Meanwhile, down in NXT Land, rising star Sami Zayn finally got his shot at the gold as he challenged the despised Bo Dallas for the NXT Championship in yet another great match to add to Sami's WWE resumé.
One of NXT's many features that distinguishes it from Raw or Smackdown is its rotating announce team. As NXT tapes about a month's worth of shows at a time, each episode tends to get a different grouping of announcers. Prior to his release after the Ric Flair video game panel, Jim Ross tended to be a regular feature for the matches that NXT wanted to put over as a "big deal." (And let's face it, having Good Ol' J.R. call one of your matches is a big deal.) Tom Phillips and Tony Dawson are the interchangeable play-by-play announcers, alternating between shows, and color commentary these days tends to be supplied by either Alex Riley or William Regal. Occasionally Brad Maddox will do commentary as well (usually excused by him as "scouting" talent for the main roster), and lately backstage interviewer Renee Young has been joining them on the booth, particularly for the women's matches.
This week's commentary team was Tony Dawson (no relation to Scott Dawson, of LeFort's Legionnaires), Renee Young, and William Regal. Regal has transitioned rather well into his semi-retirement, and putting him down in NXT to help the up-and-coming talent hone their craft. Regal has always been seen by wrestlers and fans as a brilliant mind and an underrated promo, so it's a great thing to hear he's mentoring the NXT roster on the side. His commentary, while often a bit quiet and understated, is nonetheless cleverly insightful, while adding a little bit of color here and there with some tales of his time touring the world and the territories, or inserting some typical British color to things, like threatening to punch ring announcer Byron Saxton in the head for mispronouncing Norwich, England. ("Nor-witch" as opposed to the correct "Nor-itch.")
Regal also fills another role, what some have termed "NXT End Boss." This started back in FCW, where Regal filled the same roles as he does on NXT, where he famously was targeted by pre-Shield Dean Ambrose. Other heels have gone after Regal for seemingly similar reasons, to try to make a name for themselves, like poking the sleeping dragon to test their mettle. Kassius Ohno has done something similar, and Jacob Novak likewise on NXT Season 5 before the competition aspect was scrapped. It's something of a sign of respect when an NXT wrestler has a match with-- or potentially beats, as Bray Wyatt did-- William Regal.
Dawson and Phillips are pretty indistinguishable from one another, which seems to be the case for most WWE PBP commentators. Riley still needs a little bit of work, but I think he has some potential on color with a little more seasoning and experience. Renee Young is developing into a solid interviewer/commentator personality, although there are some issues that need to be worked out vis-a-vis her relationship with the other commentators and what her role really is. (More on that later.)
The show opened up with a video highlighting the Bo Dallas/Sami Zayn rivalry, in particular with his denying Sami a slot in the Bo Dallas Invitational, and Sami's masked shenanigans to get himself a shot anyway. It perfectly encapsulated Bo Dallas' character, while being somewhat light on Sami's. This is not a knock on the NXT production team, since all of Sami Zayn's highlights wouldn't have had much to do with Dallas. Besides, the match-- which main evented this week-- does more than enough to put over Sami Zayn's character. But more on that later.
Match 1: NXT Tag Team Championship - The Ascension (Conor O'Brian & Rick Victor) defend vs Adrian Neville & Corey Graves
We had a revisit of two weeks ago, as the dethroned champs-- Neville & Graves-- challenged the men who took the titles from them-- O'Brian & Victor. The Ascension still look as menacing as ever-- though I don't like that O'Brian actually steps up onto a platform or something for his pre-match pose with Victor. It's possible that he always has, and it's just been well-hidden by the production team, in which case this was a slip-up. Likewise, Graves' entrance was slightly interrupted by the recap video that showed how the Ascension won the titles, which also hurts slightly.
Graves' rep also did not get any help from Tony Dawson, who remarked that Graves is a "light-hearted guy." I'm sorry, but someone who has "Stay Down" tattooed on his knuckles, and has a name like Graves should not ever be considered a "light-hearted guy." This is a guy who has been quoted as saying, "I'm not here to make a mark, I'm here to leave a scar." I don't know why Dawson said that, or why he was told to say it, but I hope that little comment gets forgotten.
After some good brawling between Graves and Victor to start out, O'Brian kept trying to interfere, only to be eyeballed off by Graves, and then evaded by Neville. This is another good addition to his savage character, and it's a good visual seeing Graves staring him down, and O'Brian just laughing evilly at him. O'Brian, standing like a wall between Neville and the hot tag, continues to impress me with his improvement.
Soon, however, the story of the match became Neville's knee. O'Brian low-bridged him out of the ring, and Neville tweaked his knee, which proceeded to be targeted by the Ascension for the rest of the match. They worked some interesting little tricks to play with how his knee was worked-- like O'Brian throwing him off, and Neville landing on his feet, but seeming to 'blow out' his knee. Graves eventually tagged in and managed to get O'Brian in the Lucky 13 submission (an injury that he remembered to sell after the match, albeit with the wrong knee, but hey, credit for remembering to sell), but his rib injury was re-aggravated when Victor made the save. He made the tag to a decidedly unprepared Neville, who nevertheless tried to fight on one good leg, but when he tried to make the tag back to Graves, Victor shot him into him hard, knocking Graves to the floor. Neville fell victim to the Fall of Man to allow the Ascension to retain.
