WWE NXT 25th September 2013 Review

This week's NXT was fairly strong throughout with a lot of interesting action, whilst nothing particularly stood out, it felt like much more of a storyline building week with the seeds planted for future parts of story, with Sami Zayn and Bo Dallas's feud really getting into gear, alongside a new number one contender to Graves & Neville's NXT Tag Team Championships.

NXT Tag Team Championship Number One Contenders Tag Team Turmoil Match:

 Enzo Amore & Colin Cassady 

vs. 

CJ Parker & Tyler Breeze 

vs. 

The Legionnaires

 with Sylvester LeFort 

vs. 

The Ascension

Now NXT doesn't have a lot of real tag teams so the tag team turmoil idea seemed like a bit of a stretch, for me. The Ascension are the only team that'd really consider a conventional tag team, with Amore & Cassady possibly at a stretch. The Legionnaires are moving towards that way, with them both being managed by Sylvester LeFort, but I'd still see them both as singles wrestlers rather than a tag team. So for this Tag Team Turmoil to be viable, they had to create a make shift team of rivals Tyler Breeze and CJ Parker, it's been done before and it'll be done again most probably. The team was made by Raw General Manager Brad Maddox, after both Breeze and Parker came to see Maddox (who was apparently on charge off tonight's show) about being part of the match, it was a fairly contrived situation, but played well by all three involved.

The story that this match attempted to tell, needed longer than it was given to make it really worthwhile. The first match saw Amore & Cassady taking on CJ Parker & Tyler Breeze in a brief encounter that didn't really do anything for me. Parker dominated Amore until Parker refused to tag in Breeze allowing Amore to get the tag to Cassady who hit a Spinning Sitout Sideslam to pick up the victory. I understand that they were trying to push the dislike between Parker and Breeze, but Parker is supposed to be a face, and refusing to tag in Breeze seemed like a heel tactic to me. Up next for Amore & Cassady was Sylvester LeFort's team of Scott Dawson & Alexander Rusev now know as The Legionnaires. The Legionnaires worked over Amore for a couple of minutes looking good in control and working quick tags. After Dawson hit an Arn Anderson style Spinebuster he went to pick up Amore, only for Amore to trap him in a small package to pick up the victory and to advance to the final match of the Tag Team Turmoil. It was a decent finish, but we just had seen enough of The Legionnaires in control of the match to make it mean as much as it should.

Personally, I would have prefered to see Amore & Cassady take much more of a beating in the first two matches, yes, they did take most of the offence from the other two teams but it was only for a couple of minutes. By the time The Ascension were revealed as the final team, Amore and Cassady should have been exhausted, building up two teams at the same time, The Ascension as the evil heels coming in to pick the bones and the valiant Amore & Cassady who pulled off two upset wins after tough fights, however it didn't quite feel like that. The final match was a decent encounter if not a little basic, with Conor O'Brian and Rick Victor working over Cassady for a lot of the match, before Cassady managed to make a short comeback, including a nice near fall, with Cassady making the tag to Amore, only for Amore to come up short after O'Brian outpowered the smaller man. The finish saw The Ascension hit their double team finish with the leg sweep/heel kick combination to pick up the victory and become Number One Contenders for Graves & Neville's NXT Tag Team Championships.

The Ascension make perfect sense as the challengers for the NXT Tag Team Championships, seeing as they have been feuding with both Graves and Neville over the last few weeks. They probably could have just been given a title shot anyway and I'm sure no one would have had any complaints about that, but doing it this way just gives them a little bit more behind their claim to the gold and makes them look a much more credible tag team. Can they beat Graves & Neville for the NXT Tag Team Championships, I'm interested to find out. Personally, I think it's time to put the titles on The Ascension, as Graves & Neville have only ever felt like transitional champions, whilst they have performed well with the belts, it's clear that they are not a proper tag team and really this is just a set up to lead into a singles feud between Corey Graves and Adrian Neville, before both are ready to make the step up to the main roster.

Best of the Rest (In The World)

Also in action this week, was fan favourite Sami Zayn who took on El Local (Ricardo Rodriguez under a mask) in singles action. It was a decent short encounter, with the action fought a pretty high pace throughout. Zayn dominated most of the match, which was essentially an enhancement match, Local was there to make Zayn look great and he did a pretty good job (not like it takes much to make Zayn look awesome in the ring). The finish saw Zayn fight back from a momentary spell of control for Local, hitting a series of moves, including a back body drop, before finishing off Local with a Yakuza kick to pick up the pinfall victory. Obviously, this match doesn't stand up to Zayn's classic bouts with Antonio Cesaro and Jack Swagger on NXT, but it simply wasn't designed to do that. For what is was, this bout was entertaining and a nice set up for what was about to come.

After the match, NXT Champion Bo Dallas came out on to the ramp, with a few words to say to Zayn. I thought this promo was probably the strongest we've seen out of Dallas on NXT, as he didn't seem to be effected by the crowd, in his usual way which is to simply start laughing mid-promo, he simply said what he had to say and got it over with. Dallas continued to claim he was a mentor to Zayn, which of course is hilarious in itself, before announcing that he would be holding the Bo Dallas Invitational starting next week, where any wrestler could challenge him to a match and if they win they will get a title shot. Zayn, of course, was the first to throw his name into the hat, only to be turned down by Dallas for being unsafe in the ring. I thought this was really nice set up for things to come in their rivalry, as we know The Bo Dallas Invitational isn't going to go down without incident, and therefore should be tuning in next week to find out!

