NXT
Date: June 28, 2011
Location: US Airways Center, Phoenix, Arizona
Commentators: William Regal, Todd Grisham

It’s another elimination week to get us down to the final two which will hopefully end soon after that. The final three are Darren Young, Conor O’Brian and Titus O’Neil. It seems like the competition is Titus’ to lose here but you never know with this show. That being said, I’d probably bet on O’Brian to win it because we all want to see him for another four months down the road right? Let’s get to it.

Here’s Darren Young who now has no pro as Chavo has left. Young says that Chavo quit because he couldn’t handle the fact that his rookie was better. Young points out how he’s faced Cena and main evented Summerslam this year which is something Chavo has never done. True actually.

O’Brian comes out to say that after tonight, Young is done. He promises utter destruction.

Darren Young vs. Conor O’Brian

They fight over a tieup to start and head to the floor. Hot crowd tonight too. Back inside and Conor takes over with a clothesline. A shoulder by O’Brian gets two. Young hits a neckbreaker on the apron and both guys are down as we take a break. Back with O’Brian escaping a cravate but getting thrown down for two. Off to a neck crank by Young which doesn’t last long.

Kozlov isn’t here tonight either apparently as he’s in Australia with the Raw roster. Chinlock doesn’t work long and O’Brian hits a slingshot to send Young into the corner. Young hits the ropes and gets his head kicked off by a big boot. That looked good. Regal brings up the point that these guys know each other way too well. Young hits Three Amigos to the biggest heat he’s gotten since he had a big yellow N on his chest. A Frog Splash ends this a few seconds later at 8:45.

Rating: C+. Not bad here and that big kick was the biggest part of the whole thing. The lack of pros actually helped a lot here as it was just a competition rather than about the pros, which is the point of the show. O’Brian is still dull but if he can get even a single move going for him it’s an improvement.

Tatsu is at his shrine with his action figure again and Kidd comes up and breaks it. They have a match later but Yoshi jumps him and attacks him until he’s pulled off.

Tyson Kidd vs. Yoshi Tatsu

TYSON’S HAIR IS GONE! He cut that little thing off his head and it’s due to Bret pulling on it apparently. Yoshi is all ticked off and hammers away to start, sending Kidd to the floor. HARD chops in the corner and Kidd is in trouble. Kidd comes back, hitting what looked like a forearm off the middle rope. On the floor he hits a dropkick to send Yoshi into the steps as we take a break.

Back and we’re in a chinlock by Kidd. He works the arm and gets two off a hammerlock suplex. Big kick into the arm has Yoshi in agony. Fujiwara Armbar goes on which is becoming a very popular move anymore. Yoshi starts his comeback with his variety of kicks. Big kick gets a close two as the fans are into this again. They go up and Kidd is shoved off. He manages a dropkick to crotch Yoshi though and a top rope rana gets two. I would have bet on that being the ending. Rollup gets two for Yoshi. Another big kick finally ends Kidd at 9:20. Abrupt ending but rather good.

Rating: B. For NXT, this was AWESOME. They were allowed to go out there and beat the heck out of each other. Those kicks and 2 counts were great and I really didn’t know who was going to win there at the end. Sick high kick to put Kidd down at the end also made this a very good match and one of the best NXT matches I’ve seen in a long time.

JTG is getting ready and here’s Horny in a trashcan which he’s able to walk in somehow. O’Neil comes up to stop an attack because he’s only trying to steal the gold jewelry because he’s a leprechaun. They get in an argument over what it’s made of. I give up.

Titus O’Neil vs. JTG

Maryse is on commentary here for no reason other than “she feels like it”. O’Neil throws him around as Regal and Maryse argue a bit. Horny has a note for Maryse and it’s in English apparently. It’s an old school style of do you love me? Circle one. We hear about the required height to date Maryse as JTG takes over a bit. Maryse is taking pictures as O’Neil fights back. JTG is sent to the floor and almost runs into Horny. He gets on the apron and poses at JTG. Back in the ring the Clash of the Titus ends this at 3:20.

