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| Special Guest Star Charles Robinson! Photo Credit: WWE.com |
Small wonder that around this time last week it was NXT's resident beacon of light who found herself in a situation that, for non-fans of chilling alternate universes, most easily brought to mind It's A Wonderful Life.
It was almost as if main level WWE chose this show to invite the hardcore NXT fan into their own private Cypress Creek constructed out of anything and everything that'd induce a season pass on the trollocoaster if we weren't talking about a nine or ten figure multinational corporation. After all, who needs dumb ol' Bill Regal in charge when you can have the voice of the WWE, Michael Cole? And why shouldn't Eva Marie get a title shot and overrule the arch-villain's wishes? After all, she's been undefeated for the past few months! No wonder she used Regal's office as her dressing room, or welcomed along brand new buddy Nia Jax to Team Red Rocket To The Moon Push, and if this was going to be a prestigious title match then you needed, nay demanded, the presence of someone like main roster senior zebra Charles Robinson on the case just in case.
And in the face of all these odds slapped one on top of the other in front of her like a short stack at a breakfast place, Bayley remained sanguine. After all, as she pointed out in the back pre-match to Tom Phillips, she was a *wrestler* who'd beaten Sasha Banks. After shrugging off some early Eva Marie offense almost designed to get the audience caught up with their reading, the Champ recalibrated everybody's watch to Bayley-To-Belly O'Clock, thus ending this particular red menance.
Except for Jax pulling the ref. Good thing WWE Corporate had the foresight to bring in another ref in Charles Robinson for the occasion! Lest you think he was entirely the racist puppet on some Jeff Dunham gone sellout strings, his counts were fair and even. There was even a point where he stepped in front of Bay when she was doing her corner shoulder series and set up for the big one, claiming Eva's foot was between the ropes. It was done so well that on the broadcast without the benefit of rolling back the replay that he might've been correct; as it does when it's at it's best, NXT allowed multiple interpretations of the same event, so those willing to give credit even in a begrudging manner to the Total Diva could do so and those who wanted her to go fight ISIS by herself on the front line... well, they were probably in the audience already, Eva even managed to Slice the Bread, but it didn't bring an end to the Hug Era.
Shortly thereafter, Bayley (accidentally?) sent Eva into Robinson, fended off Jax, and then rocked the ring with the avalanche Bayley-To-Belly -- just in time for the still injured original referee to come in and count the pinfall. You could almost hear Brian Pillman's ghost cackling and reiterating the two words he was best known for in his ECW debut promo were it not for the sound of Nia Jax laying out the Champion and dropping the Legdrop of Doom 2k15 a couple of times. That was how the show ended, not with Bayley in the arms of her family having realized doing a swanton off a bridge wasn't necessary, but with a land monster trying to bruise her trachea.
Still, though, the machinery at large seemed to be saying through a grin brought to you by Smilex. Come inside, all of you. Come inside and see. We could've ripped you all out of this heaven that *we constructed* and have the right to change our opinion about at any moment. We could've made Izzy cry and grown men's neck veins explode, but we chose not to.
YET.
But come, come inside and see for an hour just what we could do to you at the flick of a fingernail if we so desired to. And always--always--keep that in mind.
Enjoy the show.
It was a show that started differently thanks to Cole laying out the evening's agenda, but then quickly went into the same thing that's been happening seemingly week in and week out for weeks now. See Finn Bálor. See Finn threaten Samoa Joe. See Finn hold his own. See Finn suddenly get choked out. See Finn going to sleep, something that if it happens on the 16th will mean a new owner of the Big X.For the second time, Joe managed to turn an attack from behind into his signature Clutch, and third overall. He entirely blew off Bálor's entreaties to look at him in the face to realize the severity of what he'd done, signed the contract head down and left the same way before jumping the artist formerly known as Prince on the ramp and Coqinaing him so hard in the middle in the ring that there was drool coming out of the Champion's mouth afterwards. It's becoming more and more apparent that Bálor is Going To Have To Go To That Dark Place if he doesn't want to be a former Champion known for his Samoan-induced narcolepsy
(Speaking of former Champions, it only took a minute-long video package for some of us to find our inner Mojo Rawleys. But that's probably more future fodder than anything else at this point. Still, though!)
