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| Winning wars, losing battles Photo Credit: WWE.com |
The ratings war is probably the only thing NXT isn't winning at right now. The defense of their women's championship at WrestleMania is drawing hosannas even though there's an outside chance the match may not be a straight one-on-one as originally envisioned. The top of the card is dominated by friends turned rivals turned...well, you get it, but their presumed clash come TO:TB is the first time you'll get it like this and maybe the last to boot. Their secondary title is routinely turning people's question marks and ellipses into exclamation points and laughter, and their newly minted tag champs are continuing to win over the crowds with their weird out-of-the-ring chemistry and palpable in-ring to match.
With attention turned southwest to their counterparts by the Bay, the first post-Portland show started drawing signposts as to what may be to come on April 4th, with a possible barnburner of a main event tonight to boot.
Let's delve into it.
BLACK: the main event
Despite trying to ground them under the normal rules of the road, the alignments for Dream/Strong feel off. It's possibly because Dream dragged Roddy's kid into it whereas we've seen Marina on the show multiple times over or his response to ostensibly being thrown off of a truck by the man who beat him for his first championship has been more akin to a beautiful woman being rebuffed by Michael Douglas in an early nineties movie; either way, a lot of this feud has had this bizarre aftertaste of "...yay, Dream?" that goes beyond the usual WWE confines of getting us to cheer heelish people (Hogan, Austin, Rock, Punk, on and on). Strong furthered that by getting "goaded" into wrestling the main event solo, and even more noticeably in a live-to-USA era the match had several noticeable screwups. It might've been a bad night at the office aided and abetted by Dream's layoff prior to this, but the multitude of screwups undercut what should've been a fight at fever pitch and then was hamstrung by the ending of the Dream not only laying out the Era before winning with his usually transitional Dream Valley Driver but then getting immediately swarmed and laid out by the UE. Unless this is the beginnings of Cole/Dream for Tampa, the whole affair didn't really make any sort of sense, and sense and NXT go together like nonsense and the main roster. It's not unfixable, just off.
BLACK: Austin Theory, the new Dumbest Man Alive
Before he presumably came out for a match, Tomasso Ciampa came to Full Sail and galomped through the backstage on a laser sight. You know what none of the dozen people who could technically be considered to have been in his orbit did? Engage! WWE's been PC for years and years and even as a babyface his nickname is the Psycho Killer. He entered the ring, and Austin came over to him, and when Ciampa warned him this was not the night, he backed off. Ciampa's short monologue got over the two points it needed to: like anyone who didn't start watching NXT with its arrival on USA he knew why Johnny did what he did, and that if he was to get his life back that there could be no Johnny Gargano in NXT (Loser Leaves Town alert! Loser Leaves Town alert!). For some reason Theory opted to try to jump Ciampa between these points (lolwhut) then tried it again as Ciampa was leaving (OMGLOLWHUT) so the getting thrown into the barrier on both sides 10 times with a Knee Trembler appetizer he brought on himself. And he's going to face Ciampa in a "match" tonight. Ironically enough, he has 2 chances of winning this match: Gargano does his dirty work for him, or Ciampa beats him into the ICU and the decision gets overturned as the ambulance siren blares. Either way, All Day must be for abs and looks instead of brains, because - and I cannot stress this enough - LOLWHUT.
GOLD: fighting forever
Keith Lee swatted Kona Reeves faster than you read that - the universe continuing to unfold like it should - and Dominik Dijakovic, as you might expect, came out seeking a rematch under the auspices that if his back hadn't given out on him in Portland he would've successfully hit FYE and become NA champ. Keith first (accurately) accused the Croatian export of building a house of excuses and ifs instead of bricks and mortar, but then relented and said if he wanted another shot and could get Master Regal to grant one, so it would be done.
Let me reiterate publicly on my biggest soapbox: 30-minute Iron Man in Tampa. DO EET.
GOLD: our next possible tag title feud
In consecutive segments, the Grizzled Young Veterans beat the makeshift team of Raul Mendoza and; Joaquin Wilde then the newly minted champion Broserweights beat Danny Burch and; Oney Lorcan. (Poor Danny. I think if he loses to Pete 2 more times before the year's over he gets a free sandwich.) This was only elevated to notable by the Grizzles post-match -- well, Zack Gibson, because, well, he's Zack Gibson -- hilariously deriding the Full Sailors and America by extension as the land of the neckbeards and the home of the ignorant Yanks.
