The Best And Worst Of WWE NXT 1/27/16: Let’s Rage Again Like We Did Last Summer


Previously on the Best and Worst of NXT: Sami Zayn, Samoa Joe and Baron Corbin all won matches with authority to set up a triple threat match to name a new #1 contender to the NXT Championship. Chad Gable and Jason Jordan got a team name, so we don’t have to “Dash and Dawson” them forever. Carmella’s got an upcoming title shot against Bayley, but she’s not letting it ruin their friendship. Yet?

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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for January 27, 2016.

Best: American Alpha, Because Obviously

Let’s start off this week’s column with the best part of any NXT report, “the section where I go on and on about how wonderful Chad Gable and Jason Jordan are.”

I’m starting to repeat a lot of points in explaining why they’re great, but I never get tired of seeing them. There’s something intangibly magnetic about them as a duo, and I can’t take my eyes off the ring if they’re in there, no matter what they’re doing. I remember when Jordan was teaming with Tye Dillinger — a guy I like, mind you — and it was completely different. He felt like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole. Here, Jordan looks like he’s having fun every second he’s in the ring. He looks legitimately psyched to be in there with Gable, and he’s got more energy in his hot tags than anyone I think I’ve ever seen. He comes in hot, man. The fact that he throws the prettiest suplex in wrestling doesn’t hurt, but the straps coming down going straight into the running shoulder in the corner is a brilliant moment of electricity.

And then there’s Chad Gable. I love that he came pre-packaged as the best wrestler on the show. Like, there was no learning curve. He just showed up, understood everything and still doesn’t look like he’s reached his full potential. He’s got so much room to grow, and really all we’ve seen from him is unbelievable body control, an acute understanding of what’s supposed to make wrestling real and some sweet-ass wristlocks. For example, watch when Blake and Murphy are trying to keep him from making the hot tag. He dives and gets caught, and his leg’s stretched out. He can’t get any momentum to break the hold that way, so he pushes his own leg down to close the gap between him and his opponent. That lets him get enough push-off on the leg to break free and make the tag. Who the hell else in WWE is doing stuff like that? Who’s remembering to bridge on one leg if he’s spent the whole match having his leg worked? It sounds ridiculous, but I kinda wish Chad Gable would host a seminar for everybody on Raw.

I love the story of American Alpha defeating all the former NXT Tag Team Champions, because honestly? They feel like a fresh start for the tag division. Everything else was just practice. This is the real team. These are the 2010s Steiner Brothers.


Best: (Actually) All Red Everything

The second match on the show is Nia Jax squashing Liv Morgan, and we’re back to square one with Nia. She’s concentrating on being dominant so there’s not a lot of action, drama, selling or storytelling happening, she’s just staggering a little on a dropkick and doing her moves. The announce team continues to insist that she’s the most dominant woman we’ve ever seen in NXT, even though we watched her cave and submit to the first name wrestler she faced. There was a good reason for that, mind you — it was a good story to tell, Bayley is the materfamilias and Nia is greener than the damn Planeteers — but it sorta disqualifies the “most dominant” talking point. I mean, you’ve got Asuka right there. You set up Asuka vs. Bayley, I’m picking Asuka 100 times out of 100. And I’m a Bayley homer.

I’m going to give the match a Best, though, because I’m riding high on a crimson wave of support for the NXT version of Eva Marie. After months of claiming “all red everything” but wrestling in white or gold or even green gear, Eva has gone full ‘Oops I Did It Again’. She should never be seen in something that isn’t red. She should dye her eyebrows and wear red contacts. She should be pinning people and then dousing them in red paint. Give her a cosmetics “blood bath.” I want a corrupted Eva Marie that busts people open to make them beautiful.

Worst: Say It To My Rapidly Decaying Face

Alex Riley returned this week, and I’m giving it a Worst because Kevin Owens didn’t show up, stomp him once and run away.

