BWOTW: 8/8/16 - 13/8/16

Hoy minoy my lovely readers and evil drawn characters, and welcome to yet another part of this ever continuing journey of 'Noah's Best Wrestling of the Week' AKA 'Won a Gold Medal (With a Broken Freaking Neck)'

Before we dive in, take a knee as we look at what popped into the wrestling headlines this week:

1. After everything we've been dreaming of, Shelton Benjamin is out with injury. Fuuuuuuuuck.
2. PWInsider has reported that Will Ospreay will be appearing for Ring of Honour sometime soon in their UK tour. I hope this means that we'll see him in the future at some of the cross-promotional events. UPDATED Since writing, it appears ROH has offered him a full time contract, and Will has said he wants to be signed to a US-based promotion in 2017...
3. Mexican promotion CMLL have announced a partnership with Ring of Honour. I assume we'll be getting some crossover with rosters and perhaps some shows like War of the Worlds. Seeing as New Japan already have a business relationship with CMLL, it'd be awesome if we can get a ROH/NJPW/CMLL supershow.
4. PROGRESS Wrestling are going to be apart of WWN Live's big event at WrestleMania Weekend in Orlando next year. Show 'em why British is best, lads.

And with that, it's time to look at what were the best matches this week...

Monday Night RAW

Best Match on RAW (8/8/16): Cesaro vs Rusev - WWE United States Championship Match

In an impromptu main event, we got this gem of a match. I figured the Foley/Bryan segment was going to close the show, but all of a sudden we got gifted this, being the match Cesaro earned last week. He'd already faced Sheamus again earlier in the night, which I thought was also a really good match, but this took the cake.

Bell rings and we get right into Cesaro taking it to Rusev, uppercuts leading to his outside cannonball in a flurry. Soon Rusev got the upper hand and focused solely on the arms of Cesaro, which accompanied with the commentary's reasoning was pretty cool, with the thoughts being that without his arms, Cesaro cannot pull off much of his power-based offense. Cesaro's strength didn't waver though, countering The Accolade into an Electric Chair Drop which was amazingly awesome, with Cesaro soon picking things up.

What I loved most about this part was the reaction for Cesaro here. The crowd were super into this match just like me, and you can hear it when the Sharpshooter is locked in and even more so when he kicks out at 2. As seen in the video, Sheamus got involved and ultimately cost Cesaro the match after the referee went down and missed a Cesaro pin following The Neutraliser. 

Whilst I would have loved Cesaro to win the belt, having him put on a performance like this, in the main event and losing due to nefarious means gives me hope that Cesaro may not be totally lost on RAW. 

SmackDown! LIVE

Best Match on SD! (9/8/16): Rhyno vs Heath Slater

This wasn't a great episode of SmackDown! wrestling-wise, and this was the one that entertained me the most. Going into this we have Slater gunning for a contract, which he will be given if he defeats The Man-Beast, Rhyno.

It was a pretty basic match but done quite well. Slater worked hard to wear down Rhyno, which would sooner or later come to Rhyno powering out. I really liked the ending, mainly due to the camera angle being perfect to make the Gore look even more sudden.

Nice match, not a lot, SmackDown! wasn't great. Shame.

NXT

Best Match on NXT (10/8/16): Samoa Joe vs Mojo Rawley

We're on our way to Brooklyn II, but this week, we got to see the NXT champion face someone....similar to Shinsuke Nakamura, Mojo Rawley. 

So in this battle of the big guys, we start things off with Mojo kicking and screaming at Joe. The hype train was in full steam ahead, with Mojo able to stun and knock Joe down within minutes. However, the train was soon derailed when Joe threw Mojo's head into the steel steps. From then on out, Joe did what comes natural to him, dominate and destroy. Kicks, chops, elbows and that sweet ass uranage. In a message to Nakamura, Joe choked out the Hype Bro to pick up the win. Just a nice little match here on NXT, nothing major, but not bad at all.

Cruiserweight Classic

Best Match on CWC (Episode 5): Kota Ibushi vs Cedric Alexander

It was another belter of an episode on this week's Cruiserweight Classic. The second round of the tournament is now underway, meaning that we also have a new selection of instant classics incoming.

This week, we witnessed a goddamn phenomenal match of Kota Ibushi facing Cedric Alexander. This match was on the level of Ciampa/Gargano from last week, possibly even surpassing of it. It was highly competitive right from the off, with a hold-for-hold beginning that didn't much wait to spring into life on our screens. Accentuated by Ranallo and Bryan on commentary was how Cedric was a big fan of Ibushi and vigorously studied ahead of time, and this was made apparent with sequences such as this;

It was an incredibly hard-hitting contest, biiiiiig fucking chops, elbows, forearms and kicks, especially from Ibushi. It was a bit of a wait for Kota's first major usage of his kicks, but when it finally connected the building rumbled. 

These two were landing some heavy shots and powerful moves on each other, but there was kick-out fest, neither being able to finish the other off. This trend dug right into the closing the moments, and made Cedric's last efforts even more emotive.

Alas, Ibushi would put Cedric away with his massive nasty powerbomb, closing this godly match once and for all. Both men's efforts were astounding, with love being shown for both by those in attendance. And for Cedric, it would prove to be the key to his dreams.

What a match, guys, what a match.

Ring of Honour

Best Match on ROH TV (Ep 255): Colt Cabana vs Jay Lethal - ROH World Championship Match

In a rematch from Global Wars, we finally got Lethal vs Cabana, one-on-one, with Lesnar level of security around the ring to ensure there'd be no interference from The Bullet Club. We've got a newly bald Lethal, having had his head shaved by Adam Cole on last week's episode. As well as commentary explicitly stating that his (and Colt's') mind could be elsewhere, throughout the match he subtly played this up by putting his hands on his head which would have previously ran through his hair, which he combined with some more frustrated facial expressions than usual which I thought was great.

The match itself was awesome. Predominantly back and forth in the early goings, with some of Colt's playfulness on show. It wasn't along before things started to really pick up with a ton of hard chops and big dramatic moves. We got to see some signature Lethal suicide dives, which in my opinion are the best today. High tension was created when Colt kicked out of a Lethal Injection, causing the crowd to collectively lose their shit. 

From then on, these two kicked it up one more notch for the final few minutes, going all out. We got Cabana's Chicago Skyline which is just haunting - having a fireman's carry on the second rope, and then dropping down so your opponent lands on the top rope. Then the end was amazing, I love that Lethal has starting using other cutter variants as supplementary finishers, performing a standing one before one last Lethal Injection and a 1-2-3. Beautiful stuff this, one of the better title defences Lethal has had.

And don't you forget, you can find ROH TV for free on both www.rohwrestling.com/tv/current or on the Fite TV app.

The Verdict

Best Match of the Week: Kota Ibushi vs Cedric Alexander - Cruiserweight Classic (Episode 5)

Once again I've had to pick up my socks from the other side of the house due to them being blown off by the Cruiserweight Classic. Another MOTY contender here (I should really start keeping track of those) and just simply incredible. The match before this was awesome too - Gran Metalik vs Tajiri - making this episode a must see. 

I felt a bit bad that Colt/Lethal II wasn't the winner, because that was super cool too, much better than their first encounter, and probably my favourite ROH match in a long time. So, if you've got some extra time, definitely check this one out too. 

Not wanting to keep you any longer, that is my write-up, that is my blog, that is my best wrestling of the week. With another week gone, that means the leaderboard only continues to grow, now looking like this.

And so, have a good week everyone, have some good food, have some good fun and have some good pro wrestling.