NXT Super Tuesday - 9/1/2020

[The Natural]

 

Golden Role Models.

[Curt McGirt]

2 hours ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

I don't want to place all of the blame at the feet of two men but it makes me think.  NXT started falling off when...  

Jesus, these guys look like they've aged 20 years in two. 

[AxB]

 

[Craig H]

6 minutes ago, AxB said:

 

Ooooh, ouch.

[nofuture]

I think the main problem with NXT right now is that hasn't been the natural turnover of wrestlers on top to keep things fresh.  I actually think this might be the best midcard NXT has ever had, but the top of the card is very stale.

[Craig H]

10 minutes ago, nofuture said:

I think the main problem with NXT right now is that hasn't been the natural turnover of wrestlers on top to keep things fresh.  I actually think this might be the best midcard NXT has ever had, but the top of the card is very stale.

That just goes back to something I said before where we're all accustomed to that turnover, which kept things fresh, and that's just not NXT anymore. Before it was a give that the former NXT champion and a handful of others would get called up. Now it's a third brand and we're not used to wrestlers on NXT being long lasting fixtures for the brand. In the previous era of NXT, you likely don't have almost all of the people who were in the 4 way last night. They would all be on SmackDown or Raw. Maybe Finn still winds up back in NXT, but still, it would be a fresher scene. We've just seen the song and dance so many times from these guys and nothing new gets delivered. The first handful of times I saw Gargano near death, but still keep on fighting it was amazing, like in the match with La Sombra. When you see him do it all the time though, it's like, man, do something else.

Although if you had the turnover like we're used to, the NXT title scene is likely occupied by Finn, Kross, Priest, and...Dijak? I'm a huge fan of Dijak so that doesn't bother me much. I also really like Finn since he's gone back to NXT. The other two though? I mean, they're good, but I also don't really care that much about either. At the very least though, they're different ingredients in the mix, which may be all many of us want.

[nofuture]

Dream obviously would be in the mix, but it seems like they got cold feet with him even before all the allegations came out.  Guys like Grimes and Reed could set up too.  If anything, not having Ciampa/Gargano/Cole clogging up the main event scene would make them turn to someone new out of necessity.

[EVA]

Yeah, I think the last few posts have really hit on a couple of NXT’s big problems.  Obviously, stagnancy has been an issue the past year or so.  However, part of the reason that the roster has stagnated is because NXT/the PC has been an utter failure as developmental.  As tired as they are, if Undisputed Era, Gargano, and Ciampa left, the brand would be DOA.  There is no next wave of stars behind them.  It is so dire that Dexter Lumis was being positioned as the #2 baby face prior to his injury.  DEXTER LUMIS.  (I know they have high hopes for Karrion Kross and Velveteen Dream, but the verdict is still very much out on Kross as a star and Dream is trash, inside and outside the ring.)

[Craig H]

God, Dream fucking sucks. Let's just set aside all of his shit outside of the ring...I can't think of anyone that was high as he was character wise and in ring wise (even though it was mainly just some basic stuff), got injured, and was just the drizzling shits from top to bottom when he returned.

[Godfrey]

The natural cycling of talent in NXT helped because they were forced to constantly establish new stars and now that they aren't under the gun they've become somewhat lax at it. Kross' injury threw everything out the window, say what you will about him as a wrestler but having Karrion on top fighting against these four guys would have been a fresh run of matches at least and would give them time to shuffle more guys up or down the card. 

[Casey]

[Craig H]

That's another good point. Remember when it was a huge fucking deal when NXT announced they were going to do a ladder match or even a cage match. They made a cage match actually mean something. It was like, holy shit, how are they going to do this? Hell, even NXT Takeover Fatal 4-Way was a huge deal because 4 of the top guys were going to fight over the championship and I honestly felt like Neville was finally going to lose. And he won. Not only did he win, he did some subtle, sneaky heel shit to win and it all built towards the "Sami can't win the big one" storyline. It was fucking amazing. It's still one of the best storylines I've seen out of anything in WWE with Neville being the king of NXT, no one being able to dethrone him, Sami slowing but surely inching his way towards winning the championship, he actually wins the championship, and then he gets MDK'd by Kevin Owens. Fucking phenomenal.

NXT turned TJ and Breeze into credible threats to the championship. Think about that.

There's just nothing special to NXT anymore. It all feels very overdone and there's too much WWE Main Event Style now. I don't even know how the dial it back and make the promotion even feel special. The women's division is still good except the handling of Rhea is beyond dumb. At least Io is champ.

