The Wrestling Blog

Pictured: A Burger Man
Photo Credit: TH

It's Twitter Request Line time, everyone! I take to Twitter to get questions about issues in wrestling, past and present, and answer them on here because 280 characters can't restrain me, fool! If you don't know already, follow me @tholzerman, and wait for the call on Wednesday to ask your questions. Hash-tag your questions #TweetBag, and look for the bag to drop Thursday afternoon (most of the time). Without further ado, here are your questions and my answers:

What's your go-to way to prepare and dress a burger?
— 🌎💣World War 3 '95 💣🌎 (@SpaceKingBobby) July 31, 2019

I'm a burger man, so I like a lot of different variations and combinations of roll, meat, cheese, topping, and cooking method. For the cooking, the best method is grilling. Griddles and cast iron pans are good, but nothing says summer like a grilled patty over open flame. I prefer American cheese, although it's a closer race than one might expect. It melts just right and has the right amount of salt. Muenster cheese is a fine and close second. For a bun, I prefer a hamburger bun that you get in the eight-packs at the store, toasted lightly. Toppings, it's caramelized onions and Nance's sharp and creamy mustard. In absence of the latter, a dijon mustard does the trick. Obviously, I eat mostly any burger put in front of me: bacon cheeseburgers, burgers with an egg on top, burgers that are made with black beans and not beef, burgers with guacamole, whatever. But the burger I described above has a certain comfort to it.

what's the best nonstandard type of burger roll/bun/donut?
— Hudget Brine Gods (@MuppetBeanPods) July 31, 2019

Luther Vandross did not die for me not to recognize his genius of putting a burger on a griddled Krispy Kreme donut. The man was not only a velvety-voiced legend of R&B, but he was a culinary visionary. The Luther Vandross burger is in the pantheon, and I respect the hell out of him for shortening his own life to give the world his gift.

Who'd win in a shoot fight Samoa Joe or Hunico?
— Jose Serenil (@Serenil) July 31, 2019

Have Joe's legit bona fides ever been proven? Even if they have, I'm not sure I'd bet against Hunico in any situation of locker room MMA. Like, I'd even put money on him against Brock Lesnar, who has held a major title in UFC. That's how legit I think Hunico is.

Protected user @earthdog asks:

Summertime Edition: I was shocked by your feelings about sauerkraut. What are your top 5/bottom 5 summertime Picnic/Cookout foods?

TOP FIVE
1. Cheeseburger - It's not a summer cookout without the cheeseburger, c'mon.
2. Deviled Eggs - I used to resist, but man, I've been eating them lately and they're the creamy counterpart you need for all that meat.
3. Chicken Wings - Sure, they're not as glamorous as the fried Buffalo counterparts, but a good wing grilled and then slathered in BBQ sauce is the perfect appetizer.
4. Italian Sausage - It's a staple in gravy, but when you grill it, it has this nice chew and unctuousness that you don't get when it's simmered in the red stuff.
5. Watermelon - The ideal dessert is cool, refreshing, and slightly sweet. It's the only good melon.

BOTTOM FIVE
1. Macaroni Salad - It's a waste of perfectly good pasta to slather it in mayo and barely anything else.
2. Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breast - Look, I eat this when I'm trying to lose weight, not when I'm having a good time, okay.
3. Egg Salad - It's not only a waste of good eggs that could be going into deviled eggs, it also turns way quicker than other salads.
4. Tossed Salad - Again, it's not that it's bad, it's just diet food. Get it away from the grill.
5. Turkey Burgers - About the only burger I won't eat. Something about ground turkey is just... no.

Will the Mariners ever be good?
— Steve Vogelbach Fan Slater (@TheSteve_Slater) July 31, 2019

Baseball teams in general have developed a cowardice that has taken brazen form this past offseason and season. I mean, it shouldn't have taken until spring training for Bryce Harper to sign, and it shouldn't have taken until June for Craig Kimbrel and Dallas Keuchel to get teams. This trading deadline has been the most boring because no one wanted to make a bold move. Owners want to scrimp, and they tell their more-than-willing lackeys in the front office to batten down the hatches rather than fire the cannons. It's sickening. Some teams will still spend money to contend in this climate, but the Mariners seem not to be one of them. Fear not though. It might take like five years, but the Astros showed that you can tank and make summers miserable for your teams fans for years on end but maybe in 2026, if the world hasn't ended due to climate catastrophe, the Mariners might just be good enough to contend!

Best zelda game?
— Dave, Yodeling Intensifyingly (@daviekumd) July 31, 2019

Breath of the Wild is not just the best Zelda game, it's the best video game of all-time, period. Well, at least the best game I've ever played. It is the pinnacle of the 3D Zelda oeuvre that Ocarina of Time kicked off, and it has just the most stuff to do. I spent like two months picking that game apart because it was so fun to play and there was so much shit. The only way they could improve on it is if they put more enemy encounters in it, but hey, nothing's perfect.

Who has been your favorite wrestler to watch in the G1 Climax, and why is the only acceptable answer Tomohiro Ishii?
— Elliot (@elliotsemi) July 31, 2019

Here's where I shock you. It's not Ishii. He's had a great tournament, no doubt, but I feel like at least two of his matches at the time being (I won't be able to watch Night 12 until later today) have been a little excessive. Like the Jeff Cobb match took too long to get started, and the Juice Robinson match lingered a little too long at the end. However, there are two wrestlers that I consider to have been all-killer, no-filler so far. Well, three, but Toru Yano scratches an entirely different itch than Shingo Takagi and Jon Moxley have. Takagi and Moxley though, they have been the best at combining the spectacle of excess along with making sure they fill out the time allotted without any real lulls. No one in the tournament, not even Ishii or KENTA or Hiroshi Tanahashi, has been as enjoyable to watch as Takagi and Moxley.

What are six unavoidable adult experiences worse than waiting in line at the DMV? #TweetBag
— Star of Savage (@StarOfSavage) July 31, 2019

I may be the exception, but I've usually been in and out at the DMV. Lucky, I guess.

1. Giving your kids "the talk" - Society has conditioned people to think of sex as this taboo thing instead of a necessary human function not just for procreation but for pleasure. Think of how much better this world would be if media and traditions treated oral sex as something to be enjoyed instead of something to speak of in hushed terms. So as much as it should be a thing that you do without trepidation, talking to your kids about sex ends up being awkward and weird, especially when you end up finding out they've known more than you for at least three years now.

2. Being stuck in traffic - Especially if you live on the East Coast or in an urban landscape, traffic will suck so much time out of your day, your week, your year, all in the service of getting to and from your vampiric job. The eight-eight-eight paradigm gets thrown off kilter because your job requires more than eight hours thanks in no small part to traffic during your commute. The worst part is that it leaves you powerless to act, especially if you're stuck more than 100 feet from an exit. You just inch along before you can find a release valve, and even then, you either need a good GPS on your phone or a knowledge of the area to get yourself home while avoiding gridlock.

3. Asking for a raise - Much like with sex, society makes knowing your own worth a difficult thing. When you ask for a raise, you are all of a sudden in your mind at least throwing away your job security for a larger share of the pie that will ultimately still be less than what your work is worth to that company. Overcoming that fear can be paralyzing. Trust me, I know.

4. Arthritis - Usually, this isn't a kid thing, which is good. When body parts on a kid hurt, it should be for good reason. Of course, that should hold true for adults too, but man, when you get older and you wake up with pains in places you didn't think possible? Yeah, it doesn't make life feel worthwhile.

5. Wiling away a slow day at work - Work sucks unless they somehow make it so that you're just at work as a formality but you're really there for some kind of party. That being said, when work is busy, well, you don't feel the pinch. But when it's slow? You have to tick the clock away while not doing anything and feeling the watchful eye of a supervisor that is looking at your productivity and wondering what they're paying you for. Then they come in and yell at you if you're on the Internet or playing solitaire, because you're there to work, not play. But what if there is no work? It's a vicious cycle, and it's even worse if you work retail and thus don't have the ability to use a computer but still have to stand around and either wait for a customer or go fucking fold shirts.

6. Dealing with a racist/fascist relative - It always seems to be that the uncle who says the n-word despite being White or praising Donald Trump is the one that your family will favor over you speaking up against them, because they don't want people to "argue over politics." Your choices are "speak up and have people with whom you have to spend holidays mad at you" or "be quiet and listen to an asshole spew hateful shit." The choice is not easy for most people.

What did you think of CM Punk in 2011?
— 😕Probably a wrestling account🤒 (@Leaveitbe22) July 31, 2019

While I am jaded but supportive for the most part of him now, I was a huge Punk fan back in 2011. You can check the receipts on this blog even. I thought that not only would he be the next big thing, but that he would bring some sort of critical prestige to wrestling while doing it. And when he was tanked by Paul Levesque and Co., I was mad as hell. Those times were simpler, and I somewhat miss them.

RIP to a King
Photo Credit: WWE.com

Harley Race, one of the greatest competitors and Champions the sport has ever seen, passed away yesterday at the age of 76. He was diagnosed with lung cancer earlier this year, and the disease was what claimed him. Race leaves behind a titanic legacy, not just of in-ring competition, but of stewardship of wrestling, especially in his home state of Missouri. He is on a short list for candidates for the best wrestler of all-time, and he may very well be the greatest Champion in National Wrestling Alliance history.

Race began his career in Missouri in the '60s, but it was almost derailed before it began. He suffered a car accident early on his career, one that claimed the life of his first wife with whom he was married only a month at that point. He also nearly lost his leg. He recovered and worked around various territories in the middle states. His first big break came when he and Larry "The Axe" Hennig met and decided to form a tag team in the Minneapolis territory the American Wrestling Association. It was there that Race first garnered national prominence. He would spend the back-half of the '60s in the AWA until he decided to focus more on the NWA and its touring partners in the '70s.

It was during this decade that Race ascended to legendary heights, winning the famous Ten Pounds of Gold for the first time in 1973 from Dory Funk, Jr. He would go onto win that title seven more times, cementing himself both as a reliable Champion and a great heel who could get various babyface challengers over. The second-to-last time he lost the title was one of the few times the torch would be passed successfully. At the first Starrcade, Flair defeated Race in a steel cage to cement himself as the new standard bearer for the NWA. The match culminated a famous angle where Race put up a bounty for anyone to take Flair out in advance of the match. While Race would win the title back from Flair in Wellington, New Zealand (to set up Flair winning it back in Singapore, the NWA has since stopped recognizing that pair of changes. Personally, the NWA can shove it up their asses.

Race would bounce around the AWA and WWE for the last few years of his active career. He was notable for having won the second-ever King of the Ring tournament. While clearly on the downside of his career, Race still provided some name value and veteran savvy to the early days of the expanding company. He would return to the place his old stomping grounds would become, World Championship Wrestling, in 1990, but within six months, he suffered a career-ending injury. However, he would never stray too far from the industry. He would stay with WCW through his injury, managing Big Van Vader in the company. While he was sidelined from making appearances for four years after another car accident in 1995, Race would comeback. He founded a wrestling school and World League Wrestling in Missouri. In fact, Race built the arena that houses this promotion. He also made appearances for TNA and WWE in the '00s, notably as part of the first class of the second run of the WWE Hall of Fame in 2004.

It's hard to comprehend the impact and influence Race had and continue to have on wrestling, especially for younger fans who only can watch him through WWE Network's archive. At a time when it was important for wrestlers to look the part in and out of the ring, the rough and tumble Race imposed on anyone who might start shit with his barrel chest and tattooed arms. He wasn't just a body guy though; everyone who ever watched the man work knew he commanded that ring better than 99 percent of anyone who ever stepped into it. Race was a man who loved wrestling as much as wrestling fans loved him, and it showed before, during, and after his career. Wrestling has lost a true icon today. Rest in peace, Champ.

