NXT Episode 208 Workrate Report 2/11/14

1. Natalya, Bayley & Emma vs. Alicia Fox, Sasha Banks & Summer Rae

Oh weird. I saw Bayley wrestle a few times in Bay Area wrestling promotions as Davina Rose and dug her then. She was always a heel there, though. This was a really fun trios. All of the stuff between Banks and Natalya was really good. Banks bumps around for her in that fun Diva way where they don't look totally trained and it makes the bumps look nastier. She and Summer Rae play chicken nicely, both sprinting away from Natalya while Natalya gets to throw in her comparative power offense. Most of this is Bayley getting worked over by Fox and Rae, with Fox's work being much better. Rae threw a nice butt bump after choking Bayley over the ropes (and then had a really embarrassing slow crawl to the hot tag), but Fox is really great at building to a babyface comeback, as she really yanks in chin locks and actively taunts faces (also threw a mean Northern Lights with a crazy high bridge). Emma is kept out of this until the finish which is probably best. Emma did a nice sunset flip and I do dig the Emma Lock. She just doesn't do much for me yet.

2. Aiden English vs. Colin Cassady

Cassady looks a lot like Edge and wears a gigantic goofy gold chain. He's billed as being almost 7 feet tall but I don't know how accurate that is. I'm not sure how big English is so I don't really have any context for that height. Cassady seems alright but didn't get to do much. English looked really good here, with a nasty spinning neckbreaker, nicely elbowing his way out of a fallaway slam, and running hard into Cassady's (nice looking) punches and big boot. This was a short match and I assumed the guy being billed as 7' would go over, but was pleasantly surprised to see English get the win.

Big promo setting up Sami Zayn vs. Antonio Cesaro for the NXT live show a couple weeks after this. I have not seen any of their NXT matches, but I've seen Claudio vs. Generico live and was a huge fan of that, so I'm excited to see them again. Cesaro has obviously been one of the best in the world for some time, and while I was never as high on Generico as most, it's clear that these two match up nicely. I dig how they're setting up that big live show. Although seeing Zayn wearing a t-shirt under a baggy blazer made me want to see Cesaro dismantle him. Regal on commentary puts over how incredible their last match was and how excited he was to see the rematch. Regal is so fucking stellar on commentary, and a big key is because he doesn't force talking points, doesn't sound like he's shilling anything, everything about him sounds like he's just giving his genuine thoughts. Michael Cole is the shits as he just spews constant buzzwords and shouts in soundbites. It gets fucking unbearable. Regal is calm, doesn't shout out his phony sounding cliches, and just seems like he enjoys what he enjoys. Renee Young is really great too and sounds like she knows her stuff. Her interactions with Regal are gold. Although god is the Simpsons "Choo-Choo-Choose Me" line the only one anybody in WWE knows? Feels like I've heard it three times on TV this year.

3. Tye Dillinger vs. "Moonchild" CJ Parker

1 minute match which is a real bummer. There's no real reason to do 1 minute matches these days. Especially disappointing as both guys looked good. Well, Moonchild doesn't look good, he's horrible to look at. He looks like a man who refuses to leave an Umphrey's McGee show because they may come out for another set. "I'm not leaving until I get a Trenchtown Rock cover!" Dillinger hits the mat and looks great on it, and if Regal is putting over your matwork on commentary then you're doing something well. Things pretty much end here with Parker hitting a nice senton, airplane spin and then the most awesomely ridiculous palm strike called the Third Eye, which is basically a Shoryuken.

After the match Parker gets on the stick and breaks out some insanely great hippie heel work. "You people boo me? I should be booing you for what you're doing to the polar ice caps!" Talks about how his modified Ford Fiesta gets 40 mpg and how he always practices recycle/reduce/reuse. Yes! This motherfucker joins the loop and I want more heel hippie dirtfuck. "I was the guy picking up garbage at Reggae on the River, and now I'm the ones picking up wins in NXT!"

4. Luke Harper & Erick Rowan vs. two guys

Surprised to see the Wyatts here but their appearance is just a brief kiss, as Harper blasts one guy off the apron with a beastly running elbow and this doesn't really go 30 seconds. Just a mauling.


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