Skip to main content

My Thoughts on NXT (6/29/16): Twice the Pain

  • Whoever added laser sound effects to the NXT opening...f*ck you.
  • Alexa Bliss vs Carmella-The two go back and forth to start before Alexa counters Carmella dropping down by stepping on her and stomping her head. Alexa Bliss is great. Carmella then trips up Alexa when she tries to run the ropes, and the two exchange roll ups before Carmella counters a snapmare by landing on her feet. Carmella takes Bliss down with a tilt-a-whirl headscissors before hitting rough looking wheelbarrow snapmare and a dropkick, which sends Alexa out of the ring. Alexa gets back in the ring and the two exchange holds until Alexa knocks Carmella off the top rope, onto the apron, and does a hair pull takedown on the apron. Alexa works over the left arm by performing a dragon screw through the ropes before the commercial break. We come back with Alexa locking in an armbar on Carmella's left arm. Alexa continues to work over the arm with armbars and knee drops. Alexa then hits a double knee stomp to the gut followed by the Glitz Flip for a two count, which causes Alexa to throw a tantrum and get in the refs face. This allows Carmella to hit a straight left punch and run wild, hitting an atomic drop, a hurricanrana, a superkick, and a bronco buster. Alexa pops up and almost gets a two count off a sunset flip. Alexa calls for the Sparkle Splash, but Carmella meets her there and hits a turnbuckle handstand headscissors takedown for a two count. Alexa does her amazing choke spot followed by an STO, and finishes Carmella off with a Sparkle Splash, which she now calls "Twisted Bliss". Good match, looked a bit rough at times, but it's nice to see both Alexa and Carmella have improved a lot over the last year or so.
  • Backstage, Cathy Kelley interviews Bayley. Bayley says she hated being out injured, but she feels good now that she's back and that she's ready to face Asuka again. She is interrupted by Alexa Bliss, who says she deserves to face Asuka, not Bayley,  and that Bayley has to go through her to get to Asuka.
  • Noah Potjes vs Andrade "Cien" Almas-So, shockingly enough, when you have a guy constantly beat a fan favorite, even if you book him as a face, people won't like him very much. The crowd constantly chants things like "Perfect 10" and "We Want Tye", no matter what Almas does. Which is a shame, because he is very good in ring. He pulls off some very impressive moves, including countering an Irish whip with a cartwheel and a flip, and lands a sick dropkick to counter Potjes dropping down. Almas fakes a dive to the outside, followed up by an inside-out dropkick through the ropes, and then does his pose dive in the ropes to a mixed reaction. Potjes gets the heat (except no one reacts) with a forearm and starts stomping away at Almas. Almas fights out and runs wild, hitting his wheelbarrow bulldog followed by the double knees in the corner for the win. I feel bad for this guy. Literally, if had just faced someone else in his debut like Tucker Knight or Steve Cutler in his debut, he'd be fine. But because he went up against Tye Dillinger, everyone associates him with that match. He's "that guy who squashed the guy we love." It's pretty sad.
  • Backstage, Andrea DeMarco interviews Austin Aries. Aries says the fans should have felt privileged to see him wrestle, but they weren't. He says No Way Jose hasn't done anything in wrestling yet, but everyone loves him. Aries says the fans suck, and whatever he does from now on is because of them.
  • The Hype Bros vs Johnny Gargano & Tommaso Ciampa-Gargano is crazy over with the crowd. Gargano & Rawley start the match, and they kick off with Rawley picking Gargano up for an inverted atomic drop and then just tossing him to the ground, and follows it up with a chop block. Ryder tags in and hits a springboard splash. Gargano leaps over Ryder on an Irish whip, but Ryder keeps the heat with a big clothesline. Gargano escapes a suplex with knees and tags in Ciampa, and the two double team Ryder ending with a jumping neckbreaker by Ciampa. Ryder hits a facebuster on Ciampa for a one count, and the Hype Bros work together. Rawley pulls the ropes down, sending Ciampa to the ground, allowing Ryder to hit a dropkick through the ropes, followed by a suicide dive by Gargano on Ryder, which is then followed by a clothesline by Rawley on Gargano before the commercial. We come back to Rawley working over Gargano. Gargano hits an enziguri, and both Ciampa and Ryder tag in. Ciampa runs wild until Ryder blocks a charging Ciampa by getting his knees up and hits a missile dropkick. Rawley tags in and hits a corner splash and a Pounce, but Gargano breaks up the pin. The Hype Bros go for the Hype Ryder, but Gargano drags Rawley out of the ring and superkicks him. Ciampa hits a discus clothesline for a two count. Ciampa tags in Gargano and they go for a double superplex, but Rawley runs in and turns it into a double powerbomb, with Ryder holding onto the top, allowing Ryder to hit an El-Bro Drop for a two count. Gargano almost gets the win off a roll up, and Ryder goes for the Broski Boot, but Ciampa cuts him off with a clothesline. Gargano & Ciampa connect with the superkick/running knee combo for the win. Really liked this match, better than I expected. I'm not a fan of the Hype Bros, and I'm definitely not a fan of Mojo Rawley, but they did good in this match, especially Rawley. Post match, Gargano and Ciampa stake their claim for being the #1 Contenders to the Tag Team Championships due to their victory over the Revival a few weeks ago. This brings out American Alpha, who say Gargano & Ciampa aren't next in line for anything, and they are going to win the titles back. Jordan says they're going to get revenge on the Authors of Pain and show The Revival that he & Gable are the "alphas" of NXT (puns FTW). This brings out The Revival, who say they call the shots, and that neither team should get a title shot. Wilder says Gargano & Ciampa are just "good hands" and American Alpha are no longer the alphas of NXT, he and Dawson are. Outcomes William Regal, who announces Gargano & Ciampa are in line for the titles, but after American Alpha. He announces next week American Alpha will face The Revival for the NXT Tag Team Championships in a 2-out-of-3 Falls match. Gargano & Ciampa shake hands with American Alpha and leave the ring, which leads to the Authors of Pain attacking American Alpha. Gargano & Ciampa run to help, but are easily taken out by the Authors of Pain. Jordan manages to overhead suplex one of the Authors, only to get absolutely murked with a clothesline. He literally folds into himself, it's brutal. The Authors hit the Russian leg sweep/lariat combo on Jordan, and then hit it again on Gable before leaving. These two are great, just two huge, quick, scary dudes who arrive, destroy everyone, and leave. Absolutely great.
And that's about it. Overall, a good show. There wasn't a great match, but there were two solid matches and a great ending.
Thanks for reading. Be sure to share if you enjoyed. Also, check out my Patreon

