WWE NXT: Best and Worst of May 23, 2018

Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE NXT: Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch pinned the NXT Tag Team Champions in a six-man, Kona Reeves continued doing whatever Kona Reeves is trying to do, and the Velveteen Dream decided he had “one and only” issue with Ricochet.

If you missed this episode, you can watch it here. If you’d like to read previous installments of the Best and Worst of NXT, click right here. Follow With Spandex on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter, where everything is terrible.

And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for May 23, 2018.

Best-ish, But Not Great: Light Machinery

Up first this week is the next chapter in NXT’s decision to turn TM-61 heel in a tag team division already built almost entirely out of heel teams, giving them another cheap win over one of the only notable face teams, Heavy Machinery. If NXT’s got a consistent bad habit, it’s putting the tag titles on one team, having that team dominate for months, and forgetting to develop anyone worth beating them. At the top of the division you’ve got the Undisputed Era going into an NXT TakeOver Tag Team Championship match with Oney and Twoey, and while that should be good-to-outstanding, you’d be surprised as hell if the challengers won. See also The Ascension vs. whomever, or the Wyatt Family vs. whomever, or the Authors of Pain vs. whomever. Face teams are really only there to get the belts from one dominant heel team to the next.

That trickles down into undercard tag matches as well, so you’ve got situations like this, with TM-61 getting a push as sneaky heels and beating pretty much anybody they’d get put into a program with while they do it. Heavy Machinery’s basically the tag team of Sam the Eagle and Sweetums, sure, and they’re going to be transitional tag champs at some point, but it’s either these guys or “local talent” every week. I get it. It’s fun while it lasts, and is a solid if not completely forgettable opener.

I think TM-61 can make a good heel team, but I think I personally prefer them as faces. Remember that one week when they got wacky and got a personality? They forgot that pretty quickly, didn’t they? Really the joy of the match is watching Dozer stomp around like the living emoji he is, and seeing him lose because he decided to wipe himself down with his opponent’s shirt instead of following through with his moves. The first person that runs into the ring and stomps him in the head when he’s doing The Caterpillar earns bonus points. Don’t get me wrong, Otis rules, I just had to live through half a decade of Scotty 2 Hotty Worming people with like two interruptions ever and I’m not sure I’m completely over it.

Oh, and speaking of the Undisputed Era, hard comma,

Undisputed Era Promo Power Rankings:

1. Adam Cole, who always seems natural and should really be doing the talking for everyone
2. Kyle O’Reilly, who is pretty funny with his enthusiastic uneducated goon gimmick (“Peter Doon”) but might be trying a little too hard
3. Hipster Al Bundy
4. Roderick Strong, who sounds like Kyle O’Reilly if he was shoot uneducated and should really not be doing the talking for anyone, especially himself

WWE Network should add a second screen experience where you can “punch” these guys via app while they’re talking. They’re so good at being grating. They need to go all in with these shoulder-to-shoulder conversation promos though, film them in black and white with fake scratch effects on the film, and have the following announcement paid for by the Undisputed Era. They should also add like 15 additional members. Why do WWE factions always max out at four? Sometimes they don’t even make it to that. Dana Brooke joined Titus Worldwide and Tozawa suddenly had to pretend like he’d never met them.

Best: Matches That Make Physical Sense

I love how the Kairi Sane vs. Lacey Evans match was set up. They had a match back in April that Kairi won, and Lacey kept being a jerk about it. So this is match #2, and Kairi gets heated, starting with a dropkick and punching instead of an emotionally neutral “feeling out” process. She dominates a lot of the match because of this, but it also takes her off her normal (almost always successful) gameplan and leaves her open for, say, big strikes while she’s going for big jumping aggressive things. Lacey Evans’ finisher is the “Woman’s Right” punch, which she’s able to connect with with authority and K.O. Kairi long enough to get a surprise pin. Lacey looking like she broke her hand on the blow and Kairi’s weak “kick-out” arm lift after the three told the story better than any announce team could.

So now Kairi Sane’s won a match and Liberty Belle’s won one, and there’s decent intrigue about who’d take the rubber match. That’s solid booking all around.

Best: Unpredictability Alley-Oops It To Predictability

The other major match of the show — and more or less the show’s main event, even though it started somewhere in the middle — is the handicap match between Lars Sullivan and his opponents, Ricochet and Velveteen Dream. This is a followup to last week, when Lars attacked both men and ruined what was looking like the first five minutes of a really great 20 minute New Japan thing. They did the Will Ospreay backflip feint to standoff and everything!

I might like Lars Sullivan more than most people. He’s the French Angel reincarnated. This wrestling Shrek with gigantic hands and a weird face who looks like he wandered in from 1968 to Gorilla Monsoon the shit out of today’s most hairless musclemen. He’s just so gross and threatening. He’s a great contrast to flippy everyman Ricochet and character-driven Velveteen Dream, and I like how they made Lars look strong and nigh-invulnerable without pretending like repeated tandem offense from two of the brand’s top up-and-coming singles stars wouldn’t stun or hurt him. They even look like they’re going to put it together and win, like they should, but Velveteen gets bent out of shape randomly in the middle about etiquette and leaves Ric to the wolves. One Freak Accident later and it’s over, with this face for emphasis:

Love you, Lars. And I love that Ricochet and Velveteen Dream are still more or less booked as equals, together or in opposition, and that they’re eventually going to have one of the best matches we’ve ever seen in the company. It is known. Lars looks strong as hell for his inevitable confrontation with Aleister Black, too, and everything’s in its right place.

Mostly Best: Johnny Falling

The main event of the night is Johnny Gargano showing up in a neck brace with a concerned-as-hell Candice LeRae to … feign retirement, or something? I don’t know if it’s that severe, but they tried to do an “I’m gonna make a sad announcement because me and my wife decided it was necessary” fake-out before getting to the “I want to kick Tommaso Ciampa’s lousy ass right now in front of everybody” part. That’s definitely the better part.

Everyone’s playing their role well here. Gargano’s trying to be a good dude (as seen in the finish to his TakeOver New Orleans match, where he offered Ciampa redemption and got refused) but is getting pushed farther and farther over the edge by a crazy person who won’t stop trying to kill him. Candice is showing a lot of emotional depth by standing up for herself but also openly wanting Ciampa and Gargano to chill before somebody’s career ends. And of course Ciampa is the most heel heel WWE’s had in a damn fortnight or twelve and does everything he can to make life difficult for everyone else.

I didn’t love the big spot at the end, though. I know the idea is that she hit her head on that omnipresent steel ramp, but it’s Candice LeRae, man. She’s a wrestler. She shouldn’t get incapacitated taking the Terri Runnels miscarriage bump from her husband, who is more or less the same size. Plus, it’s NXT, people hit their head on that ramp offensively and defensively all the time. I don’t think Sami Zayn ever dove at Full Sail without coming an inch from Super Calo’ing himself into the floor.

Still, I get what they’re doing, and it’s good character development for Gargano. The only reason his wife got hurt is because he wouldn’t listen to her and gave in to Ciampa’s badgering. Ciampa and the fans are the reason he couldn’t “do the right thing,” and that’s a tough spot to be in for the babyface of all babyfaces. What’re you supposed to do when your feud isn’t over, but it’s starting to bleed into your personal life and affect your loved ones? As long as they don’t completely fridge Candice, I’m into it.