2018 Mae Young Classic Review Thread

[KILLdozer]

Really though...Lacey Lane=Ember Moon Jr.

Just slightly smaller.

[KILLdozer]

Cole's saying every foreign thing wrong tonight.

[KILLdozer]

He said "Asai moonsault" and Zeuxis...differently every single time...lol how?

Plus I'm pretty sure Io Shirai just uses a regular moonsault...isn't the Asai something to do with bouncing off the ropes to the outside...springboard or plans?...not quite too similar to but also different from the lionsault?

[Big Red Machine]

EPISODE 6:

2018 MAE YOUNG CLASSIC SECOND ROUND MATCH: Io Shirai vs. Zeuxis- 5.5/10
A decent match with a great finishing sequence.

2018 MAE YOUNG CLASSIC SECOND ROUND MATCH: Xia Li vs. Deonna Purrazzo- 6.75/10
Deonna worked the arm and kept trying for the armbar. Xia avoided it for as long as she could but eventually she got caught and had to tap out. Good storytelling and good action.

2018 MAE YOUNG CLASSIC SECOND ROUND MATCH: Tegan Nox vs. Nicole Matthews- 4.5/10
The pre-match video package made me want to see Nicole Matthews kick Tegan Nox’s obnoxious ass. Woman don’t do headscissors or high flying moves? Have you never seen Joshi or Lucha or a Sasha Banks match? And “Shiniest Wizard?” Really? F*ck off. Go home and play with your crayons, little girl. This is a tournament for grown women.
Matthews threw Nox around but still managed to lose, because whoever is booking this tournament clearly hates me personally.

2018 MAE YOUNG CLASSIC SECOND ROUND MATCH: Mia Yim vs. Kaitlyn- 6.5/10
There was a line in the video package that I must have missed in the commentary last week with Beth saying that Kaitlyn “was part of the Women’s Evolution, and show she has a chance to cement her legacy in it.” Yes. Kaitlyn, who left the company a year before Stephanie came out and declared that there would be a Divas Revolution, never mind the later Women’s Evolution, was still somehow part of the Women’s Evolution. Because every woman who has ever set foot in WWE has been part of the Women’s Evolution because they’re all strong, independent, empowered women. That’s the truth, okay. Even if the fact that every single woman in WWE at any point in history being part of the Women’s Evolution makes idea that this big women’s empowerment Evolution/Revolution change they’re pushing is actually any sort of change at all. Because the absolute control freak lunatics that run this company are so obsessed with showing us all that they are always right that even when admitting that they have done their women a great disservice over a twenty-year period, they still cannot help themselves but insist on pushing a revisionist history on us where they deny that these mistakes were ever made at all, even as they beg us to laud them for fixing those selfsame mistakes.
Cole said that Kaitlyn was the “veteran” in this match even though not only does Mia have more total years of experience than Kaitlyn, but she actually also started training before Kaitlyn did.
Mia’s hand was taped up from her first round match. They did some good stuff with that, including some really great near-taps. The last few minutes of this was quite good, but it felt like it should have gone longer (especially as the main event).

[Big Red Machine]

Yeah, all three were bad tonight. Three completely and totally WWE-style announcers is too much to take. I don't want or need every other sentence to either be some tidbit from someone's background, or some comment about "what this opportunity means to X/dreams/sappy bullsh*t/whatever."

[NWK2000]

2018 MAE YOUNG CLASSIC SECOND ROUND MATCH: Mia Yim vs. Kaitlyn- 6.5/10
There was a line in the video package that I must have missed in the commentary last week with Beth saying that Kaitlyn “was part of the Women’s Evolution, and show she has a chance to cement her legacy in it.” Yes. Kaitlyn, who left the company a year before Stephanie came out and declared that there would be a Divas Revolution, never mind the later Women’s Evolution, was still somehow part of the Women’s Evolution. Because every woman who has ever set foot in WWE has been part of the Women’s Evolution because they’re all strong, independent, empowered women. That’s the truth, okay. Even if the fact that every single woman in WWE at any point in history being part of the Women’s Evolution makes idea that this big women’s empowerment Evolution/Revolution change they’re pushing is actually any sort of change at all. Because the absolute control freak lunatics that run this company are so obsessed with showing us all that they are always right that even when admitting that they have done their women a great disservice over a twenty-year period, they still cannot help themselves but insist on pushing a revisionist history on us where they deny that these mistakes were ever made at all, even as they beg us to laud them for fixing those selfsame mistakes.

