Storylines and History have context in Wrestling, or Another take on why Jinder shouldn't be #1 contender

Jinder Mahal is the number one contender to the World Heavyweight Championship and it's because he won a six pack challenge match on Smackdown which is the first singles match I can remember him winning in forever. Now I'm all for the idea that anybody can win any match at any time, but the problem is I know Jinder has been a jobber his entire career and he hasn't won enough, or any matches, that make me believe he can beat Randy Orton to become the champion. This relates to one of my problems with WWE which is their belief that wins and losses don't matter. Now to a certain extent that is true in that I can forget losses from a while ago as long as a person is on a winning streak, but I still have an idea of how well a wrestler is performing in the win/loss column.

Officials in WWE have been on record as saying that fans will cheer for people regardless of wins and losses and that is true to a certain extent, but that requires a connection with the fans that only a few wrestlers have. Currently Bray Wyatt and Sami Zayn are capable of getting that kind of reaction. I'm pretty sure some of the other big name guys can do that as well, but they haven't lost as much as those two to prove it.

Pro wrestling is scripted, but it is nominally supposed to be formatted like a sport, and there should be some kind of metric for how well people are doing in the sport and wins and losses are generally that metric. UFC is generally the closest sport comparison I go with for them and there are definitely people who get title shots that don't deserve them, but they have gotten wins and have gotten the fans behind them to a certain extent and created interest in the fight. Jon Jones is going to get a shot against Daniel Cormier that he doesn't deserve having been gone from fighting for like three years with one fight in that time and he barely won that fight against a nobody. Georges St. Pierre is coming back and getting a title shot in a weight class he's never fought in, but he's still GSP and people want to see that fight.

On the other hand there is Jinder Mahal winning the match and getting the title shot. In the match you have the best argument for a midcarder going over and getting a shot at the title in Sami Zayn as the crowd was super supportive for him. If you want to tell a great story you have a challenger in either Luke Harper or Eric Rowan who are Wyatt followers still left on Smackdown after their leader left. Zayn fits the same mold of Jinder as an unexpected challenger, except Sami has been in higher profile matches and wins matches fairly regularly unless it's against top tier opponents. Also as I mentioned earlier the crowd loves Zayn. I get the idea of surprising the crowd, but sometimes surprises work because you don't expect it, but you get where it came from. Other times the surprise is Jinder winning a number one contenders match after never having won a match since he returned to WWE and being a jobber when he left them. Jinder has been involved in one match that was really good and that was WeeLC and he wasn't much of a factor in making it awesome. But he was part of it and it was awesome so he does have that going for him, and that's it.

I will admit that in general I'm not interested in a Jinder Mahal push, but if WWE committed to it before hand and had the Bollywood Boys come up a while ago and help him win matches or he won matches on his own before he won the number one contenders match it would be a different situation. Going on a win streak can overcome any number of losses in the past, but that's not what happened.

Jinder Mahal has lost every match since he came back and has no fanfare. He has a tag team from 205 Live which many people don't watch interfere to help him win the match for the first time and it just happens to be a number one contenders match that he has no reason to be involved with in the first place. While WWE is a scripted show it is still modeled after a sport and in all sports wins and losses matter. WWE doesn't place any faith in that idea so we are stuck with a perennial jobber like Jinder Mahal getting a title shot against Randy Orton at a PPV and that's not a good, or interesting idea.

My thoughts on Goldberg as Universal Champion

Last Sunday Goldberg beat Kevin Owens in twenty seconds to win the Universal Championship. I didn't watch the match because I've been pretty good about keeping up on my promise to boycott WWE. I still haven't given them money, but I watched Royal Rumble with a bunch of friends, because I like hanging out with people and yelling at wrestling while drunk and I watched Elimination Chamber because I love the chamber. I didn't watch this match, but it still infuriates me in a way stuff I watch doesn't.

