The Best And Worst Of WWE NXT 6/13/18: Raiders Of The Lost Art

Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE NXT: Tommaso Ciampa lost a battle but proved he was in Johnny Gargano’s head, TM-61 turned into “The Mighty” and became the Midnight Express, and Nikki Cross “won” the NXT Women’s Championship by not being afraid of Shayna Baszler.

If you missed this episode, you can watch it here. If you’d like to read previous installments of the Best and Worst of NXT, click right here. Follow With Spandex on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow me on Twitter, where everything is terrible.

And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for June 13, 2018.

Best: Best Of The Super Juniors

The most important thing you need to know abut this week’s show is that you should watch it, because Pete Dunne defended the United Kingdom Championship against Kyle O’Reilly in the most New Japan Pro Wrestling match on WWE soil this year and it fucking ruled.

I don’t know if I’ve said it in these columns (or if I’ve ever really had the opportunity to, honestly) but Pete Dunne is the shit. He’s somehow the ugliest and most beautiful man in the world — I think it’s the hair, people are telling me it’s his hair — and a scowling, bruiser babyface shouldn’t work, but it DOES. He’s just this bad-ass little bastard son of William Regal who feels like a gritty, re-imagined version of 2005 American Dragon Bryan Danielson. Like, what if Bryan Danielson was a British millennial? He’d be Pete Dunne. And you’ve got him in here against Kyle O’Reilly, the member of Undisputed Era who is probably the best at “technical wrestling,” but INTENSELY annoying as a human being (in character) and burdened with the dime-a-dozen gimmick that he’s a guy from the independent scene who likes to kick and do submissions. He’s almost a relic of 2012’s best independent wrestling matches.

So you throw them out there and the crowd is INSTANTLY ready to go. No sitting on their hands. No waiting for the spots. The crowd’s ready to hit a dueling chant before they’ve even done anything, and that base hotness allows everything Dunne and O’Reilly do to have meaning and impact. So they wrestle this awesome sprint with O’Reilly targeting Dunne’s injured left leg and Dunne trying to injure O’Reilly’s left arm, and seeing which one gives in first. It’s an incredibly simple story wrestled with urgency with clear goals laid out for the audience, so they actually have a reason to cheer or boo the physicality beyond “I like this guy” or “I don’t like this guy.”

Physical storytelling feels like a lost art in WWE these days, to the point that selling on offense becomes something we have to point out and praise. When you actually take the time to tell the story, you don’t have to insist upon it. Dunne doesn’t have to cringe every time he lands on his feet, just sometimes, and the announce team can explain that yeah, he’s hurt, but he’s also running on adrenaline and has to counter or hit something RIGHT NOW or he’s gonna lose. The selling is there, it’s just not obtuse. It’s selling for a reason. Brief pauses, moments of split-second decision-making. It’s exciting, engaging, and about as “realistic” as pro wrestling sprints can get without slowing down. It’s why O’Reilly has the match in the bag until he decides to screw around and dramatically take out Dunne’s mouthpiece. He takes his eyes off the prize, and it costs him dearly.

The post-match stuff carries the emotions of the match as well, with Undisputed Era showing up to be jerks and Burch and Lorcan running out to even the odds. It sells the idea of Pete Dunne as a fighting champion, validates the United Kingdom division as the best place to see Actual Wrestling® on the WWE payroll, gets over Undisputed Era as a heel faction, gets over Lorcan and Burch as noble threats, and hypes EVERYTHING about your upcoming Network special. The best and most constructive 15-or-so minutes of WWE TV this year, maybe.

Worst: The War Raiders Almost Kill A Guy

The opening match of the show is the Renaissance Faire Ascension and their shadow helmets against the jobber super team of Justin Storm and Ricky Martinez. Check your local promotions, there’s a “Justin Storm” and a “Ricky Martinez” on the card. For all of them, everywhere. Storm definitely got his tights pre-made from Highspots. I didn’t pay attention to the print on the side of Martinez’s leg until he was down in the corner and couldn’t see the “D” in Star Dom, so I thought he was the STAR MOM. Also, who separates “stardom” in the middle like that? I know you want to fit it on the side of your leg, but it looks like you’re saying you’re a star Dom. Storm’s tights should’ve said POWER BOTTOM across the butt.

