Wednesday nights are the freaking best.
Recap:
- Enzo Amore & Colin Cassady break out their spiel and introduce Carmella, who continues to heel it up at every turn - including in earning a submission victory over the returning Emma.
- Takeover 4 gets a name, and it's not "and the Goblet of Fire". It is a slightly modified shout-out to the first live special that started it all last Spring...TakeOver: Rival is next Wednesday.
- Our first of two #1 contender semi-finals has Baron Corbin working a match for longer than Full Sail Live can count. Former NXT champ Adrian Neville and a blindside attack by Bull Dempsey are too much for the Lone Wolf, who takes his first pinfall defeat (in this gimmick, anyway).
Reactions:
- Seems pretty clear at this point that the angle with Carm is designed to get her over as a heel and give the fellas more time in training, rather than to split up the Realest Guys in a love triangle. It's working quite well, since the Princess of Staten Island is getting boos in the midst of the adoration for Enzo & Cass. The big test will be if they can hang in a tag feud by the time this slow burn story has run its course.
- Of the four people who danced in the opening segment, Amore was the most hypnotic.
- Tip for talented wrestlers aspiring to be more than jobbers: Don't have your arrest in the bosses' home state covered by TMZ.
- Emma's edge was nice, though, and is both a logical evolution of her main roster character and a return to the spunky goofball who almost beat Paige on this show a year ago.
- You look at Carmella and see where Sasha Banks was when she started. Decent overall workrate, a couple of crisp moves and character to the bejeezus-belt. Especially enjoyed her lounging on Emma's back while she had her over the second rope.
- Mildy upset that I didn't get any pull quotes in the commercial for the next week. I mean, you can't tell me Matt Fowler and IGN can top, "NXT makes me feel funny like when we used to climb the rope in gym class"!?!?
- Don't know why, but I was kind of surprised by how face vs. face Corbin vs. Neville was. Not that Baron should be a heel, but respectful clean breaks don't seem right for the character, either.
- So, we've had our first extended taster of the Lone Wolf and...it was alright. He's raw and a bunch of little things aren't there yet, but he's strong, agile and willing to bump. There's a ways to go, but I'd rather invest time in seeing if he can become something more than watch another Titus O'Neil match.
- Glad that we've gotten a loss out of the way for Baron, but a little disappointed it wasn't cleaner. I understand why they did the interference, but NXT usually avoids that kind of protected booking (and ironically protects guys better in losses than the main shows as a result).
- Bull has to win this no disqualification match they announced for next week, right? Not sure I understand the point of their program any more, since it did what it needed to for Corbin, but it's still going.
Recap:
- The champ recaps last week's contract signing and sets up next week's main event in a solid, minute long promo.
- Becky Lynch does more damage to Bayley's rehabbed knee, but some "help" from her Team B.A.E. partner sends her right into a Hugplex and a loss.
- The Boss & her Irish pal jaw and shove until Women's champ Charlotte hits the stage for a fourway staredown to build to the Rival title affair.
- Evil mastermind Kevin Owens reveals how he schemed to get his February11th match with Sami Zayn to be for the NXT championship, and promises to take the belt just two months since debuting in WWE.
Reactions:
- Curious to hear from folks without experience with Steenerico and the war that followed, because it's hard to tell, but I think they've managed to give us a CliffsNotes version of their characters and differences. Sami is passionate, earnest and wears his heart on his sleeve. KO is as entertaining as he is methodical and cold-blooded. Despite knowing this about him, Zayn lets himself be betrayed and manipulated. Then, they try to kill each other.
- I'M SO FREAKING PUMPED. There's another pull quote for your next commercial, NXT. You're welcome.
- The Hugster still seems a little off due to the bum knee, and Lynch is missing a little something to really connect with the crowd - even as a heel taunting Bayley. But this was a solid match, and moved the pieces along for next week.
- Will have more to say about commentary in a minute, but before I go into that rage spiral, I need to take a second to thank Corey Graves for making me laugh out loud with his critique of BL. Head banging at inopportune times is bad, but there's no excuse for blatantly misusing the devil horns.
- Guess it was the #LikeAGirl video, but the cameras were finding and I was tuned into how female audience members react to Bayley. Even saw the little girl in the homemade pink Bayley shirt. For all of their sakes -and especially her little superfan - I really hope the Women's title starts living the Hug Life at Takeover.
Recap:
- Someone with an IT background and a love of blackbirds messes with the graphic for the main event.
- Prince Pretty is practicing some gorgeous positive selfie talk when he's rudely interrupted by Devin Taylor.
- Hideo Itami and Finn Bálor set friendship aside and bloody each other up for the right to become #1 contender to the NXT championship. After being blasted head first into the turnbuckle by a drop kick, Itami gets double foot stomped and his recent tag partner moves on to the tournament finals.
- Hand shakes all around, between Hideo and Finn, and next week's finalists, Bálor and Neville.
- They've already got a documentary-quality trailer for Zayn vs. Owens, y'all.
Reactions:
- Everything about Tyler Breeze's performances makes me laugh. That they give him these "I'm scouting the tournament" spots every week tells me that they know he's special even when they have nothing for him. They need to freaking find something for him.
- Let's just get this out of the way. Alex Riley should never be at an announce desk again. Give him a mic backstage. Let him work the pre-show booth. My personal preference would be for Adrian Neville to kick the teeth out of his face, but whatevs. He's clearly more interested in pretending to be an interviewer on Real Sports with Bryant Gumble than he is in calling a pro wrestling match, so let him pretend to do that somewhere else. He legitimately lessened a special match chatting up his partners about human interest angles. It was horrible. Watch it again on mute. It's sooo much better.
- While I'm in grumpy old fan mode, kind of wish Full Sail had a Tokyo Dome mode they could switch to for big matches like this one. Their energy is fantastic, but they went into business with "This is Awesome" before Itami and Bálor had locked up and ran through "Better than Raw" and "We're not worthy" before a strike had been landed. Sometimes less is more, and the crowd can build to a crescendo just like the action in the ring.
- Okay, that said, my only complaint about this match was that it was too short. It could have easily been twice as long and I wouldn't have even been starting to get bored. The third act (after Itami's comeback - where they were running through counters) especially, could have been five minutes longer. The finish was brutal, so I guess the suddenness was the point, but I still wanted more.
- Been thinking a lot about Hideo's rough start, now that it's obviously behind us, and something Triple H talked about during his chat with Steve Austin on Monday keeps coming back to me. Hunter said that Bálor had a few deer in the headlights moments early on, working with directors and multiple cameras and all the things that come with being in WWE. That's a guy who speaks English and who was with a company who did weekly television and regular pay-per-views. Now imagine what KENTA's transition must have been like.
- That, and he had to work with The Ascension.
- These boys worked stiff. Not sure where it happened exactly, but Finn got his mouth busted with a strike somewhere in the middle of it. And if Hideo doesn't have a concussion from the Sling Blade or the buckle bomb drop kick, then I'm pretty sure he's Kryptonian.
- Neville vs. Bálor will be dope. I sure hope we can find something for Itami to do at Takeover...hey, look! It's Tyler!
- Just thought I was amped up for the Takeover: Rival main event. THAT VIDEO, YOU GUYS!
Shut A-Ry up and give me five more minutes of the last match, and this might have been perfect. It wasn't really all that far off.
Grade: A-
If there's anybody here who isn't excited for next Wednesday, you better clear on out the back.