolution Pro having their British Heavyweight Title on the card with Hiroshi Tanahoshi challenging Zack Sabre Jr. for the championship. I only remember Zack’s excellent work in the Cruiserweight Classic from a few years back so it was great seeing him again, doubly so since he was accompanied by another old favorite of mine I have not seen in over a decade in TAKA Michinoku. This bout saw a heavy emphasis on heavy duty technical and submission wrestling which was a breather from the spotfests that dominated the rest of the card. I want to re-emphasize ‘heavy duty’ because both Tanahoshi and Sabre did a superb job at conveying how much they laid into each other with a sick submission Sabre Jr. kept amplifying in unbelievable ways that I cannot even describe until Tanahoshi convincingly tapped out. Thinking about this now I would rank this as my favorite match from the night! The tenth contest of the night saw the IWGP Intercontinental Title on the line between Naito and Kota Ibushi. I recognize both guys from the handful of NJPW Kenny Omega matches I tracked down after hearing a ton of buzz for and also recognize Ibushi from his Cruiserweight Classic run too. This match delivered, and had a great NJPW produced video package too. Both guys delivered a lot of intense neck and head spots, and Ibushi wound up winning after a rising knee strike in another match that was close to my favorite for the night. The RoH World Title was on the line next in a triple threat ‘Ladder War’ between Marty Scurll, Matt Taven and Jay Lethal. Lethal was hyped going into this as having the title the most number of days compared to all other previous champions….but I could never buy into him as a top level guy, and I recall despising Matt Taven on previous RoH shows and Scurll I have bad memories of his match against Castle last year where he spent eons trying to find a weapon under the ring so I did not have a vested interest in the bout. It was a solid match with a few unique spots and saw Taven winning the title after fighting off Lethal in the end, but I felt rather ho-hum coming out of this, and apparently so did the crowd watching their tepid reaction to Taven’s title win.

The headlining main event saw Jay White defend his IWGP Title against Kazuchika Okada. I love how NJPW produces their video packages, and this one got me amped up going into the main event. The duo told a great story, and White’s manager, Gedo found clever ways to get involved. I recognize Okada from another Omega match I saw that I believe went to a time limit draw, and this match also went on a while going just over a half hour before White fell victim to the RAIIIIIIN-MAKERRRRR Lariat with Okada capturing the IWGP Title. I saw online reception noting the weak RoH half of the show, and compared to the New Japan offerings, they definitely were a couple notches below, but RoH still had a couple of really good matches like the TV Title and bout and Bully Ray’s open challenge was the perfect refresher for this long of a card. I will give big ups for the Honor Rumble, Tag Titles and IWGP Title matches, but my two favorites that blew everything else away on here was the Zack Sabre/Tanahoshi and Naito/Ibushi matches. More than anything I came out of the G1 Supercard wanting to get more into NJPW, but with so much other wrestling out there to keep up with, I will probably only be picking and watching the occasional match or two a year that generates a ton of buzz. Collectively, I will give G1 Supercard a strong thumbs up and recommend to track down, especially seeing both promotions operate in a big time atmosphere like Madison Square Garden made the event truly special and standout like few other cards from RoH history. Past Wrestling Blogs Best of WCW Clash of Champions Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2 Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 3 Biggest Knuckleheads Bobby The Brain Heenan Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes DDP: Positively Living Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials ECW Unreleased: Vol 1 ECW Unreleased: Vol 2 ECW Unreleased: Vol 3 Eric Bishoff: Wrestlings Most Controversial Figure Fight Owens Fight: The Kevin Owens Story For All Mankind Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection Hulk Hogans Unreleased Collectors Series Impact Wresting Presents: Best of Hulk Hogan Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story The Kliq Rules Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman Legends of Mid South Wrestling Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story Memphis Heat NXT: From Secret to Sensation NXT Greatest Matches Vol 1 OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History OMG Vol 3: Top 50 Incidents in ECW History Owen: Hart of Gold RoH Supercard of Honor 2010-Present ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery Scott Hall: Living on a Razors Edge Shawn Michaels: My Journey Sting: Into the Light Straight Outta Dudley-ville: Legacy of the Dudley Boyz Straight to the Top: Money in the Bank Anthology Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder Then Now Forever – The Evolution of WWEs Womens Division TLC 2017 TNA Lockdown 2005-2016 Top 50 Superstars of All Time Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season True Giants Ultimate Fan Pack: Roman Reigns Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe War Games: WCWs Most Notorious Matches Warrior Week on WWE Network Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition Wrestlemania 28-Present The Wrestler (2008) Wrestling Road Diaries Too Wrestling Road Diaries Three: Funny Equals Money Wrestlings Greatest Factions WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015 WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015 WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2016 WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2016 WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2017