Get here faster, next Saturday
Photo Credit: WWE.com

Tyler Breeze: comes out to a decent pop
Jaxson Ryker: is proof the atheists are rightand throws Tyler around a few times Uranage! Bret backbreakers!
Breeze: Leaping knee! Dropkick!
Steve Cutler: Hey! You can't
Breeze: Short range victory roll!
Referee: Winner!
Forgotten Sons: dafuq Swarm Breeze
Faaaan daaaan go: runs in for the save, seriously
Fashion Po Po: double superkick, hug
Full Sailors: do the dance

Candice LeRae: paces in the parking lot

Bronson Reed: comes out to a muted, slightly positive reaction
Cameron Grimes: the inverse
Bronson: powers him down a couple times
Cameron: Hammer shots!
Bronson: Chops! Kodiak swipes!
Cameron: Basement dropkick! Lariat! Modified crossface chicken wing!
Bronson: Snap powerslam! Avalanche! Samoan drop!
Cameron: Middle rope into your eyes! Crocop kick! Mushroom double stomp!
Referee: Winner!

Matt Riddle:Earlier Today It's easy for Killian Dain to jump me when I can't see it coming. He ever wants to go face to face one on one, I'm ready to fight him. (Later in the program God's Production Team notes it'll happen next week)

Shayna Baszler: Mia Yim delivered a message and I got it. But this isn't the street - we are professional fighters. This is the biggest professional stage of your entire life and under the bright lights in front of thousands of people in Toronto I'm going to put you to sleep. Because street rate don't last very long in my world--
Mia Yim: You scared, Shayna? You sound scared. Where your friends at? I ain't see nuthin'! Except you, running around thinking this is a game: well, game recognizes game and you lookin' unfamiliar right now. I got nothing to lose, and I'm bringing a fight you ain't ready for, Champ.
Baszler: You aren't special. You're nothing but street trash. holds up the belt
Mia: (off mic) I ain't scared of you!
Baszler: laughs and leaves

Candice: is still pacing in the parking lot
Master Regal: tells her he kicked Io out of Full Sail for the week
Candice: asks to face Io at Takeover
Master Regal: obliges her

Roderick Strong: comes out selling the fingers his opponent snapped last week
Pete Dunne: gets the night's biggest pop
Full Sailors: Bruiserweight! Bruiserweight! Bruiserweight!
Both: grapple to early standoffs then trade chops
Pete: goes after the injured fingers and hand
Roddy: Torture rack backbreaker! Bret backbreaker!
Pete: Stiff legged missile dropkick! Step up corner Owenzuigiri! X-Plex! PK!
Roddy: Kickout!
Pete: Buzzsaw kick! Harder buzzsaw kick! Sitout bomb!
Roddy: Kickout! Capture backbreaker into the apron! Forearms! High corner knee! Cloud 9!
Pete: Kickout!
Roddy: Owenzuigiri!
Pete: Back at ya!Bitter En
Roddy: nope Angle Slam! And anot
Pete: DDT!
Both: down
Full Sailors: NXT! NXT! NXT!
Both: slowly get back in the fight then trade flurries of strikes
Roddy: Avalanche Angle Slam!
Pete: Sunset ah shit losing my grip lungblower sure let's go with that! Bitter End!
Roddy: NO! Jumping knee! Butterfly bomb!
Pete: ...kickou
Strong: Hold! Tap! Tap out, damnit!
Pete: beats hell out of the injured hand Upkicks! Triangle! Are these broken?
Roddy: Hey, no, man, c'mon
Pete: snap snap What about now?!
Roddy: screams
Pete: What about these?
Roddy: taps out
Velveteen Dream: totally isn't trying to sneak up on Dunne and clobber him with the title
Pete: turns around
Dream: smiles politely and slides the title down his shoulder
Roddy: Hey! That didn't matter! Next Saturday the title is mine! Mine!
Full Sailors: Triple threat! Triple threat! Triple threat!
Dream and Dunne: Sure, Jan.
Roddy: stomps up the ramp
Dream: poses, as is his wont
Dunne: snaps Dream's fingers, as is his wont Bitter End! Finally. smirks
Roddy: talks more smack from the apex of the ramp
Dunne: shrugs and smirks again

It was a bloodbath, but one you need to see.
Graphics via AAA Website

I watched TripleMania XXIII in 2015. It was my first exposure to lucha libre (outside of that janky Lucha Libre USA show) in earnest, but it left a bad impression. Literally the only two good matches on the show were the last two, Alberto el Patron vs. Brian Cage and Rey Mysterio vs. Myzteziz (Mistico/Sin Cara). I knew it wasn't a true representation of all of lucha libre, probably not even of AAA, but having to sit through the Villanos/Clowns match may have set my interest in lucha back for years. Why am I sharing this tidbit for a show that happened four years later? Because TripleMania XXVII was the complete opposite of the disaster that was XXIII. No match was worse than "good," and the "worst" match on the card, the Cain Velasquez trios match, still contained cool stuff and would've been the best match on the XXIII card.

Discussion has to start with the main event, Dr. Wagner, Jr. putting his hair on the line against Blue Demon, Jr.'s mask. If Chikara has taught me anything, luchas de apuestas are huge deals. However, the difference between watching one in Chikara and watching one in real, honest-to-God Mexican lucha libre is day-and-night. Chikara, the stakes get raised enough that the wrestlers go with a little more intensity. In Wagner/Demon, the former was bleeding by the five minute mark, and the latter gigged so deep he's STILL probably gushing. Going so long watching WWE and its sterilized environment made me think I didn't need to see blood again, but after seeing this match, I'm convinced that you need to spill a little (or a lot) when the stakes are set that high.

The blood was a big help for me to understand the gravity of the match. Like I intimated above, I'm a lucha newbie for the most part. But between the video package showing the build for the feud and the utter carnage inside the ring, I was able to understand what was involved, and how much pride was involved. The match contained a heightened level of violence, leading up to the finish which involved Demon smashing a concrete block over Wagner's head. I think it was a perfect match to give people what lucha libre is all about, which is what makes longtime observers of it laughing the main event off as "AAA typical bullshit" so baffling. I can understand if that match wasn't your cup of tea, even if I thought it was as close to universally acceptable as possible, but to mock it as comedic? I feel like that statement is the height of disrespectful.

I think when people think lucha though, they don't imagine grimy, blood-soaked brawls like the main event. Thanks to World Championship Wrestling's cruiserweight division, lucha was seen mostly as an outlet for flips, dives, and top-rope moves. In reality, lucha is just like most forms of wrestling in that it welcomes all body types, even if the base style is unique enough that it can be distinguished from Japanese and American wrestling. This show had tons of those exhilarating high-flying moves, the best purveyors of such acrobatics were the team of Myzteziz, Jr., Golden Magic, and especially El Hijo del Vikingo in the triple-trios match. Their match was enjoyable not just because of them; the other two teams (the exoticos team of Pimpinela Escarlata, Maximo, and Mamba, and the Poder del Norte team of Tito Santana [not that one], Carta Brava, Jr., and Mocho Cota, Jr.) were awesome in this match too. But watching EHdV do his thing was breathtaking. He's a guy that indie promotions should be looking at booking. He's someone All Elite Wrestling should use its relationship with AAA to feature on its new Wednesday night show on TNT. He's that good.

Speaking of Velasquez, he bucked trends of other imports from MMA and decided he wasn't going to go full grapplefuck/shoot-style for his in-ring debut. He actually went out and tried to do lucha stuff, springboards and arm drags, rather than going full bore on submission chaining and shoot-inspired strikes. What that told me is that for as green as he is at worked combat, his ambition shows that he's not in it just to do a one-off for some cash. I would not be surprised if by this time next year, he was on AEW TV as a regular character. It just so happened that his greenness was covered in a match with five weathered pros. His teammates, Psycho Clown and Cody Rhodes, were able to pick up the pace where he struggled, and his opponents, Killer Kross, Texano, Jr., and especially Taurus, were able to base for him. Even though this was my least favorite match on the card, it was still required viewing.

The rest of the show, outside of Konnan going to the incredibly tone-deaf well of adopting Donald Trump as his inspiration, was easy to watch with big peaks in quality. The opener was hot, had some good tension between the best tag team in all of wrestling, Niño Hamburguesa and Big Mami, and the villainous Lady Maravilla. The Copa TripleMania match was about as fun and sprightly as a battle royale should be, and LA Park coming out with his sons and making the AAA execs uncomfortable with his profanity ownedCain. Despite the fact that Chik Tormenta got hurt on a misfired bump off a Tessa Blanchard shove, the women's seven-way TLC match was violent and exciting, and it had the surprise entry of Ayako Hamada, who's always a crowd favorite unless it happens to be Japanese drug court (Japan's drug laws are bullshit anyway, fuck 'em). And the Lucha Bros. and Laredo Kid vs. The Elite rematch from Fyter Fest was 100 times better than an already decent match there because the Elite didn't play it like some friendly highspot-trading indiefuck match and actually went pure rudo for it. That being said, allowing Kenny Omega a live mic should be ground for corporal punishment.

Overall, if your experience with TripleMania was one of the bad events, well, this one should drown out the bad taste in your mouth. Then again, lucha isn't some uniform art where everything is good or bad all the time. Just judging from observers I see on Twitter, it has high variance with the only real constant being the fuckery that happens behind the scenes. If you want to watch lucha, you should probably expect and learn to appreciate the bad stuff, because it happens a lot, and you can fire off all the jokes you can about it. It also makes you appreciate the really good shows like this year's TripleMania even more.

Two titans of the industry did great battle in Fukuoka
Photo Credit: NJPW1972.com

So, no one in either block is undefeated anymore, the B-Block leader is in real danger of not winning it anymore, and the MATCH OF THE CENTURY occurred. This is your rundown of the last four nights of the G1 Climax.

The Picture So Far - Both Jon Moxley and Kazuchika Okada suffered their first defeats in the tournament over the last week. Okada only dropped one match, to Sanada, with ten seconds left on the clock. The match didn't feel like a half-hour except for the few parts where they were laying about in a blatant attempt to get close to the time limit. I get why they did it; I just wish they had gone another route. Still, it was the most compelling match Sanada has had the whole tournament. He's so weird. He can go from match-of-the-night stuff one night to being a total stinker the next. Still though, while he's eliminated from contention, he opened things up in A-block for a few wrestlers, namely Kota Ibushi and EVIL.

As it turns out, Okada faces off against both EVIL and Ibushi to close his tournament out. Ibushi can win the tournament if he wins both matches, the other being against Zack Sabre, Jr. Should Ibushi lose vs. ZSJ (and only to ZSJ, if Okada beats him, EVIL is out) but beats Okada, then EVIL can win if he wins out. His finale match is against Lance Archer. Now, if Okada, EVIL, and KENTA all finish with the same amount of losses, I have no clue how they solve that tiebreaker seeing as how KENTA beat EVIL, who would have beaten Okada, who already beat KENTA. I'm going to trust that Gedo's head would have legit steam coming out of it if he tried booking that scenario though.

After the events of the last two B-Block shows, that slate is far more wide open. Moxley still leads the pack with only two losses and ten points, but four wrestlers are in striking distance at eight points: Tomohiro Ishii, Hirooki Goto, Jay White, and Tetsuya Naito. Of the four, Ishii and Goto feel like they're playing to lose. It would be nice to see either one make it, as they're both my kind of wrestler. Goto is a fatherly-looking man who hits hard, has a dope finisher, and has been treated below his grade in booking. Ishii, meanwhile, is a sentient bowling ball. Still, as much as I'd love to see either guy win the block, they feel like longshots. My gut feeling has two directions in which it might travel.