WWE COO Triple H was also in attendance at NXT this week, coming down to the ring to continue a storyline that has been a prominent part of Raw recently, that being the McMahon family feud with The Rhodes family. After putting over a number of NXT talents, Triple H went onto remove Dusty Rhodes as the General Manager of NXT, and replace him with John “Bradshaw” Layfield. It was a little confusing, seeing as we had seen Brad Maddox working as an authority figure throughout the episode, and certainly didn't get the heat that it deserved because people were just happy to see JBL. It was an interesting idea to attempt to carry over the storyline to NXT and made sense to do so, but I'm not surely it really payed off in the way they were hoping here. JBL could be an interesting General Manager and I'm wondering if we'll see a shift on the show, now that it is run by a heel.

In women's action, Sasha Banks accompanied by Summer Rae took on Bayley, in strong women's bout. Both women looked competent in the ring, with Banks really growing into her new heel role, looking vicious throughout with some nice ad lib really helping to get that character across to the audience. The finish saw Bayley climbing to the top rope, only to be tripped by Banks, who sent Bayley into the top rope again before picking up a pinfall victory following a Double Handcuff Neckbreaker. After the match, Summer Rae got on the mic, and in a surprinsgly good promo announced that Fandango would be on NXT next week, as well as putting over her partnership with Banks. Just when it looked like the pair were finished, Emma ran down the ramp sending them running. The pop that Emma got was fantastic and shows that women can get over in today's WWE, and with Rae later challenging Emma to a mixed tag team match next week things are beginning to heat up in their feud.

Aiden English was also in action this week, in a squash match against Bull Dempsey. English's singing actor gimmick is a little too similar to Damien Sandow's gimmick for me, but that doesn't mean it's any less entertaining. English picked up a quick victory with Take A Bow, after an entertaining encounter. English looks capable in the ring, at least in this kind of environment, I'd like to see how his character translates to a singles feud in the near future, as well as see him in much longer matches with some of NXT's finest.

After a three month absense, Kassius Ohno returned to WWE television to confront Brad Maddox about why he hadn't been on the show. They played around with the management holding Ohno down angle, with Maddox describing Ohno as a D+ player, a reference to Daniel Bryan being called a B+ player on Raw. With Ohno being granted a return match next week, I am very happy to see him back on the show as he was one of the most entertaining aspects of NXT a few months ago and is more than capable in the ring. Hopefully, his problem's with WWE management have ceased and we'll be seeing a lot of Kassius Ohno in the near future.  

Finally....

My final thoughts on this week's NXT.

1. The Tag Team Turmoil match needed more time and precision booking.

2. Sami Zayn is still the best thing about NXT.

3. I would happily listen to William Regal on commentary for hours on end, he's magnificent. 

WWE NXT 4th September 2013 Review

WWE NXT continues to be in the shadows of Antonio Cesaro and Sami Zayn's epic Two out of Three Falls contest, and it's a bit like the week after Christmas Day when everything is getting back to normal. Luckily, Sami Zayn was back in action this week against Jack Swagger, so things were not all lost. 

Sami Zayn 

vs. 

Jack Swagger with Zeb Colter

This match stemmed from a Jack Swagger attack on Sami Zayn last week, after Zeb Colter had caused the distraction. Essentially this story was in place to allow Zayn's NXT Championship match with Bo Dallas to build up a bit longer, but it was still a nice jaunt non-the-less. It's been a while since Swagger has looked like a genuine threat to any on WWE, after falling out of favour due to his extra curricular activities earlier in the year. Personally, I think it was a real shame, obviously it was all Swagger's fault, but it did feel like at that time he had something to offer WWE and I actually did enjoy Swagger's run opposite Alberto Del Rio, with Colter working as a great mouthpiece during the feud. 

The match was a very enjoyable bout, with both men looking very good throughout. Something that we haven't really seen WWE play up very often with Swagger is his size and power. So it was good to see the come into play here, with Swagger who is close to 290 lbs, really looking dominate against Zayn with some good looking power moves and some well executed submission moves. The story that would run throughout the match was Zayn attempting to get going against the bigger Swagger, Zayn did a great job of this role and it's certainly a role that he seems to relish in the ring, with some believable selling of Swagger's offence.  Zayn would get in some offence, in fits and bursts, including a beautiful dive over the top rope to the outside, but Swagger would quickly gain control.

The finish saw Zayn beginning to get a role together, with a Yakuza Kick followed up with by a number of blows to keep Swagger down and it was clear that the Full Sail Arena absolutely adores Zayn, as he got a huge pop from just pointing to the top rope! With Zayn getting a near fall off of a Sunset Flip Powerbomb out of the corner, NXT Champion Bo Dallas headed down to ring side and caused enough of a distraction to allow Swagger to lock in the Patriot Lock for the second time in the match and pick up the submission victory. The interference only added to the match for me, as the short Swagger and Zayn story, simply flowed into a continuation of the feud between Zayn and Dallas. It's certainly built my anticipation for seeing Zayn finally get his opportunity with Dallas, eve more and a competitive loss to another main roster wrestler will do no harm for Zayn.

