Previously on the Best and Worst of NXT: Women’s Champion Bayley defeated Alexa Bliss, and immediately got challenged by Total Divas star Eva Marie. The crowd couldn’t handle it in either direction. Also on the show, the new NXT Tag Team Champions Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder annihilated some local talent, Nia Jax destroyed Carmella and the best tag team in the world (Chad Gable and Jason Jordan) defeated The Ascension.
As a quick programming note, we’re playing catch-up on the reports this week. We missed this episode last week due to the Thanksgiving holiday, so we’re getting this up today, and the 12/2 edition early tomorrow morning. If you want, we can assume that the comments section is a place where people have seen both episodes, so discuss away.
Click here to watch this episode on WWE Network. Be sure to follow the weekly column on the Best and Worst of NXT tag page. Please scroll through to enjoy the Best and Worst of NXT for Nov. 25, 2015.
Worst: Oh God No
The show opens with Michael Cole in the ring saying “may I have your attention please,” and there’s no quicker way to trigger acid flashbacks to the worst days of NXT than this. If you’re wondering what’d cause this kind of reaction, go back and read about any of the early NXT seasons.
This is all I can see:
The good news is that Cole’s just there to say his catchphrase and intro a contract signing that has nothing to do with him, but please, don’t scare me like that.
Best: Heels With Purpose, Or
Best: Samoa Joe Is The Greatest
I feel like I type it too much now, but the career renaissance of Samoa Joe in NXT makes me so happy I can barely explain it. The guy was so important to me as a fan in the mid-2000s, and seeing him go from the God of the independents to a lethargic, wasting-away TNA also-ran crushed me. Not being able to defend him over the last few years has been tough, and even when he debuted in NXT he wasn’t the same Joe … he was slower, he seemed tired, and even the smallest amount of movement made him sweat profusely. Fast-forward a few months and it’s all okay again. He’s fast. He’s strong. He looks young. His movement has a snap again. There’s a lightness in his step. He’s kicking ass on every level, and somehow traveling back in time to be the Samoa Joe you’d wish they’d signed in 2006.
A lot of it is in the presentation, I guess. One of NXT’s greatest unheralded attributes is their ability to make a heel challenger have a purpose, right or wrong, and seem like a threat. On the WWE main roster, wins and losses feel like decisions. You don’t see Sheamus having a reason to be WWE World Heavyweight Champion or being a threat to anybody, you know they decided to give him the Money in the Bank briefcase and decided he should cash in. It’s what makes The Authority story so confusing. You can actually see them picking and choosing how their fictional universe works. I wouldn’t call NXT “old school” wrestling or whatever, but there’s a distinct focus on character and motivations, and that makes all the difference.
Here, Joe tried to take the noble route by earning the champion’s respect and challenging him to a championship match. The champ accepted, but the GM said no … and Joe’s own inability to come through in the clutch and earn a shot in the eyes of the bosses warped his perception of how things work. Now he “knows” that he can’t be noble, he has to mentally intimidate and threaten the champion until there’s no other course of action. NXT will want to sanction the match and make money off it, no matter how personal it’s gotten. There’s a precedent: Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens. And we all know how THAT turned out.
The contract signing is great, because Joe won’t even look Finn in the eye. Finn’s like COME OUT HERE AND FACE ME and Joe’s just like, “nope, business, bye.” It’s a baller move, something that would make you cheer him … and then Joe brings it all full circle with a sneak attack on the ramp. He doesn’t just let himself look cool and detached and worthy of cheers. It’s part of the plot, part of the mind games, and establishing a threat by saying that even when Finn gets the offensive upper-hand, he’s gonna get caught in the Clutch and go to sleep.
That’s so good. That’s the character-based stuff that makes you worried Bayley’s gonna lose to Eva Marie, and when she doesn’t, makes you think she’ll lose to Nia Jax. The hero is only as good as the villain.
Best: Speaking Of Villains
I loved the finish of the Vaudevillains’ rematch against Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder. It plays with your expectations for how it’ll end.
They build up to Dawson and Wilder hitting the Shatter Machine on Simon Gotch, but English knocks Wilder out of the way and the move gets reversed. The Villains get a little momentum and try to hit the Whirling Dervish, but now Dawson takes Gotch out and THAT gets reversed. Most of the time you’d think that’d be the finish, or it’d just be a close nearfall, but they reverse the reverse … English is able to compensate for the surprise rollup and turns it into a nearfall of his own. Both of these close calls get huge reactions from the crowd because of how well they’re done, and because of how uncertain they make the finish. It all comes together in the ACTUAL finish, with two members of a team finally getting to work together, and Dawson and Wilder successfully Shatter Machining English for the duke. Loved it. Not only was it exciting, but it made the existence of tag-team partners (and timing) seem super important. It wasn’t a “cheap win,” it was great tag-team wrestling.
Enzo Amore and Big Cass show up and attack Dawson and Wilder after the match, which is also totally justifiable because they got sneak-attacked and purposely injured by them a few weeks ago. I know my point gets confused sometimes, but I’m not expecting babyfaces to be these infallible moral citizens … I just want them to have good reasons to do the stuff they do, and not just aimlessly be jerks because that’s WWE’s default character type.