The pessimist in me says it'll be Jay White, who opened his tournament with three straight losses against his former CHAOS stablemates but has reeled off four straight wins to get to eight points. New Japan seems to love him, which is fine because he gets big heel heat without any tricks. That being said, do I really want to see a middling-at-best worker headline the Dome? It's not really up to me, but I don't. The optimist says this is the year they pull the trigger on Naito at the Dome. Whether he wins the B-Block and the tournament, or just wins the block, presumably loses to Okada in the final, and then has Okada hand-select him as an opponent, it feels like the right story.

Of course, they could always have Mox win one or both of his last two matches and face Okada in the final, but that feels not really in their playbook. Besides, with All Elite Wrestling starting in earnest in October, the opportunities to have him for long tours grow smaller and smaller. This year might be the only year Mox is in New Japan enough to do the G1. Put a gun to my head though, and I'm saying it's Okada vs. the Knife Pervert in the final. I hope I'm wrong on the latter.

Clash of the Titans - So Mox lost both his matches this past week, but in the first one, he and Toru Yano perhaps had the greatest comedic match in wrestling history. People assuming that Mox wasn't going to indulge sillier impulses because he was free from WWE misunderstand the nature of his departure. It's not that Moxley didn't want to do comedy. He didn't want to do Vince McMahon's comedy, a genre that appeals to him and his sycophants. Yano's brand of hijinks is far purer and more relatable, and as Dean Ambrose, Mox still took shit that McMahon gave him and gave a glimmer of his potential. It should have been expected that this match would have been enjoyable, but you had to let it play out. Anyway, the match itself was physical comedy done on a level of Chris Farley, and the finish of taping Mox's legs together was brilliant. It probably won't be remembered as Mox's best match in the tournament, but it really should get some consideration. As an aside, it's going to be hilarious to see Ibushi or Okada break two hours in total match time while Yano will probably top out at like 50 minutes. That isn't an indictment of the former two, by the way. It's just indicative that the G1 Climax can be, and should be, filled with varying styles of wrestlers up and down the slate.

Coming Up - So, the next four shows are going to be tense. I have a feeling that Okada will win at least one match, probably against EVIL, and give himself a shot to win the block. Will they allow the "first Champion to win the G1 since 2000" entry into the last match? I feel like Ibushi is almost a lock to beat him, but I could see ZSJ playing spoiler, clinching the block win for the Champion. That being said, both Okada matches might end up being must-see. As for the rest of A-block, the other match I'm really looking forward to is ZSJ/KENTA. That match should be fun if just to see how rusty KENTA is at reversing grapples.

B-Block looks like it should finish strong regardless of results, even if those results are looking cloudier and more exciting by the day. Night 16 sees Goto taking on Moxley, which aside from having major implications on who wins the block should be a stunningly good match. Shingo Takagi vs. Ishii should be great for fans of hard-hitting, stiff-looking matches. While Takagi is a junior heavyweight, the narrative going in the G1 is that he hits as hard as guys in the weight class above him. Ishii will be THE major test to see if he can hang with the big boys. The sleeper match for that show will be Yano taking on Taichi. If Yano is King Jester of New Japan, Taichi is his hand, at least in this block. They might have a match that surpasses the Moxley one. As for Night 18, the matches to watch will be Moxley vs. Juice Robinson, a rematch from the former's first in the company. Robinson has upped the mustard behind his strikes, and he's been advertising himself as a new man since that match. The personal stakes might up the ante a little more. Also, I'd be on the watch for Goto/Takagi, as that will be a hard-hitting test for the latter in the vein of his Ishii match.

I will be camping with my son Thursday through Sunday, so I'll miss watching at least two if not three of the four G1 shows the day they happen. The Collect might have to come on Tuesday or Wednesday to include the final card as well. No matter how or when you watch, enjoy the stretch run of this year's tournament!

A fitting winner.
Photo via @SCITournament

Honestly, the dogpile on Riddle is systemic of a greater problem
Photo Credit: WWE.com

One of the constants of pro wrestling is that no matter how much the style changes or how much more spots get escalated, people inside the biz have to pay dues to the people who came before them. Whether it's shaking hands in the locker room, doing pointless and meaningless gruntwork, or never speaking bad about anyone older than you, you gotta respect your elders or else they'll all gang up on you and try to blackball you from any promotion in which they have influence. It doesn't matter how much they drew or how good they were. If they're old, they're worth something, or so the common logic states.

Matt Riddle did not come up in a pro wrestling locker room. He was a MMA fighter in the UFC for the first decade of his combat sports career or so. In that locker room, respect for elders doesn't mean as much as it does in wrestling, mainly because it's a legit sport, and you're not performing with anyone. You're trying to kick their asses. In MMA, Riddle really wasn't deferential, which is fine. Game respects game, and if you don't have it, Riddle will not respect you. When he ported over into wrestling, he kept that attitude. Personally, I see no problem with it, and apparently, neither does Paul Levesque. I'm just a writer though. Bill Goldberg and his peers from old World Championship Wrestling? Well, they feel they're owed respect.

The tale of Riddle and Goldberg goes back further than June of this year, when the former found out the latter blocked him on Twitter, and then the former went on and trashed the latter for his performance at the last WWE Saudi Fuck Money show. Now, I don't endorse him calling Undertaker a "stallion," but I mean, he's entitled to his opinion. One could say it was Taker's fault that the match between him and Goldberg sucked. Others could say it was Goldberg sandbagging. Others could say neither fiftysomething wrestler should have worked after a long plane flight from the US to Saudi Arabia. Either way, Riddle had a stick up his ass over being blocked on Twitter. I mean, I've been blocked on Twitter in less high-profile fashion, and I still get really salty over it.

As it turns out though, perhaps Riddle sowed those seeds a few years ago, when he did an interview for The Sporting News. In it, he trashed Goldberg, and for good reason. In Riddle's eyes, Goldberg presents himself as a MMA-legit character when he's never stepped in the Octagon like Riddle has. Personally, as much as I've enjoyed Goldberg's last, pre-Saudi run, I can't speak about bona fides the way Riddle does having actually fought. He probably has more of a right to critique Goldberg than really anyone else in that locker room other than maybe Brock Lesnar.

If it was just Goldberg blocking Riddle and Riddle running his mouth, that'd be one thing. However, as if almost by clockwork, a younger, less-established wrestler talking shit on someone older and thus better sent out a klaxon to the older's peers to start ganging up on the upstart. First, it was Booker T, saying Riddle needs "a lot of work." When Riddle responded, Chris Jericho, who nominally works for the competition now and shouldn't really care about one WWE superstar talking shit about another one, posted a video mocking Riddle, and then posted another one when Riddle replied that he'd beat the shit out of Jericho. For as many locker room fights as Y2J has been in, I kinda think Riddle could take him, y'know, with the legit experience. Even Lance Storm started talking shit. Lance Storm!

This gang-up on behalf of a dude who doesn't need it given how much money he makes for like two appearances a year is the most ridiculous form of elderly gatekeeping, but it's not the only one. Booker himself participated in it when the Young Bucks allegedly "disrespected" Rob van Dam in TNA. When they went to WWE for a tryout, he gave them a hard time for not seeking him out to give him a handshake, which looking back on it is just the most ridiculous shit. You would think that with Jericho being in the Bucks' company now that they might tell him to knock it off, unless they see it as more baiting the competition, in which case I can see why they wouldn't say anything. Still, whether or not it's a tool in the product wars upcoming, it's still a huge anchor keeping the business from moving forward. It's emblematic of how corporate wrestling companies continue to lean on older guys because younger ones "can't cut it," but they don't really run the companies in ways where those younger guys can shine.

You would think that the locker room would see a benefit in having new talent cycle through because it can keep the business growing and them making money, even if they're not at the forefront. Instead of unionizing and collectively demanding that more money is passed along regardless of card position or importance, they reinforce a hierarchy that keeps the younger wrestlers down until they're the oldest people in the locker room and then have to enforce the archaic code of deferring to the guys who've been there forever and may not have the best ideas on how to self-conduct. It's one thing for new wrestlers to have a learning curve where they do learn, and camaraderie is a great thing to foster. However, in this case, shaking hands is weaponized, and the refusal or even an innocuous forgetting can now be given as a reason that someone be excluded from the exclusive club. Plus, any critique of someone who might have "made it" is discarded because the younger person doesn't know any better, despite the fact that that younger person may know better where wrestling is going whereas the old boys cling to what it once was.

In other words, Matt Riddle shouldn't have to wait until he's old enough to qualify for a Saudi main event to voice an opinion. The thing is, he's not voicing it against fellow NXT wrestlers or even guys like Roman Reigns or Becky Lynch. Goldberg isn't someone who should be wrestling for 2019 WWE, no matter how good his matches are, no matter how popular he still is with the crowd. His time has passed, and he's a symptom of WWE's creative rot that has to rely on guys like Goldberg and Undertaker and Triple H to emerge from mothballs in order to headline events like WrestleMania and SummerSlam. There's no good reason why Reigns shouldn't be able to headline a big event against Braun Strowman, Daniel Bryan, or even Seth Rollins. There's no reason why Lynch should need Ronda Rousey to make a match vs. Charlotte Flair viable to headline Mania. Yet, WWE is at this point where it cannot build stars on its own without having to rely on a guest to give a requisite bump.

It shouldn't matter if Jericho, Booker, and Storm have Goldberg's back. WCW is dead. If all these macho dorks can unionize over is dunking on Riddle instead of, say, fighting for employee rights or better pay or health insurance, then they deserve to rot and have people like Riddle not only criticize them, but overtake them in prominence in the business. Of course, that won't happen as long as Vince McMahon continues to hump the idea that the older you are, the better equipped you are to handle the spotlight.

Garrini is one of the many who could help combat PWG's talent drain
Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein

Tonight, the final entrant in the Battle of Los Angeles will be announced. Pro Wrestling Guerrilla's annual tournament is once again packed with the best talent from the indies and Mexico, but this year's event is a farewell for several wrestlers. All Elite Wrestling will be taking several regulars into its fold with exclusivity when their television show starts on October 2. Of the field announced so far, Darby Allin, Joey Janela, Feníx, Pentagón, Jr., Laredo Kid, and Jungle Boy will all be headed to AEW. Throw in PWG legend Chuck Taylor who has not been announced for the tourney (yet), and the talent drain is even more severe. Perhaps the three Mexican wrestlers might have some leverage given they're all AAA regulars and thus may have more leeway. That being said, Allin and Janela are huge losses because their feud was perhaps the landmark for the promotion in the last few years. Additionally, Jungle Boy was their signature SoCal guy.

While BOLA may not be the last dates they do for PWG (AEW has stated that their talent would be able to work select indies if their schedule allows, and Janela will at least appear at his signature Mania weekend show, Spring Break), they're not going to be able to be stalwarts like they have been. Throw in the fact that Jeff Cobb, the Champion, is a New Japan Pro Wrestling regular and that half the Mexicans in the field probably will have to put their home promotions, whether AAA or Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre, first, this tournament may not be indicative of who is sticking around. There are at least two names in it — Brody King and Jake Atlas — who will join the vanguard. The Rascalz, Tony Deppen, David Starr, and Ring of Honor guys like Bandido and Jonathan Gresham will also be fixtures. However, losing that much main event talent is going to hurt.

Thankfully, the scene is chock full of wrestlers who can fill in and help keep PWG at the top of the indie heap.

Jacob Fatu and EFFY - I'm going to level with you; I haven't seen either one of these two wrestle yet. However, they are without a doubt two of the most talked-about names on the indies for different reasons. Fatu is a big guy who hits hard. He's a regular on the West Coast, so you don't have to pay too much for his travel. The caveat with him is his last name means WWE might come calling sooner rather than later. That just means they should get him booked as soon as possible, with or without his tag partner, The Almighty Sheik. EFFY is different in that he's more of an all-rounder with flamboyance. The openly gay wrestler has been making rounds all around the country, whether on the West Coast with DEFY in Seattle or in the Midwest. He is a crowd-pleaser wherever he goes. Plus, having him and Atlas in the same promotion might help other gay wrestlers have the courage to come out. One gay wrestler is a token. Two might start a trend.

