NXT TakeOver: In Your House 6/13/21

We still can't rewind or start from beginning on Peacock, and I had Sunday errands. Why is Peacock this bad? Remember when we complained about the Network? Nobody wants to talk about it but this is clearly digital pro wrestling slowly turning into the lamest I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. I'll go back and pick up the stuff I missed once it's actually online. It's going to be really nice watching one of these with a decent crowd. There are so many of these acts who have barely played in front of people, and right on first sight this show has a great "packed local indy" energy to it. [Edit: Was I actually on time for this? I assumed it was 4:00 PM but if it's 5:00 then I guess I made it?]

Legado Del Fantasma vs. Bronson Reed/MSK

ER: I came into this one an unsure number of minutes, but it's one I was excited about on this card. Wilde and Mendoza are a pair of underrated in ring players right now, and you could say the same but lesser for MSK. The Dusty Classic was the best TV period for WWE this year and the energy hasn't been as good since that ended. The whole thing was great, and nearly every single participant has felt lost since. This whole thing is really great, as even when WWE has matches with actual luchadors in it, they don't always connect as actual lucha matches. But this really had the feel of a really strong lucha trios, and it's a shame we don't get more TV matches with the Legado del Fantasma trio. This is the best I've seen Reed look all year, a guy who appeared to be suffering from New Keith Lee syndrome. Here he was the great lucha wrecking ball, a large presence that could flattens someone to peak a sequence, like big Super Porky spots without any jokes attached. MSK were really fun getting set up over and over but LdF, and LdF's timing and rhythm were firing hard here. Reed acting as the big cut off to LdF's runs was a good way to lay this out, and I have no doubts that they could have worked a really good 2/3 Falls match (and there's no reason they still can't, ehhhhh?). Wes Lee is a good FIP and I just love Wilde and Mendoza do their thing. Mendoza was great at taking everyone's offense, getting just leveled by a Reed avalanche and having some great vocals and facials after getting flattened with more. Reed crashing Escobar through the hockey barricade looked like convenience store footage of a compact car crashing into the front beer display. Great moment. This match is literally only the 2nd time this year we've gotten the full trios version of Legado del Fantasma, and that needs to change, because this quality can't be denied. 

Mercedes Martinez vs. Xia Li

ER: I'm probably 2-3 months behind on NXT TV so I always see TakeOvers way before the set up, so I don't know how we got here, but I really like the energy that they take into it. Pretty early we settle into Li convincingly bullying Martinez around the ring and ringside, and you need a lot of ring confidence to bully Martinez. I'm a fan of Li's current thing, a little more Lucha Underground than the typical NXT gimmick. She runs Martinez into the ringpost and the turnbuckles, bends her around the post, and eventually throws a nasty high kick right into that same damn post in a great spot. Not only does the spot look great, but it changes the total energy of the match in a cool way, as now Li is the underdog babyface and Martinez is never more interesting than when she's stalking prey. Li is compelling when desperately fighting out of slams, and Martinez drops her with some nasty suplexes and slams. I like Li as a brow furrowed ass kicker, and I like her as a big bumping babyface. If you're taking a high backdrop on the floor on a show I watch? I am into you. I love how they had Li's big spinkick be the clean finish, made it feel like a huge singles win. This went the exact right length, and this is probably the best we've seen look in a longer match. Martinez gets a lot of credit, but Li now looks like a super confident performer who can work face or heel, and her look is excellent. Really loved the energy they sustained. 

LA Knight vs. Cameron Grimes

ER: I cannot help to love how Grimes moves to his To The Moon entrance song, it just fits. I'm pretty over ladder matches at this point, but I liked what these two did with the played out ladder match. Knight especially was great at turning non-spots into big moments, with strong stuff like trying to slam the ladder on Grimes and missing. To the Moon is a great way to get fans into it, and Knight was an old indy pro at keeping it a strong rallying cry. The build was really good and they knew how to start with bullshit, build to fighting around the ladder, then throw in your painful bumps. Knight has been at this game practically as long as AJ Styles, and he felt like a great AJ Styles heel here. Knight had a killer backdrop bump onto the ladder, and a Lawler level face first run into the top of a ladder. He was great at stooging to set up all of Grimes' comebacks, snapping over on Grimes' ranas (in ring and to the floor), and fed perfectly into two nice Grimes punts. Grimes gets crazier the longer the match goes, scaling a ringside ladder and escaping to ringside rigging, then does a sheer drop onto Knight with a crossbody. He tops that with a crazy CZW type spill, getting tipped in gross fashion from the top into the entrance ramp. I liked the Knight win, but that might be just because I really liked Knight in this match. Definitely exceeded my expectations. 

