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With another week of WWE television behind us, here’s the top 5 performances of the week.
WWE offers up plenty of programming over the course of a week. Even when there’s no pay per view, there’s at least seven hours of original programming. With Raw and SmackDown Live on USA, plus 205 Live and NXT on the WWE Network, it’s a lot to focus on at times.
But for those of us who can make it through the marathon, there’s usually quite a bit to keep our interest. Regardless of what some people say about the quality of programming, as far as in-ring talent goes this is one of the golden periods for WWE. Sure, storylines may be stale, boring, and ridiculous – even nonsensical – but the matches themselves are rarely terrible across the board.
To try and keep track of who stood out on a week to week basis, here at Daily DDT we’ll be taking a look at the top five performers in a given week. Since WWE is a wrestling company (despite what Vince McMahon may try and tell us), we’re going to focus on wrestling performances.
5. Jack Gallagher
To be completely honest, just about the entire 205 Live roster had a great showing this week. Rich Swann and TJP had a nifty little match on 205 Live. Drew Gulak got through some more of his PowerPoint presentation before being questioned by the Fashion Police. But Gallagher takes the cake this week.
On 205 Live, The Brian Kendrick squared off against Cedric Alexander in the main event. As the match drew near its conclusion, “Gentleman” Jack’s theme music played as he hurried to the ring. Kendrick looked to arm himself with the ring bell, but Gallagher shocked everyone by attacking Alexander.
The potential alliance between Gallagher and Kendrick – bitter rivals for the past several weeks – is a great move for everyone. A less cartoony, more brutal Gentleman Jack could be a boon to the cruiserweight division. If Kendrick is confused at to what’s going on, he can play that up really well, too. And Alexander gets another superstar to feud with – and Gallagher/Cedric could be a great rivalry over the next few weeks.
4. Kairi Sane
Sandwiched between SmackDown and 205 Live this week was the Mae Young Classic finale. And at first glance, it seemed to be a terrible idea, just based on crowd reaction.
With the exception of the finale, the MYC took place at Full Sail University. If there’s one thing about the WWE Universe that’s a certainty, it’s that a Full Sail crowd is rabid. But a SmackDown crowd who just sat through two hours of uneven action? That’s a whole different beast.
As Shayna Baszler and Kairi Sane made their way to the ring for the tournament final, the arena was silent. Like, pin drop silent. How anyone can sit on their hands while Sane is coming out dressed as a literal pirate princess is beyond me. The two standout superstars faced a pretty steep uphill battle to get the crowd on their side.
But here’s the thing: they did it. The story of the match was pretty simple – Baszler has a huge size advantage, so Sane had to weather the storm of a more powerful opponent. And because both women are hugely talented, they nailed every part of the match. By the end of it, the arena was loud – at least as loud as parts of SmackDown, if not louder.
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Sane gets the nod here because she won the match – and the tournament – but Baszler deserves some recognition as well. It was a risky move holding the live finale after a TV taping as opposed to at Full Sail. But it absolutely paid off, and was well worth it.
3. Tye Dillinger
I don’t want this column to necessarily become “The Tye Dillinger Fan Club Hour,” but you can’t deny that he’s been on fire lately. Last week, The Perfect Ten made the list for making Baron Corbin look like a million bucks. This week, Dillinger again had one of the best matches of the night on Tuesday’s SmackDown.
AJ Styles announced that the US Championship Open Challenge was closed to all superstars except Tye Dillinger. Because Baron Corbin had interfered with their match a few weeks back, Styles felt Dillinger earned a rematch. And this week on SmackDown, he nearly made the most of it by taking Styles to the limit.
When all was said and done, Dillinger tapped out to the Calf Crusher. But there were several moments during the match where it looked like he may actually do the unthinkable and win the US Title. After he hit Styles with the Tye Breaker (which looked brutal this week), he got a near fall of 2.9999999.
While the fairy tale run for Dillinger is likely done after this week, he’s had two of his best matches in WWE in back to back weeks. By now, he should have proven that it’s not just the “Ten” chants that are over with the fans – Tye himself is, too. Maybe there’s no more US Title shots in his near future, but he should continue to be a featured player on SmackDown for the foreseeable future.
2. Pete Dunne
The WWE United Kingdom Championship has been sporadically defended since first awarded in January 2017. Until the anticipated WWE UK show launches, it seems that NXT is the home of the UK Title.
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This past week, Pete Dunne defended his championship against Wolfgang. The match came about after Dunne and Wolfgang teamed up together to defeat Moustache Mountain in a tag match. Wolfgang scored the pin, and felt it earned him a title match. Dunne agreed, and it happened this week.
One thing the WWE UK superstars have proven every time out since the initial championship tournament is that every one of them is capable of having a stellar match. The most well-known names to American viewers before the tournament were likely Dunne, Tyler Bate, Trent Seven, and Mark Andrews. So seeing The Bruiserweight have a great match isn’t surprising.
If Dunne is going to continue to get matches like this on NXT regularly, he could very well develop into a star of the brand. Sure, WWE is looking to get their UK show off the ground, but I’ll believe it when I see it. If it ends up not materializing, there’s a regular home for Dunne in NXT. He can continue to tear it up, as he did this past week.
1. The Miz
Looking back at Raw this week, I realized something: no one really stood out as a top performer from an in-ring standpoint. Every superstar who competed Monday night kind of fell into the same category of “unspectacular but sufficient” ring work.
I could have gone with Roman Reigns or Jason Jordan, who had possibly the best match of the night to open the show. Or I could have gone with Braun Strowman, who just continues to be a must see attraction every single week. But instead, I chose The Miz, and for a very simple reason.
On Raw, Miz ended up in an impromptu match with Enzo Amore. Leaving aside that we’re finally allowing cruiserweights to interact with the main roster, it provided a chance for two of WWE’s top talkers to clash. But, because talking is such a strong point for both Miz and Enzo, the decision to have them do a promo battle mid match was genius.
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It may not have been the best match of the night from a technical standpoint. But Enzo and The Miz did a better job of story telling during their match than most superstars ever do in this day and age. Yeah, they literally used words to do it, but who cares? Promos in matches are rare and much welcomed, and I’ll look for any reason to give props to The Miz that I can find.