Violence Is Forever (Kevin Ku and Dominic Garrini) - The team formerly known as Sadkampf would fit in so well in PWG's fast-paced and hard-hitting environment. Whether as a tag team or as separate solo wrestlers, both Ku and Garrini are the kind of fresh blood that PWG needs to both advance its image without feeling like too much of a departure in style. They're a no-brainer for any promotion to pick, especially PWG.

Cam Zagami - He's wrestled a lot less over the last year, but when he was more active, he was still one of the better workers to come out of the New England area. He's also an elemental heel, which is something PWG will be losing with another regular booking, MJF, moving along to AEW. You want someone to incite crowds or seed the next big feud that pops off in a Guerrilla Warfare match? Zagami is your guy.

Airwolf - From PAC all the way up to and including the Mexican flippy guys like Feníx and Rey Horus, PWG has never been wanting for highspot wrestlers. Airwolf is the fast and jumpy member of the Minnesota Wrecking Zoo, and while I have no doubts that the Thunderfrog and Wildcat would fit in as well, Airwolf seems to be the guy who would make the biggest splash in SoCal.

Bear Country (Bear Bronson and Bear Beefcake) - Sometimes you just want beefy dudes to throw people around. Bear Country has been perhaps the most pleasant surprise from Beyond Wrestling's Uncharted Territory. They throw their weight around like big hosses, but they can also do the agile shit that people half their size can do. If you want a fearsome presence in a place where the big boys rarely work, Bear Country is your team.

A Woman, Any Woman, Possibly More Than One For Fuck's Sake - I've been on this for a good long while, but it bears repeating. Super Dragon saying he doesn't like female wrestlers when Candice LeRae and to a lesser extent Christina von Eerie were some of the most over wrestlers he's had is just maddening to think about even now. I'm not saying PWG needs a women's division, because hello, LeRae wrestled fine against the men. It's not like there's a dearth of options to choose from. Shotzi Blackheart, Solo Darling, and Jordynne Grace are great established options. I'm sure Santino Bros. have quite a few female trainees they could book if they wanted to build one up from the ground floor without flying out Leyla Hirsch or Ashley Vox. I just don't understand how in 2019 any promotion, let alone indie promotions who don't have to answer to sexist billionaires or pearl-clutching stockholders, doesn't see men and women as equals in a worked sport/art.

Honestly, PWG could book anyone with a modicum of talent and charisma and make them made wrestlers, and they're going to have to start with their first show after BOLA. The talent drain is real, and not even the hip LA promotion can escape it if they don't have the talent to back their inflated ticket prices up.

Ophidian has reinforcements
Graphics via ChikaraPro.com

King of Trios 2010 was a wild time in Chikara's history. The Bruderschaft des Kreuzes had just formed four months earlier, steamrolling through the roster in its early stages. They entered two teams into the tournament: Claudio Castagnoli, Ares, and Tursas; and Tim Donst, Pinkie Sanchez, and Lince Dorado. The Colony of Fire, Soldier, and Green Ants gave the group its first pinfall loss by defeating the latter team in the final quarterfinal on Night Two. They were on their way to defeating the main team if not for some shenanigans from referee Derek Sabato, who relieved a knocked-out Bryce Remsburg and revealed himself to be the BDK's personal referee. History always has a way of repeating itself.

This year, The Crucible has established itself as a dominant force in Chikara. Although they ostensibly formed in secret over a year ago, they only really emerged in the last few months, again, sowing destruction and asserting dominance wherever they went. The team of Ophidian, The Whisper, and Lance Steel was announced earlier. Now, they have a second team of their recruits in the fray, Matt Makowski, Devantes, and EM DeMorest. Obviously, they don't come with the cache that Ophidian or even Whisper have, but they are also acolytes of the Venomous and Vile Serpent from the Nile. They could advance in the tournament based on their devotion to the group and not wanting to let them down.

Currently, the Crucible's second team is the tenth announced for Trios. The rest are:

Team Pump (Scott Steiner, Jordynne Grace, Petey Williams)
The Ancient Order of Nations (Mick Moretti, Adam Hoffman, Jack Bonza)
The Carnies (Kerry Awful, Nick Iggy, Tripp Cassidy)
The Embassy (Prince Nana, Jimmy Rave, Sal Rinauro)
The VeloCities (Mat Diamond, Jude London, Paris DeSilva)
Team FIST (Icarus, Tony Deppen, Travis Huckabee)
The Crucible (Ophidian, The Whisper, Lance Steel)
The Creatures of the Deep (Oceanea, Merlok, Hermit Crab)
The Colony (Fire Ant, Green Ant, Thief Ant)

Additionally, Rey de Voladores will take place starting night two. Boomer Hatfield and Alex Zayne are the first to be announced. Trios emanates from the Goodwill Beneficial Association in Reading, PA. Night one will feature all 16 trios in first round action on October 4. October 5 is loaded with things to do. At 11 AM, there will be a character brunch with your favorite Chikara wrestlers (Green Ant has already stated his claim that he will eat all the cinnamon buns) at the venue. That will dovetail into the annual Fan Conclave, where there will be so much stuff for you to do that your head will spin. Then, that night, you will be able to attend night two of the tournament, featuring four quarterfinal matches, the two four-way Rey de Voladores qualifiers, and other fun action. October 6 will house the final night of the event, including both semifinal matches and the finals, as well as the Rey de Voladores final, the always-manic tag gauntlet, and some other great matches. Tickets are on sale now.

In other Chikara news, they announced today that they would be forming a partnership with Michinoku Pro Wrestling, the Japanese promotion that Extreme Championship Wrestling and WWE latched onto in the late '90s. While the tenor of the promotion has changed drastically since then, it is still a highly regarded promotion, probably one on the level in Japan that Chikara is in America. Additionally, wrestling's most prominent communist Dick Togo, the legendary Ultimo Dragon, and former Hakushi and current fed owner Jinsei Shinzaki all compete in it. Although the partnership will not yield a team for King of Trios, it will manifest itself in other ways over the coming year. Right away, Sonny DeFarge will go to M-Pro for a tour starting September 4. All in all, it's an exciting announcement for Chikara.

It wasn't just all video packages!
Photo Credit: WWE.com

Master Regal: brings out the Street Profits for the contract signing
Street Profits: get the crowd hype, try and fail to get the GM to dance
Full Sailors: Go, Regal! Go, Regal! Go, Regal!
Master Regal: shakes the champions' hands, then starts to introduce the challengers
Angelo Dawkins: I got this.
Montez Ford: goes full Road Dogg (meta) on "the next tag team to get their ass kicked by the Street Profits"
Dawk: calls them O'Reilly Auto Parts and Lawrence Fishburne, Jr
the Era: come out scowling
Profits: rock out to the Era's theme in the meantime
Full Sailors: Auto parts! Auto parts! Auto parts!
Bobby Fish: That was FUN-NY, but I forgot to laugh.
Kyle O'Reilly: I remembered to laugh but then I opted not to because it wasn't funny.
Fish: If you're sensitive, cover your ears - you're not on this level, but for the first time in your careers your autographs are in demand. So sign.You stand no chance Saturday, not just because we're better than you bell to bell, but we're funnier too.
Kyle: I have a joke for you: the Street Profits are the NXT World Tag Team champions!
the Era: laugh
Profits: overlaugh
Full Sailors: Shut up, Bobby! clap clap clapclapclap Shut up, Bobby!clap clap clapclapclap Shut up, Bobby!clap clap clapclapclap

Ford: makes a throat slit gesture to end Undisputed Comedy Jam You guys have shocked the system ever since you got here; multiple title reigns, every episode of NXTV, every Takeover.
Dawk: Y'all done beat every team in NXT: AOP, SAnitY, the Allied Strikers, even Mustache Mountain.
Ford: You might be the best tag team in NXT history. So let me ask you this: what makes you think for us losing is an option, now that we finally made it, now that WE got the belts, now that the people see us, hear us, feel us -- what makes you think
Full Sailors: Street Prof its! Street Prof its! Street Prof its!
Ford: What makes you think as far as we've come in our lives that we have any other option but to win! Win! Win! Win!
Ford and the Sailors: WIN! WIN! WIN! WIN!
Dawk: Come Toronto, we are gonna beat that ass
Full Sailors: Beat that ass! Beat that ass! Beat that ass!
Dawk: And THAT is undisputed.
Profits: sign
the Era: sign
Profits: leave while they're signing then hold up their belts on the ramp's apex

Joaquin Wilde: comes out in his Great Value Mustafa Ali garb
Shane Thorne: comes out with his new gear and Tron, powers Wilde to the ropes and taunts him
Wilde: rolls him up I got a lot more where they came from. flips over him, makes an airhorn noise then keeps controlling the arm no matter how many times Thorne temporarily reverses Armdrag! Ropewalk armdrag! Front flip into a dIropkick! Around the world guill
Thorne: Brainbuster! beats on him for a while
Wilde: Honor Roll! Second rope back elbow! Powerbomb!
Thorne: kickout
Both: exchange strikes
Thorne: Giant Eurocut!
Wilde: Pop up upkick dropkick!
Thorne: bails
Wilde: Diagonal tope! Tope con hilo!
Thorne: rolls in at 9.9 then rolls back out
Wilde: hey come ere
Thorne: pulls him by his arm to the outside, then throws him into the steps - the post - the steps - then beats on him again for a while before throwing him in Pump Knee Trembler!
Referee: Winner!

Sure, that's a lot of video packages...and our main event is actually a video package about the end of the Goldie title trilogy...but now it's time for our main event match!

Ah, well. Anyways!

NEXT WEEK: Breezango v. the Forgotten Sons, the Breakout tournament finals between Myles and Grimes, and eventually, the Best Coast Bias for Takeover: Toronto II: Workrate Boogaloo. Be there!

Imagine Reigns working the G1
Photo Credit: WWE.com

WWE is a weird company because it has perhaps the most talented roster in not only its history, but maybe in all of American wrestling history. It's hard to compare it to other historical Japanese companies and lucha promotions without being immersive in their history. That being said, the sheer number of preternaturally abled wrestlers on its roster, from the top of the main show all the way down to recent Performance Center signees, is staggering. That's why the company's malaise is so disappointing for people who are still holding on hope by watching whether monthly at the pay-per-views, weekly only for boutique shows like 205 Live and NXT, or for the brave souls who still watch RAW and Smackdown.

I don't want to be one of those wrestling hipster types who brag about not watching WWE anymore, but I haven't watched a minute of programming since Takeover XXV and have mostly moved onto American indies and New Japan Pro Wrestling. However, it's not that those areas have a better roster than WWE. New Japan, for example, may have a more personally satisfying set of shows, but for all the Tomohiro Ishiis and Juice Robinsons, there are also your Bad Luck Fales and Will Ospreays. Every wrestling roster has wrestlers you don't want to see, just as they all have wrestlers you probably should want to watch. The problem becomes WWE sopping up all the wrestlers to put in its prefab setting with no guarantee that they will even see the light of day, let alone get the chance to be in a filler match on weekly television.

Even if they do get to shine on main roster television, and to an extent in NXT and 205 Live, the match structures are rigid and usually unpalatable. To stay with the New Japan comparison, the matches that have the best chances of being enjoyable are ones wrestled by mostly everyone in the main event scene. Sure, you have the Kazuchika Okada Match or the Kota Ibushi Match, but they all tend to follow similar beats. The outliers are things like The Toru Yano Match and the Bad Luck Fale Match. Only one of those are good, and I'll trust you know which one. There's also variants of that main event match, like the Will Ospreay Match, which is like the Kota Ibushi Match, only far more extra.

