Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE NXT: Samoa Joe attacked Shinsuke Nakamura, sending him out on a stretcher and making him look vulnerable for the first time in his WWE career. Then he drove away from the arena with like half his body hanging out of a moving car. Also on the show, Rachel Ellering became “Rachel Fazio,” because reasons.
If you missed this episode, you can watch it here. If you’d like to read our older columns, click over here. With Spandex is on Twitter, so follow it, and like us on Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter.
Be sure to click the share buttons before and after the column, as your help and patronage keep us in the business of reviewing WWE developmental for fun and profit!
And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for Sept. 21, 2016.
Best: Samoa Joe Violently Destroys HIPAA
So, Samoa Joe is back on his “William Regal, give me what I want right now or I swear to God I’ll destroy everybody on the roster” kick. The last time he was like this, he just beat up Mojo Rawley and they were like, “STOP IT, STOP IT, YOU CAN HAVE WHAT YOU WANT.” It was essentially this scene.
Joe wants the NXT Championship back, and he’s willing to not only put Shinsuke Nakamura in the Local Medical Facility to get it, but to heinously VIOLATE HIPAA as well. Joe shows up with Nakamura’s medical records and starts reading them over a microphone in the middle of a wrestling ring, which is probably the most, “a 40-year-old with first-world concerns wrote this” series of threats in wrestling history. Oh no, people are gonna know about my CONTUSIONS!
Regal shows up and is like, “I don’t know how you got Nakamura’s medical records,” which is hilarious to me. I want a WWE.com exclusive where Joe goes to an Urgent Care in Winter Park and chokes out a desk clerk to get Nakamura’s file. I’m also into the idea that Joe just made this up, because maybe he was pre-med or is just really into doctor culture and writes physician–patient privilege fan fiction.
Best: You Are Gonna Get Kicked So Hard
Good question, Not Cathy.
Backstage, Hip-Hop Aksana Liv Morgan is being interviewed about why she thinks literally any aspect of her existence qualifies her to stand in a ring with Asuka. She says she didn’t start at the bottom to stay at the bottom, so she’s prepping for the match by DOING EXTRA SQUATS. Yes, if you do 75 squats instead of 40 it keeps your skull from caving in when someone kicks it.
Asuka shows up to do her, “you, are, going to, DIE, LOL” bit, and Liv responds by angrily taking off her Back to the Future II hat. Just angrily takes it right off. Asuka clutches her pearls and runs away. Just kidding, she’s imagining 400 ways to end Liv Morgan’s life with her feet.
Worst: Lorcan For Love In All The Wrong Places
Almost two months ago, Oney Lorcan responded to a win over Tye Dillinger by saying he’d have to “go back to his roots” if he wanted to compete in NXT. Not sure why he’d say that after a win, but sure. This week, he shows back up with no mention of where he’s been or the roots he went back to, and loses to Austin Aries. So what, did you go back to the Performance Center to learn how to lose, because it was weird to show up as a jobber and win?
Best: A League Of Their Oney
So yeah, Wonny takes on Austin Aries. The match revolves around Lorcan headlocking Aries all the time, no matter what, and builds and builds until Aries just picks him up and throws him out of the ring. It’s kinda great. It also makes me wonder if Oney’s “root” was being trained by Barry Horowitz, and Barry was like, “when the match starts, grab a headlock.” And then Oney’s like, “cool, what now,” and Barry’s like, “I don’t know, this is as far as I’ve gotten.”
The Cruiserweight Classic has put NXT into a weird new context for me. I know it’s apples and oranges, but everyone on the CWC was trying so hard, it makes a lot of the matches on NXT seem extra boring. Even the good ones! It’s such a similar context, same arena, same night, now even some of the same performers. But on the CWC, they’re doing everything they’ve ever learned, and they’re burning with this intense passion to prove themselves. And on NXT, Oney’s like, “headlock, headlock, headlock, headlock.” Don’t get me wrong, as a Bryan Danielson homer I love a good fundamentals showdown; it’s just hard to disassociate the shows.
Oney almost pulls out a victory after hitting a f*cking Shoryuken on Aries, but falls victim to the You Do Not Have Any Remaining Chanceries.
