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Twitter Request Line, Vol. 71

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One of my favorite overlooked classics
Photo Credit: WWE.com
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 140 characters can't restrain me, fool! If you don't know already, follow me @tholzerman, especially around Friday night after Smackdown, and wait for the call. Anyway, time to go!

Chicago-made @dskalba kicks off this week's mailbag by asking what some of the best overlooked matches are in WrestleMania history to get people pumped up for the show Sunday.

Ooh, a list question to start! I will give you three.

1. Undertaker vs. Triple H, WrestleMania X-7: WWE would love for you to think the only two times they wrestled with The Streak on the line was at XXVII and XXVIII, but their bout at the greatest WrestleMania ever is hands down the best of the series. They took the formula that made the Attitude Era unique and actually fleshed out an honest-to-God match.

2. Hulk Hogan vs. King Kong Bundy, WrestleMania 2: Being the best match on a stinky card isn't exactly an honor, but Hogan/Bundy in the BLUE BARS was legitimately a good contest. Hogan almost wrestled like he had a human quality to him instead of exaggerating everything like a Marvel hero.

3. John Cena vs. Batista, WrestleMania XXVI: This match is still my favorite on the card, even over Taker/Michaels II. Batista was at his absolute peak in the ring, which is a shame because he would leave soon after.

Royal Rumble statistician and Irresistible vs. Immovable co-conspirator Scott T. Holland asks if I see any NXT wrestlers called up after Mania.

Well, I'm working under the assumption that Alexander Rusev makes his debut on Sunday in the Andre Battle Royale. Even so, he's already gotten vignettes and stage presentations out the ass, and he's even gotten a soft debut at the Rumble. He doesn't count. However, as for real debuts, I see a few wrestlers who could conceivably make the jump. Tyler Breeze and The Ascension are two acts that I would peg for callup after Mania. The former has a money gimmick, and outside of winning the title, which feels superfluous for him at this point, he's got nothing left to do down there. The Ascension would be best-debuted if Undertaker turned heel in preparation for a showdown with John Cena next year and they became his minions. Absent that high fantasy though, the Usos are out of challengers, and the Ascension could chew up some card time with them.

@Michael_T1919 wants me to look into the future and predict the card for WrestleMania XXXV.

I won't predict an undercard, because that would provide too much aimless projection. However, I will give you the top four matches...

WWE CHAMPIONSHIP: Dean Ambrose (c) vs. Sami Zayn - Ambrose, after beating John Cena for the WWE Championship at SummerSlam, has seen his stranglehold on the title loosen and loosen to the point where he needed shenanigans from his minions The Underground, Hernando Velez (Eddie Kingston) and Jack Swagger, to retain at Elimination Chamber, staving off Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan. Zayn, after winning his first Royal Rumble match, is looking to get his hands on his first Championship of any kind in WWE despite wrestling in high profile feuds with wrestlers such as Randy Orton, Antonio Cesaro, Bryan, and Cena. This match is hotly anticipated.

THE BEST VS. THE BEST: Daniel Bryan vs. CM Punk - Punk made his long awaited return to WWE the night after the Royal Rumble, after leaving in 2014, assaulting Bryan for taking his spot five years prior. Even though he became a cult celebrity, starring on a Netflix sitcom, becoming a regular on Talking Dead, and even training for a MMA fight for Bellator (which got Punk all over TNA television without having to appear for them... hey, remember TNA?), he still claimed he was the best in the world, despite the fact that Bryan, whose run of top matches at Mania began at XXX, had become the undisputed face of the company.

John Cena vs. Solomon Crowe - In only two years on the main roster, Crowe already garnered a yearlong reign with the Unified Intercontinental Championship and engaged in a clash of lifestyles, his technologically-inclined hacker life against Bray Wyatt's Luddite swamp hillbilly persona. However, like Wyatt did five years prior, Ambrose three years, and Enzo Amore the year before, Crowe made it his rite of passage to call Cena's thunder down from the mountain for the ultimate proving ground.

CAREER THREATENING MATCH: Sheamus vs. Triple H - Triple H's dalliance at WrestleMania XXX gave him a taste for in ring action. For the last five years, he became more and more active, shirking his duties as COO and getting more and more into the fray. However, anarchy in the front office became the norm, as order on RAW became a distant memory. When Crowe took over the arena in an attempt to kidnap and torture Cena right after the Rumble, wife Stephanie McMahon and father-in-law Vince laid down the ultimatum, quit wrestling or be written out of the will. Trips maneuvered, however, to put his in-ring career on the line against a wrestler of the McMahons' choosing... the Celtic Warrior and seven-time former Champion Sheamus.

I found leaving out guys like Wyatt, Cesaro, Seth Rollins, Reigns, Orton, Damien Sandow, Big E Langston, Drake Younger, Aiden English, Adrian Neville, and the like extremely hard, but the problem with forecasting is that luck oftentimes is the deciding factor, rather than skill or potential.

@OkoriWadsworth asks what city I would like to see host WrestleMania that hasn't before.

Portland. WrestleMania is an awful cultural fit for the Rose City, but that juxtaposition is why I want Mania to be there so badly. I would love to see WWE's interpretation on what they think is "hipster" culture.

Rich Thomas, co-host of the International Object podcast, asks which wrestlers on the card this year I think whose best WrestleMania moments are both ahead of them and behind them.

Obviously, Triple H, Cena, Undertaker, Brock Lesnar, Big Show, Kane, Rey Mysterio, Batista, the Outlaws, Christian, and Goldust's moments are behind them. For The Miz, I can't see anything topping his Mania headline run, especially given his place in the company right now. I doubt Zack Ryder's going to get any higher than helping Edge during his match against Taker. Alberto del Rio might not get too much higher than he is now either, to be honest.

Bryan, Wyatt, Cesaro, all three members of The Shield, Big E Langston, Cody Rhodes, and the Usos all have their big moments ahead of some, like Bryan, who might get theirs on Sunday. Of all the older, more established guys, I still think Randy Orton can have a bigger Mania moment than what he's had. Sheamus may not get bigger than 18 seconds victory, but I doubt it. Everyone I haven't made may not get a Mania moment of note. Again, projecting things like this is hard business.

Legendary returned Twitter user @brianbrown25 asks what the best commentated WrestleMania has been.

WrestleManias VII and VIII were the only ones commentated by Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan. I give VII the nod if only because they were on point with the Randy Savage/Ultimate Warrior match. Every other Mania had upsides and downsides. In fact, the first WrestleMania was well-commentated as well. But I'm a sucker for a Monsoon/Heenan booth.

Scott's partner in crime, Dave Kincannon, asks whom I think will fill the final three spots in the Battle Royale.

Brad Maddox took my wild card spot, or did he? What if Antonio Cesaro doesn't get to do double duty, or what if Rob van Dam's comeback is a smokescreen? Still, I stick by my picks. Cesaro, RVD, and Alexander Rusev, if I'm being realistic of course.

@mikechauvet asks what the odds are that The Network streams Mania cleanly on Sunday.

Well, I took the extra precaution of getting a brand new router for the event just in case it's all on my end. But I'm going to give the event 10-1 odds of no hiccups. Hopefully WWE and MLB.tv will get some more servers to handle the load. Otherwise, it's going to be a huge black eye for them.

Of course, I will stick with the Network as long as it exists and as long as I live, but I'm a junkie.

@JordiScrubbings asks if it's "mac 'n cheese" or "cheese 'n mac."

Were you raised in a barn? Mac 'n cheese. C'mon now.

Strong Island's own @mikepankowski asks if I could put one wrestler NOT in the Hall of Fame in the Andre Battle Royale which one would it be.

If the rider is that guy can't be in the Hall, then the easiest answer is Vader. I would love seeing the Mastodon chugging down to the ring, throwing those ham hocks at the vanilla midgets, slappin' blubber with Mark Henry, going toe to toe with Big E Langston. Oh man, my HOSS SENSE is tingling just thinking about it. GIVE ME VADER. IT'S TIME. IT'S TIME. IT'S VADER. TIME.

@Doc_Ruiz2012 asks if his nemesis Xavier Woods will win the Andre Battle Royale because everyone would have forgotten he was in there.

No, because I'm pretty sure Alexander Rusev is going to eat him for energy like a video game.

Resident Austin Golden Domer @NDEddieMac asks if these Bray Wyatt/John Cena "Legacy" video packages are the best WWE's done since The Miz's "Hate Me Now" ones before his Mania main event.

For all the things WWE does intermittently or plain wrong, the company gets its video production right on a regular basis, right? These "Legacy" spots have been tight, but the packages for the Rhodes Boys during the fall were pretty good too. The production package I'll remember most, however, is the videos for WrestleMania XXVI, Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker, set to "Running up That Hill" by Placebo. The company sure knows how to get the fans hype.

Seattle superdude @Moose_Bigelow asks what the best gimmick ever is.

Imagine an insect, only he's also black magic warlock. Okay, then imagine him as the ringleader for an army of ghouls that include two pumpkin-heads, a skeletal tattoo-artist, and whatever the fuck a Blind Rage is. Then imagine him being a vocal, militant Vegan who is huge into punk rock ethos. Then imagine him being the most popular wrestler in the most important independent wrestling company in America right now. You don't need to imagine, friend, because he exists. UltraMantis Black is the best gimmick ever.

Handsome-voiced gentleman Bill DiFilippo of Onward State asks to rank the voices on the recent Mania preview podcast we all did from "best" to "Dan (Vecellio)."

1. Me as Dusty Rhodes
2. Pat
3. Me as Hulk Hogan
4. Adam
5. Me as myself
6. Me as Antonio Cesaro
7. Dan
8. Bill

Newspaper bro @czach1r asks if a minor title division having a bunch of title switches would be great for the competition level or bad for the constant losses.

Both have ups and downs, but I don't think playing "hot potato" with the title necessarily devalues it. If the title switches come in good matches between hot and over wrestlers, then the title is enhanced because of demand. Obviously, just passing the belt like a blunt between a bunch of wrestlers who have nothing going for them sucks, but good booking principles apply to every situation.

@TheUltimateMatt asks what off-the-wall thing WWE could do on RAW following Mania.

WWE could replay Sami Zayn's arc with Antonio Cesaro in NXT with someone on the main roster, maybe Randy Orton, maybe Alberto del Rio, maybe Cesaro himself and see if lightning can get caught in another bottle. The start of said run would be jarring at any other show, but at Dork WrestleMania (my name for the RAW the night after), it would fit right in.

@ThisPhillyFan wants to know if Cesaro's singles push will finally get started after Mania.

The rumors seem to indicate such, but the "rumors" tend to forestall a lot of crazy shit. I think any time any news source reports on future plans from their sources, they're just throwing shit to the wall to see what sticks. That all being said, I think he'll get a chance to shine. The crowds love him, he has an over finisher, and he wrestles great matches. If that formula works for a guy who looks like Daniel Bryan, what about someone with the look of Cesaro?

Benevolent robotic fan algorithm @robot_hammer asks if the Divas are a low priority because fans don't care, or do the fans not care because it's such a low priority.

I think the latter is the case. If the company presents something as important, and the people doing the thing are competent or better, then fans will get into it. Fans don't pop for Emma as Santino Marella's girlfriend, but they totally popped for the Emma Lock. That example might not be enough evidence for me, but it's the start of a thread.

Philadelphia-to-Pitt U bro @HummerX asks how crazy it is that Bryan f'n Danielson will more than likely be main eventing WrestleMania in 36 hours.



Finally, Phillies Nation writer and Monster Factory booster Ian Riccaboni asks who the biggest WWE wrestler in the last 30 years is who hasn't appeared at WrestleMania.

Jeez, I honestly can't answer this question, because every wrestler I can think of from the last 30 years who was worth a damn has appeared at Mania. I can only answer on a technicality and say that since WWE owns the WCW library that Sting is probably the answer. Other than that... I am stumped.

WrestleMania XXX Countdown Epilogue: The Hall of Fame

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Photo Credit: WWE.com
This year, the Hall of Fame will be broadcast live on WWE Network. This year's ceremony is the first one to be broadcast live as it happens, and of course, it is the year that the Ultimate Warrior is getting inducted. His enshrinement ought to be a hairy moment for the censors. Tune in at 8 PM Eastern/7 Central for all the fun, frivolity, and to see which celebrity gets booed off the stage.

Razor Ramon - Da Bad Guy was the last entrant announced for the Hall, but he's first in my heart. Razor Ramon wasn't the prototypical WWE wrestler to me. He was lanky instead of filled out, cool instead of heroic, and his finisher was pretty innovative, at least to 12 year-old TH. Him never winning the WWE Championship always bummed me out until I found out later that his affinity for the nose candy pretty much held him back. Similar addictions put him on a death watch lately, but thanks to Diamond Dallas Page and his miracle yoga, Scott Hall looks to be in good health and good spirits. Speaking of the real name, I found not mentioning that name interesting and a telegraph that he'll be inducted a second time as a member of the nWo.

Photo Credit: WWE.com
Jake "The Snake" Roberts - Speaking of guys who benefited from DDP Yoga, Roberts was another guy in a rough way until Page got him in ship-shape. Now, the Snake is down to fighting weight and is back smiling and putting serpents on people again. Roberts' mic skills are legendary, regarded by many as one of the best with the stick in his hand across any era. While other peers used bombast and exaggeration, Roberts employed subtext and spook to get his point across. Despite being regarded as one of the best psychological heels ever, he was just as good as a sponge for sympathy. His feuds with Ted DiBiase and Rick Martel at consecutive WrestleManias were both stuff of legend, and his run against Rick Rude pushed the envelope further than nearly any other story before the Attitude Era. Plus, gotta love the man who innovated the DDT.

Photo Credit: WWE.com
Lita - Much like with Trish Stratus last year, Lita's abilities in the ring might be a bit overstated, and her impact on women's wrestling in WWE is blunted by some questionable segments. However, I still feel both criticisms are more a reflection of WWE's treatment of women than it is a character judgment against Amy Dumas, the person. She was still someone for girls to latch onto as representation in the business, and before her whole heel turn with Edge, that representation was mostly positive.

Photo Credit: WWE.com
Mr. T - I pity the fool who doesn't recognize that Mr. T is one of two super-important celebrities to the success of the early WrestleMania era (Cyndi Lauper being the other). T was the perfect celebrity to be super-involved in pro wrestling, as he had the look, the promo style, and even the shorthand stage name that made him fit right in with the Hulk Hogans and John Studds of the world.

Photo Credit: WWE.com
Paul Bearer - Bearer was so good at his job that not only could I not imagine Undertaker becoming The Phenom without him, I couldn't imagine Mankind or Kane catching their first swells within WWE without him. Bearer was both creepy and strangely avuncular simultaneously, and he had a way with words that his charges, well, two-thirds of his charges, never could. His death still bums me out.

Photo Credit: WWE.com
The Ultimate Warrior - I still laugh that Warrior is the "headliner" of this year's class, and yet he's the only wrestler in history who's had what amounts to a digital slam book produced about him by WWE. I guess money and attention repair burned bridges right quick. Anyway, I have no love for Warrior outside of his match against Randy Savage at WrestleMania VII and his merciless squashing of Triple H five years later. Of course, the rampant homophobia doesn't help either, but even if he was an upstanding citizen and human being, I could not care less than I do now about his induction into the Hall.
Photo Credit: WWE.com via Pro Wrestling Illustrated

Carlos Colon - However, for all Warrior's foibles, he never helped cover up murder. I still see a tremendous amount of apologia for Colon's role in the acquittal of Invader Gonzalez for the murder of Bruiser Brody. "Gonzalez acted alone!" Like he would've gotten acquitted without Colon's alleged help. When subpoenas to witnesses for the prosecution don't arrive in the mail until well after the trial's conclusion, something fishy is afoot. "Brody was a real asshole!" This reason is the one I can abide by most, especially if theories of him instigating the fight and leaving Gonzalez to stab Brody in self-defense are correct. Still though, wouldn't due process have brought those things out to light? Even so, does being an asshole mean you deserve to die? I would hope the answer to that question UNIVERSALLY is "no.""Dutch Mantell and Tony Atlas are just as much to blame for not speaking out!" Victim-blaming is fucking deplorable, and to blame any of the Brody-sympathetic witnesses for the acquittal is not only an asshole thing to do, but it shows a real misunderstanding of how toxic the atmosphere was.

Then again, Vince McMahon himself may have helped cover up the murder of Nancy Argentino himself. He's already employed a freshly paroled rape convict before he showed any signs of rehabilitation. (AS an aside, I hate ragging on Mike Tyson now because he's clearly changed and rehabilitated. The system worked for him, and he's earned his second chance. But at the time of his WWE employment, doubts were still there.) He enshrined Abdullah the Butcher even after allegations of him spreading hepatitis C willfully came out. WWE's history is full of shady characters who deserve scrutiny rather than praise.

Best Coast Bias: Knucks To This

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Now arriving
Photo Credit:WWE.com
Throughout his NXtenure, Corey Graves has been a lot of things in not that long a time period: sacrificial lamb to the Wyatts and eye-rolling antihero; concussion victim and afterthought; Tatsu victimizer and stalling black hat.  However, until he walked to the back after main eventing against Sami Zayn on this latest installment from Full Sail, there was something he'd never been before:

Relevant.

It's amazing what a minor alignment switch and change-up of style can do, and Graves is the latest example of WWE taking a kernel of truth and blowing it up into a full bag of kettle corn that'll take three days to finish but seemed like a good idea when you bought it.  While Full Sail's biggest babyface had been cleared by the medics to go in against the former Tag Champion, that proved to be disingenuous at best and a lie at worst.  At the best of times, it was all Zayn everything and the crowd (suspecting not just the ones watching in the arena, neither) was lapping it up.  It took quite some time for Graves to go on offense, and even the stalling tactics he'd used to trick Tatsu didn't work on Sami.  Which makes a lot of sense: one of those guys is the floor -- the same floor Tyler Breeze would Beauty Shot in a short showcase right before this butting of heads -- and the other is Sami Bleepin' Zayn, and that's even before you factor in the experience difference.

There may have been a few too many chinlocks for the liking of most, but the match served a plethora of purposes in one shot.  It established Zayn's bonafides as the latest holder of the Steamboat babyface never-say-die torch.  It gave him a out for the loss, as while he got put in Lucky XIII not two minutes later he'd be shoving the ref and saying he could've kept going despite the fact he'd been crumbling off of single right hands and hadn't even been able to go up top or leap for his signature flying crossbody block, speaking of the Dragon.  And as for Graves?

