wrestling / Columns

411’s Wrestler of the Week – Ambrose on Top?

May 12, 2015 | Posted by Larry Csonka

Welcome to YEAR ELEVEN, WEEK 6 of 411’s Wrestler of the Week. A quick overview of the rules to kick things off for us as a reminder…

Each writer chooses FIVE wrestlers (although ties and tag teams are allowed) from any promotion and each wrestler gets a point total attached to that ranking. It looks a little like this…

1st – 5
2nd – 4
3rd – 3
4th – 2
5th – 1

Then we tally up the votes and the official 411 Wrestler of the Week is crowned. But wait, there’s more! Each week the top SIX vote getters get a points value for their ranking which looks something like this…

1st – 15
2nd – 12
3rd – 9
4th – 6
5th – 3
6th – 1

…and they go towards the 411 Wrestler of the Year award to be announced each year around WrestleMania. This will be posted every Tuesday (the voting week runs Monday through Sunday). Let’s see who wins this week…

Larry Csonka
1) Masato Tanaka & Takashi Sugiura:
Takashi Sugiura & Masato Tanaka defeated Lance Archer & Davey Boy Smith Jr. to win the 2015 Global Tag League tournament. They earned a title shot with the victory, and considering that Smith & Archer are the current GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Champions and the current NWA World Heavyweight Tag Team Champions, it makes the win even more impressive.

2) Dean Ambrose: Dean Ambrose defeated Seth Rollins on Raw, and that earned him a spot in the Payback main event, which is for the WWE Title. Despite some horrible booking Ambrose has remained over with the fanbase, and while he’s likely there to eat a pin, it’s good to see him get the chance. He’s going to work hard and try to make it hard for them to demote him, which I appreciate.
3) Alberto El Patron: Defeated Johnny Mundo in an excellent main event on last week’s Lucha Underground, Patron has looked great since his arrival and feels like a big star.
4) Minoru Tanaka
5) Sami Zayn

Eric Palmer
1) Dean Ambrose:
Ambrose finally won a big match when he beat WWE Champion Seth Rollins on Monday Night, a win that got him put into WWE Championship match at Payback. On Smackdown, he was basically the only thing that made the contract signing any kind of watchable. Ambrose is likely only in the match to take the pin, but at least it looks like he could be headed in the right direction for once.

2) Kurt Angle: Kurt Angle is crazy. I mean that quite literally. The guy is falling part and his body cannot be feeling too well right now. Still, he continues to put on quality matches every week and his feud with Eric Young has actually been mildly entertaining. I know TNA only has the title on him because Destination America wanted it that way, but it’s working out well for them as Angle has been a solid champion so far.
3) Alberto El Patron: There are a lot of people who hated Patron’s run in WWE as Alberto Del Rio. I actually thought he was great for the most part during his tenure and he was a very underrated worker in the ring. He continues to prove that point correct in Lucha Underground after a great match with Johnny Mundo.
4) Cherry Bomb
5) Masato Tanaka & Takashi Sugiura

Ryan Byers
1) Sami Zayn:
When you get your call-up to the WWE main roster and they immediately position you in a remarkably competitive match against the single biggest wrestling star on the planet, that’s an easy number one for the week. Even though Zayn ultimately lost the match, it was still a star-making performance, as those who already were familiar with him reacted so rabidly to the kid that the uninitiated will no doubt see him as a big deal from this point forward. Unfortunately, the quality of the match wasn’t quite up to Zayn’s normal standards because of a rotator cuff injury that he suffered during his entrance, but in this industry moments are usually more important than matches, and Sami was still able to create one helluva moment (pun fully intended).