Worst: How You Gonna Sing A Song About The NXT Championship And Not Include Bo?
That’s a kayfabe worst, btw, for Elias Sampson’s “musical message to the NXT Universe.” He’s singing a song about the NXT Championship, and drops mentions of almost every NXT Champion so far. “The man” is Seth Rollins, “the end” is Big E, “gravity” is obviously Neville, “redemption” is Sami Zayn and “KO” is … well, I can’t figure that one out. “The Demon” is your current champion, and Sampson wants it next. All I know is that unless I’m missing something, the second longest reigning NXT Champion in history, “Mr. NXT” Bo Dallas, didn’t warrant a mention. Was Bo gravity, and Neville the friend he lost? I know gravity forgot Neville. Ugh, music is hard.
Best: FINALLY.
Goosebumps.
Things haven’t felt right without Sami Zayn around, and I’m looking forward to his return more than anyone else’s. I’m excited to see what they even do with him, considering that the blood rival who nearly ended his career and stole his championship is long gone. How do you gain revenge and find some kind of closure when the world’s moved on without you? ESPECIALLY if you’ve got a good heart? How do you come to terms with that?
Hell, Neville’s gone. Breeze is gone. Tyson Kidd is gone. Does Sami Zayn even fit anymore?
Best: Emma And Dana Brooke Continue To Delay The Inevitable
There’s a bait-and-switch in the Dana Brooke/Asuka rematch, but I’m okay with it … Emma shows up dressed all in black and ninja sneak attacks Asuka, hoping to get some kind of advantage over this amazing fireworks display of a human being that will smile ear to ear while she kicks you to f*ck. I like that it plays on Dana’s continuing delusions that she’s somehow got the upper hand in this feud, and that all it’ll take to trump Asuka is a little WWE-style cheating. You are … so dead, Dana. So unbelievably dead. Asuka’s gonna cut you open like a Tauntaun and stuff Emma inside you.
Note: That will be the weirdest episode of “Taste of Tenille.”
Worst: Hey Look Everyone, JESSE SORENSEN Is Here! Wow!
First of all, I know the Full Sail crowd’s gotten a lot of deserved grief lately, but they reminded me of why I occasionally love them by singing the opening to Randy Orton’s ‘Burn In My Light’ theme for Jesse Sorensen. They should’ve just booked him as mad scientist Vince McMahon’s failed, imperfect attempt at cloning Orton. If you look like that, you’ve gotta throw at least one cutter. Give the people what they want.
Second of all, a Worst goes to the announce team for trying to put over Jesse Sorensen of all people as a big-time guest star. Not only is he most famous for carrying a football to the ring for no reason on TNA, but he was on NXT back in August. It’s not a character repackage or anything, he was “Jesse Sorensen” then too, with a big SORENSEN across his butt.
The match itself is just a squash for Apollo Crews, who continues to look great with or without a football. I like the undercurrent that Crews is probably the next NXT Champion, and is just biding his time until he can get all these run-in situations figured out.
Best: A Masterpiece, Believe It Or Not
NXT has proven that it can promote great women’s wrestling with great women’s wrestling, but sometimes wrestling isn’t about the wrestling. It’s about the goofy stuff that happens around it, and how that makes the wrestling matter.
There are two promos earlier in the night. In the first, Eva Marie has taken over William Regal’s office so she can have a bigger dressing room to prepare for her championship match, and she’s filled it with presents from admiring fans. Also, Nia Jax. The idea is that Eva’s reputation as “not ready” and “given opportunities she doesn’t necessarily deserve” are valid, but there’s also a different perspective: she’s what WWE likes, what they want, what they promote and what they showcase. She has corporate on her side, and not even in an evil way, necessarily. They just like her, and she makes them money. In the other, Bayley says she’s a wrestler, and that Eva’s underestimating the value of that. It’s common and understated.
The match isn’t about good wrestling, but it’s the most perfect use of Eva I’ve ever seen. Honestly, all she does in the match is hit a few bad forearms and pose for the crowd. She’s got a couple of moves she can do, and she does them. She does her Sliced Red #2 out of the corner — I still think “All Bread Everything” is funnier — and hits it, even though she doesn’t go over when Bayley swings her arms up to make it happen. The point of the match isn’t “watch Eva wrestle,” it’s “watch and see if Eva can will this win into existence with pride.” She’s got the referee who helped her win before reffing the match, and corporate has sent senior referee Charles Robinson down to supervise. Nia is at ringside. Everything is stacked against Bayley, but in a way that doesn’t seem ridiculous … she’s on in a 4-on-1 handicap match with a bunch of stuff on the line. It’s a championship match, and the challenger has come ready with all of her tricks.
That’s what makes it work so well. We get to watch Bayley actively overcome each of the obstacles in time, from shoving Eva into Charles Robinson (who takes a magnificent bump) to kicking out of Nia Jax’s interference and tripping her up on the apron when she gets involved a second time. It keeps Eva exactly where she needs to be, shows us that NXT is able to control the reactions and expectations of the crowd (as well as the abilities of its performers), and transitions seamlessly into Bayley vs. Jax. I can’t believe I’m typing it, but it’s pretty much perfect. They nailed it. Beautifully done.
