From WorldWrestlingInsanity.com
All Good With Aaron Wood: With No Smackdown To Review, What Should I Do NXT?
By Aaron Wood
Mar 26, 2010 - 6:10 PM
So
yeah, no Smackdown from me, well, at least today. Since they have
filmed stuff from Axxess on Thursday, and thus haven't the time to
get it into the show for UK broadcast, they have a "Road To
Wrestlemania" show in it's place over here. So with that in
mind, I thought I'd take a look beyond Sunday to next Tuesday. Or as
I really should put it, NXT Tuesday, as NXT will have the "Pro's
Poll" which at the very least shows the pro's current rankings
for the rookies.
The
criteria they will be using, in case you missed it (and with the
falling ratings, chances are you did) will be these:
1)
Win/Loss Record
2)
The Strength Of Opponents Faced In Those Matches
3)
Work Ethic
4)
The "It" Factor
Here
is where each rookie is at in terms of those tangibles:
Daniel
Bryan
:
The
former Bryan Danielson is currently 0 & 5 with the worst record
of anyone. However, those losses have come against World Champion
Chris Jericho, former World Champion, Great Khali, Wade Barrett and
two tag team matches, taking losses to R-Truth & David Otunga
(which Miz took the fall in) and against Otunga and Darren Young
(which Bryan took the fall in). With Jericho & Khali having
faced Bryan, he's had, by far, the toughest quality of opponents in
general.
Also,
in terms of "Work Ethic", Bryan also rates highly, as it's
clear as to the effort he's put forth, and indeed, the story of some
of his losses has been that he's tried to do too much, most notably
the first two matches with Jericho & Barrett. In terms of the
"It factor", he has an in-ring charisma for sure, and can
cut a promo, but right now, him , as a guy, doesn't excite me. Not
that you need to be OTT in that regard, like Darren Young or Skip
Sheffield, because frankly, they're trying too hard, but still,
there's something about the way he's carrying himself, right now,
that for me, lacks a tiny little something.
Darren
Young
:
Young
is, rather inexplicably, from where I sit, sitting at 3 & 1. He
was KILLED in week one by David Otunga, but came back and won a long
match over Otunga the following week. He then also has had 2 tag
matches. Young scored the pinfall in a match with Punk in week 4
against Matt Hardy & Justin Gabriel, albeit with Punk doing the
finishing work and last week he and Otunga beat Bryan and Michael
Tarver, although it was Otunga who won the match. His only loss
comes to a guy who is 3 & 1 currently (Otunga) and has won
matches against the likes of Hardy and Justin Gabriel, so he's not
had the dirt worst level of opponents either.
Work
Ethic may be where things begin to work against him. He hasn't been
special in the ring, and looking at exactly how he's racked up three
wins, they've all come with someone else direct help. And as I said,
in the most recent case, Young wasn't involved at all. However, he
has worked in the situation where his pro, CM Punk, would rather be
anywhere than with him.
In
terms of the "It factor", I feel that Young is all sizzle
and no steak. He's got a wacky look and that's about all we've seen
on NXT, and as a follower of his FCW, limited that it is, I've not
been impressed there either, although he's been allowed to be more
than some geek looking for acceptance from his pro. Other than the
hair and the fact he oddly enough looks a bit like John Cena has
blacked up, he just jump off the screen and his in-ring work has been
pretty ordinary, in my opinion.
David
Otunga
:
Like
Young, Otunga is also sitting at 3 & 1. Aside from his quick,
dominant win over Young and subsequent loss to him the following
week, he pinned Miz in a tag match against Miz & Bryan and then
pinned Bryan last week teaming with Young against Bryan & Tarver,
so on the strength of opponents from, his only loss is to someone
with a winning record, and on top of that, he beat the same man
quickly as well as Miz & Daniel Bryan, so his quotient there
would be high.
His
in-ring work is very much not the best. Probably one of the worst of
the rookies in fact. But he has picked up all his wins, tag matches
included, and his loss came after Punk interfered and tripped him.
And that was after having to hang in there for a bit before coming
back against Young.
