Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE NXT: We took a few weeks off to enjoy the holidays, watch a couple of re-purposed house shows and experience non-stop Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Samoa Joe Championship matches. Some we’d already seen before! All you really missed is that Bobby Roode is the new number one contender.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for January 11, 2017.
Best: Building The Women’s Division
Up first this week, the team of Billie Kay and my future best friend who’s gonna walk around botanical gardens with me and point out what everything smells like Peyton Royce take on The Ascen-she-on, Sarah Bridges and Macy Evans. Bridges is the former Crazy Mary Dobson, who we’ve seen in various roles for a while. She’s the one in the red. Evans is the one wearing Macy gray.
Bridges and Evans are kinda like Heavy Machinery, where you know eventually they’re gonna be a thing in some capacity, but they’re stuck in jobber roles until the right people get called up. Heavy Ma-she-nery? Anyway, Royce and Kay (who still don’t have an official name, and are basically just “the Australian women” to commentary) win via eye gouging and a combo facebuster to the knee, which Bridges admirably sells like she’s a piece of bread popping out of a toaster.
This is all to set up the post-match stuff. At the top of the show we saw “moments ago” footage of The Australian Women attacking Asuka in the parking lot, pouring coffee on her head and threatening her with extremely Down Under sentiments like NOT SUAH TAFF NOW HA CHAMP?
After the match, Kay and Royce cut a promo about how the Women’s Championship and the women’s division belong to them, prompting an Angry Hot Mess Asuka to charge the ring after them. She’s still hurt from the previous attack and outnumbered 2-to-1, so for once, she doesn’t power up and prevail. That brings out pissed-off squat Kristen Stewart Nikki Cross to make the save. I really love Cross’ vibe, and how her entire offense is just running at you like a rage zombie.
Cross makes the save, but as soon as Asuka’s up, Cross drops her with a missile dropkick. Because ANGER RUNS don’t discriminate.
The episode ends with Asuka barging into William Regal’s office looking like me after watching La La Land and demands an NXT Women’s Championship match against all of them at TakeOver San Antonio. I’m into that, although I’m a little sad we don’t get Asuka vs. Ember Moon in Texas. Hoping the San Antonio match is just Asuka killing three people at once, and that it ends with Ember showing up on the stage all I’M GONNA CELESTIALLY BODY YOU AT TAKEOVER ORLANDO.
Or, “TakeOver: The Place We’ve Already Taken Over.” Whatever they’re calling it.
Best: Drift … Toward Me?
The biggest surprise of this episode for me is how much I enjoyed an Elias Samson match. I know, right?
The Drifter takes on Jonathan Cruz, whom you may remember from a losing effort to the Authors of Pain back in September. He’s a talented wrestler, but he kinda looks like somebody playing as Air Dog on Big Head Mode in NBA Jam.
The physical and style juxtaposition are what make this work. Cruz looking like a child with an adult’s head makes Samson look truly physically imposing for the first time in probably his entire career, and Cruz’s Lightning Kid-style sense of urgency forces Samson to actually try, instead of doing the most boring level one wrestling holds he can think of and then standing still and staring until people boo him. There’s a great moment here where Cruz gets on a roll and connects with a spinning headscissors takedown, then gets up to his feet to do the indie wrestler “walk around pumping my fist” thing. He doesn’t notice that Samson was not knocked unconscious by a fucking forward roll, so Samson just barges back in and clotheslines the shit out of him. Like, it’s not pretty. Just a lariat to the side of the face. Everything Samson does here looks mean, powerful, and purposeful. Should we only ever let him wrestle Jon Cruz?
Best: Oney vs. Cien
That was the Spanish language title for 1 vs. 100.
I think the thing I’ve grown to understand and like about NXT Biff Busick is that the total lack of character development actually kinda works for him. NXT eschewed character growth for coasting on indie reputations a while ago, so Oney Lorcan’s stuck here doing this understated act where he looks horrible and has a stupid name and no real rep, so people don’t take him seriously, but he’s fantastic at pro wrestling. Like, he’s a top level WWE Superstar in skill and heart. It’s what Daniel Bryan would’ve been in NXT season 1 if he hadn’t actually spent several years before that being the undisputed best wrestler in the world. Lorcan is under the radar exactly enough to work, even against people he’s supposed to work with who should probably know who he is.
It especially works against a guy like Andrade Almas, who is settling into his heel role as a disrespected guy who is OBVIOUSLY fantastic at wrestling and feels entitled because of it. It’s a great character match-up. Oney’s in there trying to tie up, looking like a DJ scratching records without a turntable with his little reachy gestures, and Almas is trying to lie around not taking him seriously. He ends up getting dropkicked in the stomach, because yeah, Orcan LOOKS like he sucks, but he doesn’t. Even when you lose to him at one of the House Show Episodes, you still kinda think he sucks. Because LOOK AT HIM. And his name is ONEY LORCAN. He’s like a fucking Skyrim NPC you don’t want to talk to because his mission’s just a boring fetch quest. But whoops, dude is Dragonborn.
Almas gets the win, but only when he starts taking Lorcan seriously. Great stuff. Can we have actual episodes of NXT again now? These are so much better than the “stall for holidays or WWE events” versions.
Best: Bobby Roode Saved His NXT TakeOver: Dallas Ticket
I was really hoping this was a ticket to Bound For Glory.
Best: Fight Forever
This week’s main event is a late Christmas present: a rematch of our choice for 2016 WWE match of the year (and WWE.com’s, apparently), DIY vs. the Revival for the NXT Tag Team Championship. It’s as good as pro wrestling gets right now. I can’t watch a Revival match without finding five new things to excitedly clap my hands about.
Although the finish is never in question, this bout stands up there with the rest of their matches. It’s almost supernatural how well these teams work together. They could’ve just coasted and done a straight rematch without all the timing cues and callbacks, but they went full tilt, doing tons of callbacks to not only the TakeOver: Toronto finish — Dawson avoids getting caught this time and shoves Gargano into Ciampa, freeing Dash — but the individual FALL finishes. Late in the match Gargano goes for his slingshot spear, and because Scott Dawson had it scouted in Toronto and had a Shatter Machine counter ready to go, he still has it here. Except this time, Ciampa has the COUNTER scouted, and is able to knock Wilder out of the way before he can complete it.
I don’t have a big soliloquy to write about this one, but watch it. Watch it twice. Pay attention to how long Gargano stays in the ring at first, and how that feels like it’s building to the finish, and how they go full Rock n’ Rolls and Midnights and switch the heat to make it the mid-point. Watch how the action keeps escalating until suicide dives that are normally gentle diving pushes are CREAMING dudes with entire body shots, and Ciampa’s knee off the apron goes from a transitional move to something that could end two careers and destroy a timekeeper’s table. It’s amazing, because of course it is.
The Revival is the best team in the world, and DIY is right up there with them. The Scott Dawson sliding “put my body in the way” attack backfiring might’ve been my favorite single moment. I hope they stay in NXT and paint with these colors of pro wrestling forever. And that NXT guys like this start making big league WWE money to wrestle this well, in front of these people, for these reasons.
And, because actual Full Sail episodes are better than competently wrestled but soulless house shows, the post-match features an attack from the Authors of Pain to set up a tag titles match in San Antonio. And hey, shout-out to whoever instructed the Authors to powerbomb dudes in opposite directions instead of trying to actually kill them.
Great show from top to bottom this week. More like this, please.
