Botched!: Foxy Excitement, ‘Ero’ Shirai, More

Hi, hello & welcome to Botched! It was a busy week in the world of wrestling with a lot going on. Evolution got some build since its happening Sunday, and a good portion of this column involves those competitors. Hopefully that’s not a sign of things to come…

1. Alicia Gets Excited: It’s tough to blame Alicia Fox for being excited when she gets to fight the likes of Lita & Trish Stratus. As we all know, the people that were around back in the Attitude Era are twenty times more important than these full-timers hanging around now. She got so excited that she was a bit out of control during the fight.

At 1:50 into the video you can see Alicia on top of Trish. As the officials pull her off, she trips over Lita. Y’all have no idea how much I want Alicia to replace Alexa Bliss in the match at Evolution.

2. LOL Kneestrike: There was a lot to unpack in the segment on SmackDown Live hyping up the Evolution Battle Royal participants.

I think the highpoint for me was Carmella no-selling a Mandy Rose kneestrike at 1:30 into the video, but you may be partial to Billie Kay’s awkward X-Factor sell at 1:58. Or maybe something else! Everybody should get a little something out of it.

3. Ero? : Come on! The woman is a finalist in the Mae Young Classic! At least say her name properly. I mean, she’s obviously going to lose to Toni Storm so it’s not like it matters all that much. But still!

4. Bad Branding: We have two submissions from a reader from Wacky Ol’ England, Ulysses Knesington. He watched both NXT UK & NXT last week & found some interesting stuff.

Don’t know if you consider this a botch (I’m on the fence), but for the first NXT UK taping, despite taking FOREVER to hold, after announcing that the brand would be NXT UK last year, the turnbuckle pad covers and mic covers all said “WWE” instead of “NXT UK” or “NXT”. That surprised me because HHH usually pays attention to details.

Well, this is true. The turnbuckle pads say WWE & the ropes are red like an episode of Raw. They do have NXT on the ring apron though.

So it’s kind of a 50/50 thing. Since NXT is part of WWE I see no problem with WWE logos being everywhere, but I know there are a good number of NXT fans that like to try & forget that the brand is a product of the evil McMahon regime. Hopefully they’ll bring the right turnbuckle pads over for the next tapings.

5. Not a Scorpion Death Drop: Also, on NXT, during the main event, Mauro called something a “scorpion death drop” which was wrong. I don’t know what it’s called, but I just watched a scorpion death drop compilation on YouTube…

and it was definitely not a scorpion death drop. I love Mauro, and take no joy in pointing out his mistakes, but even the greats make mistakes. Let’s take a look at the tape…

At 9:07 in the video you see Nikki Cross deliver a variation of the ol’ reverse DDT/Slop Drop/Scorpion Death Drop to Bianca Belair. But Ulysses is right, it’s not quite the same move Sting did back in the day. Cross drops forward instead of backward onto her posterior. It’s the way Christian used to do the move for years & years. I’m not sure if it ever got a name, but I do remember Jim Ross saying “The bottom fell out for *insert name here* everytime Christian did the move.

Thanks for reading! If you see (or hear) anything wrong in the world of wrestling, let me know via Twitter or e-mail at [email protected]. Have a good weekend!