WWE Clash of the Champions 2017 Live Blog

1. Mojo Rawley vs. Zack Ryder

ER: I liked these two together, more than I'll ever like Ryder on his own, and I guess I'll never really understand their need to break teams up before they really do much with them. If we strung together all the PPV pre-show matches from 2017, you'd wind up with a pretty great 2 hour special. This is another nice showing, with Ryder taking a couple big bumps, getting a nice comeback, and then getting obliterated on the finish. Ryder gets shoved from the top rope to the apron to the floor, taking a mean tumble, then Mojo runs around the ring to awesomely check him into the barricade. Back in and the camera nicely picks up a Mojo big boot with his boot staying on Ryder's face all the way down to the mat. Ryder's comeback is at minimum explosive, even if the cameras zoomed in too hard on his thigh slaps, the impression of impact was at least there. But Mojo's 1-2 finish was really cool, taking out Ryder's knee with a diving block, and then blasting him with that running forearm in the corner. Fun opener, hopefully Mojo doesn't get totally lost.

2. Bobby Roode vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Baron Corbin

ER: Just FYI, it still sounds incredibly stupid when someone bumps over the barricade and someone shouts that they just got knocked "into the WWE Universe!" They got clotheslined over a short wall. Does the WWE Universe only start once we've passed the plane of the barricade? Does nothing happening inside a WWE ring count as part of the WWE Universe? Are the concession stands part of the WWE Universe, since they're beyond the barricade? Is someone urinating in the arena bathroom urinating into the WWE Universe? Does it apply to both people AND places? Is someone buying a WWE t-shirt an example of "The WWE Universe purchasing the WWE Universe within the WWE Universe'? It's beyond the worst. Roode and Ziggler don't match up well, Ziggler leans out of simple things like stomach kicks and then just doesn't connect on his own. But someone (Graves?) just said Ziggler may be the greatest performer in WWE history, so what do I know? I have no clue what actual performance metrics you would have to fudge to even squint and believe that statement. Roode has taken big moves nicely in this, splatting face first on the famouser and getting big height on a spinning slam from Corbin, takes Ziggler's big DDT really nicely. I really liked Corbin trying to vulture Roode's win, only for Roode to throw him to the floor and Corbin breaking up the pin anyway. If I didn't care for him the rest of the match, Ziggler at least made the finish work: Corbin was about to hit End of Days on Roode and Ziggler jumped in at the perfect moment with the Zig Zag, the momentum also slamming Roode tailbone first into the mat to presumably keep him from breaking up the pin. This was fine, crowd was really into it though and that counts for something.

3. Aiden English/Rusev vs. Shelton Benjamin/Chad Gable vs. Big E/Kofi Kingston vs. The Usos

ER: Fans are really stoked for Rusev Day, so we got a nice hot crowd tonight, good to hear, and it warms my heart to hear English getting a great reaction. This starts with a pretty great car crash as Kofi gets tossed into a plancha, an Uso hits his big no hands plancha to the other half of the match, and Benjamin launches an Uso with a belly to belly off the top. Kofi eats a great boot and ring post shot courtesy of Rusev after goofing around. Rusev doesn't have time for that nonsense on Rusev Day. I like how English is doing a bunch of solid little things in what most want to be a spotfest: doing nice grounded punches off in the corner of the camera, locking in and wrenching a nice headlock. Don't let the match style conform you. The Texas Tornado style of the match feels a bit to crowded, and it's making half the guys wait to do their spots while the other half does their spots. It's messing up flow. Why is this the match without extra refs? This is kind of a mess even though everyone is working hard. I think Big E might have arguably the best standing splash in wrestling history. It's got the incontestable best height and the impact is great. Kofi springboards into the ring and gets stuck with a great Benjmain powerbomb, and they are freaking killing me with these Rusev/English nearfalls. There were three pins all in a row that looked like they could plausibly win the belts. Come onnnnn. The finishing stretch is flat out GREAT. Rusev and Big E have a great battle over the Accolade, with E almost powering out before Rusev bends him back violently. Gable comes in and hits a tremendous deadlift German on Rusev, just dumping him on his shoulders, then hits a rolling chaos theory on English that dumps him even more violently. We get a sneaky Uso tag as Gable tries for another chaos theory, couple superkicks and a big splash finishes him, straight up fire finish. Awesome stuff.

