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NXT 2015 THREAD


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Would Crowe still be a hacker? I'd like a Crowe's Nest of hackers.

 

 

I don't believe right now Crowe could take a group of high school kids to McDonalds much less serve in a leader role for a faction.

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Guys! Maybe he's a life hacker! He could collect a stable of wrestlers and "hack" their matches so they win with weird tricks.

Wrestle hack #1: if a guy throws you into the ropes, just, like, stop running, man.

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After a devastating lost, the Inspirational One (BO) approaches and gives him some life changing advice leading him down a new path in wrestling life. He then can be an aggressively hipster who life hacks those in need.

 

Hmmm... that's like a hipster Wyatt. He'll become the heir apparent to the true NXT heel. Is it wrong for me to want this?

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My life definitely felt more complete when Bo Dallas was a regular presence in my life. He's the unsung hero of his generation. Even stuff like calling JBL "Mr. JBL" makes me laugh. I mean, dude wanted to feud with Mark Henry so he could call himself "America's Sweetheart." So wonderful.

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Both Dana and Solomon looked noticeably better on the SJSU show than this one which was taped a couple months back.

 

Solomon still had his stupid troll hair this week, which he has since changed. Moveset was better this week, but he's still selling too much in his matches. Right now, he looks like he has Mojo disease, where he acts all high energy, then immediately starts selling and laying around once the bell rings.

 

Dana is obviously a work in progress. In her match that aired this week, she was obviously nervous and over-thinking everything. Plus she seemed to drastically underestimate how much material she needed to fill her allotted time. All of those things should improve with experience. She's in the same boat as Carmella. She's got some presence, just needs a lot of practice.

 

Speaking of Carmella, I think the right angle is to have her join Blake and Murphy before the tag title match. They're being more romantic with her, so just have her start hanging out with them. Her official turn can be a "let's just be friends" speech to Enzo, which I guarantee will resonate with the main NXT audience and make her the biggest heel on the show. Especially if they can get the phrase "FriENdZOne Amore" to stick.

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I don't know guys, I thought Brooke was pretty bad.  The director of the show had his work cut out for him, switching cameras like an ADD sufferer or like Kevin Dunn on meth to cover for her offensively bad ground punches.   She looked horribly awkward overdoing the posing out there; no charisma, just mindlessly striking poses over and over because somebody told her that's what a conceited heel is supposed to do.  She also fucked up the cover after hitting her finisher, which, if God is just, is called "The Botox Injection."  She's bad in the ring and is playing a wrestler instead of being a wrestler, not ready for TV at all and needs more time at the Performance Center.  It's too early to really judge but I get the feeling she'd be a total washout without even getting in sniffing distance of TV if HHH wasn't such a mark for "fitness competitors."

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I didn't think Dana Brook was that bad either other than the constant posing. And I definitely dug the trash talking. She'll be fine in a few months time. I love me some Blue Pants though. Leva deserves a contract already. 

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I'm on this theory that Blue Pants is under WWE contract but they're letting her work other promotions and make money off the name. She's had a WWE.com interview, a WWE photo shoot, she got a redemption win over a contracted talent, they put her in the ring with their new champ and she's over. If she wasn't under contract I couldn't see half of that happening and then continuing to use her. Once Blue Pants got over, they would've stopped using her because she's over.

 

If she is unsigned than Leva Bates is the only true independent contracted wrestler in WWE. Which I'm still trying to figure out if anyone else had a deal with WWE where they work TV for WWE, work various other promotions, and then are allowed to sell merchandise using the name WWE and not have said merchandise be on WWEShop

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Yeah, Dana did nothing for me. Pose, flex, pose, flex.....meh.

 

On a different note, Enzo and Cas entertain me every time they are on my tv.

 

Crowe, not so much...

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I suspect Crowe won't really open eyes until he has an all-out slugfest with an opponent of similar size.  I didn't see a whole lot of his indie work, but he had a really fun match with Gary Jay in St. Louis Anarchy a few years ago.

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Enzo and Cass do nothing for me.  You don't get better at promos just doing the same singsong schtick over and over.  The same way I feel that NXT is not the place for gimmicks like Tyler Breeze, I don't think developmental is the place where guys lazily cosplay the New Age Outlaws instead of learning to do the things that truly get you over. 

