| Sure |
- Randy Orton is the 2017 Royal Rumble winner. He was the betting favourite, which I have no idea where that came from with him having not shown any real interest in the Rumble the past few weeks, but okay then. At the minute we're slated for Orton versus Cena at 'Mania (uugghhh), but we have Elimination Chamber coming up so things might change
- Championship changes galore! Bobby Roode is the new NXT Champion, The Authors of Pain are the new NXT Tag Team Champions, Neville is the new WWE Cruiserweight Champion, Gallows and Anderson are new RAW Tag Team Champions, and finally, John Cena is the new WWE World Champion. Shake up fever over here in the WWE.
- Samoa Joe debuted
in the Royal Rumble and won like everyone wantedon Monday Night RAW, attacking Seth Rollins in what appears to be some sort of allegiance with Triple H. That brings us to our next story... - Seth Rollins has re-injured his knee being assaulted by Samoa Joe. It sounds like the injury occurred when he went down for the Coquina Clutch, with it going anything but smoothly. Reports say it will be around 8 weeks to recover, which means he could be missing a second WrestleMania in a row. Get well soon, Seth.
- Like I said, we've got Elimination Chamber coming up, and the participants in the marquee match have been announced. John Cena will defend his newly won championship in the Chamber against AJ Styles, Bray Wyatt, Baron Corbin, The Miz and Dean Ambrose. They've also got a big tag match slated for the event, and I'm hoping this gets added into the Chamber as well.
- Corey Graves will no longer be commentating for NXT. However, he will be succeeded by WWE's newest announce team addition, Nigel McGuinness!
- Chikara's King of Trios is coming to Brummy-Brum; Birmingham, England! I might just have to look into going.
- Akira Tozawa has debuted on 205 Live, and it appears he will be feuding with Brian Kendrick. I forgot how cool his theme is;
And now for the intersect in this Venn diagram of a wrestling blog, it's the matches!
Best Match on TakeOver: San Antonio: Shinsuke Nakamura vs Bobby Roode - NXT Championship Match
Honourable Mention(s): Andrade 'Cien' Almas vs Roderick Strong
Kicking off Rumble weekend for us here on BWOTW, its NXT TakeOver: San Antonio, with Shinsuke Nakamura taking on Bobby Roode with the NXT Championship on the line.
I think this is hands down Roode's best match in NXT so far, and it was certainly a breath of fresh air on Nakamura's part following his number of clashes against Samoa Joe over the past half-year or so. What made this a lot different from those matches was that we have Roode being dastardly in his tactics, as well as having his own over the top personality. There were instances where the two would exchange taunts, it made all the difference to having just one person being like that.
Roode did a great job of countering Nakmura's offence and working out how to take advantage of things. My favourite moment of Bobby's ingenuity is this instance of playing possum;
We had an injury angle that I thought worked in some aspects, and in others not so much. Nakamura hurts his knee dropping a knee to Roode on the apron, he then continued to sell it really well, and made it very believable. He hit the Kinshasa, then immediately clutched it in pain and dropped to the floor, again I thought that was great. However, he was down for ages and being attended to by doctors and even had Matt Bloom come out to check on him. I get that it gave Roode time to recover, and in effect protecting the move, but it did drag a tad.
Roode picks up the injured Shinsuke and gives him 2 Glorious DDT's to finally put the man down long enough for the pin. And there you have it, Bobby Roode is new NXT Champion! I haven't looked at the tapings spoilers, so I have no idea who he'll be facing at Orlando; Kassius Ohno? Will they have Nakamura heal in time? Not too sure.
WWE Royal Rumble
Best Match on RR: AJ Styles vs John Cena - WWE World Championship Match
Honourable Mention(s): Kevin Owens vs Roman Reigns - WWE Universal Championship Match
It's Royal-Rumble o'clock now and we have this match up I was majorly excited for; AJ Styles versus John Cena for the WWE World Championship.
Although I think I prefer their match at SummerSlam last year to this one, it was still a barn burner. There were a few things that were quite similar to their prior encounter, but its not like it was disappointing or detracted from the quality at all. These guys going at it in any capacity has always been a great watch, though I'm confident I could watch AJ Styles daily and not complain. Styles did pull out some new counters that were just the coolest; Cena got him up for his slam after the shoulder tackles, and AJ flopped out like a salmon and huricanrana'd Cena away. Slick. And no matter how many times you see a Phenomenal Forearm, its always amazing;
I had some curiosity as to how Cena would wrestle in this match, with a more cocky heel-like side to him being put across on TV, and I feel there were some noticeable changes in his work. There were a couple instances where he just straight up clocked AJ on the schnoz with a big overhand right. Plus, he nailed AJ with a couple consecutive clattering lariats, flip-turned his world upside down. He stood there pumping every hunk of meat that would flex on his body like a damn bull about to charge, absolutely terrifying. Remind me to never piss of John Cena, or face him in a championship match.
