NXT Episode 221 5/15/14 Review

1. The Ascension vs. Buddy Murphy & Elias Sampson

Quick squash with Sampson not getting in the ring, and Murphy getting steamrolled. Konnor throws several really great stomps to Murphy's chest, and then leveled him with the Fall of Man, which Murphy takes great, really folds himself up.

2. Alexa Bliss vs. Charlotte

Oh yay back to back weeks of Bliss. And it was mostly an extended Charlotte squash, which is for the best as Bliss looks better sitting in a submission than trying to struggle through offense. She still did her overly complicated and clunky roll up (which beat Fox last week) and almost drops herself on her head while bumping a knee to the stomach. Charlotte has a really great abdominal stretch, where she wrenches it in and violently cranks the person's neck. So that was nice. But this wasn't much.

3. Mojo Rawley vs. Aiden English

Bummed that English had to get fed to Rawley, but English made him look good and actually had a real (albeit only 3-4 minute) match with him. Mojo can't do much so the whole match was English doing his thing until we get the go home sign and Mojo does his shoulderblocks, rear view and bombs away, in order, as always. Really wish they were giving Mojo his ring time off TV, as I'd much rather see English in a real match.

4. Angelo Dawkins vs. Colin Cassady

Man now we get a Big Cass extended squash. What the hell is with this episode? Cass is a guy with some cool short strikes: I really like his body shots and knees. But all of his impact offense looks bad. He's like a guy who grew up idolizing Test. And SAWFT was amusing for like two matches, but I have a feeling I'm going to be seeing him use it for a couple years.

5. Tyson Kidd vs. Tyler Breeze vs. Sami Zayn

This is for the opportunity to face Adrian Neville at the upcoming TakeOver show, but damn I just wish they had done a singles. Any three of these guys would match up nicely in a singles. But I suppose it's not crazy for the winner to face Neville for the title, and the two losers of this match fight at TakeOver, with the winner of that maybe getting a shot down the line. If that's what they plan to do. And this match just never clicked. We had some classic triple threat disappearances, and couple silly trainwreck spots, and guys selling like they had been through the war of their lives after 7 minutes. This whole thing is mostly flat, but it didn't get truly bad until the premature WARTIME selling. The type of shit where a guy breaks up a pinfall and all three lie on the mat selling and breathing heavy, like they just got done with a Godspell performance. All three men, lying there selling as if they've never been more tired, even though all one man did was pull another man off of another man.

This was a bad show right here, filled with squash matches of a couple of my least favorite guys, and topped with a lousy main event.


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