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.

Bash and Kevstaaa Wrestling Podcast: Royal Rumble 2000

Best Matches of the Year So Far

Here is a list of every match that I've seen so far in 2015 that I have given at least four stars, separated by promotion.

WWE

WWE Championship: Brock Lesnar (c) vs. John Cena vs. Seth Rollins - Royal Rumble - ****3/4

NXT Women's Championship: Sasha Banks (c) vs. Becky Lynch - TakeOver: Unstoppable - ****1/2

John Cena vs. Kevin Owens - Elimination Chamber - ****1/2

NXT Championship: Kevin Owens (c) vs. Finn Balor - Beast in the East - ****1/4

NXT Women's Championship: Charlotte (c) vs. Bayley vs. Becky Lynch vs. Sasha Banks - TakeOver: Rival - ****1/4

Finn Balor vs. Adrian Neville - TakeOver: Rival - ****1/4

NXT Championship: Sami Zayn (c) vs. Kevin Owens - TakeOver: Rival - ****1/4

Daniel Bryan vs. Roman Reigns - FastLane - ****1/4

WWE Championship: Brock Lesnar (c) vs. Roman Reigns (vs. Seth Rollins) - WrestleMania 31 - ****1/4

WWE Championship: Seth Rollins (c) vs. Dean Ambrose vs. Randy Orton vs. Roman Reigns - Payback - ****

WWE Championship Ladder Match: Seth Rollins (c) vs. Dean Ambrose - Money in the Bank - ****

John Cena vs. Kevin Owens - Money in the Bank - ****

WWE United States Championship: John Cena (c) vs. Cesaro - Raw 7/6/15 - ****

NJPW

IWGP Intercontinental Championship: Shinsuke Nakamura (c) vs. Kota Ibushii - Wrestle Kingdom 9 - *****

IWGP Heavyweight Championship: AJ Styles (c) vs. Kazuchika Okada - Dominion - ****3/4

IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Hiroshi Tanahasi (c) vs. Kazuchika Okada - Wrestle Kingdom 9 - ****1/4

Katsuyori Shibata vs. Kazushi Sakuraba - Dominion - ****1/4

NEVER Openweight Championship: Tomohiro Ishii (c) vs. Tomoaki Honma - New Beginnings - ****1/4

IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship: Kenny Omega (c) vs. KUSHIDA - Dominion - ****

AJ Styles vs. Tetsuya Naito - Wrestle Kingdom 9 - ****

Lucha Underground

Grave Consequences - Fenix vs. Mil Muertes - ****1/2

Lucha Underground Championship: Prince Puma (c) vs. Johnny Mundo - ****1/4

Trios Tag Team Championship: Angelico, Ivelisse and Son of Havoc vs. The Crew - ****

ROH

AJ Styles vs. Adam Cole - War of the Worlds - ****1/4

ROH World and Television Championship: Jay Briscoe (c) vs. Jay Lethal (c) - Best in the World - ****1/4

Roderick Strong vs. Shinsuke Nakamura - Global Wars - ****
ROH World Tag Team Championship: reDRagon (c) vs. The Young Bucks - 13th Anniversary - ****
The Bullet Club vs. The Kingdom - Best in the World - ****
The Bullet Club vs. Kazuchika Okada and Roppongi Vice - Global Wars - ****

Other

Hair vs. Hair: Ethan Carter III vs. Rockstar Spud - TNA Impact - ****1/4

PWG Championship: Roderick Strong (c) vs. Zach Sabre Jr. - Don't Sweat the Technique - ****1/4

