NXT Thread III

[iMoreland]

So tomorrow's NXT might be pretty good

• Adam Cole (c) vs Finn Bálor

• Shayna Baszler (c) vs Rhea Ripley

[Marcus]

So tomorrow's NXT might be pretty good

• Adam Cole (c) vs Finn Bálor

• Shayna Baszler (c) vs Rhea Ripley

That's decent I guess

[tugs]

Expecting run ins so yeah no title change

[Stanford]

Interesting to see Rhea get the strap and snap Shayna's reign. That was a short but effective build (for a first time NXT title winner) that featured a bunch of impressive main roster appearances. Really good booking.

[Ruzious]

So tomorrow's NXT might be pretty good

• Adam Cole (c) vs Finn Bálor

• Shayna Baszler (c) vs Rhea Ripley

That's decent I guess

I'd say so. Even with the distraction, that was the best Balor match I've seen in a long time, and Bazler vs Ripley blew the house down. They had a fun Pete Dunne match. They had a fun Io Shirai match. Santana Garrett is probably better than any woman on the AEW roster, and she's jobbing in NXT. Grimes vs Kushida and Punishment Martinez continues with his development over Killian Dain. I ended up watching maybe 5 minutes of AEW. NXT's just too good.

[Stanford]

Just finished watching the NXT women's title match.

I know I can be prone to hyperbole after a match. I know. However,

I think that was the perfect wrestling match. Elements I thought were perfect:

Pace: they met the crowd's expectations of momentum perfectly. Shayna's slower offense built at exactly the right pace to maximize a Rhea comeback. Rhea's faster-paced blocks of offense were cut off at exactly the right time to illicit disappointment from the crowd, but also hope. Work in the ring was interrupted with outside spots at exactly the right time to change scenery before moving on to the next chapter of the story.

Spots: there were two spots that elevated this match and they were both executed flawlessly.
- The first was the ref bump and phantom three count. As I mentioned in the first point, Shayna's slow offense built at a perfect pace. When Rhea finally turned things around, everyone in the crowd knew that the momentum was about to change in a big way. This is a wrestling trope that often doesn't work on the main roster, but killed here. When the ref got knocked out, the crowd was audibly devastated because they all felt momentum changing significantly in Rhea's favor and recognized that it would be cut off abruptly. Again, this is something we see all the time in wrestling but recognize it as a piece of the playbook and rarely react organically. It was terrific to see an ordinary ref bump work as intended.
- The second spot was, holy ****, that spot where Rhea grabbed the ref by the collar. That's some straight up Stone Cold type ****. This comes after Rhea told the ref to shut up earlier in the match. Her intensity was off the charts and looked every bit as motivated as she and the commentators claimed her to be. Everyone should watch this match for that spot alone. It was tremendous.

Commentary: both Nigel and Mauro were terrific. Mauro in particular I thought was at his absolute best. The way he sold the idea that cheating is a skill made Shayna seem like an unstoppable monster. He's right. To cheat and not get caught is a skill and Shayna is the best at it. And she's a former MMA fighter! How the hell do you beat that? Nigel was great too, pointing out subtleties that aided in the story on a micro level. In particular, Shayna had Rhea in a headlock of some kind and Rhea tucked her chin a little bit to help her get out of the hold. Nigel picked up on it immediately and called it. It made it feel like we were watching a real sport. Nigel and Mauro operate on two different levels that compliment each other perfectly. They were especially good in this match.

The crowd: I've covered the crowd in previous points. They were amazing. No goofy chants, just total emotional investment. Cheer the good guy, boo the bad guy. Hearing them so rabid for Rhea made me want to see her win even more.

The booking: Shayna beat two champions on a main roster ppv. Rhea beat Team Shayna in a War Games match she was at a disadvantage in. Both women were at the peak of their booking at the beginning of this match. It meant so much more that Shayna was the longest reigning champ and Rhea was fighting for her first title. There was a lot of luck and a lot of foresight involved that made last night the perfect time to have this title change.

MOTY, yall!

Edit: I forgot one. The production/camera work. It seemed like every time Shayna had a evil look on her face or showed some doubt, the production crew was there to give us a shot of it. The collection of camera shots delivered to the TV audience really helped the pace.

[Dominator83]

Yea this was a great episode. Anyone that thinks otherwise is just too hard to please.

Cameron Grimes is awesome. Its a shame they don't just call him Trevor Lee. I hate how WWE still is on these goofy name changes

[Marcus]

Yea this was a great episode. Anyone that thinks otherwise is just too hard to please.

