NXT – August 2, 2011 – Matt Striker As A Wrestler?

NXT
Date: August 2, 2011
Location: Rupp Arena, Lexington, Kentucky
Commentators: William Regal, Todd Grisham

We’re in week twenty-whatever here and there’s no sign of this wrapping up anytime soon. They at least have a story going here with the heels teaming up to take out the force of O’Neil, which is a lot better than what we’ve sat through for the majority of the season so far. More of the same tonight I’d assume. Let’s get to it.

This is being written on Wednesday, after I watched the show live last night.

We open with a recap of the last few weeks with O’Neil getting double teamed after dominating for months on end.

Here’s Titus minus the leprechaun. He thinks the alliance between the heels is cute. Titus says he’s the most dominant rookie ever so he’s not worried about Bateman or his family. During this promo Bateman’s video started playing but you can’t see it on the broadcast. Bateman and Young come out and Bateman points out that he beat O’Neil last week, which Titus agrees to. Young says he’s dominated NXT but Titus is in the points lead because he’s pandered to the fans.

Striker says that it’s not a bad strategy because the fans are 50% of the vote. Young says he doesn’t care because he doesn’t need the fans or a pro. Bateman says he and Young agree that Titus needs to go. Titus suggests a tag match and the heels agree, if they can pick the partner. Titus says cool, so they pick Striker. He protests, saying he hasn’t been in the ring in four years. The pop for this was a lot louder than it appears to be on TV.

JTG vs. Vladimir Kozlov

Vladimir is “gangsta” here. To be fair he plays it pretty well and the fans laughed at this which is the idea. The tag is on the back of his jeans still. He does a decent JTG impression. Actually he doesn’t because Kozlov is kind of amusing and interesting like this which JTG never has been. They stare each other down and do the comedy bit where they mirror each other.

JTG jumps him as Grisham says this should have been at Wrestlemania. Thankfully he’s kidding because even he’s not that stupid. Kozlov catches him and hits a fallaway slam to put him outside. Back inside and JTG finally gets a boot up in the corner to break the Russian’s momentum. We take a break to advertise an old video game (by video game standards 4 months is old right?) and come back with Kozlov getting a kick to the ribs.

That doesn’t get him anywhere as JTG hits a decent middle rope dropkick for two. We get a lot of rest holds here and the fans always started clapping almost immediately for Vlad to get out of them. Impatient lot they are. Vlad with the grill on his teeth is kind of hilarious. JTG gets his facejam off the top (Mugshot) for two. That starts Kozlov’s comeback which results in a bunch of power moves. Powerslam sets up the Iron Curtain and we’re done at 7:42. I timed the match last night and it was 8:00 even so not much was cut out.

Rating: C-. Pretty boring match here but it wasn’t bad. The comedy aspect wasn’t bad but then it turned into just another match. The fans liked the comedy but then the match turned into JTG vs. Kozlov, which isn’t exactly a great match that will have the people on the edges of their seats you know?

Post match Kozlov takes Grisham’s phone and planks on JTG. Yeah it’s still not funny.

Raw ReBound. This didn’t air until between Superstars and NXT in the arena.

Tyson Kidd comes out and we get a clip of him beating up Yoshi last week. He talks about his heritage coming out of the Hart Dungeon. In his WWE, there’s no room for stupid shrines or Yoshi Tatsu. In his WWE, there’s only room for him.

Sheamus vs. Henry video. That line of “I’ll fight him” is great.

Derrick Bateman/Darren Young vs. Matt Striker/Titus O’Neil

Striker gets a pretty nice reaction. AJ, who looks about 12, comes out with Horny and they sit in on commentary. Titus and Bateman start us off. Horny starts a Bill Cosby impression for some reason. Or maybe that was AJ. Off to Striker after Titus dominates for a bit. The announcers point out that it’s kind of odd that Striker brings his boots with him when he hasn’t wrestled in four years but Regal says it’s normal. Ok then.

Striker does pretty well for himself and it’s back off to Titus. Horny is making his usual noises and Regal is chattering with him. Titus sends Bateman to the floor so Horny can bark. Thankfully that takes us to a break. Back with Striker holding a headlock on Young. Striker tries to speed things up but runs into an elbow in the corner.

Bateman throws on a chinlock as Horny is throwing M&Ms into AJ’s mouth. Regal says he got a Rosetta Stone course in Leprechaunese. I give up. Bateman pops O’Neil to break up a tag. Striker gets a chop in but a forearm takes him down for two. AJ doesn’t want to talk about her time on NXT. I can’t say I blame her. She has a good voice. Bateman goes up but crashes. Hot tag with a dive to Titus. Domination begins but the heels cheat to get a sunset flip. Striker breaks up the cheating and the Clash of the Titus ends Young at 11:06. That’s about right with my time.

Rating: C+. Not a horrible match here and Striker looked pretty good all things considered. The main issue he has is telegraphing moves as he does stuff that makes you ask “why would you do that?” Anyway for a guy out of the ring for four years, this was fine. Pretty fun little tag match and a nice moment I guess.

The faces celebrate and we get a decent line to end it. Grisham: “Give me a hug William.” Regal: “No.” The bluntness of it is great.

Overall Rating: C. I’ll go with ok for this one. The Striker thing was a nice way to tie this together, but the problem becomes that the voting and competition is almost forgotten about. They’re running in circles here and it’s not interesting anymore. At the end of the day there’s one problem: how many times can we see these guys fight? The answer seems to be A WHOLE FREAKING LOT.

Results

Vladimir Kozlov b. JTG – Iron Curtain

Titus O’Neil/Matt Striker b. Darren Young/Derrick Bateman – Clash of the Titus to Young

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