NXT – December 7, 2011 – Bateman’s Face Turn?
NXT
Date: December 7, 2011
Location: Jacksonville Memorial Coliseum, Jacksonville, Florida
Commentators: Matt Striker, Josh Matthews
Into December we go with more NXT nonsense. After last week’s shocking, yes SHOCKING I say, ending with Maxine leaving with Johnny Curtis, I think we have a theme for the week. Hopefully we get more Usos and less Bateman this time as I can only take so much of that curly haired lunkhead. Let’s get to it.
The Usos open us up with the Siva Tao. That would be so awesome at a high school football game. They’re here for a match but first do the “We say Us, you say O” deal with the audience and again it gets a solid response. However before we get to the popular tag team that puts on good matches, here’s Bateman to talk about Maxine. The Usos say Tamina lied last week and Bateman runs off.
Usos vs. Tyler Reks/Curt Hawkins
Hawkins vs. Jimmy to start us off and we’re told that Striker and Hawkins are from the same neighborhood. Off to Reks and he has about as much success as Hawkins. We’re told that the Usos both played college football at the University of Hawaii. Stereo clotheslines put the non-relatives on the floor. Reks takes over on I think Jey and knocks him to the floor as we take a break.
Back with Hawkins grabbing a chinlock. Jey fights off as Josh makes fun of Matt’s commentary. A spinning forearm takes down Curt and it’s off to Jimmy. The momentum shifts (or the pendulum has swung for you Monsoon enthusiasts) and Jimmy takes over on Reks. The Umaga corner shot gets two. Reks hits a clothesline and puts on a Torture Rack, but Jimmy comes out with a bulldog for two. The Usos beat down both guys with kicks and a top rope splash pins Reks at 8:35.
Rating: B-. I liked this and if it had a few more minutes it could have been something really good. The Usos are just so far and away better than anyone else in the tag ranks right now and they’re better than most of them on the main shows too. I have no idea why they’re stuck on NXT but that’s WWE for you: keep popular teams away because WWE hasn’t decided we should cheer for them yet.
Bateman is looking for Maxine and runs into Maxine’s mom. She flirts with him and Curtis comes up. Mama Maxine slaps Bateman and implies that he started it. She leaves and Curtis said he didn’t try anything with Maxine. He was with Bateman’s mom last week though. That makes Bateman yell and charge like an idiot but he gets stopped before the beatdown. Does ANYONE care about Derrick Bateman? Seriously?
Tyler Reks/Percy Watson vs. JTG/Darren Young
My goodness this looks boring. Watson vs. JTG to get us going as Striker makes jokes about Maxine’s mama, whose name is “first name” Portia Perez. Now they’re stealing SHIMMER names. Watson and JTG exchange some basic stuff and it’s off to Young, who hits a belly to back suplex on the apron. Back to Jimmy the Gimmick who grabs an odd neckbreaker for two.
JTG slaps on a seated abdominal stretch for awhile and then it’s a chinlock. What a variety. Watson fires off a dropkick to a jumping JTG and Titus finally gets into this after about five and a half minutes. He beats up both guys and hits a shoulderbreaker for two on Young. Tamina gets on the apron as a distraction and Young gets a rollup pin at 6:40. That ending came out of nowhere and was pretty bad.
Rating: D+. Total polar opposite of the opening match with there being nothing interesting here at all. Titus is being wasted in this tag team. They could easily just put him into a Goldberg style character but instead we have to have Darren Young out there to bore everyone out of their minds. I do not get this show at all.
Titus is upset about the loss and talks about the show running for 39 weeks. He said Young doesn’t care about the people and gets booed for it. Titus is booed for it I mean. He issues a challenge for next week against Young, saying it’s about being a man, not Redemption. Here’s the problem: as it stands, there’s nothing on the line about this match/fight. If one of them wins so what? If the other one of them wins so what? That’s the problem with this show.
Video on the WWE Network. I need to look into getting that.
Derrick Bateman vs. Johnny Curtis
We have about 9 minutes for this show. We could be in trouble here people. There’s no Maxine in sight. Bateman is all mad so he gets clotheslined down quickly. Bateman hammers him down in the corner and might be bleeding from the nose a bit. They go to the floor and Bateman misses a dropkick off the apron. He’s holding his arm and I think I heard someone say they were getting the doctor. They go to a break so maybe there’s something to that.
Back with Curtis working on the arm and we’re told that the medics were out checking on Bateman during the break. That’s probably due to the bloody nose though. Curtis works on the arm even more and shouts that he loves all the fans. Bateman fights back and allegedly it’s him showing fire. By fire, they mean a clothesline and a backslide. The fans are openly booing now. Thankfully they pick up on it and Bateman hits his awful falling bulldog for the pin at 7:13.
Rating: D-. Oh just no. I have no idea if this was supposed to be a face turn for Bateman or what, but it didn’t work at all here. The people just do not care at all about these two and their love triangle or whatever shape it is. This was an awful match because the wrestling was horrible and the angle sucked. Turning Bateman face would help him tremendously, but he’ll need more than that.
Maxine comes out post match and yells, asking how he could do that with her mother. The engagement is off. Now the face stuff makes more sense.
Overall Rating: C. This show started off pretty good but the love triangle thing just sucked the life out of it. Bateman turning face out of it is a good thing, but they couldn’t find anyone less dull than Johnny Curtis? That’s a running problem in WWE at the moment: heels suck. Other than on Smackdown where you have Barrett and Henry (who is rapidly losing steam), most of the heels are just dull. Oh and Ziggler is good. Other than that, there’s not much and it’s showing badly. Better show than usual, but nothing to write about.
Results
Usos b. Curt Hawkins/Tyler Reks – Top rope splash to Reks
JTG/Darren Young b. Percy Watson/Titus O’Neil – Rollup to O’Neil
Derrick Bateman b. Johnny Curtis – Falling Bulldog
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