NXT

[PEN15v2]

I haven't read the spoilers (and I have tickets for Takeover Toronto, so the weekly show is going to be all the more important not to spoil and stay excited organically).

mizfan, you aren't entirely wrong as there aren't deep personal feuds right now. But those aren't common anywhere in the wrestling I've been watching. Other than LU, all major English north american brands have the majority of their feuds be "I'm better than you." So the difference then becomes the details. While I'm not hooked on the in ring stuff as I used to be, Shayna Bayzler's character work is tremendous. Since dominant non nonsense heels are rare in WWE, she stands out already. But having the genuine MMA background and stable adds elements to it that scripting can't achieve. So I'm liking the Io vs Shayna angle right now. If this builds to Takeover, I'll be plenty happy. That said, I know Candice has been added to the mix, and Mia Yim defeated the overrated Bianca Belair, so who knows what the PPV goal is.

Then you have Undisputed Era. I don't get the big deal of the cool factor of UE, but a stable is always going to succeed when they have credibility. As arrogant heels, they are hard to beat in terms of being interesting, plus they can go in the ring. But, most of their angles were "we are better" and using the numbers game to win. Nothing wrong with that, as the greatest stables used it. But there isn't the fun factor of who the NWO or Aces and Eights might recruit into the group next, nor does it have the originality of the Horsemen, nor the different levels of experience (legend, full time pro and 2 rookies) that made Evolution interesting. So without those extra details, it isn't as exciting as it should be. That said, I was very interested in the Rod Strong tease of turning on them, so maybe that will be a factor coming up. It seems like that door was shut after the last Takeover, but who knows?

Velveteen Dream is superstar. He's a total package. The problem has been the feuds since the one vs Ricochet. They've all been Dream vs whoever, and it's their character bouncing off his superstar charisma. It's been entertaining, but without any real feud, it's not as exciting as it should be.

With Gargano, I think they had to switch gears with the Ciampa injury. Not making excuses, as they could have switched gears into something better, but it feels like they were going somewhere with it, and then just had him be the face again all of a sudden.


One of the downfalls of the change to less characters and more athletes on almost all rosters is that it creates roadblocks for feuds. Not impossible, but the tropes become more and more played out, and harder to be original and exciting. NXT has the opportunity with Velveteen Dream, but with a roster of athletes, it's harder to bounce anything off of him the same way. Think about Undertaker until he started the Ministry of Darkness. He had attraction matches with all sorts of opponents, but the ones that fell flat were often against athletes. I'm not saying they weren't good when he feuded with Bret Hart or Shawn Michaels, but the feuds turned into "I'm better than you" really quick. Compare that to when people were trying to steal the urn or the mindgames battles with Mankind, which benefited from tremendous creative freedom with those characters. Again, not saying they were good (who cared for Taker vs the Million $ Corporation?), but there were more opportunities creatively.

Also, the NXT women need more then one match at Takeover

No. The roster isn't deep enough and the talent isn't ready for that much exposure.

[LK3185]

Agree to disagree then. Plenty of women’s talent that don’t get to show it on a bigger stage cause of Trip’s
Love for his Indy darling. Matches that don’t mean anything but workrate get pushed over highlighting some women..where they could be as big as Sasha,Bayley,Becky and Charlotte given the chance

But I will be especially annoyed if they don’t get a second match at the Summerslam Takeover given the spoilers

[Oliver]

That touches on something I was just thinking regarding NXT... do people still think the booking/creative is good in NXT? I haven't watched the weekly show in ages so I'm not sure, but the only real story I can remember hearing about in a long time is Ciampa/Gargano, which admittedly seemed brilliant, especially early on. Wondering if there are other good stories that aren't getting mentioned or if it's become focused on just loading Takeover up with crowd popping matches.

OK, so - the truth is I'm not sure.

