2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Revival vs. B Team

71. Revival vs. B Team WWE Raw 8/27

ER: Buried in the middle of Raw was this little gem of a tag match, that built off their prior interactions and added a couple false finishes playing off prior matches. I've been flat out loving the Revival this year, think they've been consistently fantastic, and I think this is as much as Dallas/Axel have excelled since they've been on the main roster. The match is not long, under 10 minutes, and followed a 20+ minute Please Don't Stop match with Seth Rollins. These teams clearly knew their time was precious and busted ass from go, with B Team dropping great knees and elbows (Dallas' successive kneedrops here were some of my favorite offense I've seen from him) and taking it to Revival. But Revival are great at cutting off the ring, and Dawson especially has a bunch of cool attacks, a ton of offense he does well. He hits a nice dropkick and controls with a nice body vice, face lock, Once they went into hot tags and nearfalls it felt like they were working a 15 minute match in 9 minutes, but I thought the frantic pace added to everything. Dallas hits his nice neckbreaker off the ropes (which has beaten the Revival before) and that's when we get our satisfying run of pin break ups and unexpected kickouts. The Summerslam match had a fun moving parts finish (the type of finish that typically looks stupid when someone gets rolled up but then gets knocked into so the pinfall reverses) and they play off that here, making it feel like something similar will happen and milk it for a couple of nearfalls. A few years ago it felt like we were getting a fun 8-12 minute tag match like this one every single week on Raw, but a lot of tag teams now feel relegated to Main Event and the only Raw tags that get time to shine are with makeshift singles guys. I would love to see this kind of tag make a TV comeback.

PAS: This was a lot of fun, when I first saw the Revival I thought they were more like 80s tag team Karaoke, but I really think they have pulled it together now. Really loved how they cut the ring off, and kept shifting into different holds, and attacks rather then just sit in a chinlock. Dawson especially seemed to be constantly throwing in tiny cool moves. His face lock was nifty stuff. I haven't seen much of Axel and Dallas as a team, but they were a totally competent face team, solid lightening express. Axel has been in the WWE for 8 years now, which is 2 years longer then his dad's run, and hasn't had a single memorable moment, it is good to see him doing something entertaining, and I am looking forward to checking out more of these guys.

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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 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 216 4/10/14 Review

1. Adam Rose vs. Danny Burch

Burch is UK wrestler Martin Stone who I have seen before and really liked in Evolve. There are many guys in NXT I would rather see him go up against. Shame Regal wasn't on commentary here as I'd love to hear his thoughts on Burch. The match itself wasn't really given a chance to be interesting as it was mostly a heatless Rose showcase. Rose hits some nice shoulderblocks and a nice Bret Hart elbow drop (with elbow pad removal!) but the schtick wastes too much time and got old immediately. Hopefully Burch pops up more in the future though.

2. Bayley vs. Sasha Banks

Short match but go go go and they made the short time work for them. Sasha knows she doesn't have much offense but makes up for it in other ways, and clearly has tons of body charisma and knows how to bitch it up in the ring. She also knows how to let her opponent transition to offense by letting her own bitchiness distract her. Bayley fit a bunch of cool things into her shine, throwing a few flying back elbows and hitting a great high lift belly to belly (The Bayley to Belly is an amusing name). Sasha really bumped hard for those elbows and especially took that BtB really high up on her shoulders. I'm actually pretty shocked Sasha loses as much as she does - in my brief time spent with NXT. She comes off like a pretty big deal but maybe I'm misreading her character and part of it is that she thinks she's a big deal but always loses? Legend in her own mind? The announce crew doesn't play things that way (although I wouldn't trust Riley and Albert to be able to get anything over properly).

3. Sylvester Lefort vs. Mojo Rawley

Albert is to "Oh man this guy gets me pumped" during Rawley's entrance, as Tazz is to "Well...here comes the pain!" during old Lesnar entrances. If Mojo has to be on TV every week at least this match was just a minute long. Though I always really really hate when a match is shorter than the combined ring entrance time. Lefort seems kinda fun and he makes Mojo look good enough in his short time in the ring. This kind of Mojo in ring training seems like stuff that can be happening off camera though.