Raw Chicago Review

For the second straight week, Raw kicked off with Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman. I'll take that over the usual Authority opening promo. Heyman cuts a promo that itself, isn't special, but his delivery is top notch. He just recaps a ton of Brock's accomplishments and reminds us that Brock will beat Seth Rolling at Battleground. In an effort to kill the crowd, they move to Ryback vs. Big Show. I'm not a big fan of guys facing off before a Triple Threat PPV match. I think it hurts the impact of the actual PPV match. The contest itself was kind of shitty as it dragged. Miz came out to cause the disqualification and he ended up eating a Shellshock and chokeslam. That stuff was fine but the match was dreadful. Following that, it was time for a Divas match. Paige took on Brie Bella, who was accompanied by Nikki and Alicia Fox. They worked a better match than the opener, though a distraction from the outside caused Paige to lose. The Bellas and Fox beat her down after the match, standing tall once again. This was nothing of real note and it honestly seems like this is all just treading water until someone from NXT, hopefully Charlotte, gets called up to save Paige. Until then this is all just running on a treadmill and nobody seems to care enough to fix that. Character development and well written angles are more important for the Divas than just giving them more than five minutes to work with.

To close down hour one, Roman Reigns takes on Sheamus. They had a decent match here that went over eleven minutes. As Reigns seemed poised to win, Bray Wyatt seemed to appear. Reigns chased him down and laid him out, but it wasn't really Bray and instead was someone who remained unnamed dressed as him. This decoy led to Sheamus winning via countout. As he celebrated, Randy Orton returned to attack Sheamus. Yay. These two are oil and water when it comes to their matches for the most part. They've had about a hundred and only maybe tow or three have ever really clicked. So this doesn't excite me. Also, where the fuck did Reigns go? Did he just casually walk backstage after he was duped?

Man, that first hour of Raw was long ass hell and just seemed to drag on and on. Rusev and Summer Rae come out to start hour two and ran down Lana and Dolph Ziggler. They showed up and traded barbs. It nearly led to another Lana/Summer brawl, but Rusev and Dolph get in between. This leads to Rusev showing that he's now perfectly healed as he superkicks Dolph and attacks him with his crutch. Summer also kicks Lana in the back of the head and tosses her out of the ring. Rusev continues to beat on Dolph, even leading to a stretcher job. Not the greatest or worst segment I've ever seen but closer to the bad side. Nobody looks good here. Rusev has looked soft, Lana is moving away from made her interesting, Dolph looks like a dick for throwing this in Rusev's face and Summer Rae is just there.

Time for some more filler in the second hour, as Bo Dallas came out to cut a promo on the last segment. He faced Dean Ambrose and we actually somehow got dueling chants, which I never expected. Ambrose won, which was fine. We need more wins like this, rather than having guys go over other established guys. I just wish the company had something to do with Dean. The dude went from multiple PPV title shots to nothing. Again, as more filler, King Barrett beat R-Truth. I think this worked as the finish to their feud. Maybe. It went on a bit too long and was clearly only this long to kill time. Seth Rollins and J&J Security are out next to call out the beast. They have these odd looking kendo sticks with them. Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman come out now. Instead of going after them, Brock gets two axes and proceeds to destroy J&J's shiny new Cadillac. There was a part where he tossed the car door into the crowd and it seemed to hit a kid, which was all over Twitter. I wonder what will come of that. This was followed by Lesnar taking out everyone in what was a really fun segment. He stood tall with the WWE World Heavyweight Title at the end of it, kicking off what would end up being the best hour of the show by a wide margin. I really rather enjoyed this whole segment.

                                                            The New Day is out next for a tag team match and their look at the Cadillac is priceless. They recently ran into trouble with Brock Lesnar and kind of ended up looking like that car. They faced the Lucha Dragons in a tag team match that was a fair amount of fun. These are two of the teams that tend to deliver in the division. The Prime Time Players were on commentary and did a superior job to the actual commentary team. Fine stuff to build towards Battleground, but I don't understand why the Lucha Dragons aren't used more. They should be in title picture in some shape or form.

