It's time for him to come home Photo Credit: Lee South/ImpactWrestling.com

The royal rumble is right around the corner. Hypothetically speaking if WWE was not a trashfire mousetrap of depression, anxiety and crushed dreams who would you want to see debut and who would you want to see them wrestle at Wrestlemania on Earth 2?

— Willow Catelyn Maclay (@willow_catelyn) January 17, 2018

You're Chris Paul. What's your plan of attack when trying to invade the Clippers locker room? #TweetBag

— Brock Obama (@NotBrockJahnke) January 17, 2018

What’s your favorite Royal Rumble fun fact? #TweetBag

— Star of Savage (@StarOfSavage) January 17, 2018

Power ranking of people who use the mist?

— New Year Frankenstein (@E_McDevitt) January 17, 2018

Who would you cast in an all-wrestler reboot of Gilligan's Island? #TweetBag

— Archbishop of Bacon (@cursethedark) January 17, 2018

I'm on a bit of a New Japan kick lately, so how would you run their proposed American dojo? #TweetBag

— ArchetypicalHighspot (@Michael_T1919) January 17, 2018

A shitty combat soap opera that is still enthralling? That's wrestling! Photo Credit: WWE.com

is it unfair to call wrestling a bad martial arts soap opera that somehow is v entertaining

— Brillo Mitchell VII (@SwitchGlitchmon) January 24, 2018

#TweetBag Assuming you had no choice and had to keep the cruiserweight division alive, how would you do it?

— Okori Wadsworth (@OkoriWadsworth) January 24, 2018

Who do you think will spend the most time in each of Sunday’s Royal Rumbles? #TweetBag

— Star of Savage (@StarOfSavage) January 24, 2018

Outlook for the current crop of (declared) QBs and where they might be taken in the NFL Draft?

Who's been the biggest underachiever on the main roster of all of the #NXT callups relative to their perceived potential on NXT? And who's been the biggest overachiever? #TweetBag

— The real dajerseyboy (@dajerseyboy) January 24, 2018

Then, let's just say Smackdown, if this isn't turning too much into a masturbatory fantasy book thing.

— Trey (@TreyIrby) January 24, 2018

what's the best omelette you could make with a maximum of three ingredients over and above the eggs

— 📺's Brent is Dead (@TVsBrent) January 24, 2018

The Mixed Match Challenge selfie interviews are the latest example of the great personalities in WWE hindered by bad scripting and cookie cutter writing. Could stuff like this get management to loosen things up a bit? The answer's no, isn't it?

— James O'Brien 📎 (@cyclelikesedins) January 24, 2018

Too slow, Ronda, too slow Photo Credit: WWE.com

• AJ Styles retained the WWE World Championship against Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens with a casadora victory roll counter of the pop-up powerbomb.
• The Usos retained the Smackdown Tag Team Championships with a straight two-nothing sweep of Chad Gable and Shelton Benjamin.
• Shinsuke Nakamura won the 2018 men's Royal Rumble match by lastly eliminating Roman Reigns.
• The Bar regained the RAW Tag Team Championships for a fourth time by defeating Seth Rollins and Jason Jordan. They hit Rollins with a double-team White Noise, as Jordan spent the entire match incapacitated.
• Brock Lesnar retained the WWE Universal Championship over Kane and Braun Strowman by F5ing Kane onto a chair.
• Asuka won the first ever women's Royal Rumble match, eliminating Nikki Bella last.
• After the match, Ronda Rousey debuted for WWE by coming down to the ring and confronting Asuka, Alexa Bliss, and Charlotte Flair before shaking Stephanie McMahon's hand.

