NXT
Date: July 19, 2011
Location: Target Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Commentators: William Regal, Todd Grisham

We’re at episode 20 of this.  I said episode 20.  With no sign of this season ending, I really do wonder if they know where they’re going with this.  It’s not like we haven’t seen these people wrestle a dozen or so times already anyway.  The show is in desperate need of ending but since apparently FCW is so bad they can’t find five others to be in this, we’re stuck here some more.  Let’s get to it.

We’re going to get the ending to Raw from last night later on apparently.

Maryse and Striker are in the ring and there’s a punching bag with Cole’s face on it.  Here come the rookies.  We go over the Redemption points which are totally worthless because Bateman has zero and O’Neil is so far ahead of everyone it’s unreal.  This is the Dummy Demonstration which is why Cole’s face is on it.  This is worth five points and apparently it’s whoever can have the best mini-match with the dummy.  Are you serious?

Bateman makes fun of Titus and says he’s sorry to the dummy and loves it.  I’ve been watching wrestling my entire life which is over 20 years.  I have never, in my entire life, heard a crowd go as silent as they do when they get the idea of what this actually is.  Bateman does some basic stuff and does something resembling commentary as he does it.

Young refuses to do it (give this man the prize right now!) because he’s proven himself already.  Titus says Bateman should try those moves on him instead of the dummy.  Whoever Young has faced doesn’t matter and Titus throws the dummy at Young who is on the floor.  They actually ask the audience who won.  Gee, could it be the person that has dominated the whole thing and is clearly the most popular?  This very well may have been the biggest waste of time since the Gobbledygooker.

OH BOY!!!  Now I get to watch Vladimir Kozlov vs. JTG!  I’ve heard of Christmas in July but this is proof that the WWE is officially inside my head and knows everything I want to see!

JTG vs. Vladimir Kozlov

 

Before the match, JTG proves why he should never be handed a microphone and why I believe western civilization is in its decline, all in about 30 seconds.  That’s impressive.  We have to sit through an ad for WWE All-Stars first though.  I wait on the edge of my seat!  Remember that there’s some kind of a bet that Kozlov can’t be a gangster or something.  I heard CM Punk has some experience with that so maybe Koz should go find the champ.

JTG takes over to start as Regal bashes him to keep up the tradition.  Middle rope dropkick gets two.  He takes Koz down again and stares at Regal before covering.  Regal offers JTG lessons in how to finish opponents off.  As long as he doesn’t go to Terri Runnels for advice on finishing guys off he’ll be fine.  Chinlock goes on as this has been totally one sided.  Koz fires back with his strikes but a powerslam doesn’t work.  And never mind as that Iron Curtain or whatever it’s called ends this at 5:30.

Rating: D+. Fine from a wrestling perspective I guess but could they be padding these shows out any worse?  Terribly boring match though as they were out there for a short amount of time and yet still managed to not be able to interest anyone in the crowd.  At the end of the day they’re fighting over incredibly contrived angles and that’s not going to get them anywhere, especially with uninteresting matches.

Horny shows Maryse the candy he got last week and she says it’s not from her.  He kind of humps her leg and she pours the candy on his head.  Maryse leaves and he gets another package, this time an Ugly Doll.  And yet that’s what they’re really called.

Yoshi’s shrine has been destroyed.

You know that line in the secondary theme song of “If I can make it through this, I can make it through anything” is WAY too accurate for this show.

Darren Young vs. Titus O’Neil

 

This is the 7^th match that these two have had on this season alone, not counting triple threats or tags.  Darren grabs a headlock which gets him nowhere as Titus hits a powerslam and abdominal stretch.  He shouts out to the Minnesota crowd and no one cares.  Big clothesline gets something close to a reaction and let’s hit that stretch again.  Young tries to walk out and that doesn’t go well either.  Darren gets tossed into the corner and crashes to the floor in a decent bump.  They fight to the apron and Young manages a neckbreaker.  Bateman (called Young by Grisham) comes out with a picture of Cole as we take a break.