4. Natalya vs. Charlotte

ER: Alright, and now for nobody's favorite gimmick match! Natalya is a far better heel when she doesn't actually realize she's being a heel. Her acting like a heel is just hammy. She's a much better A-Rod style "heel who doesn't know that she's disliked" heel. Who in wardrobe allowed Carmella and Lana to both wear red swimsuits? Also, Carmella's suit looks like a placeholder for her actual, real gear...except she's been wearing it for months. Tamina continues having the worst gear, it's like they tailored Viscera's old gear and gave it some darting. Charlotte takes a nice awkward bump to the floor, and I liked the bridge up to dodge a baseball slide. Charlotte is good at coming up with cool ways to engage the lumberjacks, really liked Natalya pushing off the figure 4, sending Charlotte flying into a dive on Ruby Riott. Tamina runs point on catching a Charlotte moonsault to the floor, which predictably means that she bumps out of the way before the moonsault hits and 6 women take bumps anyway. Tamina is so bad you guys. She did absorb all of the Naomi springboard, so I guess I shouldn't be so harsh. Thankfully we don't have to endure a Natalya win, and Charlotte worked hard in a difficult gimmick match.

Natalya threatening to leave WWE is like a parent threatening to take their kids broccoli away. "That's it, you keep mouthing off, now I'm giving you another spoonful of mac and cheese and YOU don't get any more broccoli! Actually, why don't you go to your room and play video games and then see how you feel!"

5. Breezango vs. Bludgeon Brothers

ER: I know I just said a few minutes ago that Tamina has the worst gear possible...but my god the Bludgeon Brothers. They look like a Hot Topic was destroyed in a hurricane, and a seamstress assembled their outfits out of found scraps. I have no idea what vibe they're going for. So many studs and zippers and hanging bits and that riveted cummerbund corset awkard tight bits side by side awkward loose bits. And the match is over. A straight match between these two would have been really fun. But, I guess we were running long (no we weren't)?

6. Shinsuke Nakamura/Randy Orton vs. Sami Zayn/Kevin Owens

ER: I'm not totally sure who this match concept is supposed to appeal to. This tag match with a normal referee already had a chance to be pretty uninteresting, but jamming two authority figures into it as mildly disagreeing distractions should practically guarantee it's no good. The fans, to their ever loving credit tonight, are into it. Still! They're still excitedly chanting for this show. The great finish to that tag match feels like an hour ago and we haven't accomplished much since then, and they're still chanting for their guys. I like it. Props to Orton for hitting a chinlock literally 10 seconds into the match. Zayn and Owens are also working their share, but they at least are making them look good, with Zayn going after the eyes and nose bridge and Owens making his snug. I'm kind of okay with them cutting the ring off with chinlocks for as long as the crowd can take it. All of Nakamura's kicks to Owens look really good, loved the falling enziguiri as Owens caught a kick to the chest. Bryan and Shane haven't even been very involved in the match itself but man they are so distracting, with the camera purposely keeping them both in frame most of the time. "Triangle!" "Shoulders were down!" means that someone decided to get a Dental Plan/Lisa Needs Braces joke into things, which we were probably all hoping for. My god Shane's facials and movements might officially make him a worst guest ref than Shawn Michaels. I think he's been worse than current Red Shoes in this...but may even be Michaels bad. That's really bad. Boy that finish was really bad. Who could have wanted any of this? I know Orton has been snail slow in his PPV matches the last two years, and this whole match he seemed even slower as everyone had to let this guest ref angle breathe a bit. Woof.

7. Jinder Mahal vs. AJ Styles

ER: I really liked this, and while a lot of it was because of another excellent Styles performance, I thought Mahal worked smart and didn't overreach, thought both worked together to craft an interesting match around each man's strengths. There was also that real fear from a lot of people that Mahal was going to win the title again (while I don't hate Jinder, I also wanted to see AJ hold the belt longer), so the fear and tension on some of the nearfalls was there. Jinder worked over AJ's ribs in simple and effective ways, and AJ made a point of landing in all sorts of nasty ways on his ribs. Styles bumped huge into the timekeeper's area, just about the most painful way you can get into that area. Jinder just worked simple knees and kicks and holds targeting AJ's ribs. The springboard block was great, with Jinder hitting the ropes to knock AJ off, and AJ naturally landing ribs first again. Mahal keeps up the targeted attacks with a big gutbuster and awesome flapjack (Styles takes a flapjack better than maybe anyone), and I liked Styles' comeback Pele kick (with Mahal going for the kill with his cobra clutch slam only off the middle rope). I didn't love the finish with Styles just kicking out of the slam to eventually roll Mahal into the Calf Crusher, but the whole thing built really solidly and I love how serious they're treating the Calf Crusher. I loved when the top guys all had submission finishers in 2003, so I would not mind going back to that. Styles can basically do no wrong at this point.

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WWE Elimination Chamber 2017 Live Blog

1. Curt Hawkins vs. Mojo Rawley

This was a surprisingly nicely structured opener between two of the most pointless guys on the roster. It had the feeling of a dark match where two guys were given a chance to do their thing, and it benefitted from that. These two have had minimal run-ins, no angle to speak of, and Hawkins was dead on arrival a few months ago. So they get 8 minutes to do their unadorned thing. This was the last sketch of the night on SNL, the last match of a SNME card, something with no expectations and minimal chance. And they benefit from all of that! Mojo looks leaner than usual, and moves quicker than I've seen him. Hawkins doesn't bring a whole lot to this, evading Mojo for the first couple, but once Mojo gets his hands on him things get fun. Mojo breaks out a big lariat, killer fireman's carry flapjack, and huge running forearm to the corner. Hawkins takes the abuse and picks his shots nicely, and this is the kind of match you hope fleshes out a good house show. A match you wouldn't have even noticed on paper, but keeps the good times going so the live show doesn't lag. Good work guys.

