WWE SURVIVOR SERIES

 

Brooklyn

SHINSUKE NAKAMURA vs. DAMIAN PRIEST (9:25): This was pretty dull and uneventful. Since they showed two old clips of The Rock (2 years ago on the first Smackdown on Fox and 23 years ago at Survivor Series when he won the title & joined Shane & Vince to become The Corporate Rock), named the battle royal the 25th Anniversary Battle Royale of The Rock's Survivor Series Debut (yeah, they actually did that), and had Vince McMahon carrying around Cleopatra's golden egg from the movie Red Notice that stars The Rock (and Vince said The Rock gave it to him)...I kind of figured The Rock would show up at the end of this show to set up his Wrestlemania match against Roman Reigns. Nope. The Rock didn't show up. Not sure what all that crap about The Rock was for then. So nothing exciting or eventful happened. Well...were the matches any good? Nope. It probably didn't help that AEW just put on one of the great PPV's of all time last week. The other huge problem with Survivor Series is that every match is meaningless. None of the titles are at stake. The winners get nothing but bragging rights. The other problem, at least on this particular show, was that Smackdown announcer Pat Macafee was doing announcing for the whole show. I don't really understand what exactly he's doing...but he seems like he's playing the character of a really excited WWE fanboy. Either way, he's the most annoying announcer of all time. Corey Graves, who usually never deals with him because he's on RAW, mentioned multiple times tonight how Macafee keeps talking and never takes a breath. Anyway, this opener was the first of the typical Belt vs. Belt matches. Nakamura is the IC champ, Priest is the U.S. champ. Nakamura always come to the ring with a sidekick that plays an electric guitar for no good reason. Priest ended up breaking the guitar and hitting them both with it causing him to be DQ'd. This was not very good. * 

BECKY LYNCH vs. CHARLOTTE FLAIR (18:15): Considering the show ended on a sour note with Reigns winning and that's it...maybe they should have made this match the main event. This was by far the best match on the show. It was pretty rough and sloppy at times, though entertaining throughout. This "feud" stems from the two having to trade belts when they were drafted to opposite shows. Apparently, Flair was scripted to hand Lynch her belt but instead threw the belt on the mat. Shocking! Lynch won by cheating and holding the ropes. So the first two matches didn't have clean finishes. The WWE knows that this is a PPV and supposed to definitive, right? The ending of feuds, clean wins, big, long matches. Sadly, the WWE has treated most of their PPV's as just random TV shows without the weight. We're supposed to see who's the best champ on each brand. We didn't in the first match and didn't in this either since Lynch cheated. **1/2

TEAM RAW (SETH ROLLINS, FINN BALOR, KEVIN OWENS, BOBBY LASHLEY & AUSTIN THEORY) vs. TEAM SMACKDOWN (DREW McINTYRE, JEFF HARDY, KING WOODS, HAPPY CORBIN & SHEAMUS) (30:00): Seriously, I think it took like 15 minutes for the introductions of everyone in this match. Thank God they didn't do individual introductions for the battle royal. When looking at both teams in this, the one thing that I was thinking immediately was: damn, the WWE has very few stars. Roman Reigns is the big star of the WWE these days. Is there even a #2? Jeff Hardy was the most popular in this match, which is kind of sad considering his glory days were 20 years ago. Austin Theory was in this match instead of Rey Mysterio because of a RAW storyline. I think that tells you all you need to know about how dimwitted the brains behind creative in the WWE are. Austin Theory and Johnny Gargano were in a heel group together for the last two years or whatever. Gargano is, of course, one of the best wrestlers in the world. So of course they bring up Austin Theory to the main roster instead of Gargano. Fuck...how is this company still alive with all the bad decisions they do on a regular basis? The final came down to Seth Rollins and Jeff Hardy. The crowd loved Hardy so of course he lost. Usually these 5 on 5 matches are pretty fun but this one was completely forgettable. **

OMOS (BATTLE ROYALE) (10:45): The last two in this battle royal were Ricochet, one of the most exciting wrestlers in the world, and Omos, a tall, boring, unathletic dud. Guess who won? Pizza Hut sponsored this match for no reason so they had a bunch of Pizza Hut pizzas by the announce table. R-Truth took a slice and tried to give it to Omos for some reason. That was about the height of the entertainment value in this match. The WWE is super profitable...why are they putting gold eggs from Netflix movies and Pizza Hut pizzas in the middle of their show? It makes it look so fucking low rent. *

