…and Adam Rose has been arrested for domestic violence.
Guess we won’t be seeing him around anymore.
Yeah, my first thought was “Chris Benoit”. Wrestler, disabled kid, domestic violence… WWE don’t want no more of that.
That’s sad. I feel sorry for the guy even though he caused his own downfall.
*Bahwannnggaaaahhhh
Baaaannnnhhhh*
A little below par LU this time around, mainly because they had a tough act to follow last week, and probably had to keep the first match short for cable time.
In the first vignette, Dario meets the evil councilman at a bar and is told the councilman’s boss is coming to the Temple. Dario hands EC an envelope full of cash and tries to leave, but EC insists he stay for a drink. EC tells Dario he’s slipping, and the LA police sent undercover officers to infiltrate his operation. Dario replies that it’s difficult to run the Temple, and EC replies, “Try running a city sometime.”
Joey Ryan vs Mr. Cisco vs Cortez Castro Triple Threat for an Aztec Medallion
This lasted about 2 minutes. After Ryan was thrown out, he waited until the time was right and sneaked back in for a roll-up victory. After he was awarded the Medallion, he slipped it in his trunks.
Is that an Aztec Medallion in your pants, or are you just glad to see me? Nyuk nyuk
Trios Champions El Rey, Prince Ricochet & Aztec Dragon Jr vs Ivelisse, Son of Havoc and Johnny Mundo (with Taya)
Dario Cueto directed Mundo to replace the injured Angelico in Team Dysfunction, and this match mainly served to lead to the inevitable schism between Mundo/Taya and SoH/Ivie and a future feud between the two teams. The masked champs in the meantime took advantage of the personalities clash and won the match.
Backstage, Catrina gives a pep talk to Mil Muertes - not so much a pep talk as it was promises of eternal damnation and suffering the throes of death if he loses. She says she’s wited 197 years for this moment, and reminds him of what is was like to be buried for weeks under the rubble when he was 8 years old. King Cuerno is then seen lurking in the background.
LU Champ Matanza Cueto vs Mil Muertes in a four-casket match
This definitely had eerie spectacle, with Day of the Dead performers in *calaveras *makeup wheeling the coffins to ringside and placing wreaths with Mueters’ and Matanza’s names inscribed. Speaker for the Dead Papa Midnight walked around on stilts as green fog billowed out from the temple depths.
Not quite as epic as their previous match, as the action got bogged down while the combatants moved around the caskets. There was one cool moment when MM found a chain mail glove and put it on. Matanza pushed him into a casket, but MM punched his way through the lid with the chain glove and choked Matanza, Jason Voorhees style. Later, MM had to sell difficulty pulling a casket into the ring while Matanza took out Catrina, put her in a casket, and put the Muertes stone in another. This served to weaken MM enough for Matanza to seal him in a casket for the win. The Day of the Dead performers returned to wheel the caskets away, but when they opened Catrina’s casket, it was empty. DOM dum DOMMMM! As the scene ends, one of the acolytes pulls back his hood, and it’s King Cuerno. Is he trying to learn Catrina’s dark secrets for himself?
Final vignette: The evil councilman is in a limousine, talking with the unseen Big Boss. When the Boss speaks, his face is in shadow, but then he lights a cigar. Is it Big Ryck??? Mysteriouser and mysteriouser.
*Bahwannnggaaaahhhh
Baaaannnnhhhh*
In this week’s NXT, I really marked out when Elias Sampson interrupted Finn’s promo with his shame song. It was a really good shot of Finn fuming while Elias slowly approached him from behind, strumming the dirge on his guitar. You just knew Finn was going to destroy Elias for that.
A couple of girls in the audience shouted Sampson’s name. Nice to know I’m not the only Sampson mark in existence.
This ep was mainly A-listers vs jobbers, but it was interesting to see Paul Elllering’s daughter adding to the list of second generation wrestlers, after Tully Blanchard’s daughter last week. Cory Graves said Alexa Bliss was the Daughter Killer.
One more thing: Finn must never leave NXT. The audience has been chanting “Please don’t go” for him lately, and they’re right.
Speaking of NXT, I’m seeing it live in Seattle tonight! (yaaaaaaaaaay)
The only names they’re advertising for the show are Finn, Joe, Bayley, Asuka, and Nakamura, but that in and of itself is enough to guarantee that this oughta be a great show. I’ll report back later tonight.
As a frequenter of many, I can tell you they are a blast.
Get there early because they have meet and greets and you might get someone really cool.
