Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE NXT: TakeOver: Brooklyn III happened! We have a new NXT champ, new tag champs and a new faction! Plus, Zelina Vega hid a T-shirt inside her butt, maybe?
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for August 23. 2017.
Worst: The New What Next
Ah, the dreaded post-TakeOver episode of NXT. It’s where literally nothing happens, ever. You know all those “WWE.com exclusive” clips you already watched on Twitter and YouTube? They’re back, in Pog form! The actual action we get to see in between recap packages was all taped before TakeOver: Brooklyn III, and one small change here is that some of these may actually have future consequences (if the writing team remembers what they did). So let’s run through it all, shall we?
Best: Fuel For The Hate Game
Last year at TakeOver: Brooklyn II, No Way Jose came out and started a conga line with eager members of the WWE Universe. It was a great TV moment, completely ruined for me when I found out a friend of a friend (who worked at Barclays) was one of the people in the conga line and was forced to participate (and wear a WWE T-shirt). In fact, everyone in the conga line was a building employee. It was a work! It felt like learning Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy were all not only imaginary but also neo-Nazis. That’s how disappointed I was. As such, No Way Jose fandom has never quite recovered.
When Jose comes out and tries to start a worked conga line again, I could feel the rage inside me starting to bubble. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one, because Lars Sullivan (who absolutely needs to be Kevin Sullivan’s kayfabe nephew) comes out and just wrecks shop on Jose and his bullsh*t conga line. The best part is according to this backstage promo, Sullivan was already scheduled for a match against Jose but apparently hates his theme song so much, he had to go beat him down to put a stop to it. Bless you, Lars.
Supplemental Best for Mauro Ranallo’s call of “Sullivan, intoxicated by cruelty!” That phrase is poetic as hell, man. I actually googled the phrase to make sure he wasn’t lifting it from somewhere else, but unless he’s a fan of a little-known hip-hop beatmaker, it looks like this was straight off of Mauro’s dome.
Best: Finding The Rhythms
The first actual match we get is between Peyton Royce (who looks phenomenal in her new gear, by the way) and Sarah Logan. This is actually a rematch between the two; they originally locked up two months ago. They more or less have the same match here, though it’s a little smoother. Billie Kay, again present at ringside, gets slightly involved this time but only to hold onto Royce, which actually causes her to almost get rolled up for a flash pin. The match ends the same way as before, too, with a beautiful-looking bridging fisherman’s suplex on the behalf of Royce.
So even though we had more or less already seen this match before, it was a good way to see how Sarah Logan would react in front of 15,000 people, instead of the 300 regulars at Full Sail, and I’d say she did just fine. I haven’t looked at any Mae Young Classic spoilers, but I have to assume Sarah Logan is going to go relatively deep in that tournament. NXT wouldn’t feature her on a stage this large if they didn’t have plans for her, right?
Worst: A Flight And A Crash
Our TakeOver: Brooklyn III Pre-Show Post-Show main event features four of WWE’s U.K. signees squaring off in a tag match. On one side we have Tyler Bate and Trent Seven, the latter of which’s body has begun to take a shape that is… Ohno-esque in its love handles. Across the ring, we have the oddball pairing of WWE U.K. Champion Pete Dunne and Wolfgang, a man we haven’t seen in a WWE ring since the U.K. Tournament in January. I dug Wolfgang in that tournament and got excited when NXT aired a vignette for him waaaay back in March, so it’s cool to see him get this look (plus it look like he slimmed down a bit, too, which made Trent Seven’s change of shape all the more noticeable).
Before the match, Wolfgang told Dunne he wanted to be next in line for a U.K. title shot if they won their tag match, which was a nice way to give a previously meaningless contest some sort of stakes. I don’t know what the holdup is with getting WWE’s U.K.-exclusive show off the ground, but at least they’re trying to create some sort of storyline for it without the benefit of weekly TV.
The match between these four men (who have all wrestled each other countless times before) was a fun but forgettable affair, the perfect warmup match for the Barclays live crowd. Here’s the main reason I’m Worsting it: Given how Bate and Dunne tore the goddamn house down at TakeOver: Chicago, there could have been real heat with the two of them eventually locking up again. But instead, someone backstage decided to have these two guys start off the match, giving the crowd no chance to actually care about them throwing hands again. Like, why not have Wolfgang or Seven in there first? Build the damn anticipation up! This decision totally baffled me. Bate and Dunne touching hands again should have been a big deal. Instead, nothing.
The main event ends with Wolfgang making the blind tag, hitting a Senton Bomb off the top rope and pinning Tyler Bate in somewhat of a shocker. I guess that means we’ll see Wolfgang/Dunne at some point in the future – hopefully, it will be sooner than the next TakeOver.
NXT Promo Train Lightning Round
As was to be expected, this episode was light on wrestling and heavy on recaps. However, sprinkled throughout the 50 minutes were a few new interviews:
— We get a clip of Asuka backstage immediately following her victory over Ember Moon at TakeOver: Brooklyn III. (You can tell it’s immediately afterward because you can hear the crowd do Bobby Roode’s “GLORIOUS!” taunt in the background.) I don’t know about you, but her supposedly broken collarbone looks A-OK to me. And not to get all flat-earther on you or whatever, but did you notice how in Asuka’s recent tweet acknowledging the injury and including a picture of an X-ray, you can’t actually see the supposedly broken collarbone? Now I’m just a small-town pizza lawyer, but I do declare that we’re all being worked, brother.
— Johnny Gargano pops up and says he takes full responsibility for his loss at TakeOver. Pretty brave of you not to blame a piece of cotton, John.
— The WWE press corps (which is basically whichever social media interns aren’t currently filling seats at the Titus Worldwide press conference) chase after a dapper-looking Aleister Black as he leaves the Barclays Center, not uttering a word. Honestly, if I looked that good in a suit, I wouldn’t say sh*t either.
— Lastly and most importantly, we get a new interview with Bobby Roode following his main-roster debut on Smackdown this week. In it, Roode confirms he’s going to be pulling double duty between Team Blue and Team Yellow, promising to come after Roddy Strong and get his championship rematch against Drew McIntyre. We haven’t seen someone bounce between both brands since Kevin Owens was called up two years ago, but in this situation they’ve already gotten the belt off Roode, so it’s a forgone conclusion that he’s going to do the job to both of those guys – otherwise, why even have him come back?
Next Week: A new set of NXT TV tapings will be in the books, so presumably, stuff happens! (Hopefully.)
