WWE Power Rankings: Week of 1/8/17-1/14/17

Via WWE.com

So I already decided I was going to switch up the format of my weekly WWE review series. The original format was just too much since it was recapping at least four shows a week. So I decided to turn this into a power rankings article, with the top 15 wrestlers/tag teams/stables that impressed me most every week. Along with that, there will also be the bottom 5 ranked for the least enjoyable parts of WWE programming each week. Let's dive in.

WWE Top 15 for the Week of Jan. 8

15. Oney Lorcan

Depite being named "Oney Lorcan," the former Biff Busick has been impressive lately during his NXT run. Two weeks ago in the Osaka house show edition of NXT, he got an impressive win over Andrade 'Cien' Almas. This week, Almas got his win back, but Lorcan still looked solid in the loss. It looks like he can get over in NXT on his in-ring work, but giving him some sort of character going forward would be nice. Lorcan might not be the flashiest indie star NXT has signed, but it doesn't look like he's being lost in the shuffle right now.

14. Rusev and Lana

Rusev and Lana get special mention this week for making the awful Shawn Michaels segment at least somewhat entertaining. Rusev has been one of the best promos in the company for forever now, and him telling Shawn to have the director "CGI" Lana into the movie was amazing. Rusev and Lana deserve so much better than the feud they have with Enzo and Cass, but Rusev's entire run since the Cena feud has been defined by feuds that he's escalated.

13. Seth Rollins

I've soured on Seth quite a bit since he's come back from his injury. Booking's a big part of that, but I feel like aside from a few times he just hasn't looked like the wrestler he's touted as. That's why it was nice to see Seth look the way he did in his match against Braun Strowman on Raw this week. Braun's size meant that Seth was just allowed to pinball around and do cool, flippy stuff to try to take Strowman down. It was the best match he's had in months. Also, because there was a double countout finish, we didn't have to see Rollins attempt one of his garbage Pedigrees!

12. John Cena

A lot of criticisms I saw with this week's Smackdown had to do with the return of LOLCENAWINS. While I'm a big fan of Big Breakfast Baron Corbin and didn't necessarily like seeing Cena going over clean, I don't think it matters much. Corbin's been built well that losing to Cena on a good TV main event isn't going to knock him down the card or anything. Especially since Cena's probably only around until Mania anyway. What was nice to see was Cena being able to have that standard John Cena TV match, which is something that is missed on a regular basis for me. He almost always delivers, and the Corbin match was no different, even if the ending felt a bit rushed due to time.

11. Alexa Bliss

I hope Alexa Bliss never loses her title, because she's doing some great work. This week she only really had a promo with Daniel Bryan and Becky Lynch that helped further set up the La Luchadora angle and a championship cage match(!) this week. She also had the only really decent segment of Talking Smack this week as well, once again with Becky to hype the match. Bliss is one of the best heels that WWE has, and she's doing really good work on a consistent basis, even on weeks her TV time is limited.

10. Neville

Neville had another great week with his King of the Cruiserweights gimmick. Since he's turned heel, he's been a highlight of the week. His matches this week with Lince Dorado on Raw and Tommy End(!) a the UK Tournament weren't his best, but the character work alone has been fantastic.

9. Asuka

Most of what Asuka did this week is get beaten up by Billie Kay, Peyton Royce and Nikki Cross. That happened a few times. But it did set up the four-way match that will be at Takeover. Asuka has been an underrated promo in NXT, speaking little but making it matter when she did. A broken Asuka coming into Regal's office and requesting a match against "ALL OF THEM" at Takeover was one of her best character moments in NXT yet.

8. Kalisto

While Dolph Ziggler's heel turn in its infancy has been a little weak, the first match Evil Ziggler had was largely very good, mostly because of Kalisto. Kalisto is one of the most consistent people on the WWE roster, and while Ziggler's trying to remember how to wrestle heel it's nice that he's going after one of the best babyface wrestlers in the company to help the transition. It seems a lot of people are still caught up in the Lucha Thing promo, but don't sleep on the dude's ability.

