The AaroNXT Review: All These Old NXT Guys Hogging The Main Event Spots...
By Aaron Wood Jun 30, 2012 - 4:00 PM
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bet you just LOVED the announcing combo of Jim Ross & William
Regal last week. I know you did. So this week, just to mess with
you, we have JR & Byron Saxton on the mic as we dive, almost
literally right in with out first match!
SETH ROLLINS vs. JIRO
Ironically
enough, for all that was said about Jiro at the beginning, he was
released a couple of weeks ago, so really, say hello and goodbye to
Jiro. Also, Rollins did a Twitter thing asking for suggestion for a
name his "Curbstomp" finisher. Guess they went with "The
Blackout", which is an obviously ironic callback to his indy
name. But what were other's first impressions of ol' headbanger
MoshThrasher Seth?
I
was underwhelmed by Seth Rollins much anticipated debut on #NXT
Would have preferred it if Jiro got in a few more offensive
moves.
Much
like after Bo Dallas opened the show with a win last week, Seth was
met at the top of the ramp by Briley Pierce. Oddly enough, a minor
production has half a screen of Jinder Mahal's entrance video
showing. So after Rollins said that after he was there to turn the
place upside one heart at a time, Jinder came out for his
match...
JINDER MAHAL vs. JASON
JORDAN
Jordan
is of course the man who Damien Sandow refused to face on last week's
show. But since Jinder did take on the young man, did the Indian
rich-boy make a good impression with the viewing public? Not bloody
likely...
Jinder Mahal doesnt even
get a response from the #NXT
crowd.
From
there, we went to a hype video for the debuting Leo Kruger, form
South Africa. They did a piece about him being a lion, showing
various sorts of prey being taken out (albeit by female lioness' if
I'm not mistaken) as well as some smartly spliced in stock clips of
the WWE in South Africa, showing crowd reaction supposedly for him
(but really for Justin Gabriel), as his match was actually next.
LEO KRUGER vs. AIDEN
ENGLISH
Kruger,
as I noted in my preview, is a friend of Justin Gabriel's. For a
fairly big guy, it's interesting that he uses a sleeper as a finish.
It'll be interesting to see if he keeps that if he gets to the main
roster, given Dolph Ziggler's usage of it. However, while Leo Kruger
is not the first South African in the WWE, it seems like the
Twitterverse seems to think he's not the first of anything!
JR
said that we'd be seeing the debut of Richie Steamboat next up,
sending it to the hype video that aired on the last episode of
Redemption. But then this is where NXT started to get wacky in what
was presented. If you had "TWO WEEKS" in your office pool,
you won big. You see, at this first set of tapings, they taped four
episodes of the show. This is the second. However, for reasons
entirely unknown at this point and utterly apropos of nothing
whatsoever, we jumped something that was taped for the fourth
episode. So we had a new commentary team for the next match and next
match alone of JR, Regal and Chris Russo (No relation), including JR
making reference to "a few weeks ago"...
THE USOS vs. THE
ASCENSION
Have
to say, off the bat, not a fan of the additional lighting in the
Ascension's entrance. One of those ones where darker is better.
That said, massive win for the Ascension here against an establish
and well-liked main roster tag-team. So, after an entirely
unscheduled and unexplained second consecutive week of Ascension
action, has the backlash begun yet?
Wow, The Ascension on NXT
look like the next big team in the tag team division. Really amazing
me! #NXT
And
so back to our as-scheduled episode 2 with JR & Saxton in the
chairs as we came back form break into the match we expected to
see.
RICHIE STEAMBOAT vs. RIC
VICTOR
So
Steamboat wins after pulling a move out of JTG's arsenal, terming his
finisher the Slingblade. However, did young master Steamboat Jr.
impress the Twitterverse, or is he destined to be a poor man's
version of his daddy?
After
this we saw the hype video that aired for Antonio Cesaro last week,
as he would be up next on the show. Or at least he would be after
the RAW Rebound.
ANTONIO CESARO vs. DANTE
DASH
Have
to say, that was an impressive squash match from Cesaro against the
slightly bigger Dante Dash. And the ONE thing I really like about
having JR back on commentary right now is that he seems to be willing
to call the names of moves, as he picked out that Cesaro's finisher
was called the Neutraliser (adding tot he Slingblade, Downcast and
Blackout we've had already). Something I think is sorely missing
from announcing these days with the newer guys. Remember how long it
took MVP to get a name for his finisher? The irony is that it used
to be Cole's thing when on Smackdown to get the move names over.
Josh Mathews did it a ton too, but it's been beaten out of him, it
seems. However, let's see what the Twitterverse thought of Cesaro's
showing.
We
came back from break to a second Bray Wyatt vignette.
Worrying
to hear out of a FCW Live Event yesterday that Wyatt/Husky Harris may
have badly injured his arm or shoulder. We can but hope that this
awesome character isn't too badly stalled from it and he can come
back quickly. But with that said, who is finally in the mood for
some main event action? Good, because it's finally arrived, as once
again, two long standing rivals over NXT's history are bringing their
beef to Full Sail U.
JOHNNY CURTIS vs. DERRICK
BATEMAN
So,
decent enough main event from where I sit. I do like Bateman's DBD
finisher. Let's, for a final time this week, see how people felt
about the match.
Now,
I'm not going to say that I didn't like this show. However, last
week's pacing was much better. Just too much to take in this week
with SEVEN matches in a 45 minute (excluding commercials) show. I
mean, even if they didn't entirely awkwardly splice in the tag team
match, even the six was very much pushing it. I can only offer 2
theories on why they did this.
The
first and simpler one is that they timed the show out and found to be
short by some minutes and put in what they could to fill without
offering so many replays it'd drive the viewer insane. My second
theory is this. Episode 3 (as in the third one taped in the first
set of tapings) is a bit of a embuggerance for them at this
point.
It
features a R-Turth vs. Epico match that now not only doesn't make
sense from a storyline POV, but doesn't make sense based on Truth
being injured and out of it, so for him to show up on NXT of all
places to disappear again is a bit stupid, to put it mildly. Also,
the main event is set to be Kassius Ohno vs. Mike Dalton. This would
be Ohno's only appearance on NXT for some time as he is currently out
injured himself, and certainly didn't appear in the second set of
tapings. So what could happen is take out those two matches as well
as the Seth Rollins vs. Camacho match that was taped and put the two
remaining matches (Sofia Cortez vs. Paige and Jake Carter & Corey
Graves vs. CJ Parker & Nick Rogers) and put them what remains of
the "fourth" episode that was taped as that would give us
six matches. As a note, I'd take out Rollins/Camacho because they
are both in a six-man tag that was the main event of the fourth taped
episode.
Either
way, no matter the what or why, it will be interesting to see what's
served up next week, and suffice to say I'll be here to bring it to
you.
