NXT 230 7/10/14 Review

1. Bayley vs. Summer Rae

This is just about the most natural of personality match-ups, as Bayley is inherently likeable, whereas Summer Rae has a face of someone who should never be booked as likeable. It's pretty basic, and both are good at what they do. Bayley is good at frustrating Summer with her kind of playful sloppiness when doing amateur rolls on the mat (with Summer hilariously kicking her legs in a tantrum), and Summer does mean unnecessary things like palm Bayley's face during pinfalls. Neither thing would make a victory more likely, but they were perfect character moments that illustrated why this was a nice match-up. Albert is back on commentary and as awful as ever, unable to make satisfying points from a logic or kayfabe perspective. "She didn't get all of that kick!" he was quick to blurt over everybody, after a Summer kick that mostly hit fine and was sold as such. After saying Summer earned a title shot because she was in a movie, he then compares her to Trish Stratus. None of his points make sense within a storyline or any other sense, his allegiances switch mid match, he's just really really bad at his job. Sometimes he goes for comedy, other times he supports a heel, none of it lands. But Bayley/Summer is a fun match and Albert is NOT going to ruin it for me! Summer is someone who really wasn't utilized much on the main roster as a wrestler, which is a shame as she's really not bad, and has more personality than most. Her role on Total Divas has made me laugh more than most on that show. And here I liked the struggle over the finish, with Summer blocking the Bayley to Belly a couple times before planting her with her axe leg drop. So far all the people coming back to NXT after a "demotion" have been really fun and nicely integrated into the existing NXT roster.

2. Sin Cara vs. Wesley Blake

I think I may be the biggest Wesley Blake fan. I like keeping mostly out of the present day NXT loop, so it's fun watching and enjoying a guy like Blake and not knowing what is going to happen to him. Maybe he's released before 2014, maybe he's repackaged and super popular now. My only real insight into NXT beyond the stuff I've watched so far, is the guys who show up on WWE TV. I obviously know guys like Aiden English, sadly Big Cass, sadly Mojo Rawley, etc. will continue to be in these reports because they eventually made the main roster. But a guy like Blake? I have no clue, and that's fun for me. Blake is really good at constructing 3 minute matches, with him on the losing end. Cara is in to hit all his shit, and it can't be a coincidence that this was the best I've seen some of Cara's spots look. Blake got into position for runs of Cara offense better than anybody I've seen on the main roster, ate those springboard crossbodys, took a huge bump over the top and then sprawled big into the entrance ramp catching a dive. For his part he made his brief moments count, blasting Cara with a great uppercut and surprising him (and me) with an even greater right hand. His single arm DDT was swank and lead to him stomping the arm and yanking on it, and Cara was kind enough to sell it for him. Super fun match, did tons with the time. I think with 90 more seconds this would land on my "Recommended NXT" list.

They're kind of bonering up this Tyson Kidd bitter vet angle with the inclusion of Nattie. Kidd as the dickhead falling from grace relegated to developmental vet? Awesome. Nattie asking him about his moral compass? Death. Unless it's building to a Nattie heel swerve, her presence is just muddying waters. We already see them on Total Divas and know they're essentially a normal married couple, her inclusion tries to bring too much real life into a great wrestling angle, and it's coming out worse on the other side. They're overthinking this thing.

CJ Parker comes out to offer a somewhat loaded apology to Xavier Woods, and "I'm offering you peace. I suggest you accept it," is a quote that perfectly nails the annoying heel nuance of Parker's character. The manipulative dirt fuck hippy is a great heel character, and Parker gets the finer points correct. A guy who makes good points but has a smug and self righteous way of delivering those points is the kind of character who works great on a show like this, and something that would get immediately clipped to hell on the main brand. On Smackdown he would just be a hippy heel, and the crowd would just be expected to boo him because he's a hippy. His apology to Xavier is somewhat sincere and that's what makes him jumping Xavier even better.

3. Bull Dempsey vs. Angelo Dawkins
At first all three announcers were laying it on real thick about Dempsey's body, really putting over that he's unique because he doesn't have abs. Just within this match it was already making me want to dislike Dempsey, and that's crazy if any of you know how much I love fat wrestlers. And yeah having a guy who looks like Dempsey on your roster is much more rare these days, but announcers didn't have to point out just how fat Blackwell or One Man Gang or Tenta were, because they were clearly big awesome fat dudes. And maybe that's part of the problem with Dempsey, is that they're spending so much time talking about how unique his round physique is, but truthfully he's not that far away from being in fine cosmetic shape. Those other guys either died fat or - in the case of OMG - spent the last 20 years slowly slimming down so that he now suddenly looks like Richard Moll. Dempsey looks like a guy who can go on a 6 month crossfit binge and look like a hairier version of every other physique in NXT. So it comes off like them trying hard to point out just how unique he is, because the thing that they say is unique isn't really special. He comes off more as an out of shape guy than a wild fat guy. The guy needs to pack on another 50 lb. to actually look wrestler fat. BUT. But. Eventually everybody shuts up, and I can just enjoy Dempsey beating up Dawkins, and that is very enjoyable. While he might not totally live up to how they're billing him, he comes off very well in the ring. Loved him turning a Dawkins' armdrag into a slick side headlock, his body shots are great, his elbows are great, really carries himself like a tank throughout the whole thing. He's a guy I would have liked anyway, without all of the spoon feeding from the announce crew. This match was basically a Dempsey showcase, but also gave us by far our longest look at Angelo Dawkins. We've seen him get zero offense against Big Cass, zero offense against Tyler Breeze, and not even get tagged in against the Vaudevillains. We know he's tall. That's about what we know. But this match filled things in a bit! He took a nice beating from Bull, threw an insanely high dropkick, seemed like a guy you wouldn't mind seeing more from; another guy like Wesley Blake who for all I know was never used again after this taping. I'm excited to see where he and Bull go, and I liked all of what I saw here from both.


4. Sami Zayn & Adrian Neville vs. Justin Gabriel & Tyson Kidd
I was really liking this, even through a couple of clunky Kidd cross-ups, but Natalya's involvement in the veteran dickhead Tyson Kidd story is just the pits. She's a lousy actress, and there were too many moments where she acted all over the place. She's too over the top when she's supposed to be subtle, and I just really wish the storyline had not included her. Unless it leads to a Natalya NXT heel turn, which it probably won't. But I enjoy heel Natalya far more. But I really this was just a straight up tag with two demoted assholes up against a couple top NXT guys. That's all that this needed, the simpler approach. Is there anybody watching out there that would see that tag, and then go "I liked it, but I wish the tag could have furthered some sort of collapsing marriage storyline." It's always a bummer when a person not in the match takes a match you would recommend, and makes it less recommendable. That's Natalya's tombstone right there : "Made Things Less Recommendable". Zayn and Neville are a fun babyface tag team, wouldn't mind seeing both utilized currently this way. It's not like they do tons of double teams (outside of a nutty sky twister press that Neville did off a kneeling Zayn), they just complement each other nicely; just as, Gabriel and Kidd complement each other nicely. Kidd has been a standout as a heel, though he had a couple stumbles in this one. Gabriel turned in one of his better performances though, he's also a guy who makes a better heel than face. And so this was a real nice 10 minute tag, something I easily could have added to the recommended NXT list. But Natalya man. Natalya as TJ's moral compass is just awful.


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NXT 228 6/26/14 Review

1. The Vaudevillains vs. Matt Sugarman & T-Perkins

Fun but very brief Vaudevillains showcase. This was the best I've seen Gotch look, not only with his forearms and a great knee he dropped to Perkins' (not TJ Perkins) temple, but he broke out such a wonderful spot that I really didn't care what happened the rest of the match: While grounding Perkins with a headscissors, he then rolled through and started doing clapping pushups while still holding the headscissors around Perkins' neck. Stupendous. No idea who Sugarman/Perkins were, but I liked how Perkins faceplanted a drop toehold.

2. Xavier Woods vs. Bull Dempsey

This is Dempsey's "debut" (he worked a Mojo squash a few months back) and I liked him. They push the "fat old timey strength" thing way too hard on commentary, acting like he's Da Crusher running with beer kegs instead of just a fat guy who is fat. But he has a great side headlock and was doing some interesting little things with it, and then I was sad when they stood up and rope ran because I was still interested in the headlock. But then Woods threw an armdrag and Bull awesomely grabbed a side headlock mid armdrag so that when they landed he was back to holding the headlock. Sold. I am sold. He threw a nice elbowdrop, ran face first right into a Woods kick (Woods really scrambled him right across the eyeballs with that one), and yeah, I'm a fan. Nice debut, and a nice job by Woods setting him up.

