Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Fave Five 8/1/16-8/7/16

1) Tetsuya Naito: Only one man went 3-0 this week and that was Tetsuya Naito. Naito continued his hot streak in the G1 Climax. Not only did he win all three of his matches, but he did it in three straight B Block main events. He closed out night ten by defeating Tomoaki Honma, ended night twelve with a win over Katsuhiko Nakajima in an awesome match and then bested his teammate EVIL to close out night fourteen. At the end of the week, Naito stood atop the B Block with a 5-2 record, tying Kazuchika Okada for best overall record. He is a heavy favorite to win the entire thing and get the Wrestle Kingdom IWGP Heavyweight Title shot.

            2) Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa: For a night, these two were the focal point of the WWE Network. First, on NXT, Gargano and Ciampa staked their claim for the NXT Tag Team Titles and took out the Revival following the main event. After closing out NXT, they headlined the Crusierweight Classic, facing off against each other in the final first round match. Ciampa dominated for the most part, beating the hell out of his buddy. Gargano never quit and showed incredible resiliency. He survived a ton and Ciampa couldn't pull the trigger against his partner, allowing Gargano to win via backslide. They had the best match of the CWC so far and their post-match embrace was a nice emotional moment for the tournament while they also look poised to make their TakeOver debut against the Revival.

3) Tomohiro Ishii: Man, Tomohiro Ishii is one of the best wrestlers on the planet and he showed exactly why this past week. The A Block only had two shows but Ishii stole the show on both. First, he faced off with Hiroshi Tanahashi in a match that I gave ****1/4. It was all kinds of awesome, though Ishii lost. He then went out and bested himself by beating the IWGP Heavyweight Champion, Kazuchika Okada, in a match that I gave ****3/4. It was the best of the tournament so far and Ishii continued to impress. Unfortunately, his standing isn't very good and as of this week, he was officially eliminated from contention.

            4) Apollo Crews: One of the people that jumped out to me as someone to get a push on SD is Apollo Crews.He is a mid-carder that has potential to break out if they could just give him character outside of smiling bald guy. This week though, he picked up one of, if not the biggest win of his career. Crews, after being called Apollo Creed by Daniel Bryan in the opening segment, won a Triple Threat match against Baron Corbin and Kalisto. The win earned Crews his first crack at gold as he is set to face the Miz for the Intercontinenetal Championship at SummerSlam. It gets Crews on the second biggest PPV of the year, something that Bray Wyatt, Sami Zayn, Cesaro and several others haven't been able to do yet.

5) Dolph Ziggler: Kept his SummerSlam title shot by defeating Bray Wyatt. Also cut his best promo in years.