Tag: feedback

WWE Extreme Rules fan feedback

Posted on by F4W Staff

Thumbs in the middle

  • Best: Fatal Five Way
  • Worst: Neville vs. Aries

The good (main event, IC title) was great but the bad (CW title, woman’s title, escape the cage rules) was just awful. On the plus side I’m more excited for Lesnar vs. Joe than I’ve been for a WWE main event in ages.

– Nick Randall

**********

Thumbs In The Middle

Barely. This was a easy thumbs down show before Neville vs. Aries & the main event.

  • Best Match – Samoa Joe vs. Finn Balor vs. Roman Reigns vs. Seth Rollins vs. Bray Wyatt (Extreme Rules Match)
  • Worst Match – Alexa Bliss vs. Bayley (Kendo Stick-on-a-Pole Match)

Alexa vs. Bayley should really place high in the Worst Match of the Year category during the year end awards. House of Horrors will be more remembered by then but this match was almost equally as stupid. It just had the benefit of being far shorter.

– William Gregory

**********

Thumbs Down

  • Best Match: Samoa Joe vs. Seth Rollins vs. Finn Balor vs. Roman Reigns vs. Bray Wyatt
  • Worst Match: Alexa Bliss vs. Bayley

I have cut way back on my WWE weekly television viewing with no regrets. If I do feel compelled to watch, it’s usually with Spanish commentary, especially in the post-Mauro era. And, mind you, I know almost no Spanish.

The reality is that watching in a language I don’t understand is proving to be a much less vexing way to take in the WWE product of 2017, with the added bonus of the comedy of the Spanish guys trying to translate using voices matching the various characters.

Typically I don’t like the WWE “hardcore” gimmick shows (Extreme Rules and TLC) as much as most, but this one in particular almost completely failed to resonate with me. And while the main event had some crazy spots and hard work, I felt almost no emotional investment in the participants or the product.

It didn’t help that the crowd was dead for the one match I actually cared about in Aries vs. Neville. Plus they did some strange things during that match, like having a DQ count, that took me out of it to a degree.

The best part of the night IMO was Miz on Raw Talk, via Renee Young, reheating the feud with Dean Ambrose that got shelved on SD Live before WM33 when plans changed. And that might be the first positive thing I’ve ever written about Raw Talk.

– Lou Pickney

**********

Hi Dave,

Just wanted to provide some feedback on Extreme Rules. Wow! What an awesome show! Big thumbs up with the best match being the main event Fatal 5 way for a title match and the worst match being Bliss and Bayley for the women’s title. 

I was really impressed with this show. This was a great show and a big improvement of the main roster shows as of late, this was really good compared to the previous shows with Payback and Backlash. It was a little shorter than recent shows which is a good thing, less is more in my opinion. 
With the network running shows long as of late, it was nice to see a good paced show end at just under 3 hrs. Anything over 3 hrs starts to burn out the crowd and the viewer at home as well. But in regards to timing, it was just about perfect. Now if they could only do this with Raw every week instead of a 3 hr snooze fest, lol! (But seriously, Raw needs to go back to 2 hrs!) But I digress…

Dean vs. Miz – Very good match, good to see Miz win the I/C title. Nothing wrong with Ambrose as champ. But the title seems to be more well served when elevated, and the Miz does an excellent job of that. Keep the title strong and constantly promote it just like the Miz does. With Dean as champ it just seemed like the title was more of a prop and Dean didn’t really emphasize the need to be champion.

Swan / Banks vs. Dar & Fox – This match was ok, nothing great but not bad either. Felt like a weekly Raw match. Good win for Swan and Banks as a team. Good for Swan in getting him over, not sure it really makes a difference for Banks. Was hilarious on the post show segment with Renee Young that Banks actually mentioned that finally someone was allowed to win in their hometown with Swan being from Baltimore, lol.

Bliss vs. Bayley – Um. Less said about this match the better. Not even sure it was a match or what they were trying to do? Seemed like a rushed mess of a match to me. I like both competitors and Alexa Bliss most definitely has the “it” factor, but this match just did not click. Just made Bayley look weak for no reason. I get the point that Bayley is “too nice” but still bad booking.

Hardys vs. Sheamus & Cesaro – Great tag title match in the cage, would have been match of the night if not for the main event. Was really good and just amazing how good the Hardy’s continue to be with both their storytelling in the ring and their match skills. Jeff Hardy is insane. Crazy dive off the cage. A good win and good direction for this feud. Very clever way to get the titles off the Hardy’s and still have them look strong. They shouldn’t lose any momentum from this loss. A good feud will grow with them chasing Cesaro & Sheamus for the tag titles. 

C&S have really improved as a team and click really well now, it took awhile. Really hoping the broken Hardy gimmick will be resolved soon and they can utilize it just because it was so different and entertaining. But the direction of the Hardy’s now is just fine.

Fatal 5 way main event – Roman, Bray, Balor, Rollins, Joe – Awesome match! Thought it would be too cluttered with 5 participants in this match since sometimes a fatal 3 way match is difficult to follow. But this was really well paced. 

All 5 guys looked strong, they really could have gone with any of the 5 men as a choice to win the match and face Brock for the title and it still would have a good program with Brock. It was an even flow of action, told a good story, some really good shots and crazy bumps. And going with Samoa Joe was an excellent choice for the win since Joe needed a win badly to keep him looking strong in the hunt with some recent defeats making him look a little weak. 

I think a match with Brock and Joe would be great, both men are monsters and can have a very physical match. I like the idea of these two facing each other.

Well for once this was a great paced show with great booking except for the women’s title match just not clicking. I enjoyed it and hope that timing on future shows is considered and having shows that run 2 1/2 to 3 hrs for a PPV is just fine. Anything longer then that is really overkill and not needed unless it’s something big like WrestleMania. But a solid outing for this show.

– Jon Southerland

**********

Thumbs Down

  • Best Match: Hardys vs Sheamus and Cesaro
  • Worst Match: Swann and Banks vs. Dar and Fox (but just about everything else was bad too.)

I thought this was quite poor. Watched with 6 other people, and someone fell asleep during the main event, and I had to force myself to pay attention. The Five way was good, I guess, but didn’t seem special or important, and it’s the typical WWE match that felt like it belonged on Raw and not a PPV event. 

Hardys match was the best, I thought, because there was intrigue there, but even that was a little inane because with the rules, I don’t understand half of the match, like why Matt didn’t let Sheamus go out and then follow right behind him, or the other multitude of spots.

I think the Bayley Bliss stuff has been awful because they seem intent on just making Bayley a dork, and I guess the feud is going to continue because the stip was that you’re only supposed to use the stick if you got to it first (?) which doesn’t make any sense, but if they want to keep the feud going and not beat Bayley clean (even though they just did) then I guess this is a thing you can do. Same rules question applied to Sasha and Swann vs. Dar and Fox, because I legit asked the room why Banks wasn’t DQed for attacking Dar. Just seemed like a weird, poor show overall with nothing memorable or exciting. 

For instance: the Cruiserweight match was well wrestled, but outside of Aries diving onto nothing, I will not be able to tell you anything that happened tomorrow. I legitimately haven’t watched Raw since the super star shakeup, and honestly, I have no desire to watch tomorrow now either. 

I hope Brock vs. Joe will be a good program, and maybe they’ll do something interesting, but at this point, with their current track record and the shows they’ve been putting out, I doubt it. They’ve turned people like Nakamura, Bayley and Finn (who’s lost, what, 4 matches since coming back?) from guaranteed money makers into people that are there and given terrible ways to “connect” with the audience. 

It’s just sad how uninteresting the product is right now, and how little effort it seems like they’ve put into making anyone feel special, to where the only the best guys like AJ, Owens and Joe even have a prayer of remaining engaging. They don’t seem to want to make anyone over, and the product is just there right now. This wasn’t as bad as Fastlane was, but it wasn’t worth the three hours of my time I spent on it.

– Jonathan Beckner

**********

Stepping back, Extreme Rules looked destined to fail. Since this PG Era came about, ‘extreme’ has been SEVERELY watered down. The match card even featured a match where the title changes hand by DQ, the very opposite of an ‘extreme’ match. 

The highlight, to me, was the Steel Cage match. Seeing Matt & Jeff flying all around the cage and the Whisper In The Wind brought me back to Hardy of 2007. The main event was fine, too. The problem I had was maybe it under delivered overall. I just didn’t feel too excited or felt they did much. Just rehearsed spots.

The ending came as a shock and disappointment. I believed Seth was going to win because people can afford a “One and Done” match between him & Brock. If not him, then definitely Wyatt. NOT Joe. Joe VS Brock is a dream match and should’ve been treated as such by having it drawn out for a long period of time. Instead, it’s going to be a usual squash match for Lesnar.

Overall, it gets harder & harder to watch WWE nowadays. RAW is short one champion, the star is who most people despise (but I think that’s changing), and those two are destined to fight for the title at Mania. What happens between now & April won’t even matter because of that. 

So, I’ll just stick with NXT & other promotions. At least they make me smile more than WWE.

– Centrell Hawkins

**********

Thumbs up overall, best match being the main event, a lot of fun. Worst match the women’s purely for how off-putting it was, I literally wanted to just stop watching and go to bed at 3 a.m. after that. 

Big fan of Bayley and it was just weird to see her as such an afterthought. This sort of stuff would’ve worked better before she won the title, now it just makes her look bad, I just don’t get it. I don’t want to go and see a movie where the bad guy gets the better of the good guy for 2 hours and then credits. Not even about her losing either, just how throwaway it all was, I dunno. Pointless, but always willing to see if it’ll pan out to something more interesting, but who knows.

– Luke Ryan

**********

I thought Extreme Rules was the drizzling shits. Every match but the main event was below 3 stars while the main event was just barely over 3. They didn’t tell a great story, just a bunch of WWE approved extreme spots. I’m happy that the Miz became Champ but the match itself was horrid, Dean had no heat and seems to be dead in the water creatively. Joe was the worst pick to win the main event. Seth and Roman could have lost to Brock and been fine. Finn and Bray could have lost and possibly turned, or shot an angle and been fine but Joe? He can’t turn babyface or change gimmicks after, he just got here. Joe HAS to win against Brock or he’ll be sharing beers with Ambrose on the totem pole. But it’s the WWE so no confidence.

– Tony Whitaker

**********

Preshow: Kalisto vs Apollo Crews was pretty good.

Miz vs Ambrose was okay, I found the gimmick to be amusing. Ambrose needs to be protected from here on, he’s being wasted in the midcard position.

Banks/Swann vs. Fox/Dar was a match, as Vinny would say. At least the right team won.

Alexa Bliss vs Bayley – HERE WE GO. This was terrible, and I’m seriously wondering, Dave, does Bayley have heat with someone important backstage? My goodness, the stipulation just ended up making Bayley look like such a dork. She was getting boos earlier in the night, too, it was not a good night for her.

Sheamus and Cesaro vs Hardys was a good match. I guess it was about time SheaSaro got one over on the Hardys, but where could the feud go from here? I feel like the Hardys might be going downhill from here on, like the Dudleys in their last return.

Neville beating Aries was disappointing. I’m glad Neville is still doing well, but this loss hurt Aries badly. I guess they’re building towards TJP vs Neville? Anyways, I feel like the crowd wanted to see more high flying out of this match.

The Five-Way probably saved the show (it did for me, at least). Everyone looked like a star, and we’re suddenly getting Samoa Joe vs Brock Lesnar. That could be a hell of a match, but I fear it’s just going to be a bunch of suplexes and F5s.

But seriously, who did Bayley piss off to get treated like this? Tell us, Dave, the world must know!

– Rene Ochoa

**********

Thumbs Up

  • Best Match: Neville vs Austin Aries
  • Worst Match: Noam Dar/Alicia Fox vs Rich Swann/Sasha Banks

It pays to be in the Shield if you’re Seth Rollins. Although the late money came in on Rollins, in the end Vince decided to go with Samoa Joe as the sacrificial lamb to Brock Lesnar at next month’s PPV. Which indicates that Rollins probably has a better shot for SummerSlam and then they move to rebuilding Finn Balor and giving him the shot at Royal Rumble, leading to Reigns and the big fourth attempt at the coronation. They should just do Reigns vs Cena if they want to do a straight passing of the torch. See who actually gets cheered in that match.

– Jeff Cohen

**********

Miz and Ambrose had a decent finish and good match in my thoughts. The steel Cage match didn’t do much for me. Rules did not make much sense for me and it didn’t catch my attention. Bayley and Alexa Bliss match was just bad. I love Alexa Bliss and Bayley but the booking is just abysmal. Bayley looks like an idiot and completely I likable and it just shows as before, she can not win without help from Sasha. 

The Submission match to me was the best wrestling on the card. I enjoyed it but now that Aries lost I don’t see nobody really to go and face Neville. The cruiserweight have been handled so dreadfully I cannot see anyone besides Neville holding the title. 

The fatal 5 way was good but not great. It picked up at the end. I did not understand the finish. Didn’t know you could end a fatal 5 way by knocking 1 of the guys out. Balor to me came out really weak on this. He has lost on already Raw and took the lost here. He still goes on about never losing the title but has not been built strong to back up the claim that he should have a title match. It seems too early for Samoa Joe vs Lesnar. That is something that should be built into a long term story.

– Kenneith Nieves

**********

What a match…I was on my feet in my living room..that spot on the apron was insane…his rematch at Dominion will be insane

Extreme was better than expected, as usual…was hoping A Double would take it, but Neville is just amazing…Kendo is not even worth a mention, as expected…Caesar deserves everything he gets…Joe vs Brock is fresh, a rare dream match…Finn still looked strong, really everyone did But Finn getting crazy was one of the big highlights for me

Even when WWE let’s me down, Progress, ROH and especially New Japan never disappoint

How can I forget Max Holloway and Claudia..just WOW…THAT’S HOW YOU BEAT A KING IN HIS VILLAGE…masterful performance

– Austin Kretsos

**********

  • Worst Match: Bliss-Bayley by a long shot
  • Best Match: Main event was entertaining but I say Neville-Aries was the best overall match of the night even though the crowd did not care all that much.

This show actually surpassed my expectations. I can’t go thumbs up with how they for some reason through the Drifter out there, the mixed tag match and how horrible the Bayley-Bliss match was. Rest was all good to very good. Thumbs in the Middle

Crews-Kalisto: I thought that was actually entertaining and it was nice to see crowd into it. Crews would do well in Cruiserweight division, although I would imagine he’s about 30 pounds too heavy for the 205 requirement if that’s still a thing. 

Ambrose-Miz: Thought this was really good. crowd was into it. Was happy with the finish with the teases of a DQ but actually having a finish. 

Mixed Tag: It was fine. A raw match to fill time. 

Bliss-Bayley: Ugh. That’s what they came up with? That was “This is your life” in a match form. Both Women deserve much better.

Cage Match: Found this to be on the safe side as far as the 4 guys in there, which I was fine with. Hardy’s are coming across as more than just a nostalgic act which is nice to see. Thought the match and drama at end was done well. 

Neville-Aries: Really sad they have pre-conditioned the crowd to not care about the Cruiserweights cause I thought these two told a great story and had a terrific match. Love the way that Neville has been booked since the Rumble. 

Fatal 5 Way: Pretty good match. Entertaining. The whole 5 people thing kind of makes it odd at times. Really picked up well at the end. Finn came across as a superstar that the crowd really wants to see. Time isn’t right quite yet for him. Loved seeing Joe get the Win. I’ve stayed away from reading the smart money coming in on the shows so was a nice surprise. 

– Mike Flynn

UFC 195 feedback, Lawler vs. Condit fight of the night

Posted on by Dan Velten

UFC 195

Thumbs way up. Some upsets, burst bubbles, and stylistic surprises, and as expected an off the chart main event. Some questionable decisions but what else is new.

Best fight: Lawler-Condit

Worst fight: wasn’t one

Best performance: Condit even losing

KO: Stipe

Sub: Ortega

Sheldon Westcott eats a couple of Edgar Garcia right hands and very quickly takes it down, ties him in knots, and gets the rather late TKO off about a zillion unanswered punches. Michonori Tanaka aggressive early but Joe Soto threatens off his back throughout and comes on very strong in the 3rd. Entertaining and competitive. 29-28 split Tanaka. Soto would have won by whole fight but by the rounds/points system you can see how it went that way. Dustin Poirer looks outstanding back at LW busting the Joe Duffy bubble, taking a wide but also entertaining and competitive UD with one 30-26.

Striker Drew Dober surprisingly widely dominates the TD game and takes the 29-28 upset UD over wrestler Scott Holtzman. Similarly, Nina Ansaroff outstrikes Justine Kish, who seems overanxious, and Kish comes on late to dominate the ground game. Could go either way. Kish takes the the UD with two 30-27s, which seems weird, as Ansaroff certainly looked to win the 1st. Alex Morono takes a dubious 29-28 x 2, 27-30 SD over Kyle Noke in a very close one. Michael McDonald looking very rusty after two years off gets used as a mat rag by Masanori Kanehara but somehow reverses a sunk-looking arm tri into RNC for the tap in the 2nd. 