John Cena's US Title Open Challenge was next and it ended up closing the show. Kevin Owens tried to answer it but Cesaro appeared and wanted a shot after coming close last week. I hated how Owens just allowed for his spot to be taken. What I didn't hate was how Cena and Cesaro went on to wrestle for about 30 minutes and put on a classic. This was better than last week's effort and actually a great match. My only real gripes with it was how they kept trying to tease a submission finish. I can never buy those since Cena doesn't tap. Hell, I barely bought any of Cesaro's near falls because of how he's been booked in recent memory. Still though, this match ruled. Cena retained and Owens tried to attack but Cena ducked and hit an AA. I didn't like this. It made Owens look weak and then he made Cena look weak by shrugging off the AA and walking away. Overall, I'd say this was a completely middle of the pack episode of Raw. The first hour was terrible, the second hour wasn't very good but everything after Brock destroyed the car was really good. 6/10.

Fave Five 6/29/15-7/5/15

1) Kazuchika Okada: As a massive AJ Styles fan, this was disappointing to hear about but yes, he is no longer the IWGP Heavyweight Champion. That honor goes to the "Rainmaker" himself, Kazuchika Okada. Okada and AJ headlined Dominion and, from what I hear, possibly stole the show. Okada was able to pull out the win and recapture the IWGP Heavyweight Title from the man that ended his near 400 day reign back in 2013. Okada coming out on top was enough to earn him the number one spot this week. I have yet to see the match at the time of this writing, but will be doing so within the next day or two. I've heard people give it the full five star treatment and some consider it our match of the year. Regardless, this is a big deal for Okada, now in his third reign.

2) Finn Balor: The "Beast in the East" special was actually a blast to wake up and watch. Had it not been for Dominion, Finn Balor would have topped this list. Instead, he'll have to settle for a strong number two in such a loaded week. The WWE Network special was built around Brock Lesnar and the NXT Championship. The title match delivered in spades. Balor and Owens were treated like big deals, as was the NXT Title itself. Balor was in full "demon" paint and had a great match against Owens. It culminated with him winning the title in a pretty great moment. It was a great match, a great atmosphere, a historic moment and the biggest news coming out of the "Beast in the East" Absolutely awesome stuff.

3) Ethan Carter III: You know it's been a good week when you can win the top title in your company and come in third. Ethan Carter III has been the best heel in wrestling for a while, but of course it's not talked about as much because he's in TNA. While it's very possible that the company is a dying breed, EC3 has worked his ass off to prove that he is legit. I said it before and I'll say it again, he is the biggest missed opportunity I've seen the WWE have. He has all of the tools and it shows now that he has been given a chance. He beat Kurt Angle, rightfully, for the TNA World Heavyweight Title. The only reasons he didn't place higher is because the win wasn't clean and the level of importance of the wins by the guys that are ahead of him. Had he beaten Angle clean, he would have a strong case for the top slot.

4) KUSHIDA: Again, I haven't been able to take in all of Dominion just yet but this was big. In a week full of title wins, KUSHIDA had one of the coolest. Much like the Kazuchika Okada/AJ Styles match from Dominion, I've heard nothing but good to great things about KUSHIDA's victory over Kenny Omega. When he won the Best of the Super Juniors Tournament earlier this year, I noted how much I like the guy and this was pretty sweet. I'll be getting around to watching it soon. He is also set up for a match with Ricochet soon, which should be breathtaking. Add in that he was recently announced for GFW and KUSHIDA is kind of a big deal right now.

5) Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson: This has to be the only week I've ever done where every person or team on the list won a title. Here, we have the IWGP Tag Team Titles. The Kingdom took the straps from the Bullet Club back at Invasion Attack in April. Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson were able to win them back at Dominion. This now marks the third reign for the duo and fourth for the Machine Gun. It wasn't the most high profile title change on Dominion but it was certainly good enough to earn them a spot on this week's list.

