Peter Kostka
From the NXT Arena at Full Sail University. Your commentators are Rich Brennan, Corey Graves and Byron Saxton. I’ve decided that I hate the three man booth in WWE; Byron Saxton is an absolute waste of a commentator seat and Graves is slowly morphing into the JBL of the group as he would rather crack jokes at his fellow commentators than call the match. The RAW announce team is one to pay attention to so you know what NOT to do, not emulate their worst qualities.
Also, fix your damn Network buffering problems already, WWE. It’s been almost a year and a half already and you can’t get something seemingly that simple down.
The Vaudevillains vs. Dawson and Dash
The Vaudevillains are faces again as their music has a bouncy ragtime beat the crowd can clap along to instead of the sinister violin music and Aiden English in particular is a lot more emotive. Pretty much a Vaudevillains squash as they finish Dash with the Whirling Dervish for the pin. This crowd was going to cheer them regardless so they might as well drop any pretense and just make them faces already.
Devin Taylor gets an injury update from Becky Lynch, who suffered a hip flexor in her match at Takeover and is going to miss some time. The women’s division has taken a hit with Bayley breaking her hand (and getting little kids to sign her cast at shows) and now Becky out.
Baron Corbin squashes the lovechild of Rusev and Bull Dempsey. Next.
Enzo and Cass argue with the Vaudevillains in GM Regal’s office until Regal makes a #1 contenders tag match next week.
We get part three of Finn Balor is Awesome. We see some of the fan art he gets from fans and he actually gets inspiration from it as he was just like them when he was a kid. He didn’t think his success in Europe and Japan was going to translate to WWE but we see the reaction he gets in his initial entrance in NXT and that was something he’ll never forget. He got his name from Irish mythology, but his father is also named Finn so it is a bit of a tribute to him as well. Matt Bloom talks about how Finn had the in-ring stuff down but he needed to learn how to perform to the camera and we see HHH teaching Finn about how to not look at the camera but also not away from it. We see clips of his first WWE match with Neville in Dublin before Finn talks about how the paint is his personality coming out and how he tries to change it up a little each time he uses it. He’s happy to be able to go back to Japan to see his friends again and the fans that made him to win the NXT championship. Becky Lynch thinks nothing can stop him in WWE but Finn doesn’t think too much about the long term. Both Becky and Bloom talk about how he is the future and Finn would rather fail doing something new than just be “normal”. If they would put like 25% of the effort they did here into making us care about just about everyone on the main WWE roster RAW wouldn’t be doing record low ratings at this point.
Earlier today, GM Regal and SARA DEL RAY watch Eva Marie go through a practice match. She does basic holds and moves without killing herself so that’s better than I expected.
EVIL Emma (w/Dana Brooke) vs. Carmella
I really like the Emma/Dana pairing, especially when Emma is the one in the ring. Emma controls with a bodyscissors but Carmella comes back with basic Diva offense (e.g. catfight spots) but Emma trips her up and the Emma Lock gets the tap.
Bull Dempsey gets mad at a vending machine (cuz he’s fat you see) and goes to smash it, but Regal stops him and tells him to get himself together. Not even Regal’s awesome facial expressions can save how absolutely terrible this is.
We get post match comments from Jason Jordan after his loss last week and once again Chad Gable offers his services. Follow the Dishtowel, Jason.
Tyler Breeze vs. Tye Dillinger
Dillinger’s “Perfect 10” gimmick is touched on but not given as much attention as it deserves because it is apparently a hit on the NXT house shows. The crowd is aware of it, at least. Tye actually looks pretty good here, but Breeze REALLY deserves better right now. He’s been aimless since the last live special and has been completely lost in the shuffle. He’s been doing squashes and matches against people barely on TV for almost two months. Breeze avoids a clothesline and hits the Beauty Shot for the pin. Now give him a feud with SOMEONE, ANYONE. Please!
Emma and Dana admire the Women’s Title as it hangs on a locker. Sasha Banks enters and is keen to take them both on, but they don’t think Sasha can find a tag partner because nobody likes her. I know a lot of the crowd likes Sasha, but can we not give the NXT women’s division the same awful “she’s a heel! Now she’s a face! Why? I dunno.” booking the main roster has right now?
Finn Balor and Samoa Joe vs. Rhyno and Kevin Owens
Man, if this was a live special I’d be salivating at these four just going all out. This is a pretty fun match for a TV match as Joe and Finn roll on Rhyno to start until he tags out to Owens. Owens takes control back on Finn as he taunts Joe on the apron and sends Finn out as we take a break.
Finn fights out of a chinlock but Owens goes through the Cena comeback spot with shoulderblocks and 5 Knuckle Shuffle. This man is great. He picks Finn up for the FU, but Finn fights out and hits a double stomp, making the hot tag to Joe. Joe runs wild on Rhyno and gives Owens a shot when he tries to interfere. Joe catches Owens on a charge and the faces tease a Muscle Buster/Coup De Grace combo (which would be an awesome tag finish), but Rhyno pushes Finn off the top and Owens hits the Popup Powerbomb on Joe before hitting a superkick on Finn who answers right back with a Pele kick. Rhyno charges for the Gore, but Finn sidesteps and Rhyno wipes Owens out. Finn follows with the corner dropkick to Rhyno (whose ass goes right into Owens’ face) and Finn hits the Coup de Grace for Kevin Owens’ first NXT loss. A really good finishing sequence. Finn and Joe celebrate as we fade out.
OVERALL: A fun main event, but I’m sensing some bad main show habits starting to sink in and it is kind of concerning. NXT should be the start of a new creative direction for WWE that replaces the awful one they have right now, not something that tries to but gets infected by Vince McMahon and Co. having no idea what makes wrestling good in 2015. Making fun of fat people is not good. Having a bunch of midcard wrestlers with no direction doing the same stuff over and over so fans lose interest is not good. There were times watching this episode where I felt like I was watching RAW.
I hate that feeling.
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Until next week……
