Pre-show notes:
– If you’re interested in watching an hour of not wrestling, you can watch this week’s episode on Hulu or on WWE’s YouTube channel.
– Be sure you’ve read the Best and Worst of NXT season 1, the Best and Worst of NXT season 2 and what we’ve done so far in the Best and Worst of season 3.
– Follow us on Twitter at @WithSpandex, follow me at @MrBrandonStroud and like us on Facebook.
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Please click through for the vintage Best and Worst of NXT season 3, episode 4.
Worst: Let’s Star This Week Off With A Goddamn Wheelbarrow Race
This is the week when WWE totally gives up.
The first competition of episode 4 is the WHEELBARROW RACE to show “strength and poise.” Hornswoggle puts on a helmet and sits in a wheelbarrow, and the women have to wheel him around the ring. It’s like someone in creative went “potato sack race?” and the rest of them went “nah, too dignified.”
It’s not even funny. It’s literally just Divas pushing Hornswoggle around in a wheelbarrow in a circle. The only entertaining aspect of it (besides Matt Striker’s baggy argyle sweater) is Maxine wheeling Hornswoggle off into the ramp like an inanimate object because she doesn’t care if he lives or dies, but even that’s ruined when he gets back at her by biting her on the ass. A few episodes later Hornswoggle would be making out with half of these girls in a kissing contest.
Kaitlyn wins with a time of 12.0 seconds, leading to the line of the night from a shouting Michael Cole: “YOU’RE ANALYZING A WHEELBARROW RACE! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. IT IS A WHEELBARROW RACE.”
Worst: No CM Punk
Speaking of Michael Cole, it turns out that God-given episode 3 color-man CM Punk was lying when he said he guaranteed he’d be back for episode 4. CM Punk promising greatness and then bailing on us. That’s so unlike him.
Worst: See You Never, NXT
The big announcement for this week’s show is that NXT will be moving to WWE.com, where it will be seen exclusively by perverts and ignored by everyone who’d been watching out of habit. I love the announcers trying to spin “exclusively on WWE.com” as some cool thing that makes it “the most interactive show,” but I wish the graphic had just said NXT SEASON 3 MOVES TO WWE.COM BECAUSE UGH I GUESS WE HAVE TO FINISH IT.
Keep in mind that there was no WWE Network in 2010. The best thing they had was Classics On Demand, which is great if you like paying for stuff that’s free on YouTube with no discernible increase in video quality. If NXT season 3 had failed a few years later they would’ve moved the episodes to Tout, and the wheelbarrow contest would’ve been 15 seconds of jumpy-ass wheelbarrows falling over.
Worst: There Is Not One Minute Of Wrestling On This Show, But Here’s A 10 Minute Replay Of A Kane Promo
I guess WWE’s thought process was that they were moving NXT to WWE.com, so they might as well give us no reason whatsoever to follow it over. There is ZERO wrestling on this episode, and the space between the wheelbarrow race and Diss The Diva is a solid THIRTY MINUTES of video packages, Hell in a Cell previews, shots of Cole and Josh and a ten minute (!!) replay of a Kane promo. A KANE PROMO.
Remember when The Undertaker was “found in a vegetative state?” No, not WrestleMania 30, the other time. The shocking reveal was that Kane had done this to him (gasp), leading to the return of Paul Bearer and the least memorable series of Kane vs. Undertaker pay-per-view matches ever. They had a Hell in a Cell match brought to you by PAPER JAMZ (because when you think of “hell,” you think of “novelty paper guitars”) and a Buried Alive match brought to you by a video game without a buried alive match in it.
It’s the week before an elimination episode and nobody’s wrestling. I can’t, man. The only reasonable explanation is that they’d decided to eliminate Jamie and were like, “don’t chance it. Just have them push around wheelbarrows.”
Worst: Diss The Diva
No segment has ever exemplified the difference in early 2000s and early 2010s WWE like the NXT season 3 Diss The Divas competition.
To put this into perspective, we need to jump back to 2004’s inaugural Diva Search competition. With four women remaining, WWE thought it’d be wise to have a “Diss The Diva” contest, wherein each girl would have 30 seconds to insult her fellow contestants. The result was a brutal masterpiece. WWE apparently never went over what you can and can’t say on live TV, and Stacy Keibler has the improv ability of a mailbox and just let it all slide.
If you’ve never seen it, jump to the 4:00 mark of the following video and prepare for the worst:
To recap the highlights:
– Joy: *grabs boobs* *slaps asses* “You talk a lot of shit but you’ve got a gap so wide you could drive a truck right through there.”
– Amy: “Whore, you don’t have any respect for WWE. You know shit about wrestling. Guess what? Having a cock in your mouth has nothing to do with wrestling, bitch.” Carmella’s incredulous “a cock in my mouth?” is my favorite part.
– Carmella: “What a great role model you are, mom. What a great role model. Talk shit on TV. Yeah shake that fat ass. Shake that fat ass. Shake your fat ass.”
– Christy: “Carmella, you’re a cum-guzzling gutter slut.”
Brutal, real, and hilarious.
Now, fast forward to 2010. Chris Benoit has killed his family, WWE’s entering a deal with Mattel that requires them to be as TV-PG as possible and people are scared to do or say anything.
To recap the highlights:
– Aksana: “I look great.”
– AJ: “I’m a nerd! I like wrestling more than the other girls.”
– Kaitlyn: “Naomi’s butt is big!”
– Jamie: “This one’s dressed like she belongs in a CIRCUS. On a TRAPEEEEZE.”
– Naomi: “I don’t want to insult anyone.”
– Maxine: “Mean girls are better than nice girls!”
I’m surprised nobody dropped a “dragon breath!” insult in there somewhere.
Best: The Chickbusters, Busting Chicks
The only highlight of the entire show is the budding friendship between AJ and Kaitlyn. They spend Maxine’s hourlong 30-second promo making fun of her in the background; they do an exaggerated “worker” handshake, play pattycake and do the robot. It’s a small, insignificant attempt by two women with huge personalities to show a tiny, tiny bit of that on history’s most personality-free show. Of course, they have to stop when Jamie, NXT’s most insufferable person, tells them to.
Michael Cole spends the entire segment texting. SEE YOU ON WWE.COM.
