Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE NXT: Aleister Black’s attacker was revealed to be NXT’s worst person, Mia Yim made her formal NXT debut, and a bunch of security guys got their brains splattered in the Full Sail parking lot.
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 October 31, 2018.
Best: Crossing Paths
Up first on this week’s episode is Nikki Cross vs. Mercedes Martinez, which is good, but not as good on NXT TV as it would be in a Mae Young Classic tournament. Martinez gets a little more to do than enhancement talent — she’s currently in that old Santana Garrett role, where they’d bring in a recognizable face to have a six-minute match with an NXT star instead of bringing out a PC trainee to lose in three — and Cross puts her over afterward, which is nice. Mercedes is definitely one of those people they should keep around, even if that freestanding hood with one sleeve confuses me more every time I see it.
The story here is the post-match, which sees Candice “LeRae” Failure show up in new goth heel’s wife makeup to confront Cross for … snitching on Johnny, I guess? I don’t know why she’s so mad; it’s not like Cross made her husband attack a guy in the parking lot at work, and hell, Johnny’s the one who sneak-attacked Black last week and announced he was the Full Sail Bandit. As Cross is leaving, Al Black (who once scored four touchdowns in a single Satanic football game) shows up and dom/subs her out of the building so he can confront Candice himself.
Black wants to know where Johnny Failure is, but Regal’s given him the night off, presumably to keep him from getting his fucking head spin-kicked off his shoulders. Black leaves, unfortunately skipping what would be a very dope Aleister Black vs. Candice LeRae match, and heads backstage to accost Regal about everything. Regal announces that he’ll get his shot at Gargano at NXT TakeOver: War Games.
Note: That show will also feature preemptive match of the year Tommaso Ciampa vs. Velveteen Dream, and I ain’t mad at it. What kind of blood magic does NXT use to keep making every TakeOver card better than the one before it?
Best: Montez Ford
First of all, holy shit, Montez Ford.
Second of all, this is from the next installment in the Street Profits vs. The Mighty beef, which has some great callbacks to their previous matches and brawls and finally sees the Profits getting back their one (?) Solo cup. I don’t know, wrestling is weird. I guess it really is a solo cup.
Third of all, how can I convince someone to make Montez Ford vs. Shane Thorne the Cena/Orton or HHH/Rock of NXT’s future? I want these two guys to ditch their tag team partners and become huge stars. Also I’d probably send WWE a hundred dollars if they’d change The Mighty’s Disney Channel original series entrance theme.
Worst: Speaking Of Terrible Entrance Themes
Here’s Matt Riddle’s NXT theme, which is 100% the music you hear while Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is loading.
Best: Matt Riddle Defeats Mimsy
Aside from that, Matt Riddle’s really very good at this. He’s a lot like Kurt Angle in the way he just kinda showed up from another sport and was like, “oh, I see how to do this,” and was instantly great at it. He doesn’t do anything you haven’t seen in a Matt Riddle match before, but if you’ve never SEEN a Matt Riddle match before, it’s awesome. It’s still pretty awesome. Make sure you check out that armbar transition he does at the beginning of the video, or just watch it in GIF form here.
Shout-out to Luke Menzies for coming out here and eating shit for the new guys while Kassius Ohno does his “I’ll only eat shit for the new guys on LIVE SPECIALS” act. There’s a fun backstage bit on Dot Com where Ohno awkwardly tries to be a bad-ass to Riddle and Keith Lee and they just kinda ignore him. Ohno vs. Riddle is like a before and after photo of Mac “cultivating mass” on It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia.
Best: One Of The Hottest Three-Minute Matches Ever
My favorite match on the show was Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch (aka Oney and Twoey) vs. Humberto Carillo and Raul Mendoza, who I’m affectionately calling the Mexiuncools. This match manages to be a complete barn-burner at only 3:15 in length, and might be one of the best three-minute matches I’ve ever seen. It’s like the Readers Digest version of a hot NXT TakeOver opener.
Oney and Twoey — who are now wearing red and blue trunks, so I might have to start calling them Reddy and Bluey — TRUCK these guys, as seen in the above GIF, but in a competitive way. Somehow. In three minutes. It’s actually remarkable that it’s as back-and-forth as it is. Mendoza and Carillo (especially Carillo) are GREAT, and I hope they keep them as a high-flying underdog tag team long enough to build them up for a title shot. Those two vs. Undisputed Era for 15 minutes would rule. A 15-minute version of this with Reddy and Bluey as champs would also tear the entire house down.
Between this and the match in hour one of NXT UK, Danny Burch is this week’s MVP.
Best/Worst: Lawn Dart 2018
I’m giving the final segment a Best because it’s a fun brawl with people getting thrown into tables at NXT’s weird film set food court, and because it sets up an almost-classic four-on-four War Games match. Thank goodness we’re already abandoning the three teams thing from last year. Now if we could just get a roof on the cage. (Like they’d ever do that with Ricochet in the match.)
I’m giving it half a Worst, though, because of that lawn dart spot. Rey Mysterio got thrown into the side of a trailer and had to be taken away on a stretcher in a neck brace with like five wrestlers kneeling beside him praying he wouldn’t die. Adam Cole’s up and swinging weapons like nothing happened in a few camera cuts. Although I might just give it a quarter Worst, because Bobby Fish desperately trying to unlock the back door while the cargo door directly to his left is halfway open was unintentionally hilarious. Or intentionally hilarious, I can never tell with Fish.
Actually, I’ll give it only a quarter Worst, because War Raiders being smart enough to stake out Undisputed Era’s one backstage hangout promo spot to attack them was pretty smart. Maybe only an eighth worst because it gives William Regal and Pete Dunne another excuse to interact. You know what?
Just Best: WAR GAMES Y’ALL
Tips to make it perfect:
- add a roof to the cage
- blood, and lots of it
- four-on-four is a great start, but make it five-on-five
- add EC3 to the babyface team
- add another random little Ring of Honor guy to Undisputed Era to bring their team to five. Poach Chris Sabin or Matt Taven or something. Or hell, just add Lars Sullivan to the group and have him start acting like a strip mall BJJ dad like the rest of them.
Next Week:
MAGA Liberty Belle is in action, Lars Sullivan takes on the Velveteen Dream, and Johnny Gargano cuts a promo about how when he was a kid he’d invite his friends over to play Sega Genesis, but he only had one player games, and every time they’d try to play he’d say “hold on, let me show you something,” and continue playing for 20 more minutes. All this and more!