[darkarfs]

My Favorite WWE Matches of 2018. In Actual Numerical Order.

10. The Men's Royal Rumble I haven't clapped in pure joy at a Royal Rumble match since 2010. We started with my bae Rusev, we had a sincere iron man in Finn Balor, we had stories for the undercard (behold Woken Matt Hardy. Bray Wyatt and poor, amazing Heath Slater, who eliminated Sheamus on his *birthday*). I almost wept when Rey Mysterio came out at 27, and I was excited throughout. Factor in that ending, which saw Shinsuke Nakamura throw out everyone's expected victor, Roman Reigns, to win it all, and then challenge AJ Styles that minute. What came after wasn't great, but we're all about moments, us wrestling fans. And if you don't think I'm HELLA stoked about this year's Rumble (Jan. 27) hoh SHIT are you wrong.

9. The Six-Pack Challenge (AJ Styles, John Cena, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn, Baron Corbin, Dolph Ziggler), Fastlane Something I noticed about this match immediately was the fact that the most conservative men in it (Styles, Ziggler) wore the most flamboyant tights, baby blue and shocking pink, respectively. Conservative men act out in the weirdest ways. This was a high-stakes spot-fest, a lot of hurling and whirling, a lot of hey-ho and ding dong. If you ask me to recall any of the actual action, I won't be able to. I just remember 22 minutes going by and being really happy afterward. I actually had to look up who was IN the match. Genuinely forgot Corbin was in it, even though he rammed Dolph through a Plexiglass barricade in the match.

8. Mustafa Ali vs. Buddy Murphy, 205 Live, July 3rd Vince McMahon said, after the Network ratings sagged and Enzo Amore got fired, that the Cruiserweight division was "not worth his time." So he turned it over to his son-in-law, Triple H, who fired some honest-to-God life into it. This match was fast, risky, more technically sound than the one live drummer Necrophagist hired, and felt more like a fiery indy show than it has since Alexander and Ibushi tore the house down in the CWC back in 2016. If you were sick of Finn Balor vs. Baron Corbin on EVERY RAW this year, this was the little bowl full of coffee beans at Yankee Candle Co. to cleanse the palette. Bonus points for mAybe the most creative use of ring stairs in a one-on-one encounter maybe...ever?

7. Seth Rollins and Dean Ambrose vs. Drew McIntyre and Dolph Ziggler, Hell in a Cell The first PPV match ol Deano had since his injury, coming back looking like a man made of boulders and pancakes, this match played skillfully off the four dissimilar styles of the four men in it, but it gets this spot mostly for the best finish of a match this year. Seth went for his beautiful superplex-into-falcon-arrow, hitting the first half of it, and then, lifting Dolph for the second bit, hit with Drew's amazing Claymore, sealing the win for Ziggler and McIntyre. Goddamn, it's a thing that still makes me smile.

6. The Men's MITB, Money In the Bank (Braun Strowman, Samoa Joe, Bobby Roode, Rusev, Kevin Owens, Finn Balor, Kofi Kingston and the Miz) CARNAGE. People falling off ladders! Ladders falling ON people! People deciding they should fall off a ladder onto ladders ONTO PEOPLE! Everyone climbing the actual mountain that is Braun Strowman! Seriously, guys this tall shouldn't be in ladder matches. It's unfair. Does anyone remember that amazing ladder match on Raw between the Undertaker and Jeff Hardy in 2002? Taker was up that ladder in two steps! Glorious carnage. Hard to keep up the energy after a 10-match card, but these men did, and brilliantly. Special mention to Braun, who showcased, through charging, smashing, slapping, and slamming, why he is a real-life Incredible Hulk. And to poor Kevin, who fell maybe 30 feet and wrestled later that same week.