And speaking of former Champions, the Vaudevillians failed in their attempt to unseat Dawson and Dash and regain their crowns. It was a hard-hitting match that saw the new Champions switch up their usual point of balance attack by targeting arms rather than legs, and saw both teams reverse each other's signature finish before Aiden English fell victim to the new Champs' Co3DBREAKER two-man combo platter. Really, the only complaint about the match was that it was too short; but then again, we needed time to remind the Champions that just because you attack someone's leg doesn't mean they can't recover and seek revenge. Exit challengers. Enter challengers, full of piss and vinegar and not even bothering with their usual smacktalk before unleashing the clubberin'. The answer would be "staggering up the ramp", and that'd be the rejoinder to the question "How you doin'?" posed by the resurgent Big Cass and Enzo Amore. Hopefully, this doesn't mean the end of the Vaudies' run unless they get the Monday night demotion. But every division has had the most over like Rover personality take forever before finally getting to the top of the food chain (Hi, Sami Zayn! Hi, Bayley!), and it looks like for the Bridge and Tunnel squad that their time may be coming up to do in the tag division what the aforementioneds did in the men's and women's singles squads.
With Apollo Crews and Baron Corbin officially making their contretemps for Takeover: London and Emma jumping Asuka from behind and eventually Locking her down to probably set up something similar there, we were reminded of just how logically organic and evolving NXT was, is, and continues to be. But for a few moments, we gave in to our hysteria. We fed the trolls, and they served us up a puupuu platter right back. We gave in to the fear, and as a result we almost saw all red about everything when the alert level didn't even need to be raised.
But -- at least for now -- that threat's been squashed and quelled.
And every time a Total Diva gets suplexed out of her boots, a Champion grows her wings further.
It was almost as if main level WWE chose this show to invite the hardcore NXT fan into their own private Cypress Creek constructed out of anything and everything that'd induce a season pass on the trollocoaster if we weren't talking about a nine or ten figure multinational corporation. After all, who needs dumb ol' Bill Regal in charge when you can have the voice of the WWE, Michael Cole? And why shouldn't Eva Marie get a title shot and overrule the arch-villain's wishes? After all, she's been undefeated for the past few months! No wonder she used Regal's office as her dressing room, or welcomed along brand new buddy Nia Jax to Team Red Rocket To The Moon Push, and if this was going to be a prestigious title match then you needed, nay demanded, the presence of someone like main roster senior zebra Charles Robinson on the case just in case.
And in the face of all these odds slapped one on top of the other in front of her like a short stack at a breakfast place, Bayley remained sanguine. After all, as she pointed out in the back pre-match to Tom Phillips, she was a *wrestler* who'd beaten Sasha Banks. After shrugging off some early Eva Marie offense almost designed to get the audience caught up with their reading, the Champ recalibrated everybody's watch to Bayley-To-Belly O'Clock, thus ending this particular red menance.
Except for Jax pulling the ref. Good thing WWE Corporate had the foresight to bring in another ref in Charles Robinson for the occasion! Lest you think he was entirely the racist puppet on some Jeff Dunham gone sellout strings, his counts were fair and even. There was even a point where he stepped in front of Bay when she was doing her corner shoulder series and set up for the big one, claiming Eva's foot was between the ropes. It was done so well that on the broadcast without the benefit of rolling back the replay that he might've been correct; as it does when it's at it's best, NXT allowed multiple interpretations of the same event, so those willing to give credit even in a begrudging manner to the Total Diva could do so and those who wanted her to go fight ISIS by herself on the front line... well, they were probably in the audience already, Eva even managed to Slice the Bread, but it didn't bring an end to the Hug Era.
