Big Red Machine wrote: ↑Feb 24th, '19, 23:27
Serujuunin wrote: ↑Feb 24th, '19, 22:28
Big Red Machine wrote: ↑Feb 24th, '19, 21:03
Aleister Black said his goodbyes to NXT during a house show in San Antonio, Texas this weekend. He along with the other call-ups will still be part of the NXT TV tapings at least through the next TakeOver.
So, in the last month I've watched all of NXT from 2014 to 2018, and I have a whole new appreciation for Aleister Black- he very quickly became my favorite guy on NXT, and this makes me kind of sad.
Thoughts on:
1. The Sami Zayn title chase?
2. That four-way for the title between Breeze, Zayn, Neville, and Tyson Kidd?
3. The whole Nattie/TJ "Nattie's husband" deal?
4. The push of women's wrestling in general?
5. The particular journeys of the Horsewomen in particular?
6. The whole Ciampa/Gargano story?
7. American Alpha vs. Revivial?
8. The "Who Attacked Aleister Black?" mystery?
9. BFF?
10. Alexa Bliss! as a babyface?
Also, is there anyone whose main roster tenure you now see in a different light?
Also, when you have the chance, go back and watch May-September of 2013. You absolutely need to see Bo Dallas' heel turn and the Emma/Summer Rae feud.
Oh goodness. This might end up being an essay lol.
1. I loved it. I think it was the perfect embodiment of an underdog babyface with something to prove, not to management or fans, but to himself. It's an easy character archetype, but so so effective if you give it to the right person, and Sami is exactly that. And we got a series of awesome matches out of it, so that's awesome. I find that the more character development goes into something, the more invested I am because of how important characters are to me. Even if the story isn't super good, if the characters are good, I'm invested- I'm sure I've said this somewhere else on the forum before.
2. The match itself took a bit to win me over- I'm not a fan of fatal four ways usually, it makes the in-ring story harder to follow, but all four of these guys just wrecked it. The story of Tyson trying to prove himself as more than "Nattie's husband", and Sami being the underdog babyface, like he's just so good at, was told so well through the match, and how Sami got the crowd more and more behind him as the match went on was super cool also. Neville of course is the champion against the odds, and I like when a face has that role because rather than being solved by dirty tactics, it's solved by heart and determination and mind-blowing athleticism, in Neville's case, and Breeze being the opportunistic heel... I just feel like most of the big character archetypes in wrestling are accounted for and worked to considerable effect. And Tyson is way better than people ever gave him credit for, it makes me sad that he got injured and never got the recognition he should have. I will have to rewatch the fallout I think, because I wonder if I missed it or just don't remember, but the finish was kind of teasing Neville turning heel. It was a fun match!
3. I think Tyson deserved a better gimmick than this, which was unfortunate, but he made it work. Particularly the little things like pulling Nattie in front of him as a shield. I think if they'd put a little bit more into it, it would have been more compelling, but it was just nice to see him get used at all, to be honest. I have a special fondness for Tyson and Nattie, being from the same hometown and all.
4. I felt like there wasn't really anything to the women's division but the Horsewomen, to be honest. A lot of the women's division's "main event" scene was just those four and everyone else seemed like they were on a completely different level. I mean, I get it, but it made everything less compelling when they weren't fighting each other. Once we got people like Asuka and Ember, it started feeling a bit more varied, except that knowing that Asuka would go on to be undefeated in NXT took a lot of the drama out of things. That sucked a bit.
5. It's so surreal seeing all the top faces in the women's division on the main roster now in the infancies of the characters we've come to love and expect on the main roster, and watching the characters develop into the ones we see now. It is, however, a little sad, knowing that Becky would spend so much time doing nothing and that Bayley would be so thoroughly ruined. I think out of all of them, Sasha changed the least, which doesn't surprise me. She has a special kind of attitude that I think serves her well when they give her the right material.
6. Those two are money together. Whether they're teaming or feuding. They have a natural chemistry that just gels together, and Gargano, beyond being one of my favourite guys in NXT ever, is another example of the perfect perennial babyface underdog. Ciampa, as a heel, is absolutely believable as being 100% evil, 100% black, rotted heart, and I love it. He makes it so easy to hate him, and I mean genuinely, emotionally hate him, not just because you're supposed to because he's a heel. I was legitimately mad when he beat Aleister though, but that was an emotional response, not a logical one. I guess that goes to show how effective both of them are as characters. And I swear, Mauro is right when he says they need to test Gargano's DNA, the things he does are unbelievable- not just the things he actually does, but all the things he can endure. He's a freaking iron man. I worry for all the recent callups except Ciampa, to be fair, because I think the energy he has as a heel is going to captivate people enough that they'll have to pay attention. I actively had to stop watching sometimes because the stuff Ciampa did to Gargano was unsettling, and I'm not even squeamish or sensitive in that regard.
7. This honestly made me love tag team wrestling again. That and the Revival and DIY. I always appreciated the Revival but I was never super into their in-ring style until this feud. I don't know what more I can say about it to be honest... Except that my perspective of Jordan was unfairly colored because of the stupid shit he did on RAW. I tried really hard to put that out of my head but it wasn't happening lol.
8. I'll be honest, I just got this far last night. I was so so mad when it happened until I realized that it was to cover an injury (I didn't realize that Aleister had become an emotional favourite really until here), but I will have to carry on watching to see how it concludes before I can have a real opinion (I have my suspicions, but I'm trying to avoid spoilers).
9. I dislike all female stables generally, to be fair. And I was never a fan of Summer Rae either, so that was two strikes- I know completely that it was an unfair emotional judgement to make on them before they really had a chance to win me over, but I just couldn't get over it. And their name was so, so stupid. Why can't female stables have normal names like male stables?
10. I hated Alexa as a babyface so much it was unreal. It felt so unnatural that I was just waiting and waiting for the heel turn to come and I think I actively breathed a sigh of relief when it happened. She's another one that's just naturally a fabulous heel that I don't think she should ever be a babyface (like Randy Orton or Samoa Joe). The cheerleader thing was just...... weird.
Knowing where a lot of people went with their careers once they got called up, I wished so desperately that they wouldn't have. It made me appreciate NXT so much more, and hate the "callup syndrome" just that much more. And it made me fear even more for Gargano and Ricochet, and Aleister in particular, because they're just too hamfisted to handle a character with any sort of nuance. So many of the NXT callups had all the potential in the world to blow RAW and Smackdown out of the water, and especially when they had the opportunity to recreate things like Balor/Owens or Balor/Joe on the main roster and ruined it. Or the famous failure of Styles/Nakamura... If I were an NXT superstar and got the callup, I think I would actively say "no, I'm good". Barring the Shield, the only one I think that benefited from being on the main roster was Charlotte, and recently Becky, and that's not okay. Not with the caliber of talent they have.
I'll add something else here that wasn't asked, but I feel like it's worth mentioning all the same... I just dont get the Velveteen Dream. I'm not sold on his work, I'm not sold on his promos, I'm not sold on his character... I'm just not into it. I'm only in August 2018 but he hasn't yet won anything that really mattered so I have no idea why he continued to hover around the main event.
Yeah, that became an essay, my bad.