It's not just the fact that he pocketed the biggest win of his career (though of course if you're feeling ungenerous you can always call it a win* since the ref ended the match in his favor after a series of checks on the sputtering-out Zayn); it's how he did it.  Too many heels still carry elements of wanting to be cheered, or having a catchphrase, or being willing to be booed in the shortterm as long as they find some way of stoking the crowd for positive fervor despite the fact on their 1040s under occupation it says BOO THIS MAN OR WOMAN.  Corey Graves is absolutely repellent, and it's pretty awesome to watch even when the matches aren't.

He looks like Hot Topic commissioned a wrestler, yes.  For anyone who didn't see this archetype honed in Memphis over the years, his constant rolling out of the ring and ducking between the ropes can cross the line from "I see what you're trying to do there" to "ENOUGH ALREADY".  It'd be nice if he learned a believable submission hold that shouldn't exclusively be the domain of the Fabulous Tony C or Randall Keith in full-on troll king mode, sure.  But alongside the help of the best announcers of the business on the cans and s l o w i n g down his offense, it has more visceral impact when he starts getting his cheap and expensive shots in, and it's as fine a flavor of ringsmanship as there can be.  You can say "Corey Graves does things on his own time" all you'd like but if he were out there fighting fiercer that'd kill the whole narrative.

The whole thing's there, from the ubiquitous knuckleflashing pre-and-post match to the Dean lean around the same bottom post he launched Sami into two weeks ago.  And given the fact that Sami never gave up or gave in concurrent with the dissolution of the tag team he had with now Champion Adrian Neville there are a couple interesting paths for the former Patron Saint of Bad Decisions to choose from as he continues to ascend the NXT ladder.

Speaking of Neville, you can add another person shooting at the target to the litany, but this one came off of the side of a milk carton: Brodus Clay.  It may be a weird thing to see what's the blowoff to a feud that sort of exploded on the runway due more to boredom than anything else put out on NXT, but in a post-Networked world NXT is becoming more of a lateral move.  At least, that's the generous explanation to it; Kendrick knows WWECW needs a successor whether it's official or not.  Yet again, Xavier Woods came out full of viss and pinegar against a larger opponent, again he fired up and got in a few blows, and again he ended up getting pretty much eaten.  Like vintage running headbutt > powerbomb > second rope splash eaten.  Not fun.

But Clay wasn't done there, stating that WWE had taken everything from him vis a vis songs, women, partners, dance, dignity, et al., so Full Sail was his and it owed him a living and moreover the NXT Championship.  The Man That Gravity's Forgot's response was concise and perfect: nobody can walk into Full Sail and metaphorically throw their weight around, the NXT roster especially their Champion can rumble with anybody on the main shows, and the moment the former ex-Stepin Fetchit earns a shot he can get one.

And over in Divaville, while Paige expectantly waits to invite Charlotte to a knee-you-in-the-face party, Emma undid the schnide she's been on in-ring recently by outsmarting the BFFs and moreover getting Sasha Banks to tap out to the EmmaLock.  Poor Sasha, if it wasn't for the two biggest female crowdpoppers down Florida way she would be the Boss of NXT; as is since they tend to make her tapout she's more of the Assistant to the General Manager That Technically Exists But Never Shows.  This was perfect Emma here, her comedy spots thus irritating the heel, who then out of anger charges into a trap that may or may not exist and falls prey to some above-average technical wrestling and suddenly find themselves on the business end of a Muta signature pulling the Savion Glover.  And to think that it all almost got subsumed by Renee Young trying to explain to William Regal what ratchet meant and why the NXT Constellation was chanting it at Sasha.  At least she got called the hidden gem of NXT by Master Regal, and when a man like that puts over your venom and spite you are going to be going places sooner rather than.

But I suppose that's the difference between Ws and Ls: when Regal sees Sasha trying on his old black coat it gives him warm, dark memories; when Corey Graves does it, he just gets concerned for Sami Zayn and thinks the match should be stopped.

In Like a Lion: WrestleMania XXX Review

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He did it... TWICE!
Photo Credit: WWE.com
In the TH style:

Highlights:
  • In the pre-show Tag Title match, the Usos last eliminated the Real Americans with Superfly Splashes in stereo on Antonio Cesaro.
  • After the match, Jack Swagger turned on Cesaro by putting him in the Patriot Lock. Cesaro replied with a Giant Swing.
  • Hulk Hogan, Steve Austin, and The Rock opened WrestleMania in the same ring with a joint promo.
  • Daniel Bryan defeated Triple H with the Knee-Plus to earn a spot in the WWE World Heavyweight Championship match. After the match, Trips laid out Bryan.
  • In what was almost a glorified squash match, The Shield defeated Kane and the New Age Outlaws with a triple powerbomb on Billy Gunn.
  • Cesaro last eliminated The Big Show to win the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royale.
  • John Cena reversed Sister Abigail's Kiss into an Attitude Adjustment to defeat Bray Wyatt.
  • Brock Lesnar's third F5 shockingly ended The Streak, as Undertaker's WrestleMania record now sits at 21-1.
  • AJ Lee retained the Divas Championship over the field as she made Naomi tap out to the Black Widow.
  • In a backstage segment where Hulk Hogan demanded Paul Orndorff and Roddy Piper bury the hatchet from the first WrestleMania, Piper and Mr. T squashed their longstanding beef and embraced.
  • Despite run-ins from Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, and Scott Armstrong and an attempted stretcher job after a Batista-Bomb-into-a-neckbreaker table bump, Bryan tapped Batista out with the YES! Lock to win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.

General Observations:
  • They gave the Andre Trophy the Stanley Cup, armored-car treatment. I was surprised at how small it was.
  • Pre-show match started out with Zeb Colter leading a "We the People!" chant, while Antonio Cesaro came to the ring in one of the shiniest jackets I've ever seen. His jacket was so shiny, the audio issues with the stream immediately got fixed.
  • El Torito dressed in a red unitard, meaning he was an energy drink for the evening.
  • Sign of the Night: Dude on the right side of the crowd facing the hard camera with a "REST HOLD" sign. He would've gotten a LOT of play on that placard during a Randy Orton circa '07 match.
  • Seeing Cesaro effortlessly give Ryback the Neutralizer was the most impressive feat of strength of the night until, well, let's just say Cesaro would come back out again for even more hossery.
  • I was actually a little surprised that Swagger went full nuclear on Cesaro after the match. I was even more surprised to see Colter play peacemaker instead of siding with one of them, but I guess WWE has to leave SOMETHING for RAW the next night.
  • Hulk Hogan opened the show and immediately proceeded to call the venue "The Silverdome." Both Steve Austin and The Rock would come out and rib him over his flub.
  • No, seriously though, how surreal but awesome was it to see the three most iconic figures of the WrestleMania era in the same ring? If only John Cena had made his way out there and made it Mount Rushmore would it have been topped.
  • Stephanie McMahon opened the show proper in what I can only describe as "business casual" meets "Larry Flynt." She introduced Triple H, who came out on a throne in his gold Skeletor mask in a red cape, flanked by wenches in masks. I'm pretty sure I saw Sasha Banks behind one of those masks. Hey, anything to get the NXT Divas a Mania payday, I suppose.
  • Daniel Bryan's ring boots had fur on them. I wonder if he was taking gear tips from John Morrison...
  • Bryan upped his apron move game with a tornado DDT leaping off the ring to the floor. Tell me that dude didn't have a sense for the moment. For his part, Trips escalated the violence on his part without needing a bunch of weapons. HE broke out an apron back suplex and then a TIGER suplex at another point.
  • McMahon's managerial game was on point here. She did about everything she could have to enhance the match without actually getting physical in any aspect. Her best line was yelling "YOU MESS WITH THE BULL, YOU GET THE HORNS" like she just thought the line up at Bryan. Disingenuous mom-Steph is the best Steph.
  • Bryan kipping up after his missile dropkick was maybe the best thing he did all match, proving sometimes, the moves are the least important thing that go down in a given contest.
  • I was afraid after the match that Bryan would hit McMahon for some kind of cheap sexist pop (even if she did "deserve" it by slapping him), but the waylay by Trips after the match made it better. Still, I kinda wish WWE would start giving the women managers the same kind of agency and gravitas it let someone like Sensational Sherri have back in the day before giving the men a good reason to wail on them, y'know?
  • I popped when The Shield cut off the Outlaws' entrance hard.
  • I knew the trios match wouldn't get a lot of time, but I never once thought it would have been a glorified squash. The Shield got put over super hard here, which of course wasn't a bad thing at all.
  • I will say that triple powerbombing both Outlaws at the same time? BOSS VISUAL.
  • I was surprised to see the final three spots in the Andre Battle Royale filled out by guys like David Otunga and Yoshi Tatsu and not Alexander Rusev or Rob van Dam, but in the grand scheme of things, the Cesaro appearance was good enough for me.
  • Cody Rhodes and Kofi Kingston both skinned the cat at the same time and jousted kicks with each other while doing it, a cool visual.
  • Fandango and Xavier Woods were on the apron at one point, and I swear I saw Fandango hump Woods' face.
  • The Rhodes Boys had great synergy in eliminating Damien Sandow. Goldust was on the apron, and Rhodes tossed Sandow over the top while Goldust held the rope down. Of course, both Rhodeses would be eliminated unceremoniously by Alberto del Rio later on.
  • The battle royale turned out to be the Cesaro-and-Kofi show. Cesaro hit up some mad acts of hossery, including some big uppercuts at key times, but his biggest feat before the finish happened when he tossed Kingston over his head, OVER the ringpost and to the floor... or so it seemed. Kingston's feet landed on the ring steps, so he wasn't technically eliminated. He got back into the ring and cleared house. I wouldn't be surprised if Kingston had a job for life just to avoid elimination in the craziest ways possible. I just wish the company would do something with him.
  • Cesaro and Show were the only two left, and Cesaro eliminated him in the hossiest way possible - by scooping him up in a nearly effortless slam and dumping him over the top rope. I swear, everyone in America who watched that suddenly got the urge to take their lover, it was so impressive.
  • The Wyatt Family's entrance was out of control with the voodoo dancer and the live band playing his theme on the way in. Since the non-singers in the band were wearing plague masks, I secretly wondered if Jimmy Jacobs was going to appear and help Wyatt win...
  • I found it interesting that the second half of the normal "LET'S GO CENA!"/"CENA SUCKS!" dueling chant was replaced with "LET'S GO WYATT!" instead. The biggest sign that WWE is moving away from a totally Cena-centric power structure at the top to more of an ensemble cast might be the change of every match being a referendum on Cena to more of a "pick a side that isn't just the absence of the other wrestler."
  • I would have liked Wyatt letting Cena get a free shot at him better if Cena acted like he was going to lose it and do unspeakably uncharacteristic acts of violence on a date before WrestleMania.
  • Wyatt leading the crowd in singing "He's got the whole world in his hands" was one of the most impressive feats of bandleading ever.
  • Even though I feel like this match was the payoff for a better build that didn't happen, I'm alright with Cena winning and the story possibly continuing along this arc. WWE is in a spot where it can experiment with the Cena character more than it could have before Bryan emerged as a viable 1a. Whether it will or not is a different story though.
  • JOHNNY FABULOUS SIGHTING!
  • I dug the shots of the coffins with all the Streak victims on them with Undertaker's entrance.
  • I wish I could say nice things about the Lesnar/Taker match, but it was dreadfully boring. I'm beginning to wonder if the Lesnar in the Triple H trilogy was closer to his real ability than the one against Cena or CM Punk, but then again, maybe Undertaker just didn't have it in him tonight either.
  • Won't lie, I almost shit a brick when Lesnar actually got the three count on Taker. The Streak is over. Long live The Streak.
  • Nothing will top this guy's reaction to it though.
  • Everyone but AJ Lee got the "jobber" entrance for the Divas Invitational. Not coincidentally, everyone in that match kinda deserved the jobber entrance except for AJ Lee.
  • Lee and Tamina Snuka starting out with their backs to each other against the throng of angry challengers was a great way to start.
  • I actually thought that the match was an entertaining car wreck. When you get 14 wrestlers in a match, regardless of gender, sometimes, it's just going to devolve into a bunch of spots. Best way to go would be to make them fun spots, and I think all the women in the match at least tried to keep the highspots coming like beers at a kegger.
  • Regardless, Lee winning was the right call, and her application of the Black Widow was WrestleMania worthy.
  • Paul Orndorff's moustache right there became a contender for best in WWE with Zeb Colter. What is it with these old guys growing awesome soup-strainers?
  • Even in his old aged, innocuous guest host capacity, Hogan could still come off as a bit imperious and demanding for a hero, couldn't he? I don't think he was in a position to demand anyone bury any hatchet, but then again, I guess I wasn't in the ring and don't understand...
  • I would give the Roddy Piper and Mr. T embrace a 0.7 on the Hart/Michaels reconciliation scale, if only because knowledge of their real life beef may have been a bit too inside baseball.
  • Randy Orton got his band to play him in too? Man, the Mania music budget must have been robust this year.
  • Batista had a stretch on the outside where he looked awkward as shit driving Orton into the apron, and then gingerly rocked him into the barricade. It was the least stiff main event thing I've seen in a long time.
  • SCOTT ARMSTRONG IS BACK AND HE'S THE NEW NICK PATRICK! Except Bryan took him out with a kick to the head, because triple threat matches come with the deus ex machina built right in!
  • I know it won't be the end of the feud, but Bryan wiping out the ENTIRE Authority with his plancha felt like the exclamation point on his victory, even before he won the titles.
  • I cringed more for Orton taking the bump on the barricade than I did for Bryan going through the tables as a prone victim. Holy shit, I got real concerned for Orton for a hot second.
  • I didn't mind that Bryan got the win on Batista instead of Orton. The three did a brilliant job of creating such a chaotic environment that Bryan felt like he beat both guys down.
  • WrestleMania ended how it should have: with 80,000 people doing the YES! chant. Sometimes, simple is best.

Match of the Night:Daniel Bryan vs. Triple H - Six matches later on the card, Daniel Bryan would have his honest-to-God WrestleMania moment, but to open the show, he got to wrestle the first of what should be many WrestleMania classics. The fact that he went out and made it rain with Triple H of all people - the same Triple H whose last five Mania matches in my view were mediocre at best - solidifies him as a wrestling god. Unquestionably, it belongs in the same breath as Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart as the best WrestleMania opener ever, and the pass of time may put it in such rarefied air as one of the greatest WWE matches, regardless of event, ever.

The shithead Triple H hater in me would love to come out and say that Bryan "carried" him, and while I think Bryan is the kind of wrestler that could coax a great match out of the Game better than Brock Lesnar, the Undertaker, pre-Best Big Man in WWE Sheamus, or Randy Orton could, he held up his end of the bargain. He built himself up before the show as the epitome of the A-plus player, but one who would not be fucked with. So he went out and threw everything he had at Bryan and then some.

I saw moves out of Triple H that I never thought he would pull out, like a fucking tiger suplex. I remember when [REDACTED] giving him one in a match was a big deal. My marvel at that move wasn't so much like a "workrate fan" demanding a diverse moveset inasmuch as it signaled escalation. His word, his bravado even, demanded that he had to put Bryan away, so he had to keep damaging him, just like the way he worked over Bryan's arm earlier in the match and kept going back to the crossface and the chicken wing.

And to her credit, Stephanie McMahon did pretty much everything a good heel manager should do short of interfering. She was shrill, she barked encouragement at Trips, and tried to verbally intimidate Bryan during the course of the match too. She added about as much to the match as she could have without laying a finger on Bryan at all.

But yeah, this match is where Daniel Bryan showed off the ultimate in underdog moxie and babyface fire. He bumped hard both on offense and defense; one should note that he went from the goddamn top rope to the floor near the barricade, which is a gnarly bump for anyone to take. His counters were on point; his second Pedigree counter, the one where he back-body-dropped while his arms were still chicken-winged, was as godly a maneuver as you're gonna see anywhere. And he had impeccable timing on where to place his comebacks. His Knee-Plus landed right in Trips' mush may have been the most impactfully-timed one he's done yet. I won't talk about how Bryan made himself in this match, because he's been solid gold in WWE since the end of RAW two years ago. However, this match is a huge reason why he can now take his place among the immortals, and he got help from one of the most notoriously selfish wrestlers in WWE history to get there. Greatness comes on that mark.

Overall Thoughts: The Pay-Per-View Era in WWE ended as well as it could have. The WWE Network Era picked up right where Elimination Chamber left off and dropped perhaps the best WrestleMania in the event's 30 year history. I may be basking in the heat of the moment, but this show may only have X-7 to beat out. Top to bottom, every match or segment had something I could hang my hat upon. Even the Undertaker/Brock Lesnar match, which was ghastly and plodding, had the shock moment of Taker losing The Streak, fans reacting as if a family member had died, and then the overwhelming feeling of gratitude towards a wrestler who probably just worked his final match sweeping across a world of fans, not just an arena or a country.

But as one run seemingly ended, another hit a short-term resolution and a long-term climax. Daniel fucking Bryan, for whatever reason, completed an epic eight-month arc and simultaneously cemented himself among the immortals. His ending was one that wasn't guaranteed from the moment he was screwed out of the Championship at SummerSlam if one were to believe everything he or she might read in a newsletter or on bandwidth. However, his was the most appropriate and the one that was most destined to happen. Forget SummerSlam or Hell in a Cell. Bryan's destiny to headline and ultimately gain eternal glory at WrestleMania was written on the first episode of NXT, when he laid out his dreams. No matter how craggy the path or crooked the pavement, Bryan got there as he was foretold to have arrived.

Catharsis is a funny thing sometimes. You can keep sending an audience down detours and through roadblocks, but if you don't pay the moment off at the right time, those consumers may just bail on the journey. I was prepared for Bryan's delayed payoff to take him through to WrestleMania, but I will admit that even I started to have doubts when Shawn Michaels put his boot in Bryan's face at the end of Hell in a Cell. I don't want to give WWE too much credit here, because I don't know its inner workings and whether the braintrust came to this decision before SummerSlam or after CM Punk walked out. No matter what, the important thing is that everything worked out, whether on purpose or out of necessity.

