NO-MAS: Omos in NOAH, New Year Reboot

 

Omos/Jack Morris/Yu Owada vs. El Hijo del Dr. Wagner Jr./Galeno Del Mal/Saxon Huxley NOAH 1/2/25

ER: Omos's second match with the company felt like an incredible step backward. It's his second night with the company and he's working a throwaway trios match at a half sold Shinjuku FACE show, in a match where the focus is on Yu Owada's heel turn and not the gigantic black man entering your small building. The fans boo Owada in his Team 2000X when he enters the building after Omos as their mystery partner. To start the match, Omos locked up with Wagner. Obviously he won the lock up, easily, but why is this giant man locking up with a luchador half his weight? It would have been preposterous if Undertaker had worked a test of strength spot with Crash Holly, but at least it would have made sense within Holly's character. Omos doesn't need to be doing collar and elbow tie-ups with any other wrestler.  

I liked the stretch where Morris came in and cut Wagner off, Wagner selling a pump kick like Terry Funk before powering through and headbutting Morris, falling hard first, recognizing it was a bad idea as Morris was plopped on his butt rubbing his jaw. I liked how Morris set up Huxley's offense, selling a kneelift falling chest first into the middle rope with his arms draped over the top, getting bounced off the ropes as Huxley built steam, turning around just in time to catch a boot under the chin. Morris himself has bad hand clap offense but he can sell some difficult stuff well. Owada, the true focus of the match, is at minimum good at getting blown up by a shoulderblock. 

I wanted more from the Omos/Galeno shoulderblock exchange climax. They kept the big men mostly out of the match and they didn't even let Omos bump Galeno with a shoulderblock. Omos shoulderblocking Galeno into the ropes and then celebrating was like Luger celebrating his count out win against Yokozuna. The big double chokeslam was a nice ending and I especially love that it was so sudden. Galeno took one bump for Omos but it was for the finish. Crazy that Galeno took the slam so much better than Marufuji. 

TL: The only match I know Eric likes more than a battle royal is a NOAH six-man tag. To hear him glowingly praise Tamon Honda busting out freaky Rolling Hell variations or IZU throwing gnarly headbutts and sumo rushes or waxing poetic on Kikuchi's facial expressions brings me great joy; this is, predictably, a far cry from that, but does have its highlights and retains some of the spirit those matches had in their heyday.

Omos gets less to do here but does look markedly better than he did in the tag title win. Him single-handedly taking out Los Wagnercitos and Huxley with two big body slams and a lariat came off well to establish the gap between him and everyone else in the match. Eric mentioned how Omos needs to really lean into his strikes more and while the lariat was his only one in this match, it looked fine. There wasn't much of note from Morris or Owada. Morris did some basic stooging and bumped big on Huxley's knock off Brody running big boot, but Owada did a bunch of half-hearted stomping and striking in his faction debut and quickly faded into the background. Those performances by default made Omos being so dominant look that much more impactful.

Huxley got the shine here, which was odd. The Wagner Brothers were over pretty strongly and the crowd was playing along with their shtick. Hijo did well starting the match when Omos again got the early tag in, taking a powder and then trying to goad him into rushing him down, even stepping on his feet to try and get an advantage. I liked Galeno as NOAH's resident power brute knowing he was screwed but also knowing his best shot was bringing the fight to Omos anyway, even if it did fail spectacularly and he ate the fall.

Omos got a bit of a chance to show his staggered sell and recovery during Galeno's tackle rush, and it's obvious he's really trying to control the atmosphere as soon as he's between the ropes. He's working methodically like most big men, but he's aware of his surroundings and has the charisma to make it entertaining. He's also talking a lot of shit, and I think he could talk even more at this point; shit-talking in wrestling today is often either contrived or ironic, but Omos could make it his calling card if he wanted. While I was excited after the tag, this was more of a wakeup call. There's more to be unleashed and it will be interesting to see the path they decide to take to get there.

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2020 Ongoing MOTY List: WALTER vs. SAXON

36. Saxon Huxley vs. WALTER NXT UK 9/24

ER: I've slowed down on the project, but it still amazes me how far I've made it into my NXT UK Guide. Before starting this pointless endeavor, I never would have thought of writing a sentence like "This was the best Saxon Huxley match I've ever seen", but this was the best Saxon Huxley match we've seen (so far?). Huxley, Jinny, and Tyson T-Bone are the three NXT UK workers who I think could have really good matches but are rarely put in a position to have really good matches. They're the best, most underutilized wrestlers in the fed, and this felt like the first time in ages that any of them had been used for something cool. They've made mistakes in the past comparing Huxley to Bruiser Brody, but his whole thing works a lot better if you just think of him as the drummer from the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. Here he's a madman who starts stiffing WALTER before WALTER even has a chance to start in, actually makes it work for far longer than you'd think, before WALTER takes over and punishes him far longer and with way more pettiness than you'd normally see in a show opening Non-Title Match.

