ROYAL RUMBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I decided to watch the Royal Rumble and write about it, which is something my dear friend Kendall used to do at http://rumblemetrics.blogspot.com/ before he walked away from the horror show fascist nightmare that is WWE. I don’t know why I’m bothering to do this other than it seemed like something to do, and so you get my bullshit if you want it which some of you do for some reason and anyway I don’t watch WWE anymore for pretty much the same reasons dear Kendall doesn’t, the fascism and all that, plus the aesthetic disgrace that is the WWE production, which is some sort of hellscape thing that doesn’t make any fucking sense to anyone with any sort of sanity. I won’t go into details because you either get it or you don’t and if you do get it then you don’t need me going into the details of that fucking horror nightmare of a production which could only be the creation of an evil fucked up pervert like Vince McMahon, who is one of the worst human beings ever to live, a Trumpian figure in our collective nightmare culture, and anyway he brings to you THE ROYAL RUMBLE!!!

Andrade vs Humberto Carrillo

Andrade, of course, was one of the founding members of Los Ingobernables in Mexico, which of course spawned Los Ingobernables de Japan which is where you can find Tetusya Naito, Sanada, Evil and the gang. I wonder if Andrade regrets the whole WWE thing, but then again, isn’t he fucking Charlotte Flair? I don’t know if that’s right. Someone tell me if I’m wrong. Anyway, he beat this Humberto Carrillo dude who I have never heard of, and to be honest, the best thing about Andrade is Zelina Vega who has the sort of hot Latina ass that I enjoy. Yes, this makes me an internet sex pest to the weak kneed geeks in the dreaded internet wrestling community, but fuck it and fuck them, I like to look at a beautiful woman’s ass and I am not ashamed of this because I am a man. Anyway, this was a match that I barely paid attention to because nothing about it was that interesting other than the Latina ass. Andrade is a dude who bought the WWE ticket and now he’s taking the ride, and I imagine he’s enjoying himself even if Vince is a horrible racist who probably makes fun of Andrade’s lack of English skillz behind his back. Just take the white man’s money and go back home and fuck beautiful Latina women, Andrade.

Bayley vs Lacey Evans

I did not watch this because, I mean, come on. In a five hour brain fucker like this WWE horseshit a dude needs some breaks.

Shorty G vs Seamus

I missed this one too. I don’t know who the fuck Shorty G is. Seamus is a nice hoss who was rejected by THE WWE UNIVERSE which is a horrible Orwellian thing that should be investigated by the People after the revolution. Anyway, I like Seamus as a hoss and it’s too bad I missed him doing hoss things, and I’d actually love to see Seamus in New Japan doing hoss things. That’s all I’ve got here.

Roman Reigns vs King Corbin

I started watching this even though I think Roman Reigns is a doof, and a dude who was just put in a bad position for like five years straight and kind of ruined the whole company in the process, which has to be a lot to deal with, everyone hating you like that for so long and your dad is Sika who doesn’t understand why these fucking geeks don’t like his son and he’s probably raging at Vince all the time and Vince just takes it because there are some people Vince will just take shit from and the Samoans are one of them.  Anyway, I get that Roman Reigns is pretty good at the whole wrestling thing but the horror show that is his presentation and the martyrdom and all that makes it hard to watch with fair eyes. Corbin is a stiff who nobody likes and anyway I started watching this but then I went to McDonald’s which was probably a Poor Choice, but fuck it, I had a craving.

Becky Lynch vs Asuka

I was playing Baseball Mogul during most of this match, working on my Tigers dynasty in the year 2106. I’m having a hard time getting a good catcher and the entire league seems barren as far as catchers go. But I did see the end of the match, with Asuka getting caught up in her own green mist and Becky Lynch submitting her. Becky is a very pretty lady by the way, which again is me being problematic for the weak -kneed geeks, but that’s an okay thing to say in real life you fucking geeks.