Tony Sims looks good early at long range and stuffing Abel Trujillo’s TD, but Trujillo counters a power double with a Guillotine for the tap. He’s so strong he didn’t even need proper position, getting pressure using his neck, shoulder and chest. Facially Trujillo and Roman Reigns could be twins.

Diego Brandao outboxes and outwrestles Brian Ortega for 2 1/2 rounds but misses a punch badly in the 3rd allowing Ortega to get position to chain subs till he locks up a triangle for the tap.

Very interesting fight that might have been too subtle for the audience. Basically Lorenz Larkin’s low kicks vs. Albert Tumenov’s body punches. Very close. Like the earlier fight whole fight scoring would be Larkin who finished strong but points go 29-28 split Tumenov. Not popular decision. Both looked very good.

A bigger bubble bursts as Stipe Miocic catches Andrei Arlovski’s always questionable chin with a short right that rocks him and does not let him off the hook and it’s over in 54s. Stipe screams at Dana for a title shot, which seems unarguable. Stipe was just ranting (not in a bad way) and I think on his promo he said at one point ‘I’m CM Punk, bro.’

Carlos Condit turns in a career-best performance in his WW title challenge to Robbie Lawler. Most fluid and instinctive he’s ever looked. Pattern is set in the 1st with Condit constantly moving and leading and Robbie looking to counter after Carlos scores a flash KD. He then dictates the rest of the round, 10-9. Pattern holds in the 2nd but Robbie finds the range and drops Carlos, a lot harder and has him in brief trouble and evens it up. The 3rd is the swing round as it turns out with Carlos again just much much busier and Robbie throwing very little but landing most of it clean and hard. I thought the sheer volume made it Condit’s round. The 4th was similar until late when Carlos rocked Robbie late and had him in some trouble and I thought was enough for a 10-8. The corner told Robbie he needed a KO and he went out and tried to get it, hitting Carlos with everything but the kitchen sink, but he couldn’t drop him and Carlos fought back every time. Early round of the year candidate and fight of the year also. Robbie took the 5th, borderline but IMO not quite 10-8. Both collapsed against the fence at the bell. I had Condit 49-46 but the judges went 48-47 split for Robbie. No losers here. A rematch could be called for but Carlos said he may retire.

Crimson Mask

Good morning Dave, 
I ordered the show on UFC.tv with a fight pass discount.  I definitely got my money’s worth.  A solid thumbs up show, with very good prelims, and a great main event.  I think a rematch at UFC 200 or that weekend HAS TO happen (sorry Tyrone).  And have a #1 contender fight on standby that weekend.  I scored the main event 47-47, with the champ winning rounds 2, 3, 5 @ 10-9.  I scored Condit winning 1 @ 10-9 and 4 @ 10-8.  Lawler did nothing in 4 and CC’s striking stats showed I was justified having a 10-8 score.  

Happy WK Eve,
James Brown

Thumbs up

Best fight Robbie Lawler vs Carlos Condit

Worst fight Drew Dober vs Scott Holtzman

Best KO Stipe Miocic

Best Sub Michael MacDonald

Best Performance Robbie Lawler & Carlos Condit

Robbie and Carlos was a war, scored it for Condit but 3rd round was so close that i cant be upset about it, way more upset over the Kyle Noke decision. Poirier vs Duffy was also a great fight that is gonna go unnoticed because it aired on Fight Pass and due to the main event euphoria

Wade Haugen

Thumbs Up

Best Fight: Lawler vs. Condit

What a terrible decision.  I could see a draw if you gave Lawler a 10-8 2nd round and a 10-9 5th but I can’t see how you give him the fight.  Rest of the show was fun if not inconsequential outside of the Miocic KO win.  

Mike Hiscoe

Thumbs up show fight of the night lawler vs condit. Worst fight was Justine kish vs Nina Anasaroff. Just an awesome main event. I think the reason I had lawler winning 48-47 was in that third round even though condit threw more, a lot of the punches didn’t land while when they were exchanging lawler got the better of him. Three was the only close round. Every other one was solid by condit in 1 and 4 while lawler in 2 and 5. Again great show.

Corey Lieb

Thumbs up. Best fight lawler vs condit. Think fight is great but being overhyped. Maybe best round 5 I’ve seen, but lot of fight was lawler failing to get off. I scored 3 to 2 for condit. Lawler would have won pride rules. Enjoyed lawler macdonald and lawler Hendricks both times better. Wish Hendricks hadn’t missed weight as I still think he and lawler is best fight to make. Love condit but don’t think he’s top 3 in division at moment. Other than lawler , think Hendricks, woodley, and macdonald all beat him. Don’t think this decision was any more controversial than Hendricks lawler 2 which I thought was more clearly for Hendricks than this was for lawler. 

All that said, loved the fight. 

Mark Libell

Thumbs way up.
Best match was obviously Lawler/Condit. One of the best fights ever, I think. Hope they run it back, I’d pay double to watch it.
Worst match I’d say Kish/Ansaroff for lacking anything that looked like pro-level technique.
With that main event, easy thumbs up, but the co-main was a great performance and Brian Ortega and Michael McDonald had 2 outstanding submissions. Fun show on the whole.

Jeremy Sexton

WWE Survivor Series 2015 Reader Feedback

Posted on by F4W Staff

Thumbs way down.
All the talent and possibilities they have and those are the final two standing? Shows who the bosses want, we get. Sheamus and Reigns. Wow. Couldn’t have booked it worse if they wanted to lose viewers tomorrow night and the foreseeable future as fast as possible.
Awful.

Brian Mazza

Thumbs uppish.

Best match: Ambrose v Owens

Worst: Undertaker/Kane v The Wyatts

The matches were mostly entertaining if not especially memorable. The curse of the show was match endings seemingly : the traditional Survivors match (pretty good until New Day walks out, hen… well…), Charlotte/Paige, Ziggler/Breeze & the Reigns/Ambrose final were all marred by it. Only Reigns/Del Rio & Ambrose/Owens built to a satisfying payoff.

The “surprise” Sheamus win makes sense from a story perspective, but I can’t say it makes me interested in future directions, & it didn’t do Roman any favors. For a second it looked like they were doing a double-turn with him & Triple H…

Steven Grant

Henderson NV

Dave,

This show sucked, thumbs down.

Best match ADR vs Reigns
Worst match 10 man tag w/Shameus

Ambrose’s upper body is awful. Needs to get on the main event gimmicks. He looks like me when I work out and I should not be a wwe main eventer.

I don’t know if it’s too late for this but I loved the Tenryu retirement show, big thumbs up.

Best match Tenryu vs Okada
Worst match tag w/Ogawa

Thanks, Erin Hotovy

Hi Dave,
  Just thought I would provide some Feedback on Survivor Series. I gave the show a thumbs in the middle, not that bad, good in spots, but not really that great either. Better then a “B” show, but not by much. I would have to say the best match of the night would probably be the Taker/Kane match VS The Wyatts since it was a cool spectacle but mostly just big spots at the right time, and the worst match of the night would have to be the 5 on 5 elimination match during the main show. I missed the elimination match on the pre show.

Roman / Del Rio – I thought this was a pretty good match, my two choices for the winning the title when the tournament began was both of these guys, I think Alberto would be a great heel champ, and I think Roman would have also made for a great heel champ as well, but more on that later. Good win for Roman.

Ambrose / Owens – Was not all that surprised to see Ambrose win, even though I was pulling for Owens since I think he is one of the most talented guys on the roster right now. But they have been building on the friendship between Roman and Dean during the tournament and what would happen if they met in the finals, so I saw the Ambrose win coming. Ah well.

New Day / Sheamus / Barrett VS Lucha Dragons / Usos / Ryback – Match was entertaining and good for comedy because of the New Day, but also got my vote for worst match of the night because it was just a comedic throw away match. It’s hard to watch matches like this where it’s just built around the comedy segments. And I’m a fan of New Day and they have won me over with their comedy spots, but hard to take them seriously as a result and they are tag champs right now so it dilutes the title as a result.

Paige / Charlotte – Not a bad match for the Divas title, was very good in spots and very physical, but have seen better. I think the whole angle with Flair and her late brother really just ruined the match for me, so it was hard for me to get into this match as a result. Although WWE really retracted on the angle they used on Raw and tried to back track and utilize damage control, the match was really ruined in my opinion from that tasteless angle which still has me dumbfounded why they would go that route and mention Reid Flair the way they did. Just bad taste and was not necessary at all to get the match over. But good to see Charlotte retain since Paige is starting to get annoying in my opinion as they are making her character a little too whiney and complaining. Just stick to having good matches and get the ball back rolling on the Divas revolution.

Ziggler / Tyler – Didn’t really care who won this match since the whole feud has really been pointless. But good win for Breeze since it would be dumb to have him lose after just making his main roster debut. However having him with Summer Rae is not doing him any favors. Poor Summer just seems to be the career killer for everyone, lol.

Taker /Kane VS the Wyatt Family – I thought this was a very good match for what it was and who was involved. I knew Taker and Kane couldn’t really do much to carry the match that long in this latter stage of both their careers and the Wyatts would really have to step up and make it look good. I think it would have been better and really a no brainer to have a traditional 5 on 5 elimination match since it would make everyone look that much better, but this seemed to work out just fine too. Really cool entrance by Undertaker, was expecting more in general throughout the night in honor of the Taker since they were celebrating his 25 years since his debut in WWE in 1990 but this match served it’s purpose well. I thought a good angle they could have utilized if they went for a traditional elimination match would be to have mystery surprise partners for Taker and Kane, possibly Sting, Batista, and Brock as his partners would have been awesome. But that’s just me playing fantasy league booker, lol. But good match otherwise.

Roman / Dean – Not sure what to say about this match. I think Roman as a face is going nowhere fast. Evident by crowd starting to boo him. Was hoping Roman would turn heel during the match on Dean and win the title as a heel champion. I think Roman as a heel champion would be awesome. Face Roman not so much. When Roman did win the title, I automatically thought something was up since they still had plenty of time left on the show for something to happen, which I knew would not bode well for Roman. And of course that’s exactly what happened when Triple H came to the ring then Sheamus cashed in and won the title. Kind of lazy in my opinion. And Roman gets screwed out of the title again since WrestleMania. Face Roman is just not going to get over. Heel Roman will make a great champion. But Shemaus as champ? Wasn’t he just in a comedy filler mid match card? Well it was an entertaining show but not the greatest. They can only improve from this point. Go heel Roman!

Thanks,
Jon Southerland
Clovis, Ca.

WWE Survivor Series

Thumbs in the middle: Not that great of a show, it started good but lost steam down the line. Way too many video packages and outside the ring stuff. Between the end of the Ziggler vs Breeze match and the start of the main event there were 37 minutes with just ten of in-ring action for the Taker match, only to do a rushed final. 

Best Match: Ambrose vs Owens

Worst Match: Tag Opener 

1. Goldust, Neville, O’neill & Dudleys vs Dallas, Miz, Stardust & Ascension. A total throwaway match. 

2. Reigns vs ADR. Good opener. Finally Del Rio had a good match. ***1/2

3. Ambrose vs Owens. Very good but these two can be better; given the result, it’s possible they’ll have a feud. ***3/4

4. Ryback, Lucha Dragons & Usos vs. Barrett, Sheamus & New Day. It started good but once the New Day walked away the match died. In fact, they never got the crowd fully back for the rest of the show. **3/4

5. Charlotte vs Paige. They really tried and did some cool spots but the crowd was dead. Maybe it was the New Day walk out effect, the Charlotte’s brother angle effect or that people just don’t care about the divas. Maybe a bit of all. ***

6. Breeze vs Ziggler. Too short to be something. **

7. Taker & Kane vs Wyatt & Harper. They put Harper there to take the bumps. Taker did his thing so it was fine. Hopefully this is the end of their feud. **1/2

8. Reigns vs Ambrose. What they did was good but way too rushed. It was clear that there was an angle coming. ***

9. Sheamus vs Reigns. In 2015 Sheamus is the WWE champion once again. Those title matches vs Ryback (given the result of the tag match) will be great. What’s next, Barrett turning on him? I just hope that this is not an excuse to do the dreaded Sheamus vs Daniel Bryan match at Mania (N/R)

Leonardo Mendes Toledo

Thumbs Up
Best Match: Reigns v Ambrose
Worst Match: Charlotte v Paige

I think they made a big mistake with the succesful cash in. Could sense that was coming for Triple H to sucker him with a handshake and when Reigns is a face who sees right through it, made him stand out. If he was able to beat Sheamus too, I have to think that would have really cemented him. “This guy survived a tourney, hunter, and a cash in? Wow”. Not like they have to protect the briefcase anymore since two people have failed. This would get the case off Sheamus and potentially also allow an opponent for TLC by The Authority sending Sheamus against Reigns. But no, now Reigns is champion for a moment now has to chase *again*. No matter how the storyline spins it most audience members will now see reigns as a guy who blew it *again*

Anyway this was another good event. At this point I forget the last PPV I didnt like. Had technical issues first 10-15 of the preshow, as a lot folks did apparently on Twitter. All three tournament matches were great. Im a sucker for Owens but thought Ambrose-Owens was the weakest of the three just slightly off but still good. Liked both elimination matches, The New Day one more. The trombone moment was priceless especially with Wade. The divas match should have started with Charlotte going balistic and there wasnt enough of that. More stiff than WWE womens matches but just lacking a little. Glad to see Breeze win after the tourney handling.

Think WWE was hoping the crowd would take over singing for Lilian as many other sports teams have done at times like these but they didnt get going.

So TLC will likely be the aforementioned Sheamus-Reigns match and guessing basically they “have” to have Sheamus retain which frankly sucks, makes Reigns keep choking. If theres some title held up or other wackiness its Bryan-Orton/Authority all over again.

Reigns may not be perfect right now but they had the chance to strap a triple rocket to the guy and see what happens ans they went the other way here. Too bad.

Michael O’Brien

WWE Survivor Series Feedback

Thumbs Up

Best Match: Roman Reigns vs Alberto Del Rio

Worst match: Goldust, Dudleys, Titus O’Neal and Neville vs Acension, The Miz, Bo Dallas and Stardust

I enjoyed the show as a whole and am glad to have watched it. I am however disappointed in the finishing Money In The Bank angle. WWE had a chance to light a spark tonight with a great match between Reigns and Ambrose if they were given time but they went with booking that wasn’t really for me. I do hope they move toward Reigns winning the title from Sheamus at TLC or Rumble as I don’t see it as a Mania main event but they will probably want The Authority involved no matter what. They really need to move on from the booking of MITB surprise wins as it is played out after ten years. They could keep MITB and just get rid of the rule that it is any time and place.

All that being said the in-ring action was good tonight. The semi-finals were good. Charlotte and Paige had a much better match than I expected and was the best stuff from Charlote since she came to the main roster. I liked the main show elimination match as a showcase for The New Day, Xavier Woods is one of my favorites to watch right now.

I didn’t have a lot of interest in Undertaker and Kane, but did think that Luke Harper made the most of the showcase.

Dave Musgrave

Oshawa, Ontario

Thumbs way down.

Best match:  Ambrose/Owens or Reigns/Del Rio

Worst match:  Reigns and Ambrose or that atrocious tag match between BOD and Wyatts.

I don’t know what I expected from this clueless company.  The worst part is this show was good until the last two matches.  They were both so bad that it just invalidated the rest of the show.  If I didn’t enjoy the network as an entity and NXT so much I’d cancel my subscription tonight.  I sure as hell have zero interest in watching Raw now.  I mean, I was glad Sheamus cashed in but I don’t care about him as a champion, I don’t hate it like I hate Roman Reigns as a champion, but I really don’t care at all.

And I don’t mind Reigns as a worker, I usually enjoy his matches.  The match with Del Rio was great.  But once he’s in the Cena spot you know WWE is going to write the same shitty stories with Reigns that they do with Cena.  That match with Ambrose should have been great, but it was completely devoid of any drama and suspense and the finish was flatter than Pepsi. 

I like that guys like Owens, Neville, and Breeze are making main roster money but I selfishly wish they’d just stayed in NXT instead of being on Raw.  No wonder Finn Balor says he doesn’t want to be on the main roster.  I don’t blame him.

By the way I didn’t think it possible since I loved him as a kid but I absolutely hate the Undertaker now and can’t wait for him to retire already.

– Ben Brennan

Best match Roman Reigns vs Alberto Del Rio

Worst match Sheamus vs Roman Reigns

Almost gave it a thumbs in the middle due to the ending but I really did enjoy everything else on the show…but they Lex Lugered Reigns, he will never be the guy after this.

