BRM Reviews the 8/17/2021 NXT

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews the 8/17/2021 NXT

Post by Big Red Machine » Aug 20th, '21, 16:31

DIAMOND MINE PROMO- good
KUSHIDA isn’t medically cleared to compete tonight (Bivens thinks he’s faking) so we’re getting an open challenge for Roderick Strong. And what match do we get…

ILJA DRAGUNOV vs. RODERICK STRONG (w/Diamond Mine)- 7.75/10
Uch… The only good finish here is a time-limit draw, and NXT doesn’t do those… and even if they did, it would still be even better to have both of these guys wrestle someone who they can beat to give them momentum going into their respective title matches.
The keep saying that KUSHIDA isn’t cleared to compete. Like Bivens, Wade thinks he’s faking. Obviously they’re the heels and they shouldn’t be believed, but there is definitely something to an unspecified injury that makes it feel less legitimate. They really should have been able to tell us what the injury is that is keeping KUSHIDA from wrestling in his scheduled title defense tonight.
They had one of those matches that let you know that if you gave them twenty minutes they’d easily be in the ****3/4-***** range. Ilja won clean.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- meh
Ilja grabbed a mic and called WALTER out but WALTER didn’t show.

PRIME TARGET: ADAM COLE VS. KYLE O’REILLY- meh
It’s not that this was bad so much as I felt like I had already heard everything these two could possibly say by this point.

HIT ROW’S PROMO INTERRUPTED BY SANTOS ESCOBAR ON THE TRON, OFFERING TO RETURN SWERVE’S GRILL- bad
He’s in the parking lot and swears he is alone. Swerve accepts. The others sense a trap, but he tells them to stay put.
Insert Admiral Ackbar meme here.
The others came out to rescue Swerve… and succeeded, so where’s the heat?

L.A. KNIGHT AND CAMERON GRIMES FOOTAGE FROM EARLIER TODAY- meh
Knight offered Josh Briggs a lot of money to injure Grimes. Then he booked them against each other because apparently when someone is your butler, you get to control their bookings.

IMPERIUM PROMO- good
They are going to win the tag titles tonight to restore the honor of the sport of professional wrestling.

JOSH BRIGGS vs. CAMERON GRIMES (w/L.A. Knight)- 5/10
Ted Dibiase did guest commentary for this match. So did L.A. Knight. They made a bet on the outcome of a match. That should get Knight in big trouble.
Grimes overcame the size disadvantage and won a short match cleanly. Knight slapped Ted and beat Grimes up after the match. A fine go-home segment.

THE GARGANOS ARE CLOWNS- bad
I would say that they’re building to Dexter & Indi vs. Johnny & Candice, but would have to wait quite a while.

MCKENZIE MITCHELL INTERVIEWS ZOEY STARK & IO SHIRAI- bad
So the roles here are that Zoey is an overbearing screw-up, and Io is all business to the point of being kind of a jerk. Why are they babyfaces, again?

MIXED TAG TEAM MATCH: Dexter Lumis & Indi Hartwell vs. Jessi Kamea & Robert Stone (w/Frankie Monet)- 3/10
Stone got some well-deserved “YOU LOOK STUPID!” chants.
The ref saw Frankie IN THE RING grabbing Lumis’ leg and merely ejected her instead of doing what she should have done and called for the DQ.
The babyfaces won because the heels were incompetent buffoons. That’s usually okay for people who are very low on the card and won’t ever move up (which Stone counts as), but I wouldn’t have done it in this case because Frankie specifically recruited Kamea, so Kamea being an incompetent goof reflects badly on Frankie, too.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- dumb
They’ve been on ONE date, and Indi is already proposing to Dexter. He accepted.

MCKENIE MITCHELL INTERVIEWS THE DIAMOND MINE- McKenzie asked Roddy about losing tonight. Malcolm Bivens jumped in and did the talking for Roddy. He said that because Roddy is a cruiserweight and Ilja is a heavyweight, the loss doesn’t count in his mind. This was a fine attempt at damage control, but it would have been even better to just not do the damage in the first place.

THE ANNOUNCERS TALK TO RAQUEL GONZALEZ AND DAKOTA KAI VIA SATELLITE- meh

NXT BREAKOUT TOURNAMENT SEMIFINAL MATCH: Carmelo Hayes vs. Duke Hudson- 6.5/10
Hayes won clean.

SAMANTHA IRVIN INTERVIEWS CARMELO HAYES- good
Hayes cut a fine babyface promo about how he will have to once again overcome a much bigger opponent. Jones came out and I thought he was kind of a jerk.

JACEY JANE PROMO- lots of platitudes

TED DIBIASE VISITS CAMERON GRIMES IN THE TRAINER’S ROOM- bad
Dibiase is a total defeatist all of a sudden. Grimes cut what started out as a great babyface promo, but then he shouted TO THE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN! and remembered why I hated him so much and never wanted to see him on TV.

NXT TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: MSK(c) vs. Imperium (Fabian Aichner & Marcel Barthel)- 6.75/10
WALTER came out to distract MSK but Ilja Dragunov came out to stop him. MSK won clean, but t theels won the post-match fighting. The WALTER/Ilja thing felt a little forced, like it was a pre-planned go-home segment. I think having had Ilja call WALTER out earlier and WALTER not show makes it a little better, but not much.

PETE DUNNE & RIDGE HOLLAND PROMO- good
Holland vs. Thatcher is next week.

SAMOA JOE & KARRION KROSS’ OFFICIAL TALKING SEGMENT- meh
When Kross came out to cut his promo, the crowd chanted “WHERE IS SCARLETT?” They talked and then they fought. It wasn’t bad or anything so much as I just wanted to see the actual title match already. I’ve seen them brawl already. We went off the air with a draw.


This was a meh to poor episode of NXT. More than anything else, it felt like a paint-by-numbers go-home show. Add in some of the bad booking decisions and you’ve got yourself a show that felt completely uninspired and going in the wrong direction, but it’s the sort of “going in the wrong direction” that can disappear if the PPV is good.


STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. When Wade Barrett was talking about how MSK are annoying outside of the ring (he said “quirky,” but that’s what he was talking about), and Beth Phoenix responded “where you see odd I see adaptable” and went on about how they’ve been able to “change their style” to defeat each different opponent.
First of all, that’s not even close to true. They’ve been the flippy little underdogs in every match. Secondly, that has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT WADE WAS TALKING ABOUT! Wade might as well have said “this guy is the worst actor I’ve ever seen” and Beth responded with “that’s not true! He’s an excellent hockey player!”
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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