WWE ROYAL RUMBLE

Tropicana Field, St. Petersburg, Florida

WOMEN'S ROYAL RUMBLE (BAYLEY) (65:03): There were two big stories that came out this week regarding the WWE and neither one had anything to do with the Royal Rumble. Monday Night RAW is going to Netflix in 2025. That's interesting and kind of a surprise. The other story was a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a woman against Vince McMahon. I probably shouldn't even really call it "sexual harassment," as it went beyond that to the extreme limits of the term. Basically, a woman that lived in the same building as Vince McMahon (he lived in the penthouse) needed a job and someone introduced him to her. She got a meaningless job but he began to show signs that all he wanted was to fuck her. He told her to meet him in his apartment to discuss the job and he was in his underwear. You know, typical boss/employer get-to-know-you stuff. Eventually she succumbed to the pressure of fucking him to be gainfully employed plus receive gifts (tickets to the Belmont Stakes, a new BMW, $20,000 worth of plastic surgery which I assume was breast implants). It gets weirder, though. The lawsuit said that she was forced to have threesomes with Vince and a massage therapist guy and also threesomes with John Lauranitis. Vince also loaned her out for sex to John Lauranitis. Vince also attempted to loan her out to Brock Lesnar but that never happened. Brock did get sent naked pictures of her and supposedly asked to get a video of her taking a piss and then texted her back one word: "bitch." So that's why Brock Lesnar wasn't in the Royal Rumble (Bron Breaker took his place). The most sensational thing in the lawsuit was that during one threesome, Vince took a shit on the woman's head, left to take a shower, then returned to fuck her while she still had shit in her hair. Vince also, apparently, used black and white dildo's on her and named them after black and white wrestlers. The lawsuit also featured a few text messages from Vince which are batshit insane. Think about the horniest, craziest, filthiest, unhinged texts you can imagine...and they're actually worse. Vince offered the woman $3 million dollars to sign an NDA and then only paid her $1 million, hence the lawsuit. This is the same reason why, in 2022, the WWE board kicked Vince off the board and basically fired him. He finagled his way back on the board but resigned on Friday after these allegations came out in The Wall Street Journal. Vince still owns 11% of the WWE, though, but he's not working for the company anymore. While you can say all you want about how the outlandish things in the lawsuit might or might not be true, this isn't the first time he's paid woman to sign NDA's. He raped a woman in a limo years ago and never went to jail for it. I remember hearing he paid a woman $12 million to not go to the police once. So, in short, he's been doing this type of Harvey Weinstein shit for years and has just been paying these women off instead of actually being held accountable for it. If it was only one woman that's accused him of this than it's one thing, but multiple women just means that it's obviously true. And, like Weinstein, like Sandusky at Penn State, these type of criminals would have been in jail years ago if they didn't have a bunch of people around them that didn't stay silent. Will any of them actually go to jail for any of this? Who knows? It took a gigantic, cultural Me Too movement to finally get Weinstein and Epstein behind bars. And those two were in the press and talked about in the mainstream for years. Pro-wrestling is not in the mainstream and while people know who Vince McMahon is, will anyone even be talking about this story in a month from now? Probably not. The current lawsuit against him is just a civil lawsuit, meaning if he's found guilty he'll just have to pay money. All of this makes the WWE look really, really bad. Vince has been doing this for years and it's finally come out now, decades later, when he's nearing 80 years old? The current lawsuit is about things that only happened from 2020 to 2022, but supposedly in 2022 when they first tried to kick Vince out there were a bunch of other payments from women that came up. The WWE supposedly did an investigation about all of this and didn't even interview the women that filed the lawsuit. Jesus Christ. This all made me so sick to my stomach that I wasn't even excited to watch the Royal Rumble. Should I even support this company anymore? A company built on sexual harassment and rape and rich fucks acting like they can do whatever they want? Sigh. The only change to the Royal Rumble was to not put Brock Lesnar on the show. He was scheduled to return in the Rumble. The thing is...I bet they still had to pay him. What a horrible fucking world we live in. Oh, and that includes this terribly boring women's Rumble match! I don't know if it was the malaise I had while watching this show, or perhaps the quiet, dull crowd, or maybe because nothing remotely exciting happened on the show...but this was not a good show at all. It took place in the Tampa Bay Rays baseball stadium (where they shot during the pandemic with that Thunderdome gimmick). Maybe because it was such a big stadium (and they filled it up with 40,000 fans) was the reason that it seemed like the crowd was dead for most of the night. Or maybe the crowd was just quiet for most of the night. They did pop big for Jade Cargill, who finally debuted. Honestly, she looked just as akward and sloppy as she did in AEW. She picked up and slammed Nia Jax, which got a big pop. This Rumble was really, really sloppy, though. Maxxine Dupri, the blonde chick in the Alpha Academy group, came out and tried to do a sort-of Hurricanrana move and botched it twice back to back. Ugh. There were a lot of NXT wrestlers in this. There was also a man, R. Truth, who came in thinking it was the men's match (you know your company is in dire straights creatively when R. Truth gets more of a pop than half your roster). For whatever reason, though, they didn't have any past stars show up as a surprise in either this one or the men's Rumble. That was always one of the highlights of these things so I wonder why they stopped doing that. #30 was Liv Morgan, who recently was arrested for driving under the influence of marijuana. Honestly, #30 should be the type of entrant that people cheer about. Nobody cared about Liv Morgan and Sami Zayn at #30 in the men's Rumble was kind of a dumb choice as well (everyone wanted The Rock...but they should have just made CM Punk #30). Bayley ended up winning, which I guess makes sense as Iyo Skye is the champ and they're both in the same group and I guess will turn on one another to make a feud. But Bayley isn't very exciting in the ring, anymore, so who gives a fuck about that match? Rhea Ripley vs. Becky is the bigger women's match, but I guess Becky has won the Rumble too many times. This match was a total fucking bore. AEW Collision went head to head with this show and the main event was an elimination, escape the cage match with FTR & Daniel Garcia vs. The House of Black. That match was better than this whole show. 1/2*

