Joking aside, since my last post the world said goodbye to a legendary manager in Mr. Fuji. Whilst he was way before my time, it's always sad when the wrestling world loses one of our own. May the man rest in peace.
But before we proceed, it's about that time to take a gander at the week's news;
- In a moment where my shit was lost, Kevin Owens is your new WWE Universal Champion. Fucking yes.
- Coming to you this November, it's NXT TakeOver: Toronto!
- Netflix have A-OK'd a wrestling series called 'GLOW' centring around a women's 80s fed, apparently that wasn't too new a story, but it's come out that it will star Alison Brie and Marc Maron. Plus, Chavo Guerrero's helping out with the actual wrestling bit. Hopefully it's some good shit.
- Brock/Orton II has been announced for a show on September 24th. I'm not too excited, but hey, that's wrestling
- Ring of Honour have announced that they will have a new 6-Man Tag Championship. Whilst I would've preferred a title for the Women of Honour, I suppose this could be interesting, but this could also amount to very little.
Monday Night RAW
Best Match on RAW (29/8/16): Roman Reigns vs Kevin Owens vs Seth Rollins vs Big Cass - Elimination Fatal-4-Way - WWE Universal Championship Match
Sweet shit, what a main event we have here. First off, Cass was much better here than I thought he'd be. He got involved in a big way, he was made to look imposing and held his own against the bigger names in this match, with it taking a combo of their signature moves to put the seven footer away. The match was mostly comprised of frequently changing one-on-one's, which were done enough that things didn't get that stale. Kev kept up his berating, screaming and taunting as usual, lost count of how many times he yelled at Foley and Steph. There was the expected sort of Roman domination, landing at least 2 fuck loads of Superman Punches on all three of his opponents. Whilst this usually gets pretty tiring, it was lessened here by the others all get some good hits on him (e.g Cass has a fucking clattering big boot). After Cass was eliminated it slowed down a bit, Reigns had a bit more of the upper hand....
Then came the biggest surprise I've had in a while - The Return of the King.
Roman get pedigree'd then 1-2-3'd.
Trips get KO, please God no.
YYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSS
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
YEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAH
Special K, Big Kev, KO, Kevvy Ow-Ow, he's done it. It's finally happened. Kevin Owens - WWE Universal Champion. I let out a big ol' shout of joy the instant I saw that ref count the three. Those 'You deserve it' chants were well warranted.
Great match, fucking awesome moment.
SmackDown! LIVE
Best Match on SD! (30/8/16): Heath Slater & Rhyno vs The Headbangers (Headbanger Mosh & Headbanger Thrasher)
SmackDown! seems to be just missing the mark with their weekly matches so far, AJ/Ziggler was good last week, but otherwise they have some interesting match-ups, but they're always a bit too short or a bit too long or some straight up squashes. I suppose you better love Dean Ambrose matches to get the intended impact.
Now, this sounds as ridiculous to me as it does to you, but this match was actually pretty damn good. To me, Mosh & Thrasher were always the ones that I liked to beat up as Stone Cold in WWF: War Zone on the Playstation 1, but The Headbangers impressed me a load in this one.
Their ring-shape was much better than I'd have thought, and just the amount of stuff they did was really cool too. A whole bunch of double teams and even their proper nice looking tag finisher 'The Stage Dive' - like a powerbomb/diving leg drop combo. In the end, it led to Rhyno murdering them both in the ring, which always is awesome. So, if you like to Heath Slater gets 10 pints of piss knocked out of him, this match is for you.
Plus, how cool is it to have The Headbangers on the BWOTW Leaderboard?
NXT
Best Match on NXT (31/8/16): Steve Cutler vs Kenneth Williams
It was an okay episode of NXT this week, more setting stuff up for the next few weeks than anything. And, the best match that we had this week was Steve Cutler actually winning a match against a man lower on the NXT totem pole than him, Kenneth Williams. You know you're losing when you don't have an entrance video.
