Wrestler of the Week: Kyle O’Reilly, Kyle last week had an amazing match on NXT TV for the UK title against Pete Dunne. That alone wouldn’t get him this spot but then on NXT Takeover, he had a fantastic tag team match with Roderick Strong against Danny Burch and Oney Lorcan. Kyle mixes amazing selling and great technical talent to perfection and makes the majority of his matches really fun.
Women’s Wrestler of the Week: Alexa Bliss, her performance at MITB was historic for women’s wrestling. As much as I think that she is overpushed she delivers when called upon. Bliss won a very good MITB match and cashed in on Nia Jax later the same night to win the RAW Women’s Championship. Alexa has already made a case for women’s wrestler of the month with her performance here and maybe women’s wrestler of the year.
Match of the Week: Johnny Gargano vs. Tomasso Ciampa in a Chicago Street Fight at NXT Takeover Chicago, I don’t know what else to say about this match. If you want to see more of my thoughts check out my review of Takeover Chicago (https://wrestlegrade.com/2018/06/17/nxt-takeover-chicago-2-review/). This match mixed storyline, brutality and work rate to make a masterpiece and one of my favorite matches ever.
The team of the Week: Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch, as previously mentioned there was an amazing tag match at NXT Takeover Chicago between Undisputed ERA and Oney and Burch. Oney and Burch were interesting choices for the challenger role but showed in the end that they deserved it. Lorcan really shined in the match and post-match they got a standing ovation. This week, these guys solidified themselves as serious contenders in the NXT Tag Division.
Leaderboard:
And STILL the leader of the race for Wrestler of the year…Kazuchika Okada
- Kazuchika Okada 122 points
- Kenny Omega 106 points
- The Young Bucks 100 points
- Will Ospreay 95 points
- Kota Ibushi 89 points
- Hiromu Takahashi 80 points
- Zack Sabre Jr. -Johnny Gargano 77 points
- Hiroshi Tanahashi -Marty Scurrl 53 points
- Hangman Page 51 points
- Andrade Almas -AJ Styles -Dalton Castle -Seth Rollins 50 points
- Cody 47 points
- Adam Cole 44 points
- Tomasso Ciampa 43 points
- Sanada -Jay White 41 points
- Minoru Suzuki -Brock Lesnar -Cedric Alexander 35 points
- Roderick Strong -Kyle O’Reilly 34 points
- The Miz -KUSHIDA 30 points
- Alexa Bliss 29 points
- Bobby Fish 28 points
- So Cal Uncensored -Pete Dunne -Hirooki Goto -Evil -Flip Gordon -Tetsuya Naito -The Briscoes 25 points
- Dragon Lee 23 points
- Shinsuke Nakamura 22 points
- Ronda Rousey -Jonathan Gresham -Jay Lethal -Killian Dain -Kalisto -Finn Balor -Aleister Black -SHO 20 points
- Matt Taven 18 points
- Charlotte -Chris Sabin 17 points
- Chris Jericho -Asuka -Usos -John Cena -Tomohiro Ishii -The Bar -Mustafa Ali -Braun Strowman -Ember Moon- The Tongans -Buddy Murphy -Jeff Hardy -Desperado -Silas Young 15 points
- Nia Jax 13 points
- YOH -Bobby Roode -sAnitY -Drew Gulak -Kenny King -Juice Robinson -Michael Elgin -Dave Finlay -Velveteen Dream -Ricochet -Lars Sullivan -EC3 -The Kingdom -Taiji Ishimori -Yoshinobu Kanemaru -Bludgeon Brothers -ACH 10 points
- Becky Lynch -Ruby Riott 8 points
- Carmella -Matt and Bray -Sumie Sakai 7 points
- Alex Shelley 6 points
- Jack Gallagher -New Day -Hideo Itami -Chase Owens -Beer City Bruiser -Trent Baretta -Sasha Banks -Shane Taylor -Togi Makabe -Yoshi-HASHI -Punishment Martinez -Dolph Ziggler -Kevin Owens -Sami Zayn -Baron Corbin -TJP -Akira Tozawa -Kurt Angle -HHH -Rysuke Taguchi 5 points
- Mandy Leon -Tenille Dashwood -Peyton Royce -OGBC -Lana -Burch and Lorcan 4 points