Wade Hauge

Overall: Thumbs up show. Going into the event WWE had two main objectives; crown a new champion and cement a #1 heel. When Sheamus cashed in the briefcase and defeated Reigns, he achieved the objectives and in doing so provided a needed change to the landscape of WWE. All of the tournament matches were meaningful, different and enjoyable.  The Undertaker match was pure nostalgic fun. The rest of the card was take it or leave it. I would have left the WWE Divas title match.

Best Match: I would provide a slight edge to Ambrose/Owens over Reigns/Del Rio, though both matches were very good.

Worst Match: The Divas match was long and missable. They tried and failed.

Preshow Survivor Series Match: Neville, Dudley Boys, Titus and Goldust vs. The Ascension, Bo Dallas, Stardust, and The Miz. Entertaining addition to the Survivor Series pre show. I am glad to have Goldust back. The wrestlers looked like they were having a good time at the onset. The crowd was tame for the majority of the match and the heat segment did wane. Nonetheless, it was a crowd pleasing finish with the babyface team getting a strong victory. **

WWE World Championship Semifinal Match: Alberto Del Rio vs. Roman Reigns. Good match. Pedestrian and somewhat clunky beginning with some well timed and unexpected transitions going down the stretch. Crowd was only lukewarm for Reigns, but they appreciated the action and effort in the ring. If the plan is to make Reigns earn the belt with two long and hard fought matches. Step one was successful. ***

WWE World Championship Semifinal Match: Dean Ambrose vs. Kevin Owens. Very good match. They went back and forth to start, settled into some formula heat during the middle, and took it home with an awesome closing sequence. The crowd is interested, but they don’t seem invested in cheering one wrestler and booing the other. ***1/2

WWE Divas Title Match: Charlotte vs. Paige. Disappointing contest.  The action was okay at best and the story was inconsistent and difficult to follow. Many contrast the difference in presentation of women in NXT compared to WWE. Not enough emphasis is placed on the disparity of in ring quality between women in NXT and WWE.  The fact that the same women who shined in the ring in NXT look confused and uncoordinated in WWE is baffling. *1/2

Tyler Breeze vs. Dolph Ziggler. The action was crisp, the crowd was cold. Call it the crowd, call it the spot on the card, call it whatever you want; the reaction and crowd response was absent. **

Survivor Series Match: Ryback, Lucha Dragons, and The Usos vs. The New Day, Shemus, and King Barrett. Bizarre layout for a heel vs. face Survivor Series match. Up to the point that the New Day left, the action was strong. Once the New Day left, the air was let out of the room. The most unlikeable character in the match, Sheamus, was the most valiant and courageous of the ten.  The last five minutes felt like dead air. **

Brother of Destruction vs. Wyatt Family. Fun nostalgia match that served as another enjoyable pit stop on the Undertaker retirement tour. Taker looked good and Kane, Harper, and Wyatt fulfilled their respective roles sufficiently. An angle closing match that ended with an emphatic exclamation point that pleased the live crowd. ***

WWE World Heavyweight Championship Match: Roman Reigns vs. Dean Ambrose. Shorter than expected, but intense and competitive while it lasted. The match ended before they reached the peak, which made the finish less predictable. All of the after the bell shenanigans, from the show of respect, to the confetti, followed by the spear to Triple H, and concluding with the MITB cash in and Sheamus victory were all spot on. **3/4 for the match.

Derrick Hubbard

Definitely a THUMBS UP.  A solid show all the way around.

Good tournament matches, a good backstage promo by Kevin Owens, a surprisingly good women’s match sans Sasha Banks, and a good surprise to close the show.  I *swear* when I saw that confetti, so evocative of Daniel Bryan’s title victory where he immediately lost the belt, I knew that Sheamus would be cashing in.  (I was less sure he would win, but I saw the cash in, especially with so much time left.)  I’m not sure I understand Reigns being angry with HHH, or how this is going to play out in a way that makes sense.  Also, I can’t wait until some heel or wise baby face gets intentionally counted out or disqualified at one of these unfair cash-ins.

BEST MATCH:  I honestly think it was Reigns-Del Rio.  Del Rio looked great, and worked well with Reigns.

WORST MATCH: Breeze-Ziggler was technically good, but lacked a bit of emotion for me.  Still, I do like Prince Pretty.  (He needs some work on promos though, as we saw in the Social Media Lounge.)

Richard Orloski

UFC 193 Fan Feedback

Posted on by F4W Staff

Hi Dave,

I was at Etihad Stadium for UFC 193 today and saw the whole show from the first fight.  A long day and the Struve fight took the wind out of the sails, but everyone left buzzed after the main event.

Thumbs up, even without the historical main event.

Best Fight: Ronda & Holly

Worst Fight: Struve & Rosholt (although at times this looked more like training and sparring)

Prior to the main event I wasn’t sure what I thought he best fight was, as there were several goods ones and several impressive performances, particularly from Nguyen, Matthews and Whittaker.  The co-main event was also very good, although there was a mexican wave during round 4 for some reason.

Holly’s performance was stunning and near faultless.  To see it unfold, see Ronda start to succumb to damage and fatigue and culminate in the KO was amazing.  At the end of round 1 it looked like Ronda was in big trouble, but you still never bet against a champion with a reign like hers.  Holly winning felt like a feel good moment too and the place erupted.  This was a fight we won’t be forgetting.

Crowd reactions were good all day, although there were a few flat spots, so will be interesting to see how that translated to TV.  Ronda got the biggest reaction for the day, but the biggest overall reaction was the finish to the main event and then the start of Holly’s interview.  We couldn’t hear what she was saying at first.

Daniel Arnephy

UFC 193

Thumbs Up. This event didn’t have a classic back-and-fort fight but from a historical standpoint (first show on that part of the world, massive attendance, and the end of Ronda’s streak) this was a classic show. Saw the event at a local bar and like Ronda’s last few matches the place was packed with more women than ever. She, Floyd Mayweather and maybe Miguel Cotto, are the only ones who moves the needle that way, and the other two don’t draw as much young-single women. As for the future I think that UFC just hit the lottery; instead of just having Ronda vs. Cyborg as the next big fight, now they have all kinds of potential ones: Rousey vs. Holm 2 (UFC 200 with Ronda talking more than ever), Rousey vs. Cyborg (who now looks like the biggest idiot because of all the wasted opportunities to make the weight and face Ronda), and Cyborg vs. Holm, plus all the future combinations out of those matches. Fedor, Silva, Barao, and now Ronda; Aldo next?

Best Fight: Holm vs Rousey. Just because of the result. The reaction to that result was like when Lesnar beat Undertaker at Mania, total disbelieve. As to why it happened is anyone’s guess. Holm played her plan perfectly; Ronda walked into Holm’s forte instead of insist on her clinch and ground game strength. Also, and this is just trying to find out something where there is nothing, on the weigh-in Ronda looked skinnier than ever and in the fight she looked bigger than ever; maybe that weight change has something to do with her less than stellar performance. Again, Holm fought the perfect fight, so she deserves all the credit. 

Best KO: Holm. Her name is Holly and she’s “The Preacher’s Daughter”, so maybe it was a miracle; we’ll see at the rematch.

Leonardo II Mendez

San Sebastian, PR

Dave,

I’m not going to get into details about the fight itself but Rousey didn’t look like herself.

However this was the first UFC PPV I have ever purchased and my wife was just as pumped as I was.

Thanks

Craig Staunton

Thumbs sorta down. Kinda lackluster card, even with the upset. Usual shitty homie local yokel officiating (and production work on this one. Lotta indy mistakes.)

Best fight: Matthews-Arreola, except the finish.

Worst fight: Walsh-Kennedy & Rosholt-Struve

Best performance: Holm

Worst performance: Rousey

KO:  Holly (HM to Moontasri)

Sub: Nguyen by default

Ben Nguyen remains impressive blowing away Ryan Benoit with a clean quick KD, mount, backtake and RNC. Late sub Anton Zafir gasses doing 1stR top control and James Moontasri coming up from 155 to 170 takes him out with a SBK/SBF combo that breaks some bones. Patrick Walsh and Steve Kennedy go three almost comically inept rounds that have the Ozzie crowd booing both homies. Kennedy loses. Dan Kelly dominates Steve Montgomery early and late and should take a 29-28 and does on all cards. 

Danny Martinez just too strong for Richie Vaculik and takes a competitive but clear 30-27. Very easy night for Gian Villante, paint job on Anthony Perosh, who suffers his second consecutive quick KO and at 43 might wanna rethink things. Kyle Noke blows Peter Sobotta away, dropping him quickly with a front kick to the floating rib and finishing with G&P. In a smelly finish to the most dramatic and competitive fight of the night, veteran Akbarh Arreola drops local phenom Jake Matthews with a HK in the 1st and has him in trouble but Matthews survives and finishes the round on top. Matthews gets the early TD in the 2nd and busts Arreola up with elbows till the bell. The Ozzie cut guy doesn’t use the Enswell and the Ozzie doctor stops the fight in the corner with Arreola clearly still able to see out of the eye.

Jared Rosholt plop and schmops Stefan Struve for 2R then Struve sort of wakes up and probably wins the 3rd. The joint with great force is stunk out. 29-28 UD. Dreadful.

Uriah Hall steps in late again this time with nothing to gain and everything to lose, having just beaten a much higher profile guy in Mousasi and Robert Whittaker being no gimme. Whittaker keeps Hall off balance most of the fight. Uriah makes a few too many mistakes than you can with this guy. Hall gives his best shot to pulling it out in the 3rd but too little too late. 30-27 or 29-28 and it’s 2 column from A and 1 column B.

Bigfoot Silva looking visibly aged and Mark Hunt looking comparatively lean, for him. WAY anticlimactic after their war a couple years back as not much action for 3+ minutes then Hunt scores a KD with a right to the temple and the Ozzie ref VERY quick to jump in and stop it. Feh.

Valerie Latourneau more competitive than expected with Joanna J and stays in the fight all the way. Doesn’t come close to winning but shows JJ may not be as all that as she looked the last couple times out (against smaller fighters, Valerie is bigger.) I had 50-47 (3-0-2 in rounds), cards were 49-46 x 2, 50-45 (VL appeared to at least draw the 1st.)

The main has already been beat to death so here’s the 20/20 hindsight.  Like I and many others said going in, Holly Holm was the right style to trouble Ronda Rousey. Like was obvious, Ronda wasn’t her usual self mentally or physically. And obviously Holly’s MMA cred was a big question mark. But here’s what the key turned out to be: the assumption going in was was the the question was, has Ronda’s striking improved to the point where she could neutralize Holly’s enough to impose the clinch or ground game where she would have an overwhelming advantage, or rather how long would it take. It turned out that the answer was Holly’s grappling was more than good enough to neutralize Ronda’s and that the overwhelming advantage was Holly’s on the feet, or it was last night anyway. Ronda’s gotten away with that stupid side headlock on everybody else (except McMann blocked it and it didn’t matter anyway). Holly was the first one to use the basic counter every wrestler knows, the Greco Roman Backdrop, successfully. Edmund was no help and Ronda needs better wrestling, better Muay Thai, and somebody in the corner who’ll tell her that she just got her ass kicked when she did, not that she ‘did great’, and that if you’re getting countered to STOP FUCKING LEADING. Bad part for business is obviously that Holly has the personality of Wonder Bread but oh well.

Crimson Mask

First…I LOVE HOLLY HOLM!

Now, onto business… What do you do if you’re UFC? Putting on my Promoter/Fantasy Booker hat for a minute…

The plans, as I understood them, was to do Rousey V Cyborg at UFC 200 in July. That’s now out the window. So now, it’s the Holly v Ronda rematch/ Scrap that too, and do THIS instead…

HOLM v CYBORG -and- ROUSEY v CARANO

–Gina “retired” with 1 loss. Rousey has 1 loss. 
–Gina was the absolute darling of MMA. But left before the explosion. UFC, open your pocket book/do whatever it takes to compel Gina to come back.
–Ronda: chance to rehabilitate your holier-than-thou attitude.
–“Embedded” –and the media of course– could build THIS fight
to be bigger than an immediate rematch of Rousey v Holm could ever be
–On the same card, the “indestructible” bad guy (well, bad girl) Cyborg invades to attempt to destroy the now also-seemingly-indestructible-but-everyone’s new darling Holly Holm.
–The winners face one another later in the year. And oh yeah, now that Rousey is no longer the call-all-the-shots-boss, if weight is an issue –for any of these ladies– go to catch at 140lbs., which is probably better for all 4 anyways.
–Now, you have a division with real depth and fan and media appeal. And that’s BEFORE you get to Zingano and Meisha (which –all due respect Dana– feels lackluster at this point)

You’re welcome Dana. If you wanna throw me 10 cents for each PPV buy, I won’t turn it down.

 Rick Bassman

Good show overall. For what it’s worth the place I watched the fight at tonight had close to about 300 people packed in. Would say 3/4’s of the crowd stood and cheered the finish of the Holm fight. Very few left with their heads down. Hall/Whitaker was my favorite fight aside from the main event 

Ken Phillibaum

Weekend Feedback: UFC 192, WWE, TNA and more!

Posted on by F4W Staff

UFC 192

Thumbs Up

Best Fight: Cormier vs Gustaffson

Best performances: Sage Northcutt, Albert Tumenov

This was a pretty solid card up and down. Prelims had a lot of decisive fights which were very entertaining and some potential new prospects pending how they do once they step up in competition.

I think we need to give Rashad a break after having such a long layoff due to injuries. His next fight will be the one to judge of where he really stands. Maybe he should get Texeira or Saint Preux next.

Benavidez vs Bagautinov was a big disappointment. Can’t see Benavidez getting a title shot after this performance even though he is ranked #2. It is time for Johnson to move up a weight class but I would be interested in seeing John Lineker get one more shot after his last performance but he may have trouble making weight and keeping weight at that division.

Gustaffson vs Cormier was a good display by Cormier of imposing his will to dominate how this fight was going to be fought. Gustaffson stayed competitive. I would like to see Gustaffson rematched with Rumble Johnson next to see if it was just nerves infront of the hometown crowd in that first fight between them. Not really any exciting matchups next for Cormier but I guess it may be Bader if Jones isn’t back in time. Can’t see that drawing anything.

WWE Special

I like the concept of the live house shows as specials. Liked the one from Japan and liked this one. It is different from the norm with less production which makes it unique.

Best Match: Cena vs Rollins

Worst Match: Nothing was really that bad in my mind as I had the mentality going in of being entertained with a house show. Girls match by default.

Liked how the ladies match has the storyline continuing with the Paige dissention although why they teamed with Paige in the first place in this one after what went down on Raw doesn’t make sense. Good finish in that match.

Was hoping that they would have given Jericho vs Owens  a bit more time than what they got. That had the potential of being the show stealer. Good match for the time they got. Liked the pre match promo by Jericho.

Brock vs Show was good for what it was. Was worried a couple times the way Show was landing on his shoulder taking those Germans that he may do some damage to himself. Great power by Brock F-5’ing Show. Botched ending but liked that Brock threw the belly to belly in there before attempting the F-5 again instead of going right back to it.

Solid main event for Cena & Rollins to end the show. We know it is coming but hope we don’t get a Rollins vs Kane title program out of this. Does anyone else get the feeling that this new Kane character is a copy of the Abyss/Joseph Park story?

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Grant Zwarych

Wrestling Observer Index

WWE @ MSG

Thumbs Down: For a house show fine but nobody outside of MSG needed to see it. Not a single person in the world would buy the Network for a show like this instead of the upcoming Hell in a Cell, so there was no real purpose to show this on TV. A total overexposure of the product, which is one of their big problems. 

Best Match: Cena vs Rollins

Worst Match: Neville vs Stardust

1. Orton & Ziggler vs Rusev & Sheamus. Average match. The face team won by a referee distraction, go figure. **

2. Neville vs Stardust. This was cool the first 300 times. Now nobody cares. *3/4

3. Bellas & Fox vs Becky, Charlotte & Paige. UFC did a better job with a five minute video for the Rousey vs Holm fight that WWE would ever do with their women division and their crappy revolution. Match was fine. **

4. Owens vs Jericho. Good while it lasted. For a 25th anniversary celebration a 7-minute match was kind of a joke. If I was Jericho I’ll quit the company and just dedicate the rest of my life to talk trash about the McMahons on the podcast. ***

5. Dudley vs New Day. Lame finish but the Dudleys need to win the title in a Tables match, so this feud would go until December. **1/4

6. Lesnar vs Show. The world’s greatest five-minutes match. ** 

7. Cena vs Rollins. Good but clearly below their previous matches. The escape the cage is such a lame stipulation, it kills the purpose of the cage gimmick. ***3/4

Leonardo II Mendez

San Sebastian, PR

Thumbs down Best match: Tag titles Worst match: Gauntlet for Gold match.