[AxB]

12 hours ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

The only people bringing something new to the table are the women in both NXT/WWE.  They are the ones bringing the story telling and psychology while the men are just doing stuff until the samey finishes

Yeah. Guys who in 2013 would get their arm worked on, then sell it as compromised for the rest of the match, have moves fail because the arm didn't hold up, et cetera... Seven years later they ignore limbwork as soon as it finishes and just sell fatigue intermittently. The announcers talk about his opponent is working the arm to take away his big move he likes to do, but come the finish he hits his move clean no problem. It's a dumbed down style, plain and simple.

[John from Cincinnati]

I know the point being made is about how much excess has gone into the NXT TV show because they're competing with AEW, but it's fun to compare some of those figures to Dynamite during the same period. They're seemingly not there with the overused gimmick matches (although I didn't bother to compare number of overall gimmick and multi-person matches for each program). But for title matches, this is what I've got:

• AEW World Championship: 5 matches
• AEW TNT Championship: 9 matches, one title change
• AEW: Women's Championship: 6 matches, two new champions crowned
• AEW Tag Championship: 12 matches, 2 new champions crowned

The competition isn't afraid to go to that well either, and there are few complaints to be had. I don't think the explosion in title matches contributes much (if anything) to explaining just how dull NXT has become.

The gimmick matches might be a different story. But I largely put it to the tired acts at the top of the card.

Edited September 2, 2020 by Andy in Kansas

[EVA]

A really under-discussed change for the worse in NXT over the past few years has been the booking shift from being a strong babyface promotion to a heel-dominated promotion.

If you look at the Golden Age of NXT (which I would say is Arrival through January 2017), it’s a babyface promotion, all the way.  They knew who their top face was and they built around him, AND they knew who the *next* top face was and built him so he was ready to take that spot.  It was Neville, then Sami, then Balor, then Nakamura.  That doesn’t mean they had the belt all the time, but if they didn’t, they were always around it (barring injury).  Heel reigns during that period were primarily transitional or surprises to spice things up.  But the focus was always on the faces.  This made NXT a really satisfying show to watch.  You knew you’re investments in those guys would be rewarded.

That changed in 2017.  They didn’t know who the next guy was after Nak, so clearly the idea was “Let’s have Roode run with it until we figure it out.”  Except they never did.  Which is not to say strong baby faces didn’t emerge during that period.  Gargano was red hot coming off the DIY breakup, and Roddy blew up as a working class hero opposite Roode that summer.

But they didn’t pull the trigger on either guy, instead settling on a transitional reign by McIntyre (horribly miscast as a face and lukewarm over, at best).  And from that point on, that became the NXT booking philosophy:  faces transitioning the belt to a dominant heel, a complete inversion of what had worked so well in the Golden Age.  The last two face champions held the belt fewer than 60 days, bookending a never ending 400+ day Adam Cole reign.

Why would you care about any of this shit if the bad guys always win?

[The Natural]

[Greggulator]

I think NXT's rut is best attributable to the fact that keeping any sort of creative enterprise and serial entertainment -- which wrestling is -- consistently fresh and exciting and must-watch is impossibly hard. NXT managed to really capture its moment. It's ridiculous that NXT was as great as it was for as long as it was. It's impossible to keep that going. Kudos to them for creating a product that was what a lot of wrestling fans didn't know they were looking for. 

It was a perfect mixture of: Great indie wrestlers developing new characters (Sami), in-house characters finding their voice (hundreds), sticking to the basics, giving us something new (actual women's wrestling), etc. But, most importantly, NXT was just fun to watch! 

At some point, it just lost the fun for me. I think in all honesty a lot of it came because the audience and expectations changed with it. Here's an example of how I'm part of the problem and not part of the solution: I crapped all over The Undisputed Era. I thought they came off as trying to be this cool, edgy alliance and they instead came off like a bunch of dorks. If you were to do the same packaging but put them with four dudes who came up the PC and they did the same thing, I would have eaten it up. 

I don't even think the current NXT audience would get behind Bayley. 

[Ultimo Necro]

I really enjoyed the opener, even if it was every WWE video game hardcore tag team match.  Raul Mendoza was a champ in that match, he bumped his buttocks off.

If a Bronson v Thatcher happens on the indies, in Japan or anywhere else other than WWE I’d be so hyped for it, this was just a vehicle to further an angle and nothing else. Could have got the same result without wasting a potentially fun match.

similarly, the main event was 4 of the best guys in the world. If this match happens anywhere else and the guys are left to do what they want then we likely get an incredible match. I didn’t think this match was good at all.  
 

From a “real sports” perspective how could they not foresee the possibility of a tie?

“We need a new champ, let’s have 4 men battle it out in a format that in no way guarantees a decisive result”.

So dumb.