So, how long can WWE go before having Zayn get his shot at Dallas? They can only realistically keep it going for a few more weeks, as it has been boiling underneath the Zayn and Cesaro rivalry for a good few months. Zayn is also red hot after coming off the series with Cesaro, so it would be wise for the show to capitalise on his popularity by putting the strap on him pretty soon. At the same time, whilst Dallas has improved a lot over the last few months as champion, especially since switching over to a heel, but he certainly has never really felt strong enough to carry the belt around, after strong reigns from Seth Rollins and Big E Langston, and would still seem to have some time in the developmental territory before he's ready to make the step. 

Best of the Rest (In The World)

Elsewhere on NXT, NXT Tag Team Champion Corey Graves was in action against The Ascension's Rick Victor, with both beign accompanied by Adrian Neville and Conor O'Brian respectively. The story behind this match was that Graves had suffered injured ribs after an attack from The Ascension last week. In the early part of the match, the rib injury was not played up as much of it should have been and it took a fair while for the match to really get going. They had a perfect moment to bring to the ribs into the match, with Graves going to lock in Lucky Thirteen, but instead of using the ribs to get out of the hold quickly, Victor just punched him in the face instead. Luckily, in the later stages of the match, they did begin to work the ribs and actually did a great job of it, with Graves putting in a solid performance selling the ribs and his difficulty breathing, this really brought the match to life for me.

The finish of the bout saw O'Brian looking to get involved to aid his partner, with Neville making the save, entering the ring and hitting a springboard crossbody to the outside, taking out O'Brian. With Graves momentarily distracted Victor attempted to go for a Gutbuster, only for Graves to reverse into a Small Package and pick up the pinfall victory. I liked the finish to this one, it worked well on the idea of Graves battling throughout the match and finally being able to pull out the victory, as well as including their partner's building towards a future title match for The Ascension. Whilst Neville and Graves both have singles victories over member of The Ascension, it would seem likely that The Ascension would be next in line for a title shot, mainly down to the fact they're the only other tag team on NXT! 

WWE also continued to build towards a match on next week's show, between NXT Women's Champion Paige and Sascha Banks. Firstly, with Summer Rae once again talking to Banks about showing a nasty side, with Banks looking reluctant. Rae looked really awkward throughout the entire segment, and her performance put me in mind of a GCSE drama performance. Paige later showed her how it was done, with a solid promo during an interview with Renee Young, where Paige put over Banks well, before reminding the audience of the meaning of Anti-Diva. It was a good performance from Paige on the microphone, it's an area she definitely needs to have more time working on to help build her character on television to match what we see in the ring, but she at least has a sound foundation to build upon. 

There was also an intriguing segment which saw Leo Kruger standing over Xavier Woods in the parking lot, laughing in his signature maniacal fashion. With no follow up on the show, and such as a short segment, I was left wanting to know more about what happened and see more of Kruger. I thought it was really effective way of building Kruger's character back up after his recent NXT Championship loss to Bo Dallas. I wouldn't mind seeing them build to a Woods vs. Kruger feud, with the feud allowing us to see a more serious side of Woods, as well as the potential for some interesting match ups between the two. Either way, as long as Woods isn't about to disappear from television like Kassius Ohno, I'll be happy with this.

Alexander Rusev was back in action this week against Mason Ryan. I had expected them to take a little long to build for this match, with Enzo Amore and Colin Cassasdy being involved, therefore this felt a little bit rushed. I've been quite open about not being a fan of Mason Ryan, and this match didn't change my mind, whilst he looks good when in control, the guy can't sell the save his life, so the decision to have him work as a face just befuddles me. The finish saw interference from both Scott Dawson and Sylvester LeFort, before Rusev hit Ryan with a charging attack in the corner, before locking in the Camel Clutch to pick up the submission victory. What I've seen of Rusev, I like, he's looked impressive in his match with Dolph Ziggler and came across fairly well here, as well, but I have no clue why they've given him a Camel Clutch as finisher. Does anyone from Eatern Europe or Asia automatically have to have that move as a finisher? Is written into the rule book? It would seem so.

The opening contest saw woman's tag team action with Bayley & Charlotte teaming up to take on Alicia Fox and Aksana. By far the best section of the match came between Alicia Fox and Bayley who put on some decent wrestler, with Alica Fox's Northern Lights Suplex into a bridge being the highlight for me. Charlotte didn't spend much time in the ring and the less said about Aksana the better. The finish was poorly worked, with Bayley supposedly meant to move out of the way of a boot in the corner from Fox, so that Fox hit Aksana. But Bayley didn't really move, Aksana still bumped and Bayley rolled up Fox for the pinfall victory. Some positives here, but not many. 

Finally...

My final thoughts on this week's WWE NXT.

1. Sami Zayn is the hottest property on NXT at moment.

2. NXT still needs more tag teams!

3. Paige needs more time on the mic to developed, but she's still better than most women in WWE. 

WWE NXT 28th August 2013 Review

This week's NXT was always going to struggle to live up to last week's episode, after Sami Zayn and Antonio Cesaro put together a classic two out of three falls match, and it was no surprise when it didn't. By no means was this bad show, with a lot to like, including the newly heel NXT Champion Bo Dallas and a decent enough main event between Conor O'Brian and Adrian Neville, but it's going to be a while before a match on NXT even comes close to Zayn vs. Cesaro.

NXT Tag Team Champion

 Adrian Neville 

vs. 