ROMAN REIGNS vs. LA KNIGHT vs. AJ STYLES vs. RANDY ORTON (19:29): This was weird. Why did they put on the championship match before the Intercontinental match? Last year, the Roman vs. Kevin Owens title match was the main event of the show. Was it because nobody in their right mind thought Roman would lose so they figured let's get this over with early? This match was okay, but having Solo Sikoa pull the ref out of the ring then beat everyone up was groan inducing. I can't be the only one sick of this shit, can I? LA Knight was over as usual. The crowd liked Orton's RKO's. Honestly, this was probably the best match on the show. **

LOGAN PAUL vs. KEVIN OWENS (14:00): I thought this would be a bit more exciting because Logan Paul usually provides a spectacle. While it was an okay match, the ending was atrocious. Logan Paul brought in brass knuckles but Kevin Owens took them and used them to knock out Logan and get the pin. The ref saw this and rang the bell for a DQ. So I guess we'll get a rematch? You really shouldn't be doing DQ's on a big show like this. Do that kind of thing on RAW or something to set up the big match. Logan Paul looked good, doing a lot of his high flying stuff...but this never really turned into anything great. **

MEN'S ROYAL RUMBLE (CODY RHODES) (68:11): I will say this: the final two were CM Punk and Cody, and when they were wrestling it was really good and I was thinking: this match would be great in the future as a main event title match. Other than that, this was a pretty boring and uneventful Rumble. Andrade returned, which was really the only surprise (granted, we knew he was going to the WWE eventually). Okada did not enter the Rumble, which probably means he's signing with AEW (the same with Mercedes Monet). R. Truth came out and acted like it was a tag team match and stood in the corner, waiting for Dominik Mysterio to tag him in. That actually got the biggest crowd reaction in the whole match. CM Punk came in late and actually got some audible boo's during his time in there. Punk eliminated Drew McIntyre. Cody eliminated Gunther. And then eventually Cody eliminated CM Punk to win for the second straight year. I thought CM Punk was going to win because I figured The Rock was going to face Roman Reigns at Wrestlemania. Nope! The Rock ending Roman Reigns' streak makes no sense, though, but neither does Cody since it's a retread (Cody lost last year to Roman, in case you somehow forgot one of the most famous stupid decisions in wrestling history). Will they ever do a Rock vs. Roman match? Probably not at this rate. Doing it if Roman isn't the champ makes no sense now or, at least, it won't have the same impact. And doing it anywhere other than Wrestlemania makes no sense (The Rock was offered a ton of cash to do it in Saudi Arabia this year...God help us). Cody beating Roman for the title at Wrestlemania is the right thing to do but then why didn't they just do it last year? What was the point of just doing it again a year later? I'm honestly pretty checked out with this company and have been for a while. Maybe one day, when Vince is rotting away in jail, I'll feel a little bit better about watching and enjoying this company. **

The Best Show of 2023: AEW WRESTLEDREAM 10/1

 

