Ambrose v Wyatt!

Dean Ambrose v Bray Wyatt (Smackdown!, 6/13/14)

So Ambrose is pretty much 2009 Christian at this point. Every week on TV since the turn (and before that) he's been awesome. This was like one of those Christian matches where he sells nerve damage in his elbow or something, but I think I like Ambrose even more just because he injects so much character into it. He starts out all frantic like he usually does, grinding his wrist across Bray's eyes, using all of his limbs in really awkward ways to inflict punishment. Bray then catches him off a plancha and does his Vader-ish chokeslam throwing Ambrose into the ring apron shoulder first. Ambrose's sell of the shoulder is awesome from then on out. He kind of throws his shoulder into the mat and turnbuckles at one point like he's trying to knock it back into place, and there's a great bit where Bray has him in a nerve hold and Ambrose's arm is twitching and quivering like he has no control over it. Re-watching a bunch of ROH from the last decade I got real sick real quick of Nigel McGuinness' rebound lariat, but Ambrose seems to be using it as a regular hope spot now and it looks totally killer. It never looks contrived when he does it, because he's doing it with enough speed and snap that it actually looks like he's hitting it on the rebound. Nigel would just sorta stand a guy in the middle of the ring, half fall through the ropes, bounce back and hit the lariat. Several dozen times a match. It started looking really goofy. Just hit the fucking ropes like normal and stop being a numpty about it. He'd generate more force that way, because at least then he wouldn't have to stagger his stride and awkwardly untangle himself from the ropes. None of that applies to Ambrose's version. I don't remember what Bray did here to send him into the ropes in the first place, but Dean sold it like something that would actually send you through the ropes, not just into them. There was a reason he hit the lariat that way, and it looked like something that made sense at that point in time, not just something that's been shoehorned in because it's a part of his moveset (I'll probably be bitching about Ambrose using the rebound lariat in six month's time, but for now I'm a fan). I liked Bray a bunch in this as well. He works the arm in neat ways and I love his cross body blocks. He did one where he was on the floor and squashed Ambrose's arm into the ring post, and the one he usually does where he really launches himself at a guy looked as good as I've ever seen it. It looks half like a cross body and half like a running clothesline, and it always looks badass. I'm leaning more towards saying Ambrose is the best worker in the world right now every time I see him.