The Best And Worst Of WWE NXT 8/2/17: Fade To Black

Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE NXT: Ember Moon wrecked a former TNA Knockout, Drew McIntyre started the #OccupyFullSail movement, and Kassius Ohno got kicked in the dick. Bummer, dude.

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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for August 2, 2017.

What We Should Have Done Inside The Purple Ropes This Week

This week’s episode of NXT kicks off with the debut of Johnny Gargano, singles star. Even though we’ve already heard his new theme song once, he makes a spectacle of walking out to the old version with the DIY logo on the Titantron, halting the music and then ushering in the new theme and brand new graphics. Just like that, DIY is officially retired, so look for their shirt on WWEShop clearance any minute now.

Gargano squares off against former Cruiserweight Classic competitor Raul Mendoza, and the result is a competitive, fast-paced cruiserweight match that strangely pit babyface against babyface, which was an odd booking choice, especially if you’re trying to make Gargano into the ultra-likeable underdog. Jonathan Grappling wins with a crossface, and Mendoza looks good in the process, but it’s clear NXT is going to take its time before thrusting Gargano into a main event-caliber feud.

Worst: Aaahh!!! Real Monsters

His weird rambling about SAnitY was kinda funny, but Paul Ellering saying, “Monsters are real” earned a legit LOL from me, which is probably not the response he was going for. Bonus Worst for the production team deciding to film this promo in a room full of leaky pipes. Roto-Rooter is available 24/7, guys. You can get that stuff fixed any time.

Worst: You Can’t Handle The Truth

Next, business-casual Asuka comes out, complete with cotton candy hair and a Hillary Clinton pantsuit, and does her usual “No one is ready for Asuka!” schtick. She gets cut off by Ember Moon (in jeans!), who turns her line around on her: “The truth is Asuka isn’t ready for Ember Moon.” This leads to Asuka extending her hand, followed by my new favorite GIF:

Seriously, how dumb does Ember Moon have to be to fall for the classic “Psych!” move? Surfer Sting had more brain cells. Asuka follows up that little bit of humiliation with a hard slap, and it’s on. The two scrap, and the end result is Ember Moon hitting the Eclipse on Asuka — and it looks like dog sh*t. Apparently Asuka is the only woman in NXT who doesn’t know how to sell a stunner. So we have a babyface stupid enough to try and shake hands with a woman who cheated to win their match at TakeOver: Orlando and then purposely injured her to keep her out of TakeOver: Chicago, and we have a champion who can’t even be bothered to make her opponent’s finishing move look good ahead of their upcoming title match. C’mon, man.

One small Best, though: When Ember has the chance to pick up Asuka’s championship, then stops herself and says, “I’ll get that when I earn it.” That small bit of character development almost saved the whole segment for me, since it goes against virtually every single title-based feud in WWE for the past few decades.

Best: A Message To You, Roode-y

Bob Roo uses his promo time to not only challenge No. 1 contender Drew McIntyre to a face-to-face conversation next week, but also throws in some more insults toward Roddy Strong’s way for no real reason other than he’s the champ and he can do what he wants. Naturally, this summons Strong, who charges him and gets held back by what appeared to be the Ealy Brothers (though sadly, this did not magically summon Samoa Joe to the arena to beat them down). Roode flees as William Regal arrives and dresses down a desperate Roddy, telling him to be a professional and that there already is a No.1 contender for the championship, so his hands are tied in terms of giving Strong a rematch.

All of the sudden, I’m wondering if the TakeOver: Brooklyn III main event is going to turn into a triple threat. What if Roddy shows up next week and wrecks shop, making both champion and challenger want a piece of him? The potential resulting TakeOver match could be shades of the classic WrestleMania XX Triple H/Shawn Michaels/Chris Benoit triple threat, with Strong playing the role of the Crippler — someone who is being underestimated by two big, strong, charismatic competitors and ends up stealing the whole thing. (Now all I wanna do is read spoilers to see what happens next week, but I promise you I won’t.)

Best: Look Ma, No Hands

Anyone here used to play Ice Hockey for NES? I loved that game, and how your one character could be normal, slim or big. All I could think of while watching this match was that if WWE ever licensed that engine for some retro game, Jenna Van Bemel would undoubtedly be the “big” version of the “blonde female wrestler” character. It’s like looking at Charlotte in a funhouse mirror. A quick cruise through her Instagram tells me she could 100 percent break most WWE female Superstars in half, and I would pay to see it. Hopefully she’ll stick around.

Her opponent is Sonya Deville, and she is really nailing her MMA gimmick. I popped big when she put her hands behind her back, daring Van Bemel to take a swing at her, and the sudden end of the match with the triangle armbar out of nowhere was shocking and exciting, just like the end of any good MMA fight. Looking forward to see where her character goes — hopefully it’s to “brutalize Aliyah and her dumb cat ears any time she steps foot in Full Sail.”

Best: 私にクソなマイクをくれ

Hideo Itami gets interviewed by Kayla Braxton backstage for about eight seconds before getting told to throw it back to the ring, but Itami isn’t having it. He goes into full-on Scott Steiner mode, grabs her mic and storms the ring, demanding respect from the audience. Instead of respect, he ends up getting a face full of foot, as Aleister Black comes to the ring for his previously scheduled match and drops Itami with a gorgeous surprise Black Mass when Itami tries to sneak-attack him. Extra Best to Full Sail for chanting “you deserve it” at Hideo as he lay there selling Black’s finisher like death.

WWE has uploaded a bonus clip of Itami coming after Black outside Full Sail, so it looks like my previous prediction of a Ohno/Itami rematch for TakeOver: Brooklyn was wrong, and we’re getting Itami/Black instead. Finally, Aleister Black kinda-sorta has a storyline! I am fully supportive.

Best: O’RLY?

After Itami’s corpse is rolled out of the ring, Aleister Black prepares for his actual main-event match, against the debuting Kyle O’Reilly. Three weeks ago, O’Reilly’s longtime ReDragon tag-team partner, Bobby Fish, debuted in NXT, losing to Black in one of Ali’s better TV matches, so it’s only fitting that O’Reilly also loses to Black in his NXT debut, and gives him his best competition to date (the only match I’d maybe place above this was Black/Ohno last month).

The pair are given a solid 15 minutes to work, even though it was frustratingly broken up by two commercial breaks. The urgency and realism the two give to their sequences really sold the whole encounter: For example, when Black sweeps out O’Reilly’s leg and dude just straight-up falls on top of him instead of to the side felt legit, and when O’Reilly had the ankle lock all the way in and Black started walloping him in the face with his foot looked great too. Once again, Black’s springboard hurricanrana was a thing of beauty, and O’reilly outsmarting him the second time around and catching him on the ropes was even better.

Of course, the finish devolved into a whole load of stiff kicks and strikes, concluding when O’Reilly caught Black with an axe kick that he absorbs and somehow manages to recoil into a Black Mass outta nowhere for the victory. There may come a time when I get tired of seeing strong-style matches on NXT, but today is not that day, so good job, both of y’all.

Next Week: No Way Jose and Andrade “Cien” Almas square off plus the debut of new tag team Street Profits, and we’ll see a conversation/confrontation between Bobby Roode and Drew McIntyre.