3. Summer Rae vs. Becky Lynch

This is Lynch's debut and my oh my was there some Irish flavored cringing to be had. She doesn't much resemble the orange haired steam punk you're used to seeing; instead she's got subtle reddish brown hair, and garish irish green flared chrome pants with matching bralette. But she does this ghastly Irish riverdance jig all through her entrance, all through the match, just all over the place. And it's not just the goofy as all hell jig, but she actually sings along to it. She doesn't sing words, but she approximates the sounds of an Irish fiddle jig, so she does this embarrassing jig while awkwardly blurting out "dee-da-dee da-diddly diddly-dee", over and over again, like she was verbalizing Finlay's theme song. I felt so bad for her. Match itself was short, but fine. Summer is a great heel, and Lynch looked good whenever she wasn't doing her jig. She ran into a spinning Summer kick and rolled around holding her jaw, dropped a nice leg, big exploder. I'm actually surprised she got the win as there was a great nearfall (Summer kicked out as late as possible) and I thought that signaled that Summer was definitely going over. But, no. NXT is full of surprises. Now no more dancing. Or sing-dancing.

4. Colin Cassady vs. Sawyer Fulton

Fulton is back with his ridiculous dance pants and Capezios, but I liked his brief little run here. He threw a great front kick and awesome shoulders to Cassady's stomach in the corner. Not a lot of guys really jam their shoulder into the ribs in the corner. Fulton runs nicely into Cassady's big boot. Cass has good intentions with his leaping elbow, but lands a little sawftly on it.

Enzo Amore comes out post-match, returning from his broken leg, and proceeds to do the same routine that he is currently doing 2 years later on TV. This....has already gotten old. Sylvester Lefort and Marcus Louis looked awesome in their shitty ultra tight white lifting shirts though (with embroidered French flags!).

5. Adrian Neville vs. Rob Van Dam

So, I actually liked this. This was not something I was expecting to like. But I liked this. That sounds really undercutting, "hey! I thought this would be totally terrible and it wasn't!" but I'm not intending it that way. I just don't tend to get excited for 2014 Rob Van Dam matches, for SOME reason. That's a bold limb to stand on. This match is smack dab in the middle of his 2013/2014 WWE comeback that you don't remember a single thing about. And the match totally works, with RVD working subtle heel with dated offense against the new him. The match still had typical RVD faults, but there was something almost captivating watching an older, slower but still athletic RVD work old indy spots that were novel 15 years before but slow and clunky now. They do an early mirror exchange straight out of his Jerry Lynn matches and it seems so out of place in a modern setting that it's like a switch flips during the post flippy standoff and he just pops Neville in the mouth. Neville did a great job selling RVD's stuff, taking a mean spill on the preposterous "balance on these ropes while I dropkick you" and getting laid out by a stiff rolling thunder. 

When it's RVD's turn to sell he does a surprisingly adequate and at moments genuinely impressive job. At one point Neville hit a mule kick that staggered RVD, and it was meant to get him in position for a sliding dropkick. RVD staggered back from the kick, dropped to a knee, shifted his gaze down as he held his stomach and then made it appear as if he got naturally blindsided by the kick. It couldn't have been timed better and he couldn't have occupied himself better waiting for the kick. This was a far cry from an opponent bending over at the waist while waiting to take a Booker T axe kick. RVD keeps things interesting from a vet vs. upstart standpoint, and vet vs. upstart is an all time favorite story of mine. The little cheap shot punches, the abandoning of his traditional cocky finger pointing when he realized he might be in over his head, it was somehow a generous performance, while also one where he took 70% of the match. I wasn't expecting to enjoy this, but it was really good and easily my favorite match involving RVD in at least the last decade. What a pleasant find.


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NXT 226 6/12/14 Review

1. The BFFs vs. Bayley, Emma & Paige

I liked the BFFs here, but this got a lot of time relative to what got accomplished. Sasha and Charlotte worked over Emma for most of the 9 minutes, Summer mugged with fans, there was dissension, etc. Sasha is good at this type of stuff, letting Charlotte do the grunt work for the team while she sneaks in to choke Emma with her boot and land other cheap shots, as well as show off her strong apron shit talk game. Emma was a decent FIP, but there really wasn't enough of a comeback or any real hot tag teases, just an eventual tag in to Bayley. It's weird to do a 9 minute match with six people, and have two people never get in the match, so really this was just a longish match to further a Summer Rae angle.

2. Colin Cassady vs. Sylvester Lefort

I have a bad habit of liking a lot of the NXT guys who are clearly being positioned as cannon fodder. It always leaves me in the position of griping about my favorite guys not getting enough match time. The announce crew drops the "deceptively big" line about Cass. "You just don't realize how big he is." That kind of thing never in history had to be said about a large person who actually understands wrestling. You're really big. Act big. If announcers have to remind people that you're physically large, it means you are royally fucking up. Holy shit as I was typing that they said it again. He is 7 feet tall! Lefort is maaaaaybe 5'8". If people are not realizing that Cassady is THAT much fucking bigger than his opponent, it means he is really really bad. "He's the same size as Patrick Ewing!" THEY ACTUALLY SAID THAT! Holy shit I am dying. Did you ever see Patrick Ewing play and somehow not realize that he was a really large, sweaty dude? Cassady is literally on his knees fighting back against Lefort, desperately swinging away while Lefort clubs him, punching at Lefort's stomach and fighting back as if he was modeling himself after Kalisto comebacks. I die laughing during Cass matches. I cannot stop. He's so bad! Oh my god right after he won one of the announcers literally just said "7 feet tall!" I can't fucking even. It's amazing.

3. Sami Zayn vs. Mr. NXT

The video of Bo Dallas leaving after his Loser Leaves NXT match is one of my absolute favorite NXT moments. "I'm calling the cops, for reals...........okay the cops aren't actually coming. But I'm going to call campus security." Match was short and obviously built to Bo getting unmasked and then yakuza kicked while covering up his face. He was really funny playing up his new identity, joyfully yelling "I'm not Bo Dallas!!" throughout the match, not as a response to an accusation, but as a triumphant declaration. He then hilariously evades 4 security guards postmatch, running around and juking them. It's amazing how much I love NXT Bo. The way WWE threw him onto TV gave him zero chance. They took away 80% of his character and all nuance, and left him with a catchphrase which only worked because of the 80% they took away. But man he's good on NXT. "Okay. Just let me go quietly." as he then breaks free from the guards and starts running again. So good.

4. Adrian Neville vs. Tyson Kidd

"A marquee match anywhere in the world!" I mean, it's a match that should be good, and I've really enjoyed Kidd's NXT run so far, but that may be one of the most hilariously overused phrases in pro wrestling. It's arguably not even a marquee match within the context that it's happening. But it's also not even close to silliest match that statement has been made about. And this was a well executed, technically good match, that got completely bogged down by the story they were jamming down our throats. Kidd is frustrated, this is the biggest match of his career (for reasons) and he needs this win or else he'll be the biggest loser in the history of competitive sports. Got it. Except the announcers wanted to make sure we got it, so it's all they talked about all match, and the Kidd loss seemed inevitable from before the bell even rang. What's surprising is that Kidd controlled the entire match, and looked good doing so. This made the finish come off even more lame as Kidd dominated the match but at some point got frustrated that Neville still hadn't given up, so Kidd grabbed a chair and Nattie was like "TJ ermigersh NO! Not like this!!" And TJ was like "But I've tried like THREE OTHER THINGS and he kicked out!!!!" and then Neville hits a superkick which is now apparently tantamount to death, and then hit a (really great) Red Arrow and we are done. Kidd looked good all throughout this, working real stiff, controlling Neville nicely, and Neville was a good FIP, but the whole story was so heavy handed and obvious, and the inevitability of the ending made it tough to give a damn about the match proper.


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NXT 225 6/5/14 Review

1. Mojo Rawley vs. Aiden English

Annoying that we had to see English fed to Mojo just a few weeks ago, and here it happens again. There are literally DOZENS of guys hanging around backstage at NXT. Dozens. Feed all of the members of Adam Rose's circle jerk to him. English is one of the best workers on the roster. Why is he the one who has to make this goof look good? At least English looks good during the match, I really love his body shots, yakuza kicks and other strikes, and he has a really great headlock. If you're in a fed that requires heels to lock on a chinlock before the babyface makes a comeback, you might as well have a real nice headlock. English really bumps around big for Mojo's so-so offense. So clearly he's paired with Mojo because he bumps like a freak, but also has size, so you avoid the visual of Mojo tossing around a cruiserweight. But shoot man I just want to see normal, awesome English matches.

2. Bayley vs. Charlotte

ER: Well, this certainly wasn't that good! Is Natalya really the glue, or is Bayley just not very good? Both things certainly seemed true here. Charlotte looked so much better against Natalya the week before, and Bayley looked sloppy through most of this. Whereas I liked all the Charlotte/Nattie mat stuff last week, the matwork here was painful. At one point Charlotte kind of flopped and spun on Bayley's back, and I have no clue what was actually supposed to have happened. Was that the plan? Bayley's strikes looked weak and they both looked lost at times. The only moment that looked really good was when Bayley got yanked to the floor by Sasha and then Sasha went down like a shot from an elbow. Summer Rae comes out for distraction, Charlotte hits a super ugly dropkick where it looks like one foot kinda touched Bayley's leg, but Bayley sells her lip, and this stunk.

