Things roll on tonight for the NXT Pros and Rookies. Who will move a step closer to Redemption and a spot on the next season of the show? Read on for my thoughts on the show as it happens.
That opening bit felt like they were really pushing Bateman.
Bateman gets his own music!? I don't remember that happening for NXT rookies before.
I don't know specifically what cracks me up about Bateman, but he makes me want to hear more of him.
That was odd. It felt like they were booing something else, before the music hit.
I wish there was a way to tell if the crowd's cheering for Hornswoggle or Titus.
I guess Maryse is matchmaker tonight. They never really established who makes decisions on the show (I just assumed it was "WWE management").
All 3 rookies in the same match with no Pros. Interesting. I personally think it's hard to evaluate 3 people at once.
Where IS Hornswoggle?
Got to see something a little different a new from the competitors in the ring this week.
I'm not feeling Bateman's finisher.
Bateman getting both eliminations means at least that they're trying to make sure he doesn't get eclipsed by the more established rookies.
Cool video package on Rey.
Plenty of video packages to push Sunday's show.
That Punk package was awesome! I'd love for him to have promos "interrupting" shows in the months to come IF they come to an agreement for him to return.
This Maryse thing's just getting weird. I wonder what crazy resolution this story will have.
I've seen those lockers before. I think they're part of an upcoming WWE photoshoot.
Kozlov saying "homie" cracked me up. I guess JTG vs. Kozlov's about the only feud left on this show.
Orton will be in the same state that NXT's in right now. It's taped the same night.
I think they should have done this match first. The rookies should be the focus.
Heart-Shaped Box is a Nirvana song. Maybe Hornswoggle's secret admirer is Courtney Love?
Tyson looks kind of funny with a different haircut. And yes, I'm aware that his previous haircut was pretty out there in its own right.
I'm assuming they've pretty much given up on competitions for now.
If they're not doing an elimination next week, I assume it's because Bateman hasn't gotten long to show what he can do (or they REALLY want/need to kill time before coming up with who should be on Season 6).
Cool little ending sequence there. If they do a 4th match in a row, I think they need to add a stipulation to make things more interesting.
And that's that.
Hmm, well, we didn't see as much of the rookies as we have in previous weeks/seasons, so my opinions haven't drastically changed. That being said, here are my tier lists for the remaining rookies. Top tier means I want to see more of them, middle tier means I could go either way, and bottom tier means that I don't want to see any more of them. These aren't necessarily in order, as I save that for elimination weeks:
Top Tier:
Titus O'Neil (Last time-1): Titus continues to come into his own as a performer. I think he's on his way to getting a shot at the main roster if he keeps improving. The content of his promo wasn't amazing, but it was delivered well. He sounds more natural on the mic than he did in the past. If the competition was ending in the next week or two, he'd have an advantage, but since we're likely getting another 3 weeks (or more?) unless they do a double elimination for the final, he'll have to be on his A-game to be my choice to win.
Darren Young (Last time-2): I almost put Young in this tier last week, but part of me didn't want to put everyone in the same tier. But I like the idea behind the tier list, so if everyone's in one tier, so be it. I think I used the wrong word last week when evaluating Young. It isn't so much fire that he's missing as flavor. Something to stand out of the pack. Bateman's got mic skills and a unique look, O'Neil has a decent look and the dog bark (which I'm a little perplexed by, but it's working for him), but Young doesn't stand out as much as them. There are only so many spaces available on the roster, and only one person can make it to Season 6, so I think he needs to bring something new to the table to make it there. I don't know specifically what it is, though. I don't think he needs to have polka dots or anything like that, and I like the "D. Young" nickname to differentiate himself from other "first name, last name"rs on the roster, but that might be what keeps him from winning the competition. Nothing wrong with his ring work, though.
Derrick Bateman (Last time-N/A): Bateman has a natural charisma that can't really be taught. WWE's looking for a sports entertainer, and I think that's what he brings to the table. I wouldn't necessarily say "breakout star", but he did his job in getting me to want to see his next promo/match. I think he has a good chance of winning this season, and even if he doesn't, it seems inevitable that we'll see him on the main roster at some point. He got a brief sketch on Raw (I think it was) back in Season 4, and using his character with Johnny Curtis' seems only natural. If he can really bring it in the ring in weeks to come, he could punch his ticket to the next season.
And those are my thoughts for this week's show. I'll have some on Superstars and Impact Wrestling (A Midsummer's Nightmare) on Thursday, and a news post will be up later. Thanks for reading!
Hi, I'm Megan and this is my first time viewing your blog. Being a lifelong WWE fan, I have to respectfully disagree. I think u are overthinking it. Johnny Curtis was far from the complete package when he won NXT, but he still won it without having "mic skills". That leads me to the point that even with Darren Young lacking what u called "mic skills", he still has way more to offer than the other two. The other two have way more holes than Young overall. If I had to rank the three, i would have 1) Young 2) Bateman 3) O'Neil. O'Neil is a distant third in my opinion. He lacks too many qualities to win this competition, let alone finish second. he lacks "mic skills", in-ring talent, and sympathy from the crowd is the only thing helping him.
