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Please click through for the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for October 30, 2013.
Best: Enzo Amore Has A Breast Cancer Awareness Ribbon Shaved Into The Side Of His Head
Because breasts are S-A-W-F-T sawwwwfffttt!
Worst: So Wait, Now I Gotta Watch Sylvester LeFort WRESTLE?
To date, Sylvester LeFort’s only job on NXT was to be mildly amusing alongside Scott Dawson in backstage segments and syphon off “what” chants from everybody else by standing on the stage speaking French. In theory a deluded, super-French manager dresses like Nation of Domination The Rock and looks like rap album Macho Man Randy Savage should be wonderful, but he’s mostly just boring and wandering around in my peripherals while I’m trying to enjoy Enzo Amore. Now he’s wrestling.
Well … he’s not actually wrestling per se. The opening match on this week’s show was Enzo and Big Cass against Alexander Rusev and LeFort, and it lasted about two minutes. Rusev destroyed all three guys, camelly-clutched Cassidy (again) and left with the “mysterious woman” who did a lap around the ring last week. We don’t know who she is yet, but she’s got Johnny Benchian fingers.
One of next week’s advertised matches is Rusev vs. LeFort, and if it goes any longer than this week’s match I’m gonna find out what the French word is for “riot” and do that.
Best: Aiden English
When you do a gimmick like, “guy who sings as he’s walking to the ring,” you’ve got to go all the way with it. One of the things I love most about NXT is how willing they are to go all the way, and now Aiden English has people THROWING ROSES AT HIM when he finishes his encore. If his TitanTron video wasn’t a still photo of a theater it’d be the greatest Aiden English-related thing in the world.
Best: William Regal’s Love Affair With Aiden English
William Regal and Renee Young were back on commentary this week (NEVER LEAVE ME AGAIN) and were more adorable and enjoyable in one match than most announcers are in a lifetime. There were two really exceptional moments:
1. Regal announced that he has a ‘man-crush’ on English, explains that they had some ‘banter’ earlier in the day and shared a joke: “William Shakespeare went into a pub and the barman said, ‘get out, you’re bard.'” Regal and Renee laughing about it is ten times funnier than a cobra in an Elvis wig, and I would download any number of apps and hashtag whatever they asked me to forever if we could just have this announce team on Raw. Raw desperately needs a beloved wrestler talking about how Twitter’s improved his ability to cheat on his wife and a beautiful woman who namedrops David Merrick.
2. Aiden English performs his encore, gets his roses and gets an amazing “leaving the ring” reprise. The camera jumps to the announce table where William Regal is CRUSHING SO HARD:
All he can manage is, “oh ho ho ho ho … oh! Bravo, young man.”
Copy and paste this 100 times: <3
Worst: Adrian Neville Needs To Spend A Little More Time In Promo School
Cameras catch up with an injured Adrian Neville for a WWE.com exclusive, which isn’t an exclusive at all because you’re showing it to me on Hulu, so … anyway, Neville gives a short answer about how Corey Graves made things personal and it was so bad.
The two worst things you can do in a promo, in my opinion (besides the obvious stuff like homophobia or throwing a garden gnome into a river), are 1) not know how to speak like a human being and 2) not make any sense. You can get around that sometimes if you’re the Ultimate Warrior and your promos are about poison and Hulk Hogan dying in plane crashes, but Adrian Neville is not the Ultimate Warrior. Hell, he’s not even Ricochet.
The actual promo has a terrible point: Adrian Neville thinks Corey Graves thinks he made it personal by going after Neville’s legs, but he didn’t, because it’s only just begun? Neville’s point is that he’s the JUMPING GEORDIE and therefore you’re a horrible person if you attack his legs, because that’s HIS LIVELIHOOD, even though as a wrestler your entire job description is “hurt the part of the guy you hate’s body until he can’t do the things that’d cause him to hurt you back as effectively.” It’s probably worded better than that, but you get the idea. So Graves made it personal, but then he DIDN’T, because … yeah dude I don’t know. The worst part is that he clearly doesn’t have enough material for a 30 second insult, so he pads it with every stall tactic he can manage. The interviewer’s like, “how are you feeling,” and he responds with HOW AM I FEELING? YOU WANNA KNOW HOW I’M FEELING, I’LL TELL YOU HOW I’M FEELING. Lots of “and let me tell you THIS” going on. You think you’re good at speaking, Adrian Neville, but it HASN’T EVEN BEGUN.