3. Jason Jordan & Tye Dillinger vs. Stuart Cumberland & Philip Gouljar

I have no clue who is in charge of jobber naming, but it looks like they just went through a directory of junior college lit professors and went "those are names". Cumberland is former Bay Area worker Aaron Solo, not sure who Gouljar really is. But Regal totally picks up on the name Gouljar and just starts repeating it, all through the match. Match itself was plenty enjoyable and very basic. JJ and Dillinger work like young lions, nothing too flashy, but JJ has a nice front headlock and big lariat, Dillinger hit a decent kneedrop. Gouljar was my favorite in the match, though. He threw a couple nice punch variations (his body shots to Dillinger were particularly great), and really moved AND looked like a taller Todd Morton. I mean it was realll similar. His movements and mannerisms, and the way he delivered some of the basics just screamed Morton. I eagerly awaited him taking a backdrop bump to see if the Morton effect was real, and then holy lord did he ever, getting big height and then under rotating so he came down practically face force. Good god man. Regal was on fire throughout the match, even going so far as putting over a chop as not merely a slap, but a man's palm hitting you in the sternum, halting the breathing. Awesome stuff. So yeah, this was all very basic, simple stuff, but really enjoyable. It didn't seem like Gouljar was an actual NXT guy, so likely won't be seeing more of him, sadly.

Tyler Breeze had a fun segment introducing his music video (which, really wasn't that good), saying he already dispatched Seth Rogen's uglier brother last week, and showing some great hubris. The gimmick doesn't totally work for me, but I like what he does with it.

4. Justin Gabriel vs. Adrian Neville

Fun match that was a nice Neville showcase - which is what should be happening with him as champ - with Gabriel appropriately hanging back and not trying to outshine. Gabriel got to do some fun stuff, but a lot of it was in the name of allowing Neville to look good. And Neville did. He hit a huge dive, a rolling senton off the apron, big dropkicks, worked some cool fast sequences with Gabriel that he can't really do with just anybody in NXT. Gabriel is much better when he's holding back and not trying to be the flashy one in the match. That meant he got to throw his energy into big bumps and missed offense that allowed Neville to transition back to his big stuff. Gabriel had a huge bump to the floor and was wise to slyly smack his palm against the metal entrance grating on his way down, so his bump made a huge bang sound. This was a real nice victory lap for Neville after his Takeover title defense.

After the match Tyson Kidd comes out to beg for one more shot at the belt, which Neville agrees to. They're really portraying Kidd as a heel here, even though he hasn't done anything untoward. He's acted frustrated, but he hasn't cheated, hasn't insulted Neville (unlike Neville doing so in the build up to Takeover), and uses logic to explain why he's deserving of a shot and why he wants the belt. Plus they keep repeating this weird line saying that by losing at Takeover, Kidd has become known as "Natalya's husband". That's weird. From a kayfabe standpoint that's implying that Kidd has done nothing but fail and Natalya is an untouchable legend, with Kidd residing in her shadow. But from a kayfabe standpoint, I can't see how Natalya has really done that much. She held the Divas title once, for a couple months, 5 years before this episode. Kidd is at least a 3 time tag champ, and has held gold more recently than Natalya. Plus, she also lost her match at the same event that apparently gave him his humiliating loss. It's a weird angle. Even without it making sense, I don't see what's bad about being called Natalya's husband. I mean, he is.



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NXT Takeover 5/29/14 Review

NXT 223 was just a hype special getting us all jazzed for this show, the first NXT Takeover, which on paper doesn't sound like a good sounding show. It seems like a normal episode of NXT, just much longer. But pleasant surprises are always welcome in life.

1. Adam Rose vs. Camacho

I really liked Camacho in this, he feels like a guy who got the short end of the stick during his time in WWE. But we all knew this was going to be all about announcers fake laughing about how uproarious Rose is. It makes me sad when Regal does it too. It makes me feel like Sideshow Bob howling "TV's bottomless chum bucket has claimed Vanessa Redgrave!" At least Camacho controlled most of this, even if it was structured like an 80s WWF babyface showcase (babyface sells for 3 minutes and then just hits signature offense for last minute). To his credit Rose has an awesome spinebuster, and Camacho really leaped into that thing. So you had Camacho flying into it, Rose planting it, and really that was enough to make this work for me. A lot of Rose's actual work is acceptable, but that personality and facials are just immediate hard passes for me. The announcers working overtime to tell me how fun he is only adds to it.

2. The Ascension vs. El Local & Kalisto

We got some hastily built contenders in the couple weeks leading up to Takeover, contenders that nobody could rightfully believe would be going over the Ascension. Kalisto worked fine as FIP Mysterio throughout most of this, which was all good as he's a guy who can make Ascension look devastating. He had an awesome comeback spot where he was tangled in the ropes facing the outside, with his legs dangling towards the floor, and he managed to catch Viktor in a headscissors and drive him face first into the ring apron. Never seen that before, and it worked great. It would be silly as a regular spot, but loved it here. Things fell apart when Local flubbed his hot tag. He came in throwing some okay back elbows, but then slipped and fell short on a springboard whatever and then hitting an ugly and overly cautious moonsault. Kalisto took a super fast bump to the floor down the stretch, but it should have been Local doing that as Kalisto could have made the Fall of Man look better. Overall match was decent, but Local stunk.

3. Sami Zayn vs. Tyler Breeze

This was the one on paper match that I was interested in, and it delivered. It got tons of time (only 5 announced matches on a 2 hour show, so I imagine the next two matches will be going broadway) and Breeze is really good at pacing these NXT matches. Zayn has some fairly implausible offense and Breeze always makes it look good. Look at how he whips himself into the floor on Zayn's moonsault and flip dive. Breeze is really smart about setting up his spots that hit and more importantly his spots that miss, and really smart about setting up Zayn's misses so that they actually looked like moves Zayn thought he would hit but just naturally missed. Watch Breeze drop down in the corner at the last minute so Zayn crotches himself on a yakuza kick. He timed it so last minute that the announcers got tricked into thinking the kick just landed and Breeze bumped it early. They were selling the impact of the kick and then had to backpedal and go "Oh wait a minute...". Zayn's comeback spots always land big, and I dug their silly convoluted Blue Thunder Bomb set up. It didn't quite work but I appreciated the "big show" ambition. This was a real smart 15 minutes, no bloat, smartly laid out, and both guys came out looking strong. Zayn keeps up the role of lovable hard-working loser, a guy who is right on the cusp but keeps falling short.

Rusev and Lana come out and do their thing, and they're interrupted by total zero Mojo Rawley, who says he's going to stick Rusev's flag straight up his "Putin". He then sprints to the ring and gets flat out leveled by a Rusev superkick, which was totally awesome and unexpected. Rawley gets totally steamrolled here while Lana laughs in his face, and it was such a treat to see this low rent Jim Duggan get flattened. It actually made me excited for a Rawley/Rusev match. I think Rawley will be more interesting against a guy his size rather than in a squash match.

4. Charlotte vs. Natalya

Natalya's promo work for this was probably the best she's ever done. As the most insufferable person on Total Divas, a show rife with insufferable people, her sounding interesting really stood out. She does more to establish Charlotte's credentials than any of Charlotte's dead eye promos did. And this match was not at all what I was expecting. It was really, really good. I mean really good. Better than any match I have seen involving either Charlotte or Natalya. I was fully expecting the entire focus to be on Bret and Flair at ringside, and the bulk of the match be taken up by each person laughably aping the signature offense of their respective cornermen. Instead, they somehow filled an engaging 17 (!) minutes of time that never felt like it was dragging, felt like either woman could win, and left me totally impressed. Charlotte working a tribute act to her corpse father on Raw has been really bad this past year, and seeing her here doing none of that was eye opening. The match felt different right away, with tons of simple but really great matwork. It all felt really snug and felt like they both had to fight over holds. It all looked exhausting. Natalya pulls out a tricky single leg and every tight headlock or waistlock or kneebar or body vice felt like it meant something, and pretty soon Charlotte has Nattie in a nasty figure 4 choke, just squeezing those legs around her neck, and she stands up with it, doing a forward roll that sends Nattie flipping over and slamming onto her tailbone, and I am now totally in love with this grind. Natalya was making all sorts of great faces during the mat portions, grinding in elbows, laughing over her shoulder at Charlotte. We build to a figure 4 spot that could have felt derivative but I don't think did. It felt like a logical peak of the match, with both reaching out to slap and scratch at the other, both stubbornly refusing to back off, apparent it was never going to end the match but was merely taking them through to a struggle none of their prior matches have shown. Then rolling to the floor off it was a cool bit of desperation and being out of strategic ideas. It felt like when a fighter abandons his gameplan and just starts following the mood of the fight, often a poor choice. Natalya takes a big bump into the steps and back in Charlotte starts going for the figure 4 again, but then throws side eye at Bret before locking on a Sharpshooter. Natalya does a realistic looking counter but gets kicked in the face trying to get too cute and lock in a Sharpshooter of her own, and this leads to Charlotte hitting her rolling blockbuster. This match shot so far past my expectations, just totally unexpected. This really felt like it elevated the Divas title, which is a funny thought in the history of WWE. But this felt like two people who wanted nothing more than to win that belt. Lovely to see no involvement from Ric and Bret, outside of encouragement. They even had a showing of respect afterwards which was nice.

