Here we are at week 48 of NXT Season 5, where Derrick "Sweet Meat" Bateman, "No Days Off" Darren Young, and the "Real Deal" Titus O'Neil are still stuck on Redemption Island. As the three of them continue to seek to impress WWE Management, we get a callback to NXT Season 3. Today's main event features a Rookie-Pro pairing from that show, as the domineering and vindictive Maxine takes on the energetic and jovial Alicia Fox. Who will prevail? Read on for my thoughts on the show as it happens.
For whatever reason, WWE.com didn't have this episode up on Wednesday, nor Thursday morning. I finally found video of it nearly a full day after they were supposed to have it up, once it had aired in another market. I'm thinking WWE's YouTube relaunch (and needing to post a good number of videos in relation to it) might have had something to do with it. Hopefully it's sorted out next week. This is BS.
Anyway, moving on to the actual show...
Titus' music doesn't fit with a serious athlete who's turned his back on the fans.
Meh. So-so promo.
Didn't quite see that one coming.
NO. No more of this feud. For the love of God. We've done this like 1000 times now.
I like Darren pretty much anytime he's not talking.
Well, that's interesting at least. Good to see Darren doing something a little different from being angry all the time.
Not a bad back-and-forth. This is just a really awkward pairing from a storyline sense.
Heheh.
This is kind of weird. The mic work's mostly ok, though, I guess.
Strong mic work by Riley.
I think cursing should be rare. Not because of the PG thing as much as it's kind of a "crutch" or easy way out to do a strong promo.
I like that the storylines on this show are straightforward. Not a bunch of ridiculous complications.
Interesting. Kidd's being very babyface-esque going to the ring.
I hope we see good things from both of these guys in 5 years.
Booker T. and Michael Cole got in the Royal Rumble ahead of these two.
Tyson's just incredible in the ring. If they can come up with something for him creatively to take advantage of his attributes, I like his chances.
Trent's got some pretty impressive ring acumen as well.
I'm liking some of these unique and strong moves. Hopefully they're having an effect on the crowd beyond "that was neat" (getting the fans behind them as performers).
Good ending.
Other than his music and voice, I like Slater for the most part, too.
HAHAHAHA. I like the repeated showings in a stupid way.
Was that a reference to FCW's lead trainer (who worked as Skinner)?
Good remarks from Bateman. He's a natural.
Slater wasn't so great.
Glad Bateman's back as a babyface.
Who says you can't throw a dropkick in a fight?
Ha. Nice post-beatdown taunting.
Please tell me Maxine and her newly black hair get the win here.
At least Maxine's acting was good here. The match itself was nothing to write home about.
At least some of those fans respect how hard Cena works.
I wonder who that was making a cameo.
Fun segment with Kaitlyn and Maxine. Johnny and Kaitlyn will make a fun duo.
Note that Titus is the one getting the music and coming out in front.
Also note that Young's starting the match, possibly to set up Titus to clean house.
Darren Young should get a J.O.B. Squad shirt at this point.
Glad Young sold the beating he's taken instead of gloating (for the most part).
Wow. Yeah, Young's definitely more subdued this week.
Well, until the submission move.
What's Young doing on the apron?
Or maybe the AR Spinebuster in this case.
Darren got put in the sidekick role here. That was all a set-up for the babyfaces to show what they could do and for Titus to get the win.
Titus was good in his limited role here.
And things continue. This season's never going to end, is it? No one's getting off the show, even though Bateman won the right to appear on Smackdown quite some time back.
On to rankings (or, more accurately, evaluations). I think the numbers might be due for a bit of a retooling. 5 is someone who's far and away "fit" for the business, with marketable skills and the other essentials to make it in WWE. 4 is someone who's good, or maybe even great but is missing something from being a 5. 3 is someone who has some good qualities, but lacks enough of them (or is only good in short bursts). 2 is someone that is only good in very specific scenarios, and should basically just be used to showcase the 4s and 5s (or help the 3s get there). 1 is TERRIBLE and should very rarely if ever be on-screen.
Derrick Bateman- 5 (Last week: 5). While he didn't have great material to work with this week, and was playing off of the generally uncharismatic Heath Slater, he has the talent to be someone of worth in the company. If there weren't already so many talents on the outside looking in, I wouldn't mind seeing him on one of the main brands. He's doing well, and it would take some pretty bad performances to knock him out of this level after months of things I've been impressed with. If only one person can move on from this show (of the three rookies), he's got things pretty much sealed as a unique character not just concerned with winning and hurting people (Grade: somewhere in the A range).
