NXT TakeOver: In Your House 6/13/21

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

Legado Del Fantasma vs. Bronson Reed/MSK

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

Mercedes Martinez vs. Xia Li

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

LA Knight vs. Cameron Grimes

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

 

Raquel Gonzalez vs. Ember Moon

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

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

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

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

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

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NXT TakeOver: Stand and Deliver Night Two 4/8/21

Night One turned into a really great show after we got past the first two matches. I'm less excited about the Night Two lineup, but they got a lot of good will from me after the last 80 minutes of Night One. 

Santos Escobar vs. Jordan Devlin

ER: I think modern ladder matches have done passed me by. There hasn't been enough "new" done to the format or match layout to keep me interested. On paper I thought this was a cool pairing, but in execution it didn't work for me. You know there are going to be a couple of cool spots, and there were, but these matches are just designed to be 3 minute YouTube highlight reels at this point. That's fine if that's their purpose, but it doesn't make for an interesting match. Escobar seemed off through the first half of this, moving through spots real tentatively, like he was overly focused on hitting his marks, and it made the opening exchanges look really bad. Devlin had a few big bumps, like his fun one bouncing from a ladder to the top rope to the floor, or that nasty bump getting shoved backwards off a ladder into another ladder. We got a nice dive that plastered both guys into a ladder, and Devlin's moonsault off the ladder looked great, but took an eternity to set up. And "looked great, took an eternity to set up" is a great masthead for WWE ladder matches at this point. This was very disappointing, would have been better off with a normal singles match. 

Candice LeRae/Indi Hartwell vs. Shotzi Blackheart/Ember Moon

ER: The Dusty Classic was filled with great matches, and I'm all for this because I would love a serious tag division. And while the match itself got a bit messy at times, I liked the energy and they never let the messiness divert from the match. Now, it is true that one of my favorite things about the Dusty Classic was how focused a lot of the tags felt, like each team was bringing in their own style, and this match felt more like WWE Great Match Style, which isn't nearly as interesting. Dusty Classic had a lot of personality, this was more cookie cutter "plug in fast workers" style, and I think the personality aspect is what made those matches shine. Indi and Candice felt like a typical workrate team here, not at all like how they've been the past several months. Ember had a couple fun sequences, got an unexpected laugh out of me when she finished a strike combo with a Suck It. Shotzi will always be Shotzi, and that leads us to Shotzi spectacularly splitting the uprights on a tope con giro. I have no idea how it happened, but Shotzi has this magical ability to find no bodies on dives, and she somehow flies right in between Indi and Candice and straight into the barricade. This felt too rushed, never got the time to settle in and get anyone isolated, felt way too get in-get out the whole match. A couple double teams looked good, like the Indi/Candice pancake slam. Ember's double team Eclipse was a bit too ambitious, not sure it really worked in practice, but Shotzi's big senton landed heavy and I loved the way Indi sold it. 

Bronson Reed vs. Johnny Gargano

ER: I've been really loving NXT the past several months, and it's because they've gotten away from the house style that ruined much of 2020. This match went back to that style and it sucked. Reed used to work as a big guy, but now that they don't have Keith Lee on the roster it's like they needed a big man to work 50-50 exchanges with a 160 pound man. It sucks so bad, and we all knew it was going to suck 20 seconds in when Gargano hit a sloppy headscissors and Reed missed a beat before doing a cartwheel. The cartwheel looked entirely disconnected from Gargano's headscissors, and Beth Phoenix screaming "SHADES OF BAM BAM BIGELOW" really hammered home how shitty this was going to be. Last night we got an insanely good women's main event, with Raquel Gonzalez doing an excellent job of selling for someone so much smaller than she, and here's Reed working as Gargano's equal the entire match. I hate it. This brought back all of my least favorite parts of NXT house style, the mirror exchanges, the selling entirely disconnected from the moves that each man just took, and the stupid offense that spins somebody into position to hit their own offense. Reed is not good at working equal to Gargano, so you knew they were going to throw out the stupidest tropes of the style. Was there a poison rana? Brother you bet there was, and brother you better believe that it looked like Reed leaping backwards onto his own head. Gargano was just dangling off Reed's neck, hanging there, no momentum, and Reed just threw himself over. Reed was always a second behind on every exchange like this, the entire match. Did we get a superkick exchange? Brother you KNOW we did! Reed hits a tope on Theory (he's a big man, but look at him MOVE!!) and I cannot tell you how uninterested I am in modern big man "moving like a cruiserweight" wrestling at this point. I thought Reed's crucifix bomb from the ramp into the ring looked great, but it meant nothing whatsoever because this is throwback NXT house style baybee! That move should be a finisher, not a forgotten footnote in an uninteresting match. You're a big round man, think of all the cool big round wrestlers you could be, Reed! Instead, he's like my old boss's dog who was 50 pounds and was scared of 15 pound dogs, like he had no idea what size he was. 