Sidenote: BLACK to the Forgotten Sons going full Lacey Evans and suddenly recasting themselves in a segment later on as proud patriots who were offended by the words Gibson put forth. I have a better chance of stopping Zion Williamson one-on-one than Jokers and Threes do against the former UK tag champs, and like Evans and Jack Swagger before that, I don't really feel like rooting for a person or group who I know unconditionally the ignorant Yank white supremacists would root for whether they've been wrestling fans for decades or milliseconds. This is how bad the Sons are: I'm going to actively root for ZACK GIBSON. Zack Gibson, a veritable David Brent without the redeeming features in spandex! If you're counting along at home, this is potentially 4 WTF babyfaces getting airtime on this show.
GOLD: the rise and rise of the NXT Cruiserweight Championship
To the surprise of about nobody, making it more NXTcentric and putting on awesome matches for it in front of rabid crowds has turned the formerly dead Big Black and Purp into a living, breathing selling point for the fanbase. Jordan Devlin and Lio Rush got the opening match on the card and proceeded to MC5 that mutha for three segments (well, realistically, two and a quarter, but quibbling is best left for punditry). Devlin's already so good he's starting to draw mixed reactions from the Full Sailors despite doing nothing to try to win Irish Ace followers, and the time off has seen Rush the person pick up hotter than where he left off even if his character - having failed to regain the belt from Garza and now being pinned in the middle clean by the man that lifted it off of Garza - seems to be slowly turning back to the dark side.
The fact remains they put on a match so good that it practically was screaming "GIVE THEM A REMATCH" by the time it ended, full of counters to signature moves, moves rarely seen from either competitor, and the announce not only accurately putting a spotlight on the word polymath but Mauro busting out Digable Planets references. Sometimes it seems like it's really easy to love this show in part because it feels like it's being put on by my subconscious.
GOLD: the Robert Stone Brand
Well, this is facetious since he had to interfere behind the ref's back to give Chelsea Green the opportunity to beat Kayden Carter this time, but if this turns out to be Full Sail's answer to Entertainment 720 but with a beautiful woman who's got yet-to-be-tapped character work in her added to the mix, then that snizz is going to be straight up off the churt.
Coming tonight besides the Assassination of the Moron Austin Theory by the Blackheart Tomasso Ciampa is Charlotte v. Bianca. So, again, you want to tune in for that and then the Standard next week ahead of the Dakota/Tegan cage match to come. Even with missteps and head-scratchers, NXT is succeeding far more than they're failing.
They do probably wish the ratings were a scoch better, though.
With attention turned southwest to their counterparts by the Bay, the first post-Portland show started drawing signposts as to what may be to come on April 4th, with a possible barnburner of a main event tonight to boot.
Let's delve into it.
BLACK: the main event
Despite trying to ground them under the normal rules of the road, the alignments for Dream/Strong feel off. It's possibly because Dream dragged Roddy's kid into it whereas we've seen Marina on the show multiple times over or his response to ostensibly being thrown off of a truck by the man who beat him for his first championship has been more akin to a beautiful woman being rebuffed by Michael Douglas in an early nineties movie; either way, a lot of this feud has had this bizarre aftertaste of "...yay, Dream?" that goes beyond the usual WWE confines of getting us to cheer heelish people (Hogan, Austin, Rock, Punk, on and on). Strong furthered that by getting "goaded" into wrestling the main event solo, and even more noticeably in a live-to-USA era the match had several noticeable screwups. It might've been a bad night at the office aided and abetted by Dream's layoff prior to this, but the multitude of screwups undercut what should've been a fight at fever pitch and then was hamstrung by the ending of the Dream not only laying out the Era before winning with his usually transitional Dream Valley Driver but then getting immediately swarmed and laid out by the UE. Unless this is the beginnings of Cole/Dream for Tampa, the whole affair didn't really make any sort of sense, and sense and NXT go together like nonsense and the main roster. It's not unfixable, just off.
