Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE NXT: … game shows! WWE Network uploaded the first season of NXT shows from Full Sail University this week, so I’m hopping into a time machine with my buddies Coheed and Cambria to relive it and tell you what I think.
If you’d like to read about the game shows seasons that came before this — and you absolutely should — click on these links to read about season 1 (the Daniel Bryan/Nexus season), season 2 (the Curtis Axel/Low Ki season where everything truly began to come off the rails), season 3 (the impossibly bad Divas season) and season 4 (the one where Derrick Bateman gets screwed).
If you’d like to follow along from the beginning of the beginning, you can watch this week’s episode here. If you’d like to read our older columns about the current weekly show, click over here. With Spandex is on Twitter, so follow it, and like us on Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter.
Click the share buttons and tell people (including @WWENXT) that you dig the column. We can’t keep doing these if you don’t read and recommend them! It’s not like these old episodes are very timely, but it’s pretty cool to see the show when everybody was babies.
And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for June 20, 2012. Welcome to Full Sail.
Best: Setting Sail
Although I skipped it in the vintage run-through — it’s 67 damn episodes long — I have a great, longstanding love of NXT season 5, aka “NXT Redemption.” To catch you up if you aren’t familiar with it, it was sort of an “NXT All-Stars” season, where eliminated rookies from previous seasons returned and competed for something called “redemption points.” What those actually did was never explained, and eventually they just forgot about them. Derrick Bateman showed up way too late in the process for it to be fair to everyone else, and before anyone could actually win the season (and before any could cash in those coveted redemption points), WWE internally decided to mash Florida Championship Wrestling and game show NXT together to do FCW shows in one location sans game show rules or prizes under the NXT name.
To understand NXT Redemption, you have to understand Enid Coleslaw describing ironically good music. “This is so bad it’s gone past good and back to bad again.” Redemption started as arguably the worst of all the NXT seasons, and then they just … forgot about it. The show never ended, because WWE literally forgot it existed. So the show floundered and just kind of continued out of habit until the core stars of the show — Bateman, Maxine, Johnny Curtis (the future Fandango), Kaitlyn and what would eventually become the Prime Time Players — unofficially took control, came up with their own shit and made the show a cult favorite. I mean, what other show would do its own Glee parody intro? Meanwhile, guys like Tyson Kidd, the Usos and the future Curtis Axel were like, “we could have WRESTLING MATCHES on this show! Nobody will notice!” And they did, and it was way better than it had any right to be. NXT Red was my jam.
Then, on episode 67, the announce team is like, “hey, join us next week for the ALL NEW NXT, coming to you live from Full Sail University!” And Red was dead.
But there was a Red dead redemption, as the new version of NXT found itself, found an audience, smashed 2006 Ring of Honor with 2006 ECW and became the calls-to-me calls-to-me brand we all know and love.
Episode one begins with the best possible announce team — Jim Ross and William Regal — announcing the “interim general manager” of NXT, “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes. If you’re an early NXT homer like me, you know Dusty’s interim lasted over a year, when the Rhodes kids got into a feud with the Authority on the main roster and Triple H replaced him with JBL. So hell; if you’re looking for a fresh start and want to establish your new show as a legitimately good wrestling program, what better three human beings to walk out first than Good Ol’ JR, Dreamy Weamy and Lord goddamn Steven motherfucking Regal?
So, let’s get into it.
Best: It Is American Shithead Who Makes Tricks With Bricks
The first member of the new Full Sail NXT roster we see is future NXT Champion (and arguably greatest NXT Champion) “Mr. NXT” Bo Dallas. Bo is currently an aimless angry guy who carries his own political signage (?) on every like, fifth or sixth episode of Raw, but he was accidentally getting over there for a minute as an incredulously positive motivational speaker and white hot MC.
If you’re like a lot of people and started watching NXT once Sami Zayn was there, you may remember why Bo became that character. Originally — and we’re seeing the truest origin of that here, before going all the way back to “Bo and Duke Rotunda” — Bo was such a sincere, whitemeat, boring-ass hip-tossing and firing up over nothing babyface that people got intensely tired of him, and began booing his existence. Like, Bo standing still could get an entire audience to scream at him and turn their backs. Eventually Bo (or someone) figured that out and started playing into it, and the greatest possible Bo was born.
