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[NXT SPOILERS] For July 13, 2016


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So the WWE is advertising that Balor/Nakamura is taking place on Wednesday and it is the only match being advertised.

Looks like they flip-flopped the order due to the draft being next week.

And most likely - all the other stuff will be next week.

We shall see. So with that in mind - this is what happened (being super cautious)

Spoiler

- Shinsuke Nakamura beat Finn Balor

Spotlight introductions. Crowd loves both so a mix of cheers, chants, and even respectful silence early on. Finn showed up Nakamura by Too Sweeting him in the face on a break. Incredible match with all of the key spots. It went a good twenty minutes and Shinsuke won it with the Kinshasa. Post match, they celebrated together, and Finn went around the ring telling fans thank you for their support. This seems like this finally might be it for Balor in NXT.

 

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They were really hyping up this Bálor/Nak match, but I was a clear outlier in relation to their core audience because a) I don't like Bálor all that much, really, and b) I've already seen these two wrestle each other in New Japan, so the "matchup of a lifetime" schtick rung really hollow with me. I was not looking forward to a thirty-minute Bálor match (though I think it was only about twenty minutes when adjusted for breaks, which is much better). 

I thought the opening sort of meandered. They ran through some signature spots and did the cute taunting spot with the Too Sweet leading to the ha-ha now I knee you in the solar plexus spot, but it was sort of just stuff thrown in to get through the first give minutes of the match. 

I felt like the transitions were just sort of "oh, I decided to hit a move right after you hit one," which is something Bálor has a habit of doing too much and Nak will fall back to when he's being lazy too. The dropkick to the knee led to some knee work that wasn't particularly compelling in my view other than the knee stomp in the surfboard position. Nak's intermittent selling of the knee didn't do much to help. Then again, who wants him to stop using his knee to sell it? I want to see him kick dudes. 

Anyway, then they started doing signature moves and kicking out of them at 2.9, and even though Nak is really good at timing his 2.9s, I was pretty nonplussed by the whole thing. While I'm not against a crowd vocally enjoying something that I don't, I do think that this crowd got into their "this is awesome" chants just immediately and before awesome stuff had happened, much like LU crowds do all the fucking time. It irritated me. I wish WWE would offer a crowd-off version of the shows where one can only hear the in-ring sounds and the announcers and the crowd is totally muted. You'd think that since they mute Reigns-hating crowds all the time, apparently, they'd be on it already. 

Also, where the fuck is The Drifter? I miss that guy. 

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3 minutes ago, Smelly McUgly said:

Also, where the fuck is The Drifter? I miss that guy. 

Out injured

He fractured his ankle at a NXT House Show

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Nak completely blowing off the knee work killed this dead for me.  He was selling it SO well and then every fucking bit of his offense from then on is knees and kicks using the bad leg.  Didn't even give us the obligatory "ow my knee hurts after using it for offense" stuff.  Just forgot it for ten minutes until Finn attacked the knee again. Poor Graves tried covering for it, but it was awful.

 

Oddly enough Finn who I'm generally lukewarm on was good here.  Stronger half of the match certainly.

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Gotta agree that Shinsuke was the weak link in that match. Finn did a good job mixing up his offense and trying to build a story, but Nak was in signature spot mode all the way and it made the middle of the match completely meaningless. The first left-knee exclusive offensive flurry after the leg work was as eye-rolling as Jordan's run last week, but what really killed me was that he didn't sell the leg in the most obvious spot--The first Kinshasa kickout. Come on man, it validates the story, gives the match a reason for an epic finishing stretch, and protects your own move. The match worked fine as a standard "strong style" match, but if that's all they were gonna do, why bother with the attempted story around the leg that never goes anywhere?

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Y'all are some picky ass motherfuckers.  

Nak and Finn can kick each others heads in for 40 minutes on every show as far as I'm concerned.  

That match was a sheer delight to watch. 

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If you're going to roll around screaming and clutching your knee for several minutes don't get up and kick and knee the shit out of your opponent with the same leg without selling it. That's not nitpicking it's just common sense.

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I think my favorite Finn match from this entire NXT run was the match against Joe where Joe is busted open early on. That was legitimately great. He's been in a lot of other very good matches, even tonight but something still isn't quite clicking for me. I don't know what it is. He's got a great entrance and I love the demon look. But he's still bland to me.

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Finn's leg work was the highlight. There was a really cool strike/counter sequence at the end of Finn's running chops in the corner segment that made me jump up.

Loved the match, but they obviously have a better one in them. Finn has been great for the better part of this year, but some of you guys are stubborn and won't change your minds no matter what so ehh...

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11 hours ago, offspring515 said:

Nak completely blowing off the knee work killed this dead for me.  He was selling it SO well and then every fucking bit of his offense from then on is knees and kicks using the bad leg.  Didn't even give us the obligatory "ow my knee hurts after using it for offense" stuff.  Just forgot it for ten minutes until Finn attacked the knee again. Poor Graves tried covering for it, but it was awful.

 

Oddly enough Finn who I'm generally lukewarm on was good here.  Stronger half of the match certainly.

Shinsuke does this and it can bug you.

7 hours ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

I think my favorite Finn match from this entire NXT run was the match against Joe where Joe is busted open early on. That was legitimately great. He's been in a lot of other very good matches, even tonight but something still isn't quite clicking for me. I don't know what it is. He's got a great entrance and I love the demon look. But he's still bland to me.

Agree that's Finn Balor's best match in NXT. Honourable mentions to his matches with Kevin Owens at Beast in the East and NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn.

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I really liked how Balor came off as vicious when working the knee over, it was almost heel-ish and it's not the first time this year he has shown a bit of heel in his work, I remember a match against Crews were he came off a little heel like. I hope he gets a heel run soon, I think it'll be better for him. Here's hoping he joins up with the club soon, which will eventually lead to either him or AJ turning face due to the inevitable power struggle.

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1 hour ago, Trocar Slush Weasel said:

I realize I was half asleep, probably dreamed this and haven't bothered to watch it back but did they say that Regal was the new Raw GM when talking about setting up a match for next week?  Joe/Rhyno, I think.

Wishful thinking/dream

I thought the match was pretty good aside from Nakamura's on/off selling. That was easily the best performance Balor has had.

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Bálor's best non-Joe match this year IMO was the Rich Swann match, and he came off as a vicious heel there, too.

I just think he's got blowjob babyface looks, but he works way better as a heel in reality. He's always been a more interesting worker as a heel. 

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1 hour ago, Smelly McUgly said:

I just think he's got blowjob babyface looks, but he works way better as a heel in reality. He's always been a more interesting worker as a heel. 

I don't know if that was a typo, autocorrect issue or intentional.  But assuming it's intentional what in the blazes is a blowjob babyface look?

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I was typing something about being the prototypical good-looking dude in an '80s tag team and deleted most of it since I changed what I wanted to say, but I left in the blowjob part, which since now that you've quoted my mistake for posterity, I am leaving it in. So there. 

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5 hours ago, Trocar Slush Weasel said:

I realize I was half asleep, probably dreamed this and haven't bothered to watch it back but did they say that Regal was the new Raw GM when talking about setting up a match for next week?  Joe/Rhyno, I think.

Watched it back and I have no idea how I heard "the new Raw General Manager, Mr. William Regal" from that Joe vs Rhyno promo.  Maybe it was a dream.

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