Oh, and Big Show channeled his Stone Cold as he arrived, raised hell, and left to go get a pint.
Down in NXT Land, the Beautiful Fierce Females gained a new member. The Artiste had a clash of styles with Camacho. The United Kingdom exploded when Wales fought England. And Adrian Neville once again looked for retribution against Corey Graves.
That aside, the commentary did a great job analyzing strategy and psychology during several of the matches, while putting over the toughness and/or skill of the competitors. Regal talked a great deal about the psychology of tag-team matches, such as forcing your victim to face their own corner. As he explained, it enabled his own partner to keep an eye on the opponent on the apron, and also caused the victim to struggle that much harder to make the tag, further wearing themselves out. He equated not being able to make that tag to "dying a thousand deaths."
Match 1: Bayley & Charlotte vs BFFs
Last week, Bayley and Charlotte got into a bit of an argument backstage with the Beautiful Fierce Females. It was implied that the BFFs saw a potential tool in the naive Bayley, while Charlotte looked singularly unimpressed with Summer Rae and Sasha Banks' offer.
Summer and Sasha continue to add those little touches to their characters and in-ring personas, a clear sign that the work being done at WWE's Performance Center is paying off. Having veterans like Regal, Sara Del Rey, and visits from WWE alumni like Mickie James can probably be attributed to these things. Sasha continued to develop her "Boss" character by be-dazzling her ring jacket, and adding a pair of Kanye West-style shades to her entrance attire. Summer Rae is starting to use her tall stature and her long legs to add more variety to her repertoire, such as using her legs to apply a full nelson hold.
Charlotte continues to impress me with her skill for someone still so new to the business. She uses her gymnastic flexibility and agility to her advantage-- such as doing a bridge while applying a hammerlock, then snapping back to normal to add extra torque. She also carries herself in a way that commands respect. There's no hesitancy in her stance or in her motions. It's a sign she'll only get better as she gets more experience.
Bayley's naivete played into the match as well. While she showed some great babyface fire in a sequence of moves, she paused afterward to look to the crowd/Charlotte for approval, which is what led to the BFFs seizing control for the rest of the match. When she did finally break away and try to tag out, Charlotte made an abrupt heel turn by smacking her across the face, then getting in the ring to hit her front-flip cutter finisher. The BFFs looked confused, but took the pin to win the match. Afterward, Charlotte raised their hands in victory and left up the ramp with them, apparently giving the BFFs a third member.
I hope some of the other NXT women's wrestlers that have yet to debut will do so as faces, since this puts a heavy heel slant to the ladies' roster. Between a three-woman strong BFFs stable, a potential heel turn from Paige (if her rivalry with Emma plays out that way), and appearances from main roster heels like Alicia Fox or Aksana continue, NXT's going to need more face Divas to pick up the slack.
Match 2: Camacho vs Aiden English
I've said in the past that NXT has a tendency to follow the will of the crowd when it comes to turning the wrestlers face or heel. Aiden English has become another example of this, facing Camacho in this match this week. Prior to an ad break, we were treated to English backstage doing some vocal exercises to warm up for his singing entrance, which gets more cheers every week. William Regal, as befits his "sophisticated as hell" persona, was openly enthusiastic about it, and admitted to having a "man crush" on English.
Camacho recently returned to action on the main roster last week, competing on Main Event with Hunico against the Usos. Camacho made some appearances on NXT in late 2012 while Hunico was out injured, in particular playing a minor part in a storyline involving Big E Langston. Langston had gotten on Vickie Guerrero's bad side, prompting her to offer a $5,000 bounty, which Camacho attempted to cash in on. I say "attempted," because Big E just steamrolled through him. His absence was explained by Regal as spending some time "at his summer residence in Guadalajara."
Camacho controlled most of this short match with his power, and even showed a little character by mocking English's bow. English picked up a quick win, however, after reversing a fireman's carry into the Director's Cut out of nowhere. It was a smooth transition, and gave English the victory, which he followed up with an encore of his entrance song. Regal continued to play up his man-crush by getting weepy, then stole Tensai's pocket square to dab his eyes and blow his nose.
Backstage with Alexander Rusev & Lana
There's not really much I can say about this brief segment. The entire thing was done in another language-- Russian on Lana's part, and presumably Bulgarian from Rusev. She seemed to be talking up Rusev's brute strength and aggression, while admiring him up close. Rusev closed it out by speaking, himself, but with no translation, for all I know he was talking about how nice the weather is in Florida.
I have nothing against a foreign wrestling heel. It's a tried and tested archetype that never fails to get heat from some wrestling crowds, but there's a caveat to it. If the foreign heel is going to speak in their own language, some context needs to be given. That can either be from body language, tone of voice, or accompanying action, but it's necessary in order for the fans to understand the message being sent. This segment, if it's a one-off, is fine, but any future foreign promos have to either have a translation provided, or context supplied.
Match 3: Danny Burch vs Mason Ryan
Mason Ryan is probably best remembered by most WWE fans for his rather lackluster tenure as a member of CM Punk's Nexus, and then probably for his "constipated" method of running to the ring. He has the size and build that gives Vince McMahon a hard-on, but he was called up way too soon and floundered on the main roster.