BLACK: Austin Theory, the new Dumbest Man Alive
Before he presumably came out for a match, Tomasso Ciampa came to Full Sail and galomped through the backstage on a laser sight. You know what none of the dozen people who could technically be considered to have been in his orbit did? Engage! WWE's been PC for years and years and even as a babyface his nickname is the Psycho Killer. He entered the ring, and Austin came over to him, and when Ciampa warned him this was not the night, he backed off. Ciampa's short monologue got over the two points it needed to: like anyone who didn't start watching NXT with its arrival on USA he knew why Johnny did what he did, and that if he was to get his life back that there could be no Johnny Gargano in NXT (Loser Leaves Town alert! Loser Leaves Town alert!). For some reason Theory opted to try to jump Ciampa between these points (lolwhut) then tried it again as Ciampa was leaving (OMGLOLWHUT) so the getting thrown into the barrier on both sides 10 times with a Knee Trembler appetizer he brought on himself. And he's going to face Ciampa in a "match" tonight. Ironically enough, he has 2 chances of winning this match: Gargano does his dirty work for him, or Ciampa beats him into the ICU and the decision gets overturned as the ambulance siren blares. Either way, All Day must be for abs and looks instead of brains, because - and I cannot stress this enough - LOLWHUT.
GOLD: fighting forever
Keith Lee swatted Kona Reeves faster than you read that - the universe continuing to unfold like it should - and Dominik Dijakovic, as you might expect, came out seeking a rematch under the auspices that if his back hadn't given out on him in Portland he would've successfully hit FYE and become NA champ. Keith first (accurately) accused the Croatian export of building a house of excuses and ifs instead of bricks and mortar, but then relented and said if he wanted another shot and could get Master Regal to grant one, so it would be done.
Let me reiterate publicly on my biggest soapbox: 30-minute Iron Man in Tampa. DO EET.
GOLD: our next possible tag title feud
In consecutive segments, the Grizzled Young Veterans beat the makeshift team of Raul Mendoza and; Joaquin Wilde then the newly minted champion Broserweights beat Danny Burch and; Oney Lorcan. (Poor Danny. I think if he loses to Pete 2 more times before the year's over he gets a free sandwich.) This was only elevated to notable by the Grizzles post-match -- well, Zack Gibson, because, well, he's Zack Gibson -- hilariously deriding the Full Sailors and America by extension as the land of the neckbeards and the home of the ignorant Yanks.
Sidenote: BLACK to the Forgotten Sons going full Lacey Evans and suddenly recasting themselves in a segment later on as proud patriots who were offended by the words Gibson put forth. I have a better chance of stopping Zion Williamson one-on-one than Jokers and Threes do against the former UK tag champs, and like Evans and Jack Swagger before that, I don't really feel like rooting for a person or group who I know unconditionally the ignorant Yank white supremacists would root for whether they've been wrestling fans for decades or milliseconds. This is how bad the Sons are: I'm going to actively root for ZACK GIBSON. Zack Gibson, a veritable David Brent without the redeeming features in spandex! If you're counting along at home, this is potentially 4 WTF babyfaces getting airtime on this show.
GOLD: the rise and rise of the NXT Cruiserweight Championship
To the surprise of about nobody, making it more NXTcentric and putting on awesome matches for it in front of rabid crowds has turned the formerly dead Big Black and Purp into a living, breathing selling point for the fanbase. Jordan Devlin and Lio Rush got the opening match on the card and proceeded to MC5 that mutha for three segments (well, realistically, two and a quarter, but quibbling is best left for punditry). Devlin's already so good he's starting to draw mixed reactions from the Full Sailors despite doing nothing to try to win Irish Ace followers, and the time off has seen Rush the person pick up hotter than where he left off even if his character - having failed to regain the belt from Garza and now being pinned in the middle clean by the man that lifted it off of Garza - seems to be slowly turning back to the dark side.
The fact remains they put on a match so good that it practically was screaming "GIVE THEM A REMATCH" by the time it ended, full of counters to signature moves, moves rarely seen from either competitor, and the announce not only accurately putting a spotlight on the word polymath but Mauro busting out Digable Planets references. Sometimes it seems like it's really easy to love this show in part because it feels like it's being put on by my subconscious.
GOLD: the Robert Stone Brand
Well, this is facetious since he had to interfere behind the ref's back to give Chelsea Green the opportunity to beat Kayden Carter this time, but if this turns out to be Full Sail's answer to Entertainment 720 but with a beautiful woman who's got yet-to-be-tapped character work in her added to the mix, then that snizz is going to be straight up off the churt.
Coming tonight besides the Assassination of the Moron Austin Theory by the Blackheart Tomasso Ciampa is Charlotte v. Bianca. So, again, you want to tune in for that and then the Standard next week ahead of the Dakota/Tegan cage match to come. Even with missteps and head-scratchers, NXT is succeeding far more than they're failing.
They do probably wish the ratings were a scoch better, though.