7. Andrade 'Cien' Almas

Almas probably shouldn't have been debuted as a babyface. He probably shouldn't have wrestled as a face against fan favorite Tye Dillinger and won. That set one of the most talented performers on NXT back a little bit, but he's been fighting back hard. Since turning heel, he's been much more natural in his role. This week he had one of his best matches yet against Oney Lorcan, an impressive match from both men considering the relatively short length. He may have a natural face look, but everything else about him is pure heel. It's nice to see him start to reach his potential in the company.

6. Sheamus & Cesaro

Two weeks in a row, Sheamus and Cesaro have been in singles matches with members of The Club, while the other was on commentary. Both times, it's been one of the best segments on Raw. Sheamus gets a lot of hate for being wrongly used when he's lowkey one of the best workers on the roster. Cesaro's a freak of a man and one of the best wrestlers in the world. Both have done great jobs putting themselves and their opponents over on commentary, and they've had great matches with Gallows and Anderson despite distraction finishes in both matches.

5. The Wyatt Family

Congratulations to WWE for making both the Wyatt Family AND Randy Orton interesting. Adding Orton to the stable was an interesting choice, but it's paid off really well. They dropped the titles basically right away but I like what they're building up to. Their match with American Alpha this week was great and told a solid story as they tease a split in the Family (hopefully Harper gets cast off instead of Randy because I like that story better).

4. Braun Strowman

BRAAAAAAUUUUUUN had another great week as the best part of Raw (and sometimes the only good part of Raw) in his match with Seth Rollins. I will never get tired of Braun just interrupting matches and demanding whoever he has beef with. There should be at least two segments per week of Braun just throwing stuff backstage and demanding Sami Zayn/Roman Reigns/Seth Rollins/Goldberg/whoever. It never fails.

3. American Alpha

So far American Alpha hasn't lived up to their short but impressive NXT run on the main roster. That's not really their fault. Other stories had to be told (nobody expected Slater/Rhyno to be as over as they were) and injuries also delayed the team a bit. So they've had to work a bit to get over, especially going against the likes of Orton, who will get huge cheers even as a heel. Luckily, Gable and Jordan are still incredible wrestlers and their work in the ring speaks for itself. They've had two big wins in a row on Smackdown, and they remain impressive. Hopefully live audiences start taking note as well.

2-1. #DIY and The Revival

This past week's episode of NXT is probably the last we'll see DIY and The Revival wrestle each other until they're both on the main roster, and that's a shame. These two teams have some of the best chemistry I've ever seen two tag teams have against each other. Luckily, both teams also have incredible chemistry with their teammates that allow them to have great matches with just about anybody. Last year was a great year for tag team wrestling, and it seems like it may get better this year. DIY and The Revival (along with American Alpha) were the teams that made it happen. I can't wait to see what these teams do next.

WWE Bottom 5 for the Week of Jan. 8

5. Cedric Alexander & Alicia Fox

I hate to put Cedric Alexander in the bottom 5 because he's coming off a wrestler of the year-caliber 2016. Unfortunately, his angle with Noam Dar and Alicia Fox has been awful. That culminated this week with Alexander breaking up with Alicia, only for Alicia to go crazy because women are crazy AM I RIGHT!??!? I'd say the WWE is better than this and I'm probably wrong, but they can and should be better than this.

4. Shane McMahon
 ex
I've already got beef with Shane because his character sucks and he insists on wrestling sometimes, but he's here because his presence on Talking Smack marked probably the weakest episode yet. Daniel Bryan is an entertaining host that gets excited about stuff. Shane McMahon is about as entertaining as a wheat field. Hopefully Daniel's back next week, because if Shane's back I'm not watching.

3. Carmella

Carmella's match against Thunderkitty on Smackdown was a disaster for a multitude of reasons and some of them had nothing to do with Carmella. Unfortunately, a lot of it did. It was her weakest match on the main roster. Her performance regressed to that of months before she got called up. That's a shame because she's been doing pretty good work on Smackdown. Hopefully this was just a hiccup.

