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| AJ left his phone just too far out on his bedside table |
- What the actual fuck? Jinder Mahal is the new WWE World Champion. This is real life. This is what is happening now.
- It appears #DIY are no more, with Tommaso Ciampa turning on Gargano to end this past TakeOver show. I am a very sad boy, a very sad boy indeed.
- Pete Dunne is your new WWE United Kingdom Champion, dethroning the inaugural title holder, Tyler Bate. I feel this might be to help usher in the start of a new UK weekly show, with a new champion at the heart of it.
- It has been announced that the Women's Tournament is entitled 'The Mae Young Classic', which I think is quite nice.
- Ring of Honour have announced another War of the Worlds tour with NJPW this August, however, this is in the UK! They list RevPro's Summer Sizzler as part of the tour, following it with 3 WotW shows in London, Edinburgh and Liverpool.
- Cedric Alexander is back, returning on 205 Live this week. His reaction was....well a 205 Live reaction really.
Also, its pretty clear that A-Block is where its at, and B-Block just doesn't have quite as strong a draw for me. I feel like I may just leave it at the opening nights from last week. As awesome as the match-ups that are scheduled to happen, I feel it would be unfair to just cover them. So, unless there is a real desire from you guys for some of the live shows, that might be it on the tournament for now. I feel similar might occur when I try to tackle the G1 Climax, but, we'll just have to see how things turn out. Apologies for anyone who was expecting to see coverage of all the taped shows, please forgive me.
However, I am gonna try and keep up with A-Block a bit and whatever I hear is worth a watch, so perhaps if I feel there's something that deserves to be the 'Best Match of the Week' instead of what's on the covered shows, I may give it the award and write it up there and then. Let me know what you think of this idea, not sure if it bastardises this blog a bit.
And now for the petals on this flower of a wrestling blog, its the matches!
NXT TakeOver: Chicago
Best Match on TakeOver: Chicago: Tyler Bate vs Pete Dunne - WWE United Kingdom Championship Match
Holy fuck-a-rooni we are starting this week off with a big ol' bang. The WWE United Kingdom Championship is making its first appearance on a TakeOver card, pitting the defending champion Tyler Bate against the Bruiserweight, Pete Dunne.
We started off with some slick and sweet grappling and technicalities. I appreciate that in an arena the size of this one they're in, it can't be a bit difficult to get all the joint manipulation and the subtleties of it across to those in attendance, but luckily that didn't alienate anyone. Bate's shoulder and arm received the brunt of Dunne's surgery, with also some nasty finger work, bending and stretching the champ's digits.
Then when things started to pick up, bloody hell they went whole hog. In my opinion, it was (British) strong style at its finest. The strikes were pretty stiff indeed, all the throws and slams were beautiful, it was all so wonderful for me to watch.
There were so many great moments and sequences in this match its unreal. I just want to show you some of my favourite highlights, I think I have all these following clips in order, but good lord you just get lost in it and its amazing. First, just look at this goddamn aeroplane spin. I have never seen anyone ever get the momentum and speed Tyler gets, its unreal.
Look at him go!
Just amazing. We had a Dunne X-Plex onto the apron earlier on, then we got to see it transformed into an Orange Crush powerbomb;
Dunne has great facial expressions, both in the above with his look of bewilderment, as well as his signature sneers and grimaces. Great storytelling that, when the man comes in with a face of confidence and then has it changed to one of desperation and disbelief. Phenomenal.
Like I said, the strikes came in plentifully, and this next exchange was just class. For whatever reason, open hand slaps have a special allure to them, a combination of impact and big sound. Plus, Bate's rebound lariat is a thing of beauty on top of all that.
Then just the most incredible thing happened. Now, in the tournament final, we had Bate do a 450 splash/footstomp thing on Dunne, and I figured when he was climbing up to the top we'd see it again. Everything I knew came tumbling down.
Who does the Spiral Tap? AJ Styles and AJ Styles only, or so I thought;
And he hit it flush! Bugger me that was insane.
The whole sequence into the finish, as well as having the finisher teases throughout, and when Dunne finally hit The Bitter End, it felt like it rounded off a perfect match.
I'm gonna be honest with you guys, this is probably my Match of the Year so far. As a Brit, and a young one at that who is beginning to idolise this current crop of British talent, this was quite overwhelming to me. On three occasions during the match they got a standing ovation. The crowd finally figured out of how to make a good UK chant. I watched this match perched on the edge of my seat, when that match screen popped up I was banging on the armrest to hype me up. Through and through, I love this. Doesn't get much better for me. Guess what's best match of the week.