• The Rumble telecast started with someone bringing a #COYS (Come On  You Spurs, a rallying cry for Tottenham Hotspur of the English Premiere League soccer) sign to the show, which I guess is better than the "Wenger Out" signs you see at some of the other shows. Still, why do wrestling and soccer feel inextricably linked?
• Also, the dude dressed like Waldo in the front row did a really shitty job of hiding himself.
• I just noticed that Sami Zayn's announced weight is 212 lbs., which makes him a stomach virus away from rotting in the purgatory that is 205 Live.
• Zayn and Kevin Owens tried so hard to heel at the beginning with the rapid-fire tags in and out without engaging AJ Styles, but the Philly crowd still was split down the middle. That's the curse of having a show in front of a "smart" crowd; they cheer most people who are good at their jobs, not whether or not they're "good" or "bad" in terms of narrative parlance.
• I normally like Corey Graves, and Byron Saxton is inoffensive outside of the confines of this Owens/Zayn/Shane McMahon feud, but when they were telling each other to shut up during the match, I got bad flashbacks to the Jim Ross/Paul Heyman broadcast team, which is probably my least favorite of the "acclaimed" commentary pairings in history. I don't want enmity in the broadcast booth. I want avuncular disagreement.
• The big thing I noticed in the early stages of this match was that Owens channeled more of his violent Kevin Steen days on the indies rather than his resthold-heavy main roster oeuvre, and it worked. The gap between post-ironic Owens and super-violent Steen is vast, man.
• That being said, Owens yelling to his partner "Sami, watch this!" before whiffing on the corner cannonball was primo comic relief. Comedy doesn't have to be relegated to its own match, you know.
• Styles has had the best offense in WWE since getting there two years ago. The timing on his counter Pele kick was sublime, and he followed it up with a perfect counter of a monkey flip from Owens into a headscissors on Zayn, and it was the sort of thing that everyone who goes hard on bumps but has tepid offense should've been watching. Looking at you, Adam Cole and Dolph Ziggler.
• The entire finishing sequence was amazing and put the exclamation point that it was the best handicap match at least WWE has ever put on. I disliked the fact that they angled in whether or not a tag happened, because god this feud needs to end and end now, but the actual wrestling involved, from the fingertip near-tag through tossing Zayn out through the counter to the powerbomb was grappling caviar, man.
• Tom Phillips in introducing the Usos called them "Jimmy and Jimmy," which either meant he was wistful for the Jimmyz having broken up in Dragon Gate, or he was too busy dreaming about face-fucking someone other than his fiancee again to get the call right.
• Jimmy Uso threw a hard slapping uppercut early in the match, and I'm pretty sure the hairs on the back of my neck grew a couple of tenths of an inch after seeing that. I think that's why Chad Gable was a little snugger on the leg wrenching later on. Seriously, the snugness in this match was off the charts, and I dug it.
• The heat segments was off-the-charts brutal in a good way. It was *almost* excessive, but I think Shelton Benjamin and especially Gable played the strings deftly enough to get to the hot tag, which, uh, left a little bit to be desired. The Usos have been brilliant in the last year, but I think they're more used to working the other side of the chain, and it showed with how lethargic Jey came out of the corner.
• Getting excited over MOVEZ is so 2001 TH wrestling analysis, but I gotta admit I popped harder than I thought I would when Gable broke out the tiger suplex. Hell, his offense was on point all night, especially the moonsault from the top to the outside on both Usos and the picture perfect koppo kick.
• Seeing the two-nil sweep was surprising, but after sleeping on it, it probably was telegraphed all the way, especially given Jason Jordan's outcome later on in the card. I gotta wonder if a heel American Alpha reunion is in the cards...
• Everyone was angry in anticipation of Stephanie McMahon calling the women's Rumble, but WWE just sort of slid Jerry Lawler into the men's Rumble call real slick like, and he was by far a worse call.
• Beginning the Rumble with Aiden English as harbinger for Rusev Day was the absolute best call to get the crowd fired up from start. Seriously, the roar for Rusev when he came out rivaled the loudest chants at Lincoln Financial Field across the street the week before during the NFC Championship Game.
• "Rhyno, who is loved in Philadelphia," according to Michael Cole, came out to crickets at first, but at least once he started getting going, he got the requisite "ECW!" chants going.
• The first bit of brilliant staging happened with Baron Corbin entering and getting eliminated pretty quickly. In that sequence, it set up character development for him going forward as a petulant bully, it cleared out the ring without clearing out the competitors so that Elias had a blank canvas to do his musical act, and it set up Heath Slater's comic relief bit.
• Slater getting murked elicited a "He's got kids!" chant. My people remain undefeated.
• I was not expecting the big answer to Elias' musical number to be Andrade "Cien" Almas, but holy shit, he looked and felt like he belonged in that spot.
• Also, hello Zelina Vega.
• The spot where Rusev kept trying to reenter the ring after recovering from his Corbining and Bray Wyatt denying him entry repeatedly was almost too perfect a metaphor for WWE booking. Perhaps it would've been completely perfect if it were, say, Kane or some other part timer instead of Wyatt, but then again, who among the new school is harder pushed or has had more hopeful reboots with diminishing returns on being over than Wyatt?
• Everyone kicking the shit out Slater on their way to the ring to be followed up by Big E giving him pancakes was brilliant, but Graves selling the pancakes as WORSE than the beatings was even better.
• Everyone likes to cliche the fuck out of Philly with a lot of things like Rocky, but I agree with Corey Graves. I WOULD want to see a Sylvester Stallone-produced movie about Rusev Day.
• Tye Dillinger coming out at TEN again would've been nice albeit running up against WWE beating a dead horse, but having Zayn gank his spot put enough of a spin on it and helped advance a story.
• All the other commentators clowning on Saxton for his visceral, brown-nosed hatred for Zayn was amusing, but I swear to god, if Lawler's "BS" crack catches on, I'm lighting my ears on fire.
• Sheamus actually throwing Slater into the ring only for it to lead to his own elimination was some Greek tragedy bullshit, and coupled with it being his birthday made it Peak WWE. At least it kept him fresh for tag title match later on, I guess?
• Shinsuke Nakamura entered at 14 and just went straight for Zayn, which in addition to playing into the SMACKDOWN TROUBLES called back to the Takeover: Dallas match. The little things can elevate a good match to a great one.
• Cesaro charging into the ring and immediately laying a European uppercut to the first person he could find, in this case Big E, was exactly the kind of Rumble strategy everyone should have employed. Why is Cesaro the smartest and savviest wrestler ever in addition to being big and strong? Is that why he's balding now, to keep the playing field from being TOO stilted in his favor?
• To say Jinder Mahal eliminating Xavier Woods and Big E right away nonplussed me was an understatement. My least favorite act of 2017 not named Kane going after one of my favorites was, in a word, dismaying. But it led to Kofi Kingston's gonzo elimination avoidance and him throwing Mahal out, which all in all was one of the bright spots of the match altogether.