 

Raquel Gonzalez vs. Ember Moon

ER: Raquel has been such a wonderful presence in the women's division, a role that seemed like she might have been rushed into and yet all it did was make her immediately grow into the role. She is so good at selling for smaller opponents and is so good at pacing things out. She knows how to be dominant while leaving openings, and then her selling during those openings is so good that she seems actually beatable, before she slams the doors shut again. She uses her long limbs very effectively, lashing out with big clubbing shots and reaching out with kicks to the stomach, but when she's in close she unleashes different attacks. Her elbows really rock Moon, and she does this awesome over shoulder backbreaker while bending at Moon's neck and chin (then flipping her hard to get her back to the mat), and when Moon makes her big press back I loved how she paid Raquel back for all of the specific things she did. Moon hits a fantastic running clothesline, and Moon must love Raquel as an opponent as you can always tell she throws her offense even harder than usual and Raquel just leans right into it. Moon kicked things up a level when she locked in a deathlock variation and yanked Raquel by the ponytail, mouth, and throat to pull her deeper into the submission. Moon has complicated offense and I'm impressed she almost always manages to pull it off better than it could be pulled off, but Gonzalez is again someone who has an uncanny ability to take complicated offense, so, well. Ember Moon got to hang with Gonzalez and look like she belonged, Dakota Kai was a treat at ringside (I love the dynamic of the Raquel/Kai partnership), and I love how Raquel's wins are always big exclamation marks. Dominant champ who can sell, then wins definitively, is a simple formula. This could be absurd hype with a year of hindsight, and I wouldn't expect him to touch his peak, but she's progressing in a way that could be as impressive as Brock's initial rise. The potential is right there. 

Kyle O'Reilly vs. Johnny Gargano vs. Pete Dunne vs. Adam Cole vs. Karrion Kross

ER: Here's the one on paper landmine on the show, and the way they start does not make me optimistic that they'll escape landmine status. I think it will all depend on the runtime. But I did not need to see Kross work his Karate Rockette routine while everyone else busies themselves on the floor, really not liking how Kross is the denominator for all the early stretches. Everyone else waits their turn to go one on one or two on one with Kross and the Kross show is the weakest routine in the match. And you know what? This match wasn't totally for me, and it almost surely wasn't ever going to be. So, knowing that, you go in hoping that it will at least be good for what it is, and it was. If you are the kind of person who sees these 5 names in a main event and assume it's going at least 30, and you are EXCITED for it, then this definitely gave you every single thing you could have wanted. It went too long (obviously it was going to go too long) but was laid out well once they moved past the Kross one on ones. 

This is modern wrestling based around constant counters, constant commentary talking about the counters, and constant guys looking over the shoulder waiting for the timing to be right. It's distracting, but it's tough to time things perfectly with an odd number of guys, and if you were a fan of late 2000s PWG main events then I'd be surprised if you didn't enjoy this. I have no interest in going through 30 minutes of spots, but O'Reilly and Gargano took some heavy bumps (loved O'Reilly getting shoved off the top to the floor and basically cannonballing to the floor), Gargano got powerbombed into the edge of the apron by Kross in what looked like the worst possible landing, both guys really kept this pumping. Gargano went really wild here, my favorite stretch of the match was when he was flying all over the place. He hit a fast bullet tope that almost sent him straight into the announce table, and his tope tornado DDT on Dunne was a real feat for both. I also found myself rooting for O'Reilly when he had that sick Volk Han leg lock sunk in. Also a big fan of the timing it took for the double superkick to actually look good on Dunne's moonsault. This spots are an inch either way from either murdering a man or looking awful, and this one looked great. I think anyone would have taken that over a continued Reign of Kross. But hey, if you already wanted to see this match, you are happy, and that is what's most important. This is about the best this style can get for me, which means it was technically my least favorite match on the show, but it didn't tank the show at all. 

ER: This was a great show, every match delivered what people excited for that match would want. Seeing  Legado del Fantasma as a trio was a treat, Xia Li stepped up into the spotlight nicely, Raquel and Ember tore it down (Raquel has delivered on big NXT shows this year like literally no other person on the roster), and the ladder match was strong. Great show, kept a great pace, only really felt like it was dragging during some stretches of the main. Highly recommended show. 

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NXT TakeOver: Stand and Deliver Night One 4/7/21

NXT has been my favorite mainstream wrestling program of 2021, so I figured why not check out their two night TakeOver special, despite being a few weeks behind on programming and not actually knowing anything that is on the card. Will I be rewarded for going into this blind? We'll see!

Pete Dunne vs. Kushida

ER: This was a real nice fast pace for a show opener, and also, I hated most of it! I really, really hated most of the offense that made up this entire match, a match filled with arm break and finger break spots without a single moment of somebody selling an arm or finger injury. Dunne tossed out so many finger break spots that were used to transition Kushida immediately back to offense, just an incredibly stupid usage of an already stupidly used spot. They traded arm break spots, and every time they did, all that happened was the other one would then do their own arm break spot right after. The match threatened a few times to go to interesting places, but since no move in the match was ever sold seriously, those interesting places became only "what ifs". Kushida was really good at setting up Dunne's offense, took a big suplex on the apron too, but it's like they had some odd agreement that once one got to do a move, then the other could get up and immediately take back over with his own move. There was one compelling nearfall, where I thought a Kushida small package might have ended it early, but maybe that was me in hindsight just wishing that had ended things early. This was a lot of fast movement that lead absolutely nowhere, and everything was run through so quickly that I guarantee none of it will be remembered in a day. 