Karrion Kross vs. Finn Balor

ER: Feeling bad for Ray Rowe here, as they gave his whole look to the new bald guy. And it wasn't going to take much of a match to look better than the trash that came before, and it was fine! I can't really get into the Kross character, still really don't know what I'm supposed to think about him. But the Reed match set a low bar, and it looked like gold coming after. I liked how Kross actually recognized that he was larger than Balor. I personally always know if someone is larger than I am, or if I am larger than they are, but a lot of people in NXT do not know that! So when Balor locked up with Kross and Kross threw him down on the mat, I thought "Now there is a man who recognizes when he is larger than another person." And that's why this match is a win! Balor didn't play total underdog, but didn't play equal, and that's important. I like how Kross threw him around, dug how it looked like Balor was really getting upended on every big Saito suplex. We didn't go overboard with shocked faces and kickouts, no surprises whatsoever. It was just a bigger guy throwing a smaller guy around and eventually beating him, and that's all it takes to stand out in my brain right now. 

Kyle O'Reilly vs. Adam Cole

ER: This match is unsanctioned. It's on Peacock, broadcast from their own Performance Center, with commentary just like any other match, but someone back there does not agree with it and will not sanction it. Men fell dangerously into ladders an hour ago, and that was sanctionable, but one of these men is now wearing a denim vest and we cannot sanction that. The problem with giving a couple like this too many toys to use in a match, is they get too cute with their toy usage. We can't just have a couple guys braining each other with a chain, we need to have one of them bent at the waist for an eternity while the other takes forever to wrap his boot in a chain. Just hit Cole with the fucking chain, Kyle! You're holding the chain! Hit him with it! You knew this shit was going to be unbearably long, and even though it was UNSANCTIONED I wish we could have sanctioned some time limits. Save the fans from the unspeakable actions these gladiators were going to put themselves through. We go through all the same tired stuff that they always go through whenever any indy fed goes through an unsanctioned match, other than the actual ring being taken apart. You know what makes a brawl interesting? Blood and guys beating the shit out of each other. If you have a chain, you can just hit a guy with a chain. But the spots get way to cute way too fast, and you know these two are absolutely killing each other out there, but it's the worst combination of painful violence and cornball violence. I knew they were going through the ramp, I knew just knew it. It was either going to be the ring taken apart or the ramp crashing through, and I'm most shocked that it wasn't both. There were parts of this I liked, with my favorite spot being Cole grabbing the chain and clotheslining O'Reilly with it. But this was predictably long, and had too much over thought out bullshit. There's no excuse to go 40 minutes in a match like this. Going that long makes the punishing things you are doing come off LESS punishing. Cut this in half, focus on the violence rather than the humanity, and then maybe you have something. 

ER: Well, this was easily the worst of the two nights. This show was bad, not even sure what match I would most recommend to someone (probably the tag match? It was fast paced and didn't step on its own dick), but a lot of this show was a MAJOR step back. This show was a microcosm of every single thing that I hated about 19/20 NXT. I've been loving 2021 NXT so far, it's my favorite weekly show, and this show was like they decided that EVERYTHING they've done this year hasn't been working, and throwing it into reverse to bring us back into the worst era of NXT history. Absolutely terrible. 

