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 220 5/8/14 Review

1. Emma vs. Charlotte

Man Jason Albert tries way too damn hard on commentary. He comes off so phony and forced. And it needs to be pointed out again just how tragic Sasha Banks' hair was during this period of NXT. It's like she had shorter hair, but got extensions, but only in the back, so she had a weird mullet that was made to look even weirder by her always parting it down the middle. It's a terrible terrible choice that has somehow lasted for a couple months. And this wasn't much of a match. Charlotte had a couple of really nice bridging pins, including the one for the win, but not enough happened in this one to make it worthwhile.

2. The Legionnaires (Sylvester Lefort & Marcus Louis) vs. El Local & Kalisto

This is the Kalisto TV debut, and El Local is Del Rio's former ring announcer Ricardo Rodriguez. I've never seen Louis before. Lefort is a guy I really like who never gets a ton of offense. But he takes offense really nicely, and here he really leaps into all of Kalisto's flip offense. Leaps into his high crossbody and springboard tornillo, leans temple first into a couple really nice Kalisto rolling kicks. Local is a little slow but did a fun sliding stop when thrown into the buckles, and turned that into a nice Pele kick. I couldn't get any sort of read on Louis. But a nice debut for Kalisto.

3. Camacho vs. Captain Comic

Comic is Jody Kristofferson, who I forgot was in WWE developmental at one point and has since come back to the Bay Area indie scene and is the present APW Champ so they can hilariously brag on Facebook that "If Kris Kristofferson shows up to your show, you've done something right". Yeah. You booked his son in the main event and gave him the title. It's not like he just showed up at a wrestling show to check out the talent. I dig Camacho so it's nice to see him get a squash win. He throws a cool pump dropkick to Comic's stomach dishes a nice over the shoulder powerslam, and admittedly wears one of the worst Converse Chuck Taylor designs: camouflage. Yuck. Just go with a plain canvas color dude. The camouflage Chucks are like barely a step above the Flame print ones.

4. Alicia Fox vs. Alexa Bliss

Another debut with Bliss likely being some sort of fitness model. She certainly doesn't know how to do wrestling offense, wherever she came from. She throws a real ugly mistimed dropkick and then hits a bad handspring standing moonsault that sees her accidentally land in an awkward kneeling position. Her elbows to get out of a headlock land nowhere near Fox. Man this girl does not look ready for TV in any way. Fox, however, looked awesome. Fox hits a real mean northern lights suplex, big tilt a whirl backbreaker, and really cranks in a side headlock. Bliss was lost as hell so Fox had to lock on a few chinlocks and headlocks to save things, but Fox made every single one of them actually look painful. Of course Bliss gets the upset, but man did she look bad.

5. #1 Contender Battle Royal

Not too many ways to determine a #1 contender for your main belt are more dumb than a battle royal, but I'm a weird sucker for royals so whatever. Tons of guys are waiting in the ring, but Mojo Rawley, Sami Zayn and Bo Dallas get entrances. We have a Curt Hawkins sighting! I mean, the sighting came when he got immediately eliminated, but Hawkins is still a guy who is around and doing things! I do like Albert putting over Yoshi Tatsu, saying he has legitimate Royal Rumble experience so he should be a favorite in this. But damn this really isn't much of a battle royal. It felt more like just filling time. Bo Dallas got a couple nice shine moments, getting to eliminate Mason Ryan and Big Cass, the two big guys in the match. But the whole match is used to set up a Breeze/Zayn/Tyson Kidd triple threat with HHH coming out to announce it and acting like a triple threat is the best possible match we can get. I would rather see a singles match between any two wrestlers in the battle royal, than the triple threat match we're going to get next week. So is HHH or JBL the Commissioner? Can anybody from WWE come in and make matches? Even Brodus Clay was able to come in and put himself immediately into a title match.

Weird episode this week as I do like seeing debuting wrestlers, but the two tournament matches fell flat, and the battle royal was uneventful and poorly filmed, and sets up an undesirable match.


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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 213 3/20/14 Review

1. Mojo Rawley vs. Bull Dempsey

One of those matches worked 75 up front for one guy, then the guy who's somehow supposed to look good just takes the last 25. This was a real common match format in '95 syndicated WCW. Heel bullies for first 3/4, then the babyface just comes back without trouble. This was my first time seeing Dempsey and I dug him in a generic syndicated fat guy kind of way. He wears a cool generic black fat guy singlet, and he has nice simple knees and elbows and fat guy clubs. Rawley still hasn't shown me a whole lot and that doesn't change here. He doesn't take a super interesting beating, and when his "wild" comeback starts it's meant to look like an ultra hyper wild man slamming into people, but his shoulderblocks and elbows and bombs away all land just a bit too light.

Backstage promo with CJ Parker wearing a dress shirt, necktie and vest. Man that is....so fucking stupid. Not everybody needs to dress like 1984 Ric Flair when cutting title match promos.

Zayn vs. Breeze doesn't happen as Corey Graves jumps Zayn and posts him.

2. Adam Rose vs. Camacho

Camacho is on an awesome run of "already waiting in ring" TV appearances. And boy Adam Rose is not very good. He throws an okay spinebuster, all of his other stuff had too much hesitation or pulling back. Camacho worked as a good faceless heel, stomping and elbowing and acting flummoxed by Rose's jackassery, but he was no matched for Rose's slow paced offense. Nothing about Rose screams "ready for the big time".

3. Sasha Banks vs. Bayley

Not much of a match as both Sasha and Bayley work like they have no offense, with Bayley being 1995 Mikey Whipwreck and Banks being Stevie Richards. Banks even has Richards' old 1995 mullet. So we get headlocks, roll-ups, people getting tossed to the floor, stomps, back rakes, and eventually a roll up gets reversed for the win. Both have charisma to pull off their characters, although Bayley relies way too much on acting like some sort of 12 year old, because I guess guys like that? She acts a couple steps ahead of Eugene, and I suppose that's what makes her "a role model to girls around the world", as they keep saying. I think they're trying to make her into Zooey Deschanel or...more like whatever WWE thinks Zooey Deschanel might be from the episode of New Girl they watched that one time.

4. Aiden English vs. Sheamus

This wasn't bad either but again a theme of NXT heels not actually having offense. English takes a nice back bump to the floor, and sets up stuff for Sheamus really nicely. I especially liked him setting up Sheamus' ring apron forearms, as English scrambles trying to escape to the floor, and Sheamus catches him before he can get there, leaving English prone for the forearms. The match gets time, they just don't do a whole lot with it. There's only so much time you can spend running from Sheamus, followed by holding Sheamus in a chinlock.


Not much of an episode this week. I liked the guys who weren't supposed to be getting the rub, liked Dempsey while not thinking much of Rawley, liked Camacho while thinking Rose looked bad. This doesn't seem like a good sign.


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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.


NXT COLLECTED REVIEWS

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