WWE Backlash
Best Match on Backlash: Kevin Owens vs AJ Styles - WWE United States Championship Match
With an act tougher than the Salty Spittoon to follow, it's WWE's second Backlash in under a year (sort ya fucking schedule out lads). Taking the cake on this show was Kevin Owens' defence of the United States Championship against AJ Styles.
This was a rather good match I'd say. It is ridiculous how consistent AJ is at delivering great performances, and this pairing with Owens made for both of these guys to have a very nice match up.
I feel like everything they did was nice and smooth, though its only a few spots here and there that were memorable about this. There was this pretty cool sequence with multiple sentons that I really liked.
The big one of course was Styles suplexing Owens on the apron, with the US Champion landing right on the cornered of the edge. Looked very sore indeed. They'd teased a Styles Clash off of the apron onto ringside alongside this. I definitely seen videos of them doing it on the indies on yesteryear, but I would be very surprised if they would be allowed to do such a thing.
The ending, though a little bit of a low-point with Owens retaining via countout, I thought it was quite creative. Styles' leg was slipped into a hole on the commentator's desk where the monitor goes and his feetsies got caught in the wiring. It did look cool, kept them both protected I suppose and leaves there room for a future rematch.
I feel that these two have got better matches in store for us. Maybe SummerSlam might have another clash between these guys, that'd be baller. Still, this was a good match.
Monday Night RAW
Best Match on RAW (22/5/17): Bray Wyatt & Samoa Joe vs Seth Rollins & Roman Reigns
It's a thrown together tag team main event here on RAW, and that's exactly the sort of match this was. Nothing really too memorable about any of it. Just....meh. It was all decent, better to watch than some of the other matches on the card. Sheamus/Hardy felt a bit of a drag, was there Nese/Aries? I dunno, it was an okay episode of RAW.
Sorry there isn't much of a write up for this match, but I legitimately cannot recall anything standing out or leaving much of an impression. I remember Joe choked out Rollins for the win (I think). Yeah, not long til Extreme Rules so that might shake things up a bit, though I would enjoy A FUCKING UNIVERSAL TITLE SOMEWHERE ON THE EPISODE. Brock having this belt is doing absolutely nothing for me. Can't wait til he drops it really.
SmackDown! LIVE
Best Match on SD! (23/5/17): Kevin Owens & Dolph Ziggler vs AJ Styles & Shinsuke Nakamura
Guess what! Another thrown together tag team main event - though this is commonly known here as a 'SmackDown! Speciality' (just made that phrase up so dunno if its called that or what). Along with Sami Zayn and Baron Corbin, these four will be taking part in this year's Money in the Bank ladder match at the marquee Pay-Per-View. So, here we have it, Kevin Owens and Dolph Ziggler taking on the team of AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura.
I have to say, this is pretty similar to the RAW match really. Just a bit eh. The match was perfectly fine, but not much more. They don't seem to have learned from the Backlash match and although Shinsuke got the win in the end, he spent quite a lot of time getting beat up by Dolph and Big Kev. Hopefully he gets a big showing in some sort of amazing one-on-one match, whether it be Styles, Owens, Cena or maybe even Zayn again.
But yeah, this match was fine. Highlights of the show were really all the Breezango stuff, just a shame they didn't get much of a match on the episode.
205 Live
Best Match on 205 (23/5/17): Brian Kendrick vs Akira Tozawa - Street Fight
In my opinion, keeping in line with the rest if this blog, 205 Live delivered with the best match from WWE's weekly shows, with a street fight between Brian Kendrick and Akira Tozawa. It's a rematch from a past 'Best Match of the Week', but I don't think it's the first though. But, this was a great match.
Tozawa started kicking the shit out of Kendrick right from the bell, getting us off to a hot start. Kendrick's ingenuity would be the thing to keep Tozawa down and change the tide of things, and in a setting with props, Kendrick thrives even more. We saw him use the purple tape that the ring crew use for the ropes to tie up Tozawa. First, he taped over his mouth and put him in the Captain's Hook, which was pretty damn cool. Then, he took a more Viet Cong POW camp approach to it;
There wasn't masses of weapons used in this match; they did the tape (if that counts), used the steps a bit, but they went and had some big bollocks on for the use of the table;
Christ-a-loo its a good thing Tozawa landed on Kendrick, he has done some of those dives and pretty much landed directly on his tailbone (see: arse). If he'd have fucked it there he'd be walking funny for days.
That there was the finish by the way, rolled Brian into the ring and pinned him there and then. It was a nice end to the match, a big ol' spot to round off the main event and seemingly end this feud with an exclamation point. Well done 205 Live, rest of the show was a bit shaky but a real good main event here.
