NXT 2.0 10/19/2021

NXT 2.0 10/19/2021

 

I saw a lot of last week's show but not really enough to review it. 

I liked the opening segment with Hayes, Williams, Gargano and Lumis. Williams is good on the mic and Hayes was decent here too. I really like the teaming of Gargano and Lumis. It's a total oddball couple that should lead to some fun segments.

Andre Chase vs Odyssey Jones

Totally fine short match here. Chase wrestled well for what his character is supposed to be and Jones was fine but he could have been better.

The Creed Brothers vs Imperium

Dirty finish aside, I really liked this. The Creed Brothers looked great throwing around their opponents and I probably enjoyed this more than any other Imperium match. Many nice suplexes here. Man do I want a Steiner Brothers vs Creed Brothers match so bad. I didn't like the Creed's losing here but at least there was a reason to it. 

 

I'm not a fan of Legado del Fantasma promos. I'm definitely not the target audience for it and naturally it doesn't do much for me.

Cora Jade vs Elektra Lopez

This was a quick upset and there's not too much more to say about it.

Io Shirai vs Jacy Jayne vs Persia Pirotta - Winner spins the Halloween Havoc Wheel

You know the deal with three ways. They do a couple of three person spots then it eventually becomes a 1v1. This is what happened here. Jayne had a bad suicide dive botch but Perisa hit a nice stiff boot and a nice stiff powerbomb on Io.

I liked the Solo Sikoa outdoor training video. Using the street light as a punching bad was cool.

The Jiro/Kushida segment wasn't bad.

Tony D'Angelo vs Ru Feng

Ru's got a cool look and it's kind of a shame he's going to do a cold debut job here. You know how I feel about those - pretty much should only be done if you have no plan whatsoever for someone. This was a lot shorter than Tony's debut squash and probably for the better. Ru looked fine here.

I really like Tony's quick interview after. Good stuff.

We then went to Duke's Poker Room with Duke Hudson. I like skits and always approve of those. He's coming into his character a little bit more here, but it's not a smash hit yet.

Jensen got taken out by Legado del Fantasma before his match and I liked Escobar playing the air guitar.

Legado del Fantasma vs Josh Briggs and Brooks Jensen

The finishing stretch was pretty good with Jensen probably having his best outing yet.

Winner gets to be the host of Halloween Havoc - LA Knight vs Grayson Waller

Hey LA, doesn't do the job. This was a short one and wasn't exactly the match Waller needed. Good to see LA get the win though. He should be on Halloween Havoc though and not hosting it.

Bron Breakker and Tomasso Ciampa vs The Grizzled Young Veterans

I'm not a fan of the feuding partners take down regular tag teams story and that's what was done here. People who don't like each other and never teamed together shouldn't be able to take down partners who do. I don't love the GYV's, but no team really deserves that. They did a nice follow through with the story of Bron promising to watch Ciampa's back and failing when Ciampa went for a tag and Bron wasn't there. Ciampa then mentioned it and slapped him before they got the win.

Overall thoughts: Some good and some bad here. I liked the skits/video segments especially Tony D's, I liked the Creed Brothers match and I thought the Jones/Chase match was fine. The show is doing what it is supposed to be doing, but I didn't like the feuding partners taking down the tag team story in the main and the women's three way wasn't too good.

AEW Dynamite 10/16/2021

AEW Dynamite 10/16/2021

Last week's show is here: https://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2021/10/aew-dynamite-2nd-anniversary-1062021.html

Dante Martin vs Malakai Black

This was fine.

Inner Circle promo

A lot of Lambert's Crew vs Inner Circle feud has been happening on Rampage. I haven't been watching Rampage and a lot of others haven't either and that hurt some of the effectiveness of this.

Lucha Bros vs Los Super Rana's

When I suggested that that the mystery men might be The Conquistadors, I was joking. AEW wasn't though. I think a lot of people were expecting actual luchadores here and they were probably disappointed by it. FTR ended up being the people under the masks. Why exactly? I don't know. They ended up winning here too. This was bad and didn't make much sense.

Lio Rush said he would be Dante Martin's new partner. Darius Martin should really be concerned about his future in AEW.

The Elite vs The Dark Order

Your partner is stuck in a boston crab and you kiss the guy putting it on him to mock him when your partner could theoretically submit and lose the match while you do this. That was stupid as was the Brandon Cutler bit after. There were two dudes in purple shirts in the front row who could have easily beat up everyone in this match.
Nightmare Family segment

Cody getting slapped always gets a pop from me. I liked this segment though there was a lack of Arn lighting things on fire this week.

MJF segment

Didn't think much of it, but I think a Sting vs MJF feud would be pretty good.
 

Kiera Hogan vs Penelope Ford

I felt like the commercial took up a lot of this one. Kiera's shotgun dropkick was nice.

Adam Page promo

I didn't have much of a problem with this except for the cowboy shit stuff. It's not a good phrase to try and build a promo around.

Bobby Fish vs Bryan Danielson

This was fine but I imagine it lost a bunch of viewers.

