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| Philip J. Fry - new owner of TNA Wrestling |
As is the norm around these parts, before we dive elbow first into the good stuff, let us first move our gaze into looking at the news of the week;
- Drew Gulak and Tony Nese were on RAW! It appears that they have some sort of deal that has them working both EVOLVE and RAW, which is ridiculously cool because I can't get enough Drew Gulak in my life (but WWE, the fuck have you done to his theme you bastards!)
- Tetsuya Naito has won the IWGP Intercontinental Championship from Michael Elgin. And just like last time he had a belt, it didn't take long for him to toss it around without a care in the world.
- Having already being booked for ROH's UK tour in November, it appears Marty Scurll and Will Ospreay will now be ROH regulars. As a massive fan of these two, and a wrestling fan proud of his country's scene, C'MON YA BASTARD!
- Speaking of ROH, The Young Bucks have claimed the ROH Tag Team Championships for the second time. The Bullet Club take over more of the wrestling world.
- The Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic is coming our way soon! Competing teams have begun to be announced on wwe.com, and so far they include:
- The Revival (Dash Wilder & Scott Dawson)
- Tomasso Ciampa & Johnny Gargano
- Tino Sabbatelli & Riddick Moss
- Hideo Itami & Kota Ibushi - How fucking cool does that sound?
- Cedric Alexander & Andrade 'Cien' Almas - Again, how fucking cool does that sound?
- Tye Dillinger & Bobby Roode - One more time, how fucking cool does that sound?
Best Match on CoC: Cesaro vs Sheamus - Best of Seven Series Final
Honourable Mention(s): The New Day (Kofi Kingston & Xavier Woods) vs Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson - RAW Tag Team Championship Match
TJ Perkins vs Brian Kendrick - WWE Cruiserweight Championship Match
Before we look at the matches, I think that this was possibly the coolest thing of the night. TJP, you know how to make an entrance, mate.
It's RAW's first standalone pay-per-view, it's Clash of Champions. As you can see from my awfully cluttered listing, this show had some good matches, but the best of the batch was the blow-off match to the Best of Seven Series, Sheamus versus Cesaro.
These guys went fucking hard, bell-to-bell. It really felt like these two went out there to prove something, and I wouldn't be surprised if they legitimately were. It had aspects of all the matches so far in the series, like Cesaro's niggling injuries came into play with Sheamus focusing attention on his lower back, and the theme of being the toughest came through with both men taking all these painful looking moves. Sheamus's new super drop on his knee is possibly the most wince-inducing thing I've seen in a while. Cesaro also pulled out some new shit, deciding to dial it up;
It was a bit clunky and it looked like he might have hit Sheamus right on the schnoz, but it sure was cool.
Now, there was one particularly scary moment in the latter half of the match, with Cesaro deciding to go for the suicide dive, that earned it's name right here, and landing like a javelin;
And even after this, both of them continued to destroy each other, a testament to both of
these guys determination to put on a bloody good match - Cesaro for his endurance and as for Sheamus, some may have decided to tone it down a notch in case of hurting Cesaro a tad more, but he responded well to Cesaro's continued assault.
They spilled into the audience, with both on the concrete floor. This is where the match gets soured a bit; the decision is made to deem it a tie with the ref stating neither were in any shape to compete. Whilst this was a bit of an annoyance, it did give us a great quote from Cesaro;
'I've fought with one arm before, JESUS!'
As a whole, it was much better than how I expected it to be, easily the best match of the series and of the Pay-Per-View.
Monday Night RAW
Now, there was one particularly scary moment in the latter half of the match, with Cesaro deciding to go for the suicide dive, that earned it's name right here, and landing like a javelin;
And even after this, both of them continued to destroy each other, a testament to both of
these guys determination to put on a bloody good match - Cesaro for his endurance and as for Sheamus, some may have decided to tone it down a notch in case of hurting Cesaro a tad more, but he responded well to Cesaro's continued assault.
They spilled into the audience, with both on the concrete floor. This is where the match gets soured a bit; the decision is made to deem it a tie with the ref stating neither were in any shape to compete. Whilst this was a bit of an annoyance, it did give us a great quote from Cesaro;
'I've fought with one arm before, JESUS!'
As a whole, it was much better than how I expected it to be, easily the best match of the series and of the Pay-Per-View.
