WWE NXT 10th July 2013 Review

NXT has definitely found it’s feet again, and this might have been the best episode of the show to date. Every match gave you a reason to watch, the seeds were planted for future rivalries and we not only got to see NXT Commissioner Dusty Rhodes, but the Nature Boy himself Ric Flair.

Six Man Tag Team Match:

William Regal, Adrian Neville & Corey Graves vs. The Wyatt Family

For me, this match felt similar in build to a number of The Shield’s high profile tag team matches on Raw and various pay-per-views in the last six months. With somewhat of an NXT dream team being built to combat them, even recruiting a wily veteran in the form of William Regal. The build up to the match featured a good backstage interview from Renee Young with William Regal, Adrian Neville and Corey Graves. Each man got there turn, with Neville going first. He seems to have taken my advice from last week, as he spoke a lot slower in this promo and therefore it was a lot easier to understand. In fact when delivered like this the Geordie accent actually helped to deliver a certain intensity to what Neville had to say about the Wyatt Family. Graves also did a good job with what he had to say, letting people know he’d do his talking in the ring. But it was Regal who stole the show for me, masterfully switching between an impression of Adrian Neville and a delivering a serious message to The Wyatt Family, so times the old ones are still the best.

As The Wyatt Family headed to the ring, Bray Wyatt delivered a signature, chilling promo about how this match would be a mistake for Regal, Neville and Graves. Wyatt seems to have a hypnotising quality to his voice, that coupled with the creep music, makes sure that when Wyatt is talking your listening closesly. The match started with the face team getting the upperhand, with Regal using his old dirty tactics, distracting the referee whilst Neville kicked Eric Rowan in the face, which was well worked and lapped up by the NXT Arena. We soon settled into a regular pattern with Adrian Neville being the focus of The Wyatt’s attack. What worked so well here for me, was the amount of time Neville was trying to reach for the tag, with Regal and Graves doing a good job of making it feel even more important. Each time Neville made it closer to his tag team partners you wanted him to make the tag even more, with his selling ability whilst fighting underneath really help push the match along.

With Neville eventually reaching Regal for the hot tag, we saw a frenzy of offense from the Staffordshire born veteran, taking down Luke Harper with a knee trembler for a near fall, only thwarted by Eric Rowan making the save. Straight after we saw the breakdown of the match, with Graves and Rowan battling out of the ring, and Neville hitting a beautiful corkscrew plancha taking out both me. With Regal left in a two on one situation, Bray Wyatt got the tag and hit Sister Abigail for the pinfall victory. The ending worked well for me with pace really lifting as we headed towards and ending and having Regal take the pin keeps Graves and Neville looking strong heading into their Tag Team Title contest with Harper and Rowan.

With The Wyatt Family debuting on Raw last Monday, it would have to be suggested that it is very likely they will be dropping the NXT Tag Team Titles in the near future, whether to Corey Graves and Adrian Neville or another pairing. How many appearance will the Family have left in the NXT Arena? Probably only a handful, we still see a number of main roster superstars on a regular basis, but with The Wyatt Family surely heading into a big summer angle, they might not have the time to return to Full Sail. Another question for me here is, Was this William Regal’s last match? Personally I wouldn’t think and I’m sure Regal will find another opponent he wants to face and teach in the future, I’m also pretty sure we will see at least on more match between he and Kassius Ohno.

 

Best of the Rest

In another big match on NXT this week, Sami Zayn faced off against Leo Kruger. This stemed from the end of las weeks show where Zayn made the save for NXT Champion Bo Dallas against Kruger and Antonio Cesaro. I have to say I haven’t been too impressed with Leo Kruger during his recent run, but I think that’s mainly due to the fact he hadn’t faced an opponent the calibre of Zayn and simply phoned the match in. This one started slowly and didn’t look to be heading anywehere for sometime, but I stuck with it and Kruger and Zayn produced one of the best singles matches in NXT. With near fall after near and some good in ring psycology this match really built into some what of an epic.

Kruger spent a lot of the match focusing on Zayn’s arm, supposedly in an attempt to soften it up for the GC3 submission hold he’s been using lately. Zayn’s speed and quickness was worked into the match with this giving his best opporutnities of winning for most of the match. There was a clever spot where Zayn couldn’t lift Kruger first time, but eventually lifted him up for a spin out powerbomb for a near fall. The match was littered with near falls for Kruger, which really allowed the crowd to get behind Zayn willing him on as he fought against the adversity. After a superplex from Kruger however, followed by sending Zayn into the ring post arm first, Kruger locked on the GC3 for an impressive submission victory. As announced later in the show by Dusty Rhodes, these two will be joined next week by Antonio Cesaro, with the winner getting a shot at Bo Dallas’ NXT Championship.

