BWOTW: 17/10/16 - 22/10/16

Greetings to you my lovely link-clickers, and welcome to this newest extension of this rabbit hole I call 'Noah's Best Wrestling of the Week' AKA 'GoldBOLA'

WHO'S NEXT!?

NEWS!

1. FUCKING GOLDBERG BAY-BAY! Though we haven't got a date set, it looks like we're getting Goldberg/Lesnar II!
2. Big Damo, 'Crazy' Mary Dobson and Tommy (Tommy, Tommy Fucking) End have arrived at the Performance Centre! I am especially looking forward to End's debut, what a badass he is.
3. Roderick Strong made his NXT debut this week, being revealed as Austin Aries' tag team partner! These two teamed together back in their ROH days as 'Generation Next', so I'm pretty hopeful about this tandem.

And now for the guacamole on this nacho platter, it's the matches!


Monday Night RAW

Best Match on RAW (17/10/16): Sheamus vs Big E

Kicking us off this week is a nice little match coming at ya from Monday Night RAW, in anticipation for the upcoming tag team title match at Hell in a Cell, it's Sheamus versus Big E. 

These two are always pretty physical in all of their matches, so it wasn't a surprise when we got these two big lads clobbering each other quite a bit, both with lots of lariats and slams. Big E landed a massive splash on the apron, it looks truly painful to take and amazes me no-one's died yet. 

During the match, Sheamus' reluctant new partner, Cesaro, was broadcasting on Facebook Live. Now, I thought WWE's use of Facebook Live was already pretty cool with having a couple of people on the roster taking questions, but this was even cooler. Here's how the ending looked from that perspective;

Cesaro just dicking around at ringside was also real cool, you got some big laughs out of me when he had Big E's shiny coat on over his suit. 

SmackDown! LIVE

Best Match on SD! (18/10/16): AJ Styles vs James Ellsworth - WWE World Championship Match

He's back! ELLLLLLLLLSWOOOOOOOOOORTH! And he's got an entrance!

That theme! God its awesome!

This match was much better than their one last week. Though, similarly, it featured AJ kicking the bejeezus out of Ellsworth for the majority, there was a bit more of a story to it. Dean was also present on the outside antagonising Styles throughout, resulting in Ellsworth getting more of his ass handed to him. 

There was a spot where Dean and Styles kept throwing Ellsworth at each other which I thought was gold. Also, though JBL is usually bloody annoying, his constant disparagement of Ellsworth absolutely sold this 'what the fuck's going on' atmosphere to this world championship match.

In a moment of pure awesomeness, Ellsworth hit a Superkick/No Chin Music!

Such a ridiculously big pop! All this talk about his two hands and AJ forgets about his feet!

Sadly, Ellsworth would not walk out champion in this one, due to AJ being relentless in twatting him in the face resulting in a disqualification. Hopefully, this finish means that we'll get Ellsworth/Styles III next week.

NXT

Best Match on NXT (19/10/16): No Way Jose & Rich Swann vs Drew Gulak & Tony Nese

Continuing with the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic this week on NXT, we got the match-up between the RAW Cruiserweights, Tony Nese and Drew Gulak, going toes-to-toes with No Way Jose and Rich Swann.

The Cruiserweights were dominant over Swann for the majority of the match, wearing the man from Baltimore down with strikes and holds aplenty. Jose and Swann did get in a couple tag team manoeuvres which were pretty cool, like an assisted splash. Jose looked like a fucking monster in the same ring as these guys, and when he got the hot tag to clear house it was a goddamn massacre. He did a pop-up punch, which in writing sounds a bit 'meh', but it was much more impressive to see. 

Defending the pinfall, Swann did like a Phoenix Splash-esque senton off of the turnbuckle in the closing seconds which was bloody cool. 

