Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE NXT: Shayna Baszler continued to put the fear of God into Dakota Kai, SAnitY kinda sorta said goodbye, and Tommaso Ciampa continued his lifelong quest to ruin the Gargano family’s lives.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for May 2, 2018. Back on that NXT beat.
Best: Wrestle Kingdom 10 (2016)
Up first this week is constantly confused but affable pirate Kairi Sane taking on Shazza McKenzie, a personal favorite from the independent scene who probably should’ve been picked up after she fought Evil Emma on NXT TV way back in 2015 and should at least be in the conversation about winning the next Mae Young Classic. Here they are playing spyglass with Shazza’s love, because you can’t shoot a gun at someone and have them eat the bullet at 8PM on WWE Network.
Anyway, Sane picks up a strong, decisive win against Shazmac to set up the post-match Quicktime event. Lacey Evans, who is like the Amalgam Comics mash-up of 1940s Wonder Woman and 1940s Captain America, shows up and is like, “I’ve decided that now this awesome wrestler DOES belong in NXT, and she should shake my hand for absolutely no sneak attack whatsoever.” Then a sneak attack happens, and NXT creative attempts to win a Pulitzer by convincing a wrestling crowd Kairi Sane might not be able to beat Lacey Evans.
Best: Rebuilding Seasons
NXT’s always secretly the best when it’s forced to go back to its roots. NXT is the Oney Lorcan of wrestling promotions is what I’m saying.
NXT’s a “third brand” but it also still kinda sorta serves as a developmental territory. Usually the “developmental” part gets overshadowed by them bringing in stars from other places like Tommy End, La Sombra and CWF Mid-Atlantic’s own Manny Garcia, and that becomes the roster. But when call-up season starts and you’ve got the WrestleMania Raw and Smackdowns followed immediately by two nights of Superstar Shake-Up and three pay-per-views in a goddamn month, that roster gets drained, and you reset to a couple of notable stars, a few people you know are gonna BE notable stars, and a bunch of developmental types who could easily catch on or disappear completely on a whim.
The women’s division gets it worst, because the women get called up in these huge batches. NXT managed to revolutionize women’s wrestling in the U.S. and build this stable of talent like Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch, Sasha Banks and Bayley, and then one day BOOM, three of them are on the main roster and it’s just Bayley versus dot dot dot question mark. But that era gave us Asuka, and Ember Moon, Peyton Royce and Billie Kay and several others, and we got to see them evolve and grow and change into “WWE Superstars.” That’s the fun part of NXT anyway. Cheering and jeering the growth. But then Asuka gets called up, and Mania season happens and they lose everyone again. Ember’s gone, Peyton and Billie are gone, no more Zelina Vega, and even NXT’s lower-ranking female stars show up in the WrestleMania battle royal.
So now we’re left with Shayna Baszler, she of future Ronda Rousey million dollar angles, as NXT Champion with her big rival, Kairi Sane, and a bunch of women who are ABOUT to be big stars, but aren’t yet fully-formed. That gives us simple but effective character building moments like this hilariously fake “scrum” with Dakota Kai being afraid of Shayna and getting harassed by Vanessa Borne. A few notes:
- Dakota being routinely terrified of Shayna and trying to pretend she isn’t is some awesome, prime Bayley storytelling and I hope they spend the next year and a half building to that as a championship match blowoff at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn IV or whatever
- I would sell my actual human soul to the devil to have hair as nice as Vanessa Borne’s
- I like the attention to detail of most wrestling journalists just recording it on their phone
- I’m anxious for Borne’s character to evolve beyond the 2010 WWE Diva default personality of “I am the BEST person at WWE and these other people are just JEALOUS,” but I’m sure it’ll happen. Or they’ll do what they did with the Eye-iconics and crank that shit to 11
Not Worst, But Certainly Not Best: Whatever They’re Doing With Candice LeRae
The major thing that didn’t work for me on this episode is 16-year veteran Candice LeRae being so shaken up about her husband getting pro wrestling attacked last week that she bursts into tears during backstage interviews, and loses her matches because she can’t concentrate. This would probably work better if you were booking, say, Nitro Girl Whisper to be upset about Shawn Michaels or something. I think most of us would rank Candice above Johnny in the “toughness” category, so it’s just tonally a little off.
I get what they’re doing, though. The Gargano/Ciampa issues have gone way beyond pro wrestling and have bled into their “real lives,” so it’s not “Candice LeRae the wrestler” doing this stuff, it’s Candice Gargano the human being. And I like that they at least had her lose to someone like Bianca Belair, who is still a little green around the edges but such a natural powerhouse presence that you could say, yeah, she could beat anyone on any night if their head’s not in the game. That military press where she just fuckin’ throws people up with her arm strength and no posting is the best. Weirdly I think the hair whip is the only thing I don’t love about her, and even that gives me infinity Kabuki Quantum Fighter jokes.
