IMG Credit: WWE

We might as well get one of the bigger ones out of the way. Wrestling is a lot of things but at the end of the day, it revolves around what happens in the ring. You can do all the promos and segments you want, but somewhere in there you have to have a big match (don’t tell Vince Russo). That was the case in a lot of places this year and some of them were outstanding.

WWE Championship: Men’s Elimination Chamber

I’m putting this one first because a good chunk of the match doesn’t matter. It wasn’t until it became clear that Kofi Kingston could actually pull this off that it got really, REALLY good, with one of the best sections of a match I’ve seen WWE put together in years. This was different than Kingston just being the last victim.

There was a feeling that Kofi could win and all of a sudden, you began to realize how much you wanted to see him actually be WWE Champion. The big thing was how real the whole possibility felt and that isn’t something you get more often than not. I bought into more than one of these near falls and by the end of it, I was spent, which is as big of a success as you can get.

Men’s Survivor Series

This is another one where the atmosphere helped things out incredibly well and I was wondering how it was going to end (granted me being in the audience that day helped a lot). This was the triple threat format with NXT included and that was what everyone wanted to see. I downgrade this one a bit due to some of the booking choices (Walter being eliminated in two minutes was inexcusable) but the end with Lee pinning Rollins and then having the showdown with Reigns was top notch.

What mattered here was how big it felt. I wasn’t sure who was going to win this and they gave it enough time to build things up rather than rushing through everything. It’s what I wanted from a Survivor Series match and the reason I had been trying to go to a show for so many years. Couple that with Lee getting the clean pin on Rollins and this was a joy to watch.

United Kingdom Title: Pete Dunne vs. Walter (Takeover: New York)

We’ll still with NXT for a match that you knew you wanted to see from the second Walter debuted at Takeover: Blackpool. Dunne’s title reign seemed like it would never end because no one could actually beat him. That’s where Walter came in, as it became a question of who could possibly defeat Dunne after everyone else had failed. That’s a heck of an atmosphere and they set it up to perfection.

Then there was the actual match and sweet goodness what a fight. This was Dunne going out on his shield as Walter just could not be stopped. They beat the fire out of each other and it nearly stole the weekend, with some of the hardest hitting shots you’ll ever see. It became a question of who could survive and ultimately Walter took the title in an instant classic. Incredible stuff, as British Strong Style tends to be.

WWE Championship: Daniel Bryan vs. Kofi Kingston (Wrestlemania XXXV)

And now we have a sequel to the Elimination Chamber. This is a great example of what putting in the effort over the years can get you. Kingston had been in WWE since 2006 and somehow had never had a one on one match for the WWE Championship. It was very similar to the Jeff Hardy vs. Randy Orton feeling at the 2008 Royal Rumble and now we were finally getting the chance. It felt special and that’s what it wound up being.

What mattered here was the very end. It wasn’t clear until Kingston actually won that he might pull it off, because it was hard to believe that they would actually pull the trigger. After Kingston won the title though, the magic really began. New Day unveiled the classic title and Kofi’s kids came in to celebrate with him. You don’t get a special feeling like that very often but when it’s real, you can feel it. That’s what Kofi gave us and it was one of the best in years.

NXT Title: Johnny Gargano vs. Adam Cole (Takeover: New York

Dang it was a great Wrestlemania weekend. This one was both a case of what might have been and a case of what we wound up getting. There isn’t much of a secret that this was supposed to be the final blowoff between Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa’s all time classic feud, but alas Ciampa’s neck flared up and he had to be pulled. This is what we got instead and it happened to be great.

What we got was a heck of a fight with both guys making you believe that they could win at any given time. Some of the near falls were outstanding and while there were times where it went beyond the realm of being believable, it was the kind of moment that everyone had been waiting to see. Gargano FINALLY won the title that he had been chasing for years and it came after a great match.

So we have emotion and great action, but not both at a high level throughout. This changes that.

United Kingdom Title: Walter vs. Tyler Bate (Takeover: Cardiff)

I was excited for this one coming in after seeing the two of them tear the house down at a Progress show the year before. What we had here was a David vs. Goliath story with the much smaller (yet incredibly strong) Bate fighting the unstoppable monster. They took that simple story and knocked it out of the park with one of the best fights I’ve seen in a long time.