Initial impression: TNA didn’t tell the PPV company that Matt was added to the ME. Whoops.

Building looks pretty full for a show that was probably 90% papered. Still looks like they’re barely using a quarter of the arena. It looks like someone dusted off the old WCW Thunder stage too.

Ultimate X match – great opener. Fast paced. Camera missed a few .major spots. Uno retains after knocking some local off the rope. Local guy looked great too. At the end Shane Helms came out and raised his hand. Helms has let himself go too.

EC3 comes out for a boring 20 minute promo and the crowd does not give a shit.

Gauntlet match is next which is an 12 man Royal Rumble sort of. Our first is Anderson who awkwardly stands around for a minute looking for his mic. Jessie Goddards is second, and fucks up a press.

The timer than stars at 2 seconds as Christy Hemme starts counting from 10. Eli Drake is out next.

Out #4 is Al Snow who brings out Head to the ring. A call back to a better time in his length.

No countdown for #5 is a bad Sheamus knockoff named Aiden O’Shea. Still no eliminations, #6 is Robbie E. Usually Rumble ring filling up spots going on. Boring.

Eli Drake is eliminated by Head. Out #7 is Shera. His music wont stop. This is the worst cover of Natural Born Killers I’ve ever heard off. Everyone does the dance. Why is everyone doing the dance.

Sheamus ripoff knocked off by Shera. 20 seconds after the countdown finishes out comes Gyrus. Out 9th is Chris Melendez. Tyrus eliminates Snow, Melendez, and Shera.

Out 10th is Tommy Dreamer wearing Dusty polka dots.

11th is Abyss. Abyss and Tyrus knock everyone out and then entering 12th is… The Pope. Who then proceeds to Mil Mascaras himself. That was pointless. Apparently this was the final entrant, so I imagine imagine Rockstar Spud as at gorilla heard Popes music and turned around and went back to the locker room.

Tyrus eliminates Abyss. Jessie eliminates Robbie E. Kennedy throws out Dreamer. Kennedy throws out Goddard, and were down to Kennedy vs Tyrus for #1 Contender. Whoever wins we all lose. Tyrus pins Anderson.

It should be noted that the countdown were utterly fucked. Graphic would never show, Hemme wouldn’t announce it, it seemed to be of a variable length, or wrestlers would just come out.

That was a waste of a half hour. Tyrus turns on EC3.

Minus Six Stars.

Tag Title match – good match. Slowed down at times, but a lot of good spots and a good story.

Galloway comes out to remind us this is triple threat tonight and he has a 141 and 2/3% chance to win tonight.

KOTM title match in a straight singles match. Ho hum. Lashley dominated for most of the match. Eventually Roode gets some offense, every does their finisher and the opponents finisher, and Roode wins with a Roode bomb.

Matt Hardy comes out for a promo. Great promo.

Billy Corgan is out to remind us that last night was the greatest night of Earl Hebners life. First 20 years of his career is not shown.

Knockouts Title – HOF referred missed blatant use of chairs because Robert Irvine was arguing with him because Kong was grabbing chairs. Fail eventually managed to kick out and get a small package on Kong for the win. They’ve had better.

Jeff Hardy comes out looking like Willow has bred with a referee.

Angle/Young – Hemme announced it as a no DQ match. Apparently Kurt didn’t get the memo because he cuts a promo shocking Young that its a no DQ match. Young pilesdrives Angle and the doctor comes out to check Angle. Dr and Angle say he’s in no cpnditi9n to continue, but the ref doesn’t ring the bell so I guess theres no ref stoppage. Young threatens a piledriver on conceete and Christ this match is just really uncomfortable. Retire Kurt. Angle counters gets some offense and wins after an ankle lock in a match that was stopped for medical reasons 10 minutes prior. Not a great match.

World Title match – The end of the match happened when EC3 attempted to get himself DQd in a Triple Threat match. Where there were no DQs. EC3 threatens to injure Matt with a folding chair with a nice padded seat.  HOW FUCKING STUPID DO YOU HAVE TO BE TO BE FOR THIS ANGLE TO MAKE SENSE IN A MATCH? Jeff has enough, attacks EC3, Matt gets the pin on Galloway for the title.

Gregory Valko

Thumbs in the middle

Best Match – Gail Kim vs Awesome Kong

Worst Match – Gauntlet Match

This was a very thumbs-in-the-middle show as there was nothing that was really good, but there also wasn’t anything bad on the card.  The presentation was affected by both a mostly subdued crowd and lighting that was so low that at times it was difficult to identify wrestlers.  That appeared to be the case live as well with Josh Matthews misidentifying wrestlers all night (or he just doesn’t care).

Gail Kim vs Awesome Kong was my favorite match on the show, obviously it wasn’t anything like their matches 8 years ago, but they can still have a good match and the crowd was awake for this one.  

The Matt Hardy title win was both nice and sad.  I’m happy for Matt that he appears to be in a positive place right now both personally and professionally, but it was kind of sad to see the family celebration in a dark arena, with no one watching at home, and no idea when (or if) we’ll see this followed up of television.

Lee Hamilton

Hey Dave,  

Decided on a whim to drop $50 on TNA tonight.  I’d say thumbs slightly up. Typical TNA.  Some good action. Some really bad acting.  Some questionable calls.  

Best Match – 3 Way World Title Worst Match – #1 Contender Gauntlet (Not even close)

1) Ultimate X – Big spotfest but that was the goal.  Nothing wrong with that, got the crowd going. Couple of cool spots.  

2) #1 Contender – And kill the crowd dead with this.  Definition of minus five stars.  I’ve never hated a match more.  The worst punches/acting/stupidity/surprise entrants I’ve ever seen…and to become the top contender for the world title. Way too long, way too awful. I could go on for days how bad this was. 

3) Tag Title – Really liked this.  The fact that I miss watching the Wolves was one of the reasons I ordered. 

4) Roode / Lashley – Another solid bout.  This ppv would’ve been so much better if they cut the gauntlet, threw the KOTM title in the trash and just made this the #1 contender.

5) Kim/Kong – Didn’t mind this.  Kong reminds me of Andre in the 90’s but Gail worked hard. 

6) Angle/Young – Don’t buy Young as a threat at all.   Didn’t do it for me. 

7) 3 Way – Really liked this match.  Making Matt the champ is questionable for a company trying to make new stars but maybe they try to pop whatever number they can putting the title back on EC3 on tv.  

Adam Hicks,  Ohio

AAA Heroes Inmortales

Best Match: Garza Jr./Psycho Clown/Rey Jr. vs. Hijo del Fantasma/Myzteziz/Texano Jr.

Worst Match: nothing down right bad on the show

Thumbs Up

Nothing that was blow away (as I felt Rey de Reyes was an overall better show despite others not liking it) but certainly right there with the WWE, TNA, and NXT shows.  Aerostar deserves a much bigger push.  The three way tag title match was a real surprise since I’m not a fan of three way matches and Joe Lider was involved in the match.  Watching the PWG BOLA DVD’s this weekend, along with this show, makes it clear that Jack Evans has really grown as a wrestler.  If this were 1999/2000, he would be praised big time for incorporating MMA kicks and submissions, along with his usual good high flying.  Still waiting for that blow away Rey Jr. AAA match but he continues to be really solid.  

Tim Cooke

Thumbs in the middle just because the live crowd was great and my son was into it. Best match was Roode vs Lashley Worst match was a tie between the X division botch fest and the Gauntlet match where the rules were not explained to the live crowd and there were loads of technical glitches.

The building was almost full and the crowd was into it the whole night. These weren’t necessarily TNA fans, but that area is a wrestling hot bed. The size and energy of the crowd was a pleasant surprise.

Christy Hemme announced the Young-Angle match as No DQ before they even entered the ring so Angle’s promo was anti-climactic. I was surprised to read results that said the match had been stopped as there was no mention of this to the crowd. We just saw the medics come out. Everyone in our section was put off by this as it has been so overdone recently. Kurt Angle looks rough in person.

No mention of the third announcer.

Everyone in the live crowd assumed this was it for TNA as the ending felt like a finale with the locker room emptying to celebrate with Matt Hardy. No fan I spoke with had any idea if or when TNA was filming more television. The crowd, Along with referee Jeff Hardy, had no idea the title match was no DQ. We could not hear most of the backstage spots and rarely did they have a live feed on the entrance screens.

Thanks, Heath Mullikin

UFC 192 and WWE Live from MSG Feedback

Posted on by F4W Staff

By Mike Omansky

Return date announced: Saturday Dec. 26th, holiday tour.

Tickets went on sale after the show at box office.

Presale at Ticketmaster also.  Code:  HOLIDAY

 Crowd into show, but most alive for 3 big matches:

— Owens-Jericho

— Lesnar-Show (Lesnar most over wrestler of the night)

–Cena-Rollins — really into it in last 10 minutes, after Cena put on STF and there were near escapes from the cage.

 Untelevised matches, prior to broadcast:

1. ZACK RYDER W BO DALLAS, rough-Ryder and pin.

2. MARK HENRY W BRAD MADDOX, squash, under a minute, slam and pin.

No offense for Maddox.

By Bryan Revello

Cool notes/observations from the MSG show last night:

Randy Orton was more over with the crowd than expected.

The New York crowd still eats up Zack Ryder.

There was a buzz in the building that Ric Flair would be on the show but it did not happen.

Did anyone count the number of suplexes that Brock gave to Big Show? I lost count after 3.

The women’s match had a worse reception than anticipated although I did hear one “I love you Becky” chant in my section.

The crowd loved Brock Lesnar and popped hard.

The New Day are just as amusing in person.

Brad Maddox received quite a few “who are you?” chants.

The Jericho-Owens match was a delight to see live.

The steel cage came down as quickly as any steel cage I have ever seen live.

If this event was advertised around Brock Lesnar, why did Brock-Big Show semi Main Event?

Everybody in the crowd knew Kane was coming.

The presale code for the upcoming December 26th event at MSG is holiday.

—-

Thumbs up, not a runaway good show but almost consistently good.  I expect to se e a lot of thumbs down for the slower pace, and the idiot Houston fans were quick to boo (what do you expect, they have to deal with the Astros and the Texans) but this was one of those solid cards that I just can’t complain about.

Best fight – again, no FOTY candidates but it’s got to be Cormier/Gustuvson.  I don’t particularly like Cormier but I have to give him tons of credit for outstriking the striker and proving he deserves the title.  Alexander, on the other hand, fought a horrible strategy and how he got three rounds can only be explained by it being in Texas.  It’s a state law that you can’t put on an MMA show in Texas without a screwed up decision.

Worst fight – no real glaring candidates but I have to go with Bader and Evans because I just kept thinking, the winner of THIS is going to get a title shot?   It just showed exactly how weak 205 is.

Jordan and Magomedov was not good, but when you get an injury in the first round, all you can do is all you can do, so I can’t fault them for that.

The only other comment I have is Sage Nothcutt.  If this kid has the talent to fight his way up the ranks, he’s going to be a mega-star and from what I hear, Dana White knows exactly what he’s got.  He oozes charisma like and early Rock and as my wife put it, “that is one good looking guy”.  I’m not going to say he’s going to be a male Ronda Rousey (although with the talent he could be) but he’s going to be a huge star.

Mike DeGeorge

UFC 192

I missed the first prelim and most of the 2nd. (Lewis-Pesta & S. Pettis-Cariaso)

Thumbs way up. Mostly lackluster on paper, almost all entertaining in reality, and the main was just epic.

Best fight: Cormier-Gustaffson

Worst fight: surprisingly, Benavidez-Bagautinov

Best performance: Cormier, Gustaffson but plenty of standout performances

Worst performance: Jouban

KO: Martins, Tumenov

Sub: Namajunas (default but would have won it most nights)

Picked up watching with Chris Cariaso dominating Sergio Pettis for the last couple minutes of the fight, but Pettis had apparently won the 1st & 2nd very wide. Stunning UFC debut from heavily hyped Sage Northcutt, who looks like Action Figure Ken (as in Barbie), blowing away the smaller but weight-missing Francisco Trevino with a blitz of strikes, TDs and G&P.

Rose Namajunas unsurprisingly far too skilled for Angela Hill and outstrikes her, takes her down, takes her back, sinks RNC and hooks as Hill rises, figure-4s the leg for good measure, and puts her to sleep standing. Brazilian veteran Adriano Martins catches previously unbeaten Russian Islam Makhachev coming in with a right hook and scores an upset one punch KO. Albert Tumenov just shreds Alan Jouban, doing a paint job from the opening bell and not letting Jouban even get started, or last long enough to pull his usual comeback, ending it with a clean KO. Texas ref on the case with the stoppage. Yair Rodriguez takes a competitive card sweep UD over Dan Hooker, with one sorta hometown 30-26, despite breaking a foot early in the fight.

Julianna Pena just too big and strong for Jessica Eye, who for some reason chose to challenge Pena at her forte of grappling and performed well, but not well enough. Jess is just too small for bantam but they don’t have flyweight. Some weird reffing in the 2nd docking Eye a point for a first offense and then restarting them standing when Pena had been in top position at the foul, but didn’t change the outcome. 

Joey Benavidez pretty much paintjobs Ali Bagautinov in a fight conducted almost entirely at long range for a UD with one 29-28. Crowd doesn’t like any of it but a couple of flash TDs were the extent of Ali’s effective offense.

In a fight between totally opposite styles and physical types, tall rangy Russian Ruslan Magomedov methodically drills human bowling ball Shawn Jordan for three rounds with every strike in the book as Jordan lumbers in looking for a bomb or a TD. He’s only successful a couple of times and Magomedov does considerable damage the rest of the time for a UD with one 29-28. I gave him a 10-8 in the 3rd. Magomedov is like a HW Mousasi, who I believe I saw in his corner. Nobody’s going to be in a hurry to fight him. 

Ryan Bader displaying recent acquisitions of hand speed and actual footwork does a 3R paint job over long inactive Rashad Evans, who looks great till the fight starts. He looks tiny next to Bader who beats him to the punch all night and takes hiom down whenever he wants to. Shad has very little offense. Have seen people call this ‘close’ and even giving it to Evans, neither of which are anywhere near reality in this or any other dimension. 30-27 X 3 was the only possible score.

Tyron Woodley-Johny Hendricks scrapped when Hendricks got sick making weight. Tyron gets the WW title shot. Hendricks will be considered a MW from now on and will look like Sky Low Low up there.

Daniel Cormier  defends the LHW title vs. Alexander Gustaffson and they blow the roof off the joint. Cormier takes the 1st with an early tiltawhirl slam and top control which was one expected scenario and I think everybody started thinking ‘oh well’

Alex blasted back in the 2nd keeping long range, beating Cormier to the punch, busting him up and taking HIM down TWICE. Cormier comes back late in the round with damaging uppercuts from collar tie, and all the sudden this fight was even and belonged with both their fights with Jones. 

The 3rd ventured into epic territory with Cormier dominating most of the round and busting Alex up, mostly with those inside uppercuts, but at the very end of the round Alex floors Cormier with a massive knee and left hook and has the ref looking VERY close. This was each guy earning a 10-8 round, so I scored it 10-10. 

The 4th was also hard to score, as Alex has by now successfully turned it into a boxing match, but isn’t necessarily winning. Cormier is the aggressor, but Alex is doing most of the landing, but very little left on his punches. Alex starts figuring out the uppercuts. Cormier landed a big clean right late and I thought that would tip the round on the cards but personally I thought it was even also..

Both were battered and exhausted in the 5th, but Cormier kept his pace up and Alex’ output dropped severely, so Cormier clearly won the round. So you had Cormier clearly winning two rounds, Alex one, and two could have gone either way or even. I had 49-48 Cormier but I score rounds even when I think they are. One judge split the swing rounds, one gave both to Cormier, and one gave both to Gustaffson, so it ended up a 48-47 split, 49-46 SD for Cormier, who afterward thanked Gustaffson on the mic for ‘making me a better fighter and a better man’. Can sure make a case for Alex having been involved in the two best LHW fights ever. Great fight.

Crimson Mask

Thumbs down

Best match: Sheamus and Rusev v. Ziggler and Orton

Worst match: Cena v. Rollins

While the show had its moments, the good bits were sparse and mostly featured the mid-card.  On the plus side, the opening tag match featured some excellent wrestling and The New Day cut an entertaining, creative promo.

Outside of that, the in-ring action was disappointing, particularly the main event.  Having a good main event is tough as it is, but it might be impossible for Rollins and Cena to work a good WWE cage match.

Casey Goldman

How you doin’ Dave,

Thought it was an ok show. As the show was going on I was very much disappointed, as I didn’t expect it to be a show mainly consisting of house show matches, in some cases reduced house show matches, as this was not the case with Beast In The East, but I felt the main event was very good, and given time to digest and understand what they were presenting I thought it was fine.

