Adam Pearson has been brilliant on Quizzlemania this week.
Adam Pearson has been brilliant on Quizzlemania this week.
He's been good fun which is interesting because whenever he turns up on the pod I find him really irritating.
Low-key highlight is Oli's face when Blampied was talking about his "10 Wrestlers Who Have Seduced Your Dad" list.
I am not against Pete Dunne being part of a group with Burch and Lorcan, I think stylistically that could be a really good fit.
Surely Pete Dunne is well overdue for an NXT title run.
Well if this is him back you'd think they should be looking to finally give him an extended singles run. I suppose he'll be hindered slightly by Gargano (yawn) now being the NA champ again but they should be giving him some decent feuds at least. Though it does feel like NXT (much like the main roster) is a bit bereft of singles faces for him to do much with in the immediate future so hopefully something will come of the Undisputed Era feud for him. I'd be well up for Dunne and O'Reilly getting a Takeover match. Presumably we're getting McAfee and his Merry Men vs. UE at WarGames first though.
Dunne v O'Reilly would be a 5 star classic you would think.
NXT looks a but stale from the outside looking in?
I've probably waffled about this before but I think the TV deal has caused it, in very simplistic terms.
The NXT lifecycle used to be that you'd come in, get increasing exposure, be all over the show with a hot feud or two for a number of months and then bugger off to Raw or Smackdown, and the guys below the main event would then start to get the bigger pushes. However with the TV deal / NXT being its own "brand" they have to keep stars a bit more, however these are the stars they'd already rammed down our throats previously so we're still getting loads of Undisputed Era, Gargano, Ciampa etc. all over the show. Obviously Kross' injury hasn't helped with that but even though they're mixing up having them feud with some newer guys it still feels like they've got the same few people orbiting around each other, and Balor coming back isn't a bad thing but again it's leaving NXT feeling very different to how it did at its peak.
Being a halfway house between being the feeder system and being it's own thing leaves it in a weird position and it shows. I do also think it's starting to develop a tendency to have a very firm idea of what makes an epic match. i.e. the HHH Method of just giving it 10 more minutes than it possibly needs.
Yeah that's fair and I also think not going back to the ROH/PWG/Indie well in recent years must have hurt?
Losing Keith Lee is massive.
Possibly, though I don't think they actually lack for talent at the moment, there's just a lot of congestion further up the card.
Like, if you look at the roster even excluding the people contributing to that "congestion" you've got Theory, Reed, Grimes, Priest, Lumis (not convinced he's going anywhere with this gimmick but I think he's got talent), Scott, Kushida, Dunne, Escobar, Thatcher. I'd forgotten that Zack Gibson had briefly appeared before the Rona but Wikipedia has him listed too. I've also excluded Dream because I just can't get invested in his matches right now for obvious reasons but there's no denying his ability, I guess we'll see how WWE proceed with him but at the moment he's just losing a whole lot.
Tyler Bate should really be on NXT proper. WALTER too though I gather he doesn't have much interest in leaving Europe.
I forgot about KUSHIDA and Tyler Bate. I dont think Walter likes the idea of living outside of Europe. I must say the new generation has passed me I dont know those names at all.
Ideally if Raw and Smackdown werent so shite the UE could move up.
Kushida is such a freak but Im not sure he could carry the main NXT belt?
You may know some of those under their non-WWE names. Disco has definitely talked about Grimes / Trevor Lee before I'm sure, Priest was Punishment Martinez on the indies.
Kushida isn't THAT much smaller than some of the other NXT champions they've had so I'm hopeful they'll do something with him. The push he's getting currently is focusing very much on him being a vicious bastard so maybe that's in part to make him look more legit against slightly bigger opposition. He's great anyway and he's not mixing it with the cruiserweights so I think in NXT at least he'll be treated as one of the stars at some point.
Punishment Martinez from ROH I remember.
Kushida was the Junior ACE of New Japan the bloke is a dead set legend. Not being able to cut a good english promo doesnt help unless he gets a manager. It is weird NXT doesnt do managers.
The booking went out the window as soon as they went on TV, annoying really as it the setup made it almost perfect. People disappearing up to the main roster meant the top of the card always seemed fresh and they avoided the WWE habit of never giving anyone a break from being on screen. For instance in the normal flow of old NXT Gargano would be well buried on 205 by now and not boring Webly with further title runs.
Watching Havoc:
Shotzi is a perfect host.