2. Becky Lynch vs. Mickie James

Was hoping James would have ditched the bell bottoms by now. That could really use an update. And I wasn't expecting this to get 12 minutes. But their must be something in my coffee tonight as I liked this match too. This is feeling like a really great house show so far, which is awesome. Becky talks about becoming the Arm Break Kid and so Mickie comes out and goes after that fucking arm. Crowd is cold and that's a shame as Mickie attacks the arm in cool ways, wrapping it grossly around ropes, and best of all wraps it around her legs and jumps to the mat. I loved the arm work, and she got a lot of time to show it off. James even has some really great mounted punches, which are the most difficult punches to throw. I don't remember her having great punches. Becky sells the arm nicely...except every single time she goes on offense, which is really annoying. I don't need her to do every move one-armed or anything, but at least acknowledge that you arm has gotten kicked in the last 10 minutes. But Becky is a good underdog in this, even takes a sick DDT on the side of her head. James looked kind of tired by the end, but unintentionally or not I dug it, as it makes sense for the returning veteran to have lost a step. Match ending could have used a bit more as the ending as is was lazy and somewhat unearned, but this was a satisfying 12 minutes, worked in a style that was a pleasant surprise.

3. Apollo Crews & Kalisto vs. Dolph Ziggler

When I saw this handicapped match listed, I thought it was a pretty dumb idea considering the participants. So I loved when Ziggler just jumped Kalisto during his entrance and took him out of the match. Dolph should be using smarts to win this stacked match at all odds, and that was the most logical start. Crews, Hawkins and Rawley are pretty low on the totem to be getting onto PPV, but I kind of love that it's a thing. Again, feels like a really fun house show. Might not be the best business plan, but I don't care at all about what benefits them. Ziggler as a cocky athletic asskicker is soooo much better as cocky babyface who bumps. And Ziggler was good, yanking on a nasty horizontal side headlock, grounding Crews and gassing him out by choking off his air supply. Crews showed a side I haven't really seen as I thought his selling was really engaging. I thought his exhaustion felt authentic, and Ziggler's smirks to the crowd and not just the camera while he picked apart Crews was great. The opening match jumping did its job, as off camera as Kalisto got to his feet the crowd noise started to swell. Ziggler did all Kalisto's sympathy build for him, as Kalisto got to lie around for 6 minutes and all his heat was built up for him. Nice idea. Crews gets an all time great enziguiri with his last gasp of strength, and Kalisto tags in for a springboard dropkick and a nice enziguiri of his own. Crews makes a blind tag and I love how he actually acknowledge the beating he took, not rushing in right away and instead grimacing hard as he forced himself through the ropes, then uses whatever restored strength he had to plant Ziggler with a killer high angle tossed powerbomb. This was another good one, and Ziggler pays him back by destroying Crews with a chair afterwards. Well done by all, a heel performance that Ziggler needed, and the first time I've actually "seen something" in Crews, beyond "athletic black man" spots.

4. Heath Slater & Rhyno vs. Breezango

I wish Breeze had gotten a better shake on the active roster. He is/was a favorite of mine in NXT, but some guys play the big stage, some need to fill out the small stage. Slater is a feel good story and an easy guy to get behind, and Rhyno is great at apron work. Fandango doesn't have tons to do so he makes up his time by hamming it up while not falling right away on a sunset flip, and tossing tons of fashion citations onto Slater. Slater throws a nice high kick and great Memphis overhand right to the forehead, and Breeze bumps properly around on for Slater's comeback. Could have been more, but we have 14 tag teams to get through.

5. Heath Slater & Rhyno vs. The Vaudevillains

Aiden English, like Tyler Breeze, was one of my favorite things in NXT. In other words, nobody in a position of authority should trust my taste in professional wrestling, and how it relates to making money. This is sadly short, but English got some nice moments, hitting a boss knee drop and taking Slater's match ending DDT incredibly. Slater lifted him into the air to deliver it, and English kicked his legs in a panic while falling. Gotch didn't manage to murder anyone during his brief time in, and I actually liked his little kick combo and rolling fireman's carry.

6. Heath Slater & Rhyno vs. The Usos

Okay each match has been shorter than the last. Hate where this is going. Jey hits an amazing pop-up Samoan drop, and the superkick finish made sense, but this was a steamrolling.

