NXT IS LIIIIIIIIIVE FROM theCHICAGOlandarea!
Welcome to October, with WWE NXT making its move to “The CW,” which for me means watching WGN for the first time in probably a decade. Until a week ago, when I finally figured I should finally figure it out, I did not know what channel “The CW” was here. It’s WGN, though.
New intro! New theme song! 2 Chainz and Lil’ Wayne.
Ugh, it’s Shawn Michaels: He’s the Senior Vice President of Talent Development Creative. Sometimes on Social Media I will make fun of them announcing titles like that but it’s not that I don’t get they’re real it’s that I think they’re dorky corpospeak horseshit for people who need to convince themselves they’re fancier than they are. Speaking of titles, they have new belts. Speaking of assholes, here’s Triple H.
Roxanne Perez (c) vs Giulia
WWE NXT Women’s Championship
Starting with the real main event, but CM Punk is the referee so we get to pretend Ethan Page is the main event. Booker says he used to go back to the locker room after matches and say, "Follow that!" to everyone which must have gotten some strange reactions after all those two-star Harlem Heat matches. Anyway, he loves that Roxanne is opening the show.
“This is awesome, and so will be Miz TV later tonight,” says Vic. Thank you, Vic. I might have not remembered Miz TV later tonight, and I’m sure it’s the real key to retaining audience right now.
The start isn’t the prettiest or smoothest stuff, but there’s a sort of frenetic energy to it. After the first break, Roxanne’s in clear control. Giulia getting a little chippy, Roxanne willing to meet it but eats a series of headbutts. A whole mess of headbutts, in fact. HAIRMARES! Moolah Style is back. Northern Lights hammerlock suplay from Giulia gets two.
Giulia firing forearms. Roxanne turns the tide with a tope suicida and looks to keep that momentum right back into the ring. She does not. Double underhook superplex from Giulia! That gets two, Giulia rolls into a Rings of Saturn type submission, but Roxanne rolls for a two count and Giulia has to break. Crossface submission from Roxanne. She cleverly keeps Giulia from getting the bottom rope a couple times, but Giulia flat gets out and reverses to an STF.
This is really fun. There’s a gritty competitive feel to it. I think they can learn with one another and have a match with more clean-looking offense, but we’ll never have their first match again and there’s going to be something special about this as an experience. They’ll never have a match quite like this again.
Pop Rox! Giulia rolls out to the floor. Her craftiness and experience is being made a clear strength and different test for Perez, who has largely been working against people who are green at this level. Giulia hits a Northern Lights bomb on the floor!
Both women beat the count at nine, but Perez rolls back out to stumble and try to find her footing. Wait, no, she’s getting her New Championship Title off the stupid pedestal. That distracts the ref and a mystery woman comes down and spikes Giulia on the floor with a double arm DDT. Roxanne hits Pop Rox again, wins. ***½
Post-match: The woman is Cora Jade. This is smart; not only do you have an influx of major new talent in Giulia and Vaquer and now a returning star in Cora Jade, but you’re going to give this time to really shake out with an established, elite grade champion. You can do a lot with that group for a few months before actually switching the belt, and it will probably feel bigger than if you’d done it here.
Outside, earlier: CM Punk arrival! Trick Williams arrival! Ethan Page arrival!
Somewhere: “Fraxiom” are sitting in their metropolitan Orlando apartment with the blank white apartment walls and playing 2K and having one of their famous bits of banter. They lose to A-Town Down Under on the video game due to their IRL miscommunication. I don’t care for these gentlemen.
Backstage: Ava and CM Punk, two mic masters, engage in the greatest promo battle of all time, a dream scenario come to life. (She wants to know he will be a good referee and he says he will be.) She leaves when Lexis King arrives to get some advice from Punk. He gets the advice. It’s not bad advice. Basically he reckons Lexis can “win at all costs or fight against the genes you were born with.”
Backstage: Reluctant Partners Lola Vice and Jaida Parker argue with each other. Kelani Jordan arrives to tell them that they need each other. They do not agree. They go their separate ways. They will probably come together — reluctantly. When it matters most. I’m sure.
Zachary Wentz vs Wes Lee
A street fight between these Ohio Warped Tour Monster Energy buffoons to hopefully end this feud. I really can’t stand either of these two or the energy they bring to my web browser doing the job of a television, but I’m totally ready for this to potentially rule. I mean they’re both reckless, I like that about them.