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NXT Halloween Havoc Live Blog 10/28/20

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

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

Damian Priest vs. Johnny Gargano

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

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

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

Jake Atlas vs. Santos Escobar

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

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

Haunted House of Terror

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

Rhea Ripley vs. Raquel Gonzalez

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

Haunted House of Terror (conclusion)

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

Candice LeRae vs. Io Shirai

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

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NXT TakeOver 31 Live (Until 49ers) Blog 10/4/20

I'll level with you, this card does not excite me. Phil asked me yesterday if there was anyone I even liked currently wrestling in NXT, and I actually had to think about who that would be. The brand is really stale to me right now, and the few people I have been still tuning in for are not even on this show. The brand was great when there was frequent promotion turnover, but ever since it began being promoted as its own thing it has stagnated and seemingly run out of ideas. Maybe guys on the roster realize things have been blah, maybe they take this opportunity to put on a show that will get people talking. I don't care one iota about the AEW/NXT online feud, but maybe a few of the guys on this show DO care about it and want the internet to buzz about it for a few days. Or, maybe it will be the uninteresting show that it looks like on paper, and I will only have myself to blame.

Also I saw HHH called this new performance center something like "The ultimate heavy metal soundstage" and I am curious see what that means. From Damian Priest's entrance it looks like they have a large tron and a screen wrapping the lengths of at least a couple sides of the room. I'm more excited that there are at least some people (in masks) around the hockey rink baseball backstop like guardrail shields. We still have the home viewer screens in the majority of the crowd, but down front is actual people, and it's good having actual people there. On commentary is Sebastian Gorka.


Damian Priest vs. Johnny Gargano

ER: I don't think Priest is a bad wrestler, in that I think he has the tools to be a compelling wrestler, but he would have to be completely broken down and retrained to not be 2020 Edge. Like Edge, Priest is someone who loves to work even sized with small guys, and it comes off like a large dog who doesn't understand that he's a large dog and gets bossed around by tiny aggressive dogs. Priest is 6'5 and 250, similar size to Edge, and yet he works matches like he's a bad version of Billy Kidman working Ultimo Dragon. And I do not like this match. It came off like a modern update of a Lance Storm/Jerry Lynn match from ECW. 20 years ago that was a match and match type that felt fresh and was done well by then. But it's not a style I want to see in 2020. There are other things from that era that I'd rather seen updated than that specific counter based evenly worked style with some extra shitty If-Nova-Was-Taller embellishments from Priest. Priest's tope con hilo looked good, and a couple of the reversals do work, Gargano takes a hard powerbomb on the apron, and a couple of the nearfalls were effectively placed, and Gargano's low blow kick leading right to the finish looked great, but overall I just didn't like this.

Velveteen Dream vs. Kushida

ER: Dream is dressed like Doc Brown to counter Kushida's McFly, which sounds like something I'd shit on but it's also a fact that I went to a high school dance as George McFly. It was a Hollywood theme dance and you were supposed to come as a celebrity or movie character, and I had found a neat vintage suit jacket at the Salvation Army, and a character with big nerdy black glasses was easy for me to aim for. Now, I suppose I was also 16 years old, and not a grown man playing cosplay dress up as one of my last appearances before pressure mounts to have me punished for being a nonce, so I think I can still shit on Dream.

