The Best And Worst Of WWE NXT 3/21/18: Calm Like A Bomb

Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE NXT: F*ckface Ciampa still couldn’t get a word in, the Dusty Rhodes Classic continued to have the wrong teams advance, and Shayna Baszler made me pee my pants a little.

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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for March 21, 2018. All hell can’t stop us now.

Best: Know Your Enemy

In the latest installment of Silence Of The F*ckface, F*ckface Ciampa comes to the ring, gets soundly booed by the Full Sail Arena crowd (except for the few idiots trying to be contrary and chanting “Psycho killer!” in response to “Johnny Wrestling!” chants — we get it, you guys are edgy), but actually manages to speak this time. His entire promo, verbatim:

“He’s gone! Gone! Newsflash: He’s not walking down that damn aisle! He’s gone!”

Fin.

Ciampa does some incredible heel work on the way out, wiping his ass with someone’s sign, getting face to face with a stunt granny, and then — a wild Johnny Gargano appears! Holy sh*t, this crowd was hype as hell when Gargano revealed himself and finally got to get physical with Ciampa for the first time in nearly a year, and I gotta tell you, I had a hard time containing myself either. While it sucks that this story had to be shelved for a number of months due to Ciampa’s real-life injury (Tom Petty was right: The waiting truly is the hardest part), the anticipation has been building for so long that the roof blew off with one punch. Given that we only have two episodes(!) until TakeOver: New Orleans, this story needs to pick up the pace quickly, but I have faith.

Best: Bulls On Parade

Our final Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic quarterfinals match pits the team of Oney Lorcan and Jason Statham Danny Burch, now and forevermore known as 1-2 Punch, vs. Strong Bad, the slapdash combination of Roddy Strong and Pete Dunne, the latter of whom is easily one of the top five most over NXT stars right now. (The other four, since you’re asking: Gargano, Aleister Black, Velveteen Dream and Nikki Cross.) Just listen to the crowd pop when Dunne gets tagged in for the first time: It’s not even a hot-tag situation, and they’re just excited to see him do anything.

Luckily for all of us, these four dudes had their worker boots on, and they all seemed to enjoy beating the tar out of each other. (Dunne making Burch scream in pain is impressive, considering dude’s entire character thus far has been “man who gets punched hard and punches back harder”). The double chop executed on Burch was a nice double-team move I don’t recall seeing too often from any other team, and I loved the sequence where Lorcan absolutely wrecked Strong outside the ring while Dunne and Burch get into a slapfest which Burch won with a head butt.

Even though Team Strong Bad was clearly going to advance here, 1-2 Punch got in plenty of offense to make the match feel legitimate — and their creative move of suplexing Strong on top of Dunne looked awesome. Still, the right guys won, and Dunne’s shrug at the end of the match summed it up perfectly: “Guess I’m doing this now. Cool.”

Best: Testify

Ooooooh boy, we are about to arrive at a big-ass fireworks factory. For those unfamiliar with Ricochet, the man has been on the tip of pretty much every indie wrestling fan with WiFi access’s tongue ever since his internet-breaking match in NJPW with Will Ospreay in 2016. He also moonlighted as Prince Puma in Lucha Underground for the first three seasons. Now, he’s finally in WWE, and I have to assume this “coming soon” vignette is going to turn into some sort of match at TakeOver. Not that Ricochet is going to need a ton of help getting over with the NXT audience, but you couldn’t build a more sympathetic crowd than those in attendance WrestleMania weekend. Hell, dude could probably debut as Braun Strowman’s tag partner the next night and get a solid recognition pop in the SuperDome.

Best: War Within A Breath

Not to continue my endless piling on of Aliyah (A-LOL-yah?), but man, just take a look at her face in this match graphic:

That is the face of future endeavors, my friends.

The match itself was nothing worth writing about, though I did enjoy the reveal that Aliyah took a “circus skills” class in college, which makes sense as she is straight clown shoes right now.

The segment got instantly more exciting when Shayna Ba(e)szler walked out in a Rage Against The Machine T-shirt, studded leather jacket and Sid Vicious-esque padlock necklace. I was legitimately concerned for the safety of the announce team (minus Percy, because¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ), and that was before she started yelling into her headset like a 12-year-old cursing someone out on Xbox Live. There is absolutely zero part of me that wants Ember Moon to retain in New Orleans. I hope Triple H feels the same way.

Worst: Mic Check

Pity poor Raul Mendoza. The guy’s been used as a doormat for the past nine months, losing to Johnny Gargano, Velveteen Dream and Aleister Black (and looking good every time). Then here, dude doesn’t even get a match, getting thrown off the ramp by Andrade “I Hate This Nickname And Refuse To Keep Typing It” Almas. Maybe this will lead to MendozaMania running wild? Fingers crossed.

Even worse: Mendoza was the best part of this entire segment. It’s time for everyone to admit that as absolutely incredible as he is in the ring, Almas simply has no ability to communicate effectively on the microphone. I literally don’t know what Almas was saying for the entirety of his promo. I think he’s mad at Aleister Black? He called him a “piece of *bleep*,” but it didn’t sound like the word “sh*t” (nor did the crowd pop for a profanity), so maybe he said the Spanish equivalent? Regardless, the entire thing fell flat, and you could tell from the flatlining reaction from the crowd, which was otherwise super-hot the entire episode.

This is only the second in-ring promo Almas has cut himself since winning the NXT championship, and neither promo exists on WWE’s YouTube channel. That tells you everything you need to know. Sorry, Andrade, but for your own good, you shouldn’t be let near a microphone any time soon. I’m just trying to keep it cien here.

Also, This: Settle For Nothing

Maybe I was just so hung up on Almas’ dud of a promo — or maybe it’s the fact that we’re into a new set of NXT tapings and Bobby Fish is still appearing on camera as if nothing’s wrong, when we know that’s not true — but I just couldn’t get into this main event at all. Adam Cole is still more of a video game villain than an actual wrestler (complete with cut-scene dialogue: “You’ll never be able to beat me, you’re just a loser!”), and Kassius Ohno is… Kassius Ohno.

You’d never guess it from listening to Full Sail, though: They were on fire for what felt like a pretty run-of-the-mill match between these two guys, losing their sh*t for every thigh slap. (And lord, were there plenty of thigh slaps.) In all honesty, I think the audience was just happy to have NXT back in Full Sail after having lost three months’ worth of tapings to Atlanta. I guess you’ll eat anything if you’re hungry enough.

So Cole wins without the help of Fish or Kyle O’Reilly, which looks decent, but feels like it’s building him up for a singles match at TakeOver when there’s no opponent out there. Maybe the Undisputed Era’s future will get less cloudy next week? I hope so, because the clock is ticking.

Next Week: The Dusty Rhodes Classic semifinals, plus an appearance from Aleister Black.