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| NXT is my show of the year; this moment is another reason why Photo Credit: WWE.com |
With WWE trying to turn itself into Disney Northeast, you hear a lot of buzzwords being bandied about. But if you had to pick a phrase that they're living and dying by lately trying to elevate themselves even further up the pop culture ladder while TNA falls on its sword faster than usual and as ROH puts the incompetent in iPPV, it's these two words:
Delayed gratification.
Whether it's the actual Best in the World raging against RKOCorp™ in the big leagues, or the 8-man tag that concluded the show on this week's NXT, being a fan of the worldwide leader has sort of been like having Olivia Wilde handcuff you to the bedpost before slipping into the bathroom. At least this week's capstone didn't going to make us wait until New Orleans next spring.
If Tyler Breeze is still a heel by the time Black Friday is over I will punch through my straw boater hat. He was on the side of the black hats alongside Leo Kruger and the Ascension facing off against the motley crew of the tag champs Adrian Neville and Corey Graves, who had CJ Parker and Xavier Woods backing them up. Taking up the second half of the show, a vintage episode of tha muddaship broke out. How appropriate given this week in WWE, the Wrestling Minute that just went up, and the announcement Triple H might be making on the show next week, but back to the pay window with us.
You knew something was coming down the runway when they caught three guys in the crowd bobbing along to the Breeze theme and taking selfies. But what came was a near-seamless marriage of past principles updated for modern times, and to quote Klosterman this is what I want from everything, all the time, always.
The babyfaces executed more tags in the first four minutes of the match than I might've seen all year in all the non-Shield tags combined. It's rare enough to get an eight-man tag nowadays, let alone one where it's an extended working of the arm with everybody on a side getting a shot or two in twice with that much quickness. The quicker it kept happening and the more it kept coming the more the crowd got into it, to the point where there were "One more tag!" chants. I'm going to repeat that because it bears repeating: there were "One more tag!' chants. Don't interrupt me when that happens on RAW, since I'll be too busy married to Anna Kendrick to care about the pro graps as much. We Want Breeze chants were starting up before the mandatory faces-clear-the-heels-going-into-the commercial break, and then it was time for Tyler to take his place as the crowd mandated.
With Kruger having nullified Woods, Breeze tagged himself in to a huge pop after mostly hiding behind the ringpost and having done nothing except his super awesome entrance. He landed a punch and Woods hit him in the gut. With that, Breeze immediately tagged in Conor O'Brien.
And the NXTiverse broke out into a "That was awesome!" chant.
Why? Because it was. That was the moment Mike Dalton officially ceased to exist, where he went Full Ziggler with his character only to be welcomed by the knowing crowd for the genius move it was. The Ascension yelled at him while Kruger worked over Woods, only for him to tag himself back in. He landed some offense while the Breeze chant rocked Full Sail, and then Woods hit him again in the gut so he blind tagged O'Brien back in again, getting another "That was awesome!" chant. The match began to break down as the hour neared the top, leaving Conor O'Brien in a perfect position to be blind-tagged yet again by the only partner he had left standing. You can just guess who that was.
When he did it this time off of O'Brien's laying out of CJ Parker and failed to win it was the first thread to unravel the sweater of his own hubris. It was like a hilarious, quicker version of the Ozymandias episode of Breaking Bad that just aired -- you kept thinking things couldn't get worse for Tyler, and then they did. However, this was happening to an arrogant heel, so the crowd was with it (well, kind of). First, his archrival hit him in the face -- in the face, how dare! -- and that was quickly followed by his entire team ditching him. He being left by the Ascension made sense since he was using O'Brien to bail him out, but even Kruger? Jeez, man. Cold, cold, cold. And then he fell victim to literally a singature from everybody on the babyface side culminating in a Red Arrow from Neville to tie a bow on the match. Poor Tyler; if I had to fight four guys by myself, I'd lose too. That, I thought, was going to be the crowning moment of the show.
The faces were taking their curtain call, saw Breeze, and I was saddened that they were going to beat him up after the match for, I don't know, not being able to pick friends better or losing already or something reductive and horrible, but then they QUADRUPLE EVE TORRESED HIM without laying a finger on him, resulting in the image above that may end up being my Chrismkwanzakkuh card this year. Look at how great that picture is: CJ Parker looks like he dipped into the peyote that's surely eating his cerebral cortex and any semblance of talented wrestling -- Adrian Neville looking faux intimidating as if he doesn't actually go dancing at punk shows with Sami Zayn and dances with Emma -- and Xavier Woods' being stuck in 1995 so hilarious it actually makes Corey Graves smile for the first time since his parents were gunned down in Crime Alley. The reason why they get to have this awesome dessert topping of a moment lies before them in temporary ruins. The King of Vain (you're welcome, WWE) is the one guy who you can't see since he just got his ass kicked. The man all about the face, having been hit in his twice (by CJ Parker, of all flippin' people), almost seemingly hiding it out of shame.
The only shame of that being so awesome was that it overshadowed Aiden English's redebut as a triple threat: wrestler/singer/spotlight desirer. His singing was so well pitched he didn't get booed out of the building; some people assumed they should boo him because, but when he went for an encore after putting away some guy in about a minute and a half with the (possibly named) Take A Bow cobra clutch Side Effect the crowd's response was more rapturous than venomous. He said he was going to put the E back into the WWE, and even when the show "failed" at doing that the world's biggest El Generico fan would eventually escape the clutches of the chinlock to hit his ZDT and make the crowd happy. When a show is so well put together the Sami Zayn match is an afterthought, you know you're watching something that's great and beautiful to watch even when it's not perfect.