2) T-Hawk: T-Hawk of Dragon Gate did quite a bit for himself this week. The company had a six-way escape the cage match in which the last man in would lose his hair. The battle came down to the young upstart T-Hawk and the DG veteran CIMA, and ultimately T-Hawk was victorious, setting up a large portion of the company’s roster assisting in the scalping of CIMA. Then, later in the week, T-Hawk was successful in a first round match of the annual King of Gate tournament, upsetting former Open the Dream Gate Champion YAMATO. Hawk has been pushed for a while as part of the Millennials stable, but now it appears that the company is getting behind him as a singles player.
3) Masato Tanaka & Takashi Sugiura: In a bit of a rarity for a Japanese promotion, Pro Wrestling NOAH had two major cards that fell within the same Wrestler of the Week voting period. Tanaka & Sugiura were featured on both those shows, in addition to also working for ZERO1. On the first NOAH show, the duo won the 2015 Global Tag League tournament, defeating the Killer Elite Squad in the finals after beating Daisuke Sekimoto & Kazushi Hashimoto earlier in the evening. This set up a rematch between KES and Tanaka/Sugiura on the second major NOAH show of the week with the Squad’s GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Titles on the line. Smith & Archer managed to win that match, but Tanaka & Sugiura rebounded, finishing out the week with a successful defense of their NWA Intercontinental Tag Team Titles in ZERO1, beating Shinjiro Otani and Kohei Sato.
4) Abdullah Kobayashi
5) Minoru Tanaka

Kevin Pantoja
1) Dean Ambrose:
Man, it has been a really long time since I put Dean Ambrose first on pretty much any list. Since the Shield split, the guy has been insanely over, but loses a ton. After finally picking up a singles PPV win at Extreme Rules for the first time since September 2013, he was scheduled to face Seth Rollins on Raw. Kane came out and declared that if Dean won, he’d get thrust into the main event at Payback. That gave the match some instant intrigue. Seth and Dean never disappoint when in the ring together and had the best match on a very good episode of Raw. Dean was able to score the win and earn a spot in a WWE Title match on Pay-Per-View. He also was the most enjoyable thing about the contract signing that took place on Smackdown. Granted, he’s probably just in there to eat the pin, but that doesn’t take away from his good week.

2) Alberto El Patron: Alberto El Patron is one of my favorite guys in all of wrestling right now. This past week on Lucha Underground, he faced another former WWE star and relative big name in Johnny Mundo. These two never really got to interact much in WWE but now in Lucha Underground, they were given a shot together. These two tore the house down. I no longer get El Rey Network, but was able to see this and it was great. El Patron was able to win, earning his spot on this list. I feel that life in Lucha Underground/AAA is perfect for him and he’s delivering there every chance he gets.
3) Sami Zayn: With the John Cena Open Challenge, the excitement is always there to see who accepts. After a fun start, some of the recent acceptances have been dull (Kane, I’m looking at you). That all changed this past Monday in Montreal as Sami Zayn accepted in front of his hometown. Not only that but he was introduced by Bret fucking Hart. The match that followed was really good and was a great way to introduce Sami Zayn to the main roster as the crowd was red hot for him. He took the 15 time World Champion to the limit and looked great in defeat. The only drawback to his week was that he was injured in the process and may have to miss significant time.
4) Kurt Angle
5) Cherry Bomb

Mike Hammerlock
1) Alberto El Patron and Johnny Mundo:
They put on a fabulous match, going after each with their heaviest artillery. The bout was dripping with respect, both guys knowing it would take their A game to get the win. Even better, they went at each other full force to get a crack at Hernandez in a #1 contender’s match for Prince Puma’s Lucha Underground title. Talk about elevating the stakes in your promo. This was the match to get to the match to get to the match. I picked both guys rather than just El Patron because, despite the official ruling, both of their shoulders are clearly on the mat for the pinfall. I’ll say it again: one hour of Lucha Underground > five hours of Raw and Smackdown.

2) Dean Ambrose: Big win for him over Rollins and nice to see him inserted into the somewhat uninspired WWE main event mix. Ambrose brings an element of unpredictability. We’ve almost got the three-man dream Shield match we’ve wanted, though Randy Orton is in there as the spare wheel. Let’s see if they take this storyline where it most needs to go, which is Ambrose and Reigns developing some full-fledged beef.
3) New Day: They beat both the former champs on Smackdown and Orton/Reigns on Raw. Did someone slip Vince McMahon a mickey and book the tag champs strong while he was passed out? Whatever happened, keep doing it.
4) Kurt Angle
5) Takashi Sugiura and Masato Tanaka

Mike Chin
1) Dean Ambrose:
Even though he’s everyone’s favorite to take the fall at Payback, Dean Ambrose has won his way into the WWE Championship match at the show, an improbable spot, and one that should add some extra spice to the in-ring action at the PPV. Moreover, beating Seth Rollins on Raw shores up Ambrose’s spot as an upper card commodity for WWE–a far from certain spot for him in 2015.

