Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart died this week.
I liked watching Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart wrestle and cut promos.
He perfected the “big power guy” half of the big power guy/smaller technical guy tag team so well that nobody has been able to come close despite countless tries to replicate it since.
Like the Big Bossman or The Million Dollar Man, he was just the perfect late-80s/early-90s WWF wrestler – big boy, signature moves, big goatee, signature laugh, super over, great promos, wore PINK.
He didn’t light the wrestling world on fire post-tag run but that tag run is really all you need.
And he brought the modern wrestling world Roderick Strong and Natalya. And that’s nice.
Rest in peace, Anvil.
RAW (8/13/18)
This was another crap show but Dean Ambrose returned and they did something cool with Ronda Rousey so whatever, good job I guess.
Renee Young on commentary was OK. Fine. It was a fresh voice, alas a fresh voice produced by WWE. I am all for hearing more. I am all for seeing it get better. There was a lot of her going, “OH!” And “OH-HO!” But it was still way better than the Coach. I just wish they weren’t all, “Look – it’s a lady commentator!” like it’s 1978 and the midget match is coming on.
Ronda Rousey’s heartfelt tribute to Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart was one of those things that was like, “Yeah, well this is nice, but I still kind of want to laugh because you all have to know how silly this is coming off, right?”
Love that Constable Baron Corbin has become a BOOOO line on this stupid show. Wrestling is at its’ finest when it becomes a call-and-response speech – the fans hear a word and their desired reaction rings through the building.
Ronda dropping all the fat boy security guards and the black security guard fella’s scared reaction before he ran away was INCREDIBLE. They’re basically giving Ronda the Strowman Push and it’s very fun to watch play out.
Alexa Bliss vs. Ember Moon meanwhile was not very good, though that Moon baseball slide was nice. Alicia Fox getting wrecked was the highlight – she was made to take that Rousey takedown.
Heyman’s delivery on the “unless…” in that interview in regards to Roman not being able to beat Brock was the best build for this stupid feud in almost 4 god damn years, and they paid the whole thing off by completely negating it an hour later. For fucks sake.
Baron Corbin grabbing chinlocks during what should probably be utter destruction was not good, but I did like him beating Tyler Breeze with Deep Six. Signature Moves Matter.
Braun Strowman sure was over in Greensboro but the RAW midcard is shit and Braun/Balor vs. Owens/Jinder is not gonna fix it. Owens and Jinder are joke heel acts, Balor is empty and booked like a geek, Braun has taken a step back, and there were so many chinlocks. So. Many. Chinlocks.
The Lashley/Elias/RICKY ROBERTS deal was kind of a unique way of going about making Lashley likable, what with Roberts playing a crap song and wanting to walk with Elias and Lashley destroying him, so respect to all involved. What a spinebuster by Lashley too.
The 3-way B-Team vs. Revival vs. Deleters of Worlds (dumbass name) RAW Tag Titles match had two things I liked: the Hart Attack (shut up Bubba Dudley) and the uranage counter of the tope. Otherwise, guys like Bray Wyatt and The Revival doing dive trains is more depressing than anything.
This show really did not need the Heyman/Reigns promo. It could’ve ended with Heyman’s “unless…” tease from earlier and we’d be GOOD. FINE. But no. Heyman pepper sprays Roman, Roman does a hilarious stupid sell of the pepper spray, and Brock runs out and F5’s Roman to set up “heat,” a concept that does not seem to exist anymore.
The Titus Worldwide/Bobby Roode vs. Authors of Pain/Mojo Rawley 6-man… well, honestly – it kept a nice pace for the 3 minutes it lasted.
Michael Cole’s transition from the Neidhart tribute to the SummerSlam card rundown was high art.
Sasha Banks’ fired up chops and topes out of nowhere will always be the best but her vs. Ruby Riott was very much A Match. Can we get these gals in ANOTHER GOD DAMN QUARTER HOUR – JESUS.