The Semi-Finals of NXT Women’s Championship Tournament concluded on this episode as Emma faced Summer Rae. In the quarter finals, Emma had put away Aksana, whilst Summer Rae defeated Sasha Banks. This was another solid outing for both Rae and Emma who continue to impress me every time they step into the ring. Emma’s gimmick is extremely over in the NXT arena, and it will be interesting to  see if it can migrate to a larger scale at some point. Rae used her long legs to keep Emma in an arm bar for some time, with Brad Maddox doing a good job of letting us know the dynamic of the match on commentary. With Emma fighting back, we got a nice roll up sequence where it seemed like either Diva could pick up the win, with Emma eventually coming out on top for the upset victory. With Summer attacking Emma after the match, other tournament finalist and long time Summer Rae rival Paige came out to make the save. I had been hoping we’d see one last match between Paige and Summer Rae for the final, however I’m intrigued by how the dynamic of Emma and Paige will work out when they face each other in the final.

Mason Ryan was also in action, this time in a Handicap Match, agains Enzo Amore and Colin Cassady. Amore is very interesting to listen to on the microphone and certainly has that mad cap ability that just draws you into what he is saying, as he set up the match due to Ryan’s “cheap shot” on him in the previous episode. As handicap matches go this was actually pretty well worked, with Ryan able to show of his power by dominating two men for a period, whilst the cunning Amore laying wait to trip Ryan as he went for a powerslam on Big Cass to give his team the victory. Obviously, there’s going to be repercussions from this is the coming weeks and it will be interesting to see who eventually comes out on top.

Also, we got the return of Ric Flair to WWE television! With Dusty Rhodes talking to Bayley about her match in the NXT Women’s Championship Tournament a few weeks ago, Flair turned up with his daughter Charlotte. With Charlotte supposed to debuting next week, Bayley offered herself forward to face her, before asking Flair to do the “Woo” he eventually obliged. I actually really like Bayley’s character, the only way I can describe it is like a female Eugene, but more cute and naïve than mentally challenge. It’s a character that could really connect certain sections of the “WWE Universe” and I can see her becoming quite popular if she continues to work hard in NXT.

Finally...

 

What have I learned from this week's NXT?

1. William Regal is still one of the bes in the business.

2. Leo Kruger can go in the ring, when challenged properly.

3. Brad Maddox is a damn good commentator but he ain't no Man's Man.

WWE NXT 3rd July 2013 Review

This week’s episode of NXT was a vast improvement on the week before. Mainly because a lot of the contests were made to feel important, even if they were essentially enhancement matches. Having William Regal on commentary also helps, as he is probably the best commentator WWE has in terms of getting talent over to an audience whilst being entertaining at the same time.

NXT Championship Match: Bo Dallas ©  vs. Antonio Cesaro

This match was set up at the start of the show, with Renee Young interviewing NXT Champion Bo Dallas. I was actually pleasantly surprised with Dallas’ promo, he seemed confident and has worked hard on his character over recent weeks. It would seem WWE is planning on turning him heel, as he really plays up that butter wouldn’t melt act, whilst also referring to his “Bolievers” which is incredibly annoying. If WWE is planning to continue to keep him face, I really can’t see Bo getting over with this kind of style. Antonio Cesaro turned up a produced another solid promo involving his new “We the People” gimmick, however there was no Zeb Colter in sight. The match was set somehow and Bo told Cesaro he would never forget his name before smiling a big goofy grin.

The crowd was behind Cesaro for the majority of the match up, but once again I was surprised with Bo’s performance. Obviously being in the ring with a talented performer like Cesaro was always going to help, but Dallas seemed to put in a lot of effort throughout to make this a credible contest. Cesaro controlled the early going with some amateur wrestling holds, whilst Bo did a good job of selling. A clever moment early on saw Cesaro work up the crowd into thinking they were going to get a big kick to Dallas’ back, only for Cesaro to apply a headlock. Leo Kruger also came out to ring side early on to watch the match, I’m still not sure if a Dallas/Kruger rivalry will work at this moment in time and it would take a major twist for me to get more involved in the story.

Dallas continued to kick out of every that Cesaro would throw at him, including a Gutwrench Superplex, which really helped to make Dallas look a lot tougher than he has in the past, although the little offence he got in during the match didn’t make him look much of the Champion. There was also a dangerous looking moment, when Dallas went for a Belly-to-Belly superplex, but seemed to release Cesaro too early, which could have been fatal for Cesaro. Dallas still needs a lot of work to polish up some of these moves if he wants to step up to the big time. The ending saw Cesaro attempt to clothesline Dallas only for the NXT Champion to side step and send him crashing into Kruger. Dallas then hit his Belly-to-Belly throw finish to pick up the pinfall victory and retain the title. It was a disappointing ending to the match, which deserved a better finish than this, whilst Dallas’ finish still looks incredibly weak.