Back with Young holding a chinlock.  We talk about Daniel Bryan to fill some time as Titus fights back and hammers Young down in the corner resulting in a two count.  Young stops him and we talk about some MITB cash-ins.  Back to the chinlock as Horny plays cheerleader a bit.  We get a Gordon Solie reference which is just an insult to his memory.

O’Neil gets a powerslam for two.  Horny tries to come in for no apparent reason and Bateman trips O’Neil.  Great line from the commentators: Todd: “Did you see that???” Regal: “No.  I’m an old villain.  I did NOT see that.”  Doesn’t matter anyway because Titus hits the Clash of the Titus for the pin at 11:11.

Rating: D+. The match is boring because as I said earlier, this is the seventh time it’s happened.  It’s not like this is Booker vs. Benoit and they can have seven entertaining matches.  This pairing is played out, mainly because we’ve seen it so many times before and no one cares anymore.  Scratch that.  No one cares, period.  Not bad, but Bateman added nothing to it at all.

Time for the Vince/HHH segment from last night, in its entirety.  By that I mean including the Vince/Cena stuff.  Huge moment and I can totally understand it airing here.

Overall Rating: F. Let’s see.  In about 50 minutes we had a segment that involved performing moves on a dummy which was won by someone that didn’t actually do any moves on it, a match between two guys who don’t have Pros on the show anymore and literally the 7^th match between the same guys this season, followed by a segment long enough that I was able to take a shower during it.  What grade did you think I was going to give this?

Results

Titus O’Neil won the Dummy Demonstration Challenge

Vladimir Kozlov b. JTG – Iron Curtain

Titus O’Neil b. Darren Young – Clash of the Titus

NXT
Date: May 24, 2011
Location: Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena, Spokane, Washington
Commentators: Todd Grisham, William Regal

It’s week like 12 or so but we’re FINALLY down to five people.  Hopefully tonight we’ll get the announcement that we’re going to go down to four in the near future.  If nothing else it’s almost a guarantee that we’re going to get the Savage video again which is going to be more entertaining than anything else we’ve seen this entire season.  Anyway there isn’t much else to say so let’s get to it.

Titus vs. Darren tonight, AGAIN.  This time it’s No DQ though so it’s all ok right?

Here’s Saxton to blame Yoshi for various faults he has and saying he doesn’t need him anymore.  Saxton declares independence from Yoshi and says he’s now to be known as Big League Byron Saxton.  Isn’t that chewing gum?  Anyway Maryse comes out in a dress shorter than her legs.  She hosts this show, not him.  Maryse introduces the show and says that tonight it’s Yoshi/Saxton vs. Kidd/Cannon.  The second elimination is next week.  YES!!!

Tyson Kidd/Lucky Cannon vs. Yoshi Tatsu/Byron Saxton

 

Yoshi is far more fired up this week than last and starts vs. Cannon here.  Kidd comes in and the beatdown is on.  Kidd gets sent down as we take a break.  Back with Cannon hammering on Tatsu as apparently during the break Kidd injured Yoshi’s arm.  Time for the arm work which makes sense here.  Nice to see it making sense rather than just being thrown on in a vain attempt to look smart.

Cannon hammers away on the arm as there’s a nice little story here of Saxton not coming in, which I’d assume is going to be the final point of the match.  Armbar goes on by Cannon as the fans cheer for Yoshi.  Superplex attempt is blocked and Yoshi gets a top rope spinwheel kick to take both him and Lucky down.  Yoshi STILL won’t tag and it’s off to Kidd.  Big kick gets two for Yoshi and Byron tags himself in, only to get grabbed into a Sharpshooter by Kidd for the tap as Yoshi won’t help.  Match ran 8:55.

Rating: C+. Not as bad as you would think here as there were a few stories going on in there and yet they managed to hold it together and get a not bad match out of it.  The whole idea of Saxton running his mouth and having it come back to bite him is a nice touch but I’m not entirely sure I get Yoshi’s reasoning behind not tagging in, other than maybe to teach Byron a lesson.

Byron yells at Yoshi post match and gets his head kicked off.

Raw ReBound is about Big Show having his leg injured by Ricardo and Alberto.  That’s an interesting story and I’m curious as to where it goes.