Beast in the East Review

I woke up at 5:15 AM this morning to catch this WWE Network Special from Japan. Before the stream began, there were two surprisingly long dark matches. The show itself began with Chris Jericho taking on Neville. This is one of the matches I was really looking forward to. I think Jericho doing a run with NXT, even if it's just the non-televised stuff, would be good. This was a lot of fun. They went back and forth and were given a little more than sixteen minutes to work with. Jericho can still go. Neville got caught with a massive Codebreaker but somehow kicked out, making me think he'd win. However, he gets caught in the Liontamer which ends this. I appreciate that Jericho busted out the Liontamer over the Walls of Jericho. Really good opener here that made me glad I got up at the crack of dawn. ***1/2

Next, we got a Divas Championship match. The original card had Nikki Bella defending against Paige and Naomi in a Triple Threat match. For some reason, Naomi didn't make the trip and Tamina was placed in here instead. We had the triple threat with Naomi back at Elimination Chamber and it wasn't very good. Surprisingly, even though Tamina isn't very good either, having her in this was an improvement. She did some power stuff but would get knocked out to lead to Nikki and Paige doing battle, which is the best main roster Divas duo we can possibly get. Nikki retains after laying out Tamina with a forearm. Decent enough Divas stuff here. *1/2

            Our show now takes a detour into suplex city as Brock Lesnar faces Kofi Kingston. The mood continues to change whenever Brock is around. It's something special. This was expertly booked and went exactly the way it should. Kofi started by running around, trying to avoid Lesnar and springboarding for some offense. Brock shook this off for the most part before busting out the German suplexes. The first one was especially nasty looking. A few of those and an F5 put Kofi down for good. This was the expected squash that was needed. Brock continued the assault after the match and even New Day shows up to take some of the beating. It goes less than three minutes, so I won't really even rate it but it was enjoyable.

The match that most of us were waiting for was next as Finn Balor faced Kevin Owens for the NXT Title. This got a good amount of hype and was given the treatment of a big deal. There were streamers, flowers being presented and "demon" Balor. These two had faced for the title on an episode of NXT earlier in the year and it wasn't nearly as good as this. We had the right amount of false finishes and both guys seemed to bring their A games. I appreciate that Balor didn't kick out of a popup powerbomb, protecting that move and Owens. It took two double stomps for Balor to win, in a very cool moment. More than the opener, this made me glad I watched. The match was great and the moment of Balor winning was even better. Great stuff. ****1/4

That should have actually closed out this show, but we have a meaningless tag match now. John Cena and Dolph Ziggler teamed up to take on King Barrett and Kane. There was still a fair amount of time left on the show, so I hoped it wouldn't go as long. It did. While Jericho/Neville got 16 minutes and Balor/Owens got 19, this match went over 24 minutes. Who thought this was a good idea? It wasn't the worst match ever but it was overly long, dragged and really didn't belong as the main event. Cena wins it for his guys. Not much else to say. *3/4 Overall, I thought this was a ton of fun. Getting up early was strange but a live broadcast from Japan was different and one of the things the Network was built for. The Brock stuff was fun, the opener was really good and the Balor stuff was great. A very enjoyable 90 minutes, but once we got to the main event, things went downhill fast.

Smackdown 7/2/15 Review

Smackdown's opening video package is cool this week, focusing on the J&J Raw segment. Seth Rollins and J&J come out to open the show and brag. Seth brags about the gifts he got them and what they did to Brock Lesnar. He is making the matches tonight, so he pits Dean Ambrose against Bray Wyatt and himself against Roman Reigns. On paper they're good but why waste Reigns/Rollins, an obvious PPV match, on Smackdown of all places? Ambrose runs out with a kendo stick and cleans house, so Seth says that his match is coming up now, bringing out Bray. They work their usual solid match. With Bray having an actual angle right now, we're in that stage where he has to win TV matches before losing the big one on the PPV, so he goes over with Sister Abigail in about seven minutes. Solid opening stuff to the show, but it's stuff we've seen countless times in the past year.

Adam Rose and Rosa Mendes are in the ring and Rose says the fans don't get their love and they're jelly. That's the entire fucking promo. R-Truth comes out for a match, which he wins in about two minutes. There are some recaps next, focusing on Rock's house show appearance and hype for John Cena/Kevin Owens. Ryback faces Mark Henry in a non-title match next. Henry gets mad when he hears Ryback say his name in a backstage interview and seems to go heel. BUT HE WAS FACE ON MONDAY! You know what? I can't even bother to care at this point. Ryback beats him with an impressive Shellshock in under seven minutes. The best part about this was Jimmy Uso getting excited on commentary.