Rating: C. Just a quick match here as Titus continues to be so far and away better than everyone else in this season it’s unreal. Nothing of note here as JTG is still a jobber, no matter which way he’s leaning on the face/heel spectrum. Maryse was far more of the focus here than the match and I can’t say I blame them here.

Maryse rips up the letter post match.

Raw Rebound eats up some time. They only talk about the main event and the Punk promo though. That’s still awesome stuff, but it makes me think Cena wins clean at the PPV. Just parts of it here though instead of whole thing due to time. Most of the controversial stuff here is gone.

Grisham says that Punk has been suspended indefinitely and Vince might be on Raw.

Time for the elimination and thankfully O’Brian is gone. He asks Hunter (HHH I presume) for a chance to play the game.

But wait we’re not done yet because someone else is going to the finals. Derrick Bateman is back and Bryan is his pro again. What in the world? Why are they adding someone else NOW? Do they really want to extend this even further? I’m going to be at the show on August 2. There better be a new season by then.

Overall Rating: B. All things considered, this was the best episode of NXT in months. There were good matches and the crowd was red hot all night. O’Brian finally being gone is the right choice because you could make a case for Young or O’Neil winning the whole thing. Bateman being added is uh….puzzling. At least he was funny during his time here so it’s not too bad. Good show this week that flew by in a good way.

Results

Darren Young b. Conor O’Brian – Frog Splash

Yoshi Tatsu b. Tyson Kidd – High Kick

Titus O’Neil b. JTG – Clash of the Titus

Conor O’Brian was eliminated in 3^rd place.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of the WWE Championship from Amazon for just $4 at:

Now that Wrestlemania is actually over, people might actually read these again.

Superstars
Date: April 7, 2011
Location: Phillips Arena, Atlanta, Georgia, Time Warner Cable Arena, Charlotte, North Carolina
Commentators: Scott Stanford, Josh Matthews, Jack Korpela, Matt Striker

It’s the first show after Wrestlamania so I think you know what the main topic is going to be from the commentators. Rock cost Cena the title, meaning Miz is still WWE Champion. Not that any of them is going to appear here or anything of course. As usual this is going to be a low of lower card guys having longer matches than they would otherwise. Let’s get to it.

Drew McIntyre vs. JTG

JTG takes him into the corner to start so Drew SMACKS him in the jaw. They trade more right hands with JTG taking over for a bit. Drew drapes him ribs first over the top rope and things slow down a bit. Drew cranks things up with an armbar but JTG fights up and hits a big boot for no cover. A crucifix gets two and there’s a DDT for the same on McIntyre. Drew comes back with a big boot of his own and the Future Shock DDT gets the pin.

Rating: D+. JTG tried but at the end of the day, the guy just isn’t that good. Drew continues to bore everyone in sight which has a lot to do with why his pushed stopped cold. Well that and his wife Tiffany beating him up but you get the idea. Nothing to see here as it was just a quick match to open the show with probably the biggest name we’ll see here tonight in McIntyre.

Recap of the Hall of Fame induction ceremonies. Shawn was the headliner.

Yoshi Tatsu vs. Tyson Kidd

Kidd is a heel here and takes Tatsu down with a test of strength grip before cranking on the left arm a bit. Yoshi gets back up and flips out of Tyson’s grip before firing off some kicks to the torso and a few armdrags into an armbar. Back up and Tyson pounds away on Tatsu, only to be dropkicked out to the floor as we take a break. Back with Kidd holding a cravate but getting caught in a crucifix for two.

A hard kick to Tatsu’s face gets two for Tyson and it’s back to the cravate. Back up and Yoshi fires off a spinwheel kick but both guys are down. Yoshi hits some more hard kicks for two but as he goes up top for a big old kick, Kidd pops up and takes him down with a hurricanrana for two. Yoshi avoids a springboard dive and a high kick to Kidd’s head gets the pin.

