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| Welcome once again to Adrian and Tyson Land, where no rematch could possibligh go wrong Photo Credit: WWE.com |
Different year, different show, but at the end of the different day it was the same thing: a hopeful Canadian asking -- really, beseeching -- for one more match.
And Adrian Neville, Fighting Champion (probably soon to be his given name ™WWE) gave it to him.
It was exactly as unshocking as his victory over Justin Gabriel, the ex-partner of TK, in the main event. This is what the Jumping Geordie does in 2014: he faces somebody from the main roster, a back and forth ensues, he uncorks the Red Arrow Art Carney Audrey Meadows Sheila McRae goodnight everybody. Tyson came out contriter than contrite, saying all the right things and mortgaging whatever dignity he hadn't forfeited last week due to his loss (reality) or the loss of his cool (the reality his lips were saying). With the #1 contender T-Breezie somehow allowed to pick his shot and spending the show debuting his music video that gave him 18 IMDB credits and slowclapping for himself after it played like he was aiming to win the election for the Grand Exalted Leader of North Doucherea, it opens the door to Kidd/Neville II and in all likelihood the final unfraying of the few threads left in Tyson's carrying of the white hat. But again, note Neville's confidence here and how his words last week continued to be backed up by his actions.
As well they should be when you haven't put an L on the board all year, the Champion has gone from underdog with the Crazy Ass Aerial Armageddon Finisher to favorite who's always able to win with the Crazy Ass Aerial Armageddon Finisher but can also match anybody, especially the style dopplegangers, with both mat work and out defying gravity where they can only stare up at the level he's on. His mic time was kept short as he quickly agreed to the rematch but his best work was done off-mic as Kidd continued to bow and scrape near literally in retreat at show's end. Off mic but on-camera, he was seen belt on shoulder mouthing clearly "One more shot. One more." It's great character work that makes him likeable without being a chump; the mirror inverse, appropriately enough, of Tyson faux good cheer and suddenly found hail-fellow-well-metness that was a 180 of his actions last week post-match and postgame show. It's the easiest way to get what he wants and he's deluded himself into thinking This Time Things Will Be Different, but....well, you know. Let us get stock in Nattie's Husband chants while the price is still accessible to the common folk.
It was those developments and only those developments that made the ladies take a backseat, as Full Sail built on over a year's worth of development from six individuals through the prism of a Bayley/Charlotte match. Good as the match was (hint: damn would be the modifier of choice) what followed when Charlotte made Ay Bay Bay Bow Down cleanly was super tremendous and not only Number One And The Best But Numbers Two And Three And In Solid Contention For The Best Status. Charlotte, having now leveled up so hard she doesn't get distracted by mid-match entrance music playing but immediately goes into smart counter > smart location attack > FINISH HER like some T-1000 with awesome DNA was able to ignore the fact that Summer Rae and hew new theme had returned to NXT to ostensibly reclaim her throne as NXT's Queen and the resident evil in sexy human form. (Thus, Sasha is Gretchen and Charlotte early Act III Cady, but I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.) Summer, after helping Sasha up and hugging her, then making sure Charlotte's post-match was all about her by handing the Champion her new title before hugging her and then jumping Bayley. Any scuttlebutt seen around the intertubes about babyface Flair again were quickly dashed as Bayley had no choice but to get RSVPed yes to the BFF's Stomp Party. But lest you think this ends badly, Lo A Wild Emma And Paige appeared and ran off the Full Sail Plastics. Joy, joy, joy. We may get our NXT all-female equivalent of the Shield/Evolution wars sooner rather than, and why shouldn't we? Sasha's on her Rick Ross because Summer spun sweet acid in her ears, and she was merely the first to turn her back on Bayley now under the BFF banner as Charlotte acted as her dad to Bayley's Stinger when they were in a tag match against RaeBanks Enterprises. Paige looks evil but has a heart made out of nearly as much gold as Bay's, and Emma in Full Sail is like Dr. J in the ABA: yeah, some NBA stuff happened, but for the real heads it's about the magic specifically NXT lets her weave in lieu of being Minkus with a barely explicable weakness for pink fabric when she could easily be a Cory or a Shawn. But yeah, Team Awesome v. the Biffles. Elimination style, if possible. Oh, we're ready for it, come on bring it.
One final note, specifically towards Jason Jordan and Tye Dillinger. Whether you guys are Team Scrubs or the non-union Mexican equivalent of the World's Greatest Tag Team, if you're going to be babyfaces, DO SO. Matching tights are merely step 2 in a five-mile walk, and against a couple of randos you didn't have enough Hey Cheer For Us Now stuff going on. It created a heat vacuum in the match where there didn't need to be one. Tandem offense, a two-man finisher, saying things about not just becoming more meat in the grinder that is the Ascension's title reign: all of these and any could only help. Most infuriatingly, they're on the doorstep of having something as a go-to as Dillinger hit a superkick to eliminate a possible save and Jordan finished with what can only be called the Original Slam (a sad reminder that Kurt Angle nearly died on the way back to his planet with a broken freakin' neck and as a result has spent the better part of the century in purgatory); chained as a 1-2 combo it'd be sure to provide the long-reigning Tag Champions with an exceedingly interesting evening.
Yet again with these three main elements in play, on a non-special show NXT still provided forward momentum and time for all three Championship divisions in under an hour with all the wrestling being perfectly cromulent or above. It may still be the early days of June, but the latest editions of Championship-level wrestling from Florida seems an absolute lock to retain their unofficial crown and go back-ro-back as the BCB's Program of the Year.