“The Fiend” Bray Wyatt vs Daniel Bryan

I liked this for the most part. Daniel Bryan is probably the greatest professional wrestler of all time from a quality wrestling match standpoint and also from a character standpoint to be honest. The dude gets it right every time he switches things up. This goes back years before he was even in WWE, when he was the American Dragon and pretty much changed the entire way the wrestling world works. Stylistically, he is the father of the big match style you see in various promotions all over the world. I’d very much like to see him outside of WWE again before the end, which probably means a Misawa like death in the ring scenario if we’re being honest with ourselves, but that’s okay, people die for their art and that’s not a bad thing. Death is usually pointless and meaningless, but if you can die for your art, that means something and people can fuck off if they can’t handle it. Misawa almost certainly wouldn’t have changed a thing if his ghost could go back and do it all over again, and neither will Daniel Bryan, who will wrestle until he dies because that’s just who he is.

Anyway, this was a fun enough match. The strap element added some violence to it that WWE has pretty much none of these days being a Robot Company for Robot Fascists and brainwashed children.  Bray Wyatt’s new thing is fucking ridiculous, but good for him for managing to get back to this place after WWE pretty much just fucked him out of wrestling for a while there. I haven’t watched anything for a long time, but I have kept up on it enough from afar to have sort of an idea of what this shit is. Oh, did you know that Bray knocked up JoJo, who is another lady with a nice ass? Yes, that is a thing that happened even though he had a wife and kids, which is some dark stuff, but the man couldn’t help himself. It happens.

I always enjoy watching Daniel Bryan. Bray Wyatt does a good enough job as a menacing monster, but his pacing is too slow for me sometimes. So it was in this match, but it wasn’t all that bad. DBry didn’t get the win here and I don’t have a fucking clue what the plans are going forward, but I will probably watch Wrestlemania and I imagine this whole thing will probably continue in some form until then.  I love Daniel Bryan so that will probably be one of the only things I actually enjoy about it if it does go down like that. Until then, I’m not watching any of this fucking trash.

Women’s Royal Rumble Match

This was fine. Beth Phoenix getting her head split open in the back was gnarly and I’m glad they didn’t do the goofy WWE thing where they try to make all the blood go away. Kelly Kelly still can’t even run the ropes, the poor girl, but I’m sure The King got to sniff her hair before she went to the back, so everything worked out great for everyone I guess. Charlotte Flair does nothing for me. She is wooden and stiff and I just don’t like watching her wrestle. That probably makes me a villain in the eyes of the geeks, but I’m comfortable with that. That fat guy Otis trying to fuck Mandy Rose is a winning story and I hope it works out for them. I really don’t know what else to say about this match, which was entertaining enough for someone who is mildly high. Oh shit, I forgot to mention Santina, who of course is Santino playing a lady, and Santino is the WWE Toru Yano so it is always good to see him or her or whatever the fuck make an appearance. Anyway, that was the lady’s Rumble.

Men’s Royal Rumble Match

I don’t think I’ve ever seen this “clean” a Rumble match before, and by that I mean the ring was rarely clogged with dudes and everything was kept relatively small, with half the match being one on one or maybe two on one. Lesnar tossing everyone around was fun as it always is. I dug the segment with Shelton Benjamin given that they are tight in real life going back to their college days. Brock the destroyer has basically been the underlying theme of WWE since he came back in, let me check . . . okay, in 2012. A lot of people hate it, but I don’t mind it, mostly because I don’t give a shit about WWE and Brock Lesnar throwing people around is always fun. Plus, he makes nerds shook, which I am always on board with. Anyway, his part of the Rumble was pretty fun and neatly done. Letting Drew McIntire eliminate him after all that is a pretty big deal for McIntire I guess, who I really don’t feel one way or the other about.  Edge coming back was kinda cool, especially because he looked so old and haggard, his face all withered and shit. He seemed to be in okay shape and him hooking up with Orton was fun even if it did harken back to a relatively dystopian time in WWE, which can be said for pretty much anytime the last twenty years. Edge never really did that much for me, but he’s not like the worst either. I kind of liked that Keith Lee dude, who I know is an NXT dude and I have an entire dvr backlogged with NXT shows, but I can never get into them because of the whole WWE of it all, which makes me wonder why I ever bothered to record them in the first place knowing that I despise WWE and everything it stands for. It is a disgusting company run by a horrible family, the father of which is a grotesque pervert, the mother of which is complicit with fascism, the daughter of which is a horror show of Corporate Speak mixed with Carnie awfulness and a hideous inferiority complex which drives her into ever more stupid raving every time she opens her hideous fucking mouth, the son of which is a sweat soaked failure desperate to make his daddy love him, which inevitably leads to him concussing himself and throwing himself off of tall objects and through glass like in that one match he had with Kurt Angle back in the day which almost certainly resulted in brain damage. Anyway, I know I should like NXT, which is supposed to have The Good Wrestling, but again, I just can’t bring myself to willingly enter the haunted house of a family company that I just described. But yes, I like Keith Lee and I like a lot of the dudes and lady dudes in NXT and in WWE, and it is just a shame that they are all part of that horror show. Anyway, Drew McIntire won this fucking thing, which is at least something new and different, right? I’m not sure whether anyone is gonna get excited for him, but Wrestlemania is its own zombie thing now and it will survive with or without him. As for me? I will probably watch Wrestlemania and do this again for that, but I feel gross doing it. So why do I do it? I don’t know. I like to write about bullshit, and there are people who like to read it I guess, so here we are and there we’ll be again. Until then, Rumble on, idiots and lady idiots.

