Previously on the Best and Worst of NXT: The first half of the UCF Arena tapings ended with Bayley defeating Carmella to retain the NXT Women’s Championship, and that turning into Baymella vs. Nia Jax and Eva Marie, ASUKA vs. Nia Jax and Eva Marie, and then Asuka and BAYLEY. It was pretty crazy. Also, Cameron “wrestled.”
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for February 17, 2016.
Best: SUPERTAG
First of all, I need to unload my weekly barge full of praise onto Jason Jordan and Chad Gable, who now have Steiner Brothers singlets. Look at these things:
The Steiners are the end-all be-all of collegiate wrestling tag teams that love to brutally suplex dudes, so American Alpha being as much like them as possible is encouraged. The Steiners had such a weird aesthetic, too. They’d show up in singlets that looked like the opening credits to Saved By The Bell, or half-and-half numbers that looked like neon Garth Brooks shirts, or in gears with numbers on them. Just random numbers, for no reason. They made it work because they were so bad-ass and good at wrestling you didn’t even care.
This week’s opener is sort of the Elseworlds version of the TakeOver: Brooklyn pre-show match, with Enzo Amore and Colin Cassady teaming up with American Alpha against Blake and Murphy and The Mechanics. Besides the early 90s WCW singlets, I loved two things about the match:
1. The finishing sequence, which is just the babyfaces firing up and hitting EVERYTHING on the heels. Jason Jordan’s hot tags are HOT FIRE and maybe the best hot tags I’ve ever seen. He dropkicks you to death, and if you’re still around he grabs you by the wait and throws you like 10 feet backwards over his head. If you’re still around after that, his power levels increase to critical and he shoulders the wind out of you for the Grand Amplitude.
2. Enzo is SUCH an afterthought in this match. That in itself isn’t the thing I liked, but I need to mention it to make the point work. Enzo does, like, nothing. His only contribution is getting thrown off the top rope at the end, and that’s only after Gable and Jordan had won the match but got their pin attempt broken up at the last second. Meanwhile, Big Cass is in there screaming his ass off, looking fired-up as hell because he’s wrecking shop with Jason Jordan. It’s like, you can see Cass realizing, “holy sh*t, how much easier would this be if my tag team partner was ALSO tall and was AWESOME and just THREW DUDES??”
I’m not asking for a heel turn or anything, but if Cass and Enzo aren’t winning the belts and you need a good reason to move their story forward, Cass realizing Enzo’s just a more athletically ambitious Jimmy Hart is a good start.
Best/Worst: Deonna Purrazzo Learned A Valuable Lesson About Being Knocked Out
Apparently that lesson is, “get knocked out again.”
You may remember Deonna as the lady who got knocked the f*ck out by Asuka for cosplaying as a Ferrari. She gets promo time to explain that getting knocked out taught her a valuable lesson, which leads to Emma and God’s Own Dana Brooke showing up to tell her she’s yet to learn a lesson about respect. I like NXT heels who just kinda wander around backstage doing respect checks on everyone. Emma compares she and Dana to Michael Jordan — the second jobber team to compare themselves to Jordan this week — and they pat-threaten their way offscreen.
That sets up Asuka/Deonna II, and … well, you know how it ends.
There’s a wonderful moment during the finish where Asuka’s about to throw a bunch of spinning backfists and kick Deonna’s head off, and Deonna just kinda presses the back of her hand to the side of her face to block it and makes the saddest wincing faces. You can almost hear her inner monologue. “I didn’t want to do this, but I have to, I want this job, so just let her hit you as hard as she can and you’ll be fine, it’s fine, just AAAHH oh my ear hurts it’s almost AAAAAAHHHH god DAMMIT I think my knuckles just penetrated my brain DEEERPPP” and then she’s out. It’s basically the same face and body language I’d have if someone was like, “yeah, I’m gonna hit you really hard three times, here goes.”
Best: GO BACK TO RING A’HONOR
Baron Corbin tapped out to two guys in the #1 contender match, but he feels like if there wasn’t an actual finish and the match is being restarted, he should be in it again. William Regal disagrees. Now Baron Corbin’s gonna have even more reason to hate Regal’s independent wrestling darling babies that keep showing up, and all I want in life is for Tyler Breeze to return to NXT and be Corbin’s pal. Nobody’s been more directly affected by the influx of guys with popular Internet names more than Corbin and Breeze.
Plus, you know, fashionable Baron Corbin. OR WEREWOLF BIKER TYLER BREEZE.
LOL
I don’t even know what to type there, but LOOOOOL
Alex Riley shows up looking like create-a-wrestler Triple H and faces “Perfect 10” Tye Dillinger. It feels like another week of Riley getting a win over a lower-level guy so we can know how hungry and intense and intensely hungry he is, and then Tye Dillinger just STRAIGHT-UP PINS HIM. I don’t know if the point is supposed to be “hahahah f*ck yooou Alex Riley,” but that’s what I got from it.
I kinda love the idea of a character who shows up saying they’re going to do whatever it takes to be the best and looking and seeming like they should be successful, but just losing to the worst people on the show. Sometimes it ain’t about how bad you want it, Alex. Sometimes you also have to be good. I’ve got like a 10 inch vertical leap. If I want to be a gold medal pole vaulter, I can’t just hang around the Olympics being passionate about it and expect someone to hand one over.
Best: Joe Vs. Zayn
Want to see two guys who are really goddamn good at their jobs?
Sami Zayn’s been around for a while now, so I kinda take him for granted. “Of course he’s one of the best wrestlers in the company. Obviously.” But yo, Sami Zayn is one of the best wrestlers in the company. He might be the best wrestler on the WWE payroll right now, period. The injury didn’t cause him to lose a step, and he’s right back to telling incredible stories, doing entertaining/unbelievable in-ring work and connecting to the audience like nobody else. Don’t think I’m understating Joe, because the transformation of Joe from “sad guy we should’ve signed 10 years ago” to “SAMOA F*CKING JOE” is the best story of 2015. I just … man, I can’t even explain it.
There’s a moment pretty early in the match where Joe gets Sami against the ropes and blasts him with a chop. Sami sells it by collapsing back into the ropes, both of his arms limp, and falling to the ground with a look of incredulity on his face. Like he’d never been hit that hard in his life. He recovers from it quickly, but that single moment of choosing a unique, memorable sell and putting effort into every moment of a long match is what puts him above a lot of his peers. He got Joe’s strikes over as vicious without taking a crazy bump, without screaming at the top of his lungs and without insisting on it the entire match. When he gets hit, he gets hit. When he recovers, the announcers’ talking point about “running on adrenaline” doesn’t seem like an excuse … he’s still showing pain and wear and tear, he’s just moving forward with it.
Joe vs. Zayn is DOPE, as you’d expect it to be, and it builds to a finish that you kinda have to have, dumb as it sometimes is. Joe goes for a Muscle Buster, so Sami reverses by flipping out of the hold and landing on his feet. He hustles back into the corner and blasts Joe with a Helluva Kick, collapsing backwards over him. The referee counts to three, but both sets of shoulders were down, and we’re right back where we started. No winner, absolute equals.
Amazingly on a night where Prince Puma and Pentagon Jr. did the same finish, this was the better of the two. I can’t wait for the followup, and for literally any other instance of Joe doing a big power move to an enthusiastic little guy and stomping away from the scene looking pissed.