• One thing about Kingston's and later on, Naomi's big elimination escapes is that they both led to nearly instant eliminations. Outside of the fact that since John Morrison left that now these feats of dexterity are solely domain of Black wrestlers feels slightly racist, they really don't mean anything if they're going to be rendered for naught so quickly. It's probably my biggest critique of either Rumble match.
• Seth Rollins eliminating Cesaro via monkey flip was both perhaps the best elimination I've seen in the last two years and also something only Cesaro was both crazy enough and able to take out of anyone on the roster except possibly Styles.
• Everything about Hurricane Helms' appearance in the match was brilliant except for Michael Cole describing him in the fuckin' dorkiest way possible. I think Cole is a great play-by-play commentator, but god, he gets up his own ass sometimes, and it comes off so cheesily.
• I don't know if it was supposed to happen, but Helms getting dumped over the top and almost slipping on New Day's discarded pancakes was almost too perfect for words.
• I'm not sure I'd have had Aiden English come out AFTER Rusev got eliminated, but props to him for actually going through with being eliminated by being knocked off the top turnbuckle straight to the floor.
• As if the malaise of having Randy Orton come out late wasn't enough, someone clearly mistimed the tired-by-now attempt at doing gonzo counters into the RKO on Almas. I bet Vince McMahon always picked at his scabs when he was younger, before he stopped believing in sickness.
• Yeah, the Rey Mysterio entry sent goddamn shivers up and down my spine, and that was before he flew around the ring like he was frantically trying to save Nitro from its own nWo-bloated excess. He looked like he could have gone another hour last night.
• The sequence where the Miztourage saved Miz only to get clocked off the ropes through the two-thirds Shield Bomb elimination of Miz to Roman Reigns tossing Rollins out was another masterful sequence. So many different story threads from 2017 came together in one big swooping brush, and it worked, especially with Rollins and Reigns shooting each other knowing glances when it all finished up. WWE needs to build more on that kind of interaction, where you can have competition among friends without anyone turning on anyone else.
• My utter distaste for Dolph Ziggler might have clouded his run in the Rumble, but man, the schadenfreude at seeing him enter at 30 only to get tossed in short order by Bálor was tasty, man.
• I'm not one to laud the WWE's pre-CM Punk talent acquisition and development process, but seeing Cena, Orton, and Mysterio stand on one side of the ring across from Reigns, Nakamura, and Bálor was probably the defining visual of the entire show. Ohio Valley and WCW vs. Florida/NXT and New Japan... all meeting at a nexus point in the company's signature gimmick match.
• Watching Reigns and Cena go at it to the crowd serenading them to "YOU BOTH SUCK" chants was both Peak WWE and Peak Philly, but they were into it unlike in 2015. It just goes to show that a well-laid-out match can cure a lot of booking discontent, and Reigns wouldn't have been shit on as much back then if the match were laid out as well as it was this year.
• For as bad as the Orton/Almas RKO spot was poorly timed, Bálor hitting the Sling Blade as Cena was about to do the Five Knuckle Shuffle was expert level on timing. It just goes to show how much better at this Cena is than Orton among other things.
• Can you imagine Shawn Michaels putting over someone the way Cena and Reigns did for Nakamura at the end of that match? Like, any discussion on why this era is better than the Attitude Era should begin with how willing the top guys are to play the game and try to get the guys over that they're supposed to.
• Ric Flair's final official match being the Colonel Rumble is actually the most Ric Flair thing ever, and I hope the free fried chicken he's going to get fills the void in his soul left when he gave up drinking.
• I don't think the intros were over in the RAW Tag Title match before Booker T got on his Jason Jordan-hatin' high horse, and folks, it was extremely good. I'm going to miss Booker in the RAW broadcast booth now that Jonathan Coachman is back, but not too much. Maybe just during Jordan matches.
• Jordan got murked early in the match, and well now, I didn't know Rory Gulak was licensed medically to process concussion victims!
• Cesaro shit-talking Rollins while he and Sheamus were wailing on him in the corner was everything. Again, how is Cesaro not only jacked and godlike in physique and so savvy and naturally gifted in putting a wrestling match together? That motherfucker ain't fair.
• WWE is currently mired in concussion lawsuits, and while it got Jordan great heat, I can't believe it set up a situation where he was the villain for not wanting to compete while his bell was clearly rung. Even in the throes of adequate storytelling, this company can't get out of its own way sometimes.
• One way to get me excited in a match involving Kane is to have Braun Strowman come out of the gate throwing front dropkicks like he's some kind of meaty-ass Rey Mysterio, so mission accomplished with the opening of the Universal Championship match.
• The match was the Strowman Show early, and honestly, it had to be, because Kane fuckin' sucks, man. Also, because Strowman punching chairs out of people's hands was the right call and will never not be the right call.
• Just so you don't think I'm totally in the tank for Strowman, his attempt at a German suplex on Lesnar was, well, less than optimal. I wonder though how much of that was Strowman not getting enough backwards rotation and how much of it was Brock Lesnar perhaps sandbagging him.
• Lesnar hitting the F5 on Strowman on the German table and the table breaking on impact was evidence enough for me that you have to at least be as beefy as the Monster Among Men to break one of those WWE announce desks on the first try.
• Lesnar didn't even clear the monitors off the Spanish announce table before F5ing Kane onto it, which was both scary but also oddly satisfying for reasons I'll leave to you to discern.
• Strowman was really angry at Lesnar for not being able to beat him, and I'm left to wonder what he's doing at Mania. I reiterate from prior tweets and whatnot that I'm not sure Vince McMahon has thought five minutes what he wants Strowman to do at Mania, whereas I've been pegging him in the main event against Reigns since at least Great Balls of Fire. Someone buy me WWE for my birthday this year.
• David Shoemaker got his Andre the Giant doc some ad time on the Rumble. I guess if you can get Vince McMahon to sit down and talk to you without yelling for more than a minute, you get to advertise with WWE.
• Booing Maria Menounos was a low point for My People last night, but they rebounded by even more vociferously yelling at Stephanie McMahon.
• SASHA BANKS. BECKY LYNCH. LET'S DO THIS.
• McMahon said she was "nervous" at the prospect of the women's Rumble and I felt like saying "B, no one cares if you're nervous, you corporate shill," but no one was around by my bearded dragon so I just kept it to myself.
• Sarah Logan has gotten flak lately for being a bad promo, but that's less on her and more on the writers making her center her love of goddamn game meat as promotional material. But if you wanted any more reason why I think the absolute world of her, just go back and watch her doing a goddamn POP UP HEADBUTT. Like, if she can do that on the reg without giving herself or her opponent CTE, it's a fucking money spot.