I really liked the quick moment backstage where an exhausted Natalya still found fit to give Tyson a quick, familiar but loving kiss and a quick "I love you" before his match. Felt really unforced and spur of the moment.

5. Tyson Kidd vs. Adrian Neville
Another match I wasn't excited for that exceeded expectations. I especially liked Kidd here as he displayed a grumpiness I haven't ever really seen from him. This also continued the trend of simple but effective and tightly worked matwork to start a match on this show. Kidd grounding Neville with a wristlock was one of the nastier moments of the show, and when guys are willing to do matwork with no light showing it can only help to have Regal on commentary. He really gets over the fine points of why a side headlock takeover is painful, and it was a treat hearing him put over Kidd grounding Neville with a headlock (and it was a wrenched in headlock indeed), pointing out how it looks like Neville is just lying on the mat but he is in fact completely debilitated, in plenty of pain AND having his air supply cut off. We get a silly kip-up dropkick mirror sequence that was unnecessary and very out of place for the mood they had established, but Kidd makes me instantly not care by feinting going into the ropes, and instead smashing Neville with a forearm. All the forearm strikes in this were nasty, from both guys, but I especially loved that first one Kidd threw. He then starts amping up the dick behavior by hanging Neville in a tree of woe and kicking at his back (Neville gets to return that favor later in a nice callback). We hit some nice big spots as well, with Kidd hitting a fast flip dive, Neville catching him with a sitout powerbomb that Kidd took at a wild level, a crazy vertical suplex to the floor with both guys going over, and more nice strikes. I lost a bit of interest when they went through any of the fighting on the top rope portions, but it still felt like a real good main event title match. Kidd especially really impressed me and was one of his finer performances I've seen from him. Not only ringwork, but the added character depth (even after when he left in a huff after being the one early in the match to show respect). A real pleasant surprise.

Well, this show looked like a real snoozer on paper. And then the last three matches really delivered and made this show an easy one to recommend. Tough to say whether this or Arrival was the better show, as the Zayn/Cesaro match is still the best NXT match I've reviewed, but I thought Charlotte/Natalya was stronger than the ladder match on that show, which was on par with the Neville and Breeze matches on this show. Either way, so far NXT is 2 for 2 on their specials.


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NXT Episode 222 5/22/14 Review

1. Bo Dallas vs. Big E

Good match, continuing the run of Bo Dallas being a completely different presence on NXT compared to any point of his main roster stint. I really like the way he falls, love how he gets into position for his opponents. Here he takes a huge shoulder block by stumbling backwards into the bottom rope, and later stumbles around great after Big E shrugs off his rope run bulldog attempt. I liked his comebacks, especially his sick chop block on the floor and his fast low crossbody. This was also helped by me not knowing which way the match was going to turn, as they had the stip of Dallas leaving NXT forever if he lost. Bo's desperation shone through during the match, which was important, and even though the finish fell a little flat (Bo undoing a turnbuckle pad before obviously getting felled by the turnbuckle) this was a good match.

2. Tamina vs. Paige

Oh cool my least favorite Diva, Tamina! Why even have this match in the middle of the NXT Women's tournament? Let Paige move on and leave rubbish like Tamina on the main roster. Focus on the new ladies. And man did Tamina ever look like warm dogshit. I didn't think it was possible for someone to be on the main roster as long as she has and not improve a lick, but the proof is there every time she wrestles. Paige did what she could, including an impressive bump off the top to the floor. Tamina is just as uninteresting as they come. The ending is a total embarrassment as Tamina is supposed to miss a big splash onto Paige's knees, buts ends up landing on her feet in a way that doesn't even look like she touched knees, let alone looked like she was attempting any sort of offense. Ask yourself, what would you have done if Paige hadn't moved her knees up? You would have landed on your feet, next to her. Good plan. Is the company this loyal to Jimmy Snuka of all people?

3. Camacho vs. Adam Rose

Cool, another dud Adam Rose match! How did anybody think this guy had what it takes? I like his spinebuster and his bronco buster looks good, but his character is a dud and doesn't fit his lousy ring style. Sometimes Rose takes a nice bump, in that "I'm untrained" kind of way, like when Camacho shoves him off and he flies onto his tailbone, but man is he the pits. Match itself stunk too, as Camacho just got "overwhelmed" by the awesome offense of Rose, then just rolled to the floor and stood there while the ref slowwwwwwly counted him out. I mean shit, ref, you know what the finish is, maybe speed up the count just a bit so we don't get both guys standing there like total goobs?

4. Sasha Banks vs. Natalya

Fun, if inconsequential match. I do like that Sasha appears to be all talk and someone who usually gets her words fed back to her at this point. It fits her attitude and skillset, but it's not a role someone is often put into without it being pointed out constantly by commentary. Natalya threw some stiff dropkicks including an especially nice one to a seated Sasha (right after running up her from behind and stomping her head into the mat). I expected this to be worked like there were more consequences. This was for a chance at the vacant title! But it was worked like a middle of the hour Velocity match that had been allotted 4 minutes. This could have been on a house show, with nothing at stake, or it could have been taped months in advance. Other than somebody winning and somebody losing, nothing important happened. It felt like a 4 minute vacuum match from them. And this should have been a really important match, especially for Sasha. Natalya has been on the main card for years at this point, but Sasha? This was her chance at the vacant Women's title on an NXT special show. You'd think she would cheat, claw, scratch, and fight for this opportunity at the belt. But instead we just did some stuff until Natalya effortlessly locked on the sharpshooter when it was time to go home.

Damn next week's Takeover looks like a really boring show. Neville vs. Kidd? Adam Rose vs. Camacho? Ehhhhh. Maybe some matches will over-perform and it won't be so bad. But I'm not excited on paper for any match on the card, so that's not a great sign going into the show.

5. Curt Hawkins vs. Adrian Neville

Hawkins weirdly showed up in the terrible battle royal last week, the only guy in it who wasn't a regular, and got eliminated early. So this week he gets a main event against the champ! I guess Neville needed a big win against a guy who people had forgotten about? I had forgotten about Curt Hawkins. I did a word search on this very site for "Curt Hawkins" and found 3 different things I have written about Curt Hawkins. One of them was in a lucha report, where for some reason I talked about Curt Hawkins when talking about who would and wouldn't make a good lucha base. But in that blurb I said "...and I like Curt Hawkins!" This was written about 5 years ago. I have zero memory of anything Curt Hawkins has ever done. But 5 years ago I "liked" Curt Hawkins. He was a guy I liked! Who the hell was 30 year old me?? What did he like about Curt Hawkins??? This match was a bunch of nothing crammed into 90 seconds, with Neville sorta kinda hitting but mostly missing the Red Arrow.

Tyson Kidd comes out after the match to create DRAMA for their drama-free match next week. But it's weird. Because Tyson acts angry, but doesn't actually say anything heelish. He angrily says he wants the belt, wants to use it to get back to the main roster, wants to use the belt as his stepping stone to hearing 25,000 people cheering for him, wants this belt to be his second chance. All of that makes TOO MUCH SENSE. Kidd said it intensely, but none of that stuff is mean stuff to say. Neville responds by telling him that the only member of his family who has a chance to win gold next week is his wife, "as usual". Wow. What a shithead thing to say to somebody. Really rubbing Kidd's nose in the shit right there. The babyface champion of NXT is a real petty shit.


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NXT Episode 219 5/1/14 Review

HHH opens the show and sounds markedly drunk as he stumbles through run on sentences, mumbling about the future, oddly touching his face and smacking his lips. Dude looks and sounds wasted, like he's most focused on standing up than what his next words will be. "And there will be...there will be a live 2...hour event. And the name...the name is...the name will be MOST appropriate...for what we have going on, down here...." Pull it together dude.

1. Tyson Kidd vs. Bo Dallas

Regal says that he was a godless heathen before Bo Dallas gave him something to BoLieve in. Though Regal also calls Kidd one of "the last journeyman wrestlers" who traveled all over the world honing his craft. I mean...you can literally say that about dozens of guys who still work American indies and Japan and Mexico. Byron Saxton is so much more palatable with Regal by his side. Regal actually feeds him things and compliments him when he makes a good point. On the main brand they literally spend the whole broadcast just waiting for him to say something they can make fun of. And this whole match was really fun. Dallas is such a completely different wrestler in NXT than he's ever been given the chance to be on the main brand. The confidence he gives off is crazy, because that hasn't been there for even one moment in WWE. All their little things looked good here, super engaging collar and elbows, really trying to bully each other around instead of going through motions. Dallas got into position nicely for Kidd's stuff and Kidd leaned into Dallas' lariats and knees. Dallas is smart using Kidd's offense against him, and hits a bulldog the old fashion way that we all miss. Crowd continues their descent into a bunch of "we're super insiders and in on the joke, this is OUR show" jackassery. Dallas has been really good at handling his spiral from champion to guy who keeps coming up short. The facials and frustration are there, looking like he's about to cry and/or upend a table.

Sasha Banks' line reading is a real step above almost anybody else in the fed. Adam Rose continues to look like the phoniest, most minor league gimmick.