7. The Usos vs. American Alpha

Usos are getting easier to tell apart, now that Jimmy is chubbier. Usos get dumped with double Germans but from then on it's all Usos and they're pretty vicious taking Gable apart. The superkick to Gable's ribs while he was being held prone was nasty. Gable is a good underdog and the Usos as heels have been sadly wasted but good whenever given the chance. But I had a feeling the Usos aren't advancing here. Jordan's hot tag was good, one of his more fiery ones. But the ending felt too rushed and predictable. These teams are capable of having a great match, I'm sure of it, and we've gotten glimpses and teases and one really good TV bout, but damn they need to just given them 17 minutes and say "GO!"

8. American Alpha vs. The Ascension

The best thing about this was the best part, with Ascension hitting the Fall of Man with a spinning back elbow instead of a kick, and I liked the idea of a flash upset. But the rest of this didn't do much for me. After that opening flurry didn't work, the Ascension had no chance of winning the belts. Having them as the last team sucked out any kind of drama. Clearly AA was getting the belts. Crowd would have deflated had Ascension won after a long, hard fought contest. No way they would do that. It only would have worked if it happened 10 seconds in. After that they were just waiting around to die. This whole gauntlet was overall disappointing, as we all expected it would be.

9. Nikki Bella vs. Natalya

This is pretty dull for a grudge match. It's possible Natalya was grinding down Nikki with boring holds on purpose, to tease her for not being as good a wrestler, but Natalya doesn't do "subtle", so if she was trying to get that story across we would have heard a lot of "You're not stronger than me, Nikki! I'm a better wrestler than you!!" Since we did not, I have to imagine she was not. Nikki hits hard on her comeback, Natalya takes a nasty landing while delivering a superplex, and good lord Nikki genuinely looks like she's choking the life out of Natalya on BOTH STFs she does. The second one was especially gross as Natalya's tongue starts sticking out and her eyes get wide. Either Nikki delivers the best looking headlocks in the company, or she is just strangling people while Natalya is suddenly a great seller. Either way, the match finish blew, but the match was totally worth it for them chokes.

10. Randy Orton vs. Luke Harper

I do not like this nearly as much as the recent Wyatt/Harper house show singles match (review coming tomorrow!!), and I guess that had a better built in story. But it was also worked bigger, and was the match we were hoping it looked like on paper. Here Orton overpowers Harper to start, which is stupid. He just muscles Harper around and beats him up. Harper's the dude who should be overpowering EVERYone around. I like that he can sell, but this should have been Orton scrambling for his ass.That Harper/Wyatt match went barely 10 minutes, started big, caught its breath in the middle, and ended big. This has been 13 minutes of methodical. Admittedly, all that build made Harper's epic superkick feel that much more epic. I loathe when Orton pounds his fists on the mat, it looks so stupid. So I loved Harper blasting him with a superkick right when he stops Vipering or whatever the fuck that is. Vipers don't have fists. Gawd. But that kick was a lifesaver, and I thought for sure the follow up kick was getting the big win. AND THE CROWD GETS BEHIND HARPER!!! And fucccccccck they didn't let him kick out of the RKO. I'm telling you, if Harper kicks out of that motherfucker, we have a new babyface superstar. How killer and unexpected would that be? Harper shocking Orton by kicking out of the RKO and going on to win; Orton flips out and puts up his WM title shot if Harper will face him again; Harper wins the title shot and goes on to be featured in a singles match at WM; Wyatt tries to bring him back as a follower mid-match, and Harper gets one final moment against Bray, turning on him officially in front of the biggest live crowd of the year. He commits, and the fans get committed in his commitment. He wins the title from whomever has it (Cena?) and Harper is the new bearded World Champion babyface superstar and former tag team partner of Necro Butcher.

Is that so fucking difficult??

11. Naomi vs. Alexa Bliss

I love Alexa's cartoon villain facials. David Otunga sounds like a black Brett Gelman. But yes, Alexa Bliss cartoon facials. I especially like her snarl. Or when the ref admonishes her and she snaps "I know!" That kind of work goes a long way. Naomi is a good face with a great look, but sometimes she can get a little lost. The kick combos can get a little complicated, but her energy is good. Bliss did her a lot of favors in this, really flying into her stuff. The best is Alexa running fast into the rear view. I love the rear view as a part of Naomi's offense, but I don't always love the Irish whip set up. So Alexa running into it is the best. Alex comes back but then misses a great twisting body press into knees, real nasty. Then Naomi hits her own monsault, with her knees whipping right into Alexa's stomach. Yeesh that hurts. And I was NOT expecting a win for Naomi, that's kind of awesome. I think this is her first, and why not? They're switching the titles a lot, but I like that this makes it seem like ANY of these women can win the title on any given night.

Chamber hype video was AWESOME. They get older Chamber workers to come back and talk about what they loved and hated about it, they show a lot of grisly black and white footage of Chamber bumps, all good stuff. I'm hyped.