But this 30th edition of Mania served as the ideal for so many other components, both old and young. Whether Antonio Cesaro throwing out Big Show to win the Andre the Giant Battle Royale (and a trophy that Jack Swagger no doubt is going to destroy on RAW tomorrow/tonight) or Mr. T and Rowdy Roddy Piper publicly embracing after a long and bitter cold war, events happened on this show that meant something, that felt befitting of the "last event" on the WWE calendar for the year. WWE has had the "night after" Mania as its own personal New Year's Day down pat for awhile, but Manias often have felt anticlimactic.

But with the three biggest stars in company history kicking off the show, every match having some kind of greater meaning, and so many stories being paid off with some kind of intermediate or final resolution, WrestleMania XXX actually felt, to me at least, the way an idealized Mania should. Ask me in a couple of years how I feel about this show, but in an instant feedback-sort of way, I can't think of any show that was definitely better. It certainly was the best show of the last five or six years by far, and it certainly befit the landmark anniversary that it happened to coincide upon.

The 2013 TWB 100 Announcement and Call for Ballots

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Time to take count of the actual in-ring wrestling this year
Photo Credit: WWE.com
Hello, everyone, and welcome to this year's TWB 100! For those who don't know, the 100 is a crowd-sourced, fan-voted list that looks to rank wrestlers from the last calendar year on their merits in the ring. This is the fifth year of the list's existence. Participation in this year's proceedings will be open to anyone who wants to join in the fun. How does one participate in generating the final list? I'm glad you asked:

  1. The TWB 100 is based solely on a wrestler's performance between the bells in any wrestling contest. This includes move variety, execution, workrate, selling, bumping, trash-talking and anything else that happens within the course of a wrestling match. Anything that happens in promos or segments outside the confines of a wrestling match should NOT be considered for ballot entries. It is also advised against using match booking in deciding placement on the ballot (i.e. don't use "well he/she wins too much" as rationale against their placement), but I also understand that it's hard to divorce the concept of wins and losses from match ability sometimes.
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  2. Content to be considered for ballots must have taken place between 1/1/13 at 12:00:00 AM to 12/31/13 at 11:59:59 PM inclusive, i.e. within the calendar year of 2013. Consideration should also be limited to matches held in the United States and Canada, or by promotions that were based in United States and Canada only. For the sake of those who watch wrestling from Puerto Rico, yes, that island should be considered as part of the United States for this exercise.
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  3. Ballots shall have a minimum of 25 wrestlers named in order and a maximum of 100 wrestlers named in order. Ballots between those two numbers inclusive will be accepted with no questions, as long as they are ranked in order. Ballots with 24 or fewer and unordered ballots will be thrown out. Ballots with 101 or more will be pared down to 100.
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  4. No demarcation shall exist between male or female wrestlers. For the purposes of this ballot, anyone who wrestled in an eligible promotion for the time period given shall be considered eligible regardless of race, creed, gender, sexual orientation, size, weight class, or even species (I see you, ISW).
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  5. If you want to list a tag team,you must list the individual members and NOT the unit. So, if you want to include the Briscoes, then list Mark and Jay as separate entries on your list, not "The Briscoes" as one entry. All entries for a stable or tag team will be ignored on said ballot (or at the very least, I will e-mail you for clarification).
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  6. No eligibility requirements for submission of a ballot are in place. As long as the submitter likes and has watched wrestling in 2013, they're allowed to submit.
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  7. Ballots can be sent to me, TH, via any means necessary, either through e-mail (tom DOT holzerman AT gmail DOT com), Facebook messages, written letter (for those who know my address), Twitter DM (although that would be quite the waste of bandwidth!) or any other ways of private contact.
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  8. The due date for ballots shall be Sunday, April 13 at 11:59:59 PM local time.
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  9. The final list will be disseminated via slow release on TWB with blurbs written by ballot submitters. If you are interested in writing for the release, please let me know with your ballot. Your blurbs should be at least one paragraph explaining why you voted for that particular wrestler.
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  10. All ballots are subject to scrutiny by me, TH.
Those are the specifics. Remember, there are no right or wrong answers. If you think Davey Richards was the best overall wrestler north of the Rio Grande in 2013, vote him #1 on your ballot. If you only watched WWE, then send a ballot with all WWE guys. The same is true if you only watched Chikara, ACW, TNA, ROH, or any other promotion. If you watched a variety of promotions, represent! This list is meant to capture a snapshot of our corner of the Internet, as well as prod for discussion and shed light on wrestlers that may not be as well-known in the community. Also, don't be afraid to volunteer for writing for the slow-release list. Your blurbs provide insight into what you think, and maybe you can shed light on why certain wrestlers are so popular or what you think makes a match good.

Please get in your ballots as soon as you can, and help spread the word!

The One Where I Talked about the Undertaker's Final WrestleMania Win

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Photo Credit: WWE.com
Episode 21: CM Punk

Robert Fuller of Lo-Down Wrestling was gracious enough to have me on his series of podcasts on The Streak again, this time for last year's match against CM Punk. We talk about the build-up and whether the story crossed any lines after Paul Bearer's death. We also discuss why having Paul Heyman as a manager for Punk was a brilliant move and how it figured into this match, as well as whether The Streak should ever be broken. Obviously, we recorded this show before said Streak was broken last night by Brock Lesnar though. Anyway, give it a listen, and give all his episodes a try too. He's had a lot of really cool people on to talk Undertaker rasslin' matches at Mania.

From the Archives: Undertaker vs. Batista, WrestleMania XXIII

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Are you still sad that Undertaker lost his Streak last night? Don't be too bummed. All things must pass, and in your heart of hearts, you knew he had to lose it. Whether you agree he should have lost to Brock Lesnar or not is a different matter however. Still, reflect on happier times. Watch Taker take out Batista here. You like when Batista loses, right? Soothe thy jangled nerves!

The 2013 Match Countdown, Part 1: A Front-Loaded Beginning

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Kicking off the year with a bang
Photo Credit: WWE.com
Welcome to the unveiling of my top 100 matches of 2013! I will be releasing them in chronological order, 20 a day, this week, so stay tuned. Like with every year, if you don't see a match on here that you thought should be listed, either I didn't see it, or I didn't think it belonged in my top 100. Anyway, I will get started with the first RAW of 2013. A lot of excellent in-ring action happened in January, including the independent farewell of an icon, the rise of a non-figurative goat, and the first big women's wrestling event of the year. Enjoy!

CM Punk (c) vs. Ryback, WWE Championship Tables Ladders and Chairs Match, RAW, 1/7 - See highlights here!
In his first televised match back since suffering a seemingly major knee injury, Punk went balls to the wall, ostensibly transposing the match he would have had with Ryback at TLC onto the first RAW of the year. The guy went through tables and mangled ladders for our entertainment, and he proved that pipe bombs might be the second most dangerous weapon in his entertainment arsenal. I applaud the risks Ryback took in the match too, especially the table-broken power bomb into the steps from The Shield at the end. The overbooking was necessary and full of the chaotic zest we’ve come to expect from the marauders in Bossman’s old gear. Punk hobbling up the ladder at the end on one side was a brilliant touch to a fantastic first title defense of 2013.

AR Fox (c) vs. Lucky tHURTeen, Wired Television Championship Match, CZW Ascension, 1/12
This particular CZW show featured very little in the way of ultraviolent hardcore stuff, but what it lacked in the chair shots and blood was made up for by Fox and tHURTeen in terms of bumps and high spots in this match. The match had apron bumps and plentiful dives to the outside. tHURTeen went full accordion when Fox hit him with the basement double hizas in the back of his head, which looked like it hurt more than every crash to the floor taken during the entire match. When you can get the signature bump in a match when your opponent is Fox, you’re doing something right.

Matt and Nick Jackson vs. Ricochet and Rich Swann, PWG DDT4 First Round Match, PWG DDT4, 1/12
For the second year in a row, the opening match of DDT4 was the best match on the show. Going into the match, the teams looked on paper to be a bit too similar in makeup. Both squads had reputations for dazzling high-flying acrobatics, and both teams also bring the dickishness to the table in the ring. As the match unfolded though, the Inner City Machine Guns were able to channel into that babyface fire. The Bucks do have a way of bringing it out of even the unlikeliest teams though.

Sometimes, the Bucks helped through dastardly deeds in the ring. The Brothers Jackson set the tone with a Pearl Harbor. From there, their repertoire included all the requisite eye pokes, back rakes, Chris Jericho-inspired haughty pins, air guitar, and of course, superkicks upon superkicks upon superkicks. The piece de resistance of their physical heeldom came when Nick pulled out a guitar handle laser pointer, played air guitar with it, and then used the business end of it to blind Swann. The Bucks also rode the hairy edge in helping to get the Guns cheered. At one point, Nick shushed the crowd so he could utter a racial slur at Swann, while later on, Matt called Swann “boy.” Obviously, as a longtime viewer of PWG, I got the intent. So did the crowd, as the Guns got a lot of sympathy out of it.

Then again, when Swann and Ricochet can do mind-bending high spots, why risk alienating casual observers and first-time viewers with that kind of heeling? I guess the arguments for either side are too long and drawn out for a single match writeup. And again, Swann and Ricochet totally showed how baller they can be in this match. Whether they displayed pyrotechnic mastery through inside-out kip ups into double ace crushers by Swann or Ricochet flying OVER the ring post to the outside on a plancha, these dudes can fly. They were able to match the Bucks perfectly, and when you can go blow for blow with the best tag team in the known cosmos, then there’s a great shot you’re having the match of the night.

Devin Chen: Pro Wrestling Guerrilla &emdash;
Adios, amigo
Photo Credit: Devin Chen
Matt and Nick Jackson (c) vs. Kevin Steen and El Generico, PWG World Tag Team Championship DDT4 Final Match, PWG DDT4, 1/12
Watching this match unfold felt like watching the last five years of Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, no, the last five years of indie wrestling come to a close. When a man leaves the scene and it feels like a season finale, you know he meant a whole mess to the fans, viewers, and co-workers he was leaving behind (but not really leaving behind). El Generico, after having spent the last two matches reconciling with and reestablishing mojo with his rival-turned-friend-turned-blood-enemy Kevin Steen, would now stand in union against the greatest evil in PWG, the Young Bucks.

Every beat was revisited: visceral hatred between the brothers and the French Canadians, Rick Knox throwing superkicks, Steen using the apron as aggressive chiropracty for one of the Jacksons. The Bucks even summarized what was the Steen’s relationship with Generico in the last three years by trying to solicit thanks from him for taking out Generico. When Steen spat in both of their faces, I felt the American Legion shake with approval over the long void of both space and time. That moment was met with Generico getting inside-cradled as a counter to the brainbuster end of the classic Steenerico combo finish, of course, because pro wrestling doesn’t let you leave one stage to go to the next one victoriously. In the moment, I wanted to see Generico and Steen go out on top, but when the dust cleared, was it more important that the team won, or that Steen and Generico embraced after the decision was over? If your answer is the former, then I have to apologize on the fundamental disagreement that you and I have on the art of professional wrestling.

Trevor Lee (c) vs. Chiva Kid, CWF Television Championship, OMEGA Chinlock for Chuck, 1/15 - Watch it here!
CWF Mid-Atlantic lent its Television Championship to an OMEGA-promoted fundraiser, and old young rivals Chiva Kid and Trevor Lee were tasked with chewing up some time for the benefit of raising money for a lymphoma patient. Both brought their A-games in a short but satisfying low-card match on the show for Lee’s Championship. The Champ worked in a lot of classic heel shtick, including strongman posing and rubbing the elbow into the gut during a seated cobra twist. Chiva’s pyrotechnics are just amazing, but he always segues into them smoothly and in context. Even when he’s about to eat some knees and get rolled up, like he did at the end of the match, Chiva’s aerial acumen is always fluid and unpredictable.

Cremator von Slasher vs. Mantasia, Hellion Reaper, Breaker Iton, and Lak Siddhartha, Gauntlet Match, ECCW Pocopalooza, 1/18 - Watch it here!
I had very low expectations going into this match, especially when I saw how gangly and hossy the Cremator was. Gauntlet matches tend to stink, quite frankly. I was very surprised to see that the Cremator was very much a mobile, new-school hoss. He knew how to work big, was sprightly, and knew how to play the crowd. His foils, all absurdly named, knew their roles perfectly. My favorite fall was definitely the second one, as Hellion Reaper had his bumping shoes on, and his offense against Cremator was sharp.

I dug the psychology with the conclusion. Iton knew he wasn’t going to win, so he got DQed on purpose with a cane attack, setting up for the girthy and ferocious Siddhartha. The two had me going until the end with a well-played counter from the chokeslam into the F5. I thought for sure Cremator would win, but hey, I’m cool with changing up the tropes here and there

Mike Cruz (c) vs. Vordell Walker, Florida People’s Championship Match, Vintage Wrestling WrestleBrawl 4, 1/19 - Watch it here!
Selling a limb means you sell it on offense as well as defense. When Mike Cruz drapes your leg over the second rope and kicks that rope to make the vibrations wreak havoc on your quadriceps, you sell that shit whether he’s got you in the single leg crab or whether you’re trying to get him up for a powerbomb. Luckily, Vordell Walker has been around the block a couple of times, and he can set an example for the youngsters starting out. Sure, he DID bust out his Backlund-short arm scissor and buckle-bombed Cruz out of the feat of strength after the leg incident. However, canvassing those HOSS moments within prolonged display of the struggle is what makes those kinds of things special.

We’re not even getting into the beginning of the match that saw the two scrap on the mat as if Sylvester Stallone were directing them in a movie about amateur wrestling but taking the same liberties with the in-ring action as he did with the boxing in Rocky. Being as though I’m a huge fan of Fred Yehi, I didn’t find that to be a bad thing. Cruz’s near-flawless transition of ducking a leap frog into the single crab that got him the tap out win at the end of the match was the perfect punctuation on the action as well. All in all, the two competitors here took the ten minutes allotted to them, told a story around Walker’s leg, and dressed it with just enough ancillary action to create an archetypical midcard contest. I’d say that the match was a success.

Kyle Matthews (c) vs. Vordell Walker, RPW Television Championship Match, Rampage Rumble/Rampage TV, 1/20
I had high hopes for this match when I heard it was going down, and it didn’t disappoint, despite the bullshit finish. I understand why some might be nonplussed with a great, hard-hitting title defense ending in disqualification. It’s wrestling blue balls. But I thought the announcers did a good job framing WHY Adonis would come out and ensure that Walker, the guy who leapfrogged him in the pecking order for the title, didn’t win the match while weakening Matthews for when he got his shot. Then again, I’m weird. But you know what doesn’t make me weird? Liking everything that led up to this finish.

The beginning of the match held a lot of that great scrapping where it actually feels like the wrestlers are really fighting rather than displaying. Hard mat wrestling always gets a pop from me. They moved into heat segments, and here’s where Walker shone brightest, working over the Champ with ferocity and cockiness. AT one point, Walker had Matthews draped over the second rope and made him clap his own hands in mocking crowd riling. Matthews’ comebacks were on point as well, a great counterweight to Walker’s looming, bruising presence.

Then they started dropping the big bombs on each other at the end. Again, after seeing these guys bust out their signatures for near falls, the DQ finish might have seemed very anticlimactic, and without context, I would agree. But again, like I wrote to start the recap, I bought it because of the story.

TaDarius Thomas vs. Kyle O’Reilly, Heritage Championship Tournament First Round Match, AAW The Chaos Theory, 1/25
Certain tropes within the “super indie” promotions that are visited by “the usual suspects” have gotten supremely tiring to me. I don’t necessarily think they’re bad in and of themselves for the most part, but when I see them pop up in every match, I lament the utter vacuum of creativity in laying out matches. However, these overused strategies can be used to great effect if the two men in the ring are toeing a fine line or injecting some much-appreciated purpose behind using those certain tropes.

The chestnut in question, which to me is one of the most annoying in the history of wrestling, is the “you hit me, I hit you, and we’re not even gonna try to block each other” exchange that has proliferated far and wide throughout the roads traveled by alumni of Gabe-land and Ring of Honor. Thomas and O’Reilly partook in several during this match, but the way they built the story of their match around the idea and progressed logically made a tired old trope look brilliant. The first go-around was your typical macho bravado exchange bit, but even that was peppered in with creativity, thanks to Thomas’ unique offense grounded in capoeira. The second one saw them blocking each other’s kicks with their shins, only to fall over after they couldn’t take anymore. The third finally had them punch drunk, on spaghetti legs reeling because they couldn’t defend themselves and could only look towards getting the knockout blow.

Both competitors brought some other goods to the table, Thomas with his aforementioned capoeira-based offense that plays so well in a professional wrestling ring, and O’Reilly breaking out some unique submissions (including one with a fishhook, which as many who are familiar with my tastes know is my favorite move ever). But the infusion of psychology and intelligence into a match strategy that has become as trite as the Irish whip without the charm proves that maybe the tools aren’t broken, but the way people use them and how often they are utilized is more to blame.

ACH vs. Prince Ali, Heritage Championship Tournament First Round Match, AAW The Chaos Theory, 1/25
ACH was involved in the best match on an indie card. If you’re surprised by that statement, then you haven’t been reading me for that long, have you? In this opening round tournament action (a tournament that, spoiler alert, ACH would ultimately win), the best unsigned wrestler in the country went up against Prince Ali, a wrestler highly regarded before injuries derailed his career, and the results were electric.

ACH did all the things that he’s acclaimed for in this match. He broke out the trademark high-flying offense, and hit every single one of his spots with his signature panache. What impressed me most from him, however, were his facial expressions, the looks on his face when Ali got the advantages in the match (and Ali spent a LOT of time on offense). Every kick-out was met with wide eyed disbelief. In fact, a lot of the looks he was shooting reminded me of the various screen grabs of Donald Glover that I’ve seen from Community. All in all, this match may have been the best one I’ve seen from ACH to date doing things outside of his pyrotechnic offense. He sold, he bumped, and he did the little things to help get Ali over.

For his credit, Ali was an ideal opponent for ACH here. He was fast enough to keep pace with ACH in the ring, and therefore was able to stay believable on offense despite being the same size. His timing on dosey-dos and exchanges was nearly perfect, and his moveset was a good mix of the traditional and some innovation. He broke out an inverted Go To Sleep that looked infinitely better than the ones KENTA or CM Punk are using. Overall, this match served as a great continuation point for ACH from his lights-out 2012 and a fabulous reintroduction for Prince Ali. It basically what everything in a showcase match should have been.