Wasn't a massively long match, but I liked it more than Strong/Aries versus Knight/Otis. I felt Roddy could, and should, have had a stronger showing considering it was his debut, but getting in a finisher and getting the pin somewhat made up for it. Nice work here, the Cruiserweights' streak on RAW may have been halted but they're stealin' shows down in Florida.

Ring of Honour

Best Match on ROH TV (Episode 265): The Cabinet (Rhett Titus, Kenny King & Caprice Coleman) vs Shaheem Ali, Jason Kincaid & Leon St. Giovanni - ROH 6-Man Title Tournament

In the process of introducing the new Ring of Honour 6-Man Tag Championships (which look strange judging by their render on the tron), we've got this tournament, and in said tournament, we had this match-up between The Cabinet and three men from this year's Top Prospect competition, Shaheem Ali, Jason Kincaid and Leon St. Giovanni.

This was much better than I anticipated it to be, I'm not the biggest fan (or one at all) of The Cabinet, and I wasn't sure about their mismatched team opposing them, but they put on a great match.

Lots of quick action making up this one, Kincaid has made appearances on this blog before, and rightfully so, and he continued to show why in this one, with a whole host of innovative moves, like a flip through the ropes into a stunner on the outside, which as complicated as it sounds it was equally awesome.

However, my favourite spot of the contest was a triple team by the team of Ali, Kincaid and Giovanni, with Ali landing a running corner dropkick, accompanied by two 'Coast-to-Coast's by his partners, popping the crowd in a big way. 

It was a nice match here, meaning that hopefully once we properly get this 6-Man division underway we should get some stellar matches, as well as later in the tourney. As always, you can watch ROH TV for FREE at both www.rohwrestling.com/tv/current and on the Fite TV app.

Lucha Underground

Best Match on LU (S3E7): Fenix vs Aero Star vs Drago

In a cruel twist of fate by Lucha Underground General Manager Dario Cuerto, the trio of Fenix, Aero Star and Drago were forced to face off against one another for a place in the upcoming Aztec Warfare match. 

Can you guess how fast the pace of this match was? If you said 'pretty fast', you are wrong because it was, in fact, 'fucking fast'. Lucha at its finest for me right here.

It was more of a 'one-in, one-out' type of triple threat, but that hardly detracts from it at all, the quickness and sheer brilliance of it makes you so enthralled it doesn't matter. Frequent changes made this super entertaining and edge-of-your-seat exciting. Springboards, dives, arm drags and choc-a-bloc with Fenix's kicks that sound like claps of thunder, amazing. 

In the first few minutes Fenix took a crossbody from Drago which busted his nose up bad. He bled like a motherfucker, drops getting on the mat and all over his lovely light-coloured gear. As commentary pointed out, it must have been tough to breath, when your exerting yourself like he was and to have blood pouring like that, ghastly. 

Awesome match right here, really rate this one, but it looks like Fenix isn't done yet...

PWG: Battle of Los Angeles 2016

Stage 1

Best Match on BOLA S1: Fenix vs Will Ospreay - BOLA First Round Match

We're cruisin' California now as we head back to Reseda now for one of my highlights of the year in general, it's the annual Battle of Los Angeles tournament! 

In this first round match we've got the previously mentioned Fenix taking on my fellow countryman, Will Ospreay. Now, if you know these guys, you should have some sort of idea what this match entailed. If you don't, here is a brief synopsis; "Fucking cool flip. Repeat."

Bell-to-bell it was crammed with mesmerising action with both men performing things that are seemingly impossible. As a depiction of the phenomenal things we saw, here is the part of PWG's preview, teasing their match;

Fenix's bouncing on the ropes for both his dives in and out of the ring are incredible, something I haven't seen anybody do to the same extent. That Spanish Fly from the top rope with them both landing on their feet was godly, such a cool spot. They just kept topping and topping each other to the point where you started to wonder whether any more could be done. Immensely great stuff here, the best first round match in my opinion.