They had a whole sequence trading submissions and wriggling their way out, throwing in a figure-four leglock and a cross armbar in there alongside their usual repertoires. Cena also performed what is most likely his most fluid Code Red yet, hopping straight up and getting a full rotation in a split second, props to both men for that piece of magic.
Whilst I wasn't ecstatic to see Cena leave with the gold, I have to admit that the ending sequence was brilliant. Cena's Okada-like roll into the AA was awesome and got an audible reaction from me.
Now comparison there have been a fair amount of comparison between this match and Okada/Omega, and I can see why with both of them being great bouts, and also they were both in January. To me, you can't really compare them, they both serve different purposes and are made for different audiences with different wants and needs. I think I might prefer just a smidge more, but I do have my irks with the heavyweight style matches in New Japan.
Nevertheless, whichever way you look at, I'd say you should definitely give this a look-see.
Monday Night RAW
Best Match on RAW (30/1/17): Kevin Owens vs Braun Strowman - WWE Universal Championship Match
Bit of a surprise of how much I enjoyed this, Monday Night RAW gave us the Universal Championship match between Kevin Owens and the challenging Braun Strowman. This wasn't a huge match, and it didn't even finish properly, but it had me more intrigued than the majority of RAW this week.
Before the bell, Braun chokeslammed Chris Jericho through the announce table, so immediately we have Owens going through this match with a hopeless 'oh shit how do I win this' attitude, something we don't tend to get with heels. Speaking of which, Owens felt very much like a babyface in this match, taking the brunt of an exhaustive assault from Strowman, and having flurries and comebacks that received some big cheers.
It was interesting to see this contrast in Owens's presentation, and it made me optimistic that one day we might see a good face run from him, akin to that of his final days in Ring of Honour, where he's still a nasty bastard, he just is to the bad guys.
Nice bit of variety here on RAW, I wouldn't say it's a must-see, but if you feel like something a little different from KO, its worth a watch.
SmackDown! LIVE
Best Match on SD! (31/1/17): AJ Styles vs Dean Ambrose
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| This week on SmackDown! LIVE, how many people can we fit around the announce table? |
I mean, he's sound and I understand the appeal, but his usual stuff just doesn't do it for me. I know I say this pretty much every time he appears on this blog, and I apologise if you guys have heard this before, but I can't get over it. His clotheslines, his scrapping punches, his elbow drop and his fucking rebound lariat, none of it really appeals to me. I appreciate it when he varies it up, with this being a pretty cool example;
However, he did through something else new into the mix and managed to piss me off; he only went and did Neville's bloody submission move. Mate, we've spent the past month and a half making this move look like a killer, and you just slap it on half-assed with no real effect. Fuck off. Neville, use a double underhook DDT that gets kicked out of at 1.9, show him who's boss.
Overall, a good match here, whilst I have my grievances with Ambrose, Styles was tip-top in this match, so if you enjoy watching AJ, I should think you'll like this match, same with if you're an Ambrose fan.
205 Live
Best Match on 205 Live (31/1/17): Cedric Alexander & Jack Gallagher vs Neville & Noam Dar
Just like half of the crowd, we're sticking around for 205 Live after SmackDown! now, and the best match that we were offered this week was the tag team contest between the team of Cedric Alexander and Jack Gallagher, and Noam Dar teaming with the new Crusierweight Champion, Neville.
Again, a match I can't remember a whole lot about. However, I do recall Neville being very shouty and berating everyone, including Dar. Plus, he did a lot of shit-kicking. He knocked Gallagher around, he knocked Alexander around, and he wanted to knock Dar around.
I honestly can't really think of much. I know the end saw Neville abandon Dar in the ring, allowing Cedric to hit literally all his moves on him for the victory. I guess you can describe it as something we've become accustomed to on 205 Live; has some nice moments but by and large pretty forgettable.
NXT
Best Match on NXT (1/2/17): Tyler Bate vs Oney Lorcan
It's Tyler bloody Bate! His first in-ring appearance on WWE since the United Kingdom Championship Finals, and he's facing up against Oney Lorcan on this episode of NXT. We started off good and proper with a nice lock up, and then we started off our rough and tumble match with a bang;
From then on we had a pretty heavy, stiff striking match-up, with Lorcan unloading an ungodly amount of European uppercuts to Bate, as well as a barrage of chops to his progressively more red chest. Bate got his licks in though, utilising a similar arsenal on the strike front.
We got to see all the things that made the universe fall in love with young Tyler, his roll kick, the airplane spin, the Tyler Driver '97, and of course, his waves. It was great to see Bate again, been wondering when he'd pop up next
I really enjoyed this match, and I'd definitely recommend adding it to the watch list, especially to those who enjoyed the UK Championship Tournament.
