Best of 2013 Pro Wrestling Tracker

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

With half of the voting period burned, it looks like Rookie of the Year is completely barren so far. I've been sniffing around and even the lucha experts have nobody to offer for research, and usually lucha is good for a handful of candidates.

Larry, is there ANYBODY in NXT who debuted no earlier than September 2012? Think you can come up with a meager list?

Lucha has nothing.

Japan has nothing. NOAH debuted a kid who worked one tour and mode zero impression. Dragon Gate just debuted a guy who is "feuding" (i.e. getting killed by) with Uhaa Nation, but he's so new the matches haven't emerged yet. New Japan has zero rookies. Same for All Japan.

Might have to come from WWE/NXT this year by default.

Summer Rae is the only true "rookie" in NXT that I've seen with any regularity.

Everyone else has been around the block for a while.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Dragon Gate "Dead or Alive", 5-5-13

It's hard watching a show when you've already been told it's great, but this was pretty great. CIMA/Tozawa was very very good. Nothing was bad. Everything was very good or better.

One thing about Dragon Gate, is when they have big shows, there are no throwaway matches. Even the openers are worked at a hard pace and are well above average. No other company on earth gives you a complete card, top to bottom, where everything is full effort. The closest thing I can compare it to is vintage ROH when people would bitch that the shows were too long with too much great stuff. I never understood that complaint then, and don't now. GIVE ME ACTION.

Anyway, great show.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Link: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/34308433

$20. Available until the 26th I think.

[Warner2BruceTD]

All major Dragon Gate shows (PPV's & big Kurokan Hall shows) will air live on USTREAM from this point forward. First live iPPV is 7/4 Kurokan show with Akira Tozawa vs Shingo on top.

This, obviously, is tremendous news.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Summer Rae is the only true "rookie" in NXT that I've seen with any regularity.

Everyone else has been around the block for a while.

I found another rookie! Ryotsu Shimizu of Dragon Gate.

Uhaa kills him, then kills Kotoka in the post match. I love Kotoka. Maybe Uhaa's new music/catchphrase should win Rookie of the Year. "Too Eaaasy!"

<iframe frameborder="0" width="480" height="270" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x10l849"></iframe><br /><a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x10l849_04-uhaa-nation-vs-ryotsu-shimizu-dg-05-25-13_sport" target="_blank">04. Uhaa Nation vs Ryotsu Shimizu - (DG 05/25/13)</a> <i>by <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/SenorLARIATO" target="_blank">SenorLARIATO</a></i>

Shimizu vs Katsuo. Katsuo is a shitty freelancer who DG used on the last tour.

<iframe frameborder="0" width="480" height="270" src="http://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x10u7kh"></iframe><br /><a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x10u7kh_01-ryotsu-shimizu-vs-katsuo-dragon-gate-06-02-13_sport" target="_blank">01. Ryotsu Shimizu vs Katsuo - (Dragon Gate 06...</a> <i>by <a href="http://www.dailymotion.com/SenorLARIATO" target="_blank">SenorLARIATO</a></i>


So basically, we have Summer Rae, a low level WWE Diva, and Shimizu, a Dragon Gate trainee based on a bad anime character who is still in the jobber stage. This might be the weakest rookie class of all time.

I'll say this about Shimizu, the crowd gets behind his comebacks and he seems to be over.

I'll see if I can dig up footage of the NOAH rookie, I think he has one or two matches that have emerged. I saw one, and he didn't show much.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Hirooki Goto vs Katsuyori Shibata will get some MOTY votes for sure.

'Dominion' will be a Best Show contender for sure, and would win most years. Not this year. You could argue it was the third best show this week, if you count the taped Dragon Gate "Dead or Alive", and if you really dug Payback or ROH, which were both very well received.

2013 has had some strong shows.

[SuperKevin]

Try to find Michael Elgin vs Tommaso Ciampa from Best in The World 2013. If you had told me before the show that those guys would go all out for nearly 20 minutes I'd have called you a liar.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Try to find Michael Elgin vs Tommaso Ciampa from Best in The World 2013. If you had told me before the show that those guys would go all out for nearly 20 minutes I'd have called you a liar.

I'm going to watch the replay later. I couldn't fight through the buffering yesterday and I lost my will to watch at that point for the rest of the night.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Devitt-Gedo is a notch below a MOTY, but I dare you to have more fun watching a wrestling match.

[SuperKevin]

I'm going to watch the replay later. I couldn't fight through the buffering yesterday and I lost my will to watch at that point for the rest of the night.

You get to see this yet?

[Warner2BruceTD]

You get to see this yet?

I haven't. I'm watching the TNA Hardcore Justice 2, then I have to catch up on all of the TV from this week. Plus SUN im going to Biss's show. I'm way way behind. But im going to watch.

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

Kevin Steen (c) v. Adam Cole
PWG Mystery Vortex

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

Inner City Machine Guns v. AR Fox & Samuray Del Sol
PWG All-Star Weekend - Night 1

The Unbreakable Fucking Steen Machines v. The Whole Fox'n Machine Guns
PWG All-Star Weekend - Night 2

The Young Bucks (c) v. DojoBros
PWG All-Star Weekend - Night 2

Adam Cole (c) v. Drake Younger
PWG All-Star Weekend - Night 2

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

PWG All-Star Weekend - Night 2 is definitely a Show of the Year Contender. Won't win, but needs to be mentioned.

[EmpireWF]

Keeping a loose list of MOTYs for some of the groups...with WWE, it's funny: Most of the best matches so far involve the Shield, Daniel Bryan and CM Punk.

Sure, there's Orton, Jericho, Cena, Ziggler and others who appear to, but those three in particular stand out a number of times.