Arik Royal (c) vs. Cedric Alexander, CWF Mid-Atlantic Championship, CWF-MA Show, 1/26 - Watch it here!
In my dream version of Ring of Honor, Cedric Alexander and ACH are locked in mortal rivalry over the World Championship. Unless either guy gets poached by WWE in the coming months, that scenario might be in play. Until then, Alexander will just have to dazzle in ROH and in other excellent indie promotions like CWF Mid-Atlantic against able opponents like the hossy Champion, Arik Royal. Royal was impressive in spots here. I thought taking a clothesline-takedown bump on the apron was pretty fearless, and he combined his natural HOSS essence with some agile big man stuff.

Alexander, however, was the star of the show, doing both the major stuff and the little things that put matches such as these over the top. The crowd was doing the dueling chant thing (so much so that the announcers thought it might favor Alexander because of his ROH experience), so Alexander heeled it up to get them behind Royal. He dropped the Champ with a snap suplex and sold his lower back being hurt because of the size difference. After nailing Royal with his signature half-nelson lungblower and failing to get the pin after it, the look on his face sold the entire story.

Against a lesser opponent, Alexander might have dragged the quality of match from “bad” to “passable,” but again, Royal brought enough to the table to elevate this match from “good” to “great.” This match was a fitting main event, and it helped solidify Royal’s title reign in its early stages. However, the work that Alexander put into losing this match the way he did are signs of a transcendent talent.

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Two masters going at it once more
Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein
Green Ant vs. Mike Quackenbush, Wrestling Is Respect Rebirth, 1/27
Green Ant and Quack don’t wrestle the typical style of independent wrestling match. Every single one of their notable matches over the years have opened their respective shows, whether it be We Must Eat Michigan’s Brain or The Thirteenth Hat, and they’ve all set tones for their cards without the high spots, the head drops, or even anything approaching a visceral hatred (outside of the chippiness at the end of that middle match in the trilogy). This third match between the two was more of the same, yet it felt evolved.

The World of Sport style lends itself to roughness around the edges, but this match progressed from the unstable, clawing-and-grabbing into some slick exchanges, including an extended Greco-Roman knuckle lock sequence with knee presses and monkey flips. Green Ant showed off some of his brute, sheer strength, as he rolled through into an O’Connor roll on Quack while the mentor seemed to go limp like a bag of flour. Of course, right after the feat of strength, Quack elbowed him in the mush, but hey, these kinds of matches are topsy-turvy.

I dug the Chikara Special teases the most out of all the chestnuts because they exposed an underlying hubris, especially on Quack’s part, and savviness on Greenie’s part. It led to another great feat of strength in the HOSSY stretch muffler. But for the bravado, Quack pulling off the victory at the end with the seatbelt pin combo was a great shock finish, and it gave the excuse to have another match in the series. If any series could pull that kind of “leave ‘em wanting more” kind of finish successfully, this one would fit that bill.

The Royal Rumble Match (30 Wrestlers), Royal Rumble, 1/27
This write-up originally was printed in my review for the Rumble event.
From the moment when the lights went out and the all-too-classic theme song hit with Dolph Ziggler shitting his pants at the man he sent packing from WWE five months prior coming out until the anticlimactic finish, the Rumble match this year took back its throne as the entertaining junk food plate it had been for the two years prior to 2012's aberration of a stinker. There are going to be a lot of people out there who will take that finish and use it as justification for hating the match. Personally, I hold no ill-will to those because everyone's opinions work in a different way than mine do. However, I'm a process-over-results guy myself, and how we got to the end was terrific.

First, all the surprises were legitimate surprises. I was so glad that none of the "spoilers" turned out to be correct because the ones we got, Chris Jericho, Goldust, and even The Godfather, turned out to be great cameo appearances. Jericho did some major work, lasting nearly as long as Ziggler did. Goldust immediately worked in synergy with his little brother, and there was left open the door for a match in the future between the two. Godfather... well, he lasted as long as he should have, and really, what was more valuable, his in-ring or his entrance? I'll leave you to answer that to yourselves.

The people who were supposed to be there though, they were the ones who shone brightest. Whether it was Santino Marella acting like he was the big shot in the beginning and sheepishly putting on his Cobra in an attempt to write the check that his body language tried to cash. There was the ballad of Bo Dallas, who is at least going to get a cup of coffee against RED BELLY out of his performance. There was Dolph Ziggler entering first and making it to the final four, almost building to that crescendo when he goes one hour strong and finally wins this thing like Shawn Michaels. There was Ryback meathooking dudes left and right. Kofi Kingston put his Boston College education to work with an office chair. And how the fuck could anyone forget Daniel Bryan dumping Kane over the top rope, only to let his old Team Uppercut buddy Antonio Cesaro dump him right into the arms of his tag partner, begging futilely for mercy?

There was a lot to love about this Rumble match. A lot. While Cena winning left a bitter taste in my mouth, everything else that preceded it was able to dull that blow. I know this sounds like damning with faint praise, but I did enjoy myself during that match, and there's nothing better than having a fun, fast-paced Rumble match with big surprises and huge moments.

Chiva Kid and Arik Royal vs. Trevor Lee and Ric Converse, National Pro Wrestling Day, 2/2
This write-up originally was printed in my review for NPWD.
You don't know how psyched I was to see that a match from a company and wrestlers I wasn't already familiar with stole the show. I was hoping to come out of the show remembering new faces for tearing the house down, and well, the quartet from CWF Mid-Atlantic gave me just that, especially Chiva Kid. The goat-masked competitor basically put on something of a virtuoso performance, bumping around the ring like a pinball, flying on his own volition, throwing kicks, and pulling off one of the sweetest double rotation moonsaults I've ever seen in my life. But even though Chiva was the breakout star of the entire day, he had a very good supporting cast to make this match the best of a day where at least three or four other matches could've taken that mantel.

The match started off a bit slowly with the rudos trying to feel out Royal. There were a few missteps, but they were easily forgivable. When Chiva got into the match, things started picking up. I felt like he got everyone going, especially Converse, who went into hoss mode. After Royal tagged back in, he looked a lot more comfortable as well. Lee may have been the under the radar star here, with his antics, trash talking, and crowd play.

After the show was over though, Bryce Remsburg said that Chiva was "made" after this match. Given that he won over fans like me and the trolls alike, I would be inclined to agree. That might be the case if he had just hit double moonsault, but he was excellent during the whole match. CWF Mid-Atlantic sent the right four wrestlers.

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ME GUSTA RANDY ORTON
Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein
Ice Cream Jr., El Hijo del Ice Cream, Icarus, and Chuck Taylor vs. Fire Ant, Green Ant, Shane Matthews, and Scott Parker, National Pro Wrestling Day, 2/2 - Watch it here!
If there ever was a time when we needed a Chikara atomico to cleanse our palate of terrible, awful worst wrestling, it was here. Whether it was Icarus lampooning the idea of the hot tag early on in the match, Scott Parker blinding an Ice Cream with a cape and then being the one to miss a spot, or the interminably awesome and eminently quotable “ME GUSTA RANDY ORTON” uttered by Ice Cream Jr. with Parker in a chinlock, it was a fun match needed to reenergize a crowd that had just been socked in the face with misogyny. I’ve always said Chikara 8-man tags are the safest matches to put on, and this delivered.

Fred Yehi vs. Corey Hollis, Platinum Championship Wrestling House Show, 2/2 - Watch it here!
No matter how many times I watch Yehi go to the mat in his edgy, stiff, amateur-and-counter-based repertoire, his matches always feel like something new. The nature of that style is beautiful in that regard. When counters and hold exchanges interspersed and chained together, the combinations and permutations are boundless. Everything feels fresh. Even Davey Richards’ tired old shtick gets a fresh coat of paint with Yehi letting the match go through him.

Corey Hollis is no Davey Richards. He’s way better. In June 2012, he had an awesome match with Yehi when PCW was still under Imperial auspices. The sequel in 2013 went past the bar they had set eight months prior. Hollis and Yehi still went hold for hold in the first act of the match. To watch these two young lions go hard, from the opening volley when Hollis innocently tried a drop toe hold that Yehi countered by simply dropping to one knee, all the way through to Hollis’ heat segment.

There, he threw in a bit of Southern home heel cookin’ into his next-level mat work. Yehi may have done his best job of working underneath that I had seen to date. No longterm selling was in play here, but a match can be great without limb work or without having to hold a body part like it was about to fall off. Control the pace, and you’ll be fine. Hollis and Yehi here laid out a finely tempoed match with a nice finish, Yehi countering a far-too-slowly executed Styles Clash into his STO/Koji Clutch combo match ender.

Daniel Bryan vs. Rey Mysterio, RAW, 2/4 - See highlights here!
This match should be a WrestleMania main event. It won’t, because Rey Mysterio’s time with WWE is growing shorter, but man, this was a tasty match nonetheless. It built off their tag match from Smackdown a few days prior with a lot of the counters they were pulling off, especially the forearm counter to Bryan’s plancha attempt. It was so unlike Mysterio to pop an elbow in there instead of a jumping kick, but that’s what makes him so great. He’s adaptable as all get out and knows not every time is appropriate for a big jumpy move. I’m really digging the tombstone inverted codebreaker that Bryan has started to use against Mysterio as well. The finish was like TH-porn – a top rope move missing and segueing smoothly into the NO! Lock. Give me this match on pay-per-view with 15 minutes, and it’ll blow everyone’s minds.

CM Punk vs. Chris Jericho, RAW, 2/4 - Watch it here!
A year later, and this match’s roles were reversed. While they blew the roofs off arenas last year, with the shoes on the others’ feet, it felt like Jericho and Punk were better fits for each other. Jericho almost never fit as a good guy in the ring, but against Punk in this stage of his career, he found his perfect rival. They complemented each other so well; even when Punk misstepped as he’s wont to with his flying elbow, Jericho was right there to bring beauty and form back into the match with a picture perfect Lionsault. I could watch these two scrap all night, and Punk may have hit his best flash roundhouse kick to the skull in this match.

Kalamity vs. Cherry Bomb, WSU An Ultraviolent Affair, 2/9
This match would have been good regardless if both women were silent. Cherry Bomb elevated it to “worthy of mention” through her constant chirping in the match. Great shit-talking can do a lot to enhance a match. It’s a reason why Mark Henry is so good at what he do. Cherry Bomb was the prototypical heel in all facets of the game in this match though. She stalled, she gouged, she licked her palm before striking Kalamity in the chest. It was all sublime. Kalamity’s facial expressions sold a lot for me as well. She has a reputation of being a straight up strong style wrestler, and yeah, she totally brought that to the table here. But this might have been the best I’ve seen of her in my limited exposure.

Jessicka Havok (c) vs. Athena, WSU Championship Match, WSU An Ultraviolent Affair, 2/9
This write-up originally was printed in my review for An Ultraviolent Affair.
They tore the remains of the house down that Jazz and Rachel Summerlyn did most of the work on at Queen of Queens last year. This time, they were the ones who brought the place down all by themselves. In the rare case where the sequel was better than the original, Athena and Jessicka Havok may have thrown gasoline on the fire lit that could turn out to be one of wrestling's great modern rivalries.

The match had a classic bully/underdog feel to it, with Havok as the brash, mouthy Champion asserting her dominance in unique and painful-looking ways. The way she moved seamlessly from tortuous move into even more excruciating variants. She turned a camel clutch (where she was biting Athena's neck) into a backbreaker into a lariat. She combined submissions and strikes like she was a medieval dungeonmaster. Maybe the most spiteful and awful thing she did was lock Athena into another camel clutch, scream "I'M GOING FOR HER WEAVE!" and try to rip her hair out while face-washing her on the mat. Those verbal taunts though, man, they were best touches. She hurled screaming obscenities and taunts to Athena as she was trying to break her. Evil that lets you know its evil is the best kind, and Havok certainly let Athena know the providence of her intentions. Spoiler alert, it was baaaaad.

But for every barbed prong Havok shoved at Athena, the Wrestling Goddess had something to throw back at her. It was mostly her kicks, especially a single leg dropkick she went back to time and time again. At times, her comebacks were lightning quick, whether it was coming out of nowhere to sweep out Havok's leg into a heel hook, or trying like hell to get away from Havok's death grip and slid under her into a pumphandle hold. Her pluck would be the end of her. As she climbed the top for her O-Face, Havok intercepted her, thumped her to the mat with an avalanche Air Raid Crash, and put her down to even their series at two. That being said, I wouldn't mind if they went 2,000 matches.

Tomorrow, the countdown will arrive at last year's WrestleMania.

The Wrestling Blog's OFFICIAL Best in the World Rankings, April 7

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YES! YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!
Photo Credit: WWE.com
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. Daniel Bryan (Last Week: 1) - He had a good week, I guess.

2. AJ Lee (Last Week: 3) - Neither rain nor sleet nor cougar's whim could keep the Divas Championship off Lee's waist last night. Also, she still has Kaitlyn, err, I'm sorry, Celeste Bonin's Savage Garden CD. VICTORY IS AJ'S!

3. Athena (Last Week: 2) - Oh, no big deal, Athena's only becoming the go-to wrestler for the match of the card at SHIMMER. I heard she's even found a way to get greater than infinite amounts of SWAG, which should be scientifically impossible. I'm beginning to wonder if SWAG is even quantifiable. THIS DISCOVERY COULD BREAK OPEN THE ENTIRE FIELD OF YOLONOMIC PHYSICS.

4. Paul Orndorff (Last Week: Not Ranked) - I almost missed what went on in that final segment before the main event last night because my gaze was transfixed on Mr. Wonderful's moustache. Last night held a lot of wonderment and shattered the perceptions of what a great WrestleMania could be, but the most awe-inspiring feat was a man with even more impressive facial hair than Zeb Colter coming on the scene.

5. Chiles Rellenos (Last Week: Not Ranked)OFFICIAL HOLZERMAN HUNGERS SPONSORED ENTRY - Las Margaritas in Northeast Philly has the absolute best rellenos I've ever tasted, and I had one for lunch last week. I find it impossible to have a bad day when I eat one of those.

6. Ivelisse Velez (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Velez wrestled and won so many times this weekend, I thought she was going to cash in some kind of Money in the Bank briefcase and walk out of the Superdome with the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.

7. Amy Schumer (Last Week: Not Ranked) - David Letterman announced his retirement this week, and the fact that Schumer's name came up from multiple commentators, fans, and critics is a great sign. She's ready to hold down a late night desk, and I even think it would be a great opportunity to debut the hottest new segment in late night, the Dolph Ziggler Butt Wiggle of the Week.

8. Mark Henry (Last Week: 6) - Henry's targeting of Rey Mysterio wasn't big-on-little dude bulling. Rather, Mysterio owes Henry a lot of money on a March Madness pool, and Henry's threatening to throw him into the sea if he doesn't pay up. He already launched Dominic into Baffin Bay. Moral of the story? Pay up Mark Henry when he demands it.

9. Aaron Harrison (Last Week: 7) - Another game, another big shot. The only reason he dropped in the rankings is because I'm not prepared to live in a world where John Calipari has multiple national Championships.

10. Sara del Rey (Last Week: 10) - SARA DEL REY FACT: In honor of Daniel Bryan's big WrestleMania moment, del Rey purchased him a sack full of apples and a mug that says "World's Best Teacher."

Instant Feedback: We Are All Heyman Guys and No One Is a Heyman Guy

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Someone check to see if Heyman's tongue is actually made of silver
Photo Credit: WWE.com
Paul Heyman was the most hated man in the building. Paul Heyman was the biggest hero to the crowd. One man sparked a wildfire of cognitive dissonance within a wildly enthusiastic crowd. The idea of alignment may not be dead, but Heyman has now become the mascot for its shrinking relevance. Granted, a post-Mania crowd is hardly a good-faith test subject. The fans at a given post-Mania show are a pastiche of those fans, the ones who do things like #HijackRAW or chant for JBL, and WWE's narrative may have empowered them to act out. Then again, the same fans who went nuts when Antonio Cesaro announced he was a Paul Heyman guy had just gotten done throatily booing the same mouthpiece for BRAWK LESNARRRRRR and his annihilation of the Undertaker's Streak.

The big question will be asked of the vocal minority (majority?) that is setting policy for crowds to follow in the future. Are these fans becoming smarter, so to speak? Not smart in the way that the hot take slingers of the Twitter/blog world refer to hardcore fans, but smart as in perceptive. Is the genpop developing nuance, or more crudely, are they able to compartmentalize better and realize that the people aren't painted in all black or all white anymore. If crowd intelligence evolves to a point where the most vocal people within said crowds start to cheer or boo causes rather than names on the marquee, then wrestling itself might be able to evolve into forms unenvisioned by even the most forward-thinking critics.

Whether the company leads towards a more complex system of alignment, the crowds are signifying a sea change. Notice that both last night and in the early stages of the trios match tonight, the Greek chorus didn't chant "CENA SUCKS!" in response to the "LET'S GO CENA!" chants. Those calls were strictly pro-Wyatt. Of course, vestigial "CENA SUCKS!" chants happened tonight, but those catcalls will need to peter out rather than die cold-turkey. Still, fans are starting to cling to corporeal forms, not just the absence of the bodies of the existing stars. Now, more than any time, is a key point in the timeline to gamble and try the concept of an outright tweener.

I would be remiss without noting that Heyman is not the first person to try such an amphoteric approach to character execution. Triple H straddled the fence, and he failed miserably. Then again, Heyman could read The Scarlet Letter on a live mic and have the crowd thinking it was an interesting piece of literature instead of insipid bullshit foisted upon high school students. Then again, the key for this whole machine to keep working lies in an old Heyman booking philosophy. You play to strengths and hide weaknesses. Luckily for WWE, Heyman's biggest weakness is hidden as long as he's kept out of accounting.

