BRM Reviews the 5/11/2021 NXT (bad)

[Big Red Machine]

AUSTIN THEORY (w/Johnny Gargano) vs. KARRION KROSS (w/Scarlett)- 2/10
Theory is all scared off Kross now, because having Kross destroy him won’t be enough. We’ve got to have him act like a clown, too. Kross beat Theory up until Gargano caused a distraction, allowing Theory to get some offense in. Kross eventually just decided he was done selling and got hit some moves, and won by stoppage.
I hated this. You’ve already established Kross as a big, unstoppable monster. Instead of having him squash people are supposes to be on the rise (or killing all of his challengers like he did last week), how about you spend time building up the people you want us to think have a chance of taking him down?

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- snore
Finn Balor snuck into the ring behind Kross and told him that he wants his rematch and that he doesn’t “wait in lines.” Kross said he wants the match, too. This would have been fine if last week we hadn’t seen Balor come out and start a fight with Kross and get his ass kicked in a matter of moments, despite the fact that Kross was fighting two other guys at the same time.

MAJOR ISSUES WITH DETAILS HAPPEN THAT PISS BRM OFF- They showed us first KUSHIDA and then Raquel Gonzalez (w/Dakota Kai) arriving at the building, and Beth told us that earlier today, “Mr. Regal weighed in” on the title defenses both of them would be having. Then we cut to footage from earlier today… and before McKenzie Mitchell can finish asking question, Leon Ruff stormed in and interrupted. I’m going to deal with the stupidity of the Ruff/Regal interaction in its own section below, but the important part for now is that after Ruff left, REGAL NEVER SAID ANYTHING ABOUT THE TITLE MATCHES! In other words, they cut to a video package from earlier today without knowing what was in it? Shouldn’t this have come up when they were having their production rundown earlier in the day? Or did the producer just not watch the tape? And the cameraperson not bother to tell the director “sorry, boss, I didn’t get the footage you asked for because Leon Ruff interrupted? And neither McKenzie nor Regal said anything to anyone, either? WHAT THE F*CK?!

VERY STUPID WILLIAM REGAL & LEON RUFF SEGMENT- Very stupid. And also bad.
Ruff wants to wrestle tonight but Regal says he won’t let him, due to the beating he took last week. Leon says that he has been cleared by the medical staff. Regal says he knows this, but he still won’t let Leon compete. Well, why not?! It’s not like he’s sowing any signs of a nagging injury that he could wrestle with if need be but would risk being greatly aggravated.
They yell at each other, and Leon eventually gets angry and starts knocking things off Regal’s desk, and I find it pretty hard to blame him for doing so. Regal is being completely unreasonable here. If he wants to wrestle and he is medically cleared and there is a spot open on the show, why the hell wouldn’t you let him wrestle? And if the issue is that there aren’t any spots left on the show, then Regal should just say that.

TYLER BREEZE & FANDANGO vs. MSK- 4/10
Oh my G-d, now they’re doing spots where the f*cking referee is doing leapfrogs! STOP THIS GOOFY BULLSH*T!
Stuff happened. MSK won clean. We were told that Breezango were frustrated. They are apparently on a losing streak that I was unaware of.

We were told that the scheduled Alexander Wolfe vs. Killian Dain match is off because Wolfe is not medically cleared (he has the flu).

JOHNNY GARGANO STORMS INTO WILLIAM REGAL’S OFFICE- dumb
He’s upset about having to defend his title. Regal told him he had to defend his title. He reached for Regal’s brass knuckles but Regal warned him not to touch them… so Gargano snatched the pencil out of Regal’s hand and broke it. Remember when Johnny Gargano was a mature adult? Can we have those days back?

TAKEOVER: IN YOUR HOUSE 2021 WILL BE HOSTED BY TODD PETTENGILL- Because nostalgia. Well… know we know what Hunter has been spending his time doing instead of putting effort into the booking. Looking like some old nobody who everyone made fun of when he had the job, but now apparently we’re supposed to want to see him because nostalgia.

EVER-RISE ARE HANGING OUT IN THE CROWD BEHIND THE COMMENTARY DESK- Who could possibly care?

PETE DUNNE PROMO- decent
He thinks Karrion Kross is ducking him. He then makes an open challenge, but gets jumped from behind by Leon Ruff, making Leon look cowardly. My first thought was that perhaps Regal had posted security at the Gorilla Position to try to prevent Leon from getting involved tonight, but that excuse was cancelled out by the contrived excuse that NXT gave for why the following match was allowed to take place at all, which was that Regal “can’t prevent Leon Ruff from answering and open challenge.”

