Thursday, 20 June 2013

NXT 19th July 2013: An Opener turns into a Main Event


Last week’s NXT saw a new NXT champion crowned in the form of Bo Dallas and after that a lot of people’s online reaction has been “What the hell? NO!” not big fans of one Bo Dallas. Let’s see how they follow that this week.
My show opens with a “Don’t Try this at Home” warning which after this past week’s news I’m not surprised to see, what is surprising is it’s in Spanish! That’s what I get for watching online thankfully the show is in English. Show officially starts with a video highlighting the title change last week and the awful contract signing the week before. I still find it funny that Big E said he’s the biggest guy in NXT when he’s not even 6 foot. After that we get the opening and I have to say I love NXT’s theme. Sadly Brad Maddox is back on commentary this week no connection to the last point but it brought me down a little.
Adrian Neville vs. Bray Wyatt w/The Family: Neville aka PAC is a great flyer and he’s taking on a man who quickly became one of my favourites in Bray Wyatt. Neville eliminated Wyatt in the battle royal to crown a no. 1 contender a few weeks back. What a beard on Wyatt and the entire family. Neville ducks a clothesline and hits some kicks but Wyatt gets the clothesline after Neville runs off the ropes. A nice bodyslam by Wyatt, Neville fights back with kicks but is cut off with a sharp punch. Wyatt taking his time and this leads to Neville being able to fight back but is constantly cut off. Wyatt hits 2 elbow drops and goes for the pin but as if he’s tea bagging him, rather unique I guess. Wyatt attempts to throw Neville out but he stays on the apron and hits a kick, he jumps up to the top rope to hit his flippy splash (the Red Arrow) but Luke Harper pushes him off and the family attack leading to the DQ. Corey Graves and Kassius Ohno then come out for the save, they send Harper into the steps and then Eric Rowen into the post leading to them going after Bray but he escapes. Out comes the American Dream Dusty Rhodes (baby) the general manager of NXT and he makes a 6 man tag for the main event. Winner: Adrian Neville
Angelo Dawkins vs. Sami Zayn: I love how the jobbers in NXT get music. Sami’s music sounds like the Beastie Boys. Tie up to start and Angelo shoves after they get in the ropes. Chain wrestling to start ending with Sami hitting a number of armdrags including his around the world one. Sami runs into an elbow and gets bodyslammed leading to a chinlock. Angelo looks like Donald Glover that’s how long the chinlock was on. Sami fights back and gets a float over and a leg clothesline leading to his hand hold DDT for the win. I guess that’s his new finisher in NXT but would have made more sense to keep the Brainbuster in my view as it’s easier to hit out of nowhere. Honestly for my liking this match should have been more Sami on offence I know he’s the babyface and all but it’s obvious they don’t have anything planned for Angelo. But Sami is better when fighting from behind. After the match he yells out for Cesaro so they’re obviously going to continue that feud Winner: Sami Zayn
Sasha Banks vs. Summer Rae in a 1st Round Match in Women’s title tournament: A rarity a divas match where both women have 2 names! Rae is being compared to Stacey Keibler and you can see why they are very alike. Short tie up to start another one with Rae pulling Banks to the mat and putting the boots in. A choke on the rope and then a nice dropkick by Rae. Rae throws Banks into the corner and then uses her long legs to choke Banks and follows with a hairmare. It’s at this time Brad points out George Clooney dates blonde girls with long legs aka Keibler. Rae does the pull up out of the corner move for a 2, she then yells endless insults to Banks face and does a face plant for a 2. I was going to say Rae is great as a heel but after that 2 she did a weird scream of frustration that just made me laugh. More choking with her long legs, she pulls Bank across the mat but falls on her butt, don’t think that was planned. She does a seated surfboard and as Banks tries to reverse she’s caught in a pin. They both get up and Rae gets into a standing guillotine that leads to a DDT which looked nice but she floats over and the 2 do a typical cat fight spot which took me out of it a bit. Banks hits some chops to start fighting back, followed by a climbing arm drag for a 1. Rae comes back quickly though with Evan Bourne’s standing leg drop thing, imagine a reverse DDT combined with a leg drop for the win. This was pretty good even with the odd flaw here and there. Rae is really good as a heel and I can see why they have more hopes for her over Fandango. Winner: Summer Rae
We go backstage to Xavier Woods who looks like he should be in 70’s porn film. He talks about the previous episodes he was on and that he’s going to return tonight. He ends with got to go morphing time. A little weird but I like weird. This is followed by a vignette about CM Punk just showing how far he has to come I guess.