We recap Young and Titus and Horny’s situation over the last few weeks, namely Horny being adult with a beard that can speak at times but later lost the ability to for no apparent reason and lives under the ring in a town or something and is treated like a kid-napped.  We see Young and Chavo beating on him and yeah, there it is.  This is about bullying.

Chavo says he’ll be watching tonight and that’s about it.

JTG vs. Conor O’Brian

 

Regal is all ticked off that JTG is still here which is kind of funny.  We take a break to shill That’s What I Am some more before O’Brian’s entrance.  We get a clip of the dance off from last week which Regal says reminds him of a night with Arn Anderson.  I honestly do not want to know if I want to hear that story or not.  JTG sends him to the floor after a brief run by O’Brian started us off.

That more or less ends my level of interest in the match as O’Brian’s lack of anything resembling interest or uniqueness or anything noteworthy at all.  JTG takes over and Regal says he might have to eat some of his words.  And of course O’Brian rolls JTG up just a few seconds later and we’re done at 3:54.

Rating: F. This is biased beyond belief but more or less Conor O’Brian is officially a failure no matter what he does out there.  Naturally with this win he’s going to stick around again so that Saxton can be sent home for rebelling or something stupid like that while the BULLY is allowed to stay too because while we hate bullies, we have no problem with tolerating them and paying them right?

JTG beats him down post match and Vlad makes the save.

Titus can’t find Horny again but he’s hiding in a travel bag.  Darren and Chavo are bullies don’t you know.

Ad for WWE All-Stars.  Isn’t that game like three months old?

Titus O’Neil vs. Darren Young

 

No DQ here because even NXT gets that the same match four or five times in a season is stupid.  Titus yells about being a bully the entire time to REALLY hammer the point home I guess.  Modified abdominal stretch goes on as Titus hammers away.  Gee a larger man picking on someone else because they don’t like something about him.  That couldn’t POSSIBLY be considered bullying right?

Young gets a shot in as we’ve stayed in the ring the entire time so far.  Horny is watching in the back as Titus sends Darren to the floor.  Titus sends him into the post and table but that’s it for the No DQ stuff because that stuff NEVER happens in a regular match right?  Chavo interferes when the referee isn’t looking because he couldn’t do it when he was looking right?  That takes us to a break.

Back with Young ramming Titus’ back into the ring and then his face into it as well.  It’s a matched set now I guess.  Back in the ring now as this needs to end rather quickly.  Titus makes his comeback and runs Darren over a few times, adding a shoulderbreaker for two.  Chavo comes in, finally realizing it’s No DQ.  Horny is watching in the back and freaks out when Chavo gets a chain.  He puts a ninja bandana on as Chavo uses the chain.  Here’s Samurai Swoggle (I hate you Todd Grisham) who Titus uses as a battering ram.  Clash of Titus sets up the Tadpole Splash for the pin at 8:22.

Rating: C-. The match was surprisingly decent but the anti-bullying stuff just killed it.  I mean they were YELLING it at each other the whole match.  I’ll spare you a long rant about why I cannot stand the anti-bullying movement and summarize it by saying I think the whole thing is one of the stupidest things that has been forced down our throats in a very long time.  Anyway, that was the point of this match, so you better pay attention because your very soul depends on you NEVER being mean to anyone the slightest bit different than you in your entire life.

No Savage video.  Are you kidding me?

Overall Rating: D+. This is probably the most wrestling there’s been on NXT in months.  That being said, we’ve seen these guys fight so many times over the same things that it was bound to lose any remaining interest it had a long time ago, and that’s the point they’ve hit here.  There is no reason for these people to fight anymore.  Back in the older seasons this was remedied by guest stars but that has fallen off the table because that would imply people knowing this exists anymore.  Not the worst show ever, but just completely uninteresting.

Results

Tyson Kidd/Lucky Cannon b. Byron Saxton/Yoshi Tatsu – Sharpshooter to Saxton

Conor O’Brian b. JTG – Small Package

Titus O’Neil b. Darren Young – Pin after a Tadpole Splash