Time for some Divas as Brie Bella takes on Naomi and I'm not sure if Naomi is still heel. I don't blame myself for not knowing, I'm pretty sure that creative doesn't know either. Brie is accompanied by Alicia Fox and no Nikki. I assumed it was because Nikki was over in Japan already, but Naomi is scheduled to be there too. This is your standard stuff between these two girls. Neither is bad, but neither is really that good either. They're more in the middle of the pack when it comes to the Divas. Brie wins after Alicia trips Naomi. Alicia Bella is still really fucking weird. Again, Jimmy Uso is a highlight on commentary. We move into a promo from Bray Wyatt about Roman Reigns. You know, Bray falls into the category of "the less said, the better." I like his promos, but when asked to do them over and over again, they can get repetitive. Is there a reason for him to cut a promo here? He already worked a match. Save it for Raw or something. Next up, the Tag Team Champions, the Prime Time Players, take on the Ascension. Again, I would consider this a basic match. Nothing special and the champions beat the Ascension. Well, really, who doesn't beat the Ascension these days?

Rusev and Summer Rae come out for a promo. Summer apologizes for slapping Lana before talking about how kind and gentle Rusev is. Though when Rusev mentions that Summer knows her place, she does seem offended by it. When the fans chant for Lana, he shouts "I HAVE A BETTER LANA-WOMAN NOW". Summer Rae is a better Lana in Rusev's eyes. I do consider her an upgrade. After Dolph Ziggler and Lana went public on Raw, Rusev will go public now. He promises to eat Dolph's eyes when he sees him. Well then. Time for the main event between Roman Reigns and Seth Rollins. Reigns isn't there, so Rollins gets the official to count to ten. He does, but then Roman appears and is somehow not counted out. Why is the match starting? They work a decent five minute match that ends via disqualification when J&J Security get involved. Dean Ambrose runs out with his trusty kendo stick. Seth ends up trying to get him in the Pedigree, but Reigns makes that save. The former two Shield members run off Seth and J&J to stand tall. This was your typical Smackdown episode. The matches weren't bad, but it's just spinning the wheels. Everything is just running in place. Nothing about this show is something you need to see. We'll see the matches again on Raw soon probably. 3/10. 

Wrestlers of the Half Year (10-1)

10) Jay Lethal: We start with a man who recently, made a major mark by becoming a double champion. After holding the ROH Television Championship for over 440 days, Jay Lethal met Jay Briscoe in one of, if not the biggest match in ROH history. With the ROH World Championship and TV Titles both on the line in the main event of their "Best in the World" Pay-Per-View, Lethal was able to walk out after a great match with both belts. The guy went from Special K, to Black Machismo to the first double champion in a long time. Impressive stuff.

             9) Drew Galloway: Count Drew Galloway as a guy who left WWE and things got better. Think about this? After years of misuse in the WWE, Galloway now holds multiple titles. As of this writing, he is the current ICW Champion, DGUSA Open the Freedom Gate Champion, OCW Champion, DPW Champion and Evolve Champion. That's a lot of gold for one man. He has been the Evolve Champion for the entirety of 2015, and won a double title match to win the DGUSA belt on March 28th. Not only that, but he also made his return to mainstream television with a debut in TNA. He hasn't had as much success with Impact Wrestling but it's another notch in his solid 2015 belt.

8) Angelico, Ivelisse and Son of Havoc: Lucha Underground has arguably been the best weekly wrestling show on a weekly basis in 2015. One of the very best thing about that show is the tandem of Angelico, Ivelisse and Son of Havoc. What started as a solid pairing between just Havoc and Ivelisse became special when Angelico got involved. They went on to win the Trios Title Tournament and then defeat the Crew to officially win the belts in one of my three favorite Lucha Underground matches all year. They faced them again in a big ladder match that was fantastic as well. They continue to be highly enjoyable with each appearance.