Gauntlet Match

ER: I don't really like gauntlet matches where guys enter on a time limit rather than after an elimination. It never plays to anyone's strengths, too many guys have to disappear when things get too clogged, and they're never as satisfying as just a trios match would have been. Hell, give me a couple of singles matches between any of these guys, guarantee it will be better than a timed gauntlet match. Nobody in this got much time to map out anything interesting, as a Ruff/Scott singles match could have been a really cool 8 minutes, as soon enough it was two guys bumping for Bronson Reed and ignoring everything that had happened in their own match, and that's how these things go. Pretty soon you have guys no selling spots because they need to be in position for the next chain spot, so Isaiah Scott gets flipped inside out with a Reed clothesline, but is back hitting a meh superkick on Grimes 4 seconds later because that's how the move chaining works. A gauntlet match like this is really great at making six guys all come out looking worse, either by getting pinned way earlier than they should have been (Grimes, Lumis), or having to rush through your routine because everyone else is fighting for attention. Even a silly 6 man multiman would have worked better than a new guy awkwardly integrating himself into the match every few minutes, but the format we got is not conducive to a good match for anyone involved. Did LA Knight need to be in this? Did Lumis? Just a poorly laid out idea all around. 

7. Tommaso Ciampa vs. WALTER

ER: THIS was more like it, just a big throwing bomb fest that was more than just bombs. This never felt like two guys out there trying to get This Is Awesome chants, it felt like an actual big main event title match, with one guy the clear underdog who was going to take as much punishment for as long as he possibly could. WALTER and Ciampa both turned in great performances, with WALTER turning in a ton of appropriate selling and Ciampa actually working like a guy with a size disadvantage, always feeling like a guy hanging on who MAYBE had an outside chance of winning the belt. I loved how the worked in some vulnerabilities for WALTER, and having him hurt his hand by overhand chopping the announce table in half is a great way to set up a hand injury. WALTER was super punishing with his offense, all of his kicks really found their way right underneath Ciampa's chin, and he was able to be punishing while not forgetting about what happened to his hand (something that nobody else on TakeOver has been able to do). 

WALTER's best bit of selling was when he was taking a dozen lariats from Ciampa, as it's incredibly difficult to sell on your feet while waiting for someone to hit you repeatedly, yet I thought he made it look fantastic. Ciampa's lariats weren't strong enough to put the big man down, but I liked how they knocked him into the ropes, loved how he stumbled before getting turned around, loved how the next one hit him in the back of the head and made him fall into the ropes for a bit, thought he turned what could have been an extended silly moment into an excellent stubborn refusal to go down and save himself from more punishment. Ciampa is a real hard chopper, and WALTER's chest was getting nicely purple by the end of this, and the harder Ciampa hit, the harder it made WALTER come at him with full force lariats and straight kicks. WALTER's powerbombs looked great too, and I loved how he was using his weight and size to just try to hold Ciampa to the mat. I loved the spot where WALTER hopped onto Ciampa and almost tricked Ciampa into bridging up on his neck, that extra bit of temerity that seemed immediately like a bad idea, and lead directly to WALTER crushing him back on their feet. Ciampa's selling down the stretch was great too, barely escaping out of a rolling powerbomb, dead man walking getting back to his feet when he clearly shouldn't have been standing, only to be put down for good with one last chop. Several guys on NXT have really taken a lot of the stupid melodrama out of their selling and it has only made these title match epics sing. With no bullshit morality acting or shocked kickout faces, the matches seem far more streamlined and intense. 

PAS: I thought this was a good stiff match, which flirted with great, but didn't get there. I thought the spot with WALTER smashing the table with a chop was a clever idea, executed well and really gave the match some structure. WALTER did a great job of selling constantly trying to adjust his attack with that probably broken hand. I also thought the multiple lariat spot was clever, although I really wish they looked better. It would have been a bigger deal if WALTER had kept standing with a dozen hard lariats, rather then just standing through a dozen B- ones. I thought the finish run had the problems that these matches often have, where they ended a couple of beats too late. The actual finishing spot looked way less nasty than the couple that proceeded it, and it came off flat. I would have liked the match a lot more if it ended on the powerbomb. Still for this style of match it had some real highs, and I enjoyed lots of it. 