• Lita got the first really HUGE pop of the women's Rumble in at five, and she did so lookin' like an extra from mo-cap on Tony Hawk Skater. To be fair though, that was her look for years and it suited her well.
• I did my best to tune out McMahon on commentary, and honestly, she was mostly inoffensive from the times I actually bothered to pay attention, but I got real mad when she credited Chyna only now after she'd passed on. Asshole, you stole her man away from her, had her blackballed from your company, and helped send her on the spiral of drugs and depression that ultimately caused her far-too-early death, and you only now dare to speak highly of her after she's passed from the safety of your corporately-protected position? Fuck. You. God, that STILL gets me heated just writing about it. Chyna deserved infinitely better than she got from this stupid, ratfuckingly sleazy business.
• Mandy Rose throwing around that bicycle kick like she was MAD at her opponents is gonna take her places. I hate that I think she's "surprisingly" good because WWE has conditioned people like myself to think the hot model types aren't going to be good at wrestling, which is why the company has had to backpedal from its shameful history with women with these kinds of HISTORY MAKING things it should've had all along.
• Kairi Sane out and Michael Cole gave a shoutout to STARDOM. What is this world?
• Sane immediately went into her high-powered joshi offense with theatrics, and it made even Banks and Lynch look like rank amateurs. She's so goddamn good.
• Your trivia answer for "who was the first elimination from the Women's Royal Rumble?" is Rose, who got the heave-ho from Lita. The returning stars got way too many eliminations for my liking on first watch, but after sleeping on it, this match was as much a make-good for them and how badly they were treated before even the Nikki Bella/AJ Lee/Paige group started to get things moving towards respectability, so this match belonged as much to them as it did the current crop.
• I don't wanna be that guy, but man, Lita looked gassed before she got into her signature feel-good spots. Thankfully, outside of Kelly Kelly, she was the only alumna who really didn't look all that good.
• Serendipitous that Sonya Deville's hero growing up was Allen Iverson, a Philly icon, as she participated in the first ever women's Rumble match in, hey, Philly.
• Molly Holly hit the ring and started working, and immediately she looked as if she'd fit right in going ham with Banks or Bayley or Alexa Bliss on RAW.
• I don't know why Michelle McCool coming right in and shaking Deville and Liv Morgan off Lana so she could bully her was funny, but I loved it so much.
• You wanna know how strong the Rusev Day Phenomenon is? LANA got Rusev Day chants.
• Of all the vindication for past women, Vickie Guerrero's was probably the sweetest, even if she was set up to be a punchline. It didn't feel like a cruel punchline like much of her WWE tenure was, and the visual of her thumping Carmella in the head with her own briefcase was just perfect.
• I thought Carmella was going to be the female Heath Slater, but she ended up trapping Natalya and taking her out. My People then went into a "SHE'S GOT CATS!" chant, which was the most enjoyable thing to come from anything Natalya related in the last two years.
• I'm glad that even after all these years, I can set my watch to Kelly Kelly being awful at professional wrestling. I don't have anything against her personally, but man, I'm glad she can calibrate what looks awful even now as people make claims that folks who are actually really good at wrestling like Bálor or Banks are actually bad.
• Naomi's entry into the Rumble and the fire she brought was surpassed by only Cesaro in the men's Rumble. People should take notes at how to enter a battle royale from those two.
• Jacqueline coming out and just wrecking people made me want her to have an extended tour so she and Asuka can beat the Christ out of each other for a two or three pay-per-view arc.
• Nia Jax eliminating Ruby Riott by doing a bounce pass off the top turnbuckle via gorilla press was the most savage elimination in any battle royale I have ever seen. Just the perfect intersection of monster wrestler manhandling someone a bit too willing to take body-destroying bumps.
• Ember Moon, coming out still selling her arm from Shayna Baszler at Takeover, and just horsing everyone with enough fire to burn down the Linc was an immediate starmaking performance. If you aren't convinced that she's going to be huge, I don't know what will.
• Beth Phoenix coming out and immediately looking to hoss it up with Nia Jax was perhaps the most perfect thing about that match. Cole and Graves mentioning that she was the youngest ever Hall of Fame inductee gave me a twinge of melancholy because you could see she could still go and a match between her and Jax would be the hoss war that the company, regardless of gender division, needs.
• I also got the feels from the Pin-up Strong reunion, yet another group that the company utterly botched. I mean, the Summer of Punk II will be forever remembered about how the company punted on CM Punk, but man, Nattie and Phoenix might have gotten skunked even worse.
• Asuka entering and Moon going right after her was another wonderful callback, but Moon hitting her with a one-armed Eclipse was perhaps the most HOLY SHIT moment of the night. Like, I can't fathom how she pulled it off to look as good as she did, but goddammit. GODDAMMIT.
• Nikki Bella getting a "John Cena sucks!" serenade to the tune of his theme song was so wrong, but it was still funny.
• Jax arising from her recovery only to get dropkicked by both Bella Twins back to the floor kept up a longstanding tradition of the twins bullying larger wrestlers. Speaking of which, man, maybe the only misstep was not having Kharma in the match just for a denouement to her career in the ring at least.
• The sigh of relief I made when Trish Stratus came out at 30 meaning neither Ronda Rousey nor McMahon would be in the match was so audible it almost woke my kids up from two floors below them.
• The face Bayley made when Stratus did the Sonya Blade handstand rana throw from the top was just proof that no matter how badly RAW continues to ruin her that she's just irrepressibly good getting what pro wrestling is all about.
• The Stratus/Mickie James interaction was incredible, but it was missing something, maybe because they both felt like they were old friends tangling instead of James giving off a psychosexual stalker vibe. Or it could just be me.
• Banks going full turncoat on Bayley and then talking mad shit to Asuka and Stratus showed why for 2015 she was the goddamn GOAT. I don't want happy history-making Banks. I fucking want the haughty, prick asshole Legit Boss, replete with the rubber stamp she uses to sign contracts.
• As soon as the Bellas eliminated Banks, I knew that Asuka was going to murder them both, except Nikki pulled left and went full "I WISH YOU DIED IN THE WOMB" on Brie to eliminate her. The women's Rumble was big on subversive betrayals, wasn't it?
• Asuka eliminating Nikki the way she did, with the Inoki kick from her back on the apron, was the most inventive thing I've seen her do in a hot second. She's always got surprises, which is why she'll be fine going forward.
• I have a lot more about Rousey below, but the one thing I took away from that closing angle was how dumb it was to have her enter and just be smiles and handshakes. I wanted to see her throw hands with Asuka and Bliss and Charlotte Flair and hell, even pull McMahon in too and hey, Menounos can bump. 
• I will say that Asuka refusing the handshake and smirking at Rousey like she was going to murder her at some point superseded any criticism of her win being overshadowed. That was completely and totally bad-fucking-ass.