What made this work was how they made Walter look desperate. Walter comes off as someone who never gets shaken but this time around he could not finish Bate no matter what he did. The fans got behind Bate because he would not stay down until Walter FINALLY hit him with everything he had in a heck of a clothesline to retain the title. There was something so raw about Walter just having to unload on him like that to win and it was a great moment to end the Match of the Year.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also -available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

IMG Credit: WWE

So it’s that time again as we need to look back at everything that took place, both the good and the bad, of the last year. However, since this year is also the start of a decade, it’s going to be a double shot of the whole thing. Therefore, I’m going to blaze through these with three or four a day for the next five days for the 2019 Awards and then do the same thing next week for the 2010s Awards. I don’t want these things dragging out forever like they usually do so marathoning them is the best option. Let’s get to it.

This is one of the cooler ones as a lot of people are going to remember the short bursts of things instead of the big, long editions. That’s perfectly understandable and it was the case again this year. These are the quick moments that blew people’s minds and just looked cool, which are going to leave a lot of people talking for a long time to come.

Johnny Gargano And Adam Cole’s Double Dive (Takeover: Toronto)

In a feud that had one long, epic match after another for the NXT Title, they needed something big to close it out and that’s what they had here. This was inside a hardcore cage and they beat the heck out of each other, with the match going on for over fifty minutes with neither being able to pull it off. That meant it was time to do something huge and they did that in spade.

At the end of the match, both of them wound up at the top of the cage and then dove off (for whatever reason) and crashed HARD through a table, with Cole covering Gargano to retain the title. This was an absolutely insane ending and the crash looked incredible, as it was going to be whomever could get an arm over winning the thing. Just awesome stuff here and it came at the end of an epic match.

Tommaso Ciampa Ends Adam Cole (Takeover: WarGames)

WarGames is the kind of match that works every single time. It’s one of the biggest and most violent matches in WWE and while it hasn’t been around long in this company, it has developed a reputation as something special. A lot of that is due to it being in NXT where they can do some better stuff, and the big ending to this year’s men’s match lived up to the hype.

At the end of a long WarGames, Tommaso Ciampa and Adam Cole wound up on top of the double cage and there was a table beneath them. There was no way that this would end well and that was exactly what happened, with Ciampa lifting Cole up for a super White Noise through the table to FINALLY finish the match. I was in the arena for this one and could barely look, because the image of Cole upside down and that high in the air actually got to me a bit. That was something else and thankfully they were both ok. It was the only way to end the match and Ciampa looked like a star all over again.

Randy Orton Spikes Ricochet (Raw – October 28)

There are some finishers that are going to work no matter how many times you see them. Some of the best finishers in the world have become nearly iconic and that is the case with the RKO. It has even turned into a joke about how Orton can hit it from anywhere, which makes the thing that much more impactful. That was the case again this time, but the landing is what made it work.

In the buildup to Crown Jewel’s ten man tag, it was time for everyone to go after everyone on the other team. This was prime time for an RKO Outta Nowhere and that’s what happened, with Ricochet missing a dive off the top but rolling to his feet. Orton slid in and hit a heck of an RKO, with Ricochet landing on the top of his head for one of the best sells I’ve ever seen from the move. The RKO still works great and Ricochet can do things that no one else can and that was incredible.

But then, there was this.

Keith Lee Pounces Adam Cole Off The Screen (NXT – November 27)

Wrestling is not a normal world. It is basically a comic book come to life at times and that makes things all the more interesting. At the same time though, these people are human and there are only so many things that they can do. Sometimes though you get someone who can do things that do not seem human, which is what we saw on this day.

Lee and Dominik Dijakovic were challenging for the NXT Tag Team Titles when Cole interfered. This did not sit well with Lee, who Pounced Cole over the barricade and off camera in something that looked like it was out of a cartoon. It was one of the most ridiculous (in a good way) things I’ve ever seen as Cole was knocked a crazy distance in another instance of Lee looking inhuman. This stuck with me more than anything else and it was the Spot Of The Year.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up the paperback edition of KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews (also -available as an e-book) from Amazon. Check out the information here:

http://kbwrestlingreviews.com/2019/08/26/new-book-and-e-book-kbs-complete-2004-monday-night-raw-reviews/

And check out my Amazon author page with cheap wrestling books at:

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

And it was a squash.https://wrestlingrumors.net/tommyhall/wow-aew-dynamites-ratings-viewership-numbers-hit-park-smash-nxt-setting-record/

AEW walloped NXT by about 500,000 viewers, plus beat last week’s Smackdown in the 18-49 demographic.  That’s WAY beyond what any reasonable expectations could have been and will keep TNT happy for a long, long time.