Plunder! Fighting! Building to their eventual big highspots, teasing that a bit early. They both go through some wood at ringside from the apron.
This is gonna come off way more obsessively negative than I mean, and I don’t mean it as an overall judgment on the match, because we’re halfway in at most, but I’ll say it anyway: What’s happening here is what I really feared, which is that these two just don’t have adversarial chemistry as opponents. They can do moves together real good, they’ll fall through some stuff together and it’ll look like it’s supposed to look, but there is no sizzle here. For as hard as the promos and whatnot have tried, these two do not have a spark as opponents, as heated rivals. The emotion is not there. The fire is non-existent. Everything is empty, if well-executed. This doesn’t matter to me THAT much until something is explicitly a blood feud.
Upon return from break, these two have clearly not followed television direction as we are right back not to a chinlock, but Wentz hitting a Van Terminator. The physicality of the match is pretty terrific, admittedly, and Wentz in particular is here to show how wild he can be, because this might be the last shot he gets to do it on NXT.
Absolutely insane spot where Wentz just SOARS too far over a ringside table, all on his own on that leap, clips the backside of the table but man — he’s lucky that wasn’t a lot worse. But when he gets back into it, Wentz can’t avoid doing his stupid fucking Shawn Michaels worship monologue crap and he gets bopped in the gonads for it. This allows lee to hit a Meteora with a chain with Wentz sitting on a chair and Lee wins because he didn’t have to recite lines instead of beating ass.
Overall I liked the match. But what held it back a smidge is what I said before. I stand by it. But the absolute most important thing is that I liked the match. That is what I’ll really take away from this for the next five minutes until something else starts happening. ***½
Miz TV: Miz abandoned R-Truth last night so now he’s a jerk again. Rosemont booing him but good. Miz talks while I mute because I do not need the Wrestling 101 explanation of Miz’s motivations from Miz. The less I hear Miz the better in general. I have felt this way since he was Mike on Real World: Back to New York. I did not like him then. I never started. Oba Femi is here. And now Tony D’Angelo is here. He’s got the entire The Family with him but they hang back after the first bit of the entrance, Tony is going it alone. This is a fantastic back-and-forth promo from both guys. Oba Femi is a genuine future superstar if they don’t fuck it up or sandbag the guy, and Tony is plenty holding his own, he has found the soul of this cartoonish character. This was excellent. I’m even more looking forward to their match next week.
Backstage: Cora Jade is here to use her hands a lot during a promo. Roxanne Perez is here, too. Maybe they’re friends again. They have similar hair!!!!! Cora remains pretty wooden when it comes to talking.
Fallon Henley & Jacy Jayne vs Lola Vice & Jaida Parker
Kelani Jordan joins commentary because speaking is a real strength of her. Booker T starts screaming at her because he knows her energy isn’t good enough. “You go, Kelani,” Vic says to reassure her that she’s doing roughly fine. Then he explains her character to the world while the tag team match has the most basic nothing wrestling you’ll ever see to make time for people to pay attention to the commentary.
Booker commentary is making a mess of this while Jaida does some cool offense centered around her ass. Lola then shows that SHE also knows how to use HER ass. I don’t know what you’d want me to do here if you find this distasteful commentary from me. They are doing ass moves with their asses. I’m not on the TV, I can call it what it is. Also, it is cool, and good.
Jaida and Lola in control but arguing, giving Fatal Influence the chance to take a front facelock advantage to go into break. They’re going into and returning from ad breaks tonight is a little off.
This is another pretty fun match. Jacy is having a terrific showing. Fallon kinda sinking into the background. Booker T doesn’t want Kelani to have any friends. Lola and Fallon just throwing straight right hands, double clothesline puts both down. Classic, throwback-style tag format mostly. Jaida is ready for the hot tag, but Jazmyn Nyx distracts her. Lola gets knocked into Jaida. Jaida says that’s twice and walks out. Hey, nobody said she was nice. Fatal Influence finish Lola off. ***¼
Post-match: Jacy Jayne says that is a statement made, and now the three of them are taking aim at Kelani Jordan’s singles title. Kelani line reads are like people from 1982 slashers and you click on their name and they have one credit ever. But Kelani is not here alone, she’s backed by Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill. They all clear house on Fatal Influence.