Wrestle Kingdom Night Two

Liger retirement match

I missed the first match due to some poor choices on my part, but I managed to get things going in time to see Liger take his final fall, and it spoke to me as Liger was one of the entry points into Japanese wrestling for me, as I suspect he was for most Western WWFCW kids which then converged with the early internet and tape trading and the grotesque thing of various message boards like Death Valley Driver for me and probably a lot of you reading this and whatever that spawned into in our various collectives over the years, and it made me realize that this dude, Liger, has always been there, been the one dude everyone could agree was cool, whether we were 10 years old seeing him for the first time in WCW, or whether we were snarky jackasses on message boards in our 20s and now into our 30s and Twitter and all of it, and I just turned 40, and Liger has always been a central figure in all of that and now he is retired and it makes me think of all of you and how we have basically grown up together as virtual friends in a weird internet world, and we’re still gonna be doing dumb shit when we’re 80 online, and it is all just so fucking ridiculous, like we will have lived full lives with each other without ever meeting face to face which is why I admire Liger for never taking off his mask. Here, we are one thing to each other and in real life, probably not so much, but that’s okay, just don’t take off the mask and we’ll be alright, the mask is your true face anyway.

ZSJ vs Sanada

I missed the junior tag match thanks to New Japan’s shitty servers, but I managed to get it back part way through this match, which was not a match that I even really wanted to see because I think ZSJ is False and I have seen him and Sanada wrestle this same match plenty of times already. I do want to note that Sanada’s look has become its own thing, like we’ll look back on this as the yellowed scrub of Sanada’s life, which is fine for such a good looking dude to do, to make it at least interesting. I have nothing bad to say about Sanada, and I have nothing good to say about ZSJ so let’s just leave this here and remember that Sanada is the good one.

Jon Moxley vs Juice Robinson

Moxley is interesting to me as a dude who can pretty much call his own shots in the wrestling world, and he seems determined to roll with New Japan and AEW so that will be fun and fascinating to follow. Of course, the big deal here was Minoru Suzuki getting involved and he and Moxley have energies that are not necessarily alike but are very commanding and I look forward to whatever shit they can come up with, especially because I feel like Moxley in particular is the kind of dude who needs to be motivated to be interesting and what could be more motivating than playing around with Minoru Suzuki? Yeah, so that should be a whole lot of fun and is all I probably want from my pro wrestling, I mean hopefully. Juice remains Juice, a dude who I like and who has a real command of the New Japan crowd, which is hard for a dude like him to capture, but he has managed to do it and I suspect he will be a key dude in New Japan’s Western rollout, and might end up working out better than Kenny and the Bucks in that regard. At least to me, a dude who likes his wrestling New Japan styled and if they can’t all get along, no worries, because Juice is there and he’s enough.