In WWE, it's almost like the default style is the Fale Match, where you get one wrestler who can do it well against an opponent with an ability gap, and hey look, the finish is screwy because it can't work without interference. That's probably about 60 percent of the matches in the company. Next, they love the Ospreay Match, where you just get at least three more highspots and false finishes than you really need, all with unearned preening and people in the crowd chanting "This Is Awesome!" for reasons that if you're like me, you don't understand. That's about 39 percent of the matches. That leaves one percent of matches that break the mold and are incredible on their own two feet, things like in the past year Becky Lynch vs. Asuka at the Rumble, and Daniel Bryan vs. Kofi Kingston at WrestleMania.

Now, obviously, it's all subjective. People out there are gonna love the WWE style and the weekly output, and I guess that's fine. This post isn't for you. However, I can say that there are more than a few people who agree with me on the steady decline in in-ring action that goes along with the creative rot, and I would venture to guess that more than a few of those people would agree that a change of scenery is what's needed. It would be too easy to look at Juice Robinson or even Jon Moxley in how much they were able to grow as workers in the former or spread their wings for the latter, but the best example of someone benefiting from a release into the wild is none other than Cody Rhodes.

Granted, it took him a year or so to find his footing. Cody Rhodes: Indie Wrestler Extraordinaire was ill-fitting, but Cody Rhodes: Son of Dusty has produced some memorable results. He couldn't do that in WWE, because even The Revival has to do some sort of knees to the chest or back move to stay with the times. But Rhodes being able to be a throwback in his new vanity promotion has done wonders for him.

It's abundantly clear that WWE has a roster where members beg to be set free to test their abilities, or more naturally, they badly ache to be re-released into the places where they caught the attention of WWE scouts in the first place. Moxley, Robinson, and Rhodes have shown that sometimes, these wrestlers just need to be in a less corporately-structured environment or at least in the case of All Elite Wrestling, one where "the boys" are setting the tone rather than an out-of-touch, possibly blind, and most likely psychopathic septuagenarian. Granted, they want to go to WWE to get the big money, which is natural. Imagine a world though where WWE didn't necessarily pay the most. A lot of these wrestlers would be able to show out with the financial security they have now (well, relatively). I have a list of people that I don't think would matter either way if they left WWE here:

AJ Styles
Alexa Bliss
Alicia Fox
Baron Corbin
Big Show
Bo Dallas
Bobby Lashley
Brock Lesnar
Dolph Ziggler
EC3
Eric Young
Jinder Mahal
Kane
Lacey Evans
Mike and Maria
Natalya
Ronda Rousey
R-Truth
Seth Rollins
Tamina
The Hardy Boys
The Miz
The OC
Titus O'Neil
Undertaker

I mean, I know I'm going to get pushback on some of these names. Styles, for instance, is still a bubble favorite but I feel like he's breaking down and he's shown all he can show outside of WWE. This is a good retirement gig for him. The Hardys are in that boat too. The names up there aren't necessarily bad wrestlers. For example, R-Truth has seen a career renaissance, but he's the rare case of a comedy guy who fits better in WWE than out of it. That means a whole chunk of dudes and ladies could be ripe for some refreshment elsewhere, like...

Roman Reigns, Rusev, and Cesaro - This year's G1 was great, and I assume that the last two block nights and the final, which I haven't watched yet but know the results, follow suit. However, I found more than a few weak links in it. Obviously, Fale and Ospreay are on my shitlist given I used them to single out what was wrong with WWE above. I'd also think Jay White was a little underwhelming, which is crazy given how far he went in it. Anyway, imagine if Rusev, Cesaro, and the Big Dog himself were in those spots? Aside from the comedy of imagining Reigns in a match with Yano, I feel like those three in particular would stand up to the grind of the G1 and also play well with the others in it.

Heavy Machinery - They're woefully miscast in WWE, as right now it feels like they're going to go the way of a No Way Jose. They've lasted longer because they can work more "seriously," but I feel like Tucky and especially Otis would kill it on a longer term basis someplace like DDT or Chikara (if they can keep it PG for the latter). Otis has definite Fun Uncle Energy that he could use to rile up the kids at Chikara, but both his and Tucky's weird energy would let them not only kill it over here, but in DDT as well.

The Four NXT Horsewomen - It's depressing to think that WWE is at the vanguard for women's wrestling in America, perhaps second only to Impact at this point (shocking thing to write in 2019). But even in WWE with all its talk of women's revolution and evolution, women are still treated pretty poorly. Allowing the Horsewomen to travel perhaps to STARDOM would turn the world on its head and both provide great matchups while serving as a proving ground for them that they only got a taste of while wrestling Asuka/Kana.

Bray Wyatt - WWE has ruined him so much, but every time he comes back, he shows promise. People seem to be into The Fiend, and he got a big clean victory over Finn Bálor (where he might have committed murder on live streaming). The problem is I'm not sure which promotions can do macabre characters like WWE is trying to do. However, would I trust, say, All Elite Wrestling to handle him better than WWE? The Dark Order seems to be on a fine track so far, even if one show is a small sample size. Whether as their leader or an adversary, they seem like an ideal pairing.

Sonya DeVille - Honestly, even if she just ducked out to do the various Bloodsport shows, she'd automatically grow her following at least among the cool kids. She'd be incredibly good at it too, possibly better than some of the men they drag out. Keep her away from Phil Baroni though. Anyway, whether in a shoot-style environment or somewhere where she can face a broad range of opponents, DeVille feels like someone who isn't getting enough play in WWE because it only really likes having women feud over titles and there aren't enough of those slots to go around on pay-per-view.

John Cena - I've just got six words for you, "Tanahashi vs. Cena at The Dome."

Obviously, every other wrestler not in the "stay in WWE" list would be able to reel off an outside run like Moxley is doing right now, and it would be refreshing. However, the above examples are the ones that stand out the most to me. Either way, WWE is in a rut, and I'm not sure it'll get markedly better even if Vince McMahon croaks tomorrow. If you like it, that's fine. For those fleeing that product though, there's an intense longing to see the wrestlers who are known and loved but stuck in that rut as well to break out and do something different. Hell, if McMahon actually treated them like independent contractors instead of just abusing the label, maybe they would without having to leave the Big Trump Fundraiser.

Winner!
Photo Credit: Red Shoes Unno

Welcome to a feature I like to call "Best in the World" rankings. They're not traditional power rankings per se, but they're rankings to see who is really the best in the world, a term bandied about like it's bottled water or something else really common. They're rankings decided by me, and don't you dare call them arbitrary lest I smack the taste out of your mouth. Without further ado, here's this week's list:

1. Kota Ibushi (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Hey, he won the G1 Classic after starting 0-2, and he (presumably, I haven't seen his last two matches yet) didn't have to kill himself to do it! He also spared us the pain of having to see the Knife Pervert headline The Dome. I mean, Jay White is a good heel and all, but if I want an opponent for the presumable IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada on January 4, I want one who can keep up with him.

2. Simone Biles (Last Week: Not Ranked) - She pulled off a triple-double, which is more impressive in gymnastics than the basketball item of that name. Biles won her sixth straight gymnastics all-around Championship. Will she help the US bring home gold in Tokyo? Only if she doesn't get sidetracked and sign with STARDOM first.

3. Orange Cassidy (Last Week: 5) - Hey, no big deal, but he signed with All Elite Wrestling today. Whoa.

4. Toru Yano (Last Week: 8) - Yano didn't win the G1, but he earned eight points. I bet no one else thought to tie Jon Moxley's ankles together and pull Tetsuya Naito's shirt over his head to get wins. That's why he's the smartest wrestler in the game.

5. Maki Itoh (Last Week: 9) - Look she's already prepared for your tweets.

6. Empanadas (Last Week: Not Ranked)OFFICIAL HOLZERMAN HUNGERS SPONSORED ENTRY - Mexican food gets the most pub for cuisine south of the Rio Grande River, but have you considered empanadas? Several cultures can claim a version of them - Colombia, Puerto Rico, even Venezuela. No matter what country though? You can bet you're getting a good meal if they're on the menu.

7. Fish Tube (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Of course I was away from the Internet when this meme broke, but it's weird and almost as good as 30-50 feral hogs. Almost.

8. Conspiracy Theorists (Last Week: Not Ranked) - I try to keep this light, but I gotta say something about billionaire child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein's death under dubious circumstances Friday night. It was ruled a suicide, but people came out of the woodwork to claim something was amiss here. And they would be right. Several powerful and filthy rich people probably wouldn't have been punished if Epstein lived and blabbed, but they don't know that. Rich people are fucking stupid and paranoid. There's no justice in the world. But they have to keep their loose ends tied up, right? Bill Clinton and Donald Trump were both in Epstein's ledger. You don't think the former could've called in a favor at the prison, or the latter could have, y'know, executive ordered a lax in the suicide watch for a clear suicide risk? It's one scenario where the theories work.

But that doesn't stop toadies in the media from coming out with tut-tutting of people pushing conspiracies. I'm not linking the tweets, but people actually think that he was depressed and killed himself and people shouldn't speculate. Bullshit. Epstein was a billionaire off the literal kidnapping and rape of children for the pleasure of filthy rich scum. He doesn't deserve to get careposting about depression. He caused it in the victims who didn't die in his "care." People peddling this shit are either naive or they're trying to sell something. The prison has already released excuses that the guards were on major overtime and were tired and blah blah blah. Again, bullshit. If that prison wanted Jeffrey Epstein alive, they would've kept him alive. End of story. Fuck anyone who says otherwise.

9. Sadika (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Hey, to cleanse your palate, do you wanna see a deathmatch that starts with Sadika wailing on her opponent with a light tube while she's grinding on the referee? OF COURSE YOU DO!

10. Otis Dozovic (Last Week: 10) -

Sekimoto takes Los Angeles
Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein

Pro Wrestling Guerrilla has finished announcing wrestlers for the Battle of Los Angeles tournament. When I left off reporting on them, they were up to 15 and only two of them were cavemen. Both of those numbers have grown since then. I will start running down the final nine competitors in this absolutely packed tournament:

Jungle Boy - The third and final caveman to enter the tournament will do so as a fan favorite but also as a competitor who is taken off the list of actual favorites to win because he's an All Elite Wrestling signee. Boo. Luke Perry's (pbuh) son has become an extreme SoCal and PWG mainstay, and had he not hit the bigtime, well, he might be taking this whole tournament home. He is less knuckle-dragging, club-carrying caveman, and more like Tarzan, so expect some big aerial pyrotechnics from the curly-haired firebrand. He may not win, but he'll go far.
Black Taurus - Although he's a PWG regular, I was first exposed to him at AAA TripleMania, where the dude looked like he was chiseled out of granite. More of a base than a flyer, Taurus will look to bulldoze his way to a tournament win. Given the heavy influx of Mexican talent in the tournament, it wouldn't be shocking to see a luchador win the whole thing. Of those involved, Taurus might be the guy.
Rey Horus - Horus was no shock as he's been a West Coast and PWG regular for awhile. The masked icon, also known as El Dragon Azteca, Jr. in Lucha Underground, comes in looking to dazzle a crowd familiar with him and hungry to see him go far in the tournament.
David Starr - Fresh off wrestling Joey Janela in a 60-minute iron man match at Beyond Wrestling's Americanrana, Starr will bring some technical wizardry to the fray. Honestly, his inclusion will be worth it if he gets to wrestle at any time Jonathan Gresham. I'm not sure if they've wrestled before, but they certainly haven't done so on this big a stage.
The Laredo Kid - Before Fyter Fest, he was a AAA up-and-comer and a dude the Cleveland territory loved and knew about. After that and TripleMania, the whole world knows that the Laredo Kid is one of the top high-flying wrestlers in the whole world, let alone Mexico. For a tournament that has this large a lucha component, it would've been crazy not to include him.
Jeff Cobb - The Champion and last year's winner will come back to defend his crown and make sure none of these upstarts will get a guaranteed shot at his PWG World Championship. Fresh off his G1 where he slapped up against Tomohiro Ishii and outwitted Toru Yano, Cobb will be one of the biggest and strongest competitors in the entire fray. No doubt he will look to throw his weight around and make sure he's still king of the mound.
Dragon Lee - The eternal rival of Hiromu Takahashi will look to collect some hardware while his foe is recovering from a nasty neck injury (get well soon, dad of Daryl). BOLA has a collection of the best aerial wrestlers in the world, from Mexico or otherwise, in this tourney, so you know it had to have Lee.
Pentagón, Jr. - Hey, his flippy brother is in it too, so why not the Cero Miedo man. Penta will come in as a heavy favorite to make the finals, even if his AAA and AEW commitments will keep him from cashing in his shot at Cobb's PWG Championship. He's one of the most familiar and fearsome wrestlers in the whole thing.
Daisuke Sekimoto - The final announced wrestler is the first Japanese entrant into the tournament, which was a little surprising. That being said, Sekimoto puts an exclamation point on this field. He is perhaps the only entrant who can match size with Cobb, and he is a dream match partner for basically everyone in the fray.