Conor O'Brian

with Rick Victor

The main event of the show pitted NXT Tag Team Champion Adrian Neville against The Ascension's Conor O'Brian. The match was put together following the pre-titles sequence of the show that featured Neville's partner and fellow NXT Tag Team Champion Corey Graves speaking to Renee Young only to be interupted by The Ascension's Rick Victor. Victor cut an average and cliched promo about how the time of The Ascension was now, I guess he means in terms of the NXT Tag Team Championship but that was specifically stated. With Graves' showing his trademark attitude he was ambushed by O'Brian with a punch to the back of the head. O'Brian then proceded to hit Graves in the chest with a metal girder that was part of the NXT interview room set. This didn't really work for me, as whilst the attack looked brutal and the girder looked genuinely painful, it didn't really fit with the Ascension's dark gimmick, with O'Brian spurting the words “Stay down, Graves” in a ridiculously over the top voice removing any ounces of darkness from The Ascension in this opening segment.

The bout took on a simple dynamic, with Neville using his speed early on to take control of the match, but once Victor had caused the distraction, O'Brian dominated from that point. O'Brian looks very good when in control, he has a great look and works the gimmick well when in the ring. He feels like a bit of a diamond in the rough for me, I think if WWE protect the character and allow him to develop and improve as a wrestler, which he will if he continues to go up against the likes of Adrian Neville, then he could work very well for the company, however if they follow the trend of how they've been using most bigger built wrestler over the last few years, he'll be a comedy face dancing around the ring in lingerie before you can say Giant Bernard.

The bout was pretty short only about five minutes of the television time, which isn't really enough for a main event match on television, but they did manage to fit in a nice faux comeback for Neville and a near fall for each man before they went to the finish. After Neville had moved out of the way of a charging O'Brian sending the bigger man into the turnbuckle, Neville hit a back suplex for a two count, with the footage looking badly cut together for some reason. Neville then went to the top rope and hit Red Arrow for the pinfall victory. It was a very strange ending and felt very sudden, I'm really not quite sure what happened, but obviously there was a botch somewhere down the line that caused them to cut the match, but at the same time Neville still went straight from a near fall to his finisher which isn't something you see a lot of in WWE. Personally, I would have like to see this bout go another five minutes or so, which I think both men are capable off, and certainly needed a more satisfying finish.

After the bout, Victor came back in the ring and The Ascension began to double team Neville. Graves tried to make the save, now complete with bandaged ribs, before The Ascension destroyed him too, finishing him off with their Spinning Elbow/Sweep Kick combination finisher. With The Ascension finishing the show standing tall in the ring, it looks like they have to be next in line for an NXT Tag Team Championship match, which can surely be only a few weeks away. NXT is pretty low on tag teams at the moment, since The Wyatt Family were moved to the main roster and they split Scott Dawson & Garrett Dylan up, they could really do with creating a couple of new pairing to make the division look competitive. It can also only be a matter of time before they split Neville and Graves up and have them feud, seeing as their team was born more out of neccesity than anything else and they seem to protect each other out of obligation rather than an actual like for each other.

Best of the Rest (In The World)

Elsewhere on NXT, Renee Young conducted an in ring interview with Sami Zayn. After last week's epic Two out of Three Falls encounter with Antonio Cesaro I was interested to see what Zayn had to say and where WWE would be moving with him from here. Zayn did a good job with his promo, getting himself over as a humble and extremely likeable guy, I think it is literally impossible not too like Sami Zayn, his character at times feels like it has been plucked straight from a Rom-Com, with his interaction with Young typifying that feel. Zayn mentioned the possibility of receiving a NXT Championship shot, something which I've talked about a few times in my NXT reviews with Zayn seeming like the logical option for the next NXT Champion after his impressive run of matches with Cesaro, as well as bringing a lot of attention to the show with the feud.

Of course, current NXT Champion Bo Dallas had something to say about this and headed on down to the ring himself. I know it's fashionable amongst wrestling fans to be negative about Bo Dallas for a number of reasons, but his heel promos actually quite good. Yes, he probably get's under a lot of peoples skins, but he is supposed to, he is a heel. When he's coming out saying people don't care about Zayn because he lost and they want to watch a winner like him, you can just feel the internet getting ready to reach for it's collective pen of rage and that's great. WWE is really learning how to play the internet correctly, which is something they've struggled to do for years with Daniel Bryan's feud with The McMahon Family on Raw being the most obvious example of that. With Dallas stealing from The Simpsons (Are you saying Boo, or Boo-urns?), the pair were interrupted by Zeb Colter. After some nice back and forth between Colter and Zayn, Colter's Real American stablemate Jack Swagger attack Zayn from behind, before hitting a Gutwrench Powerbomb. I'd expect a short feud between Swagger and Zayn, just to allow a little extra time for the Dallas and Zayn feud to truly build to a satisfying conclusion.

After Emma had given a decent interview to Renee Young, she went on to face rival Summer Rae. After both women had had great matches with Paige on NXT in the past, I expected at least a decent match here. Unfortunately, that wasn't what we got and the match felt like your average women's match you might see on Raw or Smackdown. Whilst both played their roles well, the bout was pretty sloppy, with a number of notable botches, including a strange moment with Rae trying to set Emma up in the ropes, only for Emma to fall off them. Emma went on to pick up the victory via submission with the Emma-Lock. It wasn't a terrible finish, but it would have been better to see the submission brought into the match earlier on to really build to that finish. After the match, Rae attacked Emma once again from behind, before throwing “bubble solution” in her eyes, signalling that this feud might not be over yet. However, backstage in a conversation with Sascha Banks, Rae signalled that she was done with NXT, whilst also sowing the seeds for a Sascha Banks heel turn in a nice little scene.

