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rzombie1988

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One thing that made no sense to me was the changing of Big E's music when he got called up. Do you think that the FullSail people are working on the music for the NXT guys and then Jim Johnston takes over when they hit the main roster or something?

 

I say this absolutely having Summer Rae's music stuck in my head right now. 

 

Edit: Non-related, but I love how Bo Dallas always sounds totally out of breath whenever he tries to talk.

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Justin Gabirel's not really doing anything except listening to dubstep, apparently. I liked him as a heel. He could have some good flying stuff against Los Matadors.

Good point, is there a reason that they never seem to have anything to do with him?  From what I've seen he is generally good in the ring, I would have thought he would have been one of the first guys they would have put into a tag team when they started the push of the tag division.  He has been around for a good while now, he is probably the most underutilized person they have on the roster.  At least send him to NXT where he can have some fun matches.

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Justin Gabirel's not really doing anything except listening to dubstep, apparently. I liked him as a heel. He could have some good flying stuff against Los Matadors.

Good point, is there a reason that they never seem to have anything to do with him?  From what I've seen he is generally good in the ring, I would have thought he would have been one of the first guys they would have put into a tag team when they started the push of the tag division.  He has been around for a good while now, he is probably the most underutilized person they have on the roster.  At least send him to NXT where he can have some fun matches.

 

 

Pair him with Kruger. Apparently they use to team together as PURE JUICE.

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Gabriel was teaming pretty regularly with Tyson Kidd before he got injured, and this was also before they started pushing the tag division again. I'd say the obvious choice for ridiculously fun matches would be Gabs and Neville but neither could cut a promo to save their life, so I'm not sure how over they'd get. Then again Evan Bourne pretty much got over huge with cool spots....speaking of which why isn't he at least on NXT working matches? I heard Meltzer say he was cleared and that was a while ago.

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Is there any reason to think Graves will ever make it to the main roster? The tag title match from this episode is the only time I've ever seen him, and he seemed pretty useless.

I've been watching him locally since 2002. I've seen him grow big time.

 

If you want Sami Zayn or Adrian Neville level matches, you are looking at the wrong person. He does not do the indy style and isn't flashy. He actually always worked pretty close to the WWE style which is probably why they signed him and why he didn't have a big run in the indies. I'm fine with this. For every Sami Zayn, you're going to get 5 Bryan XL's and 5 Davey Richards and the world doesn't need any more of those. It is hard though to go from watching a Zayn match and then trying to watch anyone else, as anyone else is just not going to look as good.

 

His strong points are his character work and mic abilities. Unfortunately, he hasn't gotten to show either of them. His character has been pretty much unexplained aside from being into debauchery and I don't really know what his character is. Therefore, it causes the fans to come up with suggestions and unfortunately, those suggestions lead to him being a poser at a punk concert. As for his mic abilities, he really came into his own when he played a "star" like character in the late 2000's. He was the most over guy in IWC and totally looked on the next level. He had tons of charisma and had a great connection with the fans. Nobody has a connection with him now in NXT because NXT really hasn't taught us anything about him personality wise. NXT has given us no reason to care.

 

Graves is also having issues because he's really not a face character. From what we know about his character in NXT, he's into drugs, drinking and other stuff, which isn't face material. He doesn't do the flying stuff and he doesn't do comedy, so he's pretty much doomed as a face in NXT. He is better though at being a heel and he's at his best being a tweener. He can be a Jerry Lawler type where he gets cheers but doesn't mind bending the rules sometimes. This is where he is really suited and if he could go into this role, I think he would be better off. I don't think he's ever going to stand out in NXT though until people like Zayn, Woods and Neville graduate to the main roster, where they do rightfully belong.

 

The big thing that's going to hurt him in the long run is that at his best, he's probably a lesser version of CM Punk. They have a lot of similarities, so many in fact that they actually teamed up with him being Punk's underling years ago in IWC. However, he isn't the worker the Punk is(which is fine since few are) and he's also not as great on the mic as Punk is(which is also okay since Punk is one of the best).

 

People should also realize that at the moment, it's kind of a "thing" to hate on Graves, so he's going to be ripped a lot more than he deserves. It's not that far off from Bo Dallas levels of hate which is pretty unfair to him. Remember how much we all hated Bo Dallas a few months ago? Look at him now as character wise, he's one of the best on the roster.

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I've long thought WWE should have a comedy division (not name it, obviously) but have a match every week that is full of silly spots and playing to the crowd and all, especially with how good Santino is at it, and you could Fandango there, rotate random divas in, rotate random legends in, and just make it a nice, short silly skit of a match.