• Bobby Fish and Kyle O' Reilly beat the Authors of Pain to retain the NXT World Tag Team Championships with a flash roll-up
• Velveteen Dream pinned Kassius Ohno after the Purple Rainmaker elbow.
• Ember Moon countered an armbar into a roll-up to pin Shayna Baszler to retain the NXT Women's World Championship but got choked out twice for it post match.
• Aleister Black pinned Adam Cole (BAYBAY) in an extreme rules match after a Black Mass.
• Andrade "Cien" Almas pinned Johnny Gargano with the hammerlock DDT in an instant classic to retain the NXT World Championship.  As seen above, Tomasso Ciampa popped up to slam his crutch into Gargano's back "after the credits." 

• I know his shtick has worn thin for some, but Paul Heyman narrating the wide-ranging opening piece, covering everything from it being the unofficial start of WrestleMania season to ECW's history, as well as NXT's past and hyper-bright present, was another reminder that he could probably talk me into running for Grand Wizard of the Klan if somebody gave him the motivation to do so and 90 seconds or less to kill.
• With Nigel out sick, it was left to Mauro and Percy to rock a two-man booth.  Even with my biases towards two-man booths, the commentary was really good and at times great.  More about this later. 
• WWE and NXT may've decided to speed up pre-match introductions to try and tamp down the crowd's "ONE FALL!" singalong, but it didn't work here and probably didn't work Sunday, nor will it probably work for any of the big shows they put on.
• Wrestlers playing their title belts like guitars to their themes has been amusing me for twenty plus years now.  So old.  So very old...
• Interesting trope inversion to start off the show as the Authors jumped ExDragon before the bell and got a mixed reaction as a result.  
• As part of the opening half of the match wherein the champions were handed their lunches, KOR seemed to take a Flair Flop off the apron to the floor.  
• While XD had been landing some roundhouse kicks to the leg, it didn't pay off until Fish chop blocked Akam from the floor while the Author was on the apron.  At that point, the ROH alums stayed within a quick tag's reach of each other and continued to focus on the leg with their MMA-inspired offense.  That old axiom of their half of the ring went out of the playbook here; it was almost entirely in their corner. 
• As a result, Rezar almost assuredly went down as the world's largest and most Albanian Ricky Morton.  His combination fallaway slam/Electric Chair drop was a great spot and not only a reminder that while black and yellow has benefitted greatly from seemingly absorbing every indie darling of recent note, some of their in-house products are elevating all of the time and barring malfeasance or bad luck should be delivering quality bouts like this for years or even decades to come.
• It was great to hear Mauro doubt if Rezar should tag out given the abuse to Akam's leg.
• Another AOP match where they used sheer power to throw one partner on another to break up a possibly match-ending submission hold.  This might've been the first anniversary (roughly) of that spot, come to think of it...
• O'Reilly ranaing Akum into Rezar to clear the latter from the ring and roll up the former clean in the center made the champs look like a hybrid of lucky and brilliant while minting AOP in their first match as such as monster babyfaces.  It also feels given those parameters that they might be heading for greener pastures sooner rather than later.
• In a completely unrelated note, Faces in the Crowd immediately after that match found War Machine.
• During the pre-show, Velveteen said he'd KO KO1.0 in :30 or less.  In continuing that motif, he showed up in full neo-Rude airbrushed regalia with DREAM OVER in purple bold on the band of his faux boxing trucks and Float Like A Butterfly, Rise Like the Dream on the back of the legs.  He also acquired underlings, an attractive woman of color and a large burly shirtless man to hold the pillow from which his boss could pick up his purple mouthguard on the way to the ring.
• Who boos Velveteen Dream at this point?  Who?  Who dare show their face?!  
• That last point probably also explains why he hasn't been in front of the Full Sail crowd since the Takeover match with Black.
• Ohno came out in Pittsburgh black and yellow since he probably figured out he wasn't going to get cheered anyways.
• Dream pre-match shadowboxing in the corner was a nice aping of Ohno's own corner forearm tuneups we've seen him do before some matches.
• As a result of Dream's promise, the Baron Corbin Memorial Countdown went up for the first time in a couple years and paid off :25 in when Dream landed a big right then proceeded to celebrate like an ATM exploded in front of him for longer than the match had gone on up to that point in a moment so hilariously great I didn't just rewatch it, I rerewatched it.
• Since he forgot to do anything resembling a follow-up, Ohno eventually got to his feet and dusted Dream with a forearm so big it sent the mouthpiece flying.  Crowd was Not Amused by that.
• Dream recovered in relatively short order and landed a spinebuster, tried posing and fell down but got a Vel Vet Een chant as a result anyhow.  If he can't stay in NXT forever I'm fine with the Artist Formerly Known As Patrick Clark staying for another 1,100 days or so (give or take a week).
• Rick Rude hip swivel!  Drink!
• For the second straight Takeover, he responded to the crowd chanting for him without going full babyface or even cool heel about it.  
• That dice roll DDT — the DreamDT, for lack of a better name currently — looked awkward here, and that was exacerbated when Dream was trying to catch Ohno coming in with a jump and turn it into a counter with his rolling DVD in one fluid motion but failed.  Dream would sell the neck for the rest of the little bit of the match that remained as well as the post match, so hopefully that was just another example of his high level selling and not anything that would keep him on the shelf.
• Ironically enough, after kicking out of a ripcord Rolling Elbow, he struggled with Ohno for a second before powering up into the rolling DVD, and the botch and the glitch made the successful effort look a bit more earned as a result. 
