NXT SEASON 8 THREAD

[OSJ]

I dunno, I've been watching the rasslin a longass time and have come to be a pretty good judge of "it". I've called it on Curt Hennig, The Dingo Warrior, and more recently Roman Reigns and Dean Ambrose (to be fair, I also thought Lance Hoyt was going to be great, but nobody's perfect). Corbin projects the same sort of vibe as Johnny Valentine. He knows he's better than everyone else, and is going to fuck people up just because he can. When the squash mode is played out and he's in some long matches, we'll see if he can really go, but from what I've observed so far, I think he's going to be just fine in the ring. Promos? When you can convey that much disdain with hardly moving your facial muscles, you don't need to be Jim Cornette to get your points across. As Enzo would say, "You can't teach that!"

 

This is why I love NXT. In the old days guys that were green as grass would usually get punted around the territories to get experience, that's how a saw a very young Curt Henning during his stint in the Northwest. In recent years you had to get all sorts of dvds from various indies and sit through much awfulness to get a glimpse of the exceptional talent. Now, most of the exceptional talent is WWE-bound and we get to check them out in NXT.

 

NXT is pretty much textbook on how to put on a successful weekly program. Right size venue, good production values and just enough out of ring stuff to advance storylines without becoming a soap opera. Also, everyone has something to do, whether chasing a title. revenge, establishing themselves, what have you, no one is just floundering around. Now granted, it's a lot easier to write one hour of tv a week, but you would think some of this attention to detail would transition to WWE.

[MGFanJay]

Hoyt has finally lived up to his potential in New Japan, so you weren't wrong with him.

[Greggulator]

Bailey/Charlotte is really good. Charlotte's leg work in this is fantastic. I loved the knee drop from the backslide he did to the ankle she had targeted earlier (to no avail, as Bailey knew to block that) and that nasty knee lock thing she put on to Bailey before the break. The figure four -- especially that really awesome looking bridge -- was great. Charlotte also did a great job showing shock and the like that Bailey was still in this against her.

Maybe it's hyperbole, but I really think Charlotte has the chance to become the best WWE woman's wrestler of all time. (I hate the word "diva.") She's really athletic and has a really unique look, as in she's really tall compared to the other girls on the roster but is incredibly fluid in her movements. She's in consistently good matches. She doesn't ever look confused in there. And now she's really doing the acting component -- the "I AM GOING TO CHARGE YOU BECAUSE YOU COUNTERED AND OH GOD I JUST RAN INTO A TURNBUCKLE!" stuff -- marvelously, too.

[Craig H]

Hoyt makes me think of how huge Test would have been in Japan.

[MonteCarl]

I feel the same way about Corbin. His look stands out and has a physical charisma that makes me want to watch him. Hopefully his in-ring ability catches up with his look and he's able to live up to it because he could be pretty huge when called up to the main roster.

[Greggulator]

His finisher is awesome. He's slapping on big dudes, too.

[Greggulator]

I also love the Vaudevillains new song. They're heels, and now they have a song that reflects that.

Those dudes are going to suffer from Bray Wyatt Syndrome in that their act is about 50,000,000 times to smart for the WWE Universe. I can already see the Raw threads where people hate on their entrance and the like.

Sasha Banks has gotten really good with her speaking since Takeover. She was brutal before and now she's playing her diva (proper usage) role perfectly.

[scraylo187]

Corbin is rad.

 

He needs to grow the upper lip portion of that beard in, and maybe let some body hair return to his body, because a lone wolf/possible werewolf shouldn't care about manscaping.

 

But yeah, if FINN BAAAAAAAAAAALORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR wasn't en route to back up Itami, I'd probably mark out just as hard for the Lone Wolf to stroll in, carbon footprint Viktor, stare down Hideo, and then leave.

[Greggulator]

That main event was great. I loved that it wove together a bunch of side-plots -- Titus coming down to NXT as a total jerk, Sami as the defender of all things NXT, Sami wanting to take on Neville for the title -- without playing any role in the actual one-on-one battle between Neville and Tyson, who had a predictably wonderful match. It advances a lot of stories and also got the job done.

Kudos to Tyson Kidd if this his how he leaves NXT. He went from being someone I thought was a total snooze into one of the best douchebag heels in recent vintage. May you wear those Beatz headphones one day at WrestleMania.

[OSJ]

I hate to say this, but I sort of hope that the Vaudevillains don't get called up. The act is a perfect example of what will work in a smaller venue with a hot crowd and be totally lost in the main show. In a matter of weeks they would be feuding with Los Matadores and having problems with bunnies and gators and what have you. Just too smart and too cool for WWE.

[scraylo187]

I hate to say this, but I sort of hope that the Vaudevillains don't get called up. The act is a perfect example of what will work in a smaller venue with a hot crowd and be totally lost in the main show. In a matter of weeks they would be feuding with Los Matadores and having problems with bunnies and gators and what have you. Just too smart and too cool for WWE.

 

They may not. I think they know a lot of people subscribe to the network for NXT, so they have to do a tightrope of call ups and keeping the show awesome.

[SirSmUgly]

I see the potential in Corbin that others see. My one nitpick is that he has such a baby face that doesn't match his look. He needs to do like Husky Harris and grow a scruffy beard or something. 

 

I feel like the NXT crowd turned the Vaudevillains face, so their new theme doesn't work. 