      The two best shows I saw in 2023 were two AEW PPV's: Revolution and WrestleDream. WrestleDream had the best ending of the year, though, a tour de force of a heel turn and an introduction of a WWE star, all following one hell of a main event. And that's probably why I thought WrestleDream was the show of the year. AEW's PPV's have almost become legendary for their kitchen sink approach. The shows are long, filled with different types of matches, but usually always featuring one or two match of the year contenders. WrestleDream had one of the best matches of the year with Bryan Danielson vs. Zack Sabre, Jr. It also had a fantastic 6-man match with a plethora of big time stars: Chris Jericho, Kenny Omega & Kota Ibushi vs. Will Ospreay, Konosuke Takeshita & Sammy Guevera. The 'Hangman' Adam Page vs. Swerve Strickland was really good and kick started one of the best feuds of the year. And The Young Bucks vs. Hook & Orange Cassidy vs. The Lucha Brothers vs. The Gunns was a lot of fun. We also got a fun comedy match with MJF vs. The Righteous and FTR vs. Aussie Open had an action-packed second half. It was a very entertaining, loaded to the rafters show. And it was the best ending to an AEW show all year. The Darby Allin vs. Christian Cage 2 out of 3 falls match was insane. Darby being tossed off the apron onto the steel stairs was one of the sickest spots of the year. And the match got crazier. The ring apron was torn off revealing the hard wood. Nick Wayne turned heel in his own backyard of Seattle. And, of course, Edge debuting in AEW to close the show and chase the heels off was great. The ending reminded me of the end of All Out back in 2021 when Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole debuted. When that show ended, it felt like something special had happened, that AEW was on fire in all the right ways. And WrestleDream ended the same way, with the future looking bright and the excitement level at a fever pitch. Sadly, that's very rare in wrestling, but when it happens, it makes you realize why you're a fan in the first place. 

The Best Wrestler of 2023: WILL OSPREAY

  

   It seemed like after every single weekend this year everyone in the wrestling world was talking about the great Will Ospreay match that happened and did you see it? You literally could make a Top 10 matches of 2023 and have every one be a Will Ospreay match and nobody would argue. His two best matches of the year were his epic encounters will Kenny Omega. They were two of the best pro-wrestling matches in history. I'm not even joking. And his G1 match against Naito was a four star classic, not to mention his other notable matches in New Japan vs. Tsuji and vs. Umino. Ospreay was such a great wrestler this year (and every year) that pretty much every promotion's best match of the year was an Ospreay match. New Japan's best match of the year? Omega vs. Ospreay. AEW's best match of the year? Omega vs. Ospreay. TNA/Impact's best match of the year? Mike Bailey vs. Ospreay. RevPro's best match of the year? Shingo Takagi vs. Ospreay. I can't even say that he got better this year, because he's been pretty much the best wrestler in the world for years now. 2024 will be an interesting one because he's leaving New Japan to join AEW. That sets up a plethora of great matches to come. We might get to see an El Hijo del Vikingo match. A Bryan Danielson match. A Claudio Castagnoli match. Hell, Ospreay and Kommander on Rampage would be a match of the year contender. You know how the old heads always reminisce about when Ric Flair or Terry Funk were wrestling in their prime and it was awesome? Well enjoy seeing Ospreay in his prime...because they don't come along that often. 

The Best Match of 2023: KENNY OMEGA VS. WILL OSPREAY "NJPW WRESTLE KINGDOM 17" 1/4

 

    The best three matches of the year that I saw were the two Kenny Omega vs. Will Ospreay matches and the 'Hangman' Adam Page vs. Swerve Strickland "Texas Death Match." In all three matches, the wrestlers went above and beyond to deliver something incredible, putting their bodies on the line and to the extreme to please the fans. But the best match of the year was definitely Omega vs. Ospreay from New Japan's Wrestle Kingdom 17. Even just considering the fact that they exceeded expectations should give them enough props, but this ended up being a legendary encounter between two of the best wrestlers of all time. The creativity, the brutality, the speed, the drama, and the unbelievable amount of punishment the two put on each other's bodies was tantamount to greatness. And yet again, a match featuring Ospreay or Omega reaches a high water mark in pro-wrestling. To even fathom that they put on a match some considered better six months later is astounding. This match was superior, though, simply for the unbelievable top-rope DDT Omega delivered on Ospreay on the exposed turnbuckle. And that was simply only one moment in a match filled to the brim with excellent, unbelievable, shocking, entertaining, and wild moments. And now that both wrestlers are in AEW going forward, I'm guessing a 3rd go round will happen eventually and probably win match of the year in the future. 

Other Notable Matches:

'Hangman' Adam Page vs. Jon Moxley  "Texas Death Match"   AEW Revolution   3/5

Bryan Danielson vs. MJF "Ironman Match"   AEW Revolution   3/5

El Hijo del Vikingo vs. Kenny Omega   AEW Dynamite   3/22

The Lucha Brothers vs. Aussie Open vs. The Kingdom vs. Top Flight vs. La Faccion Ingobernable "Ladder Match"   ROH Supercard of Honor   3/31

Aussie Open vs. Bishamon (Hirooki Goto & Yoshi-Hashi)   NJPW Sakura Genesis   4/8

Kenny Omega vs. Will Ospreay   NJPW/AEW Forbidden Door   6/25

Will Ospreay vs. Tetsuya Naito   NJPW G-1 Climax 33 (Night 18)   8/12

Bryan Danielson vs. Zack Sabre, Jr.   AEW WrestleDream   10/1

'Hangman' Adam Page vs. Swerve Strickland   "Texas Death Match"   AEW Full Gear   11/18