 

Overall thoughts: Not a huge line-up here as this was on a Saturday and no one was going to watch it. The FTR thing was really bad here and hurt the show.

MLW Fightland 10/7/2021

MLW Fightland 10/7/2021

The set-up looks really nice here and had they put a few more mats down over the floor it would have been even better. The ring was a little small though.

MLW World Middlweight Title - Myron Reed vs Tajiri vs Aramis vs Arez

As expected, this was basically just a spotfest. The luchadores weren't that great here and most of their stuff did not look smooth. The crowd liked to see Tajiri win and it was fun to see the green mist.

They had a halftime panel show where they talked about WWE possibly selling. I really hope the reason for this is that Vice forced it or something because this makes MLW look bad by talking about bigger promotions.

MLW World Title vs MLW National Openweight Title - Jacob Fatu vs Alexander Hammerstone

Hammerstone won here with a TKO. I wasn't a big fan of this one. They really didn't sell much at all and they didn't work much of a story. They just did cool moves and that's not my thing. Fatu losing is big news and I'm curious as to where he goes from here.

Overall thoughts: This was a different show than MLW usually puts on. The video quality and overall look was good, but a lot of the promos and hype that MLW usually does to make things more exciting was missing here. I didn't like talk show panel segment and really don't get the logic behind it.

AEW Dynamite 2nd Anniversary 10/6/2021

 AEW Dynamite 2nd Anniversary 10/6/2021

8 Man Tag

This was awkward without any entrances and running an injury angle in the first match is maybe a wrestling first. The Bucks and Kenny are better in multi-man matches because they can't do as much and they don't have to sell as much. The Luchasaurus powerbomb botch was bad. I'm still not a fan of doing long opening matches. People need time to warm up and get going, not to get everything in the first match.

CM Punk promo

This wasn't good and felt rushed.

Arn Anderson segment with Cody Rhodes

This was interesting. I popped for Cody getting slapped and was hoping he'd slap Brandi too. I think the gimmick of Arn lighting fires around random people's houses then slapping them could work.
 

Sammy Guevarra vs Bobby Fish

Sammy took a bunch of nasty bumps here. I've never really been a big Bobby Fish fan and am not particularly angry at him losing on his debut like so many other AEW wrestlers have. Maybe they could do something with Bobby and Adam Cole.

Paige Van Zant used to be good looking, but her gear tonight was not flattering at all.
 

Women's title announcement

AEW doesn't have enough good talent for their main women's title yet alone a secondary one.
 

Darby Allin vs Nick Comoroto

This happened on a Dark episode last year before they officially signed Nick. He lost, which I was against as I thought it looked silly. Nothing changed here and Nick lost even faster this time. And worse, most of the match was cut off by commercial.

 

Hikaru Shida vs Serena Deeb

I skipped a lot of this. I'm really curious if Shida's trophy was a work or not. I liked Deeb nailing her with it. Not a bad angle.

Lio Rush did a promo and wants to manage Dante Martin. I was a big fan of Lio's work in MLW. Lio is still wrestling so I don't know why he's in a managerial role. This should help out Dante though as he doesn't have any personality yet.
 

Ladder Match

 

I'm really over ladder matches. I just feel like everything that can be done has been done and they just don't interest me that much anymore. It has nothing to do with any promotion in particular. Adam Page was the mystery man and he and Pac took an awful bump off the ladder. Andrade took an awful bump onto the ladder. We've been told the plan is for Page to win the title and since they had no other way to get him there, they did it this way with the ladder match.

Overall thoughts: It wasn't a great show. It had some lowlights to it and I've seen better and worse.

WWE NXT 2.0 10/6/2021

WWE NXT 2.0 10/6/2021

Last week's show is here: https://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2021/09/wwe-nxt-20-9282021.html

I will just post some overall thoughts here.

 

The crowd clearly has some plants in there to help lead with the chants and stuff. It's working though and it makes sense to help get some newbies over.

The show was pretty good overall. If you are looking for the old NXT with the focus being on high rated matches each week, you won't enjoy this. But this is exactly what developmental needs to be. They've got a bunch of new people out there. They are giving them promo time, angles and gimmicks to work with and they are getting more comfortable with them by the week. It's only been a few weeks but people are already digging the Creed Brothers, Breakker and D'Angelo and it's hard not to call that a success.

 

Gacy's gimmick is starting to pick up some steam. It still needs some tuning but WWE clearly has some faith in him and this might just work. Tony D'Angelo was green but worked the crowd well and the crowd loved him. His match tonight was a perfect example of what you can get away with if the people like you. Bron Breakker did fine in his promo with Ciampa and I'm really excited to see if they have him beat Ciampa. He probably shouldn't as there's more legs to it if he chases him. Von Wagner is not working so far, but this is developmental and that's why he is there. He really would be aided by a mask or face paint as it's going to be tough for him due to his unusual face. Jensen is growing into his character and if he and Briggs can keep getting time, they should be okay.

I'm really enjoying this show and I think it's a major improvement over the old NXT. It has become my favorite show of the week.