NXT
Best Match on NXT (24/5/17): Drew McIntyre vs Wesley Blake
We're at the matches taped before TakeOver, and here we have Drew McIntyre versus a revitalised Wesley Blake.
Again, like his past few appearances, this was very much McIntyre's match. He got his shit in and looked impressive, he got to do his big reverse Alabama Slamma that looked fucking lethal. But I saw this match as Wesley Blake's chance at reintroducing himself, which I think he did quite well actually. New gear, new music and some new moves to boot. With the way NXT is looking, they could use a new lower/midcard-ish guy.
Decent match here, just a nice little something to fill time until we get into the next set of tapings.
Ring of Honour
Best Match on ROH TV (Episode 296): N/A
It was repeats of February's Honour Rising shows in Karouken Hall featuring New Japan and ROH talent, so if you're still on that crossover buzz from War of the Worlds, might be worth a watch.
PWG: Nice Boys (Don't Play Rock'n'Roll)
Best Match on PWG: NB(DPR'n'R): The Young Bucks (Matt & Nick Jackson) vs Matt Sydal & Ricochet vs The Lucha Bros. (Rey Fenix & Penta El 0M) - PWG World Tag Team Championship Match
We're back once again at Reseda, CA to bear witness to Pro Wrestling Guerrilla's Nice Boys (Don't Play Rock'n'Roll). The main event saw a triple threat between three awesome teams for the companies tag belts; The Young Bucks defend against The Lucha Bros and Matt Sydal and Ricochet (I dunno if they have a team name but they really should).
This was just insane, crazy shit happenin' all the over the goddamn place. The Bucks are always on the top of their game in PWG, with them able to thrive in the environment of what I can only presume is 'do whatever the fuck you want'. Ricochet and Sydal, though they don't tag all that often anymore really, pulled out some sick spots. The Addiction parodied the Meltzer Driver with the 'Best Meltzer Ever' (moonsault instead of a 450), but these two upped the ante - Ricochet hoisted 'em up for the tombstone and Sydal finished it with a Shooting Star Press. Just incredible.
I love The Lucha Bros more and more each time I see them. With Penta, I feel its gotten to the point where I reckon his superkicks are probably the best. Y'know those prank videos where they put like tape or cling-film in a doorway and they get the person to come running? The whiplash and fall from it is what it looks like a Penta superkick is. Sounds like a fucking shotgun as well.
One of the best bits about PWG is that they can mix in some comedy, and not make it a comedic match, the spot just meshes in with everything. Here, they went all out;
PWG has always had some of the most clinically insane apron spots and bumps in human history, though ol' Abe Lincoln did do a sick brainbuster to the Confederacy on the edge of the ring. Anyway, we had a procession of nasty falls onto the apron in a row;
Don't worry, no-one died.
One thing that did stick out to me a little was that the finish of this match probably wasn't the high moment that it probably could have been. Watching it, it sort of felt the crowd weren't expecting the pin, not because they thought Young Bucks were losing, but because after all the massive moves and combos done in the match, the final blow didn't seem quite as powerful. It's a risk you run in PWG, but the vast majority of the time they manage fine. Nevertheless, this was an awesome match through and through. I think I preferred the Bucks/Lucha Bros match from last year, but I still enjoyed this very much indeed.
SUPERKICK COUNTER: 9 (plus a metric fuck load of superkicks from everyone else)
The Verdict
Best Match of the Week: Tyler Bate vs Pete Dunne - WWE United Kingdom Championship Match - NXT TakeOver: Chicago
What else, really? The pure wrestling in it, the amazing moments and I have to say that Her Majesty's Royal blood and tea that pumps through my veins may have helped the choice. But, I believe that if I took that factor out this still is head and shoulders above the rest. The PWG match was very good, but I felt there was much more of a story told through Bate/Dunne, whereas that triple threat was more 'BOOM-POW-WHATTHEFUCK-BANG'
And with another week done and dusted here on the blog, here is what the leaderboard looks like nowadays.
Winning 'Best Promo of the Week' this time around is this great segment with the newly heel turned Goldust, who appears to have gone old school, even his paint looks like his Attitude Era run if I remember rightly. I really am looking forward to where they go with Goldy, have a look here;
Welp, that's gonna do it for me for this week. Let me know what you thought? Think anything topped Bate/Dunne? Do you think it isn't as good as I've made it out to be? I know I might have laid it on a little thick there, but bloody hell I really do love this match; it's probably up there with my favourites. Either way, I hope you all enjoy yourselves in these coming days. I've got some time off school so I'm a happy boy, and I hope you all get some relaxation too. Buh-bye for now!
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