NJPW WRESTLE KINGDOM 18

Tokyo

THE RUMBLE (THE GREAT O'KHAN, TAIJI ISHIMORI, TORU YANO & YOH) (32:40): This show was good and most of the matches were entertaining. It definitely paled in comparison to the Wrestle Kingdom's of the glory years 5-10 years ago, though. The big name stars unfortunately left off the main card and stuck in the Rumble were Ishii, Jeff Cobb, Taichi, and Ishimori. The crowd popped big when Takashi Iizuka entered the Rumble. I have no idea who that is, but he apparently used to wrestle in New Japan. Iizuka also went after one of the announcers after he was eliminated and ripped the announcer's shirt off. That was hilarious. I had no idea what that was all about, but after looking it up, apparently he used to always beat up and torment that announcer over the years. The funniest part was when Iizuka came out the camera cut to the announcer and he had a look of fear on his face. Remember Evil used to always knock the one announcer out of his desk? Why does New Japan think that's so funny? Beating up on announcers? Anyway, this was a typical Rumble match. The last four are fighting tomorrow on New Year's Dash for the coveted KOPW title. I actually missed this, but a few weeks ago they had a whiskey bottle on a pole ladder match at Korakuen Hall for the KOPW title. I really should watch that. Could it be as stupid as it sounds? Is Vince Russo now scripting NJPW matches? *1/2

CATCH 22 (FRANCESCO AKIRA & TJP) vs. WAR DOGS (CLARK CONNORS & DRILLA MALONEY) (9:38): TJP came out dressed up like a Mortal Kombat character. He had a straw hat, a demon mask, and a demon glove with long fingers. The funniest part was that the match started and he kept the demon mask on. What? He wrestled the whole match with a demon mask on. Maybe he should change his name now. Is this permanent? He also blew mist a few times. I really couldn't concentrate on this match with a demon running around. That's something TNA would do, right? The one odd thing about this show was that the whole undercard was filled with very short matches. The show was 5 hours long so it didn't exactly make the show shorter. Were there more matches than usual? Probably. While these shorter matches were good in the sense that nobody really cared about them and we all just wanted to cut to the big matches anyway, they all might've been better with more time allotted. Catch 22 won the Jr. tag titles. Match was average. **

HIROSHI TANAHASHI vs. ZACK SABRE, JR. (8:53): The ending was kind of a shocker as they were both doing back and forth rollups with the ref counted 1 or 2 back and forth really fast and then Tanahashi won with a 3 count just like that. Good match, albeit there wasn't much to it. One of the big stories these last few weeks was that Tanahashi was named the NJPW president. I wonder if it was his decision to win the title here. If I was the new president I'd be like, 'I'm in the main event now and I'm winning the title.' Tanahashi won the TV title here. I didn't even know that was a title. **1/2

YUYA UEMURA vs. YOTA TSUJI (10:57): Tsuji is by far the most entertaining of the Young Lions being pushed these days...so of course he lost here. Hmmm. Match was okay. Uemura is pretty forgettable. **

HOUSE OF TORTURE (EVIL & REN NARITA) vs. KAITO KIYOMIYA & SHOTA UMINO (7:06): I was wondering if Kaito Kiyomiya is in New Japan now because he was in the G1 and the recent tag team tournament and now on this show. When Evil and his boys came out, though, they held up a NOAH t-shirt and then cut it up with scissors. So I guess Kiyomiya is still with NOAH. This was the worst match on the show. There was a bunch of interference. HOT cheated to win. Yawn. 1/2*

TAMA TONGA vs. SHINGO TAKAGI (13:46): Shockingly, this was the best match on the show. The reason? They went super fast from the get-go. Plus, Shingo is the 2nd best wrestler in New Japan, soon to be the best when Ospreay leaves at the end of January (he's going to AEW). This was just all action and big moves from bell to bell. Tama Tonga won the NEVER title. ***1/2

GUERILLAS OF DESTINY (EL PHANTASMO & HIKULEO) vs. BISHAMON (HIROOKI GOTO & YOSHI-HASHI) (9:47): Bishamon beat Guerillas of Destiny last month in a 40 minute match to win the tag team tournament. Since Guerillas of Destiny lost, why are they getting a title shot? Eh. Maybe that 40 minute match was better, because this wasn't very good. It was average, basic stuff. *1/2

EL DESPERADO vs. HIROMU TAKAHASHI (14:21): Desperado won the Jr. title here. I feel like these two have wrestled each other every month for years. Right? This wasn't particular one of their better matches, either. Before the match even started, Desperado jumped over the top rope onto Hiromu who was just walking out. It was entertaining, though it never really turned into anything spectacular. **1/2