But I thought their match was really good, albeit perhaps a bit too long. The chemistry between them was stronger than I expected, and the strength was that there was an impressive (and unexpected) amount of struggle to everything that happened, so no parts of it felt like a competitive partners dance. Kushida kept going after that arm for the hoverboard lock, and I liked his tenacity. Dream kept using energy to fight back in cool ways, like refusing to go down on drop toehold and making Kushida work for moves like that. It looks so much cooler when Dream struggles and fights before getting dragged down, makes all of Kushida's passes look fought for and earned. I loved how Kushida rolled through to an armlock after finally getting the drop toehold. There was a lot like that, and Kushida built to some vicious stuff like kicking the ring steps while Dream's arm was pinned between stairs and ring, or catching Dream in various triangles that always felt important. This had the feel of a match that was writing Dream off for a bit, which is a thing that I think will only continue to be demanded. The finish felt like a big FU but a cool finish, with Kushida taking working the arm and Dream powering to his feet for a dream valley driver, only Kushida doesn't let go of the arm and gets the immediate tap. Kushida attacked him too long after the match though, and Dream was doing this weird theatrical screaming and crying. It felt like Kushida turning heel and them making Dream a sympathetic babyface, but I hope that's not what they're doing. I hope it was them just writing Dream off TV. We'll see I guess.

Isaiah "Swerve" Scott vs. Santos Escobar

ER: This had a lot of moments I liked even though I think a lot of Scott's embellishments are really annoying. The match really came alive when Scott hit a one man dive train, and that Fosbury Flop was a cool highlight of that. I like Escobar's stable and would like to see them do things other than feud with Scott, but this match felt like the best case scenario for the pairing. Scott's big stuff looked good (one of Escobar's strengths is taking offense, and that shines here) and Escobar got to plaster Scott with his great tope. This one also could have used an editor, as I think it would have been more effective under 15 minutes, but I also think they did a good job at filling those 15 minutes. Ashante Adonis came back for (I believe) the first time in NXT since his name change from Tehuti Miles, and I could see him having fun matches on this roster. He's a guy who is low on offense, but works a similar style to other offense deprived wrestlers who I enjoy (i.e. cruiserweight Stevie Richards is more interesting to me than Isaiah Scott). I'm glad Escobar retained and would love to see his group presented as an actual threat, even pushed to the level of Undisputed Era.

Candice LeRae vs. Io Shirai

ER: I think this one had the right energy and built in a nice exciting way, but the Wife Guy Johnny stuff coming out for the finish and bumping around like he was on a trampoline while making shocked Gargano face was something the match really didn't need. The ref bump to set up the Gargano new referee silliness was inventive and fun, with Shirai eating knees on a moonsault and letting her momentum carry over and basically Pele kick the ref. The ref bounces to the floor and LeRae's curb stomp looked really gross, mashing Shirai's face into the mat. I think the Johnny stuff really took away from all the drama they had built in the match, as it came off cartoony in a way that the match hadn't been. I liked Candice here more than I did the last time these two had a big singles match (last year at TakeOver Toronto). She kept taking me out of that match with weird selling and getting into position too early for Shirai, and she worked this better as an aggressive heel. I don't think Shirai was as strong in this one as that one, but she made the big moments count and took offense nicely. Still, I thought some of the 50/50 stuff in the middle lost track of things, and then when they won me back Gargano took me back out of things, plus the finish looked a little ugly. Toni Storm and Ember Moon returned in two different post match segments, but it's really weird to bring back two people to the same division in segments immediately following each other. It kind of lessens the impact of both, although I can't deny that Toni Storm is a welcome return. Anything that gets a little less Tegan Nox blandness off the weekly show.

Kyle O'Reilly vs. Finn Balor

ER: Watching this one got delayed by me watching a mildly crushing 49ers loss, with an uninspiring Nick Mullens performance paving the way for an exciting but ultimately futile comeback from CJ Beathard. George Kittle is a more fun to watch wrestler than anybody on TakeOver tonight. I want to see Timothy Thatcher work a shoot style match with Kittle, based around Thatcher being unable to take down Kittle but being persistent about it. Brandon Aiyuk hit a ridiculous leapfrog hurdle for a touchdown, the coolest and best utilized leapfrog spot I've seen tonight. But the Niners lost and this match will now lift my spirits.