 

I wonder if they come back through the curtain after doing their act with a feeling like they accomplished something.  "You hear that pop?  We're over and we're successful wrestlers!"  When the truth is, no, you're just spewing a catchphrase that the crowd likes to sing along with.  It's like indy guys getting pops for chairshots or highspots; that doesn't mean you're good at pro wrestling, you're just appealing to the crowd's basest instincts.  It's a lazy shortcut that hinders their learning.

 

I wonder if this act and the reaction it gets makes these two they feel like they're stars already and don't need to learn more.  Enzo is not getting any better in the ring and WWE doesn't use managers so what's he going to do?  Cass is getting fat.  But none of that matters because their 38 different catchphrases are over, right?

 

By the way I swear I'm not Lance Storm    :lol:

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Enzo's in-ring haplessness is becoming legendary.  He literally can't maintain control of a match for more than a few seconds before the opponent mows him down and he needs Cass to bail him out.

 

I don't recall a lot of his matches pre-Network, and I know he was injured for a while, but how is Enzo as a wrestler?  I know the loudmouth who can't back it up thing is essentially a gimmick akin to everyone believing Gunner Scott was a good wrestler due to that being his gimmick, I'm just curious how much is art imitating life.

 

I also just realized I really want to see an Enzo/Cass v. Santino/Kozlov match.

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I think Enzo and Cass have great chemistry. Enzo's comic timing is great. Now, do I want to see them in a 30 minute technical chess match? Of course not. Do they make me laugh from time to time when they cut promos? Yes. Also, Enzo's offense consists entirely of being thrown by Cass. I don't hate that. Look, I'm an old school AJPW/ 70's NWA mark so I get serious, gritty, hard hitting wrestling. However, sometimes, funny works for me too.

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I'm tempted to just quote myself from a few weeks ago, but Crowe will be fine. Before he signed with WWE, he had by far the best year of anyone on the indies. He didn't forget how to wrestle. His first two matches in NXT are no more disjointed and weird than Itami's were. It takes some guys a bit to acclimate, and more importantly, it takes agents and producers a bit to really know what makes people shine. 

 

The hacker gimmick was a cool idea, and the house show debut he did where he controlled the lights with an iPad and killed Kallisto was awesome. The promos that he is being judged on were not for TV, and unfortunately got out. I'm sure everyone in NXT has promos they taped that make them look like an idiot, because half the point of them is getting performers to try different things and get out of their comfort zone. Not everyone can be John Cena and nail their first ever taped promo.

 

Like Patrick said, Crowe will start to turn some heads when he gets put in there with a guy who he can go toe to toe with. I don't think it has to be someone of a like size (although Crowe and Itami stiffing the shit out of each other would be amazing) but just someone who can work a 50/50 match. Crowe sells really well. I think right now, people want to get him over by having him work the same formula he did in the Finlay matches. Unfortunately, Bull Dempsey and CJ Parker are not Fit Finlay. The are working like well trained and capable sports entertainers, which is exactly how they should be working. Fit Finlay worked those matches like he was legitimately trying to kill Crowe. While those matches were amazing, that is not how Crowe worked the majority of the time. He had great matches with a lot of people by throwing haymakers back and forth. 

 

I've said all this before, but I think maybe we should wait for another set of tapings before we decide that someone doesn't have "it". Performers grow and change. If first impressions were everything in wrestling, Fandango and Zach Ryder would be the most over dudes ever while WWE Superstar Flex Kavana would be signing autographs next to Virgil. 

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Did anybody here ever watch OVW? NXT is an improvement as a developmental territory over that at least. I do like that WWE usually keeps NXT guys in their NXT gimmick, which means that they've often worked out a lot of the kinks before debuting. 

 

I like the idea of NXT as a finishing school for guys who just need to learn to work the camera and how to work a WWE style match. The NXT TV show could be for those guys and the truly green guys can work house shows until they're ready to debut. The house shows are surely 3x longer than the TV shows so it's not like they're at a loss for time.

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Yeah, for a developmental territory, NXT is full of counter intuitive stuff like this.  Barron Corbin is not becoming a better worker doing 25 second TV squashes.

 

I think there's a difference between NXT the tv/internet show and NXT the developmental territory. There's a lot of behind the scenes training at the performance center and non-televised events always feature some experimental stuff. The weekly show is designed to draw viewers to the network, which means playing to everyone's strengths to make the best show possible.

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