Best: The Assassination Of Austin Aries By The Coward Hideo Itami
After the match, Aries continues to earn infinity heel points by calling Hideo Itami a coward, then physically running from him in fear the second Itami gets into the ring. It’s so simple, but Aries does it so well. The best compliment I can give him is that he’s like Chris Jericho. When he’s a face, I want to throw him down a flight of stairs. When he’s a heel, I want to give him one of those 10-second-plus Kenneth Parcell hugs.
Worst: Let’s Get These Moves Figured Out
The running joke of Aliyah matches seems to be, “someone does a cool submission that should probably be a finisher, and then a transitional move ends the match.” Remember when she put that headscissors kimura thing on Liv Morgan and bent her in half, and Liv just broke out like it was nothing and was like, HAVE A JUMPING BULLDOG FROM 2003? This week, Billie Kay’s got Aliyah in a goddamn cutthroat Torture Rack, and it’s all to set up a boot to the face. Not even like, one into the other, Aliyah escapes the cool submission move and loses to a basic strike.
Maybe I’m misguided due to writing up 19-year-old episodes of Nitro every week, but the Torture Rack was once the most over move in wrestling. It might be the most over move EVER. Luger could forearm a 6-10 jobber in dead silence, but when he yelled AAAAHHH and clucked his arms up and down like a chicken, the crowd would stand in unison and lose their minds. If “tall” and “arrogantly classy” are the only modifiers you can come up with for Billie Kay, hell, have her Torture Rack folks. Not like the Estate of Lex Luger’s gonna jump up your ass about it.
Best: The Women’s Division Is Getting Characters, Though!
The thing is, I like both of these wrestlers. My impressions of Aliyah are sorta soured by how abrasive she was when she was “debuting” on Breaking Ground, but she’s got a lot in the tank and could be a good hand. She seems to be progressing faster than some of her contemporaries. I know Billie Kay’s going to be great once she stops moving around like a newborn baby giraffe and gets comfortable on television. Where’s Peyton Royce, though? It’s been too long since I’ve seen a lady smell a flower. Cassie and Jessie forever, y’all.
Meanwhile, Eva Marie palette swap Mandy Rose — seriously, they’ve got the same character, the same talking points, even the same Corey Graves fandom — says she’s going to “eclipse” Ember Moon. I’m sure that will definitely happen. Join us next week when Candice Michelle returns and is like, “Bull Nakano? Please, she’s not even SEXY.”
Best: Cedric Alexander Is Pretty Much The Best
For another example of how the CWC is morphing talent impressions and expectations in NXT, look at the difference between the happy chanting and clapping of Cedric Alexander’s entrance and the instant coma silence of the Cien Almas graphic. They’re like, “LET’S GO CEDRIC LET’S GO CEDRIC LET’S GO CED-I should probably check my phone.”
I feel like we say it even more than the announce team, but man, nobody has ever benefited from losing 20 pounds more than Cedric Alexander. He moves and jumps and dives like someone who still thinks he’s 20 pounds heavier, so he’s pushing off harder on everything to compensate. So now he’s jumping higher than everyone on leapfrogs, backflipping into enzuigiris with room to spare and diving so far over the top rope you could add a f*cking fourth one and he’d clear them. WWE should do a company-wide “everyone lose 20 pounds RIGHT NOW” initiative to see what super-workers are hiding in the ranks. Like, if Sheamus dropped 20 pounds could he pull off a Space Flying Tiger Drop?
Alexander and Almas have a GREAT match, and it makes me wish we could go back and replace some of those Ho Ho Lun motherf*ckers in the CWC with WWE talent to see what kind of matches we would’ve gotten. I desperately want to see Almas and Neville and Kalisto and whoever else going full tilt, and not trying to wrestle these undercard matches like they’re Lucky f*cking Cannon because they think that’s what WWE wants and expects. We know Almas is dope. Everybody with a brain knows it. But the way they’ve packaged and presented him so far has been the worst kind of WWE focus group-ass decision making, and I hope him losing to Cedric is the beginning of him getting an actual story and being able to find his footing. We should not be this indifferent to a guy this good.
And yeah, count me in as an acolyte in the church of Cedric. I don’t know if he (or anyone) can maintain this kind of momentum, but there isn’t a bad thing to say about him. I just hope they let the Raw Cruiserweights be regulars on NXT so they can actually get some work in, and not just work 1/4 of 7 minutes once a week.