DAVID FINLAY vs. JON MOXLEY vs. WILL OSPREAY (22:17): This was a good match. Even Moxley and Ospreay knew that nobody wanted Finlay in this match, so they started out beating him up and leaving him out of the ring so they could wrestle each other. Ospreay was on fire in this match, doing everything at lightning speed and looking as flawless as ever. Moxley of course was bleeding even though the spot where he was supposed to hit the ring post and get busted up didn't work (he missed the post and just fell off the ring). Finlay's goons came out and Ospreay eventually did a dive off the top rope onto them and two tables (one cracked, the other didn't break). This was very exciting even though Finlay winning the Global title was obvious (Moxley isn't even in New Japan and Ospreay is leaving). After the match, Finlay brawled with Dolph Ziggler, who was sitting at ringside. Ryan Nemeth was also sitting at ringside next to Dolph. Nemeth was in AEW, though he never wrestled on TV for whatever reason. He's probably most famous for doing those stupid 'Hollywood Hunk' BTE videos on Youtube. I guess they're both in NJPW now. ***

KAZUCHIKA OKADA vs. BRYAN DANIELSON (23:24): This was definitely a better match than their one last year at Forbidden Door. Considering Danielson broke his arm in that match, that isn't too surprising. The one problem was that this match was super slow. Danielson also turned into Zack Sabre, Jr. in this match by putting Okada's arm in multiple stress position submission holds (trying to break his arm to get revenge for breaking his own). Good match, but, alas, not the epic, classic, masterpiece we all wanted. ***

TETSUYA NAITO vs. SANADA (25:42): All the U.S. fans seemed to think this was the worst main event on paper in WK history. The crowd at the Dome didn't agree. The crowd loved Naito and they were hotter for this match than anything else on the show. The match was a total bore for the first ten to fifteen minutes, though. Eventually it turned into a good match once they stopped moving as slow as slugs. Naito did botch one Destino, but other than that the final ten minutes or so were dramatic and exciting with both men using the other's finisher and doing a bunch of reversals and big moves. It turned out pretty good which is kind of a surprise. After Naito won the title, Evil came out to beat him up. Sanada then beat up Evil and Togo which the crowd loved. All in all the main event turned out to be a lot better than I figured it'd be. The crowd being so hot for it certainly helped. ***

AEW WORLDS END

Uniondale, New York (Long Island)

WILLOW NIGHTINGALE vs. KRIS STATLANDER (13:29): This was a good show. Most of the matches were at least entertaining, though the show probably suffered because the crowd wasn't that great plus there weren't any match-of-the-year contenders. It also didn't have any members of The Elite (Omega, The Bucks, and 'Hangman') on the show, which was a huge negative since almost every great match in AEW history has had one of them in it. This show got ripped apart by a lot of people online for whatever reason, but I enjoyed most of it. This pre-show match wasn't particular great, though. Willow tried to pick up Statlander and couldn't do it and dropped her. Finally she sort of got her up to slam her. So it was too sloppy, plus the sold out crowd was still filing in the building so the place was half empty. *1/2

BATTLE ROYALE (KILLSWITCH) (13:51): A lot of wrestlers weren't on this show for whatever reason. The Elite, Orange Cassidy, Penta, Brian Cage, Malakai Black, The Acclaimed, and FTR. You figured that, maybe, some of them would be in this Battle Royale for a TNT title shot. Nope. This was mostly the Rampage crew (Action Andretti, Lance Archer, Danhausen, Dalton Castle, etc.). It was entertaining, though nothing special. It did tie in to a match later on the show, though, which was good. Luchasaurus is now called Killswitch. I guess to get him away from the Jurassic Express thing? Jungle Boy is also just Jack Perry now, though who the hell knows what's going on with him since he hasn't been seen since he was suspended for getting in a fight with CM Punk at All In. Well Killswitch won and gets a TNT title shot whenever he wants...which would be later, sort of. **1/2

HOOK vs. WHEELER YUTA (10:18): This was for the FTW title, which means Fuck the World, though the announcers never say that. They used trash cans and a hockey stick in this match. It was entertaining. Hook is still doing the same thing he did two years ago but these days he's not as over as he was. Maybe, like, give him something more to do? 

BRYAN DANIELSON, CLAUDIO CASTAGNOLI, DANIEL GARCIA & MARK BRISCOE vs. BRODY KING, JAY LETHAL, JAY WHITE & RUSH (17:16): This was the first match on the regular show. All of these guys were in the Continental Classic tournament but didn't make the finals. The CC was a G1 type of tournament that was a big success. The only problem with the tournament was that a lot of big names weren't in it like MJF, Jericho, Somoa Joe, 'Hangman', Orange Cassidy, and 'Hangman.' The reason the G1 is so great is because all of the big stars are in it, even the champion. Plus, the winner of the CC doesn't get a title shot, which makes it fairly superfluous. This match was fun, but more just a typical Dynamite match. Matt Menard was on commentary and they had Brody King get in his face and then clock him. Now that's a match we all want to see! Menard vs. Brody King! Sigh. **1/2