For years WWE has been banking Wrestlemania on the name value of part timers and claiming that the full time guys can't draw. And for the most part it's their own fault that they can't. Plus 'Mania is going to get a ton of viewers no matter what the card is. Owens being destroyed in under a minute is something I could rant on for a long time and I might still, because I have to try and learn how to edit audio for a podcast my friend wants to do, but for right now I'll compare it to the closest comparison which was CM Punk losing the World Title to The Rock at Royal Rumble 2013.

At the surface they're similar as the champ is losing to a part timer in order to make the part timers match at Wrestlemania have more gravitas. That and the part timer did nothing to earn the title shot, but that is the extent of the similarities.

CM Punk versus The Rock started on RAW 1000 when the show ended with Punk laying Rock out with a Go 2 Sleep to end the show. On a personal note I was watching that show with a bunch of friends and that was the coolest fucking thing to us at the time especially for me as I had been watching Punk wrestle since he debuted in Ring of Honor. Rock disappeared again, because he had movies to make and Punk kept defending the belt for a record length in the modern era. Rock gets a title shot at Royal Rumble because he said he'd face the champ at Royal Rumble and that's why Punk laid him out. Also Rock was becoming a huge fucking deal as an actor and people fucking love him.

Now we get to the definitive difference and that is largely the length of the match and the quality. This was a good match. Rock was a little less good, because he was way too fucking big with muscles, but he still had a good match and he took big bumps and made the match feel big. The Shield even power bombed him through an announce table. And Punk won the match after Shield interference during a black out before the match was restarted and let Rock get the win. This was a good back and forth match that made both men look good. Then we went to the next PPV of Elimination Chamber and the men met again. Again we had a twenty minute match that Punk would have gotten a pinfall on Rock, but the ref was knocked out and The Rock ended up winning, but it was a good match and both men looked good. Rock went on to Wrestlemania and had a fine match with Cena although it was ruined by him tearing a muscle during it.

Now I defended all of Rock winning the title, but rest assured I hated it at the time and still do, but it makes sense and both men looked good coming out of those matches.

Then we get Goldberg getting eliminated from the Royal Rumble after about five minutes and beating only Brock Lesnar once and now he gets a title shot. Kevin Owens has been on a hot streak and just dumped his partner who kept helping him get wins because of the advice of HHH. So the match starts, Jericho's music hits, Owens gets distracted then speared, jackhammered and pinned for the win. It takes under a minute and now Owens looks like shit, because he got wrecked in no time, and the partner he ditched for other help screws him, while the others guys ignore him. To make matters worse Owens isn't getting a rematch at the title so Goldberg is the Universal Champion going into Wrestlemania. He's wrestled about six minutes in three matches, most of which was in the Royal Rumble which doesn't require a person to do any wrestling and he's supposed to be a big deal going into Wrestlemania.

All of this complaining before hand ignores the fact that the first time Brock Lesnar and Goldberg fought at Wrestlemania it was one of the worst matches I've ever fucking watched. In his peak Goldberg was mediocre at best and that was twenty years ago. Lesnar is only good when he's laying in shots and throwing his opponent around and Goldberg isn't going to go for any of that shit because he never has.

So what I'm saying is that Goldberg going into 'Mania with the belt has no real reason behind it whereas Rock going in built up Punk even with him losing and it escalated the rematch from last 'Mania between him and Cena. Even with those losses Punk was still over enough to face the Undertaker and make people believe he might be the one to end the streak. Owens will probably face Jericho in a good match that means nothing as Jericho will be leaving to play with Fozzy after Owens beats him. Then Owens will hang around in the upper midcard and do nothing for a couple of years and basically be Sheamus, except people like him.

Tournament of Death XI (2012)

I'm reviewing an old CZW Tournament of Death because why the fuck not? Linkin Park provides the theme for this show so it's off to a bad start. The audio is also really poorly mixed and the music for interstitials is loud as fuck. You can barely hear the commentary over the crowd noise. The video says it's almost five hours long, but that's because every match has a shit ton of replays afterward.

