BRM Reviews the 9/23/2020 NXT

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 9/23/2020 NXT

Post by Big Red Machine » Sep 24th, '20, 20:50

FOOTAGE OF CANDICE LERAE RUINING TEGAN NOX’S KNEE BACKSTAGE RIGHT BEFORE THE MATCH- I’ll give them a pass here, but after this, I don’t want to see any more angles with someone going after Tegan’s knee for a long time. Tegan has had two feuds on the main roster, and BOTH have included this as their big early moment.

WOMEN’S #1 CONTENDERSHIP BATTLE ROYALE- 5.5/10
In case you’re wondering who the actual stars are, only Candice LeRae and Rhea Ripley got their entrances shown.
There were two stories here. The biggest one was Rhea Ripley and Raquel Gonzalez being the two big monsters and eliminating a bunch of people then eliminating each other. The other one was Kacy Catanzaro surviving elimination via the idiotic “well her feet didn’t touch the floor” rule, multiple times even though for one of them she was sitting on the floor on her butt. They need to change this rule to “if any part of your body other than you hand touches the floor or any other surface that isn’t part of the ring, you’re eliminated.” This was such a blatant abuse of the rules that it had even ME rooting for Kacy to lose. Still, Kacy getting to make it to the final four did seem like a step up for her, so at least there was that.
The final two were Candice LeRae and Shotzi Blackheart, which had me terrified that Shotzi was going to win. Fortunately, she didn’t. Also Johnny Gargano is getting an NXT North American Title shot at TakeOver, so this TakeOver is going to be about he whole “we want to be champions as husband and wife” thing.

SARAH SCHREIBER INTERVIEWS DAMIAN PRIEST- good
Priests talks very well. He just needs to stop hitting on the interviewer in such a blatant “come to my party, hot chick” way, and needs to stop talking about his “reign of infamy.” It sounds so damn fake and like it has t be shoehorned into an otherwise natural-sounding promo.

EALIER TODAY, FANDANGO HAS AN IDEA BACKSTAGE- didn’t like it
He’s dressed as Sherlock Holmes while pitching it to Regal, who immediately warned him “no silly British accent.” He pitched that each of the four top contendership teams would have one member form a pareja increible and those two teams would face off tonight. The represented winning teams of that match would then face off the next week in a #1 contendership match.
Obviously this is going to draw comparisons to what AEW did a few weeks ago with the eight-man tag and then the winners facing off at the PPV, which resulted in the excellent Young Bucks vs. A Boy & His Dinosaur match. This is similar enough to that that I wouldn’t have done it so soon after that. On the other hand, I do like the fact that unlike in AEW, there was actually a reason for this to be happening (there’s a title shot at stake). This is a wacky idea, and the parejas increibles part makes it even wackier, but I’m kind of okay with that because 1) the idea came from Fandango, who is wacky, and all of the involved teams had a member there, and Regal asked all of them if they were okay with this and they all said yes.

TOMMASO CIAMPA vs. JAKE ATLAS- 6.75/10
This was a great overmatched up and comer babyface showing for Atlas… until the finish where he essentially lost because his finisher involves some sort of wacky extra athletic bit, which gave the opponent time to cut him off. I’m sure he thinks a cartwheel on the ropes into a DDT looks nice, no one has ever complained that Kanemaru’s Sudden Impact- which is a diving DDT- looks lame, and he doesn’t have to set it up in this wacky manner.

RIDGE HOLLAND VIDEO PACKAGE- fine

NXT ELIMINATOR GAUNTLET HYPE PACKAGE- good


WACKY FANDANGO #1 CONTENDERHSIP TOURNAMENT-ESQUE THING MATCH: Roderick Strong & Danny Burch vs. Raul Mendoza & Fabian Aichner- 6.5/10

SARAH SCHREIBER INTERVIEWS AUSTIN THEORY- Good stuff from both Theory and from Johnny Gargano, who showed up to give Theory some friendly advice, as well as assure him that he wouldn’t forget it if Theory were to soften Damian Priest up for him.

DAMIAN PRIEST vs. AUSTIN THEORY- 6.75/10
Priest won clean and was attacked by Gargano after the match.

WEIRD VIDEO GAME “SOMEONE IS COMING” VIDEO- Weird. The person will arrive at TakeOver.

ISAIAH “SWERVE” SCOTT VIDEO PROMO- He wants a rematch with Santos Escobar. He seems to be taking the “hey, how about we play fair this time, okay?” track instead of yelling about being cheated. I think the latter approach is better because I just don’t see the heel Escobar willingly giving him a rematch.

RIDGE HOLLAND vs. A JOBBER- This jobber came across like a goofball, going out of his way to oversell things in phony way. This guy wasn’t selling, he was ACTING.

THE GARGANOS INTERRUPT SARAH SCHREIBER’S INTERVIEW WITH IO SHIRAI- fine
Damian Priest showed up and bunched Johnny Gargano. This seems like it will build to a tag match next week.

#1 CONTENDERSHIP GAUNTLET ELIMINATOR: Kyle O’Reilly vs. KUSHIDA vs. Bronson Reed vs. Timothy Thatcher vs. Cameron Grimes- 7/10
Kyle and KUSHIDA started things off, making me very happy. Bronson Reed came in and worked well with them. The Velveteen Dream interfered to screw KUSHIDA out of the match. Reed pinned KUSHIDA with the Tsunami (his top rope splash) just before Timothy Thatcher was about to enter. We went to a commercial right when Thatcher entered, and when we came back it was almost time for Grimes to enter. That was lame.
O’Reilly got the final three eliminations (first Reed, then Thatcher, then Grimes). Once Kyle vs. KUSHIDA ended, the match felt extremely choreographed. If you like that sort of thing, you’ll probably rate this higher than I did.
Grimes made a comment to Kyle that he’s “nothing like Adam Cole” and that Cole “was the man of the group.” Between that and a little comment Kyle made in the video package that it doesn’t matter which member of UE has which belt, there could be some interesting stuff on the horizon.

This was a mediocre episode of NXT. They’ve built themselves a TakeOver card that will deliver in the ring, but it definitely feels like a B-show, which is something that I don’t think a TakeOver has ever felt like before. I'm looking forward to it because I think it's going to rock, but I don't think any real news will come out of it.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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cero2k
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Re: BRM Reviews the 9/23/2020 NXT

Post by cero2k » Sep 27th, '20, 12:34

Big Red Machine wrote: Sep 24th, '20, 20:50
WEIRD VIDEO GAME “SOMEONE IS COMING” VIDEO- Weird. The person will arrive at TakeOver.
My money is on Roode, but just because Bo Dallas would be really underwhelming
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Big Red Machine
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Re: BRM Reviews the 9/23/2020 NXT

Post by Big Red Machine » Sep 27th, '20, 13:39

cero2k wrote: Sep 27th, '20, 12:34
Big Red Machine wrote: Sep 24th, '20, 20:50
WEIRD VIDEO GAME “SOMEONE IS COMING” VIDEO- Weird. The person will arrive at TakeOver.
My money is on Roode, but just because Bo Dallas would be really underwhelming
He has been off TV for a while, and he would be a much needed new top face. And it would be awesome to hear that music again. F*ck it, I'm going to go listen to it on loop right now.


Hold #712: ARM BAR!

Upcoming Reviews:
FIP in 2005
ROH Validation
PWG All-Star Weekend V: Night 2
DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate 2013
ROH/CMLL Global Wars Espectacular: Day 3

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