KENTA vs Hirooki Goto

This style of wrestling is very much my thing, and KENTA and Goto are both good at it, not as much as dear departed Shibata but still, that is the thing I like in my pro wrestling and so this was a match that I enjoyed quite a bit, as Goto gets vengeance for his boy and the LA Dojo, which also ties nicely into New Japan’s efforts to make this American thing real. Anyway, I like both of these dudes and obviously KENTA is the villain of the moment and he plays it well, a lot of resentment and anger built into contempt that I can appreciate. You don’t like him? Fine, that just makes it more fun when he fucks your shit up and really to me that makes him a hero.

Jay White vs Kota Ibushi

Jay White remains 2020 Ric Flair, and he does it all so perfectly. Special shout out to that top rope Uranage, which was sick as fuck. I don’t talk about MOVES here very much, but that is not what I am interested in as far as writing about this shit goes. But exceptions can be made especially when they are so cool as that, which was some top level throw wizardry and reminds you that Jay White has a ridiculously deep toolkit to work from as he invents himself anew with every match. He is quite possibly the best MOVES guy for me right now. Ibushi meanwhile remains a dude who will die in the ring and also a dude who is probably weird as fuck outside it. I mean he gets concussed so regularly but it doesn’t even matter because he is essentially on autopilot most of the time. Where does he go from here? I don’t know, but it will be interesting to see if they put the jetpack on him.

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs Chris Jericho

Chris Jericho is fascinating to me because he was never that big a star, but he has managed to leverage himself into being maybe the top guy in the world wrestling hierarchy. His command of the crowd is about as good as it gets and he’s just still good enough at the MOVES part of it all that it works. It is sorry to see Tanahashi gently prodded down the line, but I still think he can be a dude who holds up his end for a while and be like Fujinami, who looked great at the age of 142 the other night. Anyway, this was two elder wrestle dudes going at it and it was pretty damn good.

Okada vs Naito

They fucking got me with this. I spent the last ten minutes of the match on my feet cheering on Naito, which is how you know they are doing the wrestling well.  Especially because as I said last night that Naito doesn’t really do it for me, but I was all his on this night and it was the right night and time for him, and even if he doesn’t get a long run, it doesn’t matter, because this was his victory, this was him winning the game for himself and I have to commend him for that. After all was said and done and KENTA running wild as the big villain, I was totally satisfied of this thing, this fusion of sport and theater, in a way that doesn’t happen anywhere else really. Okada’s part in it was note perfect as per usual, and he will always be The Guy, but this was Naito’s night and it was fun as hell and it was what had to happen. And that’s how you make a Wrestle Kingdom.

WRESTLE KINGDOM NIGHT ONE

Well, we wrestled with a kingdom I guess, and now we have to talk about it because I know you can’t go one goddamn day without my thoughts on something so ridiculous so let’s just get to the shit that you want or I could kill your day by gibbering about some other bullshit, either way I don’t really mind.

Opening Match Clusterfuck

I missed the Stardom opening match, not out of hatred for women wrestling but more my streaming stick that I use to watch this for you and for me and anyway that stick got lost somehow for a while in between Poor Choices. But I don’t want you to think that I am doing some chauvinist thing here, it’s not that, it’s just that my lifestyle runs into these sorts of problems from time to time. Anyway, the opening Young Boys match was what it was, and it is pretty clear New Japan is enamored with the LA Dojo dudes. It was nice to get Toa Henare a win because he’s just been left behind for the most part, but other than that not a lot of crazy shit to talk about here.

The Old Dudes

Always nice to see the older fellas get a spot and it was what it was and what it always is, and there is just a rhythm in the New Japan system that works for everyone. I don’t mind watching old Japanese men potato each other because sometimes that’s just what you have to do. I feel like Kojima could be rescued from Senile Farms but I also appreciate that he is loyal to his boy of old. No one embarrassed themselves, so that’s a win.

Jushin Liger Retirement Match

This was what it needed to be and it actually got me thinking of who the earliest Japanese wrestlers were for me when I was growing up. I think it’s the Jumping Bomb Angels who were in the WWF for a year in the 80s. But anyway, I liked all these old dudes getting out and wrestling for their boy Liger, who was one of the seminal Japanese wrestlers for a lot of dudes my age. Him and the Great Muta. Liger was always the dude back in those days when you watched TBS and bought the Apter wrestling magazines, and it was nice to know that there was something else out there other than Vinceland. It was pretty raw seeing Fujinami wrestling on my TV in 2020 but that’s the fun of it I guess.