5. Kurt Angle and Ronda Rousey vs. Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, Wrestlemania 34 I'm getting this out of the way now, because I thought it the instant it happened and I still think it; Trips and Steph's doings at Mania are their foreplay. When she came out at Mania 32 with a skull mask on, channeling Rita Repulsa and Immortan Joe with all her theatrical screaming about destiny in a floor-length coat, bustier and fishnets OVER tights, she and Triple H conceived a daughter that night. When Rousey trapped Stephanie in that armbar for almost a minute, while she writhed and screamed "NO, OH GOD NO, PLEASE NO, I'M BEGGING YOU, DON'T" in a skin-tight leather jumpsuit, I have no doubt they were trying to conceive another child. Aside from that, Kurt proved he still had it, Rousey shocked the world by being REALLY GOOD at this dumb bullshit in her debut match, and it proved to be the show-stealer at a decent Wrestlemania. It was also the ONLY time Rousey's eye makeup looked even halfway good, which is it's own feat, a year into her run.

4. Daniel Bryan vs. AJ Styles, TLC After two years, Daniel Bryan went from an amazing recovery, to an amazing return, to...just another mid-carder, feuding with, of all people, Big Cass. We fans of D-Bry (my current avatar) were kind of sad. We were happy that he was doing what he loved again after lesions on his brain kept him from it, but we were sad that a man so GOOD was doing so little with his prodigious talents. Like your friend who's amazingly good at guitar but has resigned himself to playing in a Wallfowers cover band. Then he went mad...again. Not because of 18 seconds, not because of his girlfriend or his tag team partner, but because he was SICK of the WORLD. Relatable. They will be remembered as two of the best in the business, forever, and this will be on the highlight reel. Another ingenious finish, too, as the Phenomenal Forearm was ducked, then the running knee was ducked into an inside cradle, which was then reversed. It was so good. It made Bryan look like who he is; fortunate, skilled and cunning. AND THEY'RE FIGHTING AGAIN AT THE RUMBLE. <3 <3 <3

3. The Gauntlet Match on the Feb 19 Raw (John Cena, Braun Strowman, Elias, Finn Balor, Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, the Miz) A Raw main event that went over 2 HOURS. And it was shown as one of the highest rated segments on Raw in literal years. It was a showcase for Elias, who is amazing. It also dumped Reigns early, surprising everyone. Most importantly, it showed that Seth Rollins is maybe the best ring general of all time. It showed that if he wanted he could carry a match with a wet paper towel and people would be invested. By no means show this to someone getting into wrestling for the first time...unless you show them the final two participants. Then absolutely show them. That is wrestling's essence distilled.

2. Daniel Bryan vs. Brock Lesnar, Survivor Series AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA oh my HEAVENS. Proof that when Brock cares, he can still go, and proof that Daniel Bryan is the literal best in the world. Years of what-if and hype actually delivering is pretty freeing and wonderful. The phrase "big fight feel" gets lobbed around a lot in wrestling. This is genuinely one of the few times it worked. Like watching Jeff Bridges as the Dude try and bring down Galactus. And almost succeeding.

1. Becky Lynch vs. Charlotte Flair, Evolution There is no way this match happened. These women love and support one another and good GOD does it show in how they carried themselves. The ultimate blow-off showdown, the best use of weapons in any match maybe ever, the crowd literally roaring and bellowing, the stiffest possible punches and spots, Charlotte rising from under a pile of announce chairs, and that climactic powerbomb off the apron. Becky Lynch IS wrestling right now, and Charlotte should be with her when she tears down the world.

Huh. That worked out.

[pandacommander24a]

22 seconds Bell to Bell

So Fastlane was... about a mix bag but ultimately its the ending and climax that tells you whether or not it was worth it. Pretty much first half was good times. Then 22 seconds, yeah, 22 seconds. Matches varied from alright to good. Then just nose dive into crap. 