MIRO vs. ANDRADE EL IDOLO (15:12): This was Andrade's last match in AEW, which we only learned afterwards. His contract is up and he's probably going to WWE. AEW never really pushed him for whatever reason. The only memorable thing he ever did in AEW was that flaming table spot on Dynamite with Cody. He's a great wrestler but he seemingly always wanted to leave and so they never pushed him. Miro will probably be gone soon, too, as he's also unhappy for whatever reason and is never pushed. The big deal in this match was that CJ Parker, Miro's wife, was Andrade's manager but turned on Andrade in this match. Shocking! Match was mostly a bore and pointless. *1/2

'TIMELESS' TONI STORM vs. RIHO (11:45): This Long Island crowd was pretty quiet for most of the night (they loved the Edge/Christian match, though) but they did pop for the entrances and for the big spots. Toni Storm always gets a big pop now that she has this weird, 'timeless' gimmick. I don't really get it, either. It's kind of amusing...but she's a good wrestler and when she wrestles now she does the gimmick instead. Riho, on the other hand, was obvious losing this match because she disappears from AEW for chunks at a time for unknown reasons. She was last in AEW in the Spring and I don't think she was hurt. Does she live in Japan? I give up. Match was okay. The women's division is kind of a mess these days. Storm retained the title. They actually did the TBS women's title match later...which makes no sense. I guess because they know the crowd gets tired late and they wanted this match to be hotter since it was for the more prestigious women's title? Who knows? **

SWERVE STRICKLAND vs. DUSTIN RHODES (9:28): Keith Lee wasn't cleared to wrestle so for unknown reasons they put Dustin Rhodes in his spot. Hmmm. They seem to be pushing Swerve for a title shot so maybe they just wanted to give him a spot on the show regardless and a win to boot. Before the bell rang, Prince Nana put Dustin's leg on a cinderblock and Swerve jumped off the apron onto Dustin's leg and broke the cinderblock. That meant that Dustin was maimed and had to have a miraculous comeback in the match to survive. Considering his leg was apparently shattered, how did he still wrestle for ten minutes? The Keith Lee/Swerve match was supposed to happen in the Fall...of 2022! And they still can't get it done! 1/2*

CHRIS JERICHO, DARBY ALLIN, SAMMY GUEVARA & STING vs. BIG BILL, RICKY STARKS, KONOSUKE TAKESHITA & POWERHOUSE HOBBS (15:42): They were supposed to have a tag team title match between Omega & Jericho vs. Big Bill & Ricky Starks but Omega got diverticulitis (which killed boxing trainer Emanuel Stewart, so it's no joke). Instead they did this multi-man match. At least this got Sting and Darby on the show. Sting looked bad so it's good he's retiring. I thought Darby was climbing Mt. Everest? What happened? And Takeshita's push has seemingly evaporated. He beat Omega twice in one week and never got a title shot or big push out of that? Odd. Match was fun and action packed. The crowd loved every move Sting made. **1/2

JULIA HART vs. ABADON (11:57): Abadon is like a Halloween ghoul. It's a dumb gimmick. Nobody thought she'd win. She's not even a good wrestler. Julia Hart kind of botched her moonsault finish but landing on her feet. Skye Blue tried to interfere but was thwarted. Hart retained the TBS title. Hart has gotten better but she probably needs more ring work and a better opponent. 1/2*

ADAM COPELAND vs. CHRISTIAN CAGE "NO DQ MATCH"/ KILLSWITCH vs. ADAM COPELAND (25:00): This was the best match of the night. The crowd was super hot for pretty much every second of this. They chanted, "We want tables!" and then, "We want fire!" Funny, because they got fire. They did a flaming table spot that was kind of botched. Copeland lit a table at ringside on fire and power bombed Nick Wayne on it but Wayne kind of only hit the edge of it and the table flipped over instead of breaking. Still, I love a flaming table spot. They also battled in the crowd and Copeland jumped off a balcony. They also used chairs and a ladder. Christian did a Sunset Flip power bomb on Copeland off of the ladder. After Copeland won the TNT title, Killswitch came out to use his TNT title shot contract that he won earlier by winning the Battle Royal. Christian forced Killswitch to give him the title shot and ended up pinning Copeland to get the TNT title back. Entertaining, wild match. I thought the title switch was pretty creative to continue the feud. ***

EDDE KINGSTON vs. JON MOXLEY (17:16): Everyone online loved this match. I thought it was boring. Oh, well. This was the finals of the Continental Classic tournament. The winner got the ROH title, the NJPW Strong title, and the Continental title. The problem is that Kingston was already the ROH champ and the NJPW Strong champ. He relinquished those titles just to win a tournament and win them back. At least give the winner an AEW championship title match. Otherwise, what's the point of this tournament? *1/2