MSK vs. Raul Mendoza/Joaquin Wilde vs. Grizzled Young Veterans

ER: I thought the Dusty Classic (Men's and Women's) was really good, tons of memorable matches and really made me want a legit focused tag division. This tag three way was everything the earlier match with six people wasn't, a super fun tag with a few surprising spots and a quick pace, felt more like a tag you'd see on early 2000s Jersey All Pro, and I can't think of a bigger wrestling compliment I could give over the past 20 years. Just like on those old JAPW tapes, I'd spend entire matches constantly switching who my favorite was, made me just root for all of them and seek out more. You'd flip for a big Ghost Shadow bump, then flip for the Hit Squad crushing Azrieal, then lose it for Rainchild. It was a roster I loved through and through, and everyone worked well together. I have a feeling this would have played well at the Bayonne Charity Hall. Wes Lee had this section where he was throwing out spin kick combos and leg sweeps as everyone in the match attacked like a ninja, then he pasted Gibson with a hard hitting tope, and followed that up with a huge tope con giro on Legado del Fantasma. Mendoza and Wilde are great at getting into position for things like that, and I like how they played kind of a lower key highspot role so MSK could shine with their cool double teams. Wilde stuck to hard corner clotheslines, Mendoza stuck to high dropkicks, a missile dropkick to break up a submission, and both took crazy spots on the floor to help get over the other teams. Wilde took a flat out insane looking Doomsday Device, with Drake running off the ramp to send Wilde to the floor, and Mendoza took basically a safer Burning Hammer on the floor with a slingshot double stomp from Lee to kick it off. The MSK "best buds stuff fighting for their dream" stuff can get a little hammy (though it would probably be fine if only they weren't constantly talking about it on commentary, but this is the kind of tag match you put on to show off that your tag division is really cool right now. 

Raquel Gonzalez vs. Io Shirai

ER: This was the complete opposite of what I thought it was going to be, worked totally different from what I was expecting, and I loved it. I thought this would be Gonzalez dominating, with Shirai coming back in not belieavable ways and pinning Raquel with a bad moonsault. Instead, it was somehow Shirai taking 90% of the match, which on paper sounds preposterous to me. But Raquel Gonzalez is getting really good, and it kind of snuck up on me. She is a really strong base, and not just in the kind of way that someone so much larger and taller than their opponents should be. She was so good at taking Shirai's offense and so great at setting all of it up, all of it building nicely to each stage of the match, that it felt like Shirai was organically keeping not just one step ahead of Gonzalez, but believably dominating her. They were really smart about how much offense Gonzalez took, having her block several ranas, avoid Shirai's rope feint kicks, and it was the only way this was going to work. Shirai just doing nothing but offense for 90% of the match would have come off brainless, but with Gonzalez fending off much of it, it just made Shirai come off as relentless. Dakota Kai's interference and immediate dismissal came at a good time, and I like how all it did was stop a Shirai moonsault, not turn the tide for Gonzalez. It was super impressive how they kept Shirai in control and Gonzalez staggering, but I really got into it. Gonzalez kicking out of the moonsault felt like a big deal, and the crossbody off the entrance ramp looked like a deranged Shirai throwing her body harder and harder into the monster that won't stay down. I thought it was great how suddenly Gonzalez took over, nailing Shirai with a great low cut clothesline that resulted in Shirai hitting one of her best moonsaults (this clothesline could not have flipped her over harder on her stomach). I'm really happy for Raquel's title win. There really wasn't anything left for Shirai to do as champ, and Gonzalez is someone intriguing to have on top against a bunch of interesting babyface contenders. I had this match in my head as something very different than what we got, and I'm glad, because I loved what we got here. 

ER: Those first two matches really stunk, and I was starting to regret the idea of doing this show the night of. But WALTER/Ciampa (it landed on our 2021 Ongoing MOTY List) was great and the show never slowed down from there, thought the last three matches of the night stand up next to any three match run from any TakeOver. 

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NXT TakeOver: WarGames 2020 Live Blog

I don't think we've gotten a good WarGames match from NXT...yet. That said, I think this looks like a really good card on paper, and I'm excited for both WarGames matches, really like how both teams match up. 

Toni Storm/Dakota Kai/Raquel Gonzalez/Candice LeRae vs. Ember Moon/Rhea Ripley/Io Shirai/Shotzi Blackheart

ER: Shotzi comes out in her new deluxe tank, with TCB on the front (I assume that means Tankin' Care of Business?). I like Dakota Kai to start the match, but I don't think Ember Moon was a great choice. Ember Moon is someone who always does a disservice to her own offense, because she chains it in a way that you see her opponents brushing things off quickly just to take something else. She has a very good low superkick to a kneeling opponent, but it's always done just to set up something else, even when it looks better than a lot of her other offense. I don't think her chaining things through the first 5 is a good thing, but I liked Kai a lot. Some of her offense isn't as plausible, but she uses her thrust kick wisely and it always looks good. 

And somehow they make the rookie mistake of letting the babyfaces add a man first. WHY would you voluntarily set up Dakota Kai as de facto babyface? It's the easiest mistake to avoid under the specific booking parameters of a WarGames!! Commentary keeps trying to think of things to say, and every single thing just makes it sound like Kai is a valiant babyface. "This is the hardest 3 minutes of Dakota Kai's life" or "you remember Kai was out of action with a knee injury", just everything they said about her pointed out how hard she was fighting through this genuine disadvantage. I don't know how you lay this match out and decide to make Dakota Kai the top babyface, but this is what they did, and Kai is putting in the best babyface performance of the match. She gets powerbombed down the cage by Moon, who then hits a sick crossbody into her. But Kai fights back, and soon she's down two to one, but she jumps on Shotzi's back and tries to fight off the unfair double team, gets dropped with a great Doomsday Device missile dropkick, but somehow fights back from that! Later she gets beat up by Rhea Ripley the second she entered the cage, eating a ton of short arm clotheslines as the commentary continues to struggle with the undeniable fact that Kai is the babyface here. Shotzi was so incredible in the build up to this match, and she is the most afterthought person in the entire match. This makes no sense!!