7) Roman Reigns: The start of the year was not very kind to one Roman Reigns. Granted, he racked up a huge accomplishment by winning the Royal Rumble, but it came with a negative reaction. The crowd booed loudly on his whole celebration and things look bad. They would begin to turn around as he started to put on some great matches. He headlined Fast Lane against Daniel Bryan in one of my favorite WWE matches all year. Then, at WrestleMania, he competed with Brock Lesnar, telling a great story in the main event. If that wasn't enough, he would even get a really good match out of the Big Show at Extreme Rules. Throw in a solid Money in the Bank match along with a great Fatal Four Way at Payback, and I'd have to say that Reigns has been killing it in a way I never expected.

6) Roderick Strong: Since I first saw him in 2005, Roderick Strong has been a guy I truly enjoy. I can't believe it has been ten years since I first saw him. Hell, I even watched him win the ROH World Title live from Tyler Black. 2015 has been a banner year for Roddy. He's honestly kind of become the measuring stick on the indies. He currently holds the PWG Championship and one of my ten favorite matches this year saw him successfully defend it against Zach Sabre Jr. He also continues to kill it as "Mr. ROH" over in Ring of Honor. He is first in line at a title shot against Jay Lethal at the next Pay-Per-View. Strong has put on great match after great match in 2015. The man is simply fantastic.

5) Prince Puma: As I stated earlier, Lucha Underground has been fantastic all year long. While there are various entertaining acts on their roster, one man stands at the forefront and that's the champion, Prince Puma. He is the first and only Lucha Underground Champion, and has had nothing but good to great matches. Whether it's against King Cuerno, Big Ryck, Johnny Mundo or anyone else, Puma has been an excellent choice as the champion of the new promotion and has hand a tremendous 2015. Again, he's a guy that you will find on my list of top matches in 2015 and it I do more than 10, you may see him there more than once.

4) AJ Styles: Since first seeing AJ Styles in 2005 with TNA, he's been my favorite male wrestler in the world. After he left TNA, he seems to have found new life in NJPW. He won the IWGP Title but lost it before 2015. To start the year, he had a really good match at Wrestle Kingdom 9 before going back after the IWGP Championship. He defeated the man who beat him for it, Hiroshi Tanahasi, in February. Since then, he's successfully defended it while leading the Bullet Club. His work in NJPW and ROH continues to be great as his career resurgence just stays on a high level in 2015.

             3) Sasha Banks: I didn't think it was possible, but I have a brand new favorite wrestler. Sasha Banks overtook AJ Styles thorugh her passionf or the business and her ability in the ring. After coming up short in winning the NXT Women's Championship at the end of 2014, she won it at TakeOver: Rival in February in a fantastic fatal four way match that cracks my top ten. At the four live NXT shows I attended in Ohio, she had three more really good to great matches. Then, at TakeOver: Unstoppable, she had my singles WWE match of the year against Becky Lynch. I cannot rave enough about that match or Sasha in general. All of it is tremendous and everything about her it great.

2) Seth Rollins: If this list also included 2014, Seth Rollins would easily top it. His heel run has been great and it went over the top early in 2015. He went out and stole the show in a triple threat match against Brock Lesnar and John Cena at the Royal Rumble. He was in a high profile angle with Jon Stewart for a bit. At WrestleMania, despite a loss to Randy Orton in a good match, he cashed in Money in the Bank in the main event and walked out of the biggest show of the year with the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. If his title run was being booked better, he'd have the top spot. Instead, he'll have to settle for number two.

1) Kevin Owens: In 2015, there has been nobody better than NXT Champion Kevin Owens. Owens debuted in December 2014 but quickly made an impact by attacking his best friend and NXT Champion at the time, Sami Zayn. They would meed in February for the NXT Title. Owens would nearly kill Sami to win it within two months of his debut. He didn't stop there though. He would make his biggest splash by appearing on Raw and assaulting John Cena before beating him cleanly at Elimination Chamber. Owens also has put on good matches on the main roster against Dolph Ziggler, Cesaro, Neville and others. He may have lost the rematch to Cena but still took him out and even made some waves by powerbombing Machine Gun Kelly through a table on Raw. Owens also beat Zayn again at TakeOver: Unstoppable. He is involved in high profile feuds with John Cena, Finn Balor and even Samoa Joe. There is nobody making more wrestling news than Kevin Owens.