 

Anyways, I was reminded of this watching Santino/Emma-Fandango/Rae which was just perfect.  I could watch and rewatch the intro to the match over and over again, with Emma and Santino being awkward on the dance/hug, then messing up their entrance, then Emma showing Santino her entrance, then Santino almost falling off the ropes.  It was just amazing.

 

I feel like Ohno-Harper was almost done to show Ohno how far he has to go.  Harper just looked like he was in a completely different league than Ohno here (He is...literally and figuratively).  For a guy who's gimmick is a strike (KO, I get it!), Ohno had some really shitty-looking strikes in here.  I did like this kick through the ropes that landed him on his feet, but everything else besides his leaning into Harper's stuff was average at best.  I know he was a big-time indie guy (I'll be honest, I've never seen a Chris Hero match, but have seen a few Ohno matches) but right now he looks like he's a long ways away from the main roster.  Harper just looked like a star.

 

Amore/Cass are just spot-on.  I like that Cass is starting to develop a character of being Amore's big buddy/protector who can get just as annoyed with him as everyone else.

 

Ascension-Neville/Banks was pretty blah except for Neville's spots which the crowd really gets into.  I liked the part where Victor tried to make the tag and O'Brian pushed him out of the way because he wasn't the legal man.

 

Bo Invitational was amazing.  Kruger's got something...I just can't put my finger on it.  I think he could be a lot of fun on the main roster in a sort-of Jack Swagger role, who could totally break out with just the right way/right angle/right promo, sorta like a poor man's Mick Foley.

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Justin Gabirel's not really doing anything except listening to dubstep, apparently. I liked him as a heel. He could have some good flying stuff against Los Matadors.

Good point, is there a reason that they never seem to have anything to do with him? From what I've seen he is generally good in the ring, I would have thought he would have been one of the first guys they would have put into a tag team when they started the push of the tag division. He has been around for a good while now, he is probably the most underutilized person they have on the roster. At least send him to NXT where he can have some fun matches.
Also, girls fucking love Gabriel. A lot. For this reason, I'd say he's WWE's most under-utilized guy right now.
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Is there any reason to think Graves will ever make it to the main roster? The tag title match from this episode is the only time I've ever seen him, and he seemed pretty useless.

I've been watching him locally since 2002. I've seen him grow big time.

 

If you want Sami Zayn or Adrian Neville level matches, you are looking at the wrong person. He does not do the indy style and isn't flashy. He actually always worked pretty close to the WWE style which is probably why they signed him and why he didn't have a big run in the indies. I'm fine with this. For every Sami Zayn, you're going to get 5 Bryan XL's and 5 Davey Richards and the world doesn't need any more of those. It is hard though to go from watching a Zayn match and then trying to watch anyone else, as anyone else is just not going to look as good.

 

His strong points are his character work and mic abilities. Unfortunately, he hasn't gotten to show either of them. His character has been pretty much unexplained aside from being into debauchery and I don't really know what his character is. Therefore, it causes the fans to come up with suggestions and unfortunately, those suggestions lead to him being a poser at a punk concert. As for his mic abilities, he really came into his own when he played a "star" like character in the late 2000's. He was the most over guy in IWC and totally looked on the next level. He had tons of charisma and had a great connection with the fans. Nobody has a connection with him now in NXT because NXT really hasn't taught us anything about him personality wise. NXT has given us no reason to care.

 

Graves is also having issues because he's really not a face character. From what we know about his character in NXT, he's into drugs, drinking and other stuff, which isn't face material. He doesn't do the flying stuff and he doesn't do comedy, so he's pretty much doomed as a face in NXT. He is better though at being a heel and he's at his best being a tweener. He can be a Jerry Lawler type where he gets cheers but doesn't mind bending the rules sometimes. This is where he is really suited and if he could go into this role, I think he would be better off. I don't think he's ever going to stand out in NXT though until people like Zayn, Woods and Neville graduate to the main roster, where they do rightfully belong.

 

The big thing that's going to hurt him in the long run is that at his best, he's probably a lesser version of CM Punk. They have a lot of similarities, so many in fact that they actually teamed up with him being Punk's underling years ago in IWC. However, he isn't the worker the Punk is(which is fine since few are) and he's also not as great on the mic as Punk is(which is also okay since Punk is one of the best).

 

People should also realize that at the moment, it's kind of a "thing" to hate on Graves, so he's going to be ripped a lot more than he deserves. It's not that far off from Bo Dallas levels of hate which is pretty unfair to him. Remember how much we all hated Bo Dallas a few months ago? Look at him now as character wise, he's one of the best on the roster.