• Swank Purple Rainmaker off of the ringpost that covered about 2/3rds of the ring, and, obviously, ended things.
• Dream looked highly emotional after the match, maybe just because he's a gigantic wrestling nrd who just got to fight and beat Chris Hero in his biggest match to date. 
• Faces In The Crowd found Maria Menounos, who is recovering nicely from cancer and apparently watched the whole Takeover show the night before she handled the announce duties for the first ever Women's Royal Rumble.
• They showed Johnny in the back with his family as well as Candice, and since that shot's God's Production Team equivalent of the Kiss of Death you knew what was going down in the main.
• Fired up Ember Moon might turn a room full of lukewarms into believers if she keeps promos short culminating in a "I'm going to beat your ass" or synonyms of that phrase, as well as yelling at Shayna pre-match multiple times and holding the belt up in her face multiple times.
• The intensity she brought into the ring with her was briefly offset when in a hilarious moment she got booed for being from Dallas, because obviously, then got cheered when she was announced immediately after that.  I wasn't in love with the Dallas Sucks chant after the bell rang, but a) it didn't last too long and b) Dallas does fucking suck, and it's not that crowd's fault they do.
• Moon landed a trioka of nice single-leg dropkicks to the temple early on, drawing some raves from the crowd.  For all the flack Illadelph's gotten over the years this crowd was pretty copacetic about booing the black hats and cheering the white ones.
• I felt bad for typing "Moon got Dakota Kaied" but she did, even if Evie deserves better than to be even low-level Billy Gunned like that.  Mauro sold it after it happened like death, too.
• For the next few minutes Baszler focused on the MMA holds and sprinkled in some cheating, allowing Mauro to point out that she was incorporating things in a wrestling ring that would be illegal in MMA.  Believe me, if that's the bullet point to hit, there isn't a better person to do it (especially to an MMA-apathetic person like me) than Ranallo.
• Ember got out from under eventually and landed an Eclipse that effed up her arm even worse.
• Booing the medical team is probably closer to a Philadelphia crowd's reaction that most people would expect going in.
• After that killed a minute or so Baszler got in a cross armbreaker.  Moon got a gigantic reaction to getting her feet on the ropes, then Shayna tried to pull her away.  Moon literally used her free arm to grab the ropes, which worked until it didn't, and then was literally clawing at the Queen of Spades' body when she got the cross armbreaker back on and Percy immediately noted it on the broadcast.
• Moon tried about five times to get out in different ways.  She'd roll but end up in a similar position somewhere else on the mat, she'd lock her arms together for brief periods only to have Shayna break that up, then crawled for the ropes with her legs and Baszler had to control that since it'd worked earlier.  
• Ember went for another roll through attempt that didn't work, then out of nowhere got a flash stacked weight pinfall for 3.1 seconds that made the crowd roar.  They might as well have had a pre-match vignette where Bret Hart whispered in her ear on how to survive getting your ass beat for 95% of your title defense, and I mean that as a glowing compliment.  Seeing the match again with that context really elevated it for me.
• Ember kept flashing between pain and joy as the medics came back to check on her and then help her to the back.  Shayna was agog then went from Surrender Cobra to "screw that, lets just really kill her this time" with the quickness.  Choke.  Pause.  Another choke.  It took a couple beats for Mauro to reach Disgusted Babyface Pro Graps Announcer and then he got it in there good. 
• Astounded that Ember had enough to be in the Women's Rumble, and astounded that my astoundedness over NXT stars catching ass beatings Saturday night but being in a Rumble for more than a Sheamus and actually doing some things put her at #2 of people on this card.   
• Faces In the Crowd has found Trevor Mann!  He may be known to some of you independent wrestling fans as "Ricochet"!  ...come on, y'all.  This should be one of the biggest layups in years.  Let the King be the King.
• tfw you order $75 of pizza and wings and only the wings show up.  Having hosted a watch party, I knew a whole show rewatch was going to be in order, but yeah, it turns out the Sometimes We Forget the () Hut and their incompetence shot what should've been me watching my MOTN with a bunch of my friends in the kneecaps for a brief period.  Back to the show, shall we?
• Literally the opening chord of "Root of all Evil" triggered a response that would confirm in case you were wondering that Philadelphia was in the matriarch fornicating edifice.
• Apropos of nothing, we all came to a quick agreement about how masterful the pacing for Takeovers are, as we were ten minutes into the second hour with the card half over and an hour and change to go to fit this and Cien/Johnny III.
• Cole did his usual entrance and checked to make sure Black wasn't going to lay him out three different times, and Aleister didn't look at him in the eyes on any of those occasions in perfect character notes for both men.
• Let's all do one together, just for funsies and to get it out of the way, yeah?
• ...ADAM COLE, BAY BAY!
• Cole went for a chair seemingly within the opening 90 seconds to a non-plussed reaction from Black, who responded to being told he was about to be destroyed by dodging every attack, disarming Cole and grabbing the chair after Adam bailed...so he could sit in it himself.  It was that moment he chose to meet ACBB in the eyes.
• Is that why he's been doing those mid-ring sitdowns this whole time?  Was he just waiting for somebody to bring him a chair?
• Black dumped Cole in short order, then ran around and drilled him with a forearm so huge Ohno probably flinched in the back.  For the first but far from the last time on this evening, Adam Cole died.
