Tremendous Tirades: WWE NXT (8.21.14)

Introduction
As a reminder, this will not be another traditional recap, but instead it will be a mash up of the Rs, Instant Analysis and my usual Twitter ramblings I would do during the shows; completely uncensored and as the ideas flow unfiltered to the old keyboard. Remember, this is a review; and I am here to review the show. As always, I encourage discussion and even disagreement, just do so in a respectful manner. I will be doing the review for Raw and most PPVs and iPPVs going forward.

WWE NXT 8.21.14

OFFICIAL RESULTS

NXT Tag Team Tournament Match: Aiden English and Simon Gotch defeated Big Cas and Enzo Amore @ 1:45 via pin [NR (Under Three Minutes Long)]

Tyson Kidd defeated Tyler Breeze @ 2:00 via count out [NR (Under Three Minutes Long)]

Non-Title Match: Charlotte © defeated Becky Lynch @ 5:00 via pin [**¾]

Mojo Rawley defeated Steve Cutler @ 1:45 via pin [NR (Under Three Minutes Long)]

NXT Tag Team Tournament Match: Kalisto and Sin Cara defeated Adam Rose Sami Zayn @ 9:43 via pin [***]

From Full Sail University.

With Impact moving to Wednesdays, I should be able to cover NXT with limited issues going forward. Also, they aired the show at 4PM ET today for its first run, which appears to be a regular thing going forward. This is a nice option, gets the show on VOD earlier, and will make it easier to cover the show.

JoJo still has a job, as she is doing ring announcing this week.

NXT Tag Team Tournament Semifinal Match: The Vaudevillians (Simon Gotch & Aiden English) vs. Big Cass and Enzo Amore: I am greatly amused and entertained by these characters. The crowd also seems to be into the characters a lot and is often forgiving if the matches aren’t great. This was completely disappointing, the NXT tag team division is the weakest part of the show, and they had a chance with this tournament to help turn things around. But offering up a semifinal match that doesn’t even get two minutes is completely laughable. There are several reasons that the NXT tag team division lacks, and this is one of them. I couldn’t believe that the match actually ended when it did; this just came off poorly and like a rush job to get to the post match angle. Post match, the Legionaries attacked Cas and Enzo. They shaved off some of Enzo’s beard with clippers. It all happened in 60-seconds, and again, felt completely rushed and the “shave job” was so poor and fast that I couldn’t see how any one cared about this. Quite honestly, this was a horrible way to start the show.

Triple H is out, puts over his baby NXT and announces Takeover II for September 11th. The NXT Title, NXT Women’s Title will be on the line. Also, the winners of the tag team tournament get a shot at the NXT Tag Team Titles. They will also reveal a new General Manager for NXT next week.

We see Tyson Kidd ruining Tyler Breeze’s NXT Title shot last week. Tyson Kidd’s a dick; Breeze was just trying to become the most gorgeous champion in NXT history. That’s a noble goal.

Tyson Kidd vs. Tyler Breeze: I like the Tyler Breeze character, I think the guy is improving in the ring and I think that he has the character down. But his entrance made no sense this week. He sold anger in his pre-match promo, because his shot for the NXT Title was ruined. But then he comes out like he does any other time, while commentary tries to discuss his anger. Thankfully he didn’t lock up and attacked Kidd and went to work. Kidd fought back and got the heat for about 30-seconds, and then Breeze grabbed his phone, said he didn’t need this and left. Apparently he didn’t want revenge that badly. You need to make the Breeze character multi-dimensional, but they are failing to do that with this completely questionable booking. Kidd celebrating as if he won a huge match was fun, but overall this was a skippable segment. The 30-second Breeze promo where he said he and Kidd are fine and that he was focused on the NXT Title announcement next week was also rushed, and did the overall segment no favors.