2. Bayley vs. Sasha Banks

Really fun match. They had 5 minutes to do their thing and managed to work about 8 minutes of match into that 5. Not by rushing through their spots but by not wasting any time. No stalling, no chinlocks, just working to finish. Both match up nicely and do little things like hold pinfalls really snug, never looking like they're cooperatively letting the other one kick out, actually looking like *gasp* the pins are supposed to be pinning someone. Both work really nicely in the corner, I LOVE that Bayley uses a bearhug (because, of course), and I wasn't expecting the Banks win. The backstabber into a crossface is a great combo as the backstabber is so much better as part of a sequence instead of the be all end all. Sasha has kind of been portrayed as someone who always fails in big moments, whether they mean to be doing that or not, so this was good.

3. Adam Rose vs. Danny Burch

Really didn't need to see this match again as they just ran this a few weeks prior and there are so many other guys I'd rather see Martin Stone up against. The last one was a bad Rose showcase squash and this at least had some Burch offense as Burch controls a bit to start with some go behinds and a nice punch, but then we go into dogshit Rose squash mode.

4. Natalya vs. Layla

Layla!!! My favorite! I thought she got really good teaming with Michelle McCool and hadn't realized she was still in the fed at this point. Regal talks about how Layla picked up some "very vicious habits" from him. Love it. And really Layla is still really good. Her facials are better than most Divas, and she knows how to put over that she's really enjoying dishing a beating. She's also great at making it look like she's talking shit to her opponent when she's actually just calling spots. That's an underrated skill right there. The Natalya win was never really in doubt, but I was surprised that Layla took the entire match up until the sharpshooter finish.

5. Oliver Grey vs. Mojo Rawley

You know what happens here. Mojo hits some weak avalanches and a decent bombs away. For a guy clearly not ready for TV, he sure is on TV as much as anybody.

6. No DQ Match: Brodus Clay vs. Adrian Neville

I guess we needed this No DQ match? Their match a couple episodes before this was pretty bad, ending in a count out after Brodus missed a terrible looking splash off the ring steps. I'm sure we were all ready to forget about the feud that really just happened out of nowhere anyway. And then they shut my mouth by going out and having a really damn good match. It's No DQ but they don't bog it down with weapon spots, and instead let the match stipulation inform their attitude. So they aren't wrestling a rote match with the addition of a chair or table spot, but instead Neville jumps Brodus at the bell and starts stiffing him, so Brodus is fighting underneath right from the beginning, meaning once he starts shifting tides he's doing things with an exclamation point. He's kicking Neville in the ribs, he's slamming him unsafely, he plants him with a big splash off the top, big avalance in the corner, belly to belly, fat elbow drop. The guy actually looks pissed and so does Neville. That's a huge difference from their previous encounter. Clay grabs the NXT title and rushes Neville with it, but Neville sidekicks him, kicking the title right into Clay's chest and throat and leading right to the Red Arrow. I loved the abruptness of the finish, really made the first involvement of a weapon seem like a bigger deal. Really good match.

Better show this week than we've been getting, although I reallllllly want them to stop these 6 match shows. I don't need a fucking Mojo squash every damn week, don't need Adam Rose. Just give me 4 matches that run 5-10 minutes each. But I like the idea of the women's tournament and that main event was really damn satisfying.


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NXT Episode 217 4/17/14 Review

1. Colin Cassady vs. Aiden English

The world's largest Bobby Fulton! Colin Cassady was so ridiculous in that Bo Dallas match, and it's really incredible how tiny he made himself seem. So I'll give credit here since he managed to do much less of that, and really both guys worked a really fun match. Cassady actually spends most of the match in control, you know, as a giant should, and English hits real hard in his comebacks. English throws a couple nice thrust kicks to Cassady's cheek, Cassady throws nice clubbing blows and a nice big boot, English took a nice high backdrop too. When English came back Cassady DID immediately shrink down, but at least he worked this more even. English isn't much smaller than him, so it didn't look as weird as him working Spike Dudley to Bo Dallas' Mike Awesome. I liked English finding ways out of Cassady's silly spinning slam, and Regal was killer putting over English's strikes. English had these sharp knuckle point strikes to the ribs, and Regal was right there talking about the edge and extra pain that the point of the knuckles can bring when thrust in between someone's ribs. I think English's offense looks good anyway, but Regal analyzing it and driving the point home just enhances everything. I really liked this and with another minute or two could easily have added this to my NXT recommended matches list.

2. Camacho vs. Oliver Grey

Not how I was expecting this to go, with Camacho winning a 2 minute squash over the returning Grey. It makes sense that it would happen, Camacho is established despite being kind of an NXT jobber, and Grey is coming back from his ACL injury. But it's such a different approach to the norm, having a returning wrestler get dominated in his return match, that it was surprising and kind of refreshing. It fully makes sense for a guy to get dominated in his return, showing he's dealing with ring rust, showing that while his body has recovered, his ring instincts need to get back to speed. It's like when Kendrys Morales opted not to sign with a team until the 2014 season had already started, and then he spent the whole year two steps behind players who had gone through spring training. It's an approach you never see in pro wrestling, but makes so much logical sense from a presentation standpoint that I really liked it. Plus Camacho is a good hand and deserves a nice win now and then.

3. The Ascension vs. Wesley Blake & Cal Bishop

This is worked like a lot of Ascension squashes. Bishop plays the role of man standing on apron who gets knocked off by Viktor before hitting the Fall of Man, and Blake takes all of the offense. This was less violent than other Ascension squashes, and they're sort of running out of tricks.

4. CJ Parker vs. Great Khali

I had no clue Khali was still employed by WWE in 2014. And Parker goes above and beyond to make him look good, especially taking a huge clothesline over the top and then taking a big back bump on the floor. Khali was surprisingly effective here as well, and while this was kept short it actually could have been something if given more time and a couple more twists. As it was the ending was never in doubt, but it was nice seeing Parker bump around for chops, and Regal was great talking about all of the physical problems that can happen when you get clomped real hard on the head.

5. Jason Jordan & Tye Dillinger vs. Baron Corbin & Sawyer Fulton

What the fuck is a Sawyer Fulton!? I don't think I've seen any of these guys before, but Fulton instantly stands out just by looking like a complete goof. He's a taller guy with some size, but he's dressed like an anonymous backup dancer at the Tony awards. He wears flare leg dance pants with a shiny stripe down the side, little shiny Capezios, a single strap tank, horrendous bleach blonde crew cut, an anachronous barbed wire bicep tat....He just looks like an awkward man in conflict with himself. Like you'd be watching a Kristin Chenoweth number and he would stand out a bit too much from the other dancers, and in a bad way. Jordan and Dillinger are working that lazy and annoying "smiling, athletic guys" gimmick, where they do dropkicks and fist pumps and in the gym they probably push each other to do one more set of burpies bro. They are positively forgettable in their positivity. Corbin is also a big guy and I'd at least like to see more of him. The other guys? Ehhhhhh.

6. Brodus Clay vs. Adrian Neville

Not much of a match. Crowd was back in "get over" mode with silly chants the whole time, Brodus didn't look great on all his missed stuff. The match ended with Neville laid out on the floor and Brodus missing a splash off the ring steps, but he landed on his feet first on the splash and that was supposed to be what kept him down long enough for Neville's count out win. Neville was fine enough keeping Clay away with leg kicks and flippity dippity stuff but yeah this disappointed.

Man what a dud of an episode this week. They're getting into a real bad habit of cramming in more and more matches each week, which means with six matches on a one hour show you're getting a bunch of 2-4 minute matches. When I started watching the show they were doing 3-4 matches, with one match always getting a nice main event time, but all these short matches with bland workers are just dullsville. I liked English/Cassady and gladly would have done without that tag match if the English match could have gotten more time. This was just a poorly laid out show, and show layout and pacing was one of their strengths when I started watching. Six matches in 50 minutes is just too much when you have to account for entrances, backstage interviews, Network ads, etc. Horrible layout.


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NXT Episode 214 3/27/14 Review

1. Mojo Rawley vs. CJ Parker

Still can't believe they were dumb enough to have Parker cut a promo wearing a nice suit the other week. You might as well wear a shirt that says NARC when you go on your Umphrey's Mcgee cruise. And man Mojo stinks. He doesn't take an interesting beating, and this whole match was CJ dominating with nice offense, until the go home sign gets lit and Mojo hits his two pieces of offense (butt butt and a light as a feather Bombs Away) for the win. Terrible structure. Parker looks good in the ring though, and knows how to carry himself and somehow not seem phony. He hits a nice standing spin kick (think Booker T's old standing leg lariat) and throws decent punches, had a nice immediacy to things while he was putting the boots and fists to Mojo. But they seem pretty committed to making Mojo "a thing" sooooo...I mean it looks good when Gronk is sitting in the crowd with his family all wearing your shirts, but as far as defensive linemen making a transition to wrestling he doesn't appear to be quite as good as Steve McMichael. They talk up his freakish strength but none of that strength comes across in his matches. I don't think he's been doing this too terribly long and he's obviously a high level athlete, so there's obviously room for improvement, I just wish he was doing his improving off TV.