Rating: C. I wasn’t a big fan of all the kicks from both guys but that’s what you get from smaller guys in modern WWE. The match wasn’t bad for Superstars but it would take awhile before Kidd hit his stride. Yoshi was a guy who used to show so much potential and then it just stopped dead.

We see Cena challenging Rock to a match at Wrestlemania 28, a year in advance. The match worked to put it mildly. For no apparent reason, the Corre ran out to interrupt the ending. This never went anywhere at all but we do get about three minutes of Rock and Cena beating up Slater.

Santino Marella vs. Ted DiBiase

They fight for control on the mat until Santino offers a handshake. DiBiase cranks on a hammerlock for a bit before punching Santino in the face and make it a brawl as we take a break. Back with DiBiase holding a chinlock followed by a dropkick. The following clothesline gets two and Marella’s sunset flip is broken up with a right hand to the head. Back to el chinlock followed by some pounding away in the corner, only to have Santino avoid a charge. Things speed up but Santino’s headbutt hits knees. Dream Street (DiBiase’s finisher) is broken up and the Cobra gets the pin for Santino.

Rating: D. Erg DiBiase was boring here. He did nothing but basic punches and chinlock which isn’t enough to hold my interest for a five minute match. The whole being the son of the Million Dollar Man didn’t do him any favors either. This was just a quick match for the sake of saying there was a main event on this show.

Overall Rating: D+. I remember why I don’t watch this show all that often. When it’s good it can be very good for a fan who doesn’t want most of the stories, but on the other hand there are times where this show is very boring, much like it was here. Nothing on here was any good and it’s difficult to remember what the matches even were already. It would get better though.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews and pick up my new book on the History of the WWE Championship from Amazon at:

Superstars
Date: August 23, 2012
Location: Save Mart Center, Fresno, California/Rabobank Arena, Bakersfield, California
Commentators: Scott Stanford, Matt Striker

This is another request and in something rather different, this is from less than a month ago. People ask me to do Superstars more often but you can only do so much of the same WWE stuff over and over again. Anyway this is seemingly a random episode of the show so maybe we’ll get some good action out of it which tends to be the case from this show. Let’s get to it.

For the sake of context, this is four days after Summerslam.

Damien Sandow vs. Yoshi Tatsu

Sandow does his usual schtick about before the match. Yoshi’s music is so catchy it’s unreal. Sandow takes over to start and drops a knee for two. Off to a chinlock but Yoshi quickly breaks it up and comes back with a chop. Sandow ties Yoshi up in the ring skirt and pounds away as Tatsu can’t get anything going here. The best he can get are a few rollups for two and some LOUD chops. A big kick puts Sandow down but the top rope spinwheel kick misses. The Russian legsweep sets up the windup elbow and the double arm neckbreaker for the pin.

Rating: C-. Extended squash here but that’s what something like Superstars is good for. They don’t need to run through a match in two minutes or so and it gives them some more ring time. The problem with that is almost no one gets extended ring time so when they’re asked to do it, they don’t know what they’re doing and the matches usually don’t work.

We get a LONG recap of Lesnar vs. HHH from Summerslam as well as the fallout on Raw.

Drew McIntyre vs. Alex Riley

Drew has a bad hand here and milks it a bit before Riley grabs the wrist. A dropkick puts Drew on the floor but Riley misses a dive. Off to an armbar from McIntyre followed by some stomps to the leg. This is going really slowly. Drew tries the FutureShock but Riley sends him into the corner. Drew heads up but gets rolled up off the top for the pin for Riley out of nowhere.

Rating: D. Drew’s offense is really dull as he just stomped a bit after getting control due to Riley missing a dive. Riley is one of those guys that can’t get on TV for some reason and while I’ve heard various reasons, most of them seem stupid when you have a guy that could do some good for a company with basically no midcard to speak of at times.