Titus O'Neil- 4 (Last week: 4). I think Titus has some good spots when he's "set up" properly and only needs to do some big power moves. He's still finding his way on the mic. With some generally lackluster performances lately, he'll need to really impress beyond the basics to stick in the 4 level. After a while, we've seen about everything he's had to throw at us. He still has some time to go before being someone they should use on a higher level. With the roster so crowded (especially with the part-timers, Legends, and non-wrestlers taking up screen time), he's going to have to work hard to survive here. (Grade: low on the B scale, and "midterms"/finals should be sooner rather than later).
Darren Young - 4 (Last week: 4). Good technical performer who could convincingly beat someone down with his offense and maneuvers, but he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. When he does get showcased, he shows that he can really get it done in the ring. But beyond that, there's not much of a reason to care about him anymore. He's been teamed up with a number of performers over the course of the season, but has either been an odd fit (the personality disconnect with JTG) or the sidekick/third wheel (Hawkins/Reks and now Titus). I'm not saying he should "give up" per se, but he's been running on the same track for quite a while and all it's getting him is being a background character. He's doing everything the company's asking of him, but it's clear that he hasn't caught anyone's eye enough backstage to get beyond being the stepping stone. Without a strong personality and look, I don't think he'll get to the "promised land" unless he seriously shakes things up. (Grade: B, solely for doing his job as the "worker" making the matches mean more for the other people in them).
If I had to eliminate someone, it would be: Darren Young. There are only so many spots in the company. If he can't click beyond being technically gifted, I think it's about time to see what someone else can do.
That's all for an incredibly late look at NXT. Hopefully WWE.com will be more cooperative next week. A news post is up next and Superstars/Impact Wrestling will be up tonight. Thanks for reading!
I think Young is doing all he can do, but he is basically in a “sidekick” role for the most part; kind of like a victim of circumstance. I mean, you have Titus and Darren neck and neck on your scale, and Titus has clearly gotten more of a push. It shows, with Darren’s aggression and in-ring talent and determination that if he switched roles with Titus, it could be a whole-grade difference between both, wouldn’t you agree?
ReplyDeleteIn regards to Titus’ promo, he really isn’t growing since he became a heel a few weeks ago. He has been making an effort (I’ve seen more promos in the last three weeks than the last 47 combined from him), but he’s just not natural on the mic to convey believability. Given, some people just aren’t charismatic, but I don’t know if he will ever be able to pull that off. You need to have good promo skills to make it to a main roster. I just don’t like him in this role yet. Though, there are some who thought he was so bad as a good guy that this could be good for him to jump ship.
I think need so much intangible and tangible talent to pull it off. Titus’ moves and demeanor needs some serious work to pull off being a bad guy. It seems like he knows in his head what he should do from watching WWE and heels, but it just isn’t correlating into his actual performance.
Young has some flaws, but you can tell Young is the better and more seasoned and ruthless in-ring competitor. He works better as a heel on those aspects. Wouldn’t you agree? Therefore, it will take some unforeseen ruthlessness, in-ring demeanor and promo working for Titus to pull this off and kind of outshine Young as the main heel on the show.
Regal made another good point in that it takes a really devious person to do that back suplex on the ring apron, which helps back up that point.
I think Young needed to be a little more aggressive in that promo. Though they were partners, you need to not only back up your in-ring heel persona (which he has done), but need to talk like a heel and actually be the more ruthless guy, which in this case Titus is kind of a competitor you need to outshine in that aspect. I would like to see more consistency with Young’s WHOLE promos and how ruthless he is in the ring. I see him do well in the probably “rehearsed in his own words” part, but the back-and-forth part of promos usually does lack that aggression.
Titus kind of has been having the opposite problem (though his promos aren’t crisp, he is showing a little more of a “clumsy” aggression in his promos). What I mean by that is that he fumbles with is words and doesn’t really support any of his points, but he does show more aggression. However, his in-ring talent and aggression in the ring hasn’t been matching that “clumsy aggression” on the mic. I mean, he was in the match for what, like three minutes? Young got most of the offense in, while Titus did very little.
To clarify, in the first paragraph, I meant "switch roles" in relation to pushes by Management, not persona.
ReplyDeleteI think Young's going to need to think outside the box to break out, like Ziggler, Ryder, and others before him. He's not going to get out of the "get others over" role without doing something that gets people's attention. As many wrestlers as they have under contract on the main roster and FCW (with scouting going on all the time), the fact that they're using him this way despite all the promos and matches he's done should be pretty indicative of where they see him. WWE's thinking of who fans connect with as characters (so they can make money off of that via merchandise), so someone who's just a good wrestler's going to get lost in the shuffle.
ReplyDeleteI think it could very well be that much of a difference, though of course that's hypothetical so I can't really say for sure. If they didn't "set up" his big moves and have him win and such so much, he'd definitely be in a lot more trouble rankings-wise.