After a backstage disagreement, a match was made between Sylvester LeFort's protege Scott Dawson and the charismatic Enzo Amore, who would now appear to be working as a face. Both LeFort and Amore, who was accompanied by Colin Cassady, both cut good promos building up the match nicely. Whilst the match didn't exactly set the world alight, it was a nice foundation, especially considering Amore's limited wrestling experience, with Dawson working him over nicely for most of the match playing a good heel role, until Amore made a comeback with an impressive head scissors takedown. It was here that Alexander Rusev, who we saw last week against Dolph Ziggler, attack Cassady, causing the distraction for Amore, and allowing Dawson to hit what looked like a version of the Angle Slam to pick up the pinfall victory. It would seem that Rusev will be joining LeFort's faction, and I think he will be a nice addition to the group that was screaming out for more members. I can only speculate that they will begin a build toward a feud between Rusev and Mason Ryan.

CJ Parker and Tyler Breeze finally locked it up in the ring, in what was a disapointing contest. Parker's character is in desperate need of some more mic time to help bring some flesh to the characters bones, and Breeze isn't in a much better situation. There's potential in both characters but without the extra dimension it's hard to get behind or against either character. The match was focused almost entirely on Breeze's phone, with the phone playing a big part in the finish. Breeze used the positioning of the referee to hit Parker with the phone and pick up the pinfall victory. The ending took too long to set up, with the referee taking sometime to get into position. I guess we'll be getting more from this feud in the future, but unless we start seeing some dimension in the characters and more wrestling it's going to be difficult to start feeling engaged by either Breeze or Parker.  

Finally...

My final thoughts on this week's NXT.

1. NXT still needs more tag teams.

2. Sami Zayn vs. Bo Dallas should be a red hot feud for NXT.

3. The only thing that would have made Zayn vs. Cesaro better last week? William Regal on commentary.

WWE NXT 24th July 2013 Review

In a week on NXT that included appearances from Triple H, Sheamus, Antonio Cesaro, Zeb Colter and The Wyatt Family, it tells you something that I’ve chosen to run with Paige vs. Emma as my main feature of this review. Whilst the rest of the show was strong, even with a number of enhancement contests, both Paige and Emma stole the show in their quest to become the first ever NXT Women’s Champion. 

NXT Women’s Championship Tournament Final Match: 

Emma 

vs. 

Paige

Heading into the final we’d seen Emma pick up victories over Aksana and Summer Rae, whilst Paige had been victorious over Tamina Snuka and Alicia Fox, and after three out of the four of those contests had been exciting women’s contests I had a inkling that we might have been in for something special here, in the opening match of this week’s NXT. The dynamic between the two worked well, as shown in pre-match comments from Paige and Emma, as whilst both were playing faces and were major fan favourites in the Full Sail Arena, both characters had completely different outlooks when it came to the ring, with Paige being the no-nonsense fighter, whilst Emma represented the dancing, showy Diva, making a nice contrast between the two.

With no clear heel within the match, it allowed both women to play with the dynamic of the contest, each spending lengthy periods in control with some nice submissions holds and transitions, as the match got warmed up. Unlike a lot of WWE women’s matches, the moves looked crisp and precise for the entirety of the contest, and it was clear throughout what the women were trying to do. The match developed well as it went along adding new layers of competition, made even more convincing as the bout was visibly taking its toll on Paige and Emma. A highlight for me was Paige catching Emma’s leg in the corner and managing to transition beautifully into her RamPaige submission hold, with Emma doing a good job of selling the hold, it looked like it could be over until Emma managed to get free. Another strong moment, saw Emma hit a superplex on Paige. How often in WWE women’s match, do you see a superplex? It wasn’t the best looking superplex you’ve ever seen, but at this point in the match, that actually helped to tell the story.

The ending saw Emma attempt to lift Paige of the floor, only to receive a quick kick to the gut, followed by a Superkick and eventually finished off with the Paige Turner, to give Paige the pinfall victory and allowing her to become the first NXT Women’s Champion. It was a great ending that really helped to show the guts and determination of Paige, as she fought back to pick up the victory, whilst also allowing Emma to stay looking strong as she took one of hell of beating out of nowhere to end up losing the bout. Personally, this was the best mainstream women’s match that I’ve seen this year, combining the hard-hitting nature of Gail Kim vs. Taryn Terrell and the storytelling of AJ Lee vs. Kaitlyn to create a superb contest that will be remembered for a long time amongst those of us who watch NXT.

After the match, a number of the NXT women’s roster made their way out to the ring to celebrate with Paige, before WWE COO Triple H made a surprise appearance to raise Paige’s arm, in what was a clearly emotional moment for the twenty year old from Norwich, Norfolk. Whilst, it was sort of obvious from the outset of the tournament that Paige would be winning the NXT Women’s Championship, it was a nice idea that was well executed, allowing Paige to pick up some big victories and come out looking better by the end of the tournament than she did at the start, and certainly better than if she’d have simply won a battle royal. I’m also curious what’s next for Emma, surely after that contest, she’ll be getting a rematch on NXT soon, but will we see a new side to Emma, maybe even a heel turn after seeing all the Divas celebrate with Paige? Either way, right now this week’s NXT belongs to that girl from Norwich, Paige. 

