Vince does get a lot right, and it does take time. The issue is that Vince buckets talent, and when he puts talent in the middle buckets, it’s very, very difficult for them to exceed. If Kofi or DBD got the kinds of reactions Reigns used to get, they would have been buried faster than DBD’s WM loss to Sheamus. It’s obvious WWE doesn’t know what to do with talents like Nakamura and Rusev and even KO. Heck, they have a hard time making any story without a title compelling. Styles/Orton excitement is all from the talent, as WWE has treated the match as glorified WM filler. Would have been nice if it got the same build time as McMahon/Miz, but it’s the boss’ son, so that wasn’t going to happen.
I’ve updated my Kofi Kingston playlist to include 2010. On to 2011!
The Takeover opening match was fan-fucking-tastic! I feel like I was observing Walpurgisnacht! What a way to start WM weekend.
Dream versus Riddle was even better.
The show has been on point so far. I expected WALTER to win, but Dunne did a great job making it look competitive.
OK, don’t need to watch anything else this weekend. NXT Takeover is already better than WM.
The last match was a masterpiece. Gargano has perfected the glassy-eyed stare, like his will to live just ended. This was nonstop awesome juice.
Meanwhile, at MSG, Kenny King wins the Honor Rumble for a future ROH world title shot after last eliminating Jushin Thunder Liger and THE GREAT MUTA, who came out of retirement at #30 in the match.
Good start to the show.
are they taping that card ? I sooo wanna see that ……….
It’s live right now on PPV, Honor Club, and NJPW World, and AXS will be airing it next week IIRC.
cool ill see if I can dvr it on axxs
Well, that was interesting. Some kind of run-in during Bret Hart’s speech. Wonder if it was Enzo? I’m sure some of the news sites will have more details soon. They’re probably typing it up as Bret finishes his speech.
Decent video of the whole thing. Doesn’t catch Dash Wilder knocking the guy out though.
As if not to be undone by some amateur, Enzo Amore and Big Cass just jumped the barricade at MSG and got beaten up and dragged out by Bully Ray and others.
Fuck those guys.
Seems to be some confusion as to that second one being a work or not. Seems fishy to me. If it was just Enzo, maybe, but Cass being there too.
If it’s real, then Enzo and Cass are idiots.
If it’s a work, then Enzo, Cass, and ROH’s bookers are idiots.
They didn’t show any of the run-in on TV, though, and commentary buried what was going on and refused to name them. All the footage is from fans. So I’m thinking it’s just more of Enzo being Enzo.
Early word is the run-in is a work ordered by management but unwanted by bookers.
I was typing up a recap of the show, but then my kitten jumped on the keyboard and deleted my work, so I’ll just say that aside from the Enzo/Cass run-in it was a great show.
Okada/White, Ospreay/Cobb, the three-on-three hardcore match, and the four-way tag titles match were the highlights, with the big surprise performance of the night coming from now-former ROH tag team champion PCO. I’d never heard of his current character before, but it turns out he’s actually none other than Carl Oullet, who you may remember as one half of the early '90s WWF tag team The Mounties alongside Jacques Rougeau. He’s undergone a late-in-life career revival as a Frankenstein’s Monster type character who gets brought to ringside in an electric chair and brought back to life via his manager Destro shocking him with a pair of jumper cables, and he absolutely stole the match with his athleticism.
Watch it on AXS if you get the chance.
Latest word is that the guy who ran in on Bret Hart was driven to do it by boredom. They believe at least 53 other audience members were about to the same thing. That’s less than 10% of the number who were on the verge of committing suicide.
What do you expect from the Hall of Fame ceremony? It’s super long and those guys prattle on and on. I tried to watch parts of it and I’d end up pausing it, doing something else, then coming back and moving the slider up to current to see if it was more interesting.
DX, Bret (even without the asshole interrupting), Harlem Heat, and Torrie were worth watching IMO.
Honky and “The Barber”, not so much.