I think he's growing SOME (as far as getting more comfortable), though not hugely. Generally when I see someone every week, it's tough to say how much they've changed for months unless they really pull something impressive out. For someone who's never worked as a heel at this level, it can take a good deal of time.
He is working the crowd into his promos and getting them riled up, which is in essence what a heel does. Obviously you need to be able to do that beyond telling them to shut up (and when you don't have a mic at all), but at least he's not just cutting a promo straight from a script.
While I think you need mic skills to make it far on the main roster, you don't have to have them just to make it there (Mason Ryan for instance).
Young's definitely more seasoned, which is why they use him to help the others along. I don't think Titus needs to directly compete with Young in the ruthless department at all. He doesn't even have to be a better wrestler. He should just focus on what works for him and what gets the crowd to react to what he's doing (in a way other than "I don't want to see this guy anymore"). Not every bad guy needs to be out to hurt people. They can be cheaters, liars, cocky, etc. Whatever gets them hated and people tuning in to see them get their comeuppance from the faces. He does need to be able to wrestle a match without injuring someone or only going a couple of minutes, though, if he's going to go up the card.
I don't think that I'd say that Young's the main heel on the show. Best is debatable, but he's taken a back seat to Titus and the whole love triangle. He might have been in the ring more than Titus this week, but Titus started the show and won the match.
I think some of what Regal says (if not a lot of it) ties in to his villainous character. Since Regal the competitor would be ruthless, it makes sense that Regal the commentator would look for that in others (even faces). He's right in this case, though.
He might very well have been told to tone it down, since his "job" this week certainly seemed to be to pump Titus up. They're forming an alliance, so there's no need to try to one-up his partner. I know that you likely meant that from an "NXT competition" standpoint, but I think that even the writers of the show have pretty much put that on the backburner at this point.
I still think it might be counter-productive for him to have the aggression turned up so much all the time on the mic. If you yell every week, people eventually get used to that as your "normal voice" and it doesn't mean as much.
That's a good way to explain Titus on the mic. As for Titus' offense, the general formula for a tag match has one partner doing a lot of the work, then tagging in the other person to finish what they started since they're "fresh" and can deliver a lot quickly. So, I don't really think that's his fault for not doing much. When he did come in, he did enough damage to get the win and that's what the focus was on.
ReplyDeleteThat mainly makes sense. My justification with Young having to "upstage" Titus despite being partners now was on the mindframe that he needs to make the most out of every opportunity. If he is doing a promo with Titus (like he did this week) he should look at it as not being Titus' partner in crime, but as that he can't let Titus upstage him by showing more "heelish" tendencies with the promo. Being survival of the fittest, I think it is one for himself in this circumstance, despite being partners I guess now. Because no matter what, there will still be people who compare how well he did in that promo compared to Titus.
ReplyDeleteI would be the first to object to Young being kind of thrown aside, but you make a very compelling argument. He has worked his tail off with the intangibles and tangibles, but I agree he has been overlooked to the point where Titus has gotten more of a push.
The "get yourself known" method makes sense as well. He will need to break out of the mold to get the attention of the WWE, because, let's be honest, he has been a tad redundant. Switching it up a bit like we mentioned with his demeanor and persona would be a good idea, but that also goes hand-in-hand with the fact that when he had his off-week, WWE Management could have came up with something to fit that bill if they really wanted to. The fact that they didn't proves that he's kind of been tossed aside.
Switching gears a bit, I know Otunga wasn't on your list of "not ready for the main roster" wrestlers, but where would you put him now? I've always been a fan and think he has all of the intangibles, and his in-ring talent has gotten better. I like that "celtic cross" finisher he does now. The spinebuster he did before was a little weak lol. He is kind of an example, opposite of Young, in that Management seems to care more about him with his gimmick matching his career, and him competing more often now and in backstage promos more now.
I actually didn't really think of that for whatever reason. From how it was set up, I'm guessing they didn't want him to look better than Titus, so he might have told him to tone it down so the focus wouldn't be on him. I could be way wrong, but it certainly seemed like he was somewhat quieter and less aggressive than he was in past weeks. It's a bit like how they wouldn't want Curt Hawkins to outshine Brodus Clay on Raw, or have much of a showing at all for that matter. Going off script to try to get yourself noticed could get you in serious trouble.
ReplyDeleteSometimes it's the little things that show who they like more. They have someone backstage who controls which camera angle they go with for each shot, and the commentators are told to talk about specific people/things. Things are likely a bit more relaxed on NXT since it's not one of the major two shows, but if someone higher up likes Titus for instance, they'll show him and talk about him more than Young if told to.
I'm starting to think that they do like Young, but just don't see him as someone to really focus on. He's probably impressed with his ring work since he still gets to do his major spots, but if they're not giving him much mic/screen time, it's almost certainly because they don't like him as much in those areas.