ETA: I guess tho it depends on where you’re seeing it. Are you seeing it somewhere big? Like a college arena? or somewhere small like the Seattle Armory or something? An arena show probably won’t have a MnG, but a small gym might
I’m seeing it at the Paramount Theatre. It usually hosts musicals, concerts, standup, and silent movies, and it seats about 2800 at full capacity (probably a few hundred less for this show since they’ll probably have to remove the first 15 rows or so to make room for the ring). They’re opening the doors an hour and a half before bell time and I’m planning to be there when they open the doors.
I don’t know if they have concessions there, or let you bring them in yourself, but they never have food/drink at the house shows. Full Sail yes…house no.
If it’s the same deal in the rest of America then you might want to bring in a Coke and a bag of Skittles (ha! there wasn’t a red line under that…), because the shows are easily a couple hours long and you could get hungry
Just got back from the “Seattle Shockwave” NXT show. I wouldn’t call it the greatest show in the history of sports entertainment, but it was pretty darn good. The ring was actually set up on the stage, with two rows of seats onstage to the left and right, and the movie screen behind the ring subbing as the Titantron. There was no entry ramp, the wrestlers just entered from behind a curtain at the back of the stage. There was a hard cam on the balcony and one guy with a handheld camera at ringside. They were showing the hard cam footage on the 'Tron for the first few matches, but it was running about two seconds behind the live action and eventually they stopped showing it. There weren’t any meet and greets, but it was good that I got there early, because I got to buy a poster for the show that was autographed by all the performers. 
My seat was in the 19th row on the floor and I had a great view.
The opening match was No Way Jose vs. Buddy Murphy. (According to the poster it was supposed to be Wesley Blake, so I assume Murphy was a last-minute substitution.) Jose came out in a Russell Wilson jersey for the cheap pop. This was mostly a comedy match, but it was a good warmup. When Murphy initially refused to lock up with Jose, Jose called for his music and started dancing again until Murphy got angry and attacked him. Jose eventually won with an airplane spin. (Jose could use some work on his punches - he was pulling them too soon.)
Up next was Tucker Knight vs. Tino Sabatelli. I don’t think either of these guys have been on TV before. You could tell Knight was the heel though, because he was wearing a hoodie with the state of Oregon on the back and was introduced as hailing from Portland, and there’s nothing Seattleites hate more than Portland (besides any city in California and whoever the Seahawks are playing this week.) Sabatelli has an impressive physique, whereas Tucker is more Rhino-esque and managed to get some of the crowd on his side. There was a pretty impressive spot when Tucker whipped Tino to set him up for a clothesline and Tino jumped over him and countered with a dropkick. Tino eventually won.
First women’s match of the evening was Alexa Bliss vs. Bayley. One of her wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube men got stuck behind the Titantron when it inflated and she wrestled it into place. Alexa made a big show of making pouty faces and covering her ears when the crowd was chanting “Hey we want some Bayley” and “Bayley’s gonna hug you”. Bayley got the Bayley-to-belly for the win and then made her way out into the crowd to give out hugs. (I, sadly, did not get a hug.)
Up next was Austin Aries vs. Mojo Rawley. Not a pairing I would have expected, but it worked well - Austin is a relatively small guy, and they’ve been putting him in matches with bigger guys to emphasize his stature and make it a bigger deal when he holds his own. There were dueling chants of “AUSTIN ARIES/HE AIN’T HYPE!” for most of the match. Mojo was working more heelish than usual and was doing a lot of strange butt-themed attacks - butt slams, flying butt drops, butt splashes, and occasionally just stopping to wiggle his rear at the crowd, which prompted chants of “Booty!” and “MOJO’S BUTT! MOJO’S BUTT!” Austin soon caught on that the butt was Mojo’s secret weapon and started working his butt (in a non-gay way) until he eventually made Mojo tap out to a crossface.
Last match before the intermission was American Alpha vs. the Revival with the tag titles on the line. This was the first really “down to business” match on the show - the previous matches had had a few minutes of posing and preening for the crowd and comedy before the actual fighting started. Jordan and Dawson started the match. A guy behind me tried to start a “Which one’s Dawson?” chant, to which a guy near me shouted “The bald guy, you idiot!” The first guy repeated the question and it eventually turned into a chant of “WHICH ONE’S DAWSON? THE BALD GUY!” Highlight of this match was a spot where all four guys were in the ring and there was a synchronized chothesline into a suplex into Alpha locking matching ankle locks on Revival. Gable played Ricky Morton for awhile before Jordan managed to tag in and take his straps down, leading into a lot of back and forth and false finishes which eventually lead to all four guys lying on the ground struggling to get to their feet and land an attack. Alpha eventually gets the upper hand, and Jordan puts his straps back on just so he can pull them down again before he slams both the heels and pins Dawson to retain.