You could even call it...gorgeous.
Delayed gratification.
Whether it's the actual Best in the World raging against RKOCorp™ in the big leagues, or the 8-man tag that concluded the show on this week's NXT, being a fan of the worldwide leader has sort of been like having Olivia Wilde handcuff you to the bedpost before slipping into the bathroom. At least this week's capstone didn't going to make us wait until New Orleans next spring.
If Tyler Breeze is still a heel by the time Black Friday is over I will punch through my straw boater hat. He was on the side of the black hats alongside Leo Kruger and the Ascension facing off against the motley crew of the tag champs Adrian Neville and Corey Graves, who had CJ Parker and Xavier Woods backing them up. Taking up the second half of the show, a vintage episode of tha muddaship broke out. How appropriate given this week in WWE, the Wrestling Minute that just went up, and the announcement Triple H might be making on the show next week, but back to the pay window with us.
You knew something was coming down the runway when they caught three guys in the crowd bobbing along to the Breeze theme and taking selfies. But what came was a near-seamless marriage of past principles updated for modern times, and to quote Klosterman this is what I want from everything, all the time, always.
The babyfaces executed more tags in the first four minutes of the match than I might've seen all year in all the non-Shield tags combined. It's rare enough to get an eight-man tag nowadays, let alone one where it's an extended working of the arm with everybody on a side getting a shot or two in twice with that much quickness. The quicker it kept happening and the more it kept coming the more the crowd got into it, to the point where there were "One more tag!" chants. I'm going to repeat that because it bears repeating: there were "One more tag!' chants. Don't interrupt me when that happens on RAW, since I'll be too busy married to Anna Kendrick to care about the pro graps as much. We Want Breeze chants were starting up before the mandatory faces-clear-the-heels-going-into-the commercial break, and then it was time for Tyler to take his place as the crowd mandated.
With Kruger having nullified Woods, Breeze tagged himself in to a huge pop after mostly hiding behind the ringpost and having done nothing except his super awesome entrance. He landed a punch and Woods hit him in the gut. With that, Breeze immediately tagged in Conor O'Brien.
And the NXTiverse broke out into a "That was awesome!" chant.
Why? Because it was. That was the moment Mike Dalton officially ceased to exist, where he went Full Ziggler with his character only to be welcomed by the knowing crowd for the genius move it was. The Ascension yelled at him while Kruger worked over Woods, only for him to tag himself back in. He landed some offense while the Breeze chant rocked Full Sail, and then Woods hit him again in the gut so he blind tagged O'Brien back in again, getting another "That was awesome!" chant. The match began to break down as the hour neared the top, leaving Conor O'Brien in a perfect position to be blind-tagged yet again by the only partner he had left standing. You can just guess who that was.
When he did it this time off of O'Brien's laying out of CJ Parker and failed to win it was the first thread to unravel the sweater of his own hubris. It was like a hilarious, quicker version of the Ozymandias episode of Breaking Bad that just aired -- you kept thinking things couldn't get worse for Tyler, and then they did. However, this was happening to an arrogant heel, so the crowd was with it (well, kind of). First, his archrival hit him in the face -- in the face, how dare! -- and that was quickly followed by his entire team ditching him. He being left by the Ascension made sense since he was using O'Brien to bail him out, but even Kruger? Jeez, man. Cold, cold, cold. And then he fell victim to literally a singature from everybody on the babyface side culminating in a Red Arrow from Neville to tie a bow on the match. Poor Tyler; if I had to fight four guys by myself, I'd lose too. That, I thought, was going to be the crowning moment of the show.
The faces were taking their curtain call, saw Breeze, and I was saddened that they were going to beat him up after the match for, I don't know, not being able to pick friends better or losing already or something reductive and horrible, but then they QUADRUPLE EVE TORRESED HIM without laying a finger on him, resulting in the image above that may end up being my Chrismkwanzakkuh card this year. Look at how great that picture is: CJ Parker looks like he dipped into the peyote that's surely eating his cerebral cortex and any semblance of talented wrestling -- Adrian Neville looking faux intimidating as if he doesn't actually go dancing at punk shows with Sami Zayn and dances with Emma -- and Xavier Woods' being stuck in 1995 so hilarious it actually makes Corey Graves smile for the first time since his parents were gunned down in Crime Alley. The reason why they get to have this awesome dessert topping of a moment lies before them in temporary ruins. The King of Vain (you're welcome, WWE) is the one guy who you can't see since he just got his ass kicked. The man all about the face, having been hit in his twice (by CJ Parker, of all flippin' people), almost seemingly hiding it out of shame.
The only shame of that being so awesome was that it overshadowed Aiden English's redebut as a triple threat: wrestler/singer/spotlight desirer. His singing was so well pitched he didn't get booed out of the building; some people assumed they should boo him because, but when he went for an encore after putting away some guy in about a minute and a half with the (possibly named) Take A Bow cobra clutch Side Effect the crowd's response was more rapturous than venomous. He said he was going to put the E back into the WWE, and even when the show "failed" at doing that the world's biggest El Generico fan would eventually escape the clutches of the chinlock to hit his ZDT and make the crowd happy. When a show is so well put together the Sami Zayn match is an afterthought, you know you're watching something that's great and beautiful to watch even when it's not perfect.
You could even call it...gorgeous.