Danny Havoc vs. Devon Moore vs. Lucky tHURTeen (Drunken Scaffolding Match)

When people talk about garbage death match wrestling this is the textbook example of it. There is no selling and they just move from spot to spot and it just looks dumb. The first move in the match is Lucky getting backbody dropped out of the ring through a barbed wire board. The worst part is Lucky hitting a top rope Canadian Destroyer and Moore straight up kicks out at two. Or maybe the worst was Havoc getting kicked off the side of the scaffolding through a barbed wire board and getting right up so he can powerslam Moore through another board because Moore hit the apron instead of a board. There are some cool looking spots, but it's not much of a match. Plus I'm pretty sure that is actual legit alcohol they are drinking in the match because they are dumb as fuck.

Drake Younger vs. Rory Mondo (Ladders and Lighttube match)

The crowd hates Rory Mondo because he uses Nick Mondo's name, but is no Nick Mondo. This match starts off with a ladder in every corner covered in random shit. They use the first minute to tease ladder spots and then they stop giving a shit and hit every fucking spot on every fucking thing. Younger starts with an overhead belly to belly suplex onto a ladder and then spends a couple of minutes beating the fuck out of Mondo. Mondo fights back with a ladder to the side of Younger's head and busts him wide open. This is like five minutes in and just keeps escalating. Mondo hits a one winged angel onto a lighttube ladder that only gets two then Younger hits a tiger driver onto a lighttube ladder for two. To finish the match they put two ladders across the ropes in the corner then Younger hits a vertabreaker on them which looks gnarly. They bounce off and Younger hits another vertabreaker for good measure.

MASADA vs. Scot Summers (Panes of Glass match)

The crowd gets grumpy at this match because it starts slowly like an actual wrestling match and it's my favorite of the first round. They trade some holds early then they trade forearms and then they trade some more holds. They tease the glass well before making use of it and every spot through the glass matter and not just something that looks cool. They break the two in the corners and Summers gets his back fucked up. MASADA hits a nice suicide dive then goes to get another pane of glass and Summers launches himself over the ropes and into him and the glass. They go back to brawling in the ring before MASADA hits a huge jacknife powerbomb then pulls out two cinder blocks and sets them next to each other and piledrives Summers on it. Summers hits the blocks hard because his head is busted wide open. He kicks out of the piledriver so MASADA hits a DVD on the blocks for the three count. A good back and forth match that uses actual wrestling and treats the weapon spots like big moments.

Abdullah Kobayashi vs. Matt Tremont (Lighttube bundles and Ultraviolent Bats match)

They have all kinds of bats covered in sharp stuff and a bunch of lighttubes and they don't waste time before putting them to use. Also both men bite a lighttube in half to start the match because they are fucking insane. They build pretty quickly to a superplex through a bundle of lighttubes and then just keep hitting each other with bats, lighttubes, or jabbing broken lighttubes in each others foreheads. DJ Hyde runs out to the ring and smashes a lighttube bundle over Tremont's back then Kobayashi goes off and starts hitting Tremont with everything he can get his hands on before climbing to the top rope and hitting an elbow drop with a lightube for the three count. Probably the second best match of the first round as it felt like a fairly back and forth match before Hyde's interference.

I skipped forward through some stuff, but it looks like somebody might have proposed at tournament of death so I'm sure that's a good relationship.

Joe Gacy vs. Ryan Slater

Gacy is a fucking sloppy wrestler and it is brutal. Especially since Slater takes every real bump in this match. It starts off bad when Gacy tries to chokeslam him onto a microwave and then only part of Slater that hits it is the back of his head. Later Gacy sets up four chairs vaguely next to each other to create a landing spot. They tease DVD's both ways on the apron before Gacy clotheslines Slater over the ropes into the ring. Gacy grabs Slater for a two handed choke slam then kind of throws him over his head, but really lifts him up and Slater falls out of the ring hits the front two chairs and smacks the back of his head on the ring frame. Gacy no sells any of the offense Slater gets in then powerbombs him through a coffee table with lighttubes and thumbtacks on it. This was bad and was basically an extended squash.

