BWOTW: 6/6/16 - 11/6/16

G'day readers! Take off those shoes, lay down on the sofa, snuggle yourself down, close your eyes and listen as I whisper into your ear "Welcome to this week's edition of 'Noah's Best Wrestling of the Week'" AKA 'Makin' This a Tag Team Match, Playa (Holla Holla Holla)'

Recent events now, let's look at some news!

1. Brock Lesnar is competing once again in a UFC ring...cage...octagon...thing. His opponent - Mark Hunt (say it fast and prepare to giggle). This is in a deal where UFC will also help promote SummerSlam, with the show taking place soon after.
2. NXT TakeOver returns to Brooklyn alongside SummerSlam once again. That will hopefully be an equally special night as last year.
3. The New Japan owner has announced that the next IWGP Heavyweight Champion will receive a brand new belt, due to Naito's displays of disrespect have damaged the current one. I really like the look of the current belt, so hopefully the next one will be just as pretty.
4. WWE have reportedly signed Tommy End. Get in. End is a former kickboxer, former cult member, and full time obliterater. I love the guy and cannot wait for him to arrive in Full Sail. He has bookings through to August, so he should be reporting to the Performance Center soon.
5. TEDDY LONG ON RAW WHAT THE FUCK
6. Cody Rhodes has been confirmed as being part of PWG's Battle of Los Angeles this summer. I love BOLA, and I'm sure Cody will do well.
7. Paul Ellering has returned to manage the Authors of Pain (those big lads who attacked American Alpha)

And now for the Mayfair in this wrestling blog game of Monopoly, its the matches...

Monday Night RAW

Best Match on RAW (6/6/16): Cesaro vs Chris Jericho

We've got Money in the Sasha Banks coming up soon, so why not have everyone in the ladder match face off against each other? Owens got Ambrose, Zayn had Del Rio and Cesaro faced off here against Chris Jericho. It was a tad clunky, Jericho's style being a bit slower than Cesaro's, but they still managed to have a pretty good match. Had quite a lot of catching blows in this one; Cesaro caught Jericho with an uppercuts in his attempts for a triangle dropkick and a diving double axe-handle, Jericho also got a flying Cesaro with a dropkick, and later a Codebreaker off of his springboard. It stuck out to me, just a little something was all. I like the idea of Cesaro's uppercuts being able to come from anywhere and interrupt any form of offence. The end to this was the first time, I think, that Cesaro has made someone tap with the Sharpshooter, nice change. 

RAW's matches as of late have been slipping into the very 'meh' territory, and it seemed that there was always some good matches not too long ago. Dunno what's happened, but hopefully things pick up again soon.

Thursday Night SmackDown!

Best Match on SD! (9/6/16): Chris Jericho vs Dean Ambrose

Same again lads, lets get these Money in the Bank dudes to fight more. This was a pretty good match actually, not a huge fan of this Jericho/Ambrose programme me, so this was a nice change. Jericho continued his shouty  ways, and that's what I love about this new version of him, berating the piss out of everyone non-stop. He's started using a second rope enziguri and I think it looks dope. Dean did less 'punchy-punchy-punchy-punchy' in this match, which is my main gripe with him so a straying away from this was a nice adage. After a series of finisher reversals and nearly taking the ref out, Chris landed a Codebreaker for the 1-2-3. Not bad at all.

NXT Takeover: The End

Best Match on Takeover: The End: American Alpha (Jason Jordan & Chad Gable) vs The Revival (Scott Dawson vs Dash Wilder) - NXT Tag Team Championship Match

This whole card was amazing, as is the norm with Takeovers as it seems. 

1. Dillinger/Andrade was real cool, Tye really shined and was massively over, Andrade took a bit of time to impress, but he was pretty good too, what he offered was certainly not what I was expecting (See: White Fedora w/ feather)
2. Aries/Nakamura was great, might not have lived up to all the hype but it was still awesome
3. Nia/Asuka was also a great match, as I've said with Nia's past matches on here, she's always improving, and it looked like Asuka's biggest challenge in NXT yet.
4. Balor/Joe was amazing, really nice spots and some lovely flowing action, plus a bejeezusing top-rope Muscle Buster.

But by God, this match, this fucking match...

