First, lets shift our focus back and to the left to take a gander at this week's news!
- Booty-Os wasn't enough for Xavier, Kofi and E, as now The New Day will be getting their own chocolate bars
- NXT is going to Australia and New Zealand! Last time they did an international tour, they had a TakeOver there too (see TakeOver London), so perhaps we'll get one there too. Plus, I can't remember the exact number of countries needed to be defended in, but we're on our way to making it the NXT World Championship.
- Triple H has confirmed that TakeOver: Brooklyn II is the most successful NXT special of all time in terms of revenue. Well that's just...GLORIOUS
- Sasha doesn't need surgery - YAY - but Finn does - BOO. Yes, having become the longest reigning WWE Universal Champion in history, Finn has been forced to vacate the title. But on the upside, Big Kev could win it next week.
- The Dudley Boys have officially departed the WWE. It was a shame they never got to claim a 10th WWE Tag Team Championship reign, and that they kinda fizzled out, but by fuck I love 'em.
- BAYLEY'S ON FUCKING RAW YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES
- We've got some new titles! A SmackDown! Women's Title and SmackDown! Tag Team Titles - whether those are the actual names I dunno.
- It appears that RAW and SmackDown! will retain the sets they used this week, which are pretty damn cool, a very welcome change.
NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn II
Best match on TakeOver: Brooklyn II: The Revival (Scott Dawson & Dash Wilder) vs Tommaso Ciampa & Johnny Gargano - NXT Tag Team Championship Match
SAY YEAH! Again, The Revival continues their streak of having to dollar championship matches. They kept on giving their simple but incredibly effective ring style that was perfect for both psychology and building to the bigger, faster spots seen here. Another awesome aspect of The Revival's matches is their ability to have you get so excited and pumped to see them get their comeuppance only for them to abruptly cut it down, and the repetition of it furthers this drama. Of course Ciampa and Gargano were also great in this match. The glimpses of hope that they could claim the titles were so good, with them landing their tag finisher and all these potential match-enders.
I thought the ending was super-smart. Opposed to using the Shatter Machine, Dash & Dawson's awesome tag finisher, they opted instead for a pretty damn brutal ending. Pointed out by Corey and Tom on commentary, they used the move that they took out Big Cass with all that time ago, followed by an inverted Figure-4. The images of Johnny struggling and the blood in his mouth and good lord what a finish. Great stuff here.
WWE SummerSlam
Best Match on SummerSlam: AJ Styles vs John Cena
In the midst of the mixed bag known as this year's SummerSlam, we had this absolute gem pop up. It's a rematch from their clash at Money in the Bank, AJ Styles faces John Cena one-on-one. This was the match I was most excited for and it did not disappoint. I really liked the start of the match, with the two combatants locked in a long-winded, back and forth collar-elbow tie up, showed both the close matching of the two and the highly competitive nature.
We had the glimpses to their previous encounter with the early instances of AJ out-wrestling Big Match Johnathan. Pretty back and forth during the majority of this, and we got what I think was Cena's most flush and best looking Sunset Flip Powerbomb. Close calls galore in this, and whether you rooted for AJ or Cena you'd be on the edge of your seat after every big move, one which I was especially relieved at was the kick out following the Avalanche Attitude Adjustment (Which I think I will now refer to as the AAA). These guys through essentially everything at each other - though I'm still waiting for the day AJ pulls out a Spiral Tap - they helped to save the waning Pay-Per-View, and put on a Match of the Year candidate. Fair fucks guys, fair fucks.
Monday Night RAW
Best Match on RAW (22/8/16): Kevin Owens vs Neville
Needing a new Universal Champion sooner rather than later, they've set up a series of matches to determine who would compete for it next week. One of these said matches was Kevin Owens vs Neville. Whilst it wasn't anything major, it was a pretty nice match with two great competitors. I'm liking the new Neville who just looks down to business all the time, hopefully once we get the Cruiserweights underway he can really shine. Just like their match way back in NXT, Neville pulled out the sweet-ass apron 450.
We also got to see possibly my favourite high-flying move of all time, a Phoenix Splash - from the second rope too! Whilst it wouldn't be long before Jericho got involved, it was a pretty exciting match, and Big Kev use his secondary finisher thing - an Argentine Neckbreaker. I'm not sure how much I like it, I do prefer the Pop Up Powerbomb, but on the plus side, it looks like a sort of reverse F-5.
SmackDown! LIVE
Best Match on SD! (23/8/16): AJ Styles vs Dolph Ziggler
Honourable Mention: American Alpha (Jason Jordan & Chad Gable) vs Breezango (Tyler Breeze & Fandango)
It was a tricky pick between the two listed above this week. Alpha/Breezango was a really fun match, probably Alpha's best since debuting, but Styles/Ziggler was just an out-and-out great match.