Here, Bo is straight-up a wrestling Pocahontas with a face like a Goldeneye character and an accent that falls somewhere between “southern” and “do you need help?” He’s a third generation star, but this was 2012, when EVERYBODY was a second or third generation star, and most of them were as thrilling as dental surgery. “My dad is a famous wrestler” loses its luster when you’ve spent the past couple of years watching Manu, Sim Snuka, Ted DiBiase Jr. and the like. Bo likes motorcycles! He wears fingerless gloves! He hops around like Tatanka when he’s excited! His finisher’s the Edge version of the spear, aka the “running hug,” which has like, half the impact of a Dean Ambrose suicide dive. If you ever wondered why Bo was running in the old NXT intro, it’s because he was trying to be the new spear guy. Sadly, another second generation guy crowds hate took that away from him.
Bo’s opponent in the first match of the new era in NXT is Rick Victor, aka “Ricktor,” aka the guy who eventually became the small one, not the fat one, in the Ascension. One of the joys of this era of NXT is that all the jobbers — well, most of the jobbers — became guys you know, so we’ll be running into pretty much the entire 2017 Smackdown roster in this first year. Bo picks up the win with a spear, and the crowd just kinda politely “woos” for him, because they don’t really realize what they’re in for.
After the match, Bo cuts one of the worst promos you’ll ever hear to NXT stage interviewer, hard body and Dolph Ziggler genetics-sharer Briley Pierce. I can’t understand half of it, but here’s a general paraphrasing:
“WOO, YOU SEE THAT, WOO, YEAH, WRESTLING, Y’ALL BETTER KEEP WATCHING, YOU SEE THAT, BECAUSE I LIKE TO SMILE, AND WOO, YEAH GOD DAMN”
He didn’t curse at the end, but it was bad enough for me to imagine Kalisto crawling out of his weird Cheshire Cat face.
We’ve seen what Viktor was up to. Wondering what the other member of the Ascension was doing?
Spoiler alert: he was RISING.
Best: The Original Ascension
During season 4 of the game show version of NXT, Connor O’Brian was a rookie whose only attribute was that someone thought he looked like a rat, so he’d cut promos like James Cagney and get weirdly into cheese. It was maybe the worst thing anyone has ever done. Eventually somebody’s like, hey, you’re 6-4, 270, let’s put you in some Undertaker shit. And so, the Ascension was born.
Konnor’s partner in the original version of the team was “Kenneth Cameron,” who you may know better as omnipresent TNA resignee and Charlotte’s ex-husband BRAM. You may also know him from his legendary trios team with Sharon and Lois. You can see their original entrance and theme at the end of this clip, and it’s so dope. Bram’s got a flashlight under his chin for some reason, there’s MEGA Sin Cara lightning going on, and the music is more “Final Fantasy boss” than metal. I honestly really miss this version of the team. Viktor kinda sank the whole unit.
You may also recognize The Ascension’s opponents:
Yep, that’s future photobomb-related blood rivals CJ Parker and Tyler Breeze, back when Breezy had the very NFL quarterback name “Mike Dalton.” Dalton never actually gets into the ring here, as the Ascension isolate Parker and beat him down with … quick offense? I think the craziest thing I’m going to tell you is that the original version of the Ascension moved quickly and hit people kinda hard. I know, right?
The win with the original version of the Fall of Man, aka the DOWNCAST, which is just Bram hitting that kneeling chinbreaker WWE games let you do when you successfully counter a grapple, which causes a guy to turn around into a flapjack from Konnor. Jim Ross works overtime talking about how it’s “tandem offense,” which is generous. Ross works overtime for EVERYONE on these shows, talking about everyone’s “tremendous upside,” which would sound porny if it wasn’t being said by the most college football human alive.
Best: You Might Recognize This Guy, Too
Best: Aw, Damien Sandow
After an endless stint in developmental and a half-hearted tag team run as “Idol Stevens,” journeyman wrestler Aaron Stevens (who had been around in one form or another since 2000-goddamn-2) finally got brought up to the main roster as “Damien Sandow,” the intellectual savior of the masses. He did great, underappreciated work in the undercard for a few years, ended up winning a Money in the Bank, lost it in the most loser way imaginable to John Cena, ended up pretending to be The Miz for a while, illogically became the most popular character on the show, yadda yadda yadda, now he’s in TNA as a wrestling Liberace. You know how it goes.
Sandow’s original thing is that he kept almost debuting, then refusing to wrestle because the opponent wasn’t worthy of him. So he’d walk to the ring, tell everybody they sucked, and leave. It was better than I’m making it sound, because “it was better than I’m making it sound” is the only way to describe literally anything Damien Sandow ever did in WWE. He’d been doing it on the main roster and these early NXT episodes had a main-roster guest star, so he does it here.