Shortly thereafter, Bayley (accidentally?) sent Eva into Robinson, fended off Jax, and then rocked the ring with the avalanche Bayley-To-Belly -- just in time for the still injured original referee to come in and count the pinfall. You could almost hear Brian Pillman's ghost cackling and reiterating the two words he was best known for in his ECW debut promo were it not for the sound of Nia Jax laying out the Champion and dropping the Legdrop of Doom 2k15 a couple of times. That was how the show ended, not with Bayley in the arms of her family having realized doing a swanton off a bridge wasn't necessary, but with a land monster trying to bruise her trachea.
Still, though, the machinery at large seemed to be saying through a grin brought to you by Smilex. Come inside, all of you. Come inside and see. We could've ripped you all out of this heaven that *we constructed* and have the right to change our opinion about at any moment. We could've made Izzy cry and grown men's neck veins explode, but we chose not to.
YET.
But come, come inside and see for an hour just what we could do to you at the flick of a fingernail if we so desired to. And always--always--keep that in mind.
Enjoy the show.
It was a show that started differently thanks to Cole laying out the evening's agenda, but then quickly went into the same thing that's been happening seemingly week in and week out for weeks now. See Finn Bálor. See Finn threaten Samoa Joe. See Finn hold his own. See Finn suddenly get choked out. See Finn going to sleep, something that if it happens on the 16th will mean a new owner of the Big X.For the second time, Joe managed to turn an attack from behind into his signature Clutch, and third overall. He entirely blew off Bálor's entreaties to look at him in the face to realize the severity of what he'd done, signed the contract head down and left the same way before jumping the artist formerly known as Prince on the ramp and Coqinaing him so hard in the middle in the ring that there was drool coming out of the Champion's mouth afterwards. It's becoming more and more apparent that Bálor is Going To Have To Go To That Dark Place if he doesn't want to be a former Champion known for his Samoan-induced narcolepsy
(Speaking of former Champions, it only took a minute-long video package for some of us to find our inner Mojo Rawleys. But that's probably more future fodder than anything else at this point. Still, though!)
And speaking of former Champions, the Vaudevillians failed in their attempt to unseat Dawson and Dash and regain their crowns. It was a hard-hitting match that saw the new Champions switch up their usual point of balance attack by targeting arms rather than legs, and saw both teams reverse each other's signature finish before Aiden English fell victim to the new Champs' Co3DBREAKER two-man combo platter. Really, the only complaint about the match was that it was too short; but then again, we needed time to remind the Champions that just because you attack someone's leg doesn't mean they can't recover and seek revenge. Exit challengers. Enter challengers, full of piss and vinegar and not even bothering with their usual smacktalk before unleashing the clubberin'. The answer would be "staggering up the ramp", and that'd be the rejoinder to the question "How you doin'?" posed by the resurgent Big Cass and Enzo Amore. Hopefully, this doesn't mean the end of the Vaudies' run unless they get the Monday night demotion. But every division has had the most over like Rover personality take forever before finally getting to the top of the food chain (Hi, Sami Zayn! Hi, Bayley!), and it looks like for the Bridge and Tunnel squad that their time may be coming up to do in the tag division what the aforementioneds did in the men's and women's singles squads.
With Apollo Crews and Baron Corbin officially making their contretemps for Takeover: London and Emma jumping Asuka from behind and eventually Locking her down to probably set up something similar there, we were reminded of just how logically organic and evolving NXT was, is, and continues to be. But for a few moments, we gave in to our hysteria. We fed the trolls, and they served us up a puupuu platter right back. We gave in to the fear, and as a result we almost saw all red about everything when the alert level didn't even need to be raised.
But -- at least for now -- that threat's been squashed and quelled.
And every time a Total Diva gets suplexed out of her boots, a Champion grows her wings further.