NXT 2015 THREAD

[Patrick B.]

Everything's a rumor or speculation until it happens on TV...or something.

[w. josh]

"Gay hairstylist gimmick"...guess they're cashing in all that goodwill from their handling of the Darren Young situation.

[steve]

Of all the gimmicks they've rehashed, I never would've thought to go back to the Rico well.

[SirSmUgly]

I will assume that someone just made that Kallisto thing up until I see it.

 

And I'm praying that I won't actually see it because WWE will do something embarrassing and probably totally indefensible with that gimmick. 

[Patrick B.]

Over/under on a tag team with Darren Young?

[Greggulator]

We start right out with CARMELLA coming to the ring with ENZO AND BIG CASS and their usually awesome entrance. She's taking on the returning EMMA. This was a decent perfectly fine and forgettable match. Emma controlled like 80% of it before tapping out to Carmella's very nice looking scissors submission (which she used as an out-of-nowhere flash move). Carmella's got a lot of great heel mannerisms -- I liked her sitting on Emma in the ropes, mocking the dance, etc. Great stuff.

ADRIAN NEVILLE comes out next to take on BARON CORBIN, who is facing his first really established wrestler. Corbin clothselines Neville, who sells it like it's the biggest move he's ever been hit with in his life.  Corbin's working a methodical style with a lot of clubbing and the like. The camera whiffs a bit on the end, with Dempsey's quick sneak attack. I wish they had this structured a bit differently. Corbin needed to show more urgency in his movements. I get working methodical, but if you're working that style, EVERYTHING you do has to look like a death blow, and it doesn't. I wish they had one spot like "Neville gets Corbin down with a dropkick, but Corbin gets right back up and snarls" or the like. Corbin's got a look and presence and a ton of potential but he's still a really long ways away from being a finished product.

 

SAMI ZAYN talks about how Owens likely fleeced him and Regal by manipulating him. Sami explains his vulnerability and tips his cap to Owens being a master chess player, but ends it by saying he's going to beat the hell out of him.

BAYLEY runs out next to face BECKY LYNCH who has some Offspring/Pennywise Warped Tour rip-off theme, which works well with her annoying rocker girl character. I haven't said this yet but I'm saying it now -- Becky's kinda bad. She's making too much noise and snarls. Corey says "she's the girl who wears the shirt of the band to the concert" and that's great. But Becky tries to do too much character stuff and it doesn't feel natural at all. Bayley gets control and acts a lot more vicious than she has before. SASHA BANKS gives Becky encouragement before throwing her into the ring, leading to her protege's downfall. Sasha smirks.

This prompts Becky to scream at Sasha and vice'versa. "I'm Becky Lynch! That's who I am!" Okay, that was pretty good.. Now CHARLOTTE comes out and just menacingly lords over her three competitors. This is sort of a crapshoot as to who is winning the NXT Woman's Title.

KEVIN OWENS speaks next. KO brags about how it's only going to take him two months to get the NXT championship. Great.

They have a little screen for Itami/Finn coming up next that's interrupted by SOLOMON CROWE's interference. I really want that gimmick to work. But for real -- did you see him do that stuff in the leaked NXT promos from from a year ago or so? He was AWFUL. Hopefully he figured out how to act.

TYLER BREEZE is looking at his phone and telling himself how gorgeous he is. Devin asks him his next plans. He belittles Devin and says he's going to watch the tournament carefully. I'm glad he's still on screen. He's way too good to get shafted.

HIDEO ITAMI comes out. Neville's in the booth. FINN BALOR comes out next. I think one of the things that bugs me the most with him is how overdramatic his entrance is. It has a John Tesh type of song with big light cues and him croawling and stumbling backwards. But it's all so, so, so serious at once. It feels like if Coldplay was a wrestler.
 

They start with a good Malenko/Guerrero stand-off. Corey Graves talks about how different was when he tagged with Neville and later went to fight him.

This was a good match. But these guys are both so strike/kick heavy. That's fine -- I love Daniel Bryan, and he's certainly that, and so was Punk to a certain degree. But they have their styles and it contrasts with whoever they're fighting. I like dives and submissions in my fake wrestling, too, and I'd like to see more of that from these guys past a Slingblade and aborted attempt at a GTS.

[JCM]

That hype video at the end was the best thing in a long time.

 

I thought Corbin looked good in there I could see him working out as a heel.

 

Balor/Itami was a little aimless in the middle, but the finishing run was great.

 

If Becky stopped head banging and doing those awful leg drops she would instantly be better.

[Greggulator]

I ended too early. The Sami/Owens hype video was really friggin' great.