So with the whole field announced, BOLA, like it is almost every year, cements its place as a must-watch show, whether live if you can get tickets or on DVD. The event happens September 19, 20, and 22, presumably at their current digs, the Globe Theater in Los Angeles. Tickets will go on sale Thursday.

How should you feel about Shibata potentially returning? I can't tell you.
Photo Credit: NJPW1972.com

Katsuyori Shibata never really left New Japan Pro Wrestling. Although his last match with the company was an IWGP World Heavyweight Championship opportunity where he suffered a subdural hematoma on a headbutt to then-(and now)-Champion Kazuchika Okada on April 9, 2017, he still was in the orbit during his recovery. He announced that he was "back" although not in a wrestling capacity last year at the G1, and he's taken a sentry position as the head trainer at the Los Angeles Dojo. The way he figured into the G1 this year, both as the guy who brought in KENTA and who whipped Hirooki Goto into shape, it probably should not have been shocking to see him physically involved. That being said, when he fought back against a KENTA who betrayed him by joining Bullet Club, it was further involved than most people would've expected. Watching him do the bombs-away corner dropkick again brought waves of euphoria to a group of fans, myself included, who missed the hell out of seeing him in the ring.

The move raised questions as to whether he's coming back. Wrestlers can do spots in the ring that don't involve them bumping on afflicted areas without being medically cleared. According to Dave Meltzer, Shibata has not been cleared for full ring activity yet, with yet being the operative word. I doubt they would've had the Bullet Club attack him if the plan wasn't to get him back into the ring. Almost immediately, some people, whether or not they were excited to see Shibata do stuff in the ring, started to question whether or not it was a good idea.

This instance wasn't the first time the health of a wrestler coming back from a long absence of injury was discussed at large by wrestling fans, critics, and journalists online. When Daniel Bryan returned, people were skeptical that he'd be able to work without getting hurt. People clutched pearls when he landed on his head in his first singles match back on Smackdown against AJ Styles. He's still wrestling and the edge has come off. Is he still at risk to be hurt? Of fucking course he is; he's a wrestler. It's not a safe industry, and it never will be. Of course, you never stop trying to make it safer and safer, but sometimes, you have to wrestle with the reality that no matter what you do, shit will happen that you can never see coming, and you have to react rather than proact.

Shibata's injuries being more severe in nature than Bryan's is a factor, sure. All reporting said that he was close to dying, that he lost sight in one eye for a short while, and that he probably damaged his brain. Seeing facts like those can be daunting, and it's human nature to be concerned for people you like, even if you don't know them. That being said, the only way that you can be 100 percent certain that a wrestler coming back from a major injury is a bad idea is if you're privy to that medical history, and not just the stuff that's been reported. Much like with Bryan, Shibata may be undergoing treatments that will help him wrestle again. If those treatments work and he shows no signs of whatever injuries befell him after that admittedly ill-advised headbutt, I don't see any reason why he shouldn't go back to the ring.

The linchpin here, however, is that even more than Shibata himself, New Japan has to be incredibly careful with clearing him. They're the people at the center of it, because no matter what Shibata wants to do, no matter what the fans want, it's Bushiroad that is ultimately responsible for his well-being. If they clear him and he gets hurt again worse in ways that could have been easily prevented through medical testing, then they would have broken the trust with the locker room, the fans, and especially Shibata. If the unthinkable happens, then it's not on the fans, it's not on the performer, but it's on the company that is at the top of the power gradient and could let him wrestle or keep him as a trainer at the dojo.

Still, it's not a situation where I think anyone can make a solid judgment either way without knowing a lot more details. It sucks that the only way anyone will find out whether it was a bad call is if something unconscionable happens to Shibata. I don't think you should necessarily trust New Japan Pro Wrestling, but maybe you can trust modern medicine? The whole situation is hairy as hell, and I'm not sure there's a definitive answer for what should be done. It feels like Shibata is about to be cleared anyway, so hopefully, fans can cheer him on without the medical Sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.

The Knee That Won the Tournament
Photo Credit: NJPW1972.com

The 2019 G1 Climax Tournament has concluded with a reasonable winner, 91 matches ranging from disastrous to incredible, and a final show that saw both betrayal and hope before the finals bell first rung. The road to the Tokyo Dome is ahead of New Japan Pro Wrestling.

Winnah! - At various points during the G1 Climax, it looked like any number of wrestlers might win. Kazuchika Okada and Jon Moxley seemed on a collision course early on with KENTA on the fringes. Then as the tournament played out, Kota Ibushi started sneaking up in the A-block with EVIL not far behind. Moxley started losing matches and opening the door for an array of wrestlers to come on up. Most fans hoped it would be Tetsuya Naito, but they feared it would be "Switchblade" Jay White. Then the final two block shows saw winner-take-all matches with berths in the final on the line. Hey, it's almost like this stuff is a work, eh.

The A-block match between Okada and Ibushi felt like it lived up to its billing more. Sure, as is standard with most Okada matches, it watered down the punch to make time. Okada is nothing if not a marathon man, but I feel like a dude with his preternatural ability in the ring would be far better working more sprint matches or at least keeping it to the good side of 20 minutes. You could say that his near-draw with Sanada was an example of an excellent longer match, and it was. But every match with him feels like it's artificially extended. Thankfully though, he is one of the most gifted wrestlers in the world, and Ibushi is no slouch either, so the parts where they did get it going were worthy of a winner take all match with the highest stakes possible.

The B-block final, well, not so much, and it carried into the finals with the Knife Pervert. I used to think that it was the Bullet Club interference that gets inserted into the match that ruined the flow of his matches, but no, as it turns out, even when Gedo isn't at ringside, White can't call a match to save his life. The Naito match was probably less egregious because they didn't work around long-term selling, and Naito probably has more of a feel for a big main event at this point. With Ibushi, it was an ill-fit, and even though White is proficient at doing things like attacking a limb, his execution is dry at best. I kept trying to feel something during the match because it's clear that he's not going anywhere, but at least now like during any point in the G1 where he wasn't getting his ass kicked by members of CHAOS, it was hard for me to get what he was doing.

That's all before getting into the other main thread of the G1 final. Asking Kota Ibushi to sell a leg injury over the course of a half-hour is like asking a kindergartner to recreate the Mona Lisa. Even if they have the ability, they're not going to have the patience to plunker down to do the job. I like Ibushi. He's great at a certain kind of match, and I don't get the obsession over making guys leave their comfort zones, even if it's for the story. That ankle injury did not make a single fan at Budokan cheer him who wasn't going to cheer him before, and him going in and out of selling it would've worked if he were Jay White and trying to heel his way to a win trying to bait the babyface into backing off.

Still, I can't knock the final too much, as the one thing White is good at, obviously, is taking punishment. I guess there are worse things to be one-dimensional at in wrestling. Ibushi certainly was one of the right choices to win the whole thing, and even if the journey gets a little off-course and muddied, he knows how to finish a match. Of course, being late on the ball means I can include stuff from various press conferences and promos, and Ibushi has now proposed that now that WrestleKingdom is going to be two days at The Dome, that he gets Okada (or whoever is Champion then) on January 4, and then the winner of that match gets whoever the Intercontinental Champion is on January 5, winner take all. That sounds like an interesting gambit, although the fatalist in me says that it's just a way to make Okada more acey than he is now. There are still four months left for things to shake out though.

DUMP TRUCK WAR - Taichi has been a polarizing figure long before he entered this year's G1. People either love him or want done to him what I want done to Will Ospreay. It seems like they played into something similar in storyline, where the Holy Emperor was torn between emulating his trainer and legend Toshiaki Kawada or just having fun with the boys and cheating his ass off. His final match in the tournament, against Tomohiro Ishii, saw him embrace the former the hardest. He ran out of the corner and just knocked the Stone Pitbull off his moorings before the bell, and what followed was about ten minutes of two dump trucks slamming into each other. It was the hardest-hitting, biggest-bang-for-your-buck match in the tournament, an atom bomb's worth of energy packed into what was essentially a lightning match with maybe a little bit of overtime. I thought most if not all the non-Toru Yano or Bad Luck Fale matches trended longer than they should have, so this one was a pleasant surprise. There are 91 matches in the G1. You should have a nice bell curve of match time distributions, and maybe next year, New Japan will present more of these matches that burn hotter shorter than a bunch of bouts that go 15 minutes at least.

BETRAYAL - I knew it was coming. I saw the gifs and all the takes and people saying how they were moved to tears that Katsuyori Shibata did some moves and took some moves for the first time since 2017 when he nearly died after his dehydrated ass gave Okada a headbutt that was a little too much shoot for his body's liking. I was braced. And yet when he came running from the back, giving KENTA the business after he turned his back on Ishii and YOSHI-HASHI to join Bullet Club, hearing the roar of the Budokan crowd, watching him nail that stalling corner dropkick, I felt the flood of emotion too. Watching him fight off the Guerrillas and Fale and hit the dab on KENTA, it felt real. It felt like he was almost back. And then Jado hit him with a cane, and everyone wailed on him, and I knew that it was only a matter of time. Going through the G1 and watching not only KENTA but Hirooki Goto and hearing Kevin Kelly and Rocky Romero (who were excellent in the booth, by the by) talk about Shibata so much held purpose, and even I, a casual viewer of New Japan before recently, felt something when KENTA betrayed him. I think that's why, for all the faults of Gedo's booking, that he gets praise more often than other guys in big corporate positions.

Your Top Ten Matches - Okay, so out of 91 matches, I feel these are the ones that are most worth watching, in chronological order:

Juice Robinson vs. Shingo Takagi
Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Zack Sabre, Jr.
Jon Moxley vs. Tomohiro Ishii
Jon Moxley vs. Shingo Takagi
Jon Moxley vs. Tetsuya Naito
Toru Yano vs. Jon Moxley
Sanada vs. Kazuchika Okada
Shingo Takagi vs. Tomohiro Ishii
Zack Sabre, Jr. vs. KENTA
Taichi vs. Tomohiro Ishii

Also, it wasn't a tournament match, but Zack Sabre, Jr. and Minoru Suzuki vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi and Kazuchika Okada from right before the G1 final was one of the best tag matches I've seen this year. Suzuki and ZSJ work so well as a team, both on double team moves and in terms of keeping match flow alive when they tag in and out. Okada was in a tag match, so a lot of his tendencies towards excess were curbed, and Tanahashi has become such a delight now that he's an Old Man Wrestler. I still need to see him vs. John Cena before the world ends from climate catastrophe.