Danny Havoc vs. Drake Younger

So this match is full of crazy fucking hardcore spots and doesn't feature too much excessive finisher spamming and kicking out so I'd say it's pretty darn good. Plus there is fire. Drake controls much of the first match after being exploder suplexed through a spider trap. Drake hits a nice piledriver on the apron through some lighttubes. Both men steal each others finishers through some lighttubes for nearfalls, but can't finish it. The back of Drake's head is gushing after the Kudo driver. The craziest spot happens when they set up a thumbtack strip trap across the apron and guardrail then Drake hits a DVD off the top rope to the outside through it and both men somehow survive. Drake gets a set of lighttubes and lights them on fire, blows a fireball, then hits Havoc with it, then goes for a la majistral, but only gets two. Drake swings another set of lighttubes and Havoc ducks it and counters with a dragon suplex through a table of lighttubes and Drake is once again gushing blood from his head. Havoc sets up some lighttubes across two chairs and lights them on fire and goes for a DVD, but Drake counters with a Drake's Landing for the three count. They hit a lot of big moves through crazy shit, but it felt like everything built up to the end instead of them hitting big shit at the beginning and no selling it so I'd say it's pretty damn good for a deathmatch. I forgot to note that in the middle of all the crazy shit. Drake hits a northern lights suplex and does a perfect bridge, which is always nice to be reminded that Drake actually knows how to wrestle.

MASADA vs. Abdullah Kobayashi

I hate pretty much everything about this match. They spend a lot of time shoving wood skewers into each others foreheads and they stick into Kobayashi's head better since he's more scar tissue than skin. They also shove some metal razor things in each others heads which is tough to watch. So just where you know where I draw the line on deathmatches this is where I find it hard to watch. There's also a bead of nails where they pretty much miss it with the first three bumps they go for which has to make it worse as they don't land evenly. Eventually MASADA gets Kobayashi down and sets the bed of nails on him and slams two bricks onto it then climbs to the top and moonsaults onto it for the three count. MASADA also cuts his arm badly doing a forearm through a pain of glass on Kobayashi and we see CZW medical staff at their best as they duct tape a towel around the cut. This technically follows my rules of building up the crazy stuff to the end, but fuck man, I don't like the weapons they are using.

Before the match starts DJ Hyde comes out and says that it's not safe for MASADA to wrestle, but of course it ends up happening anyway.

MASADA vs. Drake Younger (No Rope Barbed Wire Match)

This match is pretty slowly paced and Drake goes after the taped up arm of MASADA for the entire match breaking many lighttubes on it. MASADA goes after Drake's head because he's bald and it bleeds real good. First big moment of the match is Drake sending MASADA onto a barbed wire piece of cage draped from the ring to the guardrail. They go back and forth before MASADA hits a crossbody block onto Drake that sends them both onto the barbedwire cage and they both lay there until people help pull them out. Eventually they pull a lighttube cabin into the ring and MASADA hits a Regalplex through it, but Drake grabs him as he goes for the pin and turns it into a cross armbreaker. MASADA escapes and ducks a kick and turns it into an STF and grabs a chair to pull Drake's head back and get the submission. A pretty low key affair here. There's lots of lighttubes and Drake bleeding, with quite a bit of barbed wire, but the bumps aren't very big and there's not a lot of excitement. Even the crowd there is disappointed. They chant for fire for large portions of the match and when DJ Hyde comes out to present the trophy he says they gave the fans what they wanted and you can hear a fan yell “Not really.” It's not a horrible match, and probably is one of the smarter worked matches of the tournament, but as the crowning moment of the tournament it's just really subdued and lacks big oh my god moments that I was looking forward to.