12. Elimination Chamber: Dean Ambrose vs. Baron Corbin vs. The Miz vs. Bray Wyatt vs. AJ Styles vs. John Cena

Styles is GOD in this match so far. He has been bumping like wild for everything. Cena roughed him around, then Ambrose clotheslined him over the ropes, powerbombed him on the side plank, and then crashed into him with an awesome clothesline off the top of a pod. Cena hits a German on both of them at the same time, and Bray Wyatt comes in just as things are really getting good. And he feeds off that energy. Wyatt hits his crazy high/fast cross block, then gets knocked to the side plank by AJ and takes a wicked post shot. Moves look so damn unforgiving on these side panels. Cena and Styles do some of the best "fighting on top of a cage" that you've seen, and Cena takes the death plunge. Then Ambrose and Styles take turns seeing who can bank the others' head off a pod panel, and this is reminding me why I love the Elimination Chamber gimmick so much. Suplex powerbomb spots suck ass, look dangerous and never look "worth it", so that can get the hell out of my chamber match. Corbin comes in, and I finally notice how fucking lame it is to where a "lone wolf" t shirt when you're called the Lone Wolf. Like, Disco Stu don't advertise. Everybody is taking such full force bumps into the chain link parts, it's reading really well in HD. The structure seems unflinching so every bump into any part of it is coming off dangerous. And Ambrose gets plastered through a pod after eliminating Corbin, makes it look amazing. Miz wisely hides in his pod, knowing he will get his skin ripped off by Corbin if he reveals himself. Cena has some ridiculous strength and I'm glad his body allows him to display it sometimes, because him rolling through a Miz crossbody to stand up - holding a 225 lb. man! - to lift him to a fireman's carry, and THEN AA him?? That's epic as hell. AJ has the makings of a legendary Chamber performer. Rey Mysterio is the obvious king of the Chamber match. He invented these things. But AJ gets it. Some day when Rey comes back for a superstar glory tour, these two need to cross paths in a Chamber. Wyatt gets to pin Cena, which is and should be big, and Styles and the newly energized Wyatt are the finalists for the belt. And both guys sprint to the finish. AJ Styles hits his sliding elbow, and then a bonkers springboard 450. Holy cow. Styles toss out a strike combo and Wyatt spins into a huge lariat. Styles is great at taking lariats. And Styles gets caught going for his flying forearm, as Bray snags him and plants him with Sister Abigail. Super match, loved the order of entrants and the stories that unfolded. This is doing the most with what you are given.

Awesome night of wrestling, well worth the time spent. The show had a lot of undercard performers stepping up on a smaller show, while the headliners delivered strong performances. Really great stuff all around.

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NXT 227 6/19/14 Review

1. Sasha Banks vs. Alexa Bliss

Another match furthering the BFF angle, with Charlotte and Summer bickering at ringside leading to a distracted Sasha getting rolled up. Bliss is very much not good but she's clearly trying, she's just super klutzy and not ready for TV. She seems like she almost falls over on every move she attempts, just constantly off balance. Sasha looked good when the match allowed her to, loved her surfboard as she set it up by yanking on Bliss' hair and smacking her to get ahold of her arms. Other little "not actually offense" furthered her likeness to Stevie Richards, like her just grabbing a grounded Bliss by the back of the head and smacking her forehead into the mat. But yeah, there's trouble in the BFFs.

2. Mojo Rawley vs. Garrett Dylan

I was wondering when Jody Kristofferson was going to pop up, after they showed his dad in the crowd a show or two ago. This is not the first time I've seen a fed act like Kris Kristofferson just happened to show up at their event, without mentioning his son was wrestling. And Regal was amusingly harsh on Kristofferson, saying "Mojo Rawley versus...well, essentially a nobody" and pointing out that anybody who wears brown trunks surely doesn't care about their appearance. And this was your typical Mojo match, which is frustrating as it really doesn't do him favors to just work the same formula every match. His matches are always 2-3 minutes of opponent control, then him running through his moves to the end. If we mixed up the order a little bit we could have a more interesting ebb and flow, instead of just waiting until the point where he starts hitting moves. He is not good a taking a beating, although he at least attempted to sell body work that Kristofferson did, so that was welcome. Kristofferson threw really great body blows and had some nice old Arn Anderson type moves, like short knee lifts or stomping the mat while pressing Mojo's face to his knee. He was also real good about absorbing Mojo's stuff, and Mojo hit a killer flying shoulder tackle, really smacked into him. This was fine.