 

I don't think Graves is incapable, just horribly utilized.  The thing that makes NXT cool is that everyone has some sort of character or gimmick that sets hem apart from everyone else.  He is just the guy with the "Stay Down" tattoos that teams up with the guy who does all the flips.  The rest of the tag teams have a reason to be teamed up.  Enzo and Big Cass are from Jersey.  The Legionaires are in it for Lefort's money.  The Ascension are some sort of vague vampires/astronauts or some shit.  Graves and Neville seemed to have teamed up because they didn't have shit else to do.  Neville at least has his crazy spots to set him apart from everyone else, but as far as I can tell Graves doesn't have any signature spots.  If he is a good talker, they should give him mic time...but they don't.  If his character work is his strong suit, they need to give him a character to work...but they haven't.  I think Graves could be good, but based on what I've watched on NXT I can't tell.

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New episode!

 

CESARO/KRUGER -- Really, really good match. I know that's shocking with CesarCo but this was real nice. The match came from last week when the two of them brawled as they attempted to enter to Bo Dallas Invitational. The crowd was "eh" in the middle and marking for Cesaro and not giving much to Leo, since he's been a heel. The match had a real good "WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO KEEP HIM DOWN" story. They did a lot of nifty stuff with Cesaro trying to win via countout, infuriating him when after Kruger came back in for a third time after taking a gutwrench high up the ring ramp. Cesaro beat the f out of him with some European Uppercuts, Swiss Death, the Chinlock Of Death (that tapped out Sami in their classic). There was a great shot in the chinlock -- Kruger's wet hair was all over his face and spit was coming out of his mouth, really sold the wear of the hold well. Kruger wrestles well as a hunter/stalker. Cesaro finally said "f this" and got The Neutralizer (Kruger reversed out of one earlier) and got the pin. Afterward, Cesaro climbed to the top and dropped a knee across Kruger's throat. Kruger didn't get in a ton of offense and never really had a shot against Cesaro but looked like the toughest man in the world in defeat.

 

CHARLOTTE/SANTANA GARRETT -- Renee Young as the woman's color commentator specialist is the best. Man, she's one of the unsung stars of the year. She's superb. This was a pretty good match as newcomer Santana tests out the slightly-more-experienced daughter of Naitch, who has the adorable Bailey as her second. Charlotte uses her insane athleticism to take control of the match. Summer Rae and Sasha Banks Mean Girl out to the ring and do some mocking pro-Charlotte chants. Renee puts this down and says she hates this as a woman -- they're just trying to have a good match and don't need this. Charlotte whiffed on her finisher (some flipping facelock driver thing) and it looked bad. But aside from that, this was a nice enough match. No other botches.Post-match, Summer Rae announces her and Sasha's name as the "BFFs" and they talk about running NXT and the WWE. Paige comes down to get revenge on Sasha ("She needs to make this right" -- Renee) before she falls prey to the numbers game. The crowd chants for Emma who comes running out and the BFFs scamper. After the break, one of the announcer dudes asks the BFFs how they felt after being embarrassed Summer reminds him that the BFFs don't get embarrassed, they get even, and challenges Paige/Emma to a tag match. "Go do something about it and while you're at it, fix your tie." Later in the show, Paige and Emma are bickering about who saved who. They accept the challenge. "I get to win because I'm the champ." Emma dances in Paige's face. "Not for long." "I will hurt you, Emma."Paige, Summer Rae and Emma would be the second/third/fourth best diva on the big show, not counting what they do with Kaitlyn. Bailey and Sasha are getting better and so is Charlotte. This match and segment compared to the crapfest on Raw is night and day. NXT Divas division is very, very good.

 

DANNY BIRCH/MOJO RAWLEY -- This was Mojo's debut. He's an Adderall-infused ex-football player. Match was pretty sloppy and got awkward. Mojo's energy, though, is ridiculous and different than anyone else in years. It's a slightly toned down Ultimate Warrior. I could see him ending up in a WWF-era "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan role. Definitely athletic and has a personality. I sort of hate him already but he's entertaining on some level.

