Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Top Five 12/21/15-12/27/15

1) Naomichi Marufuji: Last month, Naomichi Marufuji won Pro Wrestling NOAH's Global League and earned himself a shot at the GHC Heavyweight Championship. He got his match this week at NOAH's major year-end show, Destiny. Minoru Suzuki had reigned as champion for most of the year after winning the belt from Marufuji. This time, Marufuji was able to beat Suzuki and dethrone him, picking up the biggest win of the week, while also being the biggest win for NOAH of the year. Suzuki's stable, Suzuki-Gun, has basically had a hostile takeover of the titles in NOAH all year long and threatened to put the company out of business. Marufuji not only won a title for himself, but in the process, he saved NOAH as a whole. I also realize the GIF I used isn't actually from the match this week.

2) Dean Ambrose: Ambrose has been pretty heavily featured since winning the Intercontinental Title at TLC. Dean Ambrose was in the main event of Raw this past Monday. It wasn't the best episode of Raw ever but I digress. Ambrose defeated Sheamus in a Steel Cage match. Not only is winning the Raw main event usually good, but he did so against the guy who was just the WWE Champion a few weeks ago. Then, on Super Smackdown, he was in the main event again, this time retaining his Intercontinental Championship against Dolph Ziggler and Kevin Owens in a Triple Threat match. Even though the company doesn't seem ready to give him the major victories, they do have enough faith to keep him strong and give him main event spots, which he almost always does well with.

3) Tajiri Ishimori: Remember how I said that Suzuki-Gun had a stranglehold on all of the belts in Pro Wrestling NOAH? Well, Naomichi Marufuji wasn't the only one to wrestle gold from the stable. Taiji Ishimori won the GHC Jr. Heavyweight Title from Taichi, who, like Minoru Suzuki, held the belt for a while. Originally, I wanted Zack Sabre Jr. to be the guy to take the belt from Suzuki-Gun, but Ishimori beat Sabre last month to earn this shot. He made good on his shot and won the belt for the second time in his career. Obviously this GIF is also not from the show this past week, but it's still an Ishimori one, so it works.

                          4) Chad Gable and Jason Jordan: My praise for the duo of Chad Gable and Jason Jordan is just so high. Their chemistry continues to amaze me on a weekly basis. This time around, they won a fatal four way tag team match against the Hype Bros, Blake and Murphy and the Vaudevillains. Not only did they win and put on a very impressive showing, but they managed to be the most over people on the roster not named Sami Zayn. The response they got during the match was insane and one of the coolest things I heard all week long.

5) The New Day: Since around WrestleMania season, the New Day have continually been the most consistently good thing in the WWE. They turned heel and have just absolutely nailed everything, turning strange things that probably shouldn't work into gold. While they suffered a loss on Raw, they competed on Super Smackdown Live and defended the Tag Team Titles against the Lucha Dragons. On that night, the New Day was able to send back the challenge on the Lucha Dragons and rack up another successful defense of the belts. The New Day just keep racking up the accomplishments.