Monday Night Rollins Review

It's only fitting that Monday Night Rollins would kick off with Seth Rollins himself. He brags about what he, J&J Security and Kane did to Brock Lesnar last week. He thanks them by giving them Apple watches, giving Kane a Hawaiian vacation and J&J a new car. It was like the Price is Right. I enjoyed the douchey segment, mainly because J&J are spectacular. Nobody interrupted or anything, and it led to our awful opening contest between Big Show and Mark Henry. It's hard to think of a match I'd care less about. Henry is a face again for no real reason. Show wins with the WMD, before Ryback shows up to fight. This also leads into the next match, which pits Ryback against Miz. The continuity of these matches was fine but the crowd didn't care about this. Ryback even busted out a super delayed vertical suplex, and even that didn't wake up the crowd. Miz got tired of this and ran up the ramp to leave and counted out. My only major concern with this was that the countout ended at four. Like, that's just plain lazy work from the official.

The Bella Twins are out next with Alicia Fox, or Alicia Bella I guess. Alicia took on Paige and they worked through a commercial break which was fine. They had a good match. JBL pissed me off on commentary as he just straight up shit on Paige and made her sound like a terrible person. Like, just talk about she's untrustworthy, don't take it as far as you did. They did the whole "person gets thrown outside so we interrupt the match for a commercial" spot. It's such an irritating thing to me. Figure out your commercial breaks better. Paige wins by countering a rollup which was fine, but it doesn't advance the angle much. Why is Alicia with the Bellas? Is anything going to happen soon to change this status quo?

John Cena made his appearance next to bring back our beloved US Title Open Challenge. Surprisingly, Kevin Owens looks like he's going to answer it. They do the introductions and everything only for Owens to leave and bring out Cesaro for the challenge. Owens joined commentary and killed, putting over his July 4th match with Finn Balor and the Battleground match with Cena. The match was one of the better ones on Raw all year, right up there with Cena/Neville for the US Title a few months back. They did a great job in making fans care about Cesaro as they popped for near falls. It followed the "tons of kick outs" Cena formula, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. They even protected Cesaro and his performance as Owens came in to cause the disqualification. Hopefully, they don't forget about it like they did with Neville. Owens laid out both guys in one of the better segments/matches I can recall on Raw this year.

We get the typical Bray Wyatt promo on his feud with Roman Reigns. That moved us into an eight man tag pitting the Lucha Dragons and Prime Time Players against the New Day and Bo Dallas. They did this same match on Smackdown, but this was an extended version of it. What I don't understand is why Kofi Kingston ate the pin. Bo Dallas is a total jobber at this point and him being in there made him perfect pin bait. I know Kingston isn't going to win on the 4th of July against Brock Lesnar, but could he at least not look like a complete loser heading into the match? To begin the final hour, Dolph Ziggler and Lana are out to go "public". They discuss Rusev and how Lana and Dolph are officially dating. This brings out Rusev, who has gone from emo dude that's sad about Lana to bitter dude who has upgraded to Summer Rae. Summer ran down Lana for a while before slapping her. That leads to Lana attacking her and giving us a PG 13 version of those old ECW catfights. I needed some screeching from Joey Styles to help this. It's the first step towards Lana stepping into the ring but this whole Lana/Ziggler angle is absolutely pointless. Why is it happening? Who is it really helping? I miss Lana and Rusev together. At least made sense and was entertaining. This is kind of just there. Plus, I actually prefer Summer to Lana but a slight margin.

