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| NO SLEEP TIL Photo Credit: Laura Woodward |
Thanks to the kindness of a friend, by way of engagement gift/anniversary present, (extremely Borat voice) my fiancee (/) and I were able to enjoy front row seats to last Thursday's NXT live show here in God's Country, right where the ramp ends and within spitting distance of the ring. It was my first time in such a prime position, and to quote Bueller himself, if you have the means to check out the black and yellow brand from ringside I highly recommend it.
Here's what went down.
1) Kassius Ohno d. Kona Reeves (Death Blow into pinfall)
My group made our way down to ringside just in time to get some forearm daps from That Young Knockout Kid. The match was perfectly serviceable, though it remains to see whether Reeves is getting booed in the "we don't like this guy" sense or the "stop trying to make the Finest happen! It's not gonna happen!" sense. Reeves controlled the middle section, took the end game's beating like a man, and fell prey to the signature DB of Kash.
2) Jessie Elaban and Kairi Sane d. Vanessa Borne and Taynara Conti (Insane Elbow into Sane pinfall Borne)
Jessie made her NXT debut on this show, and is playing something of a 90's nerd girl babyface. For some reason during the show our group was trying to curry favor with the babyfaces by offering up our nachos; Jessie politely refused the offer. Obviously she needs to get more reps than one in, but her selling and dropkick show promise already. Kairi was beloved by all decent human beings in attendance (she high fived me, and if I didn't work in the food service industry I probably wouldn't have washed that hand for a while) and after receiving that love, made sure to transfer it to Jessie when she started the match. Borne and Conti were easily made foils as a result, and Borne deserved the asswhupping she got for daring to insinuate Kairi wasn't a real pirate. Kairi got the tag and wrecked them leading to the finish. The babyfaces celebrated with the Pirate Princess' signature dance post match.
3) Brennan Williams d. Marcel Barthel (leaping sidekick into pinfall)
Is there anything more American than booing The Evil Foreigner at a wrestling show? Barthel tried to cut a pre-match promo, and got shouted down and jeered by the crowd several times. When he finally spoke in German, he almost turned his heeling "Nein" into the equivalent of Tye Dillinger's "ten"; the crowd would randomly chant it several more times during the match and over the course of the show. Williams, known as the Great Black Otaku on the Gram, got "Lenny Kravitz" chants for his appearance, though he also reminded me a bit of CJ Parker/Juice Robinson. During the bout, I also noticed Kayla Braxton with one of the headsets--she might have been helping to produce the show as well as keep the matches restrained to their alloted times. Anyhow, Williams worked as the babyface and seemed to legitimately hurt Barthel with his finishing maneuver (?), leading Drake to help the German to the back post-match. Hopefully he's okay.
4) Lars Sullivan d. Tyler Breeze (Freak Accident into pinfall)
Huge pop for the appearance of Breezus, doing a little West Coast swing for the brand he grew up on. They played the cat and mouse game for a while as you might expect, but once that ended Tyler went splut as you might expect despite landing the supermodel kick and Beauty Shot. Breeze took a big round of post-match applause and "Thank you, Tyler" chants, high fiving pretty much everybody in the front row including your intrepid reporter on his way out.
5) Johnny Gargano and Heavy Machinery d. the Undisputed Era (around the world Gargano Escape into Gargano tap O'Reilly)
Quelle surprise, this was the best match of the night so far, BAY BAY. The Era had their cool heel thing going down, on top of which it was Roderick Strong's birthday, and he seemed appreciative for his birthday wishes from my section while dishing out high fives on his way in. It was also Tucker Knight's birthday a couple days previous, and I did hear some fans on the other side of the ring wishing him belated birthday wishes. Let us also note here that my fiancee's favorite wrestler is John Grapples, so when he high fived her she almost died in the best possible way. Otis seemed interested in our nachos, but Johnny talked him out of it. Gargano was on the apron and happened to be within shouting range of my "You have to redeem yourself for last night, man!" then got the tag, cleared house, and procured the win for the white hats. I take a mere four percent of credit for their victory.