We get a fun look at the NXT events during the 2014 Wrestlemania weekend. I will say that when WM was in San Jose last year we tried to get NXT tickets and that thing sold out QUICK. We didn't starve for wrestling as we got to see a couple of killer Evolve shows. We get some fun moments like a nice seeming dad congratulating Zayn on his accomplishments, and telling him he's phenomenal. Also get Lefort pretending to take a nap behind Rawley while Rawley goes on about how hyped he always is.

4. Bo Dallas vs. Justin Gabriel

We get a longish segment with Bo having a breakdown in the ring, wanting the fans support while they turn their backs, then "Commissioner" JBL comes out and lets Bo know that he'll be facing Justin Gabriel. JBL is the NXT Commissioner? This is literally the first time I've heard that even mentioned, and this is the 10th episode of NXT I've watched. Albert and Riley go on about all the great choices JBL has made as Commissioner but I swear this is the only time I've ever heard JBL's name even mentioned here. WTF? Match didn't do a lot for me. Crowd was really chant-y the whole show, which I get when you're there every week and see all these guys in a small venue, but this was the first time I felt it was getting into a "Let's be the show!" type of thing. This match was just Albert yelling OOOOOOHHHHHHH whenever Gabriel did literally any move. He was so constantly amazed at every light-landing Gabriel crossbody. Albert was like an immigrant seeing the Statue of Libery for the first time, just eyes wide in amazement when Gabriel would do a standard dropkick. Bo Dallas shows so much more polish in NXT than he's shown on the main roster. It's odd as it's obviously why Ascension look worse on the main roster: Their bodies deflated a bit and they weren't allowed to be super violent with people the way they were to jobbers, kinda like the old Mike Awesome dilemma. But Bo might just be one of those guys who translates to 400 people and not 4000 people. But he knows how to react to this crowd, knows how to work heel, and looks good in the ring. I've not seen him do any one of those things in WWE. But yeah, this got a lot of time and didn't do much for me.

Pretty throwaway episode right here. But hey next week we get Great Khali (no clue that Khali was still employed in 2014)!




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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 212 3/13/14 Review

1. Paige vs. Sasha Banks

Albert calls Paige "the closest you can get to a total package in wrestling" which...seems a wee bit hyperbolic. I mean, you can't just go saying that about everybody, and the person you choose to say that about is...Paige? Match itself was short and not bad, though the ending was kind of abrupt and didn't make Sasha look very strong. Paige was working the match as seasoned vet, and Banks was kind of more Stevie Richards as she doesn't really seem to have tons of offense, so she gets by on body charisma and stuff like back rakes and hair pulling. It works, as she comes off like a gal who would give zero fucks about ripping out a chunk of some girl's extensions. Sasha locks on a nice arms-crossed camel clutch, even if it doesn't ever feel like it could end the match. They must have gotten the sudden call to go home though as Sasha lets get back up, then Paige just kinda knocks Sasha down and immediately works to lock on the Paige Tapout. I mean, Sasha was good at fighting to keep out of it and avoid getting her arms locked in, but it was a really weird sequence with Paige sitting in a sub, then getting up and just locking on her own sub for the win.

2. The Ascension vs. Travis Tyler & Cal Bishop

You'll never believe it, but according to our announce crew, The Ascension are also "The Total Package". Five stars for everybody! Everybody gets a Trophy Day! Travis Tyler draws the short straw here and takes the brunt of the 3.5 minute beating. And to their credit Ascension know how to work squash matches. It helps having a guy like Tyler who was really great at being blitzed and blindsided by shoulderblocks and double teams. I've never seen Tyler before but he's at minimum a guy who makes offense look really great, and he was real good at naturally stumbling into position, conveying that his bell was rung early and he wasn't sure where the next shot was coming from. Viktor hits a real nice boma ye off the middle buckle, with Konnor Irish whipping him into it. Nice, satisfying extended squash.

