Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

NXT JANUARY 2017 DISCUSSION


RIPPA

Recommended Posts

Yeah - all the new debuts they talk about right away on their social media now so to them it was no longer a "surprise return"

I think they have been doing that since at least the announcement of Liger at the first Brooklyn show

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, RIPPA said:

Also the trend of Lana getting wrestling matches on Thursday continues as tonight she is working Kimber Lee

Lana actually isn't too bad given how little experience she has. Very athletic and Kimber did a good job with her. I love Lana's NXT gimmick. It's basically "Rusev isn't here so i'm going to dance and shake hands with the fans while doing gymnastics".

The show was pretty fun tonight in Orlando. It was my first NXT live event in a couple months and it has changed. It started with Gallagher vs Nesse. All NXT shows should start with Jack matches as he's so entertaining. My favorite match of the night was Tino and Riddick Moss vs Angelo Dawkins and Montez Ford. It's nice that Dawkins found a gimmick that actually fits. Ford is the former Kenneth Crawford and he's improved a lot. Can't wait to see them make tv as I think they will be very over with the Full Sail crowd and then be very over with the traveling NXT shows. Main event was DIY/Shinsuke vs Blake/AoP. Johnny and Tomasso will have a time getting a good match out of AoP. I got faith in them so it should work.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/16/2017 at 1:22 PM, RIPPA said:

Definitely the latter

They could get away with it since he hasn't been on TV yet. The only people who technically know about his new name are either on Twitter or at the Florida House Shows

But at the same time, Big Damo's been on NXT TV for the last couple tapings, and they claimed he had a new name on the Florida shows as well (and that was after he was named as Big Damo on NXT television)- so there's an equal side for whether they keep the rename or not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Really interested how Heidi Lovelace is looking at NXT.  I know she is tagging with Kimber Lee which makes sense for house show.   Remember when Paige was called the "anti-diva" in NXT?  Well that is really what Heidi is.  She is tatooed up like no women in the WWE has ever been and her wrestling style is better suited to wrestle men (not an insult by the way).   If it wasn't for Triple H openly saying that he doesn't like intergender matches I wonder if a Sally Stitches like character beating men would work.

And yes really want some footage of Lana vs Kimber Lee.  Such an intriguing match to watch

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bryan Alvarez complains about a lot of stuff, but I feel like he absolutely nailed it on one of the recent WOLs in regards to the complete lack of character depth in all of the newish wrestlers on TV. They are all really static stereotypes, and that's if you're lucky. What the fuck have they done to establish Roderick? It's funny how this trend started (or at least worsened dearly) when Ward was called up to SmackDown and their relatively weak roster is all of a sudden on fire. Almas at least had a heel turn which is helping a bit. Fuck, Sombra's tranquilo routine would've gotten him over as a cocky face in the first place instead of generic R&B sexy flexy ass bitch with suspenders or whatever his initial deal was. 

The majority of promos have been pretty pointless and poor (lol, Dasha). Additionally, there are very few angles to further character development. NXT used to be must see TV and now it's a chore and has been for a good 6 months. Of course, they had to reload after the draft  and injuries haven't helped but with the talent they have at their disposal, it really shouldn't be this hard.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Oyaji said:

The majority of promos have been pretty pointless and poor (lol, Dasha). Additionally, there are very few angles to further character development. NXT used to be must see TV and now it's a chore and has been for a good 6 months. Of course, they had to reload after the draft  and injuries haven't helped but with the talent they have at their disposal, it really shouldn't be this hard.

On one hand, you couldn't expect NXT's quality from R-Evolution to The End (very fitting bookend names to an era btw) to hold up forever, but yeah... The brand split was a crippling blow. The loss of talent and Ward as a writer has sent them back to the dark ages somewhat. The only thing I think you missed in your analysis of the quality drop is the women's division. No one's on Asuka's level right now. The gap between the 4HW and the Alexa/Carmella/Nia crowd was smaller than than the gap between those three and the current crop. Billie and Peyton are just awful as the main heels. Between them and Roode, I'm not sure if there's ever been more FF material in high-profile positions in the network era. I guess there was a time where Tyler Breeze and a rotating cast of main roster rejects like Titus O'Neill and Brodus Clay were main eventers while the Ascension dominated the tag division, but it's close.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nikki and Ember Moon aren't worlds off Asuka but yeah, it's pretty thin. There's too big of a gap between the green homegrown talent and the indie darlings. No Way Jose, Murphy, Tye, and The Revival are pretty much it on the men's side and Murphy is dead in the water, Revival are treading water, and Tye is likely getting the call soon enough. That portion of the women's division was cannibalized completely with the draft. There needs to be a better balance between the greenhorns and the top guys. This would be mitigated a bit if they had done a better job establishing characters of the recent imports (Cross for the longest time was just crazy, which is okay, but let her show it in more ways than just one).