Cruiser Weight matches, both, were really good, just wished I could care about 205 live. I don’t so meh.  Swan and Tozawa out flippy shit  Dar and Kendric. Good fun.

Sami and Soma was a lot of fun, Sami never has a bad match and I really like Soma; best theme on Raw. The match wasn’t the HYPE but was good fun and got me excited for the rest of the night. So a really good opener... Should have stopped.

Tag team was fun, I live for Cory Gary’s absolute hatred of Enzo. Big Cass was strong but The Club were wasted again and kind of stole the win...  The club are both talented guys but they essentially are being jobbed out making them look weak and getting shitty wins like this... Still better than Smackdown in regards to the Tag Team Divison. I don’t know if they are just in a holding pattern until they decide what to do with the New Day

Sasha and Jax, not a squash match. Surprising, Jax threw Sasha around, Sasha threw everything at Jax and then surprise Roll up. Little sloppy but not a bad match. I like Jax and hope she keeps building up to something either at Wrestlemania or something. I was kind of hoping Sasha would do something kind of underhanded to start that heel turn they have been teasing during her injury but whatever. 

Rusev and Mahal, who were a team but now hate each other, demanded a matched. Kind of expected Fowley to come out and tell them to Wrassle it out. What we got was better. 

Mahal throws Rusev threw a barrier and demands a wrestler. Who comes out Cesaro! Que me loosing my shit. There are a couple of people who no matter what always have a match that doesn’t fail to entertain. Styles, Owens, Sami, and my favorite Cesaro. Cesaro works through his extensive roster of moves, and show his Swiss 619 which he has actually mastered. Cesaro faked a back injury during the match because Cesaro wouldn’t be having fun if he wasn’t handicapped in some way. Cesaro wins because Mahal saw Rusev got up and took his eyes off the birdie.  (Seriously like most of the Single matches I saw of Cesaro he’s hurt or some way not at 100%. Shamus and Cesaro feud where he kayfab broke his arm “I fought with only one arm before, let me fight!” Against the Big Show no less. Speaking of which...)

Rusev comes in after the pin and brutalizes Mahal. Then the Big Shows music hits. And out comes epic level Big Show, a good damn match between Big Show and Rusev. Big Show has been hitting the gym for his match against Shaq, which won’t happen. So I think they are setting up a feud with Rusev for Wrestlmania or just trying to reinvent the character. Either way a surprising fun match and Big Show was not the Big Slow tonight.

The New Day come out to shill merch and Ice Cream, remind us they were hosting Wrestlmania and that’s it... Big E wanted to sleep with everyone including the Ice Cream Bicycle they road in on, it was weird but I can dig it. It was the New Day, it got a laugh and was fun. And you know what... The New Day stole the fun when they left because it was all kind of down hill from here.

Second Cruiser Weight match. As I stated Great match. Incredible talent from both Neville, hill Neville the best Neville, and Gallagher. Crazy good match, that trademark Flippy shit and Neville retains. Again I wish I cared about 205LIVE but I can’t for some reason, even though its got more talent than the main raw roster, HEYOH!

Roman Reigns and  Braun Strowman. Okay Reigns had new gear on and honestly it was the same but different and honestly I dug it. The match was by the numbers, Reigns outlasted and out survived everything Strowman threw at him. It kind of was a suprise ending though. Strowman goes for a top rope , Yea the nearly 400 pounds 8 foot tall mofo threw him self from the Turn buckle at Reigns. Reigns moves out of the way and SPALT. Reign coves. So Reigns didn’t beat Strowman, Strowman decided he wanted to be Nevilel but forgot... Only Neville is forgotten by Gravity. So ignoring the bitching of smarks, It was a match with an ending that made Strowman taken ddown by his own hubris rather than his opponent which I can dig.

