Previously on the Best and Worst of NXT: Violet Payne got brutally murdered on NXT television, Bianca Belair and Nikki Cross brawled, and Ricochet dressed up as his own championship belt to stand on an apple crate and talk to Cathy.
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 September 19, 2018.
Best, Except For Aliyah: The Opener
Up first this week we have the team of Liberty Belle and Aliyah — Team “Hold Our Arms Out To The Side” — against Dakota Kai and Deonna Purrazzo, suggested team name Kainazzo, Fiend Of Water. Seriously, look at this screenshot from last week and tell me Lacey Evans and Aliyah aren’t straight out of GLOW.
The opener is totally watchable, as it’s one of those by-the-numbers matches where everyone does everything right, but there’s nothing really happening. I’ll take that over a bundle of confusion and three hours of nonsense 10 out of 10 times. Aliyah’s still in gimmick purgatory, as she’s not really leaning into the “I am a rich foreign exchange student or whatever and my parents cut me off” thing anymore, and the announce team mentions she calls herself the “cat’s meow,” which is something she hasn’t really done since Natalya usurped the cat ears. At least with Lacey Evans you’ve got a character locked in. Dakota Kai’s only real character right now is “afraid of things” and “loses,” and all Deonna’s got is a jacket that says she’s good at arm bars. They’ll come along.
Lacey Evans is pretty spectacular though, I’ve gotta say. She’s one of the few women on the NXT roster right now who truly looks like she could kick your ass, male or female, and that goes a long way. There aren’t enough pro wrestlers who look strong and tough in addition to looking “in shape” — there are plenty of people who look “in shape” but don’t look like they could win a fight — but I’m pretty sure Lacey could throw me into the sun if she wanted.
Worst: Eric Old
Eric Young got called up to Smackdown, so here are the FORGOTTEN SONS, an entire faction of Eric Youngs so trashy they literally cut a promo in a junkyard last week. Jaxson Ryker — aka TNA’s “Gunner,” the only man in history to leave TNA and get a more TNA-sounding name — defeats Humberto Carrillo with all the reverse chinlocks and clubbing axehandles you’d expect from an episode of Explosion. That’s what we’re watching, isn’t it?
As a quick side note, if you’ve never heard of Carrillo before, he’s the former Ultimo Ninja, son of Humberto Garza, nephew of Hector Garza and Ninja Jr., cousin of Garza Jr. He’s competed in places like The Crash Lucha Libre, RevoLucha, ELITE, and is one of those dudes who is only 22 but has somehow been wrestling for 25 years. Until they make him an ultimate ninja again, I’m gonna call him Danny Guevara.
Anyway, I’m sure the Forgotten Sons are fine, and I do love me some Real Live Cowboy Wesley Blake, but I also can’t not notice their Aces & Eights asses stomping into Full Sail straight from their home in 2010 developmental. What, could Lucky Cannon not grow a beard?
Worst: Snitches Get Stitches
Here’s Candice LeRae not realizing her husband was seen walking into the building from the Aleister Black crime scene as William Regal was walking out, but still taking a minute to implicate Tommaso Ciampa, who is already cleared. Seems like they’re in on it together, and Ciampa was right this whole time. STOP SNITCHING, CANDICE.
Best: AW NUTS WE’RE OUT OF TIME ON NITRO
Finally we have the most WCW Monday Nitro thing we’ve ever seen in NXT: the announcement of a champion vs. champion match, United Kingdom Champion Pete Dunne vs. North American Champion Ricochet, with both titles on the line. The announce team spends the entire episode and at least one video package saying it’s the “biggest match in the history of NXT TV.” So if you ever watched WCW a day in your life, you know that (1) this match is going to be great while it lasts, but (2) they aren’t going to pull any “double champions” on NXT weekly TV, especially not with this kind of “whoops, we’re at odds” tag team breakup booking, and that (3) it’s going to end in a disqualification. If the nWo themselves had shown up and spray-painted Ricochet and Dunne I only would’ve been mildly surprised.
The good news is that yeah, these guys are great at what they do, and even without the lame DQ finish, we get about 20 minutes of it. I asked the question of whether or not Pete Dunne is better than Ricochet a few weeks ago, and I think this match proves it. RIcochet trying to hang with Pete Dunne early on and prove he’s not just a flippy guy only to repeatedly find himself in TORTURE OFFENSE was great. Plus, Ricochet is such an absurd athlete and human being that his comebacks are next-level, and even a guy with the experience and know-how of Dunne can be taken surprise by it. Really, really good stuff here, and I hope these two get a chance to up the ante with a rematch at a TakeOver and actually build to a finish, because whew, that’d be something else.
As for the run-in, we’re (presumably) continuing our march to War Games in November, with Undisputed Era making the not-very-wise choice of pissing off a group of 4-5 people right before a TakeOver special where they might end up in a cage match against 4-5 people.
Next Week:
- Lars Sullivan is in action, in a van, down by the river
- Tommaso Ciampa takes on Otis Dozovic in a battle of Meanest Person vs. Nicest