Overall

This was about what I expected from a CZW Tournament of Death so it was pretty fun to watch except for MASADA vs. Kobayashi. Something I've got to be in the right kind of mood to watch and obviously it's not great wrestling. There's also a bonus match on the show I didn't feel like watching. The sound mixing is terrible and the endless replays after every match are kind of a bummer when you're just trying to watch through the show. I know because I've started and stopped watching it so many times before this review for that very reason. I can't really say I'd recommend this, but it's not something I regret buying either. Also I'm pretty sure I got the download of this on sale one time so that made it seem like a better purchase as well. Here's the link to the download for sale on highspots if this review has made you interested http://www.highspots.com/p/VD_czw_todIX.html

Why I cancelled my WWE Network Subscription

I've spent a lot of time on twitter retweeting people arguing against the Trump presidency and I haven't made a move to show my displeasure in any way that matters. Now, with the appointment of Linda McMahon to the Small Business Administration I can let my disappointment hit people who matter in the pocket books. Granted the ten dollars a month I pay for the WWE Network that I'm about to cancel isn't a lot, but it is just the beginning as it also mean that I won't be buying any WWE merch and there are a lot of wrestlers I like to support in the company even when WWE is providing poor programing, and that is going to be lost as well.

There are probably lots of WWE wrestlers that don't support Trump and that sucks that I won't be watching them anymore. I grew into a real wrestling fan watching a lot of those guys come up in the indies, but I've talked a big game about boycotting things in the past for their bad actions. Stuff like not listening to R Kelly or Chris Brown was easy because I didn't like either of them before their shitty behavior. I put a minor move toward that in action today when Kid Rock came on the radio with “Bawitdaba” one of the two songs of his I like and I changed it because he's an asshole. And nothing really tests my resolve like canceling something in wrestling which is probably my second favorite thing behind video games. I've stopped watching Raw before, but this time fuck 'em. Raw sucks anyway and Smackdown may be good, but I've got plenty of NJPW to watch with their streaming service anyway. Plus there are many other independent companies that provide streaming services to watch as well.

Of those I'm mainly looking into getting Progress Wrestling or Chikara. I'm not a big fan of Chikara's comedy, but they have a strong continuity and I do love a good time with my wrestling shows. On the other hand Progress is a company I've heard nothing but good things about and has the UK wrestlers who have been a huge deal in the US and Japan recently so they've got damn good wrestling. Some may say FloSlam is a good choice, but Gabe Sapolsky tweeted something about how Linda was a good choice for the position and that bums me out. Now I know part of it is that WWE has been working with Gabe recently and helped him so he wants to support them even though he is on a competing streaming network, but that bums me out because of how the WWE with Linda and Vince in charge has operated.

There are places where you can find more comprehensive histories about how WWE came to be what it is, but there are many reasons that should disqualify Linda from being in any kind of position regulating small businesses. First of all WWE came into being as a regional product then went around spending money across the country to buy tv or wrestlers to come to their promotion and leave the one they were working in order to spread their influence across the country. Sure they faced hard times during the nineties, but they also had a court case for distributing steroids and got out of that some how despite the fact that later almost everybody admitted they did steroids including the poster boy Hulk Hogan. During their fight with WCW they employed lots of lawsuits to try and hinder their development and with the third party fighting them, ECW, they signed wrestlers to bigger deals to leave.

Throughout their history wrestlers who work for them have been considered independent contractors which means WWE doesn't have to pay for their shit. These people travel across the country and and work nearly everyday for the WWE, but somehow aren't actual employees. When wrestlers are fired or quit they are subject to a 90 day no compete clause, which is bullshit because it has been beaten in court by two of the bigger name wrestlers who left and had the money to fight WWE in Alberto Del Rio and CM Punk. Recently they tried to get a bunch of wrestlers to sign contracts that would prohibit them from working for companies that have TV deals or streaming services, but allow them to work smaller indie shows.

Now, Linda McMahon is a good business person, not great, we know that from WWE's many pitfalls like the XFL (which I personally thought was awesome, but didn't catch on) and the bodybuilding league. But what she doesn't do is promote small businesses. WWE has had a monopoly on wrestling ever since they bought WCW through some what dubious methods and in any respected industry the government would have looked at that purchase and said it was not legal and forced WWE to at least sell parts of WCW off like it does with phone or cable company mergers.

So today I say goodbye to the WWE and that's going to be rough, but I can't just boycott stuff I didn't like in the first place. But really I'm looking as it more as a chance to support an actual small business that Linda McMahon is supposed to be promoting anyway. I'm not sure which company it will be, but it will be a company that promotes the inclusiveness and positivity that I embrace.