[odessasteps]

If you are going to do a Gayhairdresser gimmick, tyler breeze is right there.

[Stay Gold]

Thought the count out finish was a definite, even before the match started. But that was so obvious, so I'm glad they did something a little different with the finish. You want to protect Corbin, but Neville has been the top dog at NXT until recently, and you don't want to make him look weak either, which a count out would have done. Good finish for that type of scenario.

 

I really liked Itami/Balor. He looked so beat up by the end of it. Earlier in this thread, someone said something like "I want to see these guys get time like they would if they were wresting eachother at the Tokyo Dome" but I'm fairly sure they would have had 12-15 minutes tops at a Dome show. Now that NJPW is funding NOAH or whatever the deal is, I think a Devitt/KENTA match would have been inevitable had they both stayed working for their previous companies. I'm glad it just happened. I watched NXT live for the first time in a long time, specifically for it.

 

If the stories are true, it was a very good Devitt/PAC match from New Japan that got both of them noticed by HHH (from Regal showing it to him), so I look forward to Neville/Balor. 

 

If anyone is curious...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZt01rQmZm4

[Cristobal]

Is it weird that I'm reading Gregg's post and thinking "Man, dude is way too negative about this show"?

[Jiji]

I think he's stated his opinion of serious bidness guys like KENTA and Devitt. I can understand that point of view. I don't think I'd rather watch a Breeze match than either of those two, but I get it. NXT's variety of styles is great because it gives us all something to watch.

[hayabusaage]

We get face painted Balor at Evolution yes?

 

Neville wasn't as bad as I expected on commentary, he's no Titus O'Neil but he put himself and his opponents over well.

 

Sucks to see Emma losing all the time.

[Cristobal]

No, it's perfectly valid opinions, it just feels weird to me considering the source.

Emma/Carmella was a great example of "making a lot out of a little", from working every inch of the Enzo/Cass/Carmella dynamic for the opening, to starting Emma on the road to what I assume is a heel turn. I thought Emma looked very good doing her signature stuff but working more heelish mannerisms into them.

Neville/Corbin gave us Baron's best match so far, but yeah, I would have liked to have seen him turn up the intensity a notch. There's gotta be some sign on his part that this is a step up from what he's done before, (though given he's just going back to a match with Dempsey again, which I'm not really looking forward to, I suppose it's too soon to get one's hopes up with him.)

Bayley/Lynch was a really fun little match with a great story. In-ring wise, I think Lynch is actually the best female worker in NXT, and I think we saw it here, both in working over Bayley's leg, then selling the leg when the tables got turned on her. And her "I'm Becky Freakin' Lynch that's who I am" to Sasha was a great line.

Is it just me or is there a proliferation of babyface/babyface matches in WWE right now? Itami/Bálor here, Itami/Neville next week, and Bryan/Reigns at Fastlane. I wonder if the trend of crowds getting behind people BECAUSE of their in-ring work has helped create that because it means a lot of the best match-ups will be face/face. And does that make Rollins even more impressive for staying over as a heel while still having incredible matches?

Anyway, for as much as Bálor and Itami have some similarities in their styles, I think they did a great job in this match distinguishing their differences, with Bálor working some fun submission moves in his control sequences, while Itami going all "my style kick" on him during his. There's "working snug" as Austin calls it, then there's this match. These two were not holding back at all. That finishing sequence looked brutal, with Itami just flying back first into the corner pad, and Bálor landing the stiffest diving stomp he's done since coming to NXT. My expectations were through the roof for this match, and I was not disappointed.

Now people are free to have their opinions, but if the thought of either of these two working a big PPV match with Bryan or Rollins doesn't send you to your happy place, all I'm saying is that you're a horrible person and you probably murder kittens for fun.

And that hype video for Zayn/Owens is great. I love the cross-purposes dynamic of this feud, and expect it to play some part in the finish of the match. I think if I were booking it, I'd have Sami land the Helluva kick, have Owens collapse in the ring, then have Sami look down and refuse to pin him, instead trying to set him up in the corner to kick him again, only to have that kick get reversed into the sitout power bomb.

[SirSmUgly]

Becky Lynch is totally unnatural, definitely. Her knee work was good, though. Bayley's knee work where she got mad and just started whaling away was even better. I say this all the time, but Bayley = money. Good seller (though she sort of dropped the knee while making her comeback, but hey, that's what WWE babyfaces do), great facial expressions, very sympathetic, and good wrestler, plus a character that should connect with a demo that they can make money off of). 