After the match, Graves took exception to Neville's loss, and the loss of the Tag Titles, but eventually helped him to his feet, amid "hug it out" chants from the crowd. That's when the heel turn happened. Graves cut out Neville's knee, then started beating on him, yelling "They're gone!" as he continued to heap the blame on Neville. I think Graves should have locked in the Lucky 13 here to add to the pain, but they may be saving that for the eventual grudge match. Graves finished the segment by standing over a beaten Neville and flashing his "Stay Down" tattoos.
Aside about WWE's "Hell in a Cell" ads:
During the show, they were playing commercials for WWE's Hell in a Cell PPV, which, being the week of Halloween, they've framed and edited to play like a horror movie trailer. The ad for the Bryan/Orton match was fine, but the one for the Cena/Del Rio match, dealing with Cena's return from injury, almost seemed to depict him as a returning monster. I'm sure there are already people out there who are hoping this will preface a Cena heel turn, but I'm not one of them. It's probably just WWE's attempt at being somehow 'meta.'
Match 2: Tyler Breeze vs CJ Parker
Tyler Breeze got his start in NXT as Mike Dalton, who was just a jobber nobody with no real persona or character. Then back in July he debuted a new persona, that of Tyler Breeze, a vain, narcissistic male model obsessed with taking 'selfies' of himself with his cell phone. It's a character that, on the surface, spells 'death sentence' to a career, a comedy gimmick at best, and never something that will go above the midcard. To his credit, however, Dalton has embraced the gimmick and made it work. From his Zoolander pout to the furry tassels on his boots, to the entrance music and a feed from his camera going to the NXT-Tron, to being billed as hailing from a "seasonal residence in Milan, Italy," he has thrown himself completely into the character. So credit to him for that.
CJ Parker was much the same as Dalton-- a jobber nobody on NXT. He started showing off a new character about the same time as Tyler Breeze debuted, that of a dreadlocked hippie type, whose first appearances were 'photobombing' Breeze's interview segments. Parker, soon dubbed 'The Moonchild,' was supposed to be a fun-loving new age retro-hippie face, but we ran into a problem very quickly.
That problem? The NXT crowd. Parker's character was rather flat and he doesn't seem to be as committed to it as Breeze is to his character. Fans very quickly started getting behind Breeze, and turned on Parker. The two have feuded over the last few months, with Breeze pretty well continually getting the upper hand, including winning a match last month by hitting Parker with his cell phone for the win, a move that no doubt had Paul Heyman nodding in approval. Renee Young even obliquely referred to this during the match, commenting on the strangeness of using a modern cell phone as a weapon. "It's one thing if it's a huge 'Saved by the Bell' phone, but an iPhone? It's not even that big."
The feud continued here tonight, where the NXT crowd-influenced 'tweener' problem turned up again. Unlike Kruger and Cesaro last week, Breeze and Parker at least adhered to their nominal heel/face statuses, with Breeze working heel despite the face reactions he was getting from the crowd. The fans were cheering for everything Breeze did, including his begging off when Parker made to hit him in the face. (They even started a "not the face" chant.) Breeze continues all the little things to his character beside that, such as taking a break after taking control, picking up his phone, and checking to be sure he still looks okay and presentable.
Breeze also showed some interesting heel chicanery in order to win, grabbing the ring apron and pulling it out of position while Parker was trying to drag him into the ring. This left the ref distracted to fix it, and let Breeze thumb Parker in the eye to set up his leaping spin kick finisher. Regal was approving of the dirty tactics on commentary, showing that even if Regal is beloved and well-respected, he's still a villain in his soul.
Post-match, Breeze took a selfie over Parker's body, but Parker got back up and hit a huge palm-strike to the face, which got boos and "No" chants from the NXT crowd, though they were happy to take selfies with Parker, who stole Breeze's phone.
Match 3: Paige & Emma vs The BFFs (Summer Rae & Sasha Banks)
Paige is the woman that NXT is building their women's division around. Formerly known as Britani Knight, she comes from a family of wrestlers, the Knights, who run the WAW promotion in England, and was a competitor in the all-women's promotion Shimmer. She just turned 21 in August, and that youth and her background spells some major potential for the Divas division in the future. On NXT, Paige bills herself as the "Anti-Diva," with her dark hair and pale complexion helping her stand out amid the traditional blondes and brunettes that dominate the division. The way the character was initially presented, she was probably intended to be a heel, railing against the established Divas, but with the 'smarky' NXT Crowd somewhat jaded by that very establishment and wanted some variety. Paige provided that, and so they quickly threw their support behind her. NXT very quickly shifted Paige's focus from the 'face'-aligned women to the heels, and never looked back, allowing Paige to keep her sense of self-superiority. The expectation is that now that Paige has turned 21, she may be called up to the main roster as soon as it's practical.