Where does New Japan go from here? Well, it has shows abroad in August. The Super J-Cup will take place over three days from August 23-25 on the West Coast. Participating in this tournament will be the usual suspects as well as guys like Jonathan Gresham, The Amazing Red, and, ugh, I guess TJP. Meanwhile, the heavyweights will head to England on August 31 for Royal Quest. Okada will defend his IWGP Heavyweight Championship against Suzuki, while Sabre puts his British Heavyweight Championship up against Tanahashi. However, if you aren't lucky enough to be in those areas or have tickets for them, well, you'll have to wait until September to watch them on New Japan World.

You knew it was going the distance
Photo Credit: WWE.com

For a show that delivered throughout its three-hour run time and brought a sold-out audience to its feet on multiple occasions, it could be argued that the program itself was the noise and everything around it was the signal. It's entirely possible people may not remember certain spots or matches from the second T-Dot Takeover, but rather the fact that one could argue that both the most important things to stem from it were the post-show possible departure of Johnny Gargano and the fact that the rumor mill is churning wildly about NXT not only being extended to two hours, but put on FS1 and fall further under the influences of one Vincent Kennedy McMahon.

So while it's highly doubtful that will be the final Takeover to come from the Great White North, it has the eclipsian shadow of probably the best babyface in brand history leaving it for more profitable pastures. It's entirely possible a year from now, people will be calling it the last real Takeover, or the last one before the new class seized the reigns, or a multitude of other possibilities.

One thing is for sure this summer in NXT: the black hats have the advantage, and the champions therein are loving life.

In fact, the only division in NXT that noticeably has a babyface backed up with championship gold has two in the Street Profits, who retained their belts in the show opener and borderline match of the night. Maybe showing up in Raptor purple with red accents helped Montez and Angelo hold on against the former multiple time champs Not ReDragon. Takeover XXV may have been the SP breakout party; here was where they solidified their bona fides against another elite tag team by beating them cleanly in a well-worked, crisp and hard-hitting affair. No longer the Montez Ford Show with Special Guest Star, the Profits have more seasoning as a unit and it showed here in probably their best match to date. They picked the exact right time to have it, as well. The "this is awesome" chant may have been a little generous, but the Era were at their smarmy best without actually cheating in their efforts and the Profits rose to meet them. Given events on the Leftovers program and the possibility the illegal man was pinned, it opens the door for a rematch every NXT fan should want to see at this point without feeling convoluted. Another one of these will do more than all right by the average viewer.

1) the Street Profits d. Undisputed Era to retain the NXT World Tag Team championships (Ford pinfall Auto Parts)

It's ironic (and 4000% on brand) that my notes would start off with the phrase "choke me the fuck out Io" and then the match would deliver on that promise; poor Candice ended up playing the role of your intrepid reporter. This was the best of both worlds for these women as Candice Wrestling, plucky underdog got the biggest showcase of her NXTenure to date, and Io got to revel in her new found evilness and flesh out more of the moveset she'll ostensibly use going forward. In retrospect, the match was essentially over when Shirai managed a kickout after a Wild Ride and came back with an avalanche Japanese Fly and what certain 6ers would call the God's Plan Moonsault; LeRae's kickout of nice Io's finisher meant she whaled on Candice until she couldn't fight off a mid-ring submission hold and went limp. Despite that, the offered I alluded to at the outset still applies.

2) Io Shirai d. Candice LeRae (modified Koji clutch)

The show was "interrupted" by Matt Riddle, who wanted Killian Dain to fight him face to face and got his wish. Unlike previous confrontations, Riddle got a couple of advantages on the Irish land monster even though the confrontation and subsequent fighting ended with both of them and a random black shirt going off the stage through tables. Perhaps that's why the subsequent appearance of Austin Theory was met with such a tepid reaction; either way, it'll be great once he works that into his promos once he's officially a member of the show.

This was followed up by another episode of The Dream Has No Memory of the Word Extra - he was led to the ring by the Raptors cheering squad after they were dressed as sexy Mounties while the Mountie's theme played. Dream, we were told on the broadcast wanted to represent Canada in the triple threat with America's Strong and Britain's Dunne as the other partcipants, hence the red and white of it all down to his gear. The North American champion is a particularly luminous curio, as that previous sentence would make it sound like he was the most purple white hat to ever step between the ropes, yet nearly a year after his ostensible turn he continues to flash aggressively heelish traits and still come out with a high approval rating afterwards. Here, for instance, after Dunne laid out Strong with the Bitter End Dream first distracted the ref by faking an injury then stopped the count outright before it could be completed. The match ended when Strong tossed Dream and laid out Dunne with the End of Heartache, only for Dream to fly in on the pinfall attempt with a Purple Rainmaker to break it up before tossing Strong and pinning the laid out Dunne to win the match. This was followed up by post-match smacktalk on both his vanquished victims, and an online video of Dunne being completely understanding in a "I'm still going to snap his fingers and win the championship" sort of manner. To be fair, Dream did look momentarily sheepish early in the match when confronted by Dunne and also tried to work his way through the Five Moves of Doom; maybe he's just the first successful instance of a long-term tweener and given WWE's abhorrence of booking same, no wonder it wouldn't look familiar to any long-term viewer. While they seem to be building towards Dunne getting a one on one match for the belt in the future, Strong also has claim to a one-on-one shot since he didn't get pinned, and the Breakout tournament winner can take his shot at NXT's newest title and turn it into a shot the same way the Dream did in winning Worlds Collide and then besting Johnathan Grapples to get it. Either way, looked through that prism the overarcing story of the Dream from young boy to frequently overmatched yet narrowly surviving champion has so many different ways to let in light and so many different opponents he could face that it all makes sense. Hell, there's a possibility that he may take another shot at the Big X just to add to his trophy case. Either way, as with the winners of the previous matches, the future is looking Timbuk3 bright for the DCian. (DCite? DCagan?)

3) Velveteen Dream d. Pete Dunne and Roderick Strong to retain the North American championship in the Match of the Night
About the only black mark on the card strangely enough came in the semi-main, where despite having a rich personal backstory and familiarity with each other, Mia Yim & Shayna Baszler bizarrely looked at times like 45s being played at 33. The story of the match was good - Mia's willingness to first get dirty and then outright cheat was a feature, not a bug that screwed with Shayna's game plan since she's been eating nothing but white meat since she arrived - but even down the stretch it felt like they were first clearing their throats or taking an extra step and then landing a strike or putting on a hold. Again, another of Baszler's opponents focused on destroying a limb to make putting the Clutch on more difficult for her and easier to get loose from for them, but Shayna pulled out another submission (bridging on the arm that hadn't been worked over to boot) and earned a clean victory in the middle of the ring. She's not Asuka, but she's the closest thing we've ever seen, and unless they plan on fully Becky Lynchifying Io, Dakota Kai cannot come back soon enough for the credibility of the division to spawn challengers that will appear as actually having the potential to hoist Goldie As Well.

4) Shayna Baszler d. Mia Yim to retain the NXT Women's World championship (semi bridging figure four headlock)

The widest complaint seen about the main is that it was overly long, and too many death moves were kicked out of in the third and final fall. (Again, as great and unexpected as a 2-0 skunking would've been, you either would've had to have lengthened the falls that would've been contained therein or just had a one fall match.) It feels weird that Best Coast Biases seem to have these apologia about Johnny's main events; something is always in the works that keeps things very good and never quite pans out to greatness. It's much easier to assume a more forgiving position with the assumption it'll be the last time something is a worry. It was very intriguing to see an inversion of trope with Johnny getting intentionally DQed to end the first fall in order to put him in better standing for a second fall he would eventually go on to win; it was a mirror image of Cole feinting the call for Era interference at TOXXV to give him an opening that he would exploit to eventually win that match. The second fall went shorter than the first, and Johnny was almost in control the entirety of the way, so we went to the decider in a weapons enhanced steel cage with barbed wire crowned around it to stop climbs out (or in, for that matter). While it probably ran overlong, both men whaling on each other with kendo sticks before they repeated the superkicks at the same time spot from XXV may have been my favorite moment on the show that didn't involve Ford or Dream mugging away during their title defenses or Io's leather pants. A close runner up was Cole throwing a ladder at Gargano to get him to duck to set up a Panama Sunrise that couldn't be countered and/or superkicked away. The match ended with them falling to their mutually assured destruction off the cage through some tables (props to the announce table as well as the audience for what I can only call Loud Concerned Murmuring as they were both up there, culminating in "Please don't die!" chants) with Cole barely able to sluice an arm over Gargano to win the match and retain the title. As he did against Ciampa, Gargano lost the series 2-1 and arguably did it the worst of it to himself in order to try to win the match. But at least he got to walk away to this:

5) Adam Cole d. Johnny Gargano 2 falls to 1 to retain the NXT World Heavyweight championship

NXT keeps changing, evolving, working with Evolve, transmogrifying in a multitude of ways large and small. Yet the biggest shifts could be about to go down between now and turkey time from Chicago when WarGames comes down the pike again. Between that and the fact that there are no obvious challengers in the World or World Tag title divisions, three months could serve as almost a full-on reset button for the black and yellow. The destination isn't in the hands of us.

Whether we were right in our apprehension or proved Doubting Thomases, let's all hope that Takeovers remain as dependable as death and taxes. If a wrestling show fails to make you see the face of God but you still routinely clap your hands and stomp your feet, it's worth being a believer in.

El Phantasmo fucked up
Photo via Wikipedia

Autism awareness has come a long way in a short time. When people didn't know what autism even was, those on the spectrum were ostracized, treated differently, or even in the case of the most extreme cases, given exorcisms. I would wager any chance that cases of demonic possession were just extreme reactions to nonverbal people. Even since the neurotype was given the name autism, public perception of it has mostly improved. Instead of being seen as a disease or disorder, people are starting to realize that autistic people just have a different mental computer than neurotypical people have. Granted, some people and organizations like Autism Speaks reject this and still treat neurodivergent people like they have an illness, but that attitude is slowly dying out.

Wrestling famously can be slow on the social uptake. WWE as recently as 2007 had Eugene roaming around on a regular basis, reprising the character on returns as recently as 2014. That's only one example. Other companies have been better at normalizing the experience for autistic people. You know, wrestling isn't just for the neurotypical. All Elite Wrestling, for example, has been proactive in this regard. With the strides taken to make sure wrestling can be enjoyed by those on the spectrum, it's baffling and disappointing to see El Phantasmo, winner of New Japan's Super J-Cup tournament, regress so blatantly:

I took a moment to be overly earnest in the NJPW global contact section.https://t.co/j6JbcKIR3X pic.twitter.com/U8ApfYf156
— Sarah Kurchak (@fodderfigure) August 26, 2019

I know El-P is a member of Bullet Club, the arch-heel stable that has made its bones on being "politically incorrect." And it's not like his target, Will Ospreay, is a saint here. That being said, you gotta leave that talk in the past.

There's heel heat and there's the kind of talk that makes people feel uncomfortable. New Japan Pro Wrestling doesn't wrestlers need to dip its pen into bigotry. It already has no fewer than three wrestlers who can get entire arenas to throw garbage at them without opening their mouths. To the best of my knowledge, Switchblade Jay White, Taichi, and KENTA (in the same fucking stable as El-P) don't need to make light of autism (or throw around racist or misogynist rhetoric) to get people to boo them. IT's not cheap heat, and what they do makes it clear their issue is with the wrestler they're against, not a whole group of people.

In theory, you could target entire groups of people and it's fine, but the unintended effect is you create an environment where a marginalized person who goes to a show where they expect to escape the bigotries being flung into their face are now getting inundated with it there. They aren't going to want to be wrestling fans if wrestling continues to give them heels who don't just "hate" the wrestlers they're feuding with, but also hate them. It can't be a good feeling. I don't know that feeling as intensely as a marginalized person, because the only thing I've ever really felt "marginalized" for is being fat, and honestly, I can deal with that because I have it good everywhere else, and it's something I can theoretically change. You can't change your race, your gender, or your neurotype.