2. Jinder Mahal

Jinder is the only main roster member who had a worse match than Carmella. Not only is his allegiance with Rusev groan-worthy because it's just another classic foreign heels team-up (get it!? they're not from here so we should boo them!), but he was actively bad in his match with Big Cass this week. He didn't even try to sell that East River Crossing. We probably won't see much of Jinder going forward though, because something tells me he's getting a Wellness violation.

1. Shawn Michaels

I'm not a fan of WWE bringing in older guys who can't wrestle anymore if they have nothing to do with the story. Shawn may be a legend, but I don't care what movie he has to promote. He's just wasting TV time that could be used to advance actual story. Sure, he technically helped progress the Enzo & Cass/Rusev feud, but that was also after a lengthy segment where he talked about his garbage movie nobody wants to see. His entire segment needed to be saved by Rusev to be even tolerable, and even with Rusev it felt twice as long as it actually was. Hopefully this is the last we see of HBK for a while. Stick to the superkicks and maybe stay away from the acting, Shawn.

My thoughts on booking WrestleMania 33

Via WWE

Last night, I was having a few drinks and browsing online when I saw a few WrestleMania rumor dumps from Dave Meltzer and the Wrestling Observer. So naturally, I did what any buzzed wrestling fan would do and booked the card based on those rumors. Right now we're in an interesting situation because for the first time in years the winner of the Rumble doesn't seem so predictable, which leaves a lot open. Here's what I think we might be getting this coming April.

The Week in WWE: 1/1/17-1/7/17

Via WWE.com

Welcome to the first edition of the Week in WWE review series, which is where I'll be giving thoughts on weeks of WWE programming. I hope that most weeks I'll have it up on Fridays, but because of some other stuff I'm working on and having to entertain a guest, it's a little late this week. Everything will be done show-by-show, bullet-by-bullet. I may play around with the formatting a little bit. PPVs will get their own articles for sure. So right now this covers Raw, Smackdown, 205 Live and NXT. Let's get this started.

Monday Night Raw (Jan. 2, 2017)

-        The first segment of WWE programming in 2017 is the WWE Raw special. Authority figures set up matchups we’ve already seen a million times leading up to a talk show segment main event. Foley was particularly bad in this, and it’s just sad how his character is on this show. Stephanie McMahon having to put herself over everybody else would normally be the worst part of this, but I don’t think Foley could’ve finished the segment without her to save his ass a bit. Jericho and Owens were entertaining here, like they always are (on the mic). D

-        The first match is Seth Rollins vs. Kevin Owens, and the loser will be banned from ringside during the United States Championship match. It’s the same Seth Rollins and Kevin Owens match we’ve been seeing for months, but it’s got the least amount of stakes so it’s completely forgettable. These two are great wrestlers who are dead in the water with bad booking. Owens disqualifying himself was dumb and unlike what we’re supposed to expect from him. C-

-        Karl Anderson vs. Cesaro was a nice little surprise of a match. It looks like we’re getting The Club vs. Cesaro and Sheamus for the next tag program, which could be sneaky good. They put on a nice little match and Sheamus is good on commentary. There’s a distraction finish with Sheamus and Luke Gallows involved, but everything else is so fun that that doesn’t matter too much. More things like this. B.

-        The last man standing match between Sami Zayn and Braun Strowman was awesome. This is what we should’ve gotten at the PPV, but instead we got 10 minutes of neither guy really trying that hard. This had the intensity it needed and was a ton of fun. Zayn is at his best when he’s getting murdered and Strowman is really turning into something cool. I hope they don’t ruin him. I loved how if Sami started to get up, Braun would pick him up and knock him down to make sure he’d stay down. It was a nice little touch. So fun. A-.

-        The New Day came out and Titus tried to get them to join Titus brand. New Day calls him lame and it transitions to a match between Titus O’Neil and Xavier Woods. It was short and to the point, with Woods going over. I think Xavier’s really underrated as a wrestler so it was nice to see a showcase for him. I could do without the WWE’s finding ways to embarrass Titus though. C+

-        Drew Gulak actually gets a win this week (his first on the main roster maybe?) against Cedric Alexander but it has absolutely no heat. It’s crazy how you can have two of the best workers in the world go at it and have nobody care, but that’s where the Cruiserweight Division is right now. Gulak wins via distraction rollup because they’re torturing us with this Alicia Fox nonsense. C.