I don't think the Aussies are awful. They aren't particularly good but I can see potential. Sasha, Charlotte and Bayley weren't exactly tearing it up out of the gates and Carmella is still probably worse than them in terms of mechanics. They're also having to work with the likes of Liv Morgan and Aliyah, who aren't anywhere near ready, so some of the blame can be deflected there. Plus, they just basically took the mean girls thing that Sasha did so well and plugged them into it, so they come off second rate in comparison. I'm not as high on her as many from what I gather, but Kimber Lee will be a nice addition when she debuts, and Lovelace will be great. Dobson is still a little rough around the edges but has huge potential and is still incredibly young. Berenato reminds me of a lower end version of Shayna Baszler in that she's still pretty green but her MMA style stuff is generally really fluid and it makes her stand out because it's different from everybody else (she's also only 23!). The talent is there, they just need to use them and for fuck's sake, establish some god damn characters with interesting, unique promos or videos/angles. 

I wonder if Sarah Stock had/has any interest in being used on TV. She'd be fan-fucking-tastic in helping along the greener girls on screen and on the tours.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not ready to make a call on Petyon, but I feel confident tagging Billie as a bust.  She has no connection to the crowd, and her ring style is half-speed and awkward, so it's hard to imagine her ever having the sort of match that wins over the crowd.

I think one of the problems with the women's division right now is that there's no clear second tier of talent for the next big things to feed off like the way Asuka fed on Emma on ther way to Bayley.  They book the Aussies like that's what they are, but they aren't.  So there's nobody to actually put Ember or Nikki over in any meaningful way.  Like, I don't think Ember has improved her position at all since debuting and she's been around 6 months now.

I really think the smart move would've been to book Ember and Nikki against each other tonight and give them 10-15 to get themselves over.  Sure, one of them would have to lose, but they'd both probably be better off in the long run than Ember doing whatever on the preshow and Nikki in the 4-way where they'll probably purposely book it to keep her away from Asuka as much as possible.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I might be willing to entertain the writing as an excuse for Billie/Peyton since the Mean Girls gimmick doesn't fit them at all, but that doesn't excuse their terrible acting, mediocre matches, or general lack of charisma. If you can't get over at Full Sail, you ain't gettin' over anywhere. The early 4HW showed way more promise in terms of connecting with the crowd and understanding how to play their characters.

In addition to losing Ward, I wonder if NXT is really starting to feel the loss of Dusty now too. Seems like everyone that came up through NXT cited him as a big help with promos and building their character.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have watching the last 2 months to catch up for tonight and just some things:

1.  Percy Watson is really not good.  It feels like they just shoved him into the 3rd position with very little preparation.  We will see if he gets better

2.  People are saying that character development in NXT recently is really weak lately and the problem to me isn't the character it is their work after the bell.   NXT is littered with guys and girls that have characters get really behind or really hate but as soon as the bell rings it is nothing.  Glorious is the most over gimmick in the WWE right now but nobody wants to see Roode near a title cause he is so dry in the ring.   Sanity is a great team but unless Nikki Cross is in the ring it isn't much.  Eric Young in TNA was a lot more crazy than he is now.   Hopefully Big Damo changes that.   The Nakamura character is definitely not a problem.  the fact that he is wrestling at 50% effort and most of the crowd knows it is the real problem.   Right now the only ones where their character and in ring work are in sync is Asuka, Revival, and DIY

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh, yeaaaah. Fucking Percy Watson. What were they thinking? I understand wanting to get your own people over and it's a position that often takes a long time to excel at but there is nothing there that doesn't lead me to think he's a hobo lite version of Booker T. 

Why should a 36 year old Nakamura with a tonne of mileage bust his ass in a developmental territory when he's probably got not that many bumps left in him? Consistency and effort at the smaller shows has always been an issue with him, but adding the fact that he's likely saving his best for when it actually matters is fine with me. At this point, his NXT stint is about adapting to the style, language and getting his shit over. I think he's doing fine.

They have fantastic workers but they're not being put in a position to succeed all that much. A little over a year ago, Nakamura, La Sombra, and Roderick Strong were all top 10 (maybe top 5 imo) workers in the world. Damo, End, Hero, Oney Lorcan (fuuuuuuuu), and EY is a pretty good group to build around at least for NXT's level. 

Quote

It was announced on the preshow that Nigel McGuinness is replacing Corey Graves on NXT broadcasts

Awesome news. Corey and Nigel are both really damn good.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well good for him but if they are going to do the stereotypical "one face, one heel, one kind of of the middle" then what is going to happen. 

Plus Nigel at his commentary worst in ROH was when a woman was within 100 feet of a ring.  Hopefully he settled that down a bit

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, hammerva said:

Well good for him but if they are going to do the stereotypical "one face, one heel, one kind of of the middle" then what is going to happen. 

Plus Nigel at his commentary worst in ROH was when a woman was within 100 feet of a ring.  Hopefully he settled that down a bit

 

It was weird how good he was at the tournament and how average and sometimes annoying he could be at ROH. Which is the real Nigel?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No shit, with all the talk about the decline of NXT, I was thinking how fucked the announcing would be if they lost Corey Graves.

Hopefully Nigel is miraculously good (I admit I didn't watch any of the UK tourney), because Percy is on like his third show taping wise (and is likely always going to be bad) and Young Boy Tom is an empty suit. Corey could always be counted on to bring the psychology, science, history, and humor to make the most of every angle and match. Very underrated part of NXT's success the past 2 years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...