Last week was dominated by tag team matches, the writers and podcasters have made their opinions known. Joining Alpha vs Omega, will be, reDragon vs Aleister Black & Roderick Strong. This week’s matches are a little bit better overall quality, and easy to watch for the average wrestling fan.

Now let’s get to the part that everyone cares about:

5. Impact: Barbed Wire Massacre 3: LAX vs oVe

The proverbial blow off match between these two teams. After spending the better portion of the last 6 months being the only two tag teams in Impact Wrestling they had almost every kind of match you can think of. Prompted by a combination of oVe losing the belts to LAX a few weeks ago, oVe raiding the LAX clubhouse and Sami Callihan throwing a fireball in Konnan’s face…violence was bound to ensue.

Deemed “Too Violent for TV”, this was Impact’s first match broadcasted on their Twitch channel. So given that moniker you would expect a bloodbath, well, and the fact the ropes were replaced with barbed wire. However, this match started off rather tame and spots into the barbed wire seemed very soft and ill timed.

Eventually the match picked up, and there were a few decent spots, at one point Jake Crist got wrapped up in the barbed wire ropes and sandwiched with a barbed wire board. The blood never really became a thing, but the ending spot was actually pretty good. Callihan spread Santana across two tables, Dave Crist was climbing a ladder ready to drive him through, Konnan slides in, lays out Sami with a barbed wire bat, which gives Santana the opportunity to climb the ladder trade a few blows, then sticks Dave Crist with a handful of wooden skewers in his forehead (shades of Masada) and Superplexes Dave Crist through the two tables for the pinfall victory.

Was it as good as the hype made it out to be? No, not even close. But it was still a decent enough match, and the free Twitch aspect and the fact they later loaded it onto Youtube, makes it easy to access and could generate some buzz for a company that seems to be trying a lot just to regain relevance.

Rating: ** 1/2 (Silver II)

4. Raw: Nia Jax vs Asuka

Now I usually don’t put more than one Raw match on these lists, but that’s also because usually there’s only one match that isn’t terribly mediocre. This match was surprising for many reasons, but primarily the fact that both women did their thing and work well together.

This was a better match than what we got in NXT, and that’s probably thanks to Nia having a bit more experience under her belt. We saw some nice back and forth, with Nia actually using her size well causing issues for Asuka. Now the reason this isn’t ranked higher is just because the ending was awkward and pretty terrible.

Aside from the obvious of it was an ending to protect both wrestlers, it was a finish that didn’t make sense for Asuka’s character. Sure, Nia showed resolve by limping back in to beat the 10 count, but Asuka is known to be a crazy and aggressive wrestler. So given what we know, her laying on the ropes and watching Nia get up and fall down 3 times isn’t something she’d do. We’ve seen her exploit injuries in the past and go after people when they show weakness because her goal is purely to win.

So regardless of the ending endearing Nia to the crowd, it made Asuka look gassed and like the injury saved her streak. Which isn’t really something you want to be doing with a character you’re building as a buzzsaw.

Ranking: *** (Gold V)

3. Smackdown Live: Bobby Roode vs Mojo Rawley

Now, I didn’t expect to have a Mojo Rawley match on my list…well…ever. But this match was easily the best of the US Championship Tournament and actually did well in making Rawley look like an up and coming heel.

Mojo was aggressive, landed big body shots and even injured Roode’s ribs, which played into the rest of this match, as well as the main event with Jinder later in the night. Mojo was written off, and honestly we got the finals everyone expected (Roode vs Jinder), but if they can maintain this direction with Mojo, we could see the rise of a solid heel.

Nothing more to really say beyond, if you didn’t see it, watch it. Between his Twitter promos and his last few matches, we might be seeing the beginnings of something special.

Rating: *** 1/4 (Gold IV)

2. NWA: Empty Arena Match: Tim Storm vs Jocephus

Okay, I’ll be THAT guy; this match had no business being as good as it was. If you’ve watched the, “Ten Pounds of Gold” series on YouTube, and the subsequent matches Storm had when he was champion, you’d realize those weren’t that good.

Storm came out of the gates hot and dominated the better portion of this match. His smack talk was much better than whatever the announce team was trying to add, and the level of hatred was palpable through the screen. Even though it was a hardcore match for all intents and purposes, it had an old school vibe, most likely because the malice was more believable in this match, than most I’ve seen in the last 20 years.

The call backs were good in this match, even going as far as Storm finding a container of salve and was about to put some on his fingers and jam them into his eyes saying something to the effect of ” let’s remove 100% of your vision”, before Jocephus hits a desperation low blow, and then another. It was at this point the match shifted and Storm was never really able to recover. The ending could be considered a callback also since Jocephus used the ladder to injure Storm so Nick Aldis could beat him easily for the belt, and the finish was Storm going from the apron, through a ladder propped between the apron and barricade for Jocephus to pick up the pinfall.

Now I’m pretty sure this match had Tim Storm’s rematch on the line, so Jocephus getting a shot at Nick Aldis should be interesting with the new addition of the Spiritual Adviser and Austin Idol, respectively. Either way, if that match is more of a brawl and less of a match, it might actually be something to watch.

Ranking: *** 1/2 (Gold III)

1. Raw: Finn Balor vs Seth Rollins

It’s very few and far between that either of these two put on a bad match. Storyline nuances may have given this match that extra little bit to pop it into the Platinum territory for me.

Since these two have history with the first ever Universal Title match, it adds a nice level meaning to every move. We also have the nice aspect that they use a few similar moves, so we can see counters to something like a Slingblade, which we usually wouldn’t get unless watching NJPW. So the chess game of when to pull the trigger on certain moves was a very nice change from the usual formulaic WWE match.

The interesting nuance is the fact that Jason Jordan interferes by tripping Finn Balor, thus, setting him up perfectly for the Curb Stomp/Blackout. That’s interesting not because Rollins pulls off the Curb Stomp, but because Rollins didn’t hesitate in taking advantage of obvious cheating. This could mean that Jordan is trying to sway Rollins towards being a heel again, or if we get the cop out of “Rollins thought Finn tripped”, that’s just dumb.

So with Jordan slowly doing more heelish things, and Rollins going from admonishing him to rolling with it…makes this probably the most interesting story on Raw.

Ranking: **** (Platinum V)

Alrighty then, now I have to do that whole thing where I choose one of the Top 5 as my pick for match of the week. So I’m figuring that Rollins vs Balor will win the week, but I’m gonna vote for, Tim Storm vs Jocephus NWA. That one gets my vote mainly because it was such a surprise. The quality was pretty good, the story telling, the psychology, everything that makes wrestling “wrestling” was present in this match.

That does it for this week’s matches. Go home, get drunk, watch whatever you missed.