BRM Reviews the 11/11/2020 NXT

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- entertaining
That Johnny & Candice “power couple” shirt is adorable. Johnny Gargano has a “wheel of challengers.” It’s got the names of a bunch of main eventers and a few upper midcarders… and one of the spots has a piece of paper taped to it with “Leon Ruff” hand-written on it. He spun the wheel and it landed on Leon Ruff. He made a big deal about how unpredictable this was, so I’ll assume it was fixed.

NXT NORTH AMERICAN TITLE MATCH: Johnny Gargano(c) vs. Leon Ruff- no rating, very interesting statement, and VERY mixed feelings.
This was mostly a squash, thought it went longer than you’d expect. Gargano kept getting distracted by Damian Priest in the crowd… and eventually one of these distractions led to Ruff hitting a Crucifix Bomb and winning the title.
I’m definitely a proponent of strong champion, to the point of wanting my heel champion to win clean in most circumstances. That being said, there is definitely potential in a run where you’re certain the champion is going to lose every time and he always pulls it out… so long as in most cases he does so cleanly. We need to see Ruff develop and grow. He can’t come out of this still being a jobber. He’s got to feel like at least a midcarder by the time his title reign is done. I also like the idea of building up cache in Gargano losing the title in first defense again, so between that and the fact that I don’t remember wrestling really doing this Mikey Whipwreck-esque story at any point in the past twenty years, I’m going to take a more “wait and see” attitude with this.
You know what? Maybe I’m giving them too much credit. They just had Priest strap the belt around Ruff’s waist (very out of character, in my opinion), and the belt fell down because Ruff is too skinny. This is exactly the sort of clown sh*t that will result in the title being devalued rather than Ruff being elevated.

MCKENZIE MITCHELL INTERVIEWS LEON RUFF BACKSTAGE- bad
Yeah… okay. I already hate this. Everyone is backstage clapping for him like he finally won the world title after decades of trying. Damian Priest is right there to be his big buddy. Priest gives Ruff his car keys so he can escape Gargano’s wrath. Again…this is all SOOO out of character for Priest. Also, Priest did most of the talking here, to the point where it felt like he was the focus of the segment, not Ruff.
Hey, look! It’s Gabe!
Johnny Gargano stormed backstage and yelled at Priest. He shoved Priest, so referees held him back while Priest taunted him. This felt a lot more in character for Priest… but in character for Priest has usually been unlikable, and he was here, too, which is a problem when he’s supposed to be a babyface.

NXT CRUISERWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Santos Escobar(c) (w/Legado Del Fantasma) vs. Jake Atlas- 7/10
Great stuff. I was quite happy to see Escobar win cleanly for once. The announcers put Atlas over huge. This definitely felt like something that was planting seeds for a bigger title match between these two a few months down the line.

DEXTER LUMIS DRAWS BACKSTAGE- he’s a good artist, but this is not interesting.

SHOTZI BLACKHEART EXPLAINS TO US WHY SHE WAS SO UPSET ABOUT HER DUMB TOY TANK BEING RUN OVER LAST WEEK- fine
“That tank represents freedom. And more importantly, it represents family that I have in the military.” Well if the family in the military is so important to you, maybe you should have started with that instead of the eye-rollingly stupid platitude.
Shotzi was finally believable for once, so that was good, but she’s still a huge heel in my eyes because of everything she did to Robert Stone, all of which was terrible, and completely uncalled for.

RAQUEL GONZALEZ vs. XIA LI- didn’t happen, meh segment
Boa comes out and tells Raquel that Xia isn’t here tonight so they can’t have a match. Gonzalez assaulted Boa. Whatever is going on with Xia Li, it had better be really food, because otherwise this makes her look like absolute sh*t to beg Regal for a match and challenge someone and then not show up.

POST-NON-MATCH SEGMENT- vaguely intriguing
Raquel declared that everyone had better keep her name out of their mouths and stormed off. Then fancy lighting happened and an elderly Asian gentleman walked down to the ring and gave Boa a letter. Boa seemed to be bowing to him a bit. The guy also painted something on Boa’s hand. He left, and Boa seemed to be in agony, staring at the symbol painted on his hand. I will admit to being intrigued by this, but I’ve seen enough Bray Wyatts and Retribuitons and similar sh*t that goes nowhere that I’m going to go into this with a health does of skepticism.