In fact I enjoyed Rollins-Cena more than their outings at Summerslam or Night of Champions, as I myself like a methodical pace to my wrestling with bursts of increased tempo as I find it more captivating and dramatic, and also providing timing is good it usually produces greater importance and emphasis on moves and sequences, as well provides more time for selling. On the other end of the scale I thought the New Day-Dudleys finish was incredibly lazy, as we just recently saw the exact same finish.

Another thing to note is that I did have some technical problems. Whenever I watch a PPV on the network I always do so on a 15-20 minute delay, as I have found that it largely prevents freezing you sometimes get, which can be particularly irritating mid-match. However on this occasion the stream stuttered throughout which was far from ideal. Whether the two were connected or it was the fault of my internet or otherwise I do not know, but I thought it was worth mentioning.    

Thumbs In The Middle

Best Match: Cena vs. Rollins

Worst Match: Dudleys vs. New Day

Thanks Dave

Tom Griffiths

Hi Dave,
  Just wanted to give some feedback on the live WWE show from MSG. I gave the show a thumbs up, it was a fun show to watch and just the feel and vibe of watching a show from Madison Square Garden is always awesome. Too bad they don’t run regular television from MSG very often, apparently due to financial reasons charged by MSG? But awesome to see a show from the “Mecca of professional wrestling” as the late great Gorilla Monsoon would always say. I think the best match of the night would be tie between the main event cage match and the I/C title match and the worst match of the night probably the Divas tag match since this “feud” with Page and her teammates really has no direction and is confusing, but I digress! lol

1. Shemus / Rusev VS Orton / Ziggler – Good opening tag match to get the crowd going, didn’t think it really mattered who won this match, but a good opener as Orton and Ziggler get the win.

2. Stardust VS Neville – Awesome Neville match as always, good to see Neville get the win. Not really digging the comic book aspect of this feud, but understand it since it’s geared for a younger audience really and seems to be a way of promoting the new video game coming out this month.

3. Team Bella VS Team PBC – Um. Ok. This whole angle between both teams is just confusing and seems to lack focus. They need to get back on track with the divas revolution and have great divas matches for the title, not waste time with confusing angles and soap opera drama. They can do better then this and they have the talent, but choosing an off direction. Let’s see, Paige turns on her teammates for no reason, but continues to team with them, and then the match ends with her teammates turning on her. Waste of time trying to figure this out. Just get back to focusing on great matches for the title, especially with Charlotte as champion who is extremely talented.

4. Jericho VS Owens for the I/C title. Great match, both competitors awesome. Jericho always has great matches and Owens is just incredibly talented and has really impressed with every match I’ve seen with him so far. I hope they keep the I/C title on him for a long time. Good win by Owens, gives him credibility for beating Jericho, and Jericho does not look bad or hurt by the loss since Jericho at this point in his career still looks good regardless if he wins or loses.

5. New Day VS Dudley’s – Good tag match with two great teams. I was very annoyed by the New Day gimmick when the first started and just hated it. But amazingly these 3 guys were able to turn a goofy gimmick into a positive and actually make it work. As goofy as the New Day gimmick is, they are actually getting it over and it’s been entertaining and fun to watch. The Dudley’s are always impressive and their return to WWE has just been awesome so far. Good match with Dudley’s winning by DQ. It continues the feud for both teams which is a good thing.

6. Lesnar / Big Show – Basically a squash match for Lesnar beating the crap out of Big Show but very good as it worked just watching Lesnar and his crazy strength throwing Big Show around like a rag doll. Lesnar seemed to be in a very good mood for once and appeared to be having fun which is a good thing. Awesome feats of strength as I’m sure picking up the Big Show is not an easy thing. But the crowd was way into it and it worked.

7. Cena / Rollins cage match – Very good main event and good cage match. Sometimes cage matches don’t work and take away from the match. But these two have good matches with each other and good chemistry. Cena seems to be stepping it up lately with having good matches starting with his Owens feud. I’ve hated just about every Cena match in existence and I’m just tired of seeing the guy and having forced down our throats for so many years on TV. But my opinion really changed after his matches with Owens and Cesaro. Good win, but makes the champ look weak and Rollins needs to look as strong as possible as the champion. They already portray Rollins as a crybaby world champion who constantly complains, which seems to be the wrong direction in my opinion. And with Cena taking time off soon you would think it would make sense for him to drop the US title. Make Rollins a duel champion again as that seemed to work. Not sure where the Rollins and Kane feud can go,
 since that’s not really a match I want to see or an angle that is very interesting.

 Anyway, it was a good live show and great production by the network. Awesome promos about MSG cut by both Paul Heyman and Chris Jericho. The only negative of the show would have to be the announcing. The new guy Rich Brennen was actually not that bad and seemed to be doing well. But I can’t say the same for JBL or Bryan Saxton. JBL just babbles with his 30 year old references and he seemed to be hazing the new guy Brenned and Saxton just sat there not really saying much of anything. Bad announcing and commentary really takes away from the matches and the program and this seems’ to be happening way too often. But otherwise a great show and very entertaining.

Thanks,
Jon Southerland
Clovis, Ca.

Two thumbs up. A good solid show and then the main event happened which was just fantastic.

Best fight: Daniel Cormier vs. Alexander Gustafsson. Again, really great stuff here. Back and forth match, and until the last round where they both gassed out, the entire fight was non-stop action. I had Cormier winning and was happy to see that he did. Judging was a bit odd, with one of the judges giving the fight to Cormier 49-46 which seemed odd, but the right man won either way in my eyes.

Worst fight: Joseph Benavidez vs. Ali Bagautinov. Nothing really at all interesting happened here. The Magomedov fight wasn’t amazing either, but I seemed to be more into that one because you at least had the broken rib story going on there. Neither guy really tried to do anything crazy. Very safe fight that left everyone bored and booing in the building. Benavidez won, but this didn’t make me want to see him face Johnson anymore, if that’s what Dana was hoping for.

Brandon Marshal

Thumbs up
Best Fight: Cormier vs. Gustafsson

About as good as you can hope for from a card with five straight decisions. I had Cormier 49-46 but it was close. The UFC 193 promo at the end walked a fine line between genius and super cheesy but it came off on the right side of that. It should be really effective if enough people see it.

Mike Hiscoe

Overall: Thumbs up. My main question going into this event was will the live special be presented more like a PPV or more like a house show. In some ways it resembled both. Honestly, I think it provided a template for what a three hour RAW could be. Let the stories be told and developed in the ring, let the wrestling take precedence over the backstage drama and book finishes that accomplish the goals at hand without leaving the fans disappointed.

Best Match: Very enjoyable cage match between Rollins and Cena. The Kane factor developed the story without compromising the drama and story be told in the ring.

Worst Match: The Diva’s Tag was lame.

1. Sheamus and Rusev vs. Ziggler and Orton. Standard formula tag match that built nicely to a hot tag and peaked with a climatic finish. I enjoyed the body slam story during the heat. A looser Orton who is enjoying himself is a better version of Randy Orton.

-I can do without the RAW recap. Especially, being it is the third time I have seen the same replay in a week.

2. Stardust vs. Neville. The action was crisp, the template was basic, the crowd was tepid.

-Top notch Heyman mic work. No matter main stream press, tv promo, or ppv interview, the guy knocks it out of the park.

3. Team Bella vs. PCB. The bulk of the match was slow. This is not a problem if the heat builds anticipation for the hot tag and consequential uptick in pacing. The story in the match prevented this from being the case. As a result, the crowd waited a long time to be disappointed.

4. IC title match: Jericho vs. Owens. Heartfelt and crowd engaging promo from Jericho to start. Good to descent action throughout with some nice transitions and near falls towards the end.  I appreciate Owen’s  breaking the rules to retain the title. He is a heel who is good enough to be competitive, but needs to cheat to win. Good match.

5. Tag Team Title: The New Day vs. Dudley Boys. The action in the match was enjoyable, the finish was lame. With that said, 1 lame finish on the show is better than every Raw. Moreover, if they did not want to switch the belts on this occasion, they accomplished the goal and gave the crowd a little extra something to pop for. 

6. Big Show vs. Lesnar. Simple and effective in story and execution. Make Lesnar look vulnerable at the beginning, ensure he looks invisible by the end.

7. US Title Match: Rollins vs. Cena. Deliberate pacing almost to a fault at the onset. The longer the match lasted, the better the action was. By the end, the drama was at an appropriate level for main event title match inside a cage In MSG. Great effort by Rollins and Cena and a fitting capstone to the event. The Kane factor effected the finish, but did not compromise the enjoyment of the match.

Derrick Hubbard

New Japan Destruction in Kobe feedback

Posted on by F4W Staff

Thumbs up

Best match: Nakamura vs. Goto

Another good show. I thought the tag title match came off too rehearsed or choreographed and not like two teams in a fight.

I knew Nakamura won the match when I watched but it was still very good. Had I not known the outcome, many of Goto’s near falls would have been very convincing.

The show did a very good job of setting up matches for the near future which is great when you don’t have weekly TV to set up big shows.

Mike Hiscoe

Below are my thoughts on the Kobe show from this weekend

-Overall I give the show a thumbs up

-Best Match: Goto vs Nakamura

-Worst Match: Juice Robinson, Capt. New Japan, and Nakanishi vs Nagata, Tiger Mask, and Liger

-Kudos to New Japan for setting up feuds for their King of Pro Wrestling Show during Destruction in Kobe. Although the thought of another Ishii/Makabe match is down right infuriating.

Luis Gonzalez

Slight thumbs up

Best Match: Nakamura/Goto

Worst Match: Nagata/Liger/Tiger vs Nakanishi/CNJ/Robinson

1) Shohei vs Finlay: Fun opener, not as strong as the young lions have been recently but when you look back at previous young lions from the past decade there is really no reason to complain. (**1/2)

2) Yuji Nagata, Jushin Thunder Liger & Tiger Mask vs Manabu Nakanishi, Captain New Japan & Juice Robinson: This was just a match. (**)

3) CHAOS B Team vs Great Bash Heel, Mascara Dorada & Ryusuke Taguchi: There was some good stuff here, mostly involving the juniors, but I am not interested in Makabe vs Ishii IV, particularly considering Makabe has already beat him 3 TIMES. (**1/2)

4) TenKoji & Matt Sydal vs Bullet Club: I actually really enjoyed this, mainly because if you’d told me four years ago that Evan Bourne would be teaming with Hiroyoshi Tenzan to face Luke Gallows and Kenny Omega in a New Japan ring I’d question your sanity. Nonetheless, there was some good stuff here and the finishing stretch with the juniors was great. (***1/4)

5) Tetsuya Naito vs Katsuyori Shibata: You put these guys together and it will never be bad, but especially with the awesome build-up and high expectations from their G1 match, this fell a little short. Also, can we be finished with these low blows? Such a waste of a finish every single time. (***1/2)

6) CHAOS vs Bullet Club: Whenever AJ and Okada were in, this was incredible. They turned it up to a level nobody expected, and really made me interested in their 10/12 match. The other stuff was fine but this match’s job was to sell me on the King Of Pro Wrestling match and it absolutely succeeded. (***1/4)

7) IWGP Jr. Tag Team Championship: reDRagon (c) vs Time Splitters: I thought this was a hell of a match, and was my match of the night to this point, but the crowd just didn’t get into it. It’s sad to see, because these four guys are incredible talents and this match would have gotten over so big in the US. More straight tag team matches for this junior title, please. (***3/4)

8) IWGP Heavyweight Championship Wrestle Kingdom 9 In Tokyo Dome 1/4/2016 Certificate Gimmick: Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Bad Luck Fale: This was the perfect spectacle match. Tanahashi was phenomenal here, and Fale held up his end of the bargain and was the fierce giant he needed to be. While certainly not any sort of match-of-the-year contender, I’m sure this surprised a lot of people and certainly exceeded my expectations. (****)

9) IWGP Intercontinental Championship: Hirooki Goto (c) vs Shinsuke Nakamura: This was exactly what you would have expected and maybe a little bit better. That’s not a bad thing when these two guys are in my top 10 workers for this year, but we’ve seen this match before many times. Nonetheless, the finishing stuff was great, Goto adding arm submissions to his arsenal was absolutely fantastic, and the final minute or two delivered in a big way so I can’t hate on this match at all. (****1/4)

Overall a really good show but very similar to everything over the last 6 months. I’m sensing that New Japan’s main event scene is as strong as ever but the same matchups keep getting repeated, which can only go on for so long. The undercards simply have TOO MANY AMERICANS. So far this year New Japan has debuted: Jay White, David Finlay, Juice Robinson, Beretta, Matt Sydal, Kenny Omega, Michael Elgin and Cody Hall, with The Briscoes & Jay Lethal rumoured to be coming. The crowd doesn’t really care about these meaningless introductions 90% of the time, and what’s more concerning is that not a single Japanese wrestler has debuted this year. Just something to think about.

Brian Jackson

Thumbs up. Best match Goto vs. Nakamura 

Yohei Komatsu and Sho Tanaka vs. Jay White and David Finlay

I actually like these tag match quite a bit with the younger guys… they’re always really good. I can’t wait to see what Komastsu and Tanaka look like in couple of years.

IWGP Jr. Tag Team Championship: reDragon vs. Time Splitters

This match was really good but the crowd would have way more into it if was an American crowd. 

IWGP Intercontinental Championship: Hirooki Goto vs. Shinsuke Nakamura

Really good match, but basically the same one we have seen all year. 

John Juett

More weekend big show feedback

Posted on by F4W Staff

ROH- thumbs upBest match- fish vs lethal  this was a good show…i like the tag title change…i kind of thought the knights of krd flopped. I was at some of the shows they were introduced under the mask and the crowed was always groaning. Looking forward to aj and lethal that should be really good. Adam Cole vs Kyle o’Reilly is always awesome.  CMLL- awesome main event best match of the weekend.  la sombra with out the mask errr….i dont know about that. I think there was money left on the table with that one. I love dragon lee this guy is super underrated those matches with kamaitachi are some of the years best stuff. i wish there would be more mixing of njpw and cmll…i would have loved to see some njpw guys on this show and cmll guys on njpw shows.  belator dyninite thumbs in the middle 1- this felt like an early an early pride event with older guys fighting young guys, but nothing really stood out. kick boxing in america is always looking for that right match and its never came.  night of championships- thumbs up- best Cena vs Rollins  it was a good show and i didn’t get boarded…I cant say i disagree with anything of the out comes. i thought Cena and Rollins was very good.  jonathan juett

WWE Night of Champions Best Match: John Cena vs Seth Rollins Worst Match: New Day vs Dudleys The Seth Rollins show was quite amazing. Yes he lost to John Cena (and dropped the U.S. title back in the process) but he got to pin a legend, albeit one who has a tainted WWE record (0-2 in big shows).  NOC was the occasion to have “legends” put over future talent. I have more faith in Rollins as a main eventer than I do in Bron Strowman however. Although Jericho does have the unbeatable aura, if they keep bringing him back only to job on PPVs, he’ll lose that soon enough – shades of Mick Foley. Owens gains back momentum and the program with Ryback has a basis in reality (bashing the self-help books). But where does Owens go from here with a heel champ and Sheamus seemingly ready to cash in his shot at any turn? Rusev is another heel treading water, doing jobs to Dolph Ziggler and apparently waiting for Lana to return to revive his heat (and his push). Bravo to Charlotte for grabbing the Divas title. Now it’s just a matter of time until they turn Paige and segue the Bellas back to reality TV fulltime (or revive the Divas tag belts for them). Jeff CohenFlushing, NY How you doin’ Dave,

Thumbs In The Middle

Neville & Lucha Dragons vs. Stardust & The Ascension ***1/4
Thought the right team won with Cosmic Wasteland being a new faction, and I’m happy to see a feud between wrestlers this far down the card with some legs, as I presume this isn’t the end.   

Owens vs. Ryback ***1/2
Thought they rushed certain things but felt it was a good match. Also was very pleased/relieved with the result as they need some heels with some steam and I’m a big admirer of Owens. Having the IC title is seen as a curse nowadays but they looked after Ryback during his reign and hopefully they do the same with Owens.  

Ziggler vs. Rusev **3/4
Didn’t really care for most of the match, wasn’t really much emphasis or dramatics on anything, was largely just a bunch of moves and didn’t think the layout was very good either, it got better towards the end but also got botchy. Glad to see they went with Bryan’s finish and interested to see where things go from here.

Worst Match: Dudleys vs. New Day **3/4  
This has to be the worst match I suppose on account of the DQ finish, but I was probably the only person pleased to see it. I was hoping to see a three way on this show with The PTPs involved and getting beat, as I felt it was too early to beat The Dudleys or for New Day to lose the titles, this accomplished that. I guess I’m too old school, but the trombone has to go! Not that I don’t find Woods entertaining, but the heat section of the match isn’t supposed to be overly exciting, in one aspect to give the crowd an incentive to get behind the babyfaces, the trombone negates that. And much like Mizdow, Woods’ antics are killing the babyface team.      