Monday Night RAW
Best Match on RAW (26/9/16): Cedric Alexander & Rich Swann vs Lince Dorado & Drew Gulak
We're donning purple once again as RAW turns to the Cruiserweights. Whilst TJP and Tony Nese had a really good match later in the night, I felt that this tag team match of Alexander/Swann vs Gulak/Dorado was better.
It had the fluidity we've come to expect of the Cruiserweights, mixed in with a huge amount of amazing action throughout. Possibly my favourite moment of the match occurred fairly early on; after Swann and Dorado dazzled their way out of each other's head-scissors', they went into some more technical wrestling until someone stepped in;
Lince got dead'd.
Dorado would recover though, moonsaulting on all of them after dumping Swann like a sack of shit over the ropes, where Swann flipped even more than most then as well. It was all pretty quick, with the match being a bit more lenient towards the wrestler being illegally in the ring for a little bit so that there wasn't many lulls.
With the reports being that Gulak is on RAW to mainly be enhancement talent, which in and of itself is kinda disheartening to hear, it's a shame that he didn't have a whole lot of time to shine here. Although, he did have an awesome moment with Swann in the fanciest roll-up pin I've ever seen which eventually resulted in the finish.
Lovely bit of wrestling on RAW here, these Cruiserweights are wrecking shop on here, and I can see they're probably going to be climbing up the leaderboard fairly quickly.
SmackDown! LIVE
Best Match on SD! (27/9/16): AJ Styles vs Dean Ambrose - WWE World Championship Match
It's another rematch from Backlash, Ambrose looks to walk into No Mercy brandishing the gold as he challenges Styles for the WWE World Championship.
I have to apologise because, honestly, I really can't remember a whole lot about this match, nothing particularly stood out to me, but I know I liked it more than the other matches on the show. I guess, y'know, it was a match, it had AJ, AJ's really good.
I like Styles' new grey'n'black gear, looks very cool. (I am seriously drawing a blank on this match right not please don't hate me)
There was some faffing around with Cena on commentary near the end with both participants of the match going out of their way to punch the man in the face.
SmackDown! literally only had 3 matches this week. That's really not enough in my opinion, especially when the blue-brand is meant to be the one dedicated to wrestling. I mean, we had some good non-wrestley bits (like the Miz/Ziggler promos), but fuck me did we really need like 4 segments of Randy wandering around looking for Wyatt?
I dunno if this is a widely shared opinion or view, but Orton does things so goddamn slowly. I skipped once of his 'looking about a bit' segments and it was even slow at x6 on fast-forward. Fuck off Orton.
NXT
Best Match o NXT (28/9/16): Hideo Itami vs Lince Dorado
Best Match o NXT (28/9/16): Hideo Itami vs Lince Dorado
We're heading down to Orlando, FL as we now flick the channel to NXT. Once more, we have Hideo Itami going up against a Cruiserweight Classic participant. This time its The Golden Lynx, Lince Dorado.
Dorado proved in this one how goddamn athletic he is. This whole sequence below has him pulling off a ton of incredible manoeuvres, and doing them with such a quickness and ease its unreal;
Hideo did some more of his 'kick the shit out of people' routine that we've come to know. It became a lot of strikes following the sequence above, though some caution was thrown to the wind when Lince performed an Asai Moonsault, and later on in a failed Shooting Star Press attempt. Whilst I'm sure its sore as fuck, there's something special about missing a Shooting Star and not landing on your feet. Looks like you've properly screwed up, which is really how it should be, what with the 'high risk/high reward' factor of the high-flyers.
Hideo continued his winning streak after landing a Go To Sleep on the RAW Cruiserweight and receiving the three count.
Some cool stuff here on NXT, not an epic by any means, but it did its job at filling the time effectively
Ring of Honour
Best Match on ROH TV (Episode 263): Michael Elgin & Hiroshi Tanahashi vs The Bullet Club (Adam Cole & 'The Hangman' Adam Page)
Best Match on ROH TV (Episode 263): Michael Elgin & Hiroshi Tanahashi vs The Bullet Club (Adam Cole & 'The Hangman' Adam Page)
Shifting gears now to non-WWE, we begin with this week's episode of Ring of Honour TV. Main eventing this one, we've got the team of Elgin and Tanahashi facing off against a team of Bullet Club, Adam Cole and Adam Page.