Comments

More from The Wrestling Section

Worst in the World: The Last Rites Match-TNA Destination X 2007

(Special thanks to an anonymous user for suggesting this match. If you'd like to see a match covered on the Worst in the World, leave a comment down below.) An often discussed aspect of professional wrestling is the backstage politicking of Hulk Hogan. Throughout his career as a major attraction in wrestling, Hogan's philosophy has always been to protect Hulk Hogan...OK, sometimes he'd help Ed Leslie, but most of the time it was to protect Hulk Hogan. Because of that philosophy and Hogan's influence as a top guy, there have been multiple instances where a company's booking and other wrestlers have suffered as a result. Would having Mr. Perfect win the 1990 Royal Rumble made sense and could have elevated a rising star and potentially created a new main event player? Yes, but that would require Hogan to not win, and that doesn't work for Hogan, so he wins the Rumble even though he doesn't need elevating. Would booking Randy Orton to beat Hogan at SummerSlam 20

Worst in the World: The Gimmick Battle Royal-WrestleMania X-Seven

(Special thanks to Frost for suggesting this match. If you'd like to see a match covered on the Worst in the World, leave a comment down below.) WrestleMania X-Seven. Heavily considered the not just the best WrestleMania, but the greatest wrestling show of all time, WrestleMania X-Seven took place during the hottest period in the WWF's history, and features just about every one of the hottest acts in wrestling at the time. An undercard featuring the likes of Chris Jericho, Kurt Angle, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, William Regal, Kane, and the Big Show. One of the biggest female stars in the history of wrestling in Chyna. A killer TLC match between the Dudley Boyz, the Hardy Boyz, and Edge & Christian. A wild brawl between The Undertaker and Triple H. A massive main event between Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. Hell, even the father vs son Street Fight between Vince & Shane McMahon. It's a star-studded affair. However, there's one match that sticks out like

Worst in the World: D-Generation X vs Brothers of Destruction-Crown Jewel

This match didn't need to happen. After Triple H and the Undertaker had one of the most brutally bad matches of 2018 at Super Show-Down not even a month earlier, nobody wanted to see them try to wrestle again. Also, nobody wanted to see Shawn Michaels come out of retirement after his fantastic sendoff in 2010, especially for a match like this. But here we are, Triple H & Shawn Michaels facing The Undertaker & Kane in 2018. The combined ages of these four at the time is 206. That's a number you'd expect to see from a match at Heroes of Wrestling. And anyone can come up with their own reason as to why this match is happening, but that would just be ignoring the actual reason. For those of you who don't know, Crown Jewel was held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. That might not seem like important information, but you can't really discuss this match without mentioning it. Despite the numerous reasons that running shows in Saudi Arabia is morally wrong (their abuse

Worst in the World: Nia Jax's Worst Matches

Click the link here to vote in the poll and help decide the next edition of the Worst in the World. Nia Jax's first run with the WWE can really only be described as hard to watch. Sure, she had a few stand-out matches, most notably (and surprisingly) her match with Ronda Rousey at Money in the Bank, and an underrated gem with Bayley at NXT TakeOver: London, but those were always outshined by her most infamous matches and moments. She's since returned to WWE and, for the most part, seems to have improved a bit, but the reputation she got from her initial run is gonna be hard to shake off. This week, I'll be looking at some of Jax's worst matches. These include just flat-out bad matches, and matches that have become infamous examples of her reckless in-ring work. Match #1: vs Charlotte Flair-April 10th, 2017 Raw The first match we'll be looking at is from the April 10, 2017 episode of Monday Night Raw, when Nia took on Charlotte Flair. The two had been on the losing e

Worst in the World: Carmella vs Asuka: How to Destroy an Aura

Throughout the entire history of the WWE, we've never seen, and probably will never see again, a woman booked as strong as Asuka was to start her run. Coming into WWE in 2015 with over a decade of experience wrestling in her native Japan as Kana, Asuka was immediately treated like a huge deal. Hell, even from the first time we saw her on a WWE broadcast, she was seated in the crowd of NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn next to two Hall of Famers in Ric Flair & Sgt. Slaughter. Officially debuting in October 2015, Asuka would go her entire NXT career, nearly two full years, without being pinned or submitted. She was booked so strong, in fact, that instead of dropping the NXT Women's Championship in what would be her last match in NXT at the time to Ember Moon (even after sustaining an injury), an act that is almost always the case for champions leaving NXT for the main roster, Asuka retained and later vacated the title, keeping her streak intact. For a company that is more than willing t