It appears every goddamn time either of these teams are one on a Takeover, especially when facing off against each other, tag team magic just fills the ring. This being The Revival's rematch for the titles, it was American Alpha's first championship defence. When rematches are done right, they show how the rivals learn about their opponents's offence and adapt and react accordingly. There was a whole bunch of this, giving the match so much story and makes it a much better viewing experience, having seen their past battles it makes it even better. Alpha smartened up to The Revival's 2-on-1 tactics, the outside partner evening odds when Dash & Dawson looked to strike. Revival prepared for Alpha's technical prowess by finding alternative responses that weren't totally legal. Lots of countering to each other's tag team moves and even the end led you to thinking A would happen, but B did instead. 

Shockingly, Alpha lost the belts! The Revival are the first 2-time NXT Tag Team Champions (technically Neville won the belts with Oliver Grey and Corey Graves, but these guys are the first team to do so). Perhaps this brand split needs some more quality tag teams? Overall, it was a lovely, lovely match.

Ring of Honour

Best Match on ROH TV: Jay Lethal vs Donovan Dijak - ROH World Championship

Another great episode of ROH here, also featuring Matt Sydal vs Kazuchika Okada and Colt Cabana vs Adam Page. However, the shining star of this edition was the world title bout between Lethal and the challenging former Top Prospect winner, and former House of Truth member, Donovan Dijak. If I had to describe this guy in one word, that word would be 'impressive'. This man in 6'7 and he did a backflip over the ropes onto Lethal. He had a bit of a rough spell whilst in the HoT, but hopefully this alliance with Prince Nana will get him a good singles run. Lethal looked to be put across as a face more than usual in this one, he played up a knee injury, showing more of an underdog role. His manager, Taeler Hendrix, dropped her ways of interference to opt for hyping up the crowd and creating the motivating cheers and claps from the crowd. Even if this is just a 1-time thing, I'm always gonna cheer Lethal. All round amazing action found in this match. I already mentioned Dijak's high flying surprises, but him power game is immense, ring shaking slams getting big oos and ahhs. Lethal also displayed awesome offence, as per usual, showing why he is in the upper echelon of pro wrestling. Dijak came within touching distance of the title, and possibly could have won if Matt Jackson and Kenny Omega hadn't come out to superkick Lethal and accidentally caught him instead. Really, really great match in this one. More so than last week, I encourage you to check it out here at rohwrestling.com/tv/current

ROH: War of the Worlds - Dearborn

Best Match on ROH: WotW Dearborn: reDRagon (Kyle O'Reilly & Bobby Fish) vs Tetsuya Naito & Jay Lethal

Admittedly, this show may be a couple weeks old, but fuck it, I only was able to watch it this week. This match saw my favourite tag team, reDRagon, facing the ROH World Champion and the IWGP Heavyweight Champion, Jay Lethal and Tetsuya Naito, respectively. 

Slower start here, there were a series finger-stomps that led into boo-boo kissing, Lethal got a kiss from Taeler Hendrix, Kyle got a kiss from Bobby and Naito got one from a fan in the front row. Big pops for all. WRESTLING. 
Anywho, soon picked up with reDRagon knocking the bejambles out of Lethal, loadsa kicks. The world champions would later pick up steam, and take the fight back to their opponents. Lethal hit 3 consecutive suicide dives, and not all on the same person. They showed some friction between Lethal and Naito, some arguing and some accidental strikes on each other teased dissension in the short lived alliance spanning from the Honour Rising event in February. Naito continued to withhold all his fucks and laughed off clobbering Lethal in the jaw. reDRagon took out both champions, ramming Naito into the barricade and hitting 'Chasing the Dragon' on Lethal, enabling an O'Reilly pin on Lethal. The last time I can remember Lethal being pinned clean was back when he lost the Television Championship to Roderick Strong near enough a year ago. Looks like Kyle might be getting another title shot soon...but hey, what a great match. 

Oh, and seeing as its his first appearance on this here blog, I should introduce to Naito having a theme that sounds like it came straight from the old Dance-Dance Revolution arcade games.

The Verdict

Best Match of the Week: American Alpha (Jason Jordan & Chad Gable) vs The Revival (Scott Dawson vs Dash Wilder) - NXT Tag Team Championship Match - NXT Takeover: The End

This was insane. The tag team division has been a little shaky in NXT lately, but matches like these go to show that they are not to be looked over, not to be forgotten, not to be lost in the shuffle. I'm sure both teams will be stars on their move to the main roster. I went into this match expecting to see a competitive one, but with Alpha retaining, seeing as it was their first defence of the titles. So much emotion was pulled out of me from this, then even further when watching the new episode of Breaking Ground and seeing Jordan with tears of joy after their title win. Good lord, so many factors made this a phenomenal match. Wrestling at its finest.
And with that, here's the updated leaderboard. Thanks for reading, my wrestling friends,have a good one.