Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE NXT: NXT went back to Japan, the land of impossible title defenses, and Shinsuke Nakamura was able to regain the NXT Championship. We also spent some time at Full Sail for the debut of (Big) Damo, Sawyer Fulton being booted … well, jacketed out of SAnitY, Nikki Cross getting a peek at the NXT Women’s Championship, and Kimber Lee debuting and losing handily to Ember Moon. But Kimber Lee, y’all.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for December 14, 2016.
Best/Worst: Let’s Just Get This Important Title Match Out Of The Way
If you were holding on to any hopes that Samoa Joe would get back the NXT Championship, here’s his rematch inside a steel cage opening the program in edited form. So, you know.
If you like their other matches you’ll like this one, but the editing makes it feel like two disconnected matches. We see the opening to a good match and the ending to a good match, but losing the stuff in the middle makes them feel detached. For example, on first watch I liked Nakamura deciding to close the cage door and finish off Joe for real, as an emphatic end statement on their feud. But if you read live reports of the match, there’s a great moment in the middle somewhere where Nakamura’s about to escape, and Joe stops him by screaming “COWARD.” It informs Nakamura’s decision and allows Joe to have some agency and honor in his own defeat. Which makes him going for a clothesline during that final Kinshasa matter. Because dudes who know how to pro wrestle know how to fill a match with little shit like that that matters. And when you edit them out, you’re making what they do a little worse. Sometimes editing helps, and sometimes it doesn’t.
Anyway, Nakamura retains (surprise!), and the good news is that we move into a new NXT title feud with whomever wins the Battle of the Bull Dempseys.
Best: Don’t Use The Punchy Lady As Your Pawn
Backstage, Billie Kay and Pay-en Royce discuss how they didn’t actually lose their six-woman tag team match against Ember Moon, a cat and a mannequin from Spencer’s Gifts because Daria Berenato took the pinfall, not them. Daria shows up and is like, “‘sup, I’m gonna shadowbox the SHIT outta yous,” and challenges one of them to a match. They get to decide.
It’s not an important moment or anything, but I like that they’re at least logically setting up matches again, and that there are consequences to bringing an MMA fighter onto your team, hanging her out to dry and then passive-aggressively blaming it for her later.
Best, I Guess: Let’s Hustle Through This Tournament
With Joe/Nakamura taking up the first 20 minutes of the show, we’ve only got 40 minutes minus 10 minutes of WWE Network commercials to do four one-on-one matches in the number one contender qualifying tournament. That means we’ve got to hustle through at least a couple of them, and the biggest sacrifice is Tye Dillinger vs. Eric Young. Their combined entrances are about three minutes longer than the match.
Dillinger’s doing well early, so Nikki Cross jumps on his back and causes a disqualification. That’s it. The remaining members of AnitY try to take him out but he’s able to fight back, at least until the BULLEST OF THE BULL DEMPSEYS Big Damo shows up again and murders him. Damo looks like Zakk Wylde had a Cordyceps Brain Infection for too long and became a Bloater.
The ends justify the means I suppose, as Dillinger’s in the fatal four-way for the title opportunity, Damo looks devastating and threatening and AnitY’s about to hook up with him. I guess the only complaint I have besides “I would’ve liked to have seen an actual match” and “shouldn’t Young be madder that Cross cost him a title shot like 60 seconds into a match” is, “why are Damo, Cross and Wolfe super pale white apocalyptic looking people and Eric Young is like a crispy extra fried pink? Do they follow him through the apocalypse because he’s the only dude with access to a tanning bed?”
General Worst: Percy Watson
Look, this is technically the guy’s first time back in years and his first set of NXT tapings, so I’m not gonna type too much about him yet, but he’s gonna have to come to the second tapings with something better to say than, “[tongue click] I don’t know man whatever you just said was WRONG.” Right now he’s making David Otunga sound like Jim Ross.
Best: No, Way Jose
The best of the qualifying matches is Andrade ‘Andrade Cien Almas’ Almas vs. No Way Jose. It’s about as good a match as you could possibly have in three and a half minutes. +1 to Almas’ heel turn for fixing pretty much every problem I had with him, and for that sweeping hammerlock DDT, which is about a billion times better and easier to hit than his previous finish, the high-speed running dick to the face with THIGH SLAP taunt.
It’s weird seeing Jose take a loss in like three minutes, but it is what it is. At least he got to look good during it, and didn’t have like, Thea Trinidad jumping on his back for a disqualification in less time than it takes somebody to walk to the ring
Worst: Also On This Episode, Roderick Strong Defeated Elias Samson
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Best: In Glorious
Finally, the Only Guy Who Could Win This Tournament Bobby Roode takes on Oney Lorcan. Seriously, I’m not basing this on spoilers or even the logistics of Nakamura needing a heel to face at NXT TakeOver: Wherever, Roode’s the only guy prepped to win. Tye Dillinger’s the only other option, and his character is built around losing, specifically TO Bobby Roode. I could see them having Dillinger go over Roode to get the shot, but it makes more sense to have Roode BE the champion and give Dillinger a match against him after having lost to him twice, right? But look at the rest of the tournament. Jose and Almas are good, but not really going anywhere at the moment. Eric Young’s the leader of a posse that can barely beat up their own jackets. Oney Lorcan? How the hell did ONEY LORCAN get into an NXT title tournament?
So as you’d expect, Roode and Lorcan have an okay little match for like five minutes — congratulations on the two extra minutes, guys! — until Roode puts him down with a spinebuster and a Glorious Drop. That gives us Dillinger vs. Roode vs. Strong vs. Almas for the number one contendership, which looks like three heels and one face, but Strong has the character development of a piece of paper and can go either way. Expecting a Roode win there and Roode vs. Nakamura, and the very very strange reality that I’ll be cheering Bobby Roode over Shinsuke Nakamura. 2016 is dumb.
