SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
This week’s episode of WWE NXT has wrapped. Let’s take a stroll down memory lane and relive some of the madness.
-Alright, you got me. The Tiffany’s Epiphanies gimmick cracks me up. Look, I don’t want to like it as much as I do, but she does a nice job with it.
-Dijak losing “his” match is quite a statement on what HBK and company think of him. Tony D’Angelo has shown more depth as a character in recent months since returning from injury, but not sure he should be beating Dijak that cleanly. A question remains for both guys coming out of this match — where do they go now?
-The Kiana James and Brooks Jensen soap opera continued this week. It’s fine I suppose? Maybe? Yeah, no. It isn’t. The angles are overacted at best and lack meaningful interest at worst. The ultimate negative is that at this point, nobody is getting more over because of this on a week to week basis.
-Gallus and Pretty Deadly have great chemistry together. Looking forward to their tag team match at some point. Seemingly at Stand and Deliver.
-I spy Dragon Lee! Ready to see him in action. Wes Lee open challenge perhaps?
-The six-man tag match with The Creeds and Bron Breakker together was ok. Nothing special and it didn’t seem like they meshed well at all. Not sure we see this combination anytime soon.
-Ok, The Grayson Waller Effect with Shawn Michaels was on the higher end of my expectations. For the most part, we got a serious Shawn Michaels, which was a big concern of mine going into it. Thumbs up on that front. Waller was effective in needling Shawn Michaels for match, too. For Waller to be a true “guy” in WWE, he needs to be more of an MJF style heel than a Miz heel. This fell on the MJF side of the line for him. Thumbs up there, too. Johnny Gargano being Waller’s Stand and Deliver opponent is logical given how things ended for Gargano on the NXT roster. He has history with Waller and is close with Michaels. Thumbs up. This was strong overall. Next week’s promo by Gargano is an important one to maintain momentum.
-Jacy Jayne vs. Gigi Dolin missed for me. For one thing, it’s hard to have a brutal grudge match in eight minutes and eight minutes is all they had. Second, the match just didn’t have the passion, anger, or resentment that was a big part of the build.
-A strong first segment between Carmelo Hayes and Bron Breakker. It’s smart to call out the fact that both have been on different paths, but that the paths have now collided. Hayes and Breakker both stood out as stars and enhanced the other. I’d stay away from talking about “remember when they picked us to be the guys” kind of lines. That lives outside of the pro wrestling narrative and justifies heels like Waller getting upset that they aren’t picked. It’s about winning matches. Hayes and Breakker need to keep it about that moving forward.
-Joe Gacy vs. Andre Chase … eh. Not much here. There is some dissension in Chase U now, but nobody really cares all that much at this point do they?
-The Gacy act is ice cold. That type of gimmick needs solid material week to week in order to stay relevant and polished. Schism isn’t getting it in a meaningful way.
-Good main event between Roxanne Perez and Meiko Satomura. The Perez promo during the show helped build the stakes, but it things just got up to third gear before the finish. The Satomura strikes were excellent and conveyed that these two were in a fight with each other.
-The Perez collapsing angle will be interesting to follow. Like most things that take a twist like this in wrestling and WWE, if it’s really good, it’ll be really good. If it misses and is bad, it’ll play out even worse given the circumstances and seriousness of the story.
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