Next week: Orton vs Je’Von. Here’s a video package. It’s a nice video package! That will be in a much worse city and also the show will feature A-Town Down Under. But Oba vs Tony! There’s that! And now it’ll be Kelani, Jade, and Bianca against Fatal Influence, too. The Fatal Influencers working both these weeks, incredible for them.
Hey!: I actually did not know WWE had signed DELTA. Neat!
Ethan Page (c) vs Trick Williams
WWE NXT Championship
CM Punk is your special guest referee. He’s in fine spirits after wanting to murder Drew McIntyre last night. Something special about the energy here at the NXT, it cheers this old curmudgeon right up even if he just had to eat beads.
Guess who the most over guy out here is? Punk gets to make a show out of calling it down the middle. Trick gets put through the wall chunk that always breaks and they go to break, having started pretty well.
This is easily their best work together so far. Trick goes through the commentary desk on Ego’s Edge. This destroys the show’s audio for a moment. Vic still in Cole Cult thinking he’s an “announcer.” Sad. Maybe someday he’ll wonder why he doesn’t get to do Raw or Smackdown.
Trick Shot! Doesn’t end it. Hey FUCK this match NEXT WEEK there will be a performance by “Sexyyy Reddddd”! Trick and Page trading right hands, Trick wins that but not because Page stops throwing. Karate Man misses a back front round heel kick or whatever. Trick hits the Bookend for two. Trick Shot misses, Page gets another two count and starts arguing with Punk about it. So Page picks Trick up and hits the GTS right in Punk’s face. It only gets two on another fair count. Punk now getting clearly anti-Ethan Page.
Ego’s Edge but Trick slips out and into Punk’s arms. Now the question is whether Punk just pulled Trick out of the corner to avoid a charging Page or not, because Williams hits the Trick Shot again and regains the NXT title.
I thought the match was pretty damn good, Page and Trick really putting the polish onto their work together and Page helping to get the most out of Trick’s current ability level and massive crowd connection. The finish is fairly typical WWE, doing something without totally committing to doing it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they really are building to a CM Punk one-off in NXT against Page. ***¾
Post-match: Yeah, they are. Punk drills Page with GTS.
GRADE: B+
Good show! Fake network TV causes some pacing issues but they will figure that out, if there’s one thing you can count on WWE to aggressively get after, it’s sanding down any edges on anything.
The wrestling was consistently strong tonight, and again felt like one of those “named” NXT TV weeks in the Clash of the Champions style. Next week will also have that, though to a lesser degree. And then the show will be whatever it’s actually going to be, though I don’t expect many real changes.
Three Stars of the Show
Ethan Page: Page’s best NXT showing to date, I think, certainly in a straight singles. And he and Trick have found the groove together. I love watching Trick, too, and I thought Page really got the best from him tonight, and Trick was there on the other side of that, too, don’t get me wrong.
Jacy Jayne: Really had a great night, a true standout in that match. Jacy’s someone they really could just, like, promote to the main roster. It’s a weird spot because being honest, she’s never going to be top dog in NXT. Not with this crop already here and those coming in. So there’s very little for her to actually do in NXT. You always hope people “graduate” from NXT having achieved a lot, which in trinket terms Jacy has not, but sometimes the logjam is a good reason, too. Basically what I’m saying is I don’t think her odds of Main Roster success are going to go up staying in NXT any longer, and the most likely thing in keeping her there may be her getting even further lost in the shuffle until they basically just forget she’s there. She’s plenty ready enough in-ring, not some superworker but how many people in the division overall really are? I think she’s got as good a chance now as she’s ever gonna get.
Oba Femi: Just incredible presence that is getting better all the time. Promos are tough, believable, and passionate. In the ring we know what he can do physically and if he cares at all he’s just gonna get better for a while. Can’t wait until next week’s match with D’Angelo.
I think Ethan is going to wind up taking the Miz's role on the main roster. He's willing to make himself look like a fool and not be a cool heel. It's a good spot for him and will keep him employed for years.
Also, love seeing the Jacy praise. She's long been my favorite woman on NXT. She's really good at the little things that don't get highlighted on social media. If is this were baseball, she'd be excellent at going first to third on a single. I wish she's gotten more of a chance to show out in singles matches, but she's always been a victim of poor timing.