ReplyDeleteNothing wrong with respectfully disagreeing! I do have a tendency to overthink things in my ramblings. The rankings are more based on who I like of the contestants than who I think will win, because I've been 1 for 4 for predicting winners.
ReplyDeleteI should state that I'm also looking at this from a viewpoint of what I think they'll do after the competition. As past seasons of NXT and Tough Enough have shown, it isn't necessarily the winner who ends up doing the best or being used the most.
One thing that's had a big impact this season is that I'm not seeing everyone for pretty much the first time like in almost every other season (Kaval being the only contestant from 1-3 I had seen more than one one match of before NXT). So, my viewpoints on everyone are skewed by what they've done previously. This REALLY works in O'Neil's favor, since it had been a good number of months since I'd seen him (and I would have had him Bottom Tier then), whereas Young had appeared off-and-on since Season 1 and I mostly liked him already (though I wasn't crazy about his promos then, either). Hopefully that explains some of where I'm coming from?
I think Curtis had some mic skills and a persona; it just wasn't as pronounced as Bateman's. I don't know what specifically made them choose the way they did there. I know Bateman got injured at some point, and that might have been related.
Who were your previous picks to win the first four seasons?
ReplyDeleteWell, they changed a bit over the season, but Barrett was my favorite pretty much throughout Season 1.
ReplyDeleteI had Riley winning Season 2 (Kaval was about third I think), I was somewhat split between Naomi and AJ in Season 3 (Kaitlyn was third), and Bateman for Season 4 (Curtis was second).
Or rather that's who I had ranked first each time. Fan votes are kind of hard to predict, outside of bad guys generally not doing well. Kaitlyn playing off of Vickie could be similar to Titus playing off of Hornswoggle, because both Pros get big reactions from the crowd.
I think even though Young is a heel, he will still get the fan votes. Just like he said, even if you don't like him, he does belong there, and people notice his hard work and experience that he has that the others lack.
ReplyDeleteI personally think (maybe biased) that some of fans are tired of Titus (from blogs and sites)and I personally think it would be a travesty to have someone with such crappy in-ring skills win the contest and for someone to suck up to the fans so much for the fans not to see through it. He gets old quickly.
The difference between Young and Riley or Cannon's heel status is that Young doesn't diss the fans like the others did. Young is a heel, but he is what I call a "moderate" one.
ReplyDeleteThe voting's tough to call I think. I wonder how many of each kind of fan is voting this season between the die-hard WWE Universe "Little Jimmies" who love Hornswoggle, or the more experienced online fans.
ReplyDeleteThat's a very good point about Young as a heel. I didn't even really catch that distinction off the top of my head.
It seems like there are different pockets of fans online that go different ways. Just by looking at the WWE chatrooms and Twitter during Season 3, I would have thought AJ had it won by a mile, and it felt like Derrick Bateman had a really strong following last season. But, later on, I found out that there was a pretty sizable group of fans who didn't like AJ's character and turned against her after a while, and neither of them made it higher than 3rd.
There'll be wrestlers sometimes who get a nice following online or trashed a lot online that I just don't see as much (or as little) in.
But that's not really here or there.
It's rare that I'll get tired of someone getting stale or old, because generally their job is to find a persona that works, and get catchphrases over and the like. It'd be different if I saw them more than once a week, though.
Let me ask you this....would you be surprised if Young won NXT and became the frontrunner to win Season 6? I wouldn't be. I don't even know why he was back on NXT to begin with when he has all the tools.
ReplyDeleteHim winning wouldn't be much of a surprise. He's definitely better than Novak or O'Brien were. Being the frontrunner of Season 6 would make sense at the start at least. It depends on who the other contestants are to see how long that would last, but he has a huge advantage in terms of experience working the "WWE style" in front of larger crowds.
ReplyDeleteMy guess for the second part is because they couldn't think of much else to do with him, so they put him back on NXT to give him more experience. As far as I know he's not working in FCW like the other contestants, so it's possible they think he's got most of the tools as well.
I have been VERY frustrated with NXT. Young has lost FIVE times to Titus when he is clearly the better wrestler. I don't understand how the better wrestlers (Kaval, Bryan, Curtis) ended up losing to all of these inferior wrestlers. How much stock do you put into wins/losses on NXT? I seriously don't understand it at all. It seems like they, for some reason, are building up Titus and making Young look inferior when he isn't.
ReplyDeleteEven though the matches are indeed staged.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why they do that. I'd guess that they want to see how a particular wrestler is "on defense" (selling, etc). I got kind of a conspiracy theory vibe that Bryan and Kaval were booked to lose so they'd know that they couldn't just walk in from their indy backgrounds and expect to be successful in WWE, but I don't know if that's the case. It could also just be a case of them wanting to build the story that Titus is more powerful or whatever than Darren.
ReplyDeleteI don't even remember the last time they mentioned wins and losses being a factor on the show. They probably don't consider it too big of a deal, since they're presumably paying more attention to how they're progressing as far as ring work is concerned.
Oh, and actual in-ring prowess like Bryan and Kaval have isn't as high on their priority list. They're looking for people who work the more slow-paced, less "big/flashy moves" style.