Then the... SIgh... Okay so at the end of the Raw after Elimination Chamber I had a story idea in mind. Bailey would beat Charlotte at FastLane, clean and then face a heel Sasha at Wrestlemania. Reason? Sasha doesn’t really work as a Face and Charlotte’s  whole gimmick is more or less to be a female version of her father kind of. The hot potato of the belt for the last six months has done nothing for the Raw’s Women division. Charlotte’s streak was impressive but also kind of lame considering its just a PPV streak, she just lost after the PPV so much that the Women’s Division was playing hot potato. So I am not sure why it was such a big deal she had a streak. She just lost on less on important nights. She wasn’t the undefeated champion, she was the lost a bunch when we were not charging for it champion. Bailey is also our plucky underdog. A clean win would help cement her as the champion and cement the belt as something other than a tacky gimmick.

So what happened, a match that was sadly not as good as the match were Bailey won the belt from Charlotte in the first place. Then it ends with Sasha interfering... After Babyface Bailey called out Charlotte’s reliance on Dana Brooke. So heel Charlotte loose from interference from two baby faces... What? Like seriously, What? Is Charlotte going to go Face? Why is Bailey being booked like a heel if she has face promos? Why didn’t the match end in a DQ? IS this some story line for fucking Foley to be fired to cover having to leave for his hip surgery? What did Charlotte, Sasha and Bailey do, or not do, to get this shit booking?

So after that confusion... Something happened that actually made that ending a better ending... KO and Goldberg... I look at my watch and to my suprise There is 10 minutes left of in the PPV. What crazy thing is going to happen, still could be something great right? Fuck my sense of wanting something entertaining and fun to go to work on. Five minutes of setup between Goldberg fucking entrance alone and KO face of he knows this is shit, 3 minutes of KO dancing around the outside of the ring before the match EVEN STARTS. 5 seconds for the Gift of Jericho, which the first official appearance in a month since the festival of friendship. THAN 22 FUCKING SECONDS!

THE PUT THE FUCKING BELT ON GOLDBERG? The only thing that makes this entire asinine story line worst is that Goldberg will face off against Brock Lesnar at Wrestlemania, where no doubt, Lesnar will win and then loose to Roman Reigns. New Era, Same Old Shit. This is on top of the garbage bag of dog shit that has been KO’s run as the Champion, where he has never won on his own, clean or other wise, someone always helped him. Because he’s the pudgy underdog or something... KO deserved better...

I am so fucking done, this is was honestly the first time I was actually hugely upset with watching a PPV.

I know a lot of long term smarks might have better idea but honestly Lesnar and Goldberg is a goddamn snore fest. Between both of them they have maybe have half the moves of KO alone, and KO jobs to fucking GOLDBERG?!? This is a nostalgia match only a handful of really boring people want. Remember the first time, because I watched it. Hell I watched Goldberg’s historic Streak, it was fucking boring. Every match was the same, Spear, Jackhammer, COVER. THE END. NO set up. Maybe it was something at the time a monster suddenly appearing and quietly going back into the night... To much has happened since then, also who cares now? I only care because I wasted two hours of my life for that ending? At least work the fucking handle don’t talk dirty to me than leave me with out a payoff.

I said earlier that KO never have a bad match, well... Goldberg sucks so badly that he is the exception that proves the rule.

I honestly was kind of excited for this match. KO has three fucking story lines going on. He met with Triple H before the Festival of Friendship to work something out. THEN Jericho promises that he has made arrangements for KO to win against Goldberg. Then KO get legit HEAT with everyone by tearing Jericho apart, on the promise of something from Triple H. This combined with the fact that KO usually has incredible PPVs, like every time there is a PPV no matter what, if KO was in it, there was going to be a OMG! moment and it made it worth it to watch his matches, every time, every single time.

So what is the big match end for FASTLANE tonight?  Spear, Jackhammer, COVER. THE END. After Jericho comes out and distracts KO... SO much build up, such great story plotting, an incredibly fucking talented Wrestler and you have him job out to a WCW freakshow you originally ran out of the company 15 years ago, and for what? A few seats at Wrestlemania 33? I mean Wrestlemania the greatest ride ever, or whatever we are suppose to call so Vince doesn’t feel old and senile LIKE HIS FUCKING BOOKING!