This was much better than Ambrose vs Ziggler at SummerSlam. AJ and Ziggler had much better chemistry, it felt like Ziggler was presented in a better light and made the whole thing more entertaining. Despite Dolph receiving the short end of the stick and picking up a loss, what they did in the match made him look more legitimate, such as the times when AJ would just kick out, and being able to go toe-to-toe with AJ for so long backed this up too. The crowd were super into this as well, especially with Ziggler coming close to a win.
Another thing I thought about whilst watching this, have AJ red tights always been that sort of shiny material? Much more jazzier than just a solid colour. Also, I made a video of AJ missing a 450 splash that repeats over and over that made me laugh too much.
NXT
Best Match on NXT (24/8/16): Tye Dillinger vs Wesley Blake
It was the last time we were in Brooklyn that Tye's 'Perfect Ten' persona was introduced to the world, and whilst he's had his ups and downs with his win/loss record, there's no denying that he's been consistently loved and cheered. And with the crowd relentless with their shouts of '10!', you could see how much it meant to Tye.
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| A Perfect Smile |
The opening few minutes saw the two trading holds and leverage back-and-forth. Since the dissolution of his partnership with Buddy Murphy, Wesley Blake seems to be incorporating more of a cocky side to his character, whether this goes somewhere, who knows? Tye's flurries were great accompanied by the fans chanting that special number, and his finishing sequence of just destroying Blake was pretty cool, and I'm liking the Tye-Breaker finisher. It wasn't a massive match, what with the episode being mainly recaps and promos from TakeOver, but it did the job.
Cruiserweight Classic
Best Match on CWC (Episode 7): Drew Gulak vs Zack Sabre Jr.
Honourable Mentions: The whole show was awesome - Lince Dorado vs Rich Swann & TJ Perkins vs Johnny Gargano
It was another great week on the Cruiserweight Classic, and it was a tough decision to make between all of the matches on the card, I felt that the best was Gulak vs Sabre Jr.
With his first round match being a tad underwhelming, ZSJ was much better this time around. Gulak gave him a much more competitive match, with Zack also putting in an effort to convey more of a struggle more than 'I do this hold, then this one, then this one'. Also, I feel Gulak had a much better performance than his previous match as well. He was able to put across his style and persona much more, with him vs Sihra he felt to be on more of a back foot and not as fierce.
Sabre Jr. being praised by Mauro and D-Bry as being the best technical wrestler in the world made Gulak's ability to go hold-for-hold appear much more impressive. Gulak performed just as many submissions and reversals as Zack, some much more impressive. My favourite of these sequences was undoubtedly this one;
It was a great match all the way through and I thought the ending was smart. It kept Gulak from looking outmatched - as a suspect and hope he might be one of the signings - and again emphasised Zack's technical prowess. Definitely check this one out.
Ring of Honour
Best Match on ROH TV (Episode 257): Stuka Jr vs Kamaitachi
Now that we have the new conglomerate of ROH, New Japan and CMLL, talent exchanges should be in increasing commonness, and here is an early example of this. Stuka Jr is a big lad, but that didn't mean he didn't pull off some sweet ass lucha moves like headscissors and hurricanranas and the like. Stuka had quite the upper hand in the early goings, out-wrestling the Japanese Kamaitachi quite a bit. The luchador's suicide dives were some of the more risky I've seen, leading solely with the top of his head. After hitting two in succession, his third dive would prove fatal as it enabled his opponent to lead from then on. It seemed like for the next few minutes of the contest, Kamaitachi just chopped the bejeezus out of Stuka repeatedly, a favour the Mexican import would later return with his own thunderous chops. We had the tension of Stuka's mask being removed, which came into play in the closing moments, allowing Kamaitachi to roll him up and gain a victory.
I thought this was a really cool match, and whilst it may not be the week's best, I'd recommend it.
The Verdict
Best Match of the Week: AJ Styles vs John Cena - WWE SummerSlam
What a great match this was, the match these two deserved to have, and even so I hope we see more of these two in the future. AJ is now firmly cemented as a top guy, as well as having another WWE World Championship match at Backlash, the spot I think he deserves. It was a nice send off for Cena to take a few weeks off to film his series and was a saving point of the SummerSlam PPV. Great stuff.
And with those sentences above, that brings another week of wrestling to a reviewed close, meaning that the leaderboard now looks a lot like this.
Hope you guys enjoyed this one, hope you guys enjoyed the wrestling you watched this week and I hope your future is filled with some quality matches. I'll see you down the road!
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