As I talked about, he's kind of in a Catch-22: I don't know if he can just decide to change his look and demeanor if they want to pay attention to Titus instead. If he shows up next week bald or something, people would notice but Management might be ticked that he did something to get attention on himself when they want him to be more of a background character. I know they're picky about looks. They got kind of ticked at Zack Ryder getting his hair colored recently (since they have merchandise with him with a different color hair), and a developmental talent once got in trouble for getting a tattoo without asking permission. It sounds kind of childish, but I see why they do it. They view their competitors as products.
I guess he could theoretically get in trouble for doing videos or something, too, unless they REALLY caught fire with the fans to the point that the company thought they could make money off of talking about them and/or someone backstage liked them enough to change their minds on him. If he does do something like a video series, he definitely shouldn't go the Hawkins/Reks route of taking potshots at others on the roster/show. Apparently management wasn't too happy about them!
Anyway, I'm really enjoying Otunga right now. I was always a fan of his mic skills, and he has grown in the ring. I don't know what led to them using him more, but he's making the most of what he's doing without "trying too hard". He's not one of my favorites as far as the bell-to-bell goes, but I enjoy seeing him in segments and he stands out with his look and character.
Valid point there. I tend to make the overlooked mistake of thinking of promos in terms of how I think Young for example "should be" instead of what it "actually is". I overlook that a lack of "heel tendencies" in a promo are often toned down and somewhat staged by WWE Management. That makes things held back a bit. I have never been a fan of that, but you make a point that if Young was too over the top and started knocking people out to exemplify a "heel's aggression", that would make the staged parts more logical.
ReplyDeleteDoing a show like Hawkins and Reks did is very risky. I like the idea, but the fact that Management or whoever made Reks take it off of the air shows the pitfalls. If anything, it hurt Reks and Hawkins more, even though their purpose was to get noticed.
I think it would be a good idea from the standpoint that some fans may not know the "real" Darren Young. I mean, he goes from being a party character to the complete opposite in a serious-based character. Therefore, it's very hard for fans to know him OUTSIDE of wrestling. I think some way to identify and reach out to fans besides re-tweeting would be a great idea. For all we know, there could be more hidden charisma to Darren Young that we might not know of.
With Otunga, I agree with you. I've always been a fan and thought he was kind of ridiculed a bit much in Season 1 of NXT. I admit he wasn't great in the ring, but the fact that he finished second in the competition with less experience than any of them shows what he is capable of intangibly. Like you illuded to, I like the "natural" character, because he is indeed a lawyer. I like belivability in a character, and it's basically like he's being himself.
I wish Management would create more personas and promos of wrestlers based on their real-life strengths and weaknesses. Otunga is a great example. Given, no one is as unique as Otunga in having a Law degree, but people like Ziggler just seem a bit forced in their characters, and it seems like Ziggler's "laid back" personality doesn't fit with his "over the top" character. You know what I mean? I wish more considerations would be in tow to plan that more carefully.
Ha. I used to see things in terms of what I hoped they'd do (and I still do to some extent), but sometimes at least I see what they're doing. Especially on NXT when things are pretty straight-forward and you don't have so many people competing for spots and so much "executive meddling" behind-the-scenes. There's a big difference in dropping the ball on someone at this level than someone in the main event picture.
ReplyDeleteI think in addition to the show getting press immediately (instead of however many weeks it took for Z!TLIS to catch so much attention) meant management looked at it more closely (and would for Young). But I think the biggest thing was that they weren't promoting themselves as much as taking inside jabs at the company and who they push. They came across a lot more whiny and bitter than Ryder, who was interacting with fans and came across as a fun, clever character.
As for "the real" Darren Young, I'm a LITTLE leery about that kind of concept, unless it's something like an exaggerated and/or "character" version of himself (like Otunga and Miz). I think that's what you meant, though. I'm not crazy about the "behind-the-scenes" stuff of who the man behind the character is. It might be interesting, but I'm personally not the kind of person to like a competitor just because of who they are outside of wrestling, but it can help.
I couldn't agree much more about characters needing to be either more pronounced versions of themselves or at least something they can really tap into. Stone Cold came up with his own character, Cena's arose from what he actually did, and so on. Ted DiBiase trying to be his dad's gimmick was awkward looking back.
I think Ziggler might actually be that motivated behind-the-scenes, so it doesn't feel like a total sham. It could just be because I've seen him in the role for so long that it no longer seems like he's forcing things too much. There were times months back where I thought he was going to get lost in the shuffle because of a similar problem to Young's (working really hard, but his character not having much else to do). I think it's been modified some since then with the more measured cockiness on the mic and saving the showing off for elsewhere. For whatever reason, it seems like when someone takes their time in promos and doesn't raise their voice too high they seem better and more comfortable-sounding.