Nikki Bella vs. Charlotte ***
I thought this was a good effort by the ladies and felt Charlotte performed very well in the match. However I will say I felt the story-spots ratio was a little off, thought the work on the leg was a bit heavy and feared at numerous points they would lose the crowd, but luckily they didn’t. Also Nikki never really gave Charlotte any space to sell, she was just on her, on her, on her. On another note I’m gaining optimism for the divas revolution as it appears to have taken strides forward the last week or so.

Wyatts vs. Ambrose, Jericho & Reigns ***1/2
Thought this match was better than the feud’s outing at Summerslam and thought Strowman’s involvement was laid-out very well. Numerous thoughts went through my head towards the end of the segment as at one point I thought Strowman was getting beat and it was the end of him, then I was shocked to see Jericho get beat on his return as it takes the wind out of his sails, then I was/am interested to see whether this develops into a Jericho heel turn which would be beneficial to the roster, or, whether it was to establish the end of the alliance and Jericho’s return was a one night thing.

Best Match: Cena vs. Rollins ***3/4
Lots of nice pretty moves and sequences during the match and wasn’t as irritating as some of Cena’s recent PPV encounters, but still a little too much sizzle and not enough steak for me. However can’t discount it was a very good match. Best part of the match for me was when the crowd started doing the Mexican Wave and the performers regained control by Rollins conducting the wave, whomevers idea that was whether it be Cena or Rollins it was excellent. Also a Japanese style finish where Cena hit three moves in a row before pinning the guy was nice to see.

Rollins vs. Sting ***3/4
If it wasn’t for the unfortunate incident with Sting at the end of the match this would’ve been my match of the night easy. Yes, I realise Rollins was very much the glue in this match but at 56 years old Sting was absolutely incredible. Really good pacing, good fundamentals, good building, good layout, nice spots, thought it was very good. Plus, Rollins got a clean win!

Thanks Dave

Tom Griffiths

 Thumbs Down, think every match under delivered… Best:  Rollins vs. Cena. (US)    ***1/4     same as we’ve seen on Raw multiple times over the past year, not as good as SummerSlam Worst:  Nikki Bella vs. Charlotte (Divas).   1/2*    Utter failure, felt like Charlotte would have accomplished something by both winning the title and denying the record, but just winning the title means nothing as we have another largely undeserving champion  Ryback v. Owens. (IC)   **1/2  (that this was the best match of the first half of the show is a big problem)Ziggler v. Rusev.   **New Day vs. Dudleys (Tag).   *3/4Nikki Bella vs. Charlotte (Divas).   1/2*Wyatt Family vs. Reigns/Ambrose/Jericho **3/4Rollins vs. Cena. (US)    ***1/4Rollins vs. Sting (WWE).   ***
Ed Branscomb  WWE Night of Champions: Thumbs UpBest Match: Cena vs. RollinsWorst Match: Ryback vs. Owens The preshow six man was a fun way to kick things off.  It’s amazing how Neville was NXT Champion and now he is on the losing end of the preshow.  Not like I should have expected him to actually be treated somewhat better than this.  I guess this feud continues. Kevin Owens winning the I-C Title sounds good in theory, but will he be like all the most recent Champs and actually be worse off in the end?  Match was okay and I’m getting real tired of the roll up finish.  It’s being used far too often. Ziggler vs. Rusev was mostly a good match and I hope this feud is over.  Looks like Summer Rae is back to no storyline and not sure where Lana fits in now.  Remember when Rusev wasn’t in a meaningless undercard feud?  Oh wait I can say that about almost the entire roster at this point. Tag Title match was fun and I guess they had to do the DQ to keep the program going since it was too soon to put it on the Dudley’s.  I guess they will meet again.  It’s not like there are any other real times on the horizon right now. Was nice to see Charlotte win the Divas Title and celebrate with Ric, but still not as good as the NXT women’s matches.  I also didn’t like how they talked about the history of the Divas title and forgot to mention that everyone they talked about was a Women’s Champion before the Divas Title ever existed.  They need to split these teams up though as it isn’t really helping anyone I don’t think. Six man tag was fine and I was happy to see Chris Jericho, but had a feeling he was doing the job when he came out.  Not sure about his possible heel turn though unless he is sticking around to feud with Ambrose maybe.  Cena vs. Rollins once again top match on the show like last month, although not as good as Summer Slam.  I guess the U.S. Open Challenge will be back on Raw tomorrow. Sting vs. Rollins was good overall.  Too bad Sting got hurt during the match and honestly not sure if Sting will ever have a victory in his WWE tenure.  I don’t count that nonsense from Raw against the Big Show.  Not sure I want to see Kane vs. Rollins for the title however. Well at least Lesnar vs. Taker in Hell in a Cell next month so that should be good I guess.  It says it is the final time so I guess that means they have new plans for Taker at Mania next year. Robb Block  

Feedback to ROH & CMLL shows

Posted on by F4W Staff

 Thumbs up

Worst: women’s match…not terrible, but the other matches were better.

Best: Atlantis vs sombra…f’ing phenomenal match…I watch very little cmll, like just the anniversaries & fantasticamania stuff, but this was the most dramatic match I think I’ve ever seen…more dramatic than last year’s due to the far superior match quality & family involvement.

Ross Blair

ROH ASE 7

Thumbs Up.

Best Match: Tag Title Match
Worst Match: Silas vs. Dalton (by default, I still enjoyed it).

Enjoyable show as always. I enjoyed the booking of the main event. It’s not something ROH does constantly and the way it played out makes sense.  Looking forward to Final Battle.

Mark Doyle
Saratoga Springs, NY

Heya Dave!

Thumbs way up for the CMLL Show!!! First iPPV this antiquated fan has ever bought, and the best $10.00 I have spent toward any PPV. No glitches, no complaints, no way! After having feed issues from the Terra.com days, I am pleasantly shocked!

Best Match: ATLANTIS vs SOMBRA – Somebody should compile a DVD charting the feud from beginning to tonight for students entering the biz… THIS IS HOW IT’S DONE! Atlantis, Sombra AND Rush all delivered in making this a match that set me on the edge of my seat like I was a kid again. And Sombra and Rush — these cats put over Atlantis like he’s on the level of El Santo, and in polished fashion! La Sombra was already a great rudo, he has now become a super heel.

Worst Match: There was no worst match, though Ultimo Guerrero should score an award for working best he could with Thunder.

Best yet— this show was so bitchin’ that the L.A. Park & Wagner situation became a complete non-issue after tonight.

Oh— I am just a tad disappointed the mascots didn’t scrap it out a bit more. C’mon, I gotta bitch & moan about something!

—Kurt Brown

Thumbs middle

Best match: Sombra vs Atlantis

Worst match: Dark Angel vs Princess Sugehit

There’s a reason CMLL is in the place they are right now – draw big houses two times a year for big shows, and occasionally do well with an older, established star. Meanwhile, there’s a sea of mid-carders whose legs have been cut out from underneath them or have never been pushed.

Booking of Rush/Volador was great. Match wasn’t that good. I guess that is the 83rd Aniversario main event, with the hair on-the-line? 

Long-term, Sombra should have won. He’s their most promising young wrestler and by far the most-charismatic guy they have. I look at Universo 2000 as an example of putting over a guy and making him into a draw. They could have done that with Sombra – except instead of being 35 with Universo 2000, Sombra is 25. But, it’s CMLL. 

Marcus Origer

It’s gonna be tough for WWE to surpass the number of fuck finishes on
the show tonight.

Thumbs down show
Best match: ROH Tag Title – Young Bucks/Kingdom/Addiction
Worst Match: World Title match  – Jay Lethal vs. Kyle O’Reilly.

Half the card ended with interference or fuck finishes. It was totally
fucked over Lethal (and what the hell did he do with his tights) who
should have gotten an actual win on his first night defending both
titles. Not the rollup with the tights or the fuck finish that was the
main match

TV Title – Lethal/Fish was good, but the finish was bad.

Castle/Young was not as good as their Best of Both Worlds match, and any
time a wrestler decides to get DQ’d in front of a ref when they have a
stip for losing totally loses me.

Briscos/ANX was good, but Cole/Detmer on commentary really were
distracting for me. Great to see they didn’t bury King on his return
from TNA, but it felt like they were trying to promote too many feuds at
once.

Moose/Alexander – Moose needs to stop doing anything that takes him
above the middle rope. Ending was good, rest of the match sucked. Lot of
cringeworthy unprotected headshots with a chair as well.

ACH/Sydal – Pretty Good match, shouldn’t have been on PPV. It was a 3rd
match in a best of 5, with them tied at 1-1. Corino tried playing up the
2-1 advantage, but it really didn’t matter. Matches 4 and 5 should be on
PPV as potential feud ending ones….not a non deciding match.

Tag Title Match: Addiction/Young Bucks/Kingdom Great match. Even if
ended on interference, it brought good closure on the KDR angle that
gave Addiction the title win in Austin to begin with. Interesting to see
where this goes, especially after the ME. Great action, everyone did
well, and I didn’t mind that it was the 4th fuck finish on a 7 match card.

#1 Contenders Match – Styles/Elgin/Cole/Strong
Kind of shocked that Nigel made no mention of the interference in the
previous match, given that was his reasoning for making it a 3 way to
begin with on the TV tapings. It was a good match, but honestly, Elgin
and Strong should not have been in this position. Elgin was in a much
better position after his G-1 performance, but not close for a world
title shot. Strong already had 2 shots against Lethal and couldn’t win.
Cole was my favorite to win, and I didn’t think AJ would win as a part
time guy. Glad to see we’re getting AJ/Lethal or Fish/Lethal soon, but I
was more happy that this match didn’t end in a fuck finish after we’ve
had 3 or 4 already.

World Title match:
WWE is going to have a hard time fucking it up more than ROH. You eject
the interference and start a conga line of interference instead. Match
never really got going before the fuck finish. Lethal needed to be
booked stronger than he was. Two fuck finish victories for your True ROH
Champion on a PPV? Fuck. I at least expect that WWE is going to drop a
title off of Rollins, which is the right call.

– Greg Valko

Thumbs up.

Best match: Atlantis vs Sombra
Worst: Maximo/et al vs Polvora/Dragon Rojo/Rey Escorpion

Almost all matches had good moments, even the mostly inconsequential ones. Good showing by Disturbio in opener. Young guys good, but Virus is great as cagey veteran. Second match was fine; told Maximo had great heat live. women’s match was okay, but too slow paced and lost the crowd. May have better to have Dark Angel wrestle a ruda like Amapola or Zeuxis. Dragon Lee could’ve stole the show if the main event was not so good. Shame Niebla got a spot that could have gone to Cavernario or Hechicero. semi-main had good action, but a horrible finish. Main was great even if my prediction was wrong. Not quite the twilight of the 80s Luchadors, as Dr. lucha wrote in the lucha issue of our new magazine.  Were they already setting up hair vs Mask with Rush and Atlantis for next year?

Almost no problems with the stream. Lost audio a couple times, but no video issues or buffering. Over 10,000 viewers on youtube, thought 9,000 or more likely did not pay. Certainly worth $10.

Mark Coale
Odessa Steps Magazine

More feedback to last night’s NXT show

Posted on by F4W Staff

Thumbs in the middleBest Match: Banks vs BayleyWorst Match: Vaudevillains/Blake & Murphy 1) Jushin Thunder Liger def Tyler Breeze: This was kind of disappointing, and I’m not saying that because the last time I saw Liger was when he was doing Shooting Star Presses in WCW. Liger has proven he can have great matches even at his age (vs Yohei Komatsu, BoSJ Night 1 this year), but this just seemed off. I guess that’s adapting to American style for you. (**1/4) 2) The Vaudevillains def Blake & Murphy: God do Blake and Murphy suck. This was a completely nothing match with a cool finishing stretch that didn’t make up for the incompetence of one half of the competitors. (**) 3) Apollo Crews def Tye Dillinger: Fun match that showcased ‘Crews’ really well. (**1/2) 4) Samoa Joe def Baron Corbin: Good big guy match. Yeah. (**3/4) 5) Bayley def Sasha Banks to win the NXT Women’s Championship: Great match, with a great moment to end it. This reminded me of a toned-down New Japan main event match where everything builds up to a crazy finish and the crowd goes wild. Extra marks for the whole presentation, really came across as a big match. (****) 6) Finn Balor def Kevin Owens: Eh. Ladder match in 2015. (**1/2) Overall a decent show but nothing really reached the level of the women’s match. The main event was literally every ladder match you’ve ever seen in WWE. What a waste of one really talented guy and one overweight good talker. Nothing else really did anything for me.