3. The Vaudevillains vs. Angelo Dawkins & Travis Tyler

This is the debut of the Vaudevillains and I love how absolutely giddy Regal is about guys essentially working carny strongmen gimmicks. Fans are flipping out too, and really it is a wonderful gimmick for these two. English is super talented so it will be great to see him actually winning matches. Gotch is a guy who I've actually seen from the very beginning, as I was there live over a decade ago for his very first pro wrestling matches as Psycho Seth in APW. He was terrible. He clearly didn't get it. Outside of a bad "psycho" gimmick (which only involved wearing Hot Topic jeans with an anarchy symbol on the leg while grinning "evilly"), there was an impression that he just didn't get pro wrestling on a deeper level. In maybe his first match he busted his lip open, and there was a little blood, and a couple people were showing some concern. And then he went on the APW message board and let everybody know he was okay, he had just bit his lip. Before that people had been wondering if he had taken a couple of stiff shots, gotten busted open hardway, but no. No he had to let people know it was just an accident. The only other post in the thread was somebody saying "Dude. Kayfabe." He jumped to Modest and Morgan's promotion PWI a year or two later as Ryan Drago, and still seemed like a guy who just didn't get it. Once PWI shuttered I completely lost track of him, and was absolutely shocked when I looked up who Simon Gotch was. I cannot believe he kept working for the next decade, plugging away, getting seen, and ended up in WWE. No matter what I thought/think of him as a wrestler, that's dedication and I have nothing but huge respect for that. This match is clearly a showcase for the Villains, I'm not even sure Dawkins gets tagged in. English looked really great, got crazy height on a legdrop, finished with a nice senton, and I love some of their double teams like the uppercut to back of the head into a quick snap Aiden neckbreaker. Excited to see them develop, although I wish we got more Aiden singles stuff, hopefully the team still allows for that.

4. Kalisto vs. Tyler Breeze

Wonderful little match that felt like a tight short match, and then you realize it got 11 minutes. Both men were so good at their roles and it was paced so well that an 11 minute match turned into a 5 minute WorldWide classic. Kalisto gets matched up a lot with big guys, but Breeze grounded him better than any of them, and most importantly knew how to take Kalisto's offense the best I've seen. Breeze does some fantastic detail work, and there are two specific spots I want to highlight: Kalisto's kip up rana and Kalisto's handstand headscissors. Breeze made these spots look unexpected, stealth and effective, when especially in the case of a man standing on his hands before clamping a headscissors, is an impressive accomplishment. A handstand headscissors is something that requires boatloads of cooperation, and often looks very cooperative. Breeze was able to distract himself, look off balance enough, that the look of surprise when he walked into the headscissors was perfect. Later as Kalisto is on the mat, about to do the kip up rana, Breeze makes his way towards him and makes sure to throw a darting glance over at the crowd, so that his head is turning back towards Kalisto as he's throwing the rana. It made Breeze look totally unprepared and surprised by the move, even though it was clearly the spot, and those kind of details make a match click on such a higher level. And the rest of this is really good too, as Breeze grounds Kalisto with headlocks, and Breeze is a guy I've noted as being good at headlock work in a match. He was good at trying to smother Kalisto and Regal was good at noting that, even pointing out different names for the different kinds of headlock leverage he was locking in. Kalisto had some cool locking stuff, loved his fast tornillo quebrada. And some of his feints when evading Breeze were cool, like a silly little quick handstand vault off the top rope to sidestep him. Ending is killer as Breeze whips Kalisto into the ropes, Kalisto holds on, Breeze stutter steps as he notices Kalisto held on, and when Kalisto tries a quick springboard move Breeze blasts him with the beauty shot. I was way into this match, Breeze is really busting butt these last couple months.

5. Tyson Kidd & Sami Zayn vs. The Ascension

It's a shame this match was actually just an angle/Tyson Kidd heel turn because the match we got was really damn good, maybe Zayn's best performance in a match this year (which covers some nice ground) and definitely the best overall Ascension performance. And no, that's not meant in a backhanded way, I really liked both Ascension in this and Viktor especially looked great. The story goes, that Kidd and Zayn are teaming up because they've both had rough luck lately, so they got their little slumpbuster team, recognizing that the singles belts aren't working for them so maybe combine forces! It makes sense and it's a fine kayfabe reason for two guys to team up for the first time. But the way they have Kidd turn is stupid, as Zayn is taking quite a beating from Ascension, and Kidd gets jealous of Zayn's ring time, actually saying something dumb like "oh, so you want to take all of the match?" and then walking away when Zayn would have been able to tag. Before the angle kicked in we had a nasty fight between Zayn and Viktor, with Zayn hitting his stuff better than ever (his crossbody off the top was perfect) and Viktor working fast and vicious, throwing great strikes, planting Zayn with a back suplex when Zayn tries to tag. Konnor would come in with nice stomps and man now I'm really upset that it wasn't built up as a proper tag match. The first 5 minutes of this are so good! They easily could have had a full match, had Kidd and Zayn lose, and then Kidd flip out afterwards. Instead Kidd comes off lame, jealous of Zayn for taking too long of a beating. Have him turn on Zayn as he blames him for the loss, not because he was jealous that he wasn't in there hitting flippy moves. Zayn is distracted, Konnor hits an avalanche, Fall of Man is delivered and taken brutally, but man now I just wanted the actual match. What could have been.


Good show this week, and next week we get RVD!! Nobody wanted that. I had completely blocked his 2014 return from memory.