After the match, Kruger began to beat down on Dallas hitting him with a vicious looking neckbreaker, before Cesaro ran in and hit Kruger with an uppercut. Cesaro then continued to beat on Dallas himself before Kruger came back and the two sided together to beat on the NXT Champion. The save was inevitably made by Sami Zayn who came charging down to the ring to take down Cesaro. Dallas and Zayn eventually got rid of the heels, before Dallas celebrated with his championship. Will Dallas’s association with Zayn help him get over with the crowd? Probably not, they’re cleverer than that. Would turning on Zayn some point down the road get him major heat with the crowd? Almost certainly. 

Best of the Rest (in the World)

The NXT’s Women’s Championship tournament reached the semi-final stage this week with Paige facing Alicia Fox. Whilst Alicia has been lost on the main roster for a while now her matches over on NXT have been pretty good and this was another decent match against NXT standout Paige. With some extra definition of Fox as a character she could be a vital asset to the WWE Diva’s Division. Paige on the other hand seems to have her character nailed on, with the Anti-Diva thing working well in all aspects of her game, the idea of long running feud between her and Diva’s Champion AJ Lee is surely something WWE has on their minds for the future, and if not they should have.

The match was a see-saw battle with a lot of back and forth throughout. The wrestling was strong for both Diva’s and both made it seem like they wanted to win the Women’s Championship. Paige eventually picked up the victory with a Paige turned after Fox had run into a kick to the stomach. It was a decent ending, but could have been built up further with a few more near falls. With Paige advancing, and the other semi final featuring Summer Rae and Emma, it has to be said that Paige is clear favourite to become the first ever NXT Women’s Champion, which can surely only help to continue her development.

Elsewhere Xavier Woods faced off against Scott Dawson, managed by Sylvester LeFort. It would seem, due to the commentary, that Garrett Dylan has been dropped from the group as there was no mention of him at all throughout the match. This seems an odd decision by WWE for me, as Dylan and Dawson seemed to work well as a team. The match was another decent, if not maybe a little short contest, with both men looking good throughout. Xavier Woods certainly has the ability to get over with an audience and his character is extremely likable, he could probably slip straight into a mid-card slot on the main WWE roster. The dynamic was played upon well with Dawson slowing Woods down by working on the face and head, including a painful looking rope hung face plant, before Woods managed to gain some separation and pick up the victory with Lost in the Woods.

Renee Young interviewed Corey Graves and Adrian Neville backstage about Kassius Ohno’s injuries suffered at the hands of the Wyatt Family last week. Graves and Neville did a good job of the interview, asking William Regal to join with them in the fight against the Wyatt’s. The only thing I can see holding Adrian Neville back in WWE is his Geordie accent, which some American viewers might find difficult to understand. Otherwise both Graves and Neville have shown tonnes of talent in and out of the ring and both will surely be making big splashes in WWE at some point in the future. 

Tremadog’s own Mason Ryan was in action not once but twice on the show. Firstly, facing off against Enzo Amore. Amore cut a nice charisimatic promo before the contest, putting himself and friend Colin Cassady over well, Amore is certainly entertaining on the microphone and I can see his “SAWFT” catchphrase getting over well with the “WWE Universe”. After Ryan quickly dispatched of Amore with a punch, Amore sent in Cassady claiming “he wasn’t ready”. Cassady faired a little better than Amore but it wasn’t long before Ryan picked up the win with a new finish, similar to Ted DiBiase’s Dream Street. Ryan looked powerful, but Enzo Amore came out looking like more of a star to me.

Liverpool’s Andy Baker had his NXT debut this week in an enhancement match against Conor O’Brian, who was accompanied by Ascension team mate, Rick Victor. The match didn’t go particularly long with O’Brian hitting a flap jack, followed up with a Leg Drop to the back of the head for the victory. O’Brian hasn’t really shown me much in the ring on NXT so far, and I’d like to see him get some opportunities in longer matches on a regular basis soon. As for Rick Victor, I’m still not quite sure if he quite fits with O’Brian and whether WWE would have been better off having them stay apart, I’ll wait and see though.

Finally...

What have I learned from this week's NXT?

1. Bo Dallas has some potential if handled correctly.

2. Paige is most likely to win the NXT Women's Championship, after two victories over main roster Diva's.

3. With Paige, Adrian Neville, Mason Ryan, William Regal and Andy Baker there was a lot of British talent hanging around NXT this week. 

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