LEON RUFF vs. PETE DUNNE (w/Oney Lorcan)- 3.5/10
Dunne won a short match. The announcers pushed that this was why Regal didn’t want Ruff to wrestle, but he didn’t look any different than usual to me.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- whatever
Pete Dunne snapped Leon Ruff’s fingers. I’m sure they’ll push this in the Regal/Ruff story… which would be completely idiotic, as this injury clearly has nothing to do with any sort of previous injury.

SANTOS ESCOBAR PROMO- great
Finally! Something on this show that doesn’t suck!

FRANKY MONET’S “WORLD PREMIERE” WILL BE IN TWO WEEKS- I guess that means her first match?
I’ve asked it before and I’ll ask it again: Why sign her and then wait forever to book her in a match?
Also in two weeks is the Kross vs. Balor title match.

NXT WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH: Raquel Gonzalez(c) (w/Dakota Kai) vs. Mercedes Martinez- 7/10
The graphic listed one of Raquel’s “intangibles” as “powerhouse.” I’m pretty sure that’s a tangible thing.
This was a great hoss fight, but it went a disappointingly short amount of time for a big title match (only about twelve minutes).


ISAIAH “SWERVE SCOTT & FRIENDS SHOW UP LATE- Also, Scott pushed a cameraperson down for no reason.

JOHNNY GARGANO HAS ATTACKED BRONSON REED BACKSTAGE- fine

HIT ROW PROMO- bad
That’s Scott’s new group. Scott himself was great in his reframing of himself. Everyone else was not good. Ashantee Thee Adonis is the groups apparently obligatory hyperactive good. The large man from last week is named “Top Dollar.” He rapped poorly. There is also a female name “B-Fab” (“because I be fab). This culture is not my area of expertise, so I don’t feel comfortable saying this for sure, but to my uneducated ears, everyone other than Scott sounded like something that was written by people who are not themselves part of the culture they were writing, and so a lot of it didn’t feel authentic.

CAMERON GRIMES IS A LOUD CLOWN AT AN AUCTION FOR A HOUSE- Ted Dibiase shows up and outbids him. All of the other actors stood there, completely unmoving, while Grimes threw a temper tantrum. I ask again: where is this going?

ZOEY STARK VIDEO PACKAGE/PROMO- great
She wrestles Toni Storm again next week.

KYLE O’REILLY vs. ONEY LORCAN (w/Pete Dunne)- 6.75/10
They showed a clip of a confrontation between these two in the parking lot earlier today that set up this match. Kyle won clean.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
Dunne jumped Kyle after the match. Bobby Fish his big return by making the save. Kyle thanked Fish for saving him but let him know that he was a singles wrestler now. Fish told Kyle he understood and said that he had his own scores to settle. “I’ll see ya when I see ya.”

THE WAY VIDEO- goofy

BRONSON REED PROMO- very good
He is tired of The Way interfering, so he went to Regal and now next week’s North American Title match will be a cage match.

2 OUT OF 3 FALLS MATCH FOR THE NXT CRUISERWEIGHT TITLE: KUSHIDA(c) vs. Santos Escobar (w/Legado del Fantasma)- 7.75/10
Escobar immediately sent to the KUSHIDA outside and created a distraction for his cronies to attack. KUSHIDA was able to avoid them, and MSK came flying out of nowhere to brawl with them. Referees came out and ordered all four to the back, leaving the two combatants alone.
This was a really great match with KUSHIDA working the arm as you’d expect. As you also probably expected, KUSHIDA won. This match suffered from one of my big pet peeves in 2 out of 3 Falls matches, which was that the two falls happened so close together (in this case within fifty seconds of each other) that it made the stipulation feel irrelevant. It still works in the storyline (KUSHIDA has proved that his was wasn’t a fluke), but you could have done the same thing while still spacing the falls out.

This was a bad show from NXT, despite some very good wrestling in the second half. Part of this show felt like Triple H trying to NXT-ify some of the worst aspects of the main-roster booking, with some clowny AEW crap (The Way in particular) thrown in. Uch.


STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Beth Phoenix described Theory’s comment to Scarlett last week as “a well-intentioned complement gone horribly wrong.”
I can’t think of ANY situation- no matter what the intended subject of your inquiry is- where “are those real?” is a complement.