Previously on the Best and Worst of NXT: Chad Gable and Jason Jordan continued their rise to Folk Hero status by tearing it up with (and defeating) Tommaso Ciampa and John Wrestling. Emma made little girls around the world sad by beating up a lady who looks like Elsa from Frozen, Eva Marie mailed in another promo from Paris, and Tyler Breeze said his (hopefully temporary) goodbye to NXT in a losing effort against Samoa Joe. Also, Devin Taylor made like the Foot Clan and vanished without trace.
Click here to watch this week’s episode on WWE Network. Be sure to follow the weekly column on the Best and Worst of NXT tag page. Please scroll through to enjoy this week’s edition, for November 4, 2015.
Best: Girl Die
This week we open with the glorious first meeting of MOST DANGEROUS ASUKA and Cameron, who has never been “most” or “dangerous” anything.
Let’s take a moment to recap Cameron’s time in WWE. She started off as a Tough Enough contestant and didn’t win, but gave us the only moment anyone remembers from that season. From there, she became the less talented of two pterodactyl-themed funk cheerleaders for a dancing dinosaur spaceman. She managed to parlay that into both a music career and a singles run in which she plays a character who wears a child-sized sexy librarian Halloween costume and never learned how to wrestle. Additional highlights include that time she did the splits on Naomi and tried to pin her while she was lying on her stomach, and that time she tried to bribe a police officer so he wouldn’t tell WWE she was driving drunk. On Total Divas she’s “Ariane,” a woman with a weird boyfriend who travels the world drinking and worrying about her weird boyfriend until it’s time for her to go to a wrestling arena and get told she’s not wrestling.
The newest version of her is the Player 2 version of Eva Marie. She gets fed to Asuka, who if you’re paying attention has become sort of a Divas woodchipper. Worried that someone can’t work as well as you’d like? Throw her at Asuka and let her get kicked to death. They did it with Dana, they’ve done it on the house show circuit with Eva and now they’re doing it with Cameron. It’s all done for that instantaneous reaction of OH MY GOD I MIGHT SEE A WOMAN DIE FOR REAL.
What’s great here is that Cameron’s offense is still dumb as bricks and splits-based, but she holds her own and does a great job as a pre-chipped block of wood. That moment where Asuka catches her foot and calmly puts it down only to get slapped and turn it into an armbar is one of the most infinitely rewatchable moments EVER. It’s the opening moments of the above video if you missed it. Asuka spends the rest of the match doing Funkadactyl poses and crushing Cameron’s heart with hip attacks, and all is good in the world.
I’d honestly be into Cameron training hard and eventually realizing her destiny as the NXT version of Alicia Fox, where you’re like, “hey, she seems like she might actually be a really good wrestler, can we get her in some matches where she doesn’t just do one move and lose?”
Best: The World’s Greatest Something Something
Chad Gable and Jason Jordan still cut promos like they’re on their first date, but two things:
1. Gable and Jordan are so awesome right now that their promos could be them cupping their armpits and making fart noises and I’d be into them, and
2. They’re openly referencing The World’s Greatest Tag Team, which is the kind of self-aware stuff you’ve just gotta say sometimes.
Shelton X Benjamin might demand too high a paycheck these days, but if we’re giving guys like Brian Kendrick and Rhyno notalgia appearances (and/or runs) in NXT, I would die for a Benjamin and Charlie Haas re-up to face Gable and JJ on a random TakeOver. That’s how they should bring Kurt Angle back. Let Hass and Benjamin and Gable and Jordan tear it up for 15 minutes, have Gable and Jordan go up and have Angle magically show up at the end to congratulate them. If you want to fantasy book it all the way through, let Angle suplex them around a little for stealing his sh*t and set up Angle/Jordan and Angle/Gable matches. Tell me those wouldn’t set the damn world on fire. Once that’s done, you put Angle in a Royal Rumble or something and give him his formal, main roster farewell tour. End it with a match against Cena.
Or, you know, skip all of that and keep Jordan and Gable so promising and exciting that they can say things like “so sick” in promos and have everyone still love them.
Best: The Evolution Of Bayley
speaking of people who’d say “so sick”
Okay, so the jaded NXT regular in me should be disappointed that the best partners Bayley could find were the damn Hype Bros, but I think it works. It’s the next step in Bayley’s character evolution. Think about it. In her pre-championship days, Bayley’s defining characteristics were (1) she didn’t have the self-confidence to step up and be as good as she could be, and (2) she marked out like a 10-year old for anyone who was on WWE TV. Flair and Dusty were one thing, but remember when she hugged the Great Khali? Bayley loved WWE anything. She’d get star-struck around Natalya.
Now that she’s champion and conquered defining characteristic one, she gets to tackle characteristic two. Instead of being all demure and not having partners and hoping somebody saves her at the last minute, she goes out and finds them: Mojo Rawley and Zack Ryder. She doesn’t act like she doesn’t belong anymore. She’s their friend. She works with them and sees them all the time. Zack Ryder was once a huge deal and an important part of WWE TV, but Bayley doesn’t care. I mean, maybe she does, but she’s not marking out. She’s one of them, now. And yeah, maybe some of it has to do with the fact that it’s ZACK RYDER and at this point he’s legitimately less notable than Mojo Rawley, but the point stands.
Also, as a light spoiler alert, the Bayley/Hype Bros vs. BAMF six-person tag features what might be Bayley’s best character moment ever, so get hype for that. Well, I guess you already are. Okay, stay that way.
Worst: Eva Destruction
I’m sorta forced to write about it every time she wrestles, but it’s impossible to judge Eva fairly anymore. Her badness and the fact that she clearly doesn’t belong having WWE-quality matches on WWE TV aren’t just observations, they’re in-canon talking points, which means you can’t just observe them, you have to choose whether you agree or disagree. Saying Eva’s bad means you’re this thing, and saying she’s not means you’re that. It sucks. It’s the worst part of WWE not just giving up and releasing her into the wild to become an Instagram model, or whatever.