However,
while he be one of the worst in the ring, he's the one who tops the
"It factor" rankings, because the guy just exudes "STAR".
From his look to the way he carries himself, the man just jumps off
the screen and holds your attention, and he can cut a pretty decent
promo. Whether he wins NXT or not, if he can improve his in-ring
game, he has so much "It factor" that he could be a
big-time player in the company in years to come.
Justin
Gabriel
:
The
South African is another guy with a 3 & 1 record to his name.
However, his strength of opponents has certainly not been the
greatest. His loss came in a tag match to Young & Punk, while he
defeated Regal & Sheffield , Wade Barrett in a singles match and
the combination of Sheffield & Barrett. With Sheffield's losing
record and Barrett's even record, this doesn't bode well for him in
that regard. Especially when the most recent came at his partner
Heath Slater's hand.
Work
ethic is fine. As a pure babyface, he's almost uniformly taken the
beating in the tag matches before coming back. But he's also been
highly agile in his matches so far, when able, showing his hybrid of
mat wrestling and high-flying, finishing his first 2 wins with 450
splashes.
The
boy certainly has the looks, and cuts a decent promo when he's not
laying the accent on too thick. He's got the look that teenage girls
will love and keep him over as much and long as the Hardy brothers
have been, and has a certain star quality to him, even if it's not
one that grabs you by the throat.
Wade
Barrett
:
Barrett
is the only person on the show to currently have a .500 record (as
you Americans would put it), with 2 wins and 2 losses. His wins have
been over Daniel Bryan and Skip Sheffield, while his losses have been
to Gabriel and the pairing of Heath Later & Gabriel last week,
although in that match, he didn't take the fall. this is not
particularly strong calibre of opponents, which coupled with his
relatively poor record compared to the field, puts him down the
rankings in that regard.
He's
been perfectly acceptable in the ring to date, although given that
his background is supposedly bare-knuckle fighter, he's not shown
much of any of that sort of thing. Of course it's BS, but still, if
that's the story they're going with, it would help if they played
into it. Indeed, just to show how un-flashy his work is, his
finisher is a slam out of a fireman's carry position. Not the best,
but not particularly the worst.
I'm
not entirely sure how much "It factor" he has either. I
think he looks more of a star right now because he's next to Chris
Jericho. But I just get the feeling that once Jericho is out of the
picture, he's going to end up like most of the Englishmen in the WWE,
an afterthought to a large extent. When your look is predicated on a
big jacket and over-sized rose in the button-hole, you're not
bringing the most to the table.
Heath
Slater
:
Much
like Darren Young, Heath Slater has, rather inexplicably to me, a
winning record. And not just a winning record, but a PERFECT record
of 4 & 0. That said, his first three wins came against Carlito,
Michael Tarver and the pair of them in his first match with Christian
by his side. His other win was in picking up the fall for his team
against Sheffield & Barrett. I would suggest that ranks him down
near the bottom when it comes to strength of opponents, as none of
his wins are against winning record guys and arguably the worst pro.
And indeed, in the tag match, it was Christian that won it.
And
indeed, on top of that, when it comes to work ethic, it's hard to
rank him, because he's largely had to hang in there and when he's
picked up his wins, he's done them all by pinfall. What you may not
know is that his finisher is the ZigZag to all intents and purposes,
so he'll have been told not to use that, but still, on the surface,
it looks more like luck rather than skill. But in the main, his work
has been fine.
He's
another guy I'm not sure of in terms of "It factor",
because he so clearly comes off as trying way too hard. The odd
thing though is I don't know if that's the idea, and he gets a heel
turn down the road. The issue is that he's doing an annoying heel
gimmick, but in a babyface role. the only real thing I can say in
support of the guy is that sometimes the FCW crowd can be so quiet
you'd hear a pin drop, but when he comes out, there's always some
sort of reaction. But then again, that's mostly been when he's been
a heel.
