Top Five 10/19/15-10/25/15

1) Alberto Del Rio: Hell in a Cell turned out to be far better than I ever expected it to be. The biggest news coming out of the show came right at the start as John Cena's United States Title Open Challenge was answered by a returning Alberto Del Rio. It's been over a year since we last saw Del Rio in the WWE, and in that time he's done some great work with AAA, Lucha Underground and ROH. He is now paired with Zeb Colter, which could certainly help since he needs a mouthpiece. Del Rio came out and proceeded to defeat Cena cleanly. Not only that but he did so in under ten minutes. Since Cena became the man in 2005, only a handful of people have beaten him clean and none have done it this quickly. The match was anti-climactic and not very good, but the result and return were incredibly memorable and one of my favorite moments of 2015.

2) Roman Reigns: Raise your hand if 10 months ago, you thought Roman Reigns to be a top performer in 2015. Both of the matches inside of the Hell in a Cell delivered at the Pay-Per-View. I enjoyed Bray Wyatt vs. Roman Reigns more than Lesnar/Taker, resulting in Reigns' position here. He overcame Bray in a twenty plus minute war that was another in a string of good to great Pay-Per-View performances by Reigns in 2015. Honestly, outside of the Royal Rumble, I've given every Reigns PPV match somewhere between ***1/4 and ****1/4. That's impressive. Reigns and Wyatt got a chance to have a great Cell match with no extra bullshit and went out and delivered. He still needs tons of work on his promo skills, but Reigns has done nothing but step up in big matches this year and this might have been the most impressive.

3) Brock Lesnar: The other Hell in a Cell match featured Brock Lesnar taking on the Undertaker. I was vocal in how I didn't care for the match and that never wavered. I will admit that they managed to have a damn good match that was nearly on the level of their 2002 Cell encounter. As always, things just felt different in a Brock match. He and the Undertaker went out and had a war, including blood, violence and some close near falls. The WWE did the wise thing and Brock cleanly went over after hitting an F5 on the exposed wood under the mat. I'll admit that was one of the most creative finishes to a match that I can recall. Brock should absolutely move into something new and fresh now that the Undertaker is behind him.

            4) Jay Briscoe: For over 800 days Jay Briscoe went without being pinned or submitted for Ring of Honor. That streak ended a few months back when he lost the ROH World Title, but since then, he's been back on a role. He was targeted by Adam Page of the Decade. Questionable decision by Page in the eyes of some but it did give him a big program to work. This all led to a No Disqualification match on ROH TV during the week. They main evented and went for about 16 minutes. Outside of Brock/Taker and Reigns/Wyatt, this was my favorite match of the week. It was a big performance by Page but Briscoe was his usual solid self. He won a pretty brutal match after two Jay Drillers, including one through a table. It was a another high profile win for one of the MVPs of Ring of Honor.

5) The New Day: The feud between the Dudley Boyz and the New Day has been hit or miss. On the one hand, the promos have been fantastic and New Day has delivered great there. On the other hand, the matches have disappointed. At Hell in a Cell, the teams met for the third time and we finally got an actual finish instead of a disqualification. The New Day were able to beat their latest rivals and hopefully, put them away for good. The WWE Tag Team Champions continue to be the best thing in WWE. I say that pretty much weekly because it's still very true and that hasn't changed.