The Best Wrestling of the Week: 7/3/16 - 12/3/16

Here we go, the inaugural post, lets hope no-one else gets injured in the lead up to 'Mania (its getting ridiculous at this point).

In terms of the best news of this week, we got this lot;

1.  The dog killin', funeral crashin' Big Boss Man announced as the third inductee into the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2016.
2. Seth Rollins is reportedly back in the ring and training multiple times a week, we can not have this man back soon enough.
3. It appears, per Meltzer, that Lucha Underground are close to confirming a deal with Netflix. Although I personally don't watch Lucha Underground or have a Netflix subscription, any wrestling expanding into media and growing is good news for everyone.

And now onto the best matches of the week...

Monday Night RAW

Best Match on Monday Night RAW (7/3/16): Y2AJ (Chris Jericho & AJ Styles) vs The New Day - WWE Tag Team Championship Match

Honourable Mention: Kevin Owens vs Neville

After a seemingly standard start, within a few minutes this match kicked it up a notch and in my opinion became a PPV-quality match and the best main roster tag match in a while, simply awesome. With how few times titles have changed hands on TV in the last few years in WWE, I went into this assuming that New Day had a definite win. However, this opinion was soon changed after seeing everyone putting in so much effort to make this a great match, with AJ pulling out something we haven't seen in WWE yet (to my knowledge) and a number of close falls and teases of submissions. All of this kept me solely focused on the screen and audibly yelping. Ultimately, New Day would retain after an amazing ending sequence with the so many finisher reversals you couldn't look away. What a fucking great match.

As for the honourable mention, Kevin Owens vs Neville was also a really good match. The two are well accustomed to facing each other and always pull off a notable performance. This match featured some real cool spots, we had a shooting star press to the outside and a goddamn Phoenix Splash from the second goddamn rope, that wasn't even the finish. In the end, Owens won with a roll-up. Although this felt a bit anti-climactic after such big moves it might be to build for a multi man match at WrestleMania, which would keep Neville looking like a serious threat to Kevin's title. However this might not be the plan after all, seeing as SAMI FUCKING ZAYN stormed the ring to stop Owens' post-match assault. Just so everyone knows, Sami Zayn is my absolute favourite wrestler, so his appearance will probably be my best moment of the week.
Speaking of Sami Zayn...

Thursday Night SmackDown!

Best Match on SmackDown! (10/3/16): Sami Zayn & Neville vs The Miz & Kevin Owens

This week's episode of SmackDown! wasn't amazing on the match front, but it did have some cool segments. Nevertheless, we needed the best match of the night, and in this week it was the first match on the card. The main point of this match was to show off Sami to the main roster audience with it being his third in-ring appearance on TV (1st was a tag match before NXT Takeover: Fatal-4-Way and Cena's US Open Challenge). Neville also got to show off some of his always impressive repertoire. Kevin didn't do a whole lot in this match, he left Miz high-and-dry at the end, wanting to avoid contact with Zayn. In short, some cool things happened, we got to see Zayn.

NXT

Best Match on NXT (9/3/16): Samoa Joe vs Sami Zayn - 2 out of 3 Falls No.1 Contender Match for NXT Title

Okay, so technically, this match kinda wins 'Best Match on NXT' by default because it was the only match on NXT this week, I swear my love for Sami isn't blinding my judgement. But, this match was fucking class. The match was like 40 minutes long, and the story of it (Sami determined on becoming the first two-time NXT Champion mixed with his enduring spirit and Joe looking to assert his dominance and claim was is rightfully his) was present throughout and told wonderfully. The first part of the match was near all pure wrestling; trading holds and submissions, the occasional strike thrown and body parts targeted with reason. As the match progressed towards the second and third falls, Zayn and Joe started to throw their moveset at each other, with callbacks to their previous encounters, like Zayn's struggle to perform the Blue Thunder Bomb and the Muscle Buster-Helluva Kick sequence developed. The match was simply awesome, although it wasn't edge-of-your-seat exciting throughout, it demonstrated how a great story can be told in the squared circle.

Ring of Honour

Best Match on Ring of Honour TV (5/3/16): Lio Rush vs Brian Fury - Top Prospect Tournament Finals

This match was pretty damn awesome, it was the first match of the hour but I reckon it should have been last on. Going into this Rush had 2 hard fought victories and gained support of the most of the crowd, with his opponent, Fury, having acquired his spot through nefarious means. The crowd really got into this one; loud chants for Rush, loud reactions and big celebration roars following Rush's victory.
Rush, despite having only a year in the wrestling business, has his movements in the ring down to a tee. Everything is fluid with no noticeable error, and by God his move-set is good; kicks akin to Ricochet, a sweet tope con hilo, a D'Lo Brown-esque frog splash and a backflip slam that looks like something from Create-A-Finisher. I can see Lio becoming a big babyface in ROH and I look forward to seeing more of Lio on my screen soon.
Brian Fury, although he didn't shine as brightly as Rush, had his moments. His decade-plus of experience lends itself to his seemingly effortless performance, heel tactics and heat-gaining was solid and what I noticed most was his striking. His punches were made to look powerful with sound and sharpness of his arm movement.

As always, Ring of Honour TV is available free on their website

EDIT: Aw fuck yeah they put it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm5T72C1ZbU

The Verdict

It's been a week of some incredibly awesome matches, it's been a hard decision to make but here it is...

Best Match of The Week: Samoa Joe vs Sami Zayn - 2 out of 3 Falls No.1 Contender Match for NXT Title 

The decision was a toss up between this and the tag title match on RAW. The match on RAW was probably better for entertainment level per minutes, with action aplenty and an overall engaging performance. However, the content of the 2 out of 3 Falls match was better; better psychology, better storytelling and better wrestling. I know that this match had the perks of being on NXT, where they were able to give Joe and Sami the time for it, but that's just a part of wrestling. The tag match went a good length of time anyway and a few more minutes might not have done much for it.
So, if you have a spare hour and are able to catch it, I strongly encourage you to watch if you want to see how good wrestling can be. Or, if you're wanting something shorter and with more action, the tag match is still a awesome and is worth checking out.

Here are some clips if you're strapped for time:
Y2AJ vs New Day - Monday Night RAW
Sami Zayn vs Samoa Joe - NXT - Part One - Part Two - Part Three

Other Cool Stuff from this week:
Dean Ambrose sit-down interview 
Shane and Vince segment (RAW)
Kevin Owens vs Neville (RAW)
The Zayn/Owens confrontation on MizTV (SD!)