3. Mason Ryan vs. Wesley Blake

Damn I actually really really liked this. It was two green guys, but having a fun "Power Plant green guys getting a little time on Pro" and they're trying new things and some of them don't totally work, but they look game in trying these new things, and they kind of surprise you a bit. Here the green sloppiness added to the match for me, as it made things come off with a cool confused struggle. The headlock stuff in the beginning was really good because of that, as instead of a clean headlock push into the ropes, we get some nasty struggle over a sloppy choke with guys getting their ears pinched and forearms going across noses. So we get a couple of sloppy struggles, but they looked better in their sloppiness. Blake takes a punch well and we also get some nice ground punches which feel more like an MMA guy sensing his opponent was finished so dives in excitedly with some sloppy ground strikes. Ryan plays around with some headlock takedowns and fireman's carry takedowns, and those benefit from sloppiness as well. They came off more as uncooperative throws. Nice segment with Ryan missing a corner charge and hitting his shoulder, and the match actually including some nice callback spots to a potential shoulder injury. Blake later hits a single arm DDT and a nice stomp to the shoulder, and there's some fun fighting over an arm wringer. Eventually we get the kind of abrupt Power Plant guy GO HOME call where someone just hits their finisher. But this surprised me and I really dug it, in the same way I was surprised and really dug Sick Boy vs. Renegade.

4. Xavier Woods vs. Alexander Rusev

Tyler Breeze comes out and begs Woods for the shot against Rusev, sounds genuine, wants the chance to fight Rusev for hitting his face. Woods refuses and as Rusev comes out, Breeze jumps Woods.

And damn this match was good too, although needed like...30 more seconds to make it substantial. But it was good. Woods is reeling from getting jumped and taking shots to the back of his head, so Rusev bullies him into the corner and laces in with low shin kicks and nice knees to the ribs. He's working like a bulky RINGS Russian, like Bitsadze Tariel, with shin kicks and rolled shoulder throws. Woods gets a really great comeback too, as Rusev bullies him into a corner but Woods knows the shin kick is coming this time. So Woods catches it and starts throwing all the strikes at him, nice low kicks, elbows to the jaw, a really great chop, just peppering them in off time, staggering Rusev. But it is fleeting, as Rusev grabs hold of him and tosses him into a pancake. With one more twist or turn, this could have been a perfect little short match.

5. Colin Cassady vs. Bo Dallas

Colin Cassady is hilarious to me. As in, I giggled through this whole match. Cassady is a giant. He is clearly a tall guy, even though he just kind of looks like Edge slightly stretched out. So he's this giant guy, who loses ALL of his height once there's any kind of lock-up. He and Dallas lock up, and suddenly Dallas looks bigger. He starts wrestling like Spike Dudley the second they lock-up. Even his comebacks are like Spike Dudley, or any blowjob babyface tag team ever. BUT, when he makes his comebacks, his offense is sold like he is a GIANT. So he's wrestling like Bobby Fulton but then makes a comeback and Dallas is taking flip bumps like he's being tossed around by Andre. So I'm dying laughing as Dallas easily grounds Cassady with a headlock, and then Cassady starts elbowing Dallas' stomach to get out of it, but Dallas is jumping while taking these shots like he's comically  taking the offense of a giant man, but Cassady is facially acting like he's a tiny babyface desperately fighting for control. It's fucking hilarious. He works like fucking Tommy Rogers except he's 7 feet tall!! I can't stand it. It's too good. He'll always be desperately struggling to fight back, but then he'll hit a big boot like a giant and Dallas will go flying like he took a bat to the face. HOLY SHIT Cassady just threw himself down to the mat while whipping Dallas into the corner. Holy shit. He did it in the way tiny juniors throw themselves down, as if they're using ALL of their strength, every possible muscle in their little body, to whip this man into the buckles, like Mitch Williams falling off the mound after pitches because he was throwing so hard. I can't take it. That's like something Kalisto would do when wrestling Rusev. So, aside from breaking out in tears every time GIANT Colin Cassady worked as if he were Rey Misterio wrestling Kevin Nash on Nitro, I really liked Dallas in this. He worked a smarmy slow style, really rubbing it in that he was being methodical. And the crowd was booing and chanting boring, and that makes Dallas make a BO-lieve joke out of BO-ring. Dallas throws awesome back elbows and at one point plowed through Cassady with an awesome running back elbow variation. But Colin Cassady man. I can't deal. I love it.

Fun episode, sometimes for the reasons they weren't totally going for. HOWEVER, fun is fun is fun.


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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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