-        Chris Jericho and Roman Reigns have their battle and like Rollins/Owens earlier, it’s everything you’ve seen from these guys before. Unlike Rollins/Owens, this one might have actually been one of their better outings because it has stakes. What I don’t get is the booking here. Jericho has distractions, the Guerrero-style faking being hit by a weapon, and a Codebreaker but doesn’t win. Roman retains. I’m a Roman defender but this is ridiculous, and I don’t know why he’s still got this belt. Raw’s midcard is already been weak and taking one of the midcard belts out of the equation for them is laughable. C-.

-        There’s more cruiserweight action you don’t care about as T.J. Perkins takes on Brian Kendrick for the 40567^th time since the CWC. It’s an alright match but like Gulak/Alexander, the crowd couldn’t care less. Hopefully these guys are done with each other for a while. C.

-        Enzo’s injured this week, so we have Big Cass taking on Jinder Mahal and Rusev in a handicap match. I admit I zoned out a bit during this match, but I didn’t seem to miss much as the Bad Foreigners™ use the damn numbers game to take care of Cass. C.

-        Bayley and Nia Jax was a solid match and I was hoping we’d get more of it, but Sasha showed up and distracted Nia. Not a great look because it makes Nia look like a chump. She’s still got the strength of ten Bayleys. A single Bayley-to-Belly shouldn’t take care of her because she heard Sasha’s music (no matter how dope her music is). C.

-        The show’s main event is the first-ever edition of Kevin Owens’ talkshow, the Kevin Owens Show. When it starts with him and Jericho, it’s awesome. These guys have such great chemistry together and I wish their wrestling was on the same level as their promos right now. The guest of the show is Goldberg, who interrupts KO and Jericho’s shenanigans. Heyman interrupts him to say Brock isn’t there. Roman shows up as well, followed by Braun because we gotta overbook the hell out of everything. Goldberg and Roman double spear Braun and it’s a cool little moment, but it didn’t feel earned. C+.

Overall: C. Nothing about Raw was offensively bad. The Anderson/Cesaro match was really fun, and the Last Man Standing was straight fire. Everything before and after those two segments was bland and forgettable. You’ve seen most of these matches before, and you’ll see them again. Like most of the finishes, most of Raw should serve as nothing more than a distraction. I did appreciate the show’s focus on wrestling with so many matches on the card, even if they didn’t exactly deliver.

Via WWE.com

Smackdown Live (Jan. 3, 2017)

-        Raw this week was a lot of matches we’ve seen before but significantly worse, so I was worried about Baron Corbin vs. Dolph Ziggler considering how much we’ve seen it this year. I was surprised that it ended up being a pretty high quality match, definitely the best singles match these two have done. Corbin went over, which is the way to go. After impressing in the Chairs match at TLC, the three-way last week and this match, I feel like he’s ready to break out. Corbin rules. Kalisto chased Corbin away from doing further damage, but Ziggler didn’t appreciate it and turned heel. I’m hoping this helps him get a little fresher after losing so many matches. The backstage segment after the match doesn’t make it look like it though. A-.

-        We continue the La Luchadora saga, as Becky Lynch takes her on after interfering in last week’s championship match. Becky wins and unmasks Alexa Bliss. The real La Luchadora shows up after, and she and Alexa kick Becky’s ass. Silly fun. B.

-        It’s #ShootWeek for John Cena and AJ Styles at the contract signing. Bryan’s there at first but leaves after explaining to AJ why John’s in the match. AJ proceeds to run Cena down as a has-been. I can’t believe there was a time we were worried about Styles’ ability to cut promos because he’s been great and this was no exception. Cena does some Classic Cena “You’re Not a Man You Don’t Have BALLS” and says he lost all his respect for AJ, who doesn’t care about the WWE like he does. Then Corbin comes out to say that whoever wins doesn’t matter, because he’s winning the Royal Rumble and then he’s winning the belt. This distracts John and allows AJ to knock him down and Corbin to taunt him. Excellent stuff. This is how you set up championship matches and future storylines, and I loved how this wasn’t the main event. A.