Anyway, it’s another squash win for the Raiders, which is fine. They’re a good tag team, but you could probably be doing something better or more interesting with them than having them beat cans every week. Eternally frustrated in NXT only knowing how to book two people or teams at a time. They’re really great with that one story they have, and then everyone else has to play developmental until it’s their turn. The one big criticism of the brand, I think.

The most notable moment happens in the post-match promo, where Rowe calls out The Mighty and then they almost kill a guy. Seriously, look how close that guy’s head is to the mat. Rowe throws him in the air and dude goes 45 degrees, face-down. Hansom barely touches him. Watch:

If he didn’t get his hands down first and walk himself into a bump in the split second before impact, he would’ve gotten completely Beverly Brothered. I don’t care if that’s a bump you know how to take and you can hit it perfectly 99 out of 100 times, Stormy, take that shit out of your repertoire before you paralyze yourself.

Best: He Am, The Top, One, Top One Percent

This match kinda felt like watching Dorian Gray wrestle his painting.

EC3 (which stands for nothing now, like Kentucky Fried Chicken turning into KFC) vs. Kassius Ohno is the most forgettable match of the night, but it serves a purpose. I literally just typed about how you can’t have your new stars beat jobbers forever and expect it to lead to something worthwhile, so I like that they’ve quickly moved The Carter up from trouncing Raul Mendoza to trouncing Kassius Ohno. It’s a good call, especially in that it gave Ohno a lot of offense and showed that EC3 can take it as well as he can dish it out. That’s important if we’re ever gonna buy him taking on guys like Aleister Black. I’m down for Kassis Ohno being the badly designed Brooklyn Brawler of NXT. Beat the jobbers, lose to everybody else.

Best: Bianca Belair Is A Star

Two things:

1. How many character attempts is this now for poor Aliyah? She had something (?) going for her with the cat ears, but then Natalya started doing it. Now she’s out here as Great Value Carmella, with Percy Watson excitedly screaming about how she has Donatella Versace on speed dial. Cool? I guess? I agree with you, person in the crowd.

2. Holy crap, Bianca Belair. She looked like a MEGA STAR here, from her graceful back handspring to this clean and jerk gorilla press into a snake eyes to set up her finish. The video packages about her life gave her a little context and momentum, and now she’s out here following up on it by looking like a modern day, female Goldberg. That’s what we liked about him so much at first, if you’ll remember … the fact that yeah, he was big and strong, but he was also weirdly quick and agile. When Bianca hits you with a shoulder, she BOWLS YOU OVER with a shoulder. She doesn’t just touch shoulders and then you bump. When she presses you, yeah, you’re still doing a lot of the work — a little too much of the work, if you watch the GIF — but goddamn is it impressive. I hope that press spot is a rare occurrence and they don’t try to turn it into a signature move, because if she tries it on somebody she can’t maneuver as well, it’s going to end badly for both of them. Rare signature spots are cool, and another lost art in current WWE. I think the last one of note was Cena’s Attitude Adjustment off the ropes, and now he does that every time he wrestles.

They also have a backstage segment setting up Belair vs. Dakota Kai, who she can ABSOLUTELY do that to. So that’ll be fun. I love that Raw and Smackdown can’t set up a pay-per-view worth of shows in a month of 100-hour weeks but NXT can hype a TakeOver, put on a great wrestling show with multiple division AND set up matches for the future in one.

And Then There’s Lars

Finally we have the NXT Championship segment, which is just Aleister Black cutting a promo and getting beaten up by Lars Sullivan. Lars drags him over to the announce table and poses with the belt like he’s on an “altar,” and that’s it.

I like both of these guys a lot, but is it weird to anybody that we’re heading into a TakeOver where the NXT Championship match feels like the least important thing on the card? Ciampa vs. Gargano is definitely the most important thing happening, but Baszler vs. Nikki Cross has a lot of heat and intrigue to it, and the Tag Team Championship match has been booked beautifully. Velveteen Dream vs. Ricochet speaks for itself. This sorta feels like the Brock Lesnar vs. Bob Holly of NXT Championship matches. That said, NXT’s the one place you can count on a match being better than you think it’s gonna be, so I’m not worried.

Really good show this week. Find Dunne vs. O’Reilly as soon as you can, and get on that Bianca Belair hype train immediately.