After the intermission, William Regal came out and cut a short promo about how 3 years ago NXT was pulling 50 people for a show and now they were selling out 2800 seats and it’s all because of fans like us. I didn’t know Regal traveled with the road shows, but I guess he’s probably the one running things in the back.
Elias Samson came out next with his guitar and said he wanted to play a song for the crowd. There were boos and “No!” and “Please don’t sing!” chants while he strummed some off-key chords and warbled about how he hates Seattle and the people here. He was interrupted mid-song by the theme music of his opponent - Shinsuke Nakamura! Didn’t take long for the “Shinsuke’s gonna kill you!” and “Fuck him up, Shinsuke, fuck him up!” chants to get going. It went about as well for Elias as you might expect. Nakamura got the win with the Kinshasa. Nakamura’s strikes are stiff as hell - you could hear the impact from his punches and kicks, and he clearly wasn’t stomping on the mat like most wrestlers do for the sound.
After that, Asuka defended the women’s title against Nia Jax. Asuka is legitimately terrifying when she makes her entrance with the geisha mask on. This was another David vs. Goliath type match - Nia dominating with her brute strength and tossing Asuka around like a ragdoll, with Asuka trying to wear her down with strikes. Asuka barely survived a bear hug and managed to set up the Asuka lock when Alexa Bliss ran in and attacked her, causing the ref to call for the bell. She and Nia double-teamed Asuka until Bayley ran out to make the save and ran the heels off. Bayley and Asuka had a brief staredown and then hugged it out.
The main event was Joe vs. Finn for the title. Solid match with great work from both guys, with the dueling chants for Finn and Joe eventually turning into “BOTH THESE GUYS!” Finn got a Bullet Club chant after he did the finger-gun gesture at Joe. In the end, Joe retained when Finn went for the coup de grace and he countered it into a musclebuster. After the match they had a staredown, and Joe offered his hand. Finn shook Joe’s hand… and then Joe pulled him in and clotheslined him. Joe went for another musclebuster, but Joe escaped and delivered a coup de grace to send the crowd home happy, too-sweeting the crowd on his way out.
All around a pretty solid show, no dull matches. The matches all ran about 15-20 minutes, and the show was about 3 hours overall. There was a bit of padding especially in the first half of the show, with a lot of preening to the crowd and a lot of rest holds and mat work (there was a “CHINLOCK CITY!” chant at one point.) The wrestling was pretty conservative and technical overall, with very few high spots or high-risk moves, but they managed to keep the suspense going and make all the performers look great. The Paramount was, as T-Cups predicted, woefully bereft of concessions unless you wanted to spend $25 for a glass of champagne (which I wouldn’t have done even when I was drinking), but that’s nothing that a post-show swing by Dick’s couldn’t fix. The tag match and Bayley/Bliss were the best ones IMO. Personal highlight - during Mojo/Aries, when Mojo was getting booed, a guy near me/ shouted "We’re saying ‘boo’, not ‘Boo-urns!’ a la the classic Simpsons episode. I shouted in response “I was saying Boo-urns!”, which got a laugh and a brief “BOO-URNS! BOO-URNS!” chant.
If NXT comes to your town, check it out.
That’s cool that you got to see all the A-listers except for (chuckle) Eva Marie.
Glad you had fun! Everything you said sounds like a typical house show, except you definitely got more stars than we do…but it’s a traveling show so that’s to be expected.
Interesting that they brought Sabatelli as he’s been in the back for a while. We’ve only seen him once in house shows. Tucker Knight, on the other hand, is a house-show regular…but no one really likes him.
So now we just need NXT to hit up Raleigh and we can all talk about our experiences!
Speaking of Raleigh, in a completely off topic subject…
Knowed Out, I’m seeing Apocalyptica again this weekend in Tampa, only this time I’m bringing Ms. Cups with me.
There is a WWE show May 14 in Raleigh, but I’m probably not going to go. I’d rather be with a smark audience like NXT than a family-friendly show. AJ Styles is scheduled to take on Chris Jericho, but there’s also RR vs Sheamus, so… eh.
I’m hoping Chikara will make another stop in this area soon. Other than Florida, I don’t think NXT has had a show in the southeast period.
Grats for seeing Apocalyptica again STC. Those cellists can rock.
AJ Styles has been pulled from this weekend’s tour of shows (including Raleigh) because of injuries so he can rest up for Extreme Rules. Now I have 0 interest in going.
Poop. Latest newssays no Brock, and it might be Shinsuke vs Chris Jericho instead.
Oh, applesauce.
Well, anyway, just to brag a little more, here’s a photo of the sweet autographed poster I got at the NXT show. 
Nice. Did you go to each star individually?
Ok, now I want to see a Bray Wyatt instagram post saying “Follow the Balors”. 
And… created my own Instagram account just to post back at both. #FollowtheBalors