The guy that does the Red Arrow and has nothing more to his character, Neville, is out. He goes one on one with Sheamus in a decent but rather irrelevant match. It wasn't bad but it was just there. Sheamus won following a Brogue Kick. Up next, Jack Swagger, the ultimate jobber, was out to face another relative jobber, King Barrett. You know your career is in a bad spot when you are jobbing to Barrett. That dude almost never wins but he did so here. There was surprisingly no R-Truth interaction here which is odd given his program with Barrett.

Monday Night Rollins is bookended by the man himself. Our main event is one we've seen a trillion times as Reigns and Ambrose take on Kane and Rollins. It was no DQ so it at least had a slightly different flavor. That stipulation allowed for some kendo sticks and a Bray Wyatt appearance. He attacked Roman Reigns before Seth pinned Ambrose. Post match, the Authority beat down Reigns and Seth even buckle bombed him through a table. Bray Wyatt casually strolled out, which was so damn odd given his gimmick, and hit Reigns with Sister Abigail to close things. I feel like the Bray character means absolutely nothing anymore which is sad considering the potential it had. Overall, I think this Raw was a step up from recent weeks. There was some great (Cesaro/Cena), some good (the opening promo, Paige/Alicia and Seth looking strong), and the not so good (everything else). I say this gets an above average score. 6.5/10.

Fave Five 6/22/15-6/28/15

1) Mil Muertes: Wow, it's been a slow week for pro wrestling hasn't it? There wasn't anything that especially stood out, so I went with someone who captured a big win. Mil Muertes is one of my favorite performers in Lucha Underground. His partnership with Catrina is great and his Grave Consequences match against Fenix is my favorite LU match in history. This week, he defeated another favorite of mine, Drago, to become the number one contender to the Lucha Underground Championship. That in itself is big, but the fact that he gets his shot at LU's biggest show, ULTIMA LUCHA, makes him more than deserving of the top spot this week.

             2) The Young Bucks: I've been vocal about how I'm not a big fan of the Young Bucks. Despite my personal feelings towards the team, they are certainly successful. The current reigning IWGP Jr. Tag Team Champions added more gold to their collection this week. At PWG's Mystery Vortex III, Matt and Nick Jackson won the PWG Tag Team Championships for the fourth time. That is a record for the company. They bested Andrew Everett and Trevor Lee to accomplish the feat. Couple that with their victory, alongside AJ Styles, in the main event of ROH on Destination America this week and you've got a recipe for a spot on the list.

3) Tigre Uno: TNA seems to be in pretty big trouble these days. I mean, did you see the card for Slammiversary? Still, one guy stood out in the company this week and that was Tigre Uno. He first won the new look X-Division Championship on Impact against former champion Low Ki and Grado. Then, at that weak Slammiversary show, he successfully retained the green and gold belt in another three way match. This one was against DJ Z and Manik. I'm honestly not entirely sure how much time TNA has left as a viable wrestling promotion, but Tigre Uno is doing his best to make the most of the potential final days of the company. He's an enjoyable act and one of the few bright spots left in TNA at this time.

4) Jeff Jarrett: Similar to the Young Bucks on this list, Jeff Jarrett isn't someone I really like. However, his name may have been in more headlines than anyone else this past week. First, he appeared on Impact for the first time in a few years. It turns out there is a working agreement between TNA and Jarrett's GFW. At Slammiversary, TNA brought back a match that Jarrett kind of made famous, the King of the Mountain match. It was for a new King of the Mountain Title. Why you debut a new belt but can barely keep your company running is beyond me but still. Jarrett would go on to win yet another King of the Mountain match and the title. It may not be prestigious or mean much in the grand scheme of things, but it's worthy of making my five in a slow week.

5) Aerostar: Unfortunately, Aerostar is someone that I haven't been able to see very often. It was a pretty good week for him though as he racked up an impressive win on Lucha Underground this week. He defeated Cage, The Mack and Marty "The Moth" Martinez to win the third of the seven Aztec Medallions. I'll be 100% honest, I missed some Lucha Underground, so I'm not entirely sure what the Medallions actually are, but it seems to mean something of value, making it at least a pretty big victory.