The Wrestling Drive Ep. 1 On The WWE Cruiserweight Classic

Tom Lynch Entertainment, Reviews, Spotlight Videos, Wrestling , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Check out episode one of the Wrestling Drive as I preview the premiere of tonight’s Cruiserweight Classic.  We’ll look at some of the standout contestants and what this may mean for the future of the cruiserweight division in WWE.  We’ll also talk about Daniel Bryan’s return to WWE television as an announcer/ host of the Classic.  Finally, we’ll turn our attention to tonight’s big episode of NXT and the big number one contender match between Shinsuke Nakamura and Finn Balor.  Check it out and be sure to subscribe to us on youtube right here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy_gVqjuaWDp2QW6go6e0Xw

 

 

Memorial Day Weekend, NBA Insanity & More- The Daily Spotlight for 5/31

Tom Lynch Entertainment, Sports, The Daily Spotlight , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hello once again boys and girls.  Fresh off memorial day weekend, it is great to be back here with each and every one of you as the daily spotlight returns.  I couldn’t be happier today as I’m working out of queens today which chops my commute by over 2 and half hours as opposed to Brooklyn and this also allowed me to sleep an additional 2 hours so my overall quality of life as well as my mood as through the roof!   Memorial Day weekend was really quite enjoyable for me, albeit a bit of a recharge weekend.  I do hope that all who celebrated and had a nice weekend, took a minute to think about the men and women currently protecting our freedom overseas as well as those who lost their lives making that same ultimate sacrifice.  At the end of the day, these men and women are the reason why memorial day is such an important day of the year.

–  My girlfriend and I hosted two barbecues with family and friends over the weekend on both Sunday and Monday.  It was of course a little tough for me personally being the first memorial day without my dad.  He used to really look forward to memorial day as he deemed it the unofficial kickoff of summer and would plan different dishes for the grill weeks prior to the event.  They say that every first when losing a loved one is tough and they aren’t lying.  In any event, the first of the two barbecues included two friends who we hadn’t seen in over a year.  For me, it’s always great catching up with old friends especially when it’s so hard this day in age to make time to simply hang out and get on the same schedules.  What’s great about these guys, and so many of my friends really, is that we can take such a long while away from seeing each other and pick up like we had never missed a beat or that we had hung out so often.  Immediately following the barbecue, we all came back inside and our friends asked to see some of the more recent photos from our trip to California so we plugged the laptop into our big screen and streamed them off there.  I’m always big on taking photos that document our stay in a particular destination, not even necessarily of us, but of the destination itself.  Thus, it was really cool to see our friends looking through the 1200+ photos and marveling over the different sights of Cali.  I’m going to get into some of the highlights of that Cali trip later in the week.

– One of the other big highlights of the weekend for me was the series between the Golden State Warriors and the Oklahoma City Thunder.  Now I should probably mention that I’m not a big basketball fan.  I used to be, however, as a matter of fact, the way it went in my house growing up was that baseball was my mom’s sport, football was my dad’s and basketball was mine.   If you grew up in the 1990s, how could anyone not be a fan of basketball?  From Michael Jordan to Patrick Ewing to Shaq there were stars on every single team and always something good to watch.  Even throughout most of the 2000s my gift each year for my birthday was NBA League Pass.  Then something happened.  Whether it be the sad state of the New York Knicks or the retirement of most of those players I enjoyed watching or, more likely, my increased love of baseball and football and the less time I had to dedicate to basketball (I’m also a big fan of professional wrestling, have I ever mentioned that?).  Well, on Saturday night my girlfriend and I had dinner reservations and due to the restaurant having a slow night the place closed early and so we ended up at the buffalo wild wings nearby.  Let me tell ya, you would have thought Ronda Rousey had returned to the Octagon.  The place was packed and everybody so invested in the Warriors-Thunder game.  We ended up staying for the entire second half and I couldn’t help but cheer the Warriors on, despite the rest of the fans in the place mostly rooting for the Thunder.  I get the appeal in rooting for the underdog but for me I just think the Warriors are both fun to watch and a classy group of guys.  I can’t help but root for them.   As many of you know, I’m also a huge fan of history and I would hate to see the 73-win tarnished by them falling short in the finals (contrary to my celebration of epic proportions when the Patriots lost the superbowl to the Giants).  With that said, I don’t quite get the belief that if the Warriors win the NBA Championship this season, they are the best team in the history of the sport.  I mean sure, I guess record wise they would be but today’s NBA is very much different then the NBA of the past.  This day in age players rest (cc: San Antonio Spurs) and there just isn’t the star power that there was in the past.  Not to take anything away from the Warriors and I couldn’t be more impressed that they were able to comeback and win the West, but this team isn’t the 96 Bulls.

– Well, that’s going to do it for me right now but later today I’ll be back with my spotlight on Raw (which i already have in the can) and then either tonight or tomorrow I’ll be back with my spotlight on the excellent documentary that aired on the WWE Network following Raw on Seth Rollins.

Spotlight Breaking News- Jake Arrieta Throws A No Hitter! 

Tom Lynch Sports, The Spotlight On Today's Sports , , , , , ,

Tonight Chicago Cubs Starting Pitcher Jake Arrieta threw his second career no hitter as the Cubs beat the Reds 16-0! Arrieta also set a new record for the shortest time between starts to pitch a no hitter, in only 9 games! 

So much for a one hitter wonder, the reigning NL Cy Young has picked up right where he left off last season. Arrieta hasn’t allowed a run in 3 of his first 4 starts this season, good for a stingy 0.87 ERA! 