COLLECTED NXT REVIEWS

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NXT 225 6/5/14 Review

1. Mojo Rawley vs. Aiden English

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

2. Bayley vs. Charlotte

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

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

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

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

4. Justin Gabriel vs. Adrian Neville

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

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



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NXT Episode 221 5/15/14 Review

1. The Ascension vs. Buddy Murphy & Elias Sampson

Quick squash with Sampson not getting in the ring, and Murphy getting steamrolled. Konnor throws several really great stomps to Murphy's chest, and then leveled him with the Fall of Man, which Murphy takes great, really folds himself up.

2. Alexa Bliss vs. Charlotte

Oh yay back to back weeks of Bliss. And it was mostly an extended Charlotte squash, which is for the best as Bliss looks better sitting in a submission than trying to struggle through offense. She still did her overly complicated and clunky roll up (which beat Fox last week) and almost drops herself on her head while bumping a knee to the stomach. Charlotte has a really great abdominal stretch, where she wrenches it in and violently cranks the person's neck. So that was nice. But this wasn't much.

3. Mojo Rawley vs. Aiden English

Bummed that English had to get fed to Rawley, but English made him look good and actually had a real (albeit only 3-4 minute) match with him. Mojo can't do much so the whole match was English doing his thing until we get the go home sign and Mojo does his shoulderblocks, rear view and bombs away, in order, as always. Really wish they were giving Mojo his ring time off TV, as I'd much rather see English in a real match.

4. Angelo Dawkins vs. Colin Cassady

Man now we get a Big Cass extended squash. What the hell is with this episode? Cass is a guy with some cool short strikes: I really like his body shots and knees. But all of his impact offense looks bad. He's like a guy who grew up idolizing Test. And SAWFT was amusing for like two matches, but I have a feeling I'm going to be seeing him use it for a couple years.

5. Tyson Kidd vs. Tyler Breeze vs. Sami Zayn

This is for the opportunity to face Adrian Neville at the upcoming TakeOver show, but damn I just wish they had done a singles. Any three of these guys would match up nicely in a singles. But I suppose it's not crazy for the winner to face Neville for the title, and the two losers of this match fight at TakeOver, with the winner of that maybe getting a shot down the line. If that's what they plan to do. And this match just never clicked. We had some classic triple threat disappearances, and couple silly trainwreck spots, and guys selling like they had been through the war of their lives after 7 minutes. This whole thing is mostly flat, but it didn't get truly bad until the premature WARTIME selling. The type of shit where a guy breaks up a pinfall and all three lie on the mat selling and breathing heavy, like they just got done with a Godspell performance. All three men, lying there selling as if they've never been more tired, even though all one man did was pull another man off of another man.

This was a bad show right here, filled with squash matches of a couple of my least favorite guys, and topped with a lousy main event.


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NXT Episode 219 5/1/14 Review

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

1. Tyson Kidd vs. Bo Dallas

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

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

2. Bayley vs. Sasha Banks

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

3. Adam Rose vs. Danny Burch

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

4. Natalya vs. Layla

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

5. Oliver Grey vs. Mojo Rawley

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

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

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

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


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NXT Episode 216 4/10/14 Review

1. Adam Rose vs. Danny Burch

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

2. Bayley vs. Sasha Banks

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

3. Sylvester Lefort vs. Mojo Rawley

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

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

4. Bo Dallas vs. Justin Gabriel

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

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




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NXT Episode 214 3/27/14 Review

1. Mojo Rawley vs. CJ Parker

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

2. Xavier Woods vs. Tyler Breeze

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

3. Corey Graves vs. Yoshi Tatsu

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

4. Charlotte vs. Natalya

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

5. Bo Dallas vs. Adrian Neville

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

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


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NXT Episode 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 Arrival 2/27/14 Review

1. Sami Zayn vs. Cesaro

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

2. CJ Parker vs. Mojo Rawley

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

3. The Ascension vs. Too Cool

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

4. Emma vs. Paige

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

5. Xavier Woods vs. Tyler Breeze

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

6. Ladder Match: Adrian Neville vs. Bo Dallas

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


COLLECTED NXT REVIEWS

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NXT Cocoa Beach Road Report 6/26

My wife and I were down in Orlando for a week for our anniversary and some how I convinced Chelsea to tag along with me to an NXT house show. This is the first wrestling show I have been to in years (outside of a lucha show in DC which was more of an art instillation), last time was Sami Callihan v. Fit Finlay in EVOLVE, and in my return I got to see Sami versus a much lesser Irishman.

The show was in a tiny National Guard armory and as a whole it really felt like the old ECWA shows we went to en masse back in the early 2000s, some pretty good matches, some really green wrestlers trying some things and some shocking bush league gimmicks. No great matches, but most were at least entertaining, and everything moved pretty quickly.

