Monday, February 29, 2016

Fave Five 2/22/16-2/28/16

1) Jay Lethal: Ring of Honor's 14th Anniversary Pay-Per-View was severely underwhelming. Most of the show failed to deliver in terms of quality. The best match to me on the show was the main event. Jay Lethal continued his run as ROH World Champion by defeating Adam Cole and Kyle O'Reilly in a Triple Threat match. Like most of Lethal's reign, which has lasted about eight months now, it was a pretty good, but not great match. He able to retain after hitting both Cole and O'Reilly with a double Lethal Injection. Lethal looks like he could very well reach the one year mark as ROH Champion.

            2) Shane McMahon: The biggest news during the week, by a wide margin, was the shocking return of Shane McMahon. He interrupted the opening ceremony on Raw of the presentation of the Vincent J. McMahon Legacy of Excellence Award. As Vince McMahon was presenting it to Stephanie, Shane showed up to a massive pop, stating that he was back to take his rightful place in the company. He wanted control of Raw, so Vince said he had to earn it in the ring, booking him against the Undertaker in a Hell in a Cell at WrestleMania. It's certainly a random match but it is very intriguing and I'm just happy to have Shane O'Mac back on my television.

3) The New Day: Another week has come and gone, and it's another week where the New Day have been great. They've taken an out of nowhere feud with the mostly dull League of Nations and have made it entertaining. While they were unsuccessful in the Smackdown main event, they still did headline the show. It was on Raw where the New Day really shined. Following the massive opening segment with Shane McMahon returning, they took on the Lucha Dragons and Neville in a six man tag that was the best match of the week for WWE television. They've even been in the news on the Japanese scene due to Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks parodying their shirt and challenging them for the NEVER Openweight Titles. It doesn't matter what they do...New Day rocks.

4) Johnny Mundo: Even in a week where the ring action wasn't top notch, Lucha Underground was still a blast. The best match on the show was the main event, featuring Johnny Mundo taking on Cage. They had a really solid match during season one where Cage won. He was the heel and Mundo was face. The roles were reversed in this one as the newly face Cage had the crowd behind him. He was on the verge of victory until Taya Valkyrie made her Lucha Underground debut and handed Mundo a pipe. Mundo used that to defeat the Machine before he and Taya laid into Cage with attacks.

5) AJ Styles and Chris Jericho: Since his debut at the Royal Rumble, I've commended the booking of AJ Styles. He only has one loss under his belt and he ended up winning the rubber match anyway. I'm a bit confused right now though. Styles could be in a high profile match to help the struggling WrestleMania card but seems to now be part of a tag team with Chris Jericho. It's certainly a strange move. Still, the duo makes the list this week. On Raw, they teamed up to defeat the Social Outcasts. On Smackdown, Mark Henry joined them in the main event to best the New Day. More success for AJ Styles in his short WWE career so far.