Worst: “Alex Riley Is Trapped In A Glass Case Of Emotion” Is Never Going To Work

As you might’ve predicted, the story with Alex Riley is still — still — that he’s bitter. He’s upset that he’s been around a long time but keeps getting passed over for guys like Apollo Crews and Sami Zayn, and it’s making him do a bunch of steroids and grow his hair and scream at things. And tan. He is so tan. What’s concerning about the character is that Riley honestly seems to believe what he’s saying, despite the fact that he is Alex Riley and the wrestlers NXT keeps focusing on and promoting are good and popular because they are not.

I mean, Christ, your new finisher is a jumping calf kick. You’re jumping and putting your thigh against someone’s chest without any weight behind it and all your momentum going in the opposite direction. Your finish makes The Drifter’s neckbreaker look like a Burning Hammer. The only Alex Riley angles I’ll accept are (1) Kevin Owens beating him up because Kevin Owens understands wrestling, or (2) Riley, Damien Sandow and the never-cleared version of Daniel Bryan in a support group for people who’ve had their lives f*cked up by The Miz.

I want a homeless, screaming Alex Riley using an old Money in the Bank briefcase like a bindle.


Enzo Amore is good at promos

Best: Enzo Amore Is Really Good At This

We spent so long laughing at “zero dimes” and “sawft” and chanting along with Enzo Amore’s entrance speech that we forgot something important: Enzo is really f*cking good at talking on a microphone.

I like Big Cass and Carmella, and I like the team dynamic. At the same time, they kinda feel like they’re done, don’t they? London was their moment, and it didn’t happen. Now you’ve got American Alpha as the hottest act on the show, and Enzo and Cass are just kinda there. It screws with their dynamic in my head, too, because now all I can do is fantasy book ways for them to split up and move forward. This promo’s a great example. Carmella talks, and it’s fine and sounds like she’d deliver the same speech in promo class. Big Cass talks and it’s fine, and he drops some quirky dialogue that doesn’t really land. Then Enzo gets on the mic and just naturally blows them both away, explaining that his failure made him not have a Merry Christmas and is making him edgy, and how he’s getting angrier, and how that’s bad news for Dash and Dawson. It’s real and honest, but doesn’t lose Enzo’s gift for colorful phrasing. He’s so damn good at this, and I’m going to hate it forever if this group’s ship goes down and takes Enzo with it. I couldn’t live in a world where he got Sylvester LeFort’d.

Worst: They Call Him “The Drifter” Because When You Watch Him Wrestle, You Drift Off To Sleep

Speaking of Acoustic Fandango, he has another match this week. It’s like staring at a loaf of bread.

Samson gets a win over John Skyler with his swinging neckbreaker, because a hip toss was deemed too dangerous. The guy might not get all the way over and could hurt himself! I’m pretty sure I could pin John Skyler. You know you’re an ineffective jobber when I don’t stan for you. I’m the guy who loved Norv and Dewey in TNA and wanted Stansky and Rosenberg to pin Ryback.

Free booking idea: bring back Hideo Itami as Elias Samson’s tag team partner and call them “Tokyo Drift.”

Best: #2 Contenders

The main-event this week is a triple threat to name a new #1 Contender for Monster Ballerina’s NXT Championship. Monster Ballerina is absolutely a compliment, if you’re wondering.

Sami Zayn vs. Samoa Joe vs. Baron Corbin is good, but it’s mostly a means to an end. This is coming off the previous week’s matches, which were a means to this end. I’m not sure I love that, but it’s constructive storytelling, so I’m not gonna complain. The finish is Sami putting Corbin in a Sharpshooter and Joe grabbing a crossface before Corbin tapped, making the match a draw. That means no #1 contender, and William Regal will have to review the tape. If I’m Regal, the call is just to restart the match, right? If the referee calls for a finish and then doesn’t know which finish he called, just keep going. Still, the end result of this is Sami vs. Joe, so it’s fine. Give me that and I won’t care if we got there via a mistress angle and a month of Elias Samson matches.

Another positive is that Corbin got double-teamed (and effectively screwed) by the thing he hates most: independent wrestling stars. They should send Corbin to an Evolve show and have him throw everyone on the roster through a window.

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