 

LEGIONAIRRES/JERSEY TRASH -- Eh match. I like both these pairings a lot but this didn't really have much of a flow to it. Rusev's "Accolade" Camel Clutch is insane. Dawson's been studying his Arn tapes as he stepped on Enzo's leg to keep him from leaving the corner and, post-match, held Big Cass in place so Rusev could take out the big man. He also got in proper "All Fours" position to taunt. LaFort's pants with dollar bills was the best bad pants in ages.Renee's backstage with Sami, who is styling wearing a blazer over a Rancid "Out Come The Wolves" shirt with ska-fan cap. He's like me and every other pop-punk goofball I know but with self-confidence. Is there any Sami/Renee fan-fic out there yet? He talks about being the number one contender. Bo comes out mid-interview and says that what Sami did was really not cool and "My feelings are hurt." Sami apologizes for hurting Bo's feelings but says he has to do what he has to do because he wants to be NXT Champion. Bo says they should instead tag as friends. Sami accepts but says they will right after he wins the tag match. "UN-BO-LIEVABLE." Renee's face during Bo segments is the best -- she's trying to ridiculously hard to not laugh in his dumb face.RVD/AIDEN ENGLISH -- English's showtunes entrance RULES and is going to be mega-over if he ever gets up to the bigs. Mostly a RVD squash but Aiden was definitely entertaining. "EXIT STAGE LEFT!" as he tried to leave the match, things like that. English is super entertaining.

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I love Kruger's look. Weird seeing a heel vs heel match on WWE. Nice match though

 

I must marry Bailey... Renee is pure gold, why can't she be the resident color commentator instead of whoever the fuck it was?

 

Amped guy is amped! Sold a little too much imo.

SAWFT~! I'm pretty sure the bulgarian dude has killed people, with his bare hands. He's scary. This was too short unfortunately, I want to see more of the Arn impersonator because he's doing nothing for me right now.

 

"You really hurt my feelings." I love this kid. Love. I want to see the match next week soooo baaaaaaaad.

 

Aiden is awesome. RVD is not. Aiden's heel antics were so great that he made RVD look fun. Wow. The match had too much RVD in it, like 99% too much, but he actually looked like he gave 5% of a shit. Still, fuck RVD.

Hopefully now Ricardo has time to be El Local more on NXT. 

 

The color commentator is so bad I don't even know his name. He's shit-tier awful, he's worse than Rob Van Dam.

 

Apparently, the version of the show, that I totally obtained in the most legal of ways, was slightly shorter than the one Greggulator described.

 

Specifically this:

 

After the break, one of the announcer dudes asks the BFFs how they felt after being embarrassed Summer reminds him that the BFFs don't get embarrassed, they get even, and challenges Paige/Emma to a tag match. "Go do something about it and while you're at it, fix your tie." Later in the show, Paige and Emma are bickering about who saved who. They accept the challenge. "I get to win because I'm the champ." Emma dances in Paige's face. "Not for long." "I will hurt you, Emma."

 

and this

They did a lot of nifty stuff with Cesaro trying to win via countout, infuriating him when after Kruger came back in for a third time after taking a gutwrench high up the ring ramp.

 

Weird. Still, this a perfect 1 hour of wrestling TV.

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Apparently, the version of the show, that I totally obtained in the most legal of ways

Show is free on regular Hulu, no chicanery necessary.Also, I think Kruger is supposed to be a face now, and I believe Alex Riley is the color guy in question stinking up the commentary booth.
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I caught up to the Bo/Sami/Zeb promo. It's probably my favorite out-of-ring stuff in wrestling this year. Sami doesn't come off as a character at all. He's hugely genuine in his delivery. I really like the idea that he and Renee are the only sane people in this land of misfits. Bo's amazing too. One problem I think WWE might have is that the crowd will eventually turn anyone entertaining face. I haven't seen the Santino tag yet, but I enjoyed Emma so much more in her first few weeks when the fans were just warming to her but she was still totally oblivious to it. Enzo became super over too quickly. Some of these acts have to stat out as heels for a while to really sink in and now it's going to be weird when they move up to the main roster. I did love the Wyatt family farewell when the crowd was super into them though.

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They must have done some incredible editing for the Santana/Charlotte match to make it look good. I'll have to watch the Hulu version of it.

 

Went to the NXT tapings tonight. It was a very squash match and diva heavy taping. No Sami Zayn or Bo Dallas as they are on the WWE tour of Abu Dubai. Here's some notes from the show:

 

 

Sasha Banks and Summer Rae had 3 matches on the show. Sasha beat Emma after Summer and Paige got involved. Paige accidentally hit Emma and they got into a argument. Then Paige beat Summer Rae after Sasha was kicked out. Sasha returned after the match and attacked Paige. Emma made the save but accidentally hit Paige. I'm guessing this leads to a match between the two. The final week, Sasha and Summer beat Bayley and Charlotte after Charlotte turned heel. She then joined Sasha and Summer's group. Don't know where they are gonna go from here but should be interesting. Also Sasha gets Ratchet chants which is hilarious.

 

Alexander Rusev turned on Sylvester Lefort during a tag match with Enzo and Big Cas. He's managed by some hot blonde that speaks Bulgarian. She was out scouting during Rusev's first match with CJ Parker. At the end of the tapings during Christian's peep show with Del Rio, he got into a fight with Del Rio and also laid out Ricardo.