It was a great case of everything coming together well and while there is room for improvement on AEW, I’m not sure how much better it could have gone.  As I’ll say about anything though: well done.  Now do it again, but better.

On the eve of Dynamite’s Debut, keep something in mind.April 6, 1995: Monday Nitro has not debuted.

April 6, 1996: Monday Nitro isn’t much of a show and WCW is kind of a mess.

April 6, 1997: Monday Nitro hasn’t lost a night in the Monday Night Wars in about eight months and the WWF looks more confused than anything else.

April 6, 1998: Monday Nitro has beaten Monday Night Raw 82/83/84 weeks in a row (the number is harder to nail down than Goldberg’s winning streak).

April 6, 1999: Monday Nitro is turning into a disaster and things aren’t getting better.

April 6, 2000: Monday Nitro is a dumpster fire and the second worst show of the week, only after Thunder.

April 6, 2001: Monday Nitro is canceled and WCW is out of business.

The show, which beat Monday Night Raw for over a year and a half straight, came and went in less than six years.  I have no idea what Dynamite is going to do tomorrow, but it doesn’t matter what they do in their first week.  What matters is their 50th week, their 100th week and their 572nd week, and all points in between.  Don’t get excited or discouraged after one show and see where this goes in the long term, because tomorrow night is a page in a story, not the whole book.

https://www.wwe.com/article/wwe-hall-of-famer-harley-race-passes-away

This is one of the big ones.Race is one of those wrestlers that people talk about in complete awe and it’s for a good reason.  There are very few people in wrestling (or any sport for that matter) as revered as Race is, with almost everyone talking about him as one of the best of all time.  Rather than list off his ridiculous amount of accomplishments, I’m going to go with some of the awesome stories I’ve heard of him over the years.

Back in WCW, Race and Vader rode together.  Race would have been in his 50s at this point and retired from the ring.  Vader had two jobs: keep a fresh beer ready for Harley and shut up.  Vader did both, mainly out of fear.

Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes were on an episode of Legends Roundtable, where Flair was bragging about himself even moreso than usual.  Flair asked Rhodes who he had been in the ring with that was a better opponent than him.  Dusty said the greatest opponent he had ever been across the ring from was Harley Race.  Flair looked at him, looked down, and carried on because he had no comeback.

A few years back, Race hurt himself in a fall but had an appearance a few hours away.  Within a few days he tried to drive, got about 200 miles and turned back because the pain was too great.  It turned out he had two broken legs.

Jim Cornette was asked who would win in a fight between Haku, Steve Williams, Danny Hodge and Harley Race.  Cornette said Race, because he would just pull out a gun and shoot all three of them, then go off and have a cigarette while he waited for his cab.

I got to meet Race a little over a year ago in New Orleans.  I’ve met a lot of wrestlers, and other than Hulk Hogan, I’ve never been more in awe of meeting someone.  Race was a legend and one of the best ever, who deserves every tribute and accolade he receives.  This is a big one and there aren’t many bigger.

Harley Race’s robe from WM III

This is the second in the box of seven DVDs I picked up last week and you can win them.  Check out the details right here.  This one was filmed the day of the 2015 Royal Rumble (January 25, 2015) in Philadelphia and runs about two hours and twenty five minutes.

So you’ve probably heard of something like this before. There is no secret that the Monday Night Wars have been discussed to death. And I mean to death to death. Between the full length documentary with the talking heads to the borderline obnoxious twenty part documentary on the Network. The subject has been covered and there isn’t much left to be talked about.

Therefore, it wasn’t the most thrilling thing in the world when I pulled this DVD out of the box I got last week. This time around though it’s a one on one debate between two of the main names in the Monday Night War with Eric Bischoff and Bruce Prichard talking about the whole thing. Throw in Chris Jericho as moderator and you have the makings for something interesting.

They do mention that there isn’t much that you haven’t heard before and that’s kind of nice. Other than a few stories, you’re not going to get much new information out of this but it’s cool to have a different kind of format and a non-WWE version of the story. The two of them are clearly friends (or at least friendly with each other) and there are only a few arguments between the two.

There are some interesting points and Jericho adds a nice perspective from a talent who was on both sides. The whole thing was an entertaining way to spend a few hours and while nothing new was added, it was a fun event. Jericho is there to make things that much more entertaining and the whole thing was perfectly fine for what it was.

