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.


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NXT Episode 218 4/24/14 Review

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

1. Alexander Rusev vs. Travis Tyler

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

2. Charlotte & Sasha Banks vs. Emma & Paige

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

3. Tyson Kidd vs. Mason Ryan

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

4. Angelo Dawkins vs. Tyler Breeze

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

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

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


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NXT Episode 212 3/13/14 Review

1. Paige vs. Sasha Banks

Albert calls Paige "the closest you can get to a total package in wrestling" which...seems a wee bit hyperbolic. I mean, you can't just go saying that about everybody, and the person you choose to say that about is...Paige? Match itself was short and not bad, though the ending was kind of abrupt and didn't make Sasha look very strong. Paige was working the match as seasoned vet, and Banks was kind of more Stevie Richards as she doesn't really seem to have tons of offense, so she gets by on body charisma and stuff like back rakes and hair pulling. It works, as she comes off like a gal who would give zero fucks about ripping out a chunk of some girl's extensions. Sasha locks on a nice arms-crossed camel clutch, even if it doesn't ever feel like it could end the match. They must have gotten the sudden call to go home though as Sasha lets get back up, then Paige just kinda knocks Sasha down and immediately works to lock on the Paige Tapout. I mean, Sasha was good at fighting to keep out of it and avoid getting her arms locked in, but it was a really weird sequence with Paige sitting in a sub, then getting up and just locking on her own sub for the win.

2. The Ascension vs. Travis Tyler & Cal Bishop

You'll never believe it, but according to our announce crew, The Ascension are also "The Total Package". Five stars for everybody! Everybody gets a Trophy Day! Travis Tyler draws the short straw here and takes the brunt of the 3.5 minute beating. And to their credit Ascension know how to work squash matches. It helps having a guy like Tyler who was really great at being blitzed and blindsided by shoulderblocks and double teams. I've never seen Tyler before but he's at minimum a guy who makes offense look really great, and he was real good at naturally stumbling into position, conveying that his bell was rung early and he wasn't sure where the next shot was coming from. Viktor hits a real nice boma ye off the middle buckle, with Konnor Irish whipping him into it. Nice, satisfying extended squash.

3. Mason Ryan vs. Wesley Blake

Damn I actually really really liked this. It was two green guys, but having a fun "Power Plant green guys getting a little time on Pro" and they're trying new things and some of them don't totally work, but they look game in trying these new things, and they kind of surprise you a bit. Here the green sloppiness added to the match for me, as it made things come off with a cool confused struggle. The headlock stuff in the beginning was really good because of that, as instead of a clean headlock push into the ropes, we get some nasty struggle over a sloppy choke with guys getting their ears pinched and forearms going across noses. So we get a couple of sloppy struggles, but they looked better in their sloppiness. Blake takes a punch well and we also get some nice ground punches which feel more like an MMA guy sensing his opponent was finished so dives in excitedly with some sloppy ground strikes. Ryan plays around with some headlock takedowns and fireman's carry takedowns, and those benefit from sloppiness as well. They came off more as uncooperative throws. Nice segment with Ryan missing a corner charge and hitting his shoulder, and the match actually including some nice callback spots to a potential shoulder injury. Blake later hits a single arm DDT and a nice stomp to the shoulder, and there's some fun fighting over an arm wringer. Eventually we get the kind of abrupt Power Plant guy GO HOME call where someone just hits their finisher. But this surprised me and I really dug it, in the same way I was surprised and really dug Sick Boy vs. Renegade.

4. Xavier Woods vs. Alexander Rusev

Tyler Breeze comes out and begs Woods for the shot against Rusev, sounds genuine, wants the chance to fight Rusev for hitting his face. Woods refuses and as Rusev comes out, Breeze jumps Woods.

And damn this match was good too, although needed like...30 more seconds to make it substantial. But it was good. Woods is reeling from getting jumped and taking shots to the back of his head, so Rusev bullies him into the corner and laces in with low shin kicks and nice knees to the ribs. He's working like a bulky RINGS Russian, like Bitsadze Tariel, with shin kicks and rolled shoulder throws. Woods gets a really great comeback too, as Rusev bullies him into a corner but Woods knows the shin kick is coming this time. So Woods catches it and starts throwing all the strikes at him, nice low kicks, elbows to the jaw, a really great chop, just peppering them in off time, staggering Rusev. But it is fleeting, as Rusev grabs hold of him and tosses him into a pancake. With one more twist or turn, this could have been a perfect little short match.

5. Colin Cassady vs. Bo Dallas

Colin Cassady is hilarious to me. As in, I giggled through this whole match. Cassady is a giant. He is clearly a tall guy, even though he just kind of looks like Edge slightly stretched out. So he's this giant guy, who loses ALL of his height once there's any kind of lock-up. He and Dallas lock up, and suddenly Dallas looks bigger. He starts wrestling like Spike Dudley the second they lock-up. Even his comebacks are like Spike Dudley, or any blowjob babyface tag team ever. BUT, when he makes his comebacks, his offense is sold like he is a GIANT. So he's wrestling like Bobby Fulton but then makes a comeback and Dallas is taking flip bumps like he's being tossed around by Andre. So I'm dying laughing as Dallas easily grounds Cassady with a headlock, and then Cassady starts elbowing Dallas' stomach to get out of it, but Dallas is jumping while taking these shots like he's comically  taking the offense of a giant man, but Cassady is facially acting like he's a tiny babyface desperately fighting for control. It's fucking hilarious. He works like fucking Tommy Rogers except he's 7 feet tall!! I can't stand it. It's too good. He'll always be desperately struggling to fight back, but then he'll hit a big boot like a giant and Dallas will go flying like he took a bat to the face. HOLY SHIT Cassady just threw himself down to the mat while whipping Dallas into the corner. Holy shit. He did it in the way tiny juniors throw themselves down, as if they're using ALL of their strength, every possible muscle in their little body, to whip this man into the buckles, like Mitch Williams falling off the mound after pitches because he was throwing so hard. I can't take it. That's like something Kalisto would do when wrestling Rusev. So, aside from breaking out in tears every time GIANT Colin Cassady worked as if he were Rey Misterio wrestling Kevin Nash on Nitro, I really liked Dallas in this. He worked a smarmy slow style, really rubbing it in that he was being methodical. And the crowd was booing and chanting boring, and that makes Dallas make a BO-lieve joke out of BO-ring. Dallas throws awesome back elbows and at one point plowed through Cassady with an awesome running back elbow variation. But Colin Cassady man. I can't deal. I love it.

Fun episode, sometimes for the reasons they weren't totally going for. HOWEVER, fun is fun is fun.


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