• Somehow Cole's JOYGASM~! face after Black ditched his kendo stick and offered to let Adam try his fare with his own didn't become a meme.  You disappoint me, Interwebbings.
• One kendo stick shot to the gut as a counter to a quebrada got a Holy Shit chant.  That's how far WWE's come on that sort of thing and why selective violence, even toned down exponentially, can be great.
• A slam off the top into a garbage can seemed to slice Cole's back open, and to add injury to injury Cole at a hard bicycle knee to punch his death ticket for the second time.
• Black added a table next to the one Cole had put out early, so, you know, doomed.  Not just yet, but still.
• Cole rebounded from this and hit his taunt in the corner, then died his third death as Black countered into a borderline atomic drop out of an Electric Chair to a ladder that wasn't even fully propped up in the corner and Adam took this squarely on his tailbone.  Upon landing he looked like a capital M.  The ensuing "Holy shit!" chant was well informed, and they probably didn't factor in the brief twitch sell he did for it once he sluiced into the mat.
• Cole would go on to survive this, then after a few beats of getting the advantage with the help of a chair manage to superkick it into Black's temple when Aleister was on the top rope, who Nestea Plunged through the outside tables.
• It was awesome clap clap clapclapclap.
• Cole set up two chairs mid-ring, and to go back to the earlier point, drew oohs merely by spinning them both to make the backs touch each other.  Black's subsequent oshogorishi into that was not only a nice callback as to how this had begun on the road to this being an extreme rules match, but AC's fourth death.  And what a death it was; the act of thinking about it makes me cringe.
• And shoutout to the You Deserve It chant it drew after everyone's stomach had settled.  Not content to live a full and happy life, Era's leader took a Knee Trembler into a chair which he adroitly blocked with his temple for Death Number Five.  How he had anything left in him to actually do things in the next night's Rumble...
• My notes, verbatim: "Why, Adam?  Why you do this?"
• Anyway, that could've ended it, but ExDragon came out to save their boy.  They Totally Eliminated him on the floor and dragged him around the ring to ostensibly put Black through the announce table but SAnitY came out for the save and Killian made sure to let Adam know he was going to hurt his squad before tope suicidaing everyone that wasn't in the match and put a button on the outside factors.
• Cole went to try to put Black through the table, then ate a diving double knee driver while he was standing up that sent him through it and Black on the follow-through of it.
• Seis Muertes ... como se dice Adam Cole en español? 
• When they got back in the ring, Cole landed a superkick on the entering Black.  But he wanted that chair shot on Black too damn much and got Massed as a result.  Some replays made it look like Black caught him in the shoulder and it sounded great, on a couple of others it looked like he went around Cole's swinging arm and caught him in the back of the head and/or neck with it.  We'll split the difference and cap this at six and a half deaths.
• Odds that Aleister spends his WrestleMania Eve taking the Big X from Cien have been taken off the board in Vegas.
• One last Faces in the Crowd to reveal...ladies and gentlemen...E...C...III (named as such, too).
• You can tell a show's damn good when a San Diegan's favorite moment somehow isn't the luchador mariachi band.  Just for bringing that to Philly with him, let alone rocking a tricolor Sombra mask before ditching it (the band was wearing the black variants) and nodding to a fan who was waving the Mexican flag over the barrier by the entrance Cien ensured at least a year's worth of my goodwill.
• Percy responding to this by saying he was doing this for the culture was a great moment.  I half expected Mauro to say he was trying to take a hot line that he'd already rightfully stolen.
• Fans around the ring and in the camera side row had small but noticeable Johnny Winkface signs in support of Mr. Gargano and in an echo of Asuka's Toronto match where many got those sweet Empress of Tomorrow masks.
• There were a few stalemates on the mat early, culminating in both men going for their finisher twice in the opening five minutes and failing, but every break drawing respectful applause from the crowd as well as highlighting the fact that they'd done their homework from their first two matchups.
• Things escalated further when Cien countered a counter by going for an Asai moonsault, but at least landing on his feet, whereas when Johnny tried to follow up with a cannonball off of the apron he whiffed and went splat into the floor real nice right in front of the wife.
• There are a very small handful of people who sell as well as Johnathon Grapples.  I don't think I'd put anyone even in that rarefied air ahead of what he did in this match.  
• Cien did the rolling moonsault for the first time in a long time, and it looked as crisp as ever.
• Very cool moment in Act II where they both clotheslined each other at the same time, then did it again with the other arm, then slapped each other in the jaw and hit the mat.
• Cien went for the rope-hung 100 Headaches and had it countered (with Mauro immediately noting it was how he won the belt), drilled the Knees Express then whiffed an immediate follow up but managed to counter another Superman spear with a couple of blows and a tornado inverted DDT for a hot nearfall.
• Again, Philly was Here For This.
• The slingshot DDT from the ring to the apron didn't look crisp, but it also didn't look like it unnecessarily took three years off of Andrade's life, either.
• Johnny looked to finish with his basement superkick, but a la Brooklyn Zerlina held his leg long enough for Cien to charge in with a dropkick; this time, Johnny came back with a small package.  He then faked a superkick to give him an opening to stick one in the champ's gut to then set up that superkick for another hot nearfall.
