NXT RETRO WORKRATE REPORT (March 13, 2013)
NXT RETRO WORKRATE REPORT – MARCH 13, 2013
(by PHIL RIPPA)
WHAT WORKED
Kassius Ohno vs. Derrick Bateman opens the show. I won’t complain though I am really not sad that Bateman is now on Impact where it is so easy for me to ignore him. And God Bless – his punches were definitely destined to get him a TNA contract. Every time Ohno is on a show you have moments of William Regal selling “Can we just move on before I have to beat his ass?” In fact the only reason this is up on this side of the report is the after match stuff with Regal storming the ring to stop Ohno from beating on Bateman and in the chaos, Regal drills Ohno and there is a lot of finger pointing and head shaking and it is amazing.
AWESOME! We follow up Regal’s lament with an Emma match. Come on William – you have to feel better now. She is taking on Summer Rae. At some point, I want an explanation as to why – by their own words – one of their most talented divas was slumming it as a ring announcer. Remember how I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about how the women are doing things that none of the dudes are doing? Yet again it happens this week as first Emma actually blocks the leg trip into the ropes and then Summer Rae purposely snapmares Emma into the ropes so that it takes out Emma’s knees. Seriously how come Emma sells a fucking worked over knee better than anyone else in the company? Oh and Paige is back and the crowd explodes… hmm… maybe I should have used a better choice of words.
HOLY FUCK! DUSTY RHODES JUST GAVE ME ANTONIO CESARO VS. BIG E LANGSTON!!!! GREATEST NXT EPISODE EVER!!! This had the potential to trump Langston/Rollins as best match – though a different type of match. I mean if this was 15 years ago and it had showed up on a random New Japan card we would have all lost our fucking minds. Still – since we all knew the non finish was inevitable, it didn’t pass Langston’s title win. Corey Graves and Conor O’Brian supply the run in and beat down so NXT can get out of the box they had booked themselves into.
WHAT DIDN’T WORK
This week in Tony Dawson nonsense – he thinks Derrick Bateman has the Batman logo on his ass. In Dawson’s world – the Batman logo is a black square.
Adrian Neville cuts a promo demanding something from Dusty Rhodes but I will be damned if I can figure out what it was he wanted. It was a lot of staring at the wrong camera and me wondering how Elrond feels about being one elf short in Rivendell
Bray Wyatt vs. Bo Dallas. BROTHER VS. BROTHER!!! HOW WILL MAMA ROTUNDA HANDLE THE STRESS??? (Most likely the same way NXT does – by pretending they are not related nor are they spawn of IRS.) This mach will work for some. Possibly many. Not me. I think I have expressed enough how much I don’t enjoy Bo Dallas right now and when he has to sell the entire mach. Yeah… no. The finish is also stupid as we are supposed to accept that Bray Wyatt is going to lose for one of the rare times on a flash belly to belly after taking very little punishment.
Alberto Del Rio is here this week to waste time because clearly there aren’t enough people on the roster to have matches with. Yeah. Yeah. Great for the live crowd. Not great for me the Hulu viewer. They also cock tease Del Rio vs. Antonio Cesaro but don’t deliver it for me this week.