BRM Reviews the 12/9/2020 NXT (great wrestling, but also some warning signs)

[Big Red Machine]

OPENING SEGMENT- bad
Finn Balor starts to cut his promo but is interrupted by Pete Dunne, whose face looks extremely orange. He says that he and Balor are similar because both came from overseas and succeeded. Kyle O’Reilly interrupted them and cut promos on both, pointing out that he broke Balor’s jaw. So what? You still lost clean.
Next out is Damian Priest. He wants a title shot shot because it “would be a marquee match.” That’s your best argument? Really? Don’t you have any actual accomplishments to brag about?
The three would-be challengers all stare off while Balor just walks out. He says something to Kyle, which Kyle responded to by repeating it in a stereotypical British accent… even though Balor is Irish. Balor announces that he will defend his title on the January 6th New Year’s Evil show and says that it’s Regal’s job to determine who he will defend it against.
Balor was up on the ramp by this point. Scarlett Bourdeaux came out. Balor didn’t even blink while she did her whole creepy walking thing in this goofy outfit with spikes on it. Between this and Shotzi’s Blackheart’s various ridiculous get-ups from Halloween Havoc, I have to wonder how much WWE is spending on ridiculous outfits for these women to wear exactly once.
Balor tells Scarlett to tell Karrion Kross that he’s ready for him whenever he comes back. Balor left, at which point Damian Priest had probably the only good line in this whole thing, which was asking Scarlett “do you usually tell your boy to wait in the car while you handle his business?” Scarlett became angry at this. Music played, and the segment ended.
I’m usually fine with segments like this, but I really didn’t like this one, as none of these challengers had any solid arguments as for why they should get a title shot, Balor made them all look like idiots by just walking away from them, Kyle came off like a total dork with most of his lines, and I would have liked at least some sort of “we’re done with our business” acknowledgement from both Kyle and Dunne before they were getting in each other’s faces without starting to fight.

PETE DUNNE’S INTERVIEW IS INTERRUPTED BY KILLAN DAIN TRYING TO ATTACK HIM- They are quickly pulled apart. I had totally forgotten about the injury angle they did with Dain.

ISAIAH “SWERVE” SCOTT vs. JAKE ATLAS- 4.75/10
They had a good action match. Scott seemed to always have the advantage when things went to the mat, but Atlas rolled him up for the pin and he was very unhappy about it afterwards, to the point of ignoring Atlas’ request for a post-match handshake.

TOMMASO CIAMPA PROMO- fine
He has a match with Cameron Grimes tonight. This did a fine job of building it up.

GRIZZLED YOUNG VETERANS vs. EVER-RISE vs. IMPERIUM (Marcel Barthel & Fabian Aichner)- 5.75/10
The story of the match was Ever-Rise being sneaky, but they still weren’t able to win. GYZ got the win. Having a story helped, but I still found this hard to get into because all three teams are unlikable heels.

WAR GAMES VIDEO PACKAGE- I skipped it.

MCKENZIE MITCHELL INTERVIEWS TONI STORM- good
We finally got a reason for Toni Storm’s heel turn, which was that Ember Moon stole her thunder when she made her big return right after Toni’s big debut.

IO SHIRAI INTERRUPTS THE INTERVIEW AND THEY BRAWL TO THE RING- bad
Io interrupted the interview and was kind of a dick and started a brawl. Toni rolled out of the ring to avoid Over The Moonsault but Ember Moon ran out, tossed her into the stairs, and then rolled her back into the ring so Io could hit her move. This was one babyface being an asshole and starting a fight, and then it ended up as essentially two on one in favor of the babyfaces.

TOMMASO CIAMPA vs. CAMERON GRIMES- 7/10
Ciampa overcame a distraction by Thatcher and attempted interference by Tyler Russ (seemingly at Thatcher’s behest) to get the win.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
Ciampa had a stare-down with Thatcher after the match, not for a second buying the plausible deniability Thatcher had set up for himself with Tyler Russ’ run-in. Grimes was angry with Thatcher after the match, so Thatcher took him down and put him in an ankle lock.

RAQUEL GONZALEZ INTERVIEW- good, but…
This was a good interview to build her match with Ember Moon in the main event by vowing revenge on Ember for injuring Dakota Kai in War Games… but Gonzalez not once mentioning the fact that SHE PINNED THE NXT WOMEN’S CHAMPION was a HUGE oversite. How the hell do you not mention that?!

XIA LI & BOA GET BEATEN UNTIL THEY BLEED AND THEN SOME- Yeah… I’ve now officially lost all interest in this.

