Wrestling Chatter

Hi guys, Well, despite everything going on in the world, WWE really are going ahead with business as usual. It turns out that despite many protests from fans, they are going ahead with Wrestlemania without any crowds. They've also gone one step beyond that!  Now airing on both Saturday and Sunday (US time), WWE have followed New Japan's lead and made the biggest show of the year run over two dates! This means that there will now probably be nearly twice the amount of matches and whether that's a good thing or not, well we'll have to wait and see! I guess in one way you could see it as a replacement for NXT Takeover which always happens the day before Wrestlemania. Of course, with more matches, it means a lot more matches to preview and it's especially hard at the moment as we have no idea which matches are going to be on what day. So, I've decided to stray away from my usual match by match preview (because it will take me all week), and instead I...

Hi Guys, The last few weeks have been crazy in the world of wrestling from NJPW to AEW to WWE to all the independent promotions we all love to watch. This weekend was no exception with not only NXT Takeover: War Games, but also Survivor Series. Also, for the first time, there were matches not only between the red and blue brand, but also WWE's black and gold brand: RAW v Smackdown Live v NXT. On Saturday night, NXT once again put on an amazing set of matches showcasing some of the best and most diverse athletes in the entire industry and every match turned out. We had an amazing triple threat match between Pete Dunne, Damian Priest and Killian Dane mixing strong style and crazy athletics as well as an amazingly brutal singles match between Finn Balor and Matt Riddle. As expected the main war games match between Undisputed Era and the dream team of Tomasso Ciampa, Kevin Owens, Keith Lee and Dijakovic was phenomenal. However, my stand out match of the night was the women...

Hi guys, Last week I posted part one of my interview with Gabriel Kidd ( https://wrestling-chatter.blogspot.com/2019/03/chatter-with-gabriel-kidd-part-one.html ) and spoke to him about his wrestling beginnings, his influences and taking part of World of Sport. So, as promised, here's part two where we got to the nitty gritty of Kidd's wrestling career, especially his time at the NJPW Dojo, dream opponents and what the future holds for someone with such a long and thriving career ahead of them! I am a massive fan of NJPW, so can’t not mention the fact that I saw on Twitter that you spent 12 days in LA at the NJPW Dojo training under the legend that is Katsuyori Shibata, what was that like? Easily the best and most eye-opening experience so far of my young life. That’s the kind of style of wrestling I watch, I love the Japanese style and old and new Japanese wrestling style. When I got the opportunity to go there and train with Shibata-san, it was just a really eye openi...

Hi guys,  Last month, I was lucky enough to have had a really great in-depth chat with one of the hottest young veteran wrestlers in the UK Gabriel Kidd. So, here's part one of my interview where we spoke about how Kidd got into wrestling, his influences, Defiant Wrestling and of course his part in the resurgence of World of Sport! So, welcome to my newest segment called ' Chatter With' (do you get it... you know Wrestling Chatter )...  Everyone’s love of wrestling starts at different stages of their lives, how old were you when you got interested in wrestling and what started the love in the first place? I can work out my exact age and I was probably about 9 or 10. My dad’s Irish and I was in Ireland visiting my grandma who had Sky Sports. We were flicking through the channels and wrestling was on. As soon as the screen came on, Mark Henry was in the ring and then the Undertaker’s music hit and he made his entrance. From there, I was just glued to the TV. I love...

Hi guys, About 6 months ago, I delved into the NJPW Faction system and basically ranked them all in order of my personal feelings toward them but things change. Looking back at that post ( https://wrestling-chatter.blogspot.com/2018/07/new-japan-factions-rated.html ), I put Bullet Club at number 3 and maybe I was being a bit too generous because the faction was basically falling apart which all culminated in a split within the faction which I wasn't a fan of. Fast forward to February 2019 and the BC OG's are the sole Bullet Club faction with the Jay White, Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, Bad Luck Fale, Taiji Ishmori, Chase Owens, Yujiro Takahashi, Jado, Gedo and Robbie Eagles. The Bullet Club have now moved straight to the top of my favourite factions and I thought I'd look at the past few months and how they've gone from being hierarchical faction with the 'main cast' to the most dominant faction again! This is especially relevant after the New Beginning Osak...

