2021-10-22
2021-10-10
IMPACT! Knockouts Knockdown
Overall Rating: ★★★●★☆☆
I had been looking forward to this one, but it ended up being a bit boring. I'm not a big fan of the one-night tournament format. It feels lazy, from a planning/writing perspective, and doesn't allow for people to go as hard as they can if they're only wrestling one match. I'd much rather see a battle royale of some kind. Especially if you're going to have a bunch of "outsiders" involved who no one really believes can win it.
2021-09-27
WWE Extreme Rules
Overall rating: ★★★●★☆☆
This show seemed to exist only to kill some time. Basically nothing happened. It didn't even live up to its name. It got all the way to the main event before I realised "wait a minute; isn't this supposed to be Extreme Rules?" The only no-DQ match before that was the triple threat, and it was just a normal triple threat. No one used weapons or anything. I wasn't expecting AEW-style barbed wire and blood, but I expected something.
2021-09-19
iMPACT! Victory Road
Overall rating: ★★★●☆☆☆
On the one hand, I want to give this show more credit because I wasn't really in the mood for it, so that certainly brought the score down. But on the other hand, how much credit do they deserve when they insist on trying to make me watch guys who were fired from WWE for assaulting their girlfriends and general arseholery? Do you know how many professional wrestlers there are in America who haven't been arrested for domestic violence? Hire some of them instead.
2021-09-13
ROH Death Before Dishonor
Overall rating: ★★★●★☆☆
A couple of pretty good matches and nothing that wasn't worth watching if you have the time - except maybe the Pure Championship, but that one might be worth watching just for how unusual it was. But nothing that I'd say to go out of your way for either.
2021-09-06
AEW All Out
Overall rating: ★★★●☆☆☆
Obviously the big news from this show were the three additions to the cast (remember when they said there were maybe ten people at most at WWE they'd want to hire if they became available? How many are we up to now?) but I find them rather a mixed bag. I like all three, but... one's a woman so there's not much chance she'll get a better shot here than she got at WWE; one's someone that I know a lot of people love but I guess I got back into wrestling a little bit late to really get on board when that hype train left the station; and one's absolutely fantastic, but I'm a little concerned about the way he'll be used and whether he'll really get the opportunity to shine that he had before. So I'm cautious at this stage. I'd like them to do well, but I often find myself wishing that AEW was better than it is.
2021-08-30
NWA 73
Overall rating: ★★★○☆☆☆
They promoted this on iMPACT! so this was their opportunity to bring in new viewers, right? They convinced us to watch this show (along with EmPowerrr) so it should have been designed as a good introduction. But it wasn't. They (mostly) didn't bother explaining who anyone was or what was going on in the story, so it was basically just a bunch of generic matches between people I've never heard of for reasons I wasn't aware of. The crowd really seemed to enjoy hearing Ric Flair mumble-shout about his career, but I could have done without it. They really, really wanted me to care about shit that happened decades ago and I just don't. They set some stuff up for later shows that I won't watch. If this was their best attempt to draw me in, they failed.
2021-08-29
NWA EmPowerrr
Overall Rating: ★★★★★☆☆
It was weird how many AEW wrestlers were on this show, given that there wasn't even any cross-promotion involved. It made NWA look like they couldn't put on a show of their own. They did do some cross-promotion with iMPACT!, but the iMPACT! wrestlers were mostly just in the Invitational Cup, so that makes all the AEW wrestlers in regular matches seem even weirder. The commentary wasn't great, but it wasn't as bad as Pat McAfee. Over all, it was mostly fine, if a little slow, with some high points.
2021-08-25
NXT TakeOver 36
Overall rating: ★★★★★★☆
The million dollar championship was all right as a warmup, and there were a couple of all-time great matches, but unfortunately the main event was a bit of a letdown. If it had ended with the women's championship instead of the men's (or the UK men's championship - although that would be a weird choice since it's another show's belt), it would have left a much better impression. Still absolutely worth watching, just temper your expectations for Kross vs. Joe.
2021-08-24
ROH Glory by Honor Night 2
Overall rating: ★★★★★☆☆
This was better than night one, but still a lot of filler. And the main event cage match was just a bit too much, and a bit confusing at times with all the people who ran in to interfere. I feel like I've seen way too many people, recently, do the thing where they get some supposedly sharp implement and very deliberately cut their opponent's forehead and it always looks real weird and unnatural. Stop doing that.