 

I loved Itami/Balor, but that's because they beat the shit out of each other. Itami's spinning backfist was sick, as was his bump backward into the corner off the Bàlor dropkick. I don't even really like Bàlor that much, but the dude looks like a star and had a fantastic match.

 

I wanted to see like five more minutes of Neville/Corbin. Neville was putting in work to make Corbin look like a killer, and it worked on me. Neville is one of those guys who should have a job for years just because he's such a good hand in the ring. 

 

Carmella is a good heel. She's so naturally unlikable. I was trying to figure out if I disliked her because I thought she sucked or if she was just a really annoying character, and it's the latter. Good for her. 

[Eivion]

Carmella/ Emma was decent.

 

Neville/Corbin wasn't too bad, but you can definitely see Corbin's current limitations. Will be interesting to see what he and Bull do at the live event next week.

 

Becky was looking better in the ring when she was taking on Charlotte. Not sure if its because the matches were slightly shorter or she was working face, but this was the first time I hadn't really been impressed with her at all in NXT. I did so love Graves' digs at her gimmick. Bailey is just awesome. Her comeback and vengeful leg work was perfect. I'm honestly thinking Charlotte retains next week which would make me happy. I'm more curious about the aftermath and where they go with all involved.

 

Itami/Balor was about what I expected, good but nothing amazing. I thought they were holding back a decent bit which is just a bit of a problem because they are too similar when limiting themselves from their bigger stuff. Still I like what they did, especially the finish.

 

Zayn vs. Owens video package was fantastic.

[Patrick B.]

With Charlotte seemingly on the verge of being promoted to the main roster, I wonder how they'll end her reign.  This four-way match seems like the ideal situation since she wouldn't have to be pinned/submitted, but they already had Paige leave for the main roster without dropping the title in the ring.

Added to the special:  Corbin-Dempsey in a no-DQ match and Blake/Murphy vs. Lucha Dragons for the tag titles.

[Ramsey]

Hearing fans at an NXT show start a "Better Than Raw" chant scares me. Please, smarks, don't poke Vince. He tends to fucking ruin things that threaten his precious program. Just shut the fuck up and hope he keeps ignoring you and your show that has good wrestling.

[Patrick B.]

It'll be ruined eventually anyway, so I'm going to enjoy its current state while it lasts.

[Cristobal]

Between #CancelWWENetwork and "Better Than Raw", I'd like to think that the aforementioned smarks are engaging in a calculated campaign to give the old man a heart attack to accelerate Hunter taking over the company.

[Greggulator]

The Itami/Balor match would have been the fourth best match on Raw this week, behind Rollins/Bryan, Bray/Ziggler and Harper/Ryback. And I say that as someone who doesn't really like Ryback at all or even Ziggler too much. And I also thought Itami/Bator was a good match. The end sequence, especially Itami's corner bump, was great. But like I said -- the rest of the match was a lot of kicks and strikes without a lot of variation between their styles.

[JCM]

Bray/Ziggler was 5 minutes too long and just about exposed both guys. Ziggler with his lack of offense, and Bray with his over reliance on rest holds and doing jack shit in between spots. Ryback/Harper was excellent. There was more mat wrestling in Itami/Balor than 3 weeks of WWE tv so I'm not getting this all strikes stuff.

 

I have to mention Carmella's great off the cuff line "Blue Pants went back to the clearance rack".

 

I'm thinking of how much better Rollins/Ambrose would've been with HHH booking it. Instead of bullshit slime, hotdog stands, and mannequins we would've got fucking awesome shit like that show ending video.

 

If they add Breeze/Itami to the show it's going to be insanely stacked.

 

For the record I've been more impressed with Itami than Balor so far. I know Balor has a leg up with speaking English, but in ring Itami is more impressive to me working underneath and on offense. I think he busts out the GTS if he wrestles at Rival. I want to see Itami/Balor with Itami working heel.

[Stay Gold]

I think the clearance rack line was used by Big Cass a few weeks ago. But I do think Carmella is a fun character. She doesn't act too differently from some of the actual Staten Island girls I've known.

 

Sometimes,  I feel like Itami is having a hard time trying to adjust to this new style, but I generally agree that he's a better wrestler than Balor. I do like both guys. Devitt doesn't touch KENTA in his prime either. 

[Jrag]

I think Neville is better than both guys right now.  He has improved leaps and bounds in the last year or so and is decent on the mic all of the sudden as well.

 

That beings said, Balor is going to be the biggest star of the three.  Dude just seems like a big deal when he walks through the curtain.  The abs and face paint don't hurt either.

[Playa Shunna Ver 3.0]

That Kalisto rumor has been debunked by the Meltz.