They are also working this WarGames the least interesting way: Pretending the cage is not there. The knock on a lot of these NXT WarGames is that they are normal matches that happened to be surrounded by a big cage. This is that. Kai takes a nasty spill into the cage 2 minutes in, and the rest of the match is as if the cage is only there to obstruct our view. And since you can't bleed, it means the match becomes an exercise in Singapore cane shots, which is not as interesting to me as someone getting their face smashed into chain link. Ripley eventually takes a bump into the cage 20 minutes later, and Io Shirai does a Great Sasuke tribute by flying off the cage into everyone while entirely in a trash can. Raquel Gonzalez makes a great catch in the middle of it all, really absorbing all of a tiny person wearing a trash can. Kai even gets walking tall moments down the stretch!! It's amazing! She hits a killer double stomp off the top, flatting Shirai under that trash can, then triumphantly beats down Ember Moon and stands tall with a chair. Things do finally get good and heated after, with Moon hitting a pretty disgusting Eclipse, with Kai whipping her neck across the back of a chair. I didn't think Moon was doing that move anymore (don't think I've seen it since she came back), and it's cool when someone breaks out something big like that in a big match, and I like that Moon crashing through a chair taking Kai out of the match also took her out of the match. LeRae kicks a trash can lid into Ripley's face, Shotzi sentons LeRae off a ladder, Shirai eats a Gonzalez powerbomb through a ladder, tons of great stuff down the stretch. But I gotta say I'm pretty stunned how marginalized Shotzi was in this match, for a match that really felt like it was announced and built as HER match. I don't know if anybody would have picked Gonzalez pinning Shirai for the finish of this, but most of this was brutally backwards. 

Tommaso Ciampa vs. Timothy Thatcher

ER: I've really been digging Thatcher bullying guys on NXT, but I like when we get big match Thatcher. I think a lot of this was really good, and I bought into a lot of the attacks from both. Thatcher really looked like he was choking the life out of Thatcher (Ciampa's head veins are a gift when it comes to selling a sleeper), and Ciampa's bully choke down the stretch with Ciampa attacking Thatcher's freshly bloodied ear was great. Rhea Ripley got an earring ripped out of her ear against Io Shirai, then competed in a WarGames without a drop of blood, and then immediately following WarGames Thatcher gets his ear ripped open somehow. Ciampa's back neck is a compelling match story for me, and Thatcher is a guy who can do painful looking things to a neck. So I bought into Ciampa's neck selling and also loved when Thatcher would whip his head back with uppercuts. I do think the match went way too long and really didn't need to be worked as an epic, didn't need stuff like Thatcher bumping for 6-8 straight clotheslines (things like that felt transported from a different match), and I think Thatcher should have won here. I don't want them to fall into the temptation of turning Thatcher into a shoot guy who only picks on guys that can't defend themselves but never uses those skills to beat better guys. 

Dexter Lumis vs. Cameron Grimes

ER: Trevor Lee was someone who always wanted to work long matches and big title defenses in CWF Mid-Atlantic, and he seems like a guy who would get into trying to have interesting matches within somewhat limited match gimmicks. So far his performances in a cinematic match and blindfold match have been appropriately stoogey but perhaps too silly. And he brings strong stooging to this strap match, but just like the WarGames match earlier in the evening, it is a gimmick match that keeps pretending like the gimmick isn't there. Long stretches of the match are spent without them tied to a strap, and I was actually interested in how they were going to work in turnbuckle touching until realizing that of course it would just be a normal pinfall match. The best parts of this are Grimes taking a hard beating around the ring. He did a really good job at getting dragged and flung by the strap, including two painful bumps into the protective hockey arena siding, got pulled nicely into an uppercut, did a great job of falling while being yanked. My favorite bit of Grimes offense was when he just punched Lumis in the eye, and Lumis sold it like a guy who just got punched in the eye. They worked a few good spots around getting tangled up in a strap, and I loved when Lumis wrapped Grimeses' ankles and yoinked the strap, sending Crimes crashing head first into a chair. The finish submission looked good, like Grimes getting hogtied into a choke, overall liked what Grimes tried to do with the gimmick. 

