Monday, January 19, 2015

Fave Five 1/12/15-1/18/15

1) Seth Rollins: Not a single person impressed me more this week than Seth Rollins. Starting on Raw, he opened the broadcast by being put against John Cena. My first reaction was "oh no, not again." They always have good matches, but we've seen it a bunch. To my surprise though, Seth pinned Cena in the middle of the ring. Granted, it took a bunch of interference from the lumberjacks, but pinning John Cena is still a big deal. Then, in the closing segment he laid out both of his opponents for the Royal Rumble with Curb Stomps and had the best promo of all three. Even though he was on the losing side of the main event six man tag on Smackdown, Seth once again stole the show. Not with his ring work surprisingly though. Seth interrupted Paul Heyman and cut a fantastic promo against him. Yes, arguably the best promo man of all time was overshadowed by a guy whose promo work has always been questioned. Seth is the first guy to actually come out and say that he's not afraid of Brock Lesnar. Even Cena spoke of how he knew he'd get his ass kicked. When it comes to his work in the ring, Seth has been amazing for a long time, but I never knew he would have what it takes to be a top heel in the WWE. Seth continues to improve week in and week out and is possibly the best thing going in the company right now.

2) Daniel Bryan: The best feeling of the week was one of joy when I saw Daniel Bryan. Bryan has long been one of my favorites since I first saw him nine years ago. After seeing him fulfill his dream and win the main event of WrestleMania, I had to watch him drop the title due to injury and worry that he'd never wrestle again. But on the Thursday premiere of Smackdown, we saw him in ring gear and it was awesome. Bryan was about to make Kane submit in his return match before the Authority got involved. Then, he pulled double duty and won the main event six man tag by pinning Kane. Daniel Bryan is still just as awesome as ever and he's back in a big way.

3) Sami Zayn: Interestingly enough, my three favorite guys on the indies turned out to be Seth Rollins, Daniel Bryan and Sami Zayn. Go figure right? In 2014, NXT was the best thing the WWE had going and Sami was the best about that show. He ended the year by winning the NXT Championship from Adrian Neville in a match of the year candidate. While he was out selling an injury for a while, he returned and was the focal point of the Wednesday premiere for NXT and rightfully so. Sami wrestled Adrian and they seem incapable of having a bad match. This was another great one and Sami was able to beat his friend once again and successfully retain the NXT Title in his first defense. I believe that 2015 will be another strong one for Sami Zayn.

4) Low Ki: One week ago, Low Ki was on the other end of this list. He lost the X Division Title to last week's number 4, Austin Aries. This week though, Low Ki, now a member of the Beat Down Clan, got his rematch. Not only that, but he and Aries were given the main event slot of the second Destination American Impact. They delivered, putting on a fun match and Low Ki was able to regain his belt. Much like Seth Rollins against John Cena, it wasn't a particularly clean win, but it's still a big one. Not only that, but being a member of the BDC ensures that Low Ki will stay in the spotlight of TNA for a while. Hopefully, this is going to lead to a dominant run as X Division Champion.

5) The Hardys: I struggled to decide on who should be the fifth choice this week. Unlike last week, we didn't have a bunch of new champions or anything like that. So, when making my choice, I decided to look at the episode of Impact that I watched. My favorite match of the night was The Hardys against the Wolves. The winners of that match were the Hardys and they earned themselves a TNA World Tag Team Title shot. Commentary noted that it is a tag title they have never held and I could see them as serious threats to the Revolution. Anyway, they won a great match and hopefully have more to come for TNA wrestling.