And this one won me over early, overcoming it's NXT Main Event Epic Drama layout with compelling selling and nice targeted attacks. Kyle O'Reilly put on one of his strongest singles match performances that I've seen, coming off like Bryan Danielson working like a 2001 NJPW kickpads junior. We get the cool story of O'Reilly exacerbating a Balor shoulder injury early, leaving him susceptible to a near match ending attack on a different limb. Both guys hit the strikes and offense harder the longer the match goes, justifying the overly long near half hour match length. It felt like things really ramped up throughout and never skipped ahead at any points. O'Reilly has a cool set of rolling double underhook suplexes and some knees, but gets a rib kicked in by a great solebutt and then run sternum first into the turnbuckles. From here on out O'Reilly is gamely selling a rib injury and while it was dramatic I also thought it was effective. O'Reilly had a couple of big comebacks (I especially loved him dumping Balor with a real high bridged Regalplex on Balor's neck) but Balor did cool things like work an actual persuasive abdominal stretch and stomp the hell out of O'Reilly's guts.

Both guys bleed from the mouth, and there's some some strong camera shots of O'Reilly stuck in a nice sharpshooter while blood cuts down his cheek. They also do some nice close up magic, as the closest the camera ever got to an O'Reilly knee strike it happened to be the hardest knee strike he hit all night. Finn stomps him in the ribs more, and O'Reilly fights back with a cool standing guillotine that looked nice and snug. O'Reilly played well as a lower rung FUTEN guy who hangs for 13 minutes against Katsumi Usuda. O'Reilly catches Balor with a couple of dragon screws over the ropes, and then hits a totally killer kneedrop off the top rope directly onto the back of Balor's thigh. O'Reilly's kneebar he locks on is some righteous Volk Han shit. He really twists and bend the ankle and when Balor tries to kick him away he grabs that leg and twists it violently over Balor's other leg. The kneebar was so good it made me suddenly start rooting for O'Reilly to win the title here, wanting Finn to tap. That kneebar got me Immediately invested in seeing a specific result, made me spontaneously root for a guy I've never been super high on, and that kind of moment is special. Balor doesn't tap, and he does finally make the ropes no matter how much I wanted him to tap. And, somewhat disappointingly, while his double stomps to finally slam the window shut on O'Reilly's ribs looked really great, I wish more respect was paid to the tendon damage that kneebar should have caused. Even so, I think the double stomps were a fitting end to the match and worked well in context. This was an unexpectedly strong main event within a style I don't adore, building to actual drama and justifying the overly long runtime with some stiff work.

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Oney Lorcan is Still Here

Oney Lorcan vs. Santos Escobar 205 Live 7/2 (Aired 7/10/20)

ER: I had skimmed through Night 2 of NXT's Great American Bash before watching this, and was able to briskly get through the show because all of the big matches (Cole/Lee, Gargano/Scott) were just the worst kind of 50/50 move trading and anticipated missed offense so I didn't have to actually spend time watching them. It was brutal and I'm happy I decided not to gut it out. And right HERE is a cool match outside of the now cookie cutter brand match structure, happening the same week as that show, where Escobar takes a huge portion of the match without Lorcan looking down and out defeated. Lorcan had his arm wrapped because of his match with Thatcher, which Escobar goes right after, and even though Lorcan is still able to pepper in hard strikes he is clearly hesitant to throw those strikes due to his bad arm. It's an easy story and one they both work effectively. Lorcan tries to end things quick out of desperation but it quickly put on the defense because of his arm. The match benefits huge from not just dancing from spot to spot, but with both guys fighting back in between spots. The first half of this especially has hard little shots thrown in as spots are about to happen, making the whole match feel more like a fight. Escobar worked some mean stuff on Lorcan's arm, including a snap suplex trapping his arm, and a crossface sub while working a cravat. He runs Lorcan's arm into the ring post and hits a cruel splash on Oney's arm on the apron. Lorcan realizes he's going down so he might as well do his best to fight out of it, so goes for broke with big chops and a heavy uppercut and a nice whipping blockbuster. It ain't enough, and I like how Escobar caught him with a cool armbreaker when Lorcan was slowed due to using his arm, and loved how Lorcan died on that sword.


