NXT Episode 218 4/24/14 Review

JBL (who apparently is going to be all over this show now, and just wasn't mentioned as being affiliated with NXT at all for many months) tells Paige she's going to need to vacate the NXT Women's Title, since she's now Divas Champion. There's going to be a women's tournament which could at least serve as a way to introduce a couple of lesser seen faces, or debut someone. We'll see. Tournaments can be pretty lazy, and Paige herself is still there so why not just put her in regular title matches until she loses the belt? It's not as satisfying as building to an actual title match, but I think it would be far more interesting than a tournament. Have JBL say that Paige will be too busy defending the Divas title, and we need to keep the NXT title in NXT, have her face a series of challengers, and if she loses then you get your new champ, and if she keeps winning then maybe the women of NXT need to work harder before they get their title back full time in the fed.

1. Alexander Rusev vs. Travis Tyler

Pretty mechanical squash, with Tyler at least rushing him at the bell with a dropkick. Rusev's knees to the body looked good, his 12-6 elbows down into Tyler's traps looked mean, he had a couple nice slams and a great rushing Vader bear attack, really wrenched in the Accolade. Crowd chanting is getting more and more annoying each show, here they tried sloppily to sing Adam Rose's song. Too cool to watch a 90 second long squash and react to actual violence.

2. Charlotte & Sasha Banks vs. Emma & Paige

Nothing offensive, but nothing that stood out about this match either. In a short match they "built" to two different moments where the legal team members were slowwwwly crawling to make the hot tag, each looking over their shoulders to make sure they time it right. Ugh. I liked Paige's rolling short arm clotheslines, with her not letting go of Sasha's arm. Sasha had a couple nice moments as well, like stomping on Emma's fingers and selling her neck nicely on a tag. Emma looked lost a few times, and again her gimmick may be a smart way to cover up these kind of moments. Paige also sold Charlotte's neck snap finish nicely, holding her jaw as her lights went out. Eh.

3. Tyson Kidd vs. Mason Ryan

Fun little match with a dumb little finish. I thought they were going for the same thing they did last week with the returning Oliver Grey getting run over by Camacho. Here Tyson Kidd returned and Mason Ryan steamrolled him for much of the match, which makes sense with the size difference. Kidd was good making openings for himself, trying leg kicks, trying to scramble, but I really liked Ryan's power offense here. He caught a leg and did a cool double leg rushing slam into the corner, dropped a nice leg, grabbed Kidd on a springboard and dropped him with a press slam dropped into a pancake. I was into Ryan beating him down and Kidd fighting back. And then Ryan missed a charge and Kidd hit a so-so Blockbuster and that ended it. Woof. What a flat finish, with no build, and won by a move that looked like one of the weaker things hit in the whole match.

4. Angelo Dawkins vs. Tyler Breeze

Man Breeze needs a better finisher than the Beauty Shot. His squash matches always see him wrenching on necks and doing other nice ground stuff, but then end with him doing a standing floaty spinning heel kick. It usually looks like one of the weakest moves of the match. His side headlock looks way nastier than that kick. I'd never seen Dawkins before, but this didn't really have anything to judge him by.

5. Corey Graves & The Ascension vs. Sami Zayn & The Usos

Give a trios with capable workers some time and it's tough to have a bad match. It's pretty easy to have a solid trios with only 3/6 of the workers being capable. And this is a fine, workmanlike six man tag that gets 13 minutes and has plenty of fun moments. It felt like it could have gone much higher, as oddly enough I got a real house show match vibe out of the Usos. And don't get me wrong, I LOVE house shows. I'd go to a house show 10 times out of 10 over a TV taping. You get three types of matches on house shows: Guys getting the opportunity to work longer matches than they normally get, veterans working matches playing to the crowd instead of playing to the hard camera, and guys going through the motions and saving themselves for the cameras. The first two types are great. The third type is what the Usos were doing here. Except it was on camera. I get it, you gotta know when to dial it back. It was just disappointing as nobody else in the match was dialing it back. SO I LEAD WITH THE NEGATIVE...but I liked the match quite a bit. Corey Graves has probably been the most pleasant NXT surprise so far. The guy is good and knows how to carry himself. Too bad about them injuries. Early on he does a fist drop off the ropes and I'm like I FUCKING GET IT YOU'RE AWESOME. Viktor was also a stand out and did some cool things you don't see, like kicking Zayn's planted leg while Graves was holding his other one. It should also be mentioned that Albert was terrible on commentary. This guy is the worst. Not only does he do that super phony fake overly excited "Look how much fun this is!!" thing that most WWE commentators are taught to do, but he does countless annoying things during matches. Here he loudly chanted along with the U-SOS chants, says lame ass stuff like "Daddy would be proud" after the Usos do a running hip attack (even though that was Umaga who did that, not Rikishi), and built up narratives within the match that had zero chance of going anywhere ("Who is Jey going to tag, his brother or Zayn!?" Who fucking cares? Certainly not the wrestlers in the actual match.). But no matter. Graves was a slimy shithead, Ascension are better in NXT than you'd think, Zayn is a really good babyface, Usos dogged it but slotted into the formula just fine, and this was a perfectly fine 6 man. Shame Graves had to lose clean, but I get it.


NXT EPISODE GUIDE

Read more!

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.


COLLECTED NXT REVIEWS

Read more!

NXT Episode 207 Workrate Report 2/5/14

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

1. Sin Cara vs. Alexander Rusev

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

2. Alicia Fox vs. Emma

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

3. Sylvester Lefort vs. Mason Ryan

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

4. Aiden English vs. Tyson Kidd

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

5. Adrian Neville vs. Corey Graves

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


COLLECTED NXT REVIEWS

Read more!