There were four wrestlers present: Brian Pillman Jr. (remember that this is about 15 minutes south of Cincinnati), Billy Gunn, Jim Cornette and Jim Ross. Marty Jannetty had to cancel due to a family emergency.

The ballpark is rather small so there wasn’t much to be seen. I was walking around a bit before the game and saw Gunn and Pillman walking towards an office. A kid asked Gunn for his autograph and he said you can get them during the third inning. Then he took a step, turned around and signed the kid’s ball. That was a nice touch, as my previous interaction with Gunn hadn’t been the best in the world.

The line for the autographs was rather long, though they kept things moving fairly well. You could get any item signed so I grabbed a Freedom baseball and mini bat while in the line (smart move to sell them there) so Gunn/Pillman could sign the ball and Cornette could sign the bat (Cornette with an item that can be used to beat people senselessly seemed appropriate).

As you can see, I got JR to sign a bottle of his chipolte ketchup (signature on top, WWE HOF on the bottom), which is rather tasty. The annoying part there though was the Freedom attendant started talking to JR about barbecue sauce while I was just left standing there as he signed. Kind of defeats the purpose no?

All four were rather nice with Gunn being more approachable than I was expecting. Cornette was his usual chatty self and was telling stories in between fans coming up. Pillman was incredibly nice and asked every fan’s name. I mentioned meeting him before at WrestleCon and he looked straight at me and was clearly listening while I talked. You don’t get that a lot of the time.

JR was the big one here as I’ve never gotten to meet him before. He was appreciative that I said I liked his AEW performance and that he was the first voice I remember in wrestling (Clash of the Champions XII when Sting was confronted by the REAL Black Scorpion). That got a smile out of him and he told me to keep listening.

Other highlights included JR explaining the territory system to a young fan, Billy Gunn demonstrating the Rockabilly dance, some funny New Age Outlaw stories, Cornette on why WWE won the war (hint: it has to do with WCW being stupid), Gunn and Cornette (politely) going at it over the Double Or Nothing battle royal and Cornette offering Gunn money to beat up Joey Ryan during their upcoming match.

The best of all though was a question Cornette got about whether he would save Joey Ryan or Vince Russo if they were both drowning and he only had one life preserver.

Cornette: “I’d wear both of them myself, stand on their heads and make sure they drowned. Then I’d give Russo mouth to mouth so he could come back to life and I could do it again.”

All in all, a rather fun night for $70 total. I had a good time and got to meet some stars, one of which I’ve been trying to meet for years.

The season is done now and the good news is that the show has received the highest audience and ratings in the history of the network. That would make it seem like a second season is likely, which is great as this has been one of the best series of documentaries I can remember seeing.

Bruiser Brody

We’re starting with probably the best episode here. Bruiser Brody was a monster back in his day and one of the true traveling attractions in wrestling. He would wrestle a little bit throughout the territories but never stayed in one place for very long. Eventually he tried to buy into the World Wrestling Council in Puerto Rico, which didn’t sit well with another wrestler, who stabbed him to death in the shower.

That’s what the episode focuses on because what else could it focus on? The main speaker here is Tony Atlas, who was in the locker room that night and saw the knife. He also helped carry Brody out but there was nothing that could be done to save him. This is a well known story in wrestling but the fallout is the fascinating part though as the show looks at the coverup of the murder, with claims of self defense and subpoenas being delivered after the trial was over.

This one felt like a dive into a very deep story and that’s where this thing got fascinating. The main story is well known but the details themselves make it clear how horrible the entire situation really was. It’s one of those cases where everyone else seems to know what happened but the people involved with the killing yet somehow they’ve gotten away with the whole thing. Check this one out as it’s more than worth your time.

Von Erichs

This one is much more like the Montreal Screwjob episode than anything else. The problem with the Von Erichs is that there is so much to be said about the whole thing that you can’t contain the whole thing in a single hour. The family is one of the greatest tragedies in wrestling history and we get a lot of that here.

Kevin Von Erich, the last of his generation, gets to talk a lot here and you can feel the real emotion coming from him as he talks about his brothers passing away. The line of “I used to have five brothers and now I’m not even a brother anymore” is a really hard one to sit through, though it does seem like he has found peace, which is the best possible ending that he could have.

The other big issue here is talking about how David passed away from stomach issues when it has been pretty well established that it was a massive drug overdose. That being said, I can completely understand the lack of wanting to talk about something like that as maybe Kevin still believes otherwise. Can you blame him for wanting to try to have some peace on that? Either way, this made me want to watch the other two awesome documentaries on World Class, both of which are more than worth seeing. This is a good show for another side, but it could have been twice as long to really cover everything in more detail.

