I actually watched both Takeover and Survivor Series in full over the span of a few days. I enjoyed Takeover a bunch overall even if Gargano/Black wasn't really my thing and WarGames went on forever and didn't feature anybody I actually, like, care about. It did have an absolute corker in Ciampa/Dream, though. Survivor Series I thought was really enjoyable and outside of Rollins/Nakamura (which lasted an hour and a half prolly) and the tag match where the wee fella pissed himself I had at least a little fun with everything. I thought that stretch from the cruiserweight match through to the end was really strong, including even your lame battle for brand supremacy which I figured would drag on forever. And that one-two punch to close the show was just dynamite. I guess I'll write about both of those tomorrow.
Shayna Baszler v Kairi Sane
I knew going in that this didn't go long. Maybe if I'd been expecting it to I'd have been disappointed - as most generally seemed to have been - but I thought what we got was a hoot. I didn't even know until a week ago that these two switched the title back and forth over the summer, but I've seen a couple of their matches before that and thought they were decent. This had a sort of greatest hits vibe to it, probably because of the length, but I like a greatest hits version of a match-up when it's done well and I thought this was done well. Sane still feels a bit vanilla even though she's clearly over and charismatic, but I liked her fighting uphill against Baszler and her girls. Dakota Kai booting Jessamyn Duke clean in the teeth was wild and Shirai's moonsault, while kind of dumb when you think about how long it takes to set up when she could just punch someone in the face there, looked killer. I actually liked the finish as well. You could see Baszler shifting her weight as she was readying to catch Sane coming down off the elbow, so it never felt like she just shrugged off the move and instantly rolled her into a cradle. I guess this leads to some six-man tags with Kai getting THE absolute shit bullied out of her so I guess that could be nifty.
Johnny Gargano v Aleister Black
I also did not know Johnny Gargano had turned heel. He didn't really wrestle this much differently to how he wrestles babyface, but there were enough moments sprinkled throughout that it didn't come off like a total exhibition. Just...mostly one. I like Black well enough and Gargano's had a couple matches this year that I've enjoyed a bunch, but this was kind of hokey. The WWE-style melodrama didn't bother me, it was that the match was mostly about striking. Missed strikes, counter-strikes, strikes being reversed into moves, elaborate strike sequences. That poses a couple problems, the first being that I don't think either guy is a particularly great striker. Black will hit a few now and then that look good and those two Black Mass at the end were suuuper crisp (first one especially), but he's not really the guy I want to see in a match largely built around that facet of pro-wrestling. I mean, it’s unfair to compare him to a Shibata or Suzuki let alone a fucking Ishikawa or Ikeda, because at the end of the day this is not Battlarts and it is in fact very much a monkey show, but still, that knee strike was cool and everything but Takeshi Ono will uppercut your nose through the ceiling and when you’ve seen that it’s sort of hard not to have the bar set somewhere around there permanently. The second problem is that it just came off way too choreographed. NXT are usually really good at walking that modern juniors epic line without crossing all the way over into something I can't be bothered with, but this had too much of what I'm not into. I did like the early parts with Gargano coming off super cocky, like he had Black's number for everything, but before long all those reversals lost their charm and it crossed over into Stomp the Yard territory.
Tomasso Ciampa v Velveteen Dream
Full disclosure: there was pretty much no way I wasn't going to like this at least on some level. Dream is my favourite wrestler in the world right now; one of those guys that I get truly excited about watching no matter what, and there haven't been many of those over the last ten years. I didn't know the result going in, either. And then he came out in the fly Hollywood Hogan get up and I pretty much knew then and there that I was going to love this. I thought it built great. It was probably helped as well by coming right after Gargano/Black, just because it provided such a stark contrast between what I don't like and what I do. There was nothing fancy about the first half of this, nothing especially elaborate. Dream is always a hoot when he's fucking with opponents and Ciampa was like a FIFA player ready to launch his control pad off the wall. The Hogan cosplay is hokey, but it was carny as fuck with all the "YOU" and finger-pointing hokiness that I can get on board with. Plus I loved how he teased the big boot into legdrop in the first half then eventually paid it off down the stretch. Ciampa has also gotten really good now. A couple years ago I couldn't really have cared less about him as a singles guy, but I like his psycho paranoid hermit shtick and he'll dial the heeling up to eleven now and then. I loved those airtight chin locks where he was wiping drool over Dream's face (Dream doing the choked out Fujiwara drooling sell job ruled as well), patting himself on the back when he did something especially nasty, hobbling around with one boot on, flinging Mauro's notepad at him when I guess Mauro dropped one too many goofy Gang Starr references. But really, everything from the ring post figure 4 - one of the all-time great spots in general - had me on strings. I figured Ciampa's subtle tap out was going to be their take on a phantom pinfall and there was no way he was losing after that, but they drew me all the way in with the concrete DVD-into-Purple Rainmaker and I was about losing my mind for the nearfall. Maybe there were one too many big kickouts, maybe Ciampa was up a bit too quickly after the DVD/PR, maybe whatever. I was as into the finishing run of this as I've been for anything in at least a decade, and to me that counts for a whole lot. Maybe my favourite match of the year.
Undisputed Era v War Raiders, Ricochet & Pete Dunne (WarGames)
This was not a brief endeavor and I guess it had some good stuff, but it’s rare that I can be arsed sitting watching a 45 minute match at this point. Especially when I don’t particularly care about anybody in it. I don’t even know who the two fatties were. Had never seen them before. Cole is fine and I still end up liking him more than I expect I will considering I’ve never cared for him otherwise. Kyle is actually growing on me as well because he has a super dislikable wee arsewipe of a face and I suppose that’s a pretty decent quality to have if you’re going to be a heel. He also clearly has a hankering for the stooging and you can never have enough folk who want to be wee stooge bastards. Ricochet is fine for a match like this because he’ll jump off and on and around shit with aplomb. Dunne doing that Marty Scurll finger breaking horse shit is unfortunate as the legit finger-bending looks exponentially more painful and also I think Marty Scurll is pig flu and I’d rather not be reminded of him. But THEN AGAIN I was on the cans for Velveteen Dream throwing out Hollywood Legdrops left and right so who am I to rail against the carny bullshit aspect of the pro-wrestling? Who indeed, brothers and sisters.
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