Damian Priest vs. Johnny Gargano vs. Leon Ruff

ER: I really liked the two quick Ruff/Gargano matches I've seen (I'm a couple weeks behind on NXT TV, not sure what happened right before this show), and would have preferred seeing a PPV level Gargano/Ruff singles. I am also a guy who isn't a big Priest fan. However, having one much larger guy in there could make for a fun dynamic. The story of Priest not wanting to bother with Ruff because he only cared about taking his pound of flesh from Gargano was strong, even though Gargano's work with Priest is nowhere near as well done as Gargano's work with Ruff. All the Gargano/Ruff portions were good, but the Gargano/Priest stuff had awkward timing on several spots (including stuff like Gargano having to redo a tornado DDT spot, and a silly missed ear clap from Gargano after Johnny ducked early). Ruff eats a big razor's edge through one of the safety shields, and I really wish I could hear a real crowd during his eventual comeback. I think he would really be connecting with fans and I think the Gargano angle would play great in front of real crowds. I really wanted that Leon Ruff/Mikey Whipwreck story to keep going. Ruff keeping the title is could have given him a little more legitimacy, leaves you with a Gargano/Priest #1 contender match while moving Ruff onto someone else for a bit, and instead they just have Gargano win the title back. Ruff's involvement still felt like the best thing about this to me, and right up to that spike DDT that ended him he made everything look good. This was better than I was expecting as they dealt well with getting the third man out of there, but I also didn't love a lot of the Priest/Gargano stuff. The Scream mask guys were the absolute pits and killed any chance at the match being actually good, and I can't get excited in any way for an Austin Theory higher power situation. Nobody wants that. 

Undisputed Era (Roderick Strong/Kyle O'Reilly/Bobby Fish/Adam Cole) vs. Pat McAfee/Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch/Pete Dunne

ER: Pete Dunne moves to Florida and within a couple months he's already getting that Crossfit body. He also might have jaundice? But I liked the opening with O'Reilly and Dunne, thought their mathwork had several fun scrambles, and had nasty things like Dunne kneeling on O'Reilly's arm while attacking the body. This WarGames is already so much better laid out than the women's match, with McAfee doing an awesome job being the guy acting like he wants in that cage, and Lorcan being an excellent choice to help Dunne dismantle O'Reilly. Lorcan dropping KOR with a half nelson suplex before Dunne runs in and kicks KOR's arm out from under him is a great asshole move, and seeing Dunne and Lorcan work as real assholes is great. Lorcan is also great at eating offense, so when Bobby Fish runs in Lorcan is expert at taking the UE double teams (I especially liked him getting pump kicked into a suplex). Weapons in WarGames is pretty stupid and unnecessary (you are in a cage you should act like you're in a cage and use it) but the cricket bat is a more interesting weapon that other played out stuff we've seen. Burch smacking O'Reilly in the bad arm with a cricket bat at least gives off a good sound. But we also get way too much table set up. I do not need all of these tables set up!m You have a whole cage, use the cage! WarGames matches do not need long spot set-ups.

Pat McAfee is a real genuine standout, a personality so strong that it only highlights the personality flaws in every other person in the match. It's incredible how much he gets about what he's supposed to be doing in there, and having him hit a moonsault through a table is the best kind of icing on that cake. The home stretch of the match had good energy, but also a lot of misspent energy? All of Adam Cole's offense runs looked bad, and the best use of Cole was when McAfee clipped his knee. Also, Wade Barrett refers to Pat McAfee as "one of the dirtiest players in NFL history" and...I guess I would really need to see footage of a punter who is also a dirty player. That sounds like a hysterical character (that Pat McAfee assuredly was not). I HATE the Undisputed Era "fight between the two cages" trope in these WarGames match. How does a team with guys I like keep doing things that I dislike? And this thing just goes WAYYYYYY too long. Way too many comebacks, way too many "peak" moments to build to, soooo much fat that could have been trimmed. It just felt like they kept building to the same big moment over and over again, like we were trapped in a loop and nobody knew how to actually finish the match. They build to McAfee and Cole alone, everyone else laid out, several times, and it never finishes anything. Every big move would just get a kick out, and then everyone would lie around for awhile before doing it all over again. McAfee completely knocks the wind out of himself when nobody decides to catch him on his bonkers cage swanton, Lorcan and Burch pull off a sick Doomsday Device, McAfee kicks out of Adam Cole's bunny hop flipping piledriver, everyone in the match lies in one part of the ring while Dunne and O'Reilly fight and also refuse to get pinned. This whole thing was 20 minutes too long and they kept building to things they had already built to. I like both of these teams, and like both of them against each other. But this was TOO MUCH of them against each other. I was totally burned out by the home stretch of this match, because it felt like we got too much wasted time and it felt like they were needlessly filling time. No main event should feel like it's just filling time. Still, Pat McAfee is a star. 

This was a disappointing show. But, up until the part of the main that started taking too long, I was still really enjoying this show. It was an underwhelming yet entertaining show, until it felt like I was trapped in an endless series of big encounter kickouts. There were plenty of strong individual performances, in fact every match at minimum had one real standout performance. So we end up with a show that underdelivered on quality, while also having no true bad matches and thus having an entertaining floor. You can't really call that a win, but it's not a terrible loss. 

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NXT Halloween Havoc Live Blog 10/28/20

I know I usually write up AEW on Wednesday nights, but the Halloween Havoc gimmick worked on me. NXT roster (or the style?) is pretty dreadful at this point and I've been enjoying AEW's Wednesday product much more. But a good gimmick is a good gimmick and they suckered me in, so I'm hoping for the best! Shotzi was the perfect choice for host, and considering that I first knew her as a girl on a local Bay Area Saturday night horror movie show (Creepy KOFY Movie Time!), this is her returning to her true horror roots. 