Cameron Grimes is awesome. Its a shame they don't just call him Trevor Lee. I hate how WWE still is on these goofy name changes

they can call that kid whatever they want as long as they use him correctly. Dude has potential to be really really good.

[Dominator83]

Yea this was a great episode. Anyone that thinks otherwise is just too hard to please.

Cameron Grimes is awesome. Its a shame they don't just call him Trevor Lee. I hate how WWE still is on these goofy name changes

they can call that kid whatever they want as long as they use him correctly. Dude has potential to be really really good.

I agree! But more often than not, the name changes are a career killer. Like, i knew that DJZ had zero chance to get over in NXT as soon as i saw they changed his name to Joakim (spell?) Wilde. Total garbage

[WRau1]

NXT won the ratings this week, all across the board. AEW dropped. A lot of people expect AEW to settle at around 550k-600k.

[Spens1]

To be expected though, they had Cole vs Balor and Shayna vs Ripley. I think they would have had Cole vs Balor next week or after the new year tbh.

Sent from my CPH1877 using RealGM mobile app

[Ruzious]

The highlight of the Dusty tag-team tournament is watching the Bruiserweights. The other teams are fine, but we get to see something special with Dunn and Riddle being arguably the 2 most compelling young performers in the business.

Assuming at some point down the road the Bruiserweights will be facing The Undisputed Era - If that feud ever gets going, I could see it lasting for years - and I'd never get tired of it.

[The_Brecht]

The highlight of the Dusty tag-team tournament is watching the Bruiserweights. The other teams are fine, but we get to see something special with Dunn and Riddle being arguably the 2 most compelling young performers in the business.

Assuming at some point down the road the Bruiserweights will be facing The Undisputed Era - If that feud ever gets going, I could see it lasting for years - and I'd never get tired of it.

Isn't it Broserweights?

[Ruzious]

The highlight of the Dusty tag-team tournament is watching the Bruiserweights. The other teams are fine, but we get to see something special with Dunn and Riddle being arguably the 2 most compelling young performers in the business.

Assuming at some point down the road the Bruiserweights will be facing The Undisputed Era - If that feud ever gets going, I could see it lasting for years - and I'd never get tired of it.

Isn't it Broserweights?

Yes - it's a bit too cute for my taste.

[spykelee]

Tyler Bate vs Jordan Devlin was a very very good match. I love Bate, wish he was a bit bigger as it's hard to see a fit for him anywhere but UK and maybe 205

[improper]

Great seeing DIY back together. That match was awesome.

Main event struggled a bit early after Wolfe's injury sucked the life out of the arena, but they did a fantastic job of getting the crowd back into it and delivering a fantastic closing stretch.

The cruiserweight match was really good too. Just a fun sprint that never took the foot off the pedal.

Overall, another great NXT show.

[daoneandonly]

Yeah NXT show was really good, I mean I didnt think much of the Balor match or the woman's title match, but the other matches were fantastic

[improper]

Yeah NXT show was really good, I mean I didnt think much of the Balor match or the woman's title match, but the other matches were fantastic

The Balor match was like every Balor match...fine and inoffensive but nothing special. He's just a dude that tops out at four stars instead of five.

Agree on the women's match. That was really underwhelming and definitely the worst thing on the card (note: did not watch the pre-show match).

[Spens1]

So apparently Riddle has heat cause of his comments towards Brock and Goldberg and had a 'confrontation' (using that word loosely) with Lesnar with Lesnar saying he won't do an angle or match with him so may as well stop.

Honestly i really have no idea why Riddle signed with NXT nor why WWE signed Riddle if this is what they expected, Riddle has kinda always been like this and if they didn't want this, they should have let him just sign with New Japan, but honestly the signing guys for the sake of it and hoarding them should stop because its getting to a point where even NXT signings are flopping on NXT.

[Spens1]

Yeah NXT show was really good, I mean I didnt think much of the Balor match or the woman's title match, but the other matches were fantastic

The Balor match was like every Balor match...fine and inoffensive but nothing special. He's just a dude that tops out at four stars instead of five.

Agree on the women's match. That was really underwhelming and definitely the worst thing on the card (note: did not watch the pre-show match).

Balor has switched off, you can see him and even the good brothers are now there for the paycheck (which is fine cause Balor is earning 7 figures and Gallows and Anderson are earning 750k each).