The Last Week in Wrestling #27 (Wrestling Round-Up)

Welcome to this long over-due edition of The Last Week In Wrestling. I’m Nathan Favel and it’s been a long few weeks, but it’s nice to be back with writing these things. I’ll just go over the best of the past few weeks and make it easy (since Vince hit the “death” button for Raw and Smackdown…repeatedly). Okay, let’s see what was the best from the past few weeks.

Best Promo:

Bray Wyatt’s Firefly Fun House (WWE) – I was wrong. These things, as bizarre and excessive as they can be, have been a real thrill. A lot of extreme concepts have been implemented in these vignettes and have made Bray’s character into a very exciting prospect for the rest of the year.

Best Move:

GTS (Ring Of Honor) – Bandido hit a great GTS on Shane Taylor to bring a fine match between the two to a close.

Best Moment:

AJ Smashes Seth (WWE) – On one of the Raw shows, AJ did that great attack angle on Seth that was very visceral, but also didn’t bury Seth by way of being on the business end of the attack. It was a tight-rope walk that both wrestlers managed to succeed at.

Best Personality:

Salina de la Renta (Major League Wrestling) – Salina has really improved as a personality, showing a degree of confidence that makes her that much more interesting.

Best Character:

Bully Ray (Ring Of Honor) – He may be suffocating much of ROH’s TV time, but he is one of the absolute best characters around and has become one of the most reliable for promos.

Best Performance:

LA Park (Major League Wrestling) – LA wrestled Pentagon Jr. in a fabulous match that was made memorable by LA’s tremendous wrestling.

Best Wrestler:

AJ Styles (WWE) – AJ has been all over the place and manages to be among the best that is on a given event.

Best Card:

Impact Wrestling: Code Red – This was not the best show, but the card itself was very intriguing. Having House Of Glory wrestlers working with established Impact wrestlers was a great experiment that didn’t always work as well as you’d like. This was still an encouraging show from a league that is slowly starting to show signs of life.

Best Show:

Impact Wrestling – Yeah, I can’t believe I’m saying this about Impact, but the shows have been quite consistent, with good wrestling and solid build toward their marquee matches.

Best League:

Impact Wrestling – Impact was the most consistent out of every league and was of higher quality than it could have been, considering the problems that have plagued Impact in the past.

Best Match:

Rich Swann versus Michael Elgin (Impact Wrestling) – This was something else, with the right length, tone and wrestling action to make for a match that was one of the best this year. There were a few other very strong matches, but this one was the one that really made the mark.

Final Verdict: 3.5/5

This was a fine few weeks that had some big hills to climb and was able to make it over several of them. Things are good in wrestling and with All Elite Wrestling, amongst others, gaining traction globally, this might just be the year that turns wrestling back towards prosperity.