SOMOA JOE vs. MJF (17:52): I think one reason a lot of people didn't like this show was because the ending of the show was a total downer. MJF not only lost the title in his hometown, but Adam Cole, his best friend, turned on him and is a heel now. Happy New Year! MJF had his shoulder in a sling so the match was all about Joe destroying his shoulder. Somoa Joe did a sidewalk slam on the apron on MJF that looked brutal. Eventually, MJF tapped when he was in a submission. That ending was totally flat. At least do a pin when you change the title. This match was nowhere near as good as their match at Arthur Ashe stadium. It was decent, though nothing spectacular. Adam Cole was at ringside and on crutches. Once the ref got bumped and was out, MJF asked Cole for his ring to use to knock out Joe. Cole took too long fishing it out of his pocket and Joe grabbed Cole before he could use it. After MJF lost, the masked Demon thugs came in the ring. They grabbed Cole and MJF and were going to hit one of them with a chair. Both Cole and MJF screamed, "Hit me!" because they're friends and wanted to take the blow themselves and save their friend. The lights went out. When the lights came back on, Cole was sitting in a chair with the masked men standing behind him. Cole took the devil mask out of his coat. The masked men took off their masks to reveal The Kingdom, Roderick Strong, and Wardlow. They beat up MJF and Wardlow gave MJF a power bomb and the show ended. In the last few months, a mystery man with a devil mask was wreaking havoc and the big mystery was who is it? Everyone said it was Adam Cole. A few other guesses were Jack Perry, Britt Baker, or perhaps MJF. I thought it'd be Britt Baker because she's been gone for awhile and that'd be cool. The big problem was that usually a mystery is something the fans get invested in and it's a big deal and everyone can't wait for the reveal. After this show, everyone was like, "Well I'm glad that's over with and we can now move on." So nobody really cared too much about it. Plus, Adam Cole was everyone's choice so it wasn't really a shock or anything. The other problem with this is that Adam Cole is injured. He had surgery on his foot. He's in a cast. They won't be able to do Adam Cole vs. MJF until probably Double or Nothing at the earliest. MJF is also probably going to take time off to heal from his shoulder injury. So they set up a big feud that won't happen any time soon. With all that said, I did like the way they did the reveal. And at least the PPV ended with a status quo change and something fresh. And a heel Cole vs. a baby face MJF should be a really big match whenever it happens. So that's good. Maybe MJF will turn more of a heel as well since he'll be pissed off...because MJF was always better and more entertaining as a bad guy. We'll see. Next up is Revolution with Sting's retirement and presumably Swerve vs. Somoa Joe for the title. I'm really curious what they're going to do for Sting's last match. Just please don't make it a singles match. **1/2

ROH FINAL BATTLE

Garland, Texas

TAYA VALKYRIE vs. JAZMIN ALLURE (4:30): This was a 5 hour and 7 minute long show. Yikes! I suppose if you paid for it you got your money's worth. The show had some good matches but overall it wasn't anything special or anything. The very small crowd was at least pretty enthusiastic and loud for most of the matches, which helped. I guess only the super hardcore wrestling fans would even go to something like this, hence why they made a lot of noise and were into a lot the show. Ring of Honor does have a few wrestlers that are, supposedly, strictly ROH wrestlers. A lot of the others were just here to boost the superstar factor (Jon Moxley, Brian Danielson) and a lot of others seem to be in the AEW graveyard. Taya Valkyrie, Nyla Rose, and Keith Lee haven't been on AEW TV lately so they've seemingly been pushed into ROH because Tony and the writers don't know what else to do with them right now. Taya was brought in to be a big time opponent for Jade Cargill, who recently left for the WWE. Taya is now doing squash matches on the pre-show of a ROH PPV. Oh, well. There literally wasn't anything to this. 1/2*

THE VON ERICHS vs. THE OUTRUNNERS (6:10): The Von Erichs are the sons of one of the famous Von Erich wrestlers. The one who is still alive. The Von Erich's were famous wrestlers but I never saw them because as far as I can tell they were never in WWE or WCW and I doubt any Texas wrestling was on TV in Pennsylvania when I was a kid watching wrestling. There's a new movie coming out called The Iron Claw about the Von Erich's. I guess that's why they were on this show and on Rampage (which aired at the same time as this show). This was another forgettable match. No one looked particularly good. 1/2*

BRYAN KEITH vs. JACK CARTWHEEL (7:14): Jack Cartwheel is awesome. He's pretty much just a modern RVD. Too bad his name is horrendous, albeit apt. I always wonder about when someone picks a name, like say a band picks a name. Don't you want to envision that name being the headliner at a big stadium? There's so many stupid band names and you have to wonder if they thought about, well, what if we get famous and have this stupid name? What if Jack Cartwheel headlined Wrestlemania? No one can imagine the main event of Wrestlemania being so-and-so vs. Jack Cartwheel because it's a stupid, comedy name. Change it to Jack C. or J.C. or something. It's probably why AEW or any big company hasn't signed him. Too bad, because he's super athletic and super exciting. He also lost here, which made no sense, as the winner got to be in the Survival of the Fittest match later on. ***

