BWOTW: 7/11/16 - 12/11/16

Holla at ya my lovely readers, and welcome to this newest addage to this theoretically never ending (I have to die sometime) blog of 'Noah's Best Wrestling of the Week' AKA 'I Voted for #BROKEN Matt Hardy'

That Monday feeling

But before we get into things, let's take a quick little peek at the headlines that came our way this week (but only wrestling, fuck politics)

1. With WWE touring the UK, they held a tryout in Glasgow, with a one Pete Dunne being attendance for it among others. His image was used in the news reports for this, so that could give us some indication that there might be something in the works
2. Noam Dar debuted on RAW this week in front of his home-country crowd. Looks like we've got another person to throw in all these 6-man tags.
3. Tozawa is all finished up with Dragon Gate now, presumably meaning that we'll be seeing the man on our screens imminently, whether it be RAW, NXT or 205 Live! 
4. Its being reported that the legendary Shawn Michaels has a coaching position at the Performance Centre. Those lucky bastards at the PC have got a wrestling god to learn from. Hopefully this means he'll appear in Breaking Ground (if they make any more of those)
5. It's the 900th SmackDown! next week, and two major players in the brand's history will be there; The Undertaker (in an unconfirmed capacity) and Edge, who will be hosting a Cutting Edge with the Survivors Series team. Hype!
6. Will Ospreay and Marty Scurll have signed exclusive contracts with ROH! Looks promising! 
7. Wesley Blake's having a baby girl! Also, Kurt Angle has had another baby girl too! Not a massive headlines but I'm a sucker for babies, especially those of the Angle variety.

With out further ado, it's time for the cogs in this wristwatch of a wrestling blog, its the matches! 

Fun fact: this will probably be the freshest recollection of matches in a long time seeing as I watched them all this fine Saturday - been a clusterfuck of a week folks

Monday Night RAW

Best Match on RAW (7/11/16): Kevin Owens vs Chris Jericho vs Seth Rollins vs Braun Strowman vs Roman Reigns

FUCK YOUR EMOTIONS

I'm not sure WWE can book a Survivor Series match without some kind of 'WOAH LOOK AT ALL THESE COMBUSTIBLE ELEMENTS HOW ARE THEY GONNA WORK TOGETHER!?' thing getting in the way. So, we have the whole male team fighting each other, because that is a great team-building exercise.

Any way, a big part of this match was showing off the unrivalled power and massiveness of the Strowman. Him throwing Reigns around got some big pops from the Glaswegian crowd. With this in mind, we had a couple of spots where everyone grouped up on Braun, failing half the time. Team RAW: Building positive relationships (with kendo sticks).

Multi-Man-Match-Mania occurred with there always being something going on to keep us entertained. One thing that came to mind amidst all this was that I really miss Rollins doing tope con hilos. Sure, suicide dives are nice, but when you're gonna do like 3, mix it up a bit yeah?

Ending was a tad weird, with 'Special K' Kevin Owens being knocked unconscious on top of Jericho to get a pinfall, which I assume is to add even more 'WHO CAN BE TRUSTED NOT THAT GUY' into the whole Survivor Series angle. Otherwise, pretty nice match here, some cool spots, I would've thought something like this might be better suited to the go-home show, but hey, I ain't getting paid to book, or getting paid at all for that matter. Shit.

SmackDown! LIVE

Best Match on SD! (8/11/16): Becky Lynch vs Alexa Bliss - SmackDown! Women's Championship Match

It's the 'main event' here, which must have mistakenly been put halfway through the show. C'mon WWE, the main event is the one that goes on last, stop dicking around with this now.

Anywho, this was a real good match in my opinion. Started off with a pretty quick back-and-forth feeling out process. Alexa targeted the arm of Lynch throughout, which lent to her finding it hard to lock in the Disarm-her. Bliss pulled out some real nasty holds to wear it down some, like a Zack-Sabre-Jr-esque Jim Briggs Special, torquing that elbow a whole bunch.

And when wrestling wasn't on the menu, Becky and Bliss opted to rock each other with some forearms. This first one from Lynch sounds like its got some pudding on that plate;

Like RAW, bit of a funny ending, with Bliss submitting to the Disarm-her submission despite having a foot on the ropes. I should think this means a rematch is on the way, which is great news because I love the rivalry between these two. TLC here we come!

