But before we get into it (and gee do I want to), let us first take a gander at the news from this past week;
- Tyler Bate is your first ever WWE United Kingdom Champion, becoming the second youngest WWE champion history, only by a matter of months! Good lord what a tournament that was over the past weekend, and I loved every bit of it. We also had Tommy (Tommy, Tommy Fucking) End debut against Neville, using the End name, so whether he's using that for good who knows? It has been reported all the competitors were signed, and there has been a bit of controversy with WWE pulling people out of events and appearances, but that's contracts for ya, so you can't really blame anyone.
- KURT FUCKING ANGLE IS IN THE HALL OF FAME! He's come back to the WWE and it feels so good. So amped to here that theme blare through the TV again and seeing that man make his way to the ring again. Expect a special li'l something out of me sometime soon, and remember, just because he's not contracted for any matches doesn't mean he can't slap an ankle lock on some motherfuckers.
- Mickie James has returned too! After her match at TakeOver: Toronto, James is now on the SmackDown! brand, unveiling herself as La Luchadora and alligning with Alexa Bliss. Lets see where we go with this then.
- Big Triple H can't get enough tournaments, seen with him confrming that there will be a WWE Women's Tournament in the future. Cruisers, Brits, Women, can we have a proper good King of the Ring please?
- After debuting on 205 Live, Tajiri was injured at an NXT show. I'm sending all my love to the Japanese Buzzsaw, sending it to that lovely man.
- Pentagon Jr. is done with AAA, now independent, though I'm not too sure of his dealing with Lucha Underground at the minute. He will now go by Penta Ciero Miedo or Penta 0M, which is still a pretty cool name.
And now for the gold in this Olympic medal of a wrestling blog, its the matches!
WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament
Night 1
Best Match on UKCT N1: Tyler Bate vs Tucker - First Round Match
Kicking us off is the final first round match of the tournament, pitting the eventual winner Tyler Bate against the man from Northern Ireland, Tucker.
Most of the other matches of the night were in'n'out fairly snappily, but this one had a good chunk of time dedicated to it. I was impressed by both men, with Tucker being relatively unknown to me and being a lot better than I would have thought, and Tyler showing off a lot more than I knew about him. This match made me root hard for Bate on the second night, and I love that his gimmick at this point really is just 'a lovely fella'.
We had some great, proper wrestling in this one, having a hefty dose of the British technical base as well as incorporating all the lovely things in the modern wrestling scene. We'd heard a bit about it in the promos and I was a bit tepid in my anticipation, but my word Tucker's superkick was goddamn awesome. He like leaped in the air, clocked Bate on the jaw like he was in a kung-fu movie so hard that he flew out the ring, nicely protecting the move.
Soon after, we had what was from my recollection, the only outside dive in the first day of the tournament. I thought that was a nice touch, seeing as the previous tournament, the Cruiserweight Classic, was inundated with high-spots of that ilk, so whilst it might not be massively noticeable, it was refreshing. It was real cool dive as well, a bit different than most things, a hurricanrana off the steps and onto the ramp. Tucker had a sore looking landing, the back of that neck/head coming down a bit awkwardly, but no worries, he looked to be fine afterwards.
The crowd was eating it all up, and by the end of it, the whole building was on their feet to witness the finish of the match.
Great match this to round of the first stage of the tournament, I went it sort of supporting Bate, came out loving him and eager to see more of both of the men. Check it out.
Night 2
Best Match on UKCT N2: Tyler Bate vs Pete Dunne - Grand Final
Tyler's popped up again, taking on Pete Dunne in the grand final and the deciding match to see who would be crowned the inaugural WWE United Kingdom Championship.
Going into this, we had Bate suffer some sort of shoulder/arm injury in his semi-final match against Wolfgang, which would be exacerbated in a post-match attack by Dunne. They did a great job of making sure Dunne was gonna be booed in this tournament, with him starting off the weekend receiving quite a cheered reception, and ending it being despised by all. Plus, it helped that Bate had won the hearts of essentially everyone watching.
So, with the K-Tape applied and being as useless as ever, there was a lot of working that arm. Dunne stretched and tweaked and wrecked that arm of Bate's, constantly abusing him. A slam into the turnbuckle was one of Dunne's damn nasty methods of brutalising Tyler, landing him pretty roughly on the mat.
Tyler had his fiery babyface flurries and retaliations, building back his momentum and landing some big money shots. I'm not sure whether he meant to do, or whether he didn't get quite enough rotation in the space for a splash, but he had a sweet looking 450 double footstomp.
Dunne was hammering Bate for what seemed the most part of the match, and even looked to end it after hitting his finisher, with it then becoming the only finisher that was kicked out of for the whole tournament. Then after a sequence of trying to put Tyler away, we came out with the sight of a Tyler Driver '97 and history being made. Just listen to that crowd;
That was an awesome match to cap off the weekend, bringing it all to a phenomenal close, with some lovely post match celebrations to follow. I loved that whole tournament, I may write a little retrospective piece on it if I feel I have enough to coherently say, but other than that, I recommend all of it all of you.
And as if I have to convince you any more that Tyler Bate is awesome, here's that sweet goodness of his theme;
Monday Night RAW
Best Match on RAW (16/1/17): Cesaro & Sheamus vs The Club (Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows) - RAW Tag Team Championship Match
We're back in the USA now, and we've got the tag team champs of Sheamus and Cesaro taking on Gallows and Anderson.