Skip
Sheffield
:
The
Texan cowboy is currently sat on a winless 0 & 3 record. And
indeed, Sheffield & Tarver, both on the same record, are the only
two people to have wrestled only 3 matches, with everyone else having
worked 4 or more times. His matches were against the tag teams of
Gabriel & Hardy, with Regal taking the fall, and Heath Slater &
Gabriel last week, with Slater pinning him. His other loss against
Wade Barrett in the main event of episode 4. So his quality of
opponents isn't that bad. Hardy is a decent deal, and Slater &
Gabriel have winning records.
Work
Ethic is an interesting one. He's OK, for me, but OK at best. The
way his character has been presented so far has been of someone who
is more about "connecting with the fans" rather than the
in-ring part of it, almost as if he's seeking their approval. We
also haven't seen him particularly look to try and finish matches,
and indeed, I can't think of anything of note he's done.
In
terms of the "It Factor", for me, the gimmick is little
more than an opening match comedy guy. He's be the perfect Santino
Marella if Santino didn't exist. But do I see him ever fighting for
any sort of title? Not particularly. And hell, I could see a guy
called Dolph Ziggler doing so. So he doesn't rank high on my board
here.
Michael
Tarver
:
Lastly,
we have the 0 & 3 Tarver. He took the fall in his first tag
match against Christian & Slater, then lost to Slater himself
before he was on the losing side of the main event last week with
Daniel Bryan, while involved in an argument with Luke Gallows as a
distraction. So in terms of opponent quality, Christian ranks high,
Slater is undefeated and Young & Otunga are somewhere in the
middle, so it's not all bad.
His
work ethic has been fine so far for the limited time he's seen in the
ring. After losing to Slater in the singles match, he gave Slater a
nice T-Bone suplex. He's not been the worst, but he's not the best
either.
And
in terms of his star potential, I think there is something there,
because he's got a decent look, can cut a half-decent promo and has
one of the most interesting backgrounds of the group, but hasn't
shown much since he's pretty much been an afterthought to this
point.
So
here is how MY rankings would sit:
1)
Justin Gabriel
2)
David Otunga
3)
Daniel Bryan
4)
Heath Slater
5)
Darren Young
6)
Wade Barrett
7)
Michael Tarver
8)
Skip Sheffield
That
said, I'm probably looking at it far more rationally than the WWE
will, because of course, their voting is all a bunch of BS and it's
about the story. You know that Daniel Bryan is going to be rooted to
the bottom of the poll, and the story will be that he has to turn it
all around and either come through, or just come up short, and end up
on RAW anyway to feud with Miz. I think that the message that the
actual pro's vote will send for the remaining seven, regardless of
where Bryan is placed, is that the first few will be people the WWE
are currently interested in backing and pushing later on. Hopefully
David Otunga and Justin Gabriel will be in this group. The people in
the middle of the table will have to work harder in themselves to get
their foot in the door if they want to be used on the main roster.
The bottom couple can probably just thank the WWE for their NXT time
and try again later, while working hard in FCW.
Anyway,
I better go. As a note regarding FCW, and audio from me in general,
I'm working on it. My sound card is just being a bit of a pig, and
it isn't letting my recording program record the sounds the computer
is making. Indeed, the sound card seems to only want to pretend
there's one source to record in from. The motherboard sound is
looking more hopeful, but in these initial days since getting the new
machine home, any time I've mixed the sound cards, it's become
incredibly annoying, in a left hand doesn't know what the right
hand's doing kinda way. It'll come, but it's just frustrating at the
moment. Indeed, I'm looking to work on a brand new show, and much
like NXT is to WWE, I'm looking to innovate another new concept for
ClubWWI, but it could be very complicated so we'll have to see how
any testing goes. I'll say no more...
As
for Smackdown, well, let's hope I can catch it at some time. And
then, it's the big show. Indeed, I'll have YOUR~! Wrestlemania
Real-Time coverage. Actually, because of other computer-related
niggles (and because I fancied one, although I ended up spending more
than I planned on it), I've got a brand new HD TV/Monitor in the time
for the show, and boy, it's damn good.
But
anyway, I've gotta go now, and I'll either see you tomorrow or
Sunday!
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