I am, however, disappointed that Man Mountain Rock has lost a bunch of weight. I mean, good for him, there's a reason why Pig Champion isn't the coolest super fat guitarist anymore. 

Damian Priest vs. Johnny Gargano

ER: I was hoping for one of the truly stupid stipulation matches on Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal, and Devil's Playground sounds like it's just a No DQ Falls Count Anywhere match, depriving us of a blindfold match. The match had me and lost me and had me and lost me. The pluses were that Gargano is a better opponent for Priest than a lot of other guys Priest has been matching up with lately, as Gargano takes big high bumps for all of Priest's "Edge working as Test" offense. Edge's offense always looked terrible unless he was against someone who makes offense look good, and Priest is similar. Gargano's high bumps probably would have been enough to save this, and the big bumps continued all around ringside and the stage area. Johnny's big bumps into and over the stairs were my favorite, but they did a good job sprawling into tables and Halloween sets. Sadly, there was a lot of cool stuff that would have played great on full screen, but happened during picture in picture, like Gargano getting kicked straight through the side of a haunted house. Really thought this was pretty strong until the went too long. Priest can be a daredevil bumper, but there's no many times where he see him looking at his bump before he takes it, getting ready like a sprinter at the start of a race. And the longer this goes the more stupid little things there were, like Gargano hitting a sweet sliced bread on the ring steps, only to see Priest get up from that almost immediately. That, and played out weapons stuff like "holding trash can in front of my face waiting to be kicked" just has no real place in 2020 wrestling. Get more creative with weapon spots! I did love Shotzi cackling offscreen after Priest got tombstoned (literally) into a tomb, but then I wondered why someone waited so long to interfere on Gargano's behalf. If I was Gargano, and knew Ghostface was going to come out and attack Priest, I would be pissed that I had to take a 15 minute beating before the guy came out to interfere in a No DQ match. 

Pat McAfee is not very spooky, but he's better at promos that a lot of NXT people (maybe he can give Ember Moon some tips, as best I can tell based on her return promo a week or so ago it seems like she's never performed anything in front of any size crowd before) but you gotta get the new tag champs back on TV. And align them with a British guy who is not a nonce (they should take phones and social media away from Dunne and Burch just in case). 

I should have known WWE would go to their one nostalgia joke of "have name from past return for 10 seconds and do something somewhat resembling a thing they used to do when they were a TV personality". So they play Badstreet USA, and Michale Hayes gets out of a van looking nothing like a Freebird, and instead looking like a paunchy jazz musician from Eric Andre's band. 

Jake Atlas vs. Santos Escobar

ER: This was a hot cruiser sprint, and a great way to make Santos Escobar look like a real star. I don't think it was at Atlas's expense either, as Legado del Fantasma factored in and he still got a visual pin. Atlas leans into Escobar's coolest stuff and really makes things pop, and Escobar's running shotgun kick at the bell made me think this was going to be a 5 second match. I like when a match starts with a big nearfall and has someone basically on the ropes trying to catch up 5 seconds in. So Atlas plays catch up and it gives him a good opportunity to bump for Escobar's strikes, and the nearfall off the cartwheel DDT was great. It's pretty amazing he makes the cartwheel DDT look good every time, it looks really spectacular, like something you'd expect from 1997 Rey. Speaking of Mysterio, Escobar is wearing these sick throwback Mysterio tights, same purple color as Rey's Halloween Havoc '97 tights but not the full bodysuit, instead Rey'd Riddler pattern but with S's instead of ?'s. This is some great gear. LdF help get Escobar's foot on the rope after that great DDT, and Atlas hits a big tope con hilo into them before getting blindsided back in the ring. Killer sprint, something that feels like it should make a great rematch. 

Oh shit I didn't realize we'd get costume changes from Shotzi! The skin jumpsuit to start was great, but I obviously dig the Elvira homage. Feels like it needed her actually getting a couple of deadpan Elvira jokes in though instead of just screaming. You know, here's a pair (gesture), and now for a scare! (cut to haunted house match)

Haunted House of Terror

ER: I didn't realize this was going to be a cinematic, but Grimes is pretty good at filling the time with amusing running commentary. I laughed pretty good when a rusty trike rolled by and he yelled out "Hey Lumis, you got kids!?" It's not easy to stumble through a mostly empty early 90s Florida home, and I think Grimes did it? The zombie stuff was obviously silly, but I thought he interacted really well with the Samara girl and the brief interactions between he and Lumis were great. Lumis is perfect as this specific horror villain, because he looks like a Defend Your Home divorced cop who would absolutely love to play out some Jason tendencies. So stuff like him popping through the window with a choke or hitting an uppercut (while the camera gave us the angle of a child watching the fight through a cracked open closet), and apparently this will continue throughout the night...

