BRM Reviews the 1/22/2014 NXT

[Big Red Machine]

ADRIAN NEVILLE vs. WESLEY BLAKE- 3.75/10
Standard quick win for Neville.
According to the announcers, Wesley Blake describes himself as “a real live cowboy.” As opposed to what? Someone playing some sort of fake cowboy character on television?

DEVIN YOUNG INTERVIEWS THE BFF’S- decent.
I had totally forgotten that Charlotte had joined this group. The reason I had forgotten this is because it happened OVER TWO MONTHS AGO and HAS NEVER BEEN RBOUGHT UP SINCE, despite the fact that both the BFF’s and also Bailey (who Charlotte turned heel on) have both had matches since.
Charlotte tells us that since joining up with the BFF’s, she has been riding around in limousines and private jets; “the sort of thing you do when you are part of my family.” So if turning heel hasn’t changed your lifestyle at all, why did you do it?
The rest of her promo wasn’t bad, and then Summer Rae cut a good promo saying she was going to beat Natalya tonight.

XAVIER WOODS vs. ALEXANDER RUSEV (w/Lana)- pretty much a squash. Woods got almost no offense in. Rusev left the Accolade locked in after the match, so Sin Cara came out to make the save, getting basically no pop at all.

ANTONIO CESARO vs. CJ PARKER- 2/10
I totally marked out for Cesaro no-selling the Airplane Spin and immediately doing the Cesaro swing. That was pretty awesome.

SAMI ZAYN PROMO- he is apparently injured because is he is walking with a crutch. He challenges Cesaro to a rematch of their 2-out-of-3 falls match. Cesaro says no.

DEVIN YOUNG INTERVIEWS MIZ- Apparently he is a babyface now. Then CJ Parker walks by, murmuring about how the people are always booing him. If this was the angle they wanted to do, why book him against a heel in the last match. Why not put him against an uber-popular babyface like Woods or Neville? Anyway, he and Miz have a confrontation. Miz says that people don’t like Parker because he is disrespectful. The only example of this that Miz that provide, however, is that Parker just interrupted him. So the guy who was a heel until he started this promo is saying someone is being disrespectful for interrupting him, and we are supposed to care? Parker says something funny and slaps Miz in the face. Miz does nothing because apparently this new babyface is a little b*tch.

NATALYA PROMO- wow. This was atrocious. They really should have reshot this.

NATALYA (w/Bailey) vs. SUMMER RAE (Sasha Banks)- 4/10
So after the earlier promo, of course Summer Rae doesn’t come out to ringside with Charlotte. They have an okay match. Nattie did one or two cool new things that Summer’s flexibility allowed her to do. I

DEVIN MOORE INTERVIEWS ENZO AMORE & COLIN CASSIDY-
WHAT THE F*CK DID ENZO DO TO HIS HAIR?!
They cut a good promo. Then Aiden English shows up and starts talking trash. Colin says “you’ve taken cheap shot after cheap shot after cheap shot. I’m surprised you haven’t gone home with the ugly girl at the party.” AWESOME!
English is a douche, so Enzo rolls off… rolling over English’s foot as he does so.

BO DALLAS BANNER RAISING CEREMONY- good stuff.
They unravel a banner for Bo saying that he has been NXT Champion for 224 days. Fine… but wont that sign be out of date tomorrow?
They have a good segment that results in Hunter making a match between them in which Bo has 4:45 to beat Neville, and if he doesn’t Neville will get a title match on the special live February 27th NXT. It’s always good to see a heel’s bragging come back to bite him in the ass.

4:45 TIME LIMIT PROVING GROUND MATCH: NXT Champion Bo Dallas vs. Adrian Neville- no rating
Good for what it was.

AFTERMATH- PERFECT!
Bo tries to jump Neville, but Neville gets the best of him, hits the Red Arrow, then counts his own pin.

Overall, an okay NXT with a very good closing angle.