NXT

Best Match on NXT (10/11/16): #DIY (Johnny Gargano & Tomasso Ciampa) vs The Authors of Pain - Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic Semi-Final Match

On goes the tournament as we're back on the California tour, Los Angeles to be precise, with a super hot crowd. DIY hit the ground running, taking it to the gargantuan team that is The Authors of Pain. Had a nice flurry of outwitting and misdirections, before the inevitable power game took control, resulting in men throwing men at other men;

The two big lads controlled quite a fair chunk of the match from then on, with poor Johnny being the one to take the brunt of it. This piece-by-piece destruction of Gargano only made that Ciampa hot tag that much more sweeter, and by fuck his comeback charge was awesome. Do you like slaps? Ciampa does.

It was looking like DIY would be advancing to the finals here, but a run-in from The Revival (SAY YEAH) laid out Johnny which left Tomasso to get massacred. Dirty finish n'all, what a damn awesome match this was.

Whilst I would've loved Ciampa & Gargano to win this whole thing, I was elated to find out what they'd be up to at TakeOver instead. It's gonna be #DIY versus The Revival for the NXT Tag Team Championships in a 2 Out of 3 Falls Match. I am willing to put my not-so-hard earned money on that being the best match on that card, possibly the year.

Ring of Honour

Best Match on ROH TV (Episode 268): Bobby Fish vs Dragon Lee

It's a Proving Ground match here on ROH TV, wherein if Dragon Lee could either beat or hold Fish to a time-limit draw, he'd receive a future title shot. Before this, I've seen, what, 2 Dragon Lee matches and I already love him. He's got a great look and has an incredible moveset. 

This match was pretty timid in the early goings, with Bobby displaying injured ribs, taking it slow. Lots of grappling and hold trading to start us off. It later got into having some strikes in there, with Fish landing a nasty looking roundhouse to the poor CMLL star. The crowd were a little dead in this one, whether that's because the length of the tapings or the match order or what, but it wasn't great. 

Lee has one hell of a suicide dive. None of this being safe and putting your arms out shit, head first baby, missile headbutt. Please, Dragon Lee, don't kill yourself just yet, I would like to see more of you. 

The luchador managed to steal a pin after Bobby's injuries got the better of him, failing to lift Lee for a brainbuster and allowing himself to get rolled up. It wasn't the most terribly exciting match, but I thought it was well structured, good psychology, and had some shining moments in it.

Lucha Underground

Best Match on LU (S3E10): Mil Muertes vs Prince Puma - Grave Consequences Match

Its the match where someone dies, its Grave Consequences! This is essentially a casket match for those unfamiliar, except the person who gets put in the coffin gets transported to the Nth realm or something to that effect. 

Immediately we start off crowd brawling, Puma attacking the massive Mil Muertes mid-entrance. These two tossed each other into walls, chairs, people, desks, anything nearby. Once the mayhem finally got to the ring, they didn't stay for long, with a table soon coming into play. This was shattered by a big bastard of a spear from Muertes sending both competitors smashing through it. There was another table spot later on that was arguably cooler, featuring a chokeslam from the top rope to ringside. 

The ring too would become a victim, the bottom rope dismantled by Muertes to gain a weapon in the form of one of the hooks from the turnbuckle. Puma had his head clonked a good couple times with that. 

The casket was used, as well, as a weapon itself, getting some pretty hefty dents in the lid after some slams and a 450 splash. Something that was kinda off about the casket I thought; Muertes attempted to close Puma in it, with commentary preaching the impact of it on the Aztec seal on the ring mat, but then later on Muertes gets another casket, one that was used to bury/murder Konnan, so I guess his thinking was 'I'll bring this other much more significant one in too, just in case'. Eh, I just sound like a dick now. Oh well.

The Verdict

Best Match of the Week: #DIY (Johnny Gargano & Tomasso Ciampa) vs The Authors of Pain - Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic Semi-Final Match

Grave Consequence was good, but I thought this tag match was really great. The pace was exciting, the double teams sequences and the hot tag were so cool. Puma/Muertes had a couple of moments of 'right lets set up this next thing', bringing the momentum down a tad, but I suppose that's just an implication of the stipulation. Even so, #DIY/AoP was awesome in its own right. I was more enthralled in it, and was much more sports entertained. 

Here we are, a familiar place, the matches have been written up and we're at the end of another post. Badabing, badaboom, realest leaderboard in the room (how you doin'?). I haven't killed this segment yet, its time now for 'The Best Wrestling Quote of the Week':

'Holy shit piss poop he took it straight to him!' - Vampiro

And with that eloquent line, that wraps it up from me here everyone. Hope you guys enjoyed your stay, thank you for coming, your company helps with this crippling loneliness. I hope your upcoming seven days lay witness to sunshine, smiles and a batch of good smells. Seeya down the road!