-Let’s discuss the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic right out of the gate. The matches in this tournament have been excellent and were a reason to tune into NXT on a weekly basis. The booking was maddening across the board. All of the top real teams are out! This week, Noam Dar and Romeo Moreno defeated Vanity Project to advance to the tournament finals. On the other side of the bracket, Hank and Tank beat El Hijo Del Dr. Wagner Jr. and Galeno to advance. HUH? With Vanity Project, Creed Brothers, and Fraxiom in this tournament, it’s baffling to me how and why Dar, Moreno, Hank, and Tank are in the finals. I’m sure Shawn Michaels would tell me, “Zack, this tournament win is going to elevate one of those team.” To that I would say this — you’re backwards. Both of the teams in the finals have been jobber teams without much television time. They take the meaning of Dusty Cup down if they win it. It’s cold, but also true.
Bringing out the big guns
-What else is true? WWE is loading up next week’s episode of NXT. Cody Rhodes and John Cena will be on the show. Why? Well, it’s on Wednesday next week because of election coverage. What’s up, AEW?
-Cinematic promos aren’t high on the list of things I like in pro wrestling. Cruz Montana pulled one off this week. Montana was intense, but likable. He also acknowledged his shortcomings like a babyface should. Montana is one of the best on the brand right now. The audience connects with him.
-Chantel Monroe beat Lizzy Rain. Oh no. Are we getting a Chantel Monroe push? Monroe hasn’t shown nearly enough to warrant beating anyone on television, let alone Rain. That match itself was ok at best and very much felt like a choreographed dance on Dancing with the Stars. Monroe — and Rain — need to be able to better present their matches as fights.
-Let me ask you? Answer in the comments if you don’t mind. What is Izzi Dame’s gimmick currently? Her character? Dame is all over the place in terms of look, presentation, and ring style. Add in her social media personality and you get a star that is looking in too many directions to find herself.
Uh oh
-Well, Saquon Shugars, losing to Sean Legacy isn’t great news for you. The redemption arc is there for the taking on the part of Shugars, but he’s stagnated since leaving DarkState and ending the feud with Dion Lennox. Like Dame, Shugars needs time to find his personality.
-Do you want to know who else can hit a basketball shot? My soon to be eight year old daughter. Backwards shot? Same thing. Swish. She is not an elite athlete and neither is Kam Hendrix. If Hendrix is going to continue to do these top 1% athletic feat videos, they have be of him doing cool stuff — or at least pretending to. The promos he’s been cutting have just shined a bright on how not athletic he is. Harness the gimmick or drop it. Going halfway with it isn’t the answer.
-They did it again. The in-ring promo segments on NXT continue to get worse and worse. The one this week between Myles Borne and Tavion Heights felt like it should have taken place inside the ThunderDome without fans. Borne and Heights ignored the audience for the entirety of the time they talked to one another. What they said was fine and helped build story around their upcoming match, but they can’t leave the crowd hanging the way they did. Engage. Maintain story, but engage more in order to get the character and the story over. As for their match at Halloween Havoc, it will be a Weapons Wild Match, which was chosen by the wheel. This is where Heights attacks Borne with candy corn right? How about this instead — we don’t do any holiday theme attacking or use holiday themed weapons. Deal?
Trick or street fight? Crap.
-The wheel will be spun again. Zilla Fatu vs. Charlie Dempsey will take place at Halloween Havoc and will feature a stipulation that’s derived from the Halloween Havoc wheel. Whatever the stipulation is here, the same rule applies — stay reasonable with the Halloween integration. After all, the NFL isn’t tossing around pumpkins instead of footballs. There’s 100% nothing wrong with holiday integration, but it has to make sense for the story and characters involved.
-Thumbs up to Jackson Drake vs. EK Prosper. The match of the night. All action. Drake got the victory, but Prosper was very protected thanks to outside interference from Vanity Project. They were obnoxious and were supposed to be. That’s resonating and genuinely getting the group heat. Why are they not in the Dusty Finals again???
Did they sell it?
-The show this week featured an ongoing storyline thread between Grayson Waller and Tony D’Angelo. With D’Angelo the number one contender to Waller and the NXT Championship at Halloween Havoc, Waller took his time on the show this week to play mind games with his opponent. He delivered messages to D’Angelo that were threatening and showed up to D’Angelo’s house and restaurant without an invite. I guess it’s more than reasonable to think that D’Angelo would want to stop Waller from getting in his house. I get that. Gotta stand up for your home. The rest of the chase, though? D’Angelo looked gullible. The brawl to end things on the show worked for what it was, but just didn’t have the storyline depth to truly move the needle on people watching opposite college football and taking part in Halloween festivities on Saturday night. If you were going to watch, you’ll watch, but this closing segment didn’t put the full sell on.
What was your favorite part of this week’s episode of WWE NXT? Let us know in the comments!
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I feel so vindicated reading your thoughts about Montana and Dame! I haven't been watching NXT but I watched last week to keep my hand in and my main takeaways were 1. Cruz Montana is really clicking for me way more than he ever did pre-NXT and 2. Dame is all over the place--I thought she was something spooky, then vanity, then a mean girl? I assumed it was because I haven't been watching but your note made me feel better about it.
(Also 3. The promos seemed so, so, wooden and uninspiring. It was a bummer).
It’s very simple why Swipe Right aren’t in the finals; they’re tag champs and historically, the Dusty Cup goes to a team that’s next up and right now it’s Noam Dar and Romeo Moreno
They’ve been consistently putting on bangers for weeks. The Dusty Classic was all the evidence you need and having the tag champs’ number is a helluva feather in their cap. The two tag matches carried this episode. I can’t say the same for the rest of the build for Halloween Havoc.
Drake/Prosper was damn good until that lightskin Curt Hennig from temu ruined it.