WWE NXT Review

I don't like to bring my professional wrestling nerdery to this blog, as I don't want to "cross the streams" as they say in Ghostbusters. However on occasion there's a big story in wrestling that I feel the need to cover, and this is one of them. Tuesday nights on SyFy used to feature WWE: ECW (World Wrestling Entertainment: Extreme Championship Wrestling), but WWE have recently dropped the entire schematics of the show to remodel it as WWE: NXT ("Next Generation of wrestling"). NXT is supposed to be an average wrestling show mixed with Ultimate Fighter. Eight rookies make their debut on WWE television to be mentored by eight pros: accomplished Superstars on WWE Raw or WWE Smackdown. This seemed like an innovative concept so I thought I would write a review on how it was done.


Within the first minute I'm cringing. "Wild and Young" by American Bang is the worst theme song for a wrestling show imaginable. It's not loud, it's not aggressive, and the opening video doesn't even portray that I'm watching a show about youngsters chasing a dream, because their clearly gimmicked up, well-built, trained professional wrestlers.


The night starts off with the reason the internet tuned in - The Miz, duel Champion on RAW and hated by the majority of fans, confronting those who follow the indy wrestling world's sweetheart, his assigned rookie: Daniel Bryan. Miz orders Bryan to the ring to formally introduce himself and show some charisma. Bryan comes out to the ring and is completely devoid of charisma until The Miz gets in his face and verbally runs him down. Bryan isn't going to be a push-over and insults Miz for his past in reality TV as well as his current look. Miz slaps the taste out of Bryan's mouth, but Bryan gets back on the mic and tells Miz after he's gone that he's going to slap him back, and he'll slap him back even harder.

Then we go backstage to one of my favorite WWE personalities, former wrestler and former school teacher, Matt Striker interviewing Bryan about the incident... but with a clear bias. Firstly, it bothered me that Striker was being used as as a backstage interviewer because while he's a great off-screen color commentator for matches, he looks too much like a wrestler to interview other wrestlers. And as he interviews Daniel Bryan, he completely trashes him, looking past any and all accomplishments he's trying to build his reputation on, and telling him, not suggesting, but telling him he needs to respect The Miz or he's going to fail. Matt Striker, you are no Dana White. When The Miz tells his own rookie that he needs to show some respect or get out, it's one thing, but when the backstage interviewer isn't going to show a rookie any respect, why should the fans?


Michael Tarver's video package did make me interested in him, unlike Heath Slater's. Tarver's whole deal - son of the sparring partner of Mike Tyson, who's known to knock people out with a vicious punch. Heath Slater... likes to shake his hair and stick out his tongue. Both were pretty good wrestlers who put on a nice tag match with their respective mentoring pros, Carlito and Christian. The match demonstrated a new feature on WWE programming, an up-close camera angle... that isn't really that up-close. WWE demonstrates they can get camera shots within the confines of the ring but would rather get it from just outside of the ring to highlight the ropes. And white ropes at that! Bold move! Christian winning over Michael Tarver was the right decision, as it kept Carlito looking strong as a pro, not losing the match for his team, and made Christian look that much stronger a leader of his team for getting the win in general, while at the same time developed Tarver's character as too brash and needing of the mentoring.


Next match - David Otunga (arrogant, savvy punk, with possibly the greatest catchphrase "Come on man, google me!") supported by R-Truth (beloved rapper), squashed Darren Young (fun-loving partier) watched by CM Punk (my favorite wrestler, crowd-antagonizing Straight Edge cult leader who doesn't seem to like his rookie). A very short match that saw the heel, Otunga win with a sloppy Spinning/Standing Powerslam. Not much else to say about this.


Main event match - Chris Jericho vs. Daniel Bryan. Before you watch this match, something will be abundantly clear - you still don't know the entire roster. Pro: Matt Hardy, his rookie: Justin Gabriel, and pro: William Regal and his rookie: Skip Sheffield were bumped off of this episode, but promoted for the next. This was kind of a let-down as I thought it would be best to get the audience acquainted with everyone right away, but I guess saving some surprises and stories for the next episode so no one gets burnt out too quickly makes sense. What I don't think makes sense is putting the World Champion of Smackdown who just won a match of great importance - Elimination Chamber, defeating five other top Superstars in a match against a relative nobody to WWE audiences. Yes, many in the WWE audience knows who Daniel Bryan once was before WWE but this still seems like WWE is getting waaaaay ahead of itself on Bryan. Is it a ratings grabber? It may be, we'll have to wait for the numbers to come in, but it also drags Jericho down in my mind. Any amount of offense Bryan gets in is going to make him look better than the prestigious champion. From the build of the show, that very well may be Daniel Bryan's whole character: he is four-steps ahead of the rest of the rookies and ready to compete with the big dogs, but a lot of things work against him such as Striker and even Michael Cole, a typically bipartisan commentator who follows Striker's example that Daniel Bryan isn't half as important as he thinks he is, no matter what his fans think. I understand the concept of playing the villain and making rude and belittling comments to rile a crowd up, but this seemed needless. WWE hasn't had a villain commentator in some time, and Daniel Bryan seemed to be one of the only rookies attacked by Cole. It seemed like one step forward for Bryan's gimmick and two-steps back.

Before the match starts, Chris Jericho has his rookie: Wade Barrett introduce him. Barrett first introduces himself, since Jericho ignores the importance of that, and right away I have an interest in Barrett. He's cool, he's smooth, he's a giant, and he's European with a thick accent. Barrett and Jericho play off of each other very well and I expect some real greatness out of the pairing. The match actually kicks off and from a work-rate standpoint, it's a pretty darn decent match. Not an amazing match, but that's alright as both men end up looking good, especially since Jericho wins with a brutal Walls of Jericho with a knee in the back of Bryan's head. From an overall-perspective, I had an overwhelming "WTF?" state of mind. Mid-match, the camera cuts to Wade Barrett outside of the ring being asked by Matt Striker about what he's learning. It doesn't even matter what he says, because it doesn't make sense why the camera would need to cut away from the match that's been promoted most of the night! Sit Barrett down at the announce table with Michael Cole and Josh Matthews to get his voice in the mix or something, I don't need to be reminded that he's big, European and smooth! And like the interview with Daniel Bryan, Matt Striker makes Wade Barrett look twice as stupid as he is big by twisting the answer he gives to the question. After the match, The Miz enters the ring and pummels the crap out of Daniel Bryan to end the show.


Quote of the night that summarized the show came from Michael Cole "I'm not sure if our cameras caught that" in regards to the most incredible move - a Suicide Dive from Daniel Bryan that Chris Jericho caught and threw into the announce table. You're the friggen WWE! You have cameras up the wazoo! Are you intentionally hindering the production values because the 'rookies' aren't worth the big budgets? Why make your show look less than it really is, including the random needless camera shots? Essentially the entire focus of the show was on the dysfunctional relationship between The Miz and Daniel Bryan, but Daniel Bryan was having his legs cut out from under him at every turn. He didn't need a winning streak to get over, he didn't need to to get much offense in against Chris Jericho, his turmoil with The Miz was a great starter program to test the waters. There was no need to have the backstage interviewer and commentator pull the big-league card on him. I'm not sure if I want to tune into the next episode, as I can only give this one 2 *'s out of 5. Of all the episodes of the previous format - ECW that I've seen, this episode of NXT is on par with the worst episode of ECW. ECW had it right, and WWE tried to fix what wasn't broken.