We're starting to get some nice sequences with Sheamus and Cesaro, rather than just a tag move and then one goes off for a bit. Anderson was on the receiving end of this little flurry;
The Club actually had quite a decent amount of domination in this match, working over both of their opponents at one time or another. We actually had a dusty finish with The Club getting the decision reversed on them, which certainly did get me going. Sheamus knocked the ref down, The Club gets him out then Magic Killer's Cesaro; took a while for a new ref to come running down so I figured Cesaro was gonna kick out. Nope. I let out a big Stone Cole-esque 'What?' as the bell rang. I mean, Gallows and Anderson have had a bit better booking as of late, but fuck me that was a dramatic increase, and still is all things considered. They laid the champs out and picked up a pinfall, even if the match should've ended just before.
So Cesaro and Sheamus retain via disqualification, but The Club come out of this looking like legit contenders. Good stuff.
SmackDown! LIVE
Best Match on SD! (17/1/17): Alexa Bliss vs Becky Lynch - SmackDown! Women's Championship Steel Cage Match
SmackDown! LIVE now here on this blog of mine, and we're main eventing with a Steel Cage Match for the Women's Championship, Bliss versus Lynch. RAW, just come here, take a note about how our throats aren't having the fact that the women are the main event or that this is a cage match shoved down them, I can figure that shit out, okay? Cool.
As a have-r of long hair, I always feel a little uncomfortable watching people with long hair in cage matches, just the thought of it getting snagged in the chain link makes me wince. All that aside, this was a pretty good watch. Had quite your run of the mill cage match antics with the door and chasing people up the walls. However there was one spot I really liked, I don't think I had seen a top rope Exploder Suplex before, so this was a nice treat to see;
Overall, it was a pretty solid match, nothing amazingly spectacular, but it was a nice watch. Plus we did get the Mickie James reveal at the end, which I thought deserved a bigger pop, though I suppose the crowd might not have had a great time seeing it in a cage and all.
205 Live
Best Match on 205 Live (17/1/17): Jack Gallagher vs Ariya Daivari - 'I Forfeit' Match
Stickin' around after SmackDown!, its 205 Live, this week featuring the what I would assume is the climax to the Gallagher vs Daivari feud, the 'I Forfeit' Match.
It was pretty much what you can expect from a hardcore match on the weekly TV, brawling up to the ramp and around the ring with a bit of use of foreign objects. Not one, not two, but there were three different umbrellas used in this match, how much of a plan did Gallagher have going into this?
I can't really recall there being a whole lot of cool stuff in this match, though the finish was pretty nice, Gallagher locking in a crossface chickenwing assisted with an umbrella;
Not a whole lot to say about this one, it was an alright match, big on the gimmick side with a fair bit of mic time from both men essentially, 'I'm just gonna beat the shit outta ya, mate'. Decent.
NXT
Best Match on NXT (18/1/17): Roderick Strong vs Steve Cutler
Starting on the pre-taped side of things now, its NXT! Steve Cutler's back from being a thing for like two weeks a couple months ago and nothing afterwards, this time facing off against a man with a new theme that's a bit better; Roderick Strong.
It was a fairly standard match in NXT, we've got a guy we want to make look good against one of the less relevant members of the roster. Not a lot to write home about in this one, Cutler did some things amidst Roddy hitting and throwing him quite a bit, but yeah, not much to say really.
One thing that stuck out to me was that Percy Watson did have an inane comment in this one;
'Deceptively strong there, Roderick Strong.'
It's in his fucking name, pal, what more do you want?
Ring of Honour
Best Match on ROH TV (Episode 277): The Rebellion (Caprice Coleman, Kenny King & Rhett Titus) vs Jay White, Lio Rush & Donovan Dijak
Six-Man tag action kicking off the hour this week, with The Rebellion taking on the team of Dijak, Rush and White.
Just a real snappy, boom-boom-boom type of match this one. We had some regular tagging in and out, keeping things rolling smoothly, even when The Rebellion were pounding on Rush they kept switching it up as to not stagnate anything.
Dijak was getting involved in all the high flying antics of Rush and White, with the trio pulling off 3 moonsaults all on different sides of the ring, the camerawork making look pretty awesome.
Overall, it was good. Lots of stuff going on to keep you engaged with both teams busting out some high-paced, high-risk manoeuvres to give it a pacy feel. As always, you can watch ROH TV for FREE on both www.rohwrestling.com/tv/current or on the Fite TV app. Next episode should be proper good, with Marty Scurll facing Johnathon Gresham, and a three way between Will Ospreay, KUSHIDA and Dragon Lee!
The Verdict
Best Match of the Week: Tyler Bate vs Pete Dunne - Grand Final - WWE United Kingdom Championship Tournament
What else? This was a classic match with stellar storytelling and psychology plugged into it, flourishing it with a feel-good moment. I definitely recommend checking this out, the whole tournament too, to anyone interested in British wrestling in the slightest, and even if you aren't, I'm sure you'll come out of it pleasantly surprised.
And with that lot in the books, here's how the leaderboard looks nowadays. Finishing up this instalment, its time for 'The Best Wrestling Quote of the Week'.
'I was born to win an Olympic Gold medal, but I think my destiny was to come here in the WWE and entertain the fans' - Kurt Angle
That's all from me for this week readers, hope you enjoyed not only this post but also your past seven days, and I hope the next seven are equally as good, if not better! I'll catch your ass down the road...
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