Video on the Asian tour.

Video from the end of Raw with Cena confronting Punk before Punk beat up Lawler.

Justin Gabriel vs. Cody Rhodes

This is a rematch from a few weeks ago where Cody won. There’s actually a story here: Justin showed up with a chick and Cody hit on her, setting up the first match. See how easy that is? Both guys feel each other out to start and it turns into a contest of showing each other up. Gabriel gets a rollup for two which Cody takes offense to. They trade some HARD slaps and Gabriel takes Cody down and into a freaky arm trap hold.

Cody gets sent to the floor but he moves before Justin can dive. Unfortunately he moves into position for another dive from Gabriel as we take a break. Back with Gabriel hitting what looked like a dropkick for two. Gabriel goes to the apron but gets his arm snapped across the top rope to give Cody control. He bends Gabriel’s arm over the apron before hitting a gordbuster for two. Cody cranks on the arm a bit more and gets two off an uppercut.

Back to more work on the arm, this time in the form of a hammerlock. Justin starts a quick comeback but misses a top rope Lionsault to give Cody control again. Off to a short arm scissors but Gabriel gets off his back to break the hold. A monkey flip puts Cody down as does a spinning kick to the face. Justin hits a kind of sitout powerbomb for two but a slam is countered into the Cross Rhodes for the pin for Cody out of nowhere. Nice counter.

Rating: C+. Pretty decent match here with a sweet counter to end things. Gabriel is good in this kind of a role: the guy who isn’t going to win a major match anytime soon but he’s got enough speed and ability to keep things interesting. For a main event on Superstars, this was fine.

Overall Rating: C+. This is Superstars in a nutshell: you get some decent wrestling from guys you don’t usually see on WWE TV, but for the most part there’s a reason these guys aren’t on the big shows. They’re not bad at all but they don’t have anything that sets them apart from everyone else. Still though, you won’t regret watching it and if you’ve got roughly 45 minutes to kill and want to watch wrestling, there are far worse things you could pick.

Remember to follow me on Twitter @kbreviews

NXT
Date: June 21, 2011
Location: Giant Center, Hershey, Pennsylvania
Commentators: Todd Grisham, William Regal

It’s week whatever here (It’s week whatever here) and there are no signs of us getting done with this show yet.  We have three people left in the forms of O’Brian, O’Neil and Young.  Other than that there isn’t much else going on here, which to be fair can be said nearly every week around here.  Let’s get to it.

We open with a recap of Lucky Cannon’s stuff over the course of the season.  I think this is the same video we opened last week with.  Cannon kind of reminds me of Kelso from That 70’s Show.  At least they’re not airing the wrong episode because there’s the elimination from last week.

They’re still wild, but after being on this season for this long can you still classify them as young?

There’s another elimination next week.

Here’s Horny with Titus to open the show.  Apparently the small one has some business with Maryse.  And here she is to at least make the show more fun to look at.  Horny mumbles a lot and Titus translates.  Apparently Horny has a surprise for her and has her hold her hand out.  He puts a box in her hand and it’s a ring pop.  I haven’t had one of those in years.  She insults him for it because she’s not nice anymore.  The ring is thrown in his face and she leaves him all upset.

And of all people here’s Zack Ryder.  He was the pro for Titus on NXT Season 2.  Decent reaction but not exactly the explosion that you would expect from what you read about him online.  The tall people compared Ryder and Horny’s merits as Pros and Ryder threatens to fist pump Titus’ face.  Striker makes the obvious main event.

Vladimir Kozlov/Yoshi Tatsu/Conor O’Brian vs. Chavo Guerrero/JTG/Darren Young

Regal goes into another rant about JTG, saying he’s been waking up half an hour earlier so he can hate him that much longer every day.  Young and O’Brian start us off.  This is about as riveting as you would expect them to be if you’ve watched their matches all season.  Conor runs him off after awhile and here’s Chavo.  Regal apparently had Chavo’s first match in WCW.