One of the definitions of "evolution" is "the gradual development of something, especially from a simple to a more complex form" so anything that's part of the development of women's wrestling technically is a part of the evolution, it's just that they came up with the term and starting spotlighting women's wrestling in 2014. The idea that the birth of the branding technically started the evolution would be like saying the evolution of started with modern man. To acknowledge evolution you have to acknowledge what comes before what is current.
From a wrestling standpoint as well, I absolutely would quantify Kaitlyn as part of the Evolution in the way that you're viewing it.. She put on some amazing matches with AJ Lee, it's just that again they hadn't thought up the branding yet

[NWK2000]

I don't want or need every other sentence to either be some tidbit from someone's background, or some comment about "what this opportunity means to X/dreams/sappy bullsh*t/whatever."

Average WWE fans are stupid. You need to bludgeon them with the babyface is, especially if it's someone they've never seen before. Sorry for the double post

[KILLdozer]

Cole was at his trademark worst from the beginning to the end pretty much. Miss pronouncing a fujiwara armbar, and the other things I've already mentioned that he actually kept saying differently...every single time. Beth Phoenix eventually became that cliche WWE announcer where everything was said in that tone of voice they're becoming so well known and famous for. Renee just reacted with excitement mostly.

[Big Red Machine]

2018 MAE YOUNG CLASSIC SECOND ROUND MATCH: Mia Yim vs. Kaitlyn- 6.5/10
There was a line in the video package that I must have missed in the commentary last week with Beth saying that Kaitlyn “was part of the Women’s Evolution, and show she has a chance to cement her legacy in it.” Yes. Kaitlyn, who left the company a year before Stephanie came out and declared that there would be a Divas Revolution, never mind the later Women’s Evolution, was still somehow part of the Women’s Evolution. Because every woman who has ever set foot in WWE has been part of the Women’s Evolution because they’re all strong, independent, empowered women. That’s the truth, okay. Even if the fact that every single woman in WWE at any point in history being part of the Women’s Evolution makes idea that this big women’s empowerment Evolution/Revolution change they’re pushing is actually any sort of change at all. Because the absolute control freak lunatics that run this company are so obsessed with showing us all that they are always right that even when admitting that they have done their women a great disservice over a twenty-year period, they still cannot help themselves but insist on pushing a revisionist history on us where they deny that these mistakes were ever made at all, even as they beg us to laud them for fixing those selfsame mistakes.

One of the definitions of "evolution" is "the gradual development of something, especially from a simple to a more complex form" so anything that's part of the development of women's wrestling technically is a part of the evolution, it's just that they came up with the term and starting spotlighting women's wrestling in 2014. The idea that the birth of the branding technically started the evolution would be like saying the evolution of started with modern man. To acknowledge evolution you have to acknowledge what comes before what is current.

Yeah, but we all know that's not what they mean. If it was then they wouldn't feel any need to acknowledge #GiveDivasAChance because not giving them a chance would be part of this natural progression of theirs. Accepting that definition wants us to accept that going from Alundra Blayze vs. Bull Nakano to Sable losing the Women's Title to Debra in an evening gown match which Sable actually won but Commissioner HBK decided that Debra should have the belt because he liked seeing her naked is a positive development. But they'll never say that, because it's not, and they know it.

From a wrestling standpoint as well, I absolutely would quantify Kaitlyn as part of the Evolution in the way that you're viewing it.. She put on some amazing matches with AJ Lee, it's just that again they hadn't thought up the branding yet

The matches were good to great. Amazing is a stretch, IMO. But the point is that they didn't think up the branding yet because they had no need to think up the branding. Do you know how many matches Kaitlyn had in her career that went over ten minutes? TWO. One was the Fourteen-Woman Survivor Series match, and the other was against Nattie on an episode of Superstars. For AJ it was three. One was against Nattie on an episode of Main Event, and the other two werre both in her last month in the company- i.e. post-#GiveDivasAChance. They hadn't thought up the branding because they thought that the branding they had at a the time- calling the women "Divas" and having them fight over a belt designed to look like a pink butterfly, and putting out daily sexy photoshoots on their websites and rarely giving them more than five minutes for their matches- was a great idea and definitely the right way to get the women over as stars.

[NWK2000]

If it was then they wouldn't feel any need to acknowledge #GiveDivasAChance because not giving them a chance would be part of this natural progression of theirs. Accepting that definition wants us to accept that going from Alundra Blayze vs. Bull Nakano to Sable losing the Women's Title to Debra in an evening gown match which Sable actually won but Commissioner HBK decided that Debra should have the belt because he liked seeing her naked is a positive development. But they'll never say that, because it's not, and they know it.