So yeah, I’m not in love with Candice not being able to keep herself together because *relationships,* but I see them working in the human element and know everyone involved in the story’s good enough to make it work.
Best: Defeating Profits By A Margin
Here’s a fun study question: which of these teams has the bigger talent differential between partners? Montez Ford over Angelo Dawkins, or Shane Thorne over New Girl‘s Nick Miller? The answer, after this!
If you haven’t been watching lately, TM-61 are now condescending soccer guys in coordinating but not matching jerseys who still claim “the mighty don’t kneel” while doing a bunch of taunts involving kneeling, and now they cheat sometimes. They have to cheat here to beat the Street Profits, because they accidentally let Montez Ford get in the ring and he rules. They cheat to win™ and have become a real no remorse corp about it.
Answer: The Street Profits. Nick Miller’s the Australian non-union equivalent of Roderick Strong but he’s still pretty good, and Angelo Dawkins has been around since 2012 and has never gone any deeper than “two headbands instead of one.”
Best: NX3
One of the only silver linings about losing the entire staff and having to be on the WRITE EVERYTHING beat is that I’m coming back to the Best and Worst of NXT at the same time as Ethan Carter the motherfucking Third, who is forever my dude and proved for the past several years that he’s one of the best parts of any show he’s on. I just hope they figure out a way to bring in Karlee Perez as a new character, too. Get Kaitlyn in there again. Get the band back together.
In all seriousness, here’s a dream list of things I want for EC3 in WWE:
- running into Daniel Bryan and/or the Bella Twins again
- running into Kurt Angle again, possibly hurting him
- at least one televised WWE acknowledgment that he beat Sting
- finding some reason to interact with Drake Maverick even though he’s considerably more than 205
- a long happy career where he’s a rich person who gets to lift weights and hip-toss dudes in front of the kings of sovereign nations until he decides he wants to be in movies or whatever
Price Is Right Loser Horn: Kona Reeves
Oh boy. This week we finally get a look at the “new and improved” Kona Reeves, who has gone from being the fake Rocky Maivia to being the fake Nation of Domination Rock. His nickname is “The Finest,” so he works it into every possible statement, whether it’s appropriate or not. He’ll bodyslam his opponent — “Patrick Scott” this week, who looks like the worst wrestler in the best shape at your local indie show — and just walk over to the ropes like, THAT BODYSLAM WAS THE FINEST. NOW IT’S TIME FOR THE FINEST ELBOW DROP, BECAUSE I AM THE FINEST. IF I MAY REITERATE [does dropkick] FINESTTTTTT. He should change the catchphrase to, “I’m not good … [lowers glasses] but I’m fine!”
He’s trying very hard to be The Rock, but he’s honestly a lot more like the original version of NXT Tye Dillinger … he’s got a one note gimmick that isn’t even that strong of a note, and he’s only going to make it if he adds something else to it or leans so hard into that one note that they can’t deny him some throwaway comedy spots on the main roster. Of course, now that I’ve said this I’ve jinxed myself, and in two months Kona Reeves will be my favorite guy ever, and I wont be able to stop writing paragraphs about how stupid you are if you don’t like Kona Reeves. We’ll figure it out. I just hope he does, too. You know you’re off to a bad start when they put you in the Jacob Novak blazer with no shirt look and give you a bad looking Samoan Drop as a finish.
On a loosely related note, I think I’d like him 100% more if his name was “Crush Christopher.”
Best: Pete Dunne Goes Back To His Roots
This week’s main event is the Bruising Cruiserweight® Pete Dunne shit-kicking Strong Rod for turning on him at TakeOver. Percy Watson calls it the “ultimate betrayal,” which is overstating it a little. Dunne’s good at exhibiting pro wrestling hate in the ring, and “opportunistic, smug dick who’s the fourth best guy on his team” is an A+ role for Roddy. That whole “Mr. Company I Work For” and “Messiah of the Transitional Move” stuff doesn’t do it for me, but booking him as a scummy underling who’s good in the ring is pitch-perfect.
It’s mostly happening to set up the post-match attack from the Undisputed Era, which brings out Oney and Twoey for the save. That’ll no doubt set up Dunne, Lorcan and Burch vs. Cole, Strong and O’Reilly, which is (hopefully) only happening so the faces lose, and Dunne has to finally bring in Mustache Mountain and form British Strong Style for really real in WWE. That’ll be fun as hell.
And that’s this week’s show. The promotion’s in an awkward but really enjoyable transition now, so you’ve got a few of the leftovers from the previous era hanging around to put over/work with the new stars and characters. It’s gonna be hit or miss for a while, but NXT “misses” are always a lot of fun to write about, so we’re in a good place.
And hey, next week we get to see NXT’s God of War ruin a bench player for an intramural men’s basketball league, and I can’t think of a better way to spend my time.