-        Carmella has a match with the debuting Aliyah from NXT. Both women looked really solid and Carmella won with a little help from her new valet James Ellsworth. I really hope this doesn’t mean a callup for Aliyah soon though, because even if she looked decent, she’s not ready for the main roster and the NXT women’s division needs her. This Carmella/Ellsworth story is entertaining the hell out of me. B+.

-        American Alpha make easy work of Breezango. I wish this went on longer because I love Breezango and think they could be the best team on Smackdown if they were given time. Alas, it’s a squash match. After the match, The Wyatts call A2 out, but they also further tease tensions between Randy and Harper at the end of it. It did its job to set things up for next week. B.

-        Shoot week continues as Natalya and Nikki Bella go after each other. Nikki counters Nattie’s accusations that she coasts off her beauty and being John Cena’s girlfriend by saying she’s coasted off her family’s success. They bring up one of Uncle Bret’s tweets praising Nikki, and Nattie implies that Nikki screwed Bret(?) to get that praise. That’s preposterous because everybody knows that the only person that screwed Bret is Bret. I’m not the biggest fan of this feud, though I do appreciate how we actually have separate women’s feuds on this show. B-.

-        In the main event, Miz and Dean Ambrose delivered. Neither guy is exactly the ace of the company in the ring, but both are in the midst of hot streaks from a wrestling standpoint. The way this goes is awesome. Maryse slaps Dean which should be a DQ, but the ref allows it and tosses her from ringside instead. Dean survives being hit with the belt and a Skull Crushing Finale, gets the Dirty Deeds and wins. I wish they kept the belt on the Miz because he’s such a good champion, but I hope this means they might promote him to the main event when Styles/Cena is done. His work this past year has been so good. He deserves it. Really good match here, and Miz’s breakdown on Talking Smack later as Conspiracy Victim Miz was even better. A.

Overall: A. For the second week in a row, Smackdown delivers a fantastic show that really doesn’t have anything that’s unessential. This is the best weekly wrestling show on right now with a bullet, and that’s coming from a big fan of both NXT and Lucha Underground. And it seems like we’re only getting started.

Via WWE.com

205 Live (Jan. 3, 2017)

-        205 Live starts up with a nice showcase of Tajiri as he easily takes care of Sean Maluta with a Buzzsaw Kick. Maluta’s pretty decent so I hope he gets to shine a little bit in the future. He’s fine as enhancement talent now though. After the match, Brian Kendrick comes up and welcomes a fellow pioneer of the division. Tajiri shakes his hand, but he doesn’t trust Kendrick so HE MISTS HIM. This was an awesome night of wrestling but I’m not sure if I loved anything more than that. Tajiri’s still got it, man. B+.

-        Next up is Tony Nese and Jack Gallagher, which is a really fun match. Nese hasn’t had a ton of opportunities to shine since the CWC, so it’s nice to see him and Gallagher go at it a bit. Eventually Daivari interferes and attacks Gallagher. I was figuring the duel wouldn’t be the end of the feud because it wasn’t really a real match (as awesome as it was), but I dunno where they go from there, man. What we got of this match was cool. B.

-        Mustafa Ali and Noam Dar get a bit more extended of a match, which I appreciate. It’s kinda ehhh for a while and Dar feels a bit off, but Ali manages to make the best out of it, popping the crowd and winning big. After the match, Dar says he’s still going to have a big 2017 and Alicia Faaaaaawks is still allowed in his corner any time. Dar plays the super creep really well, even if I’m not the biggest fan of him as a wrestler or the feud as a whole. Prince Ali is the truth, though. B.