RK-BRO vs. THE USO'S (14:50): I really thought that this would be a great, wild, fun match with a hot crowd. The crowd was into Randy Orton and they loved his RKO on one of The Uso's after he tried a top rope splash. But the match shockingly wasn't that entertaining. I don't know what happened. Maybe because who the hell cares who wins this? It's not for a title, so there's no drama present. **

TEAM RAW (BIANCA BELAIR, RHEA RIPLEY, LIV MORGAN, CARMELLA & QUEEN ZELINA) vs. TEAM SMACKDOWN (SASHA BANKS, SHAYNA BASZLER, SHOTZI, NATALYA & TONI STORM) (23:45): If you're wondering how good of a match this was, let me just tell you that the crowd started doing the wave during it. Bianca was the last member of RAW still alive and she won by pinning Shotzi (her last name, Blackheart, is gone for no good reason). They did a bunch of stuff with Shotzi and Sasha Banks fighting each other. I don't really remember too much of anything else going on. This was mostly ultra dull. *1/2

ROMAN REIGNS vs. BIG E (21:55): I thought that maybe this would be a good, long, exciting match. I was wrong. Maybe the crowd was tired, because they weren't that into Big E winning nor did they really boo Reigns hard if at all. The show started at 7:30 and ended at 11:30. The reason is because there were 5 to 10 minute of Peacock commercials between every match. Plus you had 3 minute introductions to everyone in those elimination matches. I complained about Full Gear going long but this show was a chore to watch. I'm not entirely sure why this match didn't work. It never really heated up into anything dramatic. Big E was on offense for awhile then Reigns was on offense for awhile. The crowd was tired. Reigns ended up winning and that was it. I guess at least they did a clean finish, although that wasn't shocking considering the WWE obviously was always going to push Big E like they did Kofi when he was champ. The WWE doesn't have a PPV in December so this was the last one of the year. Ugh. What a boring way to end the year. **

AEW FULL GEAR

 

Minneapolis, Minnesota

HIKARU SHIDA & THUNDER ROSA vs. JAMIE  HAYTER & NYLA ROSE (12:03): This was a great show. There wasn't one 4-star masterpiece, though, but every match was good to great except for the so-so, sloppy women's match and the kind of boring Danielson/Miro match. While you definitely got your money's worth if you bought this on PPV, I don't particularly enjoy 4 and a half hour marathon shows. For one thing, the crowd isn't going to stay hot for that long which makes a few of the matches less exciting than they probably would have been. There weren't really any surprises on this show, although Ring of Honor's Jay Lethal showed up to announce he joined AEW and, of course, Adam Page won the title. This first match was on the Buy In pre-show. There wasn't much to it, but Thunder Rosa is super over with fans. Hopefully they'll do a Britt Baker/Thunder Rosa title match in the future because the AEW women's division definitely needs a boost and that rematch would be very popular and perhaps great. **1/2 (out of ****)

MJF vs. DARBY ALLIN (21:56): This was probably the best match on the show. The problem was that the finish involved the ref being distracted and MJF using his diamond ring to knock out Darby and win. That was kind of a lame finish for a PPV match. Early on they did a great back and forth sequence of holds and locks and quick moves. A lot of the wrestling came across as way too choreographed, but it was still spectacular. The crowd wasn't tired yet so they were on fire for this. There wasn't any hardcore craziness or suicidal stuff from Darby. He did do a Coffin Drop from the top rope onto MJF on the floor, though. The end was disappointing but the match was great. ***

THE LUCHA BROTHERS vs. FTR (18:37): Penta and Fenix are high flyers and FTR are old-school wrestlers...so the clash of styles didn't exactly work here. It was still an entertaining match, though, because The Lucha Brothers are awesome. The end of this made little sense since FTR, for no good reason, put on their Lucha masks at the end and then just lost and got pinned. FTR are the AAA tag team champs so I guess they wanted to do something to call back to that. I think in a perfect world, The Young Bucks and Kenny Omega would be the champs forever since you can't really get better title matches without them involved. I think this match kind of proved my point. And we'll see at the next PPV how well an Adam Page main event does. **1/2

BRYAN DANIELSON vs. MIRO (19:59): This was kind of boring. Obviously, a Jon Moxley/Bryan Danielson match would have been better. Moxley left the company to go into alcohol rehab so they put Miro into this match instead. Miro beat down Bryan for most of this match. They both did a bunch of submission holds, eventually Miro passed out in one and the ref rang the bell. This wasn't awful or anything just not great. I think one problem might be that it played out a lot more like a WWE match than an exciting, balls-to-the-wall AEW match. The reason is kind of obvious; these two were in WWE for years. It's kind of interesting that Bryan won since he now gets a title shot. A good guy vs. good guy title match seems strange and I'm not sure I'd be that excited to actually see Bryan vs. Page. **1/2