Stage 2

Best Match on BOLA S2: The Bullet Club (The Young Bucks & Adam Cole) vs Will Ospreay, Matt Sydal & Ricochet
Honourable Mention: Pentagon Jr. & Fenix vs Heroes Eventually Die (Chris Hero & Tommy End)

The best of the second night came in the form of a non-tournament match-up pitting The Bullet Club against three of the best high flyers in the business, Will Ospreay, Matt Sydal and Ricochet. 

This match had a lot of Bullet Club antics as well as some fucking great spots. Double Indytaker, More Bang For Your Fuck, some awesome multi-man manoeuvres and mash-ups. They slightly fucked up a Sydal dive, but this was made up for with Ricochet and Ospreay immediately following it with a double tope con hilo dives over the ropes. Hardly a moment went by where either the Bullet Club's shenanigans had you laughing, or you were blown away by some astounding action.

The crowning moment of this match was undeniably the variant of the Meltzer Driver used by the flyers, but done instead with a Shooting Star Press;

Insane. Look at that crowd, and before this we had Ospreay catching Nick Jackson in mid air off a springboard with a cutter (eat your heart out Orton), adding to this that this move was followed by 3 simultaneous Shooting Star Presses, that ending blew the roof off the place.

Now, I did forget to count along for the 'SUPERKICK COUNTER' I usually do for Young Bucks matches, but fear not because...

Stage 3

Best Match on BOLA S3: The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) vs Fenix & Pentagon Jr. - PWG Tag Team Championship Match

Fuck me this is Fenix's week, eh?

Like I did for Ospreay/Fenix, here is the exert from PWG's video preview of this match. 

I thought this match was soooooo awesome. The pair of Fenix and Pentagon Jr. made me fall in love with them at Stage 2, and this match-up was much better.

The Young Bucks meshed super well with the brothers (something I learnt watching this event) of Fenix and Pentagon, even attempting to out-lucha them in the opening moments of the match. The Jacksons both dished out and received a whole host of super-agile moves which gave the match a lovely, continuous flow.

It was a little thing, but I loved the taunting in this one. Pentagon, whilst speaking in a language foreign to me, was so vocal it gave the match a whole new personality, added to this all the 'Ciero Miedo' gestures and the 2Sweets from the Young Bucks, despite this being a first time meeting, it felt like a real blood feud between these two teams.

Though not a regular team (but their brothers, so...), Pentagon and Fenix had some awesome double team sequences, for example their codebreaker-lungblower-moonsault-double stomp was ridiculously cool. We had a package piledriver on the apron from Pentagon to Nick which even more thrilling, though as seen in the closing of that video, a Tope Con Meltzer Driver was the fucking coolest. 

The match ended with a fucking onslaught of superkicks to both luchadors, both kneeling side by side as their jaws were caved in, drastically increasing the SUPERKICK counter. 

SUPERKICK COUNT: 

You have no idea how long I've been wanting to use that.

The Verdict

Best Match of the Week: Best Match on BOLA S3: The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) vs Fenix & Pentagon Jr. - PWG Tag Team Championship Match - PWG: BOLA Stage 3

Despite the 6-Man from Stage 2 receiving a lot of acclaim and even a 5* from Dave Meltzer, I thought this match was a lot better. I felt that it had better pacing and storytelling to it, and although the other match had some truly awesome spots, it's the bits in between that make all the difference, which I thought the Bucks, Pentagon and Fenix nailed.

With that, another week is in the books and it results in the leaderboard having an identical resemblance to this one right here.

And now for a feature I've thought about adding to the blog for a while now, and from what I hear at BOLA I thought it was time to add it in. It's The Best Wrestling Quote of the Week!  
  
'The legendary asshole of Jushin 'Thunder' Liger' - Excalibur, PWG: BOLA 2016 Night 3

That's just about all from me for this week folks. I hope your upcoming 7 days are filled with love, joy and a whole lot of real good wrestling.

Seesya later!