2. Xavier Woods vs. Tyler Breeze

Fun match. The more I see Breeze the more I really like him. He's really smart in the ring and lays out spots in a fun Finlay type of way. He's not an ass kicker like Finlay obviously, but he's creative in similar ways. He has cool fake outs and comes up with neat ways to play possum, plus he does a lot of little things really well like hold snug headlocks and bump appropriately for the move being delivered. He's a big bumper, but he doesn't go big on every single bump. He and Xavier match up nicely but watching the two of them it's clear how much Breeze outclasses him.

3. Corey Graves vs. Yoshi Tatsu

Poor Yoshi Tatsu. Knocked down to losing 3 minute matches on NXT. So much for his revenge for the Graves attack on him a few weeks ago. Although I suppose him getting paid by WWE for 5+ years is something nobody would have predicted, so good for him! Tatsu is fun here keeping Graves off balance, with hard chops and neat things like kidney punches and leg kicks to the front of Graves' thighs. Graves starts targeting Tatsu's knee and Tatsu sells it well enough to make it look like an actual injury. Graves has cool leg whips, like when Mike Modest would whip a guy's arm into the mat, but with Tatsu's leg. He ends the match by doing a sliding tackle into Tatsu's patella which is just gross. Never seen a guy do a chop block to the FRONT of someone's leg before. Yikes. Graves gets the tap but this was tragically short, like 3 minutes. I'd love to see what these two could do with 9 minutes. Shame. Guess we all needed that Mojo Rawley match.

4. Charlotte vs. Natalya

Hey this was quite good as well! And again, they seemed to really be going places with it until the inevitable run in finish. Charlotte works sort of sloppy but here it works for her as it makes her strikes feel dangerous in an untrained way. She throws a few elbows that seem to land hard, and a big lariat with full follow through. The mat stuff is really engaging too, Nattie getting to break out some tricks she doesn't really get to break out on the main brand. There were a couple of spots with Charlotte attempting to lock on a poor figure 4 which lead to nice Nattie reversals, including a small package that I thought was the finish. I was getting ready to include this in my list of recommendable NXT matches before the finish.

5. Bo Dallas vs. Adrian Neville

Eh, pretty disappointing for the time allotted. They didn't make very good use of the early minutes, and then when Neville hit a moonsault to the floor Alex Riley and Tensai acted like it was something they had never seen before. Neville does some things that most people can't do, but it's like they were dying to talk about Neville's flying and just couldn't wait to use the line for something more uncommon. Things pick up when Dallas hits a big clothesline which, naturally, Neville bumps all haywire for. But the pacing just never quite clicked and Riley/Tensai kept trying to make it sound like they were going through an EPIC WAR, with stuff like "how are both men even on their FEET right now!?!?" even though it was about 6 minutes into the match. Neville hits a nice kick from the apron and then goes for the Red Arrow, but Dallas gets knees up and you know Neville planted right into those knees. That looked like a finish right there. It's not, and that's fine, but then they lose me by having both men knocked out and struggling to get to their feet, as I guess Neville landing gut first on Dallas' knees really took it out of Dallas. And mere moments after just being barely able to beat that count back to their feet, Neville has found the strength to hit his inverted 450. Okay. This was very disappointing coming off their good ladder match from Arrival. That match was laid out really nicely but perhaps I gave them too much credit for that. It's possible that show had more hands on match layout from agents, and they leave guys more up to their own devices on the regular shows. That's probably too broad and I'm sure it's not totally that way, but it doesn't sound that crazy.

If they had divvied up the allotted match time a bit better this could have been a very good week of TV. But they did not and so it was not. This week it became more apparent just how lousy Alex Riley is on commentary, and Tensai isn't much better. Both come off incredibly insincere and often come off like total shills. It's not a shock to hear a bunch of worthless platitudes being spouted on WWE TV, but people like Regal and Renee Young sound so natural and genuine on commentary that it's tough listening to these hacks.


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NXT Episode 211 3/6/14 Review

1. Adrian Neville vs. Camacho

Oh yeahhhhh I forgot about the Camacho/Hunico tag team. And this whole thing was more of a victory lap for Neville after winning the title. Camacho gets a couple forearms to start, but the rest is Neville throwing some nice dropkicks and easily setting up the Red Arrow. Camacho doesn't get talked about during the match, but amusingly right after losing Regal says "and this was a good win for Neville, as Camacho is no joke". Seems like something you'd say before a guy gets steamrolled. Rachel comments that Neville looks like a hobbit without any SFX makeup, and moments later he says in a promo that he looks like "a crazy elf man".

Bo Dallas cuts a nice heel promo on Neville postmatch, congratulating him, but saying he didn't actually pin him, he just climbed a ladder "like a dad cleaning out the gutters" (awesome line), and cashed in his rematch clause.

We also get a couple backstage segments with Flair and Charlotte confronting Emma and Paige. Flair comes off like a leery creep and Charlotte can't really talk well. She talks like Lenny James doing his awful American accent. But one thing is obvious is that people handle their NXT promos very calm, as opposed to in big booming "promo voice" and it works so much better. Bo Dallas was nice and calm in his segment, and it got over his intentions much better. Just a few short sentences. You don't really need much more. So even though Charlotte doesn't talk well, she easily got over that she was gunning for the belt, and really that's all that's needed.

2. Emma vs. Charlotte

Short match but decent. Emma hits a nice thrust kick to Charlotte's throat on a corner charge. Charlotte goes down with a convincing ankle injury after a landing, Banks distracts Emma from the apron, and then Charlotte does a nice cocky kip up behind Emma's back before hitting a nasty flipping DDT/Blockbuster.

3. Yoshi Tatsu vs. Corey Graves

Match doesn't happen as Graves gets on the mic, runs down Sami Zayn for having a lot of heart, but never actually winning matches. Graves walks out on the match, Tatsu follows and gets leveled with a clothesline, then feebly counted out. Graves rolls him back in and locks on his really nasty looking inverted figure 4/heel hook that's apparently called Lucky 13.

In a backstage promo Xavier Woods calls himself Creed and calls Rusev an Ivan Drago looking mother. I assume Woods has never in his life seen a Rocky film, as nothing about Rusev looks like Ivan Drago. There are about 20 guys in NXT who are closer matches to Drago.

4. Adam Rose vs. Wesley Blake

Blake is working a cowboy gimmick but just has shiny black boots, not even the sweet Windham cowboy wrestling boots. This is Rose's debut (as Rose) and Byron Saxton and Tensai are unbearable at putting over just how much of a fun guy Rose is. This gimmick had small time written all over it. Saxton honestly says the phrase "This guy's fun!" six different times in this match. It's so desperate. Rose has a nice stiff shoulderblock, bad mounted MMA downward elbows, and a decent falling clothesline.

5. Corey Graves vs. Sami Zayn

Good match. These NXT main events have been delivering. Graves works a good ground game and really any time these two are in close it's good. There's a lot of detail to their headlocks, scraping ears, clawing at mouths, grabbing at jaws, wrenching necks; all of it felt like actual nastiness and not just grabbing a perfunctory headlock to start. Graves is really good at smothering Zayn, locking in a snug quarter nelson. It's fun listening to Regal on commentary as he's practically giddy with Graves' submissions. Graves doesn't even work over Zayn's surgically repaired knee, and Regal puts over how Graves already knows the knee is bugging him, so he's using that to his advantage to work over the rest of Zayn's body. Once they get up things stay good as Zayn fights back and eventually goes for his nice running boot in the corner, but Graves cuts him off with an exclamation point elbow, then hits an awesome backbreaker from a samoan drop, kinda rolling Zayn off his shoulders and onto his knee. Graves goes to lock on Lucky 13 and Zayn gets a quick, smart roll-up that I thought was the end but was pleased when Graves kicked out. The end sequence is nice with Zayn going for his tornado DDT, Graves catching him and going for that awesome backbreaker, but Zayn reversing that with another really great roll up. Match was probably only 6 minutes but I really loved it.


Nice show that set up some things for the future, had a nice main, and a dorky Sami Callihan as Adam Rose's DJ. Adam Rose has always come off really cringeworthy to me, so I'm not looking forward to his NXT run. I'm avoiding looking timelines up so I'm more surprised by things, but I'm REALLY hoping Rose got a main roster call up quick into the gimmick.  They were already desperately putting over just how much fun he is in his debut, instead of just letting it happen. When Michael Cole was doing that stuff during Rose's WWE run I assumed that was classic WWE micromanaging, but they were doing it right from the first second of the gimmick.