Fantasy Booking Bullet Club's debut in WWE

The apparent signings of Shinsuke Nakamura, AJ Styles, Luke Gallows, and Karl Anderson were too much for me to resist the idea of writing out how I'd book their debuts. I focus on Styles being the leader of Bullet Club with Gallows and Anderson so a lot of Nakamura is ignored, but there are some hints of him including his first Wrestlemania match. This was reworked with some injury news, and some guesses at when some guys will be back from injury as well.

Royal Rumble

Anderson, Gallows, and Styles are all in the rumble. They work together to eliminate some people but nothing super obvious. Styles, Owens, Reigns, and Brock are the last four in the match. They all team up against Brock but it doesn't work. Brock eliminates Owens and Reigns. Gallows and Anderson come down and distract Brock allowing Styles to eliminate him and win.

Raw

Styles cuts a promo about Bullet Club with his two dumb enforcers with him. Heyman comes out and says Brock's coming for him at Wrestlemania. He's going to be training hard on his ranch. Owens comes out and challenges him for Fast Lane. Roman feuds with the Authority.

Fast Lane

Anderson & Gallows vs. New Day, Bullet Club can't make progress in the match with Xavier interference so they get some chairs and leave the tag champs laying in the ring.
AJ Styles vs. Kevin Owens have a back and forth match, Styles retains by interference from Samoa Joe who joins Bullet Club as the fourth member.

Raw

Bullet Club cut a promo and they start too sweeting and crotch chopping now, got to slowly introduce ripping off nWo and D-X. Owens cuts a promo about how he didn't want to have to do this, but he's got friends too and out comes Sami Zayn.

In a Fast Lane rematch Anderson and Gallows beat New Day to become the tag team champions. (I'm not happy about it either)


Wrestlemania

Nakamura vs. D-Bry (This has nothing to do with Bullet Club, but I want it to happen)
Anderson & Gallows vs. Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn ends a double count out as it just becomes a brawl into the crowd.
Samoa Joe beats Dean Ambrose for the IC Title
Roman Reigns beats HHH (That's why he's not involved with BC yet)
AJ Styles vs. Brock Lesnar is a back and forth match and when BC comes down to interfere Zayn, Owens, and Ambrose stop them from interfering. Styles beats Lesnar with a foreign object while the ref is distracted by the ringside brawl.

Raw

Bullet Club beat Ambrose, Owens, Zayn, and Daniel Bryan. After they win the match they continue the beat down. The lights go out and Finn Balor shows up on the stage. Bullet Club looks happy. Balor calls them out and tells them they're being assholes then lets Styles know he's coming for the belt. Styles tells him he's got to go through the rest of Bullet Club first.
Roman Reigns says he was distracted by the Authority but he's coming for the belt now and he doesn't care how many friends Styles has.

Payback

Cesaro comes back and he teams up with Balor to take on Anderson & Gallows, cool. Oops, Cesaro is a dirty traitor and turns on Balor before the match starts and he gets the shit kicked out of him.
Samoa Joe retains the IC title over Ambrose
AJ Styles beats Roman Reigns with Cesaro interference after Zayn and Owens trap Gallows, Anderson, and Joe in their locker room.

Raw

HHH says he's tired of Bullet Club ripping off the Kliq and he's going to even up the numbers advantage. At Extreme Rules it's a four corners match Styles vs. Ambrose vs. Reigns vs. SETH ROLLINS!
Cesaro beats Del Rio for the US Title.

Extreme Rules

Styles retains in the four way match. Rollins doesn't do anything heelish, but the other two don't trust him.
Anderson & Gallows beat Owens & Zayn in a street fight.
Cesaro retains against Del Rio rematch
Samoa Joe loses to Balor in a non-title cage match.

Raw

Balor points out he found a weak spot in the Bullet Club armor. And he's found the perfect people to back him up. Sierra, Hotel, India, Echo, Lima, Delta, the fucking Shield's back together and backing up Balor.