[Godfrey]

Does the shift in NXT's quality coincide with Ryan Ward moving to Smackdown? That was early to mid-2016, the years starts with Balor on top but after Joe wins the title at Takeover: Toronto it's mostly heel champions from then on. Nakamura had a month a half reign but then it's Roode, McIntyre, and so on. Prior to that Kevin Owens held the title as a heel for 5 months in 2015.

[Eivion]

36 minutes ago, Godfrey said:

Does the shift in NXT's quality coincide with Ryan Ward moving to Smackdown?

I think it was this and losing Dusty. Its clear those two were necessary parts of the formula for what was working in NXT's booking strategy. They kept up quality to some degree, but its definitely started to lose itself gradually after losing both.

Edited September 2, 2020 by Eivion

[AxB]

1 hour ago, Andy in Kansas said:

 

• AEW World Championship: 5 matches
• AEW TNT Championship: 9 matches, one title change
• AEW: Women's Championship: 6 matches, two new champions crowned
• AEW Tag Championship: 12 matches, 2 new champions crowned

Are you seriously complaining that the AEW Television title is defended too frequently on Television?

[John from Cincinnati]

41 minutes ago, AxB said:

Are you seriously complaining that the AEW Television title is defended too frequently on Television?

I don't think I was complaining about anything other than finding the NXT main event scene a bit dull, but do go off.

I'm simply comparing the number of title matches on each TV show and suggesting that the increase in title matches on this show really don't make a strong point in the case against the current NXT product, when the other channel is also going to that well just as frequently and with results that are received much more positively. That's not a complaint. That's me saying I'm not particularly moved by the argument Alvarez was sharing. 

[Craig H]

49 minutes ago, Eivion said:

I think it was this and losing Dusty. Its clear those two were necessary parts of the formula for what was working in NXT's booking strategy. They kept up quality to some degree, but its definitely started to lose itself gradually after losing both.

I think maybe it's Dusty's passing and Road Dogg and HBK having more influence on NXT than Ryan Ward leaving. Or maybe not. I don't know. Ward isn't even with the company anymore and his stint on SmackDown largely sucked hard. Now, that could also be due to Vince or Hayes fucking with everything, but it's hard to know for sure.

Back to NXT being heel dominated, that's a problem for WWE in general and a big reason why I fucking hate most everything in WWE. For over 10 years now they've been so focused on heels dominating and faces being the dumbest fucking people on the planet. It's hard to get behind faces that are so ungodly stupid, that get outsmarted all the time, that lose as much as they do, and that get no time to shine. They finally took a fresh and new direction with Reigns, the direction he should have had this entire fucking time, he's appeared all of 3 times since returning, and he's maybe my favorite thing in the whole company at the moment because he doesn't get outsmarted, he whoops ass, and he's a tough motherfucker.

Sorry to bring AEW into this, but look at how they handle heels and faces. Faces get one over on the heels more often than not, but the heels still stay strong. Sammy is one of the best acts in AEW, still looks strong, and he's arguably the fall guy and jobber in the Inner Circle. Jericho has been outsmarted multiple times by Mox and OC, but he still looks strong. They've struck a pretty decent balance, but ALL of WWE's booking is just mired in heat, heat, heat, and more heat for heels while faces look dumb as fuuuuuuck.

[Craig H]

Also, regarding title matches, I don't think having more title matches is that much a detractor in quality. Especially for NXT and AEW because one has, what, 6 PPVs per year, while the other only has 4. And each promotion has built to those title matches in one way or another so I don't see that much of a problem there. I think it has more to do with who is involved with those title matches.

And I'd rather have title matches than matches with a champion that are non-title. 

Edited September 2, 2020 by Craig H

[Eivion]

35 minutes ago, Craig H said:

I think maybe it's Dusty's passing and Road Dogg and HBK having more influence on NXT than Ryan Ward leaving. Or maybe not. I don't know. Ward isn't even with the company anymore and his stint on SmackDown largely sucked hard. Now, that could also be due to Vince or Hayes fucking with everything, but it's hard to know for sure.

Eh, the problem with this theory is that NXT has had the problems it has gradually growing even before the two of them got involved on the creative side. 

38 minutes ago, Craig H said:

Back to NXT being heel dominated, that's a problem for WWE in general and a big reason why I fucking hate most everything in WWE. For over 10 years now they've been so focused on heels dominating and faces being the dumbest fucking people on the planet. It's hard to get behind faces that are so ungodly stupid, that get outsmarted all the time, that lose as much as they do, and that get no time to shine. They finally took a fresh and new direction with Reigns, the direction he should have had this entire fucking time, he's appeared all of 3 times since returning, and he's maybe my favorite thing in the whole company at the moment because he doesn't get outsmarted, he whoops ass, and he's a tough motherfucker.

You do realize Roman Reigns is a heel, right? Not saying you're wrong, but these statements slightly counter each other.