Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE NXT: Just a shit-load of great tag team wrestling. Just a whole load of shit’s worth of great tag team wrestling. So, so good.
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And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for March 13, 2019.
Best: 2 Cute 2 Be 4-Gotten
Or, “the finals are set.”
It’s another week of not much more than great tag team wrestling matches, and I’m not complaining. We get the two semi-finals matches in the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic here; a main event between super-teams DIY and whatever the main roster ends up calling Ricochet and Aleister Black, and Mustache Mountain vs. the Forgotten Sons. If there’s any complaint I can make, it’s that the Forgotten Sons made it into the finals.
If anyone’s benefited from this year’s tag tournament, it’s Aces and Ain’ts. Steve Cutler and Wesley Blake proved they can go in the ring if they aren’t shackled to Orlando’s own Gunner, and giving them exciting matches with (and wins over) established fan favorite teams like Mustache Mountain and the Street Profits helps put them on the map. They feel like a real tag team now, and one you might actually remember.
If I have any complaint here, it’s that the Forgotten Sons making it into the finals makes the finals way too easy to predict. I think we all knew that DIY was going to explode/implode/some kinda ‘plode before the tournament was over, so they weren’t going to make it all the way, and Ricochet and Aleister Black, despite barely being a tag team besides doing their taunts at the same time, are Ace 1 and Ace 2. I mean, who do you think wins in the finals? Paying no attention to spoilers, will it be the Forgotten Sons, or the team that effortlessly beat the Revival on Raw, effortlessly beat the Bar on Smackdown, and are only not main roster tag champs already because they were the team in a pay-per-view triple threat not involved in the fall? What, are we gonna run War Raiders vs. the Forgotten Sons on WrestleMania weekend? What is this, NXT from 2014?
I pull this card a lot with NXT, but you really don’t need me to tell you that the Ricochet plus Aleister Black plus Johnny Gargano plus Tommaso Ciampa 13-minute tag team main event was good. I love how Gargano and Ciampa know each other so well they look like they’ve been teaming every week for the past two years.
I’m interested to see how they play the big DIY breakup after the finish, though. The plot of the match is that Gargano goes down with a knee injury and can’t get back into the ring, so Ciampa has to go it alone and gets pinned. Ciampa and Candice LeRae help Johnny up the ramp and onto the stage, and Ciampa, driven by disappointment and anger just like before, tries to toss Johnny into the LED boards. Johnny sees it coming, though, puts on the brakes, and throws Ciampa into the boards instead. It’s then that he reveals his leg is perfectly fine, and this was just to sucker Ciampa in, because he knew he was gonna be betrayed. I guess the question I have here is this: if Johnny faked an injury to purposely lose a semi-finals tournament match because he knew Ciampa would turn on him if they lost, why didn’t he just try to win? Or if this was the plan all along, why didn’t he just, you know, not tag with Ciampa in the first place? It’s a lot like that Roderick Strong turn in New Orleans where he worked that hard to get to the finals just to ruin it for himself, minus there being a faction on the other side he wants to give the easy win to.
Just seems like Johnny’s the bigger heel here, I dunno. Ciampa certainly deserved the response to the post-match attack, but he seemed like he was playing ball in the actual tournament.
Best: Bro Bono
Adam Cole trying to talk sense into Matt Riddle is like standing behind someone who doesn’t know what they want to order at McDonald’s. Ummmmmmmm lemme get a uhhhh north american championship and uhhhh
Best: Shayna Four-Time
A number one contender match for the NXT Women’s Championship ends with Shayna Baszler showing up and choking the soul out of everyone, as she does. I like the ongoing idea that Shayna tries to eliminate her opponents in advance to show dominance, but is kind of a meathead bully and doesn’t think it through, so it ends up blowing up in her face. Here, she tries to choke out Io Shirai and Bianca Belair so neither of them can challenge her, manages to choke out both of them AND Kairi Sane, but ends up with three challengers instead of zero.
Also, please enjoy Kairi Sane’s adorable Barney Rubble “run in place to build up speed” run-in:
At NXT TakeOver: Not Specifically Brooklyn it’ll be Shayna Baszler defending a belt she should probably never lose against Kairi Sane, Io Shirai, and Biance Belair. Recommendation: call up Shayna to the main roster after WrestleMania so we have a Ronda Rousey who is better in the ring, better on the mic, and not obsessed with breaking kayfabe in as many words-per-minute as possible. Secondary recommendation: have Io or Kairi win, and have the one that doesn’t go rogue on the one that does. I just want to see those two wrestle for the next six months.
Next Week:
Keith Lee and Dominik Dijakovic are supposed to “renew their rivalry” next week, but I’m pretty pretty pretty sure that’s not actually happening until New York.
Also, the first episode of a set of tapings that knows about Tommaso Ciampa’s neck surgery, so that should be something.
Third recommendation: just run another tag team tournament immediately, it’s fine.