June PPV

Styles beats Balor with some shenanigans but Shield stop interference.
Samoa Joe retains IC title against Seth Rollins
Anderson & Gallows beat Ambrose & Reigns

Money in the Bank

Styles beats Seth Rollins to retain world title
Finn Balor beats John Cena in a number one contender match
Cesaro retains US title against Nakamura
Samoa Joe retains IC title against D-Bry
Owens & Zayn win the tag belts in triple threat against Gallows & Anderson, and Ambrose & Reigns

Summerslam
Balor beats Styles in a steel cage
Cesaro retains against John Cena
Samoa Joe retains against Nakamura
Zayn & Owens retain belts against Ambrose & Reigns. Gallows and Anderson lay out everybody after the match

Raw

Balor cuts a promo talking about how Bullet Club has shown they aren't unstoppable and he has the proof in his hands. Bullet Club come down and beat the shit out of him. Zayn and Owens run down and get beat up too. The Shield run in next and Bullet Club retreats.

Hell in a Cell

Balor retains against Styles in Hell in a Cell
Gallows & Anderson win tag belts in a no-dq match against Zayn & Owens
Samoa Joe retains against Roman Reigns
Cesaro retains the US title against Nakamura

Raw

Balor, Shield, and Zayn challenge Bullet Club to Survivor Series. Styles says Survivor Series isn't what Bullet Club and says it's going to be Wargames. Owens is by them and pissed he didn't get chosen. I wonder what this could lead to.

Survivor Series

Bullet Club wins War Games with Styles making Balor tap to the calf slicer

Kevin Owens beats Nakamura

Raw

Styles is cocky and challenges Balor at TLC
Owens says they should have taken him, he's a winner.

TLC

Balor retains the world title in an awesome TLC match against Styles
New Day beat Gallows, Anderson, & Cesaro for the tag belts.
Samoa Joe loses IC title to Owens

Cesaro retains US title against Zayn

Now all the members of Bullet Club are over as is Balor and Zayn with their introductions and then Owens turns on Zayn in the rumble and sets up their Wrestlemania match. I don't state it but Styles should never be pinned or submitted before Summerslam. Not even behind the refs back and definitely not in any six man tags or random tag matches. He never takes a loss until Balor beats him,

NJPW/CMLL Fantasticamania 2015 Preview

I really missed the boat on hyping up Wrestle Kingdom 9, on NJPWworld.com but everybody was doing that so I'm sure it's fine. And what I'm not seeing get as much hype is the two shows they have airing live this weekend the Fantasticamania shows they co-promote with CMLL. I'm a fan of lucha libre so this show or series of shows is always a favorite of mine to watch. I was hoping for another La Sombra vs. Shinsuke Nakamura match, but that's not to be at this point in time. I'd love to go match by match and give cool insight, but while I like CMLL, I'm not super well versed in all of the wrestlers. I know the ones I really like and a lot of those guys are going to be on these shows, but it's an imperfect knowledge, but I do know that there is a lot on these shows to get excited for.

The shows seem to be more of a CMLL showcase in Japan as there are quite a few matches that are just the CMLL competitors against each other under CMLL rules which means 2/3 falls which have their good and bad sides. I like the concept occasionally, but with CMLL using it for all of their matches it tends to fall into too much of a paint by numbers where the first two falls are pretty quick and then it's a long third fall so it might as well just be a one fall match without the first two. Still there's always the chance that a match can make the stipulation work in ways I don't expect so I still appreciate that. The NJPW guys seem to be mostly mixed in with CMLL workers in six or eight man tags which should be fun to watch. A lot of the NJPW guys have been on tours in Mexico and have some lucha libre influence on their style. KUSHIDA should definitely fit in well with the luchadores and I know Okada and Nakamura will work well with that style as well.