Xavier Woods vs. someone: The guy he’s facing must be bad as he’s not even keyed. Woods is a dancer I guess I have no clue but he starts by doing a dance move towards his opponent, I’ve never danced so I have no idea what this is. Start with a tie up into an arm ringer then arm bar. Jobber pulls some hair and whips Woods off but gets a shoulder block for his trouble followed by a tilt-a-whirl head scissors. Apparently this jobber is called Jake. Jake has Buff Bagwells tights and he gets the Mr. Perfect neck snap for a 1. Jake gets a punch in the gut after trying an axe handle. Woods gets some punches, a flying forearm and a dropkick. He does a front flip into a clothesline and then hits Chuck Taylor’s Sole Food for the 3. Woods has a nice style but I think if he gets called up that gimmick will have to change otherwise he’d get thrown with Brodus Clay & Tensai. He celebrates by dancing. Winner: Xavier Woods
Backstage with Sami Zayn being interviewed by Renee Young. He glosses over the fact he beat Angelo earlier (take that jobber guy) and says that it was a message to Cesaro, he says their one for one and he wants a round 3. Good promo by Sami. We the go to the French guy (whose name I forgot) with his 2 rednecks. He says they should be the no.1 contenders for the tag titles, here comes Dusty who makes fun of the French guy’s name which is Sylvester something, so many accents it’s hard to understand. He makes a No.1 contenders match with those guys against Ohno & Graves for next week, my money’s on Ohno/Grave. We then get a video of Bo Dallas from his car thanking the fans and then photos of him at Disney world, then announces he’ll be back next week. He sings a song with BOlieveing in there. God make this guy shut up he’s awful and that BOlieve should never have been made up. Also announced is Big E Langston so a lot is set for next week.
Neville, Ohno & Graves vs. Wyatt Family: Luke and Graves to start, tie up into the corner but Grave gets some punches and hooks onto the beard, he gets a float over and tags in Ohno. Luke gets a punch and tags in Eric but Ohno gets some punches. A knee by Eric and a club to the back leads to a whip with Ohno doing his nice flip over to the apron, he delivers a big boot between the ropes and comes in to hit his drop down boot for a 1, a lot of 1 counts tonight. Tag to Neville but his kicks are ineffective leading to Bray being tagged. Neville jumps onto him with punches but Bray runs him into the corner and into a spinebuster, he attempts a slingshot into the turnbuckle but Neville grabs the top rope and rebounds into a double stomp in a beautiful transition between the 2. Neville follows with some kicks but doesn’t even get a 1. Bray gets a punch and tag to Luke who comes in while stepping on Neville, I love the minor things he does in a match. Neville ducks 2 clotheslines and gets a running head scissors leading to a tag to Graves, back to where we started. Graves gets his boot up and does a hanging headscissors over the ropes, he goes for Bray but that lets Luke hit his big boot. We go to break and we see our 3rd “Don’t Try this” advert, they’re taking this seriously since that incident.  We come back with Luke hitting a back elbow on Graves for a 2. Tag to Bray who hits a headbutt and then a seated senton off the ropes leading to a chinlock with the arm trapped. Graves quickly fights back and goes for a sunset flip, Bray attempts the same senton from earlier but misses leading to Eric and Ohno getting tagged. Ohno with his jumping elbow but gets whipped over the corner to the outside, Luke gets tagged and rams him into the apron. Tag to Bray who stomps onto and over Ohno. Eric and Luke fight for the tag in the corner but Luke gets it and hits a European uppercut when he comes in follows with 3 elbow drops. Back into the Wyatt corner and Luke whips Ohno into Eric’s knee. Eric hits another knee into a pumphandle back breaker for a 2. Luke back in, a lot of work from him tonight. Ohno stops himself from going into the corner but the 2 hit heads, Bray gets the tag and knocks Graves off but he fails to do the same with Neville who does get tagged and hits a gorgeous springboard dropkick followed by a leg clothesline and a standing shooting star for a 2, he then dropkicks Luke and goes for a dive but he stops when Eric gets in the ring. Ohno then dropkicks Eric out and hits a baseball slide. Neville hits the Fosberry Flop (I believe) which is him jumping over the top rope to the outside into a moonsault to take out the 3 people. He goes back in to Bray where he hits a jumping kick and attempts the Red arrow but Luke pulls Bray out leading to Bray getting the pin on Neville. Show ends with the family posing on the ramp. A really solid main event and while I wasn’t the biggest fan of the finish it helped to show that high risk is exactly that. Also prepare for this to become clear when RVD comes back and oversells that Frog Splash every time out. Winners: The Wyatt Family
I did find it odd that Neville/Bray opened the show and that they did so little but seeing it was to set up the main event which they made up for their earlier match I’m fine with it. This also really showed me how good Summer Rae can be, a really good heel and not bad in the ring she had to be the stand out on this show to me. Like the past couple of weeks a good show I think NXT is the show to watch at the moment. While I didn’t like the Bo segment at least they had something to say “Our Champ isn’t here but here’s why” he was still a part of the show and I think that’s a key to a champion. This show also set up a lot for next week the no.1 contenders tag match with Ohno/Graves against the rednecks with a French guy, Bo will be back as will Big E but I imagine all that will equal most of the 45 minute show.

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