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rzombie1988

By rzombie1988
in WWE PROGRAMMING

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The Z

The Z

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Interesting stat: Last week, Luke Harper was the first guy to work a match on every WWE show in the same week.

 

RAW vs Punk. Main Event vs PTP. NXT vs. Ohno. Smackdown vs. Bryan.

 

He didn't work Superstars, so it doesn't count!

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scraylo187

scraylo187

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I would have given Chris Hero a barista gimmick. Like, he works at the Starbucks cart in catering. Every now and then there's a backstage segment where he tells a beloved good guy not to give up after they've lost a match when he hands them their soy latte. Sometimes he shills merch by asking if someone wants this new John Cena hat with their old fashioned donut. 

 

And then one day, he just completely snaps and challenges someone to a match, which he wins by throwing coffee in their face while the ref is distracted. THAT YOUNG KONA BLEND KID.

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Greggulator

Greggulator

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First match is Bailey/Charlotte vs. The BFFs. Regal and Tensai are on color along w/ Sexton. This is going to shock you but they're GREAT together. I really like Charlotte's move-set a lot. It plays into her gymnastics background and athleticism quite a bit. She did a series of bridging hammerlocks that looked really nice. Bailey had a heat segment and the BFFs did some nice work on her. Nothing flashy, just real simple stuff. I really like Summer's Leg Full Nelson. Summer and Sasha are really good taunters. The end came when Bailey was going for the hot tag. Charlotte (who was annoyed with her last week and before the match when Bailey offered presents to the BFFs who tossed them aside) slapper her across the face and hit her flipping bulldog finisher. We'll see where this goes. It evens out the face/heel divide among the divas. This was a competent divas match. Summer Rae is a great heel. She really gets it.Aiden English is backstage doing some vocal preparations. He rules.

 

Aiden vs. Camacho -- Regal's love of Aiden English is great. You can tell that he absolutely loves this gimmick. Camacho controls pretty much the entire match. They had a good funny spot where Camacho did a dramatic bow after hitting some move, prompting Aiden to get angry and swing and miss with a wild punch. English picked up the win by reversing something into the Director's Cut for the win. I like that move a lot -- it looks really sharp and it has a good Diamond Cutter/RKO/DDT feel in that it can get his out of nowhere. "Spotlight NOW!" English once again gets tossed roses, which is AWESOME. Regal takes T's handkerchief and wipes his eyes and blows his nose.Aleksander Rusev is backstage with I forget her name. They say a lot of stuff in Bulgarian. I know she's not speaking English but I love her delivery and mannerisms. It's very SMW-era Tammy in terms of having a sexual charisma while he's around her monster, like when Tammy was with Brian Lee.Danny Birch vs. Mason Ryan -- Regal talks up the rivalry between English and the Welsh. I like Danny Birch. He fights as a hooligan West Ham fan -- punches, headbutts and things like that. He has some really nice strikes. He can't overpower Mason, though. Mason has a look and a body but is still pretty bad. But Birch -- good outing. NXT really helps people learn to work in character. Birch did that, at least.

 

Graves/Neville, 2 out of 3 Falls -- Neville wins the first fall really quickly with The Red Arrow. Regal gets over that European wrestlers understand the pacing of these types of matches more than Americans due to their training back home. Neville goes for another quick fall but Graves got control via a cheapshot when Neville was on the apron that wrenched the left kneep  Corey hurt the last time they crossed paths. Graves worked over the knee a lot but threw in a few other kicks and the like elsewhere. Regal got over how this was smart and shrinking Graves' room for error. Graves then got the second fall via his Lucky 13 leglock, after Neville tried to fight out. Third fall was a bit more back and forth. Neville gutted his way out of another Lucky 13, finally got separation and had Graves on the mat. He then tried to go to the top via one leg for another Red Arrow but his bad wheel buckled when he got to the top. Graves then went for Lucky 13 again but got rolled up.I had two problems with this match. 1) Neville's attempt to go up to the top with one leg was fine on paper but was awful looking. It looked terrible. 2) The match was fine, solid work, other than the hoky top rope fall. But the problem these guys have is that they work in a total vacuum. Zayn/Cesaro was one of the best matches of the year. The match had the same exact structure. But those two know how to engage a crowd and make it feel like real animosity. This didn't have that.For instance, when Neville was going to the top, there wasn't one glance to the crowd. There wasn't any pounding on the turnbuckle to get a crowd clap. There wasn't any sort of motion of impending triumph before he slipped. Graves didn't do any gloating or anything when he was working over the leg. It was just "I'm going to ram this knee a lot into the mat" but it didn't have anything like "YOU COST ME THE TITLES!" or "WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?" And the end spot when he got rolled up trying to cinch in his same move -- there wasn't any sort of knowing gloating to the crowd or a sneer at Neville.Legitimately, you add those things into the mix and come up with a better thing than the dumb fall and this is a really good match. But as it was, this was just flat and there. 

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PuroresuFan

PuroresuFan

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I love Neville but I agree with you that he's just not connecting with the crowd. It's clear how athletic he is which is what's getting him over for now but I don't know if that's enough for him to get brought up. Graves could definitely do more talking and antagonizing the crowd, especially when he lost. He should have had a meltdown to sell it more.

 

I'd like it if they remind the girls to sell Charlotte's bridge hammerlock more. The commentators should talk about how she could dislocate a shoulder with the momentum she gets when she flips back over and drives her knee down. GOOD LORD did she slap the taste out of Bailey's mouth!