Triple H is at his best as the rolling tank with the exposed exhaust port, something he's shown over the last two days. He can't be the evil dick in one breath and the benevolent boss in the other. Heyman, conversely, is such a snake oil salesman, an opportunist if you will, that he can inflict selective amnesia on any group of people. He can be the advocate for the man who broke the hearts of Undertaker fans everywhere and the rock upon which the King of Swing (and Wrestling, and Trios) can build his palace. Every wrestling fan is a Paul Heyman Guy, and simultaneously, none of us should ever want to be a Paul Heyman guy ever again. When you have a performer who can create that dual reality, then of course making a lush grayscale palette is going to look easy as boiling water.

The Future Is Here?

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Photo Credit: WWE.com
Paige made her long-awaited main roster debut last night on RAW with a mighty splash. Taking advantage of AJ Lee's hubris, she won the Divas Championship in her first match and set off a reaction among fans both live in the arena and on Twitter more raucous and energetic than some male singles title switches. While my excitement is dampened by the perpetual state of second class citizenry of women on RAW, I find it hard to be a complete wet blanket, especially when Paige's mum got excited herself.

The Streak: An Appreciation

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21-1 forever
Photo Credit: WWE.com
A rumor floats around that the Undertaker was supposed to lose to Diesel at WrestleMania XII. Contract flux and Kevin Nash's impending exodus to WCW, however, gave the Undertaker his fifth win out of five tries at the big event. Thousands of fans in attendance at the Superdome Sunday and millions watching around the world on some kind of television apparatus would not have been stunned into silence, faces contorted into permanent gape, had Nash and Scott Hall not bolted to kick the Monday Night Wars into higher gear.

Examples such as the above, with the rider that the above rumor is true and not urban legend, show how the best tropes, stories, and results need to have supernatural fortune in order to bloom properly and take hold within the pantheon. Make no mistakes; The Streak belongs within the conversation of the most legendary long-term wrestling stories of the modern era. Winning streak angles oftentimes are boring and lazy ways to advance the narrative. They're the last resort for bookers and writers who don't have a clue on how to get wrestlers they like over. But Taker's WrestleMania win-loss record felt different. Rather than being defined by winning at Mania, he was defined by his stories, at least until WrestleMania XXV.

By that point, the Dead Man was working a part time schedule, and he had barely anything to offer outside of wrestling at Mania, but because he'd put in the career, he earned the right to cling to his undefeated mark at Mania as his in for the show. His match had become the de facto third World Championship match. If the aim is to make WrestleMania the most important show of the year, having a match that could only happen at that show with one of the most iconic wrestlers in company history is a good way to set it apart. The Streak was organic, and the wrestlers within were able to make it seem in jeopardy even when it wasn't.

So when Brock Lesnar hit the third F5 and actually got the three count, a moment that had been building for 23 years exploded. The people walking out of the Superdome, those who remained with stunned faces, those at home who swore they'd never watch WWE or even wrestling again, and those who soaked the moment in and immediately applauded it validated not only The Streak itself, but the Undertaker's career. Scant few wrestlers ever produce singular events in time that cut to the souls of everyone within a fanbase.

When Lesnar's victory sunk into my head, I swore that Lesnar was the wrong guy to break it. But then again, the emotional response to him in general proves me wrong. Would the gravitas have been there had Roman Reigns ended it? If Daniel Bryan had ended The Streak, would everyone continue to chant "YES! YES! YES!" and keep him as the folk hero WWE needs? Would Kane ending it with both riding off into the sunset have given the same validation? Ric Flair once said that he thought the nWo was a failure because the group never made anyone, and by that logic, Kane being the one to end The Streak or even Taker keeping it into retirement would have made it a creative and financial failure.

One could argue the need for a "part-timer" like Lesnar to break it being superfluous (as if the irony of people not realizing he works more matches in an average calendar year than Undertaker anymore isn't lost on those making that criticism), but right now, WWE has a vacuum of heels who can actually get raucous heel heat no matter who their opponent is. Triple H and the Authority can't feud with everyone. Fans seemed ambivalent towards Lesnar at best in a good way. His pops are always big, but he gets a mixed reaction during them. Having him as the guy to end The Streak makes him the big bad that WWE needs him to be in order to get the crowd reactions it wants for guys like Bryan, Antonio Cesaro, or maybe even a Big E Langston.

Regardless of the logic behind ending it or behind the person ending it, I will be sad to see The Streak go. As Taker rides into the sunset, he takes a huge part of what made WrestleMania the event it has become with him. Regardless of how good the match was, he at least always did his best to inject drama into it, thick, effective drama with minimal storyline effort to back it. Mania's not going to be the same without The Streak involved going forward, but at least it provided kicks and some cool matches before it ended.

Jeff Jarrett's New Promotion Is Called... Global Force Wrestling

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Graphics via SB Nation
Via Bill Hanstock of SB Nation, who broke the news

Jeff Jarrett's new wrestling promotion will be called Global Force Wrestling. No launch date has been announced, but Jarrett has already scouted 400 performers for his databases, and he promises an interactive, fan-driven experience. In an interview he gave to SB Nation, Jarrett said, "[WWE] have built a brand over the last 50, 60 years. And truly, [WrestleMania] weekend is the perfect example of just how global their brand is... There is definitely room, space for a brand new promotion to come on the scene... Our mission statement is going to be, right at the very top, that we are going to put out a professional wrestling product that listens to the fans, engages the fans. We are going to immerse ourselves with the wrestling fan and that is going to be first and foremost." That quote signifies that Jarrett looks to provide an alternative experience to the monolithic, "my way or the highway" approach WWE appears to take from time to time.

My thoughts on the matter, first, the name is pretty cheesy. Global Force Wrestling sounds like something out of the era in the '80s when the territories scrambled to go national in response to the WWF's expansion. With the above in mind, it is a hell of a lot better than the sex pun that was TNA's name. Jarrett also picked a great weekend to launch the first news of the promotion, as most people's eyes are on wrestling in the preparation and aftermath of WrestleMania. I can't speculate how the promotion will do based on a name and a press release; Jarrett named none of the names in his database, and the promotion doesn't have a start date, a venue, or any television announced yet. However, Jarrett doesn't exactly have a terrible track record here. TNA has been creatively awful, but the promotion has survived for over a decade. The other company Jarrett helped develop, Ring Ka King, was a stunning critical success as well as the highest rated wrestling program in the world at the time of its airing, thanks to India's hyper-inflated population.

While the website still needs work, I can't really be too critical or optimistic about GFW's future. The company is here, for better or worse, and it looks to attempt to compete right off the bat with TNA and ROH. Hopefully, Jarrett, his wife Karen, and whomever else they have working with them here get a good start out of the gate.

The 2013 Match Countdown: The Final Streak Win, Farewell Ayumi, and Don't Call Him Francis

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Bombs away, Y2J
Photo Credit: WWE.com
Part two of the countdown features three appearances from a dual-named wrestling phenomenon, a lot of California and Georgia action, and the final US match of an iconic joshi. Enjoy!

Frank O’Rourke vs. Sugar Dunkerton, Wrestling Is Art POP, 2/16
Wrestling Is Art's first event was led off by a match that exemplified how wrestling could be, well, art. Frank O'Rourke and Sugar Dunkerton, two guys dedicated to their crafts, went into the ring to prime the crowd, and they left the arena having stolen the show right from jump. It was a playful yet stiff encounter, and both men balanced playing the crowd and throwing bombs at each other in the ring, mainly centered around the crowd chanting "Francis!" at O'Rourke. Dunkerton also worked in some twerk-based striking, which might not have worked with a different wrestler. The two worked in some slick transitions, and Dunkerton getting the surprise win with the knee trembler at the end was surprising yet effective. This match was an excellent opener for a promotion, let alone a card.

Shaun Tempers vs. Kyle Matthews, Nightmare to Remember III, 2/16 - Watch it here!
Facial expressions can do more to sell an action than holding a body part, acting tired, or playing dead. I admit to have not “gotten” Tempers before I saw this match, but right away, flexing, grinning wide, and shaking his head back and forth to try and intimidate Matthews to start the match put me in the mood to watch the match more than a handshake or a clean collar and elbow exchange ever could. Whether he was gaping his maw wide open while being leveraged around the ring, slyly smirking whenever he had the advantage, or straining his eyes down and whining to beg off Matthews putting the fists to his face, Tempers’ face told so much of what turned out to be an excellent story.

His expressiveness coupled with Matthews’ babyface instincts made for the most classic of pro wrestling story tropes. Matthews, who is known to use his face to his advantage as well, flew around the ring, played to the crowd, and hit his signature beats to create a dynamic heroic force to go against the expressive villainy Tempers provided as a counterweight. A good hero also has to show peril. Matthews did that by going face first into the second turnbuckle twice, once on a Tempers kickout and immediately following when Tempers showed his ring savvy and pounced him in the back.

This main event match hit on every beat, each peak and valley that both classic Southern rasslin’ and modern indie ethos would present. They bumped, they countered, they busted out MOVEZ, and they flew. But what set this match apart from other similar main events were facial expressions and body language. Tempers and Matthews are both masters in these departments, and that’s why their main event at Nightmare to Remember was worth keeping in mind.

Chris Jericho vs. Daniel Bryan vs. Jack Swagger vs. Kane vs. Mark Henry vs. Randy Orton, World Heavyweight Championship Number One Contenders Elimination Chamber Match, Elimination Chamber, 2/17
This write-up originally was printed in my Elimination Chamber review.
Elimination Chambers are one of those gimmick matches that has a high probability of being good. Even if the wrestlers in it are slow, immobile, technically deficient, or just plain awful, the foreboding structure of steel and LEXAN ups the trainwreck potential to high alert. Thankfully, the least-best wrestler in this match from my estimation, Randy Orton, still has the one thing that in limited doses would make him tolerable in this setting - crazy propensity to do goofy offensive moves magnified by the preponderance of stationary points around him to throw people into.

How surprising was it that Orton's biggest weakness, his seeming unwillingness to take the big bump, was absent here as he was thrown with violent abandon by Mark Henry into one of the pods after the World's Strongest Man had just eliminated both Tag Team Champions with World's Strongest Slams and an angry hoss essence that had been missing from WWE pay-per-views for the last nine months. Even though he didn't win, Henry left the most indelible mark, making sure everyone got touched by the chip that has been on his shoulder since the middle of the last decade. It's funny, in a match where two of my three favorite wrestlers of all-time were competing, I was most pissed off when Henry was eliminated and most satisfied when he came back in and murked the three opponents who had just conspired to send him packing from the Devil's Playground. About the only thing wrong with the sequence was that neither Booker T nor Teddy Long were inducted into the Hall of Pain along with Swagger, Jericho, and Orton.

Those three, coincidentally, teamed up for what would have been the best finish of the Elimination Chamber card had it not been for Roman Reigns taking out Ryback with a spear in what may or may not have been a slight troll to one Bill Goldberg. If you're going to lampoon the incendiary hypocrisy of the Tea Party in a character, then the WWE's standard practice chickenshit heel tactics are not only applicable, they're a must. It's one thing to have Swagger and his buddy Zeb Colter hem and haw about never getting a handout before the match, but when it's paired with Swagger getting a flukish school boy roll up after Orton eliminated Jericho with the RKO, almost like he was picking bones and being in the right place at the right time, well, it's like pairing a five-star meal with the most complementary of wines.

Or maybe in Jack Swagger's case, it would be like getting the coldest can of Miller Lite to go with your Whataburger from the good one in town. Not the crappy one that has mostly teenagers working the fryers, but the good one. You know what I'm talking about.
Sheamus vs. Damien Sandow, Smackdown, 2/22 (airdate)
I think it’s official. We can christen Sheamus and Sandow as having “chemistry.” Once again, they were paired up in a match, and once again, they delivered a sterling television wrestling match. One of the things I noticed in this match that I hadn’t before was that part of Sandow’s game is about subverting traditional babyface tropes within the match to get a villainous reaction. Like in this match, Sandow seemed to drive it home a bit more clearly, hitting Sheamus with the Cubito Aequet, a classic good-guy display move given a coat of arrogant glossiness, and then popping up to play to the crowd, screaming “YOU’RE WELCOME!” In another life, that’s a hero’s sequence. Obviously, the hero in this match was the pale Irishman, whose yeoman’s efforts get taken for granted by some fans. Yeah, we’re sick of seeing him win, but at this point, by having great matches with Sandow, he’s doing more for him than most people probably realize.

Cena's worst year turned around quickly against Punk
Photo Credit: WWE.com
John Cena vs. CM Punk, RAW, 2/25 - See highlights here!
This write-up was originally printed in my Instant Feedback for the 2/25 episode of RAW.
Triple H couldn't ruin this RAW. Movie trailers couldn't do it either. Neither could Jerry Lawler turning in the least inspired commentary, even by his standards. Nothing, nothing could bring this show down. All it takes is one singular match that can make a wrestling show eminently memorable.

Luckily for us, WWE has two guys on the roster who, when put together, deliver with more regularity than the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' pizza driver. Daniel Bryan may be the best ever. Dolph Ziggler makes everyone look better than they have a right to be. Sheamus is WWE's workhorse. But no matter what the circumstance, whether it's the main event of the most important pay-per-view of the last three years or as the fodder for the introduction of a promotion-invading, ring-destroying group of disgruntled NXT rookies, John Cena and CM Punk always, always, always put their working boots on. There is never a match that I see of theirs where I say to myself, "Man, that was a downer." It's like Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat, but better.

You see, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. Back in the '80s, when Flair and Steamboat were doing their thing around the territories, they had certain luxuries afforded to them. They could work the same match a bunch of times because their meat and potatoes was the untelevised house show. They worked for a promoter that believed in and quite frankly probably overused the time limit draw. They were on TV once a month maybe, and their televised supercard matches were actually paced apart pretty well by all standards. Relatively speaking, they had it easy.

Punk and Cena? Well, when you come up in this era, you wrestle against the same opponent twice a week sometimes. House shows are such a minute part of the schedule, and there's a good chance a wrestler will work nearly the same amount of dates televised and untelevised in a single year. It's a lot harder to keep things fresh. Yet, Punk and Cena do it every time. Every time. I've seen them wrestle at least 20 times since 2009, maybe more, in some capacity. Never have I seen them come close to wrestling the same match, and this is a company where good wrestlers, guys who aren't slouches and know how to get through a frame, wrestle the same fucking match within two days of television sometimes. No one will accuse Antonio Cesaro of being a bad wrestler. Many will accuse Ryback, but they'd be wrong. But I've seen them recycle an entire match from Main Event to Smackdown. Maybe it's a trust issue. Maybe they don't have the leash. But then again, why should we hold being that good against Punk and Cena? That's supposed to be a positive, right?

So, when faced with a situation where nearly everyone was expecting a schmozz to set up something greater for WrestleMania, the two went out and built to a crescendo of a clean finish that was built to perfectly, unexpectedly. Many will be dazzled by the moves broken out. John Cena did a Liger bomb! CM Punk dropped Cena on his head with a piledriver? I THOUGHT THAT WAS BANNED! But it was the placement of the moves, the order and structure. It was after Punk turned a STF into the Anaconda Vise, which Cena had turned into a roll up pin a few minutes prior in another attempt. It was guys kicking out of Attitude Adjustments and Go 2 Sleeps. They had to break out all the stops. WrestleMania was on the line. Immortality.

And while Money in the Bank was WWE's most important singular event, Mania is different on a yearly basis. CM Punk has never headlined a Mania. He may put himself above it, but you know deep down, the character motivation is that he wants so badly to be in the last match, the spotlight burning bright upon him. He's God. Why should a man whose arms are too short to box with him hold his belt? Why should the man he's owned leapfrog him? For Cena, it's something that he's accustomed to, but it's not always a given. He's a man who has to continually prove his spot. You want his mantel? Come get it.

And when all that comes together, you get perhaps their best match, or at least the 1a to the 1 that was Money in the Bank 2011. This was their Chi-Town Rumble, and they fucking did it on free television. Because they had to. I'm not throwing shade on Steamboat and Flair. Certainly not. They're two of the best of all-time at what they did. But I think now, we have our analogues for this generation, two men whose pheromones produce an explosive chemical reaction that make them wrestle in ways that are way ahead of what anyone else are doing in WWE, TNA, New Japan, CMLL, Ring of Honor, or whatever promotion you happen to name. If rumors are to be believed, this will be the last time this match happens for a while. Savor it, because after what I fear might end up being John Cena vs. Randy Orton, BECAUSE THE LAST THREE YEARS HAVE BEEN TOO GOOD FOR YOU edition, you're going to want these halcyon days.

And unlike most nostalgia, which is tainted by rose colored view on a world that was shittier than you remember? Yeah, this one is going to be worth all the warm memories you have.
Sheamus vs. Big Show, Smackdown, 3/8 (airdate) - See highlights here!
I know this might sound incredulous, but I think their encounter here, in a piddling, throwaway Smackdown main event, was better than all three of their pay-per-view World Championship matches. I felt like there was a better sense of urgency, and I got the feeling that they were being a bit bolder with some of the spot placement. I could be wrong, and I’d have to rewatch their trilogy from last year to get a feeling about that. However, both guys were on. Sheamus had the probably-accidental flourish on his chest clubs, a DDT counter that everyone except him has seemed to roll out in the year, and a battering ram shoulder off the apron. He also bumped really hard on Show tossing him over the announcer’s barricade. There was one spot where Show got Sheamus up for a powerbomb that I thought he was going to buckle bomb the shit out of him, but he followed through with the alley oop. It almost felt like he was debating internally whether to try something he’d never done before and going with the familiar. Yeah, the finish was a bit anticlimactic, but at this point, The Shield was still new enough for it to be a welcome sight rather than a groan.

Biff Busick vs. AR Fox, Beyond Wrestling Studio/CZW Academy Taping, 3/10 - Watch it here!
Well-placed folks say that this match got Busick his gig in CZW, and I can easily see why. Willingness to let himself get murdered combined with some pretty meaty offense equals entertainment, and his dance partner, AR Fox, has made his bones taking questionable risks with his own body as seen in this match. Combined with the wrestlers surrounding the ringside area making the atmosphere a more akin to an underground cockfighting ring than a wrestling show, their reckless abandon felt at home, even when presented without knowledge of prior beef the two may have had with each other (and I’m not sure any existed).