Of course when you’re getting 16 runs from your offense, it can only help. Arrieta accomplished his no-no in just 119 pitches, striking out 6 and walking 4 along the way. The Cubs continue to roll as they improved to an 11-4 record, good for a tie for the best record in the National League with the Washington Nationals. 

Now it’s just a shame we don’t get a Dominono this season! 

Spotlight Breaking News- Samoa Joe Wins The NXT Title 

Tom Lynch Wrestling , , , , , , ,

In a completely shocking story tonight at a live event in Lowell, Massachusetts Samoa Joe defeated Finn Balor to win the NXT world title. Balor was the longest reigning NXT Champion of all time.

This is a pretty big deal as this is the first time a title has changed hands at a live event in many years . Go out of your way to watch that 30 second video above and you can just see how excited the crowd was for Joes title win. They did not see it coming in a million years. We will have more on this story as it develops. 

The Spotlight On Raw 

Tom Lynch Spotlight On Raw, Wrestling , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Last night’s episode of WWE Monday Night Raw is in the books and I honestly found that there was a lot to like on the show. Due to how packed of a show that it was, I’m not going to waste any time and instead will jump right in.  Highlights:

Shane O Mac is Back- I’m not too sure what’s going on with Shane McMahon but what I can tell you is that he’s been a real breath of fresh air to the show. It’s been roughly five years since we had a babyface authority figure (Teddy Long) and it really changes up the dynamic on the show. The one thing I loved about Shane last night was when he came out to kick off the show and really laid out the whole night of matches. This is something that WWE hasn’t really done in quite some time and I’m glad they’re getting back to it. By Shane coming out and announcing the tag title tournament, the women’s title match and the number one contender match (later he also added the unique tag match of Bray and Roman vs the League of Nations), this to me gave the viewers multiple reasons to tune in and to remain tuned in for the remainder of the night.  
Shots Fired- Last night Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows, former members of New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Bullet Club made their long awaited debuts on Monday Night Raw when they attacked the Usos following there tag tournament victory over the Social Outcasts. I thought this was fantastic and really made Gallows and Anderson (who won’t be going by the Bullet Club, NJPW owns that name) look like two big time stars. The crowd went nuts for them and JBL was great here in immediately putting the guys over as legit players. For me this reminded me of the debut of The Outsiders in WCW as Scott Hall and Kevin Nash looked like two badasses and you knew that they were working with someone, who eventually turned out to be Hulk Hogan and the NWO was formed. The question now remains as to who, if anyone, Anderson and Gallows are working with. Regardless, i thought this was a great debut for these guys and I couldn’t be happier for the two of them. Karl Anderson is one helluva wrestler and if you aren’t familiar, I think you’ll be very impressed with what he brings to the table. As for Gallows, who looks like he’ll again be going by Luke Gallows, he actually had a run in WWE back in the late 2000s as Festus (teammates with Jesse who was actually Ray Gordy who made an appearance honoring his father, Terry Gordy, at last week’s WWE Hall of Fame) and then later as a member of CM Punk’s Straight Edge Society. Gallows has really reinvented himself since his departure from WWE, establishing one of the best personalities in the business. I’m really excited to see where these guys go from here.  

What’s Going On With The Wyatts?- I actually really enjoyed the main event last night and have been enjoying the continued progression of the Wyatt Family as they seem to potentially be turning face. It was a really interesting dynamic to have Bray team with Roman Reigns, the guy that he once claimed he prefer anyone other than him to be the top guy in the WWE. For years now, I thought there was money to be made with the Wyatt Family embracing the fans as fans have been behind the Wyatts really since Bray’s program with John Cena back in early 20014. I think that perhaps it was the 101,000 fans at AT&T Stadium pulling out there phones in unison in support of Bray Wyatt that convinced WWE management that it may be time for that switch. If nothing else it’s different and I like it. It was such a unique atmosphere to see the LA crowd getting solidly behind Alberto Del Rio (who is always a huge favorite of the people of LA) and Bray Wyatt but solidly booing both Roman Reigns and Rusev. Go back and watch this if you have the time.  

 Closing Thoughts: 

 I may have hit on the big highlights to come out of Raw but I din’t even get a chance to touch on the matches. AJ Styles and Sami Zayn had a terrific 16+ minute match that was so much fun. The finish made sense as Styles is the guy who they need to build up for his match with Roman Reigns and so it made sense for him to get the win. Charlotte and Natalya had another really strong match in which I didn’t mind the DQ finish because it will now set up a rematch for the Payback pay per view. Lastly, I thought that Kevin Owens and Cesaro had another great match, as they always do, and I loved seeing both men lay it all out there for a shot at The Miz’s Intercontinental Title, as it made that title seem that much more important. Thus, with these three matches coupled with the really unique main event, you had four strong matches on Raw that i feel you should go out of your way to see.  

It was overall a really good episode of Raw and I’m liking the direction they’re heading in with Shane being the guy to run the show. They seem to be really making an effort to put together fresh matches and introduce new talent and the idea of having a babyface authority figure allows for cleaner finishes and less nonsense. For example, I loved Shane having Kevin Owens escorted from the building to make sure that Sami Zayn would finally be able to get his shot. There is definitely a place in WWE for the heel authority figure but we’ve been seeing that now for nearly 3 years and so this is a welcome change.  

That’s going to do it for me here but we are in the midst of our live perspective Wrestlemania week featuring a different event from Wrestlemania broken down with photos each day. I currently have a fun photo gallery up of our time spent at the Wrestlemania store and tonight will have some photos and a breakdown of NXT Takeover:Dallas. Keep your eyes open for that! A reminder that we are also now on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/thedailyspotlight so give us a like and tell all of your friends! Thanks for all of the support!