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| Via WWE.com |
So I already decided I was going to switch up the format of my weekly WWE review series. The original format was just too much since it was recapping at least four shows a week. So I decided to turn this into a power rankings article, with the top 15 wrestlers/tag teams/stables that impressed me most every week. Along with that, there will also be the bottom 5 ranked for the least enjoyable parts of WWE programming each week. Let's dive in.
WWE Top 15 for the Week of Jan. 8
15. Oney Lorcan
Depite being named "Oney Lorcan," the former Biff Busick has been impressive lately during his NXT run. Two weeks ago in the Osaka house show edition of NXT, he got an impressive win over Andrade 'Cien' Almas. This week, Almas got his win back, but Lorcan still looked solid in the loss. It looks like he can get over in NXT on his in-ring work, but giving him some sort of character going forward would be nice. Lorcan might not be the flashiest indie star NXT has signed, but it doesn't look like he's being lost in the shuffle right now.
14. Rusev and Lana
Rusev and Lana get special mention this week for making the awful Shawn Michaels segment at least somewhat entertaining. Rusev has been one of the best promos in the company for forever now, and him telling Shawn to have the director "CGI" Lana into the movie was amazing. Rusev and Lana deserve so much better than the feud they have with Enzo and Cass, but Rusev's entire run since the Cena feud has been defined by feuds that he's escalated.
13. Seth Rollins
I've soured on Seth quite a bit since he's come back from his injury. Booking's a big part of that, but I feel like aside from a few times he just hasn't looked like the wrestler he's touted as. That's why it was nice to see Seth look the way he did in his match against Braun Strowman on Raw this week. Braun's size meant that Seth was just allowed to pinball around and do cool, flippy stuff to try to take Strowman down. It was the best match he's had in months. Also, because there was a double countout finish, we didn't have to see Rollins attempt one of his garbage Pedigrees!
12. John Cena
A lot of criticisms I saw with this week's Smackdown had to do with the return of LOLCENAWINS. While I'm a big fan of Big Breakfast Baron Corbin and didn't necessarily like seeing Cena going over clean, I don't think it matters much. Corbin's been built well that losing to Cena on a good TV main event isn't going to knock him down the card or anything. Especially since Cena's probably only around until Mania anyway. What was nice to see was Cena being able to have that standard John Cena TV match, which is something that is missed on a regular basis for me. He almost always delivers, and the Corbin match was no different, even if the ending felt a bit rushed due to time.
11. Alexa Bliss
I hope Alexa Bliss never loses her title, because she's doing some great work. This week she only really had a promo with Daniel Bryan and Becky Lynch that helped further set up the La Luchadora angle and a championship cage match(!) this week. She also had the only really decent segment of Talking Smack this week as well, once again with Becky to hype the match. Bliss is one of the best heels that WWE has, and she's doing really good work on a consistent basis, even on weeks her TV time is limited.
10. Neville
Neville had another great week with his King of the Cruiserweights gimmick. Since he's turned heel, he's been a highlight of the week. His matches this week with Lince Dorado on Raw and Tommy End(!) a the UK Tournament weren't his best, but the character work alone has been fantastic.
9. Asuka
Most of what Asuka did this week is get beaten up by Billie Kay, Peyton Royce and Nikki Cross. That happened a few times. But it did set up the four-way match that will be at Takeover. Asuka has been an underrated promo in NXT, speaking little but making it matter when she did. A broken Asuka coming into Regal's office and requesting a match against "ALL OF THEM" at Takeover was one of her best character moments in NXT yet.
8. Kalisto
While Dolph Ziggler's heel turn in its infancy has been a little weak, the first match Evil Ziggler had was largely very good, mostly because of Kalisto. Kalisto is one of the most consistent people on the WWE roster, and while Ziggler's trying to remember how to wrestle heel it's nice that he's going after one of the best babyface wrestlers in the company to help the transition. It seems a lot of people are still caught up in the Lucha Thing promo, but don't sleep on the dude's ability.
7. Andrade 'Cien' Almas
Almas probably shouldn't have been debuted as a babyface. He probably shouldn't have wrestled as a face against fan favorite Tye Dillinger and won. That set one of the most talented performers on NXT back a little bit, but he's been fighting back hard. Since turning heel, he's been much more natural in his role. This week he had one of his best matches yet against Oney Lorcan, an impressive match from both men considering the relatively short length. He may have a natural face look, but everything else about him is pure heel. It's nice to see him start to reach his potential in the company.