(That six-woman elimination match would lock it in though, to be fair.)
And Adrian Neville, Fighting Champion (probably soon to be his given name ™WWE) gave it to him.
It was exactly as unshocking as his victory over Justin Gabriel, the ex-partner of TK, in the main event. This is what the Jumping Geordie does in 2014: he faces somebody from the main roster, a back and forth ensues, he uncorks the Red Arrow Art Carney Audrey Meadows Sheila McRae goodnight everybody. Tyson came out contriter than contrite, saying all the right things and mortgaging whatever dignity he hadn't forfeited last week due to his loss (reality) or the loss of his cool (the reality his lips were saying). With the #1 contender T-Breezie somehow allowed to pick his shot and spending the show debuting his music video that gave him 18 IMDB credits and slowclapping for himself after it played like he was aiming to win the election for the Grand Exalted Leader of North Doucherea, it opens the door to Kidd/Neville II and in all likelihood the final unfraying of the few threads left in Tyson's carrying of the white hat. But again, note Neville's confidence here and how his words last week continued to be backed up by his actions.
As well they should be when you haven't put an L on the board all year, the Champion has gone from underdog with the Crazy Ass Aerial Armageddon Finisher to favorite who's always able to win with the Crazy Ass Aerial Armageddon Finisher but can also match anybody, especially the style dopplegangers, with both mat work and out defying gravity where they can only stare up at the level he's on. His mic time was kept short as he quickly agreed to the rematch but his best work was done off-mic as Kidd continued to bow and scrape near literally in retreat at show's end. Off mic but on-camera, he was seen belt on shoulder mouthing clearly "One more shot. One more." It's great character work that makes him likeable without being a chump; the mirror inverse, appropriately enough, of Tyson faux good cheer and suddenly found hail-fellow-well-metness that was a 180 of his actions last week post-match and postgame show. It's the easiest way to get what he wants and he's deluded himself into thinking This Time Things Will Be Different, but....well, you know. Let us get stock in Nattie's Husband chants while the price is still accessible to the common folk.
It was those developments and only those developments that made the ladies take a backseat, as Full Sail built on over a year's worth of development from six individuals through the prism of a Bayley/Charlotte match. Good as the match was (hint: damn would be the modifier of choice) what followed when Charlotte made Ay Bay Bay Bow Down cleanly was super tremendous and not only Number One And The Best But Numbers Two And Three And In Solid Contention For The Best Status. Charlotte, having now leveled up so hard she doesn't get distracted by mid-match entrance music playing but immediately goes into smart counter > smart location attack > FINISH HER like some T-1000 with awesome DNA was able to ignore the fact that Summer Rae and hew new theme had returned to NXT to ostensibly reclaim her throne as NXT's Queen and the resident evil in sexy human form. (Thus, Sasha is Gretchen and Charlotte early Act III Cady, but I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.) Summer, after helping Sasha up and hugging her, then making sure Charlotte's post-match was all about her by handing the Champion her new title before hugging her and then jumping Bayley. Any scuttlebutt seen around the intertubes about babyface Flair again were quickly dashed as Bayley had no choice but to get RSVPed yes to the BFF's Stomp Party. But lest you think this ends badly, Lo A Wild Emma And Paige appeared and ran off the Full Sail Plastics. Joy, joy, joy. We may get our NXT all-female equivalent of the Shield/Evolution wars sooner rather than, and why shouldn't we? Sasha's on her Rick Ross because Summer spun sweet acid in her ears, and she was merely the first to turn her back on Bayley now under the BFF banner as Charlotte acted as her dad to Bayley's Stinger when they were in a tag match against RaeBanks Enterprises. Paige looks evil but has a heart made out of nearly as much gold as Bay's, and Emma in Full Sail is like Dr. J in the ABA: yeah, some NBA stuff happened, but for the real heads it's about the magic specifically NXT lets her weave in lieu of being Minkus with a barely explicable weakness for pink fabric when she could easily be a Cory or a Shawn. But yeah, Team Awesome v. the Biffles. Elimination style, if possible. Oh, we're ready for it, come on bring it.
One final note, specifically towards Jason Jordan and Tye Dillinger. Whether you guys are Team Scrubs or the non-union Mexican equivalent of the World's Greatest Tag Team, if you're going to be babyfaces, DO SO. Matching tights are merely step 2 in a five-mile walk, and against a couple of randos you didn't have enough Hey Cheer For Us Now stuff going on. It created a heat vacuum in the match where there didn't need to be one. Tandem offense, a two-man finisher, saying things about not just becoming more meat in the grinder that is the Ascension's title reign: all of these and any could only help. Most infuriatingly, they're on the doorstep of having something as a go-to as Dillinger hit a superkick to eliminate a possible save and Jordan finished with what can only be called the Original Slam (a sad reminder that Kurt Angle nearly died on the way back to his planet with a broken freakin' neck and as a result has spent the better part of the century in purgatory); chained as a 1-2 combo it'd be sure to provide the long-reigning Tag Champions with an exceedingly interesting evening.
Yet again with these three main elements in play, on a non-special show NXT still provided forward momentum and time for all three Championship divisions in under an hour with all the wrestling being perfectly cromulent or above. It may still be the early days of June, but the latest editions of Championship-level wrestling from Florida seems an absolute lock to retain their unofficial crown and go back-ro-back as the BCB's Program of the Year.
(That six-woman elimination match would lock it in though, to be fair.)