6) [NXT Women's World] Shayna Baszler d. Candice LeRae (step up knee strike into pinfall)
Mrs. Gargano followed her husband in high fiving us both on coming in, but my better half ended up rooting for the champ due to some cringeworthy homophobic and transphobic comments some Trump supporter was making behind us. Not that she really gave a rat's ass; she countered an octopus hold with a Stretch Muffler counter in an innovative spot, then later on in the match got off a gutwrench superplex off the second rope (a multiplex, maybe?) for a convincing nearfall. She survived the Wild Ride and crunched Candice with a knee out of nowhere to finish off the title defense.
Post-match, Baszler took some cheap shots at LeRae and left the ring, where certain unbelievably handsome writers pointed out that she was being insubordinate and churlish, and that professional wrestling - the sport of kings, by god - had rules. Baszler's response was a flippant "Oh, yeah?" before going back into the ring and choking Candice out with the Kurifida Clutch. (My fiancee stated after the show that if I had actually gotten in a fight with the Queen of Spades she would've been turned on and yet done nothing to avenge my death. Shame!) Cue the #1 contender for the save, laying out her TO:BK IV opponent with two-handed chops, a stiff uraken, and the Insane Elbow to clear her from the ring. Kairi checked on and helped Candice up, then glared at the retreating Baszler from a turnbuckle. She Wants The Belt!
7) EC3 d. Velveteen Dream (3KO into pinfall)
Dream's another favorite of my fiancee's, due to his deep connection with her original favorite wrestler the Big Dust in the Sky, daddeh, as well as the young character's--queerness? Bisexuality? Omnisexuality? We were in attendance for the last NXT sojurn some 15 months previous when we went from being sarcastic about the Dream experience to "...wait--is he good now?", so this at least for us had elements of a homecoming involved. He did come out in a cut off T with rainbow stripes across the front, aping the Hogan ear cup to the sides of the ring as he basked in his pop. EC3 came out to a big pop of his own, and the early parts of the match were replete with dueling chants as well as both men gyrating and flexing at their former tag partner. In keeping with his 619 tradition, Dream took a completely unnecessary king-sized bump off a hiptoss to the floor. He teased a dive to the outside but hit an axehandle from the apron instead and posed, drawing cheers. Both men worked hard, the match earned a This Is Awesome chant, and after too much posingCarter gave him the TKO for the win. He also delivered a smooch to the forehead of the fallen Dream post-match.
8) [NXT World] Tomasso C*amp* d. Aleister Black (exposed buckle into Devil's Wings into pinfall)
I turned my back during Ciampa's entrance, but the rest of the crowd refused. Of course, when I was done turning around, he was right there, and the words people mistakenly thought I was exchanging with Shayna two matches prior actually happened here; good thing my fiancee restrained me. This was the clear match of the night, to the point where I saw Kayla counting along with several of the nearfalls, my favorite of which was Black landing an epic bicycle knee to Ciampa (and holy crap, being in the front row listening to the impact of his strikes makes me cringe just remembering some of them) but missing the triangle moonsault and catching the Orton DDT coming back into the ring. Ciampa faked leaving to garner a countout, Black brought him back in, but despite our almost match long admonitions to the referee to watch out for the exposed turnbuckle the Blackheart had set up earlier in the match--Drake certainly would've seen this violation--he baited the ref by distracting him with a possible attack with the Big X, then ran Black into the open buckle before hitting what is his presumably new finisher for the win to send the crowd home sad.
Well, almost. Ciampa cut a promo talking about how he was the champion now which made it his NXT. It was quite hard to hear him through all the booing and possibly a wonky mic, but that all ceased when Gargano's music hit. Ciampa faced the entrance, then got jumped from behind since Johnny ran in from the crowd on the other side, beat his sorry ass, and cleared him from the ring. That left him in the ring with a perturbed Black, and while Johnny tried to apologize, the former champ understandably was still prickly. As Johnny left up the ramp having failed on his redemption, Ciampa tried to sneak attack Black and got laid out by the Black Mass as a result. He bumped to the outside and lay on the floor for several minutes afterwards, to the point where certain mes of us were trying to get Kayla to wrap it up so she could get some Mexican food the way it was intended to be made, but Ciampa insisted on his belt once he came around and got helped to the back by the referee (triggering several great jokes from my section about the referee having to be a Gargano since Tomasshole was being carried again). I truly hope Kayla got that awesome Mexican food.