Conor is holding his arm kind of funny after a bit so here’s Yoshi to fight JTG.  Regal talks about losing a bet about Cannon last week but not having any money due to the women he has to pay for.  Koz comes in and cleans some house.  Powerslam gets two for Kozlov as Regal praises him.  Vlad cleans house and Conor helps out a bit as we take a break.  Back with Vlad getting two on Chavo off a powerslam.

The rookies beat on each other for a bit with the main work being on the knee of O’Brian.  Off to JTG and this goes on way too long.  They’ve been working on his knee for five minutes now.  Everyone gets in a lot of time on it with JTG on it at the moment.  Conor gets some shots in but Chavo gets a drop toehold to take him right back down.

After about eight minutes of O’Brian getting beaten on (seriously) it’s close enough to a tag to bring in Yoshi.  He cleans house and hits a spin kick to take JTG down.  Shining Wizard gets one as everything breaks down.  Koz gets a pretty nice double suplex on Chavo and Young to send them to the floor.  And never mind as Tatsu kicks JTG’s head off for the pin at 15:20.

Rating: C-. They’re trying so hard to make us care about O’Brian and it’s almost a guarantee he’s making the finals if not winning the whole thing, just so we can see him next season again.  I never once wanted to see him make the tag, which at times I often do in these matches.  He flat out isn’t interesting and that’s all there is to it.  Way too long here.

We’re told that the votes messed up last night and Sin Cara actually should have faced Bourne.  That explains a few things.  They’ll have a match on Raw to make up for it.

Raw Rebound is about the Punk segment last night.

Tyson Kidd is talking to Lucky Cannon on the phone and says there won’t be a recount.  He says he has to go because he comes up on I guess you would call it a shrine in a locker with candles and all that jazz.  There’s a Yoshi Tatsu action figure in the middle and Yoshi comes up, saying not to touch it.  Kidd leaves and Yoshi puts a Hershey bar in front of it (huge pop.  Remember the town they’re in) and bows to it.  I have no idea what to say to that.

Titus O’Neil vs. Zack Ryder

Regal has a quick thing about Ryder also: his old partner Dave Taylor had a hand in training Ryder.  Ryder charges straight at him which gets him beaten up.  Grisham actually mentions the Youtube show and the Internet Championship.  Titus gets a headlock on for awhile and then runs Ryder over.  Horny bites Ryder on the license plate on his tights, allowing O’Neil to get a school boy for two as we take a break.

Back with Ryder taking over after a knee lift.  He chokes away a lot as I guess he’s still a heel on TV.  They need to pick one or the other, because he’s constantly changing back and forth.  Off to the chinlock as Regal points out that Horny is the only person that keeps Titus going.  Ryder gets a running facewash in the corner which has a proper name that I can’t think of.  It only gets two and it’s back to the chinlock.  They get back up and here’s the comeback for Titus.  Ryder hits the floor and goes after Horny, prompting a brief bit on the floor.  Back in, O’Neil walks into the Rough Ryder for the pin at 8:30.

Rating: C. Not bad but kind of long here.  The reaction for Ryder was ok at best which isn’t really that surprising.  He’s ok in the ring but not particularly good.  Also interesting to hear them actually acknowledge his Youtube show and a nice little change of pace.  The match itself was just kind of there and not that interesting.

Overall Rating: C-. Not a horrible show here and thankfully we get it down to the final two next week.  If the matches were a bit better this could work overall.  The same old issues come up again here: everyone has faced each other time after time and there’s no one caring about anything.  The season almost has to be winding down soon though so at least we can get a fresh batch next season.  Not horrible overall tonight though.

Results

Yoshi Tatsu/Vladimir Kozlov/Conor O’Brian b. Darren Young/JTG/Chavo Guerrer – High Kick to JTG

Zack Ryder b. Titus O’Neil – Rough Ryder