The Best And Worst Of WWE NXT 7/12/17: There’s No ‘I’ In Team

Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE NXT: Roddy Strong was denied the NXT Championship, Aliyah was denied a spot in the Mae Young Classic, and Billie Kay was denied cake. It’s that last one that stings the most, y’know?

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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for July 12, 2017.

Worst: Wrestling For Wrestling’s Sake

NOTE: Light spoilers ahead. If you wanna avoid knowing anything that happens in the next set of NXT tapings, skip to the next blurb.

Episode 401 of NXT starts off with Aleister Black, still without anything even closely resembling a storyline, squaring off against the debuting Bobby Fish, best known as one half of the tag team ReDragon, known for their dominance in Ring Of Honor and NJPW. I’ll be honest: This match was total white noise for me, a feeling only shaken for the finishing sequence when Black kicked into high gear with that springboard hurricanrana into a leaping high knee into the Black Mass for the win. (Though Fish did get in some night offense, including that exploder suplex into the corner.)

It’s pretty weird to see Fish without his ReDragon partner, Kyle O’Reilly, but as I had spoiled for me in a Facebook wrestling group last night, it turns out O’Reilly debuted in NXT during last night’s set of tapings, also losing against Black. So as it stands right now, this was wrestling for the sake of wrestling, which is usually an automatic “Worst” for me, but if it leads to ReDragon re-forming in NXT and coming after Black (who then has to recruit a partner to go into the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, perhaps), I reserve the right to revert this to a “Best” after the fact.

Best: Streets Is Watching

Next, we get our first look at a new tag team called Street Profits. Okay, so yeah, this looks like a slightly hipper, more millennial-ized version of Cryme Tyme. But I loved Cryme Tyme, so I am already onboard with this duo. Plus, their logo looks like the Pittsburgh Pirates and San Francisco Giants logos had a one-night stand over All-Star Weekend, which works for me.

What We Did Inside The Purple Pants This Week

I know I’ve been hard on Velveteen Dream around here, but credit where credit is due: I legitimately laughed out loud at his response to Kayla Braxton. Like, in Dream’s extremely narcissistic world, Kayla Braxton looks like a homeless person. Let that sink in for a sec, because it actually does more to develop his character than virtually anything else he’s done to date. Supplemental Best to Braxton’s hilariously deadpan response: “No, it’s me, Kayla Braxton.” Girl, you’re not even verified on Twitter. Dream ain’t got time for you.

Worst: The Borne Identity

Up next, we get a Mae Young Classic qualifying match between Jayme Hachey, an indie vet (as Jayme Jameson) with eight years’ experience who has Chyna’s body and Sandra Bullock’s face, and Vanessa Borne.

Borne, whose real name is Danielle Kamela, was a contestant in the 2015 Tough Enough reboot that wasn’t promising enough to make it to the TV show, but despite not even being as good as Sara Lee, she somehow made it onto NXT TV twice in October 2016, first losing to Peyton Royce, then losing to Nikki Cross two week later. Perhaps it’s because she is half-Samoan and was trained by Rikishi? Nah, everyone knows nepotism has no place in sports entertainment.

Anyway, this match sucked. Like, straight up. I have no idea what Borne’s finish was supposed to be, but it looked like a badly executed Blue Thunder Bomb. Watch that clip above, see how awkward that sunset flip counter is and then feel bad for Hachey for having to walk her through that match.

Best: Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me A Match

Next, Bob Roo pops up in William Regal’s office as he’s mulling over potential contenders for the champ to square off against at TakeOver: Brooklyn III and ever-so-slyly convinces Regal to put two of his biggest threats — Killian Dain and Drew McIntyre — in the ring with one another and let them fight for the honor. Regal falls for the Jedi mind trick and agrees, giving Roode what he wants.

At least that’s how I interpreted it. I think we were supposed to assume that somehow Regal got one over on Roode by telling him he’d be fighting one of these guys, but Bobby’s no a dummy: He knows he has to defend the championship on NXT’s Grandest Stage Of ’Em All, so why not have his potential opponents smash each others faces for a few dozen minutes so they can get softened up and he can get a better look at each of them? Sorry, storytelling, I’m writing my own narrative here.

Worst: Best Friends Means I Pulled The Trigger

After all the time Johnny Gargano has been off NXT TV — nearly two months, an eternity in wrestling time — this is the best promo they come up with for his return? I’m a big Gargano homer, and I am excited to see him get a singles run in NXT, but this promo fell immensely flat for me. Lines like, “I’m not here to dwell on the past, I’m here to look at the future” and “I need to be Johnny Gargano again. More importantly, I need to be Johnny Wrestling” carried zero actual weight. Was Gargano ever in danger of quitting the business because his partner doublecrossed him or something? Did I miss that development? And his ultra-corny “I never thought the guy I’d be willing to take a bullet for would be the one to pull the trigger on me”? Vom.

I get it, though: I’m sure originally the plan was to have Gargano feud with Tommaso Ciampa immediately following Chicago, but when Ciampa went down with an injury, plans had to change. And you can’t very well have Gargano come out and cut an impassioned promo on Ciampa that, at its earliest, wouldn’t get any form of storyline advancement — let alone an actual payoff — for months. But man, what a waste of a return. All we got out of it was a new version of Johnny Wrestling’s theme song. Cool.

Best: Beef Mode

The main event pitting Authors Of Pain versus Heavy Machinery for the NXT Tag Team Championship was everything I wanted to be. When you have more than a half-ton of weight in that ring, you better get hossy, and these two teams got right to it. Once again, Heavy Machinery’s Otis Dozovic was the standout, taking Rezar’s best clothesline attempt twice and barely budging an inch either time (and you know Rezar was putting some extra mustard on those). Rezar is then knocked down (“for the first time in his career!” Nigel McGuinness very incorrectly says) and the fight is on.

I’m pretty sure this was Heavy Machinery’s longest TV match to date, and it was exciting to see that duo able to keep up the pace past 10 minutes when a lesser team would’ve been blown up. Otis, with his killer facials and power moves, is the perfect guy for a hot tag, and his sequence of a belly-to-belly suplex, double splash in the corner and powerslam on Akam was all sorts of awesome.

Steaks & Weights ends up losing not because of miscommunication or cheating, but simply because the Authors are the better team at this point in time, putting Otis down with the Last Chapter (because there ain’t no way dem boyz are going up for the Super Collider). Everyone comes away looking good, and I can’t wait for a rematch down the road, once Heavy Machinery has gotten their wrestling even tighter.

Worst: Xylophagia

Following AOP’s win, SAnitY’s music hits and I feel like we’re entering a community theater performance of the Shield versus the Wyatt Family, only one for which the crowd isn’t nearly as hyped. It culminates — or bottoms out, rather — as pieces of paper begin falling from the rafters and Alexander Wolfe starts to eat them, as Mauro Ranallo rhetorically asks the dumbest question that NXT has ever been subject to:

Woof. Hearing that gave me PTSD flashbacks to WrestleMania XV when the Undertaker hanged Big Boss Man from the Hell In A Cell cage and Michael Cole repeatedly shouted, “Could this be symbolic???” Once again, a SAnitY segment falls flat, and I continue to wish for an NXT in which they no longer exist.

Next Week: Drew McIntyre and Killian Dain square off in a No. 1 Contender’s Match, plus Ruby Riot fights Ember Moon.