Here's what went down.
1) Kassius Ohno d. Kona Reeves (Death Blow into pinfall)
My group made our way down to ringside just in time to get some forearm daps from That Young Knockout Kid. The match was perfectly serviceable, though it remains to see whether Reeves is getting booed in the "we don't like this guy" sense or the "stop trying to make the Finest happen! It's not gonna happen!" sense. Reeves controlled the middle section, took the end game's beating like a man, and fell prey to the signature DB of Kash.
2) Jessie Elaban and Kairi Sane d. Vanessa Borne and Taynara Conti (Insane Elbow into Sane pinfall Borne)
Jessie made her NXT debut on this show, and is playing something of a 90's nerd girl babyface. For some reason during the show our group was trying to curry favor with the babyfaces by offering up our nachos; Jessie politely refused the offer. Obviously she needs to get more reps than one in, but her selling and dropkick show promise already. Kairi was beloved by all decent human beings in attendance (she high fived me, and if I didn't work in the food service industry I probably wouldn't have washed that hand for a while) and after receiving that love, made sure to transfer it to Jessie when she started the match. Borne and Conti were easily made foils as a result, and Borne deserved the asswhupping she got for daring to insinuate Kairi wasn't a real pirate. Kairi got the tag and wrecked them leading to the finish. The babyfaces celebrated with the Pirate Princess' signature dance post match.
3) Brennan Williams d. Marcel Barthel (leaping sidekick into pinfall)
Is there anything more American than booing The Evil Foreigner at a wrestling show? Barthel tried to cut a pre-match promo, and got shouted down and jeered by the crowd several times. When he finally spoke in German, he almost turned his heeling "Nein" into the equivalent of Tye Dillinger's "ten"; the crowd would randomly chant it several more times during the match and over the course of the show. Williams, known as the Great Black Otaku on the Gram, got "Lenny Kravitz" chants for his appearance, though he also reminded me a bit of CJ Parker/Juice Robinson. During the bout, I also noticed Kayla Braxton with one of the headsets--she might have been helping to produce the show as well as keep the matches restrained to their alloted times. Anyhow, Williams worked as the babyface and seemed to legitimately hurt Barthel with his finishing maneuver (?), leading Drake to help the German to the back post-match. Hopefully he's okay.
4) Lars Sullivan d. Tyler Breeze (Freak Accident into pinfall)
Huge pop for the appearance of Breezus, doing a little West Coast swing for the brand he grew up on. They played the cat and mouse game for a while as you might expect, but once that ended Tyler went splut as you might expect despite landing the supermodel kick and Beauty Shot. Breeze took a big round of post-match applause and "Thank you, Tyler" chants, high fiving pretty much everybody in the front row including your intrepid reporter on his way out.
5) Johnny Gargano and Heavy Machinery d. the Undisputed Era (around the world Gargano Escape into Gargano tap O'Reilly)
Quelle surprise, this was the best match of the night so far, BAY BAY. The Era had their cool heel thing going down, on top of which it was Roderick Strong's birthday, and he seemed appreciative for his birthday wishes from my section while dishing out high fives on his way in. It was also Tucker Knight's birthday a couple days previous, and I did hear some fans on the other side of the ring wishing him belated birthday wishes. Let us also note here that my fiancee's favorite wrestler is John Grapples, so when he high fived her she almost died in the best possible way. Otis seemed interested in our nachos, but Johnny talked him out of it. Gargano was on the apron and happened to be within shouting range of my "You have to redeem yourself for last night, man!" then got the tag, cleared house, and procured the win for the white hats. I take a mere four percent of credit for their victory.
INTERMISSION!
6) [NXT Women's World] Shayna Baszler d. Candice LeRae (step up knee strike into pinfall)
Mrs. Gargano followed her husband in high fiving us both on coming in, but my better half ended up rooting for the champ due to some cringeworthy homophobic and transphobic comments some Trump supporter was making behind us. Not that she really gave a rat's ass; she countered an octopus hold with a Stretch Muffler counter in an innovative spot, then later on in the match got off a gutwrench superplex off the second rope (a multiplex, maybe?) for a convincing nearfall. She survived the Wild Ride and crunched Candice with a knee out of nowhere to finish off the title defense.