What do you want them to say? "The booking of our women was shit and misogynistic then but now it's not?" That's not how marketing works. You extenuate the positive and not the negative. Hence why they've been mum on women's wrestling 1997-1999. And honestly would anyone want to relive that scummy crap anyway

The matches were good to great. Amazing is a stretch, IMO. Do you know how many matches Kaitlyn had in her career that went over ten minutes? TWO. One was the Fourteen-Woman Survivor Series match, and the other was against Nattie on an episode of Superstars. For AJ it was three. One was against Nattie on an episode of Main Event,

Ah. The old workrate argument. People look fondly upon Hulk Hogan matches in the WWE for example, but I doubt any of those were 30 minute barn burners or had a ton of moves. Kaitlyn and AJ were amazing in comparison to the other WWE women of their era. Would the same matches be amazing in the middle of a card in 2018? No. But in 2013 they were awesome and deserve to be praised as so.

[Big Red Machine]

If it was then they wouldn't feel any need to acknowledge #GiveDivasAChance because not giving them a chance would be part of this natural progression of theirs. Accepting that definition wants us to accept that going from Alundra Blayze vs. Bull Nakano to Sable losing the Women's Title to Debra in an evening gown match which Sable actually won but Commissioner HBK decided that Debra should have the belt because he liked seeing her naked is a positive development. But they'll never say that, because it's not, and they know it.

What do you want them to say? "The booking of our women was shit and misogynistic then but now it's not?" That's not how marketing works. You extenuate the positive and not the negative. Hence why they've been mum on women's wrestling 1997-1999. And honestly would anyone want to relive that scummy crap anyway
Right. So don't bring it up at all. Just say she used to work here, she was a champion, and here is why you should care about her. We have a literal start date for the Divas'/Women's R/Evolution. It was July 13, 2015. Stephanie came out and said "we're having this big change starting right now." Go back and watch the segment. That's exactly what happened. So you can't tell me that anything that happened before that date is part of this.

The matches were good to great. Amazing is a stretch, IMO. Do you know how many matches Kaitlyn had in her career that went over ten minutes? TWO. One was the Fourteen-Woman Survivor Series match, and the other was against Nattie on an episode of Superstars. For AJ it was three. One was against Nattie on an episode of Main Event,

Ah. The old workrate argument. People look fondly upon Hulk Hogan matches in the WWE for example, but I doubt any of those were 30 minute barn burners or had a ton of moves. Kaitlyn and AJ were amazing in comparison to the other WWE women of their era. Would the same matches be amazing in the middle of a card in 2018? No. But in 2013 they were awesome and deserve to be praised as so.
They were good matches for 6-8 minute matches and often did get praised as such, but that qualifier is important. And I didn't really think AJ vs. Kaitlyn was any better than AJ's matches with Paige or Nattie or whoever, and probably weren't any better (in fact I'd bet they were worse) than what others who were around a few years earlier like Mickie James or Beth Phoenix or Gail Kim or even Michelle McCool could have done with that time (with Kaitlyn being the weak link). The matches did not stand out to me as special in terms of the ability of the wrestlers. AJ and Kaitlyn just happened to be the pairing that was lucky enough to be given more time.

And, although I haven't seen most of it personally, Hogan apparently could work pretty well in the mid-80s (and I personally think Andre vs. Hogan was better than Savage vs. Steamboat), before he started turning into the self-parody Hulk Hogan that we got from about 88 on.

[Big Red Machine]

EPISODE 7:

2018 MAE YOUNG CLASSIC QUARTERFINAL MATCH: Lacey Lane vs. Meiko Satomura- 4.5/10
Cole insisted that if Lacey Lane won tonight it would be “the biggest upset in the history of professional wrestling from the standpoint of a women’s tournament.” Didn’t last year’s tournament feature several women wrestling in what we were told was literally their very first match? I’d say that would qualify as a bigger upset.
Cole also said that due to Meiko being such a heavy favorite “Lacey Lane has nothing to lose.” You know... aside from this big tournament that you’re trying to tell me is such a big deal.
Actually, now that I think about it, they really haven’t been putting the tournament over at all. Or at least they haven’t been putting it over as something important to win. They’ve spent all of their time talking about “what it means to these women to perform on this stage,” which is VERY different than “winning is important.”
They did a good job playing up the underdog story in the ring and even the announcers actually did a good job of teasing the idea of an upset. And all of that got me thinking: why not just put Lacey Lane over? Yes, I know Meiko Satomura is not only a million times better than Lacey Lane but is also MEIKO SATOMURA, but hear me out.
What benefit do you get from Meiko winning this match? She’ll have a pretty great match in semifinals with whoever she winds up facing (either Toni Storm or Mia Yim), and maybe she goes on to the finals and has a great match with someone on the other side, if she’s willing to sign. Okay… so what? What do you get out of signing a nearly 39-year-old Meiko Satomura? A female Japanese superstar? You’ve already got Kairi, Asuka, and Io (and that’s assuming they haven’t signed anyone else. If I were them I’d snap Matsumoto up in an instant). I understand that you want to build a worldwide brand, but there are only so many spots. It’s not like they’re going to have spots for five Japanese women, plus five or six Mexican women, a bunch of British/Aussie/Kiwi/Irish women, plus a couple of Indians and Germans for good measure to go on top of their large amount of Americans and Canadians? I’d argue that WWE derives the most benefit from Meiko Satomura staying in Japan and training top-notch talent at the Sendai Girls Dojo, and WWE can snap one of two of them every couple of years to fill out their needs.
But if you put Lacey Lane over here, you get a moment that you can use to build Lacey Lane for a long time. Even if doesn’t win the tournament (and she shouldn’t- more on that in a moment), you will have established her as a threat to beat anyone on any given night because she was the winner of one of the biggest upsets in history. In fact, doing this guarantees that she doesn’t even need to win the tournament because she’ll have something to hang her hat on anyway (I tried something like this in my “BRM Books Raw 1000 and Beyond” fantasy booking where I had Dolph Ziggler win King of the Ring- and the vacant World Heavyweight Title that was on the line that tournament- by beating Wade Barrett in the finals, but Wade won his semifinal by KO over Brock Lesnar, so even though Dolph came out with the belt, Barrett got to go around touting that he knocked Brock Lesnar out in a fair fight).
Will the resulting semifinal match (I’d do Lacey Lane vs. Mia Yim, as Mia’s experience will allow you to continue the underdog story better, with Mia finally eliminating Lacey) be worse with Lacey Lane in it than Meiko Satomura? Of course. But a tournament like this isn’t about snowflakes 9at least until you get to the finals). If it was, they would give the matches more time. This tournament is about your future. Lacey Lane can be that future. Is she great? No. But she’s still learning. She’s only a year into her career. That’s what the Performance Center and “development” territories are for.
And, quite frankly, what kind of message does it send to homegrown (or mostly homegrown) trainees that they can work as hard as they want, but there will always be some indy or international star coming in to take the top TV spots? And this isn’t just a women’s thing, but an NXT thing in general. Who that is getting any sort of a push right now is a homegrown talent. The closest thing they have is The Velveteen Dream, and after him and Bianca Belair, the highest homegrown names they have are… who? The Street Profits? And after that you probably have to go down to people struggling to break into the midcard like Lacey Evans and Kona Reeves.

2018 MAE YOUNG CLASSIC QUARTERFINAL MATCH: Io Shirai vs. Deonna Purrazzo- 6.75/10
They had a great false finish in here and did their best to tell their story in the time they were given but… well… see my comment above about these matches all being shortchanged on time.

2018 MAE YOUNG CLASSIC QUARTERFINAL MATCH: Rhia Ripley vs. Tegan Nox- 2/10
Nox hurt her knee on a dive very early on and they eventually had to stop the match. For those who don’t remember, Tegan Nox is the woman who was supposed to be in last year’s tournament but missed it due to a knee injury.

