~ Wow, Lynn does way less in this match than anyone else. SHOCK! He also does a 1.9 sequence instead of a 2.9 sequence for some reason.
~ Austin Aries is awesome. Too bad he made me look like a moron by going for the 450 right after I told my friend he didn’t do it anymore since he turned heel.
~ YO DAWG I HEARD YOU LIKED CHINBREAKERS
~Lynn gets loud “Fuck you, Lynn” chants. Yeah, his title reign was a smart idea.

Kevin Steen vs. Davey Richards, Never Say Die
~ The marriage speech was hilarious. So is Steen going by some guy who tries to high five him during the crowd brawling sections and ignoring him twice.
~ The ladder bump was pretty nice.
~ Package piledriver off the apron to finish was ungodly.

Finish of the match hurt it though with KENTA kicking out of 3 rolling elbows and 2 to the back of the head being overkill for me. Then the interference clusterfuck with Kingston taking the loaded elbow pad leading to nothing but a couple of kicks and a G2S for the pin. Oh well, still pretty good.

Delirious vs. Cabana vs. Strong vs. Black vs. Hero vs. Castagnoli wasn’t the best possible matchup, but the latter 4 were probably the 4 best guys left in the company.

Match started off slow but there was some amusing stuff. Hero and Castagnoli did a segment together and used full nelsons, each of which made Delirious yell “OH MASTERLOCK”. Later there was an extended beatdown segment on Black and Castagnoli and Hero did an awesome giant swing/basement dropkick double team.

When Black tagged out, things started to break down. Cabana and Delirious each pounded on Hero and Castagnoli in the corner, then threw them both out of the ring. Then they did the swinging dropkick through the bottom rope that I saw like 20 times on the show. After that, Black and Strong did tope con hilos onto the rest of them in an awesome spot.

Back in the ring, Hero and Castagnoli did an extended miscommunication sequence that ended with Castagnoli getting hit by a rolling elbow and Cabana backsliding him to eliminate him. Delirious immediately rolled up Cabana to eliminate him after that.

Don’t have too clear a memory of what happened after that but Strong soon eliminated Delirious via ungodly kick to the face.

Hero immediately roaring elbowed Strong after that and I thought he was gone, but he kicked out. Later Strong got hit by another one to the back of the damn head but kicked out as well. Then Black took out Hero with the God’s Last Gift.

When it came down to Black and Strong, they did everything possible. Black escaped the Stronghold, twice. He also kicked out when Strong reversed an attempt to reverse the Stronghold into his own pinning combination. He also took a ton of backbreakers, including the half nelson, the torture rack double knee backbreaker, and one on the top rope where he only avoided being pinned by rolling out of the ring.

Strong took a crossbody into the crowd, a turnbuckle powerbomb, and God’s Last Gift and kicked out.

The crowd was damn hot for all of this as there were chants of “This is awesome”, dueling chants of “Let’s go Tyler” and “Let’s go Roderick”, and finally a “This is wrestling” chant.

The match finally ended when Black powerbombed Strong into the turnbuckles and superkicked him in the face 3 times, followed by a kickout, followed by one last superkick for the pin.

I was jumping at the last couple nearfalls and my friend who was telling me he hated wrestling enjoyed the match. It was that damn good and worth the annoying drive to Indianapolis.

On the way home there was a ton of fucking fog for some reason and I got some white chocolate flavored coffee and put a lot of creamer in it FTW.

The highways near Indianapolis look like they were designed by some little kid who spent a lot of time playing Hot Wheels. My favorite part was the exit from a highway going 70 where you had to take this huge U-turn at 25 MPH.

We got there in time for the pre-show matches which were nothing special. Then the actual show started.

The Young Bucks vs. The House of Truth

This was a pretty solid spotfest. End was pretty exciting with the House of Truth’s manager unsuccessfully interfering. The Young Buck’s finisher is pretty ridiculous to see live. Crowd was hot for the match as well.

Colt Cabana vs. Kevin Steen

This wasn’t much of a match. Lots of comedy involving Cabana grabbing Steen’s ass which was a little awkward watching with a non-fan. Steen injured his knee and the match ended abruptly with Cabana pinning Steen by getting his knees up on a Swanton attempt by Steen.

Roderick Strong vs. Rhett Titus

Titus got more offense in this match than I would have liked, since he had no chance of winning. Strong absolutely murdered Titus with a double underhook powerbomb(didn’t do the normal Tiger/Gibson Driver) for the finish though.

Tyler Black vs. Kenny King

This could have been better than what it was. Black pretty much dominated. King seems to have a lot of charisma, I haven’t seen him live before.

Claudio Castagnoli vs. Petey Williams

I got into this match because I fucking hate Petey Williams and I wanted him to lose. Both guys blocked each other’s finisher attempts a lot and Claudio made me happy by kicking Williams in the balls and European uppercutting him for the win.

Chris Hero vs. Kenny Omega

Omega could have sold Hero’s rolling elbows a bit more. He took one, took another when he tried to do the stop sign enzuigiri, and then did the stop motion again and enzuigirid Hero just a few seconds after the second rolling elbow. Heor finally took him out with a 3rd.

Davey Richards and Austin Aries vs. the Briscoe Brothers

This was really good. Aries cut a promo before the match and talked about Richards having a world title shot and his tag partner being injured and Aries coming up with a solution, at which point some fan said “You gave him a blow job?” That was hilarious.

Match was good. Richards and Aries were constantly trying to one up each other, seeing who kicked harder, arguing over who would do a running attack on a Briscoe in the corner first, etc.

Richards and Aries accidentally hit each other at various points and near the end Aries tried to walk out, only to get hit with a huge tope con hilo by the Briscoes. Richards than ate the Doomsday Device for the pinfall. Damn good match.

Wrestling was originally a shoot, and for a long time after some wrestlers got together and realized they could make more money by throwing matches, most wrestlers were still legitimate tough guys with experience in real wrestling.

One of the earlier modern MMA organizations, Pancrase, was formed by two men who had previously worked as professional wrestlers, Masakatsu Funaki and Minoru Suzuki. Both would later go back to working wrestling matches as well.

Furthermore, in Pancrase and later Pride, some matches were worked. A Nobuhiko Takada vs. Mark Coleman match that Takada won was later acknowledged as a work by the Pride commentary team.

So that’s why I made this blog about both subjects. In the near future at least I’ll probably post more about wrestling than MMA as i’m more knowledgeable about it.