The whole Dolph & Drew with Kurt Angle wondering where Seth was was not the most exciting show-long angle but wooooo.
Was the build-up a little forced? Was the reveal a little telegraphed? Sure. Sure.
But when Rollins uttered, “They weren’t exactly MY travel issues…”
AHHHHH!!! HOLY SHIT YOKED PSYCHO DEAN AMBROSE EMBRACING HIS RECEDING HAIR LINE YEAH YEAH YEAAAHHHH!!!!
Love a good WWE return. Ambrose being a ghost for the last 9 months and returning with a new look made it a great WWE return. I wish this was all done on a better show but here we are – We, the Wrestling Fan, take what we can get. And I’ll take a cool-ass Dean Ambrose return.
SMACKDOWN (8/14/18)
This show continues to be FINE with occasional flashes of brilliance: Becky Lynch as a babyface, New Day killing it in the ring, The Bludgeon Brothers killing nobodies, and a few promo packages that finally, finally, FINALLY hard-sold the Daniel Bryan vs. Miz match.
The whole “You’re a Diva in a Women’s Era” line in the Charlotte/Carmella/Becky thing was kind of good I guess but when you’re doing a “face-to-face-to-face” promo segment haven’t we already lost?
The Charlotte/Becky vs. Mandy/Sonya match was a TV tag match where two wrestlers competed with two other wrestlers and performed simulated wrestling moves until one of the two wrestlers pinned another one of the two wrestlers.
Some of Becky’s offense these days is so adorably awkward that it is giving me serious Akira Taue vibes – she should lean into this. Mandy’s got poise and the knee remains tremendous. Becky not hot tagging Charlotte was nice.
Bludgeon Brothers squashes are THE BEST. I gasped out loud at some of the stuff they did this week. Just complete and utter tag team destruction of the highest degree.
The three Bryan/Miz video packages was basically WWE doing a mini-WWE24 within SmackDown and they were awesome. I don’t understand why WWE feels the need to tell their stories with dumb promos and attacks and beatdowns – this thing has been building for years and it’s like they forgot that until this week.
NXT – Bryan’s explanation of how NXT worked was nice – usually WWE goes all shorthand and confuses everybody. These guys’ NXT run was phenomenal, a perfect example of how WWE’s weirdness (Miz as Bryan’s Pro) pays dividends. I love how in the video Bryan was all “I was assigned a pro” and Miz was all “I was his MENTOR.”
Talking Smack – Miz’ Talking Smack promo is a top 10 all-time promo, maybe higher but my brain does not have the capacity to remember all the promos there have ever been. Great to re-live the memory, though I find it amazing that in the video that they couldn’t show the best part because Miz committed the cardinal sin of looking directly in the camera.
Homecoming – And both guys were kind enough to drop two INCREDIBLE promos to bring us home. Awesome.
New Day vs. SAnitY was very good – New Day again gets 10 minutes to play and takes the crowd on a ride. Birthday Boy Kofi was bumping huge too. I don’t get intro’ing a guy like Killian Dain in this nothing tag team and being the guy Kofi gets hot tag off of though – this dude should’ve been Earthquake or something.
Andrade Almas vs. Aiden English being 90% picture-in-picture commercial was not ideal.
Jeff Hardy looks like he hurts and he still has to do all his spots and that’s a bummer. Him vs. Shelton Benjamin was alright. What a weird-ass cool visual that Randy Orton peering from behind the stage at Jeff thing was.
If this was the 1980s, Samoa Joe would’ve read a letter from AJ’s son. If this was the 1990s, Samoa Joe would’ve said he fucked AJ’s wife. As it was, Joe reading a letter from AJ’s wife was a solid promo to bring things home. Not sure the reveal that it was AJ’s wife got over as well as they wanted it to. If these two start off with lockups on Sunday I am going to flip.
