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Wrestler of the Week, Week 5 - Jan 31-Feb 6

5. Rhea Ripley
The last thing Rhea did this week nearly entirely removed her from this list, which was deliver a hokey "we. are. nxt." line. Especially frustrating as a character like Ripley should feel bigger than a brand, and there's no reason for her to be friendly with Bianca before their match. That said,I still thought Rhea's stock continued to rise this week, as she looks to be entering in a program with the linchpin of the women's division for Wrestlemania, which does a lot to legitimize both her and the NXT Championships as something a Rumble winner would challenge for.

4. Ricochet
Since Paul Heyman took over Raw, it's been evident that he has three pet projects - Drew McIntyre, Aleister Black, and Ricochet. That continued to come together in the Royal Rumble, as Drew and Ricochet were the chosen two to finally overcome Brock, which - along with Ricochet having an angle with Brock the week before the Rumble - you had to figure was going to pay off in a match down the line, and we took the next step there this week with Ricochet getting the win over two of the most featured guys on Raw this year and setting up a match with Lesnar that should continue his streak of having great matches with smaller guys.

3. Zack Sabre Jr.
Zack not only had a predictably great match with Will Ospreay where, at least in my eyes, Zack clearly looked the star of the match, and in forcing Will to work Zack's style of match, gave you another compelling side to Ospreay's game we don't usually see and kept the match feeling fresh - he also, less predictably, retained the British Heavyweight Title in doing so. The two would go on to be the final two in a fun elimination tag a few nights later, where Ospreay would get a pin on Sabre setting up a rematch next weekend in London, where Will can finally save BritWres.

2. Robbie Eagles
This time period covers 5 matches for Eagles - first, in two nights in Sapporo he steals the show in a pair of undercard tags that deliver at a level higher than you usually see in that spot on a New Japan card, and gets the win over BUSHI with the Ron Miller Special in both matches. He would go on to three nights at Korakuen in similar tags, and while he would drop a fall to Hiromu (who Robbie already has a win over from his return match) on night 1, he'd get another win over DOUKI on night 2 leading tohis challenge, alongside CHAOS stablemates Ishii and Goto, for the NEVER 6-man titles against the LIJ team of BUSHi, EVIL and Shingo. Robbie put up a herculean effort, as he had all 5 nights, in what might be the best NEVER 6 man title match to date, but just falls short to BUSHI with the mist. Robbie managed to stand out in every one of these matches, which is impressive when you're in with talent like Hiromu, Ryu Lee, Shingo, Ishii and Goto every night, but my God this week has me excited for what Eagles is going to do in 2020.

1. Shingo Takagi
Still, for every how excited I am about Eagles in 2020, it's a man on the other side of most of those matches who has me most excited now. Shingo would begin the week by capturing the NEVER Openweight Title from Hirooki Goto in an awesome match, then delivering a promo setting up 4 challengers for his new title, including a confrontation with SHO which brings flashbacks to their BOSJ opening night match last year. It looks like Ishii will be his first challenger, and there's potentially another match with Goto or even a match with Eagles down the line - plus, I seem to remember Will Ospreay being pretty caught up in that NEVER scene last year - perhaps he might take interest in the Dragon again. How can you not be excited about Shingo's year with just that list of possibilities?


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