• This match was also Very Good.
• Cien double stomped Johnny into the apron in front of Candice as safely but as awesomely as he could do given the circumstances, which was much appreciated by myself and a multitude of other nerds.  Cien upped the ante by throwing him into the LED ringside, then slammed Johnny back of the head first three times in ten seconds, maybe less.  
• Did Ricky Steamboat teach Johnny and only Johnny how to sell?  Seriously.  His comeback after another hot nearfall starting with some weak lefts on his knees culminating in a superkick - rewind rana - Escape trifecta would be the chef's kiss moment if there still wasn't so much more to come.
• Zerlina saved her man by grabbing his hand before he could tap, drawing Drake's ire and just enough of a window for Cien to rake his eyes.  The crowd was Not Pleased.
• Johnny essentially shrugged it off and landed an enzui tope, so Zerlina once again interjected herself by leaping off the apron with a rana to send him into the steps after the already in the ring Cien's decaying corpse drew Drake to mirror the spot the two of them had just done.  The crowd was disgusted, and in a great moment Mauro was so sad he was barely angry as Cien set up and delivered 100 Headaches.
• It was a better moment when Johnny kicked out at 2.99999999 and the pop that ensued caused joyous temporary deafness.
• Johnny rolled to the floor and Zerlina jumped down from the apron.  It looked like she did so to further her attacks and/or maybe just get Cien straight up DQed, but it turned out to be the moment where Candice jumped the rail and wrecked her shit before chasing her into the crowd.
• The Thank You, Candice! had just enough time to be loud and also die down before Johnny came back with a slingshot DDT and then the Escape when the champ kicked out of that.
• At this point given the way the match had played out and escalated, there was a man on everyone's mind.  He didn't show up here in a Cluesque red herring, but he was probably limping his way through backstage so Cien had to save himself and did by eventually getting enough scooch to hook his feet into the bottom rope, deflating the crowd masterfully and deflating their TAP!  TAP!  TAP! chants.
• Mauro was so astounded he got quiet in the opposite way as a straight up fan, so in love with the moment (rightfully so) he used their laying out interval to say how glad he was to share it with Percy and wished Nigel could've shared in it with them.  Again, to certain people his shtick has worn thin.  If you'd like me to check your esophagus with a speeding fist, however, come at him as a human being to me and I'll give it a free checkup.
• Back on the apron somehow, Cien shoved Johnny backfirst into the post, which Johnny sold like 1.45 of Adam Cole's deaths and then came barrelling down in close to the half hour mark with another Knees Express which either legitimately shook the ring or damn near looked like it.  It wasn't like this was the Johnny Gargano Carries Some Rando show the entire time this went down, further proved by Cien falling into the ring between the bottom and middle ropes after he landed it.
• Drake checked on Johnny, and Mauro wondered if things were getting to the point where we'd have to save Johnny from himself.  Cien sold his hurt arm, grabbed Gargano's limp body, and snuffed out the match and everybody's hope with the cleaner version of the rope-hung 100 Headaches that he'd used to take the belt off McIntyre in Brooklyn.
• Everybody knew that was that, and great production decision to show the pinfall from the side of the ring in front of the announce table facing the ramp so you could see everybody in ringside counting it down and then being gutted once that happened.
• I hope the little kid being held by his dad who did so and then punched the barrier once in perfect "aw, nuts!" frustration sticks around.  Pro graps is worth it if you can get those moments.  You may want to stick to Takeovers, but that's a seminal moment in any adult fan's life: the first moment where wrestling was great and the hero didn't win, but you got past your heartache and grief and stuck around in the hopes of the D-Bry at 30 moment (or whatever your equivalent is, there's more than enough awesome pro graps to go around).
• (Nearly) goes without saying that the semi-main and the main are worth your $10 a month on their own, what certain Cagey veterans call instant classics.
• Zerlina managed to come back to help her man celebrate before clearing the area, as they celebrated at the ramp's apex while Candice returned to the ring to check on her man.  The Garganos got a standing O as in a nice quiet moment for gender equality especially given the weekend it happened Candice helped her husband up the ramp.  Drake checked on him briefly and bailed.
• To the person in the truck who rolls the credits box when you see Johnny facing the crowd after he loses a Takeover main event: are you incompetent, or are you evil?  Is it you, Tomasso?  It's you, isn't it?
• I mean this a very, very small amount just because I'm emotionally invested like that little boy who punched the barrier was/is: WHY DON'T YOU GO BACK TO WISCONSIN AND VOTE FOR PAUL RYAN AGAIN, YOU GRIZZLED JEALOUS-ASS FUCKFACE!?
• In my 40's and still able to lose myself in a pro wrestling storyline.  It's pretty nice, I'm not going to lie.  And the asshole chant that followed it for the next couple minutes means I wasn't alone in that.  Candice got in a protective stance, Drake came back out, but they turned out to be fine.  All they got in response was a blank faced stare followed by a limp to the back and a bent crutch dragging across the set.
• Really liked being able to hear Candice say "Your back's bleeding." as the only thing after the credits came up for good and the Network feed had gone to black.

The Bad Boy gonna tangle with a Japanese legend as crazy as he is Photo Credit: Scott Finkeltein

International Dream Match.
Friday. April 6 2018. 1155pm.
Live from New Orleans.@GCWrestling_ presents: Joey Janela’s Spring Break II #JJSB2https://t.co/hdclxJ1ZHDpic.twitter.com/CdF8HZXiYb

— Bad Boy Joey Janela (@JANELABABY) January 30, 2018