I think they're building a really excellent women's division story right now, with lots of moving parts around Shayna. It seems like Io Shirai is finally becoming IO SHIRAI and is going to start messing people up, Candice is finally starting to look more like an independent wrestler and less like Mrs Gargano, Mia Yim they're obviously very high on, Belair is still there and putting it together - I'm glad they cooled off on her - and could be a big player, and on top of that you've got Shayna who, personally, I think is heading towards the main roster by the Rumble. The stories are winding in together, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Shirai turn on LeRae before long to add another wrinkle. It might not be a deep emotional story, but they seem to be putting a lot of cogs into the machine.

The Gargano/Cole stuff I'm enjoying less in a storyline perspective, for a reason - I think they've got the order on these matches wrong. Now, that's not the fault of Gargano and Cole, obviously, and although I think their matches aren't as great as people are rating (and Meltzer has gone, I think, 5.5 and 5.25 stars on them, respectively, which is ridiculous in my opinion). If they'd done the Cole win on Mania weekend through some shenanigans or something, you could then have had Gargano have to prove himself - a story that they'd kind of done, for sure, but it would have been a short-term thing - through the rest of the UE to warn another shot. Would have been easy enough to have done it, as well (plus I really want an hour long Gargano vs UE gauntlet match, for some reason). But, obviously, Ciampa's injury hurt them on that front - I'm really not sure why they went 2/3 falls in their first match 'to have a definitive winner' when there wasn't really a question over definitive winners at that point, and the subsequent rematch rendered that point moot anyway.

The stuff outside of that is a bit by the numbers. I really enjoyed Dream vs Riddle but Dream vs Breeze didn't get the build it needed and was probably just a one shot thing, so Dream now looks like having a revolving door of challengers for each Takeover. The tags are in a real limbo, although I like the Profits and think Ford is a real star for the future. Everything else just feels like it's happening for the 'I'm better than you' reason others have stated.

BUT a condition on all of that is that NXT has been wrecked by the shake-up and the odd six call ups from last winter that happened. Losing Cross, Sane, Ricochet, Black, EC3, War Raiders, even Heavy Machinery...these are people/teams that either were a big deal or were being built to be a big deal, and then they're just gone. Post-shake-up is a period where NXT always struggles, and when you put them losing their champion, and major storyline, on top of that it's a bit of a rough time.

Come SummerSlam/Survivor Series NXT will have righted itself again, though, and these threads will coalesce. Happens every year.

[mizfan]

Really digging these NXT/creative responses, thanks for the insight y'all!

[PEN15v2]

I think NXT is a perfect example of how to book your show. Forget the match type that we discussed, as that's a separate issue. But from top to bottom of the card, I feel the roster is perfectly on display, and the shows flow really well. One issue with main roster booking is the need for the top guys to be on every week, if not on both shows every week. But Gargano and Cole aren't on NXT every week, yet we don't actively miss them. They might only get a recap, or a promo, but the entire show is perfectly assembled to not give too much time to the same people over and over.

Yet, at the same time, rarely are there people we don't see enough of. A common issue I read about elsewhere was how Candice Larae was just Mrs Gargano. I understood that, but I also knew the value of having her involved without her being in the ring. I'll always reference Roddy Piper with Cowboy Bob Orton as a great example of this, but they were always on TV together, and used in ways outside of the match more than the actual match. Whether it was Piper's Pit segments, or his MSG center of the ring promos/interviews and kicking Cyndi Lauper, Vince at the time knew the value of having these people on the screen without putting them in a match. It was genius as he was a main event wrestler who rarely wrestled. What amazing victories did he have to build up to a title shot vs Hogan? It's a non-issue, because the booking kept him on the screen in a way that mattered. Candice was getting a similar showcase. Yes, she was wrestling from time to time, but now that she is in a story without Johnny involved, she has instant credibility. NXT fans know who she is, and that she can go, and won't need to beat a Vanessa Bourne to get into the title picture. Just by helping Io, after being on TV for a year next to Johnny, she can be in the mix, despite not significant wins or feuds.

I also like how NXT uses the surroundings to tell interesting stories. Whether it's security footage, or hallway interactions, Performance Center exercise leading to attacks...etc. Even the small detail of NXT stars doing interviews or responding to media questions with people holding out their cell phones to record the answers like genuine modern reporting. Also, Regal isn't on screen too often, and isn't storyline involved. He just makes decisions, or takes time with the stars, and once the segment is over, the Regal part is over with. It'll be up to the performers to tell the rest.

