Hiroshi Tanahashi & Togi Makabe vs. Hirooki Goto & Katsuyori Shibata (NJPW)  --  Taking singles wrestlers and putting them into tag team matches to further individual feuds is certainly nothing new.  It's been around since long before Teddy Long ever said, "I have an idea."  However, they're usually lame and predictable.  This match is how you do it right.  Makabe and Goto are two tough guys who hate one another.  Tanahashi and Shibata are two guys who hate one another, possibly for real, and are opposites in almost every way possible.  This was a match with all of that worked in, with the bonus that there is no "heel vs. babyface" dynamic, so either side can win cleanly.  Each guy wanted a piece of the guy they were feuding with and each guy showed a lot of pride.

Really good match with four really good wrestlers who wanted to win.  I love that.  I love when neither side backs down.  The crowd loved it, too, and were really into it, as the match could have gone either way.  Everyone looked strong.  I thought the ending was excellent, as well, and left me wanting more.

Beyond that, though, the whole match just struck me as an example of excellent, intelligent booking.  Tanahashi looked the weakest but he's the star of the company, the guy who least needs to go over.  Tanahashi puts guys over all the time and he's still considered New Japan's biggest asset.  You listening, WWE?  Your top dog doesn't have to bury people left and right.  The guy who actually got pinned was the guy who actually looked the strongest in the match, taking finishers from both opponents, so even though he got pinned, he lost nothing.  That's clever.  That's why NJPW is getting so much critical acclaim for their booking.

Oh, and one other thing: the guys in charge of booking for New Japan are active wrestlers in the organization.  It's not quite what people would expect, though, as they always lose.

iMPACT Wrestling yesterday was actually pretty good. The woman's Battle Royal, the three way tag match, and the Lashley vs. Roode match were all very good. I'm going to kind of miss this show when it goes off of the air since the WWE doesn't really have much of a tag team division and let's not get started on the Divas...

TNA has destroyed the WWE the last couple of weeks in terms of quality.  Kind of ironic given the situation.  Of course, some of that is RAW being terrible, but TNA has delivered. 

MVP and Kenny King are fantastic as heels.  I love King on the mic, he's so good at being an ass.  Jeff Hardy's pain threshold has to be off the charts.  That ladder match was a lot more fun that I thought it would be, considering how many of them we've seen over the years.  Team ladder matches are better than battle royal type ladder matches, in my opinion.

The Roode vs. Lashley match also surprised me.  It was easily PVP main event quality--and damn, that bump Lashley took to the outside, I can't believe he was alright.  The man is a beast.

Lashley bump was like 2 weeks before his MMA fight!!! What a beast. I admit i was never found of Booby Lashley in his crappy ECW days to the day he early TNA run when he came in as a babyface and made Samoa Joe tap out "faceplam", but when he because heavyweight champion and as a heel win matches cleanly I was really into him. It also helps that he doesn't talk much XD.

Also lol even in here i cant get away from $9.99

Night of Champions sure was ... something else.

Did anyone see the sign at Smackdown that said, "When it Reigns, it bores"?

So I'm about 2 weeks from Summerslam in catching up with WWE and mother of God... sales must be absolute shit for them to continually promote this $9.99 thing. I'm only like 10 minutes in and I hope this isn't going to be a recurring theme throughout the night.

Overall Summerslam is looking good
Cena/Lesnar, Rollins/Ambrose, and Brie/Stephanie look like decent matches based off of hype and what they can deliver.

Slade6alpha said: So I'm about 2 weeks from Summerslam in catching up with WWE and mother of God... sales must be absolute shit for them to continually promote this $9.99 thing. I'm only like 10 minutes in and I hope this isn't going to be a recurring theme throughout the night. Overall Summerslam is looking good Cena/Lesnar, Rollins/Ambrose, and Brie/Stephanie look like decent matches based off of hype and what they can deliver.

I won't speak about the Cena vs. Lesnar match until you've seen it.  Rollins vs. Ambrose was as good as it could be as a Lumberjack match, thought the rematch on RAW was awesome and much better.

$9.99 gets run into the ground, they said it constantly for several weeks and tried to turn it into a meme.  They even have it on a t-shirt.

Hiroshi Tanahashi & Tetsuya Naito vs. AJ Styles & Doc Gallows (NJPW)  --  Looks like they're setting up Tanahashi vs. Styles for the title.  Should be awesome.  It's also interesting because Okada has the automatic title match at Wrestle Kingdom in January.

Loving Styles as a heel champion.  It looks like he's studied Ric Flair's run with the Horsemen.  He orders his opponents around, tells them to get out of his ring, tells them who to start off the tag match with, and takes cheap shots all over the place.  That's something that's really missing from the WWE.  It's a subtle thing but it elevates the title.