Sadly I had the ending for Priest/Gargano spoiled for me. I thought it might have been Indi Hartwell as she had been helping Candice (loved that they had started that early with her helping in the battle royale) but they looked too big. However, Priest's entrance was boss though.
I'm starting to like McAfee more and more Does help that he looked great in his first match ofc.
PETE DUNNE!!! As a heel too, oh my word
Edit: I was so looking forward to Grimes/Lumis too These cinematics started so well with the Boneyard and they've all been crap since.
The PIP adverts are awful.
RIP Candice's back.
Last edited by Sir Andy Mahowry; 29-10-2020 at 08:38 PM.
Matt Riddle is now just Riddle...
One change away from the Riddler.
What I don't get about this is that a lot of his biggest stars ever have been people with a first name and surname. It's not like they're a minority who rarely get over. What precisely is the senile old cunt's problem?
Or The Diddler if those accusations bear fruit.
It used to be using convential-ish names was a way to tap into the MMA market. That and, once they did actually get MMA stars, you couldn't have Dan Severn (an actual man with fists) vs Doink the Clown (a clown with evil music). I have no idea what branding they get from this. Part of me likes looking back on different gimmick eras but this isn't as fun as the gang warfare of the 90's or the Everyone has a dayjob of the 90's.
We're getting a Netflix doc about Vince but sadly he / WWE are involved so it won't be nearly as juicy as it could be.
I read rumours that there wouldn't be a WARGAMES this year, primarily due to no Takeover on Survivor Series week.
However, they could still do it on their final Takeover of the year (December 6th) and I think it's even more likely seeing as we have a new 4-man faction starting a rivalry with a long established 4-man faction.
UE v McAfee and his British mates could well happen.
https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/a...ams-time-being
Twitch accounts are being suspended.
https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/p...take-my-twitch
Paige has taken it really badly too.
Good news for AEW and New Japan USA.
Paige will wind up on OnlyFans.
I mean, twitch is free but it doesn't stop the same three blokes tipping her every stream.
Pete Dunne is looking a tad ripped.
What I would give to see him in next years G1 Climax.
Walter also has the best/most appropriate entrance in the business.
100%
Edit: Actually toss up between him and Minoru Suzuki.
Last edited by Queenslander; 31-10-2020 at 06:21 AM.
I shall have to watch the Walter match. And I do love his entrance.
It's a shame that a) he doesn't want to go to Murica and b) WWE main roster would screw him up anyway because I'd fucking love to see that entrance in a massive stadia at Mania.
They changed his theme ever so slightly (they changed the key and they remixed it after about 90 seconds) and it doesn't have quite the same pop though.
I have never properly sat and thought out my top x wrasslin matches ever but Walter / Bate would make the top 10. Probably the top 5.
I might be bit late to the party here but Wrestling Bios is a brilliant wrestling channel on youtube that does 20 minute docos on 90's wrestling.
https://www.youtube.com/c/WrestlingBios
Last edited by Queenslander; 01-11-2020 at 11:45 PM.
Yeah when I first saw that I thought it was from the NXT UK one but yeah, it's an incredible photo.
I wish they'd move Bate to NXT.
I see Miz is carrying on the proud tradition of gaining the MITB briefcase and then losing endlessly.
All the people in that company who could be elevated and they put it on him.
There was a point a couple of years ago where he'd managed to get back to being one of the best heels in the company where you could probably have used him to help boost a babyface champ. But y'know, then he got turned into the worst face in the world, endlessly jobbing to Shane O Mac and becoming a comedy act with Morrison who frequently loses handicap matches so yeah.
It's not like they're even short of fucking heels they could have put it on at the moment, it's basically all they've got.
Great character, appalling wrestler.
This podcast I'm listening to went on to say they reckon it looks like it's being set up for Drew to take the briefcase off Miz and he'll use it.
Have they hot potatoed the briefcase before? I'm not entirely against the idea for something a bit different to the usual cash in trope.
Only when Kennedy got injured with it. It’s been defended before but never lost.
If they move it to someone else after Miz they might as well kill off the concept.
They probably need to anyway, to be honest. Multi-man ladder matches are overdone and they've already long since run out of ways to do cash ins that aren't just "person runs in during/after match when the title holder is dead."
It peaked with the Rollins cash in, they had a chance to do something slightly different with Boatman when they were pretending to care about him and of course that got Lesnar'd out of existence.