JURASSIC EXPRESS & CHRISTIAN CAGE vs. THE YOUNG BUCKS & ADAM COLE "FALLS COUNT ANYWHERE MATCH" (22:20): In August, The Young Bucks had a match of the year candidate against Jurassic Express. It was the main event on a Dynamite show and I remember the crowd was as hot as a crowd could possibly be. It was wild and fun and exciting. They had a hilarious sequence where Brandon Cutler waved a flare around to get the attention of Luchasaurus because, well, that happened in Jurassic Express. Alas, this was a wild and crazy and great match but it was not as good as that match. They brawled all over the building. They used a trash can, chairs, broke tables, used a ladder, and eventually they all battled on the stage by the entrance. Christian jumped off a balcony up in the stands. Luchasaurus did a Shooting Star Press off of the stage that the crowd popped big for. Cole and The Bucks put on knee pads that had thumbtacks on them and gave Luchasaurus a BTE trigger. Christian gave one of the Bucks a DDT onto a ladder in the ring. There were two top rope to the floor table break spots. Considering they were all walking around the arena, this wasn't non-stop action, which was probably the reason this wasn't a masterpiece or anything. Jungle Boy gave one of the Bucks a Conchairto to win. Good match. ***

CODY RHODES & PAC vs. ANDRADE EL IDOLO & MALAKAI BLACK (16:52): The most interesting aspect of this match is that Cody Rhodes got booed out of the building. Fans booing him seemed to start when his reality TV show started. It also started around the time he was feuding with Malakai Black, who the crowds love even though he's a heel. The crowd tonight didn't cheer for Malakai Black or Andrade, though, so it was a strange match with mostly just booing. They did pop for most of the big, high flying moves Pac did. This was entertaining but kind of just a typical Dynamite match. They did one spot where Cody fell into the crowd and then Andrade jumped onto him. That seemed to knock some fans over which was kind of dangerous looking. All four wrestlers brought their A game and it was a fun melee. **1/2

BRITT BAKER vs. TAY CONTI (15:16): The crowd was pretty quiet for most of this match. By the end this turned into a pretty good match, but most of this was sloppy and awkward. I don't know if these two were playing up the dramatic title match storyline or if they were just dead tired, but they both seemed to fall over too much. Tay did a Charlotte Flair top rope moonsault to the floor. Britt's goons interfered a bit. For whatever reason, the AEW women's division has just never really worked and turned into an exciting, worthwhile division. Britt's a star but not particularly a great wrestler. I think Riho's championship matches were better, though she's been gone for most of the year for whatever reason. When they do a Thunder Rosa vs. Britt Baker title match it should be better than this, as Thunder Rosa is great and a crowd favorite. **1/2

CM PUNK vs. EDDIE KINGSTON (11:07): The crowd woke up for this and was really behind Eddie Kingston. They even booed Punk at the end when he was about to do his finisher and win. The rumor was that AEW was going to turn Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston heel. That's probably out the window now because Mox is in rehab. Eddie definitely played the heel in this match for the most part. Early on he was going to do the GTS on Punk. The crowds love Eddie, so turning him a heel seems kind of pointless, though. And even though this feud between Punk and Eddie started in the stupidest way possible (Eddie interrupted a Punk promo), we finally got to see a pissed off Punk in a worthwhile storyline (the happy CM Punk was getting boring fast), which made this match something you actually cared about. It was short but really good and felt like an Ishii type of hard hitting, brutal affair. ***

THE INNER CIRCLE vs. AMERICAN TOP TEAM "MINNEAPOLIS STREET FIGHT" (19:37): You could tell that the crowd was kind of tired because Sammy Guevera did a Swanton Bomb off one of those extremely high ladders through a table and the crowd didn't really go ape shit for it. The MMA guys were a little sloppy but so was this match. Since this was a Minneapolis Street Fight, they used things that were supposedly invented in Minneapolis like hockey sticks, a toaster, a Prince sign, and a Bundt cake pan. Tony Schiavone was hilarious when he yelled, "Oh no the Bundt pan!" or something. Dan Lambert, in a velvet blue track suit, slapped around a beaten Jericho at one point and even tried to put him in the Walls of Jericho. This really was a mess of match and like a crazy, ECW street fight. It was entertaining, though. Jericho won with a Frog Splash. Jericho pointed to the sky since today was the anniversary of Eddie Guerrero's death. CM Punk also did Guerrero's 3 Amigos move and earlier FTR and The Lucha Brothers did it as well. **1/2