Best of the Rest (In The World)

Elsewhere, the good action continued as Sheamus took on Luke Harper of The Wyatt Family, who of course had fellow family member Bray Wyatt and Erick Rowan at ringside. This match was set last week, after The Wyatts had attack Sheamus back stage during an interview, with Sheamus returning the favour in the main event, taking out Bray Wyatt and allowing Adrian Neville and Corey Graves to win the NXT Tag Team Championships from Harper and Rowan. This was far and above the best contest that Sheamus had on Wednesday evening, after his poor showing against Jack Swagger on Main Event, this bout showed that when tasked, Sheamus can deliver the goods, as well as providing the WWE audience a first chance to see what Luke Harper can do in singles action.

What I liked about this match so much it’s almost complete change of pace to what we’ve seen in WWE recently, yes we’ve seen some fantastic technical matches from the likes of Daniel Bryan and CM Punk, but it’s been a while since we’ve seen a good old fashioned brawl like was seen here. This is definitely the style that Sheamus is most effective in, and Luke Harper is more than familiar with this kind of wrestling after a lengthy stint on the Indy circuit as Brodie Lee. After some fantastic back and forth fighting, Sheamus eventually picked up a pinfall victory, following White Noise and a Brogue Kick. If only WWE would utilise this side of Sheamus more often, he would certainly be much more over with the audience than he currently is. After this bout, it feels like the Wyatt Family could be over full time on NXT for now, which can only be good news for Raw and Smackdown.

Antonio Cesaro was back on NXT this week, this time accompanied by manager Zeb Colter, as Zeb cut a decent promo on Cesaro’s long time rival, Sami Zayn. It was long and rambling, but this seemed to work well for Zeb as it molded into the idea that he was actually completely off his rocker, and the bizarre statements he’d make throughout about the legality of Zayn being in the country really helped to add to this, I do hope this was the effect that WWE was going for! We even got a reference to Zayn’s old Indy character El Generico, with Colter talking about Zayn wearing a mask in his past and we all know Zeb hates masks. The Real Americans said they wanted to find out who Sami Zayn really was, here’s hoping El Generico will be heading to NXT soon, but I won’t hold my breath.

The new version of The Ascension made their tag team debut this week, against the pairing of Mickey Keegan and Aiden English in an impressive squash match. Conor O’Brian and Rick Victor got in every ounce of action, showing a good combination of speed, power and teamwork to eventually pick up a victory after a Spinning Low Kick/Spinning Jumping Elbow combination. Personally, I think The Ascension as a tag team have a lot more potential than either man on their own, as as a team they cover up each other’s short comings, however it will be interesting to see how they fare in longer matches.

There was also the NXT in ring debut of Tyler Breeze. I’m not quite sold on Breeze’s gimmick at the moment, which is that of a male model who continually takes pictures of himself on his phone. It was used a little bit too much before the start of the match, when we’d got the idea about two minutes earlier. In the ring Breeze looked fairly competent in his enhancement match with Angelo Dawkins, after Dawkins got tired of Breeze taking photos of himself. Breeze quickly gained the upperhand with a number of kicks and strikes, taking time for one last picture, before finishing Dawkins off with a huge double heel kick for a pinfall victory. I think Breeze has potential in NXT, but the gimmick is definitely going to need a little more work, but that’s what NXT is for.

Finally...

What did I learn from this week's NXT?

1. The future of WWE's Divas Division looks bright in Paige and Emma.

2. Sheamus needs to be used more like he was in NXT, on Raw and Smackdown.

3. Brad Maddox still ain't no Man's Man.

WWE NXT 5th June 2013 Review

This weeks edition of NXT was heavily based around NXT’s current and future championships with The Wyatt Family defending the NXT Tag Team Championship against the makeshift team of Corey Graves and Kassius Ohno, the contract signing for next weeks NXT Championship Match between Big E Langston and Bo Dallas, and the start of the NXT Women’s Championship tournament with Tamina Snuka taking on Paige.

NXT Tag Team Championship Match: The Wyatt Familly (Luke Harper & Erik Rowan) © w/Bray Wyatt Vs. Kassius Ohno & Corey Graves

There’s a lot of interest in the Wyatt Family at the moment, with the creepy vignettes on Raw proclaiming there arrival on the main roster of WWE drawing the attention of a mass audience. Therefore it was a good opportunity to see how the tag team were advancing in what can be expected to be one of only a handful of appearances they have left on NXT. WWE has stumbled upon a fantastic gimmick for Bray Wyatt and at times it’s difficult to believe that this is the same Husky Harris that was part of Nexus just over two years ago, what a difference a good gimmick can make to a career and how well all three of The Wyatt Family play that gimmick!

Before the match there was a duo of backstage interviews conducted by Renee Young.  Firstly with Corey Graves as he built up the main event as well as possible tensions between he and Kassius Ohno. It was a competent promo from Graves as he looked comfortable on mic, with tons of charisma and a unique look, Graves could go far in WWE and along with a number of guys in NXT at the moment, WWE would benefit from having him on the main roster. One of those is guys is Kassius Ohno, who also got an interview with Young, Kassius continued to build the main event, whilst saying that this match was bigger than any differences he had with Graves. Ohno continues to impress with mic abilities although for a guy who spent a long time as a big star on the indy circuit this is to be expected. Ohno brings an impressive intensity to this good, yet short, promo, which draws the audience in, it really is difficult to think about anything else when Kassius is on the microphone.