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NXT Arrival 2/27/14 Review

1. Sami Zayn vs. Cesaro

Awesome, awesome match. This is not news to most of you. These two match up so well, and this was just a wonderful match to start the big "introduction" event for NXT. There are great matches, and then there are matches that are not only great, but perfectly slot into their time and atmosphere. There were several nice callbacks to their 2/3 falls match from August, starting with Zayn going for his turnbuckle dive DDT and Cesaro lying in wait with a beastly uppercut. Cesaro just manhandles Zayn the entire time using his freak strength. We didn't get anything quite as freakish as the 2/3 falls finish, with Cesaro literally running around the ring holding Zayn above his head and then tossing him even higher, but there were still plenty of awesome freak moments. Everytime Zayn would leave his feet I'd wonder if it would end with Cesaro catching him in mid air and then tossing him painfully, and it often would. Cesaro leveled him a couple of times with uppercuts, the best being a brutal running corner charge. We also get Cesaro working all over Zayn's knee, wrenching it in some cool ways, doing his nasty double stomp to it (later we even get a double stomp literally to Zayn's face), and Zayn gamely plays up the knee injury throughout, showing that some moves take longer to set up because of the knee, and when he follows through with the move anyway it almost always backfires (like Cesaro catching his split legged moonsault and splatting him on the rampway). Zayn's flash roll-ups and pins are all convincing, and Cesaro is great at getting into position and launching himself into Zayn's hope spots (Cesaro taking the sunset flip powerbomb is a thing of perfection). The fans rightly flip out for this one and I was hanging on all of the nearfalls with them. I love that Cesaro never actually went full heel in the match. Crowd was into him and more into Zayn's comebacks, but Cesaro didn't outright cheat or work in an underhanded way, and he didn't need to. This was just a classic match with flawless execution and an awesome, unexpected build. I couldn't see wanting anything more.

2. CJ Parker vs. Mojo Rawley

Parker is clearly the creep that you do NOT buy molly from on the moe. Cruise. Never seen Rawley before and I like the energy, but he doesn't do tons with it. Parker confuses my brain as I hate looking at him, but at the same time that makes his character so much more effective. Sinister hippie patchouli scum is something I simultaneously hate...yet I also just strangely really like Parker. This is a problem. Short match, Rawley uses a kinda weak bombs away as his finish.

3. The Ascension vs. Too Cool

This is probably the most I've enjoyed an Ascension tag. This was a perfect WorldWide match. Ascension got to work over Sexay with some nice running charges, Scotty looked good on the hot tag and threw some nice rights, Viktor did a nice reversal to avoid taking the Worm, Konnor's falling lariat looked great, and none of this overstayed its welcome. Pretty much a best case scenario Ascension tag.

4. Emma vs. Paige

So here I am one episode after babbling how much I don't "get" Emma, and then NXT does an Emma highlight package that totally makes me like Emma in about 60 seconds. I'm an awful, difficult person. I think what makes her character worse is hearing guys like Byron Saxton explain WHY she's quirky or weird makes it terrible, like Michael Cole trying to put over Adam Rose as cool and fun loving. Just seeing one minute of Emma interviews is so much better than Saxton reading a script. Her ringwork, however, still leaves me wanting flat. The match got a lot of time, and Byron Saxton kept telling me it was unbelievable and incredible, but they just had a hard time finding the narrative. All of the Emma promos with her acting aloof went out the window here as she's stomping on Paige's throat and controlling the first half of the match. Paige's promos all came off as someone with a chip on her shoulder, but then she's immediately thrust into a babyface role, which kinda goes out the window once SHE goes to control, as she also works as a heel. It's all strange and kinda flops, no matter the This is Awesome chants. Neither really has the moveset to fill this much time. I liked the "scorpion crosslock" (Regal's term) finish that Paige used, but I was still left confused by who they wanted me to cheer for.

5. Xavier Woods vs. Tyler Breeze

Match doesn't happen as Rusev comes out and does a couple of nice power throws. In hindsight kind of surprising how they had him wreck two guys who eventually got called up to the roster, since NXT has no problem using jobbers. But maybe that made the segment stand out a bit more to have him wreck a couple "name" guys.

6. Ladder Match: Adrian Neville vs. Bo Dallas

Good match, avoided a lot of ladder match tropes like slow climbing, and focuses more on actually two guys having a match that has to end with climbing, rather than two guys building a match around climbing. I have only seen WWE Bo Dallas where his work has been...less than stellar. He was so much better here, more focused in his role, and it's one of many examples of how terrible WWE is about just bringing some of these guys up with minimal explanations about who they are. But Dallas looks good here, he had these cool short arm back elbows where he'd just reel Neville into them, keep a hold onto Neville's arm, and then pull him back for another one, ending with a short arm lariat. He does a nice job of putting over little ladder match details, such as pinching his fingers (seems like something I do every third time I use a ladder). Neville works his insane agility and balance into some nice spots, such as springboarding onto the set-up ladder, and taking massive bumps off of it into the ropes. The also do a good job of setting up ladder spots early in the match that come into play later, like a ladder wedged into the corner that Neville eventually gets run into. Finish is good, simple and smart, with Dallas getting slammed on a ladder and Neville hitting the Red Arrow roughly across Dallas' legs. Dallas rolls to the floor while Neville sets up the ladder, and Dallas sloppily scrambles back in too late to make the save. We didn't get goofy dual slow climbs, we got a guy who sold too long who then realized it and tried to correct it, but couldn't. Good end to a good show.


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NXT Episode 209 2/20/14 Review

So last year I started and quickly stopped reviewing NXT, and I stopped for no real reason. I mean I stopped after literally two episodes, and they were two episodes that I really liked, so it made no sense. I just started watching other things, and now I'm a year further behind. But I loved the episodic nature of the television so much that I didn't want to do a massive time jump to catch up. Truthfully I don't really care much about catching up. I'd rather just watch the product. If I ever get close to present day, then that's terrific, it means I'm obviously enjoying it and also being ridiculously fruitful writing about it. So let's hop right back in where I left off, and see how far we get!!

1. The Ascension vs. Casey Marion & Mike Leboska (??)

Okay NXT, you're really making me look like an asshole jumping back in from the beginning, gifting me with an Ascension match to start things off. Naturally it was just a short squash, and it was perfectly fine for that. I'm going to weirdly try and look at things without the benefit of hindsight. Leboska never made it in the ring, Marion got torpedoed into him, and then Marion gamely took a couple double teams. The hip toss double powerbomb looked good and they timed the leg sweep/flying back elbow nicely.

2. Summer Rae vs. Emma

This wasn't bad, but Summer Rae doesn't have very great heel control offense, and this match needed a lot of that. With her bird bones body and natural bitch face Summer should only be a heel, but she needs to learn more condescending control offense, like cocky kicks to the back of the head or dickish stomps. She has nice roll-ups and gets real good bridging leverage with them, but that's more of a babyface thing so there's some conflict. I fully don't "get" Emma. I presume she's supposed to be quirky and awkward, and she's certainly awkward. It could just be a real smart booking strategy to book someone who's awkward in the ring as a "look how quirky and awkward she is!" type, but it doesn't always lead to satisfying action. It often leads to her just taking longer than normal to lock in moves or set up offense. Summer was working with Fandango on the main roster, so she does some fun cocky dancing to set up moves, and it satisfyingly leads to her taking a kick to the face when she gloats for too long. Summer tries some new things and not all of them work, but I felt she looked much better than Emma here. Sasha Banks was money at ringside, talking constant trash, slapping Emma to set up a nearfall, and then getting bumped off the apron when Summer accidentally gets run into her (which then sees her take a mean spill to the floor when Charlotte blows catching her). They got a bunch of time, but didn't totally justify it. Tensai was wayyyyyy to desperate to show how over Emma was.

I liked the Renee Young sitdown interview with Cesaro and Zayn. Cesaro was really good at getting under Zayn's skin and Zayn handled himself well by snapping but maintaining babyface sportsmanship. Should be a good match. Renee also had a super cool dress, so bonus.

3. Adrian Neville vs. Tyler Breeze

Really fun match, both guys looked really good. Neville looks far better here than I've seen him look on the main roster, and Breeze was already super polished two years ago. Breeze gamely took all of Neville's flying stuff, but also cuts him off really nicely when he gets showy. I though Breeze's opening overhand rights looked real good, and when Neville does a couple of fast handsprings to set up a corner charge I loved Breeze staying on him and surprising him with a nice running dropkick. Neville looked real smooth (which is kind of his thing), but Breeze kept impressing me at every turn. Breeze takes a MAMMOTH flapjack where it looked like he dangerously considered turning it into a backdrop bump but instead just does a brutal bellyflop. Neville also does a sick sitout powerbomb and Breeze just crashes hard into the mat off of it. Breeze bumps big all through this, also really taking Neville's dropkicks like cannonballs to the chest, leans face first into his flippy kicks. There was an awesome sucker spot where Neville was going for a springboard move, and Breeze horribly mistimed a dropkick and whiffed by going for it far too early. Neville bails on the move and gives a weird look at Breeze flopping so early, but then gets blasted with a Breeze superkick. Real fun sucker move. Neville's finished gets hit flawlessly, and yeh this was good.

Show ending promo with Bo Dallas calmly getting in Neville's face, with Neville daring him/desperate for him to punch him. Tons of close-ups on Dallas' face, which is one of the last faces I want to see in close-up, just an epically punchable face. Dallas does a great job acting like he's going to sock Neville, slowwwwwly taking off his sports coat, draping it over his arm, and then just walking out of the ring. Good stuff.

Fun episode. Emma does nothing for me, but there was more than enough good stuff here.


