Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE NXT: Aleister Black ate Fish for dinner, Kayla Braxton ate Velveteen Dream’s dust, and Alexander Wolfe ate paper. Literally.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for July 19, 2017.
Worst: Spoilers, Amirite?
I want to start with an apology to y’all: I included some light spoilers for a future NXT episode in my first blurb last week, and even though I labeled them as such, a lot of folks left angry comments about it. So my apologies, and once again, Best And Worst Of NXT will be a 100 percent spoiler-free column. You can read on with confidence. I promise I won’t tell you about Bobby Roode surprisingly dropping the title to Sean Maluta in the next set of tapings until it actually airs.
Best: Moon’s Over My Ruby
Tonight’s episode of NXT kicks off with a barnburner of a match between Ember Moon and Ruby Riot (the latter of whom had a snazzy, Morrissey-esque haircut). While there was plenty to love in the entirety of this match (Frankensteiner off the top turnbuckle, anyone?), I was particularly fond of the first minute, where it was nothing but attempted covers and roll-up reversals, with virtually zero actual physical offense, just each woman trying to sneak a win out before having to put their body through hell. Each competitor knows Asuka is on the horizon, and they’re going to need to be as healthy as possible to even stand a chance against her, so they try to conserve as best as possible.
Of course, that strategy collapses once Riot and Moon realize neither is going to give up without a fight, and they really go at it. Ember Moon once again proves she is damn near perfect in the ring (the countered monkey flip spot was dope, and her bow-and-arrow submission on Riot looked great), and Riot looked just as good in the loss, selling the Eclipse like a shotgun blast. She put up a good fight, but Ember Moon’s stat bar hit max, so what can you do?
Best: Violent Gentlemen
Following a quick segment between Kassius Ohno and Hideo Itami that sets up their match next week, we get Oney Lorcan vs Jason Statham Danny Burch. The nice thing about seeing Lorcan and Burch fight each other was that, while neither really has an impressive win-loss record in NXT, they’re both known for putting on some awesome physical matches. This did not disappoint at all, feeling more like an MMA match that happened to end up inside a wrestling ring. Lorcan’s flying/diving European uppercut looked to have busted Burch open, which just ratcheted up the intensity, and when a bleeding Burch delivers a massive powerbomb and goes for an awkward cover, it felt incredibly real, like how someone might actually scrap in real life, not choreographed man-dancing.
Lorcan ended up winning with a single leg crab, which was a surprising finish that upped the reality quotient (because I guarantee you if someone actually applied that hold to me, full pressure and all, I’d be tapping in milliseconds). A post-match handshake turns into a rematch for honor, and I am all the way in on seeing these two guys scrap in a best of seven competition. Be careful, NXT: You might accidentally get these guys over.
Worst: This Angle Has Been Going On For How Long?
Up next is No Way Jose vs Cezar Bononi, who is best remembered as the guy who stole a win from Andrade “Cien” Almas two months ago (but if you don’t remember it, they show it in a flashback just in case). All this does is remind me that Almas’ party-boy/in-ring failure storyline is is taking f*cking forever to play out.
The match itself is absolutely nothing — Bononi looks like a million bucks walking to the ring and about 14 cents once competing inside it — and we finally get another bit of story development after the fact, when Almas and his unidentified lady friend come to ringside and give Bononi his two-month-old receipt before getting chased off by Jose. I guess we’ll get this at TakeOver: Brooklyn III(‘s pre-show).
Best: TakeOver: Brooklyn III’s Theme Song
I bust on NXT’s music taste quite a bit in these parts, but I definitely f*ck with Pittsburgh hardcore band Code Orange. Here’s a fun fact: A few years ago, a bunch of friends and I attended the Royal Rumble when it was in Pittsburgh. We had an extra ticket, which ended up being purchased by none other than Reba, the frontwoman of this very band. (She was super-stoked to see Batista return.) I guess what I’m trying to say is if you’re gonna listen to heavy music, it might as well be made by wrestling fans, no?
Best In A Vacuum, Worst With Context: Kill’ Shot
For our main event, we get an undefeated goliath in Killian Dain facing a guy who is billed as undefeated but once had a Twitter account dedicated to documenting his losses, so I dunno. I guess Drew McIntyre is “undefeated in NXT,” but by that definition, so is James Storm, so when is his title shot?
Regardless, it is nice to have stakes here — not just just the No. 1 Contendership but undefeated streaks as well. McIntyre looks cut as hell, and it’s easy to forget just how tall he is until you see him in with such a big-ass dude as Dain and he still has a few inches on him. The two throw each other around and grind each other down, with each man getting in some nice offense (I popped huge when Dain hit the Vader Bomb — just give him Vader’s entire moveset and I’ll be the happiest panda), and at some point, McIntyre draws blood from Dain’s nose. Side note: I wish the commentators could actually mention when the wrestlers get color, because this is twice in one episode where it happens, and to ignore it as the referees scramble to put on gloves is frustrating, especially when the wrestlers themselves use their accidental blood loss to enhance the storytelling.
I enjoyed the ending of this match, too, with Drew hitting the Future Shock DDT and only scoring a one count, which is so boss on Dain’s part (literally, in my notes I had written “KICK OUT AT 1, F*CK YOU DREW”). In the end, it takes two straight Claymores (which is what they’re calling McIntyre’s running one-legged dropkick now) to slay the beast with a hairy back, adding to his character’s toughness while putting the right guy over.
Here’s my Worst, though: Where the hell was SAnitY? Why did they not get involved? Where is the chaos of which they speak? Why was Killian Dain out here threatening Authors Of Pain last week but losing to Drew McIntyre this week? To not have Dain’s stable out with him makes zero sense to me. If you want a straight-up one-on-one match, then have Regal bar SAnitY from ringside or have them get ejected by the ref or something, but when you have this roving band of post-apocalyptic lunatics looking to wreak as much havoc as possible in Full Sail, and then they don’t try to help their guy get a goddamn title shot, it feels poorly thought out.
Next Week: Hideohno explodes, as Hideo Itami goes one-on-one with Kassius Ohno. Also, there’s that Roode/Maluta belt switch coming down the pike, so heads up.