Rhea Ripley vs. Raquel Gonzalez

ER: This match kicked a ton of ass. This is the kind of match that would have killed in front of a big crowd. Gonzalez has not looked like a long match worker so far in NXT. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen her in a singles match that went longer than 5 minutes, but this match was compelling from bell to bell. My brain got tricked midway through this match into thinking that it was the main event, because they worked this match like it was the most important match of the night, and it really felt like a main event. Ripley is able to work bigger than she actually is, making up the size difference, and Gonzalez basically comes off as if she was Rhea Ripley at the size they want to bill Ripley at. There are a lot of strikes in this match, and there was really only one brief section I didn't like, and thought the rest of it played great. Ripley was working body shots the whole night (a smart strategy of cutting that size gap, targeting nothing but Raquel's ribs until Gonzalez is naturally hunching down to her level) and both had cool moments of swinging hard at the other's head. You knew this match was reaching the next level after a standing clothesline exchange that saw Rhea throw a couple of the hardest lariats ever seen in a WWE women's match, really made it look like she was bouncing a baseball bat off Gonzalez's chest. Gonzalez got in one of her own late in the match, and also caught Ripley on a cannonball and powerbombed her into the railing and onto the floor. And they kept doing big slams and throwing bombs, most of the sequences looking strong, really kept me hooked the entire match. The nearfalls were strong, they smacked each other around a bunch, and honestly this was the first time Rhea has felt like a big deal to me since the Charlotte feud mercifully ended. 

Haunted House of Terror (conclusion)

ER: We got a few shots of Grimes running his way back to the PC, where he is finally confronted in ring by Lumis and all of the zombie ghosts. I assume they are the ghosts of people whom Lumis's divorced cop murdered and then torched the evidence. Each murder likely came after he saw Sheila going on *another* date with that nerd shrink who they had gone to for couple's therapy. 

Candice LeRae vs. Io Shirai

ER: They are clearly using several chairs in this match, and yet we were promised Tables, Ladders, and SCARES. It wasn't Shotzi doing a joke in a catsuit, either, because they referred to the Scares on commentary. There was never any mention of Chairs. Those weren't supposed to be there. They promised Scares, and they only delivered one back of novelty severed limbs in a bag. This made is seem like they were still several other Scares left to come, as advertised. They clearly planned one Scare. Why would you only plan one Scare in the beginning and nothing else? It doesn't make sense. There was a lot of weapon set up and some improbable bad climbing, but there were also stupid bumps! The match ended with a bunch of bad Candice climbing, and then Candice deciding to take a 10+ foot fall off a ladder KNEES FIRST through a ladder. Whyyyyyy. Not long before that she got suplexed over the back of a Chair in a way most people will never get to experience. Shirai hit a running knee lift right into a ladder, both took suplexes on the floor and bumps onto chairs, Candice smacked Io across the jaw with a laptop, they went through tables on a neckbreaker, Io splat landed on a moonsault, all of that stuff was great. The match felt like the main event of a big show, and that's in its favor. 

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NXT on USA Workrate Report 9/18/19

Since we have an old fashioned wrestling war again, I figured I would dust off the old DVDVR Workrate Report format. Eric and I are planning on alternating shows each week, we will probably have them up normally on Thursday, but I was home for this show and checked it out. I only did the USA portion this week, as that is what is relevant to this discussion.

What Worked

-I think overall the Woman's four way was a well worked wrestling match. I haven't been watching a ton of NXT before this, and did not realize Mia Yim was working a distaff Homicide gimmick. Her offense is way too elaborate to pull off gangster street brawler, she has neither the dead eyes or lacquered nails of real Korean gangbanger girlfriends I have known. Belair has a bunch of fun offense, and a really well developed look. This felt very WWE formula four way, right down to the near fall run. I guess Canadce hasn't been beaten by Shayna yet so she makes sense as a challenger, but I am going to have a hard time buying her as a threat.


What Didn't Work

-If you are going to do the 5 second squash match you are going to need to have a nastier looking finish then that double stomp. He didn't hit it clean and it didn't look like a KO blow. I am used to watching Trevor Lee matches which go really long, it is funny to give the guy best known for 70 minute matches a 8 seconds and out gimmick. Also what exactly is Cameron Grimes's gimmick, evil Jam Band Bassist?  Guy who sold you bad Mushrooms? Hippie panhandler?

-The main event had some moments, I really liked all of the early scrambling on the mat, and some of the back work by Roddy, but man it really devolved into a bloated 2.9 fest at the end. Dream has a lot of sauce, but he still doesn't hit his simple stuff cleanly. I can't believe that the final impression of the first show, is four 5'8 white dudes celebrating like they are the four horseman. I liked some Roddy and Kyle O'Reilly tag matches, but there is nothing cool or dangerous about those guys.

-Mauro's hipster Chris Berman act is one of the worst things on television, period. He is just so insufferable with his name dropping and bellowing voice. "Io Shirai is burning up the ring like Lizzo is burning up the music charts" get the fuck out of here.

-I assumed they would try to make their first show on USA special in someway, but this was a pretty basic episode of NXT TV. All of the angles were sort of joined in progress, and there was never a moment which will be remembered in a couple of weeks. Lio Rush coming back and Imperium invading all happened on the network hour, I am not super interested in either thing, but at least they were moments. Maybe they are saving whatever ammo the have for the first head to head show, but I can't imagine this show excites anyone.

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