-        Neville continues his reign of terror against TJ Perkins. I love just about everything about Heel Neville, and I hope he never leaves us. I love that 205 Live gives him a main event slot to really shine, too. This isn’t as fun as the Neville/Swann match last week, but it’s still really solid. Neville finishing matches with the superplex is awesome too. Keeps up with the “Neville is stronger than all the other cruiserweights” things and it’s not flashy like everything else he does. I appreciate it that he does Flippy Shit in the matches overall but when the crowd is getting into it, he stops. The heel turn stays awesome. B+.

Overall: B+. 205 Live is slowly turning itself around as a very good show. This was the best episode yet, as everything served its purpose. Tajiri’s reintroduction to the main roster was exactly what you’d want. Gallagher/Daivari keeps on keeping on. Mustafa Ali is establishing himself as one of the biggest stars on the roster. Then you’ve got Neville outshining everyone else in the best way possible. If the show keeps up like this, it might succeed yet.

Via WWE.com

NXT (Jan. 4, 2017)

-        The show starts off with The Revival getting a win over Riddick Moss and Tino Sabbatelli. Since this is house show footage, the match goes on a bit longer than we’d expect from normal NXT TV. That’s good though, because we get a little bit more of a look at Moss and Tino than we’re used to. Not a ton pops out about these guys just yet but they both looked solid in the ring. Top guys pull through to set up the final showdown with DIY next week. B-

-        More tag team action up next, this time with oddball couples. Elias Samson and Bobby Roode go up against Tye Dillinger and the hometown boy Buddy Murphy. It’s nice to see Murphy since he’s been mostly MIA since the Dubstep Cowboys broke up, makes you tear up seeing him get a big hometown pop :’) Crowd had huge heat for Samson which offset some of the big cheers Roode got. Another fun tag match. B.

-        We get a look at the future of the women’s division as Ember Moon takes care of Billie Kay and Liv Morgan in a triple threat match. This was good fun and all three of these women are looking better and better each time we see them. I did miss Peyton Royce by Billie Kay’s side here, though. Billie did a good job of dealing with hometown cheers and rejecting the Aussies chanting for her to be their girl. Ember Moon wins as is the natural order, because Ember Moon should win everything. B.

-        Coming up next is DIY vs. TM61 for the Tag Team Championship, and it’s as good as you’d expect it to be. I wish TM61 had more character and story than we’ve got with them now, but they’re a ton of fun in the ring and work well with Gargano and Ciampa. My big complaint with the match is that I wish one of the teams was working a bit more heelish, but overall the match was dope and got really good at the end. A-.

-        We saw an abridged version of the next match two weeks ago with Samoa Joe taking on Shinsuke Nakamura for the NXT Championship. This is a lot better than the abridged version that seemed almost like two different matches, but it’s still definitely time to move onto this feud. The match was fine, but when you’ve got two legendary wrestlers in a cage match, it should be more than fine. I did like the finish with Nakamura closing the door and finishing Joe off decisively instead of escaping. Wish they built up to it better. C+.

Overall: B. There's nothing must-see about the NXT show from Australia, but it's a lot of fun regardless. If you're looking for storyline development, you're not going to get it here since it's basically a televised house show and the one story-driving segment we got was shown in abridged form a couple weeks back. The matches are fun, though. If you've got two hours to kill, check this show out.

Wretro Wrestling: In Your House 10 - Mind Games

WWE Network

As promised yesterday, here's my newest Wretro Wrestling blog. This time, we randomly got to WWF In Your House 10: Mind Games from 1996. Looking at the card initially, only a few things really popped out at me to get me excited (basically just the main event between Mankind and Shawn). It's gonna be a bumpy ride, so hang on, folks.

Savio Vega def. Justin “Hawk” Bradshaw in a Caribbean Strap Match:

This wasn’t a very good start for me, because I’m not sure there’s a gimmick match I hate more than strap matches. Strap matches bloooooow most of the time. Someone watched wrestling and said, “Hey this is neat, but you know what it needs more of? People walking around and touching the turnbuckles like they’re playing duck duck goose.” There’s usually some brutality using the strap as a whip, but that’s about it.