Also, this was Corey Graves' final time calling NXT, and they put together this lovely video package;
Ring of Honour
Best Match on ROH TV (Episode 280): Marty Scurll vs Juice Robinson - ROH World Television Championship Match
Tilting our gaze now to Ring of Honour, we had a belter of an episode this week; there was a great three way tag team match, a Decade of Excellence tournament match of Jay Lethal against Jay Briscoe, but the best of all was Marty Scurll defending his TV Title against Juice Robinson. In case you didn't know, Juice Robinson is CJ Parker from NXT (that one Owens debuted against), now in New Japan.
Very good match here. Consistent action and well paced wrestling made for a highly entertaining contest. I have to admit, Robinson was much better than I was anticipating him to be, in actual wrestling capabilities and his moveset. He did a big, cool powerbomb at one point with Marty properly bouncing off the mat hard.
Scurll's villainous antics forever play a key role in his matches, with him just being an arrogant prick at points, as well as being the rules along with Robinson's fingers. I can't get enough Scurll, this signing with ROH has made me a very happy boy indeed, and his champion status has elevated that feeling higher.
I would certainly recommend getting round to watching this, as well as the episode as a whole, 3 great matches in one go. As always, you can watch ROH TV for FREE at both www.rohwrestling.com/tv/current or on the Fite TV app.
EVOLVE 76
Best Match on EVOVLE 76: Chris Hero vs Keith Lee
Taking us back to San Antonio now, it's Chris Hero's final EVOLVE weekend before becoming a full-time NXT competitor. Here he is in this one facing off a debut for the company, and a man we've seen before in Ring of Honour, it's Keith Lee.
We've got big lad versus big lad, so I went in thinking it wasn't going to be the paciest of matches. That was true in some moments, taking things a bit slow, but there were times when these guys cranked it some and started bouncing off them ropes like nobody's business. In fact, I felt that this match was probably a bit faster than most of the card. As I watched I did feel that a lot of the show was plodding along a bit, encouraging me to skip through, but this managed to maintain my attention.
Now, probably the most notable detail about this match was that not only did the top rope break from Hero rebounding off it, but so did the second one after an attempted moonsault of all things from Lee. Only one rope remained by the end, managing to stay out of theses two's way for long enough, the real sole survivor this Royal Rumble weekend.
Good match here in what felt like one of the lesser EVOLVE shows I've watched, but hey, you take some of the good and some of the bad, and there you have it.
EVOLVE 77
Best Match on EVOLVE 77: Chris Hero vs Zack Sabre Jr.
It's the next day and it's EVOLVE 77! When I say the next 'day' I really mean it, with this match bathed in the sunlight of the Texan afternoon. You could see the dust in the air floating along. First time seeing something like that I must say. Not quite first half of WrestleMania 31 blinding, but bright enough that you could annoy someone by reflecting it off your watch.
The match itself took to the outside a fair bit, right by the fans, and Hero even tossed Zack into a guy at one point, landing on the litter of the concessions stand. Sabre was fighting from the backfoot for the majority of this match. Whenever he managed to wrap up Hero in a submission hold, Hero would hulk up and power out or find some technical way out of it.
Zack did exchange strikes with the big man, but mostly ended up landing the many, but not the big. He'd throw a bunch of forearms, and then get floored by a straight jab. Not too sure what he was expecting going into a fight with a man named 'The Knockout Artist'.
I've seen Hero pull out the Tombstone Piledriver before, but he hit one in this with more tenacity than ever. He spun him round and without delay dropped to his knees and flattened the top of Sabre's head. Vicious.
The end was tense as all fuck, with Hero's Death Blow not managing to get a 3, and then the following Gotch-style piledriver attempt countered into Sabre contorting Hero's arms and a leg to force a submission. Nasty stuff.
Great match this, and a nice send off to Hero as he travels to Orlando in the hopes of doing better than the first time around, which I am confident will happen, mainly because Chris Hero ain't nothin' to fuck with.
The Verdict
Best Match of the Week: AJ Styles vs John Cena - WWE World Championship Match - Royal Rumble
Yes, this week's best was the Royal Rumble's match of Cena vs Styles. It was fantastic in my eyes, and was just a pleasure to watch. Shout outs to Hero/Sabre and Nakamura/Roode also, with both being great matches too and very much worth a watch.
And with that one done, here's what the leaderboard bares a striking resemblance to. Now, for a segment I'm running short on, it's 'The Best Wrestling Quote of the Week';
'HYAAH' - Akira Tozawa
That's all from me for this week folks, thank you for joining me on this journey everyone. I hope you enjoyed, and feel free to chat with me on the past week in wrestling, or anything about pro wrestling whatsoever. Art is best discussed. I do hope that the next few days are great for you guys, and I hope to see you again soon!
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