Uhaa Nation v. Axel Dieter

Solidly worked opener, with Dieter working over Nations arm with some fun Euro holds, and Nation doing a fine job of timing some exciting comebacks. Dieter is a weird guy to get signed, kind of tubby, not very big or dynamic. He is a guy I have seen a handful of times before and never really stood out, not one of the WXW guys I would have guessed would move on. Nation was fine here, but he did really stand out. He is a guy who has main evented in front of some pretty big crowds in Japan, but he wasn't commanding the room like I expected him too. He felt like someone who is still aways away.

Devin Taylor/Charlotte v. Lina Fenene/Cassidy

Lina is the Rock's cousin and is really huge. She is clearly pretty green still, but did a nice job working a big brick wall which the faces were trying to knock dow. She looks like a taller Patty LaBelle and I imagine that Patty wouldn't sell very much either. Charlotte has really improved her chops, which is very important for a Flair scion.

Bull Dempsey v. Mike Rawlis

Bull Dempsey is basically working as 2009 Super Porky. Lots of comedy spots about being too fat to hit his moves. He had a really amusing spot where Rollins does a kip-up and Dempsey tries a bunch of times and fails, he also has a rope running spot where he loses his wind. Dempsey is a fine fake Super Porky, kind of like Brazo De Platino, and this seems like a gimmick with some actually legs. He was over, and amused Chelsea. I don't see why they just don't rehire Super Porky, but I enjoyed this. Rollins was terrible though, kind of reminded me of 1998 Tom Brandi. Nice hair, good body, sub Jim Powers in the ring.

Sasha Banks v. Blue Pants

Blue Pants is clearly an NXT inside joke I don't get. This was Banks working as arrogant heel champ who ends up wrestling someone they believe is beneath them. It is a classic wrestling match trope, and Banks is really good as Flair getting frustrated as Rocky King rolls him up. She totally gets her character, interacts with the audience well, and comes off vulnerable without hurting her character or looking weak. Banks felt big league in a way that most people on this show did not. Blue Pants isn't much and a better George South student would have made this a better match.

Hype Bros v. The Mechanics

Shocked at how much I enjoyed this, really thought Mojo Rawley felt like one of the most ready to go guys on this show. His execution wasn't perfect, but he brought a bunch of energy to the match and worked perfectly as a meathead tag partner to Zach Ryder. Great working the apron, great as a hot tag and the doomsday device leg lariat thing they did was pretty cool. The Mechanics were baffling to me, they were basically a short B- version of a southern heel tag team, a homeless Death and Destruction, a sawed off Bad Attitude. I have no idea how they ended up in a WWE feeder system. One guy had Captain Roughneck on his trunks, and fuck that noise. Match would have way better if Hype Bros had Damien Wayne and Preston Quinn to work against, instead of their scab replacements.

Marcus Louis v. Angelo Dawkins

This was the only absolute stinker match of the show. Dawkins is a black dude who kind of has the body of a pretty good high school football linebacker three years after graduation who eats like he still is doing 2 a days. He does the James Harden cooking pot motion, and I think Lil B cursed this match. Louis is a French guy who spends the whole match doing nerve holds and making crazy guy faces. Long, dull, poorly executed, boring, a failure in every way a match can fail.

They have a segment where Louis Valentine comes out and wants to dance with the ring announcer (who was getting sexually harassed by the scumbag fans all night). He get interrupted by Preston Cunningham Jr. who does the worst most implausible spoiled rich kid promo I have ever seen in wrestling (think about how much ground that covers). This would get laughed out of an ECWA Super 8 battle royal, I have no idea how something this yarder got past the curtain, just awful.

Finn Balor v. Solomon Crowe

It has been so long since I have seen Crowe actually get a chance to spread out and work a match. When Callihan was in the indies he was one of the best wrestlers in the world. Really happy I got to watch him actually do his thing a little bit. Balor isn't my cup of tea, but he can execute his moves, and did a pretty good job selling his knee, which Crowe worked over really viciously. This felt like a second round US Indy tourney match, worked pretty simple, nice execution, nothing anyone will remember in six months, but very exciting in the moment. Crowe is still really good, I hope he gets a shot to do something.

Vaudevillains vs. Blake and Murphy vs. Chad Gable/Jason Jordan

Last time I saw Blake and Murphy they were dull faces, but I really liked them here as a sleaze bag pretty boy heel tag team. They do Heavenly Bodies way better than the Mechanics do Anderson Brothers. Vaudevillains have some fun shtick, and worked your car crash workrate spots really well. Gable is still a little raw, but is clearly going to be great. It will be interesting to see an Olympic wrestler working as a junior (he wrestled at the Olympics at 185). Jordan is much bigger and already has a fun suplex based offense, he seems crazy strong as he was just deadlifting pretty big guys. Match had the most action of the night, and I enjoyed the pace after some slowly worked openers.

Fun overall show, missed going to live wrestling although I didn't miss wrestling crowds. Might actually be able to convince my wife to come to another show with me sometime.

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