The match was a good contest, although maybe a little basic, not really veering to far from the blueprint of a tag team match. With the heel team having the upperhand over Corey Graves for most of the contest, keeping him distanced from his corner and tag team partner. Any time Graves would seem to gather any momentum the Wyatts would use some underhanded tactic to keep him from making the tag. After a nice series of quick pin attempts from Graves, he was able to escape and make for the hot tag. Kassius Ohno preceded to clean house with the Wyatts leading to near fall after a superb senton. The finish came when Bray Wyatt made his presence felt with a clubbing blow to the back of Ohno, Graves retaliated by flying over the top onto Wyatt, only for Harper to hit a Discus Lariat for the victory. It was nice, pacey ending and felt like this wasn’t the last we’ve seen between these teams.

Luke Harper would look the most promising member of this tag team, both in terms of in ring ability, which is impressive for his size, and charisma, with the lovely series of quick pin covers with Graves and his strange mutterings of “Yeah” throughout the match, however Rowan is also capable in the ring, with a nice over the shoulder backbreaker which due to Rowan’s size looks incredibly painful, he just needs a little more work on his character and presence in the ring.

Best of the Rest

Earlier this week in the Raw review, I mentioned my dislike for contract signings. They seem pretty pointless in terms of storyline and merely act as a way of filling gaps in the schedule for the majority of the time and for some reason only take place for certain matches. However, there was a lot to be learned from this signing for the NXT Championship Match next week on NXT. 

Firstly, Bo Dallas struggles when given a microphone. He lacks charisma and looks awkward when talking, especially in this new supposedly heel role opposite Langston, and he was incredibly easily thrown by the crowds chants as he began laughing at various points throughout his promo which made it difficult to take his new role seriously. Big E Langston on the other hand oozes charisma, looks incredibly comfortable talking to the crowd and surprisingly so works very well as a face. It will be interesting to see if he gets to test this out on Raw or Smackdown anytime soon. I look forward to the NXT Title match next week, as although I don’t rate Bo on the mic, he is a competent in ring competitor and should have a good match with Big E. 

Two of WWE’s most talented Divas locked up in a First Round match in the NXT Women’s Title tournament as Tamina Snuka faced Norwich’s Paige. The match was short, but well worked, with only one major error when Paige went for a roll up and Tamina simply fell over, this was however rectified by the end of the contest. It looked to be over after Tamina hit a vicious superkick, dragging Paige by the hair to the corner as she looked for a Superfly splash, however Paige got her knees up and rolled Tamina up for the victory. It’d have to be expected that Paige is heading for the NXT Women’s Championship after this win, with no other Diva being as over with the crowd in Florida it’s hard to look past Paige capturing the gold.

In another backstage interview with Renee Young, we were treated to a confrontation between Sami Zayn and Antonio Cesaro. Now, anyone who’s been keeping an eye on Ring of Honor or any part of the Indy scene over the last few years will know there’s history between these two guys, which has already been lengthend a few weeks ago when Zayn picked up a victory over Cesaro in only his second WWE match. Therefore when a rematch was mentioned it had me almost salivating. It’s sure to be another fantastic contest. Although, it’s a shame Zayn isn’t still under the El Generico gimmick, he’s taken to his new role extremely well, he somehow manages to be funny without being cheesy, Sheamus and John Cena take note.

Elsewhere we also got a pair of pretty much job matches. Firstly, we saw Conor O’Brian taking on former Miz protégé Alex Riley. O’Brian dominated for a long period, before eventually locking in his new finishing submission hold, The Stockade, which looked genuinely painful for Riley. I’m still not quite sure about The Ascension gimmick, it feels a little outdated, and has been surpassed by the Wyatt Family gimmick in the darkness stakes. It could definitely do with some tweaking if O’Brian were to move up to the Main Roster.

Cardiff’s Mason Ryan was also in action against Colin Cassady. This match did little for either man, it was quick and didn’t do much to show off Mason Ryan’s in ring ability which isn’t going to help him disprove my assumptions that he is merely a “body guy”. Ryan has a new finishing move which involves a torture rack spun into a neckbreaker. It looks pretty dangerous and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone get’s injured from it pretty soon.

Finally…

What have we learnt from this weeks NXT?

1. Luke Harper has the most potential out of the NXT Tag Team Champions.

2. Bo Dallas has very little in the way of mic skills and charisma.

3. Yes, Brad Maddox is funny on commentary, but NXT sorely misses William Regal. 

Announced for Next Wednesday's NXT:

NXT Championship Match: Big E Langston (C) Vs. Bo Dallas

WWE NXT 29th May 2013 Review

This episode of NXT felt like a farewell/new beginning kind of episode, as we saw a number of Superstars final appearance for WWE as well as a number of debuts and a new number one contender.

18 Man NXT Championship Number One Contenders Battle Royal

Now I don’t know about you, but I love a good battle royal and with the amount of talent in the ring this should have been a fantastic exciting contest, and for the most part it was. With Corey Graves, Bray Wyatt, Kassius Ohno, Adrian Neville, Bo Dallas and Mason Ryan all involved in the contest it was difficult to pick a winner from this bunch, which always adds to match of this type.