 

I wish they were using Danny Birch for more than a Cesaro type who does the job but makes the other guys look better. He stung Ryan with a few really nice punches. I'm not saying he has to go on a streak but have him go over some green guys here and there.

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Greggulator

Greggulator

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I love Neville but I agree with you that he's just not connecting with the crowd. It's clear how athletic he is which is what's getting him over for now but I don't know if that's enough for him to get brought up. Graves could definitely do more talking and antagonizing the crowd, especially when he lost. He should have had a meltdown to sell it more.

 

 

And that's the difference between Neville/Graves and Sami/Cesaro. Sami/Cesaro had better work in terms of fancy moves (the corner spinning DDT on the floor, the finish) but the second fall ended on a reverse chinlock of all things. The match had the same structure -- babyface wins quickly, heel wins via submission, crazy end sequence for the final fall. It's a great, logical match layout. Heck, I think the third fall layout between those two was possibly even better, since Graves went to the well too often -- his third attempt to use his finisher, which makes sense to use -- and it cost him. It was a great callback to the rest of the match and a great use of strategy.

 

But Cesaro and Sami really worked the crowd into it. They just know how to do that. I haven't seen any indie wrestling in years so I don't know what they were doing in other promotions but working the crowd is one of the biggest parts of the WWE style. They also didn't even really trash talk each other. They're really emphasizing it with the developmental guys, too. That's a huge reason why Roman Reigns is a huge breakout star. The Wyatts do it, too. Big E. drops the straps and lets out a gutteral scream in the WWE -- he did the 5 thing in NXT.All of the NXT divas work like that -- they have these really simple matches that are fun because Emma will do her dance, Paige will say something threatening, Summer Rae will taunt Bailey, etc.I have no idea why Graves/Neville didn't do that. If they just added in a bit of that stuff, the match would have really popped.

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Matt D

Matt D

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I really liked the crowd's reaction to the slap. "Uohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." 

 

Also, this is a month old but I hadn't seen it: www.wwe.com/shows/wwenxt/2013-10-09/nxt-10-count-bayley-26154939 

 

After reading the Olig Williams book, I wish Ryan was better. He tries what with the playing to the crowd (in a terribly perfunctory way) after moves, but I don't think he's quite got down how to work like a big man, and sometimes he's just like molasses in there. Mark Henry is a guy who moves exactly as fast as he should. Mason Ryan is a guy who tries to bounce off the ropes for a big shoulder block and time just seems to slow down as he can't get his body to go as quick as he needs it to. 

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scraylo187

scraylo187

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You're kidding but I swear his gimmick as a heel was as an obnoxious glasses wearing hipster.

 

You're not alone. I just wanted them to go all the way with it. His feud with Wade Barrett could have been "you throw elbows? that's cool i guess i threw elbows a lot before elbows got too mainstream"

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Tim Evans

Tim Evans

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The thing about Graves it he crowd just find him boring as hell. They don't hate him like they do CJ Parker and Bo. It's like the Ascension matches. The crowd just doesn't care. Neville's heat got hurt a lot teaming with Graves. Luckily at the next taping he was over.

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caley

caley

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My PVR cut off the main so I'm gonna watch the repeat of it (maybe) this afternoon.  Loved everything else about the show.

 

-Bayley/Charlotte-BFFs was so perfect.  WWE could pick this feud up, cut the matches to 90 seconds each, and I still think this storyline would get over huge, provided Vince doesn't instruct Michael Cole to crap all over it.  Bayley's such a terrific character, played perfectly that you genuinely feel sorry for her every time someone does something mean to her...unless you're William Regal (He said something to the effect of "I love Bayley but I don't feel sorry for her...she chose to step into the ring", though he did concede after the turn that "now I kinda feel sorry for her).  Loved Regal talking about working the headlock and Saxton saying "No pun intended" and Regal saying "I wasn't making a pun" then asking Saxton if they pay him as much as a professional.  The turn was so perfect.  The crowd reaction was genuine shock.  I have to think part of it being that this is the first in-ring, mid-match turn WWE has had in quite some time.  The majority of their heel turns happen during promos or after matches (Triple H pedigreeing Daniel Bryan after his first match, Ryback turning on Cena) so to have Charlotte just slap her mid-match was a big "Whoa!" moment.  Perfectly done.  I wonder who Bayley recruits to help her out, or if she just allies with Paige and Emma.  Emma and Bayley might be just too adorable to team up together and it will result in the end of the universe.

 

-English-Camacho was good.  Regal was great.  The match was fine, but Regal talking about English making jeweled saddles for seahorses and telling a bad joke that Saxton cut off to a reprimand by Regal ("Don't cut off my joke") followed by Regal finishing the joke to groans then saying "It wasn't that good of a joke but you cutting it off made it worse."  I'm not entirely sure why English isn't already doing this gimmick on WWE TV, tbh.

 

-Ryan-Birch, so help me, was really, really good.  Birch was just hammering away on Ryan and, for a while, Ryan was giving it back to Birch.  I do think there's something there with Ryan, he's huge and ridiculously ripped, but I'm not sure he'll get the time to get there in WWE.

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TimLivingston

TimLivingston

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Good little show here. I'm surprised Ohno wasn't completely jobbed out, but him getting the Rusev treatment will probably be an ass whooping.

 

Bo Dallas, though. Holy crap, he was fantastic in that promo. I can't get enough of it. Surprised they didn't go the full-on pun route with places that have "Bo" in it.

 

Also, Colin Cassidy has a fucking GREAT right hand. I don't know who taught him how to throw one, but it's fantastic.

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