Hi guys, Another year, another Wrestlemania and another mixed set of matches and results. I normally do this sort of thing match by match but I'm finding it monotonous so I am trying something different - maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. Overall, I think that this year's WM was alright. There were some amazing matches, there were some meh matches, there were some good booking and there was some awful bookings of the superstars.  The Pre-Show The disappointment of the pre-show only came from the messy Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal because the CW championship and Women's Battle Royal was very good for a pre-show. The women's match was filled with rivalries and stories from the use of Paige on commentary to the NXT girls teaming together and giving the main roster women a run for their money. I was so happy and surprised that Naomi won but it was well deserved and could be the start of another push. I also can't praise Cedric Alexander an...

Hi guys,  With Wrestlemania around the corner, I thought I'd try something different and, instead of defo doing a WM weekend reactions post, I want to some sort of prediction/ what I expect from WM this year. I don't think this will include NXT Takeover fully but I will put a small section at the start with those brief predictions. NXT Takeover Aleister Black vs. Andrade “Cien” Almas (c) - NXT championship Winner: Aleister Black Ember Moon (c) vs. Shayna Baszler - NXT Women’s title Winner: Ember Moon EC3, Ricochet, Adam Cole, Killian Dain, Velveteen Dream and Lars Sullivan in a Ladder Match - NXT North American champion Winner: Ricochet  Authors of Pain vs. Pete Dunne & Roderick Strong vs. Undisputed ERA - Finals of The Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic tournament for the NXT Tag Team titles Winner: Undisputed Era Wrestlemania 34 In terms of the Battle Royals, I know it's really just two matches to make sure that all the superstars...

Hey guys, With the run up to Wrestlemania, we've just had our last PPV before the grandest stage of them all *count how many times that's said from now until WM*. The card has been set for Raw and last night Smackdown solidified their path to New Orleans. The card was an odd bunch, from Becky & Naomi v Natalya and Carmella (which really had no lead up) to a bloody 6-pack challenge for the Championship (I mean it's one way to make sure most of the roster have a match). I had some reservations about last night but thank you WWE for not messing it up and having a pretty awesome PPV: Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Rusev Another match with no real heat or long term lead up, however, Rusev Day v Nakamura Day is not something I am against. Two great workers who are extremely over with the crowd, it was always going to get the crowd hyped, especially on Rusev Day. I actually really enjoyed this match even though some people might have thought it was an obvious outcome and ma...

Hi guys, I'm an old lady so I had to wait until this morning to watch the Royal Rumble but by god wasn't it worth the wait. The two rumble matches were so amazing that I can't even do my usual match by match commentary because these two matches alone was worth a post! The men's rumble was obviously amazing but I have to say that, with the curfuffle of the MitB, the women really hit it out of the park in every single way. But, let's not get too excited too quickly... Men's Royal Rumble: Shinsuke Nakamura Before I start, I have to say: thank god for the winner because I got really scared that Roman was going to win near the end... imagine that! I'm not a Roman hater but I don't care for him, especially after what he did in the match (more to come later). It started with good ol' Rusev day and by god that pop was something to behold: I love the way that Rusev's embracing the love from the WWE Universe and the fact that his first opponen...

Hi guys, Apart from a few little off-ish bits, I actually really enjoyed Smackdown's Clash of Champions. There were some shock results (okay only one but it was the happiest shock ever for me), well deserved results and massive controversial results. So, on that note, here are my reactions from each of the matches last night! NB: There will be spoilers so don't read if you haven't watched it and don't want to know the results! US Championship Match - Ziggler def Corbin (Champ) and Roode This was the biggest and happiest surprise for me because I started the match worrying that Ziggler (who is one of my top wrestlers) was going to be nothing but a buffer but I was luckily wrong. As well as being a good moment for Zig-man, who finally got a win, it was also one of Corbin's best matches he's had since coming to the main roster. He plated the heel role perfectly with his taunts and good strong and brutal moves that showed his strength. I can't forg...