 

Speaking of CJ Parker, it seems his feud with Tyler Breeze might lead to a Hair vs Hair match. After Rusev beat Parker, Breeze came out and cut some of Parker's dreads off. In week 3, Parker beat Breeze and tried to cut his hair but Breeze escaped.

 

Lots of squash matches from guys like The Ascension(2), Aiden English(2), Mojo and Mason Ryan. Mojo beat the debuting Tyler Dillenger aka Shawn Spears or Gavin Spears as he was named in ECW.

 

Best match of the whole night was Kassius Ohno vs Luke Harper. Very stiff match like the Regal matches. Ohno is in better shape than he was at the last tapings. Easily the best shape he's been in since coming to WWE. He lost of course but got a lot in. His punches look great live.

 

The Neville/Graves feud started. Graves beat Neville in the first match where Neville had a wardrobe malfunction. They had a 2/3 falls match later in the tapings that was won by Neville. Both matches were kinda boring. Graves is better as a heel and does get some heat but most of his matches are loathed by the crowd. Lots of boring chants.

 

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Apparently, the version of the show, that I totally obtained in the most legal of ways

Show is free on regular Hulu, no chicanery necessary.Also, I think Kruger is supposed to be a face now, and I believe Alex Riley is the color guy in question stinking up the commentary booth.

 

Lulz

 

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Sorry, currently our video library can only be watched from within the United States

Hulu is committed to making its content available worldwide. To do so, we must work through a number of legal and business issues, including obtaining international streaming rights. Know that we are working to make this happen and will continue to do so. Given the international background of the Hulu team, we have both a professional and personal interest in bringing Hulu to a global audience.

 

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They must have done some incredible editing for the Santana/Charlotte match to make it look good. I'll have to watch the Hulu version of it.

 

Went to the NXT tapings tonight. It was a very squash match and diva heavy taping. No Sami Zayn or Bo Dallas as they are on the WWE tour of Abu Dubai. Here's some notes from the show:

 

 

Sasha Banks and Summer Rae had 3 matches on the show. Sasha beat Emma after Summer and Paige got involved. Paige accidentally hit Emma and they got into a argument. Then Paige beat Summer Rae after Sasha was kicked out. Sasha returned after the match and attacked Paige. Emma made the save but accidentally hit Paige. I'm guessing this leads to a match between the two. The final week, Sasha and Summer beat Bayley and Charlotte after Charlotte turned heel. She then joined Sasha and Summer's group. Don't know where they are gonna go from here but should be interesting. Also Sasha gets Ratchet chants which is hilarious.

 

Alexander Rusev turned on Sylvester Lefort during a tag match with Enzo and Big Cas. He's managed by some hot blonde that speaks Bulgarian. She was out scouting during Rusev's first match with CJ Parker. At the end of the tapings during Christian's peep show with Del Rio, he got into a fight with Del Rio and also laid out Ricardo.

 

Speaking of CJ Parker, it seems his feud with Tyler Breeze might lead to a Hair vs Hair match. After Rusev beat Parker, Breeze came out and cut some of Parker's dreads off. In week 3, Parker beat Breeze and tried to cut his hair but Breeze escaped.

 

Lots of squash matches from guys like The Ascension(2), Aiden English(2), Mojo and Mason Ryan. Mojo beat the debuting Tyler Dillenger aka Shawn Spears or Gavin Spears as he was named in ECW.

 

Best match of the whole night was Kassius Ohno vs Luke Harper. Very stiff match like the Regal matches. Ohno is in better shape than he was at the last tapings. Easily the best shape he's been in since coming to WWE. He lost of course but got a lot in. His punches look great live.

 

The Neville/Graves feud started. Graves beat Neville in the first match where Neville had a wardrobe malfunction. They had a 2/3 falls match later in the tapings that was won by Neville. Both matches were kinda boring. Graves is better as a heel and does get some heat but most of his matches are loathed by the crowd. Lots of boring chants.

 

I know they have a depleted roster and that but God, this sounds a mess.

 

Paige is the diva that they badly need to turn - she's completely bland as a baby and is a natural heel anyway. I can't believe they've turned Charlotte instead. I'm not suprised Graves/Neville got shit on. Neville does a nice flip but is boring as fuck. Graves is possibly the worst male wrestler on the entire roster. Look forward to the Ohno/Harper rematch and I'm glad Ohno's in good shape.

 

Was that a Rusev face turn? I hope so because with the exception of Sami there's zero people I'd want to cheer for.

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