Gino Hernandez

I was looking forward to this one as Hernandez is another interesting case that you don’t hear about very often. Hernandez was a young and talented heel who knew how to work a crowd but also spent a lot of time partying and getting involved with some rather questionable people.

This one takes a different twist though as it’s much more about Hernandez’s family trying to find out what happened to him. Hernandez died under some mysterious circumstances (the autopsy report had some mistakes and he had something like five times the amount of cocaine in his body for an overdose) and for thirty years his mother and daughter weren’t sure what happened to him. The producers found some of the people Hernandez associated with back in the day and smoothed things over a bit, though it does seem that there was some more going on.

This is more in the true crime path like the Brody show and that made it better. Again, it helps to have a story that a lot of people aren’t familiar with and some characters that are easy to get behind. Throw in some stories like Hernandez being paranoid that he was about to be killed and then dying under mysterious circumstances and this was quite an easy watch. Well if you can ignore a story about death, drugs and a destroyed family.

Fabulous Moolah

Series finale time and this one didn’t work as well for me. The idea is that Moolah is someone who is beloved for her success and influence on wrestling but she might have been a rather horrible person behind the scenes, controlling her women wrestlers and throwing them away when she stopped making them money. It sounds like a lot to cover and that’s where this runs into trouble.

The problem here is they run through so many different stories about Moolah that it’s hard to get any kind of flow going. It’s a lot of looking at one person/story then another then another and while it certainly makes Moolah look horrible, it’s not the best way of presenting things. It’s much more a bunch of things being thrown together and used as a presentation of everything wrong with her. The overall message works, but the means of getting there not so much.

Overall, I’m sure there’s something there with Moolah, but her legacy is so strong and influence so incredible that it’s rather easy to overlook. At the same time though there are so many stories of people being treated horribly that it’s impossible to overlook. When you consider the history of wrestling though, especially the era when Moolah was on top, it’s all but guaranteed that Moolah wasn’t the only boss doing things like this. It’s a good amount of stories and evidence against her, but that’s what it feels like: a bunch of stories told one after another instead of one big compelling idea.

So yeah, the series is great and even the worst episode (probably Moolah or the Screwjob) are all worth checking out. The Brody one is great though and they all fly by. Season two should be great as it’s not like there aren’t a ton of stories to tell. Dino Bravo has been rumored for a season premiere and that could work out very well. Check these things out as soon as you can.

That’s way too young for anyone.  He died in the ring in London and while I haven’t watched the tape (and won’t be), it sounds rather horrific.

I can’t tell you much about Silver King other than he wrestled in WCW during their boom period and was still active (obviously) to this day.  He never did much in WCW, but on the June 7 Nitro, he and La Parka fought Ciclope and Damien in a hardcore match which was one of the best matches the show ever had.  These four beat the fire out of each other and it has stuck with me for years.  Check this one out as it’s actually awesome stuff.

You knew I would be checking these out.

Randy Savage/Miss Elizabeth

This was the first episode in the series and that’s an interesting way to go. You could go with a bigger story but there is something to be said about having a story on two major names and how things can go badly behind the scenes. That’s the case here with Savage and Elizabeth being two major names who had a real life story that was similar to the pretty bad version that you saw in front of the cameras.

The talking heads were good, though hearing Linda Hogan talk that much was a little much. Some of the details are sad, and even though it’s a lot of stuff that was already known, it’s hard to sit through in total because the story really was tragic. That’s kind of the theme of the whole thing though and that’s just fine.

Montreal Screwjob

I’m not sure what to think of this one. The Montreal Screwjob is the most infamous ending to a match in wrestling history and there has been all kinds of things to say about it. It’s an hour long show and while it seems like they could have done a lot more stuff, the show felt like it had a bunch of filler to get us up to the sixty minutes. Did we really need the stuff about Jim Cornette and Vince Russo? Did we need Vince Russo at all?

Much like the first one, this felt like a bunch of stuff that hardcore fans will know but all in one package. That works well for fans like us, but for fans who are hearing it for the first time, there’s a lot to take in. They had to leave a lot of it out for the sake of time, but it’s not exactly like the Savage/Elizabeth story, which can be summed up rather easily. I liked it, but it’s a story we’ve covered so much and it’s not the best in the world to show new fans.

Oh and it wasn’t a work. Just stop.