LIJ vs Suzuki-Gun

This was messy as hell, and is my least favorite part of New Japan, just too fucking much and none of it is interesting. I’m not even hyped on Sanada vs ZSJ. I wish my boy Evil could be extricated from this shit, but I am not Gedo.

Chaos vs Bullet Club

This was some more of that shit. I am hyped on Goto vs KENTA though, which should be fun. At least this mess had Pieter and her ass just sitting there.

Haku’s boys vs Juice and Finlay

I still really like Juice, who can command a crowd of people who don’t understand half the shit he is saying, which is some big energy to be carrying around. I don’t really know what David Finlay is other than just a dude. New Japan seems to be high on him but there’s just nothing that interesting there. I’d be all in on his dad working the Nagata matches, but not so much him. Haku’s kids are alright, probably could have played college football or some shit that isn’t the wrestling business. But they followed Dad to the dark places that make pro wrestlers and they have turned out okay, certainly better than the soulless spawn of Samoan dudes who sometimes pop up in Vinceland. Anyway, yeah, I am hyped on Juice still, Haku’s boys are okay and Finlay needs to come up with something other than being who he is.

Lance Archer vs Jon Moxley

This was what it was, pretty tame, pretty fun, Archer is just so good and Moxley’s presence is great. Archer is just so awesome and I wanted him to win but he is doomed to be a surprise favorite that they can roll out every so often, which I can relate to. It’s hard being weird and Not Like The Others but it has its good sides too, like we can sense each other, Spirit Warriors and Freaks and take care of each other through allegedly illicit mail from time to time, and anyway I sense that Lance Archer is one of those type of dudes, sort of like The Great Willie Young if you’ve followed my other dumbass blogs. If not, well, if I start talking about Willie Young, I am talking about Lance Archer too, so now you know. It’s important to know things like this or else what the fuck is the point, you know? Anyway, Lance Archer is a Spirit Warrior and I want him to win all the matches from now on. He won’t because life is fucked and Everybody Dies anyway so fuck it.

Will Ospreay vs Hiromu Takahashi

This is where the whole show leveled up. I suppose I am passed Will Ospreay’s unfortunate earlier life, with the bleating and overacting and the vanity searches on twitter to let me know that he has money, which is a weird thing he did a few years ago. Anyway, he seems to have grown up for the most part and he has tightened his bleating and overacting and Hiromu is a dude who seems like he would be a good dude to get high with. The two of them set the stage and made it a Can You Top This kind of night, well free of the shitty multitag matches of earlier. I suspect Ospreay is going to get the ticket to the heavyweights but that’s cool, Hiromu can do his thing and not have to wrestle a dude who still sometimes sounds like a fucking goat.

Jay White vs Tetsuya Naito

I am a big fan of Jay White, the Ric Flair of the 2020s, but I have never really connected with Naito the way most people do. But I found myself wanting Naito to get his shot at the double gold and I am a proponent of his Tranquillo attitude, which is just another way to say lounge, which is a place everyone should aspire to. Naito isn’t getting any younger and this is probably his Prom King moment so I just want him to get that moment for himself and maybe get his dick sucked by the Prom Queen. Some of us can only come so close. Hey, Amy, yeah you remember me. But Naito is a dude who needs to get this or else it’s just going to be really sad.

Kazuchika Okada vs Kota Ibushi

Well, I mean they had to meet the standard and they did, but I am always concerned about Ibushi who will die in the ring. Well, I’m not really concerned I mean who cares really, but that dude is fucked up on a big autist level or something, which I’m sorry if I offended anyone with the autist talk. Anyway, Ibushi is always great at not having a safe word and Okada is the dude who has a safe word but he doesn’t ever use it. Okada is just so good at all the everything that goes into being a professional wrestler, and his instincts and timing elevate it to art. I don’t know how someone could be that coordinated, that blessed with the ability to manipulate reality for the sake of art, but Okada manages to pull it off better than just about anyone I’ve ever seen. He really is one of the greatest. I don’t know what that means in the grand scheme of things and I am just writing into a hole here but fuck it I don’t care, I am just glad that I got to watch this match.