NXT – March 29, 2011 – One Big Commercial

NXT
Date: March 29, 2011
Location: Allstate Arena, Chicago, Illinois
Commentators: William Regal, Todd Grisham

It’s week….four I think of this season and this was taped last night before Raw as everyone is heading to Atlanta to make sure they get there in time I guess.  I’d bet on a lot of highlights from last night and build for Mania which is probably the right idea for tonight as it’s not like this is cutting edge stuff on this show.  Let’s get to it.

Striker brings out the rookies as you would expect him to.  I’m typing and not looking at the browser as I write this and it occurs to me that the names of these guys tell us absolutely nothing about these characters.  None of them have descriptive names or even unique ones.  That’s been a problem with the NXT rookies recently.  Novak has gold tights on now.  Is that his method of trying to look different other than those off-white ones he usually wears?

Young has seven points and O’Neil has five which is all that is listed.  Tonight: arm wrestling.  Oh dear.  The fans are restless to say the least.  This is for four points.  The person that wins their first round match in the fastest time gets a bye to the finals.  Young vs. Saxton goes to Young in 23.7 seconds.  The fans are looking like they’re getting a reading of War and Peace at a Guns N Roses concert.

Cannon vs. O’Brian is delayed due to Cannon sanitizing Rat Boy.  Cannon tries to cheat and is disqualified and that counts as the new time of 11.2 seconds.  Novak vs. O’Neil now and O’Neil has lost the manly purple tights.  Novak tries to cheat again and that doesn’t count but it’s not a DQ.  He started early I guess.  O’Neil massacres him and gets the best time to send him to the finals.

O’Brien beats Young to get O’Neil in the finals.  And Titus wins with only a slight issue.  O’Neil has the most redemption points now.

Six man tag later so we’re getting one match here.

Rock vs. Cena video.  Can’t argue with them pushing this.

Package on Young who says he’s not taking a step back but rather a step forward.  I still would like an answer of how a guy that was in the main event of Summerslam is in a rookie competition.

Video on Taker vs. HHH that aired last night.

We recap the Divas/Snooki/Morrison/Ziggler thing.  Oh joy: more mainstream news people trying to sound like wrestling commentators when they have no idea what a wrestling commentator sounds like.

Some R&B singer is singing America the Beautiful.  She’s not Justin Bieber so I’m happy.

Raw ReBound is Rock vs. Cena last night which it should be.  That Attitude Adjustment is going to be on more highlight reels than I can count.  But remember people, according to 411, HHH/Taker/Shawn was a bigger moment.

Speaking of said moment, it’s reaired.  It was good but they had to fit five weeks of build into one night and it didn’t work.  Shawn should be interesting on Sunday though.  This takes up about fifteen minutes but it does set up a single match as well as just about anything else could in that amount of time, especially one without a ton of build aside from “I want to break the Streak.”  The one good thing here is that I can find out what Shawn said after he said I’m sorry.  Apparently it was (to HHH) you can’t win.

Titus O’Neil/Byron Saxton/Conor O’Brian vs. Darren Young/Jacob Novak/Lucky Cannon

No entrances for anyone as I have a feeling this is going to be quick.  Cannon vs. O’Brian to start us off with O’Brian working on the arm.  Off to O’Neil as the crowd does not care at all here.  It’s hard to kill off a Chicago crowd but they’ve managed to do it.  Young comes in and gets nowhere other than into the other corner to be beaten down by Saxton.

Young tries to take over and gets kicked in the face.  Elbow puts Saxton down and it’s off to Novak.  Cannon comes in and does his DDT on the leg of Saxton and stretches him a bit.  Saxton fights back so it’s off to Young to beat him down even more.  Novak puts a chinlock on him after a brief melee and that lasts only a few seconds.  Ice cold tag to O’Neil and after he beats on them a bit, a Low Down/spinebuster ends this.  Match ran about six or seven minutes but I forgot to check the time at the end.

Rating: D. They’re trying to make O’Neil the big star this season and it’s kind of working I guess but the fans aren’t caring at all.  The problem is that this is spending 3-4 months to build up to the next season of NXT.  More or less this is a preview of it, making the whole thing six to eight months overall.  Wow this was supposed to be about the six man wasn’t it?  The match was dull with far too many chinlocks and standing around.

Overall Rating: D. What do you really want me to say here?  This was a 40 minute highlight show with arm wrestling and a six man tag.  Obviously I can’t grade it like a regular show but it was more or less 45 minutes to build Mania free so how much can you complain there?  More or less not even an NXT show but it’s not like we’re missing much.  Just a Mania commercial as expected.

Results

Titus O’Neil won the Arm Wrestling Contest

Conor O’Brian/Titus O’Neil/Byron Saxton b. Lucky Cannon/Darren Young/Jacob Novak – O’Neil pinned Novak after a sitout powerbomb

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