Heat, like anything you can buy with money, is best when it's authentic and costs more than saying a slur. Cheap heat is flimsy and will break after a few uses. If you want to be a heel, you don't want your heat to break before you can even get to a low-tier title program, right? Attacking Katsuyori Shibata is the kind of heat that will sustain you for a year. Making light of neurodiversity as a way to attack someone will get you eliminated first in the New Japan Rambo if you're lucky. Autistic people are not just wrestling fans, they're people with thoughts and feelings that you can't just play with for your own amusement.

Oh my
Graphics via ChikaraPro.com

So, whilst I was on vacation, King of Trios added three more teams to its already loaded slate. When I last left, the Crucible had a second team in the fray. Since then, two fun teams and a demonically evil presence have descended upon the tournament, bringing the total number of teams up to the unluckiest number in existence, 13. With three teams left to be announced, this year's Trios field is looking as strong as ever. Allow me to dive into the announcements now.

The first team consists of three Queens. Chikara stalwart Solo Darling will join a returning-from-injury Willow Nightingale and wrestling's foremost Queen frontman impersonator Freddie Mercurio. Darling was bound to be included in the tournament this year, even if she didn't have a whole lot of native wrestlers to team with. As much as it would've owned to see Officer Magnum in the fray, I'm not sure he was a feasible choice as a tag partner. Nightingale, however, gives Darling much-needed backup. Before her injury, the two tagged together a few times. They even have two points towards contention to Los Campeonatos de Parejas. Mercurio, an English wrestler who has come over to the States and Canada, will be the wild card here.

The second team announced is a doozy, and is perhaps my rooting interest to win the whole thing even if they may have a ceiling of night two. The Ugly Ducklings, one of the wildest and most talented tag teams in the game right now, will team up with The Master of 1000 Holds himself, Mike Quackenbush, to form the least likely but most intriguing team in the whole darn tournament. Chikara fans know about Quack, obviously. The company's co-founder is one of the most important indie wrestlers of the last two decades, and his farewell tour will see him teaming with Lance Lude and Rob Killjoy, a team that is among the most exciting in the game and also has the most fluid teamwork I've seen in a minute.

The most recent team announced will represent the putrid helldemon Nazmaldun. Hallowicked and Frightmare are no strangers to King of Trios, winning in 2012 with UltraMantis Black. This year, they have Kobald in tow. The Demon of the Toilet was one of the few minions who stayed faithful to 'Wicked after he was toppled and the spell of Nazmaldun was released on most of their compatriots. Together, they are a formidable force. Although they are on the fringes of relevance in Chikara at the moment, a Trios win would be the thing that could bring their carnage back to the forefront. While I feel like it might come down to a Crucible team in the finals, you would be foolish to count out the first two-time Grand Champion and his minions.

In case you need a refresher, the other ten teams announced are as follows:

Team Pump (Scott Steiner, Jordynne Grace, Petey Williams)
The Ancient Order of Nations (Mick Moretti, Adam Hoffman, Jack Bonza)
The Carnies (Kerry Awful, Nick Iggy, Tripp Cassidy)
The Embassy (Prince Nana, Jimmy Rave, Sal Rinauro)
The VeloCities (Mat Diamond, Jude London, Paris DeSilva)
Team FIST (Icarus, Tony Deppen, Travis Huckabee)
The Crucible (Ophidian, The Whisper, Lance Steel)
The Creatures of the Deep (Oceanea, Merlok, Hermit Crab)
The Colony (Fire Ant, Green Ant, Thief Ant)
The Crucible II (Matt Makowski, Devantes, EM DeMorest)

In addition, Boomer Hatfield and Alex Zayne will compete in the Rey de Voladores tournament. That being said, Boomer's dad and cousin, Dasher Hatfield and Molly McCoy respectively, are making overtures to have him come in the fold for their team. Of course, Boomer took daddy's mask in Chicago in a lucha de apuesta, and McCoy very loudly shouted at him that she'd never forgive him after, so I wouldn't be shocked if he turned down their request. Either way, the Grand Champion and the Broad Street Bully will probably find a third wrestler to join them. Sugar Dunkerton? EVIL Mr. Touchdown? Matt Classic? Time will tell.

You can catch both big tournaments and the tag gauntlet live and in person in Reading, PA at the Goodwill Beneficial Association. The dates are October 4-6, which is Friday through Sunday. Friday will house all eight first round matches. Saturday will be jam-packed. In the morning, you can join the Chikara family for King of Brunch, although I fear spots may be sold out by now. Check with the Chikara Twitter account first. Fan Conclave happens next, where a plethora of fun activities will happen with the other fans and the wrestlers themselves. The main event is in the evening with the four quarterfinal matches, the two four-way Rey de Voladores qualifiers, and some other fun matches taking place. Then Sunday, the semifinals and finals of Trios, the finals of Rey de Voladores, the tag matches, and other interstitial matches will take place. All in all, it's an outstanding weekend you won't want to miss.

Naito, here brushing off Jay White, is fine where he is
Photo Credit: NJPW1972.com

The amount of pro-WWE rhetoric on the Twitter timeline can be overbearing for a company that has had maybe three good shows in the last two years. It's fine. People enjoy what Vince McMahon's company puts out. Far be it from me cast judgment on liking a thing, even if the people who make it are objectively evil. That's why people say there's no ethical consumption under capitalism. Anyone who runs anything is probably not a good person and is certainly not your friend. But again, if you like a wrestling company's output, no matter how bad it is to however many people, more power to you. Of course, liking something doesn't give you license to say dumb shit without having people giving you receipts for your foolishness. That would include things like saying "Sasha Banks returning from a short sabbatical is more important than Katsuyori Shibata returning from nearly dying" or "WWE isn't good right now, so all of wrestling kinda stinks."

One of the things you can say that would be incredibly, impossibly wrong would be that someone wrestling in any other company in the world would be better off in WWE for their health. One could possibly argue that WWE reining in big spots and putting bans on "dangerous" moves makes it "safer," but the bans aren't comprehensive to start. Dives are higher risk than the average move, and WWE allows multiple ones in every match even from people who do them poorly against people who base for them even worse. But arguments for safety come down to how many dates you work. In literally any other company, the dates they require you for pale in comparison to how WWE has its roster wrestle no fewer than four times a week, once at the tapings/live television and three times at house shows. Probability for injury increases exponentially the more dates you have to work, which is why literally everyone on the WWE roster has missed significant time since WrestleMania XXX. Even Roman Reigns had that hernia that derailed his initial push in more ways than one.

So when I come across a take in the wild that suggests that one Tetsuya Naito should probably not kill his body doing another G1 Climax and go to WWE so he could compete for the US Championship, well, you know, just look at the whole thing:

I'm not gonna give the guy's name, but you can probably figure it out if you're on Twitter enough. Anyway, ignoring the contextual clues why that would never happen is like saying socialism is worse than capitalism and only focusing on the taxes. Now, the G1 Climax is a bear of a tournament. You end up wrestling 19 matches over the course of five weeks, and this year added the extra strain of flying to Dallas for one night. That being said, overall, the schedule isn't nearly as hard as WWE's schedule is, where you end up working something like 16 matches a month EVERY MONTH. New Japan's schedule has built-in breaks. Also, it's worth noting that about half your matches in the G1 are big tag matches that are about half as long as the singles matches. In a way, the average month in WWE is as intense as two tournaments.

Contextually, Naito has rebuffed WWE offers several times. He's 37 years old and working his dream job in New Japan. If he ever gets frustrated, all he knows he needs to do is ask to do an extended excursion in Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre. The person who said that would later on cop to it being fantasy booking, but honestly, one, why would you fantasy book someone in the periphery of the New Japan main event to go to WWE and hold a sideshow title? Didn't the expectations for Shinsuke Nakamura leading him to holding sideshow titles inform anyone to the fate of anyone from across the Pacific? Two, doesn't WWE have enough guys they don't use that they have to farm out to its United Kingdom shell brand and satellite promotions like EVOLVE and PROGRESS? They are barely utilizing Keith Lee. The Lucha House Party want out, well at least two-thirds of them do, because they're relegated to Main Event. This company has so much talent that wishing dudes like Naito going there is sheer greed.

I don't begrudge anyone for liking WWE or watching it, although pro wrestling is certainly a place where you can boycott the worst offenders like WWE and Ring of Honor and still have plenty of companies to watch. That being said, it's lazy or ignorant to think anyone would have an easier time in WWE unless they were someone like Rob Gronkowski, who is independently famous and can dictate his terms to McMahon. WWE has the most strenuous schedule in the business, and to say otherwise is basically like talking to your small intestine through your colon because you've got your head up your ass.

On their way back to WWE?
Photo Credit: WWE.com

Enzo Amore and Colin "Big Cass" Cassady have been free of WWE employment for over a year now. Amore was the first to go for not telling his bosses that he was being investigated for rape. It's telling they were more mad at him for not telling them he was being investigated than for the actual charges. Granted, the charges were dropped, but people who follow cases like these know that doesn't mean he's innocent. Funny how the authorities require scrutiny befitting an academic journal before even arresting someone on rape or domestic violence charges, but if a Black child has a toy gun, it's open season, but I digress.

Cass got his boot for less extreme and more surprising reasons. In an era where WWE even tries to corral wrestlers who want to quit on their own volition indefinitely, the company fired Cass. I repeat. They don't fire anyone anymore, and they fired Cass. The reasons are not concrete, but they could run the gamut of being an unacceptably vocal Donald Trump supporter, which is bad since the McMahon family donated so much to his campaign they got a complementary Cabinet position out of it. He could have been fired for stalking his ex-girlfriend Carmella after they'd broken up, or it could've been when he against orders assaulted a dwarf in a segment that was building towards a match with Daniel Bryan. He also was so bad in the ring that Bryan couldn't get a good match out of him despite getting good matches out of, well, *gestures broadly at everyone he's ever wrestled in the history of his career*. I would probably say it's a combination of all those things. You get the picture.

However, WWE is moving NXT to USA Network to air live every Wednesday because they are scared shitless of any other company gaining any foothold on cable television. All Elite Wrestling is coming live to Wednesday nights, so now WWE has to counter, and it's also rumored that Vince McMahon wants more input this way. Because of this, McMahon does what he tries to do in any other capacity, bring someone in who's a NAME that can pop ratings. Put two and two together, and you have this nugget from this week's Wrestling Observer Newsletter:

Screenshot via @WrestleChatNet

In case you don't wanna read the picture, it basically says that WWE made the offer for them to make a surprise return to the Black and Gold brand. Yep, McMahon and supposed "good cop" Paul "Triple H" Levesque are going to sign off on a cancer and a rapist cancer coming back to their most popular critically acclaimed locker room. Neither guy can work to the standard set by even the "worst" guys on NXT (Kona Reeves has at least had a decent match once). Their microphone act is basically a one-trick pony. They're damaged goods on top of it. You could make the case that Cass, after having made his battle with depression public, is making strides, but again, it's not up to me to decide whether those strides are good enough to forgive him literally stalking someone who broke up with him to the point where other wrestlers had to step in and physically threaten him. I don't wish any ill-will towards Cass. I really don't. I hope he's gotten help, but at this point, depression isn't something that just pops up. He's going back to a locker room that probably hasn't forgotten him. It can't be the best place for him if he's truly getting helped.

I guess the big sticking point is Amore, who really doesn't have any redeeming qualities, to be honest. The dude is a nuisance to society and should probably be exiled to Tierra del Fuego or something. I don't see what he has to offer other than an entrance, and y'know what? Maybe WWE should let some other enterprising trainee it has riff on the mic without scripted guidance to see if they can replicate some of that magic. Then again, maybe WWE, which has done more to destroy wrestling than lift it up in the last three decades and these two deserve each other. I mean, better they be contained in WWE than anything I might want to watch.

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