205 LIVE (8/14/18)
An OK show because the matches were pretty good and Itami kicked a guy in the head, but 205 Live continues to be a really lame WWE presentation. Nobody is interesting and the commentary is the same old trash. I know ol’ Vic, Nigel and Percy are just doing their job, but I wish they could do it a little differently.
Anyone else a fan of Lio Rush being the only guy on 205 Live just taking his shot? Great promos.
Dug him vs. Tozawa too – it got a little WWE 205 Live Formula as it went on but they were really trying and I liked a lot of this. Tozawa kicking ass early, the rapid rope-running, and the DON’T DROP MY EXPENSIVE WATCH spot were highlights.
Big fan of the metaphorical heart of 205 Live being unable to compete.
The Hideo Itami WWE run usually makes me sad but whenever he shows glimpses of KENTA it brings me great joy. He did that here in his squash match and it was a lot of fun. And he won by KO’ing his opponent with a DROPKICK!
Cedric Alexander vs. Jack Gallagher was a good match and the teases of Jack winning by wearing down Cedric’s neck were nice but at some point we’re past good matches – you’ve got to make these guys interesting. The Cedric Alexander pops just keep dwindling, man. Worse ways to spend mid-match on 205 Live than a cravate though. And Kendrick exploding off the lumbar check is always good, as he did post-match.
NXT (8/15/18)
Would marry the Aleister Black laid out bit and WWE NOW follow-up if I could. Glorious beautiful character development for the entire roster – SO good. Let’s hope this doesn’t go the way of the Itami angle.
Street Profits vs. The Mighty was just a basic-ass tag. Montez Ford rules but I imagine someone has already had the “we need your chest to be a little bigger” talk with him. Mighty could probably easily transition to main roster or could also just go away forever.
Shayna Baszler giving Aliyah pointers that amounted to “choke her out then punch her” backstage in the dark was very much my shit.
I imagine Vince watches Undisputed Era promos and just rolls his eyes – “god damnit Paul, what now?”
Kairi Sane doing her Anchor submission and POINTING AT SHAYNA was absolutely flawless. The three elbows before it were incredible too. So good. The match with Aliyah was fine but wow was that the best. There’s a tag match from AJPW in 1993 with Kawada & Kobashi vs. Stan Hansen & ROB VAN DAM where Kawada is going to wrestle Hansen at the end of the tour and Kawada just wrecks RVD and pins him as he just STARES at Hansen. It was awesome and this was the vibe I got.
The Velveteen Dream/EC3 promo-off was a promo between two guys who are very good on the mic but it still exceeded my expectations. After they threw down Dream was bumping in jeans and cowboy boots like he was Shawn Michaels. I feel like that guy is going to be trading words in a lot of RAW opening segments in the future.
Dug the Ciampa/Gargano video but serious crazy Johnny Gargano is not good – sorry.
Roderick Strong vs. Tyler Bate was AWESOME. It felt like they got told they had 8 minutes so went ahead and wrestled at 2X speed and fit 20 minutes of not just action but story in. Some of the counters at the end felt G1 Climax-esque. The koppou kick countered with a Liontamer countered with a front cradle was SUCH good wrestling. Extra points to that shot of Bate looking just completely defeated after taking a Roderick Strong chop too.
MAIN EVENT (8/15/18)
No Way Jose vs. Curt Hawkins Part 36 this week made me feel sad. How does a wrestler get any better when they’re just working the same shit Main Event matches every week?
Legit have nothing to say about The Ascension vs. Heath Slater & Rhyno.
WWE TV Match of the Week: Tyler Bate vs. Roderick Strong
WWE TV MVP of the Week: Dean Ambrose
Even with SummerSlam this Sunday, RAW continues to be a bad wrestling show and SmackDown continues to be an OK wrestling show. At least the Network-only stuff was strong this week. God grant me the strength to get through SummerSlam. The hot stuff is hot, but the cold stuff is painful.
RAW: 4/10
SmackDown: 6/10
205 Live: 7/10
NXT: 7/10