Not a whole lot to this one, Williams had a cool, fast offence with some nice striking. Kind of a even match throughout with shifting momentum. Honestly, this was okay, nothing too special, this wasn't a match focused episode of NXT.
Cruiserweight Classic
Best Match on CWC (Episode 8): Kota Ibushi vs Brian Kendrick
Once again, the Cruiserweight Classic has delivered us even more awesome wrestling. This week we got a great contest between Gran Metalik and Akira Tozawa, but, better than that was Kota Ibushi vs Brian Kendrick.
Now this, even though I thought it'd be good, was much better than I thought it'd be. With the video package about Kendrick going into this laid out the story for the match to play out pretty damn perfectly, it being Kendrick's desperation to keep his last hope alive.
They showed this really well, with him trying to get the countout, pulling out the Sliced Bread #2, his multiple tries of locking in the bully choke and all the focusing on Ibushi's neck which included the fabled Burning Hammer.
Sweet Lou that was something I never thought I'd see in the WWE. Kota had his usual shining moments, big kicks and his beautiful moonsaults. By the final few minutes, they had you really rooting for Kendrick to prevail, but, once Ibushi hit that powerbomb, it was all over.
Awesome match here, definitely an episode on whole to check out. And make sure to stick around after the next episode's preview if you want to get misty eyed from two guys embracing.
Ring of Honour
Best Match on ROH TV (Episode 258): The Cabinet (Caprice Coleman, Rhett Titus & Kenny King) vs Dalton Castle & The Boys
Well what a surprise this was. Young Bucks vs The Addiction for the tag titles were the main event so I was stoked for that, and they announce this and I thinking 'Oh fucking hell it's The Cabinet' but in the end, it was pretty good.
I don't think I've seen The Boys properly wrestle, so it was nice to finally see what they're like. Turns out, they're kinda how you expect, just like some dives and stuff mainly. We had Dalton suplexing fuckers like he was Jason Jordan, and being his generally strange self. Plus, The Cabinet did do some cool shit - the Coleman/Castle pose-down was dope.
Overall, it was a nice match. As always you can watch ROH TV for FREE at www.rohwrestling.com/tv/current and on the Fite TV app.
The Verdict
Best Match of the Week: Kota Ibushi vs Brian Kendrick - Cruiserweight Classic (Episode 8)
The emotion of this match was palpable, just a look into Kendrick's eyes told the whole thing. And you've got the phenomenal action of the CWC at it's best. Not quite sure if it's the best match of the CWC so far, I think Ibushi/Alexander and Ciampa/Gargano top it. Like I said, the whole episode was great so be sure to give it a look if you can.
And with that, we arrive at the close of this week. Here's what the leaderboard looks like nowadays.
Also, I've got a predicament I need a hand sorting out. So, the website I use to watch some of my indy wrestling has become a bit shit with uploading some of the stuff I have covered in the past. So, fitting it in the weekly format has been a bit sucky - they've just put up the past 4 EVOLVE shows, 2 from last month, and 2 from last week (the weekend that had Cody Rhodes vs Sabre Jr.), plus, PWG: Prince hasn't been put up (though by the looks of the preview it's one of the weaker PWG shows, so that might be why).
So, the problem I'm having is that I'd like to cover these sort of indy shows, yet I can't quite manage to catch them in their release week. With that said, would you guys prefer that I cover the recent indies no matter what so that I can showcase some cool other wrestling or only when their release coincides with the week, keeping true to the 'best of the week' format? Let me know your thoughts.
Other than that guys, gals and geese, that's my weekly wrap up of pro wrestling. Hope you guys enjoyed, let me know if you do and if you didn't either phrase it nicely or keep it to yourself. Have a nice week, have at least 1 really good meal then for the next few days if things go a bit shit, you can think 'God that was some good grub' and be a bit happier, and have some good wrestling!
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