'HANGMAN' ADAM PAGE vs. KENNY OMEGA (25:11): This was not a 4 star masterpiece. This wasn't even as good as the Omega/Page match from last year's Full Gear. It was a really good match, though, with a few sequences towards the end that were as good as anything in Omega/Okada's matches. Omega did one particular move that was pretty crazy in this move. Page was sitting on the top rope and Omega jumped up from the apron to the top rope and did a Liger Bomb on Page to the floor. That was creative as hell. At one point late, both guys were being suplexed on their head like this was a Naito/Ibushi match. Page did his top rope moonsault. He also did a top rope elbow onto Omega on the floor and they both crashed through the announce table. The ref got knocked out at one point. Page beat up Don Callis in the ring. At the end, The Young Bucks came out. They looked like they were going to interfere but decided not to. At the end, one of The Bucks nodded to Adam Page instead of interfering and then Page did his Buck Shot Lariot to win the title. While that story was a good one to tell (Page was friends with The Young Bucks before they turned heel), I think the ending would have been better without that because there wouldn't have been any stopping and the crowd would have been more into it. I will give AEW credit. Page winning the title here ended a two year storyline. Page and Omega were the tag title champs. The broke up. Page lost to Omega. Omega won the title. Page finally got his revenge and proved he was the better wrestler. And The Young Bucks remembered their friendship with Page and didn't interfere at the end. They have a heart! Friendship! I mean...when was the last time the WWE wrote a fucking epic storyline with a happy ending? So it wasn't a match on the level of Omega/Okada. Eh. What is? It was a really good match and this was a really good show. The problem, of course, is now we won't get Bryan/Omega for the title. We won't get CM Punk/Omega for the title. We won't get Jungle Boy winning the title from Omega, which I always wanted to happen. What great PPV main event matches are there with Adam Page as champ? Besides a rematch with Omega, are there any? They seemed to set up an Adam Cole vs. Page program on Dynamite. I don't really see that being as big as anything Omega would be involved in. Alas, that's the problem. Omega is a better wrestler than Page. But you do have to change things up every now and then and Omega's been the champ since last December. So it'll be exciting to see the next two year storyline Tony Khan concocts. And that's a good thing knowing that this company can do it and do it well. ***

NJPW POWER STRUGGLE

 

Osaka

Attendance: 2,367

DOUKI & YOSHINOBU KANEMARU vs. KOSEI FUJITA & RYOHEI OTWA (4:33): New Japan has been pretty much in the toilet since Ospreay left. I'm still baffled as to why he's been wrestling every weekend in the U.S., Ireland, or the U.K. the last two months but won't go to Japan. I mean...Robbie Eagles had no problem doing this show. I'm pretty sure if you go to Japan all you have to do is quarantine for a week or two or something. Who knows? The one change that happened with this show is that they added more matches so this was a regular, real, 4 hour New Japan marathon show. The audience is still sparse and in masks, though. And it's not like anyone was clamoring for all of these purposeless, multi-man tag matches. What was the point of this match? You could argue it was to give the two Young Lions some ring work...but they pretty much just got beat up and lost in 4 minutes. When I saw the card to this show I thought that I probably wouldn't watch it because the card was terrible. Maybe I'd watch the main event. I'm still unsure why I watched this show. It was probably because all the idiots on CageMatch.net said it was a good show. -No Stars-

GEDO, JADO & TANGA LOA vs. TOGI MAKABE, TOMOAKI HONMA & TIGER MASK (5:07): It was nice to see Honma back. I haven't seen him wrestle in a long time. He was one of my favorite wrestlers a few years ago. Then Jado almost paralyzed him and he has been only used sparingly. Funny that he's back in a match with Jado, though. I guess no hard feelings for that botched DDT. There wasn't much to this match as it only went 5 minutes. Tanga Loa must have been pretty pissed off as he was stuck in this lame, forgettable six man match while his tag team partner was battling Okada in the semi-main event. 1/2*