Much of Paige's NXT career has been defined by her feud with Summer Rae. Summer Rae switched from being an announcer to a wrestler out of jealousy for Paige's popularity and talent, and when Summer failed to capture the NXT Women's Championship in the initial tournament, she convinced Sasha Banks to turn heel on Paige to get some sense of revenge.
Summer Rae and Sasha Banks came out together to Summer's music, in complimentary matching gold-on-gold colors. Something I always appreciate is when tag teams or allies have matching colors, if not matching outfits. It adds to the sense of unity between them. Likewise, they had a team name, even if it is still unofficial. Tony Dawson noted on commentary, "They refer to themselves as BFFs: Beautiful Fierce Females." That sense of unity was something that Paige and Emma notably did not have, and they did seem to have some disagreements over who should start the match for their team.
The match, in my opinion, was actually hampered somewhat by the commentary. Tony Dawson kept asking Renee Young for insight about the women in the match, something that she called him on. "That's a little bit sexist, assuming that I'm the foremost authority on the Divas here in NXT, because I happen to be a woman." She then followed this up with, "Mr. Regal, you know all about the Divas, don't you?" This led to a long awkward silence at the very top of the match. These commentary snafus were followed up with a lot of discussions about fashions where it pertains to the women's ring gear. They did comment on the BFFs' gold-on-gold outfits, as well as Emma's fluorescent green gear. These tangents, rather than calling the match, detracted from it instead of adding to the match.
The match ended when Emma stormed the ring to break up a double-team by the BFFs, only to get dumped to the outside by Sasha, who in turn got clobbered by Paige and sent to the floor. This allowed Summer Rae to catch Paige with a full-nelson, then drop her with a leg-drop inverted bulldog for the pin. The win for the BFFs will keep the feud going for another month, at least, and will probably set Summer Rae up for a future title shot.
Match 4: NXT Championship: Bo Dallas defends vs Sami Zayn
This match was a great finish to a very solid episode of NXT. The story told in the match was about desperation, with Bo Dallas desperate to keep his championship, and Sami equally desperate, by the end, to take the title for himself. The NXT Crowd, unsurprisingly, was solidly behind Sami Zayn from minute zero, chanting "No more Bo" and even standing with their backs to the ring during Bo's entrance. They also kept coming up with creative chants, such as "Bo has cooties," a dueling chant of "This is awesome"/"No more Bo," and my personal favorite, "Bo-ca-hon-tas."
The match got a big fight feel to it with the special in-ring introductions, and even Regal commented on the championship, noting, "I've never been World Champion, and I don't know that I could handle the responsibilities, and maybe that's held me back over the years," a comment which was a nice nod to his own substance abuse issues.
Sami came out swinging, as did Bo, who kept making hard strikes to the head, dropping knees and elbows and making quick pins rapidly, clearly trying to get the match over with as soon as possible. Sami kept coming back and coming back, and finally hit the running boot in the corner for the pinfall and the championship! ...until JBL, the interim GM of NXT, stormed out onto the stage. He refused to let the first NXT Championship match of "The JBL Era" end in controversy, showing a replay and showing that Bo's foot was on the ropes. He then restarted the match in fantastic douchebag fashion: "Referee, don't make me learn your name. Start this match over."
Bo went right back to work on the head and neck of Sami with strikes and cravate holds, while Regal put over the effects of that false finish, to have a huge up-swell of emotion and then have it ripped away, "It's draining." The latter part of the match ticked up the desperation of both men with nearfall after nearfall, big move after big move. Bo kicked out of a spinning Doctor Bomb, a Spear by Sami, and even a big top-rope sunset flip bomb, but he also blocked the running boot in the corner and countered Sami's Tornado DDT finisher by crotching him on the top rope. For his part, Sami kicked out of a tornado bulldog and a reverse DDT, avoided Bo's armdrag powerslam and kicked out of the Spear himself.
By the end of the match, the turnbuckle cover inexplicably came off, although the commentary noted that the referee didn't seem to be paying attention to the match just before it did, so he may have been loosening it. This exposed turnbuckle allowed Bo to do the same thing he did to Big E Langson when he won the NXT Championship, ramming Sami's head into the bolt and then stacking him up for the pinfall to retain the title.
Regal put over the win, noting that Bo Dallas did everything he could to pull out the victory, while Renee Young put over the defeated challenger, stating, "This will not be the end of Sami Zayn," while a jubilant Bo Dallas celebrated by holding the NXT title upside down, a nice little nod to his utter obliviousness.
Clearly, the story going forward will be Sami Zayn having to re-earn a shot at the title, possibly while having to endure Bo Dallas' insincere "mentor/friendship." In any case, Sami Zayn continues to be a major star on NXT, and I hope he gets called up to the main roster soon and gets to show off his skill on a larger scene.
No matches announced for next week, so stay tuned!
-=Jay 2K Winger=-
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