Nothing too spectacular in this one, it was a fairly basic tag team match here. Elgin was slinging around some heavy lariats in this one, clattering the chest and back of Page with these. A lot of heel work by Cole and Page/The Adam Family, with Cole facing up against Elgin for the world title at All-Star Extravaganza, so building to that match was the main antagonising point here.
Elgin won the match for his team here with a bucklebomb/powerbomb combo onto Page, gaining the momentum heading into his championship match.
Again, I feel the need to apologise about this match's write-up, but really it's a testament to the type of match this was; fine. As always you can watch ROH TV for FREE at www.rohwrestling.com/tv/current or on the Fite TV app.
Whilst the matches weren't amazing this time around, my favourite part of this episode was one of the best promos I've heard in a while, and it came from Christopher Daniels.
Speaking of Ladder War....
ROH: All-Star Extravaganza 8
Best Match on ROH ASE 8: The Addiction (Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian) vs The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) vs The Motor City Machine Guns (Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley) - ROH Tag Team Championship Match - Ladder War VI
Sweet Jesus, this match was fucking incredible.
MCMG had donned more 'street wear' in preparation to this one, but with the others wearing their normal gear, made them look a little silly. Nevertheless, that is pretty much the only issue I had with this match, and I hardly consider that an issue at all.
We start off going fast and the whole match was perfectly paced from start to end, mixing the build to faster action and resetting after a big spot kept things flowing really nicely. Even when people were recovering and on the floor after whatever it was that murdered them, the energy of the crowd and the awe from what you had just witnessed bode enough time so that you were kept engaged throughout.
One of the cool bits I really liked was the Young Bucks aiding each other to get on ladders, at one point leapfrogging one on, but my favourite was when Matt leaned the ladder against the ropes, allowing Nick to climb to the top easily before setting it back down again.
Now that I've got the little technicalities down, I would have to be brain-dead to not talk about the insanity we witnessed. It was about three minutes into the match when Daniels would be busted open above his left eye from a shot from a ladder, and let me tell ya, he bled like a motherfucking motherfucker.
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| Even angels bleed |
We had an awesome spot where 4 tables were broken in succession in around a minute, the coolest of which I think was Nick landing a 450 splash onto Kaz and forcing the table to implode.
The Bucks fairly early on constructed a mesh out of security barricades, and in these sorts of matches, when something gets set up or built, someone inevitably has to experience it the hard way. Again, it was Daniels who put his body on the line, being dropped on it from a height and even bouncing off of it which would have been freaking terrifying.
Another wonderful thing I love about these matches is when you start seeing ahead, getting ideas about what's coming next. As soon as Matt managed to get Shelley into the Tombstone position on the floor, and the camera cuts to showing Nick on the ladder in the ring, you know you're about to see some crazy shit. In this case, it was the biggest Indytaker I've ever seen.
I don't want to give away too many of the spots as I hope those who haven't seen this will seek it out, but I was absolutely dazzled by one in particular. Nick was atop a ladder, and then his 4 opponents would come and pick up the legs of the ladder, and dump him off, sending him crashing to the floor via a table. He landed like a satellite coming back to Earth, and even in the slow-mo replay the fans in attendance let out an audible 'OOOOOPPPHHH'.
As if one mega-Indytaker wasn't enough, the wind down to the climax saw another one come into play and rock the casbah.
Fuckin' hell amiright? This would be the final blow, with The Young Bucks then climbing the ladder one last time to pluck the gold out of the sky.
What a hellacious, astounding, bejeezusing incredible match. What a goddamn spectacle.
SUPERKICK COUNT: 19
TABLES BROKEN: 8
Lucha Underground
Best Match on LU (S3E4): Aero Star, Fenix, Drago & Sexy Star vs Worldwide Underground (Johnny Mundo, PJ Black, Jack Evans & Taya)
It's like last week but with Sexy Star and Mundo added in!
This match was pretty similar to the 6-man from last week. It had a similar sort of pace, but had a few lulls, like the early goings with Sexy Star and Taya, but once the tags started coming in and new faces came into the ring it started picking up.
