Big ups to those guys reading from down under!
Newsround time! Here's what we found out this week...
- The video above shows how the Dream Match of Angle vs Sabre Jr happened this week at Revolution Pro Wrestling here in dreary old England (it's been pissing it down today). Pops like that just shows how wrestling can make people lose their minds in excitement. I wish I was there.
- Sounds like we're gonna be getting two WWE PPVs a month soon after the brand split is introduced. Now, if you're a regular reader of the blog, you know how much I love wrestling, and how much goddamn wrestling I watch, but I'm worried it might start to become a bit much. Here's to hoping that things will turn out alright, 'cause they've got to right? Right? Hold me
- The full list of competitors for the WWE Cruiserweight Classic has finally announced, and there are some tasty treats in there. I am working on a big guide to them all, including a selection of matches featuring most of the participants. Hopefully I can get it out before the tourney starts.
- Bobby Roode appeared and wrestled on NXT's tour of the UK this week, making his in-ring debut at the Download festival, and has competed against Angelo Dawkins, No Way Jose and even Adrade 'Cien' Almas. God I love Bobby, cant wait for him to make his TV debut, and I hope I see him at the taping I go to in July.
- Reports are suggesting that there will be a class at the Performance Center in September involving British wrestlers Big Damo and Noam Dar (who is also in the Cruiserweight Classic) as well as MOOSE and Tommy End.
- WWE have signed their first Chinese wrestler, Bin Wang. Trained by Hall of Famer Antonio Inoki, this man is big lad. They were also there looking at another 30-odd hopefuls, so there could be some more signings to come.
Monday Night RAW
Best Match on RAW (13/6/16): Cesaro vs Sami Zayn
Hopefully this Sunday we'll finally see the end of the constant match-ups between the Money in the Bank Match participants. However, this match was one I was hoping would crop up sometime. One of my favourite matches ever is Cesaro vs Zayn at NXT Takeover: Arrival, if you haven't seen it, trust me, its in-fucking-credible. So, whilst I knew it most likely wouldn't have been to the same standard on RAW, it was still pretty damn good. I feel Sami's the best person in a while to receive Cesaro's corner uppercuts, properly flailing back into the turnbuckle, plus his panicking when caught in the swing makes it look so much cooler. It was more fast paced than what we've had lately in these MitB matches, and on RAW in general, and I thought it was a very welcome change. The end came about when Zayn landed his awesome Rolling Yoshi Tonic, thing of more beauty than Seth Rollins.
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| Oh? OH? OOOOOHHHHHH |
Lovely stuff, hopefully we get more like this on WWE's television broadcasts (c'mon Brand Split don't let me down)
Thursday Night SmackDown!
Best Match on SD! (16/6/16): AJ Styles vs Xavier Woods
Xavier is actually wrestling again! I was thinking about it whilst watching, and I think Xavier might be my favourite in-ring of all the New Day, he works quite a quick pace, throws in some unique offence plus is selling is on-point. Him working a similar style to AJ certainly helped this match. AJ was pretty dominant throughout, but Xavier got some flurries in, hitting a beautiful tope con hilo, making Mauro Ranallo go apeshit (then again, nearly everything does). As a statement going into Money in the Bank, AJ decided to put an end to Woods with the Calf Crusher, which has been absent for a while. Nice match here in the middle of the show, and its always nice to see Woods work by himself.
NXT
Best Match on NXT (15/6/16): TM-61 (Shane Thorne & Nick Miller) vs Wesley Blake & Buddy Murphy
Tag team action on the blog now! TM-61 are back on TV after their debuting loss against Ciampa & Gargano. Also, Blake & Murphy are back together after Alexa leaving breaking up, Murphy having a singles match, and now here they are again, Alexa-less. Some trading of momentum in the early stages, with some frequent tags and double-teams. I'm getting to like TM-61 more and I hope to see them more often, I can see these guys going a long way. Blake & Murphy got into some of their old tricks, but this was derailed after some misdirection and miscommunication and TM-61 would pick up the 'W' after a cool looking tag finisher.
What was bigger news on this episode was that it looks like we're getting Nakamura vs Balor at TakeOver: Brooklyn, which sounds pretty damn sweet.