Best: Those NXT Divas I’m Always Annoying You About
Paige and Summer Rae had a nice little 7-minute match (stretched into a 10-minute match by a giant Big Show Raw recap video in the middle) that saw Sasha Banks get ejected from ringside, Paige pick up the win and Emma accidentally level Paige with a punch while trying to bail her out.
If there’s one thing I love about NXT its the Paige vs. Emma rematch slow burn. It’s perfect. They had the best women’s match in the history of NXT to end the title tournament and you assumed they’d go right into the rematch, but Summer Rae started sticking her nose in everybody’s business and recruiting soldiers so the plans got pushed back. Summer’s been trying to get the title belt of Paige for months now and sorta KNOWS that it’s Emma’s title to win, so she’s doing everything she can to injure Emma via attacks or bubble solution and keep her out of the equation. All the while, Emma and Paige keep sorta bumping into each other and getting into these brief little heated conversations and moments of beef. You know they’re gonna fight eventually and it’s gonna be the big blowoff that sends one of them (or both of them, preferably) up to the main roster, but if that happens Summer has to share her spotlight there too, and that’s the last thing she wants. See how it all ties together? I love it.
What I don’t love is how Paige still doesn’t know how to properly set up her finisher. She just waits for her opponent to be kinda bent over, wanders over, slowly sets it up and then hits it. Nobody cheers for it because they don’t see it coming, and it’s too slow for the “I didn’t see it coming” response. If you’re gonna go slow with it, you have to do something to spice it up … Punk does his sleepy hands before he does a GTS, Shawn Michaels stomps around before the superkick, and so on. Do something like that, would you? People think you’re being lazy because your transitions are lifeless.
Worst: So That’s The End Of Parker/Breeze, Right?
Firstly, you know I love you, NXT Crowd, but you get a big honking Worst for that “change your gimmick” chant. Don’t be the Ring of Honor crowd, guys. And if you think about it, him being a hippie isn’t the problem … it’s that he’s a bad wrestler so he doesn’t know how to execute it. He thinks hippies dance by wobbling their knees together. He thinks hippies are muscular and hairless. He thinks hippies photobomb people? I don’t know. The gist is that Parker blows, but you know if Tyler Breeze had been given a hippie gimmick he’d be rocking the shit out of it right now.
Secondly, I don’t want to talk badly about my wonderful announce team, but they briefly went Full Raw during the Breeze/Parker match. They’re recapping how Breeze cut off some of CJ Parker’s hair, and this (paraphrased) conversation happens:
“What would happen if the tables were turned and Parker cut off some of BREEZE’s hair?”
“I’m sure the crowd would love that!”
They probably said “WWE Universe” instead of crowd, but stay with me. Since when do the NXT announcers just spout company talking points instead of using their ears and eyeballs? I’m sure the people in charge of NXT want to believe that Tyler Breeze is a fey heel and CJ Parker is this cool babyface, but that’s not what’s going on. Breeze is SUPER OVER at Full Sail. People chant “Breeze is gorgeous” every time he moves. Additionally, everybody hates the shit out of CJ Parker, boos him DURING AN AIRPLANE SPIN (which I thought was impossible), chanted MORE when Breeze was cutting his hair and chanted NO NO NO when Parker was trying to get revenge. The show ends with Parker doing his horrible hippie dance with the scissors between his legs like he’s trying to cut off his own dick and everybody’s just sitting still with smiles on their faces watching Breeze leave. Don’t just say what’s on the paper, guys, the NXT environment being alive and responsive is one of the best things about your show. Don’t stop embracing it.
Best: Tyler Breeze Has A Furry iPhone Cover To Match His Boots
Like I could ever boo this guy.