NXT has helped him out greatly. He's added a lot more definition to his build, looking frigging ripped and looking like a monster when he comes out. He's got more of a face-type push now, as well, posing for the crowd and dominating his matches, earning him the moniker "The Colossus of Cardiff." He's been absent from NXT since earlier this summer, after a brief feud with Enzo Amore and Colin Cassidy.
Danny Burch-- dubbed the "Westham Hammer" by Regal this week-- continues to be one of the highlighted jobbers on NXT. He gets more offense than most jobbers do against established stars, and commentary is keen to put over his toughness and fight-happy nature. Burch is likely to be one of the next NXT wrestlers to get a push in the future. There have been reports of him forming a tag team with fellow Brit Oliver Grey (former tag partner of Adrian Neville) on NXT house shows, so keep an eye out for that.
After Burch pummeled the much larger Ryan around for a while, Ryan started firing up and finished him off with a huge big boot, then a cobra clutch slam. Ryan's probably going to get a slight push on NXT in the future, is my guess, possibly a shot at Bo Dallas, if only to give the heel Dallas something to brag about once he beats him.
Segment: Join the EMMAlution
What is there to say about this segment? It looked cheap as hell in all the right ways. Set to Emma's ear-worm of an entrance theme, it featured Emma at a podium, as if addressing a revolutionary crowd, and allowed her to work in all her Emma puns. (EMMAlution, World Wrestling EMMAtainment, calling her fans "EMMAcrats.") I almost hope they use something like this when they call Emma up to the main roster.
Match 4: Two Out of Three Falls - Corey Graves vs Adrian Neville
A few weeks ago, when Graves and Neville first clashed after their tag team broke up, commentator Tom Phillips said that Graves was more clean cut than his "grunge/rebel/punk" look suggested, and that he was looking to lead a "purity parade," a complete 180 from the character that had previously been established. This was also, however, a character trait or change that was only spoken about, never actually shown. Thankfully, someone at NXT seems to have realized what a blunder that was, as there was no reference to it at all, and Graves came out in his usual sleeveless denim vest and with his usual look.
The match was about endurance, a fact that Regal was quick to play up on commentary. Over in England and Europe, it's not unheard of for matches to be structured in a "x number of y-minute rounds" format. That kind of structure forces wrestlers to think a little more carefully about their ring strategy, to take in the long game, rather than go for an immediate win. Being from England, Neville is familiar with this format, but so is Graves. Graves was a regular member of UK-based 1 Pro Wrestling for four years, even holding its heavyweight championship for 554 days, so he is familiar with the European style as well.
Graves was certainly shown playing into that 'long game' mindset, as the multi-fall structure of the match especially played to his submission skills. Although he lost the first fall fairly quickly to Neville-- who got to show off his speed and agility before connecting with the Red Arrow-- he took control in the remainder of the match, grounding the 'Jumping Geordie.' Graves' assault was on the left knee of Neville, the same knee he injured when he broke up their team, and the same knee he targeted with the Lucky 13 a few weeks ago.
More than the knee, however, Graves also targeted the head and neck and ribs. Regal explained the strategy as wearing down his opponent, being part of the "pacing himself" aspect of a 2-of-3 falls match, particularly when he's got to win two falls to win the match. Regal was all about how softening the ribs makes it harder to breathe, but there is another aspect of damaging the ribs that he failed to consider: Neville's Red Arrow is a corkscrew shooting star press, in which he comes down ribs-first onto his opponent. By going after Neville's ribs, Graves was trying to ensure that, even if Neville could hit the Red Arrow again, he might be too injured to immediately capitalize.
Graves got the second fall by tapping Neville to the Lucky 13 submission, and again commentary suggested the quick tap out was strategic. Neville was already up by one fall; he could afford the loss and with Graves forced to break the hold after the tap-out, he could start recovering sooner. Graves got a great visual, with an evil look in his eyes as he watched Neville struggling to stand up, and he got to shine pretty good in the third fall. Neville managed a brief rally, but when he started to fight back in the corner, Graves promptly kicked out the knee to buy himself some breathing room.
All of Graves' knee-focused offense paid off when Neville got the upper hand and struggled to stand on the top rope for another Red Arrow, only for his leg to immediately buckle as soon as he put weight on it, sending him crashing to the mat. He showed great fire when he clawed and fought his way to the ropes while trapped in the Lucky 13 again, and then scored an arguable upset, reversing another Lucky 13 attempt into an inside cradle for the victory.
Adrian Neville is clearly poised to be one of WWE's premier high-flyers when he gets called up. Although he's not tall, he's got a great build and his speed and agility are going to be great selling points for his matches. Corey Graves looked great even in defeat, however, since the match was structured in a way that told the story-- he had Neville beat, his submissions had taken away Neville's finisher, and he made one mistake that cost him the match. Graves may not have won here, but he's still a significant player on NXT for the time being.
Next Week: The Bo Dallas Homecoming.
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