Both nights give us big tag matches where Tanahashi is teamed up with some of the luchadores against Okada and Nakamura which should result in some awesome matches. The first night has Tanahashi teaming with Mistico and Stigma. I haven't seen much of Stigma, but Mistico is Mistico II the guy who took over after the original Mistico left CMLL and became Sin Cara. He was Dragon lee, but his younger brother became Dragon when he became Mistico. What I'm trying to say is names in lucha can be really confusing. The Mistico who is going to be wrestling is awesome so with four really good wrestlers I'm sure the match will be one to watch. Especially with Okada having a chip on his shoulder about losing to Tanahashi at Wrestle Kingdom. Their match at the second night might be even better as Tanahashi will be teaming with Volador Jr (who is fucking awesome), Kota Ibushi, and Atlantis while Okada and Nakamura will have Ultimo Guerrero and Mr. Nieblas on their team. I don't know much about Nieblas, but I know Guerrero is really good. You may have been able to guess that by his last name. It runs in the family.

Night one has some singles matches for titles in the middle of the show that I'm really excited for. Volador Jr. is a great wrestler and going up against Gran Guerrero to defend his belt should really have him at the top of his game. He definitely has a good look and style and I would be surprised if WWE was interested in grabbing him at some point. There's also a light heavyweight title defense with Stuka Jr and Mephisto which should be fun, because luchadores know how to do fast paced exciting matches well.

I've seen a decent amount of Cavernario since he was in the Un Busco De Idolo tournament and I've only heard good things about his opponent Rey Cometa so that should be a fun match on the second night. The real reason to get excited about the second night is going to be the main event of La Sombra vs. Mascara Dorada. La Sombra is my favorite luchadore and one of my favorite wrestlers over all. He's had some amazing matches against Nakamura and Volador Jr. It should be a phenomenal close to the show and I'm hoping for La Sombra to win the match, and I'd love for him to start showing up in NJPW regularly.

This is a great way to get introduced to some of the CMLL competitors if you're mildly familiar to NJPW. And if you're not this should be a fun way to get introduced to what all of the wrestlers can do. You get to see everybody working with some styles they don't always work and showcasing what makes both CMLL and NJPW different from WWE If you want to find out more about lucha these are two of the people I follow on twitter who are always live tweeting lucha shows.
@luchablog
@RobViper

Here's the full card for the two shows and the results of the shows leading up to them Fantasticamania Cards

These should be some fun events and I'm looking forward to them. I won't be watching either live, but I'll be watching them after work and I should be giving some feedback about them afterward. And to follow up all these words here's some video evidence to back up how I feel about a lot of these wrestlers

Shinsuke Nakamura vs. La Sombra - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayNOkRmnXhw
Shinsuke Nakamura vs. La Sombra 2 - http://njpwworld.com/p/s_series_00210_1_4
La Sombra vs. Volador Jr (mask vs. mask) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19ar4lEZB8s

NJPW World

When it was announced that Jeff Jarrett's new promotion GFW had secured a PPV spot for New Japan Pro Wrestling's Wrestle Kingdom 9 I was pumped. When they announced that JR would do the commentary for it I was even more excited, but none of that compares to the announcement today about NJPW World their on demand streaming service. It's basically their version of the WWE Network and so far I like the way NJPW's is set up better. When you search a wrestler the results you get are just the match so you don't have to scroll through a video to find the checkpoint for the match it's right there. So far it's set up like youtube for NJPW and that is perfect for me.

If you want to check it out it's at NJPW World and it's easy to sign up with this guide that helps translate it for English speakers Sign up guide The rest of the site is in Japanese as well as are all the searches so I've got a google doc going translating wrestlers names into Japanese and I know that several of these work from experience so far. I'm using google translate to do the work for me so there could be mistakes so feel free to fix things and add wrestlers name translations Another trick about names is that someone like KUSHIDA has to be spelled in all caps or it won't find him. This is a deal that's cheaper than WWE's network and has more shows run per month that go up on the site and has a huge video catalog of awesome wrestling.

Sometime later I'll probably put together a more comprehensive post with recommendations of what to watch and stuff, but right now it's pretty new and I'm just getting the hang of navigating stuff. But if you follow me on twitter @magell2 I'll be tweeting out videos I'm watching since they have wisely built that right into the system so there will be recommendations there.