Post-match, Baszler took some cheap shots at LeRae and left the ring, where certain unbelievably handsome writers pointed out that she was being insubordinate and churlish, and that professional wrestling - the sport of kings, by god - had rules. Baszler's response was a flippant "Oh, yeah?" before going back into the ring and choking Candice out with the Kurifida Clutch. (My fiancee stated after the show that if I had actually gotten in a fight with the Queen of Spades she would've been turned on and yet done nothing to avenge my death. Shame!) Cue the #1 contender for the save, laying out her TO:BK IV opponent with two-handed chops, a stiff uraken, and the Insane Elbow to clear her from the ring. Kairi checked on and helped Candice up, then glared at the retreating Baszler from a turnbuckle. She Wants The Belt!
7) EC3 d. Velveteen Dream (3KO into pinfall)
Dream's another favorite of my fiancee's, due to his deep connection with her original favorite wrestler the Big Dust in the Sky, daddeh, as well as the young character's--queerness? Bisexuality? Omnisexuality? We were in attendance for the last NXT sojurn some 15 months previous when we went from being sarcastic about the Dream experience to "...wait--is he good now?", so this at least for us had elements of a homecoming involved. He did come out in a cut off T with rainbow stripes across the front, aping the Hogan ear cup to the sides of the ring as he basked in his pop. EC3 came out to a big pop of his own, and the early parts of the match were replete with dueling chants as well as both men gyrating and flexing at their former tag partner. In keeping with his 619 tradition, Dream took a completely unnecessary king-sized bump off a hiptoss to the floor. He teased a dive to the outside but hit an axehandle from the apron instead and posed, drawing cheers. Both men worked hard, the match earned a This Is Awesome chant, and after too much posing
8) [NXT World] Tomasso C*amp* d. Aleister Black (exposed buckle into Devil's Wings into pinfall)
I turned my back during Ciampa's entrance, but the rest of the crowd refused. Of course, when I was done turning around, he was right there, and the words people mistakenly thought I was exchanging with Shayna two matches prior actually happened here; good thing my fiancee restrained me. This was the clear match of the night, to the point where I saw Kayla counting along with several of the nearfalls, my favorite of which was Black landing an epic bicycle knee to Ciampa (and holy crap, being in the front row listening to the impact of his strikes makes me cringe just remembering some of them) but missing the triangle moonsault and catching the Orton DDT coming back into the ring. Ciampa faked leaving to garner a countout, Black brought him back in, but despite our almost match long admonitions to the referee to watch out for the exposed turnbuckle the Blackheart had set up earlier in the match--Drake certainly would've seen this violation--he baited the ref by distracting him with a possible attack with the Big X, then ran Black into the open buckle before hitting what is his presumably new finisher for the win to send the crowd home sad.
Well, almost. Ciampa cut a promo talking about how he was the champion now which made it his NXT. It was quite hard to hear him through all the booing and possibly a wonky mic, but that all ceased when Gargano's music hit. Ciampa faced the entrance, then got jumped from behind since Johnny ran in from the crowd on the other side, beat his sorry ass, and cleared him from the ring. That left him in the ring with a perturbed Black, and while Johnny tried to apologize, the former champ understandably was still prickly. As Johnny left up the ramp having failed on his redemption, Ciampa tried to sneak attack Black and got laid out by the Black Mass as a result. He bumped to the outside and lay on the floor for several minutes afterwards, to the point where certain mes of us were trying to get Kayla to wrap it up so she could get some Mexican food the way it was intended to be made, but Ciampa insisted on his belt once he came around and got helped to the back by the referee (triggering several great jokes from my section about the referee having to be a Gargano since Tomasshole was being carried again). I truly hope Kayla got that awesome Mexican food.
So, that was the show. Fun times all the way around, even by a guy who hadn't watched NXT up until the prior weekend and wasn't a big wrestling fan, but is now a convert for the black and yellow.
The next time you see another BCB live report will be in about four months.
For Takeover: Los Angeles.
I/we are all sorts of Mojo Rawleyed about that.
