Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE NXT: The 25th TakeOver (+1 Arrival) happened, giving us a new NXT Champion in Adam Cole and new NXT Tag Team Champions in the Street Profits. Hope you’re having fun on Main Event, Viking Experience!
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 and everyone is terrible.
And now, the Best and Worst of WWE NXT for June 12, 2019.
Worst: Missing A Lay-Up
Just a quick note to say how big of a missed opportunity it is to tape an episode of NXT television in Bel Air, MD, and not have Bianca Belair anywhere on the card. Girl. Uh-uh. What’s next, running a show on Rikers Island and not booking the Forgotten Sons because they can’t drive their motorcycles over water?
Best: Io Shirai’s Slow Evolution Into IO SHIRAI
Up first this week is the Four Horsewomen …
… sorry, the Three Horsewomen, against Candice LeRae and Io Shirai in tag team action. Two great things continue to happen here:
- Candice LeRae is actually her own wrestler now, finally, which is awesome, and
- Io Shirai doesn’t have Kairi Sane around to keep her … well, sane anymore, so with every match she’s inching closer and closer to the dark side, better known as “Io Shirai’s natural state.”
Marina Shafir and Jessamyn Duke are getting better but are still nowhere near the magical instant quality of Shayna Baszler and most-of-the-time Ronda Rousey, but I like them as hapless henchmen. They aren’t SUPPOSED to be as good as Shayna, that’s why they follow her around and do her dirty work. Shayna is Megatron. Duke and Shafir are Soundwave and Shockwave. In the grand scheme of things, Rousey is probably Megatron and Baszler is Starscream — because she’s better, more cartoonishly antagonistic, and routinely pretends she’s the one in charge of everyone — but that’s neither here nor there.
If you aren’t familiar with Shirai’s more M. Bison-esque tendencies, you get another sneak peek at them here. She sends a message to Shayna Baszler by stomping Duke’s arm, Shayna style, and when Shayna comes to ringside to bail out her friends, Io just pivots on the top rope and moonsaults her to death. When enough punching to the face has occurred (and Candice has taken out the Lesser Horses with a dive), Io dumps Shayna into the stairs and then more or less kicks her ass around the arena. It’s GREAT, and I’m excited to see the next iteration of this feud — a steel cage match in two weeks — and/or Io’s complete absorption and acceptance of the pro wrestling Phoenix Force.
Worst: Instead of ‘Damian Priest’ They Should’ve Named Him ‘Omen Tortuga’
Punishment Martinez has paired his Ring of Honor Mentality® with Edge’s gimmick from 1998 and re-entered the game as Damian Priest. Between this, ACH renaming himself “Jordan,” and former Dexter rip-off Sam Shaw naming himself fucking Dexter, it’s a great time for Captain Obvious rebranding.
I get it, though. After “The Viking Experience,” NXT’s decided to just go back to giving everyone stupid 2009 WWE developmental names so they don’t have to get disappointed when Vince McMahon changes someone’s brand from Adam Cole to “Blarney McMichaels.”
(I do hope Damien Priest’s character is immediately followed by a vampire hunter character tasked with finding and stopping him.)
Best: I Want Domination! I Want Your Submission!
♫ I gotta roll the dice! Never look back, and never think twice! WHOA-OH-OH-OH ♫
The highlight of this episode (again!) is the rematch between KUSHIDA and Drew Gulak, this time with submission match rules. I loved this for a few reasons, including the fact that it’s a wonderful change of pace from the regular type of matches NXT runs — there are so many kinds of “good wrestling,” why not do a bunch of them to keep it fresh? — and the fact that I’m a lonely nerd who honestly wouldn’t be unhappy if wrestling was just two boring-ass Dean Malenkos exchanging hammerlocks for 30 minutes. I’m the dude who loves the limb work in the first 30 seconds of ROH matches and hates the 75 kickouts over the next three quarter-hours. I’M THE WORST.
Anyway, Gulak and KUSHIDA’s great because while it’s under submission rules, it’s NOT just lying on the ground trying to grab holds. They do some of that, but they pepper it with quick sequences and purposeful strikes to make it seem like two guys who have to win by submission, but know they don’t have to only do submissions. We get great moments like Gulak’s awesome handless Boston crab, that shoulder-tearing Gory Special, and KUSHIDA finally making that transition into the Hoverboard Lock look good on NXT TV.
KUSHIDA wins, of course, because Gulak’s here to help him show the audience how good KUSHIDA is at wrestling. Message heard. From a kayfabe perspective, boy, why would you challenge KUSHIDA of all people to a “who is better at wrestling” match? You’re gonna have a bad time. GREAT stuff.
An Event Equal To Or EXCEEDING NXT TakeOver!
Mansoor is great and all, but keep this horseapples propaganda shit-show out of my NXT, please and thank you.
Best: I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Lorcan For
Once again, here’s Jaxson Ryker showing up to randomly decrease the quality of an otherwise very good NXT match. Funny how that keeps happening!
Oney and Twoey vs. the Undisputed Era is one of those matches you can see on a card in NXT in 2019 and go, “yeah, that’s probably pretty good,” without seeing a second of it. You’d be right, too. These two teams have such great chemistry, mostly because Kyle O’Reilly and Roderick Strong do their best work when they can physically murder folks in the ring, and Lorcan and Burch are like the two little Station aliens that form Sheamus and do their best work when they’re getting beaten up. It’s a perfect mix of talent, made even better by the fact that Oney and Burch work a naturally swift pace in their matches, and Undisputed Era’s one of the two or three teams on the roster that can legitimately keep up.
The best news is that the dumb interference from Aces and Ain’ts allows Burch and Lorcan to steal a victory, which positions them as the next challengers for the Street Profits. I don’t think the Profits are going to lose the tag titles on their first big defense, but I can guarantee whatever Montez Ford comes up with to do against Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch is gonna make our jaws hit the floor. Really excited for that, whenever it happens.
Next Week
We’re finally done with our NXT TakeOver XXV hangover and can move on to the next set of tapings, which you can read spoilers for (if you want) here.
And in two weeks, it’s Shayna Baszler vs. Io Shirai in a steel cage match, which (not a real spoiler) Io will accidentally win by slipping out of her ill-fitting novelty baseball jersey. Crazy how that keeps happening!
See you then!
♫ I just wanna be, wanna be lo-oh-oh ♫