Savio Vega is the king of strap matches, though. So we get to see this match between him and Justin “Hawk” Bradshaw. It’s kind of crazy seeing Bradshaw at this point in his career putting on curtain-jerker strap matches with guys like Vega when he’d go on to be a main eventer. I legit forget that he had gimmicks before the Acolytes.

The big deal with this match has nothing to do with the participants. Early on in the match, Bradshaw and Vega are brawling outside, and The Sandman and Tommy Dreamer from ECW just *happen* to be in the front row. Sandman spits beer at Vega and they try to jump the barricade, but get held back. This of course was one of the first seeds to be sown in the ECW Invasion angle of the mid-90s.

The rest of the match is your standard strap match fare. Vega sells pretty well when he’s running around touching the straps and Bradshaw yanks him back. It looked cool, so it’s got that going for it. The match finishes with the classic strap match trope of Vega following Bradshaw around while he touches the corners, discretely touching the corners himself. Then it’s a *surprise* to Bradshaw when he wins! I’m pretty sure that’s how at least 75% of strap matches are won. Touching corners has never been so exciting! Vega the Strap Match God does his best to elevate it (it’s the only kind of match that Vega probably could ever elevate), but it’s still a strap match. C-.

The Gibb Reviews: Wrestle Kingdom 11

Hey folks,

One of my New Year's resolutions was to write more, so you'll be seeing me use this blog way more than I have. I'll be trotting out some stuff over the next few days and I'm hoping to make them regular segments. I was originally going to do a Wretro Wrestling Review (which is ready to go) and a Week in WWE Review (which is almost ready to go), but with all the talk about Wrestle Kingdom going on, I figured I'd start with that.

One of my wrestling resolutions this year is to watch more international wrestling. Last year I got way more into the indies, because that's probably what I love watching the most. Promotions like NJPW got pushed by the wayside a bit because I was all-in on that and WWE. I still watched plenty of stuff from Japan and the UK, but I'd like to stay caught up with them going forward.

I do have some problems with New Japan that I'm gonna state outright before the review begins. I don't care much for Gedo as a booker. Yes, he's done some excellent work building up stars. He's done especially well making up for the losses of AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura in the last year. Of course, you can also look at the roster and say, "Of course New Japan was fine without them because they still have the best wrestlers in the world." Gedo also loves wrestlers playing hot potato with championships, to the point where many belts don't matter (seriously, name a championship that matters less than the NEVER Openweight 6-Man Tag Team Championship. I'll wait). While the main events of shows are often incredible, the undercard is often weak, to the point where sometimes it takes two hours into a show before you get to a *good* match.

I've also been turned off the product a bit by New Japan fans. It's silly and stupid to let fans of something ruin a product for me, but it happens. Wrestling has all kinds of awful, annoying fans, but in my experience nothing compares to what I consider the "cult" of NJPW. Of course #NotAllNJPWFans are awful, but I've had a lot of terrible experiences with them. They're the kinds of people that will tell you that New Japan is objectively better than the WWE or American wrestling in general. If you've known me long enough to witness one of my many 2 a.m. rants on Twitter dot com, you'd know nothing triggers me more than people saying any kind of art - music, movies, wrestling, whatever - is "objectively" better than anything. They turn a blind eye to issues with the undercard and Gedo's booking and will say things like "Wrestle Kingdom was the best show I've ever seen," while also telling you that you can basically skip the first two hours of the show. Like I said, there's people like this all over wrestling fandom, but unfortunately New Japan seems to have the highest concentration of cult-like followers in my experience.

If you've read my previous reviews, you know I usually do letter grades instead of the traditional star ratings, because I kind of really hate star ratings. I'll probably stick with letter grades when it comes to weekly television, but I'm going to do star ratings for big shows. Just remember that this is not some sort of objective measurement about how good a match is. It's just my opinion and the strength of rating is just how strongly I recommend each individual match. If you think something I rated low is higher, that's fine! I love to discuss differences in opinion if you're not a dick about me not agreeing with you.

Anyway, I just thought I'd get some of that out of the way so you see where I'm coming from in regards to the company. Let's dive in.