NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn

[Dunthreevy]

Spoiler:

this is still funny to me. black guy, red shirt, backwards hat. the look on dude's face is priceless.

You know he ran game on her after the show.

[Marcus]

Spoiler:

this is still funny to me. black guy, red shirt, backwards hat. the look on dude's face is priceless.

You know he ran game on her after the show.

and then he.....nevermind

I was gonna rhyme something here but maybe its for the best i didn't.

[skbucks1985]

I'd heard the pop Enzo and Cass got was insane and the people who said that were not lying. In terms of entrance pops that was on par with any main eventer's hometown pop. The match was solid.

Dickish comments aside, I respect Eva Marie's desire to get better. But from WWE's perspective I don't know why they don't just put her with someone as a valet. By WWE women's standards she's pretty old, she's the same age Trish Stratus was when she retired. It would seem like they should strike as soon as possible.

The 4-way women's match was a decent match with clearly a botched ending. I don't know how that match was supposed to end but I'm pretty sure that wasn't it. Emma and the announcers did a good job of covering for it but they were all pretty surprised and you could see Drake say "What happened" as he was raising Emma's arm. And the blame for it has to go on Becky. Unless someone actually kicks out the ref should always count to 3 regardless of whether that's the intended finish or not.

The person who's value has maybe gone up the most - other than the Bellas - in the divas show might be Brian Kendrick. It seems like he's performed a miracle - turning Eva Marie into an adequate rassler in record time. If he hadn't been so successful with her, I'd agree that WWE wasted their time and should have just gone the valet route. Now all the young divas will want... the Brian Kendrick experience.

That did look like a total botch by Becky. I imagine there will be a punishment for her - maybe she doesn't get an opportunity that she otherwise would have received?

I don't watch the divas show so I can't really say anything about it from that perspective. I remember watching Eva Marie have a match with Bayley many, many months ago it might've been a little over a year ago and I think this pre-dated her training with Kendrick. And I don't think the match she had with Carmella was appreciably better than that match. Granted, Bayley even then was significantly better than Carmella is so the overall ability in the ring was probably higher. But I just haven't seen the same sort of improvement from her that she's supposed to have.

Becky did get the winning pin the following night at Summerslam.

[Ruzious]

I didn't see the Bayley match, but if it was watchable, I think it's obvious why - Bayley's that good. Some people can wrestle a pencil. Before she got the Kendrick experience, Eva Marie didn't even know how to roll out of the ring or do an armbar. There's a reason she's already featured in several blooper videos. Now, she's 100% smoother, actually looks like she knows what she's doing, can put on a match over 5 minutes, and she's pretty good at that summersault up the ropes DDT finisher. I think they said he's had her for just 4 months. That qualifies as a miracle, imo.

[Dunthreevy]

I didn't see the Bayley match, but if it was watchable, I think it's obvious why - Bayley's that good. Some people can wrestle a pencil. Before she got the Kendrick experience, Eva Marie didn't even know how to roll out of the ring or do an armbar. There's a reason she's already featured in several blooper videos. Now, she's 100% smoother, actually looks like she knows what she's doing, can put on a match over 5 minutes, and she's pretty good at that summersault up the ropes DDT finisher. I think they said he's had her for just 4 months. That qualifies as a miracle, imo.

That's Kendrick's "sliced bread". Eva Marie would probably look even better if she was wrestling someone who could carry a match. Carmella can't carry a match. Seeing videos of her training with Kendrick she looks fluid and pretty smooth in her moves, and that's entirely a product of Kendrick being able to carry her. He knows exactly how he needs to take a move for it to look good, where to put himself for her to execute and look good, and just flat out how to move in the ring. Putting 2 ladies as green as Eva Marie and Carmella in a match in front of 15,000+ people was a mistake on the booker's part. Even with that match being destined to fail, they managed to look better than some other divas matches I've seen on RAW in the past.

[skbucks1985]

I didn't see the Bayley match, but if it was watchable, I think it's obvious why - Bayley's that good. Some people can wrestle a pencil. Before she got the Kendrick experience, Eva Marie didn't even know how to roll out of the ring or do an armbar. There's a reason she's already featured in several blooper videos. Now, she's 100% smoother, actually looks like she knows what she's doing, can put on a match over 5 minutes, and she's pretty good at that summersault up the ropes DDT finisher. I think they said he's had her for just 4 months. That qualifies as a miracle, imo.

That's Kendrick's "sliced bread". Eva Marie would probably look even better if she was wrestling someone who could carry a match. Carmella can't carry a match. Seeing videos of her training with Kendrick she looks fluid and pretty smooth in her moves, and that's entirely a product of Kendrick being able to carry her. He knows exactly how he needs to take a move for it to look good, where to put himself for her to execute and look good, and just flat out how to move in the ring. Putting 2 ladies as green as Eva Marie and Carmella in a match in front of 15,000+ people was a mistake on the booker's part. Even with that match being destined to fail, they managed to look better than some other divas matches I've seen on RAW in the past.

I didn't come away with that negative an impression of that match because I entered with the lowest possible expectations both because of who was in it and I'd heard how bad the match was in reading articles from people who were there. So the fact that there wasn't some blown spot made the match passable to me. But that match looked like it was happening at half-speed, nothing in the match from the moves to the way they were running the ropes seemed smooth. I come away from watching this match thinking these two people are 18-24 months away from being able to be an equal part of a solid 8-10 minute match. And if everyone has the patience for that, that's fine. But from WWE's perspective this would seem like one of those things where you'd utilize her ASAP.