 

I didn't know the match would evolve into what it did, but I really started paying attention when Huxley started throwing elbowdrops that were essentially him jumping onto WALTER as hard as he could, like Dennis Rodman's elbows to The Giant, where Rodman was just jumping onto top of him full weight. He was really good at flustering WALTER, sticking and moving with his running kicks, eating a shot if it meant he could land a couple, and when they fought to the floor I thought it was cool that he opted to break the count when it was possible he could have won by count out. He would live to regret that decision, as it pretty much leads directly to his murder. He misses one of those running kicks over the barricade, and it's all over for him. WALTER goes into kill mode and it's the best, slamming Huxley as hard as possible on the floor and kicking him wickedly across the back, which was already welting as he's tossed back first lengthwise across the barricade and then powerbombed off the hardest edge of the apron. WALTER just lined him up with the full edge of the apron and powerbomb him off the peak. 

The match is over for Huxley after that apron powerbomb, but I loved how the match itself wasn't actually over. Huxley made it back in on the 8 count, and we got to see that WALTER was totally fine winning the match in the way that Huxley had foolishly guilted into not wanting, perfectly content to take the count out that Huxley that beneath him. The rest of this match is WALTER having a loud empty arena fireworks match, teeing off on a too weak opponent and making loud echoing sound with every string. Huge chops thrown as hard as possible, Huxley trying to respond by cupping WALTER's ears on slaps, but no match for a big man hitting him as hard as possible. WALTER's top rope butterfly suplex sends Huxley past the middle of the ring, and before taking the win WALTER is doing mean shit like just slapping Huxley on the back as hard as he can and falling on him. It's great. This was WALTER's return to TV after tapings resumed during the pandemic, and he played this like a true Diva taking advantage of some perfect bathroom acoustics. 

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

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NXT UK Worth Watching: Wolfe! Aichner! Barthel! Boar!

Alexander Wolfe vs. Saxon Huxley NXT UK 9/1 (Aired 10/3/19) (Ep. #62)

ER: Wolfe is the coolest NXT UK guy who has barely been on NXT UK. He last wrestled two months ago and had one of the best matches in brand history (vs. Jordan Devlin). Now he shows back up and works a sick Fit Finlay WCW Thunder match. Huxley also hasn't been on in awhile (this was clearly a long day of tapings so they were digging deep into the roster by the time they had to fill this episode) and got the only consistent crowd reactions of his NXT UK time by happening to look like Jesus Christ. It's either going to be Vegan Brody, or Jesus, and Huxley's strappy Gladiator laced boots edged the comparison closer to the Bible than Texas. Both try to drag each other to the mat, Huxley holding Wolfe down after a headlock takeover. But Wolfe is always crafty without being cute, so he yoinks down Huxley's kneepad. When Huxley goes to fix it Wolfe kicks him in the face. Wolfe is a real asshole in control, working over Huxley's arm and knee, throwing him with a hard suplex, hitting a great enziguiri across Huxley's jaw, and the crowd was rooting for Jesus to make a comeback the whole time. It looked like Wolfe was just going to grind Huxley down, Huxley sprang onto him with a Thesz press. Wolfe is great at bumping around for Huxley's flash comeback, getting booted in the chest from the apron, but then typing Huxley into the ropes by dodging his next boot. Wolfe going for the kill is always memorable, and here he immediately bicycle kicks the stuck Huxley and tosses him with a German suplex (authentic!) and his best-in-wrestling sitout powerbomb. Put Wolfe on television more! 

Fabian Aichner/Marcel Barthel vs. Wild Boar/Primate NXT UK 10/4 (Aired 10/17/19) (Ep. #64)

ER: These teams were in a really good match on Episode 56, that was quite similar to this one. I said that match felt like the base level match these teams were capable of having, and this match felt like a better version under similar time constraints. NXT UK's sweet spot is the 7 minute match. Main Event and 205 Live also frequently utilize the 7 minute match, but the NXT UK roster hits that mark much better. This match had a real aggressive Aichner performance and a couple of nice nearfalls, easily enough to make this a nice memorable snack. Boar is really fun taking out Imperium and being beaten down by them. I loved his rolling tackle to take out Barthel at the shins, with the follow up senton while Barthel is on all fours recovering. Aichner catches a Primate tope impressively, then runs him straight into the ring steps and follows up with a running knee. They work over Boar with some stiff but simple offense, the best being a running Aichner clothesline that ran so hard into Boar that it should have separated Aichner's shoulder. The hot tag to Primate has a couple cool suplexes but he does that annoying thing where he tags in his tired partner 30 seconds after the hot tag. It's a hot tag trope I despise. Your boy just got worked over and your tagging him right back in? But these guys are smart and the match plays into that, with The Hunt going up for their diving headbutts only to see Boar get knocked off immediately by Barthel. The match went by quick but was good at adding in wrinkles. I thought that was going to be the end of the match, but we wound up with a nice Hunt nearfall when they finally do hit that headbutt, only for the pin to be broken up. Aichner is a great finisher, knows how to hit his big Saito suplex and European bomb with the confidence that it will be finishing the match. Aichner doesn't always do spectacular offense, but he runs into everything with such force that it makes a lot of other clotheslines and powerbombs look like child's play. 

COMPLETE GUIDE TO NXT UK

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