Busick was the one who looked as if he was throwing the larger bombs, but his style dictates a certain stiffness. Whether he’s hossing Fox up in multiple, Everest-style power bombs or simply body slamming Fox with terminal force (okay, okay, the slam in question was against the apron on an unpadded floor), Busick made sure that he was going to make the viewer question whether what was happening in the ring was actually worked or not. Thankfully, Fox was more than willing to oblige on his end. Every lariat he took, he tumbled to the floor. He took the lion’s share of big bumps, some of them insane even by indie standards. As the star on top of his Christmas tree of carnage, Fox went inside out and bumped on his neck on a Busick European uppercut. When you can find an opponent who will do that for a basic strike, then you hold onto him or her as a rival for as long as you can.

While the pain was brought, neither competitor lost sense of the traditional mechanics that make a match stand out, and furthermore worked fresh ways of making psychology pop, the best example being Busick scouting Fox going all matrix on a clothesline dodge and rocking the back of his brain with a lariat on the turnaround. In short, each and every last high spot in this match was earned, which is not something I can say about every match in this vein.

Timothy Thatcher vs. TJ Perkins, Lucky Fest, 3/16 - Watch it here!
Modesto, CA’s St. Patrick’s Day festival featured outdoor wrestling, and among the matches presented was a gem between two technical wizards. With house music going into “Rapper’s Delight” bumping in the background, and overcast skies above, Thatcher and Perkins wrestled a nice little sprint. They traded holds for a short while, a little less than I might have liked, but I could understand, given the weather and their state of undress. I will never tire of seeing Perkins lock in the inverted rocking horse from a standing position, a feat of strength and balance for such a compact dude. They worked in a spot midway through where Perkins had keylock-armbar hybrid locked in, and Thatcher kept trying to roll through. He succeeded with a BEASTLY Backlund short-arm scissors after the third try. The two packed in a lot of action in ten minutes, and their rapport on counters and flurries were on point.

AR Fox and Samuray del Sol vs. Rich Swann and Ricochet, PWG All-Star Weekend 9 Night 1, 3/22
The match before this one on the card, Jay Lethal vs. Eddie Edwards, felt like it went on forever. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if in some parallel universe, Lethal and Edwards are still wrestling in an empty American Legion, going through spot after spot, no end in sight. This tag match had a similar quality except unlike the other one, I didn’t want this match to end. Never. Something about grasping the moment and knowing which beats to press.

Swann and del Sol set the tone early by dance fighting, which is the best way I could describe their tete-a-tete. Nothing really hit, but they deftly showed that avoiding moves can be as impactful as hitting them. The crowd was already in a lather singing Lionel Richie's “All Night Long” at the cheerleading of Swann before and during the match, but even I couldn’t expect the complex, almost ritualistic sequence of nip ups, leapfrogs, and Matrix-level dodges to get the fans to leave their feet and pound the apron.

Of course, with these four wrestlers in the ring and flying out of it, no doubt existed in my mind that they would be able to tear the low-clearance roof off the building in the follow up to that epic beginning. Topes were everywhere. Ricochet at one point jumped clear OVER the ring post en route to the floor. Fox showed zero regard for his body especially. But when Swann countered an Ace Crusher by planting both his hands on the ground, I lost my shit entirely. Seriously, scoff at the flippy dudes all you want. When they’re good, like they were here, they’re jaw-droppingly awe-inspiring.

Kyle Matthews vs. Jason Collins, EPW House Show, 3/23 - Watch it here!
Matthews’ shtick of making the grappling portion of the early match look easy to the point of embarrassing his opponent is a hard one to master. If you don’t assert enough authority, you look silly, but if you lay the preening on too thick, you might generate sympathy for the other guy. I think he’s generally great at coming across like a technical wizard without the aloofness that might alienate him to a crowd, but I think his act works a lot better when the guy taking the abuse is pretty good at showing his ass.

Jason Collins may have been the ideal opponent for Matthews to rope-a-dope in the early stages of a given match. He hooted and hollered, berated the fans, and took extended breaks from action, holding his various body parts while meandering around the ring. Although Matthews’ mastery came off very nicely during the opening display, which lasted almost half the duration of the match. At one point, he corralled Collins into a pendulum swinging hold that allowed him to walk up to the turnbuckle and bash his opponent’s head right into it. It was one of the best visuals I’ve seen all year.

Matthews was able to show the other half of why he’s one of the best babyfaces on the indies through his extended selling. He was a pro when Collins was on the offensive, and when they both had to struggle with each other during transition periods in the match, they were mostly on point. I usually think the shot-trading between two opponents who refuse to defend themselves is a widely overused indie trope, but Matthews and Collins made it work by selling their damage so much that the only energy they could muster was to land the next shot.

Paul London vs. Trent? PWG All-Star Weekend 9 Night 2, 3/23
London is considered one of the forefathers of the current crop of standout wrestlers, so the way he bumps, even now, is a sign as to why so many wrestlers today, from Evan Bourne to Dolph Ziggler and everyone in between, are willing to kill themselves, but look good doing it. London’s bumps here included an accidental one on what looked to be a standard flip over spot going throat first on the rope, and a wholly intentional one where Trent? heel swept him off the top rope. Trent? was a great heel here, a departure from his milquetoast big bumping babyface character in WWE. All in all, an enjoyable match.

TJ Perkins vs. Samuray del Sol, PWG All-Star Weekend 9 Night 2, 3/23
I love watching Perkins wrestle. He doesn’t waste a single portion of the match. Everything is worth watching, whether it be the closing flourish, the big bump, or even the beginning feeling-out process. In Samuray del Sol, he may have had his perfect opponent to date, one who could go hard and follow everything Perkins did, and they made complex exchanges and submissions look as easy as roughhousing on the playground.

Seriously, several spots in this match had my jaw dropped with how seamlessly each wrestler was able to transition out of taking a hold and into applying one, and not just into garden variety holds either. AT one point, Perkins slapped on an inverted figure four where the pressure came off from the side like it was an arm wringer. del Sol went all “no big deal” and hit a split-legged springboard moonsault to the floor. And the action wasn’t sterile either. Both guys had flair and panache from the opening bell, when Perkins went in for the grapple, and del Sol pulled back at the last moment to preen to the crowd and shout “LUCHA!”

The finishing flurry was outstanding. Each guy hit some pretty big moves, including del Sol going off the top rope with a casadora pin that left a big thud. I’m a huge fan of pin-combo moves done in different ways in order to derive impact, and this one was probably the most impressive I’ve seen to date. But Perkins would finish strongest, first breaking out a Go to Sleep variant where he ended up dropping to his back and landing the kick instead of lazily getting the knee up. And the 450 to finish was a cherry on a delicious sundae of a match.

Devin Chen: PWG All Star Weekend 8 Night 2 3/23/13 &emdash;
War Roddy!
Photo Credit: Devin Chen
Matt and Nick Jackson (c) vs. Eddie Edwards and Roderick Strong, PWG World Tag Team Championship Match, PWG All-Star Weekend 9 Night 2, 3/23
On commentary, Kevin Steen said their match at Mystery Vortex was his favorite match of 2012, and this match was a raging sequel. The Bucks set the tone early, even foreshadowed big twist, by superkicking the ring announcer, and then they started getting lit up. Edwards and Strong lit up the Jackson Bros. nearly the entire match with chops, every chance they could, and the best part, other than the redness in the chests, was how they’d sell them. Nick especially would react as if he had a knife plunged straight into the heart with each side-handed palm strike.

Of course, the requisite insanity in any PWG tag match was on full bore. The exchanges were dynamic and the bumps were hard. Knees flew all over the place, planchas, back rakes, clotheslines, the whole complement, but the craziest thing was how they tailored the story with old school undertones. The match was all about the the Dojo Bros. coming in ready to take the Bucks to the mat again, only this time with gold on the line, and with the Bucks pulling out nearly every stop they could to keep from losing, no matter how low down and devious.

The most heinous act was the intentional 450 splash on Rick Knox after the Dojo Bros hit their finisher. Rather than take out the other team and save the pinfall, Nick Jackson took out the ref, which played into their longterm feud with Knox, but also put their villainy to a new level. They risked disqualification, but also, since their gambit paid off, they were able to keep cheating until the new ref came out. The Young Bucks really are the best heels in wrestling, and the best part is they build that rep almost solely from their work in matches.

Francis O’Rourke vs. Drew Gulak, Wrestling Is Respect 2, 3/24
This match was the sequel to their National Pro Wrestling Day contest, which I dug, but thought was a bit too sprawling and meandering. While this rematch may have been longer in time, they did a better job conveying a story without venturing into unnecessary macho bravado. The huge bump spots were still jaw-dropping without the plodding fear that one of the match contestants may have broken several bones in his head, and the sequences were timed out so much more succinctly.

The opening act proved to be a chippier, stiffer play on the Quack/Green Ant template. However, they established a pattern. Any time O’Rourke got the upper hand with a big strike, Gulak would somehow wrest it back from him by grappling him. Their exchanges were so crisp , which added to the air of frustration and desperation on O’Rourke’s part. The beats that came after all made sense and looked fabulous, from O’Rourke finally getting the upperhand with a giant powerbomb through the Rude Awakening on the apron and then some.

The finishing sequence was one of the most realistic and grittiest finishes I’ve seen in awhile, and yet it was still smooth and dramatic. O’Rourke slipping out of the Dragon Sleeper was one of the deftest counters I’ve ever seen, but Gulak cinching back into the submission was even better. This match proved that the modern indie matches that go long don’t have to be overwrought and repetitive. Gulak and O’Rourke took the studio space and created a masterpiece within.

Antonio Cesaro vs. Kane, Main Event, 3/27 (airdate) - See highlights here!
Hoss fight? On Main Event? Sure, I’ll take it! Cesaro continued his string of great TV matches in defeat here against a game Big Red Monster. While it’s been a long, good time since we’ve seen a Neutralizer, Cesaro did give us an Everest gutwrench suplex to tide those of us who thirsted for his feats of Swiss strength. However, the match itself was built around a different subtext, mainly Cesaro working Kane’s arm to try and prevent getting planted by a chokeslam. The Goomba stomp from the top on Kane’s arm after he initially pulled it into the ringpost was an exquisite touch, something we’ve almost come to expect and take for granted from Mr. Very European. Kane and Cesaro were very adept at their switches and exchanges, and Cesaro’s arm work was good. AJ Lee’s interference worked great within a story context, especially with Daniel Bryan’s attempts at stopping it. All in all, this match scratched the itch.

Christina von Eerie vs. Evie vs. Kalamity vs. Rhia O’Reilly vs. Yuu Yamagata, SHIMMER Vol. 53, 4/6
Take any match and place five entities within competing for one brass ring, and you’re bound to get dissolution into chaos at some point. The laws of entropy mandate it. While the action in this five-way match was orderly to start, points in the match devolved into sheer and utter anarchy, which is fine by me. This match was my first taste of both Evie and Yamagata, both making their American debuts, and predictably, they were the ones who stood out the most to me here. Evie’s frenetic kinetic energy shocked the match to life, while Yamagata brought it both on offense and selling, especially going total blankface on a big lariat from Kalamity. The other three competitors carried their weight in this match as well, especially the eventual winner von Eerie, but as a showcase for two new and outstanding wrestlers to the SHIMMER family, this match did its job excellently.

Ayumi Kurihara vs. Mercedes Martinez, SHIMMER Vol. 53, 4/6
Ayumi Kurihara had to retire in 2013 due to nagging injuries. Her illustrious SHIMMER career would end across the ring from the nasty Mercedes Martinez, whose ability to give a shit about anything but winning the match and doing it in brutal fashion went out the window some time in late 2011. If Kurihara wanted her victory lap, well, she was going to have to earn it.

Martinez combined both her technical prowess and her flair for the underhanded to produce a whirlwind of frustration for Kurihara early on. Specifically, Martinez attacked with chairshots blatantly in the sight of the referee while on the outside of the ring, and when she was called on it, she sheepishly pulled back and said “What?” Martinez’s attack combined strength and marksmanship to keep Kurihara’s chances of winning from seeming too great.

But Kurihara kept coming back, with all the babyface fire one would expect from a hero in her last stand. Missile dropkicks came flying from the heavens with vapor trails. Her counters defied hope. Her uranage looked like it would let her career end in triumph. As she covered Martinez for the seemingly final pinfall, the crowd counted along. But when it abruptly halted before three, it was the only result possible. Kurihara had to go out on her back. She had to cover lax. And she had to eat a Fisherman’s buster. It was a wonderful finale to a great American career.

OH SH...
Photo Credit: WWE.com
CM Punk vs. The Undertaker, WrestleMania 29, 4/7
This write-up originally was printed in my review for WrestleMania 29.
I may take a lot of shit for this, but I don't care. This match smoked the ever-loving shit out of the last three Mania matches. It's not even close. I don't know whether Punk is that much better than Triple H (read, he totally is), or whether there was just a better sense of purpose (that was probably more of the case though), but every detail of this match was just perfect, or almost perfect at least, right down to Punk's ring gear.

From jump, we got an actual pissed-off Undertaker, something we've been lacking for a long time. I guess there was a reason they had Punk do everything except have sex with the urn, eh? He came out with a renewed sense of fire, but he also showed an uncharacteristic vulnerability if you couch this match not against the Streak matches of the last four years, but against the series of matches he and Punk had in late 2009. Maybe that's not fair, but then again, it shows how much Punk has grown in stature since then.

But then again, this match wasn't really about historical stature. There were personal stakes. Undertaker flailed wildly, and hit on some of his shots. On others, he left himself wide open. I especially dug the reversal of the Old School and Punk mocking him with his own version of it. Paul Heyman was also the perfect manager, as he set up another really good emotional overdrive spot that went into Punk hitting the springboard clothesline. It should also be noted that Punk hit what may have been the best Savage elbow in his goddamn career, which in and of itself is a minor miracle. The second one to the outside looked like it hurt him more than Taker, but I blame superior announce table craftsmanship on that.

The finishing sequence finished with such a crescendo. Say what you want about Punk "carrying" Undertaker - and personally, outside of the rare, really anomalous example like Savage/Warrior, Rock/Hogan, or Cena/Rock, the term "carry" feels so presumptuous - but Taker really was dialed into the moment there too. Both guys hit all their notes, and it didn't hurt that we got the Tombstone into the rest in peace pin. Classic Undertaker for a classic match. The early days of the Streak were all about blood feuds, Taker getting into supernatural brawls with caricatures, almost like it was WWE's version of the kaiju film genre. Punk's no mutant - he's more Lex Luthor - but he played the role for one night, and because of that, he helped Undertaker do what he couldn't do from WrestleManias VIII through XIV. He perfected the art of the hate-laden revenge Streak match.
William Regal vs. Kassius Ohno, NXT, 4/10 (airdate)
William Regal is doing good work in NXT. While he may only wrestle a couple of matches a year, they’re always meant to put a spotlight on a wrestler who has the talent to become one of the next big things in the company. Last two years, it was Dean Ambrose. In this match, it’s the former Chris Hero.

The match began with some stiff mat exchanges. If there’s a man alive who can make a collar and elbow tie-up look like it hurts, it’s Regal. It was a back-and-forth mostly dominated by Regal, who made it a point to act the role of his past scalliwag self. Or maybe he never rehabbed himself to the point where he’d consider himself not evil. Of course, to fight great evil, you need to be as pure as morning dew. Well, Ohno, isn’t exactly wearing a white hat. In this case, it was fighting fire with fire, or more accurately, fighting evil with more evil. Ohno dumped Regal through the ropes as part of his transition, and then he broke out one of Regal’s favorite recent tropes, a reason to sell the fact that his equilibrium had been blown to smithereens, courtesy of a big boot from the floor to Regal’s dome into the ringpost.

However, it would be Regal’s longterm plan of attack that would figure most into the match’s conclusion. Before getting his bell rung and after, Regal set out to neutralize Ohno’s finishing submission hold, the Kassius Klutch, by individually trying to break every single one of his fingers. It was done so masterfully to the point where Ohno was trying to pop his fingers back into place after especially vicious assaults on them. It led into the finish of Regal breaking out of an attempt at the hold into an elbow shot and his signature knee trembler for the pin. Even though Ohno lost, he came out looking better for the experience, and the match gave me hope that there’d be at least one sequel forthcoming from Full Sail.

Sami Callihan vs. Matt Hardy, 2CW Living on the Edge VIII Night 2, 4/20
Callihan is a known quantity. He's a guy you know is going to turn in a tremendous performance every time. Hardy, however, was someone that even when he was well-regarded by the intelligentsia that ran hot and cold for me. In this match, he ran hot, really hot.

The main thread of the match was built around Callihan dragging Hardy out of the ring, kicking the shit out of him in a far remote location, and trying to get the countout. It actually reminded me of my old strategy in several oldentime wrestling video games, one that I used to win many a cheap match in career modes or survival gauntlets. But it was weirdly satisfying to see it bear out in an actual wrestling match. It almost validates my gamer habits until I realize this was an actual storytelling thing, and I was just doing it to collect rassle cash or what have you.

But yeah, all Hardy had to do was show up and not get gassed for this to be a good match, but he was actively good. Therefore, it was a great match. Callihan brought stiffness, Hardy had a sense of humor about himself, and they actually had great chemistry.

The Best Moves Ever: Killswitch

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Christian's finisher has been called many names over the years, but the common thread is that it's visually one of the most impressive moves in WWE history. Granted, he executes it about as quickly as a turtle crossing a molasses covered road anymore, but I still dig watching old footage when he snapped it off with the quickness.


The Ultimate Warrior Has Died

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Photo Credit: WWE.com
Via WWE.com

Warrior, who was named Jim Hellwig at birth and performed under the name The Ultimate Warrior, passed away last night in an Arizona parking lot while walking to his car. He was 54 years of age. No cause of death has been announced yet. He is survived by his wife Dana and their two daughters.

Warrior was a bodybuilder in his early adulthood who met up with Steve Borden (later and better known as Sting) and two other men who were transitioning to be professional wrestlers. He trained under Red Bastien and Rick Bassman, and he would wrestle for several territorial promotions, including Memphis, where he teamed with Sting as the Blade Runners, and World Class.

Vince McMahon signed him in 1986 and gave him the name The Ultimate Warrior. He was pushed hard early on, being given two Intercontinental Championship reigns and a headline spot at WrestleMania VI against Hulk Hogan. There, he won his only WWE Championship. His run lasted until the Royal Rumble, where he lost the title to Sgt. Slaughter, and he segued into a feud with "The Macho King" Randy Savage, culminating in a career vs. career match. Warrior won and transitioned into a feud with the Undertaker. Shortly after, he left WWE over a contract dispute with McMahon, although he'd return by WrestleMania VIII to save Hogan in the main event from Sid Justice and Papa Shango. His second run would last until right before Survivor Series, when he was released.