Oney Lorcan/Danny Burch/Mansoor vs. Chase Parker/Matt Martel/Tehuti Miles 205 Live 7/21 (Aired 7/24/20)

ER: This is the kind of quick paced 8 minute trios match they should have on TV every week, the kind of match where all six guys are given something cool to do. Ever-Rise have become favorites of mine, a total WCW Worldwide C team getting regular WWE TV time, but they're really smart about being in the right place, cheering each other loudly from the apron, getting shown up on armdrags, and stooging for babyface comebacks. They have a couple nice double teams, like Chase Parker's elbow after a Matt Martel drop toehold, or their Samoan drop/neckbreaker combo they do to Burch before Lorcan flattens them both with a dual blockbuster. This is the kind of team that never would have made a WWE roster even 10 years ago, and I'm really happy there's a place for them now. Tehuti is a great heel foil for all of the babyfaces, and I'm always a sucker for heels who don't really have offense. He knows right where to be to violently take Mansoor's slingshot DDT, has a perfect catch on Mansoor's excellent tornillo, gets folded over by a Burch German suplex, and then takes over with learned behavior after holding the ropes on a second Mansoor slingshot attempt. I love a heel who takes over a match by letting a babyface crash and burn on something that he scouted, then tries to win with a backslide. Lorcan's energy is always going to be something that stands out in an energetic match like this, and his double blockbuster came at the perfect moment. But this was a six person performance in the most fun way.


Oney Lorcan vs. Ridge Holland vs. Damian Priest NXT 7/29 (Aired 8/5/20)

ER: This is a weird match for Lorcan to be in, arguably the weirdest on paper match in his entire WWE run. Lorcan used to be used (and was great) in matches as the underdog against a larger bully. It was a good formula for him, but he hasn't been in that formula for a couple years now, instead being paired with workers more his size. He also feels out of place in the match from a storyline standpoint. He is a guy who loses singles matches to anyone larger than him. He wins tag matches half the time, and loses singles matches to larger opponents all of the time. It is established that he is never an easy win, so perhaps that is enough to justify having him in this match - I like seeing him as much as I can, so I don't totally care - and that feels like they're continuing to slowly work him up the card. If you view his WWE career as a whole it does look like a nice slow burn.

And the match is as cool and fun as those Lorcan/monster matches, although it would have played better as a Holland/Lorcan singles match. The weak parts of the match were all because of Priest. He is 2020 Edge. Edge mainlined late 90s flowery indy offense, and Priest wrestles like Edge reappropriating UWFI striking into a stupider overacting Edge style of UWFI. It's shitty as hell when he gets too into that mode, but it's undeniable that he is goofy strike combo terrible in-ring acting Edge. Luckily, that only affected the weak parts of the match, and most of the match was very strong. Three ways have been passé for far more years than they were relevant and novel, but there is still potential for excitement in layout, big cutoffs, and close nearfall saves. Lorcan is the one that gets disposed of, but he gets as many licks as anyone here. He crashes into both with a great tope con hilo, times he blockbuster excellently, throws hard uppercuts, builds to throwing some of his all time best flying uppercuts. He was sending his whole body crashing into Holland, and Holland was a really great brick wall to crash into. His strikes and shoulderblocks looked good, he had no problem leaning into things, and he annihilates Lorcan on a clothesline to kill a Lorcan run. Priest also has a mix of Edge offense in addition to his "If Edge Had Seen a Takada Comp Tape in 1997" strikes, but he actually does a lot of that better than Edge did his offense. I really liked his big sitout chokeslam here. If your offense has to be a dumb twist of an established move, at least actually looking like you can lift someone impressively helps things immensely. He does that. And even with Priest's chest punch kick combos awkwardly shoehorned in, this match smoked.

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