Previously on the Best and Worst of NXT: Level 9 thief ONEY LORCAN debuted, and used a bag of holding to steal a victory over Tye Dillinger. Shinsuke Nakamura flipped Buddy Murphy — he flipped him for real — and Austin Aries pretended to enjoy dancing for like five minutes just to elbow No Way Jose in the face.
If you missed this episode, you can watch it here. If you’d like to read our older columns, click over here. With Spandex is on Twitter, so follow it, and like us on Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter.
Shares, likes, comments and other social media things are appreciated.
And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for June 29, 2016.
Best: A Good Re-Run
This week, the women’s division gets two showcase moments: a match where Alexa Bliss defeats Carmella, followed by a backstage interview where Bliss interrupts Bayley and tells her she’s going to beat her in a match. If that sounds familiar, it should. I pretty much could’ve copied and pasted in an old show report and you wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference, down to specific talking points like “Alexa is great as a heel” and “Carmella is getting better, but needs to stop doing so much between moves.” Like, the exact same talking points.
That said, it was pretty good then, and it’s pretty good now. Alexa and Carmella both continue to improve, and while the match wasn’t must-see or even notably tight, it was competent and entertaining. That sounds so backhanded, but don’t read it like that. If we revisit the same match in June of 2017, I think it’ll be even better.
One weird note: Bliss looked like she was hitting her offense a little harder than normal, which is great, and everything had a new name, which is … less great, but fine. The Sparkle Splash is now “Twisted Bliss,” and the handspring knees that connect about 40% of the time have been VASTLY improved by a straight-up double knee-drop to the gut, THEN the handspring into the double knees. I can’t remember what Tom Phillips said she calls it, so we’re gonna call it Set Adrift On Memory Bliss. Or “Bliss Up A Rope,” whichever’s catchier.
Best: Austin Aries
1. How great is it that Baron Corbin jumped Austin Aries during Aries’ debut because he hates indie guys, and thinks they get an undeserved rub that he should be getting for being naturally great, and now Aries is jumping the new guys because he thinks they get an undeserved rub that he should be getting for being naturally great? It’s like Aries had to beat Corbin to understand and become him. Love it.
2. How short is Also Cathy if she makes Aries look that tall? She’s gotta be 4-foot-6 and pulling a Tom Phillips wide stance. Maybe he absorbed Baron Corbin’s height as well.
Best/Worst: Negative Cien
The second match of the show is Andrade ‘Mixed Reaction At Best’ Almas vs. Noah Potjes, with the most interesting moments being the ones where the crowd start chanting “ten” until they realize how pointless and barely related it is. Almas is such a crazy situation in my brain, because he’s a can’t-miss talent and NXT’s Solomon Crowe’ing him. He’s got a downgraded ring name, some of the worst entrance gear you’ve ever seen, and no real personality to speak of beyond, “HERE’S THIS GUY, YOU LIKE HIM APPARENTLY.” Crowe never got out of it, and by the time he was speaking into a microphone and trying to actually develop something, the end game was Kevin Owens making fun of his voice. I don’t wanna see La-f*cking-Sombra get square-pegged into such a circular hole that we can’t disconnect him from corporate decision making and remember what a great wrestler he is. La Sombra needs to be more than Malibu Apollo Crews with a new hat.
I do like that Noah Potjes appears to be the love child of The Rock and Waylon Mercy. Proposed entrance theme:
♫ For, life had kick him down to the ground
When he tried to get up
Life would kick him back down
One day Regal called me to his dyin’ bed
Put his hands on my shoulders
And in his tears he saidHe said, Potjes
I’m dependin’ on you, son
To pull the family through
My son, it’s all left up to you ♫
Worst: Finn and Shin Don’t Have Much To Say
Finn Bálor and Shinsuke Nakamura are having a match. That’s all you need to say. When the match was made, it was Finn saying, “what’s next for me,” Nak saying, “I wanna fight you,” and Finn being like YEAH BROTHER BRING IT IN, PREDATOR HANDSHAKE IT.
Someone at NXT thought it was important to expound on that, despite the fact that there’s nothing to expound on. That one cool moment made everything clear. They’re friends, they know and respect one another, and they want to fight to prove some sh*t. Nak wants to prove he can beat NXT’s best before he goes for the championship, and Finn wants to prove that even though he’s no longer the champion, he’s still the best. We got that from some funny pointing and Nak looking like he had to sneeze. It was great.
This week, we get two (2) sit-down discussion about it.
1. Nakamura speaks for a while (in English!) about how he and Finn are friends, how they’ve met each other’s families, and how if he wants to be the best, he’s got to beat NXT’s best. Finn is the NXT icon, and the match is happening. But they’re bros! It’s everything that’s already been said, with the added stress of asking a guy to tread water in a foreign language. You know it’s tough territory when Nakamura can’t make it interesting. He made “I’m going to kick Buddy Murphy’s ass and I’m wearing colorblind country-western clothing” interesting in like one sentence.
2. Bálor says the exact same thing. He and Nakamura are friends, they’ve met each other’s families, and if he wants to prove he’s the best, he’s got to beat him. Finn has trouble making “I’M A SUPERNATURAL ASIAN DEMON” a compelling talking point for longer than a song, so asking him to tread the same water another dude JUST treaded is a little much.
All that said, Nak vs. Finn is going to be supa hot fire, so let them be as boring as they want, just promise me a lot of face-kickings when they’re done.
Best: The Tag Team Division
This is lumping a lot of stuff together, but I’m really into the NXT tag team division right now.
I love that they’ve finally realized they can tell concurrent stories and tie them together for effect. Before The End, Johnny Gargando and Tommaso Ciampa upset the former tag champs The Revival. American Alpha lost the Tag Team Championship to The Revival at The End, and before they were able to deal with it, they were jumped by the Authors of Pain and Paul Ellering. On this week’s NXT, Gargano and Ciampa get what some would consider another upset, a win over the Hype Bros, and declare that they want a title match with The Revival. They’re interrupted by American Alpha, William Regal shows up to put the Alphas and the Revival in a 2-out-of-3 falls tag titles match to settle the score, and the Alphas once again get jumped by the Authors of Pain. It’s a big circle of competition where everyone’s got a goal, everyone’s moving forward, anyone could conceivably beat anyone and there’s enough left to the imagination to make you unsure of the results. It’s GREAT. It’s pretty much what every championship division should be like for every championship in every wrestling promotion. It’s time to give us enough credit to follow more than one story at a time, and to stop catering so blatantly to those who can’t.