Warrior would stay mostly out of the limelight until he returned to the company in 1996, defeating Triple H at WrestleMania XII in short order. His third stint with the company, however, would also be short-lived, as he left shortly before In Your House 9 over a contract dispute with McMahon once more. Warrior would make his way to WCW in 1998 as an opponent for Hogan, now in the nWo. The pay-per-view match flopped, and Warrior shortly announced his retirement afterwards.

His post-wrestling life saw him legally change his name from Jim Hellwig to Warrior and become a social conservative talking head. His most infamous incidence from this stage of his life came when he spoke at the University of Connecticut on April 5, 2005, giving a speech where he strenuously denounced homosexuality. Warrior was quoted as saying "Queering doesn't make the world work."

Despite years of strain and a hit piece of a documentary called The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior, WWE reached out to Warrior and the two sides came to a detente, leading to his induction into the Hall of Fame in this year's class. In his final public appearance, Warrior came out to address the crowd on RAW and gave a chillingly portent of a speech about how everyone's heart beats its last and everyone's lungs breathe their last.

I am in a tough spot because I in good faith cannot eulogize Warrior, mainly for his homophobic remarks and his seeming lack of recanting them. I can only hope that in the later years of his life, he realized the error of his ways and started to see all the fans he called "Warriors" while in character were equally important and worthy. This disgusting stain of bigotry overshadows anything he did in his career, positive or negative.

However, I will give him credit for standing up to Vince McMahon. I don't know a whole lot about the contract disputes that led to Warrior departing WWE on more than one occasion, but I can say that the smear job against him is typical of a country where standing up for the employee is considered anathema.

Still, while I personally can't feel sorrow for Warrior's passing himself, I do offer my deepest and sincerest condolences to his wife Dana, his daughters Indiana and Mattigan, and any and all family and friends who are affected by his passing. For better or worse, the wrestling world lost an enigmatic but iconic figure last night, and a family lost its patriarch. I hope that those who were affected by him personally can find peace and comfort.

Your Midweek Links: Mania Fallout

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YES! YES! YES! YES!
Photo Credit: WWE.com
It's hump day, so here are some links to get you through the rest of the week:

Wrestling Links:

- ...In like a lion: WrestleMania XXX review [The Wrestling Blog]

- WrestleMania XXX Results/Review [Voices of Wrestling]

- The Best and Worst of WrestleMania 30 [With Leather]

- What we learned from WrestleMania XXX [SB Nation]

- Bang for Your Buck PPV Review: WrestleMania XXX [Juice Make Sugar]

- Facts from WrestleMania 30, April 6th, 2014 [The Only Way Is Suplex]

- WrestleMania XXX [Kick-Out!! Wrestling]

- Brock Lesnar beating the Undertaker was the only result that made sense [The Smoking Section]

- Five reasons you should be okay with Brock Lesnar breaking The Streak [TJR Wrestling]

- Taker in the Match [Voices of Wrestling]

- A WrestleMania n00b asks why people like wrestling so much [SB Nation]

- Ranking the 29 best wrestlers who only wrestled at WrestleMania once [With Leather]

- Our favorite WrestleMania matches ever (featuring me!) [SB Nation]

- Top 25 WrestleMania matches of all-time [Place 2 Be Nation]

- Yes! Yes! And Away! [The Classical]

- Next Stop: New Orleans [Irresistible vs. Immovable]

- What does 667,287 subscribers mean for WWE Network? [What Culture]

- John Cena and "I like the man but hate the character" [Kick-Out!! Wrestling]

- Good God almighty, it's Jim Ross! [SB Nation]

- When do we stop calling wrestling a sport? [False Underdog]

- The glam-sissy wrestling odyssey of Exotic Adrian Street [Deadspin]

- The Best and Worst of RAW: The One, The Warrior, and The King of Swing [With Leather]

Non-Wrestling Links:

- DeSean Jackson and I can't change where we're from [MMQB]

- Crips release DeSean Jackson over concerns about his affiliation with the Washington Redskins organization [Sports Pickle]

- The ACC worst-case scenario conference preview [Every Day Should Be Saturday]

- SEC Westeros: Which character is your school? [Good Bull Hunting]

- Game of Thrones: There are 70 different ways to say the word 'Hodor' [Warming Glow]

- Ten shows that had to fail so we could get Game of Thrones [io9]

- Ten women who could replace David Letterman [Jezebel]

- My friend, David Letterman [Bobby Big Wheel]

- Who were the tallest athletes in history? [Regressing]

- When Republicans can't abide by Republican sexism: Meet Rep. Doug Cox [Jezebel]

- Outfoxed: How protests forced Mozilla's CEO to resign in 11 days [The Verge]

- You are paying an insane amount in overdraft fees [Gawker]

- Cleveland Indians fan in redface meets a real Native American [Deadspin]

- Spilly caters Adam Scott's Masters Dinner at Augusta National [SB Nation]

- Hack the Menu finds fast food secret menus [UPROXX]

- The most insane customers in restaurant history [Kitchenette]

- The fascinating world of glitch Pokemon [Kotaku]

- The best of Pokemon evolution .gifs [Dorkly]

- Ten shocking ways that World War II could have ended differently [io9]

- Neil deGrasse Tyson can't stop blowing peoples' minds on Twitter [Dorkly]

The 2013 Match Countdown: The Summer of Bryan, The Summer of Shield

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Rest in peace, Shield dudes
Photo Credit: WWE.com
Now moving onto the part of the year where Daniel Bryan pulled away from the pack and showed everyone his wallet. Y'know, the one that says BAMF on it.

Daniel Bryan, Kane, and the Undertaker vs. Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, and Roman Reigns, RAW, 4/22 - See highlights here!
It’s 2013, and the Undertaker has had two of the best matches of the year, bar none, in a span of three weeks. Are we living in bizarro world, or is it that a year on the shelf between his last match and that house show in Waco did him wonders? I’d like to think it’s the latter, because I don’t wanna wake up from this dream. At all.

The match started perfectly. Bryan and Kane were taken out two segments prior, so Taker was there to greet the challenge by himself. The Shield surrounded the ring, ready to devour their prey, but Kane and Bryan came bursting from the back, holding their wounds and making the charge to help their fellow Stepbrother of Destruction. Right there, I knew this match was going to deliver in a big way.

Never doubt me on these things, because I was right a billion percent. Seth Rollins has turned from awkward Hot Topic ROH Champion Tyler Black into confident, cocksure Shield member who knows that putting his body on the line means so much. Ambrose is such a great pointman. Reigns’ spear on Undertaker while he had the other two in the chokeslam position? GOOD LORD. Undertaker looked as spry as he has in years, especially chasing after the Shield. And Bryan and Kane were Bryan and Kane. Goddammit, even the finish was perfect, the Brothers of Destruction wailing on the tall brunettes on the outside while Ambrose slid out of a Bryan headbutt to get the quick pin. That’s how you do special. That’s how you do wrestling.

Ricardo Rodriguez vs. Zeb Colter vs. Big E Langston, RAW, 4/29 - See highlights here!
This was set up as a comedy match from jump, and it played out like one from beginning to end. But all three guys are legitimately talented. I bet if Colter and Rodriguez had a chance to run with being fulltime WWE superstars, they’d shine. But I’ll take what they gave us here, which was a fun jaunt hitting all the comedic notes early into probably the most Attitude Era style schmozz towards the end. Lost in all of this might be that Rodriguez legit throws one of the best punches on the roster. Why is he just a ring announcer again?

Ryback vs. Daniel Bryan, Smackdown, 5/3 (airdate) - See highlights here!
I want to see this match main event a pay-per-view. I’m serious. Bryan and Ryback did end up going hard like it WAS a pay-per-view, but there was the fortuitous commercial break. Every moment mattered here. It was a well-laid out match featuring Bryan breaking out his best strategy of keep away to keep Ryback at bay. When it came time for Bryan to bump for Ryback, he went big. Two occasions he nearly went Full Ziggler, one on Ryback tossing him out of the ring with a military press, and the other when Ryback drove him spine-first into the ringpost. I think my favorite part of this match was Bryan seamlessly going from taking the Thesz Press then rolling into a single-leg crab. These are the spots that need to happen in his matches to further his rep as a submission master, not Michael Cole or Bryan himself saying it. I would have liked the leg work Bryan was doing to Ryback to figure in a bit more, or for there to be a bit of distortion on the finish (i.e., Bryan teasing a counter), but those are minor complaints, really.

ACH and Tadarius Thomas vs. Cedric Alexander and Caprice Coleman, ROH Border Wars, 5/4
This write-up originally appeared in my review of Border Wars.
Obviously, any match ACH in it is one I look forward to. However, this match excelled despite ACH probably having the least amount of ring time in it. It had the perfect pace to get the crowd going, although really, they were pumped from even before the match when The Last Dragon made his debut across the border.

Both duos' teamwork was fluid and in sync, which is a huge plus for a tag match. The double-team moves were there, definitely. My favorite was when the C&C Wrestling Factory broke out a combo Hart Attack/axe kick. However, moves aren't the be-all, end-all for any match. I was impressed by ring placement, timing, and all the little things that make a match with so many moving parts look easy. I was also pretty impressed with Thomas' capoeira offense. I was remarking earlier in the week that I was disappointed that Fandango in WWE didn't work dancing into his offense as much as his character dictated, but I guess it takes some amount of skill to work in the art of Brazilian dance fighting. It's clear that this is a sliver of Thomas' offense that he has down pat, even when it was used to set himself up for a fall, example being Thomas going for a handstand kick on Alexander, only to be taken out by a Coleman baseball slide.

It's not like ACH wasn't a part of the match. He busted out some of his offensive fireworks as well, the sheer highlight of which being a slingshot Osaka street cutter. The crowd wanted to root for him from jump, and he gave them plenty of reasons such as that. Conversely, I thought where he made the most impact on the match was at the finish, where he just got snapped up by Coleman and Alexander's sequence in fine order. All in all, this was the perfect match to start the show, and it set the tone for the night. I'm not sure any other match answered the bell, but I also don't think it's understating how much of an impact a hot opening match has in putting me, the viewer, in a good mood.
Davey Richards vs. Paul London, ROH Border Wars, 5/4
Paul London should be a national treasure. I can only imagine that he enjoys the amount of power he has over his bookings, because that, to me, feels like the only reason why he doesn’t work full time. He should though, at least from my own selfish standpoint. He went into a situation I was dreading - a feature match against Davey Richards on a ROH iPPV, and he was able to tell a story. He is such an elemental babyface, and the crowd was so hostile towards Richards, that the American Wolf had no choice but to heel it up huge. That provides for a winning formula. I nearly lost it when Richards gyrated at more than one point during the match. Something about him embracing what is rumored to be his real life persona. London, for a guy who really could just stay retired and be done with it, took more than one murderous bump during the match. The first one nearly wiped out a photographer, when Richards took a normal leapfrog spot and decided to let London go from above the top rope to the floor. The second may have been the most brutal spot of the year, a double stomp from the top rope onto the apron. I wanted to know what drugs London was on to let him take that bump, but hey, he was okay, and it played out fabulously on the screen.

You're gonna regret that one, Sami...
Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein
Sami Callihan vs. Jessicka Havok, WSU/CZW King and Queen of the Ring, 5/11
This write-up originally appeared in my review of King and Queen of the Ring.
Before the match, I expected this to be a brutally stiff, well-paced affair, and I have to say, it exceeded every expectation I had and then some. It was a match that was bathed in saliva instead of blood and the raw emotion - determination and hate on the part of Havok and dismissive frustration on the part of Callihan - permeated the atmosphere. Any two wrestlers can stiff each other and try to be brutal, but when you have two who can tell a story and have that hatred click, it's magical.

There was a lot of chirping in this match as well. Obviously, without context, Callihan calling Havok a "bitch" might seem like overkill, but it made sense in the fact that Havok fired right back, both verbally, salivarily, and of course, with her attacks. The spit was the most poignant part of the match. When I think of two people swapping spit, I don't necessarily imagine them hocking loogies at each other, but there they were, at more than one juncture in the match.

But it was also a match that included big kicks, finishers, and Havok going through a barricade. She went through a barricade so hard that it split in half. However she paid him back in full. Some would consider the finish "cheap." I thought she won through a combination of smarts and force. In a battle between scoundrels, the one who was the most devious would be the one to win. No mistake about it, Sami Callihan was a scoundrel. Havok did what she had to do, and it was glorious.
Big E Langston vs. Alberto del Rio, RAW, 5/20 - See highlights here!
While it’s not really fair to discount del Rio’s impact on this match, and honestly, as one of WWE’s steadiest hands, the probability that he’s going to be in a great match is pretty high, this match was all about Big E. del Rio locked in the cross armbreaker, but Langston struggled and it led into one of those Backlund-esque short arm scissors. The best part? Langston hossed the shit out of del Rio INTO the ring post. However, as with most good wrestlers, Langston impressed me most at the end with his vulnerability, going totally punch drunk on a del Rio enzugiri. But a well-played distraction from AJ Lee led to a surprising but satisfying finish that saw Langston get a relatively clean victory.

Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns (c) vs. Daniel Bryan and Kane, WWE Tag Team Championship Match, RAW, 5/27 - See highlights here!
My buddy Gregg Gethard tweeted to me during this match that “Daniel Bryan constantly feeling the need to prove himself is the best kind of Daniel Bryan.” He’s right. When Bryan, in character, has a chip on his shoulder, it translates to his best material in the ring. Whether it’s playing up his Napoleonic complex on offense, or whether it’s really playing into why people might think he’s a weak link on defense/selling/bumping, he’s showing you why he’s the best in the world. He’s drawing you in. He’s making you believe.

It was a virtuoso performance more than anything else, which is saying something for how well the other guys in the match performed as well. Seth Rollins continued his attempt at making Dolph Ziggler look like pre-crisis Undertaker. Roman Reigns came in with an injury, but he hossed it up when he had to. Kane, as he’s good at, came in like a house on fire (that’ll never get old). Wrestling matches, especially tag matches, don’t get to God-level for one participant alone.

But when someone is as goddamn special as Bryan was in this match, then you get the formula for the free TV match of the year, or at least one of the strong contenders. WWE has been good in 2013 for letting its best wrestlers go off the leash and make magic on Smackdown, Main Event, and especially RAW. Bryan is the best they have, and he showed it. Whether it was slipping out of the surfboard, delivering a back superplex, or taking DAT SPEAR from Reigns at the end of the match on the floor, he was making it happen.

Fire Ant, Green Ant, and assailANT vs. Max Smashmaster, Blaster McMassive, and Flex Rumblecrunch, Chikara Aniversario: Never Compromise, 6/2
This write-up originally appeared in my review for Never Compromise.
True story, when Green Ant came up to the balcony to reprise the first balcony dive he did in that same venue, only on the other side of the building, he passed right in front of me and my friends. We knew it was coming. But it didn't diminish the act of leaping from the balcony onto the three hulking frames of the Devastation Corporation. In 2012, his leap was done for hatred, to show Gekido that he didn't take kindly to them trying to steal his mask. This was out of necessity. The Colony was outweighed by the two established members of the Corporation. Drastic measures had to be taken.

And it was true, the Corporation had the size, and they had Sidney Bakabella on the outside, meddling whenever the Ants got their advantages. But the lengths that the Ants went to take out the Corporation showed that there was still some fight left in tecnicos, all of whom have been put under attack. They worked in tandem, and Fire Ant even took his offensive move chaining to new heights, at one point leaping off Max Smashmaster in a headscissors down to taking out Blaster McMassive with a basement DDT.

For all the skepticism around the Corporation though, they held up their end, especially the new Flex Rumblecrunch, who proved to be at least half as good in the ring as his name was out of it. The show was the "coming out" party for several parties, but none more than the Corporation, who finally showed that they could hang with the luchadors who have set the bar pretty high over the last five or so years. All in all, it was the perfect confluence to make this trios affair the standout match on a standout Chikara anniversary show.
Into the tomb ye shall lay...
Photo Credit: Zia Hiltey
Ophidian vs. Amasis, Sarcophagus Match, Chikara Aniversario: Never Compromise, 6/2
If there was any match that was dangerous to give a half-hour to, it was this one. I’ve had problems with Ophidian matches going unnecessarily long since he split from Amasis at High Noon. I remember back to his match against Hieracon at the Thirteenth Hat and wondering if they could lend about five minutes to the Mike Quackenbush/Green Ant submission and mat wrestling bouquet that felt a bit short for my tastes. Plus, the arena was a gosh darn sweat box, and by that time, I know I was ready for intermission.

But if there isn’t a saying that says, “Good wrestling is a panacea,” then there should be. I forgot about my concerns, and I forgot about the heat, because these two former friends put on such a clinic. Right from the start, Ophidian innovated just by throwing his hands up and playing defense. No one does that in wrestling. No one. It’s amazing how people didn’t figure out that wrestling was staged when no one would try to block a move and they didn’t end up drooling vegetables within five years of their careers beginning. The blocks evolved into counters, and the counters evolved into the other guy figuring out ways to bypass or escape said counters. It had all the nuts and bolts of a sound, grounded technical masterpiece.

But then you add in the hatred between the two. You add in the huge spots. The interference. The look on Ophidian’s face after Amasis stole his mask. All of it was just brilliant, and it made the time feel like it was well-spent, even if it did feel like a half-hour had passed. The Egyptian Destroyer spot atop the sarcophagus lid encapsulated the match perfectly. Ophidian’s hate for Amasis sparked the move, and Amasis’ will to survive had him use his last energy to roll off the stage and make it increasingly difficult for Ophidian to haul him into the coffin. To me, that’s what big time wrestling is all about.

Daniel Bryan vs. Ryback, RAW, 6/3 - See highlights here!
I know it’s a grandiose comparison, but if their Smackdown match The Godfather, then this match was The Godfather Part 2, the sequel that outdid the original. They hit a few of the same beats they did in the first match, most notably the Thesz press-into-the-single crab, only it wasn’t as tight. However, that was the only thing that wasn’t as good as the first time. Bryan hit harder, fully into his “pissed off, chip on shoulder” stride that he had embarked upon after losing the Tag Titles. He twisted Ryback into more of a pretzel, and added in some vicious forearms as well. The only time anyone could have felt the size difference mattered was before the match began.