DANIEL GARCIA vs. BLAKE CHRISTIAN (12:16): This was a fun, exciting match. The fans really like Garcia and he's a good wrestler. Will he ever be pushed to a bigger stage, though? Probably not, which is a shame. **1/2

EL HIJO DEL VIKINGO vs. BLACK TAURUS (16:29): Black Taurus has one of the coolest looks in wrestling. He wears a Minotaur mask with the ringed nose and horns. He looks menacing as hell, and is a big, thick dude who does a bunch of power moves plus some high flying. Both of these guys are in AAA, although you wouldn't know that since Vikingo is on Rampage every week. While this was a really good match with a lot of big moves...the problem was that Taurus beat the living shit out of Vikingo non-stop. It was kind of ridiculous. **1/2

THE MOGUL EMBASSY vs. TMDK (12:03): The Gates of Agony, the tag team, were just in New Japan's tag team tournament. I didn't watch any of those shows so I have no idea how they did. Brian Cage was probably the star in this anyway. He's another guy that's kind of been sent to the purgatory of ROH for no apparent reason. I remember a few year's ago his wife bitched online that he wasn't being pushed. That made me think he would quit...but he's still here, being used sparingly, I guess just happy he's getting paid for not wrestling a lot. TMDK is Zack Sabre, Jr.'s stable. Without Zack, though, they're mostly a bunch of scrubs. The match was entertaining at least. **1/2

ETHAN PAGE vs. TONY NEESE "I QUIT MATCH" (20:05): Mark Sterling, Neese's manager, had to be handcuffed to the post for this match for unknown reasons. Of course he got out anyway after a while. Page did a cool Diamond Cutter off the apron through two tables at ringside. Page ended up handcuffed at one point. They used a 45 pound weight and steel chairs to hit each other. Neese quit when Page was choking him with the handcuffs. Pretty entertaining match. **1/2

NYLA ROSE vs. VERTIVIXEN (2:41): This was a squash. Nothing to see here. -No Stars-

KYLE FLETCHER vs. BRYAN KEITH vs. DALTON CASTLE vs. KOMMANDER vs. LEE JOHNSON vs. LEE MORIARTY "SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST MATCH" (25:54) This was an elimination match for the TV title. Somoa Joe relinquished the title for no reason. By the end of this match, when Fletcher and Kommander were trading devastating, wild moves to each other, the place was going ape shit. The crowd also loved everything Dalton Castle did. Castle was being tossed out of the ring by everyone constantly so when he finally reversed Fletcher and tossed him out the place went crazy and Castle walked around like he won the title. That was funny. Kommander did all of his insane high flying, rope walk stuff which was great as usual. This was the best match on the show. Very entertaining. ***

WHEELER YUTA vs. TOM LAWLOR (13:11): Yawn. These Pure matches without Shibata are always dull. And the ending was kind of anti-climatic and came out of nowhere. Yuta retained the Pure title. 1/2*

KEITH LEE vs. SHANE TAYLOR (14:40): I thought this would be better, as Shane Taylor is actually, usually in pretty good matches. They did some big, surprising, devastating moves which were cool, though, including a top rope flip into a Canadian Destroyer that was wild. Maybe because they're both big and slow it didn't work, as having one small, fast guy against a big, slow guy would work better. It was decent but I just expected something better. **

BLACKPOOL COMBAT CLUB vs. FTR & MARK BRISCOE (29:37): These guys wrestled for 18 minutes and were brawling by the stage when they were all counted out. Mark Briscoe took the mic and said that he wanted to continue because this match was in honor of his late brother. They continued the match as a hardcore, no rules match. Mark Briscoe was tossed off the top rope onto a barbed wire ladder. Dax gave Moxley a pile driver through a thumbtack covered table. And Moxley used a fork to get everyone to bleed. I figured with all these big names this would have been the main event. Maybe it should have been. It was entertaining but probably too long. They should have just started with the hardcore stuff. ***

EDDIE KINGSTON vs. ANTHONY HENRY (5:45): Kingston was the ROH champ...but for no good reason they let the winner of AEW's Continental Classic tournament be the ROH champ. No, I don't understand that, either. Henry is in The Workhorsemen tag team. No, I don't know why this match was on this show. It wasn't even good. 1/2*

ATHENA vs. BILLIE STARKZ (28:30): Starkz is 19 but looks 30. She's decent though obviously a little green. Athena retained the title. This is the 2nd straight ROH PPV with an Athena main event for the title. The last one was better. This started kind of slow and was boring in parts. The crowd was into this match which was shocking considering the show was 5 hours long. By the end with the near falls and the ref bump and everything it was fairly dramatic and exciting. The next ROH PPV should be in Philly because Wrestlemania is there in April. I'm wondering if they'll do it at the Liacouras Center or maybe the ECW Arena. Maybe I'd actually go...though I doubt I could talk anyone into going to a 5 hour wrestling show. **1/2