6. Sheamus & Cesaro
Two weeks in a row, Sheamus and Cesaro have been in singles matches with members of The Club, while the other was on commentary. Both times, it's been one of the best segments on Raw. Sheamus gets a lot of hate for being wrongly used when he's lowkey one of the best workers on the roster. Cesaro's a freak of a man and one of the best wrestlers in the world. Both have done great jobs putting themselves and their opponents over on commentary, and they've had great matches with Gallows and Anderson despite distraction finishes in both matches.
5. The Wyatt Family
Congratulations to WWE for making both the Wyatt Family AND Randy Orton interesting. Adding Orton to the stable was an interesting choice, but it's paid off really well. They dropped the titles basically right away but I like what they're building up to. Their match with American Alpha this week was great and told a solid story as they tease a split in the Family (hopefully Harper gets cast off instead of Randy because I like that story better).
4. Braun Strowman
BRAAAAAAUUUUUUN had another great week as the best part of Raw (and sometimes the only good part of Raw) in his match with Seth Rollins. I will never get tired of Braun just interrupting matches and demanding whoever he has beef with. There should be at least two segments per week of Braun just throwing stuff backstage and demanding Sami Zayn/Roman Reigns/Seth Rollins/Goldberg/whoever. It never fails.
3. American Alpha
So far American Alpha hasn't lived up to their short but impressive NXT run on the main roster. That's not really their fault. Other stories had to be told (nobody expected Slater/Rhyno to be as over as they were) and injuries also delayed the team a bit. So they've had to work a bit to get over, especially going against the likes of Orton, who will get huge cheers even as a heel. Luckily, Gable and Jordan are still incredible wrestlers and their work in the ring speaks for itself. They've had two big wins in a row on Smackdown, and they remain impressive. Hopefully live audiences start taking note as well.
2-1. #DIY and The Revival
This past week's episode of NXT is probably the last we'll see DIY and The Revival wrestle each other until they're both on the main roster, and that's a shame. These two teams have some of the best chemistry I've ever seen two tag teams have against each other. Luckily, both teams also have incredible chemistry with their teammates that allow them to have great matches with just about anybody. Last year was a great year for tag team wrestling, and it seems like it may get better this year. DIY and The Revival (along with American Alpha) were the teams that made it happen. I can't wait to see what these teams do next.
WWE Bottom 5 for the Week of Jan. 8
5. Cedric Alexander & Alicia Fox
I hate to put Cedric Alexander in the bottom 5 because he's coming off a wrestler of the year-caliber 2016. Unfortunately, his angle with Noam Dar and Alicia Fox has been awful. That culminated this week with Alexander breaking up with Alicia, only for Alicia to go crazy because women are crazy AM I RIGHT!??!? I'd say the WWE is better than this and I'm probably wrong, but they can and should be better than this.
4. Shane McMahon
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I've already got beef with Shane because his character sucks and he insists on wrestling sometimes, but he's here because his presence on Talking Smack marked probably the weakest episode yet. Daniel Bryan is an entertaining host that gets excited about stuff. Shane McMahon is about as entertaining as a wheat field. Hopefully Daniel's back next week, because if Shane's back I'm not watching.
3. Carmella
Carmella's match against Thunderkitty on Smackdown was a disaster for a multitude of reasons and some of them had nothing to do with Carmella. Unfortunately, a lot of it did. It was her weakest match on the main roster. Her performance regressed to that of months before she got called up. That's a shame because she's been doing pretty good work on Smackdown. Hopefully this was just a hiccup.
2. Jinder Mahal
Jinder is the only main roster member who had a worse match than Carmella. Not only is his allegiance with Rusev groan-worthy because it's just another classic foreign heels team-up (get it!? they're not from here so we should boo them!), but he was actively bad in his match with Big Cass this week. He didn't even try to sell that East River Crossing. We probably won't see much of Jinder going forward though, because something tells me he's getting a Wellness violation.
1. Shawn Michaels
I'm not a fan of WWE bringing in older guys who can't wrestle anymore if they have nothing to do with the story. Shawn may be a legend, but I don't care what movie he has to promote. He's just wasting TV time that could be used to advance actual story. Sure, he technically helped progress the Enzo & Cass/Rusev feud, but that was also after a lengthy segment where he talked about his garbage movie nobody wants to see. His entire segment needed to be saved by Rusev to be even tolerable, and even with Rusev it felt twice as long as it actually was. Hopefully this is the last we see of HBK for a while. Stick to the superkicks and maybe stay away from the acting, Shawn.
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