BUSHI, HIROMU TAKAHASHI & SANADA vs. MASTER WATO, RYUSUKE TAGUCHI & YUJI NAGATA (7:05): Hiromu looked great and Taguchi was on fire. That was about it. Master Wato was supposed to be the next big star but he's looked mediocre since returning from Mexico. The Super Jr.'s tournament is starting next week and maybe Wato will be able to showcase a bit more against some greats like Hiromu and Desperado. The interesting thing is they're also doing the Super Tag League on the same shows as the Jr.'s tournament. Why? Probably because the Tag League fucking sucks and nobody ever cares about it. *1/2

EVIL, SHO & YUJIRO TAKAHASHI vs. HIROOKI GOTO, TOMOHIRO ISHII & YOSHI-HASHI (13:46): Evil, Sho, and Yujiro are knows as The House of Torture. More like The House of Boredom. Sho and Yoh were an exciting tag team but Sho on his own has been forgettable. This was actually a good, wild, fun match with non-stop action and everyone all over the place. No one really stood in the corner and waited for a tag. It was just chaos...which is the team name of Goto, Ishii, and Yoshi-Hashi. Chaos lost the 6-man tag titles here. During the G1, I noticed that Goto, Ishii, and Yoshi-Hashi would come to the ring with belts and I kept wondering what titles they had. New Japan just made it even more confusing by calling the belts the Never 6 man title belts. I kept thinking Ishii or Goto or Yoshi-Hashi were the Never champ. Who is the Never champ? Does that title even still exist? New Japan doesn't even have women wrestlers and they still have too many belts. **1/2

TORU YANO vs. GREAT O'KHAN "AMATEUR WRESTLING RULES MATCH" (6:00): Jesus Christ, who actually thought that this would be entertaining? Who's the idiot that came up with the idea to have Yano and O'Khan in an amateur wrestling match? They do realize that Yano is only good for his comedy, right? So this had zero comedy. This was fucking unwatchable. There were 2 rounds and you got points for slams. They both wore those college wrestling singlet outfits. I'd say that maybe fans of college wrestling might have enjoyed this...but this was fake...also a bore. These King of Pro-Wrestling title match stipulations just get worse and worse. Do they realize that good stipulations are, like, ladder or cage matches? I guess not.  -No Stars-

EL DESPERADO vs. ROBBIE EAGLES (18:20): Eagles surprisingly won the Jr. title in the summer and lost it here. I don't think he even had a successful defense. My big problem with Eagles is that lately he always does the injured leg storyline throughout his matches. Yawn. This was just okay. Really, they should only have Jr. matches with Hiromu because otherwise what's the point? **

KENTA vs. HIROSHI TANAHASHI (23:44): Kenta won the U.S. title. I mentioned earlier that this company had too many titles and I said that before I remembered that stupid new title the KOPW title. The U.S. title has always been a joke. I didn't even realize Tanahashi had it. The only memorable part of this match was when Tanahashi did a High Fly Flow from the top rope and onto Kenta through a table. The rest was kind of boring. Since Tanahashi looks like it's difficult to run around for him and he's old and broken now...maybe they should shoehorn him into a tag team. I don't think New Japan does that with legends but they should start. *1/2

KAZUCHIKA OKADA vs. TAMA TONGA (25:13): Tama Tonga beat Okada in the G1. It was Okada's only loss. So this was for the G1/Wrestle Kingdom title contract. This contract match happens every year now and is totally pointless because what the hell is the point of winning the G1 if you still have to go on and win the contract match? Last year, Ibushi won the G1 but lost to Jay White in the contract match. Yet Ibushi still main evented both nights of the G1. Makes sense. Did anyone actually think Tama Tonga would win and main event Wrestle Kingdom? Nope. Which made this a bad match on paper. Tama Tonga did bring his A game, though. There were some great action sequences here. I can't say the near falls were dramatic as no way in hell was Okada going to lose. The last really good Okada match was probably his match against Ospreay at WK way back in January. He's really due for a masterpiece since he's considered one of wrestling's greatest ever. Will his main event match against Shingo be better than that boring match they had at Dominion? It better fucking be. **1/2

SHINGO TAKAGI vs. ZACK SABRE, JR. (30:27): Zack beat Shingo in the G1. Was he winning the title here? No. That's kind of the problem with Power Struggle every year. The G1 sets up Wrestle Kingdom. Everything after the G1 and before WK is kind of just filler. So no, Zack wasn't going to win the title. Sadly, this wasn't even as good as their G1 match. There were some great, fast paced, back and forth sequences...but it wasn't a great match or anything. It was good, though nothing special. When I saw how awful this card was I thought I probably wasn't going to watch this show. I obviously made the wrong choice in changing my mind. **1/2