This is where NXT excels the most.

[Team Farrell]

I think it's a twofold problem.

One, they have five hours per week to fill so you're naturally going to re-use a lot of guys. Two, they're still playing from that Attitude Era playbook where every segment second of every week needed to feature Austin because that's what people were tuning in to see. Even as recently as eight or nine years ago, that playbook still worked with Cena because he was the primary reason people were tuning in to the show at all.

[Oliver]

NXT surely benefits the most from just being an hour. The point Pen makes about Gargano/Cole not being on every show, or heavily featured on every show, is pretty much because they can't do that and still build the other stuff around them.

Chuck in the taping schedule - you have to show them irregularly otherwise they'd be working three matches in one night for the tapings - and you get the way NXT builds itself.

And I agree with Coach, the main roster is (still) in a bit of an Attitude Era hangover when it comes to showing their best stars. They've made stupid decisions, like the Wildcard rule (I counted 8 Raw superstars on Smackdown last night, for no other reason than to continue the storylines from Raw that we had already got and understood), but overall this thing with having Rollins or Corbin appear in every segment is just suffocating.

[Team Farrell]

Maaaaan I watched NXT last night. Eeesh.

Adam Cole has charisma and can cut a promo and seems natural and like he riffs a little bit. Dream is pretty good, but maybe had a bit of an off night. You can tell Breeze was on the main roster and had been coached to cut a promo becaus he seems completely natural in his delivery. Roddy and Riddle though? God help me. They were speaking the words and had the delivery of a 2K cutscene.

[mizfan]

I think Riddle may be in trouble if they try to put him in their generic promo box. I feel like there's more mileage in letting him be his weird laidback bro self but I guess we'll see.

[comfortablynumb]

Riddle talks like a burnout every time I've seen him (I didn't watch last night's episode yet). I don't know if he's capable of anything else. I kinda like it.

[mizfan]

Exactly, it really helped him get over in other (admittedly smaller) promotions. In a world of guys who like to lob insults or scream threats, he's this good-natured chill guy who can kill you with his bare hands and feet.

[Team Farrell]

He's going to wind up in the RVD mold I think, which is too bad.

I'll bet that if you just let him talk, he's probably pretty good. He seems like a charismatic dude.

But seeing him recite a script was like watching high school drama.

"Bro. I. beat. you. And I. also. beat. you. Blah. blah. blahblahblah. Brooooo."

[PEN15v2]

Very good NXT tonight. Great cage match that hid Bayzlers weaknesses well, created a new direction for Io and Candice, and elevated a bunch of others.

Keith Lee has the best finisher in WWE.

[Oliver]

Yeah, I thought that main event was really, really good.

I'm glad we're getting this from Io Shirai, too. I was concerned that they weren't going to have much for her after dealing with Shayna, but now we have Io vs Candice going on, while hopefully a new challenger to Shayna comes around. All good stuff.

[Oliver]

So, I'm going to double post here and break the rules a bit, but...

Yesterday I said the main event was really, really good. I rewatched it last night and have changed my opinion - I think it might be in contention for the best women's match in NXT. I'm a Shayna homer and love Io, so maybe that's a bit of bias creeping in, but I thought they told an excellent story built on their characters so far as they have been defined, with Shayna feeling at home in the cage and Io ready to fly and throw herself at her opponent as quickly as possible. The opening few bits were really atypical for a women's match in all of WWE, let alone NXT - I don't think even a Ronda match has started with a section that felt as 'MMA' as that - and it escalated nicely in terms of pace. And I think all the interference stuff worked really well and was well timed, without becoming to invasive.

The only thing I didn't really like/get was Candice spending an age lying around in the ring after throwing herself off the top. I didn't notice Shafir in the cage after that spot, not sure whether she got out or not or whether it was just that she was out of shot.

But yeah - I loved it.