MCKENZIE MITCHELL INTERVIEWS AUGUST GREY- fine
August Grey is the AWFUL new name they have given Anthony Greene. Thatcher interrupted the interview by attacking Grey from behind. They brawled, including Thatcher throwing Grey into Lumis’ big drawing. Regal and Lumis showed up. Regal ordered them to stop fighting. Lumis was angry. Without the Dexter Lumis stuff, I would have liked his more.

CANDICE LERAE vs. TONI STORM- 6.75/10
Candice cut a very good inset promo. These two had a very good match, with Candice cheating to win.

POST-MATCH SEMGNET- fine
Toni attacked Candice, so the person in the Scream mask made the save. Shotzi tried to make the save but got beaten up and hit with an attempt at an assisted Wicked Stepsister that looked a lot worse than the solo version. The person in the mask revealed herself to be… Indi Hartwell… which I think everyone had discounted just because it was so obvious that it made no sense for her to wear a mask in the first place.

DEXTER LUMIS vs. TIMOTHY THATCHER- 6.5/10
There was some good grappling here, but it was ultimately held back for me by the fact that no matter what they try to tell us, Lumis is not a babyface, so this was a heel vs. heel match with a third heel interfering for the finish. That third heel was Cameron Grimes, who beat Lumis up rather easily. Lumis magical powers from two weeks ago seems to have completely disappeared. Grimes but a burlap sack on Lumis’ head to stop him from behind able to see, which has me extremely worried that we’re going to get a blindfold match.

MCKENZIE MITCHELL FINDS JOHNNY GARGANO WAITING TO TALK TO WILLIAM REGAL- fine
Gargano wants his match thrown out but Regal won’t do it. Johnny got angry and actually admitted to rigging the wheel in an attempt to come up with a reason for why the match should have been thrown out.

TOMMASO CIAMPA PROMO- fine

PRIME TARGET: RHEA RIPLEY VS. IO SHIRAI- great
Their title match is next week.

CAMERON GRIMES PROMO- meh

NXT TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Danny Burch & Oney Lorcan(c) vs. Tyler Breeze & Fandango- 6.75/10
Pat McAfee was on commentary for this match, with Pete Dunne standing by as a bodyguard. This was more "very good but not great" stuff. AS you’d imagine, McAfee got involved. Drake Maverick came out to try to counter him. Both McAfee and Dunne were needed to help beat Breezango. Maverick attacked the heels as they posed after the match but he got taken out. Tyler Breeze tried to help out but got punted by McAfee was the others help him in place. McAfee is such a tremendous heel that words can’t do him justice.


This was a fine episode of NXT. We’ll see how the Leon Ruff story develops, but at the moment, I’m not optimistic.

[NWK2000]

NXT NORTH AMERICAN TITLE MATCH: Johnny Gargano(c) vs. Leon Ruff- no rating, very interesting statement, and VERY mixed feelings.
This was mostly a squash, thought it went longer than you’d expect. Gargano kept getting distracted by Damian Priest in the crowd… and eventually one of these distractions led to Ruff hitting a Crucifix Bomb and winning the title.
I’m definitely a proponent of strong champion, to the point of wanting my heel champion to win clean in most circumstances. That being said, there is definitely potential in a run where you’re certain the champion is going to lose every time and he always pulls it out… so long as in most cases he does so cleanly. We need to see Ruff develop and grow. He can’t come out of this still being a jobber. He’s got to feel like at least a midcarder by the time his title reign is done. I also like the idea of building up cache in Gargano losing the title in first defense again, so between that and the fact that I don’t remember wrestling really doing this Mikey Whipwreck-esque story at any point in the past twenty years, I’m going to take a more “wait and see” attitude with this.
You know what? Maybe I’m giving them too much credit. They just had Priest strap the belt around Ruff’s waist (very out of character, in my opinion), and the belt fell down because Ruff is too skinny. This is exactly the sort of clown sh*t that will result in the title being devalued rather than Ruff being elevated.

This is basically Santino Marella's debut with a bit of Gilberg mixed in, and while, like you said this has the potential to be a garbage reign, the Intercontinental Championship survived Santino, and the North American Championship will survive Leon Ruff. The difference between the IC and North American Title being, of course, that it wouldn't be out of character to see a long series of 3.5 star matches with the next champion.