This marks the first time I've seen a Mundo match in a long while, but I guess I'll be seeing more of him now not only in LU, but also in his matches at the PWG Battle of Los Angeles. I'm glad he still has his fanned entrance, did give me a bit of a chuckle. I can't really remember a whole lot from his WWE days, but he sure did entertain me in this one. He's got some vicious kicks on 'im.
I guess PJ and Jack have sorted out their squabble we saw last week, they seemed fine here but there wasn't much of an explanation to it.
The 'Super Friends' of Drago, Fenix and Aero Star continued to pull off some super cool moves in this one, with one especially lovely combo from all three culminating in a Fenix 450 splash. Still undecided which of the three is my favourite, might be Aero Star.
Sexy Star got one proper hard shot from Taya at one point, after being pinned the side of her face had some serious swelling going on, plus under that mask it must have hurt like a sum'bitch.
Nice bit of quick, succinct action here.
Best Match on LU (S3E4): Aero Star, Fenix, Drago & Sexy Star vs Worldwide Underground (Johnny Mundo, PJ Black, Jack Evans & Taya)
It's like last week but with Sexy Star and Mundo added in!
This match was pretty similar to the 6-man from last week. It had a similar sort of pace, but had a few lulls, like the early goings with Sexy Star and Taya, but once the tags started coming in and new faces came into the ring it started picking up.
This marks the first time I've seen a Mundo match in a long while, but I guess I'll be seeing more of him now not only in LU, but also in his matches at the PWG Battle of Los Angeles. I'm glad he still has his fanned entrance, did give me a bit of a chuckle. I can't really remember a whole lot from his WWE days, but he sure did entertain me in this one. He's got some vicious kicks on 'im.
I guess PJ and Jack have sorted out their squabble we saw last week, they seemed fine here but there wasn't much of an explanation to it.
The 'Super Friends' of Drago, Fenix and Aero Star continued to pull off some super cool moves in this one, with one especially lovely combo from all three culminating in a Fenix 450 splash. Still undecided which of the three is my favourite, might be Aero Star.
Sexy Star got one proper hard shot from Taya at one point, after being pinned the side of her face had some serious swelling going on, plus under that mask it must have hurt like a sum'bitch.
Nice bit of quick, succinct action here.
The Verdict
Best Match of the Week: The Addiction (Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian) vs The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) vs The Motor City Machine Guns (Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley) - ROH Tag Team Championship Match - Ladder War VI - ROH: All-Star Extravaganza 8
Whilst that clash between Cesaro and Sheamus was pretty damn great, the fucking Ladder War had to win this one. The risks these guys took, the innovation of ladder usage and spots were palpable. Also, you just had to admire Daniels's effort. In tandem with that promo, this was his night. The man's in his 40s, and he took one hell of a beating in that match, going through ladders, tables and bouncing off of barricade, not to mention the loss of blood. And even after all of that, he still pulls off a perfect moonsault. The 'FALL-EN-AN-GEL' chants were well deserved, just showing how his performance resonated with those in that room.
What a man. What a match.
That's all from me for this week readers, so whilst I mop up all this Christopher Daniels blood, here's the leaderboard's new rankings for you to take a gander at.
Hope you guys and gals have a good week, a good month and a good year, and I'll see you here next Friday/Saturday/whenever the fuck I manage to put it up next time.
Best Match of the Week: The Addiction (Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian) vs The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) vs The Motor City Machine Guns (Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley) - ROH Tag Team Championship Match - Ladder War VI - ROH: All-Star Extravaganza 8
Whilst that clash between Cesaro and Sheamus was pretty damn great, the fucking Ladder War had to win this one. The risks these guys took, the innovation of ladder usage and spots were palpable. Also, you just had to admire Daniels's effort. In tandem with that promo, this was his night. The man's in his 40s, and he took one hell of a beating in that match, going through ladders, tables and bouncing off of barricade, not to mention the loss of blood. And even after all of that, he still pulls off a perfect moonsault. The 'FALL-EN-AN-GEL' chants were well deserved, just showing how his performance resonated with those in that room.
What a man. What a match.
That's all from me for this week readers, so whilst I mop up all this Christopher Daniels blood, here's the leaderboard's new rankings for you to take a gander at.
Hope you guys and gals have a good week, a good month and a good year, and I'll see you here next Friday/Saturday/whenever the fuck I manage to put it up next time.
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