Non-Title Match: Charlotte © vs. Becky Lynch: I am really glad to see that Becky Lynch has dropped the stereotypical Irish gimmick, but I am not sure if being “Irish Paige/McChif” is the way to go. It’s an improvement though. Lynch and Charlotte did some nice mat work early on, and Charlotte continues to improve as a worker, but also has a great in ring presence. They didn’t get a ton of time, but what they did had a good pace, it was clean and overall the match was fun. They did a good job of making the most of their time. No real complaints here, other than I wish they had gotten more to work with time wise.

Big Cass and Enzo Amore are out. He is upset about the Legionaries attack from earlier in the show. He challenges Lefort to a hair vs. hair match at NXT Takeover II.

Mojo Rawley vs. Steve Culter: Culter has a great look and a military background. Mojo won in what was basically a squash. They had a little back and forth, but honestly to sell Mojo’s anger (from Dempsey turning on him) he should have came out and just mowed someone down, no back and forth. After the match, Mojo challenged Bull Dempsey to a match. Dempsey attacked Mojo last week following their tag team tournament loss. Mojo tried to cut a serious promo, it wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t exactly good either. Honestly, they really could have just done a pre-tape and aired that instead of running an unimpressive and not all that well done “squash” match.

NXT Tag Team Tournament Semifinal Match: Sami Zayn and Adam Rose vs. Kalisto and Sin Cara : I love the effort being put into Kalisto and Sin Cara to appear to be a real tag team. The pairing makes sense, and also gives Hunico something to do. The guy is talented, but as far as the main roster goes, they don’t care about Hunico or Cara; so right now this is the best use for him. The crowd seemed both tired and confused at times. This was the third show taped at this set of tapings (EDIT: Correction, this was the beginning of the taping cycle), but the fact that both teams are faces I feel also added to the lack of overall heat. They never got into that next gear, but this was an overall good and enjoyable match with Zayn and Rose working a more aggressive heel style to play into their opponent strengths. I am a big fan of Kalisto, loved his pre-WWE work, and he seems to be finding his footing working a more WWE style, but still adding in the skills that got him noticed. Watching Kalisto and Zayn work each other again, even briefly, was fun as well. This was a good main event, but unfortunately not enough to save the show.

End scene.

Thanks for reading.

The Tirade
The first 18-minutes or so of this show was very rough. I was not a fan of the booking for the first semifinal tag match, and that got the show off to a bad start for me. Pretty much can be said for the Kidd vs. Breeze match, and I felt the feel and booking was really off. We also could have done without the Mojo match, as the pre-tape would have been more effective. You can skip all of that stuff, because you will have missed nothing. Maybe it was the booking of the opener, but as of this time, I have no excitement at all for the hair vs. hair match. We got the announcement of the next NXT special, which I am happy about a is really loved the first two they put on. We’ll also get our new GM next week, so they planted the seeds well for future events. Charlotte vs. Becky was a fun, but short match. It was fun while it lasted, clean and Charlotte continues to improve, which is a good thing. The main event was another good match, but not enough to make the overall show good. Just catch those two matches and skip the rest and you’ll be happy.

Show Rating: 5.0

As a reminder, I will be going by the 411 scale…

0 – 0.9: Torture
1 – 1.9: Extremely Horrendous
2 – 2.9: Very Bad
3 – 3.9: Bad
4 – 4.9: Poor
5 – 5.9: Not So Good
6 – 6.9: Average
7 – 7.9: Good
8 – 8.9:Very Good
9 – 9.9: Amazing
10: Virtually Perfect

The final rating is not simply an average of the rated segments above. The rating takes them into account as well as the segments that are small but not scored, the flow of the show, the overall booking, build to PPV, crowd reactions, and so on and so forth.

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Larry Csonka is a Pisces and enjoys rolling at jiu jitsu class with Hotty McBrownbelt, cooking, long walks on the beach, Slingo and the occasional trip to Jack in the Box. He is married to a soulless ginger and has two beautiful daughters who are thankfully not soulless gingers; and is legally allowed to marry people in 35 states. He has been a wrestling fan since 1982 and has been writing for 411 since May 24th, 2004; contributing over 3,000 columns, TV reports and video reviews to the site.

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