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NXT Episode 209 Workrate Report 2/18/14

1. The Ascension (Konnor & Viktor) vs. Casey Marion & Mike Laboska

Apparently the Ascension are the longest reigning tag team champs in NXT history. They also have matching soul patches, but I'm unsure if their title reign also synced up to their twin soul patch reign. Laboska takes a big bump off the apron from a shoulder to the stomach. The announcers inform me that Ckonar and Vyktur refer to their style as "telepathic carnage" which is not quite as dumb as "controlled frenzy". They do a couple moves to Marion and call it a day with a Total Elimination type leg sweep/flying back elbow combo. Hard to judge any of these guys in a one minute match. I like squash matches, but NXT isn't really impressing me with their 60 second squashes. I'd like to see a little more. Give me 6 moves instead of three. If a match takes less time than the ring entrances, you've almost always wasted my time.

2. Summer Rae vs. Emma

Boy this was not very good. I appreciate that they gave them time (7 minutes) to have a good match, but these two do not have 7 minutes worth of material. They've done a strange job with Emma as all her wins have happened after being dominated for the large part of her matches, then winning on almost flukes. Her Rae controlled the first 6 minutes, then botched interference from the BFFs led to Emma getting the Emma Lock. Summer Rae has some decent offense as her pointy features make her knees, elbows and hip bumps a lot more credible. I can imagine her boniness cutting somebody open. But she doesn't have 6 minutes of offense, and Emma isn't very good at taking or selling offense. After 6 minutes of control Emma just kinda starts acting like nothing has been done to her, takes over after a missed charge and starts dancing. I'm pretty shocked she got called up to the main card already as she has not shown me a whole lot. It should also be noted how completely horrible and lost Charlotte is at ringside. She is a complete wasteland of personality. She has no idea what she's feeling out there, no idea what her motivation is. She kept peeking over at Sasha Banks during the match and copying her reactions. It's one of the more painful things I've seen in wrestling. If she was working a "girl trying to fit into the In Crowd" gimmick it would be one of the finest examples of a subtly brilliant wrestling character, but she's clearly just completely clueless as to what the hell she's supposed to be doing out there. What's funny, is that her clueless positioning and complete lack of body chemistry immediately reminded me of David Flair, who I still think is the worst wrestler to be in a major fed for 2+ years. Even if I had no clue they were related, her vacant eyes, phony movements and complete lack of stage presence just immediately reminded me of David Flair.

Tyler Breeze does a quick interview running down Adrian Neville's looks, saying that an uggo shouldn't be the face of WWE. Neville seems to be playing some sort of model but I don't think he's really done much research into how male models usually act. They're usually vacant and aloof. He's going for more of a preening intellectual thing. Plus his jaw is too strong for modeling, his cheekbones are too weak, nose isn't good enough, and he needs to trim the sides of his hair. Get your act together Breeze.

Then we get a backstage sit down interview with Zayn and Cesaro building to their big match. Cesaro is incredible in this, spending most of the time texting on his phone. Great moment when Cesaro asked Zayn about his knee and Zayn said his need was cleared for competition. Cesaro says that being cleared and being 100% are two very different things. Zayn is wearing an Operation Ivy shirt this week, so with his Me First shirt last week I assume he hasn't actively tried to discover new bands since high school. I'm going to predict Less Than Jake or a Mad Caddies shirt for next week.

3. Adrian Neville vs. Tyler Breeze

This was a real fun match. It was mostly a Neville squash, but with a great almost turning point thrown in towards the end. Neville has a bunch of cool offense with his spinkicks and flying and nice elbows and nice hanging powerbomb. Breeze was good at bumping and posturing, like a not-as-good John Tatum. Wrestling doesn't really have a John Tatum right now so it's a welcome thing. The turning point was really weird and I'm not sure if it was just a cool blown spot recovery or a unique plan. Neville was on the apron waiting for Breeze to get up so he could hit a springboard move. Well Breeze gets up and throws a random dropkick before Neville is even doing anything. Just gets up and dropkicks nothing whatsoever. So Neville just walks back into the ring and then Breeze levels him with a superkick. So either within the match Breeze purposely tried to confuse Neville and suckered him into a last-chance move, or Breeze completely messed up his timing of what was supposed to be catching Neville with a dropkick, and on the fly the came up with the superkick instead. And the cool thing is, I like *both* possibilities. Either it was a really smart way to set up a possible comeback, or it was one of the smoothest blown spot recoveries I've seen. So, awesome either way. Neville ends up winning anyway with the Red Arrow which is one of the most spectacular spots in wrestling history. Most people can't pull off a normal shooting star press, let alone one with a twist that almost always hits completely flush.


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NXT Episode 207 Workrate Report 2/5/14

So I am almost 100% unfamiliar with the NXT goings on. 207 episodes!? How the hell is that even possible?? Have I literally missed 4 years of NXT? Or does it work like weird TV season numbers and this is just the 7th episode of season 2. But yeah, I have haven't seen much of NXT, is what I'm getting at. I've seen the occasional Hero or Ambrose match and that's about it. Never watched a full episode, but I like the fact that exists in its own little bubble, in the same way that Saturday Night or WorldWide used to exist. So in a way this is like WWE B-Sides. I still wish there was a show like Velocity, but this is probably the next best version of that. So, what the hell, let's start reviewing NXT weekly shows!

1. Sin Cara vs. Alexander Rusev

First time seeing Rusev here. I dig the guy's old school powerlifter build. He....doesn't seem that good. But I'm not shocked that he's getting brought up to the main roster. He's not very good at hitting his marks. Cara had to shove him into position at one point when he was taking too long, and he backed too far away from a Cara moonsault press so it ended up hitting him like a backflip dropkick instead. His offense is pretty dry, with mostly power stuff and some random kicks peppered in. He did do a running dropkick at one point that looked really great, really felt like a John Tenta style dropkick. He works this match too evenly, and at one point holds Cara in an armlock for far too long. I get that most short WWE matches need to have that pointless moment where the heel holds a face in some sort of a rest hold to build for the comeback, but it felt more pointless than usual here. Needs more impressive power spots. Plus his average height will be exposed when on the main roster.

2. Alicia Fox vs. Emma

Fox has been the best Diva for some time now, does all "between moves" stuff a lot better than most Divas (and plenty of male workers). Nice stomach kicks, actually makes restholds look like she's working a hold, really nasty wristlocks that looks like she's manipulating joints, cool reckless forearms from the mount. Emma does not seem very good, and I'm already starting to turn on her as she's getting mostly tepid responses but announcers on the main brand and now NXT are putting her over as somebody the crowd just goes batty for and pretending more than 30 people in the crowd are doing her dance. Here she takes a year to do a reverse rolling cradle and just as long to try and set up the Tarantula. I do like her doing the Emma dance into her finisher submission, but most everything else she does doesn't look good.

3. Sylvester Lefort vs. Mason Ryan

Oh hey it's Mason Ryan. Forgot about him. This goes about 45 seconds but is done the way a squash match should be done. Dug Ryan's hotshot into a running big boot. Good follow through on the boot. Would have liked to see some more from Lefort as I dug his hiked-high tights and beard. His strikes didn't look very good though.

4. Aiden English vs. Tyson Kidd

English looks like tall muscular Screech, and when he's wearing that beret he looks like Screech from that Saved By the Bell episode where Screech was in a chess tournament, and Zack and Slater make a bunch of money by running a gambling ring to capitalize on Bayside's sudden and never-again-mentioned chess fever!! Kidd looks really good in this, missing a crossbody in the ropes, throwing nice kicks and doing a cool rana that sends English face first into the turnbuckles. Kidd gets the Blockbuster for the win after English is distracted by some guy named Big Cass who threatens to steal Screech's lucky beret. Couldn't get a great read on English but he threw some great Bret Hart style falling elbows.

5. Adrian Neville vs. Corey Graves

Neville used to be PAC (they still use his moniker The Man Gravity That Gravity Forgot) and Graves is the former Sterling James Keenan. Boy WWE developmental names leave a lot to be desired. Graves has a real good look, like an indie rock Chris Isaak. PAC's flying is always impressively effortless.  I cannot imagine having that much knowing control of my body. I mean I have alright balance and don't trip over my own legs when I go running, but seeing PAC hitting a running tope/moonsault press (picture what starts as a dive over the ropes but adds a twist in the middle to land like a moonsault press) is pretty stunning Most of this match is Graves working over Neville's leg, which he does well. I always like the DDT done to the leg, and he gets a real high cradle on roll ups. The guy looks like he has to actually kick out of pins, not just get let out. Neville is really great at selling the leg, too, which makes the leg work better. Crowd doesn't seem to give much of a shit though. Neville is still good at selling while doing his moves, which is not something you see often. He eventually makes his comeback and hits his killer twisting shooting star off the rope. I liked what happened in the match fine, everything looked solid. It wasn't terribly compelling, and it should have been. The story of "guy gets weapon taken away by wily opponent" usually gets people into it, but they certainly were not here. Now I know nothing of the history, or how the crowd normally responds to these two, but I would have expected them to be a little more receptive to this.


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