But even as Bryan kept pace with Ryback, the monster kept reminding everyone that even against the goddamn best in the Universe, he was still the insatiable frenzied feeder that put people in ambulances. Bryan held serve with his brutality, but Ryback showed shrewdness and technical proficiency. I was agog when Bryan went for his signature basement KO kick, and Ryback yanked the leg and scooped him up into a stiff powerbomb. That was something I expected Bryan to break out.

The best matches are when you can get lost in them and think either guy can win. Ryback didn’t have to bump huge for Bryan, but he did. Bryan, of course, threw his flesh recklessly for the betterment of the match, but you knew that was going to happen. The story was that Bryan wanted to prove himself, that he wasn’t the weak link. You knew he was going to take his lumps, but the fact that he gave them back? Even in Pyrrhic victory, a disqualification win because Ryback wanted to prove a point to John Cena, Bryan proved he belonged. It hit the mark. That’s what a good match does, regardless of result.

Sheamus vs. Antonio Cesaro, Main Event, 6/5 (airdate) - See highlights here!
If Sheamus were as giving out of the ring as he was inside of it, he’d be, by far, the best overall talent on WWE’s roster, non-Daniel Bryan division. There was a sequence in this match where Cesaro moved out of the way of a charging-on-the-apron Sheamus, allowing him to crash shoulder first on the ringpost, head exposed next to said slab of steel. Cesaro followed it up with a yakuza kick, and then when Sheamus crumpled to the floor, a Goomba stomp from the apron. That to me summed up the disconnect between Sheamus, the guy in the ring who makes dudes like Damien Sandow and Cesaro look like worldbeaters, if just for a little while, and the Sheamus who bullies everyone who looks at him sidelong out of it.

Of course, putting Sheamus and Mr. Main Event in the same ring on that show is the surest thing. Cesaro continues to show he has the uncanniest knack to be in the right place in the right time, and to know what move goes where. The story he told working Sheamus’ arm was nothing short of beautiful, and I will take an European uppercut out of nowhere 99 times out of 100 over a RKO out of the same lack of space. WWE may not know how to utilize its roster, but the beauty of how good it is means that no matter how many times they put Sheamus and Cesaro in the same ring, the match will always be different than any other time they occupy it together.

Daniel Bryan vs. Seth Rollins, RAW, 6/10 - See highlights here!
Once upon a time, Tyler Black was a poorly-booked Ring of Honor cult hero, and Bryan Danielson was the undisputed Best in the World. They would have matches in bingo halls and VFWs around the United States, ones that would blow the minds of the people watching. These were the salad days of Black, and the waning days of Danielson, as WWE would surely come to call him to their pleasure dome, to dine on honeydew and drink the milk of paradise, if you’re bold enough to consider WWE paradise. That inference is fodder for separate discussion. Anyway, Black went on to win the title, but soon after, he’d be called to the same land of plenty.

Their paths crossed a plentitude of times in trios and tag matches, but on this episode of RAW, they met one-on-one. The results were similarly sublime to when they were in the smaller venues, a tilt as close in spirit to their battles in elseworlds. Obviously, the beats were there in terms of the offensive maneuvering. For crying out loud, Bryan answered a buckle bomb with the Chaos Theory.

But what some folks overlook while the workrate stars shine in their eyes is story. Psychology is embedded in more than just moves. This was a story about how Bryan was the unspoken Best in the World in WWE (depending on whom you talked to, that mantel belonged to either CM Punk or Chris Jericho), but how Rollins would try to one-up him, faltering at every turn. Yet, in the end, even with all the interference by Roman Reigns and counterinference from Randy Orton, it was a flash pin in the confusion - a veritable return to Mr. Small Package if you will, that won the match. It was unexpected, but aren’t those the best finishes?

Antonio Cesaro vs. Sami Zayn, NXT, 6/13 (airdate)
I will always have unreasonably high expectations for guys I see wrestle each other on the indies going at it in WWE. Even if the names change, the wrestlers still have the same styles and makeups. These two had a match as Claudio Castagnoli and El Generico respectively in PWG at Kurt RussellReunion II, and scrubbing that from my mind while watching them work as Antonio Cesaro and Sami Zayn is harder than I ever thought. Still, while this match was meant to be a stepping stone towards a payoff that at the time of viewing had already been wrestled, they fit enough story and action to make this a satisfying bite. Cesaro came out with more fire and anger than he had shown since leaving the BDK in Chikara, and yet Zayn kept coming back, staying on point with each counter, especially his turnaround of a powerbomb into a Yoshi tonic looking thing. The finish didn’t really have the drama I expected, but again, the role of this match was to be a stepping stone. Besides, how Cesaro segued from the neck wrench into the Neutralizer was just bad-ass.

Antonio Cesaro vs. Sheamus, Smackdown, 6/14 (airdate) - See highlights here!
Have you ever wondered what lucha libre would look like if done by two statuesque WWE-style hosses? Well, if you watched Smackdown on June 14th, you would have found out. Okay, maybe it was only one real sequence, but it was a good one, featuring Cesaro flying off the apron into the waiting clutches of Sheamus, who tossed him into the guardrail with a fallaway slam of reckless abandon. While the match lived on the outside - Cesaro had his own spot where he lulled Sheamus into a false sense of security before drop toehold-ing him into the ring steps - it was the finish that was so perfectly timed. Sheamus went from punch-tipsiness into full Brogue Kick motion so seamlessly, like he for real saw an opening to put a boot in Cesaro’s face and took it. It was an organic finish, and one that proves the Celtic Warrior’s worth to me, no matter how much of a git he can be before and after the bell.

TAP YOU SON OF A BITCH, TAP
Photo Credit: WWE.com
Daniel Bryan vs. Randy Orton, Street Fight, RAW, 6/24 - See highlights here!
This write-up originally appeared in my Instant Feedback for the 6/24 episode of RAW.
…[W]hen Bryan gets to trade bombs with Randy Orton, a wrestler who is overrated only because he's not willing to bump, then that's the piece de resistance.

I mean, let's ruminate on this for a second. On a day when Jerry Lawler got to audibly mourn his mentor and maker Jackie Fargo on the air, Bryan and Orton opened and closed the show by paying a much richer tribute to him than any words could belly up to the bar. They were unrestrained in their anger, telling an impassioned story about how their uneasy alliance turned into this boiled over pot, all because the painted arrogant man in the establishment took the troll bait. On a haughty cloud, Orton sat, beckoning Bryan to fight him. Well, when you're about to call down the thunder, you had best be ready to take the hit, because Bryan wasn't fucking around.

And to his credit, when it came time to make Bryan look like a star, he fucking made Bryan look like a star. His MO in the past was that he didn't bump a whole lot, but for Bryan, he went through tables, got peppered with kicks, and let Bryan rub a kendo stick in his face. That fact means all the difference in the world, and it's what sets apart a real starmaking performance from the lip service that Orton paid in the ring to Christian in a series of matches when the latter took all the big bumps and was still expected to drive a compelling story with a hero that gave no fuck. Whether it was the fault of Orton or Creative, well, it was someone's fault.

But that's the one thing that I think the nerds with the stopwatches have always failed to realize. Time of wrestling on a show is never the thing that mattered. It's the wrestling that felt like it mattered that has always been most valuable. Looking at a goddamn minute/second agglomeration of actual grappling on this show might tell you that it was full of wrestling, but it wouldn't tell you whether it was good. That's why you don't pay attention to raw times. That's why you need context. Matches plus meaning is the reason why RAW is the "wrestling show" now. It's what I wanted from it all along, and that we're living in a fully realized vision of it just makes me absolutely happy to be a fan right now.
NOTE: This match was my first place vote on my Voices of Wrestling Match of the Year poll ballot.

Randy Orton vs. Christian, Smackdown, 7/5 (airdate) - See highlights here!
In the promos before the match, both Orton and Christian acknowledged their history, their feud from ‘11. That contained a lot of good matches, but after Christian turned heel, the series got completely and utterly overrated. Orton took zero bumps, and for me at least, that took a lot out of my enjoyment. If it’s just one guy beating the shit out of the other, the crushing expectedness of the result takes me out of the match.

I had no delusions of Christian winning this match at all, but at least Orton bumped for him. In fact, I’d say Orton took the biggest bump in the match and the only one that went above 0.5 on the Ziggler Scale, going from over the top to the floor on a neat exchange going from Orton dodging Christian’s leap to the floor face slap and then Christian countering Orton’s stump DDT with the aforementioned dump over the top. Man, that was a tortured sentence, wasn’t it? Sorry. Anyway, the story of the match was that these two knew each other so well that they countered everything and anything, including an almost hoss-like RKO shove off. This match won’t get heralded like most of their ‘11 series, but I may have enjoyed it more than any match they had in that stretch.

Daniel Bryan vs. Sheamus, RAW, 7/8 - See highlights here!
I saw a tweet during this match that Daniel Bryan could “put over a broomstick.” That’s true, but Sheamus is far from a broomstick. Every time these two have a match that’s longer than 18 seconds, it’s an instant classic. Their feud in 2012 was maybe the best in-ring thing WWE had produced in the last five years, and that’s saying something given that this company also has given us John Cena and CM Punk reeling off Match of the Year candidates like Donald Trump sends out asshole tweets.

The best parts of these matches oftentimes end up making me scream out in concern and horror. Bryan is a fearless bumper, and at times, it makes me wonder why he hasn’t died a billion times already. Seriously, he ran off the apron with his signature high knee, and the way Sheamus caught him was so awkward that when they crashed into the barrier, Bryan landed face first. He landed a bit rough on the plancha that happened after the commercial break too. But he kept getting back up and giving it back to Sheamus, who took his lumps as well. Sheamus may be a jerk out of the ring, but he’s exceedingly giving inside of it. There’s no opponent that generosity works better against than Daniel Bryan except maybe Damien Sandow.

The reason why Bryan and Sheamus make such beautiful music together is that they start out slow but build to amazing crescendos. The third act on this particular match was just amazing in build and mood. I had gotten so used to seeing Sheamus just hit the Brogue Kick with no real fanfare that when he draped his leg over the top rope after missing, I got sucked in completely. The final flourish brilliantly evoked the echoes of Mr. Small Package, the Bryan Danielson stint in the indies where he’d do anything to win with the inside cradle. It was the best possible way to counter White Noise, and the best possible way to make a flash pin look bad-ass.

Christian vs. Daniel Bryan, Smackdown, 7/12 - See highlights here!
WWE hacked into my dream journal again, didn’t they? Christian was my first place vote in the inaugural TWB 100, and Bryan was the top vote-getter the following year. I don’t recall whether this was the first time they got in the ring together, but whatever the number of matches, it totally lived up to my expectation. I can tell you the exact moment I knew it did too.

Somewhere in the middle of the match, Bryan was charging across the ring, looking to land a tope suicida on Christian on the outside of the ring. Christian turned around, noticed what was to come, and instinctively asked Bryan what the five fingers said to the face in the exact moment that his head came through the ropes. It was such a grumpy-old-man move that I could have sworn I mistook Captain Charisma for Genichiro Tenryu for a moment. In a climate where counters get more and more complex and high-impact - hell, look at the counter that finished the match with Bryan snaring Christian out of midair into the NO! Lock - the most bad-ass move reversal of them all was a well-timed slap to the face.

There was plenty of other stuff to get excited about, and why not? These are two of the best ever in the ring to open up Smackdown, the show traditionally given time to have great matches. People have ragged on WWE as being a show where guys didn’t actually tangle in the ring, but it’s clear that narrative is bullshit. All I needed to see was Christian wiping out on a high crossbody or Bryan going over the top to the floor to know that the second W still means something.

Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns (c) vs. Jimmy and Jey Uso, WWE Tag Team Championship Match, WWE Money in the Bank Countdown Show, 7/14 - Watch it here (among the preshow footage)
I don’t know how much of this match I missed out upon; I had no idea that it was going to be broadcast on the actual pay-per-view channel and not exclusively online, but I’m glad I did end up catching as much of it as I did. I got to catch the big crescendo at the end, which included a stack superplex/powerbomb combo involving all four match participants. I’m not sure who was supposed to sell it or who was doing the damage. I guess that could count as a fault, but again, I am an easily amused child sometimes. These two teams are just so adept at doing the tag thing that I wasn’t shocked they arrived here with a write-up.

Best Coast Bias: Chapter 3

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Cry havoc...
Photo Credit: WWE.com
It's greedy and hopeful to want to keep the end at a distance.  Hell, even while the events of this Main Event were unfolding the narrative was being overtaken by shocking, horrible news.  Sometimes in a world of infinite surreality, finite reality clears its throat and re-establishes its dominance.  History is full of examples where something major was overshadowed by tragedy, and where the reaper's shadow cast everything else about that day to darkness to get barely remembered in the scythe's cut.

That said, when the shock has worn off and the tears have dried the third installment of the Shield/Wyatt Family trios skirmishes will still be an excellent match.  Worthy of consideration and definitely one of the highlights of this new Networked era from WWE Network's signature Tuesday night show, they made half an hour (in a three-segger with post-match promo to boot) fly by quicker than you can say "look at these paramilitary vigilantes throwing bombs with this Southern Baptist hillbilly cult".

You could tell right from the beginning that this was going to be something different, and not just because of the old it's-hard-to-beat-anyone-of-quality-three-times-a-season trope.  In the first installment at the Chamber, Bray Wyatt's able to goad Dean Ambrose and snuff out the already short wick of his temper and cause a Pier 6 at the outset.  Ambrose's wildness isn't the Shield's wildness and never has been; such anarchy lends itself to the Wyatt's, who eventually ape (or mock) the Shield on the way to dealing them their largest defeat in their tenure to date.

On this night, Wyatt picks up that narrative thread right where it laid and immediately starts in on the US Champion with taunts of "errand boy" and the like.  You can see it in Ambrose's body language because it's such a similar cut to that beginning a couple of months ago.  But the Shield have gone into therapy since then, so to speak, and have faced down and thrown bombs against a small wing of Hall of Famers not 24 hours previous.  The moment hangs in the air, reminds the astute what's come before, but doesn't replicate.  This is a new world now--Bray's a little bit more arrogant having taken them on twice and won, while the Shield have faced down the threat of their immolation and rebuilt their bond on rededicating to justice.  So Ambrose is fine staying in the ring to start, Bray sends Rowan out as the sacrificial lamb mask, and when the Champion doesn't get a reaction to his smacktalk he opts rather to smack the mask off the big ginger's face.

And so the fight begins, with Rollins doing the brunt of the early work.  See again that this plays to the Shield's advantage with their architect in there controlling pace with his athleticism and combination of rare moves (the Complete Shot into the second buckle, flying at Rowan into an almost standing Koji Clutch that brings to mind how AJ gets the Black Widow on usually, etc).  Ambrose uses a bit of offense from Reigns and a combo neckbreaker and then it gets away from them.  It's weird seeing somebody who looks more like a cast member of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia and has made his bones up and down the shores of Grappalania as a redemption-free scumbag milk the crowd for their ardor, let alone do it again and again.
To add insult to injury, Wyatt keeps his hands clean of Ambrose at first and lets his leviathan minions at him instead.   Wyatt eventually gets in for what he assumes is going to be some scrap pickup, and would probably have won the bout doing so had Rollins -- you know, the guy who'd cost them the rematch by leaving the team to prove a greater point that they took to heart in the aftermath -- not made a save.  NOW the full-out Pier 6 breaks out, and the former NXT Champion's flying in all directions to cut off the former NXT Tag Champions and nullify the size advantage, as well as buy Dean some time.  From there the signatures flew like his body, but eventually even without Roman contributing to the end Ambrose and Rollins get Rowan alone and finish him off to put one on the board for the Hounds.  It's not a victory over Bray.  At least not yet.   But as a newly cohesive unit, they've managed to stop the shutout.

So for the second time in a day Renee gets in the ring to interview the Shield, including a hilariously beat-up and raspy Ambrose, who ended up trying to game his way through the leadoff position before calling it off.  It turns out when a corporation gets busted for using its workers and is on tape calling them nameless, faceless, expendable etc. that sometimes the workers don't like it and revolt.  Again, this is a world of infinite surreality here.  And then Roman Reigns gives Renee a smirk and a "Do I look like I'm faceless, baby?" and suddenly my television got buried in an avalanche of provolone, but somehow in a good way, the same way a large segment of the female audience who would shortly join in in chanting the Handsome Prince's name were suddenly looking at him and thinking roughly "I know I want to do something with him but I don't know what".  Making the moment even better were A and R laughing clearly in the background.  The wars -- external a few moments ago and internal a few weeks ago -- is over.  Well, all except one.  And hey, if there ends up needing to be a double steel cage lowered to settle it, well, who could ever complain about that particular blast from the past given new life for a new generation.

And all of this could stand to be forgotten, to say nothing of Alexander Rusev squashing Sin Cara and Jack Swagger picking up a short but energetic win over Dolph Ziggler.   It was the night Parts Unknown got a little colder; the same night a band of warriors exemplified the spirit of a newly minted Hall of Famer and brought the energy he used to bring.  Tuesday was black, for the better on-screen and for the worst out in the world.  But it probably signified the thing most appealing and problematic of the Stamford schedule: the end came, and the end was always at a distance, and as a result the moments were set to live on even when a heart had beat its last beat and lungs had breathed their last breath.

That's something to believe in.

The "Shocked Streak Fan" Got an Interview on WWE.com

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Photo Credit: WWE.com
Via the Dot Com

Ellis Mbeh, or the "shocked Streak fan" from WrestleMania XXX who became a meme, got to sit down with WWE.com for an interview. The piece itself is standard fare, but how cool is it that this guy actually got to sit down with the company and talk about his reaction to what happened at one of its events? Mbeh claims he was rooting for Brock Lesnar to win, but he never thought that he'd see Undertaker lose, ever, hence the reaction. He also challenged "Brock Lesnar Guy" to a weightlifting competition at WrestleMania 31, and says he'd beat him handily. I hope Vince McMahon doesn't read the Dot Com, because if he did, then he probably got a priapism from a fan of the company actually suggesting his most favorite thing in the whole wide world.
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