Ring of Honour
Best Match on ROH TV: Kyle O'Reilly vs KUSHIDA
Making another appearance on the blog, its O'Reilly/KUSHIDA! This was awesome. Lots of hold for hold in the opening minutes, just beautiful transitions between them. The crowd popped big whenever an armbar or another submission used by these two to win matches was applied. The mid-stages of the matchup saw the two opting to target limbs by any means necessary, O'Reilly battered the dogshite out of KUSHIDA's knee, whilst KUSHIDA knocked some fuck out of Kyle's arm. Nasty looking stuff. We had O'Reilly drop a kneebreaker on a chair which was pretty damn cool. Also, we had a spot these two have done before, bit it's still class; O'Reilly's running off-the-apron dropkick was caught by a seated KUSHIDA into a fully extended armbar. Plus, the chair KUSHIDA was sat on broke underneath them, making it look that much cooler. The ending sequence saw O'Reilly struggle for an age in KUSHIDA's Hoverboard Lock, the crowd going ballistic watching it, culminating in Kyle managing to pin KUSHIDA's shoulders to the mat to pick up a sneak pinfall victory. Great match this, and as always, you can find it for FREE on www.rohwrestling.com/tv/current, even if you only watch this match on this episode, it's well worth it.
EVOLVE 62
Best Match on EVOLVE 62: Catch Point (Drew Gulak & Tracy Williams) vs The Bravado Brothers (Lancelot & Harlem Bravado) - EVOLVE Tag Team Championship Match
I've got back on EVOLVE! I missed the previous two shows and I feel they might be a tad outdated to add in now. Welp, this was real nice match to welcome me back. Catch Point, consisting also of Fred Yehi, Matt Riddle and Cruiserweight Classic participant TJ Perkins, the defending champions here against The Bravado Brothers. I'd never heard of this challenging team before watching this show, and I'm not too sure which is which, luckily I've got Google to sort me out. These two are the longest reigning Dragon Gate USA tag team champions, with said championships becoming the EVOLVE Tag Team Titles we see here today.
A lot of back and forth in the beginning of the match, frequent tags keeping things exciting. They didn't rely to much on hot tags here, which is something I appreciate in tag team matches, as more thought goes into the matches to keep them entertaining. High impact stuff was the agenda for this one, big chops, big suplexes and some submissions thrown in for good measure. One awesome spot was one of the Bravado brothers did a tope con hilo, but it looked like he flipped right over and landed on his front on top of Gulak, fucking cooool. Catch Point were as rough as shittily laid tarmac here, Gulak especially, look out for that in the Cruiserweight tournament. Despite only knowing half the people in this match, I really enjoyed this match all around.
And just a side note on this show, Fred Yehi wore some Marvel Comics pyjama bottoms to the ring, a pair of which I own too. Loved it.
Also, in the street fight main event, EC3 and Johnny Gargano fought on a bike. Loved it equally as much.
EVOLVE 63
Best Match on EVOLVE 63: Timothy Thatcher vs Tracy Williams - EVOLVE World Championship Match
It's the second part of the EVOLVE weekend, number 63! Despite this being the title match, it took place in the middle of the show which is odd...however, you can justify it when you see the following matches were; a 5-Man elimination WWE Cruiserweight Classic Primer (+if Tony Nese won he qualified for the tournament) and then matches to do with this Galloway/EC3 invasion thing, which is pretty big business.
Welp, this match was real damn good. I've only ever seen Williams compete in tag-team scenarios, so seeing him here opened my eyes to how good he is, plus putting him with a guy like Timothy Thatcher who allows his style to mesh seamlessly with his only made things better. Real nice technical wrestling in this one, that being Thatcher's main line of work and plenty of strikes, so both men were able to showcase their abilities really well. Thatcher looks like a big scary bastard as soon as you lay your sights on him, so when he's got his uber-pissed expression it makes everything look especially brutal, from his boots to his chops to his armbars. I forgot to point out in the match above, Williams does this super cool DDT where he and his opponent are on the top rope and he drops their head on the turnbuckle, real nice stuff. They built really well to the ending of Thatcher forcing Williams to tap to a Fujiwara armbar, having applied it like 3 times before in the last few minutes to accentuate the damage it took. Awesome match this.
The Verdict
Best Match of the Week: Timothy Thatcher vs Tracy Williams - EVOLVE World Championship Match - EVOLVE 63
Like I said, this was a great watch. Very competitive, very technical. Also, Thatcher on the mic has the most soothing voice in pro wrestling, I'd like him to read me bedtime stories. Juxtaposing that with him screaming as he boots people in the face is jarring. I've enjoyed seeing Thatcher's work since I first saw him in PWG, and seeing Williams on his own was nice to see.
And just like that we can see how the leaderboard looks now.
Welp, that's it for this week my dear readers, thanks for giving this a looksie.
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