Myst brings us her first soapbox apperance breaking down the new season of NXT know as the NXT:Redemption. Give her a warm welcome guys-Rich
Once upon a time I had great hope for WWE NXT. As a New Yorker I do not have easy access to FCW [William Regal V2.0 (with less actual talent or Regal’s je ne sais quoi) won the entire first season. I’ve gotten use WWE thinking mic over actual ring skill, plus Barrett got an extra slide with the whole “Nexus” angle. Season 2 quickly redeemed it’s self with Kaval (now Low Ki again, as it should be), being a stand out in-ring talent (even though he was booked poorly, and practically lost to everyone and their brother all season long). Low and behold the fans saw it too and he took the win. Nxt was still in my opinion, highly foolish, but still I had hope. Most wrestling fans wish on more stars than a cart load of Disney characters.
Fast forward to “Diva” NXT.
Now I gotta be honest…..I face palmed like NOBODIES business when fans on the now defunct WWE Fan Universe kept pushing for this on the boards. In the last few years the WWE Divas have gone from pretty Playboy-ready women who wrestled decent matches for 10-15 minutes, to pretty Playboy-ready women who cat fight for 2 minutes. And that’s when they have a match at ALL! WWE doesn’t respect the Divas in the slightest, not even the ones who have decent abilities. So color me unimpressed when this season started. Then I had to sit through AJ Lee forget everything she learned and was in the indies, Aksana’s abominable “Natasha” impression and accent (and “Goldust” marriage *shudder*), Naomi Knight get the shaft (THAT was the wrestler on that season in case anyone was interested—even while her “Pro” comes nowhere near her skill level), and read the drools of that season’s winner Kaitlyn’s obsessed fanboys on my Twitter (FYI: She still can’t wrestle, so lacking a penis I don’t get her appeal, cause a few guys I know say they wouldn’t buy her in a Playboy either). Aside from that the “NXT” competitions were EMBRASSING! In keeping in with the season 2 foolishness there were kissing contests and dancing contests (what does any of this have to do with wrestling?! Someone explain it to me!) . And apparently SyFy, agreed cause Diva NXT wasted bandwidth online and was not aired on TV (and if you’ve seen SyFy’s idea of programming, they ain’t exactly the most “picky” of cable networks, so what does that say about NXT?)
I completely skipped NXT 4…..and since I see the runner up more than the winner of that season I doubt I missed much. Now we’re in the “Redemption Season” (honestly …..“Redemption” how about an “Over Haul” season, were WWE wises up and just replaces all of NXT with FCW?) Right out that gate the NXT foolery begins. Lucky Cannon the most BABYFACED of babyfaces from NXT season 2 is running around in a pimp cape, playing a heel. It is not going well, he still can’t wrestle his way out a paper bag and I feel the same with him like I do when Miz hits his disastrously anti-climatic finisher, “WHO THE HELL BOOKED YOU TO DO THIS, AND TOLD YOU IT WOULD COME OFF AS BELIEAVBLE?!” (Tell me so I can pop in ‘em the mouth right quick, cause they sho nuff lied to you!) As for the rest of the rookies, Darren Young and Byron Saxton are the most stand out. Darren for his ring work and Byron for his mic work (which is reasonable because Byron has no wrestling background (WWE Mic over ability logic in effect yet again), but he was a long time commentator.
On to the Pros, I have already resigned myself that “Pro” translates to “Jobber” whom WWE still needs to justify the paychecks for (cause lord knows there is ONLY but so much time on “Superstars” for WWE to stick all the wasted talent on their roster). So we have Tyson Kidd, JTG, and Vladamir Kozlov (I call them the casualties of the former WWE Tag Team Division), Yoshi Tatsu (with a anime character gimmick so stupid it borders on insulting), Chavo (I know Eddie rolls over in his grave daily here), Hornswoggle (I have no words, well I do but I wanna keep my column). Now pause……let it marinate—right would YOU take this seriously? OK then.
The matches were just as I expected, Darren moved very well in the ring during the first match. Sadly he still has a very generic persona (hopefully that will improve). In addition, he needs a better finishing move. Then Yoshi sets up his “Chase the Maryse Gimmick” (By the way Maryse is the only one in the correct place on the show, anything that keeps her away the ring flipping her hair and half wrestling I am WITH IT!) . Conner O’Brian has apparently switched gimmicks with Lucky The Pimp, cause he was doing the boo hoo sob story vignette. Vignette did not make me care, and anyone who gets outshined by “Alberto Del Rio”, is already loosing footing with me. Massive WrestleMania, movie, and merch plugs (aka the REAL reason WWE has shows like Nxts and Superstars). Bootcamp obstacle course of pointlessness, with Lucky Cannon awkwardly unleashed his Pimp swag on Maryse, and proclaimed he wouldn’t participate. Bryon did his flavorless vignette. The night closed out with the Pimp Cannon (back in his Muppet flavored robe), getting waxed by Titus, which to me defeated the point of Cannon BEING a heel in the first place. Ideally weak wrestler or not Lucky should have beat Titus dirty and make us try and believe this crap he’s shoveling. But Titus won it and neither one excited me in the slightest for either ability or charisma. Hornswoggle and Tyson and their crazy OUTSIDE the ring was more entertaining than what was IN the ring.
Gee can’t wait for the next episode…..Maybe ONE of these guys has bought a personality by then.
