UnWrest

This is a continuation of the Best Tag Teams post from Monday this week. The idea is to come up with the best tag teams in the last 28 years and rank the Top 10 in each decade. Then, once all the decades are done, make a complete Top 10 List of the Top Tag Teams of The Last 3 Decades. The wrestling industry in the last several years has seen an emergence of popularity. Independent wrestling has become more and more prominent. Companies like New Japan Pro Wrestling and Ring of Honor have seen their cultural influence expand with talent exchanges, co-productions of big events, the emerging popularity of many of its main stars among the internet to the point where their shirts are sold in Hot Topic, and the emergence on streaming apps to promote their content. WWE has likewise seen a growth in its company with the emergence of the WWE Network and continuing presence in the global consumer culture. WWE's recent deal with Fox is evidence of a company resurging in popularity and profit...

What's up everyone? Welcome to the 2nd Edition of the main UnWrest post. Given the news of Big Van Vader's passing, I've decided not to do any additional news after my weekly TV thoughts, Rewind, and Podcast Recommendations. Instead, after those, I'm going to write on The Man from the Rocky Mountains. I'll cover the other news from this week later. With that in mind, let's get to it. Raw Thoughts - That opening segment was perfect with Rousey going off on Alexa Bliss and even Kurt Angle after being somewhat screwed out of the Raw Women's Championship at Money in the Bank. This is the way to develop Ronda's character and get her over more with both WWE's hardcore and mainstream audience: Everyone loves a badass. Look at Samoa Joe. He's a heel, but the audience loves him because he's a legit badass. Rousey in 24 hours regained a lot of the momentum she had lost after WrestleMania. This tapped into the Steve Austin territory for beating up pe...

This is a continuation of the Best Tag Teams post from Monday this week. The idea is to come up with the best tag teams in the last 28 years and rank the Top 10 in each decade. Then, once all the decades are done, make a complete Top 10 List of the Top Tag Teams of The Last 3 Decades. This decade is going to be difficult for a lot of reasons. To start, the WWE had a lot of great tag teams from 2000-2002. But tag team wrestling became less and less a priority, at least to the casual viewer as time continued on. Also, keep in mind that the wrestling industry went through some rough times when competition was scarce. Ring of Honor and TNA Wrestling would emerge in this decade as the closest thing to being considered competition for the WWE juggernaut, and the WWE's sweat was not even sweating about these companies. Still, some great tag teams did emerge from this decade. Here are a list of tag teams that stand out to me from the year 2000-2009. If you want to make your own list and ...

Thank you all for clicking on this blog. This is going to be a preview of the G1 Climax, a discussion of the announced cards for the 19 show tournament, and my quick thoughts on what you should look for as far as results, surprises, and can't miss matches. So, let's review the G1 concept first...  What is the G1? The G1 is a round-robin tournament in which wrestlers are divided into two blocks. They have to face EACH wrestler in their block and are competing for points.(I believe it is 2 points for a victory and 1 point for a time-limit draw.) The men with the most points in their block face each other on the final night to determine the winner of the tournament. The winner of the tournament gets a contract to wrestle the IWGP Heavyweight Champion (New Japan's major title) at the big Wrestle Kingdom event in the Tokyo Dome on January 4th. Why should you watch it? The matches are very competitive from night to night, with 19 shows all taking place within a 1 month time ...

What's up everyone? I'm continuing to cover the New Japan Kizuna Road shows from Monday and Tuesday. Separately, I'll be posting my commentary on the G1 Climax 28 announcements later today. So, check that out.  If you want Night 1, go back to the ROH/NJPW combined review I did on Sunday. Kizuna Road Night 2- 6/18/18 - The Kizuna Road shows have felt like glorified house shows with Young Lions taking up a lot of time. So, do not expect a lengthy review from me for either of these two shows. - This show has been completely skip-able up to the LIJ vs. Suzuki-Gun match. As always, Naito is can't miss and weirdly charismatic with his shenanigans. Even in throwaway tag matches, Naito shines. - I don't care how many men are in these matches with them. I'll always pay attention when Okada and Tanahashi are on opposite sides. Okada is perhaps the greatest world champion in New Japan history and Tanahashi is still, in his 40s, the ACE of NJPW. So glad they're faci...

(Editor's Note: I was going to take today off, but I was inspired by something I saw today. So, you can thank Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thompson's 83 Weeks for this.) I'm listening to 83 Weeks while watching Clash of the Champions 23 (Flair/Anderson vs. The Hollywood Blondes). And I just thought about how underrated still today the Hollywood Blondes were as a tag team. And in thinking about how Tag Team wrestling has changed and evolved over the quarter century since this show, I started to think... Who would be my Top 10 Tag Teams of All Time? Or even more specific, who were the best tag teams of the 1990s? So this series is going to look at the best tag teams of all time through the last three decades (90s, 00s, and 10s, if that's what we call THIS decade), who my personal choices for the top tag teams of that decade were, and finally combining the three lists to make a list for the top 10 tag teams of the last 28 years. (If there's interest, I'm willing to g...

- The Pre-Show is so scripted that it is mind-numbing to listen to these people just talk the same nonsense over and over again. I'm glad the shows are happening an hour earlier. The crowd in Chicago was so loud I could hardly hear the Pre-Show team when Joe and Owens were out. - Remember when Gallows and Anderson were one of the most talked about teams outside of WWE and came in with a bunch of fanfare about  how awesome they were going to be? Seems like a long time ago, doesn't it? The Good Brothers may regret coming to WWE after these last 2 years. They still got more offense in than I expected, which is a sad commentary itself. (Side note: I hate commercial breaks during Pre-Show matches. I know it's technically considered TV to WWE, but it still puts a bad taste in the mouth.) - Hey, if fans can bring stop signs into a WWE show, why can't they rush the Pre-Show stage and join the panel? Just saying... Security did a good enough job stopping fans from jumping on...