THE GARGANOS & FRIENDS HAVE A CELEBRATION- not good
Said friends are Austin Theory and Indi Hartwell… and they’re already been turned into comedic sidekick goofs.
This went on for far too long before they were interrupted by Damian Priest, and we were given no real reason as to why Theory has joined with the Garganos. Priest was going to come out and get revenge on Theory but he was jumped from behind by Karrion Kross, who powerbombed him on the stage. You brought that on yourself by poking the bear, dude. I have no sympathy for you. Kross then got in his car and left.
This checked some of the logistical boxes well (Kross makes his return and we both et up a feud between him and Kross, which also provides an excuse for why he isn’t going to be going after Gargano and Theory), but they let Johnny go on for to long, to the point where I just wanted the segment to end, and imagine how annoying and unentertaining Johnny must have had to be to make me not like a segment that involved a representation of Shotzi Blackheart’s head being severed and presented to Candice LeRae in the cup of a trophy.

MCKENZIE MITCHELL’S INTERVIEW WITH TYLER RUST IS INTERRUPTED BY MALCOLM BIVENS- I’m optimistic
McKenzie asked Tyler if he was officially associated with Timothy Thatcher now because we’ve seen them work together two weeks in a row. Before he could answer Bivens showed up to persuade Russ to let him be his manager… which means we could be getting a reunion of Timothy Thatcher and Stokely Hathaway! And even if we don’t, we still get Stokely on TV!

PETE DUNNE vs. KILLIAN DAIN- 7.25/10
This was a great match with a dirty finish. Burch & Lorcan came out to interfere but were chased away by the returning Drake Maverick with a chair. Maverick then turned towards the ring to watch the match… and Burch & Lorcan came out again and beat him up from behind. Dain went to fight them off, allowing Dunne to recover and win. This was one of those finishes where I would have been fine with it in a vacuum, but when a promotion does too many dirty finishes (and NXT has done a lot lately), it starts to feel frustrating in the wrong (i.e. non-kayfabe) way.

JOHNNY GARGANO & AUSTIN THEORY INTERRUPT MCKENZIE MITCHELL’S INTERVIEW WITH LEON RUFF- fine
Lots of interrupting going on tonight. It’s also quite the coincidence that they happened to be sauntering through this particular hallway just was McKenzie was asking Ruff if he was worried that Damian Priest wouldn’t be healthy in time for their tag team match next week against Gargano and Theory. Gargano and Theory were jerks and then left. KUSHIDA then walked up to Ruff and offered to be his partner. Ruff agreed.

RAQUEL GONZALEZ vs. EMBER MOON- 8/10
An awesome determined babyface vs. big monster heel match, and the heel is the one getting the push so they made the right call and put her over clean.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Toni Storm comes out to menace Ember Moon but Rhea Ripley comes out to pull her to safety. Rhea got into the ring and had a stare-down with Gonzalez while Storm just disappeared. Gonzalez eventually back down. I didn’t like Toni both acting scared of Ripley and then disappearing at the end, as both made her feel like she was at a lower than she should be, but otherwise this was fine.

This show was quite the mixed bag from NXT. The wrestling was great, but the talking mostly was not, and I was not happy with the portrayal of several characters. NXT is… starting to worry me in some ways. It really feels like a product that is on the brink of going sharply downhill creatively, but hasn’t quite done so yet.

[cero2k]

This show was quite the mixed bag from NXT. The wrestling was great, but the talking mostly was not, and I was not happy with the portrayal of several characters. NXT is… starting to worry me in some ways. It really feels like a product that is on the brink of going sharply downhill creatively, but hasn’t quite done so yet.

JUST now? All I hear and read is that this thing is all over the place

[Big Red Machine]

This show was quite the mixed bag from NXT. The wrestling was great, but the talking mostly was not, and I was not happy with the portrayal of several characters. NXT is… starting to worry me in some ways. It really feels like a product that is on the brink of going sharply downhill creatively, but hasn’t quite done so yet.

JUST now? All I hear and read is that this thing is all over the place

It was all over the place, but I (and others) were cutting them some slack due to the injuries/call-ups f*cking so many things up. First Riddle gets called up, ruining everything they had for him and Thatcher. Then Mercedes Martinez, Mia Yim, and Dijakovic get called up, taking away one of the undercard guys they had been building up and two of the women they had spent a lot of time building up. Then Lee gets called up so they have to take the belt off of him. They put it on Kross... and he gets injured and they have to take the belt off of him. They put the belt on Balor and he winds up getting injured. They're going to push Ridge Holland into this big spot with Adam Cole and he gets injured. That's A LOT of pieces that had to me moved around (and that's ignoring Lumis' injury, mostly because I don't think they had any real plans for him).

But it has been a few months now and things should feel like they're turning around, but they're not. The Cruiserweight division feels mostly stalled, which isn't being helped by them trying to get Jake Atlas over by having him lose against main eventers when they don't have a top babyface right now. Instead of building up guys like Austin Theory and Bronson Reed, they took them off TV, and have now turned Theory into a goof sidekick for Gargano. Instead of building up Grimes, they've made him a clown and stuck him in this awful feud with Lumis. Thatcher keeps losing to people instead of being built up. Ciampa doesn't need protection! They've got Damian Priest totally miscast as a babyface, and they screwed up the Leon Ruff thing by taking the belt off of him. They're desperate, but not desperate enough to stop being conservative and trying to protect everyone and return things to a status quo.