Brian Jackson
 NXT Takeover: Thumbs UpBest Match: Baley vs. Sasha BanksWorst Match: Breeze vs. Liger (not bad at all, just by default) Great show and lots of fun from top to bottom.  Liger vs. Breeze was good, but nothing great and the worst match of the night just by default since nothing was bad.  Enjoyed the Tag Title match much more than expected.  Entertaining and fun.  Crews had a nice debut over Tye Dillinger who seems better than I recall.  Even Joe vs. Corbin was good and I am not a Corbin fan.  Women’s Championship was excellent.  The difference between the presentation on NXT and WWE even after the call up of some of the ladies recently is still a big one and WWE is not doing all it can to make it feel as important.  Finn Balor over Kevin Owens another good match and a great finish to the night as NXT delivers yet again.  Not sure how Summer Slam will measure up, but assuming at least the top few matches should be very good. Robb Block
 Overall:Thumbs UpBest Match:Sasha vs. Bayley (Not even close)Worst Match:Crews vs. Dillinger Tyler Breeze vs. Jushin Thunder Liger-Great appearance(or debut?) from Liger here. Nice intro spot for Breeze in beginning. Good little match. Liger had complete control of the crowd, like a multi-decade legend would. WWE wouldn’t be dumb if they just signed Lfor a short run. Hey, the guy is under a mask, it doesn’t matter how old he is! He gets over like crazy, and that’s all that matters. Honestly, Liger could fill role left vacant since Rey Misterio left the company. ***(3 stars)Blake &  Murphy (with Alexa Bliss) vs. The Vaudevillians (with Blue Pants)-This was a pretty good match. Easily the best Vaudevillians match I’ve seen. Blue Pants got a huge reaction. Nice build-up to a emotional title win for the Vaudevillians. ***(3 stars)Crews vs. Dillinger-Crews definitely seems like he is going to be a real player. Great athlete and a ton of charisma. Just what WWE looks for. Not much of a match. Mostly just showcasing Crews arsenal. **(2 stars)Samoa Joe vs. Baron Corbin-Joe is super over in Brooklyn. This is what you would expect:A Slobberknocker. Very good match, easily the best of Corbin’s NXT run. Corbin still has a ton of upside, but you gotta give Joe the push as his time is now. Joe took a beating in this match to build this thing to a fever pitch. Some really great striking exchanges between the two toward the end of the match. But ultimately, Joe is built for Main Event combat, not these mid-card feuds. Regardless, Joe continues to build onto his BAMF Reputation which will see him in the main events in WWE very soon. *** 1/2 (3 & 1/2 stars)Bayley vs. Sasha Banks(NXT Women’s Title)-The emotions were running high even from the entrances. Bayley seemed like she was stepping onto a different plane, charisma-wise. Tonight she proved to me she can be as big a star as Sasha, Charlotte, or Becky. She was like a female Dusty out there. She had the crowd in the palm of her hands. Sasha, of course, had a masterful entrance as well. Complete with Vehicle and Security leading her to the ring. This had a big fight feel and the crowd was amped. Everyone knew they were seeing excellence in that ring. The match itself was gritty, championship story-telling at it’s finest. A strong face and a strong heel, complimenting each other perfectly. . In my opinion, the best Women’s match in NXT history. I know that’s a bold statement, but this match had it all. Both ladies left it all in the ring. This match felt like a female version of Dusty-Flair. At times, you could visibly see them getting emotional as the crowd got more and more into the match. Gutsy Greatness. An emotional Bayley victory, and the crowd became unglued. Bayley again proved she can be a monster babyface on the big stage. After Bayley won and was having her moment, you could see Sasha laying on the mat and visibly crying as she stared into the rafters. I will never forget that image. Emotional scene after the match between the Four Horsewomen of NXT was the cherry on top of the match. This was easily most crowd reaction for a Women’s match I’ve ever seen. Unreal match.**** 1/2 (4 and 1/2 stars)Balor vs. Owens (NXT Championship Ladder match)-Another great performance by these men. An even more epic entrance by Balor tonight. Loved the appearing and re-appearing in the red fog. Another match with Big Fight Feel. This was tame in comparison to most Ladder Matches in terms of danger. But what the lacked in Tables and a plethora of high-impact spots, they made up for with more psychology. My favorite spots were the Powerbomb by Owens on Balor as he stood on the ladder, or the Double Foot stomp from the ladder that sealed the win. These two don’t turn in bad performances. Excellent. **** (4 stars)BTW-Can’t wait for the Dusty Tag Classic! I hope it’s similar to the Crockett Cup. NXT delivers their best show on the biggest stage. Bravo. J.C. Gethicker
  Hey Dave, No long-winded review, but since this is the first proper show I’ve seen live since Mania… Thumbs UPBest match: Bayley vs SashaWorst match: by default, I’d have to say Crews vs Dillinger If you’re the kind of fan who (for whatever reason) is ultra resistant to watching any wrestling that doesn’t have the WWE badge on it, then this show will be one of the reasons why you’d fall (back?) into love with wrestling. Bayley vs Sasha had me on the edge of my seat throughout, but in truth, this was a perfect card. Every match was different, and built up to the double crescendo of the main events. If only WWE could replicate this on their bigger shows, rather than the turgid messes we usually get every week. SummerSlam will have to be a hell of a show to even come close to topping this… and given all of the back shots, Kevin Owens took tonight, I’d be stunned if he was even able to make it to SummerSlam. No disappointments at all from the card, and with the announced UK tour, I am eagerly awaiting their night in Wembley on 12/16. Ian Hamilton@theianhamilton  Thumbs up show. Best match was Sasha vs Bayley. No bad matches. Liger vs Breeze Nice response to Liger. Liger taking selfie’s nice. Liger’s focus on the back is solid. A basic showcase for Liger. Almost booked like a newcomer to a territory who they have hopes to get over. 2 1/2* coming soon Nya Jax Vaudevillians vs Blake and Murphy Blake and Murphy are growing on me. Blue Pants is the equalizer. Vaudvillians are having a good, solid shine. Blake sets up the heat by cheating. Good heel psychology. Though the heat was lackluster. I get not wanting to outshine the faces but at least make it interesting. Like the distraction spot to keep the heat. Built to a hot finish. 2 1/2* Apollo Crews vs Dillenger Crews owned that crowd. Crews sold too much.  Regal introduces the Dusty Rhodes tag tournament. Samoa Joe vs Baron Corbin As far as prescence, best Corbin’s looked. Joe showing off his ring generalism with all the different rope stops. Heel Hook by Corbin was a game changer. Back and forth fight. Loved this finish.Where it was the vet taught the student a lesson.  2 3/4* Babyface Steph loses her milfness. Bayley vs The Boss That is an opening. Fun back and forth so far. Sasha’s charisma is off the charts. Sasha in control and playing the bully role or mean girl. Love Bayley kicking her in the mush while Sasha talked trash. Big spot was the hand getting hurt again. Sasha  all over it. Sasha has such a mean streak. Liger flip dive alla Misterio over the ref. Nice counter by Bayley and gives her some much needed seperation. Loving Bayley using her left arm. The stomping on the hand was sick. Reversal of the Bank Statement. Bayley to Belly she kicks out. Bayley took a nasty bump. Frankentoyota into a Bayley  to belly. 4 3/4* Balor vs Owen Ladder Match Balor is no Zayn so I don’t think they’ll be able to follow that. Owens mocking the Zayn chant. Balor is a believable worker, but he needs to work on his story telling. Owens getting heat was well done. Just couldn’t follow the girls. 3 1/4*  Pete Schirmacher   8/22/15 NXT TakeOver: BrooklynOverall: Thumbs UpBest Match: Bayley vs. Sasha BanksWorst Match: Vaudevillains vs Blank and Murphy This show was a great example of the problems faced when watching NXT, the great wrestlers are fantastic and the novice wrestlers are a bore. Yet this is how it should be. It’s a developmental league and by it’s nature it’s just going to have some boring newbie matches. Liger-BreezeNot as good as any of his matches in ROH but still good. Liger is immortal it would seem.Vaudevillains-Blake and MurphyZZZZzzzzzzZZZZZzzzzzz……Don’t care about these guys and the match was what it was. Bliss is undeniable, though.Crews-DillengerCrews looks and wrestles like a Dragon Gate wrestler made in a laboratory. Can’t imagine he’ll be in NXT all that long. Joe-CorbinI just haven’t been super impressed with the matches I’ve seen Joe have in NXT. Maybe they just don’t appreciate how “firm” he usually is or maybe it’s just the level of talent he’s working with but his match against Jay Briscoe in ROH was better than anything he’s done in NXT. Joe physically looked great though. Bayley-BanksSasha Banks is a genuinely good wrestler. Not just grading her on a “good for a women” curve either. Her selling is just the best. I can’t quite put it into words, and I don’t want to use the word “stiff”, but there is something about the way she moves around the ring and wrestles that is so much smoother and more intentional than the other Divas. When Nikki Bella does an Irish Whip it looks like she’s waiting for the girl to start running as she eases her arm forward, when Banks does it looks like she’s really whipping her as hard as she can. With all that said, great match and hopefully one day, after Vince is gone and they put the Diva’s belt in a metal grinder, they can be taken seriously on the main roster.Balor-OwensGood ladder spot fest. I hope Balor buys Kevin a beer or something because he did him some huge favors with the massive bumps he took. Kevin is a mad man when it comes to these kind of matches. Makes me wish they wouldn’t have asked him to do it. -Matthew Burrill@mattb425 

WWE NXT TakeOver Brooklyn fan feedback

Posted on by F4W Staff

Thumbs UP!

Best Match: Finn Bálor vs. Kevin Owens

Worst Match: Apollo Crews vs. Tye Dillinger

*Fun show where all the faces were victorious.

*Watching Liger compete for WWE was fun but his age showed in the pacing. Still, the match wasn’t bad.

*The tag match had some fun spots that elevated it above some of Blake & Murphy’s other bouts. It wasn’t great, but I still liked it.

*Definitely Baron Corbin’s best match to date. They laid in some good looking shots to each other. Glad Samoa Joe won clean and convincingly. Now, are we ever going to get a blow off to Joe vs. Owens?

*Apollo Crews mostly looked good with energy and presence. I liked how the camera caught him saying “That’s so many people” during his entrance. This match was just okay though because Dillinger never really came across as a real challenger. He’s the new CJ Parker.

*The women’s title match was really good. Not quite as good as Sasha vs. Becky from the last TakeOver. Still, they put on a good show and I popped at home when Bayley got the win. The top rope reverse rana looked great too. Sasha’s double knee dive from the second rope also looked good. On a side note, it annoyed me to hear Stephanie call this “main eventing” and I hope one day they will let the ladies actually close the show because that is the real main event.

*The main event of this show was great. Both guys had some innovative offense I haven’t seen in a ladder match (which has to be getting difficult). Having said that, I didn’t think they were killing themselves even though I gasped multiple times. Both guys looked strong and Bálor continues his reign. My big question moving forward is who gets the title picture next considering all the heels lost tonight?

–Christian Norman

Atlanta, GA

How you doin’ Dave,

Big Thumbs Up

Best Match: Bayley vs. Sasha Banks ****1/2
By women’s standards I thought it was fantastic. There were some things that weren’t overly smooth, but it had a great layout and overall I thought it was a tremendous effort by the girls. Although frankly they did some stuff that I don’t think women should be doing, and on this occasion one girl could’ve broke an ankle and another their neck. In addition if this is the standard these girls are going to set work wise they’re going to have relatively short careers or end up in a lot of pain. Women’s frames aren’t meant for it. 

Worst Match: Liger vs. Breeze **
Didn’t think the chemistry was particularly good, there was a fair bit of sloppy stuff that had to be covered with favourable camera angles and I didn’t think the layout suited Liger.

Vaudevillians vs. Blake & Murphy ***1/2
Nothing overly speculator but I thought it was a real good solid match.

Crews vs. Dillinger **1/4

Samoa Joe vs. Baron Corbin *** 

Balor vs. Owens ****
Thought they worked very hard but after the women’s match the crowd became restless, impatient and greedy which I felt hurt it, and also the flow wasn’t quite right. I was surprised with some of the bumps Owens took as he’s got Cesaro tomorrow, hopefully they give him some time off next week, they’ve been working him into the ground lately. Also it seemed Balor got lost a couple of times and needed direction, and frankly I was a little disappointed with his performance in certain areas. 

Thanks Dave

Tom Griffiths
 Definitely a THUMBS UP. I would say none of the matches were bad.  The most interesting part is that sometimes when an NXT wrestler gets called up to RAW in a big arena, he just seems not to fill up the space.  However, I think the show played great in front of a big crowd.  I am very interested to see what is going to happen with NXT going forward. Baron Corbin looked the best he’s ever looked, and managed to look very strong in losing to Samoa Joe.  I had mixed feelings about the “Curtain Call” redux involving the women.  I appreciated it on one level, but I didn’t understand undermining this feud on the main roster with Sasha v. Charlotte & Becky.  I would love to see this paid off tomorrow with a re-shuffling of these false Women’s alliances that have not exactly gotten a lot of traction.  It would be the perfect time for the NXT girls to turn on the cast of Total Divas, and come full circle turn on AJ’s pipe bomb promo, heretofore the most memorable thing in Women’s Wresting on the main roster in the last 5 years. I also didn’t love Owens losing, again, but it was a great match, and a great performance by both guys. BEST MATCH: Sasha v. Bayley wins by a nose over the Ladder match.  Sasha is a great, great, great performer.  She is shaping up to have Dwayne Johnson-like charisma. WORST MATCH: I guess the tag match, which wasn’t bad at all.  I am still not fully a believer in Aiden English, but I don’t dislike him at all.

Richard Orloski
 Thumbs Way UpBest Match: Sasha Banks vs. BayleyWorst Match: N/A A phenomenal show that could give Summerslam a run for it’s money. Best Takeover show since they started the specials. Tyler Breeze vs Jushin Thunder Liger. Good solid match. Liger got all his trademark moves but felt Breeze should’ve won and be showcased. It did feel like they were just doing moves for the sake of moves. ** 3/4 Vaudevillians vs. Blake and Murphy. Amazing how NXT can create a cult hero star named after clearance aisle pants. Best match of Blake and Murphy’s careers. Villians were very solid and this was a fun match. ***  Apollo Crews vs. Tye Dillinger. Good showcase match for Crews who I imagine Vince will want on the main roster right away. ** 3/4 Samoa Joe vs. Baron Corbin. Great mean guy match. Best match of Corbin’s career and Joe was really good here. *** 1/4 Sasha Banks vs. Bayley. Amazing amazing amazing. The only negatives of this match were the two semi blown spots where Sasha nearly died falling off the ropes and Bayley nearly breaking her neck on the first frankensteiner. Other than that this was a match of the year candidate. Great psychology, selling, drama. Crowd going nuts for the finish and the postmatch was great. Don’t think she’ll win but Sasha needs to be brought up as a possible wrestler of the year candidate **** 3/4  Kevin Owens vs Finn Balor. Good match but it really couldn’t follow the women’s title match and post match celebration as the crowd seemed to peak and it was downhill.  It was still a good match although a little tame by WWE standards. *** 1/2 Josh Hayes

Thumbs way up
Best Match: Sasha Banks vs Bayley
Worst Match: Blake&Murphy v Vaudevillians (though nothing wrong with it)

What a killer show- The Womens title match is must watch for anyone who may have skipped this show. I cant think of another match in recent times where you could suspend disbelief so easily and just feel that the characters badly wanted the win. The submission reversal sequence with the stomping of the hand gave me chills. Before and as it was happening I wanted to see Banks retain and elevate Bayley another level in a loss like has been done in the past. Had that occured though we would have been denied the post match which was one of the realest things we have seen in the ring. I hope once Nikki reaches 300 in their plan for her than Banks gets the big title. Theyve got something special there. The one bad part about the women? Stephanie trying to have her Hunter moment around it, really the only bad part of the show was that aspect.

Id love to see them call up Crews right now. Havent been a Corbin fan but saw a little more tonight. Gave the tag match the lowest marks but was better than most of the stuff we see on regulat tv every week.

Owens and Balor had another tremendous match. Owens is likely to have the best WWE two match stretch within hours of each other since Daniel Bryan at Wrestlemania 30.

Isnt it amazing how good the announcing and pacing of an event is when Vince obviously doesnt watch/care and isnt tearing scripts up or yelling into headsets?  Reminiscent of when they let Heyman just go with Smackdown since it was the “B show”.

This was also one of those shows with a crowd that you wish you were right there for like Canadian Stampede or the night after Mania 29.

Great job all around and looking forward even more to Summerslam now.

Michael O’Brien

Thumbs up
Best: Sasha Banks vs Bayley
Worst: Apollo Crews vs Tye Dillenger, only because I saw a house show match between Crews and Crowe a couple weeks ago that was far better.

For all the crap that WWE gives Heyman from ECW, HHH is sure trying his best to be him.  That opening promo was right out of ECW.

Not taking away anything from the main event, which was a tremendous match, but the women’s match was the match of the night due to presentation and the crowd being 1000% invested.  It showed the difference between the so-called Divas Revolution and NXT women’s wrestling.  Putting on better matches in a vacuum is nothing compared to the story arc of Bayley that culminated tonight.  The go-home promo between the two was great, and even the small touch of the polka dots gave you the impression that she had to win it tonight.  I haven’t seen a title win be received at that level since Daniel Bryan at Wrestlemania, and probably CM Punk in 2011 before that.

The main roster has their work cut out for them tomorrow night, and I expect them to be up for the challenge.

– Chris
Lakeland, FL
 Wow NXT hits yet another home run. Huge thumbs up mainly because of the last two matches.  Motn goes to Bailey v Sasha…just absolutely incredible as both women left everything in that ring and seeing the four horsewomen at the end of the match just made it that much more special.  Hate calling it the worst match of the night so the least best match was the tag team match…was still a great pop and hopi g this makes blue pants a bigger player in NXT.  ~John ChagarisDavenport, Fl

Hi Dave,  

Thumbs Up

Best Match: Balor vs. Owens

Worst Match: Crews vs. Dillinger

The production and lighting tonight was excellent, as well as the atmosphere.

Liger def. Breeze: Not technically great, but entertaining. The Crowd loved Liger. I was surprised to see Liger win, as I thought WWE wasn’t going to let an outside wrestler come in on a one time deal and beat one of their guys. Maybe we’ll see more of Liger/NJPW?

Vaudevillains def. Blake and Murphy(c): Blue Pants was the mystery woman, not Mae Young. The match was ***¼, but Alexa Bliss was *****.

Apollo Crews def. Tye Dillinger: Pretty underwhelming. Crews should’ve done more for the debut, still looked impressive. Crews won with a standing moonsault.

Samoa Joe def. Baron Corbin: Corbin was choked out. Corbin perhaps the only heel tonight that the crowd actually disliked. The crowd was kind of cold, but the match was better than I expected. I loved that the referee called the match as soon as he was sure Corbin was out, not doing the usual three falling arms. Corbin sold post-chokeout confusion.

They show some people in the crowd, one of which is a female Japanese wrestler. I don’t know who she is, but she intimidates me… and I like it.

Bayley def. Banks(c): This was great. Just as good, maybe better, than Banks vs. Lynch. This match was billed as co-main, and it didn’t feel like anything less than co-main. Post match hugs between Bayley, Banks, Lynch, and Charlotte.

Finn Balor(c) def. Kevin Owens: Balor used some black magic, voodoo, witchcraft, teleportation during the entrance. This demon gimmick may be a shoot. The crowd was good all night, but they sucked here. Random chants, not really showing the main event the respect they should’ve. Great match, Balor used the double foot stomp off the top of a ladder and grabbed the belt. The demon retains.

