Monday, July 13, 2015

Fave Five 7/6/15-7/12/15

1) Timothy Thatcher: First, I realize that the gif I used isn't from this week but whatever. In a relatively slow week, Timothy Thatcher stood out above all others. I admit some ignorance as I've seen very little of the man's work, but winning two titles in one night is an impressive feat. That's exactly what Thatcher did at Evolve 45 this past weekend. He defeated Drew Galloway to win both the Evolve and Dragon Grate Open the Freedom Gate Championships. That in itself would normally be enough to top a list, but he added to it by successfully retaining the Evolve Title against Chris Hero, who is having a fine 2015 himself, the following night. A very good week indeed.

2) Zach Sabre Jr.: Again with the pictures not being from this week right? I only recently started getting into Zach Sabre Jr and he always delivers. His match against Roderick Strong at PWG Don't Sweat the Technique earlier this year is in my top ten matches of the year. From what I've been told, they somehow topped it at Evolve 45 this weekend. I'll be doing my best to find a way to watch that sometime this week. This time around, it was Sabre who was able to eek out the victory. To add to that, he would then best TJ Perkins in what it being called another great match the next night. You gotta love those double shot weekends. They really help guys on the indies make it higher on this list, which is always a plus. If you're not already watching Sabre, go out and find more matches of his to check out.

3) John Cena: Outside of his rivalry with Rusev, John Cena has been having the best year of his career from my eyes. Yea he's had more successful years but bringing prestige back to a midcard title that is often overlooked is something impressive. This week, that title closed Raw in a great match between Cena and Cesaro. I don't consider it a match of the year candidate like some people have, but it was still damn good. Cena was able to retain after nearly 30 minutes of war. It was probably the best match on Raw all year long and another in a string of really good John Cena Open Challenges. The US Title means something and we can thank Cena for that.

            4) Cesaro: Since his days as Claudio Castagnoli, I've been a relatively big fan of Cesaro. Let me get this out of way; I don't really believe the man can be a main eventer in the WWE. That being said, I would like to see them actually try. For the past two weeks, he's had the match of the night on Raw against John Cena, with this week's being the best match on Raw all year from what I can recall. Cesaro and Cena have a very good chemistry and the crowd was firmly behind him in Chicago. Despite losing, the man was in a thirty minute Raw main event and put on one hell of a performance. He absolutely deserves to be included here.

5) The Vaudevillains: In the main event of NXT this week, the Tag Team Title scene got some shine, which was a nice change of pace. In that main event, the Vauevillains took on Enzo Amore and Colin Cassady to determine the number one contenders to Blake and Murphy. A lot of people expected Enzo and Cass to earn another shot but the Vaudevillains surprised many people, myself included, when they won the match. They now have a Tag Team Title shot in their future and it'll be interesting to see if it happens at TakeOver: Brooklyn. I fully expected Enzo and Cass to get the shot in New York.