Previously on the Best and Worst of WWE NXT: The beef between Mia Yim and Bianca Belair continued, the beef between Adam Cole and Matt Riddle escalated, and Riddick Moss debuted his new gimmick, which is, “I drink from a water bottle sometimes.”
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 May 15, 2019.
Best: Percy Watson Is Gone. [Clap] [Point] OH YEAH!
Percy Watson is replaced by Beth Phoenix as the third wheel of the NXT announce team, and while I’m not a massive fan of Beth on commentary, a barking dog in an upstairs apartment would’ve been an improvement over Percy. I just hope Beth will be able to shout things like, “oh man, look at THAT,” in the brief pauses between Mauro and Nigel.
Best/Worst: Raiders Of The Lost Arc
This is a really unique set of tapings, taped at the end of April when WWE was shaking up their rosters only a few weeks after the Superstar Shake-Up to deal with declining ratings, trying to figure out what to do with the next Saudi Arabia show, and rescheduling/renaming Backlash. There was supposed to be a TakeOver in San Jose, but then there wasn’t, so nobody on the show really knows what’s going on, and everyone refers to TakeOver 25 — which you’d assume would be a big anniversary event — as just a vague, unspecified “TakeOver.” That means a lot of minor stories are moving forward, but nothing’s really happening. At least not in the classic NXT sense. Oh, and the goddamn Tag Team Champions got moved up to Raw on a whim and had their name changed so many times they turned into a meme.
So this week’s show opens with The Viking Raiders deciding to relinquish the NXT Tag Team Championship because nobody can beat them, and also, you know, they aren’t on the roster anymore. They give the belts to William Regal, and we discover a few funny bits:
- talking really slowly in a Christian Bale Batman voice =/= being tough and threatening
- the Raiders’ armor looks a hell of a lot better in half darkness, as when they’re standing in the bright lights it looks like Rowe’s wearing a bunch of car floormats on his shoulders
- it’s not a good idea to have your big tough tag team stand shoulder-to-shoulder with William Regal, who was never seen as a “big guy,” but is bigger than both of them
The Street Profits show up and lay down a challenge for the belts so the Raiders can’t just Paige and Charlotte their way out of the brand. As a bonus, Montez Ford (who looks great as always) says, “Street Profits and beat Viking Raiders,” and Angelo Dawkins earns mad points for adding, “if that’s your real name.”
Dawkins out here like …
Unfortunately for everyone involved, the match only ends up going about two (really good) minutes. The Forgotten Sons interfere, which then brings out Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch, and everybody fights. The Viking Raiders end up standing tall and laying the NXT Tag Team Championship belts down in the ring, leaving the company without the Street Profits actually getting a chance to beat them. Nobody really gets put over, the champions have already been nerfed tremendously by their time on Raw, and that’s … it. Kind of a bummer.
I get why they want to keep the Raiders strong, especially considering how awesome they’ve been for the past few months (of NXT) and how robbed NXT is of getting to take them anywhere fun or interesting before they’re The New Ascension, but I was really hoping the Profits would pull it off. That said, it could be equally fun to see the Profits win the championship against the remainder of the division at NXT TakeOver 25, and then bring the Raiders back down for a guest spot to put the Profits over without having to lose a championship to them. A, “you might’ve beaten everyone, but you’ve never beaten US” thing. That could put them over stronger than anything.
Or, I don’t know, we just blow a kiss to the concept of the War Raiders and move the hell on with the tag team division. Random, sudden call-ups of like a dozen random people can sure kill a plotting vibe.
Best: Baby Eleban Walk
Before the main event, Vanessa Borne defeats NXT jobber “Jessie.”
No, not that one. That one is friends with “Cassie.”
There we go.
If you didn’t see the Mae Young Classic, Eleban — who Emily Pratt deftly described as “dressing like a teen character in a community theater musical” — took a first-round loss to Taynara Conti. She’s back without her last name now for some reason, presumably trying to capture some of that, “it’s BAYLEY” magic. She’s got a lot of enthusiasm, but needs one of those Horsewomen-style shirts that says “TRY HARD” on the front.
Vanessa Borne continues to look better every time we see her, and even though she’s still got a ways to go, she’s looking more aggressive. She’s certainly got the presentation part of being a WWE Superstar down. She should probably drop the apron hip attack with “wipe my butt with the side of your face” theatrics, but the WWE Universe loves a good booty-based offense, so what do I know? And honestly I’d pop hard if Mauro Ranallo started calling it by screaming ASS WIPE!!!! into the microphone. Bring in El Asso Wipo to manage her at a TakeOver.
Best: Waluigi Loves Keith Lee
It’s good to see Keith Lee back from injury, and even better to see a wrestling fan in a Pokemon shirt and a Waluigi hat applauding him. That’s like, the ultimate Keith Lee fan. Now we just need an episode called by Wauro Ranallo. WAHHH-MA MIA!
Best: KUSHIDA Might Actually Get A Good Opponent One Of These Days
A wrestling match between KUSHIDA and Kona Reeves is like a round of golf between Tiger Woods and Judge Smalls from Caddyshack. I’m hype for the upcoming KUSHIDA vs. Drew Gulak match (per Gulak’s appearance on the stage during this match), because it’s like Ricochet on Raw: you can have the most exciting wrestler in the world on your roster, but if you keep sending him in there to wrestle losers and boring dudes and cans, you’re not going to get what you paid for. Let the artists paint, you know?
Also On This Episode
Roderick Strong earns his way back into Adam Cole’s good graces by “taking care” of his Matt Riddle problem, and presenting him with a shoe. First of all, how did Strong not say, “now you’re a SHOE IN to beat Johnny Gargano,” and second of all, why was this presented like Strong had killed Riddle? You had security running around in the background and Roddy walking up all disheveled like he’d just done a Lucha Underground temple sacrifice. All he did was punch Riddle in the stomach and run away. When we see him, Riddle’s got an ice pack on his abs and Gargano’s like, “Riddle’s fine.” I thought Roddy had stabbed him or something.
I also thought for sure the Undisputed Era breakup tease was to set up Strong showing up to “help” Johnny Gargano only to reveal the faction split was a big ruse, but Strong vs. Riddle will be a pretty great TakeOver pre-show episode match.
Finally there’s another hallway confrontation between Bianca Belair and Mia Yim — Belair’s a lot better at realistic trash talk than Yim, especially now that “girl uh uh” appears to be her primary catchphrase in place of “undefeated” — and we find out Queen Cathy Kelley doesn’t know how to use a door.
Try the handle, Cathy!
Next Week:
Nothing for next week was announced on the episode, probably because they’re still trying to figure out what they should put where, but if the spoilers are any indication, we’ll be typing a lot of exclamation points. See you then!
