Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Top Five 11/16/15-11/22/15

1) Roman Reigns: Outside of the Royal Rumble (which doesn't even count for this year), he's had nothing but good to great matches on Pay-Per-View. Nobody has been more consistent in big matches. This week, Roman Reigns didn't end on a high note, but his overall performances put him here. He defeated Cesaro in a solid match on Raw and competed in a fun tag team match on Smackdown. For the Survivor Series itself, Reigns beat Alberto Del Rio in a pretty good opener for the Pay-Per-View. Then, he beat Dean Ambrose in the main event to win the WWE World Heavyweight Title for the first time. Granted, the finals turned out to be disappointing but it was still a major accomplishment for Roman. It was ruined just moments later. Still, I can't deny the week and year that Roman Reigns has had in 2015. He wasn't ready to be the man at the start of the year. However, he's used 2015 to turn things around (though he still needs help on the mic).

2) Sheamus: Obviously, leaving the Pay-Per-View with the WWE Title gets you a spot on the list this week. The main reason Sheamus didn't top things was because, like most Money in the Bank winners, Sheamus has been a complete loser since winning the briefcase. That reared it's ugly head again during the Survivor Series. Sheamus was left alone with three opponents in a traditional Survivor Series match. Instead of having a strong showing, he was routinely defeated like nothing. Sheamus did show up at the end of the show to successfully cash in and become the WWE Champion, seemingly aligning himself with Triple H.

3) Dean Ambrose: Outside of the guys who actually won the WWE World Heavyweight Title this week, Dean Ambrose had the best showing. On Raw, he bested Dolph Ziggler in a fun little match before also participating in the tag team main event of Smacdown. At Survivor Series, he and Kevin Owens went on second and had the best match of the evening, which Ambrose won. In the finals, he took on his old Shield brother, Roman Reigns. As noted earlier, the match proved to be short and disappointing. However, for the time it went on, it featured solid work. Two good wins and three good matches, while coming so close to winning the biggest prize in the game is enough to land Dean Ambrose on the list this week.

4) Hiroshi Tanahashi and Michael Elgin: New Japan's World Tag League tournament began during the week. On the first night, the main event pitted IWGP Heavyweight Champion Kazuchika Okada and YOSHI-HASHI took on the duo of Hiroshi Tanahashi and Michael Elgin. Tanahashi is the top contender for the IWGP Heavyweight Title and the top guy of the company. Elgin competed in the G1 Climax and was basically a new man with top tier performances that got him super over with the fans. They make for a really good pairing and competed in the best match of the week (tied with Meiyu Tag vs. Shinsuke Nakamura and Tomohiro Ishii). Elgin and Tanahashi won to pick up two quick points after a really good performance. While they won't win the League, I fully expect them to have a goo showing.

5) Bayley: HEYYYY WE WANT SOME BAYLEY! Bayley main evented this week's episode of NXT by defending her NXT Women's Championship against Alexa Bliss. Now, Alexa isn't on the top level of NXT women (nowhere near the Horsewomen and still below Asuka and Emma), but she's ahead of the likes of Eva Marie, Nia Jax and Cameron. What we got was a pretty solid little match, that was probably the best one that Bliss has ever had. Bayley was, always, super over and picked up the victory to remain the Women's Champion. After the match, she was challenged by Eva Marie, who got booed mercilessly. I don't know if that match will be any good since Eva is among the worst I've ever seen, but for this week, Bayley cracks the top five.