WNS Video: Wilds' War Cry: NXT - Certified Gs

Oh man, I need to compose myself or I will end up just ranting about how great NXT Takeover 2 was for this week’s entire column. It was that good though; best thing in wrestling this week. I have watched it three times now! Allow me to take a few paragraphs to break this event down.

So Jojo Offerman is still with the company, huh? That is cool I guess. The announcers did a great job and the graphics presentation was good as usual. Everything was set up for a pleasant show, and who would not be excited after the last NXT event? The show started off with an exciting tag team match with The Ascension losing after an almost year long title reign. The highfliers did exactly what they were supposed to do, getting everyone hyped and looking good in the process. I am not sure how I feel about this team of the Lucha Dragons, but I will be watching. The Ascension on the other hand looked great in their loss and came out later during Kenta’s segment as a good send off if WWE is looking to call them up. I know they have been doing some matches with the main roster, and they are ready. I think the only component they need is a manager/valet, some form of a mouth piece. They could be dominant right now. In a dream world I would want the Undertaker or maybe even Sting to lead them to a victory, but whatever happens, I want to see them succeed.

Lu-Cha! Lu-Cha! Lu-Cha!

CJ Parker was destroyed by newcomer Baron Corbin, who now has my attention. That served as a brief exchange to keep the momentum up between video packages, and it led into one of my favorite wrestlers right now, Enzo Amore, in a hair match versus Sylvester LaFort. I enjoyed the buildup on previous episodes to this, and Enzo is a great wrestler. The match was not one of his best, but it was entertaining. There were some good exchanges in the ring and Big Cass’ boot on the ramp looked like it hurt. I liked the swerve with the hair loss at the end and the segment where they came out later to show it off was fun, but the time probably could have been used better.

S-A-W-F-T, SAWFT!

Many people were waiting for the Kenta segment, and it was a good solid introduction with some action and a message of intent to the rest of the locker room. I expect good things, so do not mess this up WWE. Also, stop complaining about the name change. The man will be known as Hideo Itami in WWE, and we should all expect the name changes at this point. We live in an age where his past accomplishments are a Google search away, so there should be no problems. I am just sad that this was followed up by the weakest—not bad—point of the night, in the form of Bull Dempsey squashing Mojo Rawley again. Not sure what they are building to here, especially since backstage producers were so high up on Mojo not long ago, but I will say I was not expecting to see Bull go to the top rope, which was amusing.

This slight divergence of greatness is okay though, because the final two matches knocked me out of my swivel chair. The girls brought it hard in a match that showed more brutality with their moves than the previous contest, and that is saying something. Other than Charlotte’s music always getting stuck in my head for some reason, this bout seemed to mean more because it has had several episodes worth of buildup over the past few months. Both divas looked great, a lot of back-and-forth, with interplay of both move sets, even if Charlotte did seem to put her knees down too early on that moonsault. It still looked good, but did not connect right. I wonder if it was an issue with positioning. The end of the match was well-planned, perfectly executed, and the segment afterwards with Sasha Banks and Charlotte will keep what has been a decent storyline going.

Bayley is for real, and she will hug you…

This leads to our main event, a fatal four way match featuring Sami Zayn, Tyson Kidd, Tyler Breeze, and the champion Adrian Neville. These are four incredible talents with varying sets of skills, and the area was almost not big enough to hold the action. I like that each title match was given ample time to play out, and Raw could learn something about storyline buildup and video package placement from this show. We need more of that the main shows. I had no questions about why these men were fighting or what was at stake, and each promo almost had me siding with the respective competitor. Not to mention that the match itself was phenomenal. I do not want to say too much about it, because everyone needs to go watch it if they have not. The beginning with Breeze’s phone, Neville’s awesome moonsault, Zayn going through the ropes, and Neville stopping the tap out: it was all brilliant. The crowd was chanting, “this is wrestling,” and that was no bullshit. Zayn and Neville are astonishing, in case anyone missed that memo, and the end of the match was intense with some possible character development. NXT is where it is at.

Oh yeah, I said I would not go on about this for the whole column. Smackdown had some good diva build for the title match and I laughed more than I should have at the stuntman match that they did three times this week for some reason. Raw sucked other than some of the Cena/Lesnar build, which they seem to be banking Night of Champions on. TNA Impact had a sensational triple threat tag team tables match with No Surrender looking like it should be good. Does that about cover it? Good. Now go watch Takeover again.

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