Eva takes on “Marley” — Gionna Daddio making her official TV debut after cameos as a Tyler Breeze model and as Bull Dempsey’s gym pal — and it’s … I mean, it’s not the worst Eva Marie effort ever, but … okay, there’s a joke I write about Sin Cara where when he gets to the end of a match without f*cking up it feels special, because you’re so used to him f*cking up. That’s Eva. Eva doesn’t necessarily botch more than your average wrestler, but she ALWAYS botches something, usually at the most visible time of the match. There’s never an Eva match that goes fine and has no problems, at least not on TV. She’ll forget to kick out of a pin, or forget what selling is and just crawl to her corner, or whatever. Here, she throws the world’s worst big boot out of the corner to set up her new finish, and it’s so bad that the crowd starts going “ennnghhhhh” again and chants “WHAT WAS THAT?” It seems mean, but f*ck, can we EVER get the alternative?
The new finish is a sliding Flatliner that could probably get over as a cool transitional move, but should not be knocking anybody out. It’s like Natural Selection, where you’re falling about an arms-length to the mat with someone’s arm in the way. I guess they 86’d the Sliced Bread when they realized they couldn’t trust more than like two people with the job of lifting Eva up, guiding her from rope to rope, turning and falling without killing everyone involved.
Be sure to watch the backstage interview with Eva, which probably sounded great on paper before they fed it through Femputer.
Best: Marley
Yo dawg I heard you were from Jersey so I put Jersey on your jersey so you could Jersey in your Jersey jersey.
Best: We’re Dawson And Wilder And We’re Gonna Make You DIFFERENTLY ABLED
Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder are the most Andersonian motherf*ckers in the company, but they haven’t figured out how to be that way on the mic, so I like that we’ve cut the sh*t and given them a corny calling card to make up for it. They injured Big Cass and are gunning for the Vaudevillains, so they wrote VAUDEVILLAINS on a piece of paper and scotch taped it to a wheelchair. Get it? They should go all the way with this and change the name of their finish from the “Shatter Machine” to the “Handicap Spot.”
In a serious note, what keeps modern wrestlers from being able to sound like Arn Anderson? Is it the fact that WWE only seems to hire young, attractive-in-some-way, in-shape people? Are there no 38-year old roughneck guys with un-shaped beards and Dad Bods who want to wrestle? I don’t have a problem with your Scott Dawson types, but I’m not gonna be afraid of that dude if I see him in real life, even if he could kill me with his bare hands. Ole Anderson might not have been able to win a fight in real life, but he looked like he grew up on a wharf or whatever and reminded me of a threatening uncle and that sh*t is terrifying. When does a Seth Rollins become a Harley Race, you know?
Best: Asuka Destroyed Dana Brooke, For Real
My favorite thing happening on the show right now is the devolution of Dana Brooke.
Asuka destroyed her back at TakeOver and gave her a concussion, and the followup interview established that Dana had forgotten the match entirely and thought she won. Last week, Dana accompanied Emma to the ring and did her poses, but she didn’t really do anything. This week, Dana’s wearing less makeup and less tanner and REGULAR CLOTHING and talks about how rude it is to condescendingly pat someone on their head. Dana is just straight-up broken, and I love it so much. I like that Emma just has to go along with it, like Liz Lemon not being able to say anything around her brother because he was in a skiing accident. I want her to keep devolving until she’s just Izzy.
Best: Pre-Match Championship Lighting Cues
As a quick note, I popped harder for this match’s introductions lighting cue than for any actual wrestling on the show. That’s not an insult to the wrestling, I just love this lighting. Wrestling needs to be ridiculous and melodramatic sometimes, and you can get a “this is awesome” chant from owning it.
Best: Everything Else
The match itself? How many exclamation points can I type in one wrestling column?
I probably don’t need to tell you that Prince Devitt vs. Uhaa Nation in a championship main-event is something you want to watch, but if you need it said, read it 10 more times. These guys were born to face each other, and I love that the announce team not only understands that, but emphasizes the similarities in their NXT characters.
When Finn debuted, he was the hot new kid in town with cool moves and indie street cred, and everybody loved him. As he was busy ascending to the NXT Championship, Apollo Crews showed up. Now Apollo is the hot new kid in town with the cool move and inside street cred, and Glenn Frey is off somewhere singing Finn Bálor’s new entrance theme. Plus, who better to understand where a guy like Crews would be at this stage in his development than Finn? The symmetry in their offense was fantastic, from the dueling dropkick spots to each being able to avoid the other’s finish, and I adore that a double-stomp dodge and two kicks could get a “holy sh*t.”
Baron Corbin showing up to ruin everything was a letdown, but in a good way. Understanding how Full Sail reacts to stuff, sending Corbin out to f*ck everything up and deprive the crowd of a finish was brilliant, especially when they brought out Joe and tied it all together with the finals of the Dusty Classic. Joe wanted a match with Finn for helping him win the Classic, but William Regal denied it. Crews won the #1 contender battle royal over Joe and Corbin, so Corbin ruins the match, Joe saves, then Joe has to do the inevitable and jump Finn. It’s beautifully logical and Joe not being “heel” so much as understanding how wrestling works, and showing in his hesitation that he might not totally want to do this, but must. All the main characters get tied together, and we head into the next TakeOver with Joe vs. Finn and (I’m assuming) Crews vs. Corbin, for ruining his title shot. Wrestling that manages to be exciting and make sense is the best wrestling, and WWE should never, ever do the other thing.