The earlier stages of the match was dominated by former Nexus member Mason Ryan, who was given the hilarious nickname “Cardiff Colossus”, as he threw out over half of the competitors including Main Roster superstars Curt Hawkins and Yoshi Tatsu, as well as Briley Pierce and Sakamoto in their last appearance for WWE and the former El Generico, Sami Zayn. With the focus clearly on Mason Ryan’s power, it would seem that NXT is high on Mason Ryan, and personally though he is physically impressive, he doesn’t really offer a lot else and with Superstars like Ryback already occupying similar spots on the Main Roster I don’t really see where Ryan could figure. He was eventually eliminated by fellow Brit Adrian Neville.

With Corey Graves and Kassius Ohno teaming up to eliminate Conor O’Brian only to themselves be eliminated by Bray Wyatt, this sets up nicely for their tag team match with the Wyatt Family next week, it’s been a quick build up and I’m interested to see how Graves & Ohno play out as faces, hopefully they keep the edge that made them so great to watch in the first place. Bray then sped about the ring delivering damage to the former NXT Tag Champions, Neville and Dallas, showing why WWE has decided to move him up to the Main Roster soon, until Neville got another surprise elimination with a huge enziguri.

The final stages of the battle royal were enthralling with Neville and Dallas both hanging on to the ropes to stay in the match at various points. Neville particularly impressed me, with a number of small mannerisms which made it look like he was just about to be eliminated and raised the final moments of the contest. As the two exchanged blows it was clear who the crowd was behind, cheering Neville and booing Dallas, and I have to say I agree. Although, I believe Dallas is a talent young wrestler, I can’t see him ever progressing past a mid-card spot within WWE. Therefore it was even more surprising when Neville missed his British Airways finishing move and Dallas through him out of the contest. Big E Langston vs. Bo Dallas will be an interesting contest, but doesn’t quite have the same feel as Langston vs. Adrian Neville for me.

Best of the Rest

Langston was in action earlier in the evening against the departing Derrick Bateman. The match was quick squash match with Bateman only getting a little early offence, including a nice front kick in the corner before Big E ploughed him down and hit Bateman with the Big Ending for the win. As usual Langston went on to hit his finisher again for a count of five which the audience lapped up. With Langston appearing more and more on Raw and Smackdown it can only be a matter of time before Langston drops the title and disappears from NXT altogether.  

Elsewhere, there was a rare appearance from Stephanie McMahon, who hasn’t been seen on WWE TV since the Hall of Fame ceremony. The Billionaire Princess was there to announce the brand new NXT Women’s Championship and a tournament for the belt starting next week. It is clearly a good idea to introduce the title as it gives the younger competitors something to work for and build storylines around. It will be interesting to see who goes on to eventually win the belt with the early front runners being the likes of Paige, Summer Rae or Emma.

Speaking of Emma she was also in action against a departing Audrey Marie. Emma’s dancing gimmick seemed to get over with the Orlando faithful with plenty joining in with her strange arm movements, however it’s worth wondering if WWE really needs another dancing gimmick, with the likes Fandango, Tons of Funk and R-Truth already occupying spaces on the Main Roster. The match itself was short and messy, with a number of awkward looking moments between the two. Audrey Marie should little to prove that WWE should not have released and she would’ve added little to the Diva’s division which needs stronger performers and characters to build it back up. Emma’s new submission finish, the Emma Lock was probably the best part of the match and was executed well by the young Australian Diva.

There was also two tag team squash matches on the show, the first featuring current NXT Tag Team Champions Luke Harper and Eric Rowan, the Wyatt Family taking on rarely used talents Sawyer Fulton and Travis Tyler. The Wyatt Family dominated the match that went no longer than a minute and a half with Luke Harper pinning Travis Tyler after a Discus Clothesline. Somehow, in such a short match there was an awkward moment where Sawyer Fulton dropped off Harper’s shoulders and attempted to reach for the tag, unfortunately he was way too close to Tyler and this removed any believability to the contest. Neither Tyler nor Fulton did anything to show me that they should move further up the NXT ranks anytime soon.

The other Tag Team contest saw the debuts of Scott Dawson and Garrett Dylan, alongside their manager Sylvester LeFort. Dawson and Dylan play the classic Redneck tag team, whilst LeFort plays an over the top Frenchman in a Leopard print coat, imagine Cade & Murdoch managed by Rico and you’ve pretty much got this team. They faced the now release Brandon Traven and Vader’s son Jake Carter. Teaming up Dawson and Dylan seems like a good idea by WWE, as neither quite has that star power on their own, but as a team they seem to come into their own, producing hard hitting tag team action and could find a niche within the Main Tag Team Roster in the future. Their sit out spine buster/sit out axe handle combination finish was an impressive finish and I can see it getting over with the crowd. LeFort brought little to the team and I’m sceptical about the whole Frenchman leading Rednecks thing, as it just wasn’t done strong enough, although I’m happy to see how it plays out in the coming weeks.

Finally…

What did we learn from this week’s NXT? 

1. Bo Dallas is destined for NXT Championship match, though we’d rather see Adrian Neville get a shot 

2.  WWE won’t regret any of its recent developmental releases.

3. Brad Maddox is hilarious on commentary.

Announced for next week: Kassius Ohno & Corey Graves vs. The Wyatt Family