 

I'm hoping that once Vince steps down, HHH and Stephanie actually let the women do serious wrestling work on RAW or at least start a one-hour Divas women's show (Gregg is absolutely right; I hate that fucking term for the women, too) with maybe the two higher-level feuds on the show getting development on RAW so that people see what's going on and decide to tune in to the women's show to follow up. 

[MonteCarl]

While the Vaudvillians gimmick is awesome all around, there's no way that gimmick plays out at all on RAW. It is a small time gimmick for a small time crowd. Can you imagine Michael Cole and JBL calling their debut match? They'd be deader in the water than Adam Rose right out of the gate.

[hayabusaage]

Divas is an outdated term....but so is "women's tittle" is there a medium?

 

Kidd was the MVP of the week IMO. With his stints on RAW & Total Divas plus good matches on NXT & Main Event. I doubt WWE was smart enough to plan that...but still. Any chance Kidd gets a midcard feud on RAW & SD before the year is out?

 

Sasha doing less wrestling and more talking is good for her long-term....Idk if WWE creative has anyone that could make her character more ratchet (think Cameron but WAY less annoying and unskilled), cause it would make her standout.

 

I'm interested to see Corbin against someone his own size. I see that he has some "it" like that you guys see, but the longer matches will prove his worth.

[OSJ]

"Divas" is one of the two worst butcherings of the English language that WWE is guilty of (and there are quite a few, "Superstar"? How is a lower-mid card act a "Superstar"? Would they be calling Steve Lombardi and Pete Doherty "superstars"?)

 

A "diva" is an opera singer. Do we have any reason to think that any of these young ladies has trained in opera singing? Should we expect Paige to break into an aria when she defeats an opponent? The other one that really grinds my gears (and WWE isn't the only culprit), is "decimate". This literally means to remove 10% of something. Now I agree that Brock Lesnar gave Cena a beating for the ages, but did he remove 10% of his flesh? No, I don't think so, no more so than there were ever people "literally" hanging from the rafters in Gorilla Monsoon's day. I think the worst use of the latter was "He's literally a house on fire!" No, the wrestler was not a building, nor was he on fire or I'm sure someone ringside would have utilized a fire extinguisher.

[Ligerbusa]

This is a dumb question, but what is Baron Corbin's gimmick? 

 

Badass biker dude. He rides into town, asks for a drink, some guy says AHH CAN BEET YEEWW, Corbin hits his finisher, finishes his drink and heads for the next town.

 

He's basically a human version of the T-800 arrival scene from T2. 

[JRGoldman]

Corbin has a pretty tremendous lariat. If there is anything I've learned from watching way too much professional wrestling, it's that it's basically impossible to have a great lariat and be a shitty wrestler.

Corbin totally has it. He's like Jeff Hardy, Daryl from the Walking Dead, and Roman Reigns mixed together. I almost wish they just had him bypass NXT, found him a tag partner, and had him fight Goldust and Luke Harper for a year straight before giving him the big singles push.

Edit: not to get too fantasy bookish, but if they want to push the Biker aspect, it would be pretty awesome to have Taker be his manager. By the time Corbin is ready to be called up, Vince might have even heard of SoA.

[Tromatagon]

Those dudes are going to suffer from Bray Wyatt Syndrome in that their act is about 50,000,000 times to smart for the WWE Universe.

*too

[Ramsey]

Add me to the "Corbin has it" camp. Big, great look, charisma so potent he doesn't have to say anything for it to work. Yup...Corbin. He's your next wrestling boyfriend.

[OSJ]

JR: Vince could watch all the seasons of SoA and his only takeaway would be the piss drowning scene. We would be subjected to weeks of wrestlers getting dumped into a piss-filled bathtub for no apparent reason other than that's the sort of thing that VKM finds hilarious.

[Ramsey]

"You know the thing about Corbin, he's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he slams ya and those black eyes roll over white."

 

Corbin has shark eyes.

[Raziel]

Put me in the "I don't know what you guys are seeing" camp regarding Corbin. There's already like, 3 of him on the main roster.

[TimLivingston]

Edit: not to get too fantasy bookish, but if they want to push the Biker aspect, it would be pretty awesome to have Taker be his manager. By the time Corbin is ready to be called up, Vince might have even heard of SoA.

Oh, man. Taker as Clay Teller would be fucking incredible.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

JR: Vince could watch all the seasons of SoA and his only takeaway would be the piss drowning scene. We would be subjected to weeks of wrestlers getting dumped into a piss-filled bathtub for no apparent reason other than that's the sort of thing that VKM finds hilarious.

I could easily picture Ambrose rigging a bucket of piss to dump on Seth Rollins head when he opens the door.

[OSJ]

"Shark eyes",  Raziel403, shark eyes. The dude has eyes like a shark. The Doctor said so, and I agree, so what else do you need to know?

 

Seriously, watch the little things, the slight changes of expression, watch the body language. This guy knows how to involve the crowd with a minimum of effort. Now go watch some film of Johnny Valentine and you'll see the same thing. Like Valentine, Corbin is a legit tough guy. He's learning the wrestling craft at a pretty smooth clip. That's really the only area where we need to see more, the guy is dripping with heel charisma and as Enzo would say, "You can't teach that." He's already thirty, so I don't know that he'll ever be a great ring technician, but as far as a very agile big man, he's already there. You don't get golden gloves in boxing and play professional football without being able to move around.