2) Sami Zayn: Sami Zayn pulled off a heck of a Raw debut opposite John Cena, made all the more remarkable for working with a shoulder injury. Here’s hoping WWE took notice of the live audience reaction and Zayn has some big things ahead of him when he’s healthy and makes it to the main roster full time.
3) New Day: Amidst a Raw that featured very good Ambrose-Rollins and Cena-Zayn, it was easy to overlook New Day’s performance opening match. The three-man team that holds the tag titles winning a handicap match probably should be a foregone conclusion, but in the contemporary WWE landscape, this trio beating Roman Reigns and Randy Orton was a tremendous upset and confirmed that, at least for the moment, WWE is serious about them.
4) Alberto El Patron
5) Kurt Angle

Jeremy Thomas
1) Dean Ambrose:
Whether he ends up being the guy who gets pinned or not, just the fact that he’s in the WWE World Heavyweight Title match at WWE Payback is a huge, huge elevation for Ambrose. The Lunatic Fringe has been mired in midcard feuds for a while now and he’s got the chance to force WWE management to consider him a permanent upper-midcarder, a chance I expect him to pounce on.

2) Sami Zayn: Made his main roster debut and had a great match with John Cena that, while he lost, really put him over. Of course he could be out a while which sucks, but that first impression won’t be forgotten.
3) Kurt Angle: Successfully defended the TNA World Title against Eric Young in a pretty damned good match.
4) Masato Tanaka and Takashi Sugiura
5) Alberto El Patron

Jack McGee
1) Masato Tanaka & Takashi Sugiura:
In what i felt was easily the biggest accomplishment of the week, the team of Masato Tanaka & Takashi Sugiura defeated the Killer Elite Squad to win the 2015 Global Tag League tournament. A huge accomplishment and an easy pick for me this week.

2) Alberto El Patron: Defeated Johnny Mundo in what I felt was an EXCELLENT main event on Lucha Underground, I feel that this was one of their best matches to date, and Patron is now one step closer to earning himself a title shot.
3) Minoru Tanaka: Defeated Kaz Hayashi to become the FIRST EVER Wrestle-1 Cruiserweight Champion in the finals of their tournament. He also defeated El Hijo del Pantera in the semifinals, which were on the same show.
4) Dean Ambrose
5) Sami Zayn

THE WINNERS~!
* Special Mention… Minoru Tanaka, Kofi Kingston, Xavier Woods and Big E – 6 Votes

* Fifth Place…Kurt Angle – 12 Votes

* Fourth Place…Masato Tanaka & Takashi Sugiura – 17 Votes

* Third Place…Sami Zayn – 18 Votes

Made a great impression on Raw in his match with John Cena.

* Second Place…Alberto El Patron -22 Votes

Was part of a great match with Johnny Mundo and is one step closer to getting a shot at the Lucha underground Title.

* And 411’s Wrestler of the Week is…
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photo Dean Ambrose WOTW 51115_zpswl2r4skb.jpg

Dean Ambrose – 30 Votes

Dean. Fucking. Ambrose.

The Standings
Here are the standings after week SIX…

Kofi Kingston – 16 pts.
Big E – 16 pts.

AJ Styles – 15 pts.
Hideo Itami – 15 pts.
Dean Ambrose – 15 pts.
Randy Orton – 15 pts.
Matt Hardy – 15 pts.
Jeff Hardy – 15 pts.
Hirooki Goto – 15 pts.

Prince Puma – 13 pts.

Mike Bennett – 12 pts.
Matt Taven – 12 pts.
“Speedball” Mike Bailey – 12 pts.
Rich Swann – 12 pts.
Ivelisse – 12 pts.
Angelico – 12 pts.
Son of Havoc – 12 pts.
Alberto El Patron – 12 pts.

Kurt Angle – 9 pts.
Togi Makabe – 9 pts.
Roman Reigns – 9 pts.
Sami Zayn – 9 pts.
Rocky Romero – 9 pts.
Trent Baretta – 9 pts.
Kimber Lee – 9 pts.
Cherry Bomb – 9 pts.
Drago – 9 pts.

Masato Tanaka – 6 pts.
Takashi Sugiura – 6 pts.
King Bad News Barrett – 6 pts.
Seth Rollins – 6 pts.
Brock Lesnar – 6 pts.
Nicole Matthews – 6 pts.