His almost opponent here is a very young, practically newborn Jason Jordan, future one-half of American Alpha. See, I told you you’d recognize everybody. Next week, the try-hard “in love with Aksana” version of [Antonio] Cesaro guest stars, and some guy debuts. He keeps telling me how he’s thinking about getting into CrossFit.
Best: The Man Comes Around
Oh man, I cannot wait to jump entire-body-first into TRASH EMO Seth Rollins. Picture modern Seth Rollins, only all of his taunts look like someone created a ska robot and taught it to skank but it’s malfunctioning. And he’s got a heinous neckbeard. And all of his long-ass promos sound like he’s standing in the middle of a Hot Topic reading the hoodies.
“Everyone is lost. Waiting. On a second wind. And I am the change you’ve been waiting for! My whole life I’ve never wanted to be like anyone else! Because I’ve always believed, even when no one believed in me. I’ve never wanted to be cookie-cutter, I wanted to be my own man! That every moment was a chance waiting to be taken. I’ve wanted to break the mold! WE ARE THE AUTHORS, THE FINISHERS OF OUR FATE. Dream my own dream, carve my own path! WE ARE THE SOLUTION, AND THE TIME TO MOVE … IS NOW.”
Best: Red Represent
The good news for fans of NXT Redemption is that some of the cast stuck around for the early days of Full Sail NXT, notably these two, the John Cena and Randy Orton of Red: Derrick Bateman and Johnny Curtis. Pretty sure Chet Chetterfield is that guy’s dad.
Anyway, Bateman goes looking for Fandango and finds him in the men’s room, where Fandango I guess has set up a private office in the stall where he can “get weird” in private. I can’t stress this enough: Johnny Curtis was the true embodiment of NXT Redemption, because that guy WON a season of NXT and was completely forgotten. They just straight-up forgot he existed, so he fucked around and did what he wanted. At this point he’s somewhere between James Dean and Tommy Wiseau. Or like, James Dean and James Deen.
Bateman and Curtis have a match next week, and this glorious exchange occurs:
Curtis: “Stay outta there.”
Bateman: “It’s a public forum.”
Curtis: [leaves]
Bateman: “Aren’t you gonna wash your hands?”
Curtis: [returns] [wipes his hands on Bateman’s shirt] “They’re already clean.”
Bateman’s, “what a dirtbag,” really punctuates it.
Note: Eventually my love that that show within a show within a game show version of a fake fighting promotion in an imaginary universe represented by circular collections of 10,000 or more people is gonna turn me into a crazy person. I’m gonna be that guy in the record store desperately thumbing through the vinyl, searching for rare Johnny Curtis and Maxine segments.
Best: The Deuteronomy Of McGillicutty
The main event of the first-ever NXT Full Sail episode features the two guys who’d been busting their ass to make the wrestling part of the forgotten wrestling show as good as it could be: Tyson Kidd, and Michael McGillicutty. You may know him as Curtis Axel. But honestly if you know the name “Curtis Axel” you watch enough wrestling to remember McGillicutty. WWE had Mr. Perfect’s son and was like, “give him a strong Irish name!”
This is during that time when Tyson Kidd was the Cesaro. He was that surefire, can’t-miss physical talent with a pedigree and a proven track record of kicking ass inside of a wrestling ring who the front office thought “didn’t connect,” so he ended up having too-good matches on Superstars, NXT Redemption and Saturday Morning Slam. He and McGillicutty actually had a series of matches that related to each other and played off all the previous encounters, because shit, nobody was watching. Who’s gonna stop them from doing the 2012 subterranean-card version of Misawa/Kobashi?
This one goes almost twenty minutes (!!) and features callbacks, stolen finishers, springboard counters and pretty much everything you’d shit your pants for if Cena and Styles did it on a random Smackdown. That pocket of great WWE-style matches from Redemption into the early days of Full Sail is WWE’s most forgotten era, and man, it shouldn’t be. I hope these episodes going up on the Network gives them a little more exposure. Also, dicks out for Tyson Kidd, man.
Kidd wins with the Dungeon Lock, which is what happens when you put on half a Sharpshooter and fall backwards.
Next Week: Seth Rollins debuts, Antonio Cesaro guest stars, a young Vaudevillian gets beaten up by a big game hunter who hasn’t yet discovered the wonders of recreational drugs, and we meet the most disappointing second generation star in NXT history. Which is really saying something.