Casey Goss

@Casey_Goss

Virginia
 Hey Dave, Overall: Thumbs way up. Solid show from top to bottom.Best Match: Both main event matches delivered. I will give a slight edge to the women’s match. It was fantastic.Worst Match: There was not one match that did not meet it’s objective. Preshow; I enjoy the interplay between Graves and Saxton. It is interesting that Saxton plays the face role, yet is the foil for everyone’s jokes.  Lita did her homework; she actually made a meaningful contribution and added a unique perspective. The Bailey video package was well done. After seeing that, it is hard not to root for Bailey. As has become the norm, this special was another example of a show where the whole is better than the sum of its parts. The undercard provided variety and good action that sustained momentum going into the two marquee matches. The two main events were fantastic. The atmosphere was electric and infectious to a degree where you could feel the energy through the television screen. Obviously the crowd was engaged, and while they did attempt to pop themselves, they did not attempt to “hijack” the show. The only chant that rubbed me the wrong way was the “Full Sail sucks” chant. But, I guess Full Sail started it.  NXT continues the trend of fun filled and thoroughly enjoyable special events. 1. Tyler Breeze vs. Jushin Thunder Liger. Another character consistent and unique entrance for Breeze only to be outdone by a huge pop for Liger. I enjoyed Liger playing to the crowd to spite Breeze. The pacing was slower than expected, but all of the action was solid and deliberate. I was somewhat surprised Breeze lost in such convincing fashion, but he did not appear outclassed by a bonafide legend. ** 2. NXT Tag Title Match: Vaudevillains vs. Blake and Murphy. I appreciated the Sherlock and Watson get up sported by the Vaudevillains. This was the best showcase of the Vaudevillains in NXT, and perhaps the best tag team match on any of the NXT specials. The match, especially the finish, was smartly booked and well executed. **1/2 3. Tye Dillinger vs. Apollo Crews. Good showcase for Dillinger’s new gimmick, nice debut for Crews. Both of these guys are capable of much, much more, but what was displayed was good. Apollo has the physique, the athleticism, and possibly the “it” factor. ** 4. Baron Corbin vs. Samoa Joe. Decent heavyweight style match with good intensity from both competitors.  Corbin did indeed show more skill and poise than he has in the past. He is not there yet, but I do think he is slowly getting there. Mostly, I am relieved Joe was victorious. **1/2 5. NXT Women’s Championship Match: Bailey vs. Sasha Banks. The storyline was reminiscent of a grunge match, and the action was consistent with the feud temperature. I loved Bank’s mean streak. Not to be outdone, Bailey’s babyface fire was fantastic. The late match submission exchange was brilliant, and the closing sequences were equally tremendous. Goosebump inducing match. ****1/4 6. NXT Title Ladder Match: Finn Balor vs. Kevin Owens.  Nicely built ladder match that relied on both story and high spots.  At the onset, the crowd had comedown from the white hot women’s match and resorted to some silly chants. The contest escalated in physicality and excitement as the match progressed and the crowd engaged.  The match concluded with a memorable highlight spot. **** Derrick Hubbard
from Utah

Thumbs in the middleBest Match: Banks vs BayleyWorst Match: Vaudevillains/Blake & Murphy 1) Jushin Thunder Liger def Tyler Breeze: This was kind of disappointing, and I’m not saying that because the last time I saw Liger was when he was doing Shooting Star Presses in WCW. Liger has proven he can have great matches even at his age (vs Yohei Komatsu, BoSJ Night 1 this year), but this just seemed off. I guess that’s adapting to American style for you. (**1/4) 2) The Vaudevillains def Blake & Murphy: God do Blake and Murphy suck. This was a completely nothing match with a cool finishing stretch that didn’t make up for the incompetence of one half of the competitors. (**) 3) Apollo Crews def Tye Dillinger: Fun match that showcased ‘Crews’ really well. (**1/2) 4) Samoa Joe def Baron Corbin: Good big guy match. Yeah. (**3/4) 5) Bayley def Sasha Banks to win the NXT Women’s Championship: Great match, with a great moment to end it. This reminded me of a toned-down New Japan main event match where everything builds up to a crazy finish and the crowd goes wild. Extra marks for the whole presentation, really came across as a big match. (****) 6) Finn Balor def Kevin Owens: Eh. Ladder match in 2015. (**1/2) Overall a decent show but nothing really reached the level of the women’s match. The main event was literally every ladder match you’ve ever seen in WWE. What a waste of one really talented guy and one overweight good talker. Nothing else really did anything for me.

Brian Jackson
 NXT Takeover: Thumbs UpBest Match: Baley vs. Sasha BanksWorst Match: Breeze vs. Liger (not bad at all, just by default) Great show and lots of fun from top to bottom.  Liger vs. Breeze was good, but nothing great and the worst match of the night just by default since nothing was bad.  Enjoyed the Tag Title match much more than expected.  Entertaining and fun.  Crews had a nice debut over Tye Dillinger who seems better than I recall.  Even Joe vs. Corbin was good and I am not a Corbin fan.  Women’s Championship was excellent.  The difference between the presentation on NXT and WWE even after the call up of some of the ladies recently is still a big one and WWE is not doing all it can to make it feel as important.  Finn Balor over Kevin Owens another good match and a great finish to the night as NXT delivers yet again.  Not sure how Summer Slam will measure up, but assuming at least the top few matches should be very good. Robb Block
 Overall:Thumbs UpBest Match:Sasha vs. Bayley (Not even close)Worst Match:Crews vs. Dillinger Tyler Breeze vs. Jushin Thunder Liger-Great appearance(or debut?) from Liger here. Nice intro spot for Breeze in beginning. Good little match. Liger had complete control of the crowd, like a multi-decade legend would. WWE wouldn’t be dumb if they just signed Lfor a short run. Hey, the guy is under a mask, it doesn’t matter how old he is! He gets over like crazy, and that’s all that matters. Honestly, Liger could fill role left vacant since Rey Misterio left the company. ***(3 stars)Blake &  Murphy (with Alexa Bliss) vs. The Vaudevillians (with Blue Pants)-This was a pretty good match. Easily the best Vaudevillians match I’ve seen. Blue Pants got a huge reaction. Nice build-up to a emotional title win for the Vaudevillians. ***(3 stars)Crews vs. Dillinger-Crews definitely seems like he is going to be a real player. Great athlete and a ton of charisma. Just what WWE looks for. Not much of a match. Mostly just showcasing Crews arsenal. **(2 stars)Samoa Joe vs. Baron Corbin-Joe is super over in Brooklyn. This is what you would expect:A Slobberknocker. Very good match, easily the best of Corbin’s NXT run. Corbin still has a ton of upside, but you gotta give Joe the push as his time is now. Joe took a beating in this match to build this thing to a fever pitch. Some really great striking exchanges between the two toward the end of the match. But ultimately, Joe is built for Main Event combat, not these mid-card feuds. Regardless, Joe continues to build onto his BAMF Reputation which will see him in the main events in WWE very soon. *** 1/2 (3 & 1/2 stars)Bayley vs. Sasha Banks(NXT Women’s Title)-The emotions were running high even from the entrances. Bayley seemed like she was stepping onto a different plane, charisma-wise. Tonight she proved to me she can be as big a star as Sasha, Charlotte, or Becky. She was like a female Dusty out there. She had the crowd in the palm of her hands. Sasha, of course, had a masterful entrance as well. Complete with Vehicle and Security leading her to the ring. This had a big fight feel and the crowd was amped. Everyone knew they were seeing excellence in that ring. The match itself was gritty, championship story-telling at it’s finest. A strong face and a strong heel, complimenting each other perfectly. . In my opinion, the best Women’s match in NXT history. I know that’s a bold statement, but this match had it all. Both ladies left it all in the ring. This match felt like a female version of Dusty-Flair. At times, you could visibly see them getting emotional as the crowd got more and more into the match. Gutsy Greatness. An emotional Bayley victory, and the crowd became unglued. Bayley again proved she can be a monster babyface on the big stage. After Bayley won and was having her moment, you could see Sasha laying on the mat and visibly crying as she stared into the rafters. I will never forget that image. Emotional scene after the match between the Four Horsewomen of NXT was the cherry on top of the match. This was easily most crowd reaction for a Women’s match I’ve ever seen. Unreal match.**** 1/2 (4 and 1/2 stars)Balor vs. Owens (NXT Championship Ladder match)-Another great performance by these men. An even more epic entrance by Balor tonight. Loved the appearing and re-appearing in the red fog. Another match with Big Fight Feel. This was tame in comparison to most Ladder Matches in terms of danger. But what the lacked in Tables and a plethora of high-impact spots, they made up for with more psychology. My favorite spots were the Powerbomb by Owens on Balor as he stood on the ladder, or the Double Foot stomp from the ladder that sealed the win. These two don’t turn in bad performances. Excellent. **** (4 stars)BTW-Can’t wait for the Dusty Tag Classic! I hope it’s similar to the Crockett Cup. NXT delivers their best show on the biggest stage. Bravo. J.C. Gethicker
  Hey Dave, No long-winded review, but since this is the first proper show I’ve seen live since Mania… Thumbs UPBest match: Bayley vs SashaWorst match: by default, I’d have to say Crews vs Dillinger If you’re the kind of fan who (for whatever reason) is ultra resistant to watching any wrestling that doesn’t have the WWE badge on it, then this show will be one of the reasons why you’d fall (back?) into love with wrestling. Bayley vs Sasha had me on the edge of my seat throughout, but in truth, this was a perfect card. Every match was different, and built up to the double crescendo of the main events. If only WWE could replicate this on their bigger shows, rather than the turgid messes we usually get every week. SummerSlam will have to be a hell of a show to even come close to topping this… and given all of the back shots, Kevin Owens took tonight, I’d be stunned if he was even able to make it to SummerSlam. No disappointments at all from the card, and with the announced UK tour, I am eagerly awaiting their night in Wembley on 12/16. Ian Hamilton@theianhamilton  Thumbs up show. Best match was Sasha vs Bayley. No bad matches. Liger vs Breeze Nice response to Liger. Liger taking selfie’s nice. Liger’s focus on the back is solid. A basic showcase for Liger. Almost booked like a newcomer to a territory who they have hopes to get over. 2 1/2* coming soon Nya Jax Vaudevillians vs Blake and Murphy Blake and Murphy are growing on me. Blue Pants is the equalizer. Vaudvillians are having a good, solid shine. Blake sets up the heat by cheating. Good heel psychology. Though the heat was lackluster. I get not wanting to outshine the faces but at least make it interesting. Like the distraction spot to keep the heat. Built to a hot finish. 2 1/2* Apollo Crews vs Dillenger Crews owned that crowd. Crews sold too much.  Regal introduces the Dusty Rhodes tag tournament. Samoa Joe vs Baron Corbin As far as prescence, best Corbin’s looked. Joe showing off his ring generalism with all the different rope stops. Heel Hook by Corbin was a game changer. Back and forth fight. Loved this finish.Where it was the vet taught the student a lesson.  2 3/4* Babyface Steph loses her milfness. Bayley vs The Boss That is an opening. Fun back and forth so far. Sasha’s charisma is off the charts. Sasha in control and playing the bully role or mean girl. Love Bayley kicking her in the mush while Sasha talked trash. Big spot was the hand getting hurt again. Sasha  all over it. Sasha has such a mean streak. Liger flip dive alla Misterio over the ref. Nice counter by Bayley and gives her some much needed seperation. Loving Bayley using her left arm. The stomping on the hand was sick. Reversal of the Bank Statement. Bayley to Belly she kicks out. Bayley took a nasty bump. Frankentoyota into a Bayley  to belly. 4 3/4* Balor vs Owen Ladder Match Balor is no Zayn so I don’t think they’ll be able to follow that. Owens mocking the Zayn chant. Balor is a believable worker, but he needs to work on his story telling. Owens getting heat was well done. Just couldn’t follow the girls. 3 1/4*  Pete Schirmacher   8/22/15 NXT TakeOver: BrooklynOverall: Thumbs UpBest Match: Bayley vs. Sasha BanksWorst Match: Vaudevillains vs Blank and Murphy This show was a great example of the problems faced when watching NXT, the great wrestlers are fantastic and the novice wrestlers are a bore. Yet this is how it should be. It’s a developmental league and by it’s nature it’s just going to have some boring newbie matches. Liger-BreezeNot as good as any of his matches in ROH but still good. Liger is immortal it would seem.Vaudevillains-Blake and MurphyZZZZzzzzzzZZZZZzzzzzz……Don’t care about these guys and the match was what it was. Bliss is undeniable, though.Crews-DillengerCrews looks and wrestles like a Dragon Gate wrestler made in a laboratory. Can’t imagine he’ll be in NXT all that long. Joe-CorbinI just haven’t been super impressed with the matches I’ve seen Joe have in NXT. Maybe they just don’t appreciate how “firm” he usually is or maybe it’s just the level of talent he’s working with but his match against Jay Briscoe in ROH was better than anything he’s done in NXT. Joe physically looked great though. Bayley-BanksSasha Banks is a genuinely good wrestler. Not just grading her on a “good for a women” curve either. Her selling is just the best. I can’t quite put it into words, and I don’t want to use the word “stiff”, but there is something about the way she moves around the ring and wrestles that is so much smoother and more intentional than the other Divas. When Nikki Bella does an Irish Whip it looks like she’s waiting for the girl to start running as she eases her arm forward, when Banks does it looks like she’s really whipping her as hard as she can. With all that said, great match and hopefully one day, after Vince is gone and they put the Diva’s belt in a metal grinder, they can be taken seriously on the main roster.Balor-OwensGood ladder spot fest. I hope Balor buys Kevin a beer or something because he did him some huge favors with the massive bumps he took. Kevin is a mad man when it comes to these kind of matches. Makes me wish they wouldn’t have asked him to do it. -Matthew Burrill@mattb425

WWE Beast from the East feedback

Posted on by F4W Staff

Thumbs Up

It kind of bums me out to think that all wrestling crowds will one day react the same way due to the internet. I really like how Japanese crowds are quiet and respectful, but this crowd seemed determined to act like western crowds with chants like “this is awesome”.

Cole did a pretty poor job of announcing, mispronouncing the names of both Bull Nakano and Tatsumi Fujinami. Saxton is starting to feel like a lost cause. Everything he says is witless and comes off phony.

The opener was really good. Poor Neville is as good as anyone could be at certain things, but it just feels like there’s no real spot for him in the big picture as anything substantial.

Finn vs. Owens was very good. The announcers seemed quite disoriented by the massive pile of streamers. It was odd to see Owens engaging the crowd so much. From what I understand, the WWE doesn’t want that kind of pandering on their shows. Maybe he did it because this was more of a house show? Don’t get me wrong, I thought he was fantastic, I just was kind of taken aback.

I didn’t care at all about the main event. It was quite odd to see the fans doing the dual Cena chants without any fervor behind it. Cena was the most over guy on the show by far, though. Much more than Balor.

Overall, a very fun show. I hope the WWE does more of this kind of thing.

Sean

Thumbs Up
Best Match: Balor v Owens
Worst Match: Divas

An entertaining event with a different feel. Still dont get the tag match going last over the NXT title match (or Lesnar) as it was a little tough to get through after the big matches. Hoping Owens beats Cena at Battleground because now he has two high profile losses in proximity to each other. Kofi was great as a bump machine for Brock. Atmosphere for Balor Owens was electric in terms of the pagentry and traditions of Japanese wrestling and Balors past. Great heeling by Owens w the bouquet. Was so odd to hear the announcers talking about Dragon Gate, IWGP etc but lets get more of it!  Happy fourth!

Michael O’Brien

I tried staying up all the way to 5:30am, but fell aleep by 3am, luckoly my alarm got me up at 5:20am, so I could catch the show live.

I had not been to a house show since the late 80s, so I liked the look and feel of the atmosphere, not the polished RAW or any other tv show set up. Reminded me of days gone by.

One major thing I noticed, someone kidnapped Michael Cole and replaced him with a look a like that could actually announce a match correctly, not the RAW or Smackdown BS. Guess Vince did  not make the trip.

The opening match was great, Neville and Jericho did a great job warming up the “tv” audience (finding out later there were mstches before they went on air), they worked great together, and got the crowd into it.

The Divas 3-way I dozed on and off through, just not the NXT style women’s match that is exciting, send the Divas down to train for 3 months, take them in shifts if need be.

Kofi was the sheep being led to slaughter, and Brock delivered. He was not selling the knee or leg injury from the RAW beatdown they replayed. Poor Kofi that one suplexed looked like it hurt like hell, landing on the back of his head and neck, the guy is tough, he came back to keep getting thrown around, after he finally defeated Kofi he dispensed the rest of New Day with ease when they arrived, they kept him as an unstoppable monster, that was good.

Owens vs Balor, loved that the crowd reacted to the entrance just like they do at Full Sail, even had NXT chants break out. They put on a good, not great, match I do not know if it was time of day here, or just knowing their spots, really did not get into it til towards the end, loved that Finn won the title, it was a huge deal to win his first (of many) WWE championship back where he became a huge star and really honed his craft, and the WWE Hall of Famer coming out to congratulate him. O thought it was cool that Owens did not shake Fin’s hand, looked so much like he wanted go, but he knew it would make him look like a hypocrit after blasting Cena about doing it.

And in a main event anywhere in the world, Cena and Ziggler vs Kane and Wade Barret, brother had 2 observations (1) Ziggler is looking a lot like Pillman dress wise and (b) he wondered if they pulled names out of a hat to make this match. It was an ok match, an ok house show main event, Cena got a lot of action early instead of being a “star” and letting Ziggler take the bulk of the match. Cena team wins sending the live audience home happy.

BEST MATCH: Owens vs Balor
BEST SQUASH: Brock vs Kofi
WORST MATCH: Diva 3way
OVERALL ALL give the show a B- on house show scale

Daniel Beling
From Baltimore