2018 MAE YOUNG CLASSIC QUARTERFINAL MATCH: Mia Yim vs. Toni Storm- 7/10
They had a great match for the time they got, which Toni won. If Toni isn’t wining this whole thing then she probably should have just lost here. You have the UK show to push her on now. Let this tournament be a springboard for Mia Yim.
Beth Phoenix claimed that Toni Storm was a “trailblazer” because “she has been travelling around the world to bring attention to women’s wrestling.”
No, she hasn’t. She has been travelling around the world because she’s a high-quality wrestler who can make a lot more money working in Japan, North America, and Europe than she would be able to make just staying in Australia.
This sort of thing is just SOOOO annoying to me. There is a wonderful Vinny V rant on WWE’s marketing re the (at that time) Divas Revolution and associated catchphrases where he makes the important point the only women’s sport (or facsimile thereof) where the announcers spend all of their time telling you about how this is now the “era of the female athlete” and constantly telling you how important it is to these women to show that women can do these things etc. is in WWE. In other wrestling promotions and in actual women’s sports, the announcers on THE ACTUAL COMPETITION THE WOMEN ARE ENGAGED IN. They don’t push on you how everything is about some women’s empowerment movement; they focus on each individual woman or team as the individual athletes they are, competing for personal glory… just like how they treat the men’s version of the sport. The result of this is that to anyone who watches women’s sports or other women’s pro wrestling, WWE’s treatment of the women and their efforts to push them actually make them feel less important than the men. And all because WWE is more concerned with pushing branding and narratives than they are with pushing their form of entertainment itself and its athletes.

[KILLdozer]

Made a post...saw the words up after...came back...no evidence of said post...

This isn't the first time lately.. A few times I figured I'd just gotten distracted and exited and started doing something else....certain not this time though.

[Big Red Machine]

EPISODE 8:


Michael Cole give Meiko Satomura this big intro calling her a “legend.” In the next sentence, Renee Young tells us that Meiko is “making her name here in the Mae Young Classic.” Was she even listening to Cole, or does she just not know what the fairly basic expression “making your name” means. Either way, it really doesn’t reflect well on her as an announcer.

Realizing that we hadn’t heard any propaganda in a good minute or so, Beth Phoenix then felt the urge to say the following:
“Meiko Satomura came to the Mae Young Classic because she wants to elevate women’s wrestling to have an equal standing to men’s, and arguably she’s done that thus far in this tournament.”
1. Really, Beth? Because I don’t remember her saying that in any of the video packages about her you’ve shown me over the course of this tournament. But do you know what I do saying fairly often? That she came here to WIN THE TOURNAMENT.
2. She has elevated women’s wrestling to an equal standing with men’s so far in this tournament? Let’s look at that claim for a moment. The closest male analogue we have for the Mae Young Classic is obviously the Cruiserweight Classic. MYC matches have been consistently shorter than matches in the same spot in the Cruiserweight Classic were. Do you know how many matches have gone more than ten minutes thus far in the MYC? ONE. By this point in the Cruiserweight Classic? TEN. There has been ONE match so far in this tournament- Martinez vs. Satomura (also, not coincidentally, the one that went over ten minutes) that had people buzzing. In the Cruiserweight Classic it felt like we were getting at least one buzzworthy a match every week once the first round was over.
In conclusion, why don’t you shut the f*ck up with your stupid propaganda bullsh*t. You don’t make women’s wrestling equal to men’s wrestling by constantly shouting “empowerment” and “equality” and “evolution” and all of your other buzz-words that start with E at us. What fans understand, but what no one in this company with any power other than Triple H seems to understand is that the way you bring women’s wrestling to an equal standing as the men’s is to quite simply treat it exactly the same as you treat men’s wrestling. Because when instead of the thing actually going on in front of you (i.e. the wrestling match the importance of winning it) all you do is talk about what big steps you’re making for equality and how great your Women’s Evolution is and other such branding nonsense, you are telling people that this is something that is getting pushed for PR purposes rather than on its own merits, and thus that it is less than the standard (in this case men’s- and more specifically, men’s heavyweight- wrestling).

2018 MAE YOUNG CLASSIC SEMIFINAL MATCH: Toni Storm vs. Meiko Satomura- 8/10
So after all of my ranting above, they did, in fact, put on a blow-away match (although it would have been better of Toni had remembered to sell her knee more. And it’s not often that I find reason to criticize Toni Storm’s selling). But my above comments still stand because this was the first time in the tournament that they weren’t trying to cram four matches into a single show, and this the women were given time to have the level of match they are capable of having (although it certainly was not, as Michael Cole claimed, “an all-time classic”). Satomura got lots of thank you chants.

TONI STORM INTERVIEW- very good

2018 MAE YOUNG CLASSIC SEMIFINAL MATCH: Io Shirai vs. Rhea Ripley- 8.25/10
Ripley was VICIOUS heel and Shirai was an excellent babyface. I probably would have put Ripley over because I think Toni Storm works better with an actual heel rather than doing babyface vs. babyface with a high-flyer, but I’m sure the match will be awesome anyway.

IO SHIRAI INTERVIEW- fine

FINALLY we got the kind of matches we should have been getting since the first round ended.